So, hello and welcome to this presentation from the GitHub Security Lab. My name is Joseph and I've had my dream job here at GitHub for the past four months now. I say this because I'm very passionate about our mission, which is to inspire and enable the community to secure the open source software we all depend on. My part in that mission is to make security easy for developers and this is why I'm here today, to use those 30 minutes to give you the superpower of securing your code like NASA did. Well, this is not a science fiction or a Netflix scenario. Ten years ago, when NASA's curiosity was landing on the surface of Mars, NASA engineers performed a code review mid-flight. They wanted to check the software responsible for opening the parachute of the curiosity rover during landing on the surface of Mars. And that was when they found a bug. The snippet on the slide that is written in C is not the actual code, but a fair description of what was really happening. The little bug that NASA engineers discovered was that the function signature in line one expected an array of 12 elements, but an array of three elements will be passed as an argument in line eight. This means that the Lubin lines 23 will read the correct memory coordinates just for the first three elements, but then it will go out of bounds leading to random behavior. The NASA team found out that this cause would prevent the parachute opening during the landing phase and lead to the crash of the curiosity rover. The smart thing that NASA engineers did was that they didn't just fix that vulnerable instance, but they wrote a generic code QL query to look for variants of that vulnerability in all their code bases. What we call a variant is another occurrence of the same bug pattern at another place in the code and they found 30 other variants. They analyzed that some of those would also result in catastrophic consequences such as the crash of the rover. They fixed all the variants and curiosity was able to land safely on the surface of Mars. If we now see the bigger picture and compare this scenario of fixing a bug mid-flight to that of fixing a bug in production, then I'm sure you will agree that it is very late in the process of software development lifecycle. Last year NASA sent another rover to Mars, but what have they done differently this time? They shifted security left by integrating code QL at the very beginning of the software development lifecycle by using GitHub. In two clicks, you can enable code scanning with code QL and get alerted about security vulnerabilities in your code. Code QL is free for open source and you can benefit from the continuously growing query set contributed by GitHub, by the community, and by top security teams like NASA's. That's already nice as you can consume the world's security knowledge to secure your code, but in today's presentation, I will show you how you can not only consume but be an actor in your use of code QL. Let's now introduce security as code through the lessons learned from DevOps and quality assurance. One of the main levers of DevOps adoption was the introduction of infrastructure as code, where developers use code for setting up their own infra without the need to open tickets for operations teams. The fact that developers were writing code and powered them with further benefits such as reading, contributing, and understanding what they were doing. Same for the world of testing. In the pre agile days, developers and testers belong to two separate teams. QA will find the bugs and report them back to devs. Nowadays, this methodology will not resonate with the vast majority of developers. As they progressed in taking ownership of the automation around code testing. So we believe that what worked for testing and operations should inspire us for security. With security as code, we expect the security experts of an organization to qualify security knowledge that is then shared under both readable and executable form with developers. This sharing helps developers read, understand, and contribute to the code, which facilitates a security culture. Therefore, think about security becoming a seamless observer of the day to day DevOps that doesn't intervene or affect DevOps speed. Security as code will be integrated and automated to the pipelines so that every time a security related violation exists, actionable feedback will be generated. By the way, you hear more and more people talking about DevSecOps nowadays, right? The vulnerability covered by our demo is an SQL injection or SQL injection. It depends where you're from. And I just want to introduce it here for those that might not be familiar with it. As per the Mimons screen, this happens when a user is able to execute arbitrary queries on a database using SQL. The root cause of this bug is insufficient or missing input sanitization, allowing users to execute whatever database operation they want. The backend of the software on the MIM will be similar to this. The text in purple represents the user input, which is processed and sanitized. The query at the top of the slide inserts the name Clio into the database. But the second example shows that by passing user input that contains the parentheses and semicolon, a user is able to trick the bug into creating a second query that deletes the student's table once and forever. While the third line with two dashes will comment out anything that the bug and code would add after the user input. This is a very simple example, but in real life, user input flows in different places of your code base through files and functions before reaching the SQL execution. In our demo, we will build a query that automatically finds SQL injections in those complex scenarios. Just before the demo, let's define two important concepts for our Dataflow query, sources and syncs. Sources are places in the program that receive untrusted user input, for example, a field in a web form. Syncs are places in the program where something malicious can happen. If the malicious input reaches eventually these places. In our example, the sync is the place where the SQL query is executed. The question we need to ask is a Dataflow one. Does this untrusted data ever flow to the point of executing a potentially vulnerable action? We can answer this question by identifying all paths from sources to syncs by using CodeQL. Notice that CodeQL allows users to query code in general, not necessarily for vulnerabilities. You can use it for any type of bugs or just to explore your code. We try to make these queries generic to find variants of vulnerabilities like NASA did. And the biggest benefit you get is that you will now be able to codify your knowledge of a whole security bug pattern in an expressive query language. CodeQL is declarative and logical. Declared means that we describe what to find, not how to find it. Logical means that you will use operators like end and or to define conditions about your domain. CodeQL is object-oriented, taking advantage of features such as encapsulation and inheritance composition. However, as a total beginner myself a few weeks ago, the feature I found the most useful to get started with was the existence of a rich set of standard libraries with reusable logic that made it quicker for me to be productive. For example, there are templates to use like the one of Dataflow analysis that we are going to see in our demo. Our demo is designed for total beginners. And while our examples are in Java, you don't need extensive experience with Java either. As what I will show you will be transferable to other languages that are supported by CodeQL, such as JavaScript, Python, Go, Rust, C, C++ and C-Sharp. Now, let's move to our demo. So this is VS Code, and I have the CodeQL extension being installed. Let's first check our vulnerable code base, which is the intentionally vulnerable security shepherd from OWASP. We have an SQL injection vulnerability in a mobile app. The source is in line 98 and 99. Where the program receives a username and a password for user authentication. This is because there is no sanitization happening with the username and password variable being able to maliciously alter our database like we've seen in our meme. And where this is happening is in line 147, where we have the raw query method accepting a query. So in that line, the first argument is essentially our SQL execution. If you're familiar with SQL, the structure of CodeQL may look familiar. We have the import clause at the top that allows us to reuse logic defined in other libraries. In this example, the JavaScript standard library. Then we have the query clause that describes what we are trying to find. It is made up of three parts normally, the from, where and select. Let's first start with two of them, the from and select, before adding the where in a moment. From specifies the variables that are going to be used in the query. Every declaration in the from clause has a variable type like method access here and the variable name like call here while select specifies what the result should be by referring to the variables above. As per our SQL injection explanation, we need to arrive at those methods or functions in the vulnerable code base that receive user input. How do we do this? We first need to start by getting the set of all methods in the program and then filter only those that receive user input. In the CodeQL Java library to find method invocations, we can use the type method access in line three. And then we can use a variable that I called call here. You can use any variable name. And if we run that, we are expecting CodeQL to provide us with all method invocations in the program. So if I click here, for example, we have the make text function being called. And if I click here, we can see where the show function is being called. But the problem is that these are all the functions. We just need to arrive to those that receive user input. How do we do this? By using the where clause. So by using the where clause, I'm going to search specifically for those methods that are receiving user input. And to do this, I'm gonna use my variable from above and the function called get argument, sorry, get method because we are looking for methods. Followed by has qualified name in order to have the specific method that I'm looking for. Look how I'm making use of the auto completion and how the inline doc helps me to find the right methods in order for me to be productive and use CodeQL. Inside the where clause, we can also see the object oriented nature of CodeQL because get method is an operation provided by the type method access, which through chaining provides further options, for example, to look for a function with a specific name. And this is another feature that CodeQL brings on top of SQL, which is expressivity with chaining. We can see from the signature of has qualified name that it is expecting a package name, which is android.widget in this case because the vulnerable code base I'm using is based on Android, a