Hello everybody, my name is Thiago Hayes from ST Micro Electronics and we are here at the ST Developers Conference 2019. Today I'm going to show you the SensorTile.box. Our latest evaluation tool for sensors and connectivity is a ready to go IoT node based on an IP54 plastic case. So from a looking side the SensorTile.box features the latest sensors from ST Micro Electronics. So our six-axis IMU, the LSM6DSOX, we have featured two accelerometers, one extremely low-powered, the LIS-2DW12 and as well our high-performance inclinometer, LIS-3DHH based on a ceramic package five by five millimeters. We also included in this package the LIS-2MBL, our standalone magnetometer. We also included quite a few environmental sensors within the SensorTile.box which basically features our LPS-22HH, our altimeter pressure sensor, an absolute pressure sensor based on a fully-molded technology in terms of packaging, our temperature sensor, the STTS-751, our humidity and temperature sensor combo, the HTS-221 and finally but not the least our analog bottom part microphone MP-23ADS1. On top of the sensors, the platform benefits from a very high-performance microcontroller, yet low-powered, the STM-32L4 series, plus BLE connectivity with the SPBTLE-1S device. Additionally, the part is battery-powered so you can find a 500 milliamp hour battery at the back of the SensorTile.box and the battery is charged with the STBC-02 battery charging technology from STMicroelectronics. Okay, so specifically talking about the SensorTile.box and why it is the most powerful platform for sensor evaluation within ST, it is because it supports three different levels of expertise, from entry to expert and professional level of developers. So, entry-level mode, there's no need for programming. You're basically going to evaluate predefined features that are commonly used and defined by the market, so for example, pedometer, barometer, data logging, compass, and level detection with the inclinometer, vibration monitoring, asset tracking, and even the upcoming baby crying detection based on the STM-32Q.AI. The SensorTile.box also has the expert mode that allows you through the mobile app graphical user interface to set up and create, not only in terms of customization, what sensors are going to be used, but also create custom application, visually based on the mobile app interface. And then finally, but not the least, we have the pro working mode, which is basically where you're going to write C code within the SensorTile.box. So, again, with the three operational modes, we can enable or we can allow a user regardless of the level of expertise to evaluate and understand better sensors from entry to expert and professional modes. So now as a demo, let's start looking at the entry level experience with the SensorTile.box. So, you set up your hardware, in this case I'm powering via USB cable, and you open the STBLE sensor app. You hit create a new app, and in this case, these are the available example apps that I just mentioned in the introduction portion. So let's take, for example, the barometer. The barometer app has data over BLE. This is why you find the BLE icon right here at the top. In case you're logging data into the micro SD card, also in the entry level, the data, the symbol of the micro SD card will be listed accordingly. So taking the barometer example, I click on upload, and then I find Tile 2, which is my SensorTile.box evaluation, and I hit play. I will overwrite the firmware that is available on board, the mobile app will update the firmware accordingly to my selection, and the STBLE sensor app is telling me that the app loading happened correctly. So it's ready to go. It's going to give me back to the selection of the devices, so I'll select the Tile 2, which is the board that I have. So now I can see quite a few sensor data. So in this case, I'm seeing temperature and pressure data, as well as humidity data. So if I want to visualize and plot data, for example, temperature sensor data with the SensorTile.box, you can enable to the left-hand menu and click on plot data. From here, you can select the different sensor available on the sample application and perform the logging. In case you want to log and actually register that data in order to use it later, just click start logging on the top right-hand corner of the app, and this will allow you the mobile app interface itself to log the data into CSV files. Once you stop logging, the app will ask you if you want to send an email with the log files. If you hit OK, you get an email with the log data of the available sensors that you selected. So another interesting demo or user experience that you can have with the SensorTile.box is the sensor fusion experience. So here, we are showcasing the cube, which basically has accelerometer and gyroscope data. So as I move the board, the cube moves accordingly. You can also visualize throughout through the STVLE sensor app, not only the data, but also you can perform cloud logging. So for example, in case you want to set up or log your data, your sensor data into a cloud service, the STVLE sensor app also allows you to explore that functionality. All right, so thank you for your attention. For more information on the SensorTile.box, please visit at c.com slash SensorTile.box. Thank you very much and have a great day.


Hey guys, my name is Boris. I'm a board-certified physician assistant and this is going to be a pre-PA Q&A I actually have a question here from a Facebook group called PA students and pre-PAs I think it's called something like that. It's a great group lots of support people respond very quickly And it's a great resource for people who are trying to get into PA school and those of us or those of you Who are new PA students just kind of trying to figure out their way. I'm not a PA students I'm on practicing physician assistant, but you know I only got out of PA school about a year ago So I'm still pretty new and I think I'm in a good position to answer some of these questions So without further ado, let's go ahead and answer this question from the group. Obviously, it's from an anonymous User because this is kind of a personal thing so I could see why they wanted to shield their identity But this one got a lot of responses a lot of a lot of reactions because Basically, it's people just showing support to this person who's having a really tough time in PA school So let me see if I have any comments that might be able to help this person and anybody watching this video So the person said I'm in my third week of PA school and keep crying every day I've never been this emotional before I'm usually a tough confident happy person Yesterday, I sobbed in my car after class because I felt so lost and confused last week as well. Is this normal? I'm scared. I'm not going to make it through PA school if this continues Okay first off If this person happens to be watching this video I doubt that you are but anybody else that feels this way and I promise you you're not alone I promise you at least half the people in your class Even if they're not showing it feel exactly like this probably a bunch more than half honestly so This person's in their third week of PA school. They're saying that they're crying every single day They're usually confident tough happy and PA school is just breaking them down They are so confused so lost and they're just you know crying non-stop because it's so hard and They're saying is this normal. I don't know if I'm going to make it through school if this continues my my response is yeah Yeah, it's normal.  I know personally myself included Okay, my self included and just by the way here. I am on the other side. I got a job. I'm happy I'm taking care of myself. I'm taking care of my patients. You know, I'm enjoying my job making good money I'm on the other side of PA school only about two to three years away from where you are right now And I'm telling you I felt exactly like this. I don't want to speak for really anybody else But for me personally yeah, I felt exactly like this and just like you and me and like and I don't know How young this person is or how old this person is most PA students are pretty much fresh out of college or close to college You know 23 25 26 years old. I was already 29 when I started PA school. I had been through the military I had been through all kinds of crazy stuff. I had been through a post back at an Ivy League school Like I had been through a lot and PA school Did break me down just like this wasn't necessarily like crying and sobbing all the time Maybe once I can't remember. I'm not a crier like I've cried probably five times in my entire life one when my dog died one when my you know marriage ended and one when I Don't remember but basically it's I can hand I can count all five on one hand. I'm not a big crier But that being said yeah, like I definitely did go through this I did feel totally lost totally confused totally terrified that you know I've dedicated a decade of my life trying to get here to PA school and like I'm just not gonna make it There's no way there's too much information. They're going too fast. Everybody here is way smarter than I am I don't feel prepared. There's just no way like I'm not gonna make it.  Where do I go? What's my plan B? Because I'm not gonna make it, you know I felt that way and by the way here I am on the other side of it having passed the pants on my first try having made it through PA school You know having gotten my first job and doing well in my first job. So My point is Yeah, I felt exactly like this exactly where you are three weeks into PA school and it does eventually get better It does eventually feel like you can kind of keep up Even though you always feel like you're kind of playing catch up and you never feel like you know enough because you never know enough You just never do know enough in medicine. You never really know enough. That's why we have people that we refer to That's why we work as a team. That's why we have a collaborating physician That's why we have other PAs that we can talk to Medicine is a beast. It is an insane amount of knowledge and what they're trying to force into your brains as quickly as possible Is just enough to not be dangerous Just enough to know where your limits are Just enough to take a to take care of patients at a basic level and know when you just don't know enough and you need to Ask somebody that's it. Okay. You don't need to know everything. Nobody knows everything Physicians with 50 years of experience, you know Since they were 25 until now, they're 75. They don't know everything Okay, so PA school is just trying to force as much of that knowledge into you as possible to see what sticks for you to not be dangerous To you for you to know what you don't know. That's it. Okay, so looking at it from that perspective I hope puts a little bit less pressure on you to like know everything all the time at the same time No, just learn what you need to know for the next exam and move the hell on That is it and eventually after doing that over and over and over and over and over again I promise you eventually you'll realize.   