This is going to be presented by Mr. Ravindar Thakkar, Managing Director and CEO of Vodafone Idea. He is the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Vodafone Idea Ltd, India's leading telecom service provider, effective 19th August, 2019. Ravindar's professional experience of 25 plus years spans across cultures and geographies, building a strong track record in the field of business strategy, business planning and development in the ICT sector. Associated with Vodafone Group since 1994, he has worked in leadership positions with several operating companies of Vodafone in multiple markets across the world. So ladies and gentlemen, it's a pleasure for me to invite him on the screen and I would like all of you to join me with virtual applause. A very warm welcome to you, sir. Thank you so much for being here. Looking forward to your session. Very good. Well, thank you very much. I hope you can see and hear me fine. We always have to make sure in these virtual sessions that the connections are good. It's a great pleasure to be here and frankly, the topic that we are talking about today, which is connecting the next 500 million, is an immensely important topic. I'm sure it's important to all the marketeers and all the companies who are attending this session because it obviously is a big number and provides a great opportunity to all the connected people to understand. But it's also an important opportunity for our business, the telecom business, which is to say, well, how will we get there? How will we make sure that we are enabling these connectivity? And as we know that the future is all in digital, it's all in the connected world. I think this becomes even a more important topic. So without much ado, let me get started. I think I have a presentation. I don't know if that can be put up or not, but hopefully. Here we go. So next slide, please. So as I was talking about, I think there's an enormous potential of connecting the next 500 million customers into the digital ecosystem. But before I get started, I think it's important to think about it. But what is the digital ecosystem? What is broadband connectivity, which is the first part of the digital ecosystem is to be connected to the internet? Well, in India, for all practical purposes, it's mobile. It's mobile broadband. And I say that is that if you look at the numbers, the sheer numbers today, there are approximately 700 million, let's say 4G or broadband connected customers, which are there in mobile. And then there's about 20, 22 million. The number changes a little bit on the fixed side. So while the fixed penetration continues to grow, it's a fraction of what the mobility number is. So I think the interesting thing here, again, for people who are thinking about how this can be used in the future, for most people, the first time they experienced internet and for the first time they experienced, let's say broadband connectivity, it happened on their mobile phones. And guess what? This is not going to change in the future. In the future, in fact, it'll become more and more smartphone and mobile driven. Now, if we talk about that, in that, if you look at it, we are still, we've made a lot of progress, but we still have a long way to go in that area. So think about it, smartphone penetration today in India is at 53%. Now, probably all of us who are in this event have all smartphones, everybody that we know has smartphones. But even if you look at all of those, actually you realize that there's 53% penetration and out of that, only 46% are connected to broadband connectivity, which is 4G penetration. So by any stretch of the imagination, if you think about the future and where the future is going, there's a long runway ahead of that. So there's no reason why this 4G penetration will not go from 46 to 50 to 60 to 70 to 80 and so on. And if we compare ourselves to any global peers, whether you're talking about immerged markets or even emerging markets, we still have a long runway to go. And if we think about it, when we were doing voice connectivity, we thought maybe at some point, 50% penetration would happen, 70 will happen. It went to 50, 70, 80, 100, and then it went over 100. Well, for sure, 4G connectivity and broadband connectivity will get to 100%, which means that we have still a long runway. And that's where bulk of the next 500 million customers are going to come from. So let's go to the next slide, please. So why is this happening? And it's a little bit of introspection about what has led to even this level of penetration. Actually, the straight and simple answer to that is that India is becoming digital. And certainly in the times that we are living in the pandemic time, that has accelerated even further. So think about it from a government perspective, all the government initiatives, when we talk about Aadhar, for example, unique identity program, 1.2 billion people have Aadhar cards, Aadhar is a digital identity. That means it doesn't exist physically, it only exists on people's mobile phones. Now that is, of course, by far the largest project of this type in the world, but think about it, it's done in India, it's all digital. And those type of things have led to acceleration. And start talking about certain type of applications, whether it's WhatsApp with 400 million users, of course, Facebook and Google and so on. For many of these digital companies, the largest customer base usually ends up sitting somewhere in India. That means the adoption of this has really, really taken place. If I look at another simple stat, which is not on my charts, but frankly, it's very interesting to think about is, if you look at the amount of data that's consumed by Indians every month, is 12 gigabytes per subscriber per month, per customer per month. That is the largest amount on mobile anywhere in the world. So already, even with the smaller set of customers that we have, there's actually a huge amount of consumptions. That being people are consuming data, they're connected, they're using the services, they're using it as entertainment and it has become an integral part of their lives. So to say that India is becoming digital, actually we've come across the journey and it continues to be digital. But then what's the future? Where is it going to come from? Like, you know, not surprisingly, the next 500 million customers, a large number is going to come from rural India. If you look at penetration today in the urban areas in the cities, it's already well over 100%, other than 34%, whereas in rural teledent states, 59%. So really a long way to go. I think the other part is that, as I mentioned earlier, there's 450 million customers who don't have 4G devices, who don't have smartphones. Of course, over time all of them will actually end up getting smartphones and will get connected or most of them will end up getting smartphones. So the opportunity certainly will come if I was to summarize more from rural India and it'll come from obviously migration of people from 2G to 4G from feature phones over to smartphones. I think that's really the big opportunity that will exist. Now, like most things, if you have this opportunity, well, why is it not happening fast enough? Can it be made faster? And so let's go to the next slide and I'll talk a little bit about what do we think are the barriers that are there to this adoption? I think one thing we have to remember is that while again, for most of the people who are connected to this conference, especially because we're all connected digitally and we're coming through this virtual medium, for us, this is something that we do every day. But when you look at a wider spectrum of India, actually there are many people who don't really know what does it mean to get into digital or become digital.  Even more importantly, what does it mean to become digital? It's not that straightforward. People don't necessarily understand it. And that certainly is a big, big challenge. And somehow as marketeers, as we have to think about the future, I think it's something that we have to address. Of course, there's always a challenge on disposable income, which is I'm used to spending money on certain items. How do I make sure that I move my spend from one to the other? I think that becomes an important part. There's always the issue of, while smartphones are more expensive, how do I invest in that? I think this is an opportunity and I'll talk a little bit more about it, but certainly to some extent for certain segments of people, this is certainly a barrier to adoption. I think one of the other things that we tend to, let's say underestimate is, for many people whose lives are going on right now, you wake up every day, you go about your work, your life is fine, it's the things that you need to do are happening, suddenly now, to say that why do I have to go digital? Why do I have to do this thing differently? Why do I have to make my bills payment online when I can walk into any store and make the payment? Or when I go to a store to buy something, why should I pay digitally when it's just easy for me to pay and I'm used to paying, in fact, I feel more comfortable paying in hard currency or physical currency. Now these habits, these, let's say, ways of working or ways of going about your life, these are barriers that are quite significant and they get harder and harder as you're trying to get people to move on to those. And I think people need to find a great incentive to say why should I do that? I should see a benefit and I think that's important. And we'll certainly talk more about it but I'm sure that this is something that all of you spend your time thinking about as you and each one of your businesses try to say, well, how do I get more people to go digital? Then I think there's always been the breadth and the diversity of India. I think local language is always an issue. It should never be underestimated and I think it's very, very important that we actually look at that every time we think about services. And then literacy is an issue. Again, the people that we usually mostly interact with these are not issues, but as you go to rural India, literacy is an issue. And there again, we have to make sure that the services are built in a certain way that allows for people who don't have a high level of education. Don't necessarily know, let's say mainstream languages, how do they get around that? I think that's important. And then last, which is again, we have to always look at this to say, well, why do we need it? What's the purpose? I'm perfectly fine. I don't really need this service. And I think it's upon us to pull these people along to say, well, here's the reason why you should adopt this thing. So there are certainly these barriers of adoption. If you move on to the next slide, and then I talk specifically about, well, what are some of the things that we could do in that space? I think the four important buckets of area that we can work are the ones that I've listed here. And I think the first thing is, if we're gonna talk about, well, what is digital for these next 500 million, and