We're back. We're live. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Think Tech, and here we are on Hawaii, the state of clean energy. And we are in Kauai for the Kauai Energy Conference here in the Marriott Hotel in Lihue, and having a wonderful time. We've interviewed many, many people. We did a live show at 12 noon with Mina Morita and Marco Mangelsdorf, our customary bi-weekly show called Mina, Marco, and Me on Monday. One of my favorites. But one of my other favorites is Beth Tokioka. She's the communications manager of KIUC, which is a fabulous energy company here in Kauai, one that the whole world can learn from. Welcome yet again to our show, Beth. Thank you, Jay. It's so nice to have you and Ian back here on Kauai. We just saw you a couple of months ago, and it's great to have you back on Kauai. Thanks for making the trip out to talk about what we're doing over here. We really appreciate it. So we made a movie out of that trip. It was March, I think, for OC16. It played on OC16, which is now known as Spectrum 1012, and it played for a week of seven separate plays. And then we put it on our YouTube channel, where I invigorated it, and it is now available if anybody wants to watch it. Just go to our YouTube channel, which is youtube.com slash thinktecawaii, and you can watch the video of our last trip. Our last trip, we talked to Beth about KIUC, where we went to Hawaii, what is it, Kauai Green Energy? Yes, the Green Energy plant, our biomass plant. And then we went to see the dairy farm, such as it is, and then we went to see the Tesla facility, such as it is, which is really remarkable. And finally we talked to Ben Sullivan and Mayor Carvalho, and they're here today at the Kauai Energy Conference.  KIUC is energy in the island of Kauai, the county of Kauai. So I want you to talk about this program, how it got started, and I know that Ben was intimately involved in that and others, but I'd like to hear from KIUC about its role in organizing the conference. Great, yes. We're very happy to work with the Kauai Economic Development Board to help put on this conference. There's a lot of partners involved, the county of Kauai and many others. It's a great conference. I think we've done three or four of these. They're not done every single year, but I do recall the first one, it was quite a number of years ago, back when we were really struggling as an island to make a dent in renewables. And so there were a lot of challenges at that time. There was a lot of focus on how we were going to do this, and now we fast forward to today. It's still a great conference, but there's so much to celebrate to talk about how much progress we've made in the last eight years or so. And then where the challenges still lie, because there's still some challenges for us, even though we're doing some really good things in renewables in terms of the grid and bringing more solar and hydro and biomass. But we still have a lot of challenges. So it's a great opportunity for, we appreciate KEDB being the convener and all of us supporting to bring everybody together to talk about this stuff and see where we can go. Yeah, well, you know, I get a lot of messages out of, not only what you've said, but what people have said in the course of the conference here today, because we've seen some great keynote speeches, and we heard Bernard Carvalho sing a song, which was very good. He's a great voice actor. He loves his music. But you know, I'm always trying to distinguish one from the other and trying to get a handle on the special personality of one island vis-a-vis another island and one conference vis-a-vis another. So what would you say from your point of view is the special sauce for the Kauai Energy Conference? I think, you know, I did attend the Maui Energy Conference a couple of months ago. I'll be going to Verge this week. I think for Kauai in most of what we do here is we're such a small community and so many of us work together on numerous things, whether it's energy or agriculture or, you know, it could be anything. But we're all very used to working with each other, very tight-knit, and we all kind of know that it's really up to us to make it happen. You know, it's a small community. It's a small business community. We realize we've got to work together cooperatively or we're not going to get very far. We have the experience of actually working together and seeing results. So I think for Kauai, it comes down to you've experienced it today. A lot of talk story, very intimate setting, folks who know the challenge as well and are kind of willing to roll their sleeves up and come up with some solutions. So we really enjoy working together here and the opportunity, especially when we can provide the structure to have, as we did today, you know, in the morning we've got a lot of informational sessions and panels, putting a lot of information out there, question and answer. And then in the afternoon, we're actually working it, you know, on these various topics like electric vehicles, PV for your business. How do we make this happen for more people? How do we make it work faster? And so that's nice to see that happen, that we can really in the afternoon roll up our sleeves and start throwing ideas out there and making it happen. I want to tell you one reaction I've had, I have several reactions because I'm an observer. One reaction I've had is that here in this conference, it's smaller, it's shorter, but because it's shorter and smaller, you get a more a more directed kind of discussion. The discussion is shapeable and it is shaped. And whoever thought these things up, I probably had that in their mind. And so the bottom line on that for me, most important thing is this candor here. People are willing to tell you the good and the bad. They're willing to tell you the details and not just doing self-promotion. And that's kind of different. I like that. Maybe it's part of the Neighbor Island style or maybe it's part of the Kauai Island style. Could be. I mean, we all kind of know each other.  And, and like I say, we work together in so many different situations, you know, that that we're all friends for the most part. We're all working towards the same things. And so, and it's nice to have a conference like this on Kauai. As you mentioned, it's, it's one day. So it's manageable. Business people are busy, you know, and they can't necessarily take a lot of time. They can't take two or three days. Flying to Oahu or to another island for a conference is expensive. And it takes a lot of time. And so people on Kauai, I think, appreciate the opportunity to plug in. They can take a day and plug in and really dig into this stuff. And, and they want to do that. It's just that it's kind of prohibitive if you've got to get on the plane and go to another island and all that. So we're really pleased with the turnout today. And we know this conversation will continue into the future. And we're really thankful that we've got folks who are willing to come to the table and actually talk about it and do the work. Many folks came from Oahu and for that matter other islands. And I was impressed with that because the idea is if you come from another island, you feel you can get something out of it and pay for the airfare and put in the time. And I think I think it was clear that they were getting something out of it because there's there's a whole bunch of things happening in Kauai that are instructive. And as you mentioned before, this has got to be another key word. Write this down. It's going to be on the final exam. It's action. The magic recipe, among other things, is that Kauai has found out how to move to action. You said a few years ago there was not much going on. And now look today, there's a lot going on. And somebody has figured out how to make that happen without any fuss. Well, sometimes a fuss or must mean, but, but mostly it got there. It is there now. And it's not only there, but there's a culture around action in Kauai. What is that? Is that the water? Could be, I think.  So we, we all do a good job of holding each other accountable and celebrating, celebrating the accomplishments. And I think on Kauai, what we've done really, be able to do really well is, well, first of all, we're blessed with a lot of resources when it comes to energy, particularly when we went to see the Tesla plant while you were here, we're blessed with open space, open land, a lot of agricultural land that's not being used. And so we have land owners who are willing to work with us to put up these facilities that take, you know, 50 acres or maybe more to put that back into production, not necessarily sugarcane anymore, but it's making a positive contribution to the island. So we've learned on Kauai, I think, to use our assets to the best of our abilities. And, you know, as we've had much success here, we're up to about 42, 43% renewables now, whereas 2008 we were at only 9% some hydro. We're now at more than 40. It gets that incrementally harder to move the needle a lot more quickly. But you know, we're looking at more solar projects, some more hydro projects, and it all takes a big partnership. And we all have to be able to work together, look each other in the eye, be productive, be positive, be straight with each other, like you said, and, and figure out how it's all going to work for all of us. You know, I can't help but think of the, the old Kauai, which was all about sugarcane. And everybody on the island was somehow connected with sugar, working on the plantation or for the plantation or somehow connected. And now there, there are, do I have this right? No plantations. No plantations. And so Kauai is in the process of redefining itself, I would say. And it struck me while I was listening to David Bissell this morning, that, that redefining itself somehow, KIUC and renewable energy in Kauai is at the center of redefining what Kauai is. There's no sugar. So what is it? And it's not, you know, to me, there was a period of time when everything was all about real estate and attracting people to buy condos and all that. But now that's not really so much the case. There's more free thought here. There's thought about sustainability and agriculture and being a better place for more people and all that. And so I think that energy is at the center of that. And I'm going to give you one minute to think about what I said. We can take a break. We come back and you react to what I said. Agree or disagree? That's best Tokyo. We'll be right back. Going to the game and it's gonna be great early arriving for a little tailgate. I usually drink but won't be drinking today because I'm the designated driver and that's okay. It's nice to be the guy that keeps his friends in line keeps him from drinking too much so we can have a great time. A little responsibility can go a long way because it's all about having fun on game