Technology transfer centers are successful around the world. The primary objective is to improve transportation safety, mobility, efficiency, and economy. The centers provide innovative methods which result in improved roadway infrastructure, especially benefiting those with no ready access to technical information. Lack of basic roadway planning, design, construction, repair and maintenance processes, especially maintenance skills, has denied essential transportation benefits at the local levels, thereby impacting the general welfare of the population and the general economy. Experience with technology transfer centers around the world has shown the most effective centers are those with freedom to tailor operations to the unique needs of their clientele. Most centers follow a basic pattern that has proved to be widely effective, but each respond in their own way to the needs they identify. Freedom of action is essential. For this reason, it is generally held that the center should have full authority to implement activities as they identify the need under the general management of the National Transportation Agency. It is important that the leader of the program have exceptional management skill. A national transportation agency should coordinate the overall program, provide funding, and help to develop training courses. The center in turn gets advice on the best direction from steering committees made up of leaders of local transportation agencies. It must be recognized that the required experience and trust essential to success does not happen overnight. Nearly one and a half to two years are required to achieve comprehensive operations. However, it has also been shown that the cost benefit is very high for successful centers, establishing an effective technology transfer program includes the planning process, organizing the program, and implementing the program. First is the planning process. It involves establishing your philosophy and goals and forecasting technology transfer needs and related program components. The act of putting your philosophy of technology transfer in writing forces you to analyze the goals, objectives, and policies of the enterprise. A sample statement of philosophy may sound like this. Modern organizations must take responsibility for effective technology transfer to its employees. The technology transfer center exists primarily to provide organizational benefits. Technology must make a difference, a measurable contribution to enterprise goals and objectives. Experimentation is essential to the improvement of technology transfer. Therefore, thoughtful experimentation should be encouraged so that better solutions to technology transfer problems can be found. Next comes forecasting of technology transfer needs and required program components. The manager of the tech transfer center must be able to identify the immediate and long-range needs of the organization for operational, supervisory, and managerial development programs and related technology. This includes resource requirements such as personnel, equipment, facilities, materials, supplies, and budgets. Organization provides the framework for a group of people to work together to attain the goals and objectives of the enterprise. Applied to tech transfer, organizing is the process of identification and grouping needed activities and functions into logical subdivisions and making delegations of authority. The actual organization for your particular agency will depend on local needs and resources available. The most critical task is to implement the tech transfer program. This involves using the most effective communication methods and technology transfer techniques. In order for innovations to be adopted and used, they need to be communicated to the appropriate audience of users. Here, we will deal with the various communication techniques for technology transfer. The most effective communication is one-to-one personal contact. This contact can take many forms. The technical assistance given in the field, at meetings or conferences, on the job, or through the work of a special technology transfer agent. The least successful method of communication is through passive dissemination of printed materials. While printed materials have their role in the transfer process, their format and the specific way in which they are used is extremely important. No one technique is sufficient to guarantee that an innovation will be adopted. Successful technology transfer is directly related to the use of multiple channels of communication. Even one-to-one technical assistance, for instance, is dependent on the use of videotapes, printed materials, newsletters, and technical notices in order to bring the innovation to the attention of potential users. There are a number of basic guidelines to follow in selecting technology transfer techniques. First, it is important to recognize the capabilities of local maintenance personnel to absorb and understand technical information and to work within the constraints of the agencies who develop such material. Accordingly, technology transfer material should be concise, relevant, and credible. Dissemination should be done at a reasonable cost and should fit within the existing relationship between federal, state, and local highway agencies. It should be noted that the characteristics of the people doing technology transfer in highway maintenance are as important as the techniques they use. A positive helping attitude, as well as a clear understanding of the problems faced in local agencies, is essential for any technique to be effective. Local personnel in maintenance often feel that outsiders do not understand their situation. They rely heavily on their peers to get information. This means that the people selected for technology transfer have to be carefully chosen. It also has implications for the conduct of research, in that there is a need to ensure that research problems are defined with a clear understanding of local needs and constraints. A number of tech transfer techniques have been used successfully. They include newsletters, circuit riders, short courses, audio visuals, technical notices, interactive videotapes, video teleconferencing, and electronic bulletin boards. Newsletters are a key method of disseminating information about useful new products and procedures. The term circuit rider is a 19th century American phrase, describing a pioneer preacher assigned to a horseback circuit or route on the frontier. The U.S. Department of Agriculture adopted the term to describe a program through which small rural communities can utilize a professional resource person on a shared basis. In technology transfer, the term is used to describe a similar system where individuals are used to spread innovation. Whether working out of a station wagon, van, or bus, circuit riders typically equip some kind of vehicle with reports, audio visual equipment and materials, and microcomputers, and travel within a specific geographic area visiting local user groups. The skills required for a successful circuit rider are many. Probably the most important and least easy to evaluate or describe is the ability to communicate effectively and deal sensitively with a wide range of people, local officials, federal officials, researchers, planners, and road crews. Circuit riders must also be able to translate technical materials out of jargon and into a language which users can understand. Normally, a research report cannot be used directly as an information manual. Even those users who can understand technical materials tend not to take the time to do so. Circuit riders can interpret technical information for the user and communicate it in several forms to reach local users. There are a number of advantages in using circuit riders to disseminate information. First, circuit riders have a great deal of flexibility in presenting new technologies and techniques. They can speak formally and informally with users, show videos, and leave behind printed materials. They can also offer hands-on experience in areas like computer programs. Also, circuit riders can offer one-to-one assistance. They can spend varying amounts of time in the field explaining new procedures and helping adapt them to local needs. Circuit riders have mobility and can reach a large number of local people at their own meetings on their own grounds. Circuit riders can also survey user groups on local problems and current methodologies. They can make a grassroots appraisal of user needs and, in turn, relay this information back to sponsoring agencies. Many agencies use retired agency personnel as circuit riders. The next technique is conferences and short courses. While there are some differences between conferences and short courses, they are similar enough to be discussed jointly. A conference is generally thought of as an opportunity to exchange information on a general theme, while a short course is an educational program on a more narrow topic. As in the circuit rider approach, the thing that makes conferences and short courses such good channels of communication is the one-to-one contact that occurs among peers. In order to ensure this peer exchange, conferences and short courses must be structured to the needs of the user. In addition to technical needs, conference short course organizers must also take into account other potential user problems, like lack of money for travel and registration, and an inability to be away from the job for more than one or two days at a time. At the local level of highway operations, these time and budget constraints are extremely important. They should be taken into account, not only by individual conference planners, but also by organizations and agencies packaging short course materials. In order for any conference or short course to be effective, certain basic rules should be followed, schedule courses to fit user needs. On the local level, this demands extensive free course planning, carefully plan and advertise courses. Call local agencies directly and find out who would be the most appropriate participants in each area. Take advantage of local networks to reach potential attendees. Give participants as much advanced information about the content of the session as possible. It might prompt them to think about the conference in terms of their own operation and thus enable them to come to the session with specific questions in mind. Do your pre-planning homework and determine what brochures and videos are already available in the subject area. Pick speakers with great care. Emphasize to them the nature of their audience and the goals of the session. In dealing with technical specialists, make certain they do not talk down to or above the heads of the audience. Designate someone ahead of time to keep notes of ideas that emerge spontaneously from formal and informal sessions. Have these typed up and mailed to participants. Always use evaluation tools to help improve future conferences. Such evaluations should address the overall conference objectives and facilities as well as the content and presentation techniques of individual speakers. Audio visuals are another important technique. Communication research indicates that people remember 10 percent of what they read, 20 percent of what they hear, 30 percent of what they see, and 50 percent of what they hear and see. Given these percentages, the benefits of using audio visual aids in the transmission of technical information are obvious. There are many types of visual aids available to speakers. They include videotapes, slides, flip charts, easel pads, handouts, chalkboards, and overhead transparencies. Videolending libraries are also used very effectively by many agencies. Videotapes exist on a wide variety of topics. There are some very simple guidelines for using all kinds of visual aids. Visual aids should be relevant and to the point. Prepare displays ahead of time and practice using them. Keep charts, graphs, and diagrams simple and clear. Use color effectively. Too much can cause the essential message to become blurred. Avoid visual busyness by omitting unnecessary details. Make them large enough for easy viewing. Use the visual aids at the best psychological point as clarification of the material and have the display visible only when it is in use so that it does not distract from the rest of the message. Technical notes are also a useful tech transfer technique. For the purposes of this program, a technical notice is a short summary of an innovation that includes a brief description of the innovation. Its purpose is to attract the attention of potential customers, not to describe it in great detail. As such, it is a tool to build awareness among potential users. It should read like a news release rather than a document abstract. Its language should be free from jargon and its style simple and concise. In fact, technical here is a bit misleading as it refers to the nature of the innovation rather than the content of the notice. Besides giving readers the name, address, and phone number of a contact person, it should include a detachable mailer or coupon so the reader can find out more. A representative series of technical briefs were developed under the strategic highway research program. They are available from the United States Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration. Always review individual course results as soon as possible after they have been conducted. Also, the entire program should be reviewed at least annually. In this course, we covered the basic procedures for establishing an effective technology transfer program, including the planning process, organizing the program, and implementing the program. For more information on this or other IRF videotapes, write to the International Road Federation or call the numbers on your screen.


