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Listen and subscribe to Money Making Conversations on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, www.moneymakingconversations.com/subscribe/ or wherever you listen to podcasts. New Money Making Conversations episodes drop daily. I want to alert you, so you don’t miss out on expert analysis and insider perspectives from my guests who provide tips that can help you uplift the community, improve your financial planning, motivation, or advice on how to be a successful entrepreneur. Keep winning! Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Travis Payne. The interview serves three main purposes: Inspiration & Career BlueprintTo highlight Travis Payne’s journey from Atlanta dancer to globally recognized choreographer and director working with icons like Michael and Janet Jackson. Business of EntertainmentTo educate listeners on how creativity (dance, music, performance) intersects with business, branding, and revenue generation. Motivation for Entrepreneurs & CreativesTo reinforce themes of persistence, preparation, and leveraging opportunity—aligned with the show’s mission to help audiences “plan their own success story.” [TRAVIS PAYNE | Txt]

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Alec Hogg opens with a thesis from Merrill Lynch veteran Dr. Duarte de Silva: South Africa's abandoned gold mines and tailings dumps — written off at $300–$800/oz — are generating margins above $3,000 per ounce at today's prices. The Witwatersrand Basin still holds as much gold as has ever been extracted from it. Yet exploration spend has collapsed 95% from its 2006 peak. On the JSE: Wesizwe Platinum surges 90% as its year-long trading suspension lifts; Pan African drifts lower despite a sound Australian acquisition; Fortress Real Estate impresses on logistics; Alexander Forbes delivers flat earnings on strong revenue; and Bell Equipment executes a textbook CEO handover. Globally: the ECB raises rates, Belfast burns, and OpenAI flags Chinese disinformation targeting US data centres.

NTT Inc. said Wednesday that it will establish an investment fund this month to globally promote the IOWN next-generation communication infrastructure using optical technology.

Tim Fung is the founder and CEO of Airtasker, Australia's leading marketplace for local services. Since launching the company in 2012, he has grown it from a simple startup idea into a publicly listed global platform connecting millions of people with work opportunities. Tim is also a startup investor, entrepreneur, and co-founder of Tank Stream Labs.Connect with Tim Fung!https://www.airtasker.comhttps://www.instagram.com/airtaskerCHAPTERS:0:00 – Introduction1:18 – Arriving at the Airtasker office and meeting Tim Fung1:52 – How long Airtasker has been in its current office2:35 – The story behind Tank Stream Labs and Airtasker's office setup2:51 – How many people work at Airtasker today3:43 – Tim talks about the tech wreck of 20224:14 – Why Airtasker decided to go public in 20215:28 – How COVID impacted Airtasker's revenue6:48 – Why Airtasker chose the UK as its first global market8:05 – How Airtasker became profitable in just nine months11:02 – Tim talks about aligning Airtasker's incentives with taskers' success12:48 – How Airtasker balances marketing for customers vs. taskers14:33 – Why Airtasker keeps most of its marketing in-house15:46 – Tim talks about brand marketing vs. performance (conversion) marketing16:20 – The TV advertising deal that changed Airtasker's trajectory17:44 – Tim talks about why measurable metrics can be misleading18:56 – How Tim handles uncertainty when investing heavily in brand marketing21:06 – How Tim manages the stress of leading 200+ employees22:14 – What excites Tim more: scaling the product or building new things23:36 – Tim's recent life discoveries24:36 – Tim's goals and focus for the next six months25:16 – Connect with Tim25:37 – Outro

