I'm delighted to be in the studio this morning with Mr. Francis Wangusi, he's the Director-General of the Communications Authority of Kenya, and he's here at ITU to take part in the focus group on digital financial services. Thank you very much, Mr. Wangusi, for finding some time to talk to us. Thank you for inviting me too. Kenya is actually probably the star player in this field, isn't it? An amazing track record in promoting digital financial services, leveraging new technologies, you pioneered the M-PASA system, which is famous now around the world. What do you think was the secret of the success? Why did Kenya have such an outstanding success when other countries haven't actually achieved as much as you so far? Well, first of all, when the concept of mobile money services was done on our players and the government, I think there was a little more bravery from both the government and the players to at least start it, despite not knowing the risks that are going to be involved and whether or not it's going to succeed. But we did, by agreeing to give it a pilot of one year and also limit the amount of money that was going to be carried through the financial platform in order to find out whether there is viability at the end of the tunnel. That limit, they maybe made people feel a little bit more reassured that nothing really... Nothing major really happens and just in case, of course, the whole pilot project bangles. But I think after one year, we had amazing results that really we were just only forced to start developing financial regulations, financial and, of course, ICT regulations around the platform in order to encourage it to move further. I think that's very interesting. You know, I actually asked the Minister from Somalia if he thought the lack of regulation was a hindrance or actually helped, and it sounds like you might argue that it helped by not having a very strong framework to start with. You were able to introduce the service. I think, yes, when the service matures, the need for regulations and policy direction becomes very important. But I think at the start, had we put that in place, it could have been a big hindrance towards the rapid growth of the service. We saw that when there was that lackuna of regulation, the mobile operator who was responsible for this pilot leveraged a load in order to see that the services succeeded and also to avoid a number of risks that could have made the government probably think otherwise in terms of allowing the service to continue. But as I said, one of the safeguards that we put in place was to limit the amount of money that was to be transacted by an individual on that platform. So that helped us. We found that quite a number of people, you know, there was quite a number of transfers of revenue from person to person, growing up very much, especially from towns to the rural areas, because most of the people who work in towns are relatives in the rural areas. And before then it used to be very difficult to send money to people in the rural areas when they needed help. Sometimes it will take as long as a week, but you see with the speed of this kind of transaction, which could just take a matter of seconds. Many people who are sorting out their problems with their rural communities took just an easy time to be able to do that. And that inspired the rabbit growth of this service. Did you have to actively promote the service when you first introduced it or was it really word of mouth? Well, ideally I wouldn't want to say that the service was promoted so much. At least there was sensitization, and particularly with the service provider. But immediately people picked it up and saw the convenience. I think the promotion of the service was done by the people themselves. We talked a little bit already about the regulatory framework. Now the telecom sector and the financial sector are both highly regulated sectors. Financial services would normally be under the auspices of perhaps the central bank or something like that. How are you working out a regulatory framework that balances both the telecoms regulation side and the financial side? One thing we realized that for the success of this service, both the ICT regulator and the financial regulator must work together. And that where they were overlaps in responsibilities, then we needed to come together and see how we can be able to collaborate in order to be able to make the service a success. As a result of this, there has been no much friction in terms of the decisions the ICT regulator makes in promoting the services or at least making the services secure in one way or the other and what the central bank of Kenya in this particular respect does. In fact, the reason, a case in point, is that there was a petition that was given by one of the mobile operators, not for us to allow the use of the Thinsim technology in the mobile money transfer market. And of course, this was as a result of one of the operators having introduced that particular service. There was really a lot of heat around the determination of that particular request and both the ICT regulator and the financial regulator worked together. We sought for various technical advice with regard to the operations of the Thinsim. They also sought to see what implications it might have on the financial security particularly in terms of money laundering and also in terms of operators just maybe undercutting themselves using the same technology. But at the end of it I think we were satisfied that the Thinsim has the technology similar to any other SIM card and therefore the risks are just inherent in Thinsim like they are in any other SIM card. So instead we moved forward to look for a way of how we can be able to mitigate those risks and right now we have hired a consultant who is going to be able to help us be able to provide a regulatory determination on the way forward in regulating the mobile financial services now that there are more players not just even the Thinsim alone. This would be looking at a sort of technology neutral approach rather than linked to any particular platform. Yes and then also help us to come up with medications in terms of risks, regulatory medications that would be able to minimize the risks because of what we are doing right now in encouraging in the operability of various platforms. I wanted to ask you actually in terms of risk your success has been so world famous that I imagine it must have attracted the attention of some potential cyber criminals and that's a worry I imagine for you. How do you make sure and mitigate those cyber security risks? One of the things that and you are very right that the cyber security risks have been prominent especially when the service grew. But one of the things that we did was first of all to limit the amounts of money that can be transacted by an individual. This of course brought the risk appetite to a low level so that it doesn't allow those who probably might want to be able to take advantage of the service and create maybe a big impact in terms of the risk so that it can discourage people from using it. But the existed risks, I think along the ecosystem of mobile financial services you know right from the banks to the operators of the mobile money transfer platforms and the agents who are the last people to be able to serve the customers we found that there were various risks along the chain. Now we have tried as much as possible to try and limit those risks but however some of the risks which were unforeseen like for example what we call the phishing and smishing which has been a very common risk for us back home there. We have come up with a method of trying to ensure a tight kind of regulations that would enable those who access the service to have been properly identified and registered so that whatever SIM card that is being used in the transaction of this service must be with somebody who has been properly identified who is within the government registration system. Of course those who come into Kenya from foreign countries and want to use the service within the country of course we use their passports and we identify them with their passports as one of the key component in the identification process. So this has helped to reduce but even after saying that the aspect of and the mandal lowering well is a very wide subject and I don't think we could easily be able to say we have eliminated it. Somehow within Kenya itself one of the experiences we had is that institutions like prisons particularly notorious for this were criminals who are using a number of SIM cards which of course they obtained unlawfully to be able to threaten people to send money to them under the guise that probably they are robbers who are at their doorstep so give me money or I break into your house and collect what I want. It's almost a kind of mobile protection racket. Exactly, exactly. I think that could be the best word I mean we can use there. This has been rampant but then slowly because we realize this was coming from institutions which are meant to be confining criminals and yet they are encouraging this kind of racket I think we looked for a way of how we can collaborate with the police and the prison warders to be able to arrest this and since we arrested it I think we don't see it anymore but it has not had such a significant impact in redidding the growth of mobile money transfer services. When you started M-Pesa it began as a fairly simple banking system now do you see it, do you have a vision for that developing are there different areas now that you are looking at? Yes, in fact several models of mobile financial services not even just the transfer services regarding person to person or person to business or business to business now there are various models that have come up and particularly after banks having realized that part of their customer base is being taken away by this new service they are partnering with the mobile network operators in order to be able to provide more brands of this service we have now mobile banking, microfinance institutions which are providing loans to small business people small enterprises are using this particular service we have now seen the growth of the insurance industry getting interested in trying to provide the insurance services through these platforms and many others we have seen like for example the transport sector getting so keen in trying to ensure that even the payment of their services is being done through M-Pesa and even the government itself now has created a platform through which people can pay for the government services on M-Pesa so this really is an accelerated growth in my opinion in the application of mobile financial services in the country A relatively simple system that sounds like a huge social and economic impact Exactly, and in fact many major technologies that are still being used are the ones that you know the system was founded on like the USSD technology although right now the WAP technology has been brought in by a few more companies that we have licensed particularly those who want to do mobile banking and I believe that it has worked well maybe basically because it is still confined within the country and the rules that we have within the country are good enough to help us be able to avoid and mitigate on a number of risks Well congratulations on developing such an excellent world-leading service Mr. Wanguzi, thank you very much for joining me today Thank you, thank you very much


Nope, I've seen those before. That's a pop. That is a drop-and-pop. Yep, that is a drop-and-pop. Y'all hear me say that all the time? When it works for me, I'm like, Yeah, give me that drop-and-pop. That's the drop-and-pop right there where you snap everybody. Everybody thinks they're going one way and then, boom, they snap it back the other way. Yeah, that's the beast. See, and that right there is why I do not like to listen to the news.  Oh, Fed said, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Bro, the Fed doesn't mean squat. Nothing that anybody says means nothing. Yep, that's why I don't like to bias myself in the news. You guys are wondering why I don't have that news on and stuff. And it's like, oh, it's neat to know the news, man.  You just play what's on the chart. I just played this without knowing, you know, without feeling that bias to the short side would have been perfectly fine. All right, we've got Delta's given up here, so now I can try some. One more time, this might have been the end. We we got the two deltas. I don't know why I care about that. It's at the end of the day. Like none of this volume matters. It's not none of it's real at the end of the day. When we're talking about Q 200. Oh, it's going to give me some back, maybe Q 200 or I'm about to get wrecked. Not bad for a day when I literally set up for full bias of, OK, all this bad Fed news they're talking about. They are totally underestimated and we're going to have to keep all the raise and rates and inflation is going to go through the roofs. All this negative news on that day means nothing. Turn off the news, folks, turn off the news. I'm literally closing out that site right now. Do not pay attention to the news. Just play what's on the chart. Play the chart. Double cross, double moves, enigmas, headshots, J hooks, all those plays. If you go back and I roll back and look at all of them like everything was called just right. It's great. Even this cluster back here, right? Well, they kind of made me doubt what I say. I said, oh, there's a cluster right there. Boom. What do we want to do for that? We move down, we get a cluster. Just move it up. That's the perfect spot. What's this one? Cluster, what do we do? Take a short. Forget any of the news for getting the bias. Just play the setups and you're in good shape. But no, even myself, I had, I had it totally hooked in my head. Had a great comeback in the middle of the day. Had awesome, you know, quick action movement, like 200 plus speed, but then end up giving back a lot of it there at the end of the day there. Less noise, yeah. Can't have the mental bias of the news particularly. Technicals, that's one thing, but not, not news. Not if you're, not if you're a technical day trader.


