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MARY GROVE: Good afternoon.
How Is everyone today?
AUDIENCE: Great.
MARY GROVE: Great.
My name is Mary Grove, and I'm the Director
of Google for Entrepreneurs.
And we thank you for joining us today
for our special fireside conversation.
It is my pleasure to introduce and welcome
to Google Yoani Sanchez.
Yoani is a Cuban blogger and activist
who has become a symbol of global free expression.
She was born in Havana, Cuba, and studied in Cuba
during the years when the Soviet Union was supporting
the island and its communist revolution with tangible aid.
And this also coincided with the collapse of the Soviet Union
and the loss of subsidies that then comprised
80% of Cuba's international trade.
Yoani has received international acclaim
for her critical portrayal of life
in Cuba under its current government.
She is best known for her blog, "Generation Y," which
is translated into 17 languages.
And she boasts over half a million followers on Twitter.
"Time Magazine" named Yoani one of the world's 100
most influential people, and President Barack Obama
has applauded her efforts to empower
fellow Cubans to express themselves
through the use of technology.
She has traveled throughout South America and Europe
and has lived in Switzerland as well.
Yoani has done incredible work to break
through the barriers of access and get information out
of Cuba and into the global conversation.
Last week, Yoani spoke at the Google Ideas summit
in New York City.
And we are proud to welcome her to the Google headquarters
today.
And just to set a little bit of context for everybody
today, thinking about technology and access and free expression,
Cuba's population is 11 million people, and only 2%
of the country has internet access.
Yoani's ability to share information from Cuba
with the rest of the world is remarkable,
and it is all made possible because of technology.
She is what we call a blind blogger or a blind tweeter,
relying on SMS technology to text information
out and relying on her network of citizens, what we call
her citizen network around the world, to post.
And so she can't see the responses, the comments,
the conversation that's happening in both directions.
And it's pretty remarkable and incredible.
And we're delighted to have her with us.
Please join me in welcoming Yoani Sanchez.
[APPLAUSE]
YOANI SANCHEZ: Thank you.
Thank you, thank you.
MARY GROVE: I also want to welcome and thank Natalia
from Roots of Hope for being our translator today.
So Yoani, welcome to Google.
It's an honor to have you with us.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: I feel that today, I am realizing many dreams.
I don't want to pinch myself in case I wake up.
MARY GROVE: Tell us about your experience growing up in Cuba.
What were your high school and university years like?
TRANSLATOR: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: In reality, my profession
has absolutely nothing to do with technology.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: In some corner of my house that I now cannot
remember, there is a certificate,
a diploma that says that I'm a philologist,
studied Spanish language and literature.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: But in reality, from a very young age,
I was interested in all that that had circuits and cables,
and I was very intrigued by house appliances
and housewares.
MARY GROVE: So you have always loved technology, as you said.
And it's my understanding that you built your first computer
in 1994 and called it Frankenstein.
Can you tell us about how you created that
and how you sourced the parts for Frankenstein?
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: In 1994, I put together my first computer.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: At that time in Cuba,
almost no one had even heard of what a computer was
and definitely had not seen one.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: But since we are a country
with a very robust illegal market, a black market--
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: I began to purchase and exchange parts and pieces
to make my first Frankenstein.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: I remember that I had
a machine for depilating legs that
used to be pretty painful that I traded in for a microprocessor.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: The model was a 286.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: Again, I don't know if I know this one.
MS2--
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
MARY GROVE: DOS, like version 1.0.
TRANSLATOR: Yeah, DOS version 1.0.
It's just hearing it in Spanish.
Sorry.
MARY GROVE: You have always been such an entrepreneur,
and it's an honor to have you here at Google today.
Our mission as a company is to organize all the world's
information and to make it universally
accessible and useful.
And we think a lot about this piece called access.
Talk to us about the current state of access in Cuba.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: We Cubans live in an island of disconnect.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: And it's not really a metaphor.
It is that because we are the country with the lowest
internet penetration in the Western hemisphere.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: Official figures say that around 15%
of the population has access to internet, but that's false.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: The reality is that within that 15%,
there are many people who only have access to an intranet
or to email.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: One hour of connectivity
in kind of a public hotspot place
costs $5 an hour in a country where
the average monthly salary does not exceed $20.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: It is not possible for an ordinary citizen
to go somewhere and take out a home internet connection
or land line.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: You must meet certain ideological
prerequisites and be a highly trustworthy person
to even qualify for internet access.