how does it work? I think there are two things that have to come very much in there, which is first of all, we have to build services. We have to think about digital from a very inclusive perspective. We have to think about to say that this is something that we should, when we build something, we should build for the entire 1.3 billion population. So as we start thinking about services, it should be all inclusive. We should think about this is service that will have to reach that type of a user base. And then of course, we have to spend time in literacy. We have to teach people. Again, if you don't know how does digital work, it's easy for us to say, well, it's intuitive, it's obvious, but it's not the case for everybody. And I think we have to make sure that people get trained. There are barriers, there are fears, there's some type of agitation, and I think we need to make sure that we spend time as a country and each of one of us in our industries to make sure that we push forward in digital inclusion and literacy. The second part is affordability. That is a big category. I think the affordability has to be such that not only is it affordability, I'm talking about specifically in our business, which is around how do you get smartphones, how do you get connected to 4G network. But again, for each one of you, as you think about your businesses, I think we have to think apart about affordability. And India always tends to be where the physical world has always been very, very driven by affordability. It has been driven by price sensitivity. We have to think about digital in that sense as well. Sometimes digital actually has an advantage there, but we have to make sure that we deliver that to the customers. Then I think the other part is to have this adoption. It is our responsibility as industries to create an ecosystem. Again, as I talked about, if we are trying to get people an incentive to go to digital, well, what are we doing to make it easier for them to join? What are we doing? What kind of an ecosystem are we building around in terms of support? And actually a big part of the ecosystem is to really make it easier for people to, how do I get help in a particular place? How do I make sure that actually if I run into a problem, there'll be somebody there to help me? Because the biggest, sometimes the fear is I go down this path, I'm not talking to a person, I'm interacting with a digital app or something, and if something goes wrong, I don't know who to get help from, and I don't wanna go there. I think we have to build that ecosystem in there. And then last but not least is this has to be a sustained relationship. It cannot be a one-time interaction. It has to be something that changes a consumer's life permanently so that they become digital and they remain digital and this has to be a sustained relationship. So as we think about in our business, and I'm sure all of you guys think about it in your businesses as well, each one of these four categories have to be there for us to actually have an ongoing, longer sustained relationship with the next 500 million customers. Next slide please. I'll briefly talk about some of these. I already mentioned them, but of course, digital inclusion and literacy is very, very important. And I have to say, I think the government has done a very good job of this inclusion, especially when digital services are being developed, the national digital services, as I mentioned, starting from Abhara card, but even the Jandhan schemes and other things, the financial disbursements that take place, there is more and more incentive for people to go digital. And I think it has more and more of government services also become digital than actually incentive for people to become important and digital inclusion becomes important. We've listed here two initiatives that we do here at the Vodapone Idea Foundation. We've done a very large project in regards to financial literacy, which is called Jalu Ginnika, where large number of people, almost one quarter of people have been impacted by that and any significant amount of these are women, where financial literacy and making people understand this financial area has been very, very good. In the education sector, there's been Jig Yasa, which is again, teachers are using the technology to teach students and this has been implemented in over 2000 schools. And again, it's another part of inclusion as well as literacy. And I would encourage each one of you again in your businesses to think about how the digital inclusion can be done to make sure that your services that you are trying to offer are more inclusive and provide education to your potential customer base. And certainly as we think about this thing, since I mentioned more and more of the customer base will come from rural India, we have to think about bringing these programs that address specifically that particular segment of potential customers. Next slide, please. The other area is around affordability and access. I sort of mentioned so specifically again, for each of your industries, you have to think about it, but I'll give you some examples of what we do. As I mentioned earlier, smartphones are a very important element of connecting people to broadband and that's usually their first digital experience, their first internet experience is through a smartphone. Now, as we all know, smartphones are not all created equal. Frankly, if you spend a significant amount of your disposable income buying a smartphone and in some cases, even if you spend 5,000 rupees, which is actually a very low and smartphone, actually as it turns out, the experience is not very good. So sometimes it turns you off, you go make a significant investment and then you find out actually the experience on that device is not very good.  So I think it's important that we make sure that the first experience that people have is positive. What that means is that the program that we at Motorphone Idea, for example, have been working on is I would rather have a situation where let's try to get a good device to a person, but maybe it's a refurbished device. So the experience is good as opposed to a new device, but it's very cheap and to some extent maybe it doesn't have the great experience. Let's see if we can get people refurbished devices which are certified and under warranty, but actually they can be bought at a cheaper price. Also, another thing that we've done is really around providing people an ability to buy slightly higher end devices which will provide a great experience but buy them in installments and go through financing. We've hooked up with several NBFCs in which actually those services can be taken or devices can be bought in installments but they provide a great experience. So those type of things that we have to keep on working on. Accessibility, again, we are the lowest pricing market in the world, data pricing market in the world. So I wouldn't say access to 4G is at all an issue here in India but certainly again for each one of your services you have to think about as you get people onto your digital platforms how much accessibility and affordability do you provide for them to be able to get onto that fairly easily? So this is an important element as well. Next slide please. Building an ecosystem, again, very, very important. And I think this is in some ways it is absolutely, absolutely critical. There's plenty of work that's going on for urban and millennials and people who have high disposable incomes. For those people, there's lots and lots of digital services that keep on popping up. And many times, the focus of many of our companies and actually it's easier to do that is to focus on that group. But if you, as I mentioned, start thinking about rural which is where the next 500 million are going to come from if you start thinking about seniors if you start thinking about women especially in rural areas if you start thinking about farmers if you start thinking about those type of segments actually you have to realize that we have to really if within this ecosystem we have to address it in a very, very different manner. We have to come in a different manner that these services are much more relevant they're much more adaptable for those segments and what has worked for the, let's say the urban and the young and rich doesn't apply to those guys. And we have to think about it in a different manner. And again, I would encourage for each one of you from your industries as you think about it try to come up with different approaches but this ecosystem is absolutely critical because while we can provide, let's say connectivity we can give a smartphone in their hand but at the same time, if they are not able to connect with the right ecosystem, I think all of that this would be unsuccessful. Next slide please. And last but not least is really around even if you make them have some transactions it has to be a sustained relationship. And I think it cannot be transactional or short-term because otherwise you lose them quickly. And I think within that, one of the things that is I think very important is as more and more people come online and they become digital, we will see that the concerns on privacy, security, confidence of, is this service going to work? This is my hard earned money. Am I going to be abandoned? And building that trust becomes significantly more important. These next set of 500 million customers that we are talking about are actually much more concerned about these issues because they deal purely in the physical world today. And they are much more control of those elements than any of us are on the digital world. And I think they have this barrier which says unless I feel confident, I will not join. So again, as we go and try to connect these next 500 million, actually building this area of concerns or addressing their areas of concern or privacy, security, trust, et cetera, become even more and more important. And then once you address those and you have the right ecosystem, you can have a sustained relationship going forward which I think is absolutely critical for success in terms of getting these people and working with them to do it. Next slide please. So if I was to summarize, there is a huge opportunity. I, and I can tell you, and as was introduced by the moderator earlier as well, I have seen this journey in many, many countries. Some of them develop markets, some of them developing markets. There is no reason why this will not happen in India. It will happen. What we can do is we can do several things to actually make this journey accelerated to get this faster. So instead of doing this in the next five years, we can do it in four, we can do it in three, but we need to do certain things and we need to directly address the barriers that I talked about as to how we can quickly address those barriers and get people into, into this digital digital ecosystem and affordability, relevance, building the ecosystem and building that trust are actually one of the most important things that we can do. And I think if we all work together to do that