any superiority over what has happened before we're capable of this We're also capable of using our collective will our collective buying power And our collective intelligence to be able to get rid of this and solve this for good Transparency does save lives and it can save your business. Thanks for listening any questions I was always the kid in the back of the room raising her hand. I can't help it. Um How would you recommend companies begin cleaning up their supplier data their product data in order to better integrate A solution like yours into their supply chain That's a great question. Uh, first of all, um Uh realize that you're in the majority the 95 percent majority of companies that have data that needs to be cleaned up So it is a is a process as alex said for alex always says from um, uh from ashkosh It is a journey right you are on a journey and you're not going to be perfect day one We don't need very uh detailed data to be able to get started Supplier names is how we get started what you're buying Uh, how much you're spending which is just a filtering tool but also really helpful Uh, the industry that you're in you'd be amazed how much spend data Companies don't even know what the industry and tying it into a nakescode Those are all really really important data points that whether a company has that or not We can we have a hydration process or we can hydrate all that data and pull that information in Once that information comes in just those five data points We're able to start mapping all the way back to the nth tier So it's not that hard, but like my colleague said before sometimes companies have you know Dozens of erp systems that spread out So we try to tell our customers just get started with what's important 65 of our customers add more data every year So we don't get all of their data all at once So it is a process and you can improve on it over time One of the scores that we track inside of freedom that we've created is a transparency score That transparency score is how much do you know has has the data that's been federated onto freedom has it increased Did we add it? Did you add it? Did your suppliers add it? That gives you a bigger as our friends say graph on your supply chain your graph should always be growing It should always be getting bigger and so just putting your spend out up first is just the first step Makes sense Awesome. We're good, right? Okay. Thanks everyone All right. Well, it is definitely a privilege and honor to host you in our home here at the ronald reagan building As you may have noticed that we are the premier destination for every fifth grade class that comes into washington dc for a field trip So I wish you all the best luck as you head into the walls of the food court for lunch So so we're going to take um, we're going to take some lunch Please we'll start back up at one o'clock I look forward to i'm sure that everyone will have some more productive discussions network during the lunch So we'll see you back here at one o'clock. We'll go ahead and get started here Hope everyone had a great lunch I'm pretty sure and uh, you know, maybe in 20 or 30 minutes. We may see some planking kids up here or something like that So we just exercise kind of what I do with my own fifth grader I just try to talk louder and over him, you know, which comes at great success. So Um, so all right. So the first step that we have that we'll be presenting this afternoon is from Um, helixa the company helixa which provides innovative solutions to physically mark trace and authentic authenticate products from producers to retail To retail creating transparency along the entire supply chain Now presenting for helixa is dr. Getty minas micutes Who is the cto and co-founder of helixa? Getty minas is one of the inventors of the helixa solution He has extensive experience in project management IP generation and executing sustainability strategies He's a member of the expert panel of the united nations center for trade facilitation and electronic business He works on projects related to supply chain transparency and he's a frequent speaker at international events Focused on creating transparent supply chains and supporting new legislation Getty minas Right. So good afternoon everyone. My name is getty minas and I'm representing helixa helixa is a swiss company that has Developed and is now commercializing a solution to mark raw materials and trace them from the supply chain up to finish products And even beyond using dna based markers So first of all, um, why do we need traceability at all? Let me see if I can change the slides. Yeah so Irrespective of the industry that you look at here, we show the example of textiles of the denim Irrespective of the industry that majority of the Environmental impact as well as the social impact is happening very much upstream in the supply chain So it's happening not with your tier one suppliers But usually with tier two three four suppliers And therefore from a brand's perspective or from a retailer's perspective it's not enough to Only understand your tier one suppliers as the speakers discussed this morning We actually need to go much further To be able to address the risks related to the forest labor to address the risks related to environmental sustainability And also to address even the quality risks to the very basic extent However, this is by far not easy. That's why we are all here and to To illustrate how difficult that is I can give you a bit of stats. So actually 60 percent of the claims On the apparel products and retail in europe and the us cannot be backed up by any data So there are claims on the products, but they cannot be backed up by the data And to be able to take control of your supply chain and to manage those risks and to manage the Liabilities that you have you actually needs traceability Now if you think about the most common approaches to traceability, there is the Chain of custody systems that can be paper based on nowadays They're becoming more and more digital and they are based on either internal ERP databases of the companies They are based on standards and the associated transaction certificates And they are also very often based on the nowadays new technologies such as blockchain However, these solutions are only as good as the data that you put into them So imagine you have a supply chain where you Document every supply chain step, but the documentation is not connected to the product itself So if one of your suppliers exchanges their product with a cheaper copy with a Non-original product your digital interface would still show that you have all the supply chain documentation yet the physical product is not what you expect and to Manage this challenge you need to connect this digital information to the product itself And that's where we at headache succumb into play So what we do is we have developed a way to mark textile products with a unique DNA code And we use DNA because just like each of you has a unique DNA sequence We can chemically create as many unique DNA fingerprints as you want And then use them to mark the products now the DNA on its own is not really stable So what we do is we put DNA into these tiny capsules that protect the DNA from harsh chemical stress Thermal stress as well as mechanical stress So this allows us to mark raw materials and that DNA can be detected across the whole supply chain up to the finished products We do work in a few industries. So we started working with our precious minerals where we mark Diamonds emeralds pearls. We also work on precious metals such as gold silver and some others and The recently we have been seeing a lot of Demand for traceability in the textile supply chains on one hand because it's quite Those are quite complicated supply chains. And then on the other hand, there is also a lot of regulation coming into the apparel and footwear sector And then finally looking long term. We are also looking into the traceability of food We just had the approvals for headaches that to be used in food products So we believe that that's also a market that's important to cover where we would be able to prove the provenance of the coffee that you had this morning Now going into a bit more detail of how this actually works So we designed unique DNA codes and then these DNA codes are applied as early as possible in the supply chain So in the case of textiles, we started with a fiber where the DNA is sprayed on the fiber and then At any later point throughout the supply chain you can analyze the Yarn you can analyze the fabric you can analyze the finished garment and detect the DNA And this DNA allows you to prove claims related not only to the origin But also to sustainability standards to specific sustainability conditions The quality of the material recycling status and so on And we chose to use DNA first because it allows us to give a barcode to the product So it allows us to give identity to the product which means that the information is traveling with the product itself So unlike digital traceability solutions If you exchange the product you would not detect the DNA and that's why you would be able to prove If somebody in your supply chain is actually counterfeiting the products On top of that we apply DNA in the very beginning of the supply chain and because we put it into these small capsules It enables the DNA to survive all the transformations. So we start with the fiber We end up with the finished garment and still if you would analyze my shirt It would be able to detect the DNA that was applied to the fiber somewhere in pakistan So we have traceability for how the whole supply chain yet the DNA that we use is something that you eat every day So it's something completely safe and it's approved to be used in organic textiles It's approved to be used in food products and so on And finally the DNA gives us the versatility that you need for supply chain traceability So we can generate as many unique DNA fingerprints to give a unique identity to A specific supplier a specific product raw material or even a specific batch And this gives us quite a bit of flexibility Now going into a bit more technical details of how this actually works We apply a unique DNA code as early as possible in the supply chain. So usually we start in Just after the Fiber is produced and it's somewhat automated the next steps and at that point we spray A water solution containing DNA markers on the fiber and from that point on the fiber is marked So the DNA evaporates where the water evaporates whereas DNA sticks to the fiber And from that point on you can trace the fiber at any point throughout the production Then to extract the DNA we do a PCR test. So first we flush the liquid through Textile garment or intermediate product. We extract the DNA We load it into a PCR machine and we detect a specific DNA Now the key advantage of this technology is that it works as a key and lock mechanism which means that You only detect the DNA that you are looking for just like with COVID If you are analyzing for COVID you detect the specific COVID DNA and the same way you detect Only the DNA that you are looking for which increases the security of the system So people cannot simply sequence the DNA and detect what is inside Now once the DNA is analyzed we issue the certificate of analysis that can be shared With our customers and they can share with the regulators with the Customs and border protection and so on and in some cases this data is shared directly with them In some other cases it's uploaded to external solution providers ERP systems blockchain systems and so on And then some of our customers actually like to share this data with the end consumers So in those cases we also offer the QR codes that lead to designated landing pages where you can Actually see the whole product history and based on that In those pages you also have all the data to back up this claim So it's not a random landing page But it has all the supply chain information where the DNA has been marked and at which stages it has been tested Now this technology has been adopted by more than 40 different customers across textile supply chains and also a number of Precious mineral supply chains and we do work with a number of leading european and us Brands and retailers as well as manufacturers all across asia south america and africa And to these customers we do help to achieve one of the three goals First of all, we give them the complete supply chain visibility Really starting from the beginning of the supply chain up to the finished product And that allows them to make claims related to the origin of the product So let's say whether the cotton that you are sourcing is coming from pakistan and it's not from shinjan province It allows you to prove claims Connected to the sustainability of the product Let's say whether you are using organic cotton or not whether you are using recycled fibers and so on And it allows you to prove a quality standards Let's say if the cashmere that you are using has been blended with cheaper fibers such as sheep wool or even synthetic fibers Second day the dna allows our customers to communicate their supply chain story this way increasing the Intimacy with the end consumer and building the brand value This has been quite important with some of our customers And we actually do have data to show that it adds value to the product and increases the sales of that product and finally with the increasing increasing the strict supply chain regulation And i'm not talking only of ufl ppa. There are a lot of regulations coming into place in various geographies Especially strong in europe We enable our customers to Prove the claims that they are making on the products to avoid the anti-greenwashing Registration to apply to them and we allow them to prove supply chain due to the chance requirements Now to finish off i would like to show one use case which goes even beyond The linear supply chain traceability starting from the fiber. We do actually work on Recycling more and more because recently there has been more and more demand for Proving of recycling of the products and whenever you see this enormous growth In specific fiber demand, you know that there will be parties in the supply chain that will actually try to Cheat the system and will try to provide you with the fibers that are not necessarily recycled or recycled from different sources and so on So what we did in this case is we partnered with one of the european retailers To mark the post consumer ways that they are collecting and that's what a lot of companies are trying to do now so they set up the systems to Recycle their products. That's also coming into law in many jurisdictions so they collect the products then they ship it to A production country somewhere on the other side of the world And then they can only hope that six years six months later or maybe one year later They receive the products that are actually are made from This post consumer ways that they collected and in this case we actually marked the post consumer waste It was then shredded. It was Made into the new fiber Blended with a virgin fiber made into yarns fabric spinach garments and then in the end The retailer receives those New garments we do a DNA test and we are able to verify Is a trader coming from that specific post consumer waste or not? So this allows you to have not only Claims on origin of the fiber, but also allows you to prove the recycling recycling status And thus you can make the sustainability claim on the product So this gives our customers assurance to have this closed loop recycling system verified through the NA traceability And with this I would like to Finish and I hope I gave you some ideas of how technology like that can be utilized Not only for the forced labor issues, but also to comply with increasing the strict regulation on Supply chain due