All right, welcome back to Stable Talk. We have Sam and Anthony from the baseball team. Sam is a senior first baseman and Anthony is a sophomore from New York City. If you guys want to- It's Peter from New York, but the way we wrote it- It says- Oh, he's a catcher. He's a catcher. Yeah, it's like NY and then Dusty. All right. Nope. He's like, no, I'm actually not. All right, well, I'm glad you corrected me. All right. I'm actually, I just moved down to Pennsylvania too. So it's like- All right. I will not say locations then. All right. Welcome back to- That was kind of funny though. We should keep that. All right, welcome back to Stable Talk. We have Sam and Anthony from the baseball team today for episode 11. If you guys want to tell us like your hometowns, positions, majors, all the good stuff, if everyone wants to go first. I'll start. So I am Sam Ferrara. I'm a senior first baseman, business administration major from Plymouth, Massachusetts. Which track? And excited to do the- Yeah, track. Finance? Yep. Yeah. What do you want to do? Be an accounting accountant or like- I want to get into wealth management. That's- I'm Anthony Zunow. I'm a sophomore. I'm studying accounting and I just moved down from New York to Pennsylvania. And I'm a catcher. And I'd like to do wealth management too because Sam is a baller, so. What part of Pennsylvania? I'm right near Lehigh. I don't know what that is. Yeah, I don't- It's all right. It's like, yeah, I don't know where it is either. I figured everyone in Pennsylvania would just say they're by Philadelphia or Pittsburgh or something. I'm like close to Philly. Like I'm like 30 from Philly, so. I live in the suburbs of Philly. Okay, we're going to start off with some Stevenson and baseball trivia. So we're really going to test your knowledge here. Okay. Okay. What position did Coach Dave Gage play at Southern Vermont? Second base. What did you say? Second base. Yeah. Yeah, second base. They said he had the school record for saves also. Was he a pitcher? I think so a little bit, but he was mainly a second baseman. He also, I think holds the record for hit-line pitches. That's a nice work to have. I went to Southern Vermont for a semester. And then I trained. Yeah, I trained. Yeah, Sam is Coach Gage's prodigy. What team? All right, what team does Stevenson baseball have the most all-time wins against? Do you know it? Wait, what did Sam just say? Albright? It's 19 wins. They're non-conference. They're non-conferencing. I have no clue. Same. He marries? Yeah. 19. Oh, hey, yeah. What you would expect or you wouldn't expect it to be that? Well, in my community, we played them once. So that's why. I think there were some other schools that you beat 16 times, if I remember right. Okay, when did we play them? I played them my sophomore year. Oh, nice. That was a very nice one, yeah. Said any year between 2000 and 2020, that's where like the key middle of was, but I don't know. No, that's cool. All right, what coach or assistant coach was class valedictorian in college? Coach, Gage. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He has impressive accolades. All right, before I ask the next two. That's pretty impressive. Yeah, yeah. Before I ask the next two, did you guys both play the 2018, 2019 season? No, just Sam. Just Sam. Yes. All right, Sam, these next two questions are for you then. Who led the team in home runs and RBI's in the 2018, 2019 season? It's the same person, but. Alex Kidwiler? Yeah, and then who led the team that same year in stolen bases? Was it, it's either KJ Murray or Matt Kerber? It was Kerber. Kerber, yeah. Yeah, he beat Coach Wade's record, right? Yeah, he holds the record now, but he was hurt a little bit that year, so I didn't know if KJ passed him. Gotcha. I think it was close, if I was remembering correctly. I think it was like one up on the next person. Something like that. Okay, that's the end of trivia. You guys, say bye-bye. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay, before our next section, do you guys have any funny team stories or do you want to share your favorite coach story, anything like that that people might want to hear? Funny story was my freshman year. We had a long bus trip to Salisbury, I think it was, and we did Team Karaoke with the intercom system on the bus. How long, the whole bus ride? It took up about like an hour, but it was probably the combination of the funniest and worst like singing in your life. That was on the way there, the way back. On the way back. Who was the best to win? I'm not sure. I don't really remember. I know I did a rendition of Ice Ice Baby that was pretty terrible. Oh my God. If you guys can't tell, Sam has one of the best speaking voices. I can't tell through Zoom, but I don't believe you. Yeah, he can definitely talk. He's good at it. Who gives pre-game speeches? Sam, is that you? Do you give him a pre-game? Sam, Sam, you do. Oh, I don't. Yeah, you did a little bit last season. Maybe. Some who has the best singing voice in the team. No one or just... They're all pretty terrible. I assume you won. Even that's why you're doing karaoke. I assume you won. I don't remember, but I... Oh yeah, if we lost we wouldn't be doing karaoke. That's what I figured. We had sound-canceling headphones on. So we couldn't hear anyone like speaking.  So I didn't know if that made... I did well or it was just really bad. So... I think that means you're killing it. Yeah. Not something I'd do again. Anthony, do you have any stories to share? No, I was like thinking... You know, the season was so long ago. I don't know if I can really think of stuff, but I think like just daily, like I've never laughed that much like in my life. Just like being around these people. Like Sam is hilarious. Yeah. Like I feel like our culture is just hilarious. Like I just can't really think of any specific stories. Statement number three. We're gonna play Would You Rather. Did you write these or did you find these? I think I found like the first few. And then I think like the bottom. So I think I keep up with myself. Nice. First one. Would you rather spend the next year exempt from all taxes or have a one month paid vacation? Paid vacation. Take the paid vacation too. Yeah. Taxes. Yeah. I think you're gonna have to get paid a lot to want to... Yeah. I don't think I get paid enough for me to like have a burden on taxes. Yeah. Would you rather spend one week in the wilderness or one night at a real haunted house? Put me in the woods. Dude, put me in the haunted house. The haunted house. I'll take the tent. I don't, I do haunted things. No way. What about horror movies? I could do those cause I know they're fake. But it's like, if I hear something while I'm watching them, I'm on edge. This is like a real haunted house. Not like a Halloween haunted house that you're thinking of. Yeah. Like the shining couldn't do that. I used to watch... I think the woods are scarier. I used to watch a lot of paranormal activity or like ghost hunters when I was little. But then I scared myself. Paranormal, I was like, I feel like I was in middle school and paranormal activity came out. And it's, I didn't even watch the whole thing. I was just in the other room while my cousins were watching it. And it like scarred me. What's the scariest movie you guys have seen though? Paranormal activity. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I've never seen like very many scary movies. So that's really... I went to theaters early in college and saw what would have been not one of the Conjuring movies or something like that. I don't know. I've seen like two horror movies in theater and that was, the one time was intense. I could never watch a horror movie in theaters. Me either. The Grudge, The Grudge. Oh, is that though? I think I remember that. I couldn't go into... I couldn't take a shower or a bath or anything for like, I hated it after that movie. It was so scary. Okay, would you rather wear, I don't remember writing that.  Like how you guys... It's so embarrassing if you have like a price tag exposed. I'd rather do a price tag, personally. I go price tag. I don't wanna smell bad. Exactly. I'd much rather have someone know how much I paid for a shirt then. Or that you like stole it or a plan on returning it. Yeah. Same. Would you rather not eat turkey at Thanksgiving or not eat candy on Halloween? Not eat candy. You think? Yeah, I think I'd go with the... I need the turkey. I don't need the turkey. I think I could... I couldn't go without the candy on Halloween though. On the same light. I feel like, I don't know. In my very year by year, depending on how good the turkey is that year. I like the other stuff more than the turkey, so I don't mind skipping the turkey. What's your favorite? Me? Yeah. Mac and cheese and mashed potatoes. Four rolls. What do you guys like? I like stuffing. Stuffing. Stuffing and mashed potatoes. Yeah. Gotta love a good roll and dessert. Yeah. Oh my God. Okay, would you rather never lose the TV remote again or never have to watch another commercial? See, I dealt with this the other day because it took me a minute to get my TV remote. Sometimes I like the commercials. I would have to say the commercials would have to go. Mm-hmm. Because that's one of the reasons why I like... I don't really watch cable TV anymore. I just wait for it to go on my... Because the commercials? Yeah. My dad will, yeah, he'll record it and then fast forward it. Do you guys mute the TV when the commercials come on? No. My grandfather does that. I feel like that's an older person thing. Yeah, definitely. He used to... My dad used to like... All right, we have little sisters, so when like a commercial for a horror movie would come on, he would flip the channel and bring it back and try to tie in the Ravens game. I always thought that was geek. All right, last one for would you rather... Would you rather never eat pancakes again or never eat cereal again? Never eat cereal. Or let's start a third option or never eat a waffle again. Or a waffle. I can go without waffles. Dude, Rockland had some good waffles back in the day. I don't know if they still do. I used to eat a lot of Rockland waffles. I was a big omelette guy. Oh yeah, almost for the way to go. The time was 9.30, they stopped serving us. I feel like I never made in time. Maybe it's 10.30, but I still never made it in time. Oh, and I lived on campus. It was 24 hour waffle. I mean, not waffle, omelette station. Oh, it didn't used to be like that, I guess. MC used to let us out. I remember like five minutes before and like a lot of people would just sprint there but I just took the L. It's a big hill to get up. Yeah. I actually remember like actually sprinting for omelettes. Yeah. Like I remember doing that like in the morning, like we would run the breakfast. Yeah, I swear it's like 9.30. They stopped serving. Maybe it's 10.30, but it used to be at least. Shout out to Rockland. Were you guys there when Walt the Cookie Guy was there? Did you met Walt? Yeah, I knew Walt the Cookie Guy. Yeah. Oh my God. What about Sergio? Oh, the pizza man. Yeah. Who are these people? These are the legends. Old down Rockland. Rockland stuff. Yeah, Walt would make his own cookies and then go on the shuttle to Greenspring, like not right there, but would like walk to people going to the other campus and like hand out cookies. That's right. He'd always do a lap around Rockland too and then deliver it. Yeah. He would like force you to eat a cookie though. Sometimes he like wouldn't want one and he like wouldn't leave your table until someone took one. He did not take no Leighton. And then Sergio was a beast of making all the Italian stuff. Oh yeah. That's cool that you remember the names. I mean, it's an all-star team. Like they actually do their job like very well. It's like, it's fun to like talk to them. Yeah, I could still go without eating cereal out of all those. Yeah, I think I would pass up on cereal as well. I have, I live on cereal. That's like my favorite meal. So I couldn't, I could give up waffles. Yeah. What's your favorite cereal? Honey Bunches of Oats. It's the one I go for. A nice healthy option. I like that. Yeah, I don't think I eat enough of the healthy cereal. I can't say that my cereal's that healthy. Are you guys ready to go on to the next segment or are you going to keep talking about me? No, let's go. Okay. So the next segment is rapid fire questions. Jay, do you want me to ask or do you want me to? Yeah, I'll get the timer. Okay, Jay will run a timer of two minutes and I'm going to ask rapid fire questions.  