a venture capitalist goes behind bars teaching entrepreneurship in san quentin. can a cheap electric car create any buzz. our reporters of eweek and mikal from fortune this week on "press here." >> good morning. earlier this year i had an extraordinary opportunity to hear from entrepreneurs pitching new products. while their ideas were good and pitch was perfect it was

apparent not a single one of them was likely to break out. every single one of those businessmen are prisoners at california san quentin. murders and thieves and addicts in a past life working to re rehabilitate themselves. the program to turn prisoners into pitch men is the brain child of venture capitalists chris red and his wife. the pair teach a small group of prisoners business from planning to profits to presentation. >> good morning. my name -- >> culminating in this prison pitch day before real life venture capitalists an business leaders. the ideas pitched are smart, focused and many are fundable. >> thank you.

>>. [ applause ] >> chris calls his prison program the last mile because it's the last mile between incarceration and success that trips so many people. how did this start? what was the genesis of this idea? >> several years ago, it was about three years ago i was invited in to san quentin to speak to men about business and entrepreneurship. i had never been in a prison before. i was intrigued by the opportunity and really my perception was a bunch of guys there with very little hope and very little prospect for the future. i went in have intrigued and with the idea i'll see what happens. i did a presentation. it was supposed to be about 30 minutes. it ended up being two hours

because the men were so engaged, so interest and some of them gave me business plans. they were prepared. i left the prison that night and went home to talk to beverly and i said there's something here. we work with entrepreneurs every day in silicon valley and i thought we could potentially do something in san quentin that had some of the same effects and she said no way i'm spending no time in prison. she was open enough to do research and we did our research. i was a little embarrassed about the amount that i did not know about incarceration in america, about quote unquote rehabilitation. the fact that 25% of the entire world's incarcerated population is in the u.s. it cost us 45,000 per year per inmate. those types of things really struck us. she went in there herself and met some of the men and she was

convinced like i was. >> how does the program work now? my understanding is that you're teaching programming skill, mobile app building and yet thee these inmates don't have access to a lot of technology. >> they have don't access to any technology. >> no phones, computers? >> nothing. the last mile and i'll answer the question about coding as well. it's about business entrepreneurship and teaching them business skills. many of them have been incarcerated for more than ten years. >> pre-iphone. >> many pre-internet. >> some of them have iphone app business models. they've never seen an iphone. you're not allowed to bring one in. a picture is only what they could see. why not teach the entrepreneurship of restaurant owni owning? why teach them something they can't access? >> there's two reasons why we

wanted to do that. first of all, we have a network here in silicon valley. this is what we do. why not teach them relevant information they can use in their information. if you had restaurant, you'd still want to know technology and build apps. we want to make sure they are educated in the very relevant, most relevant information possible. that's really one of reasons why. >> how are you actually doing this, books, pen and paper? is it all theory? how is that taking with the first set of guys? >> it's through books. we have three books that we have done the last two sessions. the first book, was the first author that we brought in. we asked the authors to come in at the end of that session when the guys read the book. the guy came in, we bring in

experts in different areas. we brought someone from four square in. someone from a company called scan who talked about codes. they get this first hand from experts. we can bring in print information so they can get print outs. we do have a dvd player so we can play dvds. those are some of the things we do. the guys all participate in social media. they tweet. they blog. >> vi >> via paper, right. >> somebody has to do the tweeting for them. >> do you do it? >> we have volunteers. beverly and i started the program but it's very focused on people that are passionate about helping and volunteering. we have people that come in. we have our staff and people

donate their time. people upload all of the social media content. the guys write it out. the first thing we started with twitter was we created tweet sheets where they had 140 character blocks they would fill in. we would take them out and upload them. the bigger impact is we print out comments. they get a lot of comments. that's super inspirational for them. >> what was that exactly? >> he won the core answer of the year this past year in 2012 fp question was what is the first day of a five plus year sentence feel like? if you go there and the guys have their profile. we do very little editing. what you see is what you get?