You've made it and there is no turning back You have to just trudge through it, you know going with that metaphor of the fire hydrant It's just firing information at you and you're just walking with your head down like through a rainstorm Just trying to hold on that's what it's going to be like, you know That's what you're in for and that's how it has to be That's what separates you from people that are not going to be providers providers are held to a different standard We are a different breed not because we're special not because we're extra smart But because of what we were forced to go through in our training as providers, you know physician assistants doctors and respectitioners We are different because of our training. We are different. We are respected Because of our training because of our ability because of the things that we know Because we were subjected to what you're being subjected to right now Having that information all that crazy information forced into you and this is just what it feels like and I promise It's going to get easier not because it actually gets easier But because you just kind of get used to feeling like this like you just can never catch up like you don't know anything Because you just realize you don't and you're not going to catch up You're going to learn just enough for the next exam You might forget everything the next day But I promise you some amount of it some level of it sticks and that it's just enough to carry you through the next exam And then it's just enough to get through the next exam and then it's just enough to you know Do okay on the pants and then it's just enough to start clinical practice, you know It's just like that's just how it is Okay, so that's one side of it. So this is normal. The other side of it is Me included I don't know anyone who didn't have some sort of emotional crisis breakdown problem Substance abuse whatever like some sort of personality disorder pop up like out of nowhere I don't know but like some kind of major issue in PA school. You're not alone. It's totally normal So for me personally, I'm not going to throw anybody else under the boss for me personally I developed severe crippling social anxiety during PA school And I mean, I don't know I can geek out and theorize why because I was kind of going through a divorce I was going through the you know Disillusion of a seven-year relationship everything that I ever knew and held dear was going down the two as well I was in PA school. So there was that In addition to all the monumental academic pressure that you know very well about whoever wrote this this message So like there's all of that, but I just remember like So like me personally, I've never been like a super extroverted very social person But at least for the last few years of my life including when I was in PA school and before that I've been fine, you know, I've been able to make friends pretty easily keep them I had good friends most of my life, you know, never like a huge group But I've had at least a few good friends most of my life and like I've never really had just Crippling social anxiety. I've never been the biggest like party guy in the world probably more so now than ever before honestly But like, you know, I've never been I've never had like terrible social anxiety and I remember this one time Walking into our classroom. There's 75 people sitting there. You know 75 seats So, I don't know maybe half the people were there 30 40 people and this one guy that I'm you know Somewhat friends with now just like got like really high energy It was first thing in the morning and he was just like super high energy super bubbly super happy And he was like, hey, what's up?  I was like, dude I don't know Like like I was defending myself against an attack or something. It was the first time I had felt crippling social anxiety I just wanted to crawl into a hole.  I hope you got the support that you needed I hope you stay strong I hope you don't quit and I hope you get through PA school and I'm gonna see you on the other side Okay, hope this video was helpful. Have a good one. I'll see you guys in the next video


Good afternoon to all of you. It's very nice to see you all again after the summer's break and a very warm welcome to today's webinar on enforcing the Digital Markets Act. My name is Joyce O'Connor and I chair the digital group here at the IIEA. I'm delighted to introduce our distinguished speaker today, Thomas Kremler. A very warm welcome to you Thomas and thank you very much for being with us today and for taking time out of your busy schedule and we look forward to your presentation. Thomas Kremler is head of the unit of e-commerce and the data economy in the European Commission's directorate general for competition. He was previously head of the digital service market task force responsible for the e-commerce sector inquiry. Thomas also served as deputy head of the unit for antitrust in the information industries, internet and consumers, electronic sectors. Before joining the European Commission, he worked as an agent representing the Austrian government before the European courts. Thomas presentation will take around 20 to 25 minutes and then I will go to you the audience for questions and answers and you can use the Q&A function as you know at the bottom of your screen. As is usual, today's presentation and Q&A is on the record and I'd appreciate very much if you give your name and affiliation when you're asking questions and thank you very much for doing that. Please join our discussion on Twitter using the handle at IIEA. There is a lot of interest and in and discussion about the Digital Markets Act. Today's webinar is very timely as Thomas Kremler is talking to about us about enforcing the Digital Markets Act. Thomas will discuss its main features and what the European Commission hopes to achieve with the DMA. He will also elaborate on how the Commission is preparing for the enforcement of the DMA and its strategy to ensure that the DMA is effectively enforced and how it will prioritize the different areas. He will also discuss the challenges the Commission expects to face in relation to enforcement and how it plans to address such challenges. Finally, Thomas will discuss how third party stakeholders in the digital economy can contribute to successful enforcement of the DMA. Thomas is one of the two antitrust officials to head up the new EU directorate set up to enforce the Digital Markets Act. He is highly placed to give leadership in this area. We are privileged to have you here today, Thomas, at such a key time. So it's over to you and we look forward to your presentation. Thanks very much, Joyce, for this intro. Now the expectations are very high. I will hope I can fulfill all the high expectations that you set. You said is very correct. This is a very timely moment to talk about the Digital Markets Act. It has been signed, co-signed by the co-legislators, the parliament and the council last week. That means that it will be published in the official journal in the next couple of days and will then enter into force around mid-October and then the deadlines will start. Before looking into the concrete enforcement challenges and the concrete enforcement issues that lie before us, not only us as the regulator, but also those who will be the beneficiaries of the DMA and those who will be at the receiving end, if I may say so, of the DMA, the potential gatekeepers. I want to take a look back actually to the genesis of the DMA. So I want to talk a bit about the why. How did we actually arrive where we are now? Why do we have the DMA in the first place? Then a bit about the how. How is the DMA going to work? What are its main features? And then at the end a bit about the when. How is this going to unfold? So let me first start with the why. So why did we get there? That needs a bit of looking back into let's say 20 years of enforcement into unilateral conduct cases in the EU. I think there's many lessons that we can draw from that. We have started enforcement in platform markets back in the 2000s with the Microsoft cases where we looked into tying and interoperability issues. This has then gone on in the Google shopping cases, which has been confirmed by the court recently into issues of self, so called self-preferencing. So where a platform actually favors its own products on the platform to the detriment of rivals. We have in the Intel and Qualcomm cases looked into exclusivity rebates along running saga, which is still ongoing after 20 years and bouncing up and back in courts, especially when it comes to the Intel case. And you've just recently won, if I may say so, the Android decision in court where the court looked into Google's behavior in relation to mobile, its mobile ecosystem. Now, concretely, we are turning in terms of concrete enforcement issues we are turning to look into data related cases more and more. We have an Amazon case pending where we're just on the antitrust side where we're just consulting on potential commitments. So Amazon would basically silo separate its data sets between the marketplace and the retail. We have a retail business, we have a Facebook case that is about data use and we have a Google case about ad tech, which is also very prominent in terms of data use. All of this to basically set the scene to draw the lessons of what lessons can actually be drawn from all of these cases and from all of the experience that we have in the EU with enforcement of antitrust rules and tech markets. I think one of the lessons to be drawn that the case by case approach that we have followed in the last 20 years has definitely an advantage as it allows for very, very deep diving into the specific markets, getting to the bottom of the market realities. That's very important in the antitrust world and it's important that we get it right. But what it leads to, there's a nice long German word in my native tongue, it's very good for what is called in German Einzelfeiergerechtigkeit, which translates into individual justice in each and every case. So antitrust is very good at that, at achieving that. It's also good if remedies need to be tailored to a very specific conduct or very specific abuse, but there's also drawbacks at that. Now I'm coming to the DMA. The drawbacks are that these procedures take very long. That sometimes when we finish an antitrust case, the market has actually moved on and the remedies that we have imposed might actually come too late in some of the markets. For instance, because a market has dipped and a dominant position can no longer be challenged because of that. The remedies that we can impose in antitrust cases as it is an abuse control system as you know in the European Union needs to be focused on the concrete abuse. So we cannot go beyond the abuse that limits us in the kinds of remedies that we can basically impose on companies. So antitrust is really a difficult tool and it's not impossible, I would say, but it's difficult to address with the current antitrust tools that we have, systemic issues. For instance, if a market is going to tip, not because certain behavior of a company, but because of the market structure, think about network effects. If a market is prone to direct or indirect network effects and people go to a platform because other people are there, that's more market structure type of thing that's not sometimes not related to conduct. That's very difficult to tackle with an abuse control system. Another example is leveraging. If a company is very strong in one market and then leverages this market power in another market. That's, as we know now from from the Google shopping judgment in and of itself, not prohibited or not abusive, but it can be tackled under antitrust. The problem that arises when this behavior covers not only one market but five markets or more. In terms of an antitrust case you'd have to basically investigate all these five markets in parallel that have to establish that there are foreclosure effects. This is time consuming. This is not really reflecting the market reality of ecosystems and development strategies where companies, gatekeeping companies can leverage from, from one strong market into many different markets. It's very hard to deal with that under the current, the current antitrust tools. Also data access issues. They're really hard to tackle under under the current antitrust tools because the threshold to give access to data is relatively high in the EU. So all of this has led to a lot of policy policy reflections in the world basically not just in the European Union many reports have been written in the UK in the US in Japan in Australia. And all of those reports come to the conclusion that antitrust as it stands needs to be complemented by ex ante rules which are basically prescribing or imposing obligations on companies with substantial market power, strategic market status, bottleneck power, or you name it as many names that have been found for these companies, the DMA uses the name gatekeeper to impose on these companies, actually ex ante, so not ex post after the conduct has happened but upfront before conduct has happened obligations that they have to comply with. So I think there's consensus around the world now that this complimentary powers are actually needed. Now you can have two models of how to implement that. And one model is the DMA model which is largely I would say a legislative driven model, but the legislative has taken the big decisions, the big trade offs have been made by the the legislator has basically struck the balance between flexibility, efficiency, and legal certainty, and has made this to an innovation I shouldn't forget, and where the legislator has made this trade offs already in formulating the specific obligations that are going to be imposed on gatekeeping compromise. And another model is is a more regulated driven model where the legislator just works with broad brush clauses and basically entrust the