This is Sack No. 10298. We are here at Summit Automotive in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. You're new and used heavy-duty truck and RAM headquarters. Today, we are taking a look at this super clean 2017 RAM 2500 crew cab short box. This truck has the 6.7 liter Cummins diesel. From this HD video, we will be able to tell just how clean this truck is all the way around inside and out. Delmonico Red is the color. We shoot all of our videos in 1080p, so if you have HD capabilities on your computer, tablet, or smartphone device, turn them on right now because it is like you're right here looking at the truck with me and definitely your best way to check out the vehicle before seeing it in person. It comes with the steel rims with the chrome covers, and this truck has brand new Firestone TransForce LT275 R18 tires on it. They have all the tread left. Frame and underbody is very clean on this truck. Didn't see any dents or dings on that front fender. Headlight lenses are nice and clear, and the front bumper is in excellent shape. I didn't see any dents or dings on the hood. The passenger side fender is in excellent shape as well. No dents or dings on that, and the passenger side rim is in excellent condition too. As you go down this side of the truck, you can see just how clean the body is, how reflective and mirror-like that paint is. We take these HD videos, so if you are far away, or even if you're close by and just can't make the trip down, you can still see the truck, hear the truck, and have confidence in the vehicle that you're looking at before you even get here. Cab is in pretty nice shape. Couple little dings by the bottom of the window there, but nothing too bad. And on this side, very, very clean. Didn't see any dents or dings there. And the frame and underbody is very clean as all the factory exhaust, so it hasn't been altered in any way, shape, or form. It has the plastic wheel well liners. You can see it does have the wheel-to-wheel side steps, which is nice to get into the back of the truck. The backroom is in nice shape as well, and the back tires are brand new too. As you come around to this side or the back of the truck here, rear bumpers in really nice condition. Didn't see any dents or dings on that. And the tailgate is very clean. It has a locking tailgate and a backup camera. It has a spray-in bedliner and the fifth wheel prep package and Gooseneck prep package. Also has the LED bed lighting and the seven pin wiring in the bed. Really nice spray-in bedliner on this truck. Down the driver's side, just as clean as that passenger's side. Didn't see any dents or dings on the box. And for full disclosure, this backroom is in nice condition as well. Back tires have just as much tread or are brand new as well. And down the rest of the side of the truck, very, very clean. Has the heated fold-out tow mirrors. They also fold in like so. Inside the tradesman package gives you the gray cloth interior. There are no rips, there are no tears on the seats. They are in excellent condition. Has aftermarket RAM floor mats, auto headlamps, power windows, power locks, and power mirrors. As we hop inside the truck here, you can see that this one has 59,776 miles as a digital, also will give you the digital speedometer right here as well as an outside temperature display, miles display. Steering wheel is in really nice condition. Cruise controls on the right, information center controls on the left. Comes with the six-speed automatic transmission, AM, FM, and serious XM radio capabilities.  You can turn those off and on. Passengers side seat is in excellent condition as well. No rips or tears on that. And the headliner is in really nice shape too. This is where your backup camera shows up. And we'll take a quick look under the hood and at the back seats. Back seats are just clean as the front seats. Really nice back here. It does have the latch child safety system. There's in-floor storage on each side with removable bins for easy cleaning. You can put ice and drinks in there. And there is storage underneath the back seat. Latch child safety system for your car seats. And we'll take a quick look under the hood. I would personally like to thank you for checking out the video today. Hopefully from this HD video you will be able to tell just how clean this truck is all the way around. Inside and out under the hood we have the 6.7 liter Cummins diesel. Engine base very clean, runs very smooth. This truck has been fully safety and inspected by our service shop has a fresh oil and filter chain. All the fluids have been checked and topped off. And this truck is 100% ready to go. See more pictures of this truck or one of our other 450 new and used cars, trucks, SUVs, minivans, Wranglers. Half tons or quarter tons, one tons, you name it. We got it go to our website www.summitauto.com. Full pictures and descriptions of every single vehicle from two locations all at summitauto.com. And if you'd like to check out more HD videos you can go to youtube.com slash summit auto. Remember to like, subscribe, and share on this video and all the videos that you see there. In fact in a second you will see a link to subscribe to our YouTube channel on your left. A link to more heavy-duty truck videos like this one on your right if you have not been to our website on the bottom link to this vehicle on our website. Click those check us out and we really look forward to helping you with this super clean 2017 Ram 2500 crew cab short box Cummins diesel. Thanks again.


