Okay, so let's get started. So good morning everybody. Welcome to the World Economic Forum annual meeting 2018. Welcome to the room here. And congratulations. Well done everybody for getting here. I know it hasn't been easy. I think the fact that you are all here is testament already to your resilience and courage and lots of other great great great attributes. So we're going to start off with a great discussion here in a second. I just wanted to very quickly contextualize it a little. My name is Derek O'Halloran. I am with the World Economic Forum. I run one of our 14 system initiatives which are platforms to create impact in the world. And this we're going to hear today some examples of some great partnership and impact and that is ongoing. This is part of this broader initiative that we'll hear a little about but we certainly encourage all of you to come and learn more about and be part of as we go along. You know this week we're talking about creating shared futures in a fractured world. I don't think anywhere this is more relevant more pertinent than in this topic here. Digital economy and society can feel like a very big and broad topic however. So what is it we're trying to achieve? It's very clear in some other areas like environment we have targets or food security. We know what good looks like. And so with digital economy and society we've identified six key shared outcomes that we are encouraging partnership and collaboration around. And these are things that may not be exhaustive but they're things that we know we have to get right. If we want to create a digital future that is sustainable inclusive and trustworthy. And so just very quickly to give you that frame before handing over to our excellent panel here the things we know we need to get right. Number one we need to people need to have access to the internet and it needs to be accessible to them. Secondly we need to help organizations go through a responsible business transformation at a scale and speed that's never been seen before. Third we need fit for purpose and we need informed policy making. The games the game is changing the rules need to change the way we make rules need to change. Fourth we need security and resilience baked into organizations and practices and people. Fifth we need to have robust and open and inclusive identity and access systems. If the future is digital and we want to be inclusive within everybody needs to be able to access services in an appropriate way. And finally so many of the opportunities that we talk about in the fourth industrial revolution are based on the idea of sharing data and sharing information. But this is what we all know highly problematic today. So finding ways to enjoy the benefits of sharing data while protecting privacy security transparency and other values is the other key outcome. So with that and that's at a very high level we're going to have a great discussion here from the people who are actually leading working initiatives on this and some related areas like employment and skills.  Thank you. Thank you Derek. I'm just going to do a very quick introduction to the panelists here. We don't want to take an awful lot of time because we have a lot of ground to cover in the very short hour. We have Michael Gregoire who's sitting directly across from me who's a CEO of CA Technologies and he's also the incoming chair of the IT Governors Community. We have Neely Crose who's a former EU commissioner and a former Open Data Institute board member and also is leading the future agenda council here on innovation and entrepreneurship at the forum. We have Chuck Robbins who's a CEO of Cisco and is the outgoing IT Governors Chair and to my right is Gavin Patterson who's the CEO of the BT Group and he is the chair of the Telecom Governors Community and to my left is Jim Smith who is the president CEO of Thomson Reuters. He also is the co-chair with me of the forums digital economy and society initiative here. So we'll dispense with further introductions later and I think as Derek said obviously the web theme here is creating a shared future and a fractured world. This particular session objective is to actually share the impact agenda for the World Economic Forum focusing on the activities of the past year but looking forward to 2018 and trying to identify those small number of areas that are the most important and most importantly is work that the forum can actually do to help drive significant sustainable change in the industry. So what we'd actually like the panelists to address here today is to talk about how industries, innovation and institutions shape the future of the digital economy. So I'd actually like to start with Chuck as the outgoing chair of the IT Governors Community and specifically ask you what's the top issue that's on your mind and that's keeping you up and then Mike I will come to you as well as the incoming chair again of the IT Governors Community here at the forum. Chuck. Thank you Lynn and Mike looking forward to passing it off to you today. I understand that. I mean that's the serial. This is an incredibly important topic and there are I think we all know there are phenomenal positive impacts from this move to digital in the economy and then I think there's a huge number of responsibilities that actually fall back on in my view the business community and the institutions that we all represent and I think that just a few of them that we can dig into more of them more effectively I think it is it is our responsibility to try to optimize access to to the benefit and of the digital economy and I think that that's through extending broadband extending education health care and everything into the you know the remote areas of the world which we've all been focused on for many years. The second I think is really important is embracing new sets of partnerships. I think this is going to really be key for us and I think that includes sometimes competitors actually partnering together to to actually help bring some of the benefit of technology to society and or help solve some of the challenges that some of the technology may actually present and those are public private partnerships competitive partnerships just completely foreign types of partnerships and then I think the the third is really dealing with this issue of security and trust and that includes privacy and includes cross data border managed cross border data management and many other issues and I guess the last thing I would say is ensuring that we're providing all of those people around the world with the opportunity to gain the skills needed to actually operate in this new world. So those are some of the top of my thoughts for me as we move into this discussion. Thank you. Well two years ago when Chuck took over and I was on the committee one of the things that he did that I thought was was leading is he said I don't want to just produce content. We have to put something tangible in place and the biggest problem we had or the biggest problem we all agreed on was this disassociation between the people who understand technology and the people who don't. And he couldn't have been more right because he fast forward just two years later. You know this is absolutely positively top of mine. So we need to change the narrative of tech. You know just because you can do something doesn't necessarily mean you should. So forcing that conversation in place and then us as tech providers leaning into the problem and helping people who are disassociated with tech get the skills so they can participate in it.  We need to find a way to get people into tech where they just don't disassociate or self-select out because they find it's too hard or it's too expensive. They don't feel like they have an opportunity. So what we're trying to do is get a consortium of companies that have content together and we're not targeting the K through 12 although that's incredibly important. We're targeting people who have been working for about five years that tech is starting to you know get in the way of them earning a living. Now the data on this is getting pretty astounding. I just came out last Friday. There's going to be 6.6 million jobs dissociated over the next 10 years. The thing that shocked me though is how little blue color workers as a percentage are getting disassociated. That's already happened. There's going to be four million typical white color office workers that are not necessarily digitally astute. They're going to be replaced by technology. I think if we don't get in front of that and those are only US numbers. I don't if we don't get in front of that and help these people be part of a productive working environment. I think that there's going to be a lot of social unrest. Very interesting points and some very I think sobering sobering ones as well. I'd like to move next to Gavin. The chair of the telecom governance community which of course represents the telecommunications industry and some of the world's largest players in driving and developing infrastructure development for the digital economy. So what are their biggest concerns or issues that you see for the next year? Well you won't be surprised that some of the themes that Mike and Chuck have mentioned already are front of mind for us. So there are probably three in particular I'd call out. Firstly the case for investment is that huge investment required around the world of the order of ten trillion dollars over the next ten years. And the case is there. There's no question about the opportunities that it is going to create for people. But ensuring that there's a framework that makes the investment make sense. It's able to attract private capital and that the people putting that capital to work are able to make a fair return. So the opportunities around 5G, around 5 to the home, IOT are pretty endless I think at the moment. But making the business case work is something that we've struggled with. I think secondly this theme around cyber affects everyone. It's not just people in the tech space you know it's a top three risk I think on virtually every board and every CEO I talk to. And the sophistication of attack is just getting more and more difficult to combat. And I think the only way forward is through collaboration. I mean the comments that both Mike and Chuck made around partnership, sharing best practice, sharing data, it's absolutely critical in a world where we're under increasing threat. And if I look at our own network we get a tempted cyber attack once every second at the moment.  