regulator to come up with the right solutions. Both of these models have advantages and disadvantages the US deliberately chosen the first model for two reasons for constitutional reasons, because in the you obviously we work with the with the principle of conferral of powers. So do you only has the competences conferred to it by the treaties and the treaties in this case the legal base that we used is an internal market legal base, which means that we have to rely on the internal market rules for the DMA purposes. And an even more important reason is that we have opted for the system because of the drawbacks of the antitrust enforcement system the case by case system where we have to analyze conduct specific conduct and the basis of a case by case analysis which turned out to be difficult in this market so we have opted in the you for a legislator driven model. What does this now mean in practice. That means, first of all, which is quite important that there's no efficiency defense in the DMA. So you cannot justify your conduct as a gatekeeping company by saying wait, wait a moment what I'm doing here is actually very efficient pro competitive doesn't lead to the harm that you think it would lead to and therefore this conduct in a specific circumstances of my case is positive. That's positive for consumers. That is not a defense that is possible under the DMA, because the assumption is that the legislator has basically already when designing the rules, make these tradeoffs. So if the legislator has come to the conclusion, for instance, that it is on balance better that an app store provider opens up its system and provides a second app store. The assumption is that the legislator has basically weighed the innovation incentives for this app store provider against innovation incentives for the app developers and has basically made this tradeoff already in the law. Therefore, an efficiency defense is not necessary. So the DMA, as I said is an ex ante regulatory tool. It's not to competition law, but it has goals, which are partly similar to competition law, but not totally overlapping. So the two goals of the DMA are contestability, ensuring contestability of markets where gatekeepers are present and fairness. I will find a description of what is meant by contestability in recital 32 of the DMA. It's basically about the ability of companies that are reliant on gatekeepers to overcome barriers to entry and expansion so that they can also enter into the market with the gatekeepers present in very short words. So obviously the recital is a bit longer and more sophisticated but that's a summary. So fairness is a concept that is described as the imbalance between rights and obligations between the gatekeeping companies and their business users. So the contestability concept is obviously not alien to competition law. It comes from lowering barriers to entry, but it goes wider. So it's not for us to have non-conduct based remedies, which the DMA basically provides for. For instance, as I said before, access remedies irrespective of any conduct that the company has been carrying out, the DMA provides for, for instance, for data portability. So users who are able to take out the data from the gatekeeping platform and move them to competing platform that should ensure contestability of this market, markets, I should say. When it comes to fairness, fairness is actually a very old concept. You find it in competition law, but you find it in many laws that are actually older than competition law in the European Union in many unfair trading laws that date back to the 1900s. So fairness is not something alien to our legal systems and fairness between business users and bigger companies with more market power is not something totally alien to what we know from different laws. There is obviously a relationship between what competition law and antitrust law wants to achieve in terms of contestability and also in terms of fairness, but the DMA goes beyond the DMA. Tackles actually issues that are related to market structure that are independent of conduct of a specific company. So quickly, and I guess many of you are very familiar with the DMA so I'm not going to dwell on that very much. This is about the how the legislature has implemented that the legislature has basically defined a number of so-called platform services that includes storage engines, online intermediation services, messaging services, and if a company fulfills certain thresholds, which you find in the DMA, then this company will be designated for a specific service on the basis of quantitative criteria as a gatekeeper that will have to comply with all the obligations that DMA provides for. So if a company can rebut this presumption that the figures would actually lead it to have a gatekeeper status, but only in very, very limited circumstances that's on purpose, the legislature has said, if a company fulfills certain business user and end users thresholds is 45 million and 10,000 45 million end users 10,000 business users, then a company is deemed to be a gatekeeper for the specific service. If it's not deemed to be a gatekeeper or doesn't fall within the thresholds, the commission still has the possibility to qualitatively assess the position of this company and come to the conclusion that a company is a gatekeeper. As I said, I'm not going to bore you with all of these details on the DMA. I'm sure you're all familiar with it. You want to learn, I guess, more how it's going to be implemented in practice. So I think the law is less interesting, I would think. So the obligations therefore I'm not going to go into them very much. They're all set out in the articles five, six and seven. I think what is going to be really interesting is how they're going to be interpreted, and what are the challenges and all that we talk about that. I mean, let's acknowledge it. The DMA is uncharted territory for both us as regulator and for the potential gatekeeper but also for third parties who have an interest in in the enforcement of the DMA. So it's all, I don't want to say trial and error because that sounds as if we are doing we obviously have quite have our objectives in mind and the contestability and fairness objectives are very firmly set in the law, but it's testing. And this implies a lot of discussions with the gatekeepers who have to explain their business models to us who have to, and also third parties who have to explain the market realities to us so that we can apply the law in a way that makes sense in the market. One of the big challenges I think for a regulator in this kind of an enforcement system is the big informational symmetry between what we know as regulators about the market and what the gatekeepers know about their products about the functioning of the market. That's very difficult, at least in the first stage when you're on a very steep learning curve to bridge. So how can you bridge that I think there's a number of ways to bridge that first of all, we want to start with a collaborative enforcement approach as a starting point. So we're inviting the gatekeeping companies to explain to us how their business models look like what we would want to see in terms of compliance and build your open to a dialogue to find solutions which are compliant with the law at the same time, but also make sense from a business reality perspective for the gatekeeping companies. But if that doesn't work, then you'd also have to bring in the guns if I can say so. That means there is plenty of very tough enforcement possibilities that the DMB provides for. So we can go for periodic penalty payments relatively high fines as a last resort even structural remedies if a company doesn't want to comply with the DMA. But in the end, I think the starting point is that we want to try a collaborative method. You can also call it the carrot and stick approach if you want to and we will first try to discuss with the gatekeepers and only in a second stage resort to enforcement if necessary. So that's the first thing to bridge the informational cemetery. The second thing is bring in third parties bring in third parties so that we basically have, as I will call it a reality check on the markets and there's quite some tools in the DMA where we can bring in third parties formally speaking but there's also obviously the possibility to talk to parties informally about potential complaints potential compliance issues. We really want to have an open door policy where we bring in the parties early early on to help us in determining whether a gatekeeper is actually compliant with the obligations. And then we need to ramp up our own knowledge. We will do this in house. We will also do this with the help of external experts. So a lot of enforcement in the DMA is actually front loaded that means that a lot will happen in the in the first phase when gatekeepers will have to be designated under the formal quantitative designation process which is going to happen over the summer next year and then gatekeepers after designation of six months to comply and then compliance efforts and compliance will really get hot if I may say so beginning of 2024. This is when gatekeepers will have to comply with all of the obligations in one go, which for many of the gatekeepers already means that they have to prepare now in order to be ready for for the 2024 date. How in practice will the DMA interact with competition law. That's also a question that is often raised. So are we going to stop antitrust enforcement in digital markets. That's certainly not the plan at all. What obviously doesn't make a lot of sense is to replicate DMA procedures with parallel antitrust proceedings. That's not something that we're planning on, but the DMA is a very, or has a very limited set of obligations. It has its limits. It doesn't go beyond the obligations which are in the act or does an updating mechanism, but there are limits to what can be done under the DMA. So in essence, antitrust enforcement will fill the gaps between what is regulated under the DMA and what is not regulated under the DMA. So the DMA deals with, I may say, so the most egregious behavior of gatekeeping companies. And if new behavior, new conduct comes up or conduct which isn't fully covered by the DMA then antitrust enforcement can kick in. And as in the past, there's obviously the two instruments will run in parallel. That's not new. That is something that's done in telecommunications law and the Court of Justice has recently confirmed in a case that concerns the postal sector that there needs to be between the sectorial regulation which the DMA is basically and general antitrust that needs to be coordination between the two tools and the regulators that work on the two tools in order to avoid the issues of double jeopardy. And in the end, I will have to be very clear coordination between those who enforce the DMA, which is the Commission, but also the National Competition Authority, which go on enforcing their national competition laws, but also data protection regulators. Because as we know the DMA refers a lot to concepts of the GDPR and obviously these need to be interpreted uniformly. Just recently yesterday, there was an opinion by Advocate General Rantos in the German Meta case where he reiterated that it is very important that the data protection offices and authorities and the competition authorities work together on the DMA, not in this context, but here it was a competition on GDPR, but obviously this can be extrapolated to the DMA. Looking at the time, I think I'm going to conclude here and leave it to questions. What I wanted to say is obviously the DMA is not just a challenge for the regulator, it's also a challenge for the beneficiaries of the obligations. So we invite very much a collaborative discussion with them as well. As I said, the doors are open and also for the gatekeepers, we are very much already engaging with many of the gatekeepers as we speak going forward, I think this has to intensify. To make this work, I think it needs a common effort and it's in the interest, I think of everybody involved to make it work because if it doesn't work, there's the risk that there will be even more backlash. I think that I think that's pretty simple. This is just we need to make this work collectively. And I think the best way to do that is to try this in a collaborative way. If that doesn't work, I mean the commission is obviously ready to use all the tools available under the instrument to make gatekeeping companies comply with the law. Thank you very much.


