I'm Kevin Guthrie and I was the co-founder of JSTOR and I'm the president of Ithaca. I've been working in the education and technology space since 1995 when we started JSTOR. We're a not-for-profit organization. We were started actually to save shelf space at libraries was the original idea that long runs of academic journals were filling up the shelf space at many many libraries and Bill Bowen who was the president of the Mellon Foundation at the time and previously the president of Princeton was the one who had the idea he's an economist and was on the board of actually Denison and Denison was doing a big addition to their library and and he was like do we really need to build all this space for all these old old journals and at the time you know we weren't connected by the web it was 1995 so his idea was really to try to just you know reduce space like put the put the content onto CD-ROMs and have them be you know like Incarta if you remember the the Microsoft Encyclopedia and so the idea was to save space and then you know we got started as a as a grant project at the University of Michigan and demonstrated the the concept that you could digitize this content and do OCR on the images to create text that could be searchable that would be valuable and that the same time we could reduce the costs of shelf space so we were started as an offer profit really you know to act as kind of a library in the cloud for for libraries and felt like we needed to be an offer profit to be able to stand in that position and and also to encourage publishers to make their content available license the content for this kind of preservation based perpetual access so so we're not for profit from the very beginning I mean really with a broad mission to serve education but with this specific goal of of creating this this what became a database of the core academic journals in the humanities and social sciences reaching all the way back to their first volume and first issue so you know we did that and as I said in the in the sort of mid 90s right before you know the beginning of of Google and all that we kind of were swept up in the wave when that when that all took off so how long you know initially you were supported by grants but now you're you know kind of a thriving organization on your own how long did that process take yeah so we we we started from the very beginning as we said we need to create a sustainable service I mean even though the Mellon Foundation was was supporting us and Bill Bowen was was behind it he was like we've got to create a sustainable service we got to figure out a model that will allow us to continue to exist long beyond you know foundation grant funding so you know we we we first launched in 1997 and we had two components to our fee structure one was a one-time component that would help us to develop a reserve so that we could preserve the content for the long run so we wanted to create a kind of endowment and and the funds from that endowment would allow us to keep sustaining the the actual database the actual content for the long run and then this concept of a subscription for annual access fees that would that cover the cost of access over time so you know in the early days we kind of had a we brought in a fair amount of capital from the one-time payments but we didn't have very much annual access fees so it took us quite a while to generate the annual fees and that the key for us was that we we launched multiple collections so we licensed the collections one by one so you know I would say it probably took us you know four or five years before we had this you know sort of we were we we had a kind of sustainable level of revenue to cover our our expenses our expenses we did develop a little bit of capital at that time that would allow us to invest in more content and we actually had that was where most of our grant funding came in the early days was to help us digitize content that we would include on the platform and that was really valuable because we didn't have to pay the investment costs the capital costs of generating the content we just had to recapture the cost of the annual cost of that and so that was what allowed us to get up to a sustainable level as I said it was probably it was probably four or five years before we were we were covering our costs with our annual revenue so can you talk uh just you know kind of briefly like how big are you and kind of what is the reach of the organization like how many libraries are you serving and you know yeah so so we we um uh JSTOR is now a part of Ithaca and Ithaca is uh is an organization with a mission to serve education worldwide and to make education more accessible you know all over the all over the globe one of the services at JSTOR and another of our services is Portico which is a long-term archive and preservation of of of born electronic and electronic content and then um Ithaca SNR which does uh consulting and strategic research in the same areas you know of education particularly with a particular emphasis on on access and completion to higher education for underrepresented groups low socioeconomic status folks etc so we uh we we do the work in all these areas and and are approximately about a hundred million dollars of revenue when you combine everything together uh per year um you know that's been kind of steady growth over over the nearly 30 years of our existence it's not been you know super uh high growth but just pretty steady growth throughout um there are about uh I think we're close to 13 000 institutions that license JSTOR um as library licenses that includes um several thousand that are what we call uh developing nation and access initiative institutions meaning uh they either get free access or extremely low discounted access uh there are quite a number that get free access like in Africa and you know in in Asia as well and uh South America and we we also have um uh about 3 000 secondary schools that license JSTOR at this point um there are uh approximately 2 000 publishers um 800 publishers in 2000 2 500 journals I think is about the number so um mainly in the social sciences and humanities again less in the STM fields uh we have natural sciences and such so you know it's JSTOR has as pretty pretty broad coverage and reach uh in the humanities and in the human humanistic social sciences uh and you know at this point um pretty much um uh almost every four-year college you know in the United States at least uh has access to some of the collections I mean I think there's you know less than a hundred institutions on and four-year colleges in the United States that don't have access so so pretty wide um uh coverage uh in the in the higher education space how is um I have two questions one is um how is the mission of what you're trying to do the same and and how is it different than when you started um 30 years ago yeah I think that you know amazingly over 30 years I think the mission is the same uh how do we how do we help more people get access to to education and knowledge and how do we how do we do that all over the world and I think um the the way that we've we've we've tried to do that through JSTOR the way that we're we're working hard on that at EthicSNR the way we're preserving content in uh Portico they're all very much lined up to that to that goal and that mission and you know I think the work that we it's it's amazing I think the work that we're doing now feels so much like the work that we were doing in the in the late 90s in in a different way so for example uh well I'll just say that like the most the most motivating and inspiring thing for me is when I bump into somebody you know at a you know out out and about in a library in a in a bar wherever it is and it's somebody who went to college in the last 15 or 20 years and they asked me what I do and I say oh I was working I work with JSTOR oh my gosh that made a huge oh it made a huge difference to me you know I I couldn't have gotten through my thesis without JSTOR oh you know JSTOR I I I use it all the time in high school or whatever that never gets old like that that concept that we've actually helped somebody get through something or learn something and so that's that's highly motivating for for for me for all of us and right now for example the combination of EthicSNR and JSTOR we're working very hard to make JSTOR available in for incarcerated students and EthicSNR has worked developing programs for higher education in prison trying to support colleges providing instruction in prison and developed relationships with you know departments of corrections and and and people involved in the whole infrastructure around you know prisons in the United States and you know we're combining that now with with JSTOR and trying to make it possible for the incarcerated students to get access to JSTOR which is which sounds relatively simple but is anything but simple given the the the challenges there and you know once again I'm just kind of thinking like oh in five