another internet-wide protest is planned tuesday, but has the web picked the wrong opponent this time? figure out why one of europe's top entrepreneurs doesn't live in europe. and a technology tries to make guns smarter and safer. with reporters alistair barr of usa today and npr's laura seidel, this week on "press here." >> good morning, everyone, i'm scott mcgrew, if you look at what's been going on in tech lately, you may be under the impression it's mostly privileged people making apps for other privileged people's problems. but there are a few entrepreneurs, inventor who are trying to save lives.

and one of the most ambitious is the pursuit of a safer gun. a prize, of sorts, $1 million to anyone who can invent a way to reduce gun deaths using technology. >> injured person in number 9. >> reporter: an idea borne of the sandy hook tragedy and backed by some of tech's most rich and powerful. dr. pitco leads the effort to create a safer gun, the head of smart tech challenge foundation which put up money for the prize. if anyone can do it perhaps he can. he is a former researcher at xerox park, has a ph.d. in computer science from georgia tech, joined by laura seidel of national public radio and alistair barr of usa today. brings up to date. this is not a brand new effort, how far have you gotten? have you been handed something that starts to accomplish what it is that you set out to do?

>> when we initially reviewed the field in january of last year, we came across some innovation that had already occurred, starting in the '90s. people were applying biometric technology, whether in the form of fingerprint or palm print recognition, grip recognitions, how you grip a firearm itself turns out to be unique and low frequency radio, rfid. since then and since we announced the idea of the  challenge, we have started to hear from more innovators that have come one more creative ideas. part to of the beauty of the challenge is we don't know which technology is going to work. >> i have a question, that innovation, was it happening from the gun companies themselves or were these already people doing things outside of that world? >> we saw pockets of innovation within existing gun manufacturers, in the late '90s, a push for exploration into access control technologies so only the authorized user could use the firearm. then we see independent efforts

from germany, from ireland, from within the u.s., from israel, all across the worlder. >> are the gun companies themselves -- it would seem to me, if i were the gun company lawyer, is let's not get into that because there be dragons. that we can step away and say not our responsibility, if we never get involved in in some sort of technology that only allows the owner to fire the gun. i'm surprised gun manufacturers even touched that. >> well, there's always issues with the introduction of new technology and part of what's being explored in california and some other states are what sort of safe harbor provisions could be put into place, such that the innovators of this new technology are shielded from liability. >> what drove you to do this? was it sort of the lack of political process? was it desperation type of play? >> for me personally, my friend, ron conway, was hosting his holiday party on december 14th,

2012. his guest of honor was the congresswoman, gabby giffords, who was shot in 2011. december 14th turned out to be the same day of the sandy hook shooting and so it was during that holiday party where a bunch of other techs were gathered that ron had the epiphany we need to do something on this issue. ron then reached doubt me and said, hey, jim, could you look at this and i took on, met with the sandy hook families and really began to understand the issue in greater detail. >> i have a question about what technology can do in the space that government can't do, for a variety of reasons right now. i mean, how much of gun violence have do with the gun being in the hands of the wrong person? i mean, in the case of sandy hook, adam lanza was using his mother's gun but she gave him access to those guns so, would it have prevented something like that? >> it's great question. and in looking at the entire issue of reducing gun violence,

there's not one single solution that's gonna work for all cases. what we do know is that technology exists that can prevent some form of gun violence and accidents that occur. so, whether it's a 5-year-old that ends up shooting his 3-year-old brother, which happened last year, or potentially suicides or other events, our goal is to explore what can happen with the introduction of the technology, knowing that there's not going to be any single solution that's gonna present all sorts of cases. in particular, massacres where the authorized user is the person committing the crime. >> and is there anything -- any technologies that you've seen so far that have been submitted where you're already very interesting, very cutting edge, you have been surprised about? >> it's amazing. we have heard from high school students. we have heard from existing companies. there's stuff that works in the gun itself, in the firearm. and then there's stuff that works at the ammo level. there's also stuff that works at the clip level. there's putting software into the firearm so let's say you're

a law enforcement agent and you somehow lose control of your firearm there firearm, there's technology that can remotely disable that wouldn't be in civilian purposes, but military or law enforcement, new technology at all. >> how closely are you working with groups like nra? i don't want to speak for nra. i can see they would be concerned about the idea of introduce anything sort of thing into a gun that has control over that gun, because who would then control that gun? have you interacted with them at all? have you heard anything back from them at all? >> well, first off, you know, this is not about gun control. this is about giving gun owners -- >> it is about controlling the gun. it is not about gun control. i totally understand what you're saying, but it is about controlling the gun. again, i can't speak for the nra, but i would say -- hold on a minute. but i'm sorry, continue. >> well, from what we understand, this has to be by gun owners for gun owners, we are believers in free markets,

