Ladies and gentlemen, I'm delighted to be here today to share some thoughts on where we find ourselves in Egypt about six years after the first revolution in 2011 and just four years after the second one in 2013. One thing that is sure is that Egyptians are discovering today that there is more to a revolution than toppling a president. In fact, it is hard to believe that six years have already passed since we were down in Tahrir Square full of hope and trepidation that we were making history and were optimistic and open and an openness system was shaping the political climate. Since the emergence of modern nationalism in Arab-speaking countries, intellectuals and political elites are caught between two options. One is the supremacy of al-Ummal Islam, the nation of Islam, and the requirements of the modern secular nation. Egypt, as you know, is the most populous Arab nation. About 100 million it was declared only this month. It is a Muslim-majority country with a significant non-Muslim minority, the Christian cops, who number around 15% of the population. Since 1952 and the toppling of the Egyptian monarchy, all the leaders from Nasser to Sadat to Mubarak and now to Sisi have hailed from the military and assumed power at a time of national trauma. They have all used secular nationalist political vehicles to monopolize the power of the state. They all retained military backing through extensive political and financial patronage, demonized Islamist forces, and drove them underground, keeping a tight lid on the media, the opposition and all forms of dissent, and thanks to geo-strategic calculations, they all at one point or another enjoyed the support of the United States. On the eve of Egypt's uprising in January 2011, it was an authoritarian state under Mubarak, but it had long ceased to be a military regime. The military was removed from governance and civilian politics and more concentrated on the economic interests of the institution. The uprising therefore represented a major political opening for the Egyptian military, and the aftermath of Egypt's failed political transition during the Morsi Muslim Brother period resulted in the military's direct intervention supported by the majority of the people. However, the constricting of space for regional politics boosted the fortunes of political Islam in light of the lack of credible alternatives. In fact, on the evening of the January revolution, the political scene had few ideological stances for mobilization aside from the Muslim Brother, which helps to explain the inability of many non-Islamist groups, who call themselves liberals or leftists, including the youth, to organize effectively. With the result that the hierarchies within the present regime have evolved in a way that prioritizes the military and the security establishment. The reliance of President Sisi on a close circle of military figures is matched by the regime's distrust of civilian politics and civilian politicians and has instead sought to cultivate a civilian political sphere that would serve as an obedient supporter of government politics exemplified by the present parliament. In fact, this is one reason that you must understand I was kept out. The corollary to the growing influence of the security establishment has been the neutralizing of civilian politics. At the same time, the increasing role of Egypt's military has been driven by a lack of trust in non-military alternatives, but also by the administrative ease and achievement of military-led projects, an immediate focus on job creation and an affinity for mega-projects – the Suez Canal, the New Capital, solar energy, infrastructure, etc. As for civil society, it is under relentless pressure and its activities have been severely curtailed. Today, rethinking is taking place among existential fears, both among regime supporters and a broad cross-section of the population, focusing on the rising threat of radicalization, anti-state violence and terrorism, fears that have gripped the political calculation of the regime, but also the non-Islamist opposition and much of the general public. As a result, non-Islamists have come to see the military and the institutions of the state as the primary defense against Islamic ambitions to remake the state and redefine Egyptian identity. These tendencies fostered support for military intervention and paved the way for the second uprising in 2013. Needless to say, this confluence of events was not conducive to producing an open and pluralistic style of politics. Egyptian society was also presented with a sense of existential struggle, namely the fears of anti-regime violence, of state collapse as in the neighboring countries. All this has created political caution and an aversion to political tumult, and it also became a key source of legitimacy. The radicalization of certain Islamic groups, particularly in the Sinai, and their brutal attacks against Christian citizens and their churches with their threat of continued violence and terrorism became a first-order priority and emboldened the security establishment that made for a situation that inhibits politics and risk-taking. In other words, regional insecurity limits the possibility for genuine political openings. The generals and their supporters believe that they must destroy the brotherhood or risk the brotherhood, remobilizing and returning to power and seeking vengeance for the overthrow of Mr. Morsi. However, this alliance of civilians with the army against the brotherhood will postpone full democracy and civilian control for some years and will let many of the economic beneficiaries of the Mubarak regime keep their position. However, it may well be the fastest possible path towards sustainable democracy if certain requirements are met. For the past four decades, Egypt has lacked any national project or serious attempt at confronting contradictions in its social fabrics. Two factors could have made a difference this time. The first is demographic. There is a peril in having millions of undereducated, underemployed young women and men with very little to lose, living very difficult lives amid a lack of basic services. The current transition that started with January uprising was started by neither the military nor the Islamists, but by secular young Egyptians, young women at the forefront. Women have taken an extraordinary position after the two revolutions, participating in every election, in every referendum, et cetera, something they have not done for about 50 years. However, the polarization Egypt has been experiencing in the past four years has marginalized these forces, the young people. The promise of a young generation advancing a national project at a moment of national unity as witnessed in January 2011 is postponed, unfortunately, for another day. Many demographic experts have underlined the enormous impact of those between 20 and 30 years on the Arab Spring. However, they have noticed something very, a new phenomenon of the revolutionary moment with an unexpected phenomena, which is the return to high natality, which severely handicaps the economy. Egypt has become a demographic bomb, and insecurity and poverty have become instigators of immigration. The second factor is economics. Egypt confronts acute challenges relating to its fiscal structures, competitiveness, and poor educational system. Lately, the government has cut down food and fuel subsidies, which have caused price hikes and rampant inflation. The economic shock therapy coupled with a steep currency devaluation has rocked the country. Fuel prices went up 50 percent, and gas prices have doubled. As savings erode and consumer buying power shrinks, the president is betting that the expected payoff, which is new jobs, foreign investment, and growth will arrive before the economic pain risks another social explosion. On the foreign policy front, President Sisi has made significant steps. With Africa visiting most of the countries, Sheikh Tidian was just telling me that he was there last week in Senegal before this in Gabon, visiting Asia, Vietnam, Thailand, China, Europe with particularly friendly relations with Mr. Macron, who has declared that he will not interfere in Egyptian domestic politics, whereas the media wanted him to, excellent relations with Germany and, of course, Russia and China, and a particularly relationship with President Trump, whom the Egyptians see as a good president for Egypt. Analysts have stated that the chemistry between them, between President Sisi and President Trump, is working, for the time being at least. The reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah, with Egypt's strong mediation, gives hope and opportunity. If Mr. Netanyahu realizes that this is a historic opportunity today to have a two-state solution. In conclusion, in the years since being elected, Mr. Sisi has consolidated a ruling coalition, restored economic growth, and brought back considerable stability to the country after six years of turmoil. Of course, this has come with a harsh crackdown on dissent and abuses by the police and judiciary. In the short term, the combination of nationalism, modest economic growth, and highlighting the war on terror is politically sustainable among a broad cross-section of the population frustrated by years of uncertainty and economic decline. But unless a more comprehensive set of economic and political reforms is put in place over time, the long prospect for stability in Egypt will be in jeopardy. On the economy, indicators are pointing in a positive direction with GDP growth projected at 5% in 2017 and international investors showing a renewed interest in Egypt, especially after the Charmes-Sheikh economic conference in March. We invite the World Policy Conference to come to Charmes-Sheikh next year. Sisi took the long overdue step, as I said, to cut fuel subsidies and so on. However, this economic stabilization and progress, however, is being achieved with exceptional and massive financial support from the Gulf countries. And the push for growth and investment is necessary, but it's not trickling down sufficiently to lower income groups. Unemployment is still high at around 13%. And this combination should be able to sustain modest growth rates of around 4 to 6, but this is not enough. They say Egypt is too big to fall. And Egypt is looking for a new savior. This time, waiting for Godot, this time it might be called Trump. We don't know. To create 10 millions of jobs over the next decades, Egypt needs to employ its youth. This will require aiming for the growth rates of the Asian Tigers, not the modest growth of the Mubarak time. And this will require a much bold revamp of the civil service, a scaling back of the public sector, a reduction in the role of the military industrial complex, reform of the judiciary and legal environment, and serious modernization of the education system. Politically, Sisi wrote a wave of popular support, as many Egyptians desperately sought an alternative to the alarming rule of the Muslim brothers, and yearned for the stability of strong leadership after years of turmoil, particularly as other Arab states and societies have crumbled around them. Coming to the end of his third year in office, the president is still in a strong political position. He is likely to finish his first four-year term and might be in a position to win a second term until 2022. Beyond the initial goals of restoring stability, resuming economic growth, and fighting terror, Sisi must ponder what his long-term goals and legacy will be. In addition to strong economy, which he clearly wants, stability and security, does he want, does he wish to hand over power or have power rested from him to another military leader when his term is ended, or can he use his current popularity and external support to define bolder economic and political goals to encourage the growth of a viable non-Islamist political alternative, a model of China, and to bequeath a country that hopefully is not only economically viable, but also politically healthy. Thank you for your attention.


