Ladies and gentlemen, warm welcome to this closing session of the 2017 World Economic Forum on the Middle East and North Africa at the Dead Sea Jordan. My name is Mirek Dussek. I am responsible for the Middle East and North Africa affairs at the World Economic Forum. We are joined here for this closing session by His Royal Highness Prince Faisal bin Al-Hussein. So a warm welcome to you as as well as Dr. Hania Al-Mulkhi, the Prime Minister of Jordan. So great to have you here. And at the beginning let me thank you on behalf of the World Economic Forum. Thank Jordan for an amazing partnership and what a great host country you are to us every two years. It's an amazing tradition that we have. So thank you. Well, we have 45 minutes for this closing session. The theme is enabling a generational transformation, which is the theme of the summit. Let me just remind you why we came here under this theme. There were three big stories. The first one, I think it's the most prominent one and dominant one in the news right now is the startups. So it is the amazing potential of young people and as well as young companies in the region that have really taken this summit, I think with force. And for us at the World Economic Forum, we've seen pockets of excellence, but now we feel that this is a pivotal moment where a new economic model is emerging for a lot of the countries in the region and the startups. And entrepreneurship in general is a big part of that. So that's number one. Number two, a lot of the startups will tell you they have succeeded in spite of their enabling environment or in spite of the environment that they have been existing in. So we've come here to have good dialogue between the startups and the incumbents in business as well as the ministers, decision makers, prime ministers, heads of state about how can we help them scale? How can we help them be more sustainable? How can we put them at the core of what this region is about? So that was the second aspiration. And the third aspiration was the World Economic Forum has been working for many years on facilitating dialogue around some of the crises that we unfortunately face in this region and making sure that the right stakeholders are sitting down and are looking at achieving political solutions to some of these problems. And so really addressing the fragility of some of these countries dealing with the tactics, the humanitarian catastrophes that we're seeing in Syria, Libya and other countries of the region, Yemen, and of course dealing also with the big picture, the political picture as well. So these were the three big stories. And you know, people always ask me, so what has actually happened here? Those are discussions. Well, let me just list for you some of the things that have actually happened here. In addition to the startups, we had a gathering of religious leaders from different faiths of Iraq and beyond talking about the future of Iraq after Mosul. We had an amazing meeting of global shapers who are people under 30 doing amazing things in their in their own environments. We launched two big initiatives in Jordan where Jordan is playing a very important role. One is called Internet for All, which is looking at the digital infrastructure in Jordan, including among Syrian refugees. And we also launched a new partnership called Sustainable Development Initiative Partnership where Jordan is becoming the regional hub for enabling blended finance toward infrastructure projects. We had dialogue on between Palestinian, Israeli, and Arab leaders on what next on the Israeli and Palestinian dialogue. And many, many other initiatives that I could enumerate here just to give you a sense of how big the summit was, how many discussions have happened both in the official program as well as in the private program and more importantly the outcomes of this summit for Jordan and for the region and for the international community. So now we will have about 40 minutes together. I would love to hear from our panelists, from amazing stakeholders of the World Economic Forum that come from different walks of life. They represent different sectors, possible different generations, so it would be great to hear from you how you have seen the summit, what are the highlights, what are the things that you think are the most relevant for your work, but also for your country, for your society. So let me first introduce you. I am joined here by Ghassan Hasbani, who is the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Health of Lebanon. I am also joined here by Ambarin Musa. She is the CEO of Suq Almal and you are one of the startups that were selected together with the International Finance Corporation. I am joined here by Khadija Idrisi Janati, who is a young global leader of the World Economic Forum and you are a founder and CEO of KMK Group, a communications company, but also you work a lot on women empowerment in Morocco and beyond. I am joined here by Sana Hawesley, who is also part of the startup initiative here at the World Economic Forum coming from Damascus. So welcome. And last but not least, I am joined here by Sayed Saleh al-Hakeem, who is director of the HACMA Center for Dialogue and Cooperation in Najaf and someone who has helped us bring this amazing community of religious leaders from Iraq here and we'll be speaking a little bit about what they did here. So Ghassan, Deputy Prime Minister, let me start with you. I saw you sitting down spontaneously with some of these startups and so I'm curious what you talked about, but of course I'm curious what are your takeaways? What are you going to take away with you to Lebanon as you start your work on Monday back in Beirut? What are the things that really will stay with you? On a practical level, the conversations that I've had in this meeting were fascinating at all levels. So we've had like political meetings, technology-driven meetings, futuristic meetings, and the one that was closest to my heart was the impromptu gathering that happened with the young global leaders who were participating from Lebanon in this event, who were telling me about their projects and their aspirations. What I would like to take with me from this meeting is a thought on how we can continue creating hope for this young generation in the region and hope manifests itself by showing them examples, although they may not be big examples or consistent examples, but showing them examples of success, showing them that we are taking action to create the right environment for the young population of this region to stay in this region, be active, and fear not the future. On my personal capacity, as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Health, I had promised this group of people that I will take their cause to the highest possible level within the country and that we will work together on creating the right environment for them to succeed and for more of them to join the group of young entrepreneurs who are keen to be creative, to be active in their society, to be active in their economy. We're shaping the future in a very, very difficult environment. The region around us is in turmoil. We have so many challenges at the political and social level, at the economic level, yet there's this bright light shining with a group of young people who are still keen on being creative and productive in this part of the world. So what we need to give them, what I need to give them as a young, recent politician, not seasoned but recent, what we can give them in terms of hope by taking practical action and developing the right environment on the legislative side, on the regulatory side, but most importantly, on the investments and on the encouragement and support side. Thank you, Hassan. Let me turn to Ambarine, an amazing startup, a comparison site, you know, helping a lot of people that would not normally have access to the relevant information to make the right decisions financially and otherwise. So, you know, we had the Deputy Prime Minister now speak about his takeaways from your chair. What are the things that you would ask governments in general and decision makers to do to help companies like yours to succeed so that we don't have to say you've succeeded in spite of the environment, but rather you've been helped and it's an amazing environment that you exist in. So there are two main areas I think we struggle a lot and I think I would probably be speaking on behalf of most of the startups in this room. The first one is talent and the second one is regulations in spite of and the first one when we talk about talent is it's extremely hard to find local talent and local talent are generally people who are loyal, who stays through and want to build a career with you as a company and I think that's where and we've been talking about that throughout the whole forum is a real investment into education. Now when we see about education it's about educating from a very young age about entrepreneurship, educating them about the type of new roles coming on board, the types of new careers actually coming on board. I think education is probably your key factor and your most critical I would say even above regulations to bring on board and to actually create that sustainable environment and it's not just about building that environment for the next one year or two years over the startups of today but building that environment for the next generations of startups. Now we've talked a lot about startups and that's what five years, ten years, but I do want to point out something is this region has been built on entrepreneurship. I'm talking about 40, 50, 60 years ago if you look at all the big companies that the biggest employers of the region, the Algeria Group, the AMR, they were all one-man set up companies so entrepreneurship in this region has been forever exist and I think now there is a lot more talks about it and fair point that education is probably one of the one of the biggest aspect. The second point I would like to make is regulations and we've gone through three rounds of funding for Souq al-Maal until today and we're going through another one now hopefully to close very soon and one of the big questions or discussions we constantly have with investors are how big is the market? It's a typical question that comes out every single time and we go out there we talk about the opportunity of the region as a whole and the first questions we get asked really is yeah but how much effort does it take to move from one country and expand across the region because you've got different regulations, different jurisdictions, different dialects, how easy is it for a company based out of the UAE, based out of Jordan, based out of Egypt to seamlessly say this whole market is addressable for me? How much is it going to cost me to enter the Saudi market, enter Oman, enter Kuwait, enter Qatar? Now there's been a lot of changes I've heard throughout the forum, sandbox regulations being put in place, different economic zone putting place but I would love to see this going much faster now. The dream and I'm sure a lot of the startups would agree with me here is the dream is to have one currency, one region, no borders from a talent perspective, no borders from a regulatory perspective. I know this is probably almost impossible and it's going to take years but step by step I think one of the areas we're really looking at is how to make that expansion of the region for us much, much easier and not only it makes an environment more sustainable for us as startups but it will attract a lot more foreign investment into the region because suddenly the addressable market becomes easier to penetrate. Thank you. Sana, you, Ambarin just mentioned education and talent and how important it is for startups to scale. So you, your organization, I'll let you talk a little bit about your organization but you may, you work with children, you make it possible for children to be future makers too and so how should education change evolve to empower the next generation in your view being in this space? Thank you. Actually we're working on tools that make it possible for kids to feel free in order to build their own things. So we are not giving them toolkits with an instruction, with the instruction book to follow and this is, this is it. So we are trying to make the kid a lifelong learner by providing the kids with the right tools that give them the opportunity to have this educational experience with high ceilings and wide walls so there will be no restrictions around this educational