diligence on anti-greenwashing and so on Thank you very much Any questions? Good to see you. I'm jeff wheeler the director of the global trace protocol project We very much appreciate the work that helix has been doing for us on the cotton pilot in Pakistan and it might be interesting to hear a little bit of your reflections on on how The this iterative process took place of problem solving the importance of training Identifying some of the issues and then having helix to be able to help us work through them Right so roughly I would say roughly in a third of our supply chains Actually, we do detect that at some point throughout the traceability project We lose the identity of DNA and that gives us immediately the idea that at those points the material has been mixed or exchanged and there there is Quite a bit of need for education for the supply chain parties because today's supply chains operate very much on the mass balance principle Which means that you don't have to retain identity preservation from the supply chain And that's where we see that the biggest challenge is where we really need to Educate all the supply chain parties that look at this product is traceable Using physical traceability and this means that at every point of the supply chain You have to retain this identity preservation and you cannot Substitute the product by identical other product because in such cases traceability wouldn't work So I think this is one of the areas where we do have to do A lot of education work and that's where where we need to still improve and where we need to Work with the supply chains closer Thank you for your presentation. Um, can you speak a little bit about how often This type of analysis would be conducted for a customer of yours and the average cost I don't know if you want to get into that or not, but you know, it just sounds very In-depth and DNA and it could be expensive. Can you just speak a little bit to that? All right, so the amount of testing that we do depends very much on how the supply chain is set up And how much confidence we build in that supply chain So in the very initial phases on the new supply chain, what we do is we do test material at every single step of the supply chain So they say if you mark the fiber, we tested at the yarn stage. We tested at the fabric stage We tested at the finished garment stage To build a trust that the system works indeed the way that it is supposed to be Because usually our customers have mapped the supply chain So they do have an idea how it should work But they are never 100% sure and in those cases we do test it in the beginning really at every single step However, over time as we build the confidence and as our customers build their confidence They say look we can minimize some of these steps of the testing and this way make the Whole operation leaner and really focus on the riskiest parts of the supply chain And usually our customers are quite good at identifying where they suspect some unusual activity or where they have the lack of transparency Then talking about the cost that's very much dependent on the scale That's dependent on how complex the supply chain is And then you have to think of the cost that can be offset at the retail side With the savings that you you gain that as I indicated by being able to Defend the claims that you make in front of the regulators to be able to communicate the added value to the end consumers To make it personal to the end consumers if you are buying a cashmere sweater It's very nice to see the goats and the whole supply chain journey from which the cashmere has been actually made And that also adds value to the customers Now to give you a rough indication of how much technology is like headaches or cost We are talking about a few cents per garment. So for the end product, that sounds very affordable Now if you are upstream in the supply chain, if you are a manufacturer If you are a novative manufacturer who wants to implement this Then the cost at that stage can be quite prohibitive So we really have to be able to distribute those costs across the supply chain Any other questions? Okay, then thank you. All right next we have applied dna sciences So applied dna sciences is an innovative dna supply chain traceability solution for forced labor compliance They're using dna tagging dna genotyping and isotope testing for forced labor compliance presenting for applied dna sciences Mr. Jim Hayward is the chairman president and ceo of applied dna sciences Dr. Hayward Has over 20 years of experience in biotechnology pharmaceutical life sciences and consumer product industries Dr. Hayward is actively involved in the global effort to ensure the authenticity Origin of products such as cotton and the protection of global supply chains from counterfeiting and diversion Well, first of all, I'd like to thank cbp for the technical expo and for inviting us. I'm jim hayward I'm a molecular biologist And CEO of applied dna sciences and as our name implies We are focused on nucleic acids And their utility in therapeutics in diagnostics and in supply chains We operate under iso 17 0 25, which is the forensic standard And we're pleased to present our certainty traceability solutions for secure cotton supply chains Certainty is a multiplexed platform that relies upon the forensic strength of two forms of dna The genomics of endogenous cotton dna Remember, of course that every fiber of cotton is a cell It has a nucleus a mitochondria chloroplast is loaded with dna itself And we overlay with that with the security of unique molecular attacks and these two Platforms in concert with the relative abundance of naturally occurring isotopes Form the three legs of our certainty supply chain platform Now we are a public u.s. Company With our labs and manufacturing in new york since 2009 Applied dna has really been a pioneer In cotton traceability using molecular tags and the genomics of endogenous cotton dna Examining how to differentiate dna for cotton origin and for cotton varietals And now we're using natural isotopes to identify origin as well We also provide traceability for other materials such as viscose polyester leather And we have done the same for military microchips For more than nine years running automotive parts o-rings inks including ink jets Silicone gaskets and many other materials We work with lots of federal agencies and with police departments all over the world To date our evidence has been used to prosecute over 170 international criminal cases With more with a 100 percent conviction rate in all 170 cases and sentences totaling over 500 years Over 140,000 unique dna tags have been designed and manufactured At scale in our u.s. Facility Now cbp as mentioned on multiple occasions you need to know your supply chain We of course agree And have developed what we call the certainty baseline as a framework to provide a systematic way to authenticate fiber yarn Greige Died fabric all the way to finish product We firmly believe that the strongest supply chains have testing continuity Between each of the nodes in the supply chain. It's more work But it's worth it now using our certainty Baseline as a framework. We provide an integrated multiplex content traceability system that consists of the stable isotope ratio testing for cotton origin genotyping testing of the endogenous cotton for cotton content and signature T dna tagant That provides a fully secure traceable supply chain together these three pillars provide the industry with a complete and comprehensive Tracking system for cotton as well as other textiles The first technical pillar relates to stable isotope ratio testing for cotton origin verification Now stable isotopes Are isotopes of the same element That do not appear to undergo radioactive decay They're usually the light elements And their ratios because they don't decay remain constant For example the ratio of oxygen 18 to oxygen 16 or carbon 13 to carbon 12 Or deuterium to hydrogen Those ratios are very stable Now cotton is grown In many places around the world and the isotopic ratios of those elements around the world were really established thanks to the big bang And they change only slowly So that you can use the ratio of those isotopes to track the origin if done with care Now for more than 10 years Applied dna has developed and updated a global cotton reference library From many commercial growing areas Aided in part By a usda credo Now this three-dimensional Scatogram With axes of the isotopic ratios for those three elements shows how cotton reference fibers form Singular regions that aggregate Enabling the identification of the geographic origin of an unknown sample You can see how different regions within the us compare to regions such as australia india and egypt But these are for 100% cotton fibers What happens when you blend a cotton fiber With another Fiber say recycled pt Or if you have a cotton fiber That has been extensively treated with finishes enough to change the mass DNA tagged Cotton fiber in west texas in order to carefully track these bells Before tagging we genotyped The endogenous dna to ensure that the gin feedstock was exactly as they claimed We prepared 60% cotton 40% recycled pet As gray yarn gray fabric and finish fabric made from that tag cotton Now at first glance These samples all appear to look like cotton from china The isotopic ratio the recycled pet was different enough from the west texas cotton to overlay the samples on the position Within the scatogram that would normally represent chinese cotton Therefore if you don't Prepare your samples carefully if you don't know the identity of what's in your fiber It's possible to have false positives using isotopic analysis You need to be able to subtract the contribution to the isotopic ratios Made by blended components or fabric finishes By analyzing the isotopic ratio of the pure recycled pet And subtracting that Proportionately from the blended fiber you can see that the gray yarn gray fabric and finish fabric All moved to be consistent with west texas fiber In textiles, there are many variables that can impact the overall isotopic profile such as bleaches fire retardant coatings blended fibers such as with viscose polyester and others Therefore the potential of a false positive is always there if you don't identify the cotton components Properly in the very first place But the key point here is that The dna tagged fiber enables us to validate the authentic cotton and also prevent a blending artifact With non-tag materials that might promote false positives Which brings us back to the true origin of cotton? You have to know where your cotton is sourced from we have three tools that contribute to that isotopic abundance genotyping Where we rely upon my new differences in the endogenous dna of cotton fibers that correspond to different species Varietals and geographic origins and we use dna tagging Since 2012 applied dna has tag tested and tracked from the source at the gin to yarn Fabric and finished goods over 400 million pounds of american fiber cotton fiber Our system has been well tested and withstood the challenge Without the tagging there can be doubt and uncertainty Because there are infinite ways to blend cotton die and bleaches Our system is simple Once manufactured at scale a unique dna tag is applied onto the fiber itself Typically at the gin of the spinner Before the tagging we use our genotyping and isotopic testing to verify the feed stack Using genotyping we have developed and patented assays to discriminate between the two dominant cotton species And for some of the varietals within a species So for example, we can determine whether cotton is barbadency or hosudum or within barbadency whether it's egyptian or american The tag can be specific to the gin or to the spinner And once tagged you can verify it in raw materials finished products and you can also use the tag in packaging The assay for the tag is a simple PCR test that can be done in the lab or on site in less than an hour So here's how it works Traceable fibers are tagged using our dna transfer system Each dna tag bail is associated with a bail id and issued a certificate Portable PCR units the colorful ones you see in the bottom there Can be used to test at each stage of the supply chain from the fiber all the way to finished goods And these portable units are about the size of a coffee can Way about a pound And they can run from 16 to 32 Samples every 40 minutes and one day you could easily test 300 samples at a cost of less than $15 per sample it saves time in production And testing time as well So all of that data Can be tracked in our secure cloud our certainty portal Which complements other digital and blockchain methods Now we have the cotton library The advances in next generation sequencing and in bioinformatics That can identify specific dna Cotton types and their origin Mutations take place frequently in the complex cotton genome Which in some ways is more complicated than our own Laboratories across the world have identified nearly 50,000 50,000 Single nucleotide polymorphs. That's a single change of one letter in the genome And a SNP is at a single site With only one letter change SNPs are responsible for many human diseases All 50,000 SNPs Are mutations that occur randomly Or in hotspots at known locations in the cotton genome It is likely That many of these mutations can be used to characterize the origin of cotton Within a geographic gene pool much like Darwin's finches And as I show we'll show you we've done for Giza and it provides A means to uniquely identify The dna from Xinjiang cotton So the benefits of dna tagging and genomic testing are you can be accountable for your own cotton And supply chain it's faster more affordable and scalable It's a portable forensic testing That can reduce lead times and the potential for false positives Now becomes vanishingly small This is what I referred to a moment ago Once mapped as we have done here genetic changes Become biomarkers that can be used to identify specific cotton varietals Here's an example of how dna testing has already been done For egyptian Giza 94 Once the change has been mapped as shown in this electro faragram Simple pcr assays can be designed that can be utilized for testing anywhere in the world Using next generation sequencing and related methods We can genotype cotton dna from different regions of the world providing a faster And more precise way To authenticate cotton So why are we all here today? We want to know that there is no Xinjiang cotton in our samples And we also want to get cotton That we know we can trust We've developed the systems the tests to identify global cotton And we're working on developing a diagnostic genome Genomic dna test for Xinjiang cotton That would significantly help in resolving potential false positives And also a means to test global cotton faster and more effectively And with me today in the audience are Andrew and Mei Lin You want to raise your hands And I'll be leaving in an hour or so But feel free to continue the dialogue with Mei Lin and Andrew And with that I'd be happy to take any questions Well listen, thank you very much All right, our next presenter is from Covisis who will be presenting on a revolutionary Tagless track and trace solution for item And item and package level Covert traceability to meet regulatory requirements and the presenter for Covisis Is Dr. Nuresh Menon Who is the CEO of Covisis He has over 30 years of industrial research development and product launch experience He's passionate about addressing issues that impact consumer confidence in areas such as e-commerce and where regulations require item level traceability Such as aerospace medical and automotive He received his phd in physics from Purdue With an emphasis in sensor fabrication Instrumentation and novel data analytic methods His early career was