What's up everybody on sportsman like conduct back again gab Brie here to talk sports with you guys. Hi guys Yeah, what a night last night. I Just they just post somebody just posted the numbers from the W. WNBA draft. Did you see what they are? No, but I would love to know Tell you right now Two point four four six million viewers Wow For the WNBA draft last night. Okay, SPN from the hours of 7 30 p.m. Eastern to 9 30 p.m. Eastern That's the girls are crushing it the girls are crushing it for context Somebody tweeted out what the previous records numbers was so if they say holy shit, which accurate Yeah, pretty much it The previous viewership record for the WNBA draft came in 2004 for Diana Tarasi's draft year That draft drew 601 thousand hundred thousand viewers Wow Wow, okay Up 300 percent from last year. It's that's insane It's insane and Like The draft itself was I was we sat down watch the whole thing. It was exciting Yeah, it was I have a lot of takeaways from it because I think the setup of it one was really nice It looked better than the NFL draft. It looked better than the NBA drafts and MLB not even put that in the convo It looked really good. Yeah My my biggest takeaway from it Obviously, we knew Caitlyn Clark was gonna go number one. We knew we've known that for however many months now The LA sparks One draft Come yeah, come complete her Getting cam it to and then getting Ricky Jackson at four is an insane double dip And then Chicago Camilla and Angel like that'll be entertaining and that'll be fun. That's gonna be I Wouldn't want to go banging the paint against them. No, thanks And I saw a lot of people say like what are they gonna do? They play the same positions You can stretch Angel to a four. She doesn't have to be the five you put Camilla at the five Angel before You're banging bodies down there. No, thanks And then my Yukon girlies got drafted which I'm really excited about I started crying when Nika mules name got called They didn't expect that reaction To come but I'm sitting there and I'm watching her like hug Gino and stuff.  Um all of their outfits. Yeah, they looked really good Insane they had a really great group on the red carpet not even just the athletes the people they're working as well Everyone showed up and everyone looked really good. It's better than some of the red carpets that you see for like the Oscars Yeah, or like any Celebrity event. It was great. Yeah The red carpet we went to for all-star weekend some of those Well, that's Don't really stack up. No, they don't They don't um the best fit. Who would you say? Oh, that's tough. I I know who I'm going with I Have I have to that I was like absolutely obsessed with but I think I have a number one So got you go first and I'll make my final decision Cameron Brink for my number one. Yeah, that dress is gorgeous. She was just like basketball Barbie Gorgeous, it was unbelievable. Also her arms. I know she's like super tall and the proportions are like that But if I could get my arms to look like that Wow, just like everything and she's so pretty. She's so good at basketball Fit like Yes, being cold muscle insane. She can do no wrong Um, yeah, so that was one of the options that I was Considering because I was I'm absolutely obsessed with that dress. I know I can't afford it But if for whatever reason I could I would get it tomorrow I'm gonna go with her teammate her new teammate for Kia Jackson because that She switched fits. She had a red carpet fit and a draft fit. I'm talking about the draft fit The silver with the shades and everything she looked fire But like yeah, I mean angels outfit was cool given like sexy Star Wars Yeah, she loved it. I mean, there's no one that didn't look great. Uh, I'm gonna look great regardless, but yeah, I just Cam's dress though.  I can't wear a dress like that because I am way closer to the ground than you are Yeah, yeah, that's the main issue here Yeah, pop like some six inch heels on you should be okay. Yeah, it'll work out Time to think of who else what other outfits there were I mean, she had the product fit. Oh my god I thought the sunglasses were so cool I saw a lot of guys saying like because you know how they are right now saying a lot of weird things about her fit They're like, oh, it doesn't fit her right. I'm like, she's not going for like a super tight Jacket like I thought the jacket looked really cool. Also, you can't even afford it. So back up That just tells me like those are the same people that still wear t-shirts from 15 years ago Would like I mean So there's a time and place for t-shirts from 15 years ago and it's when they're oversized with some biker shorts or some like cargos No, I'm talking like the must I know I know what you mean. I know white. I know I mean Yeah, no, totally right guys Prada Does not know does not know how to size the people wearing they're very very very expensive clothes I don't look like you are 100% correct. Oh, I didn't look great Um, yeah, she said That she is the only basketball player of men's or women's that Prada has ever dressed for a draft, which is You're gonna be first for anything. That's a really cool thing to be the first four and Then she switched into her uggs after like just brand endorsement after brand endorsement just get it So good for her Yeah, I was it just Watching stuff like this like similar to like the Oscars red carpets and stuff seeing these outfits and stuff I'm like, oh Let's be so fun to have money. I'm just have like dress up. Maybe like really cool.   Yeah, same like some DH gate Because I'll lose them. Yeah, um Prada if you're listening. Yeah hit us up. We uh Love we'd love to work with you If that's good, but you could just like drip us out for the show and we'd sit here at every product that you Product placement even if it looked ridiculous. I'm so doing just give me a duster bag. I'll hang it on the wall That's all um, yeah WNBA draft really cool. And the season starts uh next month so Hypes not gonna go away anytime soon Would you see about the jerseys? How many jerseys were purchased last night? I did Did you see that it's the most ever? for a drafted athlete from fanatics I did not Caitlyn Clark beat out Trevor Lawrence for jersey sales. Wow, which is I think is insane. Um Sorry if you are someone who ordered that jersey though because you're not gonna get that until maybe november. Yeah, maybe Maybe they get it right Yeah, I mean hope so but like the whole pants debacle and now the sake on jerseys You're not getting them until week four and like there's just there's just no way There's no way hopefully by christmas, but Yeah, I did see that and I also saw someone tweet this and I'm actually surprised and I looked it up and it's seemingly true um Caitlyn Clark's jersey obviously was available right away on fanatics Noah leah boston jerseys though. She was the number one pick last year like See a little odd. Yeah, it does seem a little odd, but speaking of The indiana fever did you see the video of them at their watch party celebrating? No, I didn't so some of the girls on the team They were they had they obviously they had like a big watch party They're all in an arena watching together with fans and they announced Caitlyn as the draft pick And they all take off the hoodies and they have like Already jerseys printed with her in the back cheering for her and super excited about drafting her. So that was really fun to see That's sick. That's that's good too because all of this discourse about yeah The people already in the league or Right not have excited about it or happy about it or whatever like enough um Did you nika mule did a little trolling? I think she was serious, but if there Were any intentions of being a troll?  Um She was asked by aliyah boston And who I couldn't get like a full look at who she was interviewing with so i'm not sure of her name But they were asked nika mule Who she's excited to like go against in the wmba now. So she looks at aliyah and she was like obviously you um And then she started trash talking Like diana tirasi and everybody's like dude. That's funny dude. He's been doing for five minutes. That's funny though I hope I know for a fact that she is some part of her was serious because she's a sicko like that um and diana's Cut from the same cloth like they so Uh, I hope she was trolling a little bit though just because of all of the talk Especially on like this the bird and tirasi stream About diana just like being a bully into the rookies and stuff like that So but yeah, like literally two minutes after being drafted. She's like, yeah, oh diana for sure Crazy ladies Um anything else on this before we do some mba playoff talk? Hmm. I don't think so. Yeah, I think we pretty much covered it all. Um playing games tonight. Hello Oh, yeah quick um The west games are tonight right lakers. Yeah lakers pelicans warriors And the kings That's the game, right? I don't know Yeah, sure. Here's in the kings. I believe you because you said I was like I was a little scared. I was like, oh, what am I looking at over here? That's a good matchup Well, I'm like wondering because I don't watch the west as much as I watch the east, right? Okay. So that's why I was like, oh I don't know but I watched Lebron. So that's a little different. But what's going on with the kings? I thought the kings were this light the beam were so good. Why are we in the play and what happened? I legitimately have not Even thought about the Sacramento kings once this season. I haven't been hearing about that damn beam Have not this is that still a thing? Are we still doing that? Don't think it's going to be lit up tonight either. I just hope so because like I'm just I'm ready for the warriors thing to die Okay, but how about how about it goes like this? How about um The warriors make it but they have to play the thunder and then it's like they're passing the torch to the thunder And the young group of the thunder is about to be really good Or we are are we out on the thunder? No, not out on the thunder. I just don't okay I don't know I don't look at them games though.  Yeah potential dynasty material I do I don't think dynasty, but I think they're gonna be good for a while Yeah good in the sense of like Well, I mean they're the one sixers good. Oh come on.  I We're out. I don't know I don't know. I think the playing games are going to be a little more interesting than the actual series because you get You get the sixers in the heat awesome. That's an awesome matchup. Yeah You have the lakers and the warriors both in the playing Everybody wants to watch them now bulls hawks. I could do with that. I don't really care But the sixers heat might be the best game that we see Whole thing. Yeah, um It's a miami heat man I said it I said it last week. I think I said it the week before like they scare me Well, I think we're me We're both going to eat our words here from what we've been saying for the last month You're like, oh, I don't want I don't want to go against the heat. I don't want to go against the heat.  They're playing the caps Yeah, there you go. Like, oh, I love their song so much. I hate that song now. I never want to hear it Start singing Yeah, are the are the calves, you know, I'm gonna No, what are they gonna do? What version of the Cleveland Cavaliers are we gonna get? Maybe the one that was in February, but I just don't think we are going to I don't think I don't think we're a serious team Why don't we have us? I don't think we have a serious coach Okay That makes sense after the whole conversation we had about that last week that makes sense Yeah, I just he just is lacking creativity You have all these things you could do with these guys and we get the same stuff every time like I don't know makes it up you go into the half and you come back out and you play worse Yeah, we're not changing things. I don't understand. But yeah, I don't know. We will see High key how I feel about the Celtics right now last However many games with you know full roster playing Hasn't been great wasn't great. Um Got blown out by Milwaukee Nick's game wasn't very good. Um, and then you know the last couple games whatever doesn't really matter everybody rested They still I mean Peyton Prichard I think was this this was huge for him Getting these starts to get because he's gonna have to play valuable minutes in the playoffs no matter who they play and You get the version of Peyton Prichard that's Shooting at a high clip but making absolutely nothing and just shocking them up and hoping what goes in hate that Don't want that. Um So I think getting him in this rhythm of Hey, dude, like we're gonna have to rely on you good shots Figure this out throwing it up because you think that you need to provide something right your team.  