Alright guys, we've got another episode today, we've got a special episode because we've got the co-founders of a new Ethereum decentralized token trading system called SWAP and let me quickly read out their bios. So the first co-founder is Michael Oved which is a co-founder of SWAP and Ethereum token trading ecosystem. Michael is a veteran algo trader spending a quarter of his life at a leading firm Virtue having been on the founding team and grown its Asian operation to a multi-million dollar business. He's a graduate of Carnegie Mellon originally from Los Angeles and a fan of all things music. Now his co-founder is Don Mositz, he's the founder also co-founder of SWAP and Ethereum token trading ecosystem and Don is a serial entrepreneur, product designer and full stack engineer with more than a decade of experiencing building products for companies such as Google and Zanga and as well he is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon and originally from Pittsburgh and a fan of all things photography. Guys, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thanks for having us. So the first question I actually have because I haven't done too much research on this to tell the truth is what is SWAP? Sure, so I think ultimately SWAP itself was a blueprint for a decentralized token trading ecosystem. We've designed it with like the power of blockchain in mind. So in that sense, a focus on peer-to-peer, a focus on decentralized. And with this burgeoning token economy, I mean you have token launches happening like almost every day at this point, there are more and more of these and we deal in trading those tokens. All right, so run me through it. You mentioned for some people that might be a tongue twister, decentralized trading ecosystem. So in a nutshell like explain to us in plain English for somebody let's say who just got into crypto space like what is that? Yeah, so maybe we'll start with like the history of what the inspiration for this design was. So like historically there were marketplaces and marketplaces are mostly peer-to-peer, open bazaars. These are happening in towns historically in like the central square and then this evolved over a long period of time and you had the trading pits in Chicago, New York. And these trading pits were essentially rings of people and also the transactions happened peer-to-peer. In the late 90s early 2000s there was advances in computing power allowed for order books to evolve. And so what's an order book? An order book is basically a list of bids and offers stored electronically. And that's how most of us are used to trading because we have seen this, you know, we see it on all the exchanges we interact with. And now we have this new exciting paradigm called the blockchain and, you know, it's really, I think that there's the demand within the ecosystem for people to be able to trade without middlemen and, you know, the blockchain allows for that philosophically but there are some limitations, you know, with the blockchain. For example, you know, scalability is a concern and the nodes are distributed. So we kind of came up with a design where, you know, we're not limited by the blockchain. So like I just want to summarize, since the word itself has swapped the name of the company, so people are generally going on there and are they selling tokens and buying other tokens or is this something similar to like say shapeshift where I want to transfer between two different types of tokens? So I think that interaction model that you have with shapeshifts where you are actually performing it, like I think they use the term like deposit and receive, you're actually kind of trading like cryptographic assets with them. So that's like a one to one kind of trade and that interaction is actually what happens in our in our design as well. So there's no there's no order book, sorry, no order book there. But at the end of the day, it's about either having tokens you want to trade away or being interested in trading for specific tokens and being able to find those and find people to trade with. So let me kind of paint this in the area, paint the picture over here. I want to trade let's say I don't know 100 Golem tokens for I don't know certain amount of Ethereum and now place that order on there and then other people will fill that order for me. So does it become more kind of like a Ubersk model where like I send the message out in the network and depending on who wants to actually receive my message, they will receive my message like I'm just trying to kind of visualize this. So you would you would you would have your 100 tokens that you're trying to sell for Ether, but you would you would indicate that you wouldn't you wouldn't price it yet. You would indicate that you're interested in selling these tokens and then people who are interested in purchasing them would actually reach out to you directly in a peer-to-peer fashion. Okay, so when they reach out to you, is that an instant transaction or it's kind of like a messaging app or like hey I'm interested in actually buying those tokens and I'm going to offer you X, Y and Z. Actually that that kind of instant messaging model is is conversational in the same way. So like once you connect to somebody who's interested in either buying or selling the tokens that you're interested in selling or buying you would actually request an order from them, they would provide an order to you and then you can work out the price from there. Okay, so once you requested and I work out the price and let's say once we agree on the price, how is the actual process facilitated? Are the tokens in an escrow, am I using my own private address or do I have an address on swap? Like how does that process actually look like? So once that once that order is crafted say that I want to trade token X for token Y and you would like to perform that trade with me, you would create an order, you would be the maker in this case and then you would provide that order to me and I would actually take the order and submit it to a smart contract and it's it's filled on the blockchain at that point. Okay, and so the funds are never held by swap. So you're never held by swap, right? At all. Okay, so swap is just the facilitator of the transactions. Well it's a facilitator of the discovery and then the facilitator of this negotiation which could be a single message pass or multiple and then that is subsequently filled in the blockchain. Now do you guys have your own native token within swap? Well that actually is a part of our token design. So our design is such that holding a token gives you access to our services that we're providing and you could of course trade those because there'll be your C20 compliant as well. Okay, we wanted to choose that design because we didn't want there to be necessarily any fees on the trades itself because then you were designing the system such that it has as little friction as possible. Now are there going to be caps on this? For example certain exchanges will have a cap so you can withdraw or even deposit sometimes. Is there going to be limits of what I'm actually able to sell or buy? Sorry I thought Ovid might take that but so there are no limits really. Ultimately it comes down to the balances that you hold in a token. So like say that I because the contract itself will actually perform transfers on each kind of respective token so if you hold NOSIS and I hold Augur for example we the orders craft is that 100 of token A will be exchanged for 200 token B and then that is filled on the contract itself. Okay that's interesting. Let's go back to something Ovid said earlier on the fact that for the scalability issue that you said even though it's on the blockchain what are you guys crazy you said something interesting you've solved at least for now the scalability issue when it comes to let's say too many users how does that look like? Yeah so I mean most of the interaction happens off-chain and I think that that's that's a design that a lot of projects have chosen but further more you know we think that because we're not using an order book an order book is basically a public location where people can find bids and asks and so when a market maker comes to an order book they're posting an order they're not sure that it's going to execute so cancels become a regular occurrence on an order book. Cancels are something you have to cancel your order or something you have to think about on the order book with peer-to-peer it's actually a client requesting from another client and ordered directly so we think that cancels will be much less likely. So based on that though what is then your business model for SWAP? Yeah so we are planning on you know in the short term launching a token and having this be an open source at least parts of the platform to be open source and the token itself will give users the ability to access the platform. So to summarize the strength of the network the more users you have on SWAP the more people facilitating and using it for their own benefit because you mentioned there's no transaction fee so if I want to sell my let's say 10 golem for whatever someone's buying it for there's no transaction fee to facilitate that transaction so therefore the if I understand this the business model is then based on the network effects network structure and how many users are using it on a daily basis. Well yeah the token to be to be a license primarily. Okay so you want a token you have access.  