TLO was pop We are on twitch. We are not live, but you can leave a like comment subscribe turn on your post notification bells Let's continue to grow the family from Chicago to the UK We got HMP Pentonville London Britain's toughest prison Heard that before Well, maybe you haven't heard the word toughest, but we heard Britain's something prison This is brought to us by organized criminals Start out to them Let's get into this man. It's an hour long. No pauses gang Pentonville in London is one of Britain's toughest prisons Over a whole year for the first time on television The BBC has followed repeat offenders inside jail Outside on release And even back inside again We don't like to see the free It gives up too much of this 7,500 offenders come in and out of Pentonville every year Mick Norman is irregular. He's 43 and has a hundred and nineteen offenses on his record most linked to crack and heroin use This time he's inside for stealing bottles of spirits which he sells for cash That's so calm and Chicago Right now Mick would rather be locked up in Pentonville than free In here I'm safe, you know, I'm cleaning sober, I've got a bed, my food's here, I've got a job, I've got Tobacco, I've got friends, I've got staff I know, and out there I'm living at the bottom of a block of flats in a bingy shed, no money, I've got no ID so I'm not claiming, all I need is... I don't feel anything. It's a good one. It's a good one, you know. I'm going to be alright, is it? Sorry. More safe, these places, these are the pinnacles. Oh! Staff do try to prepare repeat offenders for release, but every day there are more urgent challenges to face, from Pentonville's many difficult and dangerous inmates. Don't move a bit, do you want me to help you? I've got a radio to ask for a bit of help. Today's duty governor has to deal with a mentally disturbed prisoner who's refusing to take his medication. He's in credit. This came out in 2007, or maybe it was re-uploaded in 2007. He's been really aggressive and won't even entertain any staff attempting to help him, which is when we see him spitting at staff and punching staff and throwing things and he secretes weapons. If y'all wondering what happened to the Myra, the Myra reaction, it got blocked, which is surprising. I don't remember real stories ever blocking anything from me. Try and use an exit spell, so it's very, very tricky. A team is taken away from normal duties and sent to the healthcare wing, just to make sure the prisoner gets the treatment he needs. He's very, very volatile, even if he is compliant at first, please remain on your guard, because he does have a history of staff assault. Keep your shields on, because he spits. Be careful, y'all. I'm going to make y'all work for y'all a little money. My hat looks good. It's not. Officers must give the prisoner every chance to comply, but make sure they are protected if he hits out. Then the place you're hiding. I don't feel like getting beat up today. He's just going to comply. Since he refuses medication, staff must maneuver him into a position where it can be safely administered. Into a position where... Why did that look just so aggressive just now? Is it just me or is that aggressive? He was complying, wasn't he? It can be safely administered. Dang! Maybe it wasn't aggressive. Night night. And I got to make sure all of this records. I'm recording, okay. I'm going to edit this out. Y'all won't see it.  Honestly. One of the best editors on YouTube. It comes, you know, it comes with a lot. It's calling me from Boca Raton. I think this is my baby mama. Dang! Another new arrival. Shennel Bice is 36. He's been in and out of jail since he was a teenager. For robbery, burglary and assault. Have you been here before? Yeah. When was the last time, was it? Last year. What's your offense? What offense? What kind of charge? A lock knife.  Yeah. He's hoping the spell inside can set him straight.  Outside, it's hard because you've got this to do. It's hard. When you come to prison, it's easy. Do you know what I mean? You've got your telly, you've got your kettle, you've got your mills three times a day. You know what I mean? It's easy. You've got no mills to pay, no nothing. Do you know what I mean? So that's how it is. I want them to come to prison today. Do you know what I mean? Like because... This is the second person we ran into that wanted to come here. It's too much for me out there because I'm an ex, having addict and an alcoholic. So for me to come to prison, it helps me... I try to get it for life re-offenders. You know what I mean? That's why I'm here. Do you know what I mean? I'm off a break and... You know? Outside prison, Shennel has fallen out with his fiance. He wants his mum to contact her. What did you speak to Nina? And what she say? We can start again, mum. Just so that we can start again and...  You know what I mean? I'm going to go right, do what I asked you to. Just matter that seat is like matter. He's... Man's went back to prison to get away from his fiance. Good thing it's already good. I love her and you know, and to write me a letter, so I know what's happening. Shennel will be in Pentonville for two months. On seawing, staff are monitoring the prisoner who is creating a major disturbance. We have a chap on here, Mr. Kieran. He's been here for several weeks now. He's served. That's him now, yeah. He's going home in the next few days, but he seems to be getting maybe anxious about that as well. Or maybe he don't want to go. The prisoner will be let out of his cell to get his lunch, but Principal Officer Barclay has concerns. He's been banging his door. It's quite irate. He's asking, making demands about all manner of things. If it comes to a restraint, then what I expect is three officers to be doing a restraint and Mr. Long to oversee it. Outside the Cerberi, the prisoner has thrown a plate of food at another inmate, and officers are forced to restrain him. I saw like, this is like the Forever 21 or Bass Pro Shop employee staff. They don't even look like real prison guards. Crazy. Stand him up. Stand him up. Mr. Lawrence. I remember I got arrested one time, right?  And he was just going hard on me, like trying to make fun of me, trying to like, like just saying all kind of stuff. And I'm looking at him, because I'm complying, I just put my hands behind my back, waiting for them, blah, blah, blah, blah, complying, being calm, cool, collected. And I look at him, I'm like, bro, what's wrong with you? Like, what happened to you today? Were you jerking it out on me? Because I haven't said a word to you and you just continue to go. Like be professional at what you're doing, because I'm giving y'all an easy time. I could be irate, I could be, I could do whatever I want. I could give you the toughest time, but I'm not. I'm 6'2", x amount of pounds. I can make this very difficult for y'all, but I'm not.  He was like, you're right, my bad. He was like, and he apologized. I was like, thank you. Chill. I didn't even do nothing either. Down in the segregation unit, Sean Kieran will be searched, then led to a cell. He is nearing the end of a short sentence for a drunken fight. After two hours, Sean is calm enough to explain his fears about leaving jail. He has a drink problem and suffers from depression, and he's wanted more help from the prison. What's worrying you about getting out? I've got a lot to not look forward to. I'm probably going to lose my flat. I don't know if the gas electricity's on. One thing that I've been given help for in the past was, you know, about utility bills, getting in touch with gas and electricity people to say, you know, yo, I'm in prison. And this time round, it's been like, I've been asking for someone to amputate an arm of themselves. The point is, I'm alcoholic, and I've been trying my best to stop drinking.  Yeah, exactly. But, you know, once you're out in the real world, you know, it's a different matter. Oh, my God, man. I'll get a role in drunk, and end up dead somehow under a car.  Well, you'll be in drunken bras. At Pentonville, Christmas can do courses or attend education classes, but many are locked up 23 hours a day. Is that normal? On G-Wing, Mick Norman is allowed out of his cell to work as a cleaner. I shouldn't say it, but I've got a bit of a soft spot for Mr. Norman. Norman, you know what they say? A woman's work is never done. I don't know what he does outside.  Mick is currently drug-free, but years trapped in a cycle of prison, addiction and homelessness have left him estranged from his family.  Where? Unless I've got safe housing. Yeah. Yeah. It's a sorry state of affairs, isn't it? You've got family outside and everything. Very good. With your mum's, with my family, I don't even see them. Why? When you come out of jail and say, I'm back again for a couple of weeks, so I'm better off not seeing them, you know? I ain't seen my boy for nearly two years. He's 16, you haven't even got a mum. I've had him since he was a baby. How do you know that he feels like that? How do you know that he doesn't want you to come round? It doesn't matter what he wants, my mum doesn't want it. You could write a letter and just explain how you feel. I've said it all before. Keep saying it, bro. Give up, really. I just don't think you... I think you've just got to keep trying, basically. Keep trying. That's a real... My son hasn't got a mum on that because he's his grandmother's. I stay out of contact with him because that's better for him. The best thing I can do is stay away from my mum because then I'm doing the right thing by my son, until I can be a responsible parent again and a productive member of society. I've got no right to be around him. But no matter when he's safe, he's doing well at school, he plays music, he's a mentor for other kids. I'm really proud of him.  It's going to make a difference later in your son's life. You've got to keep trying. Mick will be out in just three weeks. Local councils seldom offer immediate housing to newly released prisoners. So it's up to the prison's drug support team to try and find him somewhere to sleep. Down in segregation, officers deal with a dirty protest every few weeks. Sean Kieran has now become so desperate about his imminent release that he started one too.  So there's two things there we can't see yet. We can't do for his protection as well. We've got to see him. A lot of dookie excrement in there. We should get Kieran out of here. We'll get the white suits on. Because it could end up like this. It's the type of stuff that makes prison guards on a whooping. The rules are that dirty protesters must stay in the same cell until they have ended their protest. So staff have to clean up around Sean Kieran. It's nothing we've noticed before.  It happens once or twice a month. Even if they're on a dirty protest, prisoners must be offered food. Sean Kieran is becoming increasingly disturbed.  Stand for the back of the cell.   What do you say? Glass go kiss?     It takes another day in the segregation unit for Sean Kieran to bring his protest to an end.  You're going to catch something. You're all right now. So you woke up this morning and things start better? Yeah, I was thinking a lot more clearly.  I suppose in a way it's like false bravado if you like. What was I talking about? We were just talking to him about he doesn't want to end up under a car because somebody thinks it's going to hurt him.  