And welcome everybody. And there's our fantastic opening music for this big day. And hello everybody out there. I see a big crowd in YouTube and it's really great to be here. And we're excited to be doing the OE Global Awards of Excellence for 2023. I'm Alan Levine and I am merely your host in trying to press all these buttons. We have a little bit of a technical issue as technology goes. But really we wanted to convene and have a conversation. And of course this excitement about the winners but really we wanna celebrate everybody who's been part of this. And I can already see that spirit in the comments in YouTube. So while we're hoping that Parine, our board chair is able to fix her connections then this is what happens when we decide to go live. I wanna just welcome our guest and start with two people from our review committee. And so hello and welcome Delmar. Hello. Who are you? Delmar Larson, professor of chemistry at the University of California Davis. I'm the founder and CEO of Libre Text. The probably the hardest working man in open education as the saying goes. So thank you for being here and being part of the show Delmar. And then zipping down to Austin, Texas. Good morning. Good afternoon, Judith. Alan, thank you so much. I am just so honored to be here amongst this auspicious company, including our nominees. And as we're gonna find out soon, our winners. I work as independent consultant but I'm also immediate past president of the community college consortium for OER which is one of the nodes of open education global. And I'm so thrilled to see the festive atmosphere in the chat, including mentions of Lizzo and someone said they're here to party. So I'm here with you to celebrate and thank you so much for having me. And of course I have to welcome my colleague and the person who really like made this program go for so many years and was kind of willing to let me fumble along with it Marcelo Morales, their current co-director of OE Global, hello, bonjour. I said, I'm getting my languages mixed up. Hola. Thank you Alan, you're so kind. I'm also as Judith super excited to be here together with Delmar and you to celebrate this new set of winners that we have. And I'm so excited that you have been such an important part of this process this year because your contributions have been just amazing. And I'm always happy this kind of the year that we get to celebrate our community and the work that they do all around the world. We never have enough time to review all the words we want to invest more time and this is a time to celebrate today here on live. So thank you very much for having us and leading us through this process of celebration. And just very briefly, before we get to the big reveal one thing that was added this year is there were 173 nominations. And so we kind of are able to go through a process with our review committee that Delmar and Judith represent that get down to the short list of 30 that we shared two weeks ago but we just really thought it was important to honor everybody and every project that was nominated. So this link will be available for everybody to see and you can check out all the projects that are in the mix there. And we're welcome back, Perrine, our board chair. Is your technology working now? Yeah, well, this is the internet part. And hopefully we're going to get to the we want to get to the reveal. So right now again, one of the things that that sort of we thought to do is currently we're going to go to the individual award winners first the people in open. And so this has been kept under wraps. So I'm going to ask someone out there in my studio to help like initiate the process to update this list. So can Marcella, can you press the button for us? Absolutely, so I have my super powerful button and we will be relieving now the individual winners are. Yes, they are going to be coming up on the screen now. So there's a little bit of technical configurations that are going here. And just so you know, and we'll be putting this into the chat. And so the first round awards. So the page has been updated that we can see and we're gonna be getting the chance to talk about very briefly and just introduce to you all of our individual award winners here. So first let's just say cheers to the whole group. I mean, we always like to start with the people in open because that's really what's important here. And so this has been done now. And so the individual awards are linked so you can read all about them. But really we want to celebrate and congratulate everybody that is here. So we're just going to make sure that we get a chance to, you know, highlight them and talk about them in sort of, you know, very quickly open status. So first of all, we're gonna recognize a Calis Award people know very well, Jenrim Wetzler's work through Creative Commons. Yeah, congratulations to Jenrim. I don't think that anybody in the open community doesn't know her and her work. Oh, and we have Karim back. I think we're okay. Sorry about that. Hello, Parine. Hello, everyone. I'm very happy to be there. I'm very sorry that I have this connection issue. We did the test, but obviously it was at work. So it does change a little bit the connection. Very, um, I've been recently, I've been working with a lot of people and I've been working with a lot of people and I've been recently elected as the president of the board of Open Education Global. I'm very honored to be there and I must say that there were very many fantastic candidates. I was really proud to be reading so many, the portrait of so many people with so many deliverables. And now I prefer, because I just joined, I prefer to let the floor to the team, to Marcella Alanne. And so please take back the floor because I just arrived and it's a bit of work to cut you while you are speaking. That's fine. So more or less, we're just going to go through the group of individual awards and talk them as a whole. So of course the Catalyst Award from Gen. Wetzler. So everybody in shout out, probably knows Gen. Wetzler from work on the Creative Commons certification and the open, the network of open educators that she runs within Creative Commons. A big shout out for our leadership award to Patrina Law from Open Learn and the Open University, who has been at this for such a long time and has such a great track record for bringing so many great initiatives. Through there, some of them have already been recognized in previous awards, but also just because they really, like their work goes out to the whole world. And then very excited, because I know she's in the room here. Hello, Maha, a longtime colleague, Maha Bali, from the American University in Cairo, who has done so much as a real living open advocate and educator of everything in terms of paying attention to students, equity, justice, care, faculty development, and I don't know, if anybody's ever been in a presentation led by Maha, she really knows how to be in a room. She's such an inspiration, definitely the work that she does and yes, I've had the opportunity to listen to her presentations. And I agree with you and she's just amazing and so deserving of this award. So congratulations, Maha. Fantastic. And kind of like breaking some new ground, we had a nomination that was actually three and one for the student awards and we really want to recognize the students in open education. So, Henry Agnew, Ethan Turnow, and Matt Barkovic have been part of the Libra text and Delmar was giving me some background before but like this history of having students be part of, it's open pedagogy from the beginning for Libra text, right? Yeah, definitely. These students were part of a team of thousands of students have contributed to our project but these three students in particular were critical in terms of moving us from the backwaters of a wiki to learning management system into something significantly greater. So they are. And they've taught me a lot about technology and not the other way around. Fantastic. And then because, you know, students we really like to recognize in the program, we want to give a special recognition too to Yasser Tamaratef who's also a student at the American University of Cairo. And really his openness is really in being an advocate as first a student and for paying attention to the challenges and things that people with certain disabilities need and he's become it, done it in such a caring way in open spaces from the nomination that we got but also he's kind of become and maybe Mahat will say more in the chat just he became a participant in the Equity Unbound MyFest initiative and really became a leader within the program and this is really what we want to see happen. So again, we really wanted to, there's a decision by the committee to recognize students out of this whole mix. All right, so let's give a round for our individuals. You'll be getting more emails from us with certificates and things like this. Individuals will also get, if you see on screen that little yellow icon, the image award winners get a 3D printed trophy that's done for us by our colleagues at the Fab Lab Caterer at Costa Rica at the Distance Education University there. We're trying to set up a tour with them tomorrow so you can see how it's done but these prizes are a unique part of the process. And so now we're going to go on and I'm going to ask my colleague Judith to be the magic button presser to reveal the open assets awards. So we've got the system working here and hopefully the open assets will now be revealing the winners that we're going to show to you now. And yes, I can see that the technology, at least on that end, has been working. They are loaded, if you will. And as Alan tries to make sure he gets the link into the chat for you to be able to see meet the winners of the open assets awards. This is pretty exciting for us too because assets are what we're all about and that these are certain projects that we want to record that have been nominated as the four categories. So very first one, I was so glad to see this one come in because Story Weaver has been a favorite project of mine for a long time and often not as well known because it's really aimed at focusing on making children's stories available openly through an amazing resource of thousands of story books in languages that most people have never really come across before, but very important mother tying languages. So let's hear it for Story Weaver. Has anybody taken a chance to look at this one yet? Yes, absolutely. So I think that one of the things that resonated heavily with me is the detail in the curation process of these stories. I think that's just amazing and something that is a wonderful example of how we can be used and adapt OER and make something wonderful from that basis. So I just love that project and have been following for a while as well. So super excited that they have this award now and we are able to recognize their wonderful work. All right. And we're going to move on to the Open Infrastructure Award. Another amazing resource for what it offers and also being completely open. Openverse, the successor to the Creative Commons. I still remember the very first Creative Commons search where you had a tight, you know, sent your search to very different websites and this is really a completely new generation of material. So I certainly hope Openverse is one of the resources that people use very often. I know I do, but really it enables you to find an openly licensed Creative Commons license, audio and images and soon other sorts of media where you're not really guessing to understand what the license is because it's Creative Commons but really effective because it provides cut and paste attribution. Yeah, Alan, it's really become my go-to for images, for audio.  