I was promised that content was going to be king and I would be its queen. So why do I need to pay for it all of a sudden? I think each aspect of funding or sponsorship has its own price to pay. I've been following like the money flow.  It's kind of a fun times at the moment for podcasters in the Balkans. Who becomes a podcaster? I can only speak for the Balkans, at least former Yugoslavia. Originally it was the kind of tech people. Did people actually want to listen to the tech bros? I guess the tech bros. You teach a lot of young people. Do you expect these upcoming generations, not the professionals, the media consumers, to sort of grow into the old-timey weekly and read these fantastic corridor jacket philosophy professors when they are of the right age, ready for that? Of course not. Oh, why? I think I love those guys. They are ready to write, but not really ready to read. That's an interesting phenomenon. Long-term donor funding. No dream of that. No dream, right? Business data. Welcome to Standard Time, a EuroZine production. This is a talk show with guests from all over Europe and beyond. And here we discuss issues that keep us up at night, from stock home to bag grade. I'm Mereika Kingapop, editor-in-chief of said EuroZine, the magazine presenting this show, and the co-founder of the Display Europe platform. Since this is a digital production, you get to watch it on your own time, your respective standard time. And today we're talking about why we need to pay for content now that it's more available than ever before. So, when I was in elementary school, I used to watch a lot of parliamentary broadcasts. I watched it with my granddad in the afternoons after school. I was seven, eight, nine-year-olds, and my grandpa would try and explain communism and fascism to me, which all those politicians were accusing each other of. Why did I watch parliamentary debates at that young age? Well, was it excitement over the newly minted Hungarian democracy that bewildered me? Was it the political machinery unfolding before my very eyes, or maybe I was some kind of a theoretical prodigy? Nah. I watched it because that was the only thing on TV at that time. Today it might be hard to recall for some, but that brief period of time only a few sources could define so much of our shared reality. In a post-socialist country, it was a few state-sanctioned TV stations, a couple of newspapers, some interesting journals, strictly streamlined radio programs, and, importantly, a lot of literature. Some of them had still been published illegally. In the early 90s, when sweatpants came in all colors of a proper bruise on top of a conventional media diet, he also had a sprinkling of some juicy gossip and a few conspiracy theories the neighbors told of a brunch. It was a simpler time. Not necessarily easier, don't get me wrong, but probably simpler. A few years later, commercial broadcast was the first to inundate my immature imagination with all-day programming, that is from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. or sometimes until midnight. It was the age of soap operas, German cop shows, and anime series imported in a bulk. I did struggle to fathom the amount of advertising on these programs, but didn't pay for access, so it kind of seemed like an agreeable deal. When I entered high school, I was confronted with the internet for the first time in my life. In the school computer room, we would go there on afternoons as surf the net. I played around with search engines and didn't quite understand how links worked, so I looked up a topic and immediately got flustered by the number of articles Alta Vista had showed me. So I did what I had been taught, I took a paper and a pencil and carefully copied the meter-long links thinking I would return to them later. Computers for us weren't personal, they were scarce and frankly quite mysterious, but the most mystifying part was that the things I found there almost entirely were freely available. I certainly didn't pay for them. Being for the internet access and for the equipment were burdens enough, and now I have a computer in my pocket that has hundreds of times the capacity of the machine from school on which I wrote my first ever prank email. Correspondingly, content is available now in droves. In volumes we cannot quite comprehend. If the scholars of the 17th century felt overwhelmed by the offering of a great library, we experienced that abundance on steroids and every second of our lives. It is true that online audiences have liberated journalism from the grip of a print publisher or a broadcast agency, but especially since the financial breakdown of 2008, much of the digital space has been monopolized by big market players and the internet of today is very far from free. Political propaganda has accommodated to this shift and it functions by diluting rather than dominating the uncensored informational space or, in Steve Bannon's memorable words, by flooding the zone with sh**. This method confuses the audience and makes it harder for the professional to sustain their work. Available content has exploded well beyond the growth of audiences and yet a handful of digital giants swallow the majority of advertiser money, leaving only a fraction of the income to professional journalists. Information, ultimately, is a public good and so is insight. But then again, this takes a lot of human work and this work cannot be sustained purely as a heroic mission. I cannot pay my rent by reciting to my landlady all the glorious articles I've commissioned this month. Believe me, I've tried. Or if you won't believe me, maybe you will trust the Polish-Lithuanian emigrate writer Czesław Milosz. He summarized this in 1951 when talking about his prospects in France, where he had just been granted political asylum. He says westerners like to dwell in the imperian of noble words about spirit and freedom, but it is not often that they ask someone if he has enough money for lunch. We can lie nice journalists all we want and we sometimes should, but we mustn't forget that media workers are, after all, doing work. It takes a lot of labor to produce good content and often even more to bring it before the potential audience.  So the question remains, when Facebook and Google swallow promotion money and hedge funds exploit the bankrupt traditional media, who's going to pay for our journalism? I'm serious. Who's going to pay for my journalism? Well, you could, for instance, a Patreon, but until you feel convinced, let's ask a couple of media makers and a media scholar on the matter. Today's guests are Fiona Nzingo, a journalist from Kenya who currently serves as membership and engagement manager at the Global Forum for Media Development. She's based in Stockholm, Sweden. Dr. Gabor Poyak is the head of Elta Media, the School of Media Studies at Ötvörschlorian University, Budapest, Hungary. He's also the head of a think tank, Mayottec Media Monitor. Vladimir Rallinovich is the co-founder of Podcast.rs from Belgrade, Serbia. He is also on the board of directors for the Community Media Forum of Europe. We are hosted by this peculiar library of the School of English and American Studies at the Ötvörschlorian University, aka Elta, in the very heart of Budapest, Hungary. So, why don't we start with you, Gabor, because you brought numbers. It seems that donations have been gradually gaining a lot of traction in the past, say, what, ten years about that? Average figure of people who are ready to donate or subscribe for any news, paper, radio, or anything else, YouTube channel is 11%. Yeah, if we go into the details, 9% of the pro-government voters buy something. They mostly buy the traditional regional daily papers, you know, the most important product on the printed media market also nowadays, 55%. So, several households keep buying these regional outlets. They function as a propaganda paper for a lot of households. It is the minority, even the minority of the society, and I don't think that anyone can build a sustainable, good business plan on crowdfunding, on donations. So, it is every time risky, but the tendency in this term is positive in Hungary. It cannot be compared to the portion of people who used to pay for some kind of media. The 2000s, early 2010s were sort of about we're never going to pay for this anymore because it's always going to be, you know, content is going to be available all over the place, and we are relearning something very ancient, like people used to pay for their news or journalism or magazines. Fiona, how do you see what is the biggest or most impactful potential funding for independent journalism? I think each aspect of funding or sponsorship has its own price to pay and I would say it's up to the small organization to determine will I be willing to pay the price for this. For example, with donors, there is a certain rationale to working with donors where really you would have to sacrifice some level of independence just to make a donor happy, especially if you're on the verge of termination, if I could say. So, is that a price one is willing to pay? I personally, looking from an external viewpoint, I would say the aspect of audience sponsorship is a really good avenue. The only challenge I've seen building a relationship with your audience to the point where they would fund you is also something that needs to be considered because it's not as easy as just opening up, you know, a news outlet and saying could you fund us and everyone will be like, yeah, let's give out five euros, but you have to build this relationship to a point where your audience will say I'm willing to give you the money regardless of whether you will share content this month or not. If you also deal with an audience, you really have to try to not make them mad.  So, I think investments need a lot of thinking through before diving into that avenue for funding. It's also the easiest way to politically interfere with an outlet. Gabbo just said an example. Yes. Just buy them up. Yes. Yes. So, there is that challenge that comes with investments, I would say. It's good that you brought that up.  