Good evening, Andy. Sorry, I got sidetracked there for a moment. Right. How is my sound? Good afternoon. Sounds good. And Kristen, whenever you're ready, we can go ahead and try your sound. Hi, everyone. Hello. Good evening. So important to arrange the windows correctly so you don't have to fiddle with it trying to meet him. Good afternoon, my name is Andy Gustafson and I am the zoning administrator. I like to call the order the November 2nd, 2001 meeting of the zoning administrator. This is a special meeting. We can bring housing items like this forward to a meeting outside of our normal zoning administrator Thursday alternate weeks meeting schedule to promote efficient and streamline processing of housing projects that are so vitally needed. Okay, this is a remote meeting. It will be conducted as we would conduct any in person meeting. We are meeting remote pursuant to government code section 54953 E, and the recommendation of the public health officer of the county that we hold this public meeting and other public will be remotely via zoom seminar or webinar. The members of the public will be able to participate as as with any meeting, but in this case, we will, you'll be required to raise your hand to select the hand icon, and you'll be recognized, or if you're dialing in. You'll need to press star nine, and you'll be recognized. This is a one item agenda. And so before we go forward, as with any public meeting, we do allow for and I don't see on the agenda which should be here is opportunity for public comments so I will Sorry, sorry, Andy, but remember, we learned from the clerk's office that we don't do public comment at a special meeting. Okay. My practices to in experiences that we do allow that but I will make a more issue that that's fine. At least then, there shall be no public comment and let's proceed directly to the first and only item on the agenda. And the project planner is Kristen a tumors and it is a design review for 891 Third Street. Thank you, Mr. presentation. Thank you, Mr. Gustafson. This is a project at 891 Third Street, it's known as the 891 Third Street multi family housing project. And the project description states that the project is a 18 unit three story multi family project and the proposal is the second phase of the adjacent mid rise located at 884 streets. The unit sizes range from 358 square feet to 448 square feet. The proposal design includes podium level common space rooftop terrace and rear picnic area under existing oak trees. It's located in the downtown area specific plan area off of Third Street very close to Brookwood. Here is an aerial of the project site. It's flanked by structures. I believe they're both used as office space. Actually, I believe one is a residence and one is an office. And the companion project is the larger vacant parcel that you see there on four street. So this is the general plan and zoning designations. So the general plan and zoning designations have both changed since 884 Street was approved. And that project is currently under construction. The 884 Street project was owned CD seven. And the general plan designation was retail business service. The parcel the project site today was commercial office. And now they're both NMU neighborhood mixed use. And rather than so CD seven would limit development by height and stories. And CO normally wouldn't allow for residential uses. But now with NMU, the density limitation is created by FAR, which is kind of a new concept for the city. This is the general plan designation for the subject property. And as you can see, it's been a new surrounding it as well. Here's the project site looking straight straight at it from third street. You can see the two buildings that flank on either side. And you can actually see 884 Street under construction the peers. And foundation that's been poured in the reverse sticking up. You can see it on four street for the 884 Street project. It's currently under construction. And here is a rendering showing the proposed project. You can see it in the sort of an olive green color flanked by those two buildings. This is the applicant provide a neighborhood context map. This is a site plan that shows the 884 Street site and the current project site. Here is the proposed site plan the apartment complex would be set towards the front in order to preserve oak trees in the back that would serve as an amenity space for the residents. The FAR, NME requires that an applicant meet the midpoint of the FAR, which is four. This project doesn't quite do that because for one, the building is more compatible with the existing uses on third street. And second, the oak trees in the back, as well as some utilities, existing utilities in the back provide obstacles for building out for an FAR of four. Another thing to note is, since the adoption of the downtown area specific plan, the newest version, there is no parking requirement in the downtown area. And while the applicant states that parking, the residents will be able to use parking on 884 Street. There's no city requirement for the applicant to do that that's a voluntary measure that the applicant is taking. And it's also interesting to note that 884 Street is built beyond what the FAR limit allows. So, the new general plan designation and specific plan designation sort of make it complicated. So the FAR for 884 Street is I think, what it should be for. But I think if you average the two sites, it is within midpoint range. So continuing on. These are the overall floor floor and roof plans. So you can see the three stories and the roof. Partial first and second floors so you can see the units will lay out. There is a pathway shown on the right side that would take the residents to the rear amenity yard. And to the parking at 884 Street. Sorry, there's a delay. Here are some elevations so exterior elevations of the south and east. This project did go before the designer view board for concept designer view. And it was met with a very favorable comments. I think they had very minor suggestions, but no, as they say, shalls for the applicant, just things for the applicant to consider as far as changes. Here's a document in the resolution. Here's a rendering of what it would look like from 3rd Street, sort of at an angle. Here's another model. I believe looking at the rear amenity space towards 3rd Street. This is the rear yard and another view from 3rd Street. This is the proposed color scheme for the project and the light fixture, which would be downcast as required by code. And the proposed landscape plan. And if there are any questions, I'm here to answer them. The applicant is also available to answer questions. I will return to the midpoint density calculation and its relationship to the property and at the end of the public presentation and the applicant's presentation. Now's opportunity for the applicant to comment or provide more information. If you wish to do so, please raise your hand and you'll be recognized. I see to Paul Gilger was the first hand up so let's recognize Paul. Hi everybody, Paul Gilger here. Can you hear me okay. Yes. Was the other hand if you trail. I can't hear you. It was. Yes. Why don't we do this let's have you go first. Okay. The only thing I just had one clarification. In the very first slide you mentioned that there was common space on the ground floor, not inside the building just out back, and the building does not have a roof deck. So you can see it from the plans, but that's all I wanted to really say. Thanks. Let's recognize Mr. Okay. Can you hear me now. Yes. Okay. Thank you very much. You futile. 204 street. I'll be, I'll be brief and then turn things over to the project architect Paul, Paul Gilger. Just a couple of quick observations. The project is in essence the second phase of the larger project, and the residents in this building that we're discussing this afternoon will have access to all the common facilities in the larger project. And I would imagine that's why the project description made the reference that it did that would include the roof tech and, and among, among other things. The floor area ratio, a correction. Christina, I think that you're, you're an error. I did the calculations on the floor area ratio for the existing building, and it's my recollection is it's 3.97 actually. So it actually is within the four within the existing plan. Rose and I exchanged some emails on that topic because I was concerned when the floor area ratio was coming through for this area of town and, and I thought you know this is awfully awfully close to have prevented this larger project from having gone forward. Five stories above podium and of course, most of the podium is a garage, and the five stories only make up a portion of the totality of the of the 30,000 square foot building and that's what lowered the FAR. The combined is though as you pointed out well below for in any case. The floor area ratio I believe on on this particular project 891 Third Street is is very low I believe it's less than than 1.5 actually, and there are the other factors which influenced us in in coming forward with not only a three story design but also a design in which a very large portion of the site was not built on at all. And in terms of any other issues I think Paul can cover them architecturally, but I'll be happy later answer questions as well. So if it's appropriate, and I would step back and turn this over to Paul. Thank you. All do you have any more that you want to add. Thank you so much for Chris and I can you go back to the presentation. Let's just do two things let's go to the floor plan first. And I'll just very briefly, and I think the building is relatively self explanatory but there were quite a few goals that Mr future I had. And we wanted to accomplish with this job. So if you're able to go to the one of the floor plan sheets or even it's about it was about the third sheet in on your presentation. We'll take a look at it. And then after we look at that we'll look at the exterior Kimberly or Kristen are you in control of the presentation can you show those