Welcome back to The Breakfast on PlosTV Africa. We're now going to be talking health and of course this is with regards to the pandemic. Fighting COVID-19 with Herbal Medicine, the Afro-Babalala University yesterday put out a celebration and the message saying that they have been able to put together a Herbal Medicine, a Herbal Drug, that works effectively in the fight against COVID-19. It had been tried on a few people and seemed to be very, very effective. We're speaking this morning with Professor Olaposi Omotui who's a director of research at the Babalala University. Good morning Prof, thanks for joining us. Good morning, thank you very much for having us again this morning. All right and this should be good news, seeing that we're dealing with a pandemic across the world. Over time we have spoken about Nigeria and not being able to know exactly what the peculiarities of our COVID-19 situation is, but this is something that we should be celebrating, seeing that more lives will be saved if this drug is fully approved and put to use. So kindly share with us a little bit about this Herbal Drug. How was it put together and what did it take? Okay, good morning and again I thank you so much for having us. There's a bit of history to all of this. About 60 to 65 percent of drugs that are very active against different kind of diseases in the world actually are from plants. See that they are not really from plants or they are modified from a plant's parents' comfort. So for us this is just like the jahu coming back to what always works and I want to tell you that in 2019 when this happened the founder of the University Chief Reha Fewa Balula felt it was going to be something very big and that the world would probably suffer if we do not quickly address the situation. So at that point he assembled all of us and said let us begin to look into plants as possible alternatives to what the West was doing at that particular time. The West was looking into synthetic drugs, looking into FDA approved drugs, looking into vaccine development. He said look this is where we have strategic advantage plants. So let's pick it up and begin to do some screening. And of course what we did was not doing it like regular other people would do it, just make claims based on folkloric use that is to say how people have been using these things pre-historically. He wanted us to deploy science to investigate the possible potencies and to be able to screen using specific mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis. So these were the things we put together for the screening protocols in the first place and were able to narrow 18 starting plants down to just about two. Out of the two one of them, because we didn't have the intention of carrying it forward, we quickly published our findings and that will be for Aframumum, Miligwata for those who don't know, it is called Atari in Yoruba. This one of the most potent anti-SARS-CoV-2 plants that I know just before the recent one. Just about two weeks ago, five universities in America, they came together and wanted to really show or to be sure that what we did in Africa a year earlier was right. And they came to the same conclusions even better that Atari, that is for Mosiah, is not only capable of taking care of SARS-CoV-2 in culture but also could also do that for SARS-CoV-1. So if you have exposure to SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV-1, you could use that. Now we're now telling you that the one we have right now with the brow phylon species is even more potent than that. And we are army biomedical scientists, so what I'm going to be doing physically is to use those instruments of science to probe into all of that. And that's exactly what we did. And when we got the chance to map that, we thought it was approval. Yeah, I just wanted to also get you to speak on this. When we talk about COVID-19 vaccines, they always say it's 90 percent, 95 percent effective in dealing with the virus. Is there any clarity on how effective this particular drug is or this herbal drug is? Thank you very much. That's a very good question. Yesterday we were making presentations to Naiman and Naiman is Nigerian Institute for Medical Research, probably the only body in Nigeria that has the statutory responsibility to try such claims out and to make very valid statements on innovations like this. So one of the things we presented to them was to make comparison between the cocktail are being used right now approved by WHO in comparison with ours that is your resident. So if 100 people were put into trials from the current cocktails available right now, at the end of three weeks, only 35 percent would turn out negative, meaning that the virus would have been cleared by, I mean, in only 35 people out of 100. If you do, if you repeat this same experiment, probably under the same very close condition with the virus, then the number is 85 percent. In three weeks? In three weeks. As a matter of fact, the time, the mean time, like, okay, let's say the median time, so clearance is seven days for us. So if you start taking the virus today in seven days, you should test negative. So if this, of course, these are just, these are just what we did by our own team. We are now saying government people, please come. This is our submission. This is your facility. We'll just turn and watch. You try it. So it must have, we must have a very high level of confidence to tell them, do it. And of course, after five hours of serious drilling yesterday, all of us can do the same conclusion that this might be our best gateway to the world. Okay. So it's a brilliant, you know, brilliant one. And everyone pretty excited because there's been the constant call that we should, you know, find homegrown solution for, you know, all of our problems and the health issue or the health sector is not also left out. But can you kindly tell us if, you know, this Hebo drug has actually met the scientific method or did the scientific process, of course, that's been recommended by the WHO? Okay. Thank you. It's a very important question. I would have to quickly say this, that we at the Hebo University are not just teaching students, but we are adopting what is called the functional education paradigm. Functional education in the sense that we look at the university as a fulcrum to solving societal problems. And now, on this particular note, it's a health problem. And we are going to look at this solution from the scientific point of view. And in science, if you want to develop drug, and I have to quickly tell you a very important background, I was with Nagasaki University therapeutic innovation center for years. We were developing drugs for Japanese government at that particular time. So I was in that team. Now, here, what we usually do is to look at what exactly is responsible for a particular disease. In this case, it is SARS-CoV-2, which is the virus. So the question is, how does the virus gain entrance or entry into the host, which is human in this case? Is there something we can do to block that from happening? That's one. Number two, if the virus has eventually gained entry into the host cell that is human, is there something we can do to stop that virus from being able to process itself, to multiply itself? That's number two. If the virus eventually has the capacity to multiply itself, is there something that we can do to mitigate the effect on the human, generally? So these were the three pathways we were seriously researching on. And that is the basis for which our herbal cure was actually based, basically. Okay. Is there any clarity on whether this is effective regardless of the variant of COVID-19? Omicron, Flu-Ricron, whichever name, can we be sure that this is effective regardless of how COVID-19 transforms itself? I think that is the most important question that I think everyone should be asking now. And let me give you a bit of clarity. A lot of people started with isopleroquine, if you make 10, for example, around the Syria, one of the major problems with all of these drugs was that they were working mechanistically now on a particular aspect of the viral pathogenesis. How is this different? How are working, I mean, is working rather on four different pathogenic areas? When Omicron mutated, and I also have to add this very quickly, just yesterday, a very high impact particular accepted our work on Omicron. We immediately, Omicron genome was sequenced at the South African Institute. We quickly picked up that data, and we use it to understand the functional importance of that mutation. And we understood that it became a super binder, which is true, and of course, had the ability to evade immunity. Just now they are now reporting that, oh, it is true. What this guy said, that was not accepted for publication just yesterday in around 5 p.m. Now, it means that we are closely monitoring the evolution of this virus with time. And that the Omicron itself has mutations basically, I mean, in the area of its two bindings, which is of course important for invasion into the host cell. But ours even work beyond that. So if it becomes a super binder and it bites and it gets to the cell, we are waiting for it to want to make up what is called the viral. The viral are the new particles. Ours will block it. And just for emphasis, some of the people that have, you know, tested our innovation successfully actually had delta virions. And there is no reason we wouldn't be able to take care of Omicron, regardless of that, because ours is not just working as a monopharmacological agent, but as a poly-pharmacological agent. One plant able to inhibit different aspects of the pathogenesis. That's our thing. Okay, so let's also begin to look at, you know, some of the, I mean, in comparison, because for those who are vaccinated, you hear that if you have taken the false dose, it does not prevent you from contracting the virus again. I mean, it's just aware of saying it would reduce the severity of the case.  