ese things that are really sort of complementary to a casino type use or to a resort type use. So this, you know, sort of inefficient zoning, if you will, is creating some sort of lost opportunity costs to the city. And that's where we agree that there was a nexus. And really, this does go hand in hand with that transportation planning. If you're looking at the future of your transportation and your corridor, you want that to match with what your zoning is and, you know, you're allowing the right uses and developing the roadway in the right way. So we looked at these as really being complimentary to one another. And, you know, for those reasons, we recommend awarding a grant in the amount of $50,000 for the zoning analysis. Any questions for Joe on this one? comments. I'm seeing no. It doesn't mean lack of interest. That means straightforward. Okay. Okay. And then the last one is Maldon, another application from Maldon. They're looking for $100,000 to perform a feasibility study to redevelop the old Maldon district court building into an arts center. So the city would like to develop this arts center as an anchor institution that would help support local businesses in an area that they're calling the Maldon center gaming district. So this area, a number of businesses have opened up there that include things like escape rooms, e-sports gaming, tabletop gaming, billiards and things of that nature. Now, the city has stated in their application that Encore has had a negative impact on these businesses. You know, we did ask the city if they could provide us with any, you know, sort of documentation of any kind that would really sort of make that connection. And they really were unable to do so. You know, partly due to COVID and other things, but, you know, absent. So basically, you know, the review team was not convinced that the city made a nexus between this project and the casino, other than sort of a general statement that an impact was occurring. Now, the other issue with this project is the city does not yet own the building. DCAM has listed the property as available surplus and has filed legislation to that effect. But at this time, it hasn't been determined what the cost of the building will be to the city and how the city will pay for it. And the indication was that this would require some additional legislation to be filed once that's been determined. The city did say to us that they expected to take possession of the property within six months. But essentially, you know, given the uncertainties around the ownership and a lack of a nexus to the casino, the review team feels that this application really is just, you know, premature and does not recommend awarding a grant to the city in Maldon for this project. You know, it might be better, you know, next year to come in, you know, assuming they get possession of the building, that might make more sense at that time. But right now, we just thought it was premature. Now with that, I will open up for questions. Commissioner Cameron. Yeah, I would agree that it's premature and possibly I know with one of your training programs give them some information on how to maybe make a nexus, you know, obviously just be able to articulate it better. You may have some suggestions for them. So I agree with the team on this one. And the fact that they don't own the building, is that part of the prematureing out? Okay, thanks. Commissioner Zunica. Yeah, I think that's the aspect that does it for me as well. It is potentially a key input in a feasibility study.  So it all comes down to the timing in my view and that's why maybe we tell them to try when they know more in a future year. Commissioner Browning. No, I agree that kind of, you had me at premature when they didn't have access to the building yet. Yeah, yeah. I think we're all stuck then on- Okay, so that- The recommendation with respect to Melvin. Okay, so let me just, I'll just do the quick run through on the community planning. So Lynn, the marketing plan we just talked about, the Maldon Broadway Zoning we talked about. And then the other one was the North Hampton that we talked about at the last meeting. So those are the ones that we are recommending. And then we have the one that we are not recommending, which is the Medford, excuse me, Maldon Art Center. So there's three in all, Lynn and North Hampton, you're making an affirmative recommendation and Maldon recommending to decline. Well, we're recommending Lynn, Maldon and North Hampton. Maldon is the Broadway Zoning. Oh, that's hard. And we're not recommending the Maldon Art Center. Oh, sorry. All right, one is recommended, one is not. Yeah, thank you. At the Arts Center. And. All right, all right. Madam Chair, I move that the commission approve the award of the following grants from the Community Mitigation Fund pertaining to community planning to the city of Lynn and award for $100,000 for a marketing campaign to Maldon, $50,000 for the Broadway Zoning Improvement Analysis. And to North Hampton, $75,000 for the North Hampton Live Initiative. These grants are for the purposes described in the memos of the commissioner's packet and submitted applications, as discussed both here today and on May 6th, 2021. And further, the commission staff be authorized to execute grant instruments commemorating the awards in accordance with 205 CMR 153.04. I second that motion. Thank you. Any further questions for Joanne team? All right, commissioner Cameron. Aye. Commissioner Bryan. Aye. Commissioner Zuniga. Aye. And I vote yes. Thank you, Tanya, for zero. And finally, Madam Chair, I move that the commission deny the application to the Community Mitigation Fund by Maldon for the request pertaining to the study of turning the former Maldon District Court into the Arts Center. Second. Any questions, comments? Okay. Commissioner Cameron. Aye. Commissioner Bryan. Aye. Commissioner Zuniga. Aye. I vote yes, for zero. Thank you. That concludes all of your presentation today, correct, Jo? Indeed, it does. Okay, well, I am going to ask for just a five minute break before we move on to the quarterly reports. I need to open some doors in my house because it's getting warm and get some water. I don't know if anybody else feels a need, but five minutes stretch, and then we'll move on to our two quarterly reports, correct, Jo? Yep. Okay, thanks. Five minutes and we'll reconvene. All right. Next up, we have the encore Boston Harbor quarterly report for the first quarter. We have with us Jackie Crum, Senior Vice President and General Counsel, and Juliana Catanzarini is the Executive Director of Legal to do their quarterly report for us. And with that, I'll turn it over to Jackie. Great. Juliana, are you able to share the PowerPoint? I can, yes. Okay, thank you. Let's see. I've got one standing by if you have technical difficulties. Yep, there we go. Can I see? Yep. Well, Juliana is doing that. I just want to let you know on the prior discussion, we met with the city of Maldon a couple of weeks ago and had a great discussion about their gaming district. It's really fantastic what they were doing there. And I think there's gonna be a lot of opportunity for collaboration. Excellent. Well, thank you, Jackie, for that. Thank you very much. Okay. Okay, go ahead, Juliana. Sure. So good afternoon, Madam Chair, commissioners. It's nice to see you all again, albeit virtually, but we will start with our gaming revenue taxes and lottery sales for the first quarter of 2021. Let's see. The monthly totals are provided at the table, but our total gross gaming revenue for table games for the first quarter was 51,147,252. The total slots gross gaming revenue was 72,828,463 for total gross gaming revenue for the first quarter of 123,975,716. And this resulted in state taxes of 30,993,929 being collected. Here we have a year over year comparison, the first quarter of 2020, which as we all know, only went through March 15th due to the mandatory COVID closure as compared to the first quarter of 2021. Next, we have our lottery sales for the first quarter of 2020 of 2021, excuse me. In January, we had total sales of 230,487, February 186,552, and March 196,538 for total Q1 lottery revenue of 613,578,000. Here's a year over year comparison of lottery sales for the first quarter of 2020, as compared to the first quarter of 2021. The percent change from the same quarter for 2020 to 2021 was minus 13.3%. Jackie, I think we'll turn it over to you for the workforce. Okay, so if we can just go to the next, there we go. So on our employees, we went up to 55% for minority employees that compared to our goal, 40%. We did go down one percentage point on the number of women. And in anticipation of some questions that that might raise, I went and looked at the total, all of our data about that. So essentially we lost about 400 employees between January and the end of May of this, to date. So for a lot of different reasons, involuntary or non-involuntary attendance issues, other infractions, policies, some personal reasons, a lot of people relocated, a lot of people took jobs in different industries. The good news about that is of that, we lost fewer females than males, so you'll see that percentage come up again. The other thing I wanted to let everyone know is that we are actively hiring. So we've got, let's see, about 45 positions that we're hiring for. We're looking to fill over 230 jobs and we have the remainder of those 400 jobs that we lost already in process or onboarding. We're consistently looking for jobs in security, cage, cashiers, cocktail servers, food and beverage, every part of food and beverage, and always dealers. Any questions on that? I might get questions at the end, Jackie. Okay, so then we turn to the operating spend. In the first quarter, we were able to exceed our goal for minority business enterprises. We had a goal of 8% and we spent 15% for 2.1 million. Veterans business enterprises, we did not hit our goal of 3%. We were at 2% for 272,000. And women business enterprises were continuing to try to seek new women's business enterprises to try to obtain our goal of 14%. This current quarter we were at 8% to spend. The total diverse spend was 25%, which was our annual goal overall. Then going into the local spend. Oh, just before I move on from the operating spend and diversity, I wanted to let you know that we have on a corporate level engaged a VP of diversity and inclusion for the company. She should be starting shortly and we're very excited to get her on board and to have her lend some assistance to us in this area as well. So moving on to our local spend. This is something that we continue to work with the cities to try to reach the annual goals that we have established as part of our surrounding