day. And we have best Tokyo she's the communications manager of my favorite my favorite co-op if you will the K.I.U.C. here in Kauai. So I was saying you know about redefining and my my proposition to you is that Kauai is redefining itself and energy because it gives so much energy gives things to people. It enables people. It's a big enabler and you enable the energy. So tell me how much or how little you agree or disagree. I agree with that wholeheartedly. I think you know as you mentioned I think all the islands and Kauai for sure were dealt a big blow when the plantations all went under so much agricultural land available for use but not the critical mass of farmers to make that happen and to keep that green space green and to keep that agricultural land in production. And we never want Kauai to lose that. So how do you manage that pressure for a land owner. You know for for Grove Farm Gay and Robinson all these landowners who have cost. They don't want to develop their land but you have to reimagine it and I think that K.I.U.C. is helping to do this to put some of these lands back into productive use. Certainly there's plenty of agricultural land left for agriculture and want to make sure that that sector is stimulated as well. But what we've been able to do and what we're seeing I think all over the country now is that renewables are becoming so much more affordable. You know there was a time where everybody mid like 2005 or around that time everybody wanted to do renewables. It was the right thing to do for the environment but boy at what cost. You know can we afford to do it. And if or do we have to sacrifice cost for doing the right thing. We're finding now through some of our larger solar projects especially is that you don't have to. I mean renewables can be affordable. And so the more that we can provide clean power keep the cost down. That helps to stimulate all kinds of other activity on the island. It helps our families with their budgets. They can have some reliability on what their electric what their electric cost is going to be. You know having the co-op just in and of itself is such a blessing for our island that are that our customers our members our owners of the utility. It's a civic laboratory and a success at that. I had some conversation today with your director your vice chair of ten Bruggen gate. Jan ten Bruggen gate used to be a reporter for the Honolulu Advertiser. Now he's been chair of K.I.U.C. and now vice chair of K.I.U.C. and he's so dedicated. He reported on tech so he knows a lot about tech and energy. And he to me I hadn't well aside from Ben Sullivan I haven't met a lot of people who have been directors of K.I.U.C. but I have to say it's very impressive to talk to them. Can you comment on the board what kind of people they are and how they conduct themselves. Sure we are so fortunate to have a board elected by our members so they are accountable. We've got a great board of people who are so knowledgeable and they work hard at it. You know this is not a fluff job for them. They take it very seriously. Jan has been on the board for a number of years now and as you mentioned he's a former environmental reporter for the Honolulu Advertiser and very very knowledgeable. Each one of our we have a former judge. We have a former banker. We have such a diverse skill set on our board and they are very very focused on the goals and the strategic plan that we have which is at this point getting to 70% renewable by the year 2030 and we're pretty sure we can do that. And so yeah the board and the nice thing about that is the board again is accountable to the membership. So you know we have a means and an obligation to stay in touch with our members to make sure that what we're doing makes sense for us as an island community and then and then also we don't have a profit motive here we're a non-profit. So we try not to anything that we might charge our members over what it takes to run the utility we'll go back to them eventually in patronage capital which is a great thing as well. It's really interesting what's happened. I mean in the country in general and to some extent in the state of Hawaii state government people are dissociated. They have lost confidence in government. They don't feel that government is them or they are government that is some other party you know which they don't really think much about and don't care much about but somehow don't you think Beth in Kauai Kauai has avoided that that that evolution and that you have really two things that work well. You have the county government which seems to me to be working pretty well and then you have KIUC which is like a modern form if you will of democracy of successful democracy because people really feel they're invested they feel they're connected and and through that organization they can express themselves they can make achievement they can feel they're part of a larger organization and they're you know they're they're actively supporting that organization and they feel that the organization is supporting them that's what they get out of this. That's true I mean it's a really good observation here on Kauai I think with county government you know we're so accessible here I used to work for the mayor's office for many many years and so it's it it always felt like no matter what was happening at the county state or federal level everyone looked to the mayor to fix it but that's the that's the dynamic of a small community and it helps people to stay connected like we do with KIUC now through our member elected board they're accessible throughout the community our mayor is out there all the time not that we don't have frustrations and that people don't sometimes get frustrated with what county government is doing or even what KIUC is doing but I think people don't feel disconnect they don't feel disenfranchised because we are close enough that we can have that conversation. I might not always agree but we can be in that conversation and we can all listen to each other and you know and it's great for us too because we get that feedback on the ground we don't know everything all the time we don't always know the best way to get things done so to be able to have that really close feedback from the people that we serve is helpful for everybody I think. I think you're making history here Beth I hope you realize that you're in you're in the center of a historical process that will be appreciated for years and years as some special phenomenon happened not only in Hawaii but in Kauai right here. It's it's really quite amazing I started with KIUC back in November and so I'm relatively new here but especially with the opening of our Tesla plant in March the international interest in what we've done on Kauai is just phenomenal we've had so many news organizations come from the mainland and and even internationally to see what we're doing here on Kauai which in in a way seems I don't want to say easy but for us as a small community that's how that's what we do you know we just we see a challenge we we get down we work it out we're blessed with great assets and great leadership in our president and CEO David Bissell you mentioned and our board to see that direction of where we might go with large-scale solar where we might go with pumped storage hydro and having that vision and the and the portitude and the what comes with the cooperative which is being able to borrow capital at a very low cost so we have we have a wonderful wonderful portfolio of assets and I think we have the visionary leadership that's moving it all forward in a great direction for our little community and we're just really blessed and I think you're right I think we are making making history of a sword here now he mentioned in his talk this morning that that you guys were going to do 70% renewable by 2030 which is 15 15 years before the 100% state target of 100% by 2045 and 10 years before the Hawaiian electric target of 100% by 2040 but what struck me is that is that when David talked about reaching 70% by 2030 he actually had a plan he had a sequence of things that he was going to do and he was lining them up right now so there was no abyss out there say in 2020 or 25 it was all accounted for and that if you just follow these steps that are already planned you would you would reach 70% by 2030 I mean is that the way it works that's correct I mean right now we have a strategic plan we have that goal but we also have projects that are on the horizon for us more more battery storage solar one project that we're doing with AES right now that we're moving through the process we're hoping that will be online next year even bigger project than the Tesla another one beyond that and our pumped storage hydro which should bring us to 70% and so you know we have a roadmap and it's a real roadmap we just have to execute on it at this point we have to live so long to to see it materialized we do but but hopefully you know if all goes well and and it there it seems to be all systems go at this point we have a we have a path and so that's very exciting is very exciting you know when hearing it today it just seems so obvious that you know this is the way it works this is what you do but one question I'm left with and I wonder what your thoughts are about it is okay so that's 70% I feel from what I have heard in the past and what I hear now here at this conference I feel that you guys will very likely make exactly what you what you expect to make 70% by by 2030 but my final question here is what happens after 2030 does anybody know I mean or is that just too far into the future to have a handle how do we how do we how do we see that how does koai see that going from 2030 to say 2040 2045 because we still want to get to 100% and so I think we have to leave ourselves some breathing room for what will evolve and so we don't know there may be new technologies or other ways to to do this that are going to be revealed in the next 10 years or so so we have to be so that's the magic of moving quickly but not so quickly that you miss opportunities or that maybe you pay more for it than you might have if you just waited so we've we've been able to balance that very very well up to this point we're going to continue to do that and monitor new technologies new opportunities and and just have the trust that we're going to continue to to ride this train and and one of the other big challenges that we have as does the rest of the state is the transportation sector which hasn't been as easy to make progress on here when it comes to electric vehicles let me say that this this conference has integrated transportation with costs that is integrated transportation with business you get a sort of a triumvirative concerns cost and having business step out and do things maybe that's part of the the action aspect of what you're doing and of course you