When I started my walk across America, I never thought about the idea of writing a book about it. I really was trying to raise awareness about healthcare safety, both that for our patients and for our workforce. Many people don't understand that workforce injuries and health related needle sticks and falls to nurses and physicians and pharmacists are extremely high. In fact, healthcare workers have one of the highest injury rates of all professions, including construction, and that was even before the pandemic. And then there's what we all know about patient safety and preventable medical harm, being the third leading cause of death in the United States. And I was really frustrated that we weren't making enough progress towards improving both those areas of patient safety and workforce safety. So I happen to have a couple of glasses of wine one Friday evening and watch Forrest Gump. And when he got up off the couch and started running across the country, I immediately stopped the video and turned to my wife and said, that's it. That's the crazy idea I'm going to do. I'm going to walk across America trying to raise awareness about healthcare safety. She thought I was absolutely crazy and said, you'll wake up tomorrow with a headache and realize this is a crazy idea. But it wasn't. And so I set forth on February 28th of 2020 in San Diego. I literally put my feet in the Pacific Ocean and then started my walk. And that day, the first day I did over eight miles, including a stop at Petco Park, which is the home of the San Diego Padres baseball team. I never realized two weeks later, really 10 days later, we would start shutting down the country and the pandemic would hit. So I guess when I look back on this, to walk across the country in any year might have been a crazy kind of big idea. But doing it during a year when we had the pandemic, when we had such social unrest, and we had such political divide. As I was walking, many of my friends said, you need to write a book about this. You need to be using. And I did all through my walk, a handheld recorder. And I recorded all my reflections, all the things I saw both great and not so great. And when I got finished in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, 355 days later and had done 2460 miles total, I had what was a really good draft of a book on my handheld recorder. And I started transcribing it. And lo and behold, a year later, the book is on the market now. I was going to do a walk across the country to raise awareness about healthcare safety. The media really wasn't interested. They were, yeah, okay, walk across the country, but we're not interested in healthcare safety, which totally disappointed me and highly surprised me. But then I decided because of my love of baseball, I would walk to all 30 major league parks. And I thought before the pandemic hit, I might even take in a baseball game. After the pandemic hit and baseball shut its parks down, all I could do was visit the park and walk around the outside. But the moment I said I'm walking to 30 major league ball parks, all the media started coming out, the TV stations, the radio stations. Oh, we want to interview when you get to the baseball park. We want to talk to you about your love of baseball. But I was able to effectively change the conversation. So when they would ask me how long have you been a Chicago Cubs fan, I would say all my life. But did you know that preventable medical harm is the third leading cause of death in the United States? And I was able to get that message across, get the message across about the struggles our healthcare workforce was going through during the pandemic. In fact, each day I walked of those 355 days, I walked in memory of either a patient or a health worker who died due to preventable medical harm. We were not prepared for this pandemic. We could have done a whole lot better. And unfortunately too many of my colleagues, people that I read about across the country, were going to work to heal and do what they wanted, what they always wanted to do from early in their lives and they were dying because of lack of equipment, lack of training, the resources that were needed and should have been there. I went into medicine. I've got to credit my mother for many reasons. One, she always thought I would be a good physician. I don't know why I was maybe 10, 12, 14 at the time when she would tell her friends, oh I know David's going to be a physician. And I kept telling her, no mom, I want to play center field for the Chicago Cubs. And as I joke in the book, she wanted to be aware of the long white coat and I wanted to wear Covey blue pinstrives. But my mother suffered a lot from healthcare conditions that unfortunately she had through her life and died at a relatively early age. And I found myself growing up learning about her illnesses. I would be there when she was in the hospital. I'd read the medical chart. That's the days when the medical chart used to sit at the foot of the bed on an aluminum tray and anybody who walked in the room could read anything out of the chart. But I got to learn about residents and nurses and physicians. I got to see who were good and who weren't so good. And I also learned that doctors weren't always right. So I've said in my book that I think my mother and her health taught me pre-medicine before I even went to college. And it just continued to interest me as her health continued to deteriorate. And I was very fortunate enough to get into the University of Illinois Medical School and then to create my career. People will ask, why did I get into patient safety? What was it that pushed me towards that? It wasn't that my mother had any specific air early in her career. But when I was a resident, I was involved in a medical error, a wrong-sided surgery case, and the team had done multiple hernia repairs through our careers. Me, I probably did 30 that year alone. And our hospital probably did close to 500 hernia repairs. It was a common procedure. And so we never had any doubt that the procedure would go wrong. However, due to some mixups in patients' names and other things, the incision was made in the left side of the abdomen versus the right. And people didn't realize it for about two, three minutes. So after the left incision was closed and the right hernia was fixed, we now have a patient with two hernia repairs on their abdomen. And there's got to be some explaining to do to the patient once they wake up from the general anesthetic. Well, an hour later, I'm called to the recovery room to discharge my patient and I'm dreading going to the recovery room. I know this patient's gonna give me the same disappointment and anger about us making a mistake. We promised we would take care of them and make things safe and provide a good outcome and we didn't deliver. And as I walked up to the bed, he looked at me and he started smiling. And I was totally shocked by that reaction. And as a good resident, I said nothing. And he looked at me and said, today's my lucky day. And now I'm really confused, but I continue to maintain my silence. And he says, yes, today is my lucky day because my surgeon told me that under general anesthesia, he discovered a small second hernia on the left side and was able to fix both hernias under one general anesthetic, meaning I only had to miss one day of work. Today's my lucky day. And I paused, which seemed like an eternity for me, but it was probably about 10 seconds and I looked at him and I said, yes, today is your lucky day. And I signed that gentleman out and turned around and left. Like I said, I still remember that case. It still haunts me. Not only was it morally and ethically wrong to lie to a patient, but we didn't learn from it. We learned nothing because we kept it hidden. We said, don't tell anybody because if we tell people, they'll think we're bad and we make mistakes and we're incompetent. Maybe we'll lose our license. Maybe I would lose my residency. And so we hid it. And what happened year after year after year is we kept having wrong-sided surgeries because no one was willing to be open and honest and to use those unintentional harms as a mean to learn and to improve the quality of care we provide. And when a healthcare worker makes an error that leads to preventable harm or injury to our patients, that case stays with us the rest of our lives. We don't forget it. We feel horrible. I've known many caregivers that I've read about that have taken their own lives because of a medical error. A nurse who gave a wrong medication that contributed to the death of a child without support took her own life 10 months after the fact. Again, there are numerous cases like that. People leave the profession for fear that they'll