accountability and learning the meal, I guess, protocol. I'm interested in learning more about it from from Impact Plus, but we have Eduardo Perez and Raquel Raquel, your last name, I don't want to make sure that I get it wrong. Oh, Suarez. Thank you, David. Yeah, so happy to introduce Eduardo Perez and Raquel Suarez from Impact Plus. Really interested to hear about some of the work they're doing around meal and integrating that monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning methodologies with blockchain technology, particularly relevant upon the yes to kind of potentially the standards work, also how they're doing and getting adoption. That's always been a big question for us. But with that, I'll hand over the floor, I guess, to to Edward. Are you going to kick it off? Are you real quick, Raquel? Okay, sure. So thank you, Sherwood.  We've talked with you in your team a bit in the past. Thanks, Esther, also for making a making a connection here and giving us this opportunity to purchase other players in this space, right? So just some just some background. I'm going to let Raquel introduce herself in in a bit. And I'll first start with my introduction, give Raquel a chance to introduce herself, give you two minutes on Impact Plus, we'll bore you with that, and then we'll just jump right into it. So super quick. My I made I'm originally from from Barcelona. I'm also have French. I have a small three year old. That's one of the reasons I'm back in Barcelona. After having spent 15 plus years working in into that international development projects from Afghanistan to to Niger, Salvador, etc. And it's an industry that I like very much, but that I approach very humbly, because I think international development, the space can do a lot of good, but also has lots of troubles of doing good properly. Yes. And over the past years, as I worked in this space and realized the good and the improvement that we can do, I started a Tech for Good and Geo out of Niger, where we just looked at how different tech could support USA, UK, another developed international actors and international development actors in the in the space where it may be geo mapping, applying basic AI projects, yeah, believe it or not, we started that a couple of years ago, etc. And I bumped into blockchain. And that was impressive. I drank it for late, like all of us. I realized that the inherent characteristics of blockchain don't need to give you a whole explanation here. Have the capacity to improve programming in the international development space in a way that other technologies cannot or the technologies have other advantages. I also think mental note, we don't need to see things in silos, where different technologies need to work together. AI, blockchain, geo mapping can all work together to develop monitoring and evaluation tools, right? But in this case, I realized that blockchain has had something that was absolutely incredible when it came to designing programming from that, thanks to transparency, speed, accuracy, you name it. And thanks to to Polygon, we started working and developed Impact Plus. And the objective of Impact Plus is to bridge the international development space and the Web3 space. One of the things I've learned by being in the space, and then I'll pass it on to Raquel in a second, is that both worlds rarely speak to each other. And I'll go into that a bit more after Raquel introduces herself. But that's the main objective, right? What's happening here? Why aren't these two worlds speaking sufficiently to each other? And we realize the monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning has to do with this. And I'll pause there and let Raquel introduce herself. Thank you, Ed. I'm Raquel Esquare-Tominguez. I'm the senior mill advisor for Impact Plus for more, almost 18 months now. As I have found an international background working for the humanitarian response and also international development for, I was 10 years on the field in different African countries and also in IT after the earthquake. So as Ed, I found the blockchain an amazing thing to improve action in humanitarian response and international development. I'm a mill advisor and senior mill advisor. So we're trying to bring all these methodologies and all these approach from international development space to Web3 and blockchain spaces. So we'll let Ed continue with the presentation and then we will get deep into it. Thanks. Yes, thanks Raquel. We're incredibly lucky to have Raquel. Raquel is 18 years old, working in very complicated zones, specializing in monitoring and evaluation. So as we got together, we realized that current monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning tools from the international development space were not fully adapted to blockchain, right? What we saw, basically, is that while in this, in the USA, UK, SDG space, there were some forward thinkers who understood blockchain, the majority still don't get it. Yeah, they still associate our industry with scams. They associated with complex technology, complicated regulation, et cetera, on the one hand. And on the other hand, we also realized that many of the startups who have tremendous technical capabilities, much more than anything I will ever have, sometimes don't have that field experience or don't understand the language that these organizations here speak. And the two different worlds. So our objective is I was saying was trying to push this because to take it down, what we see is that when you're talking, when you're trying, when you are a startup trying to become sustainable and again, sustainability is not only about funding, it's about having a program that is ethical, that is applicable in the field and that users will make their own, but you also need funding, right? So when we're talking about a program being sustainable, of course, you need that you also have that funding component. And you cannot go and get funding to you, try and get funding to USAID as if you were speaking to a layer one or a layer two, the language is very different, what they're asking for is very different. The USAID is going to be asking you for a monetary evaluation plan for sustainability plan, for a gender plan, for bottom up approach. If you talk to a private foundation, they're going to be asking you for an SCG report or ESG report, right? If you're talking to a VC, they're going to be asking you for a double, a double bottom line, etc. So you need to know how to speak to those organizations, but mostly you need to be able to prove what is your impact. And in many cases, when Raquel and I go to startups and we ask them, what is your impact? There's a pause, and there's a general quick answer, which is, oh, it's my impact, I can, it's measured because it's on chain, or it's X amount of rubbish that's been cleared from the C or whatever that always supported X amount of people, etc. But there seems to be a lack of rigorosity when you implement monitoring and evaluation tools. We prefer the longer term monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning tool, because mail has much more goes much further than just measuring what what are your outputs and your incomes. And Raquel will give us a bit more of an overview there. So as we move forward, what would be what would be great is as we're talking, if you'd like to ask questions, feel free to perhaps drop them in the in the chat box, or tell us a bit about your background. So we understand your profile so we can also adapt what we're talking about in case we take things that for granted that you already know, or if you want us to, to adapt what we're speaking, please feel free to add your comments there. In any case, what we're going to discuss today are the strategies for an effective impact measurement for blockchain projects. As mentioned, Impact Plus is a team of individuals who come from who have an international background expertise and drank the black blockchain fully. So we kind of bridge both worlds. And our mission is really to ensure that communities reclaim the agency through what we think one of the beauties of what three is that international development programs will be led by communities that receive beneficiaries, communities that receive those that support in the future, right, that it becomes a top down approach, as much as it is a, a, sorry, become a bottom up approach.  Then it is a currently a top down approach today. Right. So one of the things we're launching and is the responsible revolution. And that's an industry wide initiative where all this all these tools that we're putting together that include monitoring and valuation will be lump summed together and we will be able to work with startups and a number of others, organizations to make sure that we have those tools so that startups can become sustainable. Real quick, when we started talking about monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning, we were very lucky quickly to get a grant from from UK aid and Raquel and the team and myself spent a bit of time working with a number of startups to understand what were the issues that they had when they were trying to measure their progress? What were the tools they were using? Did they think they were being sufficiently professional with this? Were they spending enough time measuring their results, et cetera? And through this work, we developed a comprehensive methodology, which is what we're going to discuss today. So we're incredibly grateful to to UK aid and frontier tech, which is kind of the spark of this project that got initiated us into this thinking and helped us put together this methodology that that we have today. And why are we why are we doing this? For a number of reasons, we think that in order to in order for blockchain projects to grow, we need to scale, and we need to build trust with donors, VCs and the communities by showing credible results. It's exactly what's on what's on that slide, right? So we need frameworks that work frameworks that are trusted that work, they can build that trust with these donors and speak the language of these donors. I always like to say that Bill Gates does not pay me to use Excel. I think he'll come a day with layer ones and layer twos will no longer finance blockchain stop of impact