exhibits. Thank you. Perfect. So, we've really packed a lot into a small build. And one of the goals here by the developer was to try to create very pragmatic housing. We did not require us to have to come through a bunch of hoops rules and regulations that takes us up in the never never land. We wanted something very buildable. And you can see that with the unit sizes in the 400 square foot range. And we've made all the ground floor units, ADA accessible, which is pretty amazing considering it's pretty hard to get units this small to be ADA accessible. And we feel that this project really fills a need in the town, which is the very efficient one bedroom apartments. We do have a wide range of housing stock that we have to take care of. Not the least of which, like myself or singles seniors people like that who would really enjoy being back downtown. The goal here was to try to create affordable housing, economical pragmatic that can be built using standard building materials, and also to try to keep the building more in scale in an architecture with third street. So, if Chris and I if you're able to advance the presentation up to maybe the front perspective of third street is probably the best one to go to. I keep going there. Go past the, the two dimensional elevations if you can get to the go past these and then perhaps the very first 3D image of the model would be great. There we go. Yeah, back to one more. There we go. Great. So, did a lot of walking around the neighborhood and we tried to use building materials that were prevalent in the neighborhood. And about 75% of the buildings on third street are faced in some sort of a wood product. Most of them were horizontal siding some shingle, some board and bat. And so we decided to use those same wall materials for this project was one item. Another item is the belt line, which you see that runs around the building at the bottom floor of windows. A very important element of the building because it does help to reduce the apparent height of the building. And you do see belt lines used a lot in that neighborhood. And I felt personally that at this position it's a nice proportion about two fists of the building the bottom two fists is shingle, and the top three fists is horizontal siding. I wanted to counterpoint it was something to give it a little bit of a little bit of a flare. So we came up with using board and bat in an artistic way to emphasize the vertical elements of the building which happens to be the plumbing stacks and the stairway stacks and that's what you see expressed on the outside. And also the other thing that we did was by using real residential scale windows. These windows are the standard three feet wide five foot high single hungs, which is not only the minimum size required for egress to get out of bedrooms, but also as one of the prevalent window sizes used in that neighborhood. So, so in the interest of really a lot of trying to make it fit into the neighborhood knowing that the building is a box. We did everything we could to make it as gentle as possible. And I think the final thing is I'll talk about the roof. You can see the building does have a generous overhang, and it's needed. If it didn't have the overhang, the building would look very boxy. The roof does put a nice cap in the building. One of the great things of course about ease it helps protect the building helps the building weather better. And another reason we did decide to go with a flat roof not only was to keep the number sinks, we have to keep the building down because of a lot of building height number one. Number two, we have to keep the building down so that we don't have to have a fire truck access down alongside the building the fire department wants to be able to get up onto the eve of the building, and they only allow a certain height. And then the third thing is we're respecting the views out of the living units for the building on four street. We did not want a huge high roof on this building that would block people's looking out. And so I believe with that. I think that pretty much everything I need to say and certainly obviously I can answer any questions or any clarifications. I had, and thank you for that presentation on the design. I did have one question with regard to the pedestrian connectivity between this property and the larger property on four street. I know we don't have parking requirements but an assertion is made that these tenants will be able to park on that adjoining property, what, what accommodation is made for that connection between the two. I didn't really see it in the plant set very. Yeah. Christina, if you could go to the site plan. It'll be colored I think it's the page that also has a site photo on it. And you'll see that the, I do show a little bit of the back of the other building, we do lead to a doorway that goes right to the garage. Yeah, perfect. So the beige right there you go, right there is the back door into the garage. And our goal is and that is ADA compliant. DG decompose granite back there. And that takes us right to the door of the building. And what is that gap, it reads like some opening or window or roll up door. Is that also part of an connection between this property and the property on board. I have to have Hugh answer that one. I believe it is a roll up door. Maybe he can verify that I'm not as familiar with the, the, that particular plan. I'm happy to comment if I am not muted. Yeah, we can hear you. We can hear you. Thank you. Okay. Thanks. So at one time, in fact, there was the notion of putting a roll up door back there. And we concluded that that was not the ideal connection, the ideal connection would be simply more heavily pedestrian oriented. And so what you have is a door entry. It'll have a security punch in the circulation through the garage is a pedestrian circulation. Given the nature of the tendencies here, I think there will be people that park in the building and walk, then through the open space behind the two buildings, but I don't believe that all tenants will. The ultimate design of what that door looks like is part of the 8888 project. But it has been my, my belief that above the door, there should be a, a architectural interesting software and other other architectural features, including lighting on either side of the door. So that it feels like an integrated part of the walkway between the two buildings that's aesthetically important. We're not showing that because that's not part of this building permit, but it will come forward to the city as part of a, as part of a, a construction drawing element revision at some point in the near future. Thank you for the clarification. And also, Mr. portrayal, can you, I think I read in the project description the intention to merge this law with the property to the north. Yes, we've actually submitted a merger application several months ago and it's, it's under process with the city. Okay, great. All right, well, yeah, appreciate that description about pedestrian connectivity. Any other information you want to share now before I offer the opportunity for any member of the public to comment. Seeing none. I'd like to offer anybody in attendance who wishes to comment, please raise your hand. Seeing none I'll close the public hearing. So, this is a great project obviously it's, it's a part of a much larger one to the north on 4th street and I think the design drawings and in response to the conceptual design review comments show that this building can fit well in the environment in that residential blended residential commercial setting. It's really excellent to see this type project go forward. I do appreciate the description about that pedestrian connection. While there is no parking requirement here. It's very likely that the tenants will have vehicles and by having access to covered parking on the adjoining property. I think it really is an amenity that your tenants will enjoy and having connectivity that provides access is important so addressing that up with some architectural feature to make it connected. I think it's a really great idea. I encourage that. I have some discussion about FAR, and I do want to turn my attention to the resolution at this point on on the first finding finding number one. There are a great set of facts there or circumstances to support the exception to the midpoint. I want to ask a project planner, Kristen a tunes if, if we could simply rely upon the, the statement in regarding exceptions as, as the basis for establishing this projects FAR compliance, and not have the additional information about combined FAR which I think would apply is kind of like a backstop. If these, if this property is being merged with the other one, effectively the FAR on both, you know, would have been combined so Yeah, I don't, I think is information we don't need but I get it so I would ask your opinion, can we eliminate that FAR combined FAR component of finding number one, and still have the basis for making that particular finding about compatibility with development standards. I was just reading it through and yes I can make that change. All right. But I do want to note I really, I really appreciate the resolution it does a great job of memorializing the pathway or the steps getting to this point. It's very helpful and findings that you do make relative to this property of this project are excellent. And I really have no other suggestions or questions regarding the resolution. The conditions of approval are appropriate. So with that I'm very pleased to say, I approve the project as as modified in finding number one, or the resolution to prove the project modifying finding number one by eliminating the last sentence I think it's the last sentence. Yes, it is one set. No, it's the last two sentences. And then we're done at what time is it 529. Wow, did I treat everybody to a drink. Virtually certainly I'm happy to participate. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. An excellent project coming forward. Thank you. It means a lot to you and I. Thank you both very much. Bye bye everybody.


