 Google, where he culminated his time there as the program manager for hiring veterans, Google's efforts to hire more veterans. And he recently became the president and CEO of the DC Chamber of Commerce, where he is charged with trying to provide networking opportunities, education opportunities, and the other support infrastructure for, and I left out, he's actually started his own business and so is well familiar with the challenges of being an entrepreneur and of communicating the value of a new idea and the importance of a new idea to potential investors, et cetera. So again, he's come at this challenge of communicating and being communicated to from multiple different perspectives and has graciously agreed to share his thoughts and observations on the topic with us. So, Harry, thanks so much for taking the time to be here. Really appreciate it. Thank you, Maureen. I'd actually like to say thank you to each of you for what you do. I'm humbled by the opportunity to come by CSIS and I've worked with CSIS in years past in talking technology. I know that's the theme and you're spending the day looking at it and I just wanted to share a couple of thoughts from my perspective from when I was a consumer of technology on the sense of being a junior officer in the SEAL teams which remains an honor. I'll always be a frogman. And then going into industry and one aspect of that was spending a couple years at Google which is just such a historic company and then their approach to technology, how they apply but also communicate about it. And then now I'm president and CEO of the DC Chamber of Commerce. We're about a three to four million dollar operation. I've got a little bit over a dozen people and we are the voice for business in the nation's capital. I'm not Tom Donahue. People give me a raise sometimes and he's doing great work but I am for the city and if you're doing business in the city that's what I focus on. But going to technology, again, I know that we have several different classes of stakeholders here in the room. If I could see a show of hands. Who here is right now with US Defense or Department of Defense or IC? Actually wouldn't raise your hand if you're IC. That's a straight question. Okay, who here is with industry, private sector? Okay, great. Who here is with academia or, okay, excellent. And how about international? Someone who's non-U.S., excellent, great. So I think for technology, one of the things to keep in mind and I just have a strong imprint on this and just who I am and how I look at it, going to the Naval Academy, Exciencia Tridents is our motto and out of knowledge, sea power. And so one of the things that is in this conference is technology and what that means for defense. But I think what's powerful about the United States is that we have the approach that technology matters for us because of the results it gives in our national defense, but also in our prosperity. I am a capitalist and I think that's one of the biggest things that we have going for us. And why is that? Technology has to do it only advances if you have a certain amount of liberty and freedom to innovate. We've got some military people here, so the Uda Loop and you hear about that. That's a common theme that I've seen over time. So special forces, you have the opportunity to innovate and to apply and actually make a difference when you have that freedom, to make sure that yes you have what you're given and that's a different type of communication as well. I'll tell you what, I showed up, Spuds Class 157 after graduating from Annapolis and you can imagine how it feels to show up and there's enlisted folks who run the training there. So I showed up as an officer and it's just, you can imagine it's fun. There's a certain type of thing that technology has communicated to you there because I would say that how you organize teams is an aspect of technology. How you organize and allow people to contribute ideas, how you look at refining processes and on the international side of things, one special forces leader I think about is David Sterling. Started the SAS World War II. The idea was to go from these big units and his idea, you almost got kicked out of the British Army and he literally gave one of the best elevator speeches in history and the SAS was born and he was given freedom to harass the Germans in the desert with just a bunch of guys in cars that were disguised to look like German vehicles. Then if you look at somebody like Eric Olson, my first assignment in the SEAL teams was working at SEAL delivery vehicle one. So I believe in sustainability, clean energy, I've talked about, I've been at a smart grid company during my career, I did some energy work at Google, but I like to tell people my first job, I drove an electric vehicle years and years ago. Just happened to be underwater, right? So from that aspect, what the special forces and the units out there, you have technology being applied, then you look at the private sector and there clearly is an overlap. The military can't do everything on its own. I think a great story that illustrates that, Martin and I were talking briefly about this. There is the story about how uranium came into the United States to have enough of the store that had those two bombs that ended World War II. There's a Belgian businessman. Anybody know this story? Raise your hands. Okay, there's a book called, there's one person back there. There's a great book called Uranium, The Rock to Change the World. But as far as communication goes, who knew there was a Belgian businessman who was reading science magazines and keeping up with what was going on with the Tomics. And this was, as the Nazis were rising to power, he literally took it on himself to go down to the Congo. Shinkwa Loebway, I