community agreements. We're doing pretty well in Everett. The other communities we have reached out to, for example, as I said, we met with Molden a couple of weeks ago. We've asked them to help us identify some potentially new businesses that have come into the market or to try to grow our spend with the current businesses that they have. Also very excited to, we launched a gift certificate or gift card purchase program. And we just purchased almost, I think we're up to about $30,000 worth of gift cards from local restaurants. So I'll attempt to try to help the local restaurants in our host and surrounding communities. So we were able to spend about $2,000 per restaurant and purchase about 70 to 80 gift certificates from those restaurants. They were all very excited. And I want to thank the cities, particularly Everett and Molden for working with us to accomplish that. One vendor we wanted to highlight, this is during the first quarter, we placed an order of about 370,000 in promotional, which are nice from this woman business enterprise. And in anticipation of a question, commissioners Amiga, they are located in Pennsylvania. Moving on to compliance. During the first quarter, we have the January, February, March, monthly breakdowns here, but there was a total of nine miners intercepted on the gaming floor that were prevented from gaming. We had two miners intercepted gaming, one of which was intercepted at a slot machine, the other of which was intercepted at a table game. We had one miner intercepted consuming alcohol. There was a total of seven IDs not checked that resulted in miners entering the gaming floor, and three fake IDs were provided by miners that results in them entering the gaming floor. The average length of time spent by a miner on the casino floor or by miners on the casino floor is 30 minutes. The longest length of time spent was one hour and 56 minutes and the shortest was one minute. And Juliana, do you wanna explain why this doesn't necessarily add up correctly? Sure, so if you try to total these numbers, they don't make much sense. There are two reasons for that. One is that a certain miner may fit into more than one category. So a miner could be intercepted both gaming and consuming alcohol, which would force one person to be included twice, essentially. And the other discrepancy for this quarter in particular is you can see in the last column, if you look at the number of fake IDs provided by miners resulted in a miner on the gaming floor, I think the month is for February, it was zero. The number of IDs not checked was two, but the total number of miners was three, and that is because one miner actually presented their real ID that indicated they were a miner and that miner was permitted on the gaming floor. So that would be that discrepancy. And just a follow-up, if I guess to anticipate any questions there, that security officer was disciplined in ultimately into being terminated. That would be the security officer that permitted the entry of that miner. A quick promotions and marketing update. We are very excited to be named one of the best hotels in Boston by Travel and Leisure for their March, 2021 list of best hotels in Boston. And also for March, 2021, Boston Magazine included our rare steakhouse on a list of the best steakhouses in Boston right now. Two very exciting, I guess, acknowledgements for us and two lists that we are happy to be a part of. So on the special event, this one is dotting the eyes ceremony in celebration of the Lunar New Year. You may recognize our CEO, mathematics, and Alison Rankin is our property chief financial officer. They were actually dotting the dragon's eyes on a lift, and then we did a very socially distanced dragon dance as well, with the dragons literally scooting through the casino as quickly as possible and getting up the back. But it's a way to awaken the dragon. We're also very pleased to open cheese meat wine. And actually, this plate looks pretty poultry compared to what I've seen served. So we'll have to get a better photo, but it's been really popular, well received. There's a weight outside almost every Friday and Saturday night, so it's really going well. This was in the space that was formerly the oyster bar. And then finally, we were very excited, very happy that we were permitted to open crafts. And I think about an hour after the commission approved that we cut the ribbon and the dices were rolling. So thank you. It looks like you Jackie. I got the, yes, I was given the honor of cutting the ribbon. And then as you're aware, we opened a vaccination site with Cambridge Health Alliance. So they're running the site for us. We were very fortunate to have Governor Baker, Lieutenant Governor Polito and Secretary Sutter's come over a few weeks ago to do their press release. They did a tour of the vaccination center and then they did a press release from one of our ballrooms. Everyone liked that chandelier very much. So we put a big bucket to feature it. This has been a huge benefit to us in terms of getting our employees and their families vaccinated. So we were one of the first vaccination centers to allow walk-ins. And so people could literally just go up, sign up right then and there. And we've seen really good traffic through there. And we've also launched Back of House, a campaign trying to encourage all of our employees to get vaccinated. We're trying to make it as easy as possible. You know, featuring our actual employees to really spread the word and try to get information out about vaccinations. One of the things that we've just launched in the last, gosh, last three or four days is any employee who shows us a vaccination card if they're fully vaccinated, they get a gift certificate. So HR has been handling that this week and our numbers are really good for three days of collection. And finally, we opened Night Shift Brewing Kitchen & Tap. This is a local brewery from Everett. They were really pleased. They, essentially it's, we're featuring their bears on tap in this location and their name. So that was the excitement for quarter one, first quarter. Oh, I do have one more thing to show you. Juliana, would you mind unsharing your screen? I will share. This is just kind of a fun one. Here we go. So we completed yesterday the installation of our new Ferris wheel. So you may recall the carousel that was there beforehand. And now we have a new flower installation. Let's see the place. So we invite everyone to come and take new selfies by this. Any questions for Jackie? I'm not sure if I may. Yeah, Commissioner Kim. First thing for Juliana. Just a slight drop in the lottery over the last three months. Any reason for January February much? Any identifiable reason or is it just all a sample to really make it? I don't think we have an identifiable reason. I think it's just a sort of random occurrence. Okay. Thank you. And for Jackie, Jackie excellent work with hiring a VP of diversity and inclusion. And I think you've been working with certain commissioners a long, long time. You are anticipating questions. But I do like you were proactive on drilling down on the women and what those numbers are.  So thank you for that. And I love the vaccination campaign. The graphics are great as well as the incentives. So really, really innovative. Thanks. And on the employees that have left, so we're able to, we do exit interviews. And so we're able to establish the reasons why they're leaving and try to group that. So if we do see a trend, whether it's by department, by gender, by race, we can actually track that. And the good news is today, if we haven't seen a single department or a single gender being disproportionately impacted. Excellent. Thank you for that. Krishan Suneka, Krisha Bayan. I was just, also, thank you for the presentation, Jackie and Juliana. What, I'm curious, where is the night shift ruin? What space did it occupy? What was there before? That was waterfront. Okay. Very similar menu to what waterfront had. New name and a lot of different options for night shift beers. Right. Great. And where is the new wine and cheese offering? What was there before? Oyster bar. Oyster bar, okay. So they actually carved the meats and cheeses to order, right, you know, in that space where they were checking oysters. Yeah, yeah. I'm due for another visit to Angkor now that things are changing as well. I'm sure it's down here. I did, I know our definition of minor is under 21, but do you have the breakdown of truly a minor under 18 versus 18 to 20 in these numbers? I'm almost positive they were all 18 to 21, 18 to 20, but I can get you the actual breakdown. Okay. And then, do you know any more details about the person who was there for almost two hours? Was that the person who showed ID and got let on or, I mean, that's a long time. I can find out, I think that may have been that person, yes. And most of the minors that were put on the gaming floor, they're usually 20 birthday in a month or two type situations for what I've seen anyway, but we can get you more information on that particular situation. And then Jackie, in terms of the women numbers, I would assume that part of this too is not only is there a trend for people out the door, but I know things like security is traditionally harder to get women into and I assume you've got initiative going to try to figure out how to recruit more women into some of those roles. You know, it's fairly balanced actually. So between the cocktail servers, you know, in every orientation that I've done in the last few weeks, we've seen a very even number of cocktail servers, security, cage and dealers. So, and they seem to vary in terms of gender. So I think we're on track to at least get back to where we were, if not improve it. Okay, and do you know what was the number for Q1 2020 before the pandemic in terms of the women? It was 53% and I don't know the actual, sorry, 43% as opposed to 42%. Okay. So we wanna, we're trying to increase that irrespective of what we see happening. And then over under on someone trying to actually ride your Ferris wheel. I would, I'm giving it four or five days. I was gonna say, it hasn't happened yet. It has not happened yet. So there, I don't know if you could see. That'll be an interesting video. On the Ferris wheel, there are little stuffed animals that go around as part of this and I'm wondering who gets one of those first. I'm not sure Brian is getting ready possibly to regulate sports betting. She's really learning all the terminology there. Yeah. Great. Well, we can hope. I guess the only thing I have for question is I am regretting not remembering your compliance numbers with respect to minors from the last quarter. Does this, are these higher numbers? Can you remind me Jackie and Juliana? I think they might be a little higher than last quarter. I think we have a very good trend for a while. In fact, I think we had zero for. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, I have to say when I saw this report come in the other day, I thought your numbers have been really good. So I guess I'm recommending that you take a step and pause and figure out what's changed and if it's training or refreshing, particularly with respect to how do you assess what a minor is looking like these days? But I think that probably this commission will be very interested in seeing the trends go back to your original. I think that we would too. I know at least with respect to the one it was just human error. It came up right on the Veridox machine and the person just let the person in. And that's the person who Juliana said had been disciplined and subsequently is no longer with the company. But we have, we've recently stressed with all of our employees, not just the security guards who are letting, have the initial contact, but we're stressing the importance of consistently checking for identification even once they're in the building. So whether it's at a restaurant when they order alcohol, when they sit down at a table. So I think that's sort of the second level of protection that we really wanna make sure is in place. I know that one of the minors in this particular occasion was using an ID. I don't know if it was a brother or a close relative. And I think it was very difficult to distinguish. So when they put it in the Veridox, we call it the toaster, they put it in and it pops up, it came up great and the person did a facial check and looked fine, but later on it was determined that that person was not actually the person who was holding the ID. Couldn't remember his brother's middle name. All right, I think that that's fair. So we'll be looking at the next quarter with probably a comparison on that. Fair warning commissioners. Okay. Very nice report. Exciting as always in terms of the good marketing news that you got. I did happen to see independent of my work, both of those reports that I knew on CORDV would be, I should be proud and pleased. So it's nice to see it memorialized here. Thank you. And of course on terms of the women, we'll just keep on looking for an improvement and different strategies that you use to bring up those numbers. Anything, sorry, Jackie. Oh, thank you. Juliana, thank you too. And as always, it's great to see you both. Commissures, are we all set? And Joe, would you speak to Encore? Okay. Well, next up we have the Claim Ridge Park casino quarterly report. And we have with us, the North Crown Cell General Manager, Kathy Lucas, Vice President of Human Resources and Lisa McKenney, a quiet spend. With that, I'll turn it over to North. Great. Thank you, Joe. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and good afternoon commissioners. Claim Ridge Park is pleased to present our Q1 2021 report to the commission. Dana Fortnoy, our VP of finance is out this week on some well-deserved vacation. So I will be covering the slides she would normally cover. As we look at our gaming revenue and taxes in Q1 of 2021, Claim Ridge generated net slot revenues just over 31.5 million and total taxes to the Commonwealth of 15.4 million. Please note for comparison purposes that the numbers for Q1 of 2020 represent a partial month of operation due to the start of the COVID pandemic in March of 2020. Looking now at lottery sales, Claim Ridge Park sold over $458,000 in lottery tickets during the quarter. This number represents a decrease of 35.9% compared to the prior year. And while this number is down year over year, it represents an increase of $154,000 over the prior quarter. As we mentioned in our last update, the new member promotion that awarded lottery tickets as prizes to new members continued into Q1 of 2021. Going now into our spend by state, the casino in Q1 spent over $172,000 or 36% of total qualified spend with businesses within the Commonwealth. The remaining spend for the quarter is split amongst the several states shown to the right and total qualified spend for Q1 was $478,000, $478,900. As we look at our local spend, unfortunately less than 1% of all mass spend was with businesses and hosts and surrounding communities. We anticipate the numbers we report for these two slides will look significantly different for Q2 based on known spend scheduled to occur during the quarter. Moving over to vendor diversity, Claim Ridge exceeded its goals for total diverse spend, minority spend and veteran spend. Property fell just shy of its women business enterprise, WBE spend in Q1. As with the prior slide, we expect the spend for WBE to increase significantly in Q2 based on known spending within the quarter. As we look at the breakdown of diverse spend, you'll notice a decrease of nearly 62% compared to the prior quarter. It should be noted that the decrease in diverse spend was less than the decrease in total qualified spend. At this point, I'll pass the presentation to Kathy Lucas who will speak on our slides related to compliance and employment. And then I'll come back at the end to answer any questions. Thank you, North. Turning your attention to compliance, during the first quarter, we prevented 531 individuals from entering the gaming establishment of which 502 had expired in valid or no IDs. Five were minors and 24 were underage. During the first quarter, we had one minor or underage escorted from the gaming area and zero gamble at slot machines or consumed alcoholic beverages. Next slide, please. All employees referenced in this exhibit were current as of quarter one, 2021. We had 266 team members at that point. And that was a decrease of 69 team members from Q4. Based on the layoffs we had due to COVID closures. We exceeded our diversity goal of 15% in Q1. At 24%, we exceeded our veterans goal of 2% in Q1 at 6%. We did see a decrease in comparison to our women's goal in Q1. We hit 39%. This was directly correlated to our COVID layoffs. And we have currently posted and are actively hiring for our lounge, food and beverage departments where the majority of these positions were held by women and laid off. So we're looking to return those roles. We slightly exceeded our local goal of 35% in Q1 reaching 36%. And the casino again had 261 employees. 200 or 76% were full-time. 59 or 22% were part-time. And the rest are the remaining were seasonal. As we move closer to reopening fully, our commitments are recruiting from community-based organizations that support diversity veterans and women. It's incredibly strong. We're confident that we will return to exceeding and meeting the goal for women team members with the return of the departments that have been impacted by the COVID regulations. We actually have a job here this Saturday and two more next week. We implemented an incentive program for team members who left us and haven't come back in regards to returning in a safe environment. So the incentive is by sharing their vaccine cards similar to the program we have running for our guests. They will receive cash relative or actually cash to mitigate hesitancy and safety concerns. We partner with Sturdy Memorial Hospital and CVS to provide convenient access to vaccination for our team members. And again, we have approximately 45 positions posted and we need 60 team members over the next month or so to return to full staffing. Next slide, North. In Q1, you'll see at the supervisor level and above, we have 65 team members. 28% of that is diverse, 5% are veterans, and 38.4% are women, which is actually an increase over the prior quarter. What that shows is that when we have the opportunity to either rehire or recall or hire new, we have the opportunity to take talented women into those roles. Next slide, North. We're missing a slide on the Plain Ridge Park and Penn gaming diversity and inclusion initiatives. So the pictures aren't there, but I'll just share that Plain Ridge Park casino donated $5,000 to the Boston Pearl Foundation. The Boston Pearl Foundation provides financial assistance to students attending college. This relationship allows us to support furthering the education of young black women who enroll as freshmen in four-year colleges or universities. We partnered with them before and will continue to support them. And then finally, I wanted to share that Penn gaming launched our diversity scholarship program where, as an organization, we're committed to spending $1 million to this program. It's exclusively for the children of team members. We're heavily invested in the commitment to equity and post-secondary education opportunities for students. Plain Ridge is incredibly proud to share that we do have a scholarship recipient that will be announced on the 28th for one of the diversity scholarships that the organization is providing. So we look forward to sharing that one of our team members' children has been awarded one of those scholarships out of that million dollars. North, I'll turn it back to you. Kathy, I want to assure you that the slide is included in the public packet. OK, awesome. Yeah, so that's great news. Thank you. So that concludes our presentation. At this point, I will take your questions. Commissioners. Commissioner, who wants to go first? Oh, no questions. Commissioner Cameron, I see you moving. Yes, thank you. I think this question is for Kathy. Kathy, so you are pretty confident that the women that were laid off will come back, or you'll replace them with other women because of the types of jobs? Is that what's your? Yeah, so if you look at the numbers where we lost, we lost in our cocktail servers, our lounge servers, our bartenders. And those were highly populated by females in our food and beverage categories also. So we have done really well with the job there in regards to reaching out to team members who were laid off and asking them to come back to us and also looking at the partnerships that we have with the community-based organizations that heavily feature women. So we're pretty confident that we'll be able to fill those wells. We have about 60 roles, and of that, they're probably going to be a 60%, 40% split on women. It sounds like you were proactive. You didn't just post the position. You actually reached out to those former team members and encouraged them to come back. Yeah, we haven't stopped. Thank you. Throughout the process, since the layoffs, we have been communicating with all of our team members in regards to positions that are open. Even if it wasn't theirs, we had team members in roles that still weren't available, come back into other roles. So we stay very close to our team members in regards to what's available