so many things are heartfelt and they answer a lot of questions that the community presents to them. it's amazing, the amount of insight that you get. now some of the core writing that they doing we're using as part of their resume as they get out. it's almost like a living resume. >> we got about a minute left. i met him in san quentin. he's been released. you met him. you sat down with him. he was part of the class of 2013. give us your impressions of him. >> ray is this quiet confidence. he's very thoughtful. he spent his entire time incarcerated studying and preparing himself. since he's won of the first guys to get out through our program, he feels that weight of responsibility as all of them

do. he's doing a phenomenal job at rally. i mentioned this in one of talks i did before where the ceo of rally said to me, he said what's up with ray. i said what are you talking about? he said he comes in enthusiastic and smiling every day and he's infectious on our company. if someone thinks they have a bad day, just look at ray. >> i'm going to give a quick correction. you said when he got out through the program. he got out graduating the program. him getting out wasn't relevant to your program. thank you for being with us. we will sit down with horacio when "press here" continues.

those were the days when

ki kids were running outside, playing hide and go seek, freeze tag, jump rope, getting plenty of exercise. those were the days when the obesity rate was below 17%. >> that was san quentin horacio heart delivering his pitch for a start up that would help solve childhood obesity. it was part of the last mile program. here is heart just days after his release from prison confidently addressing a crowd in strans san francisco. a person should be defined as more than his or her worst mistake. we shall introduce him as a father of three, a former truckloader and refinery worker whose goal is to send kids to college. let's make this question a

common question, why were you there? >> i went to prison for voluntary manslaughter. i made a bad decision. i caused me to spend eight and a half years in prison. i had to live with the fact that i took someone's life. since being out i've rededicated my life to giving back to society. >> just drugs and bad situations and -- >> yeah. growing up young in an underserved community. single parent home, a lot of mischief, drugs and alcohol. >> thank you. we'll get that one out of way. now, let's talk about you are presented with this entrepreneur who comes into the prison and says i want you to create an iphone app, a social network. what did you think when the idea was first presented? >> i was excited. purely excitement. i was just focused on, i had

built so much social worth inside myself. i studied for years business book, financial books and i was preparing for opportunity. i believe when i got out i was going to have to become self-employed. no one would hire me. i spent all this time educating myself and just so happens six months before i leave i'm introduced to this wonderful program that would help me develop a business plan and it was like serendipity. >> were you selected or did you have to apply? >> yeah. you apply. you submit application. i had the chance to meet beverly at the first demo day. i spoke with her. she asked me to attach a note to the application. i went through an interview process. >> why do you think you were selected? >> i believe i was selected because i had put so much work

in and i was just determined and i think that kind of resonated with them. also i was close to going home. it was lined up for both sides. >> why did you choose childhood obesity for your main focus? >> i grew up in a community and i saw first hand the high rates of obesity within my community. i've always been very health conscious. it was just like perfect for me. i rationalized this project of healthy arts institute one day early in my sentence i was thinking what am i going to do when i get out. my thought was i would be a stock trader. i had eight and a half years to study stocks. one day i was lying on my bunk and saying there's no real self-gratification in that. there's no true meaning in me

just making money. i thought and asked myself what would i do. if i was 95 years old and able to work and immediately it was health and fitness. >> can you give us an overview of how you're structuring the project? >> well, at the moment i'm in the process of creating a healthy arts institute landing page where my supporters could connect and receive updates and also get involved. right now i'm more focussed on learning whag it takes while i'm working at rally. >> you've got a job at rally, an internship. >> doing what? >> right now i'm doing a lot of customer support. i've worked with the sco project. i'm very happy to be a part of that. it's really like educational for me. it's like a first hand, on hand, mba program.

i sit in business meetings with the business development team, protect design team, customer support marketing team. i'm really learn whing what it takes to engage the end user. >> did you have this job lined up? did you go right in straight to rally? >> no. i had to interview. i was home for a couple of weeks. chris said there was a couple of places that wanted to interview me. i got close to home and i'm like chris i'm taking you up on that offer. >> so often in a business meeting, where were you before this? that must come up. what's the reaction of people? the minute you say before here i was in san quentin people are

going to say you have got to tell me more about this program. what's the reaction you get when people say where you come from? >> everyone's been very receptive and very supportive. it's shocking to me, but it's mike been a builder for me. although it's shocking it's motivating me and to be able to share my story with people who genuinely care about rehabilitation and the changes and actually changing public sentiment toward ex-offenders. someone said recently returned citizens. that struck, it really resonated with me. we're returned citizens. >> i'm curious to know how rare do you think you are. there are a lot of inmates, this kind of program has huge potential but you have to be receptive to it.

