I'm Rusty Komori, and this is Beyond the Lines on Think Tech, Hawaii. I was the head coach of the Punahou Boys varsity tennis team for 22 years, and we were fortunate to win 22 consecutive state championships. This show is based on my books Beyond the Lines and Beyond the Game, and it's about leadership, character, and creating a superior culture of excellence. My special guest today is the head coach of our University of Hawaii women's soccer team. She is Coach Michelle Nagamine, and today we are going beyond soccer. Hey, Coach Michelle, how's everything going? Uh, Loa Rusty, great to see you. Now I know that your nickname is Bud, so I'm going to refer to you as Coach Bud, because that's what everybody calls you, right? Correct. Absolutely correct. Coach Bud, tell me about your background growing up. Well, let's see, I graduated from Kamehameha in 1986, so I was a lifer there from kindergarten all the way through my senior year. I grew up in Pearl City and actually begged my mom to let me go to Pearl City High School where all my friends were, but because I had been at Kamehameha for so long, I ended up staying there, and rightfully so. I mean, it was the best decision for me ever. I think I actually just wanted to sleep 45 minutes longer in the morning, which is why all of that argument with my mom started, because we live right down the hill, so I graduated from Kamehameha in 1986. I went to Santa Clara University, played on the women's soccer team there from 86 through 90, and then moved home to work for a company called Data House to do some multimedia marketing at the time. My major in college was video production or TV production, so communication with a TV production emphasis. I actually wanted to be an MTV DJ, which is how I ended up maturing in communication with a video emphasis, but that didn't really work out. So I ended up moving back home and started volunteering at Kamehameha with the Varsity team up there back in 92, and then 93 took over as the head coach, and then coach there all the way through getting hired at University of Hawaii. Well, Coach Budd, I think you would make a fantastic VJ for MTV, for sure, without a doubt. Too bad MTV doesn't just show videos anymore. They do all these other things, but the music videos are lacking. Yeah, it's not like how it used to be where MTV was all about videos, and Coach Budd, how did you get your great passion for soccer? Well, I was very shy when I was in elementary and intermediate school, and I know that's hard to believe, especially for people who know me now. I found a love for soccer through, kind of by accident. I was a competitive swimmer first. Well, first I was a gymnast, so I took gymnastics from a very, very young age. I want to say four or five years old, and I loved it all the way up until they told me that we were going to learn how to do backward walkovers on the balance beam, and I was like, uh, no. So I stopped doing gymnastics, and I was doing gymnastics and swimming at the same time, so I got into competitive swimming for Kamehameha Soccer Swimming Club, and then I broke my arm on the playground at Recess, and I couldn't swim anymore, so I was in a cast going to my brother's soccer games, and I was like, I can do this. And so I started one of my good friends, Joyce Lynn Lee, got me on her AYSO team, and we started playing, and that led into other opportunities in the Women's Island Soccer Association, and then, yeah, the rest was history. So my passion for the game, I think it was just constantly a challenge. You know, when you're asked to do something with your feet, and you can't use your hands, it's not something that comes naturally to everyone. So I think the challenge of, you know, trying to get better and master all these different skills, you know, those were the things that really kept me involved and driven to learn more, and my passion just kind of flowed out of me after that.  Well, thank you for that, number one. I became a coach because I think as a local girl growing up in Hawaii, there were a lot of pitfalls that I fell into, and although I was personally very driven and always, you know, took a lot of pride in my work rate and my attitude and my ability to be a good teammate. Those were the things that really were important to me, but there wasn't a lot of guidance because there weren't a lot of people really playing soccer at a high level. So I think I got into coaching because I wanted to try to help people, young women especially, avoid some of the pitfalls that I fell into while I was growing up, and that drove me to get involved at Kamehameha, and it also drove me to get involved at Leahi Soccer Club, and then ultimately, I think all of those things just kind of helped us become better, become, I would say like, not better, but it helped me aspire to a different level, you know, so the college game really did appeal to me after that. Well, I love watching your teams play, and you've created a culture of excellence with your teams, and what kind of disciplines do you focus on in building your teams every year? Well, you know, I, again, I thank you for that, but I look at sometimes the, you know, people measure success based on winning and losing, and I found that it was very interesting that in your book, you talked about success that was measured in other ways, you know, the impact that you're making on people, the love that you're creating for the game, and I think, you know, when you talk about a culture of excellence, it can be both on and off the field, and there's no secret that I really wish I won more than we actually do at University of Hawaii. We don't win championships every single year, you know, we don't win all the time, and I think what I take the most pride in is that my teams do extremely well academically, and we propel these young women through very adverse conditions, and they power through learning how to problem solve over the course of four years that they're with us, and it helps them to set goals and aspire to different levels off the field, because guess what? Life is hard, and you don't always get what you want, you don't always get the job that you're looking for, the pay that you want, so when adversity comes up in life, you have to learn how to deal with that, and I think the culture that we strive to create here is, you know, let's be true to ourselves, let's make sure that we aspire to and strive for excellence, but let's understand that we're not always going to get what we want, so it's how we respond to that lack of getting, so to speak, that is going to measure us as women and as people of character, so when things get really, really hard, that's when the true character is revealed, and fortunately I've been on both sides of the fence, you know, winning championships and, you know, not winning a game in a season, so it's been a really long, long journey. Yeah, and you're right, it's all about how you respond, and yeah, your team has a very high GPA, I saw last year you guys had a 3.7 GPA and that's so impressive, and Coach Budd, obviously your games are very competitive, and when I'm watching your teams, they're very competitive, but it looks like they're having so much fun out being out there together at the same time, they're competing hard, but it's fun. Why is that? How do you keep things fun with them? Well, last year was a really big challenge, you know, we're talking about seasons now coming out of a pandemic or not even out of the pandemic yet, but learning how to deal with so much adversity, we hadn't played for over 650 days, so the kids were just naturally thrilled to be back and playing, so I think that fun part came in, just the mere fact that they could be back together again, you know, we did have a lot of restrictions on us, we couldn't play, you know, full on the 11 aside just yet, because we were coming back from a really, really long break off and we didn't want to get anybody hurt, then, you know, there were contact rules where we couldn't be too close to each other, so doing socially distant soccer training, that was a, you know, an adventure in itself, that I think the kids found a little bit weird but very amusing, and then at the end, very frustrating, so, you know, we went through a plethora of emotions, but I think what we tried to do was give them readings to help them deal with their emotions and their feelings, you know, we talked about the power of positive thinking and seeing the glasses half full and actually trying to be the coffee bean, where we're going to be influencing our environment versus, you know, being the egg that gets in the boiling water and cracks, you know, or the carrot that gets in the boiling water that gets mushy, so, you know, can you actually be the coffee bean where, when the water starts to boil around you, can you influence your environment for the positive, you know, and that was really tough to do when so many things were taken away from players, but I think, you know, focusing on things like that and enjoying our time together, that's how we really pulled each other through this season, you know, it was tough to lose five games at the beginning of the season because plain and simple, people couldn't afford to travel to Hawaii, so even the teams who could afford to travel who had, you know, fundraise for two years to come to one of our tournaments, they had to pull out and they told me it was the optics, their AD said, we're not going to send our women's soccer team to Hawaii in the middle of this pandemic, it's the optics are bad, you know, we're in budget cuts and so we lost a lot, so what we had to focus on was the fact that we were healthy, that we did get a chance to be together, 15 games were better than zero games and I think just plugging along and being consistent in the message that we sent to the players and also relying on them to provide honest feedback for us as to how we could support them, those were the things that really got us through and helped us stay positive. Yeah, you know, I like that you have such awareness about emotions, that's such a key thing for great leaders and that's what you do and Coach Bud, how do you get your teams ready to potentially have peak performance in their games? Well, I think the way that the number one thing for women I think is confidence and I think confidence comes from being prepared, so you know, like you said, you know, in your book, the four Ps, right, you know, you have to, it has to be about the people number one, you know, do I take the time to try to make sure that every single person on my team feels like they matter because the reality is on a team, everyone matters, so making sure that they understand exactly what it is that makes them special, helping me to understand what their why is helps me to be a better coach for them, you know, and then as we have the people part down, you know, we have to be consistent in our actions and we have to make sure that they understand the entire process and that we're transparent and that they take part in the journey, we want them to be driving the bus, I should be a passenger on their bus, and when they learn to trust the process and prepare and those things are the things that are actually building confidence in women, you know, and then that, like you said, should transfer into performance, you know, when you've prepared and you feel like you're prepared, that's usually when people are at their best, so it is very, very difficult because, you know, soccer, there's a very large roster, we have 11 on the field, which means we have a roster of 27 or 28 players, so, you know, maintaining our GPA, that's hard because now you're taking a cumulative GPA of all 28 people, and then, you know, have keeping 28 people happy when 11 people play on the field at once, that's also very challenging, so people need to be clear about their roles, they need to understand, you know, what they are, how they can be impactful, and you know, ironically the board right in back of me, you know, talks about the impact, and you know, when you do just enough to get by, you're going to set yourself up for success in a couple of different ways, if you're just doing enough to get by, you're not going to be successful or impactful because everybody else is pretty much doing the same thing as you, so what creates separation for you is something that makes you special, are you, you know, really technical, are you super fast, are you really strong, are you good in the air, do you have a skill set that not everybody