projects. And this funding will have to come from from this space for the international and humanitarian space. So it's good that we understand how they think and that we can speak to them in a way that is appealing in order to create those bridges and create that trust with them. So we've been seeing that impact is all over the place. It's growing tremendously. I don't need to go into this. So without further ado, why do we think what do we think are the problems that we are facing or that impact startups are facing when they try to prove their impact? And this might not be the case with all of you. Again, super humble here. This is just some thought and that we have gathered over the past few months and a couple of years even. And we've come up with amazing organizations who are also thinking about these things. But in general, and if we can generalize, we have seen that traditional methodologies that are used by USA, UK, and other large players and other implementing partners like Mercy Corps, Demonic, Creative, DAI, you named them, right? The famous organizations that are sub or get funding from the USA. They have very strong monitoring ability and accountability and learning methodologies, but they are simply not adapted to blockchain. They are not adapted to the inherent characteristics that make blockchain a specific, useful tool that increases the effectiveness of the programs. So you can't really measure that added value of blockchain, like what is the trust that's being created, the immutability component, transparency, the tokenomics that you use. That's new for them, right? We need to understand what is the value add that these that these characteristics bring to the table. Why is a blockchain solution more effective than another solution that does not use blockchain? At the end of the day, whenever we start to, we, whenever, excuse me, whenever we speak with a starter, the first question we ask is, why do you need why do you need blockchain, right? And you need to be able to quantify that and explain that clearly, because in many cases, you do not need blockchain. So we see that impact methodologies are sometimes not adapted to tell you why you need blockchain or what is that specific value add that helps you work through that. And that's the same thing as this second point, which I've already gone into, right? It's hard to quantify that second, that value added blockchain compared to traditional programming that has existed for many, many years. If you use blockchain for remittances in a refugee camp, yes, for us, we see the value add, but how do you transmit it to to the guy that runs, that runs the refugee camp, right? So you need those tools that allow you to measure that. And the other point and very important point is that startups are so busy because they have a short runway working on the tech, a number of other issues that they are not familiar with measurement methodologies. So the idea is that we need to understand why these results are not quantifiable. And why is this important for a number of reasons? Everybody thinks of funding. So and it's one of the major issues startups still have. So that we do acknowledge that monitoring tools can be very useful to convince donors and other investors to work with blockchain organizations. It's also very hard to scale if you don't know exactly what you're solving and specifically what is the value add of your solution, right? Then, and this is a very, very important component. Sometimes without even realizing it, we create risks. Yeah, we create certain circumstances in the field that we had a thought of just because we're working on our tech. We're working away from a certain solution. And just because sometimes there's so many layers to the onion that we don't quite understand how a certain community operates. Super easy example doesn't mean it's it's always the case. But it's we've seen things along the lines of, hey, I have a wonderful UBI solution, universal basic income solution, and that we have that we could use through blockchain. And we have thought that we could give $100 to 100 youth in a community in X country, whoever. Now, this on paper seems wonderful, right? You're helping a community by giving them economic support. But hey, wait a minute, what happens if you give money to 100 youth, but you're not channel channeling that funding through the elders of that community who had certain power structures in place, right? That community had certain power structures in place. You have come in with a very good idea, but you're creating changes in that power structure, which is not something you had previously intended. They might be positive. They might not, but you are creating them. So what are the consequences of those of those changes? Have you thought about those potential changes? How will you be able to overcome them, etc. Yeah, so what are the ethical effects that you might have there? And then finally, if we are able to show what our impact is in a professional way that is recognized with donors, we will be able to support our sector because it is, unfortunately, still associated with scams and real quick investments and all that stuff, right? So the idea is that it can professionalize our space. So I'll leave this one to Raquel. And the idea now is that we go a bit deeper. I don't have any questions if I'm feel free to type them in. Happy to do this in a participatory manner. But the idea is that we take a deeper dive and Raquel and I will have a bit of a conversation as we discuss what monitoring evaluation accountability learning is, how it impacts blockchain projects, etc. Raquel, please go ahead. So what is Mel? Yes. We have questions. I don't know if we are taking notes or we wait until the end. We have them already. Yeah, I get two questions. One, there is, we see a lot of initiatives where organizations are trying to find and we have a standards working group like we're trying to develop frameworks, kind of larger frameworks and drive use across different industries. One step that's kind of missing a lot of times is trying to kind of work across the different initiatives, kind of just building a network of networks. I've seen some good examples, like the Pathfinder framework, for example, is trying to build on a network of networks. And so I'm just kind of curious with Mel, is this something that you're trying to work across different initiatives or find ways for kind of cross collaboration to kind of bring people together? Because obviously a standard is only as good as the network that's using it, right? Right. So I'll give a quick overview on the responsible revolution and then perhaps you can do a deeper dive into the care center that we were building for startups. So two levels of thinking. The first one is we're putting together this industry-wide initiative called the Responsible Revolution. And the idea is that the main actors of the space work together for a couple of years with the UK's USA, et cetera, and a number of startups to evaluate these methodologies, work on them, and with a... I like working teams, but I think it's important that we separate working teams where you can only give a few hours of work every week with people who are fully dedicated solving a problem. The idea is that under the Responsible Revolution led by Raquel, we will be putting in place a team of two or three monitoring and evaluation experts who will be working on these methodologies and refining these concepts to which we've already spent a year on them and adapting them to the different projects and change that are interested in using them. You will also see as we discuss, as we go through our methodology, that it doesn't focus as much on the technology than on the needs and the realities that it is solving in the field. So it really, Raquel, to recognize from the wrong way, but this is how we thought about things. We see the technology as a tool that solves a specific need. So what we did is we took the approaches of international development organizations, from UNDP to USAID, et cetera, and refined those, refined them so that they, you can incorporate the value add that are created by using blockchain. So in principle, the kind of questions and the way we operate is open for any kind of chain, independently of its technology. Because of that focus on what is the impact that we are having at the end user on the one hand. And on the other hand, we are giving very detailed support to specific organizations under the care center, right? Raquel, if you want to give perhaps a couple examples of the work that we're doing, there are pick a couple organizations that are very different to each other to give share with an idea of the support we give. Yeah, so when we talk about the meal is touring, how we are regularly collecting data using it and how we are getting this information to improve our activities and be able to show our outcome, but also evaluation that is taking a photograph in different times of our project to see if everything is going as we want. Also accountability that is how we use our power because we have power in front of a vulnerable population and then learning how we are doing that to get better. So what we use, we use all this approach because when you have a donor, a government governmental donor for international cooperation and you need to have a need assessment and understand all the needs of the target population that you want to address and then a baseline. So you are able to monitor what you are doing during the time and then you have a set of activities that they're responsible for a lock frame or theory of change and you have your indicators and all of that. So we're trying to, how would you say mentoring and at least to be the start-up to follow up this approach. We need to say like we are focused on social and environmental start-up and not all of them because there is some start-up that we cannot help them with this approach because we are very focused on social and environmental impact. And there, so we develop two frameworks. These frameworks is their standard diet. We try to standard diet because it's very complicated because social problems, they must be very specific. So sometimes the same social problem in one country, you cannot scale easily because