Welcome to the wide world of eSports, the show devoted to all things eSports. I'm your host, Katharine Norr. Today, my guests are professors at Stockton University, Noelle Naylor, Petter Dobre, and Jennifer Arendt. And our topic today is, Why Say Yes to eSports, the Guide for Parents and Educators. Welcome. So, Noelle, let's start with you. Tell us about Stockton University and your eSports program. Thank you so much for having us today, Katharine. And we're very excited to share what we're doing at Stockton University. This semester, for fall of 2023, we have officially launched a Bachelor of Science in eSports Management. It's a highly interdisciplinary degree, building on foundations across the entire school of business here at Stockton, including hospitality, tourism and event management, business studies, which include accounting, finance, management, marketing, as well as computer science. For students that enroll in our program, they have an opportunity to gain hands-on experience within our university's eSports community, our competitive team, as well as local professionals across a variety of different eSports organizations and our business partners in our Atlantic City market found in the United States and New Jersey. That also includes something called our eSports Innovation Center, which is something run by our local state, where students have an opportunity to not only apply those business fundamentals, but learn how to manage and produce eSports events and develop those skills that are so necessary as part of our experiential learning sequence to make sure they're successful for beyond their higher education experience. So I actually hadn't heard of a Bachelor of Science degree in eSports Management. Is this something that isn't offered by very many educational institutions? So that's a great question. So it's definitely emerging, particularly here in the United States. We're starting to see eSports and the trends in the program offerings grow. There are a few programs that are out there. We're very unique in the sense that ours first is a Bachelor of Science degree. Second, we are accredited by an association called AACSB, which means that we represent top six percent of business schools in the world, which means that we have academic rigor and our faculty meet certain standards and requirements in the field. On top of that, ours is based in event management. We're trying to leverage our internal talent in hospitality, tourism, and event management. So when it looks at programs that have this foundation, we're extremely unique. All right. So many people, throughout my whole show, I've always addressed this issue of parents having some resistance to eSports. And I've often heard guests talk about this. So, Jennifer, why should parents, educators, and administrators say yes to eSports? Well, thanks, Katherine, first of all, for having us on and allowing us to talk about our program and the great things that we're doing here at Stockton. But really, that's a question we get asked by parents all the time. We have career fairs. We have visits to Stockton and parents ask us, what is my student going to learn? Are they just going to come here and learn how to play games? Well, the answer is no. They're not going to come here and learn how to play games. Like Noelle said, our program is interdisciplinary. So they're going to get the accounting classes. They're going to get the management classes. They're going to get the event management classes. And we're going to teach them about the eSports industry. So what we're doing is we're building a program that really creates students that have an abundance of transferable skills that can be used in a variety of different areas. So when the parents say to us, why should my student? Why should my child major in eSports? I don't want them to just play games. They can do more than just that. They could go on and become a marketer for an eSports team. They could go on and work on sponsorships for leagues that do charity work and use games for charity work. They could go on and become maybe a coach, just like there's coaches in traditional sports. There's coaches in eSports. So there's lots of opportunities. And as the technology grows and changes, we're going to continue to see even more of those, whether it's posting, following matches on streaming services like Discord and Twitch. Maybe it's creating the graphics for all of those things. So there's really a lot of opportunities that are not directly tied to actually playing games. And of course, there's lawyers like myself who are involved in eSports. And Noelle and I were just at the eSports Trade Association Conference eSports Next. And we met people in all walks of life. Noelle, who did you meet that were working in eSports and what kind of work were they doing? There were so many different jobs within this eSports ecosystem at that event. There were actually event partners there who were setting up the space and having the digital platforms. There were technology partners that were there to make sure that we could live stream some of the podcast events. There were marketers there, higher education professionals. So there truly are so many avenues here. And there was a great group of individuals that practiced law in this field, which is emergent and ties into so many other areas that sometimes we almost don't think about or take for granted. Sure. Like healthcare professionals, accountants, all sorts of things, they just specialize in eSports and gaming. So, Petter, tell us about kind of an overview of the eSports industry and trends and projections. Yes, thank you, Catherine, first of all, for inviting all of us on the show. So the first question that someone would ask, and which you did ask, is why did we create this program? What is the basis behind it? And so I wanted to give you a few numbers regarding eSports industry. So the reason why we created this degree was to tap in into this new growing industry. So in terms of number of people who are watching games in the United States, and this comes from insider intelligence. So in 2019, we had 21.1 million viewers. This is just for the United States. And in 2022, that number grew to 29.6 million. And it's further projected to grow to 31.4 million by the end of 2020, 2023, and then 34.8 million by 2026. Globally, for the year 2022, the total number of viewers, eSports viewers, was 532 million. And that is also projected to grow by double digits by 2030. Now, in terms of revenue, the global industries estimated to be worth 1.88 billion in 2022. And that is expected to grow by a compounded annual growth data of about 25%, which means that by 2030, the global industry is expected to be worth around 12 billion dollars. Now, the United States alone, the revenue generated by the industry is expected to be, was projected to be about $420 million in 2022. And that is also projected to grow to more than $3 billion by 2030. And so, as you can see, this is an industry that is experiencing significant growth and that is not likely to change anytime soon. And in addition, this is an industry that is likely to be less affected due to economic downturn or recession. So COVID, for example, was a predefined that ended up being a boom for the industry, just because everybody was stuck at home. Some people loved their jobs, and so they were looking for something to do in the meantime, and so eSports ended up being one of those things. Now, in terms of jobs, the picture, it is hard to get a sense of the number of jobs available just because there's many jobs that are not related to the eSports industry that are relevant to the industry. And so I'm just going to quote a few numbers from a platform called Hit Market that is the biggest gaming jobs platform in the world. So in 2019, the platform had a total of 11,000 jobs posted on it. That grew to 39,330 by 2022. We're talking about a four-time increase in the span of a year. And in 2022, that number dropped to about 33,000. So we had a slight drop of about 19% from the biggest year. But nevertheless, over the long term, the expectation is that this industry will continue to grow significantly. And again, I just want to reiterate that the numbers that I'm quoting are a subset, and they're specifically referring to jobs posted typically by companies that make games, so think about Ubisoft, eSports, etc. And so this is just a subset of the true number. So this was the primary reason why we decided to go in and become one of the first universities and just institutions of higher education in the United States that have a Bachelor of Science degree in eSports management. So if I were a student right now, I would be concerned that AI might take that job that I am working so hard to become qualified to get. Do you think that eSports is an industry that might be a little better than other industries or a lot better than other industries in terms of essentially future-proofing those jobs? I'm not sure if this is open for all of us, but I'll go ahead and jump in. So I think that when it comes to AI, because of course we talk about that a lot, in eSports, I think what we're going to see is that, yes, there is going to be some growth in the technology sector, but as Noel described, our program is centered around creating students that have a variety of transferable skills and it's really based out of the events, the tournaments. So people put on tournaments, people attend tournaments, people participate in tournaments and post things and follow the streamers and everybody. So while, yes, there will be some artificial intelligence needs and things out there, I think and we're all confident in saying that what we're training and what we're preparing our students for is for a long career in eSports because there's still going to be that human need. Okay, terrific. That's a very good answer and would probably inspire me as a student to dive into that program. So Noel, what about skills development? Does your program or does eSports help students develop skills like soft skills or skills needed in industry? So Catherine, absolutely and I think this is where we see so much potential in this area because eSports is really in its nancy right now in our area in parts of the United States and it really does foster a wide range of those transferable skills, those soft skills. You might also hear folks report those as the critical 21st century skills and those include teamwork, communication, problem solving, critical thinking, the ability to strategically think. I mean think about how they engage in a game in a team setting and many of those skills are necessary to be successful in today's work environment and if I could add, there are significant connections even right now to eSports and being a gateway for STEM learning. So those that might not be familiar, STEM learning is the sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics and I argue that it also extends beyond that into the ideas of entrepreneurship as well as