Alright, well let's take a look at all of our methods of subtraction so far. And again, it's important to keep in mind that what we want here is to build adaptive expertise to be able to use the most efficient algorithm for any particular task. And that's going to change. You do not butter a slice of bread with a chainsaw, and you don't cut down a tree with a butter knife. So we want to be able to switch between the tools that we have available. And we can look at a single problem and try to see if we can find the solution in any number of ways. So let's take the subtraction 317 minus 85, and let's try to be, yeah, we could do this 50 different ways, but let's make it a little bit easier. Let's look at it in five different ways. So let's think about that. Counting up, that's our basic method of subtraction. It's predicated on nothing more than the ability to count. You don't have to know any real arithmetic facts, you just know how to count. So I'm going to try to count up from 85 to 317. And so I'm going to count up 5 to 90, 10 to 100, 200 to 300, and 17 up to 317. And so if I only know how to count and how to add, well I can figure out what the subtraction is. I had to go up by, let's see, 200, 210, 227, 232. So the difference there is going to be 232. Well let's also, we can also do counting down. So this is going to count down from 317 down to 85. So now I start at 317 and I go backwards a bit. I want to stop at 85 so maybe I'll start by going back 200, that takes me down to 117. Maybe I'll go back 17 to 100. I'll go back 10 to 95, back to 85. And again, how far have I gone back? That's 200, 217, 227, 232. And so my difference is going to be again 232. Now we don't have to count down this way. We can actually count down by a different method. Note that this is still the method of counting down, but maybe I go back 17 to 300. That's easy. 15, back to 285, and then down 200 to 85. So here I am counting down still, but I'm going through a different sequence of counts.  I'm counting past. So again, the idea here is we might go too far and then work our way backwards. And so what I might notice here is that I'm subtracting 85. So, well, 100 is a convenient benchmark number that's a little bit more than 85. So I will subtract too much and then I'll return what I shouldn't have subtracted. So I'm going to start at 317. I'll take away 100. That's too much. I've got to return 15. That takes us back to 32. How about equal add-ins? So equal add-ins and counting past are very similar methods based on the same sort of idea that 85 is close to a nice benchmark number that's easy to work with. So if I add 15, I get 100. I have to add to both, get 332. And if I do the subtraction, my difference is going to be 232. All right, well, how about decomposition? 317 minus 85, that's 317 minus 80, then minus 5. So I'll decompose the subterhend, I'll subtract 80, then I'll subtract 5, and there's again my remainder. And then we have the standard algorithm. 317 minus 85 is the only tool you have as a hammer that the only thing you can do to a problem is to bash it to pieces. So we'll apply the standard algorithm. Let's see, that's 317 minus 85, and let's see, I can subtract 5 from 7, that's not a problem. I can't subtract 8 from 1, so I have to trade one of these for 10 more in the next place so that 3 is going to become a 2 and an 11, 8 from 11 is 3, and then 2 minus, well, there's nothing there, that's going to be a 2 there. One quick observation to keep in mind, again, this is all about adaptive expertise and switching back and forth between different problems. The standard algorithm requires that we rewrite the problem. We're given the problem 317 minus 85. The thing we have to do with the standard algorithm is we have to rewrite it vertically before we can even perform that particular operation. And one of the things that this means is that we have to spend a little bit of time writing the problem down and making sure we actually put it down correctly, and then, after we've done that, then we can actually perform the computation. And again, adaptive expertise may be given that the problem is expressed this way, there may be an easier thing to do than to transcribe the problem so we can apply the standard algorithm and then perform the standard algorithm on it. My inclination for a problem like this, if I were confronted with a problem like this, I would probably either do some variation of decomposition 317 minus 80 minus 5, or possibly I might do something like counting past 317 minus 100 is 217 plus 15 is 232. So depending on how I happen to feel I might do this in a couple of different ways, I would probably not use the standard algorithm on this unless I had to because it involves taking some extra steps.


