a tech organization without a website. our url is sfciti.com. with the headquarters city of twitter, it would be heresy not to have a twitter handle. #sfciti. with that, i want to introduce our great mayor, mayor ed lee. [applause] >> thank you for that very detailed explanation. first of all, i want to thank the board of supervisors. they are my partners here. president david chiu, you and i, jane kim, have spoken, mark farrell, christine olague, have spoken in depth about what our future holds for us. i want you to know that i am sharing this excitement with them. we have a constituent that is in great need.

i am going to take a page from what willie brown has always represented to me. he said as good advice, if you feel passionate about something, don't did there. move on it fast. i cannot think of an initiative -- it has not even been one week since i took the oath of this elected office, and here we are on the first friday, moving this and what the technology really like, an accelerated pace. we cannot wait for bad news to happen to us. as i have said, every time i turn around, the state and the fed's are going to say what we are going to cut. we are not waiting. we are going to create our own culture, our own obligations, create and support an industry that wants to support us. s.f. citi is the right thing. when i announced one year ago that i was very much in support

of local higher, we did something similar here. we created a mechanism for stakeholders. we called it citybuild. we got the unions together, contractors, and we focused on construction. how could we hire and train a workforce so they could build the best and most beautiful and most green infrastructure for the city? here, another industry is starting. it is creating jobs. on the eve of that decision to create a tax exemption for the middle market, there were some people who suggested, are those jobs for us? we said, with all confidence, absolutely. i know the ymca, the boys and girls clubs, other agencies in the community that have been in the trenches.

they were struggling with this concept called the digital divide. we had to address that for our communities, for places where people might feel they would be displaced. how can they be a part of it? and we wanted to be a city for the 100%, for everyone to participate. the technology industry is that opportunity. s.f. citi is our ability to take stakeholders, companies who want to be here, the 85-plus and continuing to grow, to get their talent and employment opportunities they have and to share it with everybody, train them. we do not create jobs for people by simply announcing an idea. we have to roll up our sleeves and go to work. this is what i meant when i said, let's get it done. we need the right curriculum. we have to have the industry engage with us. what skill sets to are they

going to look at when they are hiring people? how can we bridge the gap with folks who have felt they have been left out of this digital divide? this training idea, employment training, is to get that skill set, match it up with company needs, and if there is a gap, to create the internship programs that are needed by these programs, so they can become familiar, and then to get the jobs cemented. that is how we fill that gap, and that is what we want to do with s.f. citi. it is technology, innovation, and it is coming together on a dedicated training program, one that unites the interests the board has, me as mayor, to welcome the industry, and to be fearless in doing it. we're moving this together. then i think we take another page of this local hire, and it is similar to sf hire.

we are focused on the residents of the city. s.f. citi has the opportunity to gain the innovative ideas that these companies have. when we announced one week ago we were working in a strategic partnership with code for america, i said we need not only are jobs, not only your philanthropic ideas, we need your innovation, your talents to help us and reinvent the delivery of servic get the fres, not sit comfortably and bureaucracies, but to invite. i am excited about this because i want it to happen quickly and want to deliver services better. and i want to instill hope in our kids, or in those people who are in their careers looking for a chance, or the hope instill in

a returning veteran coming to san francisco and saying, can i give back something to the city, for the country that i worked so hard for? i wanted to believe not in what the state is doing, what the fed's are not doing, but what san francisco and is critical industry partners are doing to help improve the city. again, i am excited about jay knapf's entry to be our chief innovation officer, the first in the country, right in the mayor's office, and you have not only a partner but somebody who is very dependent on what we do together with our tech industry, to create an additional culture to complement the wonderful tourism industry that we have, which we cannot depend upon, but to complement the industries of biotech, clean tech, and the other construction jobs we are

