Greetings and welcome to today's program broadcasting live for audiences around the world from the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C. My name is Dante Desparte and I'm the founder and CEO of Risk Cooperative, a specialized strategy, risk and capital management firm. I would like to extend a special welcome to our live viewing group from the U.S. Embassy in Lusaka, Zambia. Today, we will have an interactive conversation and take your questions on entrepreneurship and the concept of failing forward. Please sign in and ask your questions in the chat space below the video player, or ask your questions on Twitter using the hashtag EntrepAfrica, E-N-T-R-E-P, Africa. Joining us remotely from Boston today is Saran Kaba-Jones, founder and CEO of Face Africa, a community development organization working to build and strengthen water sanitation and hygiene infrastructure in remote communities across Sub-Saharan Africa. Born in Liberia, Saran's organization has raised over 500,000 for their projects from organizations like JPMorgan Chase, Coca-Cola, Chevron and more. So we'll turn to Saran now. I always say that on the road to success, failures are the guardrails that ensure you remain on track. Saran, you have built an impressive social enterprise. Tell us about your experiences and how you failed forward. Thank you, Dante. Good morning, everyone from Boston. My name is Saran Kaba-Jones, and I am the founder and CEO of Face Africa. It's really an organization born from the Liberia company. I came to Liberia when I was 12 years old, when I was in the country with you. And when I realized the war and the conflict of a lot of distance from the country, it left quite a potential impact on me. So I decided on this conflict. I was working with the Liberian people in Liberia. So in 2018, Africa was born, and since then, I've been part of the Access to Plenty of Water and I've been part of the nation for 25,000 years. And I will say that in the 18th century, when I launched, my experience is ongoing and have included successes, but also failures. I've lost a lot of lead in Africa, a lot of lead in failure, because I think the more you think about it, the more you learn from it. I want to go to the top five, like I said, that at least more than nine percent of my career, I've lost only 26 times. I've been trusted to be a winning shot here. I've failed over and over again in my career, and that is why I've failed. And so this is what I'm holding to share with you. The more you think, the more opportunities you have to succeed. That's a great opening remarks, Saran. Thank you. So let's turn to an online question that we just received from Arnold Afolayan, who writes, how can failing forward help one in business? And how does one know that one is failing forward? Do you want to take that first question? Well, I think how do you know what you're failing for? Again, I think the more you fail, it's true that you're experienced in your learning. Now, I'll give you an example of my first time thinking about it. I heard about the needs of young people in Liberia and also in Africa. But then I came to realize that unique and unique aspects of education was the lack of water in school and at the community level. And that children were not playing up in schools. And this was severely hampered. And that a lot of people, because these schools were getting sick from illnesses by unseen people. And so I thought at the time that I was thinking about saying the wrong way when you graduate, you had more issues that needed to be done. And so we took a step back. And it was that our initial effort to provide education opportunity was not the best effort, but really the funding we're going to be able to show that children were helping. So Arnold, just to answer the question as well, I always think of failure for businesses and entrepreneurs as the scientific method. That if you start with a hypothesis that your business has an opportunity, the first failure, in a way, is your first opportunity to see evidence that you're on the right track. And so I wouldn't look at any failure in businesses, anything other than the scientific method. So we have another great question here. What are the key traits of a successful entrepreneur?  And I think for me the key trait is fortitude. Entrepreneurship has never ever been easy. And the quality of the people that you will see leading projects around the world is that they're eternally optimistic. They don't look at failure as an obstacle. They see the pursuit of their business as something that their business or vision or social enterprise like Saran has built is something that is part of their DNA. They simply will not allow the business to fail because they believe the vision is what they're pursuing. So some failures are so great. How do you recover from them? Saran, do you have any lessons learned so far in building face Africa? I have many of those examples and I think I go through that experience at least once a month and I've been doing this for nine years. And like I always say to young entrepreneurs who are interested in starting an organization or a business, there are going to be many challenges and there are going to be many of those days where you feel like throwing in the towel because things are simply not going the way you expect them to. And I've experienced many of those days. But I think especially for those who are running social enterprises that are not entirely motivated by money or financial gains, I think ultimately when you're passionate about impacting lives and when you're passionate about making a difference in your community and improving the livelihood of your fellow community members, you realize that there's so much dependent on you that you simply cannot give up. You realize that it takes a village to impact lives and improve the living conditions of people. And at the end of the day, you simply cannot give up. You have to keep going. Exactly. So another great question we've received was, was there a time you almost gave up? What was the biggest lesson you learned? And I'll take a chance at answering that. I think as you say, Suran, every day there's probably a moment in time in the life of an entrepreneur where you feel like you're ready to call it and fold the cards, so to speak. In my case, I was building a large project across Sub-Saharan Africa to help improve humanitarian fleet management. And one year after another, one month after another, we just continued encountering all kinds of obstacles. And part of the challenge was that we weren't paying too much attention originally to what the market actually wanted. So in a laboratory or in the safe space of your business and in, you know, Excel and PowerPoint and building a business plan, it's very easy to make things look successful. I think failure and going to market and not being afraid of the consequences is the one way you get real feedback and allows you to reposition the business and, you know, figure out what exactly it takes to make it successful. So if you had a chance to start your business over again, what would you do differently? Any lessons learned if you can rewind the clock nine years back? Absolutely. I think for many entrepreneurs, the issue of funding and capital is one of the number one, you know, challenges that they face. And that has been no different for us. Fundraising continues to remain a challenge for face Africa and it's something that we struggle with every day. So I think it is important to, one, before you start anything, really understand the need for capital, not just to start your organization, but in terms of sustaining it. And I think when we went in, when I started this organization, I was very passionate and idealistic and I thought I could just continue to sustain it just based on the passion and enthusiasm that I had. But I soon came to realize that it takes a lot more than that to sustain a business. And so I think really opening up your network and identifying really innovative and creative ways to fundraise is extremely important and that's something I would have definitely done differently. That's right. And you bring up a good point, which is the notion that on the finance and banking side, investors in early stage companies and entrepreneurs, they really want to see bruises. They want to see bumps and bruises and a track record, which you'll only gain from having no fear of failure. So another good question we're getting right now is in thinking about innovation, how do you contain the negative impacts of failing and how do you do damage control? So damage control in a way is my business today. We focus on risk management and when there's a smoking crater where your business one stood. And ultimately I think containing bad news and not sharing it with the market or the public or your colleagues doesn't make the bad news any better. In fact, it makes it worse. And so if your prospect or your project has failed, I would come out with it right away and indicate that for whatever reason that first attempt didn't quite make it. The second attempt, however, will be better based on the lessons learned so far. Dante, I completely agree. I think being open and honest, not just with yourself, but also with your target audience, with your potential funders and even list of funders or donors is extremely important. And I mean, even for me and face Africa, we're at the moment going through an extremely challenging period in terms of cash flow. And so we've had to take a step back and reassess our financial position, our financial standing. And it was really insightful for us to realize that we've been running a half a million dollar organization on a 50,000 dollar a year budget. And that's been happening for the last three or four years. And so we've been bootstrapping our way to sustainability, which in of itself is not sustainable. So now we're in the process of having this conversation with our supporters, with our funders to say to them, we need you to invest in face Africa as an institution so that we can be sustainable and so that we can be around long enough to continue to invest in these projects that are impacting lives. It sounds like your donors, Saran, could learn a lesson or two about managing a lean enterprise from you. So that's great to hear. So let's turn now to our live audience in Lusaka for two questions. Simon you know from Kittway? The first question that I have from the experience... Simon, could you speak up a bit so we could hear you better? Simon you know from Kittway. The question I have is from the experience working in Africa. What do the two speakers see as a major challenges to start growing a business in Africa? That's a great question. So what are the major challenges of growing a business in Africa? I think the first is access to capital. I mean, one of, as Saran rightly pointed out, access to capital is very complex in Sub-Saharan Africa. But I should point out that it's very complex everywhere. In the United States, for example, 90 percent of early-stage companies don't succeed in getting capital. And we also know that many more may not succeed when they launch their business. And this is why today's program is really focusing on attitudes and the cultural attitudes towards failure. But access to capital is difficult across Sub-Saharan Africa, mainly because I think investors are using the wrong yardstick. They're asking for entrepreneurs to be able to provide an exit strategy. They're asking for entrepreneurs to define a road to profitability within a five-year timeframe. And frankly, a lot of these businesses need a much longer investment horizon. They're totally viable. But access to capital, I would say, is number one. Outside of that, I think it's a matter of overcoming some of the cultural inhibitions that would create a broader culture of entrepreneurship. But from having been to the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Nairobi and working extensively with entrepreneurs across Africa, I would say the biggest advantage is the attitudes are increasingly changing. And more and more and more entrepreneurs are really looking at entrepreneurship as a pathway for success. Yes, I definitely agree. Thank you for that question. I think doing business in Africa definitely has a lot of challenges. But at the same time, there are also endless opportunities. And I think while there are challenges, I think that the key is really to think outside the box and find innovative ways to deal with those challenges and obstacles. Obviously, the issue