Agni asks us, what exercises can I do instead of pull-ups or chin-ups? Ready? Go! Nothing! What's up, players? What's going on, ladies and gentlemen? This is Cactus Time with the Zenduz. You guys ask us questions and we answer them. Music like Gary Vee's show. Yeah, Gary Vee, for those of you who don't know Gary Vaynerchuk, does a show called The Ask Gary Vee Show. It's super helpful and it's super successful with his community. So we just decided to like totally copy him and just have to ask the Zenduz show. Yeah, Cactus Time with the Zenduz. So here's the format. We're going to pick questions that were asked in our forward challenge in Dojo and then we're going to answer them 30 seconds each. Sometimes it'll be less than 30 seconds, but we're going to try to answer as many questions as we can in like a 30 minute period of time. This show would not be possible without our awesome sponsors that we use every day, which is Athletic Greens, which is a nutrition company that makes things like branched-chain amino acids, which are good when you're in the fasted state, so your muscles don't break down. Then we have over here, look at this. This is Athletic Greens juice powder. And what it is, guys, is basically if you have a tough time hitting all your micronutrients, which, let's be honest, not all of us eat vegetables every day. Let's be honest. Don't do lie. Don't lie. Don't lie. Don't lie. Get your micronutrients with this green juice powder. And also, we've said this before, it's the best tasting one by far. Not only the best quality, the best tasting one. Most other green juice powders taste like sh**. Tastes like dog turds. Dog turds. Alright, over here, we have featured Lasting Athletic Greens protein. Well, dude, watch your hand, man. You gotta really close to that camera. I know, man. We got... I wanna look out for you. We got dangerous plants on the table because we dangerous guys. Yeah, cactus time. Arh! We got the protein out of here. It's grass-fed. It's grass-fed. Do you know what that means? It means the cows that created this protein only ate grass. Do you know what that means? You ain't got pesticides and all kinds of mess. Maybe you do have pesticides. I think it just means that the protein is made with grass. No. No, it doesn't. The cows eat grass. And finally, we have the cross rope brought to you by Crossrope. Yeah, this is the agility set. And look, guys, we say this all the time, but there's a reason why we are so confident in saying that it's the best jump rope on the market, and that's because it is. Until you guys show us a better one, that's what we're gonna keep going with. It is the most durable. You can also do... It's great for beginners or if you're more advanced, they have many different options for handles, types of ropes that you would wanna jump with. So Crossrope is our company. Check it out on the link below. Another thing too, we get a lot of comments on YouTube with people who are like, that's way too expensive or it's way too expensive to ship to my country. Can I have a cheaper jump rope? And while I totally understand that, like we totally get that. And I'm always someone, you know, looking for a deal. Yeah, deals on deals. You guys actually are gonna end up saving more money by investing in the Crossrope.  If you just get, it really is a get what you pay for thing. If you just get an awesome rope right the first time, then you don't have to worry about replacing it every couple of months when it breaks and then you just have this awesome rope. So what we're saying is put the investment in, you're gonna be happy. Question number one. What are you doing me? You doing me? Well, I'm gonna ask you a question. Yeah. And then you can answer and then I'll ask you. Okay, cool. Alright, ready? Question number one. Jason, OG from Zendu Fitness asks, what skincare products do you use for shaving, moisturizing, et cetera? Ready? Go. Dove soap. Literally. I do. I take Dove soap bars and like put it on my face for shaving. Nice. And then I wash my hair with that and my body. Done. What do you use? I use whatever my girlfriend has in the shower. So she has about 12 bottles in there. I usually just use the soap. 12 bottles. Dude, Jason, we don't use anything, man. But we probably will as we get older to make sure, you know, we can get creases in the eyes. Also, by the way, there's like no reason. Like it's not like I'm against it. I do feel though. Like one day I just woke up and ran out of shaving cream and was like, I can just use soap. Exactly. Alright. Next question. Nathan asks, can you give us some bodywood exercises that can replace some gym exercises when you don't have access to the gym? Dan, go. Yeah. To be straight up with you guys, push-ups, pull-ups, and lots of squats, particularly not just like bodyweight squats, air squats, jumping squats, so plyometric types of movements.  If you just do pull-ups, push-ups, and lots of different types of squats and jumping, you're going to look very sexy. Go, Brandon. I agree. Next question. Agni asks us, what exercises can I do instead of pull-ups or chin-ups? Ready? Go. Nothing! We're kidding. Exercise instead of pull-ups or chin-ups to get to achieve the... I'm assuming that you're in muscle groups. Same muscle groups. You can do inverted rows, which is basically hanging underneath something and pulling yourself up. For example, this is kind of dangerous. You have to be careful. I wouldn't do it with a glass table. 10 seconds. You can hang underneath a table like this. I could get down underneath there and pull myself up. I would say inverted rows as well. Otherwise, you can lift weights, which we have available in the gaining muscle course. What you could do is negative. Pull-up negatives. There you go. So, if you can't do pull-ups or chin-ups, do pull-up or chin-up negatives. Oh, like... Matthew Javier. Hey, Matt. Oh, gee. Great coach in the dojo.  Make a new one or find harmony? Go. Both. Me personally, like when I reach a goal, I'm always like, I'm a type of person who's like, I got to do something. I have to like find the next thing and conquer it. But at the same time, what I've gotten better about in my later 20s is being grounded in the present. So, even when I'm chasing that next thing and I accomplish something, I'm still enjoying the whole process and I feel very confident in saying that. I finally am at a point in my life where I really do enjoy the process. Brandon, go. Me personally, yeah, I think I'm always creating a vision that I'm going towards, but, you know, life is only enjoyable when you're in the present moment. So, you know, man, we're always doing our best. I'm doing my best to be here, be present, and just enjoy the heck out of this, this podcast. All this is going on right now. Next question, Tanbir. Tanbir. Tanbir. Tanbir asks, are you living your dream or chasing your team? Ooh, that's a great question. I can honestly say I'm living my dream. Like, literally, if the only thing I want to do in my life, I literally wake up every day and do exactly what I want. Like, this is my dream, making videos and communicating with you guys. That's why we do it every day. And also, I just want, like, more money to have more freedom to go places, but I think when I have more money, like, my dream in, like, day-to-day is not going to change. Like, I've hit it. Now it's just like, I want to live it at a higher and higher level. Beep! Yes! It's weird. I think really, really similarly as Dan, I feel like I'm living my dream right now. I'm doing what I've always wanted to do, like, exactly what I want to do. And as we scale, as it becomes a bigger and bigger movement, we just get to do more of what we're already doing. So it's like, I'm living my dream, but I get to live my dream even more as this continues to scale. So, yeah. Yeah. Sorry, man. I, like, sat on my right arm. Gotta be careful with that, man. Alright, ready? Next question. Mono asks, any resources other than my fitness pal like, were books, online courses, etc. that you used to make eating right easier? Okay. You're in the dojo, so you have access to the entire simple meal system. Stop looking for more stuff. All the information that you would need to get lean and stay that way is in the course that you're already in. And I don't say that to, like, just rep zendu stuff. But this is the problem with seeking other information, guys. You already have access to the information. Just do it. Do the thing. That's my advice. I agree fully. You have my fitness pal. You have the simple meal system. If you're in our course, you don't need anything besides those two things to reach your goals. Alright, the homie Diego asks, what are the most useful bodyweight exercises to grow muscle that can replace the weightlifting workouts? Go. I'm going to read it again because I interrupted you and yell and I'm sorry. What are the most useful bodyweight exercises to grow muscle that can replace weightlifting workouts? Honestly, pull-ups, the same thing I said for the other answer, pull-ups, push-ups, different types of squats, and plyometric squats. Those are my top highlights of boy. Marcos asks, if you take BCAs while you're in your fasting period, does that take them? If you guys take BCAs while on your fasting period, doesn't taking them breaks the same fasting period? Go. No, because BCAs, and this is the awesome sauce about BCA, check this out. They have less than 50 calories. There's very few BCA supplements that have a lot of calories because remember, they're the building blocks of protein. Protein is the building blocks of muscle. So they actually don't have that many calories, so when you consume them, you stay in the fasted state, and that's the whole reason for taking them. Brandon, go ahead. 100% agree. You're not breaking it fast because for most people, it's around 40 to 70 calories is how many calories you need to break your fast. And what does it say here? There's like 10 calories. I don't even think it says on there. Yeah, it doesn't even say because there's none. No calories. It doesn't break your fast? Don't worry about it. All right. Tiffany asks, Brandon, how did you guys get started jumping rope? Dan, go. All right. So I got started jumping rope because our dude, dude, one of my best friends, Brandon, who actually is joining us. He's in the dojo. Brandon, shout out. We love you. But Brandon's also joining Zenduid Fitness to start our Espanol presence. You know? Espanol means Spanish. And Brandon, I visited him in Boston when I lived in New York. He was like, dude, pick up a jump rope. I picked up a jump rope.  Me personally, I met Dan. He told me jump rope's really cool, so I started jumping rope and the rest is history. Will Reese asks, if one synchronized swimmer drowns, do the others drown too? Go. If the ones who are drowning around them care about the one who's drowning, they'll go with them. Ride or die. Next question. Roger, what was your motivation in the beginning? Why you started jumping rope, bro? Because I hated all other forms of working out, but I wanted to lose weight, so I went again to visit my friend in Boston, Brendan, love you. And he was like, dude, start jumping rope.  And then I was like, this is what I actually want to do and this is actually going to help me lose weight. So that's why I started jumping rope. And for me, I just had no idea before that jumping rope could be your replacement for cardio that I didn't like doing. And once Dan showed it to me, I was like, yes, let's start jumping rope all the time. Let's do Zenduid Fitness. Let's... Yeah. Next question. Hoff says, what new techniques are you working to perfect? I'm talking about jump rope. I want to learn this move. That's in one of the Jake Gyllenhaal videos that I haven't been able to yet where you swing it to the side and then the other side before coming back under. It's like a modified single under. But one other big thing in my life that I'm working to perfect is dancing. I just want to be an amazing hip-hop dancer. Go. For me personally, I'm not working on any specific jump rope moves, but I'm learning how to become a world-class boxer right now. I'm preparing for my first amateur fight. So every day I'm training like two hours a day. Get ready for that. Every day. What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given? Go. Ooh. Ooh. I have little use for the past and rarely think about it. It's a line from Eckert Tolle who's the power of now. Is your happiness conditional? Oh! I ask myself that question all the time. I just actually read a recently in this book called Untethered Soul. And always I get an opportunity to ask myself, yo dude, are you upset about something?  