has? If you do just enough to get by but you're special, then you're usually going to find yourself being more influential or making a bigger impact, but unfortunately, most people don't have that many things that create that kind of separation, you have to work at those things to create separation, so it's, we went through this whole, you know, long training on just impact versus non-impact, and when you do just enough to get by, you haven't really prepared, and that affects performance, so yeah, that's a lot of the stuff that we've been going through this past fall and then now into our spring season. Well, I love hearing these insights from you, Coach Budd, and you know, I always tell my players, you're always in one of three situations, you're either winning, losing, or tied. Now, your attitude and effort should always be the same from the first point to match point. Now, how do you get your teams, what do you say to them where they can have that kind of mindset from the first minute of the game to the last minute of your game? Oh, that's a tough one because soccer is 90 minutes long, so you know, forgive the term, but brain farts are plentiful, and you know, sometimes what we've had to do is figure out for each player, you know, there was one player I had who was very, very talented, but very emotional, and you know, when things didn't go her way, she started to internalize a lot of her emotions to where it would come out in a physical manner, kind of like the Brendan Lee story that you talked about in your book, you know, where the emotions just get the best of them sometime, and what I actually had to do for her was I had to call her to the side, I had to put my hand on her shoulder and say, reset, and you know, we want the players to own this process. This was her idea, not mine, and you know, I think as coaches, we owe it to our players to understand what makes each of them work. Now on the other hand, I have made a lot of mistakes, you know, even just this past season, coming out of the pandemic and getting to finally play again after so long off, I erred on the side of caution way too much, and a lot of the players were like feeling that I was baiting them, and that, you know, was not the best thing for them. So I think, you know, being able to keep people focused through the game, you really have to get into their mind first, you know, you know what you want to do as a coach and as an athlete, but you need to take the time to get to know your players and how they handle adversity. So that would be, you know, my answer to keeping the team focused, you know, you have to be, you have to hit on your team dynamics first and make sure that, you know, you are being consistent in the message that you give them, especially when things are not going well. I've learned a long time ago that, you know, the emotion that I have trickles down into my players. So if I'm not careful, it's going to do some damage and more bad than good. So that's something that, you know, I had to carry with me this season as well. And it's not easy, but you owe it to your players to figure out how each one is motivated and how each one likes to pull themselves out of the hole. And that comes from the player themselves. And they need to share that with us. I completely agree with you, Coach Budd. And what do you do to enhance team bonding off the field with your team? Oh, that has been an extreme challenge. You know, this season we've had, or this past season in 2021, after being off for so long and then coming back with a number of restrictions, we couldn't go out to eat. We couldn't have large group gatherings. And, you know, with a team of 27 people, that qualifies as a large group gathering.  So you can get away with different restrictions because of the numbers. But with our large team size, we couldn't really do any bonding. And it's, there's a very limited amount that you can get to know somebody over Zoom. So for, we had, this year, we actually had two freshman classes because in terms of experience, our sophomores didn't play a minute of Division One, and our freshmen hadn't played a minute of Division One. So now, you know, trying to get two classes to get to know upper-classmen, you know, who are juniors and seniors, that's hard enough as it is because there's not a lot of commonality where, you know, because you're in different levels of school, you're, you're focusing on different things. Some are just starting their careers, some are getting out of their career, and they're thinking about the future. So it's really hard to find that common ground when you can't do bonding. So what we usually like to do is take the team out for a retreat. We want to go to Mokolia, do a little camping, you know, do some satellite soccer at different locations and maybe go on a hike or have a beach day. But all of that came to a grounding halt. So now we're very much looking forward to, you know, doing those little things.  And that came up on their own. I talked to my captains this past week and they said, hey, you know, team bonding is the number one focus for us. So we're going to do that, you know, every Friday as a group. And I thought that was fantastic because that's a good example of them driving their own bus. So we would like to do a little retreat as soon as possible. I'll be breaking out the Traeger Grill, grilling for them, making some brisket and some doing some barbecue at my house as soon as the numbers come down a little bit. Oh, you're so right.  And Coach Budd, who's a coach or leader that you admire and why? Oh, I think, you know, in my life, I've had many different mentors who have really, you know, influenced me in very positive ways. You know, my first coach was a gunnery sergeant in the Marines, Ramon Arjen, and he taught me the discipline.  And I can remember running the hills of Camp Smith with his Marines and, you know, trying to hit for seven minute miles when we were in sixth grade, you know, so it was that school of hard knocks definitely developed that side of me where I respected people who were hard and I respected people who gave it to me straight. And then, you know, when I got to Comeaamea, my high school coach, Renee Martin, was completely the opposite.  She's getting her graduate degree. She's coaching us at Comeaamea and, you know, trying to start a career as an educator. So she was the one of the people that kind of taught me like, why not strive for everything? Why not try to get everything that you want? You know, why? Why not? And so, you know, I do have to give Renee props for that. And then, you know, Jerry Smith, my coach at Santa Clara, was very influential on me actually becoming a coach. You know, he showed me how to build something from nothing.  And by the time I left, we were in the final four. So, you know, he broke the program down. He got rid of people on the team who were friends of mine, but who just didn't want to work that hard. And I think, you know, in my time at UH, I've tried to be very compassionate. But I think I'm at the point where, you know, I've really grown to understand what Jerry Smith did and how hard it was to cut people who were good people, you know. So, very different levels of, you know, discipline and compassion and doing the right thing for the program. But all three of those people have really influenced who I am as a coach. I like hearing that as well. And coach, but I want to talk to you more about my books. You mentioned earlier about the four Ps. And I like that you have empathy for your players. And your players know that you have empathy for them. That's a key thing. And obviously, you know, we both agree that you need discipline because discipline leads to habits, which leads to success. What are some other things that stood out to you in my books that you liked?   My dad is so hard on me. But guess what? We have choices in life. And you can choose to be a part of things and you can choose not to. Now, granted, when you're younger, your parents dictate a lot of what is going to be happening in your life. But I think the earlier players understand that they have choices to make and the choices are going to be good or they're going to, and sometimes they're bad, but at the end of the day, they're ours. And that was something that, you know, right away in your book you talk about. And, you know, I think the, that knowledge is power. That's something else, you know, that really spoke to me. And I think the, the learning from our mistakes and, and, you know, not an understanding that failure is, is not a bad thing. You know, you're not going to win all the time. But what are we going to learn from these experiences where we're missing the mark a little bit?  And to, to start all over and hit the reset button. And that is really, really important in athletics. So, but the four P's they really, really did that. That was the, the most important thing I think for me, when you outline, you know, people and, and defining your purpose and, and trusting the process and identifying what that process is and making sure that you fine tune that process, because your people are going to change every single year. So it's up to you to figure out what makes them tick and how you're going to motivate them. You know, and then lastly, that performance factor. So those were, I think the consistency, you know, in your actions and just how you respond to things. And I really liked how, you know, failure is not a bad thing. It's something that we can take, you know, that that's going to teach us. And that was just fantastic. Coach Budd, you're going to be my promoter for my books. I mean, that's absolutely terrific right there. And I'm glad that you mentioned all of those things, because those things, I mean, that's so necessary for success and for performance or to get the results that you want. And I want to ask you, Coach Budd, you know, a lot of players or a lot of employees, they, they don't really know sometimes what the leader goes through. What are some challenges that, that you deal with as a coach?  And it, you know, you're dying to prove yourself as a young coach. So sometimes you, you think about cutting those corners to, to get you to a point where you're just going to win. But then we understand, as we get older, that winning is not sustainable when you cut corners like that. And just when you think you figured something out, the kids change again. And, you know, one of the biggest challenges for me as I get older is, is really remembering that no matter who these kids are, we're all the same. You know, people always talk about like, Oh, the millennials, this millennials that Oh, give me a break. We were driving our parents crazy as they drove their parents crazy. You know, so it's not about the millennials, it's about the generations as, as the world changes. And it gets more technical. And, and, you know, there are, there's so much more savviness in the kids than we had because of the advances in technology. We have to adapt as coaches. And I think I, I struggle with airing on the side of caution too much. I think I, I've had a tendency to overthink things and maybe baby kids a little bit, you know, and I think I need to give them more credit that they're actually more resilient and tougher than we think, you know, but I found that I only do that once I got past 45, 46 years old, because as a 30 year old coach, I never did that. So keeping myself in check, that's a big challenge. Well, coach, bud, I love, I love hearing all of these insights from you. And, you know, you, it just goes to show that, that you're such a great leader with, with an impressive positive energy personality. And I can see why you've created such a great culture of excellence with your teams. And I really want to thank you for taking time to be on the show today. Well, thank you, Rusty. It's been very, very enjoyable. And I really, really did enjoy your book. So thank you so much for, for sharing with all of us, you know, at University of Hawaii. I thought it was just amazing that you took the time to sign, you know, copies for every single head coach. I mean, it was just phenomenal. So thank you. Thanks, coach bud. And thank you for watching Beyond the Lines on ThinkTech Hawaii. For more information, please visit RustyKomori.com. And my books are available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. I hope that coach bud and I will inspire you to create your own superior culture of excellence and to find your greatness and help others find theirs. Aloha.


