Good morning everyone, I am going to present a case on Tata Ace Gold. I have had over 25 years of experience in advertising. I have been fortunate enough to be part of a team that has won many awards over the years. But I am particularly happy with this particular thing that I was involved with. So, I will just take you through the case study. Obviously given the topic, I will just give you a snapshot from a TV perspective. The entire case study is a little more detailed, but it is available on Google and online. We can go through it for a deeper understanding. Two-three things that I would like to comment on before I start the case study. One is, you know, my belief is that irrespective of the medium, whether TV, digital, I think unless you have an insight and a brand idea in place, the medium is not so important. Depending on the insight and the brand idea, I think the medium will fall in place. I think that is a big caveat because the point I am making is in today's day, you know the digital and e-commerce, there seems to be a rationalization of the digital manufacturing. You know, over the past 10 years, we have been subjected to everything regarding price.  There was a certain distinctive personality to the kind of brand that you bought. But today it is just, you know, the price. Actually, there is a threat to the brand. This is why my belief is, which is why I am also very happy with this. Because if you have a classic insight and a brand story, it really works in the long run. So, the digitization of the rationalization is actually putting pressure on the brand. The second point is that, the third point I would like to make is that, you know, from a, I will not attempt this TV first from a media and measurement my technique. Because there are a lot of other experts that are obviously going to talk about it. They will just talk about it from a creative and a market-care perspective, why I believe TV should be the first medium, not the only media. And we have the next slide, please. Okay. You will have to bear with me for the next two, three slides, because this might be an alien category for a lot of you. So, to give a context to this ace goal, I need to go back about 10, 15 years back. This was when we launched the ace, which all of you would be aware of as a product that you see on the roads. So, to give a context, it is very fascinating. It is actually like a nirma or a precursor to the nano. Even in those years, you know, there is a below one-time category, which is only being serviced by a large studio as the good carriers. And as a company, we were not present in that segment. And obviously, that was the fastest-going segment because post-liberalization, you know, with the FNCG brand, durable company coming, last night, the transportation was exploding. It was a time to realize that we need to be present in the segment, otherwise we will lose the leadership. So, the challenge that was taken upon by the company was, yes, we would need to be present in the last few years, but we cannot have a Me Too product. To be actually the company, the manufacturer, who took on itself within four years, developed a product called the Ace, which was launched at the price of a three-wheeler. You know, that was a phenomenal product innovation that created history. Obviously, for five years, we wiped out the large three-wheeler out of the market and we had a 100% market share. That was the context of when we launched it. Okay, and yeah. Next slide. There were two three things. One was obviously price. It's like a demo. This is the price for the strong pillar of the Ace brand. Second was that in terms of respect, you know, the sales low one was, because you have to compare it to a three-wheeler. Three-wheeler and a taxi are the status difference. You know, three-wheeler is an auto-taxi is a taxi. The fourth wheel of respect, the team Chakka, Mayanatka, Egg Chakka, Izzatka was the sales slogan that was carried into the field. And we also, from the brand idea, we said, people buy products, not for a functional use. You're not going to buy the Ace to transport an Egg too. He's buying it for employment. It's a tool for entrepreneurship. So we shifted the game into share of employment rather than share of market. So our entire marketing was about how do I make people enter the commercial category as a respectable means of earning a livelihood. It's not that it's a better product. So we used emotional shift that we took. This is why the next slide, please. We were a constant leader, okay, for many a year. The next slide, please. Okay, so many a year. In fact, for five years, we were the only player. And obviously, after that, the competition came in. And over the years, to reload 2017, what was happening was, because the competition entered. And obviously, as the competition entered, they will come with more features, you know, better part in the infinite quality. So all the players were playing in this catch up game from a product feature point of view. So over the years, we were facing challenge in terms of marketer leadership was becoming threatened. And without realizing it, the price point up to that category itself was moving up. So what was affordability was a key appeal to the bottom end of the pyramid for a search for a means of employment. No longer was a value. Okay, so suddenly there was a realization that if we need to crack the bottom of the pyramid, because those are original, you know, the marketing strategy, we need to drop the price point. But that is easier said than done. The next slide, please. So one of the guys, this is interesting. This is where the twist actually starts. So there is this discussion in the plant as to, you know, how do we launch a product which is much cheaper than the existing one. So if you notice, this is the original case and there were obviously a lot of payslips and stuff like that. So compared to the old Maruti 800 and let's say the new Maruti 800. So on the one side, why don't we bring back the old Ace? We know all the dies and all have been accounted for. We can launch it at a much cheaper rate. So the decision was taken to relaunch the original Ace. No, this was a manufacturing call. But from a marketer perspective, you know, when you first hear it, you keep saying, how can that be? You know, here is a company we're trying to move ahead.  You know, it is going to affect the brand in the long run. But the call was taken. No, to survive in this marketplace, because you realize over the past few years the economy has been very tough. But we need to have a lower end variant. It doesn't matter. Okay, so but as a marketing department, this was like, you know, anything at once.  But we took over under this challenge. This is where the insight comes to the next slide. So what we did was, we just changed the thing into, we said, okay, fine. There must have been other brands that have been brought out of the market share. Okay, so we took on examples like Ray-Bank, Cope, D-Wide, where you realize if you change old to classic or vintage, actually it's the same. But it's just how you play with the mind of the consumer. Okay, and this is what we did for the sales force in the dealership. Because if you forget TV or radio, it is the sales guy and the dealership was the frontline medium. If you're not going to convince him, if he's going to still treat it, whatever he plans to make of the marketing headquarters, he's not going to understand where you're coming from. Okay, so it was important to have this sessions across, where we kept the map with the fact that old is actually old, it's a classic. Okay, this is subtle shift but it's a very important shift. Next slide please. So this is where we did a lot of internal campaigns equating it to old, that's what we call it, the age goal. We think it's timeless prices, it never goes out of fashion. Please don't treat it as old.  It's like bringing a vintage Rollout back. We never held back. It was a very important cog in the wheel for transforming our entire system to actually go out instead of saying he's sasta. No, they're very important. Then obviously then came the advertising. So since we always stood for respectable means of earning a likelihood, we had to, you know, retain that because that's the mother brand equity. But how do we, you know, ensure this continues in the same thing. Fortunately, unfortunately, India or everybody is aware, unemployment has become a huge crisis. It was always the crisis because apart from being a young population in the world, one data point which nobody realizes is still dating 70% of the youth don't go from 12th to the college. You know, the dropouts from the 12th. So people dropout at 7th, 7th, 8th, 7th. Beyond 12, there's only 30% of the people actually going to college. So forget about unemployed graduates. You know, look at the people who are 12th and below and you've coupleted with the youngest population in the world and, you know, 130 pro's population. There's a huge potential of people who are attaining, let's say, 2021 and struggling now what to do in life. Look at the pressure we've faced in the family picture. So we took the same thing and we said, okay, it is your commercial vehicle.  Okay, that's the insight that we took and we have this commercial. This is the next slide. We'll just play this on. Data, now take a picture. What will happen, mom? Where will you tell me? Mom, what will happen? There's no pension. Now you've left hope. Dear, I think you're very stubborn. Dear, we're happy to tell you that you have a good job. You've earned about 25,000 rupees. So tell me, if you agree to offer, then tell me on a joint date. What's your heart? That's gold. Tata is gold. Tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow. Why we use TV? To me, my belief is if we need to build a promotion and a brand story, there's nothing like an audio issue medium and TV. And second is that TV gives you an advantage because stories are built over time and this is the only medium that allows me to go back to time and again with the same commercial because the story, especially, it's not an impulse product for the TV. If I need, it's like a life career choice for the youngster. The doctor or the engineer or the delivery boy and then you want to become a needs owner. That takes time. For that, TV is a medium where I can keep bullbinding. I can't do that with any other medium. The audience is not the youngster necessarily. It is the father. It is the grand mother. It is the sister. It's a family decision. So if I need to reach and obviously in India, 80% still single TV, owning households, watching this. And plus, we are a as consumers, we are creatures of habit. If you have control of the medium, we tend to skip it or you have, you know, digitally you skip it and TV, we are used to at least the middle India, they used to seeing the break. And TV chaltar rather, they keeping watching it. So, over a period of time, the story was built. And that was a large reason. Plus this, I think that as the lady was talking about 100% coverage. That is the factor. Which are the medium, because you are forced to watch it. I mean, it builds over time. It's like a front page in a Times of India day in and day out. You just can't mess it. That depends on the creative. If you have a good enough creative, you will definitely get able. That passive equation will change. Okay. Then the other thing that we did coming from TV, you know, for TV, actually we look at them as not media partners, but as marketing partners. When we brief them, it is, you know, part of it is the media bias. Part of it is, okay, how can you leverage my brand media in your channel, in the programs that we take. So, let's see for, you know, let's see a Zee, any singing programs are you going to We have a special award for a singer who may not be the top three. He may be in the top 10, but he is economically backward to be instituted in award. And we give it away at the grand canal. There are a lot of things that we do. For example, in the one study with Sony, you know, they had an interesting program called Crossroads. It was done by Ram Kapoor. It was a live audience where it was written by a bubbly director Raj Mooli. So, it's a nice format.  