The Nigeria's Governors Forum, NGF, has called on the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, to exercise calm and restraint in its engagement with the Katana State Government. NGF Chairman and Iketi State Governor Kaio Defimi said that no meaningful progress has ever been achieved in an atmosphere of conflict and chaos. He also reminded the NLC that its actions could become counterproductive, especially as the lockdown of last year had adversely affected workers socially and economically. Fiamme also advised the NLC not to set the Katana Government as carrying out a witch-hunt attempt to unnecessarily downsize the civil service.


I'd like to call to order the Tuesday, April 16, 2019 Sheboygan County Board of Supervisors. Certification of compliance with the open meeting law. The agenda was posted on the 12th of April at 3.30. Thank you John. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. Roll call. There are 23 supervisors present. Thank you everybody. Approval of the March 19, 2019 Journal. Surveyser Glavin. Move to approve. Thank you Surveyser Glavin. Is there a second? Surveyser Abler. I'll second the motion. Thank you Surveyser Abler. Any questions or discussion? Seeing no lights, please vote aye or nay. The motion is approved unanimously. Thank you. Consideration of appointments by the County Administrator. Affirmative Action Commission, a reappointment. Corey Raceler. Public Library Board. Sherry Spieth. Recreational Facility Management Advisory Committee. Reappointments. David Smith. David DeRus and Mike Hyte. And Transportation Coordinating Committee. Sarah Lucher. Okay we can take them all once unless there's an objection if somebody wants to take them individually. Surveyser Gehring. Thank you Mr. Chairman. I move to concur. Thank you Surveyser Gehring. Surveyser Epping. I'd like to second that motion. Thank you. Thank you Surveyser Epping. Any questions or comments? Seeing none, please push your aye or nay button. That motion is approved unanimously. Thank you. Presentations. We have none. Public addresses. There are none. Letters, communications and announcements. Just one resignation from Supervisor Wegeman. Dear Sheriff Raceler it says it has been my honor and privilege to have served the residents of the 11th Supervisor District as a Sheboyin County Supervisor for nearly the past 10 years. It at times has been challenging but also very fulfilling and giving back to the community. One thing I have come to realize is how lucky the citizens of Sheboyin County have been to have the excellent management leadership that they have in their county government. However, over the last few years I have found it increasingly difficult to participate at the level necessary to be an exemplary supervisor due to my busy business and personal travel schedule. In addition I would like to allocate more of my time to my new business practice. I also believe in term limits it would be disingenuous on my part to continue in the role for more than 10 years. I believe it is good for most organizations to have new blood and fresh ideas. Effective June 1st 2019 I will resign my office and bid everyone adieu. I will miss it. Sincerely Greg Wegeman. Thank you, John. We're certainly going to miss Greg and we've advertised and we're looking at filling his position and he will be his last meeting will be the next one in May. So he will be here for that. So that is all I have. Thank you, John. County Administrator's report. Thank you for those of you that participated at the Legislative Breakfast. We had a nice turnout. I think we had about half the county board and attendance. Of course we had Senator Lemieux, Representative Katzma, Representative Vorpahgel and also our federal legislators had their aides in attendance. So nice turnout from Department Heads, County Board Supervisors. Mayor van der Steen and one or two members of the Common Council joined us. And of course our focus was on the child welfare crisis.  District Attorney Joel Armansky followed up and talked about the demands on his office and his team and what it means for our judicial system. Then we briefly touched on seven budget issue papers. I'm going to quickly go through those seven this evening, but very quickly. And then we had a legislative update from our area legislators followed by a roundtable by those in attendance, but it was something different. Normally, as you know, we get together over at the Fountain Park and we break bread and and this was more of a focus on key issues and concerns in our community. And I thought Matt and Scott and Joel and all involved did a real nice job providing our legislators with some helpful information. And some of the supervisors in the room also weighed in and emphasized some points. So I appreciate that the Joint Finance Committee is has been busy meeting across the state. There's one more meeting in Green Bay next week Wednesday. If anybody has an interest in attending that on behalf of the county, please contact Chairman Wagner. I'm not planning on doing so that day. But if someone wishes to do so, we have the budget issue papers. You don't have to touch on all of them. You can touch on one or two of them. But obviously that's your prerogative. What were those budget issue papers? This is as much for the board members that weren't in attendance, but also for our viewers for the community. I mean, there are so many programs and services that we're involved in. So many needs in this community. As I look at Jim Baumgart and I think of the importance of natural resource protection and enhancement and how he has spent the bulk of his career focusing on that. And we have others in this room who care so deeply about transportation or health and human services or law enforcement. Of course, we all care about the 207 programs and services, the 19 departments that we work with. But there are priorities. And one of the most critical priorities that we're faced with right now is the child welfare crisis. It is a growing crisis that has to be dealt with. It's a state mandated area of responsibility that the county has to follow through on and to the credit of health and human services and our district attorney and law enforcement and many others. We've been doing the best that we can with limited resources very quickly. As I think you've most of you have now heard at least once the number of children and out of hair out of home care has now increased over 200% since 2012 because of safety and homes. In 2012, 73 children were removed from their home. In 2017, 219. It is a growing issue because of drug and alcohol abuse. Parents are unable to take care of themselves yet alone their children. And it is a problem and one that we have to respond to. Out of home care expenses rose 55% from 2013 to 2017. What does that mean? Well, in 2015, 2013, we spent about $1 million with these out of care place out of home placements. $1 million. Now it's closer to $2 million. $1.86. And our Sheboygan County property tax levy that we work so hard to hold the line on has increased 56% as we would have diverted resources to this growing area of need. And again, this is a state mandated service. But the state is responsible for helping pay for. And it's been the property taxpayer that's been shouldering the load. In fact, over this period of time, just the last five, six years, essentially state aides have remained relatively flat. So is this an area of concern? Yes. Is this one we emphasize to our legislators and hope they'll take up as part of the Joint Finance Committee discussions, the negotiations with the governor? Absolutely. The governor has included additional resources following the recommendation of the Wisconsin County's Association and others. Whether or not that will stay time will tell. The second one was district attorney funding for years. We have talked about district attorney funding in this county as we have across the state. Study after study is shown that we're short staffed. This is a state mandated responsibility. Yet the state has not stepped up to meet its obligations. And what happens is the system becomes less efficient. Victims do not get the same level of attention or timely follow through that they should. People are not held accountable as quickly. It is a concern in a growing one. Right now, Joel and independent studies have shown that we're four and a half prosecutor short. Talk about a tough work environment. And I think Joel shared during our legislative breakfast that now most of the staff have two years or less of experience. There's been a lot of turnover. Thank goodness for district attorney Joel or Mansky and the leadership he's been providing. His team is doing the best they can with very limited resources and the state needs to step up. Court appointed attorney compensation. Did you