While the remarkable development of successful COVID vaccines is already allowing much of the rich world to return to something approximating normal life, the majority of the world's population living in the Global South are having to wait. That's because the vaccines, most of which are owned by Western pharmaceutical companies, have been snapped up by those governments most able to pay. So how can we resolve this inequality? Well, one option is to share the vaccines already being produced more fairly. This would mean donating mostly Western produced vaccines to the Global South. The other is to allow developing countries to produce their own. Now, this would require waiving patents on the vaccine. So anyone can get the recipe and no one can get fined or sued if they make a vaccine which someone else has originally developed. There is a broad coalition of people who want to waive patents on COVID-19 vaccines. This map is showing you the different positions which are across the globe when it comes to vaccine patents. So here you see in yellow countries who have come together to say there should be no patents on COVID-19 vaccines so that anyone can get the recipe and anyone can produce the vaccine. You can see there you've got China, India, most of Africa, much of South America, Indonesia. You've essentially got most of the Global South. Then the countries who are opposing is mainly the rich world. So you've got the United States, you've got all of Europe, you've got Australia, you've got Japan. There's a slight exception. You've got Brazil, which isn't a particularly rich country. Looking at this map you probably come to the conclusion that this is another situation where the rich world is exploiting the poor or at least not providing the world with the resources that would improve people's quality of life because they want to preserve their own right to make profit. That's probably what I think is going on here. Not everyone does, though. One man disagrees. Bill Gates was on sky this weekend to mark a year since the launch of the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator. Now the Accelerator is also known as ACT, brings together government scientists and philanthropists to help develop and distribute technologies to fight COVID. In the interview, Bill Gates is talking about how we can get vaccines to people, but he's very, very clear this should not include waving patents on vaccines. I'm going to take a look at the interview, and this is his answer to the question, do you think it would be helpful for the vaccine recipes to be shared? No, why not? Well, there's only so many vaccine factories in the world, and people are very serious about the safety of vaccines. And so moving something that had never been done, moving a vaccine from, say, a J&J factory into a factory in India, that it's novel. It's only because of our grants and our expertise that can happen at all. The thing that's holding things back in this case is not intellectual property. There's not like some idle vaccine factory with regulatory approval that makes magically safe vaccines. You've got to do the trials on these things, and every manufacturing process has to be looked at in a very careful way. There's all sorts of issues around intellectual property having to do with medicines, but not in terms of how quickly we've been able to ramp up the volume here. I remember how shocked people were when we said we were going to do second sources in these developing country factories. That was the novel thing. We got all the rights from the vaccine companies. They didn't hold it back. They were participating. I do a regular phone call with the pharmaceutical CEOs to make sure that work is going at full speed. That was Bill Gates saying, look, there's no point in sharing the recipes. There are no idle factories. Any factory that can be making the vaccine is making the vaccine. Also, he adds, by the way, anyone that is making a vaccine in the global south is basically doing it because of our grant money. I'm joined by Stephen Burrani, a science journalist who's written extensively about the pharmaceutical industry and the development of COVID vaccines. What did you make of Bill Gates' argument in that particular clip? He's being purposely obtuse here. He's wrong on the face of it saying there aren't any idle factories. I published in The Guardian just the other day, a factory in Canada, a company called BioLyce that wants to make the J&J vaccine. They haven't heard back. They've got the bioreactors. They've got enough stuff to make about 20 million doses a year. Not a huge amount, but it puts the lie to the idea that nobody's going to do it. There's factories in Bangladesh that have come forward, things like this. The bigger issue is he basically says that there's no way to do it any faster. And he's being obtuse about how this works. I mean, there's no way that you could just waive the patents today and a factory will make vaccines tomorrow. But that's not what people are asking for. They're asking for a joined up international effort to build up production from the very base level, which basically deals with all of his critiques. There aren't enough materials. There aren't enough factories. I mean, what we're saying is we want something like there was in the past. We want something like there was for small box, where there's a global coordinating body and they help every country build up capacity to take on this thing. Would he not say that's what is ACT UP? What's not called ACT UP? Sorry, I've got that wrong. His accelerator, his COVID accelerator, was supposed to be to transfer technology, wasn't it? But it was while leaving all the power within the pharmaceutical industry. Yeah, exactly. And if he did that without the patents, it would be more effective. I mean, if he didn't do it at all, it would be more effective. If he let the WHO use their own accelerator, which is what they want to do. And he sort of jumped in front of them and said, oh, no, we're going to do it my way. And then nobody did either of the ways. So it just, it does seem like a big distraction. You want to read him in as good faith as possible, but he just does seem very purposely obtuse. He says, there's no capacity and we're saying we want to build capacity and no answer. And then you say, we want to joined up worldwide effort like we have in the past. And he says, I've got one. And then, you know, totally ignores the WHO trying to do the same thing. So it really does seem like he's just trying to sort of block the conversation. And he knows he's not going to get a follow up to that question, right? Yeah, I mean, it's super complex. And thank you for coming on here to explain that. I want you to interview Bill Gates next. Let's go back to the Gates interview because