 Hi, I'm Azra Zeya, AFP President and CEO, and it's my pleasure to welcome to Peacecon 2020 Darren Walker, President of the Ford Foundation, a global philanthropic leader in building a just, fair and peaceful world with opportunity for all. Welcome Darren. Thank you so much, I'm really delighted to be here and grateful for the invitation. Well thank you so much. I'm sorry I can't hear you. I think we're having just a little technical difficulty. Can you hear me now? Now I can hear you just fine. Wonderful. Well, I was just saying, Darren, we are so thrilled for you to join our most global and our largest Peacecon ever, framed around the theme, Pandemics, Peace and Justice shaping what comes next. So we have with us today an amazing virtual audience of thousands of peace builders from all over the world who are absolutely eager to hear from you. So for our online audience, I'll kick off the conversation now, but we're going to make sure to have time for questions from all of you. So I encourage our online viewers to post questions throughout the discussion using the chat box function located just below the video player on the USIP event page or on the Peacecon conference webpage. So with that, let us begin. We have a fireside chat, but I'm sorry we don't have a hearth to offer you. Just the virtual award of Zoom. So Darren, just wonderful to have you here. You have written so eloquently about the journey from generosity to justice. Now, how does this message apply to the world confronting us today with the cascading disruptions of a global pandemic, this national and global reckoning for racial justice and worsening inequality with hundreds of millions worldwide being pushed into extreme poverty? I think the moment we're in is a moment of grave consequences if you care about peace, justice, and the mission of the Alliance. And I just have to say, I was reading the Alliance for Peacebuilding, your organizations, your wonderful organizations, Vision for the World, a world where each person feels secure, dignified, and included. A world where people build peace and manage conflict without violence. What a noble, courageous, and inspiring vision. And the moment we are in, the times we are living through, desperately needs the members of your network and this organization to be strong, durable, and resilient. Because to get from generosity to justice is going to require of all of us a recognition that we will be living in a new world. I see the world divided and time and space in two dimensions. There was a BC world before coronavirus world that existed until recently. That world is over. We will never return to the BC world. We must now prepare ourselves to engage in a post-coronavirus world. In the BC world, we are going to have to leave behind some of the practices and structures and systems that have made the moment we are living through so starkly the clarity of this moment around inequality. So the requirement for those of us, particularly those of us with privilege, those of us who have benefited during this period of time, including the many people who have benefited during a time of a pandemic, we are going to have to move beyond charity, beyond generosity, to dignity and justice. And in order to do that, we have to ask ourselves not just what can we give back, but what must we be willing to give up in order to have a world that is more peaceful, a world that is more a world where people live with dignity and there is more equity and equality in the world. Well, thank you so much for articulating that, Darren, and for recognizing what you described as the noble vision of the Alliance, this network of 130-plus members working in 181 countries. I have to really commend you and Ford Foundation for such a strong emphasis on structural inequality. And we've seen this exposed and exacerbated to such a degree. And internationally, but as we hope we can begin to see the end of this crisis, the PC world as you described it, you know, do you have thoughts on how we can recover in a way that really takes on these long, unaddressed structural challenges? Yes, first, we have to realize that the challenges that we face are structural. They are systemic. They are not challenges that can be solved with band-aid approaches. They are not challenges that can be solved through philanthropic giving. Yes, philanthropic giving is critical to getting us to solutions, but is woefully inadequate to do the work of governments and policymakers. So the systems beginning with our economic systems have to be examined and interrogated and rebuilt in a way that creates more shared prosperity. We have economic systems. And as a capitalist, I say proudly, but I say weary, because I believe that capitalism is skating on thin ice in this world because it has not produced and it has not delivered on its potential. And that is because it has been distorted. It has been distorted to compound the privilege of the already privileged and it has been distorted to compound the disadvantage of the already disadvantaged. And so we have to look at our economic systems and examine them and put in place the kinds of policies that will ensure fairer distribution of the benefits of our economies. We have to look at, as we think about the global systems, the ways in which we bring greater fairness, the ways in which we ensure more empowerment and autonomy and agency for nations in the global south. And we have to examine the underlying root causes of much of the problems of today, which are the isms of the world, the ways in which racism and the legacy of colonialism, the way in which patriarchy and the degradation of women and girls systemically, culturally, harm not only our societies broadly, but our economic productivity. So there are many ways in which, I think, as we have to