>> building a better bay area. moving forward. finding solutions. this is abc7 news. ♪ kristen: hi there. i'm kristen sze. you are watching "getting answers" on abc7. every day, we talk with experts about issues important to the bay area and we get answers for you in real time.

today, a leading silicon valley company tries to level the playing field by launching an internship program for community college students. and not just any community college, it is the one embraced by the late secretary of state colin powell. we will talk to the bloom energy ceo and an intern about the unique opportunity. also zoom is now employees to return to the office. we will talk to our media partner, the san francisco standard, which has seen employees' messages on this new policy. first, a new uc berkeley study shows even though california has made boating easier, many younger people and people of color are still not making it to the polls. joining us with the details and the impacts is paul mitchell, vice president of political data inc. >> thanks for having me. kristen: this new survey was done by uc berkeley's institute

of government studies but you provided some of the data? >> yeah, our company provides the data for their polling. we were able to provide them with the contact information for the voters and determine who are the likely voters and unlikely voters, their ethnicity and all those other kinds of details. kristen: what are the key findings here? >> the first finding is something we have talked about before that is well known. which is that the actual voters in elections, particularly in races like gubernatorial elections and primaries, are not representative of the full state voting population. looking at latinos as an example, 40% of the state's population is latino. only 33% of the state's voters are latino. only 26% of the registered voters are latino. and in lower turnout elections, you might have a situation where latinos are only 20% of the

turnout. they go from being the plurality of the state's population to about a fifth of the people who actually cast a ballot. we see that with voters based on their socioeconomic status, younger voters, minorities alike. that really means that we have elections that result in electing the candidates and vo ting for the ballot measures that represent an older population. kristen: latinos, you cited a very jarring example. what about asian and black voters? >> they also say particularly -- see particularly lower income, a disproportionately low turnout. some of the reforms we have seen most recently do seem to have disproportionately helped asian turnout. there's been a lot of looking at vote by mail that asians really responded to that a lot better than other groups.

when we talk about that and read that report, the is, we have seen a lot of things that need to be celebrated. our voter registration from 10 years ago has gone up from 17 million to 22 million. we added more voters in the entire state of nevada and oregon -- we saw more than a million more young people voting. we saw a million more latinos voting in the last election. the fact is, what we've done is we have created a lot of reforms that have created like a rising tide. with a rising tide, it lifted all boats. -- all votes. but there's also millions homeowners and older voters and affluent people in the state who found the new voting laws make it easier for them to vote, too.

so what these reformers and people in this berkeley study are trying to look for is what are the other things we can do to really target minority lower socioeconomic voters and younger voters to get them to turnout? kristen: right, i wonder what those things might be in your opinion. because for example, language is often a barrier. but already in california we have multilingual ballots, you can get language help in different languages. what are some of the other things worth trying? >> you are absolutely right. language is something that we have on the border -- voter file in california. we can do polling calls or send text messages or anything to voters in different languages which is a real benefit to get them to participate. but at the same time, we see lower engagement by a lot of these voters. when we think about improving voting, we can think about two different things, we can think about the mechanical things in

the right language or having an available precinct or being able to mail your ballot, those are mechanics. the other piece is kind of the environmental factor you will -- the environmental factors. that is the piece that this report really is trying to look at. how do we do things to e and make voters in these communities believe that voting is important and get them to turnout? because we have really taken all the mechanical pieces of elections and dialed it up to 11. there is no better country that does a better job of making voting easier yet we are still not seeing the major improvements that we want to see in making the electorate look like the rest of the state. kristen: we mail ballots to every civil registered voter, we have a whole month where you can drop off your ballot, you can register on the spot same day, so many states certainly do not have that. it's not a mechanics.

what about issues? could that drive voters and turnout of minority voters? >> it definitely does matter. if you look at this most recent election, a lot of analysis has pointed to prop one. the ballot measure protecting abortion rights, as really driving turnout. without that ballot measure on the ballot, we might've seen turnout much lower in that gubernatorial election because there wasn't much that was exciting voters. this is an issue. less of an issue in the presidential election. generally a generalized presidential election with attentive media coverage, you are going to get good turnout. but when you have primaries and lower turnout elections like gubernatorial races, it really does necessitate a way of communicating to voters why that vote matters. and so, a lot of that is education and outreach. kristen: just to underscore the

point of how a lot of the people of color are not being reached in terms of reaching the ballot, 70% of regular voters are white, is that right, and certainly they are not 70% of the population of the state of california. of registered voters. >> actually. the actual number they is 35% of the citizen voting age population. the eligible voters in the state are white. yet they are essentially double that and what you are talking about. the footprint that they have in the actual elections themselves. that should be something that really is concerning. when you think about it, when was the state 70% white? in the 1980's. so we are essentially seeing elections that are not representative of california today. we are seeing elections that create results that are truly representative of california as it was in the 1990's. kristen: in addition to hearing a lot of people say, the people

