Presenting first is Anna Nierke-Nielsen. She's from Olboa University and today she will talk about breaking the wall of sustainable school renovation. Big round of applause ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much. You can start. Yeah so today I will be breaking the wall of sustainable school renovation and more precisely I will talk about decision-making in the early stages of school renovation projects. So why focus on renovating our buildings? That's because in Denmark around 40% of our energy usage is made from the from our buildings and also our buildings last long so there's a huge potential in renovating our buildings for reducing the energy usage. But sustainability is not only about reducing energy it's also about other factors such as social sustainability, how the buildings look, how we feel walking around in them, economic sustainability, how is the life cycle cost of the building run and the energy usage and how the building will perform. So why focus on school renovation and the school buildings? That's because a lot of our school buildings in Denmark are very old and worn out and also in 2014 we had a new school reform which entails some new demands in our building to meet these new ideas. So all of this concept of sustainability can be very complex. We have a lot of different parameters that we have to take into account and in that case it's very difficult for the building owner to choose which schools to renovate and in which order this should be done. So what I want to make is a decision support tool that can help the public building owner to make this private rotation and find out the order of the renovation actions. And the way I'm going to do this is through an action research approach that I'm doing in close relation to the municipality in Olbo. So in that way the tool that I will be inventing is something that is both producing knowledge because it's a PhD project of course but also it will be something that can help them in their work with these things and in that case it will be very close to to their practice. Yeah so that's basically it. Before time. Thank you. Impressive with 15 seconds to spare as well. So let's start by asking the jury if you guys have any questions. There's the mic right there. Sensation. In your words what's wrong with the way we do it now. I don't think there's anything wrong with the way we do it now but it's it's a very complex area and what I see when I talk to the public buildings owner building owners is that the way they do it now they kind of invent the method from the beginning every time they do it. So what I want to do is to make it easier for them and for me if I can make something that can make the process easier with the schools then it can be easy to apply for other kind of buildings like when you're doing children's institutions or cultural buildings or other in other building areas as well. Absolutely. So when you say decision tool could it be a little bit more concrete as to exactly how you think this will be implemented. Yeah. So the problem is that there are many different criteria when you talk about a renovation and it's often some conflicts and criteria as well. And in historically you have mostly looked into like energy usage and economy. But when you have want to have a holistic approach to sustainability it's sometimes very hard to kind of wait and prioritize these criteria. So what I want to make is something that can make it easier for them to kind of put their values into this tool so they can use that again and again or if they want to put it against some assessment tool like DDNB or other certification systems. Could you tell us a bit about what happens to people that live inside the old buildings going down buildings. I mean it's you don't talk much about the teachers or the pupils inside. No of course the users are very central when we talk about any building and school buildings as well. And some of the things are of course the physical indoor environment like the air quality and things like that. And we see that the air quality in our existing school is not very good. And also what the challenges are the new idea presented in the school reform for instance put some new demands on the old buildings because the new way of teaching like you want to introduce more movement and you want to make flexible rooms and that all it gives some new possibilities in the school. So the renovation is not only about energy usage. No it's about sustainability in a whole. So yeah one thing is the energy usage but it's more about the other values as well and the social parameters like the values of a school building that can underline the way of teaching that the teachers want to do in today. I'm a bit curious how is this tool you're developing sounds very interesting. Is it building on existing tools in this area or is it something you have developed from scratch so to say. I haven't developed it yet. It's on the idea plane but it's I'm not sure if it's going to be a digital tool. I think it will. But otherwise it will be a method that can that can help in this area. It's the similar tools right now like like that one you're in visiting or. Yeah there are. So what I want to do is make something that is can be used in the municipality of Olbo in the first place and to help improve their practice and then later it can be scaled for other public buildings and also for what's that called. Yeah people who owns a lot of buildings in general and not only the public building owners. Are you communicating with concrete actors in this one with specific schools or specific interest groups at the municipality. Yeah so I'm in a close collaboration with the municipality of Olbo and then I'm following different renovation school renovation projects in Olbo as well in different stages also. So this is also a discussion because this is more actually on a political level because you have to prioritize between your buildings. So the users are not involved at this stage. It's more that only happens when you have actually chosen the building and you start the renovation project there. Great. Any more questions from the jury final question. No. Great. Can I borrow your mic real quick. Great. Thank you. Audience. Any questions from you guys. Anything we were thinking. I really got to know about that one thing. She didn't address that particular topic. Yes ma'am. I knew that would get something. There you go. Thank you. Can you just start by telling us your name real quick. Yes. My name is Lee Covina. I'm a PhD candidate visiting from the Netherlands and now in the Humanities Department. I was wondering you talk about the political level and you follow some schools. Do you know of any is there any demand from the side of the school owners the homeowners because you said I'm not sure if they're doing anything wrong now. I just want to make it more efficient. Is there a large demand from that side as well. Yeah. There are from from the people I have talked to and that's that's the whole reason why I have ended up with having this focus. That's because as I see it now that's their main challenge because in all of our they have actually been been doing a lot of this work and they have been out mapping the the schools existing tools to see how how does it look now. And they have been doing a lot of work in the prior rotation of this and also to choose which buildings it is. But they also see a lot of things in the process that they would like to improve. And and again they they would like to do this more easily transferable to the other building types as well. Great. Thank you Anna. Everyone a big round of applause for Miss Anna. Thank you. So I'm going to give you guys one minute to reflect on the presentation and also ask the audience to take a few minutes reflect on what she just said and score your marks.


Yeah, he's really high up top. You know, almost guaranteed he can't see us. Moving out to the right. Kevin, it'd be nice to figure out where we are.


So my beautiful people I am back with another Elden Ring video and today guys I bring you a weapon guide for an axe I accidentally stumbled upon I mean it's what I haven't seen before it's barely being covered as far as I'm aware I'm not saying it's the rarest weapon in the game I think there's literally about five between five and ten ads on the map I think I'm aware of that can drop this but it's known as a long half shaft long half shaft is that pronounced right I might have been sure guys but either way today we get into it all how's it going guys my name is dpj and if you do enjoy the video leave me a like if it helps out and if you like what you see want to see more be sure to subscribe okay so this weapon this axe scales with strength attributes required it's 24 strength and 18 dexterity it's actually not too bad of a weapon whatsoever isn't my kind of weapon from honest with you but I know there's people out there that would probably appreciate this way more than me but like I said I accidentally stumbled upon it before you know what I share exactly where I got this from you guys so we are guys we are down here the castle mourn this is very bottom of the map very bottom of the map guys so make your way down here come to the castle mourn and I'll show you where you can actually farm this and make it way more efficient on yourself that up I'm reading online on a Wikipedia use a spot you can farm two of these ads that drop this but I went there and I couldn't find them to save my life they weren't near any grace sites or ain't going to be that efficient either way well hey I was probably just looking in the wrong spot my guys followed the path I take unscrewing out of the lift now the one there's actually one here you see him right there in the middle ignored a smaller guys but the big guy right here he drops it as well he has a chance of dropping it now that ain't got it isn't the guy we're going to farm but I'm saying he can and you can farm him we're going to actually progress on to another grace site yeah I'm just demonstrating this to you guys well for the people out there that haven't been here before yep there's another great spot uh point just around here somewhere and there is another one you can farm way more efficiently saves you going up and down the lift which is just pain yes okay so just follow this path I'm taking guys run past all these ads do not worry about them whatsoever now up on here guys you'll see you jump down here to your right and there is another grace this is a grace who will be farmed this weapon from so you'll see we're on a map right here guys this is the behind the castle grace point so from here you literally just want to jump off down here and add it's more or less at the end of that that path so you can jump across here guys and then jump down you should be all right these big or dirty slimeballs will attack you and then you just run to the end you can see the guy's right there so you have to take him out guys he's got the axe in his hand if you're lucky enough you will get this thing to drop and like I said it's I've never seen it before I mean it's probably not the worst weapon in the game but to me it's got to be it's got to be quite rare though like I said I've never seen it yeah make this more efficient on yourself guys use a silver tm mask if you got it as well as a silver scope and guys get farming if this is your kind of thing but there we have it guys a short but sweet video obviously once you've killed him go back to the grace repeat the farm guys if you enjoyed the video leaving a like really helps out if you like what you see want to see more out of the ring be sure to subscribe and hopefully my value to your four people I will see you on that next one


