Okay, wow. All right. All right. Hold on a sec here.  We have Shawna Bryce Who is from our best small library in America 2018? Yay? Madison County Public Libraries in North Carolina And she is going to tell us How they got that award all the great things they've been doing there and what's going on in that library So I'm just gonna hand it over to Shawna to go ahead and take it away well, thanks so much Krista and I'm really excited to Represent Madison County Public Libraries today and thanks to the Nebraska library for having us on I Had to explain to my mother-in-law today that I was not going to Nebraska for a conference That we were doing this online and I Still think that it's kind of blown her mind and she's still trying to figure that one out But I just think this like this day long virtual conference is such a great idea for small libraries with smaller budgets And I'm just excited that we could be a part of it Well, you can show her the recording later so she can see exactly how it went. What is that? I know I'm kind of excited to share that with her actually So a little bit about myself I have a I have a master's in education with a focus on literacy and I taught high school English for 18 years and then My family was ready for a change. So we moved to Madison County. We always said that we were going to retire to this area. It just happened a lot earlier than we first thought and I left the classroom decided that I was I was kind of done with that and Was in between I was doing some writing and things like that and like every good resident the first thing I did was I went and got my library card and soon after that I joined a book discussion group and then soon after that I joined the friends of my local branch of the Madison County library and At a friend's meeting. I actually heard the director talking about a new position that they were going to Start advertising for with a grant that they had one and it would be for a part-time technology and structure And the focus would be working with senior adults. So it's kind of funny that I'm the follow-up to the Presentation before because I was like, oh, that's what I do So that was kind of like how I got my foot in the door here because I was like, oh, this is perfect I still get the teach and I get to teach senior adults and it's part-time so I can still write and do other fun things and I was hired of course and then I About a year went by and my director started talking to me about becoming a branch manager and I was like hard-passed. No way I I don't really want to do full-time. It's I'm trying to get away from that and well here. I am so the rest is kind of history I've been here with the library system for almost five years now and I actually really love being a branch manager because it lets me do a lot of different things and I am hoping to apply for my master's of library and informational science in the spring So I'm just one of those nerd people. I guess we all are I'm just one of those nerd people that would like to stay a student as long as possible So the slide that you're looking at right now are our three beautiful libraries in Madison County So I'll tell you a little bit about the county to this. This is the Mars Hill Library and That's my library. I call it. It was my library. I live in Mars Hill. So this was I was a patron here And now this is where I'm the branch manager This is the one in the middle is the main branch the Madison County Public Library and that's located in Marshall and then Okay, then the one on the the third column is This is our hot springs library and this is our newest Library space we actually got a OCLC grant to redo this space and It is in the small town of hot springs and we're really excited about this we think it turned out so cool and Quite modern especially considering the building that it used to be in So a little bit about Madison County, we are we have three distinct towns and Each of those towns have three unique libraries to them to Madison County is in Western North Carolina. If you know anything about North Carolina, it's a little above it's just north of Asheville and Just before you get to the Tennessee line Our population is roughly about 21,000 and up those 12,500 give or take a few our library card card holders, which is exciting We do you have being a part of the Appalachian Mountains? Of course, we are we have a rich Appalachian heritage We've got rich history Madison County was one of the places in North Carolina that was split during the Civil War and that is still talked about today We have wonderful nature trails The French Broad River so we see a lot of tourism. We are on the Appalachian Trail In fact, the town of hot springs is on the trail the library there Is one of two libraries that's actually on the trail itself So we get a lot of hikers, especially in the summertime spring and summertime. We get a lot of hikers, too But that provides some really unique opportunities To work with them and we do like e-library cards for the hikers so that they can Download stuff on their devices and take it with them on their hikes. So we've got we've got a lot of great culture We've got bluegrass music. We've got great artists writers It's it's a really great place to live and to work So I think part of or the main reason that maybe we were Selected for best small library is really the Collaboration and partnership and part of our strategy Here at Madison County Public Libraries is our focus is kind of a four-part focus with literacy outreach partnership and Technology and technology for the library here is really big because when you live in the mountains You don't really get to have the infrastructure for everyone to have access at home for to the internet, so we become a hub for that And we're always excited about About people being able to come and use the internet since the lots of times they don't have the Capability at home. We are we did have an organization that got a grant and they are in the process of Installing some high-speed internet, but it's still got a ways to go And we all know that that that doesn't work as as quickly as we often hope it does But with the library, we're able to provide that so I think through the presentation you'll see the partnership piece And that's really one of the that's really one of the focus or focus points For our strategy and what I thought I would do is I thought I would kind of go through Some of the programs that were highlighted by library journal and and I'll also talk about like how each one has changed or evolved And what that's looking like and what our what our thoughts for the future are as far as each one goes because everybody You know everybody Even the staff thinks okay, we've gotten this thing, but now what so now it's all it's all about the future And what that's going to hold for us so just like every library we of course focus on early literacy programs and We offer we offer early literacy programs at each of our Branches each of our three branches We also we do some of that in-house with our own staff and we also partner with the health department and smart start To provide a kids and kin program at our branches as well. And so this is where you know Kids can come in from zero to Kindergarten we have we've had little babies. We've had some here At mars hill. We had one here that was two weeks old Which I was a little bit like oh, don't get the germ don't be out at the germs, but whatever Two weeks old starting with our story time program and they do of course stories They do a lot of early literacy skills learning letter sounds and what the letters look like They do singing and dancing we do some Really early literacy steam activities. We have lots of hands-on um We have some great children's program programming team that really are just they take on these new personas when the um kids come in and they do voices and and some really great things like that and um We have we have certain parents that will go to at least two of the story like two different story times at two different branches The hot springs branches a little farther out for for a lot of people So sometimes they can't get to those but but there have been some that will hit all three during the week Which is which is really exciting. Um, we have actually Now what we've done is we have added a new story time and it's called little explorers because we really wanted to kind of make it not just a reading but also incorporate some some other activities with it and um, that's at our main branch now And it has all the all the regular components, but we've added um a sign language aspect to it So they're starting to learn um phrases and words to use with their parents at home and they're learning letters for sign language and um I would love to see this evolve into a bilingual story time early literacy But right now we only have one person on staff that's fluent in Spanish and um, she's uh, of course wears many hats um And just doesn't have enough hours in the day, but that could be something I could see perhaps evolving um, and we as we do have more and more, um Latinos moving into the community So that's our um Early literacy program um the next thing that um We are going to look at as the e-library And you know a lot of a lot of libraries have access to the e-library. I think one thing that um We do well here as we partner with the schools and um, we provide uh e-library cards to students um in the fourth grade all the way through the 12th grade um at our public high schools or public schools so we um, what that actually looks like is We go into the school and i'm one of the ones that goes into the school because i'm still technically the technology instructor for the library system so um, I go into the school and we do a how-to um, how to access the um e-library And we go through they go through you see the pictures of the different devices So depending on the class and and what device they have we show them how to um, how to set up their preferences How to log in with the library card How to check out a book how to download it on their device because we want them to be able to Take it home with them because like I said before many of them don't have um, many of them don't have internet access at home So if they go to school they can download um, their books on the device and then take it home and read um read at home And then we also go over how to um, you know, put books on hold and how to check them out that kind of thing Um, so this gives them and they love the fact that it's free. Um, and they love the fact that they're not going to get Any overdues? That's one of the big things that we talk about because they don't have to worry about Returning the book on time. It just disappears off their device and they're never overdue and the kids love that they're like Oh, I'm not going to be in trouble. That's awesome So, um, we go in and we we teach them how to do that we We make sure that they know that um, they can We talk about troubleshooting and um, we talk also about, you know, this this works for all your e-library materials and what that has kind of What that has kind of evolved into we did have we go to all the elementary schools. We have three elementary schools here um, one elementary school A few years ago They were they received a donation. I think it was like the fourth or fifth grade classes received a donation of um Some kindle fires and so The we had a teacher call and say Can y'all help us? You're like, what can we do with these? What are some things I could, you know, really do like with the library and with my classroom? And that was that was a foot in the door to do some of this e-library um we um The way it's kind of evolved now is um, I go into the middle schools and high schools And it helps that I've been an English teacher. I think because um I know I remember what it's like to be in the classroom and I Still like being in there so I go into the middle school and um the high school and teach classes on using databases for research because the other thing that these e-library cards give them access to Is nc live and nc live is um A it's just a warehouse of databases is what I call it and it's provided by the state library of north carolina and um They can use they can log in with their this this