Okay, great. A very good afternoon everyone, as we are celebrating World Women's Day at Entrepreneur. This is our ode to women who have made an inspiration to us all. Nearly two decades of good technology and women were rarely spoken in the same breath. As a matter of fact, very few thought that women who seemed relegated to doing home chores would come and would make it to the entrepreneur world, especially in technology. And today our theme at this special session is to highlight the prowess of women who have made it big in technology and looking at them. I can rightly say the future of FinTech is female. With this, let me welcome our panelists for this session. Ms. Priya Sharma, co-founder of Zest Money. Ms. Nupur Gupta, co-founder Nira. And Ms. Shriki Agarwal, co-founder of Stashfin. Ladies, welcome to this very special session of Entrepreneur and a virtual hug to all of you. Thank you. So to start with, and I'm being joined by my colleague, Aditya, in this conversation. We would like to understand more from each one of you on what inspired you all to join this, to start this journey. Because in banking, in particular, we've all seen a lot of women have made their mark. And now in FinTech, we are seeing the same trend coming. A lot of women founders keep coming in this segment and are making it big. And all three of you are examples of that. So if all of you could share your journey and how you got into the FinTech space and being the founder, how it's been the journey for each one of you. Priya, would you like to go first? Yeah, sure. So my journey in entrepreneurship and FinTech actually started in London in 2011. And before that I was doing investment banking, so I was in financial services. And I had a technology background before that. So when I was in banking, I started looking at some of the technology companies that were being built at the time. This was very much at the sort of web 2.0 stage where apps were coming into prominence. Smartphones were coming into prominence, especially in the western world. And definitely there was a movement towards disruption of various different segments using technology. And very quickly realized that financial services or FinTech is going to be the next wave. And so I joined a FinTech company called Vonga in the UK. And very much was inspired by their vision of disrupting financial services using technology. And kind of learned my ropes there. I became the India team along with my other co-founders who we later on spun off and we started this. But that's where we learned the ropes. We saw how the new wave of technology was transforming businesses, transforming financial services. How we could build completely new and innovative business models using technology and AI. So that was really kind of our learning ground. And then in 2015, we saw that the Indian ecosystem had evolved quite significantly. Payments had started leapfrogging and there were new things that were happening in payments. The likes of PayTM and some of these companies that have now become household names were getting created. And that's when we felt that this was the right time for us to start a FinTech company in India. And within that we obviously had spent a lot of time trying to understand what's happening in financial services in India. We are a digital consumer lending product which is now most commonly known in the world as a by now pay later product. So we launched with that. We were the first and we are now the largest by now pay later product in India. And we really saw the opportunity for this product as we realized that consumers are becoming increasingly aspirational.  So a lot of these themes started coming together for us. And we felt that 2015 or early 2016 was the right time and that's when we took the plunge. So interesting. So we'll come back to you on more. So Nupur, if you could also share about your startup journey. Sure. So for me the first point of entry in finance was basically my first job and the motivation at that time was very simply. And I lead to see how one can use maths to make money after having originally come from engineering technology sort of background. Now after having done that done that for a few years across the stack, originating, pricing, credit risk analysis. After a while I felt a certain lack of purpose and meaning in the work that I was doing. And at the same time, I also bought events of these secular trends in the financial industry driven by technology and the timing of various different things being bought together at the same time. And when I saw that the impact of these new age financial services resulting from the combination of ease of distribution through technological challenge channels ease of data availability and multiple other factors like that positive positive outlook from the regulators. When I thought that the impact that an opportunity that a product like digitally digital financial service in particular credit can have on an economy like India is far greater than any other country you can you can pick out in the world. So the fintech solves the problem on the fringe in countries like UK and US which are already very well developed with respect to credit and financial services over the decades. But in India I can solve the problem starting from the access and then and then and then the second order problems such as efficiency and quality. So that was the motivation for me to then jump ship and start Neera at Neera we are focusing on on the problem of need, as opposed to once we have people across. We have the vast population today in India which is underserved with respect to credits and have to resort to very informal, informal channels which don't help them over the long term. We are now able to systemize that by better utilizing the data available about these individuals to start giving them small loans, bring them into the formal system and then well on top of that. Okay, sure. So Shruti you started your you were working at Bank of America previously if I'm correct and then you started stash wins so what was the inspiration behind it. Yeah, absolutely so my experience a bit more personal than Newport and Priya's. So, you know when we moved back from the US. I applied for an American Express card. And I got rejected. I got rejected twice. And the pedigree I come from is you know being a chartered accountant worked with the top tier companies in the US and gone to an Ivy League college. It was quite surprising that I got rejected. And I wondered you know people who haven't got the exposure what happens to folks like that. And you know I had a lot for retail marketing with my previous experience with secret cash a in the US in 2009 and then when we moved back, you know to share a good while we're starting a couple of years later. Stashfin the love for finance and retail came together in the form of FinTech stashfin. And it was a perfect opportunity to get people who are underserved under bank, making them financially responsible and providing them an aspirational product when you're just not providing them a secure loan, but providing a footprint to them where they can then go on and take auto loans and personal loans and in fact even take home loans and grow with the company. And that's been the whole aspect or the thought process behind the stashfin doing financial inclusion, getting folks who are not not having credit footprint back into the space and making stashfin an aspirational product to its credit line of card. So, so I want to understand from all of you from the time you it to now when we see at the recent event of trends like COVID and now when we're talking about the new normal how the market has evolved and for each of you in particular I mean how do you see your journey evolving further with the market ship shipping up now. I mean I can probably, I definitely think COVID has is been a watershed event for for us, especially with our product which is as I mentioned earlier a binocular product, and it's a completely digital, you know credit product that is designed for enabling purchases or commerce either online or offline and definitely in the COVID times what we have realized is that consumers are looking for completely personally cashless but also contact less payment solutions. And, you know, we have all I guess used UPI a lot more in the last year than we probably ever did. Definitely UPI transactions are you know through the roof and Yeah, that's right. Month on month right so, so we feel that that basically is signaling significant consumer shift towards mobile based digital payments and it also signals a complete ship away from, you know, definitely away from cash but also away from card and for us we are a mobile based credit, you know, application and we are basically embedded into wherever the customer is making a transaction and instead of paying through their bank account or through UPI, they can actually use us to, you know, you to use credit and especially more. It makes more sense to pay with credit if you're buying a relatively slightly larger ticket size and things like that right so for us it's the significant shift in consumer behavior from any sort of card or cash to mobile is what we are seeing. And definitely what we are seeing is a completely contact less solution that is now being preferred by consumers and we are very much in that space of providing credit at the point of a transaction. And that has led to, you know, a lot of, you know, growth in our business and we definitely see that in that momentum kind of continuing going forward because that's a, as I said it's a consumer behavior shift. This is something that has also happened in the rest of the world so it's not just an India phenomenon where consumers are increasingly moving in terms of their transaction base or in terms of their purchase behavior they're moving online e-commerce obviously as we all know has grown significantly in the COVID period. And therefore any sort of payment option or credit option that is enabling any e-commerce or online retail or omni-channel retail as I said contact less is a key part of that process even on the offline world so it's not just what's happening in the online it's also what's happening in the offline. And that's a key consumer shift and we feel that we are in this perfect storm and all the work that we have been doing over the last four years in terms of building this product, building this category, creating consumer awareness around Binoculator is just, you know, we are now on this massive growth path going forward. Sure. So when we saw the economy taking a nose dive I mean last year and particularly in the first half of 2020 I mean we saw a lot of I mean layoffs happening and people got not sure about their regular income. How do I mean at your level make sure that okay the credit which you are giving right now is going to come back and how do you assess that or that has changed over a period of time. Yeah definitely changes to our or sorry is that for other people or should I go ahead. No please continue and this can also participate. Sorry. Yeah so definitely we've made ships to our credit platform and that's something that we do all the time but yes we are very cognizant of making sure that everything that we do is affordable and everything that we do is relatively is it makes sense for the customer and also is not putting people into you know unnecessary kind of debt arrangements. So yes we have made changes during especially during COVID we did a lot of work around estimating people's incomes and how that might have changed over time and whether or not you know they might be under some sort of stress or whether they might be over leveraged at the moment. So all of these factors have definitely gone gone in and we see that some of the work that