know it's about transportation which has got to be inextricably intertwined I was very impressed with the intellectual content and the issues raised in these breakout sessions I think you have put all that together and I think that makes it very worthwhile to engage in this discussion it's been a really good conference we had our students involved to which was really great a number of high school students here trying to get them to be thinking about this because ultimately we'll be retiring we won't be around anymore and they're going to have to take up the torch and and these are complex issues and they're very very bright kids great to see them at the table they're probably the ones who are going to get us past that with some new thinking maybe and so we're really pleased that are a bunch of our high school students were here with us today as well we interviewed them and they're really bright and they're they're not shy either and you don't get that country girl kind of thing here they're they're sophisticated players some of the guys to come out it was all girls today that came out which was wonderful but you know we're going to continue to work to to cultivate that next generation of interest in these things and an interest in our island home and how we move it to the next level yeah so in the course of our interview I asked them I said you know you guys realize that you're the you're the way forward that this is going to be your responsibility to think of how we can do this and to execute the plan are you ready for that they all unanimously said yes oh absolutely they said but you know we'll need some help from the older people to I love that those kids are amazing thank you thank you so much Jay we appreciate you having having you here and come back again we will


We've talked before in the show about Fox News's obsession with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez And it's beyond the point where you know we can accurately classify their obsession with her as pathetic But it's starting to honestly get a little bit creepy because now what they're doing is they are fishing through her Instagram in order to Find a reason to attack her based on something that she said so she had this Instagram live stream and She said the most benign insignificant thing most Uncontroversial thing ever and they still Try to find some way to attack her for it and said that she was insulting the past generation When an actuality she was really just praising her own generation But they didn't really know how to attack her that was evident So what this segment turned into was essentially them just bashing Millennials. That's what this was It was an anti AOC segment that devolved into a millennial bashing spree and then towards the end They are going to reveal that all the problems that they have with Millennials are actually applicable to them as well Not even kidding. So everything that they say will be disqualified after they say oh well You know what this thing that I hear about Millennials is also true for me. It's just it's unbelievable Fox News I mean to say that they're a joke is the understatement of the century But let's watch and then I have a lot to say Progressive Darling Alexander Ocasio-Cortez is turning some heads in her latest Instagram live video The New York Congresswoman boldly claiming Millennials and Generation Z are quote More informed and are quote willing to go to the streets in protest and are more well-versed in history Ocasio-Cortez apparently forgetting about the civil rights movement and Vietnam war activism of the 1960s Oh, and there's that conflict a World War two the greatest generation that saved the world from authoritarian rule because of the sacrifice of teenagers Here's the Ocasio-Cortez this is great. I think that They're badass. I think young people are More informed and dynamic than their predecessors I think they're profoundly courageous because they're willing to Puncture taboos and conversate and have conversations that frankly older generations sometimes struggle to have Hello, Brian. Yeah, they took to the streets to celebrate victory against fascism and Nazism same thing took to the streets when When they were actually trying to fight for our freedom and they actually did take to the streets in the Depression to get food So that was lining up in a suit as soup lines and bread lines So it's unbelievable that the people at Boston University must be just cringing holding their heads under the desk right now She graduated and feels she's part of the greatest generation. Hey, our military is as good as it ever is But as they right now as a society There's a reason if you watch the D-Day celebration and you saw who fought and what was at stake I you'd be embarrassed. I can't believe you're dissing the Millennials Brian. I know offended right now I think Millennials should stand up and defend the greatest. No, I completely agree Look, there are a number of people in our generation who have done amazing things the people who joined the military after 9 11 That was a defining moment of our generation People in the tech industry Mark Zuckerberg who created Facebook and others a lot of questions and problems with Facebook But it changed the world but this idea that we're going to say that we are better than the greatest generation that saved the world from authoritarianism Nazism communism really is quite disrespectful and ironic considering she's saying that Previous generations don't know about American history when they're the ones who set it up So we have a free future. I think that part of what has happened here is it's this this AOC? Instagram live in and of itself is reflective of the Self-absorbed culture that we currently live in and I hate to diss Millennials too and I cling to my genus that is Don't worry. I I you know present company excluded, but you know, thank you honest to God I mean what I see here is a self-absorbed Generation that thinks that because they tweet and because they march with funny hats that somehow that they have some sort of moral superiority That is going to change the world I my grandfather who served in World War two had begged to death the greatest generation storms in Normandy beach So that she could Instagram live in her kitchen They go right with full face of makeup. I want to point out and we left out all the kind of completely off the Charts discussion about climate change, but yeah, the one that she also doesn't yeah about the disease I use Instagram all the time to meet you. I love that person that you were talking about So they complained about how self-absorbed Millennials like AOC are you know We're always taking selfies and we're on the Twitter and the Facebook and then they admitted Oh, I actually love Instagram This AOC Instagram live in and of itself is reflective of the self-absorbed culture 12 seconds later. Me too. I love that person that you were talking about So what was the point of you criticizing AOC? How is Millennials, uh You know seeming obsession with social media Relevant to what she said about her generation being awesome and second of all, are you honestly saying that uh older generations Gen X and boomers don't like social media Because there's literally subreddits of basically just boomer posts. It's called insane people facebook Everyone is on social media because we have access to the internet a lot of people do So we're just all on social media. In fact, I think that platforms like facebook are probably more popular among older generations And instagram is more popular among uh younger generations So I don't even know how that uh criticism was relevant but for them to just basically Criticize AOC and Millennials for one thing and then admit that they're also guilty of that It shows that they they had no objective going into this segment They just watched something of AOC and they tried to look for a reason to criticize her See that just makes you look like hacks and let's get to AOC's quote here quote I think they're badass meaning her generation. I think young people are more informed and dynamic than their predecessors I think they're profoundly courageous because they're willing to puncture taboos and have conversations that frankly older generations Sometimes struggle to have how is that controversial? How is that something that is offensive to you? How is that disrespectful to previous generations? How it's factually correct? Think about this She says that we're more informed and dynamic than our predecessors We have cell phones now all of us have cell phones. We literally have infinite knowledge at our disposal Anytime we need it previous generations did not have that access to information Had more barriers you had to listen to the radio or You know read the newspaper, but you couldn't specifically seek out a very you know a specific set of Information or knowledge about something unless you went to the library now we can stay home I can learn about something while i'm taking a dump. That's what she's talking about here Access to the information that we seek to grow and educate ourselves with has increased How is that controversial? She also says that our generation is more willing to puncture taboos. How is that debatable? LGBTQ people have existed since human beings have existed But yet we're only talking about that now because my generation has pushed the envelope We've been open about our sexual orientations and gender identities Whereas that really was taboo For the previous generation now it's probably going to be the case that there are taboos now that my generation won't discuss That the next generation will that's just the way that you know society functions, you know, there's always growth Society is always growing. We are always changing. We're just a dynamic species. That's what we are So how is what she said disrespectful to The previous generations and all that they could You know invoke is people who fought during world war two So basically, oh, well really millennials are better. What about the people who fought during world war two? Okay, i'm sure that she would say that she respects them What's your point? It's not an insult to say you think your generation is the best That's not an insult Is it an insult to every other country to say that you think america is in the number one country because we all know That the nationalists over at valox news would say that So I just I they are going out of their way to look for reasons to be offended It's almost as if they're like the snowflakes. They frequently denounce on their program But here's what brian kilmeade said he just straight up made word solid I don't even understand the point I was trying to make she graduated and feels she's part of the greatest generation Hey, our military is as good as it ever is but right now as a society There's a reason if you watched the d-day