This year’s topic of the 49th Naval Academy Foreign Affairs Conference was “Bridging the Gap: Combating Global Poverty.” I feel honored and grateful to have had the opportunity to participate. I truly enjoyed the quality of the political discussions at my roundtable. There was a high level of engagement from all students and community leaders present. My roundtable discussed poverty and inequality in the United States. The members of our group included Dan Zoellick, USNA; Alberto Ramos, USNA;David McKinney, Benedictine University; Tyler Matthews, US Military Academy; John Calhoun, University of Richmond; Sara Schieb, Waynesburg University; Cassidy Evans, University of South Carolina; Timothy Cook, Principia College; and Bo Ma, CUNY Graduate Center. There were additional NAFAC participants who visited during our discussions, including the President of the Chicago Hope Academy, Bob Muzikowski and Midshipman McCain. All of the conference speakers were prominent experts on the subject of world poverty. Two of the key note speakers were M.I. T’s Nicholas Negroponte, the chairman of One Laptop Per Child, and Paul Famer M.D., Ph.D., the founder of Partners in Health, Maude and Lillian Presley Professor of Social Medicine, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School. Not only was the conference an unforgettable academic experience, but I became much more knowledgeable about the U.S. Naval Academy and service with the U.S. Navy in general. The academy truly provided a comfortable, fun and welcoming environment for everyone. I got to go sailing and that was super exiting! I would recommend to all students offered this same opportunity to take advantage of it because it incredibly rewarding and priceless.