More than any other nation on Earth, America has constantly drawn strength and spirit from wave after wave of immigrants. In each generation, they have proved to be the most restless, the most adventurous, the most innovative, the most industrious of people. Bearing different memories, honoring different heritages, they have strengthened our economy, enriched our culture, renewed our promise of freedom and opportunity for all.

It turns out that advancing equal opportunity and economic empowerment is both morally right and good economics. Why? Because discrimination, poverty and ignorance restrict growth. We know that investments in education, infrastructure and scientific and technological research increase growth. They increase good jobs, and they create new wealth for all of us.

What we should be doing [in US] is accelerating every year our efforts to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, have a cleaner energy future, have much more energy conservation. And this won't hurt anybody. This will create a new economy for America, if we've got the discipline to do it.

The Information Age is, first and foremost, an education age, in which education must start at birth and continue throughout a lifetime. Last year, from this podium, I said that education has to be our highest priority. I have something to say to every family listening to us tonight: Your children can go on to college.... Because of the things that have been done, we can make college as universal in the 21st century as high school is today. And, my friends, that will change the face and future of America.

We have a unique opportunity to unite America, urban and rural, coastal and midwestern, red and blue, under the banner of a truly unifying national effort. We can start right now.

Considering the current sad state of our computer programs, software development is clearly still a black art, and cannot yet be called an engineering discipline.

Americans long to be united. After 9/11, we all just wanted to be one nation. Not a single American on September the 12, 2001, cared who won the next presidential election.