hurt somebody else. And these are good people. These are not people who were careless or doing things that were reckless. They were trying to do the right thing, but the systems and processes that are in place in healthcare still provide too many ways that heirs end up reaching patients and causing harm. Today, we've built programs that are called Care for the Caregiver Program where we do try to support those at the front line when an error has occurred, even if it hasn't caused injury. The thought of just making an error that could have harmed a patient is still devastating. We lose our confidence. We're fearful of making another mistake. In fact, there's data that shows that people who have made one mistake, if they're unsupported, are more prone to make another mistake because they are scared. They're just not reacting and they're always timid or just shy to do the right thing. And so we've got to find that support. And then historically, when patients or families have been harmed, we've put this process in place. It's very well known in the insurance and medical malpractice industry called Delay Denied Defend. When some harm occurs, many hospitals still will shut down and they create what Rosemary Gibson calls a wall of silence. That means patients and families now are trying to find out answers about why their father or why their spouse had a bad outcome or an outcome no one ever anticipated. And yet the hospitals, especially the care teams, are told don't talk to the patients, let our legal team talk to the patients, let risk management talk to the patients, and they're trained to kind of not return phone calls, to try to delay this out and make hopefully the patient or family give up and go away. If a lawsuit's filed, then now all of a sudden we come together and people are, it's like a jowse. How could we win at any cost possible? So we first delay and then we deny we did any wrong doing and then we defend it with high price lawyers. And many times these cases stretch out with depositions and in the filing of the lawsuits and everything. They could go five, six years before they ever see a courtroom. And many patients and family members unfortunately just give up. They want to move on or they don't have the resources to fight hospitals and health systems. And they go away. And that's unfortunate because that to me is a second intentional harm. While the first harm was very unintentional, the second harm we cause when we take delayed deny and defend strategies is very intentional. It's well resourced and no one wins except the attorneys. I think to change the culture of health care to one of open and honest communication and learning from preventable harm events and medical heirs is right up front solid top-notch leadership and a board of directors that gets it. I was very fortunate when I came to MedStar Health that our CEO Ken Samet was fully engaged, was trying to do this sort of work already. But we hadn't systematized it across 10 hospitals and 280 non-acute facilities. So I was blessed to have great leadership and great support at the board level and then given the resources to roll this out and to train up 28,000 people on high reliability and resilience science on open and honest communication. And look, we're still far from perfect. But when we know a preventable error led to harm, we respond immediately. We engage with the patient and family. We share everything we find as we find out about what happened. And then we try to resolve it without getting into the battles of plaintiffs' attorneys versus defense attorneys and everybody getting paid big dollars to win at all costs. We've been able to resolve cases many times without using the court system and that's so much better for not only the patients and families but it's better for the care teams because, like I mentioned, in one case there were 43 depositions of doctors, nurses, residents and they have to relive that over and over. They got to do the deposition sometimes two or three times. That's just not right. A lot of that can be avoided if we just know when to say we, our care was not up to the standards and this is on us and be open and honest about it. And one of the reasons we haven't been able to move the patient safety mission forward as quickly as we should have is because our incentives are still misaligned. Hospitals are paid for the quantity or volume of care they provide, not the quality or outcomes of the care they provide. And so if, as many CEOs and many hospital systems, especially during this time is with the pandemic, there are a lot of financial challenges and they need to drive revenue. They need to make money to keep the hospital doors open. And so the priorities are much more do more with less and that unfortunately sets up the stage for a bad outcome to happen because people are asked to do more. People are running faster, jumping higher and they're not taking the time to do what high risk industries do to lower risk and to maintain excellent safety records. So I think our incentives are still misaligned and I think they're the stakeholders. Many of them don't want change. They're very happy with the system as is and they don't want to see a change to something even though it's higher quality safer care because they're making the dollars and like I said, the defense attorneys, medical malpractice industry is a multi-billion dollar industry. I wanted to raise awareness about the patient safety crisis. I wanted to try to educate the public that they can be a partner in their health care to ensure safety. We can't do it as caregivers alone. We need to partner with our patients and families to optimize our care. We need to include them in discussions. We need to literally make this a care team that puts them in the center and we're all around them trying to optimize our care. We need them to ask questions about their care. What medication are you giving my mother right now? I know at four o'clock she's supposed to get her diuretic. Is that what she's getting? We love having that interaction. It captures things that maybe we missed. And so I wanted the public to read the book. I remember we did a couple national surveys through the Patient Safety Movement Foundation that showed one year 90% and four years later, 88% of the public didn't even know that there was any concerns related to safety when they entered the health care system. So just by raising awareness and creating better partnerships, I thought my book could help save some lives. And I also wanted caregivers to read it and to know that they needed support also. We need better legislation. We need better resources and support for our care teams so that they can provide the care that they come to work to provide every day that's safe, high quality care. And until we get all the stakeholders together, this isn't going to happen. And it's got to start at the highest levels where people just say enough's enough. Lucian Leap used to always say, and it's still true today, if there was a major jumbo jet airplane crash every day in the country, no one would allow this. We'd shut airlines down. We'd start doing investigations. I used the analogy in my book that the 737 MAX-9 had two crashes within six months. And we stopped that airplane from flying. And yet we have the equivalent of a 737 MAX-9 going down every day in health care. And all the people that can make a difference don't seem to care. Always struggle with why hospitals haven't embraced quality care and safety as much as I believe they should have. You know, Deming was right many years ago that if you improve the quality of the product you provide, I don't care if it's making cars or providing care to patients, you will lower your amount of defects, or in our case, mishaps, infections, wrong medications, and improve your bottom line by doing that. You spend less money on trying to deal with things after the fact than if you just corrected them first and foremost. And what we found with programs now like CANDR, which is the open and honest communication after preventable harm, and the learning that comes from it, in healthcare systems like MedStar, and there's a number of others that have started adopting this program now, you create a learning environment where you decrease the amount of serious safety events you have, you decrease the amount of preventable harm events you have, and then you decrease the medical liability payouts that you have to make when you have all these bad care cases. You end up saving millions of dollars, but most importantly, you're saving so many lives from either an unfortunate death or a severe disability because your system didn't protect them the way they should have been protected from preventable harm.