spent at Corning Incorporated and with Northrop Grumman Mission systems Good afternoon I'm Nuresh Menon the CEO and founder of Covisis So Covisis stands for the co being shared and vice is for vision Really excited to be here We have not done any particular programs or projects directly related to CBP, so it's a real honor to be here Most of our work has been in supply chain traceability for other sectors Where there are higher regulatory barriers for requiring product level traceability So what i'm going to talk about I mean, this is a great Session to be in because we have two other speakers who have talked about biologically inspired traceability We're going to talk about another way of using biologically inspired traceability using nature to Figure out where your parts come from There's a clicker here. I'm told I'm sorry. I think I seem to be the only one with an issue Thank you so much Sorry about that. It's kind of embarrassing to be a video alum and not being able to use a clicker So, you know, we've had two days of sessions of very informative and sort of passionate issues about false labor So I put myself in the shoes of CBP the host of this event and said what is their big problem It's an overwhelming problem How do you know and how do you rapidly identify who the bad actors are? Because we talked about supply chain. There are many many tiers as you go deeper into the layer of the supply chain and and there's Over three and a half trillion dollars worth of goods coming to the country And how do we make sure who to trust? Because every supply chain is commingled and there are people with far less resources And require far as resources to commingle the supply chain and create confusion and cost and at the end This is all cost that's transferred to the end user The intermediaries along the chain and we as consumers have to pay for it. And how do we find a way to solve this problem? So So we developed what is called as a virtual tag So today's solutions for traceability I mean we talked there've been many sessions and talks about data How we want to trust the data of our supply chain But at the end to trust the data as a previous speaker spoke You need to a way of physically associating your data with the article itself Now this is not new historically. We all have bar codes qr codes direct part marking Even taggons such as the dna tag and sessions that we talked about But they're all physically attaching a label to your part This is possible in many cases But then there are many many many components and parts when either the article is incredibly small Or change applying a tag changes the performance of the part Or applying the tag requires you to re-qualify the component itself Then you become come to a case many cases where millions of parts cannot be tagged So if you cannot physically tag it and if you don't have a way to access the tag, we need another solution Uh, so a solution is needed that is immutably linking a component to its data And what we've developed is called a virtual tag Now a virtual tag is not something, you know, uh Hand wavy or blockchain what it actually is is we it's a bio inspired way of looking at a as an article and Create extracting is fingerprint So we take an image of the part and from that part we take the surface texture, which is at the micron scale And is well published that these textures are incredibly unique Even if you move around within the same article itself and using that texture We kind of take that create a fingerprint which is immutably linked to the part itself I'm going to see if there's a if the video can be queued So using that photograph and the surface texture we create two components One is a traceability fingerprint. The other is classification So we can actually tell where the parts made what kind of processes were made if they're common features And then actually serialized and if needed individually serialize every part to dual factor authentication You have a serialized number and then we verify it with our virtual tag And it's unique uh incredibly unique we have done And I'll get into the more details of what is the smallest size and speed In a second, so just as a recap So it is an imaging technology It takes us less than two seconds one and a half seconds to take an image And from that at the edge extract the surface texture Create the fingerprint and then link it to it's either an enrollment phase or at a verification phase It's a portable camera system. We have built it into robotic systems for mass production At at inline processing it can be done at the Field of use it can be used in statistical sampling of your of your lot We do mostly rigid components. We don't do cotton And other textiles directly, but we'll do the package which it's It's immutable It's part of the system itself and it's covered you never know where we have put the v tag Only we as the authors of the of the technology And the sponsors will tell you where the v tag is and we don't change the package the manufacturing or processing Of the of the system at all. It's all image based The way we work with our Customers and supply chains is we create tokens. So these are Tokens are a few kilobytes in size and we link the data from one source from one erp system to another erp system Just like you would do with a barcode So what are operational capabilities? We have been in business for quite a few years We were all funded by the department of defense And we develop a tech stack using the defense applications. We are we've done complex parts such as aircraft engine, which are high temperature They cannot put a physical tag on them. They're required to be traceable We work with the u.s. Air force. We work with defense Microtronics agency microtronics components. We trace it from the wafer to the die to the package and beyond We work with automotive companies, which you see down there are Airbag initiators we trace it by the pin, which is half a millimeter in diameter We do for medical devices. We work on implantable screws. So the idea is that it's incredibly Fast for inline use and is designed to be Minimal added cost to your operations because we have a machine vision camera, which is bolt-on to your process flow Well, that's our system It's a pretty straightforward of the camera system that we use Similar to something you would buy from cognacs or other machine vision camera systems our intellectual properties how we extract the image and How we take the surface texture out of it and it can be configured for multiple application spaces So this is a quick case study. I wanted to share Um, you know, one of the challenges what we found in the industries that we work in is compliance is good Is important. It's needed to protect lives, but there's also cost As many speakers have also alluded to it So this is a case study we did funded by the missile defense agency The regulations require that microtronics that go into our weapons systems are fully traced Um, and what we did was we worked with authorized distributors as well as An integrator such as Boeing and how a microtronic component from the distributor to Boeing can be immutably traced Many many hundreds of parts the whole po systems were created for doing the traceability data transfer and showing the assurance And this is very important because from that we realized Which was a surprise our whole goal was to show that you know, we can have an immutable traceability link But we started to show that we can actually eliminate costs because a lot of at every time A component is handed off from one distributor to the other. There's testing costs. There's validity costs Evaluation costs and those just add up and within within a year We were able to show savings to a quarter of a million dollars and a very small pilot program Which makes it cost effective if for the system itself because you're eliminating duplicative costs And I think that's very important for those audience to realize that if you adopt the right traceability solution and the data solutions You're actually cost neutral to actually saving costs because these regulations are not going to go away We require we're required to comply and if you comply if you comply the right way You can actually save costs So how do we address a cbp like problem? So we've not done anything For the cbp. So this is a hypothetical case study The example would be You have an authorized source an authorized distributor that you have Qualified as your distributor or a manufacturer in a source and you can prevent any commingling In any gray market product introduction into that secure supply chain at the end It is the manufacturer or the Purchasers responsibility to establish a secure supply chain But you want to make sure that it's not defeated by gray market products and that's what we can do in a very cost effective way We have done tamper resistant tags Which is you can put your own tag and we will v tag that label and make sure that it hasn't been tampered with We will do things like part level traceability And finally as I mentioned to you earlier We've seen time and time again that as you increase trust in your supply chain You actually systematically reduce cost. You're talking about less testing, but you're also talking about Suppliers that we work with are motivated to do traceability because you can actually do faster payments I mean, they're very excited to be able to pay it faster. It's not stuck somewhere in customs It's not stuck somewhere in supply chain. Hey We are giving you an immutable Way of guaranteeing that the product that you have is what you what you said You're going to ship and that data travels to the customer instantaneously So how can we help you? Thank you. Good afternoon. Very interesting. Thank you Brenda Smith with expeditors. You mentioned Part level tag Can you do at the unit level or would the picture look the same? Could you give an example of what you mean by unit level? So if I have a palette of something And I want to know Or I have two palettes of the same good Both produced I know what the fingerprint is on the legitimate, but let's say the other palette is gray market came from the same factory Same production techniques, but it was it's not authentic. It wasn't licensed. Can I tell the difference? Yes, so we don't we are designed to wherever we can put an image wherever you have your trusted Label so for example if you take a palette and you seal it and you put a label on it We can verify that label is what your trusted source applied And even if it's so for example V tags are applicable on paper based or any other Physical label you you know like a tamper resistance seal if you break it and if you defeat it We know that that tamper seal has been broken because it's is one of a kind So the so you have to combine the label with the the product itself Yes, so so you have to have a trusted source Where you know the provenance of your product and once you have that trusted source We can do other part or palette or wherever you put your trusted seal. Okay. Thank you Sure. Thank you. Hi. Um, that was a really interesting presentation. Thank you for that My name is Virginia. I I'm wondering about it sounds like this is mostly applicable to finished goods You mentioned that there's some part level traceability I'm wondering if you have any clients or if you think it could be applicable To if you imported a finished good, but there was one kind of sub component that was of concern Has anyone applied it in that respect to try to tag that sub component and then No for us. It's any rigid article. So for example We could v tag the buttons on your on your jacket or zippers. So anything that's a physical rigid component That's where we work best So anything that's that retains and as long as the surface does not get abraded or removed We can assure our v tag survives Was that helpful very helpful. Thank you Good Thank you. All right. Well, we'll um, we'll take a break And then we'll get into our next round of industry presentations. So Why don't we return back here at uh, 215? All right. I'd like to welcome everyone back from the break So we're in the home stretch. So we've got our last group of Last but definitely not least last group of presentations Uh, and we will start off with uh, trust trace who is Presenting on a AI based solution for Uighur for Saber prevention act trade compliance so Pauline miss Pauline god who is The head of partnerships and a product manager for ufl pa has over 10 years of experience and sustainability management in the apparel industry Pauline holds an academic background in economics and environmental science And she's based in stock home where she's been working at at the trust trace headquarters for the past Past five years So with that, I'd like to welcome Pauline Thank you so much My name is Pauline Um, I'm here to present the trust trace ufl pay solution And the trust trace i'm the product owner of the ufl pay solution as well as manage the partnership ecosystem Which over the days, we heard a lot about partnerships a lot about Collaboration which makes me very happy because there is no one Silver bullet solution to to tackle this So Trust trace. We're also a SAS platform. We've heard that a couple of times today We work with the parallel industry for supply chain traceability and transparency for product and material traceability and compliance We're based in stock home in sweden and we have offices today in india where we have our technical headquarters in the u.s. And in france Now we're around 120 people and run some of the largest traceability programs in the world Monthly we follow around two and a half million transactions of material movements today And we have about 45 different customers And 8 000 to 10 000 suppliers on boarded on the platform today we populated a lot of more suppliers data, but on boarded on the platform We're trusted by some of the leading enterprise apparel brands in industry today and have a very agile and connected Team working to solve the different challenges that the apparel brand phase today We're also very connected with the different Players in the apparel industry and on the point of being connected. This is just quickly. I want to mention some of the partnerships and the memberships we have today at trustrace This is key to accelerating sustainable change in the industry today. We need to partner And we have also just recently partnered with caron. We're proud for that. This means that our customers can Leverage the current list of restricted entities directly on the trustrace platform And they will of course bring more confidence to the data that is connected or collected in our platform Last year we also launched two different resources that have been very well received in the industry today We have the traceability playbook and these are open source. You can download them on our websites So the traceability playbook is a guide on traceability for apparel industry It was co-authored with some of the leading industry players such as fashion revolution and fashion for good And then we also have the knowledge hub which is a curated summary of some of the traceability Insights the trends the laws and regulations that are affected the industry So about the ufo solution that we have today It's a set of features that consist of three different components. So first of all, we have the supply chain mapping Here brands can discover and declare the supply chain and it's to help them to make the decisions before placing a purchase order So it's this proactive approach that we have heard sometimes these days We have evidence collection and submission This is after the goods have been Are ready for shipment. So it's too sure that the shipments would comply. For example with the ufo pa And from an approach standpoint, you should always have this data already So all of this data