of financing and capital is the number one issue. And getting your business to the next stage, growing a business is never easy. However, I think growing your startup, when you're thinking about that, it's important to not limit yourself and get creative. So in addition to traditional bank loans, for example, there are many potential sources of funding that you can explore, such as crowdfunding, business incubators, business competitions, and potential grants. So I think definitely think outside the box. Other challenges that I can think of from my experience include things like underdeveloped infrastructure, for example, and not having enough market data to be able to target your products effectively. And more importantly, the issue of talent and making sure that you hire the right talent. So I think there needs to be much work done to invest in capacity building so that you have a wider pool of talent to recruit from and get the best people to help you grow and expand your business. All great points, Siran. Thank you. So let's turn back to Zambia and see if we have a few more questions. Hi, Danta. Sir, can you get me? Hi. Hello. My name is Paul. Can you get me? Yes. You've talked about the challenges being capital and finance. We also talked about talent attribution and also the market. If I just restrict you to talent attribution, what are some of the proposed solutions for the problem? Sorry, Paul, just to make sure I got the question correctly, you were asking what were the best solutions to overcoming some of these challenges? Especially in terms of talent acquisition. That's a great question. That is a great question. And I don't think that's a problem that can be solved by, you know, just, you know, entrepreneurs. I think this is where the government definitely plays a role because there is no doubt that there's a shortage of skilled professionals. And sometimes that's mainly due to, you know, low education levels. And of course, there's the issue of a brain drain of highly educated workers who leave African countries in search of better opportunities or better paying jobs overseas. So I think this is where the government plays a role as far as creating an environment that will, you know, encourage, you know, talent to stay in the country so that small to medium sized businesses have a larger pool to pick from. But I think from, you know, from an entrepreneurship, from an entrepreneur's standpoint, I think we ourselves as business owners, we have a role to play as well. And we can ourselves invest in, you know, capacity building, capacity building internally and make sure that we, you know, invest in, you know, training in education and then building the capacity of our, you know, from our own communities so that we can deal with this issue of retaining local talent. Absolutely. And I would say that in addition to these approaches, that a lot of the diaspora are actually coming home, so to speak, right? That programs like Tony Alumelu's entrepreneurship program, in their first year, they had participants from 51 countries across Sub-Saharan Africa and they were also able to bring people back, so to speak. And so in one case, an entrepreneur that I'm working closely with from Central African Republic, Gabino, who's building a solar energy platform across Sub-Saharan Africa, I know him from Washington, D.C., but on the launch of the entrepreneurship program through Tony Alumelu, he's coming back to the continent and reconnecting. And there's a lot of informal ways of transferring the skills of entrepreneurship, whether it's apprenticeship programs and sort of, you know, working closely in the vast incubator scene across the continent that's continuing to blossom. I think there's many ways of connecting the dots and addressing the talent shortage that may exist. So let's go back to Lusaka and get one more question. Hello. Hello. Can you hear me? Hello, how are you? Good, how are you? All right, my question is, what factors should motivate an entrepreneur to achieve their business dreams despite past mistakes, failures, or challenges? Well, I think... You get that. Yeah, we got that. So what factors should motivate an entrepreneur despite past mistakes, business failures, and challenges, right?  A lot of times, people are trying to merely emulate what they think of as successful entrepreneurs and not necessarily think about building businesses they want to manage. I mean, ultimately, entrepreneurship, for the ones that are very successful at it, they're not only afraid of...they have no fear of failure, but I think they also say to themselves, this is something I'm passionate about, and this is something I want to run. I see myself doing this despite the odds, despite the fact that I have a talent gap, despite the fact that I have little access to capital and that the market hasn't yet figured out what I'm doing. So if you often talk about the notion of Steve Jobs was famous for saying, the market doesn't know what it wants until you show them. And I think that type of attitude in an entrepreneur is an almost defiant attitude to failure, right? And you need that. I think that's the core ingredient. Everything else, it's difficult everywhere, but I think once you have that defiance and optimism, I think entrepreneurs everywhere around the world can succeed. So let's turn then to...and thank you, Lusaka, for the great questions. So we'll turn and get some online questions coming in from our chat room. We know we have participants from around the world. So when is it time to just cut your losses and move on to another direction? Saran? That's an interesting question for me because these are all questions that I personally am facing right now. So this is a great exercise for me as well. And I think what I appreciate about being a social entrepreneur is that I'm always learning and I don't quite have it figured out. For me, I think you come to a point when you have to take a step back and do a complete assessment of where you started from, where you are currently, and where you want to be in the future, whether it's three, five, ten years from now. And I think that's a good way to determine, once you've done a comprehensive assessment of your entire journey, that's a good way to determine whether you're on the right path or whether it's time to realign your goals and your mission and re-strategize. And I think for every entrepreneur or for every business person, that's different. There's no fixed timeline when it comes to that. So we're going through that exercise right now where again because of cash flow problems and the issue of retaining our staff and talent, we have now had to do a complete reassessment of our organization to kind of re-strategize and realign ourselves. And sometimes you can come back and after you've done this assessment and say, you know what, I think it's time to actually throw in the towel because this is simply not working out and it's time to go and do something else. But that requires you taking, you know, conducting an internal exercise and assessment, whether it's a financial assessment or an internal human resource assessment. I think that's an exercise that's really important to do at some point in your journey. Completely agree, completely agree. So what is your greatest fear as an entrepreneur and how do you manage fear? Well, for me personally, you know, we all need to have a safe place. Sort of whether it's the notion of Zen or something that will sort of allow you to ride the waves of whatever uncertainties impacting you or your project. So, you know, for me it's a matter of remembering above all else when things get dark that we did what we're doing with the company or that I became an entrepreneur for a bigger purpose. And that is often very helpful when things look dire or when you're facing any types of challenges. You know, one of my friends who's an entrepreneur, whenever he's facing long challenges or tough, tough times, he goes on very long bike rides. And all of a sudden realizes when coming back that there is, that it's all fine and that tomorrow comes and the next day and the next day and the next day and then somehow they get over it. How about you, Saran, how do you overcome fear? I think building a really strong support network of people and friends and supporters and well wishes who are not only there to, you know, provide sort of financial support, but also to provide moral and psychological support. I think that's extremely important because, you know, there are many dark days and nights as an entrepreneur and there are many days that you, you know, you face challenges that are so, you know, insurmountable that you want to quit. But I think for me, I'm sustained, one, knowing that my contribution to society and the work that I'm doing is meaningful and valuable. I'm also sustained knowing that the struggle is, you know, it's in the work I'm doing is in service of something much bigger than me. So it's not about me. But then I have a huge community of supporters who, you know, encourage me and motivate me to keep going. So I think that's extremely important. And if I didn't have that, I don't think I would have survived as long as I had. Yeah, absolutely. So what is the best way to achieve long-term success as an entrepreneur? That's a very, that's a great question. I think the answer very simply is attitude, that for all the reasons we've heard so far and for what Saran has shared about her experiences, I think attitude is the key to success. And it's not only about entrepreneurship. I think attitude in a corporate environment and large companies and large organizations is often the determinant between success or failure. And think of it like, you know, adaptability to change. If you have, you're too rigid and you don't adapt to change very successfully, you're the one that gets broken and you build no robustness in your response.  And it's not that they're not smart or intelligent or that they don't know how to move the market. It's purely the notion that they don't give up and they learn from each mistake and pick themselves up again. I think for me, I would say sort of long-term planning and having that foresight to be able to plan well ahead into the future.  But I think without proper planning, your chances of success are extremely, extremely low. So I think really trying to map out, you know, where you want to be and every step of the way, making sure that every decision that you make for your business as an entrepreneur is sort of getting you closer and closer to that goal is one of the sure way to succeed as an entrepreneur. No doubt. No doubt. So what are your tips for entrepreneurs starting out? I think the first one is to never forget that you're ultimately trying to build in some form or function, whether it's a social enterprise or a for profit. It's a business and that, you know, you should balance how bold and how, you know, imaginary your vision is with the reality of I would like this thing to succeed in the Roman calendar in the real world in the real market and therefore it's very important for entrepreneurs to balance out, you know, I want to eradicate poverty with but I need to start here and getting those small proofs and that's where I was referring backwards to the scientific method. The first idea of an early stage entrepreneur is the hypothesis. The first experiment is something small and so therefore those small progressive steps towards innovation is the way you would achieve your breakthrough innovation. It's, if you tried to leap right straight to the end state, you would, you might fall because you haven't built the foundation underneath you yet. So, for me, it's about really being anchored in the real world and having that sort of sense of pragmatism in the same spirit of being bold. So, Saran, what about you? What tips would you give entrepreneurs starting out? I would say definitely be open to taking risk and be flexible because you will, you know, go through periods where things will not go exactly the way you planned and you should be willing to adapt and be flexible and, you know, surround yourself with good people. I think, for me, our success has been largely due to the people that have, you know, that have worked with face Africa over the last eight, nine years. So, surround yourself with people, you know, that you not only like but that you also respect and that share your vision. So, my first tip would be to take risks, be flexible and be willing to adapt but also choose the right people to surround yourself with. I cannot agree