all right so welcome everyone to the report of the board this is a presentation we're gonna do explaining a little bit the work we've done over the last year mostly we have been doing previous years we used to do it during the HGM and we're still gonna do a version of that in the HGM but well a little bit the idea here is that we want to also explain to the rest and whether community of Katie what the KTV board is working on what kind of problems are in our heads and well maybe that way lure you into the KTV and further into the KTV board if you're planning on joining now before we get on topic let me or let us present ourselves I'm gonna start my name is Alish do you all want to introduce yourself or we can go quickly yes you can find them all at the social event tonight and and get their full CV over there but here you can find Ikehine our treasurer big round of applause and then Lydia Pinscher Neophytos Colocotronis and Adrienne the Groot thank you thank you very much these last two at Neophytos and Adrienne their term is ending today tomorrow but they're running again but if you want to run against them much like Nate Graham and Andy Betts are doing well you can decide to do it too maybe it's a bit too late and rushed but it's still a possibility that you can do it's illegal but in any case Nate and Andy are you here can you maybe wave so everybody knows yeah so if you have questions of what they want to do when they join the board you can go ask them again also in the social event or whenever around here before the AGM tomorrow to decide if you want to vote for them just as well as Neophytos and Adrienne all right so we had a lovely group of new people joined the KDEV over the past year a little bit less than the previous year but that was an unusually large group in that year so now it's a little bit more reasonable that said KDEV always works best when the membership includes a healthy sampling of the active contributors in the KDE community and the Academy is traditionally a good place to look around you take notice of the people around you appreciate them and maybe invite them into the EV next slide please right so the supporting membership program that we've had for a long time you know we haven't very actively pushed them as a result and also of how we attribute things the number does tend to keep down over the years that's sad we have added new means to do recurring donations so it doesn't necessarily reflect a decrease in interest we did open up GitHub for recurring donations over the past year and that is going very very well and many people have joined that way we also have some changes to our roster of corporate supporting members many of whom also sponsor this event thanks you for that we have gained to exceed the computers as a patron they of course are also about to release some new products that will ship KDE Plasma and other KDE software and unfortunately have lost also one supporting company content GmbH so the advisory board is a group of organizations and companies that are close to us either as patrons or as affiliates we are now as you can see at 16 organizations and companies we had a new entry this year there were taxi the computers as I came mentioned so we look forward to working more closely with them as well you can see all the members here don't know if it makes sense to go through them you're most likely familiar with most of them so move on to the next slide so as well with our advisory board we work closely with other organizations or we have some sort of relationship with them you can see the various types of relations we have on this slide we are community partners with Lee's cute project and very in random meetings we are also have the local organization here in KDE Spying they had their academies yes like over the last week their board had a meeting yesterday from what I know so we are working with them as well we have some other types of partnerships also we work with GNOME we do the last conference together it's not here but we're also working on a bit with them on the FlatHub governance we are part of the chaos because it's the working group again together with GNOME and some other people they are doing metrics on various apps of the desktop because it's them and more we're also part of the bar angle network that you must have heard over the various talks yesterday we also have various affiliates mostly from the open source network and we are members of advisory boards and other types of mentorship of other organizations in our wider circle at the same time so we try to remain relevant with them and developments on their front as well. One of the big things that KDE does is employ and contract people to support all of us in doing our work on around KDE. That is Petra, our board assistant, Joseph and Lana working on KDE ECO, Nika and Paul as marketing consultants, Adam who you've seen on stage as project coordinator and Alison previously and now Dina who you surely also have seen running around as event coordinators and in the past Frederick and Karl for documentation and now Ingle sends very recently as the App Store engineer and what do these people do? What can they help you with? Petra is maintaining our office she helps with accounting, paperwork, reimbursements you get she helped a lot with getting new people on boarded that joined recently organizing meetings and on top of that helping us stay on top of all the things that we need to do. Very valuable. Then we have Dina who is helping us organize this conference. Dina helping us organize this conference but also the Linux app summit together with Adam. Not just is he a great emcee on stage here for you, for entertainment and information. Now he's also the one who supports our goal champions and run the process for finding a new set of goals. Organizing trainings here at Academy and helping support the Academy in organizational and coordination stuff. Then we have Lana and Joseph. Are you here? Can you wave? Yeah. They're amazing in helping us run KDE ECO as a program making sure that we're in line with all the things that the German government needs and of course doing a lot of outreach to the KDE community and others so that we have this as a very successful program. And you should totally join the both on Tuesday at 12 apparently. And then Ingo, who unfortunately is not here today, recently started as the app store support engineer who is here to help you make sure that our software gets to our users through app stores they very often use and helping you make that easier by, for example, building infrastructure that you need for that. If you are interested in this, definitely do reach out to Ingo. And then we get to Anika and Paul. Anika, Paul, wave. They are doing a ton around KDE promo, running the KDE network program, trying to reach new communities, organizing or us showing up at conferences like FOSTA when it's in person again, running the promo spend this year and generally making sure that our promo runs smoothly and that we have a good communication to our users and the rest of the world. Also, you should join the both on Monday, so tomorrow at four. And with that, I hand over to eight. Thank you, Lydia. So Lydia has talked about the people that are here, the people we have, and I'll be talking about the people that we don't have. Documentation is a project that we started several years ago. We wanted to hire people to write the documentation or help organize the documentation that we have for our applications and everything that started in 2018. We hired people, they did amazingly useful things, but the contracts ended before the actual writing phase, so the actual making the documentation. We will be trying this again, but the petition is at this point not open. We'll try it again in the next calendar year, once we've got things, once we've settled down again. Next slide, please. We have other open positions, which you may be interested in. The base software development position is largely a KDE frameworks or framework six kind of support position. This will be opening up in the next couple of months. It might drag on into the next calendar year, but there will be an opening coming there for paid KDE development. At this point, so not filled is the documentation writing. Another position that is not filled at this point is the hardware integration. We looked around. We couldn't find someone who could do what we wanted for a price that we wanted. So that's why that one is still open. Next slide, please. Academy. I was going to talk about people who aren't here, but actually the important bit is this, who is here. Academy, all of you. We're really happy to have an in-person event again. It's a major milestone to be together again. Don't see this as a one-time get-together and leave, but I will talk about that shortly. We are going to organize an in-person, hopefully, I mean, if nothing goes terribly wrong in the world, there's going to be an in-person academy next calendar year, 2023. It's going to be amazing. We have a plan, but it's still secret at this point. It won't be a secret anymore in about two and a half hours. Two and a half hours will be the big reveal, but until then, we'll sit on it. All right. So following last year's academy, we finally saw a slow return to travel or get-togethers that were possible again, if done carefully. Of course, in fall, this then began with the fantastic birthday party that we organized and put together, thanks to everyone who was involved with that. And attending or happening around the birthday party were a number of local get-togethers in various places, including Barcelona. And I think that, at least in my mind, kind of signaled the return to we can meet in person again. That said, we had a number of sprints that still were preferred, preferably done in the online