experience. We are working on finding the best way to deliver this content in order to make the kids feel free exactly to express themselves and do the projects they really like to do. We work in the field of electronics because we found out that it's a good step to start, to let kids start in this field. It gives them a good sense of building tech and it's really required in the near future since in 2025 the statistics says that a lot of jobs require the people to have technical skills and to know how to build tech. So we're trying to find out which are the tools that really fits in this, in the next marketplace that will replace the traditional things we are facing right now. I think that giving right tools would be the best thing we can do to evolve education to make it a better future. Just makes me curious, how did you get to this idea and how does it work if you can? Yes, we work in a local community in Syria called Rikolojah. We work with graduate students and university students on a lot of technical activities but we tried once to try these activities which are senior with kids and we were amazed by how these kids were enthusiast about doing more of this. Later on we liked this idea and we discovered that maybe we have to build some tools that make this process easier for them. The kid can build his project and our software can track this progress and give him the right feedback at the right timing. So this is it. Very interesting, thank you. Khadija, moving to the digital, so there is of course the opportunity of digital. I think 80% or 90% of the startups that we gathered here are high tech which corresponds to the general trend yet of course there are risks involved as well. So you work in communication, so how do we manage this balance between making sure that we are using social media, we are inclusive, we are using digital at the same time managing the risks that are there as well. Well as you said, I mean the digital transformation is here and we need to adapt to it. Now there are few ways. We need to have some checks and balances about the use of digital in our everyday life. Some portions of the population would be more sensitive to the use of digital and more fragile when it comes to that. I am thinking particularly about children as they have to be exposed to digital, they have to be exposed to the internet because many benefits would come from that. At the same time I think that there needs to be some kinds of role that the parents should play by showing that there is a real world, there is a real world which we need to be still anchored in and then this is the best use that we can do of digital. I think there is another word that is very important when it comes to digital and social media more importantly which is trust. One of the challenges of the use of new technologies, all the social media and all the digital information outlets is the veracity of the information that they are conveying. This is why I think that maybe a few weeks ago Facebook has announced the recruitment of about 3,000 people that will only be taking care of verifying the information that is being circulated on social media. The digital transformation will impact drastically our ways of life positively if we know how to manage it. It has to come into education systems. It has to be considered when we build our entrepreneurial systems and ecosystems. It has to be also considered when we communicate no single company today can rely only on classic media in order to convey its messages. We need to integrate that but the use of it has to be done in a responsible way so I think that trust and responsibility are two words that we definitely need to integrate while dealing with them rather than thinking of control as it is being thought these days. Let's be aware of all the benefits before considering all the risks that this can bring. Thank you. Of course as I mentioned in your introduction you work on women empowerment in Morocco and beyond. You were part of the discussions here as well so what is your main takeaway there? What is the role of women in the future economy of this region? The MENA region is very specific when it comes to the place that is given or occupied by women in the workplace but in society in general. There are many disparities from a country to another when it comes to integration of women in social, economic and political life. There are countries that have really succeeded to create the enabling environment for women to play roles in the front of the scene where others still need to make many efforts but some feelings are really shared among all women coming from all countries of the region is that women still are still looking for that environment that would allow them to take their own decisions. I think that and we were talking about that in the early session where even companies if I talk about the private sector even companies who would like are really aware of the importance of putting women on the front of the scenes when they want to make decisions considering how to do that they do feel they know what women need where they do studies the results are usually very different from what they thought. They thought that putting a nursery in a company would help women whereas women are most mainly looking for mentoring programs for example or looking for some empowerment, new skill development tools that the company should take. What I want to say about that is that it is true that having women more active in the economy would definitely bring the economy up but please let not link the bringing women to the economic sphere to the development of that. Let's just take it as a normal human rights. We have 50% of the Earth's population are women so it's normal and natural to find 50% of all areas of life occupied and invested by women because this is the only way we can create a serious balance and we can become inclusive societies. Thank you. The role of values in building this future. So what do you think how important values are for fostering prosperity in this new generation? What is the role of religion also in that in that respect? In the name of God, I would like to thank you. I would like to thank the leadership of this forum and I would like to thank this country, Jordan, our dear Jordan. I thank His Majesty the King and the government and the Jordanian people for the hospitality that I have seen and witnessed. When I was on my way to Jordan as I was coming to Jordan I thought I came of course along with my team the religious clerics. I thought that we will feel alienated that we will not feel at home amongst this group of business people but I leave this conference feeling that I was amongst friends. Both men and women who share our vision, who share our mission, we carry a joint mission, a joint message. Human being searches for interests and carries values. No human being is devoid of values. We believe that religion constitutes the collective values of a human being. A person can have his own religion. It is not just collective religions. The prophet, God's blessings be upon him, he said the path to God, there are so many paths to God that are as many as there are people in this world. So each individual can have his own religion or her own religion. Religion is necessary for our life even the life where we pursue our interests. So I thank you. I thank you for giving a share of this forum to religious clerics in this economic forum. We need to draw a better future for people whereby there is a balance between values and interests. This is our message. I also come out of this conference with great optimism. Great optimism deriving from the presence of these young women, young women that give hope that there will be a bigger role for our daughters in the future and a bigger role for youth in the future as well. What also had a great impact on me in this meeting is that when I think that our sons and daughters, if they become like us, then we have not progressed. We have not moved forward. I want my children, our daughters and sons to be better than us and this is what's beautiful in this region. This has been a new experience but I felt at home in this country and in this gathering. This experience has given me a bigger responsibility because I found that religion has to have a place, a bigger place, has to play a bigger role and religious clerics have to play a bigger role in the field of values when we religious clerics carry the mission of humanity. We have to play a bigger role in society when we think of humanity as a single family and that we are responsible for those values then we have completed our mission. When we achieve this, what encouraged me also is my team, the team that accompanied me, a team that represents the Iraqi mosaic, the Christians, Sunnis, Shiites, we all share common human values. This gives a beautiful image of my country, Jordan, that has lived through many conflicts and now after defeating ISIS, defeating Daesh with Iraqi hands now all Iraqis feel that all the fake differences, all the differences that have been created between Sunnis and Shiites and others, now the Iraqis feel that they need to be united, that these differences are not real and thank you very much, thank you once again. Said Hakim, I have a follow-up question. A lot of people that I met here were asking me, what will come after Mosul? So you addressed it to a certain degree, but what would be your message? You come from Najaf, what would be your message to your country and to the people in your country so that once the military campaign is finished, what's next for Iraq? Today the people have reached an excellent level of awareness and recognition that religion cannot be pushed into politics, this is completely wrong. Religion has its own special place and it needs to be dignified, it needs to be respected, it cannot be involved in this political bazaar. Our people in Mosul, in Najaf, in Basra, in Baghdad, they do not prefer the religious political movements. They want to have a civil state. Najaf always called for a civil state. We don't want also to alienate religion from life. Religion is an integral part of our life, but we don't want a government that governs in the name of religion and in the name of God. Our slogan in Najaf is that we do not want a religious government, we want a government that respects religion. This is the message that has finally reached our people and now people believe in this. And our message to decision makers, as I said yesterday, we met with an excellent group of politicians and decision makers. We told them that political Islam, we've tried political Islam, it was not helpful, it did not serve us. Please help us hold real elections, true elections in Iraq that allow people to express their opinions. The Iraqi people prefer a civilian government, a government that respects religion but is a civilian government. We are sure that our people are aware of this and they hope for a better future. Our problem in Iraq is not problems or conflict between sects. The problem is political Islam that wants to shove religion into politics and force it into politics and historically this has been a problem. If you look at history, when the sacred was involved in politics it ruined politics and ruined religion and this is our issue. Hassan Hasbani, Lebanon went through a very painful period in history. You were part of a meeting that we had where Said Hakim was also, I know this was part of the discussions, you as representative of your country, what have you learned as a society in terms of reconciliation, rebirth, compromise? What would be your tips? Well Lebanon has gone through that phase for quite some time and we've learned many lessons and I believe there are many lessons that have been learned in Lebanon that can be applied to the region as well. We're still learning, we're still on a long journey but we're getting there. We live today in a world that's transforming at a very fast pace. Values, ethics, relationships are being redefined at an unprecedented speed and they're being challenged at an unprecedented level. Technology has driven many things forward, has improved lives of people. We're at the dawn of an industrial revolution that will actually continue transforming our lives. Yet we live in a part of the world that's catching up with all of that while reinventing itself and creating itself from a governance perspective, from a social contract perspective. So what's happening to the world is happening to us in the region. In addition to what's happening