We are ready to start now. In case you are still looking for a seat, there are seats back there. People are raising hands.  I'll repeat the announcement about the filming crew. There's a filming crew that is filming this talk from the back and they will also do audience shots. If you don't want to be on the shot, don't look backwards because they're filming from the back. And I would like to welcome Andreas Antonopoulos. He's the author of Mastering Bitcoin and Internet of Money. And this talk is called The Future of Money, which he said that it keeps changing. So his talk is always different. So we're really excited to learn what the future of money is now. So please warm welcome for Andreas. Wow, this is my first Haggers Congress. This is amazing. What an incredible event. Thank you so much for coming here today. I really appreciate it. This talk will be on video in a couple of weeks on my YouTube channel. But also it is licensed under Creative Commons attribution. You can do whatever you want with it, pretty much. So feel free if you do use a recording or you can just take it from my YouTube channel, whatever you want. Thanks for coming. The talk is going to be called A Tsunami of Innovation. And what I want to talk about today is innovation in open systems. You've probably heard me talk about this before. One of the defining characteristics of the Bitcoin blockchain... but also of other open blockchain systems, is something we call permissionless innovation. And permissionless innovation is the idea that in a system that is decentralized... where people can connect to the system without asking for permission... where they can create their own applications without asking permission... where they can launch these applications and use the platform without asking for permission... something magical happens. The best example of this, of course, is the internet. And on the internet you don't need permission to create a new application. You can assign it support numbers, you can write an application protocol... you can distribute a binary or source code, anybody can run it... and if they run it, they become your market for that application. So what is the minimum market size you need to run an application on the internet? Two. Two nodes, two people, two systems. As long as two systems want to use a protocol to communicate with each other... that is an application, that is an application market... that is the basis for running a new application and you don't need anybody's permission... to innovate on this system. Why is this important? Because in closed and permissioned systems, innovation is determined by the least common denominator. If you want to run an application on the phone company's network... you have to find a way to persuade them that this is an application... that will be broadly used by millions of people who are participating in that. And you have to ask for permission. And only if your application has a very large market share will it ever run. And the essence of permissionless innovation is that you do two things. One, you create the possibility of micro-innovation. Innovation for a market of two. A special purpose application that nobody in the world cares about... except for these two people, or these two systems. And they can do micro-innovation in a tiny, tiny environment... and create exciting new applications for which the only two people who are excited... are the ones participating in that application. And that's enough. It's a hyper-local micro-innovation. But at the very same time, it's also a platform for macro-global innovation. The very same application that appeals to two people can go to people, 2,000 people... 20,000 people, 200,000 people, 2 million people, 2 billion people. You're probably going to need to optimize the code a bit. But you have the possibility of simultaneously appealing to an audience as small as two... all the way up to a completely global audience, all without asking for anyone's permission. This critical function is offered by Bitcoin and other open blockchains... by the virtue of open access, by the virtue of a neutral platform... that is not controlled by a central entity, by the virtue of being able to use that platform... to develop your own applications. What happens with that is something that people often underestimate. We've seen how big markets underestimate the possibility of innovation on the internet. There's a reason why you can easily underestimate this form of innovation.  You have the best of the best innovating for you in a focused and directed manner. How could anyone compete with that? How could anyone compete with that budget... that marketing, that infrastructure, that support? I mean, it's almost ridiculous to think that you could take decentralized innovation... and make it work on a large scale. Maybe you can do it for things that are not important. You can play with your little internet toys. We have important work to do here in our large corporation.  I'm going to write a scalable, multi-processing operating system that competes with Unix. The only response to that by any sane individual is, That's ridiculous. There's no way that will ever work. Twenty years later, Linux has completely taken over every data center, every computer operating system. Most of the people in this room are running it underneath their Android operating system, which is really just Linux built up. This audacity that you can out-innovate the largest players on the planet... combines with something really important, passion, interest, and deep knowledge of the community of your users. It's most powerful when the developers are the community of the users, or come straight out of the community of the users. When you have people who are developing an application that is for their own interests, that they have emotional attachment to, that they feel passion for, they will commit enormous amounts of effort into building that and treating it with great care. One, because at the end of it, software is art. Just like an artist, if you lack creativity, if you lack that spark, you can have a corporation that hires as many in-house artists as you want. You're never going to create great art. It will be soulless, it will be empty. That's what happens to innovation. When innovation is brought into large companies, it goes there to die. When they send their employees to workshops and seminars to teach them how to think creatively, in a four-hour seminar, a Wednesday afternoon, innovation goes there to die. If by some miracle an inspired creator arises from within the corporation, creates something truly unique, creative, disruptive, expressive, the entire mechanism of bureaucracy will stomp down on that idea and kill it very, very quickly. Tommy, we love your idea and your creativity. This is really a fantastic invention you've brought to us. We have conducted a focus group and assembled a committee. We don't want to interfere with your creative process. We have a few minor suggestions to help it be more broadly appealing among our customers and more in line with our strategic goals. That is the corporate sound of stomp on creativity. By the time that idea comes out of committee, it is a pale image, a skeleton of what it once was. Everything good and creative and wonderful about it has been sucked out.  Yet, when presented with decentralized innovation, when shown the potential of everyone on the planet, independently and on their own being able to innovate on the internet, to create content, to create beautiful works of art, to contribute to human knowledge, when presented with the idea that an open blockchain allows everyone in the world to create applications, they underestimate it, they cannot fathom how an unruly mess of untrained, untutored, and unpaid volunteers can ever compete with their finally-geared machine. Every time they miss the point.   Instead, what you see is corporate organizations and governments having innovation workshops, speaking about disrupting from within and all of this empty talk. When I was at the hackathon we did a couple of days ago, we found out that one of the key contributors to an amazing piece of software that was written, revealed himself to be a 14-year-old kid from London with no formal training in programming, who is outclassing many of the professional programmers in the space with passion. That is the most dangerous form of competition a company can face. That is unstoppable. Here's why it's easy to underestimate the potential for innovation. When you place two systems side by side, and one of them has a 200-year tradition of slow and careful and methodical developments, institutionalized knowledge, and a solid foundation of trust. The banking system. Then you bring this ragtag group of weirdo anarchists. I'm looking at you. With funny haircuts and too many pair of things, and weird t-shirts, you can't wear a suit. They say, we're going to reinvent banking. What can you do but laugh? The first version of what they present to the world is woefully inadequate. It's kluji. It's difficult to use. It hasn't been tested by a focus group.  You compare the two, and you say, this is what they've done. This is what it took us 200 years to do.  But what you're missing is the most important part of the equation. When everyone is open to innovate without permission, and when the outcome of their innovation is open-sourced and available to everybody else to copy, incorporate, integrate, mash up, and build upon, what happens is an exponential curve. Every tiny idea is fed by a thousand other tiny ideas, and in turn spawns a new forest of tiny ideas that together creates another generation of tiny ideas, and gradually all of these things start building up. People who are free to do and follow their passion start creating applications you couldn't even imagine. They build on other people's work and give ideas to other people who then build on top of these, and the momentum increases. It takes a long time for that momentum to build up. It's very, very gradual at first. The key characteristic of an exponential curve is that, for the majority of its life cycle, it appears to be a slowly climbing horizontal line. It looks like it's taking a very long time to catch up with that plateau of 200 years of innovation, and then surprise, because here's the one thing I can tell you about exponential curves. They have an elbow, and the elbow is the inflection point where the horizontal becomes vertical, where all of the cumulative momentum building and building and building suddenly reaches that critical point, and it starts accelerating faster and faster and faster. It takes a very long time for these applications to reach parity, to appear to do the same thing that the established industry does. The thing about an exponential curve is that one month after reaching parity, it's exceeded by an order of magnitude, and one year it's exceeded by two orders of magnitude. While the traditional institution continues its slow horizontal curve, the exponential curve suddenly turns vertical. We've seen this happen on the internet. We've seen this happen throughout many technologies in our lifetime. Ray Kurzweil, an esteemed author, has written a fantastic work called The Singularity is There. I spoke recently at The Singularity University, which is an organization founded by Ray Kurzweil, and we discussed these issues of exponential growth. These exponential curves can be seen in many places in our post-industrial society. The acceleration of density of computer chips, computer memory, speed of processing, the amount of data you can send through communication, the number of documents on the web, the number of documents on Wikipedia, the number of people connected to the internet, the number of internet-of-thing systems connected to each other, the number of people working on Bitcoin, the number of contributions to the Bitcoin Core, the number of alternative blockchains poking up. All of these lines have one thing in common. They exhibit an exponential curve. For all of these, when you look at it as a human being, we tend to massively underestimate the impact of these exponential curves. We cannot fathom exponential growth. It is alien to nature. It only happens in very limited circumstances, and it is always surprising. We extrapolate linearly. We see the past, and we think it will continue at the same pace in the future. What we miss is the elbow and the curve, when things turn vertical. The amount of data you could fit on a storage device in the 60s was pitiful. You can watch photos online of IBM unloading a 5-megabyte hard drive from a truck with four people carrying it. It takes a very long time to go from 5 megabytes to 10 megabytes to 100 megabytes. But before long, you stopped counting in megabytes, and you are counting in gigabytes, and then terabytes. The curve is vertical. We see this with data, with participation on the Internet. We are beginning to see it with Bitcoin. I use the phrase tsunami of innovation. One characteristic of a tsunami, a wave in the ocean, a massive disturbance in the liquid structure of the ocean, is that the wave propagation happens in depth.  