(audience applauding and cheering) - Good afternoon. My name is Aminata Toure. We are all here today
to talk about our future and the future of Europe. As young people, we control our destiny. While there are many challenges
and opportunities ahead, we know that our generation
owns the solutions our world needs. I learned early on that
representation matters. I grew up in a refugee
camp here in Germany listening to politicians making decisions for an entire population
without knowing how it feels to be impacted by these
circumstances and laws. I would ask myself how will
our voices be represented? Could someone like me even run for office? What encouraged me was
that there was someone on the other side of the Atlantic who was starting a movement. He was inspiring people
from all backgrounds to take part in the political system. He was a role model who told me that if I wanted to shape the future, I couldn't let someone else speak for me. Politics is something that we all own. It's for everyone. So I decided to run. Two years ago at the age
of 24 I became the youngest and the first black member
of my state government the Schleswig-Holstein Parliament. It took hard work, the
support of family and friends and believing that my opinions had value and that I could make a difference. Most people in politics are older than me, some double my age. They often don't see policy issues the same way our generation does. Outside the halls of Parliament,
I'm surrounded by peers who care deeply about our shared future. We're finding new solutions
to climate change, promoting equal rights for all, and advancing economic opportunity
through new industries. It's not just in Germany. Young people across Europe and the world are connecting, taking
action, and making change. It's our generation's collective passion that makes me feel strong and confident. The future is bright but only
if we encourage each other and fight for it together. Today I'm excited to welcome to Berlin someone who has inspired
people all over the world to make their voices be
heard and get involved. He gave me courage when there
was no one that looked like me running for office in my state. And through his work with
the Obama Foundation, he is still bringing together young people who are determined to
make a positive difference and is helping us have our
voices heard on the main stage. It is an honor for me to
introduce the 44th president of the United States,
President Barack Obama. (audience applauding and cheering) - Thank you. Very kind. Thank you. Thank you so much. Hey! Thank you so much. Thank you. (speaking in a foreign language) Berlin! (audience chattering) It is good to be back
in the heart of Europe. It's been over 10 years since I spoke to a slightly larger crowd (audience laughing) in front of the Victory Column when I was running for president. I had a little less gray hair then. (audience chuckling) And since then I've been back to Germany, I think at least 10 times. I've been to Europe countless times. But I'm as excited to be here with you as I have been ever
when I've come to Europe because this is a different kinda trip. I'm here to begin the work
of the Obama Foundation in partnering with some
remarkable young leaders from all across Europe
who are already making amazing change to see if we can make even more amazing change. You know, when I left office, or maybe a few months
before I left office, I had to make some decisions
about what I would do after the end of my presidency and I knew that I wanted
to catch up on my sleep. (audience laughing) I had to take Michelle on vacation. (audience laughing) She deserved it, putting
up with me for that long. But we also knew that our
service wasn't yet done. I was one of the youngest
presidents to be elected, which meant I was one of
the youngest ex-presidents. And I asked myself, all
right, what's the next thing that I can do to make the biggest impact, the most difference? And there were a whole range of issues that I care deeply about,
many of which you work on. I believe climate change
is an existential challenge for all of humanity. I believe that creating communities of tolerance and respect despite our ethnic and
religious differences is vital if we are to thrive in this world that's now been shrunk by technology and travel and migration. I believe deeply in gender equality and making sure that women
have the same opportunities that men do in all fields of life. And that people of different
sexual orientations are treated with dignity and
respect and human rights. I believe deeply in dealing with the growing inequality that has arisen as a consequence of globalization and technology. So there are a whole
range of specific issues I was concerned about and
that I intended to work on. But what I was also convinced of was that probably the
biggest impact I could have would be to support and convene and engage and partner with the next generation of leaders. Because there's only one of me. (audience chuckling) And there's only one Michelle. And if we're gonna
solve all these problems and seize all these opportunities, then the most important thing we can do is to figure out how do we
continually duplicate ourselves so that we have thousands
of activists and leaders. And then tens of thousands
and then hundreds of thousands and then millions of
people who are working on behalf of the values and causes that we so deeply believe in. And so the theory of the Obama Foundation is actually fairly simple. If we can get young leaders like you to begin to work together, if we can provide you more
tools, more resources, more attention, mentoring, maybe a little bit of inspiration, above all if we can get
you to work in concert and teach and learn from each other, then you will change the world and I can sit back and relax a little bit. (audience chuckling) And I know there's a whole
lot of work to be done because we live in uncertain times. We're confronted by big questions about how to organize our communities and our countries and
the international order. Here in Berlin, we have to recognize that this moment is full of contradictions because Europe in 2019 in some ways has achieved the pinnacle of human well-being. Collectively in Europe right now, on average, you probably see the highest standards of living of any group of people in the history of the planet. Wealthier, healthier, better educated. The continent has largely
been at peace for 70 years. You have unprecedented
information at your fingertips. You can travel freely across borders that once were closed. Our societies have made great strides to extend opportunity
and educate our children, and care for the sick, and
to pursue equality for people no matter what you look
like or how you worship or who you love. So you would think that everybody'd feel pretty good right now. And yet, what we also know
is that powerful forces are threatening to reverse
many of these trends. The democratic institutions
that helped to bring these about oftentimes have been taken for granted. The planet that we live on is in danger. Some of the contradictions
of our economies and how we produce and
dispose of goods and services continually now doesn't
appear to be as sustainable, particularly if, understandably,
other parts of the world want to achieve the same
kinds of standards of living as we have. We've seen in the 21st
century the re-emergence of profound religious and
sectarian differences. You've got inequality
that's been exacerbated first by the financial
crisis, but as I said, some of the deeper trends
of how capitalism works. You've got social media that
was once considered to be the network that would provide
us greater understanding. Now suddenly appears to be a tool that is used to spread disinformation and hatred and suspicion. Nationalism, particularly
from the far right, has re-emerged, a politics that divides us into us and them. And we know where that leads. Europe knows better than
anyone where that leads to conflict and bloodshed and catastrophe. So just as the world has choices to make, Europe has choices to make. The good news is that we actually know there are solutions. We know with changes in policy
we can reduce inequality and we can combat climate
change while still providing a high standard of living. We know that if we
invest in our democracies then they can work better
than they're currently working and that if we teach our children to love and listen instead of hate, that our societies can work better. But we can't do these
things by sitting back and waiting for somebody else to do them. We're gonna have to do them ourselves and, more specifically,
you're gonna have to do them. And what makes me optimistic is you're already doing
extraordinary work. We've got young leaders here
from across the continent who are working in
government and civil society and the private sector to
bring about positive change. You just heard, I believe,
