Simon's series of essays on Iran have continued to be picked up in the blogshphere, starting with his June 16 column, "Obama: No Realist He," in the Huffington Post, where it has been retained a high profile since it was posted on the site.
Sam, Dan and Jake also have been writing about Iran, and NDN Fellows Morley Winograd and Mike Hais weighed in on the Huffinton Post with "Will Young people Unite to Save the World?"
Check the NDN on Iran often to see new essays and newsroundups from Simon and the rest of the team as this uprising continues into its third week.
Lastly, Simon, Morley and Dan are at the Personal Democracy Forum in New York City today. Simon and Morley have just wrapped up their compelling presentation -- moderated by the Washington Post'sPulitzer Prize-winningJose Antonio Vargas -- on "America 2.0 - How Our Changing Demography Is Helping Create a New Politics." Dan Twittered throughout the panel. Check out what his Tweets here.
NDN Fellowsand coauthors of the critically acclaimed Millennial Makover: MySpace, YouTube & the Future of American Politics, Morley Winograd and Mike Hais are in San Francisco today where they will speak at the federal government's largest conference on national service and volunteering. The conference is being hosted by the Corporation for National and Community Service.
First Lady Michelle Obama delivered the keynote address to the conference last night. From the First Lady's speech, which she delivered after she and California First Lady Maria Shriver helped build a playground at a local elementray school:
So I want people, as they think about how they're going to spend this summer, in addition to making your kids play, think about engaging in United We Serve. And think about ways that you can take more time to devote to activities and projects that are going to get our kids healthy and moving, whether it's serving a healthy meal at a soup kitchen, building a play lot, finding a project in your area that's going to focus on the health of our kids, taking time to tutor, mentor, taking a kid to the beach. I know in Chicago there are kids all over my city at home who have never seen the lake. I know that this is true for many communities across the city. Kids don't even know where they can play or what they can play. That's where we all come in. That's where we need your help. And today is just the beginning.
Additionally, Cabinet secretaries volunteered across the country yesterday to kick off the United We Serve summer service initiative, which runs from Monday to September 11.
Today, Winograd and Hais will be speaking at the Corporation's 2009 National Conference on Volunteering and Service on a panel titled, “The Millennial Generation: Coming to a Volunteer Service Organization Near You,” which will focus on how organizations can effectively connect with this unique generation.
The panel will begin at 1:30 p.m. at The Moscone Center in Room 1312.
Members of the press who would like to attend Winograd and Hais' workshop or the conference should contact Sandy Scott at the Corporation for National Service at sscott@cns.gov or on his cell phone, 202.355.2173.
Slots for the conference are almost gone and are extremely limited. However, individuals interested in attending may go to the conference register on-site if there is available space.
Today's conference follows on a major op-ed by Winograd and Hais published in this past Sunday's Los Angeles Times on Millennials and how they are equipped to cope with today's tough job market and very uncertain economic times.
To learn more about Millennials, please see the analysis and commentary below:
Are the Millennials the new GI Generation? Los Angeles Times, 6/21/09 - It's a daunting time to be entering the workplace. Today's young adults -- like their great-grandparents eight decades earlier -- are graduating from high school and college and starting careers at a time when the American economy is shedding jobs at a record pace.
This newest adult generation, dubbed the Millennials, is known for its optimism and sense of personal confidence. But will those traits survive the new economic realities? Recent survey results suggest the answer is a resounding yes. Millennials are demonstrating remarkable resilience in the face of an economic crisis, even though the downturn has affected them disproportionately.
New Rules for a New Era, Hais and Winograd, 1/27/09 - the the inauguration of Obama as the first president of the new civic era, the rules that guide the behavior of our leaders and eventually all Americans have changed as completely and substantially as have our politics.
Thanks to NDN alum Travis Valentine for sending this fascinating press briefing along in which Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are asked at length by a reporter about how the new technologies and tools of the 21st century are coming into play in the context of national security.
The reporter clearly has the Green Tech Revolution in Iran (as described by Dan) on the mind when she asks Gates and Mullen about Twitter, Facebook and other communications tools.
In that vein, we've heard from the State Department and the Oval Office about 21st century statecraft, but this is the first time I've seen the Pentagon weigh in.
In the press briefing, which was broadcast on C-SPAN 3, Gates talked about how such technologies have made it much harder for oppressive regimes to shut down communications within a country -- a development he considers good for national security.