Okay, no. In terms of the fine details, no. And I'll try to explain this for people who are not probably scientists. When you take vaccine, there are two kinds. Some of them can help you to raise what is called antibodies against that particular, in this case, SARS-CoV-2. But the problem is once the initial pathogen, which is the virus here, mutates. It's always very difficult for the antibodies to catch up. And that's the reason why people need booster doses. And I don't know how long we're going to be taking, so some have taken four already. Maybe we are going to age before the end of the year. That doesn't work like that. What we, what hours do, basically, is not to prevent in terms of the fine vaccine, what has it got now, how vaccine works. No. Hours is when, before you contract it, it will help or prevent you from contracting because we have some of the components of our virus then, and it's called an entry in the beetle. Entry beetle means that once you have our virus in your system, the virus cannot attach to yourself. And for those who have contracted it, we have some components in the virus then that will stop the virus from being able to multiply in your body. For those who already have contracted and the virus is already multiplying, it will reduce the severity of your symptoms, meaning that you will not be able to go to ICU. You would not probably need intubation. So are you saying that, you know, the herbal drug is a cure? It's a cure. That's it. That's what we're saying. It's a cure. And it can also be used prophylactically. Prophylactically means it can prevent from that from happening. Okay. Professor, how long and what would be the process that is needed before it is fully approved and full production starts with this drug? Thank you. These are multi-process things that happen. You have to move from one state to the other. But as we began to record these levels of substances, we also began to attract very important partners, both national and international partners. One of the things, one of the national partners that I like, because I don't want to talk about national partners, the national that I like is the NIMA, because they have the responsibility to test, to validate any of these pharmaceutical innovation claims on behalf of the federal government. After making our presentation and our regular checks with them, they were very enthusiastic. And as of yesterday night, around 11, 11.30, the team that we eventually test them in their own laboratories, we already have a meeting, because we were actually on a social platform where we could track what we're doing. All the necessary MOUs, MTAs are ready. By this morning, I'm sure the two legal entities from the universities and of course NIMA will be signing some of these papers. So that means that in a month, we might actually be at a point where we are fully ready, not only for production and probably for shipment outside Nigeria, because I think it is the best, like one of them in NIMA said yesterday, very respected Dr. Chika, he said this might probably be Nigeria's you know, best food ever in terms of pharmaceutical innovation to the world. So I do not think it's going to be beyond this. And again, I will have to tell you that immediately the results started coming in in the laboratory, the founder of the university, and also quickly started putting plants in place for commercialization. And that is in what is called the Upward Industrial Research Park. In that park, we have the AB Pharmaceuticals in which I was instrument, I was there when the contracts for the acquisition of the equipment was signed. About five billion, that was why he signed out that particular day, I remember. And I can tell you right now, some of the pieces of these machineries are already in Nigeria. So by the end of this month, I expect every of the components to be on site. And by February, all of us are going to be on there to make sure that the plants are put together to be able to start production early March. So like I said again, this man, 95 years old, is not just thinking about this, already thinking about the future. Before anybody thought of performance screen dependence in Nigeria, he had that vision and is allowed to pursue it big time. Okay, pretty exciting there. And the question here would be, in what format is this Hebao cure, I mean medicine coming through, you have said that it's not just- Thank you very much. In what format is that going to come through? And also- So it's a two in one question. The first is, in what format is this Hebao drug going to come through? The second question would be, are there challenges, I mean in the course of coming through with this Hebao medicine and drug for COVID-19, what are the challenges that you were faced with? First, we had discussions around the usage format yesterday at the meeting with Naima. Within Nigeria, I think that it's going to be a syrup, a 100 mil bottle syrup, that's what it's going to be. But in terms of being able to ship outside Nigeria, because I think the world needs us now. So I think syrup might not really be workable around that. So we probably have to also be looking at tabletting these formulation. So these are the two that I'm looking at right now. There could be more, of course that would be left for Pharmacist Apolabi, the team lead in the pharmaceutical production to figure out. I'm just a basic biomedical researcher. We have a lot of people who are working on this. In my team alone, we have more than 10 people, brilliant, young, you know, well-trained scientists who can think through all of this within the university. Okay, then the second question is what again? The second question is in the course of coming through with this Hebao medicine to combat COVID-19, what are the challenges that you and the institution would have encountered or have encountered? I think the first challenge we had was funding. Personally, I thought it was funding. But you have a lot, just like broke banks, you know, to fund the research. It spared nothing. But eventually, when the success came, people are now here, trying to assist in one way or the other. And apart from that, I don't think there's nothing. The regulatory agencies were not also forthcoming. You know, these things with Hebao medicine claims, counterclaims, and a lot of people are comfortable with a lot of things. So actually the COVID organics from Madagascar, so everybody was at some level of paranoia around all of that. But I think immediately we started opening our books and decided seeing what we're doing, they came into our labs, they saw what we were doing, they came to the university, most of them was probably one of the best hospitals in Nigeria, even with West Africa. They saw what we were doing. They didn't have too much, you know, problem going forward with us. And I think we have to give good news to the DG of NAVDAC, because she should have waited for us to come to her, but she passed the process. She came to us and said, I've been hearing what people are doing. Please open your book and don't say what people are doing. And I can say that she has it on record that this is exactly how this should be done all over the world in terms of how we approached this. So we didn't just make any claim like all the Hebao practitioners would make claim, but we went, we took it through the rigors of science. And that's exactly why everybody seemed to be on the same page with us. Otherwise they would have been having prejudices saying a lot of other things, you know? Well, let me also quickly ask this. You know, and I believe it might be one of the fears, you know, that might have crossed your mind. The use of this drug, if it is approved here in Nigeria and in other parts of Africa, seem to be very effective, saving lives, preventing complications of COVID-19 and some of all of that. It kind of means killing business for the likes of Pfizer and Johnson and Johnson and, you know, those vaccine makers across the world that are making billions of dollars from, of course, selling their vaccines. So is there a fear that this might be blocked, Professor Motui? Yeah, well, of course. I'm not a businessman, but I understand because I run some, you know, shows. So I understand maybe there could be some kind of fear. But let me put this very confident with you. We are not competing with Pfizer because we can't even compete with them in the first place. We are only offering complementary support. Look at what happened. The reason we got to women in the first place was because the vaccine distribution network broke down at some point that it looks like very rich, high income countries just blocked everything, forgetting that an infection in one area of the world is an infection to the entire world. So I think Pfizer, in my opinion, should come to Abwad and see us more as a partner and not like a threat of competition. We are not threats to them. And that's number one. Number two, what the Pfizer vaccine does is not exactly what Abwad will see them does. The Pfizer vaccine in the long run might provide some kind of, you know, immunity for anybody. But when someone is or has contracted COVID-19, Abwad will see them should be the stopgap for such people. So after the reason I will not say, if you have the means of taking vaccine, you should not take it. I will not say that. The only fear I have is that the rate at which this mutation is going on. We even make their vaccines less effective. It simply means that what Abwad is doing right now is helping them in their business. Because if we can keep the viral, the population with viruses down, the mutation rates will be down, and their platform