I've been using Linux now for four years or so. I started in 2017 and people have asked me why I started using Linux while time and the answer to that question is that I wanted to do a Linux podcast and decided I needed to switch and once I did I was very happy with how much I liked it and at that point even switching back to Windows kind of made me nauseous so I really truly fell in love with Linux and I've like I said I've used it for four years now but there are some things that I need to confess to you there are some things about me that you just don't know and they're kind of embarrassing so today I have five Linux confessions for you things that I feel embarrassed about or that I don't necessarily like talking about out loud or things that I just don't know so I thought I would go ahead and do this it's a it's a gag video so in the comments below if you have any confessions that you need to make I'll happily happily listen to them so the first confession on the list is that I once distro hops 12 times in a single 24-hour period and I shit you not that actually happened now this was when I first started you know using Linux there was a single day where I just kept hopping distros over and over again now I did circle back and install a couple distros twice I don't think I can go through and name all the ones that I hop to but I'm going to try so I started out on solus budgie I went to Ubuntu budgie and then I tried Ubuntu mate Ubuntu this is the regular Ubuntu I tried manjaro a couple flavors of manjaro I think I'm pretty sure I installed fedora at one point during that day and then I went back to Ubuntu again like regular Ubuntu although it might have been one of the flip no it was Kubuntu that's right that's what it was and then because that was my first taste of KD at that point I can't name the other other ones I'm I'm missing three or four I can't remember but the point is that day was exhausting and I got really good that day though at installing Linux and I didn't just or hop for any really negative reason I just was having fun I was experimenting with different distros and having an entertaining time trying out trying out different desktop environment combinations with different package managers for their distros or whatever and it was just a fun day I don't I'm pretty sure I settled on Kubuntu or the manjaro KD version I can't remember where I ended up with but that point in time in my Linux career I was hopping a lot like I hopped at least once a week like mostly for no reason but sometimes just a minimal thing would go wrong and at that point I didn't have any interest in fixing anything I didn't have any interest really in learning anything more than what I wanted to learn so when something went wrong I would just skedaddle to a different distro and hope that it fixed it I've sensed obviously learned better if something goes wrong now I do my best to fix it now I still have a tendency sometimes to say well you know I just really don't want to mess around with that problem so I'll just hop it happens from time to time especially with something that you know is truly broken like this last time that I hopped I hopped because I was having USB problems and my compete my keyboard kept disconnecting and I thought it was an arco problem turns out I'm having hardware problems but at least I you know managed to narrow it down a little bit so that's the first confession the next one is that I've never done a UEFI Linux install not a single time and the reason for this is that I've always used legacy BIOS now everybody probably knows this if you've installed Linux and at least at one point or another it was really hard to install Linux on UEFI there was a whole bunch of hoops you had to jump through and there wasn't at the time when I was first learning Linux there wasn't a lot of really good guides on how to do it and so I just learned to change all of my computers to legacy BIOS so I can install Linux on them and I just just to continue to do that so I've never had UEFI enabled on any of my computers for the last four years so that's another Linux confession I don't know if it's a big one or not but it just it seems like everybody nowadays just uses UEFI and there's a lot of guides now and it seems to be fairly easy I still have never done it my next one is a little more embarrassing I guess Nautilus used to be my favorite file manager for years and it's not because it has any good features or anything like that it was because it when you downloaded and installed themes they had the best themes and I still think this is true a lot of the GTK developers GTK theme developers do a really good job of making Nautilus just look so good and it just looks so good nowadays Nautilus is I think Nautilus is a bloated mess but back then I didn't care I thought it looked what looked pretty you know plus on budgie back then at least it was really fast to load I mean it was like super fast to load and I was very impressed with that I can remember I was coming from Windows where's in on Windows when you open up the Windows Explorer the file manager it takes a good amount of time for it to load no matter how many times you've you know loaded it before in the session it always takes a little bit of time to load with Nautilus it was just always so fast to load and I don't know why that was on budgie it's definitely not that way I can own or at least not anymore but it it was just very impressive to me I was very easily impressed at that point yes so yes Nautilus was my favorite file manager nowadays my favorite graphical file manager is Nemo and it's still fantastic because you can do dual pains now I know there are other file managers out there that allow you to do dual that allow you to do dual pain it was really hard to say but none of them are as good as Nemo and doing it like PC man FM does it but it has this weird highlighting effect on based on which pain is active and that's just a thing you can't disable it so yeah Nemo is my favorite these days and I think it's much better even though it is kind of bloated still all right anyways the next confession is that I often forget that man pages exist and this happens like across the board I sometimes forget that they're even there like I know man whatever exists I know it's there but I forget about it sometimes so I give a lot of flack to BS PWM for not having very good documentation on their website or their github page and for years I just thought that they had terrible documentation and compared to something like i3 or QTile they do have bad documentation but they don't have the horrible documentation I've always preached about because they actually have really good man pages but I've really forgot that they were there like I had for a while that I didn't even know that they were exist that it that those particular man pages existed and then one day I saw somebody making a video about BS PWM and I was like whoa where's this documentation coming from and it's not just BS PWM a lot of times I just forget that man the man pages just exist completely and it's a very weird flaw because I mean it man pages are very important for getting documentation a lot of developers put all their documentation there not on the web so I'm missing out on the instructions for a lot of programs but I continue to forget that they exist and the last one I probably not embarrassing or anything but I have no clue how to customize grub like I see a lot of people customize their grub pages to make it look pretty and it seems like something that I'd be into but I have no clue how to do it but also I have no clue how to get grub to recognize distros on separate hard drives I have no clue how that's done I've never even looked into it because it's just not something that I've ever done so recently I do have a second hard drive on my computer or in my computer that is has a distribution I'm testing open Susan right now and I realized that I have no clue how to get a single grub instance so that I can boot from one or the other I right now I'm relying on always hitting F12 at boot up in order to change the the boot go into the boot menu so yeah I have no clue how to do grub that's one of those things I need to learn same thing probably with UEFI because eventually legacy BIOS is probably going to go away and I probably should learn how to do the UEFI stuff so I think I covered all five of my Linux confessions so in the comments below if there are things that you've never done that you kind of feel embarrassed that you think everybody else has done or some other confession lead those in the comments below will be embarrassed a little bit together you can follow me on Twitter at Linuxcast you can support me on patreon at patreon.com slash Linuxcast before I go I'd like to take a moment to thank my current patrons Devon Chris East Coast Web Gentoo's Fun 2 Patrick L. Marcus Magland Jaxson iPhone Tools Steve a Mitchell March Center Merritt Camp Joshua Lee J-Dog and the BSDs Rock thanks everybody for watching see you next time


Hi, I'm Peter Burris, and once again this is another Wikibon Research Quick Take. I'm here with David Floyer. David, Amazon did something interesting this week. What is it? What's the impact? Amazon, and I mean by that, Amazon not AWS, have put into place something following on from their data warehouse automation. They have now a store which is completely automated. You walk in, you pick something off the shelf, and you walk out. They've done all of the automation, lots and lots of cameras everywhere, lots of sophisticated work. It's taken them more than four years of hard work on AI to get this done. The implication is if I think this is both exciting and people who are not doing anything, they must be really fearful about this. This is an exciting time, and something that other people must get on with, which is automation of the business process that are important. Retail or not, one of the things very quickly that we've observed is the process of automating employee activities is slow. The process of automating or providing automation for customer activities is even slower. We're really talking about Amazon introducing technologies to provide the Amazon brand to the customer in an automated way. Big deal. All right. This has been a Wikibon QuickTake Research with David Floyer. Thanks, David.