celebration and saw who fought and what was at stake you'd be embarrassed Amazing. Yeah. Yeah, I genuinely don't know what he was trying to say He just knew that he was offended or maybe you know, he had to be offended even though what he was saying It seemed contrived But he just he knew that this was an anti aoc segment So we had to come up with something and he couldn't which is why he just made word solid and came up with this Weird incoherent argument against what she said when it's not Again, it's banal. It's unimportant, right She's not arguing aren't old people just terrible aren't boomers so stupid like aren't their posts really incoherent and batshit insane She's not making that argument Jesus christ now one of the other hosts said this idea that we're going to say we're better than the greatest generation that saved the world From authoritarianism nazism communism really is quite disrespectful and ironic considering She's saying that previous generations don't know about american history. So first of all, she did not say that she did not say That our generation knows more about american history than previous generations If you're going to lie about her quote, then you can't play the clip for us You have to hide that away But she also took issue with aoc's assertion that we are more informed again We have unlimited knowledge in the palms of our hands Of course, we are literally more informed because we have that now and I love how you know, she threw when oh Well, the previous generation the silent generation the greatest generation they helped defeat nazis and communism Didn't communists helped defeat nazis And at this point, that's where they kind of lay off of aoc and it just it devolved into millennial bashing And that's when it switched from them being triggered to me being triggered because I don't understand why millennials are always the targets of uh being bashed when we can't help the fact that we graduated into an economy That was not hospitable to us. We graduated during the great recession.  So I don't understand Why people hate millennial so much and then the other host chimed in and said the greatest generation Stormed normandy beach so she could instagram live in her kitchen I mean how petty is that just admit that you don't like aoc That you can say the same thing about you the greatest generation stormed normandy beach So you can go on fox news and espouse these right wing talking points that are fed to you by fox news producers You can say that about anything. What's the point? What does that prove about aoc? How does that prove that her economic and social ideology is bad for people? It doesn't now.  Well, I don't really feel bad for them But I feel bad that they had a goal They had this objective to attack aoc and they just ended up putting out this cringe inducing segment where it just showed that We just attack aoc for the sake of attacking her because she is a political opponent And we're going to do whatever we can whenever we can to try to make her look bad So if that means we've got a creep on her instagram and try to see if she says anything You know that might be deemed controversial possibly or maybe we can misinterpret to sell to our audience as controversial I think that that would be who of us to do. I mean they had to have thought what are we supposed to do at this segment What are we supposed to say about this club? This isn't really an issue.  It's only helping her and hurting you Subscribe if you like this video folks Mike's tremendous and he's doing a really really good job Many people are telling me about how wonderful the humanist report is Bigly


One of the other things I need to worry about is, how do I traverse a multi-dimensional array? I've got more than one element. Well, remember, I can't just do something like system.out.print distance. That's my array's name. I can't do that because this is a complex data type. One of the things that we started to learn about was this idea of using something called the dot length command. This dot length command, I'll just clean that up, dot length command. What that does is that tells me how big my array is. Now, if I come in here and I state distance.length, this is going to give me back. 7. Now, that's something that I want to point out. I have 69, or I have 64 numbers here, 0, 7, or 0 to 6, so 7 times 7. This only gives me the rows back. Just the rows. Now, how do I get any column? We'll get to that in just a second, but let's take a look again at how we would traverse our distance in the past. We'd start with, again, a simple for loop. int i equals 0. i less than distance.length i plus plus. This is going to be considered my outer loop. If we remember this outer loop, it basically has to run through everything inside it before it can move forward.  I'm going to leave this blank for a second if you're curious, maybe skip ahead, but if you're really curious, figure out what that might be. What this will do is, again, what should I be putting here? Again, I'm dealing with a j. I'm no longer dealing with i, so to speak. I put my j in, and I'm going to rename this instead of a j just because I got so much clarification going on, or not clarification, but I want to make sure that you guys understand the difference between that right there.  Again, what do I put inside here? Again, I'm going to be dealing with z, but now what do I put in this regard? I don't do distance dot length again because that deals with rows. What I actually do is I say distance at i dot length. So what does this do? Well, this is going to tell me the number of columns at distance at i. Now, okay, if we notice that's just going to constantly be seven, but it's good rule of thumb because this is going to come back to haunt us when we start talking about ragged arrays. Then I can come in here again, and I can just do a simple system dot out dot print distance. I'm running out of space, so there we are, distance at i at z. Now, every time I, well, again, we're dealing with this idea of a nested loop. So what's going to happen is sort of imagine this is my starting point. I start, I go through my loop, and I get to now my inner loop. I'm right here in my code. I have to run through this one, two, three, four, five, six, seven times before I can then in turn come back to my main loop. Once I do, I just went from zero to now one. Z starts back out at zero because, again, I come back down here. Z goes from zero to one, two, three, four, five, six. It hits seven, I don't do anything at seven, come back and do it all over again. And I continue to do this until I have printed every single one of the elements inside of my array.


from Orlando, Florida, it's theCUBE. Covering ServiceNow Knowledge 17, brought to you by ServiceNow. We're back, Dave Vellante with Jeff Frick. This is theCUBE and we're here at ServiceNow Knowledge 17. Stanley Toh is here, he's the Global IT Director at Semiconductor Manufacturer Broadcom. Stanley, thanks for coming on theCUBE. Nice to be here. So, Semiconductor, hot space right now. Things are going crazy and it's a good market, booming. That's good, it's always good to be in a hot space, but we're here at Knowledge. Maybe talk a little bit about your role and then we'll get into the sort of what you're doing with ServiceNow. You're right, Semiconductor is booming, but we don't do anything sexy. Everything is, you know, components that go into your iPhones and stuff like that. They do the sexy stuff. We do the thing that we make it work, right? So, I'm what we call the Enterprise and User Services Director. So, basically anything that touches the end user from the help desk to collaboration to your PC support desk, everything is under, basically anything that touches the end user, right? Even onboarding, and now with the latest, we are actually, we actually move our all customer support portal to even ServiceNow CSM. Okay, so what led you to ServiceNow? Maybe take us back and take us through the before and the after. Okay, in Broadcom Limited, before we changed our name to Broadcom, we were Avargo Technologies. We are very cloud-centric. Anything that we can move to the cloud, we move to the cloud. So, we were the first multi-billion dollar company to move to Google back in 2007, that's like 10 years ago, right? And then we never stopped since. You know, we have Octa, we have Workday, and if you look at it, all this cloud technology works so well with ServiceNow, right? And ServiceNow is a platform that has all the API and connectors to all this other cloud platform. So, when we were looking and evaluating first as just a ITSM replacement, we selected ServiceNow because of the ease of integration. But as we get into ServiceNow and as we learn ServiceNow, you found that it's not just an ITSM platform. You can use it for HR, for finance, for legal, for facilities. Recently, about, probably about six months ago, we launched the HR module. And then three weeks ago, we went live with the CSM portal for the external customer. When you say you go back to 2007 with Google, you're talking about with Google Docs? Everything. Email, Calendar, Docs, Sites, Drive, but you want to know everything, right? They were unknown then, and there's a risk. So, what was the conversation to take that risk? Because obviously, there was a lot of concern at the enterprise level on some of these cloud services beyond TestDev in the early days. Obviously, you made the right bed, it worked out pretty well. I'm curious kind of what were the conversations and why did you ultimately decide to make that bet? Okay, so 2007 was just after the downturn, right? So everyone was looking at cost, at supportability, but at the same time, the mobile phone, the mobile, you know, the smartphone is just exploding in the market. So we want something that is very flexible, very scalable, and very easy to integrate, plus also give you mobility. So that's why we went with Google as the first cloud platform, but then we started adding, right? So right now, we can basically do everything on your smartphone. And we have Octa as our single sign-on. From one portal, I go everywhere. So okay, so that's good. So you're talking about some of the criteria for the platform. How has that affected how you do business? How you do IT business? See, IT has always been looked upon as a cost center, right? And we are always slow, legacy system, hard to use. We don't listen to you. You know, why are we paying those guys, right? And then you look at all the consumer stuff. They are sexy, they are mobile, they have pretty pictures. Now all your internal users want the same experience. So the experience has changed. The old Unix command key doesn't work anymore. They want something touch, gooey, mobile. They want the field, color, you know. And you might be the best description of the consumerization of IT, Dave, that we've ever had on the