Seen
TRANSLATOR: Despite all these restrictions,
Cubans are very capable at circumventing and finding
ways around all that is censured or prohibited.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: So the same as there is a black market
to purchase eggs, beef, or milk, there
is a black market for the acquisition of information,
audiovisual files, and so on.
MARY GROVE: So let's talk about getting
information, stories from Cuba, out.
How did you begin blogging, and what
was the real impetus for you?
TRANSLATOR: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: I started in April of 2007.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: Several years before that,
I had started kind of a collective communal project
for the first ever digital magazine in Cuba
that was critical.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: I had to learn in a very autodidactic fashion
to write in HTML.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: And at a certain time,
I felt good about the magazine, but I also
wanted a space for personal expression.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: As such, I created a very bare bones HTML page,
and I uploaded it to the internet
under the title "Generation Y."
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: I was unaware that there
were services such as Blogger, WordPress, or Typepad.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: And so every time that I
wanted to update my blog, I would completely
take down the page and then upload a new page.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: And really, it's a space for narrating reality.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: The local quotidian stories
that the official press does not mention.
MARY GROVE: How were you sourcing these stories?
Who were they-- how were you getting them?
TRANSLATOR: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: I only recount that which I have lived.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: I attempt to have every story on my blog
be very linked to something that has personally happened
or that is related to me.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: I am neither an analyst or an academic
or a specialist in anything, really.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: And I don't like to view journalism
as a researcher in a lab coat, looking down at ants
and recording their movements.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: My kind of journalism
is the journalism of the ant inside the ant hill.
MARY GROVE: Wonderful analogy.
So you, it's taken a tremendous amount of courage and bravery
to put these stories out there.
I know you've received numerous threats
and been in danger several times.
Talk to us.
What's the scariest thing that's happened to you?
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: I have had very difficult times and moments
in the six years of writing the blog.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: I have also had very beautiful ones.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: One of the most complicated ones
was my first arrest.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: And it is a story of pain,
but it is also a story about technology.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: And the importance that technology
has in the protection of Cuban activists.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: It was on November 6 of 2009.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: With several friends,
we were going to participate in an alternative peaceful protest
against violence.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: So, as a tangent, Cubans send Twitter, or tweet,
using SMS messages from their phones.
So we were getting ready to leave, one of my friends
noticed some tension in the surrounding
area due to the protest.
And so she said that she was going
to write a tweet in her drafts.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: And so she wrote, just in case,
a message that she saved in her drafts that said,
we've been detained.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: And I remember thinking and saying
that that augurs bad luck.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: And sure enough, on our way there,
a police car pulled us over and forced two of us
into the backseat.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: They turned me upside down,
and there was a very strong man that
placed his knee on my chest.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: And the car started to move through Havana.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: And at a certain point, the driver of the car
picked up a phone call, spoke briefly, and turned to the man
in the backseat.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: And said, don't press her too much,
because they already know.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: At that moment, I felt
that the little blue bird of Twitter
had come to save me because the tweet that my friend had been
able to send out had gone and returned
in the form of protection via the virtual response that
had come to her tweet.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: For this reason as well,
I am very passionate about technology.
MARY GROVE: Incredible.
Really incredible.
You are such a vital voice representing
so many generations of Cubans.
What messages would you like to share
with our community about the Cuban people?
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: The message that I would like to transmit today,
now that I'm here at the Mecca of technology--
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: --is that we Cubans would like to feel ourselves
as citizens of the 21st century.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: And not only in the sense
of freedom or self-expression, but also in terms of access
to technology.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: Cubans have a robust appetite for technology.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: Sometimes, people will be crammed into a car
from the '50s, while falling apart
and [? racketing ?] along in Havana, and a cellphone
will ring.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: And when the person takes out their phone
from their pocket, it's a Samsung Galaxy S3.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: Because Cubans have such a desire to associate
themselves as men and women of the 21st century,
they really thirst for technology.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: And as such, please help
us be citizens of the 21st century.
