 Live from Washington DC, it's Cube Conversations with John Furrier. Over on, welcome to this special Cube Conversation here in Washington DC. We're getting all the stories. We are at the Halcyon House here with Kate Goodall as the co-founder and CEO of Halcyon for Cube Conversation. Thanks for joining me today. My pleasure. So talk about Halcyon and your mission. You're doing something really important here in societal entrepreneurship. It's a nonprofit. It's a really interesting mission. You're having an impact. Talk about what you guys are doing. Yeah, we believe in the power of human creativity and the power of compassion to change the world for the better. And by that, I mean that we take some incredible change makers with really bold ideas about how they can affect societal change through business and art. And we give them a number of supports, including a free place to live in this very expensive city, a fantastic mentor, an office, a community around them, money. And we don't take equity in their ventures. And this house that we're here is a mansion in Washington DC. Talk about the story about this house and this residence. Yeah, it's got very revolutionary roots. It was built by Benjamin Stoddard, who was the first secretary of the Navy during the Revolutionary War. And from then, it exchanged hands several times. And one of them was a relative of Mark Twain. And he is responsible for most of its 30,000 square feet. And then, lastly, it was in the hands of the Dreyfus family before it was bought by Dr. Kuno, who is my co-founder and the chair of Halcyon. And Halcyon Mission, you guys have a unique formula. Talk about how the fellowships, how do you guys select the ventures? What's the program? They live here. It's a residence. So it's an interesting thing. Yeah, we give them three things. Everything breaks down into three things, space, community and access. We believe that if you give people not only physical space, which is important because we have to remember that not everyone has a parent's basement they can live in and friends and family they can go get money from. So it democratizes the playing field to just be able to select people with the best ideas and the most talent and the best drive. But also headspace, what does it mean when you give someone with a brilliant idea five months to just work on their idea? Then community is very, very important. There's a lot of atrocious analogies for entrepreneurship. People compare it to staring into the abyss or chewing glass. And it creates a lot of emotions, lots of ups and downs. So having a built-in community, which we have here is very important. Then lastly, access. And by that, I mean there are not only investors, but these days governments, philanthropists, others that are seeking solutions to some of these very hairy 21st century problems. They want access to these ideas. And if we do our job correctly, we're creating a bridge for these entrepreneurs to those people as well. Yeah, entrepreneurship certainly is hard. And it's even harder when you're trying to crack the code on societal problems. And so this brings up an interesting trend that we've been seeing emerging really rapidly in the past few years with cloud computing and other big data, internet of things, technologies on a global scale is the societal entrepreneurship model, where you're accelerating and opening up new ways to democratize, crowdsource, fund, and change the game and reimagine philanthropy, policy, education, diversity, all in one. You guys are kind of doing that here. And it really is a ground zero here in Washington DC because of the access and the ecosystem of governments and everything's here. So you're seeing this building up in Washington DC. Talk about this new force, this new driving force of change called societal entrepreneurship. Yeah, so we believe it's definitely one way to really change the game. It's a way to use business principles to attack some of these enormous social problems. Many would argue that philanthropy and perhaps government have failed at some of this recently. Philanthropy was originally designed to solve problems, not to become a charity machine. And certainly the government finds it hard to do some of those things today as well. And so figuring out how to really attack some of these enormous, hairy 21st century problems using these business principles so that the solutions can then also be scaled effectively is absolutely what we're trying to approach. It's interesting. You see the old guard, the old ways of doing things, policy, people just checking boxes, philanthropy kind of a big donor kind of model. And then now with cloud computing, new things are emerging. In your mind, what's changed the most now from just even five, 10 years ago? What's the big difference in today's culture, in today's environment, in the world in Washington DC? Oh my gosh, so many things I could talk about. One of the reasons I think that social enterprise really came into being partially is because there was a recession and millennials didn't have jobs. So they had to create them and they created them in a new model. They created them in a way that gave them satisfaction beyond just getting a paycheck. The Jobs Act gave foundations the ability to invest in for profits and gave us crowd sourcing and crowdfunding. And these things have really made some of this cross-sectoral polarization possible for the first time. I think people generally are frustrated that this amazing pace of change and internet of things and all this stuff still hasn't solved some of these big problems. So there's so many forces in at play. And I think one thing that