format, which also still remains available since the infrastructure that we built is reusable and we have kept it up and plan to keep it up. We had a summer sprint in essence in Greece, and this may not be the last you hear of those wonderful places today. And KDECO and promo sprints in Germany and in France, respectively. It means physical sprints are finally back, but the recovery continues to be slow. We haven't heard of new plans or new dates for some of the sprints that in the past were cornerstones of the community that were traditionally held. And we want to really encourage you to use this opportunity here at the Academy or, in general, the coming months to plan these again. The funding is there, and hopefully it's possible to do this in a safe manner now, so please plan them. Next slide, please. All right. We also attended a number of conferences and trade shows again. A lot of those were still in the online format. Conferences take a long time to prepare, so even as the pandemic situation improved, a lot of those events stayed online even in 2022. KDECO has done a ton of outreach and attended many different venues and spread the word and got some work done there, as well as the KD network that attended, for example, an event in the USA, which is great to see some activity there again on the continent, and also in Asia. Next slide. Sorry. All right. It was sourced from the Sprints Wiki, which was in a sorry state, so please do keep our wikis up to date. I had to cross reference. It got complicated, but you don't want to hear that. So let's continue talking about our own events that we put on. We obviously had a great academy last year, an online academy, but nevertheless a great one. We had the Linux app summit, which was held in a hybrid format, just as this academy is. And the same went for the Academy ES satellite event. And now, of course, we are here today, which we already heard Adrian speak about, but I think it bears repeating that we're very happy to see you again. To do all these amazing things we talked about, we need to do some fundraising. And we've already said we've got Tuxedo as a new patron, which is very nice. And we're working a lot with the fundraising working group to move away from our current fundraising infrastructure, which is running on CBCM and causing us a lot of pain to move to something more maintainable, but you will hear more about that in the working group reports after this. And which is something you will hear more about in the lightning talk later. We're working with the Canadian Life team to trial run dedicated fundraising for development for specific applications to really give those applications that have that potential boost. Then if you want to hear about everything that's happened in the official report that we published to all our supporting members and everyone else, then you can read the 2021 report published on the ewe website. Highly recommended reading with in-structuring stories from all the sprints, for example, that you heard about. One of the highlights of that report and last year was of course, Katie's 25th anniversary. We've been around for 25 years now and over 25 years now. And that's really a reason to celebrate. And we did on October 14 last year. With birthday reviews, fireside chats, including Matthias Ettrich, highly recommend if you haven't seen it, catch up on it. It was fun to hear his perspective on Katie today and where it came from. We did ask me any things on Reddit and more. You can find all of that on www.kdv.org. So something that Lydia just mentioned a second ago was that we're doing a fundraising with Katie and live. This fundraising is special as any fundraising, but for us especially, it is because we're doing something slightly different that we've done in the past. We used to do fundraisings where all the donations went into the KTV pot. And we used that money for whatever the KTV decided to do. But we were never doing well, product development with this money. In this opportunity, we discussed with the KDN Life people to find a way so that they can do this development work that they want to do with the money from the fundraiser. But that still, we don't have to compromise everything into just doing KDN Life because obviously KDN Life is part of a bigger thing that is KD. And we wanted to all fit together, right? We're fitting this initiative in what we have been calling over the last year, the make a living discussion where we try to make it possible for people to put effort in their daily professional lives into improving our products because we think that it's a very good way for our products to take the next step towards their users. Then to sum up what we think that has been great over this year. Well, we've already mentioned the Academy and having events again. I think that being able to see each other is very important. We've always been a very distributed community. We've always been working from home, but we've all created very tight links with each other that they can only be maintained by having dinner together every now and then. It can be once a year or once a sprint or however that happens. We'd like also to shed some light on the fact that right now we're establishing ourselves. It's a normal thing now that our software is on hardware, starting with the Pine and Slimbook devices, but as well, the big announcement we saw this year that multi-million devices around the world, the Steam Deck also is shipping our software. It shows that we have the necessary maturity for the industry to take us seriously. We only think that this is a good thing and we are hoping for this to go even further. Other initiatives, much like the Blower Angle initiative is something that we wouldn't have imagined that it would be a thing a few years ago, but nowadays it's a big reality. We already showed you this diploma that Joseph gathered from Germany earlier this week. We are hoping that we will see more of that. We want to learn more about our software and the impact that it has in the world we live in. We are seeing also a lot of work towards KD Framework 6, which means that we have a continuity on our software. We're going to see more of what we're doing in the next few years. Nobody has to be scared of us stagnating where we are right now. It's not happening and besides above that is going to happen there, that you should definitely be joining, well, see what they're working on because I think it's very interesting. And last but not least, we have new goals. We already put on them yesterday and we're all very excited to see how we can work. From a KTV perspective, we are interested in seeing how we can make sure that the KTV can support these goals and we're looking forward to talking to the different goal leaders to see how we can make it happen. So let's take a quick look at the specific overview. If you can call it like that of what we said last year, the academy that we plan to do over the next year, as Elish already mentioned, we worked a lot on the make a living initiative. We talked to a lot of people, as you might remember, we interviewed a lot of people that we thought could give us insights on how this could work and we came up with a set of conclusions that we shared with the community and then we follow up on that by announcing that we plan to try and hire people on the three positions that I think Adrienne mentioned earlier. So as Adrienne mentioned, the hardware integration engineer, we didn't find someone, we'll probably try again later on. The App Store support engineer, again we have Ingo that started in September and the platform support engineer will probably go in line with that in the next couple of months. So this is progressing according to our plan, maybe a bit late, but we're getting there. Next slide. One topic that we discussed last year is about copying with how they be and as an organization it's growing. We have more contractors as you saw. Nowadays some discussion has taken place around maybe hiring someone, maybe someone as a staff manager to help us with managing all our contractors and staff. For the last year we were able to cope between us and we managed to do that, but it's something that we are considering all the time and going back to and we'll see how things go and maybe try it again in the future. One thing that we wanted to improve and we are very happy and satisfied that we saw some reaction on this front is that we wanted to get the EV membership to help the board with various tasks around the year. We are happy that many of our working groups have started to be very active again. Some good examples are the financial working group that is like putting a lot of work in and supporting us on that front. The KD3 cute working group is also very active and they have regular meetings nowadays and doing stuff and discussing on that front as well. The fundraising group as well now with the KDEN Live fundraising. We had to do a lot of background work to decide on how this will run and it's now open and it's already going very well. I think we're already past it to like 60 or 70 percent of the amount. So that's very good. You will see that in our notes and from time to time we ask for help in our notes to the membership. So if you see something that you can help we'd be very happy to for you to step up and do try to help us because we need all the help we can get. Next slide. So we discussed coming back together we managed it we're all here again we're very very happy. We already started having sprints we want to see more and again we urge you to reach out to us if you want to organize something around what you're building your team your product we'll be happy as an EV to support you. And one big topic that we're getting some momentum on is around our partners and particularly you our hardware partners you might