Welcome to our interview show in which we interview LGBTQ guests who are important contributors to our community. We want to acknowledge that all things LGBTQ is produced at Orca Media in Montpelier, Vermont, which is unceded Indigenous land. Enjoy the show. So joining us today has to be one of the most in-demand women in Vermont right now.  Please welcome back one of our favorite guests, Becca Ballant. Thank you so much for the invitation. I always have a lot of fun with you here. And we always run out of time before we get able to talk about everything. So your president pro tem elect is historic for a number of perspectives. One is you're the first woman in Vermont senate history and you're the first out lesbian. Yes, yes. But I want to start with most people have forgotten their high school civics classes. Exactly what is the president pro tem and what is it that you now get to do? Right. So the easiest way to think about it for most people is that the president pro tem serves as the rather the speaker of the house. It's akin to the work of the speaker of the house. And president pro temporary means president for a time.  But it's the pro tem who actually, we say directs traffic on the floor decides which bills come to the floor in conjunction with the committee on committees and the senate figures out who gets what committee assignments, who gets what chair and how we prioritize our work. It's generally said if you want to get something through the senate, you have to have the pro tem's office sort of on board with your plan before it's going to even get out of committee. It's similar to the role of the speaker of the house. And it's different from my previous role in the senate which was for the last four years I've been the majority leader in that now in addition to working closely with the majority caucus which are the democrats in the senate, I will be also working closely with the minority caucus to make sure we as a senate, although we might disagree on some policy issues going forward that generally the values of the senate are reflected in the bills that are passed within the chamber. So if I heard correctly you're also on the committee on committee so that you'll have a strong say in who gets what committee who's going to be brought up as chairs, who's going to be kept as chairs. Also working across the aisle and you have a phenomenal reputation for building bridges and strong caucuses. However there is a totally new leadership on both the democratic side and the republican side and anticipate anything that might be different going into this year. You know I've had good relationship with both the minority leader and the minority whip which were Joe Benning and I are good I would say we're good friends. We talk even about personal things unrelated to work. He's going to be stepping down as minority leader Randy Brock will be former auditor for those of you who follow Vermont politics will be stepping in. He and I, Randy and I serve on economic development committee and the finance committee so we actually have a working relationship. We also co-chaired the post-mortem that we did called lessons learned task force looking at our pandemic relief that we did at the beginning of the spring. So we co-chaired that together. I have a good working relationship with him. I don't anticipate day to day tension in the work that we do. Of course there will be policy differences and philosophical differences. The other piece is that the minority whip Brian Collamore he and I we've had a good friendship from the beginning. We came in at the same time in the Senate and we were the two people who came in without ever having served in the house and so we feel a special kinship with each other because we both came in that first day and felt like what have we done now what do we do and he's a very he's a very sweet man he serves from Rutland and one of the things that he always says to me when we're in person at the State House when the first things he says when he sees me in the morning is morning is Becca can I have a hug and then we hug and we talk and he's he's someone who I trust to be fair-minded and we try not to surprise at each other so if we have an issue coming up in our caucus we'll usually pull the other side and say just so you know this is bubbling up I don't want it to be a surprise so he'll be serving in whip in that role as whip which is the person who counts the votes behind the scenes to see if they have the votes so I'm not anticipating any tension right off the bat I feel like it's a small enough chamber we have to work together. I think you just revealed one of the reasons why you have such a reputation for building alliances across the aisle reaching out in advancing let's talk about this before it explodes on the floor yeah okay you also said that as president pro tem you're going to have a real say in the flow of bills and what's being brought up and what's prioritized yes Vermont Digger is reporting this morning as we're taping that the two constitutional amendments by virtue of everything else that you need to do are going to be held until next year so taking that into consideration what are your priorities well so and I just want to clarify that because the although kit was accurate in the reporting there there's a few technical pieces that folks might want to know those constitutional amendments will not pass the full legislature until next session that is true what is not entirely clear yet based on the work that we'll have from the cares funds that are coming from the federal government we may queue it up at the end of this session in the senate and pass along to the house but it is true the entire movement of those constitutional amendments will not happen until next year but they will be passed okay I assure two people because I have had some people anxious about that we will we will absolutely be passing them so I was going to say particularly in light of what's happening with UVM and absolutely services okay so okay so um in meeting with senators there were four sort of umbrella priorities that have come out of our our meetings in the senate so top priority being immediate COVID-19 responses we have thousands of Vermonters worried about housing worried about food security and so we know we're going to get another federal package but it's going to be critical as that money comes in it will be you know probably hundreds of millions of dollars to Vermont making sure that we're focused on that exclusively for the first bunch of weeks so we can turn that money around and get it out to the the communities that need it so that's the first thing second looking at strengthening Vermonters health long term and so I'm thinking of health broadly also to include are we making sure people that we were able to house with COVID-19 relief funds stay housed what do they need to stay housed right so that we know that when we're talking about housing it's not just the actual brick and mortar housing that