MARY GROVE: You could trade that Samsung for the Frankenstein
parts.
So here within the room, we have many, many Googlers
who are passionate about learning
how they can help and be a part of the journey forward.
So what would you like to see from Google,
or how can people in this room who are interested in getting
involved?
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: I would say there are many ways to help.
One important thing to realize is
that the official narrative in Cuba
has many avenues for dissemination
and for propaganda, but the voices
of dissent and opposition and free thinkers in Cuba
have very few and limited avenues for dissemination.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: And so it would be very
helpful to assist that small group that
dares to opine differently in amplifying their voices.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: We need tools that are
very specific to the Cuban circumstances, which
is difficult for other people to understand because it
is like time traveling back.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: Any tool that allows for the downloading
and processing of information offline
or that allows-- that interacts with USB drives or flash
drives, on or off information, are transcendental in Cuba.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: I would love to see a mobile or portable version
of Chrome.
Not mobile, portable.
MARY GROVE: So what are some of your favorite products,
technology and some products?
TRANSLATOR: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: I am very technological.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: I love Apple.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: I won't show you the collection of apps that I have
because it's too much.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: But I try to concentrate all my effort
usually in one gadget.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: It's also a matter of survival
because if the police come to raid,
and I have a phone, a camera, a laptop, a USB drive,
there are more items for them to take and more items for me
to protect.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: As such, I use smartphones a lot
because they allow me to record, write, take photos, and do
a lot of other things.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: I'm fascinated with the Samsung Galaxy S3
with Android.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: But at the moment, I have in my pocket an iPhone.
So I'm very curious.
You talk about this concept of the citizen network
and all of the global community around you
who was helping disseminate this information.
How have you built that network over time?
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: Human solidarity is infinite.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: My government says that my blog has so much
traction and following because the CIA has
built my blog and my persona.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: But in reality, behind that
is a much more powerful force, friendship.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: And civic solidarity.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: It's really incredible
what people are willing to do or help
with when your narrative and your story touches them.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: And here's an example
is Mary Jo Porter, who is my translator, the translator
of my blog into English, and also
the person who organizes a network of translators
for other Cuban blogs.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: And so there are many examples.
These earrings, which have the logo of my blog,
"Generation Y," were made for me by a reader from Peru.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: And one day, in Twitter via message,
I explained that I had a respiratory problem.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: And several weeks later, I
heard a knock on my door, and it was a girl
from Barcelona who said, Yoani, I brought you
a machine for inhalating, like an inhalation machine.
MARY GROVE: Friends all over the world.
So I'd love to shift gears a bit and think about the future.
So you're currently working on a new project.
Tell us about it.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: I have a motto in life
that I was sharing earlier today with Roberta Jacobson that
is, I prefer to be stressed rather than bored.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: As such, I always like to have many projects.
I believe that life is about having projects.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: At the moment, I have
a project that is journalistic and deals with information.
And it is a collective project.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: It is a project to create a digital newspaper
from Cuba, which is quite a challenge
due to the lack of access.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH] I
TRANSLATOR: It is a place for opinions and information,
but also a sphere for practicing democracy 2.0.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: Where people can exchange opinions
about the dual currency in Cuba or the death
penalty, gay marriage.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: But also a newspaper to read about technology.
MARY GROVE: How is the digital journalism landscape in Cuba
shifting at all right now?
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: After the arrival of blogs
and Twitter to the national stage,
independent journalism has certainly changed,
but even official journalism has had to change.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: For example, the government
has realized that it can no longer occult and hide
certain events that happen in reality.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: As such, the official narrative
has to broach subjects that years ago it never would have.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: In addition, independent journalism
has also achieved greater immediacy.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: Before, if there had been an arrest or other event,
independent journalists had to wait for calls from abroad
to [INAUDIBLE] confirm that something had happened.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: Now, with a cell phone in hand and no internet,
any ordinary citizen from anywhere in Cuba
can send a piece of news out.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: I will give you a technological trick.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: Whenever you are in a place that lacks internet,
whether because you're in a highly censored place,
or a natural disaster has occurred,
or you simply don't have signal--
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: It's good to know that social networks
such as Twitter allow for publication on their medium
through text message.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: It's very easy.
