If I can ask you to bring your chairs from the gallery, that would be helpful. First round. First round host. Yeah, no problem. So we're really going to try and hold out, say, the top three recommendations. What rose to the top as being really strategic. So if you can set the tone for that, that'd be awesome. Yeah. Do we have one more round one host among us? Round one host, another chair then. So I think we're all here and we're moving into this half hour of hearing back from the hosts of each round of conversations and then into the close until 5.30 which will be followed by the reception. So I wonder if Christine could start. Christine was addressing the theme around theater education. What we're going to ask each host to do is respond to these questions and what we're really looking for are the three recommendations that rose to the top. Had a lot of energy or really seem most strategic. So give us those or take two minutes, whichever is your preference, but I do have to call time at two minutes. Thanks. Okay, hi, I'm going to stand up because I'm just used to that. So we talked about a lot of strategies, but I think the one that stood out the most in terms of how to transform education so that equity is central is the idea that we need to empower and encourage our students to find their own voices and to learn that their stories matter because as we talked a lot about the opposite of that, experiences where somebody was the only one of their kind in their program and they never saw anything reflected on stage that mirrored their experience. How do we actually teach our students that they matter and that their voices are important if they never see themselves reflected? So three key strategies to help with that or recommendations for action. One is to teach that every play is an identity play. That idea came from this morning, right? So that it's not just that these are plays and these are sort of specialty plays. All plays come from a very specific cultural identity and positionality and that we need to teach every play that way. Two, equity in education means equal time in the curricula. So we spent a lot of time talking about who we're going to have to check. Check off. Shakespeare move over. You can be there, but you can't have the lion's share of the time on the syllabus. You have to share the time with artists of color and LGBT in First Nations and what if we spend the same amount of time on First Nations playwrights that we spend on check off. Number three, give students the opportunity to step into someone else's shoes, especially in performance training. We talked about what it would be like for example for a European student to play a role that was written for a non-European person. What would be like for a woman to play a role that was written for a man and maybe that would be more challenging to do on a main stage, but in a classroom setting that could be a form of knowledge to actually get inside someone else's story and learn about it from the inside, not just from an intellectual position. And those are our ideas. So we'll just pass the mic and if you could be sure to state your theme so that AFTAB gets it. Hello. Terry and I co-chaired a discussion on biases and barriers in the industry and an idea that came up is the triumvirate that exists between ideas, the individual artist or creator and the systemic, the systems, the idea that ideas resonate with an individual. The individual artistic director or decision maker has the opportunity to program a season, has the opportunity to make decisions and that this feeds back into what gets out in the public, what is appreciated, this triumvirate. And we delved into a few of the biases and barriers that come up. One is audiences and we think we know what our audiences want, but a lot of the time they are more accepting of work than we will give them credit for. Our relationship with business models and ways of creating the idea that an eight-hour rehearsal day is not as practical for parents, for example, that creating the space in rehearsal room for inclusivity for babies in the rehearsal room, ways of opening up how we rehearse and the way women are socialized to see ourselves, which makes us not as good at self-promotion as men are to submit our work, to not take rejection personally and put ourselves out there. And I'm going to pass it on to Teri now. So I would just share some notes that we made about the deepening of some of those ideas. We didn't have time to expand on all of them. So yes, there were the three points of inquiry and then there were basically three major relationships that we looked at and I'd say relationship with the business model of theatre was one of the big ones and underneath that could come relationships with unions, with funders. There was some talk about getting different unions to work together on agreements, building trust amongst these organizations, allocation of time and energy to work on these initiatives, more buy-in or engagement of the membership and lobbying for language, that kind of thing. There's also the relationship with the audience, making sure that the different voices in the audiences are represented, creating an appetite for women's work amongst our audiences. Activist actions, boycotting theatres without women, like first weekend, relationships with funders and, what do they have, playwrights and directors. So relationships really is the takeaway from this too. Hi, I'm Nora. The topic was men engaged in equity and one of the great things about the group was we had multi-generation and lots of men and lots of women. One of the great things that started the conversation was that, and it came from a white male that he said, white men in the theatre are the fossil fuels of the theatre. They are efficient now and the death knell later, which I thought was incredible. And so the solutions that were some of the things that we came up with were blind reading, asking the people that read plays, the dramaturgies to read without knowing who's on the title, whether it be male or female, education from the womb for both male and female to be able to have that understanding of gender equality and equality and equity in all forms. And I think you guys, you addressed this on your panel, that the audience is our first judge, not necessarily our peers and our critics, that our audiences are, and we get the audience we deserve. It was brought up in the Tim Dang theory of the 51% plays by women and prisons of color. And we sort of thought, and maybe that's an American idea, that what's the golden bra? Yeah, the dramaturg. That when a presenter does do 51% that they're given the golden bra as an incentive as opposed to we're ordering you. That didn't seem to go over very well, like you have to do 51%. To be more inclusive, and asking men to take less for a while, to sacrifice less from their directors, designers, writers, to just do less and give women more. And for the younger generation, thank you for saying that they wanted to be involved in finding out ways of doing that, being men who are up and coming. Thank you. Thank you. Mentorships that lead to action, or action mentorships, a very hard working group that immediately went into action. So our strategies are a mentorship clearinghouse where people who can be mentors and people who wish to be mentored can all sign up and state their qualifications. We thought, in fact, this group might take this on, which means investigating some money for it, modeled on the senior artist thing that's happening right now where senior artists are being paid to mentor others. And this would be in all artistic disciplines. Part of this might also include a speed dating thing with mentees and mentors, and a module on how to make the best use of the mentorship. So to look into funding for such a thing, to implement it, to make it happen. A commitment that I heard from the Theater Museum is to have a module where senior people are mentoring in some of these interview tapes, and it might have a live audience that could ask the central figure questions. And of course, since it's all on tape, then it would be available to all people throughout time and history. And a final thing... Oh, no, this is a final thing. Who else needs to be in the room? This room. Unions. And what we would be working up to is technical apprenticeships, mainly, for women. A commitment to technical apprentice in the technical trades for women. It would be a kind of a quota. So we have to get the unions in the room first. Thank you.  So we were talking about restructuring Canadian theater so women can participate. Four areas. The first was structuring the work day and the work week. We talked to Kelly Thornton from Nightwood and some others have experience with the permission of the company, reorganizing a three-week rehearsal period into four weeks or a four into five. People don't know they can do that, and there's some barriers. So let's educate people about why they should do it and how they can do it and try to overcome those barriers. Second, women are not as good at negotiating. They tend not to negotiate well for themselves. I'm saying things that other people have said in an ideal world. Perhaps EIT with Playwrights Guild of Canada, CAEA could have workshops teaching women how to negotiate better. Third, sort of alternate performance environments. We talked about how cool it is to go to the Dream and High Park where you eat, you drink, the kids talk. It's not the end of the world. Canadian Stage has an afternoon, I think, where they offer babysitting to Quota Lean if you can leave your kid with Ikea.  