they need they need supports to stay in that housing if they are someone that struggles with mental health issues or whether they struggle with addiction and so it has to be a combination of support systems to keep people housed going back again to the issue of food security so looking at food systems looking at our our agricultural systems um up to the task of making sure that in emergencies we have food to feed everybody that that needs the food uh third one looking at economic security long term so looking at the Vermont State Colleges shoring up that fiscal house making sure that each of those communities still have a presence for the Vermont State Colleges within them because we know for many rural communities that is the ticket out of poverty for so many people there many communities are not going to have a lot of families that are sending their students to UVM the Vermont State Colleges have been an avenue out of poverty for people for decades we want to make sure that that remains a strong system um in keeping with economic resiliency looking at workforce development and are we uh not just training our high school graduates but incumbent workers people that are looking to further uh their careers in some way but they need access to to further training our certification and also looking at our child care system we know that there are people that want to be in the workforce full-time but do not have affordable child care and then of course fourth thing which is on everybody's mind in in in my caucus which is advancing equity looking at issues of racial justice economic justice we've done tremendous work in Vermont in reducing our prison population we're going to continue on that work making sure that we are only incarcerating the people that absolutely have no other means through which to be rehabilitated and so we're we're going to continue that work and um there are lots of other things under all of those umbrellas but I know that many of our viewers care a lot about the issues of of economic and racial justice and we have met with uh the government operations committee and the judiciary committee and and people are very much focused on this you may also want to know that health and welfare uh committee is also looking at what are the racial disparities and health outcomes and and how do we um how do we make significant changes in that area so we have a lot on our plate and what I always say to people is we want to make things better than we found them and two years goes really fast and we just have to remember keep the eyes on the prize make the progress we're not going to do all the work we want to do but we are going to make positive change that's the goal moving in a positive direction a couple of things that people who are routine viewers of all things have mentioned a conversation one is broadband oh yes thank you thank you thank you that's one of the top priorities for us and I should have mentioned it under um the the economic resiliency what has come out of the pandemic is realizing it's not just about economic development though of course it is especially for our rural communities but it also is key to tele telehealth right I've had all of my uh doctor's appointments in the last six months over the internet over over telehealth and of course now with so many of our schools going online I know my my two kids are also um we're all fighting for bandwidth at home and I live in Brattleboro so I have better access than a lot of places do but so yeah this is this is an issue that I feel like has changed in priority for a lot of legislature legislators for me coming in it was one of the issues that was always important to me because I knew within Windham County there were big pockets that didn't have any access to broadband but folks who have in the past perhaps seen it as a nice thing that we could do sort of a luxury they're realizing it's not a luxury it's a have to in the same way that we were able to electrify the country you know in the in the 1930s and so I love that people are seeing the need more expansively it makes it easier for us to do the heavy left of passing uh the legislation and getting the funds available to get broadband out if you're not talking about something that is simply just a nice thing to do for economic development it's it's critical yeah thank you for mentioning that it is a top priority and I can't believe I didn't mention it so thank you well I was going to say with so many people working from home remote access good broadband has become essential the other just sort of been passing before I move on to the next topic I really want to talk about is as health and welfare is talking about collecting data and reviewing know that during COVID there has been absolutely no data collected about the direct impact of COVID on the LGBTQ community because the feds removed us right what one of the things that is remarkable about your becoming the first is it gives us to have a conversation about so what do we do as Kamala Harris said to ensure that you may be the first but you're not the last yeah how does someone who is just becoming interested in the political process get to where you are now and how do we as a community support them in that process yes so many parts of that so first thing one of the one of the first questions that so many reporters have asked me in the last few weeks is why does it matter why does it matter that you're the first woman you know they do it because they're provocative that's you know why does it matter that you're the first woman why does it matter that you're the first openly queer person in so not just in the in the senate we've never had an openly gay person leading the house chamber either so it is it's a first and so I always say to them obviously visibility matters visibility matters to young people but also to any person who feels like an outsider right so I I've really been pushing the press to realize it's not just a story for people who identify as as queer or trans it is a story of someone who never felt like they would ever be in that kind of position of power coming from I didn't have you know political connections didn't come from from money I didn't have any entrance that I could see into this line of work so I'm really encouraging them to report it more as what does it feel like when you've been on the outside looking in for so long and now you're on the inside how do you as you said how do you continue to you know create avenues for people to get in and so I'll get to that in just a second but I don't want to lose this other thread that I've been thinking about a lot because people will say well does it make you a better pro tem does it make you a better leader right and so I always say better or not better is not really the question will we get better outcomes will we get better outcomes in the policy that we pass the discussions that we have when someone is bringing a different perspective into the room and has an eye to the voices