Some of you are already seated. Good afternoon. It is a pleasure to welcome you to the Community College of Vermont's 2022 commencement ceremony. I am Joyce Judy, president of CCV, and I have the distinct honor of greeting you today to celebrate the class of 2022. This is a very special day for CCV and our graduates. Commencement is always the highlight of the year when so many of us come together to celebrate students and your achievements. Today marks our first in-person ceremony since 2019. When we were planning this in-person event, we had no idea how many people to expect, so we are especially pleased that so many of you decided to join us in person. I am pleased to welcome all of you here to mark this important milestone in students' lives and resume the tradition of gathering to honor graduates, congratulate them as they walk across the stage, and wish them well as they begin their next chapters. It is a privilege to be joined today by Vermont Governor Phil Scott, today's keynote speaker, Dr. Wander, heading Grant, Vermont State College's Chancellor, Sophie Zanotny, this year's Community Service Award recipient, Diane Delmez, coordinator of student advising, Erin Weatherall, faculty members, Allison Dean and Melanie Meyer, and academic dean, Debbie Stewart. Graduates, as you entered the field house this afternoon, you were greeted by a line of faculty and staff who were integral to your success at CCV. Your instructors offered their expertise and encouragement, challenging you to expand your knowledge and hone your skills. CCV staff supported and guided you along the path to meeting your goals. They joined us at graduation to be the first to congratulate you on your achievements. I ask the faculty and staff on this line and many others in the audience to please stand. And graduates, please join me in recognizing them. I would also like to acknowledge the more than two dozen graduates from CCV's class of 2020 and 2021 who are joining us today after having missed the opportunity to celebrate their achievements in person over the past two years. We welcome and congratulate you. I would like to thank all the CCV staff as well as the staff here at Norwich University who have organized this event. We appreciate the effort that went into coordinating this special occasion in honor of our graduates and their many accomplishments. Thank you. Graduates, today we recognize more than 450 of you who have earned your college degree. You have put in the hard work and late nights. You have sacrificed time with your families. You have persevered through uncertainty and disruption. At CCV, we supported you not just as students, but as whole people. And today we celebrate the many unique characteristics that define you as individuals and as a community. The class of 2022 is remarkably diverse. And at the same time, you share many common experiences, accomplishments, and aspirations. Almost 300 of you are the first in your family to graduate from college. This is impressive. Being the first in your family to graduate from college means that you had the courage to navigate the uncharted territory of a college education. It is never easy to be first. And the Community College of Vermont's community congratulates you on this determination. 75 of you are earning a degree in early childhood education and will go on to serve Vermont families at an important time in their lives. You will play a crucial role in helping young children build strong foundations. 99 of you enrolled in CCV classes while you were still in high school. You took the initiative to get a jumpstart on your future and you successfully balanced college-level coursework alongside your academic and extracurricular activities as high school students. 31 of you are pursuing careers in health care. And as professionals in this high-demand field, you will be invaluable to Vermont's health care system in the years to come. Nearly all of you were working during your time as CCV students, not only were you focused on academics, but on your responsibilities as employees. You juggled busy schedules, maximizing the hours in each day to be present at your jobs, be successful students, and attend to life's other demands. 67 of you completed the professional field experience course as part of your requirements to earn your degree. This class gave you real-world experience in your chosen field and will help you in numerous ways as you move forward in your career. One of you is just 17 years old, and one of you is nearly 70. The Brett in Age is a hallmark of the CCV community, and many of you have reflected on the value of learning alongside classmates from multi-generations. Three of you were leaders with the Student Advisory and Leadership Council. You went above and beyond your academic commitments to contribute your time, energy, and enthusiasm in service of strengthening the CCV community. Nine of you received a leadership scholarship during your time at CCV. This award recognizes outstanding contributions to your classrooms, academic centers, and local communities. Most of you are from one of Vermont's 14 counties, but three of you call Connecticut home. One of you is from Massachusetts, and 11 of you are from New Hampshire. 16 of you have home states beyond New England. In addition, another 17 of you hail from countries outside of the US, and 28 of you speak multiple languages. You each brought a unique perspective to your CCV classes, enriching your learning environment and challenging your peers and instructors to look at new ways to do things. 51 of you have demonstrated your commitment to academic excellence through membership in the National Honor Society, Phi Theta Kappa. This spring, several of you received awards for your leadership and scholarship, and your efforts resulted in the entire CCV chapter being recognized at the PTK Regional Convention. 13 of you are veterans or active duty members of the military, and another 30 of you have a military connection in your family. You have made and are making incredibly honorable sacrifices on behalf of your communities and your country, and we thank you for your service. I would like to ask all veterans and military-connected graduates to stand, and we're gonna give you one more round of applause. Congratulations to the entire class of 2022. Each of you have navigated the disruptions of a global pandemic to persevere in completing your degree, and now you share the proud distinction of college graduates. Congratulations. At this time, I would like to invite the governor of the state of Vermont, Phil Scott, to the podium to greet and congratulate the class. Governor Scott. Good afternoon, everyone. It's great to be here, especially after two years of virtual celebrations, and thank you, President Judy, and all of you for having me, and congratulations to the class of 2022. You have so much to be proud of. It's an honor for me to be here with you and your families to celebrate the end of an important chapter of your lives, and more importantly, the start of one that'll be even more exciting. Of all the commencement exercises and ceremonies I attend, this one has the most meaningful because I know how hard you've worked to get here, and I can assure you I don't say that at every graduation. I can see the sense of pride, not only in your eyes, but on the faces of your parents, grandparents, children, and in some cases, grandchildren. Juggling between work and class, being a parent first and student second, finding time to fit in an education into a life already full of responsibility. This is the type of effort and the type of opportunity that makes me so impressed with what CCV has to offer. We know furthering your education isn't nearly as accessible or affordable as it needs to be, but this is something I'm committed to as governor, and CCV is an example of what's possible. It's no secret in something you may have heard say many times before, but we desperately need to grow our workforce here in Vermont, and that's why we're focused on making sure all Vermonters can get the education and training needed to find a good job and a career, whether that's a PhD, an LNA, a CDL, or an electrical license, and I thank CCV for their role in making all this happen. Whatever degree you're receiving today, I hope you'll use it right here in Vermont, because as I just mentioned, we desperately need you. And I know CCV is giving you the tools needed to be successful, because while getting that piece of paper today is gratifying, we're really celebrating what you've already achieved, which is a great education and the skills needed to walk right into a great job or move up the ladder in your current one. And here's a little advice. Don't let the fear of failure hold you back. Don't be afraid to take advantage of those opportunities when they come along, and don't shy away from taking a chance, because if you don't put yourself out there, you're selling yourself short. I say that realizing many of you already know all about this, because just getting here today required you to face fears, take some risks, tackle the unknown, and most importantly, to work really hard. For that, you have my respect and my sincerest congratulations. I also appreciate all those who support you every step of the way. So the moms and dads, aunts and uncles, grandparents, brothers, sisters, and kids out there, it's also your day to celebrate and be proud. So thanks again for having me and congratulations. Thank you, Governor Scott. At CCV, we take great pride in community service, encouraging students, faculty, and staff to become more involved citizens. At commencement, we honor individuals who have given time and energy in service to others. I would now like to invite Diane Delmas to join me at the podium. Diane? The Community Service Award is presented each year in recognition of sustained and profound service to our state. This year, it is my distinct privilege to present this award to Diane Delmas. As the Director of Higher Ability Vermont, formerly the State's Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, Diane's leadership and vision has helped countless Vermonters with disabilities overcome barriers to employment. She has been a steadfast partner of CCVs and we have collaborated for more than 25 years in our joint effort to provide pathways to valuable credentials for all Vermonters. Diane and her team share CCV's conviction that everyone is entitled to a high quality education and the opportunity to pursue a meaningful career. Her creative, innovative approach has not only connected employees with life-changing job opportunities, but has also allowed employers to understand just how much individuals with disabilities have to contribute to businesses and to the workforce. She has always kept Vermonters at the heart of her work and an unwavering focus on helping others guides her effort to create more equitable, resilient and vibrant workforce. Diane, we thank you for your service to Vermont. It is an honor to present you with this award. Many CCV students are active leaders in their communities and dedicate a great deal of time and effort to supporting the people around them. This year, we