Vladimir, you work with a lot of media of a lot of sizes, especially with the podcasters, they tend to be quite small organizations. Yes. At least what we see is that there is more and more interest among the, let's say, grand tiers in order to fund content. Especially content that is nowadays deemed as kind of a new or cool or something that is fresh on the market and definitely in some countries, well, not in America, but in Serbia, podcasts are the new thing, so to say. When we started some, like, five, six years ago, there were around 15 of them and now there's more than 450 when I'm talking about, like, all the former Yugoslavian countries. And I've been following, like, the money flow, so to say. There's some commercial investments, of course, especially in the most popular ones. And it's a good kind of a business model for these podcasters to become self-sustainable. And, of course, they are trying to somehow keep this, to keep their integrity and saying, like, okay, you cannot interfere in the content whatsoever. You are here because we have created a good community, a community of listeners, people who like us, and they will trust us to advertise certain things to them. So you can sponsor, you can kind of hop on this train, but you cannot decide what happens within the podcast. On the other hand, especially the civil sector, is interested in, like, creating some new media formats and new content that they can reach the audience, they can tell the audience what they're doing. So the podcasts are really kind of a new fresh way to do this and to kind of explain people what you're doing without using all the boring, like, legal terms and we have done this and this, but actually tell your story through a fine narrative. And I think it's kind of a fun time at the moment for podcasters in the Balkans. New startups that are very much looking into the ecological matters, that are trying to have the sustainable business models and so on, work with them because they need this content, you can produce it, and not necessarily these companies would like to have their branding all over the place. Sometimes they just want to support something cool. This could potentially be the way to kind of fix your financial problems in the future. But to me, that seems like reinventing advertising in a little bit different form, like using the CSR budget, the corporate social responsibility budget. Oh, it's called ESG now. MSG, all things, yeah. Basically, communications budgets, but it is, in essence, sponsorship or advertising, isn't it? From a journalist's point of view, which you are, and quite an accomplished one, what is the type of funding that is most preferable for you? Just talking as an individual professional, what is the type of funding situation that you would most prefer to work in when reporting or creating any type of content? I would honestly say, honestly, donor funding and long-term donor funding. We all agree with that. Yeah, right? Business data. That would be the realistic answer for me. I think because there's so much uncertainty with how media is evolving, just having that piece of mind knowing I have this three-year project funded or five- or 10-year project funded gives you peace of mind. I think the challenge with reinventing the wheel, as you've said, is that can also take time off your work trying to sit and figure out what are we going to do next? How are we going to produce this content in a way that we're getting to 15, 16-year-olds and at the same time getting to 60, 70-year-olds? So I think that time-consuming aspect, that time could be used for something else. Smaller organizations from smaller communities, the challenge they have is trying to figure out how do I approach a donor? Who should I approach? How do I write a proposal? And that's one of the things that motivated us as GFMD to create a fundraising guide to help such organizations to get to know the different type of donor profiles, to get to know how best they should write a proposal, when they should write, who exactly they should reach out to, just as a way of helping the media sector to be more independent from, as you've said, the public funding. I think that is one important aspect. And I think another important aspect, as we're talking about sustainability, is investment. It's really important for these outlets to invest in a money person. I think it's very a utopian way, kind of thinking to say, we need to get money, we need to get money, without actually bringing in someone who's an expert on fundraising or someone who's an expert on writing proposals or a grant manager. So that's something that's also very important to invest in as a team, to bring in an expert to help with that aspect of getting money and being sustainable. And now a word from today's sponsor. This program is supported by my aunt, Koti. She provides me with pickles and bacon, which keep me going through a long working day. Thanks aunt Koti. Please come visit me in Vienna sometime. You can also become a supporter of the show and you don't even have to feed me. All you need to do is pledge your support at patreon.com slash eurozine. That is eurozine, the magazine presenting this program. You can pledge as little as 3 euros a month or whatever you can afford and I promise we won't buy pickles from it. Instead, you'll get access to bonus materials, invitations to the taping of the show and even get to suggest topics and questions. I also feel like this type of core funding, especially longer term foreseeable funding has diminished very significantly. We don't create the same type of content for age groups and we don't have what is a significant and important change. Okay, not completely unprecedented, but not on the scale, is that we don't expect upcoming generations to grow into existing genres, right? Or at least, I don't know, do we? You teach a lot of young people. Do you expect these upcoming generations, not the professionals, the media consumers, to sort of grow into the old-timey weekly and read these fantastic corridor jacket philosophy professors when they are of the right age, ready for that? Of course not. Oh, why? I love those guys. So I'm not really optimistic. You know, you say that I am working with young people, but these young people are not the average young people. They want to be somehow involved into the whole media proceedings. With podcasts, you can reach people who are also ready to read, but they don't have the time because they have to work, and therefore they can listen to podcasts in the car during walking and so on. But that's basically the function of old-timey public service radio or like literature programs or radio. Yeah, but the main issue is that it is not a very promising way to reach the new generation. So I don't have any idea how to reach the new generation with journalism and with high-quality journalistic products. Every year began with, yeah, that's not a survey, just a question for the students. Please raise your hand if you have subscription for Netflix and HBO Max and so on. Everyone is raising their hands. And now please, who is paying for news? No one. Do you ask them whether they pay for the subscriptions or their parents still? No, I ask if they or the family. Okay, okay. I wouldn't necessarily expect people to only reduce in attention span, but maybe fragment and have like a compensatory effect, but we'll see over time I guess. Yeah, but the competition for the attention is much higher than even before. There are several students who wants to be journalists, who wants to work for the good Hungarian independent newspapers and editorial teams. And I don't know why. So if they are not reading, why won't they writing? But they are much more ready to write but not really ready to read. That's an interesting phenomenon. So podcasters, where do they come from? Okay, there's a lot of journalists doing their exodus from some kind of bigger or more traditional setting and starting a podcast for themselves. Is that like the majority of the field? Who becomes a podcaster? Well, I can only speak for the Balkans, at least like former Yugoslavia. So originally it was the kind of a tech people because they saw this in America. All the tech people had the podcast, so why not have a podcast as well here? It's cool. So it was like tech and business people who wanted to become some kind of a business gurus or something like that. Did people actually want to listen to the tech bros? You wouldn't believe, unfortunately, yes. But then I'd like to kind of... I mean, I hope we had something to do with this. I mean, we worked quite a lot and motivated quite a lot of people from the civil society to start working with the podcast because our idea was like, okay, this scene is going to grow and grow. It doesn't matter what we do. It will become bigger. It's a bit like the blogosphere of the early 2000s. So if we are there at the beginning and somehow cultivate it, then it will become a good media sphere. If we just let it grow in whatever direction, then it potentially can become like a right-wing outlet or something like that. So nowadays, I mean, in the case of the former Yugoslavian countries, it's mostly civil society organizations, also independent media, so people who don't have the FM licenses anymore or lost their access to public channels and some stuff like that, former journalists and also former sports person talking about sports and so on. But nowadays, it is becoming more and more available to everybody. At the beginning, of course, I'm still a bit afraid, like, okay, what should I buy? How do I do this and so on? But now it's very clear to everybody that it's quite easy to do it. So we have more and more amateurs, but then throughout some time with experience, they are actually producing some really good content and at least in our case, it is kind of going in a good direction. I'm still very happy about it. The reason why we decided to create the aggregator platform was that the big services or big tech services completely ignored us. It was like, if you go to Spotify, Google Podcast, Apple Podcast, whatever, and you say that you're from Serbia, you'll still get recommendations from America. So if you don't know each and every podcast or their name by heart, there's no way you could find them. So then we said, okay, we then become kind of a discovery to both the local audience and the local podcasters, kind of a hub where people can find the local content because otherwise it's almost impossible to find it on the big platforms. This talk show is a creation of Display Europe, a new content sharing platform that respects your user data. We cover politics, culture and more, so keep an eye out for that across 15 languages. Okay, so we're back, and I want to address the obvious question as a consumer, I mean, of course we're professionals, but we also consume media, is what happens with the people who can't afford to contribute? I believe that the sponsorship option is specifically for this reason. So we want to provide content for free and you contribute if you can, but it still does create some kind of a threshold. So what should the people who can't afford to subscribe, contribute, make an effort, buy another equipment? How will they access reliable information? I don't know, ideas? Because it's not just about news. Good question. I would say, in the end, it comes to the producer of the information. So I think that's why it's really important to diversify the media and find a way to reach everyone. If your audience is that special to you, you will find a way to get to them. And