Q. Coming from an IT person, it is honest. And now you've driven service now into other areas beyond IT, right? You mentioned HR. HR, we went live six months ago. Okay, and these other areas, are you thinking about it, looking at it? So we are also looking with legal, because they have a lot of legal documents and the NDAs and stuff like that. And the service now have a very nice integration to DocuSign and Box. So we are looking at that, right? But the latest one we went live three weeks ago is the CSM, the Customer Support Management Portal. And that one actually replaced one of our legacy system that has a stack of 16 application running. And we collapsed that and went live on a service now CSM three weeks ago. And what has been two impacts? The business impact, and I'm curious, is the culture impact. You sort of set it up as the attitude. We had a fun with it, but it's true. What's the business impact and what has the cultural impact been? See, the last few years we have been doing a lot of acquisition. So we have been bringing in a lot of new BUs, right? Business units. And they want things to move fast. And we want to integrate them into one brand, right? So speed and agility is key when you do acquisition. So that's why we are moving into a platform where we can integrate all these new companies easily, and we found that in service now and we can integrate them. So for example, when we acquire Broadcom Corporation, they have 18,000 employees. We onboarded them on day one. And usually when you do an acquisition, they don't give you the employee information until the last minute. Two days, all I need is to bring them all on boarded into my collaboration suite. I only need two days of the information and on day one, turn it on, they are live. Their information is in, they have an email account. All their information is in service now. They call one help desk. They call our help desk. They get all their help and services. So it's fully integrated on day one itself. You guys also own LSI now, right? Yes, LSI. Emilex. Emilex, PLX. PLX. The latest acquisition is Brocade, which we will close in the summer. And then the rumored Toshiba, NAN business. So yeah, we are doing a lot of acquisition. Yeah, quite a roll up there here. Correct. So as you can see, they are all very different companies. So when they come in, they have different culture. They have different workflow. They have different processes. But if you integrate them into a platform that we are very familiar right now, right? It's a consumerized look and feel. It's very easy to bring them in. And that is the cultural change that has occurred, right? So people love IT now, is that?  They still say, you know, IT is a cost center. But you know, but right now, you know, they are coming around and they see that we are bringing value to them, right? So right now, IT is just not to provide you the basic, IT is to enable the business to be better and more competitive. You're a true partner for the business. Correct. Stanley, thanks very much for coming on theCUBE. It was great to hear your story. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me. You're welcome. All right, keep it right there, buddy. We'll be back with our next guest. Is theCUBE alive from Service Now Knowledge 17? Right back.


Good morning everyone. I hope you are all doing well for this final day of this amazing Academy on Android Implementers. So we're happy to see you at this first session. And it's also a great pleasure to welcome Pamod Amarakoum, who is one of the lead implementers from his Skelanka. Hi Pamod. Hi everyone. Yes. Thank you. Thank you for being here with us. So we are very excited because Pamod is going to do a presentation on how to use mobile for nutrition in Skelanka at the field level. So it's going to be very, very exciting and interesting. So Pamod thank you for being available to do this presentation for us. Also dear participants, if you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask them on the Experts Lounge for Asia channel that you can find on Slack. So if you don't see it, the only thing that you need to do is basically click on the plus sign and then browse the different channels and you will see Experts Lounge for Asia. So really if you have any questions for Pamod, you can ask them on this channel and then Pamod will reply to each of your questions during this session. So yes, looking forward to reading your questions. Pamod, thank you once again and you have now the floor. Right. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening to all of you. And first of all, a big thank you to the University of Oslo team for inviting me to join in this session on the final day of the Android Implementers Academy. I was just a while ago reminding Martha that the last academy about Android implementation we had in Sri Lanka exactly around one year back. So it's kind of like a coincidence that I'm getting the opportunity to join this session just after one year from the last academy. Right. So first of all, let me share my presentation. Right. So what I will be doing in this next 30 minutes or so is to briefly describe the use case where we use the mobile, the DHS to mobile for nutrition monitoring in Sri Lanka. But I will try to make it generic as much as possible because this is a kind of a different use case to as what you will be, what you have discussed so far in this academy because here we are talking about a custom mobile application that was developed about five years back and has been in use in use in Sri Lanka over the last few years with of course a lot of challenges. So we will discuss about these challenges towards the end of the presentation and of course the lessons learned out of these challenges. Right. So I'm Pramod Amrakorn representing his Sri Lanka and this project is specifically in Sri Lanka but I will try to make it as generic as possible. Right. So first of all, a little bit of background about the use case. Now when it comes to South Asia region, Sri Lanka generally has very good public health indicators compared to other countries in the region. But one issue that Sri Lanka has been struggling over the last two decades is about some few indicators related to nutrition. So for example, you can see severe wasting, wasting, overweight and stunting. We do not have that advantage that we had over the other countries. When it comes to these particular public health indicators, I mean that has been the trend over the last one decade or so. So what happened about seven, eight years back was that this issue has been discussed in detail and the presidential secretariat itself formed a multi-sector committee to address this the issue of nutrition at feed level. And then of course, like they decided several things, one was in fact to identify the real issue and then get proper information for decision making. And then of course to integrate all this information into a national system so that when we want to do health and other sectoral planning, this information could be incorporated. Okay, so how we joined this project was that to fulfill the information requirement and basically the presidential secretariat wanted the information solution to capture these requirements. So the basic requirements were to register the children who are having malnutrition into this nutrition monitoring program and this had to take place at the field level. I mean not at the hospitals or at health facilities but at field level when the healthcare workers in Sri Lanka, we call them public health midwives who are actually in charge of nutrition. So when they do the field level visits they wanted to get registered. And then once these children with malnutrition have been registered in the program, they wanted to monitor nutrition parameters such as height and weight on a regular fashion. And also they wanted to identify household risk factors. So these risk factors could have been directly health related or maybe related to other sectors such as agriculture, social welfare, things like that. And then they also wanted to obtain household geolocations and then in the mobile app, I mean like in this particular solution itself, they wanted to have some basic visualizations. So for the mobile user that is a field health worker so that they can get an idea. And then once this data is collected at field level, it had to be as soon as possible synchronized with the central data repository so that data is available to everyone else. Right. So how we approach this use case, now I'm talking about five years back was that we decided to give a smart mobile device to the field health worker that is a public health midwife. And then once this data is collected, we thought because we had a strong DHS to infrastructure in Sri Lanka that we will synchronize this information collected in the mobile device into a central DHS to base data repository. And once that happens, the data had to be kind of overseen and approved by the medical officer of health. He's kind of like the supervising officer of all these field health staff supervising public health doctoring fact at field level. So there are like about 50 of these public health midwives who may be under the supervision of this public health doctor. And once that is done, the data had to be available with the other stakeholders that is the I mean the ministries and the other multi sector stakeholders and the parents. Right. So this of course, five years back was a major task because we did not have a very sophisticated Android application thankfully to our Android team. I mean, we have a very good application right now but those days it was not so. So what we basically did was we designed a custom mobile application which transmits information back and forth with the DHS to central server using the DHS to web API. And again, we also had had another issue like they voted some custom user interfaces which were not available in the standard DHS to web applications. So we also had to do another custom web application also to support this scenario. So we did that and then of course, our entire information landscape was full. So this was our solution which we designed that time. Right. So let me just now quickly go through a few of the screen, the interfaces that that is that where they are in our initial application. So first of all, I mean, we had this use authentication. And once that is done, one important feature we had was because we were using the public health midwives. These are the few level health workers to collect this data. We needed the application to be available in in all three languages that are used in Sri Lanka. So we had the trident who are using interface. And then followed by that, of course, once you are logged in, you can select an area very much similar to data capture workflow. And then of course, we had from their onwards, kind of a custom interface