know that the state public defender rate is $40 per hour? Did you know that that's the lowest in the nation? Did you know that it negatively impedes our judicial system that it costs us more that people sit in our jail longer because we may not be able to find a state public defender for $40 an hour? I can't find a plumber or a carpenter for $40 an hour. Worse than the nation. That's worthy of having discussion with our area legislators about. The third issue support local control and adjusts statutory property tax levy limit. This is a sensitive one as we all know. We have worked so hard in this county to hold the line of property taxes. Our track record is as good as any county in the state. On average over the last 10 years property taxes have gone up less than 1% a year in Sheboygan County. That is remarkable and all of us in this room and our entire team can take some credit for that. But the caps that are in place associated with net new construction doesn't make a lot of sense because I've yet to hear anyone anyone tell me what the association is with net new construction and providing law enforcement. Providing health and human services to the neediest of the needy. Taking care of our transportation system, protecting our natural resources. Does net new construction have to do with that? And unfortunately, though we've seen some improvement, I think it went up about 1.6% this past year. It's been generally below 2. Inflation is at 2 or better. I'm not aware of any businesses or any successful organizations that year after year are able to maintain and improve and grow with revenue less than inflation. Something needs to be done about it and it may not be politically popular or comfortable, but something needs to be done. The governor has recommended that we can raise it up to 2%. To me personally, that doesn't sound so unreasonable. Speaking of state mandates or underfunded state mandates, one of the areas that the state tries to soften that blow to county government is providing state shared revenue. This helps fill some of those voids. Did you know that state shared revenue has not increased since 2003? Hasn't increased since 2003. In fact, it was reduced in 2004, 2010, and 2012. And the argument in part is, well, state shared revenue is kind of a general pot. And from a state perspective is the accountability there. Maybe we should just be providing the funds for that particular program or service. Well, that makes some sense. But if you're not providing funds for a particular program and service, whether it's mental health or child welfare, whatever it may be, state shared revenue really comes in handy. And it certainly hasn't kept up with inflation. In fact, it's gone down. The governor's recommending a 2% increase. I feel for these legislators because I imagine everybody's coming to them with their handout and asking for more. But I doubt there are many entities with the track record of county government. And the growth that we've seen, the demands we've seen for services, needs in our community that can make a more compelling case that at least a cost of living increase would be reasonable. Nursing home rates. Last two. Number six, nursing home rates. We are so fortunate to have a five star facility. Kayla Clinton, our nursing home administrator, very, very bright, wonderful person. And has she put together a nice team out there? And of course, we're always seeking to improve. We're seeing trends start to go up now for people needing long term care. A number of years ago, as many of you know, we had three nursing homes and more county owned and operated beds than anyone in the state. Now we have one facility. And we want to maintain it. And we want to continue to provide the best care in Sheboygan County. But I can tell you, it's very difficult to do that when Medicaid doesn't ever increase or increases less than inflation. We're struggling to hire and retain good people out there. Our CNAs and nurses, the CNAs in particular, shout out to them. They're working for 13, 14, 15 bucks an hour. They can make more processing cheese or working at a fast food restaurant. That's not right. Because these folks are taking care of our parents and grandparents. How do we hire and retain good employees if we can't provide a reasonable wage and we need more Medicaid funds to do so? Medicaid under funds Wisconsin nursing home facilities by $78 per resident a day. Do you know that? According to a national study, Wisconsin currently ranks second worst for Medicaid nursing facility reimbursement rate in the country. Second worse. Are we OK with that? Rocky No Health Care Center in Wisconsin is nearly 400 nursing facilities are facing closures or financial loss. Something needs to be done. People need to step up. And then finally, transportation funding. Well, speaking of stepping up the county board debt, the sales tax revenue has been. As President Trump would say, huge. For Sheboygan County, I mean, huge. Greg Schnell, our transportation directors here tonight, we're now taking care of 30 miles a row to year. It's just been wonderful, not only for Sheboygan County, but the municipalities that we work with. But it's one piece of the pie. It's one piece in the puzzle. The state has to step up with transportation funding. And frankly, it's probably one of the reasons why Governor Walker is no longer Governor Walker. He didn't step up and provide adequate transportation funding. Governor Evers and our legislature, I think all fully appreciate know that more funds and more of an investment needs to go into our transportation system if we're going to be fiscally responsible. So that was the seventh and last budget issue paper that we developed. And of course, there's so many other areas of concern or sensitivity throughout the county, but we tried to be focused and we're hoping that our area legislators will help lead and bring some attention as other counties are doing across the state. So I appreciate the work you do to raise awareness. This is not a time for us to sit on our hands or presume someone's just going to do it. I challenge you respectfully as our county board and individual supervisors, pick up the phone, call our legislators, ask to meet them for coffee. We've got wonderful area legislators, but I encourage you to talk to them. I know some of you do. I think more of us need to do that. Highway 23 is looking to break ground here in May. That's awesome news. And that, again, was an area where the county board, Chairman Wagner, our Transportation Committee, stepped up and brought additional attention to it. And at this point, everything is looking really good for that, as you know. In your packet this evening are two resolutions that you'll be asked to take action on. And if you read resolution number 28, authorizing the Finance Committee and Finance Director to balance over budget department accounts. And then if you read the whereas are now, therefore, be it resolved that negative variances in the departmental appropriation units of salary and benefits, operating expenses, interdepartmental charges and capital outlay are hereby authorized that we're balancing that. This has been obviously approved, recommended by the executive and finance committees. But if you read that alone, you think, well, geez, how are we doing? By law, we have to balance that out at the end of the year. The big picture is in the whereas above the therefore be it resolved, we've got a three point nine million dollar positive variance. Once again, collectively, our departments delivered and worked within the budget parameters that you establish as a county board. Some of the key areas that contributed to that positive variance was transportation complex, just building that Greg and Jim to beast were able to keep our were able to exceed expectations by nearly nine hundred thousand dollars, nine hundred thousand dollars that we didn't spend that we otherwise had budgeted to do so that falls to the bottom line positive variance interest revenue. Wendy, our finance director always does a nice job being conservative with that. Well, conservative to the tune of five hundred and fifty six thousand dollars more than what we budgeted positive variance. The Penn sale that Aaron Brultz and the county board supported that contributed four hundred thousand dollars to our bottom line and then health and human services with all the needs they have because there's so many different pots and different cycles. There was a positive variance there as well, which we're probably going to tap into more in the year ahead. So overall, nearly a four million dollar positive variance. I wanted to put that in perspective. The other item that you're going to be asked to act on tonight, which was again carefully reviewed by the finance committee and the executive