You are allowed to pass, but don't pass every time because that's not fun. And so I'll ask the question and then we'll just go, Sam will answer right away. And then right after Anthony, you'll answer. And then I'll go on to the next question. How many minutes? Two minutes? Two minutes and you have to finish all the questions in two minutes to the best of your ability. Okay, this is going to be electric. Jay, just tell me when you're ready. All right, three. Just count down from three. Three, two, one. If you could travel back in time, what period would you go to? E80s. Did they both answer? No, just Sam. Okay, no. Oh, no, dinosaur age. Okay. How many cups of coffee could you have in one day if you could have as many as you want? Seven. I'm so confused. Are there any answering afterwards? I feel like I didn't hear you either. Just Sam goes and then Anthony goes right after. Okay. So how many cups of coffee would you have in one day if you could? Anthony. Seven. Okay. Would you eat a day old taquito from 7-Eleven? Yes. That's a good question. That's a really good question. Easy. What is something you could eat for a week straight? The taquito from 7-Eleven. Pizza. Atchapote, like black beans or pinto beans? Black beans. No beans. What is your favorite card? Bread, pasta, rice or potatoes? Bread. Bread. What's your favorite concert you've attended? I've only gone to one concert, so John Beleon, I guess. Pass. If someone were to play you in a movie, who would you want it to be? Caprio. Dave Franco. Last thing that you Googled. Pass. Blankets. One thing about baseball that you'd like to change. The shift. Being able to not play it. Oh, I want to play baseball. We'll keep going because we have that little hiccup because there's some good questions, but... I paused for the hiccup. Okay. That sound gives me PTSD. I know. Did you answer Anthony? What was my last question? Yeah, I want to be able to play. That's the one thing I want to... Oh, that's a good answer. Okay, one non-baseball player that you'd like to be on the Stevenson baseball team. Famous or not? What was that question again? So one human being? What's that? One human being, famous or not, that you'd want to be on the Stevenson baseball team with you. But they don't play baseball, I guess. But they don't play baseball. Like, you can't choose a baseball player. Yeah, you can't choose Babe Ruth. But you can choose, like, Will Ferrell. Yeah. Will Ferrell played baseball for a little bit. Oh, yeah, I saw that YouTube video of him at the spring training or whatever. I think there's a Netflix thing on it, too. Yeah. Ass, that question baffled me. I think I'd go with Gordon Ramsay. Nice. I think we'd be a better team. We would just be chopping us up. He doesn't even have to play theoretically. He could just be a bench guy and yell at you. Just be the hip guy or the ball, the bat boy or something. What's your favorite hobby outside of baseball? Wealth management. He was a stud, for sale. I'd probably have to say video games. What system? Xbox One, right now. Are you going to get the new one? Oh, yeah. How much is it? Like 500? Yeah, it's a good amount. He'll manage that wealth to get it. My favorite hobby? Hucking jokes at Sam. Yeah, literally. That's fun. I like making jokes. Okay. Yeah. What TV sitcom family would you want to be a member of? I don't really know that many, actually. Modern fit, like with Phil and Claire. Yeah. Yeah, I'll go with that. Okay. Did you just have to leave my last question? I saw that. Did you just have to leave my last question? Yeah, I'll put it back. What, if you were given an opportunity to fly anywhere in the US for free tomorrow, where would you go if COVID wasn't a thing? San Diego. California. Have you both been? Never. Yeah. You've never been? I got some family out there. The furthest west I've been is Wisconsin. Is that where you can ask? I'm just kidding. Wisconsin. What'd you do in Wisconsin? I have family out there, like my mother's. My friend has family there and she knows every winter. I don't know what part of Wisconsin it's in or what part you would, but like every time she goes, she's just ice fishing the entire time. Is that what it's really like? I went in the summer, so. Did you like that speech, though? I was there for like a week, so that's... Did any of it feel comparable to that 70s show? Cause that's where that is, right? Yeah. No, not really. All right, last one, the real question. Taco Bell or McDonald's? McDonald's. McDonald's. Yeah, I agree. Chick-fil-A or Popeyes? Chick-fil-A. Chick-fil-A. Chick-fil-A. Popeyes. No! No! I will never eat Popeyes. I haven't had their sandwich yet, the chicken sandwich. It's unreal. It's sensational, but Chick-fil-A is just so much better overall. The service? I just can't imagine it being good. I feel like... You're judging a book by its cover, then. I am. No, I totally am. Wow. That's all we got for you guys. Do you want to talk about anything else? How do we usually wrap up, Jay? We usually ask them if they have any favorite quotes. Anyone they want to shout out. Any last second stories? If Anthony thought of any more, or if Sam thought of any more? Any wealth management tips you can give the Stevenson Athletics? Oh, my God, Sam. Sam knows a bunch. I can't. Buy low sell. Sam, do you know? Sam, do you know? Buy the dip. Sam, do I buy Bitcoin? No. Buy Bitcoin. Sorry. I'm like interrupting everyone. Sam, do you know who Dave Ramsey is? You don't? I don't. He's like this really big finance guy that I follow on Instagram. And I listen to his podcast sometimes. But he posts like, he really just tells you how it is. You should follow him. He just really tells you how it is in finance and stuff. This is a good pitch. It is a really good pitch. I'm actually going to share one of his tweets with you guys because I think it's really funny. My dad really likes him. So that's why I've like started following him. I actually sent it to my friend today. He tweeted, um, folks are going broke, trying to look rich, act your age. In Texas, they say big hat, no cattle. And he just like says the most real stuff that really just humbles you is like finance. I think it's funny.  His marketing team is already great. They don't need me. Oh, wait, did you guys share any tips or quotes? No, we're listening to your pitch. Oh, okay. Any quotes, shout out. To the squad, man. There you go. Shout out to Sam. Shout out to shout out to the stock market. You guys buy a lot of stocks. Yeah. Sam, Sam has helped me out with that. Are you successful often? Most of the time, or what would you say, what's like the percentage of successful to bad investment? If you want to talk about it, we don't have to talk about if you don't want. I mean, Right now I've over doubled my money that I have. So I'd say overall it's been pretty successful. That's great. Also, I think I pay way too much attention to it for a kid my age. So. Now I love the passion. And wealth management and stocks. What is your. Right now it's. Ken, the company that bought barstool. Oh, I didn't know someone bought barstool. I didn't know that actually. I bought them at the beginning of COVID for. Like 1580 a share. Not like 1580. It was 1580. They're right now they're like at $70 a share. How many shares did you get? 10. They bought barstool a long time ago, right? Yeah, they bought it at like the new year. And then. I thought it was more than that. COVID hit and then it plummeted a little bit. So then that's when I, that's when I bought it and it's, it's paid off. Can you buy Joe Rogan stock? Can I buy Joe Rogan stock? Probably. I'm going to look into this this weekend. He probably has his own company like Joe Rogan, LLC. Probably Joe Rogan entertainment or something. All right. Well, Do you have any final motivational quotes or anything you want to send on? I guess you guys already shouted at the baseball teams. I have a funny story actually. Oh, okay. You got three minutes and 30 seconds. Zuno has been coming at me this whole phone call. Who? Since Anthony. Oh yeah, I forgot that's my first name. He decided to grow mustache last spring. Oh yeah. And it was the most hideous line of hair I've ever seen. Honestly, I felt like, I felt like this is going to sound bad, but I felt like the man like having a mustache. But it was a literal caterpillar. Do you have any pictures? It's on my Instagram. I don't want to shout out my social media on here. Was it your headshot? Yeah. And, and it was a picture after you yelled at me. Maybe, maybe we'll edit this and just smack it right here. Oh yeah. That would be good. I think we did that for the men's across podcast. One of them were talking about their mullet or something. Oh my God, they had, they were mullet fest. Who was that? Matt Wilson. Or Pat Nelly. No, I know just. I didn't know. Talking about their teammates. I don't know. I don't remember someone had a mullet. That's funny. Will you ever do the mustache again? Or is that a one time thing? You know, never say never. When baseball starts again, make a bet that you're going to bring back the mustache. I think now compared to back then I can grow a little bit more hair. So I might go like, what? How about stock in the mustache? It'd be a penny stock. It is, it is not a profitable thing. But if I can grow more hair than. I had a mustache this year for headshots and it was. Oh my God. Yeah. What are you saying, dude? Your mustache was okay. Your mustache was beautiful. But like it was, it was big. We're about to get kicked off by the way. We can't afford, we can't afford the premium zoom. That's fine. Well, thank you guys for your time. We'll see you next time. And stocks and mustaches. And cereal. If me and me see by one stock this weekend, what should we buy? I haven't checked yet. And. Throw some money in, throw some money in Microsoft right now. When we post this comment, comment on the Twitter, Twitter posts what stocks people should invest in. Yeah. Yeah.  Yeah. All right. Thanks guys. Good luck on finals and everything.