Well so I think I think first and foremost the way that we approach the development of our product is by trying to create like applications that the crypto crypto community is going to be using on a daily basis and so that I mean that like just designing for that actually very clearly informs how we should design this protocol and it's been very helpful I think so far so what that does look like for sort of an everyday everyday user is an application much like some of the ones that we've actually demoed during our previous updates on the protocol so we do want to create a nice smooth way to actually to discover counter parties and and perform these trades and and even that we expect to implement in like a fully decentralized manner so even the infrastructure that we develop is going to be in the same in the same ethos I think. So for now it's just going to be a desktop app I assume. Well so right now we have I mean we have a native iOS app that we've we've developed I think that was the first kind of demo that we put up we also have a web based application that I think we demonstrated it on mobile through the status app but the web application would also work in any web environment that provides web three which is which is a module that's provided by things like mist and metamask and status so that web app would run in those cases as well so yeah I mean the web will be will be cross device but the I think the native app is going to be pretty nice too what would you say was your biggest hurdles in the creation of this from a from a design or an implementation standpoint say both I think Oved can speak to the design because I know that he did a lot of research over the course of the the last many months of last year and then looking into order books and how to best implement this stuff so I think maybe coming to coming to the current design was there was a lot of thinking involved Oved can you speak more to that yeah you know I guess I guess an experience with you know market microstructure on hundreds of exchanges you kind of get you get an idea for what designs will work and what designs won't work and you know the the technology that is available in the in the classic finance world is very sophisticated and you know they have their order books know the state of their system in under 40 microseconds so that's 40 millionths of a second so you know and that's and that's a physically centralized system and that's why it's able to get so fast if they're using hardware they're they're optimizing all their software so you know we were kind of we were kind of trying to when you look at this space I think everyone looks at it and says we want to decentralize exchange we want to write you know an exchange in a smart contract and then you know they they there have been a lot of implementations of that and I think that you know a lot of them have you know they haven't been designed with with with the limitations that that you have when you're writing it into a smart contract and so we kind of we kind of were trying to think outside of the box and not think as far as what how to take an order book and put it on the blockchain and we came up with here to here nice um another question I have is in regards to private information for example a shapeshift all I got to give them is my two addresses the one that I'm buying for and the one I'm receiving for how would it look like for using swap when it comes to private information I think it'll look pretty similar to that I think the goal is to you know we don't necessarily need people to to to register their full identities to be able to trade our system at this point so I think out of the out of the box that it's it's definitely a similar kind of goal so this brings up an interesting question where do you then see the future of for example decentralized token and crypto exchanges decentralized yeah they're gonna become decentralized okay yeah I mean I think sorry go ahead no you go ahead I was gonna say I think that there's gonna be a lot of um cool implementations over the next two years we're gonna see a lot of different different approaches and I mean ultimately for token uh swapping in turn and out of tokens I think that that's gonna be for the most part on decentralized solutions cool and I think there's there's a place for for multiple designs at this point um the use cases change the interaction models change based on on those and so when uh when are you guys launching so um I think that we've I mean we've basically talked about our token um and we're we're starting to work on that um at this point we want to make sure we have the the protocol right we want to get we want to get people looped into our our beta program and using our software and get that right um so we're still in a phase where I think we're we're building and we want to make sure that everything is is looking pretty solid um I think you know through through the rest of this year and through the end of the year um you'll be hearing more and more from us on that so so then like you can tell us maybe like rough rough next year you should potentially see a launch um I think we're talking about this year for sure okay cool very cool are you guys looking for new uh any more beta users um we're actually in pretty good shape we had an excellent response um we we put up a post um not too long ago actually asking people to to join up um so I think we might have a little space on there if anybody wants to jump on um at our website at swap.tech that would be awesome love to have you cool awesome little guys want to thank you so much for coming on the show if they want to get a hold of you or find out more information about swap what is the best resource uh yeah I think the website's probably a good start um we're on medium and twitter and facebook everywhere you can find us at uh swap protocol cool awesome thank you guys all right thank you very much cheers cheers


I poop great all the time, but now it's gonna be better.  Yes, I have had a painful poops. It feels like there's like a sharp glass. I Had I'm not kidding. This is how traumatic it was. It was probably circa 2010 2011 I was in Screen Actors Guild and I had to go it was one of those moments where you're talking to somebody and everything inside of you Screaming run at the bathroom runs at the bathroom. So when I was done I ran to the bathroom got inside closed things sat on the toilet and I was in trouble and I thought I genuinely thought I was gonna need to call it like someone to help me with it Like I had a medical emergency. I was sweating. I was trembling I had hands on either side of the the thing holding on to me and just because it wouldn't it wouldn't exit and It was just like someone had like you said shard of glass tell us about your most painful poop down in the comments Yeah, please. That's what this is about in fact. You don't know this, but whatever the thumbnail says That's not what we're watching. We're gonna watch the history of bowel movements It's shitty Today we got a video video school. Why are so many CEOs are from India? Oh, I can tell you they're smart They're smarter than the average bear. They work harder. They care more. They all get degrees in engineering Doctors have a better work ethic. I Did the video for you. Bye everybody. So you needed Obviously that I think Google Twitter now. There's so many that are just pop it out I guess for people who aren't associated with like yeah, they're like, what? Remember when the orange monster was not allowing visas to the Indians that were coming in with engineering things And it was like because you wanted to give the jobs from the Americans like I'm thinking to myself So that's the criteria We're just gonna give it to them because they're American Yeah, they never occurred to you that the reason we're hiring so many people from India is because the Americans are too dumb to do the jobs Yeah It's very possible Adobe Microsoft and IBM are all run by people Twitter up in India To join these ranks is Twitter CEO Paraj Agrawal who took over from Jack Dorsey people originally from India make up 1% of the total US population Yeah, about 6% of Silicon Valley's work. Oh, thanks. Yeah I mean so many tech CEOs who hail from India when Satya Nadella took over a CEO of Microsoft in 2014 The company wasn't bad shape Bill Gates was reportedly an angry and difficult boss What a surprise Steve Balmer apparently wasn't any better. What a surprise soft was also a dinosaur It had failed to innovate for example It lost the smartphone battle to Apple along comes Nadella an engineer who rose through the ranks of Microsoft to become the CEO Nadella changed the culture of the company. He made it clear anger and yelling weren't welcome He also sought to make Microsoft relevant. We now need to make Microsoft thrive in a mobile first in the cloud first world Under his direction Microsoft moved its software to non-windows devices and expanded its cloud business Azure That innovative spirit of problem-solving was bred in his native country India is home to nearly 1.4 billion people It's the second most populous country on earth after China and is expected to overtake China as the most populous country in a few years India has made remarkable progress poverty is still a major challenge. Yeah, nearly a quarter of the population Lives full of the poverty line of $1.90 a day according to the United Nations development program They face corruption poor infrastructure and limited opportunities So they learn to be resilient comparatively and overcome endless obstacles This leads them to be problem solvers a key asset in any corporation Sundar Pachai has had to solve many problems after taking over at the helm of Google in 2015 at a time when big tech is being scrutinized over the power they hold He became the archetype of a kinder, calmer, gentler leader in tech Pachai earned an engineering degree at one of the Indian institutes of technology The IITs are kind of like the Indian equivalent of MIT with an even lower acceptance rate reportedly of 1 or 2% After Pachai graduated his ticket to America came in the form of a masters at Stanford Nice going to a top grad