good morning everyone how are you and good morning to our audience on facebook so we'll be broadcasting the session live for anyone who couldn't make it here personally as nice to see such a large group here with us this morning before we get started i want to thank also our brom who is the general director of the national archive and library agency with a very strong partnership with nala and our american center is hosted here it's a space that's available for the public and for programs like this where we can have meaningful discussions on a variety of topics of interest to ethiopia and i want to focus on that that idea of partnership because it's very much the type of relationship that the united states has  it's a very broad relationship that goes back well over a century and it's focused on our mutual benefit and this is one of the things that people say to us sometimes we have very interesting conversations with our friends on facebook and people say the united states only works in its own interest well yes and so does ethiopia and so does every other country that is the nature of international relations we have interests when we have shared interests we work together when we have differences we work to resolve them  and i think what i want people to understand about u s interests in ethiopia is that it's in our interest for ethiopia to succeed it doesn't help the united states if the opium falls apart it doesn't help the united states of ethiopia fails to move out of poverty it doesn't help the united states if ethiopia doesn't progress into a more democratic system and it certainly doesn't help the united states of ethiopia is insecure we will benefit when you see o p s succeeds with over  hundred million people in the population in ethiopia the second largest country in africa that presents tremendous opportunity for trade for business and for cooperation ethiopia plays a very strong role in the region for security both in peacekeeping and counter terrorism and as a host for refugees that benefits us as well because at the end of the day we share this world and we also exceed when we succeed together ethiopia's success is going to hinge at least in part on its ability to tap into the massive human resources here when you talk about one hundred million people that's a resource the people of ethiopia need to be part of the process of helping this country succeed and that's when we talk about inclusive eighty and space for expression and that's true not just on the democracy in the political front but also on the economic front for ethiopia to succeed economically we need to tap into the brainpower and ideas and capacity of the ethiopian people to innovate to come up with new ideas new solutions you're talking about a country that has i believe around sixty percent of its population are you that's you that these and they have ideas i see a lot of young people in this room here today and one of the things that we do through our american spaces in is engage with people like you to support your ideas to give you new skills to engage in conversation and dialogue about this country's future and of course we talk in other places well we talk at universities we talk with the government we talk with civil society we talk with the media we talk with politicians we talk with activists everybody and that's what we mean when we talk about an inclusive dialogue and discussion for moving the country forward so it's a partnership we don't tell ethiopia what to do it's not our place we're not here to impose solutions but we do have some ideas about how the country can move forward effectively and will cain will continue to participate in the dialogue in that way i'm looking forward to seeing what kind of comments we get on facebook as we move forward with today's discussion because it's always good to hear what people think even if you disagree even if what someone says you find offensive it's worth hearing and then having the chance to respond so i'm very excited to have this conversation about colonel john c robinson because he is an example of the kind of tremendous impact that cooperation can have for our relationship in fact we named our american center after him because he's such a key figure in both of our country's history for the united states he is one of the people who pioneered changes in the way we thought about race relations he's one of the people a hero of african american history and just recently for african american history month we had some visitors come and talk about the struggle that the united states has had with race relations and so it's not just that the united states has good ideas i think we do but we also have had problems we also have challenges and i think sometimes that we can also help by sharing our challenges there's no need to repeat the mistakes that we've made and one of the things that we've learned is that when our society is more inclusive when we treat everyone equally regardless of their gender or the color of their skin or their religion or their beliefs we are stronger as a society and i think that's something we can share with ethiopia as well and i don't want to get too much into the history of colonel robinson because that's the whole point of this discussion and i'm not the expert but suffice it to say that his impact on this country is probably beyond measure and he's one individual when you look at something like ethiopian airlines and there's a history to ethiopian airlines and it's one of the most successful airlines on the continent it's connecting ethiopia to the world in terms of trade in terms of people in terms of culture and terms of tourism well john c robinson had a played a role to play in that history and he's just one person and so if there's anything i want to leave you with today it's the idea that through our partnerships one person can make a difference one person can have an idea to make an impact and change the course of the future in ways that we can't possibly predict today now just yesterday on our facebook page we announced new funding opportunities fostered by the public affairs section at the embassy