are very pleased to present the Student Leadership Award to Iris Robert. Iris, will you please join me at the podium. Iris graduates today from the Winooski Academic Center with a degree in Liberal Studies. Iris started out at CCV in the fall of 2020 in the midst of the pandemic and she has demonstrated outstanding leadership throughout the past two years. In addition to being a dedicated, hardworking student, Iris served as vice president of leadership for CCV's chapter of Phi Theta Kappa and was an active member of the Student Advisory and Leadership Council, a peer mentor to other students, and a participant in CCV's new student orientations. Outside of CCV, she is involved with the Young Writers Project where she hosts a poetry podcast. Her thoughtfulness and positive energy have been an inspiration to the CCV community. Iris plans to transfer to Bennington College where she will pursue a bachelor's degree in literature. Congratulations, Iris. Graduates, today you become CCV alumni. In this role, you will always be members of the CCV community. With generous support from past graduates, every year we award the alumni scholarships to graduates who plan to pursue a bachelor's degree. This year, we are proud to award the alumni scholarship to Nicole Dawson and Jamila Ifton. Will Nicole and Jamila please come forward? Nicole Dawson studied at Armand Piliar Center. And she earns her degree in environmental science. Nicole's professional field experience class led her to Burlington Echo Leahy Center for Lake Champlain, where she now works full-time. Her long-term career goal is to become a game warden and she will pursue a bachelor's degree in environmental science at Unity College. Jamila graduates today from CCV Winooski with a degree in liberal studies and she will continue at Vermont Tech to study dental hygiene. As a first-generation college student, Jamila has a desire to promote diversity and equity in both education and in the field of dentistry. And she looks forward in her words to helping individuals achieve beautiful smiles and good oral health. Congratulations to both of you on receiving this award. This year we are pleased to honor faculty excellent at commencement. The teaching excellent awards are given annually to faculty members who have been nominated by students, faculty, and staff with the vast majority of nominations coming from students. The 2021-22 teaching excellent award recipients this year are Allison Dean, Melanie Meyer, and Telly Halkias. Unfortunately, Telly was not able to attend today's ceremony but I'd like to ask Allison and Melanie to join me at the podium. Allison Dean has been a CCV instructor since 1999. She teaches online courses in nutrition, anatomy and physiology, and other sciences and she complements her role as a CCV faculty member with teaching positions at Vermont Tech and Champlain College. Melanie Meyer teaches anatomy and physiology and microbiology among other science courses as part of our Allied Health preparation curriculum. A naturopathic physician, she brings real world experience to the classroom where her students are preparing for careers in healthcare. Telly Halkias is a military veteran, journalist, poet, and former businessman who brings a global perspective to a wide variety of courses he teaches at CCV, from war literature to the capstone course, seminar, and educational inquiry. Of course, all of you graduates are familiar with. Congratulations Allison, Melanie, and Telly. We thank you for your commitment to teaching and learning excellence and for the many ways in which you support CCV students. Now graduates, you will hear from one of your own. The student speaker for the class of 2022 is Kirsten Kiersey from CCV's Upper Valley Academic Center. Unfortunately, due to COVID, a positive test on Thursday, Kirsten is not able to join us in person today, but she will be addressing her classmates remotely. If there is one thing COVID has taught us, is we have to be flexible and adaptive and you will see that today. But here to introduce Kirsten before she joins us on the screen is coordinator of student advising, Erin Weatherall. Good afternoon, graduates of 2020, 2021, and 2022. It is my distinct honor to introduce this year's student speaker, Kirsten Kiersey. I first met Kirsten when I started working at CCV three years ago. In that time, I have come to know her to be a resilient student who lives by the golden rule. Kirsten has been a leader in the classroom, a strong advocate for CCV, and a kind, supportive, and engaged member of our Upper Valley Center community. She has happily sat on student panels during access days, has willingly participated in the past two green up days, and has received multiple student recognition awards in her time at CCV. In preparing for this introduction, I read final evaluations from her instructors over the past few years. There was universal acclaim for the poise, dedication, and curiosity that Kirsten brought to her studies and into the classroom. The lessons of the past two years are still unfolding for us. We certainly learned that we never know what the future holds. But watching students like Kirsten navigate the challenges of the pandemic while also continuing in their education gives me hope and reminds me that our brave little state is full of remarkable people who make a difference every single day. Without further ado, Kirsten Cursey. Hello, everyone. Unfortunately, I cannot join you here today as I tested positive for COVID on Thursday morning, but I'm so excited to address you and I'm here in spirit. It is an honor to stand before you all today and congratulate all of my fellow graduates. You've done it. You have put in the hard work that's gotten you here today, and you'll have this accomplishment forever. This is an exciting day, a day that I hope you all cherish for the rest of your lives. This may be your first time walking in graduation, like myself, and some of you may be the first in your family to attend and complete college. You may have attended the Community College of Vermont during or directly after high school, or you may have returned to an educational setting after being a member of the military or working for many years. I understand that this has been a long road for many of you. I came to CCB five years ago and slowly chipped away at my degree while managing my chronic illness and balancing the part-time job. I found that at CCB, taking more than two years to earn your associates and balancing other life responsibilities is incredibly common, the norm in fact. I learned this early on as I spoke with my classmates during my third semester at CCB and all of them told me how long they had been there. I recall two were in their second to last term, one having been there for three years and the other for five. I was humbled and encouraged by the resilience of my classmates.  I remember the day I got the email saying that CCB was going to put all classes online for just two weeks while the pandemic flew over. I went to get drinks with the classmates to start off what seemed to be a small vacation. There was a novelty to online classes in the beginning. I got to roll out of bed 10 minutes before my morning courses started, only to shuffle over to my desk and turn on my computer. Sometimes I even stayed in my PJs and threw on a hoodie to achieve a more put together look.  The smug glee of not having to leave the house quickly vanished as the two weeks in online classes turned into until the end of the semester and then two years. As more people got sick and experienced loss, the weight of the pandemic started to become apparent. Classes became more stressful than they had ever felt. I ended up taking the summer and fall term of 2020 off from school. It was hard not to feel like I was failing in my education during this time. I imagined some of you had similar experiences to this. When I started taking courses again, all of the professors that I had, I had the privilege of studying with understood the struggle of learning during this tumultuous time. There was a joy of returning to classes. I was able to learn alongside my classmates in Zoom. I could listen to all their experiences during the pandemic while also hearing stories that brought smiles to my face. I met so many cats and dogs in the occasional baby through Zoom. During SEI, my SEI course over the summer in 2021, enjoyed seeing all of my classmates sitting outside and getting fresh air. Sometimes I'd hear the playful squeals of children in the background. I enjoyed sharing the classroom with parents, those in the workforce, veterans, students with health conditions, and many more individuals with diverse experiences. The classroom was always a rich learning environment as not only were the professors enthusiastic about the materials that they were teaching, but my classmates brought their unique perspectives and life stories to the table. The college truly felt like a community as all the students worked towards the common goal of completing our education. I never felt like I was alone if I was struggling to grasp a concept. I often think of my statistics course. Despite the professors' phenomenal job of teaching the concepts, there was a constant air of confusion among the class, the kind that caused students to laugh and come lottery whenever one of us spoke out in puzzlement. I remembered the professor leaving the classroom to print off the weekly test. One of my classmates said, uh-oh, test time. And another, who I had never heard speak before this moment or since uttered one word. And that word was the F-bomb. This being said, the professor was always willing to work with us and help us understand the material. He once met with me for an hour just to help me figure out a small section of questions on the homework. The faculty was always incredibly supportive and encouraging to push students to learn for the joy of acquiring knowledge rather than just completing coursework for the sake of a grade. The staff genuinely wanted us to succeed and I wanna take a moment to thank all the staff and faculty here today. I'm honestly grateful to CCV for my time there. I imagine that for many of you, like myself, the end of our time at CCV feels bittersweet. Even though it is hard to say goodbye, CCV has prepared us for the next steps that we take in our lives. The community college introduced me to my local community and helped me build connections that I hold dear. Some of you may be starting a new career or continuing your education at a four-year school. CCV has encouraged me to be a lifelong learner. No matter where you all go next, I hope you continue to seek knowledge and new experiences. I know I will. Thank you. I'm so glad that Kirsten could join us, even if it was remotely, because you can imagine how devastated she was when her tests became positive. At this time, I am pleased to introduce our keynote speaker, Dr. Wanda Heading Grant. Dr. Heading Grant has dedicated her life and her career to higher education and the advancement of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in her communities. Currently serving as Carnegie Mellon University's inaugural vice provost for