school in the States is how many Indians land up in the land of opportunity They appear to follow this well trodden path They did their undergrad at a great school in India go to masters in the US where they studied STEM science technology engineering and mathematics More than half of all international students in America pursued a STEM degree in the past academic year American immigration favors people with specialized skills After Pachai graduated he went on an H1B visa to work at consulting firm McKinsey The H1B allows American companies to employ foreign workers many of whom are in IT related fields The US government awarded nearly 75% of these visas to Indians in 2020 in comparison China trailed far behind in second Know that so many Indians can speak English is a tremendous advantage in the West and they're comfortable with American business culture possibly because it mirrors the Dengalore Chennai and Hyderabad They're also more likely to want to work overseas Hyderabad that's how we probably used to pronounce it students return to China after graduating according to China's Ministry of Education Chinese entrepreneurs prefer starting their own companies at home Alibaba is known as the Amazon of China Tencent owns the messaging app we chat used by 1.2 billion people Huawei is one of the giants of the tech industry China's transition from a manufacturing hub to a tech hotbed has largely been driven by government policy in the late 70s Chinese leader didn't shopping encouraged foreign businesses to set up offices in China which fostered a startup environment on the other hand India has a problem of too much talent leaving the country for a video about that It has the highest number of migrants living abroad at 17 and a half million according to the UN and more Indians gave up their Passports to become naturalized American citizens in 2020 than the Chinese Continuing the trend from past years From India China starting to recede Indian startups are becoming unicorns meaning the companies are valued at 1 billion or more the data platform traction Tells you think India created 47 unicorns in 2021 a significant jump from the 17 in 2020 and even less in years past The tech ecosystem is being bolstered by powerful investment firms such as soft bank that have been pumping money into Indian startups But in order to entice more people to remain in their native country Salaries will have to catch up with those in the West the average American tech worker earns around $98,000 a year according to the online recruiting platform dice tech salaries in India very greatly But the job site there's nowhere near that amount of money at $20,000 Yeah, it's under the poverty line here. No where near that which makes them some of the top earners in your 20,000 under poverty line here states I salaries grow along with India's startup boom This could have implications for the number of exceptional individuals desiring to move abroad The one thing that the CEOs of tech giants have in common is their strong background in engineering If you wanted to improve your STEM skills my sponsor brilliant can help you achieve your goals. Yes That was good. Nice move. That was a nice transition. I'm sure they were very happy with that Transition that was good. Yeah, essentially they're smart Yeah, we told you in the beginning. Yeah, I didn't realize the That that number that they gave though that there was 75% of the people that get all this is for that certain one I heard 75% 75% of the meridian high number. That's a really I mean It's not shocking from what we've learned about that basically the education system and how much it favors engineering or doctors or Stuff like that. No, and we talked about this in that other video that one of the reasons and it is It's problematic is the valuation of the work for a dollar per hour Yeah, that there's just there's no way a company in India is going to be able to compare What they can pay per hour when you're comparing dollar to rupee? It's just not fair because a dollar has 73 74 times the value of a rupee. Yeah So it's really it's a difficult challenge that you have to maintain These these folks in this region. I'm sure a lot of them. Obviously as we know Indians love their Country and so that I'm sure they'd love to come back But obviously if they were like I'm gonna make twenty thousand dollars here I'm gonna make a hundred thousand dollars.  Yeah, probably to my family Yeah, I that's a hard problem and that's that's what I hope happens I hope for anybody who leaves and comes that they do that like I know we've talked about this before I personally know people that I worked with who are from Mexico and they they send a lot back They don't just hoard it all from themselves here and forget where they came from and I believe that's the case with most Indians And I I had also mentioned a little bit ago. I don't like the comparisons I mean you kind of have to because they make up the majority of the numbers of comparing the Chinese to Indians but The reasons why the Chinese do what they do and the reasons why American companies hire Chinese This is and not apples to apples by any stretch of the imagination because what the Chinese do has a completely different Reality behind it when it comes to what they can and can't do and are expected to do According to the government in China versus the freedoms that Indians have. There's just no comparison Absolutely, but informational video very good. Yeah, very good informational videos, and if you're an engineer, let us know down below Say hi. Yeah. Oh We want to know more about stem cell research. I Don't but I'm happy that you know about it. I was joking, you know, I'm a say I'm a backbencher Yeah, we're joking. We know the difference between stem in the world of engineering and stem cells in the world Plants have stems So also weed. Yeah, I was gonna say stems don't smoke. Well, that's true It's you need to get the stems out. That's what Ranveer taught us. Yeah


No telling where it goes Driving through days and nights Won't stop for traffic lights If I'm falling down, I will keep on searching for my highs You can say I lost my mind I will keep on holding my head high Even if the sky's falling down Jumping from cliffs so high Trust in our wings to fly Sometimes we're crashing down Been stopped from the ground I will keep on searching for my highs You lost my mind I will keep on holding my head high Even if the sky's falling I will keep on searching for my highs I will keep on searching for my highs If you're on YouTube, like the video If you're on Facebook, share the video That's all we can ask for Daniel, welcome to the show Excited to see you here Who else we got? Connecticut here Theresa Got an OG Can't pronounce that one Not sure on that Las Vegas North Wales, very cool India, Raul, good to see ya Natalie New, awesome Welcome Janet from Indiana Shalisa From Milwaukee Very cool Sweden, South Africa Long Island, Queens, New York New Brunswick, Canada People from all over the place Love it Alright guys, cool Like I said, this is brought to you by MinervaBeauty.com So if you're looking to upgrade your salon furniture Make sure you check out their Instagram, their website If you're just looking for inspiration You can check out their Instagram I love just taking a look at all the salons that they post on there We're using their furniture Their furniture is affordable I shouldn't say furniture Equipment is affordable And it ships right away For the most part, I'm assuming I don't work for them But it does ship quick, I know that And it's the best prices you're going to find in the industry So go check it out Right out of Atlanta, Georgia Right outside of Atlanta, Georgia So they're my friends, go check them out MinervaBeauty.com There you go Alright, so what are we going to do today? What do you guys want to do? I got a plan So here's the thing that we're going to go through So over the last couple weeks Where I've kind of made a shift with this show Every Tuesday is I just want to have some fun And really look at modern hairstyles That are happening, trending We started off in younger generations We'll work our way a little bit older But today, Dixie D'Amelio I believe she's a singer No idea how she became famous Don't know anything about her Besides yesterday looking up top trending hairstyles So this is the one So I started recreating her look And that's what I kind of want to do with this show For at least the next few weeks Is kind of pick someone that your clients might be asking for And show you how to recreate the look And you could take this technique And you could twist it You could actually put it on The haircut that we're going to do today You could put on an older clientele as well You obviously just want to color the hair blue But we're going to have some fun We're going to color hair blue I'll show you guys how to transfer that color technique Into something maybe a little bit more salon friendly For your older clientele as well Because just because you're doing a touch up on somebody Doesn't mean you can't create some brightness around the face And that's really what this mimics So let me show you guys the breakdown of a couple pictures So when a client comes in And they talk to me about a celebrity's hairstyle What I like to do is go directly to that celebrity's Instagram And take a look at what their most current look is And then go through that with my client And kind of walk through what they like about it What they don't like about it To really fit it to them Because we all know that people ask for celebrity looks And what happens is they think they're going to look like that celebrity at the end And that's not the case So we want to take what they love most about it And then what they really want in their hair How much time they spend on their