Like, of course. Chenle has been in jail a fortnight. He's sobered up and started thinking about what keeps dragging him back inside. I know what has triggered me off to be like is like when my dad passed away, like seven years ago, this August. I do think about my dad, but it's hard. I still think my dad's at home drinking his whiskey and that, you know. But yeah, that's what made me go a bit cranky. So I've got to let go, but I don't think I've let go yet. Though he's calmer inside prison, Chenle is anxious about what's going on outside. Obviously I love my girl, isn't it? I was going to get married to her and all that, but I don't know what's going on. She hadn't even sent me a letter or nothing, so I don't know. I'm just, I'm irritable, you know what I mean? I mean, it's horrible, man. I'm having a bad heart, but I don't know if she still loves me or not. I don't know. I just have to find out, wait and see. I don't know. Be free today, but because his sentence is under 12 months, he'll have no probation officer. He may also have nowhere to stay and weeks of delay before he can access benefits. The only way I can survive outside is to quit crime.  What do I eat the day after? Where do I go? What do I do? Where do I wash?  You know what I mean? I'm a grafter, so I'm going to go after the money, but I'm not going to sleep on the street. We're not going to earn each other one life or two when I quit the job. I don't do the same in the afternoon. We've got a paper and hotel, we'll wait. It's a vicious cycle, man. I'm sad, but it's still the wrong road, isn't it? The worst thing you can get from me is here. It's the worst that can happen, it's this. And you know, I ain't got to pay for this, am I? Tax, please. I'm sad, I know, but it's true. Good luck. Thank you, miss. Hopefully, we won't see you soon. Hopefully, but... Right, so... I've left me bed. You wanted to say realistically, you will. No, that's not the attitude. You sent me sevens on hold. Well, thanks. For the day. I hope we don't see you back. Have fun. See you later, miss. Thanks, guys. See you. Well, you like my margillon steak, don't you? I've got 67 of your own money. We're giving you seven pounds, 70 fares, 46 pounds, discharges, so I took the 69, 37. Have you got everything? Yes, miss. Can I give you some money? Do you want me to help you, sir? Do you want all that rough on the money? I've got to use that for our food, man. The prison has set up a meeting for Mick at a housing charity, but even if he can tackle all the bureaucracy involved, he has no guarantee of a roof over his head tonight. So...  If they accept that, I might be able to get in the property today. If they don't, and I've got to wait more than four or five days to get in anywhere, I'm not prepared to stay out on the street for four or five days, so I prefer to come back to Penneville. So what do you think your chances of staying out of this jail for the weekend are? This time, man. 60-40. Man. 60-40 is your favourite. Yeah. Are you keeping a rebutt? It's cold in the UK, aren't you? It's out of my hands. I can do it. I'll give you a call. It's cold in the UK. Mick never did call. A few weeks later, we were to discover why. Really done? What was he about? Sean is leaving too. After getting help from the prison's addiction support team, he feels calm about re-entering the world outside. On the day of his release, he even takes time to write a farewell letter. This is a letter from Mr Monaghan, the governor. Thanks to all at the Ville for their tough love. In no particular order of any kind. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Thanks in the final analysis for looking after me. You're sincerely peace and love, Sean Kieran. But you feel you've been well looked after here. Yeah, really. Because, you know, things are done for a good reason while you're here. You know, you don't always understand why. Have you kept a look? No, it's fake, yeah. It looks like a seventh grade science teacher. I don't even understand. Mel Gibson, bright heart. That's actually who you look like. Mel Gibson. Bye-bye. Peace. Look after yourselves next. Despite his anxieties inside jail, Sean still has a home to go to. Home again, home again, jiggity jig. Oh, you're good. I've got lots to keep me active. Keep me away from trouble. Yeah. That's my, you know, release from prison to back home. So far, so good. Yep. Shennel Biser has been waiting for news from the woman he hopes will one day be his wife. It's been a good week for me so far. I've got two letters. Okay. She's saying when I get out, we're going to start again, try for a baby, get married, that sort of thing. So yeah. I want to say he can change, but I want to say she sounds delusional. She's telling me she loves me, which is a good thing. Do you know what I mean? Because I was paranoid. Because when you come to prison, you do get paranoid. You think like they're doing the same cults out there. You know what I mean? But all girls ain't the same. Do you know what I mean? And she's even put, like, needing a bicep. So I'm just waiting for her to give a big kiss. You know what I mean?  Reassured, Shennel now gets to work and takes up some of the opportunities the prison has on offer to prepare for life outside. No one can say I've been sitting down, doing nothing. I'm doing things in jail while I'm in jail. By the end of next month, I will be drug-free. I've got three certificates already. I've got a changing possible. Change is possible, so and I've got relaxation and I've got heroin. That was the main one. Yeah, heroin. That was my main one. That's the one.  You know what I mean? And just live a normal life like other people. Because I'm fed up with this. It's not me no more. I've done my time. You know what I mean? I've served my time. I'm not complacent with normality, you know. I don't want to be nowhere like this, but I just can't, you know what I'm saying? Give me. I feel like I want, I feel like everybody should want more than normality for themselves. But you know, if you're coming from a place like this, yes, normality is something to strive for, like, I see so much more, man. Another repeat offender, Graham Shields, is nearing the end of a 16 month sentence for robbery. Graham is 32 and has been a shoplifter for over a decade. He had a steady job. Sound like you need to retire. You in here again. But gradually, crack cocaine took over. I feel kind of guilty. Cracks the culprit.  I was working for a commercialised company at the time of Korean. I lost my job there. I was become unreliable. I stopped eating. So then I started going that shoplifting every day like it was a job, kind of thing, getting up. Going to hit a couple of shops, going to sell that, putting the money in my pocket. Going to smoke crack. Graham was just one of those people who... I've probably seen him coming into prison probably six, seven times in the space of 18 months. We always have sort of a bit of a... a bit of a conversation about what had gone wrong for him this time. How many times have you been in jail, Graham? About 42 times. I've been in jail for a long time. I've been in jail for a long time. I've been in jail for a long time. I've been in jail for a long time. About 42 times. Since night yet, I've started coming into jail. So it's quite a few times. 42 times. Yeah, including this time. How much... How many years is that equate to me? Graham will be out of prison again in three weeks. This time, the authorities have him in their sights. Because he's a prolific offender, it's a top priority to stop him committing crime. And put him back. Shennel Biser completes his prison sentence today. He leaves Pentonville sober and focused. I'm still... Why is this the toughest prison? Like, why is this title the toughest prison? This morning, I can't wait. I can't wait. I can't wait to get out of that door. I can't wait. Did you see what it's like? No, not really. Not really. It's hard. You know, I feel positive. I don't want to do what I used to do. Come out, smoke, drugs and drink and this, that and the other. You know what I mean? I want to come out straight ahead here.  I want to change my way now. You're in next finger on that red light. Unlike many who walk out of these gates, Shennel will at least have somewhere to stay with his fiancée Nina. Yeah, man. I... I mean... I'm sorry. It's okay. He did good for himself at least, what his fiancée. Stay free for her, my boy. In recent years, Shennel has failed to stay out of jail for long. Now he will try again. Mick Norman lasted just two weeks outside jail. Homeless, he shoplifted to get himself put back inside. But this time, he was sent to a prison where he didn't feel at home. And now he's out again. How are you? Hi, Michael. I'm very well. How are you? I'm better for getting out of there. You know, I've been away in the country because that's the worst one I've been to. And that's what he'd be taking, man. He took... There's a real fender hanging, sending him to the same prison where he's just so comfortable at, so comfortable. So, you got to make people uncomfortable so they don't want to return to that state of life. Yeah. Or is it definitely conventional? These nice prisons, man.  You don't get enough of meals. You're manding twenty-nine hours between meals. Sorry about the print of your... Let's put me off the jail. Let's put me off the cabin bench. Send me one, please. He'll be lurking behind. Send me one, please. I've spent 14 and a half years in even happy prisons. Mostly on my land.  I'm getting nowhere fast and getting older slower. You know, the chances of getting caught were a lot greater. There's cameras everywhere that I'm known.  Hopefully. It's my last look at the jail. Hopefully. Hopefully.  You know, we all maxed in prison. I've been in prison.  We all get on. We all know each other. I've never gone to prison. 30-year prisons. 30-year prisons, I've been to. I've never walked in prison and not known somebody. I always know someone. You know, Miggie, how's it going, son? Not that time, buddy. Olympic parks. Clapford. Back then, man. I lived that side of the stadium. I never saw this side of the stadium. Come over and have a look. You can't go 10 billion.  This is the Popper Street. That's the new stuff. Milford Limits. This is the old stuff. Straight to the centre. Come on. Chasing to my world. I'll give you breakfast over there if you roll in, because it's free. It's a big tube. You can eat some big sandwiches and a bottle of coke and cola. Life is short with stuff. That's what it is. There you go. I'm sleeping here. Come on, man. Come on, man. There you go.  Come on. Come on. I'll say, there you go. It's 40 quid. I'm going to get 15 quid on that. No-one would know this to me, so all the things that works. Yeah, he's scouting already with the camera crew.  