DEI and chief diversity officer, she also holds a faculty appointment at Carnegie Mellon University as a distinguished service professor in the Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy. Dr. Heading Grant formally served in senior leadership roles at the University of Vermont, including as UVM's vice president for DEI and vice president for human resources, diversity, and multicultural affairs. Her work has been informed by her experiences growing up in Trenton, New Jersey, where she first developed an awareness of the complex dynamics of gender and race and by her undergraduate years as a first generation student at the University of Vermont, where she was inspired to work toward a more diverse and inclusive learning environment. Dr. Heading Grant is also a distinguished leader in the broader community. She has served on the board of Vermont Public Radio, the Flynn Center for Performing Arts, the United Way, the Vermont Advisory Committee to the US Commission on Civil Rights, among others. She has inspired leagues of students, leaders, and colleagues to embrace and celebrate their authentic selves in pursuit of social justice, cultural competency, and inclusive excellence. In 2008, she founded Blackboard Jungle as a professional development event for faculty, administrators, and students at UVM. This seminal effort grew into what is now known as UVM's Inclusive Excellence Symposium, a much heralded conference that recently attracted more than 500 participants. She is a recipient of numerous local and national awards. In just this year, the Vermont Women in Higher Education created a new award for justice in her name. As CCV strives to cultivate a more diverse, inclusive and equitable learning community, Dr. Heading Grant sets a powerful example of how to create lasting change in higher education. We are pleased and honored to have Dr. Wanda Heading Grant here today to address the class of 2022. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm trying to, I was thinking a couple of times that I might cry and maybe you'll understand in a moment why that is possible besides the fact that I cry very easily. But I wrote some thoughts down here that I'd like to share with you all and I'm taking my glasses off so that I might be able to see. So I wanna say good afternoon, illustrious graduates, loved ones, family, friends and colleagues. As it was said, I am Wanda Heading Grant and I use she, her, hers pronouns. It is my pleasure to stand before you healthy and blessed to be vertical and to be counted among the numbers here today. Many thanks to President Joyce Judy, her wonderful team in the Community College of Vermont, CCV for inviting me here into this space to celebrate with you and to share a few thoughts with you. I must give a special shout out to Mary Brotsky. Thank you, my friend.  She is your HR Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Executive Director here at CCV. I feel very honored, special to speak at CCV's commencement. CCV is very important, very much a part of our community in Vermont. I applaud its mission, the president, faculty and staff for their dedication and the hard work that supports all students from all works and walks of life, especially in their educational goals. To let you know how important it was or is for me to be here today, I drove from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Colchester, Vermont, my home a few days ago. Then yesterday morning from Colchester to York, Maine, where a board I sit on is meeting for the weekend. Got up this morning, drove the two and a half hours back to Vermont to get here. And when I'm done, I'm headed back to Maine to join my board meeting that's still in progress until tomorrow. You know what that means. It's great, it's great. I was thinking about this, you know, might there be a spot for me in a Marvel's movie, you know, Superwoman, Superhero. The only thing is that I wish I could fly because I would have been here a lot sooner. There was once a newspaper in Vermont that called me Magic Wanda. And it was about the work that I was doing around DNI seven days. And I'm not quite sure why they called me that. I would often say it only reminded me of the movie Magic Mike. And I was thinking Magic Wanda, right? So, but what I said to them in doing my DNIB work, diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging work, as well as justice work, there's no abracadabra. It's hard work. And there was none this morning. It was all my foot to the pedal to get here, to be with you, to be a part of this part today, okay? That's important for me to tell you that. And besides, I had been in Vermont for almost 40 years. I arrived in the state of Vermont, sight unseen, to attend the University of Vermont. And I have some things to say. I stand before you in the spirit of belonging, being able to show up as my authentic self without any repercussions. With the hope that you will listen to me, you will hear me and that you will welcome me. You have walked that long, this long walk, and I know CCV is better because you were here. You leave behind a legacy for just being here. And it's important to always honor this institution. Never forget CCV, it's so important.  Whatever your purpose, members of the classes of 2020, 2021 and 2022, I applaud you, applaud yourself. In my early years, I believe that chance or providence put me on the path to where I am now. But I no longer think coincidence or luck paved my way by itself. After taking the time to examine my personal and professional roadmap, I wanted to better prepare myself for future bumps, obstacles, and detours that lied ahead. Taking the time to study the landscape around me and by clarifying my priorities, along with my life experiences, I became better at navigating my way through and into higher education. I knew where and when I needed to make stops. I knew when and where I needed to speed up my pace. I knew when and where I needed to take care of myself for self-care. I understood that there were times that I needed to stop, that I needed to take my spiritual walks. It was hard, no matter how much I tried, to be able to get people sometimes to understand, to see the importance of respect, civility, integrity, diversity, and inclusion, responsibility, innovation, fairness, and equity. So I have a question for the graduates. But there's only one answer. Don't you love Vermont? I love Vermont. Not because it's perfect, but because it helped me find my superpowers. My time here changed my life in ways I never thought about. The education I received formal and informal was invaluable. Of course I did not always see it that way. And of course there were trials and tribulations, but now older and wiser, it has been the kind of journey that others wish for. It is here I wish to retire. I have called Vermont my home for all my adult life. This is so ironic because I initially couldn't wait to leave Vermont. It was hard to see myself surviving in this place called Vermont. And yet as a first generation college student, who said to her guidance counselor that she wanted to be different. Part of me being different was to attend a different institution of higher education than my peers.  I had made the wrong decision with nowhere to turn. My guidance counselor was proud and I was lost. I was for sure that going to college was gonna change my circumstances, my family's financial circumstances. I did not understand that I needed to do more than just get into college. I needed to rely on multiple skills to earn that degree, become employed, and ultimately stay employed. This is why I consider myself a life-long learner. I really did not know what it meant to attend college, to a select a college. No one had gone before me. I didn't even know you could transfer from one college to another. No one told me that, where my family was just counting on me and I wanted to make them proud for I was the first. To drive home my point, I chose the University of Vermont over the University of Pittsburgh because I thought the city of Pittsburgh was colder than the whole state of Vermont. I did not know what I was doing. My only reference was watching my dad and my brothers watch the football games and I could see the snow coming down around the stadium. That was my reference. Yes, I had my family's hopes and their dreams. Mines were overshadowed by theirs, but I didn't mind because I liked and I loved them. They liked and loved me. We were a family, we were a unit. They had my back, I certainly had theirs. My sadness was a stark difference than excitement I felt when I arrived in Burlington after an 11-hour drive that should have been eight hours with my mom, aunt, and cousin, who spent most of the time telling me what to do, what to expect, and certainly what not to do.  There was a lot of conversation about what it would be like for me as a black African-American woman coming to a predominantly white state, going to a predominantly white institution. They stayed less than 24 hours to settle me into my residential hall, leaving me with my new roommate, Diana, from White River Junction, and off they went the very next morning to New Jersey. There was a silver lining out of my harsh reality of how I grew up, moderately poor. I could see the injustices around me. I could see where systems were broken. I did not have the language, the vocabulary for it. It grew, but it is here in this state and my mother's love and tenacity that I learned how to go forward and not backwards. It is here that I formalize my thought about how I can help others. Today, I personally and professionally believe that we must be emboldened and charged to do our utmost to ensure equitable access to education for all. As a matter of fact, I made a career out of it. We must be compassionate. We must have an ethic of care, no matter the profession. It is why I call myself a social worker. I am a social worker. Education opened the doors for me. As I come on around the end soon, I want to tell you this, being in Vermont allowed me to converse with Harry Belafonte for three hours in a Vermont airport where he shared stories about his walk with Dr. King. It allowed me to meet my husband of 32 years, soon to be 33. My children were born here. I was able to laugh and get into some good trouble with the late great John Lewis. I cooked three times, three times for BB King in his orchestra. He gave me $100 for my sweet potato pie. I shook hands with Ellie Wazelle, Bishop Tutu. My superpower was just growing and growing. I volunteered for the Salvation Army. I worked at Women Helping Better Women. I loved working four years to make some money at McDonald's while I went to college. I learned about frost heaves. I understood that drive-ins still exist. It is where the doctors and nurses helped me with my breast cancer. It is here that I learned how to be a cultural architect. This is why I love Vermont. Not because it's perfect, but it helped me with my superpower, courage, grit, fortitude. So what are you gonna do with your Vermont education? Think about the underrepresented. Think about the marginalized. Think about the others that you other. Don't leave anyone behind.  