and you and everyone, I swear. Thank you, Milena. I appreciate that so much, and I'm apparently supposed to sit on the stool that some NOMA intern just built for me, so thank you, NOMA intern who built this.  Anyway, and I did wanna say just, you know, Trish, we started writing about sexual harassment and sexual abuse in the restaurant industry, and with my co-writer, Julia Moskin, and we were like, we're the recipe girls, what are we doing, this is crazy. But we, and we talked to dozens of people, and most of whom were off the record, and Trish and some of her colleagues agreed to go on the record, which was an incredibly brave thing to do, and I think it made our journalists much more powerful, and I think also took some of the shame and the fear out of speaking up, and so I think you've seen a cascade of people who are willing to go on the record now, and it's because Trish and people like her were brave enough to do that, so I just wanna say one more thank you for that. Because it's a hard thing to do to have your name on the front page of the paper talking about things your boss did to you, that's not an easy thing. And I also just wanna say that the Pulitzer Committee gave the New York Times an award for public service for not only the package of stories that we did on Mario Batali and the Spotted Pig and Ken Friedman and that, but also for a series of stories from Harvey Weinstein to Bill O'Reilly, and the fact in our business, public service is the highest Pulitzer you can get, and the fact that the Pulitzer Committee saw that the Me Too movement was really the social issue of our time speaks a lot to where we are and to the topic of the seminar, so thanks, Melina and to Renee for making this topic. Can I introduce my panelists now? Oh good, okay. My panelists, would you please come out? There should be some like great music, but there's not. I could hum, but you really don't want me to do that. All right, so Wade Davis, the son of the South, I live in Atlanta now, so he is a former NFL player, and for those of you who aren't from America, that's the football with the long pointing football. He started writing about being a closeted gay man in the NFL in 2012 and it kind of burst open this second career. He's a social justice advocate who writes, teaches, educates about, particularly about the intersection between race, the LGBTQ community, which even though I am a member of, can never get right, but I think I got all the acronyms in. Thank you. And also does a lot about, a lot of instruction on teaching men how to be feminist.  I said this, this is why I'm a writer, not a TV person, because I'm, I don't think Ellen, you're generous, has to like worry about her nose running on stage. Lisa Donovan, also a daughter of the South from Nashville. She's a pastry chef, but used her skills to bring the Nashville community together in a series of events and that kind of evolved into a book and also she's doing some television. And for our purposes here, wrote a very moving essay in December for Food and Wine that won a Beard Award. Are you passing me a Kleenex? I love this. That's sweet. Oh my God, thank you. Isn't that sweet? I swear the people here are so nice. It's amazing. I know all the, I don't thank you. I know all of the, all the Noma and the mad people, they're always like, can I do anything for you? I'm on a three legged pony and I would like it delivered to my, anyway. So, Alisa has articulated, I think what so many people have felt about the nascent Me Too movement. And we have to remember this is a movement that is still very young. And as we learn what the Asi-Argento thing can be very complicated and is just really beginning. And it's important to kind of think about this is there's the world of sexual assault. There's sexual harassment. There's sexism. There's power and privilege.  And because food is our cultural currency, it's really playing out in the restaurant business. So we'll have a discussion about all of this and I think we have about an hour. So halfway through or so, we wanna open it up to questions that you all have. And so we can start a little bit more of a dialogue. So just kind of keep your questions in mind. There'll be two microphones and we'll sort of point to each of you and make sure you wait until you get the microphone to speak so people who are listening at home can hear what you have to say. I just wanna read for one just a bit about from the essay that Lisa wrote in Food and Wine in December. We've all been surrounded by a kind of terrible and disgusting behavior. It's a boys club that we've all just laughed off dismissed, denied, rolled our eyes at even when we have seen it day in and day out. When we've seen women give up, when we've heard people say they just couldn't hack it, when we brought into, when we bought into all the ridiculously damaging mythos of our industry, it's birthed a deeply set way of denial and delusional behavior. So I think we are kind of coming out of the denial period a little bit. And then the question is how do we move forward? Do you think, Lisa, do those words still ring true to you? Do you think we are past denial or do you think we're still in that? I think we're having different conversations. I think that's why this was really important to sit in a room full of people who are all having maybe similar thoughts, but probably also somewhat divisive thoughts, right? Like, I think there are small groups of us having conversations together, but I don't know that yet we've been able to have a really big conversation about, you know, what feels like a weird fever dream, right? Like, it feels like this last, all of the information we've just sort of been buried for the last six months and, and I came here with no answers, so I'm just gonna, I mean, I came here just wanting to be honest about how I feel not to be correct, right? Like, I think that we're all sort of watching things change and I think Trish was correct. We're writing this chapter right now and I know what my experiences were. I know how I was complicit. I know what I wish I could have done better and I think I know what I wanna try to do to move forward. So, you know, I think it's different every day and that was last November, you know? Right, I mean, I think we're in a period where, okay, is it enough to throw away your Mario Batali cookbook, maybe think about getting a new HR policy and then stop telling the new girl in pastry she has a cute haircut. Like, I think we need to move to something more internal, maybe? A little bit? Yeah, I think so. So, do you think that, and we had talked a little bit about this offstage, there's a place in the business where there's that sexualized camaraderie that's kind of cool about being in the restaurant business. Yeah.  Right. Right. And I think initially, I think maybe again, we're a little bit beyond that, but I do think that there's a hesitation. And again, not to keep riding on Trisha's wave, but I can only speak to my experiences in American kitchens. And when I'm here, I see a very different set of dynamics. Of course, I haven't worked in one, I'm just watching. But I do feel a hesitation amongst chefs that was always sort of the latent hesitation, which was I, this is my community. This is my family. I trust these people. You know, I'll crack a boob joke better than anybody in this room. You know, like I don't mind it. It's not that, that's not the conversation I think I'm having or a lot of women are having. I think that there's an understanding for me anyway that there's a safety with the majority of people that I interact with and that I'm on the line with and that I worked with for years. That wasn't for me. Of course, there were times that that line gets crossed, right? And I think when you're in a position, a managerial position, or a position of power that the dynamics change. And maybe the dynamics just need to change in general because I think it gets convoluted and complex and complicated. But I think that the initial hesitation from a lot of the people I was having conversations about was the protective feelings we have about the kitchen. I think a lot of us don't feel like we have a place anywhere else, right? Like we come to these kitchens because we're a certain kind of vulnerable, we're a certain kind of sensitive, we're a certain kind of active, we're a certain kind of everything. And that's what I feel like brought me to a kitchen. And so I'm protective of that space. And I think that's where it gets complicated, right? Because it's like family. You don't wanna, this is why this feels so nice because if I'm gonna talk about my abuse of dad, I wanna do it with my siblings, right? I wanna do it with the people that also know what that means in every single layer. What do you think the Me Too, I mean, what's your take on the Me Too movement? And I know you're not of the restaurant culture. And so you're kind of like our... I do like to eat a lot though. Yeah, and that counts. You're sort of our adopted brother, so we can talk about dad with you. But tell me, what's your take on the Me Too movement? You know, I was kind of listening to Trish talk and it reminded me of this quote by Mirio Ruchizer and she said that what happens when a woman tells the truth about her lives and she said the world cracks open and I think the Me Too movement is the embodiment of that, right? That the world has cracked open and we wanna close that back so quickly instead of actually wrestling with what does it mean, right? And I think that what we're talking about is that historically men have been able to dictate what's appropriate and inappropriate behavior in all walks of life. And what the Me Too movement is saying is actually know that women now get to have a say in that also. And that is what's causing the friction, right? Is that I as a man can no longer say me touching you in the small of your back, smiling in your face, that's just, you know, that's okay. And for you to be able to say actually that's not okay, it's not a space where I as a man am comfortable in. And I think that the Me Too movement is also a movement that is not about, that is not for survivors and victims of sexual assault. It is for the rest of us who actually don't know what's going on, right? Like any movement historically well of a civil rights movement was not about black people. It was for white people. The gender equality movement was not about women, it was about men, right? So the movement is about educating the rest of us who are bystanders, who are complicit, who just sit by and not actually take the risk that Trish took, right? To actually make the world a better place. Yeah, it's it. Yeah, right. And it's also so generational we talked about this. And in my reporting, I would talk to women who were in maybe their 70s or 80s and they would be like, well, those young ladies should have just put their pants on and gotten right out of there. And then there's women like of my generation and we kind of learned to sort of navigate the waters and go, yeah, I gotta get tough skin and just kind of find some words to kind of like diffuse it.   Like he's got, you know, I should be able to be as drunk as I want, laying on the floor and not get raped. Like it's a, it's a, you know, it's like a shift, right? Which I find fascinating. So I think there's some generational shifts that are happening. But I also think that there was a place we were in that was sort of a scorched earth place. So who's the next defender?  