Did you have that same type of excitement going out there today? Yeah, I think I tried to carry that over to every outing. I think that obviously you don't want to get too amped up. You want to keep your emotions in check. But for me, I think when I'm a little bit amped up and you have that nervous energy and you're kind of locked in, I think that's the best way to be. So yeah, I tried to prepare just the exact same way I did last outing. And I felt good. I felt good tonight. And it was a good clean outing. I think the last inning could have been a little bit better, but I felt I felt really good. Did you feel like you tired a little bit as as the innings went on? Or was it just a matter of not locating? Yeah, I think I don't think it was a fatigue thing. My stuff felt great. I think one of my takeaways from tonight was my fastball command was really good. I could have done a lot of better job of getting strike one. But I think that's when when I throw a higher percentage of breaking balls and change ups, I think that's going to come a little bit. I think that I got a shot. I had a need to sharpen it up a little bit, especially in the last inning. I had every single hit with two strikes. And if I would have landed one or two more breaking balls, I think I would have had a lot different outcome in the last inning. But overall fatigue-wise, I felt great. And my arm felt good. And I felt strong. Do you feel like you opened eyes not only during spring training, but now here again during summer camp? Yeah, I think that like I said, I've been saying it the whole time that that was my goal. And I think that I'm here to compete. And I've always been a competitor. And I've always held myself to a higher guard. And I've always been a guy that kind of like plays and performs with a chip under my shoulder. I mean, I think that I've always kind of had that mentality of, I wouldn't call it Napoleon when I'm out there, but I have that mentality of being like the underdog almost and that people have always doubted me or whatever it may be. That might not be always the case. But I try to treat it like that.  And I think that the main thing for me is if I'm attacking, then I'm in a position of control. And so I got to continue to be on this track I am. I think tonight was another good outing for me. Like I said, I could have cleaned up the walks a little bit, a little bit of the first pitch strike would have helped a little bit more. But the stuff felt good, command felt pretty good. And, you know, I continue to get outs. Thank you. Eric Boland, do you have the next question? Go ahead and unmute. Hey, Clark, when you were in the interview room the other day, you talked about I'm a confident kid. You believe you're going to be able to contribute at the big league level. When you evaluate, when you self-evaluate, what's missing in your game to get you to that point? I think I said it before. I'm obviously not a complete polished pitcher. I mean, I'm not the final package. But I think that most guys here are not. I think if you ask anybody that, they would want to say that they got to improve on this or that. I think for me, continuing to find up the breaking ball command, it's been great for me so far. I think tonight it was really good, and then the last thing, it kind of slipped a little bit. So I've been able to always throw that for strikes. That was one of my strong abilities. And then tonight it was kind of faltered a little bit. But for me, it's continuing to get that fastball command. I think that being able to work a fastball in and out, up and down in the big leagues is the number one thing. I think you find a lot of these guys who have a lot of success at the big league level, a lot of that comes from fastball command. So I think continuing to work on and fine tune that two-scene command. I've been throwing a lot more two-scenes this camp than I did in the previous camp. I've always been mainly, I mean, I throw a lot of four-scenes, but I would like to mix in the two-scene as well. But this camp, they told me to work a lot more on the two-scene because just because a lot of the pitch metrics and a lot of the analytics going into it, it's kind of been favoring my two-scene a little bit more. So I've been working on the command of that. And I've been getting a bunch of, I got a couple of swinging misses on tonight. I got a couple of swinging misses on the last outing. So I've been really happy with the swinging miss on it. I just continuing to fine tune that command, moving it in and out. Thank you. Anyone else for Clark before we let him go? Brad for Davis, go ahead, you can unmute. Hey, Clark, thanks so much for your time today. You just mentioned that your hope that some of the analytics had highlighted your two-seamer as a potential pitch to lean on. Is it for more for lists or for ground balls or even both there? Yeah, I think it plays, I mean, yes and no. I think that it's very strong pitch for ground balls. Obviously, I mean, I've always thrown it a lot to inside the right-handed hitters and to get quick ground balls or quick outs. I did it tonight to Glaver Torres when I had, I think I walked a guy and then I knew, I kind of almost, I just like preemptively, I knew what I was trying to do and I executed a two-scene in on him and I got a ground ball to third and ended up being a double play. So a lot of the times that's what I end up doing. When I'm trying to get a ground ball, I'll try to go two-seams in or two-seams off the plate. But yeah, I think the swing and miss, I think a lot of the reason why we're continuing to focus on that two-seam is because the analytics, it's been a lot, I've gotten a lot more swing and miss than I would in the past. For me, I've thrown a lot of four-seams. I would try to be an elevate guy. When a lot of it, I really, I don't have a ton of break Z on it or a ton of break X. I'm more of a break X guy, so I'm more of like left to right horizontal break on my pitches. So a lot of my pitches, they run. So when I throw four-seams and I try to elevate, sometimes it'll run it back over the middle and it would end up being, you have some damage dealt to it. So for me, the more I focus on that two-seam, the more I'm going to miss barrels and miss bats. I think that a lot of guys will, especially for lefties, if I try to throw it away, a lot of guys will pull off it or if I'm trying to throw it off the front hip to a lefty, I think I have the ability to freeze hitters with it later in counts. And then to righties, I try to go off the plate as well and try to freeze guys as well. So I think that it's been a big pitch for me so far. And I think if I continue to focus and refine that command on it, it's going to be a huge pitch going forward. Oh, maybe for the breakdown bet. And then, so you mentioned, you mentioned just clarify a difference between what is break X versus break Z? Yeah, break X is basically like the horizontal break. And then the break Z is how much like ride and run you have to it. So a guy like Garrett Cole, obviously he has a ton of break, break Z and Chad Green guys like that. They can run the ball up a lot. So for me, when you see guys with a lot of break Z, they're getting swing and misses at the top of the zone. For me, I'm a break X guy. So I want to miss bats like horizontally. So a lot of times that's why I get more ground balls is because I'm trying to miss the, the meat of the bat, the barrel of the bat. And I'll try to get guys off the end of the bat or wherever it may be and run it up on guys' hands with the break X and kind of continuing to use that run on the ball and use it to my strengths and get a lot of ground balls and swing and misses on it. So, and last question if it's all right. You know, obviously you're, you know, you're new to camp and new to New York now as you know, as you continue to turn heads with your pitching. But obviously, you know, this is a weird year pandemic. You will be indoors a lot more than you probably expected in New York. Is there anything that you particularly wish, you know, or looking forward to being able to explore about, you know, I guess life in New York once you once things subside? Yeah, I think that I don't, I would obviously assume that as of right now it's not safe for me to do that. I mean, to be a normal, like even when things open back up, I think for the betterment of me and the team and the staff, I think that it would be smart for me to stay in. So I'm obviously going to do that. But next year I think that or whenever it may be, I think a big, I'm a, I like a lot of food. So I like to eat. So, I mean, any type of being able to explore all the cuisines around New York, I think that's the main thing. I think it's kind of cool that whatever, what I've always loved is being able, being in the city, you know, you can walk down and get something one night and then the next night you can go right down the street and find something new. So it's kind of never ending, never eating eats. So it's a lot of fun. So I enjoy, I enjoy the energy of being in the city. I love it. It's just, I think the number one thing for me is, I want to be able to pitch in Yankee, a full Yankee stadium. I think that that's obviously been one of my dreams and being able to pitch in front of full stadiums whenever that may be, whenever it's safest. I think that's what I'm most excited about, being able to pitch in front of big crowds and big moments like that.