part of his complacency about the ownership of vaccine patents seems to stem from the view that he thinks that basically, I mean, if you add it to that previous clip, thanks to him, things are going pretty well right now anyway. Well, over the balance of the year, the US, the UK and others will be able to make sure that the vaccines are now going to the developing countries. Because many of the vaccines worked, you know, although we're looking at, you know, some of the side effects now and making sure we can treat those and that they're very rare. That good news means that we will be able to supply others. And the other good news is that the actual death rate from this epidemic in the poorest countries has actually been quite low. And so the places where, you know, you want to get everyone over 60 vaccinated, like South Africa, Brazil, you know, that that will become a priority just in the next, you know, three or four months is when the US will move into that excess position and take these Act A resources and use them to get those vaccination levels up as fast as we possibly can. You know, it is true that there's been about a four-month gap that depending on what happens to J&J could be over six months. Typically in global health, it takes a decade between when a vaccine comes into the rich world and when it gets to the poor countries. So there you saw the argument. He's basically saying, look, you know, normally it would take 10 years for people in poor countries to get the medicines we're using in the West. If it's four months to six months, I don't get why people are complaining. What did you make of that particular argument? His voice is really annoying.  We're doing a better job. But even now that we're doing it faster, you'll get yours when we're done. You know, like we're going to do business as usual. We're going to let the pharmaceutical producers handle production all on their own in total secret. No transparency about production. No transparency about supply. It arrives when it does, first come, first served, and you can eat when we're done. And I mean, the way that I think I always think about this myself, and I encourage other people to think this way, is to ask yourself, like, do you think that they think this is a crisis? You know, because they're doing things with the same business model that they were before. It's just that the vaccine's got developed a bit faster. It's first come, first served. It's all secret. They're not sharing anything they're not doing tech transfer. You know, there's no, there's none of this idea of like, you know, war footing, where we're going to marshal every resource and profits and productivity be damned.  They're approaching it as if it weren't a crisis. And I just think that's very telling, you know, we'll get ours. And then, you know, the rest of the world can have it when we're done. That's always the thing with Bill Gates.  He's a techno optimist. You know, that's the money he gives to science. You know, that's great. But he has a very narrow view of how the world and politics can work. And not only is it like very narrow, it's very historical. You know, it's this incredibly marketized. The private sector can have to do everything. And all you can possibly do is like slightly incentivize them or like fill the gaps where they can't produce.  One more clip of Bill Gates because this one is where I think the political analysis really shows through or at least the political assumptions really come through. He's pushed by the host on whether he thinks the gap between access to the vaccine for the rich world and the poor world is a problem at all. Yes. The reason our, you know, foundation funded Gavi, which the UK is also a huge back rub is to deal with these unbelievable health and equities. And as I said, in this case, it's about a four to six month Delta. That's not fair. But that's actually doing very well. You know, given that the funding that was provided, the fact that the rich countries have somewhat prioritized themselves, you know, that's not completely surprising. We don't have world government that sits there and, you know, ignores the US R&D money or UK R&D money and overrides that because the, you know, the fact of getting elderly people vaccinated in the rich countries, which actually had the pandemic worse than most of the developing countries, that was a good thing. The fact that now we're vaccinating 30 year olds in the UK and the US and we're not yet, we don't have all the 60 year olds in Brazil and South Africa. That's not fair. But, you know, within three or four months, the vaccine allocation will be getting to all the countries that have the very severe epidemic. And so Act A, you know, it doesn't get a perfect grade, but it does get a very high grade that the second source deals did happen. And now, you know, it's going, we're going to get to the point of equity. He's basically saying it's either this system we have now, which is based on, you know, national governments, corporations, and the odd philanthropist, or it's world government. That's the sort of the options he's presenting towards. You've got the status quo, or you've got world government. I mean, how would you respond to that particular argument from Bill Gates? Yeah, it's, I mean, yeah, it's the centrist motto, man. You know, things cannot be better, you know, but we can't we can't imagine any sort of better world. It's the same thing as always. It's it's it's stalling. It's sort of false equivalencies. And it's all sort of based around continuing to do things the way we currently are, which is which is just business as usual. And I mean, the reason I keep saying that it's a historical is that, you know, there were previously in the past joined up efforts to to take on global epidemics, you know, against smallpox, against polio, you have the WHO, which is far from world government, you know, it's it's a it's an institution that is bought into by its member states, created coordinating bodies that that allowed countries to build up capacity to make vaccines. And, you know, that worked really well in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s.  It's totally historical. The point that I think that standing out from what you're saying is that, you know, what you're proposing isn't even actually that radical. It's just what happened in the 50s or 60s in the 70s, which was that patents weren't so defensively protected. And you could have coordination between different countries and countries could say, look, we're making this vaccine. Sorry, it's an emergency. You can't stop us. Yeah. I mean, basically, and it's not to say that that, you know, pharma companies got thrown out to dry, or even that they didn't fight for their patents.  And sometimes it seems like a lost world.


