>>Yeah. Hello and welcome to the Cuba's International Women's Showcase, featuring International Women's Day. I'm John, host of the Kiwi here in California. Great remote guest. She's amazing founder and C e O of Cuba, and great to see you. Okay, thanks for coming on. Um, good to see you. >>You as well. Always a pleasure. You >>know, International Women's Day is the big celebration. We're doing a lot of interviews with great people making things happen, moving and shaking things. Um, but every day, International Women's Day, As far as I'm concerned, it's happening all around the world. But these are stories of innovation, the stories of changes, the stories of transformation for the better. You've been doing a lot of things. Um and I want to get into that. But let's start with your background. Tell us a bit about who you are and what you've got going on. >>Yeah, my background is a little strange. I used to be a maritime archaeologists. So dumb shit breaks for a little bit. That was amazing. I always just It's only partial just because it's actually a bit of truth to it, that learning how to, you know, handle things at depth really does train you to be a C e o. Because you learn to control your breath and and focus on the things that matter and not be so reactive because it's three activity that will panic that will kill you. Uh, always knowing how to reframe. Return to the basics. Um, there's a really good things to hold on to, even in the world of business. Right? So I at some point, ended up doing doing a lot of things. Largely business development, following my time diving and amazing woman. Um, another woman for International Women's Day named Doctor who was a biotech entrepreneur from Japan, stepping down as her role at the helm of her company. Um, and she wanted to launch a space for a young innovators from around the world who are doing amazing work to tackle this very complex challenges we all know exist, um, and figure out a way to give them time and space to do their best work and pursue their their highest visions for change. We decided that we would focus on for-profit companies largely who were using sustainable, scalable business models to pursue both profit and purpose. Um creating a virtuous cycle between the return of money to a company and putting that into to go even further and faster towards, um, solving a problem. Um, so we now have companies over 200 companies from around the world that we have helped support tackling every single, sustainable development goal. Um, and I'm proud to say, you know, particularly related to the subject that fifty-nine percent of our companies have a woman founder or CO-FOUNDER. Um, and 69% of the founder of color. Um, so we're working with entrepreneurs from every every area of the world. Many approximate to the problem that they are trying to solve, so they intimately understand it. Um, and they're doing amazing things. >>Yeah, you can help the great mission. You have a lot of other things going on your helping women encouraging them to your career in the tech sector. Um, good statistics could be better, right? Is higher and better. So, um, what are you guys doing? What, you specifically to help and encourage women to forge their career and tech? >>Yeah. I mean, look, the good news is I do think that it's getting better. I particularly think that we will see the adventure is improving. Um, it takes a while because the companies that have been funded up until now are still working in the biggest amount in the later stages. So I think that percentage hasn't been shifting. But I have to believe that that's a bit of an illusion, and then a couple of years, we're going to start to sea level out. But you know as well as I do that they're pretty poultry statistics in terms of the amount of venture that women like cos. Capture, Um, and the other ways that women are doubted, um, in terms of their ability and potential. Um, so we we love to work with any underrepresented group of entrepreneurs, and there's ways that we do that whether it's helping them sort of find their power and hold space and be confident. And, um, you know, be able to pitch to any room, talk to any investor, talk to any customer but also working to be directed about some of the systemic challenges, both in terms of talking to existing investors and trying to educate them to see the opportunities that they're missing because there is a an economic imperative to them understanding what they're missing. Um, but there's also some things that we're doing in-house to make sure that we're also helping to close capital gaps for all our entrepreneurs. So we actually now have a suite of three capital mechanisms that are entrepreneurs can access on the back end of our incubator, a microphone fund, which is very quick turnaround, small amounts of capital for entrepreneurs who existing opportunities owns, which is a tax destination. Just this in the U. S. But that's meant to be deployed so that they can access capital towards revenue without credit checks, collateral being put up, a slow moving pace of banks and C. D. S s. It's particularly useful for people who may not raise venture. And it's useful for, uh, you know, people who maybe don't have that friends and family check that they can expect similar. We've got a great angel network who look at the best