I'll be all right after Christmas. They'll go to Belmarsh, I'll be all right, and I'll be all right. Get on the right. I don't want to. You know, I've done me last time, as far as I'm concerned. Hopefully. Mick is homeless and has only his prison discharge grant to live on, but for once, he'll now seek money and shelter the legal way. Change of scenery. Graham will shortly be released from prison and will complete the last eight months of his sentence outside in the community. They look like an IT analyst. Computer fraud. Let me hide you in here. At the local probation office, plans are being made to handle his release. We know how you went in here, but still. Yeah, Graham's coming out, and yeah, we're going to take him straight to Norman House. Kevin's coming. Yeah, yeah. She did this on purpose. She matched her little cardigan with her hair, and that's tough. We're going to take him straight to Norman House. Kevin's coming as well, the police officer, so he's going to come with us in the car. He has a really poor record of compliance with probation, and he is literally a revolving door. Rachel. Where it really is catch and convict, catch and convict, because he doesn't engage and he's never complied with any type of orders. Graham has been put on a new scheme called Integrated Offender Management, which targets the most prolific criminals to stop them re-offending.  Inside jail, Graham gets work experience. Outside, he'll have a job placement and a hostel place, but if Graham doesn't play ball, probation will send him straight back to jail. I'll have the chills. If you re-offend, you will be recalled to the end of your sentence. I feel different this time I do. I don't know what it is to say what I've done different or anything like that, but inside I don't know what it's to do with maybe having been away a bit longer, because in the past, prison hasn't worked for me. If Graham can leave them prison gates and stay clean for the first night, then I will be really, really happy with that and really also pleasantly surprised. One night. Shennel has been out for 11 days. He has got a place to stay with his fiance Nina, but he started drinking and today he's been involved in a serious car accident, which he can't remember.  All right? And I mean this kid's come quite fast. I don't know what speed, but it was fast. So he was a pedestrian? Yeah, he was a pedestrian. People that weren't to stop the street, everyone's like women are crying, holding their mouths.   Do you know what I mean? Like many newly released offenders, Shennel is also struggling to get his first regular benefits payments. I come out of prison about 14 days ago, yeah? Yeah. It was like, I mean I'm doing my money and because my claim ain't been sorted out, basically I've had to like, ask people on the street for money and that, which I have been doing. They're telling me I've got to go back to the job centre and they pay me incorrectly.   Come on. It's just, it's not worth it. It's not.  I'm not happy.   I've got to hear a walk over there. So I've got to open these people up and try and get a crisis loan. But you can't give me no money. Wait, so how do I get my, my, my, my my crisis loan done then? That's a joke, man. That's why I got not over. That's why I was here. That's why I was here. I was dead. I was dead. I was unconscious. I was dead, man. I think you were unconscious. I was dead. I was unconscious. I was dead. I'm unconscious. I'm still living. Because you were not dead. How much is your super skull? Shennel has stayed drug free, but alcohol has him in its grip once again, and he soon finds all his plans falling away. I'm looking a bit though. I thought it was a, it was about me. God, he's not a honey to me. God, he's got each other in me. It's just as soon as my dad was there, man. Look at the dog trying to comfort her. No, no. She knows that. The dog was there for you. And Nina. To see daddy's hurting. She can see daddy's hurting.  We'll deal with all that. We'll go anger management. Keep you occupied and myself, you know. And we can get through this, huh? We can. Don't keep him occupied. You know what man? We can, papa. We can. Hold on, y'all. Remember I told y'all. Oh, I didn't tell y'all. I'm trying to upload this other video to YouTube right now.  So I gotta see what, what is it now? It says partially blocked. So let's go look at it. Or let me go look at it. We'll leave this right here like that right there, sir. See what they talking about real quick, real quick. I'm gonna edit this out once again. It's kind of tough being best edited on YouTube because, you know, some people just, you know, take it for granted, you know. Y'all know what I'm saying? 93% of your audience cannot see this. Look at this one. Never just, just live. Just let me live. Only people in the United States can see it. Well, I don't need people in the United States to see it. Many people in the UK to see it. You feel me? You feel me? And you know, I, yes, I could have waited 30 minutes, but then I have no videos out today. It's nothing. Gotta get something out, man. They're probably gonna block these, but whatever. I do what it is, shawty. Dispute, yeah, we're disputing. Dispute everything. We're returning right now. Give it a shot here. Give it a hoot. Give it a holler. Feel me? Let's see.  Public. That's premier. Done. Safe. Stop there now, y'all. Yeah? We're gonna do this? Yeah? No. Well, trying is better than nothing.  But you have a whole fiancée.  What are you? I get it. I get what you're saying, but I don't. Three months after his release, Sean Kearen hasn't gone back to drink. How's he going? Good. Yeah? Good. With help from a local charity, he's making the first steps to free himself from addiction. At the moment, you're in a good place, and I haven't seen you in this place since I've known you. Bottom line, I'm turning my back on the booze. It sounds a bit vague, but, you know, I've had sort of glimpses of happiness, you know? Whereas before, I was just sort of, like, muddling through and just coping and just... going through the motions, if you like, of life. Every time I see a bottle anywhere, every time I see a pub or an off-license, I mentally say expelliarmus, sir. What's that for? From Harry Potter. Harry Potter. Ha, ha, ha. That's not how it works. We're looking. That's a defensive spell. What's that? Expelliarmus. Like it was gonna disappear. I get it. Graham will leave prison tomorrow. Once he's out, he wants to stay clean and rebuild bridges with his family. You see, my relationship with my dad's not... not a good one, kind of thing. He's kind of old-school, old man. He's washed drugs, kind of thing, that if you want to stop taking him, just stop taking him, kind of thing. It's easy. Just get a job. And I think he... I think that's what he thinks. Because I've never actually asked, kind of thing. But he's not well, and I don't want to just go and fix up relationship because he's not well, but I want to fix up relationship so that we can have a relationship, kind of thing. Whatever that means, just come around every couple of days to see that they're all right, maybe take him to church or something. I think he would like to do that if I could somehow do that. I need to do the sight and date copy of the licence. 16-3-12. My stomach's not strong, you know. Butterfly is kind of thing. I'm excited as well. I'm really excited about getting out, but that still doesn't take away the fact that it's a bit of a frightening experience. Most repeat offenders walk alone from the prison gate. Right. You got a friend or something? You all right, Rachel? Because Graeme is on the IOM scheme, he is met by probation and a plainclothes police officer. The first hours and days outside are a critical period. Mick Norman has been out two days. He's still homeless and his prison cash is running out. I'll show you something that'll make you change your mind. This is where we live, because at least we're under the shelter there. We've got food out there, food there's a big room, but he's got shorts in there, and he's got his hands in there. I'll be able to grind it up and get a paper sign. Can you save me that? Yeah, of course. This is bleep, my boy. I'm getting out and this is what it is. This is the reality of it. Until benefits decides to, you know... We've got a big lump of carpet to put in there. We ain't putting it down yet, because we haven't sorted the floor out yet. We're pushing on it, getting through candles in there, brining up that and do it for the winter. We've got nowhere. So you slept here the other night? I've slept here since I came out, yeah. David's an amnesty. Yeah, I'll beg David.  How long have you been here, David? Six months. Yeah, this time, six months, yeah, on the road. What's it like sleeping here every night? Very, very bad.  Like, but anyone could... They could all be homeless tomorrow. Exactly. Yeah. That's a fact, but it's all... Over the next days, Mick persists with his attempts to get housing and benefits. There's no possibility of housing anywhere coming out, is there? Yeah. Don't laugh. So are you ringing up about the job centre appointment? Are you trying to sort it out, or are you ringing up about the community care grant? And I'm looking to see if there's accommodation available with you still. Then Mick gets some welcome news. Okay. His son, whom he hasn't seen for nearly two years, wants to meet him. He's made contact with me since then. We've been texting, and hopefully our next hour or two, I'll go and meet him when he's not busy, and I'm not busy. You're not busy? Sort of when he's not busy. I'm really unfortunate, you know? He said, don't go to Nen for the family for me. They're just keeping it, you know? And he's really giving me a boost today. And I've got to, because obviously, you need that support. I need a cover-up there again, you know? Yeah. Today, Shennel is at court. He's due for sentencing on an old public order offence. There's a risk he'll be sent back behind bars. The outcome is crucial for his and Nina's future. This is outside the courtroom. This man is shirtless drinking a beer. But he's drinking again. In the middle of the hearing, Shennel storms out of court. Mostly they say now, because they're saying that I've been cooperative with these a lot, I could be going to prison. Definitely isn't that how they're storming out? The details of the court case become a flash point. Do you know, Shennel, you don't need to cheat, mate. If you go in, what about you doing, mate? They turned up to that one, that's not the one. Go in. It's to say, John's why they're going to jail. Yeah, but they've got access to it. Plotting on this downfall, but my boy, you at the courthouse with a can of beer, shirtless, outside on the steps. It never looked good. It never looked good. The outcome of whatever was going on, never looked in your favor. In the end, Shennel wasn't given another prison sentence. Salute. Somebody was on your side. Instead, the court gave him a strict community order. He must get treatment for his alcohol problem under weekly supervision from probation. Nina is now desperate for Shennel to change.     Big time.  Do you know what? I just want my life, and it don't seem to be happening with this man. It don't seem to be happening.  Do it. Don't blame it on everyone else.  It's the system, it's this, it's that.  She's not wrong, she's right. Any change starts within. Graham has been out three days. Today he is booked for a work placement as a trainee gardener. Every time he's left jail before, he's gone straight back to crack cocaine, heroin and shoplifting. But this morning, he's at work on time. This is the Norway. I feel like out of everybody on that episode, he's really trying to change. And to do with the hair too as well.  