Hello everyone, welcome to the Pictoblox machine learning environment tutorial series. In this tutorial we are going to learn about object detection. Object detection is one of the machine learning model types which can be trained in Pictoblox. Object detection can be used to locate and recognize objects in a given image. For example, an object detection model trained to recognize alarm clocks will locate alarm clocks in an image using bounding boxes. In this example we are going to use object detection to detect bottles and eyeglasses in a given image. However, you can pick any two objects of your choice. The two classes we will be working with are bottle and glasses. Let's get started. Open Pictoblox and select the block coding environment. Go to the machine learning environment by selecting the open ml environment option under the file tab. As we are training our models in python, it is important that we have the required dependencies. In order to download these dependencies, simply click on the gear icon on the top right of your screen and select the download dependencies option. This will download and update the dependencies required to train the model. Click on the create new project option to initialize your project. Type an appropriate name of the project and select object detection as the model type. Click on the create project button and you will see the object detection window. You will find yourself under the import tab with three options to import images. By using the webcam, by selecting the images from the computer's hard drive and by downloading the images from a repository. For this example, we will be using a webcam to capture images. You need to capture more than 25 images for object detection to work. You will be able to see all your captured images here. If you do not like an image, hover over the image and click on the delete button to delete the image. Labeling the data is crucial in object detection. Go to the vbox tab and you will see the create bounding box window. Click on the create box button and label the object. As you label more objects, class info will be updated accordingly. To label an image belonging to a class already created, click the edit button and simply click on the corresponding class. Clicking on the next button will automatically save your bounding box and label. However, make sure to press the save box button after you label the last image. Once the images are labeled, go to the image tab to review the images. Once the images are reviewed, go to the train tab. This is where we will train the model. Click on the train new model button. Make sure all the classes are selected and click on the generate data set button. Once the data set is generated, click on next. In object detection, we can work with three hyperparameters. Bad size, number of iterations and number of layers. Hover over the hyperparameters to view the description. For this example, we will be training the model for 5000 iterations with a bad size of 4. We will set the number of layers to 4. Click on create and then click on start training. Object detection is a time taking task, so please be patient while training. After the model is trained, you can view the graphs by clicking on the corresponding buttons. Go to the evaluate tab to view a comprehensive overview of your model performance. You can also view false positives and false negatives for your classes. False positives are observations from a different class that the model detects to be in the current class. False negatives are observations from the current class that the model detects to be in a different class. Now let's move to the test tab. You can test your model here either by uploading the images or by using the webcam. Use the webcam and test your model. You can alter the IOU and confidence threshold by adjusting the sliders on top to see the performance of the trained model. Click on the pick two blocks option in the export model column and pick two blocks will load your model into the block coding environment. Observe how we have blocks for the model we just trained on the blocks palette. You can click on the open recognition window block and test the model's working. Add the when flag clicked block and the forever block into the scripting area and snap them together. Add a turn video on stage with transparency block above the forever block. Select on and zero as transparency. This will make the camera feed show up on the stage. Add a set detection threshold to block and set the threshold to 0.5. Follow it up with a bounding box block and set the drop down to show inside the forever block. Add a analyze image from block and set the drop down to camera. Now go to the variables palette and create a variable named iteration. Add a set iteration to block and set the value to 1. We'll use the repeat block to recognize all the objects present in the frame. Drag a gate number of objects block inside the repeat block's iteration space. Under the repeat block add a say block. Drag a class of object block and set it to the iteration variable. Follow it up with a wait block of one second. Finally, change the iteration variable by one. Run your script by clicking on the green flag to see the project in action. There you have it, an object detection project made in VectorBlocks.


What's good, Josh, you're brought back again with another video. So we're going to check out 10 times WWE foolishly buried their own champions. Now, for some odd reason, WWE from time to time tend to bury their champions. You're probably asking why would they do such a thing? My response would be, I don't know. The one time I can think offhand, of course, is Kofi Kingston getting buried by Brock Lesnar on a debut on Fox Network. Never made sense to me. I don't think it made sense to a lot of people. It was just kind of like a damn, that's kind of messed up. If you were buried, a guy that's had the championship since WrestleMania, only because you want to push Brock being on Fox on SmackDown. So screw Kofi, right? So but we're going to check this out. Appreciate all the love and support. And let's get right into this video. WWE superstar wins a championship. They should be presented strongly. So their title run obtains legitimacy and worth. However, WWE sometimes decides to outright bury their own champions. The champion in question can fall out with favor with WWE management, or sometimes the superstars only made champion out of fan pressure and intense popularity. So in turn, WWE could do everything they can to weaken the popularity of the superstar, damaging their credibility and star power as a result. But which champions were they? Well, join us now as WrestleMania looks at ten times WWE buried their own champions. Be sure to subscribe and hit that notification bell for daily wrestling videos. And follow us on Facebook for exclusive lists. Number 10, Jack Swagger. Jack Swagger's world title run in 2010 actually started off pretty well. He would achieve victories over Chris Jericho, Edge and Randy Orton. And this was before Vince McMahon outright gave up on the reigning world champion. Swagger would suddenly begin to lose every match on television. He would lose to the likes of The Undertaker, John Morrison and Kofi Kingston. And all of this killed his credibility as a legitimate world champion. By the time the Fatal Four Way PPV came around in June of 2010, all hope was lost for Swagger as fans simply couldn't take him seriously anymore. He would drop the world title to Rey Mysterio in a Fatal Four Way match, which also included CM Punk and The Big Show. He was never made clear why Vince decided to bury Swagger, but some fans believe that Swagger never regained the credibility following his disastrous world title run. Number 9, Kofi Kingston. When WWE booked Kofi Kingston to defend the WWE title against Brock Lesnar on SmackDown's 20th anniversary episode, fans assumed that Lesnar was going to end Kofi's enjoyable title reign. However, they didn't expect Lesnar to completely squash Kofi in just seven seconds. Fans expected a back-and-forth competitive match, but Kofi almost conquered Lesnar while WWE had other ideas. The squash completely killed Kofi's credibility and it made fans question the legitimacy of his title reign. WWE even decided to debut Cain Velasquez after Lesnar's victory, meaning Kofi became an immediate afterthought. WWE's presentation of Kofi following the controversial loss was heavily criticized, as Kofi never got a rematch against Lesnar, nor did he seem remotely bothered that his length- And that's the problem. Did we think