But I think in the interest of time, we've got a really tight session here. So I'm going to kick off and people can join as they come in. But I wanted to say welcome, everybody. And good morning, good afternoon, or good evening wherever you are in the world. And thank you very much for joining this impactive session. And I'm hoping that all the SoCAP main stage sessions that hopefully you've just come from have inspired you into action, because this is going to be a highly interactive innovation session. Well, we're aiming to really harness the power of your collective knowledge and experience in the room to help an incredible impact entrepreneur to overcome a key barrier to scale. So it was a quick introduction. My name is Jessie, and maybe following on from the inclusivity of the SoCAP welcome session earlier, my pronouns are she, her.  And I'm also the global impact entrepreneurship leader at EY, which means I have the privilege of really leading the work that EY does globally to support impact entrepreneurs through our Ripples program. And I'm joined today by Nazir Pandor, who is the Managing Director of LiveClean, which is an incredible enterprise that is providing access to clean, affordable sanitation and safe water across urban and rural Zambia. And Nazir is an alumnus of our EY Ripples program and is also a SoCAP scholar this year. And you'll be hearing much more from him shortly. And you'll also be helping him to overcome one of his biggest challenges. As you may know, EY is a global professional services firm. We have over 300,000 EY people based across over 150 countries. And typically those people focus on helping multinational corporations and governments to address their biggest challenges. And EY Ripples, as you may have heard through the main stage sessions, is our global social and environmental impact program which extends the value of EY knowledge and expertise on a not-for-profit basis. And one of the focus areas of the program is extending our services to small and growing businesses with a social or environmental purpose. And that's the work that I'm lucky enough to lead for EY. And one of the ways in which we support impact entrepreneurs is through impact hives just like this one, which we run around the world typically bringing together impact entrepreneurs like Nazir with groups of EY leaders and employees. And we developed the methodology for these short targeted innovation events, these impact hives through a collaboration with our wonderful friends at Unreasonable which is an amazing organization if you don't know them, committed to repurposing capitalism by supporting its fellowship of growth stage entrepreneurs and by collaborating with institutions and organizations like EY to solve global problems. And we designed these sessions together as a way to really mine the collective genius in a virtual room in a short amount of time to create really deep and lasting change by helping an impact entrepreneur unlock scale. And so we're really excited to be able to leverage the depth and breadth of the SoCAP network and use this methodology to help Nazir and the live clean business to innovate solutions to one of their biggest challenges. So how is this going to work? First, we're going to start with a bit of an informal fireside chat so you can get to know Nazir and his business live clean, understand the company vision, the business and impact model and really get an understanding of the context in which they're operating. And then we're going to turn it over to you, the audience through a facilitated brainstorming session focused around a specific challenge that Nazir is facing. So for the next hour, I ask you to please imagine that you are a group of coaches working alongside our esteemed entrepreneur to find solutions. So please be open, be supportive, please approach without judgment and also trust that your objective fresh thinking will be hugely valuable. And so we ask you to be fully present as present as possible for the next hour to sit on the edge of your seat to lean in and really get ready to participate. And finally, just before we move into the fireside chat, just one quick note on timings because we do only have an hour. We know you'll have lots of fantastic ideas to share in the brainstorm but we will have to be strict on timing so that we can make the session as valuable as possible for Nazir. So with that, Nazir thank you very much for joining us at SoCAP today. Congratulations again on being a SoCAP scholar. Perhaps you could kick us off by sharing an introduction to yourself and also telling us a little bit about the live clean story and how the business came about. Cool, thank you, Jesse again and welcome everybody, good evening, good morning, good afternoon to all of the people joining in. First of all, I'm ecstatic to be part of this as obviously a SoCAP member but also alum of the Ripples Project with EY. I'm just stoked to be here and I'm stoked to share my story with you and for this platform to share what we do with everybody. So my name is Nazir Pando in accordance with what's been going on, my pronouns are he, him, his.  Water rafting. So it was an amazing time that we spent and we took this amazing group photo of amazing people that live in Zambia and work in Zambia all working towards changing the inequality status of Zambia, right? Changing the economic status of Zambia and making sure that low income people and they're underserved in general are served and are given a chance to do well in their lives or come out of poverty. And that's what live clean does. So the live clean story is we started in 2015 as an incorporated company. And the idea behind it was, when you look around and you go around the town which we are a low income country, right? When you go around the town, you get away from your home and you go into a market or you go into any part of the city and you find garbage all around, right? You find trash all around, you find places that sewage is just building up and then you just take a walk around and you get to think and say, I wonder what they use for water. I wonder what they use for a toilet. I wonder what they use just to keep up with their hygiene status. So the company was built around to build the sort of this mass sanitation compounds that would help low income people access the simplest of human rights, right? For a lot of us who probably are joining in today having access to a toilet and water is probably the thing that we just say, of course we have this, right? We couldn't have, we couldn't deal without it but we have the luxury of having it. A lot of people don't have that luxury. A lot of people do not even understand how to use a toilet, how to use running water, how to use basic hygiene products or even their hygiene to solve their hygiene needs especially for women who have to go through so much with their menstrual health and trying to keep up with hygiene standards. So that's why the company was built and we started off building these sites using containers, right? We have this massive container and put the toilets in there and water provision in there and we place them in markets especially where there is low infrastructure, low sanitation infrastructure and where there is a clear need, right? We are a social enterprise. We are a profit maker company. And the idea behind that sort of financially is to grow the company. We feel like that's the best way to grow the company. That's the best way to scale. That's the best way to continue expanding and attracting different corporate entities attracting different investors, attracting different people in a network that we can build this company not just to make money but to scale but also to expand, also to just help people. Join in with people who want to help those who do not get helped every day. And now where we are today we've got five sites across