Archive - December 19, 2016

Brian Forde (Nicaragua 2003-05) co-founded the Digital Currency Initiative at the MIT Media Lab and was formerly a senior advisor at The White House.  Today he is co-founded the Digital Currency Initiative at the MIT Media Lab. • Earlier this week, President-elect Trump met with some of the top leaders of American tech companies. Some of these leaders are trying to find common ground after being on the receiving end of some of his sharp-worded tweets. Like many of my friends in the tech community, I’m faced with the reality of a Trump presidency and searching for a way to honor the calls of President Obama and Secretary Clinton for national unity and a chance for the president-elect to lead. My struggle comes from looking for common ground with a president-elect whose policy goals I largely do not support but recognizing from my time working in the Obama White House just how ineffective obstructionist politics . . .

Scratch any RPCV or PCV and they’ll tell you the three goals of the Peace Corps. While the wording varies from one publication to the next, these are the goals: (1) Contribute to the development of critical countries and regions; (2) Promote international cooperation and goodwill toward the country; (3) Contribute to the education of America and to more intelligent American participation in the world.  Now, those are the stated goals, and I know that they have been tweaked with by staff and PCVs over the last 50 years. For example, “living at the level of the HCNs” is often stated as Goal # 2. But the question is, who came up with these goals and why three? Well, at the famous Mayflower Hotel in the winter months of 1961 when the task force of Shriver/Wofford/Wiggins/Josephson and a handful of others began to draft the proposal to give JFK that would define . . .