because social media platforms, although not considered traditional journalism, are also becoming avenues where people are seeking information. So if you find a way to make a quick YouTube short or a quick TikTok video or there's an example, I heard once from Zimbabwe where they were making music videos of a news story just to make impact and they would just share that on a WhatsApp status or on their YouTube channel and they measured the impact they changed in their audience because they were targeting youth between 18 to 30 year olds who were watching this video about climate change and it actually caused a change in their society. So in the end, it is the news outlets, the news producers who have to find a way to reach to this audience who have been faithful, although not through financial aspects but through constant viewing. And I think it could go both ways where if I produce news for you and you view, I can still get money from your view. So monetizing views is also another way where a consumer who can't produce money to the subscription or to funding can help their beloved news outlets. It's also a very conservative way of conveying news isn't it? It's like, you know, the boards walking around and telling tall tales of heroic deeds et cetera, but just with very modern technology. And then when we talk about technology there's one thing that we kind of, we have to keep some of the old technology still available for the public such as the FM frequency. And this is something that we are as a CMFE we're definitely dealing with this on a kind of European level especially seeing that more and more countries are in Europe are thinking of just simply shutting down the FM completely Norway already did it. France is mentioning something Switzerland is saying like next year and there's like talks in some other countries as well. And then you basically kind of, okay, they're saying you don't worry we will move the community media and the independent media to DAB plus and so on. It's like, yeah, but what if the audience does not have a DAB plus or any kind of a digital access then it's a very exclusive type of thing. So we still need FM licenses because the FM is especially in cases of catastrophes of floods and so on. This is then the only kind of a place you can get information from. That's actually like one of the catastrophe like go bag components that you're told early on in case of like an earthquake or something have FM radio with batteries on you because your internet access is going to die and this is the one thing that's going to remain for you. Exactly, we actually witnessed this in Serbia in 2003 with the floods in Vojvodina the FM radio was kind of the only resource for people in certain areas because of course there's no electricity. We've also seen this in Ukraine where music radios converted into the psych source of quick information about whether your house has been bombed or not. Yeah, true. I mean even we, I was running a small community radio at the time it wasn't available on FM unfortunately like no single community radio in Serbia but we were like internet streaming and then these emergency rescue teams were using just the basic radio communication the radio amateurs as well and then we broadcasted that over our station as well. So I mean I think like I think the FM is definitely something that we still need to kind of keep available to everybody. I know that there's like some technical issues in terms of like advancement of technology and we need to like free some frequencies and the FM is kind of a problem there but I mean until we figure out another way of having this information in the air available to anyone we shouldn't be so fast and just pulling the plug and saying no, no, no we don't need FM frequencies anymore. We had a situation with the COVID and moving the schools completely online and there was a situation in Serbia where the underprivileged communities such as Roma communities were then very much affected by this because they simply don't have smartphones and all of a sudden they were taken to court because their kids could not participate in school. But public funding and public broadcast or public service as a concept was invented to cover specifically this and now it seems that it's very vulnerable to interference. Can you like safeguard this somehow so that the consumer who can't pay for this can still rely on something? The problem is that they will get the information that is paid by public money and in Hungary we are not speaking about the public media it is a huge organization with a huge amount of money in the back but in Hungary it's absolutely destroyed media markets we have several formerly private media players something of course you know this situation but what is really unique is the amount of the public money what is used to fund this group of private owners and they don't have to compete with anyone because they are not market players and they will remain available for anyone who cannot pay for the good quality information so I'm afraid that now we know that public media is some western issue it was not made for Eastern Europe for Balkan it's a question of culture and it's a question of history I cannot imagine a time in Hungary or in Serbia I'm sorry to say that we will have something similar to BBC of course it's a huge tool in the hand of anyone to speak in a normal way about important issues but not in our country so unfortunately it not only can be misused it was misused again and again we use billions of euros for running these pro-government media outlets pro-government influencers on YouTube and Facebook and we have the independents who wants to survive who wants to have somehow the money from the consumers so this competition is absolutely unfair and this is a very big risk from the point of view of being informed and also to answer your question further if you want to control public funding you have to have a functional judicial system which is usually not happening in these authoritarian countries because that's the first thing they would put their hands on and then after that what are you going to do? Sue them? the only thing you can rely on is either your audience or some kind of a crowdfunding or try to find a company that likes what you're doing and would like to support what you're doing and then create a partnership with them not necessarily a client-based relationship but rather a partnership where you're like ok we are doing this and you know this is important you are also kind of our audience but you simply have the means to support it more than the others and you also want to see the society to go to in a better place so why not do something about it? this program is brought to you by Eurazine your go-to place for engaging rates from over a hundred partner publications across dozens of languages to support our work and enjoy special benefits visit patreon.com slash Eurazine and become a supporter starting at 3 euros a month this talk show is a creation of Display Europe a new content sharing platform that respects your user data we cover politics, culture and more so keep an eye out for that across 15 languages this program is co-funded by the European Cultural Foundation and the Creative Europe Program of the European Union please note that the views expressed here are those of the authors and the speakers they do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the European Union or their European Education and Culture Executive Agency


I'm the master diver for a 5'11 engineer dive team. So when you become a diver, we have four different levels of divers. We have a second class diver, that's what happens when you come out of dive school. The next level is to be a salvage diver. When you become a salvage diver, you get through a series of check-offs and earn to show your proficiency in different tasks. Today was one of those tasks. Today was a vessel inspection, so we set this up so that way we can have the guys go under and sweep a vessel and allow them to understand what the bottom of it looks like. So that way, if there's any future issues, they already know how to expect it and what's going on with it.


T. F. N. N. Headline news update Good afternoon, folks. Steve Rhodes coming to you live from the shores of very sunny Delray Beach, Florida with your 2 p.m. update. And we've got all the U. S. Indices that Stevie tracks trading the upside down was up 360 points. The S&P 32 NASDAQ 100 135 Brussels up 28 semis 58 points out there. Goldilocks trade out at 1826. It's up six bucks. Silver up 17 pennies. She's trading at 2325. The 30 year Treasury trading out 19 ticks. 152 29 is the print out there. And normally we go to the indices out here. We're going to go to my nine panel market update chart. If we take a look at the ES mini and the really spot ball tonics, you're going to see a couple things. One of the spot ball tonics is trading below its 50 day exponential moving average. That's 22 31. It's printed at 2177. That is a bullish indication for the S&P 500. If we take a look at the S mini, that shows the price you go target the descending trend line substantially higher than where we've traded to today. That high would be about 45 42. Tomorrow would be about 45 29. The question is, is that resistance? The NQ has got quite a ways to go before it gets up to that descending trend line today. That would be in about the 150 46 level and the top of its daily profiles 14 874. Okay. So it looks like these have further to run to the upside or has the rally just ended? What, Steve? Oh, we didn't expect to hear that from you. Well, if we go take a look, what's going on inside the Dow and the Russell 2000, the Dow, the YM equity future contract has made it up to its descending trend line. And that could be resistance. And if we take a look at the Russell, we'd say, Hey, wait a minute, look at the breakthrough that we just had. It is broken through that descending trend line. And you'd be absolutely right. But there's a new profile that is attempting to form here. We won't know until six o'clock this evening. But as long as it's here, it's here. And the top of that profile is at 20 41 80 and our high today is 20 39 60. So the Dow and the Russell 2000 are saying party's over. The ES mini and the NQ are saying, Hey, I haven't gotten up to the bar yet, you know, and it wants a drink out there. So uncertainty, you know, usually I like to have conviction behind what it is that I share with you. My conviction here is that you've got the Dow and the Russell up at resistance. And the question is, is that the extent of the rally? Well, you know, who might have that answer, folks, it might be your favorite polar bear, David White. He's up next. So stay tuned for that. Have a terrific Tuesday. I'll look forward to seeing you tomorrow on wonderful Wednesday. Take care.