type, which in this case is gonna be edit text. Everything I use is visible in the code base, which is gonna be your code base when you use CodeQL for your code. And finally get text because get text is the method that receives user input and we are interested in that method because it's the source of an SQL injection vulnerability. So if we rank this, we arrive at the instances of get text in our code base. So far what you see is like a grep, command F, control F, but the true power of CodeQL is gonna be visible in here in the data flow. So let's continue towards that. Let's now move to syncs. To find syncs, we can use the same strategy with the difference being that we are looking for a different method in a different package like we do in line four. As we saw, raw query takes two arguments. Let me show you again, 147 here. Raw query takes two arguments from which only the first is of our interest because it's the sync, is where SQL injection is gonna be executed. So it's where the vulnerability is gonna explode and have problems cause problems in our database. So we can do this by using another type, which is gonna be the expression type. And I will use a variable called argument here in order to arrive into the very first argument of the raw query methods, followed by the logical operator end in order to impose even more restrictions on my variables. And here I can impose this restriction by saying that I'm only interested in the first argument. Therefore, as we are developers, they're one in index zero. If we run this, we expect to arrive to the raw query instances that are having the first argument being defined. Now, let's continue with Dataflow. If I zoom a bit, cool. So, so far, we've defined how to find sources and syncs. Let's now move to the Dataflow functionality of CodeQL, which is what is going to provide us with confirmed SQL injection findings. Luckily, the language comes with a rich set of standard libraries that have ready-made templates we just have to fill, like the one in front of us. On top of the file, we have some metadata that will help CodeQL to understand what we are trying to do. Ignore them for now. We then imported the Tain Tracking library, which is a template configuration to track untrusted user input followed by the Dataflow Path Graph library, which is all about the visualization of results at the end. We are defining a class here, on line 11, to help us out as the Tain Tracking configuration is a boilerplate. So this class is extending something to help ourselves with inheritance composition and the expressiveness of the language. And this is actually an example of how users can benefit from extensibility. And through classes, the expressiveness of a language is highlighted. Another important feature on top of SQL is code reusability with predigates, like in line 14 and 18. Predigates provide a way to encapsulate portions of logic in a program so that they can be reused. Think about the mass functions in CodeQL. What's important is how we are going to define the isSource predigate and the isSync. We just have to override them using the code that we have already written from before. The code that we've written here and here, that we are essentially going to transfer into the boilerplate. Just before filling in the predigates, let's briefly talk about this idea of Dataflow being represented by a graph with nodes so that when there's flow from one node to another node, then you know that these two nodes are connected. And I'm saying this because the two methods here, the one in line 14 and the one in line 18, namely inSource and isSync, are getting a variable of type node as input. And this is exactly to find if there's exist a Dataflow from sources to sinks so that if there exists, we know that we have a confirmed vulnerability which is critical because it's an SQL injection. We can now fill the predigates with the code we have just written before. I'm gonna use the exists keyword here to introduce you to that as well. And I'm gonna explain how we can read that. So far, we can have, we can say that there exists a method call that is having the variable call so that if that method call is specifically get text, we have untrusted user input entering with the potential of being malicious. Let's use here the code, probing and pasting really. So the way that we can read this is that there exists a method such that when that method is specifically the get text, we know that we have untrusted user input entering our code base. And we know that when untrusted user input enters our code base, there's the potential of that to be malicious. So that was the source. Let's continue with the sink with the exact same strategy. There exists a method call such that. So this becomes so that when raw query is called with an argument in index zero, you know that you have the sink. Let's copy and paste again. So it should become node expression. Okay. So what I've done was just filling the two template placeholders with the code we've used before. And if we run that, we expect code trill to tell us if we have indeed S trill injections happening in our code base. So let's analyze what this says. If we click on the first S trill injection finding, we have two pathways to explore. In the first one, we know that we have the username type, the user being passed to the code base that was then passed into the login method followed by the definition of the login method before being executed in the database. And here we have another pathway of the same variable is again the username variable. And this time instead of going through line 102, it went through line 116. So observe here line 102 and line 116. I'm highlighting them both. You can see that in the first pathway, we have something equaling true. While in the other one, we have something equaling false. But those two pathways are both going towards an SQL injection vulnerability. And here if we have a look at our other occurrence, we can see that instead of having the username variable, we have the password variable, which is following the exact same pathway as the user. Sometimes the path from a user input to the real SQL injection can be very long with more than 10 steps across several files, functions, different places of the code base, libraries. Imagine how difficult it will be to find those manual. Let CodeQL do it for you. Back to our presentation and the final slide. Finally, you can start your CodeQL journey by visiting the following URLs that are also shared with you in the description of this stream. And here we are. Everyone, thanks for your time.


Hey, everyone. This is Dr. Kiki. I'm here at the Portland Maker Faire with Greg from the Rogue Valley Maker Faire. Welcome to Portland. Thank you so much. Glad to be here. Yeah. It's good to have you here, and I'm glad you came up to the table to chat and say hi. So, can you tell everyone that we're talking to what you told me, why you're here? Yes, definitely. Well, my name is Greg Dills. I am a staff member at ScienceWorks Hands-On Museum in Ashland, Oregon. We are holding our first annual Rogue Valley Maker Faire coming up Saturday, November 19, 2016. We have had a science festival called Tinker Fest the last three years, and this year we are bringing the Maker Movement to Ashland and the Rogue Valley. Nice. So, why go from Tinker Fest? It's like something you've been doing to the Maker Faire. Is this in addition to or are you blending them and putting them together? Yes, I'm blending them. Tinker Fest was primarily an event about tinkering and making things. So, when we realized that the Maker Movement was going on, we jumped on board to be a Maker Faire this year. We are discontinuing Tinker Fest, but the Rogue Valley Maker Faire will be an annual event at ScienceWorks. That's nice. So, tell me a bit about ScienceWorks because I've heard about this amazing science museum down in Ashland, but I haven't actually been to visit. So, what kind of things do you find there? Definitely. So, we opened in 2002 and we served nine local counties in the Southern Oregon, Northern California area. We are the Regional Science Museum. We're five hours from Portland, five hours from SF. So, we are the second largest tourist attraction in Ashland after OSF. Oh, OSF. I was going to say the Rogue River. The Rogue River. Yes, number one tourist attraction. And we've been open about 14 to 15 years and we have an exhibit department. We build exhibits. We rent our exhibits out to other science museums. We change our exhibits every quarter. We also have a tinkering workshop called Da Vinci's Garage. So, in there, yeah, we get to do fun stuff like needle felting and tapagami and making paper circuits and stuff like that. Nice. And I've heard that if you are a member of OMSI that there's like a multiple institution fun granting that happens and that the ScienceWorks Museum is part of it. That is true. That is part of the ASTC network, passport network. So, if you are a member of ScienceWorks, you can come visit OMSI and vice versa. So, what do you do exactly? What's your background? So, I am the festival director of the Rogue Valley Maker Faire. Nice. I've been at ScienceWorks for about three years now. I also manage the volunteers there. I manage our internship program. I do all the bookings for our fundraisers and go out in the community, do a lot of PR work and a lot of outreach as well. Sounds like a lot of fun that you get to go out and meet people and say, come on, let's make things. Exactly. Let's do stuff. Come on. Yes. We have a lot of fun at ScienceWorks. Part of the mission is if you're not having fun, then it's not the right place for you to work. I love that. Okay. Well, we're going to have to put it on the calendar for November. Definitely. It sounds like a lot of fun. I hope you all come out. We're going to have a really fun event this year and it will be an annual event. So, be on the lookout for the Rogue Valley Mini Maker Faire. And it's November 16th. November 19th. November 19th. So, just a couple of months away, everybody. I hope that anyone in the Southern Oregon, Northern California area will make it out there. Maybe if you're in Reading, California, it's a shorter drive than all the way to Portland. Definitely. And we are looking for makers to come down. We currently have our call to makers open. So, if anybody is interested in coming down and showing off what they make, feel free to contact us. And we'd love to feature your booth at our festival this year. Wonderful. Well, maybe podcasting will make it. Wonderful. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you, Greg. Nice meeting you. All right, everybody. I'll be here all day at the Portland Mini Maker Faire. We're having so much fun. And if you are here or coming today or tomorrow to the Maker Faire, stop by the booth. We are near the planetarium inside in the Omsi and come and make a podcast with us or ask us all your questions about podcasting. Thanks so much. Go podcast. Go podcasting. Bye. Awesome.