have seen that Pine and also Slimbook have been here and we also have Taxito as a new member of the board and a new patron and we're waiting for more devices on that front. Neil was also talking earlier in his talk about Fedora shipping KDE Plasma on some of their workstations hoping hopefully we'll see that maybe soon. So things are happening there and we want to continue helping on that front maybe the new position also helps. So that's it from me. So for the next year we're going to hear the financial situation from the financial working group in a bit but something that is very important that we do over this year is to assess our financial situation to see we've been talking about hiring a lot and hiring is very expensive there's ways to make money from the hiring we do but we need to make sure that we're doing it properly. So this is something that it needs well making sure that we're doing it properly. We're not going to say this cannot be done anymore. We're not going to say we should be always doing it. What we want to say is that we want to make sure that we're doing it properly and that we don't all end up in jail. Related to this we're trying with KDE Unlive the fundraising program. It's something that we could look into extrapolating. I talked about that a little bit for example on the abs goal presentation like for example asking for money on the different app stores that's a possibility making partnerships with other organizations and companies. This is things we could be we should be doing and I think that it's very it's a very good way to make sure that to tie our income in our products performing properly and if we can see that working I think that we don't have to worry about our financial situation but this is not the present this is my wish so we need to get there. In this regard for example infrastructure we've been transitioning from one place to another here we're talking about GitLab we need to establish something that we know it's ours and that we're happy with and that we can build upon. We're talking for example that Ingo will be working on this thing exactly because to be able to deliver products we need to be on a specific thing that people can build on. Something that for example the fundraising working group have been working on is entirely changing how our infrastructure worked because well it didn't work before it's something that we had been discussing at large in the in the past and now we need to get specific and polish. We're doing it and I am hoping that in the next year we can tell you that everything is going great and this is done and we are in place. Then you get your goals like I said something that as a board we've been discussing in the past is it's not super clear from our perspective how we can support these new goals or the goals we had at a specific time. We've tried for example allocating money to a different to a specific tool each goal that didn't work very easily. We understand why it didn't work I think but on the other hand it wasn't the right way of doing it. We will need to find other ways maybe just doing sprints again will be the thing we were missing maybe anything else. If anyone has ideas please reach out to either the goal leaders so that when they talk to us they know they have good ideas or or yeah or talk to Adam or talk to anyone like that's why we're here talk to each other and square. Also we need to learn about our changing ecosystem what do I mean by that or what do we mean by that what we mean is that we're moving from a very distant position where our users were fairly far apart from our developers but we're trying to or we think that breaking this barrier is the way that we can solve a lot of our problems and when we do that we need to be doing a lot more work in areas that where maybe well forgotten we need to make sure that this happens properly that we have all of the roles that we need to have in our community and if the QDV can make that happen I think that this is for for the best and last but not least we keep talking about that we think that it's very important for a healthy community to be together and we want to continue doing that Academy we have a plan if you want to organize LAS you can still put forward a proposition we don't really have anything settled down and sprints if you're working in any team and you think that it would be interesting at all to meet which I know it would then say so and we will figure out together a way to make it happen and if you think it shouldn't be meeting then you're wrong make up your mind and then you reach out to us and we see how we can make it happen and that's it yes this is what we wanted to talk about right now you're going to hear a little bit more from Evie through the working group reports but for now reminding you that you can talk to us while we might get the title and Frowny face sometimes we are very approachable people we will be around during Academy we're on every chat that you can imagine chat room chat technology except for slack we don't use slack and and we're gonna host an office hours on Tuesday feel free to come by we don't really have a specific agenda specifically because we want to hear what you have in mind and and answer what we think because while it can think that like everything is very organized what it ends up working how it ends up working between us is that we meet we speak our minds we see how we can work together and if we can have well this meeting with you all in these office hours I think that it can be very interesting but that's it from us today thanks for listening to us are there any questions for the board from the audience maybe this is for the office hours I don't know if we have time we can do this question sir yeah we have a couple of minutes so if you have questions I'll check the online as well but nothing so far thank you yeah thank you very much


This study found that higher adherence to the Mediterranean diet was associated with a lower risk of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, NAFLD, even when controlling for other factors such as age, gender, physical activity, and supplement intake. However, this association did not remain significant once body mass index, waste circumference, and hip circumference were taken into account. Further research is needed to determine whether the Mediterranean diet can reduce the risk of NAFLD in individuals with different body types.


Welcome to NTN Nightly, I am General Norvel. This edition stops stories. Hundreds of St. Lucians to benefit from a major component of government's socio-economic program for the nation. St. Lucia's teachers hailed for their dedication amid the challenges of COVID-19, and the Caribbean Court of Justice court term opens for the 2021-2022. Hundreds of St. Lucians are to benefit from a major component of government's socio-economic program for the nation. The Department of Housing and Local Government on Wednesday 6 October 2021 launched the National Housing Assistance Program which will provide proper housing for the vulnerable and indigent. The National Housing Assistance Program aims to ensure that lower-income earners and the most vulnerable amongst the population have access to adequate housing. Permanent Secretary in the Department of Housing and Local Government Dr. Cadillia Ambrose indicated that the department has been inundated with requests for housing assistance from the very low to the low-income population. It is for this reason she explained that the ministry felt it imperative that the intervention be made. The activities under the NHAP are structured for implementation as follows. The identification and creation of an inventory of households with the most urgent housing needs, assessments and ranking of this in priority of urgency, designing of assistance packages most suited to the housing needs of identified households, disbursement of assistance packages in the form of technical assistance, building materials and or labor grants, monitoring and evaluating of the program. Thus it is envisaged that through the NHAP initiative some measure of relief, poverty reduction, empowerment and overall enhancement to the socio-economic well-being of many across St. Lucia will be achieved. Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister with Responsibility for Housing and Local Government Hon. Richard Frederick clarified the criteria under which individuals would be eligible for assistance. Those seeking assistance would have to satisfy a list of criteria. Houses who live in inhumane conditions, low income generating households, person affected by natural and man-made disasters, the elderly, those who fall within the poverty group, the homeless and those who are disabled with such disability preventing them from entering the workforce. I need to pause here second to disclose this caveat. Persons who are in illegal occupation of land would not have access to this program unless the owner of the land gives permission to effect repairs on that house. I want to repeat this, persons who are in illegal occupation of land will not be able to access this assistance unless the owners of the land give permission. We don't want a situation where just having refurbished a house, the owner of the land says, boom, we don't want that kind of situation. So we have the establishment of a project team to oversee the implementation of the program. Households will be identified using various tools including the priority means test and where it is absolutely necessary, absolutely necessary houses will be reconstructed. The program is being funded via a loan from the import-export bank of the Republic of China, Taiwan to the tune of $10 million. $4 million of the loan will be spent on the national housing assistance program. Ambassador of Taiwan to St. Lucia, his Excellency Peter Chen, reaffirmed Taiwan's commitment to assisting in the development of St. Lucia. As a staunch development partner of St. Lucia, Taiwan has over the years participated in the national development of Air Helen by sharing expertise and providing assistance in the fears of agriculture, education, healthcare, digital access, ICT, community development and so on. By providing a soft commercial loan facilities to finance the housing assistance program, the Expo and import bank in Taiwan will help bring many disadvantaged families in St. Lucia one step closer to having a safe haven where they can live and to be loved. Together we can achieve more. Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Economic Development and Youth Economy, the Honourable Philip J. Pierre, explained that the loan was repurposed to address the more urgent needs of the vulnerable. We are launching that program, $10 million and I can tell you is that the initial thinking of that program was not to see about housing for indigenous and poor people. That is a fact. It was meant to do other things, other things that are important but it was not meant for that program. It took the cabinet through the minister to convince the Taiwanese and the other officials that a more immediate need was to repair the houses of people in this country. So whereas what we wanted to do, what the money was initially aimed at doing, was to improve the infrastructure in a certain area. Needed, needed because I said before it's a matter of inclusion, needed but we sought immediate needs where the poor and the underprivileged and the indigent. Minister for Equity, Social Justice and Empowerment Honourable Joachim Henry pledging his support to the program indicated that it was very timely and will go a long way in assisting those in dire need. It is my belief that in promoting and securing social justice and acknowledging the fundamentals of human rights of our people, poverty and vulnerability reduction programs must consider the provision of safe and secure place to reside. Therefore, as WHO Commission on Social Determinance of Health has stated, access to quality housing is necessary for implementing insecure social justice and health equity and that access to quality housing and shelter and clean water and sanitation are human rights and basic needs for a healthy living. And as I believe, healthy living at the individual of household levels will translate into healthy communities and ultimately a healthy nation. The National Housing Assistance Program was officially launched on the 6th of October 2021. Saint Lucia's teachers have been hailed for their dedication amid the challenging effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Minister for Education Honourable Sean Edward recognized the contribution of educators as the ministry observed World Teacher's Day, more from Homer de Mark. The Government of Saint Lucia joined the rest of the world in observing World Teacher's Day 2021. The observance highlights the contribution of educators to national and societal development. This year's theme, Teachers at the Heart of Education Recovery, focused on the personate role of educators in recovery efforts from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Minister for Education Sustainable Development, Innovation, Science, Technology and Vocational Training Honourable Sean Edward noted the commitment of Saint Lucia's teachers to their students despite the challenges brought on by the pandemic. For us in the education system, we at the level of the ministry, we continue to find the resources, make the resources available, ensure that we create that enabling environment for our children to learn. The Saint Lucia Teacher's Union has played its part, Central Government has played its part, but very, very critical to any effort, serious effort at recovery is the role and the disposition of our teachers. And I really must take the opportunity to thank the hundreds of teachers in this country who have always put themselves on the line for our children. We cannot overemphasize the importance of the role that teachers play in nation building. And as the Minister for Education, I just want to take the opportunity on behalf of the Honourable Prime Minister Philip J.P.A., my colleagues in the Cabinet, the Senior Management Team of the Ministry of Education to tell the teachers of this country how much we appreciate the effort that they make, particularly during the period of the pandemic. Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Education, Sustainable Development, Innovation, Science, Technology and Vocational Training, Senator Honourable Dr Pauline Antoine Prosper also paid tribute to Saint Lucia educators on Tuesday. Acting Chief Education Officer in the Ministry of Education, Cyrus Cipal, commanded teachers on their resolve and dedication to education and nation building. I would like to thank you so much for all the sacrifices that you have made during this pandemic. We appreciate and we value your effort. And we know the teachers right now, they are feeling the pain of these children who they do not have right now face to face to guide them through the process. We do understand that teachers and this is the commitment that we know you have. So to all the teachers and educators, you serve as a mother, a father, you serve as a lawyer, you serve as the social worker, you serve as the motivator, you just serve in your different capacities. We say again, congratulations to you, celebrate and continue to give all your best. World Teacher's Day is observed annually on October 5th from the Government Information Service for Medi-Math Reporting. As the Caribbean Court of Justice's 2021-2022 court term opened on Monday 4th October 2021, the court president, the Honorable Mr Justice Adrian Saunders, issued a message that highlighted the work of the court for the 2020-2021 year and how the work of the CCJ impacts citizens of the Caribbean community. President Saunders noted that the CCJ, like other institutions, has had to adapt due to the challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the institution has continued to serve the people of the Caribbean, particularly on matters related to the Caribbean's single market economy, CSME, freedom of movement of labour, goods, services, capital and establishment. Over the last year, notwithstanding the severe effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on countries, institutions and people in general, the court was nevertheless able to function effectively using our digital machinery to execute our mandate. In addition to managing and trying the cases brought before us, we also made solid progress on each of the six strategic areas we had identified in our 2019-2024 strategic plan. Over the last year, in spite of the pandemic, our virtual courtroom provided uninterrupted service to our customers. We held 55 virtual court settings and one of the cases coming before us in the original jurisdiction was initiated by a member state of CARICOM brought against another member state. This was the first time that such an action had been filed and it demonstrated a growing level of confidence in the court's role as an arbiter of disputes among CARICOM member states. Apart from its judicial work, the president shared some of the other deliverables completed by the court during the past court year. These include the finalization of judicial discipline regulations to accompany the revised judicial code of conduct, which was adopted in 2020. We implemented a scheme for monitoring and evaluating our progress in accomplishing our strategic plan and as the executing agency for the Canadian funded jurist project, we supported several justice delivery initiatives across the region. We engage in a wide range of training initiatives with judges and staff of the court and through our partnership with bodies such as the Caribbean Association of Judicial Officers, popularly called CAJO, the CCG Academy for Law and the Global Judicial Integrity Network, a UN agency of which I am an advisory board member. We assisted in legal and judicial education programs not just throughout the region but also beyond. Of course, while we have made strides in these and other areas, we recognize that there is still more work to be done. And so over the next judicial year, we will remain responsive and resilient. We shall continue to implement our strategic plan, paying particular regard to developing the mechanisms for more meaningful interaction with our stakeholders, whether through our website or through social media, or by other means. The CCG is your court, the people of the Caribbean. Justice Saunders urge citizens of the region to learn more about the court and how it serves the region. This is NTIA 9th Lee. Primers-Hudgingston is up next. Stay with us. This is a message from the Minister of Health and Wellness, supported by Paul on this station. Welcome back. We join Primers-Hudgingston for the NTIA novel. Hi, I am Richard Frederick. I am the Minister of Social Equality in New York, and I am the ambassador of the NTIA. I am the Prime Minister of the Government, and I am also the official official of the Government, and I am here to present you the NTIA program. The Prime Minister, I am Philip J. Pierre, an advisory board member of the NTIA. I have always been a part of the NTIA program before. He has been here for the NTIA program for quite a long time. I have just received a heart attack and I am in a very bad condition. I am here to present you the NTIA program. I am very happy that we have received such a great encouragement from the NTIA Kai, qui c'est toi plus confortable qu'il m'en a été avant, mais je n'y appuie pas. Minister, qui n'est pas possible pour affaire Kai, on a affiché à Patrick. Un commissaire suité, et puis moi, déclaré qu'il