Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
Thank you very much. I really appreciate the opportunity. As Bernard said, Hicham and I are just going to make a few comments and then look forward to your questions.
I work for Cisco. We are the global leader in networking. Our vision is changing the way the world works, lives, learns, and plays. I would suggest to you that, at this juncture in time, that has become more profound than ever. As we look at what's happening around the world, the global stimulus package is, by our own estimation.... I'm part of Cisco's global advisory group, by the way. We've analyzed so far in the order of $2 trillion being set aside, so to speak, for the idea of economic stimulus.
When we look at that $2 trillion and dig into it, what we're seeing is a larger discussion that is not, if you will, about that traditional infrastructure dialogue. It is about a different message entirely, which is the notion of recovery through innovation. I think, very consistent with what you've already heard this morning as we look to recovering, it's really about how we position ourselves for the upturn, which is inevitable. As we do so, we have to appreciate that we're competing around the world with a completely different set of very well-financed constituencies and a tremendous number of focused leaders around the world who are saying that this is their opportunity to change the dynamic.
For us, as we look forward, we believe that technology is the enabling infrastructure of our time. In fact, it is so important to our future, it really is something that will have a profound impact on economic resilience and agility and also a deep and lasting impact on our society. From our perspective as a company, I believe that, writ large in the technology industry, we see a huge opportunity to be a value-added player in this discussion and to be much more collaborative.
To that point, as you've already heard from our colleagues, the idea of inter-organizational collaboration to drive innovation is something that we must embrace. What I mean by that is that the private sector, the public sector, and the not-for-profit sector must come together and look at collaboration for the purposes of innovation in a very different way. We believe that leadership has to come from you as our government.
Those are my brief comments. I will definitely look forward to questions as we go forward.
Now, over to my colleague Hicham.