from Flavia and Delphine and Klen who I had originally met with when they were in Amsterdam. And I could not have been more impressed by the remarkable leadership
that they were already showing. I met earlier today with
a group of young people from the audience including Jerome. Where's, he's here somewhere, who is using technology in France to mobilize humanitarian
support after disasters around the world. And Elsa who's working
in Sweden to make this the first zero-food waste generation. And Paul who's working in
Romania to map the distribution of political power so that government can be more transparent and ultimately more responsive to people. So I hope that so far you've
already gotten a sense that you're not alone and that people like you
are doing remarkable things. In some cases in the same area and sector that you're working in, in
some cases in different sectors but are motivated by the same
values and the same vision. There are a lot more
people like you out there who wanna build rather
than tear things down and who wanna bring people together rather than split them apart. But sometimes all of you are isolated and work alone or feel as
if you're working alone, and the whole then feels like it's less than the sum of its parts. Now, I'm not here to
support any political party. I've held my last political office. The Obama Foundation is non-partisan. Michelle would leave me if
I ever ran for office again. (audience laughing) But I'm deeply invested in these values of tolerance and equality and rule of law and democracy and human
rights and human freedom and human dignity. And you've got a European
parliamentary election that's coming up. It goes without saying that
all of you need to vote if you are eligible. And your friends do, too. As Michelle and I talk sometimes and when we hear that
young people aren't voting or participating, we say to them, you would not let your
grandfather or grandmother decide what clothes you wear or what music you listen to, so why would you let them decide the world you're gonna live in and the politics that you're
gonna be subjected to? Why would you give away that
power and that authority? So I'm assuming that all of you in one fashion or another
are paying attention to political trends, but as we all know, casting a ballot is just the start. I always used to say that
the most important office in a democracy is not
president or prime minister or chancellor or governor
or mayor, it's citizen. Change happens because
citizens are mobilized and force change. And each of you in your own ways are part of that process. The question now is, if you
are supporting each other and engaged with each other and perhaps if we can help a little bit, can you start scaling up, doing more, building momentum,
creating a new narrative, creating greater sense of possibility and a greater sense of hope? I think you can. And we've got a huge
stake in your success. And hopefully the Obama Foundation
will be able to help you in your work, because we're
just getting started here and we intend to work, not because, work here not based on
having all the answers but rather having great confidence that if we're interacting
with an amazing gathering like this, that we'll be able
to come up with the solutions that we need, not just for
Europe, but for the world. So with that, I'm gonna
start taking some questions. Thank you very much. (audience applauding) All right, and... You know, because of we
couldn't fit everybody in the continent in this room, there are a bunch of people
who are watching live stream or wanted to participate but couldn't and are doing so online. So actually I believe
that my first question may be an online question,
but I'm not sure. But it's from Conleth in Northern Ireland. Am I correct about that? Or is Conleth here? There he is. - My name is Conleth Burns
and I'm from a small village in Northern Ireland. As a young community organizer, I work to build trust and mold consensus between diverse groups of people. No matter where young people are in Europe how can we show the value in compromise and the beauty in consensus? - Well, this is an interesting question. I saw a group of you
right before I came out and somebody, I think, asked a question that relates to this. One of the challenges that I had when I was a young organizer, was I wanted change now and I wanted 100% of what I wanted. And then I'd suddenly
confront some politician and they'd be like well, we can't do this and we can only do that,
and maybe we can get a little bit of this done or
I've gotta take into account this constituency that
feels very differently about the issue. And I'd be furious and frustrated. And then I was elected to
office and some young organizer would come into my office and
say, "I want you to do this." And I'd say well, you know, I can give you a little bit of this but I... And so I've been on both sides of the equation. And one of the biggest challenges I think that we all have, and there's no perfect formula, is how do we remain true to our
values and our principles while recognizing that in democracies, in pluralistic societies, that the only way we are gonna
be able to get things done is if we agree to a certain set of rules and part of those rules are that you never get 100% of what you want. Because somebody else is gonna
have a slightly different set of interests or a slightly
different set of values. And that navigating that territory in which you push for what you believe in but at a certain point
you are willing to say okay, let me take this now
and then build on this later. That's necessary for everyone. I mean, look, when I passed the Paris, or when I helped get the Paris Agreement on
Climate accomplished, I was the first one to
say what we've done here is not adequate to meet the demands of climate science. The measures that had been set, the targets that had
been set by each country, even if they all met them,
wouldn't be sufficient to address the pace at which temperatures were rising and emissions were going
into the atmosphere. But if I had held out for us getting to where we needed
to be in the science, we wouldn't have gotten the accord. And my theory was, look,
if, for the first time, I can get every country on Earth, or at least I think at
that time there were maybe one or two country
that is didn't sign up. Now it turns out it's only mine. (audience chuckling) But that's a whole nuther question. If we can establish that principle that everybody has to address this problem and everybody has to take steps to do something about it, and that becomes the architecture that's in
place and it is measurable and people are accountable, if I can get that in place, then I'll be able to
turn up those standards each and every year as the
science and the technology and what's possible develops and we build. Right? In my own country, in the United States, our pension system, what
we call Social Security, when it was first passed,
didn't apply to everybody. Here's an interesting example. It did not apply to domestic workers. Why do you think that is? Who were domestics? Huh? - Immigrants. - Many of them were black people. They were I guess immigrants brought a little while, way back. There was a whole different
way of how they came over. So the South, the southern politicians, they wanted to exclude as a part of reinforcing racial discrimination and
segregation laws in the South, they wanted to exclude
certain portions of it. Now, you could argue
that Franklin Roosevelt should have said well, I'm
not willing to pass this unless I can get those workers. Or you can say, you get that set up, given those particular political
constraints at that time, and then over time those biases were eliminated. How we think about those
compromises is something that each of us have to
take responsibility for. We can't, as I said, there's no formula. There may be certain issues
in which we say to ourselves, no, I'm sorry, this, on
this I cannot compromise. Right? And each of us may have
certain issues like that. I'd like to think that if there was a proposal that today said, we can, you know, pass a wonderful law that is gonna reduce poverty but this particular group of people is excluded from it,
I'd like to say today, knowing what we now know, the
basis of our society today, I actually think I'd have to say no, I'm sorry, we can't pass that 'cause that violates now a
principle that we've established. We've set a higher threshold. We're not gonna go backwards on that. So no matter how wonderful this
new social program might be, I'm not gonna abide by that. On the other hand, I know from experience in passing the health care
law that I had to work on in the United States, that that was not the
ideal health care program that I wanted to set up. It's what I could get at the time and if I could establish the principle that everybody gets health
care and get 20 million people more health care, even if 10
million still hadn't gotten it, that's what I'm gonna do now. And then I'll fight some