But this dude, he's really at it. Maple. Yeah? That's chickweed. I don't know what that one is. That's a leaf. This is positive. This has changed what I'm doing. I don't do this. In the past, I haven't come out of prison and gone into work or anything like that. I'm keeping myself busy and out of trouble by doing this and all. That's not to say that I'm saying I've correct it or anything. It's the first day, but I hope it's the first of the many. It's the positive outlook. In three days' time, Graham is due at probation. In the past, he's never managed to attend. Graham has got through his first five days out of prison. How do you feel about how far you've come already? I feel good about it.  Just keep taking it one day at a time, but so far, I'm feeling really positive, do you know what I mean? Me too. Graham was about to get some tragic news. Okay. Everything's going up. One week after release, and Mick is still on the streets, but he's about to see his son for the first time in two years. And he wants to look his best. Look, this is nice. America is where it should look. Any old bags? Have a look. I don't know what's nice. They're not shoes. Well, they're a bit cohesive or not, but... You've got some lemon-pepper-steppers. I'll see you, my boy. Hands up, pal. It's so ski. Yeah, they fit as well. Yeah, that goes for me. Yves Saint Laurent, look at that. Thank you, thank you. Boy, you got Yves Saint Laurent? Yeah. I don't even own a designer shirt, and he got Yves Saint Laurent. Yves Saint Laurent, look at that. Thank you, thank you. Swag. Drip. Look at that drip. Swag. Nervous. He's a young man there, really. That shirt is truly... If they said Yves Saint Laurent, that's truly exclusive. Hey, Siri. Yves Saint Laurent. Found Yves Saint Laurent on W Sunrise Boulevard in Sunrise. I don't know what to talk about. Sorry, yeah. Wow. Six foot two. Come on. All that has done is just been praising you, and saying about how well you're doing, and that you're actually trying. Yeah. Yeah, about college, ain't it? Oh, it's YSL, yeah. YSL shirt. I'm impressed. Whoever gave one that does. Too bad, Eva. Now, when I was in the performing arts... Just performing arts? Yeah, it's a performing arts college. That's why I love it. It's full of dancers. There's like 40, 50 girls. There's a guy around the college in two twos all day. Ha! I don't care what happens to me. You know, if you never spoke to me again, they didn't do anything, and then everyone didn't. I'd have to tell me, I still wouldn't go back to prison.  All I'll do is tell you that. I'll put you there in the future. You will do. You'll do. I can't help myself, you know what I mean?  Boy. Yeah, he's just... Just emotions, innit? You know what I mean?  I know, because... Yeah. I've got to do whatever happens. I'm not going back to prison, you know. The drinking drug is out of the window, and if I've got to sleep out the tree for the next three weeks, I will. Come on. I love you. I love you, too. That's good, man. It's funny, when you get older and you've broken what you lost in the time you missed out on things. He was proud. You realise what really matters, and you're 43 now.  What's that? Have you got a phone call? He was born in three homes or something? Born in Sydney, guys. That's just given me the boost for the next three weeks, whatever I face. I could not let that boy down again. I wish I had a kid at 23. When we met Shannon again, he'd spent the previous night sleeping rough, believing his relationship was over. And you're not in the flat anymore? No. So you've been sleeping on benches? In the park, yeah. And hybrids? I'm not close from committing a crime. I haven't done it for five months, but I will. You're telling me I will? Oh, man, hey, man. I just want my life on track. That's all I'm crying for, man. My life on track. Did you say I'm not getting it? That's honestly sad. As part of his sentence, Shannon's progress must now be monitored every week by a probation officer. Shannon's, particularly his most recent offending issues, are all linked to his alcohol very much, getting into altercations with people, becoming violent, being threatening and abusive in his language and his behaviour. So that, I guess, is why the court was so keen to throw this opportunity for the alcohol treatment, because if Shannon can look at that and address that, a lot of the risk may dissipate. It's hard for you as people think alcohol is. Man, it can change who you are. Detox is available for Shannon, but first he must attend group assessment.   You're doing nothing with a Detox. I want a Detox. I know him. No, no. He's scared. I know him. No, no. He jumped hard. I know him. Breach me, mate. Breach me, because I'd rather do my Detox in jail. Okay. What?  What? I know. Dad, you know what, mate?  You haven't let me talk at all. I've come to talk. Okay, so my understanding of the situation was that there's also this thing called the options group, which is down at the Margaret Centre, to go to that as part of the What am I going to see in a group fault? For what? This is your ego right here talking, man. Your ego, your pride. Let it go. Let it go, my boy. Go sit down with those people talking out so you can get where you need to be in life. No, no, no, no, no. I am not going. And I'm changing that now. I've got a drinking problem and I want to help with it.  The detox is not enough because obviously you detoxed in jail, but now you're drunk again. You got to talk to somebody to get to the root of that, my boy.  Sorry, Danny. I'm not doing it. It's really hard for me to help you when you come in like this. Oh, no, no. I'm sleeping in the park. Okay, there's a lot of stuff. When were you sleeping? In the crib. Sober. Open-mindedly. What do you mean? It's not really relevant. Why is that relevant? When were you sleeping in the house? Or flat? No, he was really sitting here like every decision he made in his life did not lead him to his situation right now. What are you talking about? What? Okay, thank you. Graham was working at the garden centre when his boss received a call. I had a phone call from this woman who introduced herself as Graham's mother and she said, I've got some awful news. Graham's father's died. Oh, man. And he was trying to get right to go get in a relationship with his father, wasn't he? He went to the office and he looked at me not knowing what's going on and I just said to sit there and I've got something to tell you. And I just did think this is a lightly trigger for him to go back on the drugs again. Graham's not doing so well at the moment and so he's been recalled on his licence. He provided three positive drug tests in a row. It's tragic. You see, you work with these offenders and just as I get an effort on the ladder something else tragic happens. Once probation has recalled Graham to prison it's the police's job to arrest him. But Graham cannot be found at any known address. He's on the run. I'm sticking and moving. Two months later. For Channel things are starting to go right despite all his problems. Seven months after leaving prison he is cooperating with probation and has got assessment for detox. He has stayed off drugs out of trouble and his bond with Nina survives. Here you go. He's my baby. I love him. I love him to bits.  I don't want to be meeting any other people, anyone else. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Can I talk to someone about getting married? Yeah, just get to it with this job. Go straight down first. There's a book there. These are the options you need to bring. You need to make an appointment for it.  I'm getting married. I can't wait. It's the longest I've ever been out of prison. Thanks to Nina. If it weren't for Nina I don't know what I'd be doing now. So you're right, my boy. That's your son. This is your piece. After four weeks of trying Mick Norman finally got a place to stay. Then things moved on quicker than he could ever have imagined. The place I got, which is the studio flat I ain't back in the palace but I'm grateful. You know, it's big enough for me. I've moved in there within two weeks before he's landed on me. When I was running, can I take my son back? Over the moon, who would have said that three months ago?  Oh, OK. Mick's new role is to get a teenager out of bed in time for college. I bet he's still asleep. 50 to 30 times. I'm not even going to lie, that's a nice little studio. This is your place anyway? Yeah. Nice big room. It's pretty nice. Nice little kitchen. Bathroom is decent. There's your chair. There's your towel floor, silly. When you used to get this 8x12 cell for years I mean, this is like that for a minute. Hospital bed. That is alright, he's good stuff. He's on his own journey, you know. What have you lost? Nothing. Do you have a blue one today? No, I'm looking for the blue ones. Them. I've got to sort out the laces on them because they got that tight the other day. I literally had to cut the laces in order for me to get... Oh, it's because when we grew up we used to have to try and do air laces and then do them up when we put them on. We'd just tie them up once and then slip them on. First of all, my dad's been walking around in these 70 pound pair of exclusive Adidas trainers. Who are they? When? Who cooks? Who cooks? Who does the shopping? Who does the washing? Yeah, talk about it. No comment. No comment. Can't have a share. My life is right around crime. Around addiction. Around alcoholism. Everything in my... Can't have a share. Fix your hat, bro. Where are you from? Fix your hat. My life is right around crime. Around addiction. Around alcoholism. Everything in my life that I thought was gone. Lost. Never coming back. For the last couple of years when I've been going back to prison because I've been homeless. I've suddenly got back. I'm not allowed to fail. I don't want to fail. No, you're not allowed to fail. You've been granted the second chance of a lifetime. Graham Shields had been recalled to prison after the death of his father. Is he back? Do you want to call him? But he evaded arrest by the police for a month. Now he's back at Pentonville. I was engaging this how I know how I'm not taught. I was trying to... You were engaging brilliantly. It was just a shame that you couldn't maintain that. As mad as it sounds, I was... I felt happy when I come back to jail. Did you do something? That was it. I knew I didn't have to look over my back no more because I'm walking down all the way where I'm thinking, is this the time? Yeah, yeah. When I did use, I think I weren't enjoying it. I'm not saying it's different. I was going out and I'm enjoying the smoking or I was having a good time on it. I went, I won't. We live and learn, don't we? Yeah, of course. How many times are you going to live and learn? Graham's brief period of success on the outside has given him some consolation. He died five days after I got out. So I didn't get a lot of time with him. But... Oh, you OK?  Why is there so movie in the background? I was wavy. They come around to borrow money, for instance. The good news is, in my experience of probation the fact that he went that far means that next time he'll go that far and hopefully we'll just keep getting a little bit further each time. Well, coming into that prison and things like that, I know that I'll change up and do it again and again and again. After prison, Graham went to rehab. He was stayed out of trouble. He was free on drugs last summer.