Who's coming down next? You know, like it was, and there certainly was a feeling at that moment because I was like, oh my God, you know, once you start seeing it and you start reporting it, it goes. But I think now we're sort of moving into a place that, you know, like how do we move forward out of scorched earth? So is there forgiveness? Is there reconciliation? Is it about like how do the people who perpetrated this come back into the folder? Is that not the discussion to have it all? And I'll ask you both that same question. I mean, I think when a question like that gets asked, I go into three categories very quickly, which is, you know, for someone to have an act of contrition, to do their penance, to do whatever you want to call it, to find their way back into the fold. If it's one of these accused people or whatever, it's frankly none of my business, right? Like I don't know why the follow-up to anything happening in San Francisco is about who goes to the farmer's market. I want to know what about, how about follow that story up a different way? Why allow the perpetrator to continue to control the narrative? I think is my question that happens when I see those stories get unfolded. I understand that as a journalist, follow-up stories need to happen. I don't understand why that's the follow-up. And I feel like the second part of that transitions pretty quickly to, I see a lot of people doing a lot of really good shit. A lot of really, really actively engaged people who are pushing everything forward. And that creates a very, very, very distinctly forward focus. And I just feel like that shit's gotta just stay behind. If it's not in this visor, I don't know why we're talking about it. If it's not actively engaging us in that actionable, hopeful future, I don't really know why it's a part of the conversation. However, I think there's something useful there because back to that generational divide, I think that there are some conversations being had right now where women seem, not all women, and not a lot of the women that I think we all engage in these conversations, but I think there are extreme cases where some people are attributing the conversation to using words like bloodlust, right? That's damaging. That's a really damaging stance to take because what you're doing is you're undermining the entire movement of us trying to have a conversation that perpetuates forward. Let me bring people up to do with two things you referenced for this conversation. So the first thing we were talking about is there was a chef in the Bay Area named Charlie Hallowell who, a colleague of mine in San Francisco Chronicle wrote about many people came forward who used quite very pretty brutal sexually, was sexually harassing his staff. And when you say it sounds so nice, sexually harassing, it's kind of a, but like he was a pregnant, telling a pregnant, asking a pregnant staffer the last time she had sex and how it would feel to have his organ in her. He would instruct people on how to make pizza dough by saying it should feel, it should feel the consistency of a fat woman's breast. That's like to an employee, always teaching them how you want it. So, and those are sort of mild examples wrote about it. He was sort of ousted. He wanted very much to have reconciliation and do restorative justice. And he was a very, you know, he did a lot of good. He did a lot of social good for the community, but he also had this other behavior. So recently he tried to go back to the Berkeley Farmers Market, which is in Berkeley, California. And if you're in San Francisco, you know, all of humanity, all of life gets played out at the Berkeley Farmers Market. It's that important. So it was sort of like the cathedral of life in California. So he tried, he was a big customer there, also sexually harassed people there back in the time, tried to go back and women like drove from all over the Bay Area to demand that he not be at the Berkeley Farmers Market, which you know, it's a good news story, right? So anyway, and they followed up and wrote about that. So when she's referencing like, is that a story? Is that a follow up? And then the other piece that you referenced was bloodlust. So we wrote about Ken Freeman and April Bloomfield at the spotted pig. Ken went away for a little while and Gabriel Hamilton, you'll have heard of Gabriel Hamilton. So she's a chef, so she came to take it over. And I think in talking about why she was partnering with Ken to take over, talked about this sort of scorched dirt, this sort of like never again stance women took and called it bloodlust, right? Bloodlust, which is I think the word that you were referring to. So this idea of how do we not discount people like Trisha's experience? How do we not sweep it under the rug, which is what I've heard from a lot of victims. Why aren't you staying on this? We can't forget what it's really like.  But then it balances against your notion that we need to move forward, right? Right, and I think, I don't know about anybody else, but I'm not necessarily like a joiner. And so when I get attached to like a movement, I start to get a little cagey and I start to feel like, oh no, because I'm like, I don't agree on this and I do agree on this and I have very distinct ideas about how I see things potentially changing for me within my capacity to change things. And that's how I want to continue to move forward. And I think what ends up happening is especially in like Twitter land, you know, you get these, not that Gabrielle's on Twitter, but there are people that take these very opposing sides and it causes people like me who are actively doing work to just tune it out, to tune the conversation at large out. Because it's not helping. Jumping in feels dangerous. Well, and it shouldn't, right? So you've got these two extremes where you've got women saying it's bloodlust for us to even be talking about this or to not allow somebody who hasn't quite come around to even understanding maybe what he's even done wrong. And I think that's part of the problem is, having a conversation where you're ready to do some different work other than just make money off of this industry.  Like, and I think that those two extremes, especially for female chefs who've been working really hard in this industry, we don't want to align ourselves with either one of those. So we just kind of put our heads down and do what we've always done, which makes the conversation hard to have, right? Because we're kind of engaged and it's not because we're scared to have the conversation, we just, for me anyway, like that doesn't make sense to me and that sure shit doesn't make sense to me. So I'm just gonna be right here in the middle trying to make sense of it myself. And this is, you know, outside of that article, which was, you know, an essay I wrote from a place of rage because of a chef that I know personally, I saw some pretty shitty things coming from a community that I'm very close to and I typed it and I sent it and I sent it to close friends and it ended up getting out of my close friends range and this is out of, I'm a fish out of water in some ways because I'm very, I am of, I'm the tail end of your generation where, you know, I'm not one of these young women that knows how to say I don't want to be identified, not that anybody does, but I certainly have protected myself for years to not be identified by my weaknesses or by my traumas.  I'm honored that I did. I'm glad it made an impact.  Is the thing I keep thinking to myself, right? I know there's work to do and I'm here, I'm in it, but I think a lot of women are feeling like, okay, do you want, are you calling me because you want to talk about what I'm working on? I've got phone calls about other men still. When am I going to stop getting asked about the male narrative? Well, let's talk about that for a second and this is where you come in, right? Thank you. So first of all, what, I mean, to this point, at some point like the women have to fix this too, like it's a little exhausting.  I think there's a lot of men who are just frankly baffled, like all I did was say that she looked really cute in those shorts. Why is that a problem? You know, we are people working from there to also people who are like, you know, really doing egregious behavior. So what are men's roles in this? And then what advice would you give to somebody like a Charlie Hollowell or a Ken Friedman? Yeah, so, you know, one of the things that, so I do a lot of coaching with men and, you know, I get phone calls from PR people from men who have done really awful things and can you work with this person? And, you know, let me say this, one thing I'm disinterested in doing is telling women what they should think or how they should feel or how they should act. So you will never hear me say that. I think that what we're really talking about here is that we are deeply interested in ending this conversation because we want to get back to, you know, life as normal but we also want to think of ourselves as good people.  Like, we're just women beings. Like, as long as we want to see ourselves deeply as good people, we will never own our complicity in these actions, right? Like, none of us are good, none of us are bad, we're just humans. Like, we are just human beings for a perfectly flaw. And if we can rest in that uncomfortableness of saying that I've done some really amazing stuff in this world, but I've also been a jerk too, right? So when you tell a woman you have some really cute shorts on, think about it. Would I tell a man that, right? So am I saying this because I actually want a different type of reaction from this woman than I would if I told a man that, right? So... What's the motivation? Yes, like, what's the intent that is behind the actual action is what that we have to interrogate? And the truth is, I said earlier, we as men have never been forced to have to do that. And we're deeply uncomfortable now about being forced to wrestle with how we comport ourselves, how we show up in the workplace. And that is an uncomfortable space. And so what I tell men to do one is, stop saying I'm here to just listen. Like, I'm here to just listen. No, read first. Like, read a book. You know what I mean? Like, there's a canon of literature out there that women have written about the interior of their lives so that we can actually can know about it, you know? When you talk to men in America, what they'll tell you is that they learn about five women in middle school and high school. Betsy Ross, Susan B. Anthe, Herod Tubman, and Rosa Parks. And that's it, right? So we have not been groomed to believe that women have made the world a better place. And that informs how we show up and how we think women can be leaders, right? So that's one, right? We have to read. Thank you.  We have to own that we are sexist. I'm a feminist and I'm sexist, right? Like, I have to constantly reckon with that, with the idea that I have sexist thoughts. And when I can own that, then I can start to do some real work. And then two, how do I start to speak up? When my male friends say something that sexist, I have to be courageous enough to call them in and not call them out and say, hey, like, what you just said, let's really talk about that. Like, let's wrestle with like what's behind your actions. And then I think as parents, we have to understand that your children learn sexism before they learn anything else.  And they learn that this is what women do and this is what men do. And that informs their lives as they go forward. So you have to be very conscious of that. Okay, so, and thank you for that. That's really, I appreciate it. And I wanna, when I do a really quick follow up because I think the conversation about complicity and how we're all, every single person in this room is complicit to the lives that we're all trying to change right now helps with the, like how do we restore our place? Well, we're all trying to do it. And I think unless you are being, you know, and I think showing up and saying, I'm ready to do some work for this is how you get to show up and do some work for this, right? Like we've, I think we're all acknowledging that we have been engaged in a culture that we don't want to continue to perpetuate. So I think that answers the first question of like, how do you reconcile this? How do you have, you know, the permission?  