Dinner Diplomacy Inspiring students one mouthful at a time

[Applause]

hello everybody

how’s everybody feeling today yeah

all right so i want to start my talk off

today by asking you all a question

if you could have dinner with anybody in

the world

who would it be with

i’ll give you a few seconds to think

about

your answers most likely vary from mine

it could be a deceased great grandmother

a fictional character or a famous

historical leader

now i want to make you think about that

question a little bit more

what if that person had to be still

alive and unrelated to you

i’ll give you a few more seconds

now your reasoning for that most likely

is different from mine as well

it could be that one person who is a

leader in an industry that you’ve always

cared about

or a politician who you fundamentally

disagree with

or someone you just really aspire to be

like

it could be a world-changing internet

activist

or maybe a rocket scientist

or a leading advocate for gender

equality

now a lot of times when we think about

these people

these influential leaders we see them as

far removed from our lives

we either place them on pedestals or we

imagine them as perfect human beings

incapable of making any mistakes

most times those granted the opportunity

to have this discussion with these

leaders

come from places like wealthier

backgrounds or have connections and

tremendous resources

to be able to have these real

connections with these leaders

now some of the people that you may have

had in mind you’ve dreamt about being

able to see live

but a lot of those opportunities to see

those people in person

happen to look like this you either have

to pay thousands of dollars a plate

for a dinner at an expensive gala or

something like that

or you’re in an auditorium shoved in

with about 100 other people or more

and you’re just craning your neck to get

a glimpse of that person

and when we think about that that can’t

possibly be any genuine connection

coming out of that right

and so in 2016 finding inspiration from

the iowa caucuses we saw that

presidential candidates and des moines

voters

were able to have real connections and

authentic connections

very different from simply seeing

somebody far away because these

were the people that mattered now

inspired by that

my brother and i sought to find a way to

tackle those issues discussed

earlier and we formed a way of

being able to retain those intimate

connections a small group of people

coming together

free of any monetary incentives and

having opportunities for those lacking

the resources

to pay thousands for a gala or being far

removed from everything else

so in the spring we founded a nonprofit

oh

um and further we were discussing a

little bit more about

who are the people who are missing from

these conversations

specifically the global conversations or

the positions of power

and those people the answer to all of

that

is youth particularly youth from under

resource communities

and so the two of us later that spring

we founded

mouthful.org which brings together

six high school students one influential

leader

and one mouthful representative for

dinner together at a restaurant

eight people that’s it so none of those

huge gymnasiums where you have to go far

away you can barely see

them in the corner instead you’re right

across the table from them

sharing an appetizer sharing a pizza and

so in these connections

you’re able to really have the

conversations that you’ve inspired to

ask you can

talk about whatever it’s like to really

live in the white house to work in the

white house or

to work along someone who you personally

have

thought about for ages and so

how it works for a non-profit is that we

begin with a prospective guest we reach

out to them

and we think about okay who are some

people who

um not only would be interested in

hearing from other students

but students would also be interested in

hearing about their backstory about

what they have really gone through in

their life next we work with our partner

our organizations which are

community-based organizations such as

college track

one goal a better chance and kip in the

united states

as well as seo london

and oxford hub to find

promising students who are really

interested in talking and having a

dinner

with a selected guest

next we fill in the students with the

information about what they would like

just getting them thinking about what

they would want to talk about um

afterwards we find the right restaurants

we look for funding

all coming from grants and then we just

eat

and so over the last four years we have

had hosted dinners

with executives from twitter facebook

salesforce yahoo we have held dinners

with

mayors as well as multiple peabody

award-winning journalists

um pulitzer prize-winning journalists uh

former administration in the obama

administration

as well as um heads from the dnc

and rnc and environmentalists and

activists

one highlight was having a dinner at the

spacex factory and having a tour by the

president herself

and so a lot of times when we think

about these mouthful dinners

what’s really really important about

them is that

we have one mouthful representative who

is always a student

there’s only one adult at that dinner

and that is the guest

themself and because of that

the conversations are free from the

media free from any photography

that is going out into the world or

anything that will really influence the

way that people are speaking

and those are raw conversations you show

the vulnerability behind that you show

what is it really like working in the

white house what is it really like

having to

to balance your home life and your

family life and

your work and what if your ideals don’t

connect exactly what you’re supposed to

do in your job

and so due to cover 19 we had to move

our model

online and that’s not necessarily the

same exact

feeling as oh my gosh i’m standing right

across the seat

from somebody who’s exactly in the

position that i want to be within 20

years

but we thought okay what’s one way we

can sort of get around that

and we thought well food you can’t have

a dinner without food

and so we decided uh we would use gift

cards from

uh food delivery services to retain that

intimate feeling of

having dinner with a guest and having

that conversation but

you’re having a really important

conversation about us government and

then eating tacos at the same time and

showing people your tacos and so

what else is really really important

about these is that you have this power

of the vulnerability of

in that instance you have these

connections from people from

different communities it could be um

or a very similar community so it could

be you’re talking to someone who has a

very similar upbringing and you would

never know that

just by seeing them online simply having

a conversation

you’re starting that conversation of

something you wouldn’t have never

guessed

purely on television for example

um what’s especially most important is

that when we have these interesting

connections of

i don’t necessarily agree with that

student who’s sitting across from me or

i don’t agree with the person who’s

standing in front of me who’s had 40

years of experience

and because we’re away from that media

and because we’re not filled with

thousands of other people in the room

we can have those conversations

and what’s really personally interesting

as somebody who’s helped found this

is knowing what the students are able to

take away from these conversations

and that it’s a lot more than saying

the simply having bragging rights or

taking a selfie

or being able to say oh yeah i had

dinner with that

mayor who’s on tv or whoever that woman

there instead of seeing that woman on tv

celebrating a huge win and knowing that

she had told you about a traumatic

experience in her life who made her

in that situation and it is that and

knowing that

you can possibly see yourself in that

woman or you

are really able to have that connection

and you know a little bit more about

what you want to do with your life

and so reading things like this and

knowing that it’s a lot more than just

simply sitting there

you leave the dinner and then you can

just click that off your checklist

and so finally i want to say

as youth challenge yourself to

challenge yourself to be comfortable

with being uncomfortable

and you don’t have to have dinner with a

politician or whatever which is find the

people you wouldn’t necessarily have a

conversation with

that could be your neighbor the person

sitting across from you at dinner who

you never would have talked about

but simply just start a conversation

you have as much to give to other people

as you have to learn

now i want to leave you with one final

question

i started off asking who you wanted to

have dinner with

but now if you could have dinner with

anybody in the world

what will it be