think is the name of the mine, where there was the largest store of uranium in the world. At his own expense, he shipped this to Staten Island. And here's the communication part. And here's something to keep in mind, I think when you go into your eight breakout sessions, I hope you talk about this sort of thing. He went to DOD, he went to the Army back in those days, for the U.S. and said, hey, I got this stuff and I didn't want the Germans to get ahold of it. And he basically got the, yeah, yeah, whatever, buddy. And then it turns out that somebody asked about this. Someone remembered this person's name, he was put in touch, and we got the store of uranium that we needed. It was critical that we have that amount. Didn't go to the Nazis, we got it. Of course, in Staten Island, that site is still a disaster because he stored it in the warehouse on his own, private sector, true story. So that's inspiring. Let me go back a little further back because I love history. And I understand that there was a gentleman who talked about the monitor earlier today, right? And I love naval references, right? Go Navy. I'll go further back than that. The Greeks. There is a great book by John Hale called Lord of the Sea. And it's about the Athenian Navy and the birth of democracy. And this is one of the best aspects of communicating technology that has ever happened. And it changed the course of history. There was a Greek warrior, seamen, and a man named Themistocles, political leader. And what happened is in Attica, the Greeks found a store of silver just by what the Greeks would call fortuna. Happenstance luck, but luck matters what you do with it. Instead of taking that store of silver and doling it out for political favors, which is where things almost went. Themistocles staked everything he had on convincing, not just the Athenians, but all the Greeks in league, to build triremes, this new type of worship, three layers of levels of people rowing. And they had this bronze that they put on the front with a battering ram. And they knew the Persians were coming. Xerxes was on his way. And he convinced them by communicating, this is exactly how this is gonna make a difference for our survival. And communicating that science, what was important too is he put a little bit of money in it. I am president of the DC Chamber of Commerce. My tie is green, right? Cause it's a color of money. But money really is about opportunity and growth. It's also green, by the way, for local folks, because that's supported by Mario Bowser. He's gonna be a great mayor. And if you ever wanna get in a local scene at DC, please join the DC Chamber of your business. But what Themistocles did is he said, look, if you don't believe me about the Persians coming, these will also be good for just protecting our own shipping. So it had monetary value. He was able to communicate to the market, this is why it matters. And it was really one of the first public-private partnerships that ever happened. And what did happen is the Persians came. They won the Battle of Salamis, Straits of Salamis, changed history, and then the Greeks went expeditionary with these vessels that they had. And they actually took the fight to the enemy. And then their adventures led to Egypt, other parts of the world, and an empire was born, and it changed things. Why I like that story and why it was so critical is the way they organized themselves. If you look at the city, the how democracy, their approach, it really was about ordered liberty. It was about freedom, not only in war fighting, but freedom and just the very basics of society. So if you move forward to Google, and my observations there, here you have a company that started out as a science paper, right? With Larry and Sergey and Backrub. I don't know if anybody's read the paper, it's actually up. And how do you look at organizing all this information that's gonna be on this new thing called the Web, which by the way, I have to give a shout out to Vent Surf, who was a colleague of mine. He's a great American being at DARPA. He and Paul Kahn in 1974 working, and I know DARPA is well represented here, and we can't give enough to DARPA. We can't give enough to DHS, S&T, as long as they're applying, of course, but they've done great work over time. And we know that Vent was working for national security interests, and he's a great patriot, but he also believes in privacy and freedom, and just, you know, he's a great American. Larry and Sergey, communicating, you have to convince markets, you have to convince investors. Here's why this matters, and to grow and actually to focus on delivering value to the user is something that's critical. We do this, I know Special Forces, the user are your buddies, and the folks that depend on you actually threading the needle, being able to make a result that's just many times order of magnitude bigger than it should be for what you're doing. Likewise, if you've got a company and you're an entrepreneur and what's amazing about capitalism, why liberty wins is because you have that freedom to operate. You have that freedom to have creative destruction for the powers that be, remember horse and buggy, and then you have the automobile, that fight, that continual renewal and growth, but what matters is the struggle and having that freedom to communicate. Yes, how do you talk technology there? You have to talk in a way that matters to shareholders, but you also have to talk it to your users. What I was really, I joined Google in 2008, I was in the D.C. office, I was a lobbyist for a large amount of time there, and what I saw is that focus on the user and that focus on making things very easy to use, intuitive, but you also have to communicate and continually show people this is why this is a