For example, a girl who always wanted to be a heroist gets married and the next thing she gets an appointment later with British area. What does she do with a marriage or does she take up a job? Or the guy who's always wanting an international posting but suddenly his father falls ill. So, what are the choices you make and you know, Ram Kapoor throws up on that situation to the audience and it's a debate about which role should be taken. So, in that program, we integrated within the program itself. I'm just not talking about media. That can only be possible in TV. That is called the sense. God talks. God talks. God talks. God talks. God talks. God talks. God talks. God talks. God talks. God talks. God talks. God talks. God talks. God talks. God talks. God talks. God talks. In the midst of the earthquake in Mumbai, the city of Alam Khan was struck by lightning. Our brothers were not able to support us. I told them that we were not allowed to go home. I used to drive a taxi. We were not allowed. I used to take care of my children. The earthquake in Alam Khan was struck by lightning. When they had to go through their daughters' future and their daily lives, Alam did not understand that it was a success. My friend gave me an advice. I changed my destiny. I am earning better than Tata Ayes. I am teaching my children how to make money. Tata Ayes is our home country. Tata Ayes is our capital. Alam Khan has written 20 lakh stories. Tata Ayes. 20 lakh stories. 20 lakh stories. We have created a lot of consumer testimonies because of our Christian heritage. We have created a wonderful case. Many people are actually critical of the business of many famous stories. Actually, the real monkly of spirits are the customer testimonies. Next please. Tata Ayes told. The other thing I was talking about is how you can use TV to build a chapter in a story. At a certain point of 6 months of Alam, we had crossed 20 lakhs. And we took that again to television. It was an opportunity to build on the fact that a lot of fans were still considering it. And how we use this effectively. Welcome to the Ayes family boy. Every three minutes, there is a new success. This is how we kept building up the story. And the next one. We tied up with the world. You don't have to show the commercial. We looked at various ways of building up the association The Gold. Again, television gave us a huge platform. And fortunately, there was this song called, How we actually used it to tie up with our overall umbrella brand advertising. You don't have time to just go to the next one. And even on a digital, it's not that we didn't do digital. But what we did was we used the brand idea of employment and actually took it to digital. So I won't show you the commercial. But we actually had this real-time contest where Akshikumar gave up. Nukri Dhonru, I will give you an appointment later. So encouraging people to actually write in with business ideas about how they would use the age. It was like a sharp time. We took this contest across the country with the grand finale where Akshikumar actually gave away 10 weight-ins with a 10-month brilliant idea. And it was the amazing talent that this country has in terms of ideas. The only limitation is the money that they have. One last break. Again, I mean, this obviously the amount that we did was huge. But one of the important I put this, we had this Rosgar Express because as an employment drive, instead of going to the normal Nakhaz and the traditional wheat area, we used to take it to lower-income area and talking about unemployment. I am a councillor. The interesting part here, why I wanted to mention this was, in the evening when we had the councillor session where we invited people during the day, every person who walked in was an elder with a son or just elder. So that, so which meant the TV advertising was working. You would normally expect the youngsters to come for this counselling session. No. It was always either the parents or an elder or a company to have the answer. That is how this phenomenally the television actually worked out. For the many cases like this, I just restricted to that. And we grew by 83% last year. And within that ace goal as a sub-brand, to go to the next slide has become 70% of the portfolio. And more importantly, nearly one in every ace goal is the first-time major. It was not a category entrant in the first place. So which is either under-employed or much fresher, who is not constantly commercially waiting came into it. Which is a phenomenal cut. Because you will have to realize it is an entry level. It is a career charge. If I haven't captured at the bottom level which is the ace, then I haven't for life. So that is a phenomenal case study for us. And today we are reading actually the dividend sort of that. And also helping the overall ace brand portfolio. And I believe TV played a huge role in building the security of the ace. And we protected the ace brand, which was very important. Otherwise, it would have become, you know,


Freedom! Today I want to talk to you about hashtags for possibly the last time for a while. This one is on content hashtags. What are they and why do you need them? That and more in this episode. Content hashtags are hashtags that you place in your posts or your social media pushes that aren't necessarily branded hashtags and they aren't necessarily designed to give any brand awareness. They're more about the content, which is why we call them content hashtags. This could be a very general hashtag such as hashtag Minecraft, hashtag Call of Duty, and so on and so forth. A lot of times your content hashtags are used to improve your discoverability and possibly even SEO. Some examples of content hashtags could be such things as product hashtags. They could also be lifestyle hashtags. They could be event or location based hashtags such as hashtag Super Bowl or hashtag Manila or hashtag Philippines. A product hashtag isn't necessarily a brand name. A product hashtag could be for instance hashtag Latte. In fact, on screen now you should see an example of what you get when you look at hashtag Latte on Instagram. If you were a local coffee shop owner, posting your very pretty Latte pictures would probably be a really good idea. If you're a vlogging or gaming YouTuber, I'm sure that it won't take you long at all to think of a couple of examples of how you can transfer this over to what you do. Lifestyle hashtags are usually things that have to do with hobbies, interests, or just lifestyle choices such as hashtag Fishing or possibly bowling. Some people may even use lifestyles such as LGBT in their tags to let people know that they're friendly to that community. The important part is that you're appealing to a community that likes whatever it is you do. So for instance, on screen you will see an example of someone using hashtags to promote their bait and tackle business, which I think is pretty inventive. They show up here fairly often because they use those tags fairly often. Event hashtags aren't just for huge events like the Super Bowl. Event hashtags can be for a local fair or maybe an auto show. The thing that really matters is that other people are also looking for this event. It could be even something as silly or small as lunch or lunchtime. When using event hashtags, you just really want to look at how identifiable it is to other people and how likely they are to understand and to want to check out that hashtag.  Most likely you're going to want to use very localized hashtags like the hashtag and the name of the city or hashtag, name of the county, state, so on and so forth. This is going to help you rank and help you be found by an audience who is interested in eating establishments in your particular area. Tips for using these kind of hashtags. First of all, the more common, the better. That's because you want people to discover this and you want people to discover this organically. You also want to increase your search rank or your discoverability rank using these hashtags. Engage with people using these hashtags. That's probably the most important thing. You need to let them know that you're interested in this and that you're providing a service in some way, shape or form. Even if it's just digital video, just there to entertain them or inform them. Being a part of the community is really the best thing that you can do. And don't spam your posts with a lot of common hashtags. It really does get annoying and it turns people away from your content. Because, let's face it, we all know that one girl on Instagram who tries a little bit too hard with the hashtags, you don't want to be hurt. In the last couple of videos we've described a few different types of hashtags, how to use them and where to find them. I'd just like to recap really quickly. The best uses for hashtags are to brand your business and marketing campaigns. This is really kind of important, especially if it's going to be a long running campaign or one that you would expect a lot of interaction on. This particular type of campaign requires that you lead your audience. If you have a smaller audience, you might not be able to lead them. Just yet, catching real-time trending topics is vitally important if you're looking to gain a windfall of traffic from your posts. A lot of times this is going to be equivalent on YouTube to finding a really good tentpole programming topic. Last but not least, remember the goal here is to expand your reach beyond what it currently is. So, anything you do with hashtags, make sure that this is your primary goal. Oh, and of course, to interact with your audience. That's always kind of in the back of my mind, even if I don't say it. I hope that this video has been helpful for you. If it has, let us know in the comments section below. If you have any ideas or suggestions for topics in the future, let us know. I am very open to suggestions as this particular topic was in fact a request. Till next time, I'm Anthony. Like, subscribe, comments, please.