even events management. So with those, students have an opportunity to learn all of these both soft skills and these technical skills. So as we start to see the market mature, they're going to be prepared because they have the foundation and I think one thing that we haven't heard a lot but our program helps to prepare is that students in eSports, it's really a platform to teach students not only about some of the responsible gaming and I mean that in the sense of you know how do they engage in this environment, this digital environment where we also start to bring in physical space but also what does their digital citizenship role look like in eSports and that's a whole another idea about respectful communication and sportsmanship and fair play and again all of these are skills that are necessary to thrive in a variety of different markets and areas. You know so getting to this argument of why, why to say yes okay one thing that occurs to me is that eSports and your program actually is pretty broad in terms of what a student will learn and what they will gain and also even in gaming it's a pretty you know you're learning teamwork, you're learning so many different things. I would say that there's probably an argument that a Bachelor of Science degree in eSports might be more well-rounded or better than focusing on some narrow tech area. Thoughts on that, what do you think about that Petter? Part of the reason why we designed the degree in this way was to essentially future profit in the sense that even though it's the degree that is called eSports management and it is designed to cater to students who are interested to work in eSports industry, nevertheless we designed the degree in a way to guarantee that our students will be employable in a variety of different disciplines. So going from think about marketing, management, even software engineering, our program also includes two classes on programming, even HR, event management, hospitality. So there is a wide variety of job opportunities for graduates in this field, also communications, information systems. The reason why we did that, because from the very beginning we wanted to design this degree to guarantee that students will be able to transfer the skills to a various set of different disciplines. And so getting a degree in eSports management does not mean that not being able to get a job in the eSports industry means that you are unemployable. So that's a very important point that we always want to stress and we also want to stress for your viewers. So that was how we designed our degree and why we did it that way. So Jennifer, do you think that if you're an employer and your business doesn't have an eSports focus, would you completely disqualify someone who has a bachelor of science degree in eSports management?  But hopefully, you know, looking at what that student has also done, I mean, I know I come from a business background primarily in the casino hotel industry. And I would look at resumes of students that have a variety of degrees. But it's really what what is their experience, because they have a degree in a certain field, then hopefully they're getting some experience that is related to that field. So, you know, someone who just because it says I have a bachelor's of science in eSports, but they're applying for maybe a marketing position in somehow that is related to eSports, maybe it's a company that works in eSports or something, then if they have some experience with it, then I know that they still have that those credentials behind them. And once I would talk to them and see, hey, you know, I know that this school comes from the School of Business and they're learning all of these other things that they have really a strong background. So I think that having the degree is a piece. But then part of our program also does include a lot of experiential learning. We have a professional work experience that's required as well as an internship requirement. So when our students leave, they not only have that degree, but they already have some work experience in some field related to eSports. So Noelle, who is it harder to convince parents, administrators, educators, or students to jump on this bandwagon? That is a tough question, Catherine. And I would say I'm going to pick two of my hardest ones. The first are faculty. And I want to say that because when it comes to establishing a program, you have to establish that it's a valid field of academic study. And how do we do that as educators? Well, we look at what's out there as far as scholarship. So those are peer reviewed articles that we see throughout the higher education scope. And what we find in eSports is it's fragmented. And it's fragmented because as it's emerging, and as we're starting to build it up, we're starting to see that there's some publication and focus on it as an area of academic study in some sports management journals, in some hospitality journals, in marketing journals, in management journals. So we have to bring it all together. And it's unique in the sense that how it's fragmented amongst the academic journals, that's how the ecosystem really has shaped itself, which for me is so exciting because there's so much potential in how everything is interrelated and interdisciplinary. It really leaves a lot of synergies with administration. And I think this is kind of parents is we have to establish the narrative. And that narrative is it's not just about playing video games. That's a very small amount of what it is. It's about setting up spaces and thinking about the technology requirements and how to establish a team and drive that team to a higher level of performance. And if we can change that narrative, which we're working very hard to do with participating at a state and local level is to really generate awareness. So it's about that awareness building, which is also the same for the academic side. And that's why we're doing things like having opportunities to participate on your show here today to start helping individuals understand just how dynamic and exciting this new emerging area is. All right. So, Petter, what are you teaching in this area? So at the moment, I am not teaching a course related to eSports. I was however part of the team together with Jennifer and Noel who developed this program at Stockton. Okay. And so Jennifer, are you teaching a course related to eSports? I am actually teaching two courses this semester. I'm teaching our introduction to eSports management, which is our base level class for really anybody who's interested in eSports. And I will say that in that class, I have people who, students who are eSports majors, they have a communications major, they are a business major. They are all different kinds of majors in that class. So like Noel was saying, it really draws in a wide variety of people. The other class I teach is a really exciting class called eSports Industry and Events. And I teach that class in partnership with our eSports club here on campus. And we participate in the events that we do either with our students. We have online events. So they really get to see all of the production that goes into events, the camera work, the streaming, the graphics, the postings on Discord, all that kind of stuff. They actually get to see it live and participate in that. So that's a really exciting class that we have. All right. How about you, Noel? So I actually have one class, which I'm sure as you hear, you're going to say, okay, how's that connect? So one is facilities management. So one of the biggest things about eSports, it's really the blending of this digital space with the physical world. So students are learning all about the current trends, the facilities requirements, what it means to manage some of these facilities, and even the impact from a tourism perspective. Another class that I'm currently developing right now is our eSports marketing class. So how do we look at traditional marketing structures and approaches, and then start to add the added layers of what we're finding inside the eSports space, such as sponsorship and the content creators, and that more unique, I'm going to say, entrepreneurship that exists within this space? You know, the facilities management, that's a pretty broad and important course. It would include risk management, and it would include a lot of skills and content that would be important to, that would be transferable to a lot of work in different industries. And I see, you know, when you talk about the intro of eSports class, Jennifer, it reminds me of my undergrad and some really interesting courses that I took at the University of Washington. Those courses are very memorable, even if that's not your major. If you just take an intro to eSports class, 20 years later you'll still be talking about I took an intro to eSports class when I was in undergrad. So I think that that's terrific. So are any of you gamers? So I get to raise my hand for this one. I'm not going to date myself too much, but I will tell you that in high school I actually started, I was in a first shooter competition. So any fellow gamers out there, if you remember the 007 James Bond, I actually won the high school championship in my school district area. So that's my claim to fame. You know, I think there should still be, I think the 007 should still be a really big game.  I am not a gamer currently. I'm learning a lot more from my students. Sometimes I feel like that I'm actually teaching them when it comes to all of these games.  So I'm Peter. Right now my my gaming experience is limited, I guess, to phone games just because I don't really have much time. But when I was growing up, I was, I suppose you can say a gamer, I was playing Starcraft and Counter Strike with pretty big in the early 2000s. And also, which is probably something that most people don't know, but also most people are desperate. That thing exists. Sure, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, as people are working, it's really hard to have time, you know, but it's fun to play some games on your phone, at least while you're waiting in line. So Noelle, how can people get in touch with you and find out more about your program? So I would say the easiest way is if you even just type into any search engine and type in Stockton University, New Jersey, we will come up on our webpage. I'm listed there. My contact information is listed along with my email.  So we're always looking for new partners, guest speakers, internship opportunities for our students. And we're even looking for to support those that might want to enter into this space, you know, because together we can truly grow it and make it even more dynamic. All right, well, thank you so much, Noelle, Jennifer and Petter. I really appreciate you coming on today. Thank you so much for having us, Catherine. All right. So and thank you to our viewers for joining us today. Join us again in two weeks. My guest will be Amila Patheruna to talk about eSports and Sri Lanka. See you then.