Welcome both, Anne, Sandra, all yours. Thank you. Hello everyone, my name is Sandra Timon, I am from Madrid, Spain, and I am currently working as a Modern Workplace Consultant of Microsoft, who specializes in the accessibility of Microsoft 365 solutions. Moreover, as the presenter said, I am a person with a blindness because of the wall from syndrome, a very rare neurodegenerative disease. So because of my personal condition, my personal situation of some with disabilities, I am a knowledge about software engineering because I studied software engineering. I love how accessible technologies and powers everyone to achieve more. And especially, I love artificial intelligence and how AI empowers especially people with disabilities to achieve things that wouldn't be possible in the real or physical world. Like, for example, allowing a person with cerebral palsy to communicate and to interact with the computer by using their eyes with the use of Windows iControl. And, well, you may be wondering yourself how I can communicate if I'm a person with hearing disabilities, okay, with a great hearing disability, and how I can use the computer if I'm blind. So, well, I can listen to people because I'm wearing a cochlear implant on my left ear and a hearing aid on my right one. And I can work with the computer because I use two assistive technologies. Firstly, I use the screen reader, which is the software that subscripts the textual information that appears on the screen into a rail or voice synthesis. In my case, I use rail because of my hearing disability. I feel more comfortable reading rail. And secondly, I use the rail displays, which is the hardware device that allows me to read that rail information that is generated by the screen reader. So, I would like to let you know why I decided to study software engineering, having been a person with a blindness, because before deciding to study this degree, I wanted to be a mathematics teacher, but from onset, the National Organization for Blind People in Spain, they told me basically I was crazy, okay, and it's all standard, but you can see the blackboard, and most of the lessons will take place on the blackboard, and it will be quite challenging for you to follow the lessons. So, I stopped and started thinking, okay, I thought that additionally to that reason that might not be a good idea for me, a mathematics degree would have less job opportunities than other careers. So, they suggested me to study computer science because they told me it would be more accessible and easy for me to get this degree. And I started considering the degree basically because of three main reasons. Firstly, because I always liked the STEM careers, and people told me that if I liked mathematics, I would love programming, and they were totally right, I love programming. Secondly, because computer science would have more job opportunities compared to the mathematics degree. And lastly, because I thought I could use my knowledge about software to create accessible software to help create a more inclusive world for people with disabilities. So, finally, I chose this degree, and honestly, I think it was one of the best decisions I could make in my life. And well, then I would like to talk briefly about my job journey, okay, and I started working as a software engineer in an artificial intelligence group in the university. I was working in that group for two years, and then I started thinking I would like to join an international company because I could use my knowledge about accessibility to provide value for a broader audience. So, I liked a lot Microsoft because our solutions, you know, the Windows operating system, Office 365's tools and so on are globally used. So, I thought I could provide my knowledge to improve the accessibility of these tools. So, finally, I joined the company, and honestly, I was quite worried because of joining a huge company with a lot of employees, everyone very busy, and people who were not used to working with colleagues with disabilities like me. So, suddenly, I realized very quickly that I was totally wrong, that everyone was really willing to support me in my onboarding, and they were looking forward to learning about inclusive best practices to better support me. So, we started accommodating the office in physical environment because I faced some challenges when I entered for the first time there. For example, coffee machines and machines to drink water have attached screens, so imagine I couldn't use them because I didn't know where the buttons were. So, we thought that maybe using some stickers would be helpful for me to have a physical reference to easily find with my fingers the buttons. Or, for example, we also changed a little bit our culture because of Microsoft, everyone sits where they want every day. We don't have any seats assigned. So, I thought, oh my God, one day I may sit on the legs of a colleague if they are sitting on some headset and I ask them if the chair is available and they don't answer me. So, we blocked that seat for me. Well, many other accommodations we worked with. And on the other hand, it's not only about accommodating the physical environment, but also about creating an inclusive culture. So, everyone started working to increase the culture, the inclusive, create a more inclusive culture and to share in best practices to be more inclusive. So, everyone, not only me and all the employees that may have some other non-visible disability, all of us could be our best at work. So, now I would like my colleague, Ana, to introduce herself. Ana, the floor is yours. Okay, so, hello everyone. My name is Ana Turzaeta. I'm a customer engineer in Data and Artificial Intelligence in Microsoft and I love AI. So, it's my day-to-day life. So, I try to transmit that passion for AI that I have to my customers. However, I'm not here only for that AI passion, which I have, of course. It's because I was Sandra's mentor when she joined Microsoft. So, I was onboarding here. I was in all this transition, which I can tell that it hasn't been an easy journey. You can now see us talking about all these accommodations and everything that we will talk about even in a funny or in a positive way. But it was quite frustrating and it was like a complicated thing. So, yeah, I'm here just to share all that experience. So, when my manager told me almost three years ago that someone with some hard hearing and blindness would join the team and that I would be her mentor in all her onboarding, I was in shock. So, for me, it was something completely new. I just had questions. I knew nothing about what that involved. But I think at the same time, I had that willingness to have this new experience, to meet Sandra, to be together. So, I think that's where everything started. So, I had lots of questions. Like, if she's hard hearing and blind, how does she talk? Like, does she talk? How does she communicate? How does she use the computer? How does she program? Because I knew she was a great programmer. So, I had lots of questions. But again, all that lack of knowledge that I had made me more attracted to what was going to happen with Sandra. And I was super happy to be on that path with her. So, just to tell you also a bit how it is Sandra's personality, I can tell you at first she's really positive about everything that is going on. But also, she's really challenging. So, the first day that I met her, Sandra was talking. Then I discovered that she could talk, of course. Like, normally. So, on that day, she was talking.  Of course, I didn't. So, I said, no, Sandra, I have no idea about anything I said, actually, I want to learn it all. So, also, I think it's a journey of learning. So, of course, there are frustrations. Of course, there's things that could be better or we are still improving. But it's a lot of learning that we have done. So, that's a bit about my personal experience. But I would say that for our super team and the company in general in Spain, it has been a bit the same. So, at first, it was a lot about shock or fear. I don't know how to call it. But, yeah, it was just like not knowing what would that involve. And any of us wanted to do something not appropriate. Like, we wanted to control what we were saying, how to treat Sandra. Like, we want to be really welcoming. So, at the end, everything resulted in, actually, bringing good energy to the team. So, we went more together. We were making fun. Like, for example, Sandra wanted to know how each of the members were. So, we were describing each other. So, I was saying, like, Felipe, it's around 40. And, like, today, Alvaro didn't sleep well because his face, it's not very good or something like that. So, we were having a bit of fun in those situations. So, it was funny, but then we realized that all that, like, the big process, the big challenge would come after. So, then, we saw that everything that we were doing as a team needed to change or needed to evolve. So, from the emails that we were sending, the content that we were sharing to each other, all our meetings, everything needed to be transformed and adapted to the different needs that Sandra was bringing. So, just as an anecdote, I would say, just when Sandra arrived, we were going to go to Gran Villa to watch a musical as our team-building event. And, of course, we couldn't be on that with Sandra because Sandra couldn't enjoy as much as that activity, maybe. So, we changed it or we replaced it for a blind dinner. So, actually, in the PowerPoint, you can see the first image on the left, that that's some of our colleagues on that blind dinner, where we could all play the game of seeing what we were eating or, like, guessing what we were eating with the same advantages. So, that was one of the first things that we started to adapt. What else? Also, for the meetings. So, more especially, we needed to focus on how to make all those meetings more inclusive. So, for that, let's start, maybe, defining what's for us or, like, how we see the inclusive behavior. We have already mentioned this word more than once, but it means, basically, to welcome everyone and to make everyone feel part of a team or the meeting in which we are so that they can collaborate. They can be free to share their ideas. They can feel comfortable. That's also quite important. So, we needed to really promote this inclusive culture so that, yeah, everyone, like Sandra, could be there. And, yeah, for meetings, it's at the end the same thing. So, making everyone participant so that they could access all the content that there was shared. So, here, seeing this, you might think, like, what I can do or what we did when someone with some other needs, new needs that we didn't have before as a team, came into the room. So, in that case, I would say the first tip, which is something from our experience, from our team's experience, is asking. So, we always promote, and now we also do it with our customers, that we ask which are the specific needs of people that will be in that meeting, even more if it's remote. So, always asking. Actually, for Sandra, we didn't even need to