Live from Midtown Manhattan, the Cube's live coverage of Big Data NYC, a silicon-angled Wikibon production, made possible by Hortonworks, we do Hadoop and WAN Disco, Hadoop made Invincible. And now your co-hosts, John Furrier and Dave Vellante. Okay, we're back here live from New York City for Big Data NYC. This is the Cube, our flagship program, where all of these events are stricken similar from the north. Since it's created our own events, this is Big Data NYC, we're covering Big Data a week here in New York City. We're just a Duke World, a Stratoconference right across the street, next to the Delfton. We want to put a shout out to Hortonworks and WAN Disco for their incredible support and direct independent coverage. And I'm going to join with Dave Vellante and Dave Ritch. To see you at WAN Disco, thank you very much for coming on the Cube and for your support for the Cube. The community is very appreciative, we were very appreciative and wanted to say thank you for supporting the Cube. Always a pleasure, you guys are doing a fantastic job by the way. Thank you. So, get this right into it, this is the fourth year of the Cube here at Duke World. And Dave and I always joke about how the evolution would watch these waves over the years in the business. But this more hyper-growth than anything else a duke 40 years ago was an Apache project that was just kind of nascent. Outfit needs now to be extreme. New York City puts an exclamation point on the business value. And one of the things that people are talking about here is people are starting to settle into their positions. They're starting to see a matureization of who's gotten what, who's what's working. And at the end of the day people really want to move this into production, into a comprehensive enterprise of the solution. With financial services, healthcare, oil and gas, all of the above. So, I want to get your take first question on WAN Disco. What are you guys seeing? How do you fit into the landscape and share with the folks out there? One, the positioning of the company. And two, where is the meat in the bone right now? What is taking hold? What landscape is solid? What are people building on in terms of the technology and the business solutions? Okay, so I'll sort of set that from the top. So, WAN Disco is in continuous availability of Hadoop space. We've got some unique technology that enables active, active replication of data that we've been, for a number of years, replicating source code management systems like Subversion Kit. And we recently ported that technology over into the Hadoop space. And as you mentioned earlier, we've got a partnership in industries that are important works, where we support their distribution. And we have others potentially as well. So, what are we actually seeing in the marketplace? Well, we placed, let me say that, but the notion was that Hadoop 1 was sort of batch processing. Hadoop 2 is more about real-time transaction processing, which has massive implications in the enterprise. So, we're beginning to see now, because we're in the continuous availability space of course, is companies looking to implement Hadoop 2, all that great stuff, YARL, that was recently announced by Hadoop Works. And we think that that has a massive impact on enterprise usage patterns, where we're going to see some pretty large Hadoop clusters in major banks, telecommunications companies, healthcare companies. We're seeing a lot of movement. I think we've got five or six POCs about to start underway right now, with major financial and major telecommunications companies. And these are not companies that just adopt the latest and greatest technology. These are companies that are very careful about which technologies they're adopting. And Hadoop is the number one thing on their agenda. So, David, a lot of practitioners, like hardcore dogmatic guys, early Hadoop guys, will say, Hadoop should be batch, it was designed for batch, shouldn't go into OLTP. What gives you confidence that the ecosystem is emerging and evolving to support those types of transactional systems? We had a discussion earlier today off camera, where you were saying that the average age of enterprise applications is 19 years. It is.  This is a paradigm shift, and we're asking enterprise to redevelop those applications. They're 19 years old on average, and they're going to be redeveloped in this new operating system called Hadoop. That's where we're seeing the entire shift in the market going to. That's why we've got thousands of people there today. That's why I've never seen a trade share like this. It reminds me of the early days of ERP. We were talking about that as well. I had made the statement, if you had to pick the ERP winner in 1990, you never would have picked SAP, would you? So it's very hard to predict winners now.    It's not that prototypical company. You see it all the time in the US. What's that like, describe the environment over there? I would say that we're in a pretty small list of companies that are doing cutting-edge technologies to be quite frank on the market. I think we're about the only company that have got dual headquarters in Silicon Valley that are in the very, very core of the dupes. A dupes really has been per bay of Silicon Valley. There's a lot of interest in New York here, but the fundamental company, Hortonworks, Cloudera, et cetera, Pivotal are all really based in Silicon Valley. So just being outside of Silicon Valley alone sets us apart, but being on the London stock market really does. I remember a year ago, a year and a half ago, going around the fund managers talking about big data. They didn't know what big data was 18 months ago. Now, everybody's talking about it. There's a lot of excitement in London about the potentials of big data, and even Hadoop is now becoming widely known outside of the US. So what's the appetite for a technology growth stock? People who have invested your stock must be very happy. I mean, it's a tremendous performance, and it appears to be there's more upside. You mentioned that you just did another offering secondary. You raised, what, $34 million, you said? Yeah. And you said the stock price went up when you announced that. Normally, that doesn't happen, but the appetite for growth stocks must be huge. Well, I think there's something to be said for coming to market. Coming to market very specifically to raise growth capital. So what we were looking for were a couple of key moments, key milestones for us, one of which was a very strategic arrangement that we announced with Hortonworks. SAP were also quoted in that press release a month or two ago. So that was a key moment. And I think the market said, you know what, this company are going places. There's a lot of pence of demand in big data and Apache Hadoop. Obviously, the next strain of Hadoop, the 2.0 release, the 2.2 release as it is now that came out recently, is real-time processing. It's recognized that continuous availabilities are nice. It must have in those kind of enterprise environments. And I think the market likes growth. We are rated for growth. I mean, there are so few growth stocks out there right now on the London market that we are in a very short list. Hey, I got to ask you. David, I was talking about in the data center, one of the hottest trends outside of big data is software-defined data centers. Software-defined data centers, building on data personalization and so on and so forth. So with that new trend, that's kind of the engine of driving innovation. Big data sits on top of that. That's where the apps are on the killer app. As I just tweeted, the internet created e-mail to killer app. Now big data is creating analytics to killer app. That's all going to run on the data center. Software-defined data center is still the data center. So the role of the data center is important. So, talk about your recent announcement and your role in the workforce and your partnership around making the data center be a secure part for that high availability for continuous operations. Well, it's interesting, isn't it?  Really, we should just call it data, because that's what it will be in three years anyway. The thing that created it was economics. It was the point at which it became more cost-efficient to store rather than throw away data. Because we've always been creating this stuff. It just used to be too expensive to store it. So trends in the marketplace, like disk, like solid-state drives, like software-defined data centers, all of those things are driving adoption of big data news. I think we're right in the eye of the storm now. All of these technologies came together at exactly the same time, and thus we have big data now. We like Hortonworks, we like Fiberu, we like Pivoting. The reason we like Hortonworks so much is because they are very near as damn it open source, pure open source. The business model is we're going to deliver a pure open source product, we're going to install that in your data center, and of course you're going to have to buy a support contract for it. That's as simple as that business model is there. They don't even hide it, and we like that. So we think that adoption of Hadoop, we don't actually have to be involved in the creation of a distribution itself. We like the fact that Hortonworks are doing a great job of selling Hadoop into the enterprise, and we want to trail on behind that and become the de facto HA layer on the stack. You think the data centers are ready right now, so we were talking before you came on. Many data centers have raised the POCs of Hadoop now. Things are in Hadoop, they're on Hadoop, the whole data engine around that data platform. So give us a taste of on scale 1, 10, being completely vague, scaling. We're in the data centers relative to Hadoop, and the end of engines around the after end. I don't know if I could accurately enumerate it. It's somewhere between 5 and 10. It's always tough. All my friends in the data center business would shoot me if I said anything else. Okay, I'll say that to you. I think we're part of this. We make the data center not be the single point of failure. Even the event of an outage of flood of hurricane and earthquake. We're part of that fabric that's creating this new protocol. Or