to get some whoops. Thank you. Hello, Slush. Day two. Thrilled to be here. I hope you're having a wonderful time. So I'm sure many of you were here yesterday for the State of European Technology presentation from Atomico when Tom Wehmei told us the State of European Tech and there were lots of many great things that we discovered. Investment in European Tech reached a record 23 billion last year. European founders created 17 billion dollar companies. Europe produced three of the 10 biggest venture backed public listings. It's a major driver of economic growth in Europe. But, and it's a big but, there is a huge diversity and inclusion challenge in European Tech. One stat really stands out. Well, there's many that stand out, but 93% of funds raised by European venture backed firms in 2018 went to all male founding teams. There is one female CTO out of 175 CTO, sorry, CTOs that work at VC backed European Tech companies that raised Series A or Series B last year. And the uncomfortable truth is that the technology industry today is not a place where everyone, regardless of gender, race, disability, religion, sexuality or socioeconomic background, can thrive and succeed. So what are we going to do? Well, today we're going to have a conversation from two people who are really trying to address this issue and this very kind of urgent challenge that we all face. This year's State of European Tech report from Atomico partnered with Diversity VC to create a practical guide, a toolkit that's intended to help anyone leading, working or investing in technology companies to provide, to promote diversity and inclusion in their business. So to discuss the guide here today, we have Nicola Zenstrom from Atomico and Francesca Czech Warner from Diversity VC. So just to kick us off, check if you don't mind, tell us a little bit about Diversity VC. Yeah, so Diversity VC is a nonprofit. We're made up of a group of interested individuals. We all work in some capacity in the VC industry and our mission is to promote diversity in tech in all of its forms. We kind of do four things. We collect and publish original data. We help young people get into the industry from all kinds of backgrounds. We help VCs themselves to be more inclusive through a training program and a VC specific toolkit. And then we help entrepreneurs access capital. We started out last year by doing a study which was the first ever study on the number of women in VC in the UK, which revealed that two-thirds of funds had no senior women in their investment teams and only 13% of partners in UK funds were female. It's really important to say that we are looking at the diversity issue in its broadest sense, so we're not just looking at gender, but that study gave us a real kind of indication of how bad the problem was today. This report is actually the first thing we've done for entrepreneurs, and we're really, really excited to partner with Atomaco to do that. What it is, as you said, a really practical toolkit. It includes eight case studies from founders of companies from 10 people up to 500-plus people. So the idea is that it's people talking about where they're at on their journey, not saying that they're perfect, but it's a starting point for a great conversation. So Nicholas, the annual European sort of state of tech report that you guys produce every year, it's very much a benchmark. It really does indicate that the state of European tech. Why did you decide this year? What kind of provoked you to sort of really think, okay, we need to address this issue? Yeah, it is a huge issue, and you can look at this from a few different areas. One is like if you purely look at this from a performance point of view, which are the best company? How can a company perform better? How can investment perform better? It turns out that studies show us a diverse team performs much better than a non-diverse team. So there's a business case. It's a real business case. Yeah. So and of course, this is really the right thing. There's no reason why the tech world should be so small. Yeah. And one of the biggest challenge that all companies have is talent. How to access talents, how to find more talent. So if we broaden the talent pool, we will be more competitive. Yeah. So I think it's important maybe to sort of like now look at very specifically VC and the role of VCs in this issue. Jack, how do you see VCs being able to really have an impact into sort of like drive change? Yeah. I mean, the reason we started as an organization with VC was because we thought that VCs had a disproportionate impact on the companies they fund. Right. And the thing about tech companies is they often are growing very, very fast. And the problem compounds. If you don't get them the sort of solution right at the very beginning, then the problem, you know, when you're a company of tens of thousands of people, it's actually really, really difficult to then subsequently fix. Yeah. So we think that VCs have kind of two major roles to play. One is making it a priority and actually, you know, talking to the founders of the companies that they're backing in their meeting all the time and saying, you know, this is something that we really need to see from you in order to kind of work with us. And the second thing is using their resources and using their networks to actually source talent across the whole portfolio. Right. Because VCs can kind of leverage themselves and build those networks to make those key hires for those companies from day one. Sure.  Yeah. So going back to this whole thing about hiring people because that's all what it's about. We have conversations today with founders before we make an investment. And we talk about how they think about diversity, how they think about values and culture. And that gives us a really good clue if this company is going to be successful or not because founders who are leaning forward and saying, yes, I understand that being inclusive, thinking about diversity and building a strong value set early on, those are the companies have a much better chance to build a sustainable long-term profitable company. If founders don't really care about this, this is going to be a really, really big red flag for us. So we use this now already in the screening process. And we're asking these questions about diversity, how do you think about it? And what are you going to do about it? So I think also when we as a VC community starting asking these questions before we make an investment, I think over time, this is something that maybe become a standard that companies they know that when they need to raise money from a VC firm, they need to think already about diversity. So I think we can really raise the bar. And, you know, when a VC firm comes in, what we do is also, of course, introduce governance that we're putting a board together. And the first time that the company started to think about how did you think about governance. So this is the time when we also need to include diversity and inclusion on the board level. So kind of raising these questions when we look at hiring plans. And so then that's I think that's one one of the things that we can really play a role. And would you consider such a As you say, to this point, I think it's interesting to kind of ask yourselves the question. If you do run a company, when was the last time you had diversity and inclusion policy as a standing agenda item or as any agenda item on your board pack? And kind of as a VC, you know, often you get appointed to a board at these early stages and sort of insisting that that's at least discussed can have a massive impact. So maybe Nicholas, would you consider ensuring that, you know, a potential portfolio company that this is this is kind of baked into the term sheets? So we actually introduced that in our term sheet this year, that companies that don't have a diversity and inclusion policy that we require them to put one in six months off their investment. And that's something that like that's, that's the easy way.  No one is like, so far, no, no one of the companies we investing in have a problem with this. So it's just putting this on agenda, and also raising these at a board meeting. And what you said, check is very rare that I've seen board materials that talks about diverse and inclusion. So that's something I would say, like if we check in a year from now, success would be that most board materials have this in their in their in the board meetings and the material. And this is where this kind of came from. It was about making it as easy as possible for people to implement something. This is completely free. Please send it to all of your companies and use it and add to it. Because we want this to be a resource that people can really easily just slot in to their companies. Yeah, this is the part I think we should really get into because I think this is the key for everyone here to understand that this is a toolkit. This is something that can be used. It's practical. And maybe check, you can kind of just take us through what that roadmap in terms of the practical steps that startups, you know, Nicholas was saying, you know, maybe some startups, they don't have, they have the will, but they don't necessarily know how to do it. What does that roadmap look like? So the first thing is about understanding the topic and actually prioritizing it. So as a leadership team, you know, saying this is a year, you know, for 2019, we're actually going to look at this. We're going to make this priority. In terms of understanding it, you know, it's not like, you know, how do you scale to a new country? It's not, it's a much more complex and nuanced topic. So, you know, really recommend spending proper time understanding the deep nuances of diversity and inclusion, the reasons why our industry today is not as inclusive as it should be. The second thing is about planning and really making sure that you're talking to all the different communities in your workforce and also thinking about communities that are not currently represented in your workforce and thinking about how you can bring those people in in the future. Then it's about implementation and looking at how you hire, you know, it's a key part, how you kind of on board and how you actually create an inclusive culture because it's all very well hiring people in the future. So, you know, we're talking about people who are from diverse backgrounds, but unless they feel like they can thrive and succeed and do well in the company, then that's not going to end very well. And then thirdly, product design, you know, thinking about how people actually access your products and how they can kind of use them. And then finally, building in kind of feedback loops to allow everyone in the company to give their view on what they think, you know, has been achieved by the diversity and inclusion focus and how it could be changing, how it could be improved. Because the research and our understanding on this topic is just constantly changing and evolving. So, it's not like, you know, once you put this in place you can just kind of forget about it and move on. You need to