Caleb martin, who's that? Gabe minson. Who is that max streus when he plays anybody again other than the celtics? You have no idea who he is Um, I mean he's making half quarters. I don't know well Now he is now that he's not on the miami heat. I feel like he's branched out into being A normal everyday player.  It just sucks though the number one and the number two seed are probably Getting the worst. It's not this matchup.  I don't know if he's gonna make it through the entire series, but He's gonna be there. He'll yeah, he'll be there. Um I've said this too like if it came down to a six or celtics matchup I'm more comfortable with that just given recent history. Um and alforford just Being joel and beats kryptonite for No reason at all can't explain it. It's just that's just how it is. Um The heat oh man I'm not excited about that and i'm excited about the bucks pacer series though Although I'm not No, yonis for the first Yeah, but i'm not couple games. I don't think i'm worried about it. I don't think i'm too worried about it I think the pacers are kind of They're they mellowed out a little bit compared to how we were with the end season tournament We were when that was all going on. I just don't think the pacers are as good as people are Saying that they are I just they're fine Yeah Can be very good Not consistent enough To hold them that high um Those two don't like each other though a lot of a lot of beef in these matchups Yeah for dumb reasons, but like whatever that's usually how it goes for absolutely nothing, but yeah Uh, we have we have some beef in the cabs magic The Those two brothers. They do not like jared allen. I don't know why they bully him I don't know two brothers the vogner brothers. Yeah, I don't know I don't know why they don't they don't like jared allen. They bully him. They get him fights They're probably going to get ejected.  He's just such a nice man.  I'm like Well, well I think the issue is with you sir Yeah, I mean Yeah, Ben Simmons. Yeah, there's a lot to unpack on that one, but yeah, I mean just leave Malone leave jared allen alone I should go out there So for you is it finals or bust It's championship or bust Okay, that yeah, that's what I mean like you're the team's done. You want you want this thing to be blown up um Not necessarily blown up because everybody I mean Jalen browns inked for Whatever the super max he got was drew holiday just extended um Tatum's gonna get Almost a billion dollars. I feel like and then They'll still somehow be able to do the steric white deal. So I don't think the window is Completely closed If they don't get it done this year I just think it'll be similar to the Bruins last year You had this incredible season.  I mean, I know porzingis missed a decent amount of time this year, but like Him jalen jason Right there. That's as big three as big three gets right now. Um And you got alhofer coming off the bench being I think should be six man of the year All signs are pointing to yes, this is this is the year this is going to happen in it by all accounts should and if it doesn't like Some I don't know what the diagnosis is. I don't know what The best course of action is to go and say all right We know what we did wrong. We know where we fell short. This is how we fix it for next year Because I feel like they've been doing that for the last three years right, um So I don't think it's bust to the point of like Blow it up ship everybody out start from scratch but like In terms of disappointment level This would be catastrophic For me at least I think a lot of fans feel the same but Well, yeah, because I feel like it's been It's it's what everybody's been saying for the last so many years Oh, the subjects are so good the subjects are gonna win the subjects are gonna do this and then it just never happens. Yeah um, I will say though if Miami is the first round matchup Get that shit out of the way and then Not not close but like you don't have to worry about meeting them in Easter conference finals again when you're tired from two previous series You get the hardest part out of the way And then you see what you can do because that's I mean last year's Easter conference finals seven games cutthroat The year before seven games came down to the very last potential jimmy butler buzzer beater and Luckily it was off um, but they're just they're exhausting series and I know the heat season This year wasn't like up to their calendar, but it hasn't been either for any of the other times. I know I know They're just kind of there and then they end up being good when a spolster team gets to this time of year though like Yeah, okay, so let me ask you this. What would you rather happen? I the answer isn't either But which would you feel better about losing to the sixers or losing to the heat? neither, I mean like if you had I mean neither um Truthfully losing to the heat because you know that they have your number. You've done it before. Yeah They've done it before There's been those battles. You've gotten the best of them a couple times. They've gotten the best of you a couple times um against the sixers for me personally hate them So that would be bad for me. Yeah a lot a lot of receipts that could get pulled up Sorry, I would just go real quick. Yeah, just yeah, bye. Um, but also like Like I said recent history Celtic sixers.  It's truthfully neither, but if I had to choose I guess miami miami Oh, man. I think a lot of people a lot of people are gonna get really upset over the next couple weeks. Yeah yep, um hockey playoffs too like this is the time of year where I just yeah, I don't mess with hockey fans because they terrify me and They are scary Actually, yeah, I don't know should we talk about the west for a little bit? Yeah, let's do it so No, and I'm sorry. I'm sorry clippers for what I'm about to say Like what what did we say the whole entire if the clippers can be healthy for the playoffs The potential is there and what's being reported now. Why might not be playing Might not be playing at all But you just missed the first series. I don't know. It's just that they just are trying to be Cautious with his knee. So what does that mean? I feel like we've heard that one like a million times And he just signed that what three year deal with them. Yeah. Yeah, so, um The four seed they're playing the mabs. That should be a great series But it's not going to be a great series if he's not playing the whole time and I mean against luka Which I would love to see um I would love to see luka have a great playoff like I would I guess luka like I would look I would need full strength I need my team at full strength because he's a psychopath. He's nuts Kyrie, I feel like Has finally gotten back into I don't want to play against Kyrie in the playoffs. No. No, especially if it seems like You know, he's in a good spot No, thanks. Yeah, I wouldn't want to play against Kyrie in the playoffs. I've seen everything I need to see and Yeah There I mean there the Mavs roleplayers too like decent. Yeah, not not horrible um Well, you give those two leading the charge against a team. That's not a hundred percent All right, good luck Um We did say we said at the beginning of the season though when we were talking about like dark horse teams We both mentioned the clippers And our caveat to that was hand they all be on the floor if they all Stay healthy if they all can be on the floor together at the same time Kawaii missing any playoff time at all is massive for them And it like also not all that surprising unfortunately, but it's just like They're also playing their last, um Games in crypto. Yeah. Oh, yeah crypto staples or whatever same thing. Um Yeah, that's A lot going on that aspect of it That's cdm's gonna be so cool. Yeah, it's gonna be awesome. Um Man, it would be cool to open up a new stadium with a championship, but You know, I don't know we'll we'll have to see with that one then we get the Same thing with the next matchup. We have the timber wolves and the suns That's I don't even know what to say about the suns. Do you like debon booker? I love debon booker. Why do you hate him? I I just think he's so like corny. I think he's so cool I don't know. I'm a big. I'm a big debon booker fan I'm In like the booker vs. luka feud. Do you like both a lot? Um The reason why I ask is because I was going to say yeah, well, yeah um in this series I could totally see Aunt edwards just like hone in. Oh, yeah, I feel like yeah We're going psychological warfare. There's a lot of things you could say to debon booker.  Let's just Aunt does not give one f at all. No, no, no, no, no. He'll say anything Literally anything. Yeah, he does Which sometimes you probably shouldn't I'm excited for that matchup specifically but I mean how what level of disappointment are we going to talk about if Katie and the suns fall short again. Does anyone even care at this point? Like that's that's the next part. I don't think anyone even cares now.  It's just it's not that's that's the suns That's what we've seen all year. It's what we thought it was going to be and now it's still that Yeah Okay, so no disappointment and just like yep saw this one coming Do you think I don't even think any of them would be disappointed either? I was like, okay I don't think Kevin Durant really cares at this point Not saying that he doesn't care about basketball because he definitely does But like the outcome isn't going to change anything that he's right, which is a great mindset to have But but it's not great for the fans The organization and everything else Just look at his twitter account and that'll answer that for you. I mean he's the funniest person on the internet He has no fs about nothing. None Which like like I think he just posted a video that said that he's locked in on calling duty right now I'm like, oh, who are you kyler? It's In Arizona, I don't know Whatever I um When I was out there there was uh there was no like And granted final four time like nobody really Was there for the suns but like the suns played the pelicans. I think when I was there and like Would never would have known Unless I feel like it's just not that good of a sports town Fun to go to Yeah it's just like The area around the baseball stadium and the basketball stadium is cool. Yeah has a lot of potential It seems like you're dead Yeah, it was It was um like the diamondbacks Yeah, I was honestly like hoping that they would have a home stand while We were there because I wanted to go but They were in like Denver or something And they just played the Yankees Right before Hey, that team Yeah, we gonna we'll we'll talk about that too. You had an eventful day weekend. All right, um What's the other potential west matchups? Well, we have the thunders as the one seed in the nuggets as the two seed and they can End up playing any of the four teams in the play-in, but I think that I like the thunder, but if they play the Lakers Hey, maybe the Lakers might beat them, you know young thunder team Yeah, LeBron and ad I mean just have to see if they can make it either I'd like to see a Lakers nugget series again I I would also like that. Well, whoever wins out of the Lakers and pelicans goes into boom. Yeah perfect so, um Lakers nuggets would be I'd be tuned in for that Yeah, I mean me too and you know how I feel about LeBron and the Lakers, but I know how you know how I feel about I would watch Yeah, I'd be watching um Yeah, one of those start two hours from now. Yeah Lakers games in two hours 4 30 so We'll uh, we'll have our answer before the night's over on how that shakes out and then East games are tomorrow And then this weekend I'm going to the game on saturday. I'm going to the calves game on saturday.    