Endgame with Gita Wirjawan - Arun Majumdar: Is Climate Studies the New Computer Science?

Episode Date: September 27, 2023

Gita Wirjawan, in collaboration with Dr. Arun Majumdar, the Dean of Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, invites you to engage in a stimulating dialogue concerning a holistic approach to sustainability, the pivotal role of educational institutions, and the shifting paradigms of future energy. Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability is the university’s first new school in 70 years, made possible by a $1.1 billion commitment from Silicon Valley entrepreneur John Doerr and his wife Ann. The combined gifts, totaling $1.69 billion, are the largest gift in Stanford’s history and the second largest private donation to an American university in history. Built for impact, the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability will have a distinctive three-part structure that includes rigorous academic departments, interdisciplinary institutes, and an accelerator for technology and policy solutions in eight domains: climate change, Earth and planetary sciences, energy technology, sustainable cities, the natural environment, food and water security, human society and behavior, and human health and the environment. #Endgame #GitaWirjawan #StanfordDoerr ----------------------- About the guest: Dean Arun holds several positions at Stanford University, including the Jay Precourt Provostial Chair Professor, Faculty member of the Mechanical Engineering and Energy Science and Engineering Departments, Senior Fellow and former Director of the Precourt Institute for Energy and Senior Fellow (courtesy) at Hoover Institution, and Faculty of Department of Photon Science at SLAC. Prior to Stanford, he was the Vice President for Energy at Google, the Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Energy (2009—2013), Dr. Steven Chu, and Chair of the Advisory Board of the US Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm. About the host: Gita Wirjawan, is an Indonesian entrepreneur, educator, and currently a visiting scholar at The Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), Stanford University. Gita is also just appointed as an Honorary Professor of Politics and International Relations in the School of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham, UK. ----------------------- Supplementary Readings: https://www.periplus.com/p/9781138000773/?utm_soure=EG&utm_medium=Luminaries https://www.periplus.com/p/9781541757141/?utm_soure=EG&utm_medium=Luminaries ----------------------- Addendum: https://sgpp.me/eps155notes ----------------------- SGPP Indonesia Master of Public Policy: [e-mail] https://admissions.sgpp.ac.id https://wa.me/628111522504 Other "Endgame" episode playlists: International Guests Wandering Scientists The Take Visit and subscribe: SGPP Indonesia Visinema Pictures

The grid of the future is going to be quite different from the 20th century grid. So far, the grid has been all about energy. In the future, it's going to be about energy plus synergy. And that is provided by information technology. Bits and Watts. Bits and Watts. The bits is for digital. And Watts is for the power.

Hi, friends and fellows. Welcome to this special series of conversations involving personality. coming from a number of campuses, including Stanford University. The purpose of the series is really to unleash thought-provoking ideas that I think would be of tremendous value to you. I want to thank you for your support so far, and welcome to the special series. Dina, Arun, thank you so much for coming here.

Thank you so much for having me here. You know, it's a real privilege and honor for Indonesia to be graced by somebody of your stature. Before we talk about your mission in Indonesia, your mission at Stanford and your mission for the world, talk about your background, how you grew up and how you ended up being this really cool position at Stanford. Well, I was born in Calcutta, and my parents were born in what is now Bangladesh, and it was India at that time before partitioned. And in 1947, during the independence, India got divided into West Pakistan, East Pakistan. So suddenly they found themselves in a – so they had to leave and started from nowhere again. Education was a big deal.

So they put me in the best schools. First in Calcutta, then my father was a big deal. in the government service public servant and we moved to New Delhi so went to the best school in New Delhi and then he was moved to transferred to Bombay to be a regional director of civil aviation science aviation was growing that time and then as you may know since you were in India you, if you go to different parts of the country, you have to pick up new languages. So my father felt that I was that time in seventh or eighth grade. Right.

Is it maybe keep him in the same schooling systems that put me in a boarding school in the state of Rajasthan, a school called Mayo, Mayo College. And so I did my high schooling in a boarding school. So I left home when I was 12. and have lots of dear friends who were from my boarding school because they're in the same dorm, etc. And then I went to college in Bombay, in IIT, Indian Institute of Technology at Bombay. And at that time, it was a five-year undergraduate.

So ours was the last five-year batch. And so I went through that, which is a rigorous undergraduate engineering, science and engineering. How old is school? It is terrific. And I got my foundations built up there. And then I applied for a scholarship, fellowship in the United States for higher education.

And I was fortunate enough to get a fellowship from Berkeley. So did my PhD out there. Yeah, so that's how I grew up. And then went into professional life thereafter. To what extent that your parents play a role in making sure that you would be educated in the best way possible? Very significant. Because they, I mean, they were middle-class family. And as I said, they were essentially displaced from one country there to migrate on a two-day-snotice or something like that.

And so they started from scratch. And so education was really the means to get a head. head. Yeah. And so they were, you know, they made sure we went to the English medium schools and the, not just the, the top in the English medium school. And they had to scrounge around for financing. And whether it is my dad's salary, my mother gave up her career to raise us.

And, and my dad had to not only use his salary, we had to borrow money from, friends and family to get us through the education system at that time so yeah it was without them I would not be here this way

you know there's a perception that the Indians are so well educated all across the world true or not time will tell but there is a perception right what are some of the things that you think

people in Southeast Asia could learn from the Indian experience in terms of two things. Number one, how English is so important and how education is so important for our kids going forward. Yeah, I mean, I was fortunate enough to be born in a country where English... Right. I mean, we got our independence in 1947, but English had taken hold out there.

And it was generally accepted that if you learn the language, that's a way to, you know, get the best education, right? And the best education came in English, not to say that. And we had to learn Hindi. We tested in that. I mean, I can speak fluent Hindi. We had to learn Sanskrit. Wow. And I can speak Sanskrit.

But we had to do that. And it's a multilingual country. Right. So I can speak Bengali. And, you know, we can have a conversation in Bengali or Hindi. But English was the mechanism for moving ahead. And but we knew other languages as well. So I think that, if there's any lesson learned, I would say the, I think it's, to me, it seems it's

fairly common in Asia that the emphasis in education is there. Maybe ups and downs and maybe not completely homogeneous, but the fact that education will lead to a better quality of life, I think is generally there in Asia. May not be there in other parts of the world, frankly. But I think I was just lucky to be born in a place where this English, and it just so happens that English is a international language now. for so many things, right? Yeah.