What's other everybody Jason here for Jasper's case race dot com We're giving away eight spots in the hip parade break with this 2023 panini certified football one box break number four So first we're gonna do the break and randomize the customer names team to distribute the hits out then at the end We'll randomize only the customer names and the top eight getting guys So here's the dice roll. It is a five and a four nine times. Good luck one two three four Five six seven eight Kev got a Jimmy nine times one two three four five six seven eight Rams down the commanders now Yeah, no trading guys. I'll just see your teams though, but because it's a quick little box break And a filler box no trading great block. All right. We go. Oh, is that right? That's cool Just to have them around. All right. We got a Travis E.T. and junior to one ninety nine And we have a Quinton, Johnston to two forty nine Relic Nick Bosa to one ninety nine. We got a Jack Campbell to three ninety nine We got a Joe Burr Calling cards to one forty nine And then you've got a Canton certified worn moon autograph is Houston all there's one of the Tennessee tights Which Titans would be going to Zach? Last one. Oh, Joe And we got a Sean Clifford to one ninety nine for the Green Bay Packers Green Bay Packers is a Edward Petty Fred Warner the 49ers Lamar Jackson to one ninety nine calling cards and Tyler Lockett to one ninety nine for the Seahawks We got Charlie Jones to two seventy five There you go. All right guys. There you go. So Nice little hit there a little hit there. And of course we had a relic here Jaguars. That's gonna go to Will which is front time and then Chargers, which is Logan Little something there for the four hits. Let me have these numbered cards as well. All right, awesome Thank you guys now the switch scenes and let's do the main giveaway, which is those spots in the hip rate break So top eight Roll it Four and a five nine times. Good luck one two three four Five six seven eight nine four five nine times top eight are in Just missing all that we're sorry buddy, but Jason K. You're in Luke Triss Logan Cameron Jimmy Jimmy and Jimmy. Whoa What a randomizer buddy Top eight are in guys the rest unfortunately are out Thanks for giving it a shot though But like I said, we have another randomizer of pack break or box break again and plus some straight-o spots to get this done guys So you guys want to give it another shot number four is on the website I believe or five on the website jazby's case breaks calm


13 reasons why season 2 just launched on Netflix today and I was debating on whether or not I was going to make some videos on it because it seemed like season 2 is going to be more of a teen drama than actually cover some mental health topics like season one did but after watching episode one there are definitely some major issues regarding mental health that we need to talk about so stay tuned what is up everybody this is chris from the rewired soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution it's mental health awareness month glad that season two of 13 reasons why started and we're gonna talk about it so be warned there will be spoilers I just finished watching episode one and if you haven't watched the first season either a you need to go watch it or be you might be confused about some of the plot points that I'm talking about okay but anyways these are my first impressions and like I said in the intro when I saw the preview for season two it seemed like you know they weren't gonna address like depression and things like that like it was going to be more like oh what kind of crazy stuff's going on more of a mystery and like well that is definitely something that's going on this season there are some mental health things that we should talk about okay so I'm gonna break it down by a few of the characters so first off let's talk about our main character clay okay so clay at the end of season one you know he found out everything that happened to Hannah and he's trying to get her justice and everything like that and right now the trial is starting so the parents of Hannah Baker we're gonna have a settlement but now there is an actual trial and they're calling in witnesses to the stand so I'm not gonna dive too much into the plot of that it's making things definitely interesting but anyways clay he is struggling with closure um this season and this is something difficult like I made a video about how I've dealt with a lot of grief and loss and it's something that's difficult and especially for clay so this season he he really doesn't want to talk about it he's his his mom's trying to get him to talk about it um he's now dating a new woman and he doesn't want to talk about with her and things like that and it's definitely messing with his head and this is this is something that we need to process so when you go through therapy when you work with a therapist um or any kind of like a 12-step recovery program like you get to process things so a lot of the the trauma and disturbances we have is because our brain hasn't been able to properly assess the situation and walk through that story and so clay is currently holding on to a lot of guilt and shame and things like that and he's not gonna fully heal so hopefully this season he opens up and we get to kind of see his process going through that now the next thing regarding clay so his new girlfriend he's now dating the girl I forgot her name he's now dating the girl who he was friends with a long time ago and he starts talking to her again at the end of season one well they're now dating so they are about to uh do uh the fang right and as they're messing around he notices cuts right and he calls her out on it's like what what's this and she says oh I used to you know cut down there like a common place for people to self harm is their inner thigh okay and he's like no these are these are fresh cuts and that's when she has to tell him the truth she's like yes I did I was cutting you know da da da and he he's trying to do kind of what I talked about in my last video go check it out about how to help somebody with depression right so he starts doing a bunch of things that you don't do right so he starts saying like haven't you meditated you know why don't you go for a mindful walk and I'm like don't do that stuff you know and he's he's like you told me that you would call me before you cut and da da da and he's just he's barraging with this stuff so while this comes from good intentions the conversation needs to be much much different um so there is going to be the topic of self harm this season and it's something that I haven't touched on on my channel yet and I know it's something that we need to talk about because not only do a lot of people struggle with self-harming behaviors but a lot of young people do too so if you would like me to do videos on self harm like