Interestingly, when asked if either of them have Facebook pages, Gates stumbled and said he didn't understand the new technologies such as Twitter, etc. However, Mullen took up the slack, informing reporters that he Twitters and that not only are new tools important for the development of democracy, they are critical to the Pentagon's efforts to keep in touch with its forces, whose average age, according to Mullen, is "20-ish." Exactly. The Millennial Generation.
Gates bounced back, agreeing that Mullen's point was critical and in fact, the Pentagon was behind in this department but ready to catch up. He also noted -- correctly -- that in addition to reaching young service members, such technology could be used to reach young people around the globe in an effort to educate them about U.S. defense policy.
The NDN team has been writing about Iran throughout this dramatic week. Simon's essay about President Barack Obama and Iran has been featured prominently on Huffington Post for several days and he also wrote compellingly about Iran and the global politics of the mobile age. Dan also has served up several insightful commentaries, including this one on social media in Iran.
Additionally, if you haven't been seen it yet, check out Huffington Post's Nico Pitney, who is doing an amazing job -- from DC -- of liveblogging events in Iran as they unfold.
You can watch the full Pentagon briefing with Gates and Mullen here:
NDN today announced that NDN Fellowsand coauthors of the critically acclaimed Millennial Makover: MySpace, YouTube & the Future of American Politics, Morley Winograd and Mike Hais will speak Tuesday, June 23, in San Francisco, at the federal government's largest conference on national service and volunteering. The conference is being hosted by the Corporation for National and Community Service.
First Lady Michelle Obama is slated Monday to volunteer to help build a school playground in San Francisco and give the keynote address at the conference Monday night. Mrs. Obama and Cabinet secretaries will be volunteering across the country this week to kick off the United We Serve summer service initiative, which runs from Monday to September 11.
Winograd and Hais will be speaking Tuesday afternoon at the Corporation's 2009 National Conference on Volunteering and Service on a panel titled, “The Millennial Generation: Coming to a Volunteer Service Organization Near You,” which will focus on how organizations can effectively connect with this unique generation.
The panel will begin at 1:30 p.m. at The Moscone Center in Room 1312 on Tuesday, June 23.
Members of the press who would like to attend Winograd and Hais' workshop or the conference should contact Sandy Scott at the Corporation for National Service at sscott@cns.gov or on his cell phone, 202.355.2173.
Slots for the conference are almost gone and are extremely limited. However, individuals interested in attending may go to the conference register on-site if there is available space.
To learn more about Millennials and their dedication to national service, please see the analysis and commentary below:
New Rules for a New Era, Hais and Winograd, 1/27/09 - the the inauguration of Obama as the first president of the new civic era, the rules that guide the behavior of our leaders and eventually all Americans have changed as completely and substantially as have our politics.
NDN, a leading Washington, DC-based think tank, is adding major capacity to its key policy areas with the appointment of three new Fellows and a much-expanded role for one of its current Fellows. With the addition of James Crabtree of London, Nelson Cunningham of Washington, DC, and Joe Garcia of Miami as Fellows and a bigger role for current Fellow Mike Hais of Los Angeles, NDN will significantly increase the range and depth of its commentary.
James Crabtree, NDN Fellow: Based in London, Crabtree, an editor at Prospect, the UK’s leading monthly political magazine, has spent the last decade working in politics and journalism on both sides of the Atlantic. In Britain, he was a policy advisor in the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit, wrote for the Economist and served in senior roles at the Insitute for Public Policy Research and various other UK think tanks. In the United States, Crabtree attended Harvard’s Kennedy School as a Fulbright Scholar and also worked as senior policy advisor to NDN's Globalization Initiative.
Crabtree will write about progressive politics from the UK and Europe, focusing broadly on what people "across the pond" think about U.S. issues. He also will provide perspectives on globalization, contributing commentary on current events and from his own travels such as his recent trip to Pakistan to look into the revolution in Pakistani media. Crabtree also will write about new technologies and media tools, analyzing the broad area of government transparency, openess and new techniques for political campaigning.
