 Hello, everyone, and welcome back to day three of the Youth Apprenticeship Summit 2020, Pathways to Inclusive Economic Renewal. We're so glad to have you back. Thank you for joining us. My name is Mary Alice McCarthy, and I direct the Center on Education and Labor here at New America. For those of you not familiar with New America, we are a nonpartisan, independent think tank dedicated to renewing the promise of America by continuing the quest to realize our nation's highest ideals. The Center on Education and Labor is a research advocacy and technical assistance program that's focused specifically on strengthening the link between education and economic mobility. The belief in education as a ticket to economic mobility and security is one of those highest ideals that's really at the heart of the American promise. Indeed, it is a cornerstone of our social contract, the idea that if you're willing to finish school and work hard, you can make it in America, no matter where you started on the economic or social ladder. But as we all know, economic mobility in the United States is declining and income and wealth inequality are increasing, even as more Americans are completing high school and going to college than ever before. And these these growing inequalities are not are not spread equally across our society, rather they're mapping on to an existing inequalities along racial, gender and socio economic lines that have existed for some time as are making those inequalities even worse. So something's not working here. In fact, many things are not working and they threaten our ability to really live our ideals and fulfill our social contract. There are many factors at play that are driving inequality and reducing economic mobility in the United States, but two important ones are these. A high school education is no longer enough to get good the good jobs necessary for economic security in the United States. That didn't used to be the case. At the same time, our higher education system, which is a source of economic mobility is still not able to provide sufficient variety a sufficient variety of high quality and affordable options that meet the needs of our much larger and diverse population of post secondary students, many of whom really want more hands on learning opportunities and opportunities to gain work experience. As a result, many young people in the United States are having a difficult time making transitions from school into careers and good into good jobs and into careers, even as education becomes more and more expensive. It doesn't have to be this way, and we can do things differently, and other countries have figured out ways to do this differently and to do it successfully and to help many more young people transition successfully into adulthood. And for that reason, because we want to better connect education and economic mobility that we founded the partnership to advance youth apprenticeship together with our nine national partner organizations, and with the generous support of an amazing group of committed philanthropies, because apprenticeship provides those structured transitions from school into good jobs, strong professional networks and opportunities to build a career. We needed PIA to help communities around the country build those structured and supported transitions from high school into college and into careers for young people. And we did it specifically for high school age young people, because our analysis of the situation was that this is where the problem was starting of young people not getting good paths to economic mobility and security. So here we are today in 2020, two years after having launched the partnership to advance youth apprenticeship, and we have a growing network and community and a growing set of communities that are engaged in this work and it seemed to be growing by the day. It's really been quite something. So first, I just want to say thank you to all of you who have joined this this effort. And congratulations on all the work that you've completed so far. And we look forward to continuing to engage with you in the future. I just want to provide a little bit of background on how where where we're coming from before I introduce our two keynote speakers of the day and say a few words about what we're going to do on this last day of the summit. I think you've been hearing a lot about the partnership to advance youth apprenticeship over the last two days. I just want to reiterate that it has been an incredibly successful effort so far that has exceeded our expectations. We started this work back in 2016 with a small research grant from the Siemens Foundation with the with the goal of trying to find out whether or not youth apprenticeship was something that might work in the United States and whether or not communities might be open to it. What we found was that through our conversations with with young people with their families with school administrators with employer with employers was that something had shifted in the United States and this idea of better connecting learning and work was resonating in ways that really that was that was really striking right. So we went ahead and launched the the the partnership in 2018 and that was when the rubber really hit the road and we would know whether or not this was an idea that really had had was really speaking to the needs of American communities. When we launched our first grand competition, expecting a few communities to respond and got over more than 200 responses to our request for grant proposals. At the time we had been working with directly with a small number of communities and we built the PIA network to continue engaging the many hundred the over 200 communities that were interested in engaging in youth apprenticeship and making sure that we kept them connected to us and to one another and to all of our national partners. And one of the big things that themes that I've heard over the last two days