That's not how it is right now. If it is, that's not a happy way to live your life because you never have control. So you might as well just be happy unconditionally. Do that. Yeah, do that. Sure. Lois asks, how do you incorporate weighted ropes into the workouts? All right, Lois. So there's one thing you can do. You can either do the workout separately, do a whole workout with the weighted rope or with the agility speed rope. Or what you could do is in the eight exercises, you could do the agility rope and four of them with the weighted rope to kind of mix it up a little bit. Confuse your body. That's my advice go Brandon. I personally would recommend starting off a workout with some of the heavier ropes so by the time you get to the end when you usually get fatigued you bring out the lighter ropes and you become an absolute ninja. Whipping that around just can feel super light after using the heavier ropes. Samurai. Question from Troy. He says, what college do you guys attend if any? And if you did, what was your experience like? I'm at a point where I'm like, this is horses because I'm spending so much money in the workplace. You guys have just made me realize that I want to do things that I love and right now I don't love college but at the same time I understand that it's something society tells us we must do to be successful. Dan, you got 30 seconds. Go. Okay, first of all this is going to take longer than 30 seconds. Maybe a minute. I went to school at Westchester University in Pennsylvania.  Not very well known. It's an okay school. It's a state school or whatever. College, look let me be honest with you guys like I was a political science and economics major and like I don't I haven't applied any of that. I got in this also by the way I was like anal about getting perfect grades. So like I almost got like a 4.0 and I don't say that to brag.  Like I don't remember I just studied to like get an A and other than that I thought nothing about class. I didn't care about learning the material and frankly I don't regret that because looking back I don't regret going to college but I could have spent my time 10 seconds doing more stuff like that I do now and living a more fulfilled life and like growing a business. Like I wish I would have started a business and learned that kind of stuff.  Go. Alright personally I went to Whittier college. When I graduated high school my goal was to go play college football. Whittier college is in Los Angeles East Los Angeles small liberal arts school and I went there with the intention of playing football and figuring out after that and if I could go back in time actually I personally wouldn't have gone to college and my recommendation for you is if you feel called to do something that is outside the alignment of like something that needs a linear degree like a law degree or a doctor degree then drop out of college right now and go pursue whatever you care about because personally I wish I would have done that. I wish I was exposed to the kind of things that Dan and I talk about all the time at a much younger age if I was I think it would have took a different direction I just wasn't exposed to it so you don't know what you don't know follow your heart man whatever you do if you work really hard and you stay focused and you're going to be successful so if you feel passionate about school or not do it and if you feel passionate about something else give it everything you have be relentless and understand that no matter what you do it's going to be hard but enjoy the process boom do you guys have any plans for coming to India ask our boys to do of course we do man we would love to come to India because there's a huge zen dude fitness community in India so as soon as we can we're going to go over there I think it's just a matter of like just organizing it and getting our ducks in a row Lakshaya says what if you want this zen dude physique but you have a lot of body fat should one be lifting weight simultaneously or focus on burning fat first using the jump rope and body weight exercises go well lifting weights to be totally honest is a helpful way to burn a lot of fat so we would suggest doing both like lift weights and also do a lot of high intensity jump rope exercises to maximize your ability to burn fat but also at the end of the day remember nutrition is the biggest thing specifically eating the right amount of calories and macronutrients if you haven't checked it out yet zen dude fitness calorie and macronutrient calculator it's linked up go I would recommend doing the most efficient thing possible which is focusing number one on nutrition to get rid of that body fat and then I would also lift weights I would do something like the gaining muscle core for your lifting a few times a week and doing jump rope workouts to burn additional body fat next question from Shay Dan were you gifted the ability to dance like a hip hop god okay first of all I only started dancing about a year and a half two years ago just because I simply love it but I am not anywhere close to a hip hop god like the people who are hip hop dancers like pros they're insane and I want to get to a level where I'm like really really good so I appreciate your love and support but trust me I'm nowhere near that top but that is exactly what I'm shooting for because all I want to do is move my body and dance so I want to be the best of it as I possibly can you hit the gym and jump rope for five days you hit the gym and jump rope for five days do the thing Istiak says I'm 18 I can't afford pre-workout or supplements BCAs or any supplement which is featured on your channel which food should I take before my workout bro that is totally fine first of all because you're 18 you should be concentrating more so on food before getting into supplementation because guys those are the goals just with food okay having said that I would recommend eating some fruit before a workout to kind of get yourself energized get some good carbohydrates in that are burn yeah that's it that's my recommendation eat fruit before a workout yeah I would say you know 30 minutes an hour before your workout maybe a banana maybe two bananas Mindy asks what are some simple meal and snack examples you recommend for fat loss if I do the recommended calorie intake recommended per day on your website to lose fat or is activity absolutely necessary to lose any I want to lose weight so that I can jump rope more efficiently go you can totally lose a bunch of weight and look awesome without ever exercising at all I think it's a ridiculous myth that like you need to be running and lifting weights all the time like if your goal is just to lose weight hit your calorie like figure out what your calories and macronutrients are on our calculator and start eating like that and you're just going to lose weight and actually I also recommend don't start jumping rope or exercising lose the weight first through nutrition and then begin one of our programs like the four-week challenge getting lean 30 seconds you cut me off bro I agree fully if you don't feel comfortable to jump a rope yet hit your nutrition card and just start going on daily 30-minute to hour-long walks that has been cactus time with the Zenduz I don't know if we mentioned this earlier but we have some very rare Colombian cacti that's not true you ask the questions we answer them so you can live a more epic life with a jump rope and your body and traveling around the world and having fun epic life awesomeness have fun Zendu Nation do the thing yeah if you want any of these products you see here they're linked in the description below and and if you want to ask questions next weeks thing yeah if you want to ask next if you have join our four week challenge or dojo and we will answer questions when we post the question that says what questions you want to answer yeah should we have the people on youtube just like post questions still cause they're on youtube and youtube as well yeah youtube drop your questions below check it out check it out check it out one time so if you are interested in joining our four week challenges below but if you want to like typically we're going to ask we're going to answer the questions that come from that facebook group in the four week challenge but also if you don't want to do that and you just want to post your questions down below I guess that's fine post your questions below and we'll answer them


Okay. Welcome everybody. Nice to see so many people here. First of all, I would like to remind everybody that there is triple contribution going on throughout the conference and tomorrow there's contributions a day and for one at least the system we're going to talk today about would not be possible without everybody contributing. So it's very important I hope as many as possible will attend and there's lots of things to do for all kinds of skills so everybody's needed. All right. My name is Jarin Aujainen. I'm from Sealy Solutions based in Finland. I'm a Drupal Combatants Lead at Sealy Solutions and at this project I've worked as a Drupal Architect. Yes, hi everyone. Glad to be here with you today. So my name is Evelina Viksram. I work at Neste. I'm going to tell you a bit more about the company in a short while. I work as a sustainability specialist focusing on our renewable products and I'm here today presenting this project because I've been acting as a product owner for this product for two and a half years now. So today we're here with Jarin with the presentation Building a Platform for Sustainability. So this is what we have been working on together with Sealy Solutions for one and a half years now. So I'm going to present a sort of like a real case study on our journey and the things that we have experienced. I would say that our presentation has four different sections. So first I'm going to tell you a bit about like what is the product actually. So what is the platform really about. Secondly I'm going to tell a bit more about the needs that we have for the product and why did we end up building such a product. Then we're going to tell or actually Jarin is going to tell a bit more about the actual development of the product and how has that sort of like been and how has it evolved over time. And lastly of course because we already have around 20 months of time building the product together. So we're going to share some lessons that we have learned during the project. So so those four sections will be covered. And also we're aiming to leave some time for questions at the end of the session. So then you're free to ask whatever you have on your mind. So yeah we hope you enjoy the session and please do ask in the end if you have anything. So yeah first about Nesta just giving you some background so that you can understand maybe a bit better the solution and what we are what we're doing. So Nesta is actually a company that was established in Finland approximately 70 years ago and the primary purpose of the company was to secure the fossil crude oil supplied Finland. So basically making sure that there's enough crude oil in Finland. But the company has evolved quite a lot over time. And now recently during the recent say 15 years renewable products segment has become continuously more and more important for us. So we have been building solutions for our customers that help them to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Primarily our products is renewable diesel for road