Professional Documents
Culture Documents
VI. CONCLUSION
Now, as Secretary of Defense, my job is to make sure our military can defend the country
and its interests and were at our best when we have the best partners. Knowing how weve
worked together in the past, and how critical your work is to our country, strengthening this
partnership is very important to me.
We have a unique opportunity to rebuild bridges and renew trust. Thats why Im going
to Facebook this afternoon, and meeting with a roundtable of tech leaders tomorrow morning.
Because Im confident that in the years to come, a new level of partnership will lead to great
things.
Rule number one back in Washington is never answer a hypothetical question. But in the
academic and tech communities, asking what if is the first step toward the next big idea. So I
want to ask, what if we work together more? What can we achieve together?
The answer is real results.
If we stay the course with our experimental innovation unit, a future Reservist working
there on cybersecurity could help stop an intrusion of DoD networks, then apply skills she
learned there in her civilian job when a cyberattack uses similar techniques against the tech
company she works for.
If we stay the course with collaborative investments were making in areas like
biomedical engineering, a future infectious disease outbreak could be cut short by leapfrog
technology advances that collapse the time it takes for diagnosis, treatment, and developing and
distributing vaccines.
Thats whats possible through our partnership. And whether its helping safeguard the
Internet or helping save lives, working together more for the greater good is bigger than who we
are as individuals.
Its an imperative we facean opportunity we shareand its the only way to make a
better world together.
Thank you.
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