On October 14, 1960 John F. Kennedy in a speech at the University of Michigan challenged students to engage the world when he stated,

"How many of you who are going to be doctors, are willing to spend your days in Ghana? Technicians or engineers, how many of you are willing to work in the Foreign Service and spend your lives traveling around the world? On your willingness to do that, not merely to serve one year or two years in the service, but on your willingness to contribute part of your life to this country, I think will depend the answer whether a free society can compete. I think it can! And I think Americans are willing to contribute. But the effort must be far greater than we have ever made in the past."

These words led to the creation of the Peace Corps after John Kennedy's election as President. These words were prophetic. Thousands of students engaged in the Peace Corps and were transformed. Original JFK Speech

Today, America faces two simultaneous crisis: one abroad and one at home. The Design Corps has been created to challenge high school graduates, college students and young professionals to commit two years to re-creating rural America as a culture of INNOVATION & DESIGN. 1960 Edited JFK Speech

Our current domesic situation is not just a financial, liquidity or confidence crisis. It is crisis of commitment and the ability to take R&D and find out-of-the-box applications that actually create new privately held companies and even industries well beyond energy and the human gnome. For example, the World Wide Web infrastructure became the basis for many and varied applications leading to entirely new businesses such as GOOGLE.

In Fast Company Magazine (10 year archive access is free) over the last two years, some articles have argued that if America is to sustain its economic position, it must transition from the "knowledge Society" to the "Design Society." Success is not measured in what we know but rather in the many, varied and unusual applications of that knowlege.

In additon, the RippleEFFECT from the current financial crisis will produce frustrated college graduates and young professionals who want a job as well as an opportunity to contribute to the emerging American society of the 21st century. With 3,141 counties & 2,000+ rural counties in the U.S.A., if we had a team of two people in each local Design Studio, we could have over 4,000+ Design Corps members deployed in 2000+ of the 3,141 counties in the U.S.A. This would be a great start on recreating rural America as a culture of innovation, invention and design. See Design Corps Manifesto for a more complete description.