All right, recording is on. Good morning, everybody, to the course, BC 308 on Revelation and Daniel. Good morning. Thank you for connecting. I'm sure the others will join us soon. Let's pray and get started. Could somebody please unmute your mic and pray with the class and then we will get started. Anybody, please? Dave, if your mic is, okay. David, just pray with us. Okay, Master. Heavenly Father, we thank You, Lord God. We thank You that You're so wonderful, Lord. And we thank You especially for today, Lord Jesus, that He overhead, you know, passes towards You. I pray that the Spirit, with the noise of our pastor, as he speaks, as he releases his word, Lord Jesus, let ease of this word touches one of us and give us the correct perspective towards You, the world and towards You, Lord Jesus, that He's one of us to build it and build it for Your kingdom of God. We thank You, Jesus. And those who are here to join Lord God, we ask Your favor to help them so early for classes. And so that He also can know that, write down the Lord Jesus. We thank You in the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So we are in the book of Revelation. We just got this started last week. So we are still in Revelation chapter one. So if we could all turn there and our Bibles and, you know, we'll go through this verse by verse chapter by chapter through the book of Revelation and, you know, try to understand what the Lord has given to us through John, the beloved apostle. So we stopped last week at Revelation chapter one, verse 10. And so we're going to pick up from there. So John, he tells us, you know, this was the Lord's day. So obviously it was a Sunday and he was caught up in the spirit. So the Holy Spirit has taken him up, giving him this revelation of what is about to come. And it seems like, it seems like that John is up in the spirit in, you know, in the spirit he's seeing or he's going to see all of these things, which he's recorded for us. Yet at the same time, he's recording it on the earth, that means he's writing it down. Because, I mean, that's kind of the way I'm imagining it because for him to, you know, to write all this down at a later point may have been a challenge to remember everything or maybe God would have reminded him, I'm not sure. But the other possibility is that in the spirit he is going to see all of these things, always was going to reveal these things. And yet at the same time, physically, he's there on the island of Patmos and he's recording these things for us. He's writing it down as he is seeing these things in the spiritual world or in the spiritual vision. So we were talking about verse 10, the last Revelation chapter one, verse 10 last week, how in the spirit he was able to hear the sound. He was able to discern that this is a loud sound, that there's a volume also in the spirit. And so we are saying that, you know, somehow in the spirit or in the spirit there are all of these senses and perceptions that are taking place. It's teaching us, it's revealing to us something about how the spiritual world or what the spiritual world would look like. So let's pick up now in verse 11. And then so, yeah, could somebody read verse 11 please? Revelation one verse 11. Saying, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last. And then we see what you see right in a book and send it to the seven churches, which are in Asia, to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Progamos, to Tha'athai, to Sardis, to Philadelphia and to Laude here. So the voice to the here, which obviously is the voice of the Lord Jesus as we will see in the coming verses, is instructing John, you write what you're seeing. So that means he's seeing things in the spirit, he's writing it down. And then it's very specifically pointing out seven churches that he's supposed to send this to. So the Lord is going to speak to these seven churches. Now these seven churches are the places that I mentioned here where these seven churches were, were literal places. So these were seven literal churches present at that time. And John must have had some sort of a spiritual leadership oversight or influence in the seven churches and him being the last living apostle of Jesus Christ at that time. So let's pick up now, let's go verse 12 and 2 verse 19, verses 12 to 19. Can somebody read that passage for us, please? Then I turn to see the voice that spoke with me and having turned as a seven golden lampstands and in the midst of the seven lampstands one last son of man, with a garment down to the feet and heard it about the chest with a golden band.  His feet were like fine brass as it refined in a furnace and his voice has a sound of many waters. He had in his right hand seven starts out of his mouth when the sword to edge it stood and his countenance was like the sun shining in its strength. And when I saw him I felt at his feet as dead but he laid his right hand on me saying to me do not be afraid. I am the first and the last. I am he who lives and was dead and behold I am alive for evermore. And I have the keys of Hades and of death writing the things which you have seen and the things which are and the things which will take place after this. Thank you. So John has heard this voice. Now remember he's in the spirit or he's in the spiritual realm and he turns to see the voice that spoke to me. There's also the sense of direction. So he's turning around. It's like a voice that's coming from the back. So he turns around and he looks to see who's this one speaking. And then he sees seven golden lampstands. The first thing that catches is I are seven golden lampstands. Now keep in mind this is a prophetic message that's being given to John. And so in this message the lampstands represent something. So this is a vision that he's having. So the vision, the important thing, the vision is the message that's getting across through the images. So don't think that okay in heaven there are lampstands, physical lampstands but this is a message the Lord is giving through this scene, through this picture of the sequence of scenes or events that the Lord is communicating to John. And he's seeing seven lampstands. See like when you and I see a vision or we have a dream, we see pictures, we see things happening and through that the Lord communicates to us. Very much some lamp. He's seeing seven lampstands and he sees this lampstands represent something. A very interesting is the lampstand as we will see later on represents the seven churches. He will give us the meaning there in verse 20, you'll read that. We'll pick up on the meaning. But anyway, so he sees the seven lampstands and then he sees one like the son of man. A very interesting, the son of man. The son of man is a phrase that we have seen earlier in the book of Daniel, Daniel chapter 7. But when Daniel has a vision into heaven he sees the ancient of days that's God the Father and he sees the son of man coming and to the son of man, the nation so that everything was in the authority of the nations, the kingdom was handed over. And the Lord Jesus used that phrase the son of man for himself while he, during this earthly ministry. So in the Jewish mind they understood hey, this Jesus, this carpenter's son is using a phrase that's very sacred because it's representing part of the God head. But he was using it for himself. And here again, in John's writing he sees I'll see one like the son of man and then he begins to describe what I want to point out here is that this is a very human form like that he describes, right? He describes hand, feet, eyes, the mouth, hair, like also it's a human like. So does God have a form? Of course he does. It is like, like as John describes it's very human like meaning these characters, this, you know, hand, eyes, so on and so forth. And he's seeing one like the son of man. It is also interesting that what he sees in the son of man there's certain things that he describes are very intentional for he sees, he's clothed with a garment down to the feet where it's the teen chest with a golden band. So that means there is a golden band that goes around his chest. Now gold represents divinity. Something very pure and usually in the scriptures gold represents divinity. What is divine as absolute perfection? Then we see hair white like wool just symbolizing wisdom.   So the eyes fire could represent, you know, both the sense of refining, purifying and also light coming forth. You know, eyes that are omniscient can see and know everything. Light is pervasive, it just floods everywhere. His feet like brass. Brass in the Bible represents judgment talking about how he has conquered all these enemies. Feet like brass. And his voice like the sound of many waters meaning his voice is so powerful. So when you stand before, you know, a sound of many waters either you can either picture a massive waterfall or the waves of the sea rolling in many waters. Abundant waters. It's symbolizing power, greatness. And in his right hand he has seven stars. I mean, this is the picture he's saying, seven stars, right? He will tell us what those seven stars are and out of his mouth goes a two-edged sword. So the two-edged sword, as we would see many times especially in these first few chapters he repeats out of his mouth goes to a two-edged sword. Then in Revelation 19 he says a two-edged sword, which is the word of God. That means it's symbolizing to us that his words are powerful. His words are his weapon that could use the word kill or destroy his enemies. And we see that in Revelation 19 out of his mouth goes a two-edged sword which destroys his enemies. And his countenance was like the sun shining in its strength and it's just brilliant, radiant, powerful. So he's using these pictures to describe it. And there is definitely some intentionality behind it. It's not just by random or by accident. His hair is white like wool. He's got a golden band around his chest or he's got feet like brass. There's intentionality in it. And God is communicating something to us even through those little details now that have been that are revealed to John. And verse 17, John, you know, he says, when I saw him I felt that his feet as dead. Now, John is here physically on the island of Patmos. He's trying to write on his writing. In the spirit, he's having this vision. So it's most likely that in the spirit he's flat. He's prostrate before the Son of Man. And he's recording these things. You know, I layer his feet as dead. Now, it could be, I don't know if this whole thing was also affecting him in the physical and very often it does. We know in Daniel's case, physically he couldn't do anything. So whether him lying at his feet as dead was his experience in the spiritual realm while he was writing here or physically here and also, he would have just fallen flat on his face, possible. In Daniel's case, that was the case. He was physically flat. So he says, and then the Lord laid his hand on me and strengthened me, raised me up. You know, and he's saying, look, this is who I am. He introduces himself. And it's clearly Jesus Christ. So I'm the first and the last. I was alive. I was dead. I'm alive forevermore. And I've had the keys of Hades and death.  