better product, and then also the idea of just continuing to find out what does the user want and being willing to drop some projects and go on to others, that's critical. If I look at the city level, oh, and one thing at Google too that I learned, I know policy is the order of the day here in D.C., whether it's local, which I'm very focused on, the Wilson Building with the mayor and the council, we have the Congress, we know we just had a lot of upheaval, I think that's, it's important, democracy thrives on that. I have personal feelings about gerrymandering and how we do those sorts of things, to the extent that it may structure what the founders intended, we can come back to that, but I think what's important is that we're able to change and renew and listen to what people want, and technology in that sense continues to be important. Congress has things at one level, then it gets down to the agencies. While I was at Google, I was able to make a point about a smart grid. $4.5 billion in the stimulus package went to smart grid pilots. So smart grid is really just an instance of IoT, internet of things, where you've got the electric grid, utility company doesn't even know these lights are on. As we move forward, and this is trillions of dollars over years, we'll start to upgrade the grid. PEPCO, being acquired by Exelon, they're putting a $1 billion undergrounding project in, there are elements of smart grid in that. While I was at Google, I was lucky enough to, after talking to VentSurf, just had an idea on a weekend, I did. And I said, $4.5 billion is gonna go to what really is an energy internet. It should be for open protocol. Because open protocol approaches, I mean, not just proprietary. And Congress should say, this is, we're only gonna give these dollars if open protocol is available. And if it's appropriate, of course. We went for it, now Senator Markey took it up, he championed it. What I heard back is that by the time it got to Nancy Pelosi on the House side, it was pretty straightforward. And this is communicating technology. Something that had completely very technical, complicated arguments, things about cybersecurity, security through obscurity, which we had to address those arguments. But at member level, communicating technology or talking technology, it had turned into, look at what the internet had done. VentSurf could speak very powerfully on that issue. And for the House, at least, it said, this is an energy internet. We should allow this to be open protocol. The OODA loop, the innovation cycle will happen more and more translated into jobs and a better approach. We had to work harder on the Senate side because there were vested interests for companies. As you can imagine, if you have millions of dollars at stake on proprietary systems, you're gonna have another approach to talking technology. What I was really just, I can't believe this happens, I pinch myself to think, it went through and one of the biggest opponents now talks technology in a different way. They hired an open protocol specialist. Now if you look at Smart Grid and the ways it's talked about, you can see that it was embraced and it's actually being implemented at DOE and other programs, city level. So for Washington DC, one of the reasons I am just so excited about being in this job is we have hard work to do, not only on sustaining the great energy and international investment that's going on in the city, but not forgetting that we have part of the city, east of the river, if you will, east end, ward seven and eight if you wanna get really local, where our graduation rates may not be there, not where we need them to be. And my strong feeling is as we look into what's really critical now, cyber, I like to say the code is more than the sort. We have had African-Americans. I'm African-American, I was born in the city. My parents moved from Southeast when I was five years old. I would have grown up in a pretty rough neighborhood. We kept going to church in DC even though I moved out to Maryland. My wife is from Chevy Chase DC. I jumped with her, so I never went over there until I was out of college. But here's the point about talking technology. As Americans, until we can get the academic results up, until we can communicate why it matters to be, not just into STEM and technology coding, is a new way of communicating. I think it's a new literacy and we really have to take it seriously because as you know in this room, there are a lot of ways that we need people to pick up a computer, not just a rifle, and to make a difference in what we're collectively trying to do as the United States and with our allies, and just at a minimum level for making sure that commerce and just what civilized nations do has a floor. And so you can see my point about why we really have to get into that, but how do we talk technology in that sense? And so at the level of government, at the level of politicians, I commend each of you for what you try to do to maintain money for programs. I heard a comment about, well, if we've got 10,000 programs out there, how do we keep them going? And then one final thought, because I know I have to close, so I'm a big believer in training the way you fight. And Navy Seals, we live in a shame society, not a guilt society. Things are open. You're only as good as your next fight. And so to the extent that you have programs where you can demonstrate when you can really test, and I guess it's beyond simulations, it's actually saying, how do we apply this? In a very realistic scenario, in cyber, I really like the idea of having constant scrimmages, if you will. I went to the Naval Academy, I think as a starter you could have the Naval Academy Air Force West Point put up not just the cyber defense exercises, which