library card and access All has a material that they can use for research and it gets them away from wikipedia And it gets them away from you know, just trusting a random google search and we talk about credible sources and Why you should use the databases over? Just googling things and so I get to go in and teach Using those e-library cards and accessing the databases and so that's that's how that's kind of evolved now from from Mainly a focus on e-library to um to now including more like database research. In fact, I'm going uh in two weeks to teach database research at Our um early college high school. So and that's great because that's that's another partnership um, it gets us in the schools and um And we do have you know, lots of patrons um that will come back To the library and say hey remember when you came to our class and you talked about that computer research I need help with that now and um, and so that you know, it's getting them in the library um Twanes and teens can sometimes be hard to get in the library But if they know that we're there to help them especially with their school work and their homework Then I feel like that's a good hook and we can get them early and hopefully keep them coming back for a while And the other thing the other great thing about nclive that we tell them about is It's access like all lots of public libraries use nclive and lots of academic libraries use nclive So if they get used to using that now, those are still resources resources that they can and probably will use When they go to a um four-year college in north carolina So trying to put some of those stepping stones in place to to help them succeed Uh shawna you do have a question about that slide that you just had up Yeah, because you the principal's testimonial and everything about partnering with the schools How did you approach the school's two partner or did they approach you? How did that all we um We just started talking to the principals talking to the um The librarians there um our our former director and myself and some other um Staff members also have backgrounds in education. So I think that kind of helps A little bit because you know, we we get we get it's we get the we know the language You know that kind of thing but our our schools are just great to work with and we also We also have already started our store. We have a story time that goes out to the schools. So our children's um our children's staff They go read I think it's to the they go read to the kindergarten once a month and um We've just we've really established a great relationship with the schools before I can get something targeted for each grade level And and you know high school is harder to do I think because especially high school and middle school They've just got so much that they have to get done Um, but we really we thought this would be a good way to get to them Especially with research that they're going to have to be doing um in the upper grade levels Right awesome And someone else will add another question here. Do you have issues with students? That attend to live outside of your area when we considered a non resident user? so um I know that we have a few like that But we have just the so the e library cards are good for about Four years, I think and then they they expire unless they're unless they come in and talk to us about you know renewing them or whatever But um, I think we have so few in that category that we were just kind of like meh so what? Um, we just we just wanted to make sure that the kids had you know equitable access and um, and we do partner with um, I have worked with homeschool groups and um You know, they're that that's a little trickier and you have to know the people that are doing the homeschool groups So that's harder harder to really get into but a lot of that comes from just um Thankfully I get to work a circulation desk and stuff too So I get to start asking questions and that that's where a lot of it comes from as well is just um Making those connections with people and finding out and start asking questions um, but yeah, that's a that's something else that we really want to work towards is um, is making sure that those homeschool groups and um private schools and things like that They have the same kind of access that that the public school kids do too. Sure And one last question about this will do And the question says do you find a conflict with the school libraries? Or are you working with them? We we work with them we work with them and so when we go in and we show the the e library cards We do it with the school librarians and um, and it's just and We've we've got we just we got a great connection there and they you know librarians want kids to be readers You know at the school So they're always really welcome really welcoming and um And they know that this the e library is also going to you know um It's probably going to grant these kids resources That they might not have on their shelves because everybody has limited real estate. So um, this just opens it up and the um, the state of north carolina through this e library program They actually just launched like two years ago. They launched a um just for kids e library and um There are lots of titles that have like multiple copies So that classrooms can check out like sets and they can all be reading it together So that's helped with a lot of teachers too because they might not be able to purchase those those hard copies sets But they can rely on the e library and use those for free right So it's is that um e library card. That's an actual physical card not a not an electronic I mean the actual card. Yeah, right now. It's a physical card. Um, we are gonna migrate to a new system This spring and then there will be no physical card. It'll just it'll be linked to like their student number Which is kind of they know those numbers by heart and it'll be easier for them to access. So yeah So right now it is but then it's not going to be exactly All right, cool. Go ahead. Go ahead. Okay, cool so, um literacy leaves is a new program that we um also started kind of in conjunction with the schools um, it is a it is a um one-on-one or very small group tutoring um session that we offer and it started out as um Third through fifth grade and this year it has grown to first through fifth grade and it is for targeted students who are below grade level um and struggling in the classroom and so What this looks like is a student um is identified by his or her teacher as struggling the teacher um Contacts us contacts our literacy coordinator and um Gives us the name and sets and the teacher sets all this up We have a we have lead teachers at the schools that do this and they they communicate with the parents They sign them up and then they let us know um who the kid is and um what the focus needs to be and then um Once a week the uh bus drops them off from school the bus will drop them off at the library and um the kids come for an hour of um tutoring And when it started out right now it's only at two of our elementary schools um and when it started out it was uh, we had one session Once a week so for each school and now um this year we started um We have two sessions So we get two different groups. So like here at mars hill um We have a session on monday and then on wednesday So we have a monday group and a wednesday group and then at marshal we have a tuesday group and a thursday group and um they come in and they They get you see the picture. They get one on one and hopefully one on one. If not, it's like two two to one intensive tutor training based on what their specific needs are um I actually get to participate in this which i'm i'm really excited about being a um literacy teacher So I actually have um a student uh that I get to work with on mondays And I know and we also try and keep the same tutor with the kid because a lot of it is A lot of it is you know building a relationship and and building confidence And I think too we've had more success when the same person works with the same kid because they know what that kid needs To work on and we keep copious notes on um, you know, this is what we did today This is how how it went and probably what we need to do next week um We um are hoping to get it and then in the third elementary school It's just been a struggle with that just because like every other library system where we're short staffed and don't have enough hours in the day and um Just need more more people to help us with this um, but it has um It has been really successful the goal is for them to um To you know be reading and doing math at grade level Uh last year we had 65 percent of those kids passed their end of grade test And um at first we were kind of like oh only 65 percent, but still that's way good and um, that's you know, there's those kids Were you know in danger of not passing their their end of grade test had they not had some of that extra extra tutoring um we um Have some really really great volunteers that work with this program and are So passionate and committed to this program um The way that it's evolved i've already said you know, it's um um It we've doubled it this year um We you know, we have a waiting list of students And a lot of that has to do with we just don't have enough space to have too many um in The meeting room at one time um and we do try and make sure that they're in small groups with tutors too because otherwise it just becomes um It just becomes kind of crazy uh the The idea this year too is to do more um benchmark testing So that and and the schools do the benchmark test, but um, we're doing a better job now of getting um that information from the teachers so that if if we see that um You know student a is now at at or above grade level Then we can move that student You know say hey you've graduated from literacy leaps good for you. You don't You don't need us for a while and then move another one in that um that might be struggling uh the hardest part of this program is Turning kids away um because You know parents talk and the community parents talk and they um start talking about This great tutoring program at the library, but um and so they'll call the library and say hey I want my kid to be tutored and it doesn't really work that way. It has to be um it has to be uh um One where the teacher has identified that and gone through the process So that's You know, that's the hardest part is is to turn somebody down But we always say, you know, there is a you know Talk to your teacher talk to the lead teacher um Get on that list and um We'll we'll see what we can do with that um Questions about the tutors Sure. Um, you said they are volunteers So where do they where do they actually come from? Do they like train tutors or? Yes, we well we we provide in-house training. Um, our literacy coordinator is a She is a recruiter. I mean I've seen somebody that can recruit some volunteers like this girl can um And I think a big she also works part-time circulation desk for me here at mars hill And actually I think that has worked in her favor Because she'll start talking with people and she'll she'll notice Um, you know in conversations, she'll find out. Oh, you used to be a teacher. Well, guess what? We have this literacy program and we need volunteers, you know And really we have um We're blessed to have some really great friends groups that um, also, you know They volunteer and they get out in the community and they beat the bushes for us and and trying And get us volunteers too So A lot of it. I think it's about having the right person in that in that like recruitment piece But then we do provide We do provide training for our volunteers And then we update the training so every you know every few months we say hey Here's a strategy that you might you might want to try with your um With your your kids So that we try and and you know a lot of people are They're like, oh, I can't I can't tutor reading and well, I'm gonna tell you this new math that they do I mean, it's just crazy, but um We also reach out to we have two high schools here One is an early college high school and they require community service For their students for graduation And so we tap into them when I go to the high schools I said I I make a plug for hey if you're looking for community service and