Let's look at the character of Estella in Great Expectations. Like Pip, she is an orphan and she's brought up by Miss Havisham. Now Miss Havisham is abusive towards Estella, she treats her quite harshly, quite coldly and also Miss Havisham who was jilted at the altar uses Estella and Malta to become a horrible manipulative person in order so that Stella could use her beauty to lure in men and break heart and break the men's hearts as Miss Havisham's way of seeking revenge against the male species. Because Miss Havisham has never gotten over the fact that she was jilted which means rejected at the altar on her wedding day. Now Estella, even if she is quite cold, even as a child she makes fun of Pip's background, she makes fun of his class and his social upbringing. We as readers actually develop a sense of sympathy for Estella because we realize that her cold mean nature is as a result of how Miss Havisham treats her and how Miss Havisham basically hones her in to become a mean manipulative person. Also she enters into a very disastrous marriage with Bentley Drummell which is quite abusive, however once he does die and she becomes a widow only then towards the end of the story is she free to associate with Pip whom she shows regretful feelings towards. Now there's lots to bear in mind with Estella's character therefore what I have decided to do especially if you're writing about her either for your Corsica exams I have selected the most relevant quotations to bear in mind for her character as well as a word level analysis you want to do because remember when you're writing anything and you're picking out quotations from Charles Dickens book you need to also use word level analysis, engage in word level analysis for each quotation. So let's begin with the first quote. Now this is a quote that actually describes Estella as a young girl okay so it's not her own words but these are important descriptions relating to her as a character and this of course establishes her as very scornful particularly towards Pip. She is described as being a girl and beautiful and self-possessed and she was a scornful of me as if she had been one and twenty in a queen so this is Pip describing how when Estella meets him she is very very condescending towards him she looks down on him down on his class even as a young girl okay now here we can see this massive class difference between her and Pip this is something that Pip obsesses over he also does not feel worthy of her love and he professes to become a gentleman in order in order to overcome this social boundary and feel worthy and maybe make Estella his wife. Now the one level analysis you want to do here is firstly the rule of free to describe Estella as a girl beautiful and self-possessed but also dissimilar as if she'd been twenty and one in a queen so of course here we can see the massive divide and the massive difference between Pip and Estella and of course this is set up to show us how later she does break his heart. The second quotation for Estella's character is when Pip notes her contempt for me was so strong that it became infectious and I caught it so here we can see that Pip because Estella looks down on him as a young child she looks down on him in terms of his social background Pip then internalizes this and looks down on himself but also looks down on Joe Gargery and the people from his social background because he's internalized disliking being a working class individual. Now the word level analysis especially this is illustrating the big divide especially even during this time during the Victorian era between the poor and the rich. Now here what you want to point out is firstly the use of the sibilance so strong to show just how contemptuous how hateful Estella was of Pip purely because he was a working class young boy and a young orphan also you want to look at words that belong to a semantic field of sickness infectious as well as caught it okay so these two words belong to a semantic field of illness this is when Pip internalizes that he is not worthy of Estella because he comes from a lower working class background. The third quotation to bear in mind for Estella is when Pip realises that girl has been brought up by Miss Havisham to re-crevention all the male sex so here of course it's made evidently clear that Estella's the aim that Miss Havisham has for Estella is to basically use her as a way to get back against men for what Miss Havisham felt was a slight against her being jilted at the altar so of course here we can see that Estella does fulfill her role very well she breaks Pip's heart however of course this also comes at the expense of her own happiness the one level analysis you want to do for this creation is the alliteration of B in being brought up by and also the hyperbole that she is going to re-crevenge on all the male gender okay now remember also the alliteration of B, B is what we call a letter or a plosive sound okay so here of course we can see that Estella Miss Havisham mistreats her but this is a way to make her horrible malicious towards men the other quotation for Estella's character is when she herself states I have no heart now this is the declarative sentence a declarative sentence is a sentence that states a fact feeling or mood now here she is basically stating the fact that she has no heart she's cold also her cold nature is illustrated in the litteration of H and have a heart of course again here we can see that Estella does foreshadow how she breaks Pip's heart okay we can see that she's very cold and she is going to break his heart the other quotation to bear in mind is when later on Miss Havisham wants to reverse all the terrible things that she's done to Estella she wants her to become kind to also fall for Pip Miss Havisham realizes she's made a huge and terrible mistake in in molding Estella to become this terrible individual however it's too late Estella tells her I am what you designed me to be I am your blade now here we can see the contrast the juxtaposition in the pronouns I versus you this is obviously contrasting Estella versus Miss Havisham but also the fact that Estella says that I am your blade blade referring to she's the person that Havisham Miss Havisham can use to cut up men and cut up their hearts now this is a medical describing the terrible treatment that she's going to wreak on Pip simply because he's the man the other quotation is later on towards the end of the story you want to realize that Estella has essentially been experienced some kind of change as a result of her disastrous marriage she had a very abusive marriage to Bentley Jumble so even if he was the same social class as her he still mistreated her really terribly and she makes it clear to Pip that she herself has also undergone her own journey of change she's now more melancholic but also she's become a better person she states suffering has been stronger so her suffering has been stronger than all other teaching and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be so here we can see that she has developed a strong sense of empathy for what Pip went through what she put Pip through and she now feels really regretful and empathetic towards that because she herself now knows what it feels like to be mistreated because she was mistreated by her husband the word love analysis you want to do here is sibilance in suffering and stronger also eliteration of tea in teaching and taught and finally the possessive pronoun your okay relating back to Pip's heart that Estella broke now the final quotation to bear in mind for Estella's character is at the end of the story when they visit Miss Havisham's run down home and of course and this is not when they visit Pip goes to her rundown home he finds Estella and then realized she's a widow so she's now free to associate with Pip again and it ends this chapter chapter 59 ends in a very hopeful note Pip states I'll take her hand in mine and we went out of the ruin place ellipsis now of course the ruin place is Miss Havisham's home it's now fallen into disrepair but also it symbolizes so the place being ruined could also be symbolic of how both Pip and Estella life has really knocked them it has ruined them it has maybe destroyed them to some extent but also rebuilt them through the process of destruction the naivety the innocence has been destroyed they've actually been rebuilt into better individuals okay now the one level analysis you want to do here and of course the story ends on a positive note is the literation of we in oh sorry the literation of w in we and went and of course this really shows that both Pip and Estella are both melancholic individuals now they are far more knowledgeable of the ways of the world however they also do generally love each other they've developed a Estella has especially developed a soft spot for Pip Pip still loves her and there is a sense of hope okay there's a sense of hope even a sense of renewal in their love for each other because that's it when it comes to the key quotations to remember and to bear in mind when discussing Estella's character and indeed other themes and novels within this story thanks so much for listening


So the equipment that we're looking at here is what's known as a surface-effect segregation tester and with this equipment what we can do is to characterize the behavior of a free-flowing material when it is discharged into a into a bunker, silo, bin or small hopper. So in essence what this machine does is to homogenize a small sample of material which is held in the cube structure we have here. We'll see this operating in a moment. It homogenizes the material, the cube then stops rotating and the material is discharged down this inclined chute here. Built into the floor of the chute are a series of lips, these lips are the tops of these vertical shutters and this enables the capture of a thin bed of material on top of which subsequent material can then form what represents one side of a heap formation in a storage system filled with material. So the important characteristic that we need to capture here is how stable is the blend. In that context what we mean is if we load the material into a handling system do we find that the coarse particles separate away from the finer materials? Alternatively do we find that the higher density particles separate from the lower density particles or do we have separation by particle shape? This equipment enables us to examine whether or not these effects are present with our chosen bulk solid. So the principle of the tester then is to try and replicate a repeatable heap formation such as would be found in a bulk solid handling system and of course this is the function of the inclined plane that we see here. So the first step of the operation of this tester is to load material into the blending cube here. So material is loaded into the blending cube, the angle of the incline on this chute is configured to match the poured angle of repose of the material when we discharge it in there because what we want to obtain as close as possible is a fairly consistent bed depth from start to finish. So what we're going to see now is the homogenization stage then we're going to follow that with the discharge and then we're going to look at sample capture. So we've really pre-loaded material into the blending cube so now we turn this on and we can homogenize the material. For different materials this will require a different sort of duration and possibly a different sort of blending speed. So we've reached a condition now where the material has been homogenized within the blending cube and the blending cube has now been parked up over the top of this first segment section here. So what we now have to do is to discharge the material into the inclined plane. So gaining access like this we simply open the outlet and the material pours out so we then stop the flow of material and what we can see immediately in this situation is the fact that we've got a very coarse dominant deposition at the base of the slope of material. Although maybe not quite so obvious we have a coarse deficiency under the filling point. So this point here represents the apex of a deposited heap of free-flowing material in a storage system and this point down here represents the internal wall or a surface that's preventing the flow of material. So this basically is the centre line of the heap. This is the outside region. What we will now do is move on to extracting the samples. So having arrived at a segregated bed of material what we now need to do is to extract the samples. Now the samples we extract from this might be used for size analysis or they might be analysis of assay for the chemical content of them. But essentially the extraction is fairly straightforward and what this involves is isolating segments of our bed. So we start at the lower end of the slope and we're going to isolate the coarser content. We do this by raising the gate up like here so now we've created a segmented section of the bed here. We now come towards the apex of the heap. Now we don't want the material to the left of the apex because the slope length there is too short to catch any real mechanism. What we need is from the apex and into the next segment. So again what we do is to raise the gate up such as we see here and isolate that segment. So now what we need to do is to take the samples out of here. So it's simply a case of dropping the floor out of the equipment like so to give us a sample from the base and doing the same at the top of the slope to give us material from the apex. So having extracted the samples from the test rig what I've now done is to decant these into clear jam jars to help visualise the differences here. And what we can see here is a clear jar containing the sample from the base of the heap of the tester of the storage structure whereas the material underneath the apex is usually typified by being less free flowing and less mobile and therefore we find concentration of that underneath the fill point. So we've extracted the samples from the test apparatus and normally these could be used for either size analysis or chemical analysis or sometimes returned to the client for flavour testing. But the principles apply to a very wide range of products whether we're talking about high performance cements whether we're talking about food products, fertilisers, other blended materials. If it's a free flowing material there's always a high risk of these sort of variations in composition occurring once we begin to handle the material and the more handling steps the material goes through the greater the risk can become and of course the severity of this on the process is going to be dictated not only by the material characteristics which we obtain from this machine but also by the operating performance of the handling equipment through which that material passes i.e. is it mass flow or is it a core flow system? The core flow of course giving us the worst case scenario whereby the segregation that invariably develops during loading is then amplified by preferential extraction of material from the base of that storage system.


I'm gonna show you how to make the best green beans you've ever had in your life. I'm serious. Make these for your family and you'll never make green beans any other way. And I promise you, there won't be a green bean leftover. So that was a 32 ounce bag of green beans. Now we add 32 ounces of chicken stock and bring to a boil. So after about five minutes of boiling, these green beans are done. Next step, squeeze tube ginger and squeeze tube garlic. About that much. Now you're gonna need some Dano's original. That's the green top. We're gonna hit it with a pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. Now you need some soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, but you can't use too much cause you're ruining it. One more thing, you're gonna need some Dano's crunchy. That's the black top. Add a bunch of that. Now we give it all a mix. Throw them into your serving dish. Top with one last sprinkle of the crunchy. And now it's time to yum, yum, get you some. You make these exactly like that and there won't be a beany, weany left. Yum, yum, get you some. We'll see you next time. Keep sprinkling.