are phenomenal. I know there are some folks who have done that for about nine years. We take some of the best from the academies and they have cyber challenges and go against each other for three days. Fantastic. When I was a plebe, we stood watch in the kinetic sense, walked around our portion of the academy and challenged anybody, tap them if you had to, if they're not supposed to be there. Why not put a VMware instance, put on a machine at each of those watch stations, coordinated with the battalion level up to the Regiment Brigade, whatever at the academy, and just make it a real exercise where you're getting hit every week at least, maybe every day. And at the end of the year, you could give the Commander's Cup for cyber for the best academy that did that. You could also pull in schools like George Washington, which in the city here is doing phenomenal things. Maryland's doing great things. Johns Hopkins, because of APL and what's going on there. Those sorts of things where you look at it, then you can actually start building on top of that other results. And what I'm getting to is if you have the right type of test bed where things are being communicated, you can actually have results surface in a way that matters to leaders who are up higher, who can see results and you can point to it. Numbers are the language of business. They are also the language of making decisions for politics, not always, but a lot of times. And so I think throughout history for me, I just wanted to share that special forces approach. I've been just very humbled to work with so many people who have done amazing things. I saw Admiral McRaven in a bookstore here in town a couple of days ago. Just a very saw-spoken and powerful and just impactful leader. And just to think about how he speaks from experience, the difference that he made. But really, I guess if I wanna wrap up with one thought and I don't know if we have time for questions or not, but maybe not. How would I tie ordered liberty to talking about technology? I really think it's into having the freedom to innovate, to make a difference and actually demonstrate that what you're doing matters for defense. We can never tamp down on that. Unfortunately, we know how bureaucracies go. We know that things get strangled off sometimes that shouldn't. But again, what each of you do in trying to talk technology is absolutely critical. And there's different types of conversations, yes, going on within the government, different conversations going on in the private sector, different conversations that are going on politically. What I'm excited about is I think Washington, D.C. is a unique environment in which we can try and pull all those things together, whether it's with our phenomenal healthcare, the hospitals that are here doing tech transfers with a dozen plus universities that are here in town. By drones, wow, if Virginia and Maryland have one of the six pilots that are allowed, I know there's concerns about national airspace, but what if we did some limited pilots here where we could deliver a defibrillator by drone or an EpiPen or, God forbid, there was a homeland-type response in tourniquets we know from Boston. Sometimes you need to augment how many of those are needed. Somebody had a hard tack, you get your phone out, hit it and it comes over here and lands sooner than you could find the one that's somewhere else. Those types of things, maybe that's not the best example, maybe immunological responses, how I can model cell phones if people want to participate, the likelihood that we're going to transmit something in on a phone and it's a city, cities matter. The volume that we have, the minds that we have in this town, it's a great place to talk technology and with that I just want to thank each of you for what you're doing. I'm humbled by the opportunity to speak and thank you very much. It's a tour de force of Greece to EpiPen by drone. But thank you very much. Questions for Harry? Yes, sir. We got a whole slew over there. If I could ask a favor if you could just say your name and where you're from, I'd appreciate it. Hi, Jerry Epstein with the Department of Homeland Security. Yes, sir. You've emphasized the importance of talking technology or theme and adding value and making clear the value that's added. One of the struggles that the technical community has had ever since the government performance in Results Act from the 90s is how do you do that in the basic research arena? You can make general arguments which we know are true. You don't know when it's gonna pay off, it's gonna have massive breakthroughs. But you really can't structure it and it's very difficult to find a metric. One of my concerns is it seems like we keep taking money away from things that are useful and dumping it into things that are measurable. And so I'm wondering how you address the basic research part of this communications and how you make clear the value you're adding with anything less, anything more specific than a very general argument. That's a great question, Jerry. And I think one thing is just to remember, this is part of the mandate of DARPA. You need teams that just think of something. Well, I'll tell you what, if it works, it's not crazy, but you have to have an accounting for just taking, just being expeditionary and different types of things that may work and you look at the payoff and what it might be, we have to really call out examples in history where it could have been something that somebody had thought that that's just crazy, like why would you do that? And then point to the case that, well, this actually turned out to be not so crazy and it's not crazy if it works. So I think that that is a challenge, but I think one of the main things you can do is take the bigger