even if the hurricane Sandy got to this industry here today, blows through New York and takes primary and secondary out in New Jersey, that no longer becomes a problem because you've got a data center somewhere else in the globe, one scope, active, active replication. That's precisely what we're doing. So I think we're part of this enablement of Hadoop to the enterprise class and enterprise ready. Well, as well, it means that customers will start putting more and more data and applications into this new style of data manipulation analysis and insight that they wouldn't before. So it's chicken or egg, but you're providing that infrastructure to give people confidence. Precisely. And one mustn't forget all the major driving forces for big data isn't just to do with technologies, economics. So the cross-point, the points at which it became cost-efficient to store rather than throw data away. So you've got great subscription growth, right? That's picking up. So then you build up that annuity over time. So you've got some tailwinds that are really good. It looks like you've got a lot of infrastructure in this space that's free. It's open source. And you're monetizing services. A lot of people don't like services models. We love services here because it's where a lot of the work gets done. And then the hard to do stuff, whether it's, like I said, the continuous availability layer, the applications, is that where the money is going to get made here? I think a lot of companies are going to do very well out of the big data space. Undoubtedly, and your analysis from Wikibon tells us that a lot of the early markets, the hardware guys and the service guys, so companies like Intel, IBM, HP, are all going to do very well out of big data. I think the next wave, however, is going to be intensely software-focused. I think you're going to see the likes of where a whole more extendable ourselves do very, very well from the next wave in the marketplace, which becomes a lot more focused around the actual software and applications themselves. That's a great point. I'm getting pushed on time here. We've got the last question. I was going to ask you what's that next vision for you guys, but I'll just kind of reframe it. That's our focus and so on seeing as well. That's the value creation side of the building on the scale and the platform. What's up for you guys? What's happening for you guys around the show? What's coming out of this? What do you expect to happen for your company and then tease that out a little further, a little more detail on what's happening around this software? What key areas do you see developing faster? Which ones are going to be maturing and scaling? Where are the white spaces? Feel free to elaborate. Yeah, so we're seeing, certainly, people are asking, you know, we've got potential customers asking for active-active replication at the one area, you know, it's not a random thing, but one just asks, wakes up one morning and says, I need active-active replication. No, that's actually happening. So that's pleasing, right? So we've seen that trend, certainly on the booth here and also with customers in some of our channels as well, we're beginning to see that trend. We're also seeing requirements for selective replication. So replicating maybe customer data over here, product data over here. So we're seeing, you know, some really interesting use cases come out of this. And, you know, a lot of the early adopters for this I think are going to be financial institutions. Maybe I'm a bit biased because we're in New York on all three of course. So we're certainly seeing financial institutions, telecommunications companies, but there are some common threats like that selective replication, keeping data segregated into different data centres completely. But certainly enterprise and agreement of big data, of Hadoop, is a common trend. And if we are going to get this second way from batch processing to transactional system, there are certain things, I think the top two, I don't remember his mind, but it's high availability and security to serve in the top two things, focus for the answer problems. And what's really exciting is that we're watching the success of your company as you guys continue to grow and value it. It's one of those things where, you know, just in two years ago, as the market matures, a lot of complexity starts to become apparent as the engine is built and the proverbial cars are hitting the street, people are seeing the business value and it's nice to see you guys get some of that success. Congratulations on all your success. We appreciate the support to the community I underwrite in the queue. I'm the CEO of Wendisco. Thanks for coming on the queue. We really appreciate it.


Welcome back to tennis talk. My name's Cam Williams and we have the Sophia open happening this week at indoor hardcore tournament Sort of ran out of season. We're starting to go into the European indoor hardcourts Of course the adb finals is coming up very very soon, which is on an indoor hardcore as well So a lot of names are playing in this one as well Some big names are playing but some names are pulled out as well. So let's go to the withdrawal list So only a couple of names are pulled out of this one. We have Batista a guru He's pulled out of this one Chilich also pulled out and McDonald has also withdrawn from this event So starting at the top of the drawer and we've got eight seeds in this one with the top four seeds getting a buy in the first round Yannick Sinner the number one seed getting a buy in the first round He's also the defending champion. He won this tournament at the end of last season He awaits the winner of a qualifier versus posmasoul We're going at it in the first round then we got Russell Vorey versus Duckworth winner of that match takes on either Number seven seed for Keener who are going at it in the first round then we've got number four seed public He gets a buy in the first round He awaits the winner of the wild card Kuzmenov or Museti who are going at it in the first round Then we've got a qualifier versus Jera winner that match takes on either the wild card Lazarov or the number five seed Kriyanovic in the second round So the players that I'm watching out for in this one obviously keeping an eye on Yannick Sinner Defending champion of this event and really loves playing at the end of the year He loves playing at the end of the season He's had some big wins in his career towards the end of the year Let's see how the pressures of being the defending champion affect him in this tournament also public Got to keep an eye on him He doesn't mind playing on indoor hardcourt either and also Kriyanovic Keep an eye on him because he's done well on indoor hardcourts in Europe in the past made the final of the Paris indoors Couple of years ago, so keeping an eye on Kriyanovic as well during this week going to the bottom half of the draw now And we've got the number eight seed Milman he takes on Ema in the first round Winner of that match is going to play a qualifier in the second round no matter what because we've got two qualies Going at it in the first round then we've got Mouner versus Giron winner of that match takes on the number three seed Diminor who gets a buy in the first round then we got the number six seed Manorino He takes on Maga the wild card in the first round winner of that match will take on either Kichmenovic Or the wild card Andreyev in the second round that we've got a Vasika versus Anduha winner of that match takes on the number two seed Monfice in the second round the players that we're watching out for in this one got to keep an eye on the two big names and the Two big seeds Monfice hasn't had the greatest season in 2021 But he did make a semifinal last week on an indoor hardcourt in France So he's in a little bit of form and also got to keep an eye on Diminor as well He hasn't had the greatest season second half of the season started off on fire at the start of the year So he's looking to regain a little bit of form to finish the year off But also keep an eye on a Vasika. He actually made a semifinal of him tournament last week in Kazakhstan And he's at a career high ranking. He's had a really really good year also when his first title just before the US Open So keep an eye on a Vasika as well He's a dangerous unseated player in this tournament. So there it is the Sophia open and it's been around for a while now The Sophia open it's an indoor hardcourt tournament Of course towards the end of the year as well when all the European hardcourt tournaments are wrapping up the season Let me know down the comments below who's gonna win this one because it doesn't look like there's as big a name as we've used to seeing Of course, Sina being the number one seed.  But other than that anybody could win this tournament It's wide open for me It's an ATP 250 event and those usually bring up some random champions as we've seen over the last couple of weeks So let me know down the comments below. Who do you think's gonna win this one? Taking a look at the draw and it's gonna be very tough for me to pick But I'm gonna go with another four seed bubbly Feel like he's been in a little bit of form the last couple of weeks And I don't mind his chances at this event also had some really good results on indoor hardcourts during the season So I'm gonna go with bubbly as a number four seed to get through and win this one again Let me know down the comments below. Who do you think's gonna win this event? So the Sophia open slowly starting to wrap up the season It's got some names that are actually competing the ATP finals at the end of the year