committee, both unanimously support and recommend that we continue a revolving loan fund of some type. And just very briefly, if you looked at that, it can look a little complicated. While we're buying out, how does this work? So very briefly, the state is shutting down our revolving loan fund. They're doing that across the country. And it wasn't because your boy in county wasn't making good use of it and didn't have a good partnership with our Economic Development Corporation. But because across the nation, there were some challenges with it. They're shutting it down. So we're not going to provide this program anymore. In fact, I think there was maybe a lack of some oversight at the state or federal level with this. So what are our alternatives? Well, the best alternative we have is to buy that program out and continue it on. And that's what the county board finance committee and executive committee is recommending to you. So how does that work? We have a number of loans that are out right now through this federal program is revolving loan fund. We've got about 300,000 receivables cash on hand in pocket. And then we've got another $1.3 million of loans receivables coming our way. If we buy that out, if we cover that cost, we can retain those funds as project dollars for the county to invest in different projects, whether it's Rocky Knoe or other areas of need that the county board determines. So if we take $1.3 million of fund balance and cover the $1.3 million in receivables that we still have coming our way that covers that cost, it de-federalizes those dollars. And then that allows us to hang on to that 1.3 and the $300,000 in cash. So a total of 1.6. All right for projects. Then after it's de-federalized as these receivables actually come in, that provides that $1.3 million to use to provide loans in the future. So bottom line, if we use $1.3 million of our county fund balance to buy out this program, we'll have $2.9 million available to us for projects and a future loan program. And it is the county's direction or county's prerogative on how we set that up and how that will work. So bottom line, 1.3 expended, we'll have $2.9 million available. And lastly, the county board leadership form is coming up on May 22nd. So please, if you haven't already, mark your calendars. We'll again go through our county financial results, debt service. Wendy always does a nice job with that. We'll talk about our 2020 budget process. Tom Wagner has already reached out to WCA. Kyle Christensen, our WCA director of government affairs is going to give us an update on the state budget and perhaps any progress our budget issue papers have made. We're looking to have out of gamey county, Bernie veteran, our director of criminal justice treatment services for out of gamey county come and talk to us about alternatives to incarceration and approaches they've taken in their predominantly their pre-trial approach that really alleviated the pressure on their jail. And we're very interested in learning more about that. So we're studying that. And then we'll have updates from Greg Schnell and our customs facility, our transportation system equipment needs and Ask Matt Strip-Modder to also touch base with us again on child welfare crisis and any new information there. So with that, thank you for your time and attention. Back to you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Adam. Okay, consideration of committee reports, executive committee, resolution number 28. Regarding authorizing the finance committee and finance director to balance over budget departmental accounts recommendation to adopt. Surveyser Gehring. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move for it. Thank you, Surveyser Gehring. Oh, 28. 28, right? Yep. Surveyser Tristruti. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll second the motion. Thank you, Surveyser Tristruti. Any comments or questions? Seeing no lights, please push your I or nay button. Motion's approved unanimously. Thank you. Resolution number 29. Regarding supporting the return of just over 1.5 million of community development block grant funding to the state of Wisconsin and authorizing the use of just over 1.3 of unassigned fund balance to fully fund the return payment to the state recommendation to adopt. Surveyser Gehring. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move for adoption of resolution number 29. Thank you, Surveyser Gehring. Surveyser Abler. Support the motion for adoption. Thank you, Surveyser Abler. Are there any questions or comments? Tom, do you have? Yes, I do have a question. As we were listening to County Administrator Payne talk about this resolution, I just wrote down a note saying does the 1.3, is that returned from the 2.9 million to the unassigned fund balance as part of this? Adam? Thank you, Tom. Seeing that 1.3 is taken out of unassigned fund balance when that 2.9 comes back, which that's what I interpreted, does 1.3 get put back into our fund balance? Excellent question, Supervisor Effing. Excellent question. Yes, we did build the proposal such that going forward when we're providing loans and we receive receivables and interest, we have the discretion on how we want to set that up, and it is our intention to pay back the fund balance that we're using to draw down these funds and buy out the program. So the short answer is it is our expectation to set this up in such a manner where we can ultimately pay back the fund balance. Thank you for that, and I will be watching. As little as I know about finance, that's one thing that's got a good side up. So thank you very much for that information. Thank you, Supervisor Effing. Supervisor Broula. Thank you, Chairman Wagner. I'm just wondering where, who are we loaning this money to that we're getting receivables back on it? Another good question. Thank you, and there's a lot to this. The Revolving Loan Fund has been a fund we've had in place for some time where we're generally loaning those dollars to startup companies or companies that maybe are struggling to get a bank, get a loan from the bank. It's an advisory committee that has some bankers and other professionals on it supported, chaired by Wendy or a finance director, support from the Economic Development Corporation. And then ultimately, the executive committee makes the final decision. So it goes to individuals or companies that might be struggling to get a loan from a bank. And this is the difference with them being able to start their company or grow their company. Going forward, we would anticipate that that would continue. But we will have, as a county, a little bit more discretion on how we set that up. For example, in the past, when we've provided a loan, one of the expectations from the federal government is you have, well, so many low-wage employees that are working for it. Or just some criteria that we may or may not be that enthusiastic about. Going forward, we have the ability as an organization to set that criteria up ourselves. Does that help? Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Surveyser Broula. Any other questions? Seeing no lights, please push your aye or nay button. Questions approve unanimously. Thank you. Resolution number 30. Regarding requesting increased funding and oversight reforms for Wisconsin's child protective services system, recommendation to adopt. Surveyser Gehring. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move for adoption of resolution number 30. Thank you, Surveyser Gehring. Is there a second? Surveyser Ziegelbauer. I'll second that. Thank you, Surveyser Ziegelbauer. Are there any questions or comments? Surveyser Epping. Again, on this one, just so I understand that we are requesting the funding and reforms for this from the state. Is that correct? Yes. Thank you. Any other questions or discussion? Seeing no lights, please push your aye or nay button. Questions approve unanimously. Thank you. Ordinance number 15. Regarding amending shoreland ordinance in section 8, Tom Sherman, recommendation to enact. Surveyser Ziegelbauer. I'll make a motion to approve. Thank you, Surveyser Ziegelbauer. Surveyser Gehring. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will second that motion. Thank you, Surveyser Gehring. Are there any questions or comments? Surveyser Baumgart. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Two things. One, it lists on ordinance 15 as no one in opposition. If you look down at the actual ordinance, you'll find that there is one opposition mine. And so if they would make the correction at some point. And the reason why I oppose is this is dealing with the cheese facility. They make cheese, of course, and we have lots of cheese. Over the years, apparently, they've been putting their affluent 20% of it, pretty clean water for washing. And at the hearing, 80% affluent that the engineer or the owner suggested would not be the best to drink. So it obviously had some impurities in it. And rather than allow them to continue putting it in a ditch next to the facility, the Department of Natural Resources said they had to clean up their act. And so they had a couple of options. One of them was to ask the county to use their right-of-way along one of our highways down to the Milwaukee River and to put in a pipe. I think it's a 15-inch pipe, but the size is not quite real important. And allow this material that wasn't appropriate to put in next to the plant to be appropriate to put into the Milwaukee River. And so as we do with Lake Michigan sometimes, when there's an overflow, the solution to pollution is to let in the Milwaukee, let the affluent overrun into the lake, which is not a very good thing to do. And in this case, to allow the affluent into the Milwaukee River, not as drastic as the overflow in the affluent and the Milwaukee overflows. But nevertheless, I didn't feel in good conscience that I wanted to vote for the solution to pollution system. So I voted no. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Surveysar Baumgart. We'll make note of that in the minutes correction that you asked for. Surveysar Bosman. I'd just like to add the information we were given at the Transportation Committee when this came to our attention because of the fact they were using the road right-of-way was not that it was a matter of contamination of any kind. But the water discharge from the Adelway facility comes out at a temperature that was deemed too high to put into this creek, which feeds into a trout stream. So their recommendation was to go with this piping, to go into a larger body of water where they felt the temperature difference wouldn't be a critical factor. Thank you, Surveysar Bosman. Any other questions or comments? Surveysar Epping. Thank you again. Based on the comments of Surveysar Bosman here, if this facility doesn't have this ability to divert us, what would they do? Anybody want to answer that? Surveysar Bosman. We can determine Adelway Company has been there a very long time. And they've gone through a series of different mechanical solutions to try and deal with this warm water that they have to use for cooling purposes. They dry the whey powder, the whey concentrate into a powder. And it's used in food. It's used in your protein shakes, your bodybuilding proteins, and different things. It has a lot of uses. It's used for different things. But they have to cool down this whey that's coming in at 140, 150-degree temperature and get it down to a point where they can dry this product. So water is used in what we would call a plate cooler to get rid of that temperature difference and get it down to where they can deal with it. And most of this water you're talking about is strictly cooling water. But once it's used, they have to keep it moving down through the system. So it's my understanding that we're basically returning very clean water back into the water system. But the temperature is a little higher than they'd like to see going into a tributary of a trout stream. Thank you, Surveysar Bosman. Surveysar Baumgart. Thank you very much. There are, of course, as Supervisor Bosman mentioned, a variety of ways of correcting the effluent and holding bonds and other things would have been options too. And without question, the cooling of the water was one of the issues that they had dealt with. But to infer that the material was clean and I don't want to put words in his mouth. But the fact is that at the hearing that I was at, the engineer or the owner indicated that 80% of the material that was going down was not necessarily what he would suggest anybody would drink. Now, the dilution process makes it certainly more palatable. And I have no question that it does what is they've decided that they should correct the effluent. I just don't think necessarily that they've looked at all avenues. They took the inexpensive one by using the county right away and to cool it, the material, and then to put it in the morgue river. So now I understand this is going to pass. I just want to make sure that people understand that it is not necessarily a simple way of solving the problem. It is one of the ways that they are trying to solve the problem. Thank you. Thank you, Sue there, Baumgart. Sue Fraser Nelson. Thank you, Chairman Wagner. I was also at the same hearing that Mr. Baumgart was at. My understanding is that either way, the same amount of outfall ends up at the Milwaukee River. The only question is how it gets there and the temperature that it gets there at. And the solution they've recommended is to have the pipe go along the road. And in that way, it will reach the Milwaukee River, which is a larger waterway than the small creek that it's going into now. And therefore, the temperature regime would be as different and awesome. But the water, I mean, you can characterize it as the effluent, and you can characterize it as maybe not as clean as the 20% that is just used to change the temperature. But it certainly meets any state requirements in terms of effluent. So I don't see a problem with this. Thank you, Sue Fraser Nelson. Any other comments or questions? Seeing none, please push your I&A button. It's approved of 18 I4 name, 3 absent, 0 abstains. Thank you, everybody. Frankly, that's why I love the county board because that discussion was very civil, very illuminating, and just the appropriate way to discuss something. So kudos to everybody involved. And I realize I have a bias, but I really do love the county board for that reason. I'll be perfectly honest. And I get to say those things once in a while. I'm going to take advantage of it. So thank you. Ordnance number 15. 31. We already did that one. We don't want to do that again, right? Sorry about that. Consideration of committee reports finance committee resolution number 31. Regarding reauthorization of self-insurance status for workers' compensation recommendation to adopt. Survisor Dampe. Thank you, Survisor Dampe. Survisor Tristruti. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll second the motion. Thank you, Survisor Tristruti. Any questions or comments on this? Seeing no lights, please push your I&A button. Motion's approved of 21 I1 name. Have that corrected. Motion's approved unanimously. That's fine, Brian. Survisor Hoffman, you'll be registered as a yes. OK. It happens. Resolution number 32. Regarding participating in snowmobile aids program, years 2019 to 2024, recommendation to adopt. Survisor Gehring. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move for adoption of resolution number 32. Thank you, Survisor Gehring. Is there a second? Survisor Glavin. Thank you, Survisor Glavin. Are there any questions or discussion? Seeing no lights, please push your I&A button. Motion's approved unanimously. Thank you. Ordinance number 14. Regarding adopting state municipal records retention schedule, recommendation to adopt. I'm sorry. Surveyser Gehring. I'm sorry, John.  Surveyser Gehring. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move to enact. Ordinance number 14. Thank you, Surveyser Gehring. Surveyser Tristruti. Second the motion. Thank you, Surveyser Tristruti. Any questions or comments on this? Seeing no lights, please push your I&A button. Before his time is the charm. That's what lifting weights does for your friend. OK. Motion's approved unanimously. Thank you. Yes. Surveyser Bauer left. We had a third member leave early. He had to go to another meeting, I believe. You're welcome. Consideration of committee reports, law committee, ordinance number 16. Regarding establishing speed zone on County Road PP, Tana Shaboy again, recommendation to enact. Surveyser Glavin. Move to approve. Thank you, Surveyser Glavin. Surveyser Ziggabauer. I'll second the motion. Thank you, Surveyser Ziggabauer. Any questions or comments? Seeing no lights, please push your I&A button. Motion's approved, 21-I-1-N-A. Thank you. Ordinance number 17. Regarding establishing speed zone on County Road F, towns of Lima and Linden, recommendation to enact. Surveyser Glavin. Move to approve. Thank you, Surveyser Glavin. Surveyser Obler. Support. Thank you, Surveyser Obler. Any questions or comments? Seeing no lights, please push your I&A button. This is approved, 21-I-1-N-A. Thank you, I'll turn the gavel over to the vice chair. There are no resolutions that will be introduced and ordinance is introduced. Ordinance number one. Regarding amending shoreline ordinance, town of Mosul. Ordinance number one will be referred to the executive committee. Next item of business is adjournment. Surveyser Bemis. I move we adjourn. Thank you, Surveyser Bemis. Surveyser Glavin. Second. Thank you, Surveyser Glavin. Please vote.