impact deals from around the world. Um, and it doesn't have to be a housing company, just a great venture that's pursuing impact on profit. Um, and then lastly, we're just about to announce that we have a fund of our own on the back end of our incubator that funds only healthy and companies. Um, it's an early stage fund. Um, but watch this space because our pipeline is just increasing your every year. We used to sort of just 16 companies here. Now, we're serving 60 this year, so, um, yeah, it's really exciting. Um, and so obviously, it's really great that, you know, we're going to be able to help scale the impact that we want to see. Uh, ideally a lot. A lot faster. >>Well, you definitely taking control. I remember when we had a few years ago. I think four years ago, you just thinking about getting going and going now with great tailwind. Um, >>and the diversity >>of sources of capital as well as diversity of firms is increasing. That's helping, uh, that we're seeing, but you're also got the back end fun for the housing companies. But also, you've been involved in we capital for a long time. Can you talk about that? Because that's a specific supporting women entrepreneurs initiative. Um, yeah. What's up with capital share? That >>was That was another venture that I-i embarked on with such coz. Um as well as Sheila Johnson and Jonny Adam, Person who runs Rethink Impact. We capital is a group of about 16 women that I pulled together women investors to invest through rethink impact, which is another fun that is looking for impact businesses but predominantly looking for those businesses that are led by women. So this investment group is women supporting women. Um, through the use of deployment of capital, um, they're doing amazingly well. They've had some really stunning news recently that I'll let you dig up. >>I'll definitely thanks for the lead there. I'm gonna go jump on that story. >>Yeah, >>the Okay, Thanks for that lead on that trend, though in Silicon Valley and certainly in other areas that are hot like New York, Boston and D. C. Where you're at, um, you're seeing now multiple years in almost a decade in of the pioneers of these women, only funds or women only firms and your investment. Um, and it's starting to increase to under all underrepresented minorities and entrepreneurs. Right? So take us through how you see that because it's just getting more popular. Is that going to continue to accelerate in your mind? Are their networks of networks. They cross pollinating. >>Yeah, I think you know, it's It's I'm glad to see it. And, you know, it's been a long time coming. I think you know, I think we all look forward to a future where it's not necessary. Um, and you know, funds. Just invest in everyone Until then, making sure that we have specific pools of capital allocated to ensure that that, you know, those entrepreneurs who have not always been equally represented get to pursue their ideas not just because they deserve to pursue their ideas, but because the world needs their ideas. Right. And as I mentioned, there is a business imperative, right? We've got lots of examples of businesses like banks that you wouldn't have gotten a shot just because the investors just didn't understand the opportunity. Um, and I think that's normal. That's human. It happens to everyone. You are successful as an investor largely because you recognize patterns. And if something is, you know, outside of your life experience, you are not going to identify it. So it's very important that we create different kinds of capital run by different types of people. Um, and, uh, and you know. I know lots of investors have every type that are investing in these funds because they recognize that, you know, perhaps the highest growth potential is gonna come out of these, you know, particular kind of funds, which is really exciting. >>That's super important, because half the world is women, and that's just like the population is inspired by many new ventures. And that's super exciting trend. I wanna ask you about your other areas of doing a lot of work in the queue has been to buy multiple times, um, initially reporting on a region out there, and that's certainly isn't important part of the world. Um, you've got a lot of good news going on there. Can you share what's going on with, uh, the social entrepreneurship going on in Bahrain around the region? >>Yeah, I'm happy to. We we've actually been so privileged to work with a W S for a very long time. Almost since the start of the incubator they've supported are entrepreneurs, all of our entrepreneurs with access to cloud credits and services. Um, and we've sort of double down with a W S in the last couple of years in areas where We both want to create an uplift, um, for small businesses and rapidly growing tax solutions to these these social environmental problems. We see. So there's been an excellent partner to do that. And one of the areas we did in the water was with rain, particularly with women, tech startups, women tech startups in Bahrain. Yeah, we did that last year. We had an amazing group of women over in D. C. Um, and we continue to support them. One of them is actually in the process of raising. I think she just closed her seed round recently. And that's why for, um, al yet, um, and she created playbook, which is an amazing, uh, platform