U. S. Public affairs. [applause] next up, tracy owens, director of u. S. Public affairs at sage. Good afternoon. As you just heard, my name is tracy owens and i lead Public Affairs for the u. S. At sage and i am also a very proud alumnus of Morehouse College. Absolutely. I am grateful for the opportunities that morehouse has provided me and im even more grateful and proud of the opportunities that are continuing to provide for students. And you will hear a little bit more about that later. But before i discuss more about morehouse, let me tell you a little bit more about sage. For those of you who do not know, sage is a uk tech Company Founded just over 40 years ago with a market cap of about 10 billion pounds. We have got about 11,000 colleagues globally and sage is a Market Leader in financial, hr, and Payroll Technology for small and mediumsized businesses. We enable them to streamline him e operations and be more productive, offering Business Owners and their workforces from repetitive and Administration Tasks and enabling them to deliver more strategic and higher value tasks, ultimately increasing their productivity. While we are globally headquartered in the uk, in the u. S. We are headquartered in atlanta. A rapidly growing and entrepreneurial community. We have a number of investments there, including a new building that quadruples our Square Footage space in atlanta. And also a lot of investments in skills programs for entrepreneurs. Our Company Purposes in knockdown barriers so everyone can thrive. Sage is working together to build a trusted and inclusive Digital Economy. Our a. I. Vision is where Business Leaders have realtime trusted information about their businesss performance. To scale and grow the Digital Economy sustainably. We need a diverse, high performing human culture. With Rapid Advances in a. I. Which will have a profound and we believe ultimately positive affect on work, there has never been a more important time for Companies Like sage to embrace committee partnerships to make sure that progress is inclusive and that it can be scaled. Too often, tech is rolled out with a onesizefitsall mentality, even though it can have lasting consequences on those not considered during its development. Not having diverse backgrounds in development, we will miss out on some of the keenest insight to make Technology Work at its best. That is one reason why sage embraced the opportunity to work with Morehouse College and that includes my sisters to create the Software EngineeringProgram Providing students of color with more opportunities to use and study emerging technologies and provide internship programs to make sure that we capitalize on the talent opportunities. I am delighted that dr. Goucher and some more morehouse students are here today. If you would not mind standing for a second, i would love for them to be recognized. Thank you. Thank you. We are also joined by a couple of my colleagues from sage who have been instrumental in making sure that these programs get off the ground and are running and are big supporters of our efforts. So shregiff and josh, if you would not mind standing. Dr. Goucher and Morehouse College partners across atlanta and beyond. So participating in the diversifying Tech Industry can be amplified. Sage sees this not only as doing what is right and just but what we should be doing to build Strong Communities and removing barriers to success. Diversifying the workforce in general intech specifically brings some of the greatest brainpower available to create some of the best services possible. Diversifying tech though is not enough. We also believe that making sure Small Businesses have the opportunity to thrive, particularly those that have had historical and sure we a his stomach to those who need it most of the barriers placed in front of them. So stage not only was to create diversity in the tech systems that service customers, but we want to make sure we are providing the services to those who need them most in the marketplace. We want to concentrate on work by solving our customers needs and eliminating the repetitive and focusing on building trust. Building trust requires we had the most diverse thinking available and at the table. A. I. Is set to contribute in reimagining accounting roles, making them more appealing to a new generation of talent, and talent from all walks of life. And i can handle routine tasks like processing and error spotting, improving Work Life Balance by handling entire sets of tasks autonomously. A. I. Also supports worklife balance in remote work, fitting right into the demand for a new workforce that is emerging. Diversity intech not only does just mean for the technical roles. It means diversity across the entire company. It all works together to build the best products and services for customers. To be clear, technology does not belong to one company. It is far bigger than that. The talent will likely not just work for us but work for a lot of people and a lot of companies in this room right now. So it is incumbent that all of us participate in building the next great workforce and it helps lift all communities and make sure that the work we do is the past it could possibly be. In closing, i would state that sage is working hard to how tech provides for an inclusive environment that helps build the next great workforce. Partnership like morehouse are just a part of it but a very important part. More is needed and we are certainly committed to doing more towards that effort. Collectively, we can make a huge difference and we look forward with working with many of you in this room on the journey, and we hope we can make a