If, you know, Charlie Hollowell's a different story, the man's got some work to do. Right. Serious work to do.  Like, I think so. I think if someone is, I'm a hopeful person. I don't want to go through this life thinking that everyone's awash, right? Like if he shows up where we can all see at some point that he's done some work and he's ready to do more. And I don't know what that work is. I'm trying to figure it out right now, you know? I don't know when that is. I sure should know it's not yesterday and it's not tomorrow, you know? And it's not, I don't want to go open a restaurant with him. You know? I mean, so I think there's, some people have way more work to do than others to be able to be allowed to do the work we're all trying to do. Right. So is it effective to do things like, to, you know, throw away your Mario cookbooks to not show up at the spotted pig because Gabrielle took it over or is Gabrielle taking over a reason to go? Would you go to an April Bloomfield restaurant given? I mean, people are making that decision. They're saying, I'm not, I'm gonna vote with my dollar and not spend it at people, at places where there was sexual harassment. Do you think that's a reasonable response? So I don't think we can throw anybody away, right? There is real power in the ability for redemption, right? So what I coach men to do often is, can you articulate the journey that you have gone on since what was said about you up until the point where you're ready to come out? Can you articulate not just who you harmed but the impact that you've harmed them for the rest of their lives? There will never be a point where Tricia won't have to reckon with what was done to her. So if you as a man can honor that and can speak to that and then also talk about the work that you're going to do on self going forward, like that this a journey that never ends, like learning to undo sexism, racism, homophobia never ends, like it is constant work. And then to be able to say, here's what I'm going to do to reconcile the community going forward also. But if you can articulate that with a certain level of clarity, honesty and vulnerability, then you shouldn't be allowed to come back in until you have met certain types of requirements. And that typically means you should probably go away for a couple of years, right? And say, hey, like this is the work that I've done.  And no one cares why. People want to know what and how. I agree. I think Trish, I mean, Lisa. Sorry, I was thinking about Trish. I'm honored just to be. Or Lisa. Yeah. What he said. I mean, I'm thinking about a very specific case of someone that's doing work that the visual's great right now. The visual's great for what he's doing and he's dotting all his eyes and crossing all of his T's and making sure that his visuals are just front and center and it's everywhere in his brand, right?  Really? Or, you know what? I kind of showed up and capitalized on a thing. And I wasn't. Do we know who this person is? You know, I'm not. He's the brightest man in the world. I know who this person is. And I like, it's not like a, I just, I don't want to make my work. I don't want to make my work about a person. Like I want my work to be about how I continue to be in this industry. Right. And, you know, but that's a perfect instance of, for me, I don't know that that guy's ever gonna be in my field division as an ally or someone that I want to rely on or work with or team up with or do a project with because I kind of think he's just, you know, faking it and that you can smell that a mile away. And so, I don't know. I think showing up and being really sincere and honest and, you know, not just obfuscating what you're scared someone might know about you, but just fuckin' showing up and owning it. Right? We, do we have our microphones getting ready? I just think about questions. Where, if you could have the microphones over here and over here and while you guys are thinking of your questions, I just wanna ask if, can you practically give us some language? Say I'm working on the line for people here or in the kitchen or in the front of the house and somebody says something about women or says something that seems sexist. What's some good language? How do you make that so you're not calling it? Like you say, calling a man and not calling him out. Can you maybe give us an example of what you might say to somebody who's, you know, says something practically? I think a simple way. So if someone says something that's not egregious, right? So saying that the dough should feel like breast is pretty egregious and like, I don't know how to be gentle with that, right? But if someone says something around someone's clothing, right, that's somewhat innocuous. Like so-and-so is a little hot. Yeah, you can say, tell me more about, you know, about what's underneath that comment about this woman, right, to approach it with a certain level of curiosity, right, and to ask a question because then you force that person to think about what their action just was, right? And to also do it hopefully in a way where that person can hear it silently, right? So there's, I mean, just amongst you two. But also don't forget to check on the person who the actual words were said about, right? It's just not enough for me to think that can I coddle you for saying something sexist? Also, there was a person who actually has to, has received probably not that comment just once, but probably their entire lives, right? So, you know, I know for a fact that every woman in here by the time that she was 16 knew what to expect from men, right, probably by the time that they were 12, to be honest, right? And I have to understand that. And I have to know that when a male friend of mine or even a colleague of mine says something to a woman that she knows exactly what that's about. And I have to now reckon with you to hopefully get you to have a certain level of awareness so that you don't say that again. And I have to risk losing your friendship over that too. Like I need to be okay with the fact that you may never talk to me again because I called you in about something that you just said. And then is it appropriate for you to go to that woman and say, hey, I heard that, I think that's cool, how do you feel? Or is that over making it work for women? I think it's gonna depend on your relationship with that individual, right? Because you also don't want someone else to feel like that they aren't capable of self-care and self-management. But to figure out a way to check in, right? That honors this person's humanity. Not writing it on your horse to sort of dance. Exactly, exactly, right? But to also, like, to let that person know that you're never gonna be a bystander or complicit in the fact that something just happened there that you weren't okay with. Okay, so when we do questions and comments, let's try not to, like, do long monologues since there may be a lot of people who wanna talk or say something. I only say that because, you know, and I know our microphone. Is there anybody up there? There's a mic here. Is anybody here or have something they wanna say or a comment or a question, don't be shy? There's a gentleman right up here. Of course, he's up here. And there's a woman in the back up there. And there's, let's see, there's a woman up here in the back. So maybe the second mic could go up here and the first mic could come down here. There he is. Run right up there. I think we have it, huh? Right. Yeah. Is there? Yeah. Oh, you have a mic up there? Should I start? Yeah, go up there to her. Oh, there we go. The mic is getting past and then you can. Yeah. Okay. All right. All right. You're right next, right up there, okay? So go ahead, please. Well, now it's working. I just, for us people not living in New York City on a daily basis, could you please update us? What, actually, because I'm a journalist, I wrote my version for my paper of your work on my battalion and the spotted pic. So, but could you update us? What is the situation right now? Did it hurt their businesses? Are they still in business? Are they working in the restaurants? Just a small update because it's, you're referring to it all the time and it's- Oh, sure. They do hang an effigy of Mario Batali every morning in Washington Square and then people come and throw stones at it. Which we enjoy quite a bit. No, I'm kidding. So, there are some, there's a criminal investigation around Mario Batali right now. There's been no charges. I need to say very fairly about that.  There's criminal charges that could happen around sexual harassment and abuse. And then there's a sexual harassment law that it's a civil proceeding in which they investigate and they're investigating the Harvey Weinstein company similarly. So, there's an active investigation around sexual harassment at the spotted pic and his properties. That's happening in New York. In terms of hurting their business right now, they're at the very tail end of dividing up the Bastianich Batali Empire that was supposed to be done already. It's gotten complicated partially by some Attorney General action, but Joe Bastianich and his partners and I think Nancy Silverton, who's not here, that organization is trying to revamp. They've put a lot of money into human resource policies and redoing their business.  I think in the last, I knew that there was maybe one or two restaurants, but I think now that I think all the restaurants are off the table and I don't know what their settlement's gonna be. We're sort of waiting to hear what that division will be. There's some other lawsuits and some legal issues that are going on. April Bloomfield is separated from Ken Friedman and they've divvied up their restaurants a little bit. I know White Gold Butchers, which was one of the restaurants in New York is closed now. And as far as we know, Ashley and Gabrielle Hamilton and her wife Ashley are taking over or becoming partners with Ken. I don't know how active that'll be. So that's the New York scene in San Francisco. There's a whole another business arrangement that's kind of being divvied up with Charlie Hallowell and he's still partner, still owns some of his businesses. So it's kind of a slow process and I don't think we know exactly how all that looks really. So I don't hope that answers your question. Right, thank you. Okay, and yes. Hi, so this doesn't exactly directly go to you because I love some of the points and advice that you've given on this panel. But with the Me Too movement in general, I feel as though there's a lot of talk, a lot, a lot of talk about what we're doing about it. There's a few success stories that get a lot of attention, but there's so much, there's not enough action being done to a really, really high extent. For example, I work in the food industry, I supply ingredients to restaurants and there are some, for one example, there's one chef who's really successful, does tons of charity work, is loved by so many people. The stuff he's done to me and other women is horrific, but I'm not in a position to sort of voice out because I'm still growing my business. I supply my ingredients to Whole Foods through a distributor who has said shockingly obnoxious stuff and is really supported and endorsed by people that are really influential, who I admire in the industry, that bring him into talks and things and my team are desperately begging me not to say anything. And I'm someone who rarely bites my tongue. I don't normally get myself in these situations of frustration, so I feel even worse for people that aren't in my position. So I just feel like there's just so much sort of, there's totally just hardly any integrity in this industry because there's so much ego and greed and everyone's sucking up to everyone. So how do we kind of tackle that and get more action and make a safer space to kind of bring up these things? And I think that anybody else who wants to talk, please raise your hands for the microphone, people can find you. But it is a toxic, I feel like we were all swimming in this toxic water and now suddenly we all realize how toxic it is. So it's, we see this everywhere, right? And also to your point, Sieverson at nytimes.com, but we can talk about that later. But what do you do? Do you call out? Like do you see it all around you? Is it up to you to stand up and go up to that, to this person?  