WEBVTT 00:00:01.833 --> 00:00:05.393 A few years ago, I found myself in Kigali, Rwanda 00:00:05.417 --> 00:00:08.351 presenting a plan to bring off-grid solar electricity 00:00:08.375 --> 00:00:11.768 to 10 million low-income East Africans. 00:00:11.792 --> 00:00:14.518 As I waited to speak to the president and his ministers, 00:00:14.542 --> 00:00:19.434 I thought about how I'd arrived in that same place 30 years before. 00:00:19.458 --> 00:00:21.976 A 25-year-old who left her career in banking 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:24.934 to cofound the nation's first microfinance bank 00:00:24.958 --> 00:00:27.684 with a small group of Rwandan women. 00:00:27.708 --> 00:00:31.184 And that happened just a few months after women had gained the right 00:00:31.208 --> 00:00:33.917 to open a bank account without their husband's signature. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:35.208 --> 00:00:37.101 Just before I got on stage, 00:00:37.125 --> 00:00:38.750 a young woman approached me. 00:00:39.875 --> 00:00:41.434 "Ms. Novogratz," she said, 00:00:41.458 --> 00:00:43.476 "I think you knew my auntie." 00:00:43.500 --> 00:00:44.809 "Really? 00:00:44.833 --> 00:00:46.684 What was her name?" 00:00:46.708 --> 00:00:48.167 She said, "Felicula." 00:00:49.958 --> 00:00:51.875 I could feel tears well. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:52.958 --> 00:00:56.184 One of the first women parliamentarians in the country, 00:00:56.208 --> 00:00:58.059 Felicula was a cofounder, 00:00:58.083 --> 00:01:00.184 but soon after we'd established the bank, 00:01:00.208 --> 00:01:03.667 Felicula was killed in a mysterious hit-and-run accident. 00:01:04.875 --> 00:01:08.518 Some associated her death to a policy she had sponsored 00:01:08.542 --> 00:01:10.434 to abolish bride price, 00:01:10.458 --> 00:01:14.750 or the practice of paying a man for the hand of his daughter in marriage. 00:01:16.500 --> 00:01:18.250 I was devastated by her death. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:20.083 --> 00:01:22.559 And then a few years after that, 00:01:22.583 --> 00:01:24.268 after I'd left the country, 00:01:24.292 --> 00:01:26.125 Rwanda exploded in genocide. 00:01:27.542 --> 00:01:30.518 And I have to admit there were times 00:01:30.542 --> 00:01:34.684 when I thought about all the work so many had done, 00:01:34.708 --> 00:01:37.792 and I wondered what it had amounted to. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:41.042 --> 00:01:42.809 I turned back to the woman. 00:01:42.833 --> 00:01:45.667 "I'm sorry, would you tell me who you are again?" 00:01:46.917 --> 00:01:49.184 She said, "Yes, my name is Monique, 00:01:49.208 --> 00:01:53.434 and I'm the deputy governor of Rwanda's National Bank." 00:01:53.458 --> 00:01:57.184 If you had told me when we were just getting started 00:01:57.208 --> 00:01:58.809 that within a single generation, 00:01:58.833 --> 00:02:03.976 a young woman will go on to help lead her nation's financial sector, 00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:06.351 I'm not sure I would have believed you. 00:02:06.375 --> 00:02:10.958 And I understood that I was back in that same place 00:02:12.125 --> 00:02:16.125 to continue work Felicula had started but could not complete in her lifetime. 00:02:16.958 --> 00:02:18.809 And that it was to me to recommit 00:02:18.833 --> 00:02:23.059 to dreams so big I might not complete them in mine. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:23.083 --> 00:02:25.958 That night I decided to write a letter to the next generation 00:02:27.125 --> 00:02:32.226 because so many have passed on their wisdom and knowledge to me, 00:02:32.250 --> 00:02:34.518 because I feel a growing sense of urgency 00:02:34.542 --> 00:02:37.476 that I might not finish the work I came to do, 00:02:37.500 --> 00:02:40.518 and because I want to pass that forward 00:02:40.542 --> 00:02:45.143 to everyone who wants to create change in this world 00:02:45.167 --> 00:02:48.059 in ways that only they can do. 00:02:48.083 --> 00:02:51.101 That generation is in the streets. 