OK, we're going to do some geometry now to figure out how much the angle changes when a wave refracts across a boundary. So let's have our boundary. Let's have our wave coming in. And then it's going to change direction. And again, I'll assume it's slowing down just for this case. And so it's changed angle. Now, how much is that angle going to change? The way we normally measure the angle is we measure the angle from the direction the wave is going. And if the wave fronts are looking like this, then it's actually traveling at right angles to that. So it's actually traveling in that direction. And that distance is the wavelength. So that's wavelength 1 for the wave when it's going at speed c1. And when it's going at speed c2, it's going to have a different wavelength, I'm going to have to 2, wavelength 2. If we look at the angles in there, so if we look at this angle here and this angle here, theta 1 and theta 2. Now what we can say is we can say that the sine of theta 1 is this wavelength divided by that length there. That's the definition of sine. So sine theta 1 is the first wavelength divided by this distance. Let's call that distance L. And similarly, sine of theta 2 is just going to be that length divided by that length, which is just lambda 2 divided by L. And if we rearrange for L, and obviously L equals L, and therefore the right-hand sides equal each other. And so if we set the two right-hand sides to be equal to each other, then we get. So what we have here is a relationship between the angle of the wave as it comes in towards the boundary and the angle as it goes away from the boundary after it goes through. And all that depends on is the wavelength as it comes in and the wavelength on the other side. And we calculated this for when the wavelength is getting smaller, but the same formula also works when the wavelength is getting bigger. In the case the angle changes in the other direction. Now if we take both of these sides of the equation and multiply by the frequency. And remember, the frequency can't change on each side, because it's the number of cycles per second. And there's nothing about the speed that's going to change how many cycles we're making the wave to every second. And if we take the frequency times the wavelength, then we get the speed. So unlike mechanical waves, light can travel in a vacuum. And when light travels through materials like glass or water, it actually slows down. And the rate at which it slows down is something called the refractive index. So what happens when a light ray comes to a boundary? Well, if it comes in at one angle, turns out it also bends. And so if it goes from a refractive index of N1 to a refractive index of N2, then that's going to change the speeds. And if you do your geometry, you can see that this angle here is exactly the theta one we had in our other diagram above, and that this angle here is exactly our theta two. And if you look at the relationship between the angles as light goes through a boundary between materials of different refractive index, what you find is that it follows something called Snell's Law. And if you plug in the definition of the refractive index into these two here, then this exactly gives you the Snell's Law relationship there. And so the fact that light obeys Snell's Law is very suggestive that light is actually a wave acting just as all waves do when they pass from one medium where they're going at one speed to another medium where they're going at another speed.


What's up everybody just here for Jasper's case breaks calm. We just sold out twenty twenty two tops five-star baseball This is a eight box case break pick a June number 16 and here we go guys Another one in the books see what this case has in store for everybody Thanks everybody that bought in and Jason K got one of the last few teams in Los Balmogos Nationals Let's open up this case right here guys. There is not Saran wrap on these ones But of course, they're still sealed in the pack, but it looks like that was a Little typo for for tops. Yeah No Saran wrap. I don't have to worry about cutting it. I guess And let's get there all like that too But you know, we got these from our distributors, so we're not legit, but It's just a little awkward weird Anyway, here we go Dylan calls in a 75 And look at that bow Jackson and that's Chicago White Sox edition Going to add in cover man. It's a pretty sweet hit I didn't even notice that bull Jackson was in the White Sox uniform here And that Dylan Carlson's for the cardinals going to add Ripping the Saran wrap I guess Don't need the knife You're a wizard Aussie Aussie Smith Cardinals again going ahead It's a purple and it's a rookie Wow Bobby wit Junior finally I feel like I've been chasing a bigger rookie for a while now 19 out of 50 Kansas City Royals Kanban No Saran wrap mojo is actually Pretty good two first boxes there. All right out of 50 Josh Lowe for the Tampa Bay Rays going to Steve And how about a little big boppy David Ortiz? There's a pretty solid boxes here. We get some nice names. He's one of the two for sure And Red Sox of course going to Todd There you go impact redemption time or Tomarists I guess either one you know heaven has another one for the White Sox there and then let's see what the redemption is Five-star dual autograph Dual autograph guys here we go and it's Bryce Harper and Mike Trout what a case. This is the case. We've been looking for guys So Phillies that's D. Lowe and angels Anthony.  This has been a great case already All right, we're just halfway through guys. Jeez. All right. We got Jake Cousins Wow a triple autograph. No way. Wow. No, it's actually a five-way auto Carl Yastramski, David Ortiz, Pedro Martinez, Manny Ramirez and Jason Veriteg and all for the Red Sox Todd You're gonna freak out right now, dude And it's five out of five See the five right there Back-to-back amazing boxes This is the best case. I think I've seen I had a feeling we were gonna have cases like this though I mean like I said, we have we have quite a few as you can see we're ready on number 16 And that's only here on on YouTube, you know Jesus. All right, let's continue on. All right. We got a Kyle Muller And a O'Neill cruise man two nice rookies in this case O'Neill and Bobby Witt Pirates is going to Eric and Atlanta Braves is going to Ed What a case This is definitely by far the best case right we've seen I mean I think Chris might have pulled one of those five-way autographs as well But at least recently from like numbers 10 through 16, I feel like This has been one of the better cases Will Clark for the Giants That's going to Patrick Davis And for the Angels Tory Hunter 11 out of 40 So Anthony you're gonna get something at least for the Angels Then you have to duel it out and battle it out with Dilo in that randomizer for the dual autograph, but I must say a very very solid case right here guys No Saran wrap moja. I guess that's what it means, right? If you don't get one of these Saran wraps on the boxes, then they're probably pretty loaded. I Hope we got another one of them for the Rockies 13 dollar team Steven. There you go, man Veladi Ryan veladi and three out of five for the Dodgers Walker Bueller Very very solid case man. Very solid Just like that. So we got a randomized this bad boy right here Bryce Harbour my trial to autograph We got a Walker Bueller to five Tori hundred of 40 O'Neill Cruz five-way autograph five of five Low big Boppy Ozzie Bobby went to 50 And a little bow Jackson as well. I'd have to say a Very very nice case right here guys. Very very nice.  So good luck to the both of you guys If I can cut the card in half I would but I can't So let's see So Phillies Angels dice roll it Four and a six for ten times Ten times. Good luck one two three four five six seven eight nine Ten Goes to the Phillies. I think it was like angels almost the whole time Four and a six for ten times Phillies Bryce Harper on top, which is going to D. Lo congratulations, buddy So again guys another case in the store I would love to run this back and we can get another one of these cases as well I mean, we'll run these back all night. So appreciate you guys. Jasper's case breaks. Oh


So, good morning and welcome back to NPTEL lecture series on Classics in Total Synthesis. So, today we will talk about another very interesting and complex natural product called discordermalide. It is a marine natural product and it shows really excellent biological activity particularly it is an anti-cancer agent and also it could be used as immunosuppressant. So, that is why since its isolation many groups were interested in the total synthesis of this particular complex natural product. The first total synthesis was reported by none other than Stuart Stryber. So, who reported this synthesis? Three years after the molecule was isolated when you look at this molecule you can see there are many chiral centers first of all ok. And you have a six-bumper ring on the left hand side and you have five chiral centers on the right hand side ok. So, in between you have three chiral centers here ok and all these are connected by a double bond ok. So, you can easily disconnect this molecule into at least three fragments. So, that is what Stryber at his group did. So, they disconnected this molecule into three fragments, fragment A, fragment B and fragment C. Let us see how they have done that. So, first disconnection on the left hand side was to break this bond. So, the idea is to use Nossochi-Kishi coupling reaction ok. So, here if you have a triple bond and you can add to this aldehyde so you can get this propagalic alcohol that can be reduced to the corresponding pallelic alcohol ok. So, that was the first key disconnection. The second key disconnection was here. The idea was to have a carbonyl group here instead of alcohol ok. If you have a carbonyl group then you should be able to generate an anion here and if this is a leaving group then it is easy to do an alkylation. Later the ketone can be reduced to get the alcohol. So, the second disconnection was on that so you can see. So, this pallel group can be removed and then converted into a good leaving group followed by alkylation you can make this bond. So, the first disconnection led to three fragments, fragment A, fragment B and fragment C. And these three fragments can be obtained for example, first to start with fragment A and that can be obtained from this compound which has already three chiral centers ok. These three chiral centers were established or built upon one chiral center. This molecule is called rochester ok and it has one chiral center and from using this chiral center so you could build two more chiral centers. And for the fragment B again if you look at it was made from almost similar starting material. If you have closer look at this molecule then you will see only it differs at this chiral center ok and again the same starting material that is rochester. And the third fragment incidentally again comes from the same intermediate