Everybody forced here ripping the sports card almanac multi-sport personal box edition of volume three We've got four boxes here for Henry R Henry picked box three 2787 and 32 Those are the four boxes that he selected again entirely random. Good luck Henry. Thank you very much for the order Let's see what you got man. I'm just gonna go in numerical order for you here So three is up first. I guess what is put all the bags together somewhere? Usually we ship the bags with it Right first card of this almanac run that we're gonna see right here 2019 Bowman chrome Bowman sterling continuity auto wander franco 58 of 99 The bgs 95 true gem plus with a 10 auto 10 centering 10 edges 95 corners 95 surface Fantastic grade beautiful wander 58 of 99 serial numbered fan. I mean that's an awesome start for this run here Congrats Henry number 27 now. You can just put if you can stack them like on the back If they have a few would use a basket Yeah, oh my god, that isn't that's so severe like this one 2021 mosaic Genesis Jamar Chase PSA 10 the debut mosaic Genesis Man, that's one of like that's like one of the best retail parallels you can pull Love those man. Congrats on that one to Henry sick Jamar Chase Genesis number 32 2019 select Red Disco LeBron James PSA 10 on the court side 7 of 49 PSA 10 numbered LeBron from select heck. Yeah, man on court side to Little goat action going on now For some young stars there and number 87 the fourth one for you Henry. Thank you very much For getting the first order in for the almanacs start with a four-boxer gotta love it. Oh, wow. That's really cool Actually, check this out. Oh one tops rookie Premier auto Michael Vic and Drew Brees That's really freaking cool PSA 9 or no PSA 8. Excuse me near mint Vic and breeze dual auto PSA 8 from 2001 tops rookie Premier auto. That's awesome, man. That's so cool. They look they literally I mean, I know the kids here pretty much And they're like 20, but that's that's so ridiculous I Mean Drew Brees had all his hair there That's awesome. It's such a cool card. That'll do it Henry. Good variety. Good players. Thanks again, man We'll get this right out to you


Now I'm your bookmark. My name is Leila Gurawiwi and I'm a proud Yulma woman of the Galpo clan of North East Arnhem land I would like to acknowledge that all of agency's untold talk series are filmed on the lands of the Rurundri people of the Kulin nation And we pay our respects to their elders past and present It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to agency's untold talk series Agency is an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander non-for-profit That celebrates and promotes Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art culture and people on a local national and international scale Untold brings together leading Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander creative practitioners and thinkers from across Australia and beyond and shines a light on a broad range of topics from caring for country to the unseen work of women in communities and the importance of intergenerational learning Our host for this series is Gumeroy woman Crystal Denapoli who is a astrophysics graduate Now undertaking an Honours degree at Monash University Crystal is a passionate advocate for Indigenous Sciences Indigenous astronomy in particular which she explores through public presentations Research writing and by embedding indigenous knowledges into secondary and tertiary curricula Hi today. I'll be speaking with Gunai Kurnai woman Emmy Weathers Emmy. Welcome. Thank you for coming here today. Thanks Would you be able to tell us a bit about yourself and who you are? Yeah. Yeah, I'm Emmy Weathers. I'm a Gunai Kurnai descendant I've lived most of my life on Banarung and Rurundri countries And I run a small business called Rurukyembo So I wanted to start off by asking sort of I don't know. I was going to say it's a funny question, but um If you were to try and explain your cultural identity to someone who probably has no idea of what an Aboriginal or First Nations person is how would you introduce yourself or describe? Yeah. Yeah, so I think that's like a really loaded question actually But I think I would try to explain that it just feels like it feels every part of my life in a lot of ways But very differently to the standard Australian context of life. I think so for us, it's really about being around Community and trying to revive practices and being you know And being fully immersed within our community and making sure our young ones are growing up strong and getting those connections to their elders And so I think it's it's really hard because I think for me it definitely feels like it encapsulates every part of my life but in a very different way to how The standard Australian concept would be yeah encapsulating all of your life No, that that makes a lot of sense. Um, you mentioned as well, particularly like community and the importance it has to you Do you want to sort of expand upon that in terms of the the significance of community particularly as an Aboriginal person in your identity? Yeah, yeah, so Not living on my land. I think sometimes gets really hard We go home to it all the time But not living on it I think is very disjointing especially when I'm trying to talk to my kids and stuff like that because obviously we want to Respect the land we're on and the stories we're on and all of that So they grow up learning that and knowing that and being a part of that and they're Welcome, baby country ceremonies and all of that are done on the lands that they live on and communicate with And then we go home and it's A different culture because in the Australian concept they were all set up very differently for a lot of for a lot of it And so for them they kind of get these two worlds of knowledge that interact in terms of their both indigenous Ways of knowledge, but they're different and so I think that Yeah, like for me and my kids We kind of sit in this middle ground where we don't live on our land So we respect all that we want our kids to grow up strong and culture So they attend all the groups that are around here, but then we go home and it's different and Just dealing with both those sides of it. Yeah, that's a really interesting point too. I hadn't considered The the impact that that would have on you as well with someone who's trying to educate people on culture Being essentially growing up off country and being off country at the moment And that sort of divide because country is really significant for a lot of us Yeah For all of us in so many different ways and in the series so far We've tried to talk about that idea of what does country mean How would you define it because it's always a lot more than just the land, right? Yeah. Yeah, definitely and I think I find that really I I almost can't explain but when we go home, it's almost like Everyone in our family is just a little bit mellower if that makes sense like a little bit more calmer a little bit more together a little bit more like The hype of the world isn't running around us And I don't know how else to explain it other than I feel like it's just like the second you step on your country It just goes yeah, you're meant to be here. You're good like you're fine. Yeah, so yeah, I really relate to that I've always heard this Sort of like almost like off topic in a way but on topic But talking about that connection to culture to country specifically and to culture and community But the idea of being really connected to where your ancestors have come from and where you identify with And I know it's really tied into sort of like a spiritual sense for some people And I didn't really as a scientist who's like all you know cynical about everything I didn't really buy into that idea of that I would feel a connection to country and then I had mine to return to country because I also grew up For me, it was hundreds of kilometers away from where my family come from And my first return to country. I actually felt what you're describing this weird sense of connection and calmness of Belonging and it was surreal to me and it's really changed the way I actually view The world the whole universe. So it's it's a very important connection that It's hard to describe for people who probably haven't felt it. I feel yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because it's very ingrained in You I guess it's a little bit like when you go home at the end of the day But it just feels like it encapsulates your whole body like during the second you step on there. It's like, okay Yeah, we're here. We're a part of this I think you've done a wonderful way of explaining it because I feel that so it is it is Yeah, it's I feel like you've described the experience. I've had very well Um, so this is like a bit of a broad once again, probably loaded question Yeah, um, but asking what what role does culture play in your daily life now? Yeah, so because I work in the space I think it just takes up every every aspect of it, but I think I was very much raised In a family where we like my parents understood the disconnect that had already happened and wanted to make sure that that wasn't continuing So like really made sure we attended like all the kids groups and the youth groups Everything we could any any time we could get involved Which is why I feel really lucky to be so involved in Buna Rung and Wara Rangiri Country because my parents my parents made sure that that was definitely a part of it So the disconnect didn't continue and I think that's something that I've instilled in my kids now to make sure the disconnect doesn't continue for them because That was just something we were brought up with that, you know, we'd already lost so much So let's make sure we don't lose anything else and keep it as strong as humanly possible And so I think yeah wanting to that for my kids and then working in the space It it's super encapsulates everything I do because it's just like it's a natural progression with my children But it's also like it's what I do for work every day. So Absolutely. Yeah, and so with this disconnect. I I'm guessing we're referring to The literal disconnect we're talking about about being away from country But also the devastating impact of invasion and colonization in this country, which has Caused a lot of harm to a lot of our knowledges and our knowledge systems. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. That's that's that's really specifically what I'm talking about more because um My mum spent the first half of her life not knowing because that was her parents way Of making sure certain things didn't happen to her that happened to them So that was like their way of making sure that that didn't continue there, but it also meant that she Yeah, missed out on like and and that's really common for her generation and even the generation above her like that You just kind of lost Yeah, a lot in that. Yeah, I know this is probably something that we um might not be able to expand upon because it's not necessarily our range of expertise But we're both knowledgeable on but for context for anyone who might be listening to this Really recent history. So, uh, like even like the late 1900s. So, you know, not even 50 years ago at this point Aboriginal people in Australia faced a lot of discrimination And the more I hear about it the more it just really shocks me to my core because I feel like you you feel like you know enough About colonization to have an idea of everything that's going on But we're not properly educated on it in Australia. And so there are a lot of things about The stolen generation so the removal of Aboriginal children from Aboriginal parents Continuing up into the 1970s. So our parents generation or our grandparents generation Having a fear of identifying in the hospital because you may actually lose your child And also things like not being able to go to a shop and buy food Yeah, this is all really recent and so I understand why your parents generation Would probably not be identifying as strongly because that sort of was a survival tactic for many of our Mobs our communities, particularly in heavily colonized areas. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So I you I'm wonder I'm really happy to hear that your parents did their best to facilitate community activities for you that would connect you with your cultural identity I do want to ask about what your experiences were like though in the classroom setting in a Australian education system about how you felt um Was Aboriginal culture how was it discussed and how do you feel like it was represented? Yeah, so For me it was barely discussed But when it was it was either super historical to the point where and it's something I ask in all my classes today to make sure that Kids today don't think this as if Indigenous people weren't even around anymore You know, like it was like sort of talked about so it was like so long ago and that's like It like it so it felt like when it was being discussed like they didn't exist anymore And obviously I knew differently, but I know a lot of people grew up Maybe not really understanding that and then the only other time it really ever got discussed was very briefly In terms of the atrocities, which I think very much painted this victim idea Which obviously it was awful and I don't disagree with that, but I think We're so much more than the victims of history. Does that make sense? And I think that's the only time we ever really get heard of in Classroom settings was this victim of history very briefly and then we move on and Talk about something else and I think that's when you get adults that are kind of Hearing about things or trying to learn about things and it feels really confronting And I find that adults can either just like completely shut down or they get really like Resistant on it like they don't want they don't want to know about it that I want to hear about it because it feels too hard and too And too awful, which is yeah, like that's kind of what I grew up with And it's not something that I want to continue for future generations either because I And I'm sure you have the same thing I've spent my entire adult life outside of work Talking like, you know the second they hear that you're Indigenous. It's like, okay now It's like a whole education like that didn't you know that we don't need to have if the System already covered it like yeah, how would you have wanted it to be done better when you were when you're yeah so I think starting I think We're all part of this country and I think starting at the earliest ages is always amazing because That's what our kids do anyway in community But also it just means you can start at a level that it doesn't feel like a new information when they're 16 It's just information that grows with them and they get a little bit more as they get older and older and older and then You get like a whole picture of what? Indigenous Australia looks like as an adult as opposed to just little snippets here and there that maybe don't Fully represent the people that are here today. Yeah. No, I think that's a really good point I find because I work in the space of as you've said like Outside of my work honestly, I'm trying to talk to people about Indigenous knowledges and in particular I'm focused on Indigenous science because that is something that there is a lot of resistance to nowadays because Many Australians have been raised with absolutely no concept of what Aboriginal culture is like And so when they become adults and hear that actually there is this wealth of phenomenal Ingenious knowledge that has been cultivated and evolved on this land for over tens of thousands of years It's almost hard to comprehend because it's like this is really cool Why wouldn't I have heard about it though? Yeah, and so that's where people like yourself are sort of coming in To fix the situation here, which I really admire. Yeah So I wanted to ask then for a comparison.  You have beautiful children What have the experiences been like for them in their classrooms? Yeah, so I found even with my work and with my first born and now with my second born The early learning space is super keen So like those kindergarteners the day Kesson is they're super keen to get something really really Tangible embedded like to the point where they They don't even want to like secondhand teach it almost just is my experience Like they want to get people in to come do it like that's that's the thing I think primary school And I'm seeing it a lot with my oldest now seems to still have a little bit of a resistance like There's just a few things around language and stuff like that that Tyrus will bring home and be like, oh that didn't really Make sense to me or like or even just the difference between Tyrus's kindergarten That really wanted to have it be a part of it And how much Tyrus feels like it's lost now in school like we'll even say stuff like I miss doing that stuff or I miss like And I can understand because I grew up feeling the same thing It's like this start of this like they feel like two different worlds Do you know what I mean? Like they're two different worlds that you're working within I think it's better than when we were in school, but it's probably still not enough if A child that's seven is feeling that difference or feeling that disconnect there suddenly Coming out of kindergarten and going into school and being like, oh, okay. This isn't As important to you guys as it was in kindergarten or as it was at home You know, it's more just like a we say a little thing before assembly is or we do the odd thing here in there In certain weeks throughout the year. Yeah, that's so interesting Especially there must be weird for Tyrus to go from a situation where his preschool Essentially is really enthusiastic about cultural knowledge Welcoming knowledge holders elders into the classroom to talk to them directly about our knowledges And then to go to school where once again, it's really not hitting the mark there No, yeah, that's it and it's and it's kind of like because it doesn't even hit like the big markers Where it fully understands things but sometimes it misses like the little markers too where Tyrus understands the idea of like Different countries throughout Australia. So then you do something where that's not Even brought up when you're talking about different areas of Australia or you know, like geography and stuff like that as much as they do at seven And it's always like this sudden like, oh, are we talking about a different Space like it feel like it definitely feels like that like it's like it's two different ways of looking at the space And so, um, I guess like keeping in mind your experiences and now also seeing the experiences your children are having Which are a little better, but also still not quite getting there What impact do you feel uh, this lack of acknowledgement in the classroom? So, you know, you know, this is the place where all Australian kids across the country get to go to learn what's important for us Apparently, right? Yeah So what impact do you feel like it had on your cultural identity to be in a classroom that wasn't really Acknowledging the uh, the depth of where you've come from I think it's something that contributed to me being quite rebellious Later in school if that made sense like I felt like school didn't understand me So why did I want to understand school if that made sense like that that's that's kind of where I went with it But that's also fitting within my personality. I don't think that's everyone else But that's like that that was for me I was just like it doesn't get me so I didn't get it and I enjoy And I think that's the connection like I enjoy my culture so much that this space that feels like it's completely separate to it Doesn't relate to me anymore like, you know And the older I got the worse that got really like, you know, like and I look at taris who's seven and It's not that bad now, but I can definitely see how it can grow into that kind of feeling of being like a well You don't even really understand me. Yeah. So why am I here like? Yeah, I it's really sad to hear that because obviously education is really important for a number of different reasons And so to be feeling like that you um, sort of uh, were misunderstood and also just not acknowledged By the classes and for that to sort of drive you away from it is really sad to hear Yeah, and so then that leads me on to hopefully some of the improvements we can make so you've um, you've actually Launched your own business now for a few years. Um called warakiyambo I was wondering if you could explain to us what warakiyambo is and how it came about. Yeah Yeah, so warakiyambo does Quite a few things it came about literally from taris's preschool really being like a we don't know The best way of doing it, but we want we want to do it and I was just like, okay That's just this like that's cool. And then that kind of grew to other places saying it and then starting to realize that There's like a real gap in This space where like there are these teachers that really want to do it But just don't know the best way or don't know who to get in or don't know, you know, how to navigate it Um, and so that that kind of formed the start of the business So I feel like it was it's kind of nice that kind of formed around quite organically A gap and then from there it's just kind of growing through Like my I keep talking about them my kids like the greatest inspiration my life So like that kind of grew into like the toys and stuff and the resources that we make because it was all stuff that like I felt like they enjoyed playing with and stuff that could be Embedded in those spaces and not just for a special week or on a special table But just in the space so it felt like it belonged and was part of it Um, and so that's where that grew from and then there's just it's just kind of gotten bigger from there Where like it's got a bit of consulting side and a bit of a bit of art side and it's just like lots of doubles So um, could you expand upon those services that you do offer? So yeah So I do incursions and workshops, which I keep separately because incursions are really like in the classroom So they're really formal education. So yeah, what what is an incursion? That's what I go into a space usually early learning centers And I will run a session on indigenous cultures a few different ones that we do in different ways Depending on what they want to learn because some places get us in for one or two sessions and some places get us in every week So it's like a building learning every week So that that's an incursion and then workshops are more done at events where it's more like a Interact as you're coming and going throughout the event kind of thing Um, and then yeah, we have the toys and the resources which are just for purchase Um, and then that's their idea is to be able to be embedded Quite authentically within a space and feel like they are supposed to be they're not not a special thing Like just they're meant to be a part of it. Um, and then yeah, we do a bit of consulting for teachers and stuff if they Want to just more talk about I get a lot of questions about things like acknowledgement to country and stuff like that So yeah around that kind of stuff. Um, and then yeah, just the art side which kind of came off The creation of the toys and resources. Yeah, and so, um, I know I guess we sort of like covered this idea But um, what do you feel really brought you to start work? Yeah, but was it those experiences that you and your children have had? Yeah, so yeah, definitely those experiences that they've had Obviously, I say it grow grew really organically through the preschool of like them just asking me to come in and do some things with the kids but I think it was really like a Realizing there was a gap and not wanting my kids to face the same education system. I did Growing up. So I think it was really like a like once that was realized. I was like, okay, like I If I if I can do even something really small that benefits their lives You know, like that that seems beneficial to me So that was yeah, it was really about wanting to make sure that we can address this gap and make sure that people understand that indigenous, australian first nations people are active parts And really important parts of the country that you're operating on Yeah, and not just confined to a special week of acknowledgement or a little a toke not and not to insult But like a little tokenistic gesture at the start of an assembly. It's good that it's embedded Authentically and genuinely through fair experiences at the school. Yeah. Yeah, exactly So, um, I I know we don't have any props to show you here today But I I will vouch for the fact that I've seen a lot of the toys and resources that you've created And I think they're very beautiful and engaging and I was wondering if you could tell us a bit about what these toys are And why you've created them to begin with. Yeah. Yeah So, um to start off with like the bit of the mascot of ricambos have been