to the world, we're still struggling with basic existential questions. What we learned from these discussions, what we learned from our experience in Lebanon in general is that this is time for reconciliation and inclusion. Society today needs reconciliation and inclusion. The lack of inclusion has led to conflicts and I do agree that these are not religious conflicts as much as they are conflicts driven by partially social exclusion, partially economic reasons and partially a drive to control and supremacy by various social, ethnical or groups that group themselves on the religious entities. Yet this is a society in the making defining itself. So when we talk about reconciliation and inclusion, these are the two principles, the two main principles that will drive our society forward. Inclusion in governance, so no group or constituent of society controls another group. Everybody is responsible for building their own country. Everybody is responsible for creating stability and prosperity and everybody would be responsible for any trouble or conflicts. When we talk about building the future and this forum has discussed these topics at large, with the new changes in the world, with the conflicts that exist in this part of the world, there's no doubt that smaller entities, cities are rising as big economic entities instead of nation states across the world. Yet nation states still exist because of various cultural, social, economic and security needs. At the same time, we have a big question mark about the way the world is running itself, the economic models that we're living in. There's a struggle between liberty and equity. Today we need to have both. We need to have a free market economy that is socially equitable to a large number of every country's population. There's a struggle between efficiency and economic efficiency and the community, where communities felt excluded because everybody was racing for economic efficiency and gains. Communities felt that they're not being looked after and then they rose and created a loud voice. So efficiency with community attention is also needed, particularly in this part of the world as communities are finding themselves and interacting with each other. A level of reconciliation, inclusion of all entities in every society in this part of the world, combined with a decentralization of administration that eases any tension or competition over resources or over control, can create a much more peaceful environment to our region. The same way it is creating a stable environment for the world that's embracing a new industrial revolution, that's embracing technology, embracing entrepreneurship and innovation in a more inclusive manner. This is how I see the world evolving in the next couple of decades and this is particularly how I see Lebanon and the region in the Middle East evolving to create stability, create prosperity and build a better future. Thank you very much. Beautiful words, thank you. Yes, I'm Barin Hadija Sana. You are entrepreneurs. I'm curious because normally entrepreneurs, they don't like talking too much. So you like to grow your businesses. So you spent three days here. So if there was one thing that you would want to do out of this, what is it going to be?  So I'm just curious, Hadija. Well, my journey here was very special. First of all, as an entrepreneur, but also as a co-chair of this summit, Sobino co-chair allowed me to follow the discussions before to see how things were evolving. And what really I was feeling is the determination of all the co-chairs, but also the web team to make this summit special by putting it to action at not only two talks. And I was wondering how it's going to be because when you are in a meeting where you have more than 1200 people with all these different sessions, it's a little bit hard to get into actions. I think, and I will repeat that, the parts of the magic and the strength of the World Economic Forum is its ability to bring around the table all the stakeholders when it comes to one specific topic. You did that. But also there were a number of words that were coming up during the last three days. And these will be my real takeaways when I go back to my home country. The idea was about developing a positive narrative about the region, about the good experiences of the region, and about the success stories of the region. And I think that there were also many calls for action starting by the launch of the initiative, the startup initiative. And we have talked also about other initiatives that are being launched in Jordan. Few words that are really in my mind following these three days which are creativity, innovation, inclusiveness, initiative, revolution. I'm talking about the fourth industrial revolution. So I believe that few words have been coming up few times during these three days that we will take all of us with us and that will make us rethink our vision, rethink what we are doing in our countries and in the region, and mainly rethink the future that we see for our countries and the region. We as entrepreneurs, we sometimes are facing challenges that make us just rethink our minds. But after living such a great experience, I think that most of the people who are here will come back to their own countries more confident in the future of the region and more trusting their ability to make the region a better place to live. Thank you, Khadija. Sana? Actually, I feel privileged for being here with you all. So basically in Syria, we don't have really the chance for having us in such conferences or really big events. So what I think I can take back with me home is the hope and the enthusiasm I found in VCs and investors towards the Syrian people who are really working hard. In Syria, we don't, they really don't know that the word is really excited what's the creativity is happening inside. And maybe we should find a way to bridge this gap between how much technology industry is going inside Syria and how much investors are really excited about that outside. We have a really powerful workforce inside Syria which is really expert and senior in technology. That was really weird for many of the people I met here in the conference. So maybe letting people know more about Syrian people, how startups are operating there, putting more light on that, maybe give us much more opportunities for the Syrian youth. We have a great lack of opportunity and I think after this, after meeting you all in forum, I will go back with a great hope that the word is really here waiting for talents from Syria to just track the opportunity and do the hard work to get there. So thank you. Throughout the last three days, it's been incredible, really way above the expectations I had coming out here. But the common theme I heard through everybody I spoke to be it people from the government, VCs was reform. And that was extremely a great sense of relief. I started the business around five years ago and I can tell you it was very, very different. Trying to get into different jurisdictions was very, very, very difficult. And I come from the financial services industry and I think as you would all agree, it's probably the most regulated industry you could imagine. But not only that, probably the least disruptive industry in the region due to different regulations. And honestly, I've met people from Kuwait, from Bahrain, who what amazed me was that mindset of we need to move forward. We need to welcome you with open arms. Here is my business card. Come out and talk to us. Take a plane. We're going to get you out for the day. We're going to get you to meet all the regulators, the central banks, and we're going to try and do whatever needs to be done to make the change and allow you a sustainable economic environment to do business, whether or not you're local. And I think that was really one thing that I would take away from me. It wasn't just about getting the business cards, but knowing that we're welcome and making the effort of finding out more and understanding how to set up in different countries. But reform and the enthusiasm of change is what really, really struck me. Thank you. And I can assure you we'll be working on it more. This is what we are hearing as well as the World Economic Forum. And there is a strong coalition of incumbent business leaders, startups, and political leaders who are starting to work on it even more after this. So I think there is a great coalition. We'd love for you to be part of it. Great news. Rapidly, also very practical, one thing, Said Hakim Hassan, one thing you're going to do because of this summit. Maybe Hassan. Okay. As I started off by saying very quickly, just keep focusing on encouraging entrepreneurship. And when I say entrepreneurship, it's at all levels. We have entrepreneurs in different, they're not all tech startups, to be clear about this. And the large part of society is made of people who do things with their own hands, who produce things for everyday life. We need to have more of those. We need to create more jobs for those as well. So one take is to keep pushing forward with supporting entrepreneurship, while supporting big enterprise also to be more socially responsible. And that's quite important. And it's a big takeaway from this discussion. Thank you. Said Hakim. What I take away from this meeting is greater determination and greater conviction that dialogue is the best way to reach the truth. The more we focus on dialogue with the other, on respecting the principles of the other, we have worked in the center, al-Hikmah center since 2007. We worked on the national level in Iraq. And we reached several important decisions. Allow me to present to you a sample of our decisions as religious clerics and intellectuals. We have the Erbil declaration in 2016. In this declaration, we asserted citizenship. The true solution for Iraq is to consolidate a country of citizenship where everyone is equal and that protects the rule of law. We also asserted the need to promote a civil state that respects all beliefs within the Iraqi population. We also asserted the need for a principle of true reconciliation between the Iraqi people, strengthening mutual confidence. We also asserted the role of religious institutions, educational institutions. We called upon religious clerics to educate their followers and to review the religious curricula in schools and universities. We called upon the Iraqi government to build peace after ISIS. We called upon the civil society and NGOs to remove anything that harms citizenship and citizens. We asserted that we need to pay more attention to youth and also the role of women. Iraqi women are a source of pride for us. We have two models of Iraqi women here in this room. The first director of this, the Christian Sabian Waqf, a woman that we take great pride in. She represents Iraq in Jordan, Safiya Assohail. She is a wonderful woman, a respectable woman. This strong presence of Iraqi women as well as the other women, this lady here from Syria, this sends a message to everyone in this region that we, men and women, politicians, businessmen, religious clerics, we want life, we seek life and we will defeat all of these anti-life messages. All the panelists, I think it's really what we had in Davos, responsive and responsible leadership. So really being able to have the values and the decision-making capability to be responsible but also responsive enough so that you really usher in more progress, usher in the latest developments, new economic models, being able to use the opportunity of the digital economy for the benefit of the region. So we've heard from a great cross-section of industries, also an intergenerational view, which I don't think could be better for the closing. So thank you very much for your words and perspectives. Thank you very much for joining us here. My advice to young men and women and businessmen and women, when one starts a certain life should have set objectives and goals. I hope our companies, institutions and others, to put value objectives in addition to interest objective. Think what you want to achieve on the material aspect and how you achieve your values too. This is an important message from the beginning, early on. And one continues to monitor the process, how much value was achieved and how much interest was achieved. This concludes the 2017 World Economic Forum on the Middle East and North Africa. I'd like to assure you of the World Economic Forum's continued support to the region and looking forward to coming back to Jordan soon. Thank you.


