[Music]
[Applause]
my parents immigrated to the US in 1955
with three shared dollars and the
quintessential American dream
my mom Ann was born in Indonesia to an
Indonesian mother and a German father
and she lived a charmed life on the
island of Java until World War two ended
that she was an orphan
and at the age of seven she entered an
orphanage for five years of her delicate
childhood she lived in an orphanage that
was converted to a concentration camp by
the Japanese occupiers there
she suffered starvation physical abuse
she even lost all of her teeth but fast
forward many years later and my mom
raised her three daughters with joy and
optimism my dad Ben was born and raised
in Amsterdam where he and his family
survived the German occupation times
were tough oh man but following World
War two there was an economic boom and
countries such as the u.s. were
experiencing a shortage of technicians
my dad was well-equipped with the Dutch
Technical Education America needed him
after immigrating
he worked for Bank of America for over
30 years fixing anything that was broken
until a robust pension dictated his
retirement my parents taught me that if
you work hard and get a good education
America is the land of opportunity a
land of abundance a land that rewards
innovation and ingenuity a land that I
love my parents also taught me that
surviving much less living the American
dream is a precious gift that we should
not take for granted in my role as
president of a community college in
Nevada with annual enrollments of about
12,000 I've heard the dreams of many
young people
they want a good job good healthcare
good technology and good money they echo
the sentiment of historian James Truslow
Adams who in 1931 was credited with
popularizing the phrase American dream
when he wrote that dream of a land in
which life should be better and richer
and fuller better richer fuller and yet
when I speak with executives and
employers say caution that the economy
that has supported American prosperity
and American Dreams is changing
radically we are on the verge of an era
that will startle those of us born in
the 20th century robotics AI and
automation is about to catapult to a
whole new level worldwide and without a
plan American prosperity is at risk some
say that this will lead to have
workforce shrinkage sort of like they
told us internet an email would make our
lives so much easier yeah right or in
2017 when Elon must expressed serious
concern that the scariest problem is
that robots can do virtually everything
better than humans and will quickly
replace us but in 2018 the college that
I lead had to work very very fast to
train to help train thousands of new
employees for new jobs at you guessed it
Tesla let's just say Elan one of my very
special heroes owes me lunch when you
really think about it new technology has
tended to create more jobs not fewer
that's the beauty of American ingenuity
and the beauty of our desire to keep the
dream alive but if we fail to question a
hidden assumption I believe that we will
not meet the workforce challenge and
American companies will lose in a highly
competitive global robotics AI and
automation economy the hidden assumption
that ageing equals incompetence will
ruin us if
we let it and here's why the US
Department of Health and Human Services
projects by 2040 one in five adults in
America will be over the age of 65 and
even though there's a lot of buying
power in this segment of our population
and the longevity economy is massive
many in that same segment are living on
the brink of poverty the exponential
growth of seniors over the age of 65 in
the u.s. is already leading to an over
reliance on government funded services
including housing and health care one
Economic Policy Institute study from
2016 revealed that nearly half of
American families have no retirement
savings at all another study calculated
that even among families nearing
retirement age the average savings was
fourteen thousand five hundred dollars
that is not enough what happens when one
in five Americans many with little to no
savings and a small Social Security
check are put out to pasture at the same
time that American companies are
attempting to pivot to a highly
competitive global robotics AI and
automation economy how will we manage a
growing number of Americans living in
poverty and the problems of poverty
homelessness untreated chronic illness
and despair have we become so
comfortable in our American lifestyles
that we think will just roll along
happily even among one of the most
extraordinary economic disruptions of
our lifetime will the American dream
become the American nightmare age much
like race is a social construct an
invisible agreement if you will based on
norms and rooted in tradition and as
others before me have said tradition is
defined as peer pressure from dead
people
to say that someone becomes
professionally incompetent on their 62nd
birthday is just plain stupid science
tells us that our bodies will weaken
with age but a new emphasis in America
on good nutrition and health is
prolonging our American lives how a
person chooses to live their life
including how they tend for the life of
the body and the life of the mind is
unique to each person right studies from
Stanford center on longevity have shown
that some abilities actually improve in
later years such as the ability to
balance winds emotions and the ability
to view a problem from multiple
viewpoints and yet when I turned 50 I
noticed more and more in professional
settings that my multiple viewpoints
were simply glossed over and I thought
to myself am I the Invisible Woman now
that I'm 50 and for those of you who are
nowhere near 50 good luck navigating
this surreal reality and don't get me
wrong some folks need to retire before
the age of 62 because frankly they
refuse to change or they don't know how
to change when change is absolutely
necessary and some folks want to retire
and they can afford to do so my message
today relates to those of us who love
our work as much as our play whose minds
are sharp and whose bodies are well good
enough aging is as individualized as the
unique DNA strands that comprise our
physical human forms and as
individualized as the life experiences
that shape our optimism the challenge
for American companies is changing the
conversation about aging we know that
many jobs are disappearing back in 2017
the McKinsey Global Institute predicted
that up to 73 million jobs in the US
will be eliminated due to robotics but
we also know that new jobs requiring
creativity technical skill and wisdom
our emerging loop ventures a venture
capital firm predicts that the
industrial robotics market will grow by
175 percent harnessing the power of
robotics and AI to help us solve some of
the world's most terrifying problems
will lead to new jobs that we can't even
imagine that would be like trying to
imagine the transition from the horse
and buggy industry to the thousands of
employees needed to make Tesla's and do
you think the buggy driver could imagine
the driverless Tesla we are also
entering the age of cobots robots that
work alongside humans to make a bot
world work we will need many
professionals to assist with human and
BOTS alignment we will need many coders
both creative and routine and we will
need technicians at least initially to
support the robotics hardware market if
ageism is allowed to persist corporate
executives will complain we can't find
enough workers they're doing that right
now
meanwhile the 62 year old who's capable
of working and who wants to work will be
sitting at home struggling to pay the
heating bills this makes no sense in the
age of robotics ageism needs to stop
transforming our social construct about
aging can lead to a clear plan that
manages the intersections between a
growing number of older Americans and a
growing number of new jobs in this new
economy American companies need to
embrace a multi-generational workforce
where the wisdom of the older worker
enriches the tech-savvy creativity of
the younger ones and by embrace I'm not
just talking about retaining workers
over the age of 62 I'm speaking directly
to those of you in the position to hire
to not write-off qualified jobseekers
because of one socially constructed
reason they look too old granted
America's younger jobseekers grew up in
a world of instantaneous connections and
they can cast wide connective
some visual and creative ways and some
of this technology can be daunting to a
person my age who grew up in a household
with one telephone a landline on a curly
cord in the kitchen where mom and dad
could hear every word between me and my
boyfriend let's just say we had
compelling privacy concerns back in the
day - but America's mature worker we
understand that instantaneous connection
does not replace relationships
relationships that can take years to
develop not just days or months and
relationships that buoy business
America's mature worker also we've seen
companies make painful and costly
mistakes and with our agile capacity we
can steer companies away from repeating
them the upshot is this ageism is dumb
and unproductive there can be no room in
America's future for the social
isolation of young middle and older
adult especially if we expect American
businesses to keep a global leading edge
in a highly competitive robotics AI and
automation economy the American Dream
lives here among us right now let's not
take our Comfort and prosperity for
granted I went to honor the legacy and
hard work of folks like my parents join
me in celebrating the talent and wisdom
that both young and old bring and let us
transform the American workplace