we did in March April around that is now playing out really well and that has kind of helped us, you know, grow and sustain sustain sustain growth through this time. So if you would like to add to it. So happy to go ahead. So we saw a lot of movement you know the funny thing is in RBI or in Hindi there's no word for moratorium that you know people think it's a EMI mouse or you don't have to pay anything at all. So we as a company went ahead and I think we were the leaders in that we spent a lot of time educating our customers that moratorium does not mean that EMI is waived off it just means that you pay interest on interest and you can differ your principle. And a lot of education went in teaching a customer being financially responsible that you know rush of expenses have gone down where you would be doing fuel fuel expenses traveling or you know a lot of people we saw being a transient population that we are a lot of people move into tier one tier two cities they went back to the village they had excess income because they were not paying rents. We educated them that you they should go ahead and pay any excess income excess cash flow they may have to pay down their EMI and not pay take the moratorium so we came up with a product where not a product but a policy where month on month you can avail moratorium. And if you have excess cash go ahead and pay it off. So that had a huge impact we saw customers accepting it very very well so towards the end of it you know there was so much confusion with how the civil footprint will be reported how different products will report you know how credit card the reporting it was very clear for us and that really helped customers get out of this. You know not being financially responsible to becoming financially responsible understanding what the policies were doing for them and we were able to offer cash or loans to them as and when they needed. So we really became that their support structure towards the end of the moratorium or even today. So just to add. So if you are an onlooker or a stakeholder in financial and particularly credit space, then you always wait for an economic downturn event like code to really test the strength of the business. So it's to see that how does a business perform during stress test like this that was to show how strong a protected business it is. So on that metric. Now that we know that the worst of the COVID is behind us. We can say that we have really managed COVID very well. So throughout the worst of the COVID we never put more than 2% of our local under moratorium. We continue to stay in touch with the customer and worked out collection strategies with them instead of losing touch with them continue to collect literally that they were comfortable. Paying so especially in the early days of COVID the April 20, which was the worst lockdown month and where the certainty uncertainties were the highest. We noticed that while the overall job loss or pay loss fraction was pretty small as a percentage of the overall portfolio. There was a lot of fear amongst the customers about whether they'll be able to take care of the higher priorities and life putting food on the table next month. Which was kind of driving the non payment behavior. And we work with the customers to psychologically got them over the line and ended up managing COVID quite well. We finished last year five times higher in terms of five times higher volume versus where we started. We are back to our growth rates that we were at going into COVID. And another change that has happened is support really sensitize the financial ecosystem. So as because finance is such a vital service it does not operate in its isolation. There is always ecosystem of partners that you build up on banks being a key key player there along with all the way from entities like you IDI and PCI. So the ecosystem at large has been sensitized towards the urgency of digital modes of delivering finance and that also helps index like us to accelerate the path going forward. Sure. Well, you know, as a challenge, the startups have a lot of issues over there. But what is the biggest roadblock for the startups in India to thrive? I mean, these are the laws, compliance laws, what exactly is the biggest challenge for the startups across sectors which creates a kind of basically hurdle in the market. So if you're going to show you on that piece. Since my line is unmuted, I'll go forward. So as much as finance can be a force for good. It's also a great market opportunity and it has attracted some bad actors. So particularly early 19, we saw signs of a rush of lending apps on Play Store coming from China, Southeast Asia, which were charging you serious lending rates, really taking customers for right. And ultimately unfortunate resulting in unfortunate events like suicide that were reported started to get reported around Christmas time last year. So it's a bit unfortunate that it took an event like that for the, for those of the help to take note. But when an event like that happens, it's bad for the industry as a whole, because then everyone kind of gets swept under the same, same hand, but better to have captured it sooner rather than later. I suppose, I mean, of course, the regulator in the country is one of the best regulators out there and we expect them to be able to find out a way so that we don't rush, we don't sort of see events like that recurring again. Beyond that, I think the another challenge that I would talk about kind of goes back to the earlier point that I was making about finance industry being heavily dependent on an ecosystem of players. So now to ensure the delivery of my product to the customer, I have got exposure to UIDI, API qualities, I've got exposure to NPCI technology, and which are not good exposures to take on. And, and hopefully I think with the sensitization towards the need for digitization will help us to see those issues or those sort of challenges get resolved sooner than it would take otherwise. As I would not take too much issue with, ultimately credit is a regulated industry for a reason. There is a lot at stake and there is not the most aware sort of customers who could be taken for a ride so there is a need of a neutral third party oversight provider. But the belts and the hooks could be more, could be set up in such a way that it's reflective of the century instead of the one that we left behind. Sure.   So what's your take on that? So I can answer that. You know, I think there's a huge market out there. Indian market is under penetrated, you know, the aspirations still remain in terms of having a home, having a credit card, having the option to buy the vehicle you want. And as they, you know, the millennials are growing and they're taking a vast portion of a population, the demand will just rise. So tapping that market, it becomes very, very important. And I think we've actively, Stashfin has actively gone and done that. And in fact, the government has done a great job. I think we are in the forefront when it comes to fintechs in payments. UPI is world class, just stabilizing the policies by the government, making sure there's no ambiguity as we enter these deep markets which has a potential becomes easier. And I think the sky is going to be the limit and India is going to be no less than any developed country when it comes to a credit footprint. Sure. Well, also naturally, I just want to understand that see the dislike, you know, mostly the Indians, you know, they deal with the cash, you know, actually. And being in a digital like the medium, how would you like, you know, gain a trust, you know, on those people like in the small towns, because they hardly use. You know, apps or the phones, basically. So how do you just explore that market in such way to educate them rather about this advantage of fintech apps and to transit through, you know, all those PTM and Google Pay. So how would you convince them in such a way? I'm happy to take that answer. So, you know, I agree, you know, with COVID, I think the eyes have opened, the telcos have going aggressively upgrading the three Gs to four Gs and then going to the five Gs. The penetration is going to be immense. The ones who are not penetrated who are not using smartphones or who are not there on the OTT. I think the network has been made pretty strong by the voter phones and the ideas and the air tells of India where you can go in and recharge your phone and the ideas to penetrate through those platforms and get credit imprint through those. So that's the strategy stashfin is taking when it is entering tier two, tier three and you know, the rural areas of India. Sure. And if you may ask, you know, about the growth prospects of the fintech startups across the Indian market, maybe down the five, six years, how would you see the market? I mean, we see a lot of growth opportunities across fintech. I think if you look at the overall fintech landscape, it's a huge, it's a huge landscape, right? So it's obviously payments, which, which are definitely always at the forefront and there has been a lot of work that has happened over the last five, six years, or even more on that and definitely India is now seen as the leader in payments globally.  So definitely on payments, we have made huge strides on lending. I think most of the consumer lending and SME lending startups started in India around 2013 and 2014 onwards and even in lending, again, we have seen a lot of, you know, growth and movement. I think that as you know, payments is kind of the first wave lending has been the sort of second wave payments is already in terms of the number of players it's become highly concentrated and I would say, you know, consolidated but at the same time the technology has been evolving very rapidly and even the large players are always you know, they have to be on the top of the game. Otherwise, you know, in six months, someone else could come up and take market share. So it is hugely competitive. I think with digital lending also, I think we are definitely in that phase and definitely from lending has been or in general it becomes tough during economic downturn. So we will definitely see a sort of a shake up some of which has already happened or is happening and we will see a little bit of a consolidation or we will see some of the larger players becoming larger and therefore that would also benefit in terms of growing the, you know, lending landscape. In terms of other verticals like insurance, wealth management, so insurance obviously I think the good news is that FDI has been opened up for some time now. So some of those things are very welcome news and I think definitely there would be more competition, more innovation as a result of that. Even in the wealth space, in the last few years, we have seen a lot of startups and a lot of those startups are now increasingly gaining traction and there's a huge consumer adoption. Definitely in COVID times, we have seen, you know, Zerodha emerged as one of the big, you know, fintech winners and this is obviously an amazing story where it's almost one of its kind and as a product and as a platform and they've really grown stupendously during the last, you know, couple of years, right? So definitely a lot of these amazing stories are now beginning to come up. We are now operating at a global scale and global players are taking note of what is happening in India in the entire fintech, you know, universe. We will soon see some of these Indian fintech players start to expand globally as well. We will see some sort of, you know, maybe Southeast Asian or some other neighboring countries expansion as well. So we really are building for the future, you know, there's a lot of innovation that is happening in the ecosystem and definitely I see that a lot of the, you know, fintech players are very ambitious and are very innovative and that is that that will ultimately drive the overall ecosystem and the industry forward. So I would say the future is bright and definitely we will see some very good companies and very, very good products that are being built already and will be successful at not just the Indian level but also the global level. Sure, sure, Brent, yeah.  