In this video we are going to take a look at how we can calculate sun path and shadows inside the ecotech environment using the sun path diagram and the solar exposure tool inside ecotech. I have now opened the conceptual environment with inside ecotech and to start out I want to explain that ecotech can do that Vasari environment can't. What it can't do that you are not able to do with inside Vasari is that you can look at the different types of radiation, incident, direct, absolved, etc. And you are also able to calculate the amount of overshadowing and solar radiation for a specific element inside the model. And for doing this you can use two different types of functionality with inside ecotech. One is under the analysis here, solar exposure and the other is up here on the calculate called the sun path diagram. And of course there is multiple other functionality but in this video I will focus on the sun path diagram and the solar exposure tool. In many cases starting a project it's important that we are not inflicting too much with the neighboring buildings. So for this video here I will demonstrate that we are not creating or I will calculate that we are not creating any overshadowing for these buildings and I will provide some inspiration on how you can use these functions for your passive cooling strategies, placement of shading, etc. So the first thing I will do is go to the 3D editor and I will mark out a specific facade here on the existing building to measure the overshadowing conditions for this specific element here. So the first thing I will do is turn on or freeze the new involvement and then I will go to calculate sun path diagram. And the first thing I have to do here is to understand what I am working on. So here you really have the graphic diagram but you can also look at it in other ways and you are also able to look at the actual values. So first of all you will see that if I am marking out other elements it will simply show me the shadow conditions for the specific elements that I am marking out or more than one element that I am marking out in the model. And you see here is the location, the object, the sun position and the vertical sky angle. And down here time a day, date and dotted lines here July to December. The first thing I will do is I will go to calculate shading and say I want to calculate shading for that specific element down there and seeing overshadowing percentage. I am also able to look at the overall total values which allows me to really see that for the existing conditions I might have an overshading percentage for that specific facade at 8% and in building this new building we will have an overshading percent at 10% which will show me that we are not impacting this existing building too much. Or I might have in another project that we were really affecting this specific facade a lot. So I am just hitting OK and now I get the overshading conditions for this specific element and what you will see here is that I can drag the sun around here in the sun path throughout the year and see how much overshadowing will be created for that specific element based on the sun position. So here you will see that at that specific time here 9.30 on the 29th of October this facade will be in 5% shade. So based on the color here in the diagram you are able to see where you will have the most overshadowing. So the black areas is because of its self-shading 100% shaded and here the gray areas as more color as more shade. So I am able to turn that on in the visualized page and I can just minimize this a bit here and then I can actually begin to get a visual interpretation as well on where there will be overshading and it is really quite logical if you get all the way around to here you will see that the facade is shading itself or the building is making self-shading for itself. So it is just pretty logical really. You are also able to go here to the tabular and you can get all the data for that specific day. If I am calculating the hourly values I am able to really validate it a bit more. Let's go to the 3D editor and say ok I can also really look at the solar stress. So I want to turn on a new environment and I just want to look at this facade to see how this facade is exposed throughout the year for solar stress. So I am hitting the calculate shading and just hitting direct solar stress. So now I actually as well can see how much radiation or how much energy the facade will receive and when the facade will be most exposed. So if I am just taking this away and I can look to the model here. Let me just reset this a bit. You will see that the element that I specified is really most exposed when the sun is not that high on the sky so that means that a blind or a vertical shading device will be most appropriate to test out. So this is just one way of actually looking at how much solar stress, how much energy, how many watts will hit that specific surface. Let's turn this off and down and let's look at another possibility of looking at calculated values for giving us insight on some of these strategies. I am going to the 2D editor again, marking this facade here again, go to calculate and say solar exposure and say update and really this just really a lot like the sun path diagram. The gray areas is where it will be most shaded because it's one facade. It has a bigger area so some areas will receive some solar radiation but this is really where it's not shaded at all and this is where it's totally different from Masari or Revit that you are able to see the specific types of radiation, how much will hit the surface incident, how much will be absorbed in the material, how much will be transmitted if it's a lacing material, how much direct light will hit it, how much diffuse light will hit it. So here this is really light and here this is really the sort of radiation coming as heat or energy and how much is reflected from the specific surface and the actual shading percentage. So here I can now scroll for the period. If I made a thermal calculation and I know that in June and beginning of August this facade will have or rooms at this location will have overheating then I can begin to look at between 8 to 12 we have to make some kind of shading device or soft shading and check that into consideration. This is for a single day I can also look at it at an average daily value looking here at the incident having up here the hours, the months and how much energy in watt per square meter will hit the specific element and here I have all the data for the different months and I can of course export that to do numeric simulations. So just some great tools that allows you to work with the data and get into the different types of heat and energy and light that will hit the different elements in our project. Thank you.


Good morning virtual community members today. I will take some time to discuss how we go about building open sim communities some new ideas on how we can go about building communities and Innovated methods use using new and older resources But before we do that, I would like to identify who in virtual worlds is tasked with building communities Usually it becomes the role of the estate owner He or she may have some idea about what the world should be and what type of person should be there Or they will appoint some trusted volunteer to the role of sort of a moderator slash Social manager that recruits enforces policies and interacts But for the most part that method usually does not result in large enough numbers to create effective daily activity. I Defined effective daily activity in open sim as Activity that attracts new accounts to immerse themselves in the existing community This murky road a role I have just described over the last few years becomes More clear to the corporate world. We have seen development of the role of the community manager Community strategist Connie Benson defines the community manager as the voice of the company externally and the voice of the customers internally The value lies in the community manager serving as a hub and having the ability to personally connect with the customers and Provide feedback to many departments internally Some more key activities of a community manager are on the slide behind me as they are listed at Connie Benson dot com Large corporations usually can justify the funds needed to create a salary for a corporate community manager But usually there are no salaries available to open sim communities But as states and world owners can compensate an effective part-time community manager with free land or other incentives It's best to spell out the details of the bar to deal. So everyone is on the same page Now we know who should build communities, but what tools are available to the community manager to do so This is where social media comes into play Because we usually have a budget of zero available to us and open sim Social media is the perfect resource. It's free Massive easily molded to the user's ability and did I mention it's free? Let's go over the numbers 1,800 women ages 18 to 29 who use the internet were surveyed 67% of those surveyed use Facebook 16% use Twitter 15% use Pinterest 13% use Instagram and 6% use Tumblr One million websites have integrated with Facebook 23% of users check Facebook five times a day 34% of marketers have generated leads using Twitter Google's plus one button is used five million times a day and Over five million pictures are uploaded to Instagram every hour Keep information about your community on social media I like to publish at least three times a week using different mediums You don't want to oversaturate your social networks. Then people will tend to block you But you want to be visible Publish pictures on your community members activities on social networks using image sharing sites Sites like Instagram flicker photo bucket Pinterest and deviant art When you post the images be descriptive and always post links so people can access the content the idea is to draw people into your community Also set shared theme image groups that community members can add to Touch signage in world that takes people directly to the picture sharing site helps to get people involved in the image sharing Another idea is to turn those images into a curated in world exhibit It is a good way to thank those that shared their photos encourage others to participate in the future and once you advertise for the exhibit you will continue to market your community to your social network When you decide to publish on your social network at least three times a week You should map out your social network weekly plan I like to start up with a blog entry that includes some images from my community Then I move that on to scoop it scoop it is a great tool Because others outside of the social network may pick up your story and share it with their social network also But I mostly like scoop it because it makes your story look more like a legitimate news item Once you share it out to Facebook Twitter Tumblr or WordPress Some really good story ideas for your social network could be a new content creator joined the community a resident built a new attraction or There is an upcoming live performance It used to be that Facebook was the only social network that you could use an effective group for me But now Google plus has emerged as a very attractive resource that can help grow your group while out of world Once a year, it's a good idea to boost your visibility on your social network by taking on your own unique social media initiative Perhaps a fundraiser for nonprofit groups that help people or a music festival celebrating an anniversary of your community Something that requires some group planning and pulls in other community members to help is always a good thing This year, I'm developing a plan to help venue owners cover the cost of booking live musicians into their spaces I want to create