So Jesus said, I've conquered him. You know, he went down to Hades. He conquered Hades. He took paradise with him and he ascended into heaven.  He's a triumphant king. And then in verse 19 is the instruction. I want you to write these things down. What you have seen, that means just what we read right now, what you have seen, write it down. And the things which are, that is chapters two and three, and things which will take place, that is chapter four on. So we, as I mentioned last week, we break the, or we divide the book of Revelation, according to verse 19, things that are, things you have seen, that is chapter one, things that are chapters two and three, and things that are two come, which is chapter four onwards. Now in verse 20, the reason I didn't read verse 20 yet is, now the Lord Himself gives an explanation about the candlesticks, the seven candlesticks, and the seven stars that John is seeing in his vision. So the Lord Himself is explaining. And you know, usually when we have dreams and we have visions, the Lord gives us the meaning.  And you will receive meaning. Okay, this is what that represents. This is what that represents. So in this case, the Lord Himself is telling John, you know the seven candlesticks that you are seeing? This is what it represents. And he saw seven stars in my hand. This is what it represents. So the Lord is giving John the interpretation or the meaning of those images, as prophetic images. So let's read verse 20, please. Could somebody read it? Revelation 1 verse 20. So it says here, the mystery of the seven stars, which you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands. So he says, this is a mystery. The word mystery is simply an unveiling. So he says, this is the unveiling. This is the meaning of the seven stars in my right hand and the seven golden lampstands. That's what it means. What does it mean? The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches and the seven lampstands, which you saw are the seven churches. One of the Lord is giving John the meaning. The seven stars, he says, represent the angel of the seven churches. That means one star for every church. They're representing the angel of each church. Now, like we said, when we began last class, the word angel is the Greek word angelos, which just means messenger. Now, he's talking about a messenger of each church that he's holding in his hand. Now, we have only one of two options. The word messenger could represent an angel or it could represent a human messenger. Now, we can infer right away from what is going to be spoken in chapters two and three that here the angel represents the human messenger, not the angelic being. Why? Because he is giving instruction to the human messenger to do something about what is going on in that particular church. So obviously angels are not in charge of local churches, but human leaders, spiritual leaders, are in charge, are responsible for what is happening in the local church. And the Lord is going to be speaking to each one of them, giving them instruction, telling them what they need to do about their local church. So, very clearly, in this case, in Revelation 1 verse 20, the angel or the messenger of the church represents the human messenger. So, each star represents the person, the human person, who is responsible for that local church. And then he says the seven lampstands represent the seven churches. That means each church is represented by a lampstand. Now, think about some things with me. At that time, there were hundreds of churches, not just seven. There were hundreds of spiritual leaders who were taking care of all the churches. You know, they're talking about 8095, so the Gospel had been preached all across that region. And so there were hundreds of churches. But he's saying there are only seven lampstands and seven stars. So does that mean he has, he doesn't hold the other stars in his hand? Or does he mean that the other churches are not represented by lampstands in his presence? No. So, what we can say is, this is just a representation. That means the clear message is that every spiritual leader of all the churches are in his hand. He protects them, he holds them, but he also holds them accountable. And the message is that the Lord is overseeing every lampstand. That means every local church. Every local church. He's overseeing. He's watching over every local church. So if you translate that to today, our day and time, what we can say is the leader, the spiritual leader of every local church is in the hands of the Lord. He's a star. He's represented by the star in the hands of the Lord. The Lord is protecting them, but he's also holding them responsible. And every church, every local church is in his presence. He's overseeing. He's watching over every local church. That's what we can say. And it's very interesting that this picture of a lampstand is used to represent a local church. So now the lampstand in the Bible, you find it way back in the Old Testament as part of the tabernacle. You know, so it was a lamp that had seven limbs and at the top of the seven limbs were the receptacles that held oil in it and the wick was lighted and there was fire. And the lampstand was placed in the tabernacle, in the middle compartment, the holy place, where there was the table of showbread and there was the incense, the altar of incense. The altar of incense had to be kept burning incense, which in sense, of course, typifies the prayers of the prayers of God's people, the sacrifice of praise and worship. The bread, of course, represents the word of God. And in that place, because there was no other source of light, because you're inside, you're in the middle compartment, it's cut off, no light coming in. It's inside the tent. So the candlestick was the only thing that provided the light for the priest when he came in to the middle compartment, the holy place, to replace the bread and to trim and to refurnish or refurbish the incense to keep that burning so that the lampstand was the only source of light over there. And this lampstand is then used as an image now in the New Testament of the local church, which is very interesting. And there is, like we said, it's intentional that God would pick something like this to represent the local church, meaning, what can we say? The lampstand is what gives light with what the local church is, what should bring illumination into the lives of people and enable them to partake of the word of God and to partake in incense, in worship, in prayer and so on. So the lampstand is a light. And Jesus did tell us, He said, you are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world. So it's very interesting, just the lampstand being used to represent the local church. So now we go into chapter 2, where the Lord is giving a message to the angel, to the human messenger of each church. It's like He's doing an assessment and He's giving feedback. He's telling you, this is what I'm seeing in your church. This is what's going on in your church, and this is what you need to do. So He's telling the human messenger, meaning, He's holding the human messenger responsible for what is happening in that particular church. So the first church He speaks to, in Revelation chapter 2 verses 1 through 7, is the church in Ephesians. Now, like we said earlier, this is the seaport. It's a town right on the coast. And it's like the mother church, because in the early missionary days, the apostle Paul came on two visits. And when he came in Acts 19, he spent three years or more in Ephesians and he had trained leaders here. And from there, other churches were also planted. So this is, right at this point, leaders have changed and history tells us, not to forget the name of the bishop here, but it might have been Bishop Paul Incarp, a well-known bishop of the early days, who's in charge. After Paul, Timothy was put in charge. And he's off the scene now. Somebody else is in charge. And the Lord is giving feedback to this person. So Revelation 2, 1, 2, 7, somebody can read it. To the angels of the church of Ephesians. Right. This thing says, he who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden lamestons.  And you have tasted those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars. And you have preserved and have patience and have labored for my name's sake and have not become worried. Nevertheless, I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen, repent and do the first works or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent. But this you have, that you hate the deeds of the Niko which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give to it from the tree of life which is in the midst of the Parades of God. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So the first message is to the church in Ephesians. Now, again, I just want to repeat something we've already said earlier. These were seven churches that existed at that time. So that's one reason why I don't believe, I don't subscribe to personally to taking these seven churches as representing seven church ages or seven periods of the church age and breaking it down like that. I don't subscribe to, there are some people who do that that's their choice because he's speaking to seven literal churches that were there in those days. But there definitely is a lot of learning we can take away from what the Lord speaks to each one of those seven churches. So every message applies, is relevant to us. It's a learning for us. So now, if you want to summarize what the Lord is speaking, Revelation 2.1, just we see something very interesting. He's holding the seven stars in his hand. That means he's holding the leaders of these seven churches in his hand. And notice he says he's walking in the midst of the seven golden lamps. That means the Lord is moving among his churches. He is seeing, he's observing, he's assessing what's going on. Now, he's doing the same thing today. So all over the world there are thousands of churches, probably hundreds of thousands of churches. We don't know all over the world. And the Lord is moving among the churches. He's observing. His eyes are like fire, testing, examining and penetrating into what is happening in every church. And as I read this thing over and over again, it's just a God. I want to be faithful.  What are you saying about the local church you've given me responsibility over? And so it's a real awesome responsibility to think that you are there, responsible local church, and the Lord above says, look, I got you in my right hand, but I'm also seeing what's going on there. So the church, and it feels just, we find that this was a very diligent church. So I just pick four Ds, four D words to describe the church in official, a very diligent church. He's there working, very fervent, serving the Lord. They're also a very discerning church because they test people who come to them and say, look, I'm an apostle and they test them and they discern, they find out these false apostles and they're very discerning, you know. Thirdly, they're a very determined church because they have not become very, for the name of the Lord. So they have pushed, this is verse three, they've persevered, they're depressing, they're very determined. But sad in the process of being very diligent and very discerning and being very determined and just being so involved with all of that, somehow they have departed. So that's the fourth D. They have departed from their first love. It's not that they have forsaken their first love, but they have departed. That means the position God wanted them to be at, they are not at. He wanted, he desires for all of us to be first and foremost positioned before him, focused on him. But they've slowly shifted away from that position. I mean, they haven't forsaken the Lord completely. No, they're actually serving the Lord. They're very diligent in their service. They're very discerning about who they, you know, allowed to come in and minister and so on and so forth. And they're also very determined in their commitment to the Lord. So they haven't forsaken the Lord, but they have departed, slightly gone off. Meaning their heart is not where it should be in loving God. So how we just love the Lord with all our heart, all our mind, all our soul, all our strength, but we've gone away from it. So now maybe, and I'm saying maybe because it doesn't tell us here, but maybe their love and their affections and are, you know, in other things, maybe the works they're doing, the ministry they're doing. So he says you have left your first love. And so verse five, it's very serious. He says, remember from there you have fallen. So you're supposed to be here before me, but you've fallen.  It's a downgrade or a degrade. You've fallen from that place, right? And so now what you need to do to get back, you need to repent, you need to say, God, I'm sorry, repentance is a change in your thinking and a return, a change in your thinking and a return to the Lord. So you need to change your thinking. That means begin to say, you know, I need to focus on God. I need to focus on him. The work is important, discerning or all that's important, but I need to focus on the Lord. So you need to repent and you need to do the first works, do the first works, which would be the works of, you know, I mean, the works that focus on the Lord, listening to him, worshiping him, praying. Those are the first works. So do the first works, which are an expression of your first love. So what are the first works? The first works are an expression of your first love, because that's what he's, that's the problem. You've departed from your first love, you've left your first love. So get back to your first love. So therefore the first works will be works that express your first love, your love towards God. And he says, if you don't do that, I will remove your candlestick from my presence.  Now that's a very solemn warning. And it's also a very sad place to be. That means the church may continue operationally, physically, here on earth, but spiritually it has no connection with the head of the church, because it is no longer engaging in first love and first works. So that's something we should focus on. Make sure that we as leaders maintain our first love and first works while we go about our ministry. And also make sure that the people in the church, as much as they are involved in daily life, and as much as they're involved in daily ministry, I mean the ministries, which is good. He's not saying don't do that. But as much as we go to all this, we need to keep our first love and first works in place. And as the Lord, you are my first love. And I do my first works, which is to listen to you and pray, worship you. So as the messenger, as leaders, that's what we should be doing. And then he commenced them also in verse 6.  You hate the deeds of the Nicoletians, which I also hate. Now, you know, when I looked up different commentaries, it seems to me that it's not very clear who this particular group was, the Nicoletians. And so there are, you know, different ideas on who the Nicoletians could be.  And their name comes up again later on in another church as well. So one interpretation or one part who the Nicoletians were is derived from the name itself, Nicoletians. The word Nicol means conquer or rule over, leitians, meaning the leity. So one interpretation, one explanation by the Nicoletians was this was a particular group of people where the leaders were so much in control, they suppressed and ruled over the leity. If that's true, and I don't know if it's true, but if that is true, then that's a clear indication that the Lord does not like that. He does not like leadership that suppresses, dominates the leity. Another thought about the Nicoletians was that this was a group that was involved in immorality, a lot of immorality and so on. Again, we don't know on what basis that is made, but that's one thought. And there's a third idea that this could have been a group of people who were followers of a man named Nicholas. That's what they call Nicoletians. Again, there's not much information on that. So we're not very sure what this particular sect was. Maybe it was a certain small sect that operated in a few places, and so there isn't much information about them. But just in case the first idea is true, that is this was a group where the leaders of a spiritual sect that dominated the people, then that's a strict warning that God doesn't like that. So we can't say too much in certain about the Nicoletians. Other than the Lord is commending the Ephesian believers saying, look, you discerned them, you found out what was wrong with them, and you kept them out. You didn't let that idea and that group, that sect of people infiltrate and spoil the church. Unlike the church in Pergamus, which we will be reading a little later, the church in Pergamus sadly permitted the Nicoletians to infiltrate their church, and therefore the Lord was really upset because they began to subscribe to the doctrine and the practices of the Nicoletians will read about that in Revelation 2.15, and he was really, he had to rebuke the church in Pergamus. But unlike the church in Pergamus, the church in Ephesians kept these people out. We did not let them come in and bring their doctrine teaching into the church. They were a very discerning church, the church in Ephesians, so he commenced them for it. And lastly, in verse 7, what we will see is that to each one of the seven churches, the Lord promises a reward for the overcomer. And what is interesting is each one of these rewards that are promised to the overcomer is a future reward. It's not something that would take place right then and there. It's a future reward. He says to him who overcomes in verse 7, you will eat the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. So he's talking about being able to partake of the tree of life in the paradise of God. So it's something that's in the future, right? And therefore it seems to imply that this promise to the overcomer is not just for those believers at that time, but it's for all believers of all time because the reward to the overcomer is way out in the future. So we could read each one of those seven rewards to the overcomer. I mean, the seven statements made to the overcomer and say that's also for us today. It's not just for that particular local church. It's for us today that if we as overcomers, I mean, live the overcoming life, this is the reward he has promised us. And the first one is the leader of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. The tree of life in Revelation 22, we see that it represents the healing of the nations and just this longevity, health and wholeness, or you could say immortality, immortal life for the people. That means you're going to partake of wholesome, immortal life in the paradise of God. And again, very interesting. When Jesus was crucified, he told the thief, today you will be with me in paradise. Where did he go? He descended into the lower parts of the earth. So at that time, Paradise or otherwise Abraham, otherwise known as Abraham's bosom, was down in the lower parts of the earth, a separate compartment in hell where the Old Testament saints were preserved. But after Christ's death and resurrection, paradise was taken up into heaven. And that's when Revelation 2 and verse 7, he says, paradise is up in heaven. You will partake of the tree of life in the midst of the paradise of God. Revelation 2 verse 7. Will there be so far any questions? Okay. So we're going to take a break now. We will go for a 10 minute break and we will connect back to 10. Okay. Thank you.