The next item of business is a member's debate on motion 1281 in the name of Steven Kerr on road safety in Falkirk. The debate will be concluded without any questions being put. I would invite members who wish to participate to press the request to speak buttons or place an hour in the chat function if they are joining us online. I call on Steven Kerr to speak to the motion for around seven minutes. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I am delighted to have the opportunity to bring forward that motion about road safety in Falkirk. Road safety is of paramount importance, saving lives when properly enforced. One of the most important factors in road safety is speed. The road safety charity BREC states that one in three fatal road crashes can be contributed to excess speed and that an average speed reduction of one mile per hour reduces crash frequency by 5 per cent. Since becoming a member of the Scottish Parliament in May, I have been made aware of various community-led campaigns to improve road safety in Falkirk by reducing or enforcing speed limits. One of those campaigns is in the village of earth led by earth community council. For many years, residents have been complaining about the noise pollution and increased risk caused by cars, vans, lorries and even tractors ignoring the 30 mile per hour speed limit on the main street. Earlier this year, over 100 residents took part in a survey that showed that 87 per cent of people living in earth backed proposals to reduce the speed limit of the main street to 20 miles per hour. Despite the support, the people of earth are no closer to the introduction of a 20 mile per hour speed limit becoming a reality. Reading Muirhead and Wallaston community council have also been leading a campaign to enforce the 30 mile per hour speed limit on Shieldhill road. There is a school beside this road but no continuous pavement on either side, resulting in children crossing the road back and forth on their walk to and from school. That by itself is incredibly dangerous. However, taking into account data that shows that 75 per cent of the traffic on Shieldhill road ignores the 30 mile per hour speed limit, we can see just how dangerous this daily walk is for the pupils of Brays high school. After writing to Falkirk council to highlight speeding on Shieldhill road, Falkirk council's network coordinator responded by saying that the road traffic act 1998 requires local authorities to carry out studies into accidents that occur within their areas and in the light of those studies take such measures as appear appropriate to prevent accidents. They then went on to say that there have been three personal injury accidents on the section of Shieldhill road, subject to a 30 mile per hour speed limit within the last 10 years. However, vehicle speed was only recorded as a possible contributory factor in one. I am thankful that the recorded personal injuries accidents on Shieldhill road are relatively low, although I must put on record that local residents believe that the actual number of accidents is much higher. Residents who use Shieldhill road regularly are worried about safety on this road and are anxious that measures to enforce the speed limit will only be taken if a serious accident does occur. I share those concerns. I therefore ask the minister if the road traffic act 1998 allows the police and councils to take preventative measures to enhance road safety, rather than simply relying on recorded accidents in the past 10 years. Since putting forward this motion to Parliament, many constituents have gotten in touch to highlight the issue of speeding across Falkirk. Talking about Kemper avenue, one constituent said that cars fly up there, describing it as a nightmare for elderly people trying to cross the road. With the retirement housing nearby in Glenbury court, this nightmare is being lived on a daily basis. Another constituent emailed me to say that the speed of some cars going from Gartcows road into Windsor road is frightening. With many family homes on Windsor street, this speeding is increasing the anxiety of parents when children go outside to play. Reflecting on why they believe that speeding is prevalent, my constituent wrote, I believe that the main contributor to speeding is a lack of enforcement of speed limits. Commenting on Slamannan road, which is another 30-mile-per-hour road, another constituent said that people seem to think that it is a 40 to 50 area. It is only a matter of time before an accident happens. It is clear to see, Deputy Presiding Officer, that road safety is a concern for people throughout Falkirk, rather than waiting for serious accidents to happen. It is my belief that police and councils across the country should be proactive in tapping into the knowledge and understanding that local communities have about their roads. That way we could prevent accidents rather than simply reacting to accidents. I would like to ask the minister the following questions, which I hope he will be able to address at the end of the debate when he winds up. First, what steps has the Government taken to support efforts to introduce 20-mile-per-hour limits in places where local residents support an introduction such as in earth? Two, what steps has the Government taken to enforce speed limits where residents have consistently voiced concerns about road safety such as in Reading Your Head? Third, what steps has the Government taken to ensure that the safety of pedestrians such as schoolchildren and cyclists is at the heart of developments to promote active travel in Falkirk? Fourth, what steps has the Government taken to empower local residents in promoting road safety in their local communities? People in earth, Reading Your Head and throughout Falkirk are voicing their concerns out loud and clearly about road safety in Falkirk. I believe that it is our responsibility, as well as the job of Falkirk Council and the police, to listen to them and to act accordingly. I beg to move the motion in my name. First, I thank Stephen Kerr for bringing this debate about roads in my constituency, as well as other areas of Falkirk and his agreement of the ambition set out in the Scottish Government's programme for government in terms of making a move towards national 20-mile-an-hour limits where appropriate. First, I would like to put on record my condolences to the friends and family of the yet unnamed victim in a road traffic accident in Gran Sable Road, also in my constituency. Let's bear in mind that the motion speaks to only two areas within a network of nearly 1,000km of carriageways, more than 1,700 footpaths, cycleways and other structures. All of those are the responsibility of Falkirk Council, and this, our national parliament, is responsible for national strategy. I am sure that we will hear more from the minister in due course on that. I would also like to note that local councils already have powers to make decisions on speed limits, acknowledging local circumstances. Let me make a few remarks about the local issues contained within the motion. I am grateful to Councillor Laura Murtaw, a well-kent, extremely hard-working councillor in Earth, for all her efforts over a sustained period, and likewise Councillor Gordon Hughes for his efforts in the upper braze over many years. They and other SNP councillors have been at the forefront of activities to ensure community needs are listened to and addressed. In the case of Earth in the A905, it is a matter of public record that numerous investigations have been undertaken by Falkirk Council to look at issues reported on speed and other road-related concerns raised by local residents and assessed in line with advice and guidance on road safety. Those are publicly available, and I happily share them with my constituents and, indeed, Stephen Kerr to ensure that he too is up to speed. Alas, the available evidence does not support the introduction of a 20-mile-an-hour zone along the stretch of road and earth, and that is neither recommended by Police Scotland policy or by the national guidance. Although it may initially appear that 20-mile zone will be a natural bonus to road safety, if it is unenforceable and in an appropriate place, without the corresponding road architecture to support it, drivers could be unlikely to observe it. That could, ironically enough, increase the danger to pedestrians. The character of the road at Earth has an additional consideration because it runs adjacent to a stone wall, where only one side of the road is a pavement and thus gives a feeling of being hemmed in when larger vehicles pass. You should try visiting there sometime. It has been a local SNP councillors who have led on exploring options for alternative pedestrian routes through the adjacent housing estate and, indeed, on securing agreement with some local HDV companies to limit their speed to 20 miles an hour when passing through the village. It has also been local SNP councillors who have helped the implementation of spaces for people entirely close road space in Earth. I note that Mr Kerr quoted the letter to the council referencing Shieldhill Road. Of course, in summary, they note that of the three accidents that have occurred on Shieldhill Road in the past 10 years, confidence that vehicle speed was a contributory factor was noted as no more than possible in only one. That leads me to a key point. Although it is not my responsibility and it is the responsibility of Falkirk Council, it will act based on evidence, gathered evidence. Everyone wants to see measures that will improve road safety. I understand that a report is being prepared by Falkirk Council roads officer under instruction from councillor Paul Garner, the council spokesperson for the environment. The purpose of the report is to consider the approach to boards implementing 20-mile-an-hour speed limits in some towns and villages in a Falkirk Council area. The recommendations will be evidence-based. Through local knowledge, looking at increasing road safety for pedestrians and drivers, improving the lives of people and promoting active and sustainable travel—I have four minutes and I am already over—climate change, mitigation and placemaking. The report is expected to be presented before the national executive committee within the next two months. Finishing now, none of the above can be confused with the national strategy, which is the job of this national parliament to determine. I draw the attention of all to the programme of government, noting that all appropriate roads and built-up areas should have a safer speed limit of 20 miles an hour by 2025. Down the years, Stephen Kerr and I have stood on opposite sides of the barricades. It is an unashamedly ideological clash, a non-Eastlands sincere political division that stretches all the way back to the miners' strike of 1984-85 and beyond. Given that history, there is a certain irony that it is of all places the village of Eith with its strong associations with the Scottish Coalfield, the mine workers and the mine workers union. It is that community that brings us together on the same side of the argument. I want to thank Stephen Kerr for raising this issue in Parliament. I was in Eith on Monday with local Labour councillor Joan Coombs meeting with the local community council secretary Robert Smith. Over the years, Robert Smith has petitioned Falkirk Council, petitioned Transport Scotland and petitioned the Scottish Government. With a simple demand, on behalf of the villages of Eith, extend the 20 miles an hour zone, a distance of less than one mile, make it permanent and keep the community safe. This week, he told me as we walked alongside the A905 through the village, he said in his words, people frequently get the impression that HGVs are exceeding the speed limit because of the close proximity of the vehicles to them and the draft and slipstream caused. Many pedestrians, particularly women with children, prams and pushchairs, have felt as if they were being blown off their feet and he is right. That