faut que je sois là, qu'il cas coûte 4 millions de dollars méritier, cela je pourrais t'aider au gouvernement Taiwan, et principalement pour assister Kai Le Pove. Mais il faut qu'on qu'une situation moune, qu'il puve, c'est qu'il n'y a plus la théorie à dire, et qu'il cas garder pour poursuivre à l'adresser une bonne de toi, moune, au lieu de l'un cette-l'ici. Comme je m'en ai dit, que le Pove, à ce thème, à ce conscience, et que je connais ce culte, que j'ai choisi cette-l'ici et que je vivais, et que Kai placierait tout, que Kai a tout le monde, la panfine net, la porte-carte quasi. Moi, ma des, de gouvernement Taiwan, pour quitter nos ces villages là, pour aider les pauvres qui cas, qui cas, ouéter a ma condition, qui pas bon, pour nous aider, car un moins qu'à y obaille. Et qu'il raccour, et que j'aurai à nous lunch programme là. Programme cela, Kai Tuve Koi, from Gosele, Poudesson, V4, from Miku, from Uyvi, Soufui, to Le Kat Koi, a simple-ici, to Patu, Nukai Bati, Nukai Pabati, but Nukai Wange Kai, Le Pove. Nukai Organize, Nukai Faire assessment, Nukai Faire domaniere, to Lani Accountability and Transparency, Kono Samutui, Kisanu Feksi, L'Agença, to Wangei Sekaisa. So, e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e Plezi Jaudiya, Puno Weia, that go-ved-ma-sa-a manifestoi t-e-di, yohu ka meti munum pom-ye, e-e-e-e cal-te-prue-m-sa la, sk'a re-le-mé munum-pavah. Le Man Pbpceti-e-i, I had to find an invitation to put the MNSM and the Ministry of Health here to do diverse observations of health for me in October. The Ministry of Health and the largest citizens, Honorable Mosejiabatis, I had to find an invitation to put the MNSM and the Ministry of Health and the largest citizens, Honorable Mosejiabatis. With this, it is very important for us because for the first time in the government of this country, we have put a department that we have in English, Elderly Affairs, which is the most important responsibility for the health of the country in this country. The Ministry of Health and the National Committee of the National Committee of the National Committee of the National Committee of the National Committee of the National Committee These three people have entered the country in a digital role. We have to put these three people in the front to be able to serve computers, WhatsApp Facebook, all things about it. With whom have we made the MNSM to serve these people? With whom have we made? We have pleaded the people to join these people to serve to talk with issues, issue with to do different research with the government that wants to do these things with Minislac to focus on this the first october to learn how to engage the government in a different way Go back, all right, Ceylon, right, Ceylon Minis-Jobartis, is it necessary for us to embrace the biggest citizens because you have to work hard at the same time to set up this new development here It's not because we have to work hard with the government that we started to celebrate with Minis-Jobartis to do it in a different way. We have all these things that we have observed in october We are still with Covid-19, with doctors, with firefighters, with the police, everyone working hard to do Covid-19 We have to look at the situation, we have to observe these differences in october We also have to change these doctors with the people who work in these hospitals, the people who clean, the people who wash their clothes, the people who wash their clothes, the people who watch Everyone who works hard to do Covid-19, we thank God, we know it's a hard work With everyone who suffers, with everyone who is ill, with everyone who dies, with Covid-19 We also have to look at the situation in october, we have to look at it very seriously For that, we can invite everyone to participate in these activities To remember doctors, doctors who have been provided by doctors The first october is the day of the national government Everyone who has difficulties with the hospital, with cancer This is a very serious situation with which we are also very concerned Ministers of agricultural services, fishing, forest and development are very important The department of alfred prosper called for the farmers to do figs It's called Cultivated Fig. We can teach it, but we have to teach it always when the government has tried to cooperate to find a way out. The minister called it especially when it's time to devalue the industry figs. Moreover, the minister declared that there is plenty of space for delegations to visit England right away to have a discussion about the future of figs. We have delegations to visit and engage the market with Fives, with Rose, with SalesBree to visit to have a discussion about the future of figs and to continue the industry. Last week, we had $2,000,000 to support BPIP. It's a banana in production and improvement project. We know to do this there are four years. We know to do this by purchasing the figs for the canal, for the immigration, for the black sugar for the sales, and we hope the program will continue. We will continue to buy the figs to make them trust the industry. We know to do this by purchasing the figs that are frustrated and we are really panicking to continue. We hope the government will buy the figs and continue to encourage the industry. Thank you. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you for your invitation. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.


This is a quick question about food. I personally have talked about this, and she shared a story with me about you and about your relationship with food. I've had a lot of different relationships with food through my life and a lot of control around food. I still notice it creep in in certain ways and this kind of fear and anxiety to eat certain foods. There's a particular sugar, you know, I was told I have hormonal insolent, you know, I've got to be careful and just those kind of things that you're taught and told about your body and then they feel very true. You know, whenever I eat sugar, I'm like, whoa, you know, I feel this kind of biochemical thing happening and this sort of disconnect because of course sometimes I notice that I'm not affected in the same way as a similar sort of, right now it's like a gluten-free thing, like my mom's like, you have a gluten intolerant gene, you know, it's just these stories. And I just wondered if you had anything to offer around because ultimately I just want to be free.  And I just wondered if there was a process with which you embraced all foods. Yeah, well I used the Course of Miracles as my pathway to mind training and there was an idea in the workbook, I can be hurt by nothing but my thoughts. Anything that starts to lift it up to show us the power of the mind and the power that we give to thoughts is important. It's very empowering, I found that very, very empowering. And there's a lot of specific lessons like 50 and 76. I'm sustained by the love of God as 50, 76 was I am under no laws but God's. But because he gets so specific, I love him when Jesus is specific, not love your neighbor and love the Lord that I got, can you come take a second? A little more concrete than, you know, that's been around a long time. So it's like, yeah, he talks about those things but he throws in laws of nutrition in there in a string of meaningless things that do us this thing at all. And yet it's heavily overlaid with heavy duty programming and conditioning. And so I found it was more just because I would practice the lessons and transfer, transfer, transfer more and more and more and give over, you know, the control and the, I know mind to say show me, show me, show me that I would have a lot of experiences and a lot of them involved, you know, the body, food, transportation, money, sex, you know, it just goes across the board. But the transfer, transfer of the training was so important. And then, you know, even the idea of seeing things, food is more like a prop or a backdrop like, you know, we have coats or houses or whatever that it's just like a prop. So it was a discipline of trusting. Like when I first started traveling back in 1991, I was told by Jesus, eat whatever is served. And I could see the value of loosening from preferences and from a lot of conditioning of what's good foods, what's bad food and the software was such love. And Jesus was basically saying, don't put food in between you and your brother and you and your sister. You know, I needed that context. I couldn't just see it just in terms of the food. I needed a bigger context, a big purpose. So I would go around and say people like just being here and being hosted to Kristen, a lot of living rooms and kitchens and dining rooms and so forth. And then going to other countries and things with, served with such love with little barnacles and eyeballs on them and things like that, you know, it's just crunchy. You know, it was way beyond trying to, you know, I've gone through the very same things. Go to the grocery store, learn to help read the ingredients and go through all that and cholesterol level and all the different things. It was a big unlearning of a lot of stuff for me to just take the lesson of the day and just like a torch. Okay, here we go Jesus. Whoa, where are we going today? Because there's so much that we go through in a day. Well if you have the torch out in front, it starts to spread to, you know, lots and lots of things. And then it comes to the point where it's just like intuitive eating. That's the next step. Of course the guidance is so important.  Medications seem to be a big deal. Don't take the wrong ones and too much or overdose or this and this. Even things like partner relationships. Let's go beyond that. Marriages, the idea of, you know, in India they have arranged marriages.  