Let's fast forward. You've been in so many dimensions, right? You've been in policy, you've been in research, and now you're back in academia. What are some of the lessons learned by way of having gone through so many of these different dimensions? Yeah, so my, I never planned for anything. I really resonate with the speech that Steve Jobs gave at commencement in Stanford on that you can never connect the dots looking forward in life.

So too much planning. I'm not sure. It's certainly not worked for me. But you can look backwards and connect the dots and actually see how the early days of what you experience has shaped your career. and you can see how they all fit together. And his point about, you know, just follow what you really love to do. And if you haven't found what you love to do, keep looking.

I mean, I completely resonate with that. So I had no plans to leave academia. But it just so happened that when I was in Berkeley as a faculty member, one of my, at that time, there was Lawrence Berkeley Lab, the director at that time was Stephen Shue. And he asked me to lead a division which had no plans for. And then we worked very closely. So when he became the Secretary of Energy for President Obama,

first of all, President Obama winning the election was not expected, but it happened. And then him choosing a Nobel laureate, a physicist, a scientist to be part of a cabinet. That was the first time in history. that happened was also so many things kind of you can't plan these things right and so when he became he asked me to come and join him

which I did and I ran I launched a new agency and you know we were we worked very very closely together so that's kind of how it worked out now looking back those things that happened at Berkeley with Steve Chu and others

led me to Washington I you know so I can connect the dots looking backwards. How difficult was it for you to make a decision to go to Stanford after having spent so much time at Berkeley? Yeah. Right? Yeah. So as you know, as you know, I was a graduate student at Berkeley. My wife is a Berkeley graduate. We got married when she was still finishing her PhD. I just finished my PhD. And then I was a faculty there for 13 years. And so this is pretty strong blue and gold credentials. and my PhD advisor became the chancellor at Berkeley.

So there's a long tradition out here. So it was not easy for me. Yeah. But the few things happened. My family felt that maybe you should try something different and new. And then my good friend, Steve Chu, who were just stepping down as the Secretary of Energy in early 2013 in March. or April of 2013.

So I was working at Google at that time because I decided that instead of trying to decide right now, let me take a break and join the private sector and the Google folks wanted me to join. And I said, I'll join for a little while. And then, you know, I talked to Stephen. I said, where are you going? Because I like to hang out with you.

And he said, I like to hang out with you too. So he was also going to Stanford. So I said, okay, maybe I'll give it a try. And as they say in cricket, that was my second innings. And so, you know, the first innings was Berkeley, the second innings at Stanford. And it's been absolutely fantastic. And I'm so glad I'm made the decision to come to Stanford because it is a very unique place. I mean, you spend some time out there.

Fantastic. And it's just the way things are configured and arranged and just the culture out there. I just really have taken to that. You have become the inaugural dean of what I think is the preeminent school within Stanford. I'm going to ask you a question that somebody else has asked you. What do you think is a sensible product of the school of sustainability? First of all, I would say that, yes, it is, you know, there are seven schools at Stanford. Right.

We are the most recent one, the first one in 75 or 70 plus years. We haven't, we don't launch schools often. But it's a different approach we're taking because sustainability cannot be divided neatly into engineering or science or humanity is a business or law or education or medicine, right? It's all of it. So by default, the way we're approaching the sustainability school is a, you know, is a business, really a fee, the school is a vehicle for all the campus, the whole campus, to get engaged

in this, whoever is interested. And so it is an all-campus approach. And I work very closely with my fellow deans of the other schools to make sure that when we hire faculty, when we develop curricula, when we create centers of research and all, we do it collaboratively. And I think that's the only way to really address sustainability in a holistic way. Your question about what is the mission? Is that what you're? The product of the School of Sustainability. So we spent quite a time because one of my advisory council members asked during the

advisory council meeting. So what is the product. And what he was really asking is that if I'm outside Stanford, what service can I get? What product and services can I get out of Stanford? What's the value to me? Right. And we thought quite a bit about this. And both historically and what is new now, right? Historically, if you look at a place like Stanford, what has it done? And I would say broadly in academia, not just Stanford. Number one is knowledge. And that's where research comes in. It's to create new knowledge. and the translation of that knowledge,

leveraging integration of that knowledge to create innovation and solutions to problems of the world faces. And that if you go back to the speech of Jane Stanford in 1902, this was her mission, is to create an institution, academic institution

that is with the idea of creating, it's a purposeful university for the idea of creating public good. Right. And the public good comes through solutions through creating value. Now, if it's a business, you can measure it in a market gap, right, of a company. But there are other ways of creating value as well. But it's the idea of connecting knowledge and the creation of innovation and solutions. So that's one.

The second thing is education. and education and research are integrally connected. One is knowledge, the other is delivery of knowledge and to our students, and not just to our own students, but for the public good as well. So we have lots of engagement, and in fact, that's something we're going to emphasize in the door school, is not just educating our own students, but educating the outside world, or providing that education in a really low, barrier to entry way for the rest of the world. So that's number two is education. The third thing is

talent. And we are blessed to have some amazing talent come to Stanford. And our job is to make sure we nurture them and we help them be placed in the right way in the future career. So that's a very important. But I think in our case, we are not only interested in nurturing our talent, But the world needs talent in other parts of the world, not in Stanford, to be nurtured as well. And we are looking at that very carefully of how to do it in a way that is scalable. So that's the third, is the talent, because people recruit our students. The fourth one is something that you are involved in Stanford in FSI. But I think Stanford, I love to get your thoughts on this as well.

in many ways Stanford is a platform for an international platform for dialogue right to happen in an open way in an you know without the fear of any retribution anything it's an it's a neutral platform where things can be discussed openly even things that may be controversial yeah and I think that platform for disgust to to be able to listen to voices that are not often appearing in a newspaper, for example.

Or it may be coming in a newspaper some in the world that we don't get access to, but to provide a platform for this voices to be heard

for a understanding and that's part of the education in a broader sense to get for us to get educated about the rest of the

world. and to discuss policy issues that really matter to people, right? I think that's a platform that is really important, and this is particularly important now on the sustainability front, given that climate change and sustainability are the public discourse around the world right now, and we are creating some programs around it. I want to pick up on what somebody had aptly pointed. it out yesterday in our collective discussion with regards to the fact that the School of

Sustainability is located in the Bay Area or even in the Silicon Valley, which has been known throughout the world as a place of innovation, knowledge, education, idea sharing, dialogues and all that. Do you see that as a plus or as a burden? by way of Silicon Valley's having preceded, you know, sustainability in the context of digitization and all these, you know, tech innovation that's taken place in the last few decades. I see that as a huge plus. So first of all, in many ways, the birth of Silicon Valley came from Stanford. Right.