They just make it so user-friendly and so easy that you really have no excuse not to use openly licensed images and audio. Yeah, and thanks everybody. It's so great to see so many comments in here and we'll say it often, but really, I mean, everything, everything that everybody's doing, we want to recognize through this program. And so now for in terms of open reuse, remix, adaptation, a project from Kingsborough Community College part of the CUNY system is this course that's kind of used in a unique way. It's part of a College Now program where high school students get credit, dual credit for an college experience in this course on humanities. But of course they don't have access to the kind of resources that college students do. And so this open book, which is remixed from many other sources, is a beautiful example of what this category is about. Alan, I have to speak to this one really quickly because my background is in the arts and humanities. And I have never seen the humanities seem so exciting and vital. I mean, there's a chapter on the Mexican neural movement. There's a chapter that combines a look at Ma Rainey, Stonewall, AIDS, activism. All of these are significant catalysts for social change. And it also focuses on rock and roll and the roots in African American culture for rock and roll. So I can't say enough about how exciting I find this resource. There's so much to use here and so much to build on as well. Yeah, and they even get to punk rock, which is actually... For us it's new, but for a new generation, that's already history, but it's wonderful use of media in this resource. And then now for the significant impact OER, which is always a difficult one to choose, is this wonderful project from Trent University in collaboration with the Canadian Observatory and Homelessness. And really it's quite remarkable to see that what they've done is to do this collaboratively and build in a lot of stories from people who have experienced homelessness and work with it now, but it's so rich with their case examples and their stories. And so it's a significant project that Trent University has done. It even includes a podcast and a video series that can be used outside of it. Alan also has a focus on Indigenous homelessness and it's... I think how they argue it is perpetuates colonizing practices, very eye-opening, poignant, sometimes shocking, groundbreaking work. Fantastic. And of course this is... Again, the assets, the things that we create are definitely a significant part of open education and the work that we've been recognizing for years. There were so many good projects this year. It was a really, I'm sure for our committee, a difficult process to come up with just one. So all of them, and we refer you to the short list of previous... of the short list of nominations to see all the great work that's been done in creating open assets. How are we doing out there? I think we're ready for the next category, which is the open practices. And so this, I believe, is already published and we're checking. Yes. And so these are already listed on the URL that was sent in the chat. They're live. All of these are in our Hall of Fame and are live on the awards website. So we want to bring on first for the collaboration project something that we had a chance to talk to recently here on OEG Live, the National Teaching Repository which is such a fascinating approach for, yes, repositories have come and gone for a long time, but their whole idea is to build it in a way that the people who share are able to get academic recognition by getting a DOI for all these things. All the materials are creative license and it really helps both sides of the equation in terms of supporting faculty who are creating this material and getting some professional stature, but also by being a community. And it's like, and it's ironic because when we learned is that it's a national, you know, it started in the UK but it's actually gone quite a bit farther. So let's here to Don Irving Bell and the rest of the team that were part of that it's so great to be able to recognize this for open collaboration. All right. What is next coming on? Oh, God, I just love this, this one that Bud's branches embark which is an open textbook out of the British Columbia Institute of Technology which is just a great story behind it, but definitely to live out the idea of open pedagogy and the fact that it was created out of this understanding that identifying plants up in the area of British Columbia at the time most classes happen is in the winter when you don't have all the nice leaves and flowers to identify plants and so the idea was to help create this fantastic living resource of plant identification which was done in so many ways as open pedagogy in terms of students being out there to capture the images but also design as students who participated in creating all the materials it's really a beautiful resource. As a climate activist Alan I consider this to be such an exciting resource because we just if young people can just understand and identify the world around them they're going to feel more invested in keeping it alive, sustainable and renewable. So I just find this to be a very exciting resource and for open policy another amazing project from the state of Washington from their organization of technical and community colleges doing what many organizations tried to an institution level is come up with a system to identify courses that use OER and labeling them so when they know this in advance the most significant thing is that this was really created and developed with a huge amount of student support and so definitely worthy of the policy award. I got to jump in here Alan because I'm a former policy analyst for a state higher education agency in the United States and let me tell you policy is not considered exciting or sexy but they make policy so accessible in this resource and I think it's probably not only helpful and useful for Washington and for the state of Washington community colleges and other institutions in Washington but across the country and even beyond I would argue so user friendly, so well done. Thank you Judith and so definitely one that we were really honored to award this year. Open research we were excited that this project that came again from some folks at the CUNY system I'm pretty sure it was Stacey Katz and Jennifer Van Allen who were the editors of this special journal on multicultural education that really focused on the practice of open pedagogy especially with attention to social justice and equity and so it's this research journal publication that came out in this Emerald Insight Journal I believe the original they work with funded by the Hewlett Foundation for all the research to be open of course and they've recently migrated it to the manifold platform which itself won an open education award a few years ago which really enhanced the abilities to use this as a resource. I think it's such an important element the multicultural education aspect of this research and it resonates so much with the work that we do on a weekly global that I just was fascinated to see what they have been working on wonderful resource. Excellent so now we get on to the third category and these this is your turn Marcella to press the button. Yes let me get yes my turn to do them this is the special category award so here we are announcing them now yeah and just confirming from the yes I can see I'm getting a positive signal on the dashboard here and that the winners in the special awards category are now available for everyone to see and we will bring them on stage but I want to add that this whole idea of having special awards was to make the process dynamic to different trends and issues that come up and so I don't know maybe there'll be one next year on artificial intelligence I don't know but the ones that again were categories this year and there was a huge pool of nominations in the diversity equity and inclusion award category that all them you know wish were up here on the screen but they're all really important and so this open textbook that was published out of southern Queensland University really spoke to a lot about elevating again the idea of being able to showcase practice and the very useful things and resources and strategies that will help teachers anywhere sort of achieve much more DEI or IDEI in their teaching and their open educational resource work so an incredible resource yeah I agree Alan I think that there is a common understanding of the importance of inclusion diversity equity and accessibility in all our learning environments but usually the question comes on how can I incorporate these elements in my context and this is a beautiful resource addressing some of those questions or queries in general so I agree with you and congratulations to Niki for editing this beautiful resource yes fantastic and again open resilience is a category that we unfortunately has to come into play again so the responsive OER for Ukrainians goes out to our colleagues at Open Learn as they did before being responsive to the needs of the COVID pandemic did the same thing for the needs for everyone displaced and put into stress by the invasion of the Ukraine so they typically as the leadership of the Ukrainian law already recognized were able to harness their energy and all their resources within Open Learn first to identify through the analytics of their user base to understand where people are needing resources from the Ukraine and also for Ukrainian citizens who are outside of their country now but really to identify the kind of content that was most important in their into a very important resource but then they took it to the next level and translated it and developed new resources in Ukrainian language Alan this to me is such a beautiful example of why we do what we do yeah I couldn't agree more Judith I think that it's a wonderful example of cooperation and support through OER and the fact that they have been able to reach more than 5000 people with these resources and how they found a way to adapt it to make them available to these communities just amazing and the work is ongoing they're continually refining this and what they're really again what they're paying attention to is where the people are who need this and what their needs are and that's what OER should be about and now we kind of came up with a new category with the idea of a wild card because sometimes you say like my project doesn't necessarily fit in any of these categories or this one is just so stand out and again there were many great submissions into this category and really proud to see a we like sharing photo competition which is we've seen has been part that's been coincided with an education week the last couple years and so you know what Bayadolos, Arcos and colleagues at TU Delft do is they put out a call for students, faculty and family members of TU Delft to share photos that demonstrate visually what open means to them and the whole premise is to make it so those photos are creative commons license and put into a public place where they're available so people are able to experience openness through something as simple as you know it's not as simple but to make a beautiful photograph and so it's just such a beautiful model that is replicable in many places to that would work for almost anybody Alan I just love love loved this one it was kind of as you as I experienced it was kind of a I'm living vicariously through you and getting to see bits and pieces of your lives many of which through this side I thought boy my life is not nearly as exciting as some other people but it was also a glimpse into culture of that area of those who contributed to this resource and like you said so you it could be so easily duplicated in other contexts and I think have such impact right well thanks for bearing with us for the big review of the awards again we want to celebrate the winners everybody else who was part of this the shortlist and so I really encourage you to take time to spend time the theme this year has sort of been this explore to sort of examine and get inspired by ideas and projects that not only the winners but have been nominated and were on the shortlist and it's just such an amazing pool of people and projects and really I think what I hope we can do is sort of make this even a broader program next year just to have ongoing recognition in the work that we do absolutely as we were saying initially it's so difficult to choose