should be collected proactively if you don't do that It's it takes some time. It will not most probably not be ready in 30 days But it's of course approach that we recommend and then we have dashboard and reports and all these things for actionable insights in In real time and these three components together forms a very powerful approach for both risk detection as well as risk mitigation So as I said, we're a platform we help brand work across the supply chain and We helped them to expand the networks and insight continuously because this is ongoing continuous work Um as the supply chain information differs across product. This is also key There's not one sourcing strategy that all brands use it will differ if it's a t-shirt if it's a jacket or depending There will be several sourcing strategies So we need to um to have solutions and offer solutions for all these different sourcing strategies So here we see a combination of product insights into the supply chain mapped together with the data confidence level So this is an overview and I will delve into the different details of these different steps of the stairs in uh in the summary So starting from zero, we have the bottom of the stairs the um starting from zero we We we see this step when brands know little or almost nothing about the supply chain of a specific product that they are looking to investigate So the starting point then could be to use global average trade data However, as expected the confidence level when you use these kind of data sets could be quite low Because it represents a possibility of how the supply chain mapping looks like But it's not really validated on a product level or a lot level traceability So instead on level one, we do supply chain mapping with declarations And the brand stands sourcing strategies could be cut matrix or using traders for example so they would ask these suppliers to Um to fill in information who they're sourcing from that is who they're working with Populate that data into the trustry's platform and form the supply chain mapping If we go even one step up level two The supply chain mapping is then enriched with product data Collection so products or styles that are imported into the platform and the derived suppliers will also manually provide data on the product level And then the third level Is where the data gets even more granular which is often needed today at the material data collection So here the direct or the fabric supplier can provide the details of the yarn or the fibers That's used for making the fabric in the material right So naturally the more upstream you go the more granular data You will get and also the more confident you can be in the data that is collected So i'm going to just show you a bit of the use cases of how Our customers our brands are using the trustry's platform today It's sample data. We cannot give out the the data from our customers. Of course So first of all master data So the brand would have the master data in the plm systems and this is imported into the trustry's platform So this is a sample product of the data that our product that a brand wants to build a supply chain mapping form So when this is imported And depending on the traceability readiness or the levels that I just explained the the views can be a bit different So again, if we're starting from zero and we have this supply chain discovery where the the brands maybe just know the name of the direct supplier Starting point is to use global trade data to predict the supply chain so When a brand First imports this style into the platform it could look something like this so the only visible supplier that you can engage with on the platform would be the green supplier and the rest is just a prediction so we can sense the buyer we can sense the seller the The consignees but All this tinted information that you see it's a suggestion and the data collection could be Not validated. So it's not really sure that it's the true supply chain for that specific product So it's a it's a good start if you if you start that that's that's a good start But we always recommend to to gather more data so level one instead we Do the supply chain mapping again starting with the direct supplier, which is the green supplier that you see and Then they populate the data via declarations For the upstream supply chain. So the data such as supply name facility Material composition downstream suppliers et cetera are captured on the platform and visible to the brand and it would be the brand that is Mandating what data to be collected for this specific style So the green manufacturer you see on the screen that's on boarded on the platform And has declared the supply chain for style one two three but the the amber then represents that manufacturers that are Populated into the data. So the brand might not be able to manage and directly communicate with them But they will see the information So you see also some suppliers are gray and because of the supply chain mapping You realize that they are there in the network of the supplier, but they're not associated with that specific style A red triangle would of course visualize some risks detected for example by this third-party integration with a caron and two points here One of the major outputs when you do this work It's to whitelist the suppliers or to safeguard the suppliers that you're currently having a relationship with And then you can take some action from that data. So this whitelistening is almost equally important as blacklisting because it will It will put some pressure and I think we talked about incentives in some other sessions So this can put some pressure and incentives for your suppliers to declare even more information and continue this relationship with you And And of course at this level the brands also have the possibility to start to collect and validate data that At the different nodes. So already at this step one level up Looking at the u of lb requirements You have a far more detailed supply chain mapping for the specific good The details and the nodes of the the suppliers will be there You have the possibility of course to download this list to send it to authority or for some moan due diligence measures and You can create this digital chain of custody to validate the the digital supply chain of this good already at Level two we go a bit more granular a bit more detailed So here the direct suppliers again are on boarded and the product bill of material would be collected So this brings an even more granular and higher confidence in the data that you have collected And brands can go deeper in the supply chain for products that they would Classify as critical and critical. It could be cotton product or it could be Product that is a flagship product or something like this So again the green suppliers will represent the suppliers that are on boarded on the trust race platform The amber are the ones whose data is just populated The red visualizes some risk And the gray they're not a part of this specific style And then is it all together helps again whitelist the suppliers that you would like to continue working with So at the third level even more granular with material data collection. So here you have your tier two on boarded as well It's not usual, but it's also not uncommon to to have this level of granularity But so the material suppliers is providing supply chain data about the yarn or the fiber suppliers as well So once either these direct or the sub suppliers provide this information on the fabric The the supply chain mapping will be more specific and more reflected accordingly The data collection that you can Upload on the material level can also be the material id or material name Manufacturing name composition, etc. And it can look something like this So now we can go into evidence collection for a sample purchase order. So what we've seen up till now are some samples of how Brands should do before placing an order, right? So to proactively collect and detect and mitigate risks in the supply chain now We are transitioning to pre shipment This is a visual of how the evidence collection may look like for a specific purchase order So let's say it's time for submission and As we know cotton comes with a very complex supply chain and it's a highly prioritized material So you need to collect a bunch of documents And let's say it could be purchase orders. It can be invoices packing lists work orders bill of ladings, etc so we have also built in a translation capability on the platform such that if the documents which often are not in English needs to be translated That can happen automatically and they can be ready for for shipment of submission to some authority So it's not only That we collect these documents for shipments for an authority such as the cbp in terms of ufl pa It could also be for internal validation for due diligence measures or for For your analysis internally So to sum up what trust rates do today for the brands In this apparel industry is we we often trust the data from day one So even if you have very little data to start with You can start Right away and we we have a platform that is intuitive and easy to use for the suppliers Because think about it's also the suppliers that are working and need to need more incentives to do this It should be easy and and quick The granularity and the data conference level it will get higher and more confidence as you go We offer this flexible approach for the different sourcing models as I mentioned because there's not one sourcing model for the All the goods out there in the parallel industry or or in any industry And we accommodate for that. It's a complexity. We're also enterprise ready and we work at scale already We have millions of transactions and thousands of suppliers up and running on the platform already today and Also, importantly, we have this ecosystem approach and we are integration ready. We have apis in and out We have partnered with the key industry leading players So to sum up We have helped brands map their supply chain and collect evidence for about six seven years now It's been all from sustainability front runners to enterprise brands And engaging closely with our customers. We have come to realize that what we have It's not brain surgery. It's it's quite straightforward But we have a good solution that accommodates for u of lpa and it adheres to these different sourcing strategies even if it's supply chain mapping or data collection validation of goods and enabling this connection or discussion with the suppliers So thank you. That's very short about our solution. We're happy to demo and to answer questions If no questions, we will be at the end of the room. Right next presenting is ascent Ascent will be presenting on supply chain mapping methodologies for u of lpa operational guidance and compliance that enhances Supplier screening and regulatory guidance now presenting for ascent is dr. Abhi opechi Um Abhi supports companies in their efforts to integrate human rights into corporate risk management frameworks and supply chain risk analysis She helps companies develop and implement foresaber risk management strategies and address other social risks In a supply chain in compliance with internal and external standards for several corporate offices Abhi holds a phd in public law and human rights Also presenting for ascent is jamie wallish Who is the who is a regulatory and sustainability expert? esg and responsible sourcing jamie's area of expertise is media monitoring specializing in indirect screening And response indirect screening and responsible sourcing She helps companies proactively analyze their supply chains for adverse media mentions Denied parties and human rights issues Jamie has worked closely with the u.s. Department of Labor focusing on conflict minerals child labor csr and esg initiatives Okay, um, good afternoon, and um, thank you to the cbp for this opportunity to present at this event My name is abhi opechi. I am a regulatory and sustainability expert at ascent I'm joined by my colleague jamie who will together will be walking you through ascent some solution for the ufl pa okay, so About before we go into what our solution looks like Just a little bit about ascent who we are as a company Ascent is a data is a supply chain data management company And we help companies to identify and address The compliance risk across a wide range of topics within their supply chain We've been around since 2010 And we have over a thousand employees across four continents Our customer base is primarily within the complex manufacturing space. So we're looking at um, aerospace and defense um automotive industry the electronics industry industrial equipment and medical devices One of the things that we're most proud of as a company is the fact that we're the only north american company that is both Big up certified as well as holding Advanced status with the u and global compact. So we work at all Awesome. Hi everybody jamie wallish pleasure to be here with you all today Um, so just to give a little more context into who ascent is right really want a level set So we if you want to move to the next slide A position ourselves in the the sass platform worlds as a supply chain sustainability partner So what that means is we engage with our clients in all supply chain initiatives That could obviously impact them in terms of their growth around sustainability So we perform and help support data collection in regards to esg as well as product compliance and trade compliance The elements in terms of services that we deliver Include managed services as well as expert guidance, which we'll definitely go into in more detail later on in the presentation But today obviously for the the purposes of this expo, we are going to dive into our ufl pa solution Just to to be mindful and add the caveat that this is just one of the many regulations That ascent follows and it helps deliver in terms of compliance Thanks jamie so um We know from research that more than 90 percent of forced labor occurrences actually occur in The supply chains of private enterprises and of course complex manufacturers Fall into that category, but we also recognize that some of the solutions that are out there for Industries that have shorter and less complex supply chains like the Apparel industry or food industry may not be quite as effective for companies in the complex manufacturing space and so what ascent has done is to tailor a solution That is directly that directly responds to the needs of Complex manufacturers in a way that is aligned to the guidance that the cbp has set out there So for most of us here would be aware that last month cbp released a new set of guidance What is called due diligence or best practices recommendations for what companies should do to in relation to the ufl pa both to prevent Um detention and in the event that the detention does occur what to do with that and so We have tailored our solutions to Marked to each one of these elements these requirements by the cbp And we're going to be walking you through what does each one of those things mean from our sense perspective Yeah, great. Thanks abby. So um before we get into those kind of four major elements. We really want to um Articulate the the baseline and foundation in terms of the solution that we offer regarding ufl pa So kind of the the two main pillars or what you can think of as our approach Is the 360 degree approach and the two main pillars are articulated here one on the left is the direct engagement So we're directly communicating and collaborating with the entities in your supply chain To capture information around those topics that are material to you in this case. It's the ufl pa On the other side of that the other kind of supporting mechanism Um and the other pillar is the enhanced supplier screening or that indirect piece So