we elect don't represent our views, i wonder of this contributes to the fact that we have older politicians. the 118th congress is the third oldest since the average age in the senate is 64 and in the house it is 58. america is getting younger. could this explain that? >> to tickle the brains of all the nerds watching, this might be one of those correlations, not causation things, where you see an electorate that is older and you do see older politicians. but if you look back in the last presidential race, young voters were much more into bernie than buttigieg. younger voters voted much more for dianne feinstein than kevin de leon. there doesn't seem to be direct correlation. i think that might speak to the strength of incumbency. the power of the political parties. and even maybe some voters willing to take a risk on new candidates. and i don't know if something in

the mechanics of our election can really fix that right now. kristen: just thinking about the gap that exists in california, can we extrapolate that to mean the lack of representation or the skewing is even greater in many other states? >> much, much greater. remember i talked about those mechanics of the election. the things like access to voting. how close is your precinct? can you return a ballot by mail, how do you register and stay registered? there are laws and the rest of the country that can be very aggressive. and in the name of voter security, they will end up disenfranchising huge swaths of younger voters, of minorities, and a lot of those honestly appear to be intended to influence the outcome of elections by determining who can stay registered. one great reform we've had for young voters has been this

automatic voter registration. when you are registered to vote in california and you move, the county will get a notice that you moved into that county and give you the information to reregister you without you doing anything. that's kept a lot more young people registered. the fact is, ages 18 to 29, the average young person moves four times in that 10 year period. the average latino moves five times. on average, latinos 18-29 move every election cycle. in some states, you have to reregister. but in california, there's a process that automatically registers you. and that's been really beneficial to young people. kristen: still a tough mountain to climb. thank you for joining us with these insights today. up next, a company in the of silicon valley launches a new internship program aimed at giving every student an opportunity. the ceo and founder of bloom

energy will join us next.

kristen: as top colleges wrestle with creating a more even langfield, silicon valley is doing the same. for decades, top companies only recruited from leading universities. a survey from chegg shows enters are from stanford, uc berkeley, m.i.t.. but loomis trying to change that model with a new partnership with a community college. the same one the late secretary of state colin powell who passed away in 2021 attended. joining us is bloom energy's founder and an

thank you for joining us. >> thank you for having us. nice to see you. kristen: congratulations to both of you. this is the final week of internship, right? >> yes. kristen: fantastic. before we dive into this program and its unique ties to secretary colin powell, can you quickly summarize for our audience what your company's technology focus is? what you do? >> we generate electricity on site for people that is clean, reliable, and affordable, and we want to bring it for everybody in the world, because electricity's about creating opportunities and creating a brighter future. that is our mission. with our bloom boxes, we produce clean electricity, renewable electricity, and create hydrogen. that's what we do. kristen: so cutting edge companies certainly have traditionally drawn from top-ranked universities. kr, he saw a problem with that, right -- you saw a problem with

that, right? >> yeah. as we look in our country, the divide we are seeing, the disparity we are seeing shows that today in the modern age, technology has what every company uses -- is whatever company uses, technology is what every community needs. which means technology needs to be spread not just of the east coast and west coast alone but everywhere in the country. it is not just of at least -- not just the elite schools, but community colleges. opportunities should be provided for everybody. kristen: so your solution is to create a cohort group of entrance which includes nimal. you did this with a community college not just any,, but one the late sec. colin powell attended and graduated from. tell us about that partnership and how this started. >> he is so dear to

he was on our board for 15 plus years. he would refer to his children, linda and michael, by name, but then he would say "my kids," when hsaid that, it was the city college of new york, a colin powell school, and those children. and the students were studying that. what was special about them? most of them came with their parents as immigrants to this country. most of them are people of color. most of them have not left new york. and his vision without school was to give them an opptunity to jt ossom. -- to just blossom and bloom. there is no better way to honor his legacy than to go to that school, recruit ts, who honestly looked like me -- look like me, a person of color who immigrated to this country. this is giving back. this is honoring powell's

legacy, and we did with both the city college of new york and marshall university in west virginia to show that technology and our industry needs to be a lot more inclusive than we have been in the past. kristen: you were selected to be part of the first ever class of bloom energy innovation fellows. we have a video of you here and some other interns at yesterday's event. was this where you showcase what you learned? what you did? >> this was on friday. this was our annual internship showcase. kristen: what did you showcase? what did you present? >> i worked five years. i broke it down into direct and indirect operational expenses to help clean it up, analyze it, and find cost-saving opportunities. that is what i presented. what i found.