Okay. It's that time of day again. Unfortunately, this conference is coming to an end. So, right. Oh, a bit louder, please. Better. Thank you. But, of course, we still have the sprints. So you're all invited to stay for the sprints. Because we did this poll for the catering for the sprints, and we found that only very few people actually submitted something, so we actually have food for 250 people on Saturday. And for 200 people on Sunday, if you don't have a pass, you can just come. So, a bit of statistics about the conference. We had 1100 attendees at the conference, which is amazing for more than 40 countries. We had an amazing 33 sponsors this time, which is a lot more than we used to have. We have more than 600 people on the Telegram channel, which is also amazing, because last time we had around 400. I'd like to have you all thank the sponsors, because, like I said in the opening, without the sponsors, this wouldn't happen.  So, I'm repeating myself, but I think it's very important to recognize the work that volunteers are doing. And so, I'd like to call up all the volunteers on the stage. I especially want to thank our on-site volunteers, Francesco, Noah, and Raykel. Noah is there, just Francesco. Noah is here. I don't know where Raykel is. Anyway, thank you very much for helping on-site and have basically, I mean, you wanted to attend the conference, right? And I think you helped more than you actually attended any talks. So, this is amazing. Thank you. So, we had a very small team this year to do everything. We need to do a little better next year. So, we are asking for help for next year. So, if you want to help us run the conference next year, wherever it will be, we don't know yet. We have plenty of work waiting for you. So, if you do want to sign up, please go to the URL down there, our website, Work Groups, and sign up. And then, we can add you to the Work Groups, and then we can teach you how everything works in the Work Groups, and then you can enjoy being on the stage as well. So, some reporting we have to do, Code of Conduct, as we always do. This year, we had two issues, but those issues were fortunately very minor. They happened on the Telegram chat. It was essentially inappropriate language for one incident. For the other incident, it was a recruiting message that we don't support on the channel. And this was essentially it. This is everything. This is all that, actually, these were not reported to us. We found them ourselves. So, I think you have behaved well, and I would like to thank you for that. Right. A little word about Europe Price and Society, because we have the General Assembly here. We would like to thank the previous board who basically made this event happen. So, these are the people from the, well, now previous board, but these people made everything happen. So, if you want to come up to the stage, those people who are still here from that previous board. So, giving them a big hand. And so now we have a new board, which is these people. So, I'd like the new board to be on the stage as well. And giving them a big hand, because otherwise the next event is not going to be as nice. And now I'd like to pass over to Alexander, who is the chair of the Program Work Group. He has a few things to say. Yeah, actually, I just want to make some points on how the program process was. You know, we have a call for proposals. We have the user voting, and I want to clear up some stuff I heard on the conference and make some clarification. So, if the call for proposals, which is clear, we have the user voting. So, user voting is not deciding on the program. It's asking for the preferences. It helps us a lot on making this great program. So, if you are highly voted, you're most likely in the program. So, basically, a broken program is working a lot on review and equality. And there was some stuff somebody told, said on the conference, if you make a good title, you basically make the pass the voting. I tested it. I tested this submission, because this was like the most hype words I could come up with. Yeah, quantum artificial intelligence on the block secure blockchain. Actually, there was some discussion going on on Twitter. I don't really believe this guy actually yet. This was fake. You were right. And I was really happy to see this got not really well on the voting. So, it's not all about the title and the hypes. People do read abstracts. Though there's one call I really want to make for the next European conference. And you have one year already or like maybe seven, eight months to think about to come up with something. Because we are very beginners friendly. And I'm very, very proud of this. We have beginner's day. We have the jungle workshop for women. We always take care of our very inclusive and beginners. But there's one thing we should not forget. And this is like from last year's statistics.  And more like 60% have more than four years of Python experience. So, this is not a beginner's only conference. We have to think about it. And on the right hand side, you see the submissions we receive by year. And it's nice for the beginners and only the immediate. But you see like there's a drop in advanced topics. And we have many experienced people here. And I just want to make a call. Please do submit more advanced talks as well. Because we have to be inclusive to really advance Pythonistas as well. And that's actually all I wanted to call out. And we have seven months to think about something really advanced. And thank you very much. So, there's nothing much more to say. We loved having you. We want to have you again next year. And we wish you a safe trip home and enjoy the sprints. Enjoy the sightseeing if you can in Edinburgh. And please spread the word. Thank you.