picture across time and look at examples of things that, for example, I love what we did with the British, frankly, during World War II. And if you look at some like Alan Turing and the Colossus, if people hear about enigma Colossus and all those efforts would have sounded insane to somebody. But somebody has to have that conversation to remember over time, there have been so many examples of that and we just have to account for it. I don't say just trust and I hope that's a general answer, but I think it's something that we really have to continually remind policy makers why that's the case. Does that make sense? Can I follow up on that? One of our earlier speakers alluded to something, he had just seen something about the iPhone and a deconstruction of all the various Defense Department investments that had been incorporated into the iPhone. So to sort of get at Jerry's question, do you think those kinds of reverse engineering, ultimately tangible applications of basic research advances, whether it be for the iPhone or anything else that people can relate to intuitively more than perhaps basic research are impactful or is it sort of preaching to the choir? I think it remains impactful and for basic research, again the question is how do we talk about it in a way that shows this is what's happened in the past and this is tricky, it's not easy to really translate it. One thing, muscle research, I won't go into it here, but I think it's really critical. Skeletal muscles, some things that are happening and it's not, it's open source about how you might have some of what we learn about that could apply for actuators, for robotics. So I see some nods. We didn't understand how muscles worked until 1954. On a deep level, a lot of that had to do with advances where someone might have, you may not have predicted how you could look at microscopes and electron scanning microscopes and how that would open up a whole nother area, but again it goes to communicating how basic scientific research really can make a difference and we have to keep at it and again we have to have freedom for folks to go off and explore in areas and it's not limitless, we do have funds and limitations but I think we do have the structure from past performance and past wins and there are things that should never be talked about but those teams actually have also track records and we just have to keep at it all the time to argue this is why it's important. So I'm a really huge fan of red teaming, really huge fan of, I think to the extent that there are barriers to, and I'll just say it straight, it's a may not be politic, to embarrassing some programs just to say, I mean somebody has to say the emperor has no clothes on and I think those elements within basic research, within the science of what we're going after, that's critical too but you have to prove that I really, on basic research, going back to just keeping people aware that when we talk technology we have to tie it to past successes and keep pushing the envelope on how much we're willing to show what the payoff could be if you get things right and I'll tell you some wild science, like I have three daughters, I talk about STEM all the time, my oldest daughter, talk about a dad who's lucky, she goes, dad I'm not really thinking about organic chemistry as much now, it's just straight math, yes. But we had this conversation about the Higgs boson, so that happened and God particle and all that and dark energy, sounds exotic, sounds crazy, right? Bet we better be at that, even if it doesn't seem like it's gonna pay off anytime soon. My story about that Belgian gentleman who went out and atomics sounded so exotic and crazy at one point and then shocking the world with those two first atomic weapons, it's basic research matters but I think we just can't say enough the difference that those, we don't wanna be surprised and that's why God blessed ARPA to make sure that we avoid strategic surprise, that's really critical. Thank you, Nate Hughes, second front systems. As both, someone just with a tip of the spear and also at Google, I'd be very interested in your perspective on where we find ourselves in the national security space with technology and so to be specific, more and more innovation is happening out west in Silicon Valley and elsewhere that is really beyond any influence by government. It's by industry, it's entrepreneurial to solve problems locally and add on to that our friend Edward, who's currently residing in Moscow. It's become I think less compelling for many people in many important demographics to do work with the government, particularly with the intelligence community and with the OD. How do we walk that back? How do we talk about technology in terms of the ways we use it in the national security intelligence space? To make the work, the important innovations that's happening out west, applicable, accessible, some of these companies don't even want to sell to the government if the government wants to buy their technology. How do we think about that? How do we talk about that? So, I'm sorry, your first name is the Dean? Nathan. Nathan, I'm sorry, I got that way out. Nathan, it's a great question and in fact that's on my mind here for Washington DC because one of the things that we talk about here in the city is how can we diversify? We know in some ways we've been a company town on some of the technological business that goes on here. Our version of Crystal City, yes, is M Street between National Stadium and Navy Yard. A lot of great work has happened there. There's contractors there. I want to see that expand. St. Elizabeth's got 150 acres. We've got where the old Walter Reed was up Georgia Avenue. But how do we make it cool to work with the government? And that question