Tompkins as Sudarshan said and it’s a
great honor to be one of the
distinguished speakers at this event I’d
like to thank the executive team for
putting this all together so when I was
first informed that I had to make a
ten-minute speech about what foot prints
are and what they mean to my life I was
like wait what do you what the heck do
you mean by foot prints like that could
be anything right but slowly and surely
the topic stuck in my brain and force
force me to reflect and that’s when I
realized that that is the beauty of the
topic footprints that footprints can be
anything footprints in the end are what
you make of them so I thought okay well
why not make a speech or speak
expounding upon what footprints mean to
me and that can help my audience to
think about that and reflect on what
footprints mean in their lives now I
think there are four overarching aspects
of footprints and I will cover pretty
much the different levels of footprints
we all leave so the first footprint we
leave is a more global and collective
footprint and that’s carbon footprint on
the news and online always reading and
hearing excuse me about people
advocating business development and
fossil fuels and growth and all these
uses of energy but people don’t realize
that the effects of climate change are a
pressing concern and they will depending
on how we act today that will decide how
dire the consequences will be now
climate change is a big deal and
companies such as American Electric
Power Peabody Energy or coke industries
they release over 150 million metric
tons of carbon each year that’s crazy
and yeah it seems hopeless and futile to
combat but as an individual you can do
so many little things such as recycling
or saving energy and applying solar
panels
and this all adds up so that as a
collective community we can accomplish
the big things such as making laws that
regulate business and protect the
environment supporting eco-friendly
politicians and switching to more
renewable forms of energy and people
also don’t realize that the first people
to suffer from our carbon footprint will
be the poor the disadvantaged and the
indigenous peoples of our world people I
hear that people are advocating the
development of the Keystone and Dakota
pipelines but those pipelines will be
built and constructed and maintained on
the land of the Native Americans who own
that land and any oil spill or
malfunction will directly affect their
water supply
imagine that water the most sacred and
important greening ingredient of life
ruined by some big business and oil
spill but all this talk about protecting
the environment brings up an important
note business development and protecting
the environment do not have to be
mutually exclusive of course there is a
cost to pay like increased regulations
and expensive renewable energy but we
individually and as a nation should be
willing to pay that cost and there are
so many countries that have demonstrated
that that is a laudable objective to
achieve countries like Denmark France
the UK and Belgium have all reduced
carbon emissions protected the
environment and maintained a stable
economy with the development of
renewable energy sources so take a
minute and reflect about the long and
short term consequences or a carbon
footprint now the next type of footprint
we leave is more applicable today than
ever before and that is digital
footprint now hold on before you all
groan and think this is another how to
be safe online speech I just want to
talk about the legacy aspect of being
online and what we do online is visible
to anyone potential
and even secrets or private information
can come out for example in late 2016
the Democratic National Convention was
hacked and secured files were
compromised some nasty stuff came out
like collusion between the media and
campaigns or conspiracy against other
campaigns and also personal information
of donors now this goes to show that no
matter how safe you think you are with
putting private and secure things online
things can always go south so as I said
before your digital footprint could be
potentially seen by anyone teachers
parents relatives colleges businesses in
fact there are numerous instances where
college is served through applicants
Facebook or Instagram profiles to
finalize decisions and employers they
make sure that a thorough online
background check is part of their
vetting process
and with so many different social
channels to express themself it’s it’s
so easy to inadvertently do something
bad online and your digital footprint
doesn’t have to be by you alone it could
be by a group or a group of friends or
an organization or social media campaign
but the decision is ours to make whether
we want to leave inspiring and creative
online footprint or whether we want to
leave a malevolent and nasty one now the
next type of footprint is very frequent
like we do all the time and that is
social footprint social footprint
consists of our everyday physical
interactions how do you leave the people
you interact with feeling after you
after you’ve talked to them are you just
another stranger or do you leave them
smiling and respectfully thinking about
how you just talk to them this is
important question to ask yourselves now
this social footprint I think is one of
the most important footprints because we
do it so often and not only are you
leaving a footprint on the person you
talk to but they’re leaving a footprint
on you and that footprint it could
potentially create a chain reaction of
positive foot positive footprints if
you’re nice or kind to someone
give something give someone something
nice they could be inspired by that and
continue the chain to someone else so in
the end I think that social footprint is
one of the most important types of
footprints because we do it so often
sometimes without even knowing it now as
an individual I believe it’s not only
not only important to attain success but
the way you reach there is arguably more
important how you achieved your goals
and reach success falls under your moral
footprint
whether you exploited others for
personal gain or cheated your way to the
top the way you achieve your goals is
very important for example the wolf of
Wall Street we’ve all heard of the movie
but there’s actually was a real wolf of
Wall Street by the name of Jordan
Belfort now he became unimaginably rich
from his company but eventually his
demons caught up with him and he was
imprisoned he lost everything his wealth
his reputation and status and that just
goes to show that if you attained your
success in the terrible way it’ll come
back to bite you and he’s left a
terrible moral footprint on our world
but on the other hand genuine hard work
can also go a very long way now I have a
bit of family history that illustrates
this concept after the partition of
India in 1947 after independence my
maternal great-grandfather lost
everything he lost some relatives his
money his social status
his sense of home everything and rather
than stealing land or money or
exploiting others to go back to where he
was he decided to leave a positive moral
footprint on his family day after day he
would literally pour his sweat into his
work on the field and eventually he was
able to achieve achieve success and
attained a successful farm for his
family and this has inspired my family
as well we still remember his work today
when my parents came to this country in
2001 as
migrants they – do not have much to lean
back on fact they didn’t even have jobs
they were just graduate students but
instead of cheating their way to a job
and exploiting other people they worked
day in and day out and worked with real
grit and now we’re proud of the social
status we’ve attained so all of these
people leave an indelible mark on me my
future and my and future generations
inspiring me to achieve my goals the
work that is morally impeccable and that
is the type of footprint I think is
immensely powerful the type of footprint
that people look at and say wow what an
extraordinary person so in the end we
should all be mindful of what we leave
behind
whether it be to one person online or
Generation or to the whole world
footprints are our legacies I hope I was
able to prompt you guys to introspect
and reflect on what type of footprints
you guys are leaving in your lives and
you might think I’m just one person out
of seven billion how does it even matter
and what could I even do but know that’s
where it starts if individually we’re
all mindful of what footprints we leave
collectively it can have a great
generational impact to be remembered as
honest just inspiring leaders is a goal
we can all get behind so why not you why
not all of us thank you [Applause]