because there's so many projects and initiatives that have been presented it's a very difficult work I would also like to thank the committee that helped us during this process doing this amazing work we've had the committee of 20 people that helped us through the process and I want to say thank you because we know it was not an easy task congratulations to everyone it's such an exciting time of the year for us to be able to recognize and celebrate the work that is happening all around the world so big congratulations to everyone and a big thank you to Alan for leading the process thank you very much Alan and Marcel I just wanted to add the word I really love the reading the project and seeing everything what happened and maybe some of you know that I have funded with many other francophones the network open education global francophone and we get inspired from your awards too and I hope this will put some visibility of what we are doing in the francophone countries or by francophone people and also in translation because I mean the awards themselves when we prepare this we said this there are a wealth this is where we see our common wealth and how we put together from all around the world and many resources and they are more visible often in the anglophone world because people know better how to basically this is this award and this open recognition process that is really great and I hope we will be able to launch this very soon in the francophone online conference that we would like to organize for open education week just to tell you we have everything in process our monthly webinars and this is what you did is very inspiring also for other part of the world and other people so thank you very much you are contributing to something greater than we small people thank you very much to all and a big thank you again as Marcel said to our review committee who did an incredible amount of work and the OE Global Board who again provides a key amount of oversight and selection process there are a lot of people who are part of this machine mostly thanks to the 173 people who stepped forward and nominated and so that was really exciting to see the range of ideas people and project that were nominated by the community definitely and we hope to see many of you in Canada in Edmonton next month very much and so and again thank you so many people for tuning into this we just wanted to make a little bit of excitement and to share in this moment together thank you for coming into YouTube and being part of the celebration with us congratulations to all and we will go out now with some music again that's it thank you you


Good afternoon. We are privileged and honored today to welcome to the United States Institute of Peace, former President of Estonia, her Excellency, Kersti Kallulade. My name is Lisa Grande and I am the head of USIP, which was founded by Congress in 1984 as a national nonpartisan institute dedicated to helping prevent, mitigate, and resolve violent conflict abroad. Since February, the world has witnessed an assault on the sovereignty and people of Ukraine. Russia, a founding member of the United Nations and permanent member of the UN Security Council, has launched a war of aggression under false pretenses at the expense of the system of global peace and security that it itself helped to establish more than 70 years ago. The attack has created a fundamental shift in European, transatlantic, and global security. As we enter a new era of instability around the globe, all of us are looking to experience leaders and institutions to bolster peace and security efforts around the world. As we're storing its independence in 1991, Estonia has been a leader in fostering strong transatlantic cooperation and guaranteeing European security. As a member of both the European Union and NATO since 2004, the country has been at the forefront of efforts to address emerging security challenges. President Kallilade was elected president in 2016, having previously served as a member of the European Court of Auditors. She was the first woman to be elected president, and under her leadership, Estonia played a leading role in European and global security. We welcome everyone to this important discussion and invite people who are watching to join the conversation by asking questions through the event page on the institute's web page or by engaging on social media using the hashtag Kallilade USIP. Madam President, we are honored to have you with us today. We invite you to the floor. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to talk to you here in the Institute of Peace at this time of war. War in Europe, war between the free world and the other world, world of tyranny. Make no mistake of that, this war is about freedom. It is the war started by those people who do not even believe of the free will of the people to live as the UN Charter of Human Rights has promised all people should live. It was started by a regime who, as you already said, promised, but did not respect its own promises to not force the borders of any independent nation or limit the freedom of choice of any nation in its quest for peace, prosperity and partnerships. Who went as far as to promise specifically and in the spirit of Helsinki agreements by Budapest memorandum, security to a country it is now destroying. Aggression in Ukraine is therefore not only a war against Ukraine. It was started in defiance of every aspect of international rules-based world order. It is the war, therefore, against such an order. It was started to stop Ukraine being part of the strongest democratic partnerships ever built, the European Union and NATO, and it didn't start in February. It started in 2014 when Ukrainian people demonstrated under the flags of EU on Mayden. It is the war fought to break that will then demonstrated by the people of Ukraine. And yet, it is the war put in unleashed because he miscalculated. He went to the war confident that Ukrainian people do not care that much about who their rulers are to put up a fight. A fight for the survival of their dreams. Yes, Putin has never understood that the will of the people really exists. That the will of the people in democratic nations is such that you cannot break it with showing readiness to dissuade them from their chosen path even with military aggression. Every time people in neighboring countries to Putin's regime manifest their willingness to be part of the free and democratic world, he deems this simply Western influence, Western willingness to enlarge our sphere of influence. The man has never understood that people are drawn to such a way of governance, drawn strongly enough to defy all the risks on the way. Being Estonia, I know how difficult and dangerous is the route to first, freedom, and second, to the alliances and unions which help to protect this freedom. There is no such thing like free world expanding its sphere of influence. The free world simply has so strong pull that nations are ready to take high risks or fight for the right to belong. And yet, while Putin does not even believe that free people have their own will and that they are not to be made pawns in the chess game of antagonistic worldviews, he is out to break that will. The Orwellian world of killing people for exercising their right to decide their own future, while not even believing, people have the ability to figure out what their dreams are by democratic process. That is what Putin's worldview truly is. That is what his fatal miscalculation is. And unfortunately, not only his. I have heard skeptical voices before February 24th from our side, too. Will they fight? Yes, they do. Why they fight? Because we failed. We failed to see Georgia in war, 2008, for what it was. We failed to see Crimea on occupation for what it was. Yes, Ukrainians could have done better at reforming their country, building independent institutions, and generating level playing field for business development. Indeed, lack of reform might well be the reason why Ukraine could not join European Union and NATO at the end of the last or beginning of this century. Lack of reform. But the people of Ukraine made clear in 2014, on my down, where they think their country should be going. How long will they fight? Until they have re-established their right to decide the future of their country, whole and free. Until, also, they have won. But they can do it only with our support. We have to provide them with all necessary equipment to keep going. Also, I think their will to fight lasts as long as we give them hope that one day Ukraine can be part of the democratic alliances they are fighting to join. But even more importantly, fighting also to sustain. Because they are fighting for our freedom too. Yes, they are. Because if the aggression in Ukraine can, in any distant or not so distant future, be considered as a step worth taking, there will be next steps. No autocrat will respect the will of the free and democratic world to defend itself if we lose this one. If Ukraine loses, we all would have lost. Is our support to Ukraine, therefore, simply an act of self-protection? For many among us, yes. Even for those among us who think they are two or three countries removed from Russia, it is still self-protection. But even if it were not, and even if we know that Russia is not going to attack any NATO member state, they simply cannot do it. No power enough for fear of us. Even in these conditions, we should do all it takes to help Ukrainians to win this war. Because it simply should be our honor. Because people sincerely believing in value of democratic freedom should always support the other people who want it for themselves too. Article 5 of NATO is not about self-preservation of all NATO members. It is not only about the security guarantee which holds if we make sure it is never tried, tested and found lacking in any member state. It is also about doing the decent thing. And the such supporting Ukraine is also doing the decent thing. Not much is demanded from us actually today. Military support, resources to keep going and a promise to keep up fighting morale. A promise that at least EU one day will take in Ukraine and help its people to sustain democracy, build the rule of law and achieve long lasting peace and prosperity. The war will end one day. And it will end when Ukrainian people have achieved what they are fighting for. The right to decide their future alliances themselves. Where will Ukrainian borders be then? I will not speculate. Where will Russian regime be by that time? I will also not speculate. In the perfect world, of course, Ukrainian win will topple Russian regime and all will live happily ever after. But we are not living in a fairy tale. When Ukrainian people stop and negotiate, or are forced to stop and negotiate, the war Ukrainians are fighting for the whole free world might not be over. Most likely it will not be. Will we then put freedom ahead of air conditioning or heating the houses in Europe? That is what I am most afraid of. We cannot hope Ukraine alone will fight this fight between the free world and totalitarianism to the end. They will probably stop having given themselves a right to continue as an independent state and thus the time to prepare for the future acts of this war. And then the ball is in our hands. And this is my worry. Do we realize it is? And do we realize what is at stake? Or will we fall back into our old ways of discussing appeasement, painting put in out of corner, finding excuses to continue with doing business and removing sanctions? I am a mother of three sons already or soon at the age to serve if necessary. I am looking at the future through the eyes of the Ukrainian mothers or the sons serving today. And I know that mine would have to do the same one day if we are weak. If we do not recognize that the war must continue with economic means, making sure the democracies of this world stop enriching menacing autocracies of this world.  