It's my pleasure to join you and introduce our final speaker for this morning. If you don't know yet about whole bunch about quantum, you're in for luck, you're in for a bit of a surprise here that the world's three foremost experts on the topic are with us this morning. And our final presentation this morning is the quantum effect, how BC Tech is changing the world. And you know, there's others around the world that are talking about building quantum computing, about exploring it. But the fact that it's already done here, it's commercialized. And I hear they're selling to Google and NASA already, Don. And then many other companies are covering what's going on here in BC. Well, let's get to it. Prepare to be blown away up first. Please welcome Jeremy Hilton, senior vice president of systems at D-Wave Systems. OK, thank you very much. I have the pleasure of kicking off the session on quantum computing and quantum information. It's a short, punchy talk. So I'll get you to pay attention. If we can pull the slides up. Well, maybe I'll get started. My clock hasn't started running down, but I know we're starting to run into lunch, and I'm sure all of you are hungry. So let's get going. To start off, here we go. Advance. OK. To start off, I'll take you back to the beginning of the last century. When scientists were looking at the rules that govern the behavior of things in the very, very small limit, and they started to realize that those rules were fundamentally different from the things that our experience in the everyday is based upon. Scientists like Planck, Schrodinger, and Einstein were laying the foundation for what we now refer to as quantum physics. Later on in the 60s, a physicist named Richard Feynman extended these ideas with the notion that if you could leverage these quantum mechanical effects for information processing, then you could start to solve problems that were otherwise unsolvable with classical approaches. I'm going to play for you a quick video put together by our friends at Google that outlines some of what goes into quantum computing. So go ahead. Quantum physics puts everything into question. It defies every intuition you have about the natural world. Quantum is a very strange regime of physics. Things can exist in this state of superposition where they can be like ghosting on each other, where they could be this and that at the same time being. Entanglement. Quantum entanglement. Two objects, if they're quantum mechanically entangled, are still strongly related to each other, even though they can be a vast distance apart. There's a notion of the multiverse. There's a whole family of hardware in different states and then going through different experiences and different life trajectories. The famous one is quantum tunneling. Tunneling. Tunneling. Tunneling is the slippage between universes. For a long time, people thought those effects only existed in the microscopic domain. Like atoms, electrons, photons. But really, it's the theory of our universe. So if you want to build a quantum computer, you want to incorporate those new phenomenon into information processing. Maybe quantum computation is one of those instruments that's going to allow us to see quantum effects at the human scale. Google and NASA have teamed up to share one of the world's first commercial quantum computers. This machine, made by Canada's D-Wave, will be installed in the NASA Research Center in California. So now you understand everything about quantum computing. But it turns out, it's actually really hard to build these things. So for D-Wave, you have to represent and solve an intractable problem. Leverage the physics of superconducting materials implemented in semiconductor manufacturing facilities. We have to develop advanced cryogenic engineering so that we can cool the quantum processor to about 180 times colder than interstellar space, reliably. And we have to package that in a system that can run in a data center with nothing other than chilled water and electricity for facilities. We've managed to do this. And that's why Google and NASA were talking to us. So let me take a quick second to explain how the D-Wave quantum processor works. So think of this as a search problem. In the example of D-Wave's most recent product, the D-Wave 2000, it's a massive search problem. There are about 2 to the 2,000 possible states that you can represent. So that's about 10 to the 600 possible values. We load that problem into the quantum processor and turn it into a kind of an energy landscape. And now in the landscape, the good solutions to the problem that you're looking for, you can think of as low lying states in this space. So you're looking for low valleys and you want to end up in the lowest parts. Classically speaking, this is a simple three-dimensional picture of this. In reality, the problems are many dimensions, 2 to the 2,000 dimensions in this example. But for our understanding, we'll keep it 3D. Classically, the only thing you can do is pick a random place on this landscape and then run downhill as fast as you can and then do that over and over again. And the search space is so massive that that's why this is an intractable problem. You can, in many cases, just never find a good or optimal solution to these problems. For D-Wave's quantum processor, the approach is very different. We start off in a superposition of all of the possible states and use these quantum mechanical effects like entanglement and tunneling in the multiverse, as Hartman Nevin likes to refer to it, to find good solutions, to find low spaces in the landscape as if it's like water flowing over land. And we can use that to come up with many solutions or even, in some cases, optimum solutions to the problem. So that's all I'm going to attempt to explain in the short 10 minutes, so hopefully that was helpful. Classical computers are really helpful but Moore's law is failing us. There are still a lot of hard problems that we can't solve with existing computing technology. Quantum computers have shown that they can solve many hard problems and D-Wave's vision is to bring quantum computing to cloud services so that developers from different markets with different kinds of data can use the most advanced computing that exists to develop new kinds of applications, unprecedented applications, that initially will be better and faster and ultimately will be in a space where it simply wasn't possible before this existed. D-Wave has come a long way. We've had a number of product generations and a lot of great customers and we have a number of application examples that have already been running on the technology. Things like radiotherapy optimization, protein structure analysis, molecular search for drug discovery, image recognition, financial management, portfolio optimization and quantitative finance, blink detectors, software verification and validation, operations research and logistics and fault detection. These are just some of the examples of applications that users have brought to the D-Wave technology and I wanna stress that these are all pre-commercial examples, but users from around the world are coming to our technology and bringing their applications because they believe that the technology is relevant for the real world today. We have a top tier list of customers and investors including some fantastic local investors and having been founded in 1999 right here in BC, we've depended on those investors to help us build this incredibly ambitious technology and those investors and customers share the vision that quantum computing will have a profound effect on society. We still are a proud Canadian company at this point and as you'll see from the speakers following me, there is a lot of exciting things going on locally right here in BC. In terms of developing quantum technology, in terms of maturing the industry around it and where this is going, this is going to be significantly game-changing for technology. In fact, I'd make a prediction that within five years from now, most of the people in this audience will be using applications that depend on the product of a quantum computer. Thank you. That was faster than we expected. It was a little bit of quantum entitlement right there, or entanglement, depending on your perspective. People are hungry. Let's give it up for Jeremy and what the team at D-Wave is doing. They're doing some pretty amazing work. Our next speaker on this topic is Andrea Damasalli. He is the scientific director at the Stuart Balsam Quantum Matter Institute and a professor with the University of British Columbia. It's my honor to introduce Andrea to the stage. But at first, I'd like to direct your attention to the screen for a brief setup video. Revolutionary research into the mysteries of quantum physics has led to some of humankind's most important innovations. Lasers that enable nearly instantaneous transcontinental telecommunications. The microprocessors found in computers and electronics. Solar cells. MRI scanners. The internet. Operating largely unseen at the level of individual atoms, quantum physics underlies many of the most spectacular tech breakthroughs of the past 50 years. Now, as our understanding of quantum systems accelerates, we are poised to invent unprecedented new devices that can track a single molecule inside the body. They trace distinct neurological connections in the brain or even reveal what's buried beneath our feet. We are literally changing the way we view the world and ourselves. We have learned how to create novel materials by directly manipulating individual atoms and molecules. Working at this fundamental level promises to unleash the full potential of quantum materials for the first time. The Stuart Blussen Quantum Matter Institute is advancing this research frontier, attracting top researchers to Vancouver. Our scientists are developing new ways of applying fundamental quantum physics to the creation of innovative technologies. We are exploring wonders like high-temperature superconductivity, colossal magneto-resistance and other quantum phenomena, enabling next-generation technologies like ultra-high-performance nano-electronics and exquisitely precise sensors. Technologies that will take innovation in the telecommunications, computing, automotive, sustainable energy and healthcare sectors to the next level. The Stuart Blussen Quantum Matter Institute is blazing a path to the quantum age and we're just getting started. Good morning. Excuse me for my voice, a bit of a call. I'll try to get my voice warmed up as we go. Good morning, everyone. And I'd like to take the opportunity to thank the province for allowing me to be here today to represent the Stuart Blussen Quantum Matter Institute. What I'm gonna talk today about is a little bit about the quantum work and in particular, I'd like to focus on quantum materials. The reason why I like to focus on quantum materials is because these systems are becoming, enabling technology for the future. And what I also believe is, at this particular moment, we are on the verge of a technological revolution, a quantum revolution. And here in Vancouver, in BC and Canada, we are ideally positioned to play a leading role at the global level in this technological revolution. Let me start from the very beginning, though. Before I delve into quantum materials, let me start from the very beginning of quantum mechanics. And personally, I placed the beginning in the work of Halbert Einstein, 1905. That's when Einstein explained a very particular, very peculiar effect. The effect is called the photoelectric effect. You have light impinging on a solid. Light is absorbed by an electron. The electron is emitted, so you can generate a current by the absorption of light. This experiment puzzled the community for a long time, about 100 years ago, and is what gave Einstein the idea to come up with the hypothesis of quanta, light quanta. So that's where the field of quantum mechanics takes the name. So what Einstein hypothesized at that time was that light is not actually just a wave. It's made of particles. This is what we now know as the particle wave duality. Each of these particles is called a photon that carries a certain amount of energy. The amount of energy is called the energy quantum for light. And so this amount of energy can then be transferred to the quantum of charge, which is the electron. And so by absorption of one over the other, you can have the generation of current. I consider this a very elegant explanation, a very elegant idea, and this very elegant idea has become, in the world we know, a mainstream application. What I'm showing here is the case of photovoltaics. Photovoltaics, solar panels, light comes in from the sun, gets absorbed, generates a