will be effective in the long run. So if I were Pfizer, I would not see Abwad as a competitor, rather as a partner. Because the reason they need Abwad in the first place is because their vaccines actually got weaker from 87 percent to 43 or 46 percent. But with Abwad, we will see them could actually stay at 87. So it's good enough. So we are not going to drive Pfizer out of business. And Pfizer will also draw the out of business. M and B, Pfizer, Mac, they should come to us and say, okay, you have this. We have the platform for global distributorship. We have the platform for global production. How can we assist with this? This is a global problem. It doesn't matter where it comes from, whether the university is in Kutunau, or the university is in Oxford, or the university is in Leicester, or wherever in the world. It is just a concern that I believe had crossed your mind. I hope that this goes well, and that the Afro-Babalala University and of course your team gets the royalties that they deserve from all of this. I'm always going to think about what could possibly go wrong. I'm sure you are not unaware that Afro-Babalala himself is a legality of international refugees. So you should know that the issue of reality will not be a problem. He is a lawyer. Okay. But let's also quickly, as we begin to cross the conversation down now, let's also look at the issue of if your institution or an organization have been able to experiment on those who have taken the vaccine, because you are saying right here that the Hebel drug is a cure, and not a vaccine, because the vaccine just reduces the severity of the case. And so for those who have been vaccinated, can they also take the Hebel drug? I have a very quick one. I have a practical experience with that. This is the person that has taken the jab two times, started from complete dosage. He is always on his mask, 247. He went with his family to USA and came back and got COVID. All of them were vaccinated and got COVID. It was virus then that killed him. Okay. Two of them, his son and himself. In fact, and that was one of the things that I love the most, when he reached out to us and he said, give us two bottles of virus then he gave to his son, he took his own. He didn't take his, I think he was on the normal cocktail that they were giving to them in the hospital, while the son was taking virus then. After four days, they went back to test. His son tested negative, he tested positive. Then he called and he said, I didn't take mine, now I want to take my time and take mine. After going through the full regimen, he went back to test for test and rather, and he came back negative. Okay. Good thing that we have your contact, just in case we also need to through the back door, get our own. You don't have to go to the back door. That's because I need to get my own little syrup in my jacket pocket. We have your contact and we'll be reaching out to you. Finally, in 20 seconds, if you can, is there any clarity on whether this has side effects? Can people with high blood pressure, can people with diabetes and some of all of that still use this medicine? Is there clarity on some of all those aspects? Let me quickly, let me quickly tell you one secret. Please don't tell it to anybody. The same component that is actually doing the anti-MPRO2 inhibition in COVID and in villicidine has one of the most potent anti-hypoglycemic effects. That is to say, it has the capacity to reduce your blood sugar. Okay. Great way to end the conversation. Dr. Matui, a professor, I beg your pardon, Professor Lapozi Omatui, he's a director of research at the FI Babilala University. I'm looking forward to speaking with you again and we hope that this actually becomes a worldwide cure for COVID-19, not just here in Nigeria. Thank you for the work that you've done so far for speaking with you again. Thank you. All right. Stay with us. President Mohammed Ubarri was on an interview yesterday evening and of course spoke extensively on setting core issues bothering Nigeria as a country. We're going to be taking a look at some of the statements and some of the things that he spoke on yesterday, right next after the shot break.


It was a cool autumn night.  The wind was cool on my back. The air was cool and crisp, as you could expect from the autumn season. My tent behind me held all the necessary supplies for my weekend camping near the Great Lakes in the northern United States. Supplies weren't an issue. Food wasn't an issue. However, firewood was. The blaze was fading from a raging fire to cold embers quickly. The wind started howling, nearly extinguishing the small flame that was left from my source of warmth and light.  I watched the smoke rise into the air and cast a stark contrast between itself and the bright stars in the sky. I knew I would have to venture out to gather more firewood soon. I was so relaxed and really didn't want to get up, but I knew it must be done. So that's what I did. I stood up, brushed the dirt off my jeans, grabbed my torch from the tent and wandered into the darkness. I've always loved nature, particularly mountains and lakes. This made the Great Lakes seem like an ideal place for a vacation. Autumn is my favorite season, so that's when I decided to go. That September, I boarded a flight across the Atlantic. Eventually I landed in Chicago. I didn't stick around long. The whole city just felt gray. I bought a few supplies that I couldn't bring by plane and made my way up to my intended camping location in the Newberry State Park. It was a bit of a trip involving a bus and an Uber. I told the driver I'd see him in a week and set off into the State Park. It wasn't long until I made it to my camping lot. It was only a few kilometers from where I was dropped off and I enjoy hiking. I stopped, breathed in the fresh air and looked forward to my relaxing week surrounded by these massive lakes. This was my first time camping in this part of the world and I wanted to be sure to take in as much of the experience as I could. After this moment of contemplation, I slung my backpack off my shoulder and heard it hit the ground with a thud. I pulled my tent and stakes out from the bag. I'd set up a countless number of tents before. At this point it was basically second nature. I knew I had to set up my campfire now as the sun was already beginning to set on my first day. There would be time to explore tomorrow. The first night was cool, but not cold. The wind was calm, the air was fresh, and I was content. I snuggled up in my sleeping bag, found a comfortable place to lie, and began to try to drift asleep. I heard owls, I heard toads, I heard insects. It was all very calming. And then it hit me, an unexplainable sense of dread. While trying not to succumb to anxiety, the smell hit me. The fresh air was replaced with the smell of rot. It hung heavy in the air, but only momentarily before passing. I peeked outside. I could see well enough from the light of the embers from the once roaring fire. My campsite was clear. The smell, I assumed, was just a rotting animal, the stench carried by the wind. After all, wolves are common in this area. I eventually drifted to sleep. I woke up and everything that had happened the night before just felt like a vague dream. It wasn't going to stop me from enjoying the rest of my trip. Not like I could leave anyways, I didn't bring my cell phone as this was supposed to be a getaway. My Uber wouldn't be here until next Monday anyways, so I began my hike to Lake Michigan. The site was absolutely breathtaking. There was so much water, it seemed more like an ocean than a lake. Islands dotted the inside of the lake on the horizon, which only added to the illusion. There were ripples in the water where fish would come up to eat the insects that scuttled across the top of it. I ended up just taking in the sights and sketching for most of the day. However, eventually I had to head back to my campsite. This is what continued for most of the week with no strange occurrences. I had spent my nights at the campsite and during the day I would hike and absorb everything that this piece of land had to offer. I'd watch animals from a distance, including moose, eagles, and a couple wolves. I couldn't help but remember the smell of a rot that those same wolves probably caused near my site. Friday came along and I knew that soon my life would be back to normal. I'd be stuck in a boring job. My routine of camp then hike then relax would be replaced by work, go home, sleep, wake up, work. I didn't look forward to it at the time. Now I'm glad my life is back to normal. Night was beginning to approach. I had just made it back from my hike. I'd drawn an amazing sketch of a moose in the distance. I placed the sketch in my binder and began building a fire. The wind had been picking up gradually throughout the day and I knew it would be a cold night. By the golden light of sunset, I gathered up some hefty logs and branches. I brought them back to my camp and was overcome by that same sense of dread. I decided to ignore it. The fire was roaring and all seemed at peace. This is where my story begins. I was having trouble sleeping and it was the wee hours of night. The fire was dying. I had to get more wood. Once I got past the tree line, I had recalled that I'd collected most of the wood near my site throughout the week. So I ventured deeper. I had my torch to eliminate my path. So all felt well. I have a habit of keeping my torch shining in front of me instead of at the ground. And it was because of this that I kicked a rock causing me to stumble to the ground. I heard a crack. The dirt was cold and wet. When I looked up, I noticed I was surrounded by darkness, pitch black. I scrambled for the torch, hoping the fall just knocked the batteries loose. My hands come in contact with the object that