00:02:51.125 --> 00:02:55.476 They are crying urgently for wholesale change 00:02:55.500 --> 00:02:57.309 against racial injustice, 00:02:57.333 --> 00:02:59.601 religious and ethnic persecution, 00:02:59.625 --> 00:03:01.809 catastrophic climate change 00:03:01.833 --> 00:03:04.934 and the cruel inequality that has left us more divided 00:03:04.958 --> 00:03:08.184 and divisive than ever in my lifetime. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:08.208 --> 00:03:09.667 But what would I say to them? 00:03:10.833 --> 00:03:14.375 I'm a builder, so I started by focusing on technical fixes, 00:03:16.583 --> 00:03:19.559 but our problems are too interdependent, 00:03:19.583 --> 00:03:21.518 too entangled. 00:03:21.542 --> 00:03:24.684 We need more than a system shift. 00:03:24.708 --> 00:03:26.559 We need a mind shift. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:26.583 --> 00:03:31.417 Plato wrote that a country cultivates what it honors. 00:03:32.375 --> 00:03:36.875 For too long, we have defined success based on money, power and fame. 00:03:37.625 --> 00:03:42.667 Now we have to start the hard, long work of moral revolution. 00:03:43.875 --> 00:03:46.476 By that I mean putting our shared humanity 00:03:46.500 --> 00:03:49.875 and the sustainability of the earth at the center of our systems, 00:03:51.042 --> 00:03:54.059 and prioritizing the collective we, 00:03:54.083 --> 00:03:56.000 not the individual I. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:56.833 --> 00:04:00.583 What if each of us gave more to the world than we took from it? 00:04:01.625 --> 00:04:03.000 Everything would change. 00:04:04.417 --> 00:04:09.226 Now cynics might say that sounds too idealistic, 00:04:09.250 --> 00:04:12.059 but cynics don't create the future. 00:04:12.083 --> 00:04:15.643 And though I've learned the folly of unbridled optimism, 00:04:15.667 --> 00:04:19.875 I stand with those who hold to hard-edged hope. 00:04:21.833 --> 00:04:23.976 I know that change is possible. 00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:27.934 The entrepreneurs and change agents with whom my team and I have worked 00:04:27.958 --> 00:04:31.809 have impacted more than 300 million low-income people, 00:04:31.833 --> 00:04:36.643 and sometimes reshaped entire sectors to include the poor. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:36.667 --> 00:04:39.518 But you can't really talk about moral revolution 00:04:39.542 --> 00:04:42.893 without grounding it in practicality and meaning, 00:04:42.917 --> 00:04:47.226 and that requires an entirely new set of operating principles. 00:04:47.250 --> 00:04:49.268 Let me share just three. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:49.292 --> 00:04:51.726 The first is moral imagination. 00:04:51.750 --> 00:04:54.851 Too often we use the lens only of our own imagination, 00:04:54.875 --> 00:04:56.893 even when designing solutions 00:04:56.917 --> 00:05:00.434 for people whose lives are completely different from our own. 00:05:00.458 --> 00:05:06.143 Moral imagination starts by seeing others as equal to ourselves, 00:05:06.167 --> 00:05:08.226 neither above nor below us, 00:05:08.250 --> 00:05:10.792 neither idealizing nor victimizing. 00:05:11.667 --> 00:05:14.434 It requires immersing in the lives of others, 00:05:14.458 --> 00:05:17.976 understanding the structures that get in their way 00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:21.208 and being honest about where they might be holding themselves back. 00:05:22.833 --> 00:05:27.476 That requires deep listening from a place of inquiry, 00:05:27.500 --> 00:05:28.792 not certainty. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:29.750 --> 00:05:33.518 Several years ago I sat with a group of women weavers 00:05:33.542 --> 00:05:36.643 outside in a rural village in Pakistan. 00:05:36.667 --> 00:05:38.893 The day was hot ... 00:05:38.917 --> 00:05:40.833 over 120 degrees in the shade. 