Hello, Spaggy friends, and welcome to Mervir Analysis for Hedrugs. Today, we will be looking at unpacking of script Mervir. And this is our sample. It's also the original name of the sample, like you can find it in the wild. So let's take a look at it. It has a WSF extension. It's a Windows scripting file, could be JScript or VBScript or similar. And you just open it with notepad or a similar editor. Okay, we see it's a VBScript. And VBScript has an instruction separator that's the colon. So if you want to make some sense of this, just copy it and replace the colon with a new line. You might have to set it to extended first. Replace with new line all. Set the highlighting to visual basic. Okay, now it looks a bit better. We have this function here, HIO. And it ends here. All right, here's another function, Q. And the last line is an execute on the return value of the HIO function. And this is the argument. It's a very long string. So what's happening here is this is a packed code. And that's the encoded code. That's decoded by this HIO function and afterwards executed with this execute command. Now, we do not, we don't need to analyze this here. Because all we want to do is we want to see what's inside, what's this code here doing when it's executed. So just replace the execute with a print command or something similar. I find. Please stay here. That's annoying. Okay. Wscript echo. And now save this. And you should be able to, instead of execute the code, you should print the code now. Genius. Now, if you double click this, it will run wscript.exe like this. But that doesn't help you very much because, well, it prints everything to the window. We don't want that. So just use cscript instead. And it will print the output to the console. Unpacked one. This looks good. Did I call it unpacked two? Okay. And here we have our unpacked code and it's still not readable. Again, here's an execute command. And in vbscript, it does not matter how it's, how the casing is like this is the function keyword and it's all camera case kind of. But that doesn't matter. It's case and sensitive. It's still the same as execute and lower case or uppercase or whatever. This executes the queue. And this is some queue. Well, variable. This is also some kind of mess up stuff in here. So again, we will just do the same as before and echo the output. Okay, cscript, unpacked one, two, unpacked two. Expected end of statement where I said, ah, here. It puts a header to the output. So just remove the header. Then it should work. Okay. Now we have unpacked two. That's a bit smaller. And it has an execute global. That's also an execute kind of function. It executes OET and OET is OET and this string. So what does it do? It's appending some characters right here. And those are based on that variable. And that again is split that. Okay. So that means the context is missing. We just copy it in here. Instead of this echo, we copy it in here. And now if you double click on this, it will highlight the variable and XUO. And here you can see that the contents of XUO are built up this way. So it consists of lots of numbers with dots in between. And then it will split these on the dots. And then, yeah, kind of do something with the numbers to turn them into a string. So we replace this with W script echo. Save and do the same as before. It's again unpacked one, two, unpacked three this time. So now we open this in Notepad and we have... Okay, let's copy this. We have a huge string in here. And the colon, we will replace them again with the new line. This looks like the maverick code, but it's obfuscated. So we have functions that make sense for maverick code. Like great shortcut, drive path. That's definitely doing some interesting stuff in here. We just cannot read the strings that it uses because they are obfuscated by this. I have written a Python script to de-obfuscate the strings. And the obfusc.py, it just prints it on here. De-obfuscated. I will also show you the script. That's the Python script, just reads in alpha unpacked three dot VBS. And for each line, it will find those patterns of X bracket and some value in it. And then replace the value that's in it with a char representation of it. And then turn it to lowercase. And that way we can de-obfuscate the code. It's not executable anymore because it's not really a perfect de-obfuscation. The strings don't have any... For example, you would have to put those strings into those quotation marks, which we didn't do in this case. But usually all you want to do is understand the maverick that's inside. It's not always necessary that you de-obfuscate it perfectly so that it still runs. And in this case, I figured it's enough to do it this way. And you can see now what this maverick is doing. You also see our original file name here just said it's lowercase because I turned everything lowercase. And you can see it searches for drives and for removable drives and it creates shortcuts in those drives by replacing files on these with the shortcuts. And the shortcuts in turn will run the maverick code, this code here that we now de-obfuscated. Here's the command to run it. And this is also a persistence function in here that will add our script file to the registry to make it outrun on every startup. So it also carries some Android products as you can see here. It also has some kind of vector in it to receive some commands that it can do. Yeah, that's pretty interesting. If you want to take a look at it, I will put the link into the description below so you can download it from payload security, reverse it. And I will also put a paste event for my de-obfuscation script. Feel free to modify it if you think you can make a better one. Yeah, and that's it for today. Thank you for watching. Please post any questions below. Have a nice evening.


The Philip J. Pierre administration has laid the foundation to usher a new era of entrepreneurship for St. Lucia's micro-small and medium-sized enterprises sector. On March 16, the Ministry of Commerce, led by Honorable Emma Hippolett, in collaboration with the St. Lucia Development Bank, officially launched the MSME Loan Grant Facility 10 million EC dollars has been allocated to the MSME Loan Grant Facility At least 500 small business owners stand to benefit from the facility which offers qualified applicants improved access to financing to facilitate startups and business expansion. I said to my colleagues that we have to do something for small businesses and it's clear in our manifesto we said and I quote to to address the challenge we articulated a clear policy position in our 2021-2026 manifesto to implement a series of measures to revitalize the business sector which included and I quote to provide partial government guarantees to finance institutions for financing the working capital requirements of affected businesses during the recovery progress process that was a manifesto quote and that is a manifesto quote that's happening live and direct this morning. 70 percent is the grant and 30 percent is alone. Qualified entrepreneurs and new business owners can access up to 10,000 EC dollars. Eligible businesses less than two years old can apply for up to 20,000 dollars and qualified businesses operating for more than two years will be eligible to receive up to 25,000 dollars. Funding is apportioned in the ratio 70 percent grant and 30 percent loan at a concessionary rate of just 3 percent for successful applicants. The newly minted MSME Loan Grant Facility demonstrates Prime Minister Pierre's confidence in Saint Lucia's small business sector. We have to have wealth creators. We can't have only people working for people. The service industry is fine. I'm a 100 percent supporter of the service industries but we need to have people to create things so that the people in the service industry can enjoy. We need to have innovators. We need entrepreneurs. We need small businesses to develop. We have examples of small businesses that have developed. There is JQ Charles, there is AF Valmont.  We need people in Saint Lucia who can make it. The $10 million funding for the Pierre administration's MSME Loan Grant Facility was derived from the Caribbean Development Bank's Special Development Fund 10th cycle loan facility from the office of the Prime Minister, Rihanny Isidore.