All you have to do is take the service number,
a particular service number for Twitter,
and send four commands.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: Start, yes, username, and password.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: And your phone number
will then be linked to Twitter, and you
can tweet without internet.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: I hope that someday Google will also
make such a tool for us.
[LAUGHTER]
MARY GROVE: There is, actually, we do a lot of work
in emerging markets, focusing on how do we
bring the next 4 billion online.
And it's all about mobile, using SMS gateways, and absolutely.
We launched a tool called Google Trader across Africa, which
is allowing transaction of prices and currencies,
or that sharing of information via mobile.
So absolutely, I think that's very, very much
a huge part of the future.
And so I want to shift gears to talk
a little bit about entrepreneurship.
And in my work with Google for entrepreneurs,
our mission is to empower the next generation of startups.
We work with entrepreneurs in over 125 countries.
What advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs looking
to break through?
We have this notion that constrained resources breeds
a lot of creativity.
What's your advice for entrepreneurs
looking to get started?
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: Just a few days ago, when I spoke at Google Ideas,
I said that creativity is having the possibility of opening
a window when the door is closed.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: And creativity is also necessity's daughter.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: The hardest thing is to keep up and maintain
your creativity when you have all resources available
and all possibilities open.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: But that shouldn't be contradictory.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: And so a good piece of advice is to,
for one second, place yourself in the skin of someone
who has very little.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: So place yourself in the skin
of a citizen in a country that lacks internet, that does not
have access to Paypal, that has never been able to purchase
a flight ticket via the internet.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: Place yourself in the shoes
of a person who has never been able to see online a YouTube
video.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: Or such as is my case,
often, I can't even see how many followers I have on Twitter.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: I would say that that
would be a good exercise to engender creativity.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: And also, to remember that anything that
is created here or elsewhere, often
in roundabout and small ways, reaches us in Cuba.
MARY GROVE: I'd like to do a brief thing we
think of as free word association.
So I'm going to say one word and ask
you to say the first word that comes to your mind.
TRANSLATOR: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
MARY GROVE: OK?
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: She likes that.
MARY GROVE: Internet.
TRANSLATOR: Internet.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
AUDIENCE: Friendship.
TRANSLATOR: Friendship.
MARY GROVE: Technology.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: Freedom.
MARY GROVE: Courage.
TRANSLATOR: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: Trembling.
MARY GROVE: Family.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: Column, pillar.
MARY GROVE: Hope.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH].
TRANSLATOR: Future.
MARY GROVE: Mobile phones.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: Addiction.
[LAUGHTER]
YOANI SANCHEZ: My husband, he's here.
He knows.
TRANSLATOR: My husband is here.
He knows.
MARY GROVE: My last word for you is meat stew.
TRANSLATOR: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: Meat stew without meat and internet
without internet.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: Creativity.
MARY GROVE: Before we open up for questions,
please join me in a warm round of applause.
YOANI SANCHEZ: Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
MARY GROVE: Nowhere is there a better example of this notion
that constraint breeds tremendous creativity,
and you are just a living testament to all that
is possible, and we really thank you
for taking the time to share your insights with us.
And I know a lot of my colleagues
likely have questions.
If you could just speak loudly, and I'll
repeat it for the benefit of those on video conference.
Do you have hopes for Cuba?
TRANSLATOR: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: I have many.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: Cuba is precisely a country
with a lot of future potential.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: Although at this particular time,
we have a scenario of economic collapse
and a lack of freedoms.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: Cuba has an incredible human capital.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: In fact, here in Google, there work many Cubans.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: In fact, professional academic levels
are very high.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: And people are more and more
thirsting for political and economic change.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: So it would not surprise me
if halfway through the 21st century,
we were an economic or a technological powerhouse
in the region.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: And if we had our own version of Silicon Valley.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: I'll first tell you the government's position.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: The Cuban government explains
the lack of internet and access based firmly
on the American embargo.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: The same restrictions that mean that
certain Google services cannot be used in Cuba.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: However, this argument
has lost its truthfulness after several years ago,
a fiber optic cable was installed from Venezuela
to Cuba.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: At this point, at this moment in time,
the cable is functional, but the government
has decided to use it to open 118 public internet access
spots across the country.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: The authorities do not
seem interested in granting personal home internet access
or access through mobile phones.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: And the prices are also
high as a means of kind of being cost prohibitive for most
ordinary Cubans.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: The reason is fear of the internet.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: A system that has based itself on the limitation
of information and on the controlling of a narrative
cannot possibly survive the avalanche of information that
comes from the internet.