Good morning good afternoon and good evening. My name is Asha Bay and I'm joining you from Washington DC and the Office of Alumni Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. Our office offers grant competitions and other opportunities and resources for exchange program alumni. Thank you for tuning in and welcome to the latest episode of Mentor Talks. Mentor Talks is a series designed to benefit exchange program alumni and those interested in improving themselves and their communities. This is your opportunity to talk directly with leaders and mentors who excel in their fields. We're very excited to welcome our guest today, Nasser Jeber. Nasser is a chef and social impact entrepreneur who has participated in ECA's Arts Envoy program. Nasser is also the co-founder of Comida, a unique business that uses cooking and dining experiences as a way to build communities and encourage a cultural exchange. One of the most valuable lessons that Comida gives participants is demonstrating the use of storytelling and culinary arts as a way to build a community. You could even say that Comida trains participants to become ambassadors of their culinary culture. Now that you have a brief intro to Nasser, what would you like to ask him about? His advice for entrepreneurs seeking to build a following for a new business? Or maybe how he approaches his role as an organizer among groups from different cultures? This time is for you and we look forward to hearing your questions. Nasser, welcome and thank you for joining us today. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Good. We're excited to have you. Thank you. Sure. Before we get to our questions from our online audience, can you tell us more about what inspired you to create Comida? Comida happened by accident really. I used to own a restaurant on the Lower East Side of Manhattan that had good food, had good reviews, but wasn't busy. And the idea was that we need to do a lot of pop-up dinners to bring in customers to the store. And I started with a small dinner called from Ramallah to Bogota, showcasing Palestine and South American food and things of that sort. And it started selling out. And all of a sudden, other restaurants in the neighborhood started asking me how am I getting a lot of customers through the door. And I told them what I was doing and they were like, can you curate these dinners for us as well based on the theme of the restaurants? So eventually, Comida became the ticketing platform where people purchase tickets to attend those dinners. And the purpose of it was is that it increases food traffic. The owners of those restaurants make some revenue, of course, as well from those pop-up dinner series. And that $65 ticket or $85 ticket that people pay translates into $1,000 worth of revenue down the road when people order catering and come back and have recurring revenues. So it was a mixture or a combination of Airbnb experiences along with TripAdvisor. And it worked out. And all of a sudden, we started hosting other restaurants, other experiences and it grew from there. It actually happened by accident. So the social impact part of it, where you're connecting people and connecting them with people that can, for example, get them jobs or help them network and navigate some of the culture of New York as well as the environment there. How did that all begin? That happened right after the election process. Right after the election, a lot of people were interested in talking about the refugees community and interested in talking about how they can help out. So we had somebody reach out to us from IOM, which is an organization based out in DC, and that they had resettled some refugees in New York. The United States has resettled some refugees in New York and they need help, they need work. And we couldn't really hire them, but we were already doing these dinner series. And we decided that why don't we just throw a dinner party and people pay tickets to come here to the story of these refugees and then the money goes back to them. We have all the equipment and we all have all the ingredients so it doesn't necessarily cost us anything to put it together. And we did. And the first dinner was ahead, the second dinner was ahead. All of a sudden, you know, the news showed up. But then I had a close friend of mine who is a storyteller. He's currently the musical director of Mulan Rujan Broadway, a very, very talented, you know, writer and, you know, creative person. And he told me something interesting. He said that Americans, you know, we love happy endings, we love the story of the underdog. So we need to tell the story of the refugees in an inspiring way and not in a depressed way. So that's the cultural barrier that we were trying to break because a lot of the refugees come from trauma or come from places where their story is sad and it doesn't necessarily invoke hope. Where we can tell the same story because they're now here in the United States where there's a land of opportunity, there's a second chance, the American public is welcoming. So there is a lot of hope and there's a lot of mobility upwards. So we told that story and that took on wildfire and eventually is spread to other states. It helped hundreds of families get lifted out of poverty. The dinner series model eventually became that it's not the money from the tickets that they're getting access to. It's the people at the dinner. So if I happen to be a landlord who is interested in refugee issues and this refugee needs a home because they can't afford rent, they would get an apartment. And these stories happened, whether it was housing or jobs or financial impact or health work or things of the sort. Wow, that's amazing. And I also heard that you did a dinner series for veterans as well. Yes, of course. We support our troops and we support the veterans and the veterans also have a story to tell. We actually teamed up an Iraqi refugee with a veteran and they had like a consigned dinner talking about their experiences in Iraq. So that was like a really lovely and touchy story to like to talk about. I'm sure there was a lot of politics on the table. Sure, there was a lot of emotions, but the ideas that they can see each other in a human lens was very beautiful. Yes, that's great. So we're going to get to some viewer questions and I think you might have also, you might have talked about this a little bit, but one of the questions is how did you get started with this idea? Did you do a lot of planning or did you make it up as you went along? Well, to be honest, like I did come from the startup space prior to Comida. So like I had a little bit of an experience on how to launch something. So my first ever startup was a nutrition on demand based company that didn't really take off, but it taught me a lot on how companies start, what you need to do to get coders, what you need to do this. And the second one was the restaurant of course. I mean, it wasn't a tech startup, but it was still an entrepreneurial venture that had to start and basically like we have to work it from scratch. So I had a little bit of an experience to do it. So when Comida came about, it didn't happen by design. Like I wasn't planning on launching another tech thing, but because the demand to sell tickets, I didn't want to do it on brown paper tickets or Eventbrite or other world of sites. So we created our own and that became a business in itself and we never really expected that other restaurants and other food entrepreneurs would use the platform, but it did. So sometimes you just have to go with and say yes to everything and from there figure it out. Nobody really knew that Facebook would grow beyond a college, you know, linking website or community website to become a data behemoth around the world. So there's a lot of things that can happen along the way. That's true. Yeah, and you'd also, we were talking a little bit earlier and you'd mentioned that you didn't even know how to cook when you first came to New York. So do you want to tell us a little bit more about that?  