really address these problems. But we can't believe, we can't accept that we're going to see the real kind of changes we need with the kinds of band-aid approaches that some philanthropies and many governments seem to be willing to take. I think what you articulated is so important. And we've tried at AFP to make a parallel point with respect to COVID response and recovery. Obviously, they're the public health dimensions, the need to care for and really deal with that health dimension. But all of the other aspects need to be addressed as well. Whether it's economic dislocation, the shadow pandemic of gender-based violence, or armed conflicts being fueled by these underlying fractures and deficiencies. I think that gets us to maybe looking at, more closely, at the situation at home and the United States of America. You have often said that America is not just a country. It's an idea. And as we face a world that is increasingly besieged by authoritarian and illiberal forces, we're talking a lot at Peace Con about the destabilizing impact of disinformation, misinformation. Do you think our long-established paradigms for promoting democracy and human rights also need a reboot or need to evolve as well? Well, Lizra, I think they need to evolve. So we have to understand the context in which we're living and which democracy is expected to thrive. So we're living in a time when there is growing economic inequality. We're living in a time when hate and division have been commodified and monetized for a tremendous profit. So let us be clear. We live in a time when there is great profit to be made from manufacturing, division, and hate. That is a hard environment for democracy to thrive. Because what these twin dimensions do, these twin vectors of the disinformation, the monetization of hate and division, growing inequality do, is they are harmful to the very heart of democracy. The beating heart of democracy is hope, is optimism, is a belief in the future. And these two vectors, it'sphyxiate that. They smother hope. They literally take the breath out of the body of democracy. And so it is without addressing these two realities, it is very hard to imagine how we can have a thriving and vibrant democracy if people do not trust democratic institutions, if people believe that the systems, the economic system especially, is rigged to benefit the people who are already benefiting exorbitantly. And the sad reality is, or if we are, to be honest with ourselves, is there is a reason for people around the world and certainly in our home country to be disaffected, because they have not been served by our economic system. They are not being served by many of the institutions whose behaviors have been distorted to reinforce and serve the people who are already the most privileged, the most well-off in society. So true. I think it's just impossible to try to consider defending democracy, restoring the resilience of democracy without looking at that broader context. I wanted to congratulate you, Darren, on winning very recently the Wall Street Journal 2020 Philanthropy Innovator Award. But I found it rather interesting that you've said you'd rather be known as a changemaker than an innovator. Now I was wondering, could you share with us how your own personal journey shaped your role as a changemaker and what that means to you? Well, for me, I think the idea of change has been the signature of my life and the fact that I lived in a country where even though I was born poor in a charity hospital and raised in the best of circumstances, I always learned on that journey and believed on that journey first that my country was cheering me on. In spite of the obstacles I may have faced, I always felt that America wanted me to succeed and that the inputs to that success, whether it be in 1965 when a young woman showed up in front of a little shotgun house where my mother and I lived on a dirt road in Ains, Texas, population 1,200 to tell us about a new government program. President Johnson was establishing called Head Start and asking if I could be signed up for the first class of Head Start in 1965 all the way to college and law school where I got to go on Pell grants and privately funded scholarships through to my time working in Harlem at the community development organization there, the Abyssinian Development Corporation, which was funded in part by the Ford Foundation. I have always been propelled by programs and policies and people who had big ideas for change and change for the betterment of society. And when I think about my own journey and what has really impacted me, yes, we all have training and looking at your bio. You've got lots of degrees and lots of credentials. But I bet you have those experiences, too, that you bring with you to your job today. And for me, I think back to when I was 13 years old, my first job as a busboy in a restaurant, and that experience left an indelible mark on my psyche because the job, which is the lowest job on the totem pole, if you will, of the work in a restaurant, is about being in a room where food and resources are visible and there is much bounty to be had. And your job is to be invisible. My job was to be invisible, to be discreet, to expect no one to acknowledge my presence and to take away the things that the guests didn't want and to do it as quietly and in an almost invisible way as I could. And that experience really stuck with me. And today, I think about our work at Ford and I think about the change that we need to have in the world. And we need to change this world so that more people are not invisible, so that more people do not feel invisible, do not feel as though they don't matter, do not feel that those with bounty, those with privilege do not extend to them dignity, basic dignity, human dignity. And so the