Martin Brazinet, head of Technology at AWS Canada AWS Canada has opened its first Canadian Partner Innovation Hub in Toronto, a purpose-built facility designed to help Canadian businesses move from AI experimentation to production-ready implementation – with their partners in the lead. The center, publicly announced June 2 at the AWS Summit Canada, is the Canadian evolution of AWS’s GenAI Innovation Center (GenAIIC) model. Globally, 65 percent of solutions that went through the GenAIIC program have made it to production, some in as few as 45 days. The key distinction for the Toronto hub: it is explicitly built around partner delivery and scale. “Seventy percent of our customers are hoping to get their GenAI implementation done using a partner,” said Martin Brazinet, head of technology at AWS Canada. “Having an environment where we can bring our launch partners and show cross-industry specificity is how this came about.” The facility opens with four launch partners: CGI, Dedicatted, Elevata, and OpsGuru. Each visit is tailored rather than templated – partners customize the demos and talk track for a specific customer, then move into a structured workshop designed to get C-suite, architects, and line-of-business stakeholders aligned on a shared action plan before they leave. Dinesh Bhavsar, director of AI, emerging technologies and innovation at CGI, said the space addresses a gap he sees regularly in how customers approach AI adoption. “If you’re starting with AI as the solution, you’ve already failed,” he told In The Channel. “You haven’t thought about what problem you’re actually trying to solve.” AWS says it intends to expand access beyond the four launch partners, with industry specificity and differentiated offerings being the primary selection criteria for future participants. Read Full Transcript Hello and welcome to In The Channel from ChannelBuzz.ca, bringing news and information to the Canadian IT channel community for the last 16 years. I’m Robert Dutt, editor of ChannelBuzz.ca, your host for the show. So here’s a number worth thinking about. 650,000 Canadian businesses are already on the AI adoption path, but only a third of them have actually mastered it. The other two-thirds are still at a very basic level of implementation, and the challenge isn’t getting started, it’s getting serious. Moving from a proof of concept that generates excitement in the boardroom to a production solution that actually changes how the business runs. That gap between prototype and production is the problem AWS Canada is trying to help its partners solve, and on June 2nd, the company formally launched its answer, the Partner Innovation Hub in Toronto. I was on site the day before the launch for a couple of conversations. First, I sat down with Martin Brazinet, head of technology at AWS Canada, who walked me through the vision behind the centre, why it’s built around partners and what success actually looks like. Then I spoke with Dinesh Bhavsar, director of AI, emerging technologies and innovation at CGI, one of the four launch partners, about what the space means for his clients and how he thinks about sparking curiosity with customers who may not yet know what questions to ask. Let’s get right into it, starting with my chat with Martin Brazinet. Thanks for taking the time, really appreciate it, especially on the eve of the centre going public and getting it launched out there.Martin Brazinet: Oh, thank you very much. It’s my pleasure to be here with you, Rob. Rob: For folks who aren’t familiar with the concept or haven’t heard it yet, can you kind of give us the elevator pitch, I guess, for the Partner Innovation Centre – what it is and why Toronto is the place for it? Martin Brazinet: Yeah, no, for sure, Rob. Every day my team is working with customers and helping customers adopt AI on a continuous basis. We see a lot of excitement from customers who wanted to get deeper into AI. I believe in terms of Canadian customers, there are 650,000 customers already in Canada that have adopted AI. But surprisingly, only about a third of them have really mastered AI – two-thirds of them are still at a very basic level of AI adoption. And we see that, and customers want to get some support on having a better understanding of how they can adopt AI at a more transformative level that touches their industry and touches their requirement. And the AWS Partner Innovation Hub is really there for that – to provide that space where we can see solutions in action, having an immersive environment where we can, with our partners, show some solutions that are transformative, and then talk about an action plan on how to put that in effect within their environment. Rob: You guys have had other innovation spaces, innovation hubs, innovation centres, that kind of thing globally. Can you kind of tell me a bit about how you’ve built on those ideas? And especially, I’m interested because you chose to put “Partner” right on the tin in terms of the name of this centre – why was the partner focus so important for this one? Martin Brazinet: Yeah, of course. So I guess two-fold here. From a GenAI Innovation Centre perspective – and this is called GenAIIC – GenAIIC is something that we started in 2023 with a lot of demand from our customers. And this is based on our own experience of bringing customers into an immersive environment, thinking about their scenario, showing them solutions and prototypes. And that has been super successful – that was an AWS practice. We’ve brought thousands of customers globally to adopt the solutions that we were presenting. I think it’s 65% of the solutions that went through our GenAIIC that went to production, and some of them just within 45 days. Over time, we’ve adopted a lot of partner motion as part of the GenAIIC in order to scale it and bring way more industry knowledge, industry specificity. And so we took the best of the GenAIIC in terms of the demos and the industry specifics, and we made it more scalable. And this is how the hub here that we’re implementing in Toronto came about. Toronto is the first Canadian hub that we’re launching, and it’s really because we see that Canadian customers really want to have that partner support to launch their GenAI journeys. In fact, 70% of our customers are really thinking about using partners to be deploying their GenAI environment, and having an environment where we can bring our launch partners – that we’ll talk about in a minute – to bring that cross-industry specificity. Rob: Let’s talk a little bit about one of the problems that you’re designing to solve here – the dynamic that you see where AI projects stall out between proof of concept and actually getting out there and earning their keep in the business. How widespread a problem is that for Canadian partners talking to their customers today? Martin Brazinet: Well, I think that’s one of the problems, right? Our customers have started to adopt AI, and they had that first stage of adoption of having pretty basic implementation. And when it comes to having more complex use cases to address in terms of really trying to transform their industry, they lack some of the knowledge that is required to move this to production. And this is where working with partners such as the launch partners that we have here – which are CGI, Dedicated, Elevata, and OpsGuru – they’ve been going to those types of projects dozens of times. They know how to move from proof of concept to production, building the right runbook, upscaling the customer environment, and they are that proof of success that can really reassure customers in that journey to moving to production. Rob: We talked a little bit before this about a shift that you’re seeing in how purchasing decisions are being made – kind of away from IT and towards line of business, the people who actually own the ultimate solution. How do you find that’s changing what a partner actually does to spec, to architect, to close a deal? Martin Brazinet: Well, it comes back to the fact that right now, the solutions that were initially planned were very generic. When you’re buying an AI solution off the shelf, it’s relatively non-complex to bring to production, but then you don’t transform your business as much. And it’s really where you see the partner with different depth of expertise – whether it’s consulting expertise that really understands how you need to shift your production environment if you’re in a manufacturing environment, or if you’re a global organization – having the partners that understand those different dynamics and can bring their expertise to help them launch and transform your business. Rob: Is this a Canada-specific challenge, or something you’re seeing around the world? And if it is sort of a universal challenge – which I suspect at least to some degree it is – is there anything that’s specifically unique about the Canadian market and its peculiarities? Martin Brazinet: Yeah. I think overall Canadian businesses are, in some aspect, maybe less risk-taking than some other countries. Rob: You would not be the first who said that. Martin Brazinet: Yeah. So being supported by a partner that has the experience to move this into your environment is certainly reassuring to customers in terms of the chances of success and avoiding costly mistakes that some may have made. So I think this is kind of maybe more unique to Canada, and this is why the number that I shared earlier – of 70%, 70% of customers are hoping to get their GenAI implementation using a partner – there’s certainly a connection between those two data points there. Rob: Yeah. I sometimes use the term, “Canadian businesses like to have someone walk through the minefield first and see where it is.” In the case of the right partner who’s done this a bunch of times, they hopefully know where all those mines are beforehand, and specific to your industry. Rob: So let’s talk about the centre itself and the experience. Walk me through – if I’m a partner and I’m bringing a customer in here, what does that look like in practice? How does the experience unfold? Martin Brazinet: Yeah. So I think the first thing is every visit to the hub is expected to be a tailored visit. It’s not a demo centre where everybody gets the same experience. A partner is going to take the time to really tailor it with demos and a talk track that are certainly pertinent to the customer that is going to come. So with that in mind, the visit has two dimensions. The first dimension is to work through that immersive demo centre where they’re going to see curated demos that speak to their industry. And it’s going to give some form of reference in terms of the art of the possible – what is the most innovative organization in my specific industry thinking about, and solving problems in different ways? So I think that’s a very intuitive moment where the lights are turning on and you see the art of the possible. And then we’re going to shift to the second aspect of the visit, which is the workshop. And the workshop is where you build that alignment. We have the leadership of our customers present there, and it’s often a diverse set of personas that are going to come – it’s going to be the C-suite and the architects and the line of business, not just the CIO. And we’re bringing the partners’ architects and our architects as well from AWS. And altogether we’re going to try to align the value map of the use cases that they’re trying to solve from a customer perspective, and define what the workstreams are – whether it’s to do a better understanding of the KPI for that use case that we’re thinking about, or whether it’s to go directly to a proof of concept or proof of value, or just to bring it to production. We’re going to get that customized experience. So by the end of the session, the customer walks out of here not only having seen really impressive technology, but they’re going to walk out of here with a plan in hand and documented next steps that we can go and pursue together. Rob: And I think that last bit may inform this, but I’m curious what you think is the most powerful thing about this space – the thing that you think is really going to get things moving, get things unstuck and create some momentum toward getting AI solutions that are meaningful, that are delivering business outcomes. Martin Brazinet: You know, that’s a good question. There’s certainly the inspiration moment that is quite powerful – really understanding how technology can now solve a problem in a completely different way. And we try to say that to our customers: if you are going to implement a generative AI solution, don’t try to just automate the steps that are already part of your process, but try to look at it through a completely different lens so that you get a disproportionately better outcome. But to answer your question directly, I think some of the most powerful things that come out of here is the alignment – getting the leadership alignment of our customers, all being in the room, realizing the same capabilities together, and then brainstorming with subject matter experts on what the next steps are. You walk out of here with a consensus on what the best next steps are. And I think that alignment from the leadership perspective is really, really powerful. Rob: Is it a best practice to lock the door and not let anyone have pizza until everyone’s got on the same page? Martin Brazinet: Where did you learn about that? I cannot reveal my sources. Rob: So if I’m a partner who’s participating here and I want to bring a customer in – what does that look like in terms of lead time, in terms of setup, in terms of thinking through what I want to be showing and talking about? Martin Brazinet: I mean, I guess it depends on where you are in terms of your journey. There’s not a one-size-fits-all. If you’re pretty advanced in terms of defining the outcomes that you’re trying to drive and it’s really about understanding what technology we can align, it’s probably something that we can get ready to do in a couple of days. But if you’re still at the ideation level and you don’t really have a clear understanding of what you’re trying to do, there’s probably more work to do in terms of gathering the requirements and understanding what “good” looks like in terms of the outcome of that session. So I’d say anywhere between a couple of days to a week or two of prep work. Rob: And I guess lead time will depend on how popular the place is and how many customers are lining up outside the door. Martin Brazinet: Absolutely. And that’s why we have a few launch partners – so that we start with scale and each of them bring their own set of capabilities. And we also have the scaling factor behind having a few large launch partners with us. Rob: What’s the vision for the broader partner community going forward? You’re starting with four – what’s the message in terms of a roadmap for more partners having access, and how are you looking at what the qualifying metrics will be to get on the list to bring customers in? Martin Brazinet: Yeah. Well, I think to your point, this is a starting point. We’re starting with four and it’s not an ultra-gated approach – we want to scale. We want to bring partners that have differentiative offerings. I think that’s the main selection criteria. We’re looking to bring differentiative offerings from the perspective of either industry or type of use case. But this is expected to be a transformation session – not to talk about “oh, I just need to migrate from A to Z.” So if a partner has a specificity in terms of the industry or the way that they tackle problems, we’re certainly willing to hear it and scale our capabilities here. Rob: What are some of the things that you think will make for the best customers to bring in here, in terms of where they’re at in their journey – what the partners have identified as being beneficial for them versus maybe what the customer themselves has already figured out is beneficial for them? Martin Brazinet: I think it’s about rotating on the personas. We often pivot when we think about technology and AWS and cloud and AI to the tech owners of the businesses – we go to the CIOs and the architects. But a lot of the expectation from AI and generative AI is a revenue growth imperative that our customers are looking at, and that’s really a board-level priority. So we’re hoping to get more than just the usual technical leaders. Let’s go to the line of business – the people that are really interfacing with the industry problem they’re trying to solve – and see how AI and generative capabilities are now able to accelerate the innovation within that space. Rob: You mentioned the art of the possible on the customer side. I’m curious on the partner side – as I imagine we’re close enough to having customers going through here regularly that some of the partners have started to identify who they want to bring in – any surprises, without naming names or with naming names if you wish, in terms of what you’ve seen partners bringing to the table in terms of the types of customers or the types of things they want to be showing off? Martin Brazinet: Yeah, well, it’s a little bit early because we’re really launching this today – it’s going to be announced at the summit the day after tomorrow. So I think we’ll see that and make those discoveries as we go. We’re super excited and our partner ecosystem is really excited about that. But I can’t wait to get some of those learnings. Rob: So if this works out the way that you’re hoping, what does success look like a year from now? What are you measuring – is it deal velocity, customer outcomes that are actually out there, something else? Martin Brazinet: That’s a good one. I think the real measure of success is moving to production. Because that’s where the rubber meets the road and we are able to measure the outcome that we’re trying to drive. If it just turns out that we’re visiting the innovation hub and having great discussions and we walk out with a roadmap, but none of this goes into production – I think that’s the exact problem that we’re solving for. I’d say moving to production, and deepening the expertise into different industries, and really thinking about solving the problem in a different way – so that when we solve a problem in a different way, we can scale those learnings to other customers and help the Canadian industry evolve in that matter. Rob: Big picture – how significant do you think this place, and places like this, will ultimately play in moving the needle on AI adoption in the Canadian market, especially for partners and for customers? Martin Brazinet: Well, I think the opportunity is immense. If I just go back to my initial statement – there are 650,000 Canadian customers and two-thirds of which are at that very basic implementation of AI. We need to unblock those customers. We need to accelerate them. And I think places like this one are a way to get there. So I expect it’s going to be really impactful, providing this format is what customers need. They need to see things through a different lens and they definitely need the support of the partner community to move to implementation and get them to production. So I’m hoping it’s going to be really impactful for Canadian customers to accelerate their transformation. I think the number that I saw is that we expect 85% of the Canadian industry needs to change within the next five years, driven by AI adoption. So if we want our Canadian customers to stay innovative, to stay relevant, to be as productive and innovative as the rest of the industry, I think doing those experiments that we’re doing here with the hub is how we can help them. That’s a lot of folks through the centre. Rob: Good luck with the launch and getting partners in here and getting some of those AI projects moving forward. Thanks for taking the time. Martin Brazinet: No, thank you very much. It was great speaking with you today. That was Martin Brazinet from AWS Canada on the vision behind the Partner Innovation Hub and what it’s designed to unlock for Canadian businesses on their AI journeys. Now let’s hear the partner side of the story. Dinesh Bhavsar is director of AI, emerging technologies and innovation at CGI – one of the four companies tapped as launch partners for the facility. His take on what customers actually need, and the honest conversations partners sometimes need to have, is a nice complement to what we just heard from AWS itself. Rob: Dinesh, thanks for taking the time. I appreciate it. Dinesh Bhavsar: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it as well. Rob: Tell me a little bit about where your customers at CGI are at with AI. Obviously one of the precepts here – and this is something I’ve heard from partners for at least the last year – the idea that we start out strong, we have lots of ambition to do AI, but we don’t necessarily know what we want to do, we don’t necessarily know how we want to do it. We don’t know what that outcome looks like. What are you seeing from customers today in terms of where their AI journey falls off, for want of a better phrase? Dinesh Bhavsar: Yeah, I think there’s a broad spectrum of maturity when it comes to understanding what AI is, what it’s not, and what it can do for the organization. So we’ve had great clients who have a really good, clear understanding of what AI can do for their business and their business processes. And then we’ve had clients who are just, “Hey, I need to implement AI – Dinesh, help me implement AI.” And it’s those clients where we really have to have the honest conversation about the fact that if you’re starting with AI or any technology as the solution, you’ve already failed. Because you haven’t thought about what problem you’re actually trying to solve, and yet you’ve jumped to AI being the solution for all things in life. I don’t think that’s the case in many instances, but you do have to have those honest conversations with clients about that. Rob: Tell me about how you guys got involved here with the centre. At what point did AWS pull you in, and what was the initial reaction to the idea of doing this kind of an innovation hub? Dinesh Bhavsar: Yeah, I think at CGI – and especially within our team in the emerging technologies, AI and innovation team – we really try to drive a culture of innovation, a culture of customer-first mindset. And through our partnership with AWS, we were able to bring clients in to work through that concept and that practice. So that really allowed our clients to understand what it really means to put customer-first in every