you like to work with kids We've got this program and it's great if you can get teenagers to To um volunteer at the library and I tell them to they kind of get to be rock stars because these little kids think they're so cool and Plus they know that new math that that they had to learn and I don't I don't so um as as often as we can get um Teenagers in we try and do that that was trickier to coordinate because You know, they've got jobs and they've got sports and they've got clubs and everything else um But we do have a few we do have a few teenagers that that tutor for us and We try and keep as long as possible All right, so since they're all volunteers then there's no um No one being paid to Do it so that this is at no cost to the kids. This is free for the kids who need it. It is free for the kids. Yes Yes All right, great. Thank you. All right so the next um, the next thing that we're going to highlight is this great eco explorer um this is a partnership we have with the north carolina arboretum and um We became a hot spot where um The kids come in and there are things that they can do they can join the eco explore program and then um There are like um Little assignments that they can do um to earn different points and they can go to different hot spots throughout our western north carolina area and then the arboretum also comes in um Each season to do a program um on some kind of um ecology theme And they will do the science program for us and that has been a really good opportunity to bring science into the library too And um, and it's as you can see it's very hands-on Um, we have these great backpacks that they can check out that have like once got a field camera in it And it's amazing because it's like night vision and they're supposed to like track The movements of animals around their house and things like that And I only I I want to check one out because we have a lot of wildlife in my backyard, but um And they do all these different things um and get these different badges through this eco explore program and that uh, that's a partnership with a with a Um Organization that it's not local. It's in ashville actually, but that so that brings some of the the we call it the big city um into Madison county so the next thing um that we have partnered with Next group is called the partnership for Appalachian girls education and um, this is one where Uh, we've talked about like there sometimes there there are partnerships that are for certain seasons and um our season with page is now Over and they have uh new partnerships But the great thing about this having partnered with them we partnered with them for two years um, this is also where we got some of our um volunteers our teenage Volunteers our high school volunteers to come in because we had we had been working with them for two years and um, you know built some of those relationships and this is page is a um organization that was created by dr. Deborah Hicks rogolf at duke university to bring um Uh to really concentrate on A global education digital education um for girls here in um the rural areas of North Carolina and so these girls sign up to be a part of page and actually one of the things that we did I'm going to go back a little bit one of the things that we did was This picture here on the bottom with the dog and the little girl reading The page girls we worked with them and they wrote children's stories one year and then we They did them on story bird and we had them published So we got the digital piece in we we looked at you know all kinds of digital skills and and story building and that kind of thing and um, we actually published hard copies of them And we cataloged them and we put them in library Um, and they could come see their work. They could check out their work. Um here in the library and this was actually um Maybe this was about This was last year with uh one of our read with me Kids and she was actually and that was one of the goals was we would love for some of these Storybooks to be used with our read read with me programs for the kids that came in and and read with the dogs So we actually still have these books and it's in and they're part of the collection and um And that was a really that was a really fun project to do with those with those girls so the um This this project has been consuming my life lately just because i'm working on it now. Um The teen summer reading program, um was something that we started a few years ago um the teachers In madison county the high at the high school level. They wanted the kids to have a book to read over the summer And we this has kind of morphed and is evolving and and is becoming something even more even Totally different for next year, but the first year it started. Um, we had um I would say about a hundred kids and the way it looked They would have a book that was assigned We would purchase a certain number of copies of that book so that the kids could come and check it out. Um at at all Three branches of the library and then we would offer workshops So at some point during the summer They could sign up. There were specific specific dates and they were located. We had different dates at all three. Um Branches of the library and they could sign up to come to one of those workshops And we kind of workshopped the book. We would talk about the book. We would do some different activities with it. Um And they would have to use their knowledge of and understanding of the book to complete all of this stuff and then when they went back in the, um school year they would um We would let the the English teachers know Who had attended and when and then they See like a hundred as a test grade to start the year off. Um This year, uh As you can see it's grown to we had I think we had 284 teens in 2017 and We just, um, don't have the the calendar time anymore and the staff to deal with this many workshops So we're in the process of creating A teens summer reading program in conjunction with the high schools Where it's it's kind of it's modeled after our kids and adults Well, they're they will get like a packet of activities. They they will um The teachers are deciding on the assigned reading and then we will take that and and Collaborate with them and create different activities around that book for the kids to do during the summer and each card each activity will be on a card and that um That will Once they complete it they can enter that into a prize drawing and then that'll also give them a chance to prep for Whatever work they're going to do with that book When they get back to um to school in the fall So that's still a work in progress right now. Um, in fact, I I'm I'm meeting with the teachers. They just chose those their books their theme is appalachian literature So we kind of have to deviate from Um the universe of stories or whatever the theme is or try to marry the themes um if we can But we're working on that and the teachers. Um, the teachers actually suggest some of the activities and then My children's programming coordinator here at mars hill and I work to create the The rest of the cards and activities and things like that. So we won't um, we won't do the workshops this year which That frees up about three weeks of um Three weeks of time in our calendar um But and I think that they'll and they'll enjoy having the the variety of activities We'll see it'll be it'll be something different, but we have had lots of tweens and teens saying, you know Well, I want to do a summer reading program packet too But you know, the kids one is a little bit too baby-ish and the adult one is too adult so um So this will be one that um, we'll we'll have to see how it goes. I'm excited about it. I think it's going to be great, um the the two books that the English teachers have chosen are um actually written by local writers too and so We're always excited to um to collaborate with our local writers and um, and hopefully we'll have some Teen author talks here at the library as part of that program and then um, the last two kind of go hand in hand so We created literacy connections um, it's kind of like it's like a literacy council for um Madison county, but it's under the the library's umbrella and with this we um We focus on a variety of things from 21st century skills like digital digital literacy to workforce development to GED tutoring It has this has been Pretty much a grant driven project. So we've relied on grants Well, we've we've relied on grants for for several other things I mean like a lot of small libraries do We are um hoping that uh, it can be its own fully funded um entity eventually and we won't have to rely on the grants And that would give us a little more flexibility maybe to connect to wider audiences And literacy connections is also um sometimes can be focused on uh The violent meeting volunteers. So with our GED program, we have We also we have a literacy coordinator who works with GED students But we also meet we also have some volunteers that work with them too. Um, and that's a That's a tough one GED is a tough one because um There's a there's a commitment piece that lots of times. Um Um Gets kind of dicey You're also dealing with um, you know family things. You're dealing with job things. Um You're sometimes you're dealing with probation things. Um, it's And and confidence confidence is a huge one We had a we had a guy that we finally got to take the GED and for the lot He was holding back for the longest time just because he he was like, I'm scared.  Um The uh elite jail program at currently, um, it's on hiatus just because we've had, you know shifts in leadership and um, not enough not enough hours for our literacy coordinator and our volunteers go into the jail they go into the jail and they um work with the um prisoners and uh, it's it's one-on-one which can be a little Disconcerting for some people. Um, they try and get them to pass the high set and that that um, this is also a A program that you know, it can it can be an emotional roller coaster for the people involved because you can get Get them get the prisoners ready and psyched up and then suddenly they're transferred to somewhere else and um, that can be a little bit uh heartbreaking but you can tell by the testimonials that it's been like Um, it's really been life changing for a lot of people there. Um, not just for prisoners but for um, the volunteers and the the people involved with them so That one's on hiatus. We're hoping that we will bring it back soon. Um, but that's just a like I said It happens with with everything you've got changes and only so many hours in a day So, um, yeah, that's it. This is our Wonderful staff and I definitely didn't want to leave them out of the presentation because they're They're they're really the big part and the big reason why Why don't we got best of my library in America? So hey, I'm glad I didn't go out in my hour Yeah, you did great awesome. Um, we have a few questions about some of the things you talked about Sure Um, and I think we just yeah, we just get a few here. We'll do um for the eco explorer hotspot Uh program do the parents provide the transportation to get the kids there for that? Yeah, that's all um, that's all up to the parents to do. It's um, and there are lots of hot spots all across around our region So we get to be a part of that and that and that also brings a lot of People from the Asheville area into Madison County to and we we do have at our main branch We do have a um native garden initiative. So that's that's another big reason that Ego Explorer connected with us too because we have an initiative that um that really is focused on They've done some great work with the native gardens there And so that gets that gets some people into like Seeing the the beauty and everything around Madison County and learning more about what we've got what we've got going on ecologically Uh, right. Yes. Um, and so a snow uh for that one for what did page stand for the acronym page? Page stands for partnership for Appalachian girls education Right, that was the girls meaning. Yeah, I want to read you to the dog too. Yeah. Yeah Um And someone this is actually kind of things someone says they're familiar with stem But what is steam, you know, we've added in another letter to that acronym Yes, and now I think that some people are calling stream. I mean, right. Um steam is Just has an arts capacity in there Yeah, and there's an arts. Yes And yes, yeah, and it has As you said it has now people are calling it talking about stream Which as an r for reading reading which i'm kind of like, yeah, there was probably reading there before there should have been reading there before And the books that you used for the teen event the teen summer reading program um, what books what um, are some of the titles some was wondering what that you used Oh gracious. Okay. Let me think so last year they had another Appalachian focus They did the tall woman by wilma dykeman and she's she's a big north carolina ecological and women's rights person before Before that was really, you know Okay The tall woman was one of them and then I am one of you forever by fred chapel another north carolina writer The year before that Oh, I'm trying to think I know we have done um The immortal life of henry out of lax. I think we did that two years And last year was actually the easiest year because they finally paired it down to two books um the years before that Everybody had every grade level had a different book And my battery is getting But um, I can get a list if y'all want a list I can get a list to Just some ideas for themselves too. Yeah And for these partnerships that you have just a quick the last one last fast question Did you seek out them or did are some of these approach people approaching you or Or Oh, no. Oh, I think we may have lost her. It looks like we may have lost shawna. Oh, well. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay Don't know if it's her connection or yeah, or battery may have just said no Not a problem. Anyway, um, thank you shawna even though you seem to be uh Off there See if she'll come back All right, that's okay. So that was a great presentation. Um, I will have the slides and she'll get those book lists and everything too Later, I'm going to pull back presenter


Dang brownie the haircut my hair been looking like a nest What's good YouTube real estate gave me here, and I know I didn't upload yesterday. I was feeling a little sick Like my throat was hurting. I don't know why it's always my throat. It always be aching man I have no idea, but today we are back and better than ever and we're gonna be reacting to some my little pony horror Videos because you guys just love the horror stuff man. The horror stuff never stops All right, so today we're here on a sire's channel and we're gonna be reacting to this video All right, here we go And make sure to smash the like button man you guys be slacking Don't do it. Do not go down there And she's going down there.   Fluttershy? Heck nah get out of there man Run for the door get out Just she's all locked up and shambles and everything. She's definitely on next game mode How did she catch up so fast like Michael Myers or Jason? I thought she was gonna knock her out with the rock. Hey, that's it But we don't know what happens after she lives or she dies or she makes it out or not man The next video is titled We have seen a cupcakes video, but this is a different version it looks a little different from the other one So let's check it out and it's made by Orcania player Warning the following cartoon contains scenes of graphic violence and gore and may affect the appreciation of certain My little pony characters viewer discretion is advised. He told y'all man. He warned you guys.  It's a lot of pain pain 100 for rainbow dash And some movie cuteness of demonic man. Now she gonna eat ribs The barbecue now Wow, that was pretty gruesome F in the chat for rainbow dash For our final video it is titled By biscuit but pinkie pie, what is wrong with you? Just beating them all up just murdering them. Oh my god Your next applejack. Oh dead. Hey rainbow dash. Oh My god, dude rainbow dash to the rescue She went super saying This is an intense battle. Was that her guts? See how you like it pinkie pie.  Man, that was intense. Alright you guys well those were some my little pony videos If you guys have any recommendations you guys want me to watch a video Let me know down in the comments below or drop the link I would be more than glad to check it out and thank you guys for watching Thank you all for the major support and I will catch you on the next one


Greetings students, my name is Mahirupalai, I am assistant professor in civil department WIT, Sallapur. Today we are going to discuss the topic that is up flow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor that is UASB. What are the learning outcomes? At the end of this session students will be able to understand the concept of up flow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor that is UASB. So let us understand that what is been by UASB and why we need to go for UASB. First of all this technique is been developed in 1970 by Gaj Latinga in the netherlands. It is very much suitable for high strength wastewater where BOD or COD is very much higher than normal BOD or COD but it is very much still useful for domestic sewage in warm conditions also. So it can be used for both for the normal strength and for the high strength sewage. It also differs from anaerobic reactors. How? First of all the existence of granular sludge that is resistance to toxic shocks which is having very much high methanogenic activity that is 0.5 to 2 COD per VSS per day or high mechanical strength or good settling properties that is 30 meters to 80 meters per hour. So such type of a system will always provide you to have the highest amount of anaerobic digestion relative to normal anaerobic digestion. It also has the internal three phase GSL separator system that is gas, solids and liquid separator system. By addition of these two systems we can say that USB is normally very much higher to take up and it is having very much higher proximity to consideration for anaerobic treatment. So let us study how the USB mechanism works. So you can see the diagram where the influent is having a lot of pores to come into this treatment facility. It is fully packed as it is anaerobic in nature no oxygen is allowed to pass inside the reactor. Here you can see with the help of distributors the waste water which is coming inside this USB reactor is being separated out throughout the surface area. As the water passes inside this area is known as inlet zone. So this is the first zone. As the water passes above the up flow means above the waste water is flowing above. So as the waste water flows above there is one area in which the waste water is being linked to the microorganisms which are present in this middle part of the tank. Whatever the microorganisms or anaerobic microorganisms which are present in this tank will attack on the organic matter which is present in the waste water and automatically they are going to be digested. And they are going to be digested to form two things. One is biogas and another one is biomass or the sludge. Normally biomass is around 5% of the total organic matter. So it means 95% efficiency of USB can be there. So this area where the digestion of organic matter is takes place. This middle area is known as sludge blanket zone. This middle area is known as sludge blanket zone. As the treated water is continuously passing above the sludge blanket now as it is up flow so the treated water along with some solids and along with the gas that is biogas is continuously moving up. So there is one facility which is given that is gas liquid solid separator that is GLS separator. In which you can see this is the filtration system or the baffles is being provided where the solids have been removed off. If it is taking up the gas which is collected in the middle part easily the gas is separated. Two things are remaining. One is solid and another one is liquid. The water is made to pass through this filtration system and whatever the solids which is having the higher density will be collected on these baffles and easily it is taken on this wear and easily it is made to settle down. So automatically biogas is going to be settled down in this bottom part and whatever the remaining liquid which is still coming out from these baffles that is this upper part is collected as an effluent. So in this way the gas liquid and solid separator is being used to separate this biogas and treated effluent. So such type of a system we will call it as gas liquid and solid separator. This is the third phase. Whatever the sludge which is being settled down is known as settling zone or settled zone. Now let us see its process. First waste water enter the reactor from bottom and it will flow upward. Then the waste water passes through the anaerobic sludge blanket. Then the microbes in the sludge will get contact with the organic matter or the waste water substrates. The organic matter is broken down by anaerobic digestion. Then large amount of biogas such as methane is collected and removed from the top which is the result from breakdown process. Then the treated effluent is also being removed from the top. So these are the notes which I have discussed earlier. So those who want to take the notes please pause this video, take a screenshot of this slide or note it down and we will resume it again. So again this slide is also having the same thing which I have explained earlier. So please pause this video again, take a screenshot of it and again resume it. After talking about its parameters normally the depth of usb is given around 4.5 to 5 meter for the sewage. The sludge blanket zone depth is around 2 to 2.5 meter for sewage and if the strong water is coming we can increase it. Upflow velocity is normally kept about 0.5 meter per hour that is for average flow we can increase up to 1.2 meter per hour. The volumetric organic loading is typically given around 1 to 3 kg COD per meter cube per day it is for domestic sewage and 10 to 15 kg COD per meter cube per day for agro industrial sewage. The sludge production is generally around 0.15 to 0.25 kg TSS per meter cube sewage treated. The HRT is typically kept around 8 to 10 hours for average flow and minimum 4 hours should be given for peak flow. HRT is typically kept around 30 to 50 days or more. BOD and COD removal efficiency is around 75 to 80% and 74 to 78% respectively. Nitrogen and phosphorus removal efficiency very much low that is 5 to 10% only. TSS production is typically around 0.38 meter cube per COD removed. Let us see its advantages it is having a very much high reduction of BOD it can also withstand high organic and hydraulic loading rates. Low sludge production is there that is only 5% and thus infrequent desludging is required that is removal of sludge is required very much lesser. The biogas can also be used for energy no aeration system is required so automatically less energy consumption is there for running this USB. Affluent is rich in nutrients and can be used for agricultural irrigation. The low land demand is there to be construct and it is typically underground therefore the surface area required is very much lesser. So it requires the locally available material to construct so automatically no need to put lot of cost for the construction. The reduction of CO4 and CO2 emissions are there in USB. Let us see its disadvantages it may be unstable with variable hydraulic and organic loads. It requires operation and maintenance only by the skilled labour. The long start-up time is to be required at work to run at full capacity a constant source of electricity is continuously required. Not all parts and materials may be available locally it requires expert design and construction. Affluent and sludge requirement for further treatment and or appropriate discharge is required here. Not adopted for cold climates. So let us have few review questions in which USB is which type of a process anaerobic aerobic facultative or none of the above. USB have internal 3GSL separator system true or false. In USB organic decomposition takes place in inlet zone, settling zone, sludge blanket zone or all of the above. So let us have their answers first USB is anaerobic process USB have internal 3GSL separator system this statement is true in USB organic decomposition takes place in sludge blanket zone the middle zone of the USB these are the references I have used to make the video thank you.