had led to my fall. It was unusually smooth and was very light for a stone of its size. It had unnatural indentions in it. I held onto it, hoping to get a better look upon finding a clearing or my torch. Eventually, I'm able to find my torch in the darkness. I give it a quick shake. My heart sinks as I hear the rattling coming from inside of it. At that point, I knew that the bulb had busted. I was stuck in the dark with only the waning moon for light. I wait a few seconds to give my eyes time to adjust as the tall trees in their canopy of leaves above me were blocking most of the light. Eventually, my eyes do adjust and I make my way to a clearing I'd spotted in the distance. In the clearing, it was bright enough for me to see clearly when coupled with my eyes adjusting. I wanted to know what the object was. The first thing I noticed was the color. A light beige, there were cracks running through the top. As soon as I began to rotate it, I realized what it was and dropped it immediately. A skull, a human skull, those strange grooves were teeth and eye sockets. I felt sick, overcome by that same sense of dread. I dropped to my knees and began to vomit. Then it hits me, the smell of rot. The smell is stronger this time, like the fresh dead and blood. Is that the smell of blood? I recall thinking to myself. The smell is getting stronger, making me want to vomit again. But there's nothing left. I stand up and at the edge of the trees, I see it. It is tall and skinny, gray and red, antlers protrude from the creature's head. There is blood covering its whole body. Bare chunks of skin were missing and some of the skin was hanging like leather straps off of its body. Bone was visible under the stripped skin. Each of its hands had long fingers and even more frightening. Its fingernails were long and curved like the claws of the eagles I'd seen earlier. There was what looked like flesh hanging from the nails. It was dragging something, something long. It was a body, the body missing a head. Other than that, it was still whole. Maybe it was another camper. I was stunned and feared for my life at this moment. My body wouldn't move. I couldn't force it to move. I was feeling nauseous between the gruesome sight and the horrendous stench. I felt like feigning, but knew I would be dead if I did. I couldn't faint. At this moment, our eyes met. Its eyes had a slight glow to them, red. While my brain was still trying to comprehend this creature, it let out a horrendous roar. No, more like a scream. It sounded human, but also had the slight howl of a wolf. With the sound of that, my legs started to move on their own. I was running. I don't know where I was going, but I had to get away from there. As I ran, I built up the courage to look back. It was still there, lunging through the trees in massive strides. Its body was so thin. It seemed so weak, but it was so fast. As I moved through the forest, I could see more skulls and bones partially buried in the dirt. I didn't want to join them. At this point, fight or flight had taken over. I was ready to do both. I have a fair amount of knowledge on animals. I may not be able to do much, but maybe I could stun or weaken it. I made the decision to turn and fight. There was no way I was going to outrun it. There was no way I could win in a fight either, but I had to at least try to make more time for myself. While it was still running in the middle of a massive stride, I threw the busted flashlight at it as hard as I could. It connected. It hit the monster square in the face, causing its head to lurch backwards and the whole creature stumbled. As it was sliding, it moved to all fours and like some kind of demonic animal regained its stance in a matter of moments. It was only bipedal and now it's on all fours. I hear a low growl. It sounds more like an impersonation of a wolf than an actual wolf, almost like a human trying its best to sound like one of the forest's greatest hunters. It was at this time that I clearly saw its face. It looked almost human other than the exposed lower jawbone and the horn sprouting from its head. Lunged at me, trying to slash me with its massive bloody claws, I somehow caught the arm. It was about three feet long, which made it easier to grab onto. In that moment, I quickly went for the eyes in an attempt to blind it. If I could succeed, maybe it would be my chance to escape. The creature's head dropped, attempting to ram me with its vicious antlers. It connected. I felt those massive horns dig into my flesh and through my muscle. It was my chance, though. I made a fist and kept my thumb rigid and dug it into the massive glowing eye.  The creature reeled back and I took that moment to run. I didn't look back until I made it back to the campsite. My chest was on fire, my lungs burning, my legs didn't want to move another inch. I vomited some more, mostly just dry heaves. There is nothing behind me. I noticed the air is crisp and fresh once more and I think I've made it. I wasn't about to stick around to find out, though. I grabbed the essentials, throwing them in my hiking bag and leaving. I made my way back to the ranger station I'd seen on the way in. By this time, I'd lost a lot of blood and felt sick, my vision beginning to blur. The rangers had left for the day, but there was a phone for emergencies. I used it to call the local law enforcement. Taking a seat, I waited, putting pressure on the largest of the multiple incisions and trying to stop them from bleeding. When the police arrived, they asked about my wounds. Of course, I can't tell them what actually happened, so I told them I was attacked by a wild moose. On the way to the hospital, I sketched the creature I saw. It will always be in my binder to remind me of why I can't take nature for granted. And the scars remind me to never return to the Great Lakes. That was five years ago, and I haven't gone camping since.


What's up everybody, Jason here for jashbskazerace.com. We just sold out this filler here that unlocks Bowman's best PYT number one guys. With this 2022 tops update, hobby, one box break, random teams number one guys. So it's pretty simple guys, we're gonna randomize the names first, give you guys 10 free spots in this group break, then we'll randomize the names and the teams, we'll distribute the hits out of the box, then at the end we're gonna randomize the entire list, including the 10 winners, and the top 10 match up with a team here from the Mets down to the White Talks guys. So the dice roll will be for the giveaway and for the break, two and a one three times, good luck guys, one, two, three, bone three, three, three, Joe, Joe, Joe, Alan, Joe, Michael, Joe, Harry, Joe and Harry, congratulations. You got the extra spots in the break just for buying in. So I'm gonna put a little one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. I mean we don't start break until three o'clock so technically you can do it when you first get here. Alright, so there we go, three times right now, one, two, three, Matt Arnold, down to Harry, two, three, Dodgers down to the Reds. Now remember guys it is a little box breaks, so I'll show you your teams really but I'm not gonna go through them, just because this is where I want to be able to do this other break as quickly as I can, but I'll let you quickly see your teams here for 30 seconds. I'm gonna just do a little extra pack there, oh I'm doing this to turn to the salesman here. The Ruhon and the Jaren Durand 2022, I don't know if I see a relic in here so maybe we got an autograph here, I don't know, I haven't seen a relic just yet. Alec Thomas, nice, one of those home field advantages, the dime back is going to Joseph, Joe, there you go man, there's a little short prints there, Braggie, that would have been an awesome one, I just don't know how people are feeling with him still, it's still a hit though. Tampa Bay, it's going to Joe as well, ah there was a relic here, Wilson Contreras for the Cubs, Cubs is Harry, Givens for the Cubs, Lou Gehrig, nice, short print there for the Yankees, Joe that's going to you buddy, very very nice, dude that's a sick car man, love that, love that you got that too man, alright let's see what's in this pack here, Flatty, Jeremy Benioir rookie, Chapman and then a Mark McGuire which I believe is numbered to 99, a little green, open going to Harry, alright well hey we got a short print, actually two short prints with that home field advantage too, that Lou Gehrig short print, unfortunately the hit was a relic in here but hey I mean, still got it hit here, let it hit this, oh I don't even know, I didn't realize he left it there, alright so there you go guys, that was the box break, now let's switch on over and let's do the main giveaway, now if you got a time, any time you bring it you got to bring three bolts, oh do you remember my next one, bro I'm sad, dude that hit right now, alright here we go guys, roll it, five out of two seven times here we go, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, boom seven, seven, top ten, Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe, Alan, Kev, Alan, Harry and Joe, well didn't shock nobody right, five out of two seven times, boom congratulations, I'm going to put everybody's name in here but unfortunately only the top ten get in and there you go, Joe had the odds, that's for sure, so Joe congrats, you got the Mets, Harry, nice one with the Cubs there, Alan with the Guardians, very solid, Kev with the Phillies, Alan with the Blue Jays and then Joe, you got the rest of the teams there, so I appreciate it guys, coming up next is the break itself, JaspysCaseBrace.com