is how it felt to me and I witnessed it this week and it's why they have my full support. In the last session of Parliament, Mark Ruskell proposed a member's bill to introduce a statutory 20 miles per hour speed limit. It was a bill that I was happy to sign and support, although I recall at the time no Conservative MSP backed it. It fell before it could reach the statute book. In this session of Parliament, we are told in the SNP green agreement that all appropriate roads in built-up areas will have a safer speed limit of 20 miles per hour by 2025 and that a task group will be formed to plan the most effective route to implementation end quote. As this is the first time we've been able to debate this in Parliament, perhaps the Minister can explain in his closing remarks what exactly this means. Is it that a default position of 20 miles per hour, as proposed in the bill in the last session, will be introduced pure and simple? Will it be the situation as it currently stands or will it be somewhere in between? For the avoidance of doubt, the position as it currently stands is set out clearly by Transport Scotland in a letter that was shown to me by Robert Smith on Monday. The A905 is a local road and the responsibility of the local road authority, in this case, Falkirk Council. Local authorities are responsible for deciding how best to meet their duties on local roads in their area. That is why I have written to the chief executive of Falkirk Council again this week expressing my support for an extended 20-mile-an-hour zone through the village of Eiff. It is why I am delighted to report that it is my understanding that this proposal will now go before the council early next year. It is also why, when I spoke to Welsh Senedd member Hugh Arranca-Davies just this morning, we discussed the situation there. He confirmed that the Government in Wales is now introducing a 20-mile-an-hour speed limit. Local authorities have the right to reverse that if they have local support, but the burden of proof is on them, not the other way around. I think that that is the right position. That is where we need to be for the sake of the people of Earth, of Reading Mew ahead and of communities up and down Scotland, because we are democratically elected representatives. We are sent to this Parliament to make people's lives better, and I think that we are at our best when we show political conviction. I am delighted to speak today, and I pay tribute to my colleague Stephen Kerr for securing this debate on road safety in Falkirk. Mr Kerr makes a strong case for introducing a 20-mile-an-hour speed limit in Eiff and Reading Mew ahead. Falkirk residents have been vocal in their support for the measure, with 87% of respondents to a recent survey by Mr Kerr calling for a 20-mile-an-hour zone to be introduced on Main Street. In particular, the community complained about the lack of visible policing on Main Street and the risk to children from speeding cars, concerns that have been repeatedly shared with me in my own region. For local roads, I do agree that councils are best placed to respond to the road safety requirements of the communities that they serve and would caution against a blanket top-down approach. 20-mile-an-hour zones can be effective at reducing casualties and accidents on the road, but they are not the only approach. Road humps, speed cushions, traffic islands and signs and markings provide alternative and sometimes more suitable traffic calming measures. Those decisions are best taken at local authority level, based on—I take the intervention. Tess White agreed with me that Richard Leonard's speech was a splendid example of where we can set aside party badges and colours and do the right thing for people that live in the communities that we are elected to serve. Does she share my disappointment in the tone of Michelle Thompson's speech, which was a highly partisan and wholly inappropriate for the subject matter that we are discussing? I agree on matters of safety. Could the minister not laugh from a sedentary position? I think that the safety of children and around schools is very important. I say that this is not—shame on you. Safety is not a laughing matter. Can I continue? I discourage you from responding to interventions from a safety position. I will deal with those. These decisions are best taken at local authority level, based on local knowledge and community feedback. I note that there has been a 35 per cent decline in the number of road casualties across Scotland last year, and the number has significantly reduced because of the restrictions on travel. That, of course, is extremely welcome. The evidence that the member Michelle Thompson asks for, I will give you the evidence. There were almost 5,000 casualties, including 490 children—not a laughing matter. Six children lost their lives. Higher than in the two years prior to the pandemic, 176 children were seriously injured. There is the evidence. Those figures provide a sobering reminder of the critical importance of road safety for all users. Now that restrictions on travel have been lifted and, as the winter approaches with reduced visibility and adverse weather conditions, we cannot be complacent, traffic calming measures have an important role to play, but their success depends on drivers respecting those measures and on those measures being suitably enforced where appropriate. I understand that Aberdeenshire Council is investigating the correlation rate between certain age demographics, high-collision rates on the roads, the work commute and the school run. I am particularly concerned about non-compliance with 20 mile an hour zones around schools in my region. I have, for example, been contacted with concerns shared by parents and teachers around Mary Kirk primary school, where drivers regularly flout the 20 mile an hour speed limit on Kirkton hill road. There are already too many near misses on our roads. Too often, we see action after it is too late. I am committed to working with the school, local councillors and the police to ensure that children are safe on the school run. I appeal to residents and visitors to the area to please reduce their speed around the school to ensure safety of pupils, parents and teaching staff. It simply is not worth the risk. I call on the minister to respond to the debate for around seven minutes. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Let me congratulate Stephen Kerr for raising what is a very important issue, the issue of road safety, not just in Falkirk but everywhere across the country. Let me also commend the efforts of both communities, Ayrth and Reryngmurehead in promoting their concerns in this regard. I agree that lowering speed limits in cities, towns and villages can help to make communities feel safer not only in Falkirk but across Scotland. However, it is right that the furniture that accompanies the speed limits is equally important. I reiterate that the roads in and around both of those communities are local roads. Given the varied nature of Scotland's urban road network and the number of factors that need to be considered when setting appropriate limits, the Scottish Government's position remains that decisions on setting speed limits on local roads are best taken by individual local authorities who can and do successfully implement 20-mile per hour limits where it is appropriate to do so. That is the case elsewhere in the islands in England and Northern Ireland, although Richard Glynner is right when he talks about Wales having taken a different path. The Road Traffic Act 1988 places a statutory duty on local authorities to promote road safety and take steps to reduce and prevent accidents. That can, where data supports it, include setting appropriate speed limits. Therefore, local authorities do not require further powers to assist them in such matters. It is not for Scottish ministers to intervene in a council's day-to-day performance of those specific duties. Stephen Kerr is grateful to the minister for giving me a bit. Can he understand the frustration of, for example, the people of earth? If you continue along the A905 towards Stirling, when you leave the jurisdiction of Falkirk Council and you move into Stirling Council, there are 20-mile per hour speed limits on the A905 there, and they are deeply frustrated by the lack of action. I am afraid that Michelle Thompson's speech sets the tone of the response that those people have been getting from her colleagues in Falkirk for some time now. Of course, I understand local communities' concerns in those areas. I represent a constituency, but I am not going to get dragged into the basis on one 20-mile per hour limit being set and another not, as Michelle Thompson rightly pointed out, to be evidence-based. All of that said, Government does encourage the implementation of 20-mile per hour speed limits and zones in the appropriate environment. We have produced guidance from 2016 called good practice guide on 20-mile per hour speed restrictions. The guidance offers flexibility to local authorities on the setting of local 20-mile per hour speed limits that are right for the individual road, reflecting local needs and taking account of all local considerations. It aims to provide clarity to councils on all the options available when setting 20-mile per hour speed limits throughout Scotland. I want to assure the chamber that the Scottish Government is committed to further facilitating lowering speed limits in cities, towns and villages. As Michelle Thompson made clear, that is reflected. I thank the minister for taking the intervention. He rightly points out that the guidance allows councils to show flexibility. The problem is that many of them do not show that flexibility, and they hide behind the guidance. I have had experience of that as having been a councillor. They will just present you with the guidance, and that is an excuse for not doing anything rather than doing the common sense thing—in this case, applying a 20-mile per hour zone. Let us move on to what is coming down the track in this regard. As Michelle Thompson rightly pointed out, there is a commitment and programme for government for all appropriate roads in built-up areas to have a safe for speed limit of 20 miles per hour by 2025. A reduction of traffic speed to 20 miles per hour in the right environment can be a positive step in meeting our towns and cities friendlier and safer places where people are confident to walk and cycle more often. The importance of appropriate speeds is reflected in the road safety framework, which is a vision for Scotland of the best road safety performance in the world. The framework also supports active travel, setting out that Scotland's communities are shaped around people with walking and cycling, the most popular choice for short everyday journeys. I want to come on to the questions that Richard Leonard posed earlier. As such, we have committed in the framework's first delivery plan to develop a national strategy for the expansion of 20-mile per hour zones or limits in Scotland. It will introduce a package of measures that will support a range of policies to tackle the issue about the perception of road danger and encourage people to walk, wheel and cycle and create more pleasant streets and neighbourhoods. The point that was made earlier, the multi-stakeholder task force has been set up, the membership has been agreed, and at its first meeting, which will be early in the new year, the participation and input from local authorities will be key. However, as well as the membership has been established, the parameters for that piece of work have been established. That is to provide a series of options to be looked at, covering the range of points that members have made, the range of stances that members of the status quo all the way through to more substantial change. I reiterate at the outset the decisions around the deployment of 20-mile per hour limits on local roads where deemed appropriate should and must be made at a local level.