I didn't work for 20 years in different kitchens and all of a sudden there's some sort of a profile and I'm a chef and I'm cooking. So I ended up doing finance and economics, but then I graduated during the financial crisis and there were no jobs to be had. But to support myself, I was working in restaurants and eventually I couldn't get a job in finance and I had to accept the reality that was in me or around me. And then by accident, I, a chef at a major restaurant said, I'll teach you how to cook. And I was like, sure, I mean, I love the food and I was taking pride in what I was doing. And then I started learning a few things, learning a few things. Eventually after a year and a half, I opened up a restaurant and it was a small restaurant. It was a quick service restaurant, nothing fancy on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. And I was cooking and selling food and it came with a lot of challenges, you know, kitchen work is not easy. It's backbreaking work, it's long hours, a lot of sacrifices. It's an industry that you have to get into knowing what you're getting into. But once you learn a lot about food, you learn a lot about cultures, you learn a lot about diversity, you learn about just impact itself.  So like we have to take food seriously in the sense of like who we are, you are what you eat in a way. So I started expanding to different cuisines, liking certain things, not liking certain other things, playing fuge and things of the sort. And it brought us here. Cool. So what was one of the most satisfying moments you had during one of your community programs? I had an Iraqi refugee who used to work for Mercy Corps in Iraq, but she's Kurdish. So she was twice displaced, one under Saddam in a second time again during the clashes that were happening with the war that was happening after the Iraq war. And she found herself in the U.S. And although she was legal, like she couldn't get a job. But she had like a Fulbright scholarship now, one in a thousand get a Fulbright, you know what I mean? Like it's a prestigious thing to do. Like I know if I apply right now, Hali will not get in probably. So we needed to help her. So we threw a dinner for her and she was the only refugee that within one dinner she was able to land a job at Columbia Cornell. So that was really lovely because the other other refugees like had found kitchen work or found retail work or found like handy work. But this is like this was like a professional institution that was present at the dinner and she was able to get a job immediately. So she didn't have to live on her friend's couch and she got her own apartment and seeing her life transformed that way and help out her family also is something that I'm very proud of. It's those moments that I really care about. And to be, you know, very honest, like for Komida like these refugee dinner series, like they don't make us any money, right? It's all about like the how much can we help out and part of the community. So sometimes like we have to push back against because we are for a profit business against our board and say like how much impact can we do? How much impact can we take on and still like be a functioning business? Right. So what do you think are the most effective ways that you get the word out about Komida and do you use like specific channels or is it by word of mouth? I think for any business you have to treat the press like your girlfriend or boyfriend. You have to be kind to the press. You have to know journalists and you also have to constantly be pitching stories.   But if you're smart about creating stories, then a journalist would write about it. Eventually another journalist would write about it and that's how we get picked up. So for us, for example, we ended up, we knew that this is a food series. So we went to all the food blogs like Eater, Grub Street, Things of the Sort. We put our stories there. Eventually we moved over to like newspapers like Newsday, New York Times and then to like fashion life magazines like Bogue magazine, New York or things like that. So it takes strategy, it takes planning. You have to know the media. You have to appreciate the media and you have to consistently stay relevant and stories are quick to come, quick to go. So you have to always capture the attention of the public eye. And we were able to do that with our dinner series at the time. And now we're like planning other things and hopefully it's the same strategy but different things. Okay, great. So how often do you come across people who are less willing to try new foods or interact with different cultures and what kind of approach do you take with these people? Interesting. I can tell you this much. Like in New York City we get a lot of people who are like very open to different food adventures and takes because there's simply just so many cuisines around that people try food consistently. But I can tell you that people sometimes get unhappy with how their own food is being presented. So if I decide to do molecular gastronomy with Palestinian cuisine, I will get like a lot of backlash saying this is not Palestinian food and you're destroying the culture and how can you dare you do that and things of the sort. You know like people take food very personally. So the idea is to introduce them into a new way of making the dish and not necessarily how grandma made it or mom made it. And to have a different take on like how things can be presented not just in terms of looks but in terms of ingredients, in terms of shape, in terms of taste and still be authentic to the dish that it was. It's just, you know, evolution of food or cuisine. All right. And so I think you touched on this a little bit before but how do you keep Kamita sustainable as a business model? So we make most of our revenue from restaurants using our platform for profit business. So if you're a restaurant that's a Thai restaurant in New York that wants to get more customers, you host a dinner experience on our platform customers book the dinners and we take 3% commission off of that. We also have a B2B, which is our catering unit, but it does like corporate catering so that gives us a float. So there's a marketplace and the catering arm and those both sustain the business. Of course, like things can grow into like data, like what people are eating because like we can track every food item that was ordered across every gender across every profile. We can tell like if you're making this sort of income, then you're eating this kind of dishes and that data of course can be then used for, you know, future of the business in some of the ways. So those are the ways that we just keep