change that I want to fight for, and I know the members of your network and AFP are fighting for, is to have a world where people live with dignity. It is not an unreasonable thing, an unattainable thing, a thing that is an idea that is not achievable. It is absolutely achievable. But in order for that world to occur, we are going to have to change the world. It's such an inspiring call to action, Darren. And it is so true that I think for us, for looking at the eight-decade-plus legacy of your foundation, it really comes down to that fundamental question of human dignity. You spoke also very powerfully about the need to reject band-aid approaches. And you mentioned how smart and bold public policy initiatives made such a difference in your life and your journey. I wonder, though, if we can turn back to private philanthropy and where you see bold change, big ideas, as necessary to really meet the challenges of this uniquely difficult moment. Well, I think private philanthropy has a role to play. And I feel incredibly lucky to be able to serve as the head of the Ford Foundation and institution that I believe has done some very important things and made tremendous advances in the world. But like most philanthropists, have also made some big mistakes. And we have learned from those mistakes. And I hope that, and one of the things I talk about as a foundation with eight decades of experience, is to share the lessons of the journey of the Ford Foundation. So hopefully, new donors won't make the same mistakes we made. But I do believe some of those mistakes and some of those behaviors are very much a part of what I'm seeing in modern philanthropy. One is something that James Baldwin said many years ago about the confluence of power and money and ignorance, that the convergence of these three things is a very toxic reality. And we see that with donors who often think that because they have been successful in some domain, that they also, if they were just listened to, the problem of whatever fill in the blank would be, the solution would be found. And so I think the kind of top-down, arrogant philanthropy regrettably is still a part of the landscape. I believe that we as philanthropists have to heed the words of Martin Luther King. He said in 1968 the following, philanthropy is commendable, but it should not allow the philanthropist to overlook the economic injustice which makes philanthropy necessary. And so what Dr. King was saying to philanthropists was interrogate yourselves first before you interrogate the poor, the disaffected, the dispossessed. Think about your own behavior as a philanthropist, vis-a-vis this community who you are mission to help. And I think that what that means is that we have to be more humble. We have to be better listeners. We have to center our nonprofit partners, the communities we seek to serve and help. We have to be proximate. We have to not, in our grant making, treat our grantees as contract workers, but treat them as partners, fund them with general operating support and unrestricted support because they best know how to deploy the capital and are most proximate to the challenge. So philanthropy, I think, can do great things. And we're seeing philanthropy do great things. Many of the efforts coming out of this new generation of philanthropists, people like Lorene Powell Jobs or Mackenzie Scott and many others, I have been so impressed with the focus on justice, the focus on issues of gender and patriarchy and taking on courageous fights against systems and systemic barriers that will not fall easily but without addressing them, we will not be able to find sustainable solutions. Well, I think you might have heard a collective cheer all over the world when you mentioned the need for general operating support from private philanthropic funders. It's really this issue of funding flexibility, particularly in the wake of devastating impact of the pandemic, it's really a moment where we'd like to see. And you know this is from your many years. I mean, that's stated when you were in government and out of government. I mean, this is the critical issue. And this year, this horrific cataclysmic calamity of this pandemic has, for Ford, reminded us of how far we have to go. I mean, I think as a foundation we made a commitment several years ago. We moved from 21% to 77% this year of general operating support. We doubled the overhead because of course you still need project support. But if you're gonna do project support, pay your overhead and pay the overhead and administrative cost that it actually takes to manage your project. But the good news is here, we and a number of other foundations and philanthropists started a campaign and over 800 foundations are signed onto that campaign. And part of it was to say, if you have in this year project support, release the terms of that project support. Make it general operating support. Do everything you can to release the constraints that make it harder for organizations like your network members to do their good work. And my hope is, you know, it's what I'm hoping for is that many of them will say, well, you know, maybe we can use this year, this COVID year as we go into a PC world. This is going back to our previous vignette there. If some of these things in the BC world, like this narrowly defined project support and contracts in the PC world, we can be more relaxed about that and allow the organizations and the people closest to the problems to be able to be funded sufficiently to actually do their jobs. Well, you have really the support and the gratitude of our network, Darin, in making this point and this demand for real adaptation to the PC world, a reality. Now, you mentioned those closest to the problem and I would highlight that in the Alliance for Peacebuilding, we put