I mean, do we all just need to start calling this out? It can be dangerous for people who could financially get hurt. Yeah, so my advice would be, are there other people who you can reach out to who are allies, right? Who you can either go with or actually have them potentially tell your story for you, right? And it's hard, right? As Bell Hook said, we all have to stand in a circumstance of risk, right? So at some point you may have to stand in a circumstance of risk and risk your safety, your livelihood for the good of others, right? But how can you find other allies so that you can do that with because there's strength in numbers so that the backlash doesn't fall squarely on you? So that would be my advice is, can you find other women or even other men who can stand in solidarity with you? Because if you come out in a collective, it's gonna be very hard for all of you to now be taken down. Lee Sam, any advice you wanna jump in there, you good? I mean, I think that's it. And I think we're in a phase of, I think this conversation where finding the way to do it is the answer. I understand the discomfort and the fear and what you have on the line. I think part of this process is learning how to manage it, and that means deal with it, right? Like I think we have to. I think we have to start doing the really uncomfortable, risky work. And it's easier said than done, obviously, right? Sure, yeah. Well, but yeah. Saying that if you have a, I'm just speaking so it's, that she feels like she cannot take the risk because she's got a team and she's gotta pay them and that she would suffer financially too much. I would see who you could find, you know. Who could? Who could? No, I'm not saying that it's easy also. I don't think we're saying it's easy. We're not saying that it's easy, but I'm just trying to give you some other options. Right, and I think this just, this experience shows that this is still bubbling everywhere, you know.  So let's, who else had a question or a comment? Right here's one, and where are we? Oh, and right here, and then we'll go right here to you. Okay, can we get a microphone right down here? We'll go here and then here. Well, I had a question. So, first off, I just wanna thank all the incredible women who have come forward in this movement, but it's time for men to step up, and be the ones to come forward, not in a negative way, but in a positive way. Men, we don't really, we're not in touch with our emotional side. We need positive male role figures, especially in this industry. It shouldn't be a problem to speak out, but until we have leadership from conscious men who are willing to stand up and talk about their emotions, and I mean it's just, men still dominate, like we're all in the leadership positions, like, so until we have an example of how to lead consciously, I just don't, it shouldn't be up to women to be courageous and be bold and share these stories.  We're told, you know, this type of mentality, I'd just be curious if Wade, with your experiences within this movement, I mean, it just seems like this is a topic that is not addressed enough in terms of men actually being raw. Like, we're told we can't do that still. Thank you, Wade, do you wanna? So, you know, thank you for your comments. So, what we men are socialized to believe that there's no value in us being vulnerable, right? That there's no social capital there. So, my work is working with senior men, like CEOs of companies, and get them to a point where they can actually be vulnerable, be authentic, be honest, own our insecurities and our fear, because the reason we treat other people the way that we do is because we're so fearful and we're so insecure, right? And what we don't also get is that we actually emasculate ourselves. No one else can emasculate you when you define your manhood for you, but we don't know how to do that because we've never been taught that, right? So, part of the work is to have more folks like Renee, who's opening up this space.  Like, I'm under no pretense to believe that him doing this is a risk to him. So, he's modeling what it means to be a man who has power, privilege, and access to stand in a circumstance of risk, knowing that you can help to crack the world even wider open and then do the real emotional labor of closing it back. All right, thank you, yes. Hey, so I think I had maybe a two-part question. So, Wade, you had said earlier that one of the reasons that we want to rush past some of the discomforting parts of these conversations is because we want to think that we're good people. And I just wonder if you feel like there's more to it than that because I hear vestiges of this. I mean, this is a cross-cultural problem in many areas. I see this when it comes to police brutality and black lives matter. We just want to skip over it. It's always the same people who are doing the complaining, the people who can be accountable, never want to be without being forced to. We see this in the trans community. I mean, there's just all kinds of spaces where it's always the people who are oppressed who have to do the hard labor. And the folks who have the spotlight shown on them always want to just say, well, what can we do to fix it? So I get really frustrated with that question sometimes because I feel like you haven't even fully engaged in what the issue is and how intergenerationally problematic that is. So I just wondered if maybe you could speak a bit more to that impulse for the people in power to just push forward. And then the brief second part was, you talk about saying to folks like, hey, read a book, do some self-education. I wondered if you had some favorite go-tos. You mentioned Bell Hooks. I don't think she's like first step reading for most people. But if you're trying to engage people in a conversation, what do you suggest they do? Great. So your question is to recap. So the idea is that it's always a people and this is with race and with like, so in racism, why people say, well, tell us what to do. We want to help. And again, it puts the onus on the minority or on the person, the victim. So it's like, you know, men saying, hey, you know, sisters tell us what to do and we'll do it. Where you're trying to talk about putting the power, putting the responsibility on the people who are in the position of privilege and power to go ahead and figure it out and do the work, right? Is that, am I hitting that right? I just want to make sure that we understand that. Yeah, but also he specifically cited that we have this general human inclination to want to be good. And that is part of why we want to skip over the messiness. I see. But I think there's maybe more to that. I mean, we see this like with the Catholic Church too, right? We just want to like, just hop on over, just skip over it. And it's like, no, we really need to be with what has happened here. And like, you know, but we're doing this in all areas of our lives. It's not just in restaurants. It's not just around, you know, violence and policing. It's not just, you know, in our religious spaces. So, you know, given that your work is so varied, I just wondered if you could talk a little bit more about that impulse so we can better understand. Yeah, I'll be quick. Yeah, yeah, so I'll be quick. So the reason I mentioned the idea of good people, right?  They say, well, my kid's a good kid, right? No, actually, your kid is not a good kid. Your kid is human, right? But we're so deeply interested in seeing ourselves as good people, right? Because what the Me Too movement is, it's a mirror to our private lives. Like, we all think that we're so private.  Like, we see each other really, really clearly, but we don't want to, right? I think the other piece is that, and I wrote it down here. How do I say this cleanly? It's much easier to point the finger on the person who is surviving it, to have them do the actual work than for us to go inward and realize that these awful things that people are doing, we've thought about them too. Like, and that is the truth here, right? Like, we're not private people, right?  Exactly, right? Like, that's what it is, right? And we just have to own that, you know? And it's so hard for us to be honest about ourselves, you know, like, I have to own that I'm sexist. And if I can't own that I'm sexist, I can never do the work to unlearn it. Like, people have to own that you're racist.  And the last thing that I'll say is that, that the people in power have never given people who are weak anything. They had to take it through time and through force. Like, that has always happened. Like, men just didn't give women the right to vote. This didn't happen.  Like, all these movements are about having to take it back because no one is benevolent in this country. You know, men say things like, well, I had a daughter and I became a gender equality advocate. That's benevolent sexism.  So all these things, we still haven't learned, right? The last thing is some books are Read Anything by James Baldwin, Read Anything by Judith Butler, Read Anything by Michael Foucault, Read Anything by Roxane Gay, Read Anything by Janet Mock. Like, just read books that are written by women and about women and your world will be immensely different because we know nothing about the interior of your lives. All right, thank you. And subscribe to The New York Times, but anyway, so we had two questions up here. We had the fellow in the saucy chapeau and then there's another woman over here. Okay.  So I have worked with a former colleague of mine who has been fired from four or five jobs for harassment. He keeps popping up in different restaurants. He's actually increased now. No, I'm kidding. Sorry, that was a bad joke. So my question was, what is wrong in the system that is enabling people like that to keep getting jobs? Because I think the two things that I think about are one, that when people call to check a reference on someone, they're not able to ask certain questions.  So the people who have fired that person are not able to reveal the things that were wrong with them. And the other thing is that the restaurants themselves seem not willing to report the behavior to the authorities because they don't want the bad press or they don't want the attention to shine a negative light on their restaurant. But I'm just curious to know what you think. And that may be something that has to change in order to see those people really disappear. Right. It's interesting. There's a lot of the women we talked to were afraid to come out and talk on the record in our stories because they were afraid they would get blacklisted. Or some had gotten blacklisted for speaking out. And that's one of the issues that is being investigated by the attorney generals, like blacklisting of people who spoke out. I wonder if that could ever flip. And there would be a blacklisting. The restaurant industry is pretty good at gossip and blacklisting people that they don't like. I wonder if the culture would ever change so that the blacklist would be for the dickpick guy. It's kind of an interesting flip on the thing. But what do you think in business? I think this is where, as chefs and cooks and dishwashers, it's not like we don't have intimate conversations with each other about our workplace all the time, right? So I understand that you might not always be in a position of power or authority to go to your boss and say, listen, but I think that's where we're at. I think that we have to say, I know you're not maybe on the front end of hiring. But I think we're in a place where we have to start trusting each other. And when we see something, we have to say, I'd like to have a talk, chef.  