years time I bump into somebody who happened to be incarcerated who would say to me oh that made a huge difference for me you know when I was when I was in prison to have access to JSTOR you know that that's so the motivation is exactly the same even as we have EthicSNR and JSTOR working together it's you know to try to get to that same that same place to make a person you know make a difference in in a person's learning life and and try to help them to get you know quality information quality knowledge quality scholarship in their hands to to learn and do do good work so you know I think I think it's in many ways I could tell you a great length how how we're really still working in the same the same important areas. Do you guys think of yourselves as open infrastructure? Yeah you know the question of whether we're open is a great is a great question obviously because we're a subscription resource we're not open access right so we've never been associated with open access I think we've it's it's been frustrating for me because at some level but I understand it I'm not I'm not discouraged by it in any way but you know people want content to be without a paywall and to be openly available and the challenge is obviously how do you fund that how do you build on that how do you invest in in the resource so it keeps having impact I think of this I've always thought of this is that you know you if you think of a continuum with one end of the continuum being a subscription product and the other end of the continuum being a completely open product the open product has got to figure out ways to generate resources over time and you know in in some form or fashion it will move toward the middle it will have some things that it it figures out how to get resources for and that could be contributions or it could be services or it could be other things but it's going to have to develop some way economically to cover its costs and you know we at JSTOR we had a paywall quote unquote subscription resource so we were kind of over here at this other extreme and so we we work to make ourselves more open and more open and more open and I think you know the more content the more capabilities the more infrastructure we can make open over time we're going to meet in the middle with with folks that started out completely open because the bottom line is sustainability depends upon a recurring revenue stream so how you develop that recurring revenue stream can be a hundred different ways and if you can develop that recurring revenue stream in a way that does not require a subscription as a not for profit or as it's better I mean that's that's that's that's better but it's it's not by itself at least in in my experience possible to just say well that's how we're going to do it so so we've been moving over time to to make more and more of our of what we do open so we have a fair amount of open content that's growing all the time the other thing that we're really trying to do is is to say okay we we've had all these libraries all these publishers all these enterprises invest in us and we've developed an infrastructure around that right we've developed an infrastructure to make access to this content available to millions of people around the planet all over the globe like licensees everywhere that's that's an asset that's an infrastructure that's an asset and in addition the fact that people are aware of jstore they've had a good experience with jstore they've used it that also is an asset now we could think about those things in a commercial sense and say well what are we going to do with that asset but I actually think of it as as an obligation in the sense that if we're not for profit we've built that infrastructure now what I mean it's fine to have that infrastructure and keep doing what we're doing but what are we going to do now on top of that how are we going to add more value or how are we going to add more impact so one of the ways is by making more and more of the content open but another of the ways is kind of taking a page out of an you know amazon's book a little bit where you know amazon web services was take the infrastructure you've built and make it useful make a service out of it and so one of the things that we're really trying to do is to figure out ways to take our infrastructure and make that available so so we have a program called open community collections now where libraries can upload the content onto the platform and the idea is that content sits alongside the jstore content which has value um but we can make that content openly available to the world if the libraries want to do that and and we can use our infrastructure to help support the community so so we're working to try to make um our infrastructure more open we're trying to make our content more open but we can't just flick the switch and do that for everything and all we do at at at a at a moment um hopefully over time people will who are who are more committed to open will see the movement we're making we've been doing that all along I mean I think you know in the form of as I said earlier things like the dnai initiative where you know institutions all over the world have been getting free access to jstore for a long time and that's obviously subsidized and enabled by the institutions that are paying a subscription and it's not enough in some respect because we should open it to everyone as much as we can but it's it's a way for us to do that sustainably and and keep growing and evolving over time so that's a that's a broad overview of how we're trying to build infrastructure that can support the open uh open principles so you and I are talking today because um we're announcing uh an investment from uh by ithica into ano um our public benefit uh corporation and um you and I have been talking about this now for almost three years and I'm curious um why did you guys decide to make uh this investment well I think I think that first it's been it's been great to get to know you and we have a lot of faith in your leadership of of of the enterprise and also just the commitment you've made to open infrastructure over a number of years and um you know I think we first did some collaborative work with with hypothesis as much as I don't know seven or eight years ago and you and I've gotten to know each other over over several years three or three years at least and you know just realizing at a first level that annotation just seems like an important part of education it's kind of unrealized and that eventually annotations got to be a part of the learning process right I mean just the notion of a faculty member uh teaching students giving them the opportunity to asynchronously engage with a written document and and have a discussion online I mean that just it seems inevitable to me that that's that's necessary and the approach that that um that hypothesis has taken and I was taking with an open interoperable infrastructure for that that all different resources can use is definitely the way to go as opposed to some proprietary approach to try to create you know loyalty or stickiness on one it's you know one company's platform so so I think we were we were taken both by the the idea of of annotation being an important part of education and also by the approach that you've taken and the leadership you've provided to to work very hard to do that in an open way and you know it's taken years some years for you to get you know attraction on that and uh you know our hope is that that that that time for impact is here and that you are well well timed for that to have the impact that that you want to have so you know I think from a standpoint of just investing in the community what I was saying before about moving toward open it seemed appropriate for us to try to accelerate or help with with something we thought was an important tool and important component of open infrastructure that we could support that now at the same time it will be very good for j-store users right if we can work with you collaboratively to develop the capability and you know really easily and really conveniently for people to do annotation over j-store articles and other content that we're adding to the platform so there's a there's a direct benefit for for our user community if we can if we can work effectively together so so the idea that we could also both support through an investment the broad principles and mission of the organization and at the same time work together with you to actually improve the product and service that people get both when they work with j-store whether using j-store and when they have an opportunity to use hypothesis whether that's on our platform or you know other other providers that seems like just a you know a wonderful win win if you will on both sides and you know great for for the community generally so we're supporting open we're supporting j-store we're supporting hypothesis and most importantly we're supporting the users that we think annotation