All right, everybody's still awake? Okay, good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the final session of our 2023 IBM Quantum Summit, where we will tell you about how we're building towards quantum-centric supercomputing. By now, you've all zeroed in on the theme and word of the day, right, on firmly and loudly entering the era of quantum utility. Now, here we'd like to take you through our industry-defining roadmap and show you how we plan to go extending this, how we plan to extend this era of utility to continue to scale into the future. Now, Jay introduced our updated roadmap, looking forward 10 years to 2033, way back in the keynote at the start of the day. Now, there's a lot to go into here. A lot of birds, a split between innovation milestones and both hardware and software that feed into our development roadmap. But before I get into more of the details of the new, let's focus on where we've gotten to in the roadmap today. Look, I'll come right out and say it. Our roadmap is our mantra. It drives us internally, and I hope you all see that it builds the confidence that year after year, we'll hit our targets. Zooming into this a bit here with our processor innovations, the first phase of our roadmap critically focused on scale. Year after year, we focused on working on new technologies that push these capabilities of scale, ultimately culminating with Condor this year, breaking the 1,000 qubit barrier. Now, it was just two years ago that we had broken the 100 qubit barrier with Eagle. And now I'm excited to say that, yes, we've gone beyond the 1,000 qubits. What innovations went into Condor? It might be better to ask what innovations didn't. Across the board, from the chip to the packaging, to the wiring and the system and the cryogenics, we pushed the limits of scale and yield to get to 1,121 superconducting qubits. This meant layout enhancements for optimally placing qubit routing, pairing that with predictive simulations at the scale of 1,000 qubits. Now, anyone who's actually worked in the field will know, modeling these superconducting devices is challenging, let alone getting it right at this scale of 1,000 qubits. Now, just as an example, we're able to yield accurate predictions of device parameters that are really relevant, such as the frequencies of the readout resonators as well as coupling strengths. Condor also incorporates an evolution in our advanced CMOS-based packaging techniques. Now, when we first introduced multi-level wiring with through substrate vias to break 100 qubits with Eagle, we already said then that it would be straightforward to further push our decades of semiconductor know-how at IBM to evolve quickly. And we've done exactly that. Now, going to five levels of superconducting metal layers. With Condor, despite the over 1,000 qubits, we've managed to achieve a 2.5x qubit count with just the 70% increase in the chip size of Osprey. We've also pushed on our laminated board technology to provide the wiring up of 1,121 qubits. Now, Osprey was already quite large last year, but Condor is absolutely massive, and here it is. It's about the size of that take-home book that quantum decade book that you are seeing. And yes, it is that large, right? And we cool that down inside of a standard dilution refrigerator, that whole thing fits. But if anything, the size tells us something. The limiting item of why that board there is so large is actually the connectors. And if anything, Condor helps motivate to us to keep scaling down these high-density microwave connectors as we progress further in our roadmap over time. Now, last year, we also deduced high-density flex wiring with Osprey, and I'm glad to say we've continued to evolve that with Condor. Even at 1,121 qubits, we're able to fully load everything into a standard commercial dilution refrigerator and cool it down. And years ago, this would have been unthinkable. We have over one mile of signal trace. You heard that from Rajiv earlier today. One mile with over 1,700 signals connected. But more importantly, through the use of these flex cables, we're able to actually use only 200 or so discrete components, which would have been 1,800 parts just a few years ago. Our engineers are very thankful to not have the wire of 1,800 individual pieces. And yes, Condor works. We can yield 1,121 qubits on a chip, cooling a whole system loaded to the brim, and the coherences are on par with our Osprey performance. And so that's it. We have achieved 1,000 qubits. Now, we aren't taking it the whole way and turning this into a product. But the innovations here have taught us how to push scale and yield to the limit. And now we know where things can break, what things still need to improve. And although Condor has been truly a feat, we're just that much more excited about its sister processor of the year, Heron. And you heard about it in the keynote from Jay and Rajiv, but let me invite Kristi Teiberg to tell you more about Heron and what it means for the rest of our movement. Thank you, Jerry. And now I'd like to take you through the next steps in the innovation roadmap starting with Heron. The Heron system enables us to achieve even further improvement in quality of large, 100-plus qubit systems, while also serving as a platform to drive scale through modularity. This year, we have brought up our first-generation Heron system, containing 133 qubits, and incorporating a new tunable coupler architecture. The Heron system enables us to achieve even further improvement in modular architecture. The Heron system builds upon technology developed for Eagle, Osprey, and Condor, including superconducting bumps through substrate vias and multiple levels of wiring. It has a similar IO count compared to the 433 qubit Osprey chip and leverages the flex signal technology that Jerry just highlighted for Condor. We've demonstrated continued improvement in quality over the past six years, with larger and more complex systems. Here we can see all of the systems that we've deployed over the last six years and the median error rate for each system, where the lower error rate corresponds to increased quality. We are now demonstrating median error rates in the range of 3 times 10 to the minus 3 for the EGRET system Prague and the Heron system Monte Carlo. Both EGRET and Heron incorporate tunable couplers enabling reduced error rate. Taking a closer look at the error rate, we compare the average gate error of the best Eagle system to the first Heron system. We see a few important differences. First, the median gate error of Heron has close to a 3x improvement compared to Eagle, a system already demonstrating utility. Second, the delta between the isolated and the layered gate error is significantly reduced in Heron. As you can see by the decreased separation in the curves, this represents an improvement in crosstalk. Finally, there are some higher error gates. This is an important area of focus for further improvement. Through research test devices, we have demonstrated new techniques to improve the coherence of the qubit, shifting the distribution to longer coherence times and eliminating the low coherence qubits that lead to higher gate error. We're incorporating these changes into the future revisions of Heron to reduce error and improve the quality of the system. Another way to look at the improvements in Heron is to use the new benchmark error per layered gate. This shows the average error of qubits, average error of circuits run with structured layers, where a structured layer is a layered circuit with a set of two qubit gates covering all the qubits of a specific chain length. At shorter chain lengths, the highest quality or lowest error qubits are selected for the circuit, resulting in a relatively low error per layered gate. With longer chains, more qubits are used, causing higher error gates to be incorporated. As I mentioned previously, we were working on new techniques to improve the quality of the worst qubits in the system to achieve lower error per layered gate for longer chains. Heron shows a significant improvement in error per layered gate compared to our best Eagle processor at all chain lengths tested. This highlights our continued progress as we transition to Heron, building upon our learning from Eagle. We were really excited about these advancements in quality in Heron and looking forward to continued improvements towards our 5,000 gate demonstrations next year. And here is the first generation Heron chip that you saw this morning in the keynote. Starting today, the first 133 qubit Heron chip, Heron System IBM Torino, is available for exploratory access. As we move into 2024, multiple Heron systems will be made available as part of the 100 plus qubit utility scale fleet. Heron is not only an important advancement in quality, it also serves as a platform to drive scale through modularity. Flamingo and Crossbill are both extending the Heron platform through modular coupling. In the Flamingo system, we start from the Heron platform, add a set of L-Coupler gates, and connect these gates between different chips using L-Coupler cables. These cables can be used to connect chips up to about one meter apart, allowing increased space and flexibility for wiring and other fridge components. Flamingo can be scaled from two to seven chips interconnected with these L-Coupler cables. In parallel, we are developing M-Coupler technology to create high-fidelity gates between qubit chiplets within a multi-chip module. This includes development of M-Coupler bus, combined with M-Coupler packaging around a Heron platform. The technology can be leveraged to increase the number of interconnected qubits while balancing chip size and yield considerations. We believe both L-Couplers and M-Couplers will be important building blocks in our future. This year, we have developed key technologies needed for both Flamingo and Crossbill. Here, I'll focus on one example that we'll feed into Flamingo. We have developed test structures to measure the quality factor of the one meter aluminum coax cable planned for the L-Coupler in Flamingo. The results show that we can achieve an internal quality factor of the cable exceeding the target for 95% state transfer fidelity between chips. This gives us confidence in the Flamingo design. And now I'll hand it back over to Jerry to take us through some of the next steps beyond Flamingo and Crossbill. Thank you. That's really exciting about Heron. And thank you, Christy. So you've heard from Christy now that Heron is joining our fleet of utility scale processors. But more than that, we're also targeting reaching that 5,000 gate number with it by the end of next year. Now, this is what we previously called the 100 by 100 challenge. Now, you've heard it today at length from Sarah, Abhinav, and many of our esteemed external users are already doing at a few thousand gates. So looking ahead, Heron and Flamingo and subsequent improvements to quality in terms of more gates will power our development roadmap for the near future. Combined with our mitigation techniques in our runtime to further fuel utility. But where do we go from there, though? How do we extend utility to further scale? The key is error correction. But more importantly, we start a continuous path where everything that our users and our clients are doing with the utility scale machines today will translate. And it just so happens that in 2029, we jump a ridiculous number of gates from 15,000 to 100 million over 200 qubits and then subsequently 1 billion gates in 2033 over 2,000 qubits. How are we going to do this? Let me invite Andrew Cross to tell you more. Thank you, Jerry. So for many years, the surface code has been nearly synonymous with quantum error correction. In one form or another, it's been the protocol to demonstrate for good reason. Its code and check qubits, pictured here, can be arranged on a square lattice. Qubits only need to interact with their neighbors and it tolerates a relatively high error rate. However, the surface code has a well-known drawback. It suffers from low rate. To correct a sufficiently large number of errors, one qubit is ultimately encoded into a very large number of physical qubits. This fact makes resource estimates for a large surface code quantum computer look especially daunting. For this reason, we turned our attention to a different type of code. A high-rate, low-density parity check code or LDPC code. And surprisingly, we found examples that perform even better than expected. The example shown here is one that we affectionately call the gross code. You might think that something gross is unappealing, but a gross is an aggregate of 12 dozen things. And this code has a small 12 dozen or 144 qubit code block that encodes 12 protected qubits. Remarkably, the error correction protocol can be implemented with six connections per qubit. And those connections can be made on just two planar layers. Compared to a surface code block, this code uses as little as one fourteenth the number of qubits. The gross code is more complex than the surface code, but it's not that difficult to visualize the connectivity. First, imagine a square lattice of qubits like the surface code. Next, add two different kinds of long-range on-chip connections between certain qubits. These long-range connections repeat in a regular way. Now, glue the left and right edges together and glue the top and bottom edges together. This forms a donut or torus. And finally, squash this torus flat and fold it in half. The resulting arrangement of qubits is one possible abstract device layout with connections on two wiring layers. LDPC codes such as the gross code have significantly improved overhead and yet still have comparable error-correcting performance to the surface code. Here you see simulations of the error probability of the gross code side by side with surface code simulations. Over the relevant range of physical error probabilities, the gross code and the 12 qubit surface code have similar block error probabilities. However, the gross code is just a fraction of the size. For more details, please see our team's recent pre-print which is shown on the right here. These results have shaped our new innovation roadmap, where we set a goal to develop Kookaburra, a system that implements a memory block using a quantum LDPC code. For Kookaburra, we need to demonstrate two crucial technologies. First, we need a coupler that allows each qubit to interact with six others as shown on the left. Second, we need an on-chip coupler called a C coupler that connects more distant qubits on a second bus layer. These technologies come together to enable shallow circuits that measure the checks of a high-rate LDPC code. To go further toward a modular, fault-tolerant architecture, we need new innovations, theoretical insights, and hardware developments. With Kookaburra, we're developing the C coupler technology I already mentioned. Flamingo and Crossbill develop the M and L coupler technology we need to connect chips and modules together, as you heard from Christie. These technologies build toward an error-corrected quantum computer, first with Kaka2, which demonstrates multiple connected code block modules, and then with Starling, which incorporates many modules and hundreds of encoded qubits. Now I'll turn it back to Jerry. Wow, there's a lot of birds, right? Thanks, Andrew. Now, both throughout the era of utility as well as into this phase will require a very tight interlock between classical computational resources and quantum. Just last year, we introduced this concept of quantum-centric supercomputing, and I'd like to invite Antonio Corcolis to give you more ideas about that vision. Thank you, Jerry. So we have seen how this era of quantum utility, along with progress in quantum hardware, packaging, and quantum error correction will start showing the path to scaling quantum. We first introduced quantum-centric supercomputing at last year's IBM Quantum Summit, and this year I would like to revisit the concept with clarity and tell you exactly what do we mean when we say quantum-centric supercomputing, and how can we untap its full potential as we progress in our development roadmap. And I would like to do that by adding a few myths. So myth number one, the quantum algorithm has to run in a single circuit.  