And I think that's a big hurdle for us, because we are very, we're pack animals, right? And I think we've suffered in the same ways that we've thrived in that. And I don't know what your relationship is in your restaurant or if this guy is even in your restaurant. But I think there's a burden of responsibility to be an active member of that conversation. And I know every kitchen is different. So I know there are complexities to how every single kitchen works.  Like just for being rude or just for not cleaning their station well enough.  I think that it's just being a productive part of your industry. And do you think hiring, like for people who are in positions of hiring and CEOs here or an executive chef, that culture has to be open at the top for that kind of conversation to happen and also the hiring and promotion of people, particularly of women, although it's not all women, but hiring and promotion of people who have that sensibility matters too, right? So that's how it changes is when you have people at the top who have this, who are kind of woke on this issue, I suppose. And we live in a culture where people aren't held accountable for crimes against women, right? Like only 25% of men who are convicted of rape spend a day in jail. Only 25%. Yes, who are convicted, exactly, right? So that just tells you how we actually value women. And I would just say to you, not that you're being silent about it, but like there are actions that you could take, right? Like Baldwin said, silence is not just criminal, but it's suicidal, right? So this also damages you when you're silent on it. Well, keep telling. Oh, so you... He got fired from that job after that happened. Sorry, what I said was that I told a friend who had interviewed with this person.  And I was like, you should know that this is the deal. She took the job and he got fired three or four months later for the same exact thing. So a follow-up to that would be if you know, do you show up at the other restaurant that you're not working at and like, narc them out? Yes. And I wouldn't view it as a narcan. I wouldn't view it as a narcan, I don't know. Because I think our industry, and I appreciate your answer, but I think our industry has this sort of like fucked-up-ass code that... Cultural violence. Yeah, well that's what I'm trying to address is the fact that we all have it. I know the feeling you have right now, trust me.   And then, you know, that guy's fate is that guy's fate. He's made his bed, you know? I know where you're coming from, I've been there. We've all, every chef in this room probably has been there. I think if it's a nefarious enough person, I think those are conversations we just have to keep having, and we have to change the language for ourselves, right? Like blacklisting and narcing and all of these things where we take on some weird-ass burden that we're doing something wrong is a very deep part of what we're trying to untangle here. You know? The last thing I would say is, you're 100% right, that the language of narcing itself sounds like that what you're doing is negative. Like I would actually call it something very different, like a culture of care, or you know, just something different to reframe it. And that's why I wanted to talk about how protective chefs are, because I think we've been protecting the wrong way, we've been doing the best we can, but I think that we, for me, I think the move right now is to start having conversations that feel uncomfortable, but they're actually, it's like being a mother. Like there's a lot of stuff I don't wanna have to talk to my kids about and do, but I do, you know? I mean, I had to have this whole weird-ass conversation with my daughter. She's 13, she took the city bus. You know, some guy came, she had an awkward first experience with an adult man who got too close to her. And I had to give her directives that no one should say that they're 13-year-old daughter, but that's what we do, right? Like that's what we have to do. That feels like my job as a mother. And so I think I'm trying to look at it through those eyes of, I love this industry, I love it. I love the people. I don't know where else I would ever want to be. And so with that same love, I have to figure out how to have conversations and change my language because for so long, I internalized the problems I saw and how I needed to digest them and manage them to protect myself, I guess, or to protect the industry in some weird back-ass way. I don't know. So I think we have to really change the way we see protecting this industry. All right, let's go to our next, yes, go ahead. Yes, hi. Well, I have a comment and a question. The comment is, well, thank you for doing this. I've been, I'm a woman and not only in the industry, but in other aspects, I've been going through these problems all my life. Also, I come from Peru and the cultural difference, I think it's always very much involved in how these things evolve. I think this is really, really a start, even in the industry and the MeToo overall. And the more I read about it, the more I feel me myself as having all of these sexist beliefs myself so rooted in them. I'm also a mother and the way to think about how you have to deal with this right now and how we have to work on that is very important. So I think there has to be call outs, there has to be calling in's, there has to be a bit of everything so that this really works because some places need more aggressivity, otherwise people don't react. And this brings me a bit to the role that we all have to play and my question is about press because I feel that the press industry has a very, very big weight right now on all of this especially because we are so into social media and the impact MeToo has had is also because of social media, also because of press but I still feel when it comes to the industry, when I read about the press or when I go and see the 50 best or I think it's a monotema probably for everyone but my question to you is how do you feel about that? I'm sure you've had this conversation within colleagues of yours and how does this need to change because I feel that if that doesn't change there's also like it's all cyclical and it's difficult. What has to change the press? The way I feel like there's a lot of journalism but journalism towards showing the industry and this such like big macho still or all of this. So you're talking about like more emphasis on the bro culture and the best chefs being all men or that sort of like that food media. Like your opinion about in general how press is dealing with the MeToo movement in the restaurant. Well you know I again and thank you for that. I you know they're like in restaurants there's really shitty restaurants and there's really good restaurants right? So there's really shitty journalism and there's really good journalism and the media is people say blame the media but you know media is a lot of different things right and some of it's good and some of it isn't and you know I would encourage you to support the journalism you think is good whether if it's a newspaper or a food magazine or you know tell whatever you do like consume the media you think is good and that you trust and ignore the rest. I mean there's a lot of noise out there. There's a lot of bad we're not a monolith and I think you know we're looking we're having a debate over what food criticism is in America right now and it's been white male perspective for a long long time and I think we're changing that. I think a lot of journalists they think we're in a big moment where we're trying to do better. We're always you know again we're human and always trying to do a better job and I think the more pressure we get from our readers and our viewers about what works and doesn't journalism has never been as responsive to readers as this time and I've never known a time in which readers can directly get to me and it's my responsibility to answer and be accountable so I think media's being held accountable is a lot more media so we have to be accountable so I think it's changing I guess is my answer to you. I think we have one more quick question. We don't have a lot of time but could we do one more? Take us out on a good one my friend, no pressure. I wanna finish this on a more positive note. I'm standing under a horrible angle for this conversation so I agree that harassment and workplace is a horrible thing needs to be addressed and this is a deeply cultural issue but I also wanna hear your thoughts on how to not get over paranoid because most of us are working very close together and I've been working for 13 years in the industry and I've been divorced twice and some of the more meaningful relationship I have been able to have work with employees so how do we not get over paranoid about sexual harassment issues and yet are able to have meaningful relationship and what do you think about employee relationships?  All right, real quick. No, you're not gonna like my answer because I don't think women are paranoid at all about this issue. I think men are paranoid about this issue and that's what you're really saying. We have to be honest and intentional with our language like women are not paranoid because this is their lives men are paranoid because it's changing our lives. The goalpost has moved. Yes, good. Stay uncomfortable. Don't try to change the conversation because it's not benefiting you. Like it's time for change to happen. That's all I was gonna say. You wanna jump in there, Lisa? Give us some last words of advice. That was I think a great ending there. Right, there you go. So right, it's if you know probably if you think you wanna ask her out it's probably just don't. That's like right now, probably a good idea. Anyway, I thank you all for this panel. Your honesty will be around. Thank you guys.