constantly keep updating it. I was going to ask that question actually. So, once it's been put in place, that's not then an excuse for start-ups to say great, we've done that. Let's get on with growing and scaling. This is something that needs to be done as constantly being iterated, right? Yeah, and it's about a communication channel, and actually involving and including your employees in that conversation. Yeah. And I think that the case studies, if you look at the back here, you know, these eight case studies, a really strong theme that constantly came through was the companies that were engaging in their own, in the conversations with their own employees were the ones that seemed to be doing best on implementing the policies that people were happiest with. And does that change according to the stage that a company is at? Presumably it's far easier to think we're going to bake this into our business, but when organizations get larger, it's more of a challenge. Are there different, are there different kind of case studies here between those kind of different kinds of businesses? Yeah. So one of the case studies we have in here is Monzo, for example, which is one of them, you know, very exciting challenger banks in the UK, and they are actually the company that has the one CTO who's female in the Atomaco report. And, you know, that's a really interesting example of a company of over a year, you know, as it's scaling. And I think it's about sort of making sure that the priority is also through the whole line. So every single line manager has this as a reporting kind of line up to the leadership and then know that this is a serious priority. So Nicholas, from your perspective, when you're thinking about maybe adding, you know, making an investment to add a company to the portfolio, would you decide even if the business was extremely exciting and you thought it had real potential, would you decide maybe not to shift in terms of, you know, a founder's attitude towards diversity and inclusion? I think the key question here, keyword here is attitude to it, because there's a lot of teams that we see that are very, very early stage which are not diverse.  Okay, then we ask the questions, like how do you think about that? And if they don't think about it and when we kind of prompt them a little bit, if they think it's an issue, if they don't think it's an issue, think it's nothing to focus about, that's a red flag. But if they think about, yes, we're aware of this and we really, really, really want to build, we understand it's important to build a diverse team. It's really hard so far when we got started. If they lean in and understand the issue, then that's good. If they don't understand it and they don't want to understand it, that's a red flag, because it's about building a team that can be, not only big, but also a diverse and well-performing team. So I think that, I really doubt, seriously, that companies that are ignoring diversity can be a long-term, sustainable great business. And that's what we would kind of really step away from that kind of companies. The other thing I was going to say was that both companies, when we meet before investing, but also we went out to all our portfolio companies earlier this year and asked them, how do you think about diversity? Do you have a diversity policy in place? And pretty much everyone thought it was important, but not everyone, actually less than half, had a policy in place. And they said, that's great, yeah, we want to have one, but then they asked us, but how do we do it? It's like, we don't know. So that's why we kind of started this conversation with Czech. It's like, okay, we actually need to help out here. But it was really, really great here also, just connecting founders together and start talking to us. So then there's also a peer learning thing here. So what we hope that we will achieve with this is like, this is the launch of this report, or this toolkit or this guide what we really want this to be is a first iteration and then that this is something that can become, build on this. And then there's a lot of peer learning, hopefully, so it can be really, really fruitful. So 88% say that having a diverse team is a benefit to company performance. I mean, all the evidence that we have suggest that, actually, other than being the right thing to do, the ethical thing to do, the responsible thing to do, there's actually a really strong business case for this, right? And I think it is also a point we were talking about earlier is the idea of creating global companies, which Tom mentioned earlier, and one of the things we're really doing in Europe particularly is creating companies that can compete on a global scale. And having companies, the teams of companies actually represent the global society that we're in, rather than just a very small subset of it, is a really key part of understanding customers and hopefully getting to that successful global outcome. So Nicholas was just talking about the sort of startups that he's meeting, sort of at relatively early stage. There's obviously challenges when you're a larger company, there was a news story last week about a guy at Facebook who posted a story about there were disproportionately few African-Americans working for Facebook. Do you think this is for larger organisations, it's fundamentally a question of will, or do you think there are kind of big structural challenges for larger organisations? I think it's really the whole industry that has this problem across the board, and there are major problems we have in both the pipeline, but also in every single part of the funnel of getting people into and including people in tech companies. So I don't think it's necessarily a question of will, I think it's really about making sure that you get it right early. I think the slight challenge that those companies have is that they're so late on in their development that they haven't got that kind of culture that they needed from day one. You mentioned modern so, are there other examples that you can cite in terms of, I mean clearly this is a work in progress for most organisations, but are there other companies that you did some research on that you'd like to talk about maybe? Yeah, I mean there's a few companies that we've talked to who are specifically building for audiences that maybe are not represented in the tech industry today, so Beauty Stack is one of those companies which is an incredible company, but it is run by Sharma Dean Reid who's this amazing kind of inspirational role model and she's talked about how diversity is in their DNA and they got it right really from day one and they've really been conscientious about thinking about the composition of their team because the products that they are selling or their services that they're selling are targeting women particularly and it's sort of to do with beauty and nails and so they need to make sure that the people in their customer. Yeah, I guess also that's maybe you could take this Nicholas, that's also just about understanding, it's almost like a product decision as well, if you're building a product you need to make sure that it's got as wide of kind of marketplace as possible and so clearly that's something that just all people working in product need to be thinking about these issues right? Yeah, big time because representing the customer base and I think it's also both product design but also I think it's also understanding your customer base it's really hard for you know like beauty stack is like I would, I mean I have a background in product design, I don't think I would be really good in doing beauty stacks products because I don't I wouldn't resonate very well with the customers so I would probably be lousy in that probably be lousy anyway but so I think this is really really important but I also think about you know this product but also you think about the environment and it's also kind of coming back to these big companies versus startups and there is you know we talk about feedback loops and data and I think what's going on right now is that you talked about the Facebook issue and it's not only Facebook, there's a lot of companies you have you know Uber and a bunch of these companies which are very successful today that were started maybe you know 10 years ago when this was not discussed on stages on conferences you didn't have this so this was not like in when these companies were founded long time ago or some time ago this was like it was about move fast and break things and wear a hoodie and and then you build a culture and then you have a massive company it's really really hard to change that culture what I observe today is that there's a bunch of founders who are just getting started they see that and say like I don't want to build that I want to build something different that is sustainable for the future that has a have a value set that can be sustainable and diversity inclusion is critical to that so that's what I'm really really optimistic that the next generation of companies that being built here founders are here at Slush this is like on top of mind and presumably this also means that if the industry opens up to diversity and inclusion there's a massive talent pool out there that we're you know we're just simply not appealing to and it is excluded from the industry yeah and I think another great example I think is Glossier and we had a great quote from Henry Davis of Glossier in this report and that's a company which is just growing incredibly quickly and probably you know is targeting an area that hasn't really been touched by tech before so they created a new beauty brand a lot of their products actually come from comments from Instagram from their customers and initially they started out as a media brand so the fact that they were able to really have that empathy with customers from early on has created this amazing culture that's incredibly aspirational for people to go and work for so we talk a lot about you know gender and race I think the other area that maybe we need to think about is also sort of socio-economic sort of challenges that people who simply have the opportunity maybe to learn about tech but is there anything in the report that kind of touches on that and how that could be addressed? Yeah so one aspect of that question is how you look at evaluating your kind of sourcing of candidates and looking at you know if you just take MBA candidates or MBA students or people who went to certain kind of Ivy League universities then presumably and you're not necessarily going to get the broadest way of society we just talked about interns and diversity VC runs an internship program which is for young people from all kinds of backgrounds to get a foot in the door at some of these places which they otherwise probably wouldn't get the opportunity to work at and there are now two people working full time in the venture industry who've come through that internship program so we're quite excited about that for ourselves but we think that that's an area that companies should explore when thinking about talent and hiring for aptitude