And I think the third issue is around skills. There is a real shortage of tech skills around the world. There's no question about that. We're not producing enough students, apprentices, graduates that want to go into tech. And more broadly we believe certainly that tech is going to be part of everybody's job going forward. And we need to make sure that it's part of the curriculum in the way that reading and writing are arithmetic of always be. Because without it you know we're not going to be able to realize the opportunities that lie ahead of it. So I think there are many common themes and it would be good to work together. Gentlemen. There's such a large percentage of the world that still doesn't have access to the internet. And then of those that do of course have either inferior access to the internet or very expensive. And we talk about trying to close some of the other digital divides that exist in the world. This is obviously such a critical space. And a lot of the efforts such as whether it's investment, infrastructure investment or skilling really needs to very quickly roll out to those other parts of the world or we're just accentuating the current set of divides in the world to make sure it's well known to everybody here on the panel. If I could turn now to Jim Smith. Jim and I as I said earlier are co-chairs of the forms initiative here on the digital economy and society. So I'd like to ask Jim what are the top issues that he thinks the form should be addressing and is on the mind of the the stewardship board. Yeah well thanks Lane. It's I think it's been fascinating over the last I think four years at Davos to come and see the recognition. Particularly in the industry groups and we've heard from three industry leaders here in the tech industry about the recognition of the digital revolution. And then a year later there's wow this could be profound and then it was like the next within three years it went to oh my god how are we going to react to it. It's going to change our business models the competitive landscape everything. And I think every single industry vertical and every working group here are related to business has a stream on digital disruption and how it's going to disrupt their industry and you know we live in a world now where seven of the ten most valuable companies in the world are tech companies yet at the same time we're seeing a growing tech backlash in fact as people are concerned about what this technology revolution is likely to do to their employability. As we see them worry about what it's going to do to their privacy. As we see people worried about what it's done to the trusted sources of news that they relied upon and the information that they consume every day. How reliable is that now. And I think we've also seen that in a world where so much fracture is driven by the economic divide between the haves and haves not. We now have a tool that could be very powerful but also could exacerbate that divide with those who have access to the new world and those who don't. So I think what we're trying to do through the systems initiatives and and Derek did a very good job of outlining the very themes. But it's to organize a public private dialogue around these various issues and I think the some of the things I'm most excited about in the coming year would be an extension of the of the access for all initiative that we've seen have some really promising results in places like Rwanda and other places around the world. I think we're going to be doing a lot of work around this issue of digital identity because digital identity is foundational to so much of the dialogue around access around authentication around trust and around privacy as well. And I think this notion of cyber the forum opened a cyber security center last year is as Gavin said it's absolutely top right quadrant for every CEO in the world and I think becoming top right quadrant for everybody's worry about their personal data as well. So I think there are a number of very interesting initiatives and I I think they'll with digital identity as a as a as a building block I think the tough thing will try to balance and I think we'll dive pretty deeply into that that tough bit between trusted access to the internet and and the protection of privacy at the same time and it's going to be a very difficult balancing act and I would hope that the forum would be a good place to have that public private dialogue because we are also seeing in addition to a public backlash the beginning is of a pretty fractured regulatory backlash with everyone trying to attack it attack it their own way and I think one thing when I have spoken about a great deal in this initiative is let's let's let's operate on the first do no harm initiative here and that particularly when it comes to regulation thank you Jim it's very very interesting so what so that's a good so I am going to segue to nearly in a moment but I also want to give everybody here in the room a heads up that we will actually turn to the floor shortly and we're not looking for statements from the floor we're really looking for answers to the question of what are the the main challenges or opportunities you see that could affect the shape of the digital economy in the coming year so if you could prepare some concise brief questions then we will take a number of those and then we'll come back to the panelists again to respond to those or to continue some of these elements forward so nearly you're a former EU commissioner for many years we're actually at the heart of so much of the the digital activities here in in Europe and of course in your current role as the global agenda council for innovation and entrepreneurship I wonder if you could actually comment from those two perspectives and as we said it's a nice segue to Jim's last comment with respect to regulation as well and thank you Lynn when I was preparing for the questions we got from the organizers I was thinking of a moment six years ago or nearby six years ago still in Brussels and I do have two grand daughters US citizens living in San Francisco and the youngest at that time very young we were Skyping and she was asking at certain moment name by the way what is your age six years ago so then you can just count and I said I'm seventy and she said and you are still alive to put it in a way that it is ageless what we are doing and every time and I was thinking of that with some of the interventions before it's a turning point but every year we are saying now it's a turning point now we have to act and now we have to bridge and so on but I'm aware of and with a lot of opportunities but also with new activities at the moment involved in a refugee camp in Giardania involved in youth cancer organizing new hospitals and so on it's all about the digital technology and it's opening the world so to say so for me it is number one overcoming indeed the societal resistance for you have to explain to the refugee to the one you are asking money for to the cancer patient to the parents and you have to explain what is all about what is to digital skills and lifelong learning by the way for me there is in everyone talent and whatever your location is in Africa or whatever there is talent but you have to just push the right button and you have to give the right opportunities so the digital dividing and the divide the diversity that we are sometimes missing for me is a high priority with diversity and we were discussing that earlier on we are just touching upon a number of people millions and millions of people talking about women and we can just use them and give them opportunities and so on but also talking about and then I'm touching upon Lynn the data flows adopting and adapting cross border flows for that is at stake and I don't pretend that in Europe we have done that enough we are still acting there are still borders and the European Union the single market should be borderless but there are still borders for whatever reason for national reasons or whatever but with the adapting cross border data flows to new data localization policies is the moment where we have to realize that's not a threat that is an opportunity that's a challenge so to say but you need trust you need flexible governments and that is what is also at stake talking about regulation regulation per definition is looking at the past what type of authority you are talking of it is talking about your experience of the past and at that time police cartels and so on so you have to regulate having put that at stake this is not at stake anymore it's going too quickly so and there I'm just addressing all of you the business world the institutions you have to be active in just formulating your own regulation for your own company so to say and that that is of course easy for me to say but it is also in your advantage for then talking about trust talking about opportunities that makes a lot of sense and strengthening trust in technology through the algorithm that transparency it's all about transparency people are willing to trust but they need to know what's behind it and what is done by it and there when I'm allowed to make one sentence of my worry I think that in the whole discussion and perhaps that could be taken for next year one of the issues for the world economic forum talking about the social media and talking about the younger generation and the real young the child when we are looking and when we are listening