the exact opposite of direct engagement where we're taking the list of entities in your supply chain and scrutinizing them through the public domain So let's dive more into that kind of second pillar enhanced supplier screening And that really touches on the first element recommended by the cbp, which is the maintain awareness So enhanced supplier screening um is positioned as the methodology to have continuous visibility and exposure Into risks um or unknown hidden risk that's out there within the public space And this isn't not only associated with um suppliers or entities that you give us But as well as their legal affiliations and who they're directly and indirectly associated with Um the elements and features incorporated within the ess solution Includes that we screen on a daily basis in over 200 Million digital sources and platforms. So as you can imagine a wide breath Of sources and material we're trying to capture information from We screened in over 18 plus languages in the native language to make sure that we don't miss any context or substance That's being identified within that information And obviously this is going on at an international and global scale. So we're screening in over 182 countries Yeah, and the second piece of that um guidance is for companies to assess the risk within their supply chain So they can make informed decisions And so that speaks to the second part that um jamie mentioned about a direct engagement. So what we do is um We directly engage your suppliers. Yes, um the kind of open source data That um jamie has spoken about and I think a number of um of presenters have also talked about They are useful But there's the potential there for them to leave gaps Because unless you are capturing every single one of your suppliers with those um kind of open source data Then there are some of your suppliers you're not actually looking at and so the direct engagement piece What it does is it allows you to directly go to your suppliers and ask them and find out What what are their inherent risks? What kind of risk is um associated with them? And what kind of control measures do they have in place to address those risks? But the the solution that we use for this um direct engagement is known as the um slavery and trafficking risk templates Which is an industry risk template um developed by the social responsibility alliance It's been optimized for the zinjiang first labor question um issue and it helps companies to actually Take a risk based approach in that they can look at a specific commodity and use that um tool to trace down Through their suppliers where what is the provenance? What is the origin of those goods? And then you know to understand where the risks lie So that gives a broad depth of insight, you know much more broader than just the open source data on its own And then the other piece the last two pillars of the uflp of the um cbp's guidance kind of looks at how What you're supposed to do to prevent your detention and to overcome detention if it does happen What we do at ascent is we will provide education So we educate your suppliers on the different regulations related to um first labor in particular for this instance The uflp as well as your companies what you need to be doing And then you are in a position to then leverage the risk information That you gather through your direct engagement through your indirect engagement and make an informed decision Do I want to continue operating or um, you know Partnering with this um company or do I want to make any changes? And then you're also able to use all of that information that you gather to build an evidentiary record Which alongside the you know trade transactional documents that the cbp Requires you know to get your goods out of detention You can't provide to the cbp to show evidence of your due diligence that you're actually doing not just what is Expected of you, but you're going beyond over and beyond and um at this junction We're just going to pause for a minute and take a look at a brief Demo of what this whole solution looks like in practice How ascent works Ascent simplifies supplier collection through software and services to identify risks Ascent provides a unique instance of the ascent sustainability manager software to the customer and stores all information collected And this helps identify risks associated with horse labor ESG topics such as climate impact as well as product compliance Starting with the supplier information and the bills and materials provided our team will reach out to the suppliers through an email campaign And manage all communications with suppliers with multi language capability Our supplier success team will be there to help answer your suppliers questions with guidance from our regulatory expert team The uflpa topic can be new to suppliers and the training and support ascent offers will help increase their understanding As well as their responses as your program progresses We can offer more by providing corrective actions based on the evidence review of the policies the supplier provides We will monitor suppliers indirectly using our enhanced suppliers screening to track any adverse media or sanctions lists This along with the direct engagement will give you a 360 review of your supply chain The supplier completes these surveys and corrective action tasks through the free supplier portal Then we offer the results in the form of sustainability report inserts dashboards and other reports All of the topics and surveys are based on the gri framework and sasby reporting recommendations that are overseen by our regulatory experts The first cbp best practice recommendation of maintaining awareness can be met with a sense enhanced supplier screening Our screening can include all suppliers by looking for issues clients went self-report on like child labor Or anti bribery complaints Through corporate tax records We will identify any legal affiliates or beneficial owners of those suppliers and include them in our monitoring This dashboard shows the relevant hits using negative sentiment analysis Using a combination of AI and a team of experts. We will rank these hits high medium or low for example High hits include any denied parties or sanctions lists dashboard filters can narrow down the results In the insights page by your company's business units Any categories or even specific keywords such as weager all of these filters can be used To help identify trends over time As well as display a heat map of where those hits are by which country the second Best practice recommendation of assessing risk and make informed decisions can be met with the strt Ascent asks suppliers to complete the slavery and trafficking risk template or strt This is an industry template Developed by the social responsibility alliance that has been used since 2016 More than 10,000 companies use it to uncover forced labor risks and comply with a wide range of regulations Since 2020 the strt has been specifically optimized to capture weaker forced labor risks One of the greatest strengths of the strt Is its commodity specific traceability approach that allows companies to assess suppliers on the origins of the goods they supply For example, if you were interested in the origins of aluminum in your products Your suppliers would be asked to provide information on the sourcing of that specific product alongside their general forced labor due diligence Suppliers of course complete this questionnaire and demonstrate their internal controls They have in place to prevent forced labor and these are supported by evidence such as policies Ascent also offers a service to review these policies and evidence to verify They need internationally recognized standards and are appropriate to mitigate risk We then offer corrective actions to the supplier to help guide them in creating stronger policies to help prevent forced labor As suppliers upload their completed strt's we will digitize the responses to easily identify risks The dashboard will extract the top five risks Including your supply chain overall risk to human trafficking and slavery Katsa and the links to Xinjiang As part of the steps to assess risks being able to easily identify those suppliers with higher risks Will allow you to make informed decisions before importing your goods The individual responses can be seen here and clicking on the supplier's name will open the individual suppliers profile page Where we can see the responses to the survey as well as any policies they've uploaded Understanding the specific parts purchase from that supplier can be seen here because of a sense cross referencing Here we can see the parts and the part details including the country of origin As well as the HS codes We can apply filters by countries such as china quickly This solution also helps you be proactive in identifying and addressing goods and materials that are not necessarily on cbp's high priority list But for which enforcement actions are being taken as we've seen with aluminum and pvc The third and fourth recommendations of prevent and overcome goods detention can be met with the information gathered This information derived from direct engagement with suppliers Indirect risk assessment through enhanced supplier screening as well as the country of origin information You are now equipped to make informed decisions based on these risks For example, you can determine which of your suppliers have links To Xinjiang and work to remove and eliminate them from your supply chain to prevent detention Our regulatory experts will educate your suppliers and their role in ensuring the goods they supply have no nexus to force labor Generally and to Xinjiang particular in event that you do have goods detained and need to overcome detention You can take the information derived from your supply chain risk assessment To gather with other trade documentation such as transaction records and present it to cbp to prove your due diligence and ensuring your goods Have no nexus in short ascent can provide an audit trail as part of the evidentiary record as needed to your legal counsel To support your efforts to counter goods detention Okay, great. I also just want to give a quick shout out to Maria pool Who's a sales engineer at ascent that delivered this in depth and in thorough demonstrations So thank you to her who's watching To to close out our presentation here today. We just wanted to give a brief note on a business case of a complex manufacturer in the solar industry that came to ascent to utilize our ufl pa solution They were familiar with with ascent based off of again our positioning in the sass Industry as engaging as a supply chain sustainability partner. So they were interested in our ufl pa solution specifically So what we did is we deployed the elements that we talked about today to satisfy those needs So again that enhanced supplier screening to have that continuous monitoring and engagement of all the entities in their supply chain To capture risk within the public space And and make sure they're being very proactive in terms of that engagement and risk out there As well as incorporating that direct Supplier engagement via the strt So now they're very well equipped in positions to have that hard data Intraceable documentation to deliver and show You know their engagement with defensible due diligence obligations and programs. So with that being said, thank you guys so much for your time And we'll open the floor for any questions I literally have people texting me questions that couldn't be here. So I'm asking a question for The audience at large. What do you do with the gaps in the data? You're very bill of material driven and there are tiers to a bill of material in a complex manufacturing environment What happens if you can't get information at tier two tier three tier four? How does that? affect the overall results of your analysis Yeah, thank you for that question. So as someone said yesterday Suppliers are very driven by business interest. I mean their companies after all so and so with the uflpa coming into force lots of suppliers are beginning to understand that this is Cooperation with their with their customers is a condition of carrying on business And so that has tended to be an incentive for companies to provide information that's needed, you know at their own Within their own operations and from their own suppliers and one of the points that we did make in that presentation is the ability of the strt to facilitate a traceability approach For specific commodities and it's similar to some of the approaches that has been demonstrated here It's a cascading approach and for those who are familiar with the conflict mineral space And are familiar with the conflict minerals template the same way that you collect information from subsequent tiers To find your way down to the um smelters, you know of interest is the same way the strt operates So it collects um information from um, you know subsequent tiers of your supply chain Great question. Thank you Thank you for a great presentation. My name is mary. I'm an attorney at miller and chevelier I was i'm really interested in this sort of 360 Idea that you guys have and i'm wondering if you sort of use that to leverage information that you've gathered in the reaching out to suppliers phase and Sort of overlay it on top of the other mapping that you do to authenticate one way or another Yeah, thank you for that and that's absolutely what we try to to tackle is the complementary approach between those different methods of data collection So really how I articulate in position Enhanced suppliers screening is a supporting mechanism to what you're doing on the direct engagement side And also really labeling it a trust but verify solution So you're going out directly engaging with your suppliers You're trying to trust them in terms of what they're uh communicating and delivering to you But sometimes there's gaps. Sometimes they're unknowns. Sometimes they don't respond reply at all, right? So that's when ess comes in to help fill in those gaps But absolutely they should be used in that two pronged approach method And we really believe you you can't have one without the other when it comes to a strong Um foundation of defensible due diligence Yeah, great question. Thank you Great. Thank you. All right. This brings us to our final presentation Which is uh sts synergy technical services usa We're presenting on supply chain mapping methodologies for ufl pa operational guidance and compliance Presenting for sts is maria stoja nova She's the director of supply chain sustainability Sustainability services working towards testing inspection and certification in the solar and storage industry maria is passionate about the responsibility of enterprise for their impacts on society and prior to sts work at csr europe in belgium and with the un office of the high commissioner for human rights maria Hello Good afternoon. It is a pleasure to be here today. Thank you very much to cbp for the invitation to present the sts supply chain mapping methodology My name is maria stoja nova and i am director of supply chain sustainability services at sts I will start with giving you some context On the solar supply chain on who sts is and I will focus my presentation on our methodology for supply chain mapping And lastly, I would like to introduce to you our report sharing platform in terms of context 95 percent of solar panels today are produced with polysilicon And this is what the solar module polysilicon supply chain looks like It starts with the quartzite, which is mined from the ground Then it is melted into metallurgical grade silicon, which is further purified into solar grade polysilicon Cast into solar ingots, which are then sliced into wafers From that the solar cell is produced, which is Then assembled into the solar module Today More