believers in consumer choice n looking at those requirements, it has to be as reliable as any existing gun technology if not more so >> right. >> it's got to give control to the gun owners themselves as opposed to some third party and as long as we listen to the market, we think that folks, whether or not they are members of the nra will find the technology compelling. >> the nra can be quite powerful, if they were to come out and say we don't really like this, they could try and quash efforts in some way. so i'm wondering, have you been in touch with them? have they ever come out and said anything about this kind of technology? >> we don't know their position with respect to innovation but we do know that innovation itself is a process that can't be stopped. and so, in looking at the different paths for innovation, we find that most firearm owners that we know have a curious and open mind around it. there's a lot of cases that need

to be taken into consideration. will be as reliable what will happen if an intruder comes into my home. all that needs to be worked out. our job with the challenge is to see what's possible and more importantly, what's not possible, some technologies are just not gonna make it in terms of market accept ability, that is what the challenge is about. >> with a minute left or so, there will be further -- you are not just talking about controlling the gun or locking the guns of the owner, you plan in the future to do things like address mental health. because in so many of these cases, it wasn't necessarily the gun, i did the same research you did, and that is in the case of adam lanza, it was a family gun, he had legal access to it. the case of the virginia tech shoot, the fellow bought it more or less legally. he lied about one answer. but mental health is going to be another way of approaching the same problem. >> another one of our challenges, we intend to launch four million dollar-plus challenges, brain health, mental health recognizes the issue that happy people don't shoot people.

>> right. >> right. >> and coming up with new technologies to ensure that understand where they are and that if they do drift, that there's resources available is very important to us as well. >> either way, we wish you the best of luck. thank you for being with us this morning. >> thank you all. up next, you can get the internet riled up. if you can do that you can create an army of indignation which can accomplish just about anything, but this time, the internet may have taken on an army too big to be defeated. you versus the nsa when "press here" continues.

welcome back to "press here." the internet is kind of like a young boxer who so far is undefeated. the internet helped bring down hosni new bar remark and gadhafi and defeated, what, soap pa and pippa laws, right? and now with fresh confidence, it steps into the ring to take on its biggest opponent ever, the nsa. internet users have declared tuesday, february 11th, as the day we fight back. thousands of websites will protest. april glazer is with the electronic frontier foundation. she is an expert in so many things, the fcc often consults her when it's write the rules. thanks for being with us this morning. let me just throw out this idea that the internet has finally taken on more than it can chew h

the nsa doesn't seem to care about what congress thinks about it. why would the nsa really care if boing boing is upset at it? >> not just boing boing >> and readit. >> 4,000 websites upset and thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people. so the nsa does care when congress is upset, when congress is upset at the nsa it can pass laws to stop the nsa from doing what they are doing now, which is outside the bounds of the constitution. >> evidence that the nsa has been a bit outside the laws anyway, hasn't it? i guess what i'm saying, devil's advocate, the nsa is far too powerful to care about what anyone thinks about it, therefore, difficult to protest that. >> we are in a different transparency environment than we were before the leaks came out last summer. so now we know what's happened with the nsa, the world is watching. before the nsa was doing what they were doing without anyone paying attention, now everyone is paying attention. you can't go a day or two

without seeing story on the front page of the paper about this. >> what do you hope will come out of this petition? having looked at the petition, sounds like something geared toward an international effort as well, not just in the united states. so, what, in your wildest dreams, do you hope will come out of this petition? >> well, we are hoping that people in the u.s. will call their representatives and support legislation, urge their representatives to support legislation that will rein in the nsa. internationally, we have seen the u.n. in december approve unanimously, the u.n. general assembly approve the right to privacy. we want people around the world to sign an international petition that calls on all governments of the world to -- to protect the privacy rights, the human privacy -- the fundamental human right to privacy. >> seems like it's unlikely you will get the result with soap pa and pippa, immediately, legislation was stopped. >> this is one step of many. we are not expecting this to

stop a bill about to pass, like informs the case with soap pa and pippa. what we do want is a strong, clear call to all governments of the world, especially in the united states, because that's where we see the most egregious violations so far, to call on elected representatives to act on the will of the people. everyer whelmingly the polls show they oppose mass government surveillance. >> what about big international companies like companies like google and yahoo!, are they involved or hope they will get involved? >> just last month, they released a set of five principles about how they want to see the nsa surveillance programs reformed. and we are so excited that they did that they are not involved with the day we fight back, but mozilla is involved, that's the fire fox browser, read debt is involved, boing boing is involved. >> who is your biggest, that's going to be visible on that day?