more later for the other 20%. So to go back to the point that was made by Conleth, what's true for me when I was a president or an elected official, it's
gonna be true for you as well, even within your own organizations. And one of the things I
do worry about sometimes among progressives in the United States, maybe it's true here as well, is a certain kind of rigidity where we say ah, I'm sorry,
this is how it's gonna be and then we start sometimes creating what's called a circular firing squad where you start shooting at your allies because one of them is straying from purity on the issues. And when that happens, typically the overall
effort and movement weakens. So I think whether you
are speaking as a citizen or as a political leader or as an organizer, whether you're in the nonprofit space and civic space or you're
in the political arena, you have to recognize that the way we've structured democracy requires you to take into account people who don't agree with you. And that, by definition, means
you're not gonna get 100% of what you want. But you should take some time
to think in your own mind and continually refine and reflect what are my core principles? Because the danger is if you don't know what
your principles are, that's when you compromise
your principles away. So you have to know ahead of time, here's what I'm willing to compromise on, here are the things that I'm not. You can't set up a system in which you don't compromise on anything, but you also can't operate in
a system where you compromise on everything, everything's up for grabs. That requires a certain amount of internal reflection and deliberation. Okay. Now with that, from here on out I'm just gonna call on people. (people chattering) I think you should know in advance that I will not get to every person. (audience chuckling) So forgive me for that, all right? But I'm just gonna try to
get as many people as I can. I'll start with you. And there should be microphones. Please introduce yourself
and tell us a little bit about, very short, what
you're doing and then, and by the way, you don't
have to ask a question. You can also give me an
idea, make a comment. If it's a speech, make it a short one. (audience laughing) - Thank you so much. I'm very honored to be here. My name is Anna Oudra, I'm from Latvia, and I'm a journalist. But in Washington, D.C. I was advocating for Baltic
States in the U.S. Congress. - Wow. - So explaining to U.S. Congressmen the issues that are important for us in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. And my question is that these days I think a lot of international
agreements are being broken and sometimes international alliances are being talked about in a light way. But for us in such small countries it's so important to be part of secure and strong long-term alliances. - Right. - So my question would be,
what the leaders of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania could
do, how, in a better way we can communicate to make
sure that everyone understands the importance of these alliances? And also, this might be a
bit silly, but could you sign this piece of paper
with your famous phrase, "Are you part of, are you ready to go"? (Anna giggles) - I can. I'll do that afterwards. - Okay, thank you so much.
- Okay. You know, after World War II and the tragedy that engulfed Europe and then engulfed the world, we set up a set of
international institutions. The U.N., you know, Bretton Woods, World Bank, et cetera. And the idea was, I think, a recognition that you had to have some
sort of international order to try to mitigate against
a repeat of those tragedies. And you had NATO and other alliances that were established, in part, because of the emerging Cold War. Those institutions weren't perfect. Oftentimes the participants, including my own country,
operated hypocritically within those institutions and the declarations and charters were often violated or ignored, but they did create a structure and a set of aspirations
so that small countries, defenseless peoples, vulnerable groups could appeal to the ideal
and the the principle and take that charter or piece of paper and say look, this is what you said. And that gave some leverage, some force to the argument that over time improved the situation. And then obviously with
the fall of the wall and the end of the Cold War, you then saw this blossoming
of excitement and opportunity. Ah, now we're really gonna
live up to all these ideals. And as I said before, we unfortunately, I think, stand at a crossroads now, a time where we took for
granted some of that progress. Didn't tend to our
democracies and our alliances and our international institutions as well as we should
have, didn't update them and adapt them to new circumstances. And as people started feeling insecure or frustrated because of economic changes, technological changes,
demographic changes, we got this backlash and reaction to that order. So our challenge now is how do we refresh and renew these ideas. With respect to the alliances
that the Baltics are part of, I'm assuming you're referring
to, for example, NATO, as president I was very clear that there were no junior
or senior members of NATO and that Article IV and
Article V means what it says and that it has to be not just talked about with nice phrases but there have to be
planning and work done to prepare for the possibility of mutual defense. And so we implemented a
whole range of exercises and planning to reflect that. I can't say exactly what the United States and NATO is doing right now. I recognize that there are some strains. I think that the most important thing that countries like Estonia, Latvia, you know, other Baltics can do, is to continue to reflect internally the values of democracy, freedom, rule of law, so that when it speaks on the world stage and it speaks in international forums, it has credibility and it is able to then
say look, we are doing what we pledged and promised to do in this charter and in this document, and we expect you, the larger countries that are signatories to
this, to do the same. I think when there's
back sliding internally then you have less moral
force in that argument. I would also say, though, that no matter how much all the countries in NATO or any other alliance believe in that alliance in the abstract, it's always better for us not to have to test it. And that means, for
example, that the stronger that Europe as a whole
is, the more that the work that all of your peers here are doing, the more that the European
Parliament is reflecting on, or is reflective of
the values of democracy and rule of law and so forth, that inoculates, you know, it strengthens the European project, it strengthens NATO, and
it serves as a defense, a non-military defense but a defense against
potential encroachment. So I think it's important not to separate military alliances. The strength of Europe
over the last 20, 30 years has not been because there
were a bunch of missiles fired. It was because, thankfully,
it was because ideas won. And if we start losing the ideas, then we're gonna have
problems no matter what. All right. (people chattering) Okay. Gentleman right there in the blue. Yeah, right here. I'm looking, no, I'm looking at you. Yeah, that's right, so. But we need a mic. - Yes. - There you go. - Thank you, Mr. President. It's a great pleasure to be here. My name is Ahmed Abdirahman. I'm from Sweden with Somali background. I really admire you. I know the night you were
elected I was in Sweden and cried like a baby. (chuckles) - Well, you were a baby. (Ahmad and audience laughing) (audience applauding) What are you talking about? He said he cried like a baby. You were like, you were like 8 years old. Of course. You were probably hungry. (audience laughing) Or needed a nap. (Barack laughing) Anyway. - Thank you. I run an NGO called The Global Village and our biggest work is called Jarvaveckan where we gather politicians,
political leaders, the Parliament, civil society,
NGOs, everybody together in a suburb where I live
which is disadvantaged where 90% of the population
have foreign backgrounds and we try to build bridges
between the majority of Swedes and the new Swedish people. And the issue that we are facing in Sweden and also, of course, all over Europe, is how do we break that segregation? How do we break that we and them narrative that is literally holding back Europe and particularly in Sweden's
opportunity to succeed? For example, just 10 years from now 30% of the working age in
Sweden will be foreign born. I assume that will be the
same thing across Europe. So how do we break that we and them? How do you create the new narrative? And you have succeeded that in the U.S. And another question to you, sorry guys, is that how do you deal with
being a part of two worlds and always being heckled by both sides when you're trying to build a bridge? Thank you so much. And if you come to Sweden, we hope to see you there of course. Thank you. - Okay, excellent.