transport. But we are also continuously developing more solutions. For instance renewable jet fuel for planes as well as renewable polymers and chemicals to be used in different industries. And also throughout the whole journey sustainability has been very important for us. So we have actually been selected as the third most sustainable company in the world by corporate Knights. So it's the global 100 listing. And it's also very important to notice the change that and the transformation that has happened in the company. So basically a larger share of our profit already comes from the renewable products when compared to the traditional fossil based products. And currently we are very strongly driven by our vision about creating a healthier planet for our children. So really focusing on the renewable segment. Then about the actual products. I prepared a couple of slides. I was thinking how to sort of like present the essential about the product that we are building. So I'll give you a try. So suppliers sustainability protocol in a nutshell. And you think about it. What is our target as a company. We are targeting becoming a global leader in renewable and circular solutions. And what that means like what kind of drivers are there when we want to aim for this target. So first of all of course we know that we need more raw materials if we want to create more products different kind of products but also more products in sort of a quantity wise. So we need to supply more. We also need to manage smaller more scattered streams of materials. And this goes down to the type of raw materials that we're using that I'm going to be explaining a bit more shortly. And then of course because we want to source more we need to sort of like present ourselves as a sort of like a preferred partner also for our suppliers. So really think about our supplier more as a customer which is maybe a bit against the traditional way of thinking when we are actually the customer. Then talking about the sort of like external external customer of ours there's a very diverse pool of different raw material suppliers. I'll be going back to the characteristics a bit later. But maybe what is important to understand in this context that we have basically two categories of supplier raw material suppliers. So one category is providing this sort of like waste and residue based materials which could be any sort of processing residues waste oils from different industries even like for instance used cooking oil collected from individual restaurants or maybe fish waste fish fat from fish processing facility or all kinds of different materials from industries. And then the other basket would be the sort of a cultivated or crop based materials which are sort of like traditionally cultivated and grown for the purpose of being used used for the end product. So these could be for instance red seed oil or soybean oil or palm oil some examples. And currently the split is around like 80% is waste and residue based and 20% is cultivated and sourcing continuously more waste and residue based materials sort of like adds complexity to the buying of the material. Then when we look at the internal customer we have four different teams working on together with the suppliers in ensuring sustainability of the supply. So we have supply team sustainability which I am representing we have compliance team and of course operations team. Then we have two processes so we have a supplier onboarding process for all our suppliers to become sort of like after partners of ours. We have very strict sustainability requirements because when we think about the end customer of say renewable diesel they are buying the product because they want to want to sort of like substitute a fossil product with it. So they want to be sure that it's sustainable it comes from sustainable regions. And then of course also monitoring individual physical deliveries batches to be delivered to Neste because we want to make sure that all material that we receive is sustainable. And then lastly if we think about the benefits that we are seeking after when we want to build a platform for our suppliers for managing these two processes with these stakeholders. So we of course want to harmonize processes bring in more efficiency that supports growth. We want to enhance our collaboration and transparency both internally and with the external customer. We also want to develop our sustainability position further so we want to make sure that our suppliers and materials are sustainable but also develop it further help them in that journey. And then we want to store data in a meaningful manner and utilize it in a meaningful manner. Then maybe something still about the journey that we have taken for this. So actually when we started was it was May into 2017. I had recently joined the company and we actually held the first sort of like open innovation session. So this we called it a sustainability hackathon which was 24 hours you know innovating with with external teams that were selected for the hackathon in order to get ideas on how could we digitalize our supply chain sustainability and what kind of solutions could be used for that. That actually resulted in contracting one of the teams to make a proof of concept version for us which was late 2017 where we actually sort of like selected some key functionalities that we wanted to demo and we were then using this for showing it both internally but also for our external stakeholders quite widely to understand better what should we aim for. Then we actually decided that yes we need to go for an own platform telling a bit more also about this later on but basically wanted to ensure that there's a strong link to our operational business of course data ownership of it flexibility and control over the platform. Then we actually chose agile development as a development mode. This was also something quite new for our company and we will be sharing some lessons learned about that as well with Jarin. We launched a beta version of the product end of last year which was this minimum viable product that we use as a sort of like a product that we can test with our first with the first selected suppliers and internal users to understand better and get feedback that is based on actual use of the product. And then this year target is to launch an improved version which is like non-beta version anymore and in the future we see many interesting aspects child test like looking into prospects, new markets, new type of formative real estate analytics more focused on different sustainability aspects just to give you some examples. Okay and well while Nesta was doing the planning in the in the early phases of the project there was a lot of good work being done there was user interface mockups done they had mapped their processes so that there were process charts they had done a huge amount of user interviews for kind of to base the design on and that was the that was the material that was given to us for the proposal and then there was quite a lot of information there and then we went through it and looked at it and we realized that user interfaces are not enough we need to design for the user experience too we need to validate it we need to test it with users and because Nesta is a global company they have business in different regions all over the world and there are different processes in different areas and the previous workflow was done quite heavily human-based so that it was essentially a paper process that can be very flexible and as such it can accommodate different kind of processes in different areas and for a single platform we couldn't do that and we didn't want to do that because we wanted to be efficient so there has to have to be a lot of work to be done to unify the business process all over all over the different regions and as we discovered a lot of new work to be done new needs new requirements we had to discuss with with the Nesta team what's actually the most important and when we find new stuff new functionalities to implement our new features and other new requirements we need to figure out which is the most important to get first out and what needs to be worked on first and now Eva talks about more how yes so um decided to name this section as landscape complexity and needs because there were various needs from the end users and things um tend to get quite complicated at some points because of the reasons that I also mentioned so I'm trying to have a bit more look into like what made it well it's it's it sounds a bit like negative saying what made it so difficult but maybe that's still what we want to sort of like answer to so basically what challenges the development of such platforms so listing some key reasons for that first of all there's a really big variety in the target group especially in the external target group because Nesta has a capability to utilize approximately 15 different raw materials for the production of renewable products and these raw materials come with very different characteristics so cultivated versus waste and residue is one dimension but there are also many other dimensions that we need to take into account secondly the sort of capabilities of the end users are very different so the companies are very different so we might talk about a very big global multinational company or then we might talk about a very small waste used cooking oil collector that has three employees so there's so much variety in in terms of size but also geographies we source globally very globally and then of course also level of technical skills so might be that especially in big companies that people are more advanced advanced with technologies but in the small companies they might need a lot of support for that then also as Jarry also mentioned uh because our previous system was pretty much pen, paper and email um we noticed that the process has had localized over time and it took quite an effort to sort of like understand what's going on and how to harmonize because not everyone is doing the things the same way and then you need to have the discussion what is the right way of doing things then of course um efficient we need we needed to think a lot about efficiency and how to sort of like make things efficient but without maybe harmonizing too much because then sometimes you also need to think about localization but of course we know that the demand for renewable solutions is on rise so remaining competitive is very critical for the business then also it's good to bear in mind that we are operating in a market that is emerging so customers uh have different preferences on sustainability what makes the product sustainable and those might change rapidly also those might depend on the end market as well and then of course also um regulatory authorities have different definitions on what is sustainable and those might also change so new legislation might be implemented so sometimes we need to react fast uh on on the sort of like product and the requirements that we have and lastly of course also growth has an impact on uh what we're doing so building something and growing uh fast at the same time requires some extra efforts for balancing things one example of this could be for instance that now we are sort of like working further to build the 1.0 version of the platform but at the same time we need to support the growth of the business by implementing for instance neural materials that we want to start buying so it's a constant balancing to support the growth but continue developing what you're already doing and then maybe um this is one of the questions that i get quite often during the journey so good to maybe open up a bit so why didn't you just buy a ready-made solution this is something we were thinking about and there are some reasons why we did not do that so maybe one of the most evident ones was that we really wanted to have a system that connects to our core business we always say at nested that sustainability is at the core of our business with the renewable products and how we operate