let me know in the comments like I try to make videos catered to you so if that's a topic you want me to discuss please let me know but we're gonna see more of how that progresses this season but here's something that that happened later is that when Clay and her were about to do their thing again right like um he freaks out because he keeps seeing Hannah and he won't open up and talk to her about it and she thinks that there's a problem with her because he's saying like you know uh there's nothing I just can't do it tonight all right and she feels ugly she feels unattractive and things like that so by the way if any of you are in a relationship with somebody who struggles with mental illness like start working on conversations like the more that is unknown the more this thing gets to create crazy stories so since Clay is not being honest with her about what's going on with him she's taking it as she's not attractive you know she's not good enough and things like that so I think this might make her cut some more okay so without even realizing it Clay might be triggering her cutting next let's talk about Alex so at the end of season one Alex tried to commit suicide all right and we didn't know if he lived or died like they were like you know this kid just shot himself okay so in this season like there's some questions that are unanswered I was like googling stuff I'm like did I miss something um but it's it's kind of playing into the plot of this season but Alex wrote a suicide note and he doesn't remember anything they don't really answer the question of like was he drunk was he high was he blacked out or whatever but his memory is now shot um probably because of the suicide attempt Alex's situation so in this season he's returning back to school so he was in a coma for a while he's now seeing a therapist uh and a doctor he has a limp he probably did um some brain damage or nerve damage um but this is really interesting and I haven't talked about this on the channel but he's dealing with life after a suicide attempt so when going back to school he's worried about what people are gonna think are they gonna judge him and all these things and like I'm really glad this show is addressing that like man like the show has done a good job with a they have a new disclaimer at the beginning and stuff and like for all the people who are bashing on this show season one like calm down calm down okay like this show is bringing up very good topics that we need to discuss and I'm really glad that they are showing Alex's struggle like returning from a suicide attempt and you know this is why there are people who make multiple suicide attempts because even after that it's even more it's almost more difficult you know what I mean so I'm glad they're showing and I hope we see some some resolutions to that so now is my third topic of this and this is one of the reasons why I dislike people saying that the season one was glorifying suicide and stuff like that because when Alex returns to school um one of the guys tells him that they're not allowed to talk about it they're not allowed to talk about suicide they're not allowed to talk about Alex's suicide attempt they're not allowed to talk about what happened to Hannah and if they talk about any of these things they're gonna get suspended like what what like that's crazy and this is the issue this is one of the biggest mental health issues in our country is that we keep saying just don't talk about it just don't talk about it just don't talk about it that's not how this thing works we need to talk about it now I will tell you this Mr what's his name I think it's Mr Porter he is my man this season so it's interesting because they say don't talk about it or you get suspended but this uh this guy he's actually making this mandatory like class for people to come in there and process and talk about some of these things so it'll be interesting to see how that turns out but yeah major major issues saying just don't talk about this stuff and especially threatening these kids with punishment like y'all need to back up like this is why schools should have like licensed therapists like they should have brought in some therapists you know into this school to help these kids deal with this stuff um so yeah I would love to hear from all of you leave comments down below are you watching this season are there any other topics in this season that you think are good that you may want me to cover or unpack a little bit for other people um is there anything in this season that you struggle with that you wish other people kind of understood because I'm more than happy to do more videos this season I still don't know how I'm gonna do it I definitely don't want to do every single episode so if you have any suggestions leave them down in the comments below all right but hey you know what it's it's mental health awareness month share this video share this video because I think there's a lot of good lessons to be learned from 13 reasons why okay but anyways if you like this video please give it a thumbs up and if you are new here I'm always making videos to help you out with your mental health and spread some awareness click that little round subscribe button and if you want to check out some other content on this channel you can click or tap on one of those thumbnails all right thanks again so much for watching check out 13 reasons why season 2 on Netflix and I'll see you next time


Join me on Instagram. Beautiful pictures for you guys and give you lots of good information so that you can prepare yourself well for PA school.  It's Adana. I am back with another video for you guys. I am doing one of your requests. You asked for what books I use in PA school to study and so I am doing it for you guys. So I am definitely going to leave a link with the Google Drive document of all of the books that I need for my didactic gear so you guys can take a look at that. There is one book on there. Just bypass this book okay. It's called Being Mortal Medicine and What Matters in the End. I have never opened this book a day in my life. It is a book about medicine. It's one of the New York Times bestseller but you can read it if you just want some light reading but me I don't have time for light reading okay. I have to study for PA school. I don't know why this was on my list but it was. Maybe I'll use it in the future I don't know but I have not used it to study for anything in PA school yet so you can just bypass that on my list okay. Alright so let's get into it. So I have this class for PA school called Physical Diagnosis. If you saw me on my Instagram my husband did a video of me trying to study my check sheet. It was my H-E-N-T check sheet because we've already done the I so it was just one E and I was talking about the thyroid at that moment I believe but if you haven't done so go ahead and follow me on