(audience applauding) I am gonna establish a
rule of just one question. But those were excellent questions. Look, obviously migration issues are driving a lot of the political turmoil here in Europe and in my home country. And the first thing I would say is that you probably have some better answers than I do because of the fact that you are working in a specific community
with specific people face to face and so often the way that you arrive at ideas of breaking down these barriers is on the ground, human to human, as opposed to abstract ideas. So I should be asking you what works and you should be sharing, you and others who are working on these issues, should be sharing what seems
to work and what doesn't. I'll make some general
observations, though. The first is that it's important for all of us to admit that in every society there is some temptation, tendency to separate people who are more like me and less like me. That's not unique to white Europeans. You know, my father's from Kenya. You go to Kenya, the Luos think the Kikuyus are
always out to get them. And the Kikuyus think,
ah, the Luos they talk but they're lazy. I'm not gonna hire them. And you go to the Middle East and, you know, when everybody gets here, suddenly oh, you know, we're all Arab. You go back home, ah,
these people, those people. Right? So one thing to recall is that this is a universal phenomenon because humans are fairly primitive and we're still wired to
only be able to process, like, knowing about 150 people
(chuckles) in our brains. And so now suddenly we're
in cities with strangers that we don't know and
we're asked to trust them and it goes against some of our impulses. And the reason I say
that is because I think if you don't acknowledge that then there's gonna be a certain arrogance in how you approach these problems and the
problems won't get solved. That's point number one. We all have some of these
biases inside of us. It's not just, you know, those people. Right? If we start with that premise, then I think what that means is that we have to find ways to have a humane, intelligent, thoughtful, orderly immigration process that is grounded in our better selves and our better values. And we're gonna have to figure out how do we make the people who are already in a country feel comfortable with newcomers. And that requires education and exposure and reducing fear on the part of people who are already there. It also requires some levels of adaptation from the people who are coming in. And I think organizations like yours can help to identify those mechanisms that can help both sides. In the United States, immigration has always been controversial and, at some level, immigrants adapted to the norms of the existing society so that if you look at how
the Irish, for example, were talked about in
the United States, whoa. It's as bad as anything, you
know, Irish no need apply. There was a time where the Irish and Jews and Italians, they weren't considered white. They were considered aliens, foreigners. Then they got absorbed. Now, black folks never got absorbed.
(chuckles) Right? That took a little bit longer. And so some of the assimilation that inevitably takes place is gonna take a little bit longer, but some of those principles still apply. And I worry sometimes when as we think about how to deal with
the immigration issue, we think that any moves
towards assimilation of newcomers to the existing culture is somehow betrayal or a
denial of people's heritage or what have you. I mean, the truth of the matter is is that if you're gonna have
a coherent, cohesive society, then everybody has to have
some agreed-upon rules. And they're gonna have
to be some accommodations that everybody makes. And that includes the
people who are newcomers. The question is, are those fair? Should we wanna encourage newcomers to learn the language of the
country they're moving to? Of course. Does that mean that they can
never use their own language? No. Of course it doesn't mean that. But it's, you know, it's not racist to say ah, if you're gonna be here, then you should learn the
language of the country that you just arrived at. Because we need to have
some sort of common language in which all of us can work and learn and understand each other. It gets more sensitive, obviously,
around religious issues. That becomes more challenging. And I don't have, you know,
simple solutions to all of that. But I guess what I think we have to do in order to push back
against just, you know, what are clearly racist motives of some, we can't label everybody who is disturbed by immigration as racist. You know, that's a self-defeating tactic. You push away potential allies, people who maybe they just
haven't thought about it. They may be good people
who are well meaning. They just don't understand it but if they're exposed to new information and they're meeting people
who are from other countries and they understand the nature
of these different traditions and they see that others
are eager to work with you, then suddenly they go ah, okay. And, you know, some of
the work that was done in Switzerland and other places
where you mobilize people to say look, this is not who we are and to appeal to their best natures, shows that the majority of Europeans don't want to think of themselves as mean or ungenerous or racist, just
like the majority of Americans don't wanna think of
themselves in that way. But if the only thing they're hearing is either people who
are making them afraid or people who are saying
you're racist, (chuckles) then they don't feel
as if they've got room to find their better selves. And we have to continually
find ways to speak to them. And a lot of that happens face to face which is why organizations
like yours ends up being so important. You do have to figure out
how do you link the work that you're doing on a local level with broader political efforts to push back against discriminatory,
unjust legislation. And then so the micro has
to work with the macro in order to be successful. All right. You had another question but
I don't remember what it was. That was such a... Right here. - It will be actually an easy question because the answer will be a yes, we can. (Barack chuckling) My name is Louis-Xavier I'm from Paris. I started three years ago a simple network of shopkeepers that
accept to offer services, free services to homeless people. They open the door and the homeless people can come and charge their
phone, go to toilet, heat some food in the microwave. Simple stuff, you know. - Yeah. - We use lists, physical
lists with all the address, the directions, so they can
go and recreate social link. It's an easy way for a resident to involve themselves, sorry. In three years we have
around 1,000 shops in France and it started in Seattle,
in London, Madrid, and other cities. My question is, how can you
maybe, can you and your team actually help us and do
this international calling for every shops and enterprise so they'll open their doors. - So the answer is yes, we can. - Yes, we can and thanks.
(audience laughing) (audience applauding) - Excellent. All right. Well, first of all, I
wanna congratulate you on a great idea. The second thing I wanna say is this is a perfect example of how, if all of you are organized and in communication with each other, one good idea in one place can then start disseminating, start spreading to other places. And we can certainly help. I can publicize hey,
here's a great example of somebody, a small business
that has started something and is now becoming a movement. But I'm not the only one that can help. There are 300 and something people here who all have small stores
in their communities that may be interested in
something like this as well. So part of our goal here is in some ways to highlight good work
that's already being done. But also to identify good
ideas, best practices, great tactics, great strategies, good stories to tell, and
make sure that everybody now knows them and is able to steal your good ideas because the nice thing is,
- With pleasure. - is that you know, great ideas like this are
ones where I'm assuming you'd be happy if more and
more people were doing it, huh? - And we started a little cookie factory. - Those are cookies for me? - Yeah. - Homeless people who are employed and they do organic, good cookies. It's lots of butter, it's French, in our country.
- Of course. (audience laughing) - It's for you and your family. (audience applauding) (speaking in a foreign language) - Ah. (audience laughing) I can't wait. But I shouldn't talk with my mouth full. All right, let's see. I'm just canvassing. Since this young lady's
almost standing up here, then I guess, go ahead. Don't worry, I know that, I
see some people in the back. I'll get to you, yeah, yeah. - Okay. - Don't worry. Just need a microphone back there. - Down here. - Yeah. - Thanks a lot. It's a great pleasure to be here. My name is Sima, I'm from
SINGA, SINGA Deutschland, one of the co-founders of SINGA here. And actually my question is
maybe a bit more personal. I feel how nervous I am now speaking. - It's okay, just because
there are all these cameras right on you. (audience laughing) - No big deal. - And everybody, there are
millions more people watching. Don't feel nervous at all. - No pressure, yeah, okay.