Good morning everyone. Can everyone can everyone hear me? Okay Good morning and welcome to What's going to be a fairly intimate content conversation on opportunities for impact investors in South Asia and East Africa we have we have a great panel this morning of three investors each of whom has significant experience Investing in either one or both of these regions. And so if you're an investor Who's considering these markets? This is your opportunity to hear from active investors what they think Are the exciting prospects and that you're an entrepreneur, you know This is your chance to hear from investors what they think is exciting and potentially what they Don't think is as exciting and so Before we get started just a little bit of a little bit of background Just right there Just a little bit of background before we get started, you know, one of the things that the gym Does a lot of work on is research on the market opportunities and market trends in impact investing and while there's a growing body of research on impact investing at the global level There's still a lack of research detailed research at on impact investing at the regional or the country level And so we thought it would be valuable to take a closer look At that and so for the past One and a half years we've been working on conducting landscaping studies of the impact investing markets in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa specifically different the UK Department for international development is Has been a great partner of the gym for several years and it's thanks to their Generous support that we've been able to conduct this research in both of these markets So far we've completed studies in East Africa and South Asia, and that's what we're going to be talking about today We've got reports focused on West Africa and Southern Africa coming up in the next couple of months We work with two excellent research partners in these regions in South Asia We work with the Dalberg office in India to map the industry in six countries in South Asia And in East Africa we work with the open capital advisors team Based in Nairobi to map the industry across 11 countries in East Africa Both of these reports including detailed country chapters are actually available for Individual download on the JIN website If anyone's interested in printed copies of the executive summary of both of these reports I have several up here, and you can come and get one from me at the conclusion of this Before I've handed over to the to the panelists I'll just wanted to provide a couple of brief highlights from the research that we conducted So what do we find? I think the first thing to note is that you know We found robust and growing impact investing markets in both South Asia in East Africa. We worked with Slides of switching We worked with our research partners to build very detailed databases of impact investing transactions In both of these regions We went back as far as 10 years to try and capture all the impact investing transactions that have taken place We may not have got all of them, but I think we got a significant proportion and What we found is that you know, there are At least 130 investors impact investors have deployed capital in South Asia over the past decade and about a little over 150 in East Africa In terms of volume 830 million dollars approximately has been deployed in South Asia And one point four million dollars four billion dollars approximately in East Africa It should be noted that these figures exclude the investments made by development finance institutions or DFI's DFI's On their own have invested roughly eight billion in each region and you know We separate the two of course because DFI investments are naturally quite quite different in nature Typically tend to be large projects and more mature Companies that they put that they invest in DFI's own also play a very critical role in both regions supporting the ecosystem Advocating for policy changes Regulation to support investment and they've also actually acted as anchor investors in a lot of impact investment funds operating in both South Asia and East Africa if we look at it by country in South Asia, not surprisingly India's the largest market those sizable volumes of capital have been deployed in Pakistan and Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in East Africa Kenya is the largest market and then significant volumes of capital in Tanzania and Uganda as well We also took a look at how this capital has been deployed by sector and again perhaps not surprisingly Apologies for the slides moving around Again, perhaps not surprisingly financial services was the most popular sector though Impact investors have also been active in energy health care housing and other sectors DFI's for their part have also focused on financial services and energy though The approach that they've taken has been has been different So for example in the financial services space DFI's have often invested in commercial banks and then encourage them to online to SMEs So to tackle the financial inclusion problem top-down Whereas other impact investors have focused on startups and microfinance institutions To address the financial inclusion challenge bottom up and similarly in the energy space DFI's have focused on large-scale energy projects Other impact investors are focused on startups that are providing off-grid solutions renewable energy solutions to those populations that don't have access to access to the grid and so While we've seen obviously significant activity and growth in these markets the need remains significant both South Asia and East Africa have large populations Very significant social economic challenges and the opportunities for impact investing and social enterprise to play a role remains Remains huge and so that's what's going to be the focus of today's discussion with these panelists is really to talk about What are the opportunities for impact investors and social enterprises in these regions in the interest of time? I'm not going to provide lengthy introductions, but just very quickly. We have Maya Porengo who is one of the four founding partners of Lovar equity Lovar is One of them, you know well known and more successful impact investing funds Operating in India. They also invest in various Latin American markets We have Kaleen Alvarez from Indigo social finance and Kaleen has many years of experience 10-15 years of experience Helping SMEs in emerging markets raise capital from from impact investors And then we have the class Raj who's director of investments at Axion Venture Lab And the class has significant experience in the financial inclusion space In India and emerging markets more broadly And so the way we're going to where we're going to start to the session today initially I'll have each of the panelists spend a few minutes Describing for you there They're fun and their strategy and approach so that the audience gets a better sense for For their approach and what they think are the opportunities in their markets I'll then ask a few questions just to dig into Things in a little bit more detail and then we'll open it up to the audience for any questions that that you might have For for the panelists as well. So without further ado, let me Ask Maya to kick things off. Sure. Good morning, everyone And a little known fact might be that Abilash was one of the earliest members of the Elevar team before he decided to bring his considerable strength to the gin after After his his stint at the Kennedy School, but so a lot of what I'll talk about Abilash was responsible for for laying the seeds for when he was with us in Bangalore Elevar is an early-stage venture investor in Companies in Latin America and in India. I'll direct my comments primarily to India, but they Are resident in in our Latin American investing as well We are predominantly a financial services investor, but we also invest in housing health care and education We take our cue really from what we see as the largest needs of the low-income communities that My partners and I and and our team spends a lot of time with on the ground and in our first fund We are we're now investing out of our third fund our first fund was a microfinance fund the second fund invested Predominantly in what I'll call financial inclusion 2.0, which is low-income housing payments small business lending and in our third iteration we are doing things like education finance some fintech companies Basically moving with with the trends that we see in the market We make investments that are generally in the million to five million dollar range at the outset in India We do invest in startups, but our startups are founded generally by extremely well respected Executives from the education space from the financial services space ex-city bank senior people ex-unilever types Who are? Dedicating their energies to building a substantial business that Fundamentally serves the need of a very large customer base whose needs are not being met by the market or even by government So we do complete startups in India. We have taken companies through IPO We have seen all of the challenges along the way and we really see ourselves as backers of great entrepreneurs Who are extremely customer-focused delivering essential services to communities that are highly underserved? Yeah, so my name is Kayleen and my perspective is sort of as I've always mentioned I've been working in emerging markets and microfinance and with SME banking for almost 20 years now As a consultant and in the field I started as a Peace Corps volunteer in microfinance and then ended up on Wall Street So I've sort of covered the whole spectrum and so our investment thesis and our and our business model in fact is Focused on meeting in the middle meeting where development and finance meet to move the needle So our approach is providing debt funding for SME small and medium enterprises in the supply chain and ethical Textiles in fashion and South and Southeast Asia that sounds very focused, but that's huge 70% of the world's textiles go through South and Southeast Asia at some point We're also looking at micro supply chains in East Africa Latin America and Central America as we see ethical textiles and fashion growing globally Our approach is debt funding. We're not focusing on exits. We are in these markets to win these markets Businesses are built from the ground up not from the top down and that's our approach We're partnering with small entrepreneurs so that in three years or five years or ten years or 20 years The conversation about exits and pipelines will no longer be relevant They will be there for impact investors, but more importantly, it will just be good investment. It won't be impact investment Like I said, I come from a development background So our approach is very much trying to solve the problem from the inside out and I'm happy to see at this conference this year There's a whole track on supply chain financing our approach with supply chain financing is that for art from our perspective It gives us transparency into the supply chain Which helps with creditworthiness for clients and it helps us build stickiness not from a contractual perspective Because the contract says or the collateral says that you have to repay the loan But because we're first in line and we have stickiness with the client They want to work with us not only do we provide financial capital But we also provide this connective capital that we've been talking about Making sure that the companies that we lend to are cleaning and greening their supply chain And we're hooking them up with other suppliers and buyers that are trying to do the same thing What we're trying to do is promote An alternative to the Chinese race to the bottom model where inputs and labor is really what it's all about Is that picture gonna stay up this entire So I work for for venture lab axion venture lab and venture lab is a venture fund that invests in and Supports seed stage financial inclusion focused companies around the world as a bit of context for those of you that don't know axion axion is a 50-year-old plus Microfinance investor technical assistance provider manager, and it's really been a part of the kind of Commercialization of the microfinance model and really the financial inclusion World over the over the past decades venture lab started much more recently. We started in 2012 With really the goal of unleashing startup led innovation in the financial services space to improve financial access The quality of financial services and the scale of financial access our core