If you're going to follow this series, the expectation is that you have at least a basic understanding of how to program. Specifically, you should have a basic familiarity with Python and the concepts of object-oriented programming. As long as you're comfortable with basic uses of variables, functions, classes, if statements, while statements, etc., you should be fine. It will also help to have some understanding of how text and numbers are represented as bits. In particular, it would help to understand the accuracy issues with floating-point numbers. It's also good to have an understanding of the context in which a program runs, namely the operating system and the hardware. What's the difference between a process and a thread? What's a file? What's a system call? What's a relationship between memory and the CPU caches? Things of that nature. You'll also want some basic familiarity with using command line. Nothing advanced, just navigation between directories, starting programs, and possibly modifying the system path. As for math, we may cover a bit of linear algebra, which mainly concerns matrices, but the only expectation coming in is that you at some point in your life covered basic geometry and trigonometry. If you can't remember now, which is sine and which is cosine, don't worry. I'll probably remind you when it comes up. And finally, if you want to follow along with the code and play with it yourself, the code will all be made available on Bitbucket, which uses the mercurial versioning system. So you'll want to familiarize yourself with mercurial's basic usage. Now, if you're totally new to programming, you can work your way through the videos at Codeschool.org, but that's quite a lot of material. So if you just want to do the bare minimum, you should watch the videos called a first programming language, the JavaScript language, and the Python language in that order. The JavaScript video is necessary not because we're going to use JavaScript, but because the Python video won't make sense without it. And of course, if you need help with any material in this series or the Codeschool series, you can post questions in the Codeschool discussion group, the link to which is on the Codeschool front page. As you may know, C++ is generally considered the language of choice in most professional game development. Virtually every commercial PC and console game of the last decade and earlier has been written mostly or wholly in C++, and this language preference will probably continue into the indefinite future. However, well into the 1990s, many PC games and almost all console games were written in assembly. Assembly remember refers to any language in which the programmer specifies the precise CPU instructions one by one. The use of assembly was of course mainly for efficiency reasons. Games are among the most taxing programs around, so in order to maximize the current hardware, it makes sense to use the language with the least performance overhead. In theory, the precise control of assembly provides sufficiently smart programmers the ability to produce the most efficient code possible. By about the mid 90s though, consumer hardware, PCs especially, became fast enough that the tiny efficiency gains programmers can eke out when using assembly instead of languages like C and C++, those efficiencies began to matter less and less in the overall performance picture. Past a certain point of code size and complexity, small efficiencies stopped making much of a visible difference and so just aren't worth the programmer time and effort. Besides, when code is slow on today's hardware, the first culprit is the choice of algorithms, not the minute details of the exact instructions. So better to use a more convenient language like C and C++ that makes it easier for programmers to experiment and find the right algorithms. Today, we leave minute optimizations of the precise CPU instructions up to compilers. But now, why the choice of C++ rather than some other non-assembly language? Well, first, C++ still allows the programmer a high degree of control over precisely what goes on on memory. The programmer in C++ explicitly manages memory and can create data types that use minimal space. Also, the built-in numeric types into short, long, double, and so forth, the primitive types as they are called in some other languages, these types can generally be processed efficiently. For example, the int type is defined as an integer, which is the same size as the CPU's general purpose registers, the optimum size for basic computations like addition and subtraction. And lastly, because C++ is statically typed and gets compiled to machine code, the compiler can aggressively optimize the compiled code in a way that cannot be done for dynamic and interpreted code. And in fact, this aggressive optimization in C++ is often the slowest part of the compilation process. In Python, in contrast to C++, the programmer does not explicitly manage memory. Instead, the interpreter is responsible for garbage collecting any created objects. For the most part, the Python programmer creates objects without worrying about deallocating the memory which those objects occupy. On the downside, this lack of control means that Python programmers cannot specify the precise byte-by-byte memory usage of data types. Python's numeric types also favor convenience over efficiency. A Python integer, for example, can be of arbitrary size, meaning that, say, two Python integers cannot generally be added to each other in a single CPU instruction in the way that two ints in C++ can be added together with just a single CPU instruction. And lastly, in a dynamic and interpreted language, a lot of information about what will happen at runtime only gets discovered at runtime. It's only knowable at runtime. And it's this lack of foreknowledge that makes aggressive compiler optimizations not possible with Python code the way they are with C++ code. So the cost of Python's conveniences are overhead, both in space, meaning extra memory usage, and time, meaning extra CPU work. If you're trying to push current hardware to its limits, C++ is clearly the preferable choice. However, we're going to use Python because today's piece of hardware is sufficiently powerful that less taxing games should run perfectly well in Python, especially games with just 2D graphics. To give you an idea of what's possible, there's a game called Save the Day, programmed not in Python but JavaScript, which has all the same basic efficiency disadvantages compared to C++. This game actually runs in the web browser, but it uses OpenGL for its graphics rendering like we will be doing in Python. Here's another JavaScript game in the browser, this time in 3D. Though certainly not up to snuff with the latest and greatest here in 2012, this is just a proof-of-concept experiment. More work and better art assets seem like they might produce results comparable in graphical fidelity to a shooter of around the early to mid-2000s, which is pretty cool for something written in JavaScript and running in the browser. But if after this series you're interested in learning more about game programming and C++, I recommend starting with this book, Game Engine Architecture by Jason Gregory. Gregory covers many of the same fundamentals we'll cover here, but he also covers some topics applicable to C++, but not Python, such as manual memory management. Now, if you want to follow along with the code and try coding yourself, you'll need to install a few programs. First, of course, you'll need Python, and then two Python libraries, a framework for games called Piglet, and the Python Imaging Library, which allows us to work with image files in many formats. Though I cover Python 3 in my Python video, we're actually going to use the older Python 2 for better compatibility with the Piglet framework. The apparent differences between Python 2 and 3 are small enough that this shouldn't be a problem, and I'll point out any differences along the way. Specifically, we'll be using Python 2.7.3, Piglet 1.2 Alpha 1, and Python Imaging Library 1.1.7. If later versions are available when you're listening to this, you'll probably be fine with those later versions, but I can't make any guarantees. Just be sure to use a version of Python 2, not Python 3, as Piglet currently does not work with Python 3. I also recommend installing Apptana and Notepad++. Apptana is a repackaging of the Eclipse IDE that includes the PyDev plugin. PyDev is nice because it gives us some conveniences like an easy-to-use Python debugger. You could alternatively use Eclipse and install the PyDev plugin yourself, but downloading Apptana is easier. Both Apptana and Eclipse require Java, so you'll need Java installed either way. Notepad++ is my text editor of choice on Windows. When you don't want to use a full IDE like Apptana, Notepad++ is a good choice for writing your Python code. And even when you do use an IDE, Notepad++ is very convenient for viewing and editing text files. Let's talk a little bit about what the Piglet framework will do for us. First off, the term framework is used for libraries that act as incomplete programs into which we insert our own code. For example, most web development these days is done with web frameworks. We're in the skeleton, the framework of a web app is provided along with many web-related conveniences, and we write our web app by filling in these pieces specific for our app. That said, Piglet is a very minimal framework, so it's not obscuring too much of the underlying system from us, which is why I prefer it to another Python game framework called PyGame. Piglet spares us some