A World of Optimism

You know what I love in talking to you just your passion, your light, you radiate light when you talk about this. And if you really listen to your words, I'm thinking, Atul, you're talking about really awful circumstances. You know, people working on a dollar a day, two dollars a day. And you actually put out so much happiness when you're talking about it.

They're beautiful people. They're just like you and I. God's endowed them with tremendous powers, tremendous gifts. And if we can do the little that we can to get some of those gifts to be realized. To see them flourish. They will... they can and they will lead better lives. I mean, I am a hopeful person. I live in a world of optimism. When I was born in India in 1959, I think by best estimates, maybe seven out of ten people who lived in India at that time lived on less than a dollar a day. Life was hard. It was brutal. Today, if you go to my country, forget about emerging economy, middle economy, it's a thriving place. You know, there are millions of cars on the road and there are billions of, I think, motorcycles and there are jobs galore. We are probably today, if you looked, counted Indians, probably less than one in ten now live at less than a dollar a day. Everything - kids are going to school. There is better health available everywhere. More jobs available everywhere. People are more hopeful, in fact, I challenge you, if you walk into a small village in India and go to a small village in our own country, you will find more hope there, right? Okay. So we've seen tremendous progress. And I frankly believe that that progress is unstoppable. We are the ones who can stop it. We are all at a time where that will continue and all that we need to do, I need to do, you need to do is to come alongside. Those who are at the risk of being left behind in this great march of progress and make sure that they get on to the bandwagon they get to participate in in the global economy. And I think what excites me most is that the means to do so, we already know. We don't have to invent more things. We just have to get smarter about delivering the solutions to the right people.