that are not being heard right and so it is it's an interesting thing that when Jill Kerinsky was also nominated by her caucus to be speaker and when I was not nominated my by mine to be pro tem the headlines were women will dominate the leadership you know in the legislature and I thought that was so interesting because for 150 years plus right has any headline ever said white men will dominate right that is the default that is the norm and so it's making people uncomfortable and so my challenge is always yeah I know you're like great my challenge is always to not pretend that it doesn't make people uncomfortable to name it like this is different this is different to have a woman in this role this is different to have an openly gay person in this role but it will give us a better outcome and we should all want that we should all want the best policy so one of the things that I've been working with my incoming assistant who'll be my chief of staff a woman named Carolyn Wesley whose mom served in the house uh Julie Peterson and also served as Howard Dean's chief of staff so she knows her she knows her way around the building and actually she was I believe I don't know if it was uh speaker obajowski or speaker right I'm not sure but when when Carolyn was a toddler at one point she was in a a meeting of the house and she asked the speaker to please stop talking because all done now I think she said all done now so I I love that when she like pops into my meetings and she's like okay okay senator wrap it up so she's gonna be great but one of the things we've talked about is we want to make sure that when we bring on interns within the pro tem's office that it is um with an eye to having interns who are coming from marginalized communities that could be people of color that could be new americans it could be queer people it could be a white male from the kingdom whose he's you know first generation to go to college I want those voices in that building who have never thought that they could ever be in power and so our page program not always but often is people who are in some way already connected to state government that's how they find out about the program right so by by having a uh a program that generally turns out people who are already connected you perpetuate that system now I'm I'm being um broad in the way that I describe it I know there are exceptions in there but I want to make sure that I'm able to use my office to get people afoot in the door who might not otherwise have it so Carol and I have been working on what that could look like of course when I first started imagining this I didn't know that we'd be working remotely again and so it makes it harder for everyone but there are also opportunities it could be that we can take on an intern now from a far-flung community that can do his or her work or their work for me over zoom and not actually have to drive to the state house so even though it's limiting in some ways and other ways it might create opportunities for people who might not have had them so that's one thing the other thing that I want to say is I want more people in high school to get involved in their government classes I get a lot of people who reach out to me high school students who say can I shadow you for a day can I do some work and they're still overwhelmingly male and those classes tend to be filled with um mostly young male students and so that's not a bad thing to have uh progressive men who want to do the work I just want young girls and also queer people to think I have to understand government in order for it to work better for me so this is my little pitch to to the viewers if you know those young people in your life please please encourage them to take some government classes in high school and to get involved um at their local town meetings as well so I could talk on and on I was a teacher before I was a legislator so I often have my teacher hat on so so with that I need to say thank you and I know it it's you and me this is what happens okay I'll be back because we because we also need to talk about in this era of the virtual legislative session yeah and it's one of the things I'll be talking about on all things is how do people become involved and establishing and maintaining contacts with their senators and their representatives but what I wanted to leave with yeah is I think what you're coming in is the first woman and the first out lesbian as president pro tem does and it gives us hope because whoever I am I can look at you and say she did this this room for me that's what I want thank you that's what I want and and when the session gets going you definitely have to come back so we can check in with so how's it really going exactly exactly I hope so happy new year happy new year to you okay hi I'd like to introduce Max Bassapoli to all things ldbtq interview show hi max how are you today good how are you Linda I'm pretty well thank you um max has uh quite the resume and we're not going to be able to talk about all of the things that uh they're involved with but um we're going to start with I think we'll start with your theater experience and let me just read something uh just a little bit from your extensive resume if I might so max bassapoli med is graduate and former staff member of brinn school of theater arts at the university of the arts he currently serves as an academic advisor for high school programs at the university of pennsylvania he is an experienced educator and educator entering his sixth competitive season having adjudicated dancers across the u.s. and canada for multiple for a multitude of competitions he is currently on the roster of impact dance adjudicators max was a founding member of north shore music theater youth performance academy dance competitively with nancy chippendales dance studio and was awarded a promising artist award to attend the university of the arts so does that explain you well enough max I hope so I think it captures a lot of what I think what we're hoping to talk about today which is kind of growing up in the arts and then going and really pursuing the arts professionally in college and kind of making that your career and spend part here and um I know you grew up in suburban massachusetts for people that's right and um when did you move to philly did you go there to go to school or I did yes so I moved here 15 years ago don't tell anyone I said that um but I moved here when I was around 17 so it was a big change to move from very suburban life to right in the heart of the city in a major city um relatively uh you know it's definitely different than boston a lot of ways and more definitely more diverse than boston for sure and so did you dropped into that did you think oh happy day or a combination of like how am I going to fit into this uh that's a great question um I think when I first started when I um really left the nest I remember thinking like how could my parents leave me here and then I realized like I like what like