they don t live in a box of assumptions. and therefore, they are free to imagine. and that is why we are so thankful for jim and ron and the sandy hook promise. and owe them a great debt of gratitude because this is what they are asking for. they are asking for people to imagine. first, imagine what it is like to lose a loved one at the hands of a deranged gunman and let that motivate you to do something. imagine that we can identify people at risk of violent behave ors early in their life and intervene, imagine the communitis that support one another. embrace diversety and recognize the value of brain health and then let s go to work. let s create technology that allows us to visualize, and measure brain functions in an affordable, accurate and accessible manner so we can change the landscape of brain health and stop someone from committing a tragedy like these, ever again. thank you. tom pitman. i am one of the co-founders of sandy hook promise, at this point in time we w
through and the pain that we are going through. if you are a parent, siblings, families, friends and communities. we met this morning with families from the local area, who have shared this experience, and have lost children and while it was very moving to see their inner strength and courage, the look of pain in their eyes has become all too familiar to me. it is the same pain i see in the families who also lost loved one on 12-14 and the same pain that i notice every time that i look in the mirror. love has so much that connects us because of our losses and while it is helpful to meet with other families who have experienced this and share their experiences, this is the club in which no one would ever choose to be a member. since dylan and his classmates and teachers were murdered we have received hundreds of thousands of cards and remembrances from across the united states and from around the world. these letters are still coming in every day. we are moved that this traged
we have a subcommittee that will quickly review those opportunities and then, syndicate investment in those opportunities. we can build some huge companies around this issue. and then, the third effort is the sandy hook innovation challenge which is a prize effort that jim pitco will tell you more about right now. thank you. thank you. and i want to thank the individuals and families from sandy hook promise and from our local communities came all the way here today to join us. and i had a chance to meet with some of the families last evening and was deeply moved by their courage and commitment to inspiration to me, and i hope that it is an inspiration to all of us. i am the chairman of the sandy hook promise technology committee to reduce gun violence. we are a committee composed of technology experts. spanning hardware and often wear and interprize applications and internet technology and gun safety technologies. we came together right after the tragic shootings in newtown
initiative. and in the days immediately after the december 14th tragedy, leaders from the tech community, including ron con way and others have shown incredible support for newtown. we are so grateful for their support and we are eager to start working alongside with them to innovate our way to a safer nation. with that, i would like to introduce ron con way. thank you. i want to first recognize the families in the front row. we have three families from sandy hook itself, families who lost children, in the tragedy. and then, we also have three local families. and all of you are national heroes. and instead of being bitter, after you lost your children, you are taking action to make the world a better place. you are national heroes. i am new to this issue. i became friends with gabby giffords last year, my good friend, larine jobs introduced me to gabby and mark and we instantly became friends. my wife and i started doing work on gabby and mark s effort which was then the in
and we convened three subcommittees that went to work. and we had a defining conference call on december 17th, 72 hours after the tragedy. there were 150 people on that call. 50 of them gathered together in an office in san francisco. and we took action. we resolved that we were going to do something, we convened into the subcommittees that very quickly rallied around the governor of connecticut asked for a moment of silence on the one-week anniversary of the tragedy. so we rallied around that and attracted hundreds of thousands of participates by signing a petition on causes, that i launched, and then we also used some of our tactics from social media, and blacked out over 2,000 web sites for the moment of silence on the one-week anniversary. we did not stop there. we teamed up with one of our good friends who gathered 3 million signatures on the newtown sympathy card, so now we have a band of americans of over 300 million people who agree that we must stop this violence. we