You are equipped with the power to forge a new future to whom much is given, much is expected, as well as required. Be an impact for good. For your efforts and actions, whether you know it or not may be the reason there is less hatred and violence against the innocent. The title character of Ralph Ellison's book, Invisible Man Expresses, I Am Invisible. Understand simply because people refuse to see me. Do not refuse to see me. And I end with, this is for the unforgettable, the unafraid, the undefeated, the ones who survived by any means necessary and the ones who did not. This is for the undeniable. This is for the unflappable, the audacious. This is for the unlimited, the unstoppable, the undiscovered, unbending, the underdogs, the dreamers and the doers. This is for you. This is for you. And all of this is for us. Congratulations. Thank you. Would you come back to the podium and I would like to present you with this plaque. Thank you so much for that powerful address. It gives us much to think about. 2022 marks the seventh year of the CCV chapter of Phi Theta Kappa. An international honor society for community college students who demonstrate academic integrity and excellence. You likely noticed when these students entered the field house wearing yellow stoles which symbolize their membership in PTK. I would like to ask all graduating members of Phi Theta Kappa to be stand and be recognized. Graduates, it is now time to turn our attention to the moment you've been waiting for, the awarding of your degrees. The many people who have helped you reach this moment are here in the audience with you today to help you celebrate this achievement. I'd like to ask all the families, all the friends and supporters of our graduates to rise and I'd like to ask graduates to please help me thank them. None of us do this alone and this is a special day for graduates but it's a very special day for all of you and I just wanna thank all of you for this time. CCV has a long standing tradition that you will share in today. As you leave the platform after receiving your diploma, CCV staff members will present you with a red carnation. The flower is the symbol of the many people in your lives who have helped you reach this day and now academic dean Debbie Stewart will present the class of 2022. President Judy, it is my honor to present to you the graduating class of 2022, all of whom have met the requirements for the associate degree. By the authority vested in the Community College of Vermont by the Board of Trustees of the Vermont State Colleges, I confer upon you the class of 2022, the associate degree. Will graduates from Bennington please stand and come to this end of the stage? I ask that graduates from all other centers remain seated until you're invited to come forward by the ushers. And just as a word of note, as a health precaution, I will be handing graduates their diplomas but I won't be shaking folks' hands. Mary Ann. Students from the Bennington Center, Sheila Ann Norse. Joshua Aaron Boucher. Savannah Danielle Goch. Allison Catrick. Quinn Loomis. Erin Nicole Murphy. Elizabeth Cassandra Honorato. Samantha Jordan Sol. Faith Sullivan. Sarah M. Webster. Ryan M. Williams. Crystal Patricia Myers. Deanna Lauren Oaks. John H. Clark. Mark Allen Denio. Autumn Morse. Alejandro Toledo Kornman. Amanda Lynn Burlock. Abigail S. Gendro. Ashley Fowler. Kimberly Ann Richards. Sadie Brooke Roy. Angela Marie Shugart. Pearl Lily Sutton. Wade W. Stevens. Kelsey Marie Treadway. Melissa Ardell. Marcus Alexander Carr. Rebecca A. Davin. Nicole Dawson. Emily Gambler. Ariana Hausman. Christiana Lee Kenneson. Melissa Victoria Valentin. Gage Kilmer. Catherine P. Legacy. Lisa Claire McCall. Cherokee Dawn Morning. Elizabeth M. O'Connell. Dimitri X. Otis. Elizabeth Jane Peralt. Lily Mara Pringles. Simone Annette Scovel. Ryan Edward Sherlock. Christopher Peyton West. Lisa Bates. Ryan James Bates. Amy J. Cox. Shannon R. Gill. Renee Marie Hall. Jesse James. Karina Faye Lyon. Kelly Lynn Shortsleeve. Ashley M. Thompson. Rhoda Ann Viss. Jennifer Bernier. Wanda Jean Cochran. Jennifer Cody. Sierra Gerard. Annie Hoadley. Chelsea N. Kellogg. Madison Leno. Laura J.L. LeMay. Tara Martin. Catherine St. Marie. Raven Antonio. Hannah Alice Bartlett. Riley Elizabeth Bouchard. Flowey Bright. Patrick Du Bois. Brianna King. Jennifer L. Pittman. Floyd T. Porter. Jerika Lynn Robair. Liana Roque. Jennifer Spellis. Kristy Ann Swartzkopf. Kylie C. Walton. Ellen DeWayne Elliott Baird. Samantha Ann Benoit. Veronica Marie Daniel. Evan Diaz. Michael Danielle John Garland. Tanya Mae Jondro. Dakota Skyler Heckeroth. Barbara Jean McGuire. Christine Santoro. Taylor Mackenzie Shorthing. Ayla Margaret Thompson. Veronica Karen Thornton. Cassandra Barbara Wilk. Taylor Cole. Nikita Lenehan. Dana Oliveire. Whitney Lee Andrews. Aimee Batchelder. Lauren Bolio. Terry Boulanger. Heidi Ann Connell. Justin Caleb Custer. Avalon R. Denalt Reynolds. Alexandria Taylor Dupont Lawrence. Brianna Massey. Lucia Pelkey. Jeffrey Michael Shukai. Jessica Marie Taylor. Hannah Janine Teebear. Ashley Renee Tomer. Trisha M. Ward. Patty Fecto. Sarah Nicole Jimenez. Rebecca J. Tanner. Amanda Lynn Berry. Emily R. Bowles. Julie M. Brough. Danielle DePallo Brower. Jasmine Danforth. Sasha Mitzi Garfinkel. Jamie Lee Green. Sean Kathleen Hamilton. Jillian Hatch. Geneva Cecile Panella Horster. Carissa Leigh LaShore. Jamie L. Masterson. Laurie Ann Maxwell. Tanya Lynn Martell. Catherine Ann O'Day. Kimberly Plant. Jessica Leigh Swighart Proudy. Ashley Leigh Radicione. Justin Michael Severance. Rose Walker. Josephine Elizabeth Wisk. Kayla Alexander. Lauren Ann Audette. Habiba N. Awile. Linda Eno Bassi. Omolola Balikis Bello. Danielle P. Bushy. Nate Connolly. Elon Eleanor Crete. Danny Davis. Michael B. Deering II. Omar Dersey. Alicia Dumala. Maria Eleanor Drown. Anastasia Nell Dyer. Marissa Fabrico. Christina L. Hermanson. Jamila Musa Iften. Zainab Khanku Kuyate. Ibrahim Hussein Mohammed. Noah A. Patnode. Amanda Catherine Reed. Nicole Rock. Iris Elizabeth Robert. Anna Frances Svetlana Rowland. Anastasia Leigh Regero. Christina A. Soder. Julia Lauren Winrock. Now graduates, as a class, you may move your tassels from right to left. Congratulations. Congratulations to the class of 2022. We are proud that CCV has been a part of your journey, and we hope you will take time to celebrate and enjoy this moment. As you move on to your new chapters, we trust that you will continue to call on your unique qualities, as well as what you have learned here to build stronger, more resilient, and more inclusive communities wherever you go. The group on the platform will lead the graduates out. I will ask the audience to remain seated until the graduates have completed the recessional. Thank you again.


Morena far now. I'd like to start with a phrase I've googled you. I want you to remember it because it's crucial to this story. Matthew asked me ten minutes ago if Ed's legacy would be happy with what has been happening here in the past few days. And I can assuredly tell you that the answer to that is yes. You asked me if I could try and express something of Edmund Hillary the man. I should stress to you that while I had the enormous privilege of knowing Edmund Hillary the man for four years. I didn't meet him until he was 83. And I met him because I had had a half-assed idea in terms of a change of career and suggested to some very good friends including my brother of some 30 years here, Aniki Goodall, who's the chairman of the Hillary Institute, that we might like to create a legacy internationally for Sir Edmund's remarkable leadership work. And what we meant by that was not just the obvious heroics that he's well known for. Everest, the traverse of the ice. Dan telling us yesterday wonderfully he's about to do the same thing but Dan's going to be traversing the ice with highly sophisticated tech which many of you have had a hand in providing. Ed did it in a tractor. Similarly, there's some rather wonderful photographs if you haven't seen them. Have a look. Ty and I managed to source up to some time thanks to Peter Hillary writes to some of the National Geographic Photography and there are some wonderful photographs from the National Archives in the UK of that one of them is of a tractor hanging over the edge of one of these crevasses. The other thing of course is that the Everest climate itself speaking of technical issues while today relatively commonplace in fact arguably now being exploited. Of course at that time particularly the traverse of the Hillary step which is the last piece of the mountain which juts out was an extraordinary achievement but again Ed would tell you that it was an achievement which was certainly not his alone. It was the product of an extraordinary team effort coordinated by John Hunt who was a remarkable Englishman and of course supported by the Sherpa communities of the region without whom it simply would not have been possible. The point about what we were trying to do however was that for 55 years post those heroic ventures Ed gave his life largely to building capacity in the Nepalese valleys in his way of giving back to the communities who had supported him and as a result there are now generations of doctors and pilots and teachers from that part of the world who would candidly have not had that kind of an opportunity. He built 14 bridges, five hospitals, 23 schools and when I say he built them he built them physically with teams of Kiwis and teams of internationals who were all part of that. So the spirit of this man was far broader than just if you will the extraordinary heroes journey stuff that he is well known for. So our ambition was to try and honor the core driving passion of this man's leadership and our task was to build an organization which could in its turn look for people who would honor that tradition and so we built quite quickly an international board many of whom are in fact still with us. Unique and I did a review last year and were frankly humbled to find that after a decade absent death and we lost Ray Anderson to cancer and Bridget Culliff and the wonderful Belizean feminist leader to cancer they are all still with us. Helen Clark is still the patron. She sent greetings last night to you all. She has of course had a very good weekend in terms of her protege having an assumed power. So we then having established this board and having established a group of exceptional calibre to help us in this search program we set about doing just that. And so the first Laureate was chosen in 2009. I am the founding director of the organization but frankly I'm a glorified scout. What do I do? I come up with a short list of six by the 31st of March every year and I give it to that board and Unique chairs that board and he makes the hard decisions with the board and I step out of the way. And the first remarkable leader was Jeremy Leggett who may be well known to some of you at least. Jeremy of course famous for his work in the solar industry equally famous for having founded carbon tracker stranded assets. He's written four or five books. He's a powerhouse in Europe and of course his dominant driver is climate change. He was followed by my bossy friend here who's now left the building. She's got bored with me already. Oh no she's moved. Oh, hear me. And Peggy and I. Right. Oh dear. Live. Suffice to say I've spent many an energetic day in Shanghai with Peggy and when I say energetic I mean I've been at Crook as some of you may have noticed in the last 24 hours.  