Man explores 16th-century shipwreck, looks closer, and races to surface. When he returned to the surface, he was gasping for air. His heart pounded as he realized what was lying beneath his feet. He thought about swimming back to shore to ask for help and who was to say it would still be here upon his return. No, he was diving down again. Only now, it was a race against time, it was a matter of life and death. It was a beautiful still, sunny morning as Teddy Tucker swam along the Bermuda Coral Reef. The ocean was as blue and clear as the sky above him. It felt like the calm before the storm, and it was literally. Growing up beside the ocean, locals joked that Tucker had become more fish than man. He loved to explore the ocean's floor, especially in a place as interesting as Bermuda. Bermuda was famous for its 16th-century shipwrecks. Hundreds of ships over hundreds of years had fallen victim to a mysteriously deadly area just beyond the Coral Reef called Bermuda's Triangle. Over the years, Tucker had collected a lot of metal salvaged from the shipwrecks around the area. But he never thought he'd actually find a real-life treasure. Tucker had spent two hours swimming, with only his swimsuit shorts on and snorkeling goggles, he dove beneath the ocean overturning every object that seemed interesting. But things were about to get much more interesting and dangerous than he bargained for. It was when the first wave crashed underneath the ocean that he realized he was in trouble. Tucker resurfaced and suddenly realized that the sky had turned grey, the ocean choppy and rough, and the winds, dangerous. There was a hurricane forming. He had to get out now. He dove again swimming closer to the shore underwater, beneath the waves. But then, he saw it. Most men might have kept swimming to get to safety, but Tucker wasn't most men. From the corner of his eye, Tucker saw something unusual on the ocean floor. There was an odd bump in the sandy bed and something seemed to sparkle as it nestled on top of it. Tucker swam toward it for a closer look. He brushed its surface and dug around it. An old rusty cannon appeared. But this wasn't any old cannon. His heart leaped forwards as he realized what he saw. Along with the cannon, affixed on its sides and disguised between corals and other ocean organisms were three-quarter-inch gold buttons that were studded with pearls. Just as Tucker began to recover from his shock, he realized he had unturned what looked like silver coins from the ocean bed. Tucker couldn't believe what he was seeing, but he needed to leave for air. Then things took a disastrous turn. When Tucker returned to the surface, he was gasping for air. But not because he was underwater for so long. It was because of the big waves that were crashing overhead. The hurricane was now in full swing as the wind, rain, and waves tore through the atmosphere. But Tucker couldn't bring himself to leave. He had to discover what else was down there before the storm made everything too hard to see. Now, it was a race against time. Tucker took a big final breath and dove back towards his astonishing discovery. As soon as he dug he found more treasures, another gold and pearl button, two gold inglows with a royal Spanish tax stamp visible on their surface, and about 200 silver coins. He felt like he had just won the lottery, and he did. But the ocean was done revealing its treasures to Tucker just yet. After Tucker put his finds into a bag he carried around in his pocket, he continued to dig. He was moving as fast as he could. It wasn't soon before he found another inglow and remarkably a ten-and-a-half inch long, 36-ounce bar of gold and a smaller piece. With all of this, he could scarcely have hoped that the best was yet to come. But it was. When Tucker first saw it, it was lying upside down in the sand. He picked it up and turned it over, and his jaw hit the floor. He knew this was something even more special than any gold or treasure he found before. I picked it up and turned it over. Awestruck, I counted the large green emeralds on its face. There were seven of them, each as big as a musket ball, Tucker marveled. What was it? Teddy Tucker found the world's single most valuable object ever found in a shipwreck. The treasure, named Tucker's Cross, was an emerald studded, 22-karat gold cross. Tucker's Cross alone was worth more than $2 million. And its emerald stones are considered the most beautiful stones in the world. So how much did Tucker sell it for? Amazingly, Tucker was offered $2 million from a US ambassador to Italy but refused as he wanted the jewel to stay in Bermuda. Tucker ended up selling his most prized possession to the Bermuda government for a measly $35,000, under the condition that it will stay in Bermuda for as long as possible. But fate had different plans. After Tucker's Cross was recovered, the government of Bermuda constructed a new museum. It was to feature a collection of rare artifacts, including those found by Tucker and other finds from Bermuda shipwrecks. Word quickly spread in Queen Elizabeth was one of the first high-profile people to visit its timeless collection. Tucker helped prepare the museum for her arrival. But he made a startling discovery. While he transported the Cross to an area of private collections, he realized the Cross and the glass case wasn't real. It had been replaced by a plastic replica. Shocked, he informed the police and they immediately jumped on the case. Unfortunately, his most valued treasure is still missing today. It remains my most treasured discovery he reminisced.


Water baptism is for those who've given their life to Christ and they want to make it public to the world Roman 6-6 tells us that as our old man or as we go into the water Our old man is dying and as we come out of the water our new man is coming to life It's symbolic of what God did to our in our hearts at the moment of salvation Alicia do you believe in Jesus Christ as God's son and your personal warden savior? Yes. Yes. Yes. I do Based on your faith your confession and your commitment will baptize you in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit


Hey, this is Brett and this 2018 Ford F-350 Crew Cab Long Box Dual-Roo Wheel is stock number 12533Z. We're here at Summit Automotive in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. You're new and used heavy-duty truck headquarters. This 2018 Ford F-350 has the 6.7-liter power stroke diesel engine. This truck has been fully-safetyed and inspected by our service shop for the state of Wisconsin inspection process. It has a fresh oil and filter change. All the fluids have been checked and topped off. And this truck is 100% ready to go. We're going to go inside, outside, all the way around, underneath, start it up, go under the hood in this video. Ingot Silver is the color. We shoot all of our videos in 1080p, 60 frames per second. So if you have HD capabilities on your computer, tablet, smartphone, or television, I highly recommend turning them on right now because it is your best way to check out the quality, condition, and options of the truck before seeing it in person. And if you like the video and how we do things here at Summit Automotive in the upper right-hand part of the screen is a subscribe button. Click that and then click the bell notifications and you'll get updates every time we do videos here at Summit Automotive. You can see it has the STX appearance group. You get the polished aluminum rims. And this one has brand new Kelly Edge AT tires. These are LT24575R17s. They still have the little wear knobs on them. So you'll see the lines right there. We put those on in our safety inspection. So brand new tires all the way around. Front fender is in excellent shape. I didn't see any major dents or dings on there. Headlight lenses are nice and clear. Front bumper and lower valance is in excellent condition as well. I didn't see any dents or dings on the bumper. You get the chrome trimmed grille. The hood's in pretty nice shape. Looks pretty good. Has the clearance lights and cab or cab lights up top. Passengers side front fender is in nice shape. And the passengers side rim, no major scuffs or scrapes. Couple little scratches but did see a couple little scuffs right there. But other than that, pretty nice. And as you go down this side of the truck, take note of how clean the body is. How reflective and mirror-like that paint is. We take these HD videos so if you are far away or even if you're close by and just cannot make the trip down but you're still interested in purchasing the vehicle, you can see the truck, hear the truck and of confidence in the vehicle that you're looking at before you even get here. So when you do get here, there's absolutely no surprises and you can make a smart and informed buying decision from wherever you're at. And if this video helps you make that buying decision, let your salesman know that you saw the video that it was helpful and that Brett sent you. Back rims are in excellent shape as well. And these back tires are matching and are brand new too. You get the camper package with the anti-sway bar right there. Frame and underbody is in really nice shape. Other than being a little bit dusty, get all the remaining factory exhausts so it hasn't been altered in any way. Lower rockers and cab corners of course all look really good. Being the aluminum body, they should. And you get the painted step bars. Dualy tub looks pretty good. I didn't see any major rock chips or anything on there. Coming around to the back of the vehicle, the rear bumper is in nice shape.  