CHG V/O: Hello, I'm Charlayne Hunter-Gault, and I want to take you on a trip to the world of the future... a trip that could change your life.

CHG O/C: I've long enjoyed a career as a journalist, living out my childhood fantasy of traveling the world in search of people and their stories. And I've been witness to some truly exciting events on the many international trips I've taken... like this one to South Africa, when Nelson Mandela became the first ever democratically elected president in the country's history.

DISSOLVE to VOTSOT and NATSOT CHG international journalism trip

CHG V/O: The many changes I'm seeing in the world today are changes you need to know about. So come with me now -- on a journey to where the present meets the future... a future that is bringing people closer together every day... and where more and more people in more and more places are connected.

Title Sequence Here

CHG O/C: What you're about to see and hear concerns what this new world has to offer -- and how you can make it work for you. You'll meet some extraordinary people who've "been there done that," and who have helped pave the way for you. Because today -- as never before -- it really is "your world for the taking." Ask Andrew Young. Ambassador Young has long traveled the world and seen the possibilities for you change dramatically.

Andrew Young SOT: When Coca Cola goes to Africa, an African-American becomes president of Coca Cola of Africa. When they go to Latin America, then someone of Latin descent. When my company went to China, we looked for Chinese-Americans to lead that delegation. More and more young people are understanding that their future is with their heritage.

No one understands that better than Melinda Yee. She directs the city of San Francisco's international trade office -- a job that didn't exist a few years ago.

Yee: As soon as I started my job, the Mayor decided to go to Paris. So I didn't have a lot of time to cultivate a lot of relationships but we jumped right into it.

The San Francisco Bay Area is home to six and a half million people. Like many cash-strapped American cities, the City by the Bay needs new ways to create business opportunities and jobs for its citizens. San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown.

Willie Brown: The global economy dictates that your own local community and what it produces, goods and services, cannot limit the market that it tracks and the market that it intends to penetrate to just those surrounding areas in your region or even in your own nation.

In the past, international trade was left to the federal government in Washington. Now cities are going global, doing business everywhere from Barcelona to Beijing.

NATSOT Yee at Press Briefing

Yee: We're planning a major project, trade mission to China, Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong and Taipei.

Willie Brown: An international trade office requires a person who has an international perspective. Preferably somebody who has some previous experience in trade and commerce on an international basis.

Mayor Brown is excited about his new trade office -- and its new director.

Brown: Melinda Yee has all of those qualities and even more. She has extraordinary people skills.

Yee: I have meetings all the time with some key business leaders. And a lot who have never worked with the city before.

Computer MUSIC & NATSOT AND VS from "Bug Police" Office: I'm Melinda Yee with the Mayor's Office of international trade.

"BUG Police" Man: Hello, Melinda.

Today, Yee is meeting with the Bug Police... a multi-media company that "debugs" video games for clients as far away as Japan and France.

Yee with Bug Police NATSOT: Where looking for bugs in the software has actually become a specialized job. Having your product properly tested, finding all the bugs to get them fixed is just as important as any other phase of the development. If the game doesn't work right then everybody's gonna return it, and it'll be.....

Yee: Not a good thing.

"BUG Police" Man: ...a big nightmare.

Workers here get paid to play!

Not all multi-media companies are so funky. This one, Mondo Media, designs a variety of products for clients both here and abroad.

Mondo Women NATSOT: And this area right here are products that we've worked on. We've worked with most of the big game companies, Virgin, Activision, um Crystal Dynamics.

NATSOT From Video Game

Yee: The mayor's office wanted to see the kind of things that local companies are doing and being able to meet you all from across the world is wonderful -- we wanted to see what kind of investment you're looking at here. If you can just give me us an overview of what you're doing.

Asian Woman: The reason why I'm here is because most of the multi media talented people here, and especially in San Francisco. We want to talk to the people, exchange ideas... We want to be internationalized.