a strong emphasis on local leadership at the community level to really shape international policy and program responses that are largely developed to this day in the global north. So I wanted to ask with forward scope of work internationally, how do you see the balance between supporting international NGOs with incredible capacity, multi-mandated expertise, the ability to tackle issues regionally or globally, as well as those local actors who are, as you said, closest to the ground in terms of really moving the needle on social justice, governance and taking on inequality. So I think that this is one of the fundamental challenges in development and the global work around human rights. And that is a recognition that we need both, that we need strong regional international actors like many members of your network, who provide an invaluable service. And some of them over decades have been essential to being able to sustain peace, to reduce conflict and strife around the world. I think the question is balance. And I think we certainly have a balance of an imbalance in my view over many decades at Ford, where we have not sufficiently funded those local organizations. And some of this is rooted if we're to be completely honest in the kind of post-colonial development ideology that existed. Again, I won't speak for my institution because the Ford Foundation in many ways epitomized some of that thinking in our own practices. And what I mean by that is we in the 1960s or 70s, you wouldn't have found a Ford Foundation office. And at that time we had 20 plus offices around the world led by anyone other than an American or a European. You wouldn't, I mean, there was a sort of a unwritten rule that the grant making was to be done by Americans and Europeans. And so that kind of thinking, I believe, was deeply harmful long-term to the health and the power dynamic. It was not until 2000, really, that you started to see the emergence of local leaders, certainly in philanthropy at places like Ford or Rockefeller, actually heading the offices. It wasn't until 2000 that the Ford Foundation could look across our offices and see mostly Africans heading African offices. And that is something that as we then turn to the kinds of grant making we did, we did not support sufficiently the development of indigenous leadership, indigenous NGOs and that indigenous infrastructure that we believe is essential to sustaining the work. And so we have absolutely, if I'm to be totally frank and candid, our bias is towards those organizations because we have in our offices, we have the first Afro-Brazilian. I mean, again, hard to believe, but here we are in Brazil since 1962 and never an Afro-Brazilian, the majority of the population. But we understand why, because of the historic legacy of racism in that country and how it has been manifest to the disadvantage people of African descent and indigenous people. So I don't want to position these as oppositional ideas, global NGOs or regional NGOs versus local. Local, we need both and we just need to make sure that as the ecosystem of philanthropy is considered that there is an appropriate balance. I really appreciate your emphasis on the balance, Darren, in getting out of a zero-sum mindset, but also your candor in describing Ford Foundation's journey. I have to say it really strikes the core. It's a journey we're still on. I will tell you, those are right now, when all of our programs were run out out of the international programs were led from New York. And when I became president, I said, how do we get out of this paradigm? We and lots of others used to have, we called our offices outside of New York, the field offices, the lingo of this whole, I mean, the language is absolutely appalling in my view. But programmatically to say, all right, we want our women, our work on women and girls in the South, not to be led from New York as it has historically been. But let's, so what I said was, let's have the program be led from one of the Africa offices. So it's led by an amazing woman, Nicolette Naylor, from the Johannesburg office. But culturally at the foundation to get people to say, actually we have to reorganize ourselves so that this work will be led from an African office. And we in New York will be on Africa time to work with the Africa offices to, and it has just been a process. It's not that people are resistant at all. It's just that the whole structure and the culture of 50 years of programming this way have just accreted in a way in which you have to be vigilant to actually implement this. You can't naively just say, oh, we're gonna just have it be run out of Johannesburg. Let's go on with our, no, you have to actually be vigilant to monitor that it can be effectively led from Johannesburg and that the power dynamic of headquarters versus the international offices doesn't undermine that. It's really inspiring to hear, Darren. And we've faced some of the same challenges and opportunities with doing an online event, but then do we center this around Eastern Standard Time on the East Coast versus truly making this global. And thanks to some really creative work of a team, we've been able to open things up so we can get out of that frame and be more inclusive. Absolutely, and people will have access to this after today. So this is one of the ways in which technology can help solve the problems of time and space. What you said really strikes a chord as well for our audience because we've had some very candid conversations today about racism and privilege and peace building and the need to really live our values within our organizations. So what role do you see philanthropy needing to play in embracing and advancing DEI? Yeah, that's a tough one because philanthropy is not a sector that I would say has any particular