can really help improve their learning and improve the teaching so so you know we're super excited about about it and you know really happy that that you know after this time we've been able to figure out a way to work together so so we're very excited that's true so my understanding is that this is actually the first time that that it has made this kind of an investment in another organization and how how did it how did it come about that that you guys decided to go in this direction yeah so i think i think the the the question of making investments in in other organizations i think it's really fundamentally about accelerating the mission like how are there there may be some things that we can do well ourselves uh but there may be some things that we're just not well positioned to do ourselves or we can't do it fast enough and if we really want to serve our community there are better ways for us to invest the resources that we have or spend the money that we have uh so for example i mean we we believe that that annotation is a really important uh potential tool and we think it's inevitable we could you know have our product teams develop an annotation layer you know or service um this just seems a such a better way to to go about doing that um and as i said before to to invest and open at the same time makes a lot of sense so we're thinking about um how do we make the best use of our resources and while you know there'll be you know we're not you know we're not a company that an organization that's going to have huge investments in other companies or you know acquiring a bunch of companies or anything like that but i think we are going to look to ways that we can um uh advance our mission and and serve our community and if we can do that faster and better uh we'll do that now there are a couple examples that we're not investments but that also fit this one is reveal digital uh which we we brought into the organization several years ago um and another is art store which we merged with with jstore uh five or six years ago these are these are opportunities for us to you know in the case of of reveal digital uh to bring primary source content that libraries care about and having made open onto the jstore uh infrastructure as i was saying earlier and in art stores case bringing images onto the platform and and working to integrate the image and text experience for for scholars and students so so we look for those opportunities and this was one where you know we feel like we can we can um we can have an impact and accelerate our impact uh in the community by an investment uh not a you know an acquisition or something like that so uh you know a great opportunity for us to bring together the um as i say before the investment and open and also the the impact for our users i guess if you um we're going to look out a little bit and think about what's possible together um what are some of the things that um that you think about or that kind of um excite you the most yeah i'm really excited to work with with uh hypothesis and anno uh to bring you know jstore even more into the teaching and learning experience um you know to have faculty uh engaged in real time in when they assign articles to to students having that kind of uh careful reading being done through a social platform an annotation platform um i think that working with with hypothesis will also bring us more closely engaged with the the learning management systems of you know from a variety of different providers that that that bring jstore just a step even closer into the teaching and learning environment i think we're there now but i think there are ways that we could be better integrated and and more useful and more impactful in that way so i think you know that's one thing that's that's uh that's very appealing to us and and you know as that door opens i think there are lots of other opportunities for the way that um the ways that that jstore can be useful uh not only the the journal archives that we talked about earlier but the the many you know tens of thousands of books that are on the platform and the increasing huge amount of of of primary source content on the platform so i think that you know bringing first the annotation but you know we're we're confident that hypothesis and and anno are going to move beyond just annotation into other areas of teaching and learning and we'd love to be along along for that uh for that that journey so i think it's just the start of of more engagement in the teaching learning space for for us what um what are some questions you might have for me well it's uh you know i i think i think some of some of the questions that i would have are a kind of mirror yours i mean i think um you know you all uh have grown over a number of years gained traction over a number of years as you looked out in the community there there are a variety of places that you could prioritize for uh for first collaboration but also in looking for resources what what drew you to to jstore and to ithica and and and how how is it that you know we became we're i mean at least you've you've worked with a lot of different providers but in terms of this kind of investment um you know we're we're a partner that's um you know it's obviously actively engaged in an operational uh uh enterprise uh was that something you were looking for what what are some of the the the decision um factors that you had in in in choosing us or working with us yeah well at first i would say it wasn't like there were 10 you know options in which we went through a search process or something jstore and and ithica are actually an incredibly unique um and kind of singular resource out there in the combination of this impact focus non-profit structure extraordinary reach i mean 13 000 you know institutions around the world that sheer volume of content that you guys have got across so many different fields heart store and so for us i think it was just um that that's a um you know to be able to bring this kind of um collaborative capability both in classrooms but just generally for researchers research communities scholarly communities um and to do it with a partner that represents you know such a huge part of the gravitational you know force of those communities is pretty unique um and we're just you know we're super excited about that um so i would say we're we're interested we're interested in the classroom aspects which are we're very very focused on right now we're also looking to see how we can bring infrastructure for kind of scholarly communities um uh forward so that they can use um have discussions that are you know in in smaller community groups um over uh the literature um art store is just super exciting for us as a place to think about how to do some really cool um kinds of annotation social annotation and even individual annotation um capabilities um to really you know kind of take that resource and bring it to an even you know greater um level and just in terms of what people can do with it um so for i think um there's just so many different things i think for us the challenge is going to be kind of focusing first and really choosing the things that that are the most important to work on next and you know as a cooperation with you guys the other thing i would just say is you you're the people at Ithaca um the team members you know that we've been working with uh Alex Humphreys i mean for years now are just um really high quality thinkers that are passionate about this space and it's you know just a a joy to be to have that privilege of working a little closer with you guys no we appreciate that you know i i think about you asked me the question about you know some of our history and um and obviously the the context of open and you've been in that space for a long time and um you know you've you've gone through a journey uh of you know sort of as as every sort of startup does uh sort of evolving changing adapting to you know a changing environment can you kind of take me through a little bit of that history in terms of you know hypothesis early genesis and what you originally thought it was going to be how that evolved uh how that evolves in the landscape that we're in now like how tell take us along on that that journey a little bit um see if i can shorthand it um i think initially that the idea and this kind of is doing work in the climate space and you know there's a you know you know different perspectives on what's the truth and you know uh you know what what kind of information should we pay attention to and fundamentally how do we as a society come to consensus um about things that are important uh we may disagree on our perspectives but we do agree that they're at least important topics um and i you know i had this idea that um that instead of trying to create an alternative information source that being able to have be able to bring perspectives or surface perspectives over the content that already exists um that is perhaps sometimes contentious um was