part and we work together as a unison, I think we can do that. It's great for consumers. It's great for India. And it's actually great for business. And I hope we got a chance to do all of this together. Thank you very much. I hope you found it interesting and good luck to each one of you. A virtual applause for Mr. Ravinder Thakkar. Thakkar for his presentation and he clearly talks with a lot of experience and gravitas having seen the development as we rightly said across various markets and some of those trends will come to India and dare I say that we will leapfrog as a nation. I mean, we're a country that this survives and this survives. We're not an all country. And you know, a lot of things which may seem oxymoronish happen at the same time. Thank you, Mr. Thakkar for talking to Exchange for Media and thank you for that very comprehensive presentation. Let me ask you my first question. Mr. Thakkar for the last 12 to 15 years, I as an entrepreneur and as somebody who watches the technology media and telecom space, the TMT as we would call it, FAANGs as we call it now, the lines between what is content, what is a communication tool and what is a commerce device up blurring. So what are your predictions for true convergence as we move forward? In the last eight months, we've seen convergence of a different scale and just give you a data point from the US. I don't have data on the UK market but e-commerce from 2000 to 2020 was 16% of the overall retailing but in 2020, from 16, it went to 26% in a matter of eight months. So 16% in 20 years and 10% in eight months. That kind of leapfrogging and adoption is happening. So tell us what do you see happening in India? You alluded to it in your presentation but give us some more granularity and some more prediction. Yes, Dr. Vakthar, thank you first of all for your comments earlier. And then I think it's absolutely a very, very timely and a very, very interesting question. I have to say that I was in another actually speech the other day and actually not long ago, I was talking to my employees as well who were actually asking me a very, very similar question about what did I think? And I have to say that I think there are two things that we have learned in the last, let's say eight months or nine months of this pandemic that we faced in India. And I think the first thing that I would say is that any change that we thought was anything that we thought was not possible. Let's start with that. Anything that we thought was not possible actually you realize that it is possible and it can be done. And this conference that we're having there is no way a year ago if we would have even remotely thought about the fact that forget about whether we will do it or not if we had ever thought, is it even possible? Actually, we couldn't have imagined that this was possible. We would always say, well, if there's no way it's possible the technology is not going to be there. The capabilities don't exist. People don't have access to broadband. They don't have devices. This is too much, it probably doesn't exist. All of these things. And you realize actually all those issues and challenges were in our minds. And in many cases, what we are finding out is that in this new ecosystem and in this new world that we live in I think what we jokingly says, we know technology is the answer. You have to figure out what is the question. And you almost have to go the other way which is to say if you can think of a problem I know the solution and the solution always is the technology that we have today. So technology has become so pervasive and in some ways that we realize that technology is so advanced and in many cases it's more advanced than even our mindset and thinking. So many times actually what is holding us back is our mindset of thinking rather than actually, rather than to say that technology is not there. Because many times we used to always make that excuse that technology is not there. Actually technology is there. What we have to do is we have to open up our mind to say how do I, what is the problem that I'm trying to solve? I think that becomes an important part. The second part I think which is very, very critical is that anything we thought had a certain scale or a certain road growth rate at which it will go actually that acceleration has taken place significantly. Anything that was you think could go at a growth rate of X that's gonna go many, many times faster. And I think now that we've experienced that pace we have to get ready that pace of change will be faster. The numbers that you talked about which is the growth is gonna come a lot faster than what we are used to. What that means is that the divergence between so what was happening was that there was slowly a divergence building between digital and non-digital world but it was a slow divergence. We were all part of it. It's a little bit of that old adage of if you're in a part of boiling water or you're sitting in there you're in there, you don't realize but slowly it's boiling. Actually this pandemic has led to the acceleration of that. What that means is that the gap has opened up much more significantly and will continue to open up which means as businesses, as service providers, as people who are trying to address we have to adapt to that pace because the pace will continue. So in my mind I think the two biggest things that are that trends that we have to think about is we know the answers, technology, what is the problem that you're trying to solve and we have to read very critical about what exact problem we are trying to solve. And then the second part is the pace of change is very good. The good news is the technology is there. There are many, many problems that we can solve. We just have to know what we're trying to solve. Fantasticly put. I would say I would add to what you said. You know, never say never. Well, that's one of the lessons that we learned in our talk in times. And mind is like a parachute. Only works when it's open. Randy Posh, author of the last lecture said that the brick walls in our minds are there to be broken. We just have to be willing to climb them or break them. So you're absolutely right. I think the last eight months we've learned many lessons and as you rightly said, you know, never say never what you say is not possible is more often than not possible. Let me move on to my second question. Is telecom industry and connectivity has possibly helped all of us survive? So COVID has given a new lease of life to telcos, okay? Telcos are the issues which I will not go into which are well known and they were facing challenges from a regulatory framework. They were facing challenges from an inconsistent policy. Looks like some of those have been resolved and from a growth in the market needs standpoint, the telcos stepped up the game and in the last eight months made whether it was education of children possible, whether it was consumption of content possible and most importantly, just doing, you know, your office work with that connection that is so important to be able to do a virtual meeting, a virtual event to seek that consultation from the doctor for telemedicine, all that happened. Now, tell us, 2021, you see a God of God in some way while we know the devastating effects of Corona in every part of the world and even in India. For telcos, Corona was a positive impetus. Tell me in 2021, some of these habits of virtual meetings of utilizing digital technology to be able to do things that we would do physically stay, but a lot of things that we are doing is because of compulsion and human beings tend to forget and go back to their habits. What do you think will telcos do to innovate on their own in 2021? I think the, first of all, I think what you said is absolutely correct. You know, we went into a lockdown as we know what we went into a lockdown very quickly and very short notice. And suddenly we found ourselves in a place where, you know, two days from now we're gonna be in a lockdown. If I remember correctly, it was something like that, two days, three days, some very short notice. And it's a public health emergency, only essential work can be done, otherwise you stay at home. And you suddenly realize, you know, we as a business, how do we make sure that actually we provide our service? I mean, ours is a very, very large distributed business. Forget about how we sell business, but more importantly, how do we make sure that actually continues to work? You know, we have almost, you know, 200,000 physical sites across the country which need to operate, which need, you know, you need diesel to fill them up. Things go that bad, you have to go fix them, you have to change things, you have to do these things just to keep them running and working so that actually people can have connectivity and so on. And guess what, you know, it took us a short while, but frankly, we were able to deal with the situation. And again, necessity is the mother of invention. You get into this thing where it's necessity, you have to do it. And what that means is suddenly, we found ways to do it. I mean, just like we had our health workers, you know, and COVID warriors, we had our essential services people who were supported by the government by giving them permits so they can go into the right places, make sure that connectivity is provided. And frankly, in many cases, when you are in this pandemic and you're in lockdown, connectivity became your only lifeline. That was the only way to be connected with the rest of the world to find out what's going on outside. It becomes essential. And I think we managed to do that. And I think it's a very, very strong testament, not only to the industry, but obviously for us, you know, for our employees. And it's also a testament to the resiliency and the quality of the networks that we had built. Because, you know, we provide these services, we're not mandated to be provided, to be, for it to work with this quality. Actually they work with the quality, which is crazy because our data usage, our capacity exploded and we were able to add capacity while we were in the lockdown and to be able to explode. So it was very, very strong effort by the industry and our team members in this challenging time. Now to your other sort of, you know, comment and question about, well, what happens as we come out of this? And I'm sure at some point we will come out of it. I think some of the things that have changed are irreversible. They're irreversible because we have learned, as I talked about earlier, we have learned that it's possible. It can be done. Actually sometimes it's even more effective. And when you learn that, you understand that, and you can make it more effective, actually why not? I mean, the thing that I talked about, just working from home, every, let's say, any serious business was always thinking about how do I enable working from home? And there was always a little bit of a trickle, you know, and even in our business, we used to talk about, we should let people work from home a little bit more, and we were enabling them, we were