There was an Indian woman, a woman from the United States, and the Indian woman was describing her arranged marriage from when she was a teenager and she was probably, you know, 40 or 50 years old in glowing terms. How much she'd learned telling the American woman, in my tradition, we believe in destiny, we believe nothing happens by accident. And so when I got my surprise husband I was like, wow, I'm going to really use this to the max to end all my karma. Energy and enlightenment. And the American woman was horrified. Turning white. You, your parents picked your marriage partner. Oh my, she was just convulsing. She was just so upset at the idea that there was so much lack of control. She saw it just as luck and happenstance. And the woman was like, oh no, no, no, this is not it at all. I am still very grateful for this partner. We've been together many years. I've learned so much and the American woman was like, ah! Just a clash of ups, but it's like an undoing of this idea. I mean in our communities it's not like Sunday on the moon or anything with mass marriages or anything, but occasionally we have guided marriages. And it's, people can feel it. People are telepathic.  She's the one. Oh, that's good. It's coming soon. These are the partners. Ah! They don't really know it all the time, but eventually they see. And then you have these things called guided marriages, which the key word is guided. Because marriage is just simple in this world. You know, it's just another symbol is used by the spirit. And then we have guided divorces. So it takes the stigma out. Guided. That means guided of the spirit. But the spirit ever guided anybody to get divorced? Yes. That's your yay-be-yay, that's your nay-be-nay.  You know, you start to realize how important guidance is that it's everything. You already know all the answers and your pathway is set and you really just tune in to that voluntary flow of being on your pathway and happy to just, you know, receive what's given. And so that just is nice to hear about because it gives us a broader context because it can be blown away out of proportion.  Well, I'll be unlovable and, you know, what does that mean?  You know, there's a lot of meaning that gets tucked into that Twinkie.  But it's more, it's a lot of things underneath the Twinkie. That's just a lot. You're going to title this, What's Underneath the Twinkie? Good morning, sunbeam, you've awoken just to see that there's a light deep within you that's shining for all of the world to see.


So obviously children's cartoons they're meant to entertain kids, but oftentimes they are meant to be Informative and educational. So if you watched Sesame Street as a kid as all of us did probably then you'd learn the alphabet You'd learn how to spell if you watched Dora the Explorer You'd learn some Spanish words if you watched the Care Bears as I did you'd learn that sharing is caring like it's not necessarily Unusual that cartoons try to instill values into children It's not like they are going out of their way to indoctrinate children into these Controversial things like Satanism or Marxism like that's not what cartoons do like the message is if they are talking about values are usually pretty anodyne However, they crossed the line according to Ben Shapiro when they start teaching children How to not be racist because a new show on a cartoon network Or maybe it was a PSA released by cartoon network either way it told kids that racism is bad and Ben Shapiro took issue with that Hey, and then you got cartoon network now pushing anti-racism Okay, so you've got Robin's the Angel and not just teaching coca-cola, but mainstreamed into cartoon network Now it's one thing to get mad at the Muppets from 1987 for telling a joke that you now consider culturally insensitive 30 years later It's another thing to get mad at Cartoon Network when Cartoon Network is literally just putting out PSA's mirror ring for children Mirroring Robin DeAngelo's talking points on racism and indoctrinating kids into a overtly racist garbage Here's the Cartoon Network pushing what is obviously racism? Well, I'm not an alien, but it definitely matters to me that I'm black. Yeah, it makes a difference that I'm white I know the two of us get treated very differently my experience with anti-black racism It's really specific other people of color experience other forms of racism, too But you won't see any of that if you don't see color Can we get a rewrite where we appreciate each other without erasing what makes each of us different? Okay, but it's gonna add a couple hours to the shoot. I can't make my skin open You're rolling just now, weren't you? Can't we just slap some graphics on this and call it a day? Hmm see color be anti-racist Shut up racist children See color be anti-racist So yes, we are all supposed to see each other as people of different colors whose experiences are completely non-understandable I cannot understand your experience in any way and because I can't understand your experience This is the Robin DeAngelo stuff. I have to listen and believe I can never try to assess whether Your opinion on a matter is non-factually or evidentially based Instead I have to listen and believe because you see I see color So I'm an anti-racist, which means I have to listen and believe whatever you say and presumably accept all of your policy Recommendations as well in order to destroy the systems of power. This is being taught to children at currency network to children Yeah, you wonder why people feel like they're under assault because they are under they're under assault. Who's under assault Ben? Why don't you finish the thought tell us who's under assault are white people under assault like who are you talking about? explain yourself I Mean, I don't know what to say about this other than if you think That it's bad that a cartoon is teaching your children not to be racist then I Can't not deduce that you must think that Racism is good. I mean, what else am I supposed to take away from this? Like the message there is Pretty benign. It's not really telling your children to become SJW is like It's saying Acknowledge that there are differences between human beings don't pretend as if those differences aren't there and be anti-racist Is that really that controversial? Would you really be offended if your children learned this and For whatever reason like he tries to tie Robin the Angelo to this she is the author of white fragility and it's a book that is controversial Because even though what she says about race from a social standpoint is sound her entire analysis is devoid of class analysis But Ben Shapiro doesn't care about race or class So the criticisms that are usually attributed to Robin the Angelo They're not applicable here. So I don't get why He's against this like I don't know like maybe it's the case that Robin the Angelo actually like scripted this cartoon Who knows but this is a very watered-down message that just basically tells your kids.  Is that really that controversial and the way that he frames this is as if like this is some new phenomenon This is the next thing that the woke mob is doing. They're trying to indoctrinate your children But this is a new I mean Ben Shapiro. He can't be more than a couple years older than me So I'm assuming he grew up with all of the same television shows and cartoons that I watched So were you outraged back in the 1990s when Boy Meets World aired an episode about Antisemitism and racism was that offensive to you?  This isn't some new thing I don't understand why he takes so much issue with this now. I don't want to straw man him I want to try to steal man him so I'm going to assume that He doesn't think this cartoon is bad because he believes that we should be teaching our kids to be racist What he says here is If I accept that I am anti-racist I also have to believe I can never try to assess whether your opinion on a matter is not is Nonfactually or evidentiary based and he says that if you're anti-racist you have to quote accept all of your policy positions as well So this is why he's against it because he took that away from the cartoon You see if I watch the cartoon that is intended for children under the age of 10 I'm assuming what I take away from that is don't be racist But what he takes away from that is well, you know, if you're not racist then everything that a black person says We're supposed to take as gospel I don't think it's that complicated. I think it's just saying don't be racist acknowledge that there are races and Don't be racist be an anti-racist Like it's intended for children, but he's saying Actually, what they really want is for your children to white knight for black people to the extent that all of their Individual beliefs that they have well if they Conflict with something that a black person says then you should just like accept what the black person says But that's not what the cartoon is saying Like to say this is so bizarre like he can't believe this He can't believe that that's what the cartoon is saying and the individuals who constructed this PSA or whatever it was Do you honestly think that they're trying to promote to children that you have to accept? everything that people of color say as like gospel of course as Individuals were allowed to have different ideologies and different beliefs and Be intellectually curious about different things.  Maybe the cartoon should be teaching children that if they want to be racist, that's fine And some people are racist some people aren't is that like more appropriate. I just I don't get the controversy here Like I'm failing to see why this is an issue according to his own standards that he stated there if we are steel mining him I don't get it. It's for kids. The simple message is don't be racist and that's it I mean out of all the issues in the world all of the things going on in the country He chooses to talk about this.