ask, because Sandra already said, okay, I need this, this, and this. So, we started changing the different behaviors. So, at the end, it's a small details or a small effort for us, but that can make Sandra fully, Sandra or others, of course, fully part of the meeting. So, things that we do, since Sandra joined our team and also the whole company. First, we love PowerPoint slides. So, we have PowerPoint slides in almost all our meetings. And also, more in our field at least, we love diagrams, we love visual things, we love expressing everything visually. So, I can tell you that for Sandra, those diagrams are useless, she sees nothing. So, for us, maybe it was better to have some colors and some nice shapes in the slides, but not for her. So, we started by describing all the PowerPoint slides, for example, that were presented in a meeting, so that she could have that ground base the same as ours. And then we started discussing, we started talking about whatever, but we were describing everything that was going on. Also, for offline communication, so for example, emails that we are sending, we avoid sending a screenshot, because again, for Sandra, a screenshot, it's a pain at the end, because she cannot understand what's inside that screenshot. And we tried to make everything in a descriptive text so that she can read it with a screen reader that she mentioned before. So, that has been a big change. Also, as I said, for remote meetings, it has been like another tsunami, we kind of call it. So, also, small tips that we now know that we need to do with Sandra. Again, for other people, we just need to ask, and others will say what they need to feel included. So, for here, for example, it's mandatory, I would say, to use headphones with microphone or a good microphone when being in a Teams meeting, for example, so that she can hear the voices much, much better. And also, it looks like something really, I don't know, like simple or whatever, but we say our name whenever we start talking. So, when we are in a meeting, even if it's in person or if it's in remote, we always say like, hey, I am Anne, and then I start talking, because for Sandra, it's complicated to link the voices and more if she doesn't know the voices with the actual person. So, those small things can make a great difference. So, that was my message here. Like, small things that we need to ask others what they need, that then we'll make others, yeah, like part of that meeting or part of the environment. So, now Sandra will get more into the AI topics, which we wanted to talk about. So, at the end, we can have some inclusive behaviors, we can do some actions in purpose, but then there is AI who can make some extra power, it can bring us some extra power to make all those things better. So, Sandra? Yeah, thanks, Anne. Yeah, so let's talk a little bit more about AI for accessibility, okay? Because, you know, we have a lot of accessibility tools and features, and a difficult, intelligent cut-up, a layer of personalization to those tools to switch better the needs and preferences of every user. And these accessibility tools can empower us to be our best at the workspace and even in our personal life, like in the example I mentioned at the beginning for a person with cerebral palsy that before couldn't communicate, and now, using their eyes, they can use the mouse pointer, type on the screen keyboard, and use text-to-speech to communicate with other persons. So, this is wonderful. There are a lot of accessibility tools that they are not only important for people with permanent disability, okay, but for people with temporary and situational disability. At Microsoft, we talk about this classification of three types of disabilities, permanent or variant situation, where I suppose you all know what temporary disability means. It could be, it might be, for example, that you break your arm, and during a shorter or longer period of time, you can use, obviously, one of your abilities, of your arms, to use the mouse or the keyboard. So, this is something that can happen to anyone. But I'm curious about knowing if you ever heard of the situational disability, because this is the disability, the type that I liked the most. I love talking about this type of disability, because this is the most common and the one that can affect anyone at any time. Actually, any of these disability types, I've mentioned, permanent or variant situation, can affect anyone of us at any time, but the third one usually happens because of an external factor, okay, that causes us not having all of our abilities during a very specific moment. So, I would like to give some examples to clarify what situational disability is. Okay, so the first example might be that you are walking from home and you are holding your child in your arms, so you wouldn't be able to use your hands to do anything. And, for example, you received a mobile phone call and you would need to answer to it, so you could use speech recognition, we see if you have an iPhone, for example, to answer the mobile phone call. So, this is why accessibility features at the end are useful, beneficial for everyone. Okay, or, for example, you could even, in this scenario of holding your child in your arms, use your voice to dictate the content of an email that you need to reply to or gently, for example. And, I would like to tell you that speech recognition that is an accessibility feature that uses artificial intelligence was originally designed and developed for people with mobility disability for patients from the rehabilitation medicine in New York at the 70s. So, they could operate their wheelchair with their boys. That is surprising. And, this is an example of a feature that was initially designed for people with disability, whether permanent or temporary. But, at the end, it's being globally used, it's everywhere, okay, the speech recognition in our cars, computers, mobile phones, and it's being used globally by everyone with and without disabilities. So, additionally, it's also an example of how accessibility drives innovation by using artificial intelligence. And, this is the definition we mentioned at the beginning. It's AI for accessibility. Other example of situational disability, quite common, I think, might be that you need to join a meeting while you are in an airport, for example, and there's a lot of background noise, so you wouldn't be able to listen to it if you forgot taking your headsets. And, even live captions for this scenario would be really useful for you to be able to better understand what is being said in the meeting, although you can't listen to it properly. And, this feature was also designed initially for people with hearing disability. But, it's not useful only for people with this kind of disability, but also for people who may be with this situational disability of being in a noisy environment. And also, it could be beneficial to sweet the preferences and needs of anyone. For example, I have a colleague at Microsoft that he's a person with hearing disability and he speaks English very well, but he always enables live caption because he feels more comfortable by receiving information with two senses, with sight and hearing. So, this is another example of accessibility features that use AI and can benefit everyone. And now, well, I have mentioned some accessibility features. There are many other accessibility features, but I would like to talk about the main ones that my colleagues and I use to collaborate more inclusively and to organize inclusive meetings. So, firstly, when I join a meeting, I ask my colleagues, apart from using headset, okay, like Annie told you, I always ask them to enable noise suppression that uses artificial intelligence to remove the background noise and only keeps the voice. I always turn on also, like, transcript. This is a feature I suggested when I joined Microsoft because I realized that, well, I read quite slowly with my viral display and I never had time to read caption in real time. So, I thought that having, like, an historical of all the captions would be really useful for me to be able to review them at my own pace. And even, I thought it could be beneficial for people without disabilities because I always like thinking about things that can benefit everyone, not only people with disabilities, that anyone could take advantage of this life transcript if you are, for example, working from home and suddenly you are disrupted by your children and then when you try to continue listening to the meeting, you don't understand why they are talking about a specific topic. And you could review this life transcript, the previous captions, to understand why they are having that conversation. And I think this is really useful because then you get a file, a transcript file that you can download and keep to review at any time and look for specific words or specific parts of the meeting. And lastly, and one of the most important accessibility features for me is that I always ask my colleagues to use to run the accessibility checker. Before sharing any document, mainly PowerPoint presentation, as Anette told you that we love using PowerPoint decks. So this feature helps you find and fix potential accessibility issues that your presentation may have. Like, for example, setting the proper reading order because screen reader user like me, we read the content of the slide by navigating it with the keyboard, by pressing the top key. And that would be the order in which we would read the content. I mean, the order, the default order I would read the content would be that one in which you include the different elements, not necessarily a logical order to understand the content. So accessibility checker helps you set the proper, the logical reading order. Also it helps you identify images that may not provide any alternative description. And with the use of artificial intelligence, it provides, generates automatically generic descriptions that may be very suitable for images that are not very complex. So if you need to create quickly a PowerPoint presentation, it can be really helpful because you don't need to type a textual description for that image. And well, this is some of the accessibility features at the most relevant for me, but I'm sure I'm living behind many other interesting accessibility features, but well, this is all for me. Anette, what do you want? Okay, so now I'll take over and our idea now in this last part, I can say would be to open a bit our minds and to think a bit outside of what we have been doing with Sandra or her specific needs. So we just collected a few examples and at the end, there is our favorite app that we will show you also to see how accessibility can be applied in other contexts. So just few examples to see how all this can be also used. So the first one would be the inclusive classrooms. So at the end, nowadays in our classrooms, that there could be different types of people or children or students that have different needs, of course, that we always say that there's people with different needs or different preferences that they might have. So imagine, for example, that whenever the professor or the teacher is talking on the back, like on the slide that you are seeing on the picture, there could be transcripts or life captions of everything that the professor is saying. So for someone like the colleague of Sandra that he prefers to have some voice