hypothesis is that startups Properly funded and enabled are primed to drive innovation in the financial services world So we are supporting those startups in the markets where we invest in India in East Africa It is still the case that these ecosystems are not quite developed a lot of businesses At the at the really early stage are seen as pre investable By conventional kind of commercial investors. That's where venture lab steps in we invest a hundred to five hundred thousand dollars Usually in equity or hybrid equity in these businesses We come in like I said very early. These are businesses that usually have a product in market Some evidence that customers actually want the product some kind of revenue But but usually not a lot and a full-time highly credible team in place But that's about it. Our companies are not profitable They usually don't have very much revenue what they do have is a big idea for how to change financial services In there in their market or around the world We come in we provide capital. We also provide management support. We tend to sit on boards. We provide guidance around fundraising Expansion scale We also connect our businesses to the axion network this kind of global network of financial services providers We also have our own in-house management consulting group that spends anywhere between a couple weeks and a couple months With our companies helping them on kind of core strategic issues In terms of sectors, I think we'll we'll talk more specifically about what we've invested in in Africa and India in terms of sectors We start with the thesis that there are big kind of fundamental Shifts and emerging technologies that are changing the way that that the underserved can access financial services things like cloud computing social media mobile Can be catalytic in in in being kind of infrastructure upon which new financial services products are offered So we look at those kinds of forces at work And then we think of themes that are really utilizing those forces So things like marketplace lending that uses the internet social media to connect new sources of capital with underserved borrowers Digital SME lending kind of kind of all online acquisition vetting of borrowers new data new forms of customer engagement and credit empowerment since these trends tend to have an outsized impact on Developing markets where there isn't necessarily a vested existing technology or infrastructure We tend to focus on those markets. So we we spend most of our time focused on India and Asia East Africa in in Africa Mexico and Latin America and the US And we're about split evenly amongst those four geographies. Why don't I pause there and we can go into diversity of investment strategies and approaches just just on this panel itself, you know, we've got a mix of equity investors debt investors those investing in I guess the 50,000 plus range close to the half million range and then 1 million to 5 million and Those that are I guess focusing on having an impact through reaching customers those that are focused on having an impact through supplier focused model and so you know, I think what I'd like to Do is have a conversation that digs a little bit deeper Into some of these opportunities in these regions and and the approaches that these investors are taking and then leave plenty of time For you to have your ask your questions Towards the end of the panel as well. Maybe I'll stop with you because your Your fund focuses on both East Africa and South Asia India in particular How do you in your experience compare and contrast these two these two markets and how do you see the opportunities being similar or different Yeah, I mean it there's a lot of similarities between these markets, obviously a lot of differences as well In both markets, we've gotten we've we've spent a lot of time thinking about how We can either support Lenders that are providing services to small medium-sized businesses In invest directly in those lenders. So we've invested in technologies that help lenders make better credit decisions acquire Potential borrowers cheaper more efficiently. We've also supported actual balance sheet lending businesses The difference I think is that in in Kenya in East Africa Given mobile money the kind of ubiquity of mobile money a lot of that kind of privileged insight that that that additional bit of information that allows a borrower to go from a potential Real loan to or from a from not alone to a loan comes from mobile money So in in East Africa, we've invested in companies like first access That is using credit scoring models based on mobile phone data We've invested in a company called umati capital that provides invoice discounting to agri value chains using mobile money We've invested in a company called copo copo, which was the first Mobile money merchant acquirer for M. Pesa that is now using that information by being kind of a part of these payment flows To actually provide merchant cash advance financing products So it's solving this this problem of a lack of information an inability to kind of access and then Build trust around these borrowers. It's often using it using mobile money to do that in some shape or form in India It's it we've we've been a little bit more broad. I think with how we've How we've approached that same problem? so We have a couple investments one of them with with L of R in direct lending businesses that instead of using necessarily high Technology or new mobile money data or anything are using just a kind of industry sector focused approach to gain that kind of acquisition and and and underwriting advantage so Varthana for instance Is a lending business based in Bangalore that does nothing but lend to affordable private schools? And they know that customer better than anybody else so they can develop kind of a Sector-based shorthand that makes them much better at Identifying who the best credits are within that market Bringing them on board much more quickly. We have a similar investment in a business called. I finance in Delhi They use a sector-based approach as well around industry clusters in North India I'll just point quickly to Another way that we are looking at SME finance in India, which is a business called SME corner SME corner is a is a Bombay based Marketplace platform that connects SMEs to to lending institutions and they play that role of adding Insight and information to the SME so that they're more palatable and and and and make more sense to a potential lender My I'm maybe moving on to you Elevator is now in its third fund Close to 10 years now since the first fund started investing and so how have you seen the market evolve over time and and how is your strategy changed? And I guess what does that mean for what you know? You're going to be focused on in this third fund going forward. Absolutely. I think there are several overarching trends Back in the 2005-ish era when we started our first fund The big opportunity and need was really about access and this was at a time when There were really really really what I'll call dark spaces in terms of customers who just Weren't served at all and so microfinance was probably the most efficient way to get access to have that last-mile connectivity and the provision of you know very often a first the first formal financial service a Low-income household might have so our emphasis back then was in microfinance because my team and I are really energized and believe in Innovation Once the landscape was set and it started to happen very quickly in India with the number of microfinance institutions that were funded in That middle mid-2000s timeframe We started to look at what I'll call deeper needs and the Migration from microfinance into small business lending into low-income housing into starting to see how payment systems or different Technologies could enhance the delivery of products and services and reduce transaction cost became more of the focus area I think if you fast forward and look at what is happening today the regulators have also Tried to keep pace with the way that the industry is changing the the landscape in India has been reset even within recent weeks with the awarding of different types of payment bank licenses small finance bank licenses and It's very natural that axion and ourselves would look to what are the new technologies that can further deliver value Not just access, but can we understand what customers really need and where we can provide true value at a deeper level How can we use technology to continue to lower costs by ten times continued up to increase outreach Outreach by ten times and how do we serve new sectors that are not necessarily the individual? Iconic microfinance entrepreneur, but the small businesses that are really the engines of the economy that still operate in the informal sectors So if I look at the wave of our investing in financial services, that's how it's gone Beyond that what financial services business models have has done is to inform opportunities in healthcare in Education in agriculture and so we've started to venture beyond Core financial services and look at how the learnings of how unit economics works for financial services companies in serving the poor with Small ticket sizes, but the need for high volume. How can we adapt that and use those kinds of findings for? perhaps more difficult sectors to to address health care education and others Almost sort of avoiding certain avoiding the path that say other countries have gone through and you know coming up with technology They're a little bit more advanced or sophisticated to reach the unbanked populations Haley you're focused on on a sector. I guess Textiles and ethical textiles, which we don't often hear of as being associated with Impact investors and at least in our research we didn't find too many examples of investments in that space And so I think it'd be helpful for us all to learn about you know How you see The attractive business models in this space from both the financial perspective and I Think for us it goes back to this middle MSMEs have always been in the middle and we're trying to tackle that in middle We're trying to bring cohesion around financing in an industry and the textile and fashion industry is huge And arguably probably one of the most outdated Supply chains and industries you've got all kinds of labor issues environmental issues and that kind of thing but I think for us really what we saw is that Supply chain financing is an underutilized tool and in using finance to provide leverage in a supply chain Root capital has done an amazing job of doing that in the agricultural space We're not trying to reinvent the wheel or work harder just work smarter And we see so many parallels in the supply chain for textiles and fashion and it's such a large supply chain We're applying a model and one of the interesting things about the fashion and textile supply chains is that it is so bifurcated It's artisanal and it's craft and it's cottage or it's these huge conglomerates So again for us, we're just trying to meet in the middle We've seen some fantastic innovations in the last two or three years or even longer. You've got indigenous with With Scott is he here? I don't know and my aunt is an ethical fashion brand out of New York City And even in the investing space, you've got town investments now That's looking at equity and tackling some of the labor issues and we're really just seeing it come together There's this the shift away from fast fashion and all the NPR reports on the $5 t-shirt and stuff like that And and awareness is happening, you know Patagon is made Patagonia has made a commitment to clean and green their supply chain through shareholder advocacy retailers are being forced to have a transparency in their supply chains and We're even seeing some of the retailers now doing their own supply chain financing So for us, perhaps it's new to the impact space, but like I said earlier in 20 years, I hope we're not having a conversation around impact investing It's just good investing building sustainable businesses that do the right thing Socially and in terms of gender justice and in terms of environmental issues are just good investment decisions and Jens done a lot of research on that and I think that hopefully That's a trend that's going to continue You alluded to this in your in your response Your website and Speaks about the missing middle as a focus for your respective firms We often hear about the missing middle and how it's a bit of a Bermuda triangle for for impact investors And so you know love to hear a little bit more about