Comes with the receiver hitch four pin and seven pin wiring. The tailgate is in pretty nice condition as well. You get the fifth wheel and gooseneck prep package. And you also get a gooseneck in this truck. Seven pin wiring back here. And the bed's in pretty nice shape. Got a little bit of light duty usage, but that's what heavy duty trucks are for. Nothing to drop in bed liner wouldn't fix. One little ding on the tailgate there. We want to point that out. Coming around to the driver's side, just as clean as that passenger side. No scuffs, no scrapes, looks really good. And for full disclosure, this back rim is in excellent shape as well. Down the rest of the side of the truck, doors look really good. I didn't see any dents or dings on them. You do get the telescopic tow mirrors. They have built-in directional signals. They're heated. This one has the 360 camera. We'll chuck that out a little bit. They do telescope out like that. They also fold in like so. Inside the XL package gives you the gray cloth interior. There are no rips or tears on the seats. They are in really nice condition. It does come with lumbar. You get the heavy-duty rubber floors in this truck. Auto headlamps, tilt, telescopic steering wheel, power windows, power locks, and power mirrors. We'll hop inside, check out the miles, radio, and everything that this truck has to offer on the interior. Get the nice, built-forward, tough animation on there. We are going to be putting some fuel in this right after the video, so don't worry about that. And you can see that this truck has 47,807 miles on it. A digital speedometer, compass display, instrument cluster is pretty nice and clean. You get cruise controls and information center controls on the left, and Bluetooth and audio controls on the right. This one comes with these six-speed automatic transmission with the optional tap shift. And you get these sync 8-inch radio. It has AM, FM, and CD player. You also can hook it up to your Bluetooth cell phone. And you have Apple CarPlay Android Auto capabilities where you can project your cell phone to the screen. So if you have a NAB system on your cell phone, such as Waze or Google Maps projected to the screen, and then you can use it through the screen on there.  And that goes all the way around. You also have your backup camera. And you do get a cargo camera where you can check out the bed of the vehicle as well. So a lot of really nice stuff there. Turned out four-wheel drive, factory brake controller. You do get your climate controls here. CD player does come with a 12-volt PowerPoint, two USBs down there, and then a 110-volt, 400 watt max plug-in. Dual glove boxes, passenger side, floor mat, and seat are in excellent condition. No rips or tears on there. Smells very clean inside this truck. The headliner is in nice shape. You do get six auxiliary up-fit switches. So if you want to add extra lights or maybe a plow or something to this truck, you can do that with these lights right there. Power sliding rear window button, and you do get map lights up there. We'll take a quick look at the back seats. And then we will start it up and take a look under the hood. Back seats are in excellent shape as well. No rips or tears back here. Does have the latch child safety system for any child car seats you may have. Power sliding rear window with the built-in rear defrost. Once again, no rips or tears back here. These seats do fold up like so. Back flooring is nice and flat and very clean. Side curtain airbags on this truck. And you do get child safety locks on the back doors. And of course all the bottoms of the doors are going to look really good on here. We will start it up and take a look under the hood. Starts right up. No check engine lights or anything like that. I would personally like to thank you for checking out the video today. And hopefully from this HD video you will have been able to verify the quality and condition of this truck all the way around inside and out. I think it's a really nice shape. Under the hood we have a 6.7 liter power stroke diesel engine. Engine bay is very clean, runs very smooth. Once again this truck has been fully safe and inspected by our service shop as a fresh oil and filter change. All the fluids have been tracked and topped off and this truck is 100% ready to go. There is your emissions sticker. I have been told that I need to show the stickers in the doors so forgive me. But there is your tire and loading information sticker and your VIN sticker. Alright, this truck is 100% ready to go. I would highly recommend it from a quality and condition standpoint. And to see more pictures of this truck from one of our other 450 new and used cars, trucks, SCVs, minivans, wranglers, halftones, sweet quarter tons, one tons. You name it, we got to go to that website right there www.summitauto.com Full pictures and descriptions of every single vehicle from two locations all at www.summitauto.com And if you'd like to check out more HD videos you can go to www.youtube.com. Remember to like, subscribe, and share on this video and all the videos that you see there. Click the bell notifications, you'll get updates every time we do videos here at Summit Automotive. In fact in a second you will see a link to subscribe to our YouTube channel on the upper left. A link to more F350 videos like this one on the upper right. A link to this vehicle on our website on the lower left and a link to one of our latest YouTube videos in the lower right. Click those, check this out. I'm going to help you with this Ultra Clean 2018 Ford F350 Crew Cab Long Box Dually XL STX Package in In-Gut Silver Metallic. Thanks again for checking out the video. Remember to like, subscribe, and share.


We are here in the horror elevator Oh, that is so distorted. Oh my god. We got killer Spongebob.   Oh my god, right guys and this game is pretty cool Because it's like a mixture of the normal elevator where it just has like floors that come up and like oh my god Let's get out of here Fores that just come up and have like a little cutscene or something and then they have floors where they actually have killers Yo, what happened here? Oh look Sandy's house. Sandy open the door Sandy. Oh My god. No, let's get away run get the girl get boys. Not me. Oh All right. Oh my god.   Oh, right, so let's let's give you guys a little luck here. They got they got some pretty cool killers They got sans. They got the godnam style guy. I don't know how he's a killer, but they got slender man They got the purge. They got Michael Myers. They got Spongebob as we've seen they got Freddy fazbear They have saw Mario. Oh, yeah, look and bills. What's the name bill cipher? I believe he's gonna come up pretty soon, right? So let's go back in the elevator like this It's a pretty cool lobby man. Okay, let's go in here Alright, and here we go. Don't have fun.  You see that's what I'm telling you That's what is why it's kind of like the normal elevator.  Okay, let's go this way. It's like a maze This is pretty cool And I guess Sonic Xe is lurking around here. Oh my god. No, there's more floating heads Okay, yeah, we go this way Dude Sonic Xe is down there. Yo, um, oh you guys are not safe up there.  Oh man. No escape. Dude. There's a knife through the elevator button. Wow Yeah, it's like we are now welcomed here guys, but we will try our best to survive out here. Hey, my boy got the dance moves Okay, what is this? Oh the SCP Okay, oh, there's a lot of SCPs Okay, I guess he broke out from there Hey, can you stop breathing so hard? All right, let's go check these other rooms out. Yo Warning unauthorized personnel will be terminated. What is this SCP 002? It's like some sort of it looked like the corral device brown. I would not get near that thing. Oh wait, you can open it and I Unleashed nothing. Okay, let's close it. Oh It's sort of like some safe bunker or some sort, but it was like so creepy looking I Have no idea what that was about man. All right. What do we got here? I that kind of looks like foxy Oh, it is foxy. Oh, no, dude, it's the whole squad. Oh, it's golden Freddy Mike there Freddy Just fell through Okay, whatever. Oh great. They respond over there Dude, you cannot survive that My god, all right, that was totally insane Okay, let's go check out the shop. They have a shop up here on the second floor All right, let's go check it out. Let's see what we can get Kind of need a speed coil Top is out here. Well, they do have a VIP. Okay, chest burger 10 floors. How many floors do I have? Let's check it out. I have 11 floors. Great. I could only afford a chest burger As of now speedy choose a hundred dude. That is insane. You know what?  Let's go back to the other Oh man, somebody just died there right there. He said I believe all right Let's go back in the elevator Okay, have fun.  Yeah, I know it looks so creepy there Not this floor again Okay, can we hit? Oh, we can actually close the door. Oh, dude. He's right behind. Oh They're actually moving. Okay, so they're stuck behind the counter Okay, that was not a good idea. Why did I do that? Oh my god? Okay. No. Oh, there's a coil No, we can't oh man. All right Finally, dude That was a pretty cool floor. All right. Let's see what four comes up. Oh, it's all Okay, third number seven Okay, six seven one One zero six seven, okay, we have to enter the code before we die one zero six seven one One two, there's no zero Okay, there's no zero on the touchpad you survive for now. That is To the study after input the code which we did have the numbers, but there wasn't a zero on the touchpad So how are we supposed to survive the round and we can't input a zero in there? Oh Man, all right.   That's pretty cool. Yep. No survivors there They just found. Oh Man, all right, so I don't know what's wrong with that floor. They definitely need they definitely need to fix the touchpad because It does not have a zero on there and you cannot put the actual code in it All right, ten seconds. Come on. Dude. This elevator is pretty big. It's pretty spacey compared to the other elevators. Oh We got a dancing banana.   