is that we have even more communities wanting to join that network. So there's always this question of with this network even work and with this work continue and here we are and it is not only stronger as strong as it was back in 2018 is actually stronger and growing, even in the midst of a pandemic. So, I think you already have heard from a number of people today why we think this work is more important than ever in this time when we're about to when we're on the cusp of another deep and potentially deepening recession. We believe that we don't have the answers right to the. Let me just. This is the second time in the 21st century, which is not only 20 years old and we find ourselves in a deep and potentially deepening recession recession that once again threatens to hold back a generation of young people. I think it's fair to say that we don't know how to stop a virus and we don't know how to stop the next recession. But we do know that a well established youth apprenticeship system will help young people whether these crises better and that we have both a moral obligation to that for these young people and to our economic future to build those systems. So thank you all for the work that you're doing to build these programs that couldn't be coming at a more important time. So today we're going to kick off our events with with two incredibly impressive executives and thought leaders in the field. I'm Mary slaughter the CEO of New America and Barbara Humpton the CEO of Siemens USA and the chair of the Siemens Foundation. I'm just going to quickly provide a little. Pardon me. You can see on my notes here. We do Amory is the CEO of New America, which and she is also the Bert J Kurt Stutter University professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University. From 2009 to 2011 Amory served as the director of policy planning for the United States Department of State and it's the first woman to hold that position. And prior to her government service Amory was the Dean of Princeton University School of Public and International Affairs. Barbara Humpton is the president and CEO of Siemens USA as I said and also the chair of the Siemens Foundation. Prior to joining Siemens USA she was the vice president at Booze Hamilton Booze Allen Hamilton and prior to that vice president at Lockheed Martin. So we have two incredibly impressive women executives who risen to the top of their fields and I think it's fair to say have unique perspectives to offer on career advancement. Economic mobility in a time of rapid technological change and the particular challenges and opportunities we face in this moment. So with that I want to turn it over to you and Marie for what I know it's going to be a really great conversation. Thanks. I'm Anne Marie Slaughter and I am so pleased to be part of the PIA summit. The program to advance youth apprenticeship is as Mary Alice said a demonstration that things don't have to be the way they are and America can change and America can learn from other countries, many of which have robust youth apprenticeship systems. So it's particularly a pleasure to be talking to Barbara Humpton as you just heard Siemens has been really at New America side from the beginning from that initial research grant through the first phase of PIA and now we're launching the second phase. So Barbara, you know Siemens is really a watchword for innovation globally, and many of the people that you have working here in the United States are working in jobs. We could not have even imagined five years ago, certainly 10 years ago. But that's that's not just positions in AI and cybersecurity, which is what everybody thinks about, but a much wider range of positions in your manufacturing plants. So, why don't we start by having you tell us how Siemens is preparing people for these new, but very important jobs. Thank you, Anne Marie and I just have to say it's such a pleasure to be back with you again. I don't know if you remember the last time the two of us were in the same room was at the Munich Security Conference, sitting on either side of Madeleine Albright what a, what a thrill, you know great conversations just before all of the, the realities of the pandemic affected all of us. And, and I'll also say hello to the audience, I had the pleasure of being with you at the launch of this fantastic partnership, and I have just been so inspired by what has happened in these last two years. And this really does parallel, Anne Marie as I say does parallel what's been going on inside the Siemens Corporation. For those who aren't familiar with Siemens we are a company that was built to serve society Siemens has been focused on technologies in every one of the industrial regions, and this fourth industrial revolution of bringing bringing infrastructure online the digitalization of everything is absolutely in our wheelhouse. So we've been busy working in fields as diverse as health care, we spun out health in years a couple of years ago and you've seen them active during the pandemic working on testing, testing for both the virus and antibodies. You've seen then also energy our energy team which was just recently spun off has been busy keeping the lights on. And then meanwhile in buildings we've been working on helping building owners manage their building so people can come back with confidence and in manufacturing, helping to ramp up production of everything from PPE to medical devices to the goods and services we need every day. So, so it's been a busy time and it is a time of transformation that's going on. And so our focus inside Siemens has been two fold this concept of lifelong learning. I think what we've seen is that technologies are changing so fast markets are changing so fast that there is no way that anyone can expect to earn their four year degree, you know come out of college and be ready for a full, you know, career without without some strategy for staying engaged in lifelong learning. And the second