creating, and to say to you this new industry of technology leaders are going to be part of our government delivery and public-private partnership. this is going to be done and it will be signaled through our strategic partnership with code for america. at this time, i want to welcome jen as our great strategic partners >>. -- partner. >> thank you. i am so grateful to ron and mayor lee, and everyone else that reached out to us for this initiative. when i started code for america, i did it for two reasons. working in the tech industry, i saw all the talent that goes into building is amazing platforms and apps that make our lives so dramatically different. when i started working in government a little bit, i saw

that talent was not often going into building the institution that is meant to benefit us all, government. with all the exciting things we see, still coming in general, there is an amazing innovation curve that we are all on in the private sector. we need to get government back on that innovation curve. we also saw there were such challenges in this that we needed to create a program to bring it all together. what code for america is, essentially, in its first year, a peace corps for geeks. we have been working in 10 people -- 10 cities across the country asking people, i can give one year of my life to make government better. having worked with those 10 cities, we have learned a lot, and we met jay knapf, who has been a leader in this up until

now, and his promotion is so reserved and will will serve the city of san francisco. i am so excited to be able to work in our city, where we think there is the most innovation. our fellowship program takes start of culture and puts it inside city government. we help cities write apps, we help them understand how start- ups were, we use the lean start a methodology, and we helped change the culture within city government. what we are doing now, enabled by s.f. citi, are some new platforms. so many people applied to be part of code for america. it if you have ever wondered whether the tech industry cares about government, i can tell you i see it every day. we had 525 people apply for 25 slots. and that is applying for the

opportunity to work for a small stipend, move here, and work under challenging conditions. beyond that, there are hundreds of thousands of people who want to do this in their spare time. we are building a platform that would allow the city of san francisco to put out its needs and have people code on projects to make apps for citizens. that is, the code for america brigade. more importantly, we believe in the power of the zero entrepreneurs. we want not just great projects that people do in their spare time, but real, sustainable businesses that can work with the city. in some cases, work with ideas -- do not necessarily have to work with the city -- but that make our lives better. when i was here, i have some trouble finding a cab. mayor lee said he wants more companies, these things that

brought alternatives and make our city richer. it is not just about the existing infrastructure. it is all about the innovation you can bring to make this city better. i am so proud to be part of it. david brooks wrote an article in "the new york times" call in washington to task for not being on the innovation occurs. he thought we should be holding up the red seekers, ridiculing them. i do not want to talk about that. but there was one line in there that was important. he said, in government so far, there is no steve jobs figure insisting to the designers of government, keep it simple, elegant, and user friendly. if we do not have that figure, we do have you and a friendly city government that wants this to happen. that is the recipe to make our interface to government simple, elegant, and user friendly. i hope i can add to the call to

all of you to partner with us to do this important work to make our public institutions the best and most innovative we can have been the country. thank you very much. [applause] with that, i want to introduce peter schwartz, with a company that i love. they give their very innovative top form to nonprofits for free. peter schwartz of salesforce. >> we are delighted to participate in this initiative. we think it is incredibly important. i think you all know we are profoundly committed to san francisco today and into tomorrow. you may have seen some of the first pictures of our new campus, which will be one of the largest construction projects in the city. we need talented people to fill these positions. we are entering by innovation, and innovation is driven by talented people.

we need to attract people to the city to fill those buildings. without them, we cannot sustain innovation. it is a loop that continues going in the future. more creative people attract still more creative people. that is what we think this is about. we are delighted that mayor lee will be leading us in this process, of creating the conditions in education, transit, housing, taxes, that enable people to live in the city, wrote in the city, and continue to attract talent. i came here in 1969. i have been here ever since. this is the fourth company i have participated in, and we have great opportunity to grow. this initiative is part of what will continue to sustain san francisco as the great talent back before the world as a great place to innovate, develop, live. let me now handed over to supervisor chiu for the final comments.