Hi there and welcome. I'm the technician projects and Today's tutorial is going to show you how to add effects to the track in Adobe audition please see my previous video how to add effects to the clip in Adobe audition Once Adobe auditions loaded we want to make sure we have a file either inserted in or recorded in into our track We're going to go to the effects rack on the left and click on track effects This is allocated to the track and not to the clip We're going to click on this arrow to the side here and add an EQ and add a compressor So here's the compressor and here's the EQ If you enjoyed the video today, please leave a like rating and subscribe for more. Thank you for watching and see you next time


I know we're getting towards the end of the afternoon now, so thank you all for your presence here still. Yeah, so I'm going to talk a little bit about, I guess, the mixture of data science and sustainability, so nicely let in, obviously, by a lot of the previous speakers and what you've heard earlier today. So essentially, look, how do you bring scientific data in that you can structure in such a way as to be able to interrogate it and run scientific models on that. So I'm just going to talk about a couple of use cases on that and how we approach this. So one of these projects, GLOPAC, it's called, if I mentioned, so essentially this is looking at sustainable packaging and how can we increase the use of sustainable packaging in society. So they're an early stage TRL technology right in its levels right now. So there's an EU project to help them come along the development cycle and bring them into use. So a nice example here of some wheat, and it's actually just straw from the wheat, which is essentially a byproduct and a PLA, which is a bio-based polymer, and how they can be integrated to produce some food packaging. So bringing these together is looking at the whole supply chain along this. So who are the packaging producers, even the polymer producers, right along to the food business operators and then to the consumers. These have to be tactily nice and they have to be able to perform. So how do you understand and analyze that so that you can keep food safe and keep costs right and integrate the circular economy into this. So essentially our role in this is harvesting those data sets and enabling kind of a safe secure environment for competitive companies to be able to put that data in one place and then for us to be able to run the models on that. So essentially we host those data sets and the models. So the food business operators look at their requirements from a quality and safety perspective being too primary along with the various other aesthetics as well and then on the other side of the equation you have all of these polymer producers, packaging producers and they have different performance characteristics and these are non-linear relations. So you need models in the center of this when essentially when a company inputs their requirements into this. So we've designed a decision support system then that can look at this. So kind of getting under the hood a little bit in terms of how this works. So you have the declined layer who essentially is the user and they input the parameters and this is where the data will come back out so they can visualize as well. The structured query layer then to be able to interrogate ask the intelligent questions in the right way. What does this translate in terms of the data sets which are over on the opposite side and then your multiple models then required in order to analyze and interrogate that data depending on the specific query. So bringing all that together in one platform enables the food business operators essentially to be able to input that data. We can automate some of these things like for example the prices is an API essentially in automated input for that. So obviously it's a key parameter and that's a highly variable parameter. So being able to integrate you know allow a user to create a particular scenario that can determine how do they want the particular performance of their product and key scientific parameters in that as well. So you know very simply not too many fancy graphics are required but essentially get back a ranked list of how these packaging materials perform given all the particular scenarios. So sustainability obviously being a key score and that's one of the key factors. So multiple universities involved in this you know developing the various different models. I need to give credit to Maeve as well who's one of the leads in cram on this technology. So for look at one of the particular models in this scenario just drill a little bit deeper behind actual models behind this. So obviously if you're bringing new materials onto the market that are in contact with food you need to understand what's the risk associated with that. So this is actually built on a previous European project called FACET which essentially was looking at additives and other contaminants that are in food stuff but also adhesives and inks and items and actually the packaging materials themselves and how they how do those contaminants essentially move through the food packaging and come into contact with the food. So there's a large complex project that looked at bringing a lot of competitors from various different stages along the food chain or supply chain in the food industry to supply their data and bring that all onto one interface. So we've since taken that model and brought it onto the clouds as obvious benefits that I don't need to explain to this audience and essentially then we the migration model itself is to kind of get into the science here now but two key parameters in this the diffusion and the partitioning. So the diffusion essentially is the rate at which particles move through a piece of material and then the partitioning is essentially the barrier in between that prevents the movement. So essentially you stack all of these up together and the sink medium being in this case is food but it could actually this also works for like wearables for example. So you know people are interested in looking at what migrates through a strap of a watch and the sink medium in this case actually would be would be directly into the human body. So some complicated equations that we've scientists to figure out but some of the key parameters here one of the big values I guess that the FASTA project was that the coefficients here were experimentally derived so like there's a four-year project where experiments are set up to simulate and measure actual physical movement of migrants through materials and so that was all cataloged and you know which becomes quite complex because the different temperatures the rate of diffusion is different so and different polymers and different mediums so so that data set now exists and is available for users so and in terms in terms of being able to figure out how is your packaging going to perform is it going to keep so adhesives and inks essentially are kind of quite quite a number of toxins in them is it going to keep those away from the food stuff and even if they do come true how much of it comes true so very quickly to click down through you kind of get to see essentially this is the assimilating a migrant moving through the different layers and how you might visually very simply visualize it as it moves through and essentially comes towards steady state where you see the drop-off in quantity of that migrant at each different level right through so okay now now we understand what has moved to the packaging and has come into contact with the food stuff then we need to understand okay what's how are humans exposed to this so so there's you know different use cases for our for for populations and there's different ways in which you can consider them and how those demographics are broken down as mentioned so essentially there's data sets that exist on what people eat and what chemicals are in those foods of so essentially we they're very large datasets but we bring those together to understand what the exposure is to the population so as I mentioned data sets and the chemical concentrations so you end up then with a distribution of exposure so very briefly to understand the the consumption habits and we focus on one individual just as an example we look at what they actually eat and usually on a 24 hour recall and so we haven't we have an understanding of the frequency of what the eat various products the amount that they eat and then the different cons chemical concentration so you can imagine that this all when you start to stack up all of this the volume of data really explodes because you're looking at so many different chemical contaminants at different percentages and then you start to layer in more and more people into it and what they consume so I'm running out of time here rapidly so I'm trying to get through this quickly so so once you have a population then you can start to rank them in terms of who are the most likely to be exposed to the maximum amount of a particular chemical or group of chemicals however you want to classify it so yeah so if you have enough like many thousands then you can start to graph this out or so normal distribution nice easy easy one to understand but essentially you can see where where are the entities that you need to be concerned about like you know at the moment you're on 99 percentile so anything so essentially what we're looking at here in this scenario is that there's only 1% of the population that would exceed the maximum dose if that's what in this case was deemed as the hazardous amount of a chemical so essentially that's how you can start right from understanding the chemical concentrations right through the people who are exposed to that and how they how they come into contact with that so yeah so making data available and competitors making data available in in a kind of in a secure and confidential environment is essentially has been the enabler of this you know when you go right back to the structure of the polymers and there's so many different variances there the structure of the packaging material and how that results right out in into a your migration model so couple of takeaways I guess in terms of bringing bringing complex data together being able to scientifically