more. No substitute for great people. So, let's turn back to our viewing group in Lusaka and get a few questions from them. Hello, can you hear me? Perfectly. Yes, we can. Okay, I've got two questions with me. This one says, what tools or resources can be used for collaboration among young individuals with similar ideas? And the second question in thinking about my question, how do, how can you contain the negative impact of planning? So, just to make sure we caught the questions correctly, the first one related to what tools or resources are available for innovation. Was that right? That can be used for collaboration. For collaboration, okay. And the second question, sorry? The second question, in thinking about innovation, how can you contain the negative impact of the business? Okay. Well, for collaboration, I think this is one example. Entrepreneurs in my experience are among the most transparent sharing people I've ever met. And as you'll know from just working with entrepreneurs is that they're always selling, they're always describing their business, their latest upset, their latest success and failure. And so I think the spirit of collaboration that is alive and well in entrepreneurs and in the entrepreneurial community around the world is great. And there's very few sectors of the economy where you can walk up to someone who might one day be your competitor and have them help you through a business plan or through a challenge or make connections with networks and prospective investors. And so I think the entrepreneurial community is among the most collaborative out there. The concept of incubators, hubs, you know, special investment zones that cities around the world are developing to build tech clusters and pharmaceutical clusters and even agricultural projects. A lot of the way entrepreneurs succeed is by surrounding themselves with good people and sharing a lot of information. And I imagine in Lusaka Zambia there are also a number of resources that might be available in the country and through international programs to effectively transfer information and build skills. On the innovation question, I think the, you know, there too, it's an open playbook. I think people who believe that I should keep my secret in the laboratory and when people come to me looking for help with investments and they're afraid of talking about their investment or their innovation and they want us to sign non- disclosure agreements and things like that, the market decides if your product is disruptive, not the entrepreneur. And so I think even on the subject of innovation there's almost an open playbook available to entrepreneurs around the world on how things should be done, you know, what processes and what steps you should follow in building your business and your innovation. So I think innovation and collaboration are two themes that hold the entrepreneurial community together around the world. Yeah, I couldn't agree more, Dante. I'll just touch on the topic of collaboration because I think you covered both very well. I think for entrepreneurs, understanding but also embracing the need to collaborate is so important. And in my experience, the strongest entrepreneurs embrace collaboration as a way to really get diverse views on how to run their business.  It's almost as important as your business itself. And finding a way to make collaboration a part of your planning and incorporating it into your mindset will make you a better entrepreneur and will make your business better. I think for us, for Face Africa, we've been at our most effective when we've collaborated with other agencies, whether it's government agencies or other organizations that are also doing similar work, but that may have, you know, better capacity than we do, access to more resources than we do, access to funding. So pooling ideas and resources together to submit a proposal for a grant, for example, that makes your grant proposal stronger because you're collaborating and partnering with institutions that have more experience, more access, you know, more staff that you may not have access to, made us a stronger organization. So I think it needs to be a part of not only your planning, but a part of your business model. I cannot agree more. That's a great point, Siran. Thank you. So what or who inspired you to become an entrepreneur? This is a question from one of our online viewers. Siran, I'll let you take that one first. I think my journey really was born out of the need that I saw. So I wouldn't say it was specifically, you know, an individual or a leader or anyone in particular. I, you know, I fled my country when I was eight years old. I went back 20 years later and I realized that I had access to, you know, so many resources and opportunities that I could in turn use to create something that would impact people's lives who otherwise wouldn't have an opportunity to, you know, to have access to something as basic as clean water and toilets. So I was inspired really by the need to take the opportunities and the access that I had as a result of my living overseas and turning that into opportunities for people on the ground. That's great. That's great. And authenticity I think is one of the key traits of great entrepreneurs. So how do you go about finding a mentor and is it important to have a mentor who has failed forward? You know, in my view, mentorship is one of the most important qualities in life, whether you're an entrepreneur or you're in business or you're in politics. I think invariably you could either surround yourself by a group of people going back to the conversation about collaboration and through the wisdom of the crowd, so to speak, you'll get great insights. But finding a mentor I think is very important and I don't think you would find one who hasn't failed forward. I think all of us and frankly all of you watching and everyone around the world at some stage or another has to lift themselves up out of failure. And mentors who can guide you through that process are invaluable. And I think in entrepreneurship, more specifically I would get involved even if it's only, if you're only toying with the idea of becoming an entrepreneur, I would get involved very early in networking and going to entrepreneurial clubs and putting yourself out there. You can't get a chance at serendipity or whatever life has to offer you if you're afraid of taking a step out. Saran, what about you? Have you found any key mentors in the course of Building Face Africa? Oh, absolutely. And I think the most powerful weapon an entrepreneur can have is a mentor, especially one who has failed many times and has failed forward. And I make it a duty actually to mentor a lot of young people who are thinking about starting businesses or organizations because I understand the value that having a mentor added to my experience and my journey. I think you can have a great idea. You can have access to all of the capital in the world, but if you don't have a good mentor that can help you think through your business idea or suggest ways to scale up your business and really provide the experience. I think that's what a mentor offers most is the experience and to help you sort of limit your failures as much as possible. So that's certainly something I would advise every aspiring entrepreneur to not only think about but to seek out because in the long term it will benefit you tremendously. You're absolutely right. So on that same subject, I always say money has a price and often there's a curse for early stage entrepreneurs where they get money and they have to pay it back right away or there's an investment requirement with it. But advice is priceless at times and often what people need more so than raising $500,000 or a lot of money is guidance and the advice of impartial mentors who understand them and understand their goals. So what are the most... Sorry, go ahead. Now I was just going to say just to try to at least tackle the question directly. How do you go about finding a good mentor or a mentor in general? I think they're all around us. They're successful business people in our communities who would love the idea to actually mentor a young person who's just starting out. So I think look within your own community, seek out people who share your values, who share your vision, who have done it, who have been successful at doing it and just approach them and ask them. You would be really surprised in how willing people are willing to open up themselves and provide the kind of mentorship that I think are really critical for young entrepreneurs starting out. That's a great point. And maybe the first assignment from today's conversation is overcome the fear of asking the biggest people you could think of to be your mentor and you may very well be surprised by the outcome. So another great question we're getting from an online viewer is what are the most common mistakes first-time entrepreneurs make? And I think the most common one is really failure to execute, to understand the operational reality. You cannot pursue the dream on the other side of a very long valley unless you have built the first stages of that bridge. And those couple of stages really require a sensitivity towards the operation, towards the daily grind. And entrepreneurs that are not also able to wear a general manager's hat in my opinion end up having quite a few problems building their businesses. So you need to be both the visionary and the manager. And it's on the managing part that I think many early stage entrepreneurs fail. But then if they pick themselves up and dust off the failure isn't terminal. So Ron, what about you? What do you think? I think sometimes being cheap, and I'll explain what I mean by that, I think it's really important to invest in people, to invest in marketing and to invest in the tools and resources that will increase the chances of success. And a lot of times I think starting out we try to, you know, to try to be too lean or we try to hold on to too much of our finances. But in order to make money it takes money. And that's a lesson that I'm learning and that we learned the hard way where we're now going and doing things backwards and now looking to invest in people and invest in marketing to sort of, you know, solidify and really build up the foundation of our institution. So I think, you know, it's important for us to recognize that we need to invest in the tools and the human capacity that can help our business grow. Great. Good points. Thank you. So let's turn back to Zambia and we'll get two final questions from them. Hello. My name is Kennedy. My question is, if you were to give three reasons why young Africans should go into business, what would those reasons be? That's a great question. So three reasons why young Africans should go to entrepreneurship. Well, I think the first is it's completely liberating. Who in the world would not want to be their own master? And in that spirit also be able to create opportunities for others around them. I think entrepreneurship, as much as it's very risky, it's also very risky. So that would be number one. Number two, where else in the world do you get to not fire yourself for failing multiple times before you, you know, so it's the eternal job in one respect. Would be number two. And I think number three, it's a foundation, the foundation of entrepreneurship is built on ideals and values that are universal. They transcend countries, culture, gender. And when entrepreneurs are at their best, the vision and what they're trying to achieve overcomes current obstacles and current realities. And so I think there is no better vision for young people in Sub-Saharan Africa and frankly young people all over the world to take their own lives and their own opportunities in their hands and do something with it. That's a really great question. And I hope after this program I would have convinced you to either start a business or continue to pursue the business that you're already involved in. But I think it comes down to, you know, tackling one of Africa's biggest problems, the problem of unemployment. In Liberia, for example, the unemployment rate is at 85%. And a majority of that is young people. So I think one by starting businesses and by becoming entrepreneurs, you're directly tackling the issue of unemployment, which as we know is linked to so many other development issues like violence, etc. Two, in the process of starting businesses, you're creating jobs. So not only for yourself, but also for, you know, millions, tens of millions of young people in your