thing is, we're focused very much on this digital transformation that's happening. You know it used to be that if someone was coming into the manufacturing environment what they needed was some experience in some know how in how to use their hands in in a what I'll call, you know, a machine technology, etc. Now, yes, we do still need to use our hands and we also have to know some degree of either programming data analysis, you know, potential working with technology and alongside technology. And so the field whole field of mechatronics has emerged. So, so the idea of lifelong learning married up with this idea that we're going to have to have the inner the injection of new skills in our overall learning programs. That's how we're looking at it today at Siemens. Thank you. And I will say, as someone who was a professor for many years I saw many mentees I have two teenage two sons one of whom still in college the other just out. And I tell all of them that if you are in college, that's just your first degree right that it will not be a world in which you get your whatever level of education you get and then that education is over and then your job starts quite the contrary it is learning and earning mixed which means some folks for instance who don't go to college or who's starting college and then stop out and then get a job it is it is this this inter woven process for the rest of their lives. And it doesn't always have to mean school either exactly as apprenticeships are you can learn on the job you can be certified in many different ways. Robert, you, you have actually really been a leader in in making sure that Siemens and the whole private sector is actively investing in strategies to prepare for the workforce of the future that you can't just be kind of passive consumers of workers who are trained the way you want them to be trained you have to get out there and engage in all sorts of training programs development programs. Do you think that message is catching on do you think other companies in addition to Siemens are hearing you and and sort of joining a more active coalition of efforts to try to themselves shape the workforce of the future. I think that's happening, I do think that's happening and you ask yourself why. Well, it's partly because we're actually inventing the work of the future as we speak. And there's this recognition that that companies have an important role to play in first informing educational institutions about the art of the possible. It's coming over the horizon that institutions can and should be embracing as part of their curriculum. And, and then, likewise, we understand that it's incumbent on us to ensure that we've got work forces who are already and so, you know, you can look across especially across the tech industry you'll see huge investments in certification programs, you know, opportunities for people to follow some course of learning that will result in a credential that says to users of that technology. This individual is prepared. That's that's something that's emerged in the last decade or so and it really is having an impact on on the way we interact with the future workforce, but but I'll go one step further and why Siemens is so committed to the, especially igniting an interest in STEM and really striving to create what we sometimes talk about as middle skills right the not white collar not blue collar but new collar jobs. So what we're finding is that our customers need to have a workforce that understands how to use our technology so rather than simply offering training internally to our own employees. What we're looking to do is open up our books, make non proprietary knowledge available so that educational institutions of all kinds can help us prepare not only our workforce of the future but our customers of the future. That's really interesting. I hadn't thought about that, although if you, you know, if you think about even retail employees say at an Apple store they've got to be able to really demonstrate and be totally comfortable with the technology they're not just that they're selling but they're selling the product in ways that are more than obviously an exchange of transactions. Does that mean do you think that that companies like Siemens will stop advertising for jobs in terms of degrees required and rather skills required because I'm mindful that a Michael Crow who's the president of Arizona State University. He sits on New America's board. He says high school makes you a learner college makes you a master learner and graduate school makes you a universal learner. But the point is he's not thinking so much about degrees but rather how much you've learned to learn and then as you say, you could you could advertise simply for those who are certified in a whole set of skills. There's a lot of dialogue right now about the concept of stackable credentials right the idea that I don't care where you get this knowledge but the fact that you have this knowledge is is what's important to me as an employer. You know at Siemens we're a job creator and we have to think about our jobs in terms of what are the core skills that are necessary to be successful in this job. And for far too long companies like ours have used a bachelor's degree almost to stand in place of the real credentials we're looking for and I love that framing of learning to learn being a master learner universal learner. But I think we are entering a phase when we can be much more specific about the true requirements of the job and therefore what credentials are required and man when that happens, I think we open up our aperture to a much broader and deeper talent pool. I mean I look at it this way and Marie talent is pretty well dispersed across humanity. We're trying to get the top talent into our organization and if we put this artificial layer of thou shalt have a four year bachelor's degree in between us and talent. It prevents us from reaching the truly diverse and rich array of