Nelson W. Cunningham, Chair, NDN’s Latin America Policy Initiative: Widely recognized as one of the nation’s foremost experts on U.S.-Latin America relations, Cunningham was special advisor to President Bill Clinton for Western Hemisphere affairs and advised the Obama campaign and transition team on Latin American policy issues. He is managing partner of McLarty Associates, an international consulting firm based in Washington, DC. Cunningham will promote NDN’s long-standing commitment to comprehensive immigration reform, as well as to a progressive vision of globalization that looks to link the interests of Latin American and other developing nations more deeply with the United States. The Latin America Policy Initiative will focus on raising awareness of these issues in Washington, using NDN’s excellent relationships on Capitol Hill, the Administration and the NGO community. The initiative will also build concrete ties between the United States and our neighbors by sponsoring leadership training programs for promising young Americans in key Latin American countries.
Joe Garcia, NDN Fellow: Garcia, who previously served for more than three years as head of NDN’s Hispanic Strategy Center, has a long history of involvement in Cuban and Latin American issues and the fields of energy, foreign policy and human rights. In 1994, the late Governor Lawton Chiles appointed him to the Florida Public Service Commission (PSC), where he advocated for lower monthly utility bills on behalf of Florida's families. In 1998, during Gov. Jeb Bush’s Administration, Garcia was elected Chairman of the PSC.
In 2000, the Cuban Amercian National Foundation named Garcia Executive Director. At CANF, he helped reshape U.S. Cuba policy and was a force for moderation in the Cuban American community. In 2004, NDN named Garcia head of its Hispanic Strategy Center for NDN. Garcia, based in Miami, serves on the Board of Directors of CANF and is one of the leading voices on U.S.-Cuba policy.
Garcia will write about U.S.-Cuban relations and other hemispheric issues.
Michael D. Hais, NDN Fellow:Hais, currently a Fellow at NDN and the New Policy Institute since November 2008 and affiliated with NDN since 2006, served for a decade as Vice President, Entertainment Research and for more than 22 years overall at Frank N. Magid Associates where he conducted audience research for hundreds of television stations, cable channels, and program producers in nearly all 50 states and more than a dozen foreign countries. Prior to joining Magid in 1983, Hais was a political pollster for Michigan Democrats and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Detroit. He received a B.A. from the University of Iowa, an M.A. from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, all in political science. He is the co-author of Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics (Rutgers University Press, 2008), which New York Times book critic Michiko Kakutani named as one of her 10 favorite books of 2008.
Hais, with Millennial Makeover co-author Morley Winograd, is one of the nation’s leading voices on the Millennial Generation, which has been the focus of much of his work for NDN. In his newly expanded role, Hais will examine important and interesting data from available public surveys and surveys commissioned by NDN and its affiliates. Themes and analysis will include attitudes toward race and ethnicity, the economy, foreign affairs, the Millennial Generation, but will not be limited to those topics. Hais is based in Los Angeles.
Can our economy get healthy if we don't reign in skyrocketing healthcare costs? That's a question President Barack Obama talked about in his weekly radio and Internet address ("Health Care Reform as the Key to Our Fiscal Future") and an issue NDN's Dr. Rob Shapiro wrote about in a May 14 essay.
With skeptical Republicans -- and some Democrats in Congress faced with a presidential deadline of October to send a bill to the White House, the healthcare debate -- Obama's top domestic priority -- is front and center.
In his address, Obama detailed savings he would make in Medicare payments, reigning in the costs of prescription drugs, among other changes, and said the current path of massive spending on U.S. health care is untenable:
When it comes to the cost of health care, this much is clear: the status quo is unsustainable for families, businesses, and government. America spends nearly 50 percent more per person on health care than any other country. Health care premiums have doubled over the last decade, deductibles and out-of-pocket costs have skyrocketed, and many with preexisting conditions are denied coverage. More and more, Americans are being priced out of the care they need.
These costs are also hurting business, as some big businesses are at a competitive disadvantage with their foreign counterparts, and some small businesses are forced to cut benefits, drop coverage, or even lay off workers. Meanwhile, Medicare and Medicaid pose one of the greatest threats to our federal deficit, and could leave our children with a mountain of debt that they cannot pay.
We cannot continue down this path. I do not accept a future where Americans forego health care because they can’t pay for it, and more and more families go without coverage at all. And I don’t accept a future where American business is hurt and our government goes broke. We have a responsibility to act, and to act now. That is why I’m working with Congress to pass reform that lowers costs, improves quality and coverage, and protects consumer health care choices.