There all is a pleasure for me to welcome you all to this webinar for the special issue on digital platforms for development in the information systems journal. My name is Petter Nielsen and I'm an associate professor here at the University of Oslo. I'm also a senior editor of the information systems journal and together with Professor Brian Nicholson from the University of Manchester and associate professor Johan Saabö from the University of Oslo, I have contributed as a guest editor of this special issue. My role today will be to give a brief introduction to the agenda and guide us through the program. We will start today by an introduction from the special issue editors by Brian Nicholson. After this the authors of the three papers in the special issue will present their work. After that and finally we will also have a question and answer session. So you will need to keep your questions and comments until the end. The Q&A session will be moderated by Johan Saabö. As you can already see in the webinar controls we have opened up the Q&A functionality in Zoom. So feel free to write your questions there or vote questions from others during the presentations. You can also raise your hands in the webinar controls during the Q&A session if you would like to give comments or ask questions and we will eventually allow you to speak. As you may have noticed we are recording this webinar. We will stop the recording after the presentations of the papers so the Q&A will not be recorded. The recording will be made available after this webinar. So this was my brief introduction and then I give the word to Brian Nicholson to give an introduction to our special issue on digital platforms for development. All right thank you Peta and welcome to everybody. Thanks for coming and thanks to the authors for all the work they put in on these papers which I think are valuable contributions to the debate. I also want to thank Robert Davison who is the editor of the Information Systems Journal for his support with this and particularly to the associate editors and the anonymous reviewers that have helped us through this process. We've named the associate editors but not the reviewers but your help is definitely appreciated by all of us. I first encountered this term digital platform a few years ago and it was via a series of events that were organised by my colleague Richard Heeks the network called Tyode the development implications of digital economies and we travelled around. Tyler was speaking next we're also involved in that and I think it was her work that spurred me on actually through that my old network debates and that was when we first really started to understand the complexities of digital platforms and the void that existed in in development particularly. Now as I'm sure you know that there have been going to move to my next slide there have been very significant contributions in this area in economics accounting entrepreneurship management and information systems and more. However I would argue that when we look at these contributions and you know we can name Jeffrey Parker's work which is really great Michael Kusumano and Alavella Galla's book a special issue in information systems research those always have been really pivotal in our understanding of digital platforms in information systems particularly. My work in the I think 9.4 group implications of information and digital technology for development is focused on that particular area and we in that community felt that a gap existed on platforms viewed through that lens but that's what spurred on this this special issue which to make sense of a digital platform through that lens of development. But I think first of all we need to understand what we mean by digital platforms for those that are perhaps new to the area and I could have drawn on some of those mainstream definitions from management strategy or whatever but I've drawn on one in the editorial the OECD which quite is quite a broad brush definition. Now you can read that of course I'm not going to read it out to you what that brings in is a whole range of different possibilities for analysis of big work of digital marketplaces music sharing dating etc so it leaves us a broad brush to examine the area. What we're particularly interested in here is is development and conceptualizing development when the editorial we we do give a high level description of the paradigms of development and we settle on the 17 sustainable development goals. Now I'm not going to go into this partly because Carla Benina and colleagues do a very good job in their paper of analyzing this so we're delighted when that came through in the paper. What I want to do is just to take you through some highlights of the editorial and what the editorial tries to do is showcase these papers but also point to some dimensions of platforms and development. So first of all the question we're trying to answer is can platform facilitate development when you do the lens of the SDGs and working at University of Oslo with Heather and Johan of course I'm a technological optimist perhaps a cautious critical technological optimist but for any of you that know the work of Oslo and the DHIS2 platform we are optimistic platforms can facilitate development but this particular quote here indicates from Davis 2013 that there's never been a better time an easier time to start a digital business and if we look at the literature that is definitely a feature of this period that it would appear that platforms definitely can facilitate development due to the lens of the economic dimension. So if we look at some of these examples from entrepreneurship Crisanti Avgaru's study of Taobao entrepreneurs setting up is a very good example of that that provides evidence that there is platforms and development. My own work in gig work along with PhD students the great Ryan Goseva my friend at Virtual Ahan who specializes in platform gig work disabled people in the Philippines is a really good example and if you go to the website of Virtual Ahan you'll see stories of disabled people whose livelihoods have been significantly improved. Other work for instance for Issa Malik another of my students looking at Uba Karim in Pakistan which has shown livelihood improvement and female empowerment and then another example of our labs that I encountered through Richard Higgs's child network where in the Cape Flats area of Cape Town in South Africa there is an organization that specializes in training marginalized people to engage in app development to actually engage in digital startups and platform work and platform creation. It's very inspiring place to visit which I did have the pleasure of doing a few years to go along with them with members of that diode network. So along with other examples that I've put into the editorial we can see lots of potential platforms and the SGGs to facilitate development. However that the story doesn't end there and we look at some of the more pessimistic or perhaps more critical literature in the area we can see that there are some serious indications that are detrimental effects that are not facilitating the SGGs. The frightful five platforms monopoly for instance the frightful five is a collective term for the largest platforms that I'm sure you're familiar with and the critique of them as forming a monopoly position and the recent case of Facebook and the rebranding and the whistleblowing and the accusations of hate speech are one dimension of that but the monopoly position is significantly criticized. My colleague Deborah Howcroft in the Manchester School has also criticized the potential throughout development as a offering a long-term career livelihood for those developers who has outcast on that. Christina Zuboff of course has criticized extensively the the chips of power from state to platform calling for regulation and examining the dimensions of surveillance. Furthermore we're seeing the work of Bonnie Roberts our colleague who has examined the state use of platforms for digital authoritarianism and then finally you'll see in the editorial that we provide a flag towards Mark Graham's work in the Fair Work Foundation which is an analysis of big work and the last piece of work I saw from them was an attempt to benchmark all those big platforms against fair work principles and the outcome was rather pessimistic when looking at the overall role. So that's the highlights of our editorial what I'd like to do now is to hand over to the authors of the papers to take you through the highlights of theirs. So thank you very much Brian for the introduction and then I give the word to Carla Bonina and Karikoskinen to present the paper digital platforms development for development foundations and research agenda. Let me unmute myself and let me present here to see it in the right way or almost there there right? Yes excellent good so again thank you so much for this it's my pleasure here so my name is Carla Bonina and I'm part of the Southern Business School at the Center of Digital Economy and as I said it's a real pleasure to be here with my co-authors Karikoskinen, Ben Eaton and Annabel Gower to present very briefly this paper. We're very grateful for the opportunity and all the help from the editors and of course the team of reviewers and also we're very grateful for the support received from the SRC sponsored network Diody that you mentioned Brian and the very valuable feedback we received along you know different phases of this project for the last couple of years and I can see also good friends and colleagues attended this this webinar. So what I would like to do today is again very briefly to present the key points of our paper it's an open access paper that is already having a very good reception and we're very grateful and happy with that and again there's a lot more detail but here you'll have an overview. I think Brian you touch upon something that was for us very very important as an empirical motivation of this paper the role of the big platform so as you say the Fightful Five or the so-called GAFAM this days or although I think the F has changed. These global digital platforms are now valued in 10 trillion dollars right and just to give you a perspective that's 10 times the GDP of Mexico which is a very big country. This doesn't mean of course that the significant of platforms for development has not been out there what we found that was precisely a gap from the the literature taking this more developmental view and of course these platforms do bring a lot of potential to generate socio-economic environmental value yet this was under study and we think that part of the problem was this lack of scoping on what digital platforms really are and what this object is about at least very much in our field and information systems and also in development studies so this was our guiding question right for this conceptual piece what do digital platforms mean for development. We take a broad view on development that is a holistic view that goes beyond of course economic growth and encompass these other developmental outcomes very much exemplified by the sustainable development goals right so with that in mind this paper does three main things right the first one is precisely to scope this object right and to do this we build from the work of my co-authors in this in this project Annabel Gower from the strategic management perspective mainly and also Ben Eaton from the information systems to provide this characterization of platforms we have very much these two types the transaction and the innovation that we think bring a bit more clarity to to our understanding of digital platforms and what we do there and there is a lot more detail in the paper is to explain the purpose explain the focus that each of them take in the literature explain then the line digital characteristics and that's as you know very important for for our field also review the basis for value creation and capture and we provide examples that will link to the developmental outcomes we do not just stop there we also take on board the the literature on ICT4D and this contextual socio-technical idea to also bring some of the nuances that you have in different stakeholders and platform governance for the purpose of development or developmental lens so the second thing we do in the paper is precisely to use this scoping to review the literature as Brian mentioned there were already lots of studies out there that perhaps will not talk about digital platforms in this characterization so we tried to map that we did a very comprehensive review on the major ICT4D outlets and also the isbasket.8 and this is more or less a summary of what we found there of course a lot more detail on the paper but very much the literature was talking about transaction very much this much-making platforms right that we're I think mostly familiar