It is a little smush that passes you by. There is 200 feet of slosh underneath that you cannot see, and it is held at depth. Then the wave reaches the continental shelf. As it hits the edge of the continental shelf, it climbs. By the time it hits the beach, it is 200 feet high.   This is going to be the experience of institutionalized banking. This is going to be the experience of institutional regulation of government. This is going to be the experience of decentralized innovation on the web. This is going to be the experience of applications of trust. This is going to be the experience of the blockchain-powered internet of things. Every organization that is observing this is going to say, oh, it is an interesting concept. Oh, it is kind of very interesting. Oh, it is getting kind of bigger.  The first indication you have, in fact, is that the water besieges. That is the wrong time to go sunbathing on the beach. Right now, it is very easy to underestimate the innovative potential of Bitcoin. Right now, you see the early-stage prototype. Right now, you see the beginnings of a system that has some promise. But its biggest promise is not in what is there. It is in what is to come. The reason the promise lies in what is to come is because of the power of innovation without permission... by individuals who have a particular interest, an interest that is not served... and will never be served by the current system. Let's look at just one example. Let's say you are a person with a disability. You have a problem with your hearing, or your sight, or a cognitive problem. You have some kind of difficulty with numbers, dysnomeria, or with words, dyslexia. What can you ask your bank to do to make your life easier? Can you ask them to modify the online banking application to make it more suitable to you? Can you ask them to modify their ATMs to make it more useful to you? With great resistance, they might try to serve you. In fact, they will be able to do it a lot easier on the web... than they can do it on their ATM network or their physical locations.  If you are a software engineer and your best friend, your cousin has a disability. You look at Bitcoin and you say, my friend doesn't have a good way of remembering pin numbers. He or she would be much better served with pictures of animals. My friend doesn't have a good way of visualizing small information. She would be better served by the information being magnified. My friend doesn't have a good understanding of social engineering and cognitive threats. He or she would be better served by community management through multisig. How many people do you need to persuade to write that application? No one. You write it. You improve the world in a tiny way for one person. Others will find it. They will say, this is the application I have always been looking for. I now have been empowered by the innovation of a complete stranger. I can use it. The tsunami builds, the momentum builds, and every single developer operating in this space. We are not solving big universal problems. We are solving small local problems that matter to us. We control where we want to invest, our creative energy, and our passion. There is nothing in the world that can stop that once it gains momentum. It is an absolute tsunami of innovation, and it is coming. We have an hour. I don't want to bore you with my talk anymore. I would love to have a conversation with any and all of you. I think we have a couple of microphones here for the audience. If you would like to ask me a question, I would be delighted to answer it for you. Thank you. I just wanted to ask, I read an article recently that said the European Union is planning to register Bitcoin users and their transactions and keep a database of all of this in a centralized manner. Yes, I just want to know your opinion on that, and how you think that would move forward, and what kind of resistance they would face, or if it is even possible. One of the really interesting... So the question was about the European Union creating a registration database of some Bitcoin users. Because the idea that they can create a registration database of all Bitcoin users is a pipe dream. I think several people in this room would make sure that doesn't happen. In an open system, people have choices. Decentralization and centralization are not an equal, symmetric scale. In order for a centralized system of control to be effective, it has to be near absolute. But in order for a decentralized system to provide freedom, it doesn't have to be absolute. All it has to do is undermine the system of control. If you have a stadium with a concert, and the stadium has a hundred doors, how many of those doors do you need to check tickets for that concert to not be a free concert? One hundred doors. Ninety-nine doors is not enough. Because the moment one of the doors is not being checked, everybody texts everybody. Nobody shows up at the ninety-nine doors you're checking, and they all go through the back door, and you'll have a free concert. Control has to be complete, has to be end-to-end for it to be even marginally effective. But it gets worse. Because what happens if you have a system where some people, those who are educated, technically literate, or motivated enough, can choose to use the back door, can choose to use the system without registration, can be nimble enough with our communications, and their protocols, and their use of tour, and all of the other things that they might need to use the system that isn't registered. Who are you left monitoring? The innocent.  And everybody who perhaps you should be monitoring is choosing to use the unmonitored avenues. And there are thousands of unmonitored ways to do. You cannot impose end-to-end control on a completely open protocol that is global in nature, that uses the internet as its underlying mechanism, that is in essence a content type, a form of speech, a communication medium on the internet. You cannot control it. Do you know why I know that? Because they can't even control it in North Korea. You can get American movies depicting American actors killing a simulation of Kim Jong-un. In North Korea on a USB drive, I imagine the penalty that applies to that is a bit higher than what the European Union will be able to pass legislatively. And yet they can't stop it. And if you can't stop it there, what chance do you have of stopping it in a multicultural society like the European Union, or in an open borders world like the one that Bitcoin creates? Let them try. They're wasting their time. And it gets worse. Because what are they going to end up doing? They're going to end up collecting the private information of millions of people who, by the definition that I just gave you, are innocent and some idiots. They will collect all of these people's information, and they will create one of the European Union's largest honey pots of private information, and then they will fail to secure it. As they always do, because there is no way to secure concentrated data, and it will get hacked. And they will end up hurting the consumers that they are actually presenting as protection. So one, it doesn't work for the stated reason of protecting against criminal activity, because if the criminals have a choice, they won't subject themselves to it. One of the characteristics of a criminal is that they don't follow the law. Go figure. Two, it will actually reduce the ability to innovate within the European Union, and it will harm most the properly organized legitimate small businesses that are creating jobs in this space. And three, finally, after failing to achieve all of its goals, it will hurt the very citizens that it aims to protect, because it will expose their private information. Are we going to see this happen again and again and again in this world? Thank you. Let's take another question. We have a question from people watching the stream, so I'm going to read it from the phone. What about Bitcoin democracy and profiling specialized Bitcoin mining companies gaining more and more power over Bitcoin network? Do you see this decentralization of Bitcoin network to be a dangerous thing or not? I think you meant centralization. Yes. Bitcoin mining is currently centralized, and my theory is the reason that Bitcoin mining and mining pools have become centralized, is because over a period of seven years, we saw an approximately one million times increase in the performance of mining equipment. We saw essentially two decades' worth of development of semiconductor capacity and density express itself in seven years in Bitcoin. From mining on a laptop, which was what Satoshi did during the first several months, even in two years, to mining on a graphics card, to mining on a field-programmable gate array, to mining finally on A6 at 60 nm, and then A6 at 48 nm, and then A6 at 36 nm, and A6 at 24, A6 at 18, 16. And now we're hitting that level where it's about at 16 to 12 nm. Basically, what you've done is you've replayed the history of the semiconductor industry in seven years, in fast motion. What that means is that if you create a piece of mining equipment in a semiconductor fab in Shenzhen, it has approximately 12 weeks of usable life before it is obsolete. Now, how far can you get this piece of equipment in 12 weeks and make it useful? If you put it on a ship, it leaves Shenzhen as a highly sophisticated piece of very expensive electronics, and it arrives in Los Angeles 16 weeks later as scrap metal. So instead, you get hired to build it, it goes on a truck, it ends up in a warehouse in the neighboring province, and it gets up to power as quickly as possible, where it sits on a shelf for one month, one and a half, two months at most, and then it gets thrown away, and the cycle starts again. That automatically means you can't expand the availability of these equipment. But something magical has just happened, and nobody has really noticed it. We hit the front of war's law. We went from performance increases of 1,000 or more per year to 2x, two times better, every 18 months. That's war's law. In every other area of computing, war's law is amazingly fast. In bitcoin mining, it is 10,000 times too slow. Now that piece of equipment that comes out at 16 nanometers cannot be out-selleted for two years, because there is no better than 16 nanometers. You have to invent the technology, build the factory. So that piece of equipment can now travel broadly. In fact, having a warehouse full of this equipment is now a disadvantage, because if you put all of the equipment in one warehouse and it burns down, you lose all of your capital.  