real big difference in how the tech workforce and beyond looks into the future. So thank you very much. Advisor to the president and director of the White House Office of public engagement. Please welcome back jason oxman with my up senior benjamin , Senior Adviser to the president and director of the White House Office of public engagement. Well, thank you so much for being here with us and making the trip over from 1600 pennsylvania to join us. It is such a great honor to have you here. Thank you, jason. But i dont live at 1600 pennsylvania. I just work there. The work you are doing on behalf of the Biden Administration is really focusing on the Tech Industry and other constituents to help drive the priorities of the administration and we appreciate it first and foremost how much you have given us the opportunity to participate in that process and the important efforts you are driving forward. One that is top of mind for us in the science industry is the chips and science act so i wanted to ask for your perspective on that and obviously the bipartisan infrastructure law is also a big part of your focus and implementation work is underway there. But lets start with chips and the work that is happening there. It still requires work and effort and what can we do to help support the work you are doing to make that happen . Sure. First of all, thank you. I believe that the two most powerful words in the english language are thank you. My wife still thinks it is yes, maam. And i want to thank you for those of you who have not had the opportunity to work with us in the past. You have the three governments and the fourth estate, media. Then the fifth, Civil Society who works every single day and subject Matter Experts in the challenges facing the country. We Work Together to make sure we are not only raising up the president and Vice President s priorities but doing what my grandmother would say. You are supposed to listen twice as much as you talk. So we engage with you and get critical feedback that hopefully helps us do our jobs better every single day. That is what the president has asked us to do. We try to do it. The investing in america agenda in its entirety has been successful in general. We see it every other week with new economic announcements around job creation. Obviously, returning critical supply chains and the announcements returning from around chips that we saw as a challenge during the pandemic. I was pulling up some of the statistics on the infrastructure bill which has been an amazing opportunity, not just to show what we can do. I am a former mayor as the title suggests. And we come up here every other month for infrastructure week. And finally to get a true infrastructure decade that is now helping to build 136,000 miles of road. Over 14 million new jobs across this country. We have seen unemployment at historic lows under 4 for now two years. We are seeing economic development, and when it comes to chips, in particular, bringing back critical supply chains and high wage jobs for people who do not necessarily need to have a significant or advanced degrees. It is allowing us a degree of security and allowing more and more people access to the middle class, i think unlike any other time in maybe american or world history. These exciting times i believe are as important as the Public Investment maybe more important. While these numbers we see in 1. 2 trillion in infrastructure are what we are seeing on the chips or even the American Rescue plan, these numbers represent a they represent leverage. It is a significant investment that actually is being complemented on much more aggressively by the private sector in partnership with the Public Sector on behalf of 1 trillion in private sector announcements complementing these Public Sector investments. And if we do this right, they will pay benefits and help improve the health of our economy and certainly the health of our families. One other area in this infrastructure and Digital Investment that you have been focused on is addressing the Digital Divide and making sure all americans have access to broadband, which is an important goal given how indispensable broadband is in all aspects of life from access to education to medical care to future opportunities. And we know that the Digital Divide is pervasive and congress on a bipartisan basis has supported a lot of programs that help invest in and close the Digital Divide. The affordable connectivity program. The acp. According to the fcc, congress will close it tomorrow. Congress has not started it up again. It is one of those programs. Can you talk about the president s interest in this work and in your view how the Digital Divide should be addressed and what congress should do to foster more access to broadband for all americans. I am not sure if he has gone up yet. He is up next. So alan and i have had authority at the department of commerce. It is incredible work he is doing in the ntia to help build out infrastructure. Literally making sure every community and urban america, suburban america, rural america, has access to the internet. It is something that in every field of life is necessary right now. They are moving Something Like 90 billion, or what have you. This really Wonderful Partnership with internet providers that has manifested itself in the acp program you cannot overstate how important this is. Taking new applicants as of this week, the program will expire this spring. And you think about the scale and how it got to this point. We are talking about 23 Million People all across this country who use the acp to access Free Internet or significantly reduces their internet, and