Here in Rwanda, land of a thousand years, we're coming together to find brand new ways to unlock thousands of opportunities to connect the unconnected and make universal meaningful connectivity a reality for the entire world. For the welcoming remarks this morning, I'd like to invite Honourable Paola Ingabiere, Minister of High City and Innovation to give her welcoming remarks. Honourable Ingabiere will then introduce Doreen Bogdan-Martin, Director of the Telecommunication Development Bureau to also give her remarks. Thank you, Israel. Your Excellency President Paul Kagame, President of the Republic of Rwanda, Mr. Hulindzal, ITU Secretary General and fellow elected officials, ambassadors, dignitaries, esteemed colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, please accept my warm welcome to Rwanda and to the eighth edition of the World Telecommunication Development Conference WTDC 2022. I must thank your Excellency President Paul Kagame for your kind vision and leadership that has enabled the world to congregate in Rwanda for the very first WTDC to be held on the African continent. This WTDC is our chance together to achieve consensus on key issues we will deliberate so that we can bring the 2.9 billion people worldwide into the digital world they currently do not know. Universal, affordable and accessible connectivity for all underpins our individual and collective efforts in industrialization, in building the digital economy, in ensuring our youth have access to information that improves their lives and have access to jobs created through the new future of work. More importantly, we have all experienced the impact of COVID-19 and we've seen why connectivity is and will continue to be a cornerstone for our individual and collective resilience of humanity. This is why I see that the success of WTDC 2022 will be measured from the yardstick of how far our collective decisions over the next two weeks will lead to a better world and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. Of the 2.9 billion that remain unconnected, majority of them are our youth, majority of them are African youth, majority of them are African women. The just concluded Generation Connect Global Youth Summit was one of the most exciting events I've had the pleasure of engaging in recently. Our youth told us that they want to sit at the decision making table or at least to influence decisions that impact how they live, work and play. Let us continue to use the opportunity provided by the Partner to Connect Forum to create new and innovative partnerships that will build on the success that has already been achieved. We used to say that the future is digital. Now we must accept that the present is already digital. Let us use WTDC to shape the digital present we are into today and even better digital and connected future. I thank you and now please join me in welcoming Doreen Bogdan-Martin to deliver her opening remarks. Thank you. His Excellency, Paul Kagame, President of the Republic of Rwanda, the Honorable Minister Paula Ingabiri, Minister for ICT and Innovation of the Republic of Rwanda, Mr. Hulin Zhao, Secretary General of the ITU and my fellow elected Directors Mario Manjevich and Chai Sabli, Ambassadors, dignitaries, esteemed colleagues, dear friends, good morning and welcome to the 8th World Telecommunications Development Conference. I thank His Excellency, President Kagame and his team for their extraordinary, extraordinary efforts to ensure that this event delivers the powerful outcomes that we are all working towards. In some sense, this event may feel familiar, familiar to many of us. We understand the structure. We know how things will play out over the next two weeks. We've all been there before, right? Wrong. This event may have the same name as previous World Telecommunications Development Conferences, but in all important respects, this is a very different ballgame. In the five years since we last came together for the WTDC, the world has changed unrecognizably. We faced a global pandemic that devastated our communities, inequalities have grown, energy and food security concerns are growing, the climate crisis is accelerating and our SGG targets are falling by the wayside. Digital technologies can help. They can help in each and every one of these areas, and yet their promise is still not being fully realized. All of us have worked so hard with enormous dedication over the years to make universal affordable connectivity a reality. Our efforts have borne fruit. In the last five years since we last met, we did succeed in bringing 1.5 billion new users online. But yet, the reality is that we're still not shifting the dial fast enough. We're not shifting the dial fast enough to get the world's hardest to connect communities and people living in LDCs, LLDCs and SIDS. That's why this conference has to be different. Ladies and gentlemen, the UN Secretary General at the last General Assembly said that the only way to confront the critical issues that our planet and our people are facing is going to be through collaboration and cooperation on a truly unprecedented scale. Digital inclusion is going to be the bedrock of that global collaboration. Not as an end in itself, but as a means to empower people to improve their lives. That's why a more people-centric approach has to be at the heart, at the very heart of our work. And that's why this conference features new elements, new elements that have been designed to shift our thinking, to mobilize our collective energies in new ways. One of these new elements you've heard it already mentioned was our Generation Connect Global Youth Summit, which took place last week. This groundbreaking event brought together young people from 115 countries to debate issues that concern young people in the next generation. Their call to action will serve as an important input to the work of this WTDC and as one of our young leaders, Sinead, brought to us yesterday at the Broadband Commission. She said that we don't want to inherit the future. We want to build it. Another innovation is our network of women that so many of you are generously supporting. And I want to say that we were thrilled at the Youth Summit. We actually achieved, Mr. President, you would be very happy. We achieved parity in the number of female and male delegates. We got to that 50-50, which is quite historic for the ITU. But perhaps the most important of all of our innovations that we have brought to this event is Partner to Connect, the Partner to Connect Digital Coalition. It's a coalition to connect the world. We have mobilized over 200 pledges with more coming in. Tomorrow we'll be announcing some new ones. These pledges made by our Partner to Connect partners are going to be showcased throughout this WTDC, kicking off tomorrow with the high-level roundtables of the Partner to Connect digital development series. Partnership, of course, is not new. It's not a silver bullet. But I think as a community, we have too often failed to take a holistic, whole-of-society approach that really pulls parties together, galvanizes all resources, and most importantly, monitors our progress in a collective manner. It's time for us to do that so that at our next World Telecommunications Development Conference, we can report on truly transformational change, especially in the communities that need it most. Ladies and gentlemen, let me close with some inspirational words from one of my favorite holiday films. It's a wonderful life. Anybody ever see? It's a wonderful life. It's a great holiday film, and it's about a man named George. George was an ordinary man, and George did lots of good in his life. But somehow in the middle of his life, he sort of lost his way. He lost faith. He lost faith in his ability to make a difference to his community. And because the film is a fairy tale, George is briefly transported to an alternative future, a future in which he gets to look back on what his life or what the world would have looked like should he not have existed. The film is so adored because it illustrates the immense power that each and every one of us has to influence the lives of others. It shows that our smallest decisions can have a truly profound effect on the shape of the future. That our actions ripple outwards, assuming a significance and an impact that we could never have imagined. That each and every one of us has the power to change the world, and that by working together we can achieve the impossible. Ladies and gentlemen, let's remember this over the coming two weeks, and let's allow it to guide our decision making, to inspire us to be bold, to go the extra mile, to try something new. But most importantly, to put the interests of people and planet first, and work together as collectively as we can towards our common goal. We, the digital community hold in our hands the solution to so many of today's challenges, we can truly change the world. So let's use this conference to do just that. Thank you. Thank you, Honorable Minister and Director Doreen. I'd like to now welcome Ellen Taylor, the youth representative for Generation Connect Global Youth Summit, and I would like to hear if the youth are really with her as you represent what they had to discuss over the last few days here in Kigali. Your Excellency, Honorable Ministers, Mr. Secretary General, Director Bogdan Martin, delegates, Honorable Guests, good morning. My name is Ellen Taylor and I am a 23 year old student from Canada. In 2021, I had the opportunity to develop and participate in the creation of the Youth Summit and call to action document. This experience has been incredible. I would like to begin by introducing myself in a bit of a broader context. I am the youth of the world in 2022. I'm the first generation of digital natives and carry the voices of many different young people from around the world. Community workers, entrepreneurs, researchers, students like myself and young professionals from various backgrounds from all regions. I was born in an era of unprecedented technology innovation and disruption. As I come of age, I want to be able to enjoy the digital world fully, safely, and inclusively. You, decision makers from around the world, have been the digital pioneers. You carry the power and the responsibility to accelerate digital development and really work towards building those sustainable development goals and achieving our 2030 agenda. The time to act is now at stake is my very future. Your Excellency, I have here a document, a call to action titled My Digital Future. This document represents the voices of over 420 young people from around the world, and it was developed over the past few months through online consultations. It was then further developed at the Generation Connect Global Youth Summit where we had the opportunity for participants who are physically there to give their final revisions. The call to action addresses several areas that you as leaders can take to deliver meaningful connectivity for youth. While there are many important details in this document, I would like to emphasize a few here with you today. Firstly, my peers and I would like to encourage leaders to engage youth in meaningful decision making opportunities. Youth, those under the age of 30, represent 50% of our global population, yet we are consistently underrepresented and ignored in places where decisions are made about us without us. Secondly, my peers and I would like to encourage leaders to help create and support youth-led initiatives between the ITU and other UN organizations. As I saw at the Youth Summit, and I think as you can tell from Ms. Bogdan-Martin's remarks as well as the Honorable Ministers, there is no shortage of powerful, innovative, and creative young people who are ready to