what both of you think Takes to you know to make investing work In the missing middle is it certain types of business models or is it more of a structuring issue or is it something else? Maybe Kaylene will stop with you and then move to the cost sure in my experience in working with entrepreneurs and in working with financiers whether they be microfinance institutions or SME banks and and now as an entrepreneur myself Entrepreneurs building businesses, especially smaller businesses are looking for partners And our approach is to be a partner and helping them build their business And I think that's kind of what's missing in the middle so many entrepreneurs don't understand fancy debt and equity structures and You know convertible structures and all that kind of thing They're just trying to run a business and so we're trying to approach them as as a partner in that as a financier and not as a bank and I think again, that's why we're Working through debt because for us a good underwriting process is an objective look at the business and our Underwriting is very transparent and we're working with the business owners to understand the risks in their business so that they can grow good businesses Yeah we invest in a lot of a lot of missing middle lending businesses and I Talked a little bit about what makes those businesses interesting to us as investors and it's If you think about we talk a lot about Matt Harris's three-legged stool what what makes a Lender kind of interesting from an investor's perspective is some kind of advantage around Acquisition around underwriting or around kind of access to to debt capital Finding companies that are doing a really good job on the first two Is is is is difficult but but but but those those business models are out there all of our companies Even if they are really exciting in terms of an acquisition advantage an underwriting advantage have trouble accessing debt capital early on This is a particular problem in India and East Africa I think our Latin America lending businesses have a slightly easier time of this And it's something that we look at very very closely when we're looking at a potential investment The same way that our businesses our are trying to meet this Missing middle gap.  They're not break even they don't necessarily have long Established relationships with lending instead local lending institutions. So banks ignore them those are the same way the those banks ignore Their potential customers So so when we're evaluating a new lender, we look for Extremely credible entrepreneurs That have proven in some way or another that they are going to be able they have the grit and Hopefully some of the relationships to at least access some debt capital early on in markets like India There's this kind of growing group. It's still very small but a growing group of of kind of impact oriented venture debt players Entities like IntelliGrow and IFMR It's important that our business our businesses or our potential businesses have relationships organizations like that that comes from to Maya's point earlier that comes from Making sure that our entrepreneurs frankly are sophisticated They are They they they are senior they have banking experience themselves And they can kind of get through that two to three year Challenging period once you're break-even and you're doing well. It's a totally different story and and the capital is a lot easier to access How do you Maya you might have other thoughts on that? An axion you know working with venture debt providers as co-investors to get that get that debt into into those portfolio companies Changing tack a little bit. Maybe this is a question that might be of interest to the entrepreneurs in this in this room My fellow I was invested in I think 20 22 companies over the three funds and In that process you must have evaluated at least 10 times as as many more and so What are some you know common or critical mistakes that you've seen that entrepreneurs make that might be just you know An immediate deal breaker for an investor sure Picking up on what what because was talking about management teams that are Long on vision and short on execution So what we have seen a lot is that there are some brilliant ideas out there for Different kinds of you know products and solutions and interventions that can serve a community But the individuals putting forth that vision have never run a business Don't know the market haven't come from the market can't amass resources and for us the immediate immediate Need and we learn this the hard way is that the management teams that we back have to be Excellent execution oriented entrepreneurs. We we have we are very afraid of young global leaders and People who have done lots of speaking engagements and won lots of awards because we find that means that they're spending more time on Stage and less time running their business and figuring out their business plans So it's a big no-no for us if you know, somebody has 20 accolades to their name and they're you know 27 years old usually that's a red flag I would say a second thing is authenticity about the experience of the customer It is very important for us to get an immediate sense that the management teams that we're backing have have spent Real time in the field to understand the pain points of the customers that they're trying to serve that it's not just an Ivory tower idea of how to solve poverty, but they've spent time in the rural villages or among the artisan communities or when with the urban poor and have really developed an ability to talk to and understand The challenges that are being faced by the customers that they want to serve Perhaps the last one all that I'll mention is entrepreneurs who are not Disciplined about the amount of capital that they think they need to address an issue a lot of the times We find that entrepreneurs come and they have huge fund rates Ask you know it's sort of a first-time company and they want you know $10 million to start off and they haven't really sought thought through what is a disciplined approach to capital allocation? What's the right amount of capital that I need to test out a model and prove certain milestones before I go to that next step? So we're big fans We're you invested the series a at the series B at the series C companies doing well by the series D or E we're we're getting out of the business but Raising wanting to raise too much money upfront and not being thoughtful about okay for the next 18 months I want to prove out these five sites with my product I need you know three million dollars for that as opposed to a ten million dollar ask So those are those are some big picture items Keep your accomplishments off your CV Yeah Kayleen you've been prior to indigo you spent a lot of time helping SMEs around the world race capital and a common theme that came up in our research a lot is Investors telling us that SMEs in these markets are not quote-unquote investment ready You know that could mean that they don't have formal financial records or well thought through business or strategic plans And so I'd love to hear from you from your experience What does it take for an SME manager to raise capital and I think in your case if I'm not mistaken indigo even lens? Without collateral with minimal collateral and so what gives you that comfort and what does it say? Thanks for reminding me to say that yes, we are completely Uncollateralized lending and we are finance first Meaning that you know our rates are not subsidized and it's not grant money This is real money because for us sustainable businesses are at market rate because Providing a business a subsidy just kicks the can and so they can work for a few years and then they can't suddenly and I think It's sort of a supply and demand issue what I've seen with entrepreneurs Because it's it's really easy for an American or European to go into Africa or South Asia and say they're not investment ready But a lot of it is that that entrepreneur Has humility which a lot of Americans lack and they're not just leading with these are my numbers These are my profits. This is my vision. I need money. I need debt. I need equity needs to convert This is my ROI and entrepreneurs in these emerging markets don't necessarily think of their businesses that way a lot of the smaller ones In particular don't understand debt and equity structures their family businesses They bootstrap everything and they don't understand leverage And in particular in our case a lot of the businesses that we've worked with have never had debt before And so we have to help them understand all of our lending is cash flow based lending So we have to help them understand what their cash flows do look like and that they actually can afford A loan and a loan repayment and the opportunity cost of capital of not taking that loan Is that the business stays micro or small and that leverage not over leverage But leverage can be a tool to help you build your business a lot of the entrepreneurs just don't they're looking to feed their families We're talking about businesses that are really low on Pavlov's hierarchy of needs So helping them understand how to build an empire is not something that culturally they've ever had a context for Maybe I'll ask one more question to all the panelists and then we'll open it up to the floor I think what would be interesting for entrepreneurs in this room is to try and get a sense for you know post-investment what's the type of support or or level of interaction that you have with the Enterprises that you that you invest in and so maybe you can stop with my end go this way Just provide some color on how you engage with entrepreneurs We do not have technical assistance We are members of the boards of the companies that we sit on I think one of the biggest value ads that we bring is that We have seen the evolution of a lot of companies at this point from start to finish So as outside of the board meetings we have regular sit-downs and strategy sessions with the companies where they say okay You've had five other companies who were in our shoes and what happened to them in month six What happened to them in month 12? How do you know? How did you articulate? You know the success so that they could get to their series B. So it's really a lot of strategy work It's a lot of working on Fundraising rounds the timing of them who are the best investors to bring to the table often. That's what our entrepreneurs Don't really have is a network of mainstream as well as impact investors that they can reach out to who would be the best investors for the Company and also I think having a shoulder to lean on for the management teams because this is very challenging and very hard work And we know the communities that they're trying to serve so just having those kinds of open conversations where Whenever there's something that's going wrong. We want to be the first person that they call We want our CEOs to pick up the phone and say this happened It's terrible. What do I do? And that's the kind of interaction that we have I think for us is the answers we're still kind of figuring it out Our businesses are nascent and the answer is probably we're really involved in what they're doing because we're helping them build a business And we're also still trying to figure it out a lot of our businesses need some sort of Technical assistance or business advisory for lack of a better word in terms of monitoring and evaluation and the impact metrics But also on ISO standards and becoming export ready because that opens them up to other markets Which actually helps diversify their revenue and helps make sure that we get repaid So I think we're still trying to figure out what it exactly it is that we can provide to our entrepreneurs That help them build better businesses and not just not just money, but that connective capital piece Yeah, and I talked about this a little bit before but thank you for the opportunity to talk about it again the the so we Start by sitting on boards as well Kind of helping at the board level advise on fundraising and strategy and path to scale We also try to plug our businesses many of whom are our lenders are working with lenders Into the global axion network of 60-plus microfinance institutions around the world We also have our own in-house TA TA facility and we have 22 companies in our portfolio We've done TA projects with 16 of them And and these can be projects anywhere between a couple weeks and a couple months and it's getting in and really helping on core Kind of strategic issues that management while they're probably able to