So when it comes to, you know, the fintech startup, so what's your take on the policies, you know, by the government? So in general, I mean, the policy framework is, you know, from a startup perspective, it's pretty conducive. There are usually some confusion that sort of crops up from time to time but in general as startups, I would say that it is a conducive environment, especially when it comes to fintech having a very good regulator, very stable regulatory environment provided by the RBI and, you know, SEBI and some of these other regulators is also seen as a positive. So I would say overall policy is positive. Yes, we do have certain, you know, changes that keep getting announced sometime but that's true anywhere in the world and in general I would say it is a favorable environment overall. Sure. Sure. So, since all of you spoke about how financing is helping other than in particular India in the current time, so we also wanted to understand from each one of you how has been the funding scenario for all of you when you went out seeking funds from investors. I would like to understand, I mean, as an entrepreneur, does it make any difference when a woman is seeking funds as compared to a male counterpart? Yeah, I can answer that, you know, just before the lockdown we finished equity round of funding and since then, you know, the market was shrinking but we've seen surge of demand, you know, lenders coming to us and even though we had shut down dispersals, lenders wanting to lend to us for further lending to customers. So I don't think it's anything about a woman or a man, it's more about the business and how it's performing, how Nita said, sorry, how Nupur said that if it's growing, you know, there's no end to it, whether it's a man or a woman, it's just the strength of the business and we feel that during the strength of this business, Stashfin, we've seen a surge of lenders coming our way and wanting to partner with us. Sure, that's great to know. Priya, Nupur, any instances you would like to share with us? I mean, I think in terms of funding rounds, in general, we have to focus on what the opportunity is, what we're trying to build as a company, what the product is doing, how we're tracking to the metrics. So I think it's really, it's more about what you're building and how much conviction you have and how much proof points you're able to show in it rather than any sort of gender bias. It's obviously very difficult to do this kind of AB test to say that if there is an exactly same product, an exactly same business model and then if there were, in our case, we are two women co-founders and one more. So we're three co-founders. So it's very difficult to do this kind of AB testing and say that, okay, if there were three men in a room and versus two women and a man, how would that conversation go? So ultimately, you don't think about these things, you just focus on what you know as an entrepreneur and what we know is that there is this huge opportunity out there that we have a product that makes sense, that there is a huge value proposition and product market fit. And then so after a point, then it is about once you've got that initial product market fit, it is just about growing and it's about improving and executing on your plans and strategies. So I think that's what ultimately investors look at and it's obviously, you know, there are gender biases, but it's very difficult to say whether or not it has impacted us or not or how would have things turned out or would things have been different for us? Had things been different? So Nupur, do you have anything else, anything different to any other opinion to share with us?  The most important problem as Priya hinted at as well is finding your product market fit and the journey to finding that product market fit. That's the biggest challenge that you will face as an entrepreneur. And once you do that, then the rest of it becomes easy. Then you will raise your funds, then you will keep on growing your customers and have them pay you for it. Yes, because we are all credit businesses out here. So there are two forms of funding that we run on the debt funding and the equity funding. So in the wake of a crisis like COVID or post a crisis like COVID, what happens is applied to safety. So, and that's what we have seen reflected very clearly in debt investors. So there's a lot of demand or rather a lot of supply of debt towards the lenders, the fentech or otherwise, who have performed well during the COVID they have more and more debt available to them to because money needs deploying. And then lastly, on the equity front, I think. So we were in a good position going into COVID as well, because we have just risen around getting in. And then the middle of the COVID after having demonstrated good collection performance, and after also seeing the shakeup that was happening in the lending industry in the wake up in the week of COVID. It became very clear that now, more than ever before we have the opportunity we have the ground cleaner and greener in front of us to take the lead and and shoot for the market leadership opportunities. So we went on to do another top up fundraise middle of the year and attracted strong interest from our investors and coming back out of COVID strong. Now the market looks on you as with a lot of positive bias of given the fact that the company has survived COVID and come out of it well and growing, which helps the survivors. I would just also like to add here that we were looking at the recently published data by one of the investor firms talking about the 44 unicorns that have come up in India. Unfortunately, there's only one woman founder with the unicorn startup.  So it's more of a boys club which we see at the unicorn level. So do you think there is much more to do at our level or maybe the entrepreneurial ecosystem to understand more on where women can lead further in the coming time so that we have more unicorn founders. I mean, I'd say celebrate the fact that someone like Albany leading the charge and you know, Nike is such an amazing business and they're doing so well and really created a new category and are the category winner. So, so while you know it's one in 44 at the moment, I think that's having one role model or having at least one person out there is good inspiration for the rest of us. So definitely, I'm sure all of us aspire to be in that club. But also I think I think we need to, yeah, so therefore we should look at the positives we should look, look at it in a positive light that look, you know, 10 years ago or 20 years ago would we have imagined that this would happen and and so this is progress. It's slow progress, but it is progress. And we already have, you know, three founders who are women on this panel and there are actually a lot of women, you know, fintech founders already so yes we are still in a minority but that's also if you look at how in general women are, especially in the workplace in India, we are, we have less than 10 women in the workplace, formerly in India. And so a lot of those changes have to also start coming through right and and then you will soon see that there will be more women founded businesses there will be women businesses founded more towards women's issues or more generic generic issues all of those things will start coming up I don't think that this is something that we should be, we should feel bad about it something that yes is a work in progress. And we should actually be happy that more and more women are now taking the entrepreneurial plunge and we showed as an ecosystem support them and ensure that they grow and you know there are more and more role models being created for people to look up to I'll just add to that so when I was working for investment bank in the US, my role model was my part of my managing director there. And I want to be the same role model for my colleagues here at Stashman so we actively focus on women sharing we are already at 4060 ratio with 40% women and 60% men and soon we want to meet, we want to be at the 5050 ratios we just find it little challenging when it comes to stem to have equal ratios but I think the companies actively going on to campus, hiring folks earlier on and developing them to be in the space to follow their dreams and not get bogged down with the cliche role women have in their careers or in the lives of being an Indian here. So on the bright side I think beyond looking at CEO level positions, I think if we start looking at sort of key employees inside the organizations, I'm sure we would find a lot of strong and impactful women working inside these top 100 or whatever labeling you're using to find these unicorns or large companies. And yeah, I mean, I mean if we want to make a change then it has to start all the way from from primary school to secondary school to having more people more women and universities and stem fields and then more women in professional world, and then the follow on effect will start showing but it's a long term investment it's not something that you can flip a switch today that being said like you look at Indian banks. All the ladies are so many ladies are people at the top are women instead of men. And even inside the organizations where you don't see a female CEO when you look at sort of the key positions were running the companies look at Tesla for example, the person who is the CEO is a is a woman and other sort of people driving the company forward. So there's, there's a lot of inspiration that we can derive by changing our vantage point as well. So, so before we conclude a final question from each one of you, I mean, of course when we are talking about women in finance so I mean, what according to you would be your piece of advice to women who want to enter the finance field or looking at setting up an entrepreneurial venture in this space. I would just say follow your dream. There's no alternative to hard work. If you're doing if you're working hard and you are driven. There's nothing stopping you.  I would just say congratulations. It's a great time to be an entrepreneur entrepreneur and think space in India today. So let's talk. And other thing I would say is it's a regulated industry so have patience and especially for those working those who see themselves being fintech entrepreneurs in India. And just go to the bosses at the partners that you have beat bank or some strategic partner that you work with just go straight to the bosses. If you deal with the people at at the bottom will waste a lot of time. And as I said it's an exciting time to be a fintech entrepreneur in India. So who does So That's it. Take risks and but at the same time you know work hard and build your skills understand what is what is happening understand the pulse of the customer understand trends understand where you know market is going where regulation is going and and try and come up with ideas that are relevant not just for today but also for tomorrow and then yeah take risks and get your hands dirty. So With this we would like to conclude it and thank you for joining us and we're sure you're very happy women stay in advance and maybe have more such women entrepreneurs in India and next time when we talk we have more such unique on founder stories to be shared with each other. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks a lot. Bye bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye.


