MARIA RESSA: We are living in science fiction times. The democracy crisis, which begins with the corruption of our information ecosystem, tells us we are now in the last two minutes of democracy. If nothing significant is done, we will step off the cliff.

The way technology has crafted our information ecosystem it precludes the goodness of human nature. It tosses it out. What winds up happening is that what was supposed to connect us becomes a pipeline of toxic sludge. To incite the worst of humanity for profit has social harms. You can't begin to solve existential problems like climate change. You cannot have democracy.

This isn't the world as it should be. We need to reclaim that back. SIPA Is interesting to me. Colombia is interesting to me. It has no horse in the tech race. It has no vested interest but to protect the facts, to protect democracy. We need to come up with new ideas, new directions bring different people to the table to find that short-term and medium-term response to what tech has done.

This is what I hope to be able to do, to have the rigor of the academia with the breaking news speed of news. I'm pushing the SIPA graduates today because you cannot move at the pace that we've been moving at. Everything moved exponential, exponential. Move because if we don't, we will lose it.

I think I shouldn't say congratulations. I should say, welcome to the battlefield. You have to dream of a better future. It must get better. Despite the bleak battle you are entering, oh, man, we can't give up. And you are coming into the fray. So dream of a better future, then when you wake up tomorrow, go and make it happen.