current, current that can be used by any utility we're interested in. Another application of the very same phenomenon is actually light intensification. We want to take an image in a dark environment and again using the photoelectric effect and the hypothesis of light quanta from Einstein. We can actually do that. Next I'd like to move now from what was the beginning of quantum mechanics to quantum materials and the kind of revolution we are witnessing today, the revolution we are on the cusp of. So by application of quantum materials to technology we can actually improve in a way, in some incremental manner, what we already know. We can go to more efficient electronics, we can go to higher density electronics, but we can also enable concepts and ideas that could not be imagined just a few years ago. And we just heard from Jeremy and D-Wave, the idea of quantum computing, we'll hear more about that from Steph Simonstock later on, quantum computing and quantum information. What I'd like to emphasize is that when we are on a cusp of revolution, often we cannot really even imagine the most exciting application, the most exciting implication of what we're doing. So if I, for instance, go back to the invention of a transistor in the 50s, well at that time it could be possible to imagine the development of personal computer, portable computers, but certainly at that time we would not be able to imagine the birth of the internet, which basically fuels the world today. And the same would be for the case of quantum materials. Let me now give you a specific example of quantum material. An example which has been there for many years, superconductivity, what you're seeing there is a superconductor, a copper oxygen-based superconductor, which is flowing over a magnetic track. Actually that very same track is outside and if you're interested you're in lunch you can actually have a look at it. What happens in these systems is that a current, an electrical current can be sustained without any loss. And at the same time a magnetic field gets expelled, which is why you can see quantum levitation. Just because of these properties these materials can be utilized for many, many applications. In addition to levitation you have MRI machines, a wide spread application of superconductors. You also have sensors and more fascinating quantum computing. In fact, the very name D-Wave comes from these materials you see here. The system showed up there is called a D-Wave superconductor and was believed because it's becoming superconducting at relatively high temperature to be probably the most ideal platform for quantum computation. Let me now go into the analogy to try to explain you what's the difference between the classical and the quantum work. And the two key words here are incoherent versus coherent. So in order to show you an example of an incoherent system here is a traffic jam in Korea where you see cars coming in, vehicles coming into an intersection and all of their energy is actually dissipated and lost into the traffic jam itself. This is pretty much how conduction of charge in a classical work takes place. If I wanted to take it to the quantum world, well, I would have to realize a coherent situation. For instance, in the case of a highway, now you have flow of cars which are physically separated for separate directions and that allows you now to have transportation without any loss. Well, this is pretty much what happens in a superconductor. Of course, in a different manner, but what you can realize there is the coherent flow of charge and information. Now, superconductors have been there for about 100 years. They are, in a way, an old technology which is nowadays being employed more and more. The other problem with superconductors that they require to be cooled down to rather low temperatures and that makes it impractical for many applications. So the question is, can we push this field to produce and generate? Can we actually tailor materials with more easy properties to use? And the answer is yes. And in fact, we are witnessing almost every day the discovery of new materials. And one case I'd like to emphasize is the one that led to the awarding of an Nobel Prize last year. These three gentlemen have worked on a topic which is a topic of topological properties, so-called, but what I want to focus on is one particular material they discovered, topological insulators. This system are insulating materials in the bulk but they can't carry a current on the surface. So the interface between the material and the vacuum becomes now a device that can sustain a current. And it's actually a very interesting current because, as shown here in this paper by Marcel Franz, who is one of the faculty member at the Stuart Blossom Quantum Research Institute and one of the world leading theorists in this field, electrons on that surface, pretty much as cars on an highway cannot sustain any U-turn. And what that means, they do not sustain or they do not suffer any loss, any dissipation. So now, in room temperature actually, we have realized transport with no dissipation on the surface of material which can be used then for applications. So far I showed you two example of materials, a superconductor, a topological insulators, these are materials that nature has provided us with. But can we do more? Can we tailor materials? Can we do free printing with atoms? Pretty much as we have heard with organs and other important either quantities or devices or materials. Well, graphene is such an example. This is a single layer of carbon atom, it's a very elegant system, it's very strong actually, it's as strong as steel, it's a conductor, better conductor than copper, is actually flexible so you could imagine making electronics, flexible electronics, flexible screen, flexible paper, is actually materials that was believed not to be possible, not to exist, but has been realized. And what is interesting now, this material has a very direct industrial relevance. So there is now a global market for graphene and this market is estimated to be growing to a point of about $100 million, US dollars by 2020. Now, one property this material doesn't express is superconductivity. And as I mentioned before, superconductivity being also known phenomenon can be used in many, many different applications. So what we've done at UBC was to come in then with an approach which is that of equivalent to 3D printing and place lithium atoms, the yellow ball you can see up there, these are the same lithium atoms of the lithium ion batteries and place them a certain specific location forming an ordered structure. And as we do that, all of a sudden the material becomes a superconductor. So what we've been able to do this way and what many people around the world have a technology to do this way is to take a pristine materials, modify, so as to tailor the electronic properties to exhibit whatever is needed for a specific functionality. Going beyond that, beyond superconductivity, one can take this sheet of atoms, can roll them up, inform what is called a carbon nanotube. So a one-dimensional tube which is a one-dimensional conductor and then come up with devices which again are very close to the realization of the photoelectric effect which gave birth to quantum mechanics 100 years ago. Here is an array of these carbon nanotubes called a carbon nanotube forest on a substrate, a silicon substrate. And as light comes in, either from a laser or from a sun, a current is generated. And in fact, this is not just a dream, it's not just a conceptual design. This is an actual device which has been realized at UBC in the quantum mirror institute by the group of Alireza Nozsche. And I believe you'll have the opportunity to hear more about this later during this meeting. Let me now move to the last topic of this talk. And the last topic of this talk is that of sensors and in particular quantum sensors. And so we all know that this is a field that could have implications in all possible areas of technology and life and direct impact on society. For instance, sensor for explosive, sensor for insulate. So health sector, security sector. So sensor are extremely important. And what I'm showing you here is a picture of my dog Hunter, which I'm showing not just because it's my life companion, but also because if you concentrate on his nose, you're looking at a very sensitive device. And in fact, it's an extremely sensitive quantum device. So the sense of smell is again governed by quantum mechanic, mechanical phenomenon, in particular tunneling. You heard about tunneling before. And that's how that nose works. And so what I'd like to emphasize there is the field of quantum biology which is growing out of that, but also emphasize that not only the nature, in many cases, comes there first, but that we have the opportunity by tailoring material properties and taking advantage, exploiting quantum mechanical phenomena to really increase the sensitivity of all of our sensors and devices. So we're looking, for instance, at detecting very weak magnetic fields generated by the brain without any invasive technique just from the outside with an appropriate sensor or sensing a single molecule of insulin in the bloodstream. So these are the kind of dreamy application we'd like to do. Finally, coming to my last slide, I'd like to show this drawing of a quantum acrobat. And in case you were wondering whether, you know, when I talk about the quantum mechanical revolution, quantum technology revolution, I'm asking you to make a leap of faith.  This picture, this drawing comes from the cover of the economist, the last issue of the economist, and what in the journal was actually being stressed in the particular article is being stressed is that quantum mechanics is moving from being something where that we cannot perceive or sense is to something that we should make our world better. So the word that we actually perceive that we sense better. So I'd like to leave you with a few considerations. The first one we already talked about, quantum materials are in itself and themselves an enabling technology. I'd like to stress something that was already mentioned before Vancouver is a vibrant environment for the nucleation of the quantum hub. We have work-leading universities, SFU and UBC. We have a very active high-tech community and this is all working together to really create the conditions for a quantum hub. We also have a steel-bross quantum-matter institute which really wants to play the liaison, BB liaison between fundamental research and the applied side between fundamental research and the technology and innovation sector. So finally as the last message, something I heard before today, I really believe the time is right. The time is right here in Vancouver, in BC and Canada and in this particular case to become a global reader in a quantum technological revolution. And with this, I'd like to thank you. Lendrez, thank you very much. So wonderful to see that British Columbia is the environmental center for the hub of quantum and our final speaker in this subject this morning is Stephanie Simmons as a research chair in quantum, nano electronics and assistant professor at Simon Fraser University. Please welcome Stephanie to the stage. Today's computers use bits. A bit can be either zero or one. All computer tasks are carried out by flipping these bits. Quantum computers aim to change this by introducing qubits, which obey the laws of quantum mechanics. Cubits can be both zero and one at the same time and everything in between. The laws of quantum mechanics will make quantum computers more powerful than today's supercomputers. When bits are upgraded to qubits, they can hold and process far more information making tasks like searching on a quantum computer much faster. A team of scientists at Simon Fraser University, led by Dr. Stephanie Simmons and Dr. Michael Thiewalt, are working to build a quantum computer using silicon, the same material as today's computer chips. Atomic qubits and silicon are fantastic. And in 2013, they set a world record with their qubits remaining stable for three hours. They are now building a larger quantum computer by linking qubits with particles of light called photons. Once created, a universal quantum computer will be able to perform certain calculations that would be otherwise impossible. Today, we're on the brink of unlocking a whole new class of technology. Quantum mechanics will soon revolutionize computing, communications, and so much more. Thank you very much, everyone, for sticking around. I know lunch is tempting and I'm standing between you and lunch. But, nevertheless, I think it's gonna be worthwhile. I'm here to talk to you about quantum mechanics and quantum technologies and