at the property. That's excellent. It seems like others might be able to learn from that, but it really helps to stay connected and to encourage people feel welcome. And the work you're doing around the vaccine, you're trying to get them to feel safe as well, correct? Right. Great. And really good job with the amount of women supervisors and above. That was a problem a couple of years ago. I don't know if you're aware of that, but it really was. The numbers were not great a couple of years ago. So we've done an excellent job with that. So thanks for being proactive. It does make a difference. Thank you. I have questions or comments. Commissioner Sunica, are you leaning in? Commissioner. Hi, I'm Commissioner O'Brien. I just want one comment and one question. One is to say thank you on your compliance slide for breaking out the minors versus the underage. I've been asking for a while, so I very much appreciate that that's in there. And in terms of the one minor that was escorted off the floor, any idea how long the minor was on the floor? Yeah, commissioner. They were on the floor for about 10 minutes. They did not gamble, they did not consume alcohol. OK, great. Thank you. You're welcome. Commissioner Sunica. Here, just to comment that now for both licensees that provided the report, there's very nice and encouraging trends, incentives for vaccination, rehiring, open positions rather, and an increasing trend in terms of, obviously, jobs, spend, and revenues. So what a difference a quarter makes and really a year, but it's really great to hear all these updates. I agree with that. Excellent report and presentation. North, Kathy, and I know Lisa, I think, was joining. There she is. Thank you so much. Agree with the trends. No, it looks like there's a challenge with hiring women right now. And I agree with Commissioner Cameron. You've got some strategies in place, and we really wish you good luck on that. We'd love to see those percentages rise. And then finally, the excellent slide at the end of your program. Kathy, I look forward to hearing who, in fact, is recognized. So we appreciate that commitment very much. Thank you. Joe. Joe. So that concludes the report of the Community Affairs Division. And now, I've got to get back to my agenda. I'm scrolling away, bear with me, because I had pulled up the presentation to make sure that slide was in there. In terms of the agenda, I want to just skip to number nine to make sure the commissioners, eight addresses in an anticipated executive session. Does anybody have a commissioners update or new business or other business that we need to look at first? I'm saying no. OK. So PPC, thank you for staying on. I have to read this language into the record correct, Councillor Grosman. So the commission right now anticipates that we will meet in executive session in accordance with GL Chapter 30A Section 21A7 to comply with GL Chapter 23K 21A7 for the specific purpose of reviewing the proposed multi-year capital expenditure plan described in 205CMR 139.09, excuse me, and any corresponding materials submitted relative to Plain Ridge Park Casino. As discussion of this matter in public would frustrate the purpose of the statute in associated legal authorities. This matter is further governed by 205CMR 139.02 as the information at issue is covered by a non-disclosure agreement. To point out, the public session of the commission meeting will not reconvene at the conclusion of any executive session. So we do have to have a roll call vote to move into executive session and then as I point out, we would not reconvene publicly. Do I have a motion? Thank you. I second that. Thank you. Commissioner Cameron. Aye. Commissioner O'Brien. Aye. Commissioner Zinica. Aye. And I vote yes. That allows us to move into executive session and so the way that this works virtually is that I am going to end our virtual meeting with the public now. We will not be reconvening publicly and then we have a different link to a separate virtual room that will allow us to fulfill the executive sessions purpose. To all the team, thank you so much for a really productive day. Appreciate it very much. I'll see you next week. Okay, so I'm concluding this and we'll see you in our next room. Thank you.


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Hi guys, this is Jason Zak from Nathaniel School of Music. In this lesson, we are going to do quite a few things as an exercise, it will be a very good practice for a bunch of things. Your chord inversions, your study of beat divisions, usage of triplets, semi quavers, quavers all in one and also chords which are broken up, you could call them arpeggios or broken chords and also block chords, how do you use block chords and arpeggios together and I have put it together in a rather real world challenge that you might face on any instrument wherein you are playing two chords, let's say in this exercise we are going to stick with B flat major, B flat D F and D major, D F sharp A, two nice chords which go pretty well together, but the challenge here would be if you play these chords as 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, that's two bars of B flat, 2, 3, 4, 5, 2, that's two bars of D, so the journey between or during these two chords B flat and D is rather boring if you ask me because you're just, you know, people are just hearing the same block of three notes B flat D F in some inversion or the other, that's what we plan to do in this lesson, how to make the journey between chords or just one chord and during the same chord more interesting and what we'll also do is isolate the study, what I mean by that is we will focus on one element at a time and we'll do this over a few lessons, so in this lecture we are going to only focus on rhythm and the pattern of the chords, we are not going to look at changing the chords in any way, so it's still going to be B flat major, but what you watch in the intro video was some kind of arpeggiation and some kind of interest, so I'm going to teach you those things specifically and it's primarily going to be rhythmic wherein the chords would either be blocked, block means you play them together and arpeggiated meaning you break them in certain groupings which I'm going to teach you, okay, my handwritten notes is there to help support the lesson, you can probably get yourself a copy on our Patreon, it's a PDF file ready for download and you'll also get notation, MIDI and backing tracks wherever applicable for a lot of our YouTube lessons which we've done, hundreds of them actually, so do consider heading over to Patreon for just $5 a month as your subscription and before we get started it'll be great if you could consider hitting that subscribe button and turn on the bell icon for regular notifications, let's get cracking, so the two chords B flat major and D major, let's first walk you through to the chords, the shapes and more importantly the inversions, we're going to need to use the inversions throughout the lesson, so B flat major, I'm playing it first off in its root position, B flat, D, F, you can go index, middle, pinky or else thumb, index, ring or you can even do thumb, middle, pinky, see what suits you I guess and if ever you're using the thumb on any of these chords which you will end up needing to especially with the inversions, give your thumb a slightly curved position, don't play it straight otherwise your elbow will have to come close to the body and it kind of put some strain on the hand in general, so curve your thumb or else you can use your index finger, so B flat major this way, then you can also play B flat major this way, that would be D, F, B flat, that's called as the first inversion and then we have F, B flat, D, that's your second inversion, so root, first, second and the left hand we'll just maintain a steady root, B flat, B flat octave, now the other chord D major, let's walk you through that, D major, that's D F sharp A or else F sharp A D, A D F sharp, so D F sharp A F sharp A D, A D F sharp, these are all your inversions, so the job for us right now would be there are two bars of each chord, B flat played over 1 2 3 4 2nd bar and D major played for another two bars, 1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4, what do we do, so if you see the notation bar number one there's a rhythm pattern there which is quarter, quarter, quarter, triple it, quarter, quarter, quarter, triple it, 1 2 3 4 and 1 2 3 tuck it, so that's bar number one, so with B flat major and with D major when you encounter bar one you do 1 2 3 triple it, 1 and what are we going to do in bar number two, bar number two I've designed it to be pretty interesting to give you two styles of arpeggios wherein you start with a block at beat one, 1 2e and a 3e and a 4e and a 1, 2e and a 3e and a 4e and a 1, 2e and a 3e and a 4, so it's essentially semi-quaver fillers okay, 2 3 4 that's your bar 2, 2 3 4 that's your bar 2, so if you compare bar one and bar two again, 1 2 3 4 o o 1 2 3 e 4 o o 1 bar 1 2 3 triple it, tuck it so that's the rhythm pattern for this lesson and we are going to try and play this over B flat now the first obvious challenge you're going to face if you play block chords over the faster stuff the triplet variation and the semi-quaver variation is going to end up being as you can see it A is pretty tough for me to block it so fast and it's also rather annoying to listen to when you have chords colliding so fast with each other so that's a great opportunity to break up the notes of the chord and do what we call as an arpeggio so instead of doing something like that we can break up the chord so with semi-quavers and triplets i'm going to give you options so let's let's get that done so 1 2 let's just focus on bar 1 of B flat major 1 2 3 4 o o 4 o o now you could do two things at the 4 1 2 3 4 o o you're going up the chord that is l m h or you can even do 1 2 3 h m l down the chord or up the chord down the chord so this is a good filler and when you fill remember remember the fact that you have multiple inversions per chord right multiple meaning three not too much so b flat arpeggio or you can do b flat dfb flat arpeggio or else dfb flat first inversion la la la coming down okay remember the arpeggio either goes h m l going down or l m h going up let's do that again b flat bum bum bum bum full around with different inversions and different directions of the arpeggio so if you observe what i'm doing here i'm doing second inversion of b flat major and up the arpeggio on the triplet phrasing we call these as eighth note triplets two because they divide a quarter note or a pulse note by three okay to keep things a bit interesting you can also go on the blocks you can in plate not just with the same