And yes, I acknowledge that the single circuit is universal, but it's also a construct that captures the computability of a problem. In practice, single quantum circuit is not the most practical way of running quantum algorithms. We have seen a few examples today in our collaboration with Argon on propagation of observables and with BASQ on a Hamiltonian multi-formal for Hamiltonian simulation. So the future of quantum algorithms will rely on multiple circuits running together. And we call this circuit knitting. A set of techniques leveraging multiple circuits and classical post-processing. And speaking of classical, here is my second myth. Quantum computing is an appendix to HPC. Look, quantum is going to redefine HPC. The meaning of HPC is not static, but it means today it's not the same that it meant in the past and not the same that it will mean the future. Let's look at it through the lens of time. So, we have CPUs, then we had vector computers in the second half of the 1970s, the cry one system. That was the beginning of modern supercomputing. Then we have massively parallel computing using distributed memory towards the end of the 1980s. The next revolution was enabled by the cost advantage of standard microprocessors. And by the mid-2000s, the majority of the systems in the top 500 were Beowulf clusters. Since then, GPUs have emerged as the new power platform for HPC. And now we have quantum processing units, or QPUs, which are on a clear track to redefine HPC once more what we call quantum centric supercomputing. These are integrated quantum and classical systems working together in parallelized workloads to run computations beyond what was possible before. So, what kind of problems can quantum centric supercomputing tackle? Here's my third myth. All quantum algorithms have already been discovered and optimized. In 1994, Peter Shore formulated, perhaps, the most famous quantum algorithm and efficient way to find the prime factors of an integer. And then the algorithm stayed dormant for about 30 years. And this year, a few months ago, a quick succession of two papers showed how to run shores using multiple circuits, classical post-processing and a few instances of those circuits. And this is a wonderful example of how quantum centric supercomputing will work. We are not building quantum centric supercomputing to run single circuits. Let's look at a particular instance of this algorithm. These are the resources that you need to run shores algorithm to break RSA 2048 encryption. About 6,000 qubits, 3 billion gates, one single circuit. This is the new result. Four orders of magnitude of improvement in circuit size. In the words of Peter Shore himself, there's still probably lots of other quantum algorithms to be found. But if you focus your quantum algorithm search on single circuits, you end up on a landscape of single circuits. These are some particular problems of interest in the areas of science, industry, and math and the resources that are needed to run them. We, along with quantum users, application experts, algorithm researchers, we are going to shift this landscape. We are going to shift this landscape. Thank you. We are going to start doing that by displaying a fourth myth. To come up with quantum algorithms, you don't need hardware. Well, maybe. If you are not too worried about the applicability of the practicality of your algorithm, maybe you don't need hardware. But there are many examples of the contrary, even in classical computing. Turbo codes were initially found to be a solution to the investigation of many other ways of interactive signal processing. Ken Wilson, numerical renomeration group, that was later proven to be a solution in polynomial time for the energy of gap 1D systems. The simplest algorithm for linear programming, this had a proven exponential run time. And people saw that the numerics kept converging faster. And it was later by introducing the theoretical notion of a smooth complexity that it was proven that the exponential run time was due to an artifact because the problem had been engineered for a particular instance. And there are many more examples. So playing with hardware is not only important. It is critical. So as we progress in our utility of hardware roadmap, it is time for algorithm research to take a step forward. Now, with different more practical algorithmic approaches with integrated quantum and classical systems, and with continued interaction with quantum hardware as it matures, we will turn this landscape of single circuits into a landscape of quantum-centric supercomputing. Now, you have heard our plans today to realize the BlueJay system of the University of Tokyo and the University of Chicago. As we announced in May this year, we are teaming up with the University of Tokyo and the University of Chicago towards the realization of BlueJay. Both institutions will touch on all areas of research, but we will focus with the University of Tokyo on applications and componentry and with the University of Chicago on communication and middleware for quantum. So we have offered you a view today of our updated roadmap and here I've given you a flavor for how quantum-centric supercomputing will come together. Throughout this path, we will keep engaging with the community to bring them the best that quantum computing can offer as a central part of the best supercomputing systems in the world. And with this, I will pass it back to Jerry. Thank you. Wow. Antonio Corco is our resident myth buster. Now, to reach quantum-centric supercomputing and continue to scale through this era of utility, we need to evolve our system architecture. Now, back in 2019, we first introduced IBM Quantum System 1 and it represented a first quantum computing system architecture for the time. But now, we need System 2, a modular quantum computing architecture. And let me invite David Bryan to show you the full story. David? Hey there. How are you doing? How's everybody holding up? Okay, we're on the home stretch. We've got a few more minutes so we can all go and have a drink or something. Okay. Thank you, Jerry. So, last year, we stood on stage and shared our conceptual designs for Quantum System 2 and we promised then that we would have a live working system by this year's summit. Here again. And yes, Quantum System 2 is live. It's operational. And it's at TJ Watson Research Center in York-San Heights. And I think we need some kind of energy here, some kind of round of applause. Now, from a design perspective, it resembles our original concepts actually very closely. In fact, it's hard to tell the difference between the two. So this is the concept render we shared last year. And this is what we did last week. So it's one of those rare situations where we didn't lose a lot in translation going from concepts to reality. So now we have a Quantum System that houses a three-tiered chandelier held within a cryostat maintaining a near-perfect vacuum at temperatures colder than deep space. The chandelier currently holds three Heron processors. But as you know from today's sessions, we have extended roadmap now to 2033. And we have a lot of new processors to come. So we have Heron, Flamingo, Starling, Bluejay. So Quantum System 2 is designed to be flexible enough to house all of the processors that we are going to be creating for at least the next five years in multiple configurations. In addition to the cryogenic infrastructure supporting multiple processors, we also need to control the qubits on the processors. So the control systems that surround the cryostat are Generation 3. So we tuneable couple support. Plus they're extensible. So as we increase the number of physical qubits on the inside, we can extend the control systems on the outside. I find this rather poetic that all of this complex engineering and machinery surrounding the cryostat is focused on controlling a bunch of paired electrons. And these electrons are being put to work as we speak to help us better understand condensed matter and high-energy physics. Tiny parts of the universe are helping us understand the other tiny parts of the universe. Quantum System 2 isn't just a standalone system. It was designed to be modular so multiple Quantum System 2s could be connected together to create much larger systems. In fact, our vision for the 100 million gate Starling and the billion gate Bluejay are currently based on Quantum System 2 architecture. But above all, following in the footsteps of Quantum System 1, we wanted Quantum System 2 to be beautiful and iconic, driving an emotional connection through the power of design. Quantum Computing is now part of contemporary culture and the Quantum Chandelier is now a science fiction character. Ironically, the most recognized part of the Quantum Computer is the one part you don't see in a working system. So we have to create beauty outside of the chandelier. And we do this with simple geometries, materials, and above all, light. Introducing the IBM Quantum System 2 the world's first modular utility scale Quantum Computer System. Quantum System 2 was designed to tackle complex problems that lie far beyond the reach of today's classical supercomputers. It stands 15 feet tall and operates in a near perfect vacuum at temperatures colder than deep space. Initially powered by 3133 qubit-heron processors, Quantum System 2 is fully upgradable to the growing line of utility scale QPUs that IBM will be releasing over the next five years. This is the world's first modular utility scale Quantum System. So in addition to talking about physical qubits, we now need to be concerned with circuit size. By the end of 2024, each of the three quantum-heron processors in Quantum System 2 will be able to process a remarkable 5,000 operations in a single quantum circuit. But the real triumph of Quantum System 2 is its modular design. Our new quantum coupling technology will allow multiple Quantum System 2s to connect together to create systems capable of running 100 million operations in a single quantum circuit. Continuing down this path we plan to realize a system capable of running 1 billion operations in a single quantum circuit by 2033. That's why we call Quantum System 2 the building block of quantum-centric supercomputing. Today, our clients and partners are already using our 100-plus qubit systems to advance science, surpassing brute-force methods deployed on the world's most powerful classical supercomputers. And soon, they expect quantum applications offering unprecedented business value. Our mission is to bring useful quantum computing to the world. And it starts with Quantum System 2. So, we did the work of designing Quantum System 2 with our excellent design partners, Map Universal, who should be in the audience somewhere, and an Italian company, Gopien, who specialized in high-end displays for museums. Working with them, we carefully selected materials and finishes that played with reflections and light, but also revealed the technical details within. In the words of T.J. Watson, good design is good business. But good design doesn't always mean going with super high-end materials or what our lead engineer calls unobtainium. There is a role for a more utilitarian design for future installations like data centers, where showcasing is less of a priority. So, it's now a question of function over form. So, we lose the glass partitions, but we leave the beautiful geometries and the reflective properties of the materials intact. This new data center version of Quantum System 2 is rugged and it's stripped down, but it retains the character of the original showcase model. And the reason we're sharing this design with you is because we're building a new Quantum Data Center to house multiple Quantum System 2s, and we'd like to share our plans with you. We see this as the data center of the future, introducing data center B. Welcome to data center B. We already have a data center A in Poughkeepsie, New York, where we currently house our fleet of eight utility scale systems. This will be data center B, where we also plan for Poughkeepsie, where we will initially house eight Quantum System 2s. Here, we've kept the space as wide open as possible. And we're also feeding infrastructure down from the ceilings and what we call our inverted data center approach. There are no war partitions at all. We felt that this gives a greater sense of freedom and visibility for the systems. I particularly love this. So these are compression units, but rather than hide them away, we turn them into a feature. There's no reason why infrastructure has to be ugly. Planning is already underway and building will start in the second half of 2024, so I look forward to sharing our progress with you at the next year's event. Now the last four slides I shared with you are just CGI renders.  It's just a vision of what we intend to build. But bear in mind Quantum System 2 was also just a render this time last year. So now we have the first building blocks for Quantum Centric supercomputing. We are providing the world with a different form of computation. And everyone in this room has played a part in getting to this point. What we build is up to us all. Now I'll hand back to Jerry. Thank you. Thanks David. Wow. So that's really this session that we have for you today. Condor is here. Heron is here. Flamingo is on its way. We showed you our extended road map for quality all the way towards Starling and Lujay. System 2 is going to take us there towards Quantum Centric supercomputing.