a relationship between musicians and business owners where the business owner sponsors performances and Then those performances are placed in venues at no cost to the venue owner I want to create a win-win-win situation where the musician gets paid in advance for their performance The business owner gets marketing for their product before and during the performance and the venue owner receives a live performance That doesn't cost them anything. I feel that this symbiotic relationship Becomes the new norm as part of the live music scene and we will see a Re-emergence of some exciting new venues in the metaverse The more active social outlets and open sim the more people will be attracted to the global community But one community manager cannot do it alone You have to get some community members to step up and volunteer to help out also But how do you do that? Well, you just ask as the community manager You walk up to people individually and you ask them to perform a specific task at a specific time You aren't looking for an indentured servant to be at your beck and call You want a concerned community member doing their part to help their community flourish Don't burn people out and also show your appreciation. I don't believe that volunteers do what they do just to be nice I want to keep these great people. So I always have in volunteer incentive program in place gift bags gift certificates to go shopping for free award ceremonies Freeland any of these tools prove to a volunteer that you value what they are doing You can create a positive Growing online community without burning yourself out by tapping into the resource that you already have available to you daily Community manager social network weekly plan your own unique social media initiative and volunteers and incentives I Challenge you to try a social media plan for three months then step back and check out the results. I believe you'll be pleasantly surprised Thank you all for attending and have a great day


No, they told us to do it slow. Yeah, let's go. Cast stations in your equipment that can quickly miss materials. Official message. Honey, guys, let's go. Inside. Honey, did you hear anything about a test today? No, I didn't see anything in the paper. Do you think it's real? This is a test of the emergency alert system. This is a coordinated monthly test of the broadcast stations in your area. Equipment that can quickly warn you during emergencies is being tested. If this had been an actual emergency. The Harrison's and their neighbors did the right thing. The chemical stockpile emergency preparedness program, or CSEP, uses a variety of warning devices to alert and notify the public in a rapid manner. A siren or a total alert signal is meant to grab your attention. You should listen to the warning message and take immediate action. If you're outside and cannot hear the warning instructions, immediately go inside and turn to your local emergency radio or television station for information on appropriate protective action. Officials in your CSEP community will use electronic sirens, tone alert radios, route alerting, or messages sent over TV and radio to let you know what you need to do to protect yourself, your family or household members, your pets, or people at your business or workplace. Depending on the situation, you may then be asked to evacuate or to shelter in place. In some cases, officials may ask part of the community to shelter and part to evacuate. Emergency planners have developed protective action strategies to maximize public protection in the event of a release. If officials advise you to evacuate and you are at home, immediately gather up medications, emergency supplies, family members, and pets and follow recommended evacuation routes away from the hazard area to a reception center. Officials will tell you where to go and when it is safe to return. If you cannot evacuate or shelter by yourself, make arrangements for your neighbors, nearby friends, or relatives to assist you. Contact your local emergency management agency for assistance. If household members are separated, follow your household emergency plan that contains strategies to take protective action and eventually reunite. If your family does not have an emergency plan, you should develop one. Information resources developed in your community can help you to prepare a plan. Children outplaying should know to return home immediately. If your children are at school, don't phone the school or try to pick them up. The schools have a plan in place to protect the children. If a family member is at work or another location, don't risk your own safety by trying to pick them up and don't wait for them to get home before taking protective action. Community officials will reunite families when it becomes safe to do so. Have an emergency kit to support shelter and evacuation. This may contain a flashlight, portable radio, extra batteries, water, emergency food, clothes, and other items. This FEMA Red Cross brochure contains a complete checklist for your family's emergency supply kit. Officials may advise some people to shelter in place in their residence or place of business. If a chemical agent accident occurs, sheltering is a normal protective activity for a variety of emergencies. People often are advised to shelter inside when natural events such as thunderstorms or snows threaten an area. For a chemical emergency, shelter in place means you go inside a building, close and lock windows and doors, and turn off heating or air conditioning units and other fans or vents to the outdoors. It's preferable for occupants to stay in an indoor room with no outside windows. You need a portable radio or television to know when it's safe to exit. Don't wait for an emergency to pick her room to use. Choose it in advance and make sure that all household members know which room is your safe room. If a plume containing chemical agent vapor is expected to pass over your structure, taking additional precautions to protect yourself may be necessary. To enhance the protection afforded by the structure, you should take additional actions in your safe room like placing duct tape over cracks and plastic sheeting over windows and door openings. These measures are called expedient sheltering and provide a further barrier to outside air penetration. You will be notified when you should end sheltering. Quickly, follow official instructions on what to do next. Officials may direct you to relocate to a reception center. When officials tell you to vent structures, open doors and windows, and turn on fans to replace the inside air of your residence with outside air. At this point, you may be able to stay inside while venting or you may be asked to go outside into your driveway or street. If you cannot leave your house, try to open up your house as much as possible. Turning on fans and opening front and back doors and all windows provides good cross ventilation. Don't use your telephone or cell phone unless it's absolutely necessary. Phone circuits are quickly overwhelmed during that emergency. You may be wondering why officials would tell you to shelter when a plume with hazardous vapor is in your neighborhood. I'll explain what would happen if a chemical agent plume passed your house. As the plume passes the structure, some contaminants enter the building. The concentration of contaminants is lower in the building than outside and even lower in the safe room. Notice that the structure retains some contaminated air after all the contaminants are swept away from the air outside the structure. The reason contaminants remain inside a structure after the plume is passed has to do with the amount of air that normally enters and leaves a building over time. This is referred to as air exchange. All buildings have some air infiltration, even with all doors and windows closed because air is constantly moving back and forth through the walls and cracks and crevices. Scientists can measure the rate of air exchange that occurs in a structure. That is, how long it takes for the air inside to be replaced by the air coming in from the outside. In homes that are not sealed to up-to-date standards, the average air exchange rate will vary from one to two air exchanges per hour. This means that, on average, if the air exchange rate is two exchanges per hour, it will take about an hour and a half for most of the air in the house to be replaced with outside air. Unless retrofitted or weatherized, most older buildings have much higher rates of air infiltration. The air will pass more easily and quickly from the outside into the structure. If a chemical agent release were to occur, the most likely way the agent would reach your neighborhood is through vapor in a plume. Unlike the larger particles present in smoke from fires, vapor can penetrate structures more easily. Moreover, vapors don't rise into the atmosphere and condense, so chemical agent vapors aren't going to condense and fall down as rain droplets. Unlike buildings, cars, even when they're completely closed up, provide little protection when moving. That's because cars have a small interior space compared to their exposed surfaces, making cars much more leaky than buildings. Researchers have found air exchange rates for moving vehicles range from 12 to 45 exchanges per hour. You know what that means if you've driven by a skunk on the side of the road. As soon as you smell the odor, you probably open all the vents, and maybe the windows too, to get the odor out of your car. And the odor leaves very rapidly. The odor is trapped inside until the air is replaced with closed stationary vehicles. The exchange rate is much lower depending on the wind speed. But you can see why emergency officials may advise staying in a building rather than have you leave in a vehicle during the passing of a hazardous plume. Or if there is not time to evacuate residents from an area before the plume arrives. Let's review how we would shelter in place and protect ourselves in a real emergency. First, we use the bathroom as our safe room, because it has no windows, and it's on the first floor making it easily accessible. Then we take our shelter-in-place kit into the safe room. Now the kit includes tape, some plastic sheeting for the door, a pair of scissors, a radio with extra batteries, and some emergency food and water supplies. We also have our plastic already cut and labeled. Well that sure speeds up the process. Now the first thing we need to cover is the door. We have to make sure all the edges are sealed with duct tape. While you do that, Tony and I can tape around the pipes. I'll tape under the sink and around the pipe that goes to the toilet. Great! And Christian can tape around the pipes in the shower. That's easiest to do with small pieces of tape. We also tape the electrical outlets and place a plastic sheet over the ceiling vent. Anywhere vapors can get into the room, we seal it. Then we listen to the radio for further instructions. Now the radio will give us updates on the situation and tell us when we should leave the safe room. Mom, shouldn't we keep taping? Yeah, if we keep taping, we'll be safer. Well that's true, but it's more important to get a tight firm seal the first time. And finally, when the official order is given to end sheltering, we'll follow officials instructions to vent the house or relocate to a reception center. That sounds like a plan. So, if you're advised to shelter in place, go inside. Turn off air and heat. Close windows and doors.  Go into your safe room. Tape openings.  Then follow instructions from your emergency officials on what to do next. This family may never have to deal with an emergency from an accidental or intentional release of chemical agents. But they are well prepared because they have all rehearsed their emergency plan. Being prepared is an important first step protecting you and your family.