than 70 percent of the manufacturing at each of these stages takes place in china And for the solar ingot and solar wafer stage This percent goes as high as 95 percent And at sts, we know very well the solar supply chain Where the components are being produced. So this is actually where we are. We are global But our operations are focused in asia our headquarters in Shanghai And in china is where we have our largest fleet of inspectors and auditors We also have our local teams in malaysia, thailand, vietnam and india We have about 100 employees the majority of whom are engineers and are On the ground in the solar facilities where the solar panels are being manufactured A little bit more on what we do We are an audit and inspection body We support the procurement efforts of the solar and energy storage developers We are the pioneers in the solar space We were established in 2010 We are ISO certified which means that we need to avoid any conflict of interest And for this reason we are contracted by the buyers Not by the manufacturers whom we audit We are highly specialized in renewables not only solar but also energy storage and wind And the services we perform for our clients are inspection, testing, auditing and advisory So basically we are the boots on the ground for our clients. We are in the factories 24-7 while the panels are being manufactured making sure that The quality specifications in the purchase agreements are being adhered to And because we are trusted partner for our clients when the HOSHA and WRO was put into place and then later on the UFLPA And there was a need to be conducting traceability audits. We were asked to To start this type of verification as well looking at the traceability systems in place and the documentation available So this is when We developed our supply chain methodology about started about two years ago And I would like to talk a little bit more about how we do supply chain mapping for the solar sector The objective is to verify the suppliers at each stage of the supply chain And then afterwards to verify the provenance of the materials and components And we look at the supply chain Starting with solar module going all the way up to quartzite We developed this methodology based on our deep knowledge of the supply chain our established audit methods And we took as a basis the solar energy association supply chain traceability protocol Which we were the co-authors of in 2021 And we made sure that when the cbp's operational guidance for importance was published that our methodology is completely in line with the guidance our clients Use the supply chain mapping when they're qualifying suppliers and us bound supply chains In order to assess the risk That the products may fall within the scope of the UFLPA Our methodology has three steps First we start with a scope agreement The client and the manufacturer define the product that we are going to map This means that we need to know the manufacturing facility We need to know the manufacturing dates how many pieces of solar modules were produced We also ask for the purchase order as a starting point And then we take this number of the purchase order and then we trace it along the entire supply chain Um The second step is Compiling a self declared list of manufacturers We ask for this as a first stage This is a self declared stage and we proceed to verify this declaration We verify the commercial link between the different entities in the supply chain As well as the traceability of the input And the output at each stage of manufacturing We do that through sampling of documentation And the three types of documentation that we collect and verify commercial records Such as contracts purchase orders invoices proof of payment We look at transport records Which would include packing lists, bill of lading, customs documentation, certificate of origin And also importantly we look at the production records Which are usually kept within the manufacturing facilities such as the incoming materials receipt warehousing records Certificate of analysis the MES records which contain the batch numbers of the input and output And then depending on the documents that we receive for the different suppliers We have four different levels of verification, which we report on If we receive no information at all, this is the unknown level When we receive information even if this information is very detailed and we sometimes receive from manufacturers Details on on the batch numbers for example that we used for certain production But if we have no supporting evidence Then this would remain at a self declared level So this is really our lowest level of confidence when we receive this information, but we're not able to verify it If we have access to documentation, then that's our next level A verification documented level Where we are able to verify the link between the different suppliers But not really trace the product. So this is really the highest level verification Where we have the traceability between input and output usually looking at the batch numbers This is an example of the visuals that we have in the deliverables Our deliverables are reports to our clients In which we map out the supply chain So we present all of the suppliers in the supply chain Which here in this slide you can see are marked with different numbers In different colors. So this is the level of verification that we have reached For each supplier part of the supply chain This example here was put together for the purposes of this presentation But it is actually Very indicative of the level of verification that we're currently seeing within the industry We are able In many cases in most cases to read verification until polysilicon and then upstream There is visibility But it's more difficult to obtain the documentation in order to reach the highest level of verification It is challenging, but I have to say it is possible and it has been done It is just at this moment an exception rather than the norm But I believe that the sector is evolving and for the past two years We have seen huge changes in the level of verification that we can achieve Our supply chain mapping is complemented by a traceability management system audit This is something that we do at site level We evaluate the manufacturer's ability to consistently trace product information We look at how traceability is set up within the site How resources are allocated if enough resources are allocated What is the security of the data but also security of the incoming materials? And lastly how traceability is operationalized within all of the different processes within the manufacturing facility We have based this audit on ISO standards again on the sales supply chain traceability protocol And have made sure that is fully aligned with CVP's operational guidance for importers Our clients use this audit together with the supply chain mapping To evaluate whether a manufacturing facility has a robust traceability system in place And is able to supply reliable traceability information Which then goes on to feed in the supply chain mapping, which I just talked about The reports that we produce supply chain mapping reports and also the traceability management audit reports Can be shared with clients through our report sharing platform When we started traceability this traceability work two years ago We had requests from multiple clients to be conducting traceability audits at the same manufacturing facilities So we decided to group these requests and this is how this sharing platform was born whereby We conduct the assessment as a third independent party And we make the reports available to the clients who requested We launched this program two years ago in 2021. We currently have 40 members So these are the developers the buyers of the solar modules Who are interested to receive the reports on on their manufacturers We have 18 manufacturing manufacturers who are currently participating 52 available reports Spread over three assessment types. So supply chain mapping Traceability management system audit and then the third one is purely quality related. It's a Factory audit An important element here is the confidentiality of data Which is very important when we're talking about traceability and sharing information on suppliers and supply chains We're very careful with how we manage this data And this is why an important element is the authorization process in place The data is owned by the manufacturers themselves and We require the written authorization to share those reports with the clients who request access And this translates into a reduced volume of of audits Um, we don't need to go a number of times to the same manufacturing facility In order for the clients to be conducting data diligence We have designed this program also In line with the recommendations from the force labor enforcement task force for important companies to arrange joint audits and independent verification processes And lastly here, I want to mention our supply chain mapping track record I realized that in comparison to all of the numbers that have been shared here During these two days 18 might seem like a rather low number In comparison to 22,000 suppliers that we heard previously But actually these 18 manufacturers they represent about 40 percent of the Entire manufacturing capacity for solar modules worldwide And we have been conducting Supply chain mappings for not only for solar modules, but also solar cells Wafers ingots and polysilicon and the majority of that has been done in china since as we saw in the beginning This is where the supply chain lies But also vietnam, cambodia, thailand, india us And turkey I would like to leave you with these last three thoughts Traceability of the polysilicon supply chain Is challenging We are seeing great strides forward But I have to say that it still remains a challenge to go All the way up to court side in terms of documentation We have developed a robust solution for supply chain mapping Which we have been applying to the solar sector And lastly, we would like to invite also Other sectors to join in a similar way Initiatives to share reports such as the ones the one that we have developed with the sustainable supply chain program Thank you very much for your attention. And if you have any questions, I would be very happy to answer Hello, maria. Hi, christian roseland from clean energy associates founded in 2008 So I just wanted to ask you mentioned that you do factory audits. Sorry, you mentioned the factory audits. Yes Does that include polysilicon facilities and has your team been in any? We have conducted supply chain mapping at polysilicon facilities So far we have not been requested to conduct factory audits at polysilicon facilities So no presence in polysilicon facilities Well, our clients are the buyers of Solar modules and they are not directly interested in factory audits for the polysilicon part of the supply chain. Thank you Thank you very much All right, so that brings us to the end of the day.  So robert silvers Cherry chair nary turkle commissioner miller. Mr. Kit conklin Dr. Laura murphy and our federal partners at the department of labor deputy undersecretary thea lee The department of state special representative kelly fade rodriguez and from the hill professional staff member dr El niger yield to beer for their leadership and perspectives and commitments to advocacy to combating forced labor Most importantly, I want to thank every everyone from industry civil side civil society academia and government From both our executive and legislative partners And all the interested stakeholders that joined us here in person and virtually Over the last two days and for those that may be curious. We did a check online We did the check of all the folks that are streaming At lunchtime and today we peaked over 10,000 folks that are live streaming This event so really thank all the folks that are not only attending here in the room But also all the folks that are attending virtually as well. We really truly hope that it's been Quite informative for all of us and productive for for all of us in this engagement Just to highlight you know forced labor is a human right issue I think for you know, we've seen the faces We've seen we've heard some of the stories during over the last two days And for some of the for for those of us or some that may this may be the first time that Maybe you've heard these stories or maybe be the first time that you've seen these pictures I really hope that it's not the first time or not the last time that you take that you really Take a look into some of the accounts and you look at the issues I mean there's a lot of a lot of great reports out there from a lot of the the folks that you've seen in the room today that have produced Um materials reports books on all the the the crisis that's occurring overseas So I really hope that it starts our journey especially for folks that you know that those of us that are Involved in trade compliance and ESG work Especially as we look at how to tackle the issue of forced labor within our supply chains that you know We go in eyes wide open and really truly understanding the issues that are occurring in the Xinjiang region of china Now forced labor is an unfair trade practice that undermines the ability of companies That do treat workers fairly to compete in the global economy It's also the law and it's designed to make us collectively evaluate our supply chains And reduce our dependencies on illicit foreign manufacturing I think we should be proud As a nation as a government as the trade to be the leaders Um And the u.s. Is leading in this space right the trade is leading in the space And our like-minded partners globally around the world are leading and exemplifying this effort To eradicate and address the issues of forced labor that they're occurring overseas Due diligence and supply chains is the key to security and predictability To ensure that we are not complicit and unwitting consumers of goods produced and manufactured with forced labor And it's just good business Now more than ever for more reasons than just forced labor And we do see your efforts From the the ramp up of cbp's forced labor enforcement over the last several years Also with the implementation of the ufl pa we've seen large shifts in supply chains We've seen the trade really working at and exercising due diligence in their supply chains And from the data that that shows in the data dashboard that was released yesterday All that shows you know where we see reductions or shifts Is all kind of exemplary of a lot of the hard work and great work that trade is doing To really look into their supply chains and exercise due diligence within your supply chains and ensure That our supply chains are not going back to sources of forced labor The ufl pa is clear that we all share a collective responsibility to exercise due diligence As many have shared over the last two days this can be done And tools are available to help you What are these tools are technology service services To the articles that investigative media Spend a lot of time and work To publishing as well as the academic studies that are that are published That highlight some of the issues as well as the government reports that are provided and worked from the various departments and agencies across the government Due diligence is most effective when it's proactive and not reactive I think Justin mentioned it today from freedom That many of the methodologies and many of the technologies that you have heard about over the last two days have some similarities So really it's important to pick one one that matches Your company one that matches the way that That that fits your needs And start now And as laura as dr. Murphy shared this morning is that If you know as you put up on our slides that if we can see