It's a spin-off. I mean, George Schultz used to say that Silicon Valley is just a spinoff of Stanford, which in many ways it's true because if you go back from the history, Fred Terman was the Dean of Engineering at that time, had two students, Hewlett and Packard, got them placed in Stanford Research, really helped them with the Department of Defense being the first investor as well as the first market for them. and I think it's sometimes

it's forgotten how much the government played a role, the Department of Defense played a role in creating this ecosystem of innovation, right? And of course, then the financing and all of that venture capital and others, the startup culture, it's a cultural thing of being able to take on some hard problems

and with, you know, with the idea of somewhat of a destructive idea, I said, hey, I want to disrupt this industry. I want to do this and do that. And you can fail and that's fine. And that's a cultural thing. So I think that's the ecosystem that we have, right? I think it's a huge plus because that ecosystem is already geared for innovation.

It has to be steered in the different direction. So I don't know how many times I've had discussions from the people in the tech industry saying that how can I work in climate and sustainability or energy transition and all that. There's so many discussions like that going on. And as John Doer has very clearly said, climate and sustainability is the new computer science. Now, when John Doer says that, people listen.

He knows what he's doing. He's been through the computer science part and it's actually created so much value, right? Whether it's Amazon or... I mean, there's so much out there, Google, and a so when he says that people listen and I think he's absolutely right the innovation ecosystem is ripe right now for them to pivot and transition to energy climate water food etc they need some education they need a platform that's where Stanford comes in that's where the door school comes in

right and and I think in many ways we want to leverage that ecosystem and connect them to the outside world because sustainability is a global issue. And that's what is now in the early days. We're only one year into this, into the new school, but that's the idea. Now, I think by your question, you're also alluding to the fact that, is there a risk out here?

Right. And I would say the risk that may be there is that it is, you know, it is an innovation ecosystem in the Bay Area, right? whereas sustainability challenges are global. And the question of, is there a echo chamber or there not? And I think we are aware of that.

I think we need to break through that. And if Stanford can be a platform to do that, and Stanford has been a platform, even in the information technology, biotechnology, as a crossroads, in a global crossroads, in the past for the Bay Area, for the Silicon Valley. And I think we can provide that function for the Silicon Valley ecosystem. I think there's no doubt that Stanford is going to be able to attract the best talents from all across the world

so that they can have the right kinds of conversations on campus. I'm trying to size up how that will relate or that will correlate with how. how we're so vested in getting people across the world to take ownership with this global issue of sustainability, right? And what's amazing about this is that you're actually making this extra effort to go out to Indonesia, right? Of all places, right? I'm curious as to what you think is happening in Indonesia in terms of how you think they can actually help bridge. you know yeah what's being conversed at Stanford what's being conversed in a typical developing country and what are some of the steps that you think can be taken to narrow the gap

you know i'm sure you've you're you're probably wondering about stuff like this and i'm curious as to what your views are well first of all um i think indonesia as the fourth largest populist country in the world in a very unique geography. It's island nation in the global south with a growing economy and some constraints. And it's and it is the economy is based on oil,

gas and coal. It is the largest coal exporter. And it's really trying to pivot. Right. In a way that is, as I always say, every country starts from a different initial condition, different boundary conditions. So it's trying to figure out a pathway to transition to a clean economy, which is the 21st century goal for every country. And for us, when we look at the world, there are a few regions of the world that are, I think we have to pay attention. And I just came back from India, spending some time.

I think India having the largest population in the middle, in the productive age group, booming economy right now. And an intense desire and action to go into a clean economy and leapfrog into clean economy. I think same thing could be said about Indonesia. So we're looking at that carefully. And thankfully, we have in my advisory council at the school, we have people like Condi Rice and Steve Deni. who is an international thinker, Farid Zakaria, and many others who are looking at this. And we all come to the conclusion that this region and Indonesia

is super important for us to engage as a global. Coming back to the talent part, I mean, I firmly believe, given my history and how I grew up and where my parents came from, there is talent everywhere. Yeah. It's a question of opportunities, question of nurturing that talent, right? Totally.

And there's entrepreneurial spirit everywhere. Yeah. The opportunities may not be there. The thinking, the framing cannot be there. And need not be there, right? And so if we can play a role in providing an opportunity for those regions in the world, the people in those regions of the world, where we see that can make a dent in the climate change and sustainability, I think that's what we are really trying to figure out.

And we're not there yet. So, for example, we are thinking of starting a program called entrepreneur-in-residents. Now, entrepreneur-residence typically happens in a venture capital firm in the U.S., right? But I think in this case, there's an educational component in being an entrepreneur. Before you get into entrepreneurship, you really need to understand what this is all about, what the science, what the engineering is, what the social sciences are, what the culture is, what the scaling in this scaling in sustainability and energy is very different from scaling and computing. So it's an entrepreneur in computing who wants to move into this. In a few months as an ER and a VC may not be enough. They need to know what

the rest of the world is, right? And how does scaling happen? So we are thinking of creating this program, not only for the entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, but entrepreneurs in Indonesia, entrepreneurs in India, entrepreneurs Vietnam, so that they would be the, they know the ground truth out here, right? The Indonesians know the ground truth. So if there's any innovation that's going on in the West, in Stanford or in Silicon Valley, to adapt it to these conditions, who would be best suited for? for other people from here.

So that's how we're thinking about is that could we create a program where we bring in some talent, nurture them, help them, and they can come back and they become the source of innovation out here. So those are the kinds of things that we are thinking through right now.

Is it safe to assume that sustainability is not going to be attained until and unless the average citizen knows for sure that what he or she needs to do is going to be good for him or her right? If it's not good or if it's not good for him or her

why care about sustainability right? And how do you I mean that's sort of like the most simple way of looking at how sustainability can be achieved right? If that's true then what do you think are some of the steps that need to be taken culturally

Because I sense that, I think culturally, there needs to be some sort of re-engineering here to make sure that the conversations change in a household, in a school, in the office, or when you're having a drink or coffee or whatever. Because this needs to translate into something that's actionable, that's good for the average citizen. There are two ways to look at it. Right. There's an individual way and there's a macroeconomic way. Correct. On the individual way, it is absolutely a cultural issue. Yeah.