Everybody forced here ripping five boxes from Matthew W Matthew's got two twenty twenty three Bowman baseball mega boxes He's got a twenty twenty three top strumming us top strum update Breakers delight in two boxes of twenty two twenty three tops. You have a club competition soccer hobby All right excited to rip those good luck Matthew. We'll start with the Bowman Megas and for flipping through cards You want to get it comfortable your right-handed, right?  Yeah, I'm interesting. Yeah, I'm like Kyle Yeah, I'm not I'm not left to right. I'm right to left So I go like that Okay. Yeah, so as long as you can like so there's a good thing to Like especially with base cards you can practice where you're just like pushing But you want to pull with the back of the other hand. So watch watch that Then I have it in a stack again. So you see how I'm pulling with my Yeah Getting that down is gonna be huge to put the cards like quickly but also showing everything so I can show like the face of Everything that's pretty that's pretty good. And then thumbs you don't want to keep your thumbs Like you want to keep them as to the edge like that. You don't want to like, you know Be over it.  So you have more leverage that way at the back So you can hold it like that rather than like Flat your thumb flat like you don't want that base cards is not the most important if you're flipping through So once you get to like like this stuff here, like the refractors That's what you want to keep thumbs really off to the side. Yeah, like a caro there But comfortably to where you can hold it and it won't like fall Hmm Yeah, you'll see go on. Yeah, it's gonna take like even when you're top-loading. Just just do it You'll see go on first refractor Purple Jordan Lawler pump it now Yeah, he is Jonathan 299 that's the goal Jordan Lawler purple So you see how I Hold it there for like a little like a little bit when it's a numbered card and it's not like super low number Do you just want to like center it? That's pretty much it you want glare on it Burgoyah and wood all right nice. Well been Francisca. Well been well been Alfredo. Do you know? to reach a valdez Dominguez and Jayce young More mega, so that's the big thing is technique and like taking care of the cards primary the primary is card like quality Protecting them. Okay So like base paper like base chrome chrome is the harder stuff to flip through to be honest Alice like at least like well The paper can be difficult. Well, we don't rip too many like paper product. Yeah, Jonathan.  Wait, that's tomorrow night. Oh geez.  I'm not gonna be flipping through. I'm going a little slower. Got Luis Torres first Montez It's iconic Machado You and you're coming narrow and Done hello, Sarmiento, but like this card. You see how I kind of like pressed on top of my thumb, but like the index finger is the one that's really like Holding it. That's pretty much it right there Yeah, that's pretty much it and then when you get more comfortable you get a little farther away from life really So we're not a little closer to the edge when I'm flipping through base. This is fine like that Or is that too much? Yeah, you want to show a little more. So you want to get comfortable like Really pulling with with this hand got there Nietzsche Valdez Colson Montgomery Blaise Jordan The main guys and JC young again. Yeah, see that's good right there It might take longer to like get used to like the speed it up But that doesn't really matter at first speed comes with repetition with something like this once you get the technique down the technique is down To 20 to 23 tops chrome UCC hobby boxes Go Matthew's been a while since we ripped this. Yeah, don't blame you Jonathan. I really don't if you miss If you see me break it You tune out like That's what it's gonna be doing So this is this is good stuff here. So another thing is the opening Like hold it like this you gotta break the pop and then you like there's like two pots essentially Yeah, for any for any easy pack. That's what I'm trying to like that's what I've been trying because that's the way you do it That's what I've been trying to do Since I've been seeing you do that Benzema Am I moving? No, not me. Okay Messy specimen Messy man Holland base Got a rookie fuchsia shimmer marquisado number to 250 appreciate that It's gonna take a little bit, but I hope so honeson Always takes a bit. It's not easy. It's not easy. Yeah neon green shimmer a cold Palmer number to 399 Rikki refractor Gonzalo Borgias The way open is very weird though. I don't think it's like other people No, it's not God Baka Yoko wonder kids a lot of people nowadays like when I first started breaking was like this but a lot of people like They all do like this. I don't know it's so like rich and I are like Not what with like the pack over the yeah, it's it's very odd I don't know it doesn't seem like the fracture custom here I'm not gonna like shame other people's way of opening cards There is for sure more control and though this way Like there's nothing like you guys can see everything. It's not catching any corners at all Sometimes you get that stray like clear plastic that doesn't tear all the way and you can like catch corners I want to see the card. I want to see myself pulling the card out of the pack really refractor palo de bala So like yeah, you can you can watch other videos and stuff like this is this is for sure the way to do it However, you're gonna do it. These are these are a lot easier open than a lot of packs, but I Mean that that's the way Pulsar rookie is outdoor changing times for breaks No, we don't have enough of it rod We have less than a case of top scrum UCC Refractors coax you we broke that we broke a lot of it when it first came out Cooks you rookie auto is for taboo refractor Tony cruise. Yeah, I like to break this stuff, too I can break them both Galazzo's Ronaldinho Could I try to six boxer? I think rich put some on a black Friday. I think he did actually no no He didn't put UCC on black Friday Merlin was though Pulsar is a slanny Drew Bellingham on the inserts Wonder kids for taboo neon green shimmer grabbing birch out of 399 Purple 20 cruise purple gold seismic are nine the fuchsia mini diamond is tionry cannon number to 175 Fractor is Fabio Silva Fuchsia shimmer is Leonardo Bonucci 250 Fonzo Davis. Yeah, some of the grounding on my left Yeah Yeah, as long as you can reverse the opposite by no get ins Ricky neon green shimmer to 399 Yes, or even with like this grip. I can flip this over look at the numbering easily and just flip it back Just turn your wrist really then if you want to hurt your wrist you can do it right here I've got you can refractor you do it like one quick one right there There's a dollar card and half refractor Anthony Fractor Kalulu future stars See Don on the insert Refractor Sadio money he on the insert Tarot Still looking for an auto Very nice. That's a great auto. Look at Maldreach gold lava auto Heck yeah, that is awesome. That is what we're looking for right there awesome card. Congrats to Matthew Luca Pull one is out as in a while Fractor in Jecco Vicky Bano baseball cars and spokes of his bikes. Yeah, I'm sure a lot of people did Get lots of Benzima Gondawan on the blue to 150 Throwback insert here in 1959 a pulsar de mele specimen killian Mbappé Rikki refractor Nikola Zalewski by no Gittens wonder kids Gold lava. Who is that? Nice Fabio Canavaro Gold lava 59 insert in the short prints Is a good box And a doku aqua lava as well It's been playing very well for Man City Fractor Martin Utagard Dude more than whooped them And Eileen jr wonder kids. All right, TCU breakers the light now nice colors coming up Fractors of Contreras Profar fire rising Netto Rikki refractor Brandon jewelry and colors were done Gold rookie is Garrett action number 250 Followed by gold mini diamond Kobe Allard out of 50 gold gold Diamond dominance short print Adley Ruchman Two golds in Adley now Very nice youth quake Kodai Senga Is a Rikki refractor Otto Brian Rockio number to 499 Thank you for subscribing John And then Rikki base Otto Cole Regans Good stuff nice box there Good way to end it that the that last UCC box and then that delight really good stuff I appreciate you Matthew. We'll get those out to you


Hoodies. One of the most important staples for layering and general warmth. It's a stylish, versatile piece, but man can you look awkward real quick. Today I'm gonna give you some reasons on why you might look awkward in hoodies based on my own experience and also provide some tips on how to look better in them. Let's get into it. Okay the first reason and a lot of people don't think about this is the way your hood is sitting. If it's lopsided or just layering all crumpled up, all you gotta do is fix it. Give it a good steam, adjust the hood so it's layering properly. This can be a struggle for more heavy weight fabrics kind of like this hoodie right here. So I kind of like to always make sure it forms a collar right here and then the hood sits on the outside of it. This is going to provide structure and it just looks better overall and so that's an easy fix that doesn't cost you any money and that you can do right now. Now the next reason is you're getting the wrong sized hoodie. How it fits matters you should know this. So I feel like there's a universal spectrum to this and an area on that spectrum that you should probably stick to. So there are a few indicators to tell whether it looks awkward or not and the problem lies when you size down too much or you go up two sizes way too much. Both do not look good at all. I don't care how much gains you made or how loose it fits. They both can just be too much. So instead you might want to stick to a more slim fit hoodie or an oversized one and I say get both because some oversized hoodies can be too much fabric for layering in some jackets and that's where a slim fit hoodie comes in for layering and so with slim fit hoodies I like to go for brands that are known for being more slimmer fitting tight fitting and then all I gotta do is size up one size that way it's not going to be super skin tight like this hoodie right here. This is a size large can you believe that let's compare it with another size large hoodie from a different brand a more streetwear brand and both have different shapes and so if you're going for a more oversized hoodie the