with rather than the innovation platforms those that enable other third party developers to do new things and they are in different ways. A lot of the emphasis of these papers were on removing frictions very much of big importance for the global south of the development context and this is access to information and creation of new markets for example in agriculture or rural settings there was also a trend on more emergent or nascent ideas of you know just simple platforms simple in the sense of less sophisticated use of SMEs and ideas like that and then a bigger presence of what we call non-commercial actors of course this may not be surprising because in the context of development NGOs governments and also you know big donors have a bigger role there. We also find that the significance of context was very important whether it's in the institutional rules regulations the infrastructure issues of access was very much on the papers and again for an ICT4D audience this is not surprising again a lot more detail on the paper but this is a bit of a summary of what we found and with this we do a third thing so using the the scoping of digital platforms and then what we found in the literature we envisaged this agenda in the form of six research questions I'm going to name them here very briefly on indigenous innovation or whether these digital platforms create or destroy institutions whether the inequalities are actually exacerbated by digital platforms the fourth of platform alternatives in the sense of our alternative forms of value being generated or created with this more developmental lens at the dark side things already Brian touch upon concentration of power surveillance and the very you know harmful effects that some of them might be doing at the moment and then a last one on the categorization of that we found you know transaction innovation and the context of development so for each of these themes we define the research question we explain what this is about and we provide examples or potential directions whether theoretically or methodologically or or even some of the studies that are already tackling some of this for future work of course this six research questions are not mutually exclusive and you may see a lot of overlaps for example within the dark side and contrast concentration of power we also may find implications on the exacerbation of inequalities or the the destruction or creation of institutions so I would like just to whoops finish with a big of a you know big umbrella overview of what we think our paper does first we think that this is coping of digital platforms you know this characterization and transaction and innovation with all their characteristics while that might not be new because it's been already developed in other fields it's very important for information systems to contribute to this lack of clarity we spoke at the beginning and this is not just for development we think this is important for the field itself we also we also think that this six research questions together with the scoping will actually help us mobilize a better understanding of these developmental outcomes and what digital platforms mean for development and not just in developing countries and with that I'll let you close there is also this idea of coal we were actually we debated with the team about whether this categorization for example that is very well known and developed for from for the global north what there is applicable whether we need more nuances in terms of development and that's something that that our people call support and with the 30 seconds left and I would like then my co-authors to add something in the Q&A when we have a bit more more space to say I'm also leading a new book project it's an edited volume with already great contributors so if any of you in the audience would like to to you know perhaps get in touch if you're working on any of these six areas do get in touch with me in case it can be considered and with that I would like to to close this and pass it on to the next author and again a pleasure being here thank you very much Carla and Kari Ben and Annabelle then I give the word to Silvia Masiero to present the paper degenerative outcomes of digital identity platforms for development many thanks Pat and many thanks again to the editors for making this webinar possible and to the other authors for presenting their work I'm extremely excited to be here today on behalf of also my esteemed colleague Victor Arbitzon who is co-author on this paper I'm now going to ask the most asked question of this pandemic and that is can you see my screen properly excellent fantastic so it is my pleasure to present the second paper in this special issue and also to make connections in between our paper and the rest of the volume I very much see this special issue in as a set of papers in continuity with each other continuity is that I'd be delighted to highlight in my presentation too our paper is an empirically based work centered on the largest digital identity platforms in the world that's India's ad hoc platform and it is titled the degenerative outcomes of digital identity platforms for development already from the title I think you can see a strong link of continuity in between the critical aspects that both Brian and Carla highlighted in their presentations I want to make a small preamble as I begin this presentation and that's not that we can discuss in the Q&A but the very important for our work note that digital identity platforms that's platforms that encode the demographic and increasingly biometric data of a population of users are platforms themselves so a digital identity platforms works by all means as an innovation platform as Carla just described so a digital identity platform as our paper this sets consists essentially of a core so a core in this case consisting in a repository of users data demographic and again increasingly biometric boundary resources that make it possible to do what to enable complementors to build complements of different kinds as we will see today upon the core and thirdly a set of complementors be them private public non-profit or of different kinds that we will see that actually develop products and services upon the core now why am I making this point so strongly and why is it underlined in red over there is because we noticed in the review that preceded our work that digital identity platforms tend to feature very little in the information systems literature on platforms which led us to wonder why is it so but a second and perhaps a generative item in this research is the fact that digital identity platforms which are not so strongly featured in information systems literature but featured a lot more strongly in for example development studies geography critical data studies literatures are in general widely seen as a means to improve many things among which social protection systems a social protection system is very broadly in development studies terminology a system to reduce livelihood risk for poor or vulnerable otherwise vulnerable populations so think we're gonna talk about food security today but think pensions think health insurance think emergency assistance to the poor all of this goes under the social protection umbrella so why would the digital identity platform that converts people's data into digital data be so important here for two reasons in the development orthodoxy behind them first of all because such a platform can fight an exclusion error okay so if I have the data of all a population for example of below poverty line users I can match their data to their entitlements and make sure people are not excluded from aid from food support from emergency assistance at the same time that's two birds with one stone because I can also include all people that are entitled to the same system and make sure that for example someone who is not entitled might not have access to it now the problem is that this is not what we see in parties in the especially in the development and data studies literature so in many ways and we have a paper about digital identity and refugees just after us so we will see this more I expect but many perverse outcomes have occurred the main ones been exclusions so for example cases of hunger deaths out of people being excluded from digitally mediated food aid exclusions of for example displaced populations that were due to be included in a social protection system and due to be smashed in digital identity were excluded we have cases like for example Kenya's Khudum and Namba were a platform a digital identity platform was actually blocked by the country's supreme court due to the inability to deal with essential issues such as exclusions and this leads us to the research question for our paper which is how do digital identity platforms enable degenerative outcomes so degeneration is a key word in our paper it refers to decline and deterioration of a system okay so deterioration of a system that results in a weaker in an enfeeble state state as compared to before now I think I have five minutes even less so our data our data rely on a 10-year research work that I started in the year 2010 supervised back then by Shirin who is here today thank you Shirin I'm on the Adhar Adhar is India's digital identity platform it enrolls over 90% of India's adult population it consists in the enrollment through a government agency of Indian residents and captures biometric data that's iris and ten finger prints and produces a 12 a unique 12-digit number for every enrolled president the way we study the platform is by its incorporation in the largest Indian food security system it's called public distribution system and that's a subsidy system that delivers subsidies to the below poverty line population so as you see here in my field pictures on the left people can go to the shop where food items are delivered authenticate themselves through their finger prints and receive based on that authentication their entitlements isn't this wonderful well I'll give you an overview of our findings and the and our findings find essentially two families of results the first one is in terms of the layers of the social protection system of the public distribution system affected by Adhar and a lot of the development studies literature focuses on the first layer access so the access of the cities and who enters the system and we did see transformation at this layer as I've just shown access has become biometric however there are two more layers that in fact the literature does not contemplate too much one is in terms of monitoring so how the Adhar system changed the monitoring of the system by the authorities at the back end and very crucially the development policy so what we witnessed is not only a transformation of the system itself but the inscription of the system in a policy that wants to change the subsidy system to a system of cash transfers now where's the degenerative effect that our search is found so this is like this I would say the crux the core of the research and the research those links in between the design properties of the Adhar and in effect we can say one degenerative outcome for each of the layers at the access level we did find an issue of exclusion so a problem of entitled users a problem that is quite confirmed through quantitative studies of the same program a problem of entitled users finding themselves denied the delivery of rations due to the inability of authentication so this very much comes from a system that is designed to combat the inclusion error so I surely won't be able to authenticate in case I'm not entitled but not so much the exclusion error problem the two further layers that we find is that monitoring is very much centered