bother without obscuring how game code really works. Moreover, Piglet handles many cross-platform differences, such that our code will run on Windows, Mac, and Linux. So the features of Piglet include, first off, creation of our game windows with an option for full-screen mode. Piglet also handles the messages, the so-called events which the operating system sends to our windows. These include mainly the input events sent when the user clicks the mouse on the window or hits a keyboard key while the window is focused. Piglet also can capture game controller events so our games can support joysticks and gamepads. We'll talk more about window events in later videos. To draw on our windows, we use the OpenGL library, which as we'll discuss in detail later, is a standard cross-platform interface to the graphics hardware. The OpenGL library is provided as a C code library, but Piglet wraps the C code such that we can invoke it in Python. This wrapper isn't 100% complete, but it's close and more than adequate for our purposes. Though using OpenGL from Python instead of CRC++ naturally introduces some overhead, it's very much the same OpenGL you would use in CRC++, so don't worry that we're covering a dumbed-down version of OpenGL. Piglet gives us proper OpenGL. However, if you want to make 2D games in Piglet without using OpenGL directly, Piglet provides a simple abstraction layer for drawing what are called sprites. Sprites are simply 2D images positioned and rotated on the screen. Many 2D games can be rendered simply by composing the screen out of a bunch of sprites, some rendered on top of others. In a side scroller, for example, the background might be one or more sprites and the characters are sprites drawn on top. Be clear, though, that Piglet's sprite abstraction itself uses OpenGL, so, in fact, you can easily mix these sprites with direct use of OpenGL. Piglet also provides for a simple playback of sounded video, and lastly, Piglet provides the basic framework required in any game, what's called the game loop. As we'll discuss in the next video, writing a game loop is easy. The hard part is handling the timing, and that's where Piglet helps us out. The Piglet code is organized into a number of Python modules. Piglet.app and Piglet.clock both concern the game loop and timing, just mentioned. Piglet.window creates our windows. Piglet.GL is the OpenGL wrapper, while Piglet.graphics and Piglet.sprite provide a simple layer of abstraction, as just discussed. Piglet.text provides convenient methods for drawing text, and Piglet.image provides for the loading and managing of image files. Piglet.media contains the sound of video facilities. Piglet.font is an older module for loading fonts and rendering text, though it's mostly superseded by the newer Piglet.text. Piglet.resource provides a more convenient way to load resource files, namely sound and image files. And finally, Piglet.input provides the ability to get game controller input. Note that a few of these modules share overlapping features. In some cases, this overlap is for the purpose of providing both a low and high level API, such as Piglet.GL for direct OpenGL and Piglet.sprite for convenient simplified API. In other cases, though, the overlap is a result of changes to Piglet over the course of its development, such as the case with Piglet.font, which is really deprecated at this point, I believe. In any case, where there's such overlap, I'll try to steer us towards the most up-to-date features. Now, when using this Piglet modules, you could import them by their full name, just like with any other module, but in the name of convenience, Piglet does some weird import trickery such that you only ever need import Piglet. All the other Piglet modules get assigned to attributes of the Piglet package module. For example, Piglet.app can be accessed as Piglet.app after having imported only Piglet, not Piglet.app itself. I could go into a long explanation of how exactly Piglet pulls this off, but it would require a long refresher on how exactly Python imports modules. Before ending here, let me give you a quick sample of some Piglet programs.  By itself, the program is unimpressive, but for a program that displays text in a window, takes keyboard input, and animates moving objects, it's impressive that the whole thing is written in just 60 lines. Similarly, here's an Asteroids clone written with Piglet that, while merely competent as a simple game, the whole program, complete with proper menus, is written in less than 800 lines. We should have no trouble getting similar bang per line of code when we write our own clones of classic games such as a Tetris clone in less than 500 lines.


All right, so there's a bit of a story here that I don't know the full thing, but you'll notice that either the speaker is tiny or non-existent, which is true. He is, well, he does exist. He is just not here. Our speaker apparently had enough juice to convince us that we will now deliver this presentation in an automated way, streamed via iCloud.com. That's right. We're going to try to stream an entire presentation from the internet right here on stage. Yeah, so you guys know about Autonomous Things, so this is Defcon's first autonomous presentation, and we also know what might happen if you get into an autonomous vehicle.  So we have no earthly idea what's going to happen here. We hope it really... Yeah, we hope that it goes really well. However, there's one thing for sure. This is the first time we have used iCloud.com as a presentation medium, which we think qualifies iCloud.com as a first-time speaker and presenter, so therefore, we're all in this together. Here's to you, iCloud.com. And without further ado, my very small co-presenter. Hello, everyone. This is Sanad. Sorry, I couldn't make it to Defcon. Apparently, my visa got rejected. So I have to pre-record my entire talk. I hope I can convey the entire content of this presentation through it. If you have any questions, just feel free to reach me out to Twitter. My DMs are open. Hello, everyone. This is Sanad. Sorry, I couldn't make it to Defcon. Apparently, my visa got rejected. So I have to pre-record my entire talk. I hope I can convey the entire content of this presentation through it. If you have any questions, just feel free to reach me out to Twitter. My DMs are open. So I'm a 19-year-old security engineer at GoRoot, based in Berlin, Germany. And on weekends, I play CTF in DCUA, a CTF team based in Ukraine. I normally solve pawn challenges and sometimes I'll blow solutions to them in my gist. So now let's get started in the talk. So regarding heap exploitation, there have been a ton of techniques being published, like from 2005, House of Spirit, House of Force, which allow you to get a chunk anywhere in memory. And the devs started patching most of them, but the research is still going on and there are a ton of new exploitation techniques coming up, like 2016 House of Orange, which was a challenge in HITCON, 2017 House of Rabbit, which was used in a few Asian GTFs also. So this year, I thought maybe I'd research and find something that's a little more interesting and universally applicable to many different scenarios, which is why this is titled House of Romans. So as I said, this technique is leakless. We just use a set of partial overrides to achieve a complete RCE on bind reads that are compiled with Pi2, like we don't really know where the dot-text section is, so we can't rob. The best part is the server does not need to send us any data back. So even if STDF was closed, we could still get a shell and I demonstrated this technique earlier with a simple UAF, but it seemed to be a pretty severe bug, so I thought maybe we do it with a very simple bug, like an off-by-one or something, to demonstrate its versatility and also to use caloc instead of maloc because caloc mem sets it 0, so it makes it a bit more tricky and tough to perform this, but yet it's doable. So as I said, the bug is simple off-by-one and nothing else. So as you can see, I just made a simple binary, which has three functions, maloc, right and free. There's no print function. All it does is basically take a site from maloc and then it malocs it and you enter a bunch of A's and it gets stored on the heap, as you can see. And it's really like a basic skeleton program. So this is like a basic recap of how the algorithm works, is you free a chunk, it gets added to its appropriate free list, if it's a fast bin, it gets added to that single list. If it's a size width and 0x80, it either gets consolidated or gets added to an unsorted bin free list or a small bin large bin, which are a double-link list with FDBK. And in this program, there's now UoF, as you can see the pointer and the array is nulled out. There's not by one and the write function. So we can change the size of a chunk and we can overlap it with the other neighboring chunks and thus gain control FDNBK to perform various sorts of heap attacks. So this is 0xD, one-size-chunk, when you're free, you get some weird pointers here. These are actually the arena pointers. They point to this main arena, which is a Lipsy symbol, to complete the double-link list of the unsorted bin list. And as I said, the main arena is a Lipsy symbol, much like the system, exactly Malakuk and all of these stuff. So it's interesting to know that Malakuk is pretty close, but I'll talk about that more later on. So again, this is just sort of like a refresher to the audience for those of you who don't know what the unsorted bin attack does is. It allows you to write a particular Lipsy address to anywhere you want. Now you can't really control what you want to write, but it's the address of main arena. More importantly, it's like a Lipsy address. And then there are fastman chunks, which are Sightless and 0x80. Their head points are stored in the main arena at an offset determined by their respective size. You should free two chunks of the same size then they're in the same free list. And it makes it really easy to exploit them because it's a single English, so less checks. And if you find a particular size alignment for fastman free list, which matches the size, then it's like game over. So to actually see the off by when in action, this is sort of like the attack plan. So I have these 0x71, 21, and D1 sort of like these chunks Malakuk and the heap.  