hair And then kind of go from there and customize a style for them Based on something that inspires you So that's what I like to do in life I like to look at things that inspire me And try to twist them and put them into my world And do it the way that I like to do it So we do the same thing in Herika, ironic, the timing Bianca, that's hilarious I'm doing blue color this afternoon Well, here you go So here is the first inspiration picture This is what she posted on her Instagram Which doesn't give us a lot to go off of But you can see the blue hue that is around the face Now it's a pretty easy technique And this is just fantasy color in the front Obviously if you're doing highlights and stuff You wouldn't do it quite like I'm going to show you guys But with that being said If you were doing tones like let's say a level 6 And a level 7 And you just wanted to brighten up the face There are ways that you could twist this technique to do that And just the brown family So don't feel like you have to do blue People think too one thing Like one dimensional I want you to look at this technique and think How can I transfer it into my day to day life So that's the first picture That one didn't give us a lot So then I went to the internet to find her with her blue hair And this one See if it will come up Oh that's a comment, that's silly Here it is This one gave us a little bit more And it gave us more about the haircut too Which is the haircut that we're going to recreate today So some layers around the face Have a lot of fun cutting in those layers We're going to do scissor work We're going to do razor work So we're going to go all over the board with this Still making the technique easy and quick in the salon to do But just having some fun with it So the color to me is pretty simple The cut is we're going to over complicate it Like I like to say Make it a little more professional I don't know how she gets her hair cut I don't know if she even has a hairdresser Hopefully she does So I'm going to do it the way I would do it If she sat in my chair And showed me this picture So there you go So that's the bright blue So what I'm going to do right now Is I'm going to play for you guys the color So you guys can get some inspiration from that Ask your questions in the comments down there So if you have a question The way we work it in the show Is type Q in the chat And put your question after That way when I see the chat flying through I see a Q and I know it's a question From you guys So just make sure you hit that Q button before You post your question So let's roll the color And then we'll break down the cut after Here you go, enjoy So there you go So that is the color technique Hope you guys enjoyed that little quick video I like how we can It takes a little bit of time But speed it up real quick so we can get through it And then get right into the cut That way you show next time how to cut your hair To make it heavy weighted down Yeah, possibly That's a good call, Natalia All right, so The color that we did I'll show you guys You'll obviously see the end result when I finish the haircut It looks pretty much identical to what hers is I also I took my research a little bit further On Instagram, then I googled it And then I YouTubeed her music video Where she's wearing this hair color I think this song is called Roommates And you can see it She wears it in multiple different ways She also wears it up a lot Which is where it kind of exposes That blue hair color But one thing that I loved about this cut And why we're kind of saying what it was I'll talk about the colors in a sec But one thing that I really love about this cut And it's something that I don't do a lot It's worn off the face So a lot of the way that she Styles it is right here Like this image Where it's just popped up and over So I want to show you guys how to do that versatile top Throughout the cut And then she also wears It up in different pony tails And different things that expose that Blue as well But then when it's worn down It obviously doesn't come through quite as much So, Debbie, thank you so much Jasmine's asking Was the blue semi-permanent Yes, so this is the blue that I chose Let's see if I can get it to not focus on me Kenra color So I don't know if Kenra just launched this But they sent me a giant box Full of these colors To create some content for them So this is kind of part of that But so this was sent by Kenra You could use other blues I'm sure But I do, I've used this blue I've used this blue on two different Heads actually Let me show you this one because It's the Haircut that I just put out on Instagram And It's Danielle colored it But it's used a lot of this blue But also some purple added into it Here we go So you could see how vibrant Look at that, how it matches up with her color So it's super vibrant With a blue kind of Or a purple shadow root in it as well So Danielle did an awesome job from my salon here And then You'll see the blue when I pop over To the other camera You'll see it kind of coming through It's all the way through that strap So yeah, so that was semi-permanent And then I picked I did Paul Mitchell One end With a little bit of 1A Or no, 3A Just to cool it even more Because I wanted some of that blue tone in there To finish off The blue that I put in Alright, let me get rid of this image Jasmine, thanks so much Lynn, good to see you on here What is the best color to add To very white slash gray hair that is mixed With a little dark So Janet, I can actually see your profile picture So let me put Janet up here So I'm assuming you're asking for your Own hair here In this, so I don't take these questions that often But you know what, today's the day So this is where it becomes hard So what is the best color to add To very white slash gray hair That is mixed with a little dark I like using a semi-permanent Brown tones to soften some of that Depends on what you're going for So when you look at Janet's hair Let's get back to this I pulled Janet's question back up here And I can make it extremely large So we can see Janet even better And we're going to talk about her for a second She looks very nice So what is the best color to add To very white slash gray hair That is mixed with a little dark So see how her hair is white Slash gray mixed with a little bit of dark So my thought process Is two things What are you going for? What are you trying to get? If you're trying to Fully cover your hair, then obviously It doesn't matter what the base is as much As long as you have, you know, some kind of Brown in your color tone And you're not going for something, you know, vibrant I would like semi-permanent On your hair because it looks like You don't want it, you just kind of want To soften it a little bit Maybe you don't want it to be so gray Even though I like the tone of your gray But a lot of people just want to soften That a little bit So you could add some lowlights Using semi-permanent color Just as long So talk to your stylist about Using semi-permanent hair color You might be a stylist too Use semi-permanent tones Maybe like a subtle level 6 To go through there and then Kind of work some lowlights in it Just to make it a little subtle Alright, back on task All over the place All over the place Popping in late but wanted to say hi Marie, hello The haircut Now, when we look at And we break down how I section this out I like to keep everything pretty simple But with a purpose So these two sections She had quite a bit of layering around her face Throughout here So I want to create that layering And then this is kind of our Over the top roof section So it could either be a fringe For me, I want to cut it forward And elevate it so it's nice and light So if you think about When you cut the top of the hair If I hold it low and cut it And it's going to sit Over here and low It's going to sit heavier So what I want to do is I want to elevate it Up above the head to make it nice and light So when she throws it to one side It is nice and soft Then I'm going to layer around the face I want to create some stuff there I'm going to use a razor with that And we're going to use scissoring Now in the back, we just did With the Virtual Cutting Club Right before this class It's a live group that I work with every Monday It's $50 a month And we do a class every single Monday On Zoom and I watch them cut hair We cut hair together It's a really fun group to be a part of And we did concave layering Today so we focus on one subject And we work through it So I'm actually going to do, I was inspired today To do a little bit of concave work On the back of this haircut It'll be cool with them watching this To be able to see it go into something How we can use it in a cut as well But yeah So we're going to do some concave in the back Determine our length Dixie, I guess we'll say I don't even know if I'm pronouncing your name right But Dixie wears her hair A lot longer And in a lot of the music video She's wearing extensions it looks like So I'm going to keep it as long as I can And we're going to have some fun short layers Throughout the rest Alright, let me see We'll say hey I want to get Vibrant hair color, tell me which shades Which match with my skin tone Okay, I should do a hair I'll do a hair Q&A Coming up So that you guys can ask those kind of questions And I can answer them because That would take an entire show To go through everybody's stuff Alright, so We're going to start in the back of the head And we're going to create Concave layers And then we're going to move into the side So here we go We're going to go with this comb We're going to use our scissors today And with concave layering We're going to start in the back And I'm going to work vertical sections And I'm going to bring them straight up here So Talked about this And I'm not going to give it