He's stocky. Yeah, like it was crazy it uh It never fails to like blow my mind like I said this a couple weeks ago about like the guys on the ucon team Stefan castle is like six seven Never in a million years watching those games on tv would I have said that because he looks like he's six two compared to everybody else because they're all just Freaks, then you get guys like Darius garland and I'm like, oh, we're like the same height man. We're not but In my mind it feels like it Yeah, I mean that's he's so way taller. That's how I feel about katlyn clark like she's six foot I look at her on tv and I'm like, oh, she's my height She's five nine, which isn't I mean that's the same that you're right discrepancy, but like I have an argument over the weekend with someone very on the same topic of Height they try to tell me that I was like five six five seven. I'm like I'm not I'm literally not even close Oh No on a good day On a good day. I'm like the best of days Well, if I'm wearing heels, I might be yeah. Well, I don't know. Um Like yeah, what how did they they just looked at you like oh you're Did you have like chunky sneakers? I had on dunks I mean that's an inch at most. Yeah, but I'm not Get me up to five four. Okay Like I have a step stool to get to the second shelf in my kitchen Yeah, when I get a package in my apartment If it's on the top one in the lockers, I have to ask the front desk person to help me get it out because I can't reach it so So, uh, what we're trying to say is five six five seven is not accurate. Yeah Um, that's all right Yeah, but then I think this person was also lying about being six two Usually usually how it goes. Yeah um any Make you feel taller. You'll think they're yeah, okay six two got it Five there's no way Yeah, I know isn't that funny But then I yeah, I think so though I'm looking it up. Damn. That's what it says. Yeah, but I just don't agree. I don't agree. No, no I always walk up the numbers um Anything else nba before we pivot No, I got nothing else. I just hope my team wins a series Yeah, same. So we're not a laughing stock and joke, but we'll have to see tv Um, how uh, how was your weekend? I have one of the best weekends that I've ever had in my life Hell, yeah, we love that. No, I'm just saying that because I haven't really Been doing anything. I've just been like inside and chilling because it's cold And it was really nice this weekend. So I was out and about I anywhere I could have been this weekend Just know I was there Hell, yeah, we love an outside weekend front row and every baseball game Love that being roasted on the internet for doing so. Um, well, whatever You know, you could literally do anything Yeah, post it on the internet and you get roasted for it. So yeah, sure Whatever, um, what happened with these yankee fans though. I saw your tweets about it and some of them were annoying Absolutely Yeah, so the yankees beat us two games, which sure they're really good We don't we're trying our best. They're really good. You're paying billions of dollars have all these players on your team We have one player that's being paid over a hundred million dollars So like it's gonna say payroll discrepancies here are Massive, so let's take this with a grain of salt But I I feel like I've been saying this for like the last two years for some reason we have developed this rivalry with them Yeah, and they really hate us like yankee fans really hate the guardians like you guys beat us all the time I don't know why you hate us so much. They say our team's annoying Why you don't like that? We hit singles and score runs. Sorry. We don't have people to hit a home run every event my bad But they don't like us and they think you guys are annoying. What do they think they are?   Yeah And then we had a walk-off win and they were jumping and celebrating and having fun Which I feel like any team does on any walk-off win Uh, yeah, yeah In all of our friends are like, I can't believe they're celebrating like they just won a world series Oh my god, how would you guys know about that because you guys don't do that either? That's exactly what I was gonna say Exactly what I was gonna say They wouldn't know what it's like because they haven't done it in 15 years Right, none of those people on that team Know what it's like either so not a single one I think Everybody celebrates a walk-off. I didn't know it was weird to celebrate a walk-off win Pretty standard procedure. I would say and the celebration was like pretty chill Like I don't think it was anything Extraordinary, I thought it was just normal, you know a couple water bottles flying in the air They lift up Andres in the air cheering for them. That was it.  Everybody does it in every store celebration is like that like extra Like you win a playoff series and you have beer showers. Yeah So I sorry that They were just having fun. I don't know. Do we not like fun anymore?   They don't like josh nailer Because remember you did the whole like rock the baby thing Yeah, Cole was having a meltdown and then they were really upset about it. Josh. I got shoved to the ground That josh nailer thing was two two years ago. You were there for it. Yeah, okay That's why that's why I'm thinking like that was 2022 and they're still talking about it Jesus christmas. So I don't know why we have this like rivalry with them But we do Listen I'm all for a good yankee rivalry. So we can be brothers in arms when it comes to that. Yeah See this is this is where I'm gonna disagree. You might be right. I might be right I don't know. Taylor got shoved because he was covering the base. Come on. He was trying to make a play He was just doing a baseball move. He did not need to be shoved Also, if you're gonna shove put your foot on the bag before you do it Yeah I don't know. That's all I gotta say. Oh man. Um I'm going home in june. I don't know how I always do this Whenever I go home during baseball season going home in june That weekend is a red sox yankee series. So oh should I go? Yeah, come. Okay. Come. Okay, uh while the red sox may not be Uh good You can still beat them. You still love a good like friday night fenway red sox yankees game. So Count me in. Uh, you want to come more than welcome? Yeah, sign me up So what day is this? Friday like the 14th or 15th, I think of june I'll have to see I might be in toronto. Check it out. Um I'll have to see But yeah, there's that Uh, hopefully By that time I'll be back for a parade or two two. That'd be great. Yeah, love would love. I would love one Just give me one two Ideally, okay. I hear you breathe. Listen. I hear you but when you say just just give me one You've already seen like a million. I know I've only seen one I know, um Like give me a joint red uh joint salt experiments parade. That'd be sick though.   Um, yeah, because I'm going back for the brady retirement Hall of Fame thing at july, which is The 12th the other doing like 612 um, which is around the time where those series should be ending and potential planning of events in the city should be taking place so Uh, yeah, that'd be cool Yeah, that would be that would be pretty cool. We'll see. Um And then hockey hockey playoffs are Up and coming within the next like four or five days Major implications today and tomorrow in the east Which is I don't envy Fans of any of these teams because they're all separated by like one point and there's only one spot left How many teams I'll I'll confirm that in a second.  Yeah, uh Washington, Detroit Pittsburgh and Philly I feel like all those places hate each other. Yeah, but that's yes, that's accurate. Um, philly looks like they're the odd man out They've got 87 points. Pittsburgh's got 88 Uh, Washington and Detroit both have 89 points currently Thanks to beating the Bruins last night. The capitals are in that last wild card spot But here's how the games shake out today and tomorrow Red wings play the canadiens canadiens have nothing to play for they're done Um capitals play the fires which could get interesting because of the capitals lose and the fires win Regulation win. That's two points right there. Boom They bump up, um and then tomorrow Tangos play the islanders Which islanders have already clenched They got nothing to play for. Um at this point might just be resting bodies last game of the season Pittsburgh Do or die they need they need Every like crazy scenario to happen including a win Okay, and if I was a fan of any of these four teams, I would be throwing up I would not be able to sleep last night. I would not be able to sleep tonight I would be what I've already counted my team out. I've already accepted it Just how it is here You know It's hope for the hope for the best but always preparing for the worst, which is how I feel Oh, yeah, that's always that's always how we do it. Why'd we do it?  Yeah, um I'm just I'm so nervous talking about these two playoffs um, this time of year my anxiety is like Through the roof normally football season. It's probably about here baseball season when it's just baseball We're at a cool like 50% hockey basketball playoffs Through the roof touching the moon like I feel like that But then I realized I gotta chill out because it seems never gonna live up to the hype And I I don't know why because I know for a fact no matter what I do. I know this I'm rational to an extent I know no matter what I do. It's not gonna impact Anything that happens on the court anything that happens on the ice Wearing the same jersey not washing it that doesn't impact anything But at the same time where I think I'm rational in accepting those things I'm also a lunatic And I'm gonna do them anyway because if there's any part of the world that relies on fate and relies on superstition and crazy Crap like that I'm gonna choose to believe that that's what's happening. Okay my Disgusting jersey that I haven't washed in five weeks Going back on that's why we're winning Um, so yeah, that's where I'm at. I'm at like I'm gonna bust out the crystals my sister Not the crystals my sister's into all that stuff. Did you charge your water for the day? She's giving me crystals. I need to put them out on the windowsill charge them up Get all the good you do the moon water.  We're gonna have a good time. That's playoffs in a nutshell Um, god, I hope I hope to god the cabs don't have to play the Celtics. Oh boy Do we go at that point? Yeah, we go. We go to every we go to every single game Feel like we have to yeah, and I'm gonna have to buy jersey I I would need a jersey to go so I could look like a real fan. You know, I was thinking today The only Celtics jersey I have currently is a marcus smart jersey Which obviously is doing me no good right now And I thought about getting a Tatum jersey today But like Will it get here in time? No, it won't so Will it get here by sunday The chances are really slim. I've got I want to get like Celtics apparel and stuff like I I want a jersey like a legit jersey that I know the player is going to be here for a while and not get traded a week after I get it I Have LeBron jerseys But I went in Evan Mobley jersey Yeah, so If I move on city connect We move on. Yeah, that might be it purchase. Yeah That might be it. Um The new jersey wouldn't be broken in for the season's juju. Oh, we would have I would have a whole ceremony a whole Like like I said, we're cleansing. God cleansing the house. We're gonna cleanse this jersey to whatever Bad juju fanatics is sending me with this jersey. We're cleansing it And we're getting ready for some playoff basketball. That's how that would go Um Yeah, I'm just it's it's that time of year where the worst version of myself comes out and that's That's why we love sports. I suppose Um, I think do we have anything else that we need to talk about? No I don't really think so. We talked about WNBA. We talked about the playoffs. We talked a little bit about baseball I mean, there's some other things in baseball going on, but they're it's just so not that interesting Yeah, and I've watched a million games. So Next week I mean the series will be well underway so We'll have a ton more to really dive into. Hopefully there's some drama tonight tomorrow Friday. Yeah And then yes Saturday Sunday go time so Good luck to us. Good luck to us. Um, if your team is in the playoffs Good luck to you unless they are The Orlando magic also If you are a Pittsburgh penguins fan a washington capitals fan a philadelphia flyers fan to short red wings fan God bless. Good luck. Um, I don't envy you for a moment And I hope for you guys whoever your team is. I hope they get that last spot. Um Because yikes You are better than I I would not be able to but with that being said We're out. We'll see you guys next week. Uh, and we'll have a ton of playoffs to talk about at that point