Instagram and you can go ahead and see that video but these are the books that I use for that class. So I have one book that is on my Kindle. It is the practical radiology because in that class we look at all of the different radiology film so x-rays, MRI, CTs because we use them to look at different aspects of the body in practice and we also use them in my simulation class and in this class so this is one of my books. I like it. It explains a lot. I have the electronic version because I was a little cheap and also I just wanted to get the information and I didn't mind having an electronic book but I will definitely invest in the paperback because I like highlighting. That's just me personally but if you are fine with electronic books go ahead and do that. It's a really good buy. I also use clinical documentation because we do some soap notes. So this is my clinical documentation guide to clinical documentation. The second edition I use that in my physical diagnosis class as well because we have to diagnose and document. So this breaks it down for you. It really talks about soap notes and all like all of these different things. I don't know if you can see that but I'm trying you guys. I'm trying for you. My two main books. These are like the big daddy books of that class. So this is Bates. That's got the guide to the physical examination. So we have the documentation aspect of it and then we have the actual examination. In this book I really like it because it has a lot of tables in the back just about the different parts of the body and what they would physically look like. This is the air and abnormalities like skin gropes. We have the eye. So it's essential for you to know what these different things look like normally and then when you're doing the examination what you're looking for what a non-normal eye or ear looks like because then you'll be able to narrow down your different diseases and this book very very very much so has helped me through lots of my tests and just understanding the beauty of the skin and how it tells you that hey something may be wrong or this person actually is pretty healthy. This book is skin disease. This is what I used a lot when I was in my Durham module. It helped me understand what the skin should normally look like and what it looks like abnormally. So these are just like a few pictures has a lot of pictures. It tells you how to treat the different diseases and what they are. Guys I'm trying. I'm trying really hard. I'm trying really hard to find something that is not someone's like genitals or like breasts. I'm trying hard but no that one has some butt in it. Okay. All right. No. No. Okay. Oh here. Here's some toes. Okay. So we have some toes you guys looking at this and seeing the different types of funguses that may grow on the toe how to treat them as well. So this is actually a really good book especially if you want to get into Durham. This is very good. You'll understand like all of the different diseases that can happen in the skin what they look like. So go ahead and cut this if you haven't already done so and you are interested in being a Durham PA. So for anatomy the majority of my time was spent looking at the power points and then looking at my anatomy like my gross anatomy book the Atlas. We were asked to get this book. This is more as clinical oriented anatomy. I did not practice book open a lot. I really only did it for the eye and knowing you know the eye the extra ocular movements of the eye and what muscles do that and you know if there was a lesion to one of those muscles what would happen. So that's what I use this book for. Pretty much didn't use it for anything else. These were my books. I have a Netter anatomy book and also flash cards and then our school uses theme as well and so I liked the way that themes Atlas of anatomy book looked. So I decided to get that book because it's beneficial. So just like any other Atlas for the most part but it also has information on different injuries. So if you hit the terion and the middle menendial artery was damaged what kind of hematoma or injury would you have and that's an epidural hematoma. So that was in there. So knowing those bridging veins through arteries what those different things if they're affected or clog what would happen. So really like that book. If you're looking for a good anatomy book I would suggest either this one or Netters gross anatomy. They're really really really amazing and these were my best friends you guys. These were my best friends this semester. So and they're probably going to be like my friends forever. My best friends forever. These are my BFFs pants prep pearls and certification and re-certification. So I've already told you guys about these two books. I love them. I absolutely love these books you guys. Specifically pants. I really I'm so glad that I invested in this book. It just breaks it down. I told you guys about it already. It makes it so simple. If you're a person that you're just trying to get the pearls of something so that you can see these buzzwords because a lot of the times that's what they use. The buzzwords definitely definitely invest in this.  So pants. Thank you pants. Thank you for this book. It's been a blessing in my life and then the certification and re-certification. I use this just to reinforce what I've learned on the PowerPoint presentations. It allows me to kind of do a pre-test. It has tests in the back so I can do a little pre-test of things. I don't know if you can see that it's pretty bright but see test my knowledge. See what I need to work on what I don't need to work on. But those are my books you guys. I do have a pharmacology book that I left at school but you'll be able to see what book that is in the description box below on the google drive and I'll leave that for you. But in your light reading go ahead and take a look at some of those books. Definitely if you want to check out some books like prior to getting into PA school I definitely suggest pants and the atlas, the theme atlas. Those books are great. You can never go wrong. They're only gonna be a benefit and I feel like PA schools across the nation like you're not gonna be wrong in getting those two books. And then the skin disease book that will definitely help you because the skin is the skin. So the diseases and treatments are gonna be the same. All right so thank you so much for requesting this. I really appreciate you guys just engaging with me and joining with me on this journey. I do suggest that you guys stay tuned because I am getting whitecoated. I am getting my white coat you guys at the end of this week so stay tuned for that. I will be sure to put a video out about that. I'm really excited about it so can't wait to share it with you guys. Love you guys so much. Thank you guys so much for joining me on this journey. I will talk to you guys and see you later.