And the fourth thing is the thorniest part, and that's boards, boards, boards, boards. And if you're going to restructure Canadian theater, you'll have to restructure boards. And just to say about that, boards tend to replicate what they've got, not surprisingly, themselves and the people they hire. And if you have 10 volunteers with no professional experience who have all the power, that's a real barrier against restructuring. And I have to, most of my group didn't hear this, if you're my Facebook friend, you heard this. I was marking papers yesterday and I came across the student who said, the process of explaining to people in authority what they don't know is fraught with risk. And that, I think, says it all about the boards in this country. So specific recommendations. San Francisco, there's a group in San Francisco that has developed a childcare pool and you apply to get childcare subsidy also around boards. Let's make sure, there's a piece about educating boards in general. Let's make sure that all of the companies, the very least all the PAC companies, start to educate their boards about issues of equity in general and gender equity in particular and suggest that they have some way of reimbursing childcare for single parents or parents that don't have any other way of leaving their children. Checklist with boards. Make sure EIT, PAC, et cetera, especially because the PAC conference is going to be here in a month, that companies know that there are alternate forms of rehearsal that can work. And the workshops on negotiating skills, that was us. So the question was about getting buy-in that appeals to self-interest and the conversation went off in two directions. So I'm trying to ride two horses with one behind here. The two areas that we need to get buy-in from are the people in power who hold the reins to performance and then also audiences. And for the people within the sector who have power, I mean, we decided plain and simple that box office was the most obvious self-interested buy-in and that maybe we should do a little bit more work about looking at how do high-female projects specifically compare in terms of generating box office, not just are there more women audiences but do women's projects bring out women's audiences? I think we only have anecdotal evidence. And in terms of for audiences, we thought that it would be very wise to remind people that theater is a window on the working of other minds and that there are many people who could use greater insight into their wives, mothers, daughters, neighbors. The recommendations to do that that seemed most promising. In all cases, we thought that probably one-on-one engagement, a concerted effort by all of the individuals in this room to reach one individual would begin to affect some change. And then we also thought that increasing profile of women's projects would also help both parties buy-in, one from a curiosity viewpoint, the other again from looking to leverage box office. There are several ways that we could do that. Pooling resources towards excellence in theater by women, really identifying excellence and supporting it more strongly and also to strengthen a woman's network so that there would be improved mentorship, which would up the learning curve. And again, these are initiatives mentioned by others which was creating lists of excellent proven work that other theaters and audience members could capitalize on when making their choices. Thanks very much. Sorry, guys. I just also, in terms of the men engaged in equity, it was one of the most important things, this program Kilroy's, which was finding plays written by women as an asset, and I just wanted to mention it, that there will be hopefully a panel struck on that. Thank you all. And so the hosts from round two are going to join us. I'm going to move over here. And I noticed that we are starting to, people are feeling a bit that it's the end of the day. I can see that on their faces. So I'm going to ask you to tell us what you explored and cut to the recommendations for collective action that seem most promising and powerful. Okay. And I, you know, I got a clear signal from the other group that I'm not to be ringing bells. So we're going to keep this moving through and then hear from our panel again. Thank you. Individual. While we were trying to talk about individual donors, it actually was hard to stay on point, which I think is part of the issue in terms of the, that it's very hard for women to think about money and asking for money. But we, I did establish women donors do exist. Even at the million dollar level, there's a group called women moving millions in, that's women around the U.S. that are giving it, and in Canada that are giving in that level. And there are women's foundations around the obstacles. Evidently in Canada, there's not a good physical sponsorship program in the United States. Individual artists can fairly easily get an organization to sponsor them so that they can raise money for their project. And so Canada needs something like that. Evidently there's work being done on that now. There's a lack of knowledge about how to identify donors or talk to them once you have identified them. And that's something where it just seems we need workshops not about grant writing, but specifically about how to go after individual donors and what the strategies are and how to cope with issues of gender or class or race in those conversations when you're with very wealthy people who may be from a very different background than you are. Collaborative, in terms of recommendations, collaborative approaches might work better if you could have a group working together. And then also to link with people who are already cultivating women donors which might be the women's foundations in your area, the women's colleges in your area, any organization, your potential sponsors might be people who run corporations that create products for women. So that's something to think about. So is depatriarchalization a real word and what do we do about it? I'm still wrapping my mind around all of this so if I'm saying something wrong, one of my committee, please just scream it out. The first thing is to understand that in history that matriarchal societies, they did exist throughout history to study how they worked and to also understand that these matriarchal societies do still exist today. And it's interesting to note that the men do not feel oppressed in them. Depatriarchal, you know what I'm saying, models already exist in different traditions. And we talked about, in terms of being an artist, how to find new dramatic dramaturgical structures for playwriting to follow that are not patriarchal. For example, the male structure that we currently employ now is the rising action, the big climax, and the falling action. But to look at other dramatic structures, for example, with women, how we can write in a more circular narrative and have orgasms throughout the play. Okay. From the depatriarchalizing, from an administrative point of view, it wasn't so much for us about throwing the baby out with the bathwater, although I understand that is a big fear for white men. So we're not trying to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but we're trying to depate, part pitch, whatever, how decisions are made. Just to depatriarchalize how decisions are made. One good thing is just sitting in a circle. That's a good way to start. Okay. And we're not trying to put women in a man's role. We're not trying to put Sandra Bullock in Ben Affleck's role to do what the men are doing. No. We don't even want to return to a matriarchal society. What we want is an equitable society, looking at the deep-seated reasons why we are existing the way that we are existing and doing things the way that we are doing and understanding ourselves better so that we can leap into a new future of equality. Yeah. Okay. I just took this to another level. So you all get the idea. Just to learn from our past, appreciate and understand our past and use that to shape the future going forward. We talked downstairs in the cafe about fear and sort of identified this issue as a fear not only on the part of the individual artist who may be speaking to an artistic director or artistic decision maker, but also the fear on the part of that artistic decision maker who is being asked to change so that there are fears on both sides, yes. And a few things that were identified as strategies. Starting by having conversations with the people who may not currently be doing the right thing, but what we're calling, quote, unquote, the right thing today, but who are people that are friendly, that we already may have a relationship with, talk to those people first, get them to not only change, but then get them to become allies so that then we're changing one at a time. So I change you, you and I then both change to more people who change to more people and so on and so forth. Or we go in together once I've made an ally, then that ally and I go speak to someone who the ally has a relationship with and going from there. Also looking at can groups, such as the Playwrights Guild of Canada speak on behalf of their members when they see a lack of diversity or lack of equity. There's also, let me explain this briefly, for folks, there's something called CADAC. For folks who are not familiar with this, CADAC is a questionnaire that is filled out when one is applying for operations grants and that the CADAC questionnaire does not currently include equity or diversity related questions. Could EIT ask CADAC to add these questions to their questionnaire and diversity audits in general, it was mentioned diversity audits are done in organizations working with the Alberta Arts Council but perhaps could pact as a whole and encourage diversity auditing as a way to see what we're doing here. That's what we've got. So youths as part of the conversation and I guess there are two things that really stood out and we sort of answered the questions off of this. One was representation on stage or lack thereof as to why youths aren't going out in supporting theatre as well as why, I guess, modes. There was two things, it was like youths as part of the conversation as an audience or consumer as well as a creator and an artist. So in both those aspects, not having representation on stage and then the other thing is that we found out there's a generational gap, a mistrust amongst generations so how do we actually bridge that gap? And so some of the actual, I guess, follow-up steps to try to overcome this or at least questions to ask are, first thing would be more mentorship opportunities like PTTP, things like that, perhaps having a pact youth committee. Access points are definitely needed. So access points to easier conversation between youths as well with ADs, mentors, et cetera, things like that. The question of new models of theatre and if we're not seeing our representation of our world on stage, then does the modes of making theatre need to change? And if not, then how do we get them out still? And some of those things were like celebrating our own voices. But I think the one thing at least that resonated with me the most with regards to this is knowing what you want. A lot of artists out there, at least the youths have a lot of questions and a lot of tools that were given. We just don't have a focus, I suppose, as well. So clearly defining how you would know what you want to go and then start applying to programs like the PTTP and things like that to actually start bridging those generational gaps. I suppose that's what we came up with. Thank you. Professional Theatre Training Program. I'll run by Theatre Ontario. On behalf of the OAC. Thank you. The question we looked at was, do we need quotas tied to funding? And