And my plan is to use the second 0x71 to also into the 0x21 size chunk and make it something like 0xE1. And then of course put a fake size header at plus 0xE1 so that we don't fail any Malakuk assertions and we bypass all of them. As you can see with this, we overlap 0x71, 21, and 0xE1 chunk with our 0xE1 chunk. So we could free them and we could actually control freed chunks. So this is what it looks like, this 0xE1 chunk, when we return it for a 0xE1 size, it overlaps this 0x71, 21, and there's a fake size header of 0xE1. Now one thing you have to make sure is that at plus 0xE1, there's a good size like here you can see there's a Malakuk 0x21. This is really important, otherwise you will fail a Malakuk assertion, especially when you try to free it. So now let's assume we have control of the FDF assessment feelers. So now we need to think where we want to attack. So the best way to attack is, which I've seen is to find these Lipsy addresses or Stack addresses because they start with 0x71F. And so we can use the 0x71 free list and make it point to somewhere near this. How does it work? So basically we take a Lipsy address and we shift it by 5 bytes. So when you shift it and it sort of becomes like 0x00007F, which is a valid size for a 0x71 free list. So you actually fool Malakuk into believing that that is a valid fast bin free list on the heap and the consecutive 0x71 allocation which actually return you that chunk. So just in case you didn't understand this part, this is how it works. So you take a Lipsy address and if you have a null Q word in front of it, then you can just shift it and you can see in diagram it just keeps shifting, shifting, shifting until you reference 0x71F. And the memory that you have to make it point to is something, something, something 980.  So that's where you actually make it point.  And I think it's possible with Freehook 2, which I also discussed later, with an unsorted bin primitive, you can actually get to Freehook. And Freehook gives you more control over RDI and your arguments. But nonetheless, Malakuk also works to get a shell. So, I mean, you've seen this in a ton of CTF challenges and write up like point to point the FD there and get it, but we don't know the Lipsy address. So we can't really set it to somewhere near Malakuk. So we need to find an address which somewhere points close to it and then maybe we could do a partial overwrite to it. That's like the basic idea is to do a series of four partial overwrites, some in the heap, some in the Lipsy in order to put a Lipsy address and in order to get an allocation near Malakuk and get your shell. I mean, it's all of our partial overwrite because we're assuming that the program does not print any data back. Just to show you, like if you have like BACD in one run, you found out to GDB. And so basically in your script, you'll code something like back-class XCD and then back-class XA and that capital X would be what you boot. You can set it to B, you could set it to 1, 2, 3 for anything you want. That's the thing you have to boot. So imagine we have this scenario, like I said, we have 0xd1 getting overlaid by 0xd1 and so now I just feel like 2x0x0d1 chunk and the FD points there and what you see here is where the full Malakuk is. Instead of making it here, we make it to somewhere at the top, like near that 0xd1 chunk. So what we basically do is we tell Malak, hey, after the next 0x0d1, think that the free list is not down there, but it's rather up here. And then we use the overlap thing to change the size of 2xd1 to 0x71. So now we made Malakuk think that that's a 0x71 chunk because of course we just changed the size and what's more, we even made it think that the 0x7FFF7 addressing is actually an FD pointer to the next 0x71 free list. Of course, it's just a pointer to the main arena, but we can do a partial overwrite of the lower 2 bytes of this address and make it something like point close to or above Malakuk and of course, the lower 3 nibbles will always be the same. So we just need to boot the 1x16 probability that I talked about before. This actually turned out to be a really big problem because once I overlap, in order to get control of that overlap, I need to return it. If Kalloc is the only way to return it, then it will just memset the entire region to 0. What that means is basically I'm going to talk about the Kalloc bypass. Actually, I found this while looking at the source code of Kalloc during a CTF called rc3ctf. It was a real relation CTF. So anyways, the bypass is that Kalloc, if it returns a sort of memory that's from Mmap, then it thinks that it's already zeroed out and it is not due to the operation of nulling it out. This is more of an efficiency thing because you expect a memory region that returned by Mmap to be zeroed out. So this is the fact that we exploit is we set the lower nibble of every chunk to 0xf, which is basically Mmap bit. And we'll make Kalloc believe that this chunk is not part of the heap. It's part of an Mmap segment. So Kalloc will be like, okay, I don't need to null it out then. And we will still have the arena pointers there. So for example, you have 0x71 chunk. So it's not 0x71 now, it has to be 0x70f. This is cool for fast pins, but when you come to unsorted pins, you have to make sure like if you have like 0x91, it should be 0x9f, but you have to also make sure that you allocate exactly 0x9f because like, you know, unsorted chunks have sort of this previous size thing in the next chunks header. So if you allocate a size less than that, then you would have a size conflict, but it would check the previous size. Rather, if you allocate exactly the same size, then it will use up the entire unsorted bin and it won't check the previous size. So you'll bypass that check. Again, like this is just a simple demonstration. What I was writing the exploit is this is what it looks like. This is what it should look like 0x9f and then you have the arena pointers, there's a free chunk and a Kalloc and I get the same chunk back. But as you can see, all their memory is not nulled out. It's still at the arena pointer. So I can partially override that. Of course, you want a more detailed analysis. I posted it on my gist as part of the solution for that particular challenge in RSC 3CTM. So this is the first partial override where we have 0x91 free list and we want to make it point somewhere near malloc hook. So we override the lower two bytes with a brute for the four bits. And the next allocation for 0x91 return. The second partial override is when you want to make malloc believes that the 0xD1 chunk that we are forging is actually part of the 0x91 free list. And to do that, you need to use a already made 0x91 free list and make it point to the 0xD1 free list. And for that, you need to do a partial override in the heap. So like, for example, I have a pointer here to 1398190. And but instead, I need to make it point 1398110. The one which I just overwrote with the pointer to malloc hook. So now malloc thinks after the 13982D0, the next chunk in the free list is 1398110, which A is a 0xD1 chunk, which I change aside and B points to malloc hook. Of course, even after we read malloc hook, we can't rob. We can do stack pivoting. We can't build a rob change on heap. We don't really know the dot text and we can leak it. So, so here's the third part about writing an ellipsi address in malloc hook itself. So the third step in our tag vector is to do an unsorted bin attack on malloc hook. So this is a freed unsorted bin list, the FDNBK about pointer main arena, because there's only one. And we overwrite it with, actually, we partially overwrite the lower two bytes again with the address of malloc hook minus 0x10. So you don't need to boot this time because if you already booted the address to malloc hook, now we're down to the fourth and final partial overwrite, which is we have a ellipsi address in malloc hook and we have a chunk close to it. So now all we need to do is partially overwrite the ellipsi address that we just wrote on malloc hook and make it so that it points to system or the magic gadget or any ellipsi function that you want to call. So of course, this is what it looked like before malloc hook is zero after it looked like the address of main arena. Of course, if you try to malloc here, then what we'll do is we'll think the main arena is an address and we'll try to execute shell code as there, which of course it will make it crash.  The best way to trigger a shell is basically to use the magic gadget and then trigger double free, which sets up the and correctly fulfills the stack and strange required to call the magic gadget appropriately. Was that as awkward for you guys as it was for me because it was real awkward for me. Thank you all for staying. And how about that for the people that came in and were probably very confused. Let's give, I guess, PowerPoints and three clicks for no apparent reason to advance a slide. A big round of applause.