I'm Shuyin and I'm an investment principal at United's Impact. We're a venture capital firm with a dual mission of improving the livelihoods of the working poor and generating a strong financial return for our investors. So today I want to pose the question, what if venture capital looked different? And I don't just mean more diverse, although that's also an important issue to me and I'll touch on that later. But also, you know, what if venture capital was not just about outsized returns but can you also build companies which serve the poor, disrupt systems, rewrite the rules? So I'm not sure how many of you watch the TV show Silicon Valley, it's one of my favourites. Even if it's a little too close to home sometimes. And in many episodes they, you know, satirized this claim amongst many Silicon Valley startups that they're making the world a better place. But what if you could actually invest in companies, which we're doing that? So at the heart of our investment thesis at United's Impact is this idea that in many emerging markets systems have evolved in ways in which the structures disempower the poor. So for example, due to market inefficiencies in many situations, small holder farmers only capture a small proportion of the final retail price. So our question is, how do we ungame the system, so to speak, such that these farmers are able to get their fair share of the economic value? So for example, we've invested in a company called Varsha in Indonesia. It's an agricultural supply chain company. And in general, you know, market-based interventions in agriculture work in kind of specialty or premium crops, right? It's the only way that, or many people perceive that it's the only way in which, you know, appropriate margin can be passed all the way down to the farmer. But in Varsha's case, the founder had this vision to reach 100,000 farmers by 2020. And he realized that that would be impossible if he was doing it in a specialty or niche crop. He decided that also, you know, what if I could do this in Mays? What if I could do this in a staple value chain? So what Varsha does is it works across the entire value chain. It provides profit sharing financing, which is also sharia compliant. It provides access to high quality inputs. It provides training on agricultural best practices and off-take at an above market price. And in this way, it's able to deliver a 65% income increase on average to farmers over the past three growing cycles. It's currently working with about 6,500 farmers in various parts of Indonesia and is looking to scale that to 100,000 farmers. It's got a very nice modular solution. And they're also planning to take that into other staple crops such as soybean and rice. One of our other investments is into a company called Mclinica, which started off in the Philippines. And what they're doing is they're building a digital network of pharmacies in Southeast Asia. And in doing so, they're able to provide real-time, last-mile data on what people are buying over the counter at these pharmacies for the first time. And this is incredibly valuable information both to the big pharma companies but also public health organizations, NGOs. And in that way, the impact can be really transformative, you know, in terms of tackling things like counterfeit medicines, disease outbreaks, supply medicines, things like this. A few other investments. I'm in an online education company in Vietnam. I'm an employee benefits company also in Vietnam, which provides 0% financing to factory workers, a bunch of things, mum and pop stores in Indonesia. And for us, it's really exciting to be working with these entrepreneurs with this vision to treat the working poor in innovative ways. Shifting gears a bit. So as you might know from my personal stories, as I'm not actually from, or I haven't taken that kind of route which is typical for a venture capitalist. I didn't found a tech company. I didn't, well actually even worse, I'm an ex-management consultant and many people don't know what we're good for and sometimes I kind of agree. I look a bit different from the typical venture capitalist and I find it quite amusing when I receive all these communications which say, you know, Hey Bro or Dear Gents and Dear Mr. Tang and I'm sure some of the ladies in the room have also been there and you know, it's just like, well if you're asking me for money please take that kind of 30 seconds to do your research. So you know, it's 2017 and I think the venture capital industry still looks a bit like this. I mean, you know, depending on which kind of source you consult anywhere between 5% to 10% of decision makers in the venture capital industry are women and you know, that's not actually moving in the right direction. So you know, we're serious about changing that. We're setting up one of the first funds, perhaps the first fund for investing in high growth women led businesses in Southeast Asia. That will be launching this year and we're super excited about that. In my personal capacity, I founded a startup called Invest with Impact which is a talent agency for the impact investing sector. So you know, really industry is the people who work within it and we wanted to play a role in shaping that and ensuring that kind of diverse voices are heard. So we work with impact investors, universities, talent themselves, corporates to kind of tell them more about impact investing and show that there are many different pathways into the space. So you know, that's just a little bit about kind of my work and my story and you know, I generally do believe that the venture capital industry you know, when it celebrates kind of diversity of background and experience, ethnicity and age it will be a better thing. And so I want to end you with that same question that I started with which is, you know, what a venture capital we're different. I'm James Song. I'm managing principal at FairCat Partners. We work in Myanmar. Born and raised in New York. Also run a startup called Mithra and Deer Labs. My story is very different. My pathway is very different, very non-traditional. I graduated in 05 Harvard University. Thought I would end up doing a PhD there and becoming a professor. I thought that was my career path. So I want to Fulbright to do HIV research in Uganda. And the first year there, since my background was in psychology and it was a psychological intervention to boost CD4 cell counts in HIV positive patients, the first year there I saw a lot of people, a lot of my patients that I was seeing dying because their HIV was progressing to AIDS very quickly. And there's a concept in medicine called co-morbidity meaning you get a disease while you have a disease and that disease in Uganda largely is malaria, which weakens the immune system enough where HIV progresses to AIDS. And there's really nothing I could have done about it, you know, as an HIV researcher. So, you know, I started looking into the issue. I had a chance after my Fulbright