but also read an input, you could have both and maybe you would get the concepts a bit better if you are reading also. And imagine there is international students or people that maybe don't control the language so much. We could have also in real time those transcripts in other languages. So the professor or the teacher would be still talking on their own language and at the same time, there will be different languages on the background. The same happens for people, for example, with some hearing problems that might want to get the hearing input, like some not hearing but visual, I was going to say. So getting some hearing input in other languages. So we could have some automatic speech translation and if the professor is talking in Spanish and I want to hear the class in English, I could do that in real time. There's other use cases that we could use, for example, nowadays it's more and more common that we record classes. So imagine instead of having the recording with MP4 but also a text as Sandra said with all the transcripts, I could just like control F, like find whatever word that I want to go back to and maybe read again what the teacher said and have all that text written for me like all the class in text can be quite useful. Again, not only with people with disabilities but for all of us, I guess. And at the end, we were talking about different use cases and we thought about one that might sound a bit more science fiction but actually it's a reality that Microsoft is building this. It's a sign language interpreter. So imagine there is someone that wants to have some sign language interpreter in the class and that there is no one that could help. So then this translator could translate from sign language to natural language which is, I guess, quite great. And then we wanted to talk about the immersive reader which is a product we think quite complete and that it has different features inside of it. It can help or we will talk about, for example, for learning purposes or for accelerating the learning of people that maybe might have some issues there or might have some difficulties to learn in what we call normal way. So then you can customize your reading experience completely. So in immersive reader, it's available in different office products and also in Edge in the best of browser. So you can select, well, from simple things like selecting the font, the size, the contrast of the text that you are reading. You also avoid distractions. So imagine I want to read the news today. So instead of having the news page and then all the ads and all the colors and everything there, I could have just plain text in the color that I want. I could even highlight the different words that I want to highlight. I want to highlight verbs or nouns. This is really helpful for kids or for people with dyslexia, for example. Also for kids in the autism spectrum, they could benefit from some pictograms that are also part of the immersive reader. So, well, I forgot there's in the slide the voice option. Like if I want to read the news, for example, I actually read it sometimes and I am doing other things which happens frequently, I can hear them. So a voice that I choose in the language that I select would read through the news. So again, another example that anyone in different situations could benefit of these accessibility features. And now a bit more random cases that we want to add also here, but just to cover as we have been focusing a lot in hearing and sight issues because of our experience actually, we want to go a bit farther. So for example, there is an app there. You can see it in the left part of the slide which was developed in Canada. The idea is to reduce the anxiety of people that now after COVID are going to the streets and they don't want to get into busy streets and getting like less than two meters away from people. So the app would tell you which is the best route to go to where you want to go, avoiding the streets which might be a bit more full. So it learns from historical data of where people usually flow and it would guide you into the best way for you. So the idea here is mental health which we sometimes forget, but also it's part of the accessibility world. Mental health issues are a part of neural disability, the most common cause today for neural disabilities. So this is an important feature for this kind of difference type of disability. Exactly. The other one would be just, and I put this picture because you can see what is a cochlear implant. So the guy who is doing the spinning class is wearing a cochlear implant, which is exactly what Sandra is wearing. So he has some hearing problems we think and in this case he is using some spinning classes with the live transcript. So he can be reading what the teacher is saying to do. So we get much easier for him to read it through. And then the last one I control. We just wanted to leave it there just to say that you can control your computer, everything on your computer, your mouse. You can click. You can interact with your computer using your eyes. So this is more for motor accessibility. It's really useful and it's already also there. And you can control windows with the eye control. And our favorite app, and I know we are running kind of out of time, so we will go quite fast. So this is one of the apps that we like the most if it's not the most. So seeing AI, it's how people with blindness or with some sight issues could actually see and could interact with their environment. So seeing AI, it's available as a mobile application. There is some, yeah, some demo there. And you can recognize people. You can see the expression of the people who are around you. You can go on the street and you can see what's around you, like if it's like trees, if it's a park, if there's children, if there's people doing sports, you can do all that. Also, doing the groceries, for example, or going to a restaurant might be quite challenging, as Sandra knows. So for those cases, seeing AI can help, for example, Sandra, as you can see right now in the video, to scan a product and it will tell you, okay, this is tomato. This is like whatever product. And also in the restaurant menus, like it would read you which are the options. So you don't need to ask someone to read it through. It's a matter of gaining autonomy at the end. So this app, in that case, is in production and it's quite good. And also for currency. So this is something also Sandra uses quite a lot to see how much money she has. So I guess that's something quite useful too. So maybe we're going to close Sandra with the last reflection that we had. Yeah.  And it's that artificial intelligence seeks not to replace people and the work they do, but to complement it. I mean, in the example that Anna told you about the translation tool between sign language and natural language, that tool wouldn't cease to replace the sign language interpreter because artificial intelligence is not perfect, but in the case that there is no sign language interpreter available in that specific situation, it can actually help a person with deafness to be more autonomous. So artificial intelligence is to help us make things easier and to be more autonomous. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Sandra and Anne, I'm coming here to join you because my God, this has been amazing, fantastic. You had this sentence, there is no limit. Think big. You are clearly, both of you, the example that there is no limit. And both of you, you are referenced in many ways as women, as ladies, young girls, as students in STEM, now working in a STEM in a company such like Microphone, a multinational company. My God, we'll talk about that if we have time. We have a few minutes for questions and they were asking you in, well, AI is clearly helping accessibility. Sandra was mentioning even more because disability is an accelerator for innovation in this sense. What's missing? You mentioned some of the work you're doing, but what will be your, as we say, your wishful, your bucket list of wishes that you will solve eventually in the future or in the near future? What's missing? What else can AI do? Or would you like AI to do? I can see Sandra thinking. That's a good question. I can take a joke here. This is like improvising a lot, but before that we were up there, she was saying, I would like to see an AI app to be able to tell me if a guy eats beautiful or not. So, if you ask her, she can just dream about it. Well, but dreams are the first way. Artificial intelligence could help up to learn what I like and what not to tell. Hey, this guy is happy and he's also handsome, so... Well, that would be... For a menu in the restaurant it would be also useful to not force me to read all the comprehensive menu, but to learn about what I like and what not and that really suggests, hey, as I know you like this, you have these dishes, for example, to help me decide more quickly, honestly. But as Anne was a very good point, especially for the handsome or not handsome, because that would help us a lot. People with visual disabilities, everybody. You were mentioning that, Anne, that a lot of the good aspects, there are many good aspects, as Sandra was saying, AI and all this innovation makes people with disabilities lives possible, but also other people with no disabilities, it helps our life much more. You were mentioning some examples of products or apps that actually help us in a daily life. I mean, some people can be very undecisive if a boy is handsome or not or what to choose in a restaurant, even me. I mean, the car sometimes driver, I receive all this WhatsApp, I say, please read them to me, read them. I like this machine to speak to me instead of me having to read them, risking my life driving a car. So in this sense, are there any more... Where is the limit? Would AI eventually become all these innovations for everybody that people with disability will use in the same way? Or there will always be a bit of a difference? Will that be a dream come true, Anne, Sandra? Yeah, for sure. I would like this technology not to differentiate between people with and without disabilities, because at the end I think that everyone has different needs and preferences and that anyone can experience any type of disability at any moment, as I said. Even we should think that we are aging into disability. People start losing their abilities of sight, hearing, and it's very important to keep in mind accessibility of everything. Yeah, here I would add that AI should respond to personalisation. So it's about personalising my needs, personalising my situation, personalising my current status. Very important what you said, Sandra, because all of us will have a disability in our life time and you mentioned you differentiate the three types, the temporary, I have it written down the temporary, the situation, and the permanent. So eventually we'll all have it. So the dream will be that all this AI and technology will help us equally the same way because we're driving, I want the WhatsApp to be read to me and Sandra needs it to be in the office or to read the news for her. We're running out of time, so the next clear question is as women, as I say, as STEM, as working in a multinational, your reference to many people, who or what was your reference, how did you get that passion for AI in your case, Anne or you, Sandra, how did you come up with that and what would you recommend