Zambia three of which are in the capital of Lusaka two of which are in the Northwestern province in a city called Sulwezi and we get about 300 to 350 people per day through each site and we serve toilets we serve water and we serve different hygiene products that people can use at a very affordable price below market price and we make sure that our standards are exceptional. It doesn't matter whether we charge very little but we do not compromise in our provision in how they look. There was one person who visited me from Europe and he said, when he walked by, he said well this toilet looked like they could be at the side of the road in Germany and that made me completely ecstatic because I was like, that's exactly what we're trying to do. So that's who we are, that's who I am. I've traveled around the world and experienced so many different cultures so many different people and it's just amazing that I can be able to speak to you although be it virtually I would have obviously hoped that this was in person but due to COVID obviously that's not possible but I'm glad to be here and hopefully you can help me and also we can have a really good interactive session. Thanks Nazir and such as you say such an important right that you're delivering to people and I guess kind of one question in terms of the business model because obviously you talked about the fact that you are a for-profit company you do believe that's important to unlock capital to be able to scale. Could you talk us through the business model in the sense of is it the customer that pays? Is it the council? Is it the government? How does that work for LiveClean? All right, so from the start we work with local government in the form of their councils and municipalities around the country. We work with them to be able to take over their sites. So local government are mandated by law that they should provide sanitation facilities for public places. Unfortunately our government doesn't have the resources to continuously maintain and operate them. So we found a chance to work with the local government because we have those resources and that's what our company does to work with local government so that we can take over their existing sites, manage them properly, operate them properly and provide the service to their people. The people we serve are normal people, right? The Zambian population and with that the business model is centered around mass provision direct to customer, right? The customer is essentially the Zambian population or Zambian residents, low income residents, they pay directly to LiveClean or to our sites to access these different products, whether it's water, whether it's toilets, whether it's showers, whether it's hygiene products or different mobile money services or different services that we incorporate, especially that's catered around the market in which we are located in. So that's where B2C completely, but we just work with government to make sure that we expand our sites with the help of government, especially in reaching people that we would ordinarily not be able to reach without their help. And Nazira, you kind of shared a little bit in terms of the stage that you're at in terms of the number of customers that you're serving, the number of sites, I think you said five sites across Zambia now. And so you're obviously growing relatively quickly and I imagine through that journey you must have faced a number of challenges, be it kind of on the impact side, be it in terms of how you interface with customers or the partnerships you have with governments or indeed kind of pivoting the business model. Could you maybe talk through some of the key challenges that you've kind of faced over the years as you've tried to really prove the model and scale and also maybe how you've overcome those challenges? So I know we only have an hour, otherwise if I could just go on and on and I'll probably take two days or probably take the whole conference this is paying to your challenges. But I do know part of our session here is that we're going to focus on one particular challenge so I'll leave that to later. But some of the other challenges that we've faced are of course accessing funding, global funding, whether it's international funding or even domestic funding. We've found out that during our journey that sanitation or investing in sanitation hasn't been the sexiest thing to do. It doesn't provide the quickest ROI, the return on investment. It doesn't provide the quickest hockey stick in your graph that says we can achieve $100 million in a year or two or something along those lines that's maybe in microfinance that people can achieve that in or other types of businesses. Sanitation is just this thing that just lingers around and says let's help people but there's relatively lower investment especially when it comes to sub-Saharan Africa. There's a lot of places regionally in Africa that are being focused on especially East Africa and West Africa but sort of your central Africa, your parts of Southern Africa, those are not really sort of penetrated through when it comes to international investment. So funding that we need to expand has been a bit of a challenge but we're working through that especially when we work with the partners that we've been able to work with. We've worked with innovations against poverty. We've worked with UK AIDS or DFID at the time which is now FCDL. We've worked with SNV, New Orleans Development Agency or organization. So we've worked with these people. So what we do is we make sure that when we work with these investors we show exactly what we can do. We hold a very, very high standard so that we not only get a good recommendation but we have a good track record so that whoever we work with down the line they can be able to see that we're a trustworthy company, we're trustworthy investment. We are people who you can trust in and know that we can take care of your funds. So that's one challenge. Another challenge is obviously working with government. It's like I said, sanitation is not the sexiest thing, right? Obviously the government has a lot of things that need to take care of. Poverty, so many things that need to take care of. Infrastructure, making sure the environment is good. All these things that they have to worry about. Sanitation maybe not so much. Historically in Zambia hasn't been really on their priority list. So working with the government is to come in and say, open the, knock on the door and say, hey, we're this sanitation company. Can you help us? And they're like, okay, so you're just providing toilets? What else are you doing? It's like, oh, that's the whole point, right? It's giving people a chance to do something that they don't ordinarily have the chance to. But lucky enough, we have a new government that has been put in and they are very much eager to work with private sector to improve sanitation standards around the country. So that's very helpful for us, right? It's very helpful for us to know that we have a government ally who can help us achieve some of those goals. And then the last one, obviously the last challenge is the one that we're gonna face that everyone can join in and we can talk about. Well, that sounds like a good segue. So if we could bring up the first slide with the challenge statement and maybe while people are reading it as it comes up, Nazir, you could just share a little bit of context to this challenge. Cool. So another challenge that we face which we thought would be the best especially for this interactive session is the cultural sort of barrier that we face in Zambia when it comes to access to sanitation. Like I said, sanitation is something that it's a human right, it's a basic human right, yes. But it's something that especially as a payer's use service hasn't been done before. It's not looked at as something that's essential. That's