year was up to go back to the States and do more research and then apply to PhD programs. And the problem was, you know, like these mosquitoes were being bred in still pools of water. These still pools of water were caused by blocked sewage pipes. These sewage pipes were blocked by litter, rubbish and mostly plastic bags that people have bought something with and then thrown away because they needed the product but not the plastic bag. So I decided to learn everything I could about plastic recycling and open up a plastic recycling factory and it was the first modern polyethylene plastic recycling plant in all of East Africa. And then we, over the next three years, built up a East African wide kind of collection network, a very gray market worked in spite of authorities who always would try to ticket us or stop our activities because we weren't officially sanctioned by the city and we didn't have this maze of, we didn't go through this maze of permits and approvals that you needed to do anything in Africa. So that was very difficult for us. And in 2010, after I received a Masters in Neuroscience, I realized I couldn't grow the business anymore, meaning we started to recycle so much plastic we needed to start importing it into Uganda and the Ugandan government was very against bringing in what they perceived as garbage into their country. So I knew I had to take an exit and then at that point with the neuroscience background, I sold everything and I started an oncology research-based biotech hedge fund in New York. But during that first year, I also got a call about Myanmar to look at the, it was the KFC Master Franchise License deal for the country, which I thought was a very good deal. And it's just the terms weren't right. They were very not American terms, very Asian terms and I couldn't fill it. But I knew a lot of people in the region, so they said, why don't you come and look at other deals? And so I did. And the thing is, the reason why I started from when I graduated is because during my time in Africa, I was there for five years, I would travel through into Asia to China and Taiwan to buy machinery and I would often stop in Singapore and I would meet a lot of people in Singapore over the years. And I realized in 2012 that a lot of the people I met in Singapore were not Singaporean, but they were Burmese working in Singapore because they couldn't work out of Burma. After meeting with them, looking at deals, one of the things that I got involved in early on as an undergraduate was supporting this orphanage in Myanmar. It was a friend in Singapore, you know, it was something she was very involved in. So she said, James, just send $10 a month, you could help these kids. I said, it's no problem. And then over the years I had paid enough money where I sent six of those kids to university and I wanted to know what happened to those kids. So during my first visit, I paid a visit to the orphanage and I realized none of the kids were there. I know two were trained as engineers, one went to school for medicine, but they weren't there. They all ended up going to Dubai because at the time in 2012, if you were university educated and you could speak good English, you were paid about $75 a month. That was the going salary. But in Dubai, the sweet floors at a shopping mall, you got paid about $600 a month. So that was a very good opportunity for them. So I understood the economics and why they left. But I also felt it was unfair. I looked at these kids and I realized, I'm coming from New York, never been to this country before, and I get to see the best deals that they had to offer. But these kids, they grow up, they work, they get educated in the country. They would never see these deals. And I thought there was something very wrong with that. And during my time growing up, I saw the Berlin Wall come down and I saw the opportunities in East Berlin when everyone left. I saw the opportunities in Russia during the fall of the Soviet Union. And I thought Myanmar was very similar. There were opportunities to take there and they weren't being properly explored and there was a lot of crony capitalism. There still is. And I thought a lot of value was being left on the table by not investing in these people. So today, when people ask me what I do, I start off by telling them the truth, the very basic truth, which is I support this orphanage and the kids in it. And I think that is where, in my philosophy, that is where real investment comes from, investing in people and the things that they could produce. So we ended up forming a private equity fund in 2012. The first American private equity fund in Myanmar. Some of the first successes we had, we brought in STADA, which is a German pharmaceutical manufacturer, built the first pharmaceutical plant that wasn't owned by the government. We built a dairy factory to make baby formula for women who couldn't produce nutritious milk for their babies. And then over the last couple of years, I've seen the quality of the deals deteriorate. Not that you can't make money there, but as a country grows, it gets overheated and a lot of people start making the same thing. So there were a lot of five-star hotels being built. And I understand being the first, but being the seventh five-star hotel, I couldn't get into investing in something like that or being the eighth or the twelfth cafe in town serving Italian coffee. It just didn't make sense to me. So last year we formed an angel investment group. We thought we would invest in more high-potential founders in Myanmar and look at more deals that were more inclusive of the people there and deals that were more innovative. And we just couldn't find a lot of sophisticated partners to invest in because the issue is it's no problem giving seed money and it's no problem for them to build technology. But at some point they're going to have to raise a Series A or B in Singapore or Japan. That's where all the money is centered in the region. And we couldn't put our teams against Singaporean teams. We couldn't set them up to fail in that way because just they weren't good enough as founders in a global system. They just weren't up to par. Just to give you an idea, in 2013 there were zero Facebook years in Myanmar just because there was no internet access. Today there are over 50 million Facebook users in Myanmar and that is just in span of a couple of years. But that also means Myanmar passed over that whole part of the internet where everyone got an email address. So instead of email, people pay a shopkeeper who will sign up for a Gmail account because they don't know about Gmail who will open a Facebook account for them. And that's how it works in Myanmar. So we thought the way to really solve this is not to try to fit Myanmar into a traditional system or a traditional structure but really build organically from within the country. So right now we run a startup called Mythra and Dear Labs which uses predictive analytics to improve