powerful and i discovered that it turns out that was a really old idea that a lot of people had had um for a long time before um uh before me for sure um and so i discovered started to discover these different projects and uh and more and more of them and finally i was like okay well we still don't have it all these people have been trying what's happened and started to interview um people that had been involved in some of these early projects and uh and a kind of a story began to emerge about the importance of standards um and um open infrastructure open approaches um open source software very much the same in in the same way that before the web we had these online service providers like copy-serve and and you know um aol and whatnot and they were all their own little kingdoms um you know you were either over here or you were over here um uh maybe you could send an email to each other but you couldn't there was no shared space and then the web came along and changed all of that because of some fundamental properties about openness and standards and so forth and open source implementations of these things called browsers um that were that were the first examples of those and um so for us when we when i started thinking okay well how do you have a shared conversation and started interviewing these previous projects it became very clear that if we didn't borrow the principles and the learnings of the of the web in trying to solve this problem that we you know we're not likely to be successful in the way that so many of these other projects had kind of gone by the wayside um so it initially kind of started off as kind of a you know almost like a fact checking you know um frame but as we started to proceed write software and to start to tap into these communities that have been thinking about this problem for a long time um we're invited into the w3c process um to form a working group it became crystal clear that the opportunity is you know fact checking is a teeny little sliver of just an enormous collaborative opportunity um over knowledge overall knowledge and um something that could be with you um ever you know always as a native feature of browsers or even the proprietary thing like the kindle you know why can't you have a book club over the book you just bought well you know if we're if we're effective at solving this problem um you will be able to because eventually um this paradigm will so for us it was um um just really realizing the magnitude of the opportunity that was in front of us and then beginning to pursue it um initially Josh Greenberg at Sloan reached out and said hey what you're doing is would be perfect for some of the problems that we're trying to solve in open peer review and um then Don Waters at Mellon said hey you know we've been looking at some of this annotation stuff and um and funding projects like this so we got introduced to the scholarly communities and a lot of things started to resonate um that the that starting with these communities in scholarship science and in learning where so much of the knowledge production um content production of the world happens you know annually I think 11 of the top 15 publishers by revenue on earth are either educational research publishers um and so you start to appreciate um that this is an extraordinary if you're going to try to bring something to the world and content is your strategic real estate that starting here is a really powerful place to get started to get traction um and to and to develop the um the paradigm um and its utility um and then to take it from here out to the broader world um and we also think it's really powerful to start on learning and and knowledge oriented utility cases for this um as opposed to you know necessarily inner entertainment type more classically social um use cases which are fine um but they um we think will get closer to the impact that we're trying to have by starting with these communities so you had a you had a startup uh originally and you had a you know what they like to call a successful exit uh previously so what what drew you to this like a more mission driven effort and in how when you you know first getting you mentioned several you know Don Waters from Mellon and and Josh from Sloan you know you were chasing uh grant funding at a not-for-profit as opposed to investment capital um what what took you down that path and then now you're thinking about uh doing this with ANO and having you know an investment uh uh uh company around it to help make it happen so tell us how you got started and why why ANO at this point yeah um great question uh so my first company was a travel travel startup the first uh web based capability to book travel reservation over the web um and you know we grew that uh from a couple people to almost 600 and over six years and went public and uh you know it was I was very young you know I started when I was 25 years old and this was a you know it was a an extraordinary personally you know kind of empowering experience to be able to create something like that and go through all these different stages and um you know and then we you know the company got sold and you know we had that successful exit um but I it left me um you know um you know in a way wanting much more just personally from that journey and to have the next journey be much more about bringing it's great that people can book their travel online now but does it really fundamentally change the world um in a profound way for the better no it's been a kind of a you know a feature um and so I was um trying to say you know I think the great thing about going through that journey was a realization that I as a as a very young person you know could decide to do something and actually have it come happen and to to you know create you know a large organization with a bunch of people that were in support of a mission and achieved it and so it this kind of switch uh flipped in my brain um and I said you know if that's true then the most important thing if I'm going to do something else is the choice about what to do um and if I want to you know if I want to try to make an impact then what am I going to choose um and so I think for me um you know the the experience with different perspectives and information what's what's maybe happening or not in in the climate space I said well there there might be no larger apex problem than trying to find infrastructure to build you know social consensus um and to bring people a little bit closer in their perspectives as they you know transit the world around them um and over you know kind of pulling in on the piece of yarn over a little while you know kind of led um led here you know the the choice of non-profit initially was just a simple one it was a bunch of for-profit ad-driven companies had tried to start and solve this annotation problem with basically ad-driven widgets that were built on proprietary stacks and interviews with those founders led me to the conclusion that if you wanted to get the entire world to adopt a universal conversation framework over everything and you wanted to do it as a proprietary thing it just wasn't going to work um because you would have too much friction um people would be like well okay but you know you guys are going to be the you know rulers of all conversations everywhere using a black box system it's just not going to happen um so um so it was you know the you know borrowing from the web shamelessly from from Tim Berners-Lee and from everybody else that came before it was like okay we don't have to do that let's create a standard by which anybody can build this scaffolding by which together we could all build this scaffolding for conversations using you know open apis and and anybody can build a conversation client or server and they can interoperate together and that felt like a much more satisfying answer and so initially we did that as a non-profit because um we just felt like it was too hard to solve there was a bit of a build-up with standards and everything it just didn't feel like we could get venture folks to fund that early work that it was too much of a uncertain you know kind of time period required and too much uh you know needing to bring stakeholders together uh we funded this for a number of years um on grants uh increasing grants from Mellon and Sloan and whatnot and about 2017 they're started to become a shift um where the grants were harder to get we weren't the shiny new penny anymore um we were entering this kind of mezzanine phase of our existence when it's classically harder to get that kind of uh support and um and a lot of the grants programs were starting to dry up a little bit or their scholarly calm tech category was going away Helmsley shut theirs down Arnold shut theirs down um kind of Josh at Sloan kind of went dark there for about a year um Don Waters retired at Mellon and there was a little bit of a you know a little bit of a shift and all of a sudden we were looking at trying to grow and step into the