best indicator to look for is one that says it's made to be more relaxed fitting that way you're true to size is a relaxed fit. So in this case you could choose to size down for a more slimmer look and if you want a more loose fit look you size up one size. These types of hoodies you can tell it'll have a dropped shoulder and that's what you want to keep an eye out for for more oversized pieces. So definitely understand the brands that you are buying from take a look at the model what size they're wearing their height and weight all of that matters especially when brand states that this is meant to be more loose fitting or more slim fitting. Now let's talk about the hem of the hoodie. So if it's anything past the crotch I think you're stretching it a little bit. This hoodie is definitely pushing it so what you can do is just get it hemmed from your tailor or you can just roll the hem since it's usually a few inches that you can knock off and that'll move the hem up your body so it looks more proportionately satisfying. Now what I like to do to make sure it holds its place is to use some safety pins to pinch it on one side this holds the hem there while providing a contrast and materials and you don't really need to do anything else after that. I would suggest you practice on a hoodie you don't care about that's what I like to do and if it still looks weird in your eyes definitely just extend your height by wearing a pair of boots. So this is going to give you a few inches and that'll offset how oversized the garment is. Now next up you might just need something over the hoodie this could also be due to the rest of your fit but let's just say you have a solid fit but it still looks kind of off. Usually an additional layer will solve the problem and I'm talking about if you're trying to rock this hoodie on its own. So whenever I have that feeling a sling usually does a trick. I mainly keep it simple with something black or a small pop of color but one thing people tend to forget is the vest. So the vest is one of those underrated items that was popping for some time during the work wear era but you know it kind of fell off but don't worry about that. A vest still looks good when paired with a hoodie.  So I would definitely recommend getting a vest that matches the color of your hoodie. I think it's just a cool look the vest feels like a part of the hoodie but surely you could utilize some color to add some dynamic contrast to your fit. Like this vest right here from Lulu Lemon the sponsor of today's video. So what I absolutely love about this vest is just how it is constructed. The details really stack up to make for a quality piece. So first up it's super warm. When paired with the hoodie it's perfect for those mild cool days. It's windproof and water repellent and very soft and fluffy. I feel like I could sleep on this. It comes with two inside pockets one that zipped in your standard inside pocket an additional two outside zipper pockets and heavy robust hardware that just makes it feel really nice. Here I'm pairing it with their full athletic sets of sweats and a hoodie keeping it super casual. Great for walking my dog meeting up with a friend or just chilling and here it is paired with a more streetwear outfit. This is an incredibly versatile piece and definitely a staple for the wintertime. Now this is for sure one of those holiday gifts I feel like any guy can appreciate and right now Lulu Lemon has a ton of scores for the end of the year and the holidays and if you want to treat yourself or someone else I think this is a great gift. Also that full sweat looks pretty good too. So if you guys are interested in any of these items definitely click that link in the description. Full transparency if you do make a purchase using my links I do get a small kickback which does go back to supporting the channel. If not don't sweat it. Thank you Lulu Lemon for sponsoring this video back to it. Now up next on why you might look awkward in hoodies is its color or fabric weight. So these things matter. If it's super light it just doesn't feel or look premium you know it just kind of looks standard and just flows too much.  Like there's a difference between this hoodie color and this hoodie color right and that's why I always recommend going for something a little bit more muted you know something a little bit draby and more sad looking. You know I like to describe these hoodies with the phrase dusty it's a good way of explaining it. If it looks more clay like you're definitely hitting the spot. Now on the other hand there are some really good saturated hoodies you just got to keep in mind its fabric weight and how it was constructed.  I like to avoid these types of hoodies in general but if one speaks to you definitely go for it that's just personal preference but for sure you want to avoid the ones that have a weird embroidered patches the ones that just have an awkward graphic and I would just follow your gut feeling not just what I say or what other people say because everyone's got their own preference. Now if you actually want a graphic hoodie or something with a little more detail on nothing too plain this is what I would always recommend someone. Go for a hoodie that has a story behind it that relates to you like this Breaking Burke hoodie describes me perfectly I worked at the laser tag building where Breaking Bad was filmed you know side note they actually filmed when I was working there for season five and if you didn't already know Breaking Bad is my favorite show so this hoodie just suits me perfectly plus I love supporting local businesses if you're ever in the abq go to old town check out the Breaking Bad store for you it might just be a hoodie from a national park or a city that you visited by the way there's a story behind that piece and it's going to make it much more sentimental and you will definitely want to wear it often much more than that free hug hoodie you've been eyeing and last but not least you may just need to try on a zip hoodie sometimes whenever it comes to fashion you just have to adjust one thing and it's going to look really good on you and this may be your thing if a regular hoodie doesn't look good on you I would recommend going for a zip hoodie all right y'all hope you guys found this video insightful make sure you give this video a thumbs up subscribe and follow me on instagram and until then stay fly check out Lululemon deuces


TESOL courses Thailand RTEFL course in Thailand, give you the opportunity to learn how to teach English in one of the finest countries in the world. Thailand is justifiably considered one of the most alluring countries anywhere. When you combine all its superb facets, the great food, magical beaches, vibrant nightlife, low-cost and friendly people, you can see why it has an unmatched reputation and is a world-leading destination for TESOL courses. TESOL Thailand For those interested in taking a TESOL in Thailand, the good news is that demand is very high for English language teachers year-round, and you are sure to be offered a TESOL position soon after completing your TESOL course. Opportunities teaching TESOL in Thailand are countrywide, from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, Fuukah to Koh Samui. With our TESOL courses running year-round at three diverse locations, we are confident of having a TESOL course in Thailand which meets your wishes. Our three TESOL course locations in Thailand offer different features for those interested in TESOL Thailand. TESOL course on the Andaman Sea Attend our TESOL course in Fuukah and you will earn your TESOL certification on an island paradise located on the southwest coast of Thailand in the Andaman Sea. Fuukah is famous for its world-class beaches, fine food and lively nightlife. Being the largest island in Thailand, the expansion of Fuukah offers a wide variety of activities to enjoy during your free time while attending the TESOL course here. You can take pleasure in some of the best scuba and snorkeling sites in the world, go for a hike through the jungle, go elephant trekking or relax on one of the tropical beaches. When not attending your course you can explore the island's villages, visit surrounding areas such as Phy Phy Island or the Sumilian Islands, or view the world-famous rock structures at James Bond Island in Koh Phong Ghand. At the end of your course day, you can enjoy some of the finest food in the world, then go on to one of the many clubs and bars in one of the many popular night venues. Fuukah is a tropical paradise for your TESOL course in Thailand. TESOL course on the east coast of Thailand Attend a TESOL course in Thailand at our Ban Phi location and you will experience your TESOL training course in a quaint fishing village located in eastern Thailand. The TESOL course in Ban Phi gives you the opportunity to become a TESOL teacher while enjoying great beaches, amazing food and a super tropical weather. The low cost of living and travel here will also allow you easy access to many places in and around Thailand. TESOL course in Thailand's north. Chiang Mai Thailand is in the northwest corner of the country and is one of the most culturally rich cities in Thailand. With cooler temperatures than the rest of the country, you can enjoy comfortable surroundings while on the TESOL course here. Attend your TESOL course here, learn to become a TESOL teacher and enjoy the city atmosphere amongst the rolling hills and mountain terrain. With many outdoor activities, a fun nightlife and superb weather, Chiang Mai is an exceptional place to take a TESOL course Thailand. Tefl International offers super training courses for people who want to gain TESOL certification in Thailand. Following your TESOL course, you can expect to be offered employment in one of the thousands of schools here as all schools in Thailand recruit native English teachers. We are also in a prime location for you to go on and teach in South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, China and all Asian countries should you wish to do so. Gaining your first English teaching post is an important step in ensuring you have an enjoyable time teaching English. Here in Thailand you are sure to be offered an English teaching job. If Thailand is not to your liking, then you are in a great location to access English teaching jobs throughout Asia.