to those explanations of the former Facebook members of the board and of those who are saying whatever the reason for that statement is that's not at stake now but that it is not without risks and when Tim Cook for example just this week was mentioning that if he would have a child he would never give the child permission to go on the social media and I think that that is just a push for us to think what is the risk at a certain moment for the younger generation and of course I'm not saying you should skip all the social media whatever that that's nonsense but at the moment when you are looking at figures how much of the time the child for example is spending to ipads a mobile phone and so on that's not a healthy issue and of course there are examples where people where children got blind because they were too often too long looking at the screen but even taking that aside it's important enough but we have a responsibility and then I'm addressing the business world and the institutions and not waiting for governments for governments politicians are waiting till there is a need or till there is a positive advantage for the next election to get back in their office and that sounds really negative but well I'm a former politician so I pretend to know what is at stake but we have to take our responsibility and it can be fun too for competitive issues are at stake there too if a business is well aware that this is one of the possibilities and BT in the past did part of those talking about privacy and talking about youth and then of course it's difficult you have to communicate but at the end of the day you are making a lot of positive sense some very very provocative points they're very interesting I've spent nearly two decades in fact sort of two decades just about now on internet governance matters and certainly of access as well and so we've always relied on a lot of those on what is probably called soft policy it's norms and principles as it starts so you can find some common ground soft policy can become regulation appropriately in time so that would be an interesting topic to perhaps pick up on we've also heard about access and skills and training as well so I'll just put those as sort of markers for the moment and then if we can go to the floor here for again a couple of questions and then we'll bring those back in and do one final round with the panelists so I apologize for my back to you but I don't have a belt on so I can't have this clip to me could you please identify yourself and your organization for addressing this very good question thank you I'm I'm going to take a shot at it are we are you collecting questions I'm going to collect three or four questions I think and then we'll we'll come back around sir so and interesting and many of the components that actually could support that exist today but they haven't come together holistically or in a way that actually facilitates ease by individuals you have the floor so my questions what are the limitations of the current structural systems that if you just mentioned that within two years we can achieve what you have said okay thank you just see if there's any other questions here so Martin Mackay from CA Technologies thank you Martin Mackay from CA Technologies my question is around the impact on technology and digital disruption in the labor intensive markets particularly for example in Asia Pacific where a lot of the economies have depended on high labor industries which undoubtedly will be disrupted by artificial intelligence and automation another very good question see if there's one more in the back of the room here and then we'll come back to the panelists part of the global shippers community of the forum representing Pakistan so one of my questions is really about knowing how the economy in emerge the digital economy in emerging economies will shift like they're already trying to catch up with the third industrial evolution how will they leapfrog that to move to the fourth industrial evolution and what the strategy for that will look like thank you don't see any other requests for the floor okay and then we'll we'll come back to the panelists and my name is Nikolay Nikiforov I'm the minister of telecom and mass communications of Russia and since our panel is mostly represented by industry leaders my question is about the your vision of the government's strategy because governments compete with each other well it's a kind of a good type of competition they compete about quality of life investment clients enhancing infrastructure development regulator environment but what should governments really do to win this digital race how to how to keep the necessary speed in order to to be a part of this digital race but what what is your piece of advice for the governments thank you maybe I'll come back and I think Chuck you were actually quite keen to answer the very first question and so maybe we can talk about that a little bit which again was what are the first what are the three or four things that we came back in two years that we believe these set of activities would have addressed but also if you want to weigh in on one of the other subsequent questions as well well I thought that you know Jim you made a great point if you go back four years coming here we were talking about the internet of things and then the fourth industrial revolution and then every we quickly moved to nobody's denying it's real and now all of a sudden what are the implications and the challenges associated with it I think it's been fascinating to watch the pace at which that's occurred and I think like I don't worry at all about whether businesses or even countries or cities will figure out how to embrace the technology to drive productivity to enhance the way they operate to hopefully deal with traffic issues we need connected snow plows I think this you know I think the I really believe that the mandate for us going forward which leads to what I think we need to set as an aspiration two years from now is that we as tech leaders and business leaders have to actually step up and get in the middle of these issues and we can't we can't wait for government or someone else to solve these issues because it's you know whether it's working on providing educational access because every job on the planet at some point in the future we could debate how far out is going to be a technology job of some sort so providing the skills is going to be it's going to be critical and so what we could wait or you know what we've been working on the last couple of years which is simply a very small platform that's actually the beginning and I think that what that represents two things number one is creating assessment and skills capabilities or access to them for some number of individuals around the world but perhaps the more important thing that it demonstrates was a number of companies who actually compete with each other who put that aside to bring our content together to actually help get at this problem which I think is going to be a fundamental thing that we have to do going forward and whether it's so that's the first thing I think the second thing is and we had a we had a meeting in Silicon Valley just about three weeks ago with 24 of the largest companies in tech and we haven't announced anything yet but I'll tell you that we got together and it was CEOs of these companies and we were talking about how do we bring our ability to innovate and our cash and our power our strength and everything else to actually even in our in our community to start solving issues like homelessness affordable housing hunger and all the things that occur because we actually have the ability and we have an unbelievable desire to innovate and if we apply that curiosity and those skills against some of these problems I think we can do some amazing things the final comment I'll make is connected back a little bit to the government side of it some of these issues have to be more clearly either understood or more pragmatically understood to actually get the right policy in place because what happens is and we all know this is ideology takes over and we end up going from one extreme to another on some sort of policy where they actually in the middle is somewhere where we need to land but we bounce back and forth depending on which party is actually making the decision and we don't actually get to the right policy that that encourages investment and encourages and that actually helps us solve these problems so I think there's a lot of things that we have to do and I think you know my top messages are that the business leaders have to step up get involved and we have to put competition aside and we got to work very closely with government entities around the world to solve these problems you would also say that given the situation that you just described in the latter part of your comments it's certainly there's a role for citizens as well in terms of maybe maybe smoothing out some of those you know whipsaws back and forth between the ideological views and second there's an expectation for manual that they have a greater voice and that they're more deeply engaged much earlier in a lot of these discussions but that's not easy to do is as we all know it's one of the things I find kind of interesting which is what are the efforts that both industries doing plus policymakers are doing to actually engage the civil society voice the individual voice in a lot of these discussions because I think obviously it's critical at a very fundamental level I also think it's it could be very useful in terms of smoothing out some of the whipsaws we're seeing if we could find a way to more deeply and properly engage them let me go next to would you mind if I add one no please to that I couldn't agree more but quite often you can feel and see that there is a gap between the policymakers and the industry and the people and policymakers pretend to be for the representative of the people but sometimes you don't