there's so much great work done today around grassroots kind of initiatives. And so this was a higher level kind of conversation about some things that might be done at the level of funders and even politically. And we, first of all, we talked a lot about who would that be for, and we wanted boldly accept that we in the arts community, along with our funders, are in the business of social engineering. So that the work that we do and the work that we fund does make a difference in those systemic questions that we're looking at all day today. And one of the strongest recommendations that came forward was that we think of, and later on we can talk about who might do this, EIT or with a bunch of other organizations, to make a rating scale, something like a nutritional label. You know, on the nutritional label you talk about the fats and the curbs and all that kind of stuff, and it has to go on the food. Well, how about a label on the program for the season, and it's around cultural competence. Your power positions, of course, matter more than, yeah, you've got lots of women in your organization, but they're all selling tickets. That doesn't count as much as if you have a woman or a person of color as artistic director or director or playwright. Those are the three power positions that would certainly earn you more points. And there might be a rating scale, and theaters might, those who are doing very, very well on that rating scale might be very proud to put that sticker on their programs, which might apply a little pressure to those that aren't doing so well with that sticker on their programs. And that that particular rating scale might be used when we go looking to foundations that fund things for, you know, that theaters trot out their awards. They've had Dora awards. They've had these other kinds of awards. Well, there's another thing that you can use to prove the worth of your theater company that you have this very high rating that has been created. That's one program. We also talked about lobbying, and it was pointed out to us that there is an overhaul of the Canada Council going on right now, so it's a wonderful opportunity to start lobbying right now for cultural competence to be a part of what they are thinking about as they move forward. And also, our province, Ontario, is creating a new cultural policy and there should be some public consultation going on, and we need to be a part of that through tourism culture and sport in Ontario at least to say that we need to be at the table. So in terms of developing that rating scale, bringing in the stakeholders, those organizations, EIT, PGC, Equity, PACT, and all the others that I don't know and other people can tell me better that need to be at that table and maybe to draw in those partners to create this cultural competence scale. I was taking notes of what you're saying. In Canada, women got the right to vote in 1921. Some women. In 1951, Aboriginal women could vote in their ban councils. In 1960, Aboriginal people became Canadian citizens who could vote. When we talk about matriarchal societies, not all First Nations and Aboriginal people were matriarchal, but many were. I think this illustrates what can happen when capitalism and patriarchy come to town. We were talking about intersectionality. So there are women, there are Aboriginal people, some of those are the same people. We were talking about intersectionality as being versus the status quo, where we've got assumptions of universality. This came up earlier today around the straight white male experience is the thing that we can all relate to. We also talked about intersectionality as countering privilege and the class structure. Someone recommended reading unpacking the NAPSAC, Peggy McIntosh, some required reading. Recommendations were to take the onus on ourselves to learn about a culture or experience unfamiliar to us. And to further that is to not expect a person from that culture to teach you. But again, I will I will say again, take the onus on yourself. Also, that comes in other places that we might recognize like juries that we make up or in the rehearsal hall having more than one artist who represents the community and that this will address hierarchical power structures and it also speaks to the impossible task of any one person representing an entire culture. This requires disruption to the power structures and power systems. This is not easy work. This is the work that often within advocacy and activism, someone will say, we don't have time to do that right now, we're working on this. What else am I saying? Nothing about us without us being part of this work which is another way of encouraging participation and meaningful engagement with cultures, genders, with whatever it is that you're looking at. And I think I think I will leave it there except I will say one thing which is a plug for the Indigenous Performing Arts Alliance is an arts service organization that I have the privilege to run and we are working on a partnership with the National Arts Center and the Bajmajig Creation Center. They are on Manitoulin Island. It's Canada's oldest Aboriginal theater that has a venue and we are going there. It's called the study. It's the history of Indigenous performance on this land. The repast is the final two days. May 14th in the evening 15th and 16th. You're all invited. There is travel that's covered. You can find it at www.ipaa.ca for more information. This is something that's huge for Indigenous performance. We're hiring a local filmmaker and so there will be documentation that's available if you can't join us but I encourage you to check it out. Miigwech. So it feels like we've traveled quite a journey today from a research report and layers of response to it to having the conversations that you felt were necessary to have today before you left. And what I'd like to do is invite this morning's panel members to come and begin to close the day with some reflections based on everything that you've taken in. And to let you know that Michelle did have to leave us earlier because of her flight time. What an incredible day. I'm afraid I've been involved in a number of these styles of events but I have to say this has been one of the most exciting. With action plans, I already am part of a group that's going to do our Canadian version of the Kilroy's and I just like that we're going to be doing things and I'm just incredibly grateful that you've attended and I've learned so much from people who told me things I haven't considered. So I just wanted to respond to one thing, I think just one thing, and that was a question that was raised as to whether a study had been done to see whether women's work was produced more revenue at the box office. Part of Emily Glasberg's I think 2008-2009 study looked at Broadway and looked at the ticket sales because one in every eight women one in every eight playwright whose work is produced on Broadway is a woman. And so in asking question why she looked at the box office receipts to see if that actually made a difference and that was why there were a few women and actually around that women's box office produced 16% more than men's. And even so women were not being produced at a higher level. So it's not about box office. Thank you all so much. I was recently at a symposium in Victoria with professors of theater departments across the country talking about diversity and the programs or lack thereof and how to encounter it. And one of the things that came up that I wanted to share in my earlier remarks was just a growing thing that I'm discovering in various conversations I've been having with people across the country and in the states that diversity makes our work better. It makes it more exciting. It makes it more complex. So it's not about being responsible or accommodating people or being politically correct which are often the things that trigger me. I don't want to be accommodated. I want to be seen and I want to be heard. And so the more we can look at being inclusive in our work along gender lines, along age, class, diversity of style, the more exciting, the more opportunity there is to push ourselves and create really new exciting work. And if every company genuinely makes itself accountable to the belief that doing things differently and having different perspectives makes our artistic work better then I believe we will discover far different ways of working to be more diverse, that will be more inclusive and will develop the skills that we need to be respectful, equitable and accountable as artists, regardless of our gender, ethnicity, et cetera far faster and more efficiently than any legislative or policy driven change can make. We talked a lot about personal relationships one on one and it's something I think women are very good at doing and I think it's about creating space within the larger organizations to have those conversations, creating the time, taking the time and because those conversations themselves are exciting and do a lot, go quite far, quite quickly. Today has been a really great day for women and artists of color in Canadian theater and the U.S. as well, like the fact that we have so many U.S. artists here is great to see. I've been absorbing everything through the day and I think the study has a lot of the answers and I think we've discussed them in depth in the little groups that we've broken into and I think now it's just about action and making it happen. If we do support women and if we do support artists of color the work will just be richer and better for everybody not just for women and artists of color but for everybody in theater. I got a lot of questions about my whole thing of did I do good or bad by creating a company for a culturally specific community and I know that I did good. I know that I affected lives and artists grew out of that and all of that but I leave this question with you if there were no companies such as mine or Obsidian or Fujian or Nightwood where would we be? I don't know the answer to that. I'm still struggling with that but would it make it better if we didn't have those companies and we as artists had to just go out and work in theater or do we continue creating these companies so that we can continue to grow our communities and develop our playwrights and our artists and mentor and that's all. Thank you. I just got to do one last piece before I bring Connie back to close us for a day Yes? Okay good. So this has already been touched on but we've spent the afternoon talking about collective actions, things that we could do as the playwrights' guild or as groups within it and several of you have also talked about individual actions how we might individually do things