talent that we could be drawing into the organization so yes we are making this effort to understand the underlying true qualifications that are needed and advertise our jobs that way. The first step that we've made that proves that this can really work. We worked with Google to help translate military operational codes into the kind of skills that we need the job categories that we work to fill in Siemens and it makes it so much easier for someone leaving the military to say hey, here's here were my operational specialties in the military. Now, what would I qualify for in Siemens breaks down barriers. I've seen things similar similar ideas with homemakers women who have been at home, where you know essentially the work of managing a household with with children and it's an enormous logistical capacity to begin with. And you can break down a number of the things that a woman or a parent who's at home does every day and translate those into the kinds of skills that are needed on the job which again, does open up a whole range of talent I couldn't agree with you more America desperately needs to tap our own reserves of talent, and we've put many of the barriers in place that prevent that. But so Barbara you're you're not only CEO, President CEO of Siemens America but you're also the chair of the Siemens Foundation so you have to be aware where a philanthropic hat as well. And we're delighted that you're going to be investing in the next two year phase of PIA where we, you know we see ourselves as the catalyst for youth apprenticeships across the country and that the time is terrific. But as you think about this from a philanthropic point of view what what are you trying to accomplish with your grants and your philanthropy strategy. Yeah, thanks. You know the Siemens Foundation really is dedicated to igniting that interest in STEM and creating the workforce of tomorrow. And it's a focus that one of my predecessors really helped to drive and I'll tell you that laser like focus has has really helped us to have impact. Tyler who's the president of our foundation the CEO and and also Crystal Richmond an expert in this field have been instrumental in helping us understand how we could truly make a difference with, you know what I'll say is, we're, we're not the richest foundation in the country right we but we when we make an investment we really want it to have reach and and for it to generate results. The main right from the get go is that there is real strength in partnerships. So this initial investment that the Siemens Foundation made in PIA was intended truly to be that seed that would allow New America and PIA to to branch out and amplify the right network of partners and create a platform. And, you know, let me just take one moment and draw a parallel because what you all are doing is phenomenal and, and I like to think of it in terms of what's been going on with the evolution that's been sweeping the world. People ask the question you know what makes our digital platform so powerful and the fact is, they enable other people to create value, right it's no longer about creating something and selling it. It's about creating a platform from which others can connect, drive new forms of value and, and that generates network effects, drawing others into the mix and eventually you get this kind of flywheel I mean think about the way Facebook started right a bunch of college students exchanging information in some very elite institutions now billions of people connected on Facebook, and it's because of the power of the platform it generates value for us. We're seeing the same effect here so that initial investment from the Siemens Foundation, and then PIA identifying a network of providers who are working not only at the federal level also at the state and local level, reaching out creating a model, having that generate interest and draw others in. We've seen funders flock to this effort. People recognize this is a moment where something like this solves problems that have been building for quite some time. So the value creation is key to the overall success and I'm just proud that the Siemens Foundation was there to help recognize the opportunity and help ignite this spark. That is music to my ears not just as as CEO of New America but in my academic life. I'm a network theorist I've been studying networks since 1994 and writing books about the networked form a horizontal world the way in which we are now distributed and we just need to be connected and where we're distributed and customized, but which is great but then each individual organization, even each individual business is much smaller and the way you then have impact is to bring together coalitions of partners so this is one of the things I always talk about when I talk about PIA is that you have the New America team you have the nine grantees you have the nine partner organizations and then each region you have additional partners, and you can see that spreading in ways that yes start to go of its own accord as you say exactly like a flywheel so I've music to my ears I hope if any funders are listening they listen to heart I do think this is going to be the future certainly for organizations like New America to have maximum impact, even as we have complimentary skills so that is that is a great strategy. We're going to turn to the audience questions before too long, but I do want to ask you a little more about the, the darker side as many workers perceive it and indeed employers perceive it of this fourth industrial revolution of the digitization of everything and we're seeing it with right now where where there there's there were all these frontline workers these essential workers, but many of those jobs like gross stacking grocery shelves just to take one example are likely to disappear and where they things have been closed down employers are going to start making the kinds of investments that improve efficiency but take away a whole layer of