the people are different, the context is different. So while we are trying to help the start-up to understand how to approach these social needs and how you can afford them and how you can help them and how you can measure the impact of your activities because we have positive impact that we expect, but sometimes we have unintended consequences because the start-up they're very focused on technology and sometimes we are seeing that they leave a population behind. Like, okay, we trust local NGOs that they are doing that, but when you ask them how the beneficiaries were selected, it was in a fair manner. Why was the selection criteria? Are you, what are the consequences for the local market? They don't know. They don't know how to answer you. They don't have the information because they're very focused on technology and the solution and have everything right in code, but they don't know how to approach people and social problems. So that is why we want to help them to improve that. So in there we have the Polygon Impact Center. We have almost 20 start-ups there and we are using this approach. One tool, we have two tools to provide technical support to these start-ups. One tool, blockchain value up. From our research that I share in the chat, from this research we identified several dimensions where blockchain is adding value in trust, transparency, reduced cost, interoperability, tokenization. There are things that are specific for blockchain and they are also improving and enhance a lot of impact in the social space. But so we create this tool linked to the social impact. So there we have the dimension. We create a set of guiding questions. So we spend like two hours, three hours with the start-up interviewing them and getting all the information. And then we put the information in our tool with a score.  Because using this tool we have the like, okay, if you want to to, if your most important value at this trust you need to have all these aspects, they must to be in the top of your solution. So that is one thing what we are doing. And then we have another tool that is the impact framework. And there is more on the start-ups that are working in social impact and also environmental impact. And that is to help them to understand, to develop a theory of change, metrics, indicators and how they are approaching the problem, how they are measuring, how they are avoiding unintended consequences. And we also provide them with technical support and tools to improve their start-ups. For example, if we have a project of financial inclusion it's not just the measuring whether the target population have received the money because sometimes the start-ups they are focused on that, okay, they have the money I have the transaction I have everything is public. Okay, everything is good. But because you don't know the impact on the local markets for example, do the traders are also benefiting for this support are also they are able to cope with increased demand for the products in the local market or what about the people they are not received anything maybe they are also suffering because there is a negative impact because you are providing cash transfer in the village and now the prices for food or basic necessities are increasing because there is more demand. So it's very important to understand all the components when you are working with people and more when you are in vulnerable context because you don't know sometimes technology allow us to reach the people we want to reach but we need also to make sure the people who are not directly services have not been affected either. So that is why we want to we are working with with startups to help them to improve that and it's an amazing work because when we are working with these guiding questions the real life like okay, we never think about that or we are not considering this and we never thought about the privacy of the time the population of security issues that we can we need to take into account you know what initiative so that is a little bit overview of the tools or methodology. I think Raquel since I don't want to jump in against your word. I did. Yeah, just something that comes to mind. Can you speak specifically to why why in your solution blockchain is like how you're quantifying the value out of blockchain. You know, it's something that what why you could do this with a centralized database. You could do it with a centralized database. Our solution what we've been working on is not blockchain based. Right. It doesn't have a token. It doesn't actually need blockchain to work. Our solution is a quality is a combination of qualitative and and quantitative methods in order to track that impact. Okay. Perhaps perhaps we would we could do Raquel because there's a question from Alfonso that is that's that's that's very important is the difference between mail and other M or V methodologies. And I think Alfonso that the way to answer this question is it perhaps explaining what the different parts of mail. Right. And then we can see the difference with M or V. I think that will allow us allow us to see the difference. But I think Raquel has already hinted how it goes beyond M or V. You will see that it's kind of if it's kind of a larger umbrella that focuses more on the on the social impact that you have on the people then on the specific solution that you might have on the specific outputs that you might have. Excuse me. Right. Raquel. Yeah. Sure. Sure. I think a meal is more comprehensive. There is a more holistic approach because you are considering all the time the population feedback for example, in accountability you implement complaints mechanisms. You have a shared information plan to share information all the time with a community. You are collecting feedback. You are collecting complaints. You are also increased participation because they need to be part of for a decision making process in all the stage not just when you're implementing your activity but also in the design also when you are doing an evaluation. So it's more for me more social, more increase the community involvement increase quality too because people have the right to decide. Right. You cannot go to somewhere and say, OK, I'm going to do that in your village. People need to decide if that is the best solution for them. How they want to be involved. How they want to communicate with you. And all of that we are sometimes we are missing that when we create a solution. We want just to see a problem in the internet. We say, OK, we need to go there. But there we are not involving community some kind of population in all process. All the all these so for me meal is more holistic, more more more important that M.R.V. M.R.V. sometimes it's just in the indicators, quantitative data. Try to track in the information but you are not collecting this quality that is data that is very important. Sherwood Alfonso, I wish we could say, hey, our solution is on blockchain. I truly wish we could say that. But we realized and we went through this. You kept imagine how many conversations we had on this right. We think that the human component to measure impact is so important under this approach. The qualitative aspect of it that we didn't find a way of having of having it perform automatically by an algorithm. It doesn't mean, however, that as much as we can using these quantitative and qualitative methods that we have been able to come up with with a tool where we take a number of characteristics of blockchain and that we can measure. We can assign it a value and then come up with a number and a spider chart, etc. to understand where that project is going, what are strong points, is weaker points and necessary improvements, etc. But not as a not as a tokenized or just a blockchain solution in itself, right? So what we did is we When I was asking that question, because we obviously thought a lot about this. And so something like blockchain, you know, provides a value. I was just trying to understand where blockchain could provide value for meal. And so for one example, you know, when you have something like this, we were dealing with so many different projects across the world. Obviously, verifications are really a kind of hard piece. The solutions that we built and looked at the reason that the DLT is so valuable or can provide valuable value in situations like this is because they can provide kind of access to a layer of information that allows you to kind of scale and decentralize the verification component of it. You know, if you allow a lot of different people in a particular region, for example, to be aware of and understand that they can be compensated somehow or receive some value for verifying something about a project, you know, that can provide a lot of value and decentralize, obviously like a decentralized approach provides a little bit better tool for use cases like that. So that's kind of what, that's my motivation behind the question was really trying to kind of pull out and tease out the areas where DLT provide potential value for meal. We absolutely agree that DLT can provide value to monitoring evaluation about the religion and learning without a doubt, right? We think it's part of a comprehensive approach where at the end of the day, you still need to go outside of a technical solution by understanding certain aspects that are hard to quantify and when you talk with the people in the field. So absolutely, there are specific components, particularly in the environmental projects where DLT can add value without a doubt. That's not what we're trying to say at all. Yeah, but just following up on Alphonse's point, we're in general, we ask these questions because we've been through the, blockchain is good for everything gauntlet and we really try to kind of pull out and ask questions that really tease out to understand if it's useful and where it's useful because it isn't useful for everything, you know? Yeah, actually this is the first question we always ask the startup is, why do you need blockchain? And if the answer takes more than three or four sentences, most of the times you don't really need blockchain, but it's not a good definition here. But I think it's important to acknowledge a conceptual difference here where our task is to understand the impact