Thank you very much. Thank you for inviting me today. Thank you for coming and of course Thank you to the Institute and to Nora owner by herself and I'm very happy to hear because I think this is an issue that we need to treat with urgency and Why the urgency when we talk about urgency people will immediately think about the humanitarian crisis. I think it's urgent to talk about it because The way I understand my job, I am working against the buying and selling of people and their services in Europe today This is what trafficking is. It's about buying and selling people and their services so Every time I go to one of our member states to meet with the authorities to meet with the NGOs I also try and go and meet people at shelters. I Very recently met a 19 year old woman from one From a member state who told me her story and her story was that she was Approached by a close friend who was already in another member state saying oh, there's a lot of opportunity here You can get a job you make it benefits and it's great and you should apply For a job as a waitress, etc. And I have friends who can facilitate your coming to the country and so on so she did that and the minute she entered the country she was snatched by that friend and two other two men and She was locked in a in an apartment for a period of ten months in those ten months first She was forced to marry a third-country national and then go and and then Make sure that the guy receives the benefits and the residents pyramid, etc. Etc. And also conveniently she was forced to provide sexual services for the friends of the of the guy Sometimes ten fifteen guys every day and this went on for ten months She didn't step out of the apartment in those ten months at all and She is one of the very lucky cases where a neighbor kind of understood there's something going on and Alerted the police the police did their job. They were very good So she was identified as a victim of trafficking She chose to go back to her country both countries within the EU and She was again very lucky because there was a shelter that was able to take her there for a period of six months This doesn't happen very often Because she comes from quite a big member state they have a regional approach to health service and She had no she had no access to health care services forgot to tell you that she had Cancer and she also had a heart disease at the age of 19 She couldn't go back to her village because her family was under threat by the traffickers because obviously she cooperated with the authorities And I know that that woman is no longer in the shelter. I don't know where she is. I don't know if she's still alive And and what I do know is that there's many forms of exploitation Involved involved in that she was trafficked for the purpose of child marriage She was trafficked initially for the purpose of labor exploitation. She ended up being trafficked for sexual exploitation She was bought and she was sold and her body was used repeatedly And we know for a fact that there's tens of thousands of people in Europe predominantly women but also many men who are trafficked for different forms of exploitation and What we estimate not what many international bodies estimate is that there's hundreds of thousands of people in this situation so And to be honest, I don't know if it really matters it matters for policy, of course But when I think of people when I think of that woman and if somebody tells me well, you're working so that nobody Is this this experience is not repeated again. That's that's good enough But the fact that we possibly have hundreds of thousands of people in Europe today is horrifying So when I was talking to her, of course, and I'll come back to to this later I did say, you know, it's great that the police was able to help you and you're in the shelter I was trying to do the the stereotypical thing of trying to to tell her You know, you have your life ahead of you and she said to me you come too late So So this is why it's urgent because there's lots of people in this situation But it's also very urgent because with this humanitarian with this refugee crisis I think we can only expect that there's gonna be a lot more vulnerable people to be exposed to these networks of traffickers and become victims of different forms and And it is also very sad that people are being trafficked into as well as within the EU So I don't want to conflate my visit here with the situation The the migratory a crisis that we're faced with even though they are very linked and I'll come to that But it's more than that in a sense I am talking about EU citizens being trafficked by other EU citizens and Exploited by other EU citizens as well They're exploited sexually to supply unpaid or very low paid work or services without receiving any rewards They are forced to beg in the streets forced to commit various forms of crime Sometimes they are bought and sold for their own organs and I've met a person in a shelter Who was forced to sell his to sell no to give his a kidney and Then he had no aftercare at all of course And he had a one a year old child and a wife and they were made homeless He had no access to antibiotics for example And this is and this is why it is urgent in my opinion And let me tell you a little bit about what we do first first of all We are faced with a severe and extremely profitable form of crime a severe threat to security a transnational phenomenon often not always and That has implications that individual countries cannot really address on their own But in my opinion, we are mostly in faced with a violation of human rights That is expressively prohibited in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. In fact As far as I understand, it's the only form of organized crime that is explicitly referred to in the Charter In a sense is unique in that way Often I go to rooms and I talk about organized criminality and then there's other rooms where I talk about human rights violations against these people and Rarely do these worlds meet increasingly they do now and that's good And these worlds should meet because it is both things happening at the same time And of course is not new to say I think everybody knows that we need a comprehensive approach to deal with this at the local at the national at the EU level at the international level and I Don't want to speak like a Eurocrata yet But I think I think there's people representing a non-governmental bodies here And I hope they will agree with me that the legal framework at the EU level Relating to trafficking and the policy framework are actually very ambitious very innovative some people says the best legal framework we have in the world at the moment and Why is that because it doesn't only concentrate on the prosecution of the crime and the criminals But also on the protection of the victims and on preventing the crime from happening in the first place It puts human rights at the center It puts victims at the center is gender specific and is child sensitive and really is not poetry It is what this directive does is this legislation does and the European Parliament agrees with that International organizations agree with that and the civil society and it is less let us not forget something that the member states have put together So we have instruments we have the strong Legislation and we have a strong policy framework. I think was mentioned before They use strategy towards the eradication of trafficking that actually ends at the end of this year It was a five-year program that I was responsible to monitor But we also have this trafficking addressed in various policy documents of the Commission just recent ones We have the European agenda on migration for obvious reasons that should be there the European agenda on security Obviously address there the action plan against migrant smuggling the action plan on human rights and democracy The new framework on the EU activities on gender equality and women's empowerment in external relations I can go on but this is just to say that there's different that is such a Complex phenomenon that we need to address it in a complex way and from different using different policy frameworks So the directive is quite new is quite young in a sense. It's let's not forget that it sets minimum standards That we must uphold The deadline for the transposition for the translation of the of the law international law was already in April 2013 26 out of 27 member states bound by the directive Denmark is not bound Have notified the commission of full transposition and now we are studying what the member states have notified We will issue a report at the end of the year Germany is the only country that has a notified transposition of the legislation But of course, it's very easy to talk about transposition and we have excellent lawyers and a lot of goodwill And I'm sure that that eventually everything will be in place But the point is to make full and correct implementation of the directive And this is where the real challenge will come and the real challenge in also in terms of monitoring In terms of the legal the policy framework, as I said, we have this strategy we have a lot of concrete actions that that join many commission services together varying from areas of employment to development cooperation To humanitarian assistance, of course to justice home affairs and so on our member states are engaged in this civil society is also engaged in the priorities vary from identifying protecting and assisting victims preventing the crime the phenomenon prosecuting traffickers Enhanced coordination and policy coherence So I'm not here to list all the things we have done We have a website actually one of the only thematic websites in the commission So precisely we understand that trafficking is not something to be dealt with from a home affairs point of view alone But it's something that is very horizontal in the services So we have a thematic website where you can find information on everything that we have been doing And we also what I like to say is that it's Increasingly extremely important that we marry this policy framework With our funding priorities because sometimes and it's a challenge to do at the member state level It's a challenge to do at the EU level of course Especially when so many services a fund projects and programs on trafficking so When when we started putting together this at the current strategy I was thinking well if there's so many services engaged in funding projects on human trafficking How how do what do we know what what what have we achieved? Where are we at? So what we are doing at the moment is a comprehensive policy review So we have managed to collect every single project funded by the European Commission since 2003 From 11 different services of the Commission everything is on the website in terms of projects And now we have a huge study trying to assess So how was this money allocated in terms of Geographical areas in terms of fields actors engage types of projects and so on and the most important thing is What do they say? How do we move on? So at the end of the year, I'll speak about this a little bit later We will have a new policy framework a post 2016 agenda and 16 agenda on trafficking And I think this policy review will really help us Make sure that not only we prioritize correctly But that we ensure that taxpayers money are not Used to duplicate and triplicate activities sometimes. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm working on this and I'm working on this And when you think about it From a taxpayers point of view you have a project something maybe Ireland. I don't know gives development funding in ex-country and then an international organization gives money to that ex-country and Then the European Commission gives money to that ex-country and the European Commission gives money to an NGO working on that ex-country So unless we know how this money is used and allocated Properly, and I'm not saying we're gonna get to the you know We're gonna understand everything and get a crystal clear picture, but unless we understand at least where we are We cannot really be in a place to start a new policy framework And that's why we're trying to finish this this study at the moment We also just published the Some analysis that we've done on the gender dimension of trafficking It's a very obviously trafficking is a highly gendered phenomenon I'll say a little bit about statistics later But the directive itself talks about the obligation of the member states to take a gender-specific approach And here I want to say something let us before we say oh gender sexual exploitation Let's see gender is both men and women obviously and Women are highly concentrated with when it comes to trafficking for sexual exploitation But then also when it comes to trafficking for the purpose of child marriages I gave you an example before Also when it comes to domestic servitude Then we have a lot of men who are trafficked for the purpose of labor exploitation Do we have shelters for them? Do we have provisions on how best to identify them? Etc. Etc. Well, the European Commission is clear that trafficking in women and girls is a structural form of violence I Want I won't go more into that But I want to focus on what I came here to talk about which is the issue of buying and selling people So I think we have become very very good As member states as the Commission as NGOs Are repeating that poverty lack of democratic cultures a very long list gender inequality violence against women conflict lack of opportunities? I'm sure I'm missing many is what causes trafficking and Is convenient and I had I had an MEP a member of the European Parliament Three or four years ago I was saying we have to eradicate trafficking and she said to me first you have to eradicate poverty and In the beginning I was thinking oh god, she's right and then I thought actually that's very convenient Ah, isn't that very convenient? So we let's just concentrate on only on poverty And I think is in a sense Let's divert a little bit from that and take a more immediate approach to what is organized crime and a human rights violation Um, of course all all the factors have listed our pull factors that make people a lot more vulnerable to becoming Traffic, so I'm not gonna come here and tell you yes. We're all vulnerable in this room to becoming traffic. This is clear But not all poor people in the world are trafficked And not all people who don't live in democratic cultures are trafficked etc etc so While we address all these global issues, we must understand that trafficking happens because it is Incredibly profitable We are talking about a serious form of organized crime I joined the Commission from a very Human rights background and I've become the most converted person that unless we understand the huge Profits stemming from this horrifying form of crime. We won't get anywhere. It is extremely profitable And also There's demand for the people and their services often very cheap that they provide So trafficking doesn't happen because there are victims or because I don't live in a democratic culture and so on Actually, if you look at the the maps of the roots of traffickers where the victims originate from and where they end up Where they end up you'll find that often they end up in prosperous countries and They're exploited by more prosperous people Who become more prosperous if they profit from the exploitation? So let us not put more responsibility on that poor girl who was looking for employment and saying is her poverty that did that no It was the guy who forced her to marry her that did that and he was the client that did that And he was those who profited from the situation that did that So if we want to talk profits There's different estimates, but in Europe alone It is understood that only for sexual exploitation the profits are over 3 billion euro annually We all think that this is very conservative the international labor organization talks more broadly about forced labor Estimates a hundred and fifty billion dollars annually for the traffickers for the for the for the exploiters so Trafficking brings money for the traffickers hundred and fifty billion. I don't know in the European area. They say about fifty billion But then there's money for illegal sectors and then there's money for legal sectors engaged in illegal business That girl that young woman I met was on a bus From one country to the other the guy had a driving license and a bus service and he was all nice and legal And I'm sure he was perfectly aware who he was carrying and where and she wasn't alone That for me is money in legal sectors engaged in illegal business And then there's money for legal sectors engaged in legal business whether we want to talk about Labor exploitation whether we want to talk about sexual exploitation and about a hotel and people coming in and out There's so many different examples And of course we can discuss the the criminal aspect of that But what I don't understand and I spent five years working on this and I still don't understand is Who profits from the exploitation of others and I don't understand because they're not exposed Because we don't have a lot of prosecutions based on that So who made money out of the exploitation the buying and selling of others Who saves from the exploitation? You know how much you can save from keeping a slave at home I don't know how much your cleaning costs or baby care and so on but you can save money Who benefits from cheap products and services with eyes wide shut? And what are we doing to ensure that we sufficiently target the criminals the users the profit makers the exploiters? For me if we are going to address Trafficking seriously we have to follow the money and we must look into the huge financial interest that triggers such a crime Huge financial interest. I don't know how many times I can say that is billion It's billions in profits And we must attack those profits and one of the many tools we have available of course is proactive financial Investigations that they should play a very key role in Alternative and as an as an effective tool to gathering evidence in trafficking cases So that's one side of it the money side of it and the other side that is very linked It's also the demand that fosters all forms of exploitation So in the same way I can ask the same as can ask the question who buys the services of victims of trafficking Who buys boys and girls? who buys Weirdly cheap products Who keeps slaves in their house again? We don't know because again these people are not prosecuted and How do the profits that I talked about before if I'm thinking of them the micro economic model Further fuel the demand create the demand the supply. There is the demand all this Continuum endless continuum of exploitation. So who who how do these profits? fuel the these use of the services of the victims and I think this these are the main questions We need to ask to address the phenomenon in an effective way and this is not just what I think because one day I I decided but the EU law has decided for us In fact article 18 of the legislation says that member states have a legal obligation To discourage and reduce the demand for all forms of exploitation and to raise awareness. This is a legal obligation Some member states will say I have posters on toilet doors. I don't know is that addressing the demand for all forms of exploitation and It obliges member states to take appropriate action to inform around the issue But also to reduce the risk of people becoming victims And the directive has another very tricky Paragraph that talks about member states at the very least consider Making it a crime to use the services of victims of trafficking when we know that the person is a victim Let me come back to this buying and selling thing that I I keep repeating In some member states today is not illegal to buy and use the services of victims of trafficking Even when you know that the victim that the person is a victim So we can buy goods that we know have been produced by victims of trafficking But we would not necessarily be punished for it We can buy sexual services from people that have been trafficked and we know But we would not be punished for engaging in a crime Because the last time we checked human trafficking is a crime is in the treaty. It's a famous euro crime one of eight. I think so There is this is where the important question of individuals clients consumers responsibilities, but also the responsibilities of businesses come in Because to repeat what the young woman said to me for the victim is too late For the other 14 year old that I met who has a two-year-old daughter as a result of Multiple rapes and and I met both the little girls the 14 year old and the two year old She said to me I said to her what do you want to do with your life? And she said to me what life I'm dead So this is what she said. So of course is incredibly important to have services for these people and maybe she stands a chance but an Nigerian woman I met a lot older In some other member states said to me When I asked her so what do you want to do? She said I've been raped so many times.  