And it's a humanist issue as well. That one has to think about a sustainable lifestyle. Right. That if they're doing something, they'll actually improve the quality of their own life. Right. And not at the cost of the environment. Absolutely. not at the cost of the surrounding,

because if you do it at the cost of the surrounding, it's going to come back to bite you. Right? We are not disconnected with Mother Earth. We are deeply connected, whether we like it or not. We may live in a city and we forget that sometimes. But when there's air pollution in the cities,

we are reminded about it. And there are more deaths from air pollution than for climate change right now. Right? So I think that's that we are in a connected world we share the same in the oceans in the atmosphere

around the world right and so what we do will affect us and will affect someone else so just like in COVID we share the same DNA

so the way we handle COVID was so bad globally frankly because we kind of hoarded vaccines and things like that but we share the same DNA that's why it spread so easily

and the same thing happens in sustainability so I think the individual decision making on how what lifestyle they lead and how they conserve and how their actions,

influences, affects, you know, Earth and its ecosystem. I think it's cultural. And I think that needs to be deeply embedded. It is there in religions around the world. One of my most fascinating meeting

in the last year was when a group from the Vatican came to Stanford in GSP. And I was asked to open the meeting and then I did, I mean, I gave a small talk to open and welcome them. Then I was listening to the bishop, that who spoke. And he said the same thing, that, you know, we are not disconnected from Earth, Mother Earth, and from this planet. So we've got to keep that into our, and how we treat, in fact, these are his words.

How we treat our Mother Earth is a real. reflection how we treat ourselves. So this needs to be deeply cultural, right? This is deeply cultural. And I think we need, sometimes we forget that. And I think that's on an individual basis, the sustainability really is about yourself and your relationship with Earth and with our planet, right? I think on a macro sense, I think we have got too hung up on.

GDP growth. Yeah. If you go back in the history of GDP, I agree. It was developed. The concept was the Congress asked after the Depression economist from MIT, Simon Kuznitz, to come up with a metric. Yeah. And he did.

He got the Nobel Prize in economics. But he warned against using this as a measure of human welfare. He warned. Yet we do that. a GDP growth is 5%, 6%, 7%, we're doing well. And GDP does not measure a lot of human welfare. There are other measures,

human development index, etc. I mean, I was involved, when I was in the government in DOE, I was involved in, as part of a team to stop the BP oil spill. Right? And I was part of the team to stop the leak, right? Working with the BP engineers, by the way, to stop the leak.

Now, think about an oil spill. If you have an oil spill, it actually increases the GDP because someone has to go and clean it. Oh, my God. Right? If a bridge falls down, if a building falls down, it increases the GDP because someone has to clean it. There's more activities, yeah.

Right. If a hurricane comes and people die, the GDP doesn't get affected or may actually go up in GDP because of the cleanup and everything activity that goes on. So GDP does not measure. Yet we do that. one of my colleagues at Stanford who

travels around the world and she has come up, she's been working on this, her name is Gretchen Daly. And I don't know if you had a chance to meet her at Stanford. And so she has been running for the last 17 years, something called a natural capital project.

Now, the natural capital project is about how do you value nature and the ecosystem services? And she asked a couple of years back three years back, she's come up with a concept of GEP, gross ecosystem product. Wow. Right. Now, if you look at an oil spill, the GDP may go up, but the GEP goes really down.

It's negative now, right? And this is being now adopted by some of the banks. So I'm actually going to Manila to meet with the folks in Asian Development Bank out there because they are adopting it. And we want to scale this up to other financial institutions. and help Gretchen and her team to do that. Because I think one has to keep those two in mind that you cannot just increase GDP

and really decrease the quality of the planet, right? Both have to go up. And that and a macro sense, we need some measures like that to really help nations figure out, investment community figure out exactly how, what is a sustainable development path that we need to take? I want to backtrack a bit with respect to your visit here to Southeast Asia, Indonesia and soon to be Philippines.

Do you sense that there's enough excitement amongst the citizenry as for you to be optimistic that at some point sooner rather than later there's going to be optimal agency with respect to the issue of or the ability to attain sustainability or carbon neutrality. I would say, first of all, you know, I spend 12 days in India. Yeah. I attended the B20 meeting and, you know, went and saw the industry out there and spent some time in IAT, Bombay, and I'm here. I don't think one has to explain why climate change and sustainability are important. That's a given because it's in the minds.

of the leadership of these nations and businesses and all. It is either number one, two or three topic. Yeah. And that is because climate change is already here. The heat waves, the humidity waves, the torrential rainfalls and all. People realize this is different. This is not your normal summer or winter that's going on. Right.

So I think that realization, as George Schultz used to say, at some point, people will be mugged by reality. That is so true. And the global south will feel that more than the global north. Not that we don't feel it. I mean, we realize what's going on in the United States is not normal, the heat waves, etc. But I think it's intensified out here. So that we, you know, that understanding. planning is there. The question is, okay, what do we do about it? And I think there is a general

sense that there's an urgency to this and we need to get mobilized. Not just about the decarbonization, which is every country has to contribute to the megatons or gigatons of CO2 budgets and all of that. We understand that and there needs to be plan and execution. But I always say this, that in addition to that, it's not in either or, but end, I think people are realizing that the adaptation measures is going to be critical, right? We need to take measures against food security. Because when the temperatures go up, the food productivity goes down. Against water security, fresh water security, right?

Against security, against floods and all of that. And heat security. because when a heat wave hits, when the wet belt temperature exceeds 30 or 35 degrees, people don't survive, right? And especially vulnerable population. So I think that realization is there. On the decarbonization and mitigation,

that's a business proposal, right? And the business proposition, the businesses are reimagining themselves to go in these directions. On the adaptation side, it seems like it's more of a government. And this is where the government, of a country is going to be super important.

How do you protect your citizens? Because as we all know, we have both served in the government. The number one job for any government is the security of its people. Yeah. Right. And in this case, it's climate security, et cetera. So that, I think, is one needs to think through, and every country has to chart its own path. But we sit here recognizing that different governments.

governments have different fiscal spaces. That basically dofftales into certain limitations, right? Or even pluses, depending on how big your fiscal spaces, right? Is it helpful to teach the young kids that they need to be able to survive and thrive despite, as opposed to because of the government? I think you need to do both. I mean, I don't think it's in either or again. Okay.

I think individuals need to know. need to have the education and understanding of how to adapt. Right. Right. What kind of housing should they be looking for? Yeah. What do you do if they're crop failures or heat waves, you know, reduce the productivity.