It's really my great pleasure tonight to have, as our guest speaker, President Paul Kagame from Rwanda. I would like to thank him for two reasons. The first one is practical, I think it was not easy for him to be here tonight. He had to reschedule some of his activities and I am very grateful to him for that. But the fundamental reason why I feel honored to have President Kagame tonight is that I think I'm sure I'm convinced that he's one of the greatest leaders today in Africa. He, after a very bloody war, he was able not only to reconcile the population of the country, but as I understand it, to help creating a real nation, which is not obvious, as in many other states in Africa, the concept of nation is not easy to exist because of just the division of Africa into borders inherited from the colonial times.  And since then, he has transformed the state into a modeled state and which is very often compared to the Singapore of Africa. Of course, I would say Singapore with better climate, as I understand it. So Mr. President, I thank you very much again. I'm going to invite you to come here. You are going to make a short presentation. And after that, we will have a short also discussion, the two of us. And I will open the floor to a general discussion. Mr. President, the floor is yours. Dr. Fieri de Montbriere, founder and chairman of the World Policy Conference, Excellencies here present, ministers, senior officials, distinguished ladies and gentlemen. I thank Theody for the kind introduction and for the invitation. I also congratulate you and your team for the distinctive quality of the World Policy Conference. This is a forum focused on anticipating and shaping the future, rather than trying to hold back change. That perspective is refreshing for those of us who experience the world from somewhere in the middle, not one of the poles. So I'm very happy to be back to continue the productive conversation. Started eight years ago, when Thierry was kind enough also like today to host me in Paris. Tonight I would much rather talk with you than at you, and we all know dinner is also waiting. So let me make two simple but topical points. The first is that Africa is nobody's prize to win or lose, not at all. It is our responsibility as Africans to take charge of our own interests and to develop our continent to its full potential. In fact, this has always been the main issue. We have been waiting far too long, actually for centuries, trade, ships, a nation's economy in powerful ways. The search for comparative advantage generally leads to gains in competitiveness and wealth. That's why at a certain point, the concept of aid for trade gained currency. The issue was to build a country's trade capacity so that it could transition from dependency to self-reliance and eventually to prosperity. This should have been the approach all along. Today Africa enjoys strong trade relations around the globe, whether with Europe, India, North America, or China. Indeed, we want more investment and trade with everybody because it leaves us all better off. That's why coming together as a region has been so important for Africa. Internal barriers to travel and commerce in Africa continue to fall, though more still needs to be done. For example, Sierra Leone is the most recent country to announce visa on arrival for fellow Africans, joining around 15 others. However, that is still less than one-third of Africa. The African continent of free trade area is now in force and trading will commence in July 2020. This agreement will radically reshape how Africa does business with itself and with the rest of the world. The revitalization of the African Union Peace Fund, which now stands at more than $125 million, has enhanced the credibility of Africa's security partnerships, and it should continue to grow. The second point concerns the tone of anxiety and defeatism that dominates current policy debates. Overall, it's about the fear of losing something rather than the ambition to do more and better. Even science and technology, the very engines of human progress, are increasingly seen as problematic. For example, with artificial intelligence or genetically modified crop. From there, it's a short step to the false belief that preserving a high standard of living in one place depends on preventing others from getting to the same level. Barriers go up, trust vanishes. If I may take the liberty of generalizing, this pessimism does not resonate in Africa. There is a determination to live better lives for ourselves. We have already seen evidence of tremendous advances, particularly in health, connectivity, governance and incomes. Recovering that sense of hope and optimism, wherever it has been lost, is very critical. We can be better partners. Being all of us here and beyond working together, that's what will get us back on track toward a better world where everyone benefits. Once again, I thank the World Policy Conference for this wonderful evening and thank you all for your kind attention and interest. I look forward to our continued discussion. Thank you very much, Mr. President. So we are going to start the discussion and then we'll ask you two questions and after those two questions we will take interventions from the participants and members. My first question will be about Rwanda itself. It is very simple, just very simple to ask, not to answer. To what extent is the Rwandan model exportable to other African countries? Rwanda is almost everything work in progress. We are still in a number of things, still experimenting, but some progress has been made. Now in terms of that being a model, I suppose relates to what has worked even in the worst of circumstances or the diversity we have faced has been so challenging. Therefore the model we have applied can apply in other places depending on demonstration of where we have come from, what challenge we have addressed, and the outcomes. Now, therefore it's not the overall model that is going, but except if you pick a few pieces. One piece I have in mind is the model is going to work because it builds on putting people at the center of addressing the problems and involving them and from there move forward. The second piece is if you can change people's mindset, for example in our case what we try to do as, and this is practically a discussion with everybody or people in our society. We would go to every part of our country, we have a conversation with our people and tell them that much as we have a lot of problems, there is a lot in them that they can bring out to meet these challenges and address them. So we are telling people that we have been telling people along that you can't sit back and wait that people will come and help. Yes, many times people have come and helped, absolutely, but why wait for people to come and help? Even on the things you can do yourself, this is what we have been trying to plant in the minds of our people. This is what I am talking about in terms of mindset, because apart from other problems we found there was also this mentality that people are poor, they know this, they know that, so some people who have more will bring what they need, they will bring medicines, they will bring food. We found actually in the country about 45% of our food needs were coming from outside as donations, and we said no, but we can grow food to feed ourselves, and let's do it. Then we started moving forward. So the model can work anywhere. Not everything is going to work for everybody or everywhere, but overall the conceptual aspect, the philosophy behind it can apply in any situation in Africa or beyond. It's about saying we can do it. What we can't do, then we can rely on friends or partners and we still can move forward until over time we are able to actually do what we were not able to do before. So I think it can work, and for us we don't have in mind anything else that would have changed our situation unless we involved ourselves, sort partnerships, sort systems, but always knowing that this is our responsibility. A footnote to the same question, have you yourself been inspired by the experience of Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore? When we started off with our liberation struggle and the challenges we faced even during and after, we did not even think about that. But as we started rebuilding, we started looking all around us, whether in Africa or beyond. And particularly we did look at the case of Singapore. Because some of the things we have done have come from us, many other things have been lessons learned from others, how they address their problems at one time or another with the kinds of problems and the approaches they made and so that we can also find something in our own. So it was at a later stage, let's say 95, 96, on the margins when that was ending, that is when we started looking around to say, what is it that is going to help us overcome these insurmountable, at that time they looked so, challenges. So the Singapore case was very appealing, it was the case of Singapore, mainly it was the case of South Korea and we looked around. In fact, we looked around for not only development models, but also governance models. In fact, our constitution is built on patching up ideas from one place. We looked at South Africa, which was also being born at the time, things they were doing to reconcile the society and approach different things for their development. We looked at some European constitutions, the origins, why things are the way they are. We looked at the US, we looked at, we went to other places, so we kept pieces of what we thought was appearing and particularly to address, to deal with our situation. And so Singapore was very appealing in many ways, we looked at how they have approached investments in technology, application of different technologies for efficiency, effectiveness in things they are doing, we looked at how they invested in their people, sciences, mathematics, different things and then how doing business, when people want to do business, companies, whether small or medium or big ones, what is it for making investments, what is it that would be appealing for people to come to Rwanda, especially with that background we had that was not appearing at all. So we had so many things to change so that we can stop being seen as some place where people can't do anything and created that appeal, but learning from and definitely the case of Singapore as one of them. Thank you very much, so all that was my first question. The second question is larger, you served as a president of the African Union. So first, what have you learned from that experience? What have you achieved? What are you proud I would say to have achieved during your terms? And would you say also that the African Union is to use your own expression a work in progress and if it is so progressed towards what? Africa on one hand is a place of enormous resources, whether human or natural resources, there's no question about that. So the challenge therefore is if you have that on one hand, how would you fail on the other hand to have the kind of prosperity, the kind of transformation that you should have given these enormous resources, the statement by everybody that we want to do better, want to be better, want to prosper, want to do this.  