the full break Down here Let me go back here Let's go up So two things that we're going to do We're going to cut Go to that one So we've got our parting on the side So we split the front and the back And then what I'm going to do is I'm going to cut a concave Layer Basically go here So I'm going to come straight out with the hair But then I'm going to scoop And create this scooped effect So it will come out here Like that So that will come out Scoop through My goal here Let's go to this guy Is in the back So With the virtual cutting club we went through The different shape and all of that What I want to basically tell you guys today Is that everything that I'm doing in the back Here is going to come straight back So it's going to create A squared back on the cut So right there Directly straight back So we're cutting a balanced horizontal line in the back And then concave Layering throughout the back as well Alright Back to the head Remember if you guys have questions just type Q And put in your question Click over here Alright, Adele I found it a bit tricky So Adele is part of our virtual cutting club She did a great job today This will just be a little Extra refresh here in the back Of what we did Alright, so Vertical sections We're going to work straight down Center back And we're going to work with a traveling guide So it's vertical You can see this section Right down the middle there So taking this piece out And I'm going to scoop the hair up And now this is where you're going to determine How much length do you want to have So what am I trying to do How much layers do I want How short do I want those layers How much weight do I want to remove I don't want to remove a ton But I do want a lot of movement And I think that that's what concave for me Will give me besides just removing weight So I'm going to come straight out from the head Just like this And then I'm going to pivot My hand up And we've got our length Right here in the inside So keeping the tension That's what we talked about Coming out here Like this, pull You've got your tension And now I'm going to cut short To long Inside or outside of my fingers On the top of my fingers So there, so it starts to create Shorter pieces in that interior Now I take another section Right next to it Taking that hair to the middle So just like this Pull the hair towards me First And then my last move Because I want this to start traveling Across horizontally like this My last move is going to be to push the hair away So I want to take the hair Get it nice and tight at the base On both sides And then my last comb Is now going to be like this Away from my body And then come out from the head And then pretend like The top of your fingers gets trapped And then it kicks up From there, so it's a pivot point And I'll work across The top of my fingers Now Continue along the top Let me pop to the Overhead camera here Oh gosh So Haley, so you are Cutting uniform back Over directing upwards For sure, so uniform back All the way across All the layers are coming out to this point Is where I start my cut and I cut up And then we are cutting concave To this scooping motion Throughout So layers with a traveling guide So you can see I started in the center back Now I went here And all of it is coming across So we get to this corner And we are creating a Square back So right here, scoop from the base Last comb Is pushing that guide Over top of the new section Come out, pivot Lift And cut Just like that Now our last section Is straight back from the head So here is the head shape Straight back, you don't want to go into this corner Because then you round it off You want to come straight back Which will then push a little extra weight Right behind the ear Last comb Inside out Push that guide to where you want to cut Just like that, straight across Watching from the Netherlands I wish I was in the Netherlands, Gabby Wish I was there Alright So here we go, so we went all the way across to the top Here, bringing everything out Cutting a horizontal line Now I'm going to do the same thing on this side My body position won't change The reason my body position isn't changing Because it leaves my elbow free See how my elbow can move up and down If I was on the other side of the head My elbow would be getting trapped My hand would be getting trapped by the head So you want to make sure You'll know When your body position is correct When your elbow Has the freedom to move up and down And remember, we're coming out And then we pretend like our fingertips get stuck And then we shift our elbow up And that cuts the concave layer Alright, vertical section Now we're moving on to the other side Like this So now, something changes Right, what changes I know I'm wearing a black shirt and this is black hair Watch the comb angle Wherever the comb angle is where I'm cutting I will try to move out of the way though So I'm in the biggest loser competition So hopefully In the next like four weeks I'll be comfortable wearing white and my whole life will be different But I'm just kidding Not kidding, actually So here we go We're going into the center, pulling the guide So what changes is I'm still combing at the scalp To get the hair up here But then Pulling the guide now towards my body Because you always want to move the guide Over top Of the section you want to cut So we go here, I come out I pivot, I lift There's my guide Also, the other thing is Try to keep the tension in this section So as you come out Like this Try to keep that tension Instead of dropping it We talked about this in our virtual cutting club Instead of dropping it, if you drop it Hold on to the tension, but you'll never really know If you're right where you want it to be If you're not cutting it right where it's at I also believe there's just a little more room for error When you do that Alright In my opinion It just looks a little more professional When you keep When you do this Come out Last comb inside Come out and you shift up Like this and you hold it there Rather than dropping it And cutting it here This doesn't look as You know as this coming across It looks more precise and it's going to be More precise, more consistent that way So comb it out the root Last comb towards your body Shift up A couple more sections here Thank you Mary, appreciate it I appreciate it Alright So this is it Down, vertical Moving into the corner Got about one section left So bringing the hair out Be aware of where the front of the head is So everything's coming out straight Last comb is towards you Scoop it Cut short to long This is the last bit in the corner Coming straight back Last comb Scoop, cut So now we've created Concave layers in the back I call them balanced Because it's a balanced line All the way across The layers balance across horizontally Nothing dips In at all But you know They can also say it's square I just think sometimes when you think square You're not thinking of just a line But you know that might just be me So as you work through here There's a lot of layering It's kind of hard for you guys to see All the layering that's happening It starts about right at this point And goes in The majority of the layering is here And then it gets weaker as we get to the bottom Now If you want to get yelled at on the internet You leave this nice and weak at the bottom That's what I've learned over seven years So today we're going to cut A nice blunt line in the bottom And then we're going to move on to the sides So let's go over here So I don't feel like getting yelled at today I'm sure you guys don't either So I'm just going to cut a blunt line across the bottom Most of us know how to do that If you don't You should go to a You should be going to a professional So let's cut a blunt line in the back The other good thing about this Is because we've already cut It concave It's pretty weak at the bottom So it's easy to cut a blunt line If you try to cut a blunt line first You're going to get You're going to have too much hair to cut through So you'd have to break it up into a bunch Of different sections This I would just cut right along someone's cape In the back So bring the hair back here I'm not going to take a ton of length off Because I want This haircut to be long But I don't want it to look weak I'd rather get yelled at because it's not too long Long enough So you can see already When I start to turn that That looks better than that In the cut Where do you get your scissors and the doll stand? So Jasmine I actually So these scissors are mine Made by Mizetani So But they're my version But we sell Mizetani on our website So if you go to shopfse.com Shop free salon education You will see it there And All the tools I'm using For the most part except for the Minerva blow dryer That I'll be using You can get at our website And then Cutting stool that I'm sitting on This guy right here, my trusty Cutting stool It's one of my favorite things on the planet These wheels Don't buy the cheap one They're nice This is literally like sitting in a Cadillac While you're cutting hair But I love it because Length wise Especially being a taller guy Cutting long hair Can be a struggle Also even being like Just trying to be Head level with a client It helps being able to Sit and see it So you can see how nice that line looks now Even though we have a lot of layering A lot of texture in there That line still looks solid and that's really the goal Of what we're going for Alright Any reason for changing how you hold the scissors So I'm assuming Nicola is asking Why I went like this To cut So if you look at my wrist Zoom in on this for you It's the great part about being live guys I know I answer a lot of questions But Very few instances I put out a lot of videos Do I get to interact with you guys and answer your specific questions So It's a good way to do it Alright So when