lead us to tackle complex problems that will improve our collective future, but we need your support. Lastly, my peers and I would like to encourage you to collaborate with different communities such as the private and public sector, academia, and civil society to open pathways for sustainable digital development. This call to action holds the aspiration of young people for decisive actions by global leaders in digital policies, governance in the digital age, youth engagement for the future, transforming education and building digital skills, creating decent jobs and livelihoods for youth, and transforming culture and communities. This is our call to action, and we count on your listening ear. It is not a coincidence that the Youth Summit was held directly before this World Telecommunication Development Conference. The meaningful and equitable inclusion of youth, the digital natives, must continue to be discussed and emphasized during this conference. As a member of the Canadian delegation, I will continue to advocate for youth, particularly young women and youth from marginalized communities during WTTC discussions. We cannot afford to dismiss young voices anymore. Our digital future is today. Thank you. Thank you, Ellen, and all the youth you represent for the inspiration, the call to action, and the commitment to action. To welcome you all to Rwanda, how we do it best, I'd like to invite and welcome the National Ballet for Utile Reza. Please enjoy. Isn't that fabulous? I hope some of our visitors will find time to take some lessons, and hopefully in one of the evening's sessions we'll get to see how you do it yourself. Please, I invite you to now turn our attention to the screens once again to hear from Mr. Antonio Gutierrez, Secretary-General of the United Nations. I'm pleased to greet the World Telecommunication Development Conference. My thanks to the Government of Rwanda for hosting. The potential of digital technologies to help us make up lost ground towards the sustainable development goals is tremendous, but so too are the challenges. Over one third of humanity still has no access to the Internet. The digital divide reinforces social, economic, and gender divides. It exacerbates inequalities in all dimensions, from urban to rural, from literacy to healthcare, from childhood to older age. Your task is to map out a new action plan to bring the nearly 3 billion unconnected people into our global digital community, because leaving no one behind means leaving no one offline. The Kigali Action Plan must put humanity back at the center of technology. Your discussions will inform next year's United Nations Summit of the Future and the global digital compact that I proposed in my report on our common agenda. The compact will bring together governments, the private sector, and civil society to agree on key principles for an open, free, and secure digital future for all. I encourage you to be bold and ambitious, and I wish you every success. Thank you. We are grateful to the Secretary General. Please help me welcome Mr. Hulinsha, Secretary General of the International Telecommunication Union, to give his remarks. Mr. President, Ministers, ambassadors, Madam Director of ITU Development, Telecommunication Development Bureau, and as a Director of Radio Communication Bureau, and Director of Sanitation Bureau of Telecommunications. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm really pleased to see you all here for this WTDC. We just enjoyed very much this cultural show. I think today we are here in Kigali, one of Africa's great cities in Rwanda, a model of digital transformation for the Africa continent and for the world. Thank you to the people of Rwanda for the warm welcome and the extraordinary, extraordinary hospitality. We are honored by the presence of His Excellency Porokagami, President of the Republic of Rwanda. Thank you, Mr. President. For hosting and addressing the conference, your words will be a source of inspiration for us, like those delivered Secretary General of the United Nations, just as we heard, and the last time at WTDC five years ago, the message from Holiness Pope Francis at our last WTDC, stressing the importance of leaving no one behind. Much progress has been made, with almost five billion people being online today. We have seen the strongest growth in ICT, uptake in the developing world, and that is very encouraging. Yet, one-third of humanity is still offline. That is close to three billion people, mostly people in developing countries and in poor areas, rural areas, areas where we need to attract investment, something that is being one of my priorities. I echo the UN Secretary General's call for universal connectivity, with affordable service by 2030, and hope this conference will make a clear way on removing all remaining barriers to connectivity. What makes me confident is all the young people we saw during the youth summit earlier in the previous days. Those, also, the Nelson Madeira called our greatest asset of our planet, when he came to Geneva for one of our major events almost 30 years ago. We have obligation to them and to each other to connect the unconnected, drive the development of new technologies central to achieving the UN's sustainable development goals, and continue to show the world what ITU can do as a technical and equally important development agency. I must add a few words here that we have established this development sector of ITU almost 30 years ago, but still the public perception of ITU is still a technical agency, not yet as a developing development agency. So we still have to work more to make sure that these status be widely recognized and supported. I look forward to the output from the conference, which will be fit into the ITU's strategic plan to be endorsed by our plenary position conference in progress to Romania later this year. I also like to draw you a tangent to an information document I have just provided for your consideration based on the many outputs of the WISIS Forum 2022 that concluded last Friday in Geneva, relevant to the discussion in this conference. I call on the spirit of collaboration of the IT family and wish you all successful WTDC 2022. I would also like to take this opportunity to recognize two individuals showing us I think that we have our chairman of PP 2022 nominated. And we have our strong supporter from private sector, Mr. Carl Slim, who joined us yesterday for the broadband commission together with President Kagami, both of them served co-chairs of this important institute and very important United Nations Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development since 2010. Now I would like to invite President Kagami to come to the stage to deliver his remarks and keynotes addresses. I'm honored to present his excellent name is President Kagami with a certificate that recognizes Rwanda states the transformation and commitment to bringing broadband connectivity across Africa and the world and surely his strong leadership as President of Africa State and as champion for ICT in the world. So Mr. President Kang, what do you think? Mr. Pauline Zal, Secretary General of the International Telecommunication Union, ITU. Mr. Doreen Rodan Martin, Director of the ITU, Telecommunication Development Bureau, ministers, senior government officials, my friend Carl Slim, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, allow me to begin by welcoming you to Rwanda. We are happy to host you. It is my pleasure to open the eighth edition of the World Telecommunication Development Conference. As mentioned earlier, first ever in our continent. I thank the International Telecommunication Union under the leadership of Pauline Zal for the good work being done to bridge the digital divide. Mr. Zal, your contribution. In this sector has not been lost on anyone. I want to thank you for your immense contribution since you came office. We have seen notable improvements during his tenure in Rwanda and all over the world. The pandemic has accelerated the adoption of digital technologies, but challenges remain. Access to high speed internet has not kept up with the first pace of digital transformation and the digitization of the economy in general. All such inequalities are left unchecked. Development will accelerate to more and more. In some parts of the world, while elsewhere, it slows down the numbers speak for themselves. One third of the world remains offline and the majority are women in developing countries. The responsibility to shape the future of the digital economy and ensure no one is left behind lies with us and all of us working together. No company, country, or institution has the resources to do it alone. We must therefore prioritize public-private partnerships to expand affordable digital access and equip vulnerable citizens with digital literacy skills. We have a partner to connect digital development around tables happening during this conference where new opportunities are available to us, which we should fully exploit. As we strive to achieve universal and affordable connectivity, youth should be at the forefront. I want to reassure the area speaker representing the global youth that some of us had you very clearly. Young people are already the most connected members of society, but that also means they are the most exposed to online safety and privacy risks. In the case of Rwanda, for example, last year we passed a personal data protection and privacy law to create a safe enabling environment for both consumers and entrepreneurs. The COVID pandemic has imposed huge costs on every country in the world. One of the only silver linings has been the demonstration of the power of digital connectivity as a tool for a serious knowledge transfer and economic growth. We cannot let that go to waste. Now, more than ever, is the time to act quickly and decisively so that when we meet again in four years, by the way you are welcome to meet again here in Ikigari, we will have exceeded our expectations. Once again, I'm happy to welcome you and I hope you will feel at home during your stay with us. I wish all a productive conference, and I thank you for your kind attention. Excellent. Thank you so much for your remarks. This brings us to the end of this opening ceremony and we'll proceed to a group photo as protocol guides us. Ladies and gentlemen, let's now rise as his excellency President Kagame departs from this plenary and thank him for joining us and opening this ceremony for us. Colleagues in protocol will guide those who will participate in the group picture. We kindly ask everyone else to remain in the room. You may take your seats and I thank you all for attending today. And I hope you will enjoy the rest of the conference and may it be fruitful and enjoyable and enjoy the hospitality of Rwanda and Rwandans. Thank you so much.


Did they get the sep- they always get the sep- they should just keep the sep-ers and send them out for us to the other teams, so they don't win. Cuz here's the crew. My God. Squad, squad. I mean, we didn't just play together, we were friends, teammates, I mean, I've known them now for seven years. And this falls off the ground and recovered by Tennessee. I think we were as bounce-dotted. They tell each other how we see each other doing our thing, each week playing and tell each other to keep going. Pass time, fires, and it's intercepted by fire, fired at the 40. Fired at the 40. Fired at the 45, and he's run out of bounds and tackled out of bounds by Smith. Give, Henry goes in standing up. Touchdown, Titans, the franchise record for touchdowns. Number 75 for the King. We wanted to build a building that it's gonna be an iconic building for the city. And so the design really needs to reflect Nashville in a pure and genuine way.