do it Just don't have time to do so we've helped on things like customer segmentation on product strategy That's increasingly becoming a really fundamental part of how we even think about our investing work We we get our portfolio engagement TA team involved at the kind of in vet during the investment process to identify specific ways that we can help out as soon as we invest and then we get in there and Really kind of help help our management teams deal with these these these important issues and it's been quite helpful so far It's all in-house and and that's intentional I mean the our startups are dealing with a million things and and don't and and and if we Work the way I think a lot of the TA world works, which is Spending six months figuring out exactly what the project looks like and looking at timelines deadlines and pricing it and everything like that By the time the TA person goes and sits with the company. It's a completely different company We try to have a really nimble and and kind of responsive TA function Where we're able to identify a need and then the next week have somebody on the ground with the company helping Any questions from the audience you could just identify your name and which organization you're with sure I'm George Scharfenberger with the University of Berkeley Master of Development Practice program. My question is looking to the future about five years from now Kaleen Suggested that this is not a something special. It's really just business as business Where do you see this going five years from now in our are the products you're Providing and the way you're operating is this a transitional Solution to something else a stopgap or is this going to be a permanent fixture of these economies? Okay, so the question is where do you see these markets five years from now? Sure, I mean just from the Indra India perspective a lot of what's happening is I what I'd call the Formalization of the informal economy. So the business is especially on the financial services side That a lot of us are backing are really engaged in bringing into the formal sector lending credit history Savings and insurance products etc. So I feel like it's a bit of a cliche to say it's it's an extension of the same But the overarching trend is bringing the informal economy into into the formal landscape in my mind And that's happening in financial services. It's happening in health care. It's happening in agriculture It will happen in education as well Honestly, it's funny because we're certainly using technology to help in credit risk management and underwriting and that kind of thing But honestly, we're kicking it old-school Lending the products that we're doing. It's working capital. It's equipment lending It's super simple and so we're really kind of taking it back and that resonates with their entrepreneurs We don't come in and and preach some fancy structure to them. They get it So I think for us, we're sort of Trying to get back to the basics Hi Sorry sub mesha also a colleague of obelish is from the global impact investing network I was curious in this conversation about East Africa and South Asia That much of the South Asian dialogue is focused on India And I was curious if any of the three of you have looked at Pakistan or Bangladesh Or I guess some of the other markets in that region and if not, I guess why not? And if so maybe what's sort of preventing more more capital deployment in those countries? Sure. Yeah We we have not looked at Bangladesh closely. We've looked at some businesses in Sri Lanka and we've looked actually at Pakistan quite closely so The we actually had a consultant in partnership with CGAP on the ground in Pakistan for six months exploring the market for us what we found was that Frankly, we weren't seeing a lot of of Fundable business models and and ready to go entrepreneurs even at our stage and we're you know We're really seed stage investors There's there's a lot of interesting things happening there But the conclusion we came through was that it would be it actually might be best for us to be part of more of a kind of incubator model in Pakistan Versus Supporting kind of business models that are already there and entrepreneurs that are already really ready to manage them Yeah, sure. I'm probably one of the most pro-Pakistan people in the room I have done a lot of work in Pakistan and love it and also Sri Lanka I think for us it's a supply chain play But our lowest hanging fruit is at the end of the supply chain right now in terms of risk management So we're probably focusing on Southeast Asia a little bit more right now And then when you get to Sri Lanka and Pakistan and India We're at the at the base of the supply chain with the ag stuff and quite honestly right now There's huge regulatory hurdles for us in terms of being able to lend and get money out And also that's where you've got the stake conglomerates coming in and fixing the price of cotton and stuff like that So it's a little bit more challenging and to be honest We haven't yet found the right partner that's going to help us be able to go in and navigate that network right now Yeah, I think the challenge is that Those are the markets where really high risk capital or potentially Philanthropic or aid capital have to go because the macro political risk the lack of liquidity the challenge of getting exits Is what keeps what I'll call? Commercial return-oriented investors who who have Western LPs from going into those markets It's their phenomenal vibrant vibrant markets And they you know from a ground up are just you just want to do stuff in Pakistan because it's so awesome But it's the macro makes it very tough Yeah, hi, good morning Roland Pearson managing director from include I have pretty much the parallel question for East Africa Which is you know briefly Kenya lovely a bit of an anomaly even in East Africa Much less the rest of the continent. So I wanted to find out your view for the rest of East Africa To you know kind of get a sense of what you see the opportunities are and and perhaps Somewhat begging the question what the challenges are and how how they may be overcome I'll keep it brief, but you know a couple of the other couple of the sectors that really came up in our research agriculture came up a lot Agriculture as a share of GDP has fallen drastically across East Africa and South Asia for that matter over the last couple of decades, but agriculture remains the largest employer of People in these regions and so on the significant opportunity for productivity improvements in the agricultural Value chain was something that came up a lot in our research Off-grid energy was the other one that was highlighted a lot large segments of the population in both of these regions Do not have access to the grid And so off-grid Renewable energy solutions was something that emphasized a lot in markets such as Tanzania Uganda Rwanda, etc Sure. Yeah, well, so actually we have two investments in Tanzania. So two in Kenya two in Tanzania in East Africa I think With you know Kenya has obviously become kind of this hotbed of entrepreneurial activity in East Africa Largely because I think of M of M Pesa Tanzania with recent moves towards interoperability amongst all of the different MNOs Is essentially building a different kind of ubiquitous mobile money ecosystem, which means that there should be ultimately opportunities Of the same ilk as as what we've seen in Kenya opportunities to build more kind of cash light systems Like Copacopo Opportunities to provide additional financial services on top of mobile money like we've seen in Kenya with things like umati and first access We haven't seen a ton of new business models there yet But we're keeping our eyes open and we're really excited about that There's also other markets outside of East Africa in Africa that we're getting more and more excited about Nigeria in particular has a really exciting entrepreneurial ecosystem a Bank-led model instead of a kind of M&O led model in terms of mobile money But one that is increasingly that is gaining traction So we kind of have our eyes open in Nigeria Ghana and other parts of Africa as well Hi, I'm still Vanessa and I just wanted to follow up on the question that was asked about South Asia as well I'm actually a Bangladeshi entrepreneur I'm raising money for a health care fund right now and I have to tell you I found it fairly shocking how much easier it is to raise money for Pakistan than Bangladesh and that Certain investors that I approach actually tell me they won't invest in Bangladesh because of political risk When Pakistan is actually a failed state. So what can I do to overcome that? I can't I couldn't Sorry, my question Kiss the mic Hello, oh, sorry My question is as a Bangladesh entrepreneur trying to raise money when people tell me they won't invest in Bangladesh because of political risk How do I respond to that when Pakistan is actually a failed state? And I think it's a lot easier to raise money for Pakistan actually So the question is Entrepreneur in Bangladesh wants to raise capital but the response she gives is there's a lot of political risk in the market and so How does she get around that? Yeah My answer is simple. Look when you're looking for investors whether they're debt or equity You're looking for partners and if they don't understand the context of Bangladesh then move on Build your business and you don't need to teach them about how great Bangladesh is in the market. I Think I think the other thing you could do is Have your one-page list of here are the seven successful recent examples of You know, there there are some in the Grameen universe There there are others where where companies have been invested in and exits have happened, but realistically in our space People are pretty focused on what they're investing in and in my mandate the way my fun docs are written I can only do India so you also have to be real realistic about who are the investors out there that might do Bangladesh and You'll waste your time if you're trying to convince somebody who's not focused on the country to focus on that because it's just a We are limited and we are we're still a small group. Yeah Yes Bangladesh has a marketing challenge is what you're saying and and I think the best the best antidote to that is being loud and clear about the Successes that have come out of the country.  I'm actually Working I've recently become an entrepreneur looking at you speak up a bit looking at Urban safety and issues of violence against women in cities in India So I was just wondering because a lot of the I mean you talked about mostly microfinance education health Textiles and the more traditional conventional spaces of investing But what about new social problems which are coming up? Are you looking at investing in things? It's very difficult to develop a business model for us in these kind of areas But we need to and we're looking for help and there it's just not us It's not just me where there are many people who are looking at social problems such as youth unemployment You know attitudes of men in India and Pakistan and Bangladesh and violence against women creating safer urban spaces I mean the STGs have recently brought in safe and inclusive urban spaces as one of the main STGs out of the 17 so it's an area that you're looking at at all into expanding of new social problems in urban areas specifically Because the growth of urbanization is taking place in Asia and Africa So we're going to have many many more cities in these countries with huge populations Really millions of 10 15 20 million people I think the biggest challenge is not all problems can be addressed commercially and you have to draw a Very strong line between what's appropriate because if you set up a business approach to a problem That does not have a commercial end to it You're setting up for failure and so the question is may perhaps there is a hybrid model there It may not have to live squarely in the nonprofit sector, but you have to be absolutely clear that Impact investing is not you know a tool for all of all of the important social problems and you know Violations against women is a is a huge issue urban safety is a huge issue I frankly haven't seen a commercial response to it I've seen a social impact bond response to it here in the United States So perhaps that's a model that could be followed in India That's very difficult to articulate and pull together But that you know, that's probably just you know top of mind for me as a response We're past time, so thank you everyone and a big thank you to all our panelists You