Everybody forced here. I'm ripping five boxes of 21 21 20 22 Star Wars chrome galaxy hobby For Peter M. Here we go Peter sketch super Red Maybe all of it. I don't know. I want to see something crazy for Peter right here. Thank you. Thank you Don and I love ripping this stuff Oh, yeah for sure Me talking and like actually putting cards isn't why like I'm decent at my job. It's it's everything over here That's the part I would stress about the most that's the only stressful part really it's just doing that fast Doing it correctly. Yeah, and in a timely fashion. Yeah, oh nice mojo bush disguise I could separate the cards here 24 50 decent start on the mojo bush disguise. So I I'll be your chat when um Kylo sketch variation me and Sam. We're doing this the Luke and Leia's outfits on Endor Sam kept saying bush Guys grandma talking refractor. I had to call him out. He's like, you know, that's the name of the car I know all these days and they was like, oh Our 2d2 on the concept are Gamorian guard base refractor Best Star Wars card you can pull probably a Vader super factor or something. Yeah, probably as far as like non-auto goes Out of this anyway, uh, snowtroopers invade Hawthor Fractor. It's one of my favorites right there. That's that that's top five for me Yes Like snowtroopers, dude, I guess like Battle of Hawth sweet. I mean you're not wrong Vintage Star Wars there grievous refractor Darth Vader murdered youngling relic refractor inside the meditation chamber Donnie was not expecting that Pretty good though Yeah, the Kurosawa from last year Star Wars Jedi Starfighter gameplay galaxy one of my favorite games of PlayStation 2 era refractor Leia organa Got a wave Bounty hunters 66 of 99 Solid parallels so far Shadows of the Empire gameplay galaxy Mason new purple. Yeah Tick Tick factor Vice sketch variation crosshand refractor stormtroopers survey the desert stormtrooper Super trooper Refractor a duel on the Death Star Atomic life on Tatooine 134 of 150 three three parallels is good I think crazy yet, but hey a bonus parallel is always nice vintage Vader. Sorry Concept art Vader. We could start here tusk generator at sundown refractor. Yeah, we'll take three numbered in the first box for sure That's a nice starting point Uh chief chirpa. I believe is that the vintage one there refractor oboe? Obi-Wan Kenobi refractor Hello there X-wing B-wing. No, just X-wing gameplay galaxy a wookiee in the wilderness refractor Saw no auto yet And here it is wrecker refractor And a bb-8 auto 32 of 150 on the blue parallel brian herring puppeteer for bb-8 It's a solid hit Pretty solid box for the first one here trudging refractor Is bb-8 top five droid Top five droid. All right guys top five droids. Let's hear them R2d2 is for sure top five droids. That's gotta be in everybody's top five Anybody put c3po in there you can get out. Yeah pretty much. Um, I have k2so k2 is which one Andor's buddy and rogue one. Oh bb uh b the red droid Is it bb or b? by gentillie's refractor fin golf droid best droid Golf droid is definitely like number two atomic attack on hoth 63 of 150 Chop, yeah chopper. I feel like the rebel series chopper for sure. Yeah chop. I've grown to actually really really like kind of obscure but 8d8 and uh Book of Boba Fett refractor weakway Sampled a super that last night right or two nights ago Rather keely there we go clint howard auto to 150 Clint howard was 8d8 like the service droid. He was a service droid voice by matt barry Love matt barry not the fantasy wall matt barry anakin skywalker refractor. Oh, yeah l3 was uh the droid um was lando droid Oh, okay solid droid for sure Loose skywalker assembles his lightsaber refractor IG 11 is a good one carl's on the right. Wait is 11 or 8d8 11 or 8d8 is the best one Yoda uh and loose skywalker refractor. I believe 11 wasn't uh mando says better than IG 88 Got a wave. Come on big wave big wave Oh nice The infamous boba fets 66 of 99 that's a cool one. I think like I want to add one more at the carl's top five and that would probably be mine Because I don't know how I feel about IG 11. He's cool and all but Refractor obi-wan kenobi and bogey omega refractor omega or mega republican mando gameplay galaxy Good game. Why'd you until he's refractor? I can't figure out two more droids without I'm really trying. I'm really like Just google like best droids. I mean x-wings information refractor R2 chopper bb8 k2 l3. I think bb is probably got to be in there. Hey, jordan's right Oh, what am I thinking? Um bounty hunters answer the empire's call refractor All right, we need so we need some uh, we need some spice in this box here. What's the droid from? There's spice in this one Superbombad racing gameplay galaxy boosh disguise refractor. I forget the name. I don't know I think bd bd 11 or something bd 12. I don't know I would definitely Card game of chance refractor That sounds right Although I'll I'll say that's any of them any of them you say right now refractor ben kenobi bd1 yep b1 a uh tick sketch variation refractor druth vader Luke Skywalker on end door refractor Boba Fett starship concept art didn't mean to intruder refractor All right, let's get back on track with another good box here What is our situation that c3 p.m. Does it mean no intruder?  Sorry getting cards mixed up I hope it's sketch time. I'd love to get p to sketch Han Solo base refractor Atomic lea and her boosh disguise Or just leo organa. Sorry. That's the different one 12 of 150 Leia atomic is great There we go Boosh disguise one of the looks look quite a bit different I'd say we had the same card. Do you call the right room? Fractor archer g2 got a mayor muck muck shies purple auto 8 of 50 john rosengrant Mayor muck shies about like battle droids Star Wars star fighter gameplay galaxy refractor salacious be grumb massive droids Yeah, what about battle droids just like a b1 Refractor medical droid, what about medical droid? Wave lack of faith that's sick Five of 99 jersey number That is sick. We can make this one wave lack of faith Yeah, Pete That's going into mag and it's the first parallel of that card that I pulled Hunter Refractor Yoda on Dagobah Refractor there's Leia and her boosh disguise Um the shadow of the dark lord refractor not the most perfect edge on the left there unfortunately What's uh, what's the Darth Vader rookie card? Uh, probably the original one echo refractor and like the 77 set Greedo refractor Greedo refractor on the vintage star wars that wicket I don't know 38 of 99 that might be just wicked work, right? It's green concept art refractor po Raven's mascot po looks like a wicked Star Wars Jedi outcast gameplay galaxy refractor wedge end hilly's Excludingly battlefront Jedi knight's got to be my favorite gameplay Yeah creatures of the canteen a base refractor Such a great series refractor anakin or a dark turn for anakin skywalker Varyation and refractor aboard the bridge two more.  I don't know. I'm just messing around. I know refractor the dark lord and a new hope One of the nice probably one of the nicer cards right there. Yeah, that's pretty sick The boonzeeve classic refractor now this is pod racing try spinning. That's a good trick Refractor cross it. Yeah, what do you guys think do you think I'd be a rebel or part of the empire? try rebel Oh, look at that do back Extractor 10 of 10 San Trooper on a do back extractor Yeah, Pete We should get a train horn. Alrighty. All right. Do the train horn whenever we pull big cards Star Wars dark forces gameplay galaxy a galaxy within grasp What a galaxy isn't this galaxy said here Star Wars refractor. All right. All right. Let's pull the mace super fracture Let's do that right now Purple makes it be cool Very nice Top five do backs go. Oh, man. That's a tough one. Jordan. All right. Do you back number one? Do you back number two? Whoa, Donny's nailing it right now. Actually number three refractor entered Darth Vader. Yeah, this is the one right here Then probably do back five and seven super fractor sketch or both that'd be cool Refractor Qui-Gon Jinn. Hello Ren refractor. Come on. Come on refractor tuskens in their bantha Refractor the infamous or an enemy of the empire. I should say that's what that card is and the auto is bb8 Ryan herring puppeteer for bb8 Another one. Yeah, Star Wars bounty hunter gameplay galaxy refractor san trooper on a do back They could have used uh that that freeze frame with like Obi-Wan Qui-Gon and dark ball like Palpatine refractor when they all clash their lightsaber together that was cool Cool Refractor cop pants Wedge there like a faith refractor All right, come on. Where are we going to find the big hit here?   That's pretty nice right there too boba concept art Come on. Come on. Come on atomic ala sakura 46 or sorry harris annula 46 of 150 refractor princess leia organa refractor lando calrissian There's a hand hand solo. That's what he said. That's what he said hand solo Jedi night dark forces to gameplay galaxy refractor patrolling the cantina Jordan this is star worth animals Refractor is Han Solo or the smuggler Han Solo So Carl, I don't recall that refractor Bounty hunters answer the empire's call And refractor x-wings in formation All right, no sketch But still did pretty well. Thanks again, p. We'll get these out to you man


When to use have, having, and have got from espressoenglish.net When the word have is used as a verb for possession, it can't be used in the present continuous. For example, you can't say, they're having a new car. The correct form is, they have a new car. Don't say, I'm having a lot of work to do. You must say, I have a lot of work to do. However, in certain expressions, have can be used in the present continuous form. For example, you can say, I'm having a good time. And, we're having a meeting at 4 p.m. There's also the question of have versus have got. Have and have got are the same when talking about possessions, illnesses, relationships, and characteristics of people. Have got is just a more informal way to say it. For example, you can say, I have a lot of work to do. Or, I've got a lot of work to do. We usually use the short form. Instead of saying, I have got a lot of work, we say, I've got a lot of work. You can say, she has two sisters. Or, she's got two sisters. He has a sore throat. Or, he's got a sore throat. They both have black hair. Or, they've both got black hair. However, there are some situations where you can't use have got. For example, you can't say, you'll have got fun at the party. You must use have. You'll have fun at the party. Don't say, I've always got breakfast at 8. The correct phrase is, I always have breakfast at 8. So, here are 15 English expressions with the word have, and whether or not you can use having in the present continuous or have got. Number one, have a look at something. You can use having but not have got. For example, let's have a look at the facts in this case. We're having a look at your proposal as we speak. Having a look at something is the same as taking a look at something. Number two, have a talk with someone or have a chat with someone. You can use having in the present continuous but not have got. She interrupted me while I was having a talk with my boss. Bob is over there, he's having a chat with Laura. Number three, have a meeting. You can use having in the present continuous and have got. Have got is only used for when the meeting is scheduled in the future. For example, the marketing department is having a meeting right now. I'm really busy today, I've got three meetings later this afternoon. Number four, have an appointment. With have an appointment, you can't use having but you can use have got. For example, do you have an appointment? We've got an appointment to see the dentist at 10.30. Number five, have fun, have a good time and have a blast. With all three of these expressions, you can use having but you can't use have got. Here are some examples. Have a good time at the park. The kids are having fun with their new toys. We're at the circus right now, we're having a blast. Number six, have a party. You can use having but not have got. Let's have a party to celebrate the end of the school year. We're having a party at our house on Friday night. You can also say throwing a party. Both having and throwing a party mean that you are the one organizing the party. Number seven, have a baby. You can use having but not have got. For example, I'd like to have the baby at home. Call a doctor quick, my wife's having the baby. This means she is in the process of giving birth right now. Here's some big news. I'm having twins. This means the twin babies will be born in the future. We are using the present continuous for something that will happen in the future. Number eight, have children, have brothers and have sisters. You can't use having but you can use have got. For example, do you have any brothers or sisters? Is the same as have you got any brothers or sisters? I've got two older brothers and one younger sister. We've got four children or we have four children. Number nine, have a problem. You can say having a problem or have got a problem. Both are correct. For example, I'm having problems connecting my printer to my computer. We made a mistake in the article and now we've got a big problem. Number ten, have difficulty and have trouble. With these words, you can use having but not have got. For example, I'm having difficulty understanding this English lesson. Are you having trouble breathing? Number eleven, have a good day or have a bad day. You can use having but not have got. For example, I hope you're having a good day.  Number twelve, have breakfast, lunch, dinner, coffee, a drink or a sandwich. You can use having but not have got. For example, I'm having lunch with my coworkers. Everyone's in the cafeteria. They're all having coffee. Number thirteen, have surgery or have an operation. You can use having but not have got. For example, Danny is having heart surgery right now. We're waiting for news from the doctors. I'll be having knee surgery on the twenty seventh. Number fourteen, have a headache, sore throat, cold or the flu. You can't use having but you can use have got. For example, I need to lay down. I've got a headache. My husband's got a bad cold. Number fifteen, have an effect, have an influence or have an impact. You can use having but not have got. For example, the medication is definitely having an effect on the disease. These new laws are having a major impact on the crime rate. English grammar can be confusing. Every rule seems to have exceptions and special cases. I believe that the best way to learn grammar and remember it is to put it into practice. It's helpful to take quizzes and do exercises, but it's even better to try to use the grammar yourself while speaking or writing. In the advanced English grammar course, you can send me your writing samples and get feedback and correction. It's a great way to confirm that you're using the grammar correctly. Visit espressoenglish.net, click on courses and look for advanced English grammar.