recognize it to put it in a diplomatic way having said that I think that every citizen has the responsibility but also has the challenge to influence to work with policymakers so you don't need to be a policymaker to have your influence and it's not only talking about industry but as a citizen you can just with a team of people where you have discussed certain issues you can go to your representative or you can go to your government member and get in touch with real life for them no that's a very good point as well is there any other panelists who wants to come in on that or should we go to a a new topic maybe we can come to if I look through some of the the questions we had now when there were questions on kind of the impact of technology, labor leapfrogging those sorts of things we could either come back to the skills we were talking about earlier we could certainly come back to some of the other work that's occurring in the economy and society I'll comment on the skills agenda because of all the points we talked about this morning the one that worries me most is skills I think the transformation going through the the job market at all levels at entry level retraining halfway through your career the extension of your working life you know this is the the biggest challenge I think we all face and as leaders if we don't work together to get it right the backlash that we've talked about and Jim referred to in his comments in particular I think we'll get worse not better the opportunities that tech and the internet in general offer is a huge there's no question about that but it will mean that everybody's job is going to have a tech element to it and at the moment very very few people train in tech and there are a lot of very capable people who are turned off it through the education system even though they have the raw intelligence the raw processing power and computational thinking that would make them very good at tech related jobs but somehow we've got to make it a broad church that is that people recognize it's part of everybody's job now rather than simply programs to one side I think we need to within that particularly look at the gender bias that is inherent and is limiting the potential that we're realizing here and also building in a natural bias into the way we're solving some of these problems because we're not getting enough diverse thinking into it and then I think as people go through their careers you know the thought that you can have you know you train in one job and you live and you stay in that job for 50 years is clearly not the case anymore but as yet we're not seeing enough of people taking lifelong learning and taking on their own responsibility supported by government and their employers to retrain and keep their skills relevant so that they can adapt as the job market changes you know we're not seeing that become the and this this is fundamentally I think the biggest challenge we face we'll solve the investment challenge you know we've got to work together to solve the the cyber threat that I mentioned but it's the skills agenda and how that's going to change very very rapidly and could ultimately mean that the parts of society that are completely excluded that we've we've really got to be on the front foot for I think it's not only for filling jobs by the way it's far broader it's for just a challenge for everybody now that's a very good point otherwise you risk leaving those that perhaps are out of the job market age related behind as well it's like what you were mentioning writing and calculating it is not per se for only the job it is for your functioning in a society and having fun and having a challenge Mike is coming in to the position here in the IT Governors community here in the form is there anything for that you want to build on from Gavin's points with skills you mentioned earlier that was so critical I think Chuck and Gavin pretty much summed it up I think the most important thing is getting people into the game I think to the extent that you that people don't understand tech and how they fit in there's a responsibility of both government and businesses and once again we need the people to be able to do the work you know there's 500,000 open IT jobs in the US like there's over 600,000 in the EU governments are spending an incredible amount of money on it very fragmented in the US I think the the EU has done a much better job I think they put 30 billion dollars together in multiple programs to help with reskilling but if they're going to do that where's the content going to come from and I think the content needs to come from you know from business because we're going to build the skills or show the skills that we need to run our companies not just today but in the future and to the extent that we can collaborate on that working this private public partnership I think we have we have a win for everybody sorry losing my voice I think it is obviously a very very critical a critical area and probably one of the areas where we've actually got a fairly good leg up in terms of knowing what we might do and I think there are a lot of other areas that that aren't quite so far advanced and maybe I'll turn to Jim to identify sure I will one thing it strikes me in the conversation here and I and I take it from Neely's challenge from the business community to get involved and we sit here as a business community and and notice skills gap in technology in the business world and imagine the skills gap on the regulatory side if we're waiting for that to be filled as well to regulate things I think we are moving at a pace in which it's going to require a different kind of dialogue to get to a sensible outcome or to to an improved outcome I would address two points from the questions on the floor the first what would you like to have two years from now I'd like to have the kind of concrete the kind of concrete outcomes around digital identity because I think it's foundational that we've seen out of the IT governors and I salute Chuck and team for everything that's gone on the last two years to have a concrete proposal and not a white paper you know that comes out of comes out of that dialogue and really gives a tool for folks to engage and have a solution around the problem I think one other issue that was from the floor for what it's worth I think there was a profound idea but for that notion of who owns your personal digital data it's something we're living through this fourth industrial revolution a few of us live through the prior three right none of us perhaps but we have seen another phenomenon which is an incredible concentration of power amongst a handful of companies and one could argue perhaps a greater global concentration of power than in any of the prior industrial revolutions and you know that's something we're going to have to grapple with and I think the company that figures out how to empower people with their own data and to provide radical transparency to that I think it's going to be ahead of the game and I think that's going to have to be both a public private dialogue as to as to as to whose rights those are I understand yeah they're already available that such a mechanism by which if you use this then in a transparent way the user knows that if my data is being used in this algorithm which is making you money I'm getting a few microsets will benefit so I think the forum has to look at what are the technologies together and how can we get like you know sectors whether it is universities or other organizations or the open source movement to come up with a platform which then forces these networks sort of like you know effect companies to to differentiate themselves by doing it but the incentive isn't there for these companies to do it fascinating something Jim brought up a good point you know seven of the top biggest companies right now all technology companies maybe take a look at the top four their raw material is data go back a hundred years most important in and the largest companies or oil companies so data is the new oil if you had a farm in Pennsylvania and they were doing fracking which is a new technology you get a check every month because they're accessing something that you own eventually there will be a business model where this oil which is really data gets monetized and somehow that has to get back into the hands of the people don't it there is no business model right now similar there is no business model to help people understand you know oil a hundred years ago I think that we're going to have to evolve to it but it's going to happen an awful lot quicker yeah I it took it took a while in Europe but we are still ahead no doubt about that to accept the general regulation the general data regulation for the protection and it will be in charge from the 25th of May this year and I would advise everybody take that as a mirror and you can just make it more special or whatever but that is the base and by the way don't think that it is only happening here or in Europe or in the U.S. that type of discussion it's also happening in the Far East it's also happening in Africa and there we have to push and we have to find a way because it's global digital technology is global it's not it's worthless so to say so if this could be the base the European regulation so to say for general data protection then we know from each other what is the line Chuck I think you wanted to come in well I think that your comment over here about when does a disruptive business model emerge that actually provides some of the benefit back to the the provider of the data I suspect that as technologies like blockchain and others come along that that will be the disruption of the current business model right these business models don't last forever and and I think that then what happens is you you incent the consumer to change their behavior about relative to their expectations and then it it evolves from there so I think that you know there can certainly be technologies