WIFI IS A HUMAN RIGHT

so

i’m 18 years old and i walk into a bank

and

i stand online and i’m nervous my palms

are sweating

and the security guards are looking at

me giving me dirty looks

and i woke up to the teller and i hand

there a note

i want to make withdrawal she asked me

how do i want it

i say all 20s and the seller hands me 20

000

in cash and

i’m wearing baggy pants and a hoodie and

i

shove the money in my pockets and it’s

sticking out

and i walk outside of the bank and i

give the security guard one last dirty

look

and i feel like i just robbed the bank

so how did i make the money i didn’t rob

the bank

i made the money using wi-fi

so at that point in my life i was

selling cds

i was burning cds burning mixtapes and

then i was selling them online

and when i started i was just selling

them in my neighborhood i was selling

them to my friends

my family uh people that i went to

school with

and then i opened up an amazon account

and i opened up an ebay account

and i went from making fifty dollars a

day

to three thousand dollars a day and that

happened because i was selling cds not

only the people in my town

uh some people uh from europe from asia

from all around the country california

you name it

people from all around the world were

buying these mixtapes

and i did that by leveraging the power

of the digital economy i grew up in a

small town in jersey the population was

about 15

000 people uh back in 2005.

but i was able to tap into not the 15

000 people in the town that i lived in

i was able to tap into the 4 billion

people

all around the world that is the power

of the digital economy the power of the

internet is unlimited

so we have a huge problem right

coven 19 the quarantines the lockdown

and if you’re not making money online

right now you’re in big trouble

2020 is going to be one of the most

disruptive

times in history i mean this is bigger

than the great depression

this is bigger than uh 2008 this is

bigger than anything we’ve ever seen

people have been locked in their homes

throughout not only the country

throughout the whole world and here in

puerto rico where i live

the average salary is only

twenty thousand dollars the average

household income

only twenty thousand dollars here in

puerto rico so why

why is that well if you look at a makeup

of

the jobs here the most popular jobs one

of them is cashiers

another one is secretaries retail

custodial cooks chefs

teachers registered nurses now while all

these are

very very very important jobs they’re

needed for our society to

survive they’re all also jobs that rely

on the local

economy and if we look at puerto rico

what’s puerto rico’s number one export

it’s not uh our music even though our

music

is uh popular all around the world um it

is not

uh our culture or ideas

it is in fact our people uh in fact

there are more puerto ricans that live

in the united states and abroad

than that live here on the island um and

that number is actually increasing

so more puerto ricans are leaving the

island

and why they’re leaving the island

because they’re looking for

opportunities so 5.8

million puerto ricans live in the united

states in the mainland

as compared to 2.8 million that live

here on the island so that’s almost

double

and if i look at um why that is

it’s because look at the average income

in the united states the average

income in the mainland is 63 000 as

compared to the 20 000 that we spoke

about earlier

so automatically by you moving to the

united states

uh you’re gonna get three times the

income on average

you’re going to get a raise of three

times your income by moving to the

united states

but there’s a big problem the cost of

living in the united states is also much

higher

so we move to the united states

we move to places like california like

new york

like florida and we go there looking for

opportunity

but those are also the same places where

you’re most likely to live paycheck to

paycheck

so you go and you’re making more money

but you’re simultaneously spending more

money

so the big question is what can we do

about it

um there’s a lie there’s a misconception

they say that you have to be

born with money to have money um but i

love a quote from bill gates he actually

says if you’re born poor it’s not your

fault um but if you die poor it is and

that’s because

in today’s digital economy it doesn’t

matter where you’re born

you can be born in puerto rico you can

be born in africa you can be born in the

philippines you can be born in mexico

you can be born in latin america

you’ll be born in peru you still have

access to the same internet the same

opportunities um you know my ancestors

they had to migrate they had to

immigrate

from puerto rico and uh

and europe to come to the united states

to come

looking for a better land so look at you

know christopher columbus christopher

columbus got on a bunch of ships

came down here to puerto rico right came

down here to puerto rico looking for

opportunities

and then decades later and centuries

later

uh people from puerto rico are now going

to new york again looking for

opportunities

now if you’re connected to the internet

you have

at the opportunities the entire world at

your fingertips just like me when i was

selling my cds

so the three secrets to surviving in the

new economy the covid the quarantine

economy

so number one is never stop learning

so you can go to college and get a good

job right that’s the that’s the

narrative the old way of thinking that

we’ve been fed

but the new way of thinking is

that the school system cannot teach you

about money

the school system was designed to create

factory workers

and rich people actually don’t work for

money