I know some question whether we can afford to act this year. But the unmistakable truth is that it would be irresponsible to not act. We can’t keep shifting a growing burden to future generations. With each passing year, health care costs consume a larger share of our nation’s spending, and contribute to yawning deficits that we cannot control. So let me be clear: health care reform is not part of the problem when it comes to our fiscal future, it is a fundamental part of the solution.
In his essay, Shapiro had this to say about healthcare costs and our economy:
Most important, any realistic prospect for financing universal coverage depends on getting those costs under control. Otherwise, President Obama will likely find his Administration caught in the same vise that has immobilized health-care reformers for two decades, pressed between the social imperative to cover everyone and understandable resistance to paying for it from the majority of voters who are already covered. On the current path of medical cost increases, the taxpayers’ tab to pay for universal coverage would rise by five to seven percent every year, with damaging effects for other programs that the President would have to pare back to protect the new achievement.
Then comes the sticky matter of actually slowing down those increases. Earlier this week, the White House presented a roster of medical and insurance organizations who pledged together to support $2 trillion in cost reductions over the next decade. The main strategy is to attack “overuse and underuse” of health care. But it doesn’t include many details about how to do it. The administration’s program to computerize health care records over the next five years makes sense here, to help avoid wasteful or needlessly dangerous treatments. The hurdles will be very high, however, to actually putting in place a workable system covering tens of thousands of hospitals, clinics and doctors’ practices across the country.
The stimulus also includes $1 billion for prevention and wellness programs to improve diets, encourage exercise, reduce smoking and drinking, and detect cancers and other conditions early. Various studies have shown that some community-based intervention programs in these areas achieve very high returns, especially those aimed at young people. An analysis of several community-based programs to promote physical exercise, better nutrition and stop smoking, for example, found long-term reductions in diabetes, high blood pressure, heart and kidney disease, with a financial payoff of $5.60 in savings for every $1 invested. Large, long-term savings also were reported in a Michigan program that provides continuing education to prevent, recognize and treat athletic injuries, as well as a number of local programs that counsel low-income, first-time mothers on how best to care for their infants. But there also are many other programs that save little or nothing; and it could prove very difficult for Washington to identify and responsibly scale up those that work best.
The other large, promising approach, touted for several years by this writer and, of late, by OMB Director Peter Orszag, involves developing and applying data about what medical treatments work best, or work as well at less cost. The Dartmouth Atlas study of 2008, for example, found that the costs of treating older people for nine serious conditions, with the same outcomes in each group across five leading medical centers, varied by 30 percent to 45 percent based on where it was done. We could develop much more information in this area, identify those “best practices,” and mandate their use by health care facilities that accept federal money (which is almost all of them).
So the Administration’s health care focus, goals and priorities are right in the ways that matter. Now they need to provide a more detailed blueprint of how they intend to reach those goals and achieve those priorities.
Today, Obama laid out part of the blueprint Shapiro says is necessary. Watch the address below:
A new USA TODAY/Galllup poll reports that one-third of Republicans view their party unfavorably.
Apparently this didn't stop Newt Gingrich from pulling in $14.5 million last night at a fundraiser for the House and Senate campaign committees. Gingrich's de facto role as the head of the GOP may be good for fundraising, but it's not so great for favorability ratings. Later today, USATODAY.com will present further polling on "who speaks for the GOP."
The findings of a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll underscore the perilous state of the GOP. Over the past three years, Republicans have lost control of the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate, and they're now struggling to forge a unified response to the popular new Democratic president.
More results from the survey — including Americans' views of who speaks for the GOP — will be unveiled online later tonight at USATODAY.com.
The survey of 1,015 adults, taken by landline and cellphone on May 29-31, has a margin of error of +/— 3 percentage points for the full sample and 5% for the subsamples of Republicans and Democrats.
Asked by Gallup "what comes to mind when you think of the Republican Party," 25% of those surveyed said "unfavorable" and another 1 in 4 offered negative assessments including "no direction," "close-minded" and "poor economic conditions." Sixteen percent said conservative and 7% "favorable."
According to a Bloombergreport on last night's event, Gingrich had the red meat ready to go. From a New York Daily News account:
As Barack Obama fights a recession and attempts to fix the auto industry, Republicans have taken the fight to the president.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Obama's plan to fix the economy through stimulus dollars and investing federal money into bankrupt companies like GM has "already failed."
"Bureaucrats managing companies does not work, politicians dominating the economy does not work," said Gingrich at a fundraising dinner with about 2,000 Republicans in attendance at the Washington Convention Center Monday night.