for women to take master classes and network and really sort of level up, as one says, Um, but also, um, the mall of work. Um uh, just really talented women over in Bahrain, um, pushing the envelope and all sorts of directions, and it was wonderful to get the opportunity to work with them. Um, that has now spawned another set of programs serving entrepreneurs in the Middle East in North Africa. They were also working on with us as well as the U S. State Department. Um, so we're going to be working for the next two years with entrepreneurs to help our recovery from covid. Um, in China. Um, and then I'm also proud to say that we're working with a W s in South Africa because there is just an extraordinary energy, you know, in the continent, Um, and some amazing entrepreneurial minds working on, you know, the many problems and opportunities that they're facing and recognizing. Um So we're supporting, you know, companies that are working on finding, um, skilled refugees to be able to help them resettle and use their talents and make money. Um, sadly, are very relevant company now with what's going on in Ukraine. Um, but also, uh, zombie and satellite company, um, companies that are preventing food, food waste by providing, um, solar-powered refrigerators to rural areas in South Africa. Um, so a lot of, um, you know, just incredible talent and ideas that we're seeing globally. Um, and happy to be doubling down on that with the help of a W s. >>That's awesome. Yeah, following the work when we met in D. C. And again, you always had this international view um it's International Women's Day. It's not North America >>Women's Day. It's >>International Women's Day. Can you share your thoughts on how that landscape is changing outside the U. S. For example, and around the world and how the international peace is important and you mentioned pattern matching? Um, you also, when you see patterns, they become trends. What do you see forming that have been that that are locked in on the U. C they're locked in on that are happening that are driving. What are some of those trends that you see on the international side that's evolving? >>Yeah. You know, I think the wonderful opportunity with the Internet and social media is that, you know, both, uh, we can be more transparent about areas for improvement and put a little pressure where maybe things are moving fast enough. We've all seen the power of that, Um, the other, um, you know, things that certainly in countries where women maybe as free to move and operate, they can still acquire skills education they can set up cos they can do so so much. Um, you know, through these amazing technologies that we now have at our disposal growing an amazing rates. Um, they can connect via zoom. Right? I think that while the pandemic definitely set women back and we should acknowledge that, um, uh, the things that the pandemic perhaps helped us to exponentially scale will move women forward. And perhaps that's the target to hang on to, to feel optimistic about where we're headed. >>And also, there's a lot of problems to solve. And I think one of the things we're seeing you mentioned the Ukraine situation. You're seeing the geopolitical landscape changing radically with technology driving a lot of value. So with problems comes opportunities. Um, innovation plays a big role. Can you share some of the successful stories that you were inspired by that you've seen, um, in the past couple of years. And as you look forward, what What some of those innovation stories look like? And what are you inspired by? >>Yeah. I mean, there's so, so many. Um, you know, we just, uh, had a couple of entrepreneurs, and just the last year, Um, you know, after I think everyone sort of took an initial breath with the pandemic, They realize that they either had an opportunity or they had a problem to solve to your point. Um, and they did that well or not. And or some of them, you know, just didn't didn't have any more cards to play and had to really pivot. Um, it was really interesting to see how everyone handled handled that particular moment in time. One company that I think of is everywhere. Um, and she had created a wearable device that you can just put on your ear. It looks like an earring right at the top of your ear. Um, and it was for her for herself because she suffered from pulmonary complications. And, uh, without more discreet wearable, you know, had to wear a huge device and look around and oxygen tank and, you know, just to sort of have a good quality of life. Um, it turns out, obviously, during covid, that is a very useful item, not just for patients suffering from covid and wanting to know what their oxygen levels were doing, but also potentially athletics. So, um, she's really been able to double down as a result of the trends from the pandemic. Um, and I'm really proud of part of her. And that's actually where another great one that we just just came through. Our last 15 is Maya. Um, and she had a brick and mortar store. Um, uh, called Cherry Blossom. Intimate where she helped women have an enjoyable experience finding, uh, and fitting bras post mastectomy to include sort of, you know, the necessary, um, prosthetics and things like that. Um, she even made it so that you could go with your friends who haven't had a mistake, and she could also