Farmers need to know this. But frankly, individuals are not going to get the information and have the full understanding of how to lead a life in a heated, you know, earth. the governments have to play a role. Yeah. Right. The policy really matters. Right.

it's not only in the domestic, it's an international thing as well. I mean, there are communities out here and other parts of the global south that need help. That need to act now to protect themselves. So I think it's a combination of the two. And in fact, when I was in India, there was a lot of discussion going on in how to create, to build on the digital platform that they, it's a public platform, public infrastructure. Can they create a way to provide the weather data in a granular way? And in a slightly future, sort of looking ahead so that there's planning and agriculture, etc. Now, that's a data play, which is a common platform that could be used. And I think that's just one. They are thinking of using the digital platform for payments. to be made for security against climate events,

against extreme events, right? And so I think that's the toolbox that India is using. I think other countries will have to use those or other mechanisms to suit their needs. So I think, one, the governance part has to be super important out here. I mean, we don't, and just so in the United States, we have FEMA. Yeah.

FEMA is the federal emergency management administration. So if there's a hurricane that comes in or, you know, they go and actually help out. It's, in the past, it has been mostly a reactive organization. Now it's trying to become a proactive organization. We need international FEMA for climate events, right? Because some countries may not have the capability of protecting its citizens, right? because they don't have the means, they don't have the capacity, they may not have the knowledge, right? But I think so that one needs to think about it holistically, globally, both at the micro level and at the macro level.

Let me pick up on food security and water security, right? I think to a lot of extent, those two things will depend on policy, right? I mean, they'll depend on culture to some extent, but policy, I think, will help shape how food security and water security will be obtained or attained. But the concern is with respect to many developing economies around the world, there's not enough of a recalibration of policy as to shape it in the right way so that there's better food security. There's better water security, right? To the point where I just intuitively think that it's going to depend more on entrepreneurship, the private sector more in the near foreseeable future. Maybe later on we can sort of like rely more on policy recalibration so that there's,

is that the right way of thinking? I would see you need both because sometimes the policies follow solutions. We don't know this. When there's a solution, the policy is made. And there's because there's a clear pathway for implementing the policy, right? And sometimes enlightened policies create the platform in an environment for new solutions to be created. So I think you need both. But I really like the way of what you suggested of entrepreneurial activity.

And the creative juices are there in every human being. They want to solve some problem. They want a better quality of life. and they want to create the community, they want to improve the quality of life of the community around them, right? So if he could tap into that, right, and empower people

to create solutions for the local community, that may be scalable, but at least for the local community is relevant. And I think that's a huge thing. And if the Dors School could play any role in that, we'll be all over this. I think there's

the data I think shows that it's a bit unfortunate that capital around the world is not allocated to where capital is most needed right it's sort of like scattered but scattered in a very systematic way that it's only parked in a certain parking lot

it's not going to the other parking lots where actually capital is more needed right where you can actually see tangible results for water security, tangible results for water security and food security. And you know that there's enough, if not very robust, entrepreneurialism out there. So I think there needs to be a way to reallocate capital in a much more efficient and effective manner. That's at least what I'm sensing in terms of what's stifling or what's styming entrepreneurship.

So I'll give you an example. First of all, I agree with you. And I'll give you an example what I went through. The reason I joined Google, by the way, is not to enhance their search engine because I have no idea how that works. It was a discussion with the team,

the leadership team out there, including Larry Page, who was a CEO, of the idea of the idea, that, you know, in their data centers, in Google and all data centers, electricity enables computing. Yeah. And we decided to flip that as can computing enable electricity. Wow.

To those people in the world, at that time there were 1.5 billion people who didn't have access to electricity. And as we know, even a little bit of access to electricity makes a huge difference in their lives. And it's not even, forget about access to Google, it's access to. to healthcare, access to clean water, education, and all of that comes in, right? So that was the project that,

that's the reason I joined Google. And we created a project called the bottom up grid or the bug project. And we had a great time, developed the whole technology and the business model. We started talking to people in Africa and other parts of the world in India,

of the local communities of their, to see how to give access to electricity and information. Google had a project at that time of laying down fibers in Africa to give access to information. And we were thinking of access and energy being done jointly because they're related. Anyway, so that was the whole idea of joining. One of the things we found out was that in the financing side. And at that time, we were looking at Google financing. We have a treasury in Google.

But in general, the financing one is one that was one of the most difficult things to solve. Because the financing required for a community that's rural or semi-rural, semi-urban, that did not have access to electricity and they wanted to give in electricity, that amount of financing that is needed is a huge mismatch to the macro-financial institutions on the quantities that dealing with. So to the aggregation of that financing and multiple securitization and coupling it to the large financial transactions go. That was at least at that time, 10 years ago, 12 years ago, that was broken. And that was, we found the biggest bottleneck out there. I don't know if that's your experiences. Oh, yeah, yeah. I think it still pervades today. You know, you've got a mismatch of

pricing, pricing the risk, right? At some level you price it this way, at another level, you price it. That's, I think, what causes the jam. The cost of capital. Correct. Correct. I want to pick up on decarbonization and electrification. We've had this talk a couple of times already separately, but I think it's important to race. This is what I call the paradox of sustainability. If you talk to experts in sustainability, they're really great. But there seems to be a bit of elitism, right, with which they speak. It resonates to maybe about 15 to 20% of the population of the planet. Whereas the rest are still worried about putting food on a table, right? This falls down to their need for electricity.

And I'll use India and Indonesia as real examples of developing countries, right, where electrification is still at about 1,300 kilowatt hour per capita. I think it requires one to be modern thinking, to embrace the sustainability narrative. And one would define or could define modernity by way of countries being electrified at a rate of maybe 6,000 kilowatt hour. Then I start measuring, right, how long would it take

for Indonesia or India to go from 1,300 kilowatt hour to 6,000 at a constant rate of 19,000 megawatts per year of development in India and 3,000 megawatts of development per year in Indonesia. It could take 90 to 100 years. I don't think we have that much time. So it boils down to the observation that there's this apparent irreconcilable nature between the two narratives. I call this the narrative of development and I call this the narrative of sustainability.

I seek your wisdom on what it would take to help reconcile these two in a quicker and better way. Yeah, I mean, I think it's super important to be open-minded about this. Yeah. Because what works in the United States need not work out here, right? I mean, I think one has to accept that. Yeah. I always say this, that every country is starting from a different initial condition. Yeah.