it, you know, so can you Sometimes it's really that simple I'm reminded of an instance where I had spoke Spoken with an importer who Had done an excessive amount of due diligence To make sure that the supply chain and their manufacturing chain was very refined that they vetted all the importers and sometimes and And so we had a call we discussed Just kind of as more of just an open discussion what they weren't under enforcement at the time and so You know and they showed us the supply chain Six six manufacturers within the supply chain before it was imported to the united states And so me I mean, I don't know, you know looking at these these manufacturers within their supply chain I don't know who they are and they're just names, right? And so I just do a quick google search while they're talking And all of a sudden, you know number three in their supply chain Glaring says relationship with the xpcc You know so sometimes it's just that easy Right and so when you when you highlight that to them, you know, maybe there is you know, some Some embarrassment or whatnot, but sometimes due due diligence can be that easy and so By the way, when I said google I wasn't endorsing it I think it was added to the dictionary as an as actual verb. So there is no endorsement there So I want to thank all the industry presenters that were willing to share their capabilities And your incredible work to figuring out creative and innovative approaches that support Industries effort to illuminate supply chains And to identify for saber risks and make informed to make informed business decisions We hope that this expo provided a unique forum that brings industry together with civil society academia And government to engage to network to build connections and promote a community of stakeholders that together confront our national commitment On the issues of forced labor together We look forward to hearing your feedback on on this expo I know we look forward to future opportunities to hear about your experience hearing from the technology service providers hearing from industry on your experience with these technologies And then bringing folks back together to have the opportunity to chat again So we'll be looking for that opportunity to do that potentially maybe at our upcoming trade summit in april, so we'll see See if that's a possibility we'll have be chatting with otr here with xd pullum and so Before we conclude the expo, I want to extend my sincere appreciation to the cbp team And to the department staff And the inter-agency members that had a part in planning and preparing and coordinating this event certainly a lot of late nights a lot of long hours had gone into Getting through a lot of the you know for those that may be Experience with the federal acquisition process Those that may be experienced with putting on a wedding or or some type of event like this It's not a not an easy ordeal So a lot of blood sweat and tears maybe not blood but a lot of sweat and tears had gone into the planning of this expo so really Really, thank you to the cbp team and the folks that had put this event together So thank you so much and for your support and collaboration on this very important mission It is really truly to see really wonderful to see everyone face to face. I know that Um, there's a lot of very familiar faces in this room I think when we get into this uh into this space that there is a lot of familiarity And it's really wonderful especially over the last couple years to really See the do the face-to-face engagement again Where you know, we've gotten used to just doing the exchanges over email, but I really appreciate that and I hope that This continues that we have the opportunity to to really engage face-to-face again, and it's just the start of this This type of engagement So I really just want to say I wish everyone A wonderful rest of the week and safe travels home To all the folks that are online in the virtual environment You know, I wish you all kind of the A great rest of the week as well and that uh that this has been a very productive And very fruitful Expo for everyone. So with that we'll conclude the expo and thank you for everyone's participation All right. Good morning. Boy, that's a tough act to follow, huh? I'm going to shift gears just a little bit. My name is Vincent Nunziata I'm the director for the business transformation and innovation division and um had the good fortune of working Both on modernization and innovation products, but also Working in some of the Uighur dilemmas that we're dealing with now Um, I have a great panel today. We'll be talking about innovation and how we're investing Some of these panelists when they turned in their bios. I expected to get a paragraph and I got autobiographies So it was quite the uh, I was like no seven sentences. That's all you're getting So we really got a hefty group. I want to though start off Um, you know, we talk about innovation Innovation the way that we term it is really the it's the art of change, right? Being able to find some efficiency whether that's in time Or money and that's what makes it worthwhile for us to invest Um, and recently I had a conversation with my son of all people that really starts to articulate that now He's my namesake.  Now I'm stunned here, right? And I'm trying to imagine where this is going because I know I've taken them to the library I remember reptiles and all that other stuff that we saw there and books And I know my wife's taken and he sees that I'm not you know, I'm kind of confused So he says uh, uh dad. No, I mean When you were younger like when you went to school How did it work? Okay, so I said well, you know when I was younger I couldn't drive There so you know, but when I got my car I was hardly able to go. It's no no no dad How did it work? So I said well, I'd go in I'd look at our an index and I'd look up these books And if I had trouble I'd go to the librarian and I could see I'm not connecting So how do I make that connection? Google search So said Vinny I said, you know when you go in and you do you know you type in some key words I said and it brings you right into what you got to get to He goes, yeah, now he's starting to get it I said in my day I used to have to take the books put him out on the desk lay him out And I'd have to search through chapters and actually read to find the words He goes you had to read Now what am I talking about right now It's a generational gap, right? But what's happening in this day and age is that the innovation is moving so quickly Companies have to be very very careful about what they're investing into because every time a bright shiny object comes up It doesn't mean it's going to work. The company may not last It may not be what's promised So what I wanted to do is bring the groups that are dealing with some of this so you can see how the government is investing Into this technology and we have some great people here today. I'm going to start with By the way, I'll be introducing all four of you and then we'll get into the questions Okay, if we have some time afterwards, maybe you can ask some questions as well So anneal john, he's the technical director for the u.s. Department of Homeland Security Silicon Valley innovation program Which works with innovation communities across the nation And around the world to adapt develop and harness cutting-edge technologies and capabilities that are commercially Sustainable while simultaneously Meeting government needs. Thanks for coming here today anneal Um next to him. I have uh, mr. Valley Oliver who's graduated from the united states naval academy in 2005 Where he obtained his bs degree in computer science He has an ms degree in information technology Serves six years with the u.s navy and was awarded multiple achievement awards and medals in the military He's worked with booze allen as a systems engineer And he was a part of the u.s. Army software marketplace And now he's currently working as the deputy Executive director under tom mills who couldn't be here today due to a last minute change So thank you mr. Oliver for filling in for us next to valet i have Mr. Dan salise who is selected as the assistant commissioner for import operations And he's worked there as a division director of west coast imports into february 9th 2018 He's recognized expert in fda import operations And has served as the acting assistant commissioner for office of enforcement and import operations since march 29th 2020 During this time. He's provided leadership and direction to all oe i o field import divisions As well as the division of food defense targeting and division of import operations At fda hq. He brought about leadership and stability needed during the covet 19 pandemic and now he serves as the principal advisor to the associate commissioner for regulatory affairs And reports to the deputy associate commissioner for regulatory affairs docra on all matters He provides direction and insight to human and animal food and leading the development of implementation of new import programs and procedures next to and welcome Mr. Solis and then next to him is Matthew Burke and he Thankfully, we had to make two changes here stood in for steve kasada and then also the dak Prashusha house. So we really had to Uh, he really came in at a last minute. So thank you Dr. Burke has been with cbp's laboratories and scientific services for 14 years and is currently a senior science officer He began in new york laboratory as a chemist and supervisor for 13 years Prior to moving to lss headquarters throughout his career's primary focus has been the analysis of trade goods for classification And country of origin by chemical and genetic analysis Since 2022 dr. Burke has served as a senior senior science officer with oversight of lss's country of origin program He's also a u.s. Delegate to the world customs organization scientific subcommittee As is served as an associate member of the organization Of scientific area committees wildlife forensic subcommittee and several interagency scientific review panels So welcome matthew. All right. Um, so we're going to get into the questions And of course, you know the first question i'm going to ask all of you is whether or not you've ever been to a library Of course, all right. Mr. John, you and I have been working together for many years Especially in the standards area. Could you please talk a little bit about what role the standards play in technology implementation? Um, for sure One of the things that became that has become clear I'm sure both yesterday and obviously in the key notes Today is the role of data and the quality of the data and the fidelity of the data In being able to make good decisions now if you are An organization like cbp that is as old as america You have two choices before you how you want to get that data You can do a one ring to bind them all and tell people how you want it Or you can basically work Together in order to define a common set and a framework for how data should be understood The best way to do that is not to do it governmenty Is actually to use open standards Open mechanism open standards or develop an organizations in order to define How data should be structured and how it should be coming into the house, right? And I also want to Be very clear when I speak about standards organizations, there is a carnage industry in what they what is called standards where You actually have a whole bunch of you know vendors and things like that getting together in organizations And creating what they call standards, which then you need to pay in order to access and use What i'm talking about is basically working in a globally recognized Standards develop an organization where the output of those standards is open royalty free and free to use For the single person all the way up to the multinational And that is the value that standards a common way of representing information And common way of representing how we connect different systems together becomes very important All right, thank you. You know and and these standards are really a global community We're really looking to reach around the world not just within the us border So these standards really are making a huge impact now valet You're on the side of actually implementing and working with oat. You have a huge enterprise probably one of the most complicated Pieces of architecture we've seen and we're one of the largest transactional systems in the world So managing that is huge. Can you talk about some of the exciting technological advances that you think would enhance trade in commerce? Yeah, so um to start off with my I I think I've used the library a little bit when I was a kid My kids have no idea what a library is so With that said the system he's talking about is the automated commercial environment the a system which My it folks that we mentioned development for and in order to stay In line with the future we have to continue to infuse it with technology in order to get you know the best out of trade So we work side by side with places like the small business innovation research research folks To give them to receive presentations and to find ways that we can Solve some of the the bigger issues that we have in the supply chain We work with the nils team with the silicon valley innovation program And we also work with the invent the innovation team, but a lot of those Partnerships that we have Evolve into coming up with proofs of proofs of concepts and other technology things that we want to put into our system so one of the things that that we we you hear out in the world with the Cryptocurrency is the the use of blockchain blockchain is a technology that's considered. It's called a distributed ledger technology We're not trying to use it from a cryptocurrency level but we're trying to use it as a way to Maintain the the proof of concept or the control of data as we exchange data through Our traditional partners are non-traditional partners. So we have several dlt projects In in the works and I think that's a great thing for the the A system With that said, there's some other technologies that we're leveraging We got a lot of use with called the robotic processing automation The ability to let our machines do some of the work that will free up our humans in order for them to do More of the investigation some of the things that we here at cbp actually need to do And this has pushed the ace system forward and we're looking forward to continue to to leverage those technologies One of the projects that I came on earlier With the ace program was trying to modernize it and put most of the system into the cloud the platform of the service And and we've been able to leverage a lot of technologies in order to cloud a fire system So we can be better in a better position to serve our our user community So they can have access to ace and to the other systems I have On any device at any time in order for them to do their job So that's some of the technologies that we're infusing into our system Thanks, valet. I know we're doing a lot of work in the robotics processing right now And the amazing thing is it removes the redundancy over and over one person have to do something maybe on a daily basis Whatever it happens to be and running it darn near instantaneously. So that's making a major impact in what we're doing today Now Dan, you and I have been working a long time together You know, originally we did the single window back with the original ace which is running today with all the partner government agencies 48 agencies making use of that 13 of which are actually processing along with us fda being one of the largest processors of that information as well and And dan's been working very closely with me on a lot of the modernization efforts that we're doing now going into The proof of concepts that we're running On what we're doing in