Swedish man: I come from Stockholm, Sweden..., one of the major interactive development companies there, and we see this as ground zero for the whole industry.

Yee earned an undergraduate degree in communications, but she didn't focus on a career until graduate school, where she received a master's degree in public administration.

Yee: Once I found that thing that made me tick. And it took some time. And it took about 20, 22, 23 years. Then I was able to really zoom in.

It helps to be street smart, according to Yee.

Yee: I think one needs to be tough... in the real professional world -- it can be difficult.

And Yee believes her cultural identity has been an asset in her work.

Yee: Certainly, I'm able to connect with a lot of Asian-Americans in the business world. I think there's immediate comfort zone, because there are some shared experiences.

Before moving to San Francisco, Yee worked in Washington DC as a part of the Clinton administration.

Ron Brown SOT

Yee's work has been inspired by a man who was her mentor. The late Ron Brown. As Secretary of Commerce, Brown traveled the world looking for new ways for U.S. companies to do business -- and new possibilities for Americans in the twenty-first century.

NATSOT: The Secretary of Commerce Ronald Brown.

Ron Brown: I believe that the private sector can be the most important area to long term peace and long term stability.

Brown helped develop Yee's perspective.

Yee: I learned this from Ron Brown -- you're always there for your own community, yet you're able to expand and grow and flourish in whatever community you're in... I hope young people will be able to have that vision. I hope that the new generations... will come together in a way that hasn't happened in the past.

DISSOLVE to bucolic scene in backwoods of Minnesota.

Winona LaDuke is a part of the new generation doing things in a new way... LaDuke is a Native American who lives and works here on the White Earth reservation, about 200 miles north of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her work centers around the land.

LaDuke: We're trying to make a living from our land -- cause a lot of what our work is about is to keep our land here. And part of keeping our land is also to make a living from our land.

LaDuke's efforts to make the land work for her people include projects to sell corn, to package wild rice and raspberries, to tap syrup from some of the reservation's many maple trees, and to "harvest" others to build affordable housing.

LaDuke: We had a wind sheer that came through and knocked the trees down. We're opposed to clear cutting, but we aren't opposed to logging. And so we logged all these with horses. If you look around here this is where it was logged. And you can't actually tell it was logged. Cause this is how you do the right thing is when you selective cut. Half the people live in sub-standard housing, and we could use our own trees to house our people.

LaDuke has linked her concerns about land and resources with those of other indigenous peoples around the world. One such link is a non-governmental organization -- or NGO -- called the Indigenous Women's Network.

NATSOT LaDuke on the phone

Another is a community development group called the White Earth Land Recovery Project. Both are part of a major new force on the international careers scene-people-powered community organizations working outside of government to address common political, social or economic needs.

NATSOT from Beijing Conference

Such groups have become more prominent -- and more powerful -- than ever... dealing with issues like preserving the environment, protecting human rights and resolving conflict peacefully.

LaDuke speaks Ojibwe

LaDuke has traveled the world with her message of people working together.

LaDuke: I am greeting you in my language, which is Anishinabwe, and thanking you for the honor of speaking with you today.

In 1995, for example, she visited China for an NGO world conference on women.

LaDuke's vision of people working together across national boundaries first came about while she was a student at Harvard, where her studies in Native Economic Development moved her to action.

LaDuke: So what I decided to do is to do community development work. And to organize on the root causes of what was causing us to be poor.

People like LaDuke, who work for NGOS, are now beginning to receive considerable international recognition. Among LaDuke's many honors -- a Reebok human rights award, given annually to young activists. The award included a $20,000 check, which she used to launch the land recovery project.

LaDuke: You look around this reservation -- 90 percent of it is held by non-Indians. You look over across the lake there -- non-Indians, all non-Indian land holders.

NATSOT LaDuke speaking at Kiwanis Club luncheon

LaDuke cites some specific educational experiences that helped to prepare her for the future -- like being on her high school debate team.