I almost got caught. I almost got caught. You're not doing what. I won't job. Anyway, something is happening on Facebook. Our conversation of the day go pali pali. Natu na kuliza ni ujanja gali za high school na kumbukani leo. Please tell us about them because we've been having a good laugh on their social Friday on why in the morning. And we've been sub music courtesy of VDJ Khalifa himself na kama me miss here leo. Remember 11, we're raving safe. We're raving from home courtesy of Mixed Zaki. Atua pa mo details kwa sasa. I'd like to introduce Esco Taliban. It's not their first time here. So we put in the work. They're releasing more and more music kama kawa. Karibuni. Haiya. Hiya. Hiya. Ni matia ni uzo sa Udi. Hiya. Hiya. Hiya. Okay. Rasa poibo. Intro. I'll have to keep proceeding. Yo Taliban kuzibana pa 23 maihodu noa say. Ni kwa paivi Taliban kuzibana kwa kilisha. Kwa itu 5-4-11 na ni kabisa. Tuja kuja kuba tisha. Ni kuja kuma tisha. Kuma tisha ni kwa maali za kwa chukua. Okay. Kuma tisha. I've had zero say. Zero. Zero nwa yom tabadu. Zero. Nwa dago. Zero nwa dago ili say. Just the neighbor. Ni nwa say wa ungemi say. Okay. So kama oni Taliban we ni Esco. Sinio. Let them know. At Esco. Tu me kuja paivi kuwa ma subscribers na doba ingenia. Mpaya sana. Doba ni ningoma. Drop. Tu me drop ingenia. Wa zing. Wa zing. Okay. Wa zing ni? Ehi. Bro. Uu. Wowsim zing. Uu. Ndi ye kaliwa nm zing. Nm zing. Alright oni. Okay. What is the name of this new drop that you've brought to us today? Avilil maismer. Nna ito wa zing. Wa zing? Goma ito wa zing? Ito wa zing. Okay. Wasi k inspecti או ka Kuiwebu? Ehi, wa tu wene para kujitumine ligene utu plugs Kujitumine u lightly yo Nandam sihetu waka? Knabili tu kon проис' ya kia manyu? So you were part of this project when you came here? Yes, I was part of the project look show. Last time I told the people that I'm releasing a new dance all the time downtown. No, I said drop it. Then we came up for more zing, ball tune. We tested it and it was rubbery. But it was not too much. It was not too much. It was not too much. Alright, YouTube was up to VP to check your zing. So we can have it on rotation as well. YouTube was up to TMS Kotaliban. Uksaka 2S Kotaliban. I left 1D kiwa zing. Ita ka. So, what inspired you to do zing? Okay, it was a composition. I came up with the hook man. I don't know how to hook master. What was the hook? You hook zing zing. I zing zing I am not adding sin to 땎wa, I am not adding sin to the KWA. I am not adding sin to injections I am not adding sin to pents I am not adding sin to pents I am not adding sin to junsu. Kwa kaailو kuhu ya zing. Now I have the pin too. This pin I received at my appointment I was getting to know this and I asked why. I like I like So projects still coming soon Yeah, still more things coming up Loading up some music Tuna fanya projects ngezi na come All right Ya, music tu na ku record Biza itu kuna dobe na fatu yung kushe mohezi Ya, still working some more projects Manze si mimi mefundisha shengze Doba ni drop music E doba ni goma So atami ni kuna doba zangu Mi nim zing manja I'll see you All right So mtense diya paivi soba Facebook kiasi Alafum introduzion goma Tuwambia ase waji waji chaguli Si mi indok buse ma paivi Si ni waken Si ni evi Ya, ya, ya All right So as we proceed to give them what they need Remember we are on Facebook at Y254 On Twitter at Y254 channel On Instagram at Y254 underscore channel And Twitter at Nisha Sema Y254 underscore channel So my guys, introducing yung goma Ichezue, Alafum asewa decide Nani yata, mtafanya kidua yata ma amtu moja tachukua uskani Tachukua yata ma All right All right Sawa, sawa Chukweni uskani apu evo Fanya venye mnaijuwa Alafum to proceed Ya waji zing Balchunde Yikitumbaya Okay, we came up with the boy of the Yodoba Diandika inaweza, adimis kuwami Ani design, tulikama apu nahuka raka Kwa studio tu Ya Beze, li kwa nga yezi Majiki kumise tuliana studio ya ni Nila tu Kwa itaki tuya kutua adoba ya ni tuko Tuko nila mudi kutua adoba Nani Nika mombi ya Chiki kutu ingiya studio tufanya adoba Saku ingiya studio, diyo hukali andikiya studio Adipo me panga Adipo producer li bambeka Adipo producer li tiyi Of the top Ali ni ambiya, yuhim say li ni ambiya aje Ali ni ambiya fanya aje sku Ni patiya, stansa ako ya kuwa Ni patiya baya ako Yo vast Yo vast Nika mpatiya Ni ako ni angoshia Nili create something out of the vast Nili fair plus, nika kampana kompozisioni angu vast I can check the song, I feel it Fave on the new pattern Kreativity Kreativity wat na deal pamoja We say ma We a niza fanya kazi vikando And how many kando Which is a good way to work Ujanza ganim li kwa na zo high sku Zanyem na kumbukadile Yo andosu alitimo li zo say Facebook Ka bloodshed en goma Mi ujanza yungu say li kwa hi Kwa na mandina Friday li kwa skuya parade Sayo na yo sweater Kwa ni nika kwa nga boili kwa angodi kwa ma vijana Fufu ramsiyon zili kwa bala Sayo na chiku aka Shati aka kapatika juna ka Kwa na kashoniria ka sueta Lafuna una osya sueta peke aki Naka nika kwa na shati na wana Kuna kunjatuka kwa kwa peke aki Naba kina sueta Joto kaka ikam pa Ayweni kijangutabu media Buju mwando kya garama kubukfu wa shati Sueta lini undu breka Mibatu sueta peke Aka tisha Adiweza kwa sa tisha wu media ditu peke aki iwa Ah Una shoniria tu Kakao ala pa juko sueta Lafuna kapu Kibu aso tu meboa disha Kibu aso tu meboa disha aki na kila Ujanza kwa nika li kwa na aizu Mi ujanza yungu li kwa nga iwi Friday siku anta kama Kadabu kya miivi Natu nenda lab Nemi wana chupi aki jabi boiz Soju anki nenda lab na sleepa Sintami iwa Roadi Sani kimi iwa roadi Ndakuja last Session ni amuisha Niki ambu na ni badilisha bihatu Sini yungu li kwa nga ujanza iwi Sini kimi iwa nenda lab na sleepo kila sani Kama sita aki Kama sita aki Kama sita aki Kama ni dabu kya miivi Na adibu kwa miivi dbukies Dbukies din muma Ok muma Nge muka nykivu pла Na se mami mimi nika kwa niki Kasaka piyango Sani yan chai Nani kwa na deep Nani kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa Nakimi a dome Nakumulia kwando Nakunyua chaiyan We're still there, we haven't gone to the pub. We haven't gone to the pub Nooched, bottom, ha. We are out of theatre. We're out of theatre. Those two are gone. The other two are gone. You're asking them where we're going. They've gone. They've gone. You see. You've gone. The ladies have called me to say about players. Alright, 14 days. Let's see. We'll check for the rest. Extreme 21 and we'll see what else we can say. Na piyama mwode panichuo Keep them coming Keep them coming away on Facebook pages on Y254 Na we invite Kilamse to contribute to this conversation Reinspeachana semana kumbuke kuambiya Khalifa aplei jesh Khalifa na jyongo pa? Jesh, kunde boy jesh Hei shibuda Ya unge kwa sabu jo Neli kwa mastermind wamoa Kenya Mindo na wapea leakage exam Akunam tu wa mwakena apa? Mwakena No comment Ya, na mwakena iluwa Iwa ungori ugo shile Iwa ungori Iwa ungori Iwa ungori Iwa ungori Iwa ungori Iwa ungori Iwa ungori Iwa ungori Iwa ungori Iwa ungori Iwa ungori Iwa ungori Iwa ungori Huwokaa Umbuzy ni³ Mbuzy ni³ muna maulimi yam amikiya MbUnini na itu uulimi? Ulimi? Ulimi sana naka Naka nama kaflatu kwa wukwa katachi Ulimi sana naka Katachi ane Ane kwa kumkia ane Ono cheki Kaflat Ane akwa nika ulimi Oh Ile ita Ile ita Smartphone Smartphone Nika ulimi Namkia? Namkia baru sana nii touch Nii yo touch Bato Muzi? Muzi sana mei classify zote kuna kama dodo na Nika ulimi Lagini miyaza nii ane Ane akwa kumanisha kama dodo E kama dodo Yaw zinii ane ki ulimi tato shia kwa dictionary Ulimi niya bibi liya Kama dodo nii le Kadu kale kadu Kadu kata Kama tu umbo bana Kadu Okay So uza ilgona na rwa dictionary Katachi ane Eka nii nii na Nani ane rwa di baibor Eka kama dodo apun na Ane kama dodo nengi ane ashi wile Mili wana shenge umse Kwa nii Chwa mama mbuzi asupu ane Okay Emi emkibet Renson ane ase mo watching from Bomet Shoe ikon late Kalefa play for mi Abule Abule Bato ranking Kalefa Uraziwa zote Okay Emkibet Ane ase ma Abule apu ebo getokina Ase ma shoe ikon Nawa checkini kwa kisi Thank you Ujanzangu elifu akuba soks Bro Sawa Okay Keep them coming Tenela Nani me apiti Thank you for taking time to take that picture Na kwa yopisha womewa soks Kwenli I'd really like to know Anyway Satellisara wama say When you have a part of this Shoe today Na apiti Sana From DJ Kalefa From Esko Taniwa And my producer Emmanuel My director Sarah My engineer Miriam And everybody was involved In this production of the day So nge tu So nge ni dita tu Maliziya sho leo So am bini wa sawa i request Kule bom tani So we can have it on rotations No Magi Initwa ma Magi na Jina jina Was zing Was zing Was zing Was zing zing By Esko Taliwa For the first time ever Before that niza Pena pejizangu adi O pejizaku Pejizaku Na pejizaku gang Sino Apale Instagram kawai dutani Pata at Taliban Underscore kuzi ban Pejiyangu Facebook mi Taliban kuzi ban Like kiyo page More things coming up Endapukwa YouTube esko Taliban Baddest gang coming up Yonu wa se Nafanya maambutuna maatisha Alright Nipale fubi utani Pata kama Juntibablas Alafi pali eji utani Pata at esko Oficial Alafi pejiyangu bado ni Ni kuna page SFB Udeni pata esko 254 Na bado Pali eji bado ni kuna page Udeni pata bado at esko music Na bado pali YouTube Pata at esko Taliban Thank you very much Esko Taliban For gracing this show today Mwa shkulsana Nimona comment flanya patwezi isaw Na iii Iii ni mafia Iii ni mafia Adi ribat kutiyun na nasama wajanjake li Kwa kunda skodi awa zito Ndwa kule bila kusku tisha Anata wajito enzake Lafuna tiyana enzake Gen gen Gen gen flani Awa ezi sumbulia Bidijai Yukali wa tumali zi e show kitu wambia Re ne Relax relax Relax Tumi e blisarok pata sosio media Na satuni ni napa nuika Ya eskimo kakida Bidijai Yukali dizabili tatami Mixtape, 11 pm Mak Cover soch свado