sustainable with the business. Okay. So the next question is what is the most important skill you use to manage these dinners with so many different people? Would you consider yourself a teacher or more of a business person? You know, I used to be a waiter for a long time and the skill that I tapped into this wasn't the business skill. It wasn't the cooking skill. It was like how to be a host and ideas like how to set up a dinner properly and have people be comfortable being engaged. And we did dinners up to 100 people at a time. And if I haven't had like a New York City waiting tables experiences at those kind of volume, I probably would have crumbled. But the fact that we have done them before and trained them and understand how many people we need to have on the floor and like how to see people and how to make people a food flaw, you know, smoothly, it worked out in that. So I put my waiter head back on and basically did that. Interesting. Okay. If I wanted to create a small business like a fast food chain, where's the best place to start? First of all, I would advise anyone not to get into the restaurant business simply because the restaurant business is tough, high margins. But if it hits, it hits. I do have to say. First of all, you need to begin with the concept and you need to begin with and testing your food. Make sure it's good. They can't just be an idea like it has to be truly and tested and tested and tested again. That's why I would suggest that anybody who's trying to open a restaurant to do something called pop-ups, which basically is a restaurant that is moving around, that doesn't pay rent, that shows up at certain markets or certain dinners or just with your friends basically. And test out the menu, get honest feedback. And once the menu is tested truly, you need to build a business plan to launch the restaurant. A restaurant requires two types of runs, which is the front of the house, which is when the guests are the interaction with the team, and the back of house, which is the kitchen operation. And the kitchen operation alone is hectic. It requires daily scheduling, daily ordering, inventory checks, managing, employment, and making sure you have really, really good employees who love what they're doing. And you can trust them with the business because you can't be the person grilling, frying and taking orders at the same time. It's a lot of work. It needs to have like a production line process in the back of the house and a hospitality line in front of the house. And it takes some time. So, you know, most people, like 80% of restaurants fail in their first year, so it takes a lot of work. And I say, how do you suggest for anybody trying to do a quick service restaurant called QSR to look up on the internet what QSR services look like, how the industry looks like. And to test out their menu ahead of time in like pop-up dinners and pop-up locations. That's good advice. So what have your favorite meals been during your international travels? I enjoyed the camel meat in Morocco. I think that was, I never really thought I would enjoy camel kebabs, but I did. Of course, would I ever eat it again? Probably not. Like I feel bad slaughtering a camel, especially to eat it, right? But like in Morocco, it's slaughtered and people eat the entire animal, so that's respectful. And I would try it, I guess, if I'm there, but like I would not go hunt it, you know, here or somewhere. I love that. I also love all forms of kebab. I mean, I have to say like Istanbul has a great, great place, destination for food. And they have amazing breakfast as well. So I love that. I love seafood, ceviche a lot in Peru. I mean, I love Latino food. So different places. The idea is to be open to everything.  I mean, I would try it if it's around, but like I'm not into much of the exotic, but really into the history of the people cooking it. So like Spain for me was great because you can tell a lot about the history of ham and how people engage in food markets and food halls and things of the sort. So that's really nice. And what are some of ways that you keep the community engaged over a long period? Long time period. So that's hard, you know, keeping people engaged requires a lot of content creation. So like the Instagram page has to be always up and running. The Facebook page has to always be up and running. The email list has to be always up and running. And you need to capture people, but also not bother them at the same time, give them engaging content, give them stories to read. So that requires a lot of content creation. We have a team dedicated just for that because it requires not just marketing, but like storytelling skills and, you know, just engagement with the customer. There has to be 14 points of engagement before a customer clicks on you. And that's a lot of work. That's a lot of work. That's a lot of 14 points of entry that you have to think about. So what are those 14 points? So like you have to, for example, send them an email and then there's an Instagram post and there's a Facebook post and then there is the flyer and then there's the invite that comes in on their app. So it's like those different points of engagement that needs to be a constant reminder like, oh, this thing is happening, this thing is happening. So it's a lot of work. That sounds like it. Yeah. And so we're going to go back to when you first arrived in New York City that was two weeks before 9-11. How did 9-11 change your outlook? It changed it a lot. I mean, in the beginning, like I was completely confused about am I an American or am I a Palestinian or am I both because there was a lot of sentiment that was really high. And not only that I was coming to the United States in post 9-11 world or 9-11 world, but like I was also coming out of the second in Tifada, which was the uprising that was happening in the Palestinian territories. So clearly two war zones, I mean, at the time that was happening and like that was pretty tough. But then I got the discovery that New Yorkers were more open about like hearing my story and not vilifying me and things of the sort. And I was able to build a community here. Of course, I mean, it was tough to explain yourself. You know, a lot of people would come and tell you like, oh, why does this happen in the Arab world? And then you have to become like the ambassador of the Muslim world, the ambassador of the Arab world and talk to people about how things are not like this. And that's like a big burden. I don't think, you know, I have to explain the reasoning of terrorists. Because I'm not one like, so why should I understand their logic and try to explain it? But I think people were looking for answers. And if they don't know anyone, they will naturally ask a person from that area like what's going on. So we had to basically like explain what things led to these groups to come about. How does it feel to be an American in New York after this happened? Loyalty to the United States and like how much like I actually love the United States and love the opportunity that America gave me. But at the same time, like what are my roots and like how do I relate to it? And I feel like food brought in all of that because you're able to explore the American way and still keep homage to, you know, my whole origins and still deliver on both ends. Cool. So can you talk more about