differently and I just want to spend a little bit more time in that individual action space and this kind of comes from this notion of we can be part of the solution if we are not also part of the problem and so to just kind of think for a minute about how is it that we are part of this problem and is there something that we realize today about what we need to do differently as individuals that might make a difference also to our system so I'm going to suggest that we just think about it for like 30 seconds or a minute however long it takes and then if you have something like that and it would start probably with I realize that I need to da-da-da or I have an insight that I should do da-da-da if you have one like that I'm going to ask you that you start stand up and you say it and if anybody else also had something similar to that they will also stand up with you and say it but other people can stand up with you and join you in your personal action commitment so we'll just give it a minute and see what comes out I've had something similar to that please stand up the courage to advocate on behalf of other people one on one yes great great okay so next time I'm going to go next time I'm going to go sit in a very nice very nice I will celebrate women artists more if you agree with that make sure you stand up Thank you and maybe some will sign up for the event great anything else yes if you feel that duty also please stand up to speak up for the women also who come after you stand up if you had a similar insight beautiful thank you great so I'm gonna ask for the support I need and I'm not gonna do it without the money like I'm not gonna do it if you had a similar thing I'm gonna expect it I'm gonna stand up for myself nice okay and is there any burning ones before we stop yes one last one beautiful anybody have a similar much nice thank you very much great I'm gonna give to Connie to make any any final comments your own insights and commitments if you would like thank you thank you for such an amazing day mind-blowing in all the right sorts of ways I have lots of inspired to act on lots of directives personally but also on behalf of the Guild I think that there's so much the playwrights Guild can do many suggestions that have come up today and I think one of the things that the playwrights Guild can do is promote create better relationships between playwrights I'll speak you know I think this applies to all relationships in the theater but to try to broker better relationships between playwrights between individual artists and theater companies and those relationships are we talked about that a lot today in many different ways and I I also want to say that I feel a surge of optimism which one doesn't always feel at the end of these events because and it's partly because thinking change may be possible I come from a province I'm from Alberta where a Tory dynasty has been we've had a conservative government for 44 years and it's the latest polls are indicating the NDP is leading in the polls and Alberta cannot imagine how insane this is so really and truly and and she and she's the only woman the other party leaders are male and she just destroyed the other leaders in the televised debate the other night all lovely to see and you know what even if she doesn't win the election and really anything could happen yet inroads have been made and honestly you would not believe how much optimism that gives me and I feel full of optimism for the changes we can make as a result of today and the initiatives that have come forward now I have the great privilege Rebecca tasked me with being able to list to express gratitude to the people who helped today happen and this whole initiative first of all this EIT is the brainchild of two magnificent women who not only had a blinding epiphany about doing this but they followed through huge and one of them is PGC's Rebecca Burton and the other is yes and her partner in this venture Lane Zeisman Newman brava brava brava come and feel the love Lane okay just I'm going to go through that there's a huge long list of partners and funders so equity and theater partners artists driving holistic organ organizational change Donna Michelle St. Bernard associated designers of Canada Sheila sky Canada Canadian Actors Equity Association Arden Rishpan Lynn McQueen and Sedina Fiatty cultural pluralism in the arts movement Ontario Charles C Smith indigenous performing art pardon me performing arts Alliance Cole a this and Lena recollect literary managers and dramaturgs of the Americas Canada Joanna Falk path the dog theater creation Lisa O'Connell and Lane Newman playwright guilds of playwrights Guild of Canada are wonderful Rebecca of course and the wonderful Janet Jenny egregory she's here somewhere playwrights theater center Heidi Taylor professional association of Canadian theaters Meg Shannon and Aliyah Marchie the funders Canada Council for the arts who funded context consulting facilitation and and the symposium today why we're here today and thank you to our wonderful facilitators by the way some very creative ideas for making this event productive and your artwork really it was like watching the side of a building fantastic Ontario Arts Council who funded the research report and the symposium Ontario Trillium Foundation who found funded the research report and the website and the Metcalf Foundation who funded Jenny's internship with EIT and finally our host the theater center so brava brava brava and there's a reception right there's a reception


On the breakfast ahead of the 2023 elections, Niger's inspector General Police says no state governor will be allowed to prevent opposition political parties from holding rallies in the states. This comes as the River State has passed a new bill stopping prohibiting political parties from engaging in certain activities. We look at what the situation is in River State as it relates to the order of the Inspector General of the Niger Police Force. Also on the breakfast we'll be talking sports with Monday Thumbnaz, the sports journalist, this morning. And of course we have a look at what the news whippers have for us today, looking at the front pages and the big stories with analysis coming up next. We're back with a breakfast and plus TV Africa, very good morning to you my name is Kofi Bartels. And I am messy in Boko, it's good to be back in your squander this morning. Yes indeed a beautiful Friday morning and we have a lot to talk about. We'll be getting into the heat of things especially. I'm looking forward to the topic, topic number one. I'm looking forward to it you know and let's see what I guess we'll say. But before we get into that, as usual we'll tell you to sit back, relax and enjoy a cup of tea or coffee. Even if it's wartime you can afford and just you know enjoy the show. Merci. I was coming to work this morning the the cab that dropped me in work. Okay the taxi that dropped me off at work this morning. He was complaining you know about when he was in Lagos traffic you know at around 6 a.m. he was complaining and he said how would he spend the night in a queue at a petrol station only to come and burn the fuel on the traffic in the morning and he didn't find it funny at all. So simply shows people are still sleeping in the queues and people are still. So how many hours did you spend on the queue? Said he worked all night and went there at about 4 a.m. and he was able to get fuel at about 6 a.m. you know that's when he got the fuel. What time did he hit the road? He hit at 6. So it shows that people are still queuing and they're still having a lot of difficulties. I also saw a very long queue on my way and I thought that we had you know overcome all of that especially when the DSS had mentioned that they had given an ultimatum and the National Assembly also had said hey and the PC should reduce you know the prize or has also given an ultimatum that there should be petrol being sold out but I don't think that that's addressing the issue it's quite unfortunate because the cost of transportation has gone you know it's on the high as we speak right now and like we would always say I remember once upon a time we had the Vox Pop which will always you know leave and be relevant you know the cost of leaving is on the high people are pretty upset and you know salaries have actually not gone up so but it's well let's get a top a first up training segment story rather this is somebody who you know how my friend Al-Hajimu and Bidahirah Saradokubu you know how he normally would them you know would talk you say you think say day-wise he had an interview he said you think say day-wise? Seventy-year-old man, you know this guy who can say the situation is you think say day-wise situation. Mercy and imagine we have a uniformed public seven, a public, yeah, public seven, making $40,000 every day. You know, I was calculating this thing while going through the story. If you make $40,000 every day, and in a week, let's say it works Monday to Friday, you make $200,000, and in a month, you make $800,000. I said, oh my God, look at him. He thinks he's a day wife. This is an official of the Legal State Traffic Management Authority who has been arrested.  He's not appointed by the agency. He's not, you know, nothing. And he confirms that he makes an average of $40,000 naira daily. Just like that. Just like that. $40,000 naira daily. The Legal State Traffic Management Agency would have a statement through its public affairs department. And the director of that department confirmed that this young man, you know, was not by the agency's patrol team while on duty monitoring and controlling traffic around the leaky axis. You know, in the commence investigations and the investigations revealed that he belonged to a criminal gang that has been extorting huge sums of money from innocent motorists who they apprehend for various traffic offenses. Ranging from seat belts, offends, obstruction, illegal overtaking, and one-way driving at different locations in Legal State. I think we'll leave it at that. But he was fully kitted. Fully kitted with last-minute uniform. But he was wearing a black jean. That's it. That's how he was spotted. That's how he thinks he's a day wife. He was wearing black jean. But I mean, Kofi, for how long did he continue with this, you know, scheme until he was caught? You can only imagine, right? You can only imagine that that had happened for a very long time before he was apprehended. Now, one of the comments I got to me was one that I read, you know, when this news broke out, was the fact that look at how he looks. It's almost saying, ah, this young man is ending 40K in a day, and he's looking like this. Why is he looking like this? But that's, you know, that's on the one hand. But to be very honest, it brings us to the issue of impersonation. Impersonation is one thing that's been going on, you know, in the system, especially the security or uniform system, if you like to say. Now, it won't be the first time we're hearing that some persons have been apprehended. You have fake police officers, fake military officers. How did they, how were they able to man over the system? How were they able to, you know, go ahead and look very authentic without identification? It just shows that there's a lot that needs to be done to close the gap, right? We need to find a means of identification. We need to be able to get to that point where we ensure that the original can be spotted.  