Hey, Gulfcon Giants family, your host, Eric Coffey here with another episode of the Gulfcon Giants podcast. Today I want to bring you guest, Heleny Moon, CEO of IITOS Technologies. If you are interested in a story about a woman-owned business, technology company, how to get started in the IT sector, the challenges of growing a business, the challenge of starting a new business, hiring employees, this is the episode for you. A lot of people think that the IT sector is saturated and that it's difficult to make ends into that particular marketplace. Well, stay tuned for this particular episode to let you know how IIT and IITOS Technologies is making end roads. Looking forward to your comments or feedback below. Also, by the way, if you have not already noticed, we have updated our free course. If you're not part of the free course, freegovconcourse.com, check it out. We've added 20 new on-demand modules that you can take from everything from top legal issues with a small business to does the government buy what I sell and more. Thank you for watching. I hope you enjoyed this episode. My name is Heleny Moon, and I'm with IITOS Technologies. We are located in Manassas, Virginia. I am the CEO and owner, and we provide data management and IT services to the federal government. Nice, nice. Welcome, welcome today. Thank you for coming on. And I know right before we got started today, you were mentioning that this is your first podcast. Yes. And that you were a little bit out of your comfort zone. So what's interesting is that I find, you've been in business for five years, just under six years, right? Yes, yes, yes. So as a new business owner, because you're still new, relatively new business owner, do you find that you often have to step out of your comfort zone? Yes, yes. But that's part of, you know, growing. You know, I think it's expanding your knowledge and trying new things and trying to be a good leader. Sometimes you have to be able to come out of your comfort zone in order to be a good leader. Okay, okay. Now, let me ask you something.  Well, again, this is one of the things that I was, I know a lot of my colleagues have done, and I know it's very good to get out and to talk about the company and provide exposure. And, you know, we do a lot of great things and I'm not one to be on a panel or anything like that. Gotcha. But I thought, you know, this would be a good stepping stone, doing possibly doing something like that. Okay, no, and I agree with you. I think that this is a great way for someone like yourself to come on and again, this is a one-to-one conversation, but it's going to be broadcast to a lot of people. So this is a great way where you're not under so much intense pressure. You're in the comfort of your home as I am. And so, you know, today's conversation, again, telling your story, telling people about what you do, your experiences as well, hoping that they can learn from those. Because again, a lot of times, I know for myself as a business owner, when I first got started, I wish I could hear the stories of other entrepreneurs as they embarked on their journey in the federal arena. And so that's what we're hoping today to share through you and your voice. So with that said, I looked at your background and the last three positions were all database managers. Yes, yes. Management, project management, with the last position that I had was with GDIT back in 2015. But I've always been involved in helping with the proposals and transitioning from when the re-competes come around. So I've been involved in that process and onboarding and offboarding and creating the team with new contractors come on board. So I was comfortable with the process. So it was just a natural progression. I really wanted to take a little bit more control of the services that I provided. So that was one of the reasons why I stepped into creating my business. And that was actually the question that I was going to ask. You know, what made that transition happen? Now, you said you were comfortable with it. So you felt, were you, I guess, a different way to ask the question, did you have a desire to have your own business for many years or was that a newly formed desire towards the end of your career? You know, that's a good question. Yes, I've always had a desire to be independent and to build something on my own. Unfortunately, the timing, being a single parent, it just never was, I just never felt secure enough to be able to take that risk. And fortunately, throughout the different projects that I've worked on, I've built relationships and other colleagues had encouraged me. And, you know, I was in a unique position because whereas I was just, if I were just starting off and not having a network, it would have been a lot more challenging. But because I have a network and because I was thinking about it and I had encouragement, I really almost had like the first two contracts immediately because colleagues knew they wanted to support me, they wanted to get my assistance and they challenged me and they provided me opportunities. We would like you to help us manage this. Do you wanna be our employee or do you wanna start your business?  So I had two opportunities like that. And so for the first couple of years, to me, I was in a position in my life where my kids were older and I was able to take that risk.  Okay, let me see what I can do in those, you know, a couple of years and see if I can make this happen. Of course, key scenario can always come back to, I've got a position to come back to. Right, right, absolutely, absolutely. No, that's great. So is that something for a small business starting out? Would you, would that be, you know, because a lot of people ask me, well, Eric, when do I make that decision, that leap to go from employee to entrepreneur? You said that you, you know, what are some of the things that you would say for that person or to that person, excuse me? I would say that you have to do your research and really understand what you're giving yourself into and what you're gonna need. A lot of the stories that I hear of other companies, even things that I've learned on my journey is making sure that you really understand what's important for you to be successful in that area. As I mentioned, I have, I had several, I've been in that arena. So I understood, okay, it's networking and it's also being able to perform and do the job and building a good reputation. And then understanding what's important to the government. How do they get to you? How do you learn about opportunities? And through conversations and I understand that these are certain things that I need to look at. And here are my struggles when I start the business.  But one of the, a lot of the struggles that small business has when they're starting off is, you don't have a lot of past performance. So you can use your professional service experience as that. But I also knew that was gonna be a struggle. So I didn't really focus too much on getting contracts for the first couple of years because I had that foundation of the different contracts. But I was building a good foundation to build upon. Understanding, getting my marketing materials together. What set of signs do I need to get? They're gonna be used. Having set of signs isn't the only thing that you need but it's, you know, depending on what agency that you're going after, you're gonna wanna know how are they procuring the services or products? And you don't wanna be spending a lot of time on going after things that aren't really gonna benefit you but you also want to be able to make yourself attractive to other partners as well and to build that past performance.  Well, it sounds like you gave yourself plenty of time because you didn't say six months or a year. You said my first couple of years. Yes. So it sounds like you set your expectations. Yes, yes. I knew that, I mean, one of the first goals is I knew that I wanted to be in the A-day program. Okay. And one of the requirements with us, you had to have a couple of years contracting experience. So I, you know, pretty much to the deadline, the two year mark, I had my paperwork already, you know, in hindsight, I wish I had waited it a little bit longer but I knew what was expected. I talked to other people what were their challenges when getting through the certification. What do I need to look out for? And I tried to get myself ready so that I didn't have to struggle. And so it happened pretty quickly, you know, 60 to 90 days. You said in hindsight, you wish you waited a little bit longer. Why is that? Yeah, because although I understood the proposal part of it and the execution executing under contract, I didn't really understand how to market to the government. And so I felt like I lost a good six months. Six months? That's not bad. I mean, people use five years on the A-day. They lose five years. I was lucky because my first contract as a sole source was at the literally almost at the end of my first year. Okay.  And I also, I was in a good position because I was a project manager. So I was in contact with some of the end users and the small business that they became to know who I was when I came to the events. But it showed that, you know, I was being persistent and luckily, you know, one of the contracting officers, eventually they started knowing who I was. And they say, oh, you know, I may have this opportunity that may be a really good fit. So it's being out there because you want to make sure, they want to make sure that you're not just there for, you know, that you're there for a long term. Right, right. No, it makes sense. It makes sense. What is one thing that was hard when you start your business that is still hard today? I think, you know, making sure that you have a good pipeline and looking and forecasting. Like where you were setting your goals, it's the sales process as for services is not a short process. So you need to be able to not only understand where your financials are and what your cash flow is like, but how are you gonna get your next contract and how many things you have in the pipeline that will occur and you can get, that you can close by the time that contracts end. Now, tell us, you said services. I see some of your specialties include software, Oracle Warehouse Builder, you know, different Quest software programs, languages. Can you tell us about the specific services that you offer if I were, or someone wanted to contract you out for a project? Yeah, yeah. So we just finished a contract this past September with a civilian agency where we did a cloud migration. Okay. So we were, we've migrated one of their financial systems into the cloud. And so that required us to, you know, really understand the system and the looking at the design and making sure that the data was coming in correctly and also providing them advice on how the new design, it was unusual for us because you typically do not design your system at the same time as you're migrating. You typically, you know, you design a system and you get that foundation and then the application developers will then start building and then the migration comes after. It was challenging because we were doing it at the same time. So we had a lot of configuration issues that we had to make sure that we were in sync with, you know, the developers. And so it was challenging. We also helped with doing a data analysis. We helped one agency, a federal agency, DOD agency set up their data warehouse. Our strengths is managing data and making sure that, you know, we're getting rid of redundant data. We don't, that the, that systems can easily talk to one another and are designed in a way that you can also run efficient reports and analytics against the data. You said that systems that can talk to each other. How many different types of database systems are there? Well, the agency that we did the data warehouse for we built probably 90% of their applications. They were in design in-house. Okay. So it was an agency that manages contracts. So all of the internal systems had to do with the contract management lifecycle. Right. We're from pre-award to contract closeout and auditing. So all these systems, really the main system revolved around suppliers, contractor information. So schedules, line items, yes. Can you develop a custom solution? Yes. Okay. That sounds really difficult to say the least. It sounds pretty difficult.  