Hi everybody, we're back. This is Dave Vellante with Jeff Kelly. We're from Wikibon. We're here live with theCUBE at MIT. We're at the MIT Information Quality Symposium. This is really where practitioners get together and try to figure out, okay, we have all this data that's sprawled all over our organization. Our systems are siloed. How do we put forth some kind of data architecture, data governance? How do we develop an information quality strategy? And how do we evolve that over time? We're learning very quickly that it is a journey. It is not a project with a beginning and an end. It's something that evolves. It's organic. It lives with your organization. And Dat Tran is here. He's the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Data Governance and Analysis at the Department of Veterans Affairs. And we're going to unpack a lot of the information here and the issues that we just discussed. Dat, first of all, welcome to theCUBE. Really appreciate you taking the time here. Thank you. Spend with us. Well, you told a funny story that unfortunately, we really apologize for this in Boston. We couldn't get a hotel room. Our crew was 20 miles away. You got offered a hotel room in New Hampshire and decided, well, I'll be better off staying at the airport and pulling an all-nighter and working and maybe taking a catnap. So how do you feel? I'm feeling great when it comes to data and governance and business intelligence. I'm all like, wrap up, and I can keep going for days. Well, as a person who flies a lot of red eyes, I can tell you, you're on a train right now by three o'clock. You want to be here at bed, so. Yes. So anyway, the VA, you said you gave a great keynote today. You said the VA is the second largest agency behind the DoD. A lot of people know that and you're managing a lot of data. Talk a little bit about the VA and your role there. Okay? VA, like you said, Dave, we are the second largest federal agency, cabinet level agency in the government, US government. We have multiple business line. We basically like conglomerate. If you're looking at this as a private sector, we have a different business line ranging from healthcare to home loan to education service and memorial service. Big data is not something that is new to us. We have been around for since 1930 up until now and over the years we have built many systems and we have many different business line that have different requirement for data. So big data have not been a new thing to us, but what we are really looking at trying to shift to toward VA is to create a customer-centric data environment and that is the effort that currently going on in VA that require us to govern data from people process and technology standpoint and that also will impact how we do business intelligence and also how we improve all information quality. I stole your line dad at my opening. It was big data, big deal. You guys have a lot of data, 11 petabytes, more than 11 petabytes I believe. Yes, yes. Okay, and so the other thing I really liked about your keynote is very transparent. A lot of executives get up, oh yes, we have this data architecture, everything's integrated, it's all wonderful and then when you really peel the onion you find out it's not so integrated. You have a lot of systems, like you said, you've been around since 1930, you've been developing systems in the 70s and the 80s and the 90s, different computing architectures and so you've got literally hundreds if not thousands of applications and systems all with different data sources. Challenging environment, please describe that environment for our audience a bit. We in the VA have a very large information, infrastructure and system that like I said earlier we have a different business line and some of the system have been built since the 70s and the 80s and many of our system from across the business line don't interface or interoperate with each other. So one of the things that we're trying to achieve through VA is this, we are looking at data from a little bit different perspective rather than looking at data from a business, from a business line or system perspective, we are approaching the data from a customer perspective. So currently we have a major effort undergoing in VA starting this year where we are looking at shifting from a fragmented information environment to work toward what we call a customer data integration effort where we will be able to have a 360 degree view of the customer and once we get that information in an integrated fashion, the rest of the information that related to the customer will be able to see who use VA for what benefits and services and understand a lot more about their behavior in term of their usage of various VA business and services. So you said in your keynote, you're not alone, you talk to a lot of CIOs and other leaders in commercial enterprise that have the same problem because as a consumer we can all relate to this. You call up, for instance, your financial institution one day and they transfer you somewhere else and they don't have the information at the fingertip and that's a common challenge. So you talk about this whole customer data integration. Do you see this as a situation where all your systems are actually going to be over time able to share the same customer data, that true 360 degree view and how long will it actually take to get to that vision? And that's a very good question. It is a long term vision that's what we're trying to get to VA. One of the things that we're looking at from a customer data integration standpoint is that we need to get the core common customer data, the identity information, of course, in order for them to use VA, they have to be a veteran or they have to tie to a veteran or a service member. So if we get the core information correct, that's the way we look at it, to build that core piece correctly, what we call the center piece, then we can then link the rest of the information across the enterprise to that core piece. So for example, what we envision is down the road in the next couple of years, we will have a authoritative customer, common customer data, that then information on healthcare, home loan, education benefits and so on can be linked to that core common data so that at any time, any place, anywhere, that if we would like to know how many veterans use in certain VA benefits or services, we will be able to retrieve the same information from the same authoritative source. Excellent, so I want to come back to that and sort of how you applied that, but my colleague, Jeff Kelly, is going to jump in here. He's our lead big data analyst, follows a lot of the technologies that we're talking about, but came from the so-called traditional world. So Jeff, why don't you take it from here? Sure, so yeah, one of the things that struck me in your keynote was you talked about the data silos that you've got in the organization and having covering this world for many years, that's a problem we've been struggling with for quite a while. I wonder if you could delve a little bit more into some of the, not just the technology, but the people in process issues related to breaking down those silos, because, again, having covered this, a lot of the issues revolve around who owns the data and people get very attached to their data sources, sometimes don't want to share them, can lead to meetings half the time being spent arguing over who has the right numbers. How do you address not just the technology, but the people in process issues related to breaking down those silos? The number one thing when we look at how to approach this customer data integration, rather than looking at it from a data and system perspective, we look at it from a business process perspective. So we're looking at what is the mission of the department, we're looking at what it is that we try to deliver in term of business and services, and we work backward from there and identify where do we need to capture the data to support each step of the business processes across VA. And by doing that, we can quickly find out where we have multiple sources of authoritative data that we need to integrate and consolidate, but also at the same time, because it is business driven, we know what data is critical to the business process and what data is basically just not necessarily non-value added, but not critical to the mission, so we can decide the priority of how we approach the integration aspect. The other thing that we look at is that in order to change the mindset of a multi-faceted organization, is the number one thing that must be changed is the culture, and that's the most difficult part, but rather than deal with it from an individual organization perspective, the way we look at it is we bring up the value proposition of what is in it for our clients if we have a customer data integration environment. So when you start talking about what is in it for the veterans and the family and the service member, that is where folks really understand that what we need to do to support the client is more important than anything that have to do with our individual organization, and