literally when they first left I was like I'm in the major a major city I've never been here I don't know where my classes are all that kind of stuff but I think it really forces you to grow up like my undergrad experience was a lot of people's experience first time in a college it's not the only first time uh person who was going through the same changes so it was good to have a community that way but I think to answer your question it opened my eyes up to so much more I really was connected with a lot of artists from other areas of the country other countries that came to visit the school and I think one of the one of the first times especially in the school of dance at University of the Arts I really saw myself on stage there was a lot of men of color and I did not see a lot of men at all dancing growing up so to see men of color who looked like me in these programs and teaching in these programs made such a difference to me and I really like got suckered into that and really stuck with that all four years even though I was a theater student um I really like saw every dance show saw every dance concert that was there it's one of the foremost dance programs in the U.S. so I was really took advantage I think especially during that time and you do dance competitions right in which you judge people so is that in in university or is that separate and kind of separate yeah yeah it's separate a lot of people you're not the first person to ask me that and I wish more schools were kind of in that vein I definitely got you know the patina back to go do this work because it's really closely tied to you know admissions and getting people to come to college obviously to have your name on the on your back traveling around the country talking to people who are young and interested in the arts is the perfect kind of recruitment tool right but I did it myself I will say the one one thing that I was left positively from one of my past partners was that he was like you have to do this you really want to do this go and apply and apply and apply and I did the first year and I didn't hear from like anybody I heard from like two companies and I got like one weekend of judging throughout there's a maybe about a three or four month time frame and last year or the 2019 I judged for 13 weekends in and out of Canada I also judged the the season finale of dance moms last year as well there's season eight finale in New York City so that was on tv so it's been a wild ride it's been a really interesting ride to see that and I think what's great about it is it's educational but it's not you know we're meant to be inspirational we're meant to be these people who are really helping you come to the next level versus saying are you good or bad because you know most of these people are great most of these kids are doing the things we want them to do especially with young artists so it's a really inspirational thing to do obviously have to talk a lot about dance and know as much as you can about dance and I think this year especially because everything's been pushed online our roles have become really interesting as experts because we have to do things like this and really share with people about what this experience is like and hopefully when we get back to it what it's going to be like in the future. And I know Philadelphia's had a lot of activism going on with Black Lives Matter and different other kinds of protests during this time of COVID and I know that for most of us we can't do the things we normally did in crowds of people so how are you making that work for you in terms of activism and in terms of your art? That's a great question. I think one of the things everyone was really worried about at the very beginning was being in big groups and being around other people and one of the first things I heard especially when people saw that there was protesting and then looting eventually in Philadelphia was like how can you be around that you know the risks and at first I want to say that every protest I went to everyone everyone wore masks and the only people I didn't see wearing masks were when I was walking to go to the protest and those were all the people sitting in cafes and in the park so everyone these protests was wearing masks everyone there was constantly hand sanitizer water bottles food little snacks Philadelphia has definitely been a major site for social activism in the last year you're correct around Black Lives Matter around Black Twins women around housing that was a huge kind of major thing for Philadelphia this year was a housing encampment that became this kind of you know major kind of media storm and how do we serve the homelessness and people who are suffering or experiencing homelessness but to answer your question I think I think because it's a historical place people kind of feel that they have some sort of right to it which is great which is an exciting place to be and through one of the many live theater zoom events I attended they were saying that Philadelphia is on the grounds of change and it's on you know it's born on those grounds so I think that's a part of it right and I think the other thing is because people are at home and they have the skill sets to organize they have the drive to organize and for me it was being alone a lot and working a lot working overnight working here and there trying to get everything offline you know online and going to protests and being involved with that was so moving to go from completely alone to just crowds of thousands of people who are around the same thing that you're wanting to do and a lot of my work at Penn is directly helps Philadelphia youth and Philadelphia high school students high achieving students and so being part of that too I went to a lot of protests that are around education and Black Lives Matter in schools and hearing from current students and I think that work is the most important thing I could be doing as an educator even if it's scary to go even if they're you know hear all these terrible things that happen to protesters um but it's the thing to do and I know that especially right now this was something that I was meant to do um and get other people involved as well and just really spread the word because you're right not everyone can be on the front lines and everyone can be outside right now um but there's a lot of other ways to be involved right and I'm glad you're doing that yeah me too and I know Philadelphia has one of the only I think there's only a few LGBTQ senior houses yes yes you're right they do yeah it's and it's actually in the heart of our what we lovingly call the gayborhood as well it's right in the middle of like the gay area very well taken care of and I think that's that's unique you're right that's definitely unique there's a lot of other works in that area that are around testing around counseling around just groups you know group community groups that you can join and then like right around the corner is this huge housing district