This is not the first time in recent weeks that Gingrich has taken a shot at the president. He called Obama's Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor a 'racist,' before dialing back his comments.
Last night's remarks by Gingrich follow his appearance at a recent "Rediscovering God in America" conference. An article from U.S. News & World Report includes a video compliation of Gingrich's statements at the conference by People for the American Way. According to the former Speaker of the House, "Our First Great Challenge Is Spiritual."
Is it possible that more people -- including Republicans interviewed for the USA TODAY/Gallup poll -- are worried about their pocketbooks than paganism?
Shortly after the presidential election in an interview with MSNBC, Simon predicted that President Obama's weekly addresses and other important remarks would be translated into different languages for a global audience interested in what Barack Hussein Obama has to say:
Rosenberg said it will be common for government agencies to host videos and blogs (as the Transportation Security Administration does already).
"You're going to see competition at the weekly Cabinet meeting between the DHS secretary and the HHS secretary over who had more views on their YouTube video, and who had more comments on their blog," he said.
Global Webcasting of presidential addresses and press briefings - perhaps translated into multiple languages - is likely to become routine. That policy could well filter down to other governmental agencies and even other governments, Rosenberg said.
He pointed to the example of David Cameron, the leader of Britain's Conservative Party, who stars in a series of "Webcameron" videos that touch upon his party's policies as well as his personal life. "You can watch videos of him washing dishes in his sink," Rosenberg said.
Fast forward to today and Obama's historic speech at the University of Cairo in Egypt. According to CNN:
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (CNN) — Some of the new media tools that helped propel President Obama to the White House are going to get their first test run on the international stage Thursday, when he delivers a long-awaited speech to the Muslim world.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said administration officials are planning to use text messaging and social networking sites like Facebook to help engage the world, especially young people, during and after the speech in Cairo.
Gibbs said the goal is to "not only draw people in to see the speech but to have them discuss it as well" to keep the conversation going long after the actual speech is delivered.
For example, the U.S. State Department is planning to send text messages about Obama's speech to users worldwide who sign up at www.america.gov. The texts will be sent out in four languages — Arabic, Persian, Urdu and English — and will enable users "to reply and give feedback" in real time, according to Gibbs.
The White House, which usually sends out transcripts of presidential speeches in English, will release the transcript in 13 different languages this time around.
Administration officials estimate that there are 20 million users of Facebook in the Arab countries and are setting up live chats on that site in order to get a conversation going online.
As the CNN article notes, the speech was texted out in four languages spoken in countries with large Muslim populations: Arabic, Persian, Urdu (the literary language of Pakistan and spoken widely in India) and English. The speech transcript was released in 13 languages.
Now check out the new Web site -- america.gov. It's truly fascinating and I believe it could go a long way in improving America's global standing after eight years of arrogance and confrontation. You can visit an Arab-language version of america.gov, a Spanish-language version, a French version, Persian, Mandarin and more. Although I couldn't read all of the languages, I could discern that each version of america.gov has some different content targeted toward viewers in each country. For example, the Spanish-language Web site had pictures from Sectretary of State Hillary Clinton's delegation to the inauguration of El Salvador's new president.
Clinton has tapped Alec Ross, who has written a paper with Simon and appeared at NDN several times, to implement the Department of State's digital diplomacy. Not surprisingly, Clinton recently recorded a YouTube address about the new tools and media that State is using to reach out to the rest of the world (scroll back up to what Simon said in his interview about Cabinet members recording YouuTube videos).
Two days after the presidential election, Simon posted a vlog with his prediction about how Obama would no doubt use his campaign's new tools arsenal and apply it to governing. There have been some hiccups along the way, but using social networking, texting, Web video -- all tools that we at NDN have strongly advocated for years in our New Tools Series -- is no doubt improving America's relationship with the rest of the world.
Watch Simon's vlog on how Obama will reivent the presidency here:
Some of the world's most popular networking services have gone dark in China, apparent victims of government censors in the days leading to a notorious anniversary.
Online users in China said Twitter, Yahoo's Flickr photo site, Microsoft's new Bing search engine and Hotmail, and other services were inaccessible on Tuesday.
This week marks the 20th anniversary of the bloody military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters at Tiananmen Square. Social media experts such as Laura Fitton suspect Chinese authorities may be blocking sites to tamp down discussions of the protest.