find some lovely luxury. Um, but the pandemic meant that that experience was sort of off the table. Um, and what they did was she decided to make it a technological one. So now she's she's essentially will be part of it. You can, you know, go to my, um, online. And you can, um, you know, order, uh, measure yourself, work with a specialist, all online, get a few different options, figure out the one that's perfect for you and the rest back. Um, and I don't think without the pandemic, that would not have happened. So she's now able to serve exponentially more. Um, you know, women who deserve to feel like themselves post it to me. >>That's also a model and inspirational. I have to ask you for the young women out there watching. What advice would you share with them as they navigate into a world that's changing and evolving and getting better with other women, mentors and entrepreneurs and or just an ecosystem of community? What advice would you give them as they step into the world and have to engage and experience life? >>Yeah, gosh, part of me always wants to resist that they don't listen to anyone to do you follow your heart, follow your gut, or at least be careful who you listen to because a lot of people will want to give you advice. I would >>say, Uh, that's good advice. Don't take my advice. Well, you've been a great leader. Love the work, you're doing it and I'll say N D. C. But all around the world and again, there's so much change going on with innovation. I mean, just the advances in technology across the board, from with machine learning and AI from linguistics and understanding. And I think we're going to be a bigger community. Your thoughts on as you see community organically becoming a big part of how people are engaging. What's your what's your view As you look out across the landscape, communities becoming a big part of tribes. What's your vision on how the role of communities place? >>You know, we we actually do you think a lot about community and healthy. And we say that are you know, alchemy really is providing space, you know, physical and mental space to think, um, access access to capital access to networks, Um, community, Um, and the community piece is very, very important. Are entrepreneurs leave us like the number one thing that they miss is being among like-minded, um, you know, slightly slightly crazy audacious people. Um, and I often joked that we're building a kind army because it is, you know, it's people who want to do it differently if people want to do it with integrity. Is people who are in it for a very different motivations than just money. Um, and, you know, you start to feel the power of that group together and its entirety and what that might look like as as a community solving global problems. Um, and it really is inspiring. Um, I do think that people are starving for FaceTime and people time, real human time after the pandemic, I think they won't go away. It's a great tool, but we all want a little bit of that, and I will mention just along those lines. And if you don't mind a quick plug for an event that we're having March 16, Um, also in partnership with a W s called Build her relevant to International Women's Day as well. People can, either. If they're in the city, they can come in person. But we also have a virtual program, and we'll be listening to some of the most inspiring. Women leaders and entrepreneurs both in government and also the private sector share their knowledge on the side of the pandemic for for, you know, the next tribal group of women entrepreneurs and leaders. >>That's great. Well, you are on our website for sure. >>Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. >>And we love the fact that you're in our community as well. Doing great work. Thanks for spending time with the Cube and on International Women's Day celebration. Thanks for coming on and sharing. >>Thank you, John. >>Okay. The Cube International showcase Women's Day, featuring some great guests all around the world, Not just in the U S. But all over the world. I'm your host. Thanks for watching. Yeah, Yeah, yeah, hm, Yeah.

(uptempo techno music) >> Announcer: Live from Washington, D.C, it's CUBE Conversations with John Furrier. >> Hello there and welcome to this special CUBE Conversations here in Washington, D.C. We're getting all the stories, we're at the Halcyon House here with Kate Goodall who is the Co-Founder and CEO of Halcyon for a CUBE Conversation. Thanks for joining me today. >> My pleasure. >> So talk about Halcyon and your mission. You're doing something really important here in societal entrepreneurship. It's a non-profit, it's a really interesting mission. You're having an impact. Talk about what you guys are doing. >> Yeah, we believe in the power of human creativity and the power of compassion to change the world for the better. And by that I mean that we take some incredible change makers with really bold ideas about how they can affect societal change through business and art, and we give them a number of supports including a free place to live in this very expensive city, a fantastic mentor, an office, a community around them, money, and we don't take equity in their ventures. >> And this house that we're here is a mansion in Washington, D.C. Talk about the story about this house and this residence. >> Yeah, it's