with them so we wanted to make sure that we don't just buy a standalone solution that is then forgotten somewhere and maybe someone looks at it once in a month and that's it but we wanted to make sure it's it's connected so that's why um we have for instance the management of physical deliveries um and we're building integrations to our ERP system so those are some examples and then of course uh I already mentioned on the previous slide the changing uh market environment so that's why the flexibility of the end product is very important for us and agile development has supported this highly then of course once you collect data um you can do all kinds of things but it's so really like once you have data in in a sort of a solid manner in in in a structure that makes sense you can really improve your business you can improve your understanding you can optimize what you're doing and then something that I already mentioned so as we want to grow and there's a limited amount of waste and residue-based raw materials in the in the world of course um so then we feel that there's a need for the suppliers to position us as the preferred partner so we want them to feel that they want to work with us and that was very important for us so we wanted to think like how could we provide advantages to the supplier actually yeah and I think that Jare will continue from here yes all right so based on these these needs we started to create the solution and just just how Evelyn just said that a ready-made solution was seen as not the not the optimal one for the for the product so we rather quickly saw that Drupal is a very good match for this mainly because of because of its capabilities and integrations and customizability so it can do whatever an STF needs currently and it very likely can do all the things that they will need in the future but a bit more about the journey of actual the actual creation so we very early saw that this will be and is a project that is kind of the it has all the all the essences of an of an agile project I put this connefin diagram here to remind everybody that that agile is the way to solve the solve the complex issues where where we know where we want to get but we are not quite sure or we cannot plan ahead how how we get there and and that is what the SSP product is essentially it's a system that has a lot of complexity it has a lot of needs that are need are found as we go and but it's still very well doable it's not it doesn't go into the chaotic realm it's it has some business behind it and it makes sense so we introduced the client to agile ways of working they they had very little experience in agile previously so we basically started the project with coaching the team coaching our team and the nested team everybody together so that they can get to get working from the very beginning together and and there was strong will at nested to start working in agile manner but there was very little experience and there was a very strong tradition of working in waterfall ways of planning for us then implementing and then seeing what happened but there was a desire to change so we just needed to make that work for us and I can say now that it has been actually very successful it's been it's been enjoyable to work there and we've had good feedback on the agile ways and also we needed to balance our agile ways of working with other projects going on in the company for example the ERP project which is a huge project of course you know for a company that size and it's definitely nothing to do with agile and we need to balance with that and okay then a few words about how we made the team understand what we are actually supposed to achieve because the business is not something that everybody understands it has a lot of strange terminology we were hit with acronyms of different sorts for all the all the different feedstocks there's an acronym and and the nested people fluently talk about pfad and uco and and all the things and and then at some point somebody's always saying that well what does this mean so to make the team able to actually achieve what they're needed needed to achieve we need to not just tell them what they need to do and of course because they're skilled people developers they know how to do it but it was essential that they know why they're doing it and if somebody hasn't seen Simon Simon Sinek talk about talk about the importance of why it's the circle circle diagram is this popular is popularized by him so you should take a look that it's a five minute talk go and see it but how we did it we identified the need that the the team development team needs know why we're doing this so I asked our product owner to actually just tell and and it's not important what it says on the on the picture but important is what what the picture achieves the the picture picture tells the whole was able to tell the whole team that what is the process for internal customers for the external customers what what kind of different needs how the how the past diverge at different points it looks complicated well because the process is complicated and it was kind of down to earth approach that we just you it's it's a efficient tool for communication just draw a picture and that's what we did and it was it was great success though the whole team could understand after this after looking at this picture and getting the explanation related to it they could all right away understand that okay this is why we're doing it and now we know what we're going to do and how we're going to do it of course more would more complexity always comes after it okay so the complexity factors it was already mentioned that business is being done differently in different regions the feedstocks are different all kinds of conventions are different in different areas but we don't want to make a solution that that's customized for customized for all all the different use cases so it needs to be some kind of one size solution that will well enough with fit everybody and and at some some point this was kind of a essential problem in in consolidating the architecture the information architecture and user experience so that we can actually have a one architectural model one content model where we can have the data in a usable and meaningful way but still we can make the user user interface such that it helps all the different users in different different situations and we have learned quite well well in this project that as it said it said in in agile planning is important but plans are discardable and they will be discarded many times over the project so one example about how how the plans were discarded supply chains are one one important thing to model in the in the system because that's what i use to to report the sustainability of that of the supply chain of the suppliers and and also to report the deliveries that where where they came from and how much carbon emissions were involved in the transportation for example and the production of the of the materials so we have the facilities there and transportation is in between okay that was kind of simple but then we realized that well the transportation is not something that we can model because we have not enough data for that we don't know how the how it actually goes between those different locations so okay well this looks kind of simple but then the supply chain can it can branch and it actually can branch in different points and then eventually there can be very many entities on different levels especially in the beginning of the beginning of the chain and it gets very complex and for this actually the information architecture is not complicated but the user interface is very complicated how can we actually make a user interface to input let's say tens or maybe hundreds of entities in a chain that the user will be able to manage manage them and that's actually to be honest that's still something we are not quite finished yet with but it's it's a work in progress still okay maybe some of you have seen this picture and you know what's coming next so we made a nice user interface at first it's clean simple efficient and then the users come in and this happens and this is exactly why we need to test there are reasons for the users to behave in different ways that we we are not aware of when we make the first implementation so we get new design challenges as we go further and that's that's sorry and we had some ideas from the beginning and they became invalid at some point we needed a refactor we needed to redesign and we needed to accept that at some point that we have done work and we have implemented features and functionalities and they work but they don't actually do everything that is needed so we need to iterate and go we need to step a few steps back to get actually forward and an important part of that was to challenge the previous plans so that we can actually see before we do the final implementations for something that well we planned this three months ago like this but maybe we shouldn't do it like this maybe we need to think over it a bit more and we need to do that we also needed to push the business stakeholders to to think deeper into their into their area not just to give the first answer that based on their own knowledge or their own expertise but also ask with their colleagues to get all the different information so that if if somebody who knows the European business and the Asian business answers the question and then we implement something and then the American specialist comes in and says that well we can't use this because it doesn't answer the needs because the process is so different so everybody needs to be heard and we need to make sure that the business requirements are brought in from all the different areas and most important we need to know what are the cats like which cat wants to eat from which ball so we need to understand the users so essentially many people who have come come into the project since the start have told me that hey well you're not using Drupal that much here but actually we're very we are actually very deep in Drupal we are using custom entities which is an awesome feature for us we have I think two nodes on the whole system currently but custom entities we have plenty because there's different needs we need and the custom entities work very well with workflows which is in Drupal core that's excellent we've used messages module for creating notifications and and kind of notifying and enabling communication between users for different events queuing events something happening when something else happens and it needs to happen in a batch because we don't want to them happen in line and everything goes kind of asynchronously and then we've recently started using heavily the rest api and developing react components on top of that and then of course one very nice feature that we have gotten from Drupal and it's definitely an advantage it's a security features the security practice in Drupal access management that that kind of things and then managing users user roles are in an important important role so essentially we are using Drupal as the back as the core of our back end and we're extending it and it's something that I was thinking of yesterday when Chris was talking about about Drupal expanding the horizons and going into integrations and expanding things this is actually just what we've been doing here so next what have we learned ever you will start with that yes um so some lessons learned trying to be pretty pretty here looking at the time um so maybe um something that we noticed is that actually experience from working with agile methods is not as important as commitment from the organization to do so so as Jari mentioned we are pretty much a wonderful um house so we've been doing some agile development on our retail side but not really on the on the production and product side at all so this project was actually a pioneer at Neste in in working in an agile manner so um this has been of course been really encouraging because we have been uh we have received