why our open defecation statistics are quite big here in Zambia, right? Especially for males, for them to start getting money out of a very limited wallet size to use a urinal, they'll be like, I don't need to do that. I can just walk around the corner and urinate on the wall. But then, so that was a big challenge for our system is to show people that not only is sanitation access important, not only is personal hygiene important. I mean, we're seeing this now in COVID times and Zambia has been hit, not just because of COVID but has been hit with cholera in 2017. We had an outbreak in cholera in 2017. And we've had different diarrhea infections have gone up and all these things that has joined in with sanitation or as a product of sanitation, if you don't have that infrastructure in the country you'll get all of these health issues that come about. So getting a population to say, yes, okay, this is important, we agree that this is important. That's number one. The number two, it's, well, you need to pay for it. Yes, this is a great thing. You have this amazing site in this market and it's great but why do I have to pay for it? Why can't it be free? If you're really trying to help us, why can't you just make it for free? But it's explaining to people that's not really the case but we have to scale a company but they're not bothered about that. They just want to make sure that they can access something for the cheapest way possible. So for us, one of the biggest challenges was how do we get a population, a big sized population to use sanitation and pay for this service regardless of whether it's affordable or not? And how do we shift that cultural behavior change to become a normal, to become a norm, to become a thing of the past, to become something that is like, okay, not only will I pay for this service, I'm even willing to pay more for this service because this service is actually quite good or this service is actually quite needed. So that's where we, that's the question that's been posed to the audience today and one that we have to tackle is, especially as we expand or scale, we're going to enter a lot more different markets around the country, we're going to talk to a lot more different people from very different backgrounds, economic backgrounds, obviously, different challenges that they face. Still a very limited wallet size. How do we get you to part ways with your money to use something that maybe you don't see as important? And Nazira, I guess before we kind of open up to the group, I guess kind of one thing just to kind of test and I guess kind of affirm almost in this scenario that my understanding is that customers in this scenario can pay. So we're talking about an affordable service. So yes, cost is a factor, it always is, but we're talking about an affordable service, but here I guess that the challenge is cultural, behavioral change. It's a difference to perhaps thinking about a service based on quality that gives you a better service than perhaps the free open defecation option that was there before. Is that kind of correct? And maybe before we kind of open up to think about the solutions, if you could share, I guess, a few more of your experiences around what are some of the behavioral blockers or the cultural blockers which you think are contributing to potential customers not being willing to kind of make payment? Okay, so before there is a cultural shift or before there is a behavioral shift, right? What is behavior actually, you know, where does it come from? Where does any behavior come from? So behavior sort of comes from where you are. The reality in which you live in.  And you know, when you start in the morning and you end in the evening, you probably make, and this is not even probably an exaggeration, but you maybe make what would be the equivalent of $3 in that day as your profit. So now you have to go home with that. And when you walk home with that, you now have to start to check off what you need. Do you need to pay rent? Do you need to buy food? Do you need to buy cleaning products? Do you need to pay school fees? Do you need all of these things that you have to do as a family member or as a man or woman of society who works to do, right? To be able to look after your families. So your wallet size is very, very small. If you don't get that much. Then here comes this need as biology dictates, we have to, we have to, you know, we have to urinate or we have to do the number two or we have to do something. We have to excrete our waste.  Or you go to your nearest public facility and use that toilet. Now, if it's something that's charged, here you have this limited money, right? How do I part ways with this money? We already have to do all of these other things. There comes the first behavior, right? Do I find this important in my innate self? Do I find this important? Even if the answer is yes, right? Do I have that money to pay for it? Yes, it's affordable, but affordable can be also a very limited, very relative statement or it can be a very limited relative reality. So I'll either hold it in or I will start to pay for this. Now, when I pay for this, okay, this has been a good experience. Maybe this is something I can invest in. My own personal investment into myself. Next day, you do the same thing. All of a sudden, you're doing this three, four times a week. Then now your behavior starts to change. Prior to this, I'm gonna use a back alley and I don't need to worry about my own dignity or I don't need to worry about anything. As long as nobody can see me, that's my behavior because I just do not have the money to do this. But now it's making sure people, even with that limited wallet size, how do they depart with that money to feel like personal hygiene is important? And COVID did help, right? It showed people that this is important. So we got a spike in users during our COVID time, which is really great. And it's a great story to have us live clean, but we're still not obviously there yet in solving the entire problem. No, and thank you, Nazik, because I feel like just being centered in thinking like a customer and just that kind of how you brought that to life is just, I think really important in terms of thinking about how to tackle this challenge statement. So I think now is a good time to hand over the reins to the audience and I can already see ideas coming through, which is fantastic. And what we're gonna do now is invite you to help Nazir to address this key challenge through a facilitated brainstorming session. So the specific challenge statement that you can see on your screen that we're innovating for is as follows. For populations not used to paying for sanitation, how might we create a sustained behavioral shift to ensure potential customers value a pay-per-use model for safely managed sanitation services? And we're going to have three rounds of brainstorming. First, in this section, we're going to crowdsource as many ideas for solving this challenge as possible from you in the room. Then we're going to explore these ideas by upvoting the best solutions together and diving into one solution of Nazir's choice by inviting that contributor up onto the virtual stage, hopefully if we can get the tech to work, to share more about their ideas and discuss it live. And then we're gonna finish by asking you to share one way in which you personally could support Nazir in taking the next step in his journey, which could be anything from a warm introduction to someone in your network, through to sharing a useful resource. So in this first round, we're going to give you four minutes as the audience to think about as many ideas as possible in response to this challenge statement and to type them into the session chat. And before I go on mute and maybe play a bit of music to give you the space and time to think, I'm just gonna share a few quick tips. So