got very revolutionary roots. It was built by Benjamin Stoddert who was the first Secretary of the Navy during the Revolutionary War. And from then it exchanged hands several times. One of them was a relative of Mark Twain. And he is responsible for most of its 30,000 square feet. And then lastly, it was in the hands of the Dreyfus family before it was bought by Dr. Kuno who is my co-founder and the chair of Halcyon. >> And the Halcyon mission, you guys have a unique formula. Talk about how the fellowships, how do you guys select the ventures, what's the program? They live here. >> Yeah. >> It's a residence. >> Yeah. >> So it's interesting. >> Yeah, we give them three things, everything thing breaks down into three things. Space, community, and access. We believe that if you give people not only physical space, which is important because we have to remember that not everyone has a parents' basement they can live in and friends and family they can go get money from. So it democratizes the playing field to just be able to select people with the best ideas and the most talent and not the best drive. But also head space. What does it mean when you give someone with a brilliant idea five months to just work on their idea? Then community is very, very important. There's a lot of atrocious analogies for entrepreneurship. People compare it to staring into the abyss or chewing glass or... It creates a lot of emotions, lots of ups and downs. So having a built in community, which we have here is very important. Then lastly access, and by that I mean there are not only investors, but these days governments, philanthropists, others that are seeking solutions to some of these very hairy 21st century problems. They want access to these ideas. And if we do our job correctly, we're creating a bridge for these entrepreneurs to those people as well. >> Yeah entrepreneurship certainly is hard. And it's even harder when you're trying to crack the code on societal problems. >> Kate: Yes. >> And so this kind of brings up an interesting trend that we've been seeing emerging really rapidly in the past few years with cloud computing and other... Big data, internet of things technologies on a global scale, is the societal entrepreneurship model where you're accelerating opening up new ways to democratize, crowd source, fund, and change the game and reimagine philanthropy, policy, education, diversity, all in one. >> Yeah. >> You guys are kind of doing that here. It really is a ground zero here in Washington, D.C because of the access and the ecosystem of governments and everything's here. So you're seeing this building up in Washington, D.C. Talk about this new force, this new driving force of change called societal entrepreneurship. >> Yeah so it's, we believe it's definitely one way to really change the game. It's a way to use business principles to attack some of these enormous social problems. Many would argue that philanthropy and perhaps government have failed at some of this recently. Philanthropy was originally designed to solve problems, not to become a charity machine. And certainly, the government finds it hard to do some of those things today as well. And so figuring out how to really attack some of these enormous, hairy 21st century problems using these business principles so that their solutions can also be scaled effectively is absolutely what we're trying to approach. >> It's interesting, you see the old guard, the old ways of doing things, policy, people just checking boxes, philanthropy a big donor kind of model. And then now with cloud computing, new things are emerging. In your mind, what's changed the most now from just even 5, 10 years ago? What's the big difference in today's culture and today's environment in the world and Washington, D.C? >> Oh my gosh, so many things I could talk about. One of the reasons I think that social enterprise really came into being, partially is because there was recession and millennials didn't have jobs. So they had to create them and they created them in a new model. They created them in a way that gave them satisfaction beyond just getting a paycheck. The Jobs Act gave foundations the ability to invest in for profits and gave us crowd sourcing and crowd funding. And these things have really made some of this cross sectoral pollenization possible for the first time. I think people genuinely are frustrated that this amazing pace of change and Internet of Things and all of this stuff still hasn't solved some of these big problems. So there's so many forces at play. And I think one thing that I'll also point to because as I explained to you, I'm an archeologist and historian by training, and if you look over the course of human history, any time when you've had rapid change in technologies or you've had vast inequalities in terms of wealth, you end up with a depression or a war, or both. And I really believe that the power of social entrepreneurship can, for once, maybe let the gas out of the balloon a little bit more gently, and I think that's something really great to be optimistic about. >> How do you see that happening? I mean, we're a connected society now. >> Yeah. >> We have our mobile devices. >> Yeah, yeah. >> We have our things on our body, Internet of Things. It's all there, is that how you see it? How do you see the