ALMA, the world's most complex, ground-based observatory, has just opened for business. The telescope is still being built, and its capabilities will continue to grow over the coming year. But even at this early stage, its images reveal a view of the universe that is invisible to normal telescopes. Thousands of scientists from around the world have competed to be among the first to use ALMA. With it, they hope to explore some of the darkest, coldest, furthest, and most hidden secrets of the cosmos. This is the ESOcast, cutting-edge science and life behind the scenes of ESO, the European Southern Observatory, exploring the ultimate frontier with our host Dr J, aka Dr Joe Liske. Hello and welcome to the ESOcast. In this episode, we'll get the latest news from ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter Submillimeter Array, as it begins its first science observations, and will reveal the first public image from ALMA, a dramatic view of galaxies that are undergoing a cosmic collision. We'll find out how astronomers around the world have been eagerly waiting to get their hands on this revolutionary telescope, and discover why this is only the beginning for the observatory. So far, only around a third of ALMA's 66 antennas have been installed at the observatory site on the Chachnantoa Plateau, 5,000 metres up in the Chilean Andes Mountains. And yet, even before it's completed, ALMA is already the most powerful telescope of its kind. ALMA observes the universe in light with millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths, roughly 1,000 times longer than visible light wavelengths. Observing these longer wavelengths allows astronomers to study extremely cold objects in space, which appear dark through normal telescopes. In addition, they are also very useful for peering inside dense clouds of cosmic dust, and for observing very distant objects in the early universe. ALMA is radically different from visible light and infrared telescopes. As well as looking at these longer wavelengths of light, it works in a totally different way. Instead of being one big telescope, ALMA uses an array of antennas spread out over distances of up to 16 kilometres. The views from each antenna are combined into one image by one of the world's fastest special-purpose supercomputers, the ALMA correlator, which can perform 17 quadrillion operations per second. Because of this, pictures from ALMA look quite unlike more familiar pictures of the cosmos. The ALMA team has been busy testing the observatories' systems over the past months in preparation for the first round of scientific observations. One outcome of their tests is the first image published from ALMA. This image was made using only 12 antennas, fewer than will be used for the first science observations, let alone the completed observatory, and spaced much closer together as well. Both of these factors make the new image just a taster of what is to come. The antennae galaxies are a pair of colliding galaxies with dramatically distorted shapes. While visible light shows us the stars in the galaxies, ALMA's view reveals the clouds of dense cold gas from which new stars form. Massive concentrations of gas are found not only in the hearts of the two galaxies, but also in the chaotic region where they are colliding. Here, the total amount of gas is billions of times the mass of our sun, a rich reservoir of material for future generations of stars. Observations like these will be vital in helping us understand how galaxy collisions can trigger the birth of new stars. This is just one example of how ALMA reveals parts of the universe that cannot be seen with visible light and infrared telescopes. Over the coming year, the sharpness, speed and quality of its observations will increase dramatically as more antennas become available and the array grows in size. But even with only part of the array in operation, this is already the best sub-millimeter wavelength image ever made of the antennae galaxies. ALMA could accept only about a hundred or so projects for this first nine month round of observations. Nevertheless, over the last few months, astronomers from around the world have submitted over 900 applications to use it, a record level of interest. The successful projects were chosen based on their scientific merit, their regional diversity and also their relevance to ALMA's major science goals. Let's hear from some of the astronomers who are planning to use ALMA and why they're so excited about this new telescope. One of the main reasons we're building ALMA is to study the birth of the solar system, in essence. The solar system was formed four and a half billion years ago and we'd like to understand how other solar systems have come into being. And ALMA's got the scale, the sensitivity and the resolution to make detailed studies of solar systems like ours on forming nearby in our galaxy. I look at molecular clouds in nearby galaxies. Molecular clouds are where stars form. The clouds are made up of very cold gas and studying the physical conditions in these clouds helps us to understand the star formation process. Currently, we can study molecular clouds only for very nearby galaxies out to about 30 million light years. With ALMA, we'll be able to study individual clouds and galaxies much, much further out. ALMA is going to be a very important instrument.  This is because all the intervening dust can obscure some of the shorter wavelength observations. So the very high angular resolutions and into the sub-millimeter band that the ALMA telescope will be able to observe at will be able to look at the fine-scale structural detail around the black hole. Well, we know of some galaxies that exist in the far away universe that are only seen in certain wavelengths. So for example, we know about radio galaxies that are not observed in any other wavelength, even with the most powerful telescopes. And we have been waiting for ALMA to give us the possibility to understand what these galaxies are and what is happening in them. Building work by ALMA's partner organizations from Europe, North America and East Asia will continue during the first science observations. By 2013, the observatory will be complete and will feature 66 antennas spread out over distances of up to 16 kilometers. By unfolding its enormous observational potential, ALMA will revolutionize many areas of astronomy and will provide us with profound insights into the universe. This is Dr. Jay, signing off for the ESOcast. Join us again next time for another cosmic adventure.


the national population commission npc has said that it may conduct another national consensus in 2022 npc federal commissioner in gunbe state abu baka jamboram viewed this on tuesday during a press conference he said however that the sensors would only hold if certain activities were completed such as demarcation administering questionnaire and seeking approval of the president abu baka said the npc sofa has completed demarcation in number 600 local government areas after the 774 in the country the last sensors conducted in nigeria was in 2006 hello hope you enjoyed the news please do subscribe to our youtube channel and don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates


Ukraine rejected the call of U.S. to surrender Bakhmut to Russians. The U.S. administration warned the Kiev government that the armed forces of Ukraine won't be able to hold the city of Bakhmut and advised it to withdraw troops from the city. The Washington Post reported, citing leaked secret documents. One of the documents says that Washington warned Kiev about the potential encirclement by Russian troops in Bakhmut back in January. The document, marked as top secret, says the steady Russian advances since November had jeopardized Ukraine's ability to hold the city and Ukrainian forces would probably be at risk of encirclement unless they withdraw within the next month. The newspaper said that all these warnings were ignored by the Kiev government. Kiev says the intensity of the use of heavy artillery and airstrikes in Donetsk region's city of Bakhmut, a hotspot in Russia's war with Ukraine, increased. Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hannah Malia said on Telegram that Russian offensives in the eastern part of the country continue stressing that Bakhmut and the town of Marinka remain at the epicenter of hostilities. Malia claimed that Russian offensives in the directions of Lyman, Avdivka and Marinka towns were unsuccessful.


Welcome folks, we at the Dow Industrial has finished down 190, Nasdaq off 155, S&Ps down 35, Gold contract down $6.60, trading at 2,000, 160 an ounce, we have Silver up 35 cents, $25.41 an ounce, Light Sweet Crude flat, $81, one penny, a barrel, notes and bonds, attendee and note, down 6, 6, trading 110 flat, the 30 year down 4 at 118, 19 and King Dollar, King Dollar up 77, 6, trading 103, 437, Euro 108, Yen 149, British pound, 127 to 1 to US dollar. We get over and take a look at the spy folks, we know we're going to have monster volume out here, okay so she's down 350 and right now we're getting 95 million, now that's not bad man, that's actually not that bad, not for operation expiration, that's still, yeah that's not bad, let me go into the queues, now there's going to be more volume that's going to be coming in folks, because right now it's only 401, they get to 4, quarter past 4 to put volume into this marketplace, look at the queues though, yeah the queues, the queues are rolling, the queues, they've done 66 million thus far, so same type of setup, you know this exercise that I did with the S&Ps, whoops to it that way, and then you're going to see all these high volume lows man, they're going to get tested, it's way too many of them, and today just might be the roll too by the way, just as possible it is, because yeah, so what ends up happening even though it's operation expiration, when you have a heavy, when you come down and it's operation expiration, the volume is up, guess what, that's the direction the market wants to go, if we had gone up that's the direction the market wants to go, so it looks to me like this roll is actually here right now, because what's happening here, if you're watching Tiger TV, remember that the program is archived, this is coming right into the bottom of the consolidation before the gap, with expansion of volume, so more than likely we're going to go have a roll downtown next week before those ABC structures get finished folks, have a great one, have a safe one, come back and visit Tommy Monday morning, kicks us off 9am, great show folks.