which was the intermediate for making fragment B and the starting material is same. That means he has designed this synthesis in such a way that all the three fragments can be made from one starting material that is rochester ok. Let us see how he has synthesized all the fragments and then combined to form the square thermolyte. So the first step obviously is to protect the primary alcohol and reduce the ester ok. So the primary alcohol was protected as TBS ether and then Dybal reduction gave the aldehyde. Then came the first key reaction. The first key reaction was to use William Roche Crotyle boration. So what he has done was he has taken this chiral Crotyle borane derived from diisopropyl tautorates ok. So it is known and was reported by William Roche that if you start with trans 1 you will get this anti aldehyde. And if you start with cis 1 if you start with the cis double bond then you will get here syn aldehyde product ok. This is a very established aldehyde reaction ok. So he could now based on one chiral center as well as using this chiral auxiliary he could establish three chiral centers ok. Next the double bond was osomalized to get the aldehyde. Then stabilized vitic gave the alpha, beta and saturated ester. The second key reaction was when you have this alcohol and also the alpha, beta and saturated ester if you treat this alcohol with potassium hexamethyl disolocyte. So what will happen? It will become O minus it will pick up this proton. Then when you add benzaldehyde so the benzaldehyde is like this. So it will add to benzaldehyde and then the benzaldehyde carbonyl oxygen will attack the alpha, beta and saturated ester. And the whole process we can call it as oxamycal addition ok. So what you get is now you introduce the fourth chiral center and also the two secondary alcohols are now protected as benzaldehyde derivative. So this is a very interesting reaction developed by David Evans group ok. So now you can remove the TBS group with HF pyridine and once you have that you need aldehyde. So that was done with Desmartine pyridine to get the primary aldehyde. The idea to form the six-phombered ring is to first cleave this benzaldehyde derivative then this hydroxyl group should attack the aldehyde to form the six-phombered ring ok. So that was done in one step by treating with camphor sulfonic acid and methanol. So camphor sulfonic acid and methanol first removes the benzaldehyde derivative that so the two hydroxyl groups are released. Once these two hydroxyl groups are released one of the hydroxyl groups will immediately attack the aldehyde to form the six-phombered ring ok. And since you use methanol then in the presence of acid it will become the corresponding lactol methyl ether ok. Then you protect the secondary alcohol here with the other secondary alcohol which did not react to form the corresponding TBS ether ok. Now the ester should be converted into aldehyde ok. So that was first hydrolyzed with lithium hydroxide to form the carboxylic acid then the carboxylic acid was coupled with Weindrup amine to form Weindrup amine. So this is called Weindrup amide as you know when you have Weindrup amide if you treat this Weindrup amide with Grignard reagent or organolithium reagent you will get the corresponding keto. But if you treat this with reducing agents like dibol, redol or lithium aluminium hydride you will get the corresponding aldehyde. So that was the idea he wants to get the aldehyde or before that this OME group which is slightly labile. So he wanted to convert that into SPH that was done under Lewis acid condition by treating with zinc iodide and pH STMS. Then lithium aluminium hydride reduce the Weindrup amide to get aldehyde which is fragment A ok. So now the next step is to make fragments B and C for the fragment B again as I said he started with the same rose ester in two steps you could get the aldehyde in good yield and now instead of trans what he has used is cis-crotyl boration ok. So that he could get the synaldol products ok. Now once you have the synaldol protect the secondary alcohol as corresponding TBS ether and osanolize the double bond to get aldehyde. Then the next step if you look at the structure of disco d'Arnaud carefully the methyl group as well as this the double bond the double bond which is actually connecting fragments A B and C ok here it is you know 1, 2, 1, 2 it is Z isomer ok. So if you want Z isomer then you have to use still a generic volumetization. Here instead of normal alkyl ester the phosphonate ester if you use trifluoroethanol ester then that gives Z isomer as the major product. So that is what he has used to get the Z isomer as the major product then reduce the ester with lithium aluminium hydride to get the corresponding alcohol and that alcohol was protected as pivalite ester ok. Now remove the primary alcohol protected as TBS ether so you remove that TBS selectively with HF pridine to get the primary alcohol which was oxidized under swan condition to get the aldehyde. Now the aldehyde is homologated using best manoeura reagent so you got the triple bond and the triple bond upon treatment with iodine in the presence of morpholine gave fragment B. So the fragment A and the fragment B both are ready the next thing is to make fragment C but the fragment C is we already discussed ok when I when we saw the retrosynthesis fragment B and when fragment C were made from the same intermediate ok this is the intermediate which is common to fragment B and fragment C. So he took this intermediate and then protected the secondary alcohol as PMB ether because at some point of time you have to differentially remove the protecting group. So it is better to protected with a different protecting group ok so that was protected as PMB ether by treating with sodium iodide and PMB bromide, paramethoxybenzyl bromide then you do the ozanalysis you get the aldehyde and treat with methylgrignard to get the secondary alcohol ok. This also now the primary alcohol which is protected as TBS can be cleaved by trifluoracetic acid to release the primary alcohol. Now you can see if you can rotate it by 180 degree along this axis you will get this if you rotate it by 180 degree you will get this ok. So you have this diol then oxalyl chloride will oxidize that is one condition will oxidize both primary alcohol and secondary alcohol to get the corresponding keto aldehyde and the aldehyde was selectively treated with vitic reagent derived from CH2I2 ok to get the cis vinyl iodide ok. Now the cis vinyl iodide was homologated or olefinated with CH2 double bond CH zinc bromide. So this is nothing but legacy coupling ok. So a legacy coupling helped to introduce the next double bond. So you have a diene at the right hand portion of discordarmolyte. So this is how Schreiber introduced the diene in fragment C. So all the three fragments are made now fragment A fragment B fragment C. Now how you combine all the three fragments to make or to synthesize discordarmolyte. So it took the fragment B and combined with fragment A under this Nosaki-Hiyama-Kishi conditions ok. So this is well known reaction which gives the corresponding alcohol. So you got mainly this enantiomer and next you need a double bond. So that can be easily reduced if you have triple bond and the triple bond can be selectively reduced in the presence of other double bonds ok. So once you have this propogelic alcohol reduce the triple bond to get the cis double bond then protect the newly formed hydroxyl group ok. Protect the newly formed hydroxyl group as TBS ether by treating with TBS triflate and base like 2-6-leutidine then you reduce with di-ball ok. So when you reduce with di-ball the pyrolyte ester will be reductively cleaved ok. So that will give you the corresponding primary alcohol. Then this primary alcohol was converted into corresponding bromide in 2 steps via mesolate followed by treatment with lithium bromide you can call it as Fingalstein reaction. So using this Fingalstein reaction you could convert the primary alcohol to corresponding primary bromide in 2 steps. Then you have the fragment C take the fragment C and then treat with LDA so or lithium-examethyl disoloside. So you can generate anion selectively at this carbon then quench with this bromide ok. So it is simple alkylation the centrifugal reaction. So now if you look at this carefully you have the complete structure ok. You have the complete structure of disco-dermalide except that you need to introduce one methyl group here and you have to reduce the carbonyl group and of course you have to remove the protective groups and convert this into corresponding laptop. So these are the steps remain to complete the total synthesis of disco-dermalide. So he treated with lithium-examethyl disoloside and quench with methyl iodide so that he could introduce a methyl group here so he could successfully introduce a methyl group. Then you need a lactone here so the sulfur was removed with mercury chloride and oxidized with chromium trioxide to get the corresponding lactone. So the left hand side is fine the right hand side is fine the methyl group also introduce now only one more functional group remains to be introduced is to get the alcohol that means you have to reduce the ketone. So before reducing the ketone PMB was first removed to get the alcohol the secondary alcohol then the secondary alcohol was treated with chloroisocyanate. So here it forms an ester so it forms an ester here OCO NCO and what you need is OCO NH2. So that can be easily done by simple hydrolysis so neutral alumina just hydrolyze the NCO2 corresponding NH2 then sodium boron reduction gave or reduce the ketone to corresponding alcohol okay. So now only one step is remaining that is removal of all the TBS group so that was successfully done with para toluene sulfonic acid. So that is how he could complete the total synthesis of discordermalide and if you look at the total synthesis of discordermalide reported by Schreiber so what are the key reactions he has done? See first key reaction as you know is the Crotyl boration the rose Crotyl boration established two new chiral centers here it is synaldol or antialdol okay he has established two new chiral centers using rose Crotyl boration one. If you look at he has used Kishi coupling reaction of the Iodol alkene with aldehyde to introduce one more chiral center and later the triple bond was reduced to get the corresponding cis double bond okay. Overall he took about 24 steps and the yield is quite impressive so 3.2% overall yield for such a complex natural product is really commendable okay. After this total synthesis there are many total synthesis of discordermalide reported in literature even Novartis made 60 grams of this discordermalide following different procedures reported in the literature and it is a first time such a high quantity of natural product was made in an industry following literature procedure and then they use this for several studies biological studies okay so I will stop here thank you.