Hi everyone. Good afternoon. My name is Edward Henry. I am the chair of the chief of police search committee and I want to welcome the community to our Q&A session with our potential candidate for man-hosting chief of police. This is Captain Todd Ahearn. He's personally going to say something along the way for him, so be kind. He's making himself available to answer as many of your questions as possible and we want to give him a chance to also give a committee that he'll be serving should he get a job as well as have you a chance to ask him questions. So as a matter of house then we'll do some housekeeping. We have child care available on the second floor. Bathrooms we have two of them, one on the first floor just around the corner while we're in the basement, the ground floor just around the corner for people who don't want to. There's a restroom right around the corner for people who have lowly issues because they have the elevator. Everyone else if you could please go up to the second floor and then take a right. We're going to use those doors because it causes a little bit of friction with the door right there was open and that would be great. Thank you. Our exit here to your left, well to my left to our right and then behind us of course our second candidate will be moving promptly at 6.30 so the format tonight will be about 45 minutes of Q&A and one hour of Q&A and hopefully 15 minutes for some informal interaction with the candidate shall you choose and I think that's about it. Thank you. So you may ask questions by raising your hand. If you have any some people have cards or cards are available. Should you want to write a question down you can do so. The cards are also in the back and Melissa and Jen will get the cards as a questions if you want them to or you can ask the questions directly yourselves. We have microphones that they can bring to you. So with that I will give Captain Aherin a chance to introduce himself and we can jump right into it. Hello everybody. I just wanted to start off with my own housekeeping. I was thinking about this earlier but I don't know if it is a good time. Ever was kind enough to give me a promotion technically as a tenant. So I was functioning the same, same same. So I'm glad to say everybody here it looks like it's well attended. I know you're very interested in who's going next police chief in your town. It shows your commitment to that process that you're here and you're you know, My name is Todd Ahern. I'm born and raised in Charleston, Massachusetts. I've been a police officer there for a little over 30 years. Currently a lieutenant. I've held a rally of roles there. Spent a lot of time in the detective building. The last 10 years I've been a lieutenant in charge of the community wellness and outreach division. That mainly basically encompassed mental health, substance use disorder, homelessness, building social issues, things like that. And I can tell you that I probably learned as much in the last 10 years, doing some of the sort of jobs that you wouldn't think of as traditional policing as I did in the first 20 years. There's a lot of expected of the police now. It's not an easy job. It's very complex. But it's a leading career. It's something that I think what I like to look at is I've always tried to be hopeful to people and treat people with respect in the community. And if I was the leader of the Lander's Police Department, those would be some of the ideas that I try to incorporate in the department. I just want to go to the right of the machine. Treat them with respect. Probably be helpful, service-related. That's about it. We want to make sure everybody's safe and secure. That's obviously the top job. I feel like I'm a very collaborative person when I look with the community. I thought you could do it. Seek input from the people that work at the department. And my door is always open and the phone will be answered. So I'd be accessible. I believe that the police should be accessible and accountable to all members of the community and inclusive. And I'm sure I'll have more when you ask the questions. Thank you so much for your interest in this position. I'm curious what attracts you to Amherst, we're a special town. I'm just curious about what it is about us that makes you want to be here. I think that's what attracts me though. I think that you want to participate in the process. You want to have input into the way that the police deliver their service. Policing has changed a lot in 30 years since I started. It changed a lot in the last five years. And I think that we as police have to be ready for that change. We have to be willing to change. You have to adapt. You should always be analyzing what you do. You should always look for a better way to do it. I've said before that I think that we as police departments should run more as a business, right? You're the client. We have a service to deliver. We need to do a good job. We need to make sure that we leave you with some level of satisfaction. You should be able to participate in the way that we deliver police services. You should have input into what that looks like. I have a question on a note card. How did the Amherst demographics differ from Chelmsford? And how would you approach learning about Amherst? How do Amherst demographics differ from Chelmsford? And how would you approach learning about Amherst? Correct, yes. So I think demographically, there's probably some slight differences in racial or ethnic makeup. But as far as, I look at the community in sort of a holistic way, right? So it's not just who lives there. It's who drives through the community, who visits, who shops, who dines. Are we a welcoming community, right? So in Chelmsford, that's what we try to do. We try to make it a welcoming community, both as a town, as the police department. Demographically, there are a lot of, we'll be considered white people in Chelmsford. The people of color are probably more of Asian, Brazilian mix, something like that, if you're looking for strict demographics. And, you know, but I would say it's similar in that it's not all right. There are quite a pretty big senior population in Chelmsford that we do a tremendous amount of outrage, excuse me, outreach with the kids in the schools. We do a lot of work with them. So demographically, the age-wise, identity-wise, racially, it's pretty mixed. It's probably similar to Amherst, maybe just different groups. But as far as trying to learn about Amherst, I've already been doing some research, trying to kind of cram for my day today, and I'll just continue to do that. I think if I were to be selected, one of my first orders of business would be to reach out to the community as much as possible, have some coffees, engage just at a street level, try to attend meetings, meet department heads, department members, my own department, and just try to learn who everybody is and what makes them tick as early as possible. And then obviously we get down to business with sort of our vision for the way we're going to deliver service and things like that. Hello, hi, how are you? Good, thanks, how about yourself? Good, so my name is Leber Ferreira. I'm actually a co-chair with the Community Safety and Social Justice Committee, and before that I was with the Community Safety Working Group Committee, so we were the ones that actually recommended the creation of the Crest Community Responders Department. And so my first question would be, how would you, if you were to became the police chief, how would you work with Crest? Because obviously this is a department that will have very much focus on being successful and autonomous, independent, but collaborative with the police. So that's my first question. Second question, how would you work with my committee because we're a very active committee in terms of monitoring and making sure that a lot of the recommendations are put in place, which is focus on social justice, diversity, equity, inclusion. So second question, how would you work that? And third question would be, how would you foster an anti-racist culture within the police department? So I have an habit of talking too much, so if I would look too wounded, you can come back to me and tell me if I miss one of the questions, okay? I just, I don't wanna miss one of your questions, so please remind me. So first off with Crest, I've done some research on Crest. So in Chompsford, I've spent 10 years creating a sort of a social response policy for our police department, to mental health, to substance use disorder, to homelessness issues, to social issues. And in Chompsford, what we did was we incorporated a co-responder, and that was how we did things a little differently from the way we did it before. We always knew we sort of missing the mark with mental health. And so in addition to the co-responder, I want it, we pledged to the One Mind campaign, which it basically asked you to have 20% of your first training, crisis prevention team training was the 30 hour training, and everybody trained in mental health training. What I said was I think that every officer should be trained in that, because it just allows you to respond in a more educational, informative way.   So as far as Crest goes, I understand that it's not co-response, it's an independent response. And I think there's room for, when we're talking about these social issues, I think there's room for anything that you can try anything to try to attack these things in the right way. I think Crest is definitely a worthy entity that is trying to do the right thing. And I think there's a place for it. And I think that like you said, it's gotta be a collaborative effort. I would never wanna compete with them. I don't think that makes sense. It would never work, right? So I wanna support that. I wanna collaborate that. And I wanna make sure that they succeed. There's definitely a niche there where I think that they're gonna have a different level of training. They're gonna be able to respond to certain types of calls. But I'm all about if we're not as prepared or as suitable as they are for a certain type of call, then I think that that's a worthy way to go. And this is not, it's new in Massachusetts, but it's sort of a wave of the future. Cambridge has started a similar program this month. So it's definitely something that's coming and I embrace it. I think it's a great idea. I've already forgotten the other two questions. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, I wanna collaborate with any of these entities and any work groups. And you talk about social justice, like these are my core beliefs. I wanna make sure that we're treating each other with respect, with empathy. I think accessibility and accountability and equity are all critically important. People should be treated fairly and justly when we deliver services. You brought up anti-racist. For me, that's a non-starter. Like, we talked about this at an early interview. In my own mind, I think it should just be understood, but unfortunately it's not, right? So a lot of times you have to codify it and you have to put it in writing. I said it the early interview when I brought up Cress. If you think about the way, obviously the acronym stands for something, community responders for equity, safety, and service, right? And it says right in there, it's anti-racist, right? That's what, I would wanna use all those words for the way I want my police services, right? I want it to be equitable. Safety is our main concern. I want it to be service-based. I want it to be helpful. I want it to be respectful. But as far as anti-racism, it's a no brainer. So just to give you some context, and I'm not looking for extra credit or anything like that, but with diversity and equity and things like this, I think it's ethically what needs to be done from everybody. I think it's professionally what needs to be done, both in government and in policing. Personally, I have a very big stake in that. My wife is African-American, my kids are biracial. Like the people I care most about in the world could be dealing with some of these very issues. So it's also personal for me. Well, Carlos, I want to introduce myself to you. Hi, I had a different question, but now I have a follow-up question to that, which is, so you've made the point how important it is, and I guess the missing part to me is how would you try to instill it because it's not just everywhere, as you know. So how do you see making the community be the way you're talking about wanting it to be? Well, for me, it would start with the police department. So I think like anything, any organization, any business or whatever, it's about setting up a culture. So I would set up a culture at the police department that says, listen, racism is not gonna happen. We ought to be anti-racist. Not only will we not practice it, we will not condone it, right? We will stop it. We will get in the way of it. I just feel like, you know, I wished that was just easier and that was just a given or accepted, but for whatever reason, it's not. So if we have to talk about it, we have to make it part of the culture, then make no mistake about it and I will do that. That is a priority. And again, it's a non-starter, like that has to happen. So setting up a culture at the police department, again, what I've talked about a little bit earlier, my style would be helpful, service-based, respectful, right? Seeking input not only from the people in the department, but from community members, right? I want you to be active participants in the way we deliver police services. I talked to one of the earlier interviews about tapping members of the community. There's a lot of smart people in the sound. Probably a lot of people are smarter than me. I'd be foolish, we'd be foolish as a department not to tap some of that and find out, you know, what they think is important and maybe that can be incorporated into the next great police initiative. It may not be a police officer's idea. It doesn't have to be. Did that answer your question? For the most part? All right. Do I see my... Hello, my name is Hala Lloyd. And I'm wondering, it's connected to the last two questions, would you please share a time in your experience on the police force when you either engaged in or initiated creating or deepening an anti-racist lens in either policy, practice or the presence? Yeah, so I would say one of the things that I took very seriously and I thought was really important and I'm proud of it in that vein in my own police department was, I saw a really good training called fair and impartial policing. And it was sort of a train the trainer type of situation where I grabbed myself and one of my sergeants we went and got trained was a two day training and was put on by a couple of officers from Milwaukee and I thought they did a really phenomenal job and it was about implicit bias. And it really gave a really good picture of what implicit bias is and how it affects us and that it's not necessarily a policing issue it's a human issue, right? When you have vague or ambiguous stimuli when you see something that you don't understand you fill it in with what your experience is or what you know. And so I thought it was really poignant and it really hit home and I thought that it would do well with the people in my department. So we took that back and we trained every single officer, it was an eight hour training and that's not the be all end all. And what I tried to say there is and which I would preach going forward and this is with any type of training but particularly this type of training implicit bias training I think opens your eyes to while there are some things that I see that you make connections humanly that you don't understand that you're doing and it can be detrimental particularly if you're a police officer. And so you have to first recognize that it's possible and then you have to understand how does that affect me personally? What type of filters do I have? How do I see different groups and things like that? And then you have to have some education, some introspection, you have to find ways to expose yourself to other groups that you don't understand and hopefully gain perspective and context. I spoke earlier about trying to move away from perception towards perspective, right? And that means you have to expose yourself and you have to have conversations. You have to gain understanding of people and groups that you don't have a lot of exposure to or a lot of experience with. I hope that answered your question. I'm Martha Hanner. Hello. And my question is really a followup to Deborah's question. She referred to the previous committee that worked very hard to help set up across the community safety working group. And so my two questions, first of all, have you had the opportunity to read their report? They had two parts, part one about press and DEI and part two more into some of the changes they were recommending for the police and so on. So the first question is whether you had a chance to read them. And then my second question would be one of the things brought up in part two is the subject of traffic stops. We know how that is a national issue and it also is a local issue. And so the question would be whether you would have a plan to kind of review all the protocols about traffic stops in Amherst and have some community discussion about setting up a new set of protocols of how they're done and so on. Okay, so the first one as far as the report goes, I can tell you this, I've done a tremendous amount of reading the last month or so. I don't know exactly what things I read. I did read something about Crest and that creation. I believe it was the working group had sought out, I think a sort of an opinion from an outside group that yes, and they did a pretty voluminous report that talked about some of the recommendations. So I did read some of that and I understand it and I agree with a great deal of it. And again, like I said, I think there's definitely certain types of calls with especially social issues where that could work very well. Now, it's a new program, right? Like any new program, you want it to succeed, but you've got what you looked for in the beginning, the goals you set, are they achievable? Are they measurable? After a year or two, do you look back and say, okay, can we pivot? Should we put more resources into this? So those are all things you have to think about too after a year or two years, like anything, like any new initiative, like any innovation. As far as traffic stops, so I kind of said this earlier, like there's a couple of things with policing that we are not monolithic, right? So there is something going on nationally, right? Like there's information not all good about police and somebody asked earlier, well, what do you think about that? The few bad apples argument. Well, I don't subscribe to the few bad apples. I said that, you know, police leaders sometimes will say, oh, 99.9% of the time you're getting it right. And I said, that's impossible, right? Like Apple doesn't get it right 99.9% of the time, right? So yeah, we may be well mainly in those cases. I think that officers take the job because they want to help people by and large. You want to do a good job, but there's work to be done there, right? Getting back to like traffic stops, you have to have a very good anti-bias policy. Okay, again, you have to create culture, you have to set expectations. I would have to review the traffic data here, what does that look like? So before I could comment really on how we're going to do traffic stops, I want to see how they're done. What's the data? And you can measure traffic stops and traffic issues and traffic. You can put them in, interpolate the data. I'm not afraid to do any of that. You have to do that. If you're not looking at the data on anything, you're in trouble, right? It's all about starting with culture and expectations and then evaluating and interpreting what we're doing and watching the data. But if we were, if I didn't think we were making the mark or if we were going against the culture of anti-racism or we were practicing some sort of bias, I can assure you would take very quick corrective action. If I may just follow up with the traffic stop. So you've been a police officer for the better part of 30 years. Are there certain low level crimes, so to speak, that you've seen that you think, okay, maybe this should not be so overly policed? Can you identify any, I mean, that you think, okay, this is something that was this way, but now it doesn't necessarily have to be that way. So I think, I don't know if it's a matter of what's more serious or what's not, but I can tell you in my 30 years, things have changed. I think when we treat some things less serious than we used to. Some traffic offenses, shoplifting has gone, it's really very rarely treated serious. Sometimes nationally, sometimes, I can speak for chump sort, it's less serious. But I actually commented that in an early interview too, where it's sort of understandable if you catch somebody shoplifting and they're stealing food or baby food or something like that, right? Like, there might be other issues at play there that you need to help that person with. It's a whole nother thing if somebody runs out and grabs 12 Louis Vuitton pocketbooks and runs out the door, that's sort of a lawless behavior. So the two things are not quite the same and I would wanna see, we almost have to swing the pendulum back a little bit and take that a little more serious. But yeah, there's room, so there's room for discretion in how we treat a crime. I think we have to be careful with how we use discretion and you have to make sure it's applied consistently, right? Because when you get into bias areas, when you get into implicit bias areas, not everybody has the same opportunity and also it could lead to differential treatment if you have implicit bias. So we have to be very careful with that, that it's applied consistently and with equity. Steve King has my name. Hello. I may be mistaken, but I think one of the demographic differences between Chelms front and here is that we have a very large student population at least a lot of the year. And I'm just wondering if that's a new challenge for you or how you think the police department and Amherst might engage with students and also your relationship with the university police department. Yeah, so you pointed that. I knew that, I guess I didn't get that out, but I appreciate that you're 100% right, right? So that's a little different. It's not something we have in Chelmsford. There was a time where UMass Lowell had a West campus in Chelmsford and we dealt with them a little bit and we worked with the university police. Certainly not on the same level. This is like college town, right? You got UMass, Amherst, you got Hampshire, you got Amherst, so a lot going on there. I think it's like anything else, right? So I have to get the information but it's also, it's really about collaboration. They have some things going on at these places. I have to make sure that I know what they are. How can we help each other? I have to make sure, I said earlier, like my mission, my vision, our vision at the police department would have to sort of mirror the communities, right? Their mission and their vision. If it doesn't, we're not hitting on the same wavelength. It's sort of the same thing with the schools too. Like we have to kind of make sure that we're approaching these things sort of from the same angle and that we work together collaboratively. The better we do that, the better we all have a chance of success. One of the things I saw about the university that I thought was a great idea was probably thinking outside the box a few years back when it was put in place. Well, I think it was the Good Neighbor program, right? Where you sign up and it was probably, I'm sure it's a frustration sometimes, particularly in the beginning of September or when the good weather starts and schools and session. Some parties start up or some gatherings and I know there's some noise complaints you go to and disturbances and even the residents probably say, okay, to a point, right?  