I'll also point to, because as I explained to you, I'm an archaeologist and historian by training, and if you look over the course of human history, any time when you've had rapid change in technologies or you've had vast inequalities in terms of wealth, you end up with a depression or a war or both. And I really believe that the power of social entrepreneurship can for once maybe let the gas out of the balloon a little bit more gently. And I think that's something really great to be optimistic about. How do you see that happening, honestly? We're connected to society now. We have our mobile devices. We have our things on our body, internet of things. And it's all there. Is that how you see it? I mean, how do you see the relief coming so we don't have a war or a depression? Yeah, I mean, I think that's the point. We have tremendous power now, right? Just in our hands to be able to solve some of these problems. Human ingenuity is a great thing. I think creativity and compassion are going to be the things that the machines replicate last. And so we support that wholeheartedly. And I think maybe we can talk about some examples of some of our ventures and what they're doing, because I think that's the best way to paint. What does this mean? What is it? One of our current fellows, Ryan Socia, has created JDo, which is a way to anonymously unite victims of sexual assault so that they can take legal action. It has a business model. But it's been proven that victims of assault are much more effective when they go as a group instead of alone. So it's a really brilliant way to use technology. Another one from our past cohort, Brandon Anderson, is using a chatbot, Rahim AI, to collect better data on policing, and then is working with police departments to use that data so that they can have better community relations. So these are both very relevant and timely issues that we're approaching in a non-partisan way using technology to solve. One more I'll give in our current cohort, Peleve, which is a company that's thinking about the internet of things and how it can solve for the opiate crisis. They've created a pill bottle that connects to your phone or your family's phone and can give data and control over medication so that you can really start to attack addiction. Kate, talk about the power of weed and capital, what you've been doing with the women's network here in Washington, DC, because it's not just a women in tech inclusion issue. There's a lot of disparity we've been covering, certainly on a silicon angle. But there's really a lot of powerful women and talented folks, whether it's creative or on the business side or technical side, where the societal problems, these are products that are used by the entire population. And so there's an effort to have more women involved in not just designing products, but actually being part of these new reimagined solutions and technologies. How important do you see that here? What are some of the hurdles and successes that you've had here? I agree with that analysis completely. And I will, I'm biased, but I think that Washington is an amazing city for some incredibly smart women. And when we created Halcyon, we created a committee that was diverse and reflective of the diversity we wanted to see in our cohort. So diverse by any factor, age, gender, race, sexual orientation. And what that's resulted in, happily, is a Halcyon community that has 52% of our ventures founded or co-founded by women. And 58% of our ventures founded by a person of color. But then when we looked around, the investor base didn't exactly reflect our fellows. So we started to think about how we could engender and cultivate investors that were also diverse. And one of the ways to do that was to create a group of women in DC that wanted to fund social impact, leaning women-led ventures. And it's called We Capital. It's led by Dr. Kuno, who's my co-founder and chair at Halcyon, and Sheila Johnson, who was one of the founders of BET and has now has founded Salamander Resorts. And there's 13 other remarkable women in that contingent. And they're all paying it back. But in a very smart way, they get some market rate returns. I mean, this is interesting. The community paying it forward has been the ethos of very robust and successful communities, Silicon Valley here in Washington DC. How do you scale that? How do you go global with this? Because now you have a global model, Silicon Valley DC, and all around the world, where you now have different communities coming together, kind of all with the same mission, potentially. How do you blend it all in? How do you take that to the next level? That's a good question. I mean, we're kind of gradually building what I call a kind army. Just this amazing community that has ripple effects. We don't feel that we have to own or control this in any way. Just over 3 and 1 half years, we've had 55 ventures come through here. They've raised nearly $40 million, impacted half a million people around the world in a positive way. They've created nearly 500 jobs. So you start to see the exponential growth, even just as we sit here in this building. But I do think that there's a long way to go in terms of people understanding. This societal entrepreneurship or social entrepreneurship, people have different definitions for it. And there's a long way to go in terms of government and philanthropy really being able to understand it. Because in some ways, as I mentioned, they've sort of lost touch with who their customers are. Kate, I've always been saying on Silicon Valley and my Facebook page is also on theCUBE that Silicon Valley doesn't get DC. They try to come