that's the reason why we approach it from a business process standpoint, but also from a what is in it for the veterans and the family member at the end of the day? You showed a little insert, a little picture in a picture on your slides of the business process map, and you can't really read it because it's obviously the VA's business process map is quite complex, I'm sure. How did you actually document that? It didn't just fall out of the sky, I mean you presumably had to really think through the business processes, the interdependencies, how you actually organized that taxonomy. How did you go about that? What we basically did was we approached it from the business process by reaching out directly to the folks who really understand the benefits and service delivery that we need to do in VA. Like I said during my speech today, that when we look at business people, there are business people with data background, business people with IT background, and then there are the business people who truly understand the business processes. So what we did was we have a team that create a standard interview template where we reach out to over 100 subject matter experts across the VA business line, and we document every single business process, and then we go back and reach out to the subject matter experts that understand the data in the business process and capture the metadata that are beneath the data that are being used to support the business process, and we look at it from the standpoint of in the business process, you have the actors, and then you have the process staff themselves. So we identify who is doing the work or who is responsible for that business process, and in some case, the actor could be the veteran who might be required to provide some information to VA, and so we identify the actors, and then we identify the processes and the information system, and then we link them all together with the metadata supporting the business process that are being used across VA. So you essentially created a business process map and connected that to a data flow? Yes. And so you can now see where the data flows throughout the organization, what business processes are affected by that data, where there's redundant data and potential areas of risk or error, and then what's the next step? How do you act on that information? Okay, what we do is when we're looking at the business process, at the same time, we have a group of SMEs that start looking at what is the future vision for VA to be an integrated service delivery and benefits delivery organization to our veterans? And so from that future vision, then we were able to identify from the business process standpoint where we have the overlaps but where we also have gaps of information that we might currently not capture that we require the veterans to go out and seek. So using the future vision of where we need to be and the current business process, identify the overlap and the gap, what we are ultimately going to be able to do is to reduce or eliminate the overlaps and utilize the resources that are being used today to create all of these silo overlap and address how the gap will be filled in terms of data and information. And you're talking about the overlaps and data. Now, what about the business process transformation? Is that something that, I mean, obviously it's not your primary role, but does that come out of an exercise like this? Actually, it's a natural fit for something like that to come out of this effort of customer data integration. One of the things we learned that when it comes to customer data integration, it is only a symptom. The problem and the root cause is actually the business process and business integration that we need to transform, to apply and transform the department toward a more integrated business approach. So coming out of this CDI effort, what we are going to see is that we will address not only about the data piece, we will also address about the process, the governance and the data management piece in term of the roles and responsibility and the people, the culture and the process. And all of this are being put together in what we call an integrated roadmap on how to achieve a veteran centric or data environment. So I wonder if we could take that to its kind of logical conclusion. Ultimately, you're trying to improve services for veterans. So maybe could you kind of put some context around how are the improvements you're trying to achieve with CDI in a really customer centric view? How is that going to translate to supporting the veterans and the various services you supply in a better way? What will their experience look like when you've maybe five years from now and we're further down this road versus what it looks like today? Okay. Our clients are basically coming out of the military. So that information is currently captured by the Department of Defense. In order for you to become a veteran, you have to serve in the military. So we ultimately, we will know ahead of time before someone potentially will become our client. So the way we envision it is that someday when we get, when we have a CDI, a customer data integration environment in place, is that we will reduce the burden on the veterans or his or her family to have to come up with proof of service, to have to come up with what we call demographic and contact and military service history and come to VA and apply for benefits or services. That when we have a customer data integration environment, it will enable us to have that information early and upfront that will allow us to proactively provide benefits or service or at least will reduce the burden on the veteran to have to come up with that information themselves and provided their proof of service when they come to VA. Number one, number two, our vision is that someday when we have the CDI environment in place, we will enable self-service. Where veterans can come and retrieve his or her information on his or her benefits usage in VA and be able to access that information or will be able to update his or her personal information or contact information online. Today, we are not quite there yet, but what we've seen is the reducing of the burden and also will help improve the business process long term that will enable us to be able to more efficiently effectively deliver benefits and service in a short period of time frame. You had some great one-liners in your discussion today. One I love is don't try to kick in the door in one shot. You might break your foot and you were talking about communication and management by and you can't do what you do and take on such a large initiative without making some mistakes.  The biggest lesson that we have learned is that it's not always about technology. The people factor is the hardest to change and the people factor involved, not just folks that are in senior position, but in order for us to really transform VA, we have to be able to pull ourselves together as a one VA approach and that's included from the senior leadership all the way down to the folks who are doing the work out in the trench. And so one of the things that we push for is to help shape the culture and change the culture by messaging. One of the most important things that we have learned is strategic communication. Oftentimes we take it for granted that we communicate after we come up with a solution or we communicate after we already come up with an idea or a plan. One of the things that we learned that have been very effective for us is we communicate early and often in the process. At the end of the day, although we are data folks and we might not be used to it, but at the end of the day, marketing is very important. And when I say marketing, that's in line with what we call strategic communication. Have an idea, you have to have the value proposition and you have to be able to communicate that at all level from all different perspective so that the technical folks would understand it, the business folks would understand it, what I'd like to call the pedestrian term. If you can communicate your idea and what you're trying to do in pedestrian term when anyone who look at the business plan or the operating plan and say, got it, that's right on target and that is success. That's great advice and certainly we deal with a lot of IT folks and IT folks by their very nature are not marketing folks. So they tend to not communicate early and often and so I think the advice really applies throughout the organization, especially in those roles where you're not used to going out and promoting yourself, so fantastic. Well, Dad, I really appreciate you coming here today and being here at the MIT Information Quality Symposium. It was really a pleasure meeting you. Thank you, Nick. Thank you, Jeff. All right, keep it right there, buddy. We're going to be right back with Michael Nix who is the Director of Analytics at Fletcher Allen Healthcare. This is theCUBE, I'm Dave Vellante here with Jeff Kelly. You can tweet me, I'm at D. Vellante. He's at Jeffrey F. Kelly. Keep it right there. This is Silicon Angles theCUBE. We'll be right back.