firstly, please choose quantity over quality. And I know that might sound counterintuitive, but actually the more ideas you generate, the more likely you'll offer something incredibly valuable or unexpected. Please also defer judgment. I think too often we self-censor unnecessarily. So remove that filter for the next 30 minutes. We know you're not experts in live clean. You may not be experts in sanitation and you don't have all the context you'd probably want, but don't let that hold you back. And finally, please also know that wild and wacky is very welcome. And sometimes the best idea is right next to the seemingly impossible one. So with that, I'm gonna go on mute and I'm gonna ask that you start thinking and typing your ideas into the chat. I think if we could turn the music down a little bit, I can see some fantastic ideas coming through. And actually, I think they're still coming through lots of ideas around community stewards, cross subsidies, freemium models, gamification, so many coming through. We actually, we had an inkling that Socat would be a great network to test this with and you've proved us right, which is wonderful news. So now what we're going to do is explore these ideas by upvoting the best solutions together and then asking Nazir to choose the idea that he's most intrigued by and inviting that contributor to actually come up on the virtual stage with us to share more about their idea and discuss it live with the group. So now what you should see is the challenge statement on the screen, but a slightly different action for you. And what we're going to do is give you another four minutes to go back and read through as many of the other ideas that have been shared in the chat as possible and to upvote those that you think are particularly interesting as a potential solution to Nazir's challenge statement by liking them. So you should be able to like the comments on the top by hovering over and on the top right-hand side, liking these comments. And I know that you're a very inclusive bunch. So you may have the desire to like all of the ideas, but I would ask you that for the purposes of really prioritizing those that we think are the most interesting, please do try only upvoting a maximum of three ideas and please also don't upvote your own. And so while the group is doing this, Nazir, if I could also ask you in the background to also be reading through all of the ideas. And in particular, those that the group are helpfully upvoting for you to consider which of the top ideas you'd like to hear more about. And we'll come back to Nazir in a few minutes to learn which idea he'd like to explore further and to invite that contributor up onto the stage. So for the audience, you may also want to use this time to perhaps quickly spruce yourselves up as well if you're still in your pajamas in case you are called upon to contribute. So please do keep reading through all of those solutions for the next four minutes and upvote those that you think are most intriguing. Perfect, so I can see you've been liking them all with your upvotes, thank you very much. And Nazir, hopefully you've had a little bit of chance to look through some of these ideas as well. Because what we're now gonna do is turn over the decision to you because you're the one that really matters if there is an idea that most intrigues you that you think would be particularly relevant to live clean. It could be community stewards, I think cross subsidies I've seen a lot of, awareness campaigns has been a lot of really interesting ideas around awareness campaigns and really emphasizing the positive aspects be it the safety aspects, the aspirational value. Let me know if you need a minute or so more to just go through and select a particular idea that jumps out at you that we'll explore further. Yeah, you can hear me, right? We can see and hear you. I did have some technical issues. So thank you everybody for amazing comments and amazing suggestions, they're absolutely brilliant. For some of them I do actually, we do actually do. We have tested like giving people cash prizes as what Joanne Hemings had said, having a loyalty scheme, we did do that. And we've done different schemes. There's some that I would sort of like to look at by Glenn Cunningham that says deconstruct the elements of value you were selling. Privacy, cleanliness, then of course taking a break from your day. I guess maybe to find out more meaning behind that one it seemed a bit interesting. Cool, well that sounds good. And Glenn, hopefully you're still on the call because if you'd be willing to join us and just expand a little bit on your comments and your ideas and your solution, hopefully we can bring you onto the stage in the background. And maybe Nazir, if you could spend a little time whilst we're bringing Glenn up on stage, I guess just setting the context for why that idea kind of jumped out at you. Is it something that you've been thinking about? Is it something that you've tried and haven't been successful at within LiveClean? Is it something that you haven't tried? It's intriguing because when we try to, I guess do any culture shift or any behavior change, we try to make, provide innovative ideas of how to change the mindset, how to make people see a different side of sanitation or paying for sanitation. So looking at this and saying, okay, maybe diving into what, how could we expand this taking a break from your day, right? That particular sentence is quite intriguing. How do we make people feel like, they can come to this site and not just feel like they're using a toilet, but feel like they're part of a different world, right? Or they're part of a different feeling or have a different experience when using this facility. It's not just, it's just not about providing a toilet, but doing something maybe more with your day and finding that this is a good thing to do and throughout my busy day. So that particular line really intrigued me. I'm not sure if he's in, he or she is in. Glenn, if you're interested to join, hopefully you should have the option to just click Join Audio Visual on the top right of your screen. So if you want to click that, you should be able to just pop up on screen with us and join us. And maybe if not, Nazir, is there another idea that's listed here that's kind of particularly intriguing for you? I like this one by, and please, by all means to everybody listening, when I sort of look at something, I love everyone's idea. So please do not think like, I hate other ideas or I like others more than others. It's just something that we're looking at and saying, how can I dig dive into something that maybe we've never done or something we've never even thought about. The other one that jumped at me was Pamela Cato who said, can people with larger wallet sizes subsidize the services of those with smaller wallets? Right, so getting buy-in, that's a really intriguing idea. So helping figure out how do I get somebody who's got better resources to help those on an individual level, on a corporate level, because we definitely try that, and that's where that whole sanitation sexiness comes in. But individuals, people who have these things, have access to toilets all the time, how do we get you to pay for service or engage with low-income people to use a service that you think is normal? So that's a really intriguing one to me as well. Perfect, thank you for being so inclusive, Nassir. And I see we have Glenn with us, wonderful.  