Keynote by US President Bill Clinton at PanIIT 2009
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Posted by Pradeep Chopra | at October 10, 2009 |
(3 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)
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Today is the BIG day for PanIIT 2009. Everyone is anxiously waiting for the Keynote by 42nd President of USA, Mr. Bill Clinton.Although Mr Clinton needs NO introduction, it is everyone’s pleasure at PanIIT 2009 to hear about Mr Clinton’s Contribution. Elected President of the United States in 1992, and again in 1996, President Clinton was the first Democratic president to be awarded a second term in six decades. Under his leadership, the United States enjoyed the strongest economy in a generation and the longest economic expansion in U.S. history. President Clinton’s core values of building community, creating opportunity, and demanding responsibility resulted in unprecedented progress for America, including moving the nation from record deficits to record surpluses; the creation of over 22 million jobs—more than any other administration; low levels of unemployment, poverty and crime; and the highest homeownership and college enrollment rates in history. To summarize his contribution, Mr Gupta mentioned that Mr Clinton deserves 2 awards – Nobel Prize for Peace and Economy.
Mr Clinton started his talk by recognizing the contribution of IITs and IITians in advancing US Economy. He shared the contribution of American Indian Foundation (http://www.aif.org), a non-profit American development organization that is devoted to accelerating social and economic change in India. Talking on recent financial crisis, he emphasised on the importance of Technology, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, which are key to forward World Economy and thus creating Peace and Prosperity. He mentioned about various projects he is currently involved in - especially about solving AIDS and other Healthcare challenges.
According to him, Indian organizations are key to solving such global problems and he recognized their contribution by mentioning the role Indian pharmaceutical companies played in helping bring the prices down of various essential drugs - in some cases from as high as 600$ to 60$.
He then talked about the problem of deforestation, which is another major problem faced by every country. Deforestation plays a major role in Global Warming and thus it’s critical to curb deforestation. He shared about the ideas his organization is working on to reduce deforestation by finding alternative ways to fulfil the needs (e.g. the biggest reason for which trees are cut today is to produce charcoal), which are otherwise being served by cutting trees.
He then spoke about Microcredit and the role it is playing in creating opportunities, which otherwise were unimaginable for people around the globe. He then gave another example by displaying a torch, which will make available electricity for millions of people. And, there are many other such opportunities which according to him “can’t just solve key global problems (related to healthcare, education etc) but also can create hugely profitable business opportunities for entrepreneurs. “
You can’t be a good citizen in 21st century by just going to school, pay taxes, obey laws etc. Today, the definition of good citizen includes “social contribution”. Finally, he urged the PanIIT 2009 audience, which comprises of over 2500 IITians (as well few non-IITians) to take responsibility and contribute to society in any way possible-– technology is a great lever to solve global challenges.
It was true privilege to hear to this man who has made (and will continued to do so) extraordinary contribution to humanity.
It’s time now to dance to the tunes of Kailash Kher and his troupe here at Chicago.
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It was a great talk!!! very well summarized here in this blog post. I guess one of the key points pres Clinton drove that aligns with the #paniit theme was that of the “global interdendancy” and its pros as well as cons. Small things make a big difference - micro credit was another good thread. Glad to have Dyyno cover the event live, I could see the keynote fullscreen with clear audio from the comfort of my home