your experience like being an envoy and working with the State Department? It was an amazing experience. It was an amazing experience. I have to say that whenever I want to feel good after a stressful day, I go and like look at the envoy program and just see what other people are doing because it's just wonderful. It happened by coincidence. I was in South by Southwest and then I was approached by the James Beard House about a possible trip to Morocco to talk about or launch the export of American Halal beef. And I was really excited about that because the fact that there is American Halal beef meant that there is inclusion. For a long time, the American Muslim community couldn't find Halal beef unless they went locally. But now there is like major production of it. So that's really wonderful. And then the idea is to go to Morocco and met with the team and the embassy there. They were really lovely. Of course, Morocco is the first country to recognize the United States. So there was a lot of warm like very old diplomatic ties and I came to explore the country of Morocco or the Kingdom of Morocco and learn about them through food. Now I love Moroccan food because if you go to Queens here in New York, there's a big Moroccan community and I love their food. But then I discovered that it doesn't even compare if you ever when you visit like the cuisine is so rich and so diverse that what we get like at least in New York City is a very small dose of it. Okay. Well, we'll have to go to Morocco then. Yeah, for sure. All right. What advice do you have for people who are planning to create an organization based on cultural values, whether it be art, theater, music or food? I think you have to be true to your values first. I feel like you have to really think about your mission statement and think about like how you're really impacting the community. It's easy to for a non-profit business to stay as a non-profit business because that's what they do, right? They're in the business of being a non-profit. But that has repercussions to it. For example, like does ego kick in the way? Are you really impactful? How much of the dollar spent or on the art or the theater or the music or is actually going back to the community? So you have to really find a way to make it sustainable as a living if you want to do this full-time but at the same time have the highest impact of value. You don't want to be an organization that takes a dollar and donation or a grant but spends 90 cents on just upholding the organization and 10 cents on the actual impact. So there has to be some sort of balance in which you can make it work. And also you have to look at the real problems within the community. I love theater and I love the arts but if I am working with refugees in Greece on the water, they are in need of food and translation services, right? So the idea is that look deeply within the community and see is there a need for this problem to be solved or are there more immediate needs to be solved? Or is this just your interpretation of what needs to be solved? And that's important. Yes, fulfilling a need. So how difficult was it to obtain permits and other paperwork in order to start your business? And what do you wish that you knew now? Well I have to say thankfully the United States government is very friendly towards business so it takes five minutes online to launch a business. Now I understand that it might be difficult in different parts of the world. Sometimes you need like 14 signatures to get like a permit going. But I luckily never had that experience so I wouldn't know how it is abroad. But at least in the United States it's very easy. Everything is mostly done online and if you have a good accountant or a good lawyer that can be expedited really quickly. There are really now websites that you just pay and they expedite the process of incorporation all the way to delivery and you become a business within 15 minutes really. Wow, that's amazing. We actually have a resource on our website enabling entrepreneurs to tab and we have different resources both international and national there for anybody to check out. That's amazing. Yes, so I have a final question. What's next on your dinner plate? Well tonight is going to be a Palestinian menu actually that's like a little bit of a fusion. We helped this new Palestinian restaurant called Canoone open up on 21st and 9th. And they have been rated by Eater which is like the news food blog as one of the hottest restaurants in New York City to Eden for November. So we're very proud about that. And it's going to be sumac and sachan chicken which is a Palestinian salad chicken and maklube which is our version of biryani. And of course some dips, hummus, mohammara, things of the sort. So we're excited about that. That's great. Congratulations. Okay, so it looks like we're just about out of time. Before we go Nasser I'd like to ask what's your number one tip for trying to have for someone who wants to try to have social impact in their community? Never be afraid to fail. Keep trying because the truth of the matter is is that like one person cannot change the entire world but a community can but it takes action of one person to start. So don't be afraid to start. Keep at it and people will join you. When we started our dinner series it was just 10 people in a basement. Wow, okay. So you started small. Oh, before we go too I want to give you a shout out from Ali and Jerusalem who's saying that you're an inspiration for Palestinians creating positive change abroad. And hello from Jerusalem. Thank you Ali. Hello back. Good. Okay, so thank you very much Nasser for being with us today. And a big thank you to you, our online viewers for participating. Be sure to keep your calendar open for our next mentor talks in December. We'll share more information on our next guest right here on Facebook and on our Twitter handle at exchange alumni. Interested in learning about more opportunities for exchange alumni? Visit our website at alumni.state.gov and follow us on social media. Thanks for watching and see you all in December for our next mentor talks.


For those of us that spend time near wetlands in Wyoming, I'm guessing at some point you may have caught a glimpse of a muskrat. These small native aquatic mammals look similar to a baby beaver, except muskrats have a much narrower tail than their larger cousins. Muskrats are found living throughout the western United States in or near wetlands. These furry creatures feed mainly on aquatic plant life, such as cattails, bullrushes, and sedges. They will occasionally feed on frogs, crayfish, or salamanders. Muskrats may even turn cannibalistic if inadequate food is available for their survival. Muskrats weigh between one and a half and four pounds, and create a musk-like odor for which they are named. This small mammal has a short lifespan by human standards that may only last one year. Female muskrats can have two to three litters of young in one summer, but typically six young in a litter. Muskrats also face many predators, which include raptors, foxes, coyotes, and their predominant predator, the mink. The next time you are out exploring the nature of Wyoming, you have a better understanding of muskrats and where they can be found. For the University of Wyoming Extension, I'm Milton Geiger, Exploring the Nature of Wyoming.