That's me. Yeah. I mean, it's, I enjoy being a contractor working on various contracts that just not constantly being exposed to new innovative solutions and new techniques is technical techniques that is really wonderful. So I've always enjoyed that part of it. Which, how did you come into that, the IT background? How'd you come into the space? I was self-taught, actually.  Yeah. I was just teasing. Yeah. You don't have to say that. You work for the government now. You know, interestingly enough, my background is in marketing. And I went from one school, ultimately I started off with being pre-med to chemistry. Then I decided, you know, I think I'm gonna stick with computers. But by that time I had made all of those leaps. I really only had two years. So my parents said, well, you're gonna graduate in four years. Okay. So pick whatever you can get in four years. So I looked at what I had and a marketing degree was something that I didn't have to add another year. And so I did that. That brings me to a question that I have that I ask occasionally. How do you feel about formal education versus self-education? Did you say you were self-taught? Yeah. I mean, I don't think it's a requirement as long as you understand. And I think being in the technical field, it's having that formal background isn't always critical. I do think that as far as maybe business concepts or having formal training like having your PMP, you know, yeah, I would definitely want somebody to go in and understand like a methodology, like learning how to do the agile and scrim methodology, but the technical somebody can pick up. And anyone who really is interested can pick up a book. And there's so many tools online and free resources that you can, you know, expand your technical expertise. No, that's true. That's a very good point. That's a good, I like that. On your website, you wrote, management of socioeconomic and industry compliance, for example, ISO 9001 2015. What does that mean? So those certifications are industry certifications. So the ISO 9001 is a certification that basically says that you providing, you have process in place to provide quality services.  And then also for 20,000, that's more risk management and project management service oriented policies. I guess I've only heard of that when it came to like part. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. So there is, so if you're providing products, you wanna make sure that how are you handling the quality of products that you're providing to your, how are you, I guess that would deal with returns and wanties and I think that's more when you're manufacturing it yourself. Right, right, right. But there's also the ISO 9001, which is for services. Okay, that's something I learned today, interesting.  Yes. Okay. Our contracts are typically three to five year contracts. And so, you know, unless we have like a large vehicle that it's, I know some of the large IDIQs will last maybe five to 10 years. And then the task orders come out based on the agency's need. Were you familiar with, and I know you said you were familiar with the program side and proposals, but how do you just rattle off the task orders and IDIQs? Were you familiar with all of that as well? No, no, no. Yeah, right?  And I have to remember that everyone listening to this doesn't always know what these things mean, right? And so we use these accurate, no, that's okay. Again, I do this for a living. So I just, that's why I asked the question, were you as confident in knowing these different vehicles prior to starting? No, no, it wasn't. I didn't know what an IDIQ was. I didn't know what a BPA was. I didn't know what an FFP was. So it's just government speak for, you know, the type of contract that you're going after if it's a blanket purchase agreement, which is BPA, firm fixed price, you know, are you doing the job for one set price or are you billing it as a time and material? But, you know, I think that's that you can, it's good to understand the basics of the government acronyms. Right. Especially when the different agencies may have similar, but similar acronyms, but they mean different things. So also understand which ones mean what in each of the agencies. Right. For example, you know, CO and KO. Yes, yes. That's a very common one that people often ask about. Yeah. How did your company fare last year with COVID and the pandemic? We were fortunate. We had a good year. So we actually had, in terms of profit, we did it better than we did the previous year. And I think that's just because a lot of it was, we didn't spend a whole lot of money in the certifications. I think the previous year, we put more money into the certifications. And, you know, it was helpful to be able to get help from the government, you know, for the PPP loan. Okay. So we took advantage of that to make sure that we could keep our employees on staff. So we were very lucky. Now that brings me to something else. When you first got started, I know you had some contracts in the beginning. What was your first hire? Myself. Okay, what was the next hire? I had an admin to help me with just the administrative because making sure that you, that's a big thing. It's amazingly, the administrative and operating takes a lot of your time. So you don't really want to spend a whole lot working on that. And it's something that is very helpful to get off your plate. And then also having sales people to do sales and marketing and trying to get the leads. But I think for the first couple of years, it was just two to three people. Okay. And again, all this is very helpful to set the expectations for, you know... And I also had to wait too, because keep in mind that, even though I was getting paid for the contract, I really shook a drastic pay cut for my first couple years. It wasn't really till the first contract that I really paid myself a salary because I knew I would have to save not only to make sure that I was investing in the business, but also I knew at one point that I would need to hire good people and that I would have to make sure that I have enough revenue or a cash flow to pay people. So, you know, when you get a contract, you don't automatically get paid. You get paid, you know, maybe after the second month, you know, because they've got to get you in the system and then it takes three days. You've got to submit your invoice and then they've got it, you've got 30 days or 45 days, whatever your terms are. And then so, but in that time, you have to be able to pay everything. So you need to be able to be in a position to do that. Luckily, and because I didn't have a whole lot of credit, I had to make sure that I had some reserves and luckily my first contract, I barely made it. I barely made it for my first couple of paychecks because I wasn't able to get a loan. Nobody would talk to me even when I had the contract. You know, I said, well, I got the contract. You know, I just need it to help fund payroll. But yeah, sometimes you have to make sacrifices. Like, you know, pay my employees, but I will pay myself, so. Were there- Don't do what you gotta do. No, no, I like that. I like that. And I like that you said that you tried to get a loan with the contract and it didn't work out. Not that I'm happy, but I just, there's a lot of people that say things like that. If you get a contract, you take it to the bank and you can cash it in and it'll give you money against it. Yeah, no, I had not had good luck. Now it's funny because I'm in, I don't need a loan, but, you know, now they wanna, now they're coming to me and say, are you sure you don't need this? What if we can get this line of credit to buy your products? Cause they know we've extended our revenue stream to products now. Okay, okay. They're trying to talk me into loaning me some money on that. I find that that is the strangest thing that these organizations, they do not wanna give you money when you need it. And then when you don't need it, they push money on you. Yeah.  And then, you know. Maybe they're waiting for the winners. That's the only thing I could think of because that resonates with so many of my guests, very similar stories. Yeah. Yeah, very similar stories. No, that's great. Tell me about a time, or did you have a time where you wanted to quit? At least once a month. I played more than that. Okay, just pick one. Pick one you could share. Yeah, I mean, if it was easy, I think everybody would do it. You know, I have a good group of people around me that I can call to get advice from.  So, you know, it's been, I think of, you know, ultimately why am I doing this? You know, and yeah, I could go back and work for myself. I mean, work for a company, but that's the whole reason why I started this. I wanted to be in control of my hours. I wanted to get more control on the products and services that we, not all contractors are the same. Some people just think of it as providing bodies on the contracts. For me, it's more about doing a good job. I really enjoy working with the government and really helping them and seeing, you know, my efforts help them in either reducing their costs or making things more efficient with, you know, making their life easier. Right, right. No, that's a very noble goal to go after. So no stories, anything recent you could think of that you said made you want to call your friends. You said once and much you want to quit. Yeah. So, you know, it's... Maybe not being paid on time. You know, the people, the relationships that you build even people who say they want to help you and they just, you know, because you're small, they really don't have your best interests at heart. And so trying to be, to me, I'm very, I'm very upfront. I'm very open, I'm very open with everyone.  My thinking is, you know, we can work through our problems but if you don't tell me what your problems are, then I can't help you fix it. Right. And so I never want to, you know, it's just very, I don't know, it's just very upfront sometimes. So I want to be, like I said, ethical and I want to do it the right way. And I found that a lot of the challenges are just even when you think that you're doing all the right things and you still, you know, your colleagues doesn't do half of the things that you do and they get, you know, the contract. Right, right. Because either their connections or... Right, whatever reason. Yeah. So that's one of those disheartening things. Yes, yes.  No, no, no. And I think, I mean, it does take a while because I think doing it that way, it may take a little bit longer to get into some of the agencies. But by the time that you do, I think that your reputation and your relationships are a lot better and they have a better foundation than just going in and just saying, oh, I have to set aside. It doesn't work that way.  