in, wave their arms around. You don't get it, and they try to be, they're impatient, I would say, if I categorize. They get DC, but I don't think they have the patience for it. It's a new culture here. I'll see the pace of change is accelerating in DC. But there's a formula for DC. What is the secret to be successful in Washington DC? If you're a tech entrepreneur or an investor or someone from Silicon Valley or not from here. We do get the advantage of being able to see who does that well and who doesn't. And tech is obviously leading ahead of policy, policies trailing tech. And I think that can understandably make policy makers nervous. They've got a lot of understanding to do to be able to make sound policy decisions. And these tech solutions are very complicated. So the people in tech that I see being successful around policy are those that will take the time to really sit down and pick through a problem with a policy maker and help them to understand it. Policy makers are actually very smart, but they're dealing with a lot. And... So education. Education, education, education. Absolutely, you can't sort of come in here and be impatient that they're not getting it. So yeah, but I think that that's going to be essential. We've got to figure out how to talk to each other and how to talk across different languages, different domains, different sectors, and create some better intersectionality. So what's next for Halcyon? What's the vision? What's your vision of how this will go forward? Obviously you've got a great model, batches coming through cohorts. You have demo days here. I notice you set up downstairs for a demo day. So it's very robust, classic incubator accelerator model with the residents, a little unique there. What's next? Where do you go from here? Well, so we don't take equity in any of our ventures, but we are thinking about creating a fund because so many of our ventures are performing exceptionally well. And we are actually going to be launching a festival that really takes the power of creativity and compassion and art and technology here in DC, and that will be in June. And we're hoping that that way we can reach a wider audience. And that's going to be very exciting. But the long term vision really is, you know, how can we harness the power of compassion and creativity to solve 21st century problems? And how can we do that at scale? The classic disruption model is gatekeepers are being disrupted by the new guard, as Amy Jassy would say in Amazon. But there's a new creative as well. I mean, I did a panel at Sundance a few weeks ago where we talked about this new creative where a democratization is happening in the artist level and the filmmaker level. And that seems to be happening across all industries. A new creative is developing. So what's your view of the digital impact? Because artistry can be, you know, sculptures and painting and whatnot, too classic, you know, artistry or filmmaking, but now techs involve digital. It's kind of coming together. Is that kind of the vision, how you see art and science coming together? Yeah, I mean, artists are fantastic disruptors, right? Sometimes they don't even need to paint a picture. They just use their abilities as an artist to do things other people can't. And that's why they're awfully fun to be around. But yeah, I think that you're absolutely right. You know, I point to Dee Reese as a great example who didn't get her funding for her film Mudbound through the Hollywood machine. She said she went straight to Netflix and now she's getting an Oscar. That's a new way of doing things, right? We have one of our fellows, Dishana, who created Quelle TV, which is Netflix for the African diaspora because Netflix just doesn't have the kind of black filmmaking that she wants to see. So yeah, I absolutely see people using digital to do different kinds of disruption, including sort of, you know, on the art side of things. We have another program, The Arts Lab, very similar to this, but working with excellent artists who are thinking about social justice. One of the artists there, Georgia Saxelby, is doing a project called Two Future Women. And she's collecting letters that women are writing to other women 19 years from now. They're being archived by the museums in DC and will be displayed on the eve of the Women's March. I mean, wouldn't it be great to know what the suffragettes were thinking? And that all requires technology to be able to successfully collect those, disseminate them, archive them, et cetera. So new channels to the marketplace, breaking down the barriers for the gatekeepers seems to be the trend. How is that happening in your world, in DC, and in philanthropy? Because you're now creating a new model of entrepreneurship. Yes, yes. Not just philanthropy, hey, nice job, or policy checkbox, it's real change. And arguably a new model for philanthropy, right? Because very rarely is philanthropy so immersive where we're literally taking these people and we're living with them for five months and giving them all of these supports. And I think it's also a new model in that it's risk-taking. It's not like a safe and secure metric-based proven solution. Some of these ventures are gonna fail. And I think that that's okay, right? That's just testing and trying and finding the best and moving forward. I was gonna make another point. You guys are changing the world. Obviously, I made a comment on Facebook kind of joke. We're saving the world at the same time because you mentioned you can actually get ahead of some of these trends with these gaps, whether it's inequity, inequality, or however these gaps are, causes either war or depression. As