community and in your country. And of course, it gives you the financial independence and freedom to basically become your own boss. And I think there's no bigger sort of satisfaction than that when you can be your own boss and you don't have to answer to anyone. But at the same time you're creating employment for your fellow community members and hereby in essence, what it comes down to it for me is that, you know, we're giving Africa the opportunity to take charge of its own developmental agenda because now people are in a position to, you know, to send their kids to schools. So you're indirectly tackling the issue of education. You're tackling the issue of health because now parents can afford to send their children to clinics and hospitals. So I think there is no question, this is the way forward. Aid and charity has not worked as much as I am in the business of aid. I don't think it's a long-term sustainable solution to Africa's problems. I think entrepreneurship and getting young people to start businesses and to engage with, you know, the private sector is the way forward for Africa. Yeah, thank you, Siran. Thank you. I always say that after the sun, Africa's most abundant resource is its people and entrepreneurship is the way to activate them. So let's turn to Zambia for one final question. Hello. Hello. Hello. My name is Vincent Timo and my question to you is with regards to finance. Financing is undoubtedly one of the challenges for upcoming entrepreneurs like me. What are some of the valuable tips for raising capital? That's a great question, Vincent. Thank you. So I think the first one is to remember that the market is also your source of capital as much as investors and banks and traditional sources, right? So if you have products that you could offer or services that you could offer even to a small segment of the market, that's a very sort of easy, accessible way of getting capital. The other thing that I'm advising a lot of entrepreneurs is that, you know, across sub-Saharan Africa, the continent is one of the fastest recipients of foreign investment from companies. And to Siran's point, the narrative in Africa is changing from one about aid and development to one about long-term market investments for large companies. Business entrepreneurs can partner with those large firms and become a part of their supply chains, become a part of that ecosystem to support larger investors operating in Lusaka and in different cities around Africa. On the banking side and on how do you get traditional capital, I would argue that you have to have one story, one business plan, one set of investment material that you've prepared, and then you share it everywhere all the time, and that you have to spread your risk and spread your effort to start seeing some traction and then learning from that type of feedback what you need to adjust in your thinking and your planning to make your project interesting to investors. Yes, trust me, the issue of capital is one that we continue to struggle with but I think I said earlier it's important to not limit yourself to sort of traditional bank loans or investors. I think there are many potential sources of funding that we're now starting to see and you have to get creative, you have to get innovative. Crowdfunding is an option, business incubators like the Tonya Lumilu program, business competitions, but also partnering with local stakeholders, whether it's government, businesses, or even community groups to build credibility and build demand for your product. One other thing I would say is that networking is a really great way to think about raising capital because it puts you in a position to meet the right people who can help you fundraise. So it's important to expand your horizon, expand your network and move beyond sort of your immediate circle of friends and community and just build a wider global network and you can do that with the internet, with social media. It is possible to use that to your advantage, to use technology to your advantage and explore the many different options that are out there. That's a great question. I'm sorry, great comments, Seran, thank you. So we'll take one final question from an online viewer. What has been the most satisfying moment as an entrepreneur? Your most satisfying moment as an entrepreneur, Seran? I think it's really about results and seeing the impact that we're having on people's lives based on the work that we're doing. Our goal is to tackle the water and sanitation issue across Sub-Saharan Africa which affects 350 million people. That's a huge number and I think the more people that we can reach with access to safe drinking water the more satisfying our work is and so just seeing the results and seeing the impact that we continue to have on communities and the fact that we're providing not only better health for men, women and children but also opportunities for children to grow healthy and go to school, opportunities for women to spend more time engaging in more economically productive activities instead of walking long distances to fetch water. In Africa alone women spend 40 billion hours every single year walking for water. In terms of the economic impact that this issue has on the continent it's huge. We're looking at it from a multi-dimensional approach as far as how we're impacting people's lives and I think for us that's extremely satisfying. That's great. Thank you. It looks like we're just about out of time so I would like to thank everyone who participated today, our online viewers and our group in Lusaka for their great questions as well as Saran for sharing her experiences and insights with us about failing forward. Saran do you have any final thoughts you would like to share with our viewers today? I think for me I would say I'm extremely optimistic about the future of Africa. I think Africa is rising despite all of the challenges and hurdles that we still have to overcome but I think we need to harness the potential of young entrepreneurs and really maximize the opportunities for them to transform the continent and I think entrepreneurship is the way. Indeed. A new story is being told around the world and I think entrepreneurs are the key actor. So a big thank you to you and to everyone who participated. Good morning, good afternoon and good night. Thank you Dante. Thank you.


Good afternoon, everyone. I'm sorry for the technical problems. Let's start. My name is Alessandro Silva from Red Hat. I'm a Cloud success artist. My job is support strategic customers in Latin America. In this session, we are going to talk about Red Hat certification program for OpenStack platform and how this certification program can improve your queries and empower your companies with knowledge and abilities. This is our agenda for today. So before to talk about certification, we have to introduce some challenges, meaning for business, operation, and developers. The business are searching for more flexibility for delivery services and help sales team. Business are asking for delivery services faster. And in the other hand, developers are asking for delivery application with more productivity and faster provisioning times. Our operation teams are worried about increased operational efficiency and reliability, data security, and reduced costs. But all of these teams are together to help the business to delivery application and other things. So a matter of fact, the business are becoming a true digital business. This true digital business exists to support demands of delivery application. And these business are transforming the way how we are delivering application inside the companies. I think operation, in this case, are moving to be a strategic partner, a strategic department to deliver services, and a strategic department to help the business to enforce your market. And this evolution requires not only modern application, but infrastructure as a services platform to empower this delivery of services, this delivery of application. Besides professional, certificated, and professionals ready to support this business demand. And why this evolution is happening inside the companies? Mainly because the older infrastructure is not ready to support this business demand. Amount of data is large. It's very large. And even that, we have some good news. Because even that, we have more capabilities with these new tools. Like OpenStack, a lot of capabilities. And these capabilities are being exhausted, but we have improved this platform more and more. The companies have no more budget to help this infrastructure. But we have many, many other things to do and no budget. We have too many services requests. Biod is a reality. The employees are bringing our device. And more clients' device is online. And scaling up is not longer. We have to move to scaling out. And this application, this infrastructure as a services, requires dynamic infrastructure. This application requires dynamic infrastructure and dynamic professionals. And because of that, we are in the stage of moving toward professionalization. You are increasing the demand for open source and stackers inside the companies. Heavy people have professional training inside this company is strategic. Let me see some data about professionals and hiring managers. Hiring managers say that it's strategical and it's hard to search, to meet professionals, to find professionals and open source talent. These hiring managers say that it's hiring open stack professionals is a strategy for organization. And these professionals who are working with open stack say that certification are useful for your queries. So we have some important data about that. These make certified professionals a really hot commodity. We have many companies searching for certificated professionals. And we have more and more professionals getting certificated. But we have many challenges yet. Because according to our recent survey with many decision makers, we saw that we have a challenge to training people in open stack and certificated people in open stack. Because one of the most significant problems is the lack of skill in open stack followed by budget and technology maturity. So we are working to prepare professionals to get ready and certificate these professionals. And what I had to handle this demand, how we are helping to training and certificate these professionals. So in 2015, we launched a certification program to training and certificate professional in Red Hat Open Stack Platform. This is the same when you are getting a driver license. When you are getting a driver license, you have to get skills or abilities in car driver. And you have to prove your skills through an exam. If you are getting a driver in this exam, you are certificating open stack platform, for example. Comparatively. So this is the same when you are talking about certification for open stack platform. You have to get skills or abilities in Red Hat Open Stack Platform. You have to prove your knowledge in Open Stack Platform through an exam. If you get a permit, you have certified in Open Stack Platform. So specifically about Open Stack, we have two levels of certifications. The first level is Red Hat Certifier System Administrator. This level of certification, you have to prove your abilities about how to implement, configure, manage, and troubleshooting a cloudy environment with a Red Hat Open Stack. You have to perform an exam. This is a hand zone and performance-based exam. And the product is Red Hat Open Stack Platform 8, who is based on Red Hat Open Stack Platform 8, based on delivery version. So this is the first level of certification. If you would like to get a certified engineer in Open Stack Platform, you have to perform a second exam. The second exam, you have to prove your knowledge and abilities using self-distributed storage and advanced capabilities with Open Stack Neutrum. The exam is a performance-based exam, too. And the product is Open Stack 8, based on delivery, plus self. So today, if you would like to get your certification in Red Hat Open Stack Platform, you have two levels of certification. You have System Administrator and Red Hat Certified Engineer. This is a very fast introduce. If you would like to get more information about the certification program, we have more information available in this address. And this presentation is available right now in the first address here, people.redhat.com. If you would like to get this presentation, it's available in this address. Thank you very much. I'm sorry for the technical problems on the beginning.