Right. Or it doesn't mean you're gonna get the job done. Yes. More importantly, right? More importantly, I noticed that you did the 10,000 Goldman Sachs program. Yes. What other trainings have you taken along the way? Any last that's helped you in your journey? I try to take this much. I mean, I still, even though I've been in this industry and I know quite a bit, I'm always learning. So I'm always taking advantage of what the small business provides me with retraining, whether it's, how to better market your business, how to use certain tools or how to make a go and no go decision on a bid. Okay. Because all of these things are really critical because one of the things that I learned is when you first start off, you feel like you wanna go after everything. But then you take a step back and then you say, am I really spending my time in the most efficient way? And am I getting the best return in doing this? So you have to really start understanding which opportunities you really go to and then you really do wanna have opportunities that you're tracking for a while or that you know are coming up rather than waiting till the end. Oh, that's a great, that's a very good example. I'm looking here on your website and you wrote an article, and again, it's a few years old, but it was related to a ransomware attack. Okay. And do you remember the article? Yes, I vaguely. Faguely. It's like three years ago, wait, yeah. Yeah, vaguely. Well, you know, the reason why I asked is because recently they had solar winds. Yeah. And so I just wanted to see how did that attack that you wrote back in 2017 compares to the solar winds attack and are there solutions that you guys are working on that can help those types avoid those or eliminate those or protect their systems? Things like that. So we have part tools that we use are Komodo. So we manage all of our end-to-end devices. We have an end-to-end manager. And so we submit all of our patches and ours isn't automatically. We really try to, you know, I know with the solar winds, I think that believe that was a patch that was released automatically. We try to stop doing that. And so we try to go in and or small companies. So there's not really a whole lot that we need to, that we have in place. Like we don't have a large office. We have a few employees, but we do educate our employees on making sure that they have security awareness and every year. And then also detecting, you know, fishing scams and we try to secure our network by implementing all of these. You know, having multi-factor authentication. More recently, in order to do work for the DOD, you have to have a CMMC certification, which right now there is no, there are no auditors, official auditors to do it. But, you know, we've done a gap analysis and we're trying to, we're actually in our, just started the process of trying to see what we need to do in order to make sure as a small business that we're ready. So if there is a requirement that we can meet it. And so I think there's four levels and I believe that we, we will probably be able to make a level three of that, which is, to me, I think is a good place to be as a small business. So I think we're ahead of that. Very happy to say that. Okay, no, no. No, yeah, I know it's quickly approaching us all. And I think, I don't know if it was, when I was looking through your profile today that I mentioned that in GSA, the writing CMMC and some of the contracting language. Yeah, we just submitted GSA stars. Okay. That had a requirement to show them how you plan to, to get to CMC and the timeline. So that was the first one, first vehicle that, that we submitted for, that required that. Okay, that's stars three. Mm-hmm, yep. Is it stars, stars four? Stars four. Is it, they're on four? Yeah, I thought, I thought three was, I thought GSA stars was three is the current one. I could, you could be right, I could be wrong. Okay, that's fair. Three, four, you submitted for the one that's, well, let me tell you, they delayed it so long that they extended the current stars and then it ran into the new one. So, yeah. I'm just hoping that I'll be able to, to get that vehicle that'll help me a tremendous amount. You know, and not only will extend our A&A status to go after opportunities, but it'll be our first vehicle that we're the prime mom that others, other our team members can leverage as well. Right, right. Absolutely, no. That's great. The, you said you did different types of trainings by the SBA. What about any books that you recommend or aspiring small businesses? Anything to think of that you've read recently or in the past that you frequently suggest? The tape marketing. Oh, I remember the tape marketing. I remember that book, the tape marketing. Okay. And this is probably my second pass at reading through it. It's got some really good advice on just understanding your customer and how to better define who you're selling to and promoting your company through social media and which I, probably that's my weak area and I need to do a little bit more on that. Well, I think this is a great first start. Yes, yeah. I'm on LinkedIn. Yes, I friend requested you today earlier. Yeah. But as far as, you know, you know, creating a blog, actually I was just talking to a colleague of mine and maybe we were thinking of possibly doing a YouTube channel. That'd be great. Yeah, so we'll see. Let me know when you want to do the YouTube channel. I have a little bit of experience in that. I have a little bit of experience in YouTube. So no, that's great. Let's what type of agencies would you like working with now? So again, if the people from the government are listening to this and they're saying, wow, I really like her, she sounds great. I like the concept. Who is it that you want to talk to out there for your company? Who would you like to speak with? In the government? Yeah, what agencies would you like to work with that you're not currently working with? Well, we're looking at getting more involved with Veterans Affairs, HHS, and State Department, where they're made in an Air Force. And we, you know, we're looking to do more work with. Right now we are working with the Marines, but we'd like to extend our work there. But right now, I think the main ones are HHS and Veterans Affairs. Is there a need right now that the HHS has that you think you could help fulfill? Yes. So record digitization and records managements as far as the, as far as innovative products, what we're trying to provide is more surveillance systems. And so right now, as part of our innovation, we'd like to get more involved with surveillance systems and with drones. And so we want to be able to work with the different agencies through some of our partners that we have to offer that, you know, especially with the shootings. And I think it's, you know, I think it's the products that we have can be very useful in identifying, you know, where shots are being heard or fast leaks. So I think those would be really great to get involved with this year. If HHS is listening to this, where should they reach out? www.idos.teak.com. OK. Is there a general email they should send it to? Yes, info at theidos.teak.com. OK. All right. You'd be surprised who's listening out there. All right.  So you worked really hard to reach out to the government agencies, correct, in the beginning? Yes. Were they happy now that you're working with them? Yes. Yes. OK. We actually just got our really great CPARS operating from the cloud migration services that we did. So I was very happy because this agency does not like to get out more than satisfactory. So it's very big to get exceptional. So very proud of the team in getting that exceptional rating. That's an accomplishment. And you should celebrate that. I was on, I had Emily Harmon, who used to be the director of Navy Small Business. And she said that, as small businesses, we don't celebrate our wins enough. And we don't tell people enough about our wins. And sometimes at some agencies, they're not necessarily small business friendly because the only stories that they hear are the negative ones. Yeah, that's true, actually, because you really need, and not so much selling when you go to the government to say, this is X, Y, and Z, but really telling them the story to make yourself stand out with one of the contracts that we did. When we first, when everyone started teleworking with COVID going on, there was a mad dash to get everybody set up to telework.  So we had our VDI person imaging all the laptops and in a very short time frame to get everything ready. And everyone up and running. So I think that's a good story. We can tell them we were able to get 4,000 users up and running within four weeks or three weeks. So it's things like that to really tell them a story that they can understand and they can relate to. Yeah, no, absolutely. No, thank you for sharing that. I think that's a great story to share and to highlight of your company and of your success. So that's great. And that's what we need to do more often. And then that will convince some of the leaders out there that, hey, this small business was able to do that. Do you think that you could have done that at your, any of your former companies? No, no. You know, when I started off my first job with, as a consultant, I was very shy, very introverted. Being the only woman in that team also was very intimidating. This was in my mid-20s and having to prove myself and I had some very good experience with people that were on the staff like I would just build in the relationships. Just helping them. And my nature's always been to want to help somebody, you know, even if it's a colleague of mine and they're struggling with some idle mind, helping them with something that they're struggling with. We can put our heads together and think of the solution. You know, it's not a matter of getting creditors. As long as they're successful, I'm successful. But understanding to really kind of make your own path because I think at the beginning I was very self-conscious or voicing my opinion. And I think, but I think after time, I was able to build people's confidence in my ability and I was given more leadership opportunities. Okay, okay. No, that, and those leadership opportunities is, will let you to your next company and the next company and then eventually founding your own organization. Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't, thinking back then, I would have never been able to go to an outsourcing or an outreach event. Wow. You know, I just would have been too scared or what do I say? And now I'm able to, now I'm coaching people. You can do it. Come on, this is what you say. You know, it's trying to build up their confidence as you know, after you've done it and with everything. If you, with practice, you get a little bit better at it. Right. Let me ask you something different question. What's a recent Amazon purchase that you've made that's made you happy or smile? It does not have to be related to the government. It has nothing to a government. Okay, my, this literally just came in this morning. Okay. But my, what do you call it? My light. I have my own setup with my microphone and I have the lighting. Ah, okay, okay. Oh, it's like a ring light? Like a ring light? Yeah, it's not a ring light, it's square. Okay. But you can touch a setting. So, because I knew I was going to be on this podcast. So, I... Oh, so you've got a light. So that's, so your lighting, that's what makes your lighting so great. Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. That's a good one. And I ordered it last night at like one o'clock in the morning. And it arrived. I took the chance. I said, it'll arrive between nine and three. I said, well, hopefully it'll arrive before and it literally arrived 30 minutes before. When you jumped on. Yeah. That's a good story. I like that one. That's a good one. That's a good one. I like that, I like that story.  