So there is a paradox here that we need to resolve. So with that in mind, one year is a very short time to do anything significant. So I was chairman for 12 months, but the beauty is that you don't do anything alone. That's where you have to start from. So working with other African leaders and having had all these things in mind that we needed to do to get going, started with the example, the institution of the African Union. How can we get it better, organize better effectively producing the results that the Africans want? How does it become effective? So we agreed that we need to pay attention to that. And that was the birth of the reforms that we had to carry out. And the African leaders entrusted me with the responsibility to read the reform process. But it was really reading the reform process with them, also doing different parts of that process. One thing we achieved, there are a number of things which we achieved partially, even if they are not completed, but at least we got started. And we know where we are standing and work will continue with other leaders who come after and take the leadership of the African Union. For example, we working with the president of Niger, President Yusuf, were able to put together the African continent of free trade area that has been created, which is going and we hope by July next year is going to be the biggest free trade area in the world. But we are not just thinking about the area, it's not just the area, it's also what we do and how, where we do what we need to do in the free trade area. How do we, as Africans, trade well with each other? How do we allow the movement of people and goods and services? How do we partner with other parts of the world as a group of African countries in this free trade area? So we've seen that come up. He mentioned in my speech the peace fund, which means from our own resources as Africa could contribute something. We can contribute in the area of prevention, of conflict, in the management of the conflict that exists. We can't always just be running to other countries that have the capacity and went to the UN and say, you know, we help with everything. So we said we can contribute, even if it is 10%, even if it is 15%, we need to contribute. And now the Africans have contributed the fund which is running into 130 million US dollars. It's a good thing. It never existed before. We have never been to this level. The level was like sometimes 10 million or even less. So and then there is a new place, another chairman of the African Union. We always hope everyone who becomes the chair helps cover another area that needs to be covered. Well, thank you very much, Mr. President. Now we are going to take a few questions. Renaud Girard, whom you know will be the first one. Mr. President, I'm very happy to meet you again. First time I met you in the bush in the north of Rwanda, in a place called Moolindi. And after that you took the power and you are ruling Rwanda for the last 25 years. You have been able to maintain peace and to develop in an extraordinary way your country, in agriculture, tourism, industry, services and so on. And it's obviously a big success. You have run Rwanda, I would say with an iron fist, but an iron fist which works. We call that in French despotisme éclairé. So it's a beautiful success. But what will happen in Rwanda after Kagame? Do we have a guarantee that the civil war will not resume? Yeah, there is the part you started with which I think is a good thing. You started with all the good things you said are happening. Good things don't happen because you are doing a bad thing. They happen because you are doing a good thing. So that is one. Second, I also mentioned it earlier, there isn't really going to be a situation where only one person does everything. Even in our situation, even with the so-called iron hand you are talking about, that iron hand has its own limits. It is where it starts from and where it ends. Third, the judgment in most cases by Rwandans of our own situation from given where we started from and where we are and what has happened in between, one is the most important. Second, it's a fair judgment. It's a fair judgment fair rather than when somebody uses an outsider's eyes to make judgment about Rwanda or its leadership. Fourth, if I were to go into statistics of what has happened, of people we have trained, young people, people actually who, by the way, people who were born during and after genocide, that is around 25 years, constitute 42% of our population. Those under 30, now about 32 below, are 71%. These are actually the people who are doing most of these things we are talking about. They have hard education, they have trained. We have been sending people outside to go and study with Europe or there was a program to send massively young people to go on. And what is interesting is that over 90% of those we send outside come back on their own. There is no enforcement about bringing people back home. They come back home and the ones running the institution is most of them. Those who have been there recently will have met some of these young people running these things. So the Kagame you met that time so long ago and you were able to see the iron fist. That iron fist has passed on to many other fists. There are many young people, men and women doing their work efficiently. You give results and that's how I found my time to come here and have a conversation with you. They are doing the rest of the work. So my time will come when I have to leave and these same young people will decide what to do with their country and will choose from among themselves who carries on the baton. Thank you very much for this answer which is both precise and unprecise but that's normal and I think that generally speaking after successful stories succession is always difficult. That I think is a generality we can agree on. So I think even where succession has come so rapidly and where success has been across the world there is no guarantee that things don't go wrong. We can talk about two cases if you want. Yes we have had rapid succession and we still have not benefited from that if it has any benefit from that. We see it by the way from across the world whether it is developed world or the kind of not the undeveloping world like ours but that's another story for another conversation. Thank you very much. So I saw several hands. Well the gentleman to my right yes you. I think you is you good. Thank you Your Excellency President Paul Kagami. Well my question focus on the model of development Rwanda's model of development. Well you try to actually you explained it. Basically it's people centered and then it has also governance model as well which you took from different parts of the globe. So my question is what is actually the model because there are already known models is it the modernization type which is not which I understand. This is a developmental state paradigm or any other paradigm because for me to my readings and my personal observation Rwanda is becoming a model of development Africa. I mean everyone can say it even some of them have started to say Rwanda is the Switzerland of Africa not only the beautiful mountains but the development as well. So that is one of my my question. The second one is the reform the African Union reform process. You let the process at a critical stage. Now well someone has taken over. So are you personally following it or well I know as a member state. Yes but I mean the future is your legacy. So what is your involvement in this particular issue. Thank you. Well quickly let me say this. The model people call it all kinds of things. I'll break it down into some realities. Maybe we see whether that constitutes a model of one kind or another or a model at all. But I guess there are things that have to be put into consideration. One there is the role of the state. There is a role of the private sector. There is the role of the ordinary citizen. Some of them organize in civil societies. One has to find the formula that brings these responsibilities together because it's one country that is being served. So ours what we have tried to do is to strike this balance in a manner that gives results. The state how far does it go in delivering the goods it should deliver. The private sector how does it work together with the state or what does the state provide as an environment for the private sector to do what it needs to do. And then on the side of the citizens the governance part how do they participate. How do they get involved. So they feel they own what they have. These are the three legs of the stool if you will that we have worked on. But