LaDuke: That process both enabled me to have confidence in myself as a public speaker, and also taught me analytical thinking -- the ability to analyze something and look at the problem and look at the solutions, which is pretty much what you've got to be able to do when you're trying to make something change.

NATSOT with children

LaDuke has one career as a mother of two children and she has also carved a career out of her activism. Other jobs may pay more than community activism -- but that doesn't bother her.

LaDuke: You'll never be as rich as someone who works on Wall Street or someone who works for a big corporation. But you will have the satisfaction of making a difference.

But there is more than one way to make a difference in the world -- to do good and to do well. This is the world of Wilson Chu -- a world of making deals and making money.

NATSOT Chu at a meeting

Chu VO: I'm a corporate lawyer... advising companies on their operations

It's called "M & A" -- mergers and acquisitions -- the buying and selling of companies, and that's what Chu does at the Dallas law firm of Haynes and Boone. Every day, there are new people to meet and new deals to be made. In many ways it doesn't get any bigger than this.

Chu VO: I do international mergers acquisitions and joint ventures and in my case it's usually going to be an Asian party or wherever the deal may be. It may be in an Asian country

Wilson Chu's career landed him in one of the most exciting businesses in the world today -- in one of the world's fastest growing marketplaces -- the Pacific Rim. Nowhere is opportunity greater than in cities like Tokyo and Singapore -- dynamic parts of the world where American trade is booming. And Chu says his Asian heritage helps.

Chu: There's tens and thousands of corporate lawyers, but how many are there that are corporate lawyers in big law firms and who have an Asian background, Chinese background and can speak the language and knows the culture and can make an Asian client feel comfortable. I provide sort of a bridging process. So I put together my American training, so I can go there and say 'look I understand the American mentality,' or the culture and where they come from. I also understand the Chinese side as well.

dissolve to family photos

Chu: I was born in Hong Kong...

Chu was just four when his family moved to the United States

Chu: I came over speaking Cantonese -- that's all I spoke. And then slowly but surely -- the more TV you watch, and you start going to school, you start picking it up -- and going through school you really focused on English so because you really want to get into the swing of things and you want to assimilate.

Like many immigrants, the Chu family worked hard to become 'American.' Yet they also struggled to maintain their traditions.

Chu: For Chinese people we feel it's very important to retain your language cause that's your tie into the culture... My mother attempted to retain some of our Chinese culture and I would say that she mainly did it through food because she was a very good cook... and through the food there is just various traditions

dissolve to Chu wheeling and dealing in office

Chu: I could have gone to a smaller firm, made more money. But I decided to come here. Because one part of me said I need to be in a big firm, because there are very few of us in a big firm. If I take the easy way out, then where does that leave the people who are coming behind? You know, they don't see any Asians or minorities as partners in big law firms. There are very few of us.

Still, minorities are increasingly pursuing careers in business law and related fields such as banking and finance -- careers that take them all over the world, including Asia.

Chu: The most important advice I would have for a minority student is know who you are and be comfortable with who you are. Just go out and there and just get to know people. And with that, you develop your comfort level. If I go into a conference room full of a bunch of 50-year-old, white-haired executives, I am still comfortable. Being a minority means that you are not one of the great masses. You are unique.

The combination of unique identity with unique technology takes us to Ruth Monarrez.

NATSOT shuttle launch

Monarrez works as part of a team of software engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. It is here that America's exploration of outer space begins.

NATSOT from NASA tape on future & technology

Ruth: I write computer programs. There's 20 of us -- we are programming. A lot of little pieces that are gonna to fit into a big picture.

Ruth Monarrez and others on her team explore new ways to apply space-age technology.

Ruth: This is the instrument that I'm working on right here. This is a piece of the earth and what our instrument is doing it has nine cameras on this instrument and...we're going to be going around the earth taking pictures of the exact same spot so we can get the most measurements we can of the atmosphere, the surface, the ocean -- and get as much information as we can.