But we must explain to our electorates that the fight must continue. Sanctions must stay in place. It is long-term painful. It will demand a lot of strategic patience. But we have to be through it, not knowing when we finally are through with it. Because dictatorships must learn by seeing we are able to be patient, accept economic pain and stick together for the free world, even through considerable hardships. Because if we fail, the worst is to come. Where from? Russia or elsewhere is actually irrelevant. All autocrats are watching how Ukrainian people are buying us time. They will watch how we will use this time, too. How we will use this time. This will decide whether my free sons will have to serve the way Ukrainian boys are now serving to defend the future of my four totaling grandchildren. How many times? We must buy time with blood until we recognize we have to remain strong, also when there are interruptions in hostilities. We aren't borrowed time, at least from 2008, Georgia and war. Somebody else is sending their sons to die now. Already a third time in this short time span, 2008-14 now. Will we finally do something meaningful with this bought time? Or will we remain in such a horrible cycle? It is for us, the politicians of the free world, to decide. President Biden has said there will have to be a long-term position on sanctions. Prime Minister Draghi has said the choice is indeed peace or air conditioning. Welcome frankness, starting to define our resolve. And we need more of that resolve. When this phase of the war is over, let's do our part. When military track has ended, economic track of this war must be sustained for the free and democratic world. It is all that clear and simple, this future of European security and transatlantic cooperation you asked me today to speak about. How on earth can we go wrong? Yet I know we are more at the risk of going wrong than getting it right. Prove me wrong, please. I sincerely hope. How on earth can we go wrong on this free world's peace and security? Thank you for listening. Madam President, thank you for an important and riveting speech. We've put together a series of questions that we hope you will allow us to ask you. And we've had a number of colleagues who are joining us online that have already sent in their questions, which we'll also, again, with your permission, be sharing with you. The first set of questions that we have relate to a theme that you were developing throughout your speech. And it's about the impact of Russia's invasion in Ukraine on peace and security throughout Europe, indeed throughout the globe. We hope you will start by reflecting with us on the impact on your country on Estonia. Yes, the impact on Estonia is profound both, I mean, economically, considering the security ordination, which, by the way, is not going necessarily in the bad direction because new members might join NATO. And while, of course, we leave this decision totally to Finnish and Swedish people and their politicians, we know that this would change the security situation of the Baltic states if there will be new members joining NATO. Economically, we've noticed that the courage to invest into our region is lower than it used to be. And interestingly, Tallinn is as far from Kiev as Berlin is yet to still consider more somehow at risk. So, please change your checklists again. NATO has never failed to defend its member states. Actually, it's never had to defend it. Deterrence has always held 100 percent no failure in NATO's history. And NATO is doing a lot since 2014 to make sure its deterrence is adequate and the reading of it will be correct. But the biggest impact on Estonia is coming from Ukrainian people now in Estonia. Ukrainian people were working in Estonia in tens of thousands before the war. So, we are one of these natural places, similarly to Poland and Spain and where Ukrainians have been working. Where many people come to seek refuge from the war. We right now have about 3 percent of our population added by refugees. And we do expect that it might rise to as high as 10 percent. It's easy to happen because we are a nation of 1.3 million. So, as soon as we have 130,000 Ukrainian refugees four times more than we have today, but we do expect the numbers to rise from the current levels. It will be a huge influx. And it will, of course, take a lot of work, hard work to accommodate those people for we do not know how long time. But we are ready to work with our European Union partners as well to make sure that we can keep providing for those people and employ them. Luckily, we are a country with liberal job market, low unemployment. So, we are optimistic about this situation. But these are technicalities. I mean, you read stories daily in Estonian papers like some border guard official asked somebody, what's your whom address please? The person to chairs. They are not able to answer these simple questions because it brings them back vividly. There is no whom address anymore. It doesn't exist. And we are trying to support these people through these hardships daily. And this, finally, after all, these technical impacts is the real impact on society. Madam President, there was a very striking part of your speech. You said it several times where you said it's really at stake as freedom and air conditioning. And you were clearly leading us the audience to understand that one of the great problems created by this unprovoked invasion is Europe's energy policy. Do you see that this new security reality will change the way that Europe is approaching energy? And related to this, do you feel that Europe, another theme of your comments, that Europe was holding strong, it was united in a way that it hadn't been before? Do you think that that unity can withstand the pressures of populations who want air conditioning, who expect heat during winter, and who need energy sources for their livelihoods and for their homes? Well, obviously, something has shifted in Europe because I was citing Mario Draghi. It definitely comes from a big Italian country currently struggling with high dependence of Russian energy. Well, we have been exercising to a certain extent at the lower level. And I believe we now all wish that after 2014, at least, if not after 2008, the sanctions level could have been as they are today. Maybe we would be in a better world today. But this is kind of a spill. Only worth mentioning not to repeat the same errors. I mean, this time around. I hope that even if the acute fighting phase will not last too long, Europe and our partners there will not turn back from their current resolve of not using any more Russian energy. It's painful and paradoxical, but if the fighting lasts for, let's say, a year, then the sunken costs of turning away from Russian energy will be high enough to make sure that we stay the course. Tricky parties, because I don't, of course, for heaven's sake, hope that the war lasts one a year or two. Tricky parties, if the hostilities end and we have not yet completed all the necessary changes. Tricky parties also, because European energy market is common and we need common rules. But some of us have longstanding gas contracts with Russia. Some contracts ending, which Russia feels now free to violate, like in case of Bulgaria and Poland, because whatever happens, the penalties will relate only to the last six months of these contracts. And then there are all efforts, both from private and public sector, to bring in LNG. But if you are from private sector and want to build LNG capabilities in Europe, you need guarantees that we will not turn back to Russian carbohydrates anymore. And these guarantees are taking far too long to come forward, I have to say. And the problem is they cannot be national because market is common and particularly smaller nations. For example, how can Estonian government guarantee an LNG terminal, which would serve not only Estonian market, but wider surroundings, if it doesn't know what the others will do with their gas contracts with Russia? And this is a trap we are slightly struggling to break out from. And being outspoken about it, I believe, might help us to make sure that we are, indeed, making permanent this shift. And I wouldn't have made that plea if it were self-evident that, I mean, the sanctions will remain. Why it is not self-evident to me? I can give you one example. It was about five days into the war, and I was on press conference in Prague. And the question comes in, when is the time to start removing sanctions? And some people started even to answer it. And then I was very rude and stepped in and said, like, why are we even discussing it? Is this the urgency? This is not the urgency. And since then, I've been on a mission to, I mean, force us to look into the mirror and accept that, I mean, long-term economic suffering might be needed in order to make sure that the free world wins this war. We cannot expect Ukrainians to fight it to the bitter end. They will fight until they feel that they have achieved enough to sign a peace treatment or are forced to do it in case things are not going too well for them. But this will not necessarily be the point when Russian regime topples and so the ball is truly and strongly in our court. And I want us all to recognize, I mean, this is our responsibility. I have a mission to go and explain that this is indeed our mission. I'm not ready to push this under the carpet that there are risks that we might not be strong enough. I'm also not sure that, I mean, here I've been talking to some universities with faculties of policy, political science, and also heard that are you sure that these sanctions will be sustained? No, I'm not sure, but I'm doing everything they will be sustained. Madam President, it's so interesting listening to you describe this because certainly the Russian leadership, Putin himself, has said, we're tougher the Russians. We can withstand hardship longer and more intense hardship than Europe can. We know that. And you almost have the feeling that many of the calculations that are being made in Moscow about how to prosecute the war, the length of the war, are based on that assumption that the Russians can withstand more hardship than Europe will cave. We have to prove him wrong. I mean, technically, I understand where this thinking comes from Russians or Ukrainians or Belarus people for that matter. I mean, they all capable people of growing their own groceries. And in Russia, many actually do rely on natural economy still. I mean, after all, what is Russia economically? It is the primary sector exporter who is almost able to also feed its own people, which was very proud after we put the sanctions on 2014, that it's now independently able to feed itself and its population. This is not the 21st century economy. And since it is not the 21st century economy, of course, people are more independently able to sustain difficulties and live without any money, without too much connection to the rest of the world. And we are not like that. But if we know there is a risk we need to, I mean, suffer hardships, we can be prepared. And indeed, we should be looking long term. If we only look how can we live over the next winter, then okay, we fill our gas storages and live it over. But we shouldn't be taking this view. We should be taking this view that how will we live the next 10 winters. And then, of course, there is the complication both here and on the other side of Atlantic that we are doing the green turn at the same time.  