you look at My hand position here When I comb the hair down Like this To cut the hair here I gotta look at my wrist To get my scissors flat I gotta hold my wrist like this Cocked back Which is no good on your wrist Some people like to cut like this That's fine I just never really like this Because my elbow is now Out So look at See my elbows up In the air So for me to get a nice Flatter line This drops my elbow down I'm gonna work with my finger half in the Scissor And just work straight across like that Instead of like this Where I hunch my shoulder up It's probably not good for the longevity Or And No matter what kind of wants to fall down So then your line might be a little bit different Or Trying to cut like this And then this is not gonna work So Nice and steady Like that So to do that Fun fact Okay So to do that You just take your thumb out of the normal Way And you put your thumb in the opposite direction And that kind of holds everything tight And you can work across So there's this way of cutting There's This way of cutting with my thumb half in A lot When I'm cutting a line on top of my fingers And then there's this way of cutting Which is kind of a half in Which is another way of cutting On top of your fingers which is having Your thumb kind of halfway in this way This is probably the most Like It's not super comfortable But being able to re-chair In certain ways it kind of helps out Doing that instead of like this Because then you gotta kick your elbow up You know there's just different benefits to it Alright Useful Knowledge So now we're gonna work into the sides of the cut This is gonna be cut In a condensed way And then we're gonna cut this top Section In two separate pieces So what I'm gonna do Is Face her towards me I'm going to be using My new tool, the tri razor Which we came out with This is free salon educations tool You can also get on our Online store It's a triangular shaped razor that cuts See if it'll Focus So it's a triangular razor that cuts Three different amounts of hair So you've got 100% of the hair You've got a texture 50 side That'll take 50% of the hair out And then you have a texture 25 side Of the hair out So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna use that To cut this side of the head The reason I like doing this Is because I like the freedom The flow of a razor cut But in the back I don't really necessarily Always need to have More of a razor feel I can have a more structured feel I will do some texturizing With the razor in the back as well So let's wet down The side of the head And comb the hair towards the front Towards me Just like that Zoom in a little bit Comb the hair Towards the front of the face And then what I'm gonna do is I really want to Open the face up So opening the face means Basically pushing the weight off of it So if I hold the hair here And I cut it, it's gonna push the weight If I pull the hair back here and cut it It's gonna push the weight forward So I want to open up the face So I want it nice and light off the face All the weight's gonna be removed from here And left to go towards the back So I bring the hair forward Like that Comb it and then all I'm gonna do Is just take the tri-raiser And this is the 100% cutting side And I'm gonna slide through the hair That just creates a face frame Just with one swipe Another reason why I like using it So now when I comb this hair out You're gonna start to see that pop of layering That happens right around the face Tons of it So now I'll bring the rest of this hair towards the front here I'll swipe one more time To connect to the back And then I can decide whether If her hair feels thicker Or feels skinnier Depending on what it feels like I can decide how I want to Texturize the back For this, I don't know if I need to Because of all the texture we put in it already And I don't want it to feel skinny So we'll take down the left side Here We're gonna do the same action With the tri-raiser again Comb it forward Just make sure you really scoop out the root Get the hair nice and consistent And then Swipe. Now, how do I get a guide? I'm really just looking at where this fell And that's how I'm picturing my guideline If you wanted to, you could hold two pieces out And obviously just cut and connect them I can tell based on this Because when you've done hair for a little while You can see Where that hair is going to fall It doesn't need to be exact, it just needs to be close Let me go overhead You guys can get a good look at this And these are our two top Sections there as well So we'll go into those next How do you word using a razor to your clients? That's a great question I know a lot of people Get concerned with the razor First things first There are different types of razors So You gotta make sure that you have a razor That has a quality blade And I'll show you guys the blade in a second So right here Down So we go here And we just swipe through The blades that are in This tri-raiser Here Which you can also get on our website They have They're very firm So this blade I would much rather I would much rather take my finger And slide it across this blade Than this blade This blade is so sharp When you look at razor blades Those flimsy ones that you get That flex that are made for shaving the neck They're great for shaving a neck They're great for cutting hair Some people cut hair with them So first off If my client was nervous about Getting a haircut with a razor I would show them the blade And I would show them that I'm putting a new one in And then that is The blade for their haircut So it's sharper than a scissor A lot of hairdressers don't even get their scissors sharp enough So Already you're using a sharper blade than you would You gotta have the hair Or fully dry Like I think that there's two ways to cut with a razor If it's fully dry and smoothed out Then it works really well with a razor as well Because it just glides through it You know if the hair is roughed up And it's a weird texture and it's half dry And you're kind of going through it The cuticles up then you know I wouldn't do that I don't know the specific damage Or if it would even create damage But for me I like to either prep the hair Perfectly smooth or Light through it with a consistent Moisturized feel So then you pop the blades in I honestly recommend Changing them as often as you can Throughout your cutting And then you put the top on snap it And you're good to go Lock it on and that's it So now you've changed your blades So when I talk to my client It's all about education It's the way that I talk to my client about everything You guys To definitely understand Is that clients are nervous About a million things when they sit In our chair The reason we don't keep clients Because they say on average You keep your client after 6 to 8 visits Like 10% of your clients are still there Which is a crazy number And I think the reason that that happens Is because the The relationship that you build with them Is not based on Anything but getting them in and out Sometimes Now you have those clients that have been with you forever Because you happen to build a relationship with them So you have to think about How do you build a relationship You build it based on Going that little extra Teaching them about what you're doing Showing them that you know what you're doing A lot of my clients Like I do hair I used to do one day a week Now I'm scattered I don't take my existing clients I don't take new clients And the reason I think I was able to do Some of those things is because they trust me And they didn't want to go to somebody else Or they trust my team And they start going to somebody on my team So it's all about that trust that you build With them And if you have clients that are scared of things It's probably because you're not explaining it The right way or maybe you're even scared of it So just think about that Tiffany Good to see you Alright, here we go Back to The cut So here we go, we've got two sides Lots of texture Lots of layering in there And now we're just going to cut the tops Now with this Depending on what I wanted to do with it I would decide whether I was going to razor it Or cut it with scissors Today I'm going to cut it with scissors because I'm going to elevate them Maybe At a specific elevation So you could go in with a razor And cut into it I might even do that to texturize it Depending on what it looks like But for me, if I'm looking for a precise thing I don't think one tool fits all It's like you can't build a house with just a screwdriver Right? There's multiple tools that make your job easier For me, I want to lift this up Cut it at a precise point And then I'll go in And do that So here we go So now I'm going to take a guide From this point here Just from the edge I'm going to elevate The hair up in the air I can do this to show you guys the best So I'm elevating the hair And I want to cut it with the round of the head So I'm elevating Oh my gosh It's my first time Definitely my first time Alright, so up over top Of the parting And there is One more guide than that So up over top And I'm going to cut it a little bit longer than that guide Because I just want a little extra length And because I'm holding this 90 degrees this way And over 90 degrees this way It's going to be nice and light So I don't have to worry about the disconnection stacking up So I'll go through here And I'm going to point cut It's important that this is 90 degrees Both ways because you want it When she pulls it back to be nice and light So there's that And then I'm going to take this section down And I'm going to do the same thing The opposite direction So grab a guide from underneath Pull that up over top Of the parting as well Keeping it at 90 degrees Point cutting through it So like that Now when we pull it back On the head You can flip