relief coming so we don't have a war or a depression? >> Yeah, I think that's the point, we have tremendous power now, right? To just in our hands, to be able solve some of these problems. Human ingenuity is a great thing. I think creativity and compassion are going to be the things that machines replicate last. And so we support that wholeheartedly. And I think maybe we can talk about some examples of some of our ventures, right, and what they're doing because I think that's the best way to paint. What does this mean, what is it? One of our current fellows, Ryan Soscia has created JDoe which is a way to anonymously unite victims of sexual assaults so that they can take legal action. It has a business model, but it's been proven that victims of assault are much more effective when they go as a group instead of alone. So it's a really brilliant way to use technology. Another one from our past cohort, Brandon Anderson is using a chat bot, Raheem AI to collect better data on policing. And then is working with police departments to use that data so that they can have better community relations. So these are both very relevant and timely issues that we're approaching in a non-partisan way using technology to solve. One more I'll give in our current cohort. Pilleve, which is a company that's thinking about the Internet of Things and how it can solve for the opiate crisis. They've created a pill bottle that connects to your phone or your family's phone and can give data and control over medication so that you can really start to attack addiction. >> Kate, talk about the power of we capital, what you've been doing with women's networking in Washington DC. >> Yeah. >> Because it's not just the women in tech inclusion issue, there's a lot of disparity we've been covering certainly at Silicon Angle, but there's really a lot of powerful women and talented folks, whether it's creative or on the business side or technical side, where the societal problems, these are products that are used by the entire population and so there's an effort to have more women involved in not just designing products, but actually being part of these new re-imagined solutions and technologies. >> Yeah. >> How important do you see that here, and what are some of the hurdles and successes that you've had here? >> I agree with that analysis completely. And I'm biased, but I think that Washington is an amazing city for some incredibly smart women. And when we created Halcyon, we created a committee that was diverse and reflective of the diversity we wanted to see how cohorts. So diverse by any factor. Age, gender, race, sexual orientation and what's that resulted in happily is a housing community that has 52% of our ventures founded or co-founded by women, and 58% of our ventures founded by a person of color. But then when we looked around, the investor base didn't exactly reflect our fellows. So we started to think about how we could engender and cultivate investors that were also diverse. And one of the ways to do that was to create a group of women in D.C. that wanted to fund social impact, leaning women led ventures, and it's called the WE Capital. It's led by Dr. Kuno, who is my co-founder and chair at Halcyon, and Sheila Johnson who was one of the founders of BET and has now founded Salamander Resorts. And there's 13 other remarkable women in that contingent and they're all paying it back. But and a very smart way that gets them market rate returns. >> This is interesting, the community paying forward has been the ethos of very robust and successful communities Silicon Valley here in Washington, D.C. How do you scale that? How do you go global with this? Because now you have a global model. Silicon Valley D.C. and all around world where you now have different communities coming together, all the same mission potentially. How do you blend it all in? How do you take that to the next level? >> That's a good question. We're gradually building what I call a kind Army. Just this amazing community that has ripple effects. We don't feel that we have to own or control this in anyway. Just over 3 1/2 years, we've had 55 ventures come through here. They've raised nearly $40 million dollars. Impacted half a million people around the world in a positive way. They've created nearly 500 jobs. You start to see the exponential growth even just as we sit here in this building. But I do think that's a long way to go in terms of people understanding this social societal entrepreneurship. People have different definitions for it and it's a long way to go in term terms of government and philanthropy really being able to understand it. Because in some ways as I mentioned, they lost touch with who their customers are. >> Okay and I've always been saying in Silicon Valley and on my Facebook page and also on theCube that SiliconValley doesn't get D.C. They try to come in waves around. You don't get it and they're impatient, I would say if I categorize. They get D.C. but I don't think they have the patience for it. It's a new culture here. Also the pace of change is accelerating in D.C. but it's a formula for D.C. What is the secret to be successful in Washington, D.C if you're a tech entrepreneur or investor or someone from Silicon Valley or not from here? >> We do get the advantage of being able to see who does that