 Ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm welcome to the Director of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, Caroline Bowman. For creation, just a welcome to Cooper Hewitt's National Design Off. Tonight's festivities, I am delighted to present the 13th Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, David Scorton. David served as President of Cornell University for nine years. He is the first medical doctor to lead the Smithsonian, and he is an avid amateur musician. I am thrilled David is here tonight to help us celebrate our winners. Welcome, David. Thanks, Caroline, and welcome everyone. This is going to be a great evening. Do you agree? Yeah. All right, it's going to be wonderful. I want to thank you for coming. I want to take the first chance to congratulate the awardees. I want to ask you for just a moment to join me in recognizing and thanking Caroline Bowman and the staff of the Cooper Hewitt, one of the nation's treasures. Caroline, and I want to thank those of you who, through your generosity and thoughtfulness, helped to make this fabulous institution what it is. But normally, these speeches, like this one, are a stem-winder. It's a chance for you to get some wine poured in your glass and meet the person next to you. But I want to share just one serious thought with you. Stick with me on this, and then I promise I'll get out of your way, and you can enjoy dinner. So I'm a physician, as Caroline mentioned, and a scientist. And our country focuses on STEM. We want our kids to study STEM. We want our schools to teach STEM. We want to make sure that we're advancing in the world of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. And I've spent my whole career in those fields. But we all know that our thorniest problems here and around the world are not going to be solved by science alone. And unfortunately, many of our communities and our country is systematically sort of disinvesting in the arts and the humanities. And I've been concerned about this for some years and talking about it. And I've been looking for something to hold up as an example of how we can bring all these fields together and remind people of all the things it is that we value in our lives. And I found it the first time I visited Cooper-Hewitt. Because design defies those easy categorizations. Is it art? Of course. Is it science? You bet. Is it social science? Psychology? Definitely. So design in a word captures many things, many, many things that we value. And I'm thrilled to be a part of the Smithsonian. I've been here 15 weeks, asked me anything. I can tell you anything about it. But I'm thrilled to be here. And I'm really thrilled to have a tiny part in these proceedings tonight. Because I think that what we are doing, what you are doing, and what we will do in the future, is to utilize design as a way not only to make our lives better and lives around the world, but to remind us all of what we value. So thanks for listening. Have a fabulous evening and enjoy. Thank you, David, for those thoughtful words right on. I join you in expressing my sincere gratitude to First Lady Michelle Obama as honorary patron of the National Design Awards. She has been an enthusiastic and effective advocate for design and for Cooper Hewitt these past six years. What a night. What a year. I am truly overjoyed to see everyone here tonight. You are helping make Cooper Hewitt history. Just 10 months ago, we reopened our doors after a once-in-a-lifetime renovation. And I am still electrified by what we achieved. A totally transformed museum dedicated to educating, inspiring, and empowering people through design. The one-of-a-kind Cooper Hewitt team and 13 brilliant design firms renewed Cooper Hewitt inside and out. And I'm very happy that some of those stellar designers and partners are here with us tonight. Jake Barton, Liz Diller, Richard Gluckman, Rick Scafidio, and Bob Zirkel. I am very excited now to share some excellent news that you are the first to hear about. Cooper Hewitt has just been awarded lead silver certification for the museum's renovation project. This is quite an achievement which this audience understands. This mammoth renovation would not have been possible without the unwavering support of our Board of Trustees and the Smithsonian, as well as the generosity of New York City, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Target, and countless individual, foundation, and corporate friends. I'm incredibly proud of what we've accomplished. Hundreds of thousands of visitors have flocked to Cooper Hewitt since our reopening. They love how we have reinvented the museum experience. With our interactive pen in hand, visitors explore Cooper Hewitt's outstanding collection at our high-definition touchscreen table. And in turn, they are learning about design in ways that were never possible before. Since we launched the pen, our visitors have collected close to 2 million design objects to build their own design collections. We're all about accessibility and interactivity. Visiting Cooper Hewitt today offers a social and playful experience. Among the many positive results we've seen is a huge jump in our social media metrics. So hope you don't mind if I pause here for a second and take a selfie for the Cooper Hewitt social media channels. Thanks, Vassa. See if we can beat Ellen Generes' world record for her Oscars tweet. Fantastic. Thanks so much. And here's the address to share. This is the 10th year of National Design Week, which kicked off last weekend with the Target Family Design Festival in our beautifully reimagined Arthur Ross Terrace and Garden. Believe it or not, we welcomed over 7,000 visitors who enjoyed dozens of workshops and activities inspired by this year's winners. 2009 National Design Award winner Walter Hood, working in collaboration with Raft Landscape Architecture and Diller Scafidio and Renfro, translated the garden's historic origins into a stunning contemporary landscape for all of us to enjoy free of charge. Many of our award winners and Tim Gunn were on hand for Tuesday's Teen Design Fair to mentor over 300 future designers. The selfie theme continues. Tuesday evening, we held our sold out winners panel. And Wednesday, design innovators and thought leaders came together for our business of design breakfast. This fall, we will continue our longstanding tradition of celebrating the awards in our nation's capital with our Target Design Summit for DC high school students. I want to thank our winners for their enthusiastic participation all week long, and our Gala leadership, who helped us create this spectacular event. Special thanks as well to David Stark and his design team for making the space so festive using our design in the classroom kits. If you haven't already, please check out your centerpieces. These kits in paper bags beautifully designed by Todd Olden are used by children who participate in our groundbreaking design in the classroom program, which I will share more details about later tonight. This is the only awards program in the country to celebrate the full range of design disciplines. Huge thanks to Design Within Reach, Facebook, and Amazefit for their commitment to and support of Cooper Hewitt. Thank you to Adobe for the online design awards gallery and to Corning Museum of Glass for our stunning trophies. Finally, a very, very special thank you to Target. The Target and Cooper Hewitt teams have worked hand in hand for well over a decade to deliver our shared passion for design to the broadest and most diverse audience possible. Since 1946, Target has generously given 5% of its profit to local communities. Today, that equals more than $4 million a week, and Target has now reached its goal in investing $1 billion for education by the end of 2015. So thank you, Target. I'll be back later this evening to begin our awards ceremony, Bon Appétit.