and remind the viewer, during soap pa pippa, they made their websites black or some case inaccessible to say, hey, we need you to know about this. so, something similar, going to be banner or point out the problem, right? who is the biggest, the biggest traffic? >> right now, i would say it's probably fire fox. a lot of people use that browser. it's pretty standard for most people, they have two browsers and someone usually fire fox. >> tuesday, you will get this message, hey, call your representative? >> think of it like an online banner drop, like when you sign on to the website or when you go on to that website, the first thing you will be confronted with is a call to action, people that go to the websites to decide are they going to call their representative, do something about this or do nothing? >> maybe one maybe simple message for people who are gonna make a call, like on the list server, i think you have 13 principles, what would be the one thing that you want people to call their representative and say we want the nsa to do x or

stop doing x? >> call their representatives to say to actually support a piece of legislation out now called the usa freedom act. we actually have a specific legislative q the usa freedom act was written by representative sensenbrenner who wrote the patriot act and is now staying is being broadly misinterpreted, actually in secret courts and it's being misused to violate the constitution. and so we want people to call their representatives to support that bill that will rein in the nsa, a lot of aspects of nsa that we oppose. a little sidetrack from that particular petition, do you mention the pry vac sector in it, it's been so much discussion of the nsa and all the data it's collecting, but private companies are doing it as well, i wonder if at some point, your going to start looking at what private companies are collecting about us, because they are not saying it either and the nsa hasn't done anything we know awful with the information but they -- private companies, i don't know. you don't know where they are going, all this stuff they are

collecting about us. >> we are watching the private companies and have been for a very long time and we certainly have been urging them to release transparency reports about governments that request user data and to find out exactly what that collaboration looks like. and so, we urge private companies to be as transparent as they can in all of. this >> let me show my rebellious streak, a program i think would work. is the civil disobedience. rather than a petition or i think we ought to do this, if and i know is a terrible thing to space, on one day we all picked the time to just put atomic bomb in all of our e-mails, you know what i mean? or what if we just said to each other -- send each other nonsense hash. >> a radical. >> right, the radical in me coming out, i understand the nsa has a mission and i understand we need to protect united states, but it seems that -- it seems that there are bigger radical thinkers on the internet that i am, that nobody's done that never been sort of a civil

disobedience, no website ever said to the u.s. government, no, i won't. >> well, because they are compelled by the u.s. government to do this, by orders. >> so, too were civil rights advocates, so, too, were anti-slavery advocates? you see what i'm say anything understand you are breaking the law and go to prison that's kind of how civil rights work, when you say, no, i won't. >> well, we have seen some companies go offline and stop working, like, for instance, lava bit, the e-mail provide they're snowden used. he decided when the nsa was compelling him for user data, wasn't going to stop running his company. >> zwrais where everybody turns off the internet, although, i don't think you would get that by. >> that would be a good example of civil disode o'bead against. >> make a point. >> right. >> i think before something like that happens, we need to be on the precipice of major change. we need to be right that the point where either the bill is going to be passed or not going to be passed. right now, we are at a point where we actually think the usa

freedom act is going to get the focus it needs to the in the house and excited about that. not sure what is going to happen with the senate. we need to see people call their representatives in the house and the senate and make sure they know what the public feels like. >> i got to stop you there. april glazer with the eff, thank you for being with us this morning. >> thank you. up next a great idea for a startup but don't know anything about technology, advice from a entrepreneur when "press here" continues. produce a

cell phone it says something about silicon valley, perhaps in more ways, entrepreneur of the year lives in palo alto. celia balance les stand is the founder of boettcher, which makes an app to help families track each other's whereabouts. celia has addressed the world economic forum, has been named european ambassador for female entrepreneurship as well, inspiration to women entrepreneurs, though to get something manufactured in china, she found it easier once to sign her e-mails mr. val les stand. must have made you angry, mr. val les stand got the answers and mrs. val les stand didn't. >> i was trying to produce a cell phone and just putting mister instead of mrs. got it done. nor sway a great country to start a company. there's amazing support systems for young startups who want to build, government grants, support systems and norway has an innovation house in palo alto