Kofi was going to win? No. Were we hoping we were going to have a decent, somewhat of a decent match? Yeah, sure. He gets squashed in a few seconds, enter Cain Velasquez, I think I've mispronounced his last name, whatever, who cares. And then he just doesn't care about getting the championship ever again. Just forgot about it. No comment. The title reign had ended in just a matter of seconds. The 69-day world title run of CM Punk in 2008 is often forgotten about by many fans. The main reason for this is that it was so unmemorable. Punk's world title run came at a time when John Cena and Batista were still on Raw and they were both a lot more over than Punk. This meant that Punk's world title run was never a main focus for WWE programming and he was virtually buried as a world champion. Punk had lost a total of three pay-per-view events as world champion, the first being Great American Bash where he and Batista would wrestle to a WDQ. The second win was over JBL at SummerSlam in 10 minutes and the final most infamous pay-per-view appearance as world champion saw Punk get punted in the skull by Randy Orton at Unforgiven and he'd be taken out of his planned world title scramble match. The run was a complete flop and WWE never made any genuine effort to make Punk appear as a legitimate world champion. 7. Jeff Hardy Fans were delighted when the beloved Jeff Hardy finally captured the world title at 2008's Armageddon pay-per-view. Hardy was insanely over with fans and fans anticipated that he would head into WrestleMania 25 as WWE champion. However, his title run just lasted 42 days. Hardy's reign instead of being filled with exciting title defenses were filled with a bizarre storyline which saw Hardy get involved in a range of accidents which ranged from him being driven off the road to his pyro malfunctioning. Hardy would drop the title in his first defense. He lost the edge at 2009's Royal Rumble pay-per-view after his brother Matt turned on him. It was clear to the fans that WWE had zero plans to make Hardy a credible WWE champion at this stage of his career and this explains why they decided to bury his title run as quickly as humanly possible. 6. Dolph Ziggler One of the most memorable RAW after WrestleMania moments occurred in 2013 when Dolph Ziggler cashed in his money in the box. I'm gonna be honest with you, I think that was probably one of the loudest pops Dolph Ziggler ever got. And that was probably one of the loudest pops in like Monday, the RAW after WrestleMania. That pop when he came out was immense. When he won it was stupid, bro. Oh man. The bank briefcase to win the world title. Well, the issue here was that Vince and WWE never really saw Ziggler as a main event level talent and his world title run showed this. The week following Ziggler's world title victory, he would lose a non-title match to Jack Swagger on RAW. This was evidence that his world title run was going to be filled with non-title losses and Ziggler would have to fight for any means of credibility. A few weeks into his title runner, Ziggler suffered a serious concussion which put him on the shelf for a month. When Ziggler returned, WWE decided to immediately take the world title off him. Ziggler would drop the world title to Albert Del Rio at the payback pay-per-view and unfortunately, he would never receive another run at the very top. And it sucks because Dolph was so talented, we wanted to see him at the top and they just, they didn't care. They didn't care for Dolph. They just didn't. Simple as that. They didn't feel like he was a main event guy. The WWE lighter. Number five, Cesaro. Cesaro's 2012 US title run was a huge letdown. What should have involved Cesaro bringing major credibility to the US title instead featured him seemingly losing every non-title match on television. Cesaro would be US champion for eight months and he was mainly used to put over other talent. He would lose to top WWE talents such as Randy Orton, Sheamus and John Cena and these may have been forgivable if Cesaro obtained other victories. But this wasn't the case. He would lose to every talent possible. He would lose to the likes of Santino Morella and Justin Gabriel, all of who seriously buried his run as US champion. Number four, Karrion Kross. Cesaro deserved credit too. In the summer of 2021, it was announced that Karrion Kross was making his main roster debut. Kross was the reigning NXT champion and fans expected him to become a major star on the main roster. Kross debuted on the July 19th edition of Raw and rather shockingly, he lost to Jeff Hardy in just under two minutes. This completely killed Kross's legitimacy. It destroyed him. I don't care what nobody says.  He hit a roll up and used the ropes as leverage. You cheated. You still lost your debut match.  And from there, it was done. He was dead. On NXT, it didn't matter. They were there over there chatting Jeff Hardy. It's over. It's done. He couldn't recover from that. Like you're not a big threat, bro. Jeff Hardy's beating you in two minutes. No disrespect to Jeff. Jeff is a legend, but come on now, bro. He's beating you. He beats you in two minutes. That shouldn't have been happening. They should have had at least a decent match and then you could have had Karrion get the win. See, it also completely buried the top champion of the popular NXT brand. Kross's presentation would be dramatically changed following the loss and fan perception of him and his character quickly soured. And of course, that goofy outfit didn't help. In November of 2021, Kross would be released by WWE, which caused a lot of outrage on social media for how WWE completely failed the talented superstar. 3. Christian When Edge retired in 2011, WWE urgently needed a top babyface for the Smackdown brand. The plan was to crown Christian as the world champion at Extreme Rules, which would cement him as the top babyface on the brand. On the Smackdown following the pay-per-view, new world champion Christian would be challenged by newly drafted superstar Randy Orton. Christian would then be forced to face Randy Orton on the show and WWE actually decided to have Christian lose. That's right, Christian lost the world title just a few days after winning it. Now, it's common knowledge that Vince McMahon wasn't a huge fan of Christian, but nevertheless, to bury him completely in this manner was too much for a lot of fans to handle. 2. Chris Jericho Chris Jericho shocked the world at the 2001 Vengeance pay-per-view when he became the first ever undisputed champion. Sadly for Jericho, the run that followed was presented rather poorly and Jericho was never taken seriously as undisputed champion. Jericho had storylines with The Rock and Stone Cold during this time and whilst he attained victories over the two legends on pay-per-view, they were presented as flukes and never made Jericho seem like a serious world champion. Jericho was also paired with Stephanie McMahon during this time and will be presented as Stephanie's personal lackey and Jericho would even begin to dog-sit Stephanie's dog. Jericho eventually dropped their undisputed title to Triple H at WrestleMania 18 and wouldn't receive another world title run until 2008. 1. Ray Mysterio A WrestleMania 22 featured one of the most feel-good moments in WWE. 1. Ray Mysterio History, Ray would defeat Randy Orton and Kurt Angle to win the world title for the first time in his career. A popularity aside, Vince McMahon wasn't keen on making Mysterio a world champion and as a result, he outright buried Ray as world champion. Ray would lose a ton of matches on TV to the likes of RVD, Mark Henry and The Great Carly. He wouldn't even let Ray get victories over lower-card talent such as Sabu and as WWE decided to book their match at 2006 One Night Stand pay-per-view to end in a draw. They eventually decided to end Ray's run in the summer of 2006 when he lost title to King Booker at the Great American Bash pay-per-view. Ray's run was a complete flop and WWE never made any effort at all to make Ray's world title run memorable for the right reasons. They have it folks, 10 times WWE buried their own champions. 2. Comment down below, let me know which one you feel had the worst. He didn't even try to get his title back. He was an afterthought. As soon as it happened, he went right back to the mid-card. Like nothing ever happened. He didn't just have one of the best moments in WrestleMania history. Just gone dead. That definitely is a number one for me. But I appreciate all the love and support. Roll 2, 70K. Appreciate y'all kicking in with me. See y'all in the next one. Peace.