While writing computer programming may sound boring, Monarrez says the projects she works on are important -- and exciting.

Ruth: Okay, looking at the computer itself is not exciting -- actually it hurts your eyes. At the end of the day -- after a long day -- you really go home and say oh my God. But that may be the one little formula that I programmed in the computer for this project may be the one thing that helps humankind realize we are really damaging our own atmosphere using this particular kind of aerosol in spray cans or whatever...

The work Ruth Monarrez does at NASA makes it easy for her to work with other people around the world.

NATSOT classroom

Ruth: The sciences is kind of like an international language. If you can't understand each other, if you don't understand the language, write formulas on the board and you guys are speaking the same language.

Monarrez grew up in a Los Angeles barrio as one of seven children born to Mexican immigrants. With money tight, she applied for scholarships and worked to pay her way through college. Internships helped her to decide on a career.

Ruth: If a person's in college and they do an internship in a field they think they are destined for, doing an internship gives you a good idea of what is really involved... to find out if you really have what it takes to do it, or if you really have the patience to do a job that you thought was going to be more exciting than what it really is.

As a Mexican-American woman, majoring in mathematics and choosing a career in the sciences was highly unusual.

NATSOT working on a computer with colleague

Ruth vo: It's still not tradition for a young Latina female to go off to college. Families are desperate for immediate income and they really can't see a value added to sending a child to college for so many years and not having their support in bringing home income.

Despite the odds, Ruth Monarrez persevered.

Ruth: If I had listened to what society was saying, I probably wouldn't be here. I'd probably be home pregnant with three kids...and working as a clerk somewhere as opposed to not listening to them. Listening to what I wanted and not necessarily what people expected of me.

While Monarrez enjoys having an exciting job, what really matters is believing she's making a contribution.

Ruth: The project I'm working on, the earth observing system, I'm just a small little speck in this big universe and yet I feel like I'm making such a contribution. Although I'm a little piece of this project, overall it makes such a big contribution to humankind. To the future of our earth. And that -- just that little thing is so exciting.

The traditional route to making a contribution in the international arena has been public service. Minorities have long represented the American government as ambassadors and senior foreign service officers. But historically, minorities they have been underrepresented. Former Ambassador Robert Gallucci is the dean of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service.

Galluci: In the early part of my career, twenty years ago, the white male presence dominated, not only senior levels of decision making in foreign affairs, but middle levels and junior levels. Over that twenty years that's begun to change. Not necessarily in terms of presence, but in terms of the wish to change.

Schools that prepare students for careers as foreign policy professionals are attracting more applicants than ever.

Gallucci: The future of many careers is in the international portion of that career. Whether one is interested in commerce, or government, that the world is becoming interconnected in all kind of ways. More and more of what we do is connected to what other people do. And people who understand the way nations interact, will be able to be more effective, no matter what field of endeavor they choose.

Gallucci has a message for young people considering a career in the international arena.

Gallucci: There's much to be said to look to careers in international affairs. They're more open then they ever were before. There's much more out there. Much more of what people wish to do is going to be influenced by what people are doing in other countries. This is the time to give that career a good hard look. I think you'll find the people who are in those areas, whether they're in industry, whether they're in international banking, or in government or the United Nations, or non-governmental organizations, these people are gonna be more open then ever to seeing a diverse applicant pool, to seeing a diverse group of people populate, not only the lower and middle levels, but the upper levels of their organizations. I would encourage a good hard look at international affairs.

The historically black colleges also prepare students for international careers in both public and private agencies. Here at Clark Atlanta University, the new Institute for International Public Policy has a variety of programs, including language training, summer sessions, and a study year abroad. Spelman College senior Dana Banks is enrolled at the Institute.

Banks: I think that African Americans should be more involved in policy, in foreign policy because for years African-Americans have just been concerned with survival. And as a result I think we've been left out of the game in a lot of areas. We can't afford to be just concentrating on survival. We have to think about the future.