of, wow, you think we've done, we do amazing things, not just in DC but in Virginia and Maryland close by. We do have to diversify. But the question is if, yes, and you mentioned Snowden and concerns about privacy, first off, that was very harmful, what he did. I just think it, not a fan. But I think that as far as the next generation and young people, how do we just really underscore that we are an important force in the world? Because there are things that we have to be at that go to government issues, that go to national security, that we have to keep moving forward on. But the trick is, how do we bring some of that magic? You're right, from Silicon Valley out here. I think some of it is here, but I think we have to just look at basic things. It may not sound sexy, but things, but how much does it cost to really open up shop in DC? I think of Ward 5 in New York Avenue. They were driven down 50 and you look at all of the buildings and warehouses and wow, it's kind of lying fallow. How do we open that up sooner? So the policies that really make it easier for folks to come in, I think our universities are critical to, because the magic, Silicon Valley, we shouldn't forget the story that's there. There has been government impact. There's been government activity. There still is there. And I think the magic of Stanford and growing off, it's what you do with it. And it's the ecosystem that you can spin off. I think we have that tenfold here in Washington, DC. We have amazing research and programs that are going on at schools all over the city. Gallaudet, for example, a $7 million project, NSF. I've talked to a PhD there where she's got a cap that's actually reading, it's a neuroscience type move, compelling somebody who even wouldn't think of any defense applications might be inspired to work on that program. And the research that moves things forward, maybe that goes to who here is sort of Talos? Okay, there you go. So exoskeletons for the Navy Seals. There you go. It could be something where the program where the skull cap at Gallaudet was to help deaf children or cochlear damage to learn kids who can see and hear, they learn about language in a different way. Who would know that that program might actually have applications that could make a difference for an exoskeleton, control units if you're basically putting on a robot? That's kind of a long-winded answer. But I guess what I go back to is we can do it here. We need to ask questions. We've had other successes. If you look at Carnegie Mellon and Pittsburgh, if you look at what Boston's been able to do and they've been doing robotics, I really think Washington, D.C., we have an opportunity, and just more generally, to remember that there's an application for what happens. Cloud computing's a great example. I think cloud computing and look at Chromebooks, it costs $180 and you've got a computer that's one of the first hardware-enforced security approaches that's out there. If you haven't seen those, but people are still learning about Chromebooks with Google, there's some really good science and cryptography that's involved there, and I think they don't have to be mutually exclusive. Working on defense and working on things that hipsters or kids are like, I would never go to DOD or work for the government. I think we just have to keep at it. That's a different way to talk about technology and inspiring people to work on projects that could help the government. I realized maybe I was thinking, I saw all the hands over there because that's the way I was facing it. Questions over on this side? I also wanted to thank JD McCrary, who just sentimental me being here too. Can I ask questions? Just kidding. Here, we'll go back there. Hi, Arun Seraf in Center Arms Services Committee. I'm sorry if I missed this earlier on in your presentation, but in addition to the universities in town, you have three or four fantastic federal research institutions with lots of scientists producing lots of technologies, and so what kind of relationship is being developed with Naval Research Lab, Army Research Lab, NIST, the other folks in town are actually doing science for a living, not just funding science for a living. That's a great question. I need your help on those relationships. I have some past connections from what I've done over time, but I absolutely would invite each of you to look at me as someone who wants to help in what we're doing. I mentioned for a purpose that example of Athens, a great city-state that worked on technology, both on the commercial sense, the civic sense, and frankly the military sense. We have that here in Washington, D.C. So those connections, I have some, but I would like to make them stronger. On NIST, the National Cyber Security Center of Excellences and Shady Grove, it's a little bit further away. Nate Lesser, who's the director over there, and I know Senator Mikulski has given money directly to that program, but absolutely. I wanna find ways to make sure that we're applying the resources as one of the greatest cities in the world to the efforts that are there, and all the better if we're able to talk to a certain venture capitalist, for example, and say this particular company, which is deciding to open up shop. I think of Enlighten Tank as an example. My past chair for the D.C. Chamber of Commerce, Antoine Ford, born in D.C., African-American. He has 162 people at an I.T. shop. They handle all the police records for the city. They do some of the healthcare issues. They have cleared folks, including Naval Academy grads. They hire a lot of veterans. They have some I.C. alumnus, alumni there. So, I mean, that's an example of just one company, but I really want us to work together, and that's why I'm really thankful that I could come speak to