credibility on the issue of diversity, equity and inclusion. So it is hard to throw rocks from a glass house. And the Ford Foundation, we literally have a glass house, as you know, and I have said to my colleagues, as we look at our own practices, the challenge of living our values. And it starts with the board and really looking at and examining the diversity of the board and the ways in which the norms and practices and policies of the foundation ensure that we have diversity. I will say, I have been very fortunate, but it is, so let's just look at the Ford board. The Ford board is a majority women, people of color, international. That is not by happenstance. There was intentionality. So leadership must be intentional and vigilant and genuinely authentically a believer because there is a lot of what I call performative acts. And it was where you have seen them, I know, a lot of performative acts in the wake of the murders this year and all of the conversations globally about the movement for black lives. But I think as I have managed at Ford, it requires an ongoing monitoring system and it requires the carrots and sticks, the incentive structures to ensure you get to your objectives. And what I will tell you is there is absolutely talent. I am on three public company boards. I'm lucky enough to serve on a range of organizations from the High Line to the National Gallery of Art to the Lincoln Center and the Committee to Protect Journalists. And over many years, the boards I've been on where I'm sometimes the only one, I've heard this refrain, oh, it's hard to find people. That is patently false and has been proven. So at Ford, I was very intentional of my nine direct reports, the nine vice presidents, seven are women, five are women of color. And I believe we have a terrific high-performing team and certainly based on the review of my trustees recently who concur with that. And I could be prouder, but there is no question that this is not about political correctness or quotas. This is about performance. And if you are intentional, you will find the talent. The talent is out there. We don't have to wait a generation. And I'm seeing it. I mean, the sort of holy grail, big Fortune 100 boards, public company boards, which I said on three, all of a sudden, we are able to find people of color and women. When for years, the retort was, oh, it's just really hard to find people. It's not hard to find people. It is not hard to find talent. If you believe that through diversity, you will be a more effective and productive organization. And you don't have to believe that. The data tells you that. That's not just a belief system of value. That is supported by the evidence. And so for so many people who I know who consider themselves data-driven, why then is it so hard to do what the data tells us is right and good for our organization? I think you made such a powerful point, Darren, in terms of the talent, the intentionality, and the data. And those are certainly points that we are pushing within our own network with a lot of amazing partners, women of color, advancing peace, security, and conflict transformation. Really, there's no excuse. And certainly the time, the hidebound excuses of not having the resources. I mean, certainly no one can afford not to at this point really make DEI a reality in all of the work that we do. I have one last question for you, Darren, before we go to our many questions coming in from our online viewers. This is one, I hope I don't put you on the spot, but the theme, as I mentioned for this year, is pandemics, peace, and justice, shaping what comes next. Now, if you had to recommend one book for us to read this year, and if I might say not your own, to help us better understand and shape what comes next, do you have one to commend to us? Well, you know, it's an interesting question. It's not necessarily a book that will participate in what comes next, right? But it allows us to contextualize what has gotten us here or what has contributed to the challenge and how anchoring our understanding will allow us to be liberated in a way. And so there are a couple of books. I think Paul Farmer's new book, Beaver, Speuds, and Diamonds, which is just out, is a great book in terms of past as prologue and what Paul writes about from the Ebola crisis that we have learned and didn't learn. And I think it's a great book. I also believe that Isabel Wilkerson's book, Cast, is a remarkable work of nonfiction, of just an extraordinary, deeply researched, just lyrically written book on, certainly for we Americans, something that I think we would consider analytical, but that we in fact are a caste system in this country. And she does an exemplary job of rigorously demonstrating and identifying what a caste system looks like and is the components of that. And then dissecting American history and present-day society against that benchmark of a caste and concludes that we indeed are a caste system. And so as we go forward in this post-corona virus world, we have to ask ourselves, how do we get from under this system? And certainly in the United States, something that my trustee, Brian Stevenson and I and many others talk about a lot, which is a difficult thing to talk about, but it has to be if we're to really reconcile and heal in this country. And that is our legacy of white supremacy, which has had a tremendous toll on undermining our democracy and on contributing to this caste system, but also doing just incredible harm to especially people of color and not just economic harm, but the psychic toll of being educated, both formally and informally of this ideology of the supremacy of this fiction, this, the whole idea of these categories was manufactured in order to create these hierarchies. And we are living with these hierarchies and they