If you put it in one warehouse and your power is cut for four days, you lose all of your capital. But if you take 100,000 of these devices and you sell them, and they get plugged into 100,000 kitchens and they're used to make hot water for tea, then the reliability and resilience of that network changes dramatically. I believe that the bitcoin mining ecosystem is going to get re-decentralized because the fundamental economic pressure that existed, the most important economic pressure, has now changed dramatically. It's going to take at least two years until we see the impact. I also think people overestimate how much actual power the miners have that doesn't involve destroying their own financial interests. And finally, quite honestly, if bitcoin fails to achieve its decentralization potential, there are many people who understand how it works, and so we start with a new one. I don't think that's going to be necessary. But if it is necessary, I would like to buy some when it first starts. All right. I think the question also covered the not-so-open innovation access to Bitcoin Core commit, right? So not everyone can actually develop the Bitcoin Core software. There are some doors you need to pass first. So what about this democracy? Of course, there are alternative blockchain, so we can always move away. There are alternative options. So the reason Bitcoin Core is the choice of many of the companies that choose to use that, and many of the users that choose to run the software, is because at the moment they deliver better software. How do I know that? Because the market chooses to use it. This is an open market-based system. You can write your own, and if it's better, it will win. And I would very much doubt that if you have commits that are broadly viewed as valuable to the ecosystem, it will be very difficult to get them added to Bitcoin Core, or any of the other platforms that work around Bitcoin. It's an ultilayer system, and we're going to see. Now, granted, we do have some elements that are more centralized than I would like. But I have faith that over the long term, the important things are maintained and maintained well. Okay, who else wants to ask me a question? Thanks for the great talk. I view Bitcoin as a distributed but centralized system, because it looks to me that to make any changes on the protocol level, you need to have the majority of the miners to read to that. And we can see this block-sized debate, for example. What's your take on that? I think what the block-sized debate demonstrates is that if there is a bottleneck in one part of the development process, what happens is that different paths emerge. People find alternative ways to achieve the same goal that are perhaps more creative. So we've seen the development of both alternative clients, we've seen the development of better mechanisms for estimating fees and prioritizing transactions, which was really critical for the stability of the network. But we've also seen the development of secondary technologies, sidechains and lightning network and bi-directional payment channels and things like that. And quite honestly, segregated witness and some of the other transactional optimizations that are coming out of Core itself. So I don't think there's any limit to the number of choices that may be presented to solve a scaling problem. And quite honestly, it's not a dire problem if people are not trying to bypass the system that we have. And the truth is people are not. If the miners thought it was a dire problem and it affected their financial interest, they would switch in a day and we would see alternatives. Also, quite honestly, we have a broad open market for competition. And so other systems choose to use bigger block chain, block sizes, different rates of transaction creation, etc. Now, the argument is that that ends up centralizing the system even more and that some efficiency is the price you pay for liberty. And the nice thing about this is that you have this whole ecosystem where all of these questions can be resolved in a way that is completely voluntary. So people can voluntarily choose to use the currency of their choice, the blockchain of their choice, the client of their choice, the software of their choice. And by having these choices, they push the development to the direction that the market wants to go. And the amazing thing about having something like Bitcoin is it opens the door to give you choices. And now that we have the door open, you can switch your Bitcoin into any other currency in less than two minutes using a variety of open systems and in a very anonymous way even. And so if you have choices, the question is, what are you saying? Are you saying the market is wrong about choosing the current system versus another system? And I think there are many opinions, but in the end, the choices of the market really speak loudest. Because that's where you have the intersection of personal freedom and personal interest that gives you the best answer. It's really hot up here. Is there a chance that Bitcoin will have better privacy protection or better anonymity in the future? Absolutely. There's not just a chance that Bitcoin will have better privacy protection about anonymity. There are a number of actively tested beta test level solutions that significantly increase the anonymity and privacy of Bitcoin. Bitcoin at its core, as the first iteration, is loosely pseudonymous. And if you invest a lot in very, very good operational security, you can take it from loosely pseudonymous to weakly anonymous, and that's about as much as you can do. Developments such as confidential transactions, which is a collaboration between, I believe, Gregory Maxwell and Peter Wool, which allows for a ring encryption of the value of a transaction. That's a very important development. Schnorr signatures, some of the features that are coming out to the lightning network, that will allow you to essentially have an off-chain, onion-routed, multi-party, double-blind, storm-forward network without really knowing who is sending what to who. And that's a whole layer you could put over Bitcoin. All of these developments, both on their own, increase the functionality, anonymity, and privacy of the network, put together they can make Bitcoin and, quite honestly, many of the other open blockchains very, very strongly anonymous. But something else, again, which you have to look at is the ecosystem. Because if I have Bitcoin and I also have one error on Dash and Zcash, then I actually have the opportunity to use the currency that gives me the right level of privacy now, or use the currency that gives me the right level of security, or the right level of value store, or the right level of retail access, if that's what I care about, then I switch between them at very low cost, and very quickly, and perhaps even in a programmatic and automated fashion, until your wallet picks the currency that is most suitable for the current use. Maybe if you have Tor on and you're buying something on a website, then it automatically switches to use Zcash. Because it says, okay, well, we're in a privacy mode right now, and maybe that's what you need. So, I'm actually very optimistic about these developments. I think we're seeing, as I said before, this innovation, this momentum is picking up. And everybody's like, oh, look over there. You see the block size problem they have? They can't solve it. They're not talking to each other. Meanwhile, right behind them, there's these giant teams doing incredible innovation in Bitcoin. And there's this big, big, shiny distraction. I hope the banks continue to underestimate Bitcoin because of the block size drama, and don't pay attention to the innovation that is picking up momentum. I just want to be succinct about it. I see two different paths forming. One is the other people that are technically knowledgeable, they don't know how to use Bitcoin in an anonymous manner. But these, for me, would be the minority in comparison to mass adoption of Bitcoin, which would be required for it to become globally used as a universal currency. So, my concern is, is it even feasible, or is it even a possibility that, you know, you've got the technical community, and they are doing it in an anonymous way or more advanced way, and then you've got the normal way, which would be the banks, for example, in the Netherlands, that added the Bitcoin wallet to their online banking. And they're saying, hey guys, look, thanks for making Bitcoin the kind of wallet it is. We'll take it from here. And they just kind of take the scene and take mass adoption of themselves and tell people, yeah, it's on your online banking, no problem, you know, we'll add it to you. And then they have a complete database of all the transactions and everything people do as you referred to it before. And that, for me, is a huge concern because, you know, it's like the work was done by the people pushing for liberty and freedom, or whatever the reason may have been. And then, you know, what if they come in and say, yeah, thanks, we've got it from here. Yeah, that's happening. The future of money is going to be purely digital, digital currencies.  And it will be banned everywhere. Cash as a mechanism will gradually be withdrawn until the only people who use it are the same people who go to a cafe here and say, do you accept gold? And the cafe owner goes, excuse me? Gold, I have gold coins. So you're going to be the grandpa kook who is just weird and wants to pay in cash in a world where currencies will become digital. And we will have a choice. Do we want digital currencies that have borders that are controlled by governments that are giant surveillance mechanisms? Those will be available, or do we want to use currencies that are open, borderless, and anonymous? And in order to make the second option appealing to people we need, better user interface design, better infrastructure, better software development, so that anonymity is not a choice. It's built into the everyday activity. It simply becomes an essential characteristic of the system. Now, the good news is, the advantage here is that there's almost five billion, four and a half to five billion people who have very, very limited access to banking who are not being served by the existing systems. And if we get them to leapfrog the technology and just go directly to probably anonymous digital currencies based on open blockchains, then we have the majority of the population of this planet utilizing the free system of money. And there's a minority that will continue to use the slave system of money. And that is going to be a fundamental choice that people will face in the future. If you have these two systems juxtaposed in parallel, and one of them is closed, because in order to apply control you must close all of the doors. You cannot have an open, borderless, immutable, censorship resistant, open innovation, open access permissionless system if it's run by a single entity that controls the blockchain. Because if they control it, they then automatically have a responsibility to censor any transactions that every government chooses to tell them are not allowed. So they will have to close it. They cannot swallow the bitter pill of an open, borderless system. They will choke on it. And that's great. Because they will build a closed system. And the closed system will be limited, in use, and most importantly, it will be a system of closed innovation. And it will innovate slowly. It will become the intranet of money where you run the Microsoft Outlook of blockchain wallets. And there will be some people who use it. The same people who ask you to fax the documents and send you a Microsoft Word document full of viruses and communicate via email and call you on the telephone, which I haven't done in two years. There will be people who use that.  But meanwhile, what happens to the open systems? They feed on each other and they explode in innovation. And they start delivering applications you simply cannot do on the closed systems, right? So, to me, I don't fear this comparison. But what I do recognize is the one lesson we learn from the intranet, is that if you want to make privacy effective on a broad scale, you make it invisible, you make it on by default, and you make it broadly available and easy to use. The most widely spread system of cryptography, as broken as it is, is a little green padlock at the top corner of your browser that you didn't ask for. That's why it's magical. How many people in here use PGP? You are not a mainstream audience. Just for the people who are watching from the cameras, that was about two-thirds to three-quarters of the audience. How many people here use SSL? Okay, that's a true question. We all do, right? And so does my mom. And so does your grandma. And so does your grandpa.  They don't even know they use SSL. And that's effective security. When we make privacy and anonymity in blockchain systems invisible, easy to use on by default, and then we add to that open innovation to create applications that are unimaginable in the closed systems that serve the needs of tiny minorities but empower them incredibly, that are completely borderless in nature, if that's the basis of competition, we win without a doubt. Okay, I think that was the last question. Thank you so much. Martin, did we have a book signing set up? Is that something we want to announce?