called innovation house founded by the norwegian government to take companies to the u.s. from bigger markets. >> norwegian government helps you come to the united states? >> yes. yes. they want you to go back as well. >> i would imagine. >> ireland does similar things. a lot of european companies have a lot more government support, which wouldn't fly here. so the app itself, which deals with safety issues or safety, it struck me as one of these ideas, which i often feel like men miss certain ideas that could be great business ideas, simply because they are thinking differently and i -- in this instance, i was interested in this path, because i thought, oh, i would want to use that men are not walking around necessarily thinking as much about safety. i wonder if you might be talking a little bit about being a woman entrepreneur, do you sometimes feel indeed that you see things that the male entrepreneurs aren't seeing, opportunities, business opportunities? >> i guess the whole reason yes

started this company was that i didn't find any products that were for my needs, many ways, the answer. i didn't know anything about technology and i was searching for products, first for my kids and for myself. and globally, i couldn't find anything. and there are more male entrepreneurs than female entrepreneurs. so i was started in a field that was very open. there weren't, like, too many safety products for kids or for women out there. and we believe that is going to be a huge thing. what we do is really making it possible for you to transform your smartphone, the phone -- you carry in all the time everywhere and turn that phone into a safety device. >> it says where are my kids right now, do my kids need my help now? >> you can choose or not choose to share your locations with your closest network of friends and family members but in addition to that you have, like, you have every day safety services, like if you leave a bar at night and have a boyfriend sitting home, walking

home alone, that feels uncomfortable. a lot of women, and men actually, will pick up their phone and pretend to be talking with someone or talking with someone and now you can actually ask your friends, one or many, to walk you home with live gps tracing. or you can use it when running and you can preprogram an alarm that basically says, okay, if i'm not back within 45 minutes, let the alarm trigger or walking home, you can trigger that alarm, video recording, setting off a siren, notifying everyone that you need help where you are and what's happening. >> you said you don't know much about tech. let's assume that you did not program this phone to do all these wonderful things. what general advice vist would you give to other people, men and women who are saying i'm a good business person and i have a great idea and i don't know the first thing when engineering. how do i -- what do i do now? >> oh, my. get started. drawing up things, how you envision things to be, i think that was also one of the key advantages, thinking outside of

the box, not being an engineer, not being a tech person was that i saw -- i saw what i wanted myself. it was all pretty basic like. everyone these days, sit down a paper, draw up the app you want to see, right? you don't need to make it you can draw it. >> you have been in silicon valley for a little bit now. >> yeah. >> a few months. describe the difference between being in nor waned being in silicon valley. from my point of view, the people who have money here don't like -- they don't like -- they don't want to fly to norway. they want to get on their fancy bike and cycle to their office. >> too cold and too wet. yeah. i love it here and i think one thing is the climate is amazing, the weather is beautiful. but it's a passion, a passion in silicon valley. being a entrepreneur in nor sway quite lonely, a lonely thing, not many entrepreneurs. >> money-wise, better access to that, more funding since you have been there? >> we have mostly norwegian funders and jada pinkett smith, who joined our only foreign

investor, which is an amazing person to have on the board. >> so, besides the passion that's here, i mean, are you here because you feel like you can be here to reach the american market? >> yes. >> yeah. >> yes? >> your technology is done in deyev, right? >> yeah. >> kiev has been a busy place lately. how -- what are you hearing back from them? if my technology's done in kiev, should i be concerned about this? >> no, i don't think some i just spoke with my os developer just before i went on the show now and they are saying that, i mean, it's -- normal every day life, it's a smart part of kiev that's -- that has experience issues and has violence. but for most -- most people, they go to work, they go home. it's every day life. he is not worried. but i think, i mean if you speak to different people, they will have different opinions on t >> i'm curious actually why kiev. i mean there are many different

places you can go and outsource and build things for a good price and all that why kiev? >> you have to answer that one quickly. >> well, we found a great technology team there our person, our own team and that is important. we don't want to outsource we want to have our own team and work closely with them. so, we have our tech management in the u.s., but we have our developers in kiev. and our tech management in the u.s. will travel to kiev and back here. >> all right. celia, thank you very much for being with us this morning. be safe satst the name of the app. be back in just a moment.

that's our show for this week, my thanks to my guests. i'm scott mcgrew. thank you for making this part of your sunday morning.

hello and welcome back. i'm damian trujillo. today, we talk about "the vagina monologues" in spanish coming to san francisco. the actress is here in our studio. plus, our musical tribute to the band mystique. we begin this morning with worthy recipient he is of one of the nbc universal's 21st century solutions grant. that grant went to silicon valley children's fund. with me