where we use a lot of colors to identify whether a particular child who's who's listed here is a child who's being actively monitored or it's a child whose nutrition status is now okay. So to indicate this, we were using a lot of colors, as you are seeing here. And then these are of course, the standard, you know, like the registration process. And then we had a few options to identify what is the main nutrition issue the child is having. And of course, we had the child's profile. And this is a basic basic search criteria. And here I'm going to mention again, another user interface where I use where we use a lot of colors. So for example, those days, we had a major issue about the deletion process, like once the, say in DHS terms, when a track entity instance is deleted, how it should be updated with the central server and like there's a time delay and then and how to indicate this in mobile applications. So we again used different colors for this one. Right. And then this interface is a bit important one. So here, of course, what we do is like, you know, as you can see here, here the particular child is 16 months old and value has been entered for the height and weight. So what we wanted was to give a visual indication to the field health worker once that person is entering a particular figure, where that figure stands, because these are just numbers. So for example, what you see here is like, when the field health worker enters this value 78, what the app does is it kind of verifies with the WHO, we have the standard deviation values for height for age, weight for age, things like that. And it verifies and it gives a visual indication with the color code saying, okay, this 78 is kind of a okay value. So if it is okay, it's usually light green or dark green. And here, of course, it's amber color. So the weight is not that okay. And if it is really less than two SD, it gives you a visual verification with color like bright red. So that way, we try to enhance the data quality at the point of capture itself by giving the application of what they actually entered. And then again, the same visual indication we had in another instance. So this is kind of like you are leaving event data. So in the event data itself, we had a background color change to indicate where this value stands with regard to WHO standard deviation values. And here, of course, we had another interface to capture the household risk factors. So they do a household visit and then and there they capture what they see as the deficits, which is contributing to the child's malnutrition. And then the most important thing is the charting. So let me show you another screen. So as you can see here, in the mobile app itself, the public health midwives, the field health workers were able to visualize three types of charts. First one is height for age, the second is weight for age, and the third is weight for height. So these kind of charts kind of it gives a visual verification about where the child's nutrition is heading. It's a longitudinal visualization. So it's not just a snapshot idea about what is today's height and weight and not like that. So when we have this kind of charting, you can see whether this is a child whose nutrition status is improving over the last two to three months, or it's deteriorating, or this one needs a special attention, maybe needs to be seen by a pediatrician, there may be some underlying clinical issue. So this you can identify just by looking at the charts for height as well as weight. So this we incorporated into the mobile application itself. And then again, the field health workers, another thing they had to do was they needed to do some kind of a presentation, a briefing to the public health doctor who supervised in them on a monthly basis. So for that one, they needed some statistics because the thing is these field health workers, for most of them, they did not have any kind of access to a laptop or desktop device. And the mobile device was the only device that they are using for data entry as well as visualization. So this is where, in fact, like we might have a requirement in the DHS to mobile application itself to provide them with some kind of analytics in the application because the issue is there are a lot of health workers who don't get access to a desktop or laptop. So the mobile device is not only for the data capture for these users. So they would like to have it enabled with some visualizations and analytic features as well. So this is why we had a very, very brief analytics or some report that was available in the mobile app. So here you can see how many children under this particular midwives care are having each of these nutrition issues. And again, they wanted this one also like to see how many were under each of these standard deviations so that they can, this is something that they have to submit to for official statistics purposes. So these kind of basic reporting was also available inside the mobile application itself. And now another requirement was that the health sector administrators or district level administrators, they wanted a few other visualizations which were not available in DHS to about five years back. So one was this donor chart and also the progression of how the number of children with each of these risk factors were evolving over time. So this kind of longitudinal charting was also not available that time. And so we had to design a separate web application to serve this purpose. And you can do a trend analysis. And then again, yeah, there are like different kind of tools available in this web applications that I'm mentioning. So once again, I must mention you. So this is some work that I have been, I mean, that that was initiated about five years back. But now, of course, if there are any, any, any Android developers here, if you want to develop a custom Android application, it is not at all that difficult. So our Android team has done SDK and I mean, it has already been discussed during the academy itself. So things are much, much easier compared to the difficult process I have mentioned, which was started about five years back. Right. So this is in fact a few screenshots of our revamped application, which was done about two years back with kind of different interfaces. Okay. So this is a brief timeline. We started, of course, the design and development in 2015, but formally started in 2016 January. And thereafter, we have been implementing in few districts in Sri Lanka over the next few years. Of course, this year, everything has been kind of in a halt. We could not expand at all due to the pandemic situation. But this is what has happened during the last five years. Of course, the implementation, the biggest challenge. We, I mean, like what we did was we went up to the sub district level or else a level where we had, which was under supervision of a public health doctor, we call it a medical office of health area. So our team went to each of these medical office of health area, we may have about 10 of them per a district, and we conducted one full day training program on how to use the device. I mean, what is the device? I mean, to start with, I mean, what is this mobile device and some idea about how to protect the device and hardware, how to turn it on, things like that. And also how to use different applications, like, I mean, maybe the email and how to set up a Google account, things like that. So basically, in fact, like two to three hours was consumed to describe about this device and how to use it. And thereafter, of course, the workflow, one advantage was that because we were following the same workflow, the workflow was very, I mean, it was not complicated at all because it was what they have been doing over the years. And then we showed them the application and how they can use it to match their requirements in the workflow. And then, of course, towards the latter part, we had this kind of small group discussion within, like, I mean, within groups of like six public health midwives and discussed what other challenges they might encounter. And we kind of gave them individual attention. So this is practically how it is used at field level. And as of now, we had more than 20,000 children who have been registered in the application and monitored in the monitored, the nutrition status is monitored at field level. Right. So let me now discuss about something important about the experience, because the technology might, I mean, it'll all keep on changing because I mean, the even the application development process that we started five years back is much different, because we have better technology nowadays and the DHS to mobile is very streamlined and better documentation.  But what will not change is the lessons learned. So what actually worked? One thing was the interface design, because what we understood was that interfaces means a lot. Because when we are doing a mobile implementation, we compared to a web interface where we have a we are when we are using a laptop or desktop device, we are really restricted by the screen size. So we have to optimally utilize the screen area that we have. So that I mean, we have to use a lot of color coding. And as I mentioned to you, and we might have to, you know, like if you want to highlight something, then that also we have to focus on how to do it. And then again, if you are using multiple languages, we have to incorporate it. And we did not try to create brand new interfaces. So whatever the interfaces that we use, for example, this charting, the color coding, things like that, they were already there in the workflow. So this, because we also did a qualitative study, research study, going parallel. And what we identified was that one stadium feature that was highlighted by the end users was that the interfaces what we used was very familiar. And then of course offline functionality, which is really required when you are doing a three level implementation, because there are so many areas where you don't get good internet connectivity, and maybe some some areas no connectivity at all. So data has to be, of course, stored offline, which is of course, I mean, supported by default in our data capture application that we have now. And the troubleshooting mechanisms at field level, because now here the issue is unlike the web, the application is just running on the user's device. And our experience is that it is not in a controlled environment. There are so many other applications that are installed in that device. And there are so many variables. So there has to be some kind of capacity building at field level. So what we did was we identified at least like two to three public health bidwifes from an area during this training program, and we kind of isolated them and we provided them with some additional technical information on how to troubleshoot and help other users. This