Everybody forced to your ripping it's 2023. I'm at collegiate football hobby Case number one five box case number one random teams find those results anytime late sports cards calm There's a link currently in chat. Let's go ahead and get started Hopefully not too fast, but we do need to move a little bit. We are behind about 20 plus minutes Do it Not a fan.  It's even greener on the inside. All right, let's see some crazy stuff here. All right, starting off We've got a Stefan digs out of 99 so with collegiate products It goes current team or longest tenured if they're inactive. So this goes to Buffalo He thinks he's lost things for you First hits 16 of 17 Michael Mayer glove patch partial under armor logo Vegas on that one Got a relic auto to 99 is Jalen Carter for the Eagles 99 to 99 bookend Jumbo patch auto 80 Perry Rookie to 99. I believe he's a saint The same colors right there with wake 80 Perry. Yep. He is a saint Very nice two-color patch auto is gonna be to 65 is Jackson Smith and Jigba for the Seahawks First receiver off the board good hit Seattle The next one is pretty darn cool actually Hate the Gators. This is pretty sick three of five dual auto Neil Anderson and Fred Taylor So Fred Taylor is a Jagd Neil Anderson. I would guess bears, right? They never play for anybody else. So bears and jaguars random at the end. That's pretty cool, man Yielanderson and Fred Taylor dual auto new light Jags bears on a sticky note on there The Jalen Carter signature That's that is that even a J. Yeah, dude. He was like he's like give me out of here like JC JC JC I want to see how he signs is like contract stuff Can't be the same, right? Okay, it could be Going to the Rams here Matthew Stafford based in 99 dual Jersey Bijan Robinson and Jamal Charles 42 and 99 Bijan's a falcon Jamal Charles should be chiefs longer standard should be Let me get that one a look real quick But that'll be a random. I think it's by a few years, right? He didn't play forever. Oh, yeah, it's by a lot actually by way more than I thought I envision him playing like like six years or so the chiefs and a Few are more than like one with the Broncos, but it was just one with the Broncos one with the Jags and nine with the chiefs Got an auto of Drew Sanders rookie to 49 Drew Sanders Denver Denver on the Drew Sanders Next up going to the Texans auto to ten four of ten signature moves will Anderson jr Top five pick first defensive player drafted Traded up for him to there you go Texans Jersey auto for the Chargers to 99 with the Go Frogs die cut as Max a Duggan Dugan random at the end right there and a random at the end a lot of randoms, but a random at the end To 99 immaculate ink Quinn Ewers 60 or 55 of 99 you have 55 a 99 Quinn Ewers best of luck everybody that'll be random between all 28 spots Nice. I'm sure we're still that on the next one right now. Yeah, so they're the next one guys NT teams on sale Alright, you got a two out to 99 for the Dolphins jumbo this is a Definitely a Shane Carter here jumbo checker to relic Chris Rodriguez jr. To 25 Chris Rodriguez jr. Is Commanders Patch auto again Jalen Carter Eagles to 99 This is a jco useful for this time really worse. It's touching this time Auto Michael Wilson rookie auto to 49 or redemption of next Michael Wilson like I should know Michael Wilson by now See Cardinals Yep, Cardinals in the Michael Wilson Demption is a Clark Phillips the third immaculate introductions Clark Phillips the third for the Falcons Immaculate impressions or Immaculate introductions Nice one here Detroit rookie Jersey auto Hendon Hooker Detroit that is awesome for the Tennessee text right there Maybe that's the KE from hooker. I don't know nice when they're lions That's cool little nameplate action or should be Let's have to say a hundred percent sure but Looks like ke to me. All right moving on now 10 of 10 is Wes Welker He is a Patriot longest tenure 10 of 10 to Wes Welker Quad patch to 25 with Danny and Tomlinson chargers for this next guy real quick going to the Lions rookie conference patch auto one of two Brian Branch Dude the bottom right of the SEC logo Brian Branch again Detroit's Grads Detroit. We're gonna get that one in a mag for sure. That's pretty Platinum foil on it. Oh, yeah rookie auto to 99 is a Michael Wilson that goes to the Cardinals again redemption done TV on wicks rookie patch auto gold wicks is Packers packers on the wicks. All right, that's pretty darn cool That's nasty patch auto Steelers Troy Palamalu 19 of 25. That is not from this year as 2015 Game use patch That's an unreal hit game used Palamalu patch auto. I would say that's the coolest car I've hit so far Yeah, just because it's Palamalu game use and it's an eight-year-old card Be this Matthew Wi with the Steelers that's going into a mag so freaking cool Nobody likes the Steelers, but that's a sick card I don't see how many NFL teams I could talk trash about during this break. How many collegiate teams too? I already talked trash about the Gators Steelers Jets I'm gonna hit a Jets car. I just started talking trash. All right. Let's see. Let's see we got Oh, this is going to go To the Jets. It's a Dalvin cook to 99 Jets Dalvin cook To 99 let Dalvin cook Quad Jersey Greg Olson to 99 he goes Carolina longest tenure Dude, Mike. How many Michael Wilson autos are we gonna hit to 49 here? That's Cardinals The Cardinals even be comboed if they're gonna hit Michael Wilson every box Nolan Smith Eagles on the rookie auto here to 49 Eagles rookies need to learn how to uh, sorry, so George maybe some Georgia players Maybe Oh, man, Lane's gonna be jealous of this Auto to 99 Justin Tucker Ravens He was a beast in college too Nice card Ravens and patch on a rookie to 25 Vikings Jordan Addison Very nice USC some big cards here There we go. Let's do Some randoms here. Oh boy. Oh boy Gonna be a lot of multi-randoms every case. I believe Bishonis Falcons Jamal Charles chiefs dual auto Jaguars and bears And then the Ewers Oh man, oh man Okay So we got some multi-randoms here between the Falcons and the chiefs We got Bishon and Jamal Charles dual relic between the bears and the jaguars Neil Anderson Fred Taylor dual auto to five. That's a pretty cool one, man And Quinn Ewers auto to 99 between everybody. He is still in college. That is a crazy Texas quarterback room They got right there With arch and uh, Quinn Ewers. That's insane, man All right, let's roll the dice 12 times on each. Oh geez man. Oh geez. All right, everybody Relax a bit 12 times here one two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11 and 12 Chiefs up top get the dual relic Dual auto one two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11 and 12 Bears get the dual auto And for the Ewers best of luck everybody One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 11 and 12 Cowboys Quinn stays in Texas the cowboys get the Ewers Pretty big one right now a pretty big one in the future. Maybe as well A quick recap. We had the Greg Olson quad relic Ladanian Tomlinson, Chris Rodriguez Jr in the checkered pattern. It's cool A glove relic with the um under armor logo to 17 is Michael Mayer Autos, Redemptions, all that stuff. Anton Tavey Underwicks, Gold, Rookie Patch Auto Packers Falcons, Clark Phillips, Justin Tucker Michael Wilson, Hinden Hooker Jalen Carter, Max Dugan Jalen Carter Got AT Perry, Jackson Smith and Jigba Uh Nolan Smith, Michael Wilson, Michael Wilson Drew Sanders, Jordan Addison's a nice one, Will Anderson Jr to 10 We had the Ewers, Rats again Dallas on the random with that one to 99 Pahlamalu Game Warrant Patch Auto from 2015 iMac Collegiate to 25 for the Steelers And SCC Patch Auto Brian Branch to two That'll do it. Thanks again everybody moving on


Good afternoon, welcome to Think Tech Hawaii's Movers, Shakers, and Reformers, Politics in Hawaii series. I'm your host, Carl Campania. Today, we're going to talk about politics in another way. We're going to talk about the campaigns that go on. We're going to talk about recent campaigns nationally, but we're also going to talk about how locally a number of groups are starting to organize for the 2018 election cycle that's coming up. And for that conversation, my guest today is Mr. Josh Brosch, President of Pono Hawaii Initiative, so you will meet him shortly. But to start with, we have our, this is going to be a light, Trump-dump segment. So first of all, I want to jump into the elections that happened yesterday. We have the Georgia 6th election as well as the South Carolina 5th district elections that happened yesterday. It concluded last night. In both of those cases, the Republican one. Okay, not great for Democrats on the outset, but the spin, I guess, that we want to put on that is it's important to recognize that those are both Republican Party strongholds in those districts, such that the most recent Republican that was in those seats as of and was elected as of this last November, 2016, it had a 23 and a 26-point win for the Republican. And yesterday, both of those seats were about a 3-point, 3-to-4-point win, you know, margin of victory. So therefore, it's about a 20-point wing towards the Democrats. And actually, all five of the special elections that we've had over the past several months to replace the outgoing or, I should say, the appointed positions for the Trump administration, all five have been won by Republicans, but all five have demonstrated a significant swing in Republican strongholds, once again, towards the Democratic Party. So that actually builds very well for 2018. So what I would say is, as we look at this, what it is is, you know, aside from the obvious concerns from the Russia investigations and the obstruction of justice and so forth, aside from all of those issues, we've got the healthcare concern. We've got the fact that Kansas has proven that their trickle-down supply-side economics does not work. And that's a message that needs to be really understood and get out there. In Kansas, they had to change their policy, and they had to raise taxes because it does not work. So what I would say going forward, and this is where I'll leave the Trump dump, it's going forward, the message that I will recommend nationally that we have and that we participated is got two sides. Number one, let's make sure everyone understands supply-side economics failed in Kansas. Failed in Kansas. Compare that to Minnesota and compare that to even just the city of Seattle in Oregon where they have raised the minimum wage up to $15 per hour, and in Minnesota they did the complete demand side economics, which is complete opposite of the Republican perspective. And both of those have been wildly successful with none of the fear-based, I guess, concerns that the GOP leveled at them. So anyway, that's an important one. Then the second one is if they're about to remove 23 million people plus from the health care, I don't see how that in any way is positive because that impacts everybody across the board, specifically children and the elderly. And what's more, we're talking about kids that have pre-existing conditions such as cancer, and you're about to just take that away from them. I don't see how that is a moral choice that they can make, but it's what they're making. So those two things alone, I think, should be enough to swing the 2018 election cycle nationally. Now, locally, we have a different story, and that's where we get back to our guest and what the rest of this conversation is going to be about. Locally, in Hawaii here, we have a Democratic Party-dominated state and we have a new Democrat recently transitioned from a Republican party to an independent two Democrat just this last weekend. So our party is growing, and