Soon, Sitaram, Namaste, I am State Assemblywoman Jennifer Raj Kumar. We stand here today in my district at Tulsi Mandir, a Hindu temple. A few weeks ago, a group of vandals attacked the Gandhi statue at this holy Mandir. A few weeks later, six people returned with a sledgehammer. And they desecrated and destroyed the Gandhi statue to bits. Today, we stand here with the team of Mayor Eric Adams and the Mayor himself to stand against hate. The Gandhi statue may be gone, but we will continue to spread Gandhi's message of peace and love throughout the city, the state, and the entire nation. We are proud Hindus and we are proud Americans. I stand here today before you with pride as the first Hindu American ever elected to a New York State office. When I was running for this office, I came here to the Tulsi Mandir and I bowed down to the Goddess Durga and asked for her blessings. And she showered me with her blessings. And that is why I stand before you as the State Assemblywoman. As the State Assemblywoman, I have represented you well. In my very first few months in office, I introduced a bill to make Diwali a school holiday in the state of New York. And we are closer than ever to realizing that goal. Mahatma Gandhi is part of the civil rights tradition of the United States. Hindu Americans have a central place in the civil rights tradition of our country. It was Mahatma Gandhi that inspired Martin Luther King and his technique of nonviolent social change. In fact, Martin Luther King wrote that India's Mahatma Gandhi is the guiding light of our technique of nonviolent social change. So when he was organizing the Montgomery boycott and fighting against racial discrimination, it was the Hindu principles of such a graha soul force and a hymsa nonviolence that guided him. And thus we as Hindu Americans are a proud part of the American civil rights tradition. Now I would like to take this opportunity to tell you a little bit about the Hindu faith. Hindus believe that God can take many forms. God can be Krishna. God can be Ganesha. God can be Lakshmi. God can also be Jesus. God can be Allah. And that kind of inclusivity and love is a central part of the Hindu faith. And we realize that here in Richmond Hill, Hindus don't just believe in tolerance. Hindus believe in one step more than tolerance, actively loving people from different backgrounds like they're your own family. We realize that dream here in Richmond Hill, where Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, and Jews all live together in harmony, often on the same block. And we stand here together today to let everyone know that we will not let any hateful actors stand in the way of that peaceful vision. Now, I would like to thank everyone here today on whose shoulders I stand. I may be the first Hindu elected to New York State office, but I stand on your shoulders. I am here because of you. I am your product. So I would like to thank the luminaries of the Hindu American community who are here with us today. And I would like you all to give these incredible leaders a rolling round of applause as I read their names. Priest Lakram Maharaj, founder and pundit at Tulsi Mandir. Please wave your hand when I announce your name. Our leader Romeo Hitlal, representing the Federation of Hindu Mandirs. The Honorable Rantheer Jaswal, the Council General of India. Nikunj Trevedi, President of the Coalition of Hindus of North America. Rugbeer Singh, former President of the Bapal Makhanshah Lobana Sikh Center. Jaganath Rao of the Iskand Temple and the Hare Krishna Movement. Dr. Ravi Goyal, leader of the Ganesha Temple in Flushing. Jatinder Abhi, leader of the Arya Samaj of suburban New York. Dr. Rakesh Sridhar, leader of the Hindu American community nationwide. Hirsh Parekh, Director of Government and Community Relations at the Port Authority. Dr. Neeta Jain, district leader, Pundit Narayan Lachanan. And we have incredible interfaith leaders standing with us as well. That will all soon take the stage. But ladies and gentlemen, we are at a time of crisis. Hate crimes are up 125%. Hate crimes against Asian Americans are up 100%. And that includes anti-Hindu hate. Here in my very district, we have seen members of the Sikh community attacked for their faith. We've seen members of the Muslim community attacked for their faith. And now the Hindu temple has been desecrated. And I am here to say today, this kind of hate will not happen in my district, not in my backyard, and not on my watch. And I would like to thank the great mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, and his entire team, including the commissioner of the NYPD, Kichan Sool, for standing with us against hate, for investigating these recent anti-Hindu hate crimes as hate crimes. We stand with them today in solidarity. And Gandhi always said that love will overcome hate. And with the outpouring of support today from leaders across the city and nation, I know that Gandhi is right. So at this time, I would like to call up a member of Mayor Adams' team, and that is the commanding officer of the Hate Crimes Task Force of the NYPD, Andrew Arias. Thank you very much, Assemblymember Rajkumar. Thank you to the mayor as well, and to all of those who are here today. The NYPD is here to say that we will never tolerate hate or violence of any kind in New York City. At this time, we have an active and ongoing investigation into this pattern of crimes that was so callously committed here in August. I want to assure you that the NYPD, working together with its public and private partners, will not stop until justice is achieved. The NYPD's Hate Crime Task Force, with its cadre of seasoned investigators, is analyzing all of the evidence, developing probative leads, and utilizing technology to steer the investigation to successful closure. It is all part of our mission to protect every New Yorker and every community the NYPD serves. With that said, we need you, our fellow New Yorkers, to join the NYPD in this mission. We need the public's eyes and ears to help achieve justice and to help build the strongest prosecution possible. We have disseminated photos of the suspects to all of you in the media. We have also placed those photographs on our social media platforms. We would like to ask the public to share any information they might have. They can anonymously call our crime stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS. Once again, we will use every tool, engage every lead, and work tirelessly across every bureau of the NYPD, and with you, our partners, to solve this crime and bring these individuals to justice. Thank you. Let's give the NYPD a round of applause for their work. I would now like to introduce who I call the Hanuman of our community. As Hindu Americans know, Ram needed friends and allies to defeat the demon king, and his great friend was God Hanuman and Hanuman's army of monkeys and bears. And Romeo Hitlal, who represents the Federation of Hindu Mondays today, is just that type of leader. So, I would like you all to join me in welcoming the Hanuman of our community, Romeo Hitlal. Thank you, Assemblywoman. The mayor is not here yet. He's on his way, so I want to thank him. He is an ally to the Hindu community. And I've been organizing and led for decades in this community. I've represented the Federation of Hindu Mondays across New York and across the United States. My goal is always to get Hindu to work together, to get everyone together. That was always my goal, is to make people work together. We have someone in government now that's here to work with us, and he's our mayor, Mayor Eric Adams. We have a place on the table. We have political power now, and we're so happy that he is the one who's going to be here to make sure that this crime doesn't go in vain. As leading us today is our Assemblywoman, Jennifer Rajkumar. She's the bright light of our community. She is the first Hindu American to be elected in public office. Like us, her and her family came to the U.S. with nothing. Her historic win put us on the map, on the political map, has put us on the table with the rest of the great leaders in New York State and around the United States. She has brought energy and life to our community. She has gotten us now on the seat of the political power. We are blessed to have her, and we want to tank her. She is everywhere. She's everywhere.  Ladies and gentlemen, we stand together against hate crime, but out of all this hate has come extraordinary love. After the Gandhi statue has destroyed, people have reached us and support us from all parts of the world, not just the United States. Our Hindu community is stronger than ever. Leaders from the Sikh, the Muslim, Jewish, and Christian communities have joined in solidarity. Hindus are inclusive, peaceful, and loving. The Gandhi statue may be gone, but we will carry Gandhi's message of peace, love, and hope to our city, our state, and our country. We are Hindu, and we are proud. We are proud American. Today, our community glow in the spotlight, and the sky is the limit for the Hindu community and our Hindu children. Thank you. Thank you so much for those beautiful remarks. Before I introduce the mayor of the city of New York, I would like to bring up the pundit and the founder of the Tulsi Mandir itself, the great pundit, Lakram Maharaj. We thank him for his fortitude and strength at this very difficult time and for leading our community. Let's give our pundit a round of applause. I would like to say namaste to all. Namaste literally means that I bow to the infinite God that dwells within every living entity, that dwells within you and me. First, I would like to take this opportunity in thanking everyone to come out here on this sad occasion. But as we are here, I would like to thank the mayor, very dedicated mayor to the city of New York. To be a strong mayor, it means that he has to listen to what the community needs. And by listening to what the community needs, he would serve us in the right and proper way. And so I would like to thank the mayor and everyone here this evening, especially our assembly lady to be here, Jennifer Rajkumar. Since she elected, she's been out at the Mandir constantly. And so we as Hindu, we believe in peace and love. The rickway tells us that no one is superior and no one is inferior. We are all equal. We are all striving for the goal of prosperity. And so our skin color might be different, but the blood that runs through our vein, it is the same. And since the blood that runs through our vein is the same, our religion may be different, but we are worshiping the same God in whatever name you may want to call him. And so heat does not have any rule in this community, in this country. And so I would like to say to you that Mahatma Gandhi teaches us that if you want to have change within this universe, you should be the change yourself. You should change, you should be the change that you want to see into everyone. And by being that change, you would set a proper example. And so devotees, brothers and sisters, heat does not have any role or any active play in this community. Love will overcome heat. And since love will overcome heat, I want to ensure you that with the support of everyone, especially the mayor and all the elective officer and the 106th person to continue to patrol the road day and night since the crime committed against the Mander. If all of us can stand together with one voice, surely we would be able to remove heat. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Let's give our pundit the round of applause for his fortitude. So our great American civil rights hero Martin Luther King Jr. was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, who he called the guiding light of his nonviolent technique of social change. And as Hindu Americans, we are so proud to be a part of the civil rights tradition of our great nation. And on this occasion, we are graced with the presence of the great mayor of the city of New York, Mayor Eric Adams, who is here today. He is not a new friend to our community. He is an old friend of our community. And in fact, when he was running for mayor of the city of New York, he came here with us to the Tulsi Mandir and Lord Ganesha blessed him and removed all obstacles from his path. And now he is the mayor of the city of New York. I was so proud to be the first state elected official in Queens to endorse him for mayor. And I have to tell you that he has a way of making everyone around him believe in something greater than themselves. He is somebody that gives a thousand percent of himself every day. And it's not easy to run the city to solve the problems that we face emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic facing rampant crime, facing the distrust and disillusionment that people have in our institutions. But from morning to night, he gives a thousand percent. And that's why our community gives him a thousand percent. He has also stood with us. He came here to celebrate holy with us earlier this year here in Richmond Hill. He is a champion of Diwali. He, like many of us including myself, adheres to the plant-based diet, practices meditation. So on the streets, people actually call him the Hindu mayor. Let us give a warm Richmond Hill welcome to the mayor of the city of New York, Eric Adams. How do you beat that? You know, thank you so much, Assemblywoman, of just being a real partner as we fight to not only remove hate, but to create an environment where hate will not fester and grow. Energy never dies even when a hateful act attempt to destroy energy, it continues to perpetuate itself. Several years ago when I was in India, I saw the home of Mahatma Gandhi and looked at the steps that have been used to show his last steps. And the bullet may have took away his physical presence, but his energy continues to live. We must continue those steps. And that is what we're doing here today by coming together as a community to state that evil can never destroy of the tolerance, the calmness, the peace, the serenity, the love that we have for each other. We are Mahatma Gandhi-like right now by being here today. And so to my Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, all New Yorkers are united today. And that's who you see here with us as we come together to talk about the second attack on the statue of our leader, Mahatma Gandhi, right here in the temple in the last, during the month of August, the same month during which 75 years ago India and Pakistan achieved independence. And they suffered through the devastating violence unleashed by partitioning their two countries. So this is a significant moment.  And we have a dual role. Of course, the role of the police department, which we are doing, we are investigating of these acts of violence. We are ensuring that the person who's responsible will be brought to justice. We are not going to stand back and allow attacks on our houses of worship. They play a crucial role in closing the gap between government and the needs of people. And we will not allow an individual to participate in this hate without going unapprehended. But there's another role. There's a road that goes far beyond the law enforcement arm. The goal is not only responding to hate, but preventing hate. Our children are not born with hate. Our institutions must play a vital role of how do we live in unison and celebrate the diversity of our entire city. One of the most diverse places that you can live in is in New York City. As I moved around the city this weekend, attending several significant events of different religious groups and as we marched in the Indian parade on Sunday and attended other incidents or events highlighting the diversity of this city. We want to continue to do that. But what we must do is go beyond that. We must send a clear belief that the bedrock of our society is in the inspiration of the entire country on how we live in unison. It means educating our children in school. It means using the opportunities to cross-pollinate our ideas by attending our various houses of worship and how do we live together and look at the common denominator of all of our houses of worship. There is not one house of worship in this city that spews out hate. It spews out just the opposite, love, tolerance, involvement, giving back to each other. And we will not tolerate hate in the city and our hate crime task force will do its job, but as New Yorkers, everyday individuals, block by block, we are going to do our job. We want to thank the District Attorney's Office and other civil right leaders that are leading this important endeavor and doing their job. We're going to zero in our classes. We're going to encourage you to participate in our Breaking Bread Building Bond, 100 dinners across the city. We want to increase it to 1,000 dinners, 10 people at each dinner, all coming from a different background and talking to each other, sharing who we are, why we do what we do in a role that we all participate in our faith-based institution. And we want to lift up our AAPI community. They have experienced a level of hate as well as our Jewish community with a level of anti-Semitism. The common denominator of those who are participating in hate, no matter what group you are from, is to hurt people based on their way of life. We're saying no to that. We are going to embrace our communities. We're going to embrace our way of life. And we're going to embrace what Gandhi stood for and what we are standing for as we continue to walk in his footsteps. So, yes, the bullet that took his life, it is continuing the emotional path of attempting to rip apart our communities. And if we respond to that hate and allow the emotional path of that bullet to continue, then we've failed the life of Gandhi. Today, we stand together as Jews, Christian, members of Sikh communities, and all the other communities that are part of us to stay. That bullet is not going to continue to rip us apart. We will be united. And that is why I'm here today, standing with you as the mayor of the city of New York and say we will continue to be a united city and live, stay, build, grow together as we cycle through the horrific experience of COVID-19. We overcame COVID-19 because the globe came together to find a vaccine. Now we will come together as citizens to find the vaccine of love, to deal with the virus of hate and ensure that we finally bring it to an end. Thank you very much. Thank you, Assemblywoman. I think we should all give a round of applause to one of the greatest leaders in our state, in the country, Mayor Eric Adams. This is such a historic moment. It's the first time a New York City mayor has come to the Tulsi Mandir. And our community, our Hindu-American community, is finally on the map. And working together with our great mayor, with our NYPD, with everybody here from every background, I know that this love will overcome hate. Thank you, Mayor. Let's give our mayor a round of applause for coming to Richmond Hill. The Hindu mayor, I would now like to introduce a leader of the national Hindu community. And that is Nikunj Travedi, the president and founder of the coalition of the Hindus of North America, who is representing our community nationwide. Nikunj, please join me at the podium. Thank you, Assemblywoman. It is kind of sad that I'm here again. This is my second time here, denouncing this hateful attack. On behalf of the coalition of Hindus of North America, I extend our support to Sri Tulsi Mandir in condemning this horrific act of vandalism. I also commend Honorable Assemblywoman Jennifer Rajkumar and all the dignitaries for raising this issue and asking for this incident to be investigated as a hate crime. Unfortunately, the Hindu community is seeing a surge in Hindu-phobic attacks and anti-Hindu hate crimes, which include the desecration of Gandhi statues in places from California to D.C. and New York, along with attacks on Hindu temples, political leaders, and ordinary citizens. On July 12, Rutgers University's research has released a historic study that tracked the rise of Hindu-phobia and anti-Hindu hate on social media and other messaging platforms. The report found a dramatic rise and in patterns of hate speech directed towards our community across these platforms. They also discovered that Hindu-phobic codewords and memes reached record highs and warned that this could spill into real-world violence against the community, as we are seeing now. John Farmer, the former Attorney General of New Jersey, as well as the co-author, along with Congressman and a former Congressman and Miller Research Center fellow Denver Riggleman, also shared that the Hindu community, along with law enforcement, must unite to counter this hate messaging before it reaches to real-world violence, and as has been observed with incidents involving the Sikh and the Jewish community recently. An attack on Gandhi's statue is an attack on mutual respect, understanding, and peace, the same ideals that have inspired the likes of Dr. Martin Luther King and former President Barack Obama. In 2018, President Obama, while visiting India and addressing the Indian Parliament, remarked the following, I am greatly influenced by a man from your nation whose message of love and justice shows us the way ahead. Just he, meaning Gandhi, someone Indians to seek their destiny, he influenced champions of equality in my own country, including Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King called Gandhi's philosophy of non-violence and resistance as the only logical and moral approach in the struggle for justice and peace. We therefore call upon law enforcement, public officials, and the general public to stand with the Hindu-American community in upholding such values and ideals, which are the need of the hour. Let us stand together to condemn hatred and bigotry in New York and beyond, and present and bring the perpetrators to swift justice. Thank you. Namaste. I'm so proud that we have our great district attorney here with us today, Melinda Katz. She has been a longtime friend of the South Asian community. She's been there for us. When members of our community have been targeted by crime, she's there. When women need her help, she's there. She's been a champion of South Asians. So let's all give her round of applause for our district attorney, Melinda Katz. Assemblymember Raj Kumar, thank you for gathering all of us here today. To Romeo, I feel like there's five of you in the community, and that's terrific. Look around you. This is Queens County. We are 190 countries. We are 200 languages. You have representatives here from synagogues, from temples, from good wars, to all of the Muslim community that's here supporting us all across Queens County. This is what we do. You spew hate. We come together as a community to say that we will not tolerate it. You act in a criminal behavior because of where someone hails from or because of their religion. I hold them accountable. That's what we do every single day. So I want to thank everyone that got together to here to send a clear message that if you commit a hate crime, the community will stand together no matter who it's against. We stand together as one in Queens County. It's my job as the district attorney to make sure that when our lessons don't work, when our teachings don't work, when we have hate that is spewed in the community and all of that turns into destroying a statue that is so near and dear to our religious community, or when it comes to graffiti on a synagogue, or when it comes to knocking down Mary in front of churches, or when it comes to going against any of our religious statues, that hate crimes in the borough of Queens County will be prosecuted. We will find you and we will hold you accountable for that. But as the mayor says, a lot of it is the reaction of a community. If every hate crime we get the community together and we show the ignorance and all that involved in what they did, then hopefully we will win that battle. But until we do, as the Queens District Attorneys, I can just guarantee you this. We will hold the people who did this accountable. We will find you and we will make sure that you're brought to justice. Thank you so much. Thank you, District Attorney, for your support. This time I would like to bring up my colleague in the State Assembly, Dave Weprin. He was the first South Asian elected to office and I'm the second. So without further ado, Dave Weprin. Thank you, Jennifer. And in solidarity with Jennifer, who shares Richmond Hill with me, I'm wearing my red tie. You know, we would