classified in such a way that is it's not just like sentiment it's like you have to get right into understanding you know exactly the right units in the right quantities and in the right way to be able to execute those calculations so you get accurate results out so so that's and then enabling the right people to view that in the right way or in being able to anonymize data so competitors can't reverse engineer back out the information is essentially really key enablers in helping companies to bring unusual and different materials into the market like like the sustainable packaging so that's it thank you thank you Brendan and I have a time for like a very quick question if you if you keep the answer quick and we know that I find that fascinating because I feel like especially in this day and age we're much more aware of how sustainable our packaging is you know we're going to the shop with little analogy we're coming home and most of the stuff is just going straight in the bin you know you're just unwrapping and I'm putting it in the bin so this is really really important technology and research that needs to be done I'm just wondering what is the time scale for something like this at the con from the conception of the new product packaging to the actual like scaling out to market is is it going to take so I'm a lot a lot of these kind of products are rapidly coming on to the market is already being used so a lot of it is about I guess designing to meet the minimum set of requirements you know a lot of packaging right now is way over engineered but people are used to that and it's safe and it's cheap so it's easier to do that so if you want to be able to if people are comfortable we come back to the minimum requirement well then actually this isn't that far away but one other tiny comment as well is that actually the whole recycling industry is in a bit of a disaster at the moment so you know there really has to be a significant focus put on reducing and reusing that you know back to that old thing we all learned as kids so you know that that's that whole industry is you know is essentially collapsing around us right now so yeah big focus needs to go into that and you know for us all to have a better society yeah well there's hope right you're doing the work there okay well thank friends and again thank you very much


Tonight we are going to have some quantum physics, so hold on to your hat, because Kansas is going bye-bye. Okay, well, tonight we are going scientific. We have come at it from the religious and the spiritual and the philosophical. We are going science tonight. I met Gordon today and I thought, oh, Gordon would love a science night here. And we were having great discussions. Gordon was telling me about the probes and the ships that have been set up to explore the solar system. And they are reporting back that the laws of gravity do not hold. And just that very idea that gravity seems to be such a common thing. When we are studying physics and we are studying science in high school and college, you know, that is one of the laws that you just think are just there. One of the laws of the universe, not something that is flexible or plant that may or may not be true. And so tonight we are going to go into science and before we get too deep into it, let's go back. Europe has a lot to do with science. Who remembers Copernicus? No, never met him. Never met him? Not personally. Copernicus came along. A lot of these people that come along in science, they are kind of like outcast and black sheep. You know, when we have Europe, we have the church, we have what the church says and all of a sudden the scientists come along. Anybody remember what Copernicus was famous for? Yes. The woman from France has got it. It seems as if before Copernicus everybody believed that the earth was like the center of the universe and that the sun and the planets all revolved around earth. So he comes along and this novel idea that no earth and the planets revolve around our sun and our solar system, that's a pretty big reversal. Think of all the centuries ahead of Copernicus that they had it wrong and then Copernicus comes along. And then Sir Isaac Newton, anybody remember Newton? Yes. Most of the science that we learned when we were going to high school and university and everything was Newtonian physics. So we can trace it back to Isaac Newton and the laws of the universe that we have. And tonight we're going to go even a little deeper to quantum physics. Now quantum physics has been around for maybe six and a half decades. Some of you remember splitting the atom and some of the early work with subatomic particles, Max Planck and of course Einstein was very famous for splitting the atom and so on and so forth and nuclear power and so forth. But what we're looking at here in quantum physics is basically that Isaac Newton came up with the scientific method, used instruments to measure about the objects that we perceive in this world and come up with the laws of physics that govern the objects of this world. And when quantum physics came along they were doing these experiments and they started to find out very strange things with these experiments because they found out that things appeared in the experiments based on where the experimenter wanted them to appear. Which is not good for scientific method because it gets kind of subjective if the outcome of the experiment is influenced by the consciousness of the experiment. And so what we're going to do is start off tonight with kind of a cartoon that's at the end of this movie, what the bleep down the rabbit hole. And then we'll get into talking about some quantum physics concepts like superposition. How many in the room have heard of superposition before? Okay, it's like a real basic fundamental law of quantum physics but it's mind blowing. Even the simplest of concepts in quantum physics are absolutely mind blowing. So we'll have Thomas roll it. We're first going to watch a clip. This is a cartoon that basically is designed to show you that beyond what we know as two dimensions and three dimensions, there are other dimensions that are still incomprehensible to the mind. Thomas just hasn't reached a state of advancement yet to be able to comprehend these. This little skit is showing how frightening it can seem when your mind is accustomed to example what if it was all two dimensional world and suddenly a third dimension was introduced in a two dimensional world. It can seem very frightening because it seems to go beyond what is known into the unknown. And so this little skit Thomas is going to show is from the very end of down the rabbit hole.


excited to be here today. I'm Yvonne Tao, and I teach graphic design at Texas Christian University in Forest, Texas. As a type nerd or type lover, we all know that getting distracted by logos and typeface becomes part of our daily life. As a type nerd, knowing two languages, English and Chinese, the experience is even more fun. Whenever I return to China, the logos I've seen in the U.S. are now turning into another form, the form of Chinese characters. So making that visual connection becomes the natural next step. So when I see a very good matches, a matches like these, I will get super excited. I'll try to document them, photograph them. I call them good visual translation. But sometimes things don't always go the right way. Like for these brands, Subway, Garfield, Kodak, well, I probably will give them, give their Chinese logo an aqua face. And then as a type nerd, I could not resist to dive into those cases and try to fix them. And these are my approach to them. And then I'll shamelessly give myself a smiley face. Well, occasionally I will get hired to do some of these logo translation for some brand who wants to enter Asian market. The more I was exposed to the global branding process, the more I learned that it takes more than just a look to make a successful cross-cultural branding campaign. And then when a brand first into a new market in another culture, they're facing a lot of new challenges. They have a lot of decisions to make. But ultimately the question is whether to keep or change. This is a dilemma here. Sometimes you want to keep the things the way it is for the originality and authenticness. But sometimes you want to make changes to adapt to the new market. These changes can be applied on package, price, place. Sometimes it's the promotion or product itself. And then these decisions are influenced by various factors such as demographic, economy, culture, or communication. So here's an example for Microsoft. When they're launching their search engine being in China, in China the regulation requires all foreign brand to translate their brand name into Chinese characters. So I'll let you guess what being translating to Chinese. I'll reveal that with a fortune cookie. Disease, disease like a virus on a search engine or something like that. I don't think I want to click on that. So in 2009 Microsoft launched a Bing in China but they don't want to be called Bing. Instead they modify the spelling into two characters, B, E, which has a very nice meaning, respond with no fail. So the look, the sound, and the meaning represent what the brand is. Another example is by McDonald's. Entering India. Should they keep all the marketing mix the same way it was sold in the U.S.? If you look at different factors in India, soon you will find out that more than half of the population in India are Hindu who worship cows and they don't eat beef. So McDonald's introduced chicken Maharaja Mac as their star product in India. The next example is Adidas. Adidas' new designer Winterline achieved great success in 2011 in the U.S. So they can't wait to bring it to China. So they kept everything the same but just to translate the language. Sadly it did not meet the expectation. You might have guessed while they probably should have changed the model. That's really not the main problem here. We actually used to see in Western models everywhere. The main problem is we don't ski. Ski is limited by Chinese geography and it was never one of our mainstream sports. So the ads did not make the connection with Chinese girls. And not only that, they find out girls in China would rather watch in TV series or do online shopping over then go into the