history points out. Now you have an opportunity to use not just diagnostic capability, but predictive and prescriptive mechanisms. What are some of those things that someone could see and kind of connect the dots around an example of something that's prescriptive? To say, wait, whoa, time out. We got something going on over there. There's a problem, space we can solve with a solution. What are some examples that you see playing out where this model could work? I'm not sure I quite understand the question. If we had the ability to use technology to solve some societal problems, what are some examples that you're seeing here in your incubator that are kind of pointing to this new trend? Yeah, I mean, I think that our fellows are fantastic examples of that. Many of them are tech enabled, whether or not they're using apps or the cloud or just a new actual technology product I mean, one of our fellows is using, he's created a new product that disrupts the vestibular system so that you don't feel motion sickness. Now, this is actually a product that is obviously very valuable for just everyday people who are going to be in driverless cars trying to do their work. But it is also, it turns out, very useful for the military and very useful for people who are trying to create virtual reality. 40% of the people cannot put a virtual reality headset on and not feel nauseous. So, I do think that it is tech's job to solve some of these problems that we haven't been able to solve yet. In many ways, the internet and the internet of things is our biggest leap forward since fire, right? So now how are we going to use it to create the kind of disruption that fire did? Fire allowed us to eat more things, grow bigger, then start to farm. And I think that we haven't even hit the cusp of what the internet can do yet. It can do way more things than deliver products to our doorsteps. Get the fire and then the wheel comes, you know? What is the tech wheel? I think it's going to be really... Personal question for you. What is the big learnings that you've had over the past few years? Back to you, I didn't expect that to happen, or wow, that was super awesome, or a failure, a success. What was your big learnings that you've come out? Oh my gosh, do you have like an hour? We've learned how not to do and how to do mentorship very well. You can't take mentorship lightly. This is human chemistry we're talking about, and even if you think you've got the perfect match on paper, it may not work. We have certainly learned a lot about how it is really important to have investors that reflect entrepreneurs because to your very point it's going to take everyone to create technologies that work for everyone. It also creates, we also need investors who look like everyone because otherwise there is inherent bias. Really good people have inherent bias, and that needs to be solved for. Because I straddle both art and entrepreneurship in my role, there's some really interesting things that I've noticed in terms of how entrepreneurs see the world as infinite resource, and artists see it as very finite, and how some of our systemic problems are reflected almost identically in both fields. This is an interesting statistic. 5% of venture capital goes to women, we know that, and 1% to African-Americans, 0.01 to black women. In the museum world, in museums in the Western hemisphere, 5% of their art collection is women artists, 1% is African-American artists. That's not a coincidence. That's a clear picture of how power structures have evolved to make certain types of decisions about who should get capital, who is worth collecting, and we're definitely solving for that. And certainly having a lens on that and exposing that to sunlight is the way to cure that. Absolutely, it's very important. Talk about artistry. One of the things we've been talking about in the software and the tech business is the role of artistry and craft. And we see that swinging back in with cloud computing, kind of, I wouldn't say took the craft out of software development, but you're seeing these integrated solutions where craftmanship and art are coming together. We're seeing examples, certain in Asia, in China, we've seen examples where the development world, the technical world has come together with the artistry world to create these new solutions. So you have creative and you've got technical coming together, that's what you're doing. Yeah, no, absolutely. What's the success formula, is there one? Is it right brain, left brain? What's the... I don't know, we've just got this bubbling cauldron of creativity and we're pulling stuff out of it as we go. But I think it is important for us not to forget about art. Art has been at the forefront of every social change, every movement. If it does its job, it's of the moment and it tells us a lot about ourselves. But there's also that important thing about art with technology and with consumer products. The reason that the iPhone was so successful is because it's a thing of beauty. And everyone is sort of in awe of it. So design is critical. It's absolutely critical when you're thinking about scale or consumer products or tech that works. And having a good taste for good art is also a skill. Knowing what's beautiful. Of course. And that's... Tech guys love to have that skill. You could argue that that's getting democratized and disrupted as well. Kate, thanks so much for spending some time here. My pleasure, this is fun. It's a cube conversation. Kate, co-founder and CEO of Halcyon, here in Washington DC, changing the world's societal entrepreneurship. A lot of great actions through cube coverage. Thanks for watching.