$1.2 million worth of cost-saving opportunities. kristen: that's really impressive. growing up, what experience did you have that make you -- that made you really want to work in clean energy? >> during our press conference at the city college, i remember talking to him at the end of it and i was telling him how i shared similar experience to him where the majority of my life i grew up in a village in bangladesh, where i grew up during my homework without electricity -- doing my homework without electricity. to me it was normal for the electricity to cut off. i would do my homework with no timetable of when it would come back. when i emigrated to the u.s. and found out they had constant running electricity, i was amazed by it. i remember telling my family, how is it on 24/7? when i was given the opportunity to apply to bloom energy, the prospect of traveling to the

other side of the country for me, i had never left new york city since emigrating here, so the prospect of coming here and working on a project that is for bloom energy, that ultimately lead to establishing my career. i didn't know any of them. we came to this internship as a strangers and we will leave as families. there are so many takeaways from this program that i'll never forget. kristen: congratulations to you. in about 20 seconds, can you tell us if you will keep this going and if you're hoping other tech companies will follow? >> this was our pilot year. it's been phenomenally beneficial. not just for the entrance, but truly it helps us as a company.

we are all inspired by watching this young man -- young men and women be inspired. putting everything they've got into it. we learned so much from them. we think it's an externallbenef. our experiences and what works and how to make it work. we hope to not only continue the program but grow it with other institutions as well as continue with ccny. kristen: bloom energy founder and in turn, thank you for joining us today. up next, the days of remote work might be numbered. zoom is now calling their workers back to the office. we will talk to our media partner, the san francisco standard,

kristen: in a somewhat ironic

twist of fate, zoom is ordering its employees to return to the office. the san jose company that taught us all that we can work from home and attend virtual meetings is now completely remote worked at, and workers are not too happy about it. then the article explores -- then you the san francisco standard article discusses this. zoom announced this just yesterday. the requirement to come back on a hybrid basis. it is only for employees living closer to the office, right? >> within a 50 mile radius of a zoom office. they headquarters are based in san jose. kristen: effective when? >> effective i believe in the next coming weeks. it was unclear from the announcement. kristen: what are the reasons zoom is citing? >> like you said, it's very ironic. they said they think it is more effective for their team to work in person at least hybrid. the workers are going to be

required to come in and they will have to work about twice a week to improve collaboration and community gathering. kristen: which is what a lot of tech companies have cited. zoom is a little unique -- the technology that enabled everybody to not have to come in and do these meetings virtually. what is the reaction from zoom employees? >> i think it's been a mixed bag, but a lot of negative reactions in large part because zoom brands itself as a -- as the forefront of the work from home movement. many were frustrated because they joined the company at a time when they offered completely remote work. even a year ago in february of 2022, the ceo had said that the company will offer work from home forever. at the time indicated it was going to be an option even when the pandemic restrictions waned. so these kinds of promises were something that workers took issue with. kristen: some people point out zoom's market share, their stock really has been tumbling as the pandemic has eased up.

does that factor into the decision somehow? >> from the peak in june of 2021 practically everybody was on zoom, their market share and stock value has pulled over $100 billion. many are saying this a lack of confidence in a product that really upheld the work from home movement, if the company behind it is itself not relying on it as much as it did just a couple months ago. kristen: has zoom addressed that viewpoint? >> i don't think they have. they mostly relied on their statement saying that it would increase productivity and community building, if they could have more hybrid work schedules. i think some workers were also saying that work from home and zooming is one aspect of work, not the entire part of it. kristen: when amazon started calling workers back to the office in may, hundreds of employers staged a walkout. and talk of that happening to zoom? >> unclear.

but it happened with many tech companies. apple in august of last year, workers wrote a petition to leadership protesting the decision. so there's been a lot of grumblings from workers being forced back into the office for sure. kristen: sorry, i can no longer hear you. i lost your audio. i'm not sure if you are still talking. >> can you hear me now? kristen: i can hear you now. do you think there will be an impact of the ability to recruit or retain the best engineers? >> that's been a big concern lately. there's a lot of companies starting to make more in office mandates, a lot of high talented workers might seek other companies that are still offering lucrative work from home or flexible remote work policies. kristen: this is fascinating. you can check out liz's article on the san francisco standard's website

thank you,

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[laughter] kristen: thank you so much for joining us today for "getting answers." we will be here every weekday at 3:00 p.m. answering questions with experts from around the bay area. "world news tonight" with david muir is next. see you back here at 4:00. tonight, the new severe weather threat as we come on the air. deadly storms over the last 24 hours. and abc news learning georgia's investigation into donald trump is likely to go before the grand jury next week. first, violent weather across