our district's building I guess you could say for elders yeah and I heard about that and I thought that was really inspiring I really I've only been to Philadelphia a few times but I I've always really liked it and I always think it's an up-and-coming city I mean it's like a lot of creative people are moving there a lot of there's a lot of real action going on in here so what keeps you engaged and passionate when it comes to the arts and culture ah wow um that is a great question yeah go ahead sorry no I was gonna say um I think some of it has to do with um being an educator and being a teacher and I'm really you know you know it's it's we teach and we mentor because it gives us something as well you know we get something out of it so it's a little bit selfish but not really because you're also giving back to people and educating them and helping them through um and I also think part of it is identity and an intersectionality like I can't you know uh there are so many different ways to identify this now nowadays and things that you can be passionate about and different intersections of that and so part of it is ongoing work right this work will never be done until we have black liberation and black trans liberation um and things like that like we have to keep fighting for it right so that's part of it um but I think the other part of it is knowing that this is how I have always been even before this cultural movement I've always been someone who's been a bit of a uh an outspoken person especially around diversification and making sure that things are equitable and inclusive um so this is kind of putting your money where your mouth is of like no I really stand for this and I would be remiss if I didn't say like I was always nervous to talk out like I do and to speak out like I do um a lot of the work I do is contractual it's I don't have to be doing these dance competitions that could easily say like we don't like how outspoken you are or you said this and it turned us off um but I think the opposite is true the more I go into this and the more I speak out and the more I take these I think well well educated ways of speaking about these topics people are more interested and I think if you take those stance and if more people took those stances and more people said this is what I really believe in I think that's actually the key to kind of unlocking a lot of these like well I don't know or I've always thought this way um it becomes more it goes from way macro to really micro um so I think it's a lot of different levels it goes from like what I'm passionate about to my own identity to how do we affect other people well you know it's all it's all really important and I love the way things are you know the arts and culture and changing society I mean it's it's sort of always been artists that have done that don't you think I mean in many ways it's it's those people who I mean of course it's but it but it's very involved always culture and art with with um change um opera now here's something that I know almost nothing about and um I've seen some pictures where you are beautifully made up um and do you do your own makeup um in the in the terms of performing with the opera company no they have people who are their their own makeup people um I also do my own makeup for other things I do a lot of like mostly beauty makeup and halloween makeup and stuff like that um yeah and I'm and for I've also done it for the university arts they had a number of shows that required either drag makeup or psychedelic makeup or futuristic makeup that I've done in the past few years uh specifically for their students of color they didn't have someone who knew about makeup and could also speak to different skin tones different skin shades things like that let's you know and do you sing too in the opera yeah I do um so yeah so I went to school for musical theater yeah I went to school for musical theater so um was definitely trained to sing dance and act um with the opera company it's a bit of everything so I got started with them right after I graduated from a lighting designer that was working there at the time so always remember your connections that's how it happens sometimes and that turned into like a 10-year relationship I've been in a number of their productions I've taught for them I've been we they recently at the beginning of the pandemic put out their um oh festival which is typically in person but it was moved online I was in Barber of Seville which was shown last year we also have an opening performance typically the first show or the first production of every season is projected on a screen here at Independence Mall so right in front of the Liberty Bell so I've been in a number of those performances as well and then taught for their hip hopper program which is a program that looks at the intersection of hip hop and opera um so we go into Philadelphia schools and speak about that um then a teaching artist for them so I've really lucked out to have a really great a really great relationship with them and really seen the company from I think what we all think of opera is kind of like this very old school three or four hour long have to get dressed up to where they are now which is really starting new works really um looking at works from people of color looking at they did a whole piece about um the move bombing that happened here in Philadelphia a number of years ago um so they are really becoming one of the four four runners of how does opera change now right we have like 200 or 300 years of canonical work that everybody does every season much like ballet how do we re reinvigorate that and I think what's interesting to be there now or to see now it's that they're really really forging ahead with those initiatives um it's been a great place to work um very uh you know very accepting very uh top down approach the executive director knows everybody I know all those people um so it's been a great environment and it's offered me a lot of opportunity and a great place to showcase something that I you know like a lot of people aren't familiar with or I know many people who might say opera oh you know or yes oh absolutely absolutely and and so to do that is is really uh you know it's sort of like getting new generations involved in in in activities that they might not have otherwise done that's great I think so too and I think what people don't realize is how big these productions are they can go from like 20 to 30 to hundreds of people like Turin dot has like hundreds of people involved and so it employs so many more people than I think we all think even though it is this kind of a little dusty art form um and certainly I've I've kind of forgot about it and then people would come see shows and they'd be like what do I wear to the opera and I'm like oh I never really thought about that you can kind of wear whatever you want like this opera specifically you can kind of wear whatever you want you don't have to dress up um and I think