That's it. So that when you, apparently, I mean, at what point did we discover that he was wearing black on the upper parts? Because usually the other color would be like a maroon color, because that's what they wear. So it's like a maroon over a lighter shade of yellow or cream color if you want to say that's the uniform. So I think we need to do a lot and that's why we constantly say that as a country we can continue to be reactive. We have to be proactive because people are thinking ahead. We haven't think ahead of this, you know, element to take advantage of the system.  It's unfortunate, but let this be. I hope that we can learn something from this and we can put our arcs together as a country and every security aspect. There's another story perhaps to this one where, you know, a militia officer was apprehended, fake one of that. He was about to, you know, fly an aircraft. It's an aircraft or maybe, you know, a jet or they're about just imagine how were they able to replicate, you know, this outfit and look original.  That's because you have to expose them over time to do a regional. But maybe we'll have to have something very distinct because for Nigerians I think that, you know, we're extra. We're just very talented, smart and what have you. People are thinking 100, you know, yards ahead of you. So we have to double up as a people, as a government. Kofi? Yes. Well, there's nothing much to add except to say that the last few officials who arrested him, you know, they have also themselves a question to answer. Is it that, you know, this criminal sort of opportunity? How did he know that it could make that amount of money every day? How is it that the drivers, the vehicle owners who were apprehended for these crimes paid directly to him? There's something in this. It means, I mean, if there is no demand, there will be no supply, okay? Or if there is no supply, you know, you can't do a demand. So this to me is a pure demand and supply situation. And it's an indictment. It's almost like the last few officials reporting themselves. It's an indictment on last month to say, well, it says motorists out there. I used to pay in money directly to the last official. When we know if you have a fine paying to the government account, you know, it's supposed to give any public official money directly. It's against the code of conduct. And it is against the modus operandi or the workflow of last month. Legal State Traffic Management Agency.  All right, that's number one. Why is it they're comfortable to pay this money to the official? Number two, how come an official or, sorry, this fake official, remember the public is so comfortable and confident that he can make money off the public?  Let me go and stand there. It shows that these officials, it actually proves what people have been complaining about all along. All these weeks, months and years. Right. The last one officials have turned their job into a money-making venture where they enrich themselves. You know, they enrich themselves. And for me, that is the bigger the bigger, because it doesn't make any meaning. It doesn't mean anything if the agency arrests this fake officer and puts him behind and prosecutes him or hands him over to the police. If their own officials continue to do the things that we know they're doing, okay, if they continue to do the things you know they're doing, then what's the use? There's no difference now. For me and the public, it means that we are still paying, you know, money to last-minute officials when we shouldn't be paying those monies, okay. They are stipulated fines for stipulated crimes. So if your officials last-minute keep collecting money from negotiations, Nigerians, road users into their pockets, then what difference does it make when you catch a hoodlum? It means your officials are also equally hoodlums, you're also criminals, because it's against the law for you as a public officer to collect money from any member of the public in the cause of discharging your duties. It is wrong. So what I would like to say is LASMA needs to do some soul searching, okay. Then there's some soul searching to find out what's going on and to talk to themselves and to go after officers, you know. Abroad, even in Nigeria, but we know the police doesn't do it well. Abroad you have what we call internal affairs in the US police, you know. You see the movies now, right? We have internal affairs where they investigate their own officers, all right. In the Nigerian police force we call it, we have what we call the Department of the Office of the Provost Marshall, who is meant to also investigate police officers because they don't do it except we take cases to them. So LASMA needs to have, if they don't have it already, a mechanism internally to catch the officers who collect money. You know, when they do that, when they do that, I'll be interested. This one is okay, but it doesn't make any difference to me if your officials still collect money. I know that we need to move on to the next conversation because we're out of time, but just quickly to add to that, you also cannot take out the fact that if you look at some of the security officers who are expected to implement the law, let's begin to look at the salary structure. Now, this is not to make an excuse, right? I'm not trying to hold brief for them. You have raised a very valid and resilient point, especially the fact that they're not supposed to collect, but I've witnessed a scenario. Now, this is what usually takes place.  And the people or the Nigerian, you know, the person who is a corporate knows that you're expected to pay a certain amount. Let's say the law that you broke is expected that you pay fine of 200,000. There's always, you know, more like a negotiation. There's a bid. Someone tells you, okay, if I take you to the office now, you're going to pay 200,000. But there's also another. So it gives you an office. But when the officer tells you that if I take you to the office, you're going to pay 200,000. It's already suggestive that there's an option. And so you as a person, you as a Nigerian that you are as a legation, begin to consider the other option, which means that that's possible that you can negotiate. And the negotiation would mean that, okay, what can you offer? You get into the talk of, why don't I give you 50,000? And you're like, no, I have to take you. I have to take you. Then they begin to pull off that stunt. Eventually they enter about saying, because you don't want to go to the station, they would let you know what it would take.  We're taking you to the office. It's not going to be easy. And all of that, whatever you. And so the person in question is in a hurry. They don't want to be apprehended. They don't want to be caught up in all of that space because of the stress it would cause. And so then they're up for the easy way. And so they say, okay, I have 50,000. Can we just do this with 50,000? And so it goes on. Now, we'll have moved beyond the fact where people begin to collect money. No one wants to collect money directly because they know that the media is there when there are social media that would be recording and what have you. And so say, hey, you do a transfer. What have you? They're probably not sending it to their direct account. There's an account that I can send to. But these are all of the gimmicks. But as much as we say we want to fight corruption and corrupt practices amongst ourselves, institution of government, I think that the government also needs to do her bid. We need to be in a situation where these persons are probably taking care of now. As a disclaimer, I'm not trying to endorse corruption and corrupt practices. But we're saying that poverty and corruption is like a twin. It's a cousin that work hand in hand. And there's no way you're going to talk about that without the other. So let's also do better. As much as we want to see better in the systems as government, then we also need to do better with these offices. But quickly let's move on to the next one. It's quite saddening, but it's a phenomenon that must happen to everyone that leaves. We all will die. And someday I would also die. But the question that a lot of people ask and people constantly say, what will you be remembered for? We talk about legacy. We talk about how you live your life. What will you be remembered for? These are some of the issues. However, fortunately, Nigeria has lost her ambassador to Spain. Demola Seriki died in Spain after a brief illness. And this is according to an announcement that has been put out by his son via social media platform. Very unfortunate. And we pray that he's all rest in peace. All right. Demola Seriki is, of course, Nigeria's ambassador to Spain. He died at the age of 63 in the Spanish capital Madrid. And of course, he was set up, died in the early hours of the day. It's really saddening. This is what the family said, quote, it is with heavy hearts and profound gratitude to Almighty Allah that we announce the loss of our much loved and admired patriarch, husband, father, grandfather, brother, uncle, friend, his ex-sister, Demola Seriki on December 15, 2022. He passed away peacefully surrounded by his family in Madrid, Spain. So some facts about him. He was born on November 13, 1959. He was a politician, teacher, businessman, and public administrator. He served until his death as a Nigerian ambassador to Spain. A position he assumed in January 2021 with concurrent accreditation as a permanent representative to the United Nations World Tourism Organization. He previously served as Nigeria's minister of state for defense. So he's had a distinguished career in politics and national service. He was, I think he was part, he tried to get into the Senate, you know, you know, in his part on APC's platform. You know, he had some issues with Amcon and all that, but we won't go into that now. Let's allow the family more on him, you know, before we had all those things. So, but