I mean, being able to convert to hydrogen or to biogas, last is actually simpler and cheaper, of course, to do. And this all complicated picture needs, I mean, quick resolution because our people, I feel, are ready to kind of accept that houses are slightly colder, at least in Estonia they were in 90s. I mean, when Russia was pulling us with energy, I mean, that they are slightly colder if they know it is for one to maybe even five winters. But if they know, if they don't know what's, what's the plan of the politicians, then the risk of not accepting is actually bigger. So planning is not only important to avoid the situation, but also to give positive feedback to our people that this economic suffering is not going to be endless. When you look at the ways in which the transatlantic alliance is pushing back on Russia, sanctions, massive flows of weapons, support to the refugees, promises for reconstruction, is that enough? Obviously not, because people are dying daily. But we do what best we can. And I also sometimes understand, I mean, disappointed words and vocabulary from Ukrainian diplomats and politicians, because these big ships take so long time sometimes to turn. And myself think that indeed, I mean, Estonia could start from before the war started already to deliver things which Ukrainians were sure they could use in case javelins and other things. Other started slightly later. And of course, every day later means additional, I mean, people dying. And it's very, very painful. But the big ships, luckily, are turning. So I don't want to be too critical, too harsh, even if, of course, I mean, thinking of the scenes of Putscham, Mariupol, I mean, and in today, for example, in Tallinn, a lettuce from a woman in Kharkiv, I believe, or was it Harrison, were read out in front of the Russian embassy about how they are surviving there and what are their hopes, dreams and worries. And it's incomprehensible for us, I mean, trying to be a woman in Ukraine today.  This is not going to happen. We have to understand that. And that means that we have to keep providing Ukraine with the weapons, keep building these weapons quicker if we need, and so on, so on, because they are not stopping fighting. And it is for us to decide also how this fighting ends, with them nevertheless losing, because we are not good enough in providing supplies or them fighting to, hopefully, better ending. It's our responsibility daily. Madam President, there's always an argument that goes on in situations where you have wars for which it's not clear how they will end. Should we take steps that will balance the interests of the aggressors? Should we build our war effort on the principles of international law and justice? Should we follow appeasement, or should we stand up? What's your take on the intentions of Russia, and what is the right policy, the right approach now? Interestingly, I don't even know whether this is true, but my former boss, Prime Minister Mart Laar from Estonia, 1909 to 2002, told me that when Estonia was negotiating to get Russian troops removed from Estonia, then it was the Americans who taught, you have to be tough, this is the only language they speak. And we got them out by being relatively tough indeed, and I'm afraid it still holds true. Every sign from our side to seek appeasement or seek opportunities to help Putin paint himself out of the corner is understood as classic Western weakness on which this regime has been counting. And it has been counting on this classic Western weakness because they have grounds to count on it. 2008. I mean, we were slightly angered by part of Georgia occupation. 2011, I know for certain, I found an article. We were again arguing that there should be kind of visa liberalization between EU and Russia, and so on. And I can even see, I mean, sometimes I have this dream that I see Lavrov and Choyko sitting somewhere and having a discussion in 2013, what to do about Ukrainians who are clearly turning their back to Russia and looking forward to join the free world and democratic nations and our partnerships and alliances. And of course, Choyko would say, well, very easy. They turned their back, we bite their backside. I would eat this to Georgia and look what the West did. The West dropped them like a hot potato. Nobody's talking anymore about Georgia within EU and NATO. And meanwhile, the democratic process has unraveled from this disappointment. Easy. Let's do it. And then there would have been Lavrov saying, well, it's closer to Europe. The sanctions might come. It could be that it is not blowing over so quickly. And they were both right. Yes, sanctions were there. It took more time to blow over. We have never recognized the occupation of Crimea and annexation to Russia. And so what? We taught them. So let's not repeat the same errors, please. Madam President, at the end of the conflict, did you see a role for Russia in European security? Obviously, of course. I mean, very often Baltic states have been accused of kind of gloating over how Russia has turned out after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This is not true. The biggest geopolitical disappointment of us, everybody knows what is Putin's, but always is that Russia, which we honestly expected, when we regained independence, we honestly did expect it will be a country exactly like us. There is no reason why it shouldn't be. It's a country of educated people, a country which is very similar to us, but it all went wrong. If it all goes right again, then obviously. I mean, I still dream of Russia having really good partnership with European Union. It will also help with a lot of former Soviet republics to democratize and build stronger economic and political alliances. So obviously, this is our dream. How we could, I mean, see this happen. Well, history has a way of opening windows opportunity and Russian people, of course, have their role to play in this, using then this window of opportunity, like Ukrainian people are now trying to save the last kind of window opportunity for them, which they didn't use in 90s. I mean, we don't know how the history will turn, but we have to be ready in case there are signs that things might go actually right also in Russia to come in with support for civil society. And today we can prepare for that. We can support Russian civil society as soon as always being accepting Russian students to our universities. Our oldest university has a college at the border town of Narva precisely because we want Russian young people to come and see what does it mean to live in a free country where you are not punished for your opinion on anything. Madam President, there's been an argument, of course, in Europe that the whole aim of much policy in the last two decades has been to establish an economic set of links and relationships with Russia that would promote and over time ensure security. But it seems that hasn't worked. What's gone wrong? We've also thought that opening up to the world economically and economic prosperity, for example, will make China look a lot more like we do. But unfortunately, this is not the case. We cannot change and I think we shouldn't change regimes from, I mean, outside. This should never be our aim. But on the other hand, we should also be clear with which kind of relations we do trust. I mean, countries living on the autocratic regimes. For example, I'm thinking of this century's intertwined world and trusted connectivity, for example, is extremely important if we live in the time where there is Internet of Things. We have to be sure that all our greets and networks are solely under the control of free and democratic nations, even if countries which look different, which are living on the different political regimes, might be pretty good at providing us with gadgets. I think we need to learn this lesson. How it will all end, some people say, but I mean, these autocratic regimes are more efficient in allocating resources for technology development. I totally disagree, frankly speaking. Simply because all the technical development happens in private sector rather than in public sector does not mean it's not happening. We simply need to learn how to onboard it for defence and public services needs, for example. But it's happening anyway. And finally, I do not believe that an autocratic nation can rise above the middle income country level. You know why? Because only three people are truly creative and only truly creative people have had enough value in 21st century economy. So we need to be patient and we will prevail. It's simply, I mean, logic of economy in addition of being the kind of how we humans are built. We are freedom loving these two elements. Let's never forget them. Let's not be insecure in ourselves. Madam President, in your speech you talked about the transatlantic partnership. What has been the impact of Russia's war on this partnership? Has it invigorated it? Has it put it under new pressure? How do you see it? It obviously has invigorated it. And also some kind of weird things which I mean, have been reactions to certain words on one side or another. I mean, for me it was, for example, great mystery. I mean, US was long demanding Europe to do something about being able to defend itself and take care of its own surroundings. And then there comes an European politicians and says we need to be strategically more autonomous, by which he meant that we should be able to go and have an operation in Libya if needed without immediately calling to US. And then the other side is offended by it. I mean, I'm a deeply rational person and I never got it. And I think these kind of things at least are now totally erased from our relationships. So we work together to make sure that we prevail quicker rather than in a longer perspective. Because as I said, I'm sure a long perspective is guaranteed for us. Krishna is how quickly we achieve more security to our people. Madam President, you have long been a leader in cyber issues, including cyber defense. As we enter into a period of increased global instability, how do you see these factors impacting our collective efforts to secure peace and secure prosperity? Well, cyber, as we have all seen, is less important if you are any way breaking power plants and roads and bridges. Then, I mean, attacking cyber-wise signalling systems is not too important. But to create confusion and bring fair to, I mean, to the neighboring countries and outside of the military theater, for these things are still going on.   It looks like third grade schoolboy might have done it at the same time during this exercise. It's kind of this KGB logic of building and showing we are present to be afraid. I think we are in for a sustained period of these kind of actions and not necessarily in our country because during all these kind of discussion, how hybrid risks affect our democratic processes here in US, in France, in UK, elsewhere, we've been sure that we are less at risk because breaking a stone in democracy doesn't really change the world that much. Whereas, I mean, hurting, trying to hurt yours here is a much better goal and well, capabilities are limited everywhere. So, we were not too worried, but what we were worried was that people associated cyber risks also with geographical proximity to potential adversaries, which is not true at all. I mean, it's weird, they did, because I mean, it's not the case. There's no geography in cyber. Madam President, before today's conversation, we reached out across the internet and to many of our partners and said you were coming and asked if they had questions. Basically, there were four sets of questions that colleagues wanted you to reflect on. One had to do with American constancy. One had to do with your singular role as a woman leader. This was a very interesting posed question because it reflected on the fact that this European crisis at this time, you have a number of women leaders across Europe who are playing decisive roles in trying to address the problems that have been created. There was another set of questions that related to whether or not the U.S., in your view, has gotten this right. Are we doing the right things in Ukraine? If we were to take the first question about constancy, and really this was about the U.S. is now very fixated on Ukraine, on European security, but maybe we won't be in the future. Maybe we'll be more concerned about Asia. How would you respond to that? I think we have factured in that you have to be and will be more interested in Asia. What does it mean for us in Europe? Of course it means that we have to be more self-sufficient in making sure that our regional risks are handled by ourselves, and by this I don't only mean eastern risks. We also have to look at the south and elsewhere. We are out of this kind of comfort zone where we were on the other side of the Iron Curtain, but Western Europe had it very comfortable during the Cold War time. Our regional risk or their regional risk at