education to get someone where they could do serious damage like an ordinary person learning, coding, different programming languages usually takes anywhere from 18 to 24 months if you screen for just a couple of personal factors and then you teach them coding you get that down to three and a half months. So it accelerates the program and it seems very far fetched at first but you have to think about it this way. You have a child and let's say that child is 8 or 10 years old. You realize this person, this kid is talented at soccer more talented than anyone else in his class. So you say maybe I should hire a coach. The coach says this kid has a lot of talent. Maybe you should hire a professional coach because by the time this kid is 18 or 19 he has a chance to be in the World Cup if you do it right. But if you think about it nobody does that for talent, you know, across the board. So in America specifically we test a lot for math and quantitative skills and verbal reasoning but we leave something called spatial reasoning off the table and if you could imagine for a moment if I took a bottle of water, drank a bit out of it and then kept the bottle tilted and asked how much was left. There would be an immediate calculation of how much I drink and how much was left in the bottle and that kind of intelligence we ignore completely but we found through our research that those actually make the best software engineers and nobody's screening for that and always putting the programming courses in front of those people. Nobody's challenging them the way they need to be challenged. So for instance, again back with the athletic talent if you challenge that child in a way that they can adapt to it that they have the capacity to adapt it they can realize the potential of their talent and we leave a lot of that on the table across the board in education. I do a Myanmar, I invest in people and I try to make them better and I try to put money behind them. Do you ever encounter like why are we investing in Myanmar? Where the heck is Myanmar? Because most people I've done this academic study most of the VCs in the ASEAN region if you counted how many invested at least 30% of their portfolio in their own country you'd get maybe five. People don't want to invest in Myanmar, period. You need to find people who will meet certain barriers and you need to walk them through the barrier. So I'm going to speak to you very tactically right now. You need to find people of the investment people within the investment universe people who will commit to visiting Myanmar. That's first. No one will invest in Myanmar unless they first visit or at least will commit to visiting and that we've seen to be true. So they visit you do an investor tour and then they'll want to talk about terms and look at some investment projects that you have so you show them those and then everything from there is kind of easy. Now the thing is this is the way the investment space works you're welcome to disagree but this is my view from an outsider raising money inside the investment world and not I'm a neuroscientist I need to cast a very wide net because in a place like Myanmar only 5% of all height net worth investors or family offices would ever think about investing in Myanmar. They have to go first before institutions will invest in Myanmar so you need to capture that 5%. So family offices they have very specific conferences that they go to to talk about family office best practices and for height net worth investors today what I would do today if I was raising a fund again is Facebook darkpost making commercials on Facebook and targeting specific ultra height net worth individuals going to specific conferences so for instance the monaco yacht show you know a very specific type of person goes or now I do not recommend ever exhibiting there but you could Facebook darkpost that one particular area of monaco and send your message out there and it will cost you maybe 3 cents a view that's how cheap it will be so you could spend $500 and just carpet that entire event and it's a very cheap low cost high return way of marketing that thing so that's tactically but the other thing is building commitment to an idea and that starts like I said getting them to visit do you feel there's a growing interest from the local conglomerates families even government when you explain to them the cause and the potential impact that it can have on the national population? I think there is a positive shift I think while a lot of our investors are LPs are from I guess Europe, US etc we do actually have a large number of Indonesian families who invested into our fund they've run kind of large family businesses and we gradually see that that there are more kind of allocations towards philanthropic type purposes I think the challenge is that a lot of it still goes into traditional charity and I think there's this myth that Asians don't give in the same way I think they absolutely are giving but often it's still more traditional philanthropy this idea they've got one part of their portfolio which is really about maximizing financial return which is about maximizing impact and I think that is there but when you're trying to do both they're like how can that be so I think it's more about changing that again telling the story and showing them here are the specific types of companies which do this I think it becomes much more real when you're actually seeing these examples my experience has been very different I feel like there's a plundering up but it's there they want to do some version of rent seeking land grabbing where they want to get as many resources as they can for as cheap prices as they can where there's some kind of sophistication or knowledge arbitrage between the investor and the asset owner and then they want to sit on it and try to make as much money because they're a little bit sophisticated whether it be from technology or other so there are deals that happen in Myanmar where some investor will come in and say give me this plot of land I want to buy it for this price, a very cheap price and then the Myanmar government will say why do you want this piece of land it's just junk, it's a bunch of rocks you can't really do anything with it and then you realize they have geological expertise there's gold and that's why they're mining there now a lot of environmental destruction so there is that kind of arbitrage going on it's been my experience and I can only speak about my experience personally is that we haven't had any investor impact or not that wasn't first interested in investment returns and that's why that conversation about Myanmar which is the fastest growing economy in the region, that's how that conversation started I mean I agree to say that we were there and that this is going to be this huge shift in capital markets taking place I don't think that day is coming any time too soon but I think small steps and I think that's what keeps me optimistic