seven things, you know, about the man, of course, until his death. Like we said, he was Nigeria's ambassador to the Kingdom of Spain with concurrent accreditation as permanent representative to the United Nations World Tourism Organization. Demula Sirke was born on Lagos Island on November 13, 1959. He had his early education in Nigeria and later proceeded for undergraduate and postgraduate studies in the United States of America as BSE and MSC in accounting from the City University of New York in the United States of America. He was a grassroots politician. He was a grassroots politician. He began his career as a clerical officer at Lagos City Council, Lagos Island in 1978. Quite a long and distinguished career in politics. At a national level Sirke was a former minister of agriculture and water resources. He was also former minister of state for defense, minister of mines and steel development, and also interior. So he held those portfolios. Quite distinguished. In May 2009, the oba of Lagos, his Royal Highness Oba Rewana Keolu confirmed on Demula Sirke the chieftainty title of the Otua Are of Lagos. And of course he is survived by wives and children, a really sad one, a very handsome man. You know, and he said, the go-sion through and through. So we say May his soul rest in peace. I think that's so much. I will say about that. He died too early, but May's soul rest in peace. He's achieved what he can and he's achieved a lot. And he's written his name on the sons of time. His achievements in the annals of the of legal state, government, public service and politics are well documented. I mean, I hope that at 63 I'll be able to say I also achieved something equal to him. He's done his bit. And I know his family will miss him. I know members of his community will miss him. His constituents will miss him. I would have loved to have seen him in the Senate. You know, it would have been a nice addition from the looks of it, from his experience to robust conversations on the floor of the red chamber. But May's soul rest in peace. All right. We'll leave it at that. Before I go, mercy, are you aware that Nigeria voted, because Demula was a permanent representative to the World Trade Tourism Organization. That's the United Nations body, you know. And it is one of the organs under one of the, it's one of the, what do you call it again, the subsidiary organizations, the WTO, under the one of the six arms, main arms of the UN. We have six main arms of the UN, like the UN General Assembly, UN Security Council, you know, and all that. One of them is the Economic, United Nations Economic and Social Council, OK, ECOSOC, Economic and Social Council. They had a vote yesterday to remove Iran, the Islamic Republic of Iran, from the UN's commission on the status of women. That is also another commission under ECOSOC, which is the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. Why were they having this vote? The United Nations made a proposal, OK, a resolution or a proposal saying that Iran, because of the current protests against the killing of Misa Hamini, the Iranian woman who was, who died in police custody after being arrested by the Morality Police for not wearing her hijab well, when he loosely in her hair was showing.  And several, you know, people being arrested. It's the version of answers. The United States, you know, after lobbying by various, you know, international activists, brought that resolution to say, let's vote, either to keep Iran in this UN commission on the status of women, which is a commission that looks into the, promotes the rights of women, OK, and gender equality. So these activists lobbied the US to say, you know, we can't have Iran in the commission that promotes gender equality and then women's rights when, you know, look at what's happening in that country. So they voted to remove Iran. But the interesting thing is that Nigeria voted to keep Iran, against removing Iran from that commission. The UN commission on the status of women, Nigeria voted to keep Iran there. And it makes, it's a statement to show that this is a country saying, instead of even abstaining, like a lot of other African countries who bury their heads in the sand like Austria, because we don't know our left or our right, you know, or maybe we are not aligned, instead of abstaining or voting no. They voted yes. So it's the policy of the country, the federal government right now, they are showing we support, you know, regime in a country that does not protect or defend or recognize the rights of women, you know, and that is huge for me. Because, you know, in Iran, as a wife, you can't travel out of the country without your husband's permission, you know. And so Nigerians need to know that the federal government voted no, don't remove Iran. In other words, Nigeria has in principle supported the Iranian regime or administration or government states stands on the rights of women, which is against women's rights.   And to think that Nigeria gave a knot to that, gave a plus to that, as against women's rights, against all that's going on, it's, you know, it costs a lot of questioning. Now, this is a conversation that has not, you know, I don't think it has been highlighted a lot has been talked about in different media spaces, but it is what it is and this is what's going on. But eventually we begin to have all of the conspiracy theories as regards this particular action where you just oppose that, you know, with ordered theories or speculations that are going on.  We're very we're democratic government and in a democracy, one of the things is very sure, one of the things that the government and system, you know, preaches about or strong on is the rights of the people. Human rights, you know, fundamental.    You know, and but they're saying our own case here, Deborah, who was lynched on really for the religious reasons and killed alive or burnt alive or lynched, you know, and it was captured on video. And that this even worse than what happened in Iran that led to all these protests, that maybe we need to tell ourselves the truth that we live in such an environment. You know, where the lady, because of what she said and government has not shown the body language, you know, not tweeting now. They've not shown the body language to show that they, this is an unacceptable practice in Nigeria, you know, to go all out, all out to take this personally and we're moving on as if, so maybe we need to have some reflection, reflecting to see how the government is voting. This is really in a UNO and I think the person who was there was Niger's permanent representative because this is a major organ, you know. So this shows the federal government's position on things like this. So maybe we need to begin to tell ourselves the truth that we live in a country that thinks and believes and sees things like this, that, you know, religion, religion is an issue that will supersede the constitution that protects the rights of people. Even when, you know, when we live in, it's actually what you're saying. This is actually who we are. No, no, but it's actually the government. Because yesterday, coffee, coffee yesterday. The government films national life. This is what the government values. But it doesn't, it's very out of, this is in contradiction. A presidential candidate even deleted a tweet and said he deleted it because he didn't approve it. Okay, now, have you approved it? Do you support, okay, now tweet down. Coffee, you know, these are the issues. For instance, I'm sure that yesterday you're also aware of the news of an Islamic cleric that has been sentenced or will be sentenced for blasphemy, right? And so we live in a society where the constitution, yes, so we have the secular law and what of you in the constitution. And for how long will we continue? Because what is going on in most of the country is not obtainable, you know. We have the penal code and criminal code. Yes. You know, in Iraq, in Iraq, in Iran, they have a penal law. No, but so I think it's time that we begin to question ourselves and ask what kind of government that we practice. Are we a democratic government? What system, what governs, you know, our activities as a people? And I think Nigerians should also make this a very important aspect of questioning and deciding and determining who to vote for in 2023. Yeah, you know, people come to talk about the economy, right?  But I think a very good way of deciding who to vote for is to look at their credentials on human rights. Human rights. Human rights, very important. Not what they put in the manifesto. Not what they come out to say. And look at the rights. And also look at that. Don't even look at that. It's a waste of time. If you're doing that, then you don't know what you are lost. Look at what they've been doing, okay? In the past years, even during the campaign, have they tried to trample on the rights of people? Have they tried to trample on the rights of Nigerians, of media, of civil society? Okay, if they were governed at some point or center, did they actually? Then number two, look at how many of them, which of them has condemned sorry, my dear, has condemned the abuse of human rights. Okay? Which of them has condemned, who among the presidential candidates has condemned human rights abuses? I've come openly to wholeheartedly say I stand against this. Let it be on record and then look for those people to vote for. We need to go now and that's because we have to come back with the papers. Because they're going to oppress you. If they've been doing this for now, they will oppress you when you elected them. You can't do anything for eight years. That's very important, human rights. We'll take that break.


The Nassarawa State Commander of the Mandarin Police first has arrested one Mr Habu Yusuf for allegedly raping a five-year-old girl in Nassarawa Egon Local Government area of the state. The Acting Commissioner of Police, the CP Shatima Mohammed, made these disclosures in Lafayette on Monday while parading 17 orders suspects, arrested for committing various crimes in the state. He narrated that the suspect, who had previously raped two other young girls, was arrested following painstaking efforts by officers of the command. But one Mohamed Sani'em of Yaraku Tufa was tied on both hands and legs. Look in a room why he was stabbed to death and he was hurriedly, by his family, burried him in a shallow grove without the knowledge of the security agencies, without the knowledge of the police. Upon receipt of the complaint, the suspect was trailed and arrested. The primary investigation revealed that Habu Yusuf has also sexually molested two of his elder brother's children between the ages of 8 and 10.