that time coincided with the global risk. It's not the case anymore. I mean, whoever runs whichever country, whichever words are used about it, I mean, 2% the most important or strategic autonomy or whatever. I mean, finally, they are all expressions, I mean, saying out loud, we have to be responsible for our regional risks and then see how we can contribute and work together in a transatlantic format to make sure that we first understand and then also are able to cover and then we stand the risks which are global. Sounds pretty simple. Everybody has their own role. Indeed, situations shifted, but I mean, our partnership, if anything I feel is expanding, we are now talking certainly more about the Boris of Quad countries, for example, also in my country. We are trying to understand South Korean Boris and then risks and so on, so on. So first, take care of your own surroundings and then lend a helping hand if you can. The question about has America, has the US gotten our approach to Ukraine and to Europe right? Are there things we should be doing instead? Definitely, you have gotten it right. And I'm sure Ukrainians would also add, but keep doing more of the same thing. And then, Madam President, on the question of being a woman leader and the role of women leaders now in Europe. Yes. Today in the morning, I heard a great colleague from Kosovo, Shosas Mani, to say exactly the same sentence I've been saying for now close to six years, to when asked about women in leadership. Children in Estonia or in Kosovo for that matter, girls particularly, never ask this question, can I be a president? Because for them, this is a matter of fact that you can. Children in kindergarten, they're drawing president in the dress, then they know, can be a woman, they can be the president. I think that's the biggest impact of being a female leader on our own country. I don't believe in the specific characteristics that women as a group do something differently than men as a group. But I do believe that, I mean, women's world view is 50% of the global world view. And as many good ideas as come into the male heads, definitely come into the female heads. Which means that, I mean, both sides need to be equally represented to make sure we take the best decisions. It's that simple. Arithmetic almost, I mean, to keep all emotion out of it, because you know female politicians, at least in my country, are very often accused of being emotional. I'm not. And then a final question, Madam President. If Russia were to prevail in Ukraine, what would that mean for Ukraine, for Europe, for all of us? Citing Ukrainians, I mean, if they stop fighting, there is no more Ukraine. So that was, that's their own assessment. And I agree with them. At least not the Ukraine, free and democratic, with European aspiration, as their people demonstrated in 2014. That's what the people of Ukraine really want. And for us, as I said, all autocracies are watching. Whether the free world and democratic process can deliver swift and quick responses. Because, you know, it's kind of natural. And in one way, you understand yourself that the leaders can only run as quickly as people understand why they're running or where they're running. And this kind of makes a certain lack into our political processes to be kind of almost inevitable. And it takes a really strong influence, like the war in Ukraine to radically cut this time. But I believe, I'm a hopeless optimist, I believe that we can learn also from that. And to explain to our people that sometimes we are going to act before they understand, we come back, explain they can hold us, next elections accountable anyway. And this way, we will prevail. I am quite sure that finally we will do the right thing. But if Russia has any feeling that it has had any gains from this war, then we just will be sitting back and preparing for the next act. This must not happen. Madam President, it's been a privilege to have you with us. Thank you for describing the many important dynamics in Europe and for framing the core issues of this conflict so clearly, so that it's obvious to all of us what needs to be done. Thank you. Thank you all.


Once again, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls and children of our ages, welcome back to the Prince of Investment coming to you guys and girls live all the way from a beautiful city and state of Denver, Colorado via Haluulu, Hawaii. If you guys and girls haven't done so already, go ahead and make sure you hit that like, subscribe, comment, and share button because we got a very, very great episode coming to you today. So we have a very great guest that you can see already in the description box in the title today. We got Ms. Tajah Simpson who is breaking out in Hollywood. I love her story because she left Louisiana, went to LA, you know, is making all type of moves. I think she has 50 films to her credit. She became an author. She started her own business. She got her own beauty line, all these things. But we're bringing her to date that I want to sit down and talk to her to see how did she do it? How did she make that transaction? Because there's so many people that want to go to Hollywood and become an actor but that's a hard role. Also on top of that, being this, it's a prince of investment. We know we're going to ask her, hey, you're making money now. You're in these roles, you're in the movies. How does the actual budget there money? What are you doing? What are you looking to do? All those things like that, the do's and don'ts. We got crypto, we got real estate, we got stocks, we got business. What is she doing? We already know she's an entrepreneur, but you guys and girls stay tuned. But without any further ado, let me introduce my guest because I don't have a lot of time and I definitely know you guys and girls don't have a lot of time. So we're going to get into it. Say give a nice round round of applause, getting my words tripped up today to our guests. Ms. Tajah Simpson, how are you doing today? I'm great. Thank you so much. I'm happy to be here. This is my first investor show. So I'm like, that's talk business, baby. Okay. All right. So you're in LA right now, right? Yes. And you're originally from Louisiana? The real LA, yes. The real, okay. The real LA. Now, how did you make that transition? Coming up, I know reading your story, reading your past, you had some struggles in childhood, being a dark-skinned girl in the South and being picked at a call names and things like that. Me originally, I'm from small town, Wayne'sboro, Georgia, and I'm dark-skinned as well. So I've had it as well. I heard all the jokes and things like that. So the things about it is how did you take that and, you know, from going to graduate in high school, graduate in college, and making the move to Hollywood to become an actor? Because we hear so many people want to break into entertainment and here you are actually doing it. Can you break that down? What is the secrets to success that you got there? Oh, that's a loaded question. How did you do it from LA to LA? Got it. Okay. Interesting. So it took a lot of self-love, I would say. I guess if I can kind of like bring that all together really quickly. Yes, I had some really humble beginnings. Yes, I was discriminated against and bullied a lot for being a dark-skinned woman from my family to people I grew up with, people that was around me in schools and everywhere I went. It was made to feel less than because of what I look like. So it took a long time to really be able to get over that, to get to a space to where I would really believe in myself.   And after I graduated college with a degree in broadcast journalism and mass communication is when I finally was like, okay, let me try my hand at this and see. When I was a kid, I would play pretend with cousins and we would watch a movie. And my favorite movie was The Last Dragon. Very good. He's The Last Dragon showing up. Yes, I still know all the lines. Who's the master? Shoka. So we would watch the movies and we would learn all the lines and get up and act it out. But my parents didn't know anything about acting. I didn't know anything about acting to really cultivate that skill set.  And I decided to just take the leap. Now I started in Houston, Texas. I left Lake Charles, Louisiana. I moved to Houston, Texas. And I started, I was trying to get a job in news, but I didn't have enough experience. So nobody would hire me. So I was sending out all these resume tapes and people are like, you're so good. I need you to have experience. I'm like, well, how do I get experience if you don't give me a chance?  What's your credit? I don't have any. Can you give me a shot? Anyway, I started with that. And then I started doing, I was a loan officer. And that's where I really learned to love and learn about money and how to do what to do with money.  And I said, okay, I would take these documents that people will give me and help these people get into a home. And I learned so much about how people with what they were doing with their money, the lack thereof, how they didn't know how to save it, what to do with it. And that was my first introduction was when I graduated college. Oh, okay, I don't want to be like this person. I'm going to be more like that person, right? So then I started studying a little bit more about money and what that meant, how to make money work for you, not just work for money, per se. And then I tried my hand at acting. And I got into like an acting workshop, and I ended up winning three awards. So that was like my first step. And from there, I was like, well, maybe I should go to LA because when I was seven years old, I came to LA and I went to Disneyland and I loved it. And I was like, that's where I always wanted to learn. So I tried my hand. And when I got here, there was, at the time they were doing like agent workshops.  And I did that. And out of all, it was like 53 people. I was the only person they wanted to sign. So that was my journey from Lake Charles, Louisiana to Houston, Texas, trying my hand in LA. And honestly, I just took the leap because it was something I wanted to do. But I knew I needed to get my degree first. Like I'm from the south and my parents was like, so that sounds good, but I'm going to need you to get your degree. So I did that first. Kind of it feels like for your parents. And then from there, that's when I was ready to really try it as well. And I did and learned a lot and then cut to here I am. So that's, that's how it started. Awesome. Well, that's pretty cool because, you know, talking about how you went from trying to get your break, going into Houston, Texas, and then just going in with the agency.  Many people say, Hey, when you go in these agents, they take advantage of you. They say, Hey, pay me this money. And I'm going to give you this look and things like that.  Well, and, and yes, there are agents, there are people, there are businesses that try to, you know, get money out of people from there, from their dream for sure. But there's one thing I learned very early on. And one thing that I coach and teach all of my actors or anyone that asked me about acting is you don't pay to act.  So they make money when you make money, you shouldn't be paying them before you make money. So because I understood that and knew that I'm like, Okay, well, that makes sense.  So when I signed up for this, the reason you had to pay money, it was just for the agency that was putting it on, they still had to like rent the space, they had to, I mean, it was like $10 or $15.   