And so I know that there's a different way instead of like arresting every time or something like that, there's at least a way to work with the students. Again, if you seek input from community members, same as if you seek input internally, you bring people to the table and give them input and the ability to have a say in how things are gonna work, not only do they have a stake in the game, they have a stake in the solution, right? So I think it's about just getting people together and I'll have to study up and learn a little bit and speak to the chiefs and the departments. And I don't have any, I'm not worried about that at all as far as how we'll work together. What do you think the challenges and amourst will be that you did not face in Chelmsford? I mean, it's a good question. So I may have to learn a little more about the town before I can give you a clear picture of that. Every community is unique, right? And I'll be looking at this from a different rank structure, but I'm excited about that. I feel like at least an amourst, you know, when I collaborate or when I seek input or when I work with somebody, I have the ability to change the direction of the way we do things because it'll be what I say is the way it goes. Now, again, I would do that with input from the department. I would do that with input from the community. One of those challenges might be working with the schools and try to figure out that huge student demographic, right? That doesn't exist in a lot of communities. So that's a really great, you know, pick up on your part and it's not something I haven't thought of, you know, already, but that will be a difference, I think, but I don't think it'll be something that you can't, you know, I don't look at anything and say, wow, I don't know how I'm going to tackle that or that's really going to be tough or and I have all you to help me too. So. One of the, I think big things that a chief does is make new hires. So I'm wondering what your philosophy of hiring would be, what you look for in new officers. Yeah, so there's a lot of competition right now for new police officers. We're feeling that in Chompsford. Chompsford's a little strange because it's a civil service community. I really welcome the opportunity to come to Amherst because it's not. And so there's a lot more leeway in who you can hire. I would make it one of my top priorities to hire the right people, good people, smart people. I would wanna, you know, diverse candidates. I would pursue that. I would, that might be something I speak with your committee on and how do we find people that want this job, that wanna make a difference, that want input into, you know, that that's what, you know, in Chompsford, a lot of times if I was gonna go to diverse groups, I dealt a lot with the churches, the different religious backgrounds. And that was a good way to get face to face and talk about issues they were dealing with. So it's a matter of seeking people out where they are and letting know that you're accessible and you'll listen and you wanna get the right people. So we also have a lot of students here that some of them may be interested in that work. So I will leave no stone unturned to get the right people here. And they'll have to go, you know, part of my hiring matrix will be that they go along with the culture that we're trying to establish. Hi, my name is Alex Hor. Welcome. Thank you. I'm delighted that you told us who you're married to and about your children. That makes you unusual as a police chief. And I hope that makes you a very strong candidate. Obviously you're here. Would you tell us what you're experiencing, what you have experienced in your relationship, your marriage and your children, that makes you unique coming to this job? Well, I don't wanna get too far into my family. No, I don't wanna be in my personal life. I don't wanna get personal, but you will have a very different perspective. And when you say I will do this or I will do that with regard to racial issues, your words, you walk the talk. Well, I have a stake in what I say, right? You have a stake in what you say. So let me try to walk it by sort of through generalities somewhat. I will tell a story that I told earlier about sort of my own eyes opening, right? So, you know, people, whenever you bring up topics that it's good and bad, depending on how you read it in social media, but it doesn't have to be good or bad. It can just be the truth. It's just what it is, right? So did I walk through life?  Of course I do. I'm the most privileged person on the earth. I'm a white, you know, English speaking male, whatever you wanna call it, right? Do I, can I acknowledge that? Do I understand that? Yes. I told a story earlier about when I've been with my wife over 30 years.   Like, I think she thinks I'm gonna steal something or whatever. And I'd be like, what are you talking about? Like, I wouldn't notice it either. You know, there's a reason why I didn't notice it because I wasn't looking for it because I had never experienced it before. Because I don't experience it weekly, daily, whatever the case may be, right? There's not a lot of speed bumps in front of me as opposed to her. So I understand a lot of that much better after years and years and years. I certainly, you know, again, the three people I care about most in the world run into those obstacles more than me. Now I do by extension now, right? As that familial unit.  And so I have to pay attention. I have to learn, I have to know. And I do, I know how it affects them. And so, you're right. I do have a different perspective.  Probably a unicorn, like you said, probably a little unique. But again, I'm not looking for extra credit, it's just the reality of who I am and it is personal to me. And I don't want that, like I feel like I'm an excellent candidate for the chief of police. Because I think that these are things I believe ethically and professionally as well. And setting up culture and doing a good job. And I know how to be a police officer and I know how to tap into the community. So you talked about training. That's good. How often? How often, like training in general. Training is critical. I had one of the notes I've been scribbling down in the last few weeks. You know, off the top of my head, little, one of them I put training, training, training, like some exclamation point, right? It's like, particularly now. Here's what I'll tell you. I don't think, you know, just like a government agency, a business, a sports team, a community group, can't, we cannot get it right 100% of the time. We're gonna make mistakes. It's our job to establish trust with everybody in the community, to work with everybody in the community. So if there's a mistake made, and I don't mean like something vile or racist, like something really bad. I mean, just, there's gonna be times when we don't get it completely right. Let's look at that, let's figure that out and let's figure out how we do better next time. If, you know, that's what, we need to work together. I said earlier that no matter what it is that we talk about, and I say this to my own people internally, but I would say it internally or externally to the community. If we have a conversation, if you wanna come to me and say, hey, I've got some issues with the department, or what, I tell my people internally, if you bring me problems, try to bring me some solutions. Like, don't just bring, I don't wanna just hear what's wrong and what the problem is, come with some solutions. If we sit down, let's have a, let's have good discourse, let's be respectful, let's come up with some possible solutions and let's understand that, you know, we may not get to that solution the first time, right? We have to work together. We have to respect each other and support each other. I guess it depends on what type of training you're trying. So I'll tell you this, for like, let's say use of force, right? Which is use of force, which is a big thing in policing right now, right? You have to get it right. It's part of the post mandate. I talked about post earlier in Chumstead, we were doing some things before post that I think helped us accomplish those goals. We were sort of doing a lot of the things already anyways. We had some progressive policies that were aligned with 21st century policing. We were accredited for a while. Amherst is accredited. I think Amherst has some good policies. You can always improve. Use of force in Chumstead, we probably train a half a dozen times a year. Now that might not sound like enough. It's never enough, never. But there's a financial component, right? So there's a trade-off somewhere you got to try to get what you can in there and do good training and think it out. Don't check boxes, we don't check boxes. I don't believe in that. But some places only train, okay, we have to make sure that we get a qualifying score without a pistol or something. And it's once a year. And it's just because of lack of resources or money. I think it's something I take very serious. I would tell you that implicit bias, things like that, they're so important. It's not one training. If that's not what it is, it might be one training to start and then it's ongoing. It's who you are as a person. Do you understand that that's a huge issue and can you improve yourself if necessary? And can you gain perspective? Everybody in this room could gain perspective, right? None of us are short on that. None of us understand everybody around us perfectly. It's impossible. So again, it's like implicit bias and cultural competencies and things like that. Those are human conditions. It's not a police matter. It is. And as police officers, because we have the authority we have, we have a greater responsibility to get it right, right? And to understand if there are issues that we need to get it right. So I'm in co-founder of the study circles dialogues on race and class. Over six years, we had over 350 people in the town of Amherst of all levels participated in weekly dialogues and conversations about race. Right now, there's a new version called the Stolen Beam that the Jewish center, the Jewish community of Amherst is working through. Similarly, it's a week long, several weeks long with readings involved. And so I wanna recommend that should you become the next police chief of the town of Amherst that you engage your staff on a regular basis, weekly, if you will. With a version of one of these two curriculums. So what I can tell you is, we do in-service training. Everybody in the state does in-service training, right? So there are sometimes some components of that that you can add sort of elective type of issues to. There's also, I know in Chelmsford and I would look to do this in Amherst, there's roll call training, right? So roll call training is sort of when you do roll call to talk about the day's issues, you may spend an extra five, 10, 20 minutes, going over a certain issue or a certain topic to help you understand that better. So that might be a good, some of these things may be a good candidate for that, like where we can split it up and do it at roll call. There's a lot of training to do and never enough time and never enough money, but I'm also not one that likes to make excuses. So I would certainly look into something like that and we could definitely try to implement something like that. Yeah, well, I mean, just for the personnel, you gotta catch them where they're at, when they're working at roll call, when you bring them in otherwise, it could be over time and stuff like that. So, but listen, I'm open to anything, particularly if it helps us understand each other and the community better, why would we not wanna do that? That's, we should be doing that. Thank you. I know this is in every community, but I can just speak to the Black and Brown community here. Historically and presently, we have had a lot of harm by the Amherst Police