that social and environmental projects that use blockchain has on people. At the end of the day, everything we do has an objective. Raquel, I'm speaking under your authority, you're the male expert, I was more of a journalist in the field, right? But at the end of the day, all the international development we have worked has an objective, which is to improve people's lives one way or another. If you're not achieving that, the rest doesn't really matter. When you look at it from this perspective, blockchain can be a tool to achieve this. We're not looking at it that the change that the blockchain itself is the change. We're working with many startups who are solving problems that have been solved or we've been trying to solve them for the past 60 or 70 years. For example, more efficient agricultural systems for farmers, payment platforms for farmers or access to insurance through smart contracts, boom. You can have a farmer that is paid automatically when the insurance is linked to an article. This is the kind of project where this methodology can analyze to what extent that blockchain solution is more effective than a solution that doesn't use blockchain. Yeah, when you're doing insurance system and there's no blockchain, the farmer doesn't actually know what they signed. They might be, they might tell them, hey, the insurance company might be a scam, who knows? But by putting in blockchain, you have an automatic payment linked to an article and that farmer should be paid, or so it seems. But perhaps the farmer doesn't even know what his seed phrase is. And we're causing more harm than good because he loses the money. So we need methodologies that help us track to what extent these solutions that are theoretically solving real life use cases and improving people's lives are achieved thanks to blockchain or are more complicated because of blockchain. So it's not solutions that depend 100% on blockchain. What we're seeing is that many of them use blockchain to increase the efficiency of solutions that have been put in place over the past 100 of years, right? I see where you're going with the show, but that's a bit the difference where we're going with this. Does that answer the question? Yes. Yes, and also just to add something to that, that is what we have seen, is there is a lot of quantity that is data. They're just focused on numbers and try to get to the transaction. The things that are very quantitative, but we don't have a qualitative data. And that is what we want to change a little bit for the startups, like try to collect more qualitative data, feedback, other evaluation, other things from the final target population to also get that on your initiative. Not just the focus on numbers on a number of transactions. Okay, we send them money. That's all a check. No, it's not like that. What are how the people feel about that? What is the impact on the field? Because if not, we are missing a lot of information that is crucial, not just for you, you've messaged your startup or your activities, but also because you want to change people's lives. So we need to attract more information about that. But I would love to keep this conversation going after this one hour, because the more we talk, the clearer it is to me, the synergies that our groups could have here, right? Because we come from different approaches and we all want to solve the same problem and we're approaching it from different angles. And I do see tremendous value by the questions you're asking and the way you're approaching it compared to how we think about it, that makes sense to carry on this conversation and potentially even work on these solutions together. Perhaps Raquel, if you could, we could do a bit of a deeper dive to answer. I mean, it's great, I have a constant show where you actually guiding us through the presentation and you're hitting on the key questions we want to solve, right? How we're turning this qualitative data into how do we process it? Perhaps we can do a bit of a deeper dive by taking two, three examples of how we took very large pools of problem sets and broke them down into few specific questions and then took them down to specific numbers into a spider web solution, right? Maybe we can take a couple of examples there, Raquel, of the tools we used. Yeah, so for qualitative data, it depends on the type of information that you are collecting. If it's feedback, if it's all their kind of information, it depends on the type of data that you are collecting. So we are just in different, we are proposing different solution for that. You have different, now with artificial intelligence, you have a very easy way to do it, but there is other methodologies like another app, like in Viva or the cloud. So there is a different way to analyze qualitative data and there you can also get your conclusion for that and it's not complicated. We are using open questions in our surveys and we recommend also to get feedback from participants. So I don't know if you have more questions there. I will meet a little bit. Why don't we take, so in the blockchain impact framework, right? We can, in this slide, why don't we take one of these key questions like sort of the problem analysis and walk our friends through the different kinds of questions we do. Here we have the first layer. We can take whichever you think makes the most sense and have a bit of a discussion, right? So when we do the blockchain impact framework, we're looking at three big blocks of information to understand the core dimension of the project. So the monitoring and evaluation, accountability and learning component, to what extent this project is sustainable and what is the core use of the technology of that project and that triangle gives you an overall idea of where that project is going. And these are just the subtitles and all that we analyze, as you can see in the middle of this slide, which carries on male sustainability and technology. And when we click on each one of them, we take theory of change and outcome assessment, we take a needs assessment. It pops out to another menu where we have a series of questions and we work with the startup to understand to what extent they have a theory of change, how they thought about the impact that the project has on the community, the legal and ethical considerations of that project regarding data protection or protection from harm or what grievance reversal mechanisms do they have in place when the project is actually put in place and oh my God, we messed up, what do we do now? Well, we have a backup plan in case we thought of that Black Swan or not, what is our sustainability plan that doesn't only have to do, again with funding, but it has to do with the environmental impact that you have, the extent to which the community is trained and supported to use that technology over the long run, et cetera, right? So this is how we go from an abstract idea and slowly by going through all these questions, we end up to a situation where we can quantify that by giving a grade at the end of the day. But Kjell, do you want to take one or two that seem particularly interesting or do you guys want to pick one we could also do it that way? But just by looking at this, it gives you an idea of the level of detail of the framework and the kind of question that we ask to get that comprehensive assessment of the impact that a blockchain, that I should, sorry, I should say that a project that uses blockchain to overcome a specific problem users, right, to choose? Yeah, for example, as Ed said, we have a theory of change and outcome assessment, right, for social problem analysis dimension. So we ask there to the initiative, for example, if they have identified a clear problem statement and they are addressing a specific social problem and depending on their answer that we collect, then we analyze their documentation and it depending also in their answer and we provide them a score from not meet, partially meet, mostly meet, fully meet or non-applicable because sometimes they have some aspects to the tool that they are not applicable. So using this way, at the end, we have a final score because for each dimension, we have a different sections inside. For example, for the value add of blockchain, we have trust and transparency. For inside of trust and transparency, we have evidence, trust, record keeping, target population and knowledge man, a dispute resolution, behavioral change, communication, et cetera, et cetera. For each of these dimension, we have what we are looking for. For example, for evidence. So we want to understand which kind of specific instance and evidence where blockchain is a non-transparency in this area. So we ask them for a specific example, examples where transparency or trust will be needed and the database that they show that. So it depends on the response and also their information that they share with us. We provide them a score from not meet to fully meet and they are provided some score and then we see where at the end, we have a graph that show us where is the start up for all these dimension and where they have to be because if they have to meet evidence trans at all these subdimensions in this big dimension that is trust or transparency, they have to feel all the aspects and if not, we must work on that. So in the Polygon Impact Center, we use this tool as an assessment to identify the area source improvement, the opportunities, how we can help them. So when we have all these tools already with all the information that we are looking for and then we develop a recommendation and action plan with the start up and we start to work with them to reinforce all of that. So now blockchain for them, it's increasing trust or transparency and they can use that for their narrative to sell better this idea because we are seeing and assessing in all the dimension that their initiative has improving and they are showing more impact. Guys, before we go on, I want to thank you. This is, I'm sure Raquel will agree. This is probably one of the most interesting webinars we've done with the level of feedback and discussion and the quality of this group is extraordinary. So thank you for that. We're having a wonderful time. Thank you for that. I really appreciate these questions and the way you're