women and women, parents, I mean I have an 11-year-old girl so I would like her to study STEM and to go into and to follow your steps via, you know, a developer or a programmer in a multinational like how do we teach them, how do we inspire them, obviously I'm going to, first of all, show them this video to see, you know, what we can do, but how, what do we start and what would you recommend? Do you want to start? How do you have those ideas so clear being so young, you know? Like for me, technology, this might sound like a bit abstract but it's kind of a power and a tool that I have to actually change the world and like when I say think big, it's think big and like for me personally when I met Sandra, everything that has happened to me in the previous years was like a tsunami as I said, so everything changed and now I really think on the power of technology to change things, to drive innovation to change people's lives so that's like my daily motivation so you always had it then? Yeah, okay. And your case, Sandra? That's my case too, because I think when I want to inspire inspire children you know, girls I always tell them that if they are creative they can think of anything they would like to achieve you know, and then create a software, a technology that can help them achieve that goal so this is what Anna has told that you can change the world you can... I started following artificial intelligence because it's actually help us achieve things that wouldn't be possible by ourselves you know, like what I tell the example of a person with hearing disability wouldn't be able to listen or to communicate without captions based on artificial intelligence because artificial intelligence help us achieve things easier and more positively but for people with disabilities especially it makes things possible actually What a good sentence to summarize all this and it's very treatable to make our life easier for a lot of us but possible for a lot as well so, Anne from Microsoft, thank you so much for being with us today


I would like to be a pediatrician because I like children. I'd like to be a lawyer. A doctor, a chef, a designer, a model, and everything. I would like to thank God for making us come this far. I find the teachers really encourage the students to do their best in anything. We have the best teachers which always motivate us to keep on striving. I screamed and all my friends screamed together. With me, they were happy for me and I was excited. Well, hello viewers and welcome to a very, very special program that we are having with the 2010, top ten performers of the Common Entrance Examination. And of course, I'm excited because I've been engaging them for a long time before we got on air. So they look so immaculate, but when you really get to understand them, you will know so much about St. Lucia's top ten brain power. So what I will do is to invite them to introduce themselves. I'd rather you do it yourself because you know yourselves a whole lot better than me. So let's begin with you. Your name, where you come from, tell us all about yourself. Hi, my name is Kerisha Edwin. I'm from Consonment. I attend the OJ Combined School. I was born on December 30, 1998. I live with my parents, my sisters and my niece. My dad is a fisherman. My sister is working with the doctor. And my favorite thing is watching television and playing on the computer. Good, let's pass it on. Another OJ. Hi, my name is Tia Joseph. I attend the OJ Combined School. I live in OJ. My birthday is April 28. I was born in 1999. My mom is a teacher and my father is a taxi driver. Hmm, that's all. Good, good. Now you don't have to go in the same order that everybody went in. Let's start with what your parents do first. It doesn't matter, go. My name is Lavalogist. I am 11 years old. I was born on the 31st of August 1998. My mother works with Scotia Bank and my dad is a consultant. And I enjoy reading and skipping and playing on the computer. Hi, I am Natisha Scott. I am 11 years old. I was born on October 18, 1998. I enjoy reading. That's the thing I do the most. Both of my parents are teachers and that has helped me a lot in my life. Hello, my name is Leanne Charles. I attend the Dimpallet Louisie Primary School. I was born on the 12th of April 1999. My mother is a teacher and my father works at Bank of St. Lucia. I enjoy watching television and playing games on the computer. Hi, my name is Sorabi Gupta. I am 11 years old. I was born on December 16, 1998. I was attending Tapion Private School. I'll be going to St. Joseph's Convent. My father is an engineer and my mother is a doctor. I live in Kubaral, Cass Street, St. Lucia. My name is Nayoka Riman and I'm from Munkai, Newport. I am 12 years old. I enjoy watching television and playing volleyball. Hi, my name is Sundar Jawair. I am 11 years old. I was born on the 1st of August, 1998. I live in Forestier. I love football. My mom is a nurse and my dad is a block land proprietor. And I just love my life. And you just love your life? What man?  Hi, my name is Shania Joseph and I am 11 years old. I was born on the 25th of April, 1999. I attend the Tirushi Emiku Combined School. My father is an insurance agent and my mother is a teacher. I enjoy reading and writing stories. Hi, my name is Leon Abram. I attend the Piru Combined School. I am 12 years old. I was born on the 14th of June, 1998. My mom is a shopkeeper and my dad is a mason. One day, I hope to become a surgeon.  We have some parents in the background. Their parents are in the background. And they are just eager to hear what the children are saying and eagerly participating. I wish I could draw them and maybe add some other point. But as you, I love to hear what your parents do. Interestingly, how much support did you get from your parents and up till now? Anybody? How much support did you get from your parents in terms of doing your schoolwork? Before Common Entrance, my parents always used to quiz me. They provided me pass papers and books to work from. Wow. Anybody else get to tell me? You don't have to go in any order. Just raise your hand. Well, my mom and my dad usually, since I am not really good at essays, they usually correct my essays for me. They even assigned a special tutor for me named Philip Etienne because I was not really good at math, but now I'm good. And also, they always tried to quiz me because they knew my capabilities and they knew the question what I was low at and they'll go in that particular subject. What about your siblings? What about your siblings? That is your brothers, sisters. Did you have anyone that you tried to be like? Well, I'm the oldest, so my brother has to be like me. He's three years. He's younger than you? Yes. He has to be like you? So you're the eldest? Yes. I'm talking about those who have to follow from, you know, after somebody else in your family. Anybody has anybody else who did well and you wanted to be like in your family? Any other siblings? All right, tell me about your friends. Your friends. Tell me about your best friend. Tell me about your best friend. You're afraid to speak? Yeah. Well, my best friend, of course, is my dad and mom. Well, those are my best friends because they help me in every situation and, like, they will never... nobody in this world other than them can support me in anything and they will always try and make me happy and tell me that I can really do something good in my life. So I thank them for that. Wow, nice, nice. Anybody else wants to tell me about your best friend?  Look at them. You tell me. Tell me about your best friend. Give it to her. Tell me about your best friend. I have many best friends and most of them encourage me to do my best and I really appreciate it and I also try to help them in their week areas as they do the same for me. So did they succeed as well? Yes. Okay. Who wants to tell me about the school that you attended? How did the school play a part in your education? Your teacher, the school itself. What do you want to tell us about your school? My school was one of the most places which encouraged me because our school, being community, we always want to be at the top. We want to keep our reputation. So they try to keep the students, they'll go into more research than probably other teachers. For instance, they'll be with you longer, they'll try to make you do your best because they want people to know that they are doing the best of their children. So they encouraged us a lot. They gave us many prep talks and so on. I want to hear about the other schools. Particularly the schools in the south of the island because they came here both things. There are many more children from the south than the north. So let me hear the children from the south. Yes, let's start with Bellevue. Tell me about your school. My school is the best school. My school is the best. Let me go. My school is the best school and they provide me with activities that I can engage in to increase my learning and better my education. Good. And actually I want you all to be serious people here.  So let me hear it up here. What's at the school that parents should send their children, all children to Tapio? My school is a very nice school. Like all other schools? Yeah. I find the teachers really encourage the students to do their best in anything. And I love the way the teachers teach and I really thank my teacher because she is a very nice teacher and she teaches very good. Tell me her name. She would like to hear that. My teacher's name is Mrs. Yeowood and I appreciate all the things she taught to me. I love my school very much and I even love my principal very much because my principal used to give us lessons so so I even appreciate that. Good. Dimplet. Dimplet but I like that dimplet thing. Well, I find that my teacher she went the extra miles to give five of the top students in her class extra lessons for free on the Thursdays and that really helped me a lot. Although other children came in. She taught us subjects that the other students did not know I found that it came across in the exam. I like to thank her very much and I think she'll be very pleased to know that I came in the top ten. I like to find the principal for encouraging us. She will always have us to sit down and do extra things after school and I appreciate that very much. Good. Now this is the school where we're doing the recording. So let us hear about the Camille Henry Memorial School. Well, I love my school because during the years we have aspired to be the number one school. Well, only the little school with the less children beat us most of the time but yeah, I like my school. Since we have a new principal Miss Beverly Diodoni from the Dimplet School we hope to do very well in the years to come. Now we heard Camille already, you know but maybe he forgot to say something. I want to thank my teacher, Miss Gustave for always encouraging me to do my best. She has always supported me through the three terms that I have in grade six and her name is Miss Gustave and my Saturday lessons teacher, Mrs. Weeks she has also helped me to do my best and my kindergarten teachers, grade one and all the grades they have also persevered with me and I really appreciate it. Great. We're going down south now. I'd like to thank all three of my teachers Teacher James, Miss Enika and my mom Miss Karen they have encouraged me to do better and they listened to me and I'd like to give them a special thank you for helping me and telling me that I can when I think I can't. I'd like to thank all my teachers at OJ and especially Teacher Jim he would always, you know, tell me I can.  