Hello and welcome. My name is Shannon Kemp and I'm the Chief Digital Officer of Data Diversity. We'd like to thank you for joining the most recent webinar, the Dataversely Monthly Series, Elevating Enterprise Data Literacy with Dr. Wendy Lynch. The series is held the first Thursday of every month, and today Wendy will introduce the series topic and will be joined, excuse me, and today Wendy will discuss exploring levels of data literacy, what's needed by whom. And as always to get us started, due to the large number of people that attend these sessions, he will be muted during the webinar. If you'd like to chat with us or with each other, we certainly encourage you to do so. And just to note the Zoom defaults the chat to send to just the panelists, but you may absolutely switch that to network with everyone. For questions, we'd be collecting them by the Q&A section and we encourage you to try to highlight via your favorite social media platform using hashtag data diversity. And to find the chat and the Q&A panels, you may click those icons in the bottom of your screen to activate those features. And as always, we will send a follow-up email within two business days containing links to the slides, the recording in this session, and any additional information requested throughout the webinar. Now it is in my pleasure to introduce to you the speaker for the series, Dr. Wendy Lynch. Wendy is the founder of analytic-translator.com and Lynch Consulting. For 35 years she has converted complex analytics into business value. At heart she is a sense maker and translator. A consultant to numerous Fortune 100 companies her current work focuses on the application of big data solutions and human capital management. In 2022 she was awarded the Bill Whitmer Leadership Award for her sustained contributions to the science of corporate health. As a research scientist working in the business world, Dr. Wendy Lynch has learned to straddle commercial and academic goals, translating analytic results into market success. Through this experience, she has created her book Become an Analytic Translator and an online course. And with that, I will give the floor to Wendy to start the presentation. Hello and welcome. Thank you, Shannon. I am so happy to be here. Welcome to everyone. Welcome back. If you joined us last month for our very first kickoff. And I want to say thank you to Shannon and to Dataversity, all of the folks involved in putting this together. I am grateful to be a part of this series. So I will be talking today about data literacy, and I thought I would start by just thinking about how we got here in the first place. So where is this interest in data abilities coming from. Well, certainly it's coming from all of you, all of the folks who work in data professions and computer professions, but it's also coming because executives are getting inundated. And yet, these sorts of reports, they read management journals, they read leadership journals. And what they see is message after message saying that they need to be more data powered. The other report was very convincing as part of CAP Gemini, which is a respected research institute. And they put together based on a survey they did of a thousand executives, they looked at how people were achieving data capabilities. They put on the left side data behaviors so how people and processes use data. And then they put at the bottom how the structure and the foundation of data capabilities in terms of technology and tools. And this was in 2020 and they identified that 70% of companies really still lagged behind in terms of implementing both the people part and the technology part. There are some who do one but not the other. And then they looked at what they called the data masters who had implemented people and processes, as well as technology and tools, and came to the conclusion based on analytics that they did that if your company was a data master, you had 70% higher revenue per employee. It caught a lot of attention. And so executives start to think about these sorts of advantages and begin to realize that they need more than ever to become a digital force. They also get messages that all of you see all the time that 98% of their colleagues in the executive ranks are investing in big data and AI. That analytics is going to grow to almost 70 billion in the next four or five years that companies will need more and more analysts and data science professionals. And that the amount of data that they have is growing and growing, yet more than half of it doesn't get used. So they get these messages. And it makes them feel like they are behind. So, as we see these calls to be more data literate. It's partly coming from the top. So we see those kinds of messages. And we also see that there is a promise that is being made about big data that your revenues are going to go up that your profitability is going to go up that you will be able to have clear marketing messages, and that these big data discoveries are going to be successfully integrated into their business. Well, there's also another set of messages that they're getting. And that is when the Gartner group and other organizations actually dig into when big data analytics gets applied. We see results like this that 85% of big data projects fail at least the first time 87% never make it into production, only 20% deliver business value. And that fewer than 50% of business decisions are being made using data. We still rely on our old gut instincts in many, many cases. So on the one hand they know that they have to do this on the other hand they're worried about doing it wrong. And so when I started to see these conflicting headlines. I did a couple of surveys online. And I said so how do analytic folks feel about the way that the business interacts with them. And alarmingly, only 8% said this is a great relationship that we have with the business. And two thirds said it's either completely frustrating because we get these transactional requests and we don't actually get any context and we're not asked for our opinion. Half say it's okay or so so. And so the general conclusion is they give me a request with little or no context. Then I did another survey, and I asked the business people. How do you feel about the interactions you have with the analytic group. It's almost a mirror image. Only 7% say it's awesome. It's always great. And two thirds say it's just so frustrating. I don't get what I want or if I get it I don't understand what it says. So here we are we need to be more digital more data focused, we're worried about things failing, and we're not communicating well. So it is not a surprise that we are now hearing so much about data literacy. And some of the most common ways that people define data literacy are that people can read and recognize data that they actually understand it pretty clearly that they can use it to convince others or argue about things or make convincing statements about what is discovered. Plus, maybe we get up to being able to explain complex analytics at the highest levels, or teach about complex analytics. So if we're thinking about data literacy we're thinking about a high level of proficiency with the most people that we possibly can. I don't surprise you that when they interview business leaders with everything they're hearing and seeing 90% of business leaders believe that data literacy will be critical to their success. So, this is not a small endeavor this is not a unique endeavor it is widespread that we believe that this is important. And when we ask ourselves how literate, most of the things that we see again in the business journals management journals leadership journals. There is a kind of a rah rah supportive kind of declaration that we can all be brilliant at data, and that data literacy is going to be the second language of business. It's really a call to action. And one description that I saw in a leadership journal is that at the very least individuals should know how key business terms and metrics are defined, especially if it's related to their function. And that ideally, everyone should have a basic grasp of statistics and an ability to interpret charts and analytics accurately. And that's kind of a big deal. And also, there starts to be some finger pointing. There is a lot of definitions and call outs of those people who are not data literate. And that seems to be human resources and sales so we have gotten to the finger pointing part of needing data literacy. So who is literate now. Well, according to business leaders, 75% of them report that they think most or all of their workers are already data literate. That's pretty crazy. But if you go to the middle managers not the executives, only 50% of them believe that most or all of their workers are data literate. So they're starting to hedge their bets just a little. But when we look at who is actually literate now. The one overarching survey that I saw was 25% of employees are confident in their data skills now obviously it depends on what company we're talking about. We're talking estimates as low as 8% of employees are highly skilled and understand how to use data. We're talking about a lack of data literacy in somewhere between 30 or 25 or 8%, or sorry, 70, 80 or 90% of people who lack data literacy, because we are getting down to the bottom 10%. I also started to investigate how much proficiency people have and how open they are to learning about data. I think that there are probably some limits to that. The best overview that I saw was that 62% of US adults operate at a very base level of math. More alarming one in five have what they describe as severe math anxiety, where if you put them in a functional MRI machine, it's indistinguishable. Their anxiety about math is indistinguishable from pain or fear. So we're not talking about just reluctance. It is a an actual phobia. 29% of us adults can't interpret a simple graph, including a third who don't know that a quarter of a pie is equal to 25%. So what we are seeing here is that we are kind of acting the way I remember when health promotion started in the 80s. They would have skinny people tell you that weight loss is easy. They would have really fit people tell you that exercise is easy. I'm afraid now we're having data science people tell you that data literacy is easy. So how do we improve data literacy right now? What I see most is encouragement to have mandatory education on the basics of data integrity, reliability, manipulation and elementary statistics, which is an admirable goal. I have to ask whether it's realistic. If we are talking about the full population. So I'm going to take a detour. Hopefully you guys will tolerate a detour. And I'm going to talk about what's called strategic alignment. It's again, very popular in the business and leadership journals. It's very popular in management journals. And I'm going to call it business literacy and strategic alignment means that all of the people in the organization and all of the processes are aligned with the goals, priorities and purpose of the organization. Because if everybody's rowing in the same direction everybody's pulling the same way, then the company runs better. And again, the journals just highlight this the same way they highlight data literacy employees must understand strategy if they're going to implement it. Your employees need to understand the why of your organization. And they highlight the companies whose people are aligned on strategy, grow revenue 58% faster and are 72% more profitable. That is amazing. Just by having everybody be aware. So, we start to see the strategic alignment or we can call it again business literacy has levels of its own. I do my job, that's kind of the basic number two I know how to connect my job to specific key performance indicators. Number three, you can communicate what the strategy of the organization is you pretty much know where it is that you're going and what's important. At higher levels you can tie different decisions to that strategy. And maybe at the top level you are in charge of creating strategy and developing those metrics. So when we think about data literacy. It's important to start to think about who is literate. Again, executives of executives 52% have confidence that most employees can explain their company's strategy. Although they hedge their bets a little only 20% of executives have high confidence that most employees can explain their company's strategy. Well, how many employees really understand the strategy. It's a little bit alarming. Out of a survey using multiple choice test. So they were given options they weren't asked to bring it out of thin air, fewer than a third could percent could identify what the business strategy was that was kind of disappointing. When they looked at managers as they got further and further away from the executives, only 13% of frontline managers could name the company's top three priorities. And another study by Price Waterhouse said that 93% of employees could not articulate their company's strategy. So once again, we have an essential capability strategic alignment that seems to be a little bit out of the reach of the everyday employee. And we are looking at nine out of 10 who do not have business literacy when it comes to their organizations. What's especially important about this is that there is also a need for strategic