Oh, never mind. Oh Dude, I thought he couldn't go in the elevator and he just barges in there. All right, let's go check out the floor before the round ends Okay, let's go in here It was a oh look he's dressed as a bill cipher That's pretty cool. That's cool mark My god slender man is out there can't run. Oh, you can't actually collect the pages All right, be careful man Slender man is not playing around Man at least it's not reverse slender man. Oh He just jumpscared someone at the end. Oh man. Hey, I kind of miss reverse slender man He was from the scary school. It was pretty funny Hey, oh look there's a van. I Wonder if we can escape through there guys build a human ladder So we can go to the event Come on human ladder. Let's get this going. Okay. Now. We're stuck in here forever, man We're like right there right at the break. Oh bending the ink machine.  It's another one of these lobby lobby floors I mean, let's try to keep this one. Oh my god. It's rising. Oh, I just okay Whatever something weird happened there, but let's just keep going.  Okay, we made it. Yes. Okay, congrats. You get to live another day. Well, thank you That's what you think What what is that supposed to mean? All right. Oh, yes, Papa. He made it. Oh Man, okay, the darkness is rising as you can see and that creature still there better not like jump at us Because if it does then that is gonna be quite terrifying All right guys.  It's pretty cool. All right. Hey, we got suit heart. What's up suit heart? Where's just a bacon hair now that a suit heart man. All right, uh, we got the whole yeet squad right here with sub yeet squad Hey, oh Mario Okay, let's see what this is all about.  Come on Okay, you can't oh Dude, he's missing like an eye or something. Oh my god.  All right, let's see. Oh, we got Jason. This should be a classic floor.  Oh, did he knocked him over? Oh What isn't the bananas supposed to make him slip instead of Jason dropping him? Oh Jason is not playing around the tide in the tent Okay, we could watch it through here. Oh, oh my god. He's on the killing free man. Yo, Jason. Oh No, oh, we're trying to go through the through the doors before close, but you can't oh Man, all right. So Jason really brought his a game today. He was killing everybody out there. Oh, we got sand Oh, all right. This might be like a survive thing on the side. So let's go here dude. He's right there Guys do not trust him. Get away from him. Dude, get up here before you die, man Okay, yeah, we're definitely supposed to go up here because they weren't on here. Yep And there he goes. Is that a bone? Oh, no Okay, hopefully we don't die from that And Okay, sweet. We made it. I thought it was gonna kill us. It kept rising Someone should have thrown a hot dog at hands and maybe he wouldn't let us live Oh, we got the purge floor Okay, they should be pretty cool Uh-oh emergency broadcast This is your emergency broadcast system announcing the commencement of the annual purge Oh, okay. I see the purgers here. Do what? Oh, we're on the motorcycle This is pretty cool. All right. Take me away Okay, are you stuck? I think she's stuck or something I'll not be harmed Yo, this is pretty awesome, man Hey banana you ran over the poor banana.  Take me away Oh Dude the motorcycle was in the elevator All right, that was pretty cool. I want to get that floor so I can use a motorcycle myself All right. Oh, we have to wait. Okay. There's a countdown between each floor But why like 20 seconds man? You should make it like five seconds I'd never understand why that makes the countdown so long Like nobody likes that bro. You guys got to chill out with that Oh, uh, what? Okay, let's check this out.  See you later Bye. Bye poor guy. Was that like Hannibal lector or something? I'm not too sure All right, man. Well, this was a horror elevator in roblox guys If you guys enjoyed the video make sure to slap the like button If you're new to the channel make sure to subscribe and turn that notification bell on and I will see you guys in the next one Bye


From around the globe, it's theCUBE with digital coverage of AWS Public Sector Online brought to you by Amazon Web Services. Hi, and welcome back to theCUBE's coverage of AWS Summit Online. I'm Spu Miniman, your host for this segment. Always love when we get to talk to the practitioners in this space. And of course at AWS Public Sector, broad diversity of backgrounds and areas, everything from government to education and the like. So really happy they were able to bring us. Joshua Spence, he is the Chief Technology Officer from West Virginia in the Office of Technology. Josh, thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate the invitation to be here. All right, so technology for an entire state, quite a broad mandate when you talk about that, maybe give our audience a little bit of your background and the role of your organization for West Virginia. Yeah, absolutely. So in the public sector space, especially at state government, we're involved in myriad of services for government to the citizens. And from a central IT perspective, we're seeking to provide those enterprise services and support structures to keep those costs controlled and efficient and be able to enable these agencies to serve as the citizens of the state. Excellent, maybe just talk about the role of the state versus more local, from a technology standpoint, how many applications do you manage? How many people do you have? Is everything that you do in the cloud or do you also have some data centers? Just gives a little thumbnail sketch if you would of what's under that umbrella. Sure, absolutely. I think you'll see at the state level, we typically administer a lot of the federal programs that come down through funding, ranging from health and human resources to environmental protection to public safety. You've got just a broad spectrum of services that are being provided at the state level. And so the central office, the Office of Technology services approximately 22,000 state employees and their ability to carry out those services to the citizens. And then, of course, you have local government like in state of West Virginia with 55 counties and then your following municipalities. The interesting thing though in public sector is from the citizen's perspective, government is government whether it's local, state or federal. Yeah, that's such a good point. And right now, of course, there's a strain on everything with the global pandemic, services from the public sector are needed more than ever. Maybe help us understand a little bit, things like work from home and unemployment I expect may require a shift and some reaction from your office. So tell us what's been happening in your space that the last few months? Yeah, absolutely. Well, the first part, yeah, you get to work from home piece, right? West Virginia, although the last state to have a confirmed test positive of COVID-19, we were in a little bit of a position of advantage as we were watching what was happening across the world, across the country. And so we didn't hesitate to react in West Virginia and through great leadership here, we shut down the state quickly. We put protections in place to help shore up and to prevent the spread of COVID. And to do that though with the government facilities, government services, we had to be able to enable a remote workforce and do so very quickly at a scale that no one ever anticipated having to do, right? COOP plans for the most part projected just picking up from the location you're working out to go work at another centralized location. No one really ever thought, well, we wouldn't be able to all congregate to work. So that created our first challenge that we had to respond to. The second challenge was then, how do we adjust government services to interface with citizens from a remote perspective? And in addition to that, a surge of need. And when you look at unemployment all across the country, the demand became exponentially larger than what was ever experienced. The systems were not equipped to take on that type of load and we had to leverage technology to very quickly adapt to the situation. Yeah, I'd love you to drill in a little bit on that technology piece. Obviously, you think about certain services if I had them just in a data center and I needed it all of a sudden ramp up. Do I run into capacity issues? Can I actually get to that environment? How do I scale that up fast? The promise of cloud always has been, well, I should be able to react immediately. I have, you know, in theory, infinite scale. So what has been your experience?  