quantum computing, but actually to remind you that this has happened before. When we've translated sections of physics, laws of physics to the mainstream, we've changed the world multiple times over. And quantum mechanics is just the next and a long string of revolutions in that style that will change everything that we do. All right, so just to give you some basic examples, this started hundreds of years ago. When we first harnessed optics, we suddenly got the ability to look at the stars and at cells. When we harnessed mechanical physics, we got the printing press and clocks. This changed everything. When we got thermodynamics, when we finally harnessed the laws of thermodynamics, figured them out and then brought them mainstream. We had access to the steam engine and then later combustion engines. Of course, electromagnetism is exactly the sort of thing that you think of now when you think back to how quantum is perceived today. Quantum is perceived as weird and funky and kind of off on its own. Electromagnetism was the same thing. Back in the early 1800s, people used to go to, just to go to public lectures just to see how magnets worked. So it was seen as weird, but now it's something that you plug into the wall to get electricity. So it's in that same sort of thread. The most recent in that kind of camp is harnessing laws of nuclear physics. And of course, which was mentioned a few times today is harnessing the laws of semiconductor physics, specifically understanding how silicon can be used to get massive amounts of computing power. So all of these things are hugely transformative and quantum is the next branch of physics that's going to go mainstream. So this is coming. And so I'm here to talk to you a little bit about one application of quantum physics, but all of these things weren't known ahead of time. So as was mentioned earlier, you can get some guess for what's coming before it comes, but you have to see how the whole thing plays out. When they first figured out a transistor, they figured it was actually gonna be best for a hearing aid. So you can see where things have actually gone. So quantum physics, the rules are a bit different. You've heard this multiple times. When we talk about classical bits in comparison, these are the bits, this is just the bits according to the laws of classical physics. So when you think of flipping a light switch from zero to one, that is a classical object. And so a bit can only be zero or one. It can't be anything more than that. It's just exclusive. But for quantum physics, you can have zero and one at the same time. That is perfectly allowed according to the laws of quantum mechanics. So it's not just zero or one and both at the same time. It's actually a full spread of possible configurations. So instead of going black and white, you can actually think about having a quantum bit be any color in the rainbow. Any color you can imagine, actually. But it's more than just that. There are other laws of quantum physics that complicate the situation a bit, of course, right? So when you look at a quantum system, it can never report being in superposition. It can never say it's zero and one at the same time. It has to report a classical value. So we can use this temporary weirdness when you're not looking at it. It can be whatever crazy state. But then when you look at it, it goes to either a zero or one. So what does this mean for computing? We talk about how this could really transform the way that we do high performance computing task. And that's absolutely true. So I'm showing you here kind of a visualization of classical versus what's coming for quantum. So classical here, you have this red line. This is like the real number line. If you want to think about eight bits, eight classical bits, it would have to occupy one point along that line. And so today's code, if you're performing some sort of algorithm, would be sampling from that particular configuration, just bouncing back and forth along that red real line, maybe not bouncing, flipping between different bit configurations, because all of processing today is just flipping those bits. Now I show the square around it because that's giving you a sense of what is actually possible according to the laws of physics. According to the laws of quantum mechanics, you can access that full square. So D-Wave is actually fantastic, was the first to go in this space. So their state, they actually sample not just more than one classical state at the same time, but they sample from this larger quantum space. So they start off with a monochromatic picture and then it slowly evolves into the final configuration, which is the answer to their computation. Because remember, you can only get a classical answer at the end, so it has to snap back to the real line for you to measure it. So D-Wave was the first to go in this space and already they're competitive if not outperforming existing computing systems, which have had 50 years of technological development. So it's absolutely astonishing. What we're doing at SFU is a little bit beyond that. We're trying to go through what's called universal quantum computing, because of course you can have any color in the rainbow and all of those pixels in that full thing can be occupied in some different quantum state. So really, if you wanna build a universal system, we have to go for something that can access the full quantum space and so that's what we're trying to build. It's going to be harder than what D-Wave has had to do, but nevertheless the gains will be larger because we can access much more of that space. So to give you a sense for it, if you had 50 qubits, 50 quantum bits, you would have temporary access to a petabyte of data that you could process and then you just measure it at the end when it collapses back down. So that's incredible and it scales very advantageously. So I'm gonna give you one example. We've heard a whole bunch of existing examples of what quantum mechanics can do but I'm gonna talk about chemical simulations because chemicals are quantum objects. So all of the electrons and all of the atoms that actually make up that chemical are quantum. So it doesn't look at all like the stick and wall picture. So if you wanted to simulate this and simulate how it interacted with the target, a modern supercomputer could do this okay for a small scale molecule but as soon as you get to larger scales like aspirin, which is displayed up on the screen or anything larger, these things become exponentially difficult to compute because there's exponential amount of quantum mechanical configurations that you have to deal with and classical systems don't scale very well. Some problems are so bad you would never actually try and solve it this way. It would take way too long no matter how much supercomputing power you threw at it. So these sorts of problems are called intractable. Yeah, if you let your computer run for the age of the universe, you could have a go but otherwise you're not gonna be able to attack it. So this is of course the classical approach but because quantum mechanics has access to this larger space, you would be able to do this much more efficiently. And this, of course it doesn't necessarily need to be more efficient at the small scale but the point is it unlocks new opportunities. You would never try and simulate the larger scale systems with any amount of classical computing power but you could try to do this efficiently using a quantum processor. It actually opens up whole new possibilities as well. Think about simulating things like proteins, DNA, these sorts of things. When you're talking about simulating new drugs, these are the sorts of tools you will need to be able to do it effectively and efficiently without any approximations. So I'd like to thank Andrea for actually bringing up some of the other applications as well. There's sensors, we heard a little bit more about some of the other applications from quantum materials but I did want to flag again, the current edition of The Economist because they have a great section on here, Technology Quarterlies, all about quantum tech and because this is coming, right? There's nothing we can do to stop it. The quantum revolution is on our doorstep so it's kind of giving you a sense of where this is gonna go, at least what we can see so far. So I would highly recommend taking a look at that. The other thing that they mentioned, they have a good article on quantum encryption. So if you think about from a defense agency perspective or just information security in general, having the ability to have unhackable encryption is absolutely essential. So quantum mechanics does offer this and that's one of the other applications that we know of so far. Okay, so just to bring it back to the silicon semiconductor picture, we've seen exponentials before. Actually our history, our recent history is filled with, is dominated by the story of a given exponential trend and that is the trend of Moore's law. So a lot of people that would look at the earlier results and say, okay, well yeah, we'd never be able to try that now but give it 10 years, things get a lot faster. I'm sorry to say that that rule is at an end. So Moore's law, which has been the law that said that transistors have been having in size basically for the past, every couple of years for the past 50 years, this has enabled the exponential growth and computing power that we have today and it has been an absolutely phenomenal trend of 50 years or longer where we've just taken transistors smaller and smaller which has given rise to this exponential boost in computing power but sadly this is at an end now. So we have, when we talk about conventional transistors these kind of can be thought of according to the laws of classical physics that approximation holds but as soon as we get down to the 10 nanometer level which is where we are now or where we're trying to go in the next few, in the next year or two this is where it becomes incredibly complicated because we have individual atoms that are basically making up this structure now you can count them and if one of them's wrong the whole transistor doesn't work and that is because of the laws of quantum mechanics. So quantum mechanics just changes the way these systems work, specifically quantum tunneling tends to dominate at these smaller scales. So this is sad because Moore's law has been a great run for everybody and most of the tech discussion throughout this day so far has been like the outcome of how Moore's law has impacted or rather the study of semiconductor physics and understanding semiconductor physics has impacted everything that we do. But interestingly, interestingly there's a huge opportunity here because the very atoms the very individual atoms that mess up these transistors are actually fantastic qubits. So this is what we use at SFU. So these defects, individual atomic defects in silicon are actually some of the world's best qubits out there. So the world breakthrough of the year physics world top 10 breakthrough of the year that we had in 2013 was demonstrating that these qubits are actually world leading in terms of how stable they are and how well they're also atomically identical so you can reuse them. They're easy to configure and you have the entire silicon platform the entire semiconductor platform at your back we don't need any exotic materials exotic semi superconducting materials. So this is something that we're very excited about and so to conclude I just wanted to give you a sense of where this is going. So we've had another recent breakthrough where we now know how to basically build a quantum transistor in silicon. This is very new work and we're working on building this and sketching a blueprint out of it. We're going to commercialize this. So we're going to have a universal quantum computing hardware company here in the Vancouver area and we're going to be taking this mainstream because as was said earlier Vancouver is the global hotspot for quantum tech development. D-Wave got here really early and there's been an ecosystem developing around them ever since and it's absolutely the time and the place to bring this mainstream. And just to kind of bring that to the just let's bring it back to the semiconductor thing once more. The last time we harnessed a branch of physics semiconductor physics that a lot of the gains went to Silicon Valley. It was named Silicon Valley because it was a hardware hub that's where they first figured out how to get transistors and silicon and all that whole scheme working. And so I completely expect that Vancouver will be the home of that if we continue to build this ecosystem in the way that we already have. Thank you very much for your time and attention.