and there's a number of themes and these are open to individuals as well as organizations if you have an idea for how you can make your community or your country better and what you need is some funding to help you do it then check out our facebook page read the requirements and submit a proposal you could be the start of something big the start of some important change and certainly our american spaces are there it was a platform if you want to have these kind of discussions so i look very much forward to turning this over to our guests i want to highlight a special guest we have from the embassy today major ryan mcallen who represents the u s air force here  and so he's an example of the fact that this cooperation that dates back to colonel john c robinson continues today and it's multifaceted and it's important and it's going to make a difference in the way that our countries work together to help make the world a better place so with that i'd like to invite my colleague posse on up to introduce the program hopefully you all have received the book if you didn't get a copy of the book about john c robinson make sure you get one on the way out thank you again to our audience on facebook for joining us we have a team here who's monitoring your comments and when it's time for the discussion you your voice will be heard as well so thank you again for coming please come up and let's get started artifact we're here because of another one person and that person is my good friend and my my colleague i mean you know your two thousand and seven i remember it was and that's something that we all learn a lot from now so we've made an huge auditorium of hundreds of people the same time also wholly out give this tremendous amount of historical the same time it also brought students from different walks of life and in bringing all that together to talk about technology talk a lot history culture heritage now that was a great highlight consistency i've known him since two thousand and seven and now it's almost eleven years his message is consistent it's about building bridges bringing cultures together talking this positive message learn about you took the time out and stop if you really i was able to come here early and many others able to come here early and that is a sign of maturity really i know there are many reasons why some you know couldn't make it early but i've learned i've gotten the gray hair i don't want to get any more gray hair i get to places early another benefit from getting to places early is that you get a chance to t with certain people in a more relaxed and vironment you not push there's no sense of urgency so that's another reason to get to places earlier and then you're calm and you're relaxed and you can do what you need to do about a lot of pressure on you so i think some of us particularly those of us and america have learned the adage you know the early bird gets the worm so the bird that gets up early can basically be the first one to get their food and to get the worm really so that's another added respect that i'd like to thank the american embassy and john robinson center for hosting th and i'm not i can't thank everybody sometimes but i want to thank everybody so there are a lot who go that i can't mention right now but those the you know who you are and then for the audience out there there's a lot of  audience who are listening to this and would like to thank you offer to any you know the colleagues in america and see mentioned and then we have colleagues in los angeles and then also on the west coast the united states  washington d c so they're right now let's just say was ten o'clock here and address and the west coast that's basically i think twelve midnight ok and then on the east coast i think that would be three in the morning so your colleagues your sosias your similar students they wanted to tune in and los angeles and seattle and then howard university but due to the time difference it's very difficult for them to do that so some of them may have to but what we do is we work to make sure that the time difference does didn't affect them as much so usually we have programs here at like five o'clock six o'clock in the evening so then it's like seven o'clock in the morning in seattle so they get up and and they have we have the business lecture and science and technology series so for their breakfast occasionally from ok so we're going to have a little a little fun today this is a subject that i like and this is what i'm going to talk about and a relaxed format the i want to first of a dedicate this presentation is  programmed to my son his name is what's that tough ari kwacha dates and engineering i study to be an engineer a got my degree and bachelor of science in aerospace and aeronautical engineering so just like colonel john robinson i saw airplanes and i saw airplanes flying and i wanted to fly an airplane so my son he got a degree in mechanical engineering from west virginia university and sometimes as nic mentioned you know america has certain issues sometimes and certain issues  respect to color certain issues review specked gender an orientation certain issues with respect to race and i'm not saying these are issues my sons face but there's just issues of anybody here getting a job i guess it's hard to get a job here it's hard to get a job in america so my son has having the challenges right now he got his degree in mechanical engineering and then he wants to learn how to fly so many and we went flying we rented a airplane and do is you have to put all your brakes on and then you have to put it rather when fully all the other way and then as you start going down the runway taxiway are the grass way you put back on your stick or you know as soon as possible because you want to get your front you you put back a little more and then you lift off the ground but then you know that you can't fly you're in what we call the ground effect so you know ground effect because you have pressure underneath your weighing air pressure so that holds up your wing so that you fly steps about two or three feet off the ground and then once you get sick