that are a spouse that might and sent that ultimately I think business some business will bring come up with a disruptive model that does something similar to that or some of the existing players will determine that that's the differentiator for them going forward so I think some of that probably happens a bit naturally I think the the other thing I was going to comment on is this issue of security and identity because I think this is really really important first of all I think the tech companies that participate in security we're gonna have we're we're having to innovate at a rate that is just off the charts I mean we we actually are blocking you're getting attacked once every second we're blocking 20 billion threats every day for our customers 20 billion right is the number we see and then we have to navigate how do we do that in a world that's that's become more encrypted all right where everything's more encrypted and so the innovation is required like we just ship some technology that actually allows you to determine when there's malware inside encrypted traffic without decrypting it to try to split the difference between you know between privacy and security and I think that's it's a really complicated issue and the final thing I'll say on this is around identity as we think about security going forward you know for years we built security around defending a perimeter right and the perimeter's gone obviously so I'm sure that's news to everybody but we think of identity in this context we think of identity as the new perimeter that we have to do that is really where the biggest security investments of the future are going to have to land is defining security based on that identity and then go from there it's a much different approach so there's so many interesting topics here it would be really worthwhile of frankly probably a day in itself in the discussion we're coming to the last 10 minutes of the hour though so I think in terms of again one of the objectives of this session was to try and make it concrete for the devil's impact agenda for 2018 so I'd like to go around and ask each one of the panelists quite briefly to say what have you heard today that you might suggest either becomes a new piece of work for the form of 2018 or is there something you've heard today that would change the trajectory of work you actually have underway in your various responsibilities here in the form so I can sure let's go first I think first of all I'm encouraged and optimistic that we're heading in the right direction if anything acceleration we're not going fast enough to the extent that we can get this public-private partnership especially on the skills which I think is very tangible get that out into the market and show that we're paying attention that we're not toned up I think I think that's something I'm hearing louder rather than when I got here secondly I do think and I've been paying attention to this for a while the concept of data and who owns the data how's the data monetized I think that's going to become a much much more important issue and that's something we should probably take up on a broader scale that Davos thank you Mike Hilly the point who owns the data but then taking into account that you have to protect the data for otherwise you are losing the trust and you are really lost for you are not explaining to everybody we keep an eye on it and it's okay that's not enough anymore the trust needs to be transparent feed it and anyhow give us a positive point for the future but the future is starting today my point for the World Economic Forum would be please take attention to that point of the social media and the influence on the young the real young generation I'm worried about that we are facing those results when it's too late thank you Neely Chuck wow there's so many things I think the you know hopefully we can get more energy around the skilling effort and bring more more companies together because this platform is not you know it shouldn't just be 20 tech companies content it should be it should be a model for how everybody takes things things forward I think the three other quick comments I think secondly we have to figure out how to work more effectively between technology and government right to really pragmatically talk about these issues and and I know that's that's motherhood and apple pie and it's much more complicated than that but I think that's that's really important the third is I think at some point we need and we we we looked at this issue two years ago and people were scared to tackle it just to be transparent in our and it was it was around taking a more active role in the discussion around data privacy and cross-border data flows and how how that should happen on a global basis as opposed to letting everybody I mean it's not letting everybody every country has the right to do their what they'd like to do but I think if there's some sort of standards that that become agreed upon then it certainly facilitates things and can help us actually increase access drive skill a lot more effectively than we do today and then nearly just a final comment on your comment about children and these devices parents around the world need to stand up and be parents and not friends and for some reason we've gotten into this mode as parents that we want to be friends and I think it's it's horrendous what we allow our children to do in general much less how long we give them on these digital devices thank you Chuck Kevin it's the it's the skills agenda for me I mean we've we've all touched on it today I think it cuts cuts across many different aspects of the forum's work but ensuring that tech is built into primary school curricula around the world is key I think ensuring that tech is seen as a way of you know creating more social mobility more inclusiveness around the world that people embrace things like AI and see it as a as a powerful way of solving the world's problems rather than a threat to their livelihood so I think educating people on the potential of technology providing them with the skills and the opportunity for self-development to ensure that they can take advantage of that and so you know we we truly are able to realize the potential of what we have in front of us because I think we've just started Am I allowed to add one line to that? I'm absolutely certain that the present cultural system of the labor market doesn't function and doesn't match the needs of the people and doesn't match the need of the industry if you are above 45 you can be the expert you can be a whisk it name it in the digital technology you don't get a job so we have to change our mindset Thank you Nilly Janet? Sure I'll take from this conversation today a little bit of nuance around where we put our priorities in our in our dialogues with the system initiative to focus more on this notion of ownership of personal data and not just the kind of this notions of privacy as the right to be forgotten but this notion of the right to share in the riches that come from you know the use of your personal information and I think that's a really important concept I think it's also at the part of the foundation of creating that trustworthy environment where and having a trusted interaction digitally has so much potential to build trust generally but at the moment one could argue it's actually strengthening the divide or widening the divide so I think it's really important I think that's very good I think we've come up to the last few minutes here and we've certainly had a lot of discussion on data and identity and on trust and various certainly on skills hit upon a number of the issues that we actually see globally in the economy the one thing I think we haven't touched upon that would help tie a lot of those together is really how do we actually we talk about new types of partnerships or competitive partnerships or private public partnerships we talk about trust but we haven't actually talked about how we actually engage the citizens more broadly you know this panel is industry and a policy maker and yet we talk about the digital economy the people that are frankly developing key pieces of that digital economy and certainly much impacted by it don't have the same opportunity to have a voice on a lot of these discussions and are significantly impacted if we take identity which is something that's very important not only here in the forum but generally when identity is set it's permanent it's with you for life whether you change to a different system or not and there are a lot of positives a lot of pluses there are tremendous amount of downsides as well so to have that discussion I think we need to find ways to do that in a much more open much more inclusive environment and the web actually has through the digital economy and society a set of activities on network platforms and part of that is being done out of the San Francisco Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution as well and I know they're looking at agile governance and but I think it's really critical that we move that of the priority list and away from some of the topics we want answers to some of these things whether it's security or it's use of social media or we need to find a way to engage much more broadly across the world so I think that's one of the things I would take away and my work here at the forum I think try and find a way to to advance that with that I think we've come to the end as I'm being signaled I'd like to thank the panelists very very much for very very interesting discussion and for the excellent questions here from the audience as well and as this is the very first session very first morning of the first day at Davos I'm sure these conversations will continue to resonate for the rest of the week thank you


