[Applause] do you know what is 50 years turns out to be a human lifetime the youth that are graduating school around the world today are 18 19 20 years old they're going to be 70 in the year 2060 what is the one thing that we can do to give them the best chance to succeed in the world to give the world the best chance to succeed what is the one thing that will stay with them for their entire lives their education it is the one thing that we have to get right what did you want
to be when you grew up what do you still want to be when you grow up I wanted to be an astronaut I'm looking for three answers entrepreneur Tri traveler dancer young people around the world have the same hopes and dreams whether they live in Bolivia Rwanda or whether they have parents that earn $200,000 a year or live on $2 a day whether they pray to Allah or the Virgin Mary they want to be entrepreneurs they want to be dancers they want to be Engineers they want to be scientists they want to be thinkers just
like you you and I too often when we talk about global global education we talk about literacy I believe education is much much more than that young people are have dreams they have hopes and dreams and today we're hearing about amazing technological scientific Visions for the future robots cyborgs we're going to hear about artificial intelligence The Singularity I want to talk about something much more human I want to talk about young people and their hopes and dreams I believe education is the single most powerful tool we have to eradicate Global poverty to transform the human
landscape to to take control of our common Destiny let me tell you about Mercy Mercy um was made fun of in school she was a bookworm she wanted to be a professor growing up but when she turned 18 her parents told her you can't go to school anymore we can't afford for you to go to school you have to come work so she went to go work for a family's roadside food stand selling to males by an out on on the outskirts of Lima fast forward five years Mercy gets one of the first student microloans
in Peru $350 this enables Mercy to go back to school for the first time in years it was too late for her to become a professor but she still had her dream to teach and she is on her way to becoming a school teacher today but something even more happened something about those extra couple years of education something about that $350 loan transformed her from within she decided my daughter is never going to have to go through what I went through and she opened a college savings account for her 4-year-old daughter this is a woman
living on $3.89 a day she opened a college savings account for her four-year-old daughter I want you to think about that for a second for the past 50 years Global education has been about literacy literacy has amazing effects you you birth rate goes down maternal Health goes up HIV AIDS goes down crime domestic violence goes down and in the last 50 years we have cut youth aliteracy from 45% to under 15% but despite that Global poverty has not been attacked there are 5 billion people that live on less than $10 a day what's next is
literacy everything I believe education must be about opportunity for the last 50 years education has been about literacy literacy is not enough the next 50 years must be about Ed opportunity I want you to imagine for a moment the difference between knowing how to read and write and for Mercy being a school teacher the difference between knowing how to read and write and being a dancer knowing how to read and write and being an engineer a doctor a dancer anything for young people in poverty those first few years of education After High School are transformative
they are amazing in so many ways that I can't even begin to start but I'm going to try we've been working with youth in developing countries for years now helping them get the money they need to get those extra few years of education and they are transformative the one thing that we see is is there's a couple things that we see you look at education in in the United States and you look at student loans here more than or in in the United States 40% of students end up not paying their loans in developing countries
when you invest in youth more than 99% of students repay their loans micr Finance also has a high repayment rate but the income change the economic impact has never been proven when you invest in education and in youth in developing countries you can can triple someone's income instead of scholarships we found a way of making it sustainable education micr Finance basically those first few years are economically transformative creating exponential increases in income every year produces huge increases and in the first couple years you can triple someone's income from $3 a day to nine they're emotionally
transformative empowering youth to become strong men and women women they are transformative for families lifting mothers to be and fathers to be well beyond the criticality line of poverty and they are transformative for communities and Nations as young people become teachers and and nurses and engineers and they are transformative for Nations as human capital is created to cat catapult them Beyond sub uh Beyond dependence and into thriving coexistence what do I imagine 2060 looking like well I can tell you in SE in in 50 years there are going to be five 10 there are going
to be 10 billion people on the planet the overwhelming majority of whom live in developing countries as our youth grow up they're coming from India Peru Brazil and Africa how do we create a world that is thriving that is sustainable that is healthy that is innovative a world that we are proud to live in what if there were five billion Minds that were teachers Engineers doctors What If instead of literacy there were all of these people there was human capital instead of everything that we see today which has been created by a few hundred million
Minds what if there were 5 billion doctors teach teachers nurses dancers scientists thinkers what would the world look like what would the world look like if we could eradicate poverty if if instead of subsistence farming droughts and famines or about creating Capital creating human capital building Nations and Thinking Beyond the next day what does the world look like if our daughters were able to get the same education and become community Role Models taking this their place alongside leadership positions along with our sons you look at communities and Nations and organizations that have women in leadership
the better governance less corruption fewer Wars what does the world look like if our youth could achieve their hopes and dreams you look around the world today at Occupy Wall Street you look at Arab Spring young people have hopes and dreams no one wants to no one grows up thinking they want to fight or kill they want to become their dreams they want to become what they imagined being it is when you deny those dreams that is when people rise up that is when youth rise up what if there were no more child soldiers no
more Wars over land oil and water what would the world look like if instead of literacy education were about opportunity what if what would the world look like if for the next 50 years education and opportunity compounded itself year after year for the next 50 years I don't know I can only begin to imagine but I do know that is a world that I would be proud to live in so I ask you what does education mean to you all of us in this room is it literacy or is it something more than that is
it dreams is it what we wanted to be when we grow up is it something personal is it aspirational it is universal it is not literacy literacy is not enough for the next 50 years I Envision a world where education connects youth to opportunity literacy is not enough and a global conversation about what education means begins today thank you [Music]