We have with us Mr. Mayank Gupta, CFO, Kar Dekho Group. Mayank, thank you so much for talking to Entrepreneur today. Thanks for having us. Mayank, you've seen the journey of Kar Dekho from a startup to a unicorn and now the company might be all set for an IPO. So, I mean, and these days everyone is talking about governance, everyone is talking about having a CFO in place, so what kind of role you have played in the journey of Kar Dekho? So, I've been with the group for three years and you know, if I summarize my role are two things. One, getting a right business model, so getting profitable and start measuring return on capital and secondly, building a strong governance in place. So, I've spent a lot of time to shape the governance. The group was already very, very highly governed and compliant group, but I've applied a lot of my best practices from my earlier companies. I was with a large multinational for 15 years and applied global MNC's best practices to Indian ecosystem and today very proud to say we will be among the best governed company in the startup ecosystem in India today. So, any advice you would give to startups around corporate governance? So, I would say one, start early, make it as part of your DNA, it's not somebody else's job, it should start from founder and the top management itself. Number one, number two, keep it simple, lay out simple tools of measuring and managing your governance and follow it in spirit. If there are loopholes or gaps, probably talk to the government, provide some advocacy, try to simplify laws versus taking shortcuts. So my recommendation would be keep it simple and follow the rule of the government and pay applicable taxes whatever due to government. So, at what stage a startup should think about linking in a CFO? So I would say any startup which starting should have a finance DNA from the beginning, it should not wait because you know the moment you are managing money, maybe pre-revenue may be too early but the day you have revenue have some finance domain or any DNA, it could be a co-founder, it could be a small finance guy or it could be an outsourced. A typical senior CFO should start to come from series beyond words. So maybe a two to three hundred million dollar valuation range and upward should have ideally a full-fledged CFO of good pedigree is what I would recommend but pie to that at least DNA around FPNA, business finance should definitely be applied to solve your genetic domains, profitability, measuring return on capital and so forth. I also believe that you are also looking after the fund which Karthik Ho group operates so can you tell us more about that? Okay, so we do have a Gena vision fund which is basically to help you know invest in upcoming startups and help to incubate them and they are largely in space which is synergistic to us so we want to spread to the ecosystem. We are always on a lookout of new startups, we have made one small investment so far and really looking to add several more, events like this which is startup Mahakum help us explore a lot of new startups and you know we are really looking forward for any startup which is taking country forward which is backed by technology and trying to build in the solid business way which is profitable and genetic momex focus we would love to you know evaluate those startups and again in the automobile space only. So look as a group we started in automobile but today we are like spread in a lot of other areas so we do have a fintech arm called rupee, we do have an insurance brokerage arm called insurance echo, we do have a tech arm called college echo so like that we have now spread across a lot of segments so anything which is synergistic to all these segments we are looking forward to it and of course anything deep tech anything artificial intelligence and ML is also of you know deep interest to us all right thank you so much for talking to us today thanks for having me


And over the last, oh, six months with OpenStack, we're very new to this. So that's what we want to share today. What we know so far, what we're still learning, how we want to shape this, how we want the help shaping this, right? So where are we now? We actually, just in the last three months, participated in the GNOME outreach program for women. It's very much like the Google Summer of Code program where they invite open source projects to submit ideas and bring mentors, then they pair them up with students. And the unique thing about the outreach program for women is that they are going to pair women with hopefully female mentors. It doesn't have to be, but it's really awesome, right? So it's part of that inclusion, part of getting women excited about open source, part of helping people understand you too can be part of our community, and it's your community too. We also want to work in the Google Summer of Code like process, but what's happened is our release cycles haven't really matched up well. But I've been talking to lots of people this week who want to make that a goal for 2014. And there's also companies that have people working as interns, one is up here on stage today. He's been doing two interns with two different companies. I also talked to Lou Tupper this morning at breakfast with the board and he is getting Cisco interns to work on OpenStack projects as well. So this is a big ecosystem that we can start to shape and build and see what we want to get. But I want to dive deep into the details for the GNOME outreach program for women. So who can apply? This still addresses women directly. It invites them specifically. It tries to get on mailing lists where we know developer women hang out. It tries to get groups of women collaborating with each other, right? The other thing I love about this program is the participants had to put in a commit as part of their application. So you know how OpenStack is very interested in active technical contributors. We count them, we analyze them, we make fancy graphs. Well I love that this program actually helps them feel welcome and they can even start before they, they can start looking at different open source projects, seeing how their patch gets in, seeing how hard it is to patch, how easy it is to patch, what's interesting about a patch. We also were really excited that they are connecting women one-on-one with mentors. They've been doing this since about 2005, 2006. So I feel like this is the kind of experience we can learn from, what works well specifically for women. And then also for the outreach program for women, they know that not all women are coders and some just want a little interest, little interesting project to work on. So how can we involve non-coders and get them a project like documentation? Of course, that's exciting to me. How can we get them involved in maybe marketing? How can we get them involved in community outreach for OpenStack? And this really appeals to this group. This also allows not just college students. And to me, when I saw that, I was like, that is a really interesting idea. I have mom friends who I would love to get working on OpenStack. This would actually enable it if they could find the way to get involved in the program, right? And it also has a component where all of them are required to blog about the status, the process, how they're doing every two weeks. And I don't know if you guys saw, but one of our interns blog posts was retweeted by, like, the CEO of Rackspace. Like, this is important because they were communicating their experience with Rackspace with OpenStack. And it showed, like, everyone has to start somewhere with OpenStack and she could show us how she got started with OpenStack. I thought that was awesome. This is the part. The manageable tasks are actually really difficult to find. If we're gonna talk about that a little more, how can we make sure that the tasks are enough that they can do in a three-month period, in a two-month period? And then we also have set up an IRC channel for the interns and the mentors. That was actually a lot of fun. I thought this last three months was, like, hanging out online. It's totally fun. And then the other awesome part is that they encourage you to bring people to in-person meetings. The OpenStack Foundation funded three interns to come to the summit so that we could meet in person. They could be involved in our development process. This is awesome. Thank you, Foundation, right? But what if we still... So that's kind of a... I wanted to do kind of a... Show you what one program is like, how it worked. But I also wanna talk about what we need, right? So the most important thing right now is we need more mentors in OpenStack. Everyone in OpenStack is super busy. But mentorship takes about 10 hours a week and you have to be the type of person who can answer the new questions and answer the IRC queries, like, how do I do this? I'm stuck. Get people unstuck, right? You also have to find really interesting projects. Now, I already explained the outreach program for women enables, like, not just coding projects. And then the Google Summer Code is like, you cannot give us a list of bugs and expect interns to work on this. So there's different programs have different ideas for what people should be working on. Bring me all of your ideas and we'll collect them together, right? Foundation has been outstanding for funding. Rackspace and Red Hat funded the last round of OPW interns. We want to keep that funding going, keep that encouragement from, monetarily, sure, let's invest in this. And then we all want to make sure that we have built a real relationship with the interns and that they feel part of the community, that it's their community too. How can we make sure we stick with these interns? Offer them jobs, offer them more opportunities to learn. We have one person up here who did an intern as a bachelor degree and now he's doing an internship as a master's degree. That's awesome, right? And then lastly, but the most important thing is we need interns. So get with your college professors, reach out to your alumni groups, find people who are interested in interning and learning about OpenStack. All right, so that was my introduction. I went a little long, but we're gonna kind of keep it on track. Next, we're gonna go to the panel discussion portion. So these are our interns, our lovely interns. Laura, Al. Hi. Emmy and Maki. And Vicky Martinez, famous for OpenStack 101, I must say. And then our mentors, I served as a mentor for the documentation with Laura. And then we have Julie Pichon. She is a dashboard horizon developer and she worked with Vicky. And then we have Icha Sethi. She works at Rackspace and she's core on glance, the image service. And she worked with Anita, whose back is hurting so she's sitting over here. So now I'm gonna hand it over to Julie to go through our questions we came up with. Okay. Okay, so many thanks to Anne. We, in addition to being a mentor, was also coordinating the different internship projects. So thanks for making this happen. And we have a few prepared questions and then we would love to hear what are your thoughts and question about this kind of programs. So first I would like to ask Victoria about her thoughts on how we can welcome newcomers like Inter and Beta into OpenStack. And I know you have a lot of ideas about this. Well, thanks. As