it's been that's been my experience working on opera too so I've like danced in the shows I've done like stage combat in the shows I've talked for them I've worked on production um but my I think my biggest memory was walking into the we did Silent Night which was commissioned a few years ago and ended up winning the Pulitzer right before we started rehearsals so we started rehearsals knowing that this was like huge and was going to be like really really you know really in it and we were we um we were all on stage for about two and a half hours which is very real we are very rare I should say you're typically not on stage for more than maybe like half an hour 45 minutes tops but we were on stage the whole time it took place in real time so things like that like they really jumped out but I think um it's kept me on my toes as a performer too to have to be able to do a little bit of everything um yeah which is the which is the life I suppose yeah I would say you're a Renaissance person yeah a little bit yeah um so we only have a few minutes left what is it about you max that people might not know that you could tell us I don't know you're not a vegetarian or you're you know um you know uh you know you you don't have to I was just wondering if you know that's a good question so I was wondering if there is like you know you're shyer than you appear or you know um I don't know I'm just throwing it out two things come to mind one is and I think this is kind of why we got connected to talk which is about identity which is kind of like the layers of identity and I think that's something that I'm still going through and we all still go through right um one of the things I get asked or people always kind of like question mark about me um is like what what are you and I hate saying that question because I think it has so many derogatory negatives um but it's something that we talked about today and I trust you know I we are family and I trust talking about with you um you know I'm definitely a Latinx or Latin a person and that's even part of how identity changes Latin X is um what we all kind of think is a very gender neutral way of saying Latino right um and you can't actually say Latin X in Spanish because that X so the new kind of verbage is Latin a so I'm a Latin a person I'm an indigenous Latin a person um and so people always think because of my last name the way that I look my family thinks like that any number of things but I'm Greek anything I mean it could be for it could be anything and even that I think is something to think about in the future of like we're all going to be have our own identities and just like you know we talk about and um it's important to really respect people's identities even if you don't fully understand them so that's part of it I think is at least just ask may I ask you about this I'm very interested in you um and I'm you know it has to go both ways because I have to be willing to talk to that and you have to be willing to ask about it um but I think that's part of it and and so that's something that I'm sure people have a big question mark about um and I think the and I was adopted from Colombia and I grew up in the U.S. um but certainly other people are still you know coming to the country and um that's a whole other conversation to have at some point um but to be on that other side of it too to be like I know that I'm you know lucky to be here and I'm very appreciative of my doctor family um and I think the other thing is um as and this is again another thing that I'm still working on as far as like revving the engine it's I'm I love hearing that I'm a Renaissance person and that I'm doing all these things um I want to tell I know you have a lot of younger people that follow you and all the work that you do with youth um I want to say that that didn't happen overnight that took me years and years and years to accumulate the um the experience that I have and and I wish I had spent more time not doing things but actually working on myself I recently um started mental health uh counseling in the last like few years and that has like changed my life on how I actually approach work and the work that I actually go towards and the things that make me happy rather than something that just goes on my resume um so that's something too I think that maybe not everyone knows and I think should be less of a stigma it's like yeah if you feel like you need mental health counseling or even just want to speak to somebody don't wait until something traumatic happens go today start now um and you don't know how it'll change your life and for me it has it really kept me from running both candles at the end and running in the gerbil cage and trying to do all this work because I think it's artists we're kind of trained to do that right take everything do everything um but at the end of the day if you're too tired to do the work or too exhausted it's not going to be very good um so that's something that I think not everyone may may know about me well thank you for sharing that max absolutely it's a potent message for people uh to get and and it's a time in which uh with COVID we you know we have more time and we can be more introspective than absolutely slow ourselves down and uh mental health issues are really important I always think of it as you know like I go every few years and I call it a tune-up you know yes exactly right like you know and then to to your point too that happens in different ways like you can read a book in that sermental health training you can go run outside as well as getting into that practice is difficult and I think um yeah one of the things I've learned this is to go before you think you need it it's just to go and talk like you're saying just to go for a tune-up yeah well for a tune-up well thank you so much thank you so and um we'll see you again soon absolutely that's hope though thanks max be well thank you thank you for joining us we'll see you in two weeks but in the meantime resist