doing them, we were doing, and we were in this business. But the tap was opened up slowly and slowly and slowly and slowly over the years, as opposed to suddenly now, we're 100% of the people are working from home. And guess what? As I said, even in the most stressful environment, the business ran, people delivered, people need to get on the field, did it, people need to do from home, did it, people who needed to work remotely, they all did it. So I think this is irreversible. Dr. Baka, I mean, it is very clear, this process is irreversible. Now, some things will go back, but frankly, I think we have lasted in this for too long. And I think our ability and our belief system has changed enough that I think these things will continue on my mind for a longer period of time. And I don't think that we can just say overnight, as if things go back, we go back to the old habits, I don't think we are there, and I don't think that will happen. Fantastic, you're absolutely right. In the way you put it. And again, one of the things, Mr. Thakkar, is we can't predict the future. We don't know what will happen. The time has shown that there are some things we can predict, but there's a lot that we can't. So looking ahead for too long may not even work. I mean, it's good to have a plan, but it's good to also have a plan B and a plan C, and we have to be able to respond like you've done. My last question before I let you, we're in November 2020. If I talk to you 12 months from our weather for business world or exchange for media, what would have Mr. Ravinder Thakkar achieved for Vodafone idea over the next 12 months? What's your wish list? What's something that you hope it happens? And of course, hope is not a plan. I'm sure you have a plan to make that happen. No, we of course have a plan, but I think for your audience and I think for the team that I'm talking to, I think there are two things that are absolutely critical and important than our top of my priority. As you know very recently, we have launched a new brand, a unified brand called B. This is as far as I know, the only brand that has been launched during this pandemic, it has been launched, it was created, it was an inspiration and it was done in this pandemic during this lockdown period. And it is a digital first brand and despite default, it's a digital first brand, and it has been very, very successful so far. Now, a year from now, I would hope that we can actually not only continue to deliver on the brand promise or deliver on the basis on which we build the brand and our customers experience that, because one of the key things that we've said is that this new brand, this V, the latest brand, while it's built on the legacy of two very beloved brands, BotoPhone and Idea, actually this takes us to the next step. This takes us to a place where actually we go from not only we connect you, actually we help you thrive in this world. So this pandemic was a perfect time for us to bring this brand out to say is that while we're connecting you, we know that this connectivity is very important. Actually we enable you to thrive in this world, get ahead, do what you need to do in a manner that is actually sustainable and suitable for your lifestyle. So the whole concept of our brand is how do I help the customers thrive? How do I promote them? And so our tagline is together for tomorrow. This is what we are trying to do. So I hope a year from now, when we get a chance to talk about this thing that actually we are delivering on that promise and actually our customers experience that and in a way we become a key enabler because as you said, you can't predict the future. And most of the time we can't go back to the old ways. So as we see that this becomes a more of a lifestyle for us in the future, we are the key enabler as an essential service. But as a key enabler, how can I support our customers and the users of this service to thrive better in business and be better tomorrow and have a better life? And I think that's what we're trying to achieve. And I hope that we are able to do that in a better manner that we do today. Thank you, Mr. Takkar for talking to Exchange for Media. We're delighted and I'm sure our audiences have benefited from your insights and your vision for the future. I'm sure your brand that you launched during these difficult times will actually thrive as we move away from Corona and this shall too pass. So we wish you luck and I'm sure we'll be able to make that in the lives of the customers use service and the communities that you strive to make better. So we wish you luck and thank you for talking to Exchange for Media. Thank you very much. Thank you, thank you so much, Mr. Takkar and Dr. Batra, thank you for joining us. Wonderful conversations and great insights for our audience. So thank you once again, both of you.


Hey, hey nettoes, why are you still looking at me? I'm gonna give you another real good video, and now today, we're gonna be rated as a nine! Oh, it's been so long! It's been so long! But today I was having a shower, and I decided to just listen to SF9, and whilst I was doing that, I was like, wait a minute, I haven't done SF9 video in so long. And now, today we're gonna be doing one. Ha ha! That's the conclusion I came up with in my shower. I was like, I gotta do SF9 video! Ay, ay, ay, ay! And I am sorry I'm wearing a beanie, and a cape, my hair is just a mess, okay? So, I'm covering it up all the way, except for the fan. So I decided today that we will react to SF9 on crack, because why the hell not, man? It's been so long! It's been so long! So let's just see some fun moments of SF9 to bring everyone joy, you know? You know, right? So, yeah, I think that this gets straight into this. I'm freaking excited! I hope you guys are doing well today. Ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ah, this song is good. Ooh! Hoeyoung! Rowoon! Chan! Oh my goodness, seeing their faces.  There's Zuhro. It's my ultimate bias! It's Chan and the Macanese being the king.  Zuhro, it's my ultimate bias, but that one is sneaking up and might take over that spot soon. La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la. Look at them! Ooh, it's on the rapper, right? What's this mystery? They look the same. I thought they were brothers. They're first as well. Does they make twins? Shit, sisters. I'm a twin? Oh my God! Chan, you're... Oh my. But man, oh man, that was good. That was good seeing some easy-mind in my life again, man. On YouTube, like, there's a second one by dear fantasy. Am I subscribed to this person? I am not. Oh, I am now. Oh, man. I love Isif now. I just love them. They're still my freaking favorite boy group. Just look at them, man, they're up there. Every time I leave my room, I'm like praising Isif now and Preston. I'm like, oh my God. But you guys, that's just gonna be all for this video. I hope you guys did enjoy. And if you guys did, then definitely show some support by leaving a like and also comment down below how much you freaking love Isif now and also subscribe to guys on the new YouTube channel because there's gonna be more Isif Now videos coming to you guys. I'll try and do one of these weekly Isif Now video. So definitely subscribe for that. And yet other than that, I hope you guys have a great day and just keep on smiling. And I'll see you soon. Squaw.


All right, we'll get afternoon everyone So I am very very pleased to be with you all and to be able to moderate this panel of leaders who are currently Youth apprentices or have graduated from youth apprenticeship programs completed youth apprenticeship programs These are the folks from whom we are so so so excited to learn to hear from to get insights from To hear the stories of to be able to bring back share with our colleagues and use in our own work And so I'd love for them to introduce themselves so we'll go down the row if you will and If everybody could tell us who you are what you're doing right now where you are in school And what your job title is? Well, I'm Joshua Carpenter. I'm a senior at Stratford high school right now And in my first year at Trident Technical College, and I am a youth apprentice at Boeing as an NC programmer What right on and would you would you tell us real quick? What does an NC programmer do Joshua? Well, I program Like a gantry and a robot to drill holes on plane wings Okay, excellent in the right place, right? Excellent. Thanks so much, Joshua Hello, hi, I'm Collins Johnson. I'm a graduate. Well, I already graduated. This is my first year at Trident Tech as well I work at Trident Medical Center Currently and I'm a patient care technician. Great. And what is a patient? Yes? And tell us what does a patient care technician do? We do things like making beds washing patients We check their blood glucose levels. We draw blood We're like a little phlebotomist kind of We do other things like just work working under nurses basically and Yeah, basically Thank You Constance, Jordan. Hello. I'm Jordan fancy. I graduated Stratford high school last year I I'm currently a national maintenance technician. I Sorry Come and start with technology Fantastic Tell us a little bit more about what you do in your work What I do is mainly I just keep the lines running. So I'm I'm basically I'm mechanic So I fix Giant machinery keep it running I do anything from replacing motors to Replacing assembly lines. So Fantastic anything to keep it. Okay. Great. Thank you so much. All right Byron I'm buying for shade the second graduated Wando high school And And a former youth apprenticeship apprentice act this institution I work a wild doings resort on a la palm South Carolina, and I'm a lion chef slash bake bake with chef during the summertime Right on. So thank you So tell us what does a lion chef do a lion chef is basically anything like typical. Let's say you go to I Don't know if you're restaurant basically. I'm preparing your food I'm making sure it's getting out right make sure it's getting out to not too salty or I don't like pickles Yeah Food in a banquet chef is I think is my fun part of my job is during the summer time We do anything between 500 to 1500 people for weddings or conference parties or you mean a team of five knocked that out Fabulous, thank you. All right, Stephanie. Hi, my name is Stephanie Walters I was in the try to tech youth apprenticeship program for a mechanic now I am at Robert Bosch being trained to be a mechanic electrician and a machinist Fantastic, so you were telling me a little bit at the table about what you do in your work. Will you tell us a little bit more? Yeah, if the machine breaks down We fix it whether it's mechanical or electrical and then if something needs to be made to modify the machine We can make it out of metal Right on. All right. Thank you so much So we have some questions pre-prepared and what I'm going to do is invite our panelists to answer Different questions, but what we're going to also do is if anybody has anything to add as we've talked about I really want to welcome those additions and then we'll make sure that there's an opportunity for folks in the audience being blocked by the podium To be able to ask questions as well So if you would Byron start us off a little bit and tell us how did you first hear about the youth apprenticeship program that you ultimately went into Who influenced your choice to pursue the program and kind of walk us through the process of how that worked? So coming in the high school. I was playing football coming in from middle school to high school So on my head I was thinking yeah, I'm gonna be in the NFL Let's go ahead and make this happen then sadly my sophomore year I hurt myself and I couldn't play more So my guidance counselor, Mr. Stilley.  