And thank you very much for contributing, so generously. And also being brave enough to join us. I can promise the audience that this wasn't planted. So thank you for being so willing to share with us, Glenn. And I wonder if you could- It definitely wasn't planted, and I want to make sure the expectations go way down. Oh my God. The last thing I had in mind was hopping on to a global- Well, welcome. We're very glad you're here. And maybe Glenn, if you want to spend a minute or so, just giving a very quick introduction to yourself, but also most importantly, if you could just share a little bit more about your idea to bring it to life. And we'll just have a very kind of quick conversation just to unpack it a little bit more with Nassir. Of course. And first off, huge props to all the candidly amazing good ideas all the way through. I think Nassir is being very kind. I'm over at the Harvard Kennedy School at the moment. I'm a career coach to graduate students in Harvard's different degree programs. I work with a lot of students who are incredibly keen to create really powerful impact in the world either through investing or other great vectors. So I'll pause there. I've done a little bit of consulting back in the day in my own prior to coming into higher education. So diving in onto this idea, Nassir, I love the business model and I love the idea. I feel like it's got a tremendous amount of leg room. And I guess for me, I was sort of thinking, one of my favorite sayings, and I scribe it to either Winston Churchill or the Queen, but it was that idea of never refuse the opportunity to go to the bathroom, right? Because for me, it's often being sort of like, oh, I get to sort of step out from whatever it's undoing or to get to do a little bit of reset. And I think maybe there's an angle there that sort of rather than, I mean, obviously to your point, we all have these sort of the dominant biological needs, but potentially unpacking all of the different ways that this has value to your potential customers. So maybe there's some people out there who, I think of the cigarette break back in the sort of 70s, 80s and 90s. Well, it was obviously fine to go take a cigarette break. So, and that became a, not just a break from your work, but also a little mini social community.   To the extent that, and again, I don't know all of your offerings, but to the extent that there's clear, clean water available to drink, that you're not just sort of washing yourself with a potentially, it's sort of a, there's an angle for sort of a, like a refresh break rather than just a bathroom break. To the extent that Americans love to talk about this idea of the water cooler, right? Like the sort of chit chat that happens around a, a water cooler and I could see something similar, potentially possibly happening there.  Yeah, I think there's a lot, a lot there, but I'll pause there because I'm talking a lot. Good. Hi, Glenn. Again, yes, it wasn't planned, but I'm very happy to meet you and thank you so much for your comment and for your feedback. I really like that. I think it's a fantastic way to look at things, especially as business owners, we're very stubborn, right? I'll say this upright, we're very, very stubborn people because we think we know everything and we don't want to tell people, we don't want to hear from people and say, ah, you don't know what we're facing, you don't know what we're going through. We've tried everything. But as business owners, we have to face the reality that we don't and we have to look and say, hey, some people have amazing ideas that we could try. And what you're saying really makes a lot of sense for us because we have gone to corporates and said, can you help us, can anyone hear me? Can you hear me? Okay. We can hear you. Yeah, can you help us expand our revenue model by advertising with us, making our sites visible for your company logo or what your company is about? But what you've said maybe brings us a different question to ask the corporates or the different question to ask as different individuals to say, how can you sponsor something that doesn't have to do with money? Can you sponsor something that says, gives a token of appreciation to a user that uses a toilet?  Here's a little nugget for using a toilet because maybe for now we have to thank you because you're actually doing something even if we're helping you, but you're actually doing something for your personal health and for yourself. But here's a little token of appreciation and having the corporates, whether it's giving water, because here different things are important to different people. In low income areas, cigarettes are important to different people. Water is important to different people. Having a drink that they would ordinarily not have because they just don't have the money to afford different things. So that's a really fantastic idea. And being able to show our sites that it's not just a toilet, it's a lifestyle. That's what I get from your comment Glen, right? It's telling people this is a lifestyle. Going to a dentist is a lifestyle. Taking a break from work around the... Yeah, we call it the water cooler conversations, but it's not about the water cooler. It's about the experiences you share with your colleagues when you're around that water cooler. That mental health break from work is important. It's a lifestyle. So sanitation should be a lifestyle. So I really think that's an amazing concept and something that I've written down. And I hope I can expand that. Hopefully at some point we can connect and we can expand on talking about that later on. Obviously way after SOCAP's conference. But now I really thank you for that comment and it's really got me to thinking about how to approach people with money or people with things that can help our company. So yeah, thank you for that. And I think it's also, Glen, just tying into a number of the other comments. It's about that aspirational lifestyle as well. You know, rather than... Well, I guess it's the different value components. Some of them may be functional. Others of them may be aspirational value that can be just as important in some cases, more valuable than others in terms of that narrative and changing both consumer or partner behaviors as well. Glen, any final thoughts you wanted to share in terms of just building on Nazir's comments before you leave us? Well, again, quick thanks. And maybe a little bit about this idea of signalling like that you talked about how sort of companies can signal the value to their employees, maybe sort of to individuals, maybe they're signaling, you know, sort of this is my way of signaling, sort of we're moving on up. This is my conspicuous consumption thing where, you know, okay, maybe I'm not holding this sort of sexiest new phone, but...


The study investigated the role of SYK-coupled C-type lectin-member 2, CLE-C2, in the pathogenesis of SARS-CoV-2-induced thrombo-inflammation. The researchers found that CLE-C2 interacted with the receptor-binding domain, RBD, of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, SARS-CoV-2-RBD. This interaction led to the activation of platelets, resulting in the production of neutrophil extracellular traps, nets. In addition, administration of CLE-C2.fc, a monoclonal antibody against CLE-C2, inhibited SARS-CoV-2-induced net formation and thrombo inflammation in AAV, ACE2-infected mice. These results suggest that CLE-C2 is a novel pattern recognition receptor for SARS-CoV-2, and CLE-C2.fc could be used as a potential therapeutic agent to reduce the rest of post-acute sequelae of COVID-19, PASC. This article was authored by Pei Shan Sun, Cheng Piyu Sun, Am I Who A Tao, and Others? We are article.tv, links in the description below.