There's nowhere to go So I'm not saying that because we shouldn't concentrate on victims. We should focus on victims This is clear, but not without thinking about preventing the phenomenon at the same time So the question that I ask a lot of prosecutors and sometimes people sneer, but really it's a it's a real question Do we have another area of crime? Where those who knowingly participating the crime in the exploitation are not criminalized? You know, I like designer bags I guess so you go down the street and you can get one for ten euro But you have to kind of look around a little bit because if someone watching you know You know you're doing something wrong, but if you're buying a person, you're not criminalized So and then if we don't criminalize the offense the crime What's the alternative impunity for the crime because we can say oh, it's very difficult to criminalize Yeah, I mean it's very criminal and difficult to find the murderer and so on so let's just drop it You know, is that what we do is this how we work in the justice system So we must not forget at any point that the law has many functions and its normative effect is not to be dismissed So these are very important issues that we're considering and I keep repeating this because at the end of this year We will produce a report assessing the legal measures that some member states because not all of them have chosen to do this Have taken to criminalize the use of services of victims of trafficking and then of course if necessary come up with proposals What is interesting is that we have another piece of the law the employer's sanctions directive is from 2009 and what that law does is to provide for criminal sanctions for the employers of illegally staying third country nationals who use work of services Extracted from the persons when they know they're victims very long sentence to say that if employers are using knowingly using victims of trafficking who are third country nationals they're criminalized But if there are you nationals not necessarily criminalized and not all not for not for all forms of exploitation So it's time to consider how we consolidate the legal framework What we do know as I said before for the period of 2010 to 2012 The registered victims some people will say is the tip of the iceberg other will say is represent some kind of a reality But certainly they're not all the victims 30,146 women men girls and boys Registered victim of trafficking in the EU member states. This is what was provided by the member states So it's not a lot of estimates and say sensationalism It's 30,146 people in the situation of that girl. I described before and this The number is really a lot higher. We know that 80% of the victims are female in this in the statistics and 70% of the traffickers are male 16% were children girls and boys The most widespread form consistently sexual exploitation with 69% and the vast vast majority of those are women and girls Another thing that I think might be interesting in terms of numbers is that 65% of the victims this is consistent with Europol's report of two months ago are 65% of the victims are EU nationals. I Think that's fundamental Because it's important not to take things out of context sometimes We're here to talk about a form of organized crime that is a huge and severe violation of human rights That happens to EU citizens and non EU citizens But in the EU the exploiters are predominantly EU citizens And there are many challenges of course in the data collection and in the registration of victims that top five countries From within the EU are Bulgaria Romania the Netherlands Hungary and Poland where victims come from in the in the EU from outside the EU We had Nigeria Turkey the Ukraine Vietnam and others. I do understand We all understand that we read the data with a lot of caution It is the best is the most comprehensive regional set of statistics. We have available. Is it good enough? No, does it need to improve? Certainly, but it's a good exercise that we embarked on the second one was much better than the first and now We're about to start the third collection of exercise And I think the member states and ourselves are learning a lot from this process Another thing is on on victims as rights holders Sometimes we we we think that is politically correct to say that they're trafficked persons Hello, I'm a trafficked person. That's very nice And we don't like to call them victims because he strips them of their agency. No He strips them of their rights as victims of trafficking Victims of trafficking at the EU level have a vast area of rights as they should So they are women men girls boys who have agency who have choices who make options like that girl who wanted to go that Young woman who wanted to go to the other country to work of course but She was a victim of trafficking and that we need to remember because conveniently When when you talk about a trafficked person There's no victim. There's no victim. There's no perpetrator. If there's no perpetrator There's nobody to criminalize. We can all go home and talk about poverty So I think it's quite important to insist on this and to insist on addressing all forms of exploitation And I have never been to any any discussion where people say Should we do more on labor exploitation or sexual exploitation? This is on the rise. What is this an auction house? Are we competing for forms of exploitation or are we trying to help all victims? We should be concentrating on all forms of exploitation as this relates to trafficking and Especially to children who are of course the most vulnerable That is uncontested. We have done a lot of work on children again. It's not to list here One of the main actions of course to be taken at the national level is proper child protection Systems that need to be strong. They need to take care of child victims irrespective of status Talking of status a few words on trafficking and smuggling in some media circles in most media circles Conflated confused used interchangeably Yes, they're all victims of trafficking. Yes, they're all smuggled. They're all this and that I think it's important to Clarify and not to use interchangeably although sometimes very very linked They are two very very distinct phenomena legally speaking But they're also is important is important to have clarity politically legally and operationally What we we can all agree on is that both smuggling and trafficking are very very profitable forms of crime The criminal networks profit tremendously But I think there are serious implications predominantly for the victims But also for states if we don't for not clear about the differences sometimes trafficked persons are smuggled through borders and Often or sometimes they might end up being trafficked, but this is not always the case This is not the case and there are many different reasons why this is not the case The first one at the differentiated factors if you like is consent We can spend a whole workshop discussing consent But in reality the difference is that a smuggled person in legal terms have Consented and paid to be smuggled even though they may be taking a life-threatening risk Trafficking victims have either never consented or if they did initially the consent was rendered Irrelevant by by the abusive actions, of course of the traffickers When it comes to children, there's no discussion here when we talk about trafficking people do not have to be To cross a border to be trafficked. You can be trafficked in your own little village Where smuggling has a clear? transnational phenomenon crossing a border and Then the state responsibility when a person is smuggled from one country to another This is a crime against the state in legal terms. I'm not here. I'm not discussing ideological Ideological issues here. I'm telling you that legally they're two different things Trafficking is a crime against the individual Smuggling is he is illegal movement of people in exchange for payment, but no exploitative and purpose Although the smuggled person may end up of course being exploited Whereas when it comes to trafficking is a completely different story and clearly, but at the same time There's very strong links think about asylum procedures for example Sometimes they can be misused by traffickers with serious consequences for the victims Sometimes we hear for example, I don't know if you've read in the press But certainly Europe or Europe reports are clear from frantic from the international Organizational migration. We have a lot of Nigerian girls that are trafficked into the EU using the migratory routes. I Think all of us in the room would identify those as victims of trafficking. It would take about five minutes I don't think this is a hidden form of crime always So you have these eight these nine-year-old in the metropolitan city somewhere in Europe And it's clear I think to all of us whether that person is smuggled or trafficked and for what purpose And I think we need to just start recognizing these things a little bit more The external dimension of trafficking is of course a fundamental element of the work that we do The EU is a global actor and a major donor of aid of course globally. We have funded a lot of projects. I Want getting a bit aware of the time. Yes, so I won't say a lot about what we do But I'm happy to answer questions On on the external dimension, but we do a lot on that. I Just want to say something on conceptual clarity Conceptual clarity is not just when it comes to smuggling and trafficking because that's a very easy thing to to explain in some ways But also when it comes to example, for example trafficking and modern slavery Sometimes this is used interchangeably And I'd like to draw caution According to international law slavery and trafficking in human beings are two distinct legal phenomenon Not all victims of trafficking are necessarily slaves and the other way around and The characteristics of slavery do not at all times reflect the experiences of trafficked people The EU law refers to slavery in the context of the exploitation and stipulates that slavery is one of