(audience laughing) (Barack laughing) So yeah, I really liked what
you were speaking about earlier about finding compromise. And you said something about having these sort of internal reflections in order to sort of see,
find your balance, I guess. And in the last year
or so I've been looking more into topics of mindfulness. And I was curious to know if you have any sort of personal mindfulness practice, for instance meditation or something else? And as a sort of secondary part to that, if you feel that there's any
space for more mindfulness in politics to be able to lead
to more peaceful politics. - Well, I definitely think
that there's some politicians who could use some meditation. (audience laughing) There's no doubt about that. (audience applauding) (Barack laughing) I can think of a few who, you know, just sit there for a little bit (audience laughing)
and reflect. (Barack laughing) Find some inner peace. No, let me broaden the
question a little bit. I mean, I will tell you that I don't have a regular meditation practice. But I have my own tools, I guess, to take me to a certain place. For example, you know, particularly when I was your age I did a lot of writing
and that would serve as a similar process for me where I would still myself. And if I was writing well, it would take me out of myself, right? You become egoless a little bit by just reflecting on the circumstances and world around you. Some people obviously prayer offers that. And meditation's another tool. But I would broaden the point. Somebody asked me about this earlier, what advice would I give myself when I was a young organizer? And one of the things I said was I think sometimes we are so driven to get the work done and there's so much work to be done. And typically in our various organizations and our various efforts, we're understaffed and overburdened and certainly under-financed, and sometimes we're isolated and we feel guilty if we're not working 24/7 because look at the people
who we're working with who need so much and, you know, we need to help them. And just a reminder that you
can't help them effectively if you're not taking care
of yourself in some fashion. And that means simple things like sleep (chuckles) or time with friends or organizing and scheduling days or blocks of time where you can just think or read or get new ideas or meditate or, you know,
whatever it is that you need. I think organizing yourselves to do that and getting in those good
habits or working out, getting some exercise, things like that end up actually clearing your mind, you'll be more effective, you will interact with people better, you're less likely to have your work influenced by your bad moods. You're more likely to listen and be open to other people's experiences, right? So all these things that may seem as if they're for you, could actually end up being for them. You know, Michelle is
very clear about this when she talked about parenting. She came to a point,
particularly when our children were small, I was traveling a lot because I was doing politics
and we had two small kids, and Michelle was still working and she was going a mile a minute. And obviously she'd feel like
oh, I've gotta do everything for my kids. And she talks about how there came a point where she realized, you know, if I don't do something to just calm myself down and be able to feel okay, I'm gonna start taking it out on the kids. You know, not in terrible ways, but I won't be as good of a mom. So she then started
scheduling certain things that she had to do to
get her head straight. And I think that that's
true for everybody. You know, even as president, I was a pretty busy guy, I gotta say. But I worked out every morning. I mean, I was pretty religious about it. I was in the gym. And people knew, unless there was an actual literal emergency, that you had to block out that time in the morning when I
was gonna be working out. And if I did not have a workout, I was gonna be cranky. (audience chuckling) But I knew that if I was
gonna be able to sustain the pace I was sustaining over
the course of eight years, I needed to have at least that. And the same, I did the
same thing, by the way, it's not just when you talk
about what's good for you. Part of it is also social. You have to make time
for friends or partners or something that brings you some joy. 'Cause if you're disconnected from, you can't organize a community if you don't have a community. (chuckles) You know, if you're all
like oh, I'm out there, I'm gonna pull people together
to help work together. Then you go home and you're
all lonely eating by yourself, you got no friends, what do you know about
getting people organized? So you've gotta have some social network that can support you. And so as president, for example, my staff knew that I would
eat dinner with my children at 6:30, with my wife and
children, at 6:30 every night. Again, unless there
was an actual emergency or I was traveling, I
was at the dinner table. And then, you know, I'd work
until two in the morning afterwards, but that block. So part of what you have
to do is be intentional about how you organize your time that way. Anyway, all right. Let's see. I promised that I would turn this way. Yes, you. You do need a mic. Who's got a mic? Here we go. Go ahead. - Hi, Mr. President. - Hi. - I meant hi. - How are you? - I'm good, how are you? - Very good. - That's good. My name is Katharina Schulze. I'm a member of the
Bavarian State Parliament here in Germany for the Green Party. And I was running for office
after I was volunteering in Michigan for your campaign 2008. - Way to go, here, here.
- So, we already met. (audience chuckling) - Boom. (audience applauding) That's what I'm talking about. - Yeah. - Proud of you. - Yes, so it's good to see you again. - Good to see you! (Katharina laughing) - And I have a personal question. How do you deal with
all the hate against you and your family and your personal beliefs? And do you have any advice for us as young leaders how to deal with this? Because as far as I see it now, doing politics for 10 years, it's getting harder and more and more. And you already talked about
internet and social media and the big dream about
what all the good things this will bring for us and now we see also the negative consequences. And what would be your
advice for us to, like, deal with this negative
(Barack sneezes) in your own life and in the, bless you. - Thank you. - And in our communities or in our parties or wherever we are active? - You know, that's a great question. (audience applauding) So first I'll answer sort of the personal question, how do I deal with it and then I think there are
some broader implications that are worth us considering. I did not, I did not read about myself. I did not watch TV about myself. I, first of all, whatever the news was saying about me, I already knew. I mean, whatever the
topic was, I was there. (audience laughing) So (laughing) they couldn't
give me actual information that I didn't know. The most they could do is
provide me with an opinion. And, you know, sadly I think that our media has become so splintered and certainly social media has become so splintered,
that people's opinions were almost predictable, right? You pretty much knew before
you even said anything what one group was gonna say versus what the other group was gonna say. So it almost didn't
matter what I was doing. It was just an occasion
to go back and forth between the warring sides, right? I advised Michelle and my mother-in-law, you know, don't watch cable news shows. They're designed to get you mad. That's what their purpose is. Social media is worse. They're designed to make you click. And the entire algorithm
and business model is if you can inflame, provoke, anger people or cat videos, then people will go
(chuckles) that was a joke. (audience laughing) Cat videos are very popular. (audience chuckling) Then people will click. And that then means
for advertising revenue for the companies. So for me, creating a better filter, personal filter, was important. Now, obviously the danger is then if it's, you're so filtered then you don't get any
good feedback, right? And I was fortunate
enough that I had a staff. So I said well you watch it. (chuckles) And then you tell me if there's something that we're hearing back that indicates a genuine issue or genuine problem, something we didn't think of, a legitimate critique, then let's discuss it. So you can't completely isolate yourself. And I recognize not
everybody has the luxury of having a staff. So you, in your issues,
whatever you're working on, may feel obliged, okay, I've gotta follow what the chatter is on social media in order for me to be informed and to see how well our
message is getting out, which then suddenly you
have all these trolls who are sending you terrible information. And even if you say to yourself, these are just trolls and
losers in their underwear in a basement somewhere
and who just decided they wanna just be mean, it's not gonna, it doesn't
mean you're not affected. I recognize that. But I do think at least you should be able to
at least break the habit that I suspect all of you