Department. Trust has been very impacted, severed, broken. Do you have ideas? Would this be a priority to build back the trust in the Black and Brown communities and repair harm and do you have any ideas of, have you seen that happen or do you have ideas of how you might start to work with us to begin that process? When you say there's harm, I have to take you at your word and I don't know enough about that aspect of town or of the police department yet, right? So, if I were to be the leader, I certainly would ignore something like that, right? We have to confront it, we have to figure out what that means. And building trust and legitimacy in policing is literally like the number one thing you have to do. If you don't have trust from people in your community, you'll never succeed, right? So, one of the, in the 21st century policing model, I've said this a couple of times, this was something that came about, it was sort of recommendations after Ferguson, right? The shooting in Ferguson, Michael Brown. And they put together a work group and they came up with these recommendations and it was sort of six pillars, if you will, and certain recommendations within each pillar. And the first pillar, the foundational pillar, is building trust and legitimacy, right? So, without that, it's like you can't pass go, right? And then you develop policy, you develop training, all of these things that support that trust and legitimacy. And part of that is engaging and getting together and talking about issues, sometimes difficult issues. So, yeah, I would always seek to work with any community about, certainly if they think there's harm being done, we have to try to attack that. Yeah, so I have a follow-up to that. So, going along what Heather just talked about, once we start getting into the nitty-gritty, is that a lot of people are intimidated by the police department and a lot of the action. So, for me, I really want to hear more specifics in terms of how do you change the culture of the police officers there for them to understand that you might understand it, but what are some, have you had any experience actually changing the culture of these police officers? Because people don't feel comfortable going to the police, they don't feel comfortable interacting with the police. The police, in terms of, in Amherst, they haven't been about outreach and communicating with a community. So, when I'm talking about, it has been the police chief and it has also been the officers, too, they're not out there outreaching and things like that. So, I want to get more concrete examples from you in terms of how have you done that? And I'll give you an example. Like, I went to a party in Amherst at a place where it was all us professionals, but it was all us black people, and there was a noise complaint, and then the police officers showed up and totally did not want to listen to us. We were like, well, put the music down, this, that.  It was rude, it was like, and if you all don't stop it, we're gonna arrest you, and we weren't college students. We were like, 30, 40-year-old people, you know what I'm saying? Which was, and we knew who had called the noise, it was a cranky person that calls all the time. But that was the response, right? And I was there, I felt it, you know what I'm saying? In terms of it. So it's not someone who went and told us third place. It was, you know, I was there. So one of the things in terms when I asked you about Cress was around the fact that right now, Cress doesn't respond to noise complaints. Why doesn't Cress respond to noise complaints? Why is it that the police are the ones that are still responding to noise complaints? Because Cress should be responding to anything that does not include violence, and noise complaints is one of it. So anyway, I want you to get into the nitty gritty of it. Okay, well again, I can't speak to right now why the people in Amherst, people of color, especially feel intimidated by the police. I don't have enough background on that. I can tell you that if I became the police chief, I certainly wouldn't want that to be the case, right? So when you talk about particulars, again, if I was to come into a new situation, it starts with building culture, right? This is what we're about. I talked about it earlier, treating people with respect, treating people with equity, meeting them where they are, humanity, right? Those are some of the things. Gaining perspective, implicit bias training, understanding why you feel the way you do, right? Recognizing you feel the way you do, and understanding why, right? And so it's also hard to answer when, you gave me a good example of you yourself, but it's also hard to answer a question when you say all of these people are a group of these people, you know, I don't, it's hard to conceptualize what that looks like, right? And I can only deal with the knowledge I have based on what's given to me. If I'm the police chief and I receive complaints, I can look at them and we can evaluate them, we can talk about them, we can decide is there ways we can do this better, right? These are tricky issues, right? Implicit bias is a tricky issue. Again, police officers are not just this one thing, we're not monolithic, we're not, they're not, they're human beings, they're people, like everybody in this room, that happen to have a job that they go to every day, lot of authority, a lot of responsibility goes without authority. So we have to, that's true. Yeah, that's true, ideally we don't want that, right? So more responsibility, right, because of that. But they're not infallible. I would tell any of you, go look at yourself in the mirror.  Are you practicing, like, do you understand everybody around you? Do you understand the students? Do you understand seniors? Do you understand, you know, people with a different gender identity? Like, nobody's perfect. So we have to work together. I forgot about you, yeah. No, nobody, listen, nobody's perfect. Do you know what I think? I think if we deal with each other, we try to deal with each other with respect on a human level, I might talk to you and you might go, yeah, I don't really love the way you talked about that issue. I can learn from that. You know what I'll tell you? My heart is gonna be in the right place. I'm coming from a good place. Does that make sense? You can tell sometimes when people's heart is not coming from the right place. That's a little different. You make a mistake because you're filled with hate or you have bias that you, like, intentionally, that's a different story, right? So we can all get better and learn to get better. I don't want anybody to feel intimidated. So we would certainly have to discuss that and figure out how do we go about changing that, right? So changing a culture takes time. So you're this person coming in and you have great ideas about how to change a culture and you have these policies you want to implement, but you're running into roadblocks internally. What do you do? Well, so I think we talked about this a little earlier at one of the interviews. And, you know, if I came into this new situation, again, I've had an experience in 30 years where I think generally, I said this earlier and I'll give the example. I've hired a lot of people in Chelmsford, I've done a lot of backgrounds. We have the officer write a letter to the chief and I'll teach classes and I'll say, what do you think, what one word do you think is in every letter?  I want this job because I want to help people, okay? So we have to figure out on any given call with any different group on any given day, how are we gonna help this person? What are we gonna do that helps this situation? How do we leave this person with some level of satisfaction? It's like running a business. They have to be happy, but you have to deliver a service that leaves them with some level of satisfaction. So I think that's part of it, like building that culture, a helpful service-based culture that it's respectful, it's equitable, it's accessible and accountable to all. I think when you say that's what we wanna do. And again, my friend here, I can't remember your name, but she talked about, I'm sorry, Kathleen, talked about, I'm sorry, Queen, that's right. I gotcha, I won't mess it up again. But she brought up a good point and she held me to it. A lot of us training, right? So if we don't know the answer, we have to get educated or trained on what the answer is, right? So I think that's it. When you say how would I deal with somebody that fucks the system or doesn't wanna kinda get in line with what we're trying to do, I've, when I redid our sort of our mental health response, our wellness response, our substance use response over the last 10 years, I trained and trained and trained CIT and I kept talking to people positively, hey, did a good job on that call, but try X when you make sure you're dealing with stakeholders. Just correct them, motivate them, inspire them, right? And what you see with something like that is eventually the canoe tips. And now more people are getting it right than wrong. That's changing culture. That's changing the way we approach issues. Oh, I think that's what it's about. You're right, it may not happen overnight, but I, you know, like certain things that help push it that way. If you say, if I went there and say, hey, I wanna make sure we all understand that we're an anti-racist department, hopefully they understand what that means, right? That should be pretty clear cut. Hopefully we can push it in that direction. So why are you the right person to be chief of police in Amherst? Didn't I already answer this? Again, people have brought up, oh, it's a special place and, you know, and listen, the room is filled with people that are asking questions about who this next person's gonna be, right? And they wanna know what I have to offer. And I hope I've answered some of that tonight. And I understand that you expect certain things and you're here and this is important. It's very important that you're here and you're talking and you're participating and choosing somebody in such an important position. And that's why, somebody said it's special, that's why I'm putting in here. Because it is special. It's, you know, I've put in for a couple of chief jobs over the years, come very, very close. I've usually been very selective of the places I put in. You know, I want community members that are involved that want a good place to live. That means it's easier to get the job done together. It's easier to engage with people that wanna talk. So I think that's why. Would you choose to live in Amherst or elsewhere? Yeah, I would definitely like to try to procure some housing in Amherst sooner rather than later. I commuted today. It's not a horrible commute, but it's, I don't know if I'd wanna do it every day. And I, you know, I feel like honestly, it would be nice to have a little more stake in the game. I can tell you that regardless of where I live, I will be, I'll be present. I'll be approachable. That will not be an issue. You'll be able to get a hold of me. You'll be able to get my year. I think we have a few more questions but we have to be very mindful of time. I was just gonna, my name's Kathy. I'm just gonna follow up on Alex's if you would live here or not. Are your kids of an age, they'd be, if you lived here, that they'd be in our school system or are they older, they're already out? Yeah, they're, we're sort of early empty nesters. Okay. So my son is in the Air Force, he's stationed in Germany and my daughter plays soccer at the University of Arizona. So they're kind of... Okay. Both ways, their flight's away. No, thank you. Yes, it is. I do wanna thank everyone for participating and thank you for being here. And you wanna say hello? Yeah. So Lieutenant's been with us like all day, so I'm sure he's like, happy this is over. Yeah. And so we can all just say hello and we have our next person coming in in a little bit. So thank you all again and I hope you guys stick around for the next session.