was really helpful because it was kind of filtering out a lot of issues, which should have otherwise come all the way up to the national level, implementers and the supporting staff, because then things become very complicated, they I mean, like we are getting so much of so many requests, which could have been handled at field level all the way up to the national level if the field level doesn't have the sufficient capacity. So we built up capacity at field level to address these mine issues. And then again, regarding repair and maintenance of devices, so when these devices were procured by the Ministry of Health, we ensured that it is procured through, I mean, like when they are deciding on a supplier, we selected a supplier who has a countrywide service network so that when there is issue, the field level health worker doesn't have to come to a larger town or a district level capital to get it repaired, which kind of cost them another maybe a full day. But that again means you are losing one precious day where they could have done so much of other field work. So we made sure that this maintenance service, they in fact reach out to the end user, the field level health worker and collect the device and repairs it and hand it over again. But then again, they are like challenges because of course, the service providers, they tend to increase the cost to cover these as well. Right. Then of course, incorporating solution into operational review process. So what we actually tried to do was like, it was not just for data capture. Once this data is captured, we had this monthly review meeting at this Medical Officer of Health who is kind of the surprising public health doctor level.  If so, what is actually contributing, what can be improved. So there will be kind of a critical evaluation on the data entry process which happens in this monthly meeting. So this was providing them a very good feedback. And this in turn, it had so many positives. So one thing is that it will provide feedback. So if a person has done some mistake, they'll be guided on how to prevent that from happening again. And again, it will also provide some kind of motivation to the people who have been collecting data because they know that their data that the data that they're collecting is again going to be useful at a higher level. So this was again, something that we found as very useful. So what you're seeing here is one of these monthly review meetings. In fact, one professor from University of Oslo also attended in one of these reviews. This is again in Jaffna districts, which was troubled by three decades of war. So we kind of had a lot of challenges in implementing this district, but it has been really successful. Right. Okay. Then coming back to what did not work, first of all, the mobile data plan because I mean, it is not that in these kind of projects that we can do 100 percent. I mean, the entire process we can do in the 100 percent optimal way. It doesn't happen because there are so many compromises we have to make because we may be just one party who's advising the government stakeholders on what should be done. But then again, we might have to be happy with what we are receiving. So here, of course, the implementing parties could not come come into a good consensus about how to manage this data plan. So what was decided was that they will be providing an incentive to the end users for their mobile data. But this didn't kind of turn out to be working that well, because what happened was that they were kind of overusing the data for different personnel, I mean, whatever the requirements so that there was a chance that the data court is over within like two weeks, the one month data code. So how we in fact tackle this was that we were asking these the end users because they were supposed to pay a visit to this field level of we call it the MOH office at least once a week for other routine purposes. So all these offices, they had the Wi-Fi connectivity. So what we ask them most, if you don't have mobile data, at least when you come to the office, use the Wi-Fi and try to synchronize. So that was again, I mean, there was a delay in getting the data, but I mean, that was a compromise we had to make. And then again, the replacement of devices. So we had a service plan implemented, but then again, the lifetime of a mobile device is pretty short, like maybe maximum two to three years. Then whether you will have sufficient funding in the state sector to replace these devices, when they are out of order is again an issue that we faced and which we have not been able to successfully address. Then again, the technical capacity at district level. So thing is, as I mentioned, like we tried to build up some level of capacity at field level, but then again, after that, we did not have sufficient technical capacity at all districts. So sometimes if something could not be addressed at the field level, the request had to come all the way up to the national level, which again, is kind of a cumbersome process because there's a lot of delays. And we are sometimes not able to understand what these users are meaning by the different issues that they're having. So this again is a problem. And then again, the version upgrades, of course, we did not, I think it may have been discussed about the use of MDM. Unfortunately for this one, we have not been able to use MDM so far. So we have issues because we are using the Google Play Store even up to this moment. We have been trying to use other options, but I mean, it has not been materialized. So with that, of course, we are not really sure when we do a proper, I mean, we didn't really do a version upgrade, whether all end users will be on the same version is again an issue. But then again, the positives is that usually we are talking about field health workers who are carrying this large pile of papers or books in the field visit. So as you can see, this is one in a rural area, one of the midwives who are going, who is going for a field visit. But then again, rather than carrying this large pile of papers, if they have this field health records in their mobile devices, things become much, much easier. So this is what we have heard from the end users. But then again, there are a lot of practical issues. So the lessons learned, in fact, come into the last part of my presentation. Now, what we understood was the mobile technology has a lesser learning curve compared to learning how to use a computer. Because one thing is that people are really familiar with mobile devices, not that everyone in the household has a smart mobile phone, but chances are such that nowadays, even in rural areas, at least the household head will have a smartphone and so at least the midwife, I mean, the spouse may have at least used this device and they are kind of familiar. So we are kind of starting off with the technology that people are familiar at the base level. So with that, of course, they have minimal learning to do on how to use the application rather than learning how to use a computer. And then again, use of familiar interfaces will increase the compliance and acceptability. So here, what we try to minimize is the complication of learning. Because if you have, for some field health workers who are not tech savvy or who have not used technology at all, learning how to use a mobile device, a smart device itself is a major task. So if we try to even introduce some new workflows with new interfaces, this will further complicate things. And what will happen is that they will kind of reject the solution. So this is what we have understood that you have to keep the interfaces simple and whichever familiar to them so that they will, I mean, the acceptability at that level will be more. And then again, scaling up the technology has to be carefully planned, like we may be too ambitious to launch an island kind of countrywide implementation of mobile technology, which may be, I mean, too ambitious, I must say, because what we have found out is that to do a successful mobile implementation, there's a lot of infrastructure and capacity building that is required. And again, not only infrastructure and capacity building and the supervision and evaluation also has to be placed well ahead prior to implementation. Otherwise, implementations don't tend to sustain. Because here, rather than using the web technology, lot depends on the mobile technology itself, which is very challenging. So you have to carefully plan the implementation. Maybe you will have to plan a few years ahead on how to get a proper funding, even to get the devices, if they stop working. So those things also needs to be planned well in advance prior to implementation in a new district. And then empowering the field health workers helps for better adoption of technology and sustaining the solution. So sometimes you may be the pioneer to introduce a technology like mobile technology. But what it does is like it kind of motivates the field health worker to learn technology because what we understood, like there were field health workers who were more than 50 years of age who tend to be generally not too keen to learn new things because they are towards the end of their career. So they don't feel like learning new things. But here, when we try to introduce the mobile technology becomes kind of a mandatory tool they have to use to do the routine work. And with that, because they had to learn it and learning on how to use a mobile phone is not that difficult. And also because there is peer support available at households. So sometimes there are user stories where these field health workers, they just take the device at home and they try to learn how to use it from their children because the children finds it much easier to use. And in initial few days, the data entry was even done by their children. So but then again, what it ultimately does is that it builds the capacity and again motivate the end user so that subsequently, if someone comes to introduce a new program, maybe administration program, something else, or else try to teach them on how to use the web interfaces of DHS2, the adoption and the compliance will be much more. So these are a few lessons that we have learned from this implementation. And again, this entire project has been recognized with few awards at global level also because of course received the United Nations World Summit Award in year 2016 for the innovation. All right, so thank you so much. I guess I kind of tried to introduce you something a new way of looking at implementation of a mobile solution, not on a particular use case. So this is a kind of a different use case because we are using a custom mobile application. But what I think you can take as the take home message would be the final few slides about the challenges and how to address them. So thank you so much. Thank you so much, Pamod, for