Good morning my beautiful internet friends and welcome back. I wanted to talk today about a question that I get every once in a while here on this channel. I got it in the taboo topics section but I just I felt like talking about it on a day that wasn't a Tuesday. So let's talk about if I always wanted to amputate my leg, if I always wanted it gone. When people ask me this question I kind of wonder if they're asking me if I have the IID, body identity integrity, body integrity identity disorder. That is a mental condition, a mental illness in which someone feels like a part of their body doesn't belong to be there or that they should be disabled in some way and I actually did a whole video about that. I'll link that right up here if you want to know more about that. For starters, no I don't have that condition. I've never had that condition but I did want to talk about this idea of when did I want to amputate my leg like when that question even came up. So let's dive in and talk about that. Before we do I would really love it if you'd hit subscribe on the channel and like on this video. If you hit like it helps to get out to more people. If you hit subscribe it helps me get closer to 100,000 subscribers which is something that I think would be really cool. It's a goal of mine so if you want to help me with that that'd be amazing. So let's talk timelines and amputation. Guys from the time that I was 15 I knew that one day if I lived long enough if I had the privilege of that I would become an amputee. That was just something that I came to accept but it was always something that was like far enough in the future that if someone told you that something was gonna happen to you in 40 years like the immediacy isn't there so you I'm like I started to accept it a little bit but it was more like something to joke about like I was gonna maybe become an amputee at like 65 right that was the hopeful timeline that I was given. I think the first time I ever like realistically joked about it is when I was in college when I knew that I was gonna come home from the school that I loved because I was having more issues with my ankle had to have more procedures and stuff like that. I remember sitting on a couch joking with a friend of mine in a garage they should just cut it off because I had had years and years and years of issues right but that was a joke like I obviously wanted to keep my leg kind of human nature unless you are dealing with that specific mental illness to want to keep all of your body parts that's just human instinct that's that's survival and I definitely wanted to keep all of my body parts as long as possible and for many years how I was living was like doable um not great pain sucks but I was able to do stuff I was able to participate in sports most of the time I'd have really bad weeks like I'd have like two weeks that were just miserable and I could barely walk barely do anything and then it would like kind of resolve itself and I'd be good for another couple months and then it would like plunge back into you know terrible I might have to have surgery to fix something another injection and then I'd go back to like oh this is okay I can I can walk my dogs I can hike I can do jiu-jitsu like I'm okay yeah it hurts yeah it doesn't feel good but it was livable frustrating yes livable also yeah so there was no reason for me to realistically think about amputation until it got to the point where it didn't resolve like the two bad weeks didn't go away it just always really freaking hurt and the pain level escalated a lot so where a bad day might have been sitting at like a you know a pain scale of like one to a bad day might have been sitting at like a six to a seven now that was like a seven to a nine like really really freaking hurt to try to put any pressure on my ankle not being able to work at times because of it not being able to walk not being able to do anything that I loved to do any kind of movement exercise being outside like anything often I could walk short distances right but then I take a step and it would like erupt in pain and that was totally unpredictable and sucked and it got to a level where it was horrible almost every single day and that's when I really started thinking seriously about how wise of an idea it might be to take the leaf and that's actually not when I started thinking about removing my ankle that's usually how I tell the story because you know in essence that's how it worked but that's the point at which I was like okay we need to move on to the next step of the the process which I was always told was replacing my ankle that was not a good option I found out over the course of many months that was a bad option for me that was going to buy me a couple years if it worked and that was a really big if my ankle was already fused which means my ankle didn't exist they literally screwed my foot to my leg and they were going to have to fashion an ankle in there ankle replacements don't have super high success rates and they don't have high success rates in young people and you can't be really active with them and they fail after a few months to a few years so best case scenario I was going to have another major surgery adjust to an ankle replacement which you know takes a lot of rehab takes a lot of time and then just have it fail and still be in pain because there was a lot of scar tissue there was a lot of issues with the other joints down there because of all the pressure they've been taking because my ankle was fused the nerves were all screwed up from being cut into over and over again so pain wasn't going to be gone it might help for a couple years that is when I started thinking about amputation when I learned the reality of what an ankle replacement would be because I didn't have a ton of interest in like rolling the dice and taking a gamble on a major surgery that didn't have a great success rate that would not give me a super high quality of life even if it worked well that would only buy me a couple years best case scenario and by a couple years I mean like if everything was perfect maybe five to ten maybe which means I might get to my mid 30s before having to have an amputation and I don't know what my life would look like then but it would end an amputation either way now there could be major technological developments in a couple years sure but there's nothing lined up that anyone is aware of that I could find that my doctors know of best case scenario like maybe five years is what I was told maybe a couple more probably a couple less so why would I want to have that kind of a surgery to just buy a few years to have my leg amputated at the point at which that replacement fails just being a few years older the older you are the harder it is to adjust to things I don't know what my life is going to look like at that point I don't know what medical insurance is going to look like at that point so that's when I really started to consider you know what my ankle is dead it doesn't want to be here anymore it's a goner you know and maybe it's holding on to false hope to try to keep it alive like what we're trying to do and my surgeon agreed that amputation was a good option that either I could do either one he would totally do either surgery it was up to me and I appreciated that he gave me that choice and so after a lot of thought so many hours of thinking and conversations with people I loved eventually I came to the decision that yes I was gonna amputate my leg because it was going to end there anyways period end of story I was going to be an amputee either in my late 20s or my early to mid 30s and I could waste a few more years gambling on risky painful surgery that wouldn't get me what I wanted anyways or I could just take the leap on something terrifying in the hope that it would get me to better quality of life now as you guys know there have been a lot of hiccups and things have not gone smoothly but I don't regret it the other option was trying to save something that was dying it felt like every day I was walking towards more darkness with that option having taken the leap haven't taken the step forward it's super challenging but I know it's the right choice I still know that it's the right choice because I get to move towards light like it can get better there wasn't hope of it getting better when I still had my ankle so no I definitely did not always want to amputate my leg I really really wanted to keep it for many years but that just wasn't in the cards for me also I realized I didn't clarify that the reason why the timeline got pushed up so much from like being an amputee at 65 to like you know mid to early 30s was because I had so much pain in that ankle and things the doctors had told me in the past that weren't exactly accurate and other complicating factors so it was it was a combination of a number of things that led to realizing like oh crap that actually might be the best option and I still believe that it was even though there were many challenging days thanks guys for listening I would love to hear your comments and your thoughts on this issue thank you guys for spending a few minutes of your day here with me listening to me talk about my life that means the world to me I'm truly truly grateful a huge thank you goes out to all of my patrons over on my patreon page thank you for all you do for me and for supporting me and the awesome community that we have over there today's patron of the day is Lucy Kate Lucy thank you so much for being a patron thank you for supporting me in more ways than one I am truly grateful thank you have a lovely day wherever you are in the world I look forward to chatting with you guys in the comment section down below I love you I'm thinking about you and I hope to see you in the next video bye guys


Good afternoon. Good evening or good morning depending when you're joining us from today. Welcome to engineering for change or you for see for short Today, we're very pleased to bring you our second installment of the university seven-hour series This series is spearheaded by SMEs engineering for global Development Research Committee and its purpose is to intellectually develop the field of engineering for global development Each month we are hosting a new research institution to learn about their work advancing the nation's sustainable development goals So with that, my name is Yana Aranda. I'm the president of engineering for change And I'll be serving as one of the moderators for today's seminar The seminar you're participating in today will be archived on the e4c webinar speech As well as on our youtube channel. Both of those URLs are listed on the slide Information on upcoming seminars is available on the same page Any first team members will receive invitations to upcoming seminars directly If you have any questions comments and recommendations for future topics and speakers Please contact the e4c team at research at engineeringforchange.org If you're following us on twitter today, I'd like to invite you to join us in the conversation with our dedicated hashtag Hashtag e4c seminar series Now before we move on to our presenters, I'd like to tell you a bit about e4c e4c is a knowledge organization digital platform and global community of more than 1 million engineers designers development practitioners and social scientists Who are leveraging technology to solve quality of life challenges faced by underserved communities around the globe Some of those challenges may include access to clean water and sanitation Sustainable energy solutions improved agriculture and more We invite you to become a member e4c membership is free and provides access