Hey guys, it's Nate, AKA The Foot Accountant. Welcome back to the channel. It is Wednesday, and you know what that means. The team voting, or the SBC vote, is going to be decided today for the vote that we had on Monday, and we're gonna be getting a new one. Now, of course, on Monday, we had that vote between Sane and Celas, of course, with the Bundesliga being the league that EA is focusing on this week, with the Weekend League objectives confirmed yesterday on Tuesday, as well as an 86-plus player pick as our content. I wanna talk about that SBC that could be coming today, how that Bundesliga stuff is still trending on the market, and how that 86-plus actually made the low-tier fodder in rare golds in general absolutely balloon to some of the highest prices we've ever seen for general rare gold cards on the market, and also how the 85 times 10 is about to expire, and how we hope EA Sports literally just copy-paste that SBC out for another week, because I really would love to see this grind, again, still available for this next week, with the batch two of footies, still gonna be in packs next week, and that grind just so fun, right? So I wanna talk about that, but the first thing is first, this SBC on tap for today, these are the two cards we could see, right? Sane and Celas, right? Of course, we're hoping for some big boosts. I think both these cards would be incredible in their own right, but since Celas had that team in the season item, the boost on this card could be insane. Hopefully they upgrade that weak foot to at least a four-star EA, just make it a five-star, a five-star if he were to win, but in all realistic reality today, I think Sane is gonna take this home. Again, Prem fans probably gonna vote Sane because of his links and where he used to play at Citi. Of course, just being a well-known player, Bayern Munich as well, the German nationality, he's very linkable, right? Very usable for this next weekend league if it's a good value SBC, and then Celas though, you have of course the hype, the FIFA hype, the memes, just everything that is fun in FIFA right now. I really hope that Celas wins. I voted for him, but I don't think it's actually gonna happen. I think it's gonna be Sane today, and hopefully this SBC for Sane is somewhere around the range, or cheaper, than the, I'm gonna say it's gotta be cheaper than the DiBala. It's gotta be somewhere around the Robin price, in my opinion, right? If they're gonna give Sane that card today, I hope it's somewhere around like that 200,000 coin range, and I hope it's just like the Robin SBC as well, where it's not a ton of different squads to do, it's just a normal SBC, right? A normal SBC, which if I could show you and find that SBC right here, boom, Robin, it's three squads to complete, 82, 84, 86. That would be a great SBC for Sane today if that is the case of him winning. Same thing for Celas, if he wins as well and they give him a boosted card, we really, really hope that it is Celas today, but I think that again, the casual FIFA player has so much more of an impact on these votes that our player picks just because everybody can get the vote. You just log in to FIFA, you log in, and boom, you have a vote right there. So I think Sane is gonna end up winning today, but we'll of course keep our hopes up just in case Celas is able to win. Now whoever does not win could of course still get a card. Again, there's gonna be some sort of like re-release or second chance for guys like Sasoko, guys like Celas, guys like David Silva who did not win the first vote. So not all hope is lost, but it's gonna be between these two guys today who gets in for the SBC. Now speaking of another footies vote, usually on Wednesdays we have a vote for the SBC that will come out on Friday. So I'm expecting another vote today, not entirely sure what it is going to be league-wise. Again, I think we would still expect it to be Bundesliga, so hopefully it's a pretty nice vote today from some sort of Bundesliga standpoint. Maybe they do another like five-star skills upgrade like they did for Daniel James who won the vote last Wednesday to get himself a SBC on Friday. So hopefully it is another one of SBCs like that today with a vote, but again, speaking of the SBCs, I wanna talk about this 86 plus player pick and how that SBC came out yesterday and it had a lot of hype, right? You take a look at this and on foot been 94% upvote, but to be honest, this 86 plus player pick was not really that good of a value because at one point, and you'll see here on foot been, this SBC was about 50K to do. And if you're doing this challenge, if you're completing these two squads, which the rare gold squad is what made this SBC expensive yesterday, you would have had to pack a 93 rated Totskart, 94 rated Totskart, maybe even 95. If you're paying 50K if that SBC, you have to get a 95 to actually quote unquote break even in all honesty from the just the value that Totskarts are on this market, unless of course you got like a 92 rated card, like something that was very meta, very usable and expensive, then of course you made it a W out of it. But for most people that just got random Totskarts, random informs, foot birthdays or whatever else was in packs yesterday, this SBC wasn't really that great. And I think if you didn't do it yet, it's gonna keep getting cheaper because the 85 times 10 is going away today on Wednesday. And I think that is going to bring some of those rare cards down, especially if we get good preview packs today, but all rares on the game yesterday with how cheap this SBC looked right away, you're like, oh my goodness, it's just 11 non-rares and 11 rare players that's so easy to do. Everybody saw that though. They went out on the market, bought up all the rares that were high anyways and they went to 4,000 coins a piece. That was the optimal time if you had gold rares. That was 100% the optimal time to sell them because now they definitely are back down a little bit and I don't expect them to go back up to 4K unless we get some sort of SBC today that would require gold rares again, that would be incredibly, incredibly hyped. I believe gold rares right now are like 2.7K. Yeah, so there's still a kind of expensive. They're still up at least 700 to 800 coins from where they were yesterday, but nothing like it was earlier in the day when they were 4,000 coins. That was the optimal time. I would have cashed out on every single gold rare possible at that time if you did GGs. Again, they're still definitely up and hopefully we get some supply today, man. I really wanna see another 88 plus star mega pack available in here because I wanna see the preview packs supplying the market because I think that would help a lot if you guys are trying to grind the 81 plus player picks. Those would be very grindable if the rares were able to get back down to around the 1.2 to 1.5K range and as of right now with this 85 plus still being out and a lot of these SBCs like DiBala, like the DePie that people might still be doing and like that 86 plus, since that is not repeatable, you won't see continual demand for rare golds and stuff like that. But with this 85 times 10 going away, I think you are gonna see a lot less demand for the rare golds because that's basically these two squads. You use just all of your gold rares in with a couple of higher rated cards to get them done. So hopefully we see this going away today. Dropping some of the gold rare price on the market but honestly, I'm totally fine if they just re-up this. I would be 100% happy if they basically copy the Wednesday content from last week, drop the C-Las or the S&SBC, re-up the 85 upgrade times 10, same requirements, same everything and let us continue grinding, right? I'm totally down with it. I know some people are annoyed, again that fodder is just extremely high. If you take a look 81s are still 2.7 to 2.8K, 82s are 3.5K, 83s are 4K, 85s are, sorry, 84s are actually dropping down a little bit but I definitely get that it is annoying that rare cards 81s and 82s especially are up at like 3,000 coins apiece because that makes it not easy and it makes it kind of expensive to do the 85 plus times 10 but it is so fun to grind with the draft packs, with the gold upgrade packs and stuff like that that I kind of just hope that that continues to stay out. We will see what EA Sports wants to do with that but that would be very fun as well. Now also we just had a thought, we had a thought earlier today on the Twitch livestream when we had this content released, it would have been really fun if this 86 plus player pick was the new repeatable SBC because I think that would have been one that would have been so easy to grind as well. It would have definitely pushed non-rares and rares up on the market a bit more but that would have been very, very fun to have that as a repeatable SBC too. So we will see what happens with this 85 times 10. I hope they re-release it again and just literally put it out for another week EA Sports, that'd be a blast but my hunch is that they're not gonna do it even if they did like an 83 plus times 10, take the 85 rated squad off but this SBC has been so fun to craft. If you've been doing icon SBCs, this thing right here has been unbelievable, right? I even started Cruyff because of this and I've only got 186, 285 rated squads left. I get into the 84s and then I'm down into the easy stuff so if I can do a couple more of those, 85 times 10, like one or two more and then get like one or two of these squads done, I mean I'm gonna be able to finish off this Cruyff if the rares drop down with 81 plus player picks very easily so also three days left on the draft token upgrade, I just wanted to shout that because if you're somebody who's been grinding drafts or if you feel like you need to stack up some draft tokens, that is one thing that is going away soon. I don't know about any other SBCs that are expiring pronto. Maybe the Zaha goes away, of course, the Footies voting the SBC, we'll get a new one of those. I believe today on Wednesday, another one of those tradable packs will be released so that's kind of the content that was dropped yesterday and kind of what we're expecting today. Again, I don't know if they're gonna release that 85 times 10 again. I hope they do for another week, that'd be great but I do expect to see another Footies player SBC today of course, Silos Orsane and another vote. That would be 100% what I expect today. Now of course, yesterday we had to confirm as well that the Bundesliga is in the Weekend League Plus this weekend. Again, seven matches with minimum eight players in your starting squad so it's the exact same three weeks in a row now that we have had League or Nation specific Weekend League Plus and it was actually very interesting because a lot of the Tots cards didn't go up that much. Some of them went up a little bit more but for example, like Goretzka, right? Goretzka's an interesting one to me because yes, he was 300 and like 20,000 coins. Right now he's 419 which is up about 20K from where he was but if you actually take a look at his graph there were people yesterday that kind of bought this card up right when the content was dropped. His price spiked up as a very rare card and obviously one of the most meta Bundesliga cards people would want to use in their Weekend League team. He dropped back to 400K and is now kind of back up. I think that today on Wednesday if we see preview packs that supply the market a decent amount so 50Ks, 100Ks, 125s or any of those like 87 plus or 88 plus star packs if any of those are released even if it's like a 45,000 coin pack with like multiple different opportunities but specifically those packs that I mentioned I would expect to see a little bit of a drop on these Tots cards that are in packs and I would really, really watch the Bundesliga watch