opportunity, in every challenge that they’re trying to solve. And I think through that partnership, through that collaboration, this hub really allows us to bring that to life and really bring clients into that journey. And we’re hoping to bring more of those experiences to our clients, as well as our CGI partners. I think CGI as a whole is looking to innovate and drive more customer-centric, or client-centric delivery. And I think this practice, this centre, will allow us to showcase some of that as well with our partners. Rob: What do you think will be the most impactful, especially when it comes to the demos and the things that they can show off here? I know it’s hard to predict because every customer is going to be different, but just in terms of things that you think might really get into a customer’s mind. Dinesh Bhavsar: Yeah, I think it’s the application of AI. Real-world scenarios, real-world application – I think that’s going to stand out. It’s very easy to think about the theoretical aspects of everything that’s happening in the AI space. Like I said, clients can get very lost. All of us can get really lost in everything that’s happening. But when you try to bring it down to real, tangible examples where people can see it in action, that relates to their role or relates to their business process – I think that’s when AI really becomes real. And I think this allows us to showcase that. Rob: What do you think it’s going to do in terms of speed to value, speed to outcomes – whatever you want to call it – in terms of the sales and architecting cycle that you guys go through with customers? Dinesh Bhavsar: Yeah, I think it’ll accelerate that quite a bit. Again, I’m a big advocate of solutions – real screens, real models, real-world solutions – and less of theoretical slides. I think the days of current state assessments and advisory alone are of the past. I think clients expect us to show real working solutions. And once you actually have that – what I always say is 70%, 80% there – you only really have the balance to customize for the client. And that allows you to move a lot faster than how we do today. Rob: You guys, I have to presume, are very familiar with the idea of working with the C-suite and working across the business. But I’m curious how much more of a shift you’ve seen towards line of business and C-suite as we’re looking at this AI technology stack. Dinesh Bhavsar: Yeah, I think we’ve gone from the world of being curious and wanting to understand more about AI at that level – and a bit of FOMO, I think – we’ve had executives that are in the race for the sake of being in the race to deploy AI – to more of, “Okay, I understand the technology now. I really need to understand the ROI or the value that it’s going to help drive in our business. What impact does it have on our employees?” So technology alone is great, but really you need to surround yourself with the human-centered, customer-centric practices – like design thinking, systems thinking, for example – which are great practices to surround yourself with AI or any technology. And I think C-suites are now understanding what that human impact is going to be. Efficiencies, sure, but it’s really around empowering their employees with more decision-making power at a pace that hasn’t been there in the past. So I think that’s evolved. Like I said, there are some notions out there of being in the AI space because it’s the thing to do right now. But I think executives, I think middle managers are all taking a step back to really understand what value it can bring, and really understand the cost of maintaining and creating these models. So I think the maturity has evolved quite a bit. Rob: How important is it that it’s a physical location? You guys are obviously global in scale with customers both local and international. And the whole concept of the cloud, of AI, of all this – is that it’s out there, it’s everywhere, all at the same time. And yet it does come down to getting everyone in the same room and hashing it out, working it out, and getting everyone aligned on the same value. Dinesh Bhavsar: Yeah, I mean, I’m a big advocate of in-person experiences. So I think having a physical space does allow you to bring a different mindset when you walk into it – whether that’s how it’s laid out and how people can navigate the space, complemented by the technology there to help you think differently, and then of course the collaborative spaces that surround it. Whether it’s workshops, groupthink, communal seating – I think all of that makes a big difference in a space like the Innovation Hub here. I think it does help that people get away from their day-to-day routine and come through an experience like this, because I think it does help you think differently, think more boldly. And it allows you to, again like I said before, be vulnerable, ask all the questions, and know that you’re surrounded in a safe environment that allows you to do that and fosters it. So physical space, to me, is great. I’m a big advocate of whiteboarding. I love whiteboarding. I’m such a visual person that I just draw it all out and see how it all works. And you’d be surprised to see how quickly decisions can get made when everyone’s in a room together, focused on one thing and not distracted by the emails and the phone calls – but really allowing themselves for focused work, group work. Rob: It sounds like almost the benefits of an off-site type of meeting, just where the site involved happens to be purpose-driven for what you’re trying to do with it. Dinesh Bhavsar: Exactly. And you want to be intentional. You want to come in here for a purpose. You want to come here with intention. And you do need facilitation of that. And I think the space helps facilitate that thinking. I think the people in the room can help facilitate that as well. But I think it is much more important to have a space like this than to not. Rob: How are you thinking about the customers who come in here, especially in terms of prioritization? Is it the biggest opportunities first, or is it you want to look at those who have big hairy audacious goals, or those who maybe don’t quite realize yet what could be the goal? Dinesh Bhavsar: Yeah, it’s probably the last part. In my world in emerging technologies and innovation, our role is really to help clients think about things they haven’t thought about yet, help CGI partners think about things they haven’t thought about yet, and really the art of the possible. So I think having clients come through here and really seeing what it could be is very beneficial. I’m hoping that seeing real-world solutions really helps to say, “Okay, well, what is AI and how does it help me and my business process? And what does that mean for my employees? Or what does it mean for my customers? Or what does it mean for my partners?” And so I think those questions can all be sort of answered in a space like this, in an experience like this, with real solutions. So yeah, I think it’ll be great. I don’t necessarily prioritize in terms of the size of the pie. My job is more about sparking curiosity with all our clients. And so we focus a lot more on strategic pursuits than tactical delivery. Rob: In terms of the kinds of demos you want to be delivering, I’m curious how customized, how granular do you want to go on setting those up? Is it a matter of the more customized the better, or do you want to keep it at an industry level? What does best case look like for you? Dinesh Bhavsar: Yeah, I think for me, one thing is keeping it as simple as possible – that will get the most adoption and understanding of what we’re trying to showcase. I think industry-wide definitely helps, because then you can see what others are doing, or where the industry is headed, and how that can apply to your specific scenario. And then you have to flex, right? So I think there are certain demos that are very business-friendly – where you do have executives come in and want to understand those solutions at a high level – and then you can have it so that you can go technically deep as well for the right audience and have those conversations. So you do need to be able to flex the demo, but I would say industry-wide, what’s truly emerging – and again, focus on what clients perhaps are not thinking of or considering yet – and really show them the art of the possible. Rob: Last one for me – a year from now, once getting folks in here is a frequent experience and you’ve got lots of reps on it, what are you thinking about in terms of one specific type of AI success story that you hope will have come out of bringing a customer into this facility? Dinesh Bhavsar: Yeah, I think I hope to bring a lot more clients through this experience, as I call it. I’m hoping we can bring real-world AI solutions that have impacted not only the client themselves, but I think it’d be great to see AI supporting social good, and us being able to dive into responsible innovation as well. So an AI solution that’s helping Canadians collectively across the country would be a great AI use case. And we’re doing a lot of work at CGI in terms of responsible innovation and how do we drive AI for good, for Canadians, with Canadians. And I’m hoping that use case or something gets sprung from this space. Rob: Big goals. I wish you well on that. Dinesh Bhavsar: Yeah, appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Rob: Thank you. There you have it – Martin Brazinet from AWS Canada and Dinesh Bhavsar from CGI. I’d like to thank both Martin and Dinesh for their time, and for carving out space for these conversations in the middle of what was a busy launch week. A couple things that stuck with me from these two interviews. Martin’s numbers are worth sitting with: of 650,000 Canadian businesses already on the AI journey, only about a third have gone deep. Two-thirds are still at the basics – not for lack of ambition. It’s just that moving from proof of concept to production is genuinely hard. It takes industry expertise, stakeholder alignment, and someone who’s been through the minefield enough times to know where the mines are. What I appreciate about Dinesh’s perspective is how direct he is with customers about the starting point. If someone comes to CGI and says, “I need to implement AI – help me,” he’ll be the first to tell them that they’ve already made a mistake, because they jumped to the solution before identifying the problem. That’s a conversation a lot of partners are navigating right now, and it’s a healthy one to hear out loud. The hub itself is an interesting bet on the idea that getting the C-suite, the architects, and the line-of-business people in the same room, seeing the same demos, and walking out with a shared plan is what actually gets these projects unstuck. The model has a good track record globally – 65% of solutions through AWS’s GenAIIC program have made it to production – so there’s something to build on here. If you found this one useful, I’d love to have you follow or subscribe to the podcast. We’re on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and most of the major directories. And if you’ve got a moment, ratings and reviews are always helpful. Until next time, I’m Robert Dutt for ChannelBuzz.ca, and I’ll see you in the channel.