As the Scottish Government, what discussions it had with local government about any impact the prevailing economic conditions are having on the delivery of local services? Minister Ben Macpherson. Ministers and officials meet COSLA and also individual local authorities on a regular basis to cover a range of issues, including support and delivery of front-line services. The budget acknowledges the corrosive effect of inflation on the delivery of our finances and those of all public services, recognising those challenges. Last week, the Deputy First Minister and the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government wrote jointly to COSLA to reaffirm our commitment to working with local government on how we can operate and collaborate on reform to ensure sustainable people-centred services. I thank the minister for that response. Like the Scottish Government, my local council of Falkirk has been affected by economic chaos overseen by the Tory-led Westminster Government. Inflation in particular is a huge issue with a resultant impact and cost to deliver key services and capital projects. What further fiscal flexibilities is the Scottish Government considering for councils as they too struggle with the latest wave of Westminster austerity? Minister Ben Macpherson. I thank the member who raised those important points. The Scottish Government is working alongside COSLA and SOLAS to agree a new deal for local government in Scotland that will give councils greater certainty and flexibility and greater scope for discretionary revenue raising, including potential changes to council tax and the introduction of a local visitor to levy bill to Parliament in due course. However, we would also welcome further suggestions from local government and we make that point to them regularly and will engage constructively on proposals that are raised by local government and others. However, we would also welcome support from across the Parliament as the Scottish Government continues to press the UK Government for additional funding to invest in our public services, including the key priorities that we share with our partners in local government. I call question number two, Mark Griffin. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Draw members' attention to my register of interest, which shows that I'm on all of our rental property in North Lanarkshire. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on what guidance it gives to landlords in all sectors to help prevent and deal with damp condensation and mould in their properties, including when that was last revised. Minister Patrick Harvie. Thank you, Presiding Officer. The Scottish Housing Regulator wrote to all social landlords on 1 December 2022 on the importance of appropriate systems to identify cases of mould and damp. The regulator works with the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations and the Association of Local Authority Chief Housing Officers to identify and promote good practice. For private landlords, the tolerable standard, which includes standards on dampness, was incorporated into the repairing standard in 2019. That means that issues can be raised to the first-year tribunal who have powers to require landlords to carry out repairs to meet the standards. Mark Griffin. The minister for that answer, I think that most people would agree that it's utterly devastating that it's taking the tragic case of our British Act for damp mould and condensation to rise up the agenda in the public debate. In Scotland, beyond the estimates from the Scottish Housing Conditions Survey, we don't actually have an entirely accurate picture of how bad the issue is. There are no statistics from the Government or a regulator that allows us to identify the problem, particular problem areas or buildings. I wonder if the Government would instruct an urgent data review across local authorities, registered landlords and private sector associations and commit to issue interim guidance on how to tackle the issue, which seems to be more and more commonplace among MSP colleagues' inboxes. Minister. I would certainly share Mark Griffin's sentiment about the case of our Beishack and the reaction that has provoked right throughout the UK, including in Scotland. It is worth reinforcing that Scottish Housing has been improving in 2019. The Scottish Housing Conditions Survey showed that 91 per cent of homes in Scotland were completely free from any sign of damp or condensation, and that is an improvement from 86 per cent in 2012. Of course, there is still much more to do, and that is why we will be consulting on a new cross-tenure housing standard, which will move beyond traditional models of fitness for human habitation to a new model that meets people's expectations for housing as a human right and delivers homes that underpin health and wellbeing. Mark Griffin is right to continue to say that there is more that we need to do, and we will keep this area under active consideration. In terms of damp and mould, the minister will be aware that the survey has pointed towards 14 per cent of social sector homes having either mould or damp issues. Can I ask specifically whether the Scottish Government will look at a reporting system in place to track that within the socially rented sector, and potentially that could then be extended? I have, in my first answer to Mark Griffin, set out the requirements that already exist on the social rented sector. Landlords are required to meet the Scottish Housing Quality standard as part of the social housing charter, and progress against that is monitored by the Scottish Housing Regulator. Guidance on meeting those standards, including detailed advice on dealing with issues of dampness, is already provided to social landlords and is regularly updated, as well as the work that we are doing on the repairing standard, which is due to come on into force next year for the private rented sector. I would reinforce that significant work is continually under way on this area, and we will continue to ensure that any further actions are taken in the future. Inability of a household to properly heat their home can make a problem of mould and dampness occurring much worse. Can the cabinet secretary on the line what support is available for households in Scotland who aim to improve energy efficiency and lower the energy bills while keeping their homes warm and damp free? I am grateful for the inadvertent promotion, but Home Energy Scotland is our flagship domestic energy efficiency service. It provides free and partial advice on energy efficiency, renewable heating and fuel poverty. It provides support for people in Scotland to go greener at home as well as reducing their bills. Home Energy Scotland is the main referral point for our funding schemes, including our national fuel poverty scheme, Warmer Homes Scotland and the new Home Energy Scotland grant and loan. We are also investing £64 million in 2324 as part of our locally delivered area-based schemes, enabling more fuel poor households to benefit from a whole-house retrofit. As I have in the past, I would encourage all members to make sure that their constituents are aware of the forms of support and advice. What more can the Scottish Government do to provide practical tools and guidance for landlords to measure damp condensation and mould issues and advice and support to tenants to establish the correct insulation and ventilation in modern and older homes in order to prevent such an instance as that that happened with the two-year-old in England? Several of the areas of activity that I have already mentioned go some way to addressing the member's question, particularly the advice and support that is available through Home Energy Scotland for householders. The work that I mentioned earlier in developing a cross-tenure housing standard moving beyond the concept of fitness for human habitation and towards standards that deliver homes that underpin health and wellbeing. All that work will continue to address the issues that the member raises. Question 3 has not been lodged. Before I call question number 4, I would wish to say that, as members will be aware, a petition for judicial review of the cost of living tenant protection Scotland Act 2022 has been lodged with the court. I would make clear, therefore, that questions 4 and 5 were lodged prior to the petition for judicial review. However, for the purposes of the sub-judice rule, members should avoid referring to matters under consideration in the on-going judicial review and the specific provisions of the cost of living tenant protection Scotland Act 2022 that are under challenge. To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the effects of the current rent freeze on the availability of rented accommodation. Minister Patrick Harvie. While it is an administrative rather than statistical source, the most recent sector-wide data is from the Scottish landlord registration system, which shows that in December 2022 there were 340,149 private rented properties registered in Scotland. That is slightly more than the 339,632 properties that were registered in August 2022. The Scottish Government monitors landlord registration data on a monthly basis, and registration and related data is analysed in our first report to the Scottish Parliament on the operation of the cost of living act, published on 12 January. Minister will know that a topic of very considerable debate at the Finance Committee of recent weeks has