we have a dominant position, at least as it appears. So how do we proceed and how do we address this from an election cycle perspective? Yes, there's nationally, but it's locally that we want to actually talk about how this can work. So to help me understand that and to talk through that a little bit, I want to bring back our guest. I want to actually introduce our guest, Mr. Josh Frost. Once again, president of what is it, Pono Hawaii Initiative. Thanks for joining the show. I appreciate it. Yeah, thank you very much. Thanks for having me. So first of all, so we're going to talk about the Pono Hawaii Initiative and what you're doing and how you're really doing that, what your goals are and so forth. Before we do that though, let's have the audience here learn a little bit about you. What have you been up to? What are you doing? I know you're also taking classes and so forth. What are you about and how did you get where you are now? How did I, oh, that could be a long story. So as it relates to the show, in 2004, 2005, I read Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States. And if you haven't read it, everyone should read it because it's a fantastic book. And from there, I was so sort of inspired and moved by it that I wanted to get involved in politics. And eventually I chose the Democratic Party locally over the Green Party because I actually wanted to get stuff done. And I didn't believe that the Green Party could do that. I identify as a progressive. I identify as a Democratic socialist. I've been called a communist. I've been called all sorts of things. I've been involved in local politics since 2006. I helped found progressive Democrats of Hawaii. In 2007, I helped found what would become Equality Hawaii and was one of the lead organizers in that organization for civil unions and marriage equality, something I'm very proud of. And I've been an officer and activist inside the Democratic Party of Hawaii since about the same time, 2006. OK, you've also worked at the legislature or in the governor's office. So you've been involved on that side. Yes. You've participated in policy agenda and ideas. Yeah, so I've worked in the executive branch. I've worked in the legislative branch. I've worked as an activist. I've worked on campaigns. At one point early on, actually my very first political job was I was the office manager for the Democratic Party. This was probably 2009. I did that for a while before going to work at the legislature. So yeah, I've had more than many hats and I've done many jobs. That's excellent. Thank you for all that you have done throughout all of this because that's inspiring. And it's important for people who are new to engaging to understand how things happen. And oh, you read a book. And that is an amazing book. How would it say? Yes, absolutely. And knowing that, OK, I wanted to get involved. How do I get involved? Where do I go? Who do I contact? And knowing that there are dozens of groups out there and some of them more aggressive than others. Some of them more progressive than others. There are Republicans in Hawaii with a few of them. So OK, again, thank you for all of that. So now you are president of Pono Hawaii Initiative. And that is just kicking off this year. Yes. So the executive director who is also the founder of Hawaii Alliance for Progressive Action Hapa, Gary Husser, former state senator, former Kauai County Councilman, awesome, awesome progressive. And he and I have been talking for a while about trying to change the nature of electoral politics, trying to change the nature of the legislature and city councils. And earlier this year with a handful of other activists from Hawaii, we formed Pono Hawaii Initiative. Our official sort of kickoff launch was just a week ago, but we've been incorporated for, I think, three or four months now. OK. And is that an offshoot of Hapa? Or is that related? It's not really related. There's parallel missions. Hapa is a C3 that works on issues and can't do electoral politics, can't endorse candidates, can't give money to candidates. Pono Hawaii Initiative is a C4. Our primary focus, according to the IRS, is lobbying. But we can endorse candidates. We can give money to candidates. We will, hopefully, within the next, well, by the end of the year, be starting a PAC with the intention of identifying and supporting progressive candidates who really are getting into, who want to run for office because they aren't happy with where things are. They're not necessarily looking for a new gig. They're not necessarily looking to make a splash some more or to be influential. They believe strongly in the issues they care about and the issues that affect their communities. And those are the sorts of people that we want to try to support moving forward. So what would you say? Give us the elevator pitch for Pono Hawaii Initiative. What is it about? And why should someone want to participate? Why should someone want to donate? OK, so for the people who pay attention, the last year, nationally, politics was just abysmal. We have a president who doesn't know anything about anything. Or care. Or care, yeah. And locally, in 2017, pretty universally, everyone agrees that it was a pretty epic fail for the legislature. Yeah, the entire session passed very little. Yeah, and what they did pass was nonsubstantive. And this has been going on for a while. I do agree that this year was sort of egregious in there. Workstream. Yeah, and their inability to get anything accomplished. Which is fascinating considering it's a Democratic party dominated. Well, so let me say it is. So the legislators in the legislature are overwhelmingly Democrats. I would not, as a member of the party, I would not say that it is a Democratic party controlled legislature. And I think it's a minor distinction, but it's an important one. OK, explain that. So the people in the legislature have a D next to their name. But if you were to ask them, what's in the platform? Or why are you a Democrat? I'm not sure that they would answer in specifics beyond the sort of broad big 10, oh, I care about working people and I care about making Hawaii better. Well, everybody dies in the environment. Right, right. But if you look at what they do and not what they say, if you look at the issues that they support or oppose, it took them a decade or more to do an increase in the minimum wage. This year, they wouldn't even consider a $15 minimum wage. There have been people who've been working on paid family leave for the better part of a decade. Equal pay. Equal pay. There's environmental issues and water issues. The 2501 from last year, two years ago, they basically just gave a handout to A&B for water rights. I mean, these are things that progressives, Democrats, the local people, can all get behind. And our legislature, their general approach is we'll move slowly. We've got to do this incrementally. We've got to do this step at a time. And it hasn't worked. Politics is a conversation. It is. No, and I agree. It is a conversation. We have to go through the conversation, and we have to find a consensus. And we have to work our way through so that we have a consensus. Yes. The disconnect is the consensus between whom and whom. Yeah. No, it is true. And there is a spectrum, even among Democrats, and frankly, even among progressives. There is a spectrum on how far do we go and how quickly. And when I first started, I was bright-eyed and optimistic and idealistic and thought, well, if we just work really hard, we can get everything we want. We all start there. And, right, exactly. But it is a hard slog. You have to be prepared to take less than everything you want just to move the ball forward. And for me, the perfect example was two or three years ago when we passed the 10-10 minimum wage. I was legislative chair for the party at the time and was working with the coalition that passed that bill. And we were originally pushing for $12 over, I think, two or three years. And we got 10-10 over four years. Which we're still not there yet. We're still not yet. January 2018 will finally be at 10-10, which will be just enough maybe to cover inflation. So when the legislature said, well, we'll give you 10-10 over four years, my position was, no, we're coming into an election year. And I wanted to use it as an issue. Why can't you give people a living wage? And a good friend of mine said, look, that's fine. But there are people working now who earn desperate need of a raise. Let me put a little context around that. 10-10 an hour for a 40-hour work week is $440 a week before taxes, which means we're talking $1,700 a month before taxes. How much is rent in Hawaii typically? Well, I don't know what it is. I mean, I pay $1,000 a month.  Just for myself, for a small two-bedroom. And that's because my landlord is incredibly accommodating. They could get double what I'm paying. Okay, so just to frame that idea about that. So okay, we're gonna have to take a break and then we're gonna jump back and we're gonna learn more about Pono-Hawaii initiative. So thank you for joining us. This is Think Tech Hawaii's Movershakers and Reformers, Politics and Hawaii series. Thanks again for my guest, Josh Bross, for being here today. And we'll see you in one minute. You're watching Think Tech Hawaii, which streams live on ThinkTechHawaii.com, uploads to YouTube and broadcasts on cable OC16 and O'Lello 54. Great content for Hawaii from Think Tech. Some say scuba divers are the poor man's astronaut. At DiveHeart, we believe that to be true. We say forget the moan. DiveHeart can help children, adults and veterans of all abilities escape gravity right here on Earth. Search DiveHeart.org and imagine the possibilities in your life. Aloha, my name is Raya Salter and I'm the host of Power Up Hawaii, which you can see live from one to one 30 every Tuesday at ThinkTechHawaii.com and then later on YouTube. I am an energy attorney, clean energy advocate and community outreach specialist. And on Power Up Hawaii, we come together to talk about how can Hawaii walk towards a clean, renewable and just energy future? To do that, we talk to stakeholders all over the spectrum from clean energy technology folks to community groups, to politicians, to regulators, to the utility. So please join us Tuesdays at one o'clock for Power Up. Welcome back to ThinkTechHawaii's Movers, Shakers and Reformers, Politics and Hawaii Series. Once again, I'm your host, Carl Campania. Welcome once again, Mr. Josh Brosh, president of Pono Hawaii Initiative. We are here today talking about, I guess, well, we're learning about Pono Hawaii Initiative, but we're talking about Hawaii politics and how we are trying to move some things forward and chain, which change might look like. So let's go back to specifically Pono Hawaii Initiative. Tell us about your short-term, long-term goals, what you're trying to achieve. Okay, so long-term, we wanna change the culture of politics in Hawaii and we wanna get good issues passed for the people of Hawaii. By culture, what are we talking about? Culture, so specifically, the easiest way to explain it is to change the leadership structure in the legislature with bringing more progressives, solidly progressive legislators replacing moderate to conservative Democrats in the House and the Senate to move the entire legislature to the left. Try to get more things passed. How do we identify which, so you're talking about finding challengers for some of these seats? Yes, so first, so it's sort of a two-fold with respect to the election, it's identifying which legislators might be vulnerable and then identifying people in those districts that are viable, right? There's lots of progressives everywhere. They've gotta be able to win, right? They've gotta be able to put in the time, they've gotta be able to raise the money, and they need to be, I mean, it sounds sad to say, but on some level, they need to be legitimate in order to be taken seriously by the electorate and therefore win an election, right? I mean, we want wins, right? And in order to do that, we need to be very targeted in which races, which legislators, which districts we focus on. Have you, we're going to that question. As far as the electability side of it again, what sorts of things do you look for? Well, so if they've run before, we wanna sort of see how well they performed, how much money they raised, get a sense of how much effort they put into walking the district, and then look at the numbers, like how close do they get to winning in that race?  