the animals and that just happened Really naturally on its own they they started out really really basic to start off with And have kind of grown to I think 22 of them now like I think there was six when we started um And they've kind of become like a bit of a mascot because they are really great for storytelling and just general play and they can be You know quite easily put into different spaces for kids to play You know if you're a small world player if you're working on a certain book that week They work like they work for a lot of things So they've kind of naturally become like I call them the mascot But they're just like we get most recognized because of them And then we've got pegdolls, which there's a few different varieties of these painted ones. There's like felt cloaks. There's like fake fur cloaks. So to try and keep them as Authentic as possible and kind of allow them not to look like every other pegdoll Like they they look enough like them that they can be included in the same spaces But different enough that they are specific to us Um, and then we've got some stackers. We've got some gunners I've got a sandhill, which I really really love And I'm a bit obsessed with that gun now because it can be pulled apart and used very very differently So it can be kind of pushed apart or it can be used in multiple different ways to make multiple gunners um Yeah, they would be the main ones and then up apart from those like symbol tiles and stuff like that That gets a little bit more specific if you're trying to do Something specific. Yeah, and um, could you tell us a bit about what strength you think lies in? Teaching kids through play Yeah, so I think especially at a young age It's where they learn the best and the more they interact with things the more it doesn't feel like The other does that make sense? It doesn't feel like it's foreign Yeah, if they just experience it and I think it's where kids learn the best And it's also where you get the best kind of questions out of Children where like they'll ask like why does this do this or why does that do that? Or you know like why to you know, so I think that that's also the best And I think at such a young age starting that way too You learn through play because that's what you do all the time So it does just come become part of your space and part of your knowledge and part of your imagination and you know all that kind of stuff And so I just think when kids learn best that way even up to seven and eight nine and ten It's the best way to kind of Start like like to bring that in to start off with because that's That's also fun for them. Yeah, I mean because like Kids always learn better when it's fun like yeah And how um, how has the response has been to children that you've interacted with now through your business? Yeah, I'm super it's been really really positive We've we've got a lot of really great feedback which has been fantastic And I feel really lucky from that and I and it does make me realize that Even young kids like I think it's important because of what I grew up with but even young kids that aren't first nations Want to know more like they're just like little sponges of information And if it feels relevant and cool and they want to know it like they want to be a part of it They want to understand this different thing that they maybe didn't experience beforehand But that is still so relevant to where they are. Yeah I love that too. Um, I feel very similarly that I feel like the Aboriginal culture and knowledge is phenomenal and it should be really respected and embraced by greater Australia I feel like it's something that we should like Indigenous and non-indigenous all should be holding a lot of pride with To know that we are home to the world's longest continuing culture. Yeah by a really crazy margin By the way, like tens of thousands of years. I know the dates always get pushed back 65,000 80,000 120,000 are some of the latest estimates It is something unseen of around the world. It's still thriving Despite harm that has been created and it's so surprising to me that Australia has sort of Chosen to try and avoid talking about this knowledge or this culture instead of embracing and essentially bragging about How awesome it is to be living on the land of Aboriginal people who are some of the world's first scientists first knowledge holders First bread bakers Yeah, yeah, and you definitely see that with kids where they don't have that kind of pushback to not want to know about It's the opposite because they think it's just as amazing. Like it's just as cool that exactly you're right It's the longest living culture By a decent margin and that just sounds especially when you're talking to young kids like that just sounds incredible to them Like it's like yeah Oh, I'm I'm very optimistic for the future of our country when we have people like yourself working in these phases to educate kids Give them that access to that learning that they definitely want. Um, we've seen that they want I I say definitely But I know from your experience and also from mine because I do talk in a lot of schools We've been a lot of libraries with a lot of deadly young ones. Um, and kids are always so thirsty for knowledge Which is just wonderful. Yeah, they really are So I wanted to ask then how has like the I guess like community response being to work? Because you started off organically sort of through yourself, but I can see that your business is becoming quite booming at this point Yeah, yeah, it's kind of probably at capacity of what we can handle just being me mostly So, yeah, it is kind of sitting at that, um, which is great because we operated through, um, COVID and so we didn't really know What it was going to look like like if that was a really accurate representation or if it wasn't and so um, I think that was um yeah, like Kind of like our outlook, we didn't really know what we were doing to start off with whereas it's kind of nice to see it this year and be like, okay, this is A very viable business which is promising for the future like it's promising for not just me but any other You know first nations person wanting to get into the space. Um, and yeah, just having it kind of at like a Capacity where I'm like, yeah, like we've got kind of nice constant work Coming through like it feels It feels like we're doing the right thing because of that. Yeah And um, do you have any like hope or expectations because you aimed at like this early childhood sort of learning so Before entering primary school or secondary school. Do you have any hope for um, or way? I guess of describing an ideal future in which Kids indigenous non-indigenous kids will be able to experience culture in their classrooms like in terms of reaching up to those Higher levels of primary and secondary. Yeah, so it's like the Long term or main goal of the know your country campaign But I definitely definitely Resonates with me too is the idea would be it would be great to have a first stations educator in every school So that it wasn't just kept to a week or to history Indigenous perspectives could be embedded anywhere anytime throughout the classroom So similar to the early learning spaces that we're trying to create It's just a part of everything you're doing. Yeah, you know, which to me it just seems logical because It's literally a part of where we are So a part of everything we're doing would make sense It completely makes sense. You're hoping for something that's organic and Embedded throughout the entire experience in school Not just as we've said because we do have we have a couple of significant weeks in our calendar in Australia You have national reconciliation week, which has just sort of passed. Yeah now actually a month ago Which is really focused on indigenous and non-indigenous coming together and to different communities Members will have their response to that week because it's Focused on reconciliation. So it is that perspective of trying to find some sort of way forward together And I know there's concerns about are we doing that authentically and genuinely or is it You know another type of gesture. Yeah, and then we have NAIDOC week, which we're about to experience you and I Although by the time anyone sees this it may not be the you know the same date But we are approaching NAIDOC week, which is a really important Historical week for Aboriginal people and it really is our week. It's not focused on reconciliation But it's more the celebration of how deadly we are and how great we are But then that that sort of gives a lot of these institutions a reason to lump any type of acknowledgement of Aboriginal culture Into those two weeks. Yeah, so I love I agree and I fully Support that idea of needing something that's authentically embedded throughout their entire experiences And not just something that we do acknowledge when those weeks come up But then otherwise don't really pay much attention to no because that does again start to add to that kind of Separation of what it feels like. It's like it's just yeah, like that's the you know, that's the only time we get to Do anything with it in this space So, yeah, I agree like it would just be amazing to have that you can still do those amazing weeks. Obviously we Grow up in community and we still do we go hard on NAIDOC week Um, but to have it just be a bit more authentically embedded and be a bit more a part of everything So then I find it would even make those weeks more important. Do you want to mean rather than just like a Here's a little snippet Because it come up in the calendar. Absolutely No, I love that actually That's a really good point that we tend to use those weeks for like basic education and acknowledgement Whereas if we were doing that throughout the rest of the year those weeks can be what they're really supposed to be Which is that celebration and that complete focus Yeah So, um, my final sort of question, but just just wondering pure curiosity of myself Um, work ember is largely run by yourself You've said that you are sort of open to people who want to get into this space to join Are you looking to hopefully be expanding beyond the scope of where you are at the moment? Yeah, so maybe in the future that would be really great. I think um Running a bigger business is something that I would have to do a lot of work In before even starting to do that. Um, yeah But I'm either way either whether it's us expanding or other people just taking off the same way we did I think the more people in the space the better because it's it's clearly wanted and it's clearly needed and I think that's so important Like it doesn't need to just be kept to a few people that are running stuff right now, you know So I want to say I thank you so much for your time. I really am um inspired and almost like not almost Definitely reassured to know that there are people out like you out there You have a real A strong focus on educating people in australia about culture indigenous and non-indigenous alike And I do feel a lot better knowing that you will be creating a way more wholesome Knowledgable and understanding future in which we can hopefully all prosper. Yeah, so thank you emmy for your time. Thank you