eventually do you think that it will replace the GRE as an entrance assessment exam for PA school? I was reflecting on when I took the GRE when I was going through my PhD, before my PhD program. It's like, I felt kind of thumped by that, but the GRE is a very different exam. Welcome back to my channel. Thank you guys so much for joining me today. So as proud with me today, one of like the driving forces of the PA cap. And so I know you guys have a lot of questions about it and we're gonna get right into it, but before we do, I wanted to give you the history on Dr. Massey. And I guess how he's able to talk about the PA cap and I guess why it would be valid for you all to listen. So Dr. Massey has a PhD and a PAC. He has practiced for 27 years in PA education, including holding leadership positions in four different PA programs. Currently he holds the position of a tenured professor and director of the Central Michigan University Physician Assistant Program. Dr. Massey has worked clinically in the area of family medicine, emergency medicine, and international third world medicine, which is so cool. Dr. Massey is also an accomplished researcher and author having presented nationally and internationally more than 75 times. Dr. Massey has published more than a dozen research articles and textbooks published by F.A. Davis and used by PA students to prepare four certification exams. Dr. Massey has served as the co-principal investigator of the PA cap research project since early 2018. So he has done a lot and he is actually qualified to talk about this. So I've given him a list of questions that I've come up with and some of you all have asked and we're gonna just kind of get right into those questions that you all have been asking about this PA, C-A-T and how I like to call it the PA cap. So thank you so much, Dr. Massey, for joining me today on my YouTube channel. Thank you, Adana. Oh, you're welcome. I just really quickly just, could you briefly tell me about the third world medicine because I have not heard about that and I think it's a really interesting... Sure, absolutely. During my career, I've worked both clinically and educationally in the country of Haiti and Belize. I spent a year working in Haiti developing a physician extender program there. So I've had some experience in those two countries. I've also gone to Costa Rica. So it's been one of my passions along the way. And what, I guess, are they called? Are they called a physician extender in Haiti? Is that what their title would be? They're not actually there. Well, it depends on the institution, but there's different names for them. I did travel to Africa a couple of times in the last three years. And in Africa, Ghana, for example, I'm involved with the project there. They call them physician clinical associates there. In South Africa, it's clinical associates. So it depends on the country. There's analogs of PAs throughout the world now, which is something us Americans don't realize that the first true physician extender program was actually in Catambo, Ghana in 1959. So it's an interesting concept. Giving us some history here. Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, let's get into the first question. Can you briefly share the history of this exam? So like the who, what, when, where, why? First of all, I joined exam master as the co-principal investigator in early 2018. I know that before that, exam master staff and executive staff have looked, we're looking at the PA, the admissions exam concept for probably at least five years. So they were studying it, looking at it. There's been some call and some discussion about it among different circles previous to that. And in 2018, it was still kind of in the conceptual stage. And I was asked to jump on the project because of my research work involving predictive factors. So for example, I've done some research involving how to predict Penn's performance. So it was a logical kind of, you know, step for me. And so the CEO of exam master asked me to step on to the project. And so since then, we've added several, like for example, a psychometrician, other people involved with the project. And the first analog of the exam was launched during the research phase, which actually began in summer of 2018. So really it was the first time that the exam was offered to actual PA students. So during the last two years, the exam has been researched, it has been stress tested. And so it's gotten to the point where it has enough statistical validity to be able to begin offering in 2020 this year. So that's kind of like a very brief overview of the process. I mean, Matt Bader, the executive director of exam master could probably give more detailed, like, you know, historical perspectives prior to that, but that's been my involvement. So I'll wait for the other questions, but that's kind of like the who, what, where, why of the process as far as the PA cat? And you said that it was tested with PA students, so in 2018, so was this like first year PA students, second year PA students, how could you all test this? There's actually the research protocol for the PA cat actually is online. It can be found if you Google it. I know there's been probably almost 1,000 reads of that. And so the research protocol describes phase one, phase two. So phase one actually was testing the exam on newly matriculated PA students. So during that phase, students who began the program during the first week, usually during orientation were offered the exam at that time. Realize that when you research an instrument like this, obviously you can't administer it to prospective PA students because again, there's ethics involved with that. And there's an institutional review board that had to approve this process. Phase two of the exam or the research protocol was actually to what's called stress test exam. And that was to test the exam on students who were interviewing in PA programs. So between the two phases now we're approaching probably 2,200 students who have taken the exam. Part of the concept of what's called a psychometrician and psychometrics of this exam is to look at basically how students perform and how they perform on each individual question and whether or not other factors such as prerequisite GPA, other factors might also correlate with this exam. We're also looking at data related to the end of first year PAC right now in terms of how well the two variables will correlate. The phase one, which is the research phase that I've mentioned before, will be concluding this spring in which we'll gather the last of the data. The first phase data which looks at the PA CAT and the admissions prerequisite GPA, science GPA, et cetera will be published in the Internet Journal of Allied Health Practice in April, if people wanna look at that. We plan to publish the second phase as well. Hopefully at the end of 2020 or early 2021. So that's kind of like the process. This in accordance with PAEA since it's PAEA education, does PAEA have any stake in this at all? Yeah, yeah, really good question. PAEA has been neutral about this. It's interesting, I've been involved with PAEA committees. I was on the board of directors at one point. So I've been involved for 15 years PAEA very closely. This is the first time there's been a project of this enormity that wasn't governed or administered by PAEA, okay? So the PAEA leadership, this is an external exam much in like the MCAT might be, much in like the GRE will be. So really it doesn't really impact the PAEA education per se. So it's something that among PAEA educators, the PAEA CAD has become well known and there's been much discussion. So at the PAEA conference this past year, we had a number of conversations with PAEA faculty. So the answer your question, it's not in accordance with PAEA because it wouldn't be appropriate to be to do so because it's not being governed by, it's not being administered by PAEA. Okay, will this test become mandatory? And again, much in like the other admissions exams that already exist, it will depend on the program, okay? So programs decide what admissions exam they want to use. There's some out there, there's one called the CASPER out there that exists. Of course the GRE as of a couple of years ago was about 51% of the programs used it. That's starting to drop a little bit. I think like less than 10% of the programs now require MCAT which isn't a good fit really because the PAEA students don't take all the prerequisites for it. So it's gonna be depending upon the program and much like other grassroots processes, I mean, it's gonna be like, how does it work in programs? And eventually the research is published from this process. I mean, we have conjectures and speculations but this year it might be less than 10% of the programs up in future years that might go up to 30, 40% of the programs but that's gonna depend on the program. How many schools are currently requiring or recommending the PAEA CAT this cycle and then next cycle? I know you mentioned about 10% but is there like a number that you have that you can give us? We're not gonna have the absolute number until probably the 1st of May because of the fact that we know of about, we know of 10 programs that are adopting for 2020 for this cycle but the process of adoption will depend on the CASMA cycle and what dates and that kind of stuff. So we'll have a better viewpoint of that around 1st of May about how many programs have adopted this year. Is there going to be maybe on like the PAEA CAT website a list of the programs that are there? Cause you know, as a pre-PAEA student it's already difficult as it is trying to source out like the requisite requirements for different programs. So just having a place for them to go to to see if I'm applying to like the University of Tampa or Central Michigan, do I need, is it recommended that I take the PAEA CAT? Yeah, that's a good question. And I think my guess is it will be. That's something that actually I will bring to Matt Bader, the executive, the CEO cause I think it's a good idea. So it's something that I think would make sense. Now I realize also that the websites of programs during the period prior to closing up the application