The local economy issues are challenging. The local economy is raising awareness about the island, and we have the CEO with us from the island Afrika. Please introduce yourself. My name is Alitha Yusjuma. The CEO and co-founder of the island of Africa. My background goes beyond development.  Okay, so to put the problem into perspective, I'll just give you a story of me growing up, and the neighborhood that I grew up, we had this neighborhood shop that served most of the families in the community, and what used to happen is, my mom would send me to this shop, and at the time she'd not give me money, she'd just tell me, juma go get bread, milk, butter, and I'd go to the shop, get the goods, go back home, and all along John, who was the shopkeeper at the moment at the time, used to write this on a piece of paper that he called a black book, then probably a week or a month later, my mom would always pay back the money, and this culture cuts across Africa. Now the problem is that every time I go back to my neighborhood, John's shop is still the same. Now the only difference is that his son is the one running the shop because John has grown old and... It has been passed down to the next generation. Exactly, and the problem is that the inventory, the state of the shop, it's still the same. Now me and my co-founder realized that this is a problem that cuts across almost all communities in Africa, and we decided to come up with a solution, and now looking at where the problem stems from, which is basically data. So John lacks a way to see how he transacts on a daily basis. He lacks a modern way of recording the transactions that he does on a daily basis, and all this does is that it locks him out of the financial sector. So even if John wanted to probably increase his inventory by getting credit from a financial institution, it wouldn't be possible because he has no proof to validate that actually the value of my shop is say 100,000, so would you lend me 10,000? So what Palin has done is we have digitized this process, the transactions that John does on a daily basis. Okay, so you have digitized the black book, so it's not the digital black book. Exactly. All right, so that's a problem you've solved. So is this the only thing that you're doing? Is this the main service that you're offering rather, or are there others before it gets into them in detail? So the beauty about our flagship product is that it has helped us leverage on data. Now, you see by us, by Palin understanding how John transaks on a daily basis, both credit and cash transactions, we are able now to build tools that will be able to deliver financial services to John, helping him, propelling him into profitability and being sustainable over the long run. So ideally we've built a number of tools among them, our services, which basically helps John's customers, that's like now my mum, buy goods from John on credit and what this does is that it helps John manage his credit with much ease. Then we also have other products including Changisha, which is a crowdfunding platform, Patavoucha, which instills financial discipline, and the beauty about our entire ecosystem, now that I've mentioned Patavoucha is that our services or other money that is within our ecosystem is tied to a specific utility. Say Stephanie if we were to give you credit, we won't just give you credit like any other lender, what we do is we'd be specific in terms of what we are lending you for. If you say I need money for education, we won't give you the money in cash, we'll pay the fee directly. If you're buying bread from John, we'll pay for the bread, we'll just pick the bread. Okay, so before we get into the details of this, I want us to play a video that has been, our comedian Kenna, Crazy Kenna has dramatized what basically students go through and that is the solution that you're bringing. So you also uploaded it on your social media handle. So we want to play so that we can relate to this more. So let's have it. Well, now you know how PayLend works. You've seen an example of how it can play out for you as a student or you as a parent. So instead of sending money directly through the mobile cash transfers, you just do the payment to whatever they're buying. Kamani, you do kwa if they're shopping. Exactly. I've been a student once and I know what happened. So ideally you'll be sent money. Let's say for instance you've been sent 5k for upkeep. And probably you're supposed to set aside 3,000 for food, 2,000 for shopping maybe, 1,000 for transport. You find that being a student a lot comes up and you might find yourself spending money that was meant for food on other things. Exactly. And at the end of the day you'll end up calling your parent again, hey ma'am send me more money. So what PayLend does is you don't have to send your kid cash while he's in school. You can distribute the money across the different areas that the student spends money on. So for instance if it's food, he spends 2,000, he or she spends 2,000 on food a month. You can easily send them a voucher worth 2,000. And the beauty you can even lock this 2,000 to that specific shop that you know is within the school. Okay. So they lock to using that until it's over and then now they renew the voucher again. Exactly. Okay. So tell us, take us through the process now for someone who's totally new at this. How is the relation between the customer and the shopkeeper? How do they get on board to the app? How do they use the app? How is it beneficial? So take us through that process. So the customer journey is pretty simple. We have built an app and it's available in play store. So what the customer and the shopkeeper would do, they'd go to play store, download the app and if someone does not have a smartphone, if they have a feature phone, they basically dial star 4A3 star 800 hash and they are able to access our services via USB. So ideally the first step would be to sign up on the platform. If you are a shop, you'll have to be verified by one of our agents. So once you sign up, we send an agent on ground, they come and verify your shop. If you are a customer, you just provide your KYC information. You sign up on the platform. Tell us about KYC. I need to know your customer. Yes. So what that information do you give?  Then also you give us your legal information. We need to know which was your nationality. Do you have an ID number? Do you have a passport number? A picture of your ID and also you also give us your financial status. So ideally what's your occupation? How much do you make in a month? So ideally this helps us call you as a user because on day one, we need to give you that limit that you can spend at your neighborhood shop. So ideally once you give us your KYC, we've scored you, we've given you a limit, you can visit your local shop and transact with them. So now you have registered me. I've done the registration, everything has been approved. So now I go to my local shop but they're not registered under pay land. What happens? So what happens then is now you become our advocate because you want the service. So now I'm selling. Okay, so now I'll be selling pay land to the shopkeeper. It's a five minute process so once you tell them about pay land and they see the value of which now you see now the value is that you won't take the bread and milk then you pay them at the end of the month. So what value are they getting? You see once you go there and you transact with them, what pay land does is to give them the money upfront. So what this makes, what this does is it makes them, it increases their liquidity. So ideally they get money for operations, they get money to increase their stock, the inventory and ideally this would not be the case if ideally you had gone to the shop and just taken bread and milk then you pay at the end of the month. Oh yeah, you have lifted the burden of them following up on the debts. I'm happy because I have. Exactly. And you see again we introduce all our customers to him. So for him he'd only give debt to the loyal customers that he knows but pay land now we have built a relationship with these customers from all over. So if I am just visiting for instance Ruiru and I stay in Kabete, pay land will watch for me at this shop and tell them you know what this guy can take Guzan credit. They don't even need to know that I'm taking Guzan credit but now pay land brings new customers to them. Okay so let me understand this. When I go to the shop I want tea and bread on credit so now the shopkeeper I'm taking the credit from pay land. Exactly. I'm borrowing from pay land basically because the shopkeeper you're paying once I go to my application and then I say I want to buy this and that and then now you give you pay the shopkeeper for me. Exactly. All right. So they are good. So they get the money they can increase the stock if they want to they can pay wakasi if they want to if they have so ideally we make them more liquid. Okay. And then what happens to me now after I've taken the credit from you? After you've taken the credit now you're going to pick a repayment plan based on your capabilities and how you see fit. So you can pick either 7 days 14 days 1 month or 60 days. And how are the interest rates compared to other mobile money applications? So we believe we are among the lowest in terms of the rates that we give our customers and given that it's unsecured loan and for 7 days for instance we do 2.5 for 14 days we do 5 for 30 days 7.5 and then for Okay. So now once I getting on to the system registering do I have to pay for anything other monthly subscriptions to it? So the services are purely free the services are purely free so for the shopkeeper they don't get to pay anything for the customers well they don't get to pay anything. So there's no fee because I saw somewhere where there's some monthly you know subscription so what does that come in? So ideally if you are a customer who scores high you don't need to you don't need to subscribe and that bit for subscription was sometime back when we were doing customers who are loyal to a specific shop we were asking them to subscribe to this shop then they can take goods on credit for the entire month but ideally we script of that model where customers were subscribing to the shop So now the services are free? Yes now the services are completely free Okay. And now once I have your debts and if I'm not able to pay how do you handle this because we have had you know in recent times you know people following up on your entire clan who are delivered in so how do you do it differently? Yeah so I know so for us we are trying to find a balance between making profits and also being humane in terms of how we do our collections because there have been cases where people they even come to your doorstep or where you work talking to your bosses Exactly. So for us we'll just give you a call and what we've invested a lot in is in the AI engine that we use to score our users because we believe once we leverage on data we cannot give Stephanie a credit a credit limit that she cannot pay back So we take time to understand we invest more in understanding who Stephanie is and how much she can how much is how much how much how much limit she'll be able to pay probably within 60 days or 30 days. Alright. That's quite interesting and now from the shop what other services because you've said someone can also pay fees is this part of the okua this is the okua service product Yes, okua services okua services okua services okua services just to bring you back a little bit pale and we are not only profit driven we focus also on driving impact in the community and how we've designed our product is that there are more of community products