People are, understandably, afraid of change. They're afraid of new technologies. They're afraid of different cultures and ways of doing things.
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The forces of change -- often wrought by technology -- are not beyond the control of individuals. The forces of change can and must be controlled by individuals.
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In the late 1990s, before I became governor, I worried that parts of Virginia were falling behind. The technology boom was transforming northern Virginia, but it was not reaching the rest of our state.
You could put computers in a library, or build a fancy computer lab and offer lessons -- but many people won't come.
While northern Virginia was gaining tech jobs, parts of southern Virginia relied on textiles, tobacco and furniture-making -- not industries in which you would want to hold a lot of stocks.
Against that backdrop, I founded a group called Tech Riders. The name was inspired by the civil rights Freedom Riders of the 1960s. Only we would bring a whole new kind of freedom -- the freedom to be empowered by computers and the Internet, to join in the great transformational change of the day.
We hired college students to go around the state. AOL, headquartered in McLean, Virginia, chipped in, and we bought hundreds of computers.
But we faced an interesting challenge. You could put computers in a library, or build a fancy computer lab and offer lessons -- but many people wouldn't come.
They didn't want to try something new in a strange place. They didn't want to be embarrassed.
So our question became: How can you get people to approach technology without fear or resistance? The best thing to do would be to go into everyone's living room. But since we could not do that, we had to ask: Where else could we make people comfortable?
How can you get people to approach technology without fear or resistance? The best thing to do would be to go into everyone's living room.
We decided to go into peoples' houses of worship. So Tech Riders went into churches, synagogues and mosques.
People could see that embracing this new technology did not mean leaving behind what was important to them. And within two years, 16,000 Virginians of all ages -- many of them parents and grandparents -- had benefited from Tech Riders training.
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All of us want a better future for our kids. I think America must speak to that commonality. We must say to the young girl, whether in southwestern Virginia or southwestern Bangladesh: I'm on your side. I want you to make a positive contribution. I want you to be empowered by this transformative change.
The pace of change is breathtaking. If you think the last few years have been remarkable, you ain't seen nothing yet.
But I am an optimist. I believe in the capacity of change to lift people up and bring people together. In a world where the concerns of one become the concerns of all, the actions of one can make a difference to all.