at in my opening speech that I am looking of scaling up the national soil health program in all of the Asian region because that program was already accepted here in the Philippines. And it was given the full support of about 29.6, about 30 million US dollars just for the Philippines alone. But if you take closely at that proposal, it covers all the other contribution of the global soil laboratories in all of the pillar of action of Glozulan. And this is one thing I would like to scale up at the Asian region. And that's the very reason why I am also interested to stay on as the SealNet chair. Second, I have already expressed the challenge for all of our national reference laboratories to strive to become the center of excellence in the soil laboratories in the Asian region. And I think in all of our meetings is standardization, training. I think these are the key ingredients by which we can achieve center of excellence as a national reference laboratory and even member network laboratories for the Asian region. So let's all strive for excellence. I cannot do it on my own, but we are here as a network to help each other. And the third activity that I would like to share with and intensify in the SealNet is really to build a strong network. And now we are here as SealNet. But I think we still have to build up from within our countries. So we have to promote the establishment of the national soil laboratory network. And at the same time establishing all these network laboratories to meet the global standards. As we are doing now, it's really towards working a global standards for our laboratories. So in all of this, I need your support, your cooperation. Let us unite together. We can do it by God's grace. Thank you very much. And God bless us all. Thank you very much, Gina, for these inspiring words. I would like now to ask the floor and actually the participants to express an opinion on your reelection. So do we all agree to have Gina to serve as the SealNet here for a second Monday? Gina, I would like to thank you. I would like to thank you. You are the most rich majority. And you have full support, Gina. So congratulations and many thanks for volunteering to be a candidate for a second Monday. I have to give you a bad news that is that you will be on so far on this because we do not have any candidates for the position of vice chair of the network. So my question to everybody is the opinion of you feels like volunteering or taking up the position of vice chair of SealNet. If yes, well, you can tell us either now or you can tell us by email. Okay. Good morning. And we will follow up to format. I don't see any expression of interest coming in the chat. But please think if you would have time to dedicate to SealNet and if you would like to support Gina in her mission to make SealNet great and help all laboratories in the region. There is a comment from Marife. like a potential candidate or just as acknowledgement of the election of Gina. Marifa, would you like to candidate for the position of vice chair? Okay, here they are making proposals. So they would like to have Sanjay again. And they are, my understanding is that they are proposing Dr. Srenivas from India. They're also asking Thailand to candidate. I don't know if these candidates feel like I'm writing it down. What is the proposal? No, no, no, Thailand. So they would like to have Sanjay again. They would like to have Thailand to candidate. And then there is the proposal to have the serve from India. We really contact Sanjay and I think he can decline to this, but we do want to inform the about this. Maybe after this standing ovation for him is changed. There are also proposals. I am writing everything that is in the chat. They are asking for Renuka and they're asking for Pakistan. So Sanjay, are you sure that you don't want to take the position for a second mandate? Lucrezia, I think I expressed earlier, I would be happy if some new people become take this role. Okay, Sanjay out. Thailand, would you like to consider the possibility to become vice chair? I don't know if there are still participants from Thailand because we are late on the agenda. If not, Dr. Srenivas, what about you? Would you like to candidate for the position? Srenivas from India. Yes, I understand. Okay, what about Srenuka? Srenuka, are you still with us? Would you like to candidate for the position? These days I am busy with other works. Therefore, I cannot accept this position. Okay, thank you anyway. What about Pakistan? Who from Pakistan would like to candidate eventually? Yes, ma'am, I have mentioned Pakistan. If anyone interested from Pakistan, he can take the position of that vice chair. Otherwise, I am ready to accept this position. Depending on the acceptance and the consensus that developed among the participants. So we have Muhammad Abbas Aziz from Pakistan that is available to take the position if there are no other candidates from the country. Is there any other candidates from the country? Indonesia, Linka, or any other colleague from your office? Would you feel like taking the position? Linka, are you still with us? What about Thailand? Would you like to candidate? I am now adjusting about SOP in the physical parameter, but for this position maybe not now. Okay, thank you, Zanida. Linka, I don't know if you have time to think about it. Thank you, Linka. So my proposal is that Dr. Srenivas, I'm sorry if I pronounce it bad, and Dr. Aziz shared their CVs with us and we send it to the network for basically making a decision. And then we make online elections by email. Is that okay? Yeah, okay, we'll share our CVs with the network. Okay, CV for email. Thank you very much for convidating and for not leaving Gina alone on this mission, very important mission. So this is the closure of our meeting. I would like to give the floor actually to Sanjay and Susu if they're still with us for delivering some closing remarks. Since this is the end of their mandate and they might feel like say bye to everybody, temporary bye, because they will still be with us in the network, but not as much anymore. So Sanjay and Susu, if you would like to take the floor and deliver some greetings, the floor is yours. Let me speak. Thanks Lucrezia and it was really a very nice experience for the last two years, though on some occasions I found that I was really busy. I could not really deliver to some of the things in time, but it is really very good. And I think the persons who would share, who would contribute in this process, they would feel really very, very good from inside because it is a very, very noble cause. We are working, harmonization of these methods and sharing of the data could be interpreted throughout the world. This is something which we have been requiring since long. And it is the need of the hour. It's a very noble thing and it was very good experience for me. Thank you very much. And I would continue to contribute if I am competent and if I have time. And that's all I want to say. Thank you very much. Many thanks Sanjay. We will miss you a lot. Susu, are you with us? Because we are late, but I hope you are still with us. No, I don't see her. Thank you for the issue with the computer. Adria, the last question in the chat, I don't know if you want to address it. We are in a steering committee. So we will follow up on it by email as well. I'm referring to the steering committee. The question was on how these will be established. We will write the TORs first and then we will think about a way to establish it. I think that the best way is again to make a call for experts that have time to dedicate to this work. Because really by reviewing the TORs of the chair and vice chairs and establishing the steering committee, we will give more power to these experts in the network. And power comes with some responsibility of your work. So we want to ensure that the experts in the steering committee can actually do the work and help the chair and vice chair. So we will follow up by email, but I think we will make a call within the network for experts that have time to commit to this work. So I would like to thank you all. Apologies for the delay. It was super nice to see you, although it was virtual. Please do not hesitate to contact by email and don't forget to visit the Glossalon webpage. And we will do a follow-up on all decisions made at the meeting and also send you the link to the recording of this meeting and the presentations that were provided by email. Very important. Please do not forget to send me an email in case you want to apply for ECP project. This is the time to ask for money to FAO. So please don't forget about it. And we look forward to see you at the Glossalon meeting in one month. Thank you. Good afternoon. Good evening to everybody. And see you next time.


