“No one is ever too old or ever too young to make a difference.” — Chelsea Clinton

It’s hard to believe that CGI U is now in its ninth year, and that all of you here today are joining a community of more than 8,500 students who’ve come together over the last eight years from more than 145 countries, and from almost 1,000 colleges and universities. Each and every one of them has been committed to making a positive impact on their campuses or in their communities across our world.

This is our largest CGI U ever. I couldn’t be more excited that so many of you are here with us and I — after having read through so many of your commitments and your applications — can’t wait to put faces with names. I can’t wait to hear more about your commitments and learn about commitments that I haven’t yet even imagined.

I really want to take a moment to thank Chancellor Dirks and everyone here at Berkeley for welcoming us so warmly. I want to thank the entire CGI U team at the Clinton Foundation who literally works all year long to put this event together.

As a Stanford alum, I never thought I would be so happy to be at Berkeley. And for those of you who don’t understand why there was an almost instantaneous booing, just ask the more than 100 Cal students here why they had that reaction. Although I never thought I’d be so happy to be here, I am very happy to be here because it’s hard to imagine a place that stands more in the center of social awareness, social entrepreneurship, and positive social engagement and education than Berkeley.

A year before CGI U was launched in 2007, Berkeley launched the Big [email protected] competition which since its inception has provided funding and mentorship to hundreds of student-led projects with the goal of helping to empower students to make positive social change. And nearly two decades ago, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business founded the Global Social Venture competition which today includes a network of business schools committed to launching triple bottom line enterprises. The competition has played a pivotal, early-stage role in developing social ventures that are probably familiar to many of you including Kiva, d.light, Revolution Foods, and Ethos Water.

“As a Stanford alum, I never thought I would be so happy to be at Berkeley.”

Berkeley also has a long and deep commitment to community service. It has sent more graduates to the American Peace Corps program than any other institution in the United States. Every year, more than 5,000 Berkeley undergrads give time to local community service. That means almost 1 out of every 5 undergraduates here at Berkeley donates some portion of their time to helping strengthen the communities that really make Berkeley possible. So Berkeley’s traditions make clear that they share our belief — or perhaps we share their belief — that meaningful change takes the combined efforts of us all.

I hope that what will be clear to all of you at the end of the weekend is that no one is ever too old or ever too young to make a difference. And that the earlier we start, the more likely we are to find the right partners for our efforts, and the better chance we have of making a positive difference that we clearly feel called to do.

We believe this so strongly in part because of the legacy of CGI U and the impact that we’ve seen so many of our students have already. So I just wanted to take a moment and share examples of commitments that were made at CGI U 2015 that already are or soon will be making a very real difference in the world.

A team from Georgia Tech called Wish4Wash committed to design an inexpensive mobile toilet to reduce oral-fecal contamination and halt the spread of hygiene-related diseases around the world. Since last year’s meeting, the team successfully developed the SafiChoo Toilet and plans to test it first in Decatur, Georgia through a partnership with Global Growers Network, and then in Lusaka, Gambia in partnership with the Devolution Trust Fund.

“The earlier we start, the more likely we are to find the right partners for our efforts, and the better chance we have of making a positive difference that we clearly feel called to do.”

After proving the health benefits of their new toilet, the teams plans to enter the marketplace by the spring of 2017. They have already received more than $60,000 in social investments and I have no doubt that they are on their way to receiving more if — not when — they prove the efficacy of the SafiChoo Toilet.

Also at last year’s meeting, Mojia Shen of Wellesley College committed to create a support network for 900 families in Qinhuangdao, China who have lost their only child. She committed to doing this through building a social network to sign families up and help connect them to support groups, professional psychological counseling, to informal gatherings if that is most comfortable to them, or other services as needed.

In the last year, she’s already signed up and provided support to more than 70 families and she’s building her network literally every week. Additionally, her organization became the first ever to be formally recognized by the Government of China as being able to — in the form of a formal grant — solve the mental health challenges facing families who’ve lost their only child. In addition, Mojia hopes to build a sense of volunteerism and service in her community and then later throughout her country.

“Mojia Shen of Wellesley College committed to create a support network for 900 families in Qinhuangdao, China who have lost their only child.”