opportunity declining sources of funding um and a greater need and we just said how you know so we came together on a project called invest in open infrastructure um which um that came out of a conference where we realized a bunch of these open tech projects like ourselves were having exactly the same challenges and we said well how can we solve this these challenges together so we we came together in um and formed IOI invest in open um and began a process to kind of solve this and and recruited Kay Thaney from Mozilla to come in and who's now the executive director of IOI and at the same time we were doing all this which we felt like was important work we rise the time frame is just too short like this is going to pay off maybe in five or ten years um with better funding for infrastructure but we need a solution now um and so we said what's a good hybrid approach here um and we we really looked into benefit corporation b-corps and realized that there was a path here um to start a parallel organization that could bring investment into well still preserving the mission and would help us identify a line better with the kind of investors like Ithaca um that had the resources to be able to support we wanted to do um and but but really needed and appreciated that impact focus um and so um we made the decision and and incorporated and here we are yeah I think it highlights one of the the big challenges for for not for profits in general right is is the capital um how do you raise capitals and not for profits it's very challenging and and as you pointed out you can generate some capital from about foundations but generally speaking they're they're spreading their resources out over a lot of different institutions and and programs and and they don't tend to stay in there over time with the level of capital is required to get to get services started so it's been a challenge for not for profit based services as long as I've been working in the space and um it you know it's it's it's uh it's very difficult it's why you you sometimes see you know that that sort of sequence of entities working on a problem you know rotating through so um so I think it's a it's a it's a very um uh creative and and thoughtful way uh you're taking to to both create the capital generate the capital to be able to make the investments to make a non-profit service work and um and I think it's I think it's super important to to to be able to have that it's just hard to get these things started without those kind of early resources and you've you've hung in there for quite some time um uh you know on a combination of grants and and other funds I'm sure you found from from your own personal finances and other things but yeah it's it's it just takes time to get these things things going does indeed to find that's half the battle is just pushing long enough and surviving long enough um to get to get the the win um you know the stuff is infrastructure is not easy timing is everything in the sense of like you know there's gotta be there's gotta be good weather yeah well um I thank you so much for taking some time and sharing your thoughts thank you it's it's fun it's fun to uh to talk about you know where we're going to go together and uh and it really you know totally looking forward to it and really appreciate appreciate the work that you're doing and look forward to to working with you to serve you know serve scholars and students and teachers


Okay, this is the Development Review Board for Burlington for September 3rd. So, on housekeeping, we take up items in the order they are on the agenda, and when we call each item, we ask you to come up to the table and please use the microphones as the acoustics in here are terrible, and that's also the record of our hearing is actually recorded through the microphones. If anybody else who is interested party, they may want to come up and sign the clipboard too sometime during the meeting. We have no communications on our desk, nothing new, okay. On the agenda, is anybody here for 83 North Willard Street? Because that's on our agenda, but that's been asked for deferment, so we'll probably defer that one. In terms of, well, deliberative, they may not be a relevant question right now. So, we'll start with the Consent Agenda. The first item is 1093 North Avenue, City of Burlington. Is the applicant here? Brad, I'm recused from this item. Good. So, this is on the Consent Agenda, which means that it's been recommended for approval. Have you seen the staff's recommendations? I have. And are they acceptable as they're written? Yes, they are. Okay. Is anybody on the board have any objections to treating this as consent? Is anybody in the public here who wants to speak on 1093 North Avenue? I've seen nothing. We can get this approved. Can I have a motion on this project? On 2001 7-2-CA 1093 North Avenue, I move to approve staff findings and recommendations. You have a second? I'll second. All in favor? Simple. Thank you very much. Thanks. Thank you. I'm sorry you didn't have a chance to present all those boards. But it's good exercise. Okay. The next item is also a Consent Agenda item that's 62 Ward Street as the applicant here. This also is consent. So, have you seen the staff's recommendations on this one? Yes. And is that okay? Yes. Okay. Anybody on the board? No. Does anybody here object? No. And I guess they won't ask about the public because they're not here. So now I'll take a recommendation or a motion. I would move that 19-0948 CA 62 Ward Street that we adopt, approve the staff findings and recommendations. Second? Second. Jeff? All in favor? Opposed? Thank you very much. That's it. Thank you. I guess we could drag some of these out, but it seems unnecessary at the moment. Okay. Next item is 83 Willard Street. The applicant has asked for deferral until September 17th. Correct. So I need a motion, as people object to, deferring 83 Willard Street to... So on 20-0113CU 83 North Willard Street, I move that we defer consideration of this application until our next meeting on September 17th. Second? Jeff? Okay. All in favor? Opposed? If Scott wants to read all these zoning amendments, that would... I'm going to read them into the record, all right? So that is the next item. We have quite a few zoning amendments that are... We have sort of a synopsis. Yeah, there's a synopsis in that. Recommended to the city council at this point. This is just a copy of the memo and language that went to the council. They have acted to adopt both of these at this point. So we'll have inserts for your CDOs shortly. So, yeah, so just to follow up with the idea from our latest joint meeting last winter. Rather than just hand you the amendments and say, here you go. So we'll actually tell you what they are. So the first one, zoning amendment 1904, pertains to trees and junkyards in a cross-reference correction. There's nothing new as to the trees provisions. It simply joins a number of currently disparate provisions and makes them work together the way they were intended to work together. So nothing new, no standards, no new process. Junkyards is similar in that it cleans up some existing duplicity in the ordinance, but also calls out junkyards expressly. You can't have them anyway, but not least a cross-reference correction. Here, Mary pointed out, incorrect. I can answer them or I can jump into the next one. The next one pertains to uses in the city's enterprise zone. And this one's a little more extensive. It makes a few changes. Currently, office uses are allowed in enterprise, but banks for some reason are not. So a change has been made to allow banks in that district. A more significant change was that the use table has been opened up to allow supportive uses to the more traditional industrial enterprise uses and allowed subject to conditional use, basically to subsidize those older more traditional industrial uses. And we've looked to a couple of models in other cities elsewhere that are doing this. And that's really what it comes down to. We have these older industrial spaces, and these newer uses are being allowed to sort of prop that up to enhance the viability of the enterprise and industrial uses. The last item. Well, before you leave. Was that in the enterprise that you're going to? You're going to go through the performance spaces. The last piece was performing art centers were allowed subject to a limitation of 5,000 square feet. I think it was just along Pine Street. This amendment also extends the area where they're allowed, but also allows them up to a greater size. Which would affect the? Yeah, when and if we ever see an application from Martin. I thought somewhere in here read something that the intent of some of this was to see to it that the commercial uses did not overtake the viability of the arts district uses. See some language about that. And I think that pertains to the continuing restriction. But is not also was not also somehow with some of the supporting spaces rather than primary uses. I was big