00:05:42.292 --> 00:05:46.476 I wanted to tell the women about a company my organization had invested in 00:05:46.500 --> 00:05:52.143 that was bringing solar light to millions of people across India and East Africa, 00:05:52.167 --> 00:05:55.059 and I had seen the transformative power of that light 00:05:55.083 --> 00:05:59.809 to allow people to do things so many of us just take for granted. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:59.833 --> 00:06:01.309 "We have this light" I said, 00:06:01.333 --> 00:06:02.809 "costs about seven dollars. 00:06:02.833 --> 00:06:04.393 People say it's amazing. 00:06:04.417 --> 00:06:08.101 If we could convince the company to bring those products to Pakistan, 00:06:08.125 --> 00:06:09.893 would you all be interested?" 00:06:09.917 --> 00:06:11.393 The women stared, 00:06:11.417 --> 00:06:14.601 and then a big woman whose hands knew hard work looked at me, 00:06:14.625 --> 00:06:16.583 wiped the sweat off her face and said, 00:06:17.833 --> 00:06:19.226 "We don't want a light. 00:06:19.250 --> 00:06:20.559 We're hot. 00:06:20.583 --> 00:06:21.976 Bring us a fan." 00:06:22.000 --> 00:06:23.351 "Fan," I said. 00:06:23.375 --> 00:06:24.893 "We don't have a fan. 00:06:24.917 --> 00:06:26.268 We have a light. 00:06:26.292 --> 00:06:28.976 But if you had this light, your kids can study at night, 00:06:29.000 --> 00:06:30.268 you can work more -- " 00:06:30.292 --> 00:06:31.559 She cut me off. 00:06:31.583 --> 00:06:33.976 "We work enough. We're hot. 00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:35.292 Bring us a fan." NOTE Paragraph 00:06:37.000 --> 00:06:42.518 That straight-talking conversation deepened my moral imagination. 00:06:42.542 --> 00:06:44.059 And I remember lying -- 00:06:44.083 --> 00:06:48.143 sweltering in my bed in my tiny guest house that night, 00:06:48.167 --> 00:06:53.143 so grateful for the clickety-clack of the fan overhead. 00:06:53.167 --> 00:06:55.643 And I thought, "Of course. 00:06:55.667 --> 00:06:57.226 Electricity. 00:06:57.250 --> 00:06:58.684 A fan. 00:06:58.708 --> 00:07:00.476 Dignity." 00:07:00.500 --> 00:07:02.601 And when I now visit our companies 00:07:02.625 --> 00:07:06.143 who've reached over 100 million people with light and electricity 00:07:06.167 --> 00:07:07.934 and it's a really hot place, 00:07:07.958 --> 00:07:09.768 and if there's a rooftop system, 00:07:09.792 --> 00:07:11.417 there is also a fan. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:12.625 --> 00:07:18.083 But moral imagination is also needed to rebuild and heal our countries. 00:07:18.875 --> 00:07:21.768 My nation is roiling as it finally confronts 00:07:21.792 --> 00:07:24.018 what it's not wanted to see. 00:07:24.042 --> 00:07:28.143 It would be impossible to deny the legacy of American slavery 00:07:28.167 --> 00:07:32.018 if all of us truly immersed in the lives of Black people. 00:07:32.042 --> 00:07:35.934 Every nation begins the process of healing 00:07:35.958 --> 00:07:38.958 when its people begin to see each other 00:07:40.542 --> 00:07:45.059 and to understand that it is in that work that are planted the seeds 00:07:45.083 --> 00:07:47.958 of our individual and collective transformation. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:49.458 --> 00:07:52.684 Now that requires acknowledging the light and shadow, 00:07:52.708 --> 00:07:55.542 the good and evil that exist in every human being. 00:07:56.875 --> 00:07:59.518 In our world we have to learn to partner with those 00:07:59.542 --> 00:08:02.393 even whom we consider our adversaries. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:02.417 --> 00:08:05.059 This leads to the second principle: 00:08:05.083 --> 00:08:08.059 holding opposing values in tension. 00:08:08.083 --> 00:08:11.934 Too many of our leaders today stand on one corner or the other, 00:08:11.958 --> 00:08:13.643 shouting. 00:08:13.667 --> 00:08:17.250 Moral leaders reject the wall of either-or. 00:08:18.042 --> 00:08:21.893 They're willing to acknowledge a truth or even a partial truth 00:08:21.917 --> 00:08:23.893 in what the other side believes. 00:08:23.917 --> 00:08:27.893 And they gain trust by making principled decisions 00:08:27.917 --> 00:08:30.393 in service of other people, 00:08:30.417 --> 00:08:32.059 not themselves. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:32.083 --> 00:08:36.434 To succeed in my work has required holding the tension 00:08:36.458 --> 00:08:41.059 between the power of markets to enable innovation and prosperity 00:08:41.083 --> 00:08:45.309 and their peril to allow for exclusion 00:08:45.333 --> 00:08:47.458 and sometimes exploitation. 00:08:48.500 --> 00:08:52.643 Those who see the sole purpose of business as profit 00:08:52.667 --> 00:08:55.018 are not comfortable with that tension, 00:08:55.042 --> 00:08:57.458 nor are those who have no trust in business at all. 00:08:58.458 --> 00:09:04.184 But standing on either side negates the creative, generative potential 00:09:04.208 --> 00:09:07.958 of learning to use markets without being seduced by them. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:08.875 --> 00:09:10.167 Take chocolate. 00:09:11.042 --> 00:09:13.018 It's a hundred-billion-dollar industry 00:09:13.042 --> 00:09:16.893 dependent on the labor of about five million smallholder farming families 00:09:16.917 --> 00:09:20.518 who receive only a tiny fraction of that 100 billion. 00:09:20.542 --> 00:09:26.268 In fact, 90 percent of them make under two dollars a day. 00:09:26.292 --> 00:09:28.851 But there's a generation of new entrepreneurs 00:09:28.875 --> 00:09:30.934 that is trying to change that. 00:09:30.958 --> 00:09:35.851 They start by understanding the production costs of the farmers. 00:09:35.875 --> 00:09:41.101 They agree to a price that allows the farmers to actually earn income 00:09:41.125 --> 00:09:43.851 in a way that will sustain their lives. 00:09:43.875 --> 00:09:47.726 Sometimes including revenue-share and ownership models, 00:09:47.750 --> 00:09:50.226 building a community of trust. 00:09:50.250 --> 00:09:53.184 Now are these companies as profitable 00:09:53.208 --> 00:09:56.833 as those that focus solely on shareholder value? 00:09:57.708 --> 00:09:59.934 Possibly not in the short term. 00:09:59.958 --> 00:10:04.125 But these entrepreneurs are focused on solving problems. 00:10:05.250 --> 00:10:08.500 They're tired of easy slogans like "doing well by doing good." 00:10:09.417 --> 00:10:12.143 They know they have to be financially sustainable, 00:10:12.167 --> 00:10:16.226 and they are insisting on including the poor and the vulnerable 00:10:16.250 --> 00:10:18.143 in their definition of success. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:18.167 --> 00:10:20.226 And that brings me to the third principle: 00:10:20.250 --> 00:10:21.976 accompaniment. 00:10:22.000 --> 00:10:25.684 It's actually a Jesuit term that means to walk alongside: 00:10:25.708 --> 00:10:28.351 I'll hold a mirror to you, help you see your potential, 00:10:28.375 --> 00:10:30.559 maybe more than you see it yourself. 00:10:30.583 --> 00:10:34.434 I'll take on your problem but I can't solve it for you -- 00:10:34.458 --> 00:10:36.542 that you have to learn to do. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:37.375 --> 00:10:39.893 For example, in Harlem there's an organization 00:10:39.917 --> 00:10:41.726 called City Health Works 00:10:41.750 --> 00:10:43.976 that hires local residents 00:10:44.000 --> 00:10:46.101 with no previous health care experience, 00:10:46.125 --> 00:10:49.059 trains them to work with other residents 00:10:49.083 --> 00:10:52.184 so that they can better control chronic diseases like gout, 00:10:52.208 --> 00:10:53.875 hypertension, diabetes. 00:10:54.708 --> 00:10:57.184 I had the great pleasure of meeting Destini Belton, 00:10:57.208 --> 00:10:58.518 one of the health workers, 00:10:58.542 --> 00:11:00.101 who explained her job to me. 00:11:00.125 --> 00:11:02.268 She said that she checks in on clients, 00:11:02.292 --> 00:11:04.226 checks their vital signs, 00:11:04.250 --> 00:11:05.726 takes them grocery shopping, 00:11:05.750 --> 00:11:07.042 goes on long walks, 00:11:08.125 --> 00:11:09.583 has conversations. 00:11:10.917 --> 00:11:14.208 She told me, "I let them know somebody has their back." 00:11:15.583 --> 00:11:17.583 And the results have been astounding. 