I'm sure Downton Abbey is a wonderful show full of light-hearted humor British wit and enough crumpets to fill up a kitchen I'm a man of little taste and less fucks to give so when I saw the Downton Abbey trailer not once or twice But thrice I wanted to jump off a cliff I wanted to climb on top of the movie theater and just belly flop to the ground I wanted to take the straw from my drink and impale myself with it just right through the neck Clean what and done pull it out and just let the blood run Just let it go Elsa it's a frozen reference in 2022. We're on top of things Downton Abbey a new era is finally here and I want it to be done already My last three outings at the theater haven't been great There was no less than 25 minutes of trailers before each one It got to the point where I started arriving after showtime by 10 minutes and it didn't matter I still had to sit there and watch the same previews over and over again I feel like the people that run the theater came from a job at Guantanamo Bay Because they know how to torture a person and the perfect way to do it is by playing the Downton Abbey trailer Which I've seen the last three times at theaters This is a movie preview that is almost three minutes long I'm now gonna recant the trailer because I hate myself and I want you to join in in the debauchery The trailer starts with a sweeping shot of what I can only imagine is Downton Abbey I don't actually know what Downton Abbey is. Is it a road? Is it the castle? Is it a way of life? We get some old cultured people walking up to the castle with a parasol in hand and then Lady Grantham Comes into the mix McGonagall from Harriet Potter or the nun from sister act forgot that nuns There's sister Mary Clarence.  Apparently they're going to be making a movie at Downton The people keep saying this a movie at Downton They're gonna be making a movie at Downton for some reason Jar Jar Binks is king from under the sea is there Downtons getting a movie We then get some scenes which I guess are supposed to be jokes where they're trying to film It startles Maggie Smith who honestly could have killed over and died right there This woman is not young. We should not be filming stuff like this with her She's precious and needs to be preserved. Don't startle her with an action clap.  She might be a villain of this picture I don't know. I hate her because of how she utters the words the modern world comes to Downton I wanted to leap over the couch and butterfly kick her in the ear for how she uttered that phrase Just a swift run I wear socks in the studios not shoes. I'm not an animal There's really two plots going on here the film being done at Downton and the mystery of the secret villa in France Why was it gifted to her? This is surely something we're gonna be invested in we then see these old rich-ass people Frolicking in France Paracel's missing this time. He might have a mallet of sorts. Maybe they're playing some croquet Who knows this guy is the limit with the film They can do things that the TV show couldn't so croquet is on the table Actually, I looked back on the trailer again. They're holding rackets not mallets my bad But the croquet is still on the table. We might see it here How exciting would that be as this trailer and the story unfolds? We learned that to a minute lady Grantham. We see a young photo of her very youthful very lovely Definitely not what she is now Ready to keel over at the sound of an action slate hitting keep her alive That's the goal here at this point. I'm fully checked out its splashes of noise followed by wedding shots Different things going on then we end on one of the most bizarre lines I've heard uttered in quite a while Maggie Smith's character lady Graham cracker says there's two types of women in this world dragons and fools Make sure they think of you as a dragon what what is what?


So, good afternoon or good morning, depending on what time frame your mind is operating. But thank you very much for having the patience to sit through this session, including mine, which is listening to my intervention, which is the last one today before we come to any conclusions if we can do that. I have no PowerPoint, so you don't have to watch me. You don't have to watch the screen, just hopefully my voice will be sufficient. And I wanted to start by thanking Jens for having invited me here. I really appreciate to have this opportunity to have an exchange with you. I see that I'm on the agenda, expected to present the UN view. I can immediately tell you that there is none, and I will not therefore speak on behalf of the UN, also because perhaps it's important for you to understand that as a special procedure mandate holder, I'm an independent expert advising the UN, the Human Rights Council or the General Assembly, on issues which relate to my mandate, which is about sale and sexual exploitation of children. And I have been mandated by the Human Rights Council in particular to look at trends, patterns, new patterns, and to advise them in this respect. Again, my advice is only my personal opinion. I'm supported by the Office of the High Commission of Human Rights in Geneva, and Shujan, who is with me here today, is a very precious support in that respect. I hope she's in the room, but anyway. So whatever I will say, it's my own view. I do this, I exercise this responsibility in the UN on a voluntary basis. I'm not paid, therefore I think my independence cannot be discussed, cannot be challenged. And I choose the topics I want to discuss, and perhaps because I'm at the end of my second term and not renewable, I took the risk to deal with this issue. And they can shoot me, I will have said what I think. And I'm grateful for whatever contribution you can make to my reflection because what I will do actually is to prepare a report for the General Assembly in October. The deadline is pretty soon, so I've been thinking about this quite a lot recently. The deadline is the 10th of July, so I don't have much more time. But to tell you, the angle of which I will be using in approaching this topic is going beyond what I've done in my last report or my first report on this issue, which was looking at it exclusively from the perspective of the prohibition of sale of children. And I believe that that is a very good starting point to look at other rights of children which are enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is the right to identity, the right not to be stateless, access to origins, all these are absolutely essential rights for every single child, but particularly acute and problematic, I would say, for children born from surrogacy. So that will be the angle of my next report. Perhaps to say that, as I said, I'm dealing with sale and sexual exploitation of children in many contexts, in the context of their particular vulnerability and migration context. And my last report was about children who are particularly vulnerable in the way it comes to professional sport, the sale of young football players from Africa, ending up somewhere in Europe and them being just dismissed because they're not good enough. There are so many areas in which children are vulnerable and are at risk. Perhaps the closest to what we are discussing here in these days, the closest theme which I dealt with is the issue of illegal adoption, on which I also reported to the General Assembly. And perhaps it would be interesting for you to bear in mind that in recent judgment of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which was a case about illegal adoption, which went through the process of profite-making intermediaries, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, for whom I prepared an expert opinion, did consider that illegal adoption is among the purposes of exploitation. This was a case concerning Guatemala, and I think that this very decision of the Inter-American Court, which emphasized the problem of lucrative business when it comes to commercialization, commodification of children, can be regarded as trafficking or sale for that matter. So, but let me now come back to the issue of surrogacy. And perhaps, and again, like Michael, I don't want to express any firm opinion on whether it should be permitted or should be prohibited or should be, but all I want to say is that there is an obvious need for regulation. You can't leave children and parents for that matter in a legal limbo. So there is a need for taking this issue up, and all these discussions today are hopefully going to help the states who have taken a position, who are reviewing a position, who are waiting for advice from us. I think that these debates of today are very, very helpful. So the starting point for me is that there's no right to a child under international law. It's not a child is not a good or a service that the state can guarantee or provide. And this is also very much in line with what the CRI Committee on the Rights of the Child has said. So again, in the context of commercial surrogacy, that implies that the commodification of children and when the commercial value determines the whole process, that there are serious concerns under the optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention itself, which prohibits sale of children. So clearly my recommendations, which I will put in my report, will have to relate to the safeguards which are needed to prevent that from occurring. And in my previous report, I suggested that there are different solutions and ways of preventing that, for instance, granting the parentage to the surrogate of birth, the need to have the allocation of parenthood and parental responsibility to be carried out post birth and that the best interest of the child is in all these circumstances, the paramount consideration. Now we have discussed a lot of this and perhaps there are other ways of dealing that, but what I want to be reassured about is that the safeguards are in place in one way or another, that there is a mechanism in place that allows this consideration of the best interest of the child to be considered. And I'm aware that there is a need to find the right balance between possible concerns over commodification, which I've just referred to, an explanation of the surrogate on the one hand and the right to make free and responsible decisions and choices, free of violence, coercion and discrimination regarding matters concerning one's body and sexual reproductive