well and who doesn't. And tech is obviously leading ahead of policy. Policy is trailing tech and I think that can understandably make policymakers nervous. They've got a lot of understanding to do to be able to make some policy decisions. And these tech solutions are very complicated so the people in tech that I see being successful around policy of those that will take the time to really sit down and pick through a problem with policy maker and help them to understand it. Policy makers are actually very smart but they're dealing with a lot. >> John: So education. >> Education, education absolutely. You can't come in here >> Patience. >> And be impatient that they're not getting it. But I think that's going to essential. We've got to figure out how to talk each other and how to talk across different languages, different domain, different sectors and creates some better intersectionality. >> So what's next for Halcyon? What's the vision? What's your vision of how this will go forward? Obviously you've got a great model, batches coming through cohorts, and you have demo days here. I noticed your set up downstairs for a demo day so it's very robust, classic incubator, accelerator model with the residences leading it there. What's next? Where do you go from here? >> We don't take equity in any of our ventures but we are thinking about creating a fund, because so many of our ventures are performing exceptionally well. And we're actually going to be launching a festival that really takes the power of creativity and compassion, and art and technology here in D.C. and that will be in June. And we're hoping it that way, we can reach a wide audience, and that's going to be very exciting. The long term vision really is how can we harness the power of compassionate and creativity to solve 21st century problems, and how can we do that at scale? >> The classic disruption model is gate keepers start being disrupted by the new guard as Andy Jassy would say in Amazon. These a new creative as well. I did a panel at Sundance a few weeks ago where we talked about this creative where democratization is happening at artist level, and the government maker level. And that seems to be happening across all industries. A new creative is developing. What's your view of the digital impact? Because artistry can be sculptures and painting and whatnot to classic artistry or film making but now tech's involved, digital. >> Yeah. >> It's coming together. Is the vision how you see art and science coming together? >> Yeah, artists are fantastic disrupters. Sometimes they don't even need to paint a picture. They just use their ability as an artist to do things other people can't. And that's why they're awfully fun to be round. I think that you're absolutely right. I point to Dee Rees as an great example, who didn't get her funding for her film Mudbound through the the Hollywood machine, instead she went straight to Netflix and now she's getting an Oscar. That's a new way of doing things. We have one of our fellows, DeShuna who created kweliTV which is Netflix for the African diaspora because Netflix just doesn't have the kind of black filmmaking that she wants to see. So yeah I absolutely see people using digital to do different kinds of disrupting including on the outside of things. We have another program, the Arts Lab. Very similar to this but working with excellent artists who are thinking about social justice. One of the artist, Georgia Os-acs is doing a project called Two Future Women. And she's collecting letters that women are writing to other women 19 years from now. They're being archived by the museums in D.C. and will be displayed on the eve of the Women's March. Wouldn't it be great to know what the suffragette were thinking? And that all requires technology to be able to successfully collect those, disseminate them, archive them et cetera. >> So New channels to the market place breaking down the barriers for the gate keeper seems to be the trend. How is that happening in your world, in D.C and in philanthropy? You're now creating a new model of entrepreneurship. >> Yes, yes. >> Not just philanthropy, hey nice job or policy check box, it's real change. >> And arguably a new model for philanthropy because very rarely is philanthropy so immersive where we're literally taking these people and we're in the living with them for five months, and giving them all of these supports. And I think it's also a new model and that it's risk taking. It's not a safe and secured, metric based, proven solutions. It's some of these centers are going to fail and I think that that's okay. That's just testing and trying and finding the best and moving forward. I was going to make another point. >> You guys are changing the world obviously, I made a comment on Facebook, we're saving the world at the same time because you mentioned you can actually get ahead of some of these trends with this gap. Whether it's inequity, inequality or however these gaps are causing even war or depression as history points out. Now you have an opportunity to use, not just diagnostic capability but predictive and prescriptive mechanisms. What are some of those things that someone could see and connect the dots around an example of something that's prescriptive. Say wait, wow, time out. We've got something going on over there