Now, the House of Representatives has scrapped the budgetary allocation of the presidential yacht, moving the proposed sum to the student loan, thereby increasing the location for the loan to 10 billion as against the 5 billion. The chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Abuba Kabeche, made this known while addressing newsmen in Abuja. He said the need became necessary following the low budgetary allocation for the proposed student's loan initiative. The committee also increased budgetary allocation for the Minister of Defense from 476 billion naira to 546 billion naira. Now the sum of 100 billion naira was retained for FCT, as requested by the Minister Nyesum Weke. To this end, the House passed the sum of 2.177 trillion naira supplementary budget. FCT is very important because we want to make sure FCT can compete with any city in the world. This is why we have decided to give them 100 billion naira. While Office of the National Security, we know how important that office is. Initially, the initial budget was 27 billion, but currently we have increased the budget to 50 billion naira. While the State House, the initial budget was 28 billion, and we still maintain that figure as 28 billion naira as well. We have increased the student loan. If you can recall, student loan was 5 billion naira in the budget, but now we have increased the budget.


If, like many people, the idea of an end-of-course exam fills you with dread, you have nothing to fear with our online TEFL certification courses. All our online courses include ongoing assessments as you work through the materials, removing the need for a final exam at the end. Each course is divided into separate units with a multiple choice assessment to conclude each section. Once complete, you then move on to the following course unit. There is no need to hit a required pass rate on each individual assessment either, but rather an average requirement of 75% across all the course unit assessments. Provided you reach this realistic assessment level, you will graduate from the course and receive your TEFL course certificate. Thanks to this user-friendly approach to assessment and the flexible nature of our online TEFL courses, trainees should be able to work through their studies with minimal levels of stress. Instead of worrying about an end-of-course exam, you should find you are able to comfortably work through the course and spend a bit more time planning your overseas adventure.


Fel gŵr wneud, James Llan, I'm Natasha Veninsar and I run the Executive Briefing Program at Edgeserv, so I'm going to tell you today, give you a little bit of a known view of what Edgeserv does and tell you a bit about the briefing program. I'm going to talk to you about the Skills to Digital Change research that we did and talk to you about what that means in terms of cultural change, why collaboration is so important and the key is the digital leadership. Felly, first of all Edgeserv our aim as a Not-of-A-Profit As a not-of-a-profit, we exist to help public good organisations get the most out-of-it. Success for us is enabling our customers to achieve their digital independence. And who are our customers? We work with local authorities. We work with wider public sector organisations, charities and universities. So the common theme is all our customers are public good organisations. And as a not-of-a-profit, it gives us a great opportunity. So how we can help you? We can help you understand your problems. We can help you see how clouds can help solve some of those problems and work with the technical detail of that. To give you a greater independence managing your IT estate going forward. But I'm not really here to talk about our services. I'm here to talk about the executive briefing programme. So the great thing about being a not-of-a-profit is that we're able to reinvest back in the markets we serve. So our executive briefing programme is all about putting digital education at the heart of the digital revolution. We provide research, peer learning and independent opinion. We're steered by a group from across the local government, education and health. There might be a few familiar faces there. They help us decide on the priorities of what we cover and guide us in our research. So why skills for digital change? Well, the steering group really wanted to cover this because we realised that we've got to have a problem when it comes to people and technology. So often programmes start with the technology. But we've got these things of technology, people and process and they all need to work together. And actually people, they should be the most important part of that. So we decided to look at what a digital skills gap is there, how can we really be addressing that and how much are our people-people, the HR and organisational design people involved in digital strategy? So the research, we did a couple of round table discussions. We brought together HR and IT people, which seemed to be an amazing thing to do. A lot of people at the end of those discussions said, why do we not do this? Why do we not put HR and IT people in rooms together? Because it was unusual. We did in-depth interviews with individuals who were looking at digital transformation in their own organisations. And we worked with the PPMA, the Public Sector of People Managers Association. They supported us throughout the research. We did a survey for their members. The report itself is available on our status on our website. So our starting point, first of all we had to say, well, what is digital is a confusing term. Digital is used by different people in different ways and we needed to understand what it was we were talking about. Because we wanted to talk about digital with a big D. So Joss Crease, our principal analyst, his definition of it, digital is a complete change of roles, structures, governance services, processes, risk models, policies, styles and cultures as a result of technology. It's important that we're looking at a big organisational change. It's not just about technology. It's about rethinking how you do things as a total organisation. And I just got one more definition for you there. This is Dyllis Wynn. She's an HR professional and part of our steering group. Digital is about applying different styles of thinking and working. The technology supports a different way of working, but it's not about the technology itself. I think that's really important and that was the crux of what we were trying to get to. So a few headline survey findings. Over 40% of councils like any specific plan to address internal digital skills gap. Over 25% of HR professionals report they have no role in leading or even influencing digital planning in their council. And over 60% do not promote digital skills and recruitment and employment performance measures. We were quite alarmed by those statistics. However, through the more in-depth research, we did find some real pockets of innovation and great practice to share. So what are we talking about? What are we talking about digital skills? Are we talking about applications, breadsheets, software development, channel shift? Those sorts of things did come up, but really know that wasn't the crux of it. What we're really talking about is skills for change. So can we adapt new ways of working? You