to news and thought leaders Insides of hundreds of essential technologies in our solutions library professional development resources Encouraging to opportunities such as jobs funding calls fellowships and more e4c members also receive exclusive invitations to online and regional events and access to resources aligned to their interests We invite you to visit our website engineeringforchange.org to learn more and sign up e4c's research work cuts across geographies and sectors to deliver an ecosystem view of technology for good Original research is conducted by e4c fellows annually on behalf of our partners and clients and delivered as adjustable reports with implement temple insights We invite you to visit our research page the url is again listed on the slide to explore our trend analysis research collaborations and review of the state of the engineering a state of engineering for global development A compilation of academic program and institutions offering training in the sector If you have research questions or want to work with us on our research projects as a research fellow Please contact us at research at engineeringforchange.org For those of you who are interested in launching an engineering for global development course in your institution We invite you to check out the engineering for change educational toolkit This is a free open source syllabus of a freshman course developed in partnership with Lipscomb University's Raymond B. Joe's College of Engineering If you have recommendations for other resources that we can develop and deliver We also encourage you to contact us all right So with that, uh, we wanted to take care of some housekeeping items Let's go ahead and take a moment to practice using the WebEx platform I advise you to right now use the chat window to let us know where you're joining us from fitting Now the chat window if you don't see it is located at the bottom right of your screen And you can just type in your location right there. I see some folks are you doing this? So we and I'll also join you guys in this exercise All right, so we have someone from Canada from my home from home country Vermont, brooklyn new york Thank you so much for joining us everyone Again, if you don't see the chat window look for the icon that is in the middle of the slides at the bottom of the screen Just as a note So we'd like you to use the q&a window which is located below the chat to type in your questions to the presenter Again, if you don't see the q&a window just look for the q&a icon at the bottom of the screen in the middle of the slide All right, so welcome folks from michigan from stock home from pennsylvania And some more from ontario welcome canada. I'm so glad to see you I'm a bit partial all right, and with that I'd like to Go ahead and introduce our presenter and our moderator for today a doctor Conjure mexta is the inaugural vice provost for creative inquiry and the director of the mountaintop initiative at the high university Mexta champions the creation of learning environments and ecosystems where students faculty and external partners come together To increase their capabilities for independent inquiry take intellectual risks and learn from failure Recognize problems and opportunities and affect constructive and sustainable change previously Mexta was the founding director of the humanitarian engineering and social entrepreneurship or hcc program at pennsylvania university He serves as an associate editor of the archipelago technology and society magazine and contributing editor for engineering for change His latest book solving problems that matter and getting paperwork very critical Takes a deep dive into STEM careers and social innovation and global sustainable development He is um, all right So i'm gonna i'm not going to read through the whole bio because you're going to learn quite a bit about kanja in today's presentation And with that I just also want to introduce our moderator and one of the architects of the series Dr. Jesse often Vernon who is an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the university of michigan Here in his phd in mechanical engineering in 20 from 14 from mit he also holds a I think we should just get right to the stuff, you know, I mean I'm going to be here to have my questions and talk and and help with the discussion afterwards But uh, yeah, we're excited to have all of you here. Thank you, Anna All right, no worries. I'm so enthusiastic about your bio, but I will be We'll shorten it from here and I'll get over control to kanja right now so he can go ahead and Present his slides and mute myself to avoid further bio reading Over to you Thank you Yeah, thank you for the kind introduction jesse. Thanks for having me. Joanna. Thanks for all your work in the background there I'm going to spend the next 30 35 minutes talking about Some of our work to the global social impact fellowship at lehigh and Then I hope to have at least 10 15 minutes for questions and answers So i'm at lehigh university, which is in betland, pennsylvania We're about an hour from philadelphia about an hour and a half from new york city We have about 5000 undergraduates undergrad students growing to 6000 over the next few years about 2200 grad students So we are a mid-sized research university and And over the next 30 minutes or so i'm going to give you a quick backdrop of why we do what we do Talk about some of the ventures and the global social impact fellowship. But talk about academic model Talk just a little bit about venture and fieldwork funding because I always get a question from other academics On how we do these kinds of things and a little bit about practical partnerships And then try to try to zoom out and talk about some of the larger lessons learned So we believe very strongly in preparing students to live a life of impact And that is impact in terms of how they help improve the human condition over their 40 year or so in a working life And how it connects to them as individuals So that's impact on themselves and helping them find their ikigai find their reason for being Is just as important for us and this is about finding that intersection between what what you love What the world needs what you're good at and what you can be paid for in other words finding this intersection between fashion mission profession and vocation Which a lot of our students are looking for when they embark on a college education. It's about that deep sense of purpose And and experiences such as the global social impact fellowship help help find that sense of purpose We also believe very strongly in this this life of impact being Being built on the foundations of skill sets mindsets and portfolios And we believe in a mindset that education because if you can believe it if you can think it You can learn it and you can do it So those mindsets are just as important as the skill set and ultimately the proof is in the pudding And we want our students to develop strong portfolios of accomplishment as they go through their education And there's some of skill sets mindsets and portfolios helps our students develop a new identity develop their agency and self-sacrificing Reach a higher level of consciousness And as I said earlier find their sense of purpose and belonging in the world So when we talk of skill sets It is about teamwork and communication and then the world economic forum 2020 skill sets Such as complex problem solving and critical thinking and creativity and coordinating and emotional intelligence and so on When we think of mindsets, it's things like design thinking but not just design thinking whether they become experts at posted notes But also entrepreneurial thinking and systems thinking and seeing being able to see the forest and the trees A data-driven approach an evidence-based approach ethical decision-making which is incredibly important no matter what we do Taking the lead and playing by strengths and most important the one that is closest to my heart is about execution It's about getting stuff done. You know ideas don't solve problems We want to we want our students to get really good at taking ideas identifying opportunities and advancing them through the long winded paths Towards measurable sustainable impact getting stuff done And finally when it comes to portfolios, we are really interested not just in As students engage in these kinds of experiences We want them to not just think about personal growth, which is wonderful But also the professional recognition that they get from other external entities and how exactly do they contribute to advancing knowledge And advancing praxis and the point here is that while personal growth is internally calibrated The other three areas of advancing praxis knowledge and professional recognition Are externally calibrated and we want them to go out and get that external validation and boost their portfolios and prepare them For a world for a life of impact So how do we do that? We believe that it happens through real meaningful authentic projects My office runs a number of programs that span the university And that bring together students and faculty from each of our colleges And we do a lot of this work through through a summer program Called the mount of summer experience where we pay students to work on all kinds of open and interdisciplinary problems And every single team that continues that work into the academic year Through a through a set of creative inquiry courses So we don't invest in one semester two semester projects. We are interested in moonshots We are interested in three to five year long or even longer ambitious projects That can really move the needle on a really compelling topic So we have teams that have been working on 3d printed concrete and a team that is looking at And actually they've developed a performance that they are now doing across the region to educate people about About mass incarceration through social theater We have teams that are trying to understand the relationship between creativity and anxiety At the genetic level we have teams that are that are developing a VR tour for the leahad valley watershed For our local middle school that kids who are not able to travel can still understand and appreciate The watershed so it's we have about 30 or so projects in this whole ecosystem That are all focused on impact in the longer term We have teams that are working on low cost outlets They're focused on tactile organism to make our downtown area Which is Which is economically disadvantaged region more kind of attractive to small businesses and more walkable and more inviting So it's a really wide portfolio of projects and about 11 of them are part of The global social impact fellowship, which as the name says is all about global social impact So i'm going to quickly run you through What some of these ventures look like and then we'll try to kind of zoom out and see and you know Try to talk about what kinds of projects we find exciting and why So we have the team that is working on a two dollar diagnostic device for sickle cell trait West Africa 24 percent of the population has sickle cell trait and the diagnostic devices that they have right now Are incredibly expensive and hence inaccessible and so this is a two dollar test trip We are actually moving pretty close towards clinical trials This summer We have a team that is working on mushroom production systems to support circular Agriculture where the outputs of rice farming the rice husk can be used to grow mushrooms We started in Cambodia where with our non-profit partner world hope international We're now doing about 6 000 kilos of mushroom cultivation on a weekly basis So last year we did about 800 000 dollars in sales of these mushrooms That is now being kind of pumped back into the social enterprise to get more farmers up and running with mushroom cultivation And now we are trying to do exactly the same In in Sierra Leone a very different ecosystem and incredibly complex technical challenge Believe it or not growing mushrooms is not that easy But once you get it it's tremendous potential for profit and value creation, especially for women One of our flagship ventures is a test trip to screen vehement for