making us think as we go forward. It's really, really cool. Having said that, I think Alfonso has another question where he's saying scores an interesting approach is the grading policy public and transparent. Well, honestly, that it will depend. It depends what each startup wants to do, right? We're not here to impose our systems to anyone to put point fingers or whatever. We're here to help the startups if they want to make it public. They're more than welcome to. But we think that in the long run, it would be ideal if we could come up with a system where we would have external and we'd love your support here, right? To take it a step further. What we're taking this as less developed is methodology. Let's come up with a series of people that are trained to provide these evaluations, the support, et cetera, because we need to standardize. The problem with grading is that you need people that standardize the grading. If not, it doesn't mean anything, right? Different people can grade very differently. So for the grading to work, it has to be a certain set of people who can grade this in a very similar manner if you want to then publish this and use it, right? We can also give it to startups and they can self-grade, use it themselves, et cetera. But of course, as you say, it's about the governance of grading. We need to give it some more thought of what is the best way to move this forward so that if it is published, it is equitable and it means the same thing no matter who uses it. And that's tricky as always. It's like when I pass my driver's license, who gets to say whether I'm good enough to drive or not? Well, theoretically, you've got these people that passed a test and a certain amount of training and were qualified to give out those grades. So grading is always incredibly tricky. We have one question, just a privilege. I did put a link out there about an e-book that we put out around why blockchain technology specifically improved environmental, social impacts, logistics, all kinds of things. One of the things I was gonna ask you around the grading is one of the things we ran into with measurement was, I'll give a good example, government of Rwanda, the mining board implemented blockchain technology so that they could prove through tokenization that tantalum, which is in cell phones and very key where earth, at least where earth, wasn't produced using child labor and it was under OECD conditions. And so this is something that's running now in blockchain and they can now certify that tantalum was not produced under those conditions, but we couldn't measure out of them as we couldn't go back and say, well, how much child labor were you using in the past? This has improved. They're not gonna admit that. So we've run it down in a couple of areas where we couldn't go to them and say you were polluting or how is this reduced polluting on a measurement scale? It's the same with, let's say like child labor, you can't go to the Rwanda mining board and say how much child labor was being used in the past? We know it's maybe reduced by 97%, they're not gonna admit how much was used in the past because now they've got something to improve it. How do you go back and measure that? Is this something that you don't measure? Then I just say, this is how it's being done today. You don't compare it to past performance at all? That question just ends at all. Yeah, it does. There's different things you can do, right? So independently of the pre-project, what is generally done in an international development project as I'm sure you guys know is you need a baseline. You need a pre-report, then a halfway, a midway, and then a final report to see that evolution, right? And one of the things you can track there is how that changes all the time in that project, of course. However, if you're looking before that, there's various things you can do. The first thing that you can potentially do is look for similar projects under similar circumstances, which is not always easy. You can look at different areas of that country, you can look at different countries with similar circumstances, and look at the figures there to compare. But again, this is always very hard to do. Or you can also look at secondary data. But it's incredibly hard to measure with precision unless there have been scientific studies of that beforehand. Or establishing a control group. You provide assistance to one group, and in the same area, you don't provide to another group, and you measure both of them. But these are very ethical restraints there. It's tricky to do that because you are asking people to provide you with information, and you are not giving anything in return. That has been very tricky on the field, but I have been working in several projects where we have a control group. We have another group where we are providing, for example, cash transfer during an emergency. And we were measuring both groups at the same time to see the impact in both groups. Because the other group that they didn't receive anything, they also have an impact on that. But you have to do this very, very well because obviously, correlation doesn't equal causation. So sometimes there are external factors that create those changes that are unrelated to your project. So you have to do this very, very seriously and very, very well. And you have to be able to take those hypotheses and work on them properly because you just never know sometimes. Yeah, yeah. So you need to have for people. They know very well the methodologies for social impact on methodologies, yeah. I mean, Dwight, I shared a link. I highly recommend you join one of our standards working group calls that Alfonso shared. I wanted to ask a question. I know we're kind of starting to run up on time, but this is a really kind of near and dear to my heart. It's about the verification. And I was wondering if you could provide a specific example for example, how you go about proving the money dispersed to an organization goes to do what it says it's going to do. This is a very easy kind of use case, kind of what's the value add that you bring to that particular process with meal and the work that you're doing. You can take this one, Raquel, or should I? Go ahead. Okay, yeah. So basically, I think there's only one way of doing that. You need to, so there's two, sorry. Let me take a step back. The tools we have developed right now, these are tools that help an organization assess where it stands and what it should be doing. It's an overview. Now, in order to do the monitoring evaluation accountability and learning yourself and go into the weeds, I truly think that the only way to do that is going out there. Yeah, it's going out there. Speaking is doing first your backup research, talk to the donors, talk to everyone involved, et cetera. But at the core, it's the people with whom you're working, yeah? The people whose lives you're trying to improve, the people you're the community you're supporting. And the only way to do that is to go out there, work with them and interview them and spend time with them. And there are methods to do that by developing the baseline, the mid report and the final report so that you can actually measure that. And those methodologies have, by our understanding, don't have much to do with blockchain. Sorry, they don't have much to do with blockchain, right? The traditional mail methodologies that we have been implementing in our free blockchain world, that seems so many years back now, right? When we were working in the case of Burkale in DRC and Haiti, in my case in Niger, we actually met in Niger. And where we had a specific team that only did monitoring evaluation, believe it or not, I might get the percentage right, it changes, but a USA project that's maybe $5 million has a three to 7% of its budget that only goes to monitoring evaluation to set up a full team that does that. And these methodologies exist, right? So the beauty is that when we start doing this, we should be able to do that M&E, monitoring evaluation, combined with this idea that blockchain adds value and bringing in these new tools that we're developing now. Got it, yeah. And this goes back to that original question, right? Why is it so hard to measure those results on chain because there's that human component that qualitative component. You need to talk to people at the end of the day. That's the conclusion we reached if you want to have that comprehensive picture. We do think blockchain makes life very precise and much easier for us, but there's something about talking to people that's human factor that you always need to keep into consideration, I would say. Very good. Well, we're running up on time here. I want to be cognizant of that. This is a really delightful, really interesting presentation. So I want to thank you very much, Edward and Raquel for sharing your subject matter expertise and giving us some things to think about. I'd love for you both to join the standards working group call that Alfonso mentioned. I've shared a link for it. And yeah, we'd love to continue the conversation. Please let us know how things are going and happy I'd always kind of have the group collaborate and brainstorm about ideas. Our mailing list is a great way to do that, just kind of posting questions of interest. The community will usually jump on that and everybody has a lot of really interesting opinions and resources. And yeah, I just want to thank you so much both for coming and sharing today. I think we all really enjoyed it. It's been a pleasure, as we said before, you got this thinking, right? And this is when it was fun and entertaining. And yeah, let's keep talking because we're launching this responsible revolution. We'd love to have you guys on board. We're talking to the main players on this and it seems like a no-brainer. You guys really, really get it, right? So we hope to join your working groups and we'd love to have you also on board with the responsible revolution. Let's keep talking and thanks so much. Also thank you, Raquel, for your expertise. You've been instrumental in making this happen. And yeah, it's been an absolute pleasure all around. Yeah, thank you so much for having us. It has been a pleasure. Thank you. You're very welcome. Thanks, everyone. Bye. Thank you, bye.