One of the rising stars in foreign policy is Susan Rice, Special Assistant to the President of the United States. Rice earned a Ph.D. from Oxford University in England, focusing on African affairs, then entered government in 1993.

NATSOT NewsHour w/ CHG & Rice: Well this is largely a humanitarian mission...

As the National Security Council's Senior Director for African Affairs, Rice often explains U.S. policy to the public

Rice (From NewsHour): So we are hopeful that it will be quite possible to get in quickly, do a humanitarian mission to, facilitate voluntary re-patriation, and get out.

Rice: The issues are incredibly complicated and incredibly important. They're life and death issues. Are people going to stop fighting and resolve their conflicts. Are they gonna have enough food to eat?

CHG: Did you ever think when you were growing up that you would be involved in something a important to the world as what your doing now?

Rice: No, I didn't and I didn't think that having gotten involved that you could actually make a difference. But here and there, in government, in business, in whatever way you may get involved, you can make a difference.

Andy Young: I think young people can and will change the world.

Andrew Young is a pioneer who opened the door for young professionals like Susan Rice and others who came after him. It all began in the 1960s when he marched with the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, so that your generation could be judged, in his words, not by the color of your skin, but by the content of your character.

Young: We weren't seeking to overthrow this government. We were seeking to make this government -- as Martin said -- live up to the true meaning of its creeds.

Young paved the way, first as a civil rights pioneer, and later as a congressman, Ambassador to the United Nations and then mayor of Atlanta. Recently, President Clinton appointed him chairman of a one hundred million dollar fund to help establish small and mid-size businesses in South Africa. His global contacts made him a key figure in bringing the world to his hometown of Atlanta -- the 1996 Summer Olympic Games.

NATSOT Billy Payne: It is now my pleasure to introduce the co-chair for the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic games. The honorable Andrew Young.

NATSOT Olympics

Not surprisingly, Young has a clear vision of the world and its promise for young people.

Young: One of the things that will be definite in the 21st century is a global economy... the kind of electronic communications that are possible are gonna shrink the world so rapidly that whether we go there or not, we're all going to be affected by every decision made almost anywhere in the world. And we are going to have an opportunity to influence decisions made anywhere in the world.

NATSOT IBM Commercial

Gerstner: Diversity adds strength. Ever since I've been growing up and working on problem solving, or thinking about how to make things better, it's always been clear to me that different points of view make a decision better. They always do.

Lou Gerstner is chairman and chief executive officer of IBM, which employs nearly a quarter million people in more than 160 countries around the world.

NATSOT IBM Commercial

Gerstner: I grew up in a relatively poor family. Two parents worked. One parent worked at night. One parent worked during the day. And I wanted to do well. I was interested, it wasn't the 21st century then, it was the mid 20th century. And I think the best advice I can give anyone, is really do well in school. I mean it made all the difference for me. I mean it really was important to my success. And it didn't matter what I studied, it wasn't a question of learning computer skills. It was doing the best I could in a tough academic environment. Cause that's what you need in the 21st century, you need to be prepared for change.

So now you have a taste of what's out there. To prepare for your career in the global marketplace, remember that a solid education is crucial... study what interests you... and give it your best.

Strong writing and speaking skills are important. Learn how to express your ideas clearly and how to communicate them to others.

Study another language -- pick one you like and become fluent.

Internships are a great way to get hands-on experience, and are useful in deciding if a certain career is right for you.

If foreign service sounds intriguing, graduate school programs can help you prepare.

Finally, don't forget the power of a role model... WHO you know is often as important as WHAT you know.

CHG VO: If your curiosity about careers in the global marketplace has been heightened -- and I certainly hope it has! Now it's time for you to do some work. Go out and get specific information about the opportunities that exist, and learn how to get started. Talk to your teachers, counselors, librarians about the printed materials we've prepared to go with this video. IT'S YOUR WORLD... GET CONNECTED.