you spent a lot of your eight years studying business books. not every inmate does that. what do you think is the potential for a program like this to scale out? >> i definitely believe it's highly likely that this will scale out. my fellow inmates, prisoners, after they see the "press here." >> they're watching. >> when they see this it's going to resonate with them. >> with those guys. >> i think what she's asking out of a thousand prisoners how much horatio hearts are there. among the prison population you're a rarity or are you? >> i don't believe so. i think everyone wants to do better. the greatest reward for an ex

ex-offender is to give back. having the ability, especially for me to give back after taking so much from society, it's like that's the true freedom. i think that given that opportunity, guys will jury was duly sworn jump on it. >> i want you stay there. i want to keep you here for a couple of seconds. chevy is ready for its version of the electric car. we'll have questions when "press here" continues.

welcome back. tesla ceo tried to convince us his model electric car is not very expensive.

how about the new chefy spark. is this the tesla for the rest of us. david is in charge of general motors image in 24 states, everything west of the mississippi. i'm watching all of these electric cars come on the market. honda the other day reduced its lease price. you are bringing prices down. that's not necessarily a good sign because that means the cars are not catching on. >> i think it's great sign because the winner in all of this is the consumer. >> and the environment. >> and the environment. you can get a volt, for example, the number one selling plug in electric car for about $260 a month. >> the volt's sell. i realize the spark is not on the market so i can't say it

isn't selling. the volt has trouble selling? >> i think our mistake was setting this goal and the market doesn't pick up that then you're behind your honsales. we're going to sell as many as the market demands. >> how many have you sold today? >> about 24,000 were sold last year. you compare that to other manufacturers that have sold less than 2,000 or a hundred. i got to say the volt is a successful vehicle. as soon as they land on the vehicle lack, they go. hov lane sticker, quadruples. >> what will be the difference between the volt and the new won coming out that will matter to us. >> the spark like the tesla is all electric. the volt has a back up generator. once it's out it will keep going

for 300 miles. you can drive a volt from los angeles to decision. >> it wasn't quite a hybrid, not quite an electric. with the limited range of the spark, why does yours go 80 and tesla goes 200. >> tesla puts a on the of batteries. we want a small urban mini car that's affordable. >> why not 110? from here to san francisco and back is not within your car's range. i realize you're not making it just for me but why not 120 or something. is 80 some magic number. >> i have a spark that i'm driving. i'm getting about 100 miles in range now. when we put these numbers on the car, a lot is due to epa estimates. you're very conservative. the volt, epa says you'll get 38

miles on your initial charge. i'm getting between 50 and 60. it all depends on the driver. >> was it research that said 80? >> that's as many batteries as we wanted to fit in. if we put anymore batteries the car would cost much more. it could be heavier. the volt hit that 38 to 40 mile sweet spot because most americans have a daily commute of 40 miles. then it had the range extender for those that want to go across country. >> gas prices are getting lower. do you see a -- >> as gas prices go up more people are concerned about getting cars with higher mileage. i think when you look at a volt, a spark and other electric vehicles, the thing that sells it is the fun driving aspect. >> what makes it fun? >> instant torque.

it throws my head back. it's car that -- >> it will beat the corvette. >> i have kids pulling up to me and pointing and laughing revving their engine. i leave them in a cloud of nothing because nothing comes out the tail pipe. >> the corvette will catch up eventually. not that we're advocating driving fast. >> tesla has established itself as this elite driving experience. who is this car far? what's your demographic? >> i think the spark is going after a younger, urban buyer that wants a car that's easy to get around and doesn't have to go more than 40 or 50 miles. you have to go from point a to point b. you have to get back. you don't want to go 70 miles. >> it's suppose to be a an urban demographic. >> to be fair it's eight miles

to my house. i drive about 16 miles, add within another two or three to pick up the kids. >> if you want to drive all ae electrically then you can. >> 65% of those drive electrically. they have saved $1300 a year in gas. 200 million miles all electric. that's where the volt hits that sweet spot. it's the best of all worlds. we learn that with our experience. people want to make sure they can get from point a to point b. >> don't want to cut you off but we're out of time. dave, we appreciate your being with us from general motors. "press here" will be back in just a minute.

programming note we're in

that part of the year, hockey playoffs, where our sunday morning slot gets a little inconsistent. we'll be preempted next week but we'll be back after that. thank you for making us part of your sunday morning.

hello and welcome to "comunidad del valle." the mosaic project is here. this is your "comunidad del valle." we begin today with how to fight violence in oakland via the arts. with us is jason and yoshi who is the co-owner of yoshi's in the east bay. before we get into the project, tell us ab