a lot of support for instance from the from the management and it has been really clear that this is they want this project to be agile so there's this kind of support but then maybe what is the challenge is that although you are agile in your own bubble but if the organization around here is is acting as waterfall and the expectations are as in waterfall projects uh there are clashes for sure so something that we have noticed for instance that there is still a strong appetite in the company for upfront planning um deadline so we want to know what is coming what is your half half year plan for next half year uh when are you going to deliver this when are you going to deliver that what is your deadline so there's a strong strong will to have that and that's sort of like conflicts with agile way of working so we sort of need to balance constantly with the expectations that we have secondly um something we noticed that the stakeholders don't always know first what they want so um we noticed quite quickly that because our previous system was pen and paper and email um the stakeholders can't really describe what they want from a system how do they want to do things in a system it's very difficult for them so we have to move into prototyping and creating mock-ups quite quickly and showing them to the end user because when they were able to use those they sort of like elaborate their comments much more efficiently and we we have been doing a lot of validation and also what is important what Jare pointed out that we do do it in different regions so our key regions where we operate to understand the differences between the different regions so I think this has been very important for us but maybe one finding also is that our when I was talking that our organization is not used to this way of working it can also be seen with the prototypes so for instance our internal stakeholders don't even know how to use prototypes how are they going to click through a prototype so we need to even teach them to do that so really starting from the scratch and this is just an example on like how can we gradually improve so this is the landing page from our system for suppliers and you can see that it has evolved over time and the only way to allow this kind of uh involvement is to be brave enough to show work in progress to your end customer so not waiting for two years to make it perfect because you simply can't make it perfect without showing it to your end customer and getting the feedback from them what do they appreciate what they don't like so here are some like concrete sort of like concrete things that we have done for the landing page that all are based on feedback from the users and then maybe just the last point from me is that sort of like Neste is traditionally a company that is sort of like industry heavily industrial background focused on the production of products so that's really sort of our area our competence area so everything comes down pretty easily to efficiency how can we be efficient how can we streamline our purchases how can we produce more and with less resource and these kind of things so we have really had to challenge how the way we think and really start to think about the customer the human there and start to think about the supplier as our customer and not vice versa so really sort of like challenging the way we think being more human centric so that's sort of like the middle middle section here and that's sort of like something that we need to do if we want to at some point think more like more from a value-based perspective thinking about having this sort of like platform and ecosystem type of thinking so this is the journey that we are at yes handing back together yes very important success factor was to to have everybody involved and everybody feeling that they are a member of the team so we don't have a we don't have a development team and and and the client team separately we don't have a client vendor vendor distinction basically there from the very beginning everybody has been part of the same team during their different driving their different roles bringing in their own expertise so effectively what effectively what we get from including everybody as as kind of equal member of the team they have everybody has different kind of understanding and knowledge expertise they bring that in and we can we can utilize that so so we don't actually have to stop working and wait to reach for somebody who knows one detail because they are already there they are part of the team and we we know them and we we are familiar with working with everybody one thing though is that the team has grown quite large in the process and what easily happens in the large team is that you have somebody somebody who's is responsible for back end and others who are responsible for front end and then maybe somebody drives one functionality and others some other functionalities and it's been very important to remind us all the time that we don't want to to silo the development so that even if somebody knows knows one feature better than others they shouldn't be kind of they shouldn't own it completely so that so that the work kind of scatters around people but the team should keep united and that's that's really something that we have had to remind of us remind ourselves every two weeks and our retros basically always somebody points out that hey let's not silo the work and let's still not silo the work and so far it's it's kind of fine and of course important part of making a teamwork is to co-logate the team so that when when the team members are there they might be might be sitting next to each other or on the other side of the room they can ask questions they they can they can get the answers they need very quickly and also it's important to have a kind of sense of community and have fun with the people have have lunches together and that that all works towards making making the distinction between client and vendor disappear so that everybody's just on the team and every one's member of the team and that's i think that's maybe one of the most important points on this and then lastly but not least i want to emphasize that design is facilitation design is something that is not only done by designers it's done by everybody it's it's we can think of user interface design we can think of concept design user experience design technical design but still it's a cooperation and and what it needs to do is to get the relevant information about what and why we need to do out of the people who who actually know the business for which needs for so that we can actually fulfill the needs of the business and it is essentially a process discovery we we find new things and and we need to dig deeper get more information and that needs to be done together so any questions we have a few minutes left please use the microphone thank you mentioned the complete team with including some people from the organization can you give a rough what kind of people were in the team developer's front and back yes um we had um we had the from from anesthetized we had the product owner and the three specialists four four specialists and an approach manager from your side too and then from from our side there was a there was a project manager as a kind of a business contact then we have myself as the as the tech lead or architect and then we have a scrum master front and developers uh UX developers uh UX designers and Drupal developers uh integration specialists and it will help still some other people and then we have test automation separate and content specialists nowadays also and also testing manager for the user acceptance testing and probably still somebody who we forget it's it's it's close to 20 over 20 people nowadays I think involved in the project and you said you called and located them so was it a team that was actually together all all the time for two weeks or just regular basis two days a week or something yes we we have um we have an office space provided by nesta and we work there I'd say two or three three days a week and in one one space and most people are either and we have kind of tried to make so that there's at least one day when everybody's there okay that's possible interesting presentation thanks I was wondering if you could expand a bit more on on the working with the Drupal APIs and react front and since I saw it on a lot of slides well it's a it's a large area we can talk further later but I'll just give a quick overview so um basically we have we had two options we could use JSON API or then do custom rest rest resource plugins and we ended up with custom rest resource plugins because we had quite strict security concerns and jason api was not out of the box able to fulfill all the exact needs that we had and and we decided that oh well if we need to customize then we're just going to go with full custom solution for the rest endpoints and then uh if you happen to see Fabian France's presentation yesterday about decoupling the back end we've actually been doing something similar to that so that we're actually pushing the dates for the front end from from the back end before going through through the render pipelines and and using Drupal settings for relaying information for for the react applications any other questions what is the size of the project in terms of custom code if we count all the php react code uh sass code and maybe even even configuration yambles we probably get something like 100 000 lines today and it's growing rapidly anything more okay thank you thank you


So, you love Veroni, and she loves you, but sometimes you just don't understand her. Not a problem. In the next two minutes, you and Veroni will understand each other intimately. Alright, let's do this. Shift A, S, Veroni. Okay, so by default you'll see this microbe cell wall looking thing. Now intensity just means things will be shaded in black and white. If you change it to color, it removes all shading and fills each cell with a solid color. So if you look closely, you'll see the shape of the patterns are the same. The only difference is that one is in full color while the other is shaded black and white. If you want to change the actual pattern, you're gonna have to go down here and pick one of the four options.   Now it's much easier to see the differences if we set things to color mode. So again, we have distance, Manhattan, Chebychev, and Minkowski. Now lastly, the shading is controlled by the last option here. Alright, so all you need to know is that closest and crackle are opposite. Keep your eye on this cell right here. What's the difference? See that? Closest shades the middle of the cell and leaves the walls white. But crackle shades the walls and leaves the middle white. Like I said, opposite. Now second, third, and fourth closest just changes the shading. So if you compare closest with second closest, you'll notice they're the same shape, but the shading is different. Second divides each cell into smaller parts. If we go to third, it divides each cell again and again for fourth. Lastly, increase in scale increases the number of cells in the picture, but makes them smaller. Okay, so those are the pieces, but how do you put them together? Well, the default distance and closest works really well for things like microscopic cell walls. If you set mode to crackle, you got a great base for dragon scales and stone wall patterns. If you use crackle in Manhattan, you get a great base for doing procedural cityscapes and if you change the color into cells, it kind of looks like the map of a country. Last tutorial, we used Minkowski set to crackle to create the base design for procedural scratches. But you could have easily used Chebychev to make cross-section-style scratches instead. There's really no wrong way to use this stuff, so don't be afraid to mess around. Anyway, that is how you Boranoi. Hope that helps. If you enjoyed this video, please don't forget to like, subscribe, and most importantly, ring that bell. Hope you have a fantastic day and I'll see you around.