it's not a product that you can use it in silo as in use Stephanie alone using pale and so it's more of a community product and okua services what we've done is we've segmented these products in terms of the credit that we're giving so we have for instance we have okua school fees as you've mentioned what okua school fees does is if the schools are opening and I'm taking my kid to school and I do not have the school fees at the moment ideally the school and the parent must be registered on pale and fast and what happens is that I can transact via pale where I tell the school ok I'm transacting 10,000 through pale then now because the school understands me as a parent because the school understands me as a parent they are able either to edit the 10,000 or accept the 10,000 this is because the school will also take part in reminding the parents that they need to pay the money back oh ok so ok the school takes part in this so they cannot just give parents huge amounts and amounts that the parents can't pay back can't pay so there's also a limit yes exactly and now for back to the shopping bit okua shopping so can you do it does it work for supermarkets because maybe I want to buy back shopping does it work in supermarkets so for supermarkets we are rolling out for customers we've segmented our customers by the way so we are rolling out for customers who we pay who we prepare for them 100% as I said it's more of community forecast product so ideally they are customers who we pay for them we prepare for them 100% they are customers who we prepare for them 50% so ideally if you are starting off and we have not scored us 100% customer you will need to transact to the shop that knows you so you will go to your local shop where you usually transact but you do not pay a dime on day one and paylend will pay 50% so for supermarkets we are rolling out for customers who we prepare for them 100% any other services under okua okua services we have okua afia where again we are going into the communities these hospitals that serve people within communities and what we do is we prepare the hospital bills for them we prepare the hospital bills for them then they are going to pay us back later again this is based on our understanding of these customers so going back to the point that I said earlier we leverage on data now you see if you used okua shopping you used okua school fees and we understand your behaviour your role kind of your behaviour on the app or even to extend okua afia to you where we can pay the bills so if your credit score is good exactly and any other I know there is also okua kilimo for agriculture exactly so for okua kilimo how we do access you see right now fertilizer prices have been skyrocketing so ideally what we do is we have agrovets on our platform and these agrovets are the ones that we have registered ourselves and we have verified ourselves and what we do is if a farmer for instance they want fertilizer and they do not have the money at the moment we can prepare for them we can prepare for them they go pick the fertilizer at the retail stores at the retail stores that we have registered on our platform and then they are going to pay us back they spread out the payment so if they are taking for instance two bags two bags right now go for about roughly 10,000 10,000 to 12,000 so they can spread this payment probably for 6 to 3 months ok the only services that you are offering now that you are aligned to now or other multiple services maybe like transport in the transport system maybe hairdressing different areas where we need services for the okua services it has been broken down we have mentioned okua shopping okua kilimo, okua afia we have okua logistics and we have okua bills as well ideally what for instance okua logistics does is we prepare we buy fuel for taxi drivers for boda boda riders then they spread out the payment so it can work in any service not any service, just the services that we have listed on our platform so any other products apart from okua services I know that they are on for please mention them and then now tell us so apart from okua services we also have pata voucher the video that you just played was demonstrating pata voucher yes where you fill up the voucher you pay for the voucher in advance where the parent buys the voucher for their kids in campus then the kids can review exactly and it does not just work for campus students also for guys who are working you can distribute your expenditure monthly expense based on what you spend what and how much you spend the money on so for instance if I do 5000 shopping and I use let's say 2000 on transport I can easily buy the worth for transport at the end of the month so that's okua services pata voucher then you also have changisha changisha changisha is a crowdfunding tool where individuals and organizations can create initiatives on the platform and then raise money for courses that they hold here so for instance if I have an event a social event let's say I am arranging my wedding so ideally I can create an initiative on pay land and share the initiative number with friends and family who can contribute the money based on the target that I have put in place also if an organization is trying to raise funds maybe to feed a specific community in marginalized areas they can easily use changisha by creating an initiative on our platform then sharing this initiative the beauty is that also you can either make it public or private so if you make it public then it will be available on pay land social media pages and also on our page where we display the initiatives so anyone anywhere can channel funds to that specific initiative how different is it from other crowds who are saying platforms so how different it is is that we we foster transparency and accountability so ideally you find that you might be raising funds and maybe you are raising these funds for specific group of people who are your beneficiaries let's say you are raising funds to feed or to take 4 kids to school so ideally how it would happen traditionally is you would raise the funds withdraw these funds from the system then go pay school fees with pay land you will raise these funds within the same ecosystem disperse these funds either to the school or to the parents of these kids and tie the funds to school fees so ideally again coming back to what I said earlier within our ecosystem you can be able to tie funds to that specific utility so you hold people responsible what technology is behind this innovation so for us our fuel is data and AI is our engine so AI and data exactly so now following our borrowing patterns as Kenyans sometimes people borrow loans to pay for loans so like you have loan in this in one loan lending up and you want to borrow from another so to pay this one so do you allow for that that kind of transaction to happen so unfortunately unfortunately or fortunately people can do this because you see these are are independent companies so if we have credit lender A we have digital lender B and we have another one C they they are independent companies so if A gives me a loan or a credit and I go to B you see now this guys manage their own data independently and we manage our data independently one has to be enrolled into your system for you to pay them so now do enroll the digital lending apps to your platform for you to pay them for someone no so it's not really possible for us to onboard other digital lenders on our platform yes so if I want to pay for a loan that I have in one of the loan platforms I want you to pay for it and then I will repay you back no you have not done such so how would you say that you are building the local economy from all that you have said so if you look at what we are doing we are helping other core of our ecosystem is data and once these neighborhood shops are able to leverage on the data they generate within their daily operations now they are able to leverage on this also to get credit from probably pay land and other financial institutions what we do is we help them understand the actual value the actual value of their businesses and this helps this brings them into financial inclusion where now they are able to get money either to drive their operations or to increase their inventory and looking at all the products they are all geared towards building the local economy so ideally if you look at for instance a product like Changisha and Patavoucha so how they tie together is look at an organization raising funds to probably feed a community in area in Kenya so what traditionally they do that if they are in Nairobi they raise the money buy the foodstuff in Nairobi then transport them to area A but with pay land what they do is they raise the money raise the money then disbasi to beneficiaries in area A people in area A would buy these goods within shops that are within the area driving demand and with this now the shops in that area will need to buy more from suppliers and you find that the local economy is growing so we will have a video running as we continue the discussion just to show how one can get on board with your app with the application but now how is the reception from when you came up with it when did you come up with it and how is the reception so started off in 2019 we were incorporated in December 2019 and the better part of 2020 we were building 2021 doing tests and ideally we have been chaning out products since August to the first quarter of this year and currently we have 10,000 users and we have onboarded 3000 plus shops predominantly in Kenya and since you are continental do you have customers from outside the borders we just got incorporated in Zambia where we will be starting operations probably by the end of this second quarter of 2022 wow amazing take us to the world represents Kenya so now what's your vision and what's your goal as an organization as we come to a close so our vision as a company is to see that the 100 million plus micro, small and medium enterprises in Africa are able to we are able to deliver digital tools to them so that we can bring them into profitability and sustainability there are 100 million plus jobs by the way in Africa so our goal is to see how do we drive profitability if I walk out of my neighborhood 10 years down the line once I come back I find that John has expanded his shop he even has 3 3 different shops within the same neighborhood and branches in other areas exactly and our goal is to become our goal is to serve at least half a billion of the population in Africa currently we are at 1.2 1.3 billion so ideally that's our goal to deliver so ok, thank you very much but before you leave we'd want you to say something to the innovators because what inspired you because people have innovations and have ideas out there but they are afraid to take the step so you are started as an idea I believe so just give an encouragement that is your camera so ideally what I'd say is that first of all if you don't believe in yourself then no one will because it has to be intrinsic it has to come from within so if you have an idea just run with it and the fact that right now Africa is gaining traction in terms of people coming up with ideas and also investors coming into Africa this is the right time for Africa to export the ideas to export the innovations to export the tech we have innovators who can build world class products that can serve people globally and drive impact as well thank you very much Juma, your first name is quite hard but thank you for coming thank you very much for coming on board so that has been a sport on tech where we see how fintech is helping build local economies and this is through an innovation by Payland Africa the company behind Payland platform which is an application where you can get your credit from and not use cash because they pay for you directly well talk to us we are still continuing right after the break but we're coming back with some music and lifestyle the hashtag you use is that the vibe see you on the other side of the break