a newcomer of myself and as the creator of OpenStack 101 and space for new people getting started with OpenStack code, I think that the most important thing is that newcomers get emotional support. I think that that was one of the things that changed everything for me when I started coding for OpenStack. I really felt comfortable having that. A lot of developers willing to help me to give me ideas and to cheer me up when something goes bad or was frustrating for me. So that's one of the most important things. Also, when talking to a newcomer, you have to forget everything you know about everything. You need to learn how to express your ideas in terms that a newcomer will understand. And finally, I also think that you have to help the newcomer learn to learn stuff. You don't want to give a newcomer everything done for him. You want to give the tools so he can learn by himself. So some app supports a treat with him as you don't know anything and give him the tools to do things by himself. Thanks. Thanks. So the next question is for the mentors. How would you describe the time commitment for a mentor in the project? So the time commitment of a mentor differs during different periods of the internship. So it can differ from the minimum of two hours a week to a maximum of 10 hours a week, like Ann said. So during different phases of the internship, the intern goes through different things. For example, when they're just starting off with the internship, they're getting introduced to the whole community, the process, the project. So the time commitment of an intern goes to a maximum of at least 10 hours during the first week. And during different phases of the internship, when the intern is going through a task change, when they're moving and changing and moving on to the next task, they need an introduction to the next task. And so some more time is needed at that phase. But during the course of the internship, it's pretty much self-sufficient. So the most important factor is building support, like Vicky mentioned, that if we build a network of mentors, not only you, other developers and open stack to help and support the interns, they're not reliant upon you. So they have other people available to help them at any point of time. To give you an example of how Anita and I worked as a mentor and intern. So we would do the agile methodology. We would do everyday stand-ups, like every morning on IRC, she would type and she would tell me what she did the previous day, what she's going to work on today, and if she has any blockers. And these blockers not necessarily have to be resolved by me. Anyone in the open stack community can resolve them for her, and I can be the bridge to introduce her to that person. And apart from that, once in a while, we would do Google Hangouts as necessary so that she could get more face time with me and my more one-on-one attention. Thank you, Richard. So, Emilia, you had a bit of a different internship experience than the other on the panel. What would you describe as being the ideal lens for an internship? So for the... Actually, there is no ideal lens for internship. I made both small and big internships. The first one was only three months at StackOps in Spain, and it was really too short to be involved in a huge project, like a concrete project in the company. The time, like Vicky said, the time to be introduced in the community, to learn how to learn open stack stuff, it's maybe two months. And the time to define what can I do for making new open stack things for the company and also for the community, it's maybe one or two months. So that's why I think the most important thing is to define the project before starting the internship. And also maybe to define the lens of internship, it's depending also of the schools. My old school was a university which allowed me to make three months internship only. And now I am in Master Degree and I can work in part-time. So I'm working three days a week in my company during two years. So it's better for me since I can be involved in the developer teams, not like an intern but like a regular worker. So that's fine for me. So if I have to say a good length, I think at least six months, it's good to be involved in the community and maybe after to continue in the company. Thank you. No question for the coordinator of the project. If I have ideas for an internship, how can I let the community know about them? Yeah, so I'm glad to say that I want to be kind of a lightning rod for these ideas. I want to kind of be able to have a place where we can all kind of think about the ideas. So what we did for Google Summer Code application process was started an ideas page on the Wiki. And so what I think we should do is kind of expand on that so that any professor can come to our Wiki, look for ideas pages for projects that you consider to be kind of able for an intern to do. Now what's interesting is we've also got ideas for like Summer of Cloud, which would be like maybe even high school students. So let's get those ideas on the Wiki as well. One of the ideas was using Heat's API to do an orchestration of a Minecraft server that your friends can play on, right? These are ideas that we need to just bring in and everybody can like look to match either an intern to the idea or a mentor to the idea or both. Now when you bring an idea, ideally you'll also be knowledgeable enough that you could offer a mentor to help with that project, right? Because I think people have great ideas, but we really need both ideas and mentors. So let's kind of keep that together. And I actually have an idea that we could do internships where people start out with bug fixing, then they write QA tests, then they do actual blueprints. And so it would be the same person over different periods of time, right? That's worked at companies I've worked at before in the past is this process that's over years. So how can we start to get that mature in our internship programs? Let's bring ideas to the Wiki. Thank you, Anne. And finally, what happens to the intern after the internship? What are your plans? Do you plan on remaining an active contributor or is there another path? Well, I think that's actually up to every intern. My goal for this internship was to learn how to be an active, free and open-source software contributor and also to remain one. OpenStack community is very welcoming and like Wiki said, that's actually very necessary at some point because we all know OpenStack can be overwhelming at first, especially for a newcomer. And I think this supporting network really works also as an engagement process. So even when this internship is over, we still have ideas and things we'd like to work on and carry on the next month. And even our presence here is actually a proof that OpenStack is really interesting having us as long-term contributors. And even if we are maybe independent contributors or working full or part-time like we before are doing, I think we'll all stay around and we'll be certainly involved with the OpenStack releases and projects for a long time. So we'll meet around. Okay, thank you. No Q&As open to everyone. Do you have any questions or inputs or ideas? We would love to hear ideas. Or we could find more questions or send them. Oh, please. Do you have that mic on? Do you want to just step up? Thank you. Any questions about the application process? Yeah, so what I'm thinking is it's a... We're trying to find the best programs in open-source and then OpenStack goes to them. But what we could start working towards, and I see stuff as in madly taking notes, right? Do we need to have some sort of centralized application process? I don't think so yet. But the jobs board at OpenStack does have intern listings as well. That's probably your company, right? Events has one now. So the application process might vary by program or company. Okay, we have it organized by AusAids, the Australian names. Okay. And the applicants, in order to get them kind of in the trivia, he or she has to find their own mentor. Interesting, okay. Someone that he or she happens to know or may be introduced... Interesting. That is a good turn of... So another thing I've noticed is that Google Summer of Code is asking students to bring project ideas to the project. So maybe we'll enable both ways. I'm reading Susan Sandberg's book, Lean In, one of the chapters is called, Are You My Mentor?  So it's... I see a little bit of a trap there for women, especially having a hard time approaching someone in the community. And women have historically been told, unless you get a mentor, you're not getting anywhere. And in fact, it's... That's really tough. As a woman, I would not go up to Vish and ask him to be my mentor. No. Oh, goodness, no. Right? That's really tough. No. Oh, goodness, no. That would be out of the norm. So anyway, I really want to play on that, though, because I think there could be unsung mentor possibilities that community members could flesh out. I'm not fleshing them out, obviously, so... Yeah. Okay. I look at stuff like, you're doing this too, right? Awesome. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, good. All right, so I'm getting waves from the back that we do want to try to keep on time. Do we have five? Okay, one more question, two more questions? I did not plant a question. Yes, okay. Good. How to work with a community in which you have high-skills guys and trying to be like another contributor? When you make a patch, you don't have to be like an intern. You have to be like another contributor. Even if this guy is working since two years or an open stack, we don't care. So you need to... It's very difficult, but that's my best experience to learn how to work in the community. One of the things that I learned is that when working with a group this size, one of the most important things that I have to do first is figure out where the code goes. I did... I spent quite a bit of time... I would push up a patch that was just a placeholder. It was just sort of like, if this is the right place, here's what I intend to do. So some of my initial feedback in my reviews was, yes, this is the right place or this actually should go over in this project or this file. And then I would start building that out. So place. And the other thing is that to push small patches frequently because rather than a thumbs-up, thumbs-down, a better approach is to have a conversation. It's just like, here's the seed of what eventually is going to go here and how do we, with the reviewers, work on actually building out this patch so that it works for everybody who's got an investment in this particular functionality and make sure that when it's merged, it meets everybody's requirements. One more question? Yes? Yes. That is what I'm finding is interns will approach us before we are organized enough to... I mean, OpenStock's very popular. OpenStock's very interesting, especially for computer science people. Yeah. I thought it meant something. Yeah. Yeah. Let us help you chunk it down. Let us help you eat the elephant to bite at a time. Yeah, it's an elephant. Yeah. That's a great way to organize the ideas, page two. Yeah. Small, medium, large t-shirt sizes, sure. Yeah. Low-hanging fruit. Yep. Yep. All right, thanks, you guys. We appreciate it. And thank all of you for participating. Thank you all.