plaque here for you to commemorate your time here in the Third Division Sustainment Brigade. We've got some transportation stuff on there, control and all that kind of stuff. That looks great. That's great. Thanks, sir. Fine. Colonel David Peaky. We thank you for this faithful service rendered by Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Daniels during his time. Final duty as the commander. Lieutenant Colonel Daniels will now pass the colors to Colonel Peay, signifying his real Englishman of command and completion of 24 months as the commander of the 87th Division Sustainment and Support Battalion. Colonel Peay will now pass the colors to Lieutenant Colonel Syke and with them the command and responsibility of the 87th Division Sustainment Brigade.


Yeah, history is here to help. We're talking about anti-Asian trends in America with Peter Hoffenberg, our regular contributor on this show, he's a history professor, and Trisha Nakamura. She is a lawyer, law professor, the whole enchilada, speaking from the law school, or so it would appear. So welcome to the show, both of you guys. And I think this is an important discussion to have. Peter, can you conceptually tell us what the scope of the discussion is? All right, I will try and please don't be limited by this. We invited our esteemed guest who has experience, particularly from the legal and political perspective on Asian-American experiences in Hawaii, particularly Japanese-American experiences. And Jay and I thought that this would be an appropriate time, unfortunately, to talk about how there seems to be, and I don't mean that in a dismissive way, but factually and statistically, there certainly seems to be a greater number of verbal and physical attacks on Asian-Americans in a way which may not differentiate among Asian-Americans, right? So somebody might be attacking, somebody they think is Chinese, but our Japanese are Korean. Somebody might be attacking Korean for a particular reason, and in fact, they're attacking Filipino. So we asked our expert to join us over the next half hour to talk particularly about current events, what could be done currently, and then Jay and I has always liked to provide some historical background to give us some sense of how we got where we are. All right, Jay, does that... No, that's good. I think it's very good introduction, and I wonder if that will require you to withdraw your name from consideration at the police commission. Me or our guest? Yes, of course. There is no racial discrimination in Hawaii. We don't know. Yes. Patricia, is there racial discrimination in Hawaii? What do you think? Unfortunately, there is. I think it's something that a lot of folks don't wanna think about. Folks maybe of generations prior to mine like to think of a Hawaii where perhaps they were the benefit of the racial layers or strata that existed in Hawaii at the start from the time that the monarchy was overthrown or even perhaps before that because of economic reasons. You had the overthrow and you had the plantation system and all of these different systems sought to undermine people or deny people equity or access. And I think that continues today. I think with the rise of different movements, things are being uncovered locally. I think the Hawaiian Renaissance definitely exposed folks to the different things that were going on or the true history that happened to the native Hawaiian community and a resurgence of culture. I think when you're looking at the US continent and here locally, the rise of ethnic studies and folks of color, people of color, looking at their own histories as well. And I think those are really powerful ways is that people are talking about or started to talk about the injustices that happened. I think folks in the generation before mine, one of my uncles or my mother's uncle served in World War II, I think he came back. That generation did not talk about their experiences living in Hawaii or abroad during World War II. It was a source of shame. They hid their objects, maybe their things that they had from home or that were given down to them from, in my case, Okinawa. But it was seen as Japanese because, like Peter said, it's not that places were gonna be differentiated. And we didn't learn about those things. It was only till, I think I was, I took an Asian American History course in high school that I realized that the Japanese and Americans, and back then we said, in turn, they were in turn. And now I think people are saying they were incarcerated, right? We were confined to camps, not everyone in Hawaii because I think the economic basis or the economic power that a lot of the numbers, right? The numbers called for it. The Japanese American community here locally consisted of a greater population. So the state and the drive, I think, sorry, and it wasn't a state then, but we couldn't afford to have people sent away in the same way that they could on the West Coast. Well, I have two thoughts to react to all of this. Number one is, and I'm relying on a number of shows we've had lately to deal with this issue. One thing is clear, the United States is unique in the sense that we are the most melting pot of all melting pots. At least for most, save Canada perhaps, but we have a lot of melting pot process going on here. And isn't this phenomenon of racial inequity of people trying to put down the other races, the other characterizations, the other communities, isn't that part of a melting pot? Don't you expect that in a melting pot? How can you have it any other way in a melting pot? Does it surprise us? Should it not surprise us? What do you think? If you're asking me, I don't know that it's necessarily a melting pot. I think people want to think it is. Of course it's not because it's like we're all sort of, all the groups are kind of scraping to get to that American dream that we've really created this myth, that it's attainable, that everyone can attain it, not realizing that if you've been brought here as a slave or if you came here for the hope of that American dream, but other people are relying on you for their economic gain, you can't attain it, right? And this is history of trauma, history of use and abuse, of racism, of classism that really compounds and it adds and it adds and at a certain group or at a certain time, right? It's just one group is gonna become the target and right now we're seeing it on the continent being the Asian community, I think driven a lot by the rhetoric that former president Trump started by with the coronavirus calling it the China virus or Kung flu, which created this discourse and this use of language to undermine China and in the common knowledge, anyone who looked Chinese then, which for a lot of folks because of cross-cultural misidentification became anyone who looked Asian. And that happened that storyline gets reproduced on different news channels perhaps or doesn't get contested and then the actions happen, they're not contested or they're not reported or police or law enforcement see things through different lenses. We don't have the laws in place to prevent this. The harm in fact already has occurred. So what do you do about that? And it gets replicated and reproduced in media and in the ways that we talk about things. Let me go back before COVID, before the whole pandemic thing. Let me go back to the campaigns of 2016. There was a very interesting piece in the media about a Vietnamese student in a Midwestern university who was going to class one morning. And at that university in one of the public halls of the university, there was a Trump rally. And all these kids were lining up to get in and they were very excited to hear about Trump in this meeting. And she tried this diminutive, you know, five foot Vietnamese woman was trying to get through, cross through the line to get to her class and they were abusing her and calling her names, which had never happened before. And her roommate was a Holly woman who brought this to the attention of the media and it became a national story. And I suggest to you that Trump was anti-Asian long before COVID, long before his remarks about the origins of COVID and that he somehow gave a license to the Trumpers who were online, you know, trying to go into his rally. What do you think about that? But Peter Sponder, do you want to pick it up for her? Oh, I think you're ready, Peter. Yes, why don't you respond to that? Well, I would say in this case, anti-Asian rhetoric, physical attack, it's connected to a couple of important things coming out of the interaction you described, all right? One is really a long-standing Western infantilization and sexuality of Asia, particularly Asian women, but not just Asian women, also diminutive quote unquote Asian men who are vulnerable, eroticized. I don't think it was ironic or unusual that in Florida, the attack and murders occurred at a place in which Asian women who were mothers and workers were attacked and killed, all right? So part of what you're saying is that whatever Trump did, he was appealing to a very long-standing cultural attack. And he did it before COVID. Right, but please remember Trump also was one of the major advocates of arresting and executing the five young men in Central Park, all of whom were exonerated. So I don't want to diminish the anti-Asian discussion here. Part of the anti-Asian discussion though can be included in the fact that Asians, in this case, particularly Asian women, a black man like George Floyd, an older Jewish rabbi walking across the street in Brooklyn, they are all non-white in the sense of whatever whiteness means. And that is what Trump tapped into. We've talked about this before. So in no way do I want to diminish the anti-Asian, but I look at an incident like that and say, yes, and if it had been a Jewish socialist or an African-American who I suppose if he had been on the basketball team, he would have been elevated as a hero, but that's where the basketball trumped. Bad pun, sorry, trumped his throat. So I would say what it was tapped into, and clearly for our discussion today, right? The only ethnic group that has ever legally been excluded by law for the United States and the Chinese, that should tell us something. There is no other exclusion act, right? So I think we're really talking about a longstanding issue. I want to connect it to your metaphor. And the metaphor often used now is not a melting pot, but a tossed salad. And in the tossed salad, we all try to slide together, but we do each have a different taste and a different size and a different role. And I agree entirely with our guests that the questions of exploitation have gone since whatever date you choose. For me, though, the issue is even if there is exploitation in this tossed salad or melting pot, what this country has not agreed on ever is a decent baseline for human existence. Right, in other words, decent health, decent housing, decent work. Not everybody needs to live in Kahala. So the problem here, I don't necessarily think is equality. The problem is that Asian Americans who succeed or held up as a model minority, Asian Americans who do not quote unquote succeed are thrown into what's essentially under a lumpen proletariat, to quote Groucho Marx, my favorite Marx brother. And in that case, you really have a question of, we're not gonna have equality, right? But is the American dream one in which people all should have a decent standard of living? I know, Trisha, we started out with slavery, was built into the Constitution. And that is very regrettable and it has been a very corrosive element in our otherwise egalitarian society or at least theoretically egalitarian society. We haven't done well. We haven't done well on the African Americans and other various scapegoat groups. It's really