So I'm like, yeah, okay, let's do it then the rest of history from there It kind of took off my natural talent combined with the book smarts per se It just took off for me So my guys counsel helped me on a lot of that when you were sharing with me at the table before that Your family members had gone a different path and was encouraging you go that route My mother used to be a nurse but now she does represent Francis insurance She takes care of their policies and everything my grandmother's still a nurse But she owns her own adult daycare and they're kind of eating toward me go on to the medical field. I was like No, I can't do that then no then cooking came along. Okay, but my message to that is Please parents if you're me up if you have children, please let them do what you think they want to do Don't push them towards something your you know my dad did this my father No, please don't do that because you're not gonna know if they're going to succeed it until they fail And if they do fail give them another shot, but always students if you're in here, please go against the grain I am the advocate for different. I love So does anyone else on the panel have a different journey of how you learned about the apprenticeship that you would like to share with our audience well, um my grandma works here at Trident Tech and the institutional research department and she first wanted me to she brought the apprenticeship program to my attention in my sophomore year when I was at Stratford and I wasn't really interested at the time like looking at the different paths I could take but then She showed me again last year and that's when they introduced the engineering pathways And so I went my grandma 16. All right So having those relationships with folks who understand how the process moves. Okay. Good anybody else Oh Like my counselor at Ford or touch Ford or Chester She actually introduced it to me first, but I was just like no, I'll just go to college of Charleston I'm not gonna do this and then afterwards like my mom She just kept pushing it like hey like here's the apprenticeship. You need to do it. It's so much better You save money a lot of blood you get to see if nursing's really for you and I was like, yeah I guess but I'm gonna go to a four-year college. I want to go to college of Charleston Not gonna do that. But after a while I was thinking and I was just like, okay, like I guess I can try But after all I I enjoy I love it so much Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you. So Joshua, I've got you for the next question and that is we often describe youth apprenticeship as a triangle And then we've seen that image of the pyramid There's the high school the college the employer and the intermediate in the intermediary as well So practically speaking you're the one traveling the triangle, right? Each of you has been Going back and forth navigating the transitions the different cultures of school work College, what's that like and walk us through a typical day or week for yourself? Well, it's um, it's a lot different than what I was used to last year With just going to strafford from 845 to 4 o'clock and coming home, but Now I mean it starts off the same the same still I go to strafford for two classes But then I leave in the middle of the day to where I go to bowing or here to take classes So that's that's a lot different from what I'm normally used to How do you manage the homework for both high school and college and managing that with work? Well with the remaining classes that I need to graduate from high school I got lucky because they're not really like that intensive when it comes to that But the classes that I haven't tried I have to focus a lot more on those and study a lot more for those definitely Yeah, okay cool anybody else want to share how you navigate the different roles you you uh, you have Stephanie For me, I really liked having the fact that when we came to try it some days of the week We learned something and it wasn't something that we would learn just for some tests that we'd take next week But instead it was something that was actually skillful and something that we could use the next day when we go to work So it's not something like a formula we learned for a math class It was something that oh I can take this apart at work. I can do that too You know, it's a place where you can show yourself to your company Fight on thank you Thinking back in off what she said basically same thing for the kitchen One day we'll be How to break down the chicken eight ways and like get the word to be like, okay bar break down 20 chickens eight ways. I'm like, oh we did this a couple of hours ago So, you know, it kind of helps out too Very cool. So really applying what you're learning in the classroom and vice versa fabulous So whoops so constants, um a big part of youth apprenticeship is on the job learning And so for this to work, you need support and mentorship on the job so And I think that's particularly true As a youth apprentice So would you tell us about the relationships that you've been able to develop and Who have been the key supports for you in your experience as an apprentice? Sure, um, mr. Rana Like she was just here like probably like an hour or two ago. She was one of the panelists She actually hired me at trident health and she's been a great mentor Just checking up on us emailing us to make sure we're on top of All the vaccines that we need to have for the hospitals if there's any problems with Floor that we're on just contact her or with our work schedule or with school. She's she's amazing with that And the nursing directors on the floor. They're really cool, too They always ask if I need help with anything Or if there's any questions if you know the nurses or the patient care attacks are treating me, okay They're awesome as well and my mother. Um, she's been a great mentor as well. She's actually a nurse herself So that's pretty cool to have just in my corner just to make sure I know what i'm doing and preparing myself for a nursing school Fantastic. Thank you. So do you all want to share anyone who's been Significant in your lives as a support or a mentor on the job? Yeah, I mean it was my guidance counselor in high school, mr. Silly and my parents at home and like I said it always starts at the house and the parents supporting their kids But that tried it. There's one lady in particular. I'm not gonna name no names Miss miss costman No, I love her so much y'all she's like my second mother and any time I was out of place He was like she was on me like flies on him on a cow pie That is one major support and I love her so much for it because without her I wouldn't be you know sitting up here Fabulous fabulous all right Well, we can't overemphasize the importance of counselors and advisors and teachers and caring adults and students lives And we hear it in the stories Right here anybody else want to share? Yeah, Stephanie So I was in robotics for a lot of my time in high school and my robotics mentor really pushed me into this program and doing the Apprenticeship program because I saw two older Classmen who were doing it and that was during the first year that they had it at my school and here at trident And I was like if they could do it I could do it too and my mentor was like, you know, you're a female too So you're gonna be like a minority there in your field and you can help show other females too Like they can do it and that they can you know go through and do a career that is typically male oriented Fabulous So jordan, what would you say has been the biggest benefit of your youth apprenticeship experience and what has it taught you? um One of the biggest benefits is free college Tell us more about This is like these classes that we're taking now I see people paying thousands of dollars and You go out there other like four-year colleges Who aren't going in the same field as I am they're paying have like $40,000 in debt and I don't have that thankfully Not only that but I also have Experience something that other people who did not go this program do not have I have two years of experience So not always my foot in the door, but I also have a leg up on the competition. So I'm getting I'm gonna get paid more I'm more Think of the weird but I'm more desirable basically. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely outstanding Anybody else want to talk about what kinds of experiences you've taken away from that that on the job training the Benefits to your own learning In terms of helping to clarify what direction you might want to go I'll take you back Yeah, like with nursing, I wasn't really sure if I really wanted to do that, you know Like, you know, like I said my mom she was a nurse and everything and my grandmother she was a nurse So I was like, I don't want to be a nurse. I don't really think that's for me I don't want to be in that like, you know generation thing or whatever It's like maybe I'll do like veterinarian worker, you know work as a pa or something, but it's like Glue it's like I was like trying to get off, but it was just kind of So I was like, okay So like with the apprenticeship, I just feel like it kind of helped me to see if that was really for me So I really appreciated that experience Fantastic I was not I'm not a I'm not a school guy. I like to just go ahead go with the flow But that also learning doing that I also learned how to you know kind of stay in one lane But squirm a little bit. So it kind of it did help me in that Area prospect fantastic. So having that on-the-job experience Also fed into helping you to be successful in your school Great excellent So I'm going to start off with Stephanie with this question But I'd love to hear from everybody on the panel Is there anything you wish you had known ahead of time that you now know Having experienced it that you think is important for all of us to be aware of so Stephanie if you would start us off There's a lot of things I wish I knew and I wish I could go back and know what I know right now I guess for me, I guess one of the main things was whenever I made connections at work It was wonderful because you know, everyone's good at something and someone can be like really passionate In a certain field and I wish that I uh, not only like kept those connections But always would go back to them whenever I had those same problems or same like Situations that came up at work because you know Some lines have certain things that