00:11:18.625 --> 00:11:21.809 Patients are healthier, hospitals less burdened. 00:11:21.833 --> 00:11:23.309 As for Destini, 00:11:23.333 --> 00:11:26.542 she tells me her family and she are healthier. 00:11:27.625 --> 00:11:32.875 "And," she adds, "I love that I get to contribute to my community." NOTE Paragraph 00:11:34.292 --> 00:11:36.458 All of us yearn to be seen, 00:11:37.500 --> 00:11:39.143 to count. 00:11:39.167 --> 00:11:40.601 The work of change, 00:11:40.625 --> 00:11:42.268 of moral revolution, 00:11:42.292 --> 00:11:43.893 is hard. 00:11:43.917 --> 00:11:46.351 But we don't change in the easy times. 00:11:46.375 --> 00:11:48.684 We change in the difficult times. 00:11:48.708 --> 00:11:53.167 In fact, I've come to see discomfort as a proxy for progress. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:54.917 --> 00:11:56.292 But there's one more thing. 00:11:57.167 --> 00:12:01.143 There's something I wish I'd known when I was just starting out 00:12:01.167 --> 00:12:02.500 so many years ago. 00:12:04.042 --> 00:12:06.476 No matter how hard it gets, 00:12:06.500 --> 00:12:08.250 there's always beauty to be found. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:09.167 --> 00:12:11.351 I remember now what seems a long time ago, 00:12:11.375 --> 00:12:15.309 spending an entire day talking to woman after woman 00:12:15.333 --> 00:12:18.393 in the Mathare Valley slum in Nairobi, Kenya. 00:12:18.417 --> 00:12:21.976 I listened to their stories of struggle and survival 00:12:22.000 --> 00:12:24.476 as they talked about losing children, 00:12:24.500 --> 00:12:26.792 of fighting violence and hunger, 00:12:28.917 --> 00:12:31.333 sometimes feeling like they wouldn't even survive. 00:12:33.292 --> 00:12:35.059 And right before I left, 00:12:35.083 --> 00:12:37.893 a huge rainstorm poured down. 00:12:37.917 --> 00:12:41.518 And I was sitting in my little car as the wheels stuck in the mud 00:12:41.542 --> 00:12:43.601 thinking, "I'm never getting out of here," 00:12:43.625 --> 00:12:45.768 when suddenly there was a tap on my window -- 00:12:45.792 --> 00:12:48.393 a woman who was beckoning me to follow her, 00:12:48.417 --> 00:12:49.684 and I did. 00:12:49.708 --> 00:12:51.309 Jumped out through the rainstorm, 00:12:51.333 --> 00:12:54.559 we went down this little muddy path, 00:12:54.583 --> 00:12:56.559 through a rickety metal door, 00:12:56.583 --> 00:12:58.268 inside a shack 00:12:58.292 --> 00:13:00.934 where a group of women were dancing with abandon. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:00.958 --> 00:13:06.268 I jumped in and found myself lost in the rhythm and the color and the smiles 00:13:06.292 --> 00:13:09.601 and suddenly I realized: 00:13:09.625 --> 00:13:12.708 this is what we do as human beings. 00:13:13.833 --> 00:13:15.184 When we're broken, 00:13:15.208 --> 00:13:19.434 when we feel that we are failing or are in despair, 00:13:19.458 --> 00:13:21.018 we dance. 00:13:21.042 --> 00:13:22.726 We sing. 00:13:22.750 --> 00:13:24.042 We pray. 00:13:24.833 --> 00:13:29.101 Beauty resides too in showing up, 00:13:29.125 --> 00:13:30.851 in paying attention, 00:13:30.875 --> 00:13:35.268 in being kind when we feel like being anything but kind. 00:13:35.292 --> 00:13:39.476 Look at the explosion of art and music and poetry 00:13:39.500 --> 00:13:42.417 in this moment of our collective crisis. 00:13:43.417 --> 00:13:45.559 It is in the darkest times 00:13:45.583 --> 00:13:49.768 that we have the chance to find our deepest beauty. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:49.792 --> 00:13:53.393 So let this be our moment 00:13:53.417 --> 00:13:55.351 to move forward 00:13:55.375 --> 00:13:58.309 with the fierce urgency of a new generation 00:13:58.333 --> 00:14:05.434 fortified with our most profound and collective wisdom. 00:14:05.458 --> 00:14:07.059 And ask yourself: 00:14:07.083 --> 00:14:10.809 what can you do with the rest of today 00:14:10.833 --> 00:14:12.809 and the rest of your life 00:14:12.833 --> 00:14:15.333 to give back more to the world than you take? NOTE Paragraph 00:14:16.792 --> 00:14:18.208 Thank you.