I may get a remark because there are many here who probably don't know that in addition to the men we're honoring today that there are in our midst as a great part of this audience many in those pioneers out into space our astronauts going back to the very beginning of the program could I ask that all of you who are just that description all of you to please stand up we're a very distinguished company believe me commander young and captain griffin all the world held his breath at the silent moments of your re-entry when we finally heard your voices again all the world knew america had begun into age you mainly moments ago I had the privilege of decorating commander young captain griffin for their personal courage and the honor they have brought to our nation it's also honored dr. alan lovelace who is here with today but more about that later I presented to john young the congressional space medal of honor our highest award for achievement in space and to both him and bob griffin the nasa distinguished service medal the highest award the space agency can bestow these men have traveled across the country since their shuttle flight and I think they now must be conscious of and realize that to all america they've now become john and the american people have welcomed them with tremendous affection and no wonder through them we will be in part of a greatness pushing wider on the boundaries of our freedom as I told them before they took off through them we all felt as giants once again and once again we felt a surge of pride that comes from knowing that we're the first we're the best and we are so because we're free space shuttle is the world's first true space transportation system it'll be the space workhorse for many years to come soon we'll have the operational capability that will place cargo in orbit for a variety of users because we lead the world in science space travel we're on the cutting edge of technology and discovery the shuttle will affect american life in both subtle and dramatic ways of bringing energy and excitement into our national renewal the flight of the columbia was a victory for the american spirit john young and bob griffin both made us very proud indeed reminded us that we as a free people can accomplish whatever we set out to do nothing finds our abilities except our expectations and given that the farthest star is within our reach the paraphrase john green leaf wittier we are the people who have thrown the windows of our souls wide open to the sun we will follow as we can where our hearts have long since gone and progress will be ours americans have shown the world that we are not only we not only dream great dreams we dare to live those great dreams and now i would like to introduce a man whose leadership on high standards has made a success of the columbia possible ladies and gentlemen the acting director of nature dr allen m love lakes i'd like to ask uh join me and vice president butch would you please sir join me here at the uh we brought you here to washington i'd like to present it to you today suitable for flying or riding it's a great honor for bob and i to be here today and we'd also like to make a presentation to the president that tells for all of you who contributed so much to this program just exactly what it's all about didn't say a lot please always significant to me that the united states flag is the biggest thing on there let's never forget that and this vice president the same kind of a meadow you won't mind if i only wear this within births atmosphere thank you all very much and now i think there's two individuals here that you'd like to meet also because i think they have to be just as courageous or even more so than those who make the flight i think you'd like to see the


Welcome to a deep adaptation Q&A with me, Jim Bendell. These are independently organized dialogues about various aspects of the theme of deep adaptation, which we're going to hear quite a bit more of today. Our guest, who we're going to explore this topic with today is Kat Suarez. Kat Suarez is the core team coordinator of the deep adaptation forum, which is also something we're going to hear about today. And Kat has been involved in the various networks that make up the forum, initially as a volunteer since early 2019, and then over time then did a number of roles and then became the coordinator. I myself left the deep adaptation forum in about I think October 2020. So I'm actually quite interested in hearing how things have evolved as well since then. Kat came at this job with a background in sustainability. And that's also interesting to me because that's how I came to the perspective that was my background too. So I think we're going to talk quite a bit about that how it might be a help or a hindrance as we try and meet the predicament and find positive ways forward. Kat, thank you very much for joining us today. Thank you, Jim. And thank you everybody for showing up. It's lovely to see so many faces on the screen. Yes, and I'm looking forward to hearing questions from you all. Well, maybe in about half an hour. I'm going to hog the mic for about half an hour and ask Kat some questions.  How does it feel to do what it does? How does it feel in the deep adaptation forum as well? Give us a sense of that. Thanks, Jim. I'm glad you said in your own words. Because as everyone can imagine, it's a question that's asked often. And my response historically is if you were to ask any one of the 12, 14, 15,000 members, they would all give you their own reality of what the deep adaptation forum is. It makes it magical, I suspect, and appealing to people. So from my perspective, it's a predominantly online global community of people who share a perspective that the predicaments we're facing into climate change principle amongst those is already or will ultimately lead to interruptions in our normal ways of living. So some may say societal collapse, some societal interruption. But yeah, so essentially a group of people who share a perspective about the realities of where we find ourselves now as a global population. And in terms of what do we do, well, we've tried in the last 18 months to be, we don't prescribe anything. So as a core team, we try not to make prescriptions about welcome here's step one, here's step two, here are the things you should know. So it's quite organic and it's evolving and shifting and changing all of the time. So as a core team, what we try to do is to facilitate and enable relationship and relationships. So we have some core offerings and some things that we take responsibility for around communications internally and increasingly some outward facing communications. We coordinate various activities, including online events, some of those are related to dialogue and discussion, some related to meditation and inner workings, some somatic practices. So there's a real diversity of offerings and then there's also groups that come together to form work teams or crews or whatever language you like to use who are very focused on very particular outcomes. So looking at policies to take into business around how the companies adapt around education, how does education respond. Yeah, it's difficult to pin down and really difficult to define eloquently, but it's a space where anybody who holds this consciousness and awareness has the ability to pursue their own aspirations in relation to deep adaptation be that very personal, very local, very global or very attached to a theme or a particular endeavor. And it's, it's wonderful hearing you describe it that way because also it helps me remember the early days when I thought well well how could it be any different than that, because the disruptions break down collapse even will affect everything in very different ways and the responses will be very personal to people depending on where where where they're at in their lives, responsibilities right now and, and what their priorities will be so it's really good to hear that I'd like to just hear some before I ask you a little bit more about how you got to this point, something about the ethos then of the forum, because I think it's still quite a dominant thing. When people think about all a bad future, like a societal breakdown, they think then, well that will mean prepping in the Mad Max way or I'll mean dictators or I'll mean, sort of religious fundamentalism, or hedonism. It's almost like there are these tropes or stories in our culture already, which aren't the deep adaptation story on the east actually responding in in a very different way to those I've just described so how does it. What is the ethos and how does it feel being in the deep adaptation forum. I want to start by acknowledging all of the responses that you just mentioned Jim, because to some extent the culture in which we're predominantly white and Western northern hemisphere membership, and the cultures in which we are raised in doctorate us to respond in those ways we're very self set with we're trained to be very selfish self motivated self preserving deep adaptation differs from all of those other responses in that it's. We don't advocate any particular things to do. So we don't say here are the right things to do it's a very open space. Fundamentally still underpinned by the original ambition which holds as true today as it did when you and your then core team conceived of this so this is about enabling loving responses to our predicament so it's it's about self in this. It's about relationship, and that and people interpret relationship in multiple ways for me there are three elements so there's the relationship I have to myself. There's a relationship I have with my peers my fellow humans and a relationship to nature, and that underpins everything within the deep adaptation for it really is ethos is around compassion curiosity and respect, and trying to remain open when everything around you is encouraging you to close down to to to clam up to armor to to to become tight and rigid that compassion curiosity and respect are opening and enabling loving responses to to our collapse is all about it's about remaining open, finding comfort with the discomfort and and centering ourselves in in our relationships, not in our self. So is that nourishing and enlivening, or do you find it overwhelming and heavy, because this is such a big and tough topic. You know I find the topic heavy and overwhelming gem, as I suspect do many of the people who are here today with us and who watch this video later. I can hand on my heart say that I have never felt heavy or oppressed or overwhelmed within the community or when participating within deep adaptation in quite in fact quite the opposite. There's this sense of opening and of spaciousness and I feel like my capacity is massively enhanced through engagement with this incredible community of people and that's not to say there aren't challenges of course there are where people so we rub up against but somehow the ethos on which we're founded means that we have new ways of dealing with tension and with conflict and with there's this wonderful lightness. It's a relief of this community. My understanding is you, I want to go back a bit in a moment but my understanding is, you have quite a lot of experience in facilitation of processes and of communities and organizations. Is this different. In some way, this your experience within