extraordinary. And although, Europe has seen the Holocaust, the fact is if you look at Europe today, it's in some ways, you don't have this problem, at least not to the same degree. And it could be that the Trump has had an effect, it could be the Republicans have had an effect, I don't know. But would you think that we have problems here that we should not have? I mean, that's an interesting way of looking at it. I mean, of course we would have problems if we've never dealt with the fact that our country has well started with coming here and taking over the land that was lived on by indigenous people for a long time. We've never dealt with that really in an equitable way. Then you have slavery, we've never really dealt with that. I think the move for black reparations has been going on for quite a while and it's exciting to see, right? Like, so I belong to an organization, I'm on the board of the Japanese American Citizens League, at least our Honolulu chapter, and our national organization did recently vote to support black reparations, right? Especially coming from the Japanese American's perspective where after the incarceration of World War II, there was an effort for redress and we got redress, right? And is that paycheck to someone who had to sell all their goods and leave their property and get separated from their family? And is that money gonna make up for it? No, but it's symbolic, right? But we haven't done the same thing for the black community, at least those who have their ties to slavery and all of it is included because it's a perception thing again, right? And just to be clear, I think I agree with Peter about giving people basic dignity and the things that we all need to live because I wanna just clarify that. I really think about it as equity, not equality, right? Because who are you equal with, right? But I think we do as a democracy, right? And maybe that American dream is not achievable, but as a democracy, we seek to at least have access to the basic services and goods and just safety. And I think when you think about Trump, I mean, I don't know that so many groups have ever felt fear. Yeah, interesting point. So, okay, right now we have a level of awareness. Maybe it's fomented by Trump's Mishigas. Mishigas is an old Japanese word. And we have a lot of people talking and thinking about it, including right here, people teaching it, all kinds of indicators of awareness in the community. But my question to you and your role as a law professor is how do you get from awareness to actually reaching that equity? How do you get to change the society? Is there a pathway by way of the law to change the way people perceive and act in the community?  So my role at the law school is I'm the director of career services. So I would say the law is definitely a pathway there. The law has the power to change things, to remedy harms and also to replicate them. When we think about the different movements that have led to legislation, right? We rely on the Supreme Court, we rely on the separation of powers to hold the legislature when they do or enact or pass terrible laws and it becomes law. We rely on the Supreme Court to be a place that change can happen, right? The court doesn't always get it right, it really doesn't. But I think the power of the law is that we have people or the location to make that change happen, right? I think policy definitely is a way that things can move. For example, I know the JACL was working with council member Fuku Naga on requiring all county employees to be trained or to receive anti-bias training. Is it gonna fix or remedy the abuse of power by law enforcement or their quickness to shoot people who are black or Micronesian? Know that that will happen, but we have a problem. When you have the police altering what appears later in body cam footage that other news outlets and their legal arms need to basically file a claim to get, we have problems, right? And I think talking about it is the first step. I don't know that we can entirely fix it, but I think education, educating people in the law and its power is really important. And I think also like we need the political forces to make sure that we have really strong judges in place to uphold the law and the rule of law. I think that that's something that's really scary when you see what happened in Trump's presidency too. Yeah, okay, I think that's really a good point. Peter, from a historic point of view, we look to you for that. Thank you so much. It took a war and a demolition of Europe to stop the Holocaust and that's what it took. It took major upheaval to stop the Holocaust. And so putting that aside and not having any wish to have major upheaval, how do you do this short of major upheaval? How do you end racial prejudice bias, including implicit bias? How do you do that without a war? Okay, that should take 30 seconds or so and then we should do that. So let's take, we have a little bit of time. So as usual, maybe I'll make some suggestions which could lead to another show. Okay, so I think that with this attempt to reckon with the past, confront what we, I think we could all agree, even if some people liked it, was not fair or equitable, they're gonna be upheavals. There are gonna be people who feel betrayed. There will be people who feel they have lost. So I think one of the things we need to do and I'm not sure that the Holocaust example helps us very much. One of the things we need to do is rethink as a society, how we come to an agreement about what the public interest is. I know that sounds very abstract, but in fact, it's very concrete. French used to call it a daily plebiscite.  And no society has been successful in negotiating that, that has been a multi-ethnic society. There is no historical precedent for it. All right, we are really embarking on a new territory. If we agree, I think the three of us certainly do, but not everybody does, that your ethnicity is not a liability to your public participation. All right, so as a historian, I can tell you that in a way, if this were not in the US, the complementary discussion would be ethnicity, or it historically religion, all right? So in that case, the US really is a great experiment. Whether it's democratic or not, I'm not sure, but the idea of having a sustainable, multi-ethnic society. So what does that require? Well, apropos of the courts, it may require what a book a couple of weeks ago came out from a Columbia law professor, it may require us to rethink how we think about rights. I just wanna put this out. I need to spend a lot more time reading about it, but are we moving towards a workable, sustainable society if it's constantly a battle of my rights against your rights? So for example, today the Supreme Court determined that the religious rights of a Catholic group, Trump's again, all right, little T, Trump's the right of a child or parents to have a family. So those are two competing rights. Should we rely on nine people to decide what the public interest is, all right? So my answer to you is there will be a people, and we need to find a way other than a marketplace of ideas, and maybe other than the Supreme Court decide public policy, which is in the community interest, and the ability to do secondly, something we really do not ever do, and that is compromise. The great compromise was not a great compromise, right? The lab slavery to persist. As Amos Alon writes, compromise is an idea, it's an ideal, is a goal. No, I had two questions out of that, or your Tricia. Number one is, aren't we really talking about human decency here? And then if you could convince people without being technical about it, that they should just be nice, be decent. We have a better society. I know that's not concrete at all, but it just seems to me that if you, everybody sort of committing to decency, a lot of these problems go away. And my second question, and you can conflate them as you will, comes out of Peter's comments about the rubbing shoulders, rubbing elbows, negotiating, compromising, seeking a better common good for everyone. That would be nice. And in that regard, don't you think that the press, the media, and indeed, there are a number of new students at the journalism program here at the Department of Communications in UH Manoa who are very excited about doing this. And there was a piece on NPR a week ago about how there's an upsurge in applications to journalism programs around the country, because they want to participate in this very conversation you're talking about. So in a way, maybe I can suggest to you that being in the press, being able to write op-ed pieces and the like is an important part of what we need to do. You agree? Let me start with the human decency point. And I really like what you said, Peter, about this sort of being about the public interest, because I think it's all related, right? The courts sort of make policy and it drives the people to think a certain way and the people's also, right? Like we vote for the president, the president chooses who's on the court and it goes back and forth. And I really want to think that we can all be decent and we can all demand sort of, or just treat people like humanely and respectfully, that's the goal, right? For six years, I was the deputy public defender here. And I relied on people applying the law, but also thinking as they would, like that my client, right? I would always see that my client is a person and they have a family. If it's a young man, they might have, they're a son to someone. They're an uncle, maybe to other people. They have a history, they have a story. They have basic rights that our constitution affords them not to mention that. They just happen to be charged with the crime. And I think, when I think about compromise, Jay, and I would often hear from some judges, like, can't you just compromise? And a lot of civil suits compromise, right? They reach a resolution, it never goes to trial. But when you're dealing with criminal matters, the compromise doesn't look the same because someone would, if you compromise, someone might end up with a criminal record or often does if they plead out. And it doesn't undermine the harm, right? Someone may have been burglarized. Someone may feel that they were aggrieved some way. So the conviction, which harms someone, doesn't necessarily make things move forward. But going to the media aspect, I think that's exciting. I did not realize that there was an upsurge in applications to that program. So that's really exciting to see because we need fair reporting and we need people to expose stories that may not have been covered in the past. So that's kind of one of the great things about think tech, right? It's diversity of programings too. And really giving folks like me time to talk about these issues and Peter to kind of share his knowledge because when I hear Peter saying, this has never happened in history, I'm just like, it just makes my heart break. But then there's this hope, right? Because, thinking about we could maybe be decent one day, I mean, and then I think about like how it's about power and then it makes me kind of go back and forth. So I don't know that I'm answering your question, but I'm hopeful, right? If I wasn't hopeful, I wouldn't, I think have pursued the law or serve on a board interested in looking at civil rights. So there's hope. Well, that goes to one of my basic principles is that I'm sorry I'm saying this Peter, it's the lawyers, the lawyers. It's almost Shakespearean. The lawyers are the ones with the sacred trust here. They are trained in the law. They have an obligation to protect and preserve the rule of law. They are critical in the continuation of our democracy. Not all lawyers get that, but that's I think what is a principal point about lawyers in our society. We have time for last remarks.  