Good afternoon and welcome to the Private Property Show House edition. If you're looking for that perfect home, if you're looking to start your family in a new home, this indeed is the show for you where we travel around South Africa and you see more amazing homes, which are for sale. Of course, we have other shows coming to you every day this week. We have Samantum Gwakumalo with the Private Property podcast that's every weeknight at 7pm. And of course, if you're interested in farming and agriculture, well, we've got Mbali on the ones and twos every Tuesday and Thursday night at 8pm. If you're still looking for that perfect home, join Chad Vaviros as he tours mansions, loft departments, townhouses, gorgeous, gorgeous homes around South Africa. And last but not least, we do have the first time home buyer show. Are you looking to build your property portfolio? Are you looking to make that first investment and purchase that first home? Well, this is the show for you. That's every Wednesday night at 8pm, the first time home buyer show. Good afternoon and welcome to the Saturday Show House edition. We start off in the gorgeous Cape Town, Balval Boston area over here, a five bedroom, three bathroom and three garages.  And now we head on over to a bigger home, a six bedroom house in Dazalza. Of course, as soon as you start driving through the secured gulf estate, the views and the luxury begin. This is a six bedroom, five bathroom and three garages. Absolutely gorgeous in the most sought after, secluded estate over here in Cape Town. And a four bedroom, gorgeous home, Flottenburg over here with three bathrooms and two garages. Of course, this is an opportunity that comes once in a while, a home like this, absolutely gorgeous while looked after, by its owners and ready for a new family to move right in. Have a look at these gorgeous homes, perfect for the family, for the kids, as well as the main ensuite for you. Absolutely gorgeous. And the next home, if you are watching this today, tomorrow on the first of August, it is a open house. So you can go and have a look from three to five p.m. at this gorgeous home in Valche Liechen. It is a five bedroom, three bathroom and three garages. Absolutely gorgeous, massive family home for you. Of course, Valche Liechen is a secured area and neighborhood as well. And of course, the views absolutely gorgeous and close to amazing amenities. And next up still in the northern suburbs of Cape Town, an 11 bedroom house. Yes, you heard me correctly. 11 beds, 10 baths and three garages. Of course, this home also well maintained while looked after. You can use it as a BNB, ABNB, a guest house or a big family home. It is spacious. And of course it does have a balcony, kitchen, loving areas and 11 bedrooms. Have a look and enjoy. Still in the northern suburbs of Cape Town, Paro North, the gorgeous home over here. Perfect family home for bedrooms, three bathrooms and two garages. Of course, experience the love, peace and tranquil atmosphere. Just as we continue to look through this home, it does have that vintage styled living area and a cozy fireplace. This is definitely the home for you from the entertainment area to the views, to the bathrooms, to the kitchen. Definitely do not miss this opportunity. And here we are in Kylemore, a three bedroom, two bathroom home. Perfect for that start out family home. Of course.   Add this to your wish list because it's absolutely gorgeous. And here we are in Durbanville, 11 bedrooms, seven bathrooms and eight garages. This is an 156 hectare farm in Durbanville. Absolutely gorgeous as you can see we have drone shots and it is absolutely massive. Still in Durbanville, central three bedroom house, perfect family home, lovely flow, entertainment area and pool area. Absolutely gorgeous look at that entertainment area, covered patio. Perfect for those nights when you brye in doors. And last but not least we end off in Frida, a two bedroom apartment, two bathrooms and one garage. This is your first time investing in property. This is definitely the home for you all the way in Cape Town. Of course do not forget that we have open houses, show houses on Sunday afternoons. Check our website for more information. Take care and we'll see you guys again tomorrow.


A two-dimensional phononic crystal sensor model was developed for detecting acetone concentrations in a wide frequency range, 25 to 45 kHz. The model was composed of quasi-crystalline and gradient cavity structures, resulting in high quality factors and sensitivities for different acetone concentrations. The sensor's performance was verified through calculations of its sensitivity to sound velocity and density. This article was authored by Chen Yinfang, Xiaowei Sun, Xiaodong Wen, and others.


Mr. Bali, you know how important is the role of corporates today in entrepreneurship? Do you feel that the onus lies with corporates? And how are corporates like Volvo, India, taking the agenda ahead? Ashika, very well said actually. I mean if you look at the current state of the business and commerce and the way a title change is happening across the world of commerce it's very very clear that corporates have to do a reality check. So in view of the changes happening a couple of things are getting very critical. Corporates have to become much more agile and fleet-footed. Customers do not want products, they want solutions which one single corporate cannot provide a 360 degree solution. So it's actually very pertinent for corporates to start partnering and the era of partnership and collaborations is actually going to be the new hallmark of the world of commerce and business. So therefore it's very very pertinent for corporates to look out for new entrepreneurs, startups or even existing customers and suppliers to co-create. There are lots of, when I talk of change, there's lots of change which is happening when it comes to the young generation. They want to be seen as job creators and not job seekers. So therefore it also services their purpose and they see a lot of value and so we can give, corporates can give them a quick access to market by getting their products or their ideas or their solutions on the corporate bandwagon and it's a win-win for both.


First question is from Cyprian Bolen, how often do you use supersets and what muscle groups do you use them with? Are there any groups that are better suited to supersetting or is it good to mix them around every now and then? Oh, great question. You know, supersets have been a bodybuilding staple for quite a long time. I think they achieved a lot of their popularity in the 70s during the golden era of bodybuilding. This is when you had like Arnold Schwarzenegger who was dominating that whole thing. So the idea behind a superset essentially is you do two exercises back to back. That's the breakdown of a superset. Cut the rest in between. But there's a lot of value in different ways to do supersets. So that's like generally what they mean, but I like to personally use supersets as ways to combine a compound movement with an isolation movement to target a particular body part. So a good example would be supersetting bench press with flies, right? So I did the bench press first. That's my compound movement. Then I go to flies to really hammer out and squeeze the pecs or reverse, do the flies first, then do the bench press. That's known as a pre-exhaust superset. The main benefits I see of them, honestly it all boils down to getting an insane pump. Yeah. Getting lots of blood to the muscle. It's a tool. I think there's a place for it. I think it's a great way to build volume into your program. But I also think that you should scale up to it. So if I'm following like a strength-based program where I'm running like a five by five, I wanna run that and I wanna slowly start to add volume. When I get to a place where in an hour workout, I'm starting to max out. Like I'm moving from exercise to exercise. I've been doing that over the last six months. This is where I like to start to add things like supersets so I can build more volume into the workout versus I'm a new lifter or I haven't been lifting for a long time. I just start getting into it. I'm listening to Mind Pump. They talk about the benefits of supersets. So also then I'm throwing supersets into my workout. It's an advanced technique. And it also, it lends itself better with hypertrophy training.  