manifest in all of our systems, our structures, our policies, and overlaying on that the reality of class and classism. It creates a very, very challenging situation, not one that is insurmountable, but in order to prevail over it, we've got to be able to name it. So true. And what you describe really strikes the chord for me, having grown up in a family at the time recently immigrated from India, but grown up in the very recently desegregated South myself. And I think naming these realities are so critical to getting to that PC reality that you've inspired us to strive for. With that in mind, you have inspired many questions from our very international online audience. So if you wouldn't mind if I'd like to be- Oh, I'd be happy to, that's right, of course. Yes, wonderful. So the first one is, this is a nice one, Darin. What advice do you have for young people, the next generation of change agents and philanthropists in terms of creating and sustaining positive change in our communities and in our world? I think we have to be part of community, right? So I think part of what we have to do that we have to redress in this country, and I'm so inspired and hopeful because of young people. And in the United States, you and I as Americans have experienced this idea of freedom, of the triumph of the individual, of these individualized ways of looking at the world. And I believe absolutely that that is right. But I also believe that we have to not just talk about freedom but talk about responsibility and accountability to each other and talk about the collective will and the commonwealth and the public commons and young people. What we need is for young people to remind us of that because my generation read a little too much of Iron Rand and became just in my view a little too enamored of the individual while losing sight of the community and our need to not only build individual wealth and assets, which has been the raison d'etre for many, many people of my generation, but we have not built the common good and we have not done enough to contribute to and engage in the public commons and creating them and sustaining the public assets. And so I'm hopeful when I hear young people and I do commencement addresses and spend time with these amazing young people at the Ford Foundation, they're talking about the common good, the common wells, the way in which we have a collective responsibility to each other. So I'm hopeful, I am hopeful. I'm so happy to hear that and you really see that, I would say, Darren, in the young staff, youth peace builders in our network from all of the world who are just so purpose-driven but also really just so oriented towards that common good versus their own individual gain. And day three of PeaceCon Wednesday, it's the fifth anniversary of the first ever UN Security Council resolution on youth peace and security and we're really gonna use that occasion to try to build momentum five years later for what we hope will be a bipartisan youth peace and security act in next year's Congress creating a global investment stream for youth peace building. You know, these- And to talk to young people about the noble calling it is to do the work of peace building. And when I was a child, I remember John Kennedy, I remember so many leaders urging young people to seek peace in the world, to fight for justice, to see their life's work as fighting for the public interest. We have lost that, we have lost that. And we proceed at our own peril if we don't have leaders talking to us about that and not marginalizing these ideas that equates with something less than success. We can't have a successful America, a successful world if we don't have young people, our most precious assets committing and dedicating themselves to doing the kind of work that we're doing to doing the kinds of work that your network members do. Thank you so much for that. I think you've inspired our youth audience all over the world. I want to turn to another question, which states, as you've so eloquently stated, we must confront many existential challenges in our world today. Structural inequality, systemic racism, climate change, rising levels of violence and extremism globally. Now, what keeps you optimistic and what are the stories of hope and resilience that you turn to? Well, what keeps me optimistic in addition to the young people is just reflecting on my own journey and reflecting on the paths of people who came before you and I, who were confronted with far more horrendous violence, far more what I think of as menacing barriers. And they persevered. And the way in which people, a generation ago, fought for justice, knowing that in their own lifetimes, they would likely not experience the fruits of their work. And so what we're going to do is we're going to take a look at the world and the fruits of their work. And so when I think about people all over this world, when I think about people here in the United States who gave blood so that I could attend integrated schools, so that I could be put on that mobility escalator in this country, imagine being Fannie Lou Hamer. A black sharecropper who was never allowed a full education, semi-literate, and yet she persevered in the pursuit of justice because she believed in America, even though America clearly did not believe in her. And she fought just as John Lewis did, just as so many others did. And so it's true that there are days when I am depressed, despondent, dejected by the mendacity, the cruelty, the greed and corruption I see from some leaders, but I am inspired. I'm inspired by poetry. I'm inspired by the words of Langston Hughes, who in 1934 wrote a poem called, Let America Be America Again. And the first stanza begins with, Let America Be America Again. America never was America to me. But he ends the final