unity tract infections and preeclampsia the test trips that are used in Sierra Leone right now cost about two dollars each and That's not affordable Sierra Leone has the highest mortal mortality rates in the world And so this is the two cent test trip to screen vehement for UTS and preeclampsia. Sorry So here the picture on the left here is Cassidy draws one of my awesome students who graduated in December And about two years back. She was the one who worked in the wet lab developing the test trip Along with the team of students from every college and then that team Just got regulatory approval for this device in November of last year and hired their first employees starting the first of december So Cassidy was able to take this test trip from understanding the challenge developing the product Negotiating with our render in china developing the distribution pathways We actually got a grant from Grand Challenges Canada. So thank you, Canada for for to study the distribution channels to get this test trip Out to the women who need it most you can get tested in the comfort and privacy of their homes And here's Nakesh Kamadi who's been working on this team for The last two years who's going to be graduating in May and moving to Sierra Leone For a year to work with our staff on the ground You get this test trip to three of the major districts with the population of over three million women So it's about scale and it's about building systems to enable that We have a team that's working on a documentary on safe motherhood and trying to shine the light on some of the innovations that are happening in Sierra Leone to celebrate them and to make others in the country aware of them and And use that to educate people and and increase, you know, awareness and understanding of maternal health issues We actually have a bunch of students that are working on Shell stable aspirational food products that can deliver micro nutrients such as vitamin a and zinc and iodine To kids because 40 of the kids under the age of five are stunted So we have a recipe with a taste testing with our 400 mothers and kids last summer And we're actually just about to Do actually launch the venture on the full 10 days is We have a team that's working on community-scale plastics recycling They've been working in the Philippines with The University of the Philippines and they've basically got a bunch of machines that can take plastic waste and convert them into Into all kinds of products. They have a first customer with the local restaurant group And they're they're working with other non-profits and trying to position that as a business in a box That entrepreneurs can take to convert waste into plastic You have a team that's looking at Diagnosing autism in a context and culturally appropriate manner in West Africa another enormous challenge lots of stigma and almost no services and Little understanding and awareness of the issue No diagnosis methods. So that's where we're trying to develop this tool of working closely with the health ministry and other non-profits Philippines, you know, we're looking at birthing practices again trying to improve maternal health Looking at copra value chains and coconut processing that that engages over 3.5 million farmers in Philippines alone and trying to make these supply chains more the value chains more efficient and design Products to increase the shelf life of coconut products And this is actually most of the students on this team are material science students are looking at this from a materials perspective Much more so than a process perspective The teams in kazakhstan working on air pollution issues. So we have a team working on smart city innovations Especially as the cities keep growing and urban migration, which is a reality How do you build up the city to work for some of the new Entrance into the city So this is in kazakhstan So it's a pretty wide portfolio of ventures and we you know, we keep growing We're looking at a bunch of new ventures in madagascar And hong kong and other parts of the world. So here's the deal across the board Here's some of the common project characteristics. The first is longer time horizons You cannot do any of this work in a semester or two it takes a long time And so all we everything we do they are multi-year ventures. We're not interested in summer romances We build relationships and the projects emerge from those relationships It's all about evidence-based approaches. And so we have rigorous research expectations I think every single team over the last year published at least one article And we expect every student every single student that is in the fellowship Where they make a one-year commitment at the end of which they pass the baton on to the next team to have at least one publication Reality of a university ultimately the our university and that's where we have a number of practical partnerships So as these as these innovations of many different types emerge, we have pathways to scale them up These ventures have high resource needs The fee funding can come from the university. That's a first five hundred dollars. That's a first thousand dollars But then we expect them to go out and get funding to advance the project forward There's no none of none of these projects are working on a single product or service It's an entire ensemble. You have to design the entire system So we are incredibly focused on systemic innovation and entrepreneurship And so here's an example of one of our one of our Ventures with really test strips Which i'm talking about earlier and if you look at this kind of set of concentric squares number one is our box of test strips All right That we spent three years or probably longer than that developing that getting it through regulatory approval But along with that we design 35 other artifacts Everything from the training regimen to get health workers to be able to use this product To data collection and monitoring systems to make our systems better But also to collect data on how many different are we actually screening are they ultimately getting the treatment treatment they need So we're trying to go from like end to end And make sure that we are actually not just selling test strips So we're actually saving lives right so you have to design that entire Ensemble with with a lot of different things and that's where you need a deep systems approach So this is about sustainable scalable impact the focus is on markets and systems The focus is absolutely not on people or communities, but of course systems Are made of markets are made of communities are made of people So we are interested at the systems level and not kind of at the people level or the communities level So we would be very kind of skeptical of using the s word the service word. This is not about service This is about social enterprise and systems innovation Um a lot of these ventures require large investments of time money energy And so we actually take a good bit of time to even identify What areas what projects we will pick up? It is we just don't pick up any projects. It's often six to nine months sometimes longer Before we even make a project open to students and bring them in So there's a lot of work that goes into finding these projects Very high expectations from students. We have three goals impact impact and impact. That's all that matters The impact on the ground comes first in terms of building independent independent self-sustaining systems the second goal would be research and publication and and not to fill a gap in the literature as much as democratizing knowledge as much as inspiring and And and supporting other innovators working on other similar grand challenges such as plastics recycling or maternal health or what have you So and then the third goal if after doing all of this if the students learn something wonderful, right good for them But the idea here is very simple if you set out to learn you'll learn if you set out to really create something systemically that does not exist You're going to learn so much more doing that So very select students and even more select faculty. So we spend a lot of time trying to find the right faculty and prep them And support them as they're working on these kinds of of ambitious projects In terms of the academic model Students apply to be a part of the fellowship. It's a one-year program They apply in the fall semester about we've been accepting about half the students They sign up for three credits in the spring semester between the fall semester Of which one third is a common workshop class for all the students across all the projects Where we equip them with the skill sets and tool kits and mindsets that they need to be successful with their projects We have several full day retreats and workshops on fieldwork preparation on research writing Um on understanding the context on making better observations. It's a pretty wide array of topics Those seminars are actually three hours a week. You know, it's pretty intense Um And then students can do a mountain top summer experience over the summer But they actually get paid a stipend to work on the project on a full-time basis for about eight to ten weeks And accelerate the project and then they engage in two to three weeks of fieldwork in country with our local partners and for Number of ventures for our employees that have been hired under the legal organization of our partners But work very closely with our team here in terms of the intellectual leadership for the venture And then they'll travel out to conferences and we expect them to you know talk about their work So, you know things like the asme impact engineer conference a great learning opportunity for them The global humanity and technology conference an excellent learning opportunity and we expect all teams to have at least one article As long as they're working on technology stuff But not all teams are right. We have teams working on all kinds of things and Given where I sit frankly, I don't care whether I love engineering But I don't care if something has technology or not. I want to see the impact and let's be realistic On how we will get there These are some of the topics for kind of the spring semester class I don't want to get into the details But it's a really wide array of topics that you spend a lot of time studying What do students really need to be successful with their ventures? And that's how these topics are identified and then delivered with a lot of There's a lot of active pedagogies and it's all about all about the project you learn something good for you That's how we approach this And then You know the steelwork in country pretty intense again We'll have for example We had 20 students in Sierra Leone And we had eight faculty that were working with them shoulder to shoulder And working with about 25 30 people on the ground that are partnering with us on all these different ventures um The fall class there's one thing I wanted to point out was that there are three teams One is ethical decision making which is something that we have a significant emphasis on because It's just incredibly important when you're working in this space or no matter what students choose to do We want them to be able to make good sound ethical decisions and make that part of you know every thought and every action So we drive that we drive grassroots diplomacy Which is about how do you get stuff done in a radically different cultural context in a harmonious manner? And then we have a significant emphasis on systems thinking and strategy and conceptual frameworks And and and and so on So in terms of demographics, we have 54 students in this program Pretty even mixed between arts and sciences and engineering with some students from business Some graduate students from education the students are overwhelmingly Undergraduate students 90 percent are undergrads again a pretty good mix between Junior senior sophomores and a few freshmen So this is where we have freshmen and third or fourth year phd students Who are all kind of coming together being a part of this team and advancing the venture forward in terms of gender significant Significantly more women than men If you look at ethnicity, we actually