I'm a night person. Okay. And I just probably, I like the night just because it's very quiet. I can get my thoughts together. I mean, working at home, it's not have more privacy, but just when we were going back and forth to work, I really enjoyed having the night to myself. Just relaxing. So I'm a night owl. That's all right. Any odd place that you worked at or odd job that someone might never guess? An odd job? Yes. One of your odd jobs. Oh yeah, yeah. I used to be at bartender. Did you really? Yeah, I used to be, I used to bartend and there was at one point in time, I was working two jobs, one for pizza hut and one for Little Caesars in different days during the week. And then during the day, I would be, I was a manager and then on one of my night gigs or weekend gigs was to be, I was all workaholic. So I was bartender. I was bartender. See, I have four jobs.  You worked at Little Pizza Hut, Little Caesars and then you're bartender weekends. Yeah. That's it. I like to keep busy. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, this is before kids and anything like that. Right, right, absolutely. So did you start working young? Yeah, my first job was at Hecinger. I don't know if you remember, it was a hardware store. It's sort of like Home Depot and they went out of business but it was over in Maryland. So I was a cashier, 15, 15. Okay, so you start working at 15? Yeah. Okay, all right. No, no. My first job and I've been working never since even though even if it was during the summers, I would intern on the hill on the house side and for a few years when I came home from college and I used to be a stock worker. Really? How did that go? That wasn't for me. I've had very interesting jobs. I always came back to computers. It was one of those, do you remember what's it called, the boiler room? Yes, yes, I'm a boiler room, that I know. Do you remember Shradd Note Mock? It was based off, that movie was based off of that company and that was a company that I got my license through. And they were teaching me how to do call calling and this is before I knew very much. I didn't know what was going on. And then, yeah, it was very interesting. I didn't get involved in the sales. I stayed there long enough really to get my security license and then I was out of there. And that was very, that was challenging because obviously for reasons related to what was going on with the SEC, a lot of people were blacklisted. So I was very fortunate to get a position with like Mason, a very reputable brokerage firm, but it just turned out that that wasn't my calling. Oh, that's fair. No, that's fair. Hey, that's why I ask these questions because it lets you know a little bit more and learn about the person that rather than your story is one-dimensional, right? No one's story is one-dimensional. There's all these different facets that makes up the character of the person who we see in front of us. And I like to learn about that. That's, you know, I've had odd jobs as well. So that's wonderful. Okay, one other rapid-fire question. If you were not doing this, what do you think you'd be doing? I'm not sure what I would be doing. You know, I had an event, life-changing event when I was in high school. Okay. I was hit by a car when I was 18, 17, and I lost my leg. And so I have a prosthetic leg. And so before that, I was very athletic.  So he's always making fun of me. But I think I would have done something with sports. I would have, you know, done something with, I really enjoy tennis. I competed in tennis. If I could, I would have done something, something that was physical.  And I just never got that opportunity because I, you know, considered damaged goods, I guess. No, no, no. Oh, wow. No, but you could maybe a trainer or coach something like that, supporting athletes. Yeah. Sure, sure. A lot of people, if you don't make it professionally, they become coaches and trainers. I have some people that I know that are golf pros that, you know, they train rich people how to play golf because they were the top collegiate athlete coming, you know, but they didn't quite make it to the pros, but now they just train. But I always enjoyed, even with, in college, I was very, very physical person. I mean, obviously my metabolism was not, it's what it used to be back then.  I think with the combination of, with the services that, you know, the education that they would have provided, but also being able to go through the boot camp. And I think I would have really enjoyed that. Well, it sounds like to me, though, through the sports and physical activities that you were competitive. Yes, I was. So that carries over into business. Yeah, yeah. So that's a trait that carries over in the world of business. It's just like sports, competitive in nature. Yes. In fact, one of my podcast guests said that he trains his salespeople, his BD people off of the Michael Jordan story because Michael Jordan, yeah. He, in the Netflix special on Michael Jordan, he talks about, similar to what Kobe Bryant does, is they change into another character, right? To, before he gets into a game. And so he trains his salespeople, his BD people, to model that. And so they've become a character, become a different person when they're out making calls and trying to talk to agencies and set up meetings. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I can see myself. I mean, my dad and some of my, when I was a manager, I had a lot. I'm not sure as I get older, I might have less patience, but people tell me I'm really patient when I'm trying to teach people. So maybe I'm maybe a teacher or coach. Yeah, that's perfect. I really do.   Don't do it that way. It'd be so much easier this way. Don't do what I did. What types of companies do you like to work with or help? Are the ones in your field, IT? Yeah, you know, I have built through the different, I did scaling for growth, which is a program over in Richmond to help small businesses. And so through the different networks, I've met people, even orientation when I went to the 8A orientation, other people who are in the same business or either selling products. Now that I've been doing products, I have one of my dear friends who, I call her for advice and she's trying to get into services. And so she's really great at products. And so we give each other advice. And when she had questions about pricing or contracts, is this the way that this is supposed to be? I'll tell her, no, you know, this isn't the way it's supposed to be. This is what you should ask for, you know? And so we watch out for each other. That's great. Entrepreneurship can be lonely at times, especially being the CEO, not being able to talk to your employees about some of your challenges and issues. Then also not even being able to talk to your spouse sometimes because they don't know understand the business or what you're dealing with. Yes. So we need that network. Yeah, I do wish that I had, it is a struggle sometimes because I'm the only owner. I wish that I had some partner that I could talk things through. So it really, you know, I really do enjoy that camaraderie with the other small businesses. Yeah, no. I always recommend, I was part of a group called Entrepreneurs Organization, EO, that I recommend people look into. It's great camaraderie of entrepreneurs, business folks, that built their own businesses from scratch, not someone who inherited a business, to go over a business, someone actually built it from start and there's certain benchmarks that you have, but I know that you meet, you know, those minimum thresholds to be eligible. Yeah, I mean, one of the things that I learned with the scaling for growth, they put us in groups of four or five and it was our CEO group. And, you know, I still keep in touch with, you know, the partners in my group from really nice friendships. And the one thing that I've learned is, even though that we were in different industries or companies were maybe selling different products or services, our struggles were very similar. How do we retain, you know, good employees? How do you manage onboarding, off-boarding? How do you deal with cash flow? How do you read your financial law? All those common things that brings us together. Yeah, no, I agree, I agree. Well, it looks like we've approached our time. I wanna let you leave some parting words for folks out there, tell us how to read you.   And happy to, you know, share and answer questions. You can reach me at H-E-L-L-E-N-I dot moon at E-I-D-O-S-I-F-N tech dot com. And then also my number<PHONE_NUMBER>. And you're on LinkedIn. Yes. Are you active? Yes, I am. Okay, okay. All right, good stuff. Now, listen, I wanna thank you today, Alani, for coming on and sharing about your company, sharing about your organization, getting out your comfort zone, right? Telling us a little about yourself. I think that hearing the four job story humanizes you. Because a lot of this technical stuff, it could go over our heads. So I think we all know, you know, pizza hut, little Caesars, we all know those types of jobs. So that, you know, brings us all back. I think many of us, you know, working in our teenage years, our formidable years in our 20s, no one could have predicted where we'd be at 10 years or 15 years later, so. Yeah, yeah. That's pretty, I think that's pretty neat. So I wanna thank you for coming on today and sharing your story. Thank you so much.


Where is a good place to park your money today? Where is a good place to park your money? Some of it should be in cash. You really, you should have enough cash handy that you can pay your bills for about six months. Aside from that, here's a trend. And if you go on our Discord, we have a personal finance folder where I've shared some of the information, some of the things that I'm doing, right? As far as I see it, cannabis companies and the one trend that I'm seeing is centralized power is trying to eliminate meat, right? From the food supply, food chain. So cannabis companies, as far as I'm concerned, there's a lot of them out there, so do your research. Cannabis companies and one place is companies companies that are providing meat free foods. Okay. And there's two of them that family has invested in. Aside from that, best place to park your money, your community in yourself, in your health, in your living shelter, in your friends and family. Really, best place to park your money is not really to park your money. Take your money, aside from having enough funds to pay your bills for a few months, is to take your money and make it work for you.   So start eating healthy food, right? That way your health will improve and your long-term costs will go down, right? Start exercising. If you need motivation to exercise, to live a healthy life, hire a fitness trainer, hire a dietitian if you don't know how to eat, right? If you don't know mathematics, if you don't know how to read and write properly, hire a tutor, get your education, right? Those are the best places to invest. And by the way, Kaafmet Fika, I have a personal finance playlist on SensorTube. The first 10 videos, I took a lot of time to put that stuff together, okay? Take a look at those 10 videos. Just go to my SensorTube YouTube, I don't recognize your name, so I'm assuming you don't know SensorTube is YouTube.  Start from the top one, the first one I put out or organize on that list and start watching the first 10. That should give you a pretty good idea of what I think is a good place to invest.