centrally let me quickly also give you an example. When we were dealing with the partners during those years they were very active in Rwanda supporting our from all the emerging situation to normalization and development. Every time we used to tell our partners that we appreciate the kind of support they give us. In fact we need more even of it not less. But we also want to be the ones in the driver's seat leading our development process. So we had to form a partnership. We said we will decide for ourselves or if you will we will even work together in deciding for ourselves. We will tell you everything we want to do how we want to do it and we can make you partners. But you have to be the ones to decide. This was as early as 1996 for example. So that in itself is very important and whatever you call the model those things have to be there. The understanding of the balance that has to be struck. People at the center. People I mean the citizens but also their leaders working together. And the rest is what you get. On the part of the African Union I still play a role of continuing the leadership of the reform process. But in support of whoever will be coming or whoever is there as the chair of the African Union after me and yeah this is then we will report to the African Union General Assembly and we have the African Union Commission at the center driving the day-to-day responsibilities around that. We have the commission and the chair and the commissioners and they participate in that. Well I am told by the protocol that we should wind up now. You know I think the protocol in this case is probably the kitchen but I will take nevertheless one question please. Mr. President Rwanda has been the country that has the most the biggest number of female parliamentarian in the world. And I think also that women are positioned strategically very strongly either in the in the economy in the politics. I like to ask you whether you saw some real value added on promoting and supporting gender equality. And would you see the link with the success that everybody is describing. My assumption is that there is a link very strong link in putting women where they need to be in a very strong position and the result you were able to have both in the economy and in the society as a whole. So we would like you to explain to us how the case went about making sure that women's rights is good for both the economy and development as you did it. I definitely first of all want to confirm what you just stated and then I rebuke it with these points that will come along. One, women involvement or participation as you have said it's either their contribution to the economy. It's also their rights. And then if you look at the numbers just look in our case in Rwanda 52% of our population are women. So I mean it is basic, very basic. If we were to remove 52% of your population and make it Rwanda I don't think it's a very clever move and I don't think you get anywhere. But if you can also look at many other aspects. When we tried for example when we invested in education for women because women were lagging behind almost everything including education, education, business and even the area of governance they were absent. So we first invested in their education, in fact their health, their education for women. What is going to be the result? I also tell you that in the management of population growth the rates we have seen year in year out Rwanda was growing the population growth rate was at 3.2% which was quite high. Rwanda is a very small country geographically. So we have managed to bring down that population growth rate to something like 2.4 from 3.2. What has contributed largely to other elements including family planning for example was education of women and women being educated, participating in the economy, in doing business, in doing work, public service or anywhere you know started bringing some sense of sanity in the whole economy and society. So there is a direct link and there is a direct benefit no question we have seen. So we in primary and secondary school education the enrollment rate in Rwanda is one of the highest if not the highest on our continent. About 92% of people who need to go to school access school for the first 12 years and that is how we brought in women who were being left behind because with the poor families if they have girls and boys in the family because of low incomes they would leave girls at home and take the boys to school and so we have now made sure that no girl is left behind everybody is getting educated and the performance whereas the boys in some cases much better. So all of these things can't add up to nothing they they add up to this impressive progress and the results we see in every sector of our society by numbers alone raising people women who participate by restoring the rights they should have for their participation and what affects them and what affects everybody's by improving their health their productivity in the area of agriculture or in business or anywhere else I mean you can go on and on and on every case speaks for itself for that women should not by the way if you flipped it the other way around if it was women living behind men you would end up with the same poor results so it has to be the society as a whole being taken care of and particularly making sure that women are restored right at the center where they belong and as part and part of our society. Well Mr. President I think that a good evening is when you can combine in a harmonious way food for thought and food for eating I think we have reached a good equilibrium tonight I wish to thank you again very very much for having come here with us it was a great honor pleasure and I think you have indeed given us a lot of food for thought so thank you very much and I hope that it is not the last time that you will come to the World Policy Conference.


What is going on guys welcome back to the channel and I do appreciate you being here So over the past month or so I've been bringing you guys destiny to Community highlight videos nice dawned upon me that I within my top five email account I have about 25,000 destiny one clips and destiny one now at the moment is a game Well to be honest is probably equal amount playing both games So yeah, I may as well do community highlights from destiny one too So if you have any amazing destiny one highlights video You want to share with the world send it into the email address linked at the top of the video description But this video right here right now will be a compilation of your guys destiny one best of Moments including epic plays funny moments epic loot drops and so forth If you guys do enjoy the video and want to see more do go ahead and smash that like button But guys thanks as always for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed this video and hopefully I will see you on that next One Yeah, I got it Go photo it is going to best what you get for the night fall We'll blend that will blend that up. Let up. Let up. Let up. No, no, no, don't go don't have your photo


Hi everyone, Joe for Jaspy's casebreaks.com coming at you with a pack of 2021 Panini Chronicles football fat pack break number 18 with six impeccable NFL random number block spots being given away. At the end of the break we'll re-randomize everybody's names. Top three, we'll get into that Bill's Patriots, Dolphins, etc. etc. at random number block. The next three we'll get spots in the Chiefs Cowboys Lions, random number block randomizer. But first the break itself big thanks to this group for making it happen. All teams are in. Let's roll it. Let's randomize names and teams. Four and a five. Nine times are names and teams. Different isole for the giveaway apart. Two, three, four. And ninth and final time. Four and a five. Nine times with the teams. Two, three, four. And once more. Ninth and final time. Bears down to Raiders. Alright, there's the first half of the list right here. And there's the second half of the list right there. And no trade windows and filler packs. It's just print and rip. If you're watching live we just got to do one more of these and then that unlocks that impeccable random number block randomizers and the break itself. So let's get it done. I think at the start of this video there was only one spot taken. Got a Matt Jones rookie card back here for the Patriots. It's gonna be for Tristan. Alright now let's see who's gonna get those number block spots. Let's gather everybody's names for the second and final dice roll. And we'll match you up with one of those number blocks right there. So good luck everybody. Top six after nine. Another nine. Five and a four. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. And fingers crossed. Ninth and final time after nine. Top six. So from seven on down Andy. Sorry man. Very close but no cigar. If you want to give it another shot we've got to do one more of these. But appreciate you trying. So apologies to him. Apologies to everybody 7032. We'll get him next time. There is a next time. Top six though. You're in. Aaron, Filippo, and James. You're in one of those number blocks. And Andy. Oh you made it. Andy, Andy, Aaron, and Jr. With other number block spots here. Let's match you up. Boom right there. So here in we'll put chronic 18 next to your names here. So junior, Aaron, and Andy. You're in that Bill's Patriots Dolphins blah blah blah number block. James, Filippo, and Aaron. You're in that Chiefs Cowboys Lions number block. There you go. Thanks everybody. I'll see you in the next video hopefully for that break. jaskiescasebreaks.com