Okay, Avishaya, we're meeting here in Jerusalem. Given the topic of our conference, what will save the world? Jerusalem is a quite curious place. In Jerusalem there is this claim that they know what will save the world, right? The Messiah, the new Messiah, the returning of the Messiah, Judaism, Christianity, Islam. What's your take on that? That we know what will save the world? There is something which is called the Jerusalem Syndrome. The Jerusalem Syndrome is that there is a certain kind of madness which is associated with Jerusalem.  And they really go raving mad in towns. And it's document. It's not just, it's a name by now, I think, of a genuine, genuine disease. So you basically ask me to be, to talk like someone with a Jerusalem syndrome. First of all, I don't think that the world is in danger. I don't think that the world, I think that basically the world is safer now than, than it was 50 years ago, when there was the polarity of the sort of the nuclear, when people really were terrified of nuclear war. The talk about terrorism is overblown, basically. Not that there is no terrorism. Unless you call terrorism is every organization that you dislike. But if by terrorism you mean sort of, yeah, there will be more terror on a little basis. But it's not a danger to the world. Don't believe that terrorism can stop. Let's say what the pirates did in the Mediterranean, they stop. The Mediterranean trafficked him for 400 years, 500 years. I don't think that anything of that sort is about to happen. I'm not neither a cultural pessimist, and not an optimist. I don't see the world, it will be a different world, that people like me won't find maybe congenial or maybe not. But at least strange, and not that we are not, I am not adaptable already to the gadgets that are in the map. The point, the main thing is whether the Gutenberg revolution, Gutenberg, namely the printing culture, is about to disappear and be replaced by something else. In some sense it's already happening. On the other hand, people read more books now than ever. Then of course the issue of the climate change, which I believe is real. So if saving the world is saving the planet, in the sense of doing something about climate change or what can be done, that's a serious problem. I don't believe that it can be done on a sort of written basis, namely each individual will try to behave. It's really for the big powers to negotiate. Namely United States, China mainly, and so on. India, or places that are developing. Well, that's serious, but that's about it. Namely in terms of really what I find as a real danger. I don't think that our civilisation or these civilisations will be transmuted, will be transformed, mutated. Some of us like the direction in which it goes, some of us not. I hear more and more pessimism around me. I know that I'm surrounded by people like me who are simply aging. And it's a syndrome about us and not about the world.


Hello, welcome everyone to the design for the future ready enterprises organization agile for HR session. And we have Preeti Vyas with us who could join us today. So thank you Preeti. I'm glad you could join joining and I think just a reminder I'll put this reminder as in when you know more number of people join but I think below you can see a chat icon and I think there is a Q&A icon as well where in your chat you can put in your comments and you know in the Q&A option you can put in the questions which you intend to ask Preeti and we can take them towards the end of the session. Then a quick you know introduction about Preeti and I'm sure everybody must have already gone through the article details but so her agile expedition started around 2009 when you know she submitted the article my agile expedition. For one of the largest shipping company, which was also being selected as a part of global Scrum Alliance newsletter. And she has been speaking at agile India conference since 2018. And she's also been leading a closed care net group for one of the largest business unit and TCS in enterprise agile by 2020.  Again, welcome everyone. Thanks. Thanks for the introduction. Hi everyone. Very good evening. Good morning or good afternoon wherever you are. I hope you are able to hear me loud and clear. So what we are going to do right in next 17, 18 minutes or so. Probably this is one of the very interesting topic that I personally like a lot. And I'm also going to touch upon you know some of the key dimensions or key considerations which are really really required for making a future ready enterprise agile organization. And I'm also going to share one of the case study or one of the experiences right. While considering the time that we have at hand I have tried to keep it abstract. But yes, I will be glad and look forward to meet you all in the table or maybe offline also in case if you have any queries right. So let's get started. Why I chose this topic was as already mentioned I have been in this agile journey since 2009 right. Earlier years you can say that most of my experience had been more on the IT side of it right. You know helping the product owners from masters helping the teams as an agile coach enterprise agile coach to kind of you know sale through the journey. But later on my role started becoming more of you know consultant enterprise agile coach advisor. And it started spanning across you know multiple dimensions out of IT and one of the interesting dimension is HR. Now you may be wondering that you know what is the role HR has to play in the future ready enterprise right. Typically when we see you know key functions of HR and again when I say this this is my perspective from the IT side of it right. I never belong to an HR department. Although I have many good friends in the HR so maybe my perspective is still going to be more from the enterprise agile coach lenses rather than the HR. But the way I see it right or the way you all would have seen it these are some of the key functions that we see for HR. Be it you know recruitment and selection or performance management or making sure that you know the learning and development of each and every associate happens in a you know a very unique or very engaging way right. And this is especially important. Be it you know a very big organization one of the very big organization like ACS where we are kind of you know many generation people on the other hand there are many millennials walking and it could be applicable for small organization also in a little different way right. Now this has been the traditional perspective or look at how we look at HR department but lately and especially after COVID right. All of us know that you know although digital transformations has been happening from many many years now it kind of the journey has accelerated much much much more in last two three years or so right. Right from the street vendor to the house wise or the students everybody is kind of you know using digital like never before. Second aspect if you really see the tools and technologies the collaboration the way it is changing right. Earlier we hardly used to hear about two three technologies as long as you master that it was pretty much it but now right from IOT I met our so many things we are hearing about it right and it is changing very very rapidly. So maybe one of the aspects HR has to continuously be on close off that how do you continue to prepare your book first for new skills. And third of course we all know that most of us are working in a completely hyper distributed remote ways of walking right. So how do you kind of you know in buy or bring the people in into that culture of organization and things like that going to use today that how them out they need to work very very closely with you know the other. IOT department in most of the digital transformations are happening and so far we always used to think that these are two separate departments like multiple other departments but I think. Now the lines are blurred and everybody needs to work hand in hand to make the digital transformation a success and like I really like this quote which says that everybody wants to win in the marketplace right but then in order for you to win in the marketplace first you have to win in the workplace. So what I'm going to do is maybe quickly glance through you know some of the key considerations how HR department has to revamp and then I'll probably well much more deeper into the case study right. So gone are the days where in the typical roles like VPs, EVPs, product owner, product managers and those roles will still exist right. But then the way everything is changing we are moving for from much more layered roles to much more network oriented organization right much more flat organization and culture. Learning needless to say if you really look at last two years alone right you I everybody every one of us the way we have learned it was like never before right many of us actually spend a lot of time in learning and now we know one thing is constant is we have to learn continually. HR also has to make sure that how talent sourcing is happening in a much more robust way right gone are the days where in people were selected only for the technical skills or domain skills or particular you know industry that they were working with now all of the industries are merging everybody is expected to work as a team player right. So the way I see it the soft skills are going to be much more important than the hard skills right like technical or domain or something like that. So how people are onboarded into the TX ambiguous environment as a team player versus the people who are kind of you know individual achiever. Employee engagement needless to say most of us are working from remotely. And the people who have not been to office or have not seen the other colleagues right how do you continuously maintain the employee engagement this is also one of the key aspects that HR has to look at nowadays. Performance management like many other companies even in TCS right we don't look at annual performance anymore of course that still that consolidation lot of things happens but there is a mechanism of continuous feedback right. It doesn't have to wait till six months or one year for you to get the timely and critical aspects of feedback from your supervisor even there is a mechanism of 360 degree feedback right. So even HR has to enable that that how we are in a constantly thriving organization where in feedback from all the parties are considered time and again. Continual improvement again many of the times we feel that we don't have time for improvement right we are too busy on working on something delivering something but again look at the latest technology look at the automation look at the innovation. One of the key aspects which can