the cards that have gone up a lot already like Holland I think was like 50K before kind of the hype started I believe, yeah I think he was down in the 60s and then really boomed up Monday to 93,000 coins he's 100K now. Lewandowski is definitely up, Sancho's up almost 100,000 coins. I would watch this Kimmich, I would watch Neuer, I would watch Davies. Just all of the meta cards that are Bundesliga that people would be buying for their teams. Now also some people are hoping for some more Bundesliga actual player SBCs. Now today since we're getting Silas or Sane I wouldn't expect one of those today or like anything extra unless it's in objectives but maybe on Thursday we'll get some sort of dynamic duo for the Bundesliga, we'll get some sort of transfer SBC for Bundesliga maybe like an McConnel or something like that would be a perfect thing that EA could throw in this week to kind of help that Bundesliga push I guess you could say in the game right now. So keep an eye on these Tots cards right? We've seen it a couple times before when they've released preview packs that supply the market a decent amount this might be if you're trying to maybe find a spot where you can buy in to some of these cards they could go up a little bit further. I just don't know that the demand for Bundesliga Weekend League this weekend is gonna cause the same movement that the market did last week because last week on Thursday like literally everything in this game went up. I think people were really excited for the Premier League Weekend League requirements. I don't know if it's gonna be that exciting this week because you can't use a lot of summer stars items. You can't use a lot of Path to Glory. There's just not that many cards out there that are super fun and meta. It's mostly about the Tots cards. So I'm very interested to see how the market does later tonight on Wednesday with rewards but until we get there we'll have to see what the preview pack content is what the upgrade pack SPC content is and of course who does win the SPC today on this game. So I'm gonna be keeping an eye on all of that stuff grinding my last couple 81, or sorry, 85 times 10 upgrade packs. I'm gonna do some gold upgrades right here right now and get these sorted because I've got some gold in the club that I have gotten to put into this and this is the craft we've been doing buying gold non-rares and putting these guys into the SPC. If I have enough here, I'll be able to finish it off, which I think I do. And I've packed Zinnia Tots. I've packed a couple Tots cards today from regular gold upgrade packs. So I mean seriously, this has been a great grind buying the non-rares. Again, it's gonna be all over today once the 85 times 10 does be removed, but it's a great grind man and it's just a way to get some higher rated fodder, the occasional walk out or Tots card and just getting gold rares with a chance of packing something great. Boom, there's an 80 rated card. Bang, that'll help me for the SPC. That's literally like 5K, right? An 80 rated card, okay, not quite 5K, but those two cards combined, the 80 rated and the 77 with all gold rares being like 2.7 to 3K. You know, an 80 rated card on the market. All of those are selling for like 3K as well. So boom, literally I just made money back technically from that pack. Also right now, if you wanna do any preview packs or even if I just do a non preview pack, I'm just gonna buy the 7.5K pack for real with 7.5K coins. A lot of this right now is actually pretty profitable. It's actually pretty profitable. Now some people were saying that they like dropped the weight on 7.5Ks it seemed so that none of your players you were getting were rare in the pack, which is kind of what you see here. But, you know, maybe try a couple of these out and see what you get because of course with all rares being 3,000 coins, you get one or two of those and boom, you're chilling. So I didn't make any money there. I'm probably not gonna do any more of those, but that's just one thing to keep an eye out for as well is some of these. I'm not gonna preview. Now you know what, might as well. I might as well preview this. I wanted to save it until 6 p.m. tomorrow but I might as well preview when I have the chance and it looks like I did not get anything good for players, but none of them rare. Interesting. So maybe the rumors are true that getting the rares are very hard. Now I did get a rare here, but yeah. So just kind of watch out for that because those pack methods might be kind of viable right now if you're really trying to grind and might be profitable. So that's just what is going on in the game ATM. And again, really hoping for this SBC today to be a banger. Great value regardless, whether it's Sane or Celas and we got our fingers crossed for Celas. That's my vote. That's my opinion. That's who I am hoping for because that'd be a really, really fun card. But that's the video for today boys. If you did enjoy, smash thumbs up on it. Comment down below if you have any questions and subscribe if you're new. It's been Nate the Vodakown. I will catch you guys later. Peace out.


Gallbonydd am ymgyrch yn gweithio wrth gael i chi fod gennym rhai o'r wych, ond mae'n gweithio i'r Ysgolau Ysgolau Cymru, wedi bod yn gofynu'r ffordd ar y cyfnodau gyda'r busg, i meddwl y Gweithgaredd Cymru, y gydagol yma. Mae'r rhai o'r ffordd yn y cyfnod i'r gweithgaredd, mae'n gweithio i'r busg, ac mae'n gweithio'r busg yn cael ei ddechrau, ac ydy'r cyfnod o'r cyfnod lleol yn y ffordd. Ac rwy'n fawr yn helpu i'r byw ymgyrch, y dyfodol a'r cyfnod o'r cyfnod ar y gyrfa. Gweithio'r cyfnod o'r cyfnod ar gyfer y dyfodol yma, ac mae'n gweithio'r ffordd yn y rhan o'r refaelu. Yn gyflwyno, mae'r gweithio'r cyfnod yn llwyaf yn y cyfrif. Felly, rwy'n gweithio'r cyfrif yn ychydig, ac mae'n gweithio'r cyfrif yn y cyfrif. I'm going to keep my remarks to a minimum, but I will just, however, introduce my panel. First of all, I'm going to ask my colleague Sadiad Zahidi, who's head of employment and gender initiatives at the forum, a member of our executive committee, to discuss some of the key findings and highlights from a recent report we put out on Monday on the industry gender gap, and what exactly it means as we head towards this revolution. Theresa Whitmarsh is executive director of the Washington State Investment Board. She's got some personal experiences to share about your rise through the career progression, as well as your personal experiences working in the financial services industry, not a unique industry, but one that's very challenged nonetheless when it comes to gender balance. Mariswan is executive vice president, global strategy and talent and manpower in the USA, a long-term partner of the forum in our work on gender parity, and also I believe you have some more research. More importantly, you're at the cutting edge of trying to work with your clients to break down that barrier, and I'm sure you've got experiences to share as well. Sadri, over to you first, please. Thank you, Ollie. So I'm going to talk about this report that we put out on Monday on the future of jobs, which had a pretty significant section on the industry gender gap. I'm representing the work of many people, so my co-authors inside the forum are external collaborators from the Global Agenda Councils on the Future of Jobs and Gender Parity. Mariswan has been involved with that. Let me try to give you just a few highlights. One, most businesses state that they want to hire and promote and retain more women, where there tends to be a failure is on the action. To try to understand that and unpack that a little bit, we ask for the reasons why. Just before I get there, that statement that we want to recruit, retain, promote more women is even more prominent in the traditionally male-dominated industries. They are certainly feeling the pressure to try to reverse that gender gap. The reasons range from being a moral imperative all the way through to a business imperative, but what's come out quite clearly from the study is that about half of the businesses lean towards the moral argument, and then there's a variety of reasons which include having a more innovative workforce, having a more diverse workforce, feeling some external pressure from governments and media, and then a range of other reasons that other businesses state. The gender gap then obviously does persist across different industries, but what is very interesting about the study is how different it looks in different industries. Part of the conclusion we've drawn from that is that it may take a very tailored and specific approach with different industries to try to deal with that. The reasons are both cultural and structural. There are issues related to unconscious biases, the cultural factors that many of us carry around whether we're aware of them or not, but they're also structural. A lot of organisations are still designed for society, families of maybe 40 or 50 years ago, and that just doesn't quite apply anymore. There's some basic design that needs to change in organisations as well as broadly for policy. Then if we look towards the future, there's a lot of findings about where job growth is likely to come from and where job losses are likely to come from. What's clear is there is a gender dimension to both issues. The losses are likely to be in areas like office and administrative functions, which have actually provided mid-level or high-skilled women middle-class livelihoods in a lot of countries, not just in the developed world, but also in emerging markets. Those jobs are going to be hollowed out, so we could see a reversal of the gender gap, particularly in those areas. Then the growth is likely to come from STEM professions. That is where there is a very well-documented lack of women today, and that's where a lot of the structures of the organisations that employ them are not set up for today's world and for today's talent. Again, there could be some growing gender gaps there. Finally, looking at the results of this, it may be time for companies and governments to start leaning in, not just women themselves, and that will require some structural change that will require putting in place measures to change culture. People always say cultural issues, how can we possibly get past that? Well, culture is very much man-made or woman-made, if you want to call it that. That does, there are some very clear strategies that can help change that. It just requires sort of concerted effort. Part of those concerted efforts are things like the efforts that Theresa is making in her specific industry. I just remind you all, the headline of this press release, Women in the Firing Line of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Theresa, how are you going to address that? I do feel like I'm in the firing line. Let me back up and tell just a little bit of a personal story and then I'll get into some of the findings that we found in this very specific industry. I run the State Investment Board in Washington. We're a very large private equity investor and have been in that asset class since 1981. In the dozen years that I have been at the State Investment Board, anyone who seeks money from the private equity industry comes to ask. We're always a first stop because we're a very popular and well respected investor. In my entire time there, I can count on one hand the number of women partners that have come through. Typically the women in these firms are in investor relations. Again, that's an important profession, but they're not the deal makers and they're not the partners. I had to observe that. My first Davos was three years ago and it really came into sharper leaf for me. What a big issue it was because as a member of the investor industry's group and attending the investor industry events, I found myself to be the only woman