the elements relating to trafficking The EU doesn't have competence on on slavery. It has on trafficking I will finish with the fishing industry For a little bit obvious reasons The fishing industry is recognized as a high-risk sector for the purpose of forced labor We have been working a lot in the social dialogue committee for fisheries in the EU I think often like in many other areas. We are aware the business sector is unaware of how their links Unaware of the linkages between trafficking and their work But they should be aware They should be looking for this a little bit more the private sector should be a little bit more responsible in their last applied chains And we should think a little bit when we they're prawns And we should if for no other reason because article five of the legislation for the first time holds legal entities accountable We are very happy to see that the Irish government Established an inter departmental task force to examine a wide range of issues identified in this case of the treatment of workers on on board in the Irish fishing This is of course very good And on a grid new system for migrant workers looks promising of course and the EU is ready to support in in this context I Skipped parts of my presentation. I just want to finish by telling you by telling you that I'm not here to tell you that oh the EU has done the best thing in the world, etc But we do have very good legislation in place that really doesn't need Much in terms of ways forward and we do have a very good policy framework and we have provided funding What we don't see very much is the implementation? It will be very nice for me to have a raison d'etre, you know to remain there for another 30 years We need legislation. We don't really need legislation We need to implement the commitments that we have set out to do What we will do now is next week We are publishing a report the first report the anti-trafficking co-ordinators report on Progress made in relation to trafficking at the EU level. This will hopefully happen next week And I think this is quite an interesting report in terms of developments and trends and We will issue the report on the transposition of the legislation at the end of the year this famous report on the criminalization This policy review so there's there's a lot coming ahead and a new strategy and a new agenda a policy framework And now is the time when everybody rolls their eyes because the the strategy consciously talks about the litigation and Then I say that anything less ambitious is an insult to the victims and it's an insult to all of us because we're gonna tolerate a little bit and I just want to close by reminding you that 20 years ago We used to roll our eyes and I was in rooms where people rolled their eyes when we talked about rape and domestic violence How are you gonna prove and come on and these women they were asking for it I think at least in polite conversation. We stopped doing that and we have legislation that makes sure that we don't do that And I think given the migratory aspect of the crime and the humanitarian crisis I'd like to finish with a quote from a colleague from the member states We've had one of those member state configuration meetings and and and he was saying you know States are strong and they can protect themselves Individuals and especially those exploited are weak and it's our duty as societies to protect them And I think this is what our focus should be. Thank you very much


Hey guys, this is Matt Beck from freesaloneducation.com here with Rebecca from the Hairstylist Education Forum, correct? Correct. So I can't wait to talk to you. We're at ISSE.  Yes, we are. I can't wait to talk to you about the forum because it's just such a cool avenue for people to be able to post stuff. Yeah. And I want to get your thoughts behind why you started the forum and all of that. You have this huge following at this point. Kind of crazy. I'm going to break down and just kind of let everybody know how you did it, why you did it, and all of that. So I'm going to start off.  I was born in Pittsburgh, but Northwest Florida, which is nothing really to brag about, but currently there in Pensacola. So you're in Florida? Yeah. All right. It's hot and humid there. I was just there two weeks ago with Millennium and it was like, it's not like here. Can I be frank and say whatever? You can say whatever you want. It's kind of like the butthole of Florida is where I live. Florida has a butthole, that's good. And I live there, so it's very humid.  Ten years ago this year, actually. Everyone I've talked to today has been a hairstylist, well, except for Candy Shaw, but everybody's been a hairstylist for ten years. It must be like the magic number. We finally figure out what we want to do ten years later. So you became a hairstylist ten years ago. When did you start this education forum? I've always been interested in educating stylists. I've always been really passionate about it, but in April of this year it'll be a year. And we're almost up to 25,000 stylists. Only stylists. It's not a group for anybody other than a stylist, a student, or a barber. Yeah, because they have to be accepted, right? Exactly. So the beauty for me with creating a Facebook group, which is kind of the new trend, is because the people that follow that group see what you post. Yeah. If you have a regular Facebook fan page or like page, you post something, maybe you have 10,000 followers, but 100 people see it. Yeah. In a group, everybody can get to be part of the conversation. Exactly.  And you can refer back to it, and it's just like a thread of really great information. Yeah. And there are a lot of people there. Like you mentioned Candy Shaw. Yeah. Dean, the creator of Olaplex. The Doves. The Sonya and Christopher Dove. Yeah. Nicaroho. You name it. Like, CEOs of companies are in that forum, along with us regular stylists. The great thing about it is you created something that is that powerful. It's nuts. And you've been doing it. How old are you? I'm 34. 34? Okay. Yeah. So think about that. I mean, you've been doing it for 10 years. You created something that most large companies don't have that following. No. So all these large companies are now looking at how do we start to kind of help out and help hairdressers. And that's the whole movement that's happening in the industry. Exactly. The climate's changing. Before it was just manufacturer influence. And if you were any sort of educator, you had to work for a company. And now I don't work for a company. I was, you know, with Joica for six and a half years, but I'm independent. And I think it's kind of making large manufacturers be a little scared or, I don't know, like they need to change now because the climate's changing. What it's going to do is it's going to make large corporations more personal. Yeah. You know, they're going to have to realize that it's even with hairdressers in general. Yeah. Because the ego gets so big, if you write them on Facebook, they don't write you back. It's true. They don't even acknowledge that you exist. But we're hairdressers. Yeah.  That's exactly right. And that's what creating a forum or creating things, it's communicating with stylists. So I love that you have created that avenue. How many followers are on there now? Almost 25,000. Okay. Yeah. So now what do you think the future looks like for what you're doing? Like now that you've built this? Yeah. You've built Heff, by the way. Heff? Yeah. That's way easier to remember. Well, the loving term that we call members is Heffers, which I mean, I don't know. You can take it or leave it, but yeah. But I don't know where the future is leading with that, but we're having manufacturers like donate products and money and, you know, to hold Heff exclusive contests. I don't know where it's going to go. I don't know what I can say or not. Where would you like it to go? Like when you think about the future and, you know, you're 10 years into the business, where do you think, like, what would be your dream scenario? That's really hard because I'm sort of taking every experience as it comes. I've been asked to be on stage with the intercofiora. I'm going to say it wrong. And then BTC is contact me. This is not, none of this is something that I thought would happen five years ago. So I'm just along for the ride. When I reach one goal, there's the next goal and the next goal. I'm just sort of riding it until I don't know. I'm very passionate about it. That's cool. Yeah. So what do you think, coming up in the future, do you have anything planned? Are you going to be at any other shows? Yes. I'm going to do the ABS and Stylus Choice Award in Chicago. I also am a private educator. So I'm touring the U.S. right now doing my private education. Some magazine projects coming up. What's your education background? So you worked for Joyco? Yeah. I was a national educator for Joyco for six and a half years. So I had that, you know, that manufacturer influence. Yeah. I've done a lot of, like, at hair schools, gone and spoke in front of hair schools. But mainly that's my manufacturer background. It's Joyco. So now I just didn't want to be affiliated with a company anymore.  Like, you have to use their vernacular sort of. I think people really relate to a stylist teaching a stylist. Right, exactly. I do have a background, but I personally prefer private education. Awesome. So how can people get a hold of you? Instagram is a big one. Vivid Artistic Care Design. Vivid Education is my email. And then the Hairstylist Education Forum. We have to be friends on Facebook for me to add you.  So find me on Instagram and we'll figure it out that way. Okay. All right, cool. So make sure you guys, if you haven't joined the Hairstylist Education Forum. Awesome. You do that. There's a lot. I mean, you can get all kinds of advice from all different industry professionals and everything. So thank you so much for sitting down. Thank you. Thank you to Millennium. I can't talk. Millennium Systems International for letting us use their booth and do these great interviews with awesome people like Rebecca. Pieces of love. Pieces of people. People. So thank you guys so much and we will see you guys on the next video. Thank you. Appreciate it.