make an organization succeed or fail is how importantly or how enabling they are enabling the continual improvement within their organization. So now if we get into each of these topics right typically it will be a theme of the day for agile India right each of the topic really demands lot of discussion lot of deep diving but what I'm going to do now that we touched upon this topics right how do we try how did we try to bring it for one of our leading customers. And that is the next point I'm going to talk about this is one of the case studies where in we were working with one of the digital services and communications provider I was one of the consultant who was kind of part of that exercise. And the problem at hand was that the human resource department they really wanted to focus on getting out of siloed ways of walking making sure that there is continual learning there is committee of practice there is belongingness which is kind of you know buying upon the objectives and results that the organization wanted to do they wanted to ensure that there is a according to their career path there is a learning which is happening on the go. Maybe there could be people who have spent 25 years within the company and there are new millennials who are joining right so how do we help them navigate this journey of making sure that that organization which was moving from the waterfall ways of walking or older ways of walking to the enterprise agile ways of walking right. So, first things first right we started of course when we are talking about an organization which is 1718,000 plus people right it's not easy you cannot reach the entire organization. So maybe a conscious decision was to work with their human resource department their corporate university some of the cross section of the entire portfolio and we selected we handpicked three portfolios saying that these are the about 800 to 1000 people we are going to kind of you know take a cross section we will interview them we will interact with them we did surveys we did coffee connect we did some workshops right. And this gave us a very good view on how the spectrum how the cross section of their organization was looking like right and it really helped us to understand where organization stands what kind of roles they had and we realize that they had about 25 roles within this three pilot portfolios itself right. And then it's easy to say that let's move towards agile organization enterprise agile organization where we will have roles like product owners from masters product managers and things like that. But how do you help somebody to transition who has spent 25 years being a field manager or who is kind of you know very good. Having very good domain expertise but maybe who needs a little bit of awareness about how to maximize value how to prioritize how to write stories and things like that right so it's it looks easy on paper. But then when you actually go and try and do that it was really difficult to exercise on the other hand it was very very interesting as well. And based on that we created about 14 personas we started off with their kind of training their executive levels also and then finally this 500 plus 600 to 800 people was a pilot size that we had selected. And then I think many of you would be aware of Wisconsin's model which talks more about the cultural transformation right. In order for anybody to succeed in their new role first of all they need to have a will that this is the role that they want to get into right. And then of course they are at point A today and they need to move to point B as I mentioned if I 25 plus years of field manager or maybe five years of developer they need to move into future role maybe scrum master product on right. What are the things that they need to know what are the soft skills they need to know what are the hard skills they need to understand how do they maximize their learning right. And then skill which is very important aspect that whatever they have learned how do they apply that knowledge right so will skill and feel how do we make sure that the transition becomes smooth for not only for the entire group but maybe set of individuals also to get into that very different role based on their career inspiration and we help them fill the gaps that they had. And of course some of the considerations as I mentioned we had to focus on what are the hard skills that would be required in that role what are the soft skills that would be required what kind of existing experience they are holding right if somebody is kind of already having business affinity maybe they will be a little more successful as a product owner. If somebody is a little more people friendly who likes to collaborate work with multiple groups maybe by their personal attribute they will be more successful as scrum master coach and something like that right. Learning patterns if you ask somebody who has been in that organization who were used to have classroom trainings right they will feel much more comfortable. To attend two or three days of dedicated workshop happening somewhere. On the other hand if there are millennials who maybe like to learn things quickly but in a very nanobytes kind of thing maybe they would like something on the app right which they can maybe 10 15 minutes of videos that they can learn on the go. So so many considerations were there including the language affinity maybe would they like to prefer to learn in English versus Dutch French or something like that what kind of platform they would like to use. Would they like to log into company portal or are there any apps they would use so we went through a lot of considerations along with their human resource department to kind of see whatever model whatever kind of curriculum whatever kind of role profiling we were coming up. It was matching with the larger group aspiration as well as individual individual expressions and learning patterns. And then of course in order of course what went in between is one very detailed journey and probably it will take me couple of hours if I have to narrate that entire case study to learn right. But some of the key takeaways or learnings that we had right when we embarked on the journeys. As I mentioned it looks easy on paper but the transition has to be very very considerate and it has to be very very smooth. For example when we were dealing do that because you are I mean the way we information from so many people how do we deal with that. When we say that maybe based on affinity skill will feel this person is more fit for the role of product owner right and if they take up that role. Definitely in future there is going to be an impact to their compensation. So and of course in the western European countries there is union also which is much more prominent right so we cannot take certain decisions in isolation. We of course even their HR department has to work very closely with their union and see whatever steps whatever road map so whatever career paths we are deciding right or suggesting to them it makes much more sense with respect to that holistic system as well. So these are some of the very interesting challenges also we came across but finally after this exercise of couple of months of consultancy working with their stakeholders. We came up with we thought yes it is important for them to have a road map some guidance around the hard skills and soft skills and possible career path that they can have. We also have to help them by introducing some kind of coaching framework so they get some hand holding right when they are making the transition. We also came up with quite a lot of courses which were a combination of their shared wisdom as well as the knowledge and experience that we had. We came up with training catalogs which will help them transform from those 24, 25 plus very different different roles to 11 plus agile roles. And we came up with future role definition primarily into three job families process which talks about from master agile coach enterprise agile coach then content which is more about product on our product managers and things like that. And third was technical where you talk about you know technical leads and technical architects and enterprise architects and of course last but not the least to make that cultural change come into practice was very, very important right. It is important that they learn formally informally also but on the other hand it is very important that there is a community feeling which will help them reduce the organization silos that they had. So finally, hi. Hi, I'm pretty sorry for interrupting but we are almost at 718. So you wanted a time check. Sure. So if you want to take up the question so yeah. Absolutely. You might want to finish the part which you were. I think we are almost towards the end of the presentation. Sure. Absolutely. So what we kind of you know started a pilot with ultimately it was going to impact 4000 plus people as I mentioned the larger organization was about 1718,000 plus employees for that customer however they wanted to start in a phased manner right so in the early phase about 4000 people kind of you know went through this entire exercise and learning with us. And then overall as I mentioned the entire exercise or initiative that human resource department was taking it was not in isolation. It was not just to say that you know they wanted to be agile as an HR, but this was to kind of enable the larger digital transformation that was taking place in the company. And of course it would include so many various technical aspects or initiatives like laying down the fiber cable within the entire city or entire region. It could be about you know cloudification it could be about you know bringing IOTs and a lot of other technical aspect. So because we are looking at this from the lens of human resource department I intentionally kept the technical and the digital transformation details aside. But this was my perspective my experience that I wanted to share with all of you to see that while being an IT consultant IT coach right. How do we always look at the enterprise agile transformation or digital transformation from one lens. Now if you look at the same thing from human resource angle what is it that they have to do what kind of role they have to play in enabling the design of future organization. So that's the crux of the entire presentation. Now happy to take any questions that you may have. Well and the session was was really interesting PT I mean I am now intrigued to you know know more and another case study that you have mentioned I mean you are a part of such an important case study. I believe you know that lots lots of efforts and work goes in. So thank you for sharing your experience with us. Thanks Magna. Thanks everyone.