rather than hiring for a tick box Nicholas from your perspective do you think VC is still sort of dominated really by what Czech was describing Ivy League schools you know people who've been through MBA programs at prestigious universities? Yeah I think we need to be very introspective and realize that the VC industry itself has failed on this it's tradition has been very very skewed towards men coming from Ivy League universities and also a lot of these VCs you know we've had a stereotype what a great founder should look like and that's not a diverse kind of open minded outlook so we have a lot to do in our industry ourselves and what we have observed is that having members of the VC team who come from diverse background you know females but also from different cultural and ethical background finding companies and entrepreneurs of that diverse background so it's not kind of rocket science that a female investor probably will actually find easier to find female founders and I think one part of that is psychological safety that I would think that female founders find is more comfortable having conversation without their female partner at the VC firm so one thing that's important for us is to recruit more diverse set of members at Atomico because that's the way for us also to be more better at diversity in the ecosystem. So we're kind of running out of time few more minutes, just got a couple more questions that I think would be important to touch on but check obviously everyone can have this report available to them online but people going leaving here today what advice would you give them in terms of what's the first thing you can do other than reading your excellent report? Where do people start?  Yeah so I think getting together as a leadership team getting together as a founding team and messaging to your investors and to your boards and to other stakeholders around you and saying in 2019 we are making this a priority just you know putting that statement of intent out there is really important if you can publish it to the rest of employees even better and then opening up some sort of feedback channel or some sort of open channel of communication with your employees to help inform what that policy is going to look like and then I think hopefully you will read the report and then we can get to the next slide. I think we have a lot of things out there but there's also so many organizations working on this. I mean I'm just kind of one tiny bit and you know this has been created by a whole group of volunteers we've had 60 contributors to this and it's amazingly been this sort of huge team effort. There's 28 different organizations in the UK alone that we've just identified that are working on different aspects of this question but I think it's really important that you have the same kind of engagement with them.  So one final question there's a lot of tech bashing going on at the moment out there but let's not forget the amazing progress and the amazing kind of changes that tech has driven over the last 20 years. Can tech play a role and start off? Yeah absolutely there are today there are several tools that can help you to for example to think through or not think through but also to help you just scan when you do job postings to take away words that are gender loaded but also when you get your applications to scan and anonymize them to take out any kind of diverse or gender background and it's already proven that if you take away initial screening of a CV if you take away anything that has to do with backgrounds of gender but also cultural background I think of background then you will screen you will get through much more diverse CVs it's really scary we as humans we have a lot of issues and so of course there is also I would start with let's just go and get some bias training to start with there are tech tools and there will be more tech tools for this but I think we need to start with our humans and our attitude towards this and understand that this is something we need to start with today and even for a small company you should not think that we need to focus we don't have time for this it's actually now when you are a small company that when you set this from the beginning and think about diversity and also the first few people that you recruit are from a diverse background then organically it will be diverse so I would say yes there is tech but start with yourself I think tech is such an amazing force for social change and for being able to do the most incredible things and this should be something that the tech community can also tackle it's not hopefully that hard so I'm really optimistic about how much we can actually work together collectively and start to solve some of these problems so if you have any companies you're working on anything that you think we should include in this guide please do you get in touch so guys it's a free resource it's a very powerful toolkit very practical guide for all the entrepreneurs out there all the investors out there to actually really try and make a difference thank you both for your work everyone there are copies of this around if you can't pick up a print copy please do go to inclusionintech.com and you'll find the whole report there thank you so much


captures the spirit and the heart of the foster band here. She looked at Peter's own leather chair and she put her head down in the seat of the chair and she said, Dear God, please. The jewel can do today. Each one of you can leave the White House and go out all across America and say, credit, let me tell you. And you can see with him again now, as they leave us in America, the beautiful we, you know, we are kind of full in here.


Hello, everyone. So in today's video, I wanted to talk about an interesting idea, I think, in terms of marketing, in terms of inbound marketing. This is something that I'm not doing personally, but I know other people who are doing it, including my sister. My sister is not a freelance translator. She is, well, she's a type of consultant and she works on her own as well. What she's been doing and, I mean, and other people as well, she's created a newsletter, a newsletter that she sends out once a week with news about her industry. And the reason I thought this might be interesting for all of you freelancers, for you freelance translators out there is because it's a good way to keep in touch. It's a good way to keep at the top of the mind of people, but also to show that you are embedded in this industry.  You'd like people to know you to keep you in mind. Maybe if they don't need a French translator right now, they might need one in the future. So it's good that if when they do need one, you come to mind. So I think a newsletter is a good way to do this. So what you do with a newsletter is every week or however often you want to do it. It can be every month, every two weeks or whatever it is during that week or during that time period. You keep track of what's in the news relating to translations, languages, stuff like that.  And then you collect it. And once a week, you just send out this quote unquote newsletter. There are various programs out there where you can find, you know, that format newsletters. MailChimp is the main one that comes to mind.  And also then like MailChimp, they help you send it and it kind of tracks who it's been sent to. And also who opens it, who reads through it, et cetera, et cetera. So that, you know, what's working and what isn't. So yeah, so I think it's just a great way to keep in touch. Also to show that you're, you're into this, you're into the industry. If you do French translations and it talks about translations, it talks about the French language and stuff having to do with it, then it shows that this is something that really matters to you.  It's just great for inbound marketing, meaning in terms of marketing, people are finding you inbound rather than outbound where you go try to find them. Because then you'll just be sending this out regularly. And every now and then if they ever need a translator, they're like, Oh yeah, wait, you know, we get that newsletter from the translator over there. Having said that, there are a couple of things you should keep in mind that I shouldn't mention now. First of all, you can't spam people. MailChimp makes you do this. And I think most of them will do it.  So as long as you can have a one click unsubscribe button at the bottom, it should be good. Also the emails you send it to, these should not be random emails that you find. These should be people who accept it to be on your list. And the way, so the way my sister does it is when she meets someone, she gets their business card, something like that. She's like, Oh, I have, you know, I have a newsletter of the industry stuff like that. Would you mind receiving it? And they say, Yeah, sure. Usually when you meet someone, they'll say, Yeah, sure. You know, they don't want to be rude. And then, you know, they'll see that you're not trying to sell them anything. And but you're just keeping them up to date. That I think is another point you shouldn't be trying to sell stuff. This newsletter really should just have information on it. Preferably information they can find useful. So if you specialize and say financial translations, then maybe include, you know, tidbits about finance, about what's going on in international finance, you know, about the different countries that have to do with your languages, right? If you do French to English, keep up with what's going on in the French, French financial industry in the British or American financial industry, et cetera, et cetera. Tailor it to however you see fit. I think this is a good method to just keep top of mind. And then what can happen is every now and then if they're interesting articles, these people might be forwarding it to other people they know. So as long as you have your, your link to subscribe and, you know, to the newsletter there below, and it's very visible and easy to see, then you might even get, you know, after a while start getting new subscribers and then you have this whole new list of people. And that's why I'll say it's very important not to spam them. You don't want them reporting you. You don't want them doing stuff like that. But if you keep it friendly, you keep, you email them with relevant stuff. Not too often. Then I think it's a very good way to stay top of mind and it's a very good marketing tactic that you can try. Again, I haven't tried it. So I, I'd be very, if you do try to be very curious to hear how it went, how it goes, if you are trying something similar, please let me know how it's going and because I really like to hear about what success you've had with it or what issues you've had with it, et cetera, et cetera. And that's it. That was the idea for this video. I hope you find it useful and feel free to try it and let me know how it goes. Don't forget to subscribe and you'll get more videos like this in the future. And if you did find this video useful, please don't forget to click like because that always helps and otherwise I'll see you in the next video. Thanks. Bye.