And so I think that part is very important. We have to meet the people in the region where they are today and then see what are the different development pathways. one can take. The reason, and go back to my Google experience and creating this Barnup Grid project, the idea was that we have seen the macro grid. The grid is the Tesla Edison Grid.

It started in the United States. You have, and it started with New York City and then the hydroelectric plant in Niagara Falls and building a transmission lines to build electricity to New York City. That was the whole, that was the start, and the architecture has been built

with centralized generation and transmission line to the load centers and a distribution system. Now, if you think about it, that's one architecture. That need not be the architecture of the future. Because now with solar cost coming down,

and you can put a solar panel pretty much anywhere you want to in a modular way with the storage costs coming down and whether it's hydroelectric storage or some other storage, battery storage. We knew those lines, the learning curves were bringing the cost down to the point.

It would be cheaper to build a microgrid in such a way in an architecture that you can connect other microgrids to build up the grid from the bottom. That's why it was called the bottom up grid. And we felt that that was another option for development, as opposed to bringing the macrogrid and pulling their transmission lines to the one. Now, both are reasonably, both are valid. One is de-risk, the other has risk.

And so that was the option that we're providing because we also realized, given the challenges in building infrastructure, whether there's a different option, whether there's a local importance. that we can offer and still get to not 100 kilowatt hours per capita, but 4,000, 5,000. It has to be scalable because when you start getting electricity, the first thing you want to do is to have a light, right? And the second thing is that can you use it for economic growth, right? Can you use that for agricultural needs or pumping water or something else or weaving textile? Correct. And so that's the option we were looking at. And I think it's important, it's still carbon-free,

but it's important to look at it from the point of view, who are the customers? What do they really need? And what are the right solutions for them as opposed to taking a cookie-cutter solution from the global north and applying it out here? I'll say this, bravely. You know, nuclear.

Yeah. Seems like a possible alternative for a large developing country like Indonesia. India has been a beneficiary, good and bad, right, of nuclear capabilities. Is that on the table, realistically speaking, because it's clean, it's scalable. I'm a big believer of solar, big believer of hydro. I'm a big believer of all the other clean alternatives. But we need to figure out

democratically, which would serve our interest in a long run better. Nuclear has one of the highest energy densities in terms of a power plant. It needs less land. So in many,

it ends carbon-free electricity and heat. process heat, very important for industry. So in many ways, nuclear makes a lot of sense for high population densities. These high population densities need a high density approach to energy as well, right? Because land may be an issue, et cetera. So in that sense, you know, I'm a big fan of nuclear. But if a country is not in nuclear today, getting into nuclear, I would say

is a 100 year commitment. And one has to take it, one has to take a long view of this because once you get into nuclear, there are regulatory regimes, regulatory safety issues. And by the way, nuclear is very safe today despite a few accidents that, right?

It is safe largely, right? Most of the plants are very, very safe. And that is because people have paid attention to it. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the United States, is considered one of the gold standards. But there are other regulatory commissions. And so one has to create those institutions for safety, for regulation, because you can't compromise on those. Any compromises out there could be disaster not only for the country, but frankly, the whole war, as we saw in Fukushima. Fukushima was an accident, right?

So it's a hundred-day commitment from the fuel cycle side. What do you do with the waste? What do you do? Where are you going to get your fuel from? Is it, are you going to import it or are you going to enrich it out here with uranium enrichment, etc? So those kind of, one needs to create an institutional architecture to be able to get nuclear and make a hundred-year commitment. But I think that's a decision that each country needs to make on its own. To what extent do you think geopolitics influences the conversations? I think nuclear is a geopolitical issue.

I mean, think about it. We, on issues, let's take U.S. and India. Right. If you go back in history, India, you know, decided to, you know, demonstrate atomic bomb, right? And in the 90s, and there was one in the 70s, then in the 90s. And they were ostracized by the West, right? And then people realized, the United States realized that that's not a good foreign policy to, you know, ostracized India. So I think the nuclear, civil nuclear deal that President Bush and, you know, Prime Minister Mon Mawin Singh, I mean, they put their neck on the line to get that done.

And from the U.S. side, this Gandhi-Rice was involved in that, deeply involved in that. the U.S. ambassador to India, David Malford, who are both at Hoover Institution now, and I get to learn about what actually happened at that time. They were deeply engaged in creating the civil nuclear deal with India, between the United States and India, not just for nuclear. It was to bring, you know, put an arm around and embrace India

back into the global, back into engagement with the United States on multiple fronts. But that was the vehicle to do that. So yes, it is a geopolitical issue because there are issues of proliferation, there's issues of enrichment. And, yeah, I mean, nuclear is as geopolitical as it can get. But realistically, I think not many countries have the ability to think 100 years into the future, unless you're China. Right. So I think we've got to embrace the realism that this is not going to be easy, right? Baseline.

In top of that, then I start thinking about. how the world is getting more multipolar, right? Does that make it easier or make it more difficult for a nuclear to be on a table, at least conversationally? Yeah, there is another model for nuclear. I mean, a hundred-day commitment is that if you want to create the institutions and everything, the other model of nuclear is, well, let's say the United States. Yeah.

They're now getting into small module nuclear reactors, right? Whether it's GE or new scale or others, right? Right. And you can, one can essentially have them create a, you know, an approach where the nuclear plant is modularized. It's built out here. Indonesia may not have to worry about the fuel at all. The fuel is provided and taken away. And you only get the electricity or the heat out of you.

I believe, I may be wrong, but I'd be. believe UAE has gone that direction with the South Koreans. And so they don't have to worry about it. So that's certainly a model. But you've got to realize that nuclear plant is on your land. And I think it is wise to have some kind of a regulatory environment in an institution to ensure that that safety is maintained. There is a regulatory regime so that the community is not affected by it.

So I mean, I would suggest that to happen while the nuclear power is being provided to a country with a partnership with another country. Well, the Chinese are also tinkering with small modulars for South China Sea purposes and all that. Solar. You know, if I take a look at the data points, I mean, There's the amount of solar energy that arrives on the planet is about 8,000 times the amount we consume. It seems like a no-brainer, right? We just do something really sexy technologically. We should be able to save the planet, right?