What's going on everyone Sam here with late in sports cards We're ripping 2022 Panini flawless collegiate football hobby one box break number 14 left-side serial number style Here's a look again at your random Results as always you can find these on the website under the results tab as well as the link in chat Funny enough Edgar when I was typing your name into the random. I typed out all the randoms I'm like, please don't give them the NFC West Please don't give them the NFC West Good luck here everybody. Let me sort these by number really quick Good luck Let's do it. I'm gonna try my best at here to not get you the NFC West Try my best Good luck everybody. I think we might have a one-on-one in there That foil is the right. All right. We've got go in two miles at the nine spot team logo signatures Josh Palmer Nine of ten Nice one there. Congrats miles. That's a guy. I think believe from last year's flawless. Yes last year's flawless This is going to Sean H at the seven spot. We've got George Pickens That is Justin Fields and Nick Chubb seven of 20. Nice one there We've got going to Chris ST Chris ST With the 10 spot that's gonna be Chris Olave Garrett Wilson and Justin Fields nice triple Ohio State Buckeyes patch there We've got going to Chris SM now 13 out of 20 is gonna be Zemir White Zemir White nice one there For Georgia next up is going to Ruben Y at the eight spot.  That's nasty.  It's so cool Going to Pengs in C at the one spot. We've got one of one Clinton Portis boom the you baby Game worn on that. Congrats Pengs in let's go baby. This next one's insane dude Let's go Pengs in One of one Clinton Portis game used Next up we've got no shot dude going to Pengs in C at the five spot five of five Lawrence Taylor Campus legends UNC Tar Heel legend. That's so nasty dude. So nasty five of five Yeah, sorry Richie. Sorry man And then we've got going to Mark B at the 14 spot Kenneth Walker the third 14 of 15 nice canine Is Taylor cut long Lawrence Taylor is cut a little bit long We'll top load it put the little latent sticker over it and make sure it gets shipped properly I think they're both going to Pengs in so Nice canine All right, let's do our outer now We've got going to Ruben Y at the eight spot Jermaine Johnson eight of 25 on the diamond card Congrats on that Ruben Y again with the eight spot Hey, I appreciate that smack We've got all this is Jamie P at the 11 spot is gonna be diamond auto Brian Robinson, Jr. for Alabama nice one there Bama legend Go Nolz Richie said true Richie go Nolz, baby Jermaine Johnson is kind of nasty to Love it, man. And then we've got going to Rory B at the 18 spot How about a Chris Olavi? There you go Rory Congrats, buddy. Nice one there. Let's go dude Nice Olavi Barely a two-color patch so you can see a little bit of red down there a little bit. I should say scarlet There you go Rory Congrats my man. That'll do it for the break guys Thanks again for the fill next up. We've got this style. Yeah


I'm going to say a few words about that insight, hopefully demystify it a little bit for you, and then we'll have some follow-up presentations from Brita Kearnan, our Chief Operations Officer, and Yvonne Smith, one of our funding diversity officers, to talk about the impact in numbers that insight has had over the last 10 years. I suppose as we celebrate 10 years of insight, it's useful to reflect on the journey we have been on over those 10 years, because I think that insight is probably best understood in the context of that journey. So insight formally commenced in 2013, and before that it was recognised that Ireland had a world-class ecosystem, research ecosystem, and data science, but it was also recognised that this ecosystem was quite fragmented, with pockets of complementary expertise dotted around the country. And so insight was conceived as a grand experiment in some way of bringing together those existing pockets of expertise into one entity. And this had never been attempted before in Ireland, or in Irish research, so it genuinely was a leap of fate by Science Foundation Ireland and the Department at the time. And of course it required a completely different approach and mindset to a research centre, because it meant bringing together existing initiatives which were already well established as research programmes of scale and research centres in their own right. So it required the researchers, the lead researchers involved in the universities, to really leave their preconceptions of what a SFI research centre is at the door, and invent a whole new way of doing things. And incidentally that's why insight is different to the other SFI research centres in terms of how we're structured. We are co-led by multiple universities. We have a central operations team, including myself, which manages the centre at a national level. And then we have local leadership, research leadership, strategic leadership and operations leadership at each of our four co-host sites. Now as you can probably tell from that, that sounds like quite a complex undertaking. And at the time it was very, very unclear how this would all actually work in practice. But great credit is due to the founding insight directors who are here with us today, Barry Smith, Alan Smeaton, Brian Caulfield, Barry O'Sullivan, Padre Cunningham and Stefan Decker, the original CEO, Ollie Daniels, and of course the inimitable Mike Turley sitting down the back now, who's recently retired as our COO. Because all of these people embraced this challenge and effectively laid the foundations for what insight was to become. And for that we are very, very grateful. And we should be under no illusion that it was very challenging. It was something that had never been attempted before. So there was speed bumps, there was sometimes detours, sometimes dead ends along the way. And it actually would have been easy at various different junctures to basically, you know, collectively shrug our shoulders and say this was unworkable. But the leadership preserved or persevered, they did preserve as well, but they persevered not just for the sake of it, and not just because of the funding on offer, because they genuinely saw the opportunity to build something impactful for Irish research into the future. And the fact that we're here today celebrating all the successes you'll hear about this morning is evidence that that grand experiment was an unqualified success, in my opinion. And the impact figures that Brita will bring us through from our most recent economic impact report, I suppose are some quantitative evidence of that success and that evidence and value to the Irish economy and to the taxpayer. But from a more central research centre perspective, the question I feel we always have to ask ourselves is whether in insight we have genuinely achieved something greater than the sum of the parts and as a consequence that we are punching above our weight. And for that we need to look beyond the scientific excellence of our researchers, which I hasten to assure them I take as read and for granted, but also to look at what we can achieve as a team. And we have a litany of successes which are only possible on the basis of insight working as a team. So for example, inside centre-wide team on trustworthy and explainable AI is a multidisciplinary team that mixes foundational computer science with cognitive science, social science, ethics in the law, the outputs of which are regularly published in the top ranked AI venues, journals and conferences in the academic community. But importantly, the participants of that initiative also regularly feed into policy, both nationally and internationally. We're at the forefront globally in leveraging data from wearable devices to understand or enhance human health thanks to a multidisciplinary team of physiotherapists, computer scientists, engineers, medical and health experts and human performance experts. Our work in cultural analytics is transforming the face of historical research. The team brings together