Peer combined school is one of the best schools on the island we have the best teachers which always motivate us to keep on striving well the principal I think we have one of the best principals ever always motivating us to keep on doing our best and the school always tries its best to like what we really want the school to try to give it to us as with our school this is one of the top schools on the island and we continue to do well in exams Okay now let me ask who's prepared to tell me how did you prepare for the Common Entrance Examination tell us how you prepared for that Common Entrance Examination My mom got me a lot of past papers and she used to sit down with me and do them with me and she used to correct them for me and she used to explain all the mistakes I've made and she my teachers they used to give us a lot of homework and some projects mostly about organizations and like about Salusha so then we would work hard at these things and get better I continued playing tennis until the Common Entrance because my dad had told me that you shouldn't only study you should play a little and tennis helps you to refresh your mind so then I continued playing tennis but not like as so much as I used to like I used to play when I had time too especially in the evenings and in the mornings and Where do you play tennis? At home? Yeah at home, I have a tennis club so then I really enjoyed this year especially with my teacher and I really thank every person who encouraged and motivated me to do well Good somebody else tell me how you prepare okay let's say I can't get the names yet, sorry I prepared by doing pass papers we were provided our chairs provided us with Common Entrance CDs to help us prepare and to realize where we need to improve we did extra work at home our chair gave us a lot of homework and projects to do and it really helped us a lot I'm still on the examination I am so eager to find out your favorite subject but in fact what I will do is I'll take a break now when we come back you will tell me a little more about your favorite subject and what you did for the for the composition, okay so we'll take a break and we'll be right back so listen and learn St. Lucian treat children with respect understanding and dignity remember they will be the adults of tomorrow I'm doing my part, you too can play your part take responsibility for creating a child-friendly society this message brought to you by the early childhood services of the Ministry of Education and Culture well we're here at the Camille Henry Memorial School and we're here with the top 10 performers of the 2010 Common Entrance Examination very excited but they look like they're dropping a little bit until now that they're going to tell us what they wrote, their favorite subject something like that we're having fun with the children spread around the island the various schools and of course what we're about to do now is one of the most exciting guys there in the bunch Mr. Jawa'i is going to Sundo Jawa'i will tell us about your favorite subject and how did you I mean what did you write for the for the composition well my favorite subject is general people because first I didn't really like English and mathematics and for the first term I think that's the only thing I just did I just kept on studying through my notes and notes and notes and I didn't really pay attention to mathematics and English and that's what brought my grades down but from second term when I started realizing that I started buckling up on mathematics and English and when I realized now mathematics is my favorite subject really? just like that? wow okay so what did you write for the competition you said you like to write yes well I wrote what I picked was it was a bright we had to start a composition it was a bright and windy morning bright and windy morning what happened then? I put a topic as going to a park because I remembered a day when my parents and myself we were going to a park and I tried to put it into an essay but I put it was a place and it was not in St. Lucia it was an imaginary place called Solomon's Island and then it was a newly opened park and it was named after the great Sir John and when we first you know if you go into a park we'll first clean up I first I wrote about what we do before we went to the park and we were all excited because we're going to this newly opened park and then I wrote we clean the house we got we got packed and things and I wrote about how we were when we were driving what expressions we had on our face and all that because that was the first park ever opened in that island and we were not really accustomed to what was a park so when we reached there we just saw this massive gate and it wrote on it a park of the late Sir John and when we went inside we were like just astonished because we just saw green grass because the island we were on it was just like desert but it was green grass and we saw vividly colored benches and we saw birds and we saw birds like the Amazonic color we saw different families and it was like it was just new to us because we never knew it was it could have been like that did you have to pay to enter? no what time you returned home? no I didn't write I didn't write when you returned home I just like for instance I wrote the park up to the time we opened our big umbrella and we just had fun for the rest of the day chicken and wine okay somebody has told me it is very good can you somebody has told me yes she wants to tell us what she wrote and your favorite subject my favorite subject is mathematics I wrote about I wrote about why do you like mathematics so much you like a lot of money I like to count but I'm just joking brain teasers I like mathematics because the way I understood the problems it also helped me in English in written comprehension and I noticed my grades going up in literacy good so tell me what you wrote your prior conversation I wrote about how we can make visitors welcome to St. Lucia and what day and the benefits they have I wrote about I wrote that they provide employment for solutions and they like a source of revenue for the country good so you support tourism would you like to work in the tourism sector I'm not sure not sure yeah but do you think it's a good thing for visitors and to assist them as much as possible yes ok now what would you do with the zombies all the zombies we have in town I don't know you don't know alright I want to hear from somebody else my favorite subject is mathematics on college my topic was it was a bright and windy morning oh the bright and windy morning my title was rescued in the nick of time we I went out to see if my grandfather in his old canoe and we were fishing and we realized that we were not catching any fishes so we went further out and the camp sea started to be rough so the weather started to change and our oars fell out of the boat and the current was pushing us towards ominous rocks and we were eventually we were rescued in the nick of time in the nick of time weren't you scared oh yes luckily but still I want to hear one more question we have two my favorite subject is mathematics and I wrote about a bright and windy day it started like it was bright and sunny and then I changed the essay to a rainy day like it became rainy I was going to the park walking to the park and then no to the beach yes I was walking to the beach and then I was enjoying myself in the water with some of my friends and after I saw big dark grey clouds forming above the horizon so I got scared and then I felt the rain rushing against my skin and then all of my friends just ran home and then we had to stay inside and our day became boring boring you had to rush home so you didn't leave at all did you write did you put on the paper poor job what a pity so let's hear you my favorite subject is language I wrote on it was a bright and windy morning everyone wrote the same thing my title was The Stranger I wrote my title was The Stranger I wrote that I was walking down a narrow dead path which led to my dilapidated house and I watched a stagnant pool of water and my attention was drawn to it then I felt a stranger touch me and he was a vagrant and the vagrant grabbed me and was pulling me into the nearby forest but then I beat him you beat him? yes on his hand yes I beat him and I started to run then I reached home and I told my mother about the story okay good alright now interesting I wish I could hear from all of you but we'll just hear the next thing I want from you is your reaction to your results when you heard that you were in the top 10 what did you do? come on I knew that reaction just as if it was the time when you got the news well the Monday afternoon a group of us from school stayed back until maybe minutes to six waiting for our results and then a friend of mine called Robin he told me that I came nine from the island he told me not to scream but I just started screaming and jumping up out the end let me hear what come on do it do it do it even with the little scream I just started screaming very loudly and everybody began watching me then my mother was passing so I went and I told her about it she knew because the teacher was at the place where they were giving the news were you disappointed that your mother knew before you? no she told me but I didn't really believe her oh you didn't believe her? you didn't believe your mom alright somebody else tell me your reaction okay well I was playing tennis when my when my friends mom came and she said she wanted to meet my mom so I took her number down and I told her my mom will be back in a few minutes and she'll call you back so then when my mom came back and she called her she was like what? and I was like did something happen so then she was like what? well I didn't really believe you so well she didn't tell me yet but then after a while when she put down the phone and she was like sir became third in the island so I think I heard it so then I was really surprised is this true should I believe it I think we should go to that school now so then my mom told me after I heard it and we went in the car and I was so shocked but I didn't scream I wanted to but I thought I shouldn't scream because I don't really believe it yet so I went to the school like everybody started hugging me and saying congratulations all the teachers and when I went to the principal she gave me such a big hug like I was squished like a big teddy bear hug so I was so happy that I got these results and my mom even told me that it is an exciting thing to know but there are more exams so this is just a milestone so I was like understanding and I was still like happy so now like a lot of people I know they congratulated me and some of them gave me gifts and they were not really special gifts they gave me gifts for convince so then I was really surprised wow they are giving me gifts for convince very good next story everyone has a story we were on a tour wait wait wait where were you on a tour I thought you were watching wrestling we were on a tour then my teacher got a call and when she heard that she screamed then we were wondering what happened so we asked her what happened so then she kept on screaming and she didn't tell us and then she told us when she told us I