know, with a lot of councils going to hot desking, to remote working, agile working. That's a very different style of management and a different style of working. Can we be more customer focused, more outcome focused? Can we have good change in project management skills? Is there a commercial awareness because although we're not businesses, we need to work in quite a business-like way if we're going to survive in the future with all of the cuts. Are we able to prioritise our resources? Do we have strong leadership? Are we enabling an environment that really allows our employees to see the art of the possible that is there with technology? And are we encouraging lifelong learning? What it came down to is that most people said that with the right attitude you can learn most stuff. But it's, and most technology, you know, yes, some is more or less intuitive. And I'm sure you'll find that the applications in the government are perhaps a little less intuitive than perhaps buying something from Amazon. But still, there is a sense that people can learn. What's the differences though? What it comes down to is culture because we have a culture problem. So it is widely understood now that digital is a good thing. We want to innovate. But there's a real reluctancy to actually make the changes for that to happen because you do need to work in a different way. You need to have some different values. So, for example, one head of ITT told me that his boss kept talking about agile but was not prepared to accept any mistakes and didn't want anything out in the real one until it was perfect, which, you know, anyone understands agile knows that that is totally not what it's all about. You need to be able to fail fast. You need to be able to try things. You need to be able to get things out into the public domain so that people could actually start using a service and help you refine it. And that's really hard for somebody in that sort of position to be fighting against that sort of mentality. So, you know, how do we create the right environment for change? So, Wush City Council, sorry, County Council, are doing some great work and Neil Crump, one of our contributors, he said, you know, you need to create the right environment for digital and the art of the possible to enable people to find solutions for themselves. And he's got some great tips that I want to share with you for trading that cultural shift. So you need to work in collaboration with the wider workforce in order to design solutions. Those people doing the job, they're the ones that are going to understand about the service they're trying to deliver. You don't tell people, you coach people so they can find out for themselves. Embrace agile thinking, make projects small and be prepared to make mistakes. But simplify the language. Words like agile and design thinking can scare people away. And work out loud, break down silos with transparency so that everyone is, they know what everyone's doing. I'm working in a digital way. I'm sharing what I'm doing in a digital way. Tools like Yammer can really help with that. I want to centre in on this idea of collaboration and share a case study with you. I'm sure you've heard about the work that we can Council have done. They would digital council in the year 2016 for two different organisations. And everything for them all is about collaboration. The deal is a partnership with the public and it's a partnership with the workforce. And talking to them, they're really infused group of people. And there's a real sense of belonging and a real sense of ownership with what they do. They've gone through a real cultural journey and that's been the real important underpinning. And HR have been really very much at the centre of that. So Sonya Halliwell was the assistant director of HR and OD there. Digital is a culture shift about transforming the way we work across whole service delivery. It's a key enable around everything we're trying to achieve and do. It's not just a policy or a strategy that stands alone. It's something that underpins everything they're doing. But what does this mean for all of us? How do we become digital leaders? Well, some of the things I think I would like to share that came from the research involve HR and OD colleagues from the start. Get the people people in the room when you're trying to make changes. Put users at the centre both internal and external. Accept the democratisation of IT and support departments by giving them the freedom to innovate. Shadow IT is a good thing. It can be a good thing. Not everything needs to be controlled. People need to be able to take on technology and make it solve their problems. Technology is becoming something that every manager needs to be versed in just as every manager had to become versed in recruitment or accounting. Now technology has to become a part of every service. Seek out digital champions and use them. I came across a case study of a council who were rolling out paperless and they ended up having to get a consultant to sit with every single department because they tried to let them do it themselves. It didn't happen. And then I spoke to a few other people and they went, well, weren't these digital champions?  Somebody is going to be interested in this tech and they can help to drive that vision forward. Don't assume things are obvious to users. Take away the fear for coaching and support. I think this is particularly relevant with senior management. There is, perhaps it's a generational thing, but there are people that they don't want to admit, they don't know. And so it's better just to say, well, let's not bother them. Let's not do it. And support new ways of learning. Don't just email a man and you'll expect people to get on with themselves. In the report, there's a sort of a double page spread of different training ideas and learning ideas that have come through the research. It is evolving. And then there's a thought I want to leave you with which is from Emma Marinas who's a director and model in the Southwch who was also contributing to the report. The whole world is changing and we need to change too. Because if we don't, it will continue to road our relevance and ability to deliver our services in the way that all citizens are adapting and changing to how they now run their lives. Part of my role and my team's role is supporting leaders and heads of service start looking at things differently. And I think as ICT leaders, that's what we need to be doing. It's about supporting others to really understand the art of the possible and how technology can help. So, like I say, we do have a stand here today. We do have some copies of the report. It's also available for our website. And we're going to be running a workshop also today. One of the areas that we looked at in the report was how members, what skills they have and what skills they need. And we're going to start digging into that bit further when talking about how members can be digital change champions. We're bringing in two councillors here today. Lawrence Wood from Wiccan District Council and Fiona Cooley from Southwch to talk about how, as the ICT community, how can we kind of help members to become digital champions and what sort of role they can play. So I hope you can join us for that at 12.15. Thank you very much.