All right Next we have on stage Anshu Sharma. So he's going to talk about project flogu as Ultra weight internet of things apps framework. So the topic is connecting the edge Okay, thank you Hello everyone. My name is Anshu Sharma. I work as a solutions architect at Chipco. I've come here all the way from India to Speak at Fosdome. So before we start right, I'll just want to ask how many of you have built apps for IOT devices or Later around with your home automation with Raspberry Pi or our Dino's Okay, great quite a few. So as you all know, right, most of these devices do not have the luxury of huge computing power at their disposal They are usually equipped with very few MB of RAM and in some cases it's as low as few kbs So what I'm going to talk today in my talk connecting the edge is like how project flogu solves this problem And provides you enables you by providing a rich framework for building IOT apps So let's get started. So this is how the connectivity looks like right Everything right from your refrigerator, televisions, your cars, everything is getting connected to the internet So in 2015 itself, there were around 4.9 billion devices which were connected to internet And the estimate is around by 2020 there will be like hoping 50 billion devices connected things which will be connected to the net The problem with this is like we need to make sure like the technology challenge that how do we connect this devices But on the upside it's a huge market potential of 10 to 15 trillion dollars that is waiting for us to get for the developers to harness So what are the typical IOT use cases that we are seeing right now, right? We'll just see couple of them Industries are facing huge losses when their equipments are malfunctioning or breaking down So with IOT coming into picture these devices or the machineries are getting smart enough They are predicting enough like based on the data like when they are wearing out, when they need maintenance prehand So that we can plan the downtime accordingly Another prominent use case is connected cars right The cars are not only providing us with directional or navigational information But in the future based on your driving patterns and your habits based on the real time traffic conditions where the conditions It will also predict what is the probability of you getting into an accident and provide you useful insights Another popular use case is around smart twitters Wherein you can track your consumption of resources of electricity and water in real time And the system can provide you insights how you can save some money by adopting good habits So the architecture of today as we speak is very much cloud centric, centralized architecture All the devices are sending the data to the cloud All the heavy lifting happens in the cloud and the results are sent back to the devices The processing is almost completely happening centralized in one location that is a cloud There is an urgent need that we embrace edge computing Why do I say that? A connected car produces approximately 5 terabytes of data every hour And oil rig produces 5 to 7 terabytes of data every hour Imagine this like such huge data if you send it to the cloud, process, act and send the results back That might be too late, that is no more real time So what we need is like cloud centric IoT is not reliable in this particular case So we need to move our computing and analytics to the edge That is the point of action where in all the collection of data is happening So how do you do that? How do you embrace edge? So the answer for that is project logo, so what is it exactly? It is an ultra light edge microservices framework When I say it's ultra light, it's 50 times smaller in footprint compared to Java and NodeJS It provides you with a visual modeling tool which is your browser base You need not download any ID and you can start sketching your applications right away It is event-driven by design and provides support for AWS Lambda, that is your serverless architecture It is 100% open source with zero lock in You can start using it and developing your applications right away as we speak It also supports edge machine learning, we'll talk about all of this in detail So when I say it's ultra light right, how small it is A memory, a traditional memory footprint for a Java application is around 180 MB For a NodeJS app it's around 74 MB With Flogo, the memory footprint is as low as 3 MB And the best part is when you develop the apps to certain capabilities and deploy it on edge It also runs with applications with memory as low as 30 to KB in size So how did we get so small, right? Java and NodeJS are great, we all love them, but they are simply too large for resource constraint environments So if you see here, the way these frameworks work is you have hardware followed by your operating system sitting on top of it Then you have your VM followed by framework libraries and eventually you have your app running on this particular stack With Flogo, we are leveraging Golang where in all your dependencies are bundled together in one binary Which you can take and run it on your operating system of your choice So you need not install or pre-install any of the prerequisite or run times You just take your library, get the dependencies that you need and go to the OS of your choice and deploy it and run it So how does a better IoT blueprint looks like, right? You have your devices where in all which is a point of action Then you have your gateways when your devices communicate with the gateways And eventually the gateways communicate with the cloud So you can bifurgate your logic where in some of your micro services can run on devices, some can run on gateway And eventually if needed you can still leverage the computation power of cloud So what are the benefits of this? A. You have more control since most of these devices are placed where in there is no good connectivity You can process or compute when you are even when you are offline You consume less bandwidth and yes definitely you take fewer hops to the cloud and you reduce the latency as well This is how we have divided the framework It's like even driven by design where in an application is divided into triggers and actions A trigger is nothing but which captures the event, it can be your MQTT trigger, it can be your REST trigger And your activities collect events, process them, emit outputs for further processing So it's a completely visual modeling tool or framework which you can leverage So the best part about this is it also runs on microcontrollers Where in the footprint is very low, right? It can also run our arm intel OS systems It's 100% open source, we talked about it and it also supports statistical modeling So this is a screenshot of how the web UI looks like It's a low friction web native user interface where in you can express your app logic Not just using data but rich flows You can perform some inline data transformations There are certain set of functions available which you can reuse It has a built-in web-based debugger wherein you can debug your app before deploying And from the UI itself you can build for target platform of your choice There are multiple target platforms available, we'll talk about it in detail So as a developer all you need to focus on is building the logic of your application that is step number one Once you do that debug your flows in the web UI You can utilize the CLI or the CI CD pipeline that you can create and deploy it Basically you have multiple options, you can deploy it into a Docker container You can directly export AWS Lambda code and deploy it on your server less environment That is AWS Lambda Or you can deploy or create a binary for your Edge devices and run it on microcontrollers as well So that step is the last step wherein your coding is completely bifurcated from your devices wherein you want to run the application So what it also has is it also supports edge machine learning So by default the framework has the capability of executing TensorFlow flow models through the flow itself So the framework or the app can collect the data, it can aggregate the data and pass it to the TensorFlow models wherein you can inference some logic So why do you need machine learning at the edge, right? So with this database of data coming in, if you go to the cloud every now and then prediction is no more real time, right? We need real time prediction, so it needs to happen at the edge itself You are saving massive data transfer by performing inference on the Edge devices And the last part is connectivity is no more a hurdle, you can even process or inference when your device is offline So basically you can inference on your devices or your gateway And if you still need to store and train a model, so you can still go to the cloud and perform the functionalities out there So I'll just summarize what is the value add of project Flogo A You can build microservices faster than ever before with the web-based UI It's easy to install, it's just a Docker container that you need to run a command and you can start playing with it It's available as an open source project and the code is also available on GitHub You can leverage the serverless platforms, you can develop the code for AWS Lambda and deploy it as well through the same logic And the best part is you can deploy anywhere including Edge devices that is your on-premise, cloud, hybrid cloud or Edge devices And yes, it is extremely light as we already discussed So what next? We are continuously contributing to this open source project So these are some of the features that we have on our roadmap One is we are improving the modern lifecycle management when you can control the lifecycle of models on running devices Also push-up data models remotely We are also working on simplifying and sending asynchronously cloud metrics to the cloud devices so that you can utilize them to train your models in a better way Secondly, we are adding support for other serverless platforms and also working on remote deployment to serverless platforms And last but not the least, we are continuously working on the development experience by improving the number of activities and triggers that are available for the community And wherein you can also help and also improving the documentation around it So what can you do next? I know it's afternoon everyone wants to grab some beer but what I'll suggest is You can please go to the flowgo.io and do a docker pod and start playing with this Give it a try. It's extremely easy. It's extremely intuitive. I'm sure you all will love it You can also check out the code out here So I will be here today and tomorrow as well if you are working on any cool projects around IoT or have some ideas Then I'll be happy to chat with you guys as well. People who are online these are my social media profiles Please feel free to connect and I'd be happy to chat. Thank you Thank you for your talk. We have two minutes left for questions. That should be two or three at least So, yes? Yes, please Yeah, so firstly this one Repeat the question please for the stream Yeah, the question is more around how you handle the security and privacy around IoT devices But if you consider the framework as of now we are just focusing on building the applications around the IoT But talking about the security and features as well You can have all the encryption like the MQTT trigger that we have right it provides all the encryption that's available with MQTT So that way currently the focus is more on developing around the application development rather than The other way around So another minute left another question I don't see any hands. So I guess everybody will be talked will talk to you. Oh, there's one hand. Yes, please Yes So yeah, we have done some benchmarkings around Running it on edge devices like adrinos and all so it is basically based on the memory footprint We considered we developed a similar app on with a similar functionality and all the platforms and the benchmarking was done On that way we have some details which if you need I can share with you as well Okay, so we have 10 seconds left