you, because really, this is an invitation. Someone who, I see the benefit. It's a big part of why I took this job, as well. I was growing a cyber company before I just was contacted by a recruiter for this, and I'm from D.C., and I saw the potential to really leverage those types of relationships that are right here, and we can make a difference not only for companies that just want to thrive, I'm all for that, but we can make a difference for everybody who's in the city. Do you have a question? Yes, sir. I was wondering, you were talking about venture capitalists. What is one of the main, or how important are our patents to venture capitalists? I would say they're important, but how important? I would say, I'm not a venture capitalist myself, but as far as being a Noramaya patent attorney, I do know, actually, classmate of mine, Max Grant, if you don't know, Max Grant is one of the best patent attorneys in the country, Navy Seal Officer, Naval Academy, but I would say, from my time at Google, having been a lawyer, and I like to hear your perspective, if you want to mention a little bit more, I think it's critical because of what it means for certainty, prediction of where a company's going to go, and also has demonstrated something, too, that you've been able to put a patent out, but what's your position? Well, my name's Tom Payne. I'm a West Point graduate. Sir. And a Army Ranger, former, not now, and I'm also, was one of the Chief Patent Councils of one of GE's major businesses, and two reports away from Jack Welch, and I'm just wondering on the case of Google, which you used to represent before the Congress. Yes, sir. What is Google's position on patents? I wouldn't be in the right place to represent them at this point on where they are on patents, but how do you feel, where do you think they should be on patents? I would say that Google is anti-patent at best. I'm sorry? Google is anti-patent at best, and our economy, if they keep that up, will drop tremendously because those venture capitalists you were talking about are not going to put money into basic research unless those people can obtain protection for it. Right now, the way that the Supreme Court and the Patent Office are acting is software patents are not patentable, period. And you know who the leader of that was. Mr. Payne, I thank you for your comments and for your service as well, and. I thank you for your service. Yes, sir. We hold it on guard. Yes, sir. That's great. Yes, sir. But what I would say about patents and spinning around to what I am, my position now is this goes back to universities and we really have to find a way to push on, we have so many great universities in town, and I think of Jack DeGoya at Georgetown and Steve Knapp at GW, Neil Overton American, looking at when they bring professors in, thinking ahead, this is something that Stanford's done a great job on. What are you working on? How can this translate into patents, right? What's the track record in those translating into patents, but also where are the spinoffs? Where are companies that then you go off and you stay in Washington DC? I would love to see that, but thank you for your questions. If I could ask a quick question about, as you try to help DC businesses succeed, presumably some of them are marketing to the government, some of them are looking at other customers, do you find yourself in a position of trying to help them have that communication effectively? And if so, what kinds of guidance do you give them on how they think about those different audiences and how to talk to them? Yes, that's a great question. So we're just getting started. I'd started in April, so my predecessor was leading the DC Chamber for 12 years and Barbara Lang, captain of the DC Chamber actually 75 years old. So, but to the question of going and representing companies and going in front of government and how to best represent themselves, we have not, I'll be honest, we haven't gotten to that point yet. Some of what I'm at the point right now working with the Small Business Administration, for example, the regional director Antonio Doss, and I've been in touch with Javier Sade if you look at tech transfer, right, and S-I-B-R, those aspects, definitely in touch, we wanna try and bring that into the DC Chamber, but as far as federal resources, and this is where I need your help as well. I know Dr. Reggie Brothers, I'm a huge fan for DHS S&T, so he's here in town, but having started in April, I'm just getting to the point where we're able to really turn that into something that's programmatic, but the Small Business Administration is coming by the DC Chamber, and I love this, we're crossing the spy museum. We're right by Gallery Place Metro, and so we have the SBA coming in every Thursday, and they're doing consultations out of the DC Chamber. I would love to have people from NRL or other outfits that you represent. Stop by, find a way that I can be helpful. Find a way that I can put people like Enlightened Inc and other folks who, and I've had veterans join. People were connected with 1776, other tech places, and there are veterans who have joined the DC Chamber since I've been there, but I think, and that's just a straight answer, we are going in that direction, it's on my mind, but I need your help, you know, with it. And my website is, you know, it's just wwwdcchamber.org, so I'm right there, and as far as my name, I'd like to give you a mnemonic, so Harry, it's not descriptive, right? And Wingo, W-I-N-G-O, when I was plebe, I had somebody, I went to the Naval Academy just wanting to be a Marine and fly jets off carriers, and when I first saw pictures of Navy SEALs, I said, what are those, hippie Marines? But I, Wingo, it's my last name, and so Harry Wingo, and my team guy