health, on the other hand, I accept that. But let us agree that this discussion is about, primarily is about children, children who are real and who exist and who have rights. And I'm afraid that Ms. Madison is no longer with us, but I really feel so inspired by what she said, you know, I'm here, you have to deal with it. You have to deal with me and acknowledge that I exist. And that I think is for us should be a decisive issue. I have discussed all these matters when I travel to countries and I ask about what is in place and I meet with diplomatic representatives in countries where the practice is legal and they're completely at a loss because these diplomatic representatives are coming very often from countries where it is prohibited. What do they do? What do they have to do? They need guidance. So this is what we are. This is our challenge to provide this guidance. And when I, in the preparation of my report, I have made a call for submissions and I have received lots of answers from the, from governments, from academia, from civil society, from ethical commissions, medical profession. And basically I can say that the following in terms of the reactions I received that several interlocutors reject the premise of sale outright in the context of surrogacy, arguing that there is at no point a transaction for the transfer of the child, very close to that a substantial amount of stakeholders expressed concern with the conflation of sale with surrogacy that could lead to a criminalization of surrogates and intending parents. And then finally some very, may argue, argue very strongly for an outright ban of surrogacy. Now on the prohibition of sale and trafficking, no, let me, let me say this. For the criminalization of those involved, I am of the firm opinion that if there are sanctions and penalties, that should focus on the intermediaries, the profit making intermediaries who are typically complicit in facilitating illegal surrogacies and exploitative practices. And there I would like to draw the parallel with the judgment of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which I just referred to. I do not think that, for instance, what happened in Cambodia in 2018, where 43 surrogates were arrested and detained together with the children they had given birth to is proportionate and it is a very rigid interpretation of what they have criminalized under Cambodian law. I'm not aware of intending parents having been prosecuted anywhere, so that's very positive. But again, in order for this to happen, I think when you take as a principle that everything, your reaction should be inspired by what is in the best interest of the child and you're on safe grounds and you don't prosecute these surrogates. But the reality is there is a regulatory vacuum and we need to identify these safeguards for children that can apply whatever position the state opts for. And again, I do, my approach is one of holistic one, a child rights perspective. Every single child is entitled to respect of his or her basic rights, which starts with the prohibition of discrimination on the basis of the circumstances of the birth. So, and I think it's important that states bear this in mind, in particular as they will be confronted with the surrogacy that are carried out abroad. It is very important, in my view, that such states, the states who have a prohibitive approach, carefully conduct a post birth best interest determination in regard to the child's identity rights and access to origins and make independent assessments as to parent and parent decisions. Getting it right, I mean, we should also worry about cases which we haven't heard much about in the course of the discussions these days, but there are really very bad, I would call worst case scenarios of abandonment, selective abortion, perhaps, I mean, those who don't want to discussion on abortion, I accept we can leave that out, but abandonment after birth, abuse. I mean, there are plenty, plenty and plenty of examples around the world where we can see that if a proper post birth determination had occurred, including assessment of the suitability of both parents, not just the surrogate who has been examined in terms of her suitability as a surrogate, but parents capable of bringing raising children in the best interest of these children. That is something which absolutely is required. I have looked a little bit at the case of the European Court of Human Rights. There are very interesting cases which relate to states which have a prohibitionist approach, in particular France. You probably have heard about that yesterday. I wasn't here in the morning, so I'm sorry if I am repetitive in that respect, but I think what is important to remember here is that the Court has, over time and again underlined that the paramount best interest of the child outweighs the authorities' aim to deter its nationals from violating national law on surrogacy, by not recognizing parentage established abroad, the margin of appreciation being narrow when it comes to determining parentage. And follow up to these judgments which were in the 2014-2016. We have recently received an advisory opinion of the European Court of Human Rights, which actually relates to the implementation of the previous judgments, which shows that the European Court of Human Rights, again referring to the reduced margin of appreciation, considered that there is a need for domestic law to provide the possibility of recognition, in this case of a legal parent-child relationship with the intended mother who was designated in the birth certificate established in California as the legal mother. The Court actually went on to say in this case that the recognition could take a form of entry into the register of birth, but there are also alternatives ways of acknowledging that and, for instance, refer to adoption. I personally regret that once the Court has suggested that adoption may be an alternative, there was no reference to the safeguards which are attached to the adoption process, which is the result of long, long work of the international community to ensure that the rights of children are being taken into consideration. And I think that the gains made in the development of child rights norms and standards in the context of adoption, and in particular the evaluation of the child's best interest to a paramount consideration, should be preserved and certainly not be diminished when we are talking about surrogacy. Yes, I mean, just briefly, there was also an additional question in this advisory opinion, which had to do, which was about a distinction between a situation of a third-party agglonation and the use of oversight provided by the intended mother. And the Court stated that the need to provide with the possibility of recognition of a legal relationship, and I quote, applies with even greater force when the child has been conceived using the acts of the intended mother. Personally, my view is that the existence of a genetic link should be considered in the context of the best interest, but it should not be an abstract criteria. Genetic link? Parents, no, that should be part and parcel of all the considerations which enter into the picture when you assess the general interest. With regard to access to origins, how much time do I have left? Because I can shorten, and known limits, no? Three minutes. OK, well, then I will want to wrap up a little bit quicker. But again, OK, we have the right to access to origins. We have to strike the right balance between the right to respect the privacy of the gamete dog owners and the surrogates and the rights of children to know their identity and have access to their origin. I think we have examples in the room, in particular in Australia, in Victoria, where they have found a very good way of allowing children to be informed of the fact that there is something special about their birth, but not necessarily giving them access, and certainly not before the age of 18, to this information. Family environment is also a very important aspect of a child's life, very much related to identity. There is also an interesting case law of the European Court of Human Rights in this respect. In an Italian case, I think it just shows, if you are familiar with the case, that the judicial reviews which take place do not necessarily endorse de facto situations if it's done properly. I mean, the best interests of the child is evolving, can evolve, there should be no irreversible decisions. So I think those who are worrying about court doing always what they see is already the case, I think have a good example of the opposite if they look at that case. So yes, I'm concluding. I think that one of the important issues is that there is clarity about the enforceability of surrogacy which are carried out, of contracts which are concluded in countries where it is possible to have surrogacy. But the question is how do countries, in particular prohibitionist countries, but also countries who have legislated, deal with the enforceability and what is needed? What are the additional criteria for assessment, whether that should be accepted? What I can say is that the failure to regulate in this area is not a good idea. It not only creates the possibility for domestic and international markets of children, but it creates very serious risk for children's rights. Where these markets exist, they should be dismantled right away and under no circumstances should children be treated as a commodity or discriminated against based on the way they have been conceived. So whatever policy is dictated in the state, safeguards need to be put in place and I think it is our challenge and perhaps in our conclusions. I would say that it would be important that we would try to develop a set of principles, a set of minimum rules which would govern the practice from a multi-dimensional human rights perspective. I mean, we need more confrontation of ideas. We have heard a lot about research that has been carried out. I think there is more that is needed, including on the long-term impact of children. I believe that our discussions here are a stepping stone in the right direction, but we need much more than that before we can really expect any state to take a final position on this. But we can assist member states in trying to develop these minimum standards, which I believe we have identified in the course of these discussions. Thank you very much.