inversion if you want to challenge yourself further you can go root first second arpeggio you can go all the way up you've accessed a fair amount of the keyboard root first second inversion arpeggio and then just come back down doesn't matter which inversion you start from you can even start from the second inversion you know arpeggio up the arpeggio do it organically do it however you want really ultimately the goal is to practice inversions as well as that triplet filler let's do it a little bit to speed okay looks like we are ready to journey towards the next chord that's d major so b flat major d major d major and b flat sound very nice together they have that d in common so it makes it very interesting at the same time usable when i say interesting they're not part of any major scale or minor scale you right you get these very interesting scales you can build using those two chords but more importantly they share a common bond which is d so you can definitely compose some interesting chord progressions so d major i'm going to repeat the same triplet activity or rather three blocks and then a triplet block block block triplet so let's now toggle between b flat major and d major b flat major triplet d major triplet b flat major triplet d major triplet b flat major triplet d major mind you both the chords are now for one bar long our original goal was to play them for two bars so now what do we do in the second bar we practice that earlier by clapping i counted that for you and just a quick word before we get into the second bar when you're counting triplets it's nice to divide the beat by three obviously and say one and a two and a three and a four and or as we sometimes say in india with conical terminology tuk it tuk it tuk it tuk it tuk it if we divide by four as is the case for bar number two in this exercise you divide by four and you say one e and a two e and a three so the speed of the beat or the rate of the pulse will remain exactly the same it's just what you're doing inside the pulse so one e and a two e and a three and you can also say it in the indian's terms could be takadimi takadimi takajunut takadimi takadimi takadimi takajunut sounds a lot better with different syllables per sub beat you feel each sub beat independently then tuk it tuk it tuk it that's triplet okay now coming to bar two where we do block okay so let me walk you through that first without any shifting i'll do the block now it's a four note grouping but i can also choose to do a three note grouping as i'm going to show you so one two three four and also count it as one two e and a three e and a four e and a one two e and a three e and a four e and a one two e and a three e and a four e and a one i'm doing it for both the chords depending on which inversion you're at and another thing to note with the group of four we have to add an extra note into the chord so the extra note is not a new note really it's just an octave of the lowest note so b flat d f b flat or if i'm playing d major like this a d f sharp i'll play the a on top so block arpeggio arpeggio arpeggio block arpeggio arpeggio arpeggio block but the arpeggio is in groups of four notes right just to make the accent on the beat or on the down beat meaning which it's on the one accent t four so the hit points or the strong beats are projected as two three and four however i can even do groups of three while i'm playing this one two three four so that's three semi quavers in groups so if you do one beat is already taken up so let's do a little bit of junior school maths if you take four by four and sixteenth notes that would be sixteen beats sixteen opportunities to place something into now the first beat one and a four is already gone because that has that crotch it has engulfed a beat so one beat is gone so that you're left with sixteen minus four twelve subdivisions twelve sixteenth notes are remaining what do we do with the twelve you can do three groups of four as i just showed you two three four that's three groups of four semi quavers or else you can do flip that around four groups of three if you do three groups of four three three fours are twelve four groups of three four threes are twelve so it still adds up to the same but when you do three groups of four the accent pattern or the accent phrasing is very normal it's very down on the beat you know two two three it's going exactly with your head but when you do four groups of three it still equals to those twelve subdivisions you get a very accented or a very syncopated sound if you observe my the way my head is moving one two three four one two three four one it's pretty tricky to count it as you play i'd encourage you to do that maybe a bit later but for now at least move your head three four change two three four change two three four sometimes we tend to get confused by these groups of three and call them as triplets you should not call them triplets because they are still semi quavers just semi quavers grouped in threes so the overall division of the beat it's being divided into four units so for example if the beat value was one second or 60 beats per minute then every semi quaver would be every quarter of a second or 250 milliseconds so one two three four that's groups of four one two three four a lot more syncopated so let's just do b flat and d with that syncopated feel in the second bar one two three that's normal one four groups of three you can even say to give you that nice phrasing and now the fun begins because the arpeggio like we saw for the triplets you can do it with any inversion and now what we can do is because the tables have turned in the sense there's only one block one so you play the block with any which inversion so just hit b flat and then you climb in groups of three or in groups of four but you need to climb or you could climb if you can one two three four you can climb with different inversions so if i start with maybe the second inversion of b flat one two three four d maybe down that's groups of four right which makes it not so syncopated if i do groups of three two feel free to start with maybe b flat in another inversion in this case well i did second now i'll do root and d major could change accordingly or i could start b flat maybe like here with its first inversion you get the idea when you're doing groups of three you can keep jumping your inversions okay again like i said feels like triplets but they are not in fact i've done a dedicated youtube lesson which is literally titled triplets or not so we leave that in the description where things you thought were triplets are actually not triplets so it may be an interesting lesson to watch after this one so we have two bars of data now we have uh the block block block triplet block up a joe up a joe up a joe then you change the chord so i feel that this is making the journey of b flat or the the act of playing b flat over two bars which can be very boring and annoying sometimes a lot more interesting and the song also could have its own signature based on what you're doing right now the people might even remember the song based on the style of playing the chords that you're doing now okay so let's put that together and remember the second bar those 12 semi quavers we can group them as four or we can group them as three so i'm just going to do that together and and walk you through and then let's do it slowly so b flat block triplet still b flat semi quaver semi quaver but descending semi quaver d major triplet block semi quaver semi quaver semi quaver but that was semi quavers in groups of three right right groups of four groups of three triplet now you might find our notation and my handwritten notes useful for this lessons or do consider getting a copy on our patreon page and not only for this video most of my lessons will be supplemented with notation handwritten notes or both midi is also included if you use midi software or a midi player now before i wind up the lesson i wanted to make these chords slightly more colorful even though i planned initially not to do it and i wanted to do another video exclusively on the coloring part of these chords that's another thing you can do by the way but let me just give you a taste of it before we pack up and don't forget to subscribe and hit that bell because part two part three i don't know how many parts we are going to do with this concept of what to do in between or during a single a singular chord how to make that one chord interesting rhythmically is what we've seen in this video we would also love to do something melodic something with a passing bass line something harmonically interesting so let's check that out in the future videos now if you take the b flat major a small amount of spice which you can add to the chord could be a an add two which is the c another element of spice could be you can add an add four you can also add another element of spice which is right which is the bohemian rhapsody that's an add six also called as a major sixth you can also do an add seven and that seventh could be either major seventh or a dominant seventh okay so we have a b flat major and what you could now do with the same rhythm pattern so check that out i did a groups of three but i did it with that add nine extension which is b flat major with a c so i can even do groups of four filler so i'm doing even d add nine so these were all just add nines but you can play around or add two as you could also call you can also play around with maybe a an add four that sound and for d you can add a nice lydian which could be a sharp four stuff like that so you can pick this one note and do watch my video on specifically add chords and extensions how to form it theoretically and how to use it i've given some arpeggios as well so you can kind of play that arpeggio line with these add voicings and it sounds beautiful even on minor in this lesson we haven't done minor but but the add extension sound great on minor they sound good on major as well but anyway so you can extend you can add a two you can add a four you can add a six and you can add a seven that's a b flat major seven bring a nice d dominant seven so it's a good combination you know b flat major seventh and then that goes to the d dominant seven kind of makes those chords more obvious for your year to digest right guys so hope you found the lesson useful all the best practicing and if you'd like to learn music in a more structured way you can always consider heading over to nathanielschool.com filling up a form and choosing a course that suits you either as a beginner we have a foundation program or as an intermediate learner and we teach a bunch of instruments piano guitar and vocals to name a few cheers and catch you in the next one