jobs. So what do you say to people who say you know the future is going to be automated there's no room for me. Yes, well, let's see let's start first of all with the whole the whole premise that robots are going to take away our jobs, I will just sell you I will just tell you that is it's false it's false thinking. Yes, automation is going to change the way we work. But I look at it this way from the first time a human picked up a rock and used it as a tool tools have changed the way we work it's elevated the role of the human. And this round of innovation that's going on right now is no different from every prior round of innovation that we've dealt with. What will this artificial intelligence, the robotics, what does this bring to us it brings the ability to actually remove certain kinds of tasks from the work that we do. Gives us the opportunity actually to take advantage of machine learning to tap into the very rich data that exists all around us so that we have the chance to make better decisions have less waste. Envision better futures. This is one of the most important times in human history, and we have this opportunity, especially in this year of coven when we've experienced such intense disruption to pause and ask ourselves, what is the future we want behind me on the other side of the globe. I've got Kaifu Lee's book, AI superpowers, you know he talks about this rise of AI and, and he can paint this picture of this dystopian future where, you know, people are automated out of their jobs, etc. And then it's tempting to put down the book before you get to the final chapter in which he reminds us of love and caring and joy. I think that that humans actually humans are a part of the equation I think we're going to get a lot of help from machines in the future, but our human creativity, our human engagement with one another is only going to be enhanced by this. So what is it that we need to do as people if we're worried about our jobs actually being automated away. What we need to do is is look differently at the jobs to be done, and to be curious about what roles will we play and find out where our interests lie with curiosity and initiative we can pursue that lifelong learning and come on board with the things that will be done next. Today the Siemens Foundation is helping with the in the field of automation controls professions professionals people are going to maintain buildings in the future to help them learn how to deal with the automation of buildings. They're working in the medical field to help help our technicians understand how to interact with the technology that's available to them there and become ever more proficient in data. And we do these things in order to show people that pathway it's not going to take a double E degree. In fact what I'm saying to people I had a chance to address a group yesterday and they asked what should we tell our children to do now during the crisis. I said, play video games, future of engineering is going to is going to feel a lot more like playing a video game than like working with the slide rule. So, people have accused me of being an optimist I am I you know I say the glasses and half empty it's overflowing. There's opportunity here and I want people to see the opportunity ahead of us. That is, there are going to be a lot of parents are going to be very glad to hear that their kids playing video games is actually productive although I agree that being able to manipulate things in three dimensional virtual space which is really what a lot of these games are. I've often thought that those are skills that will probably be be transferable. I want to, I want to just pause for a minute on you mentioned Kaifu Lee's book and that last chapter and it's exactly right you read it and you think what he's saying is China is going to beat the United States it's all about data it's masses of data what China can do. At the end he does he does this you turn and talks about love and compassion and empathy and human qualities and Jamie Marisotis the president of the Lumina Foundation has just released a new book called human work, where he describes the work that only humans can do. A lot of that is in the care economy where it's directly involving relationships between two human beings not just care as in physical care like childcare elder care but investing in other people so coaches and guides and navigators and managers, a whole array of jobs that involve essentially teaching, transferring skills, disciplining all the things that you do when you are helping someone else achieve their potential. And those are jobs where tech can help those jobs tech can make those better jobs, but they are human. One last question before we turned to audience questions. There are equity issues throughout this conversation, beginning with the the absence of high quality broadband or indeed any broadband to many of the poorer parts of the United States, where you have families right now whose kids really aren't learning because they can't get online, and much of the future you outline and a lot of which I share your optimism and various points, but we have got to make sure that that's a future that is far more equal than the way technology has been evolving indeed as the way American society has been evolving so how do you think about equity issues in this context. Yeah, you know this this last six months has brought us to moments of true introspection. You know the health care crisis leading to an economic crisis and then sort of revealing the underpinnings of social issues that need to be dealt with. And I think it is one of those moments when we have that opportunity to question everything. And let me share two things that that we're doing at one inside Siemens we absolutely are asking ourselves about how we do what we do and how the work we do can enhance social equity. We're involved in infrastructure development so everything from power to the future of transportation to, as I