Hey, this is Christian Buckley with another MVP Buzz Chat, and I'm here today with a fellow other MVP as well as Microsoft Regional Director Ahmed. Hey, good to see you. Hi, Christian. Thanks very much for having me. It's great to have you.  So my name is Ahmed Nabil. I'm a Microsoft MVP for the last eight years. I've been working mainly in the enterprise security, and then Microsoft now changed everything to cloud. So I've been named as the cloud at the center. And just recently, a couple of months, I've been also awarded the Regional Director. I'm from Egypt. I'm living now in Dubai, UE, working in an international financial institution. As of course, as information security manager, I have two girls, one boy, a cat and a dog. Excellent. Well, you're indoors. I know it's a warm time of year over there. I've been several times through Dubai. Of course, it's a great place to stop over. It's one of the most beautiful airports in the world. It's fantastic. Yeah, true. But man, it gets hot over there. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, you need to avoid the summer here. Yeah. So I'm interested to know, in your area of focus, we were just talking before we hit record about how the evolution of your MVP, so what technologies dig into that? Where did you start? What did you start working with? How did you become an MVP? So that's a funny story. I didn't know what's an MVP. And I've been working actively in the community, I believe in giving back to the community and sharing what I'm doing. Actually, when I started my blog, I was using this blog as a kind of like my own history to write whatever, any problem that they've solved or anything that passed by just, you know, of course, we all suffer from some pain. So I was using this mainly as my own register to remember things, remember the problems. And then I started publishing a lot of things. And then someone from Microsoft approached me and told me about the MVP. And at the beginning of the MVP, maybe it's another certificate or something. And then I realized it's not about this. It's about, again, the community and the activities. And that's how I came into the MVP. And this is a good thing because, I mean, Microsoft people are looking for the talents are looking for the people who are really giving to the community. I used to write a lot of blogs and answer a lot of questions on tech ads back at the days. So I started mainly with anything related to enterprise security, crossing everything, active directory, all system center applications, even the virtualizations. That day is eight, nine years ago, maybe 10 years ago, it was mainly on-premise. And then everything switched to the cloud. And my main focus now is the cloud security of the cloud architecture and how the cloud technology can help us and impact our lives and how to secure it. Because this is a big buzz there with the cloud and security. Yep. I love that as part of your origin story that like the idea of capturing in the blog. It's funny, I just had a conversation this morning. I do have a weekly AMA style panel where we go through and we use office hours, we answer questions, we pull off a Facebook and tech community. And we were talking about getting more viewers on there. And we had, I think at the one point, we had 14 people on the live stream. And so, and there are over once the recording is published, it actually gets hundreds of visits to the live streams and the videos out on YouTube. But how we get more people on it. And I said, you know, it's not really been entirely the goal. People go and they find the snippets here and there. But I use my blog the same way. And the office hours kind of the same way. We try to reach back out to the people who ask the questions. Maybe we just help one person. But it helps us learn. We're talking through these different things. Every week, we're learning about stuff. And so, I use my blog the exact same way. It's whether there's five people reading it or 5,000 people reading it, you know, that article I think.  This is the best rewarding thing. When someone just sent you a comment that's your blog or maybe your answers or questions or something really helped them and saved them a lot of hours. That's, that's actually the real reward from every program that you feel that you've done something, someone else who really needed help. Right? Well, that's the, that's the secret of it. People, I'm sure you get, you hear from people all the time, like, what can I do to become an MVP? I don't know, what's, what's your version of that question? Because we all get that all the time. Yeah, that's true. Actually, so I'm getting this question every time. And since I'm living here in the Middle East. So I mean, recently, me and a couple of also friends, other MVPs and RDS, we created even a video in Arabic targeting our Middle East people and community to let them understand what's MVP and what you need to become an MVP. And people think that it's kind of maybe a simple thing or simply something you pass and maybe do a session or write a blog. But actually, it's more the commitment. It's more a commitment to the community. So you're taking this time from your family, from your own leisure time, and giving it to the community because you should be passionate about this technology or about this product. And the second thing, it's, you need really to be especially the MVPs and this difference between MVPs and RDS. With MVPs, you need to be a little bit deep dive to the technology, very focused in specific areas of technology, which is different than the RDS. So I mean, we're trying to explain this because I mean, everyone would just approach you saying, okay, can you nominate me? Can you nominate me? And then at least, at least my answer is at least I need to see your work at least one year, what you've been doing to the community and also the feedback and what's the effects you're having in your at least your closest community. Yeah, that's the hardest part too is that when maybe these people that come and ask this are doing amazing things, but they're it's not really surfaced up to what's visible. There's always that fine line between self-promotion and just trying to raise awareness of something. I don't know how it do you differentiate between those like, how do you surface, how do you personally surface the things that you're doing around the community? So this is another thing that we have been working on it as well, which is mentoring some people. So sometimes, I mean, even without people approaching me, sometimes in one of the community or one of the events, one of the local events, meetups, conferences, you can really, really see someone has a very, very good potential to be an MPP, an enrolled MPP program. However, he's not able to promote himself. That's really where we can just step in and start helping these people. I was really happy to mentor maybe one or two in the recent year, one of them became an MPP as well, to guide them how they can promote themselves, what channels are available, what areas they need to tackle them. It's very exciting and very rewarding for me as well. Yeah. So let's say that I've approached you. I've said, hey, I've been doing a lot of things. I'm involved with my user group. I've got a blog that's been out there I've participated in a couple of these AMAs that asked me anything kind of discussions to help others out there, none of which is part of my day job. My company is not paying me to go out and do this activity. It's all above and beyond that. What are your recommendations that you would give me? So my recommendation, first of all, is that he need to focus on a specific area and he need to pick an area where he had some struggles with it.  It's very difficult to find things that and that's why you start doing your own content. So I mean, so it's not about copying some content to making some replicas. I mean, this will not add anything. Even it will not add to your blog or site on Google or the searches. So my main focus is just tackle this thing. Think about the new ideas.  I mean, tackle these things. There's less content available and then think about your community. What's the community looking for? So again, it's different between, for example, Middle East, Europe or America. The challenges that we face here might differ a little bit than what's, for example, in America.  That's how I say it. And then start working this step by step. There are different channels, things like meetups, things like the local events. I can help someone to anonymity maybe for speaking slots in one of the meetups, one of the local events. And then it builds on this step by step. Yeah. Well, so what are, I'd be interested to know that since you, you know, with in Egypt and UAE, like what is the community like in that part of the world? Like I've had some interactions with some user groups that I've presented at SharePoint Saturday events in a few different countries. And so I've been able to, in fact, most of the times that I've been over to UAE, it's been to present to user groups and at the Microsoft facility. Been a few years now since I've traveled over there, but four or five years. But how is the community doing over there? And what's different from other parts of the world that you've interacted with? So I think the community is really here to learn. We have our own challenges. So when I travel, for example, to ignite some other conference in Europe or the States, we find, for example, that the cloud adoption is much more mature than where I'm coming from. And maybe this is because there's a lot of regulations that are stopping people. Maybe in some countries there's some problems with the infrastructure itself. So people are really eager to leverage the new technologies, to use the new technologies, things like the cloud. And then we've seen what happened during this pandemic and how the people were really cloud driven or adopted the cloud were able to survive the difficult situation with the remote working. So these are kind of problems. So people always come and ask, for example, about the security, about the data, about how can they move to the cloud? How can they transform their own digital transformation? How they can transform their own on-premises and old servers and old data and move the cloud in a secure way? This is the main challenge