Well, good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Whatever you're listening. This is Davisville on KDRT LP 95.7 FM in Davis, California We live at KDRT.org online. I'm Bill Buchanan, and I thank you for tuning in Well today's guests first appeared on Davisville a year ago to talk about homelessness in Davis And among other things we heard at the time that although many homeless people in town were finding homes Greater number of people were becoming homeless. I thought it was a really useful and interesting Half-hour and so I am glad to welcome back today Ryan Collins and Paul Dorschhoff for a follow-up talk Ryan is the homeless outreach services coordinator for the city of Davis and works directly with the homeless Paul is deputy police chief for Davis and in his more than 30 years on the Davis force has seen a lot of Change in how the city responds to the problem. I should add a note at the top of the show We're recording this by zoom. They're both on zoom so you're gonna get some of the usual zoomisms We might talk over each other here and there But I think that just of the conversation will come through and also Paul has told me He might have to leave a little before the interview is done to get on to Another meeting he has to get to today. But anyway with all that said Ryan and Paul Thank you very much for appearing on the show today. Of course. Thank you, Bill so When we talked in July 2019 the number of homeless people in Davis was rising. That's the net number What's the trend this year? I think I can speak to that So the trend that we have seen this year is for that number to at least be Steady or growing and we definitely haven't had a net reduction in people living in homelessness in the city and that's the trend that we are continuing to see kind of regionally statewide and Nationally, we don't have an updated Unsheltered point-in-time account census at this time, but that is going to be done at the end of January So we should have some fresh data for you then but just looking at the broader drivers of homelessness We're in sort of the midst of an economic downturn Housing prices still remain high We are seeing just that the sort of rental and housing markets being shaken up by by COVID And we are seeing a lot of people even in places where there are addiction Prevention sort of or protections enacted by local government that for anybody who has an informal kind of living situation where they might be on someone's couch and they're just suddenly saying or You know, they're staying with family or whatever a lot of those folks are now onto the streets because either they couldn't pay When they lost their employment opportunities or their unemployment extra funds ran out Or they had something under the table to begin with or sometimes they're forced out because they're staying with like an elderly family member Where that person is now at risk from COVID and they can't just be cohabiting the same one bedroom So it's shifting around the margins a lot with the overall trend towards growth Bill and just one thing too. I think there's I don't know how When it'll be realized but again, there's this fear that when these Eviction moratoriums wear out and unless there's a solution for the problem that You know, you're gonna have another rash of evictions due to the fact that you know Simply a lot of people can't pay the rent now and won't be able to pay multiple months of rent It's been compiled Yeah, in fact for those who don't know the first speaker you heard was Ryan and then it was Paul speaking most recently Ryan Collins the homeless coordinator and Paul Dorsch off deputy police chief So there's a lot in those answers. So the growth is It's up, but maybe not like it was. Do I understand that correctly? We are seeing growth. I mean, we're seeing new faces show up We're seeing providers sort of reaching out for assistance on more difficult cases where they haven't necessarily encountered the person before But someone who was you know vulnerable is now experiencing homelessness We don't have Census data we take something called a point-in-time or pit count That's mandated to be done every two years. I'll be done in January But in terms of like calls for service related to homelessness or referrals from provider Or what I'm hearing from the local continuum of care. We are having increased demand for services Probably a lot of it is pandemic related. Yeah Well, and I guess that was the the larger part of your answer really and there was a lot there Talking about a lot of the different causes for homelessness, which the economy has certainly won I know we've talked in the past that mental health can be an issue drugs or such can be an issue and then on top of it now we have the pandemic and That was one of the main things I wanted to to ask about today is how has the pandemic affected what you're doing? And that's a broad question. I realized but I'd be interested in however you want to answer that maybe Ryan Start with you and then Paul would be interested in what you see as a police officer. I think that now Every service provider that works with people living in homelessness is now in effect kind of a healthcare provider in some regard because they're all having to do some work with Screening to make sure that if they're serving someone in their day shelter or their overnight shelter or their outreach program or whatever They're having to take additional precautions to turn some people away and to try to sort of route them to appropriate levels of care Like let's say someone shows up at your door you do an infrared thermometer scan They're showing a fever you ask some questions Do you realize this person needs to be in a hospital and then you know figure out how to do that? That's kind of a whole set of protocols that they haven't had to deal with before and then when that the system sort of Has the alert that there is a more medically vulnerable person now living in homelessness Due to concerns with the pandemic especially for people that have pre-existing health conditions or older adults We're trying to make sure that those people have some additional options for getting shelter that they didn't before So all the local jurisdictions Davis included are working with county health and human services on a program called project room key That's trying to get older adults and medically vulnerable people temporarily sheltered in Hotels and motels locally they master lease blocks of rooms at a number of sites and it's Unlike general emergency shelter, which is kind of first come first served You know someone will show up and say hey, please give me a safe place to stay tonight This is definitely something that's operating on more of a triage model of we would like to get everyone inside But because we do not have unlimited hotel rooms or unlimited funding We're having to make Decisions more akin to what like a hospital might do and saying who gets served first based on greatest need Project room key. In fact, this is maybe a place to mention it I was looking at the county's health and human services agency Who was able to serve about 390 homeless individuals? And how is an average of 202 individuals per night? I think is part of that I was reading that in the woodland newspaper which sounded useful Paul, how how's it look to you? Yeah speaking of subject room key. I mean our project room key. I'm sorry we You know, we have had some more managing demands demands In regard to that because obviously you're placing a lot of people in a closed area Kind of a close proximity area Some of those folks are going to have the dysfunctions as far as substance abuse and things like that. So so that did It's manageable and I think it's been a success so far, but But it does take a little bit of resource to do that from a law enforcement perspective Well, I was just saying project project home key when I As I've read about the pandemic and how it's affected things It struck me that home key and I understand there's a follow-up program. I'm sorry room key at first home key I guess is the follow-up program right to and I forget permanent housing for the people that sounded like something new something that Honestly, maybe wouldn't have happened if not for the pandemic Is that true is is this a case where the pandemic sort of spurred a kind of action that maybe wouldn't have been possible before? Could have we'll have to wait and see Could it have designed a force test to design a better model for this type of a care that's possible Like I said, we'll have to see the longevity of that after the you know Things kind of go back to normal assuming they ever do But but that's a possibility and a lot of times, you know, these types of situations do Force a design that's more efficient to deal with a problem Ryan, I imagine, you know, you work directly with the homeless, right? You've and you've done this for about three years for the city That's great. So you talk with homeless people. I imagine every day You were talking about triage a minute ago trying to find folks who who really do need shelter A lot of this must rely on The contacts and the conversations and the connections that you make with with homeless and davis It does whether myself or um sandy on my team are Reached out to directly by a person on the street or Whether we get a referral like from a patrol officer that sees someone in need Or um, whether we are talking with a local homeless services provider who reaches out to us We we are using those conversations at starting points to do needs assessment that Are influenced by that pandemic So we're looking at medical risk factors and taking more referrals from people for example exiting the hospital system It is uh intertwined with all of the sort of pandemic in terms of figuring out What someone needs in this moment part of our kind of decision decision tree is definitely How is the the pandemic going to affect this person individually? And do we have some additional resources to maybe help me? That wouldn't otherwise be available outside of kind of the present crisis Are you hearing when you talk to homeless individuals? Are you hearing any different? Stories from them this year say compared to other years I'm sure every individual has a somewhat different story at least But i'm curious what they're telling you about directly how the pandemic has affected them Uh, I I think that well, I'll go through a few anecdotes So there was a person that we're serving in project room key that used to make an income and handling But then when uh shelter and place orders came down You know that person is no longer able to rely on that as a form of income They do have some medical conditions But just navigating the process of getting on social security disability can be a challenge Especially for someone with diminished capacity But the pandemic pretty much Left them without that income that they had come to rely on They had to reach out to the system for some support and you know Now that person is working with a medical provider to kind of get Documentation together that they need in order to make the case so that they can have An