One final example, also last year, Said Abdullaev of the University of Pennsylvania committed to sign up LGBTQ asylum seekers in the United States to help better ensure they were able to integrate culturally and successfully in their new home country by linking them with pro-bono legal services, counseling services, support networks and informational webinars. In the last year alone, he’s created a catalog of more than 300,000 asylum seekers, built a team of 11 people, partnered with colleges, Huffington Post, Instagram and others to raise awareness about the unique challenges that LGBTQ asylum seekers face, and has received recognition as one of the top social entrepreneurs in the Forbes 30 Under 30 list.

Like these CGI U students, we at the Clinton Foundation believe in working in partnership. We know that we don’t know everything and we know that when we work across business, government, individuals, NGOs, educational institutions, we’re more likely to design solutions that have a better chance of succeeding and in turn we’re more likely to see those solutions have direct and real impact.

Whether you are working to prevent prescription drug overdoses here in the United States on college campuses, or working with small island nations to help them transition from diesel to renewable energy, or working with farmers throughout East Africa to help improve their crop yields and increase their incomes, we always work in partnership.

And it is so exciting to see that humility — that ethos of partnership — forming so many of your commitments here this year. You heard a snapshot of just a few commitments in the introductory video, and I just want to talk about a couple in the climate change space to give you a sense of what is ahead for the weekend.

“Said Abdullaev of the University of Pennsylvania committed to sign up LGBTQ asylum seekers in the United States to help better ensure they were able to integrate culturally and successfully in their new home country.”

A team from Berkeley has committed to create a community-based recycling framework to convert local plastic waste into valuable products in Indonesia. The team plans to do this by making a small modular unit that contains a shredder, a rotational mold and extruder to expedite the process. And they want to partner with local NGOs and waste management services to convert the repurposed plastic into malaria bed-nets and 3D filament. The group hopes to decrease plastic waste by more than 50% in their first 24 months.

A team from Duke University has committed to retrofit bus stops in Wuhan, China with moss and lichen to create green walls in an effort to reduce local air pollution. The green walls will absorb carbon dioxide emissions, and the group will also post signs on the walls to caution drivers from unnecessary idling. They will measure success by the number of bus stops decorated and by overall carbon reduction at each stop.

These are clearly just two examples in one area of all the inspiring commitments that you’ve brought with you here to CGI U. The theme of tonight’s plenary is “The Courage to Create,” and what you all share is that courage to create. The refusal to see challenges as only challenges, and the deep belief that challenges must be treated as opportunities. And yet, even the most well-designed and well-intentioned projects of course face unanticipated challenges. We hope that this weekend will provide you with the tools to be able to recognize the challenges, prioritize those challenges, and then figure out how to work around, over, and under those challenges so that your efforts will ultimately be more successful.

We hope you’ll make use of the skill sessions and networking opportunities that are offered. We hope that you will go up to and ask questions of the experts and mentors who are here. They are here so that you will badger them with your ideas, asking for their feedback. Please do not be shy. You don’t strike me as a reserved group, but just to drive the point home.

“What you all share is that courage to create. The refusal to see challenges as only challenges, and the deep belief that challenges must be treated as opportunities.”

Before we move on to this evening’s plenary, I just want to give you a couple more quick updates. Earlier this afternoon, we wrapped up the Clinton Foundation Codeathon which was really exciting. We had more groups and more students participate than ever before which I think is a testament to the energy and enthusiasm here but also the tragic relevance of the challenge that we put to the Codeathon this year around mental health on college campuses. We’ll announce the winners at the closing plenary.

I also want to share the exciting news that this is the first year where we have nearly $1 million in social venture funding to support some of your commitments through the combined investments of the CGI University Network and also the Resolution Social Ventures Competition, which I know many of you are a part of. That will be ongoing throughout the weekend, so we’re really thrilled about that opportunity for all of you. We’ll announce the winners of that at the closing plenary as well.

And finally, we’ll be launching something called the CGI U Innovation Fund this weekend which we’ll also share more about later and will provide even further opportunity for you to find support, mentorship and investment for your commitments and whatever future work you may do after this weekend.

So again, I just want to say thank you so much to everyone here at Berkeley. Thank you to all of you for spending time with us and for sharing your ideas, your enthusiasm and your insights. And now it is — as it always is — my great honor, my privilege, to welcome my father, our 42nd president, President Clinton to the stage.