Thanks Bob water performance by the net said man They needed this one coming off that game on Wednesday night They did after an emotional win against Boston and you know a comeback victory an unexpected one against one of the best teams in the NBA 51-point performance by Kara Silver. There was a letdown the next game And you know what that's what the back-to-backs can become tough didn't shoot the ball well But Kenny Atkinson made a change in the starting lineup. He Brought you know Torian Prince off the bench and then had a shoot around So we really switched it up gave his team a real burst of energy and they came out from start to finish And they played great basketball 75 points in the first half and that was the thing get on them early and never let up Yes, 75 points That's the most points that Greg Popovich has ever given up in the first half and that says he's gone against Shaq and Kobe He's gone against all of the great team the Golden State Warriors and for the Nets to come out and do something That's never been done in 23 seasons for Greg Popovich And they continued it in the second half. It was a beautiful performance really a team effort so many guys contributed But really Karris Leverett with that triple-double was amazing Karris Leverett's the guy whose name always comes up when people talk about How were the Nets able to get? Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant to commit this year they talked about the young core and what Karris Leverett has meant this week I mean not that we didn't already know of Leverts potential But this week he's done historic things and really just Putting an exclamation point on what we think about Karris Leverett and his future with this team Yeah, and if it hasn't been wasn't for a couple of injuries the last couple of years Which is really kind of slowed him down a little bit his development as a player has been tremendous last year We talked about it He was probably the Nets best player at the time when he went out He was a guy that could have made the all-star game Obviously D'Angelo Russell took the reins and just kept playing well and got the all-star nod But we know what Karris Leverett can do and you know to have him as one of your main guys and Spencer Demwit He did a great job for the Majority of the season to make sure that they could get to this point But Karris Leverett is special. He's one of those guys if he can stay on the court and stay healthy You know the the sky's the limit This win just like the Boston win was sort of tarnished by the way they played against Memphis This won't mean as much if they don't come out against Chicago on Sunday before going on a four-game West Coast swing They need a good performance on Sunday again against the Bulls they do and the Memphis performance was tough because it was just a lack of energy and effort Which can be expected on a on a back-to-back sometimes But now you got to go get this Chicago win knowing that you have a bunch of monsters waiting for you on the west on the West Coast So this was a great win tonight Enjoy this one tonight and then start preparing for Chicago when you wake up in the morning great performance great working with you Man Can we get you here more? Honestly, I can the other guys Ruko and I know they're all right They're difficult to do much easier on the eyes. We'll send it back to


Hello, my name is Pavel, I'm Pavel Snagovsky, I'm software engineer from Quantum Corporation, and I'm here to talk about using persistent storage in the public cloud. So first we will discuss what the current options are and how they have been used by Kubernetes. And then I will provide an example of using a storage orchestrator and local storage of the instances in the public cloud to make your storage more cloud native. Let's put it this way. Then we will look at some examples and questions and answers and conclusions. So we all laugh and know persistent disks provided by our cloud providers. So they're extremely durable, we use it all the time, it's practically became default way of obtaining persistent storage in public cloud.  The elastic at this point on both on Google and AWS so you can dynamically scale them, they provide encryption, they provide dynamic provisioning, all the good stuff. So however, there's few things that are actually current offerings that are not quite working for cloud native applications. And those things are the provisioning time of persistent disk or EBS is significant, persistent disks take a while to provision. So they're not quite instance and when you fail over it actually does matter. So your fail over times will be significant. Those offerings are expensive so we all perhaps opening our eyes seeing the EBS charges when we use something more than generic storage. And besides they have locality limitations so volumes could be their zone specific, those volumes could be only, they live only in specific zone in order to move it you have to do through the snapshot and recreate the volume and they're of course proprietary. So however, there's another option there, there's a local storage that I feel is being often overlooked and people just go with the default using the persistent disk. So what good about local storage? So this is really the instance storage that the disks connected directly to the node that is hosting your VMs. It provides you very low latency, very, very high performance of your. It's very, very inexpensive so disk is cheap and comparatively speaking if you're talking about the services for persistent storage that are provided, local storage is inexpensive. It has both options for transactional and streaming I.O. So you would be able to get the spinning disks, you would be able to get SSDs or Vaskazi or NVMe and it provides really very consistent performance. So the problem with the local storage for the most part is this lack of dynamic provisioning which is not quite true for Google but very true for Amazon and the data durability. So that storage is usually considered to be a thermal. So if we would be able to... So this claim that I'm making that instance store is faster than EBS, it could be proved with this graph. So what I did, I took an instance in AWS and I touched two different EBS volumes, one with provisioned I.O. and another one just GPT2 and I used the NVMe disks. And what we're looking at, we're looking at I.O. completion latency in microseconds here for 16K blocks and I tested reads and writes for both sequential and random. If you look at the last four right here, so these are all for the local disks. So your operations are usually complete within 50 microseconds as opposed to if you look in any of the network attached storage, the EBS. So your I.O. completion practically 10 times of that. So local storage really does provide very, very high performance at the low cost. The only problem is the durability and life cycle management. If we would be able to solve those problems, we will get very performant, very awesome storage at very low cost. So yes. I'm working for Rook project, not working, I'm participating to development of Rook project. It's an open source project and it's storage orchestrators that is fully integrated into Kubernetes and that utilize all the Kubernetes functionality to deliver cloud native storage experience. So it basically leverages CRDs, it generates the storage class, it's backed by SAF. It provides fully automated life cycle management for your storage. So it has all the self-healing and monitoring functionality. It gives you a block file and object store. What I, let me demonstrate, let me do a quick demo. So on the, can we see it? We cannot see Michelle. Can we see Michelle? Okay. So what I will try, should I make it bigger? Is it better? Okay. So I have a cluster running in Google cloud. So I'm using the Kubernetes service in Google. So this cluster has three workers and I just created it 10 minutes ago right before this presentation. So it's a bare cluster, there's nothing on it. And I would like to demonstrate how easy it is to install Rook and start creating PVCs that could be consumed by your nodes. So Rook adds right now, Rook would be able to, out of multiple devices, it would be able to create a storage pool and provide replication. So it will solve the problems that we are trying to solve for the local storage. It will use a local disk, providing this amazing performance. And at the same time, it will provide the durability by replicating your data across multiple nodes. So it solves the problems that really stay in the way of utilizing local storage at low cost and high performance. So the first thing that needs to do, Rook using operator pattern of management. So it's just a set of external controllers that are watching for events that are meaningful to Rook and take action on it. First thing we need to do, we need to deploy the operator. So operator itself, so let's create operator. So operator