income through social security and then just The other day on friday, I think I was off duty But I was in town and I saw an older looking person kind of on on the sidewalk near Mason Cowell and he didn't look like he was doing too great So I logged on for a minute and I went up and I approached him And you know, I just wanted to get a little information gave him some water and some outreach supplies You know said hey, can we talk about your health? You know, we're concerned about the pandemic We might have some additional service offerings available to you that wouldn't be there already and In the course of the conversation I mean it became clear to me that this person had like a psychiatric condition that wasn't being treated And he said I think that the the virus is made up. He said I think that they're You know, someone gets hit by a car or a bus or whatever They just lump it in they call it due to the virus and that you know, it's Something that's being used to get funding and I mean I had to Kind of nod along, you know politely challenge not burn rapport use it as something where I said, okay I'm gonna try to check on you All right, and just move again But um for some people that are maybe the most vulnerable like that person They know that there's something different going on with the virus, but they're they're not really Changes that the pandemic has kind of made to society or how that's gonna shake out for them personally So we were trying to help everybody we can especially the people that are more vulnerable And some people are sort of more aware or cognizant of how life has changed And how that affects them personally than others Paul one thing you said last year that Struck me as as significant particularly was when you said that one of the ways that police Enforcement of let's call it the dysfunctional aspects of homelessness has changed over the years was that the A lot of it now is trying to steer people towards services. You come across someone who's Doing something that has required a police response and now Maybe compared to years earlier You're trying more to get them to well I suppose to people like ryan and to the services that he connects Do I recall that correctly and and if that's the case I imagine that's maybe more true this year? Yeah, I think it's becoming True and true and it's interesting discussion because you know when you look at some of the Concepts behind the defund the police movement is to separate the police from and and invest more in social work, which There is some Value to that. However, I think what I'm hoping for and what works really smooth. I think on a Workable level is this integrated system Where essentially police officers a lot of time receive the call because of a behavior in in the community that's concerning and Recognizing that the root of the problem is the homeless issues and maybe mental health or something else They have the seamless capability to integrate with social workers and people like ryan and and and kind of hand the problem off for a longer term solution And I I truly think that's the future because I mean there's no way to arrest your way out of these problems and really these are these are more Social ills than they are problems of criminality We should mention ryan, uh, you're actually part of the police department, correct? Correct And and uh, you referred to sandy. I don't And I is sandy the person because a year ago The city was going to hire a second position to sort of do what you do to sort of increase the effectiveness of The capacity Yeah, so I'm um, I'm an unsworn supervisor I I did not go to the police academy, but I am part of the police command structure I report up to our deputy director of police services, um, dian machado and she handles kind of All the side of the house that is um, not sworn police officers That's on Paul's side But in mind we have things like you know dispatch and crime analysis and um homeless outreach services And then um sandy is just below me. We hired her A little I think about seven eight months ago. So if they didn't like that She's been doing great work And it's been able to help us kind of increase our effectiveness And I think the timing of that has been fortuitous given that now we're seeing increased need related to pandemic And and we're also working hard right now I know to try to drop some services for mental health that would not necessarily be our staff but more contractual staff So again, I it seems like um, we're really committed to building this integrative model, which I I really think is the way to go because you need to care continuum for a lot of these issues We are talking, uh, the most recently the voice you heard was paul dorschoff. He is deputy police chief for davis We're also talking with ryan collins Who is the outreach services coordinator for the city of davis? I'm bill Buchanan and this is davis phil on kdrt Another change from a year ago is the city has opened the the day center the the respite center in february I believe how's that working from from each of your perspective ryan and then also paul Sure, I think my perspective is that the the respite center has been a great success. It is On city property near the corner of fifth and l streets And we work with communicator health centers. Um, who's the agency that staffs it They're a local medical provider that serve a lot of people who are of low income and you know Many of the people that are living in homelessness fall under They're existing or potential clientele and that center is staffed by members of their navigation team Which is part of their kind of behavioral health services side of the house And the program manager on site is a mental health clinician So because they're a health co-organization I think that they have been very adaptive to Providing respite services day services in the pandemic whether it's like Making sure that people there are property social distancing or have personal protective equipment or Again are getting routed into the right level of care I talk with them almost daily and get a lot of referrals to things like project room key Where they're doing some frontline work to assess If someone is in that right level of care Beyond that it just gives people a kind of a safe place to be and to um work on whatever You know kinds of issues or problems they have that are preventing them from Hanging housing and to do that with help from professionals who are kind of aware of The need of creating like a physically and emotionally safe space with you know Some resources like internet food water showers laundry That enable that process Is it working? I mean are is it helping some people get out of homelessness? Yes I don't know if you have numbers yet. I I know you said earlier, you know the next census is is january for that, but I know it's a pilot project. And so I imagine there'll be some interest in you know Knowing how many people come out of the program there and feel that that was an essential part of the recovery Paul any any thoughts on on the respite center? Crime-wise, I don't have any numbers. I Will probably end up running a statistical analysis on it at some point I haven't heard of anything outrageous though that any major issues that it's caused The other thing to keep in mind crime-wise with with such projects too is Homeless folks are often the victims of crime. So they're victims of robberies thefts sexual assaults all those other things And when you open up projects like that, you also start to build trust within the homeless community So those crimes actually start to get reported. Sometimes you have to kind of break the stats down and see What is possibly causing crime in the area? Is it or is it that type of center? Or is it actually that there are crimes that are being reported that otherwise Would not have because the service is provided. You're bringing things to the surface. I understand your yeah There there was a letter to the Davis enterprise in april that I was reading as I researched this It's a man who said he lived 150 feet from the entrance And said that as of that time he'd collected 14 needles used for drugs Tossed into my backyard twice as many along L street. There's there's a church right there In addition, I found six or seven poops mirrored blankets and clothing either tossed into my backyard or my front yard During the first weeks after the shelter opened Obviously, nobody wants that Right. What's the response? for him You know, we would As a police department, we would try to manage it the best we can. I mean, it's You know, there was a need for the respite center and had to go somewhere And after a lot of community dialogue, that's that was the most likely place I realized that those issues are going to take place and as a police department We'll just we'll just have to manage it the best we can we we won't be able to eliminate it completely. So You know, that that's essentially We try a higher visibility enforcement Probably education within the respite center to make the folks that use it understand better about keeping the area clean Well, and in in fact listening to you now, I was wondering and ryan your answer a minute ago if that's part of building trust with the folks who use the center to say look You can't you can't let this happen. You can't let the neighbors have needles in their yard Yeah, I can speak to that a little bit Two things the the respite center does have I believe a person called a safety ambassador on site That acts as something like security guard for the inside of the center as well Unless someone who does rounds kind of in the surroundings of the center and she's a person that I I believe is trained with a security guards like you know certificate and all of that But there's also a person with lived experience and homelessness So it is has a good understanding of what some of the issues like people might have in similar kinds of circumstances And I know that she does a pretty good job I think of helping to maintain order and encourage You know kind of more pro-social behavior or sort of you know self policing rather than generating a call to the police I do remember that individual case that that person was writing that the letter to the enterprise about I remember they wrote letters to just about everybody about that You know because obviously it's very disturbing and they they wanted a resolution and it's funny That set of problems centered almost entirely around one individual where we had in addition to the You know impacts on on that person's property and neighborhood that he was describing for example overnight in the port of potty or You know Grabbed a respite center staff person appropriately and this person was very ill Had had a lot of comorbid kind of health conditions going on couldn't meet the activities of daily living Even when there were showers and laundry and you know restrooms and things like that there You're still ending up with poop smeared blankets So that person did have a higher level of need and I mean it's really honestly unfortunate that Many of their problems like negatively impacted the quality of life in the