Do you think you can do better, right? If they didn't raise enough money, do you think you can raise more money? We might be able to help with that, right? Do you have the time to do the door knocking that's really required? I mean, it's a full time, I mean, it's sadly, it's a full time job. It really is, it really is. Oh, well, you know, right? Yeah, I did, I ran last year for state senate, I did not win. But I did knock on the door, and I did meet a lot of people, and for me, what I came down to was, I enjoyed those conversations. When I had the opportunity to actually meet people throughout the district, I enjoyed those conversations. I really appreciated being able to learn what their interests were, what their concerns were, and try to find out beyond just my road needs repairs, what they were really hopeful, as far as the legislature was concerned, and those are some of the things that I appreciated the most.  And I say, well, money's important, right? I mean, you need a little bit of money to do a flyer, you need money for signs and things like that, but you don't need to match an incumbent dollar for dollar if you hit every house at least twice. And because... Like by hit you mean... Knock on, doorknock, right? Because what I, the challenge I had, because I hit a number of houses twice, but some of those houses that I hit twice, both times no one was home. So there's only so much you can do. Which is why a little bit of money is necessary. For the mailer. Right, but you're not gonna, you're not, I mean, the odds are, unless the incumbent is just wildly unpopular, you're not gonna outfund raise them. I mean, incumbents have that, you know... The power of incumbents. Yeah. They've got name recognition, they've got, they're gonna have the knee jerk support from all of the groups out there that would otherwise support you because we wanna make sure that... Right. All that. And then also, and they're not likely, because they're sort of comfortable, they're not likely to do that legwork of doorknocking that I think is required. Right, because maybe in some instances, they did it 20 years ago. Right. And now they don't do that anymore. Because they haven't had a serious challenge in forever. Many of them haven't had a challenge. Right, right. And so we wanna try to change that.  I mean, good candidates, but people who we think we can't. So a solid progressive agenda, someone who is willing to stand up and go out there and champion the progressive agenda, which is a more left of Democrat, certainly more left of center than most of Democrats. So what sorts of issues would you consider to be more progressive? Well, so again, I mean, $15 minimum wage, paid family leave, there's daycare, there's disclosure and regulation of pesticides, water rights, local food production, affordable housing, homelessness.  I hear that. And by the way, I'm all for that. What I find fascinating is a lot of that seems like it's just more common sense though, not just a progressive agenda, but common sense as far as water rights are concerned. So what's the, I don't understand the part, we don't go into, that's a whole other show, I think. You go into those things and try it. So, okay, so those are the sorts of things. You wanna have someone who's able to be conversant in one of those issues in multiple? Well, they need to have an inclination, right? I mean, most of the people that we're sort of looking at already have a history in activism. They already have a history on issues, right? Some of them have already run before. So, we're not looking necessarily for people who we need to educate and train, if only because they're less likely to be right. There is a different program for that. But people who have the experience and already sort of know the issues and can speak intelligently on them in simple language to voters. Yeah, okay. That's the, so that's the election. That's part of the electability part, actually, is how well you communicate with somebody when you just talk to them about different issues. Right, and connect with them. Yeah. Right, I mean, yeah, so that's the election side and actually not, again, sort of not the majority of the 49, 51% of Ponohua initiative. The other half will be organizing around ballot initiatives, right? So, well, so the easiest example, although we won't end up doing it, is a county level minimum wage. Now, the state law says the legislature, the state is responsible for setting the minimum wage. But if we could do things on housing, right? Issues that have to potentially have to do with rail. I mean, the rail was approved by ballot, right? By voters. So we're looking at doing a ballot initiative, I think initially on Oahu and Kauai. Oahu, I think we're looking more along the lines of homelessness, housing, economic justice. We're still trying to find the right issue. Yeah. But basically take it to the voters and say, this is something that the city council has failed to move forward on. Do you support it? And the state as well, because it's not just one. They both have to have that issue. Right, right, right. But if they're, because it'll be a county level issue, I mean, we want to sort of focus on, you know, politicians maybe just generally, elected officials have failed to move forward on this issue, whatever we end up having it be. On Kauai, I think it's going to be something more along the sort of GMO pesticide regulatory stuff. But again, that's, it's very complicated. There's timelines we have to get. I think on Oahu, it's something like 28,000 signatures. Oh, signature, signature, signature. So saying that, I will segue into Pono Hauai initiatives, we're just getting started. For people who want to help, who want to help with candidates, who want to help get signatures for the ballot initiative, they can email me. And helping comes in multiple different ways. So yeah, I definitely want to. So that's one way. So, but also if you don't have the time, we'd love to, you know, love it if you gave a donation. If you don't have the time, if you don't have the money, there's a way to help out, whether it's showing up and helping sign waving, showing up at canvassing. Yeah, absolutely. So going to knock doors, helping to do phone banking, anything possible to help doesn't always have to be money. Money goes a long way because it costs money to get the mailers out as well. Yeah, I mean, for me, the, you know, the boots on the ground, the hands-on work, and I don't want to minimize the money because we need to be able to function, but it's really for the sake of candidates and for the sake of moving issues forward, it is really the boots on the ground activist work. Phone banking, sign waving, you know, getting signatures to supporting candidates during whatever, that's really important, but people have families and lives and they're busy. And so in those cases, I say, okay, well, if you can't help us out with any of that, can you give us $20, $15, you know, whatever, because that's hugely appreciated. So how would someone who's interested in supporting, how would they contact Polno Hawaii Initiative? How would they contact you? So there is a website, PolnoHawaiInitiativeAllSpeltOut.org. I know it's kind of, it's long, but all the other good domain names were taken. So PolnoHawaiInitiative.org. There it is. All spelled out, yeah, there you go. On there, there is a place to sign up for a mailing list. Okay. And there is a place to donate through our PayPal account. Okay. So those are the two sort of quickest, easiest. So you're operational. And now on this page, on this page, you have our Facebook or on your website, you have the list of issues and agenda items you have. No, not yet. So on the website, there's a little bit about our vision and our mission and a little bit about our story of how we came out, you know, how we sort of got to where we are as an organization and why we think the work is important. The website will continue to add functionality and add information as we move forward. But right now I will admit it's a pretty basic. I mean, I think it looks nice, but it is very, this is very basic website.  Right. So we need money to come in. Sign up for the mailing list. I mean, the most important thing I'd say is if you can, give us money. If you can't, that's okay. Sign up on our mailing list. And I wanna urge people, and I know people don't like to do it, when they fill out the form online to include their residential address. I know that makes people a little... Not their PO box. Not their PO box, because as we move forward, we wanna be able to identify which districts people live in so that we can target them, go support this guy who's running in this. Because elections are about the district. Right. So, and I know people that makes people comfortable. I promise we don't sell that information, we don't use it egregiously, we don't give it to people who aren't supportive of the organization. We use it strictly to keep people informed about what we're doing, what issues are going on, events, things like that. So, please, if you sign up, give us your email address, but equally as important, give us your residential address. I'll also recommend it's not just an email address, it's the email address that you will actually look at. Yeah, well, yeah, that's true. And reply. Right. If it goes into your spam, then it doesn't really do anybody any good. We're actually towards the end of our show, I think we only have about 30 seconds left. Okay, so if people have specific questions, they can email me directly. at josh at ponohawaiinitiative.org. Okay. Josh at ponohawaiinitiative.org, if you want to have some specific questions or want to follow up with Josh directly. Yeah, and also on our Facebook, if you leave a message there, someone will get back to you as soon as we can. Okay, well, thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. There's a lot of work in front of us looking forward to that. Anyone who wants to help, anyone who wants to be involved with and engage this entire industry, this whole politics, please. Please engage these conversations. Please contact and find out how you can help and where you can help. Yeah, we need everyone's help. Absolutely. So thank you so much. Thank you very much. Appreciate being on the show. You should come back again and let me know what is coming up and activities that you've got coming up and other things. So keep in touch and we'll have you back on the show. Definitely, definitely. Thank you very much. Thank you for joining us. This is Think Tech-A-Wise, Movers, Shakers and Reformers, Politics in Hawaii series. Thank you to the crew and thank you to the staff. And everybody here at Think Tech Hawaii, thanks again to Mr. Josh Bross for joining us. Really appreciate it and we will see you next time.