I'm moving on to other parts of Africa. The UN human rights expert was in Sudan on Monday to verify allegations of human rights violations. And that's after an October military coup launched the country into turmoil and triggered nearly daily street protests. At the end, the UN's expert on human rights in Sudan arrived in the capital of Khatum on Sunday. And that's a month after Sudan's authorities asked for the postponement of his visit according to the UN Human Rights Council. Tian was a UN special advisor on the prevention of genocide and served as an investigator for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Authorities have launched a major crackdown on protesters. Hello, hope you enjoyed the news, please do subscribe to our YouTube channel and don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.


So I think for me to say yes, I have to say no when I'm not feeling the right feeling, but then to say yes, I want to give. You want to give, you want to connect. I think what this idea of no private thoughts is important in the sense that if you've been conditioned to, if things are censored, you know, before I'd call this super ego, like the voice of morality and the voice of what should be good and right in the society called the super ego, but if things are censored to the point where you always are biting your tongue or you're holding back and holding it in and trying to smooth things over and there's a lot of tension and turmoil underneath there, then for me the first step is you must stop playing hide and seek with these feelings. I had to. I was very much into denial and repression and I had to spend years getting in touch with my emotions and letting them come into the surface. It was intense. You know, I could see why I pushed them down. I didn't want to deal with the intensity of that. For example, the last time that Francis and I came to Sweden, you were there and we were up there and we went in and we walked in and did the introductions and everything and already the first night there was a lot of emotion there because they had hired a chef to do the food for the whole group and there was no butter, there was no cheese. I forget what kind of diet he was. Living foods. Living foods, okay. They had a living foods diet for the course. You remember for the whole course group. And I'd say 80% of the people were upset the first night. You know, already they'd had their first meal. They got in late for that. They're like, I go into the kitchen and they're like, can we talk about the food, David? Can we please talk about the food at the sessions? You know, I hardly had time to say hello. You know, in Sweden. No butter. Oh, no cheese. It was just, you know, frightening. They called living diet. These people were dying psychologically. They were dying on the first night. But this is what I mean. We did talk about the food, you know, because we have to talk about our emotions. See how much faster we will heal if we just talk about it, you know, if people voice their emotions and don't want to be too polite, even though they're like 80% of them are angry, you know, not trying to be polite for me or for the others. You know, it's a good way to work in. It was such a healing when the cook came in on Sunday and it was so much love. And he stood there and said thanks. It was wonderful to practice like that. It was a very good example. To see preferences. Yes. Because I went in the kitchen and joined with him and he was just all glowing and he was so happy to provide his living diet. In his food, he was giving the best. He was such a love for this food. Yes, he was giving the best he could offer. And 80% of the people there were furious. So this is a good example. That's all for healing. You know, perfect for a course of miracles, gathering retreat to have something like that come right up on the first day. And imagine how your relationships would heal so much quicker. You know, if you were just completely open, I mean, people always tell me, well, if I was that open on the first date, I would not have a second date and I would not have a relationship to talk about. But actually, when you get into relationships and you're very forthright with things, even the smallest things, it can be very, very helpful because then you can start taking responsibility for your state of mind, not looking to another body to provide you happiness and peace and all kinds of other things, but just really doing the mind training and being very forthright about those emotions. I think that's the fastest way to start to undo some of that egoic people-pleasing.


What's up everybody? Jason here for jaspyscaserace.com. We just sold out 2023 Panini Immaculate Football guys big new release today Three bucks half case or PYT number one guys. This will be the first half of the case one and two are from the same case guys So here we go boom boom boom last Bob Mojo's Joe getting the Rams And here we go guys Been looking forward to this for a little while now guys. We're starting to get into more of the higher-end products of The 2023 NFL season So you know Macklid's always great, but then soon gonna come in tea and then flawless All right, so these are three box half casers guys one two three four five six for the right. Let's see which one we use here It's a five man. It's been going right today one two three four five six So these three boxes who will be used for number two guys. I'll leave them right there Yes, and still see them and here we go nice. It's like a copper box Kind of color Likey it's a thick one At least it feels like it. I do not see the bottom. Do not see the bottom But there is a monster card right here guys. I don't know what the hell that is, but it's definitely a monster All right first one is Sam Howell to 99 for the Washington Commanders What a Brett What is this? Is this a piece of this? Look at that shoe cleat relic One out of three for the Cardinals It's the kind of stuff you guys honestly this card looked great until I seen that small little chip But the fact that this card is still looks this great though for a thick card like this time, man Jesus I don't even think it's yeah, it's not gonna fit in this one But it is gonna fit in this one Congrats, Fred And we got a Kendra Miller for the Saints, New Orleans Saints that's going to Joe K Joseph K, I should say Then we got a three-color patch there ten to ten for the Green Bay Packers going to Hans Brett Favre This little farm there And How about a little RPA to 25 of Zach Charbonnet for the Seahawks when a John All right, let me have a redemption actually the last card. I've been hearing that AR has been a redemption though Premium patch rookie autographs. Whoo Anthony Richardson right off the bat in the first box Matt Smith with the Colts Premium patch rookie autographs. What is premium out of guys? Then maybe a 25 and see what premiums is out of so these ones are on card as well guys and You know, I guess it's gonna be out of 99. It's gonna be a premium patch I guess But there's gold out of 25 emerald at 18 and then NFL shield and platinum one-on-one. All right There you go, man on the board already. All right, nice first box normal size box Not an extra thick seems like there's another redemption in here. I feel like It's right in the middle though Shaq Thompson though out of 49 Carolina Panthers Going to Brian Watford Whoa Super Bowl over right there Terrell Davis tonight, you know We got CD lamb and that Denver Broncos hit those gonna go to Thomas Then we have at a 75 and 99 CD now for the Cowboys another redemption here Yeah, there's redemptions in this Terry if you're wondering It's usually flawless. I doesn't have any redemptions RPA Will Anderson jr. Nice It's a good one right there. I mean, I know what defensively at least There you go. That's one there Houston Texans Then we have a Maurice Jones drew triple relic and autograph there for the Jacksonville Jaguars Stop with that one and Whoa, that was a kicker TJ Watt Three out of 25 for the Pittsburgh Steelers going to Alex last box here guys. All right. We go guys last box Buddha Baker for the Cardinals Another bear far, but that's the one that Michael Thomas like a Super Bowl trophy And how about a Will Leviss? Look at that. One of the last few teams taken by Thomas two out of five and that looks like I guess piece of the No, it's rookie logos. It says I don't know Looks very nice though. I heard you pulled a clean part. Whoa. I did bro And I pulled Anthony Richardson premium patch RPA. Was it a redemption? Yeah. Well, it was a gold I don't know. It's just premium. I pulled the gold. I don't care I'm sure he's Big you don't have your own teams relic do you? Sean Clifford to 99 I'm sorry, sir That's for the Green Bay Packers Well, there's a lot of people in here Wow famous them. Wow. Hi guys right when Michael came in to know Green Bay Packers had to break Hans, but I think it has been both house Luke Student maker to 52 out of 99 RPA for the Cowboys Feeling better today, it's just more sore than tight and anything. It's just more like sore Alrighty Cowboys is Eugene and the last one here. Look at that mean Joe Green Heard so that I heard that too actually 27 out of 27 out of 99 Steelers nice break Alex More on the veteran side, but still nice break. Hey guys, there you go Very very nice break here guys Obviously still second half for a lot of these teams that unfortunately might have not that much hits at all if anything But there's some really nice hits though regardless in this half here Like I said, there's always a second half and Could definitely still be some more very very nice hits in the back of the guys So appreciate his guy number two done Jasper's case brace calm


My question is, should culture be preserved at all? Because in the name of preservation of culture, already we have started seeing moral policing in India. See, culture is a happening thing. Nobody can preserve it as it is. It is evolving all the time. Nothing wrong with that. If it's evolving naturally, people making choices and making certain changes with their lives, it's perfectly okay. But when your culture is being engineered by commercial forces, some amount of stopping and preserving also needs to happen, isn't it? If naturally it's evolving, people are making their choices to eat differently, to dress differently, to do things differently, it's perfectly okay. So for commercial forces are anyway having budgets to change your culture, having a strategy to change your culture, when it is so, I think you should also have a strategy not to allow that to happen. How it is done is a questionable thing. Whatever you called as moral policing, it happened in crude ways. So yes, everybody's disgusted with that. But in some form of education, some way it must be done. It's very easy to sell sleaze, you understand? And very easily you can catch the youth and make that the culture of the land in no time. Whatever... See, I want you to understand this. When you say culture, there are different types of cultures in the world. If culture is just a social norm, if culture is just a certain way people are living because of climatic conditions, because of other influences, that's different. I want you to understand this culture was engineered to gradually lead people towards their spiritual process. Always, right from ancient times, every aspect of your life, how to sit, how to stand, everything was engineered to slowly lead you towards a spiritual process. And I think that part of the culture has to be preserved. I don't care how you dress, what you do. But there are many aspects of culture which are essentially a yogic science implanted into people's lives so that without even knowing you're practicing yoga, you're practicing yoga. This was done thousands of years ago.  Brushing your teeth is a certain culture, isn't it? There are some people who don't have such things. So, this was brought into your life because of the benefits that it has. Similarly, various other practices and norms were brought into your life because of the benefits that it has for human well-being. Now some commercial force is coming and removing everything for their benefit. If you don't stop it in some way, they will take away everything. So, some amount of control is definitely needed. If people are making their choices and slowly evolving into something else, that is nobody's business, okay? That is nobody's business. Every human being has a right to choose and change his life the way he wants. But right now, I want you to understand most human beings are not choosing. They are being forced to make choices, isn't it? The commercial establishments, the marketing departments are larger than the production departments in most companies and they are just campaigning. If you don't do some kind of stoppage, it must be done gently, sensibly, but unfortunately, because saner voices in the society never speak, the crude ones get onto the street and do the job. That's all that's happening because saner voices never speak. If saner voices speak, there will be no room for all those street goons to take up this job. It need not be policed, but education is needed definitely, isn't it? Yes or no? Education is definitely needed. What is the significance of doing what we have been doing for these thousands of years? This education is definitely needed because the education is missing. Somebody is trying to educate you on the street with a stick in their hand. So, because you and me have not taken the responsibility of educating people properly, somebody is trying to do it in their own way. It's unfortunate, but that's how it will happen. That is how it will happen if we don't do it the right way.