stanza by saying, but oh yes, someday America will be. How did this man who was not allowed the dignity of walking in the front door of the Fancy Park Avenue apartments he visited was not allowed to publish in certain publications because he was black? How could he believe in America? He was enraged and angry about the injustice he saw in this country, but he also was inspired. He was a believer, a patriot. And so for me, you know, Uzur, when you say, what do you find inspiration? We live with a level of privilege that our forebears, yours in India, mine in rural Louisiana, could never have imagined living with. And so the job for us is to not raise the ladder, but to lower the wrongs of that ladder to make sure that there is more opportunity for more people all over the world. Just so inspiring, Darren. And I think you've just captured so well for all of us in these low points, how we can just draw inspiration from the resilience, the sacrifice, the pride, the dignity of all those who made it possible for us to be where we are today. With that in mind, I wanted to turn to another question, picking up on a point that you made. Saying, I appreciate that Darren spoke of distortions of capitalism affecting peace and justice. What could policymakers do to address the incentives of surveillance capitalism that are driving the monetization of hate and division? We need policies. And we need, right now, we are seeing a contestation of democracy and capitalism. And capitalism is winning. In a democratic capitalist society, democracy must come first. If we know that the commodification and monetization of hate and division is undermining our democracy, we need policies to address that. And policymakers should be examining, should be crafting policies that surgically address that reality. And part of the challenge for this is that in the public sector, we have not had the capacity to actually take on the technology industry. And it's one of the reasons the Ford Foundation and MacArthur and others are supporting a new field of public interest technology. Because there is a public interest in the world. That public interest in the space of technology has wholly been defined by private industry. And that has harmed individual rights and it's harmed communities and it's harmed our democracy. So we need people who work in congressional offices and at the EU and at other governing bodies, the EU, for example, to be capacitated with technologists and it's why the Ford Foundation supports the Congressional Tech Interns Program so that we don't have a situation like we had a couple of years ago that was comical and tragic at the same time when the Zuckerberg hearings revealed the level of ignorance on the part of our policymakers around basic tenants of technology. And it was because unlike in any other sphere of policy, the environment, financial services, human rights, development, on the congressperson staff, on a senate staff, on a senate committee, there are talented credentialed experts helping those senators and congresspeople make decisions, advising, giving them expertise and expert counsel. There is not that capacity currently in Washington. It's all in Silicon Valley or in the private sector. So we need in Washington people who bring those technology skills and that knowledge to work on behalf of the public, of the public interest. And so that's how we get to getting the right policies. And it's one of the reasons why this program is among the most important initiatives we're supporting at Ford. Well, Darren, that is such an important thought, I think to close our opening day plenary in terms of just the need for all of us to support an assertive public interest and public policy with respect to technology. And we're certainly trying to do the same with peace building and have some incredible digital peace builders really sharing their knowledge and helping build capacity all over the world. So I wanna offer you a very enthusiastic round of virtual applause, Darren. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. As well as it's been such a treat for me. And when my friend Nancy Lindberg asked me to do this, I didn't know that she would be joining me as president of the Packard Foundation. And so I was just on with her a few days ago and she has made the transition to leading the Packard Foundation. But I know has been so proud of the work that she's done and that all of you who have partnered with her and it's just been really phenomenal. And I'm just grateful for this invitation. Thank you so much and congratulations to you. Thank you so much, Darren. And thank you for mentioning the incredible legacy of Nancy Lindberg at USIP. And today we open Peacecon with her new successor, Lee Scrand. I wanna thank you again, all your colleagues at Ford Foundation for everything you do. Thank the USIP team, all 70 plus of our speakers and our 1800 plus registrants for really making opening day one, one for the record books for Peacecon. So I just wanted to remind all of our registrants that we have one more regional monitoring and evaluation learning session in Spanish with no translation. So we can all brush off our Spanish with a Latin and South American peacebuilding experts starting now at 5 p.m. Construir paz en tiempo de COVID, America Latina frente a la crisis a la crisis. Apologies for my Spanish. And for you early birds on the East Coast and the West Coast, we have more regional monitoring and evaluation learning sessions for Asia at 4 a.m. Eastern Standard Time tomorrow and for the Middle East it's 7 a.m. tomorrow with our plenary tomorrow at 9 a.m. sharp focused on women, peace and security. Thank you again. Hasta mañana. Muchas gracias Darren. And really appreciate everything you're doing for a more just and peaceful world. Take care.