It's utterly exhausting. But rather wonderfully productive and Peggy of course is an enormously gifted bridgehead between the extraordinary opportunity that China represents in terms of the larger challenges we confront. She was followed by Amy Christiansen who runs Sun Valley Institute. Amy was a Beltway girl. She's worked for several presidential administrations in Washington. She's a remarkable convener of gatherings of key influences and has had a very real impact on policy. She's a bit depressed at the moment as you can imagine and it's been a difficult journey. Moving on next in line is the extraordinary Atosha Sultani. For those of you who haven't heard of Atosha she's the founder of Amazon Watch. Basically her story was at the age of 13 she was vaulted from Tehran to Akron, Ohio when the shower was overthrown and she at the age of 19 was called to go to the Amazon and she didn't understand why but once she was there she decided that was what her life was going to be and indeed it has been for the last 30 some years. Atosha was followed in turn by the remarkable, the only, to a kind of taino really in terms of our country close to us in that sense. The former president of Kiribati, Naughty Tong confronted again as many of you may know with the reality of 103,000 population living on Atos which at most have about a decade left. This is not fiction, this is fact. Every two weeks the Tarawa Ato famous site of the battle between the Americans and the Japanese in the Second World War is washed over, it salinates their water, their coconuts, 50% of what they used to be, yadda yadda yadda.  We're talking about a 4,000-year fuck-up up here. He will die there.  He cannot make and will not make the same promise for his eight children. So in terms of the migration issue which of course is another one of the existential challenges of the age, these islands are in fact the canaries in the cage and we need to get very serious and I'm hopeful that this administration in fact, do you think Roderick, we might even be able to get some movement here in terms of getting serious about how we can support our cousins up in the Pacific. Naughty was followed by Mike Brune. Thank you, Piggy. Yes. Mike is the head of the Sierra Club, executive director of the Sierra Club. Shortly after Trump's election, for the first time in almost a decade, we found our own website under heavy attack. It was under heavy attack from trolling, from people who felt that because we had an association with Mike who was clearly somebody who needed to be trolled badly and was an enemy of the state, they needed to reach out and hit every possible access point of his life.  And as Mike interestingly however, in terms of the resistance in the US, he's an extraordinary gifted communicator. I've spent time with him in Kentucky in the heartland of the coal economy. With the help of Michael Bloomberg, he has been largely responsible, his organization for shutting down over 300 coal mines in the US in the last decade. But his ability to actually work with those communities around what actually now is crucial, which is workforce transition. Because regardless of what Donald might think, coal ain't coming back. And so the reality there is that Mike, in fact, has seen a decided uptick in support financially for the work of the Sierra Club and membership rising. And as Obama said the other night, when he came out publicly ready for the first time, there is still capacity here to rally, there is still capacity here for hope. Yes, we can. So Mike is at the forefront of that. Then we found ourselves working with a remarkable economist, an Englishman called Tim Jackson, who was responsible for the seminal work, which is basically looking at the issue of limits to growth and prosperity without endless growth. And for those of you who are interested in this kind of thinking, he is a very, very able communicator of this and again has written several key books in this regard. He's based in the UK. And then quickly moving on here, our current laureate, as you heard yesterday, who we will be bringing to this gathering in April is the extraordinary Swede Johann Rockström, who is the guy who invented the planetary boundaries idea. He is also in terms of Peggy's work, an advisory chairman to the EAT Forum internationally. He is an extraordinarily gifted communicator, but he's thrown us a challenge in terms of the year that we work with these laureates. And the challenge is he wants to write the seminal work called the best story in town. And speaking up, I've Googled you, he doesn't want it to be, in technical terms, anything other than an old paperback, which you can shove in your back pocket and buy for $9.99. And he wants to sell at least 10 million copies of it. So his challenge is firstly the best story in town. It better be damn good. There's a few other books which claim that, notably the Bible and the Koran and his level. But what Johann's trying to say is that we're living in an extraordinary time in the sense of the challenges we face, and let's not underestimate those, of course. But also it's like a renaissance time, that we have an enormous capacity because of the unique nature of this age to really create the future that we would like to see if we're prepared to get serious about that and do the work. So yes, by the time he gets here, just as Charleston did last year, we're hoping that we'll hear from Johann something of the book. He's wanting the visit with us to be part of that process, and it will be published for Christmas in 2018. So coming all the way back, to finish, the I've Googled you link is that when I first met Ed and Anaki and David Cagan and Chris Dorgan, the others had encouraged me that it was probably a good idea. I talked to the man having hatched this idea. I was terrified. The first thing I had to do was get past his shield, and his shield was a woman who was legendary in Auckland at the time. She was known as the Rock Viola, and she ran an organisation which celebrated Kiwis who were outstanding public figures, and she provided opportunities for them to reach out and speak, and Ed was one of her clients. So before I could even get to Ed, I had to get past Deborah, and Deborah, speaking of cancer, was in fact dying of cancer, and she'd been given three months to live. And so she wasn't in a good state, and I wasn't in a good state, but she couldn't be less like a Rock Viola. She was absolutely delighted and very generous, and within a week I found myself meeting Ed and June, and June Mayhew, who's Ed's second wife, of course, Ed's great friend Peter Mayhew, who tragically died on the Erebus crash. June and Ed got together some years after that, and she's also a terrifying figure. So June and Ed, I walked into their home in Remueira, and Ed strode across the room, and he said, I've googled you, and this was coming from an 83-year-old, and as you can tell, I'm not usually stumped for words, but I was stumped, and he'd had one pager only in prep. So before I could say anything else, he said, where are we going to do this? Not should we do it. Where? And I said, well, it's international, focused Ed and, you know, Helen's involved, and all these good folks are going to put their hands up. And he said, well, we need to do it inside of the Maunga. And the Maunga, of course, that he was talking about was Al Raki, where he had spent his youth cook in the South Island, claiming training. And so the New Zealand trustees, the International Board being one layer of this, the New Zealand trustees were based in Christchurch as an outcome. But the joy of working with Ed thereafter was that the only condition he put on it was that we didn't start until we were ready. And he then, basically, we raised an initial capital loan fund of two and a half million. We were ready in that sense, and we were ready to get the journey underway. And he said, well, we're going to launch it. I'm going to the ice for the last time. We're going to launch it on the 22nd of January. And I said, that's my 50th birthday. And he looked at me as I was confusing him with somebody who gave it to him. And that's exactly what he did. And I spent the entirety of my 50th birthday on the phone, building media calls. But that was not the burden that then befell us, sadly, because the following year, on my 51st birthday, we attended his wake. So he was literally only with us for a three year period. But it was an enormously enriching, personally, and very generous exchange, working with this quite remarkable man. And Simon, his life, when he knew he was failing, but still had this enormous generosity of spirit and vision to reach out and say, yeah, let's do this. And also, let's do this as a global citizen. Ed saw himself absolutely as Kiwi fundamentally, but he also saw himself. And of course, in his daily practice, he was absolutely a global citizen. So to finish, Matthew, what we have here, he would be very happy.


Well, this here at ITU telecom in Doha, I think it's going to be very exciting because we will be bringing together very different perspectives of where the telecom industry is heading towards. Many countries are already launching LTE, so everyone's into what's broadband all about, and that's when we're beginning to see the real convergence between the telecommunications, the media industry all coming together, not to mention the internet things and N2M. But what's interesting and what's appropriate about having it in Doha as well is that while broadband is what everyone's dealing with and the convergence issues, it's actually quite interesting to see that in many merging countries, they're still struggling with bringing just regular telecom services to the edge. So it'll be good to look into those issues as well. I think there will be a lot of discussions about what is and what is not working about bringing telecommunications, bridging the digital divide. What's also very interesting besides the fact that we're dealing with wearables and N2M is there's a lot of very exciting infrastructure developments. I'm sure you would have heard about Facebook announcing having drones that are solar powered to try to bridge the digital divide. You have Google doing their balloons. So there's a lot of interesting innovations. I'm here in Indonesia, and we have people here such as Ona Purbo who is pushing Open BTS. So these interesting and innovative technologies are going to bring a new dimension to the whole debate. So I think it'll be very exciting to see these two extremes of broadband and all the different applications of broadband and wearables and N2M. And then the other extreme where countries are still grappling with bridging the digital divide and all the different access technologies, business models, financing models that they are struggling with. So that will be a very diverse group and very interesting conversations.