AUDIENCE: I've always wondered how the Castro brothers have
been able to get the Cuban people to tolerate that much.
And I understand that they have lots of controls.
But there's also not a violent reaction,
so they've got to manage a certain level-- achieve
a certain level of tolerance among the people.
And I see that in my country as well, in Venezuela,
where after 14 years of revolution,
we are having very extreme scarcity now,
and people fighting for a little milk in the grocery stores.
And the government still has 50% popularity.
So how is that process of getting people accustomed?
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: There are many reasons
for this social inertia.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: Firstly, my generation
does not know of any other [INAUDIBLE].
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: My mother was born under the Castros.
I was born under the Castros.
And my son, who is 18 years old, was also
born under the Castros.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: If the Castros last several more years,
my grandchildren will be born under them.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: This creates the sensation that you cannot
change anything, that it is a curse with which you have been
born and cannot change.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: Another issue or comment
is that rebelliousness in Cuba, for decades, has been expressed
in leaving and escaping and not in confronting.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: It's very sad, but a majority of Cubans,
or a significant proportion of Cubans,
prefer to face a shark in the Florida straits
than a policeman in the streets of Havana.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: Yet another reason is
that the government cut all of the infrastructure that
would have allowed economic independence to civil society.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: And severed all informational infrastructure
parallel to the government.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: In the nations of the Arab Spring, for example,
technology was a primary tool for the population
to communicate and congregate.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: But in Cuba, how can I communicate to my neighbor
that I agree with him?
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: Despite this, I do believe
that Cubans are slowly waking up.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: I'm very critical.
I've always perceived that the US restrictions are
the excuse of the Cuban government, the scapegoat
of the Cuban government, for justifying everything
from economic situation to the lack of liberties.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: As such, I would like for the embargo
to end tomorrow to see how the Cuban government would explain
the lack of access to the internet or the inability
to form other political parties.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: The quality of the educational system in Cuba
has also suffered significantly in recent years.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: There is a popular myth exported from Cuba
that we have excellent public health
systems and educational systems.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: In truth, it is extensive and reaches everyone
in the country, but the quality has declined.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: When Soviet subsidies were halted,
the Cuban infrastructure could not
maintain the educational or medical infrastructure
that had been set up.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: As such, there has been
a huge exodus of teachers and instructors.
An instructor, for example, of technology and software
and kind of information systems would
have a maximum monthly salary of $30 a month.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: And in addition to the financial restrictions
or limitations, there's also the issue
of significant political indoctrination
of the educational system.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: It's very difficult for a professor of technology
or information systems to be in a classroom
with students who do not have access to the internet.
How do you teach that?
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: And there's also, the government has an intention
to paint the internet as a battlefield.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: So they prepare a lot of soldiers to wage battle.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: Everything that I can tell you is still little.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: But in Cuba, we have a specific department
in which students focus on waging
ideological battles on the internet.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: From blogs that are in line
with government thinking to people that enter other forums
or comment on other blogs to guide
the discussion more in favor to the positions
of the government.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: And for them, I am a kind of internet devil.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: And so I imagine that it's
very difficult for an instructor of anything
that touches the internet, and who has a more modern mind,
to be teaching anything that touches with technology.
MARY GROVE: Last question, if I may.
What is your greatest hope for Cuba and for the future?
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: I think that Cuba needs freedom.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: The freedom to stand on a corner and scream,
there's no liberty here.
YOANI SANCHEZ: [SPEAKING SPANISH]
TRANSLATOR: The day that I can do that in a street in Havana,
I will feel that my country has entered the future.
MARY GROVE: On behalf of all of us here, muchas gracias.
YOANI SANCHEZ: Muchas gracias.
Thank you very much.
[APPLAUSE]
YOANI SANCHEZ: Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]