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