Hello and welcome to NewsClick. I am Poranjoy Goharthakurtha and with me here in the studio, I have a person who seems mature, astute about the political economy of India. He used to be a supporter of Prime Minister Narendra Modi but recently he decided to resign from the Bharatiya Janta Party. And I am going to ask him why and let me here introduce you, the viewers of this program, to a 25 year old person, young man Shivam Shankar Singh. Thank you very much Shivam for giving us this interview. Now, when you decided to resign from the Bharatiya Janta Party, you wrote a long note, it runs into I think almost about 1500 words. You wrote it for Medium which is an open website and then it got reprinted by the Print and then by the Wire and Quint and before you knew it everybody was saying, who is this young man who used to be a Modi Bhakt of sorts who suddenly decided to resign from the Bharatiya Janta Party. So tell us a little bit about when you became a member of the BJP and why you resigned. So I joined the Bharatiya Janta Party in 2013 itself. This was at the height of the Modi wave. The atmosphere at that point of time was an atmosphere where everyone was really disturbed and depressed. Shivam, I am going to interrupt you a little bit. At that time you were in America, at the University of Michigan and in Harvard, you were studying Art Shastri. So there you became a member of the Bharatiya Janta Party. And you are saying that from there you came to know that the political atmosphere of the Bharatiya Janta Party. Sir, we used to come to Bharatiya Shastri all the time, it was not just in America. The second thing is that now the media has become so much, social media has become so much, Twitter, Facebook is all. It continues to talk to friends continuously. At that time the atmosphere was that all around there is a corruption atmosphere, there are corruption allegations. It seems that the government is not able to do anything. There was a phase of policy paralysis. 2G, CWG, GJAG, Falana, Dimkana, one after the other, Gotala. So at that time it was decided that we needed a change in this country. So that's why you became a member of the Bharatiya Janta Party for 100 rupees and 5 rupees. So at that time we joined the Bharatiya Janta Party because Narendra Modi ji came to the front at that time. Narendra Modi ji provided a very credible alternative to the incumbent government. At that time it was in everyone's mind that they will do something very good for the country. They will do something very big. There was a lot of talk about the Gujarat model. We just don't know as much as we heard through the media, through journalists like you. That Gujarat has done a very good job. There has been a lot of development. There are very good roads. There are a lot of industries. Per capita income is very good. That kind of change has also come in the country. Something good for the country and for the people. In that hope, we have started supporting the Bharatiya Janta Party. And not only that, you were not just a supporter of Narendra Modi ji. You thereafter became, correct me if I'm wrong, in 2015, a legislative assistant to a member of parliament. A lamp. Yes. I mean that's a fellowship. Yes. Who were you assisting? Which MP were you assisting? Mr. P.D. Rai. He's the MP from Sikkim. I see. That's right. Right. Okay. And thereafter, you worked with the Indian Political Action Committee, which is a private firm with which Prashant Kishore ji is associated. Am I correct for roughly about a month between May and June 2016? Approximately one and a half months. During the Punjab elections. During the Punjab elections, yes. When did you decide to join, in a sense, become a part of the BJP in July 2016 for about eight months or so? You were campaigning for the Bharat Janata Party in Manipur. You were stationed in Imphal. And thereafter, you became very close to Ram Mahadev ji, who's a national general secretary of the BJP. What happened? I mean, can you just outline what happened? So, sir, after I was a legislative assistant to member of parliament, I got really interested in the political space. I knew that this is an area where I want to work. It was very interesting at that time. Prashant Kishore was the biggest name in this area. So, I joined IPAC. I got to learn a lot from it. But, it was a private company. My interest was political. It was never an interest of political consultancy type. It wasn't that I wanted good salary or to earn money through it. The interest was always to do something for the country, to be actively involved in politics, to do some good work, to do some development work. I understood within a month, that a private company cannot be considered as a consultant. So, when did you decide to join the India Foundation, which is like, you became a senior research fellow there. And this is a think tank. And we know, this is very closely aligned with the Bharatanjanta Party. In fact, there are four ministers who are, what, directors or advisors of this foundation? Mrs. Nirmala Sita Raman, Mr. M. J. Akbar, Mr. Suresh Prabhu, Jain Sinha. All of them are holding important positions in the government. In addition, you also have Sharia Doval, who is the son of the National Security Advisor. They are all closely, I would say, associated with this think tank. Yes, correct. So, I became a senior research fellow at India Foundation after the money per campaign. So, in the middle of the period, there was not a lot of campaign activity. I write a lot, I research a lot. Data-based is also written a lot. So, in the senior research fellow at India Foundation, there was a chance to do research on the policy of the country, to research on where the change can take place, how it can be done. India Foundation also is a very good platform which connects a lot of people from different thought streams. One minute. Did you also work with Ram Madhav Ji? He is the National Secretary of the BJP. He is not only in charge of the Northeast, Jammu and Kashmir, Andhra Pradesh, etc. He is widely perceived to be a person who is a link between the Rashtriya Swamsevaksant, headquartered in Nagpur and the Bharati Janta Party. So, did you work closely with him? So, during the money per and tripura elections, yes, because he was in charge of the elections and I was there on the ground. I definitely got a chance to work with him. Now, what made you resign from the Bharati and Janta Party? Why now is the question everybody is asking? In your note, you have written first the good, then the bad and the ugly, but the good. You praise the Modi government, road construction was faster than earlier, electrification, corruption at the high levels of government have come down according to you. Switch Bharat Mission, you say is a definite success. The Ujwala scheme of giving liquefied petroleum gas cylinders, you said it's good. But you also say that people don't have money to buy another cylinder. And then you said that the north-east where the connectivity has improved and the law and order improved. After giving a point to the north-east, now you are saying bad and ugly. So, sir, it is such that every government does something good. There is no government in the history of such a country that has only done bad things. Because the government has a budget. That budget is being spent. There will always be something positive for the country from that budget. It is not that the government has run a 100% 100% budget in corruption. There is no development. So, there is a lot of good in the Modi government. There are some things that I disagree with a lot. Now I feel that the negative is outweighing the positive. And you have made another long list. And you have started Electral Bonds. You are saying that the political funding that the political leaders of our country get money for elections and elections. Anyway, they get money. This is not in the interest of the country. Electral bonds. There is no power in this. This bonds according to you is not... It is not going to be good for the country. Correct. You say more about this. So, SISR Electoral Bonds is an anonymous instrument. Through it, any corporate house... There was a 7% limit to donate profits to political parties. That limit has been removed. Now someone can donate 100% profit to political parties anonymously. So, in today's date, if someone says that I will donate 1000 crores of electoral bonds to a party, you pass this policy. And that policy passes. And that person gives the electoral bond to the party. There is no way to prove in the court that a quid pro quo has been established. There is one more thing. You are doing all these bonds from the state bank. And the state bank... Supposed to keep this information private. So, why will it leak out? Are you worried that this information could be obtained by the Ministry of Finance? Because after all, who owns the state bank of India? Sir, that is a separate consideration. Now, the point that I think is more important is that it cannot be used in the court because there is an anonymous instrument. Even if the information is leaked out, what validity will be there in the court? You have also thought about that in Yogyna Bhawan, Yogyna Ayog has become Neethi Ayog. And you are saying that the earlier system was better. Planning commission was better. You had auditing of government schemes which Neethi Ayog is unable to do. This is, I mean, for Mr. Narendra Modi and many in the present government, the planning commission symbolizes the Nehruvian era. And we all know that... Mr. Modi doesn't have a high opinion of India's first Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. So, sir, the plan and non-plan, the five-year