and the land both the buildings and the land are landmarked for this for this particular landmark Since that is the case, excuse me wonder waivers. Um I think it is clear that tom has done with extreme due diligence and careful analysis uh analysis of each designation and what is appropriate to do with it. I I strongly support the work that Tom has done with this and the desire for continuance cat I agree. I support what tom is proposing support as well so I'm hearing that Wanda tad in jonathan by way of straw pole only uh would be in support of a two-month continuance as proposed by tom miller Do any of the remaining commissioners um have strong opinions to the contrary and would want to Move forward with consideration of this application today Um, I support but I what I want I forgot to say this. I'm supposed to say this Um, but I am the executive director of preservation dark and um, I want to let the commission and um citizens Know that I did not have communications or participate in board communications about this case So my decision Um, regarding this case is impartial and separate from that of my board. Thank you So for the benefit of the applicant, it is not my policy to force upon any applicant a continuance It is always my practice to suggest to the applicant that Continuances might be in the best interest of the application long term So that various issues can be addressed And the commission can feel comfortable Proceeding after those issues are addressed. We had another one of those cases come up today And so I'm not going to force this upon the applicant I would be curious to know whether or not there would be an interest on the part of the applicant to take Mr. Miller up on his offer to continue the conversation And to continue this hearing to uh, december and have it considered at the same time or One after the other I guess in conjunction with the site plan that's been submitted that be part of its own Coa hearing that month Mr. Miller and I had this conversation yesterday and you know our Our concern as um, as he pointed out and you know that uh, as I understand it Is that uh preservation Durham and um, you know historic preservation commission working independently of each other The reason that we objected and and do object to a continuation of this is because of the ability of the preservation committee commission to still um instill 365 day moratorium or a waiting period um on the demolition Even if we have the meeting with preservation Durham and are are able to work through some of these Um issues that he raised on today's call um, you know, we have A timeline for construction and are eager to to get that moving And i'm very concerned that you know, if we were to continue this that We would still wind up running into a significant delay the 365 day delay Um at the december meeting So i'm hearing from the applicant a desire to move forward with Today's application and for a vote on today's application and the question then becomes Um, it would seem to me what are we voting on? um Because if we vote on the entire package and can basically consider all seven structures the demolition of all seven structures as as one um, my sense is there's going to be some some pushback from this commission. Um, and A desire to observe certain of the buildings Um and impose a delay because of their historic significance Um, why don't I go ahead and before I presume as much ask my fellow commissioners, um Again reclose in the public hearing Um, which of these structures uh commissioners are you most concerned about? um And why do you think um a delay of up to 365 days? Is appropriate with all right, I think the bathroom building and the Components that were added to the original building Tell the story of that property add to the historic character of that property and give it a historic patina and I think that's why That property was landmarked that way. I don't have trouble with the stuff on the outer perimeter um And the stuff I had to vote today it'd be a 365 day delay Uh tad for clarification um You are concerned about the addition that is reflected in photographs six and seven pages 17 and 18 Anything attached to the building and the bathrooms? Okay, is there are there any commissioners who are concerned about um Demolition of any of the other structures not um expressed by by tad is uh areas of his concern Um, I have just a slight dealing delineation, but christa is your hand up. Did you want to say something? I'll let you go Thanks, april. I'm christa kagracity attorney's office. Um, I did we were talking about this as staff And you just want to mention one thing which is that I think it would be acceptable and appropriate if the board I mean, I think this is the direction you're heading um chair bouchard, but to sort of make A distinction based on the criteria for for the demolition delay between these structures and apply a delay to some of them And then reduce it for others of them, but again that distinction would need to be Based in the criteria, which I think have already been articulated, but I'll repeat You know the delay is reduced where The owner will suffer extreme hardship or be permanently deprived of all beneficial use or The commission shall reduce the delay where it finds that A building or site has no special significance or value towards maintaining the character I Disagree with them and there's a reason if I may sorry, of course I can disagree with you because you're the you're the council, but the but If if there is a criteria if we want to Keep the integrity of the landmark and now we're separating it. So cut one comes The molesters nine buildings and then waits another year for the two or they can't do anything And now they're need to think with us or think or really use the time and don't have the advantage of very of Demolishing other buildings. I also don't know if the applicant understands what it means to them To lose the landmark designation, which is something that can happen And from what I understand in the situation So running forward allowing some kind of demolition allowing the trucks to come down and demolish Can't be to the detriment of the property and and What Carla or crystal would the landmark status of the the land and the the entire property potentially be threatened by say immediate demolition of the Not contributing building that used to house the elections board the garage shed Um Or with the landmark status from demolition Planning departments. We haven't officially discussed this and um, it would we would take a lot of material into consideration. Um I don't know if I'm even allowed to give my sense. Um, okay on that like representing the department on that but Yeah, yeah, I don't know Richard Johnson who gets to make that decision. Is that something we as the hbc? um, do we vote to Remove a landmark status or is that something? done by the city I mean, I think stuff Could initiate it, but you would be a part of that process because you're you're part of every landmark process You would recommend approval or not the city council So Okay, so um my my thoughts on this is that um, I think the The preservation represented preservation during representative made a great point about the bathrooms Um as part of the stories for you know The built environment historic buildings are part of are part of our storytelling artifact in the in the environment and I think that um I I think I will be okay with the all of the other buildings, even the other additions. Um Been demolished with this application, but with the exception of the historic bathrooms and um, I think remediation is possible um And so maybe some work would have to be done and they'll have to figure out a use for it The I guess the only concern is that um the Jeff Jeff mentioned that Keeping that building there on site where it is now They will run into code problems When it comes to when they're ready to construct the new site them and building on the site So I think that's my only concern, but um, I do like the idea of this particular building continuing The storytelling of this whole entire site So the garage and the tower are the most important features, but also this bathroom is um is Supplements in adds to the story. I think everything else even the addition I I'm okay with the rest of that being demolished and I wanted to know is if if we had to vote today and Um could they modify the application? on the spot To maybe not demolish the bathrooms and we will be okay with that all right, so that's just a question I'm posing for the rest of the The commission anybody else Wanda, okay I um, I concur with that. I thought I'd clearly heard Tom give those options of either moving the building or I took some notes on that or If it was in the way or rebuilding it In the presentation that he made And it was real clear for me to also understand that he said that this had been on it They've been it would have been non adversarial throughout this whole process and discussions I do agree that that one building Out of his presentation and Um In your comments also miss johnson that it's important that if that can be changed at this time um that it would Make things a lot clearer to look at Says laura fieslem and I stepped away for some of the discussion here But april what you just outlined resonates with me to yes My sense is that And we can certainly stop hold it if we need to there's probably a majority of board members Present for this hearing today Who want to impose a delay at least with respect? to the bathroom building um and perhaps other buildings I am Comfortable moving forward with chris's recommendation to Split the buildings between those that we don't believe are contributing to the landmark status And that we don't have reservations about demolishing now and then imposing limitations on other buildings, but I'd be curious to know um Whether that there is significant or excuse me sufficient support for that sort of bifurcation from the commission Or alternatively the commission believes that if we're going to impose Um any sort of delay it needs to apply Basically universally to all seven structures that are slated for demolition in the application I don't think it needs to be for all seven structures I'm with the bifurcation uh with the 365 for the bathrooms and maybe we can figure out how I'm doing that time use that time period period to figure that out um, but as far as the other structures um Don't require a long delay for that those Laura saw a thumbs up from you. So I presume that you're in a favor of bifurcation ted I still struggle with Cleansing the original building. I don't have any problem with the stuff on the perimeter um That's where i'm at tom I don't prefer to separate them out Okay Jonathan I don't think I don't think the applicant is is uh, I think that we're not I don't have enough information. I don't want to separate anything if if anything. I agree with tad, but I prefer not separating the buildings I think we should probably consider then a Motion related to treating the entire application as as one and if Somebody has a strong opinion about the amount of delay that should be imposed Uh and would like to present that position Please please do so if we impose the maximum delay um and preservation dorm and the developer come to a An agreement. I assume they can come back and we can revisit that just as we did recently with another project Is there anybody in favor of imposing a delay of less than 365 days and would like to um Advocate for that position No, but I agree with that again with tan Um, but it doesn't have to be also preservation dorm if they find a solution that can uh that they think that Can work with the with our with the storm preservation commission I don't think we should ever put a criteria of preservation dormant But if they if something that can satisfy the commission it could be it could be early Down the road that Yeah I'm in favor of less than 365 just I would tie it more to how much time the parties need to try to come