In this chapter, we will see how to use neural networks not only to deal with vectors, but also with sequences. We will start by viewing the differences between a vanilla classic neural network and a recurrent neural network. Then we will see a sequence of combinations of vectorial and sequential input and output and their respective applications. For example, we will see how to map a vector to a vector, a vector to a sequence, a sequence to a vector, a sequence to a vector, and again back to a sequence, and finally a sequence to a sequence. So here we will introduce a new notation. Each of these circles represent a whole layer of a neural network. Previously, we were representing with each and every circle each and every scalar activation of a given layer. From now on, we will represent with a circle the whole layer, so it represents a vector. The input is called x, the hidden vectorial representation is called h, and then the output of the network is called y hat, whereas our labels are still y. We can make a very nice correspondence with the combinatorial logic here on the right hand side, where the output depends solely on the current input. A recurrent neural network introduces a recurrent connection coming from the previous state or previous internal representation. In order to be able to represent this network without recurrence, we will replicate the network over time indexes, where all the parameters are shared among the same nodes. Here the analogy goes to the sequential logic, where the current output of a system depends on the current input and on the specific state in which the system was. Neural networks are very powerful abstractions, which allow us to play with different kind of data. The simplest kind of network we have seen so far deals with vectors and produce vectors. Let's see how to represent this kind of first type of neural networks. So we have an input here, which is then mapped into a hidden layer, and then finally we produce an output. All of these kind of networks are used for image classifications. Bounding box is regression, so that we can perform localization, and in general any kind of f of x regression, so it can also be called as function approximation. And basically classical neural networks can be thought as systems that are optimized over function regression. This case was vector to vector, and can be represented by the following notation. So we go from a vector x to a vector y prediction. So y would be the label, y hat is going to be now our prediction of our network. So we go from one vector x to one other vector y. Either one can be a one element vector. That means just a scalar. For example, we could predict the price of an apartment, so that would be like a scalar given a set of features. Or given a scalar instead as an input, like would be the x axis, we could predict a y, which is a multi-dimensional function, for example. Let's see how a classical neural network is able to classify different images, representing the digits from 0 to 9 of the MNIST dataset. In this chart we will see the projection of the vectors representing each and every digit from 0 to 9 on to the subspace, on which we have maximized the variance. So this is the view in which the digits look the most separate between each other. And we can see that it's kind of hard to find separation planes that are able to group individually each and every separate digit. If we train a neural network in order to do this task, it will learn to move the space across the different layers in order to achieve a representation where the classes are linearly separable. And the linear separation will be performed by the last logistic unit. So after I train my network on this dataset, I reproject the output representation corresponding to each of these samples. And what we get is this. We can clearly see now that each and every digit can be easily separated by each other using simple linear separation hyperplanes. What if we provide one input, but then we would like instead to have a sequence in terms of output. Let's say, so we have one singular input here, our X, and then we have a sequence of internal states or hidden variables, which then produce a sequence of outputs. So we have our input here, and it produced the first output. Then given the first input, we produce the second output. And moreover, we can produce, for example, a third output, an example of an application that would use a similar scheme is image captioning, where we just provide one input image, X. But then we actually expect a sequence of words which are describing the content of the image. So in this case, I will write here y hat function of an index t. And this is vector to sequence. Here we see an example of vector to sequence mapping. The input vector is an image like we can see here. In the output is a sequence of symbols representing words in a sentence. We have different performance from the left to the right. We have descriptions without errors. Then we have descriptions with minor errors. Then the captions are somehow related to the image. Or on the right hand side, we see completely unrelated captions. This task would have been impossible to tackle with simple neural network, and is our first example of how our current neural network can be used in practical applications. We have now two elements. We have vectors and sequences. So we can do all their combinations. Now let's do a sequence to vector. So in this case, I will provide to my network a sequence 1, 2, 3 of symbols. Which are fed into the hidden layer. But then we produce an output only at the end. So we insert the first symbol into the network. And then we insert the second symbol, which will be affected by the symbol that we inserted before. We insert up to the last one. And again, this one will be affected by whatever we have input before. At the end, we can ask the network to output a specific result. Practical applications are equation solvers. Or even better, we could even create a system which is able to learn to program. We could call this program executor. So in this case, before we saw that the classical neural network, which is mapping a vector to a vector, can be thought as a system that is optimized over functions. A recurrent neural network can be thought as a system which is optimized over programs. We teach a system how to perform simple tasks. Given some inputs and the internal state of the system, we expect an output. And everything is just learned by gradient descent. So we are creating a system which is learning how to perform tasks given our data. And given our expected result. So in this case, we said we input a sequence. And we expect a vector output. So we have our input sequence.  So it would be like sequence to sequence where I just considered the last element of the sequence. Here we are talking about sequence to vector mapping. Our input data, it's a sequence of instructions. More specifically, here it's a sequence of characters which are making up a program. Our output will simply be the print value on screen. So in this case, the recurrent neural network has to learn the semantic of this programming language and also has to learn how to compute each and every instructions in order to make a reliable prediction. In this case, we can talk about optimization over programs. Let's combine these last two schemes into a new system so that we can input a sequence which is then condensed into the state of the system. And then when the state of the system is updated with the last element of the input sequence, it will start outputting an output sequence. Let's draw it just to have a better understanding of what I just said. So we have our first sequence. We have one, two, three, which is input to our system. And then after the system has accumulated a history of inputs and its state has been updated given the input sequence, we start outputting some results. So here we propagate to the next state. Let's say we have three states update after the input has stopped. And then we output here our output sequence, which can be of any kind of length. It doesn't have to match the input length. This kind of scheme reflects the life of a PhD student. You get much information across the years. So we have first year, second year, third year, and maybe a fourth and even a fifth. And then it becomes said. But okay, let's go over. And after these many years of input from the specific field and domain of studies, we improve our internal state to a better and better and better representation.  And all the companies are looking for is basically this very nice representation. Even in the same way, we'd like our network to perform a similar task with input, some specific input. For example, there could be a sequence of symbols that can be like the words in a sentence. Then we have a representation of a concept that the sentence tries to express. And then we can think to output this concept in a different domain, perhaps in a different language. This scheme reflects not only the PhD student life, but of course the neural machine translation, which internal state shows very, very interesting characteristics, as we shall see. In this case, we went to a sequence, to sequence. But then we also came through a condensed representation, which is actually a vector. So in this case, we can call this scheme also encoder decoder. So we have an encoding of a sequence into a vectorial representation. And then we have a decoder, which transforms and recovers the sequential nature of the domain we were working with from the internal vectorial representation. So in here, we can write this one as our input, which is a sequence. We go through a hidden vectorial representation without time index. And then we again expand into a Y hat, so prediction, which is a vector over the time index T. As we said, the state of a encoder decoder scheme has very interesting properties. Here we can see a 2D projection with maximum variance among embeddings of different words that we have provided to our network that has been used as a neural machine translation. We have input one sequence of words representing a sentence in a given language, got a compressed representation of the sentence, and then spit out another sequence of symbols representing words in a sentence in another language. This chart represents the projection on the 2D plane with highest variance of the words that are sent into this system. Let's see, for example, the green cluster. You can see here that all these green terms are month's names. Not surprisingly, they occupy a very, very close region with respect to the other words because they can easily be swapped without turning the sentence incorrect. Although the meaning will change because of course different months are corresponding to different time periods, but they don't influence the correctness of a sentence. Moreover, if we instead insert sentences and then we project the embedding space on a 2D space with maximum variance, we can see clusters of very similar meaning. For example here, we have period of times appearing all close together. You can find more illustrations if you follow the reference below. Finally, we have the last combination, which is direct conversion of a sequence into a sequence. So let's draw it. We have here our input sequence. Let's just draw three symbols, which are fed into our network state hidden layer. And automatically it starts outputting as well our output sequence. So we first send the first symbol and then we expect already some kind of output. Then given my first input and my second symbol, we expect to have a second prediction again. Given the previous state and the new input, we expect the output to change again. And I'm very sure every one of you are very, very familiar with a practical application of this kind of scheme. And yes, it's your lovely autocorrection, which tries to predict the next word. Given the character, we have just inserted. So the pink circles represent the symbols representing each and every character I input into my phone. And the blue balls represent the completion of the current word and a suggestion perhaps for the next word. We can call this one T9 or autocorrection, which outputs a sequence of symbols, which are, for example, the words. Given that I input a sequence of other symbols, which are in this case characters. So we can mix and match, we can input characters and we expect perhaps a probability distribution of the most likely word completion choices. And therefore here we go from our final combination, which is sequence to sequence. Finally the sequence to sequence mapping. We said can be used for making the autocorrection on your phone. Here I just picked a very nice project where the author has made a package for the Atom text editor, which can be used to write novels in a fantasy style, since it's been trained on fantasy corpora. Here we can see the rings of Saturn glittered while the, and then we ask for a prediction, harsh eyes lead two men looked at each other. And then you can go on. They were enemies, but let's see what happened. The server robots were in concern. So you can have fun with this project you can find on GitHub on the link below. Each circle represents a vector and in depth, so going from the bottom layers to the high level layers, we represent different layers of the network. On the X axis instead, I represented the time index. So as we move from the left to the right, we see different time steps. Before in the previous lessons, I was representing with a circle each and every activation of a specific layer. In this case here, each circle represent the complete layer with all its own activations. Stay tuned because in the next video we will see the equations that govern the recurrent neural network and how they relate to the equations of our vanilla neural network. Moreover, we will see how we can train this system with backpropagation through time.