Do you have optimism that in the next maybe 10 years or maybe 20 years that we're going to be able to have a technology that's going to be able to not only absorb, but store and transmit in a good way enough for the people in developing economies and sub-Saharan countries to be able to enjoy in a net positive way. So solar is an amazing technology. It started way back in the 60s, actually took a long time to bring the cost down. And right now it's one of the cheapest way to produce electricity. And the technology for solar panels is out there. So, I mean, I think there's been a massive development of that. So I'm very bullish about solar.

And I think the cost will come down even more through improvements in manufacturing, efficiency. By the way, efficiency is really important because most of the cost that we're seeing now is not in the panel, but in the installation. and all the other things. So the more efficient the panel, the less you have to install and the lower the cost, right? And there are new technologies like perovskides that will go on silicon

that will improve the efficiency even more. That's still in the early days right now in R&D, but that'll come. So those developments are super important. And I think there are, I mean, if there are regions in a country where there's a lot of sunlight for a large chunk of the year,

typically added regions, it's great. So you can generate electricity. The challenge with solar, as we know, is that it's only eight hours a day or maybe a little bit less as well. So the question is, what happens to the rest? And the grid has to be balanced because we want electricity all the time, 24-7. So storage comes in or some other backup system in the grid has to come in. So wind does a little bit of that because the sun goes down, but the wind may still continue, but may not be enough if you have high penetration wind and solar. So in the United States, that is largely today been backed up by natural gas.

So natural gas can ramp up and ramp down. And so that is providing the storage service right now. But I would say there's a lot of innovation going into grid scale storage solution that has to be at one. one-tenth the cost of lithium-ine batteries. Lithium batteries can provide storage on a diurnal basis. That means for a few, four or five hours, it can shift the load, and that can be fine. But for long duration overnight or a few days, lithium-ine is too expensive. And it has to be one-tenth-cost.

And that requires new chemistries, new approaches. And I would say that is underdeveloped right now. we funded quite a bit when I was in the government and RPAE, some new technologies breakthroughs. They are now at the stage of pilot in the United States. And I think they will mature. So I would say by the end of this decade or maybe even a little bit sooner, we're going to see grid-skilled storage of different approaches than lithium-on battery.

And that, I think, is a very positive sign. And I would say those technologies need. to be adapted to local conditions but just like photovoltaics that's a that's a the world is pretty flat as far as technology is concerned right and i think the same thing could be said about these stored solutions what would will happen to the pre-existing grid once solar gets scale and democratized because that will circumvent right the pre-existing grid is is there a risk with with respect to the balance sheets involved in having created the pre-existing grid all across the world? It's a long answer to this, but I'll just summarize. First of all, let me say that the grid was never designed.

The Tesla is an architecture and the paradigm was never designed for solar and wind. Yeah. Okay. It was designed for a one-way power flow from centralized generation to a lot of distributed loads. Yeah. Right? One way of power flow. We are not changing the paradigm in multiple ways.

Now we have generation that is fluctuating. And the loads are also fluctuating. So now we have this problem of volatility in both sides of the grid. And this generation sometimes on the other end, on the edge of the grid, right? Rooftops over in, injecting power into the grid. So you've got this massive volatility going on. Right. And the grid of the future is going to be quite different from the 20th century grid.

Right. In fact, in Stanford, when I came from Google to Stanford, we launched a whole initiative called Bits and Watts. So when you're there in Stanford next time, come and join us and we'll show you what we're doing. Bits and Watts. Bits and Watts. The Bits is for digital. and Watts is for the power. So the integration of digital technology for power is going to be super important

because when you have volatility, you have to go back to how the grid operates, goes back to Tesla and Edison. The only way to communicate at that time between the generation and the load was the frequency. So in the United States, it's 60 hertz. I don't know if it's 50 or 60 out here.

I have no idea. So whatever the frequency is, because if the load goes up, the frequency goes, it slows down. I see. And then they measure it, and they have to ramp it up, the generation. Right. So that you maintain it at 60 hertz. Okay. Right?

Plus minus a very small window. Okay. And if the load goes down and the generation still is up, the frequency goes up. And so we need to ramp down the loop. That was the communication. I see. Right? And that's still continually.

today. We are in a different world now. Because when you're only dealing with frequency, that's how all grids operate today. But you don't have fidelity of where the generation, where the load is going up or down, etc. And I think when you are in this volatility of generation and load, the use of information technology to provide the synergy to balance and provide stability is going to be super important. that's the real smart grid. What people have been talking about smart grid

is to put a meter and get the data. That's not that smart. It's just the data. The real smart grid is when you use information technology to reduce the volatility or provide the synergy. I always say this, that so far the grid has been all about energy. In the future, it's going to be about energy plus synergy. And that is provided by information technology.

So you can harmonize the various loads both temporarily and spatially and the generation that is changing. And I think that's the future for the grid. What's the role of quantum computing on mitigating the risks of climate change? I mean, I see your point of using tech to help the pre-existing grid to adjust and adapt to this 22nd century paradigm, right? But beyond that, how do you achieve, you know, the mitigation of climate change by way of some of the coolest tech stuff that's coming, that's staring at us now,

and that's going to be staring at us in the next few years? So quantum computing... Yeah. is really has been developed to solve a certain class of problems, computing problems, which cannot be solved by what is called the Turing machine or the Boolean algebra. I won't go into the details of that. But that's today's silicon-based computing.

Silicon-based computing is not going to go away. But the problem with today's approaches to computing is that there are some problems that you just cannot solve because it exponentially blows up. Yeah. Right? And there's a call NP hard program, but I won't go into the details. And so when you have today's computing that cannot solve this problem, and one of them is used in cryptography is fine the prime prime factors. That becomes an enormously hard problem for today's computer to solve.

That's why it's used in cryptography. in secure communication, et cetera. But that's where a quantum computer, which operates in a different way that matches the exponential growth with exponential options to solve. It does an exponentially increasing search, essentially, just find the solutions.