Okay, we're live, I'm Jay Fidel and I'm happy to be here. This is Think Tech Hawaii on a given Monday morning at 11, the 11 o'clock block. We have a special show today from New Valley Middle School. We love to have them come around, take a look at our studio, tell us what they're doing. The principal of New Valley is Sean Tajima. He's here. Hi, Sean. Okay. And the vice principal is Derek Suida and he's here too. Hi, Derek. Okay. Hi. And another three waiting. First the ladies, right? Ladies first, right? Okay. To my left, we have Megan. Say hi. Hi. Good job. Say Audrey. Hi. Hi. More. Hi. More. Hi. There it is. Okay. And Natalie. Hi. Good job. Okay. You guys are in the New Valley Middle School. Megan is in the sixth grade. And Natalie is in the seventh grade. You guys know each other? Not really. Okay. You're meeting each other today. That's because there are 15 kids out there. Everybody's meeting 10 parents and everything. We got to get some pictures of all you guys. And we're showing pictures. We have pictures of, you know, taking around the school. So let me ask you some questions about, you know, what it's like.  All right. All right. Favorite class, Megan? Math. Math. Interesting. Why math? What is it about math that you like? I like math because it's a lot of critical thinking. And there's a lot of rules you have to remember. But if you remember the rules, it's really easy to do. All right. Excellent. Okay. Audrey, what's your favorite class? Science. Yeah. Okay. What are you studying in your science class these days? The universe and everything and the universe and everything in the universe. The universe. Whoa. That's as big as all outdoors, isn't it? Yeah. Okay. And Natalie, what are you studying? My favorite is math. Math? Yeah. Is your reasons the same as Megan? Yeah. Or do you have different reasons for liking math? Yeah. You like the critical thinking part? Yeah. All right. Okay. Okay. Your favorite teacher is Megan? My science teacher? Science teacher. Name? Mr. Cagle. Okay. Mr. Cagle. All right. Okay. And what about you, Audrey? I don't have a favorite teacher. Okay. Very diplomatic of you. Yeah. Okay. And we're going to Natalie now. Your favorite teacher? I like all of them. You like all of them? That's a good answer. Yeah. All right. We'd like the people who are willing to commit. So good for you, Megan. All right. Let's talk about your science projects. You each have science projects, okay? And we need to know about them. We need to know what it is, why you selected that, what you're doing on it, what you've learned so far. Okay, Megan, you want to start? State the case. State the situation with your science project. What are you doing? So in my school project, it's a science submarine. We have to make our own materials or make it and then we can do it by ourselves. So we don't have to follow any directions. I learned a lot about buoyancy while doing it. About buoyancy? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And fluid pressure. Fluid pressure. Wow. Fluid pressure in New Valley Middle School. This is important. What is fluid pressure? Fluid pressure is when an object goes into a water. The water is pushing on all sides. So like if the bottom, the under the object is the fluid pressure is stronger, it will push up. So that's why it floats. But if the object is heavy enough to push down, it will sink until it floats. Okay, all right. And how are you going to present the findings in your science project? Do you make a poster? Oh.  How do you do that? We made a summary with plastic bottles and rocks so it can help sink it. And then we put it in the fish tank to show the class. So you're going to wind up showing it to the class? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Have you told them yet what your project is or is it a secret? Oh, no. No, it's not a secret. No. Okay. I mean we like to reveal hot news secrets here on Think Tech. So it's okay though. It's okay as your public. All right. Do you get any feedback from people about what they think about your project? They said it was like really easy to build. So, yeah. And how many of you are on the team? Is it just you? It's me and one other person. Okay, two. Okay. And how about your team, Audrey? Do you have more than you? How many people are on your science project team? Just me. Just you. Okay. And what is your science project? For science fair, I did a science project on acid rain and how it affects plant growth. And then I found out by testing on different types of plants and using vinegar and water to water them. And I found out that acid rain has a negative effect on plants and it doesn't grow as much when they're watered with acid rain. Wow. And how, are you preparing posters or scientific experiments or demonstrations? What are you preparing in your science project? I went to district science fair. So, I made a board and I put my graphs and data tables. Yeah. And then I presented it to all the judges and then I told them about how acid rain negatively affects plant growth and stuff. Did you win? I don't know. We don't know. Oh, you don't know yet? So, you might go to the statewide fair, eh? Maybe. Okay, I'll be there. If I'm there, would you talk to me when I come around? Yeah. With a camera, you know, we always do that, yeah. Okay. All right, great. So, did you go to the science fair before? Was this the first time? This is the first time I went. This would be pretty exciting, you know. Yeah. That's fabulous. Okay. Okay, finally, Natalie, what's your project? I basically just tested how the color of roofs affected the temperature of the houses because in sixth grade, we had this heat of the moment project, which is where they said that the color of the roof affected the temperature. So, I wanted to see how much it would affect it. And then after my experiments, I found it only affected by like one or two degrees. Okay. Are you going to be in the science fair also? Have you been in the science fair? We just had the district science fair, but I wasn't able to make it, so my partner went for me because I had a math chance competition on the same day. Okay, well, after all, you know, that's of interest too, so you have to make choices in life. So, what is your hypothesis and your conclusion? Can you talk about that in your project? My hypothesis was that the darkest colored roof would be the warmest and the lightest colored roof would be the coolest and my conclusion was that my data supported it because the lightest color was the coolest. That was pretty good.  I really, you know, you have to be able to articulate and tell us what you're doing, you know, otherwise it's a vacuum. As our last guest said, it's an atomization, which is the ultimate silo kind of thing where you don't have to talk about it. So, okay, let me ask you, Audrey, what was your hypothesis and what was your conclusion? I know the science fair requires you to think that through, yeah. My hypothesis was if the gauge level of water is decreased then the plant growth will decrease because the acid rain will wash away the nutrients and minerals in the soil so that the plants can't grow and then my conclusion was proven because on two of my experiments the acid rain plants didn't grow as much as the ones watered with regular water. Can you tell me why? Because the acid in the water washes away the minerals and nutrients inside the soil so they can't grow. What are we going to do about that? I mean, as a world, as a planet, what are we going to do to stop acid rain? Well, we can use renewable energy sources so that the carbon won't go into the air and cause acid rain or we could find a way to modify our plants so that they're more resistant to acid. Megan, doesn't she want to make you want to go to the science fair as soon as you can? Yeah. Are you going to go visit? Are you going to go visit? Maybe you should visit anyway. Take a look. Maybe you can be a judge. So do you have a hypothesis and a conclusion you're working on in your project? Not really, but I think that if the rocks that we put on the submarine will make it sink if it's heavy enough and when I blow air into the tube, into my submarine, it'll fill up with air so it can blow back up. Yeah.  Can you hear that term ballast?  