just hear a couple of weeks ago, elected officials, community leaders, when the Gandhi Statute was vandalized for the first time and then now it's been vandalized for the second time. And it's so important that we all, people of good faith, everybody of different religions and ethnic background stand together whenever there is a hate crime against any of us or any group. And a hate crime against any group is a hate crime against all of us. And we have to stand together. I've marched in the Gandhi Parade in this area for over 10 years. I've represented this area for over 10 years. And we always end up at this mandir at the end of the parade. It's so ironic that the Gandhi Statute, who of course preached peace and non-violence, is the statute that's vandalized. So it's particularly disgraceful, particularly aggravating. And I have full confidence in the police department and this mayoral administration that they will find the perpetrators of this heinous crime. And I have full confidence in our district attorney that it will be fully prosecuted as a hate crime. And the perpetrators will be brought to justice. Thank you. Thank you. We also have with me my other Assembly colleague who shares Richmond Hill, Assemblyman Khalil Anderson, one of the youngest legislators he has distinguished himself as an energetic voice in the Assembly. I'm so proud that he's here today. Assemblyman Khalil Anderson. Thank you so much to my colleague, Assemblywoman Raj Kumar. Could we please just give her a big round of applause? So this afternoon, we're here again to denounce hate. And just as my colleague, Assemblymember Wepr mentioned, when we speak and look to bring communities together and denouncing hate, we build unity. We have to tell folks who have very little respect for our brothers and sisters in the religious community that we're here to stand up for them and stand beside them. And that's critical in this moment. Our Hindu brothers and sisters, our Muslim brothers and sisters, our Jewish brothers and sisters are under attack in this city. And part of the reasons why they're under attack in this city is because folks have a limited amount of tolerance. But one of the great things about this city is that during conflict, we know how to rise up. During moments of pain, we know how to support each other and lift each other up. And I'm proud that we have in my colleague, Assemblywoman Raj Kumar, someone who's bringing all communities of faith together. And someone who understands that a figure like Mahatma Gandhi, who stands for peace, who stands for meekness, who stands for love, who stands for bringing us all together, someone we should continue to model. And that this moment can create a movement towards that love and towards that unity. And so I know that everything has been said, but it hasn't been said by everyone. And I want to take this moment again to instill in folks as we leave here today that we can be safer as a community. We can be safer as a community together if we uplift our brother and sister in their moments of need. And this is our moment to lift up our brothers and sisters in the Hindu community to ensure that they feel loved, represented and protected. And I look forward to continuing to work with our partners to ensure that we eliminate hate from our communities. Thank you so much, Assemblywoman Raj Kumar and to all my colleagues who are here. Thank you very much. We are also joined by members of the New York City Council. I would like to call up my colleague, history maker in her own right. And that is Councilwoman Linda Lee. Hi, everyone. Thank you so much, Assemblywoman Jennifer Raj Kumar for putting this together. I am Linda Lee over in Eastern Queens in District 23. And as one of, for the very first time, we have six Asian Americans on the city council, which I'm very, very proud of. And I'm one of two of the first Korean Americans.  And the message today is very simple.  It means that if you're coming after us, if you're coming after one of us, you're coming after all of us. So just be ready. But we are standing together in united, rooting out the hate. And it's actually more than 300% that the Asian American hate crimes have increased by. And that's a tremendous, tremendous, and those are just the ones that we know of that are being reported. And so we all know language barriers are a huge issue in the community. People are afraid to come out and report hate crimes because they have fears either of their immigration status or other reasons. And we have to make sure that we are there for the community to let them know we want to be a bridge. We are here to help. Before this, I was working at a Korean nonprofit for 12 years, and this is what we did. We helped the community during the pandemic, and we saw a lot of uptick in hate crimes. And so we need to work with partners in government, partners in NYPD, law enforcement, the DA's office, as well as our community organizations that are helping out those on the ground. And so I just want to thank all the colleagues here today, as well as our awesome assembly woman who's put this together and just bringing us together. And to just really help us to amplify this message of unity, peace, and love. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Standing with us today, we have Council Member Jim Gennaro. Council Member Jim Gennaro represents the South Asian community very, very well in Queens. We've worked together on a number of initiatives. Council Member Gennaro. Okay. Well, he was here. I think he had to go, but I would like to call up my colleague in the City Council. We work together on so many issues in Richmond Hill to find Representative Councilwoman Joanne Ariola. Thank you. Assemblywoman, thank you for putting together this wonderful show of unity. We've spoken about a lot of things here today, but I want to speak to those who perpetrate hate crimes.  It makes us pray more. It doesn't cause us to have fear. It makes us stronger. It doesn't cause us to separate. It makes us bind together. So your mission is a failure, and it will be further a failure when you are caught, arrested, prosecuted, and incarcerated. I have been blessed at this temple, at this mandir.  This is love, love for each other, love for our religions, love for our differences, love for our cultural differences, and love for being Americans United. Thank you. I would like to acknowledge that the City Council Speaker Adrian Adams has sent her representative. Senator Joe Adabo has sent his rep, as well as the Councilmember Lynn Schulman. Thank you all for your support for the Hindu community. Okay, so I've been notified that State Senator James Sanders is here, and he has represented our community very well. He has been a great friend to our community for many years. So I'd like to bring him up at this time, Senator James Sanders. Thank you. Namaste. The first thing I'd like to say is, let's go a little different here. Let me send a message to the perpetrators. Others have said what's going to happen to you and justice must take place. But I'd like to send a different message to you.  I know that you find yourself cut off from society. I would encourage you to pick up a book and read something about Gandhi. If you read just a little bit about Gandhi, you would find someone who is speaking to you. You would find someone who understands alienation, understands oppression, understands that you have to struggle against things that are wrong. And he made his life with others, mind you, to bring about the end of injustice. Many that you may find yourself struggling with. So I'd encourage you to read a little about what you are feeling so hostile towards to attack a place once may be a stray accident. But if you come back, that means that you are targeting and please understand your target, then go a step further, my friends. If you would just understand a little bit about this community, this community has taken me under its wings and has really educated me. I am here to say that to the perpetrators, man, you're picking on a great community. These folk don't deserve this type of stuff. We need to do different and go a different way. I trust that even as we put a person or people like this in jail, this community will take him to heart. Send him some books on Gandhi. Let him sit and read and study while he's serving his time. Let him understand and come back as a better person, not as a worse person. Let him understand that to attack one is to attack all. Thank you very much. Thank you, Senator. I would like to invite up a great leader of our community and he is no other than Rugbear Singh. Yes, you can give him a round of applause. Very popular. Rugbear Singh is actually the former president of the 114th Street Sikh Temple, but he does so much more. He's a pillar of our community. And when I was growing up, my uncle would always tell me the Sikhs are the protectors of the Hindus. So let's all give Rugbear Singh a round of applause. Thank you, Jennifer. Good afternoon, everyone. Especially thanks Assemblywoman Jennifer Rajkumar who raised such a wonderful program because this terrible incident happened in the middle of our heart and this should not be happened. Our distinguished guest Mayor Eric Adam who came specially from Viji's schedule to show his solidarity with the fellow citizens. I am Rugbear Singh, former president of Gurudwara Sahib which is a couple block away from this Mandar. And we show our solidarity from the whole Sikh community. When anything happened like that, we were standing with all the communities. We should all work together especially when something happened like that. He'd have no place in the city because we all know the New York's most diverse city of America and the Queens is a more diverse county in all boroughs. So we are living like brother and sister. We're proud of our police department who protect us. A few weeks ago, you know our Sikh fellow got beaten by a stranger and we got big protection from that elected official and police department. So we request all our citizens and neighborhood people please live with peace. This Mandar or churches of Gurudwara Sahib, their place of love. In my religion, we believe God is one and everyone say their different names. So we should respect all the religion and all the beliefs. So in this word, I like to end up my speech and I welcome all the elect official and community neighborhood who joined us in the press conference. I would now like to call up my sister, the Hindu American district leader, the first Indian woman to be district leader in Queens, Dr. Neeta Jain. Very good afternoon to all. Namaste, Jai Jain, Sastri Akal, Asalaamu Alaikum to all and my special pranam to Pandiji Maharaj.  We call each other sisters and we are sisters. Today I did not wear red color because I know she's going to wear it and we always match. So let's talk about what happened here and why it happened and where this non-violence word came from. So I'm going to go back a little bit in history. More than 2,500 years ago, who was a 24th Irthankara of Sanskrit Ahimsa and he said Ahimsa Parmodharma means non-violence is a supreme religion. There is no name of any God, there is no name of any color, creed and religion. So when the supreme soul does not discriminate us, who we are to discriminate us? So Gandhi ji was very much influenced by this movement, by the principle of non-violence. He adopted that Ahimsa in his daily life. He adopted that Ahimsa means non-violence in his political movements and those political movement brought India an Independence Day, Independence which we celebrated last Sunday with Honorable Mayor Eric Adam in Manhattan. Mahatma Gandhi statue was not destroyed here. That is a statue of symbol of love, compassion, non-violence, peace and harmony.   