Hey, there's a big question that I hear a lot on our YouTube channel and comments and that's how to spend money How should I invest? What should I do? What should I have as an insurance agent to really get to the next level? Even to get started as a new insurance agent, so I'm gonna go through some things that you should consider Investing in as an insurance agent and I think a couple of these things I'm gonna share with you will actually Surprise you all right, so stay with me. We're gonna talk about how to invest and so I'm gonna go through some basic things The first thing is you need to think about it would be a CRM okay something to track your clients it don't have to be don't have to be expensive I think we have a if you go to like training dot Cody askings calm We have an agent resource library, and I think we've got a link for radius Bob a CRM for like $19 a month Okay, so they go to training that Cody askings calm to check that out and So that's one thing that I know that I didn't always have originally as an agent But I wish I would have it's helpful keeps everybody organized You can export you can mail you can you can have it track birthdays There's a lot of little things that you can do so a CRM is a smart investment as an insurance agent If you don't already have one or if your company doesn't have one the second thing is business cards You know even though people play say well business cards are outdated And I personally don't use business cards nowadays That doesn't mean that my client doesn't want me to leave one when I go sell them and take their money All right, so think about business cards as like a you can have digital business cards You can have real business cards, but if you're still seeing seniors and you're out with families every day You need something to leave with them the shows who you are they can look you up They can remember you and it's still very very important All right, the third thing that I like even better than business cards is business card Magnets I used to use this at homes Constantly I would leave it on I would literally go place it on their fridge for them If you leave it up to them, they probably won't go put it on the fridge people are lazy I would take it and I would put it on their fridge, and I guarantee you I've got clients from ten years ago Eight years ago six years ago that still have my magnet on their fridge because I still get calls today Which is powerful. It's crazy. How easy is it for someone to lose a business card or a pin? They get thrown away they get in the drawer They get put here or there they end up in the junk everybody's got a junk drawer, right business card magnets are visible They're right in front of you. They're on their fridge, and they're powerful All right, the fourth thing you need to really strongly consider is you need to consider investing in in some marketing All right, whether that's whether that's you doing it yourself Whether that's you buying leads from security leads whether that's you buying marketing services from security marketing And scourge and marketing is managing those marketing services for you.  Those are prospects I don't care if it's one market marketing leads whatever you got to do door knocking cold calling it whatever Businesses chambers networking you have to be getting in front of 10 people every single week We got a course called prospecting 101 in our course library at Cody askings commets prospecting 101 It's like a couple hundred bucks, and it teaches people how to Invest how to get in front of people consistently had a prospect as insurance agent because prospecting is one of the main things that insurance agents struggle with Marketing is key because it can help you be consistent week in and week out. All right, the next thing is A website most eight most people don't have a website. They don't have a digital presence They're not investing in SEO for long-term growth I would say that the the clients that are making the most amount of money with us I'm talking 50 grand a month 100 grand a month 200 grand a month or companies that are making 10, you know a million bucks a month that we're managing stuff for them. They're investing in long term Growth all right through websites blogging YouTube videos. They're investing in the future They're investing in Tomorrow's dollar instead of today's dollar. They're thinking more long-term than short-term And that's why a website and SEO is extremely important. It's courage here. It's courage in marketing one of the companies. I own We do websites and SEO for Insurance agents. It's extremely affordable. It's something that you need to have something that you can add to your business card Your business card magnet something can add to your Facebook page You can add to any of your marketing that you're doing You need to have somewhere that someone can go online if they search I challenge you to try this right now if you go search say you're selling Medicare search Medicare insurance agent on Google in your area whatever product you're selling final expense insurance agent life insurance agent property and casualty insurance agent It's whatever search what you sell your core product that you sell Car insurance agent whatever in your local market and see who pops up and then study what they're doing Because even though they may be number one on Google They may they may show up as the number one Google my business area and everything else Or they may ship on Google Maps. You can be where they are And it doesn't take as long as you think so if you started thinking about long-term and having a digital presence and having a website All right, it's your digital handshake. You need to be thinking about those things as well All right, so we've talked about CRM business card business card Magnus marketing leads website SEO Another thing that most people don't think about when it comes to investing is they don't think about Investing their time. They don't think but they don't think about reading books audio books learning I am constantly trying to invest in YouTube videos, etc. I try to invest my time in learning what there's The reason people still don't succeed is There's things that other people know that you need to know to win and succeed But your your ego is getting in the way of you spending money or we're reading a book to know what other people know Right. I spend not only time Not only energy But I also spend Money I would say that I spend if you think about all the events that I go to and when I say this number you Most of you are going to think I'm full of it, but I promise you my video guys are here They can attest to this when I think about all the events that I go to when I think about the cruises when I think about the big Conferences when I think about the books when I think about the audio books when I think about the Coaches when I think about the you know the YouTube coach and the business coach and all these other people and the universities everything else I guarantee you I spend about $100,000 per year Just on investing in myself And I feel like I'm slowly trying to get to where I want to go because I'm not afraid to take some freaking risk Most people are afraid of this But I'm telling you anybody that's been uber successful in the world had to take some risk along the way We've got 8% nation now We've we've we've we've also were a half a million bucks investing into this because it's going to change the future of our industry and I'm thinking Long term instead of short term. Alright, so you can invest time You can invest your energy Right, most people need to be working out that maybe they've been working on themselves and you can invest your money in and in you and That's an investment that you should be making consistently. Alright, they say the top CEO reads a book every single week I'm starting a book of the month and I'm trying to get to where I eventually start reading a book a week It sounds like a lot But if they top wealthiest people in the world are doing it then why wouldn't I do it? Those are success habits that you need to be thinking about. Alright, so one thing I want to leave you with is my Power five my power five of five things that I do every single day that our investments Back into my business and myself. Alright, I call it my power five and there are five things that I Really focus on doing to start my day. I want to wake up between five and 559 a.m. That's called the 5 a.m. Club. Alright, that's number one number two I want to get a good workout in because when my energy is right when I'm upbeat when I'm enthusiastic I'm excited when I'm moving fast-paced. I have better days than when I don't it's important Whether you think it's important or not. Alright, it's super important. Your health and your energy is Everything in my opinion. Alright, the third thing is I write down My goals having goals and having something to shoot for when I made 117 K my first eight months I wrote down that I wanted to make a hundred K my first year and I wrote it down every flipping day And then it became a reality Weird that when you write something down you get serious about something that it ends up becoming a reality All right, if you want something to become a reality you need to be thinking about it every day You'll be writing it down every single day. All right, the next thing is I try to learn something every single day from a book or an audio book or a YouTube video Podcasts I was listening to Brad Lee's podcast dropping bombs, which I was on last year and I was listening to him interview Jordan Belfort and I loved it. I eat that stuff up, man. I want to pick up nuggets. What are they doing? When I and when I learned I think about it different than most people most people when they're learning and they're investing time and money Energy and they're watching stuff and when I watch a podcast, I'm thinking What does this dude know that I don't know and how can I give him money? To know what he knows Most people will have their egos in the way their prides in the way they will not spend money I will spend money to know what that person knows, right? I watched Evan Carmichael and then went and gave him Several thousand dollars because I want to know what that dude knows, right? The next thing is And most you will never do it is a cold shower. It's it's invaluable how it wakes me up I did it this morning again. It wakes me up And it forces me to do something to start my day that I do not like doing everybody says all you got to do You only do stuff you love to do hogwash you need to do stuff That you don't like to do and that's how I want to start my day every single day So those are my power five that I encourage you I teach this and we and we practice this and we're posting in My success society group talking about this every single day So if you're not a part of success society add me on Instagram at cody.askins reach out. We'll get you added to my success society Facebook group secret Facebook group. It's of agents. I've got a weekly accountability call. I'm helping agents every week It's about investing. It's about investing in your business. It's about investing time energy and money So that you can take you your business and yourself and your income in your life to another level Hey, if you love this video and you want to get your phone skills up I got the video for you how to nail the first 30 seconds of a call go right there Click on that video and see you there. Hey insurance phone calls. They're tough Nobody wants to pick up the phone. Everybody struggles to do This and I'm gonna show you how to nail the first 30 seconds of insurance phone call right now. There's several must