Where would you point this discussion? What do you think our viewers should carry away from it? Well, I hope they carry away or at least think about the challenges of diversity in which you respect the groups. Groups have rights and as we negotiate that respect and rights probably and I agree with the notion of compromise in the criminal case, but for the public interest, it can't be that I win everything you lose. It's gonna have to be the social contract that old John Locke talked about. I mean, you'd be willing to give up something not because you're losing, but you're gaining in return. And so my last sentence would be that all of this discussion about, you know, critical race theory that we're gonna talk about and some of the Republicans getting up in arms about 1619, et cetera, we're really talking about the same basic things is whether or not those will be shared and if they're shared, will that mean that people will not feel the trade? And let me just finish the last sentence. We can agree that the US was based upon and will continue to be based upon immigrants. That's not a debatable. Then historians suggest, well, some came free and some did not. That's not a debatable point. The debatable point is that was immigration interacting with systemic racism to make a particular kind of immigration a particular narrative? So you see what I'm trying to say is that the basic American story doesn't have to change. It doesn't. What has to be recognized is the lack of equity and that by thinking about the ideal origin story, right? We don't even have to throw that away but by recognizing that that is literally an ideal story and we have to measure groups' experiences in light of them. So I think my final, I mean, all this silliness about critical race theory which we'll talk about and the Republican Trump statue of American heroes. It's really avoiding the common problems but we're telling the same story over and over again. Okay, that should be enough to promote another show. Yeah, of course we will. It goes on forever and you know that. So Trisha, one thing that comes to my mind is what raised these issues recently in the past year was it not the Trump's remarks about the flu so much as the fact that people reacted to it with violence and all of a sudden you have people of minority groups being physically attacked in the street or killed. So it's personal security and I think we have to achieve that first. You know, it's a longer term project to make equity in the workplace, equity in every which way in our society but with the first order of businesses, no violence please. We're not gonna permit that. You can't do that.  Anyway, I just had to say that Peter always makes me say things like that. Sorry about that. But you're tapping at one of the longer arcs of this country which is that violence is protected by a sense of liberty or freedom. Maybe I want to talk about original sins or problems. The idea of being able to carry an AR-15 in public as an exercise of freedom is precisely our need to rethink what freedom and rights are in light of public interest and public security. Amen. But you know that's a horse I've beaten several times and thrown out the room. And now it's on that Kawhi. You want to start with things? You can start with guns and violence. Yep. So Risha, hearing all of this and knowing we are almost out of time, can you leave your thoughts and what do you think people ought to be thinking about and considering going forward from this discussion? I mean, Peter's comment makes me think about also the right to speech and how language becomes really important, right? Whether it be discourse with your neighbor and meeting them, especially if they look different than you or have a different experience. Seeing people as people also language or discourse with the past, as you know, Peter has that great knowledge about looking backwards so that we can look forward and make sure that things don't get replicated. And I think it's also about language about now, right? What do we do or how do we respond to things that we hear, right? For example, the rhetoric that presidents, all of them have the power to really impact the way people see things, not to mention our Kawhi police chief who made racist remarks and gestures and was only suspended for five days. So that response to that language, and what does that bring about? What does that allow for? Does that now empower law enforcement to think, okay, well, if I do something that's racist, am I only gonna get suspension of five days? Like, does that make it allowable then? And then I also think, you know, it's about really reconciling what happened before so that the harms don't persist or fester because they won't erupt. And, you know, sometimes terrible things can come of it, but maybe sometimes if you deal with it, right? You can really expose things and really beautiful things can happen. All right. Thank you. Patricia Nakamura, William S. Richardson School of Law, Peter Hoppenberg, the very progenitor of history is here to help helping us as always. Thank you so much, the two of you. Thank you, both of you. All right, well, take care.


Readers and Brainerd are connecting with some award-winning authors throughout June and July as part of the Brainerd Public Library's Brown Bag Author Series. Friends of the Brainerd Public Library is a nonprofit organization that has been connecting local readers with authors for 19 years. The events are free and snacks are provided as fans can listen to the author's story behind the book. Today, Carter Mieland was the featured author discussing his personal connection to his novel Stories for a Lost Child. This is just one of the many events the Friends of the Brainerd Public Library host to raise funds for the library. I think one of the most special things about the brown bags is we always ask the author to read from their work and you know kids love to be read to and I think adults like to be read to also but there's something magic that happens when an author reads and that's really special and I think that's one of the reasons people come to our event. The Brown Bag Author Series brings a new writer to the Brainerd Library every Monday at noon through June and July. For more information on events hosted by the Friends of the Brainerd Public Library you can visit the story on our website at lptv.org. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.


Hello and welcome to NewsClick. The cabinet has really relaxed the spectrum holding limits and has also allowed more time to the telecom companies to pay for the wavelengths that they buy during the auctions. To discuss the issue, we are joined by Praveepur Kaisthau who is editor-in-chief of NewsClick and has also been working on these issues for more than three decades now. Welcome to NewsClick, Praveep. So what does this entire decision imply that they have relaxed the spectrum holding limits and they have, I think, moved the cap to somewhere around 50 percent? Well, there are two sets of issues really related to what the cabinet has decided. One is what directly affects the government revenue and how the spectrum was auctioned. The spectrum was auctioned on a certain basis in which it was said that you will get ten years, including two-year moratorium, to pay the spectrum fees with a certain upfront payment that you would have to make. So the auction price was fixed on these terms. Now the question is if you relaxed the auction term now to 16 years, then you are changing retrospectively an auction that was done in which different players had quoted based on what were the then existing terms. So this is a retrospective, a change of an auction which was done. And does the government really have the authority or the legal, shall we say, ability to make these changes? Because this to me is a legal issue that the government cannot retrospectively change what it had originally auction on certain terms because that makes the auction itself different than what it has now been fixed as. So I think that is a larger issue that remains. Yes, this issue had also come up regarding when we talked about the revenue share from the auction fees and that time we as Delhi Science Forum had questioned this decision of the government to change from revenue share, change to revenue share from direct license fees, which is what was supposed to have been paid upfront. And at that time the court really did not give a decision on this. We had approached Delhi High Court. The case was never really decided because even today I feel one of the reasons it was not decided because the court felt what we were saying made sense. But at the same time given the government had already proceeded on this lines therefore they did not want to really upset the apple card. So that still remains a legal issue changing retrospectively the auction terms and conditions. The second issue which you are raising is really with respect to the spectrum limits. Now here two things have been done. One is that the spectrum limits have been changed for each circle and I will come to that in a minute. And then also the total spectrum holding that you can have that has also been changed that has been raised from 25 to 35 percent and the spectrum holding in a circle which was in each band it could be maximum of 50 percent. Now it has become a combined 50 percent limit for all bands less than 1 gigahertz but it combines all the spectrum bands and then sets a 50 percent limit. It also makes it the limit in a way that it seems to specifically favor two players. One is the Vodafone idea merger that is taking place in which five circles had come explicitly under this band because the combined band was more than what was allowed for earlier and therefore they would have been forced to let go of that spectrum. So that has now been changed because it is across the country not for each circle therefore it allows obviously the ability to go beyond what was originally there. The second part of it is the sub gigahertz. Again this is if you for instance came up against the 50 percent circle limit with the Vodafone idea also would have come. The same issue applies also to Geo because Geo was buying RCOM band and again they would have been forced to let go some of this band in some circles or in the 850 megahertz band because 850 megahertz band was where the problem lay for them that RCOM also had spectrum in that band. So what is done by combining the sub one gigahertz bands so it has helped Geo. So it has helped by removing the circle band it has helped Vodafone idea merger and by combining the sub gigahertz all the bands it has specifically helped Geo. So these are seems to be very very specific measures to help specific companies and this creates in that sense a much bigger monopoly than what had what had held earlier. We must understand all these were put in place in order to help the consumer not to face monopolies. What this has done is really created much larger monopolies and that is not good in the long run for the consumer. So the cabinet is also saying that this will also give boost to the industry which has somewhere around 7.7 lakh crore of debt. Do you agree with that statement that the cabinet is making? Let us put it this way what is the really what the 7.7 lakh crore debt really mean and again there are questions on this because I saw the ICRA figures say claim that's 4.7 lakh crore debt. So we really don't have a clear understanding of the debt unless the Reserve Bank makes known what the individual company's debts are which it hasn't done till date as you know because this issue has come up again and again regarding NPS, bad debts and so on this is held to make a commercial secret. So we don't have we