The great search brought to you by digiki and a to fruit every single weekly day to use the power of engineering to help you You yes, you find things you that are hard to find because we're a little part shortage And a data. What is the great search this week? Okay this week? I'm actually Working more on the feather wing that I started last week last week The great search was on finding an rs 232 Transceiver chip that would take TTL logic at three volts and convert to plus or minus six volt logic And so we sourced apart the max three two three two I think it's wonderful. It's available in a couple different packages. It's in stock So check out last week's great search if you're curious And then this week so as I was working on this I was like, you know one of the things that We've had requests for not just an rs 232 wing which I'm designing But it's also remind me of an rs 485 wing so rs 232 is TTL serial, but with very wide voltage range. So instead of having Zero to three volts. It's like plus or minus six volts So it solves the problem of like how to get this signal very far by just making the voltage four times larger Which is like a totally valid way of doing it and for rs 485 Also known sometimes as DMX does it a little differently Instead of just making the voltage swing higher. It does a differential signal. It's a little bit like canvas So, you know for rs 45 is used for industrial purposes again. It's also used for DMX it's like a multi tap system. It's like it's uses TTL, but it's a little bit more going on and I Thought you know, let's go to the computer because I'm just new computer stuff I thought that I had so much room, you know here because it's this is ignored this Adelagher some Adelagher I just I just recycled the Adelagher layout, you know I was gonna have the RS sorry that the DE 9 over here on the edge, you know, have this hand soldered But you know that way it fits nicely and then a terminal block over here with RX TX and ground But I have a lot of space left over and so I thought like oh I can make this be like a combo because You know a lot of times if you're using RS 232, you know, you're often also interested in RS 485 because you're just like how can I have this long distance serial transmission and So what's interesting is I actually Shoot I Want to look up the 45 yeah So so if you went for like RS 45, I actually saw this design From teeny sign and I'm like oh, this is kind of what I want. It has you know, you can select RS 45 or RS 232 And then there is you know, this SP 232 X or something here and then there is the Adapter chip here. This is a max 461 and then you can see that it's like you can have one or the other and I thought like that would be pretty Handy, you know, you'd have a switch to enable or disable either chip Maybe disconnect it completely And also, you know, if it can't necessarily use both at the same time, although, you know, just because of the voltage I don't want to necessarily mess up The the voltage outputs What I could do is, you know, only pick and place the parts for one or the other that could also be a design Because it would be like so similar and again, I have that space I might as well maybe make a design that can do either or both So this is kind of interesting and inspiring but what I need is to get a transceiver now The thing is I've never actually used RS 45. So I'm gonna have to pick up something that I can use as a Like the other side, I'll have to pick up some DMX light or something Whereas I showed you last week the the space ball has RS 232 RS 232 is like kind of everywhere That's very easy to get RS 45, I don't have anything but it's a common request and so I think it's a worthwhile thing for me to add on so RS 45, you know, there's a Wikipedia article and it's it's basically a you know instead of Instead of a you know single, you know one for you RX one for TX is there's bidirectional Sorry differential lines that go up and down and that's how they they, you know They also have idle where they're both sitting at zero volts. There's no There's like negative positive and zero and so you can actually have the bus be shared and then for DMX I have to make sure that it's more than 250 Kilobit per second, but it looks like it can go up to 10 megabit per second So what I want to dig a key So the good news is that if you like search for RS 45 There's a ton of converters and adapters and there's also the transceivers So to start with one thing that was interesting actually is there is Some chips that are both RS 232 and RS 45 They tended to be more expensive So if I plot, you know, I did look and I was like, oh, that's interesting that there's combo chips Like somebody else had the same idea of like oh like why have one and you can have two The problem is that the chips like, you know, they look amazing this max 31 60 it's super awesome, but it's 12 bucks a piece and While I'm sure it's absolutely worth every penny it would be kind of I'm like, I think I have enough room I think let's just have two chips and Let's do it that way. So I ended up not You know, I ended up not wanting a multi protocol, I'm just going to select RS 45 and then There's isolated well, let's first pick active only because I only care about chips that are currently available And then there's driver receiver and transceiver, which I don't really know the difference But what I do care about is how many drivers receivers and I want I don't want to have just receivers I just want transmitters. I want transceivers. So we'll get the one one and two two So it's like either once, you know, RX and TX or Two TX to RX like we showed with the last week. We had a two two RS 232 transceiver Um, so there's isolated ones Again, I'll show that I did look at these real briefly and and these are cool They're all out of stock and they're a little bit more expensive But I did think it was you know, it's something to look into if we can eventually get them in stock. They're they're a little bit bigger They're 16 SOIC and they're also completely unavailable like most chips But there could be some purpose for a an isolated RS 45 so I was like, okay, that's interesting, you know, I'll keep that in mind So looking at just the RS 485 non-isolated transceivers We also only want surface mount parts because I'm not going to solder through hole For the data rate, I do have to make sure that it does 250 Kilobot or above looks like it goes to like almost infinite Basically, I just don't want the ones that are guaranteed to be slow just wasn't that many And there's still a lot of options So I'm going to go for only ones that are normally in stock and in stock like ones that are stocking and available And that gets me down to You know, I think a couple hundred options And then it looks like, you know, a common there's like a jelly bean Part layout, that's an eight SOIC it kind of I looked around at some other RS 485 transceiver chips like setups and breakouts And they don't seem to use like these eight SOIC because it tends to be just like one on X and one TX So While I may change my mind later, I'm going to kind of go with this standard eight SOIC package, I'm gonna select that and The reason being that, you know, these transceivers like can transceivers it looks like There's a lot of makers and they're all kind of the same and it's a very generic part Which is good because it means that if it's out of stock one, you know from one supplier I can switch over to the other so I kind of want to stick to this kind of standard Layout the next thing is whether I want it to be half or full duplex And to be honest, I'm actually not sure but I think I want full duplex because I want it to automatically transmit and receive Although I have to look into that because again, I'm like as I'm looking into this is like, oh, there's all these little like It's like it's so simple, but there's all these little details. But for now, I'm just picking Full duplex And another thing is for voltage supply While I could have a little boost converter, it would be cool if I could get it working off of 3.3 volts because Um that way I wouldn't have to add an additional, you know boost converter And um this part kind of came up first so it has the most in stock And the price is pretty inexpensive It's one of the least less expensive ones And I'm always into like anything that has over 10 000 pieces in stock is kind of like a good sign for me because it's like Oh, this is like a standard stocking part A lot of people use it so you have to have a lot of them in stock um So I'm going to start with the isl 83 40 um 490 And this part Uh, I can open up the data sheet Um, it's a 3.3 volt supply, but it's five volt tolerant um And it can go up to 10 megabits. So it's high Data rate it was designed in 2018. So it's kind of got a more, you know, it's more modern There's a couple that are older, but that's a fairly modern date For something like this and it looks like they have a couple variations. So they have versions that are slew rate limited Uh that have low power shutdown or that are looks like you basically can either have Full duplex or low power shutdown. You can't have both which makes sense It's like if you're full duplex it means that you're kind of waiting for signal You're gonna you can't really go into low power mode because you're you're waiting and listening Whereas on half duplex you could tell the chip. Hey, you know, there's I'm not waiting for message So let go into power down and I'll tell you when to listen for um Getting an idle. So it looks like there's a couple options there For this chip, but they're all um You know, they're they're all this kind of standard, uh So I see this is the half duplex and this is the full duplex version so I don't know. Uh looks pretty good. Um, I basically have to look into Um, again, whether I want to get this Um, you know, what's more important to be basically having a half duplex low power controllable Or full duplex It you know kind of does its own thing. Um, but Um, you know, you don't have to switch between one or the other I don't know which wiring set up people tend to use more. So I'll look into that and um, Hopefully I'll I'll pick which sub variant But this family looks really good. And of course, I love intersail and um, we're in a south's they're a great chip maker So I'm feeling pretty confident with my decision. So I'll um, I'll get some samples I'll start working this into the design and then when I do a prototype I'll pick up a dmx light or something and I'll try to just get it working or I'll just build two and I'll try to get signals Uh transmitting back and forth That's a great church