i mean speed which is about sixty or seventy miles per hour in the cessna then that's when you start pulling back and climbing so x they're instructed to do a soft field take off so he did john c robinson and then pursue your purpose and talk a little bit about that and then realizing opportunities and through this whole journey there's a guest of research a gift of discovery that i've presentations and about talking and if you have a one on one with the person you want to talk about we cut it in a vision and you want to get it and a vision you want to get it in our understanding of that person that you may not get from a book that you may not get from a video that you may not get from a article i used to co host of radio program and los angeles ca in a so that's something that you should think about so what you can read in a book i would like you to read that in the book so i'm not going to share a lot with respect to that and then i'm going to talk about some of the recent accomplishments with respect to the legacy of going to robinson and that could help expose others to colonel robinson it could lead to additional tourism for ethiopia and then educational things and then we're going to talk about things for and supped things for do brian he's a major here he's a pilot i'm a pilot pilots like to have their feet off the ground as we call it we live we love to be in air because there's nothing like a bird's eye view and ethiopia's is a chiclet beautiful on friday we flew to oxford and then we flew back here to addison i was standing next to a young lady her name is alum she's if you go up in but she was born and nine states so we're talking about various things and we're looking at the window so we're going to show some some films and i'll narrate a little bit while we show these films are going to robinson so daniel is going to come and put the films up so let me get a drink of water is pure then prayer going to be people who are going to assess you they're going to be people are going to think about you when you're not in a room we call those people champions so when you're not in a room and you're negotiating something and you're out of the room or you're in another country simmons and nick mentioned that sometimes in america there were certain rules and there were certain regulations where african americans black people were learn exactly so this is good that he that he that he went to so this is what one of the first ok so can we get on the screen and so what he had to do he went to the school he wanted to be there but they wouldn't let him study there because he was a person of african is a map we call in charts when we fly we fly by charts really so what kind of rubs here is the one with a black hat on and he's pointing right now to the truck and that's him right there colonel robinson and what i like it has been independent for thousands of years and has remained independent on the colonized for four or five years during the italians time and this is kind of robinson in the hangar and ash and i asked him and he and he's back and the second time he came here to ethiopia the first time colonel robinson came was nineteen thirty five and thirty six and then he came back after the emperor regain throne and forty one to help to start restart the ethiopian air force again so now my about us talking a little bit about that and he was saying that there is this other gentleman his name has been rosen so he was from sweden and he wanted to have favor with with the emperor and so he had the swedish government promise airplanes promised technicians promised spare parts but car no robinson as a captain he didn't have the backing of the united states so he can promise airplanes he can do the promised fair price the only thing that he could do is bring some folks from the ski aspect was there to assist ski airmen and they fought in world war two so some of them were able to come over when the first time when robinson was here he wanted some of his colleagues from chicago to come over here nine hundred thirty five and thirty six so what's fresh about robinson is robinson was willing janet waterman bragg and many others they didn't have that desire and didn't have that passion and then they don't want to put their lives at risk you know you could get killed and over here and they don't want to do that so he was he can convince anybody else to come so he realizes that he needs to do something different the first and next i mean so he was able to get some pilots some technicians to come and night forty one to assist the emperor and rebuilding the air the effort and the activity to bring your purpose to fruition billy and that's and that's and you and you have to do that but you have to take you not have to but there may be others who may want to sister you who assist you in knowledge and skills and money and so forth and so on so be open to have others to assist you so the film we did this film as a documentary film and the audio is not a hand held mike yeah the resources to amre and what my father taught me that about joe davis is that sometimes you have to sell finance things so that means you deliver papers are you sell juice the corner are you go what are you able to finance your own project to finance your own activity and then you can sell finance things so that's what we work to do that so if i'm just saying that somebody wants to give us some financing so that we don't have to sell finest things an audio can be great the audio in this room can be great so these are some of the things that you have to look at and see how you can improve yourself and how you can film the last part of the film that you saw the quality kept getting a little bit better so the quality got better and the reason i made that film is because one of my champions one of my associates said that you need to tell the story and you and i have an opportunity for you to tell it and so basically there was a class in los angeles make a film in three weeks ok three weeks is not a long time to make a film and if you look at the credits that's why action to put the credits there because the credits show director