it this way Get a little bit of extra volume in there Or you can flip it back the other way Here You can see, kick it over This way, you'll get that volume Those layers Or you can come back the other way Kick it that way And it'll be nice and light because when you cut it Both ways it was over 90 degrees In all directions So it doesn't leave any weight line In the seamless feel So Peg, I see you're jumping in a little bit later We played The color tutorial part At the very beginning So a little quick one minute video On how to do it I'll also be putting this out as a smaller tutorial On our YouTube channel so you can watch it there I see that you're watching on YouTube now So You'll be able to watch it later There you go, so now She can pop it up That way, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to go through and blow it dry And then we'll finish up this style So here we go Blow-dryer I'm going to be using today Is the Minerva Beauty Blow-dryer I was going to say gold and I couldn't get it out of my mouth Gold blow-dryer Goes great with this blue hair color So Super powerful You see, it's like a jet engine It also has self cleaning capabilities Which is pretty sweet When you look in here It builds the hair up, puts it into a little tiny ball And you can just pull it right out No problem Cool shot button here Nice little nozzle And super powerful So we're going to blow-dry this back I'm going to play some music while I do it You guys can get your dance emojis on While we style it up And then we'll come back To some texturizing and I'll show you the finished look Ready? Here we go Nope, not that one Go Alright, so One thing I want to See if I can turn it down a little bit Actually, I'll just turn it off real quick And break this down So we're going to work through the top now So everything I just kind of did some round brushing Went through it all Smoothed it out I don't want my body in wave But nothing like crazy I might even iron it a little bit at the end The top I'm going to round brush everything forward So I'm using This is Ergo round brush We sell them on our shop as well So this I'm not sure exactly the size of it But you can see It's the Ergo 43 The reason I'm picking this Because I don't want my sections to be much bigger than that The round brush The less volume you get A lot of people think it's opposite So the larger the brush The more smooth the bigger section You can take the more hair you have But it just smooths the hair out The smaller the brush The more bend you get to the hair And the more bend you get to the base So you get more volume So I want to go through smaller brush 43 And bring everything forward As I blow dry And go on base So straight up in the air On base So I get a nice soft kind of finish I might go a little bit off base A little bit more towards me on the very front To kick it up even more But that's pretty much it So I'm going to start in the back Roll everything forward Let it go Roll forward, let it go Roll forward, let it go Oh, G-Tune here Alright guys, working up a sweat here for you Thank you guys, thank you What do you do on days where You're just not feeling that creative? I'm going to be honest with you I rearrange My studio Which happens like once a week I move my whole desk And those days happen And then I While I do that I think I should probably go to the gym or something I'm not safe I'm safe right now But yeah, so I'll just rearrange things Clear my mind a little bit Do things that allow me not to think As much and then Or just have random thoughts Or just You know, look online Find things that, you know Give you that little bit of spark To see you guys are liking it Let me know in the comments what you think so far I'm not done Style is still a little flatter than I want But I want to kind of pop I like the way that the picture is And you can see like this is where People bring in these pictures Let me show you again Those guys that are just tuning in They can see, I mean the color That kind of blue is like It's poppin I haven't used any finishing spray yet I've just been using like Neuro Protect Which is a Kind of a thermal protectant So now I'm using Finish From Neuro And I honestly just really love how this These different pieces The blue kind of just Go throughout The haircut Bang coming around too So this is the thing So somebody is saying Haley is saying that So it does look similar The big thing for me is It's hard when you look at somebody That's just got their hair kind of tossed over What that exact cut is I don't know, it's not like her hairdresser Is necessarily putting out tutorials or anything So they could have went about In a totally different way I think there's a million ways to go about different things I also don't even know if she has this Much layering in her haircut I do see quite a bit of layering Assumption, but We're trying to fit this to our client In their situation Maybe they don't want quite as many layers So you just kind of have some fun with it And get it as close To that end result As you can That fits them Let me show you the side here It's super cool how that blue Just kind of melts into everything Throughout the whole I'm turning it guys Now we go in the back So you can see Here's the layers That are shooting from that concave Effect That we created So it's harder because it's black hair But There's like layers popping Smooth it out for you guys a little bit So the majority of the density In a cut like this, especially if you're pulling everything to the back Is going to sit in this middle area That's where we cut that concave To kind of fall into And then we scooped all the weight out of this part Now you got to realize that this Wouldn't just be hanging It would be sitting on someone So it would be a little more Full feeling and you wouldn't see through it You can see a white wall through it So it's a little bit different I would also probably take it just a little bit shorter Me personally, but some people just like Their hair to feel super long And then you can see kind of into the sides How That blue kind of melts In there as well So what do you guys think Concave layering looks amazing, awesome Love that Let's see, awesome, awesome, awesome Cool So let's Go here And This is a good one, alright So I want this hair, Matt's version Cool Alright Let me see if I can I wanted to put up here It's right here Alright, so let me So there's our comparison Did you guys like it? I meant to have that up the whole time Bianca, thanks so much Profile length, yeah So Michelle I appreciate it What I would say is what I already said Which is she doesn't have shoulders She doesn't have There's a white wall, it's hanging So it looks a little bit different And you can always take it a little bit shorter In the back Or don't do concave So if you had a client with Thinner hair, finer hair You could just do regular layers in the back Or no layers at all And change the whole haircut up Just do one length in the back Keep it full And that would be it The one thing that I think is funny Is like people Haircutting is subjective What I think is thin and what you think is thin We all think differently But it really doesn't matter what any of us think It's what the client thinks And the client might think that that's thin So the adjustments you just have to know how to make them So I never get offended By somebody saying it looks thin Because it does It does look thin Those are the adjustments that you can make And knowing when to do them So this is great for a client with thicker hair These mannequins have medium hair Clients with Thinner hair Again, I would just do either one length And just slide cut some layers in To your want And then Do it to the top But the other thing I would say is that Off of the other subject Is that her hair Looks about medium Density I personally wouldn't do this haircut on somebody with thinner hair Probably because It's not going to have that fullness on top So It just depends Some people with thin hair might be able to pull it off And pull extra hair over To get it to feel But I definitely wouldn't cut those layers that short on the top So many different ways to go about it These videos It's all about opening your mind In this class I really enjoyed hanging with you all What color line blue it was Kenra Kenra blue we used for this one There we go And that Is that So You're very welcome Alright cool, I think we're good Alright guys, thank you so much for being a part of today I hope you guys enjoyed it I hope you can use any parts of the techniques that we learned today Please don't just go and Do this exactly the same Because like you will experience It won't sit the same on everybody's hair You know These techniques are great for all hair types But it depends on how you put them together So make sure that You know, you try it out Have fun with it, experiment with it If you want to become part of our virtual cutting club Which we meet every Monday, like I said It's 50 bucks a month And we train together over Zoom To learn more about hair It's a lot of fun You can sign up on our website FreeSalonEducation.com And all the tools that you saw You can purchase on Shop FSE Except for the Minerva blow dryer Which busted out a beautiful blow dryer Very quickly today So thank you for that Go to MinervaBeauty.com And you can pick this guy up right here And he's gold, they have new colors So super cool What it needs That's it. I'll see you guys next Tuesday Right here at 12.30 Eastern Standard Time I can't wait to see you guys And make sure you subscribe on YouTube Because I'm putting out tutorials a lot this year My goal is to just keep putting out Content non-stop So thanks I'll see you guys on the next one Bye


When you read that Mr. Hyde's dead body was found. How'd you feel? Were you scared? Were you worried? What?