Marco Santos is a grave digger at one of Brazil's worst hit coronavirus hotspots. As bulldozers worked long hours to have burial pits ready, and loved ones of the deceased mourn their passing in Manaus, Santos talked about working at the cemetery. Over there, you can see the number of dead people. Take care. This is not a joke. Use gloves. Use a mask. Wherever you go, be really careful because this disease is serious.  The hospitals are full. That is why I am saying that nobody was prepared for this, and it took everyone by surprise. Hospitals, cemeteries, nurses, grave diggers, nobody was prepared. And we are all involved in this tragedy here. So it's a lot of lot of work here. You can't imagine the amount of work we have here. This thing is not easy. We work day and night, burying bodies. Brazil is one of the worst COVID-19 hit countries. As of the evening of May 20, there are over 291,500 cases with close to 19,000 deaths. According to the Federal Council of Nurses in Brazil, around 12,000 nurses, technicians and assistants have been infected with coronavirus. And as of May 12, 94 had died. Brazil has the highest number of deaths worldwide of nursing professionals surpassing the US, Spain and Italy. Shortage of PPE kits have made healthcare workers more susceptible to the virus and has increased the chances of spreading. On Mother's Day, I couldn't hug my mother. I couldn't meet her. I saw a crime on a balcony from a distance. The same happened with my mother. My wife and I stared at her house and we looked there on the balcony from the car. But we couldn't hug her. Amid all this, there have been protests happening all over the country, both insupportive and against the lockdown. Tensions have built up between Governors of various states and the national government. Suelen, a resident of Paraisópolis, Sao Paulo, along with many others are protesting against the inefficiency of the far-right Brazilian government of Jair Bolsonaro and demanding more aid. I'm here because we are going to continue doing our part but the government has to do theirs. And in Paraisópolis and other power areas, we have been creating alternatives for those in need. And we will continue doing this but the government has to do its part. It must think about the vulnerable communities of Brazil. Meanwhile, Brazil lost its second health minister less than a month, even as cases soar in the country. Brazil's health minister, Nelson Tec, on May 15th, abruptly resigned a day after the country announced nearly 14,000 deaths. Raul, a social worker at Hospital do Coração, felt disillusioned with the instability in the Ministry of Health. I don't know. Everything seems so strange. I don't know what's going on. There's the COVID pandemic and maybe a political game is going on with the resignation of this minister. It scared me. I just found out now. We are at the mercy of those at the top. We don't know what is happening. The corona crisis has also brought to the forefront the crisis in Brazil's health care system. The Sistema Unico de Saúde, S.U.S., Brazil's publicly funded health system, has been facing dire budget cuts over the past several years while the private system has been steadily growing. Today, 55% of the ICU beds in Brazil are in the private system while only serving 25% of the population. 75% of Brazilians still depend on the public S.U.S. hospitals. With the surge in the COVID-19 cases in Brazil, the S.U.S. hospitals have been overcapacity and calls have strengthened from people's movements for the beds in private hospitals to be available to all who need them. Brazil stands third globally in terms of number of COVID-19 positive cases, yet its president is in denial. Meanwhile, socialist countries like Cuba and Venezuela have been successful in limiting the spread of the disease as well as in preventing deaths. These contrasting examples reflect the need for a well-funded public health care system and efficient leadership with a people-centered approach.


Okay well thanks for showing up in big numbers. My name is Jeroen van de Berg. I'm a board member of the Dutch Troop Association and what I would like to show you today is quickly an overview of what we do as an association to help our partners and our agencies in the Netherlands to promote Troopel and hopefully I'm not sure if there's people from any other association here but you can take something away today. So a quick overview about us. We are a board of seven currently. I'm in the bottom right actually our chair sitting right there, Imre. And what I want to highlight here is what makes us a bit special compared to other local associations is that we actually have two freelance marketing employees or employees maybe not the right word but people that help us with do marketing. Mara on the top she's working for four hours a week for us. She does that paid and at the bottom it's Matthijs. He is a freelance journalist and marketer and he is currently working for about the same amount of hours for us a week but actually doing it as a contribution. And that's actually one of the first things I would like to highlight. We achieved that he signed up to Drupal.org to create a profile and actually contributed to the Drupal ecosystem by delivering qualitative content for us as a journalist. So that's really cool. The next thing for us as an association is to define what we stand for what we would like to accomplish. So we looked at the why how what so model which defines the why why do we do what we do the how what our tactics to do so and the what what our operational actions to achieve that and this is basically our tagline there. We are a group of passionate people in service of Drupal to promote Drupal to potential developers partner agencies and users which can be either existing or new ones and that kind of relates quite a bit to what trees has been presenting and promoting in the past few years as well. This slide is from the dream note of last year and it's not for nothing that the left track the golden track on that mountain is actually a marketing track as he has been advocating. It's very important that we do marketing and promote Drupal as we are constantly competing against other more commercial flashy shiny marketing machines from other systems. So that aligns pretty nicely. We define some target audiences as an association because at first we were just doing what we thought was good and we tried to put a little bit more of a strategy behind it. So the three target audiences already were part of our mission but there's the Drupal devs or the professionals their agencies and finally there are our users and clients and diving a little bit further into that we we specified their needs and how we could help them in achieving those needs or in accommodating for those needs. So a professional he or she would like to connect to be part of a community. Knowledge is an important part she would like to learn and know more about the system but also some confirmation and the confirmation that I made the right choice to do this job I made the right choice in this technology. I did the right thing to join this company. So assurance is an important part of that target audience for us and that's what we're trying to facilitate. How do we do that mainly currently with organizing events. We have a large triple camp called Triple Jam in the Netherlands that's about 450 people every year. It was a two day event last year consisting of a business day and a community day and we also have the splash awards that we organized internationally actually two days ago. But it's a very big event there too which gives them the confirmation mainly we're doing the right thing together. Next up agencies. So what agencies what we can bring to agencies what I need is knowledge sharing not just knowledge about Drupal itself but actually about doing business getting more clients growing. How do I grow what are threats for an agency if I don't grow or what are threats if people develops are leaving or threats with hiring so knowledge sharing is an important part of that new business. I mean of course every agency wants business so we're checking how we can facilitate that. And finally hiring new people mainly developers is a challenge I think for everybody in the Netherlands but also worldwide I guess for agencies. How we do and facilitate that we have a partner program basically all agencies can become a member for a certain fee. And for the partner program we organize business meetups. For example we had the business track in our Drupal camp and we are actually investing in 2020 next year more to connect those agencies have them learn from each other. We do quite a bit of content marketing. All those agencies promote themselves individually pretty well. They are mainly doing content marketing showing their cases case studies. And that's also what we take. So we assemble we combine all those cases we have from the Splash Awards that we actually that our two freelance marketeers get from them do interviews with clients and actually write up case studies and publish them in the media. And finally we help the agencies with the events as said. Third target audience users and clients. They are looking for knowledge. They need to know what's Drupal. What is it about. Can it help me. They are looking for some assurance. Is it safe. Is it secure. Is it really the right the right tool for me. And finally existing clients are also looking for confirmation. Did I make the right choice. Is this still the community and the product that I want to belong to. And the things we do to help that is again the content marketing part to show all those cases and all those cool solutions that our agencies have built in our country. That gives you assurance and that shows actually the ability and we do PR press releases mainly. Just to zoom in quickly on the partner program. We have three tiers and basically the agency pays twelve hundred fifty or fifty five hundred euros. And that's why how we can fund all this. So that's an important part of everything I'm showing after. This is the main backbone of how we do what we do in return. As said we have a business meetup twice a year. They get discounts for events for their developers. We do advertising we do press releases and content marketing. And I just copy and paste that this slide from our yearly business meetup a few weeks back. Which shows you the funds. So we have roughly seven K more to go this year to actually do some more promotion. But our budget is twenty five on a yearly basis which is pretty good for an association. The strategy behind everything we do is hung up on the Google hero hero hop hygiene model. So basically you try to do once or twice a year something really big and make a big big impact there. Then on the next level there's hop content which is really quality engaging content that you produce and you generate spreads awareness and trust. And finally there's some hygiene some stuff just that just needs to be there. It's like an FAQ or an how to or what is Drupal content or maybe a short press release. And if I translate that to what we do the heroes for us are our camp and the special words. It's presence at other events that I will show you after the hop content is content marketing and the hygiene in our press releases and regular advertising. So how do we do that. We basically created a content calendar for a year. I'm not sure it's pretty readable. And actually we define for every week of the year what we are going to produce and promote. And this really helps the two freelance marketers that we have to actually plan ahead and make sure we have enough content enough stuff going on every year. I mean throughout the year. So finally some examples. So when it's all in place when we have people and we have the funds what have we done. For example we do PR. There's always press releases and there's always messages in the news about Drupal and we pick up on that and if needed we respond to it. We really try to position ourselves as the Drupal authority in the country. And for example this was in 2018 when the security issue with Drupal came across there was a lot of bad press also in the Netherlands. And pretty quickly the Drupal security team responded to that with press release in English. And stuff we do is actually take that and respond to it. This is a Dutch article but when you translate it it's basically saying that the Dutch association responds to the recent media coverage about security issues in Drupal. And there we explain actually what the threat was, how it was solved, how bad it was or not actually. And we try to give a different voice to press in the media. We've been present at events and we actually started business events there. So the E-Day is an event in the Netherlands that attracts 1500 plus CTOs and digital managers. And actually we try to be visible there to make sure that they see us side by side with all those other big platforms and that they actually get to know us and remember us whenever they are in need of a product. We are partnering up. RTL is one of the biggest news broadcasters in the Netherlands. And RTL specifically is a television station targeted to businesses and business owners. And the cool thing about them is they run their online platforms actually on Drupal. So they were really willing to step in and do something as well. So they are contributing with content. And we are actually getting a podium there to publish our content, our cases, our messages on their platform which attracts 2 million unique visitors per day. So if there's something like this in your local organization, in your local country, if there's media running on Drupal, those are probably the first ones you want to target because they are using the platform and probably also willing to contribute back to us. Messing content marketing quite a lot. This is an example of a case. 24 Kitchen which is a television station from Fox. Basically we do an interview with them and write up a big case study and publish it in regular mainstream media and magazines. We do interviews. Trees was passing by Amsterdam Airport last year. So we did a big interview and actually as you all said, the platform I mentioned earlier, they are willing to, they have published it on their platforms and sponsored the production of it. Something else to take out. We do our branding quite seriously. So all our chemistry is the Drupal Jam branding. We try to be consistent year after year after year in the only way in all our communication, in all our brands to make sure that we gain recognizability which is the same for the special awards that was fully rebranded this year and we are rolling out as an open source concept now to other countries. So in short, for local associations what we found working and what I would like to give to you today is first of all, strategy first. Define your goals and values, define who you're talking to, define how you would like to do that. And then secondly, build your brand. Be consistent with it, make sure it's always clear, it's always the same and repeat it because that's in the end what it is. If you repeat the same message, the same visuals, the same logo, everything again and again, it will stick. Plan, make sure you plan your activities far ahead. As you've seen, we work with yearly plans and that helps us to easily divide tasks and actually get more things done. Fourth one, it's okay to invest. It's funny, we got the feedback from our partners the first year we did the partner program and we did a financial report that we had quite a few funds on our banking account and the first feedback we got is, why is it still there? We're paying you to do stuff. So if you have some funds, use them and make sure that you use them well. Spend it, learn from it and improve it. And finally, engage through your new channels, build your own PR list. That's actually a very important one that we have found. Make sure you know which media runs on Drupal. Make sure you know which people work at which outlets and connect with them directly. Build it up, send them regular messages, give them scoops, give them messages on the embargo but make sure you have your list ready whenever you need to publish something because otherwise you're creating all this content for nothing. That's it. That's what we do. And if there's questions or... Sure. I think you're supposed to... You need to speak to the microphone. Yeah, I can repeat. So different agencies are part of the Drupal association? Yes. But you expose a unified front when you are present at a conference? Yes. So how do you manage those different agencies not to compete with each other with the potential clients that will be there? That's a good question. We currently have approximately 30 agencies that are a partner and then there's also a few individual members and as you say correctly we present all of them. So we have a few different rules. For example, when we publish case studies we always make sure we rotate through our agency of partner lists so we make sure we don't take just the fancy and shiny cases only from one big agency but we make sure we get the highlights from multiple ones. We never mention the agency name. We actually always try to interview the customer because that's what a potential customer would like to hear how their success was built upon Drupal how their business was helped with their online platform and not so much why agency X or Y made a technical choice. It's not about the technology per se. It's actually about the business case. That's how we write those case studies and when we are actually present at the events it's always under the Drupal logo. So Drupal now we have our own branding as well and then it's the neutral Drupal branding and if we present cases we make sure everybody can contribute to it so we always present give a clear overview of different agencies that are part of us. Anything else? Very cool. That's it. Thanks.