itself will put all the containers into Rook system namespace. And what we will see here is, so what we will see here is we will see operator itself that is running and we will see, we also have a demo set for Rook agent. So Rook using the flex volume plugin and we have an agent on each node that is running and really managing the RBD commands and set commands. So at this point we have operator and what you also would need to install, you would need to define your cluster and install the cluster. So let me install the cluster and then I will show you the CRD for the cluster and discuss a couple of options. So Rook cluster has a CRD and you would be able to define what devices you would like to use for your Rook storage pools. So you would be able to put, for example, red jacks or some sort of criteria by which you would like to select the devices and you also have a different set of criteria you can insert to specify which nodes you would like to be part of the cluster. And once you define the cluster, Rook operator will be looking for any changes for it and will automatically take action. So providing you this fully automated life cycle management. In my example here, I'm not doing anything fancy at all. So I'm just using, so you would be able to use Rodevices for your Rook storage or you would be able to use also a file system. Just a path on the file system is also an option to use. In this case, I'm using just a path on the file system. So at this point, we have the cluster defined that will really set which devices we will use for our storage pool. Next, we would need to create the pool itself and define the storage class for Rook. So the storage class will provide us block devices. Right, so once your storage class is defined, it gives you the same dynamic volume provision in like other well-known storage classes. So it gives you the same functionality and you can dynamically provision volumes by creating the PVCs. And let me create very quickly the PVC. So at this point, we have fully running Rook cluster so that it took a couple of minutes. And I was talking more than I was actually doing, so it took literally two commands. So at this point, I will create a PVC and we will just see how it's bound and we will return to the presentation. So what is happening here, let me actually show the PVC itself. So PVC is very, very simple. So we're using the Rook block storage class that we just created a second ago with the defined devices to use for the pool. And we define the storage size and a few other options for our PVC itself. So at this point, this PVC is bound and it could be consumed by any part. Let's speak about performance. So once we define that local storage is very, very high performance, instant store in terms of AWS, it's very, very high performance. What it really means when you put Rook on top of this local instant stores across multiple instances. You're getting significant increase in performance in this specific scenario. What I did, I took medium-sized AWS instances. All of them would have some local disk so that local disk was used to put Rook on top. And I'm comparing and I was created a test part and this part would have within it one Rook volume and one EBS volume. In this case, it's GP2. And I run the few tests against these volumes, just directly on these volumes. And this is the IOPS I'm getting with the 60k block sizes. You can notice that local storage really, really, really give you very nice read performance. Write performance, however, because you need to replicate. Write performance is on par about the same, like with the persistent disk or with the EBS. Because you have to replicate over the network and you're basically getting similar problems you get with the EBS. You're not talking to your devices over the controller. You're talking to your devices over the network. This is a very different hardware in Google I used. So the numbers are different. However, the performance also significantly, significantly higher using the local disk. What also is important to note here? So when you use EBS a typical pattern to use persistent volumes would be to create one EBS volume or persistent disk per part. And I would like to argue that this is not a good practice if you expect your application to be resilient. For example, it takes a few minutes for the part that using the EBS volume or persistent disk. It takes a few minutes for it to fail over. Because what needs to happen, you need to do device attach, detach, mount, not mount. You have to make API calls for provisioning it. The devices themselves would have dependencies on other resources and so forth. So there's a lot of penalties you are getting by using EBS per part. By using something like Rook, you don't get any of these penalties. So your failover for a part that uses a persistent volume based off Rook happens practically instantly. There's no penalties whatsoever.  And I feel it's significant. So in other comparison that we can make between the EBS or storage, when I speak EBS or say persistent disk, practically everything I'm saying applies to both to Google and Amazon. So let's talk about the zone. Because each volume is tied to a zone it's in, and we all would like to have resilient Kubernetes clusters that we want to deploy into multiple zones, it gives us a problem if you're using persistent disk. So when, for example, one zone goes away, so your zone has failed, those parts that had volumes within that zone cannot be rescheduled to a new zone because these volumes are not there. So you can manually, of course, move it, but it will be a significant amount of effort. You can code for it to automate it to some degree, but it's a significant amount of effort. So the problem of running a multi-zone cluster when by losing a zone, you cannot fail your parts if they use persistent disk. I think it's a significant problem. Significant problem for using, again, the scenarios that being recommended of using one volume pop-up. Compatibility. So Rook is wonderful note that it takes away the entire management for safe from you, and everything just magically works, but it's also great as the abstraction layer for your persistent storage within Kubernetes. So if you're using Rook and your PVs, they're really interacting with the Rook storage class, and that creates everything that consumes this, so all your user code wouldn't have to change.  So it's very, very portable. You're really abstracting your storage by one interface with which everything else talks to. So it gives you the portable code, it creates no vendor lock-in. You don't need to know anything about proprietary storage there. It supports multi-environments. You can run your testing anywhere, so it will work the same way on your laptop or in the public cloud, or in the private cloud, or in the bare metal. And it's also avoids the provider-specific functionality. Cost. So this talk is titled that we will be talking about economics. Cost is important here. So I took very small, simple here in Google Cloud, and this is the Google Cloud Cost Calculator. And out of this calculator, what we see, I'm provisioning an instance with the 16 virtual CPUs, and it already has two local disks on it. And yet, the size of this disk is it's two disks of 375 gigabit each. And yet, the cost of this instance with the local disk is still smaller than provisioning a persistent disk. So please note, so this persistent disk is for 300 gigabytes. It costs $16 per day. And the instance with two local disks cost less. Isn't it crazy? That's how cheap the local storage is. The similar situation, even though the local storage is treated differently in Google and Amazon, so like, for example, in Google, you can dynamically provision local storage to some degree. Amazon, it's a similar picture. So here is an example of two different instances that have all the same compute resources. The only difference between these two instance types is availability of the local disk. So one of them doesn't have any local disk attached, and another one has eight NVME SSDs. So and the cost difference here is just 40 cents. So if we speak about percentage-wise, so the cost difference between these two instances would be about 20%. Different instances would have different cost difference, and there's a lot of things to choose from. So this is just one example here. So in short, the local disk is inexpensive, very, very, very performant, and it costs significantly cheaper per gigabyte than you would use the block service from your cloud provider. Another good benefit, it's always more efficient to utilize your storage when you are slicing a bigger pool of storage. It would give you way more flexibility to utilize your storage better, and it also will reduce your cost. Once you have more efficient way to utilize your storage, it saves your money. So Rook also could allow you to do a lot of different things. You don't have to use local storage to backup Rook. So you, of course, can use EBS or persistent disk as well. So it's just a block device, and Rook will take any block device or even path on your file system. So what you could do, you could take, for example, large GP2 EBS and make it to the maximum size to get the maximum amount of IOPS, and then put Rook on top of it and slice it up anyway you want. And that could provide you a cost saving. You could use Rook, as I mentioned, provides the object store. And you could use object store that is internal to your Kubernetes cluster if it feeds your tasks. So you could theoretically replace S3 and remove it from your bill and use internal to Kubernetes object store. It gives you quite a bit of more flexibility, because this is the object store that you manage. So you're managing your domains, custom domains, and everything else happens absolutely independent from AWS. So if for S3, you would have to move your domains in order to use custom domain. You have to move it throughout 53, and they have to use their certificates and everything else. Here you have all the flexibility in the world. Use any domain you like. And any user management you like. So it makes it portable as well. So you would be able to run and use this object store in your testing environments elsewhere or in your cloud provider.  