friends tease me because it's just, it's terrible what my internet, yeah, you're laughing, JD, my internet profile's horrible, right, I'm just like, I'm useless now, but I'd like to really work on that very issue with our companies, so. Question over here. James saying, well that's the question about talking technologies and the care and feeding of technology. You mentioned the president of Georgetown, and the last time I heard him give a talk, he was ruefully commenting about the number of people asked him why Georgetown isn't Stanford. New York, which is a pretty good situation as far as science and technology schools, is building a big new monster campus, and I was wondering if you could reflect about how Washington can stay competitive. We have good schools, but we really don't have world-class Stanford, MIT, Caltech-type institutions, and do you think we really would benefit from having something like that, and if, I haven't said we do, and if we do, what would you do, what the community can do to try to create such an institution? Yeah, that's- You came in except for the Naval Academy. Except for the Naval Academy, and I actually, I think our, I do think our schools are world-class, and they're members, but I think as far as getting world-class in the sense of tech transfer, and you're right, it's a Bloomberg, right, the effort with Technion, so Israel's version of MIT, Roosevelt Island, $100 million. That is a very specific thing that I would like to work on. I think one difference that we have is, we probably need bigger amounts of seed money that we can actually apply that go, and so I'd love to talk to you about that. Anyone else who has strong ideas on it? But I do think we are poised to have phenomenal growth in that area. We have that opportunity, so I'd love to connect on your, and get some more details about how you would, how we can go about that together. Thank you, Les. Gotham, Venigopal, and at the State Department. And so we've talked a lot about how to talk about technology today, but maybe we can talk a little bit about using technology to talk, particularly about local society issues, and is there anything that you guys are doing in your office about open data that might be used to help with civic engagement and things like that? Yes, that's a great question. I think so, I'd like to work on my website. I'm just, again, I'm a baby CEO in some ways because I just got started in April, a lot of ways, but communication is critically important, and I think international, I'd like to get, bless you, to get your thoughts on this because already, even though I've been there for a couple months, I've met with probably three or four Chinese delegations as an example, 30 people at one time from Beijing, and there's just so many people who want to invest in Washington, D.C. And so the question of how we use technology to communicate one that we're open for business and how on a local level, on a way to invest and put our businesses, small, medium, large, because Kaiser Permanente, Care First, PEPCO, Verizon, Microsoft, they're supporters of the D.C. Chamber, Telemundo just joined. But I think technology, we face this, all chambers face this issue. We have limited staff, and so I think that's why having alliances relying on our members as well, to get the word out is important. On communication, not only is there the effort, I tweet all the time, I invite you, if you guys want to see social media, and J.D., you'll get a kick out of this, I just, you know, if you've caught me, either locking out a submarine or doing counter-drug work for a couple of years, and told me that I would plan, I have a member here from the D.C. Chamber that I was gonna put together a gala where we sold over 1,000 seats and had a Grammy Award winner, Jody Watley, who was entertainment, and I had to go through flower design and things that we're gonna have on Trape's in the background. We got two cars down at the Marriott Marquis, and it's just part of it. It's just part of what goes on my toolkit now, but really it comes down to communication. But I think on the State Department side too, and this is an important note about talking technology, let me shift it a bit, and this may be encompassing what you meant. Prosperity is a message that we have for the world. If you look at what's going on in Syria and ISIS and just extremism is one example, I still believe with all my heart that what we represent as a society with liberty, with the chance for us to just spread the message of prosperity, and that's linked to technology so closely. I think that's something that Chambers of Commerce and cities can help with, but we do need to hear from you. Okay, thanks so much for taking the time to be with us. We appreciate it. Hopefully all of you will be joining the DC Chamber of Commerce this afternoon on your way out. Really appreciate you offering your perspective on all of this. Since we had a little bit of attrition, which was somewhat expected, we are now down to five groups. So for those of you who on your name tags say that you are in groups six through eight, you're not. You are now, group one and group eight will become group four. I'm kidding, we're not gonna average them. You will still be groups one and eight, but you will meet right over here and be on this side of the room. Groups two and group seven will be down at that side of the room. Groups three and four will both be going downstairs, which you can go down either by the stairway or on the elevators over there. And then groups five and six, if you could meet over by the elevators, you will be going up. So again, Harry, thanks immensely for taking the time to come talk with us. And we look forward to our conversations and our groups. Thanks. All right, appreciate it.