phase will then start to post whether the PAEA CAT is required. And I know that's been some concerns by students like that's happening late in the game. But it's a phase in process. And there's no good time to adopt something new but you know, having been involved with PAEA admissions for, you know, this is the 29th year for me I can tell you that, you know, as long as you're not requiring a new class the last minute, you know, adopting a test where there's still months to take the exam I don't think that's too late in the game for most programs. So it's kind of like it's weighing that and also reaching out to individual students from that program that's being adopted. So with respect to that question this is this, you know, kind of like a subset I guess you can say. So for instance, the GRE has like several different dates that you can take the exam. Now when the PAEA CAT opens in May and since you guys are test, you know actually like rolling it out this cycle are there gonna be several different test days that it can be taken throughout the year even for like those later applications that are January or March. But my understanding Adana is that it's gonna be offered at the, it's gonna be offered at the Prometric Test Centers there's 5,000 test centers. And once it starts at the Prometric Centers it will be available ongoing. So I can't give you like, is it every day? Is it every week? But it's gonna be a number of different test dates available for prospective PAEA students. So it's gonna be numerous times. You know, much in like if you schedule some of the other entrance exams like the LSAT, GRE, et cetera. You have to sign up, you have to find the dates that are available for that center. But, you know, once it rolls out it should be offered multiple times. So it's not gonna be like once it's gonna be multiple times. So I'm asking if you can like just give a brief description on the details of the exam like how long it is and how it's scored. Because those are questions that, you know as a student going in to take an exam you wanna know like, well, if I get this grade or you know this score where am I at? I guess in terms of- Right. So the exam is gonna have 225 questions. And just like, and I'm just gonna use the analogy of the pans for many years. So the pans used to be 360 questions and 60 questions were what's called field test questions. I was a test writer for NCCPA a number of years ago and that process, you know, took place. So the PA cat will be the 225 questions. The 25 of the questions will be field test questions. So 200 questions will count for the scaled score. So that's what's gonna happen with that. Is that what you wanted to know was the length that you want more details? I mean, I think I mentioned the length to them before. Is it, how many, is it a minute of question? How are they doing? It's a minute of question. Okay. It's based on this, you know it's based really based on the same formula in terms of how the NCCPA administers their exams. And the minute per question there will be accommodations available. So that that's something that students will have to apply for as far as if they need accommodations and that'll be on a case by case basis that they need double time, 1.5 time, so. Okay. Is there currently a fee waiver or a reduction program in place for applicants with a financial need? Yep. So exam master is pursuing that and they're pursuing at the state level and the national level. So working with APA, working with the state chapters that we're working on criteria for, you know for basically inclusion criteria for how the students can apply for the waivers. Okay. So it's something that in 2020 will be in place. Okay. So how should one prepare for the exam or can you even prepare for this exam? So from my perspective, the exam is based upon the typical prerequisites that PA students take. And I know I've heard concerns that some students don't take organic chemistries, you know there's different variations of that. So for that purpose, like the chemistry questions were made a bit more general to, so students who didn't take as much robust chemistry weren't necessarily penalized by that. Okay. As of right now, exam master as part of the price for the exam will offer a free practice exam. So that's one way you can see kind of like how you would score. There's also some free downloadable materials that has the outlines of the exam in terms of what topics. There's kind of taxonomies of the exam as well. And where would they be able to find that? If they go to the PA cat website and they go to resources for applicants for test takers, they will find them there. I also add to that that, much like other exams, yes, I mean, students can review the overall topics on the exam. They can go back to their textbooks. They can go back to their courses. I mean, by the time you get to that point, you're a junior or senior, it's been a while since general biology. They can kind of, you can review the concepts, but the belief is that it will not require a robust time like months of preparation because really it's meant to test what they absorb during their time in undergrad. So with respect to just the studying and the scoring of the exam, since it's new, how would I, as a student, know that I did well or didn't, is there an option for that? I mean, because I'm not even really sure, I guess, on the scale, what your scale is or how it scored in a sense. So how would I know if I get, I don't even know, like 300, that's a good score or where I sit with respect to other students that take things? So several layers for that, but I know you took, congratulations, by the way, you recently passed the PANs. Yes, I did, thank you. The scale system really mirrors the PANs, so the overall scale for the exam is 200 to 800. Then there's gonna be categories in the exam that are gonna be built in, anatomy, physiology, chemistry, et cetera. And the scale score is based upon how the student scored based upon the pool. So in 2020, the students will receive a scaled score for those categories and the overall, and they will also receive a percentile marker, which means that based upon 5,000 students that have taken it before you, you scored above X percentages of the candidates in the country. So much in like when you look at your own, like I think NCCPA reports as deciles, we're reporting it as percentiles. It's fairly simple that way. There is not a cut score right now. In other words, there isn't like, this is the score that you have to achieve. At the program level, it's gonna be organically used in terms of looking at, if the candidates are at this percentile in the country, how they might use that information. We have general recommendations, but it's not our responsibility, nor is it appropriate for exam master or the exam to dictate to programs how they use that information. What students will know ahead of time is that they scored what percentage points above, below of the test takers that they scored. And then the scaled scores are derived using, the same model, what's called rush model of test modeling, which is the same as the pans.  Very few students will get an 800. Just because with central tendencies, most students will score within kind of a, somewhat of a narrow range with that kind of exam. And does this, are you all participating with CASPA? So are they able to send their scores through CASPA? Is that gonna be an option? Or do they just get their score and then they send it to the particular program like by themselves? So exam master is working out the same arrangement that the GRE has used, which is when students will click on which programs they're applying for, then it will be sent to CASPA and CASPA will make that available to the programs that they apply to. There's also gonna be like a transcript that will exist too. So it'll be made quite clear to students how that works. So when they go in to apply for the exam and take the exam, it'll show how that articulation with CASPA will work. So can you share with us how the PA cat differs from the GRE and eventually, do you think that it will replace the GRE as an entrance assessment exam for PA school? I was reflecting on when I took the GRE when I was going through my PhD, before my PhD program. It's like, I felt kind of thumped by that, but the GRE is a very different exam. It's actually even changed now than the PA cat. The PA cat is based on the basic sciences and social sciences that students take during their program. So the GRE approach, the analytic approach, it's a very different exam. I mean, it can't really be compared. So it's really more of a basic science, content-based exam versus a process exam or analysis of verbal, et cetera. What about eventually replacing the GRE that you see happening in the future? I mean, if I had a crystal ball, I would say over time, I think more programs will probably adopt it than not in the future. Again, that's gonna be up to the program. Programs will use admissions variables in various ways. And I'll tell you how I've used admissions variables is that you correlate the student's score with the academic performance in individual programs. You correlate those admissions variables with say, background, end of rotation exams, summative exams, and eventually PANs. So I think that some programs might continue with both. I'm not sure if they will or not, but it's the same process. I mean, they'll decide whether the GRE is not able to provide that information. And yesterday I went on and just kind of reviewed some of the research literature about GRE and PA education. And what it's demonstrated has been inconsistent and it hasn't been very strong in terms of the relationship with academic performance. So it's been a bit wanting. You know, there's probably about a dozen articles written by PA educators and a dissertation I just read that looked at how well it worked. So at the end of the day, it's kind of like, what kind of tools can we as PA educators have in our arsenal to make