we have heard story after story of real families, real challenges, real issues, who but for this program would not have access to the internet. You think about the supplemental nutritional assistance program, the s. N. A. P. Program. Again, a Wonderful Partnership. I have responsibilities. I used to be a politician and work for the government so i cannot tell you to go do something and advocate. It is really important that the same bipartisan leadership that yielded acp, we really want to make sure everyone steps up and we continue to provide these opportunities for families all across this country. When you reach that scale of 23 Million People, it really does affect everyone and every Community Across the country. It is worth advocating for. Hopefully Congress Steps up and continues to expand it. The president has been out on the road a lot in the recent weeks and months talking about the importance of all this infrastructure investment. The chips act is obviously bringing a lot of great Construction Projects to a number of great prices around the country. I wanted to ask you, particularly given that you spent 12 years as a mayor, how we can help local communities, states, and municipalities understand the importance of all these investments and all the investment and infrastructure and the upgrades to systems and the Technology Investment obviously with the iti. How can we help the country understand how important these investments are and how they are helping Economic Growth and development and creating job opportunities. What is the story we should be telling . I am a former mayor and a former president of the u. S. Conference of mayors and a former president of the African American mayors association. I will tell you that mayors get it. They see these significant investments. But i think it does help to have partnerships with each and every one of you who are true leaders in this field and subject Matter Experts to make sure everyone understands that these are not onetime investments. If you build a thoughtful partnership, it allows you to strategically invest for prosperity. We preferably will not have another pandemic anytime soon or any other economic or social disruptions, but we should always be thinking about how we build for the future. We should think about these investments being strategic, and leveraged for longerterm and tiered investments from the public, private, and philanthropic sector. That cannot be overstated. So it certainly helps to communicate that with local leaders on a regular basis, realizing that all cities have something in common. But these are really thoughtful placebased investments that take in the unique characteristics of each community and the assets that they have. So i will tell you if you dont already have a relationship with the mayor in the city that you work or have a significant number of people, i would encourage to reach out to her. Reach out to him. Figure out ways you can inform each other as to how these investments, again, not only affect me and you but our children and our childrens children, and our childrens children after them. The last thing i wanted to talk to you about was s. T. E. M. Education. We heard from morehouse visiting here with us including dr. Kenneth uche who is here. Tracy did not mention this. Responsible for producing more black, male graduates with masters and phds than any other professor in the country, and i did not make that up. So, yeah. The Technology Industry is focused on the help of people like dr. Go che. And creating opportunities for historically underrepresented communities. I know the Biden Administration is very focused on this as well. Companies need more skilled workers. What is the focus there . I was hassling my teenage daughter. Did they spell morehouse as well . I have a freshman. My heart and my money go to it. The investment and the talent pipeline, the domestic talent pipeline, cannot be overstated. It is important to national security. It is important to reach deep and wide. It will have to serve us for many, many years to come. I would encourage you if you are already investing in your companys and if we dramatically widen and deepen the talent pool of these amazing young people, like those at morehouse and spellman, and other colleges across the country, i would tell you you are missing out. Data shows when you invest in a truly Diverse Talent pool, you build up a infrastructure and you do well. At profits from it. So i would encourage you to do so. It is critical. Every shot does not require a terminal degree. There are other people that benefit and we try to build from the middle up and bottom out. If we do that, working people would do so much better. The middle class will continue to grow. And certainly those who do really well will continue to prosper as well. Thank you. Is our time up . It is. Thank you for all that you do. On behalf of the president and Vice President , continue to get the work done. Stephen benjamin. Thank you so much. Earlier today, health and Human Services secretary Xavier Becerra testified. Watch the Senate Hearing tonight on cspan or online at cspan. Org. For cspans voice is 2024, we are asking voters across the country what issue is most important to you in the selection and why . The most important issue this political season is immigration. Economics and the deficit. I think homelessness is an issue that needs to be addressed. We invite you to go to our website on cspan. Org campaign 2024. Record a 32nd video telling us your issue and why. Be a part of the conversation. See spanish or unfiltered view of the government. We are funded by these companies and more