the deep adaptation forum, or is it drawing upon things that you know about and that you believe in. Sorry, Jen. It's very different. So I've experienced flavors of this in little pieces of work that I've done over the last 30 years. And it's difficult to describe it like a momentary flash or an insight or an epiphany of a fashion. Deep adaptation, my experience since being in the deep adaptation forum is that all of those insights have coalesced and so it's really quite different. It's really quite different. So some of the structure some of the format some of the process work that I've done is helpful in this context, quite a lot of it is not helpful at all. Because we're meeting in a different ideological space I suppose or a different level of a different piece of consciousness I'm not sure what the point of difference is but it's very different within the form to anything I've experienced anywhere else. I'd like I'd like to explore that a bit more but then to put put it in context about what you've experienced before. Yes, how, where we could you pinpoint something that was important in your journey towards the work you do now, because I know in terms of you worked in environmental sustainability for some decades before. Could you tell us a little bit about that so what what did you do in the past in on sustainability and why do you still do some of it today. Just so we get that context and then we can see how the deep adaptation work fits with that. I can give you a little part of history and try not to take too much time. A long time ago. I was very idealistic. I was gifted with some intelligence and some academic skill. So I studied applied sciences and then environmental sciences and ecology and then sustainability. And I started my career working in government as a researcher. I'm predominantly rivers and wetlands that as everybody here understands rivers and wetlands are merely an expression of the entire landscape so it's covered quite broad area. And I suppose at the age of 21 22 I imagined that being the best scientist in the world was all it would take to interrupt this trajectory that we were on. And after a few years realizing actually the best science in the world wasn't changing anything maybe it was about policy and legislation so I migrated sideways and I worked around drafting new legislative frameworks in West Australian government. And then when I realized legislation was rubbish I thought well maybe it's all about enforcement maybe what we really need is to just have bigger teeth maybe we can stop people from messing stuff up and of course I dallyed in licensing and regulation for a while and realize that didn't work and returned to my first love which was science and investigations. At which time, all the budgets for such things had been decimated they've been reduced to, you know, by orders of magnitude so that necessitated starting to work with communities and practicing community science and for me that was a massive revelation. Because I began to understand that what really makes a difference is supporting people in accessing information which has meaning and value for them in the context in which they operate. So it's very easy to stand on the outside as an environmentalist pointing fingers and saying, you're doing the wrong thing and you shouldn't be farming that way and here are the things you should be doing and here's the license and here's the protocols and but none of that matters a dot because it's, you need to be connecting with people where they are and responding to their to their needs so that was the first big shift and at that point in my career I transitioned into more of a very sensitive role, supporting dialogue when I left the government and went to work in private enterprise I worked as a sustainability consultant, and we worked on incredible initiatives. We built a potato reactor to deal with waste from from a dioxide metal plant that had been killing water killing fish and turning the best rate red we built the first entirely passive wastewater treatment system in the year. We, we built we did incredible projects they were exciting, they were leading cutting edge. But in that context I was missing that contact with people. And so again a return back to more of a focus on facilitating an enabling conversation. And when I moved back to the UK from Australia. 14 years ago I made the decision that I would only do that type of work that I would leave the sustainability stuff behind it wasn't satisfying for me and I would only do facilitation and working with communities around realizing their own ambitions for resilience and and strength and sustainability. I also made a decision that I'd only work just enough to pay my way in the world and the rest of my time I would give away for free. And that's what I still try to do, because there are lots of people who benefit from the kind of language and fluency that I have around those matters that can't afford to pay for it. So that's, that's neither here nor there but my commitment went from being to to the science proper to people and the planet. So at some point you discovered. Oh, actually, I don't know this cat. I'll tell you where where where yeah when, when did you discover the work I did and were you already on the same page. So I was already on the same page, and lots of people who are watching this video and listening in will know this already but at about the age of 14. Someone asked me what did I want to be when I grew up and I said sustainable self sufficient and she said I don't know what you mean by that and I said I want an acre of land with a little wooden house where I can meet all my requirements for life. And she said I still not understanding where does that come from and I said well I know that when the shit hits the fan I want to be in a position to close the gate and let it unravel and not be caught up in all of that and my mom sent me away for therapy because she was very distraught this was 1984. So I'd somehow have absorbed the potential for that in my youth got distracted as we all do because our world is full of delightful distractions. So your paper came to my attention I think it was the end of August in the year that you wrote it which was what 2018 and I suspect it came to my attention because I was still moving very much within the sustainability field. So in my personal and personal contacts. I read your paper. I picked it up to read thinking it was just another one of those papers that would take me a month to get through. I was gripped and read it start to finish. And I wrote to you, and I will have been one of those millions of emails that you had in those early days saying, thank God, someone said it out loud. How do I get involved. Right. And did someone reply. So I joined the forum. Very early in 2019. I have to go to your PA. So I joined the name platform not being much of a social media user and Dorian bless him in his welcome email said would you like to volunteer and not knowing any better I said yes of course I would. I would like to join a dance which is still underway. I see. Thank you for that story. I'm going to search my emails to try and find that historic first email problem, unless it's been archived. I still find it good night. Everything's kept forever these days isn't it, if not by me by someone else. So, I'm wondering, then it sounds like you were fine with this, because of your own journey. So was there, were there any was your background in sustainability and you've done your background kind of includes the various elements of sustainability, the science, the natural science, the conservation, the policy and regulation, the innovation, the technology the excitement there, then also the focus on people and communities and also participation facilitation ways of organizing community resilience. So the full range of what what people understand is under the sustainability umbrella. Is it helpful in what way or was it was a hindrance in in your ongoing adjustment to anticipating and accepting a breakdown of life as we know it. It's such a good question. The curious thing is that I mean as an environmentalist I guess I was formally educated and so with that education comes a sort of, I don't know it's unwritten or unspoken, an expectation that you have the answers that you can do this that you know you have all the knowledge look up, you're standing on the shoulders of people who've gone before you and you know you have you have this you are the solution. I've had such a good life, and I've had so many incredible experiences. I suppose, starting out as a young person aware that we were fragile or at least far more fragile than was being spoken about openly supported me, I would suggest that it's more of a hindrance than a help. Personally I've benefited from the things that I know and they're helpful now as I change my life in another direction. But the structures, the formality the indoctrination into a way of thinking in a way of engaging with the world is largely unhelpful, not being very articulate I hope that that's kind of clear to people. You mentioned the word indoctrination. Sorry go on. You mentioned the word indoctrination. So it's a particular way of thinking about the world and about being an agent of change and being professional that we learn within the environmental sector is that so it's particular to that you mean. I think it's it's present within that perhaps it's particular to our way of educating in that we, there's a there's a separation isn't there we as an environmental science student I was always looking at the environment at the ecology from the outside. So there was always a there's always a distance we're trained to to perceive and observe in that way from the outside. There's a separation that's built into that and I think that's unhelpful. I think that's really unhelpful. And I don't think it's unique to environmental sciences, particularly, or sustainability particularly but it was very marked for me. Jim there's something else about. I can share with you a parallel story so I was trained, formerly as a musician as a child, so I can read music, they can play various instruments, and then at about the age of 20 I was invited to a jam session in a great beat in a blues club. And I went along and I couldn't jam for the life of me. And my friends who knew that I could play music and was fluent were astonished, but somehow the rigor of my training meant that I didn't have the freedom to let go. And so there's a parallel for me between that and being educated in the natural sciences and sustainability, and being able to engage in the world in ways that are fulfilling and that feed you and that are life affirming. The same it's almost like that same sort of rigor creates a barrier between you and the thing of passion. Yes, wow. There's some, I think, so I'm, I'm a professor meaning then I've, I've had to work super hard and spend half my life in front of a computer. And I think it does switch off certain possibilities for knowing. Because you think that the only valid way of saying anything about anything is if you've read 50 papers on it, and you're very clear on your methodology. And also it means you're really tired from staring at papers all the time that maybe you're not myself and other people perhaps not as quite widely read and reflect is on on all manner of issues as we could be. Right, so for me taking a sabbatical for you just off completely massive, really massive in my ability to rethink. I think also I was so part of and proud of being part of this, what we called third wave solutions environmentalism from the 90s, where governments weren't doing much so well NGOs, ethical consumers, charismatic