[applause] >> thank you and good morning. this is an exciting day not just for san francisco, but for me personally. 13 years ago, i was in the san francisco board of supervisors' chambers, sitting next to a friend who was very absconds to the technology world, and we came up with an idea to start a political technology company, which i ran for 10 years. when i was elected to the board of supervisors on my first day, i turned on the computer and realized that we are on the lotus notes platform for e-mail. i found out san francisco has seven different e-mail platforms, when we should have one integrated platform. we are a city that operates with three dozen data centers, when best practices ~ we should have just two. most of our workers think hackathons are what you want to do it if you want to go to jail. finally, we are engaging in a

community that has been engaged all along, but a community that has been innovating in a sector that has been doing extremely well, but one that we want to bring your best ideas and talent also to help us with city government. we have a new generation of leaders at the border supervisors, a generation that really gets it. 10 days after jane kim was elected to the border supervisors, i called her as she was heading off on vacation. we talked about the fact that there was a company called twitter that we needed to figure out how to keep in the city. weeks later, we were standing together to figure out how to do that. a couple months after that, mark farrell and i were talking about a tech crunch article that talked about the ludicrous stupidity of a city that enjoyed taxing the stock options of technology start-ups. that has changed. christine olague has worked with

low-income communities for years, and i know she is very committed to figuring out how we make sure that latino immigrant who maybe eight years old who lives in her district may someday work at a company like yours. we are committed to being partners with all of you, with our mayer, chief innovation officer, and we have a lot of work to do. we have schools that needs to be fixed, taxis that need to be cut, muni systems the need to be recalled, and i hope ideas on how to changes are here in this room. we look forward to working with you. thank you. [applause] >> ok, we are open it up for q&a from the media. before we do that, i forgot one thing. that is the color of the golden gate bridge. that was a suggestion from jack dorsey. co-founder of twitter, and the

seventh anniversary of the bridge celebrated memorial day weekend, we have mc hammer, a friend of tech in the back. with that, questions from the media, please. >> i wonder if you could explain what these investments do? >> this organization is going to represent the tech community in a unified fashion. the first agenda, which we are taking the lead from ed lee on is job creation. if we can create 500 to 1000 new jobs this year, we can have a significant impact on the economy of san francisco. ouster -- our support for code for america, another nonprofit, to go into the city of san

francisco, fined projects like david chiu just talked about, projects that volunteer hackers from the tech community can go in and solve problems for the city of san francisco, to eradicate bureaucracy. applying for a business license in san francisco is not a pleasant experience. we need to apply technology to problems like that. >> [inaudible] >> initially, it is about the economy and jobs. many of us in s.f. citi are very active already philanthropic way. the mayor keeps talking about the philanthropic efforts. funny enough, i am tied to ask him what is in his mind. we have not discussed that yet because we are focused on jobs. thank you.

>> [inaudible] >> sopa is a bill in the congress. there is a bill called pipa in the senate. the moniker for the bill in the house is sopa. these bills are tantamount to censorship on the internet. i was with ari emanuel, probably the most famous agent in the country, mark andriessen, in southern california, and we talked about this. mark had the most concise description. do you want to turn the united

states into china, where all content is censored? these bills are not good for technology. we can name some of the leading companies of san francisco who, if this bill was passed 10 years ago, would not be allowed to even exist. it would have a horrible impact on these companies today. we are working with senators and congressmen to make sure this bill stops. it was squeaking through congress fairly rapidly because of the big media companies, they do not advertise the bill. thank god for lobbyists like technet. i am sorry to go on a ranch, but this is a serious issue for our community. our member companies will be hearing more about this because we can help. >> [inaudible] >> if you know ari emanuel well

-- mark andriessen and i were very open with him about our -- he immediately reacted emotionally in our favor. i said, understand this the 0's of the media company's you do business with are the ones that we are trying to sneak this through. he said, i know that, and i will help you.