thing about the arts district was that, you know, it's a little bit of a challenge to try to turn into straight commercial uses of big office blocks and stuff. Right. Well, to back up a little bit further. It's a little funny that the south end has been the de facto arts district. It wasn't until five or six years ago that the zoning code was changed to actually enable that. So performing art centers are not necessarily a supportive use. But when I thought it was sort of like restaurants and bakeries, there's a limit to how big they could be. Yes. Yep. And that's still the case. That's limited to a percentage relative to the uses on the property. Performing arts centers have a square footed institution. There's a 5001 kind street that's been in place for a number of years now. Any other questions for Scott? Any question? This says second read in public hearing. Is that really the status of where it's at? No, that's really the status of where it was at when this memo was put together. If you would like, next time I can update the city council's memo. That's okay. The memo is dated May 22nd. Oh, I see. And then the start of August 26th was when they actually approved it. Not least, and it wasn't in your packet, but I forwarded it to you. We heard last Friday the Vermont Supreme Court overturned the city's action and your action concurring as to the 15-year statute of limitations not applying to use violations. This case was probably as good as any because nobody disputed the facts. We all knew that it was an unpermitted triplex and has been there for more than 15 years. And the city's argued for a while now based on environmental court precedent that use violations were separate from physical violations. So no, the statute of limitations applies whether it's use or physical. Do you have the case site for that? What's that? Do you have the case site for that case? I forwarded the decision to the board. It should be in your email. Okay. So that'll be significant. We've got a number of these come by. They're going to come back? They could. Some of these, well, I can think of one where it was cut and dry. Some others where this was a factor. It wasn't the only factor going on, but who knows. Folks could come back. It makes the notice of violation date a little more critical on some of these. Well, it should make our job easier. I mean, a lot of these cases are the ones where we've had people testifying, you know, years ago about what was happening. So it'll be nice to have some clarity there. Well, to be clear, it still doesn't. The 15 year statute does not equate to grandfathering, but it is a bright line as to what can fit into the limitations box. It becomes a, for future renovations on a project that was approved through this statute of limitations on the use. They come before us again when that's recognized. Is that a permitted use at that point? What it was one referred to it as. So this draws a much brighter line and forcible. It has all the restrictions. So future additions, amendments, revisions would be based on the permitted status of the property, on what is it? Right. I mean, there's tighter restrictions around it. So I guess in the event, right? It's the same idea in the event that you go to change them out in 20 years. Yeah. Same thing with parking. If you have an unpermitted triplex, that's only a parking for a duplex. Right.  I think so. I think with that. We are adjourned.


All right, very good morning to you and welcome to the second half of 2021. I can't believe it's flown by this quickly, but as usual then we'll have a bit of a quick review of how the first six months have gone and despite a lot of the tension more recently about this idea of what more sticky inflation could mean, the Delta variant and the new spread that we're seeing that could jeopardize the global economic recovery. The S&P 500 has actually put in its second best start of the year since 1998 and a few other stats the gauge now has notched its longer streak of quarterly gains since 2017, having rallied already some 14% this year. So as you can see here now off to a really strong start and looking at one of the other things here is the overall year-to-date performance of some of the individual sectors that we've seen and looking at individual companies and you can see despite a bit of an idea of earlier in the year a rotation out of some of these growth big mega cap tech names and into other value areas. In fact, yes everything has gone up but growth the show is not over just yet and so even though they're talking about rate rises again don't forget they're talking about another two years out on the time horizon and so the likes of Google you know I just said the S&P was up on the year 14%. Google's up 40% on the the year-to-date. Microsoft up 21%, Facebook is tracking up about 27%, some really sharp gains but the fact that the rates market is anticipating to increase over time, one yields are moving higher, a lot of those banks have also seen some really sharp moves while Fargo up around 50%, Bank of America up around 36% and in the capital market space some of those big banks as well GS up 43%, MS up 34% so all in all the gravy train continues for the time being and yeah and looking at the performance from what we had yesterday there's a couple of individual sweet spots talking of Wednesday session you can see here Walmart just glowing green they finished it there for about 2.7% that came after they reported they would start selling prescription only insulin analogue and there's some other hotspots GE they got added to Goldman's top idea on their stock pick list and they were up about 3% Boeing as well which is a fairly sizeable firm we also saw some pretty decent gains yesterday after a German defense ministry announced a military or maritime control aircraft order and that came after United Airlines unveiled its largest ever order for new planes as well from the firm so a couple of things there just helping as well because if you actually look at where we closed yesterday you know we're still right up there the S&P 500 of course has traded at record all-time highs again as far as the overnight session is concerned and I was talking to this or about this move yesterday to a couple of the traders and we were looking at that that kind of trend channel that we were observing in yesterday's briefing and the fact that that was that horizontal key line the daily pivot yesterday and for me that breakdown was purely technical and we were talking about it when we were down and around the S1 as you know this this is often the mechanics of how markets work it doesn't always need to be a news catalyst for sure and a technical breacher levels can add then to whether you're trading the kind of breakout or momentum strategy and then fundamentally though very unlikely we were saying at the time that that move would be sustained given the fact that there isn't any real new fundamental rash amount to keep price suppressed to keep moving lower and when we're trading up at all-time high levels it's not uncommon to see a little bit of profit-taking as well so with the technical trigger for the downside I think a lot of people just used that as an opportunity to re-enter short-term to push us back up to all-time highs again of which obviously we busted through in late in the Wall Street close and then that's acted now as a bit of a platform for price to continue to push on up during the APAC session and so for now just keeping an eye on these prices at these most elevated levels once again a couple of bigger things as well coming out we'll look at the calendar for the day ahead in a moment but of course non-fond parallels as well looming on Friday in the FX market while I'm on the I'm on the charts in terms of the six-month performance with the beginning of this year the dollar has been seeing a really good performance of late within that period and in fact the dollar had its best month in June since March of 2020 and you'll remember March 2020 after some initial volatility that was when the dollar really rallied on the back of the notion of it being the global reserve currency when we went through the worst part of the equity sell-off when we had the onset of the global pandemic so that was the last time when the dollar put in a type of performance that it's seen since June and just having a look at the euro dollar currency pair here on a daily chart you can really see how the narrative has changed and you'll remember this here is June 16th was the initiation of this first candlestick here and you guys remember what that was of course that was the hawkish fmc 2 dot indication for 2023 rate rise and the idea the admission that they see inflation a little larger and hanging around a little longer than previously anticipated in their projections and as such that's really being the major trigger point over the last couple of weeks in a few different asset classes and for sure euro dollar you can see here this quite a key moment today about