in the room often other than the forum staff and thank goodness for the forum staff because I would have really felt out of place. In one of the sessions, some of the men, general partners in the private equity industry, were talking about the search for talent and some of the challenges they have in putting together their teams. It really struck me that they were sitting here talking about their trouble in sourcing good talent and yet they exclude 50% of the population from their talent pool. I publicly, in this one session, made that comment. It was kind of tongue in cheek, but it got quite a pretty interesting reaction afterwards. I had so many men come up to me and say, we've tried, we've worked at it, we have trouble sourcing women and we have trouble retaining them. My challenge to the industry, if you think about the private equity industry, what's its job? It takes really troubled companies and turns them around or it takes startups and puts them on good footing and gets them going. The skillset of the private equity industry is solving complex problems. I challenged them. I said, listen, just take this approach as if you were taking over a really difficult company and you had to analyze all the structural reasons for that and come up with a good business solution, take that same skillset and apply it to this particular issue. I think by, in a sense, taking it away from a moral imperative to more of a, it's a business problem to solve and the guys in the private equity industry are good at that. That started a conversation and then I had a number of conversations with the forum staff and the forum very generously committed resource to this initiative and we pulled together a couple sets of meetings. The first was a meeting in New York with a number of the general partners and limited partners and we just started peeling the onion and started really thinking, okay, what are the challenges? Then in a follow on to that, one of the things that we really did hear from our partners is if this is an important issue to their investors, it will become an important issue for them. Then we pulled together a second event with what we call the limited partners and the investors in these funds and we started talking about, okay, what expectations should we have of the industry? That's how we got to this point and again we're finding a lot of both structural and cultural issues that are challenging but solvable. Amara, what's the recipe? What's your secret source for breaking these barriers down? So I have the benefit of being a practitioner myself and working with 400,000 clients around the world and what we hear a lot similar to what Teresa is saying is everyone's stuck in this circular conversation. Is it an economic problem? Is it a business problem? What's the business case? So we really want to really talk about how we're going to take action and move out of this. So we did commission a study recently and what we did was we wanted to find out whether the millennial generation is going to be the generation to solve this problem. One of the things I found most interesting and I've gone out and presented this a couple of times is every time I present this because the millennials believe that 100% believe they will solve the problem, though they think it's going to take them 22 years to do it, which they will no longer be young, they'll be old like us, is that the boomer said, hey, we thought the same thing too. So one of the things that came out of our study similar to what we saw at the Mercer study is that CEOs have to take responsibility and they have to get their leadership teams to do it. The second piece that I wanted to point out, and you can look at this on our website, Seven Steps to Conscious Inclusion, but is there something even more than unconscious bias and I've heard study talk about unconscious bias, I think it's almost just poor management, poor management of the talent. So in general, what we've been doing is that we have been living off the generosity of a very robust talent market and we are basically have a strategy that's basically just in time. It's like spot recruiting. I'm going to go out and get somebody.  So when they say they can't find them, it's because they don't want to look very hard. They want it in one day. And so I think that's a big issue. The third one I really want to point out which I found to be the most troubling is when we asked women what was one of the number one things that's going to help you advance into leadership. They talked about networking and mentoring. These are nice things that make them feel happy. They make them survive in the organization. They do not make them thrive in the organization. Not one mentioned getting a profit and loss job. And these are our millennial women. And I think this is probably one of the most disturbing things that we have to address. OK. A sit will junction to pause for questions. If not, I have many, but please. Just wait for the microphone, Mum, and if you wouldn't mind giving us your name and where you're from. Sure. I'm Donna Llinewan. I'm Donna Llinewan Lege from USA Today. And I'd like to ask Theresa. So you've been here three years now. Last year the gender breakdown was 17 percent women. This year it's 18 percent women, which is a very small uptick, maybe not even statistically significant. Where do you see the progress coming from and how long will it take? You know, one of the reasons that I've tried, one of the decisions we made as a group of investors in thinking about how are we going, what are we going to ask of our general partners, we decided not to focus on a number and not to focus on statistics. And I think and instead focus on progress, tortigal and visibility of women. And I think the one thing that I've really observed this year, and it's a huge difference from three years ago, because the forum, even though there's not a lot more women here, the women who are here are being put in very powerful positions and been given a voice. If you look at it, every panel has pretty much every panel has women on it now. That wasn't even three years ago. That wasn't true. And that takes effort. And so I think putting women in visibly powerful positions, that then helps create a feeder pool. Because I think of myself as a young woman coming up in male dominated careers. I just did not have role models. And I remember reading this one book when I was like 32, 33 years old on CEOs. What does like to be a CEO? I had aspirations at quite a young age.  And I kept thinking, how am I going to possibly do this? And I think women often run into those situations where I don't look like what you think of as a CEO. I'm a petite blonde woman. And so you have to be able to visualize yourself in a profession to be able to strive for that. So I think having women more visible is a really important and powerful first step. A justification as well of the work we do throughout the year, whether it's measuring the gender gap or whether it's spearheading task forces in countries such as Turkey, South Korea, Mexico, to try to put in place the fundamental environment where women can start to thrive. The leaders of tomorrow are better reflected across both genders. Sadia, there's got to be some good news. I read in the report very late at night, quite possibly. But I read in the report that the number of women who will progress to senior positions is actually going to increase quite significantly between now and 2020. Yeah, I mean that was one of the very interesting things that came out. Regardless of how narrow the pool is, how small the pool is that's coming into every industry, every single, almost every single industry is expecting growth in the middle management and senior management positions. And that also shows in terms of the strategies they're applying. They're not focusing so much on increasing the pool that's coming in. They're focusing much more on ensuring that women are being retained and promoted. So the good news, the good part of that is we can expect to see change in the next five years. That's at least what the heads of HR of these organizations are predicting. Maybe the aspect that still needs to be worked on is for a lot of industries they actually do have a pipeline problem and a perception problem. And they need to be working on changing that as well. So they do need to connect back to universities, back to schools, and help bring women into professions they traditionally haven't gone into. And that should be fairly easy to do because in about 100 countries in the world women are the majority of those that are enrolled in universities. What it might just now require given the kind of forecasting tools we have is a little bit of engineering to ensure that women are actually going into the areas where jobs are going to be created. Mara, we've known for a while though that we need to do something about this problem. It's not new. What makes now different? What gives you greater optimism or do you not have any greater optimism? I have to be optimistic. You have to be optimistic in this business. I think the difference is we're starting to realize that there is a talent shortage and that driven by demographics and driven by the number of women in university. So I think actually the success of women in university is actually putting a push on businesses. So if they want to really go out and get the best talent some of the women are not only graduating at a higher rate they're graduating with higher grades and higher achievement. And I think that does two things. One that broadens the talent pool but also broadens the expectations of those women. If they're successful in the academic environment they're going to demand to be have the same success in the business environment and businesses are going to have to respond to that. Theresa, anything on timing? Anything you think about? Now it makes a good time for us too. Yeah, I think it does start with the talent pool. But I also think again getting to Saudi's point which is it has to be very industry specific. You have to tailor strategies and in the private equity industry if you think about a private equity partnership trust is absolutely vital and trust is something that builds more quickly with people who are like you. This is the way it is. And so one of the things we look at when we're selecting a partner, a new partner, is we look for longevity of the team. We look for cohesiveness. We look for a group that works really really well together. And so I think there has been this idea that I need to hire people like me to get that trust in the organization. And I think as we started to sort of peel that away, the industry is beginning to say you know what yes that's a really good attribute of a partnership. But diversity of opinion is also critical to good investment decision making. So we now have data about how both men and women's brains work that we didn't have say maybe a decade ago. And we think very differently about risk. And the more diversity of opinion you bring to an investment decision, the better investment decision you're going to have. So we have data now that we didn't have before that kind of debunks or maybe offsets that need for natural trust and affinity. So I think just better data, the conversation is more comfortable for people than they used to have. You know what I think when I was growing up I really did not want anyone to even notice I was a woman in my profession. I just wanted to be known for what my skill set was. Now I think we're much more comfortable talking about the very real differences between the way men and women process information and sort of celebrate those differences and bring them to the forefront in the workplace. Do you think the diversity, just curious, I think it has helped that the diversity of the men has changed because