not privy to what the debts really are assuming it's 5 to 7 5 to 8 lakh crore debt. So this debt gets relieved in the following way that instead of having to pay for license fees over a 10-year period now you're going to be paying over a 16-year period. So you pay less and then from the revenue you get you're likely to have a better balance in terms of the inflows and outflows so you're in a better position to also pay back your bankers. So this is one part of the argument now other argument which the industry is giving that this is not good enough for us we also want an interest being lowered. So now that of course is the industry's always claim that they are so badly distressed that they all all kinds of goodies have to be given to them no monopoly restrictions which is what the government is given in changing of the terms of the payment and also lowering of interest rate. The government at the moment has not lowered the interest rates because it also faces the issue that the banks are stressed in the banks are stressed reducing the interest rates essentially penalizes the banks. So this is the other part of it but yes one of the reasons that these companies are in debt is the fact that they actually paid license fees at a time when they thought that they will be able to recover all of it from the consumers. What really happened that this was a in in fact one of the fallouts of the 2G issue 2G scam if you will is Rajas giving out 2G licenses in small slices of spectrum did also make the viability of the sector more at risk and that is one of the reasons these companies then have not been as successful as a thought they would and later on they did not invest essentially in the infrastructure which what which is what they really required to be able to use their spectrum more efficiently and generate more revenue. So they did the short shall we say short-term measure of lowering prices but not putting in the investments and today therefore the only company which is coming with fact shall we say fact of wallet is Geo because it has so much money from the reliance gas oil other other monies that it controls it's able to bankroll for for the short term at least a huge expansion of infrastructure and because it's able to bring in that amount of money and with relatively much less burden of debt on it that it is really become a big threat to the existing players and that's also the reason Geo has said all this thing should not have been done only thing they should have been done was to remove the restriction of the bandwidth so the 16 years business they know they're not happy with because it increases competition for them so I would say the government is now moving not in terms of looking at what the sector really needs from the point of view of the consumer but it is looking at what the sector needs from the point of view of only the players that exist in the sector give them various benefits without any need to pass on those benefits to the consumer so we are likely to see a much stronger shall we say monopolies emerge in the sector this question of mergers et cetera that will take place because all this removing of bandwidth limits is going to force more mergers so we will say probably two three monopolies emerge which would control the market and then you would get the cartilization take place which has been already something that existed which to some extent because Geo came in with the new technology using the 4G making the voice free all of these measures by which he changed the terms on which the industry was operating now you are going to probably see at some point a shake up of the industry and then an agreement with all the incumbents to fleece the consumers because this is what really monopoly at the end would mean that's all the time we have for news click today and as these things proceed we'll be coming back to you on such issues keep following our website and our facebook page thank you


The nickname for the U.S. Constitution is Old Iron Sides, 33 battles. The U.S. Constitution has been in and undefeated still. The HMS Garrier in a famous battle in the war of 1812, you know, the Garrier was a returning fire and literally the cannonballs would hit the side of the ship and fall down into the water. So a sailor seeing that, ha-zah, her sides be made of iron. So Old Iron Sides. My name is Charles Hardman. I'm the officer of Second Class and I'm stationed over the U.S. Constitution. I'm from New Jersey, Atlantic City area, and my mom has worked in the casinos my whole life. So we found ourselves kind of, you know, whether it be kind of moving a lot or her changing jobs and things like that, we always kind of had to flex and adapt. I don't like to be too serious. I like to kind of play it cool and have fun. I think I realized that, especially in high school, when I kind of just gravitated toward the theater and just performing. We mutually pledged to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. This ship was originally built to have 44 guns. So this is where we... this is where mainly we take the fight to the enemy. Dark Side! The best thing about working on the Constitution is the fact that you're going to see new faces every day. With the way duty works, if you're on duty, you're out here giving tours. Engaging with the public. So those duty days, you get to look forward to talking to new people, discussing new topics about the ship. The questions that people ask will throw you for a loop, some of the things that they want to know, like how old things are, the purpose for something or anything like that. So it makes me just kind of continue to learn. And I'm still learning. You're going to meet people that have served already that will tell you their own story, that will tell you their experience with the Constitution. So that's good. I don't take it for granted.


So John, you were the 12th Good Heart Professor to be interviewed for the Indian Scholars Archive. You retired in 2016 as a Lord Justice of Appeal, having risen through the ranks of legal practitioners and the judiciary where you started as a barrister in 1971. You've been the Good Heart Professor of Legal Science for the academic year 2016-17. We are very grateful to you for agreeing to share some reminiscences of your life and your career as well as your experiences here in Cambridge over the last year. After summarising these activities, I hope that you can give us some thoughts on legal topics and notions with which you become associated through your published writings, particularly some topical constitutional issues. So could we start with your early life? You were born, Sir John, on the 10th of May 1945 as the Second World War ended. Yes, that was two days after VE Day. Apparently I was late and my mother was very angry that she missed all the parties. Where were you born? In Nottingham, where my mother's parents lived at the time. Were your parents involved in the law? No, they were both doctors. They were both in the Royal Army Medical Corps in the war time serving in Egypt. My mother came back pregnant and she had one of these strange things that apparently happened in pregnancy. Every time she saw a particular steward on the boat, she was sick but not otherwise. Is it from 1950 to 1963 you were at school? First at Durham Cathedral Choir and then at the Secondary Durham School. Any mentors that stand out from that period? Well, there were very good classics masters at Durham School. One was called Bobby Spitz and the other was the school chaplain called Jack Marston. And I think they, and also the Latin and Greek I learned at the choir school, the prep school, gave me a love of the classics, the ancient classics, which I've always had. What at that point were your main academic interests? Latin. That's surprisingly no doubt, but it was. I greatly disliked sport and still do. In 1963 you went up to Exeter College. Yes. And you graduated in 1967 with your BA. You wrote in 2004 that Lord Birkenhead's biography, and I quote, led me for the little that it is worth into the law. Now I wonder if you could expand on the circumstances of this very important event in your career. Well, my father had a copy of the really rather poor biography of Effie Smith, Lord Birkenhead, that had been written by Birkenhead's son. And I read it, or perhaps I only read some of it, and I don't recall as a young teenager. And I suppose I thought that as teenagers perhaps are inclined to, that this was a very romantic profession with a lot of contest in it. And I remember announcing to my grandfather on August the 1st of my 13th year that I was going to be a barrister. And I knew it was always the first because that was the day we always went up to North East Scotland for the summer holiday. You, this philosophy is one of your interests in whose whom. Did you read this philosophy at Exeter? I read what Oxford is called great at Exeter College Oxford. That is to say the ancient classics plus philosophy. And the course included quite a lot of modern philosophy, though I've been particularly interested ever since then in moral and political philosophy, which I think are disciplines that are intertwined with the law. And they've made a great deal of difference to my approaches to the law or views about the law for what that may be worth. Any influential teachers or lecturers that you remember from Oxford? Yes, too. There was a young Canadian called John Baker who was teaching the modern philosophy. And I don't remember any particular incident, but he was a very good teacher, very clear, very precise, and very encouraging. The ancient history tutor was an older man called Jacob Alston, a very well-known teacher amongst classicists. He was what you might call an archetypal bachelor don. The first essay I wrote for him was on Greek colonisation, I think, and as was the tradition, the undergraduate reads the essay to the don who listens and then comments on it. And I read this essay to Jacob Alston. He blew perfect smoke rings from his very long cigarette holder. And at the end of the essay, he said, this essay is like a souffle that hasn't risen. Now, after that, I'm sure I wrote other bad essays, but none that were quite so boring. So John, what were your ambitions for a career in law at that time? I don't know if I looked ahead very far. I certainly wanted to be a successful court advocate, the traditional route for the bar. I don't believe that when I was an undergraduate or a student, a law student a little later, I had any particular focused ideas about the bench. That came a bit later on. My energies were concentrated on practice of the bar in the traditional way, really, in common law chambers. So how did you proceed after your BA? Well, I took the degree of the Oxford Finals in 1967. I then came to London and was already a member of the inner temple, having decided to go to the bar and went through the bar exams and was called to the bar the inner temple in 1970. Pupilage 1970-71 and then I remained in the same chambers, general common law chambers they were, throughout my career until I went on the bench in 1992. As I say, they were general common law chambers, so one saw a very wide range of practice. But after some years, I got more involved in public law, administrative law, because a more senior person in my chambers, now Lord Brown of Eaton under Haywood, was the, what's called the Treasury Devil, that's to say the advocate, the member of the bar who is instructed in the major civil cases on behalf of the government, whatever political color it may be. And so some of the work he couldn't do for the government filtered down to me. And I succeeded him as Treasury Devil in 1984. And after that, I'd been doing a lot of public law cases and that became my major interest, I suppose.