of a certain generation have of constantly checking and renewing. That has less to do with you
needing to get information to do your work and has
more to do with the fact that you've been addicted,
like everybody else, to this device. It's designed to make you addicted. And by the way, I'm not
saying something that is, this isn't a conspiracy. It's a well-known fact, right? Apps are designed and
these social media outlets are designed to maximize your use and amount of time on them. And we're all victim to it. So you have to somehow break that while still being able to take in external information. So that's the personal point. The general point I would make is that we are collectively, all of us, going to have to find ways in which we improve the conversation on the internet and in social media. And it's gonna be difficult to do. I do not believe that
there's an effective way to censor disinformation. Because if you start
getting into a situation like has happened in
the Chinese government or in Russia where the
government's deciding what is appropriate and what's not and basically they have control, they're the filter, the potential for abuse is obviously high. So what that means is is that
we're gonna have to design ourselves and find ways in which we create pockets of sanity and kindness and truth (chuckles) and then build those out. And we have to find ways
to make those entertaining and those interesting to people. And I think that is actually
an interesting project collectively for groups like all of you to engage in, to have a, what sometimes the technology people call a hackathon to brainstorm about how do we build lily pads of sanity and reason on the internet that we
can then slowly grow? Because I do believe that
part of what's driving our politics in a negative direction is the information overload that is coming in through social media. You know, if you look historically, each time there's been a big breakthrough in media technology, whether
it was the printing press or the radio or television, you actually saw those tools creating upheaval, in part, because of the nature of the media. And this is no different. And by the way, it's
gonna get worse with AI because you're gonna start seeing... If you think fake news is bad now, what you're gonna start seeing is the ability to
duplicate people's speech and figures so that it's, distinguishing what's true and what's not is gonna become even more difficult. So one of the things that I think in the Foundation we're
looking at is how do we join, let's say, a conversation and a convening of this group with technologists and start coming up with strategies? And by the way, the strategies, not every one is gonna work right away. So we may have to try a whole
bunch of different things to see what is it that
is able to penetrate and attract attention? And we'll have to test it. And I'm always trying to figure out by talking to my daughters. All right, like, how long
is your attention span? I know you won't listen
to me more than 10 minutes but if, I (chuckles). I'm only half joking on that one. But, you know, look, Sasha's 17. She has a different relationship with the phone and how she
gets information than I do. Than I do, and I have one, but I'm not, I don't live in it the same way she does. So we're gonna have to find ways to think about information and basically take it back from these dominant, very strategic operations. Some of them are state-sponsored, some of them are sponsored
by business interests. The platforms themselves, just by nature, are not designed to how do we foster the most, you know, enlightened
democratic conversation. They're designed to how
do we get the most clicks. So you have these large,
both business interests, political interests, that
are being very strategic about this space, and we don't have, I think, the same kind
of strategic thinking around this space, which
is part of the reason why sometimes it feels as if we're not communicating effectively relative to, say, right wing groups getting their message out to their constituents in this time. All right. Okay, I haven't, I don't
think I've gotten this side. So I think this side
needs a little attention. Yeah, go ahead. Yes, I called on you. (audience laughing) You seem surprised. - I didn't see you because of the light. - I see, okay. Yeah, that makes sense.
- Now I can see better. Hi. So my name is Jelena
and I come from Croatia. I'm not sure is it a speech or a question, but I'll be quick. - That's fine. - I will speak from the
segment of a private sector, social innovation and
social entrepreneurship. Little bit about me. I run a social enterprise
called Family Tales. We create fairy tales for children based on their life experiences, trying to solve their problems. It started as a business just like turning parents' love stories into
bedtime stories for their kids. - That's nice. - Until I wrote a first fairy tale for a child who didn't have a parent. Since then I wrote about 150 fairy tales for orphans by myself. - Oh, that's wonderful. - And I'm teaching others to do the same. - That's great. - And I decided to stop the business part and just to try to build
a cure for these children and turn what I'm doing into
official therapy methodology. And I'm working on it. And nothing on that path
didn't frustrate me, not the lack of money funding and all these like regular stuff. But the lack of understanding from government and bureaucracy is something that it's, few times almost caused me like giving up because you come to the point
where you can do everything but if you don't have a
support from your government, you can't implement your
innovation into this world. Because many times and in many segments the world is not practical
for social change and for social innovation. So my question would be, and it may sound a little bit naive, is
there a way to trigger that change in the government to make them to start understanding how important it is to give us the support other than becoming an activist? Because I don't think I can do that. Maybe I can. Apparently you can motivate people. (chuckles)
(audience chuckling) After your answer, maybe. - Well, look, I mean, I do believe that you
can become an activist. You're already an activist in some ways because what started as you
doing something commercially, you became passionate
about it and now you want the world to know how
children can be helped through what you're doing
and that's activism. And the question then is,
is there a way for you to interact with government and have them recognize that
this may be a useful tool? Yes, you're gonna have to be active. So sorry. It's too late. You're already down that path. Look, there are a couple of ways to get governments to be more responsive. One is, I already spoke about, you vote. Even better than voting
is to have a platform ahead of politicians voting so that you ask them questions and force them to respond
and make commitments. And then you vote. (chuckles) So that they feel some pressure to follow through on the
commitments that they've made. But even when you have
well-meaning politicians and elected officials representing you, there's still gonna be
frustrations around government because look, governments are human institutions and they're big and there are a lot of people involved. I always tell the story, the first week that I became president,
I was in a meeting with the Secretary of Defense at the time who had been there a very long time. He had been in Washington
and served seven presidents. And I said, you know, I'm
the new young president. I say what advice do you have for me in terms of what I should expect? He said, "Mr. President, you now have "a little over two million
people working for you "and a budget of $1 1/2 trillion. "One thing you can know for certain "is that every minute of every day "somebody somewhere is screwing up. "Somebody somewhere out of
those two million people "is doing something
really stupid right now." Which is true. Because, look, it's
just a big organization. And even a well-run organization, you've got people out there and
there's gonna be frustration and bureaucracy and
sometimes there are rules that are set up that
seem like sensible rules. Right? So you pass a law we don't
want somebody in government just giving somebody a contract without first confirming that
the money's being well spent. Well, that's a sensible rule, except okay, how do we determine that
the money's not well spent? Now we gotta have a bunch
of committees and processes and application forms. And all of these flow from a good idea but if you have a good
idea and you're trying to get government to act
and now it's six months or a year and you're still waiting, it can seem frustrating. And I will say, by the way, Europeans, you guys like a lot of rules and a lot of meetings. (audience laughing) And you've got a lot of governments. It's hard to keep up sometimes. (chuckles) Okay, you got the Commission and you got the Parliament
and you got this and you got that. When I used to come over for meetings, I'd be like didn't I just meet with them? No, that's a different thing. This is this.