go down or some lines have like certain characteristics like pneumatics, which is you know The power of air So like, you know, some lines may have like air hoses and if someone's like really good at that Then you can go to that connection and go to that person and talk to them If it's if it's something that you might struggle with or something you might not always understand how to diagnose Um, so I wish that I always like uh, not only kept my connections But always like kept up with them and made sure that I knew and talked to them more about uh, like their real world experience At my plant so not just at trident and working on any facility, but especially at blush Fantastic, that's such an important reminder of how important it is To feel comfortable asking questions and also how important those relations Relationships are on the job of folks who can help you to navigate things Yeah, and I also would say for people who like are trying to like help support the community by growing apprenticeships or Help their children be encouraged into going into the apprenticeship is that you know, it's the triangle It's a win-win for everyone and uh, it's not just going to help me and the people who are apprentices It's going to help people in our country that maybe don't have those options So like with me working at blush, they give me a 401k. So whenever I um retire I don't have to draw Social Security So that can help someone somewhere else in the country that doesn't have the same skill and they can't get a job So then they can rely on the government instead of me Fantastic, thank you So any other insights from our panel things that you Wish you had known that you know now that you'd like for us to be aware of and maybe we can help others to anticipate that As they go into the process um Well, it's something I did know A sacrifice you have to make like It's a good one so Like the change in what your life is before and what it is after the apprenticeship program Like they they tell you that like it's going to be a lot different But then like you're like I can handle it'll be fine, but then like once you're in it. It's like Man like you miss a lot of the stuff from your life like high school Like again 8 45 to 4 o'clock seeing all my friends and just hanging out with them But then it's like I can't do anything because I have to go to classes And then I got to go to work and then I got a study for the test I have and Yeah What y'all said basically the same thing is like You come to school for half a day then you go to either school or work for half a day And it's like yeah, it's the thing I wish that we know is you know more time It's real time consuming. I'm thinking like about four hours of class 10 hours a week. I ain't that bad And once you get it, I'm like I'm gonna need a volume, but um But yeah, it's just time consuming and like coming into school Then you know you're going back to high school. It's like dude. I haven't seen you like we can have him like yeah I know man The time you are putting into this program does help you in the moment Fantastic Yes, absolutely. Actually, um with the nursing the pre-nursing program for the apprenticeship Over the summer we had to do a cna and patient care tech course and so Like I had no summer basically I was I was there every day And so um, actually I had a mission trip I was supposed to go to with my youth group at church and I couldn't go because literally the day was supposed to go to the mission trip That's the first day of our cna class and there was no other day I can make up the days either you go on a mission trip for a week or You know your future is on the line So I definitely had to give that up and do the apprenticeship and no regrets no regrets Fantastic, but that's a helpful reminder that sometimes we have to Set different priorities and make sacrifices, but then the gains hopefully far outweigh those sacrifices.  So how have you managed those relationships? Maybe that have changed because you're not around as much Have you been able to stay connected to folks and make new connections? Maybe on the job as well? Well For me like with the cell that I work in They're with much older people. So we're not really like buddy buddy after work But I I still stay connected with my friends and they like ask me like when the next like time that I could possibly hang out with them, but It is a lot different. So so it takes intentionality, but you don't have to sacrifice those. Yeah That's good to know picking back an awful job said.  I'm like, I can't drink My friends from school You know, like we still keep in touch. You always know they're always checking up on me. So that's another support outlet I have in my back pocket. Yeah, absolutely. Oh excellent. Oh picking back. You know, yeah You do make a lot more friends because In college it's a lot. It's a better bond because you're going through the same thing not just You're going through the same you're doing the same job Even if it's at the different companies, you're still going to class and you're getting each other's numbers and you kind of like feed off each other You work together you pass together but um Yeah, you you make a deeper bond the different deeper connection. So you get better friends during the college. So You get that a better support group after high school. So, you know It's a lot of you. That's great. So you have both your friends in high school But you're making all these new connections in college help you navigate that process as well Fantastic. All right. So Before we open it up to the audience Um, tell us about I'd love to just kind of go down the line Tell us about your plans for the future What do you want to do at this point? And if you're in the apprenticeship, what are you Looking towards as a next step um both in terms of work and learning so You want to start off josh? Well, I'm hoping and praying that after my apprenticeship programs over that bowing Like wants me to still work with them and then also I plan to obviously further my education and go to a university after My two years here. Okay. And what what kind of degree would you want to pursue? Still an engineering degree in aerospace Right on. Okay. Cool Constance, um I want to go into the nursing program here at trident and then Hopefully once I get my ad and I'll get my bsn. I either m u s c or charlson southern And just keep progressing. I want to like go and get like my doctorate in Doctorate in nursing and become a nurse practitioner. So That'd be fun. Fantastic. Yes And that education will be paid for as you're working and yes, yes Fingers crossed fabulous How about you jordan? Um, I'm kind of the same but I see and I'm going to pray that Cummins Hires me on as full-time because they Then I'm going to go try and get a master's degree in either mechanical or electrical engineering. So Fantastic. All right. Thank you By for me, I was just want to learn as much as I can right now from traveling learning different cuisines and Different skill sets that add on to my arsenal than later on down the road I would hope to open up my own restaurant. So, yeah Right on right on Y'all this bit um Um, my company while doing so we do have Outlets and restaurants all over the world. We just got piton with height. So now I really have some connections But um coming this summer I get to luckily go to hawaii and learn for a couple months Fantastic, and then I started another apprenticeship at my company last year and I got There they're training me to be more than just a mechanic They're training me to be three different things the electrician the mechanic and the machinist So with that I'll have more job security and more flexible working schedules because I can do any of the three jobs And then um after that which is going to end in 2020 Then I'm going to go to the school for two years We're going to transfer my classes here at trident and I'm going to end up with my engineering degree as if I had You know graduated high school and went to a four-year So I'll end up with my four year, but I won't end up in debt because my company will pay for it And Stephanie would you tell us real quick what you just shared with me about having uh just acquired something very exciting Yes, uh, and then one of my uh classmates and I started dating and now we are getting married soon. We are engaged And uh Something more personal to me was uh like later on after my engineering degree and my Educational career Me and him also want to start some different non-for-profits But we also want to own our own business to pay for our not-for-profits So we want to own a manufacturing facility and also we like working on cars So we want to do that part-time too And then we want to uh help people who have a family members who are drug addicts because um where I come from my family There are some people in that in my family who had struggled with that and uh, Also, I want to help people who are um in the nursing or in the foster care systems And uh because I was a war friend or not a war friend, but I was in the foster care system So I want to help people who are in the foster care and also um own my own orphanage Fabulous So I would like to open up Questions to our audience to give you all the opportunity To ask our wonderful group of panelists whatever questions you all might have Yes, and could we have a mic down here? Or actually I can Here we go There you are. Thank you so much you all are so inspiring. Thank you for sharing your stories Um question for you if you were speaking to your fellow students from high school And or speaking with the superintendents And or principals of the schools What would you advise them around how to help people get into apprenticeship? And especially in light of things like school sports and school clubs How to navigate that I it doesn't sound like you actually would have had any time for those things or you did and then you re-routed How to help them navigate this um Time that they would have because so many people do those things, but can you do those things and work and do apprenticeship? What would you advise again your fellow students and the principals and superintendents in schools? For me players that I played football So but I didn't play football and do the apprenticeship program at the same time because I was hurt But to juggle it. I'm thinking uh Is either You tell the principal or whatever whoever in charge of that, you know, let your player or let your student You know, please work around their spirit, you know my boss I know during the school year you're supposed to be working about what 10 hours a week Let your boss know listen. We got a game. We got games on thursdays and fridays You mind if I get thursday and friday's off and I work so it's happening sunday or whatever yada yada Then try to balance your school work with your work and your football But if you can handle all that I said go for it But if you can't you just got to give up something especially if this you know, it's dealing with your future so one else Um, I guess I can um Like the same Okay. Okay. Okay. Um the same