And if there have been any struggles with being able to react to what you're dealing with. Well, yeah, the struggles have absolutely been there and it's been a combination of not just on-premise infrastructure, but then legacy infrastructure. And that's what we saw when we were dealing with the unemployment surge here in West Virginia, just from a citizen contact perspective, being able to answer the phone calls that were coming in. It was overwhelming. And what we found is we unfortunately had a number of phone systems all supporting, whether it's the central office or the regional office, they were all disparate, some of which were legacy. We therefore had no visibility on the metrics. We didn't even know how many calls were actually coming in a day. When you compound that, the citizen's just trying to find answers, well, they're not gonna just call the numbers you provide, they're gonna call any number. So then they're now also calling other agencies seeking assistance just because they're wanting help and that's understandable. So we needed to make a change, we needed to make change very quickly. And that's when we looked to see if a solution in the cloud might be a better option and would it enable us to not only correct the situation, get visibility and scale, but could we do so extremely quick because the time to value was what was real important. So am I understanding that you were not using any cloud-based contact center before this hit? We were in only, there were some other agencies that had some hosted contact center capabilities, but on a small scale, this was the first large project around a cloud contact center and did to run the project from go live or decision to go forward on a Friday at one o'clock and to roll over the first call center on the following Monday at 6 p.m. was a speed that we had never seen before. Oh boy, yeah, I think back, I worked in telecom back in the nineties and you talk about a typical deployment you used to measure months and you're talking more like hours for getting something up and running and there's not only the technology, there's the people, the training, all these sorts of things there. So yeah, tell us how did you come to such a fast decision and deployment? So you walk us through a little bit of that. Sure, so we went out to the market and asked several providers to give us their solution proposals and to do so very quickly because we knew we had to move quickly and then upon evaluation of the options before us, we made our selection and indicated that selection and started working with both the cloud provider and the integrator to build out a phased approach deployment of the technology. Phase one was, hey, let's get everybody calling the same 800 number as best as we can and then where we can't get the 800 number be the focal point, let's forward all other phone numbers to the same call center because before we were able to bring the technology and our only solution was to put more people on the phones and we had physical limitations there. So we went after the Amazon Contact Center or our integrator of Smartronics and we were able to do so very quickly and get that phase one change in place which then allowed us to decide what was phase two and what was going to be phase three. Yeah, Josh, you've got some background in cybersecurity. I guess in general, there's been a raised awareness and need for security with the pandemic going on, bad actors are still going in there. I've talked to someone, they're rolling out their call centers, they need to worry about, sounds like you've got everything in your municipality, so might not need to worry about governance per se, but I guess if you could touch on security right now for what's happening in general and anything specific about the Contact Center that you need to make sure that people working from home were following policy procedure, not breaking any regulation and guidelines. Yeah, absolutely. I think the most important piece of the puzzle when you're looking at security, it's understanding it's always a question of risk. If you're seeking first and foremost to put in security with the understanding that now, hey, we've put it in, we don't have to think about it anymore. That's not the answer, because you're not gonna stop all risk, right? You have to weigh it and understand which risks you need to address. So that's really important piece. The second part that we've looked at in the current situation with the response to COVID is not only do we see threat actors trying to take advantage of the circumstances, right? Because more people are working from home, they're less computers on the hardened network, right? They're now either VPNN in or they're just simply outside the network and there may be limited visibility that central agency or the central entity has on those devices. So what do you do? Well, you gotta extend that protection out to the account and to the devices itself and not worry so much about the boundary, right? Because the boundary now is a lot in a lot of sense and purposes of the account. But then I think an additional piece of the puzzle right now is to look at how important technology is to your organization. Look at the role it's performing in enabling your ability to continue to function remotely. That preest the risk associated with those devices becoming compromised or unavailable. So we see that the most important aspects of our security changes were to extend that protection as best we could to push out education to the users on the changing threats that might be coming their way. Yeah, it's fascinating to think if this pandemic had hit 10 years ago you wouldn't have the capability of this. I'm thinking back to like, well, we could forward numbers to a certain place and do some cascading but the cloud contact center absolutely wasn't available. Have you had a chance to think about now that you have this capability what this means as we progress down the road Will, do you think you'll be keeping a hybrid model or stay fully cloud once people are moving back to the offices more? Well, I definitely think that the near future is a hybrid model and we'll see where it goes from there. There's workloads without a doubt that are better served putting them in the cloud giving you that on demand scalability. I mean, if we look at what a project like this would have required had we had to procure equipment install equipment, there was just no time to do that. So having the services, the capability whether it's microservices or VMs or whatever all available just to need to be turned on and configured to be used it's just a there's a lot of power there. And as government seeks to develop digital government, how do we transition from providing services where citizens stand in line to doing it online? I think cloud's going to continue to play a key piece in that. Yeah, I'm wondering if you could speak a little bit to the financial impact of this. So typically you think about, I roll out a project it's budgeted, we write it off over a certain number of years. Cloud, of course by its nature is the flexibility and I'm paying for what I'm using but this was something that was unexpected. So how did you have oversight on this? Was there additional funding put out? How was that financial discussion happening? Yeah, so that's a big piece of the puzzle and when it's when a government into the states under a state of emergency, the good thing is there's processes and procedures that were we leverage regularly to understand how we're going to fund those response activities. And then the federal government plays a role also in responding to states of emergency that enable the state and local government to have additional funding to cover during the state of emergency. So that makes things a little easier to start in the sense. I think the bigger challenge is going to be what comes from the following years after COVID because obviously tax revenues are going to take a hit across the board and what does that mean to government budgets that then in turn are going to have to be adjusted. So the advantage of cloud services and other type technology services where they're sold under that OPEX model do give states flexibility in ways to scale services, scale solutions as needed and give us a little bit more flexibility in adjusting for budget challenges. Yeah, it's been fascinating to watch. We know how the speed of adoption in technology tends to run at a certain pace. The last three months, there are definitely certain technologies that there's been massive acceleration like you've discussed. So I'm wondering that you've had the modernization, things like the unemployment claims was the immediate requirement that you needed, but have there been other pieces, other use cases and applications that this modernization leverage of cloud technologies is impacting you today or other things that you see a little bit down the path? Yeah, I think it's, we're going to see a modernization of government applications designed to interface directly with the citizen, right? So we're going to want to be able to give the citizen an opportunity, whether it's on a smartphone, a tablet, or a computer to interface with government, whether it's communications to inquire about a service or to get support around a service or to file paperwork around a service. We want to enable that digital interface, and so that's going to be a big push and it's going to be amplified. There was already a look toward that, right, with the smart cities and smart states and some of the initiatives there, but what's happened with COVID is basically it's forced the issue of not being able to be physically together. Well, how do you do it using technology? So if there was a silver lining in an awful situation that we have with COVID, one might be that we've been able to stretch our use of technology to better serve the citizen. Well, great, really, really impressive story. Josh, I want to give you the final word, just what advice would you give your peers kind of dealing with things in a crisis and any other advice you'd have in general about managing and leveraging the cloud? Yeah, I think in closing comment, I think one of the most important aspects that can be considered is having that translation capability of talking to the business element, the government service component that understands what they're trying to achieve, what their purpose or their mission is, and then being able to tie it back to the technology in a way to where all parties, all stakeholders, understand their roles and responsibilities and make that happen. Unfortunately, I think what happens too often is on the business side or the non-technical side of the equation, they see the in-state, but they don't truly understand their responsibilities to get to the in-state, and it's definitely a partnership. And the better that partnership's understood at the start, the more successful the project's gonna have to get there under budget and on time. All right, well, thank you so much for joining us. Best of luck with the project and please stay safe. Thank you for having me. All right, stay tuned for more coverage from AWS Public Sector Online. I'm Stu Miniman and thank you for watching theCUBE.