In this presentation, we will take a look at some of the components of a manufacturer's income statement. Comparing and contrasting where a manufacturer's income statement may differ from a service company or a merchandiser, where a manufacturer, a company that makes the inventory, could differ from a service company that has no inventory or a merchandiser who just purchases and sells inventory rather than making the inventory. Part of that will be the calculation of the cost of goods sold. So clearly one of the differences we're going to have from a manufacturer to a service company will be related to inventory. And the major difference between the inventory accounts on the income statement is the cost of the inventory, the expense related to the inventory at the point of sale, that being the cost of goods sold. Therefore, a service company


S.M.A.S.T.R.I.C.E. Believe it or not, there are two Casper games on the Super Nintendo. They're both based on the 1995 movie starring Christina Ricci and Bill Pullman, but the U.S. and PAL regions got one game while Japan got a completely different game. They're both adventure titles, but they each take a totally different approach. I'll start with the game released in the U.S. It was made by Absolute Entertainment in December of 1996, and that is a big red flag because the other notable games they made for the Super Nintendo range from Space Ace to Home Improvement Power Tool Pursuit. Well, that's not good. Thankfully, this game is not nearly as bad as those two. In fact, it's surprisingly pretty decent for what it is. You play as Casper the Friendly Ghost, and the name of the game here is Protecting Cat Harvey and helping her get out of this giant haunted manor. And you do that by collecting items and taking their form to fend off random stuff that might be floating around. You start out with a butterfly net, which you use to knock down flying books and dinner plates. Eventually, you get a fly swatter to get rid of flying fruit. You get a toilet plunger to, uh, plunge the faces of these mini-boss ghosts. I don't know if that's something from the movie, I've never seen it, but that's a pretty weird way to attack a ghost. But yeah, you enter a room, Cat ducks down in the corner, and you as Casper have to get rid of all the obstacles so Cat can proceed. You can also just leave Cat there and pass through walls, floors, and ceilings, but if you drift too far from her, she'll get abducted by another ghost, and you'll have to start over. You also collect items that help Cat get from room to room, like this rope that helps Cat walk across holes in the floor. You get a pillow that helps her jump down from one floor to another. You get a balloon to move up a floor. It's pretty simple stuff. If this reminds you of a boy and his blob for NES, you'd be exactly right to think that, since this was made by the same dev team, and essentially uses an updated version of that same game engine. All told, there are 14 different things you can morph into. You use the L and R buttons to scroll through them, press B to attack, and press Y to change forms. And you can also press the A button to turn yourself invisible so other ghosts can't see you. The X button has you warp to another room in the house when you see one of these mirrors. Navigating this huge house can be a little tricky at first, but you can always press the select button to bring up the map. Casper's ability to change forms is tethered to a magic meter in the form of the Casper logo in the bottom middle of the screen. After you defeat an enemy, you collect Ectoplasm, and you'll notice Casper's head will rise a little bit. You'll know you're maxed out if you can see his eyes, but if his head disappears, then you start losing life. That's really not that big of a deal though, because this game is really easy.  It's based off a kid's movie. So it's not like this is some hugely ambitious game meant to rock people's worlds. As far as licensed games go, Casper is decently well made, and it takes about 45 minutes to an hour to complete. It's a really easy game that's extremely repetitive, but it's not bad at all. Japan got a completely different game based on the Casper movie, with this one coming out a bit later in March 1997, and it's made by Natsume, a name you'll recognize from games like Wild Guns, Pocky & Rocky, and Ninja Warriors. This is one of those weird Super Famicom games where half the text is in Japanese, and half of it is in English. Yeah, I don't know either, but this game is still playable as it is. In this one, you play as Cat protecting Casper, and she's the one going around collecting items and, uh, throwing baseballs at stuff. This game is much less of an escort mission type of a thing, and closer to a traditional adventure game, where you check every nook and cranny to find hidden stuff like this door here, as well as finding keys, and it's up to you to explore and find which key goes to which door. Like the US game, this playthrough is really simple and straightforward, but there's a lot more substance in the Japanese game. There's not a whole lot of combat, but there are a lot more mazes, traps to avoid, levers that activate something else in the house, and you gotta go find what it did, that sort of thing. It's pretty good, and it's a pretty long playthrough, too. It'll take you at least a few hours to get through this one, but there is a battery save. I admit there's not much else I can say about this game, because there's not a whole lot of information out there, and there's no English patch that I can find either, but as far as I can tell from playing and finishing it, it's a solid playthrough. Anyway, yeah, it's pretty unusual in this 16-bit era to get two completely different games based on a semi-popular kids movie, and they're both decent games, with the Japanese edition being a much more substantial game that's held up well over time. Some of you might be thinking, well, why didn't the rest of the world get the Japanese version? I can only speculate, but I would guess it's because the movie came out in May 1995, and the Natsume made game was released in March 1997. So not only is it nearly two years after the movie, but it was released at the end of the Super Nintendo lifespan, so it's understandable why a publisher never bothered to localize that one. But yeah, the American version is inoffensive, kind of boring, but not bad. But if you like adventure games, then I'd recommend checking out the Japanese version of Casper, any way you can. Alright, that's all for now, and I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.


It gives me great pleasure to invite all of you to attend and participate in the upcoming International Rice Congress. This 2014 Congress is the fourth of this series of events that brings together researchers and really all of those interested in the development of the global rice sector together in one event. This year, of course, it will be held in Bangkok and we're very excited about the opportunities that will be presented. We'll be looking more broadly at the rice trade, the rice community, business opportunities around improving the productivity and availability and affordability of rice for rice consumers worldwide, world-class speakers bringing a perspective that will be stimulating and informative to all participants. And we'll have some controversial speakers, but those will be for you to find out when you get there. So I'm hoping that you will come, that you will have a company of many of your colleagues and I look forward to a vigorous exchange of ideas and the opportunity to chart a new path for rice development, rice research in the decades to come. So I'll see you in Bangkok.


Fifty years ago, as India, an ancient civilization, constituted herself into a fledgling nation state and ventured forth into the world, she faced unprecedented challenges. It was a bipolar world. The nations of the world were ranged in battle lines dictated by the Cold War. A nuclear holocaust seemed imminent. Empire scabed in, frequently amidst conflict and bloodshed. India was to play a significant role in creating the non-aligned movement. India was not to be deterred. She decided to make her voice heard, to fashion a unique place for herself as for scores of other newly emerging countries. India's diplomacy enabled her to assume a widely recognized, if undeclared role of leadership in what came to be known as the Third World. Not only is this preeminence of India recognized by diplomats everywhere, many of them recommend the Indian Foreign Service as a veritable model. The Indian High Commission in London is, understandably, given the historical association with Britain, one of India's largest overseas missions. In many ways, the High Commission is representative of the structure and functioning of most diplomatic missions. At the same time, the breadth and range of activity it embraces typifies the new challenges Indian diplomacy has to face in the post-Cold War world. Today, diplomacy itself has undergone a sea change over the centuries and over the years. Especially after the Second World War. Today, it is diplomacy from government to government, diplomacy from the department of the government to another department of the government, diplomacy from people to people. Until the late 1980s, economic diplomacy seemed secondary to India's preeminent security and political preoccupations. An archaic economic dispensation at home which emphasized self-sufficiency rather than integration with the global economy meant that Indian diplomats could limit their economic diplomacy to obtaining aid or loans from bilateral and multilateral agencies. The Indian Foreign Service reaches out to foreign investors. It sensitizes them to India's potential as a marketplace, as a storehouse of skilled workforce. Equally, Indian diplomats are now required to scout for new markets for Indian products. Over the last decade, Indian diplomacy has also become more sensitive to the needs as well as the potential of the large community of non-resident Indians. Many of them have become successful businessmen overseas. All of them, without exception, wish to have a stake in the growth and prosperity of the country of their origin. While economics dictates the contemporary diplomatic agenda, security questions can never be neglected. The diplomat must keep his ear to the ground as it were. Pick up any indications, however slight, of attempts by India's adversaries to embarrass her. The counter strategy works at several levels, through political lobbies, through the media, through direct contact with the people affected. An important part of the diplomat's function revolves around the projection of a positive image of India in the eyes of the public at large. The participation of the diplomat's family in these public events is not only desirable, it is often a necessary part of their success. The itinerant nature of his calling may occasionally make great demands on the peace and stability of his family life. The Indian diplomat never allows himself or herself to lose sight of the fact that his primary function is to promote India's partnership with the world, a partnership in development, a partnership in growth and prosperity for both India and the host country.