as a problem space we can solve with a solution. What are some examples that you see playing out where this model could work? >> I'm not sure I quite understand the question. >> If you had the ability to use technology to solve some societal problems, what are some examples that you're seeing here in your incubator that are pointing to this new trend? >> Yeah, I think that our fellows are fantastic examples of that. Many of them are tech enabled whether or not they're using apps or the cloud or just a new actual technology product. One of our fellows is using, he's created a new product that disrupts the vestibular system so that you don't feel motion sickness. Now this is actually a product that is obviously very valuable for just everyday people, who are going to be in driver-less cars trying to do their work. But it turns out very useful for the military and very useful for people who are trying to create virtual reality. 40% of people can not put a virtual reality headset on and not feel nauseous. So I do think that it is tech's job to solve some of the problems that we haven't been able to solve yet. In many ways, the internet and the Internet of Things is our biggest leap forward since fire. Now how are we going to use it to create the disruption that fire did? Fire allowed us to eat more things, grow bigger then start to farm and and I think that we haven't even hit the cusp of what the internet can do yet. It can do way more things and deliver products to our doorsteps. >> Next up at the wheel, you get fired-- >> Right, what's is the tech wheel? I think it's going to be really-- >> Personal question for you, what is the big learnings that you've had over the past few years? (mumbles) say well I didn't expect that to happen or wow, that was super awesome or a failure or a success? What was your big learnings that you've come out-- >> Oh my gosh, do you have an hour? We've learnt how not to do and how to do mentorship very well. You can't take mentorship lightly. This is human chemistry we're talking about and even if you think you've got the perfect match on paper, it may not work. We have certainly learned a lot about how it is really important to have investors that reflect entrepreneurs because to your very point, that work is going to take everyone to create technologies that work for everyone. It also creates and builds even investors who look like everyone because otherwise there is an inherent bias. Really good people have inherent bias and that needs to be solved for. Because I straddle both art and entrepreneurship in my role. These some really interesting things that I've noticed in terms of how entrepreneurs see the world as infinite resource and artist see it as very finite. And how some of our systemic problems are reflected almost identically in both fields. This is an interesting statistic. 5% of venture capital goes to women, we know that and 1% to African Americans, 0.01% to Black women. In the museum world, in museums in the western hemisphere, 5% of their art collection is women artists, 1% is African American artists. That's not a coincidence, that's a clear picture of how power structures have evolved to make certain types of decisions about who should get capital, who is worth collecting, and we're definitely solving for that. >> And certainly having a lens on that and exposing that-- >> Kate: Absolutely. >> Is the way to-- >> It's very important. >> Talk about artistry, one of the things we've been talking about in the software and in the tech business is the role of artistry and craft. And that we see that swinging back with cloud computing. I would say to the craft out a software development but you're seeing these integrated solutions where craftsmanship and art are coming together. We're seeing examples, certainly in Asia, in China we're seeing examples where the development world, the technical world has come together with artistry world to create these new solutions. So you've got creative and you've got technical coming together. That's what you're doing. >> Yeah, no absolutely. >> What's the success formula? Is there one? Is it right brain, left brain, what's the-- >> I don't know. We've just got this bubbly caldron of creativity and we're pulling stuff out of it as we go, but I think it's important for us not to forget about art. Art has been at the forefront of every social change, every movement. If it does its job, it's of the moment and it tells us a lot about ourselves. But there's also that important thing about art with technology, and with consumer products. The reason that the iPhone was so successful is because it's a thing of beauty, and everyone is in awe of it. So design is critical, it's absolutely critical when you're thinking about scale or consumer products or tech that works. >> And having a good taste for a good art is also a skill. >> Yeah. >> Knowing what's beautiful. >> Of course. >> Tech guys love to have that skill. >> You could argue that that's getting democratized and disrupted as well. >> Kate, thanks so much for spending some time here. >> My pleasure, this is fun. >> Cube Conversation, Kate Goodall, co-founder and CEO of Halcyon here in Washington, D.C. Changing the world, societal entrepreneurship. A lot of great actions. This is theCube coverage. Thanks for watching. (uptempo techno music)