Hi everyone, Chris here from IELTS Advantage with lesson two of our speaking mini course. So three steps to band seven speaking. So let's look at the three steps and the three lessons. So step one, we looked at this on Monday, today's Wednesday, we looked at part one. So if you're watching the recording of this or you're watching it live, feel free to go back and look at part one after we finish up today. Because part one speaking, a lot of people think that it's just not important at all. Or some other people think that it's like more important than it is. It's good. It's a really good idea to find out exactly what part one is because you want to start the test as strongly as possible. Step two. So today, we're looking at part two. This is the part, you know, sometimes called the long term where they give you the cue card and you have to, you know, plan for one minute and then speak for up to two minutes. A lot of people really, really worry about this. And it's not something you do actually have to worry about that much. Step three, Friday at 11am, we're going to go live on Facebook, 11am UK time. And we're going to look at part three of the speaking test. Part three, in my opinion, is the most difficult part, which is where you'll be asked the more difficult questions. But just because you're asked difficult questions doesn't mean that's actually a bad thing. It's actually a good thing. So we'll be telling you why that is a really, really good thing on Friday and giving you a strategy for part three. So what are we going to do today for part two? So we're going to look at what the goal of part two is. What is your goal? What's the thing that you want to be doing? We're going to look at some common problems that students come up against and some common strategies. There's a lot of strategies online, especially on, if you look at YouTube, Facebook, you'll find a lot of people who say like this is a magic way or a special way to answer part two. There isn't any special way to answer part two. There isn't any magic way that's going to guarantee that you improve your scores. But we'll look at a way that will help you as much as possible and help you prepare for the test and get the best score possible for you. And we're going to look at that strategy. And this strategy actually does work because we've helped thousands of students improve their part two and improve their overall score in the speaking test. So we're going to show you what that is. So what is the goal of part two? What should you be looking for? And what should you be looking to do? You should be looking to speak fluently and coherently for up to two minutes about the topic. All right, so some key words here. Fluently. Let's get rid of that big black marker. Let's change this to a pen. We'll change the color to red. So you need to be speaking fluently, speaking without too many pauses and hesitations on natural pauses and hesitations and coherently actually talking about the topic that's on the cue card and developing that idea and speaking for up to two minutes about the topic, not about anything else apart from the topic. And the examiner should be able to understand what I'm saying. So understanding what you're saying that's related to pronunciation. Can the examiner understand what you're saying or do they have to strain to understand you? And are you using grammar and vocabulary effectively? Principally, are you using grammar vocabulary accurately? You do also have to worry a little bit about your range of grammar, your range of vocabulary. But for most students, what they should focus on is accuracy. And we're not going to talk about this too much today. What we'll focus on more is strategy. So in the comments in Facebook, what I want you to tell me is what are some problems or what are some things that you worry about when it comes to part two speaking? What are you really really worried about? Or what things do you do in part two speaking that you think are leading to you getting a lower score? In the comments, tell me what you think. And I'll have a look. I have my phone. Let me see if my phone is working. Don't be shy. Let me see if I can use my phone instead of Justin's phone. Yeah, sure. My phone. Let me see if my phone is working. Okay, so Hardeeb said lack of ideas. Good, Hardeeb. Yeah, a lot of people are worried about that. Anybody else? Kate says no ideas. Okay. Anybody else? Any other ideas? Apart from Hardeeb and Kate. She says thinking what topic. I'm not too sure what you mean by thinking what topic, but if you want to explain what that means, there is a lack of information. So lack of ideas, lack of info about the actual topic. So maybe you do have ideas, but you just don't know how to develop those ideas. Vocabulary, what are you saying? Oops. Good. Speak for two minutes. Good. Okay. So here are some ideas. What we're going to do now is I'm going to show you a cue card like you would see in the test. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to demo what I think is the main problem that students have with part two. I'm going to demo like as if I'm a student and I have this main problem. Okay, so let's get a cue card up. So went to the British Council's website, their free website and we'll take a cue card from then because you should always use real example questions because if you don't use real example questions, you'll get fake ones and you'll mess it up. We'll talk about that in a second. Okay. So here's one from the British Council. Describe something you own which is very important to you. Okay. You should say where you got it from, how long you've had it, what you use it for and explain why it is important to you. Okay. So what I'm going to do is look at this as if I'm a student and demo exactly what I think is the main problem. And then in the comments, tell me what you think the main problem is. Okay. And remember that I have to speak for up to two minutes. So on my watch, let me see. Okay. So imagine that I planned it out already. So something that I own that is very important to me is my watch. I got it from Argos, which is a shop here in my hometown. I've had it for about six months. I use it for telling the time and recording my workouts. And there's also a feature for the weather on it, which I use sometimes and my calendar is also on it. And it's important to me because as I said, it helps me record my workouts. So it tracks all of my activity and I know how healthy I am and how much exercise that I've done. So I got it from Argos and yeah, I've had it about six months. I use it to tell the time and it's really important because yeah, because it's a really nice watch. I like this watch. It's really good. Okay. So that was demoing a student that has these big, big problems. So what are some of those problems? After listening to me do that, some of these might be correct, but are there any other things that I was doing that might be a problem? Remember, the goal is to speak fluently and coherently about the topic for up to two minutes. And the examiner should be able to understand what I'm saying and my grammar and vocabulary and pronunciation should be up to standard. So let's have a look again to see if anybody has any further ideas. Let's see. So a lot of you are tagging your friends while done. So based on what I said, what do you think? You get the ideas here. Okay, so not developing. Not developing ideas. Good. Repeating ideas. So no one has picked up on the biggest problem. Hesitations, not really. There weren't that many. Fluency does not mean speaking perfectly. All right. I'm never pausing or hesitating. It means speaking at a natural rate without unnatural pauses and hesitations. Little pauses and hesitations are fine. Lack of connectors, no. No linking words. I mean, they do help a little bit, but it's not bad pronunciation. No. Could you understand what I said? Hopefully. Okay. So the main problem was I didn't speak for two minutes. All right. What I did was, see, you get the cue card. The main problem was I looked at this bullet point and I talked about that one. Then I looked at that bullet point. I talked about that one. Then I looked at that bullet point. I talked about that one and then I talked about this one. And I didn't develop any of these points, but I ran out of things to say within a minute. Less than a minute. I've done all of these. So this is what a student does. They look at this one. Then they talk about this one. Then they talk about this one. Then they talk about this one.  And what happens then is they go off on a tangent or they repeat themselves, which is what I did. I just repeated the same things over and over again. And then they just stop. All right. So for me, this is one of the biggest problems that you face when it comes to part two. So how can we solve these problems? Let's have a look. Another problem is a lot of you are using strategies that you find on the internet. And just because somebody says these are band nine strategies or magic strategies or something like that doesn't mean they're actually going to work. So let's look at some common strategies that you'll find online and think about how do they actually work? So one common strategy is talk about each point in the order that you see them. All right. So the strategy is talk about that, then that, then that, then that. Okay. Is this an effective strategy? Well, as I've just demonstrated, and as I do this with our students in our course, we do maybe 40 to 50 students a week doing practice runs with part two. And we've done that for four years. So we see this over and over and over again. When they do that, they just run out of things to say. And they then they stutter and they panic and they don't know what to do. And it's also a very, very unnatural way to speak to somebody. If somebody asked you this question, would you ever look at a list of bullet points when I talk about one and then look at down again and then talk with the other and then look like it's just a very unnatural way to speak to someone. So is this going to get you to your goal, which is to speak fluently and coherently for up to two minutes about the topic? No, it's not going to help you. So be very, very careful who you listen to and what strategies you use, because you might be better off with no strategy whatsoever, rather than following something that's going to lead to a lower score. Another common strategy that a lot of students who start working with us uses, they'll talk about the past, they'll talk about the present, and then they'll talk about the future. All right? So does this help? To be honest, some students really do like this. And it really does help them. The majority of the people that we work with, it doesn't help them at all. Why? Well, it's very rigid. All right? Again, if I asked you that question or any other question in the world, would you answer it in that way? Would you say, okay, let's talk about the past, then let's talk about the present, then let's talk about the future? No, it's a very, very unnatural way to answer anything. So it's making it more difficult than it needs to be. Also, a lot of people who use this strategy, like talk about the past and the present and the future, they tend to run out of ideas. They're like, okay, past and they talk a lot about that. And then present, like, okay, I own this watch now. And then they start talking about the future and they can't think of anything to say. And then they start again to panic and that can affect their fluency and their coherence and everything, to be honest. So it does work for a minority of students, but the majority, it doesn't help them at all. And so again, be very, very careful with what you listen to. So when we were thinking of this strategy and how to help people with this, what we normally do is just think, how do people normally speak to each other? So it's a speaking test. If you're chatting to someone, like if Justin and I went for a coffee after this lesson, what would our conversation look like? Our conversation would look like, I would ask him a question, he would answer it back and forth like that, a normal conversation. So if you think about this as your brain, how do we normally talk to each other? Well, we have some sort of input, which is normally like a question or a comment. Let's keep it simple. It's just some sort of question. Our brains are going to process the information and then