alignment between business and technology. So we see this overlap between not only having strategic alignment and not only having data literacy but having that occur together. And it turns out that when those two areas are completely aligned, it explains 80% of the difference in company performance across organizations. That's pretty nuts. So what's difficult though, is that the executives in charge of the business and the executives in charge of technology differ in their opinions about how aligned they are. If we look at an assessment of a thousand executives, those in blue are the technology executives, the majority of them think, oh yeah, we're absolutely aligned with the strategy. But only a third of the business executives feel like technology is aligned. So we are struggling, not only to have this separate level of alignment, but in having alignment between technology and business. And I start to feel like executives are acting like the skinny weight loss instructors. Strategic alignment is easy, because it's easy for them. So how do companies suggest that you increase business literacy? It's not unlike what we see for data literacy. Mandatory education on strategic priorities, consistent messaging and aligned KPIs. And it sounds a little bit like what we saw for data literacy, we need to have people have basic understanding, but start to actually become much more capable. So apologies in advance, but I'm going to take one more detour. And I'm going to talk about one other concept, emotional and social awareness. And I'll call that people literacy. So, when you look again at these business journals for Sloan, MIT, Harvard Business Review, over and over again, leaders and executives see that emotional intelligence is critical for the success of a business. It's critical for high performing employees, 80% of long term job success depends on their emotional quotient, not on their IQ. Managers who have high emotional intelligence have teams that average 15 to 20% higher revenue. So as we look at this, we start to see, again, a series of messages. We need people who are socially and emotionally aware or people literacy. And 52% of HR leaders say they're going to start hiring managers based mostly on their emotional intelligence. So, here we have another capability that is important that leaders hear a lot about. What it means, again, to have this people literacy and the different levels across all of us is that they are self aware of their own emotions that they can recognize emotions in others that they empathize with that they actually know how to put themselves in other people's shoes. We have the social skills to communicate well to deal with situations that are emotionally difficult, and perhaps teach or guide others on how to have better communication and better involvement when things are difficult. So to give you an example of how we test people literacy. There is a eyes test where you see 36 sets of eyes. And those eyes are showing a particular emotion. And that emotion is one of the four that is listed around each set of eyes. The average person can only identify the emotion in 23 out of 36 sets of eyes. And that is even though they're only limited to four options. What is interesting is that again with the finger pointing. They are happy to identify that people majoring in science and business have significantly lower people literacy than those in social sciences. While the computer science and data folks are pointing fingers at sales and HR. HR is on the other side pointing fingers at science and business people. So, how, how many of us have people literacy. Well, only 36% of people in general are able to recognize and identify and name emotions at a high level. And 95% of people think that they're self aware, but only somewhere between 10 and 15% actually are. So people literacy is also lacking in a lot of ways. Now, why is this important. Well, number one, it's a skill that they are highlighting as related to business success. But actually, if you look at the number of companies who want to accelerate digital transformation accelerate making data driven decisions and incorporating a data foundation to the way that they operate. Converting some of the manual processes into digital data oriented processes. However, 70% of those transformation projects fail. And when they look at why they fail. It's because of people not having the literacy to bring the everyday worker along. It's the people issues that make or break the digital transformation. So, here we are looking at data literacy as a separate issue. And strategic alignment as a separate issue. And emotional intelligence as a separate issue. And yet they all come together here. As you try and align your digital strategy with your business strategy and your people strategy, they all come together. So how do we train people. Well, it's again not unlike other trainings, mandatory education to improve awareness of emotion in ourselves and others. And along with that probably coaching and feedback so that people can learn it and apply it. So it is not that different from the way that we are thinking about these other areas. And I'm sure psychologists and HR folks will tell you. Yes, emotions are easy. So I'd like you to just think about the answers to these next three questions just give yourself a rating. This is just for your own recording. And let's start with data literacy. And I'll start at the bottom. My guess is this group is all going to be way up high but in other audiences it isn't always the case. So one is I'm allergic to data and math. Number two, I can read charts and basically understand them. Three, I'm comfortable explaining what basic analytic results mean. Number four, I know what statistical tests should be applied to answer a question. And number five is I choose and perform advanced modeling techniques in my job. And I would think of a five as being probably equivalent to at least a bachelor's degree maybe a master's degree. Now I want you to rate yourself on business literacy. Do you think about the business as I just do my job I do my part. I know how my work ties to company goals. Number three, I can give comprehensive explanations of the business strategy. If someone asks me. Number four, I know how our company is performing on all of its key metrics right now. And number five, I actually develop corporate strategy and create the metrics that measure it, and also communicate it. Again, we might think of number five as being an MBA level or the equivalent in real life. So give yourself a number on that one. And then lastly, how would you rate your people literacy. One would be, you know, emotions get in the way I just want to do my work. Number two would be, I can't always tell what others are feeling. Number three, I can accurately identify my own and others feelings. Number four, I empathize with others and uncomfortable handling and acknowledging when negative emotions are involved. Number five would be I teach others how to recognize and handle emotional issues and situations again that probably would be a training like a bachelor's in social work or in communication or psychology. So, think about what your numbers are. I say that when I do this, sometimes with an audience. I see a lot of people who are three or higher in multiple areas, but very few, if any, score a five in multiple areas, which shouldn't surprise us. Because we tend to be experts in one area more often than in multiple areas. So that number five, as at least a bachelor's if not a master's. How many people have a bachelor's. Well, a little more than a third, about 10% have a master's, and only about 3% have a PhD, if we're thinking that real skill is somebody who has invested all that time. If people who have a bachelor's degree with a double major is only 9%. Then our people to master's degrees is less than 1% and the number with two different doctoral degrees is itty bitty tiny tiny. So, we have experts in our organizations and those experts have strengths in certain places. And so if we're thinking about literacy what companies want is they want literacy in data, they want people who are people literate, they want business literacy. That's what leadership wants is everybody to be literate in these things to be capable. So what we have looks more like this less than a third with data literacy less than a third with people literacy less than a third with business literacy. So there's, there's where we are. So let's think about what this actually means when we're trying to tackle lower levels of abilities. What happens that I notice is that we have different efforts being run by different groups. So we have the data it groups who are interested in promoting day literacy. We have the management groups and project managers who want you to be focused on business literacy. And we have HR and some other groups trying to focus on people literacy. So, these end up being disparate separate kinds of events. And when I think about this, I think about people as having a variety of different types of capabilities. Each person has a certain amount of data literacy, for example, a certain amount of people literacy, and a certain amount of business literacy. So we have these combinations of capabilities. And the next person may have more people literacy, or more data literacy but a little bit more people, or any combination of these three. Each of us then has a capability of bringing certain strengths or weaknesses. And the way that we see the calls to improve data literacy the calls to improve strategic alignment the calls to improve emotional intelligence has been weakness focused. And what we do is we grab some people who have low data literacy and we enroll them into a data focused intervention. We find the people who have low emotional intelligence and we enroll them in something that improves. We find people with low business intelligence business literacy, and we enroll them in a way that they can improve each of them in an isolated way. There are some other options I think that we can consider. One of them is where I spend a lot of my time and that is on how we can connect experts in two different areas by training individuals to be what you might call the tweener the in between. So, one person is an expert in analytics. One person is an expert in business. And there are individuals who have sufficient expertise in each maybe there are three. They know how to interpret what analysts say, interpret what business folks say, and do it in a way that helps individuals collaborate more successfully. So that might be a role of a translator. Another possibility would be that we highlight what people are interested in learning about. It's not just what their strengths are, but which direction they might want to go. And an example of that might be that we select these folks. And one of them maybe wants to not just do analytics but teach it. Another person may love the idea of collaboration and figuring out how best to develop processes so that people communicate even better. And then we identify folks who want to learn new skills. And in this case, perhaps she wants to learn better data skills and become tech savvy and users sometimes called citizen developers or other kinds of roles. Business technician, I think I've heard used to. So this person wants to learn wants to get to the point where they can collaborate with their business colleagues in a way that they become that front end, rather than requiring that all analysts be answering every single question for every single business person. So there is a hybrid role that is possible, if we do it that way. So, if we think about this collectively that we want to maximize strengths and interests, then we also then can become strength and interest focused, rather than deficit focus which is what we seem to be doing. And if we do that, then we highlight the value that each person is bringing, rather than taking the person who has severe math anxiety and forcing them to enroll in data literacy or taking the person who couldn't understand what the other person is feeling if they, their life depended on it, and forcing them to figure out which eyes show disappointment and which eyes show excitement. So, if we think about it this way, we might actually say that we are going to educate about making a line decisions using evidence and empathy. We could combine many ways that we want to emphasize strengths and interests, and actually build on that combination in a way that advances how everybody collaborates, but respects what people bring. What I invite you to think about as we wrap up the content that I will present for today and then we can have a discussion is, should we be thinking about data literacy separately, or should we be thinking about it within this context of other needs and priorities. If we think about data literacy as a solitary solution, or whether maybe it belongs in a broader integrated context. By itself data literacy will actually make decisions, data driven, or will there be strategic and social requirements that we have to consider before we can have that outcome. I mean data literacy by itself will it achieve that or do we need these other capabilities. That must become highly literate is seems to be the call. But realistically, do we want every person to be highly literate in every area, or can we leverage the strengths