So we're essentially, I guess, offsetting that cost. So it wasn't a thing of like, oh, I pay thousands of dollars and blah, blah, blah. No, I think it was like 15 bucks or something like that. Okay. Now you brought up some very interesting, you said you teach actors. And let's talk about the Working Actors Academy, right? So what is the Working Actors Academy? What is that all about? Tell us about that. What do you do with that? Yeah, so, you know, that was birth because the more I was booking, more people would ask me, how do I become an actor? How do I, where do I start? What do I need to do in all these great things? And so I was helping so many different people on a one-on-one basis, but then the more I would get busy, the less time I had. And so I ended up developing the book first. I did cracking the acting code. And then from there, it kind of parlayed into the birth of the Working Actors Academy, which is an online program, the workingactorsacademy.com. It's an online program that people can take it at their leisure. And it's going to give you all the skill set and the tools that you need to be a working actor from the business aspect of it. Now we can be career students. We can go to school for years and never book a job. I know plenty of people that do that. And that's great. But if you don't have the skill set to audition, if you don't have the skill set to be a do-it-self tape, if you don't have the skill set to understand the ins and out of this business, unfortunately, if you don't have a good audition, you'll never book the job. But maybe if somebody gave you one, maybe you'd be phenomenal. We don't know because you don't know what to do. So the Working Actors Academy is going to help you understand and learn the different styles and tones of acting, know about your type. That's very important as an actor to understand and know your type.  It's going to help you get an agent and a manager. It's going to help you with the online tools that you need. It's going to help you be able to walk into your purpose, into your dream, if this is something that you really want to do. This isn't a space that you don't have to do any work, this, no, acting you have to put work in. You have to understand and know your character just as well as you know yourself. But because I've done the work, I've learned so much being here for so long. I'm now, this is my way of kind of giving back and innocence. It's like, okay, there's nothing like this in the industry that can help you from a business standpoint. Everything that when I, when I did my beta testing and I sent it out to my casting people and all of my different industry professionals, people are like, wow, no one's done this. I know. So I wanted to be able to feel a void in the industry as well to help as many people as possible. And the best way I could do that is make an online program. We're going to take it at their leisure, go at their own pace so that they can put the work in to be successful. So that is the working Actors Academy. Okay.  I'm saying things that are very key.  And I'm going to put in the reels and I'm going to put in the work. How do they generate money in the amateur stage? Like, how do I stay alive? No, LA is not cheap. The second thing I want to get into the business side, right? Well, no, let's go with that question. Then we'll talk about the business side. Like, how does the actor themselves like keep themselves afloat or even make it, you know, things like that? Well, as far as work, yeah, you have to find that flexible job for me. It was promotions. So I worked, I was a promo girl for many years. And then from there, I worked my way up and became a brand manager for multiple brands and things like that. But I worked a job in marketing that would allow me, I call it my waitress job, because most, you know, actors are have or have a waiter or waitress job. But something that will give you the flexibility that would allow you to be available for audition. So the industry has shifted back then. We were, I'm sure like I'm saying, this was like two years ago back then we did auditions in the room, you know, this is free COVID, you will go into a casting room and do an audition, which is like, what are you gonna have about now? Our two years now. And now self tapes is the way to go. So you can have almost any kind of job you want now, if you're trying to pursue acting, because with a self tape audition, you're, you will get the self tape audition, you will give you all the information and tell you, Hey, it's due in two days or Hey, it's due in three days or whatever. And you just have to carve out time and space in your own life to film the audition of yourself, you know, you do it on your own, it's a self tape instead of going into a room. So now it's very different. The industry isn't so you have to be at an appointment at this time in LA with traffic across the other side of the town, other side of the city with traffic trying to get their own time. You do it at your leisure. Okay. Now it's a lot easier to be able to break into the industry and have the job that you want to do. You can work a nine to five and then say, Okay, when I get off from this, I'm going to study and record myself tape, because you're going to do it in your home. Nice. Now, once you have started to book jobs, so as an actor, you just have to go from roll to roll, like with your income coming in sporadic like that. Like how do you, you know, buy a house and, you know, make investments and things like that when it's like, Hey, I got this role, then I don't know when the next role is coming. And I got to wait to the, you know, wait to the agency call. Do you just wait on the agency to call to see when your money is going to come in? Do you wait, you know, how does that, how does that work on the financial side of like now that you've elevated and you're getting roles and you're getting cast? Great question. No, you cannot wait for the agency to call for whenever that audition is going to be, you have to create your own lane. So we live in the industry now where you can create a show, you can give us some friends, you can write a show, put it up on YouTube, you can do whatever to get yourself out there. You can do a short film. You can get, you can get that picked up for on a myriad of different platforms now. They pay you for that. They need content, you know, so there's so many different things that you can do now. When I was coming up in this industry, I had my marketing job. So that was the offset and how I was able to make ends meet, live, eat, sleep, breathe, because there was plenty of times that when I first started, I was just a telemarketer trying to be an actor. That was no money. So I was trying to do my best with not, not going back home. But the big goal when you get here is like, okay, I made it here. I want to stay. I don't want it to eat me up and I have to go back home because I can't afford it because it is expensive to be here. So in the, in the midst of those times, what I was doing, working my job and then getting my auditions, I was also preparing for the next audition. I will go to sites like show facts.com. I will go to LA casting or now casting and I would download different sites from different shows, different commercials, different films. And I was steady. That's one thing that I noticed that most actors don't do is that if they don't have an audition, if they haven't booked a job, they're not at home studying. Well, I would study. I would prepare. So then I would film myself. I would take that same audition and I would put my camera up and I'd film myself so I can see what I'm doing. Like what, what is the casting director seeing in me that I'm doing? And I would notice little quirks about myself. I would notice things that I should not be doing because once you get into the room, they don't know that if you could just keep scratching that you have something on your back, they think it's a character choice. What does she do? Why she fidgeting so much, you know? Like what is she doing? And if I didn't have a video recorder, I would use a audio recorder and all of our phones have it now because I used to speak really, really fast growing up and I had to learn to slow down. Like right now I feel like I'm talking so slow. But I had to learn to do that. That was practice make perfect. From my background came from, you know, athletics and I played a bunch of different sports and so in order to be great at anything, you had to put forth the effort. So that's what I would do in between. So whenever I dig at the opportunity, they will come from my agency and they would send me an audition. I made sure that that wasn't the first time I did that audition was not in the room. It was at home multiple times. I studied it. I saw it. I listened to it. Okay, boom, I'm ready. Now I'm so prepared when I go into the room. Come on, man, I'm ready. Hey, man, I'm ready. But I put the work in. So that's what actors would have to do to really go into the room and really set themselves apart.  But you got to understand, you're going up against people who don't television up against me and I'm on TV. I'm on a telepathy show and we do 100 pages a day. We go into this audition. I got five pages. You think I'm walking there with papers in my hand? Wow. Yeah, five pages. You can remember five. Well, you know what, before we get into that time, we got to take a quick break and I mean, a very quick break. We're going to take a quick break and we're going to be back. And when we come back, we're going to talk more with Miss Taja. And we're going to talk about her entrepreneurship, her investing, all those good things like that. So y'all stay tuned. Don't move a muscle. We'll be right here, right back with the Prince of Investment. I'm Christine Lenders, physical therapist and board certified orthopedic clinical specialist. And I am the host of Movement Matters, a show that is designed to bring you the best physical therapy tips and exercises so that you can have your best body and do all the things that you love. You can watch my show every other Tuesday at 11 a.m. on thinktechwhite.com where I show you instructional videos from the top of your head to the bottom of your toes to get your body feeling its best. Remember, life is better when you listen to your physical therapist. I'll see you on Tuesday. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls and children of all ages, we are now back here with Miss Taja Smith. Simpson, I'm going to say Smith. Simpson, live, she was earlier talking about that path that she took from Louisiana to Houston to Hollywood to landing roles with Tyler Perry. I can't even think of all the shows Greek to, you know, just a long list, right? She's doing a thing. She's one of the few that's gotten to Hollywood and being able to do things and be consistently booked and things like that. But she made a quick turn. I won't say it's a quick turn, but she made a turn. She also has her own beauty line, right? She started her own makeup line. You know, she wrote her own book. She got her own academy. What is changing her? What makes her want to get into or get behind it? Even she's hadn't gotten behind the camera already was my online Valentine. She produced her own movie already. She talked about writing the short strips, but what got you into entrepreneurship? Some people look at it and say, do I have to put up my own money? Do you borrow money? Do you get investors? How does Taja do it? Great, great question. Okay. So where do I start in that question? Let's see. I wanted to get into entrepreneurship because I knew once I started making money, like I've always believed in myself. So even when I didn't have money to invest for real, my mom would always say, when you get paid, you need to give yourself 10%. You want to pay your tithe, praise the Lord, pay yourself 15%. That's how I first started investing in myself. It was sometimes that 10% was tough. I didn't have it. I needed it for gas. I needed it to eat. I needed things like that. So I would study about what to do with my money. So then when I knew when the money was coming, because I always believed that it would, I would know what to do. And entrepreneurship was the way to go, whether it was real estate, owning property and stuff like that, or whether it was also the businesses that I have. I wanted to take the money that I was making and pour into a business so that I can build it from the ground up, make it successful, and then that will then turn around and give me passive income. Because you're right, this industry can be very fickle. It goes ups and down. You may make a lot of money this year and not so much next year. But what are you going to do to sustain yourself? How