And of course, you can create multiple clusters for different workloads. You can create one cluster that is backed by very fast drives, local storage. And it will serve, for example, your databases. And then you need to store logs somewhere. So you can form another cluster. You can form another cluster with spinning disks underneath it. And you would use a different cluster for different type of your cloud. And if you want to take it even farther and save even more money, now, since you have reliable, portable, persistent storage, you are able to deploy some services that you currently pay Amazon for. You can deploy it within the cluster now and reliably make them portable and reduce your bill. So if you have a service that, for example, self-healing and self-replicating and everything else, somebody wrote a Helm chart for it. You just deploy this and use it instead of the service. It will save you money. It will make your applications more portable. To conclude, Ruku's awesome. And it's not only awesome, but it also would provide you significantly better flexibility and can reduce your overall cost of running your Kubernetes clusters with persistent data when you need applications to persist data. You will find that it gives you more flexibility at lower cost. And we went over the compatibility, how Ruk makes your code portable. We talked about performance. There's a very, very clear performance gain when you're using the local disk. And if you are overcoming the downsides of local disk, namely it being ephemeral and not dynamically provisioned, so by using Ruk on top of it, you're getting both. You're getting the durability, and you're getting the dynamic provisioning. Another thing that I didn't mention, but we were talking about the multi-zones again. So if you're using something like persistent disk, you will not be able to fail over your parts if availability zone died where that persistent disk was. So it will affect also the provisioning and failover time. So I would recommend against of using persistent disk per part, meaning that don't use CBS volume per part. So I feel that your failover times will be in minutes. So you're really creating a set up in which when you need to fail over fast, you can't. I want to fail, and I want to fail fast, very, very fast. And with EBS, it will be literally minutes. And of course, cost. That concludes my talk, and I'm ready for questions. Excellent question. So let me repeat it so we could see it and correct me if I'm paraphrasing it poorly. So the question is, Ruk provides all this wonderful automated management of your life cycle for yourself. But what happens if it cannot handle something or you want something that really unique and you want to execute a self-command? Well, let's do it. So I have a command here, for example. And you have, in Ruk containers, we're exposing, so let me speak first. In Ruk, every Ruk container deployed by Ruk, here's a self binary that you can talk to if you provide the right configuration to it. And that's exactly what I was trying to demonstrate. And oh, OK. So I changed the name space here. So let me add the name space, and I will show you how it actually works, which is an excellent question. So this is name space. I think it's Ruk. Yes, I need to go here and add the name space here. OK, so sorry, but this is not intended to be, but I assure you it actually is the way it works.  No Ruk by itself does not do it. However, you can use notafinity or anything else and manage it yourself. So you can do it. Or if you feel it should be something Ruk should be doing, Ruk is an open source project. Please create an issue. Let's discuss and let's get it in. So it's actually differs for provider. Google and Amazon treat local disk very, very differently. So in Google, what they offer, they offer you two different interfaces. You can either use SCSI, or you can use NVME. And you can choose between the two, actually. However, the local disk, the way they offer it is they all, you can attach it to any instance. So you don't have to pick specific instance like in AWS. You can attach it to any instance, but the sizes of the disk there are the same. It's 375 gigabyte, and the maximum is 3 terabytes. So you can attach to each node this much disk. With Amazon, it's a completely different scenario. They really expose to you what they have as a hardware. So they have this node in the data center. And that node has a storage controller, and has disk attached. And they literally giving you this disk throw. And they tell you what type of disk it is, and they vary based on the instance. So that example that I had, so that specific instance had eight NVME disks, I think close to two terabytes each, something like this. So with a total storage, usable storage, somewhere like 15 terabytes. So in different instances would give you different type of disk, even different interface, or different disk sizes. So with Amazon, it's all different. Any other questions? Actually, it's not quite true. So it depends on the amount of replicas you have. So each disk would have, each storage device under SEF, it's really about SEF. Depending on, it would have to write to multiple OSDs, and those writes would be based on the amount of replicas you desire. So all it needs to do is just match your replicas that you specified. So if you have replicas three, you're right. You would try to total three OSDs, as I said. Yes, it does. So let me give you a slightly different example here. For example, RUK operator watches for events. If events match in the criteria it has, it also, like for example, I made in a new node, it matches those criteria, it has the same criteria for the node, criteria for the devices, it will automatically edit them. It removes, it will start automatically rebalancing it. If it sees the same blocks elsewhere, it will start rebalancing it back. There's a lot of self-healing functionality embedded in those controllers, a set of controllers that really, RUK operator.  Thank you very much, but please go to RUK.io. That's where there's more information about RUK, and it's on GitHub, it's open source. Participate, use it, and have fun.


This research paper examines the use of grafting techniques to produce more tetraploid and triploid watermelon plants for breeding and seed production. The authors found that the use of a one-note branch from a diploid watermelon as a sign produced the best results, resulting in higher survival rates and higher levels of hormones, carbohydrates, and antioxidant activity. Additionally, sugar application resulted in increased carbohydrate accumulation in the grafted combination.


Hi, my name is Dania, I was born in France and I live in Turkey. I recently completed my TEFOL course from ITTG and I want to share my great experience with you. I've been working in a provide school for five years and in this course all the necessary information for the teacher is here and it definitely makes my lesson more effective. I love to see my students motivated and my lesson is more interesting. The techniques that I learned in this course are successful and I recommend you to take your TEFOL course. It consists of 20 much needed units and there is an exam at the end of each unit. It was a great experience for me, thank you. Thanks so much for watching. We are ITTT, the leading provider for TEFOL and TESOL training courses. If you like this video, please subscribe by clicking the button down here and click on any of the videos here on the left for more interesting teaching tips for getting certified to teach English abroad and online.