Smart India Hackathon 2023 is round the corner. The problem statements have been released. Dealing with problem statements in a hackathon, particularly the one like Smart India Hackathon involves a systematic and strategic approach. In this series, we will be joined by some past winners of the Smart India Hackathon to help you guide and navigate through these problem statements effectively. Today we have with us Sayid Ibrahim, who will be sharing his thoughts and inputs on the problem statement, SIH 1384, which is developing an interactive gaming software on intellectual property awareness for school students. Welcome Sayid Ibrahim, welcome to the show. Thank you Vikas. And to begin with, please introduce us to yourself and you know, just tell us something about yourself. Yeah, so my name is Sayid Ibrahim Maaz, I am from Bangalore. I am an associate engineer working at Blackhawk Network India currently. I graduated this year and in my third year, which is the year 2022, I participated in Smart India Hackathon 2022 and won the problem statement at Nagpur Shiranthi Baba College of Engineering for the Planetarium problem statement. Okay, that's wonderful and congratulations for that, Sayid. Now, I mean, since you've been a winner of the past year's hackathon and you aist a particular problem statement, I think our viewers would be interested to know how you were able to do it.  So what is the problem statement that you picked and just tell us something to begin with that. Yeah, so the problem statement that I picked was a problem statement 1384, which was regarding an interactive gaming software to develop or to spread intellectual property awareness for school students. So it's based on the problem statement, it was regarding a gamified software which allowed students to understand easily about intellectual property rights in India. Okay, so I think the viewers will be very interesting and interested to know if you were the person dealing with this problem statement, how do you be dealing with it? Like how do you plan it? So first of all, when you look at any problem statement, in the problem statement, there is information given by SIH itself in detail as to what they expect from the students or what they expect from the team. So it is required to go through the information or the tips which I prefer to call about how to approach the problem statement and how to solve it. And as they have mentioned already, they wanted in the general description of the problem statement, they mentioned how they want students to understand the different types of intellectual property rights like copyright, patent, etc. And based on different difficulty levels, raise their awareness about it. So there are different parts, when you submit a problem statement for the PPT, the tech stack or the technology which I would use would be preferably Unity, because Unity is a game development software and the problem statement requires us to make a gamified software which is easy for students to interact and use. And apart from that, Unity is a platform independent, so anyone can use it on their laptop or their mobile phones. And the approach which I would go with is such that I would allow the student to have a pick random objects from different parts of a scene and then make the student to build a design or a logo or some patent of some sort and make the student go through the process of different stages of how the patent is filed and the different details that are required while filing a patent and the stages and how to proceed with them at the same time. Before we go ahead with the patent part of it, let's stick to the technology part for a while. So you said your choice would be software called Unity. Unity, as I understand, is something which is not very difficult to work on.  So let's talk about the team first. Like what kind of a team would it be for, you know, this particular statement? This problem statement was similar to my problem statement because I also use Unity. So my team consisted of two coders, myself and my junior, he was a part of the team. So we were the two coders and apart from us, we even had four designers. So when you use Unity, you need to design the game objects or the different parts of the software. And you need the code people to actually run the code or the objects regarding it. So team preparation wise, I would suggest you, you need to have a balance wherein people have a generalized idea on how to use Unity, even though it is easy, comparatively compared to normal coding. Unity requires some basic knowledge like the different packages that you have to have to import beforehand, as well as you need a basic C-sharp knowledge, which will allow you to use imported packages to read it. So that would be my team. And one of the most important thing is you need to have a compatible team. So my team, we had tried and tested in various hackathons and I would suggest you to do the same, like participate in many hackathons and form an ideal team, which would support you. So great, that was about the team, which has some good coding acumen as well as I guess some designing acumen as well, because using Unity would be good if somebody was a good designer also using that particular software. So okay, team part taken care of, now the planning part. How would you go about dealing with the problem statement now, after this team, which you have at your disposal? So once you have the team, ideally split the team into like each individually, we all worked on different parts of the software or the different parts of the project. So my the designer started modeling, basically modeling is nothing but understanding and creating the design components in blender. So they started understanding blender, knowing how to import the properties, how to import projects and put it into Unity, you can go through the various YouTube tutorials. And at the same time, the coding people, we decided to work on the base of the project which required the implementation, actual implementation, once the objects are integrated, you need to make them move, you need to enable the user to select all these kick functions, etc. event handlers, we understood the documentation, which it is called documentation and syntax of various functions. We worked on that and we made a base prototype or sample program, I would say, on how to meet the app or proceed with that. Okay, great. So this is like, you know, dealing with the software and the technical part of this. And now about, you know, planning in the entire term in the sense that now the next part is of course, the IP awareness. So how does that get into it? Yeah, so research is very important, of course. So if you start taking the problem statement, first of all, you need to understand what is intellectual property rights. So I would suggest you to meet lawyers, meet patent handlers, and various government representatives or legal representatives, which have a good idea about what is actually happening. And work on understanding the different things. Obviously, you can understand things from the internet, I would suggest that. But if you approach people, apart from online, through offline interaction, it is much better because it's easier to gain the information and ask doubts face to face. So I would suggest do proper research about the various concepts and other things. So say, have you had any brush with the intellectual property rights in your, during the course, when you were like, you know, doing these hackathons or otherwise? I actually have a trademark in my name. So I applied for this trademark because I wanted to understand entrepreneurship. So one of the parts of SIH itself that held a bootcamp about entrepreneurship and how to provide with it. So when I was dealing with that, I got interested about entrepreneurship and the different stages in India, how it can be supported. So I applied for a copyright, not copyright, sorry, I applied for a trademark. And this trademark it was applied for six months ago, and it's almost in the process of getting approved. So once I have the trademark, I have rights over where I use and how I use it. So yeah, I did, it was useful for me and I applied it. Okay, great. So you told us about the technology part of it, how would you ideally be handling this? And also how would you bring in the IP awareness aspect by, you know, talking to the lawyers and doing your own bit of research? Now, how would you like to present this entire thing? So as it turns out to be a winner? So if you have any thoughts on that? What looks so first of all, so whatever software you make, it has to be easy to be understand, like it should be easy to understand at the same time, it should be UI should be very intuitive. It should look better than any, any software the student can use. Because since the students are the primary users, if the interactions as well as the UI is not good, they lose interest in our current time. It is very important to have catchy, catchy, catchy UI and graphics. So I would focus on that. So first of all, you need to have, again, designers come into picture. If you have good designers, you can make any object or any graphics that you require customized version. And apart from that, I would suggest, okay, work on building a prototype and understanding how the things will work out at the hackathon. So last minute, when you go to the hackathon, you need you should not be able to you need not do everything from the scratch. You need to have to you need to have a basic idea as to how the different stages are done, as well as, for example, I'll give when you make any game if I software, you need to have the menus, you need to have the instructions, you need to have the exit buttons, all these functionalities, you need to know the knowledge beforehand. Because at the hackathon, you're not only implementing your idea, what the judges and the other requirements that are implemented there, that also come into picture. So you need to implement the suggestions with the judges give you. So I mean, very well articulated side, I mean, I think you covered pretty strongly the entire process, what you would be going through, or how ideally you would be handling it. That's nice. So in the end, a final piece of advice to the people who would be looking to, you know, deal with this particular problem statement, or one looking forward to a solution to this particular problem statement. Any final piece of advice? The advice that I would give to the people who are approaching this problem statement, it would be, first of all, research is very important, have an understanding of the problem statement and the content as well beforehand, and do extensive research. The second advice would be, the UI should be very user friendly and easy to understand, since it's students, you don't know the age group which will be handling it. So think accordingly, and it should be used across various age groups. And third of all, third, I would suggest you work on having a basic prototype beforehand to understand the different functionalities and the different options or buttons or the documentation, so that you don't end up having any trouble on the final day of hackathon, because functionality such as having a basic menu, the exit buttons, or the movement or the triggers or the various documentations you need to be prepared. And the judges at the hackathon as well, they give you suggestions in real time, so you need to be able to adapt and include these suggestions to make to win, obviously. So if you want to win, you have to ensure that you are fast and you pick up on these changes with the real time. And the last thing I would tell is, when I was doing this, when I, when I worked on this particular problem statement, similar one, they asked me to integrate real time data, which was new. So understand and have an idea beforehand about the documentation, even though they are not told currently in the problem statement. So great, I think that was a very comprehensive input coming from you, past hackathon winner. So thank you so much for joining us today. And I'm sure people who would be, you know, willing to participate in this particular competition with this from statement would be immensely benefited from your thoughts, your inputs, or what you have to say about, you know, how to deal with this. Thank you so much for joining us, and we wish you all the best for any end of us that you be a marketer born in your life further. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Thank you. Remember, effective collaboration, communication and adaptability are crucial for any hackathon. Keep a positive mindset, embrace challenges and enjoy the learning experience. Good luck with your participation in the Smart India Hackathon.