You're gonna get this massive pump. If I'm strength training in like I said, like a five by five type of block, I see less value in doing supersets. I see more value when I move into the 10 to 15 rep range and I'm chasing the pump. I'm chasing hypertrophy. Then it makes more sense to throw supersets into the routine. You can abuse them just like any other thing. I see this is the bad side is I've seen people who all they're focused on is hypertrophy. All they're focused on is body sculpting. And that's all the routine consists of. I was guilty of this. It's addictive. Yeah, I was guilty of this. And I think so are a lot of body builders. Yeah, you won't get results. You won't continuously get results from them. Yeah, and it gives you this artificial feeling that you're getting results because you get a massive pump. Yeah, you get all aired up. And so you think that this is like the go-to every time I want to walk out of the gym feeling nice and big and puffed up and it provides that feeling for sure. I've also used it too. Like if you want to go like biceps to triceps or you want to do something like that in terms of not hitting the same muscle group but now you're hitting opposing muscle groups, another valid way. Yeah, now the reason why I like to do that is because of the feel. I don't know if it necessarily has any value. Makes you look big on Instagram. It does. It does. Before I do any pictures, I do a lot of this. Guilty. Adam called me out. No, but seriously. So Arnold loved doing a chest-to-back superset. So he would do this one. He's famous for it. He would go bench press to pull-ups, so lats to chest. Now I don't know if there's any necessarily any muscle building benefits but there's a great feel benefit. And I'll make this argument all day long. The feel you get from your workouts contributes to your progress as well. If I start to enjoy the feeling of my workout and what I'm doing, I'm probably gonna have better workouts. I'm probably gonna have better focus. Here's the other thing with supersets. They taught me how to prime my body before I even knew what priming was all about. I'll give you, I'll tell you guys a story. When I was a kid working out, one of the hardest body parts for me to feel early on was my lats. It was really hard. I would do pull-ups and I would do rows and I would just get a pump on my biceps and my forearms. And it was really hard for me to feel anything happening in my lats. Part of it was because they were underdeveloped. I was a kid. The other part was I had no idea how to connect to them because they're on the back of my body. Don't know what they're supposed to feel like. So then I read this book by Mike Menser called Heavy Duty and he talks about pre-exhaust supersets where you do an isolation movement for a body part and then you go to a compound movement and the whole concept of it was you pre-exhaust. For example, we use the bench press fly example. When I do a bench press and I go to, let's say I go to failure, the muscles that may fail before the target muscle or the chest, that might get in the way of me progressing. If I fail on bench press, maybe it's my shoulders and my triceps that give out, not my chest. So how do I maximize the effect on my chest? I know I could pre-exhaust the chest by doing flies first, then going to the bench press, now I'm gonna pre-exhaust. Now they've done studies on this and there's pre-exhaust, there's some debate as to whether or not there's any value to what I just said. But there is value to this. So I couldn't feel my lats. I was gonna say there is if you feel it. Yes, yes. So I read this book, I did pullovers, dumbbell pullovers, first isolates lats, then I did pullups. First time in my life, I felt my lats, had a pump. From that day forward, I could connect to my lats when I get back. If you've been training for a long time, you know this is like a great secret. If you get a client that wants to develop their butt, common one that you get as a trainer and they don't feel it though. Oh Adam, every time I do squats, every time I do deadlifts, I feel it in my quads, I feel it in my hamstrings, but my butt just doesn't get pumped, it doesn't get sore. So one of the best things that you can do with a client like that, because we know, we've talked about this before, that squats and deadlifts are some of the best movements that you can do to build the butt. The problem with that is getting the butt to move and work and fire the way you want it to if you're not connected or you can't feel it. So I'll take a client over and we'll do floor bridges, single leg or both feet on the ground and actually get a pump in their butt or a pre-exhaust like Sal's talking about and then go over and do squats. Now they feel it. And they feel it more. Whether the studies show that they build more of a butt from that or not, it doesn't matter if the client can connect and feel the butt better, it's going to benefit them squatting if they're trying to develop their butt. Yeah, because then you start, what ends up happening is now you squat and you can feel the glutes and so you squat a little bit differently. Now you're activating the target muscle better. I think that has tremendous value. Unfortunately, the studies that do that, Adam, they don't do them long enough. I think you follow people for a year with pre-exhaust techniques and that's when you're going to see. It only makes sense, man. If you gain access now to that pathway, you can recruit more muscle fibers at that point. Like there's got to be a way to study improve the fact that once we actually can highlight and activate certain muscle groups, like now having that access, I can increase that. Totally. Where will you find supersets in our programs? You'll find supersets in our body shaping, body building type of routines. The routines that really focus on when you're trying to shape and sculpt and build. A static, split, PED, all have them. Yeah, map split. Map split has lots of supersets towards the end because typically the way our programs work is there's different phases and different focuses. When you're focusing on strength and building strength, which also is very important, no supersets. But when you get to the end, now we're progressing to the supersets and you'll find the last phase is full of these pump inducing supersets. And when you do it that way, man, the results are just crazy.


Millie on my wrist, I bust it down King in my city, where the crown Got a check, need another now, I can never get enough Yeah, that's right, I can never, I can never, I can never get enough Billy, I've been watching you play football for 15 years And when you meet somebody for the first time that you've been watching play for that long You wonder certain things, and here's what I've always wondered about you You knew who you were when you were sophomore in high school You were a huge deal, go to Alabama, huge deal Go to the NFL, 7 Pro Bowls How have you always handled the pressure of being a top level player at every level? Right, for me, handling the pressure, there's no pressure for myself, right?  So it's easy for you to wake up Day in and day out to glide and perform So that's how you're so relaxed?  So it's just like I don't want to let them down I'm also letting myself down When was it in your life that you knew this could happen That you could be this kind of player? For me it's just, you know, one player at a time One snap at a time, one day at a time This is how I live, this is how I play the game Football each and every day, tomorrow is not a promise So it's just like, like I said, I just think it's no regrets You know what I'm saying? At the end of the day, don't take anything for granted Because things can be taken away from you Just like that If you talk to a receiver at any level today They want to talk to you about how they'd like to be Julio Jones What's that like for you right now at this point in your life? Knowing that kids back, middle school kids right now say I want to be Julio Jones It's very important for me, you know, I see the lead by example Do the right things, all the small things But what I would tell a young player coming up And things like that, you can take from my game But be your own man Because if you want to be me, you'll be second I want everybody to be the best version of themselves You know, it's okay to take from other people's game Different things like that But you'll never be the best if you're trying to beat me You see what I'm saying?  Just the ability, longevity Right? And just put the level of the game I still love the game It's not like I do it because I have to do it I do it because I love it And everybody, some guys can play 3 years 4 years and be done 9 years and be done You know, I'm going into my 11 season And for me, I still love the game So I think for me, the way I've balanced football In my life is that it's still important to me And I love it It's not like I don't feel like it's a job for me That I have to come here and work Finally, are you surprised in any way That all of this has happened to you over the last 15 years? No, I'm not surprised at all Like I said, there's no substitute for hard work And what you put in is what you're going to get out of it The end of the day is just the longevity side of it You're blessed to be able to play for this long And do it at a high level But it's a lot of injuries And a lot of guys' careers and dreams And stuff like that But I haven't been fortunate enough That I haven't had any those type of injuries And stuff like that So I'm very appreciative of that And just the teammate side I had over the years Coaching stuff and different things like that That has allowed me to play this game for so long What's the best compliment Julio Jones has gotten? Or who Julio Jones gets? Probably being a great teammate I would say that