Bridget Toomey outlines Abdul Malik al-Houthi's expansive vision, which includes seizing contested Saudi territory and holy cities. Emboldened by Red Sea disruptions, the Houthis seek to expand their religious and political influence globally. (5)1958 yemen

In this episode of the Global Expansion Pathway series, CEO Andy Hooper dives into the critical reasons why many brands fail when expanding globally and how to avoid these pitfalls. Using the analogy of learning to ride a bike, we explore the importance of having "stabilizers" in place before accelerating into new markets.Join him as he shares a real-life case study of a brand that attempted to expand from the U.S. to the U.K. and Europe, only to face significant challenges due to cultural differences, compliance issues, and logistical hurdles. Discover the three major wobbles that can derail your expansion efforts and learn how to regain control by implementing four key strategies.He'll discuss:The importance of understanding consumer psychology in new marketsHow to manage margins and hidden costs effectivelyThe necessity of a clean logistics flowThe value of focusing on one market at a time before scalingStability comes before speed, and this episode will equip you with the insights needed to build a solid foundation for your international growth. Don't miss our next video, where we'll break down the seven most common mistakes brands make when expanding internationally!Chapters:00:00:00 Introduction: The Importance of Stabilizers in Global Expansion00:01:12 Case Study: A Brand's Failed Expansion into the UK00:02:54 Understanding the Terrain: Consumer Psychology and Market Differences00:03:49 Wobble One: Demand Translation Issues00:04:00 Wobble Two: Margin Erosion00:04:33 Wobble Three: Inventory Timing Challenges00:05:25 The Illusion of Progress: External vs. Internal Realities00:06:09 Finding Balance: The Need for Stabilizers00:06:31 Strategy Shift: Focusing on One Market00:06:51 Compliance: Fixing the Hidden Issues00:07:24 Logistics: Building a Clean Flow00:08:09 Results: The Shift Towards Stability00:09:03 The Importance of Stability Before Speed00:09:25 Conclusion: Sequencing Over Speed in Global Expansion00:10:09 Teaser: Common Mistakes in International ExpansionSubscribe for more insights on global expansion and business growth!#globalexpansionpathway #ecommerceexpansion #motivation