there's going to be output. So this will normally be someone speaking. All right. So by using these very rigid strategies and using bullet points in that way, or past, present, future and things like that, you're just complicating everything. You're making things as complicated as possible without actually using the normal process that you have, which is just question, think about it and answer. So how can we use this to help us answer the questions effectively? Okay. So what is happening here is a lot of people are under the misconception that you must talk about this, then you must talk about this, then you must talk about this, then you must talk about this. Okay. That's wrong. All right. You do not have to talk about each one of them in order and only talk about the bullet points. What do you have to do? There's only one thing that you must do. You must talk about the topic here. Okay. So for this question, I must talk about, I must describe something which I own, which is very important to me. That's the only thing. If I don't want to talk about any of these, that's fine. The only thing I need to do is this. Now, am I saying never talk about the bullet points? No. Most of them are going to be very, very useful, but use them as tools to help you rather than as a crutch to rely on. Because if you're using them as a crutch, like a crutch is like, if you break your leg, you use a crutch to help you walk. A lot of you are using these as a crutch and that's, does a crutch actually help you walk effectively? No. Use these as tools rather than a crutch. Well, what does that mean? Well, if you look at these, where you got it from? Okay. So yeah, I want to talk about this, but it's going to be very, very short. It's going to be one line. All right. I don't really need to develop that at all because there's nothing really to develop. Where did you get it from? A shop called Argos. How long have you had it? Yeah, I probably want to talk about that, but again, it's just a very small, small piece of information. What you use it for. Yeah, definitely. I want to talk about that. And there's many things that I can talk about related to that. Explain why it is important to you. I don't really feel comfortable talking about that one. Don't want to talk about that one. So don't. Are there other things that I could talk about related to that? Sure. I could talk about details. I could talk about features. I could talk about past. I could talk about present. I could talk about future. But I don't have to. What else could I do? Story, my opinion on it, or my feelings about it, and anything else. Like anything else I can think of it. So instead of three bullet points, which don't really help me at all, now I have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine extra. All right. So am I going to use all of these? Am I going to talk about this, then this, then this, then this, then this, then this, then this, then this, then this, then this, then this, then this? No, that's not what I'm saying. What you do is when you're planning during your one minute planning, you just note down a few extra things that you would like to talk about, and then you use these naturally to talk about them. Okay. You might not talk about the present. You might not talk about the future. You might not talk about your feelings. You might not talk about opinion, but you might have a story about it and how you felt about it in the past and the details and the features, and that's really, really going to help you. So what you're doing is all of these different things are providing you with a wide array of things to talk about. It's like a toolkit. All right. The more tools you have in your toolkit, the better. And then during the one minute planning stage, you're just noting these down, thinking about them, and then talking naturally and not spending the whole time looking at your bullet, like bullet point number one, talk about that. Okay. Then bullet point number two. Okay. Then talk about, you're not going to do that. So this might be the first time you've seen this strategy. So let me spell it out. Number one, establish main topic. What is the main topic? Okay, this is the main topic. I must speak about this. Remember that. Number two, think about each bullet point as we just did. Okay. Yeah, I can use that one. Yeah, I can use that one. Yeah, I can use that one. I don't want to use that one at all. That's, I don't even understand that one. Add any others that will help. Well, I definitely have a story about that. So that's going to be really easy to talk about. This one's going to be really easy to talk about the features that definitely can't really think of anything else. There might be a few details. So there's a lot of things that I can talk about. Is this going to get me to two minutes? I'll be able to speak fluently and coherently. Absolutely. No problem whatsoever. Five, speak naturally until examiner stops you. So let's demo that. Okay, so that's a little bit messy. I might not be very coherent if I do that. All right, so let's demo it as if I'm doing it the real test. Okay. Okay. So first thing I need to do, something you own, which is very important. Okay, so I know that one. I'm going to do that one. I'm going to do that one. This one. No, I'm going to talk about how much it is worth. I'm going to talk about my opinion. I'm going to talk about the future. Okay, and that's me done. And then I would just sit and think about it. Okay, so let's go. So the most important thing, or let me set a timer. So time myself. So most important thing to me is this jam board. All right. And the reason why it's really, really important to me is two reasons.  It was about $10,000, which is significantly more than anything else I've ever bought more than my car, I believe. So I got it about six months ago. With six months ago, I called Google. Google, they are the people that make it. It's called a Google Jam Board. And you can only buy it from Google because I think they don't want anyone bumping or discounting the price and selling them for less than $10,000. And so it was originally designed as a collaboration tool. So Google in their headquarters, they've got offices all over the world. And what you can do with the Jam Board is you can draw on it and make notes on it. And someone in a different part of the world with another Jam Board or with a laptop or a tablet or even their phone, they can interact with it, draw things and give you feedback and there's a camera on it and everything. In my opinion, I wouldn't say it was a waste of money because we can use it every single day to plan stuff out and it looks great in lessons and it's very interactive and things like that. However, the $10,000 price tag was a little bit pricey considering that there's a lot of bugs in it and it doesn't really work in the way that we wanted it to work. For example, it doesn't allow us to use PowerPoint. We would have loved to have PowerPoint slides or Google slides, even we can't even use Google slides, even though slides is connected to Google. So we have to draw everything, which is okay. But in my opinion, I will not be buying a new one in the future. I will probably buy a Microsoft one. I can't remember the name of the Microsoft one, but they have one and it's much, much better. So that was dead on two minutes. So the examiner would have stopped me. So you see how much easier it was to talk about because I gave myself the freedom to talk about many, many different things, but I did only talk about this. All right. So what you're doing with that strategy is the strategy itself is not going to improve your pronunciation.  It's just giving you every chance to be able to get the best score possible on test day. But the number one thing you need to remember with it is you need to practice it. Okay. So you cannot just take this strategy, walk into the test tomorrow and get a band seven. Doesn't work like that. I wish it did, but it didn't. You need to practice it. All right. So, but if you do practice it, you're really going to improve every aspect because you're but just the act of practicing it over and over again is going to help you. So get real practice questions.  Use the strategy by looking at the question, planning it out for one minute, and then record yourself. Use your phone to help you. All right. So record yourself on your phone. Listen and then critique yourself. All right. Criticize your own performance. Think about fluency. Think about coherence. Think about grammar. Think about pronunciation. Think about vocabulary. And if you do that over and over and over and over again, you're practicing speaking part two. You're becoming more comfortable with speaking part two, but you're improving your fluency. You're improving your coherence.   And your vocabulary as well. You will be picking up that you are maybe making some little errors or collocation errors or you could maybe use a more complex word when you're using simple words or you're repeating words sometimes. So using that strategy is good, but the person who practices it and does all these things, they're really going to improve. So summarize everything. Start with the end goal in mind. What is the end goal? What do you want to be doing? If you apply this to everything you do, it's just going to improve everything. Avoid common problems and avoid common strategies. Some of the strategies might work. Some strategies I don't know about might work. I don't know. But ask yourself, does this help me with my end goal? If it doesn't, then maybe it's not the magic strategy whoever's talking about it. Maybe it's not as magic as the person who says it is. Try a strategy that focuses on the end goal and practice and critique yourself. And that's it. It doesn't need to be any more complicated than that. But the key is to do these things. Don't watch a video and be like, oh, that's amazing.  The student who does it is going to improve. Just to let you know, we have a new free writing course, Three Steps to Band 7 or above. It is a live course that we're going to be doing next week. It starts on Wednesday, but we're going to open it up this Friday, Friday the 18th. But there'll only be limited places available because it's going to be in a secret group and everything. We're going to limit the number of people that it's available to. We're not going to be putting it on Facebook or YouTube or anything. So if you're interested in that, check your email if you're on our email list. I can't speak anymore. I've been making too many videos today. If you're on our email list, you'll get an email about it. If not, check our Facebook, YouTube, all that will be and talking a lot about it over the weekend so you can get in. It's totally free and it's helped thousands of people in the past so it can help you. So that's pretty much it. Let me have a look, see any interesting comments. Let me see if there's any questions or comments or anything like that. Very good comment. You're wrong, but it's a good comment. All right. So from Ishe, I said, you said the word and too many times. Okay. So this is a common misconception. A common misconception is that if you repeat any words, you're going to get a lower score. All right. So try and speak for 15 minutes and only use the word and once or only use the word or or or of or like articles, prepositions, these words that just come up again and again and again and again. Good vocabulary does not mean only using unique words. That's not what good vocabulary means. So very good comment because it shows a common misconception. Let me see. And even if it's a keyword, like if you're talking about cars, there's only a certain number of ways you can say cars and if you're talking about cars for 15 minutes, you're going to say car a lot. Like it's just the way it is. Any strategy for being coherent? That one. Coherent means that you talk about the topic for up to two minutes and you develop your main ideas properly. Okay. So thank you very much guys. I've got to go, but hopefully a lot of you put that into practice. If you need anything, feel free to get in touch. Chris at iAltsAdvantages.com is my email address and make sure that you check this out on Friday. There's only limited places available and we won't be putting it out to the public. But if you're interested in improving your writing scores, get involved. Thank you very much guys and see you again soon. Bye bye.