Hello everyone, welcome to theCUBE's coverage of High Performance 2023, covering everything HPC, machine learning, AI, high performance analytics and quantum computing, part of ISC 2023, CUBE coverage. Today's topic is cloud for HPC. We've got two great guests, Sherry Simekwadel and Andrew Lee with Rescale Partner. Just looking at Valley startup, hot startup. Sherry and Andrew, thanks for joining the program. Thank you for having us. You know, I love HPC, I love the cloud, how it's brought that to the forefront in all applications. High performance is table stakes now, certainly with cloud scale, but now you've got machine learning, you've got a lot of other things going on. More emphasis on silicon, chips, all this action coming in and cloud driving it. I want to get your take on it. We'll start with you, Sherry. But in the cloud scale, HPC, what's it all about? What are the key issues right now that's given this market a boost? So yeah, one of the most important issues in HPC after actually pandemic, what happened is the complexity of HPC. So what the value of the cloud here is it provide the flexibility? So for the customers that's having issues, putting their new data center, they have issues with the real estate, either it's going to be the cooling issue or power issue and also just buying the infrastructure. We are saying the cloud provides much more value here. You can start with very small and then scale it as your business scale. So that's pretty much it. Also, I got some questions for you, so I'm going to come back to you. Andrew Lee rescales the company, Silicon Valley startup growing, partnering with Dell here. Take a minute to explain what rescale does, but we'll get into some of the questions. Yeah, so rescale, we specialize in HPC built for the cloud with the advent of machine learning and artificial intelligence, especially with chat GPT. More and more users are doing machine learning to do training in neural nets, which actually utilizes a lot of frameworks that high-performance computing allows. Rescale here makes HPC for the cloud very simple for scientific users and engineers to get on cloud resources and basically be virtually unblocked using a multi-cloud infrastructure. You know, the interesting thing is, is I want to get your thoughts as we talk about the cloud, with the hyperscalers for instance. What's the, you know, what's going on with the hyperscalers? How does your cloud for HPC offering differ from the competition? Yeah, so our offering, we do have some partnerships as well with all the hyperscalers as well, but what's unique is that it's multi-cloud along with utilizing a very solid infrastructure and that allows scientific and engineering users to utilize the most optimal infrastructure of their choice. You never want to actually be locked in to any particular vendor because your scientific engineer workloads could be very specialized. A lot of times, especially with the explosion of architectures, you know, GPUs, CPUs, FPGAs, all different types of vendors and processors, it makes it the flexibility and choice that much more important. Yeah, it's super computing. You got super cloud, which we call multi-cloud, hybrid cloud, but it's not really hyperscale. And then super apps, AI and Fuse, seeing AI enabled driving a lot of that. So a nice super layer kind of a stack emerging. But I have to ask you, because you're seeing in all of the pressure points for these apps that are taking advantage of the AI, they're putting more pressure on the hardware, right? You know, got GPUs you mentioned and other silicon. What do you guys see as the barriers at this point to harnessing an HPC cloud for researchers and then the enterprise? So the HPC stack is very interesting. You have tons of different types of software ecosystems. So for example, on our platform today, we have over a thousand ISVs. You know, you can open source like OpenFoam, Gromax, PyTorch, right? You also have commercial workloads like Ansys and Siemens, and then custom codes, right? For various use cases. Combine that with different types of, you know, schedulers, compilers, libraries, and then on top of that different architectures from, you know, AMD, to NVIDIA, and all the different type of architectures that they provide ARM. All of those combinations, we basically estimate that that could be, you know, 50,000 plus combinations that you can use to optimize your stack. So what Rescale does is that we actually make it all very simple in partnership with Dell to have all of that preconfigured and pre-tuned. And that way we actually have an AI-powered recommendation engine, so that way we can recommend the best optimal stack for the users. Sure, we're laying in here on the Dell side. What are you enabling? What's the key to the partnership here? So for us, we already have, so Dell is an infrastructure company. We sell HPC server for people that have data center. But the most important thing here is how to make it seamless for our customers to shift to the cloud. If they wanted to take advantage of the flexibility of cloud, so they already have some on-prem system and how we can make it easy in partnership with Rescale, so they don't even see it. It's a very seamless person to the cloud and that's what our customers are coming to and asking for us. Talk about the portfolio. You guys are making even better as adds to the portfolio. What's the impact? I think the impact to the portfolio is very significant. So we have talked about the infrastructure side of it. I think our servers and storage portfolio can address all the needs of the customer, but I think that it's just the impact for these software is mostly on the OPEX model for the customer that wanted to take advantage of it and we make sure that everything underneath is tuned and optimized for HPC, but just giving that flexibility if you don't want to invest the first, if you don't want to just buy infrastructure and put it on your premise, you can take advantage of this. So metering has been important in the cloud. This brings up the issue of the tools on HPC. What kind of tools does HPC on demand offer to help customers keep track of all the metering issues and expenses and usage? Cost is huge. If you get out of control, it's more than leaving the lights on. As I say, it's a lot of money. You know, watch what you're doing here. The cost could be pretty crazy. So we have a lot of different types of policy settings and administration settings basically that users can actually utilize and deploy. So for example, we have different types of workspaces we can enable within those workspaces we can add different users. Each of those users can be allocated a specific budget. Now they can be hard limits. So for example, like $1,000 and then that's it. Or it can actually be a little bit more open-ended. So depending on your project, your group as well as the user, you can allocate that. And this is actually done globally. So you can actually have different environments where you would invite users from, say, US and Canada, you know, APJ or EMEA. And that way they can actually all draw down from the same budget pool or not, right? And all of that is actually at the control of the administrators that we actually enable. Maybe it makes sense to explain what is HPC on-demand mean? HPC on-demand for us basically means for scientific and engineering users to be able to access virtually unlimited compute. What we've seen is that R&D investments are really important. For every dollar of a spend, basically, enterprise company can actually reap the reward of over $40 or $50 of revenue in terms of the investment. So being able to unblock that for scientific and engineering users for the research and development purposes certainly accelerates us. And that's how we get the future of flying cars and automated driving vehicles and whatnot, right? There's a lot of research out there that's very important and this will certainly unblock all of that. I think that brings up the segue to the hyperscalers. I've heard people say it's difficult, complex, takes a long time to get it going, can be expensive. This is where HPC on-demand differs from that. How do you guys compare when you look at the offerings on the hyperscales versus your unlimited compute HPC on-demand? How do your performance compare? So yeah, it's a good point. I think the value, the value proposition I offer compared to the hyperscalers is that vendor locking. I think it's very important for the customers. We wanted to take advantage of on CSP-1 someday in some of the instances there. And the other day, maybe the pricing is better on another instance and you wanted to kind of use that. So kind of replicating all of these processes and workload from one hyperscaler to another is going to be a very challenge for our customers. But with this control plane that we have for HPC on-demand, all of those are kind of masks from the customer. You're just interacting with one single unified control plane. That's value one. The other value is we try to make it easy for our customer. HPC is complex. If you are going to hyperscalers, you basically need to tune and optimize different instances as you need to configure the network, firewall, all of that. And when we are comparing it, what we can provide with HPC on-demand, we brought about 25 different number of steps to about less than seven or eight. That's it's very easy for our customers to just bring their input, click on whatever the software is, make sure the instances is optimized and then run their simulation. So that's the second point. Yeah, and that got the flexibility there. So you think you guys are competitive with the established cloud service providers? Yeah, absolutely. On top of being multi-cloud, so that way we can actually optimize the infrastructure. We can also deploy hybrid environments. And what that allows is having the best of both worlds of what the on-prem cost can offer as well as cloud bursting use cases. So essentially being able to kind of mix and match between on-prem and various multi-cloud infrastructure, we can be extremely competitive in terms of both performance as well as cost optimized, depending on what your use cases are. I think the on-prem cloud, that's a great position. That's where the demand is upon intended. HPC on-demand seems to fit that well. The question that comes up, I'd love to get you guys to thoughts on this and weigh in is making it easy, more seamless and even more intelligent because it has to come in and deliver the AI, has to deliver the goods and then connect in a cloud manner. How do you guys make that easier and seamless? So we start basically from the end users in mind. So as I mentioned, the scientific engineering user base, they have different types of codes and softwares, open source commercial. So we have over a thousand software partners on our platform and over 5,000 plus versions. So a lot of times it's very difficult for all of these enterprises to manage all their versions and all their softwares and their entire stack and optimize it for the appropriate infrastructure. We basically do that right out of the gate and basically it's a very simple user interface where you can actually just select your software and where you want to deploy and essentially just submit run, right? And all that information in terms of the performance intelligence will be captured to help recommend better ways to run. Cloud and HPC go well together. The cloud operations means on-prem, you brought up the edges coming around too. Andrew, what are you seeing in terms of the AI piece? Because now the data becomes super valuable.  