screamed and all my friends screamed together with me they were happy for me and I was excited and you were like yeah okay hey Mr. Man well I was downstairs with my sports teacher we were watching a football match that was Monday oh no we were talking about a football match that was World Cup and then one I came out of late so when I went out I saw a whole bunch of children just there so I was like you all want to go home so they told me no but we were waiting for results so I said you are waiting for results so then I just grabbed the phone and called my father I think in about 10 minutes I saw my father there from forest there and then I saw my mom then I saw my mom coming I said how you knew we were getting results she was like one of my nurse one of my colleagues she told me so then we were waiting we were playing football then we just heard the teacher screaming so we didn't take that one because we were used to that already you were used to the teacher screaming every year every year they scream every year so then after I remember the vehicle was coming with the results parents like teachers jumping up and I was freaking out like you all don't get the results you all jump in did you say you were freaking out yeah because I was like a vehicle with results you all jump in and parents I was shocked because parents would not know and they were like jumping up when the vehicle passed by them so then after a while they said when they were giving out the results they said first we will give out the top 50 students so then I heard different names I heard Hilary Kobe Daniel and some of the children were like where is my name and that's when my heart started pounding when they said Sundar Jawa yeah so you were the star no actually I was not the star it was Lavela I was the star but then my parents started hugging me and then this man just came to interview us and things like that okay okay make yourself very shorter let me my mother was on the phone and I just heard I just heard her start to scream we can call it scream day I just heard my mother screaming so I asked her what she took a piece of paper and she wrote down number six so I told her what does that mean she heard what the phone she told me you place number six on the island and beside her bouncing around the house now you know I like that name for you number six tell us quickly okay somebody else on the day of results I waited in the school for the results then the teacher told us the next day so I went at my home after some time I was playing cricket then my teacher stopped by my mother's shop and went to tell my mother my results then I heard my mother start to scream I said what then after some time she told me my results I was batting I just dropped my bat and I ran inside the shop I was jumping up and I was telling my mother and I started hugging my mother and telling her yes I made it well the day of results my sister and I were anxiously waiting and then we heard my mother on the phone and then she was saying yes and we asked her and she said I placed ten from the island and then I was screaming and then we popped something popped something alright when I got my results I was with my aunts and cousin and my aunts told me my father had called my aunts and she had told me my results I was very happy but at the same but since other things I was shocked so I went to meet my father and he called my mother I couldn't keep the phone by my egg because she was screaming so loud so I was very I was amazed that I came I was shocked I was walking into the my school gate and then some of my friends just approached me and started screaming and hugging me and I was like what's going on and they said I was placed on the island I was like yeah right I didn't believe them I thought they were joking or playing a prank on me so I went up to my class and then I heard Mrs. Weeks' vehicle coming up from the gates and then everyone was screaming and after they gave out their results and I looked at it and then I told them sorry I didn't believe you then I cried I screamed I jumped up I did everything because the only person who said they cried alright what about you Leigh Ann I'm Natisa Natisa alright that's why I'm trying to avoid calling names alright go ahead well my teacher and some of my classmates they just went running up the stairs so I didn't know what was happening but I followed them and then I heard Natisa came I was placed on the island along with a girl from Kamenreni and then I just started to cry because I was so happy and my teacher was comforting me and all the children were on me saying like congrats congrats and I was like I was crying too much I couldn't really say anything you cried too why do you have the microphone tell me about have you told us already why do you have the microphone I'm Kadisha you're sorry about that my dude tell us about your career option I want to know what you would like to post to you when you get older I would like to be a pediatrician because I like children but at the same time I don't think I'll be able to handle the DKO because it looks like a lot of work and I've always wanted to be a doctor from preschool on career day we dressed up as a doctor and I really enjoyed so since you still want to be a doctor what are the specialties if you say you don't want to handle children and all of that no I want to oh you want to you don't want to be a surgeon or anything not really but maybe I might have to operate on a child okay good well we're talking about the career options for those young young little ones St. Lucia's brain power we'll be right back with much more from them stay tuned on NTN I'm Glenn Simon I know that value in my children today will determine the future of society I am playing my part you too should play yours take responsibility for creating a child friendly society this message brought to you by the Ministers of the Ministry of Education and Culture well we're here at the Camille Henry Memorial School with the St. Lucia's top 10 brain power that's what I call it the top 10 students who performed at the 2010 Common Entrance Examination I needed to mention that one of the students but it's supposed to be 11 one of the students I think it is JC Dalson from the Bonte Primary School is not here I don't know why but he also performed very well he's amongst the top top 11 we kept saying top 10 but he's not here as well we were talking before we took the break we were talking about your career options what you would like to pursue what career you would like to pursue go right ahead well when I grew up I liked to be a lawyer you don't have enough here overseas oh overseas tell us why why you choose law well I just since I like language arts I really liked being a lawyer because language arts has to do with lawyer and stuff like that to be able to use language to pursue it and you know to all right good good I hope you will be my lawyer all right let's hear you when I grew up I like to be a professional tennis player and professional tennis players they retire early like about age 30 to 133 because they cannot have the body cannot handle so much these like these things running and these things so then after I become a professional tennis player I would maybe be a tennis coach or I might be a doctor um speciality in ice okay terminology of terminology all right good um by the way when you when you when you when you become the professional tennis player you will be playing for St. Lucia and India I didn't want you to say India anyway I'm just teasing you which part of India are you from give it back to her I'm from Bombay Bombay when I grew up I would like to be a model a model yeah tell me about that and stand up and do your thing for me stand up and do it give me a little stand just give me a little walk good why do you like modeling because I see the models on the tv they look so they look so good and I want to be just like them I really thought you wanted to be a wrestler all right all right well I plan on being a professional footballer because I love football and it's also a fast way of making money I say you like your money boy a fast way of making money all right a professional yes millions but where would you like to you know these opportunities are not available here in St. Lucia yeah I plan on playing for Chelsea FC that's in England but before football I'm sure you would want to improve yourself academically in terms of you know well I was planning on getting a PhD but they told me it was about seven years it would take too long to make some money too long all right all right all right well I'm very undecided but I plan to be a professor in whatever field that I may become interested in when I grow older professor you like teaching okay good when I grow up I'd like to be a surgeon since I find a body very native and there's so much to learn about it and I I chose to become a surgeon because I say like and to save people lives to be a hero hero all right I'll stay around by this evening when I grow older I want to be a chef because I like cooking that's all come on come on what kind of food I'm sure you have food that you like well I like chicken and macaroni what about fish I don't like fish why the youngsters don't like fish fish is I mean fish has a lot of protein everybody's behind chicken chicken chicken all right when I grow up I want to be a pediatrician although my parent well my father thinks I should be a loyal but you are not decided but you want to be a pediatrician why I love health science after maths comes health because it's one of my favorite subjects okay all right when I grow older I would like to be a doctor a chef, a designer, a model and everything are you serious yes I know you are capable of doing all of that how would you manage all of that I have no idea but which is your favorite um a pediatrician why I love children you love children do you have brothers and sisters yes I have two brothers and a sister do you take care of them when they are sick um kind of kind of now you know what kind of means no has any one of you had a really bad experience that you will never forget I don't want it from everybody just one person something that you will never ever forget a bad experience I've been lost before in England at Bluewater and it was very scary for me because it's such a big place and I'm there by myself so little okay anybody else has a bad experience you want to share an experience that you will never ever forget I was walking the garage and I had to untie the dog for a while so he could do whatever he needed to do in the grass so then he went at the back of the house and then he started running towards me and well I stood there watching him and then he just bumped into me and I started to bleed and I was unconscious for a while so then after a while when I woke up I went in the house and my mom was shocked and even my babysitter so then they started cleaning me up and I didn't really like I had a lot of pains and I was hurt very badly and my dog had run away so he didn't come back for a long while but then so I felt very sad and then he came back that was a very bad experience so I want a good experience from somebody now wonderful experience you will never ever forget who's going one on this side and one on this side who's going to who should I select one on this side let it be let it be the day I placed six on the island the day you placed six on the island good