with Byron. Um, I wasn't an athlete in high school, but I did do um student government and leadership And it was already kind of a hassle with doing that and because we had to do like a certain amount of hours for volunteer work in our classes And so it was kind of hard But um, I like like you said just go for it just kind of work along with your work schedule Try to work on the weekends. I know with my student government and um leadership We had events on the weekends So it was kind of hard to get you know, like your hours times and um work around with the teachers But I say go for it if you have to go after school and work go after school and work, you know Um, just make time it it's really hard, but definitely definitely worth it in the long run Fantastic Yum Earlier in the year I started My senior year I was sort of my junior that way I could have been done with the apprenticeship my senior So that way I have a lot more free time now and get on to doing other Like more like other degrees So it's really helpful to start earlier. Yes, so you have more options. Yes. Okay. Excellent. Thank you Okay, great other questions from the audience And now I think we've got some mics that are in rotation Have a hand back here I'm seeing a hand Hey, this is not um Actually a question, but I'm kind of going to do a feeder for Stephanie speaking of options and Karen winning ham wanted me to remind you if you had an opportunity to share with this group Your options that you had graduating first tell them where you graduated And the ranking you had at graduation and your options at that time and why you chose youth apprenticeship So, um, whenever I was a junior of I applied to go to harvard for a summer school program And what it is is it's just like trying it where you take classes at harvard and you Counts as credits to your high school and accounts for college credits So at the time I thought I was going to go into science And I thought it was going to be an astronaut because I really liked space But I figured out I had more of a passion to fix things So when I went there though, I did take classes and I had a lot of fun Learning and meaning new people and experiencing new cultures. So whenever I graduated high school I had a couple different options that were ivy leagues and had a couple of different options That were here in South Carolina and in the area for four-year colleges But I knew that uh, if I did that I could get it paid for because I was a foster student because like all my tuition at harvard for that summer was paid for but Or I could do it the other way where I could go with bosh and I saw that if I went with bosh I would still have experience growing and I would still have my educational experience because I want to learn and I knew that um At the end of the day if I wanted to go back to harvard and get a like a degree Maybe my masters or a phd or something, you know, I could always apply and do something later on But for now I knew that uh, my goals and my life and bosh's goals and they're Um, I guess they're values, you know, they aligned with mine. So I knew that if I kept going would not just bosh but with manufacturing that I'm going to be set for life That's fabulous. Thank you That's such an important reminder that there are equally valid equally valued post-secondary Pathways that can lead to wonderful opportunities for folks and to not create Hierarchies that always apply to every individual. So that's wonderful. Thank you for sharing that. Did I see a hand? Yeah, right over here I just want to say that I'm coming from the beautiful Shenandoah Valley in Virginia If you guys have business cards with your contact on them and you want to move to virginia, I can connect you That's what I'm talking about gentlemen in the back Oh So you guys have a lot of people in the room who are thinking about designing apprenticeships If you were the designers What would be the single most important thing that you would Want to be a part of any apprenticeship experience That's going towards the uh like designing your own path or Yeah, so if you would you like to clarify? Just if you got to design your own apprenticeship program for across any industry not just in culinary, but anyone What would be the the first thing that you'd be like, okay every apprentice Needs this thing I want to say every apprenticeship if you're going to go for it go 100 or don't go it up You've got to you've got to put if you have you have a passion for it and you have the love for it You can't couple once you get in There's getting out, but you're not gonna like it. So But just go for it. Don't be afraid not to Pursue what you want to do right on Take you back and offer you also, um, if you're going to like design one where you can Implement it in other states One main problem that we have here is that we're covering not only Dorchester County Charleston County or Berkeley County where like we have three different counties that are all coming here in North Charleston So I live from Dorchester and Dorchester County. So that's about 45 to an hour ride So one problem is transportation So one thing that you might need to you know Include in your design is how are you going to get these people? depending on how many counties you're covering and then another thing is is, um Make sure the tuition is paid for because We don't we can't pay for it. Like we said, that's one of the main things is that it's free and we have the Charleston joint council who pays for our books So not only classes are covered, but we need textbooks to take those classes and we need Supplies like um for us. It was textbooks for I guess for nursing. They'd probably need like medical equipment and Books and different stuff like scrub they paper scrubs, too, which was really cool For us it was uh my bag knives. No, we got we got that but you know My bag knives utensils all that good stuff, but that would be like hundreds of dollars. Yeah Three four hundred dollars at least right those textbooks Excellent There was another gentleman sitting right here his hands up right here Good afternoon Paul Thompson from Chicago City Colleges First I want to say just um how impressive all of you are Fantastic, uh, your poise and sharing your stories with us is really excellent Um, and so what I want to ask is if you could maybe each share What is maybe one of the most difficult things you had to overcome to be successful? And then any accomplishment that you're especially proud of that you would share You may want to go first. Well as I was talking about oh, I'm sorry Exactly As I was saying before with uh having to like Give up my normal high school life for this and not being able to talk to my friends and seeing my friends as much That's definitely like the number one thing out of anything But for the part about accomplishments with what I do at Boeing with nc programming Like there's a lot of stuff you can mess up on and then you have to go back and figure it out and Anytime I like figure something out on my own because this is my first time ever doing anything like this I don't know. It just feels really like I did something So yeah, fantastic. Thank you for sharing that Constance, um for me it was kind of like I wanted to go to a four-year college rather than a two-year so it was I But um because all my friends they were going to four-year colleges So for me like everyone was like you're going to try that you're going to a two-year tech school Constance you're so much better than that. You're so smart.  And it's like What's the difference like we're getting the same education For the first two years and I could transfer, you know But I was a little ashamed of that and that's why Like I kind of didn't want to go like for the apprenticeship And I'm just so thankful that my mom kind of pushed me towards that just to like overcome that and not really, you know Let that affect What what can go on inside of me what that passion is in me? So, um For that that's something I has to overcome and just figuring out what I wanted to do rather what everyone else is Going to say just doing me. So um with that What I'm accomplished, um Kind of just working in the hospital with like older people And i'm kind of getting like that hands-on experience because usually like there's like hospital policies and stuff We can't normally do as young people. So it's kind of cool to just you know get in there and be like a little Junior and everything like that. So I love it. It's great That's fabulous. Thank you Jordan, um my I'm a quiet person As you can probably see But my biggest hurdle was trying like just stepping out of my conference zone and into Into an adult situation because in high school you can just Say in the background and just not talk at all Here you have to speak up speak loud because in the machine because you can tell you to test this In a factory it's very loud. So you cannot be soft spoken at all So that was adapting to that was very hard for me Right on And here you are talking to all these people and what a wonderful leader. Thank you That's fabulous Byron Kind of picking back enough what Constance said I had to get over my pride because When I was first introduced to this program, it was like, okay, we're going to send you to try it I'm like, man, y'all couldn't send me to cia in new york or In wales or something like that then then I thought about it for a minute.  Not for me. It's just one of the youngest chefs they ever hire Fabulous definitely So for me, I guess, uh, there's two main things I had to get over one was um, you know being a female How do I explain my opinion or my views to uh, like my older?  This is the way we do it And I'm like, you know, well, what if we do it this way? You know, I always like to like see things in a different light so um, that was one thing and another thing for me was um Like getting it over to my counselors or getting it over to my like the educational leaders was that you know I'm going to try it instead of going to a four-year college This is whenever I was in the process of graduating because I have these meetings where you talk to the guidance guidance counselors and you tell them what you want to do and why and where you want to go And they just kept looking at me like why Stephanie? Like, why don't you want to go to these great places? And I'm like, I try to explain it to them So that's one of the things I had to get over was that they might not like my decision, but I like my decision and um I guess my greatest achievement would be my family because we do struggle with um Trying to uh, you know Incorporate friends or family or incorporate like the events we want to go to in our social lives But for me, it was like, you know, sometimes my friends are busy. That's okay But my family is always there so I can always go to them and I try to spend, you know Sometime with them every month, you know, my grandparents raised me so I always try to give back to them and um So family is probably my greatest accomplishment That's fabulous Well, I think we are at time But I want to thank our extraordinary panel Can we give them a round of applause? Thank you on behalf of all of us for sharing your stories for sharing your insights for sharing your experiences And for being such extraordinary leaders from whom we have all Learned so much today. So one more round of applause. Thank you