(audience laughing) Okay, and everybody's
talking for a long time. (audience chuckling) So, you know, I understand
that frustration. But the point I'm making is, in addition to electing good people, one of the things that
you can do, I think, is encourage and work with governments to identify where are bottlenecks, where are inefficiencies that
could potentially be solved and then finding allies
to help improve processes inside of government. So rather than just complain, one of the things you can do is to find some, you know,
smart young politician who's a progressive and
wants to try new things and say hey, how 'bout let's put these application processes online and so that before I
come down to the office, you can tell me ahead of time what information I need to bring. Right? Just simple things, that can increase in sophistication over time but can make government work better. The point is, I think sometimes we think of the government as this thing that is separate from us. But if we're active citizens, then part of our job is
not just to get government to respond to us, it's also to improve the government. Make it work better so that the person who comes after us trying
to get something done won't have the same frustrations. Right? And that, I think, requires somebody on the inside as well as
somebody on the outside. You've gotta have people
on the outside pushing and then you've gotta
have people on the inside who are willing to be pushed. And it means that when you're
interacting with government, having constructive ideas. If you come, if you
experience a frustration, then the next time you're
with a Parliamentarian or some government official who you're trying to get action from, you should say to them
in a, not in a mean way. Not like you guys are terrible and stupid, but say, you know, I just want you to know that like I had to wait for six months and maybe if, why is that? Is there something we can do? I have an organization here. I can be supportive and,
you know, helping you just make this office
work better in this issue that we care deeply about
and I'm sure you do too. Right? So there may be ways. But you have to take
some ownership over that. All right. Let's see. Yes. Right here. - Me? - Yes, yes. No, no, no, no. Well, you know what? I'll call on you just so
you don't feel depressed but this young lady I had called on first. - All right, she's got-- - Is that fair? - Yes. - Yes, I think it's fair. - Hi. - Hi. Oh, no, no, no, no. See, bad, I, nobody--
(audience laughing) - He gave me the microphone. I'm sorry. - Yeah, yeah, this one right here. I didn't even see you having your hand up. (audience chuckling) - Hi, again from me also. It's a pleasure to be here. My name is Koubra. I'm a writer and an activist
and I've been an activist for 15 years, half my life. And over the course of the last years I realized that we all know
how the human brain works. You present a problem and then we come up with the solutions. - Well, that's how it should work. I'm not sure that's how it
actually works but that's okay. - And what drives us to
see things differently, what drives us is to
have a different world, to strive for a different world. So we come up with all these
solutions to different problems that we come across and
all the time, you know, we try to create, I would
try to create solutions for larger problems. But over the course of
the years I realized that maybe what we're only doing is fixing a system that in and of itself is broken. And what I'm missing is questions like who's our society designed for? What kind of people do we think about when we design our society? (audience applauding) And over the course of
the years I realized that trying to solve
problems might also be a way to keep the system working. And I wonder, do we need more
or different conversations on how we want to design
society more generally? And also think about conversations like, we have no idea
what it's like to live in a just world. We have no idea what it's
like to live in a world that does not discriminate
based on gender, race, economic status, and so on and so on. We have no idea what
the future looks like. So we constantly come up with solutions, constantly try and change things, and I wonder, do we need
a different conversation? Should we stop fixing problems or maybe not stop fixing problems but while also we're doing it, also think about larger questions so that we can come up with true visions. Not only visions that have
a solution for a time span of five years, but long-lasting,
sustainable solutions. (audience applauding)
- Well look, I mean I think... This is an age-old debate,
what you just described. Right? Which is you start off in an imperfect world, all right? What I used to call the world as it is. Like fish in a bowl,
sometimes we are trapped by just what we see around us. It's hard for us to get outside of that bowl and to imagine an entirely different
set of possibilities. And it may be that the
world as it should be requires a completely radical set of new institutions and new ways to think about human relationships and of an entirely different paradigm. Right? But here's the thing is in the world as it is there's a child that's hungry right now. And in the world as it is, there are some migrant families that are behind barbed wire. And in the world as it is, I've got a young man who wants to work but can't find a job. Our task, at least I view my task, as being how do I navigate
between the world as it is and the world as it should
be and I'd like it to be? And by definition what that means is that I have to keep one foot in reality even as I'm imagining something better. And yes, that may constrain what I consider to be possible. But this is why I'm not a philosopher. I'm not a theoretician. There is a role for them to play also. To write and to think and to
completely free themselves from the constraints
of the world as it is. And I respect that. I want thinkers like
that who are out there. But in the meantime, I'm here. In the mud, in the dirt. And so there I do have constraints. And I have to continually
guard against thinking okay, only this is possible, when, in fact, if I was
bolder, more would be possible. But the one thing I would
caution about is thinking that, 'cause I saw
everybody doing this thing. The one thing I would caution about is thinking somehow that change in societies happen quickly or happen
because you think boldly. Societies are somewhat sticky. And what that means is that everybody, you know, we grow up in, surrounded by all kinds of social structures and expectations and habits and norms and customs. When you start trying to radically change things quickly, the track record has not been great. It hasn't been. So let's imagine, for example, we'll just take an example. This wasn't one you used but
I'll just use an example. Right now global capitalism is creating large-scale inequality. We'll set aside the issue of environmental
sustainability for a second. Let's just talk about economics. It is creating large-scale inequality and that inequality is accelerating. And it's true in every society. It's true between countries. It's true within countries. And it seems to be getting
progressively worse. And part of that can be
explained by the fact that the more technologically
driven the economy is, the more redundant labor
is and can be replaced. It means that if I have the ability to leverage the technology,
I now have a global market. I can make huge amounts
of profit very quickly. I don't have to employ as many people. And that gives me a huge share of society's productivity versus somebody who is unskilled and only has their labor to offer, right? So we could have a long
discussion about that. Now, what do we do about that? It is certainly true that we have to... If we we don't figure out
a way in which all people feel as if they've got a
stake in the economic order and can support families
and feel productive, then political chaos
eventually will reign. And we'll see backlash and radicalism from the right and the left
and resentments will grow. So we've gotta figure this out. But I would say that some societies are doing better than others. Hey, if you go to the
Scandinavian countries, they're not perfect, it
hasn't eliminated inequality but you know what? Actually it's done pretty good. (chuckles) And it's not that radical, you know. Basically their solution has been, we'll tax people more, (chuckles) we'll tax the rich people more and then we will give
better public services to the people who are not as rich. Now, has that eliminated completely groups that are being
discriminated against? Of course not. Does that, has that accommodated immigrants who are viewed as well, that's, this program shouldn't be for them? Of course not. So that's not a radical change. That's not a perfect change. But it's better than societies
that don't have these issues. I tell you, if you are a single mother in the United States right now who's poor, it's a lot harder for you
to get decent child care and help raise your child
than it is in Finland. And that difference is significant. So the question then becomes, yes, we have to continually re-imagine maybe even something larger
than that, something completely much more radically
generous towards each other, but in the meantime, I'd like to see improvements. And I know you don't
necessarily disagree with this. My only point is, I think we have to be careful in balancing big dreams and bold ideas with also recognizing that,
typically, change happens in steps. And if you wanna skip steps, you can. Historically what's ended up happening is sometimes if you skip too many steps, you end up having bad outcomes. Not always, but sometimes. Oh, I promised that I would call on that gentleman right there. - Thank you. And by the way, one of your
staff just came up to me and said this was gonna
be the last question, so make it good.