The President of the United States. Thank you very much. Well, good afternoon. I just flew in from Columbus. But I want to welcome to the White House this impressive delegation of American students who were on Grenada at the time of the rescue mission last year. I know many of you came to see us last year also. And I am especially happy to have you here with us again. And I also want to welcome Ambassador Xavier of Grenada and our other distinguished guests. Together we celebrate today with joy and anniversary of honor for America. Your rescue and the liberation of our neighbor Grenada from the grip of oppression and tyranny. Just one year ago, Grenada's Governor General Paul Schoon members of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States called for our help. Using military forces, I'm sure you realize the most serious decision any president must make. It's an awesome responsibility. But the evidence to me was clear. At stake was the freedom of 110,000 Grenadians, the security of the democracies of the Eastern Caribbean, and most important, the safety and well-being of you American medical students trapped by events that were totally beyond your control. So we approved a military operation to rescue you, to help the people of Grenada, and to prevent the spread of chaos and totalitarianism throughout the Caribbean. Side by side with forces from neighboring Caribbean democracies, the brave young soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen accomplished their mission. They went to Grenada not to conquer, but to liberate. And they did. They saved the people. They captured tons of Soviet military equipment and they averted a hostage crisis before it happened. And then those combat troops left the island so the Grenadian people could start a new life and give peace, freedom and democracies and self-determination a chance. But today over 100,000 Soviet troops are still ravaging Afghanistan. There's a fundamental moral distinction between the Grenada rescue mission and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.  It's the difference between totalitarianism and democracy, between tyranny and freedom. And it gives all of us hope for the future to know that you see the difference that others should have seen from the very beginning. During the latter part of the 1970s, America passed through a period of self-doubt and national confusion. We talked and acted like a nation in decline and the world believed us. Many questioned our will to continue as a leader of the Western Alliance and to remain a force for good in the world. But I believe this period of self-doubt is over. History will record that one of the turning points came on a small island in the Caribbean where America went to take care of her own and to rescue a neighboring nation from a growing tyranny. Our brave military personnel displayed the same love of liberty and personal courage which has made our nation great and kept her free. And this courage and love of country is also what we saw in Beirut, virtually at the same time. And we will always honor those brave Americans. Let no one doubt that those brave men were heroes every bit as much in their peacekeeping mission as were our men in the rescue mission in Grenada. And we continue to see this devotion and commitment every day on the demilitarized zone in Korea and the NATO lines in Europe at bases from Diego Garcia to Guam and on our ships at sea. Young Americans are proudly wearing the uniform of our country and serving with the same distinction as those who came before. Cicero once said, courage is that virtue which champions the cause of the right. Well, with us today is a small contingent of military personnel, a few of the heroes who took part in the rescue mission, two each from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. And four of these brave young Americans are here with me in the podium and the other four are sitting among the students that they rescued. So I thank them for joining us today and thank all of you. We're very grateful to all of you. Also here on the podium is Miss Kathleen Major who was a medical student and a registered nurse one year ago. And when the fighting erupted, she immediately went to work treating the wounded. And Miss Major, we thank you. It was good of you to come today. 19 brave men died during the Grenada rescue serving their country in the cause of freedom. One of them was Sean Locatina. He was a paratrooper seriously wounded by a rocket. He was evacuated to Puerto Rico and there in the hospital slipped in and out of a coma. His father, Colonel Robin Locatina, a retired military officer who's here with us today, rushed to his bedside. And Colonel Locatina, I'm told that on one of those moments when your son regained consciousness, you asked him, Sean, was it worth it? And yes, dad, he answered. And you asked again, would you do it again? And he looked up at you and said, Hell yes, dad. A few months ago, Sean died of his wounds. But he, Sean Locatina, gave his life in the cause of freedom. He did not die in vain. The young Americans he helped to rescue know that. The liberated people of Grenada know that. Grenaders, neighbors know that. And Sean himself knows. So let us honor him as he would have wished by keeping faith with a policy of peace and deterrence that assures the survival of our freedom, keeps alive the hope of freedom for all the peoples of the world. This is the meaning of peace through strength. And let us always remember that America is the land of the free because we're the home of the brave. To Sean and all the men and women who serve the cause of freedom and to all of you, we're dedicating yourselves to saving human life. You are the hope of America.  Thank you for what you do. God bless you. President Reagan, distinguished members of the military, honored guests. It was a year ago that I stood at this podium and spoke about the Grenada evacuation. I spoke about how proud we were when the U.S. Army Rangers and other members of the military rescued us on the island of Grenada. I spoke about how happy we were when we realized that America had not forgotten us and how proud we were to be Americans. The decision to invade Grenada was a tough one. It was a decision that called for quick and decisive action by a true leader. I want to thank you, Mr. President, once again for making that decision. Yes, it's been a year now since we've left Grenada and hardly a day goes by when I don't think about when we're on there. I think about our soldiers. The Navy SEALs, the Air Force, the Marines, the Army Rangers, and the 82nd Airborne. You know, all the men who fought down there in Grenada are different. Some are tall, some are short. Some are white, and some are black. They all have one thing in common, and that's conviction. They all have the courage and conviction to stand up and fight for what they believe and for what America believes as well. I want to tell America and all the students in America that the lessons we have learned in Grenada shall not be forgotten.  We, the students of St. George's University, have returned to become teachers for two days to remind the citizens of America that we cannot forget that lesson, that freedom is just too precious, too valuable to be taken for granted, and that we must stand up and protect that right whenever and wherever necessary. President Reagan, you came to our aid when our freedom was in jeopardy. You made us proud to be Americans. On behalf of the students assembled here today, I'd like to thank you and all four branches of the Armed Forces for being there when we needed you. Thank you. President Reagan, members of the military, and honored guests. The events of Grenada are now a part of history, but our feelings will always remain alive inside of us. I can never forget the feeling of intense fear and the sense of relief when I first saw Americans. I hope I never forget the feelings of pride and admiration for the finest military on the face of the earth, the American military, and also my gratitude to their commander-in-chief who made a most courageous decision. And finally, I hope I never forget to say how proud I am to be an American. President Reagan, it is with great honor I present this plaque which reads October 25th, 1984 In grateful appreciation to President Ronald Reagan for your decisive leadership which resulted in the liberation of Grenada and restored to us our freedom and our future. Presented on the first anniversary of the liberation of Grenada by the American students who were rescued that day. Mr. President, as you know, I was probably the first person to voice reservations about your decision to go ahead with the rescue mission in Grenada last year. I know I certainly was the most publicized. During my State Department briefing the following day, I realized there were factors unknown to me which require that you make a tough and immediate decision. I then felt that my duty to publicly acknowledge the necessity of the mission, and I did so upon leaving the State Department that very day. I've realized over the past year that you have taken the greatest risk of your political career when you made the decision to act rather than to ignore the plight of our students and the call for help from six Caribbean nations. You had little to gain in taking military action as the people of our nation have become increasingly unsupportive of such actions over the past decade. Had the mission failed in any way, you would have shouldered the entire blame. Recently we've been hearing a lot about leadership and strong leadership in the recent weeks. The very definition of strong leadership is exemplified by your decisive action in Grenada. No wonder our renewed national pride has emerged from your ability to take action when necessary. I know you will want to remember those brave men who gave their lives in the Grenada rescue mission. This replica of the memorial that will be unveiled on our Grenada campus October 29th bears the names of each of those fine young men who gave their lives. On behalf of its co-sponsors, St. George's University, and the parents' network of St. George's University, I am proud and honored to present it to you as our Commander-in-Chief. But I came all the way back here from Columbus to honor all of you. And I'm deeply grateful. And you brought this on yourselves now. I know I've told this many times, but, you know, when you get past 40, you have a tendency to tell the same story. I just have to tell you a little story about Grenada here, and then I will get back to the office and go to work. But this young Lieutenant Marine, flying a Cobra helicopter, was at Grenada and then went on to Beirut. And from Beirut he wrote back to the Pentagon to the Armed Forces Journal. And he said that there was one thing in all the news stories about Grenada that was so consistent and so repeated that he decided it was a code and he was going to break the code. That line was that Grenada produces more nutmeg than any other spot on Earth. So he said in breaking the code, number one, that is true, they produce more nutmeg than any other spot on Earth. He said number two, the Soviets and the Cubans are trying to take Grenada. Number three, you can't have good eggnog without nutmeg. And number four, you can't have Christmas without eggnog. And number five, the Soviets and the Cubans were trying to steal Christmas. And number six, we stopped them.