up with a solution not Just go to 365. So whatever Jeff and tom thought that they needed to explore their options is what I would have went for Right I was gonna say I I agree with tom. Um, I don't know if 365 is um I'm sorry If we if we early if we early this if we early this then and they don't get to agreement We just gave them the sort of time. So what's the point of doing that? Well, I I'm not Focused on whether they agree or don't agree. I just want to make sure they have an opportunity to hear each other out and make have time to See if they can find a solution whether they find one or not I just want to make sure that they have time to do their due diligence hear each other out explore options If we apply a 365 delay and then The um group comes together cooks up the solution and brings it back to us. Can we override ourselves? sooner than your agency five days Yeah, I mean we just did that So I've heard two votes for something less than 365. I say votes and not really votes Two opinions for uh, 365 two for less than 365 um Laura Wanda, do you have um any thoughts about the duration of delay that is appropriate under the circumstances? the duration delay I I can't really say now that I have any particular concerns about that I don't know where My hearing is different, but I clearly heard that earlier went on presented that that there would be further discussions on the specifics that were presented and That's where my mind is Thank you, Laura Finally in towards 365 with an invitation to bring us a solution that satisfies the parameters as soon as you can I'm going to go ahead having received from Carla the spreadsheet that mr. Kurtz had sent to her and Make the call that it should be admitted into evidence. I want the Commission to have full information on on this application In light of all the various issues involved with this application and so Carla I am authorizing you to share That spreadsheet with the rest of the commission Mr. Chairman for the record object Objection overruled Carly can put up on the screen And I will direct a reopen the public hearing for a brief question to mr. Kurtz What is the name of the contractor that provided you with this estimate? This was by clancy and phase construction And I should note that You know, they looked at the existing building and the photos that were taken as part of the remediation and the study that was done by heart Pikmin There are no plans for at this point For renovation or design. So they've done this as sort of rough We're at magnitude pricing based off of their experience the area and the square footage of the existing structure for the record Line number seven ten Sorry Not ten. Yeah So we have replacement of concrete new CMU walls stone removal There's over 30,000 at least just from looking at this that are not relevant to repair This is a redoing Part of this based off of the world the molded is there and their Anticipation is that some of the existing wall structure would need to come out that it would be replaced rebuilt and then reapplied with the Stone that is there on the wall A contractor has told you that they think that stone needs to be replaced for mold remediation They said that everything if there was mold in there, this was the This is what we received yesterday is their scope of work for the retrofitted this building Thank you Well, we don't even know what the purpose of this building would be so things like $6,000 for vanities, you know, it may end up being a small office or you know Some of this is seems irrelevant to the main question here I'm going to go ahead and re-close the public hearing and I'm once again going to Invite the applicant To consider whether or not a continuance is in its best interests. I think there probably is sufficient support for a 300 for a motion that would impose a 365 day delay with respect to The demolition that is proposed And I'm prepared to make that motion and see if I'm right about that But I'm also prepared to Offer a motion consistent with mr. Miller's recommendation to continue this case for for two months And I think it is important to get the applicant's input as to how we prefer to proceed all right, you know, we would I respectfully ask that that we'd be able to come up with something that is not the 365 days You know, I appreciate the suggestion that we give ample time for us to have a discussion I think that if we Said six months, you know, that's plenty of time for us to discuss with HBC and with preservation Durham to come up with some alternatives So we would request it to be six months I think that, you know, we would Uh, also be open to within that time frame if there is a solution that is that we can come up with that everybody agrees upon That we can present it again and perhaps get a reduction within the time frame that is agreed, but Um, we would like to to go ahead and move forward So chair request to be heard on the question Uh, the question was really for the applicant mr. Miller. So I'm gonna Hold off on receiving any additional comments from you on it. Um Unless you have anything to say about the duration of time you think it might take to Work through these issues potentially work through these issues with the applicant I just wanted to point it out to the commission that the point I believe that this kukaro was making is is that There are legal criteria for imposing and reducing the delay Uh, you the delay a continuance you can create to to allow parties to work together The delay has to relate to the extreme hardship deprivation of of use Standards, um And it it's not you can't set the delay in order to give people time to talk And it was with that in mind that we made our original proposal Matt if I can respond to that Yes, tom, please The statute says that There may be a delay that's imposed by the commission not that there shall So we're not required to do any delay And then it says if we do a delay We shall reduce it to the extent that there is a hardship And so I think in establishing what delay we as a commission choose We can do zero we can do 365 or we can do something in between there And I was just suggesting that a logical way to establish what type of delay Given that the statute says during the delay It's an opportunity for the owner and other parties to negotiate an outcome So in the statute it talks about this process where during the delay these parties are going to go back and forth And see what they can do to preserve this site So whatever amount of time that that's going to take would seem to be a logical amount of delay Sometimes it might be tremendous and sometimes it might be very simple And so to the extent that I get more information on What's actually going to happen during this delay? Is this going to our side's going to be working either even if not together like it Is this one side have a lot they have to accomplish If that's going to take them a long time I want to do 365 so that both sides have a chance if it's not And I don't want to just do 365 because I want that building there because I do want the building there But if this is going to take them three months to get through this and they either agree They reach an impasse and I would vote give them the three months They'll figure it out and then We'll move forward. So that's I'm trying to separate out my desire for the building not to come down with giving people the opportunity to do the work That they need to do to figure out a solution It doesn't seem to me when I was looking at these materials That this is going to take a year for the parties to figure out So I was in favor of something less than a year And I appreciate that. Um, I think the rest of the commissioners do as well I The thing that I keep hearing though is that Even if we were to impose a 365 day delay, there's nothing stopping the parties including Mr. Miller preservation term from Working together and coming up with something um That might be mutually advantageous and coming back to us and you know Having that 365 day period removed So I I'm not as concerned about the duration Given the fact that we would have that flexibility Yeah, I'm not that concerned about it because I do trust that the commission You know if the parties come back and say that they had a chance to work on this and that they've reached an end pass I do trust that the commission is just gonna Shorten that delay. I do worry though that we get into this Situation where what we subjectively want to see just defaults us to doing these maximum delays And not really tie it into whether or not we're letting go of control and letting the parties You know have all the time that they need to figure this out because it's not our choice and so sometimes I I get the sense that It's clear what the commission wants and that we're just going with maximum delays Because we're in denial that we don't have control over it. And so I'm trying to sort of That's what I'm trying to separate out is my desire for that to stay and just to make sure I'm giving them enough time And this stuff does take time and we all know real estate and Durham takes time right now So I do think a substantial delay would help the parties. I just I'm not in favor of just the sort of default Like I don't want it to come down. So I'm doing a year Jeff has asked for a six month continuance Seems viable I would vote for that. You asked for a delay a six month delay, correct?  I think it was a six month delay Go ahead Well, let's do a quick straw poll Something short I'm willing I'm willing to consider if this is something that applicants will Continuance but counting the months of continuance into the 365 on my next vote Which means if we do a three if I decide if we decide on on the On the delay of a year then these continuance months will be counted into that year Which enables them to already have a date forward to be three six months wherever they think is right But at that point I will they will not get a vote for me to continue for another year but a year minus or whatever it is minus the Time for continuance. So they do get the chance to continue it and they're not afraid they lost it the count from today I think I heard mr. Kurtz express an interest in Just having a vote today on a 180 day delay Approval of the application with a 180 day delay and it sounds like Tom would be in favor of that and Laura would be in favor of that I'd be in favor of it to 100 I will add the caveat though that I would want to hear from tom miller as to whether and I felt that 180 days would be sufficient for them to Fully explore their their options. That's really key to to what where I land on it I Know we go there jeff. Can you clarify? Are you asking for a 180 day or would you be satisfied with a 180 day delay or continuance? I'm asking for approval with a 180 day delay for the construction Thanks for the clarification Mr. Miller, I'll reopen the public hearing very very briefly if you could just respond to commissioner craggers question So I get what commissioner craggers saying this is something that troubles us constantly And that's why we our proposal to you was more nuanced And was building by building however, I realized too that from the the statute doesn't envision a A seven building application That doesn't contemplate that We view the delay Uh that the statute contemplates Uh as being different from A continuance to allow interested parties to talk um I uh my board Uh sent me here uh to ask for a 365 day delay on the addition and the bathroom and I don't feel like I can change that but we I can tell you that we are completely committed Uh to working with these parties Now we are new to ram But we have an established relationship with the owner of this property the folks at magnolia Uh, and we value that and uh I feel really good about the The possibility That it in a few weeks of of meetings That we can come up with something that's why we would prefer to do that in the context of a continuance Now if the case were not If you continued the case and it came up in