(audience chuckling) - Oh, wow.
- No pressure. And also said make it quick otherwise you would miss your flight. (audience laughing) But you know that would be pretty cool to make Obama miss his flight
by asking a long question. (audience laughing) So my name's Nick. I'm a Brexit migrant based in Berlin now and working for Ashoka
which is a global community of social entrepreneurs. (audience applauding) And we have a, we have a
bigger bit crazy vision of actually empowering every citizen as an agent of positive change. And my question to you
regarding that would be, how can we give every
child as young as possible the chance top find their
power to change the world? So how important do you think that is that at a very young age
and how can we do it? - You know, I think it's really important. It turns out that habits of, habits of participation and voting and involvement, there's
a direct correlation between people who start early and young and what they do in adulthood. And if we are teaching young people their power early, they
will sustain that power over the long term. I mean, Michelle and I talk
about with our daughters, we were actually
relatively strict parents, I have to confess, in the sense that we tried to give them structure. But we always would talk to them as if they were adults, as if they weren't stupid about what we were doing. So, you know, we wouldn't just say, go to bed because you have to go to bed. We'd say well, you know, go to bed 'cause you get cranky when you're tired and tomorrow you've gotta go to school and so forth and so on. And then they'd, if they had an argument, we'd say okay, you know,
give us your best argument. And since they were six,
usually we'd win the argument 'cause they hadn't thought
(audience laughing) things through that much. But what that did was it, right, it teaches independence of thinking and a sense of, okay,
I'm being listened to and I've got the ability
to make an argument. The same is true in our public life, in our schools, in our civic settings. And I think that kind of empowerment is critically important. And the earlier you
start, the better it is. And one of the things that we're gonna be interested in doing is working with groups like all of yours to
think about how do you communicate, not just with your peers, but also with the people coming behind you because those are gonna
be your future voters, your future constituents,
your future leaders. And starting that conversation
earlier rather than later. You know, the Friday movement that's been taking place
around climate change is... (audience applauding) A lot of those people can't vote, right? They're too young to vote yet. But they know what's going on. And they're making change. And those habits and that sense of power that they are developing now, that's gonna carry over for
the rest of their lives. So it's something that I think is very much on our agenda and we're gonna want to strategize and think about how we can approach that, how we can do it. Okay? Good. Even though I said last question, I always take one extra one. So gentleman right here. (audience applauding and cheering) Oh, he's got, what, you guys, you guys know this guy? - That's my team. - That's your team. You got your crew. - Mr. President, my
name is Danny Gyamerah. I'm Chairman of Each One Teach One and it's probably the largest black-led employment
organization in Germany. - Excellent. - We have about 8000 books
by people of African descent and we strive to empower youth and do anti-discrimination work and so on. - Excellent. - And I want to ask you if
you can help us to start a 10 million civil society fund for people of African descent because we have the knowledge, we have the people but we
don't have access to funding. It would be really great
if you could come here and support us in doing that. - Well, I tell you what... (audience applauding) So first of all, I wanna hear more about the work you're doing. And second of all, as is
true for all the groups that are here, I recognize that, you know, yeah, okay, I wanna hear
Obama's advice and ideas, blah, blah, blah, but you know what I really could use is a check. (audience laughing) I've been there. No, I get it. But, what I will, what I will commit to all of you is that as we develop a pool of donors who are interested in these issues, hopefully we can create a consortium that, as it learns about what various
organizations are doing, we can say oh, you're interested in this? Well, Reach One Teach
One's doing great work. You should contact them. Or oh, you're interested in climate? This organization's doing great work and we can channel those resources. Keep in mind that we're
not just focused on Europe, so it's great work that you're doing on behalf of the African
diaspora in Europe but we're also working
in Africa (chuckles) where they also would like
some financial support. So we're, and Asia and, right? So in each of these areas,
part of what we're doing, and sprinkled among you, by the way, are some donors who have been listening and watching this process
that we've engaged and invited to be inspired by all of you, part of our goal would be to set up essentially a clearinghouse for philanthropic efforts regionally so that you all have direct access. I don't even have to
necessarily be an intermediary, in which you have more access
to talk to and directly work with people who are interested in supporting the work that you're doing. 'Cause I've been on the other
side trying to raise money. And it's, you know, sometimes it's hard. I was talking to some donors earlier about the fact that, you
know, the safe thing to do is ah, I give to a museum or I give to a, you know, hospital or I give to a well-established charity because there's no
possibility of controversy. And I said to these donors, I said look, admittedly if you fund and engage with social activists who are trying to bring
about systemic change and re-imagine how society might work together, there are probably some
more risks involved because it's harder. 'Cause in some cases it
hasn't been done before. I mean, we haven't been confronted before with a situation where
we had to stop the planet from getting completely burned. (chuckles) We haven't dealt before
with some of the issues that we are dealing with or we haven't dealt with
them wisely and well before. So we're creating new models. So there's gonna be some risks involved. But if you don't want
to see a continuation of current trends, if you
want to actually see progress, then you have to invest, just like venture capitalists
invest in start-ups, you have to invest in folks
who are trying new things. And yes, there's more risks,
but there's also most upside. And I truly believe that. My belief is, investing in you is our best investment. And what I can do more
than anything, I think, is to spotlight,
highlight, bring attention to the work you're doing, and occasionally maybe, you
know, give a little inspiration. But your work will speak for itself and will potentially, I think, not only inspire donors
but, more importantly, change the world. (audience applauding) So thank you very much, everybody. It was good to see you. Thank you! Thank you!