This is an issue I touched on recently when the Iranian government shut down Facebook ahead of its June 12 elections as reform candidates appeared to be gaining political ground through spreading word of campaign rallies and getting out messages through the social networking site Facebook.
Mobile technology and new tools to improve health outcomes, drive economic growth and foster democracy are issues that NDN is deeply involved in. As Obama Administration official Tom Kalil wrote for NDN affiliate, the New Policy Institute, in an October 2008 paper, Harnessing the Mobile Revolution:
With a few exceptions, the U.S. government is largely oblivious to the ways in which the rapid diffusion of mobile services (and other new technologies) could be used to improve the human condition. I believe that the next Administration should launch a major new initiative to harness the confluence of new technologies and innovative business models as a key component of its global development agenda. This initiative would be designed to serve as a catalyst for policy reforms in developing countries, promote an increased capacity for innovation by developing country entrepreneurs to meet local needs, and stimulate additional investments by philanthropists, foundations and companies. Such an initiative could reduce poverty, strengthen democratic institutions, and improve global health outcomes. It could also help restore some of the damage to America’s international reputation, boost America’s “soft power,” and position American businesses and workers to benefit from the growth of emerging markets in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. This initiative would not be limited to mobile services, and might also include decentralized approaches to providing safe drinking water, new vaccines, therapies, point-of-care diagnostics, clean energy, and improved crops that are more productive, nutritious, and drought-resistant.
Kalil has joined the Obama Administration to do exactly what he advocated in his cutting-edge paper. Check back with NDN for more work on mobile technology, improved health outcomes, economic opportunities and new tools used to foster democracy.
In the meantime, read the entire Harnessing the Mobile Revolutionhere.
In his weekly radio and Internet address, President Barack Obama urged the U.S. Senate to get to work and confirm his pick, Judge Sondra Sotomayor, as a Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court before the court begins its next sitting in October.
Sotomayer begins the confirmation process this Tuesday, meeting with senators, while Obama travels overseas.
Some Republicans -- including the de facto leaders of the GOP, Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh, have seized on a remark Sotomayor made in a 2001 lecture speech as fodder to oppose her nomination. Gingrich Twittered his opposition and Limbaugh took to the airwaves, calling Sotomayor a reverse racist.
Here's the comment that has conservatives fired up:
"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."
Read the entire speech -- "A Latina Judge's Voice" -- here and let me know if you think the remark is racist.
Obama made reference to Sotomayor's critics in the address:
There are, of course, some in Washington who are attempting to draw old battle lines and playing the usual political games, pulling a few comments out of context to paint a distorted picture of Judge Sotomayor’s record. But I am confident that these efforts will fail; because Judge Sotomayor’s seventeen-year record on the bench – hundreds of judicial decisions that every American can read for him or herself – speak far louder than any attack; her record makes clear that she is fair, unbiased, and dedicated to the rule of law.
NDN has had a great deal to say about Sotomayor's nomination, including Simon's essay on what her confirmation means for immigration reform and Andres' thoughts on what Sotomayer's nomination means to Hispanics. We also have compiled a backgrounder on NDN's leading work on Hispanic electoral issues, our nation's changing demography and immigration.
First Lady Michelle Obama is slated Monday to volunteer to help build a school playground in San Francisco and give the keynote address at the conference Monday night. Mrs. Obama and Cabinet secretaries will be volunteering across the country this week to kick off the United We Serve summer service initiative, which runs from Monday to September 11.
Nelson W. Cunningham, Chair, NDN’s Latin America Policy Initiative: Widely recognized as one of the nation’s foremost experts on U.S.-Latin America relations, Cunningham was special advisor to President Bill Clinton for Western Hemisphere affairs and advised the Obama campaign and transition team on Latin American policy issues. He is managing partner of McLarty Associates, an international consulting firm based in Washington, DC. 
Joe Garcia, NDN Fellow: Garcia, who previously served for more than three years as head of NDN’s Hispanic Strategy Center, has a long history of involvement in Cuban and Latin American issues and the fields of energy, foreign policy and human rights. In 1994, the late Governor Lawton Chiles appointed him to the Florida Public Service Commission (PSC), where he advocated for lower monthly utility bills on behalf of Florida's families. In 1998, during Gov. Jeb Bush’s Administration, Garcia was elected Chairman of the PSC.
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