have an incredibly incredibly diverse group of students Of 54 students 25 are wide non-hispanic But we have a good mix of Asian-american multi-racial Hispanic and African-american students And finally 24 of our 54 students are first generation Um, and that's very important to us as a university. We are delighted that we've been able to To you know engage them in these kinds of ambitious multi-year projects All right. So how does funding work? You know the in-country expenses are covered by my office It comes to about a thousand dollars per student And we have we have a few donors and it's a few grants that cover it And then the students are responsible for their airfare visas and other things It comes to about 1500 to 2000 dollars and we have various Research centers and colleges chip in Especially to cover the high need students Which is a pretty significant number of the students who are part of this program have high financial needs So we've been very proactive in ensuring that that not having those finances is not a bad year to engagement Venture funding we get funding from a lot of different sources. So venture that has funded a number of our programs We actually just got a nsf career grant which where a significant emphasis is on some of our work in the Philippines We have you know a couple other nsf grant spending Epa p3. We just got a new central asian university partnerships grant to support our work in kazakhstan So it's a pretty wide array and our students are always working on on new proposals So we tell students why it's pretty important for us to get the right students and this is how we We we You know support. This is how we can frame our Our projects and you know tell students whether or not they should do this You know first is that this is not about just learning about it. This is about doing social impact Very real ventures real people real impact We're not so first of all this is big debate on do you design with and design for And I don't want to get in the semantics of it But the kinds of products we work on are seldom things that we can have direct engagement from students Or from community folks, uh, or even in the healthcare system So while they might not while they might not be A part of the design team they are absolutely part of the larger systems design team. So we work very very closely with governments and uh, and non-profits and un agencies and a lot of the requests like the nutrition project That was a request from the national director for nutrition Uh aim serial beyond who said hey, this is a real challenge and we don't have the expertise in this and can you This is something you can help us with and then we looked and we found the right faculty who had expertise and we you know worked on that project further And that is something we really try to get our students to understand It's about travel culture developing life skills learning how to How 20 people can fit into a single vehicle. It's a great life skill Working in multidisciplinary teams all our teams are incredibly multidisciplinary Um Becoming a global professional. So this is actually Hasan Koroma. Who's one of our first employees for the test trip project And we are negotiating a contract with him In this in this project In this photo an emphasis on scholarly research and publication Traveling to conferences and presenting your work Undergraduate conferences don't count. They have to play with the big boys and girls and uh, it goes through the peer review process and You know do rigorous work This is a great way for them to distinguish themselves a lot of us are looking at med schools and pulled rides and PhD programs and this really helps them Set themselves apart as you're applying to their dream schools A lot of our students actually pursue In fact focused careers We have students working everything from the state department to major foundations to their side of social enterprises And preparing students for those kinds of book careers focus on social impact is pretty important to us And finally it's also about fun Uh and lifelong friendships that you cultivate when you worked on something together 20 hours a week 24 seven in the field for two years um But most importantly it is about the three goals about the impact. It's about the impact and it's about the impact And you know that that piece of paper that you know, that's actually our regulatory approval for the for our test strips That's a magical document because all the students that were part of making this happen Would be you know, that's a game changer for them personally and for for the venture as a whole Um, so here's you know, fundamentally to kind of summarize the next next couple minutes Here's what we believe and some of the lessons learned first of all We absolutely take for granted interdisciplinary engagement 24 seven non-stop action and radical ownership in these ventures First do then learn because then you learn why you need to learn something So it's it's really hands-on Let's do stuff and then go and take a class in organic chemistry or fluid mechanics or whatever we need to make this device work It's about it's not about problems. It's about opportunities and we're always you go in with an opportunity mindset with an entrepreneurial mindset It's not about activities. It's about outcomes It's not about heroes. We don't want to be heroes our goal actually is self-obsolescence We want get stuff doneers So to give you a quick example one of our most successful venture Across the world in my previous life was low-cost greenhouses And now we have eight companies that manufacture and sell these greenhouses But you know, we don't own any of it We helped we worked with a lot of partners. We helped them get it Helped them get it Helped them get it started they run it You know, it's it's their venture and we are out of it So self-obsolescence is a goal across a lot of these ventures for bringing together our knowledge and their knowledge to fuse it To create sustainable value, right? So it's about getting stuff done It's not about products. It's about ecosystems. I talked about the ensemble You know, you can't just design one product. You have to design or co-create the whole system We don't want volunteers. You don't take volunteers. You want our students to come in as professionals that deliver We need convergence of concepts cultures disciplines epistemologies to make this happen It's not about one-offs. It's about scalable solutions life is short. Why do we focus on one-offs? Uh, we are not interested as or we're not as excited about about communities as much as you are about markets Because that's where we are expanding choice for people and people can always You know grow vegetables the way they always have or try using one of our greenhouses for which we will help them Get access to capital and double triple their income People can choose not to get screened for uti's or we can educate them on why they should get screened And how that can help save their baby's life and you know that education is transformative because no pregnant woman Is you know not going to get tested if their child's of their baby's life is in jeopardy, right? So it's about you know embracing markets and building scalable systems Passion is good, but you know passion doesn't solve problems. You need rigor. You need evidence Um ideation it all starts with an idea, but we really focus on execution The the technology product the idea is one percent the other 99 percent is is accountability structures business models You know finding the right talent And making stuff happen, right? It's so it's about building those systems. So we really emphasize execution We're not interested in episodic engagement. We're more excited about longer-term engagement in some of these places In all these places to ensure that we have those long-term impacts. It's not about jobs. It's about careers But most importantly it's about going into this space for the right reasons And that is something we stress with all our partners and you know the question is why do we do what we do? And there are many different philosophies you can you know go in with With a kind of personal development mindset You can go in with a view to save people Geez that's pretty scary. But you know, but that's what drives some people Uh, so there are a lot of there as many philosophies as there are people and for me personally It's about the ubuntu philosophy of iam because we are and we are in this world together and the question is we have certain You know education skill sets mindsets and how to diffuse it With what a lot of our partners have to improve quality of life for everybody And the best way and this is my last slide is Is a favorite philosophy comes from dr We've uh, dr Irvin Venkateswamy the founder of the urban eye hospital We talked about how when we grow in spiritual consciousness We identify ourselves with all that is in the world And there is no exploitation because it is ourselves. We are helping and it is ourselves. We are healing So that could be kind of the philosophical framework through which we approach this work And uh, that is something we you know start with when we engage new students and faculty But then it ends it always ends in three words get Self done and on that note, I will open it up for questions comments and expertise Thank you very much uh kanjan. Thank you very much for uh, that that great talk and overview of The work you guys are doing at lehigh. I think uh, obviously you ran very quickly through all the projects But I really like how you summarize sort of hey, these are these are the characteristics of the types of projects We are trying to do And I think uh, you know and seeing a lot of the the question and answers that people are are posting I think yana, you're going to help me with this But a lot of this is about sort of how are you changing the objective Of a university engagement with these types of projects Okay, so I think a lot of it a lot of the questions we're having to do with hey We've seen all these failures where people don't address systemic issues And what I took away was resonated with with me from your from your presentation was really this difference between Hey, we want students to learn we're going to send you over we're going to do the student project to Hey, we really just care about impact and if we care about impact we'll learn along the way Right and our students will benefit along the way So the primary goal is that impact and to do that we need projects that or you have found that you need projects that have these characteristics Right and so that's when you're looking at the system level. So I think a lot of the examples that uh When mcknight was talking about We're we're talking about like the sort of not understanding system level interaction. So maybe you understand the end user But you don't understand something that that's that's going to prevent impact I think maybe could you talk a little bit about how you guys define and measure impact? I know it's different for every project. And when you say hey objective is impact What does that mean to you? Sure, so So how we how exactly we measure it really depends on the project and frankly it also depends on the kind of resources We have to do the impact assessment because measuring impact is not cheap. It actually costs a lot of money to do it, right? So to give an example You know with this greenhouse project that we wrapped up two years back Our primary goal ultimately was to create an independent. Okay, let's everybody independent self-sustaining Social enterprise run by run by folks in Sierra Leone that manufacture and sell these greenhouses To farmers and educate them on how to transition from open air farming To greenhouse farming to improve their income to improve food security and to fight climate change stressors Okay, that was the goal. That's exactly what we've now been able to accomplish And so when during the first three years when us aid was funding this we were actually looking at indicators like How many greenhouses are we building which is a good short term output not an outcome? But then as he transitioned from year one to year two and three we said, okay