okay fine somebody else on that side let it be let it be let it be you the first time I went to Disney World tell us about it I haven't been there so I want to know I don't remember much because I was young so it was the first time I had been to on New Ford as well oh wow okay okay now tell me about I want you to tell me what you think are you all like young people growing up in St. Lucia or the future is ahead of you people like me are on the other side I want to hear your thoughts on family very quickly I want to hear your thoughts on one of them you must choose one whether you want to speak on family how important is family life in St. Lucia or sports I know we have two sports people here maybe you should speak on something else but speak very short while on leadership you know the importance of leaders in the country whether it is political leaders church leaders in the communities I want you to talk about crime or environment the environment or you can choose to speak on the church your spiritual development speak on the church how important is the church in your life or education or business or technology any one of these up to you but choose one you want me to review it should I review it the topics are family sport leadership crime environment church education business technology go right ahead I think family is the most important thing in a child's life without family your life would be just messed up pass it on pass it on the family I think a family is the most important thing in a child's life because if the family wasn't there to support the child financially and emotionally the child wouldn't be able to do so well and succeed I hope everybody is not going to choose the family the family is very important is the most important thing in a child's life and in society a family is there to support you and encourage you to do your best and someone without a family maybe sad or they might not do as well as someone with a family I want to speak about crime I think the level of crime is way too high people are scared to walk on the streets and I fall and I'm scared to walk in car streets sometimes I like to walk away from grass streets and marshes and all these places because I'm really scared and most people they kill some of them are innocent but others they're really guilty and they escape so I don't think that's fair to those who are really innocent for them to die good I like to talk about education when I was in the class with my classmate my teacher always said that people in life can take away everything from you your home, your money, everything but the one thing that they cannot take away from you is your education they can never take away your papers and if you have your degrees they can never take away from you so you can succeed in life with education well sports, without sports in this world it would be like nothing because walking, running even sometimes talking is a sport and sports are very sports keep you healthy especially when you run and even when you talk because when you talk it improves your face and stops you from getting freckles so I think sports is a very good thing in life I choose technology because technology has increased the way in which we live although it has made environmental problems worse but I still think it's good in our lives well I'll choose spirituality because if it wasn't for God I don't think any of us would be here because when they asked us what helped us we all said it was prayer it was prayer so I would like to thank God for making us come this far and I would like to say that all of us should put God first we can put families but we need to put God first because it was God who provided the families good leadership is essential in the family the society and everywhere because without leaders without leaders societies families they might they might be disordered so good leaders are important good finally I'd like to talk about the family since it's the most important thing in our lives well families can determine your future depending on the way they raise you so I'd say if it wasn't for them you wouldn't be successful in life as we are right now and families like they keep you out of trouble and make sure everything is right with you always ensuring that you're alright so I'd like to thank all the families well I would like to thank you for participating and making this program such a wonderful such a refreshing program for the people of St. Lucia and maybe the world, the entire world looking at you, listening to what you have to say trust me I believe you all have made a difference St. Lucia brain power I wanted to end with you telling everybody watch NTN boy the car go wrong say something now NTN is our favorite channel watch NTN now thank you very much and you have to watch NTN to see yourself thank you St. Lucia and enjoy it


Asalaamu Alaikum, my name is Nadia and I am here with Abraham and if you don't know Abraham, let me introduce him. He is 14 years old. He converted to Islam a year ago so he was only 13 when he took his shahada and recently he walked 35,000 steps to the masjid, to be at the masjid and what's amazing about this young man is that he's so well versed already in just a short amount of time but welcome. Asalaamu Alaikum. Walaikum Asalaam. Thank you. Thank you for talking with me, I really wanted to meet you. You've been an inspiration even to those who are already Muslims. I'm also a reaver so I understand kind of the journey but I have some questions for you. So many questions after hearing about your story, it's really amazing. Of course. It's a panel. So tell me a little bit about just what led you to, because you said you started at very young age of 10 where you started questioning your faith and by the way tell me your faith, what was your faith? Because originally I was born in Italy, I was born in southern Italy, Sicily. I was born there, spent a few years though, was born Roman Catholic and then moved to the US for school. I moved to Arizona originally and we were just like a good Christian family, went to church every Sunday, life was good and then we moved to California and then my dad just left Christianity and became hardcore atheist and then over time it was just like 6, 7, 8, I was going to church, everything was fine but then it was 8, I was, that's when everything started, I started questioning everything at 8. I was a little bit concerned about how Jesus could be God because I knew there was something wrong with it ever since I was 8 years old. So over time I was still Christian but I was questioning my faith until I reached the age of 10, that's when I started questioning it a lot. So I knew Jesus was not God at that point because nobody could prove that he was. So I started looking into other religions like around age 11-ish and so the first one I came around was Judaism because I had Jewish friends. So you were like, how did you do this, like was it online, was it Jury books? Yeah, it was online, yes. It was online and it was like you too, you just started Googling things? Yes, I started studying it, yeah. So a lot of things in Judaism made sense but the main thing is that it is an ethno-religion. So even if a non-Jewish person wants to become Jewish they would still be treated as less or second class Jew.  And then I looked into Buddhism but they don't believe in a God and then that was the same with other religions as well like similar ones. Then I looked more into Christianity just to see if my faith was true and I looked deep deep into it for the next year or so and I realized there was some major flaws such as the Trinity but that was the main one. Right, because for you, was it that doesn't make sense out of the Trinity that there is three, correct? Yes. And yeah, so it was, so you started, so that's where you did it and you started to look. Yes. Well what made you really like hone into Islam? So then after all these religions I started looking into Islam and then everything just started, everything started going together. So I saw everyone was equal. Like when everyone's praying, like anyone can like be the leader as long as they know more Quran, like the janitor could lead behind like multi-millionaires for example. And there's just equality, like race doesn't matter, like your previous sins don't matter. And also I started looking further into the Quran. I started reading the Quran and everything made sense. I didn't see any contradictions. And then whenever I did have a question it was answered very quickly unlike the questions I had with other religions. So that's when I started looking very, very deep into it around age 12. And so over the time, like over the past few months when 12, then I turned 13, over time I was listening to scholars, reading books, researching online. But then over the past few months, during that time I realized Islam was the truth. I had no doubt about it. And then I went to the masjid. I finally managed to convince my parents after like two weeks or so. They were a little skeptic about it, but eventually they let me go. And then that day I did it. So how did you convince them? This is really interesting. Because yeah, I said, it'll be all right. It's not too big of a change, I told them. Because we both believe in the same God. We believe in the prophets, et cetera, et cetera. And so then they were like, OK, you can. And then that's the day I went to the masjid and I took masjid. That's kind of long. That's amazing.  She's interested in it. Yeah, she would like to learn more. That's amazing. Amazing. I hope you inspire so many other people. I really see you as potentially like a scholar just because I mean, I'm so impressed by the way, your knowledge and not just your knowledge. But I mean, you're already using a lot of terms. Have you already started to learn how to read? Like what is what is your extent of of your knowledge right now? Because I feel like you know so much. Yeah, so I've started to learn Arabic a little bit. I'm not too good on it. But yeah, over time, I'll be slowly learning it. But I've also been going very deep into film as well. That's the main thing. And then you told me that something about what really was different about Islam is it's so it's the it's the one God, correct? Yes. Yeah. And the equality as well, because every Muslim is equal. No difference between white or black, like Asian, Indian. Everyone is the same. The only difference is piety. That's amazing.  And really, I mean, it's like, it's amazing. You really, really did your research. And that's what I'm so impressed about with your age. So much a lot, much a lot. Well, I really, I hope you inspire more and I hope you really do continue on. And maybe even become a scholar. Did you have any like, do you have any wish to potentially eventually teach? Like, are you are you are you kind of a teacher? Of course, yeah, it's amazing. I've been teaching my friends and they've been learning and I've already convinced a few people to turn to Islam. Have you really? Yes. So you've actually helped people come to Islam already? Like how many people? So far, at least three or four. So I don't know, it's like, you continue to amazing. So how well I look forward to like continue to to find out about just things that you're you're you're doing. And and I'm happy that you joined the community at MCC. And yeah, thank you. Wadi Kasim and even Wadi, because it's really close to you. Yes, thank you.