Now, coming to the future about what is being planned, so the future is going to be driven by solar power. So even in airships there have been attempts to go for use of solar regenerative fuel cells. This file, this is the paper which I am going to upload. This is the interesting paper 2003 by JAXA in Japan. So I am going to upload this on the Moodle page and there will be a special presentation on the stratospheric airships or high altitude airships. So at that time we will discuss this in more detail. Today we will just look at solar propulsion. So especially for airships which are designed to be operating for a very very long time 3 months, 6 months without any interference by the humans. Not for carrying passengers but for carrying communications payload. The suggestion is to use solar regenerative fuel cells SRFC. So how they work is that on board the airship there is a electrolysis unit which converts water into hydrogen and oxygen. Then this hydrogen is pumped into on board cylinders. Do you have any idea about the dimension of this airship? It is 360 meters in length, 1000 feet in length, so that is enough space on the bottom to store that much of water. Moreover the requirement of water is not very high because you are using rating it. You are creating hydrogen oxygen pumping it into bottles using hydrogen in the fuel cells generating power and recovering it and again reusing it. And there is a huge envelope available for solar array. So this is how they work during the daytime from something like 7 am when the sun starts generating some power that is here point number to 7 am to around 5 pm the solar power available is increasing. The peak is coming around noon and the power required by the airship is only this much these lines. So the difference in the power that is this minus this is used to store in the on board batteries and then the stored batteries provides power from this time when it is less than required till next morning. So in the night time the batteries are going to give the power. In the daytime the batteries are going to be charged. So this is a schematic diagram and you can see that water is electrolyzed into H2O2 which goes into fuel cells so in the night time there is power switching and the electrical engine is powered by the hydrogen fuel cells. During the daytime there are solar arrays which give solar power and then there is the daytime line it bypasses the system and provides power. So this is not a theoretical concept they have already made and tested the concept. So this is a for example a 1 kilowatt test bed which was made and tested by a Japanese more than 12 years ago. So it is done already but even now there is no satisfactory airship actually flying. Many countries are working on it including India and there are plans to bring it up. Okay we look at now thrust vectoring which is ability to manipulate the direction of the propulsion force in the direction that you would like to do. And here I would like to showcase to you two small videos. One video is thrust vectoring as an indoor airship which was done by an intern recently as part of his internship. So this is a very simple bandola for an indoor airship which will be mounted below the airship and on that there is a central rod with a servo motor so you can see that by controlling the direction of the remote the motor can do so well. So this is the okay then we also tested this system a similar system not the same system but a much better system than this. This is a very simplistic system. So you can see that a slightly bigger motor is being installed on a central star. This is a dandelion which comes below the airship and on the back is the airship envelope. The white one is the airship envelope. So this thrust vectoring is basically by you know tilting the whole engine because the entire motor was tilted up. One more example of tilt engine is what you already know. This is an example of tilting the engine. We have seen so many examples of this. Another example is tilting the slipstream. In this case the engine is untouched, it is fixed but the slipstream of the engine is deflected by a very intelligent use of connected vanes. Just like when you have these levers on the curtains you can use it to control the vanes. So the pilot basically operates a lever and with that lever these flat or slightly curved plates will deflect and they will deflect the slipstream which will give you the thrust vectoring. So what you are seeing here is the thrust vectoring onto a Russian airship called as AU-11. So this is the picture of the Russian airship. This is a single pilot airship and the pilot has this thrust vectoring lever through which the engine mounted behind the pilot gives you the thrust vectoring. So that is all I have today for the propulsion system.


So I had plans of making a video on an email client. Now I've made many videos since 2020 on email clients. I like email clients probably more than a lot of people. I mean, I know a lot of people have just transitioned to using webmail, but I still prefer a native client and usually I end up using Thunderbird simply because it does seem to be the best email client out there. Now I got really excited last year about Thunderbird because they made this announcement they were going to completely revamp the UI. They made a huge deal about it. They talked to all the press, you know, it was on Ars Technica, it was on the register, it was on ZDNet, all the Linux blogs covered it. You know, you name it, you couldn't move across the Linux news space without hearing about the redesigned Thunderbird. We heard about it for months. They actually kept drip feeding news about the new redesign over the course of the last year. They've talked about, you know, all the new user account creation and the new UI and how awesome it was going to be. And finally, they decided it was going to be released in July of 2023. And it has been released. So I got on the internet and like, I'm going to make a video about this thing because it sounds so cool. The design of Thunderbird was really getting stale. I really want to see what this thing looks like. Let's go ahead and download it, make a video on it, and it's going to be awesome. So I traditionally use the package that is in my distribution for Thunderbird. I don't need to use the flat pack. I have no reason to do so usually. And especially when I'm on a I'm on a rolling release distribution, like open Suiza, which I'm on now, I'm on Tumbleweed, I should be able to go there, download it and get the most recent version or so you'd think. Now, the most recent version not being in my distros repository is not that big of a deal because it's not there. I'm still on version 102 version 1.5 115 or whatever it is, is not there. But that's not that big of a deal. It happens, you know, just really because I doubt very much that the guys at Thunderbird are actually the ones maintaining the package for open Suiza. So it's probably just some guy who is actually doing it and, you know, whatever, it's not there.  I will go grab the flat pack because I know the flat pack is going to be updated. It was not. Now, you gotta remember Thunderbird was officially released. This brand new version of Thunderbird was released a week ago, or at least as of the recording this, it was released a week ago. Now, if I go to flat hub right now and show you guys this, the version that is available is still 102.13.0, which is the old version. So the Thunderbird that on flat hub is still not the new version now, you're probably going to be thinking, well, it's possible that the maintainer of the flat pack is not actually the guys from Thunderbird. And that was the case for a long time. I know that was true, but I've been told that they do now control the flat pack on flat hub. So where's the new version? It's not there. Okay, well, you know, I was like, fine, I will swallow my pride and I will install the snap version. Well, here's the snap version. The latest stable snap is still 103.13.0-1. Now, you can, if you want it, if I wanted to, I could go download the candidate, which is the brand new version, but I don't want to download that one. I want to download the one that was actually released. It's not there.  Now, why am I complaining about this? Now, normally, it's an email client, man. It's not that big a deal. First of all, it really, really isn't. My biggest problem with this isn't that there's a delay in the release for the vast majority of distributions or packages out there. That's not my complaint. My complaint is that they hyped it up so much, right? We heard about it for a year. We heard about it since early last year. They kept drip-feeding news articles to all the major publications about how awesome Thunderbird was going to be with this brand new redesign, and then nobody but people who are on Arch can get it. Now, I know, yes, you can go to the website, download the Tower Ball, create your sim links to where it needs to go, create your .desktop file in order to actually get it to show up in your your menu system. You can do that if you want. If you're that wanting of the brand new redesign, which I kind of did want to do it, but I just want my question for Thunderbird and the guys who develop it is this. Why did you bother hyping up something so much and then not have the ability to release it to as many people as possible? You're floundering the release, right? Now, it's an email client, so it's not as if it's the next version of the greatest triple-leg game or even Firefox, right? Most people don't care. Just nerds like me. And I'm probably the only one that actually notices or just very few people that actually noticed, but it feels like such a missed opportunity. Thunderbird is a project that is owned by Mozilla. Okay, it's very heavily collaborated with Mozilla. Now, I know there is confusion or whether or not it actually is a Mozilla project because it wasn't, and then it was, and then it wasn't, and then it was. As of right now, according to everything that I can find, it is a Mozilla project.  They have so many problems when it comes to the image of their company, and they had an opportunity here, even if it was a small one, to have a grand release of a product, and nobody can use it.  There's probably people who aren't Arch who are using it happily. But the rest of us, now, I mean, like if I was on like Debian, maybe I wouldn't expect the brand new version, right? But I'm unrolling release and I'm happily interested in using flat packs. Now, maybe I could go and use Nix or something like that. Maybe Nix has the brand new version. I don't know. But the idea here is just that it feels like such a missed opportunity because they hyped it up so much. If it was just a surprise release, or if the only coverage of it was only on OMG Ubuntu over the course of the last year, it would have been fine, right? Like, then who cares? Nobody would know it was, basically, nobody would know it was coming, and it would be a happy surprise when it eventually did release. But they went through the process of hiring a Linux YouTuber to become their spokesperson and have that person go out and hype up this thing over and over again on Macedon and Twitter and all the major news outlets. And then to release it and have it not available for a lot of people to download, it feels really not good, right? Now, like I said, it's an email client. I'm aware that I've just made a 10 minute video on an email client that I can't use. It's the height of elitism, the height of whatever ism that you want to talk about. Entitlement, maybe is the word that I was looking for. I understand that. And at the end of the day, I don't even care anymore. I was more cared a week ago when I wanted to try it and had a video planned around it. Maybe that's maybe that's the reason why I care so much is because I had plans for doing that. And then I ended up not being able to do it even a week later. It still is not here. So maybe that's the reason why I'm so salty. I don't know.  That's it for me. I'm not going to be making a video on the very, very new version of Thunderbird, even if it does eventually arrive on my computer. I no longer care that much, although I guess it did care enough to make this video, but I needed to rant about something, you know, just every once in a while, you need to have a good rant to get the blood flowing. And I did that. So I did it. If you have thoughts on this, you can leave those in the comment section below. I'd love to hear from you. If you haven't already, leave a thumbs up on this video. It really does help the channel. You can follow me on master down on Odyssey. Those links will be in the video description. You can support me on Patreon at patreon.com slash Linux cast. I release a weekly Patreon exclusive podcast on Patreon and YouTube for my members. If you want to head on over there and get that, you can support me there. Thanks to everybody who does support me on Patreon and YouTube. You guys are all absolutely amazing without you, the channel just would not be anywhere near where it is right now. So thank you so very, very much for your support. I truly do appreciate it. You guys are awesome. Seriously, thank you so very much for your support. Thanks everybody for watching. I'll see you next time.