plan was based on funding, that difference could have been removed. That is a separate debate. But the planning commission used to do a lot other than that. When I was working in parliament for one year, legislative assistant to member of parliament, at that time we used the planning commission to use the data of every scheme. What happened in which scheme? So, you think that people are not getting this data these days? Neethi Ayog is not doing the work of this data. Neethi Ayog is not releasing it. Now, we will have to wait for this data to be audited by CAG. How many years after CAG, which scheme will be audited? What do you know? Regularly, you would get a data that what is happening in which scheme, what is going on, in which state. So, you also thought that CBI or ED, the enforcement director, is using it. What is new in this? In Congress and in the UPI, Supreme Court said that CBI is behaving like a caged parent. So, what is the difference? I mean, everybody has used, previous governments have also used the CBI and the ED for political purposes. So, what is so different in the case of this government? Sir, I supported this government because this was supposed to be a party with a difference. If there is no difference. After Adwani, Mr. Adwani said that party with a difference. Yes, yes. So, is it a party with differences now? Because you left and went away. No, because there was to be a separate party. When Mr. Rehendra Modi came, he was going to change India's political climate, India's development scenario, India's governance. If this is the only thing that is going on, then it used to be good, it used to be good. For whatever reason, the Indian people blame the party. People take you as an example, that even the Congress used to do the same. Even the previous governments did the same. If this government is doing the same, then why do we keep supporting it? One thing. And after this, you said that this government has given a suicide note to the Chief Minister of Kali Kapoor of Arunachal Pradesh, before committing suicide. Just as the murder case of the lawyer's death, the murder case of Saurabh Uddin, and the corruption against which we have reported, all of these, according to you, are suddenly becoming important. Why? These have been issues for some time now. Why? Are you suddenly finding these issues so important today? We are already taking these issues. These are things that are being built. One thing happened, two things happened, three things happened, people keep listening, it feels bad that this happened. Gradually, it gets so much worse, that people say that it's enough, that we are not going to bear it. This is the kind of thing. It never happens that you know about an incident and you have taken a decision based on it, that this rape case where there was no FIR for a year, then we leave it. It doesn't happen that anyone does it. Okay. Shivam, you are now also criticizing demonetization. Yes. Mr. Modi said that, you know, there can be fewer in the press, there can be fewer in Prabhandan, but don't ask questions on the policy. This is what the Prime Minister said in the run up to the Uttar Pradesh elections. And that's the time you saw people were saying demonetization, terrible, terrible, terrible, but the people of Uttar Pradesh actually voted for the Bharti Janta Party. So how come, how come today you are now criticizing noteworthy? Sir, I don't know about the intention. I don't know what the actual intention was. Mr. Modi will be able to tell you. It's so clear that it did not achieve what it was stated to achieve. Reducing black money, Jali note which is used by terrorists, cash less, less cash. Yes. Nothing has happened from this time. If you look at the data, cash is almost exactly where it was demonetized. So you are the people of Uttar Pradesh why did the Bharti Janta Party vote in the last election? Yes. Why did Yogi Adhitanath Ji rule Uttar Pradesh? So, sir, there were many factors. Demonetization was also a factor. It was. Till that time, people did not understand that nothing has been achieved from demonetization. At that time, a narrative was made that terror funding will be over, black money will be over, as much as black money will be captured. Nothing has happened. It is known in today's date. When Uttar Pradesh was elected. And today you are assuming that the politics of Uttar Pradesh has completely changed as well. So, both these parties have a very big vote bank. It is a caste based vote bank which supports them a lot. If both parties go together, it will be very difficult to vote for the Bharti Janta Party. It is very easy to get their seats. You raised a lot of issues in your notes. When you said about the foreign policy, it was very difficult to vote for the Bharti Janta Party. It was very difficult to vote for the Bharti Janta Party. You said about the foreign policy. You said that the Sansad, Adarsh, Gram, Yojana, Make in India, Skill Development, Fussell, Bhima, High Price of Petrol and Diesel, Education, Healthcare, there is nothing left. All the issues that the Modi government is saying that we are doing such a good job, such a good job. That the problems I can see and problem are very important to be able to compare and compare them. I wont say who to vote for, I know it is very good to come this summer. Just a little more please. You have mentioned about Pandit Jawahl Nehru, Socialist path, Russian technology, heavy engineering corporation. You think the present government has gone a Yes, sir, definitely. There is a negativity in politics that the old people have to think about it. There is no need for this. The old decisions were taken in different circumstances. From today, if after 40 years, someone criticizes Mr. Modi, the time when technology, the time when the country has money, the time when our socio-economic status is, on the basis of that, today's policy decisions cannot be compared. According to the truth of that time, people worked. Shivam, this time, you are trying to debunk this notion. You are saying anybody who speaks of the government is called anti-national. They are called anti-national. You are saying there has been polarization in Indian society of the kind we've never seen before. Sir, I don't know if it's never seen before. There have been big riots in the country before. But in today's date, when technology is so big... Okay, let me say in your lifetime. In the 25 years, you are saying political discourse is at its lowest point. And this is one of the reasons why. So, in today's date, technology has increased so much. There is WhatsApp, there is Facebook. There is so much penetration in things that every person is moving around with his own hands. People are not checking the facts. They are forwarding messages to each other, which are very polarizing in nature, which are spreading hatred. All these things seem to be trying to create a concerted atmosphere with the views of the elections, in which the Hindus feel that we don't have any solution. We will have to vote for Modi, otherwise we will be destroyed. Now, such facts come that the Muslim population... the Muslim population will exceed the Hindu population in the next 10 or 20 years. There is no data behind this, there is no truth behind it. You are saying that the Bharti Janta Party's strategy for the next election is polarization and inciting what you are calling pseudo-nationalism. And you are saying the Prime Minister himself has said it in his speeches. Jinnah, Nehru. Congress leaders didn't meet Bhagat Singh in jail. And you are saying this is fake news which has come from the Prime Minister himself. You are saying Congress leaders had indeed met leaders in Pakistan to defeat the Bharti Janta Party in Gujarat. You are talking about how Yogi Adityanath said Marana Pratap is greater than Akbar. And all students of Jawaharlal Nehru University are anti-national. They want India to be broken up, Tukrit, Tukrit, Tukrit, Tukrit, Tukrit, Tukrit, etc. You are saying that the discourse today is highly polarizing and it is being the nation, according to you, you are saying I refuse to follow anyone who is willing to let the nation burn in riots for political gain. What do you think? Will there be any more Hindu-Muslims in the next 8 months? There is a kind of divisive political discourse? Sir, there will be a polarization. There was a development agenda. It is gradually ending and it is not working. The kind of development that people expected in 2014, 2015, 2016 that hope is not visible today. If you look at it from 2016 to 2017, then this kind of criticism did not come from Modi. First of all, if someone criticizes, then 10 people would come against you saying that it is good, it is good, it is good. It is not like that in today's date. I also posted such a long post. Many people supported it. Almost everyone supported it. Were you surprised? I am surprised. You wrote this blog which was subsequently republished and suddenly nobody knew who won. Shivam Shankar Singh aged 25 is international baccalaureate from Mahindra United World College of India near Pune. Studied in the University of Michigan, etc. Suddenly everybody is saying, who are you? Why have you done this? I am very surprised at the response. Mainly because it has been extremely positive. Almost everyone who was BJP supporters are agreeing with what I wrote. There is only criticism. It is fine, it is not perfect, but there is no alternative. No one has said that what is written is wrong. Have you met Ram Madhav Ji? Is he happy with your decision to leave the BJP? After all, you worked with him. I presume he will not be very happy with it, but I haven't met him. You haven't met him. You know, I