this presentation. Very, very interesting as usual. Thank you. Now I'm going to ask first to my colleagues, Marta or Rosé, would you have any questions for Pamod? Thank you, Alice. And thank you, Pamod. I think every time I see you presenting this work, I learn something new. It's really impressive. So I have two questions today or maybe three. One is that you made a very important point on that troubleshooting and supporting users is very different when you have a web system or a mobile system. So if you had to identify or to highlight two or three main differences for supporting national implementation on web or national implementation in mobile, what would be your key recommendations with this difference when someone is moving to mobile? All right. Good question. So what happens is now this is one reason like we have a MCH, RMNCH program, which has been well established and they are using DHS to web for like last three to four years. They have been thinking when to go for mobile and when I ask from the program staff, why are you not moving to mobile? They explain it in a really nice way. So the thing is here, of course, now when you are using the DHS to web, you have much better control because what we do is like, okay, so for example, a classic issue about from a sub district level, if someone is complaining, okay, I'm not seeing the data or this screen is not loading and they contact us through a mobile call, something like that. We try to explain and try to figure out what has gone wrong. In case if we really fail to understand what we do is we have all taught them on how to use this remote desktop software. So we try to connect to these devices and see what is going wrong. But then again, I mean, I'm trying to apply the same to a mobile situation. This is not at all feasible because like nobody is usually willing to give access to their mobile device for a national level user. And then again, we are never guaranteed whether that person will have a proper internet connection. And then due to different challenges, we might not be able to capture, we might not be able to capture the exact requirement. So this is where you need to like, if all these fail, there should be some mechanism to analyze that field level, because otherwise the device, entire device has to come to the national level. So this itself is very challenging. So this is what we can minimize by having some capacity available for troubleshooting at that sub-district level. So without building the capacity, and if we try to implement the same program, which is running nationally at web using the DHS2 web and try to use the mobile, it's going to fail because we have had some experience in the past. We tried to do that and it didn't sustain that. Thank you. And maybe some howling to this, you also had a line highlighting repair and maintenance. So this is kind of sounds a bit like touching hardware. Sounds a bit like repair and maintenance of the devices. So we are not talking only right now of the app is not syncing, it cannot open, or these kind of things, but about the devices themselves. So did you have any kind of strategy for this and where the device is, did the device belong to the country or to the users? Yeah. So here, of course, in this use case, mainly the device was owned by the ministry. So it's not user's device. But then again, the issue is, like as I mentioned, during the first two, three years of implementation, we had this, the warranty support. So in that time, the repair was, I mean, well organized. But then again, when we, but there was a time in some certain areas, as I mentioned, we could not, we were not in a position to replace the device after the devices, the hardware reaching the end of life. So in these cases, we ask the users if they are willing to use their own devices and we'll be providing them with the same incentive that is a mobile data incentive will be providing. So here again, if what we advise was that if they were going to purchase the device, always try to purchase with, I mean, some supplier who's providing good support and service repairs, which is available at their own, in that area. Because otherwise, we highlighted the issues they might encounter if you try to go for a cheaper device with minimal support. So this is one thing we have been emphasizing even to the ministry people as well as if someone was actually going to buy a device to be more concerned about the repair and services. That's interesting. I don't think we see many projects with these years of experience already being implemented with mobile. So it's always very interesting. So my last question is now, I mean, after five years, you have that project up and running for a long time. So for those users, did the fact that having the mobile already deployed open the door for other programs being mobile as well, did you expand somehow the use of the mobile at the level of the community health worker? I mean, apart from nutrition or it's still a mainly nutrition only. Yeah, so what happened was in all these districts, we were planning to implement the MCH program early this year. So that was all planned because that we have built the capacity. But unfortunately, due to COVID, we have not been able to implement the MCH. But in one of these districts, which is the Jaffna districts, they have been using this for two other programs. One is post of death and the other one is for verbal autopsy. So these two programs, they have been using the same mobile devices. Then again, I mean, these are not national programs that have been installed. So they had some provincial level. We have a provincial health ministry also. So that particular district, the province that it belongs, they implemented these two programs. So for those programs, the same device was used and because they had already some understanding on how to use the device and the application, it was helpful. Okay. Yeah, very, very, very good to see that in some places it allows for expanding and reaching more, more of the minds. So that was my last question. Alice, if you want to... And thank you, Pamod. Thank you again. Thank you both. We have one question from a participant that I'm going to read. But I wanted also to mention, like, if any of our participants, if you would like to ask a question live to Pamod, please raise your hand and I will give you the floor. So if you're interested in asking a question, you can ask it directly here. Just raise, click on the raise hands button so that I know that you want to ask a question. In the meantime, we have one question on Slack, Pamod. A participant is asking about monthly data bundle being used for before and on month. Okay. So he's asking how was addressed this problem? Okay. If I understand the question properly, is he asking, like, in case you have a monthly data bundle that you provide to be used the entire month and it is finished before the end of month, how I address it? Yes. Yeah. Okay. So what we did was like, what could have been, I mean, the options that were available, either we have to ask, okay, sorry, I'm sorry, you can't do anything till next month. Of course, that's sort of good option. Then option number two would have been, we could have considered giving them a top up, which again is not an administratively easy decision to take because I mean, there can be so many variables that they have to consider. So what we just asked all of them was that like these health workers, they were supposed to report to the medical, public health, medical doctor's office at least once a week for different official matters. And these officers, we made sure that they have a good internet connectivity and the Wi-Fi is available. So what we said was okay. I mean, yeah, true enough, we are not getting daily synchronization fine. But at least like when you pay that visit at least once a week to that office, use the Wi-Fi facility that is available in that office and try to synchronize. And in case if they are not able to do so, we instructed the medical doctors who are supervising them to ask them, question them why it was not done during this review meetings. So with these two mechanisms, we were able to get the data from the mobile device into our DHS to Centro Repositive Play at least once a week. So this is the strategy that we have used. Thank you so much, Pamad.


Hey everybody post game here with coach Corba after another win make it four and a what four in a row coach what worked out tonight I Think a strong defensive effort from us Kenyans a good team and they Really were on top of that game a lot of the time their midfield was very very strong And I thought our back line did a great job Keeping them in front for the most part we gave up a lot of shots But really tiff didn't have to do anything too too difficult Couple bounces maybe they got a little bit scary, but you know just I think I think we got 24 25 people in so You know our focus has been Widener tomorrow, which is going to be conference and we wanted to kind of get through this game unscathed and injury-free and hope to pull out a win So we're happy we're able to do that tonight. Let's talk a little bit more about Tiffany McKee I mean she's breaking every single record that there almost is can you talk about her performance tonight and Really over the over a four-year career. I know you just started but you know her, you know Yeah, yeah tip is just outstanding and you know She's she's worked really really hard this year and again I think our goalkeeper coach has done a great job just fine-tuning some things with her and You know her hurt her shoulder a little bit against Hopkins and kind of battled through that But you know she's just she's you know mentally. She's really really strong. She's obviously a great keeper positionings really really good She's a great leader You know just such a good role model and has been a great senior and obviously, you know One of the best goalkeepers to ever play here, you know If not the best depending on you know how many records she breaks But no, she's she's been huge and we need to continue to have her be huge for us going forward Solid freshman campaigns being put together by Shannon McNulty. What have you seen from her? Yeah, you know Shannon Took a knock in preseason that kind of set her back a little bit and I think she's just now kind of getting back into form and Yes, she's you know, she's been coming on strong, which is exactly what we need We want people you know starting to find their game and really peak at this point So she's been great and you know and I thought a great ball from Kellan and a nice finish from Shannon to you know Put that away for us our coach quick turnaround. We'll see you tomorrow for against Weidner. All right. Thank you She's Tati Korba the head coach of Stevenson University women's soccer. I'm Bob Trosset. Good night from Mustang Stadium