artificial intelligence and machine learning experts with researchers from the humanities and social sciences to address important cultural research questions in a way that would be impossible otherwise. We have a team of researchers who are passionate about addressing the well-known equality, diversity and inclusion challenges in our domain. And in this context, we're actually eating our own dog food by applying machine learning techniques like enterprise scale, knowledge graphs and natural language processing to our large data sets that we gather routinely within the centre, normally at the behest of SFI, but it would have you to better understand our own EDI challenges so that we can understand those and take targeted action into the future to try to address those challenges. We have teams of researchers leading the conversation and setting the research agenda in Europe and our success in securing non-exjector funding is direct result of that. So we calculated it in advance of this particular event and for the Economic Impact Report. Since 2013, Insight has secured 81.8 million in non-exjector funding from EU programs across 160 projects. We've also established strategic partnerships with key initiatives in Europe. So for example, we lead the AI for EU project which is building the European AI on-demand platform and ecosystem and we've established strategic partnerships with the likes of the BDVA and various Fraunhofer Institutes including Fraunhofer FIT in Aachen and Fraunhofer ISST in Dortmund and we hope to in the very near future make a significant announcement around one of those partnerships. So please stay tuned for that over the coming weeks and months. And importantly, we can also assemble teams at short notice to respond to national emergencies or national priorities that come at us in a surprising way. So the evidence of this I suppose is the Insight researchers who contributed to the national response to COVID, whether that be our Insight researchers who were members of IMAG providing daily updates to Nefit, responding to specific asks from for example the Department of Food, Agriculture and Marine to help address the outbreaks of meat processing plants or helping advise on the development of the hugely successful COVID tracker app which became an example of best practice internationally. And I could continue all day with examples of our team-based successes and there are more examples in the various TVs dotted around the room here and in the other room and I encourage you to peruse them at your leisure over coffee or over lunch. But the bottom line here is that all of this is only possible thanks to a collaborative ethos and collective buy-in right across the centre and of course a collective vision only works if you have that collective buy-in and we have worked hard to try to ensure that right across the centre from our operations teams, our PhD students, our postdoctoral researchers, our funded investigators and our principal investigators and really importantly in that endeavour we've had great support from the universities from the presidents and the VPRs of our host universities who've been supportive, sometimes challenging us in what we want to do which is only right and proper but always in the service of facilitating the vision. And I would take the opportunity to acknowledge and thank all of those VPRs we've worked with over the years and indeed all members of our Governance Committee, our Scientific Advisory Committee and our Industry Advisory Committee, some of whom are with us today. So what is this collective vision I've been rabbiting on about? Well put simply our vision is to evolve insight to an inclusive and collegial national research centre that allows Irish researchers from across any university to come together in the pursuit of excellent science for the good of society and we've been proactive in trying to implement this vision over the last three years. So for example we have grown engagement within all our partner universities with a particular emphasis on increasing participation in Manute University, University of Limerick, Trinity College Dublin and the Tyndall National Institute. We have proactively invested in better integration of the technological universities. To this end we allocated 450k of our internal funding from our Strategic Fund into these new partnerships and delighted to say the result of which is that we now have active collaborations with all of the TU's and DKIT. We've empowered our own researchers to propose and lead new components and aspects of the research programme. We've invested in those PIs who actually stepped forward to volunteer to do so having invested 440k from our Strategic Fund to support this and you'll hear from Yvonne Smith a little bit later about all of these new exciting initiatives that were kicking off across the centre. I suppose what it comes down to in the end is that in insight we have an unofficial internal motto we use whenever things go right and especially when things go wrong and that is that research is a team sport. And as anyone who's involved in team sports will know that well number one you only make the team you only make the cut by virtue of excellence but even with that you need different types of players on a team so you do need the flashy super star forwards with the multicoloured boots you do need the midfield generals who can run all day and you do need an impenetrable defence who are calm under pressure and I'll leave it as a homework exercise for our FIs and PIs to figure out which one of them they actually are. But of course all of this means nothing if you are not supported by a world-class backroom team and I'm delighted to say that we have all of that in spades in insight and as such a fantastic platform for continuing our work into the future. I'll finish by saying a few words about AI given its prevalence in the national international debate and picking up on some remarks made by Philip around the seismic changes we're seeing in society and the concerns and optimism around AI. You know we celebrate our 10th anniversary when at a time when data in AI stewardship is rapidly climbing to the top of the global political agenda. There is both hope and a lot of trepidation around how AI and digital technology will shape our civilization in the coming decades and so often as a society when we face seismic disruptions we are caught out unawares and we are scrambling to put in place solutions to new emergent realities. In Ireland 10 years ago we had the foresight to begin the process of consolidating our data and AI expertise so that when it was needed it was ready and it was there and it could be tapped into. So for example when the pandemic arrived insight was ready. We are ready now too to help Ireland and the world with the AI revolution. We're ready to deploy responsible and world-class AI solutions to whatever challenges and opportunities the future might bring. Thank you very much for your attention folks.