that they have. Ask that a lot of non experts are supposed to become expert. When I saw that the definition of data literacy included everybody becoming, you know, basic statisticians. It just really worried me. What about if we thought about combination roles, whether that's translators who can go between two experts or tech savvy folks who learn a whole new set of skills because they have that interest, or similarly citizen developers. And lastly, can we can we actually focus on this stuff separately without creating this superior inferior dynamic. Because if we point fingers at every science or business major and tell them they're not emotionally intelligent enough, or we look at every HR and sales people and tell them that they are data illiterate. I'm sure that that heads us in the right direction. So maybe we give people opportunity to learn more without it having to be a good or bad situation. So I will ask you to consider. Can your data literacy efforts be put into context in some way in your organization. What about which departments and professions within your organization that might collaborate to consider how a holistic perspective might shift the way that you think about data literacy. And think about which of these combination roles might be useful, taking advantage of those who can operate in between and who value and enjoy doing that. And I did want to give a shout out that if anybody has been incorporating or integrating data literacy into other areas and have examples of that. I would love to hear from you and speak with you. So feel free to email me at that email. And so Shannon I'll expect you to help me here because I have not been looking at the comments while I've been talking. But I thought you could guide me in terms of questions. Absolutely, Wendy. Thank you so much for another fantastic presentation. I'll be sure to send over the chat as well. After a seat can see that it's been quite entertaining throughout y'all and just answer the most commonly asked questions just a reminder I will send a follow up email by any day Monday to all registrants with links to the slides links to the recording and questions that have been posted. So there is a request here. Can we get a study for the math phobia, it'll help me convince some people. Sure, I will, I will get that to you. Yes, I will get that to you. Shannon to put in the in the email that goes out. Thank you. The 70% digital transformation project really fail or fall short of achieving the goals and how is fall short defined. Again, send you the connection to that. And it was a, I believe it was a Forbes article but I can't tell you because I had to read so much for putting all of this together. But what they had said was is that it did not achieve what they anticipated and I think in some cases absolutely failed to reach adoption, but I can send that article on what that means. Thank you. And is there an online test to measure people literacy you can recommend. You can look up the ice test that and emotional quotient tests are out there. So, I can, if you'll remind me, also, I can look up that but the ice test is available you can walk through those 36 sets of eyes and test yourself. I don't like it. And what is our why is data literacy so tightly coupled to data science and not in broader perspectives like data management data governance, etc. Yeah, I actually think that's a really good question. I think that what happens is companies take an area just like I'm showing here. They decide that the best people to teach it are the ones who are expert, which may or may not be true. Because when we think about those of us who have been trained in data science and get really, really, really excited about machine learning and wonderful new interaction terms that we found or, you know, exponentials. And those of us who really get excited about that have long sense forgotten basic things. I don't mean forgotten like you don't know them but you take for granted, basic things about how data need to look, and what is the basic part of assessing them. It is a question for me whether data literacy does belong in data science, or whether it would be better suited to be part of this overarching advancement, where we all need to understand some basic things. And maybe we have questions that we ask about what's important for their job that isn't even talked about as data, but perhaps talked about as evidence, or talked about as a way to make decisions, rather than saying you have to become data we talk about how we decide something. So it is a very good question. And I don't know that it should belong in any of the data areas necessarily. I think it needs to be collaborative with that, but I don't know that it belongs there only any more than emotional intelligence belongs in HR. Thank you. So, are these tools instruments to measure literacy skills data people and business and are there training programs to address literacy skills. There are many many trainings for data literacy for sure there are many trainings out there everything from some basic ones. And I've had a hard time knowing and this will be something coming up in the months to come. How do you select one. Do you, what situation is your company in. Who is it that you're trying to train what level do you want them to achieve.  There are some that are just very rudimentary and basic. There are some that are thousands of dollars and others that are available for free. So it is really difficult and we will be focusing in one of our sessions coming up on the assessment part. I, again, there are many assessments in many ways. There's one assessment out there that just is more of a qualitative interest based assessment like what you would like to do with data. And then there are others that are very very specific I think I highlighted last month, one that had some amazing number 15 data abilities with seven levels of capability on each of the ability so it just was massively detailed. So, it is all over and all over the, the map which is I think why Shannon, you and Tony said we need a regular session on this, because we need to try and tease apart all of this and figure out what will work for what kinds of companies. Yes, indeed. So, and I see some requests coming in for the upcoming links I'll get those two all as well. And thank you Wendy any advices on how to put in place a guide to help the team, one self assess their data literacy and to take on their own learning curve though, for example, training material and other resources based on where they land on their self assessment the challenge comes from your point of different people have different levels of the same skill set. Right, right. Yeah, and again I'll point to this is where we hope to go with all of this. And when we talk about different assessments depending on what it is that you're trying to achieve. I'm sure there are. Well, we all know that there are specific roles where it would be malpractice to not have the highest level of data skills, if that's what you're in charge of. Yet there are jobs where it would be great if people understood it a little bit. So, I think that's going to be a matter of finding fit. And there are so many. It's hard to digest which direction it's going to go and most of them are for profit groups. So it's groups of people who are dedicated to this and that is their livelihood. So I don't want to point to one or another being great or horrible. So we're just going to have to try and figure out a way together that we all can find what is the best for their situation and their people. Thank you so if you take something like reference data, which should be highly informed and own from business expertise. Yeah, often there's not enough of an understanding of what reference data actually is from a business perspective. How do we bridge that gap between tech business to drive better collaboration. This is just an example. Gosh, can you interpret for me a little bit what what they, they mean specifically by reference data. Do you mean a benchmark somewhere reference master data. So, if the questioner wants to expand on that a little bit. I don't know what reference master is actually deep. Can you say more about what what what that means reference master data that I lose you. Sorry, I accidentally muted myself against reference data is is typically data that's used to classify or categorize other data data. Okay, I see what you're saying. Okay, so I think that that comes down to it's in the areas that I that I work in we we classify things and do benchmarking using other sorts of data and making sure that we can refer to things accurately and make sure that things are behaving the way they're supposed to. And again, I think if we can find ways for any of those kinds of roles, where if you have a boundaries around what makes sense, or doesn't make sense, or boundaries around how something gets classified as a or b, boundaries that helps somebody know whether it's a valid score or not. It's the language that we use just like me not knowing what you mean by that. It's a language issue so many times, because I can understand what you're talking about now that I know what Shannon said to me. We often get hung up on our language, and we insist that other people use our language, whereas I think we can get to a point where what we want from them is can be described in ways that aren't as technical, which is what our hope is is we can start to talk about literacy without being really hung up on what language they have to use to understand it. Hopefully that makes sense. Definitely and if experts aren't necessarily the best trainers. Would that mean that the classic train the trainer model is flawed. I don't know. It doesn't mean that that experts that there's always going to be experts who love to break things down and teach. And so I'm not saying that experts can't be great teachers. I am saying that we can't assume that every data scientist would be really great at teaching remedial information about data, because they may get hung up on such incredible intricacies about what's interesting to them that they may not have thought about how to best talk about the basics. So there will always be like my example of interests. If somebody really wants to be a teacher, then that teaching is part of their capabilities. But you can't assume that every really advanced data scientist wants to be a teacher or will be good at deciding how to teach some of these skills. And Wendy, can you point us to any research or case studies explaining how to design upskilling programs with businesses and human needs in mind. I will do my best. I will, I will do my best if it's not in this week, it will be part of what we focus on when we keep on going with in this series. Yeah, and then although not necessarily a direct tie and I would I would actually recommend your book as well the translator. Oh, that's a good, good. Let me Yeah, in your class. Yeah. Yeah, so I have a course called become an analytic translator but also the book. And then I also co authored a communication book that gets into how you see I'm such a lousy self promoter I didn't even think that. So these are available. That are also helpful. Very good. All right. I love and I will have links to that as well in the follow up email to both of those. So, when you say we regarding futurist future steps do you mean. Oh, sorry, I'm going to go back to that. So when, when you say to we future steps do you mean data receive consulting or another group so we being the future steps are going to be in part of this webinar series and I think that's what I was referring to is yeah, we meaning me in collaboration with Shannon and folks at data diversity that we will try and cover each of these topics that keep coming up and do our best to synthesize what we see out there. Absolutely. And let me pull up the I'll pull up the link here to the upcoming webinars in this series. And to that point, just, you know, all this feedback so there's a request to publish the chat so I can certainly do that that's really helpful. You know, Wendy and I are kind of learning along with y'all and so if you have, you know, additional topics and stuff for the series, please let us know and how you'd like and help us to shape the series. Yes. Yeah, please. All comments and suggestions welcome. All agreements and disagreements welcome. We are moving along seeing that there's a lot of things that don't work. And we are trying to identify the things that do. And I would not say that we have all of the answers but we're hoping to find a few things that will be helpful for sure. Absolutely. All right. Well that is all the questions that we have for today again there's so many great comments I'll send the chat over to you as well Wendy make sure you have that as well as I'll get a copy out to everyone. Thank you so much for your participation and helping with these webinars. Wendy thanks for another great webinar. Again just a reminder to everybody I will send a follow up email by end of day Monday with links to the slides links to the recording and links to the all the different requests that we had throughout for different topics as well as how you can get Wendy's book and sign up for her class. Thanks everyone. Hope you all have a great day. Thanks Wendy. Thank you. Thanks Shannon thanks everybody thanks for spending an hour with us.