showed a writer and i when i was taking a class i said i want to make a fifteen minute film and the folks who are sponsoring the class that well i think you should just focus on five minutes you know fifteen minutes going to be a lot of effort a lot of work so basically i had to find the cast for the film so the actors in the film so that's one topic of a fine if and who's going to act really the one gentleman a played robinson he said he was an actor but he forgot to tell me that he never had a speaking role and that he acted and that was a big so that's what a casting director does a casting director gets that people who are going to act in a film so that's one part and another thing and let's you know where's daniel daniels not ok so the audio wasn't that good so thanks a daniel daniel boost the audio up and we caught up post production and filmmaking ok another issue that we had is that the first ones you saw the interviews i did i just did that with my camera model microphone i didn't even have a lab or the microphone so when my champion said that this institution of them institution is offering this program and i'll get you in a class for free and then they my closet and i had to take out a bunch of my things and another aspect is the scenes the sets so that one set where john robison was walking out that was my backyard and the house i used to have off from the over the state tree on another part of the city so i'm just you know all of this is because i asked them i'm so proud i had to get the saying i was out at a jazz club and this lady was saying it and i said wow so this is how i got started with respect to john robinson i was in a library i know how many years ago ten fifteen years ago and i ran across a book to the left and i saw baby in a pilot and i said wow look at this  black man from world war one or world war two where see the little ethiopian flag on on the right hand side with the lion there you see the ridge the green go to red you see the aircraft the state of mountains the ethiopian terrain i'm like way where's this from i'm never seen anything about this i never read anything about this so i read the book and the book was written by a gentleman whose name was tom sentiments so this is a book inspired me to learn more and to learn a lot more about colonel robinson so i actually interviewed author tom summons i found we interviewed him on a radio program and he said that he would buy it because he was a pilot also so sigmas learned of the fly airplanes he was in the  air force and then he heard of this african american fighter pilot so he wrote a book about them and then he was from saint and that's where rob is and was was raised in sweep or louisiana so then he said some said the first book wasn't justice he didn't do the first but he said he felt i had because the first book was incomplete so the nash when he wrote the second book and then what we did and i tell you about this later where  you know i've been here for about five years now in this neighborhood and soft seen a lot of different changes i read a census of what the next ten fifteen or twenty years will look like the south seattle and with all that information a lot of these things could have easily been prevented know sort of an outcast but it was just until why were you know people got to know or got to experience i guess who you are one twenty two when she know when she was really you know she left she was living in sudan for a number of years and so some of her friends that that came to the states one of them was living in seattle and coffee for her as she was still asleep and she woke up because the the fire alarm just started just going off it just gets up and hears me standing on a little stall rosso some coffee is just smoke everywhere and i look over and she just  what do you do and it was like like i remember the day vividly like it i was really young but i remember that and from there she taught me how to how to roast coffee here we are years later and you know just that the idea of jumping in two thousand and fifteen we launched indigo so it was kickstarter campaign and that's where we raised some of the money to train for the coffee shop i got rid of all the equipment that was already here and a lot of the coming from me i'm bringing a lot more than just the bag that's on the shelf that sits there that just says you feel good coffee i think it's more about touching to that community and that culture there was a connection between me as a desperate and being home i felt like i owed the coffee industry a different perspective where you know we're innovating a lot of the cultural aspects and to into the community and so certain things like the job and i had to do from the job and i was huge and it was something that i felt like needed to be done so the jevons the clay hospitality and it's beautiful to see people come together and sit down and drink drink which is called growing up here in the city you can easily fall victim to just whatever's around as a kid growing up it was hard to really identify that why do i belong my what am i and i and the first trip that i want to theo pierre really helped me define that when i got a chance to go see my cousins and see you know just culture and see the people that looked like me everywhere i went when i came back and i complete the system as a new person and it was just that dose of culture that you know sort of changed the rest of my life i would notice that a lot of people really disconnected because in the mini mart where there's two neighbors that you know each other from when they're kids but they didn't know they lived in the same neighborhood and her just they randomly one day walked into and i know both of  separately they come in different times but it was just like one day they both came at the same time like oh my god you live here in this neighborhood and it was awesome i was like wow this area needs a place where everybody can come and socialize and get work done you know learn more about each other and the community all starts with you and what you're going to do for your community and whether you know just do it be