It's amazing how fast that works. It's really incredible. So what do you think about science? I mean, I know you like math and I wouldn't denigrate math at all because I like math too. But what do you think about science? Is this something that you could learn to really like and study year after year in school? Yeah. Yeah. Do you have any thoughts about what subjects you would study in science? Maybe like the chemistry stuff, like all the chemicals and elements. Okay. And do you have any thoughts about going into like medical science or research? If it's too early, just tell me, Jay, it's too early. Maybe. Yeah. Okay. All right. You're still working on that. But who knows? Because if you like science, the world is your oyster, yeah. And what about staying in Hawaii? You know, because there's a lot of science that happens on the mainland or who knows where in the world. Would you stay in Hawaii to do your science or would you leave? Maybe I would leave and go around the world to see and explore because in the world, many different parts have like many different things. It's not all the same. So I could go look and research more. Yeah. Would you come back? Yeah. Would you come back to work and live? Yeah. Okay. Would you come back to work and live? Yes. We want you back. Okay, Audrey, what about your plan? Do you like science? Do you like science best? Do you like science enough? Do you like classes and school going forward? What's your thought about that? Well, I like science. I don't think I would want to do that something with science as my career because it's not really like what I plan to do when I'm older. Wow, what are you planning? You have a plan. It doesn't have to be a final plan. No. A temporary plan is good enough. Not really. But I really like language arts. You like what? Language arts. Ah, okay. Language arts. That's a long way from science. The one side is on this side of the brain. The other one's on that. So it's okay. You can have a brain that does pose. All right. Do you have any plan? What school? What in language arts? I like creative writing. Creative writing. So you like to write. We found out your secret. Yeah. Okay. Now, Natalie, you're here on Think Tech. Okay. Now, Natalie, what about you? Do you have any special feeling about science? Do you think that science is in the long-term future for you? Yeah. I'm thinking of becoming a software engineer when I grow up. Software engineer? Oh. Why? So I was part of New Valley's FLL Robotics Club and it was really fun. You've done robotics? Yeah. At New Valley Middle School. Yeah. That's fabulous. All right. So how far did you get with it? I mean, what sort of moves did you make the robot do, the robotic thing do? So there's these missions that it's supposed to complete and then the robot with the most points wins. So we won in the district competition for like robot performance. We got first place. And then we went to states, but we got like second in robot performance. Pretty good. Pretty good.  I know that I can tell immediately. Okay. Now we're going to talk to your friends. See that camera? That's camera number one. That one right there. See. So all your friends are out there. Okay. And you can say something to them. You can say anything you want. Make it nice though. All right. Megan, you first. What do you have to say to your friends and your mom and pop? I want to thank them for helping me be able to do a lot of science because they really support me in science. All right. Excellent. Good job. All right. Audrey, talk to your friends.  You can use some of that critical thinking if you want, but talk to them. Tell them what you want to remember. Thank you for supporting me in school and helping me with like my homework and stuff. Okay. Nice to have friends that help you with your homework. Natalie, how about you? They're your friends. They're all watching. What do you have to say to them? Thank you for being supportive and encouraging. Yeah. That's it. Add something else. And like helping me with science fair and robotics and stuff. Good for you guys. You are a credit to New Valley Middle School and to your teachers and parents and of course to Mr. Tajima right there. Okay. Thank you for coming down. Megan. All right. Audrey. All right. Natalie. Good for you guys. We're going to take a short break. We're going to rotate out. And we're going to have some young boys come down. And we're going to talk to them about their science projects. We'll be right back. I'm Ethan Allen, host of a likable science on Think Tech Hawaii. Every Friday afternoon at 2 p.m. I hope you'll join me for a likable science. We'll dig into the science. Dig into the meat of science. Dig into the joy and delight of science. Discover why science is indeed fun. Why science is interesting. Why people should care about science. And care about the research that's being done out there. It's all great. It's all entertaining. It's all educational. So I hope to join me for a likable science. Hey baby. That's you. I want to know will you watch my show? I hope you do. It's on Tuesdays at one o'clock and it's out of the comfort zone. And I'll be your host, R.E.B. Kelly. See you there. We have this crazy thing going on today. I was just walking by and all these DJs and producers are set up all around the city. I just walked by and I said, what's happening guys? They told me they were making music. So we'll do it. Okay, we're back. We're live on J.F.I. Dale. This is Think Tech Hawaii Community Matters with our special show with New Valley Middle School with Principal Shon Tajima, Vice Principal Derek Tsuiki. So you guys, see we have now, we have Austin say hi. Hi. I'm Austin. Austin. Good job. K. Trevor. Hi. Austin. I'm Trevor. Oh, you're Trevor. Austin's here. Okay. And Micah, hi Micah. I never met a Micah I didn't like. Say hi. Hi, I'm Micah. Okay, good. Good work.  By the way, let's take a moment to look at the mission, the mission statement of New Valley Middle School. We envision a generation of young adults with the compassion, competence and character to succeed in a global community to make a better world. Wow. How much of that do you agree with, Austin? All of it. I knew you'd say that. Okay. Trevor, is there any part of that you don't agree with? I agree with all of it. You agree with all of it? Okay. And Micah, how about you? There's nothing I don't agree with in it. You agree with that? Yeah. Okay. All right. So let's start with your favorite class. Okay. What's your favorite class at school? PE. PE. All right. Physical education. That's great. What do you do there? We get to like play games, run around and like talk with our friends. Okay. All right. Sounds fun. Yeah. I like to come down. Maybe I can be there, you know, lose a little weight. Yeah. Okay. These guys are like the Verizon bars, you know, six, seven and eighth grades. So you know each other? Do you know each other? I know, yeah. Okay. You guys know each other. And then I know. Austin, do you know them? I know Micah. Okay. All right. See it's basically, how big is the school? I would say about 9,000. 300. No, US. 300. 300. And where is the school? It's located. Don't say New Valley. Of course, say New Valley. That's where, isn't it? Yeah. Incidentally, I wanted to ask you another question. In what year did they have the war of 1812? 1812. 1812. Any disagreement on that? No. 1814? 