say, how, how buildings are used how manufacturing gets done we're engaged in that and, and there's this is a moment when engineers and designers can ask that question is this is this accessible to the people who need it, and that can inform design and engineering decisions and then likewise as a company, asking ourselves a question, all up and down the, the chain of you know from spurring to promoting to, frankly, forming teams. The question we're asking is, are we doing this in such a way that everyone has a shot that the people can be themselves at work and and fully participate in the work that we do. We find that it just engaging in that question is spurring all kinds of new thoughts ideas and approaches and, and it's exciting to see people energized by the prospect that we really are in control of this future that we're creating. Now, you know, what about, what about the rest of the world and what we control, I've often said, hey, if you have power and comms, anyone can participate in this new digital economy and it turns out that not everybody has power and not everybody has comms. Now, Siemens, we've got technology that plays in the power end of things, but, but we're counting on others to step in for the communications, but even that's not enough and this is what's so powerful about the community we're meeting with today, because a community of educators really have a moment in which they could engage in and have to engage in new and different ways. I've been thinking a lot about our whole frontier spirit, the spirit of American, you know, discovery stick to itiveness the way we help each other. I've been thinking about one room school houses and, you know, are there ways that people are rethinking and reengaging in such a way that we're ensuring we're not leaving anybody behind in this educationally challenging time. Thank you for that. And I will say that we are all learning and the issues of racial equity and systemic racism and the way it's embedded in many things that you or I had no hand in designing and yet we are all the product of the structures that shape our society. But one thing we're discovering is that as you ask, is this accessible? Is this inclusive? That actually changes also who you have to have around the table to answer those questions, right? So the process of changing the questions you ask then ends up changing the people who answer those questions as well, which is also what we have to be able to do. We have a long list of questions, more than we're going to be able to get to. First one, and they're coming in faster than we can collate them. The first one is that it says you've talked a lot about how the workforce is changing and will continue to change as technology advances. What is one important skill that's not going anywhere? And what's the best way to develop it? I'm listening as a parent as well. Learning to learn is not going anywhere. It's that simple, right? And, you know, your example of high school to college to graduate school. I don't know about you Ann Marie, but my own path was such that I actually didn't go on to graduate school. You know, the common knowledge at the time was to be a CEO someday you would need to get an MBA and I didn't. I became a mother early in my career and, you know, decided that I was going to keep working and was doing interesting things. And so I got, you know, my degree from the School of Hard Knocks, as we like to say. But looking forward, you realize that there are a lot of skills that are going to come in and out. You know, when I first went to work I was learning how to program in a programming language that is totally obsolete now. But learning how to think about programming, that's with us. And that'll stay forever. Yeah, interesting. It has a lot to do with cultivating curiosity and courage, those two things together because of what holds us back from learning often is fear of failure, that we're not going to know how to do it. We're not going to do well at it. So there's so much work on grit and kind of determination and persistence. But a lot of what we have to do is teaching people to ask questions and not to be afraid of what they don't know and not to be afraid of failing because there is no way to learn without failing. It's certainly not on the job. All the things, if I look at all the things I learned not in books, they're mostly those lessons that burn into your brain because you sure don't want that to happen again. So I think that's a wonderful answer. Second, and some of this you address. So this is to both of us, where both people have traditional education backgrounds although as you said you you did not get an MBA, I am wildly over educated but actually doing things that I was not educated for. It says, in both of our cases that our professions have fairly rigid rules for how that's done. And the question asked if apprenticeship had been an option for you and I'll think about this too. Would you have pursued it and if so, how might your past have been different. And so you think about what you wanted to be in, could you have been an apprentice. Oh, well, first of all, absolutely. And I think that spirit of apprenticeship has been with me through my whole career. I'll share with you that I was one of those people when I applied to go to work at IBM, I was really on a path to be a math professor like my parents, my summer jobs had been things like deckhand on a ship in Annapolis. I had been a lab assistant in a chemistry lab and at the Virginia Military Institute where my dad taught. And it was the, I would say that my keen interest was getting exposure to a lot of things. I chose to do foreign travel and study, you know, go abroad live with a family and and learn by living. So I think the spirit of apprenticeship was there and that may also be the spirit that accompanies me now. I get to do a job where I get to interact with the smartest people in the world on subjects like healthcare power, manufacturing, etc. And