Globally acclaimed DJ Shigeki found more than a new home when he arrived in Australia after coming out to his family. He discovered a community that accepted him as he was—and the place where his career as a DJ would begin. This story was firest published in March 2022. - 世界を舞台に活躍するDJ、Shigekiさん。家族にカミングアウトした直後に訪れたオーストラリアには、ありのままの自分を受け入れてくれるコミュニティーがありました。また、オーストラリアはDJとしてのキャリアをスタートさせた場所でもあります。2022年3月放送。SBSの日本語放送は火木金の午後１時からSBS3で生放送！火木土の夜10時からはおやすみ前にSBS1で再放送が聞けます。SBS日本語放送ポッドキャストから過去のストーリーを聞くこともできます。無料でダウンロードできるSBS Audio Appもどうぞ。SBS 日本語放送のFacebookもお忘れなく。

Listen and subscribe to Money Making Conversations on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, www.moneymakingconversations.com/subscribe/ or wherever you listen to podcasts. New Money Making Conversations episodes drop daily. I want to alert you, so you don’t miss out on expert analysis and insider perspectives from my guests who provide tips that can help you uplift the community, improve your financial planning, motivation, or advice on how to be a successful entrepreneur. Keep winning! Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Travis Payne. The interview serves three main purposes: Inspiration & Career BlueprintTo highlight Travis Payne’s journey from Atlanta dancer to globally recognized choreographer and director working with icons like Michael and Janet Jackson. Business of EntertainmentTo educate listeners on how creativity (dance, music, performance) intersects with business, branding, and revenue generation. Motivation for Entrepreneurs & CreativesTo reinforce themes of persistence, preparation, and leveraging opportunity—aligned with the show’s mission to help audiences “plan their own success story.” [TRAVIS PAYNE | Txt]

Listen and subscribe to Money Making Conversations on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, www.moneymakingconversations.com/subscribe/ or wherever you listen to podcasts. New Money Making Conversations episodes drop daily. I want to alert you, so you don’t miss out on expert analysis and insider perspectives from my guests who provide tips that can help you uplift the community, improve your financial planning, motivation, or advice on how to be a successful entrepreneur. Keep winning! Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Travis Payne. The interview serves three main purposes: Inspiration & Career BlueprintTo highlight Travis Payne’s journey from Atlanta dancer to globally recognized choreographer and director working with icons like Michael and Janet Jackson. Business of EntertainmentTo educate listeners on how creativity (dance, music, performance) intersects with business, branding, and revenue generation. Motivation for Entrepreneurs & CreativesTo reinforce themes of persistence, preparation, and leveraging opportunity—aligned with the show’s mission to help audiences “plan their own success story.” [TRAVIS PAYNE | Txt]

(4) Steve Yates argues the "Thucydides trap" is a manufactured academic concept used by Beijing to suggest inevitable US decline. He emphasizes that the US is not a classical empire and remains globally influential. China uses this rhetoric for political warfare while remaining sensitive to American strength.ISTANBUL

Nazeefa Loladia earned her Girl Scout Gold Award by designing a multi-layered project to address the digital divide. Locally, she organized an electronics donation drive that collected nearly $5,000 in devices for the Atlanta nonprofit Inspiredu to refurbish and distribute to underserved communities. She expanded her project's global impact by partnering with Leap to Shine, a sister organization in India, where she created 15 educational video tutorials to teach children and instructors how to navigate the newly provided tablets and academic software. Additionally, Nazeefa addressed community technology needs by leading cybersecurity and basic coding workshops that successfully educated 100 elementary and middle school students. More from Nazeefa: I've been a proud Girl Scout for the past nine years, earning my Bronze, Silver, and now Gold Award. Through Girl Scouts, I've developed a strong passion for leadership and community service, which has been recognized through honors like Council Woman of Distinction and a council scholarship. In high school, I've stayed actively involved in student council, National Spanish Honor Society, National Honor Society, DECA, and several marketing internships, all of which have helped shape my interest in business. While I haven't committed to a college yet, I plan to major in business and continue building on the leadership and service skills Girl Scouts has given me. https://www.instagram.com/digitallaccess/

Amazon has officially disrupted the local market by launching its full Prime offering in South Africa. Globally, SpaceX plans a historic $75 billion IPO, Broadcom's AI chip revenue forecasts disappoint, and a fragile Israel-Lebanon ceasefire is renewed. Additionally, experts call for urgent action against South Africa's rampant illegal number plate trade, while UK political leaders clash heavily in Parliament.