What we are doing right now here, we are standing with each other, we are supporting each others for this kind of hate crime. As Martin Luther King Jr followed Gandhi ji's footprints and he adopted that same Ahimsa in non-violence in his civil rights movements and he said that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We must unite, we must start our movement to protect the justice, to protect the harmony and peace and to protect non-violence and create a better world for our children to live tomorrow. Thank you so much once again, namaste and thank you to my dear sister Jennifer Rajkumar. We have with here today Avi Paznick, the leader of Stand With Us and he leads the Jewish community in standing with all faiths against hate. We have been very moved by his support and by the support from the Jewish community standing against anti-Hindu hate. So Avi Paznick please come and say a few words. Good afternoon everyone. I want to thank the assemblywoman Jennifer Rajkumar for bringing us all together and standing against these vile acts that blemish our city. While we're all concerned about the rise of racism, Hinduphobia, anti-Semitism and other manifestations of hate in New York and around the world, we're also concerned about the increase of racism, anti-Semitism in our schools. No one is born hating, no one is born a racist. This is something that is taught. Today's students are the leaders of tomorrow. We must educate them today before their hearts and minds are poisoned. As Mahatma Gandhi said, the future depends on what we do in the present. Today here and now in the present moment is when we must take a stand, a unified stand to ensure that our students learn not only to tolerate other races, religious and ethnic identities but to respect them. At Stand With Us we will continue to strengthen our bonds with our Hindu brothers and sisters and we will always, always stand with them. United we can continue to educate and empower more students and communities to fight racism, Hinduphobia, anti-Semitism and hate. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. We have been very touched by the support from the Jewish community. I also want to shout out a good friend who I see standing with us today, Mohamed Ali, who is a leader of the Bangladesh American community, my family. The Bangladesh American community has been with us every step of the way and yes, Mohamed Ali is a fighter. Let's give him a round of applause. I would like to invite up Mohamed Khan. Mohamed Khan has been working today. He's always working and he is the president of the City Line Ozone Park Civilian Patrol. In this community we all know them as CCOP. CCOP is everywhere. If someone needs help, CCOP is there. I admire them deeply. They have patrolled the temple in the days after the vandalism to make sure that we were safe. So thank you and Mohamed Khan, the podium is yours. Thank you Assemblywoman and thank you to everyone that's here from our elected officials to our community leaders, our Pandit here, our Imams and our Sikh community and thank you to everyone that gathered here. Something very interesting that I saw in this gathering right now is the young teenagers here. And the reason I mention them is we learn from our elders. Our elders is where we learn from. We do not want hate to be the lesson that these teenagers take back, that the next generation has in their hearts.  It's not okay in Queens. It's not okay in New York City. It has no place for it anywhere here, anywhere in our community or any community at all. What we need to do next is come together, learn about each other and learn to tolerate and love one another. Regardless of our religion, our race, our skin color, whatever it may be, we need to learn to stand by each other as we are doing right now and we will do in the future because I know for sure something like this may happen again. The idea for us right now and what we have to intend to do is find a plan that we are going to implement at our own homes so that we will speak to our family members and friends and teach each other about ourselves. Like I will teach you about my religion of Islam as you will teach me about yours so that this does not happen again. Yes, COPCP has been out here every single night patrolling. We have spoke with the pundit. We have messaged him. We have contacted elected officials but we shouldn't have to be doing that at all. Such crime should not be taking place at all, not in New York City and not ever. So let's make a pledge to ourselves that we will not be part of crimes like this. We will not be the oppressors nor will we let others oppress anyone else. Let's make that commitment and let's stand together and let's make our city safe and filled with love. Thank you. Thank you so much. Let's also thank the USA pundit power shot organization, 10 pundits here. Let's give them a round of applause. You make us proud. We would like to thank the NYPD Desi Society, Jeannie Prasad. Yeah, she wears many hats. Thank you for being here. Okay, we have with here today, we have with us here today, Joe Youssef, who represents the consulate of Guyana. So please come to the stage and say a few words. Let's all give her a round of applause for Joe and for Guyana. Thank you, Jennifer. Ram Ram, Asalaikum, good afternoon to each and every one of you. First and foremost, I want to say thanks to Assemblywoman Jennifer Rajkumar for extending this invite and for putting together this meeting. I also want to thank Mayor Adams for taking time out of his busy schedule for being here today and to all of the elected officials who have made it here today to represent not only their own constituency, but this community. On behalf of His Excellency of the Corporate Republic of Guyana, President Mohammed Erfan Ali, the government of Guyana, Guyanese at home, and in the diaspora, and the Guyanic Consulate General here in New York, we categorically condemn this barbaric act in the vandalization of the Mahatma Gandhi statue here in Richmond Hill. We stand in solidarity with the community, with Mayor Adams. We send it to Congresswoman Jennifer Rajkumar, other elected officials, and religious leaders here today to let you know that we share the hurt, the grief, the pain, and more importantly, to let you know that this kind of hate has no place in our society. There is no justification or reasoning that anyone can give destroying the statue of Mahatma Gandhi. Mahatma Gandhi was one of the greatest political and spiritual leaders who fought for social justice, who believe in unviolence, in his fight for civil rights, and freedom across the world. His teachings and practices are followed by many worldwide. What was done here recently simply was not what he stood for or believed in. We as a community and leaders must continue to foster that our people live in harmony with love and peace for each other, for a better community and a better world and that we teach our children of today and of the future generation that this sort of behavior and practice by a handful of haters is not what Mahatma Gandhi stood for, believed in, or practiced. And it's not something that we as a community leaders condone. We must stand in solidarity as one to ensure that this sort of behavior, our act, is never again repeated nowhere in our community or in New York City or the world. Thank you so very much. Very well said, very well put together. Thank you very much for those words. Joe Youssef. We also had our council general from India here standing with us run dear Jess Wall. We also have our community board nine chair Sherry El Grado, the first Indo-Caribbean woman to chair a community board and the chairwoman of this very district, community board 10 chairwoman Betty Bratton. So I would like to invite Betty up to say a few words. Thank you for all that you do for us. Thank you assembly member. I stand here with Romeo Hitlow, a member of community board 10 for many years. In this community, as I said before, when we were here a few weeks ago, hate does not stand. No matter who we are, we stand together against it. No, there are words and phrases that all of us have learned over the years, no matter who we are or where we come from. And they remain those words and phrases that we remember because they speak truth and they have value. Someone far wiser than me more than 150 years ago said, united we stand, you know, divided we fall. Anybody in this United States of America with even the most cursory of educations should have an understanding of the value and the place in world history and in United States history of Mahatma Gandhi that anyone would deliberately engage in an act of that type of vandalism at a place that stands as a religious institution for the values of the different religions that we all practice. And they all have a common thread. And it is not hate. I hope that we never have to stand here again. I thank the police department for the effort that they are putting in to find who did this. And I'm sure that our district attorney in this borough, the most diverse place on the planet will take the appropriate actions to ensure that it does not happen again here. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Chairwoman Brayton. I would also like to acknowledge that the most popular youth leader, Daniel Hill, is here today. Thank you, Daniel. So I would like to call up our other chairwoman of community board nine, first Indo-Caribbean chairwoman of a community board in our entire city, my sister, Sherry Algrado. Hi everyone. My great grandparents came from India as indentured laborers to Trinidad. And growing up, we celebrated everything. We had a church, a mosque, and we had a Hindu man there in our community. For Christmas, we decorate the Christmas tree. For Eid, we would make sawine. And we would make bara for Diwali, a tradition that I make every single year. I make bara to last like a month when I make it every Diwali. And growing up, we learned that all religious homes, houses were very sacred. If you wanted to say a bad word, you wouldn't say it when you're near any religious institution. And it's a shame to hear that someone of today's generation has no respect for any religious house. And we need to get back to the place where we used to respect these places as being sacred places. And we have to, you know, respect everyone. And we have to, you know, become law abiding citizens again. So I just want to say, you know, I'm sorry for what happened. I lived just up the block. So I walked by here and I saw the cops here as I was walking by the street from Liberty Avenue. And I knew something happened. And I said, Oh, no, not again. Something happened again. So I just want to tell everyone, my fellow brother, sister, everyone, I'm very sorry for what happened. And hopefully justice will prevail. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Chairwoman. I would like to acknowledge Captain Jerome Baki, commanding officer of NYPD 106 Precinct for his partnership. Thank you to the NYPD. Thank you for he's over there. Everyone around of applause for the captain and for the hardworking people at the 106. We love you and what you do for us. And to close us out, I would like to invite a good friend of our community, one of the pillars of our community, Harpreet Tour. And he wore red for me today. Thank you. Thank you, Jennifer. Thank you very much. Thanks everybody for coming in. And of course, like I always say, first elected South Asian Punjabi Jew, Assemblyman David Vapran. You know, it's this is the second time in less than eight weeks that we are here today to show their respect to everybody. And the shame is that the people still don't get the message. And sometimes those people who don't get the message, there are ways to get them the message. And that's what the NYPD is working on. But there is one thing which also I will request to the Assemblywoman Jennifer and Assemblyman David Vapran, that we may need to revisit the bail reform because some of the cops, when they go out, arrest somebody even before they are out of the courthouse, that same person who they arrested, he's standing out there. So this is something, you know, which we definitely need to take a look at. And yes, the perpetrators will get them, but we will also show them that the love will prevail over all the hate. Once again, thank you Jennifer. Thanks for putting it together. Thanks for giving me the time. And thank you everybody, including the media, for spending so much time and this heat standing in the sun. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. This is a historic gathering with the mayor of New York. We've never seen a crowd like this, an interfaith crowd, national leaders, citywide leaders. Thank you all for coming. Love will win over hate.