where we close you can see we've bounced on three occasions from this level in the euro but we are getting a bit of a divergence of course in the fundamental dynamics here between the ever more increasingly sounding hawkish fed against at the moment a much more passive more dovish sounding ECB because they're just not making the same kind of hawkish noises to any degree of what the fed are and that's because obviously the eurozone a lot more fractured in terms of the general national economic performances of the different nations and also it is dealing at this present point in time with the latest outbreak and the uptick in the delta variant as well which is seen as a considerable risk and that's likely to keep the ECB's hand steady for the foreseeable future whereas in the US of course we're talking every day about you know when are we going to start talking about tapering when are we going to start hinting towards more rate rises and so on so here technically I think it looks interesting for the euro because if we continue this type of situation at the moment fundamentally it's in play that divergence which plays favorable for further downside technically now is where it's at and technically it does look vulnerable and any further movement lower the 118 kind of 1118 handle would be the next obvious target and we're looking about 50 pips low from where we're trading at the moment of course similarly then the the pound is doing the same kind of thing there's been the eventual grace period extensions on some of the brexit protocol around northern island and trade but you remember what we were saying a few weeks ago that was never going to go any other way in our opinion so I don't think it's really that that important to be quite honest but looking at the daily on the pound here at the moment it really is that again the fact that the dollar is putting in the performance at the moment and that's weighing on these counterparty currencies and so here 138 handle has been a key milestone of support going back to late April and also back when the dollar was appreciating this was here this was the base this red candle of the hawkish bullard comment initiated by here this candle so this moved from 131 to 138 was on the back of the hawkish fed week in the fed and the bullard comments and we're right back at that era at the moment so when you're looking at the euro as well at least this potential for that momentum you know if cable starts to also see a bit of head of steam on the breakthrough 38 then all the more conviction you might have to hold then for that euro moves down to those lower bound levels we just looked at so some key levels then the effects markets to have a have a look at and so eyes will be on a dollar and obviously if it doesn't happen today tomorrow is going to be a really key one these are key technical levels that we're sitting at at the minute on a higher time frame and so if the payron number comes out tomorrow and it's a strong one so we start talking about a million plus type job figure and robustness within the actual overall report well then could that fuel further belief of the more hawkish rhetoric and then therefore appreciation further of the US dollar and with these those pairs sitting at fairly technically support vulnerable levels that could be a nice trigger for for continuation of those short positions otherwise elsewhere gold you know we looked at this yesterday and there was a really key area we've been looking at this week and again same top-level macro narrative it's all about the Fed and the US and the hawkish rhetoric so here you can see gold the same gold's just been a really nice kind of tracker of the inverse relationship with the currency the dollar at the moment and so as the dollars appreciated just like those major pairs gold's come under considerable pressure since the FMC meeting on the 16th of June and earlier this week so this is going back two days ago on Tuesday we traded through and we did yesterday trade through that key area that I've been keeping an eye on around the 62 mark in gold futures but we closed at that level so we haven't closed below it and so now technically I think that's just given a bit of light relief here for the yellow metal we've just traded back up a little bit on the upside this morning and we're currently up six bucks trading at 77 having got down from as low as around 50 in the last two sessions so I think technically this is looking a little bit more supportive now having failed to breach that mark so far this this week but again payrolls might well dictate that dollar movement and subsequently move then will be the next kind of catalyst for movement in in gold all right quick look at then a few different things obviously a lot of people talking about OPEC at the moment a familiar dynamic is really opening up with the alliance with Russia Kazakhstan proposing boosts which they've kind of done before we've been here before it's very familiar territory Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arab allies favoring a more cautious approach this is according to delegates in Bloomberg or who Bloomberg were talking to last night while the group is expected to return some barrels to the market in August obviously nervousness is still present on the back of the latest outbreak of the Delta variant which is at the moment seeing an increasing global spread for the time being the balance being there is our people our nations who are large energy consumers like the US for example have they been inoculated enough and is the economy really fast enough that would constitute then one way or the other to add some more supply or keep it as it is is the is the debate possible supply hikes are being discussed for August and September according to Kazakhstan's energy minister not that that person is particularly important but obviously they are very closely aligned with Russia and last time they were giving a bit of a pass to increase just fractionally by a few hundred thousand bowels per day collectively Russia and Kazakhstan kind of go as a two they're appearing in that sense so I put a little bit of weight in those comments as ever the usual rules of engagement I would say with OPEC news you're going to get further intensification of rumors and hearsay that might add to a little bit of the choppiness intraday for oil and as ever you're not going to have to wait for a formal decision you're probably going to get more clarity as we go through the next 24 hours of whatever end outcome decision will be as far as oil is trading at the moment it's just wait and see we're pretty much in a range at the minute between really 72 and the higher 74 price point and so till we get more that more information on this I just think we're going to respect that range for the time being some other things though to be aware of well this this is oil over the first six months I just wanted to quickly flash this given the fact that we talked about equities we talked about the dollar this is looking at WCI crude and Brent futures and yeah quite a quite a phenomenal story actually over the last six months if you take where we were and going back to the base from October November time to where we're trading at from the year to date which was around as far as WCI is concerned sub 50 and we're up obviously up near 75 at the moment so yeah really solid performance there we've seen in WCI crude and in fact in terms of the streak it's the best half for WCI crude we've seen since 2009 and again it's all really simplifying it is based on the reopening trade other other thing to mention on oil was what I thought was quite interesting was this so in the US over the last four weeks total stockpiles including the strategic petroleum reserve the SPR have fallen at a rate of 1.15 million bounce per day marking the largest four week decline on a rolling basis in the EIA's data going back to 1982 so again just to make that clear so stockpiling on a four week basis in America is being drawn down at its fastest pace that we've had in a very very long time which again goes goes to show this overall tightening in the market on the back of the the faster acceleration in the pickup in demand comparative to the very static situation on the supply side and hence the reason the price is trading up at a multi-year high up at around the 75 region but again this is the balancing act between the decisions that that mainly dynamic between Saudi and Russia need to play the Saudis generally more cautious let's keep it as it is whereas the Russians for kind of similar reasons to this are saying we should demand is adequate we should be we should be relaxed relaxing the supply a little bit and why not I think if I was in Russia's situation and I was at a negotiating table I would know that I can manage my budget at a much more lower price I know the Saudis can't because of their quest for general diversification in the period ahead and so therefore I would hold their feet to the fire they will