december with the other case And we hadn't gotten anywhere and we were still arguing for a delay I think it would be appropriate for you at that time to say Well instead of a 365 day delay We're going to give you a 300 day delay because you've already had we're going to give it's like time served. I suppose Uh, that's not a very good analogy, and I don't really mean it that way But that would be within the commission's just uh sound discretion. I believe So, uh, I appreciate the question We view the delay as having broader purposes Than the opportunity for preservation Durham To work with interested parties. We believe a continuance is a more approach appropriate procedure for that Thank you, mr. Miller We close I could just suggest it sounds like 180 days would work For the parties to do the discussions that they need and The applicant could still bring this back up in a month or two and ask for it to be shortened because they might have already finished That that process so I I would actually suggest that we were on the right path. We just had the wrong outer limit 180 days seems acceptable to the applicant and we all agree that if they reached the natural end of their discussions This could be brought back onto the docket and we could lower it So that's what I would suggest so I'm hearing based on the straw polling We've uh been conducting here as we've gone three votes for 180 days Wanda tad And jonathan, um, would any of you be amenable to 180 as opposed to 365 jonathan shaking his head now If they if they can come back they can come back with the 360. I don't understand the 180 at this point Jonathan if we're doing a delay my straw poll goes to 365 if we're doing a continuance then Whenever the applicant That I agree and I agree to lower the timing afterwards as much as much as needed So exactly what laura just said Dad you're sticking with 365 Yeah, I don't I don't know why we would tie their hands When they can come back if they get an agreement anytime Well, I think we've had sufficient discussion. Um, this has been a complicated process. Um But I think I understand which way the winds are blowing. Um, and I'm prepared to go ahead and make a motion To move things forward before doing so If we could have a staff recommendation Hello Rosenberg planning department. Um, staff would recommend approval of the application with a 100 and 60 day delay Was it 180 180? I apologize. Um Just hoping that the reduction of delay doesn't compromise The good faith efforts of the applicant to actually save these buildings The particularly the ones, um, since we're not bifurcating it, but staff is most interested in the washroom Um, I'm going to make a motion. Um, it is going to be for 365 simply because I do not believe there's sufficient support for 180 days Um The Durham Historic Preservation Commission finds that in the case coa 2 1 000 68 501 Washington avenue demolition of primary structures The applicant is proposing to demolish three contributing accessory structures as well as two contributing ones The commission has determined the accessory structure to possess sufficient historic value or structural integrity to preserve it The commission has determined that the property owner has not shown Substantive evidence of facing extreme hardship or being permanently deprived of all beneficial use of or return from the property by virtue of a delay Granite pieces will be salvaged from the structures for future use The site will be stabilized with grass seed and straw following the demolition until future construction is completed Therefore in accordance with udo requirements and ncgs 160 d-949 the coa for the proposed demolition is approved with a 300 Excuse me with a 365 day delay second thank you commissioner de berry and Miss holmes if we can have a roll call vote, please all right chair bouchard approved commissioner dan commissioner de berry approved commissioner fecalman proved commissioner johnson not approved commissioner craig suppose commissioner waders approved motion passes five the two Well, I want to thank everyone for your patience. This was a tough one. Um, there have been a number of tough ones recently, but we Uh, where's the party as well and and hopefully a resolution can be achieved and in relatively short order. Um, so that we can Revisit this and and and potentially uh shorten the period of time Thank you And with that that is our final case on the agenda. We do have um a bit of old business To which we need to attend and that is our newsletter Carla Yes, thanks very much to april and to katie for um creating this newsletter. I'm gonna share it right now Um, thank you all received it via email So, um We have the the mailers for fall 2021 um Following of our usual format um and then Having some project highlights some old cases that you may remember from um The last couple of years dealing specifically with accessory structures that were successfully adapted to new uses So if everybody has had a chance to look it over, um, I'd love to entertain any any feedback Corrections or edits otherwise that you might have I like the version we're looking at that has the picture in the middle column sort of in the middle um sort of offset from The picture at the top right, which I think was the earlier iteration um Yeah, I think it's great. I like the fact that we've got like action shots of uh, you know a structure in transit I think that's really neat. So I think it looks great and want to commend everybody for Uh, your help with this and it looks terrific Yeah, they they really did a fantastic job and um I think we're ready to distribute if if there aren't any other question any well actually tad you did have a concern that there isn't specific um mention of You know, you are receiving this because you live in a historic district where you own a landmark So right I think you know if I got this in the mail And I didn't realize why I was getting it. I might toss it So I just think it makes sense somewhere Maybe above the address or in the bottom left of the address panel or somewhere in there To make it clear the reason you're getting this is because it affects you you're in a district um, you know, I wonder if that could be part of the addressy Could every addressy have you know property owner in a of a historic But basically say dear historic property owner and then their name underneath it You know, I mean if that's possible, I think that makes the most sense And you can probably put it on the front too right where it says right up under fall to 2021 newsletter Uh, maybe some type of comment somewhere where they can see it really really well that this pertains to you you Uh, you own a property in a local historic district Or a landmark or something like that. Uh, let me see. Let's see. Um Or maybe somewhere hold on Yeah, the way we used to do it was the question, you know, did you know? Um, but yeah, that's what it was Yeah, we're just trying to get into, um, maybe a sort of cleaner aesthetic and um Because you know We do have people from time to time they come and they say, well, I didn't know I lived in a district, you know Or they've already published some expensive repairs and we have to make them undo it And I'd like to avoid that if possible That'd be in favor of some language it telegraphs why folks were receiving it Any does anybody have any strong feelings about whether it should be done on the front cover or as part of the addressy label No strong feelings for me as long as it's there and And that we can document that is that we placed it Why not both it seems a pretty important Yeah Have a bold idea can we approve the nose letter with the addition of Indicating why people are receiving it and delegate to the staff how to make that happen and Second That sounds great Thank you together. It looks great Um new business minor coas Yes, um terry has not sent that out yet, but she will uh send that out this week Okay, very good Thank you Carla, what are we looking at for next month busy docket? I'm looking at four cases for next month And are any of those carryovers or continuances from prior months? No, don't believe not not from our recollection. No, okay So we don't have the more head hill one coming back Oh wait Yes, we do So yes, that's a fifth one That's one So we got five Guys, we're cruising along here after three and before we got bogged down that last one These these applications seem to be getting harder and harder. Um Each month. I mean this one was particularly tough with seven different structures. Um But I I tried to move things along as best I could Not sure I succeeded and you did a good job matt You did an awesome job You guys have a I just have a quick announcement. Um preservation darm is having his annual historic home tour. So you all are Uh, welcome you you can go to our website to purchase tickets, but um, the theme is the two two door revival Um, and we the featured property would be the pinecrest estate over there on west four seals boulevard which is um Wait, is that neighborhood? No, it's not a local resort issue. I don't think Um, and so it will potentially soon be developed So this is your last opportunity to take a look inside this property before Um, it gets developed. So, um, I hope to see you all there What was that again april? October 16th and 17th And uh information about it on the preservation journal website Yes, and the home tour and lecture will be on the 14. Um, one of the preservation consultants that we see Tip irregularly here. We'll talk about the two door revival style in darm cool stuff I live in a tutor although it's really kind of I think more colonial on the inside but outside tutor Is that say thank you to carla or to staff because they're doing a lot of the all of the background and all of this dealing with all Much more than what we have to do all so thanks try to Try to get things as presentable as possible.  I mean What is an acceptable uh adu? Both in terms of not being like just you know cookie cutter You know, uh in having some uniqueness and being true to the the neighborhoods and not being Too humongous In these demolitions. I mean I think we're going to continue to struggle with that and it probably makes sense that we we do because we're living in a vibrant growing changing city um with lots of uh folks with lots of competing needs and Uh, we just got to do the best we can like I thank everybody for your patience your thoughts and your hard work sticking in there sticking with it Second that yeah, absolutely And just so you know, I do let applicants know when there's something that tells the line I let them know you're you're towing the line with us so I know I used to be on your end. We we tell them everything and they'll come to a meeting and that's if yeah They think that the commission will think differently will be on their side and that's not always the case All right. No, we've been in this for a long time today. So again, thank you for all you do But my little side question. How was the retreat because I really did not want to miss that How was the Does somebody who attended want to share? I mean, I thought it was helpful. I did to me the the process of um, you know looking at our our stock and revisiting the um inclusion of say like mid-century modern, uh structures into Our historic neighborhoods, I think is a little bit more complicated than I was imagining It's kind of a but Yeah, I thought it was helpful Because you want to share something laura? Uh, oh, she's just saying bye. That was what that was And so we we will have access to it for you all. Um, I think it's going to be first via Maybe a google drive. I'll check with um our technology manager Really appreciated. Yeah me too Yeah And then we also have a schedule to vote on um, but we can do that at the next meeting. There's no rush on that so For the 2022 schedule We do need to do it next month though because the deadlines for january will be coming up. So yeah, if amanda or Terry could make sure that that gets on to new business On our agenda. Uh, I'll make sure to remember it Next time That'd be great Hey, thanks everybody. Uh, have a great halloween and See you in a few weeks. Thank you Bye


Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE, covering the AWS Accenture Executive Summit, brought to you by Accenture. Welcome back everyone to theCUBE's live coverage of the AWS Executive Summit. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight. We have three guests for this segment. We have Jim Phillips, cloud architect, mutual of Omaha, Roy Bakarok, senior principal technology Accenture, and Brian Bohan, global business lead AWS. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you. So we're talking about the transformation of the contact center. But before we get started there, let's tell our viewers a little bit about Mutual of Omaha, your business, your target demographic, and what you do. So Mutual of Omaha is a 109-year-old insurance company. We have our biggest market segments are in the senior health space, and then in the life space. So we serve as customers with a wide variety of needs, everything from Medicare supplement policies. So we have like, seasonal surges in business and things like that to people who are concerned about like how do they prepare for their family for their life insurance needs and things like that. So we've been around for quite a while. Predominantly, we've been servicing our customer base through agents, and as that shift occurs, we've been looking at how do we provide a much more finely focused view of the customer and emphasizing that within our contact centers with the recent creation of our service practice. So it was really just this idea of, let's think about how to touch the customer in a different way, that that was really the business imperative toward this move. Right, so previously, we had this all started in 2016 when we decided to take a focus on the customer specifically from the service practice. So instead of service kind of being like an overhead associated with a product line, what we decided to do is we decided to really have something where the focus was on the Indian customer experience and how do we make that consistent across your interaction with Mutual of Omaha. That then led us to reevaluate how we were doing our contact centers, and that's when we became involved with Roy and Accenture to look at like what are our options to really kind of improve that experience for the customer.  Okay, so we typically start at the top and understand not only the business strategy, but their current state of their technology architecture. And then you try to work through the specific gaps. So a gap analysis, what are they missing to get them there? With Mutual of Omaha, it was really there being held back by their legacy on-premise solution. High levels of technical debt, huge complexity to support, maintain, and to make the changes. So it was in that analysis suite. It was easy to see that the cloud was probably the best option for them. And did Amazon Connect immediately stand out? So even initially when we were looking at options for this, Amazon Connect wasn't actually even on our list. So that was something that was brought to our attention during the sort of short listing of candidates process. And then when we really looked at it, it just kind of blew our mind. So Roy had mentioned about taking a look at the gap analysis. So as sort of like embarrassing or sad, as this may seem, right? The decision to do something is a lot easier when there are a lot of gaps. And we had a lot of gaps between what we could deliver with our current technology solution and then what really the business strategy outcomes were wanting us to do. So it did make a decision to look at completely sort of reinventing how we do the contact centers. A lot easier position to consider. Brian, in terms of the nuts and bolts of making Amazon Connect, can you give our viewers a little sense about really what is the infrastructure that we're talking about here? So the interesting thing with Amazon Connect is it's really the call center platform and capability that Amazon.com has been using for a number of years and that we decided to commercialize and externalize to customers like Mutual of Omaha. And so like a lot of things with AWS, what's nice about it is that it's, you can start small, you can layer it in and it can integrate into some of the existing technologies and investments that you've made. It's not a rip and replace. And then you can scale it as you see success and you can scale it up and down. So it's very economical as well. And so it's an area where we're really excited to see Mutual of Omaha really on the cutting edge there. But we're seeing, with Accenture, a lot of momentum with this platform and in insurance, financial services, even as CPG companies become more focused on delivering services, it's changing how they have to interact with customers. So it's a great platform for that and a great starting point. So Amazon, a famously customer centric company. So what are the kinds of, you think, oh, customers will love this. But in fact, we were talking before the cameras are rolling. There was a little bit of resistance. So you have to think about how do you introduce this type of sort of radical change from what was traditionally just an exclusively a hands-on service process that was agents and contact centers with an audience demographic that is not what you would think of as being like cutting edge in terms of technology adoption. But we found through things like paying a lot of attention to our call flow development with Accenture, paying a lot of attention actually to our voice tuning and getting the voice of the customer to understand like what that voice tuning and how well that worked. We were able to actually get a more positive reception for the connect solution than we even over like professionally recorded voice talent on it. So you do have to address like all of the, all of the like customer touch points within the contact center and think about how do you manage the change within your audience demographic and how do you manage that adoption? But it's your customers, it's your agents. How do you make them comfortable with the solution? Because the customer can detect it and agents uncomfortable with the solution that they're using. How do you make this kind of like really seamless? So we took a put a lot of emphasis on customer experience development as part of this. We did not take any of our existing call flows and just put them in connect. So all of our call flows were re-architected. What are some of the best practices that have emerged? Because he has just pointed out so many of the kind of challenges of implementing this new kind of approach and system with both clients and also the workforce itself. I mean, what would you say, what is sort of your advice and sort of the best practices that have emerged in terms of mutual Omaha's experience? You know, I think it's really start with the desired customer experience that you want. So start with that customer experience and then with Amazon Connect, Lex, Amazon Web Services, you can deliver that experience. So start there, throw out the legacy call flows, legacy IVR scripts, and start from scratch with customer experience at the top of mind and then you can get there. Yeah, I would second that because managing change internally organization, like if your focus is exclusively on what the customer experience is, that shortcuts a lot of arguments within the organization about what's the right thing to do because everybody tends to kind of suboptimize for whatever their stakeholder perspective is. If you're clearly focused on what the customer is looking for, that actually clarifies a lot what your internal conversations are. How do you three work together in terms of this try partnership, Accenture, AWS, and Mutual of Omaha, how do you collaborate? Yeah, so I guess first from the partnership perspective, like I talked about Connect and modernizing customer care is a really big focus area for us as a partnership and a big investment area. So we've worked with Accenture and gotten their teams very much skilled up on the new platform and they've done a great job of integrating it into their existing practice. So now when we come to a customer like Mutual of Omaha, we, Accenture's got a very strong point of view, they've got technology skills behind it and they know how the solution can solve customer problems. And so that's my job is to make sure that foundation is there and then the team takes it from there really with the client. Yeah, I would say our experience with Amazon around this is they're really very interested in the experience that we're having and how we can provide feedback around our particular use cases and understanding like what are the types of things that would make our stuff more successful. So because we work with a combination of health and life insurance products, things like HIPAA eligibility for services are a big deal for us. And when you look at how the ecosystem is all tied together with Connect, that has really kind of, we've gotten a lot of attention and help from Amazon with regards to dealing with like HIPAA and compliance issues associated with how we put the solutions together that's been really helpful for us. I want to talk about the role of empathy in this kind of technology because as we know, we are dealing with really difficult times in people's lives that they are in need of these kinds of products and services. So how do you make sure that the technology is taking that into account? So yeah, that's like an excellent point. So we tend to think of financial services products as kind of sort of emotionally neutral or cold even, right? But when you're dealing with insurance and a lot of times you're dealing with people who are calling and they're in a very emotional sort of situation. One of the things that is really good for that that we hope to leverage much more in the future is being able to get the transcripts of the conversations out so that we can understand as part, using that data that's coming from the interactions with the Lexbox and understanding that data as the customer works through the call flows to be able to look at how do we continue to improve these around how that customer is responding to it so that we can get to better customer experiences. Like again, it's oftentimes a very highly emotional situation. If you're dealing with like a life claims contact center, you're dealing with someone who's just recently experienced a loss of a loved one and as a result, people's patience is really low. They're really stressed. They're facing, you know, our demographic is selling final expense policies and that means that people are facing a lot of financial uncertainty in addition to emotional disorders. So being able to take that information and use that to continually tune things for delightful customer outcomes is really important to us. So what's next for Mutual of Omaha? So really what's next for us is we're in the process of major migration of our contact center agents onto it. Once that is completed, that allows us to kind of get rid of some existing technology debt with our on-premise telephony solution and then we really start to get into kind of the good stuff, right? So that's like integration with our customer portal taking more advantage of what we want to do from a machine learning and AI perspective with regards to what we can get from the call data and the customer interaction and really starting to kind of like make a huge jump in terms of what that customer experience can be. Great, well I look forward to hearing more about it. Next year's executive summit. Yeah, it would be great to be back. Great. Jim, Roy, Brian, thank you so much for coming on theCUBE. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for having us. Rebecca Knight, we will have more from the AWS Executive Summit and theCUBE's live coverage coming up in just a little bit.