>> welcome to today's event. this is the 15th anniversary, celebrating the chinese lunar new year. the lunar new year is a 14-year cycle. this year is the year of the dragon. i would like to introduce and acknowledge some guests today. first off, mayor ed lee. [applause] police chief sur and the command staff of the police department. [applause] president of the board of supervisors, david chiu. [applause] server book -- supervisor eric mar. [applause] police commissioner angela chan. [applause] president of the police commission, thomas mazuko. [applause] representing san francisco

state, our host today, the program director, irena. [applause] i would be remiss if i did not mention in david chan, who really is the glue that put this all together. [applause] robert from the department of adult probation and parole. [applause] do we have a representative from the chinese chamber today? thank you for being here today. [applause] >> testing, ok. thank you, everyone, for coming today. i am very enthusiastic about --

this microphone. [laughter] and about joining with all these people behind me, our board, our chief, our commissioners, all of our community partners. this is an opportunity as we begin the new lunar new year to signal a very important program that was adopted many years ago but that has been growing year after year. and that is a relationship with our community. i and lunar new year, what we have seen in the past is that, you know, things happen, some criminal activities might occur because of the prosperity and the success of the lunar new year, and we have had to always be reactive. the chief and die and the commission, we know, working with community programs, and our family associations are also here, and the merchants, and if we are ahead of it, we will continue this fantastic record

that our chief is really helping us do, and that is lower the crime rate. we have been successful. in fact, this year we are down 6% in our overall crime. and we want to keep it that way and keep the statistics from ever overwhelming us. one of the most important things that we can do in evens like this that last for a good amount of time is work with our public safety officers and all of their efforts in making sure that everyone is safe, they all enjoyed the prosperity this event offers, and that we be competent in the way that we carry this out. so i want to signal, with the support of our supervisors, commissioners, and police officers on the ground -- there are many of them here but you will see them a lot. if anything, our officers enjoy our new year's here in san francisco. they enjoy being part of it. they also enjoy helping our

residents, whether they're seniors, kids, or merchants in chinatown, to make sure that they enjoy every aspect of this. i know, working in the past in all the other positions that i have had, that sometimes people, particularly in the chinese community, consider something or they say that somebody is asking for some money and they asked for it or they actually probably did not use the word extort, but they did things that were not appropriate. and it was a hassle for people to report it. but, at the same time, what they did not realize, one thing leads to the other. one incident leads to the other. suddenly, you have an accepted practice that is not acceptable to anybody. we want to make sure that does not happen. and it continues that there is a trust built with our police department, with community leaders on the ground that say

no one is going to take advantage of a senior or of a kid who has a red envelope or the merchants who are just trying to enjoy and be prosperous like everyone else. that will not be tolerated. we will work very closely to make sure that the lunar new year ended attendees are enjoyed by the full list, by everybody, and no one takes advantage of the situation. i also recognize george gascón, our new district attorney. thank you for being here to help us celebrate this new year. we're here at the gate and chinatown. we are here to signal that our lunar year, the year of the dragon, will be enjoyed by everybody without exception, and that everyone should feel safe. but also that, you know, there is education. if there is anything that they are teaching us, it is to prevent ourselves from being victims. so that there is less problems

for everybody and that we recognize that the greatest hassle is for us to be victims of circumstances that we could actually prevent. so, watching out for each other, working with our officers, knowing that there is a great captain at our local police station that has command of everybody here that is competent, can speak different languages, that can get to any signal that there is something that is wrong is going on. and then, most importantly, that we do celebrate this wonderful occasion in the most positive way with everybody. we want people to come into our city and come to chinatown. come into all the chinatowns in san francisco, including this great one here, and celebrate with us and be very positive about it and make sure there is no hesitation that our safety and the safety of everybody here is our number one concern. and we keep that as the highest

priority. as to celebrate all the different divisions, we want to signal that we have a very close knit family of everybody working together, sharing information, sharing our knowledge and our successes, from our youth to our seniors to everybody in between, and to all of our merchants. i want to make sure it happens in that we celebrate it. success to everyone. thank you to everyone in our official city family for coming together and being part of this very culturally, successful, happy time. happy chinese lunar new year. [speaks foreign language] [applause] >> thank you, mayor lee. my next speaker is an honor to introduce, chief of police, greg sur. [applause] >> thank you. first of all, i want to echo what the mayor said and wish everyone a happy y