you've been seeing in the last maybe a couple of years. But honestly, when we do, for example, I participate as well in one of the SharePoint Saturdays in Egypt. I serve one of them with my SharePoint MVP friends. And these kind of meetups or local events, we never expect maybe people to attend or maybe a few bunch of handful of people will attend. But really, when just specific topics, we're going to find a lot of people coming, a lot of people asking a lot of questions, which is really, really interesting. That has been, obviously, my original MVP was in SharePoint. Now, I'm Office Apps and Services. So I talked a lot about your teams. We answer questions about exchange, kind of all the office suite kind of everything around there. But a lot of my experience around community is around in and around the SharePoint Saturday kind of movement. And a lot of people that are outside of the SharePoint space may not be aware of this phenomenon that just went global and it's still going where it was pre-COVID, still going strong. A lot of those events. But one of the things that I really like about what the community is, is kind of what you just said, is that you might have speakers. Here's a great example. I was approached with providing a keynote virtually for a SharePoint Saturday in Ahmedabad, India, which is over on the western side of the country. I've been over to, I've been there in person. I used to have a development team as based out of Ahmedabad. And so I thought, this is fantastic. So the keynote's going, you're presenting, and I realized I look in the audience. There's two of my friends from the east coast of the US sitting in the audience, you know. And so you have, and that's actually a fairly common thing where the call for speakers go out and you might be traveling over to the US. And I imagine, like, you look around and say, hey, what other, what events are going on? Anything that I could participate since I'm going to be in the city at the time. I think that way as well. When I'm traveling remotely or around the world, as I look and see, is there anything going on in a youth groups meeting and events that I can attend as an attendee or potentially speak? And so you have... Yeah, whenever we go to Ignite or the MPV summit, we usually see if there's maybe some SharePoint Saturday or some kind of sequel thing or something happening that we can even help if nothing is speaking. But I mean, it's all about the community. I mean, and how you can give to these communities and help people. So yeah, that's true. That's a great way though for community, for folks that aren't active in those SharePoint Saturdays, but even your youth groups, a lot of these events that are going on is, but getting involved is, it's a great opportunity to start kind of rubbing elbows, the phrase goes, with experts around the world. Most of us that are in the community, MVPs and RDs, I would say most. Every MVP or RD I've ever met, they are some of the most social people, meaning they're willing to connect, to give you their contact information, to get in touch, to help answer questions. And if they don't know the answer, to point you to somebody who probably does know the answer to the question. But you have to take that step and reach out. Yeah, that's true. So the good thing about, especially now maybe when I became an RD, I think that was one of the main reasons I became RD is now is that I became more diversified, this kind of cross-function things. So I'm more into the architecture of things now, the focus of the cloud and secured architecture. Because now I've been exposed to a lot of technologies on different verticals. And my main aim now is to help the people to leverage this so they can boost their business by leveraging the right technologies. I've passed by a lot of companies, a lot of people where they might have the technology and they're not able to get all out of this technology. You know, it's just joining all the buttons with this technology and get all out of it. So maybe that's my next challenge would be helping people for this journey, for the digital administration journey. Well, and that's a great distinction between the RD and the MVP programs. It's not like, hey, there's an MVP program and I'll graduate up to the RD. They're completely different things. In general, MVPs as you point out are very focused on specific products and feature sets within those products. Whereas an RD is expected to be an expert in a number of different technologies and competing technology. But most of us RDs are also business owners or senior folks within these companies that are actively engaged with customers to help them along that journey and providing them advice. It has been, I think, a great experience just in the connections again. Yeah, that's true.  Now, people who need to align with the business, IT and security forms need to be more aligned to the business. Business need to understand that they need to leverage us. We will enable them to achieve their own business goals. We're not just a cost center, but we are a big enabler. So again, because this COVID was something disastrous, I mean, what happened is that companies who will leverage the technologies, leverage the IT, the IT and the technology enable them to survive and live during the situation. And this is a very good example to the use of technology, of course. Yeah, you know, we used to talk about, I've been around for a while as well, and you should talk about, you know, the need for, so I started my career almost 30 years ago as a business analyst and became a, went into project management and kind of that set a big part of the course of the first half of my career in the project management world, but my roots as a business analyst and technical writer was that I was, you know, my task was to understand the business requirements, the business needs, as well as the technology, be the go-between of that. And so I used to write about that, the fact that we needed to have more people that could bridge that gap between business and the technology. And that has increasingly become the role of the traditional IT organization with a lot of these services outside of the enterprise that IT goes and says, hey, these are the different services, here's how the pieces come together, but has to be that translator for the business and to work with people to be able to properly leverage. When you hear, and I know it's a lot of marketing spiel around business transformation, what does that actually mean to go through a business transformation? But it's exactly that. It's to understand, here's where we are as a business, here's what the technology can do and then to enable that to connect those two sides together. That's the problem, but sometimes, I'm glad that you mentioned this, there's also a misconception when you think about automation versus the transformation. So people think that's okay, we're just putting a couple of softwares and some tools to our existing processes that this is a kind of transformation. No, this is kind of automation. Yes, there are some benefits, of course, but I mean, this automation, but the complete transformation means that you're completely changing, revamping all your processes. This is the retransformation. And there's some people just get this kind of misconception between automation and the transformation. Right. Well, I mean, look, you can, we just had a question this morning where somebody was asking about using some features and tools on their Windows 7 and which is now no longer being supported. And we're saying it's like, look, you can go do that. Look, the, if you've got the space, if you're hardware requirements, whatever, you know, the technology should work with 7, it's in the documentation that it supports it. However, not the best utilization of all the technology. If you really want to see all the features light up, you need to upgrade, which you upgrade, which you can do for free still from 7 to 10, move to 10 and then leverage all the benefits of that. But you're right. That's kind of a small example. Right. Well, I had the same, I have the same discussion. I was just telling the people, I mean, you are now in 2020 and you want to use a technology that had been invented like 12 years ago. I mean, how can I, I mean, there's not logic.  I mean, give you all the bells and whistles you're looking for. And you know what will happen too? To it's the IT team will pay the price because they'll figure out a way to get those newer products to work with that old desktop. And then, you know, and then the people will be satisfied for about five minutes and then get them back up. Why can't I do this? Like, well, because we need to upgrade you to the latest. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. It's interesting times. Well, well, it's really been, it's great to get to talk to you and get to know you. And hopefully one of these days we'll get back and I'll be able to see you at one of these MVP summits or maybe an event ever in your part of the world. I'd love to get back over there. I had one trip over to that region that was, that was canceled. I was actually going to pass through on my way to India. And then COVID thing happened. But, you know, for people that want to find out hopefully, hopefully it'll be maybe ignite the tours or something like this, maybe, and there used to be one in Dubai delivered one here in Dubai before the COVID, before the pandemic in February. That's what it was. I was going to be over in India. And yeah, so we'll hopefully, you know, next year, middle of next year, that stuff will pick back up again. But for folks that want to find out more about you getting in touch, what are the best ways to get in touch with you? So they can reach me on LinkedIn, of course, Ahmed Nabeed Mahmood or my blog, it's itcalls.net. And I'll be glad to answer any question on these two channels as well. Excellent. Well, thanks a lot. Have a great rest of your afternoon.