what I'm learning from others around me is just phenomenal. There was also just one quick thing. There was a moment mid career when I really thought, you know, I was, I was doing fine but I had these kids at home and things were kind of crazy and I was just like, Oh, am I am I actually going to stick this out or am I going to sort of drop out. One of the ideas I had was to spend some time learning the trades that we all think are so critical, you know, how to be a plumber how to be a carpenter how to write I was just captivated by that idea mid career didn't do it yet. And I will say with YouTube that is more possible than ever both my sons you know whatever it is that they need to do from sewing a button to tying a tie to learning how to play the drums. There's a video that that helps them do it. So that it's such a good interesting question I effectively was an apprentice to a law professor. I was never intended to be a professor I was going to be a foreign I was going to be a lawyer, and I was going to work in a firm and in many ways your first years in a law firm you are an apprentice but you're not learning and and earning together but there you're learning your trade. And then I just realized and I wanted to use law as a springboard to foreign policy which was a very well trodden path in the 1980s and before less so now. I really didn't like being in a law firm I've worked for law in law firms for two summers and I didn't want to do it but I didn't know what I did want to do. So I worked for a law professor I'd gone to law school for four years and I effectively was an apprentice I worked out of his office I shadowed his every move I worked on his projects but he was the principal. And over those four years I learned what it was to be a law professor. After those four years I went on the law teaching market, never having imagined that that was a path I was going to pursue. So the opposite of you right I didn't come from professors that never occurred to me, but it did enable me to think I can do this, and I have learned how to do this you write articles that you teach you go, you know, speak on panels. You sit on committees all of that so it's a it's a wonderful example I do think that thinking about even say in foreign policy jobs on Capitol Hill or jobs in the executive. We have internships, but apprenticeships are different and they're different because of course you're paid, but the person paying you also has to teach you. And of course that's combined at least with youth apprenticeship with an actual curriculum. So everyone's takes it I think far more seriously than internships, some are great but not certainly not all that's fascinating. All right, we have next question. So. Oh, so you've addressed this a little bit but I want to just ask you a little more. So it says Paya is supported by a collaborative of national and regional philanthropic organizations, funders with different missions and priorities or collaborating to support a single initiative. I've worked about why you think that's valuable that's what the question is, is asking, but I would ask you to look a little bit about what it takes to make that happen I've worked with enough foundations to know that, you know, we might all think collaboration is a good idea, but foundations like every everyone else often want to do things their way so what does it take to build that coal funding coalition. Well, actually, I think the key word is one that's a cornerstone word of Paya, which is purpose. Right, every one of our funding organizations has a stated purpose has a goal they're trying to achieve and believe me, we're all a little bit different. But but what Paya has tapped into is something that is in. I'll say if you drew the Venn diagram. There'd be this huge overlap area where you say hey, here's something very many of us care about right where we're tapping into a real problem here which is the four year degree. It can't be the only path to the American dream. We're tapping into this need actually to prepare people for jobs that need to be done. You know I'll pause for a minute and say, have you heard the stats that, even when we had full employment, more or less here, you know within the last year in the US. There were almost half a million open jobs in manufacturing, and and now even in the midst of the pandemic with so many unemployed. Manufacturing still has gosh I think I saw the stats the other day 460,000 open jobs that need to be filled. So, so we draw the Venn diagram of what do we all care about and you see this tremendous shared purpose. And then that realization that gosh each of us has our own networks. So if we can unite on this opportunity, put this partnership in place, really trigger these initiatives. We're going to get a network effect from our multiple funding communities. And that's powerful, but even more powerful is what's been going on on the side of the education providers. I mean, I had not been exposed prior to pie I had not been exposed to this community of people who are dedicated to career technical who are working across community colleges and then, you know, truly in the high school guidance counseling profession in order to, you know, help engage young people and show them the potential of what could be. Now, I will tell you, I think there's one other secret element here, which is the young people themselves. I had the experience recently of hearing from Governor Reynolds of Iowa, she was describing the work that had been done there on youth apprenticeship. And she said I really wasn't sure this is what was going to take off until one of our apprentices Sam rolled into his high school parking lot with a brand new Ford F 150 that he had paid for. I heard of a story of one of our participants in South Carolina just outside of Charleston the first in her family to basically buy a house before she turned 20. Right. It's giving young people the economic means to start off their lives, not from