You may have realized by now that in statics we often reduce more complicated two or three-dimensional bodies down to single points. We have also simplified complicated distributed loads to single forces acting at a single point. But what is the significance of this single point and how does it affect our analysis? In other words, how do we take a body we want to analyze, whether it is an aircraft or an engineering potato, and reduce it to a single point? You might have some qualitative idea of where it should be, but we want to come up with a robust and quantitative method to locate that point. So let's start by thinking about this intuitively. Intuitively, we understand that the point should somehow be an average position of the body. The problem is, not all averages are created equally. You may have already encountered this reality in your first quarter of this academic year. In high school, you were likely well above average and near the top of your class. That is one of the factors that enabled you to be successful in being accepted into the competitive aerospace engineering program here at TU Delft. But amongst your peers here, you might be simply average or even below average. That doesn't mean that you are suddenly less smart or capable, just that a new basis for defining what is average has been applied. What is average is dependent on the basis for that averaging. In engineering problems, we tend to use three different bases for defining the average position of a body. The average geometrical position based on length, area, or volume. We call this average position the centroid. We can also define the average position based upon mass, which we call the center of mass. Finally, we can define the average position based upon weight, which we call the center of gravity. Let's start by looking at the average geometrical position, or the centroid, something you are already familiar with and have likely calculated many times before during your time in high school. Take for instance this L-shaped area with the bottom left corner of the area located at the origin of our coordinate frame. If we wanted to calculate the average geometrical position of this area, we could break it up into smaller shapes that we know the location of the center for, like squares and rectangles. We can then determine the centroid of the overall shape by performing a weighted average of the known centroids of these smaller shapes. As our basis for the averaging is area, these positions are weighted by the area of the smaller shapes they belong to. So the location of the centroid indicated here can be determined by the summation of the x-coordinates of the known centroids multiplied by the area of the shape they belong to, divided by the summation of all the areas. As well as the following similar expression for the y-coordinate of the centroid. This approach works, but we would like to make it more generalized. Here we had to break up the area into smaller areas with known centroid locations. But what if the area was something a little more organic looking? It is not really straightforward to fill this more complicated shape with squares and rectangles of a finite size. We may be able to get close and get an approximate value for the location of the centroid, but it will not be accurate. So how can we make this more accurate? Well, we can make the squares and rectangles smaller and add more of them. This would get us closer, but there are still gaps in the area, so to really make it general, we need to make our squares infinitely small. Here we see our shape with one infinitely small area dA on it. We can thus replace our summation equations with integral equations representing the infinite sum of the area dA multiplied by the location of the centroid of the area, which is the same as the location of the area as it is infinitely small. Please note that the subscript A next to the integral indicates that this integral needs to be performed over the entire domain of the area A of our shape. We will come back to this in a minute. The numerator of these equations is often referred to as the first moment of area. Why? Well, I guess someone looked at the equation and thought if the moment of a force is force times a distance, then an area times a distance is a moment of an area. But that is just a bit of nomenclature that will crop up later in this course, and in other courses during your studies. What does an integral over domain A actually mean? Well, it actually means that the integral shown is not a single integral. If we zoom in on our area, we can see that area element dA has an infinitesimal width of dx and an infinitesimal height of dy. So dA is equal to dx times dy. If we insert this result into our double integral equation, then we see that we have to integrate over both the domains of x and y. So these equations are actually double integral equations. I've replaced the denominator of these two equations by A because the integral of the area element dA over the entire domain is, in fact, just the area of that domain. That is how we would generalize the location of the centroid of an area, but sometimes we also deal with volumes. So how would this look in case of a volume? The centroid of a volume is still the average geometrical position of all the points within the shape itself. A volume is in three dimensions, however, so it will get three coordinates for the centroid, which can be obtained by integrating the position of an infinitesimal volume element times the volume of that element over the domain of the total volume of the body. This is then divided by the total volume of the body itself. As with area, this integral is not a single integral, but in this case it would be a triple integral as the volume dV would be equal to dx times dy times dz. So we are done then, right? We know how to reduce a body to a single point by replacing it by its centroid, and we can move on. Well, not exactly. If you think about it, the types of analysis we are performing in this course involve forces that act upon a body, and since force is equal to mass times acceleration, perhaps what we really want to know is where the center of mass is, not the centroid. The center of mass is the average point in the body in terms of its mass, so the weighting variable for averaging changes from volume to mass, where mass is simply the density times volume. Now you may ask yourself, isn't this the same as the centroid? And it is under very specific conditions, when the body has a uniform density. However, that is generally not the case. Take a rocket as an example. The density of a rocket is very different in different areas due to the use of various materials. Furthermore, a significant portion of the mass of the rocket is in the liquid propellant that is contained in the fuel tanks, and this is continuously being consumed, shifting the center of mass after the rocket launches. So in this case, the centroid would be a poor approximation of the relevant center of the rocket needed in our analysis of the forces acting on it. Okay, so the center of mass is what we really want, and we can approximate it as the centroid of a body if the density of the body is relatively constant. Well, again, not exactly. We are interested in analyzing forces, and again, forces equal to mass times acceleration. So what we often are interested in is where the resultant force of a body is acting, the mass times acceleration. We call this point the center of gravity, and it is the point at which all of the weight of a body can be considered to act. So the weighing factor for our averaging changes from mass to weight, where the weight is simply mass times gravitational acceleration. But isn't acceleration due to gravity just 9.81 meters per second squared? Well, if you were only studying mechanical or civil engineering, you could get away with this. But you decided to be a narrow space engineer, and in astronomical sense, we have to worry about varying gravitational acceleration fields. The classic example for this is a space elevator, a structure that would extend all the way from the surface of the Earth up to geosynchronous orbit. Here we need to recognize that the acceleration due to gravity, which we can extract from Newton's law of universal gravitation, is inversely proportional to the distance squared from the center of the mass of the Earth. In this equation, G is the gravitational constant, and M Earth is the mass of the Earth. The average radius of the Earth is about 6,378 kilometers, while the radius of geosynchronous orbit is about 42,000 kilometers. This means that our acceleration due to gravity is our familiar 9.81 meters per second squared at the surface of the Earth, but drops all the way down to 0.31 meters per second squared in geosynchronous orbit. If we simplify this problem and neglect the mass of the cable and only look at the mass of the counterweight that is fixed in orbit, M1, and the mass of the elevator car, M2, that travels up and down the cable, we can see as that car moves up and down the cable, its weight is changing drastically through the gravitational field. So there will be a big difference between the overall center of mass of the system and the center of gravity based upon that varying gravitational field. When it comes right down to it, technically, we are almost always interested in the center of gravity of a body when we are analyzing it as a point in engineering mechanics. But the center of mass and or the centroid can be a very good approximation of the location of the center of gravity. So we often use these equations as easier shortcuts to approximate our center of gravity. So how do we know when to use which approximation? To help us with this, we can look at the following table. When the density and gravitational fields can be approximated as being uniform, then the centroid, center of mass, and center of gravity are equivalent. If the gravitational field is not constant, but the density is, then the centroid and center of mass are equivalent, but the center of gravity is not. Conversely, if the density is not uniform in the gravitational field is, then the center of mass and center of gravity are equivalent, but the centroid is not. And finally, when neither the density nor the gravitational field can be approximated as uniform over the domain of the body, none of these centers are equivalent. I hope that gives you some insight into these different representations of the center of a body. Don't get too overwhelmed by all the equations. Rather, try to think about those subtle differences between them. You will see the equations can be considered to be the same general set of equations with different assumptions applied, which changes that weighting average. But they are all simply average positions within a body.