globalization has now required that men are different. So they're not from the same university. They're not from, they're not all white males that grew up in you know a certain city. They become more diverse because they're from all over the world. Has that helped to create more opportunity for women to kind of penetrate that? I don't know that, I don't know that that has, but that's certainly a condition we see. I mean we see incredible cultural and racial and ethnic diversity within the private equity firms that are global and we still don't see women. So I think, but I mean it is, that's an interesting thought. So we'll come to you in a second, but if I may just go back to Mara, your comments about university and I believe again from reading my global gender gap report avidly that there's a drop off from success in university to success in professional life and then a further drop off to success at the top echelons of business. So we're losing talented women throughout that life cycle if I'm not mistaken side here. So what's going on is that's not enough is it just to have successful role models and success at university. A lot of I think it's cultural and I think we've seen that when the WEF reports every year when we do the gender what's preventing women, one of the biggest barriers it's usually, first one's usually country culture and then company culture. So I think you can be successful but you still have to be accepted and welcomed and I think a lot of what's happening is companies used to be the company man, trust look, we all look alike and we're the company man and we dedicate our life and I think the company man is dead and I think companies need to replace that. What's the new definition of trust and commitment and loyalty and once we change our minds on that then we'll be more welcoming to other groups of people and I think because the pressure we're having for this talent pressure will put more pressure on organizations to break down those barriers. Maybe not fast knock but I think we'll start to break down. So Frank Brown, partner at General Atlantic, a large global growth private equity firm. We were talking this morning to Risa in another group about the need for LPs to evaluate GPs and to put some pressure on and it's not just in private equity, it's across the investment community. The need is really for metrics.  Is there a thought to how we do that and maybe not necessarily create a standard but some idea of metrics that we can all agree upon and compare each other and compete a bit. The one thing that we and we talked a lot about that when the LPs met for this workshop that we held in New York in the fall and we ultimately didn't come up with a metric but what we did suggest is that we would ask our partners to develop a strategy and a metric that was meaningful to them and then track them against their own commitment and I think again this industry is so as you know every sort of strategy and sector has its own particular focus and so we felt it would be difficult to come up with something that would work across all the entire industry like for instance a very large leverage buyout firm that has hundreds of employees is going to be able to put a completely different kind of program in place than a very small partnership with you know seven or eight and so again what we talked about is let's just ask for a strategy it's in the same thing we asked for you what your outlook is on the markets and where you're going to you know where you're going to commit your money and what you you know how are you going to how are you going to deploy our capital um how are you going to address this issue and then hold you accountable to what you commit to but this is where collaboration I think can help in that I believe one of the biggest issues is in business you're rated by financial results you're not rated on other results and this is why I think CEO support is so important I know in our company one of the things I've been talking to our CEO about is how we rate our top leaders they need to it needs to be a scorecard that has multiple factors on them and some of these are these human factors around what are you doing around your talent pipeline how are you developing women and other groups of people and I think one thing we could do is we could create that because I think a lot of people aren't thinking like that because we've been trained in business school to think in total financial outcomes and so I think this is one area where we could cross industry not have adopt the same one but adopt the concept and then personalize it for our own companies well I mean certainly what you know what gets measured gets managed and we all know that and so I'm not suggesting that we don't need metrics but I think at this point it's still early stages and early days and so we'd love to hear what our partners think is realistic and and also again I'm I'm really working to make this a collaborative effort and not I mean also as a fiduciary I have an obligation to maximize returner to prudent level risk and where lack of diversity contributes to maybe a risk profile we don't like then we can consider it in our investment decision process but otherwise we can't just we can't consider it so I'm not going to pick a firm based on their gender scorecard I'm going to pick a firm based on their investment performance where this ties into investment performance that I can think about it so ultimately that fiduciary hat is something I have to really wear tight on my head yeah but I think internally companies can be doing this themselves absolutely yeah absolutely it's raising just a point there it sounds like you're you've got a plan for your industry but are there any other industries you can learn from you trying to do this all or all on your own is there any best practice out there yeah I mean not if financial services that I know of I don't know maybe we should look for one maybe the industry gender gap has some have some good ideas and maybe there are other ideas that you could look for different different vertical sectors I mean yeah and I I'm going to be blank I'm going to be blank sorry maybe Saudi maybe you have some ideas because you have a more global perspective I've been literally very narrowly focused on this one particular aspect I mean not surprisingly perhaps the consumer and retail sector and the media entertainment information sector is the one are the two sectors that are doing the best in both in terms of sort of the the incoming pool but also in terms of how many are making it into middle and senior management but there are some interesting because of you know maybe they're not necessarily under that same pressure but where we're seeing some some change or some desire for collaboration is also in the oil and gas industry which has actually a very similar issue in and very similar profile in terms of how few women are involved and so instead of each company trying to create you know its own scholarship for women in going into science for example in country X they're going to try to pool their effort so that they're collectively working on getting more women into science technology engineering math and then whether that talent goes into that industry or elsewhere it's still setting up I think a very different kind of pipeline coming in and then of course they've got sort of a very specific perception issue very specific kind of playing field issue within their own organisations just time for one quick question before we we start finalising this session. Mum, baby T have you got the microphone there? Don't. Okay. You can be loud. You can be loud and with a microphone. Shad. Donna again from USA Today is there a particular point at which women in the financial service industry sort of disconnect from that upward movement that movement into leadership where is that corporate cultural divide? Women still have the babies I mean it's a physical fact and so a lot of women when they begin to contemplate starting a family you know the traditional responses to been to mommy track them we're going to make it easier on you we're going to do this or that and we had in one of the workshops we had we had a founder of a private equity firm who's been quite progressive on these issues and what he said what he had done with some of his star women is instead of mommy tracking it making it easy for him he'd think of the toughest coolest most interesting deal and lure him back into the workplace with that deal and if anyone doesn't think women are just as competitive as men you know we are and we I and the and the other men in the room when they heard that they just loved that concept but but one of the things that was so interesting they said well we don't even know how to have those conversations with a woman in terms of what should we be do you know because they're afraid to you know for all the legal reasons and they're afraid to and so the this particular GP founders response was the men are the ones who actually need mentoring they need to learn how they can have these kinds of conversations appropriately the women need the sponsors the women need the ones that actually gives them the tough job and the opportunity but the men need mentoring and how to how to do this so I think again a lot of it the conversations have changed and it's easier but that is probably one of the biggest places where you start seeing women peel off a couple of the major firms have done some really interesting things in the last couple years one major lbo firm has put in a policy now where their women deal makers can well and their men too can take a caretaker a child caretaker with them when they travel and they'll pay for it so that really helps during that transition when you know you got young babies another has extended maternity leave quite substantially so there's a lot the other thing too is getting away from what I call a FaceTime culture you know a technology now it does not matter where you work and private equity historically has been a FaceTime culture you know you hang together from early morning to late at night well you don't have to always be there to be productive you can be at home you know baby in one hand cell phone in the other and still get business done so technology has has enabled that as well now we're really very very close to time if we're not over already but before we finish I'd just like each of you to give us your one priority for the year ahead what one thing would you like to see achieved I'm going to start with you Salia okay well we got our mandate this morning from the trustees for the global challenge on gender parity which is really where the forum does the bulk of its work on gender equality throughout the year and I think you know one one area will certainly be to continue to provide the measurement tools that we've been providing but a second is to actually provide more of a space for action and collaboration and that'll happen both at a national level and also taking the the the work that's been done in experiments such as yours and seeing can we help create a similar mindset or a similar set of work in other industries mora change happens from individuals and I think we need to have a little less conversation a little more action I think every individual that's been at the forum can do one thing they'll make difference to one woman and then we will have more change Theresa I would like to see our private equity partners commit to a plan develop and commit to a plan and one of the things that Melissa Mawn I are going to be doing after this is going around and speaking with a number of the partners and asking them what could they could what kind of plan could they commit to thank you very much and thank you for joining us for this lively energetic discussion this session is now over thank you