been the concern over behavioural change that some aspects of Scottish Government policy has, and the rent freeze is just one of those. It is all very well to say that it is helping the cost of living situation, which it is, but it is also creating some worrying reactions from landlords which are now hindering rather than helping the housing market. Can I ask whether the Scottish Government recognises the serious concern about that? Minister. I am very pleased that Liz Smith acknowledges that the actions that we are taking and have taken do help the cost of living crisis and are necessary for people in that context. I am aware of surveys that are being carried out by landlord bodies, which look at the possible intentions of landlords in the future. I would caution that it is difficult to interpret those because it relates to what landlords may or may not choose to do in the future. It also does not directly translate into the number of properties that might be affected, nor does it take into account new landlords entering the sector either. There has, as I said in my first answer, been no fall in properties on the landlord registration system. I acknowledge that it would take some time from any decision to sell before the sale is completed and the property is deregistered. We will continue to monitor trends in the register and other data. I would finally say that, over the longer term, it is really important to acknowledge that, since devolution, the Scottish household survey shows a very significant growth in private rented sector tenancies through a period of increased regulation. That needs to be acknowledged. To ask the Scottish Government what analysis it has conducted on the effect of the rent cap on the number of homes available for rent in the private sector. Obviously, I would refer Mr Simpson to the answer that I was just giving to Liz Smith. Private renting is a dynamic sector. It is made up of tens of thousands of small-scale landlords with constant coming and going within the sector. Those landlords who leave the sector may in turn sell to other landlords and new landlords also enter the sector. Over the long term, since devolution, the size of the private rented sector has significantly more than doubled even through a period of generally tightening regulation. As the report from the cross-party group on housing, which Mr Simpson is involved with, acknowledged, regulated markets can, in fact, be attractive to institutional investors. I thank the minister for that answer, but he appears to be in denial over this. Data from property marks shows that 85 per cent of letting agents have reported that landlords want to sell up. The Scottish Property Federation estimates that £700 million in residential investment has been paused or lost. Will the minister at least accept this? If he imposes policies such as blanket rent freezes that can have negative consequences? I remind Mr Simpson of what I have said repeatedly. I hope that he is not the one in denial of the reality that the number of properties registered in the private rented sector has slightly increased over the first three months between August and December. We will keep that under review. The work that Mr Simpson refers to as data is surveys of landlords' possible intentions in the future. It is not data about properties being deregistered or no longer being available in the private rented sector. Finally, I would come back to the wider point that, if we look not only at the last 20 years or so of the private rented sector more than doubling in a period of tighter regulation but also at the experience of a number of other European countries with a more regulated rental market and a bigger and more viable rented market than we have in this country, it is perfectly clear that an approach that seeks to achieve everyone's human right to adequate housing is entirely compatible with a viable rental market. I call question number six, Fulton MacGregor, who is joining us remotely. Mr MacGregor, we can't hear you. Could you maybe do something at your end to sort that out? Who asked the Scottish Government how you need children? Mr MacGregor, could you just start from the beginning again? Thank you. We didn't hear any of it. Please start again. Okay, thank you, Presiding Officer. To ask the Scottish Government how many children are estimated to be eligible for the Scottish child payment in the Cope Ridge and Cleistin constituency. Minister Ben Macpherson. Official statistics for Scottish child payment are routinely published by Social Security Scotland, including application and payment data by local authority area. The Scottish Fiscal Commission produced estimates and forecasts of eligibility for the Scottish child payment, but only for Scotland as a whole and not by region. However, internal Scottish Government analysis suggests that around 7,000 children in the Cope Ridge and Cleistin constituency could be eligible for the Scottish child payment each year from 2022-23 to 27-28. The Scottish child payment is getting money to low-income households at a crucial time and more families than ever are eligible for support, which is a good thing for Mr MacGregor's constituents and all across Scotland. Mr MacGregor. I thank the minister for that answer. This payment will indeed make a significant difference to families in my constituency and in the face of soaring inflation caused by UK Government economic mismanagement, it is most welcome that the Scottish Government has continued to prioritise investment in measures that will help eradicate child poverty. I am aware that the Scottish Government is investing significantly more in social security than the funding it receives from the UK Government. Can the minister outline what the spending will achieve? In 2023-24, we are committing £5.2 billion for benefit expenditure, providing support to over 1 million people. That includes £442 million for the Scottish child payment. That £5.2 billion is £776 million above the level of funding forecast to be received by the Scottish Government from the UK Government through block grant adjustments. This choice that we have taken represents a significant investment in people and is key to our national mission collectively to tackle child poverty. It will help low-income families with their living costs, to support older people to heat their homes in winter and enable disabled people to live full and independent lives. Ministers and officials have regular meetings with representatives of all Scottish local authorities, including East Renfrewshire Council, to discuss a wide range of issues as part of our commitment to working in partnership with local government to improve outcomes for the people and communities of Scotland. We also of course meet with COSLA on a regular basis. East Renfrewshire Council has never specifically requested to meet me, but if they ever did want to do so, I would of course be open to such an invitation. I thank the minister for that answer. I know that he spoke about partnership working, but he will recognise COSLA's disappointment that the Government has refused to engage once again on local government finance. Indeed, the much acclaimed £550 million in additional funding for local authorities is political spin. The figure has been condemned by COSLA, and new analysis has revealed that the reality is more just like £38 million. East Renfrewshire Council has been dealt with a flat cash settlement, despite inflation storing it over 9 per cent, with the council facing a £30 million shortfall. Given the proportion of income that comes from the Government's general revenue funding, local authorities have been forced by the SNP Government to either make unthinkable cuts to local government services and or to raise council tax. I would ask the minister what choice would he advise East Renfrewshire Council to make, reduce school opening hours or make large increases to council tax? When will this Government get back round the table with councils like East Renfrewshire Council and give communities a fair deal? I can assure the member that Scottish Government ministers meet with COSLA as a representative body for local authorities on a regular basis, and have done in recent weeks. Indeed, there will be further engagement later today. In terms of the financial situation, it is factually correct to state that the local government settlement has increased by over £570 million in cash terms. That is in the context of our settlements from the UK Government having suffered a decade of austerity with average real terms cuts of more than 5 per cent, equating to a loss of £18 billion. In that context, we are increasing the resource available to local government by, as I have said, £570 million, which is a real terms increase of £160.6 million or 1.3 per cent. I appreciate the strong feelings on this matter from local government and members. I can assure colleagues that we are engaged constructively and seriously with local government. If Mr O'Gain has suggestions with regard to the budget process, he should submit constructive proposals to finance ministers, because that is the way that we need to engage in this position where the Scottish budget has been affected significantly by inflation, the public finances are under pressure in the round and we need to be solution focused together. I am sure that he has any that my finance colleagues would welcome any constructive suggestions. That concludes the question. Question 8 has been withdrawn. There will be a very short pause before we move on to the next item of business to allow front bench teams to take their positions.