CEOs and ethical businesses we're going to we're going to sort it all out ourselves, that story. And therefore, let's not talk about doom and fear and any of that let's talk about, you know, how do this and it'll improve your life and we can achieve all this that and the other. So yeah for me I was. And so yeah environmentalism very therefore closely aligned with entrepreneurship finance globalizing capital and all that stuff too. And if you think it's all failing, then in my case that was quite challenging. And I'm, it's why I should be more forgiving of all those people who keep criticizing, which brings me to the question of the criticism is cat you and I we've given up. I mean, that's what the criticism is. That's it. Yes. Represents you giving up me giving up. So, have you given up. Yes or no, and you can challenge the question as well. But that's the thing we hear. I notice I feel quite affronted at the idea that I've given up. So I'm going to have to spend a bit of time with that later on, I suspect. Okay. I haven't given up. I mean I still, I still run part of my working life is I still run a small not for profit in the UK that works around ecological restoration and recollecting communities with their local environments and increasingly around community resilience. As a result of those other efforts. So I'm still committed. I'm more frustrated than I used to be by the bureaucracy and by the, I get I find the process of doing good in the world really irritating I feel like I fight continuously to just to make a tiny difference that that really is exhausting. But no, I haven't given up and actually I probably guess and I'm looking at some of the faces on the screen who know me well. I'm probably contributing more towards change now than I have any other point in my career it just looks different. I'm not tying myself to trees or waving placards in the streets I'm not petitioning parliaments or trying to persuade and coerce the heads of multinational organizations as I did during my career. It's softer and more gentle and more local and more intimate now just looks through. Yeah, so I'll reframe the question what are you not giving up on and won't give up on. The first thing that came into my body was loving humanity. And by humanity as in the whole of the human population, the best of people. I'm not giving up on that. I'm not giving up on our capacity to care to look after one another. I'm not giving up on our capacity for generosity. I'm not giving up on our capacity to work really bloody hard when we need to not giving up on those things and I won't. Generosity, the belief in the best of humanity. I have a question for me not anybody else now, what would you tell me I get a bit stressed and down, not just about criticisms of me or my work but criticisms of anyone who's really taking seriously some of the worst case scenarios, talking about it publicly and changing their lives accordingly in their own ways. I get down stressed, angry, and down when I see that being happening and it is the typical way mass media corporate media will touch on this topic they label it do mism in a way where it's a narrative term. And also it's, it's the way that I'm establishment environmentalists and climate scientists many of them will will speak as well when when asked to speak on it. And I think it might occupy too much of my reality, you know that disappointment frustration, sometimes anger. You've probably come across other people is it just me felt it yourself or come across other people like how do we, how do we, how do we love ourselves in that context and I have come across it myself, Jim, as has probably everybody on the screen. Someone very wise one said to me, what other people think of you is none of your business, which is really helpful in terms of not taking things personally what we move through a world of mirrors. And I expect was the things we may not like so much about ourselves. And this is really difficult to say because it doesn't apply across the board, but for a large part, at least for us in white, in our white Western realities with all deeply traumatized we're harmed and have been harmed by this very systems that seem to be benefiting us. And we're not good at dealing with trauma. And we, we, we push it away. We. So, I would suggest that if you're provoking that kind of response from people, that's great because they're feeling that discomfort, and not knowing how to deal with that discomfort they have to separate themselves from it and make you responsible make me responsible make the people on this screen responsible. We can, we can love it better. That's a bit naive isn't it, a bit of a hippie statement but appreciate that it's not all about you it's not all about me. Sometimes it's just them and they are just a reflection of the system in which they operate. They'll, they'll learn. If they're lucky, I hope they do. Yes. You just reminded me how I used to feel. Let's have a conversation about that later then. Yeah, yeah. Definitely I felt that way, but I don't know what's happened recently. Thank you to our guests. Hello everyone and please send questions. If you have them to Stuart, because I'm going to come to you in just a few minutes. Before we do that. I'm going to ask Stuart, actually, Maria, Stuart, I will come to Maria first I'm just have just seen a few questions coming in here. I'll just get that one lined up and I'll have a look at the other questions later. Kat. I read another opinion survey. Bath University. I think it was more than half of all young people and so younger than 24 or younger polls are young adults 18 to 24. Anticipate societal breakdown are distressed about it it is affecting whether they want to have kids. So properly internalizing this. And yet, we see still very little. We actually see very little allowed to be talked about these possible or likely futures. And how what's already being experienced as you know, societal breakdown in many parts of the world, you know, how that's going to be spreading. It's still taboo it seems and so the criticism and the reasons for that we've just covered and so where are people going to turn because there are some of us who are fortunate enough to discover what is still quite a niche community and network, the deep adaptation ethos and forum. Most people, yeah, they'll. Where will they turn, I'm hearing many more people talking about how their Christian communities are talking about it's the end times with something of a little bit of a fatalism and, and therefore we just pray, wait and don't change. Yeah, so I'd be interested to know, is there a role, should we be doing, could, could we should we be doing more in outreach. Are we doing more, I'm doing, I'm doing a little bit more than I used to on that I didn't want to do any outreach. It was heavy, it was a heavy thing to do to bring this acting consciously actively to bring my view of the world to other people beyond the initial viral paper. So I focused on just networking the people who already heard about it and got it. And then just trusted that they'll do have conversations in their own ways in their own communities and families and organizations. Yeah, I'm changing what you know I've changed the past year I thought how what can we do that's a little bit more out there. So what are your thoughts on this. I think I speak on behalf of the forum. We are gently taking we're making ourselves more visible so I'm not sure I would call that outreach exactly. But we now have a presence on on multiple social media platforms that we didn't have historically so we have an Instagram account boys had linked in Facebook, Twitter, etc. Many people here will be aware that we are looking to launch a new platform for the forum, which migrates as a way from the vulnerabilities and the peculiarities of Facebook and allows a alternative to the original professions network which was always a little bit clunky and counterintuitive to use. There are more and more affiliated groups emerging and there are moves afoot from within the forum, the core team proper and the holding group to be writing more publicly talking more openly about deep adaptation. The thing that keeps coming into my mind. I have seen. Gosh, I would have to hate to hazard a guess, literally thousands of initiatives put forward by someone who had an answer, and then put a lot of energy and effort into selling that answer and persuading people it was absolutely right. And invariably as humans we're not very good at that right we push we we automatically there's automatically pushed back if someone is telling you what's right for you what's good what's proper. So something much or something much more invitational feels appropriate. And I strongly suspect that outreach within the deep adaptation forum is happening. It's happening in time, but it's happening informally it's happening because Maria has a conversation with a neighbor.  I think it's happening all the time. And, and I would suggest that that kind of organic growth, if for one of a better word is far more powerful. And it's, it's hidden, because you can't point at it, but my strong suspicion is it's happening all the time. And as people find their strength and their resilience within the forum, they'll be more and more willing to, to step out they'll feel strong enough to engage in those conversations. They'll feel strong enough to be inviting more consideration and yes I noticed some tension in my body about not quick enough. But it's, yeah, who's to say what's quick enough. Thank you, Kat, we're going to invite the questions now says first. Maria, please unmute and also be lovely to hear whenever you and the next person to ask a question say what where you are. Okay, can you hear me. Yes, well, yes. Okay. I'm talking to you from a balcony near Stockholm, Sweden. It's a warm summer evening here. So that's why I'm sitting outside during your conversation. I started to wonder how you actually define environmentalism. It sounded like, as if it automatically include for you the idea that if you are an environmentalist, you must be positive and feeling that things can still be changed, as opposed to having given up. And the way I think about it is way more, you can accept that, you know, it's all going to go to hell, but you can still be an environmentalist. So that's my question. Kat, how, yeah, it's been the issue for your whole life or at least since 14 cat, what is environmentalism in general to you right now. What do you want to become. I wanted to giggle when Maria raised that question and I hope that Ben's having a chuckle to himself because he posed that exact question on the Facebook thread what is how are we defining environmentalism. I don't think that being an environmentalist means always maintaining a positive framing or positive outlook so I must be more conscious about how I communicate Maria because clearly that's what came across for you in that conversation. I would call myself an environmentalist but I'd have called myself an environmentalist long before I went to college and then university to study the natural sciences. And for me that association that association with environmentalism was feeling a deep connection and appreciation of the natural world. I don't think it's enough to want to do something about it to support it to look after it to petition on behalf of endangered species to give a voice to things which were voiceless in out within our system. And I don't think you have to be hopeful of saving everything in order to take action. If you save one thing that's still a positive impact. And what what I'm doing here so I've rearranged my we've rearranged our entire lives thank heavens for my husband John