#stockmarket #finance #investing #rajeshexports #sebi #pmi #aviation #economy #oecd #chipsact #renewablenergy #powermech #nifty50 #sensex #businessnewsCatch today's crucial market updates! SEBI flags a massive ₹15.15 lakh crore revenue fraud at Rajesh Exports. Meanwhile, India's Services PMI jumps to 59.8, and the Cabinet approves a ₹10,000 crore ATF stabilization fund to support airlines. Globally, the OECD downgrades economic growth forecasts, while the EU aims to double its semiconductor market share.https://shorturl.at/gM97lHow to Use Artificial Intelligence for Investing - Combo of 5 ebooks00:00 Start00:45 OECD Weakens Global Outlook03:47 EU Boosts Chip Production Target06:42 India's Services PMI Rises08:15 Relief Package for Stranded RE Capacity10:10 Cabinet Approves ₹10,000 Cr ATF Fund12:40 SEBI Flags Rajesh Exports Revenue Fraud15:33 Power Mech Secures New Contract16:26 Lessons From “The Psychology of Money”

Our Pulse Special episodes feature the hottest content from the 2026 event, including panel discussions with leading brands and technology vendors.Exclusive to Inside Commerce, these discussions share interesting insights from respected industry practitioners.In this panel, Oren John and Clayton Chambers from Hyper Studios, explore what a creator strategy is and how ecommerce brands can embrace and benefit from the creator community.About PulsePulse is an ecommerce conference designed for ambitious high-growth retailers and brands looking for inspiration and innovation from some of the top speakers in ecommerce and digital marketing.It takes place over 2 days every year in London, UK, with it sister New York event in September.

Globally, the US proposes major tariffs, and US-Iran peace talks face friction over the conflict in Lebanon. Locally, a Pretoria SPAR store faces severe tax fraud allegations, a Business Day investigation exposes rampant illicit number plate sales in Johannesburg, and an expert shares crucial tips to combat digital banking fraud. Finally, economist Mariana Mazzucato argues for purpose-driven corporate contracts.

Kia ora. Welcome to Wednesday's Economy Watch where we follow the economic events and trends that affect Aotearoa/New Zealand. I'm David Chaston and this is the international edition from Interest.co.nz. Today we lead with news of a changing of the guard. Countries are moving away from US Treasuries as a core reserve asset, replacing it with gold. At the same time, crypto values including for bitcoin, seem to be fading fast. But first up today, there was a full dairy auction overnight, one that brought slightly lower overall prices, with the USD index falling -0.6% mainly on -3% lower SMP prices. Milk fat products like AMF. Butter and Cheddar all rose, offsetting the fall in powder prices. But the NZD has also strengthened, so the result in NZD terms was a -2.0% fall. A pull-back in demand from China is part of this story too. In the US, they reported a surge in April job openings, their most in 18 months, notably in California and other western states. It is a services related thing, with manufacturing jobs not really participating. Meanwhile, the US RCM/TIPP economic sentiment survey fell slightly in June from may, but to its lowest in two years. And the US Logistics Managers Index is showing the full impacts of the current supply-chain disruptions and stockpiling. It held in May at its highest since the pandemic stress period. It is increasing at an increasing rate for inventory costs, warehousing capacity, and freight prices. In China, we should note that it is wheat harvest season and that they expect a bumper result. At the same time, both Australian and US farmers are hesitating in their plans for wheat as high fertiliser and fuel costs threaten to make the prospects very uncertain. In the EU and as expected, CPI inflation firmed up to 3.2% in May from 3.0% in April. Their core inflation rose as well. It seems to be only about rising fuel costs at present with the spread wider quite limited. Will the ECB hike its policy rate on June 11? Markets are betting 100% it will. In Australia, they have slipped into their first trade deficit since 2017 in the March 2026 quarter. Exports of minerals fell (except for gold) while imports of data center equipment surged. Globally, it is worth noting again that aluminium, zinc, copper and tin are all now either at record highs or at post-pandemic highs. The UST 10yr yield is now just on 4.46%, down -1 bp from this time yesterday.  The price of gold will start today down -US$9 at US$4482/oz. Silver is down -50 USc at just over US$75/oz. Interestingly, an ECB analysis released overnight has highlighted that after the run-up in the gold price, at the same time as the value of US Treasuries fell, gold was the largest single asset held for 'foreign reserves'. (see Chart 7) Oil prices are up another +US$2 just under US$93.50/bbl in the US, while the international Brent price is now on US$96/bbl and up +US$1.50. Hormuz remains shut. The Kiwi dollar is lower from yesterday at this time at 59.2 USc, down -30 bps. Against the Aussie we are also down -40 bps at 82.5 AUc. Against the euro we are down -10 bps at just under 51 euro cents. That all means our TWI-5 starts today at just over 62.7 which is down -20 bps from yesterday. The bitcoin price starts today at just on US$67,464 and down a sharp -5.9% from this time yesterday and falling. Crypto funds are getting excess redemptions at present. Volatility over the past 24 hours has been high at just under +/- 3.5%. You can get more news affecting the economy in New Zealand from interest.co.nz. Kia ora. I'm David Chaston and we'll do this again tomorrow.

Aubrey Cox Ottenstein joins The Great Battlefield podcast to talk about her career, running Globally, a nonprofit focused on public service careers and co-founding Hilltop, where they're building an AI tool to enable constituents to deliver personalized messages directly to lawmakers.