are you going to buy that home? How are you going to support your family? How are you going to do these things and dreams and goals? I have a desire to live nice. I mean, what's wrong with that? But I also want to live in my passion. My passion I also believe is my purpose. I worked in, for West Angeles Church of God in Christ for 12 years over the theater program. So I've tied my talent, if you will. You know what I mean? Like I've given so much of this, but it also gives so much back to me. So that's what made me want to get into entrepreneurship is because I wanted to set myself up for a financial greatness, if you will. Like the arts is great and I love it, but I still want to be able to eat. Amen. Everybody say eat. Yes. Yeah. So that's what made me get into it. And so I wanted to pick things that I was passionate about that I knew that I could get behind, that I could speak on. And that's why the book came, which was the first one was Cracking the Acting Code, Bloom, a practical step guide to becoming a professional actor. From there, that birth, you know, the working Actors Academy. I got asked, I knew that there was a need. People were asking me so much. So I was like, let me create a platform, their actors can go and create a community of people where they can then get all the information that they need and then turn around and be successful once they apply that to their life. They can turn around and be successful. I actually didn't have an investor for Cracking the Acting Code, nor Cracking the Act Code was a book is different. You can just kind of pour that. You can just kind of do that on your own really. But the working Actors Academy started off being something a lot smaller. And then it ended up building and building and building and growing to this much bigger thing. I had no idea was going to build to be so big. And so there was a part of me that was like, whoa, glory, this is a, you sure you're trying to do this for the world for people because you put some money into this. But it was like sporadically here and there, here and there as it was growing. And then when we launched and we launched in July of last year, and everybody was signing up and people were doing, I was like, oh, I mean, you told me to do it.  So I was like, okay, the lipstick collection actually was birthed Tajavi, you know, Tajavi collections, that was birthed because that was the first venture that I wanted to branch out in. I had to make a makeup artist contact me. And she was a very good friend of mine. And she was like, why don't we partner on a collection together? And I was like, oh, okay, great. This was right after this season, one of the oval. And we go, we're getting ready to go back for season two. And I'd launch it in February of 2020. And then COVID hits. And I'm like, great. So one of the businesses that, and then the lipstick, one of them, which is my favorite color, which is triple threat, which is what I'm wearing right now, can all get when COVID happens, there's so many different, you know, ingredients and things like that, because it was a vegan product, it was all these different things, but we couldn't get some certain colors. And the company that I work with, like they had to, they almost lost, I think like 30 different colors of their lipstick, which is a lot. And that was one of my colors. And so I sold out of the other two. And so then I was in a crossroad of, what do I want to continue with this company, find another company. So I stayed with them until now, but now I'm in looking to partner with another company so that I can build it and make it even better with the colors that look good on me. Now that's the thing, every color that I have has to look good on brown skin. Because for so long, I didn't wear a lipstick because I was always told I was too dark, so I would never wear it. I believed in what other people were saying about me. The moment I tried it, liked it, it was like, wow, other people's opinion of you does not have to be your reality. So from there, I was like, I can't let that stop me. That was my first, you know, initial investment that was that I would say, honestly, it was a failed business. It did not go like I wanted it to go, but because of COVID, but it did not reach the level of success that I thought it was going to. But then I did the Working Actors Academy. And now since then, I've now done Tage Hair Growth Stimulant. And this is an all natural hair growth product that's for literally anyone, anyone from hair, from hair from one A super fine to four C super coarse thick, beautiful, coily hair. It helps with shedding. It helps with thinning. It helps with male pattern baldness. It helps with alopecia. If you literally want to have beautiful, healthy hair, then you need to do Tage Hair Growth. You saw how I did that right there. That's what made me want to get into entrepreneurship is I wanted to be successful. I wanted to build brands. I wanted to build businesses, businesses, you know, the people that I admire like, you know, Diddy and Jay-Z and Beyonce, a lot of musicians, but I see that they're humble beginnings and what they built to, and they poured into themselves, they believed in themselves, and they built something. And I'm like, if it's been done, it can be done again. So that's what I'm doing. Now, glad you said that. Now, let's switch it up for a second. Yes. Right? Yeah. Kind of touched on there a little bit again. So with all this going on in the world, you're seeing this year real, you know, COVID came through, pandemic happened. We're looking at real estate hits an all time high, stocks hit an all time high. Now we got a new asset class called Crypto. It's hitting an all time high. Now we got NFTs coming. Got NFTs, you know, which I kind of put in that crypto wagon. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. How is Taja investing? Mm-hmm. I want to hear how it works on it. Yep, stocks, real estate, and NFT. And we all have crypto too, have crypto too, so all of it.  My best friend and business partner, his name is Michael McGowan. I'm from Lake Charles, Louisiana. And we have a studio together called Simpson and McGowan Studios.  He's right. So right before we had big storms and tornadoes and hurricanes that hit Lake Charles, right before that happened, we were there. We were, you know, scouting locations where we're going to build our brick and mortar studio. However, these storms months later hit to back to back completely destroyed the city. So we were not able to build it there right now. But what we have been doing is doing documentaries and doing other productions and things like that. But because of that, we've created an NFT. We've been investing the money that we had because we ended up getting an SBE loan. And we were like, okay, we need to make this money work for us. We wanted to use that. And we invested it not only in our company, but also in investment, so that we can pay that loan back and then have more money to come. And so that during COVID, I learned even more so about that, of course, because the stocks were just moving and booming. It was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, which one? Hold on, wait, hold on, y'all. Let me get in on one. You know, it was booming and it did very well for us. And so we were excited about that and some of the choices that we made. But now we're in a position where we're excited because our goal, which we had already had set up, we had met with the mayor, we met with the school board there in Lake Charles, Louisiana, to bring about not only a change, but work for the city. We wanted to make Lake Charles like a New Orleans or like an Atlanta that they had to start somewhere because Louisiana also gives tax breaks for film, you know, for the film commission. So we wanted to be able to say, hey, we want to show you guys from a school standpoint how you can come out into this business and be successful and know all the things you need to know. So we developed a curriculum, we developed a program as well as bringing jobs to the city. So that's the other part that we're in a process of doing. We were rolling it out, but then the storm said people are displaced. The city has to get back on its feet and all these things. So we're still in the midst of doing it as well as building the city back up. But that's the overall goal right now. That's the next goal I should say right now for Simpson and McGowan. So investing, stocks, real estate, you know, all of it. You all, okay, got it. You got the entrepreneurship down. She got the NFTs. She got the NFTs. She got the crypto. She got real estate. She's in it all. So that's what I like to see. I like to see us as Blacks people get more into investing. That's the whole premises of financial literacy, us getting into investing, us having these conversations, us and other people do it. Because me growing up from my little small town in Georgia, I thought that, hey, you can't do that. It's only for XYZ. You must have this much capital, things like that. So now it's a, you know, it's, I have to go, you know, the show is coming to an end. But before we get out of here, I got to ask you the question, how, what was your worst investments? And also how can people follow you? Well, I would say my worst investment was starting my initial startup of Tajavi collections, which was the lipstick, because I partnered with someone. Now, if had I done it on my own, it would have been done differently. But my, that was my first time partnering with someone that, like my best friend, Mike, I've been on him a whole life, right? That's one thing. But with her, I hadn't known her my whole life. So our business acumen was different. That was a big deal. That was a big deal that I had to learn. And very quickly and early on, we had to kind of part ways. And then COVID happened. And I wasn't able to get the product that I needed to then even, you know, promote or sell to consumers. So that one is, was my initial worst investment. And so now I have to vet people a whole lot more on that. And you can follow me on all things social media. All things is at Tajavi Simpson. So TajaviSimpson.com. It's my hub site. And it will lead you to all the different legs of everything I do from hair care to lipstick to both of the books into the Working Actors Academy. How's Kim? What was coming next for 2022? Lola, Lola too. I did a boxing movie. That did very well. It came out on 2B. It was the most watched movie on 2B. And so we filmed Lola too in July of last year. And now it's coming out in March. So I'm super excited about that. I play Lola. There it is. Hey, I am Lola. And this one also has Carissa Shields. Yeah, Carissa Shields. Yeah, she's amazing. So she's my opponent in this.   Have a cool attitude. Please, Brad. But it was a lot of fun doing that. And then January 13th, I actually just found out today, I'm also recurring on a television show in All Black called A House Divided. And that comes out January 13th. Nice. Definitely. I love, you know, I never met her. Had a conversation with Carissa Shields. Ah. Carissa Shields, you had? Yeah. But I just love the story. Just seeing her come from Flint in Michigan. And to come up, you know, as a female boxing, you know, so definitely shout out to her. Definitely shout out to the movie. You know. Oh, and then also the oval. Hi, you guys can watch me. Oh, yeah. Of course. Everybody knows the oval. The oval is out with Tyler Perry.  I know people are going to know that. People are going to see that and know you from the oval. But we just wanted to talk about those things that people probably wasn't going to know that was probably going to come up. So I got to ask you this question. Did you have fun? I did. Okay, will you be back? Yes, I will. Yes, I will. Okay, definitely. Thank you for coming on. And ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls and children of all ages, it's their time again. Got to close out the show. Until the next video podcast, book, cartoon or whatever else crazy you see me doing around the globe, my name is Prince Dax. This is The Prince of Investment. Peace. Be safe. I'm out and thank you.