Those problems quantum computing can solve. But they will be complementary to traditional computing. Right. Now, the connections to climate change are, I would say that there's a lot of traditional computing that has been thrown at climate change. Like weather predictions, climate prediction, climate and weather are two different things. Climate is like 20 years ahead. Weather is 10 days ahead. If he can get, you know, we can't go beyond 10 days. That's why on our phone you get 10 days, at the most two weeks, 14 days. if we could improve our computing and go to a month in advance,

imagine the implications of that on preparation for an extreme event. You get two additional weeks. That is super important if you're trying to prepare a community for food security, water security, heat security, et cetera, right? And that is where the science

is called subseason modeling. That's where it goes. that, you know, now traditional people are using traditional computing, both physics-based modeling, as well as deep learning, AI-based modeling, to do that, right? Whether quantum can really help in that, I think is TBD, but I think that's a very exciting possibility, because as you go further in weather prediction, the options are so many that maybe a quantum may help out there. But we don't know yet. At least I don't know how much help it will provide because it's in early days of development. Wow. I don't know. We've talked about a lot of stuff and we've spent

about an hour and 15. I want to end on the most fundamental stuff for countries like Indonesia. That's the topic of education, right? How do you see Stanford being able to play a role in getting more and more people from the developing world, such as Indonesia, to participate in this new narrative, right? And if I take a look at the numbers, I'm vested in seeing greater numbers of Indonesian participants in higher education, right? Inclusive of Stanford. The number of Indonesians studying at Stanford is nowhere near what I'm seeing from other developing countries, much less developed countries. And I see Indonesia as a big part of Southeast Asia. It's the largest economy, the largest population of Southeast Asia.

We're on the Pacific. Stanford is on the Pacific. It just kind of makes sense, right? for the two one academic institution, one Southeast Asia region to be more jelt, right? What is it that we can do here and what is it that you think Stanford could help us? First of all, I completely agree with you that we need to gel. Yeah. Which is why I'm here.

Yeah. And to, there's only one way to find out is to be there. Right. And we are starting a few things going up right now. Right. With, between Stanford and Indonesia, you know, working with a team that is in the Nusantara, the new capital project. Right.

There are other projects on blue food. Right. Because it's a coastal country, a lot of coastline. The blue food is a big part of the economy, big part of the nutrition. So we're starting a project on the assessment of blue foods and how we can preserve that in the presence of climate change and heating, et cetera, this project on financing, you know, carbon financing, carbon-based trends and financing,

as well as, you know, there's a, you know, the idea of, there's a target of 290 million tons in the power sector, the budget. I've heard that the number may be wrong, but whatever the number is, you know, that's one thing to have a number, the other thing to have a plan, an execution plan of how one could go there. What are the most cost-effective ways?

And not just cost-effective, but to address the political economy of that, what are the different options, right, to actually have a game plan? And so those are the kind of things that we're starting. And as part of these projects, we're going to have some student exchange. I want our U.S., in fact, I was on the Zoom call this morning at 7 o'clock to make sure that we have these projects in a way that our faculty and students from Stanford come here to see what the reality is, to get a grasp of, you know, to go to no Santeran to see what's going on. And some of the students from here going to, as part of the projects, going to, right? Oh, that's small, scalable things.

And I was in a town hall meeting with the youth. Fascinating. With about 100, you know, people, 100 kids in my advice. For us. Kids for us. But there was so much of excitement. I mean, this is foreign policy. I mean, I was blown away.

I was inspired by them and that they are dealing, they're looking at foreign policy in such a strategic way. And there's a lot of interest in the door school, et cetera. As one of your staff members is very interested as well. This is all great. The question is scalability. because, you know, your population of 200 plus million people, 280 million people, almost the population in the United States, there's a big youth out here that you would like to, you know, see educated, right? You're involved in the education field. So scalability is not going to be coming to Stanford. Yeah. scalability will happen when institutions out here are created where the youth can go and get educated.

What we could do, if that makes sense, is to see how we could help and create these institutions out here. The exchange being part of the process, but nevertheless, I think these institutions need to be created out here. there's terrific universities already out here. Now, we have gone through a process over the last five years of creating this school. There are a lot of lessons learned, right, of what to do and what not to do. And it took a while for people to all agree on creating a school of sustainability as an all-campus approach within Stanford and engage other schools, et cetera. If there's a way that we could help in explaining how, what we went through on what

what were the best practices, what are the lessons learned, what to do, what not to do, to help in creating institutions out here, we'll be delighted to work with the institutions out here. And it needs to be adapted. Of course, that model is not going to be applicable out here directly. You know, you're a great product of STEM. You're a great product of great universities, IIT and UC Berkeley. I want to share with you some data points, right?

Just a few years ago, the number of people. PhDs in STEM in all universities in the US that came from China would have been in 6,000s in, I forget, 2018 or 2021. From India, it would have been in 2000s. From South Korea, it would have been in the 1,000s. From Turkey, would have been in the 400s. From Indonesia, it would have been only 82. Ghana actually produced more PhDs in STEM than Indonesia did in that particular. year in STEM in all universities in the U.S.

I just want you to share your views about how important it is for a particular country to embrace STEM in scale. Super important, of course. Needless to say, but I would not, I mean, you're looking at the PhD as a signature of a broader one, one pulse. Yeah. There are many pulses, yeah. I don't think, I mean, PhDs are important.

Yeah. But I'm not sure that's always right. I mean, I think the education in STEM, a good foundation in STEM, at the high school level, at the college level. I think we have seen the United States that if you look at the employment levels, if you finish high school, the employment numbers go up. Unemployment goes down. If you finish college, the same thing. If you go to graduate school, the unemployment is actually going down, right? The only demographic where the unemployment is going up is people who don't finish high school.

That's the United States scenario, right? So I think if you look at the STEM in any country, it's about STEM in high school. Right. And middle school, frankly, for women, one has to go earlier. I think what happens in middle school is really important for women in STEM. I've got two daughters. I have seen that. But at the college level as well.

So I think STEM is a basic requirement now to understand. Not to say humanities and social sciences. It has to be both. Positive sum. And I would say right now, I mean, it just gives you a number. If you ask the question, what fraction of Stanford undergraduates, whether they may be in political science or human biology, what fraction of Stanford undergraduates takes at least one course in computing? You know what the number is? What percentage?

Guess. 10%? 90%. Wow. There's a course called CS106A. Surprise on the upside. 90% of the undergraduates are taking at least one course. computing. It's become

like taking French. And that's optional. That's not compulsory. It's optional. My gosh. Right? And so I would add in the STEM discussion in this age that we're getting in that computing algorithmic thinking

to be able to solve a problem through an algorithm is as important as the math skills and the other STEM education. Because that's going to be there. We're not going backwards in time on that one. Wow.

Thank you so much for your visit. Thank you for a wonderful discussion. And I want to thank you staff for hanging in there on a Saturday morning. And I wish you a safe trip back to the U.S. and look forward to seeing you again. Very nice. Teman, it's a professor Arun Majumdar. He was a pinpinman

from Stanford Store School of Sustainability and guru in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Sciences. Thank you. This is endgame.