What do you see happening with the data and where HPC goes when you start bringing all this new AI to the table? Yeah, so what we're seeing in the field is that all customers want us to complete the digital thread. So what we mean by that is basically all the data acquisition, modeling, simulation data, be able to model and simulate your products and all the way to manufacturing data and then you have edge data, all of that to be able to have a sort of a closed loop ecosystem where you can actually utilize the data in the field to kind of bring it back to improve your products. So we're definitely working towards that. I don't want to say that we have all the answers to be honest. No one does yet. Yeah, nobody does yet. But that's what we're driving towards in terms of this partnership with Dell as well. Yeah, I think a lot of people are really seeing value in the data. We'll see how it all pans out as architectures come in. And it's an architectural place. Sure, talk about the Dell. You got a partner here for the folks watching. What should they know about Dell's role in HPC in the cloud? What's the big story? Sure, so as you know, like Dell is a very collaborative company. If we don't have any offer internally, we try to partner with other people. For this case, we rescale to kind of provide this collaborative solution for our customer. So we have that customer first in our mindset. That's important. And what we see here for HPC on demand is the value that the VSCL is providing for our customers. All those software requirements that the customer are asking. We wanted to have the administration. We wanted to make sure our budget is in good control. We wanted to see all these different software are in install. So that's why we think that this partnership can bring to the table. So, and we are very excited about it. It brings up a really good example. We've been saying on theCUBE for many years, hardware is really software too. It's a software business running on hardware. And now hardware is back because hardware, people see the processors, they see the GPUs, they see the value, but it's the software game. This has always been the play. Sure, but how many times have you seen, hey, we're a software company. It's hardware and software working together. This is the magic of this market right now. I think this is a great example. Just your thoughts on when people say, is it just hardware? Talk about the software involvement. How much software is involved? Absolutely. So you are right on point. So we provide the hardware and software actually. So behind the scene in this collaborative partnership with Reaskal, we have done more than 50,000 number of simulation hours to just make sure that all of the software that are putting on the system is completely optimized and tuned for that specific hardware. So a lot of engineering work has been done from our side as well as the Reaskal side to ensure we have the best hardware software for the best hardware and this circle goes on and on. This is a great conversation. We have to end it there. Andrew, I'll give you the last word at Reaskal. What do you see taking advantage of this innovation? What's next for Reaskal? What are some of the things on your mind right now? So for us, we are seeing explosion in terms of AI and mal research computing. So for us, we merely want to ride the wave to be able to kind of be a piece of this action as well as just help enable a better future for everything, including all the research that's done in life science and manufacturing and technology, it's just exciting place to be. And we want to do it with Dell, obviously. Yeah, great relationship. Congratulations, both of you. Thanks for coming on theCUBE's coverage of high performance in 2023, part of ISC 2023. Thanks for watching. I'm your host, John Furrier. Thank you for having me. Thank you. Thank you, Sherwin. Thank you, Andrew.


Hello, I'm Ron Duker from Pyramid Archery. Today we're going to talk about the Killer Instinct Fatal X. Stick around to hear about the unique feature that's specific to this crossbow. Everything you see here comes in the box. It comes with the crossbow, an optic. It comes with an integrated crank system on this model. There's also a model that does not have this for a little bit less money. It also comes with a rope cocker, just in case you need a backup or you can't find your handle, which it comes with the handle as well. It comes with a lube, this is both rail lube as well as string lube. And then you get three hyper-20 bolts along with three field points and the quiver to mount on the right side or left side of the crossbow. Let's go over some stats for the Fatal X. Base weight is light, 7.4 pounds as far as crossbows go. It's 13.5 inch power stroke, shooting a 20 inch arrow, gets you 142 foot-pounds of kinetic energy. That's going to be pretty much passing through just about anything. Draw weight without cocking device, 195 pounds with cocking device, hardly anything at all. IBO speed, 405 feet per second, axle to axle, uncocked, 9.75 inches and axle to axle, cocked just under 6.5 inches. Killer Instinct's claim to fame is they have all the features and benefits of a high-end bow at an affordable price. You're going to have a lightweight stirrup on the very end of the crossbow along with a full Picatinny rail on the bottom, all the way from the trigger guard all the way up to the end of the barrel. And there you can actually put on there, you can mount this either right or left side and adjust it so your quiver can be right or left. Everything back will be ambidextrous including the safety. You've got dual string stops to keep your string stopping and shooting accurately in the exact same spot every single time. They put limb silencers on there to help convert vibration. It's got a 13.5 inch power stroke with a brush here as opposed to a lever. The reason why that's important, the brush is a lot quieter. Ambidextrous safety, you'll see the same thing on the right side of the crossbow as well as the left. They've got a pistol grip with a nice release trigger, handguard for both your fingers here as well as so that you're not getting your fingers anywhere up inside of here. When you're talking about the buttstock, they actually have an adjustable buttstock similar to an AR platform where you can adjust this out about three, three and a half inches give or take.  The Killer Instinct Fatalex has a 4x32 fixed magnification scope and on here you've got an illuminated reticle both red and green with multiple different intensity settings for both. It also has in there, it has just the generic black if you're not utilizing the illuminated reticle so you always have a point of aim. The Fatalex Crossbow has unique to itself cams that have a 50% let-off. Why that's important, not only as you're cocking this bow back, when you get it into the seated cocked position, what that means is you only have 50% of the power of the crossbow on your trigger box. It means you get a crisper trigger pull for the poundage of the bow that you have.  You're going to pull that up and it will release and free spool your cocking device. You want to seat that on your string all the way down on both sides. I like to hand cinch a couple of times to make sure everything's tight and I have everything out of the way of anything that I may have mounted to my crossbow. Handle comes with it, seat it on and start cranking your crossbow back. As I'm cocking this crossbow back, you'll hear there is no audible click. It is a smooth and simple draw as well as if you happen to stop, it automatically stops right there with you. So if you're half-draught or whatever and you accidentally slide off, you're not going to get injured by this in any way, shape, or form and it's not going to take off on you. You'll hear an audible click. You want to then back off a few before you remove the handle. The Killer Instinct Fatal-X also comes with a five-arrow quiver. It has three arrows that come standard in the box with 100 grain field points. All in total it's about a 400 grain arrow. The quick detach is simple as far as you just slide it in to the opening and then with your finger or thumb lock it down. The Fatal-X comes with three hyper-20-inch arrows. There is available for sale individually additional arrows. On top of that I would recommend in the last couple of years Killer Instinct came out with a version that has a lighted knock. That is really cool in dawn and dusk as well as you can see where your arrow is flying and the impact point. As you can see it has a very small profile and we'll show that to you as we fire the crossbow. Killer Instinct was able to do it yet again. They have a lot of features benefits packed into this crossbow for a very, very reasonable price. Go to pyramidair.com and check out the Killer Instinct Fatal-X. I'm Ron Duker with Pyramid Archery. Remember to like, comment and subscribe. I'll see you next time.