who's listening in on this video recording. But we've changed our lives and a lot of what we do here is about supporting nature. Reintroducing local endemic species helping plants to migrate providing food for native animals by creating an environment which had been largely sterilized monocultured as we are wanting to do so. But knowing I can't say that all doesn't make me want to not do that bit does that answer the question. Yeah, I was just can I if I, I'm interested then is is what's the environmentalism that's true for you and animates you excites you drives you right now then. I'm going to say that word again relationship. As a youngster, I probably did have I was imbued in the same way as many of us with that. Or just notice myself so abstract with that idea of dominion nature is for us it's for us to take what you know it feeds us it's for it provides us with what we need but actually there's not a, there's not a reciprocal respectful relationship with nature. That's definitely shifted for me so environmentalism for me now is about that respectful reciprocal accountable relationship with the natural world. Thank you so we're going to have another question on that topic actually a Brigitte, if you unmute over to you and ask a question also say where you are, that'd be great to know. Hi, I'm in Montreal, and back Canada. So it's great to be with you all. Thank you for doing this. My question cat came from when you were discussing being in relationship with oneself, but then centering a relation yourself in relationship with others. And that really intrigues me because I understand what you're saying but I at the same time I completely don't understand what you're saying so I wondered if you could say how does one center themselves in relationship as opposed to themselves. But you guys are asking great questions. Brigitte. I'm looking to Matthew on the screen because Matthew, Matthew described this to me. Everyone on the screen will have had an experience where you're engaging and interacting with someone but they're not really with you. They're absent.  Everyone is preoccupied. They might have been answering messages on their telephone. They're clearly not. They're not emotionally present with you. And that's it. It hurts. That's a lonely place to be. And I'm as guilty of it as anyone else. I have to hold my own hand up. Something about being committed to being in relationship with the other which is about really being with the other. Hearing them. Sensing them bringing all of your attention not just listening with your ears but with your whole body. You have some practices that are offered routinely within deep adaptation forum called deep listening and deep relating to different modalities. The relating is about building a familiarity with yourself so that you start to understand where your triggers are and what sensations emerging your body in response to particular triggers deep listening is about turning your attention to being with the other person in their reality. And so that is a practice which has really helped me to transform my relationships in the last few years and not just my relationship with myself. And with other people but the relationship with this beautiful piece of the earth that I have the privilege of stewarding. Because I bring my presence to that too. Does that answer the question. Thank you. I think so but I guess because I already do what you're saying so when when I heard you speak at first I thought you meant anchoring ourselves in relationships, but I guess it's not what you meant. So I'll think about it. But thank you for helping me understand. Thank you. Iris. If you could unmute say where you are and. That's hi. Hi, I'm, I'm in not so sunny Bristol in the UK. It's quite windy actually. So, yeah, my question is. And I read this down earlier. It's basically that sometimes I feel the best word I could come up with with arrogant but some of it might actually be impatience that I feel quite impatient with other people sometimes in the sense that I'm, I feel that I'm looking at a very different future for as we have to discuss this is the sort of deep adaptation, sort of understanding that we share with each other and that you share in the forum and I find that if people haven't arrived at that, at that point in a sort of natural organic way in the same way that can't be described. It's very difficult to make people arrive at it unless they are ready to. And so in terms of the environmental work that we do and the sort of trying to sort of get other people to maybe see the world in a slightly different way in the way that we might be at least there's some common features that we probably see the world in, even if they're quite diverse still is cut pointed out there's still some common features, as in it's probably not going to go very well. I might be the common feature. No, I think I've heard the question there which is that do we yourself, but also because I relate to this Iris is that risk becoming a bit arrogant thing. And maybe there is. Yeah, I'm just wondering you've helped me think that maybe I do. Give up myself in terms of the, the possibilities of having conversations about this with with anyone. No. And I think I do. I think I, I, I don't. Yeah. I can feel somewhat alienating if that if not arrogant. Yeah, we risk, we do we risk just accepting that we were, we were aliens. But I thought actually maybe. you're aliens. But I thought actually maybe my question was more so do we in a way just hold the deep adaptation principles inside ourselves and don't try and communicate the principles themselves out to people who might not be ready and just concentrate on the work with people that you know the local work the connecting with people without the principles worded without them being phrased in particular ways that might people might not be ready for so it's almost a parallel. Yes the principles then the bigger picture stuff about yes that's what I mean which makes us what doesn't now realize it doesn't make us so strange if these opinion polls are correct Kat any thoughts on this? Yeah it's a question which comes up often I think and I I absolutely resonate as you Gem said I find myself guilty of this yes me too Iris but I guess I've arrived at a place where I recognise not everybody has to perceive the world the way I perceive it in order to be better So I love the four questions that Gem originally postulated of three in the paper and the one which came later because you don't have to believe in societal collapse and an ending to life as we know it in order for those questions to add value to your life. We've just well I'd say emerging from a pandemic the government will have us believing that we are emerging from a pandemic all the narrative will have us believing but in the context of what we've all just experienced in the last two years those questions are relevant in the face of the death of a loved one those questions are relevant in the face of a change of career or a transition in education those questions are relevant and so inspire them Iris they don't have to think the way you think to be the way you are. Yes thank you thank you I think I want to watch this video later because I've had a few a ha's and actually a few reminders of the way of being that felt very natural and instinctive to me when I was fully involved in the deep adaptation forum which will be coming up to two years ago now. Come back Gem. Well it's interesting to me it's like this all this stuff it feels right true loving kind to myself it feels calm and patient allowing there's a fluidity to it rather than enforcing and yeah interesting indeed I've really valued the question we have a question from Terry but Terry needs to go so I'm going to put it it's just waving goodbye so I will put it but in a slightly different way which is community building is extremely important to you and deep adaptation forum has been mainly online community building not entirely of course and many people take these ideas and implement them in their own face-to-face groups what what from your experience as coordinator and also in the deep adaptation forum from before that what has been really important that you have actually then also been able to integrate outside the DA world in your other work your other voluntary work or professional paid work is there what is it that's is there a sort of skills transfer and as I say that I think oh well there's the whole guides and facilitators and there's the facilitators group which is the guidance database there's a facilitators group so I guess there's quite a bit of skill sharing that's going on and maybe a DA ethos and modalities that you like the cup of the you mentioned which are which are appearing elsewhere is there anything you could say about that yeah there is more than three years since I found the forum and and I you've heard me say this before Jim has have others on this screen I had an experience of coming home finding my people when I joined the forum that has been transformative for me I was in terms of my career in my in terms of my commitment to my community in terms of my energy I was done so tired so disheartened just exhausted by the whole thing being part of the deep adaptation forum never mind now holding some responsibility for its ongoing development and and sustenance has been personally transformative there isn't an aspect of my life that has not been touched by this and in the first 12 months that I was a member of the forum I joined my local government I became a town councillor I worked with others in my small community around community food growing in the shape of allotments and an orchard we started a repair cafe to reduce waste going to landfill and to reconnect older members of the community with incredible skills with youngsters with broken bicycles and clocks and so that was an incredible initiative through the pandemic we fed 120 local aged people who were isolated and alone and we set up a buddy system on the telephone so that people were getting regular telephone calls from other community members now none of those things really apart from perhaps growing food has anything to do with societal collapse but they all have an incredible benefit in terms of building community so it we don't have to be wedded to the end is night chicken little the sky is falling all of that storytelling we can contribute to building community without having to have the whole community agree with where we are through tapping into existing initiatives and my resilience my enthusiasm my strength to do those things is only enhanced through being part of this community where I can turn up almost every day and go oh and I can be heard and I can be held and I can be my I can be thoroughly myself and I don't underestimate the power of that this is not about deep adaptation forum as an entity changing the world this is about deep adaptation forum supporting the people who individually are transforming their worlds yeah thank you cat um what an awful doomist inactivist you sound like a rubbish isn't it get out there on the barricades and all right thank you for sharing an hour I'm really looking forward to not only watching this again but sharing this video online on my youtube channel and odyssey channel and then people please you'll get an email with a link to it those of you who are on this call and then please do share it and maybe use this as a very gentle way of talking about these issues with people who you feel already or just put it out there and see if anyone wants to talk to you to know more thanks to you as well for doing the tech cheers cat bye bye everyone see you next time thank you so much everybody see you soon