the best selections of the candidates? And I can tell you that it's not about weeding out students, it's about making sure the students in your program have the ability to be able to perform well in the program. And I can get into issues such as attrition, remediation with you if you want. But I can tell you that from my viewpoint, I mean, I've spent the greater part of my career building remediation practices and finding ways to predict performance and intervene so students can be successful. And to me, it's about, that's kind of an extension of that conceptual framework because we want the students to be able to be successful and having worked with many students that got into the program and then just weren't able to get over the hump in terms of their first semester or two or they struggled through the program and then they struggled in the second year and then they ended up failing pans once or twice or more, you just don't want that to happen. And programs, despite best efforts, can't make that different sometimes. So I believe in the exam, I believe it'll be a positive move forward. It'll be another tool for PA educators. And that's just my personal perspective. So with respect to that, I guess, how does the PA CAT measure prepay academic ability needed for the successful completion of PA school? Cause I know that is like, that's what you all intend for it to do. So I mentioned before in the interview about the first phase of research and so I'll kind of give you a little bit of what we found so far. If you look at how well the PA CAT score corresponds with, for example, PA, academic GPA and the end of PA or end of deductive care PACRAT, it's been pretty strong. So again, if you're familiar with Pearson correlation, that relationship, the relationship between the PA CAT score and the end of deductive care PACRAT is about a 0.55 to 0.6 depending upon the sample size. And if you compare at the program level, GRE is probably in the range of a 0.2 to 0.3. So it's a stronger relationship. I have personally, because Central Michigan was one of the first programs to administer the exam to our students. I personally analyzed my students in the second year now, their performance in the first year and looked at those variables and very delighted to see that the exam did have a very strong correlation with students' performance. So that's kind of how it works. It happens on a macro level because you look at research and I would guess that down the road, there are probably multi-program studies because again, there's only so far you can get with a piloted study, it's gonna have to be research among PA schools. If people wanna go into my Google Scholar page, which they could just Google me, Scott Massey PhD, I did some research with multi-program study involving PACRAT and summative exams and that kind of collaborative process will take place. And so that's a long answer to your question and that the ability to use it is gonna be at the program level and it's gonna be on the collaborative level. And that's pretty much the same as how PACRAT was used, the end of rotation exams were used and I'm sure originally how GRE had been used because it has to be pilot tested, it has to be used over time. So anyways, I apologize for going too deep on that but I wanna give you- Okay. So with respect to, I know this is about performance in PA school but with respect to attrition rate, like just looking at the report that comes out from like PA, EA, attrition rate is not really that high. So what I guess, like how, are you trying to have like no attrition at all because it's maybe like two to three students that like come out of PA programs each year. Yeah, remember you're looking at the means, okay? And some programs who have special missions, we'll admit more at risk students, okay? So the attrition rate might be higher. As far as I'm concerned, there should be zero attrition. So I think the philosophy of PA educators is we want all of our students to succeed. So if this exam helps to lower attrition from 6% to 0%, that's great if it's a tool that helps with that. The other thing that to consider is that this exam could actually provide some assistance to programs that have a mission-specific focus where they wanna admit students who have disadvantaged backgrounds where it could lead to a pre-matriculation program where they could be assisted if their scores are lower. So if in other words, try to preemptively help the students to help ensure success. So again, I know that programs have sometimes struggle more in years than others. I've seen attrition rates as high as 10% in my career. I've seen attrition rates as low as 2% in my career. So it's gonna vary. Okay, so this is the last question. It says, can you address the concerns of those who feel that this exam may reduce the diversity of PA students? As they believe that standardized exams disproportionately disadvantages people of color, those with low socioeconomic status and those with disabilities. That's an excellent question. It's been a concern of the test committee and the research team all along. And the best way that that can be addressed is within psychometrics. And so I'm just gonna apologize if I go too deep into this, but I wanna say when the exam is analyzed and that will be now an ongoing, that the psychometrics will look at performance based upon those parameters. Like it depends on how much information we have about the test takers, but they will look for differences in performance. They will be looking for differences in performance within questions to see if there's any questions that might be potentially an issue for that. I'm also gonna say that that whole concept about diversity and everything we mentioned is a hot topic in PA education now because of the fact that programs, they struggle with that. And some of the issues that programs faces that we have, the pass rate on the pans is something that our accrediting body, the ERCPA, does not look kindly if the pass rates drop. So programs are kind of between a rock and a hard place with that. But back to the discussion about the pre-matriculation concept. If you have students in those categories that say their scores are lower, there's an opportunity for programs to adopt a pre-matriculation process, which that's something that we've also talked about offering as part of this in the future is that, can that be a way to bridge the gap? Rather than just looking at it's like, it's not meant to eliminate any candidates. And that's gonna depend on how programs choose to use it. But to the best of the ability in looking at how the exam performs, that's where those types of concerns will be addressed. All right, well thank you so much, Dr. Massey, for just taking the time out to sit down with me and answer all of these questions you did amazing. And so now I wanna give you the opportunity, just if you have any last words of encouragement for those that are like chittering their teeth that this test is coming or anything that you wanna address that maybe we didn't have time to address or ask the questions, the floor is yours. Absolutely, I've taken some time to go into some of the blogs and look at some of the questions, both on yours and others. And I think some of the students are concerned about, I think there's been comments about money, there's been comments about the cost to students and the cost of the PA CAD, I mean, the center fee is wrapped into the cost. So it's not significantly more than GRE. I guess that's an issue that, I guess you have to look at the big picture. And I'd ask that students kind of, or prospective students try to look at that in terms of how might that exam be helpful to you in the future? I believe that we're trying to address some of the issues that you mentioned before. We're human beings, we're trying our best. And at the end of the day, this is about trying to promote success in students. It's not about eliminating students, okay? Realize that, this is my 29th year in PE Education and when programs are faced with, say hundreds of applications, is there a way when you have so many applications with almost the same credentials?  And that's hard because programs have limited resources. They can't interview every single candidate. So I think that it's better to use something like PA CAD rather than GRE to make those discriminations. So it's a little bit of a better tool, I think, because some programs have used GRE for that purpose in the past. So I think just keep that in perspective. That's really the key things I wanted to say. You know, myself, my career in PE Education has been about, like I said, it's been about student success and I wouldn't be involved with this project if I didn't believe that it was going to be a positive towards student success. So that's my last comments. Thank you again. Thank you so much for doing this interview. I really appreciate it. And I know that all of the subscribers and followers will appreciate it as well as getting some of the nitty-gritty information that's not on the surface of the website. So thank you so much. Awesome, thank you for the opportunity. Oh, you're welcome. Special thank you to Dr. Massey. I really appreciate you sitting down and answering these questions for all of us who are interested in just learning more about the PA CAD. If you have any other questions that were not addressed in this video, please leave them in a comment section below. I know that again, this can be very nerve-wracking. It's a new assessment that's coming in, but just encouragement that you guys will get through it. It is things that you're already aware of in terms of your undergraduate degree. So if you go to the website and look at the resources tab, there will be information that will help you study or refresh your mind for the content areas on this exam. Thank you guys so much for watching. Please like this video if you liked it. Subscribe and follow me on Instagram at AdanaThePA. And I will talk to you guys next time. Bye.