through the biometric system at the level of the shop where the person accesses the system however not so much at the earlier levels of the supply chain where a lot a substantial part of the diversion of food items occurs and a third and perhaps and here I finish my presentation because my time meals are up and a third and deepest layer is the layer of redirectional policy so what our research documents is very much the fact that redesigning the system biometrically enables what is a non-goin shift from a subsidy system giving subsidies to people to a system of cash transfers so bypassing the food security supply chain entirely a system that my our qualitative research reveal is for many reasons feared by many of the recipients for issues including the not so easy access to bank accounts and the immateriality of cash as compared to food this wraps up my presentation and this finance light only is my way to connect our research to Bonnie and I thought that also conceptualize digital identity as transaction platforms so that's a debate I really want to have today and in the future and that links the the generative outcomes of the ad hoc to the discourse on the refugees that she is going to embark so I finish here my presentation with many thanks and handing it over to Sheehan thank you very much Silvia and I then invite Sheehan Madden to present the paper digital identity as a platform for improving refugee management thank you let me just get a presentation can you all see that yes excellent and is it in the right view yes perfect okay excellent thank you well thanks very much for this opportunity and in fact the whole experience for me the whole journey has been such a learning exercise so I really want to thank the entire editorial team as well as having organized this webinar I've learned a lot I think that as Silvia was saying there will be a lot of crossovers especially with the the point about transaction based and innovation based platforms and the the point about digital identity as a key driver for platforms so this is a paper with my colleague Emeriss Shoemaker who unfortunately cannot be with us today and I think it was the sheer intensity and the scale of the refugee crisis and the response to that by humanitarian organizations to be able to transform their earlier legacy information systems into digital platforms and this time momentum and trend which is underway right now is something that inspired us to to study this this particular aspect of digital identity as a platform for improving refugee management so the case was based on UNHCR which as you know is the lead leading global agency it has the mandate for protecting refugees across the world and in 2018 UNHCR introduced its digital identity platform for improving the way in which it managed refugees at that time it was a closed as we call it in the paper a closed transaction based platform in other words it was a platform that enabled information exchange between the various partner organizations that were providing services on its behalf and it was at that time that Emeriss was invited as part of a review team from Caribou Digital to be able to sort of advise and make suggestions on UNHCR's ongoing journey this is not a journey between I think this is not an issue of sort of it's a transaction based and now it's an innovation based it was the journey itself which is ongoing and the paper itself tries to make a contribution to to characterize to theorize and to try to characterize this process of platformization as we know that term from information systems so the way in which we try to conceptualize this opening up process and to draw implications for the main stakeholders and the sub processes which are involved in the platformization process I'll just briefly go over that so the focus would be on the solid line triangle in the center there which it's supposed to represent UNHCR's transaction based closed loop platform as we refer to it in the paper so as I said this is the point about UNHCR working to facilitate information exchange with its partner organizations in camp that that's the way in which it's been working and that's the way it still works with three key stakeholders one two and three first of all the identifier itself which is UNHCR which you know puts forward and proposes identification criteria for the refugees uh number two those who are identified who are the refugees and three the third party service providing organizations so in that first solid line triangle there it would be the closed system now you know obviously the from the closed transaction based system to an an open innovation platform is something that is it's an incremental process and we try to denote that with the shaded triangle as it expands into an open platform discussions are still on the way within a UNHCR as to what it means by an open innovation platform but in the paper we do give examples of what this is so for example this is the ability of refugees themselves to manage their identification portfolio and more importantly the open innovation platform is about opening the digital identity platform to third party market players which is a common phenomenon not just in the humanitarian sector but also for social protection and poverty alleviation so within that schema we then identify and talk about in the paper three key sub-processes the first one is clearly identification itself because how refugees are identified in the first place um has a huge bearing on the entitlements they receive and therefore on their life prospects this is obviously a dynamic process and it is shaped by relations of power and control the second key process right in the center of the triangle there is how is value generated from this platform when we're talking about refugee management well here clearly the issue of value depends on the priorities and the incentives of each of the key stakeholder groups but it's heavily shaped by the identification process itself and it's also heavily shaped by the way in which UNHCR as platform owner orchestrates or puts in place governance mechanisms for the creation of value to its different users of the platform so the paper then goes on to try to use these constructs to see what what we found in the field and it's the interplay between these three processes which I think lies at the heart of our paper so we interviewed UNHCR staff we interviewed service provider organizations which included um uh partners in camp as well as third party market providers service providers mobile network operators and financial providers um and a cohort of refugees itself and this was based on a study in bdbd refugee camp in northern Uganda one of the largest camps in the world so just to briefly touch on some of the findings and I can't even see exactly how many minutes I've got left but not a lot so I'll just briefly go through them the paper then gives more details of this platformization process and the generation of value number one to the UNHCI itself increased efficiency of course that is one of the biggest mandates but there are also ripple effects it's not just the UNHCR but one of the benefits of the platform was clearly to assist the host state ID systems because the credentials could serve as proxy refugee status for for people with passing through and and taking residence in the camp and also beyond the sector so the fact that the platform was opening up to market players it meant that UNHCR's identification criteria were instrumental in creating network effects and therefore including market players as as instrumental on this platform nevertheless tensions were there and even today there are big discussions that you talk about in the paper about to what extent does UNHCR really want to open up its processes and open up its systems to third party players for service providers themselves increased organizational coordination and service innovation is clearly one of the biggest problems one of the biggest challenges before the UNHCR platform however several risks exist even today and some of these have been talked about today service providers are reticence and extremely cautious about this opening up process increased personal data sharing especially for sensitive issues of child protection domestic violence what does it mean when platforms open up for the relationship the trust relationship between the partner organizations and the refugees and also what does it mean for for service provider organizations themselves to to keep as a proprietary data set the data on refugees and activities because at the end of the day save the children action aid they will work in camp but they will compete with other service providers as well for refugees themselves the creation of value yes the platform would increase access to opportunities especially as market players enter the scene so not just for service provision education employment but also for increased targeting and personalization of market-based services they're able to have more management and more control over their own data because if they can manage their identification portfolio then this gives them a sense of of agency and empowerment increased risks there is definitely the risk there of restructuring social relations especially when it comes to certain identification criteria such as female headed households which UNHCR puts in place for a particular efficiency reason but it means something very different for refugees because if if women headed households are if that is the criteria then when the male members come and join in camp they are going this is nearly always going to lead to a situation of domestic violence so it's a question of how sensitive are the identification criteria which are put in place for one reason for the reason of efficiency but means something very different both for partner organizations and for refugees there are limitations of opening up that the first one is one that we've already talked about that is the problem of the lack of host system legislation in place for data protection but also it's the case that there is a lot of reliance on international standards ISO FATF standards for this opening up process so the the selection of criteria by UNHCR which would enable market providers and tempt them to provide market services is still not not decided and finally implications for theory and practice well identification as we know it's a dynamic relationship but as we found this relationship is right now biased towards organizations that UNHCR and other service organizations and it's this bias that unfortunately still gets reflected in the criteria which are coded into the design of the platform value generation we find that the degree and timing of openness is extremely important there's a big difference between opening up to refugees to allow them to manage their portfolio and opening up to the wider market governance this is the issue that UNHCR is grappling with right now to orchestrate this process of platformization and above all to maintain its commitment to refugee protection in the paper we end with a few change management procedures I think the most important one is the first one here which is to ensure that there's refugee and partner organization regular involvement in the design and evolution of the platform and UNHCR is actually working with this to create an oversight board which is localized and the tiered approach to identity proofing is this idea that at the end of the day the UNHCR's own processes are not solid enough to entice market service providers so it needs to be done in a phased manner that's it thank you so much for the opportunity to present I'm sorry I didn't stick exactly to 10 minutes thank you very much Shirin at this point in time I will stop the