1820? No. 1812. We're all settled. Good work. Okay. So who's your favorite teacher? I like all of them. You like all of them? Okay. All right. In all of them, is there anyone that stands out first? Not really. Like, not really. They all help with a certain thing. Okay. All right. Trevor, what about you? What's your favorite class and what's your favorite teacher? My favorite class is band. And my favorite teacher is either my band teacher or my science teacher. You have to make up your mind. Which one? My band teacher. All right. Commitment. Okay, Michael, what about you? Favorite class? Favorite teacher? I enjoy science and band as well. I don't really have a favorite teacher. I enjoy all of them. All right. Okay. By the way, I notice you guys are all wearing a shirt that seems so similar. Is this a coincidence or what? Is this the official New Valley shirt? Yes. You're all wearing it for the program today. Okay. Can I get one? Or do I have to go to the New Valley school to get one? I believe there's a shop that sells them. Okay, let's talk about science. All right. So my first question is to Austin. Are you doing a science project? Yes. Can you state the nature of the science project? What is it? Well, what we did was we were trying to find out how to get the most low maintenance fish tank. So for busy people and old people that cannot really take care of a fish tank, that they can just have that set up and can just enjoy a fish tank. You have partners on this project? Yes, I have one partner. One partner? Okay. What's his name? First name? Daniel. Yeah, okay. What it could be a woman just as easily, right? Yeah, okay. And are you going to submit this to the science fair or is it too early for that? We went to the district science fair and then now we're just waiting for the result. Okay. So you might be in, what is it, the statewide? Oh, that would be exciting. Okay. Do you think you'll make it? I don't know. Okay, we'll see. All right. Okay, Trevor, you have a science project too. What is it? I also did a science fair project. It was on the effects of different chemicals and metals on a certain common plant, found all over Oahu. Yeah, what chemicals and what plants? So I actually used liquids. I used bleach, mouthwash, vinegar, and I used pennies. And what did you find? Oh, and what plants? I used a portolaca plant. Okay. So what did you find out? I found out that the mouthwash, bleach, and vinegar were all harmful to plants because based on my results, the plants were negatively affected by it. Really? What happened to them? Did they die? Yeah, they died. It's the black thumb. Yeah? How did they die? Was it in pain? No, it was kind of like over time. Plants don't have pain? Like over time. Okay. Over time, gradually, they lost their vitality. No, that's very interesting. So if you're talking about science fair, then you have a hypothesis and you have a conclusion. Tell us. So my hypothesis was that the bleach would affect the plant the most because the bleach contains chlorine and that will most likely damage the plant the most. And based on my results, my hypothesis was correct because based on its weight, height, color, and from before and after, it got affected the most. And how about the least? What affected the plant's least? I hope it's mouthwash. It's the pennies because the pennies had a neutral effect because the plant actually grew. So, yeah. Interesting. So how did you learn this?  So I bought four plants from a local nursery and then I watered each of them with a certain liquid or in the pennies case. Do you have a partner or is this all you? I did it on my own. So I watered them with about a cup of liquid each. And I did that for a whole week. And then I took pictures in between and recorded down my observations. And then I measured them in height and weight before and after to compare the amount of inches or grams they lost. That's really interesting. So that's pretty objective with the pictures you can see. But then if you measure, you have a metric, you have numbers. Are you impressed, Austin? Are you impressed with Trevor's steak? I am. Okay. Good for you. Now you went to the district fair. What's your chances in the statewide fair? I just hope I make it. Okay. All right. Well, I hope to see you there then, huh? Because I'll be there. That's in what? Late March, April? Yeah, I think so. Okay. That's a convention center. Okay. Let's talk to you, Micah. You got a science project too. Tell us about it. So my project was on various methods to get rid of ants in any area. I'd like to hear about this. We all want to get rid of ants, don't we? Yes. Okay. So I know ants are a big problem here, especially because a lot of them are invasive species. And so I tested three different methods. I found various ant hills and what I did was I used three different methods. The first one was I dug up the ant hill and I mixed it with soap and water. The other two where I made my own boric acid bape. So I put peanut butter, oil, water, and boric acid and I set that near the nest. And the last one was that I poured boiling water on the ant nest. You poured boiling water on those poor ants? Uh-huh. What about the ants' rights? Don't they have rights? Don't ants have rights? They're not very good about it, so I don't know. Did they say anything that they complained? Not that I'm aware of. What did you find with this experiment? I actually found that my homemade boric acid bape was the most effective method. Say it again. I found that my homemade boric acid bape was the most effective method. And because after my first trial, when I went back to test for more ants, I found none. Okay. So the hypothesis was what? And the conclusion was what? State the experiment, Sean. So the hypothesis itself was that the boric acid bape would be the most effective method because it happens over time and it doesn't require all the ants to be in the same place in order for it to be effective. And it was proven to be correct. And that was due to the fact, again, because it was over duration rather than instantaneous reaction from the ant hill. It happened over a sequence of time, so it was a lot more effective. Okay, I'm impressed. Are you impressed, Austin? Austin is impressed. Trevor, how about you? He's impressed, I can tell. So, does this mean you're going to have a life of science, actually? I actually love science. You do? You love science? I love science. I've, for a long time. So, yeah, I could get into a career with science or anything in that general field. Would it be a researcher or what? Researcher, yeah, that would be nice or an engineer, possibly. All right. I accept that. I can see the zeal. I can see it. I can feel it. Okay, Trevor, what about you? Yeah, I also love science. Possibly, I could want to become an electrical engineer in the future because last year's science fair project, which went to district, me and my friend created a solar powered phone charger, a portable one. And so, I found the experiment really fun and so that kind of made me want to look more into electrical engineering. Okay, don't overlook UH. Very good electrical engineering department at the School of Engineering, yeah. Okay, what about you, Austin? I like science and I especially like science about animals. Animals? Huh, you might be a zoologist. Ooh, we need a zoologist here. Yeah, actually, we need a lot of them. Okay, well, I'm going to give you the opportunity to talk to your friends now, Austin. What have you got to say? See the red light over there? That's the camera that you're going to talk to and you're going to leave a message with them. What would you like them to take home today? Thank you for helping me and encouraging me to do my science fair project and yeah. That's it. Okay, good. That's it. All right, Trevor, what about you? There's the light. Thank you for always supporting me and being there for me. Thank you for helping me with things I don't understand and I hope we still can be friends in the future. I'm sure we can. Okay, Michael, what about you? There's the light. Thank you for all your support with my science fair project and with all my crazy antics recently. And to any of you out there who are listening, well, the skyscrapers of tomorrow are built on the foundations of today. So thank you because this can help anyone in the future. You guys are great. You all did a great job. Austin, thank you very much for coming down. Trevor, good for you. Michael, good for you. We wish you all the best in the science fair and in science and software too. Electrical Engineering.