want to ask you. You are at one level, you say the political discourse is at its lowest point. Partisanship is at its peak. There is no remorse at the way in which those aligned with the ruling party are disseminating fake news. After that, you say everybody is to blame. All parties, all voters, all supporters. How can you say this? Sir, all parties, all voters, all supporters are not there. But parties, voters and supporters basically come out of the same thing. The citizens of this country. These three are not different things, they are the same people. In today's date, our citizenry has been polarized. In this environment, more than development, we are thinking about what will be of Hindu-Muslim, what will be of India-Pakistan. The media has a very big role in this. The kind of debates that come on TV, like Ravish Kumar Ji is raising, that more than half of the media is debating this, no one is taking it from development. And those who don't like him say, they should do it, Ravish Kumar. And he is receiving death threats. So this is wrong, sir. Because if a person wants to raise the issue, and he doesn't want to discuss it, and nobody wants to take it from development, why should we read this discussion? What do you think is true today? Those who are in positions of power and authority, they are really tolerant, that they believe in freedom of expression. Do they really believe in the freedom of expression? That every citizen has the right to do this. Sir, look, nobody has tried to stop this person. If I say this, then this will also be wrong. There is a fear of which people are not saying it themselves. But it is not that the government has not tried to stop anyone from saying anything as much as I have. Personally. I have not seen anyone trying to stop anyone. But people themselves are scared. How did this fear arise? There is a big role of social media, there is a big role of WhatsApp. But people feel that if they speak against the government, something will happen against them. Tell me something.  The median age of India is around 25, 26. For the first time in the history of this country, about half of our population is below the age of 25 and 26. We know that in 2014 more than two out of three people who were eligible to vote for it. So the youth, the youth vote matters a lot. Definitely. What you think is going to happen between now and the next general elections, which are scheduled to take place in April, May 2019. What do you think? When you look at it in terms of the way the youth, those in the age, say 18 to 25, 26, how do you see the political atmosphere prevailing among this section? Sir, today, the youth has become disenchanted from politics again. In 2014, there was a new hope. People supported Kiran of that hope. People voted for him. They won from a heavy burden. That support is not available to anyone today. The youth is not supporting a party so openly. The youth doesn't know for whom it is beneficial to vote. But with this promise, they have become disenchanted. What do you think is going to happen between now and the next elections? What do you think is going to happen? Will there be more communal tension? Will there be India-Pakistan tension? Will the Ram Mandir be built? Sir, there are all possibilities. As far as I can see, there is a chance for Ram Mandir to start. There will be a judgment in October-November. After that, there will be a big argument that we will build a temple. The communal tension will definitely increase from there. Will this help the Bharti-Janta Party? Will this help in so-called consolidation of the Hindu vote? Sir, it will definitely help. To what extent? Will the Bharti-Janta Party be able to build the next time? No one can say that. What will you do? Who will you suggest who people vote for? Let's assume all that you are saying is going to happen in the next few months. What is going to be your position? Sir, my position is that we don't vote for the Prime Minister. We vote for our MP in the MP election. In today's date, as many MPs are in fear and as many MPs are scared, assume that you have issues with electricity, water issues, your school equipment is useless, your constituency hospitals are useless. Do you think the Bharti-Janta Party MP will speak in Parliament? Do you think he will take all these issues to Mr. Modi? Is he so scared of Modi and Amit Shah that he is saying that everything is going well in the country? See, you were born at that time. I became a journalist during the emergency. Today, many of us think that we are having a new kind of emergency. People are scared to speak their mind. As a student of economics and politics and history, can you compare the situation that was prevailing in the middle of the 1970s when Indira Gandhi was Prime Minister and today? Sir, see, the emergency is self-imposed. It is in the hearts and minds of the people. It is not like someone is holding him and putting him in the jail. Nothing is happening in the country. Everyone is completely independent. But for their personal motivation, our MP wants to keep his seat. He wants a ticket from a party. So, he is not speaking openly. He is not criticizing openly. He is not taking the issue of his constituency. So, what should the voter do? I think that such people should choose the voter who should speak in their favor. They should not be afraid of anyone. They should be ready to speak against their party. And if such people are not getting the constituency to fight, then the country's youth will stand up and fight for themselves. What is your personal political ideology? What is your personal views? What is your personal ideology? What will you call yourself? Will you call yourself a South Indian? Or will you call yourself a South Indian? Sir, I mean, personal ideology is the development of India. There is a lot of left and right debate. It makes no sense in India. It can be said culturally that there is a right and a left. Economically, there is not much difference. Everyone has been a bit socialist. All parties have worked in the same direction from freedom to today. My last question. What do you plan to do now? Sir, I actually want to work in the policy space. I want to go to Bihar. Bihar is my home state. So I want to go to Bihar. I want to do some development work on the grassroots, some policy work. Political debate, political ideology. It is my idea to shape that the voter should understand how people should choose. The party is not that important. Is this your message for the youth of this country? Yes, definitely. Bring good people to politics. What party people are they? It does not matter. Thank you very much, Shivam. Thank you. For speaking with me. Yes, sir. I had enjoyed myself, I should say, speaking with you. And I hope you found this interview interesting and meaningful. You just heard and watched 25-year-old Shivam Shankar Singh telling you why he's left the Bharti Janta Party and why he's disillusioned with the present ruling dispensation. Thank you for being with us.


I want you guys to help me, and I want you to think of the blessings that needed to exist so that you can actually have that bite of bread. So for example, you needed to have teeth, you needed to have a baker, thank you, you needed to have farmers, you needed to have wheat, water, oven, heat. And where did the water come from? Did it come from the rain? Did it come from the clouds? Right? The ocean? Right? And if you keep going, you needed to have the teeth. You needed to have you need to have transportation, an economic system, you need to have, you need to have taste buds, you need to have the digestion, you need to have a tongue, you need to have molar teeth, you need to have salivation, right? You need to have the farm and the farmer, and how about the tractor on the farm, and how about the factory that made the tractor, and how about the person who made the tractor, how about the clothes that the person's wearing, who made the tractor, and how about the needle that was used to sew the clothes for the person that was working in the factory that made the tractor that's on the farm. So when you say, Alhamdulillah, it includes the clouds, the skies, the oceans, photosynthesis, it includes the chemistry of yeast, the chemistry of yeast, and the macros that exist behind that we don't even see that make bread into bread, all of those things that we barely understand that I barely understand in chemistry, right? And then and everything inside your inner universe, and there needs to be an economic system, and the person who made the business that made the bag, that made the bread that transported it, that put it in the place that you bought it, and how about the gas? And how long was the gas made in the world, in the earth, so that to make so that it was used to transport it? How long does it take? How many, how many eras, millenniums to make that gas? So that was being generated for you from thousands and thousands and thousands of years ago, so that you can enjoy your bite of bread?  That oil that was used, right? Thousands of years ago. So when you say, Alhamdulillah, you can't count one blessing because it encompasses all of these things, and that's why when you say, Alhamdulillah, it fills, Tamla'umma bayna semawati wal-arq. It fills from the heavens and the earth, and that's why one of my favorite hadith in the Shama'il is, if you whoever takes a bite of food and says Alhamdulillah, Allah is happy with you. It's that easy, or whoever takes a sip and says Alhamdulillah, Allah is happy with you. It's that simple. Just don't give credit to yourself. I made this bread. I'm the best baker in the world. Let me Instagram it. Right? Give credit to God.