for how many of these greenhouses have The farmers recovered their capital investments Which can only happen if they're actually successful in using these to grow more vegetables sell them and make it You know economically feasible, right? Where is the where are the vegetables that they're growing going? Are they just selling all of them? Is this supporting their own families and neighbors nutritional needs? So it was actually a pretty you know and we the other dimension to this was water savings because out of our work Well funding came from Securing water for food that was about securing water for food So we had a whole bunch of measures on tracking water usage. We were able to demonstrate how we can now grow Vegetables you can go go three to ten times as many vegetables at You know with 30 to 70 percent the 30 to 70 percent less water So those were it's pretty wide ranging You know measurement evaluation system Ultimately the impact there was in Sierra Leone alone We have Over a hundred greenhouses that have you know Still the tests of time that are being used and that have contributed to local food security and the folks who run it Have significantly improved their own and their employees quality of life And so look at the venture across the board. We have more than a thousand Greenhouses now that have transformed the lives of tens of thousands of farmers You know we have audited case studies done by USAID on a single farmer in Mozambique who with a $1,200 investment Was able to make a hundred thousand dollars more And there was like clear how that money trickled down to their employees who got a 25 percent bonus and how it improved their quality of life If you have the funding you can do that kind of deeper assessment Um, that's a long-winded answer if I can say one more thing You know you got to realize it when you're working with markets when you're working with systems There is no charity. There is nothing that we are you know giving away There is no play for there's no many go around farms which fails You know if that fails, you know right away that it's failing people are not buying your product So we focus on products that people are willing to pay for and then you can feed back very quickly Whether that it's working or it's not working with my test strips Are people willing to pay two cents or actually it's more like 10 cents when they purchase it Are they willing to pay 10 cents to get tested or not? We know right away if they don't pay and then we know how many women that got screened also got diagnosed Right, so it's a whole it's a different approach and a lot of the conversations I hear about this space Are about projects of engineers without border types typically That that are focused on going and implementing stuff where people are not directly investing In that product or service and look you'll need that in certain cases. I fully respect that But that's not the kind of work we do. This is more market-centric Yeah, yeah, no, I can't hear you That's because I muted myself on my phone and forgot. So sorry. Thank you gentlemen for bodyguard that I'm talking to myself so come down just um pulling on that thread a little bit and we've seen the the approach of Teaching engineers development economics are in this sector because of how important is to understand market-based solutions and and integrate that In your framework for the the program you went to quite quickly Do you touch on development economics or do the students in fact learn about those principles through the the projects themselves? So through the common workshop class We actually have a significant signal well not as much as I would like but no we do We probably have the class is focused on On development economics, but from an entrepreneurial perspective and not a political perspective right the politics is great That's how about how the world ought to be this is about how do we make change? And so in fact the very first class or the very first thing we do in the retreat is to look at different Ways in which you can create change the direct approaches indirect approaches We compare them contrast them and then we kind of suffice of what direction are we going to get and how will this work? And then a significant emphasis on on business models and how to build you know Ventures how to do movements and so on Um, I want to follow up. There was a question from uh, lisa exxon Uh, I believe from sweden and then and I actually wrote down the same question Seems like the importance of the team the relationships And the partner identification is crucial Throughout this month at your things you're saying like it takes nine months before I even decide whether I want to do this Right. Yeah, so can you talk to us about some of the ways or like strategies you use? to think about who should be on this team and How do I identify those right partnerships when constructing these ventures? Because you need the local partners that you're talking about that's your end goal, you know, you're building this all in, right? Yeah, so I think it all starts with the local partners and finding partners with a similar philosophy of engagement is absolutely critical So i'm a very market-centric person system-centric person and I would not Be I would not be a good partner for a nonprofit that is looking to get Uh students to go and paint walls or looking to kind of build a structure. That's just not going to work, right? so finding partners that have that Have a similar philosophy of engagement for me. It's about technology based or non tech But market based and it's a systemic approaches, right? That mindset is critical You build those partnerships and then use this as you spend more time on the ground All kinds of opportunities bubble up So we talk to a lot of people all the time in the countries that you're trying to work in it is not episodic I've been working with Sierra Leone for seven eight years now And we have an excellent network from federal ministers to non-droppers to UN agencies people on the ground And then we are constantly looking for alignment between some of those expressed or not not expressed needs And faculty expertise But most importantly needs for which we believe we can actually design and deliver a sustainable solution along with our partners And that's where we spend those six or nine months to see. Okay, if we were to develop this muffin With these micronutrients, how do we get it out to the people if we design a two dollar sickle cell diagnostic device Who is part of a coalition to build a system where every single baby born in the country? Is screened for sickle cell right when they're born, right? We're talking about those impact pathways and the students actually be that they come later If the dream is grand enough if the dream is compelling enough the students will come Yeah, um, so so you haven't you have a question and I have I have another one that falls on that That's that's great. I think please go ahead. Jesse. I think we're coming to time. So I just want to be Yeah, so let me just ask one last question. So I think just to summarize what what I understood from that I think what you're talking about is if we have these long-term relationships We're not identifying a product opportunity or a project or a systemic intervention What we're doing is saying, okay, let me find partners that are local that have the same engagement philosophy I do and then with them try and understand the system and identify impact we want to create Yeah Yeah, and if I may I saw a question here from Glenn McKnight and he said, how do you avoid the criticism of white failures and I'll kind of try to combine these two points and that is Oh god, I lost my train of thought. Sorry, Jesse. What was your Oh my god I think that's a good thing that Saying like if you build these relationships, then you have a team And yeah, it's a multinational team. Yeah, you have everybody there But it's not you coming and delivering a technology and leaving You're trying to create this partnership that then's going to identify social ventures possible social ventures that you could create That was my understanding Yeah, absolutely. And so those needs and opportunities emerge from the context with local partners and they are the ones saying You know, can you can we work together on this? Right, so I'll go back to, you know Philosophically, it was this code by Gustavo Esteba who said that if you come to help don't come But if you see my struggle as your struggle come and live to let's live together And we might find something to work on and that's the way we think about it So this whole you know all this question about white savior complex is actually moot, you know When we are working in these places all the people we work with are incredibly Excited to work with us shoulder to shoulder We're not white saviors and for the record 24 of my 54 students are white the other 30 are not even white, right? So this is we got to realize that we live in a very different Very different world and look we do have different kinds of resources to bring to the table and if we can You know make something happen with those Why not?  I think that there are Just answered one question. There are First at least several projects. I think when he was talking about evaluating impact audited How to extend by independent ones that's generally driven by the funding and funders in my experience So the funders like you have to have a relationship with the funder where you say listen I think that if you give extra money You can be assured if that's valuable to you That what we did is actually working and not measured by us, right? Again, no usad does that a lot And and gates certainly does that Depends on which which funder type you're working with and certainly there are types of projects Which lend themselves more to that than others and I think Conjons work certainly certainly does Yana, I wanted to pass it off to you. First of all, I wanted to thank conjon again This is a great vision and and you gave a lot of practical details to help the rest of us try and learn from that I love how you generalize it Often I see just these lessons from like a very one case study And I'm trying to understand how does that apply to me and I think you gave us Give us a lot to work with so thank you very much for that. Yana. I wanted to pass it off to you to sort of Wrap it up. Thank you. Thank you so much. Jesse. Thank you conjon I really appreciate you taking the time and thank you for the good discussion One thing I would like to note and I know there was a lot of good chatter about, you know How do we ensure that we are addressing needs and understanding of what the context of the communities and You know that we're serving conjon spoke about that and he kind of glossed over it really quickly because there's so much Content there like you noted that you guys talk about human center design techniques as part of your workshop For those of you who are not familiar with that This is really about unpacking needs and we recently hosted a webinar that I shared the link on the chat about What is human center design and how that helped you to also understand the needs before jumping in with some sort of solution So just for reference that's included in in the deck So again, thank you so much gentlemen for joining us today. I wanted to give a shout out for our coming presenter in march We will have Nathan johnson who is the assistant professor at arizona state university speaking And we encourage all of you to join. There's going to be really great Insights on on his researcher gender during that event again these these the the nature and Of the seminars is for discussion is to learn from each other and what we're doing And we're really excited to hear your thoughts on this if we didn't cover your questions Or you have ideas or you want us to to give us feedback on the seminar series more generally We invite you to reach out to us The emails are listed there and with that I'd like to thank you all for your time today. Good morning. Good evening. Good afternoon Wherever you're joining us from today. Thank you so much and let's let's keep the conversation going Bye everyone Thank you folks