community But it acted as sort of a red flag that shot up to the system where then we were able to ultimately shepherd that person Into some psychiatric care I think that we had a 51 50 hold and I'd be curious if you reached out to that Same person that issued the complainant the letter to the editor say how's it look for you now? Have you had problems with that same person? Are you encountering it because The sad thing is is that because so much of it goes unreported or unknown It's really often until you get something Really bad that occurs that sort of draws attention to the need that then you can bring the appropriate resource in for Kind of addressing the problem. Yeah, all I have done is read the one letter to the editor to it But I can imagine this person having been visible will probably be visible again if if the problem wasn't addressed and Hey, bill bill. I got to run to this other meeting. I have so I apologize, but Hopefully, well, thank you paul for appearing on the show today. You you made it for most of it All right. Thank you. Bye. Bye That was paul dorschoff signing off the deputy police chief for davis. We still have ryan collins On for a little bit longer ryan are the things You've done this job for a few years now on davis Are there is there something you would like people to know about homelessness and davis that you think that they don't know It's an interesting question Because I I think that we've tried to do a lot of work in educating the the public About homelessness because people really want answers. They want to know why is this Individual sort of that I see living in the state that they're in and they want to know What are you doing sort of to address the problem or what causes it and we definitely try to put that information out I guess To the people of davis if there's something New that I wanted them to know it would be that these are unprecedented times that we are living through and the need is rising from what it has been previously and We're definitely going to need more permanent housing for people who are going through homelessness to exit homelessness Into if we're ever to kind of solve that problem We're also going to need more emergency shelter during kind of the present surge of need and we're not currently equipped to do that So if you want to really take a bite out of homelessness If you want to see The quality of life improve for the people that are living with it And you want your own quality of life and kind of comfort to be Improved by not having to deal with like the externalized impacts from that That it's important to support efforts that would increase Access to things like shelter and affordable housing And often the arena that this ends up in is political when you're making decisions for things like Zoning or siting projects or things like that I remember the sort of battle at council or the the respite center just for providing day services But um at the end of the day While there are some kind of egregiously bad cases that stand out like the the person who prompted the letter to the editor at the enterprise homelessness Really just represents people that aren't able to afford a place to live They come from all walks of life They have all sorts of stories and many of them would make good neighbors So consider that when you're talking about well, what can we do to make this better? The answer is going to be to try to find places for people to live kind of amongst you rather than shoving the problem aside That there is no no place to sort of move people to they're coming from our communities They're coming in increasing numbers and we have to find a way to kind of quickly reintegrate Otherwise we're going to see everything go from bad to worse Yeah, and and I I think to add to that places where they can live that have the services they need because The mental health problems and the drug and or addiction problems by no means for all But it is a real problem a real cause for homelessness Absolutely that that model of housing is called permanent supportive housing So permanent housing with supports it can look like a place where people live that has An on-site social worker, for example Or it can be kind of a distributed model of scattered sites where they have someone who visits and checks in on them You know with some frequency to make sure that their needs are being met and that they're not backsliding with an addiction or Experiencing a mental health crisis or something else that can cause them to lose their housing Well, ryan, we'll have to to leave it there. Thank you for your time today. You're welcome Thank you for having me ryan collins We've been talking with he is the homeless outreach services coordinator for the city of davis I am bill Buchanan on davisville. We also talk with paul dorschoff and thank you for listening


Here's the thing I never want to have to do again. Vote for the lesser of two evils. But every time an election rolls around, we end up with the same two choices, over and over and over again.  How is it that in a country with so many different people and ideas, we keep getting stuck with the same two options? It's no accident. The way we vote only ever gives you two choices who have any real chance of winning. It's literally built into the system. On the surface, the American system makes a lot of sense. Every citizen gets one vote, and the candidate with the most votes wins. But it also creates a huge flaw called the spoiler effect. Here's how it works. Let's take the entire electorate and boil it down to 100 voters. And let's put everyone in order of their political preferences. The most conservative on the right, the most progressive on the left, everyone else falls somewhere in between. Now, when we've got just two candidates to choose from, the folks on the right vote for the Republican, those on the left vote Democrat, and the 5-10% in the middle who might vote either way end up tipping the election. But what happens when you introduce a third-party candidate? If that candidate is progressive, the progressive vote is split between two good candidates and the conservative wins. If they're conservative, their vote is split and the progressive wins. Voters get that by voting for that third-party candidate, they make it more likely that their least favorite candidate is going to win. So rather than voting for the candidate they like best, most voters choose the lesser of two evils. In this system, the winning candidate almost always wins with support from less than half of the votes. They don't even have a majority of support, yet they win and represent the whole electorate. And this is how we pick the most powerful human on the planet? Come on. Repeat this pattern over and over, and you can quickly see how we get a race to the bottom. Here's the good news. There's a small tweak we could make that lets you vote for whichever candidate you want without having to worry about the spoiler effect. It's called ranked choice voting, and here's how it works. Instead of choosing just one candidate, you rank candidates in order of preference. If your first choice is mathematically eliminated, your vote automatically goes to your backup. Let's look at how this would work using the example of the 2016 presidential election. Say you're a conservative who wants to vote for Gary Johnson. In our current system, you probably felt pressure to vote for Trump because you didn't want to split the conservative vote in elect Hillary. But with ranked choice voting, you just put Johnson first, and Trump is your backup. If Johnson doesn't win, your vote is automatically transferred to Trump. Or say you're a progressive who loves Jill Stein, and instead of being forced to use your one and only vote on Hillary, you could put Stein first, and Hillary is your backup. You get it. The beauty of ranked choice voting is that it lets you vote for the candidates who most closely align with your values, and gives America a much clearer picture of what the electorate really wants. No more settling for the lesser of two evils. You can vote your conscience without hurting your own interests. So now you're probably thinking, that sounds amazing, but that's never going to happen in the U.S. But here's the twist. It already has. RCV is already in use in cities across America, and Maine just changed their statewide elections to RCV. We're bringing conservatives and progressives together to pass more laws just like this, state by state, so we can fix America's corrupt political system from the bottom up. These laws are based on model legislation called the American Anti-Corruption Act. We fix our broken elections, stop political bribery, and end secret money. Go to www.represent.us to join us.


Iron migration is a plausible origin of material instability and photocurrent hysteresis in perovskite solar cells. Here, authors characterize photo-induced iron migration in perovskites by in situ laser illumination inside scanning electron microscope and observe long-range migration of halide ions. This article was authored by Tai-Yong Kim, So-Yong Park, Vosudeva Naya, and others.


The integration of renewable energy sources and optimization of energy use are essential components of any sustainable energy transition. The Internet of Things, IoT, offers a variety of applications in the energy sector from improving energy efficiency to increasing the share of renewable energy sources and reducing environmental impacts of energy use. This paper surveys the existing literature on the application of IoT in energy systems, focusing specifically on its potential in smart grid networks. It also examines the challenges associated with deploying IoT in the energy sector, such as privacy and security concerns, and suggests possible solutions, such as blockchain technology. Overall, this survey provides energy policy makers, energy economists, and managers with an overview of the role of IoT in optimizing energy systems. This article was authored by Nasir Hossein Motlak, Massa Mohameder Zi, Julian Hunt, and others.


The administration block. The administration block is a fixed block you'll see everywhere in Moodle. It might be on the right as here, or on the left according to your theme. What you see in the administration block depends on your privileges on the site and also within a course. As a regular course teacher within a course, you'll see a course administration link expanding to give you options to help you manage your courses, for example, editing the settings, enrolments and grades. We look at these in separate videos. You also have a link to switch your role to different roles, primarily a student or learner as we've called it. Clicking here would then re-display a course page or activity from the point of view of that role. This is useful as a teacher if you want to check how things work for your students. A student in a course would have a different view of the administration block, as we can see if we go to the Teaching with Moodle course where our user Sam is a student. There, she sees a link to her grades for that course and the option, if enabled by the administrator, to unenroll herself.