standards. So dan, how does fda monitor supply chain shortages for critical medical product supplies? And and how about any lessons learned from your experience in the pandemic? Oh, yeah, thanks for having me and You you failed to mention that we both started right out of kindergarten And that you know, we've been working at this for such a long time You know, you don't want to date ourselves on how long we've been working on this Yeah, first of all, Vinny and my cbp colleagues. Thank you for inviting fda here It's a I think it's a testament to partnership and the ability for all of us collectively to To catch up with technology. I think technology is outpacing our ability to enforce and we need Not not only the partnership within the federal side But as as many of the previous talkers are talking about really in partnership with the trade and industry we regulate Um, a lot of innovations. I think from you know, not only The data that's coming in but that feeds into how we make invisibility decisions on the fda side You have to appreciate each one of the fda commodities that we regulate From food and drugs and medical devices each one has a different center with their own Requirements and and laws that we have to enforce at the border So when we're coming into an enterprise-wide solution, we're having conversations with Vinny and his group We have to consider the requirements of a drug of a medical device and food cosmetics, you name it What was very interesting is you come across individuals like Vinny who Can look at a problem And you can present problems there, but really what we're driving at is are there solutions out there? Maybe not within the confines of our discussion But there is a solution out there and it's it's people like Vinny that really knows how to connect the docs What we've been able to do on the fda side one advantage that we do have We know how a product that fda regulates of being manufactured From the sole source component and we call it a you know supply chain mapping just like everyone else But we tie this into a matrix that goes all the way to distribution point Beyond just the importer here in the us all the way to retail outlets and our state partnership And what we try to do is when we're working together on different enforcement cases We we tie a lot of these key elements together And and you know build a case that we need to that goes up to doj On the innovation side what's very interesting is a lot of companies really are intent on being compliant with CBP laws with fda laws so that at ports of entry our job really is not to stop commerce It's really looking at the small percentage that want to circumvent that process So we have a lot of different tools in things like the import alert But also we've been utilizing a lot of artificial intelligence and machine learning to really target the highest risk There's a lot of redundant processes that each one of our systems We we can probably all admit that we can reduce a lot of these redundant And ai is the way for us not to take over the human intelligence But really can we augment the the redundant systems and make it more efficient So those are some of the things that we've been able to utilize in concert and support fda's been there From the beginning on the 21 ccf effort and along those lines is because of the lessons learned like viny said We learned a lot on how to expedite critical medical Supplies and get them the health care providers at a much faster rate We did we did this obviously with cbp and fema and we're taking a lot of that lessons learned In that emergency use authorization world and can we apply it for a normal mode? And the thing the good news is we're walking away now with better platforms And then you know expediting a lot more in in the release of compliant shipment today You know versus say five years ago before the pandemic even even hit An fda has been contributing for Now it's several years on the efforts that we have going forward with the standards that we're talking about from the beginning with with anneal john And you know the hope is that we keep that single window single right? We don't want to start getting disparate systems growing around that we're trying to keep it single So we're chunking down the information Making it more discreet and trying to get back to origin as far back as we can in the supply chain So when you start thinking about Uighur and what we're trying to do when you're sourcing all the way back to your suppliers It's giving us an advantage to miss to mix the Uighur technologies in with this modernization effort So you're starting to see a multi pronged approach to tackle this. So that's why this is pretty amazing in this area Now matt you work on the scientific end of things and I know we've started recently working together a lot with research With dhss and t but could you talk a little bit about how the labs assist cbp with verifying the supply chain and the imported goods Yeah, good morning So for anybody who doesn't know cbp actually does have a lab system the laboratories and scientific services And we're really the provider of science and technology to the greater cbp Greater cbp world So in this context of what we're talking about here Most of our most of our services go to either the office of trade or office of field operations Where we're in constant communication with them constant communication with people like many To assess what those different components of cbp actually need what questions they need answered through the scientific or technical processes And in this case, I'm not talking about it technical. I'm talking about biology physics Anything along those kind of lines LSS's history goes back almost all the way to the beginning of cbp Our first jobs were analyzing sugar and alcohol You know really important things for the colonists The first questions that we answered were what is it and how much is there? Which is what tied into the tariff rates for the goods at that time Over time the questions that we're answering have gotten just exponentially more difficult Things that we're trying to answer now is where was something grown? Where was something mined? What path did it take before it arrived in the united states? Over the last 15 years of my career almost 15 years We've used these kind of quest we've used this these kind of questions have been in enforcement of anti-dumping countervailing duties JDAC determinations various trade agreements NAFTA CAFTA USMCA And now the Uyghur force labor prevention act is kind of the newest iteration of that It's important to to note here that we've always been looking at supply chains LSS has always been involved in validating supply chains But most of the time the supply chain that we've been interested in as customs has only gone back a little ways So when we're talking about anti-dumping The thing that's important is the country of origin for cbp purposes When the last substantial transformation was made now with the ufl pa Country of origin doesn't mean where was the shirt manufacturer or where was the solar cell put together? It goes all the way back to the very first Where was the cotton grown? Where was the cotton ginned? Where was the polysilicon mined in order to make the solar panel? It's a much bigger supply chain that now we're trying to look at through a scientific lens than what we've done in the past The other thing that LSS provides to office of trade and office of field operations very frequently is is technical translation services Is kind of what I like to call it interpreting technical documents translating scientific jargon providing expert opinions On the validity of scientific claims that the trade is making to cbp So a lot of the work we do is looking at certificates of analysis looking at manufacturing processes And explaining that to our customers oops To the office of trade and the office of field operations. What's going on there from a chemical perspective from a biological perspective The ufl pa supply chain validation or any kind of supply chain validation that's going to look at the the forced labor problem Is going to incorporate all of these different things that lss has been involved in Eac high smith yesterday Made the comment that technology is not a silver bullet for knowing what your supply chains are And speaking as a chemist she's a hundred percent right There's nothing that you can do With science to secure your supply chain by itself It's a really important component. It's a really powerful component In order to spot check in order to audit in order to answer a very specific question About what is going on in your supply chain Having a really well documented supply chain means having information on every step of the process knowing everything back to the raw materials That turned into your final products Testing scientific testing throughout your supply chain is really going to inform what's going on and You know Verify that what your suppliers are telling you are accurate Lss's role in all of this within cbp is to provide an independent test Outside of what you're doing an independent test for cbp to verify that the claims that are being made to cbp are accurate All of cbp cares about facilitating legitimate trade into the united states And that's really lss's goal here is to take the supply chain data that you're providing to cbp And checking it and making sure yes everything you're telling us is off is is accurate. It's all good All right. Thank you, matthew. Um, you know, what's amazing here is you start to see You know that coagulation, right? So you have standards so that anywhere in the world somebody can submit data to us to get from origin all the way into importation We have the o it now working on making sure the new technologies that we have are not only appropriate for our system But are working so that our operators have an efficient tool in front of them In fda, you have the business case the need for having to do that and cbp as well And then the physical verification so you could start seeing the culmination of all that So let me move into round two of the questions And anil, you know, I like to tease you all the time, right because um When anil was working on the standards at the global level with the w3c He was been working in them for five years and anil how long did it take to get that first international working group? Once cbp got on board um so obviously Was it like two weeks It was it was um One of the one of the advantages of again a part of the u.s. Government that is as old as america uh, basically picking And noting that open standards are important is that it there is a certain Um gravitas that comes along for the ride with that was a great strategic move there on your part anil Anyway on that note, right? So I I see branda back there She was one of the signatories to that memo that was written by cbp on how important open standards are in doing that and obviously um Anne-Marie has been a huge champion to move that forward as well. Absolutely want to acknowledge both of those contributions It's been a it's a great partnership and and now What are the standards and and why are they important to cbp? Why don't we talk a little bit now to get down to the business level so the folks can understand what we're We're going with this So we keep talking about standard standard standards the standards are important about having said that one of the common Um comments that are made is You know, uh standards are great. There are so many of them, right?  So so the long and the short of it is basically standards are created in standards organizations by people and people are complex and they negotiate they Do a lot of give and take so often when you have a standard what you end up with is Basically a set of compromises and often those standards Actually have multiple ways of doing the same thing So that vendor a who was participating in the standards organization implements a capability using one way Vendor B who is implementing that standard Basically uses another way both of them claim standards compliance. Neither of them can talk to each other That is not a path to success So the priority for us within CVT and DHS in the work that we've been doing Is to ensure that the standards that we are Um championing and using are truly demonstrated to be interoperable Which means it's not simply a matter of ensuring that you show that you're compliant to standards You can do that using a set of automated test suites, but we also require The entities that we're working with to Do something very old-fashioned what we call a plug fest Which is where you bring your infrastructure To the same table And you connect them And see if it works And ultimately the point of that is to make specific choices Within the scope of the standard that ensure interoperability. So when I talk about that I'm going to go one level deeper on the technical side. I am a technologist. So forgive me If I so at the end of the road We need information in a manner that is semantically aware Which means that we are using link data json link data is the foundation of the information That we are representing in a various bill of lading variety of other things out there We are using A couple of very open global standards that we contributed to and we are championing at the w3c Call verifiable credentials data model, which is a way of representing data in a very open Format and this is important I keep mentioning the standards are important and standards are usable only if it is Usable by the by anybody who wants it that they should not be a gatekeeper between you and using the standard You should not have to pay to use a standard So the ability to use verifiable credentials in order to represent information in a standardized manner Which cvp and the companies that we are working with are working out in public In developing a traceability vocabulary using that standard that you can contribute to on github You can basically influence you can bring your stuff to it. It is open public And global and the other one is basically how do you represent entities in the supply chain? We use a standard that are called decentralized identifier That allows us to basically assign uniqueness to entities within supply chains and in other areas as well the combination of those standards combined with interoperability testing and again I think there was a comment made that it is really really important that basically self assertion of standards compliance is not enough We truly need to test for interoperability because at the end of the road If you're in the business of providing data to cvp You need to provide it in a manner that is openly consumable and I'll just leave this i'll i'll i'll bring it down to one particular Example that dr. Murphy brought up during her a keynote as well at the end of it She mentioned that they're basically coming out with a you know open platform That basically is mapping the supply chain and things like that I am really looking forward to actually learning from her the standards and the data models that they're using To see if they are indeed something that can be easily plugged into the broad ecosystem that is out there and and and it is usable by the global audience for Something that she's producing right so standards interoperability are really important in this particular space and an eel as much as I tease you I know that you set up all of that groundwork so that us cis and cbp could get into this Global community of standards as well So I never take that away from you On top of that the fact that you set up a test suite so that any company that wants to work with us Has to publicly pass We can see whether or not you've passed those tests in order to work with us so that you are Interoperable with the cbp system because the thing that we want to avoid is getting into a situa