a position of debt, but from a position of earning their way along. It's just so powerful. So I think that is what is the the value creation theme, and, and it's why we're seeing this explosive growth. That's very helpful. I also think it's valuable that you have a pretty clear metric in the end you can say how many youth apprenticeships are there out there and how can we we that that purpose is the common purpose is tied to a clear metric which seems to me also hugely important when you when you try to to build these coalitions. So we have time for one last question and it's it again goes to the equity question because the the whole value is as we've talked about of changing the credentials of opening up the workforce to people who can show you what they can do without formal credentials. As you say opening your own technology so that other people can learn on it and then then apply all of that create widens the pool of people who can climb it can get us a Siemens job and then and then rise particularly women people of color other under represented groups. But the question is, are there, there, there are specific changes that you think need to be made within industries or institutions really very specific ones to make it possible for for those underrepresented individuals to rise in the ranks. You know, this is a tough question. I mean and I think all across the country we're asking this question of what needs to change. Is, is this a matter of we've need to make accommodations, or is this a matter of people need to feel empowered to go out and and and pull themselves up by their bootstraps and grasp the brass ring and and move forward. And my general sense is that it's all of the above. You know, in this moment that we're living through right now one of the things I've done is some more reading on the subject of of bias, and this, you know, helping to understand the picture that hey, human beings are hardwired to have biases right it's what it's what makes it possible for us to have survived over all these many generations. And so you know what is actually a very healthy trait, you know the ability to make quick judgments about you know who is that person I'm being confronted with in this moment is a friend or foe fight or flight you know all these things are part of who we are. And, and so you know us being conscious of of the need to make decisions that get I'm going to come back to that whole concept of getting access to the right talent for the job that needs to be done. Not excluding people for reasons that are totally unrelated to whether or not they can do the job. So for me, I get it it's a really controversial topic but it comes down to very simple business principles to me. I want to work with the best people in the world. And so what I'm trying to figure out is what's getting in the way of that. And if there are things that we can change that make it easier for people to join Siemens and be part of our team. That's, that's the realm I have some control and influence on I want to exercise that influence. Well, that's, that's a perfect way to end and I think I will tie it to your earlier point about the one skill that won't go away, which is learning to learn being able to learn. I think many of us in CEO positions and management positions and leadership positions, realize how much we have to learn the amount of reading I've done the conversations I've had. You know, unpacking my own bias realizing well, wait a minute when I thought this was happening maybe something very different was happening, or simply accepting that whatever I was doing it wasn't getting the right results so we have that's and that's how we learn right we try something it doesn't work. And if we're committed we keep trying until we do find the key that opens that lock. And this has really been a wonderful conversation and again we thank we thank Siemens we thank you for the support, and we we thank you for the imagination of that apprenticeship, something that we associate with Germany or Switzerland or Singapore can work perfectly well right here in the United States and we can develop our own approach to it. So thanks so much. It's been a pleasure. Thank you. Back to you Mary Alice. Let me just say thanks to both of you for such a thoughtful conversation that was really, that was really excellent and certainly generated lots of thoughts and questions on my part so if we were in the office right or if we were in an event space right now I would ask everyone to give a memory and Barbara round of applause so I'll just model that right here and hope that you're doing it wherever you are that was just a great conversation. And I do think with this work it's always great to have people who can pull us back to the big picture and the fact that the reason that youth apprenticeship I think is resonating so much today is because it's it's addressing so many of the challenges that are being produced by by some of the big global trends around technology and trade and changing nature of work and our changing societies and our, our concerns about growing inequality and growing inequities and how to address them. So it's nice to be reminded that there are connections between what we're doing every day and those those big big trends, and we're not the only one seeing them. And the other point I just want to take care, take away from this really thoughtful conversation that Emery and Barbara just had was, was this theme of the human care element and how you know here in this time of rapid technological change we worry about jobs being eliminated. But the work that you all are doing to build apprenticeship systems really is human centered work right and it takes humans to build these programs to build the policies. And it also is work that is driven by human values and you're doing it because of what you care about. And, and that is something that is invaluable and intangible and that isn't going away and is more important than ever.