gym. So next year they decided to on target of encouraging more sports among Chinese girls by launching this campaign. It's called All In For My Girls. As you can see here what they're trying to do is to steer sports into a young social lifestyle, an opportunity to hang out with your girlfriend. It was immediate success. Not only boost up the sales by 60% but also the campaign has won a Golden Effie Award, which is like the Oscar in advertising. So after all these case studies you make at the point, research is an important step. But it seems like every case is so different on what to keep and what to change. So what do we research on? Is there a systematic methodology or how do we embed that in our classroom or education? With all these ideas in my mind I approach Dr. J in strategic communication department at TCU and proposed a experimental interdisciplinary project. Dr. J's class is called Global Strategic Communication. It's a graduate level course with the 11 students enrolled. What they do for a semester-long project is to develop a multimedia communication campaign for a U.S. brand that wants to enter Asia market. My class is called Computer Application, which may be called Web Design in Your Department. So it's a junior level technology class and my main task is to teach technology that helps students to build online presence for business. A typical assignment would be student building a website for a business that they choose to do. And then you could imagine what they would like to do, little cafe or flora or ballet dance studio, something I would say a little boutique-y. So I thought this interdisciplinary project would be something out of their comfort zone. Global branding project is divided into two phases. It started with phase one, the graduate students doing research on the mom. Meanwhile, our graphic design students are busy learning how to build websites. The 11 graduate students are divided into four groups and given the assignment. They were each group where to nominate a U.S. brand that is not yet available in the foreign market. So Dr. J has limited their choice into consumer boards because consumers are heavily bonded by culture. And after they bring back the product, they were to do background research and their marketing potential analysis using SWAT analysis. Looking at what's the strength, what's the weakness, is there any opportunities or threats? Moving right along, they would do research on Asia countries and find out where they should sell this U.S. product. To support their recommendation, they were to provide data on demographic, economy, communication, culture, and etc. Moving to phase two, that's where our graphic design students hop on board. And unlike the grad student had a whole semester to work on this campaign, we have only three and a half weeks. When I assigned the project, I divided my 12 students into four groups as well and asked them to build online presence for this campaign. So prior to their meetings, I would give them the 20-page research analysis paper written by the graduate students as their weekend of reading assignment. They were definitely a little surprised to see how much work they have done for each project. So my thought process is instead of having our graphic design students just being the executing hand for this campaign, I want them to be more involved in the decision-making process, giving them the opportunity to offer their professional creative suggestions, learning new cultural factors, and bounce some design-thinking ideas. They may need to learn how to persuade non-designers on the team or deal with different personality, but I think that's all part of great learning experience. So I will use rebranded Laura Bar in Malaysia as one example. Laura Bar is an energy bar based in Denver. Together, the team have decided to do some logo modification. In Malaysia, they didn't need to translate the language, but they decided to remove the dots on the logo because they find out the dots on the regional logo, the dots are added to make the logo look a little bit more exotic or authentic. But in Malaysia, their branding has been repositioned. They actually want people to know that it's a brand from the U.S. So they remove the dots to make it more Western. And in Malaysia, the regulation requires all directory symbols on all packages. So my students spend a lot of time looking at symbols and its relation with health benefit and religion. Even though it's for a brand that is far and far away, but they don't want to feel distanced. So they introduce the new flavor using local ingredients. And trying to portray that idea as being fresh, as well as offering options that locals are already familiar with. As they're brainstorming how to associate Laura Bar with something that is healthy and full of energy. One of my students was actually a soccer player on TCU team, read on the research that soccer being the number one sports in Malaysia. So she saw the opportunity and proposed the idea of launching this campaign at an important football league game and having a well-known player as their spokesperson. And they come up with this tagline, feel for your football. I thought it was pretty clever. But we all know that mistakes are more valuable lessons we can learn from. And let's see this case for rebranding Boon Chikapa in Singapore. Singapore is a multicultural country with four official languages. Our Singapore decided to do to keep the English version but to add Chinese characters right next to it to make sure the small group of non-English speaker can still read it. They also decided to change the local color from hot pink to red, which is favored by Chinese cultural. And it is 74% here. On their type heavy package, they've decided to add a small illustrative pattern to help the non-English speaker to identify the flavor a little quicker. They also decided to add new flavors such as curry shrimp or ginger lime because they find out that in Singapore, people prefer salty flavor snacks over their sweets. So as them putting all the pieces together for their website, email newsletter and social media ads, I noticed something on their main image on the landing page. Let's zoom in and ask them what is that? They say, well, it's crush it. It's their tagline. They wanted to portray the idea of Bung Chik Pa coming to Singapore. As you may see here, well, Singapore's skyline image by itself doesn't have any problem. And the tagline by itself doesn't have any problem. But when you put them together, be careful. You don't want to portray an idea of terrorism. So quickly they fixed it with a more appropriate approach. Another mistake is by China team. They wanted to rebrand peeps. And we all know peeps, it's a traditional marshmallow candy that is usually shaped in little yellow chicks. Like I mentioned before, Chinese government requires all foreign brands to be translated. So one day I saw China team working on the logo modification translation. Well, first of all, I gave them a smiley face for the visual translation. I think they did a pretty good job keeping the essential of the letter forms. However, there's something. Ask them what is that? Then they know that I speak Chinese. So they start to lose confidence. Is Chinese for peeps? So I asked, have you double checked? They quickly typed in online translator and this is what pops up. And they say, well, look, those strokes and characters look the same. Well, first of all, we don't use traditional Chinese anymore. We use simplified. And that is something they already find out in their research paper. But they didn't connect the dots. But that's just a minor problem here. And then I asked them, well, if you trust online translator that much, how about you copy paste those two characters and click on image? This is what pops up. Yes. The English word peeps have to double meaning. It could be peeping, peeping Tom, or it could be peeps, like what the little sound, what the chick makes. I believe letter is really what the brand meant. If as a Chinese young mom, if I saw that brand on in China, I'll probably turn my kid away from that marshmallow candy. So I didn't know wanted to hand over the answer, but asked them to research again. And later they came up with this correct translation, which I'm pretty happy with. And asked them, what's your resource? They told me, well, they find out there is a Chinese version of Oh, my Donna had a farm. So the last team is wants to rebrand a kind bar in South Korea. kind bar is a New York based snack bar with a mission of creating communities that is healthier, with more empathy and kindness. So for their campaign in South Korea, it revolves a lot of creating movements and activities for charity. For their final presentation, all teams like to put their design on the digital mockups. We all know that student love digital mockups. They put their social media ads on a little phone case to make it look more realistic and professional. So when they're presented to the client, they usually have a whole collection of it, they just pull from it from without thinking. And this time, it reminded me of something. When I visited SOAR a couple years ago, I would say 90% of the cars on the road are either Kia or Hyundai. That must mean something. It really shows they like to use their own brand. So let's do a little bit more research. We find out that only 14% of smartphones are iOS. The majority use Android system. And if you were to pitch an idea to people from South Korea, wouldn't make it more sense to use a Samsung mockup? And so in this case, it's really we learn about attention to details. In conclusion, we learned a lot from this project. Before every decision is made, there is so much time and effort that goes behind the scene, the research, the analysis, the strategic planning, to support the idea of what to keep and what to change. And for this project, I wanted to create an opportunity for students to open their eyes to be a little bit more curious about different cultures from different part of the world. Because maybe someday when they get a chance to work on a project like this, they will learn how to make research on their own instead of relying on stereotype or making assumptions. Thank you so much. And if you have any questions, comments or ideas, please email me. Seriously.