She can make excuses up. Oh, I have a headache.  That's the same thing, right?   This is a practical strategy.   Oh, you're not but mad. Are you just flip it around? Why would I be mad? And you're not lying you're right Like I said your map is you're gonna be a high-value man Who owns his own ship runs his own life and right now in that 60-minute window the best thing you can do to achieve that is go Into the gym the second best thing a Quickie so she gets first crack at it. She doesn't get to monopolize your time and then you start getting in the Habit of there So a lot of guys kind of argue about this when you talk about removing your time and attention based on your on the value That you receive they bring up kind of excuses, too And like I keep saying on this one. It's all about how you look to her.   It's perfect so I Remember it was nearing the end of this map for me.  I'm like I want to go to this place.  Do you mean that I'm just a placeholder that I can come if I want to I want you to want me? You get the idea.  I'm going out. I'll see you later You know where I'll be left the phone at home She probably did still complain just like that example of the crazy French chick I was talking about earlier. I wasn't there to hear it and I had a great time. I haven't sergeant forever Made a bunch of new friends Learned a lot about whiskey that night had a blast got home.  I'm trying to practice my French having a good time At one point she comes upstairs to give me a blast of shit for not not deering not falling into her frame and It was the weirdest thing you saw this snap right away So as a man To get people to value your time and attention you really only have three tools


Hello, everyone, and welcome to the 8 a.m. to 8.30 a.m. session of the 2023 Open Simulator Community Conference. In this session, we are pleased to introduce the presentation Open Simulator WordPress Interface with W4 OS. Our speaker is Gudul Lapointe. Gudul Lapointe is founder and public face of Speculus World that she created in 2011. He is a respected creator who is currently involved in the development of W4 OS, the Open Simulator WordPress Interface. Please check out the website found at conference.opensimulator.org for speaker bios, details of the sessions, and the full schedule of events. The sessions being live streamed and recorded. So if you have questions or comments during the session, you may send tweets to at opensimcc with the hashtag pound OSCC23. Welcome, everyone. Let's begin the session. Hello, everyone. First, I want to apologize. My neighbor started heavy works today, and I hope it will not disturb my speech. Sorry for that. I make my best to reduce it. So I'm Gudul Lapointe, and I am 12. Yeah, not me. My avatar is 12 and Speculus Grid also. And during all these years, I faced the same challenges as most of you getting a fully operational grid and offer all the features OpenSimulator Core provides, the main ones, but not all of them. You need to install at least a web interface, web asset servers, and a couple of helpers, and for those who needed a currency server. And that makes a handful of different applications, each of them from different projects using different platforms or languages. And even when they use the same language, they use different standards. And so it's a little bit of a mess. So that's how I came with the W for OS plug-in WordPress for OpenSimulator. In my head, I say WAVE for OS, but that's up to you. And this allows to have everything on the same website, the user registration and also all the content you want to put on the website in a single place. It started six years ago. But by then, it was only a collection of helpers. And four years ago, I decided to put everything in a plug-in and chose WordPress for that, to have a one-stop shop for all needs, user registration, grid management involved, and web helpers. I chose WordPress because it's one of the most popular CMSs. So there are a lot of people already using it. And if you don't know it, there are a lot of chances you know somebody who can help you. It allows central grid management. And it should be an easy setup. And about the easy setup, I got some several support requests and I understood it was not as easy as I would want. It's already way better than installing all the third-party pieces, but there were more work to do. So I focused development on making the whole process easier. I rearranged the settings in several distinct pages. And that's the next slide, actually. Yeah. Yeah. No. Up. Right. Yes. And they are organized by their functionalities. Everywhere I could, I asked extended explanations, instructions to help users to understand what the settings are made for, what's the scope. And I also prepared, I made, sorry, a troubleshooting guide. But for now, it's only in our text file within the plugin or on the website. It will be integrated in a section later also, but it contains the most issues people were faced. I added basic translations for French and Dutch. I globally made them myself. The other ones are automated translations. So if people want to contribute to the translation, it's good. And if you wonder why there is a Wells translation, it's a tribute to one of our most creative members in Speculose Grid. So with the plugin, the first thing is the avatar registration. The plugin allows users to register an avatar from the website. The accounts are synchronized with the WordPress accounts. You can protect some names. For example, in my grid, I don't want people to register. I don't know, John Speculose. And things like that. Or admin or things like that. So they are protected. The admin can still make an avatar with those names, but from the console. It cannot be done from the website. And they can choose users, can choose their initial outfits. I rewrote totally the models settings page. The models are basically fake avatars, which are dressed with the required outfit. And they are defined by a name pattern. So in this example, any avatar with the first name or the last name being default will be listed in the models. But you can also just use a custom list. It's not something I would recommend, but it can be done. So you choose custom list and you select manually every avatar that needs to be considered as a model. And there is the web profile. So the web profile you use in the world is available on the website also. So I will make a quick tour of some of the functionality. We have blocks like grid status or grid info. So that's basic need. It's also available as widgets for the dashboard. And you have also the registration form. So you can put it in any page you want to. And it's an option, but you can enable configuration instructions once the people have chosen their avatar. They get basic instructions on how to configure their brother. But they are a viewer, sorry. You have a block with popular places. That's useful for the website homepage or the splash screen. And that's new and still a work in progress. We have the web search. In some viewers, you have in the search, sorry, in the search window, you have an option. The first option is a web search. So this allows to define a web search page, which is different from the other tabs of the search palette. So this is an example of the splash page. And as you see, I can use the different blocks made available by the plugin. Here I use the green info, the popular place, and the latest news from the website. That's the whole point of it is to be able to mix the content of the website and the OpenSim functionalities. There is a new destination guide. That's also a work in progress. It's not available in all viewers. But as you see on the screen on the left, there is a small button and then you have a destination guide. It's really useful. So I implemented that. As you see, the thumbnails are not yet there, and there will be the basic description of the places. But yeah, it works. And yes, that's the web search. So that's what I explained earlier. No, you have the ability to use web search. It will evolve. For now, it's only a search on the place, but it should allow other criteria like the rating of the place, the categories. I think it will be done in the next few months. Okay, about the helpers. The web assets servers, that's also something absolutely needed if you want to use grid contents on the website. So particularly, it's for the images. The in-world search, so that allows to use the normal in-world search features of the viewer. The economy, so that provides the web helpers for economy. You still have to install the appropriate module in OpenSim binaries, the DLL. And offline message mail delivery. It could disappear in the future, but because as I understand, it begins to be implemented in Core OpenSim. But for now, it's still there. So that's the settings for the search helpers. As you see, for all the settings, I have examples explaining where to put the settings in OpenSim configuration or robust configuration. And here are examples of the search. We've seen earlier the web search, but that's the standard search, that's for land sales, the classifieds, which are under a little bit differently. And the events, which are linked to the to-do IP events server, which allows to show events from several reads. For now, it includes the whole OSCC calendar. So I made a quick tour. The next moves. For some reason, OpenSim Core allows several avatars to share the same email address. So that was something when I discovered that I said, okay, the plugin has to allow it to. So it required a rewrite, which is still in progress. I know last year I said it would be done early 23. It's not. But this works allowed me to work on the rest. More modular architecture, better settings, and that's a part of the work that is already in the in the plugin release. The current release is with all the functionalities I showed you, it's already available on the website, on the GitHub repository, and will be released soon in the WordPress repository. So thank you. This project is a huge work. It relies a little bit on financial, financial support, but mostly on the feedback. I have already more, I've seen that more than 20 users use this, this plugin, which seems already a lot to me for a niche market like this one. And people asking me questions allow me to fix bugs and also to realize some things people need and I didn't think about. So the more feedback I get, the better. That's it. Thank you very much. I will add a few links to the project and the related links here and if there is time for questions, that's okay for me. I'm so glad you asked. We did have one question. Lisa Laxton was asking how she can reach out to you to connect with what you're doing and some of the projects they're working on. Do you have contact info for people to contact you? Yes, on the w4os.org website there is a contact form. You can also contact me directly via my avatar. I would be happy to get contacted for that. Great. So that's w4os.org for contact information. Thank you. What a fantastic session and let's see. I'm so sorry. All of a sudden all my pages decided to flip at the exact same moment. Here we go. Thank you for such an informative and interesting presentation. We love these kinds of connections. As a reminder to our audience, you will want to check out the conference.opensimulator.org to see what is coming up on the conference schedule. You won't want to miss our next session which will begin at 830 in this keynote region and it's entitled The Art of Smoothly Moving Objects in OpenSim. We also encourage you to visit the OSCC 23 poster expo in the OSCC Expo 3 region to find accompanying information from our presenters and to explore the hypergrid resources in OSCC Expo 2 region along with the sponsor and crowd funder booths located throughout all of the OSCC Expo regions. Thank you again, Gadol and to you, the audience.