entrepreneurs work for free okay

entrepreneurs

work for in exchange for the experience

and the people that they get to become

um so the new way of thinking is really

online education

it’s entrepreneurship it’s learning on

the job it’s never stop

learning and education is now on demand

uh you know it’s youtube it’s literally

like a netflix of education

where youtube has a million how-to’s a

million tutorials

uh you know more information than

harvard could ever

hope to have in their bookshelves is now

available on youtube it’s being created

every day

and it’s being created by doers so

education is now on demand you don’t

have to leave your home anymore to learn

and to thrive and to prosper

online education apps like zoom apps

like facebook live and youtube and

podcasts

um number two is to surround yourself

with greatness surround yourself

with the people that you want to become

and

you know sometimes that’s hard growing

up in in inner city or growing up in a

lower income neighborhood you know i

grew up a lot of my friends were

uh gang members and getting into all

sorts of trouble

um but as you separate yourself from

these circles of people you start

surrounding yourself with the right

people

um you know success leaves leaves clues

and those things

rub off and if you look at all our great

leaders they all have coaches they all

have mentors

you know um you know michael jordan had

a coach

uh bill gates was mentored by warren

buffett like

uh every single great leader that you

look at they have a coach they have a

mentor they have someone that’s helping

them along the way

so find the right mentors look for them

digital mentors that can come

in the form of podcasts that can come in

the form of apps like

the modi app like youtube like instagram

like

audible there are so many ways you can

have an online mentor it’s not just

face-to-face interactions anymore

that’s why i’m really happy that uh

puerto rico has

embraced entrepreneurs from all around

the world and investors to come down to

puerto rico

with act 20 and at 22 and all the other

laws that they’re putting in place

they want to bring talent they want to

bring uh new ideas new ways of thinking

uh because there is a great quote

from the former governor of puerto rico

he said we need to share in wealth

not poverty so we want to share

from we’re going to learn from

successful people because success

is more contagious than you can ever

imagine

number three is everyone is now a global

business your personal brand when people

google you

uh you are a business you are a brand so

the old way of thinking is to be at the

right time at the right place you have

to be

you know in the right rooms and x y and

z uh

but the new way of thinking is to think

global not local with this phone

this phone that has more technology uh

than the

uh mission to the moon there’s more

technology in this phone than the

mission to the moon

uh you can have access to every single

great leader

um you know if your business is not on

the internet then your business is going

to be out of business so you need to be

using this tool

to connect with your customers your

clients mentors

experts business leaders they’re all on

the other side of a tweet

they’re on the other side of an email

they’re on the other side of a message

and that’s all thanks to the digital

economy so think

global not local internet access

is the great equalizer and lack of

internet access creates poverty

and if you look statistically here in

puerto rico you’ll see that

um if we look at the areas that are most

affected by poverty

they are also the areas that are most

affected by either

lack of internet access or really bad

quality internet access

and that’s why today my new idea for

tedx condado

my new idea to uh disrupt rebuild and

innovate here in puerto rico

is that every puerto rican resident

deserves fast free internet access

and that wi-fi should be a human

right and if you look at this this has

been done before

this isn’t anything new if you look at

new york city they installed

super fast free wi-fi on every single

corner

and even in the subways and now it

doesn’t matter

even if you’re an immigrant it doesn’t

matter if you come from another country

it doesn’t matter if uh you know it

doesn’t matter where you are the

internet does not discriminate

and you have the access to uh get job

opportunities it’s actually impossible

now to apply for

a job if you don’t have internet access

you have the possibilities of creating

businesses

of networking with other people of

getting access

um so i think that puerto rico needs

fast

free public wi-fi um and you know this

might sound like a radical idea

but if we look back we didn’t used to

guarantee water

we didn’t use to guarantee electricity

but now uh if we told you that you were

not going to have water and electricity

we would say that

was inhumane and i think the same

way how we guarantee water and we

guarantee

electricity i feel that wi-fi should be

a human right

and i feel that lack of internet is just

as inhumane

because wi-fi creates money it creates

jobs it creates opportunity

it creates education and most

importantly

wi-fi gives you a voice and if we look

at what happened recently right here in

puerto rico

with ricky martin and tons of other

influencers

in puerto rico came together

and they removed the governor from

office

and they did this all through social

media

all through the power of coming together

or through the power of using wi-fi and

using their voice online

their digital voice and they created

real change real political change here

on the island

and that’s why i believe that wi-fi

is a human right thank you