bulk and I'll get a few extra 100,000 barrels over the line I don't think necessarily from a trading point of view that's going to move the price to a great deal because I think a lot of it is baked in in terms of the 500,000 if you don't get the 500,000 or anything shorter that well I think we could we could definitely push up and start retesting hitting highs again so if I was the Russians I'd be doing exactly the same type of thing causing a headache rolling over meetings the Saudis will roll over and and they will concede and they will give you what you need which is a few more 100,000 per day and and then you just keep the supply packed intact but you've got away with a little bit more of a concession that you were in the day before so that's kind of what I'm expecting in that regard the other thing here is a word that gets mentioned is Iran and this is another key component that's in focus with determining the price of oil at the moment negotiations over Iran's nuclear program are facing the prospect of renewed delays is what we heard yesterday and so the likelihood of a quick return of the nation's supplies are being kind of paired back and remember there's a lot of debate about how quickly can Iran in actuality given the distinct lack of investment that they've had the infrastructure it's not like they just turn a tap and the nation starts pumping out an extra couple of million it's a lot more gradual than that however they do have quite a large strategic stockpile offshore which they could start to bring back in albeit I'd see OPEC having a big problem with that if they ever considered that being the case but again just the connection here being that a breakdown in dialogue meaning that the further away the deal is well then that just puts off any notion of Iran bringing more oil back to market anytime soon is the basic premise envoys negotiating a bit Iran's nuclear program will not reconvene as planned in vienna this week and apparently the talk is that they aren't even sure when the seventh round of diplomacy will be scheduled according to four people from livid that discussion who chose not to be identified and we're close to those talks so it's off for the moment timing is quite key though I would say that's not that surprising given timing of the OPEC meeting I still think that it'll be interested to monitor Iran through July before the inauguration of Rahisi the new president elect comes in in Iran because I think tactically that does play true I think if they are going to sign up back to this 2015 nuclear accord with the US and western powers that it's better to do so between July and August before the inauguration to pass off any concessions to Rahini to to maintain your political kind of capitals the new president elect coming in so it's something to watch going forward but for now it's it's delayed the other thing that is China a quick mention overnight you do have some Chinese data again I do not think that this is a factor for the market open this morning but to make you aware the K-Shin manufacturing PMI for June came in at 51.3 that was a touch softer than expected and so as the headline suggests then factory activity expanding at a slightly softer pace in June the research of the COVID-19 cases in the export province of Guangdong as well as supply chain woes drove output growth to its lowest of 15 months is what Reuters had reported overnight and also though on the geopolitical side you might have seen some of these shots from last night quite remarkable scenes actually coming out of Beijing last night and it's because President Xi Jinping warned against foreign bullying and China were marking their party centenary overnight Xi pledged to build up China's military committed to the reunification of Taiwan is a very contentious issue of course and said that social stability would be ensured in Hong Kong now separate news that you've seen but definitely related to this is that the US and Japan have been conducting war games and joint military exercises in the event of a conflict with China over Taiwan now this stuff is definitely not a coincidence obviously the Chinese party having this centenary event is a big kind of domestic deal it's a chance for them to really galvanize the public on their the mission that China has and particularly on that one China policy of which they see the sovereignty of Taiwan and so the US and Japan conducting war games at the time of which they're celebrating their centenary it's all absolutely calculated in terms of why they're doing this you know does this bring us any closer towards new levels of confrontation no this is just how politics is done in my opinion in that region and so I wouldn't get too nervous about it but just wanted to bring to people's attention who are not used to looking at this type of news flow that these things are not happening in isolation they're all happening at this particular one point in time for the same reason which is there's a lot of political capital on the line and there's an ongoing more top-level discussion and friction at the minute between the US and China and all of this feeds into that kind of narrative okay quick look at the the day ahead what have we got on the agenda it's this morning we have the final manufacturing PMI data points so not anticipating too much out of those to be honest the OPEC meeting yeah I'd be looking out for news and tweets and so forth as we go throughout the session I definitely don't think you're going to have to need to wait till 3.30 and 5 for more definitive confirmation that's rarely the case but those are the timings if you need to be aware of them if you're trading the energy market otherwise in the US session you've got the initial jobless claims expected to fall back down to 390 from 411 and then you've got the ISM manufacturing PMI which is expected to remain relatively unchanged from a headline suspected at 61 however keep an eye as ever on that employment constituent that's just hovering above expansionary territory of 50 last time out and of course people will be looking at that closely as a kind of a contributing factor to give better insight as to how the label report from the BLS might perform in NFP tomorrow as far as speakers couples actually to be aware of so coming up shortly ECB President Christine Lagarde speaking at a hearing on monetary affairs text to be released so keep an eye out for that 8 a.m. London time and the Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey speaks at Mansion House with text to be released that'll be at 9 o'clock this morning so for any FX traders euros sterling with these key levels looking as I said fairly vulnerable at the moment amid just the ongoing dollar strength I'd definitely be keeping an eye out for some of these comments given that technical setup of those charts. Feds Bostick who is a voter speaking at seven and then supply out of Spain and France and the UK later on today but that is it so gonna let you guys go on with the day have a good one come on Andy it's only round two but yeah a little glimmer of the old Andy Murray came out last night which was great to see so good job Andy and yeah have a good day everyone


A political movement is just that. A movement. Wave high to someone and they'll wave back. What they don't see is the millions of neurons and cells firing together at the speed of light, communicating the myriad of signals and chemical reactions connecting your brain and muscle fibers necessary to say hello. But we're not here to say hi. We're here to change our country for the better. We're here to pass laws, to change how we go to the polls, to change how we're represented. Americans everywhere are starting to see the changes we've manifested over the last decade. What they don't always see is the tens of thousands of proud Americans like you who've stepped up to defend our republic and improve our democracy. The millions of efforts, large and small, coordinating in unison at the speed of light. The movement. Here in this room are the selfless volunteers who text, call, doorknock and table to move our nation forward. They're the hope that will reach a new, brighter horizon. The corruption slinks away from the growing light where the American people can claim ownership of their government once again. Do these people we say? Thank you.


Hello, my name is Mohamed El-Tahuni. I'm the Vice Provost for Graduate Studies at the American University of Sharjah. We are here at Majah Exhibition to showcase our graduate programs offered by the university as well as undergraduate programs. AUS offers 14 master's programs and one BSD degree. We are planning also to offer at AUS next year two more BSD programs. We are in the process of finalizing the approval of those degrees. A BSD related to bioscience and bioengineering and a BSD in material science and engineering. We are also in the process of approving a master's degree in construction management.


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