We have, in the past, covered the astonishing mega-metropolis that has been unearthed using ground-penetrating radar beneath the nearly impenetrable rainforest that now engulfs the area. A super-civilization that not only supports our posit of there once being a number of lost civilizations that have flourished and often seemingly met an untimely demise here on our planet, but has been estimated to have been home to more than 10 million sites such as Tikal once believed to be independent separate clusters of past impressive and as yet unexplained block buildings, through the use of ground-penetrating radar, have been proven, beyond doubt, to have once been part of the same super-settlement that span nearly the entire rainforest that the site is now home to. Yet we have also covered the incredible ancient stone and earthworks that can be found dotting many areas of the Amazonian rainforest that, again, are indicative of a past super-civilization, yet conveniently, since the discovery of Guatemala's super-city, funding for such penetrative studies elsewhere of said areas has dried up. The question is why? Why are we witnessing an active attempt to conceal these ruins from the world? We feel the evidence to suggest so is now beginning to mount. However, where mainstream academia won't step, many others are fortunately willing to pick up the slag, and this particular area of interest is of no exception, and as usual, the investigative researchers have turned up some astonishing characteristics of the Amazonian rainforest, features which are indicative of another super-settlement, possibly of a similar size to that of the ancient sites found within Guatemala. A group of scientists and researchers, after investigating the area, have put forward what has been pinned as the Amazonian Stonehenge, according to said researchers, they found evidence that a, quote, highly advanced ancient civilization once existed in Brazil, and although they have dated the ruins, as having been built 500 years before the European colonization of the Americas began, we feel that the evidence to suggest that they were in reality far before this date will soon be realized, and that these people who once inhabited the Brazilian Amazon were possibly creating an impressive arrangement of immense towering granite blocks. As such, scientists today speculate that these massive stones were like so many other sites we have covered in the past, attributed as that of an ancient astronomical observatory. The structure consists of 27 blocks of granite, each up to 4 meters tall, standing upright in a circle measuring over 30 meters in diameter. In other words, possibly more than a thousand years ago, an ancient civilization of native peoples were flourishing in the area. According to the New York Times, radiocarbon tests and site measurements during the winter solstice shed light on the ancient civilization's abilities that inhabited the Amazon. From this, new archaeologists have realized that the people who lived in the area developed a more advanced civilization than previously thought. Who built the Amazon Stonehenge? When did they build it? Is there a lost super-settlement hidden beneath the Amazonian rainforest, as that of the Guatemala rainforest? We find the evidence to suggest such, highly compelling. We have long conjectured that many ancient ruins found throughout the world are not what they seem, attributed to groups within known and permitted history. We feel, however, that the evidence to suggest that they were, in fact, relics of an as-yet unearthed advanced civilization is now overwhelming. Many sites we cover escape modern understanding or explanation. Gigantic multi-ton megaliths, often somehow mysteriously quarried and transported from quarry sites sometimes hundreds of miles away from where we find them today. Such realities are undeniable, and the lack of any explanation as to how our more primitive ancient ancestors accomplished such tasks, we feel, remains elusive due to said sites' origins actually being a far more capable, far more progressive, now lost civilization, who were clearly once capable of such incredible feats. However, although many sites are often attributed to what we perceive were mere re-inhabitants and the archaeological footprint that they left behind excavated and permitted to be studied in depth, pinned as the creators of said sites. However, the relic we are focusing on in the following video, an ancient artifact left by those who possibly created the site itself. Mallorca, a favorite with holiday makers, yet alas, what many do not pursue while on the island is the inexplicable stone megaliths which litter its tropical shores. Academically attested as a 3200-year-old relic, we feel, however, that the sword, although clearly of a remarkable preservation, is in fact far older than this, and those who have investigated the site and said relic have concluded that the only possible origin of this incredible object was that of a now lost, yet once highly advanced ancient civilization. Now known as the Taliot Sword, it is an astonishing ancient weapon, once somehow made far within antiquity, created to incredibly high standards, and we feel the reason the sword has survived so long is merely testament to the quality of the sword and indeed the past abilities of its creator. Recently discovered by a team of experts digging at the archaeological site known as Taliot de Seralda, say Abellis, found within Puig Puyet, a municipality on Mallorca. The site is comprised of several stone megaliths, which are claimed to date back anywhere from 1000 to 6000 BC. We, however, hypothesize that the sword is far older than even these unusually generous academically dated estimates. The sword was found near one of the stone megaliths, known locally as a Taliot, hence the sword's name. Built by the mysterious Taliotic culture, which we feel is the name given to lost civilization, that many funded individuals continue to try and dismiss, claiming that it was located within permitted timelines. Labeled by some as the Spanish Excalibur, it is undoubtedly an incredible artifact, and one which sheds precious light upon the capabilities of a now lost civilization. Work is now underway at the site and is pegged to continue for the next few decades. Initially explored by historian and archaeologist Guillem Bordeaux in the 1950s, it was in mid-September as the researchers were readying the museum at the site that the team found the sword. Who made the Taliot Sword? How old are the megalithic sites upon the island of Majorca? Are we looking at an artifact left by a now lost civilization? We find the evidence to suggest such highly compelling. We have in the past covered numerous seemingly impossible ancient feats of ancient engineering found throughout modern-day Japan. Polygonal stonework of gigantic proportions, ancient forts and temples, which we have previously distinguished, were constructed upon far older and now inexplicably mysterious masonry techniques, the most abundant of which we have come to know as polygonal. Yet alas, due to the explanation as to how this was achieved remains elusive, thus the site is dismissed and deliberately overlooked. As such, the absence of any logical explanation as to how said sites came into being, or even how this stonework was once achieved, means that not only are these sites suppressed from mainstream attention, but the seemingly impossible features still in existence are instead of being exposed and admitted as unexplainable accomplishments, thus allowing those with a critical capacity to pursue said origins we feel are instead avoided, compelling proofs of our posit of their having once been advanced, now yet lost civilizations, which once flourished and often seemingly suddenly vanished, have indeed been and gone on our planet. The suppression of this truth gives motive to academia, who attempt to cover up such realities. Yet, regardless of the defining purpose for this conspiracy, whether to avoid mass panic or not, we feel, it is not a valid enough excuse for this suppression, and in our opinion, we feel regardless of public reaction, we all deserve to be presented with the true reality of these ancient sites, and indeed a true account of our history. Tucked away within rural Japan is a megalith known as Ichinohoden. At first glance, this particular megalith looks as though it is floating in mid-air. The reason for this is due to the civilization's abrupt departure. As such, the stone has not been completely liberated from the bedrock it is still attached to. Clearly, at the final stage of excavation, the stone is literally hanging by a thread, and due to the location of the excavation, and the fact that the stone itself has protected its base from erosion, the megalith has remained attached to this small seam of rock for untold millennia. The defining reason for why we attribute the stone to a now lost civilization is its sheer size, measuring an impressive 5.7 x 6.4 x 7.2 meters. The stone also weighs an estimated 500 tons, meaning that the techniques, or indeed the technology used to cut and transport the stone, remains an unexplainable feat of ancient engineering. Largely dismissed by academics the world over, these gigantic stones, however, are a legacy that due to their immense size is likely to still be present here on our planet, far after our own civilization has been and gone. Additionally, just like the many other sites which we have successfully identified within Japan as the work of a now lost civilization, a temple was later built at the site, and although attributed to a civilization within permitted timelines, the megalith has been believed to be holy and has been venerated since ancient times. According to mainstream study, which although not publicized, were literally forced upon academic institutions as they continued to attempt to appear transparent, all the while actively avoiding the task of explaining not only who and when this stone was cut by, but how this ancient civilization was intended to transport said stones to their final locations. The official version is, predictably, a claim that the rock was intended to be a tomb. However, just as we would have expected, there is no scientific information as to who quarried the stone, or indeed what intentions they had for its eventual purpose. Who cut the Ishinohoden megalith? How did ancient civilizations move such gigantic stones, sometimes thousands of miles? We find the Ishinohoden megalith highly compelling.