Buried underground in caverns dug out of salt on the Gulf coast of the US are millions of barrels worth of crude oil. This is the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, built up in the late 1970s.Globally, at the end of 2025, global strategic oil stockpiles were estimated at 2.5 billion barrels, with China holding the most.With the Strait of Hormuz now closed for more than two months, global oil supplies are being squeezed. In March, as part of a co-ordinated move by members of the International Energy Agency to release 400 million barrels of oil to prevent price spikes, the US began releasing 172 million barrels from its strategic reserves.In this episode, we speak to Scott Montgomery, a former petroleum geologist who lectures in international studies at the University of Washington, about why these oil stockpiles were built up in the first place, and how they work.This episode was written and produced by Gemma Ware and Katie Flood with production assistance from Katie Flood. Mixing by Eleanor Brezzi and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Read the full credits for this episode and sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.Why Middle East gas field attacks could send energy prices soaringWhy the Persian Gulf has more oil and gas than anywhere else on EarthWar in the Middle East made the case for renewables – what's happening in each country tells a harder storyThe government's plans to bolster Australia's fuel stores are sensible – but 5 years too lateOver 400 million barrels will be added to the oil market soon – what are strategic reserves and what can they do?Mentioned in this episode:Voices of the South

The world's biggest superheroes are built on more than spectacle. They're built on identity, emotion and fandom. In this episode of Brand Slam, hosts Steve Rosa and Joe Kayata go inside Hasbro's Marvel universe with Mike Pullano, Senior Director of Global Brand Strategy & Marketing leading the Disney Marvel portfolio. From Spider-Man and Black Panther to X-Men, Deadpool and The Avengers, Mike shares how one of the world's most iconic entertainment brands continues to scale globally while staying emotionally connected to fans across generations. The conversation explores what it takes to balance storytelling with business performance, market simultaneously to kids, parents and collectors, and evolve legendary franchises without losing what made audiences fall in love with them in the first place. Mike also reflects on his 15-year journey at Hasbro, helping shape powerhouse brands including Monopoly, Nerf, Peppa Pig, Furby, Baby Alive and Super Soaker. Along the way, he breaks down the strategy behind licensing partnerships, global audience engagement and building fandom that lasts far beyond the screen. For marketers, entertainment leaders and brand builders, this episode offers a powerful look at how emotional connection, consistency and community continue to drive winning brands in a crowded entertainment landscape. Have an idea for a guest? Reach out at brandslam@addventures.com.

America continues to fail in Iran while Donald Trump retreats further from NATO. Steve Schmidt breaks down why Trump's mistakes are laying the foundation for the next global catastrophe. Today's Merch: The American Nerohttps://thewarningwithsteveschmidt.com/products/the-american-nero-hoodie Subscribe for more and follow me here:Substack: https://steveschmidt.substack.com/subscribeStore: https://thewarningwithsteveschmidt.com/Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/thewarningses.bsky.socialFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/SteveSchmidtSES/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thewarningsesInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/thewarningses/X: https://x.com/SteveSchmidtSESSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In today's BizNews Daybreak, South African farmers win a massive High Court order against Agriculture Minister John Steinhauser over livestock vaccine restrictions. Globally, Israeli airstrikes in Gaza target new Hamas military leader Mohammed Odeh, while the US deploys health officers to Kenya to establish an Ebola quarantine facility. Back home, Alec Hogg emphasizes long-term market conviction for deeply discounted local stocks like Purple Capital, Afrimat, We Buy Cars, and Pick n Pay.

What does thriving actually look like for a late-diagnosed autistic adult?Alexis Kruel gives a pretty specific answer from a life of contradictions.Alexis is a commercial model and actor who was diagnosed autistic at 53 and ADHD shortly after. But this isn't really a diagnosis story. It's a story about what happens when your whole life suddenly plays back differently, and every awkward moment, every friendship that went cold, every dinner party you wanted to escape, finally makes sense.She's built a life that genuinely fits her brain. In this conversation she talks about how she did it — and what she'd tell anyone who's still figuring that out.In this episode:The video that stopped her cold and started everythingSensory life in the 70s — polyester, crinolines, a doomed trip to Stride RiteWhy she was simultaneously popular yet seen as “different”How the fear of being seen inspired her to become a modelHow two autistic people built a marriage that works — and why she thinks that's not an accidentHer advice for finding your comfort after late diagnosisFind Alexis: Instagram & TikTok: @alexiskruel_official YouTube & Facebook: Alexis KruelAlexis Kruel websiteResources mentioned:@whileyouwonderau theartofautism.com Prosper Health — telehealth autism assessments for adultsSupport the showRATED IN THE TOP 0.5% GLOBALLY with more than 1.2 million downloads!If you are an autistic person who has written a book about autism or if you have a guest suggestion email me at info@theautisticwoman.com.InstagramKo-fi, PayPal, PatreonLinktreeEmail: info@theautisticwoman.comWebsiteJune 24-28, 2026 In Rewilding Together

Bill Nienhuis, President of Childcare Worldwide, joins Rodney Olsen for a conversation about what it really means to make disciples, not just decisions. Drawing on his own formation as a young believer shaped by Sunday school teachers, choir directors, and a Bible-reading grandmother, Bill reflects on how God used decades of seemingly unrelated experience, including 25 years in the Bible software industry, to prepare him for his true life's work amongst children in Kenya, Uganda, Peru, and India. Through Childcare Worldwide's Life Center model, local churches come alongside children for up to ten years, planting seeds of the gospel and trusting the Holy Spirit to bring the harvest in His own time.   Bill shares the moving story of Diana, a withdrawn girl from an abusive home whose encounter with a caring Life Center teacher eventually led her entire family to faith and baptism. He also challenges listeners to rethink their role in the Great Commission, not as something that requires expertise or overseas travel, but as a daily posture of availability to God. Whether through prayer, relationship, or resourcing organisations like Childcare Worldwide, Bill believes every believer has a part to play in the worldwide work of making disciples.   WEBLINKS Childcare Worldwide Childcare Worldwide on Facebook Childcare Worldwide on Instagram

Here's how we fix it...

Shoot us a Text.Episode #1350: Today we're talking about Stellantis betting big on affordable vehicles and platform consolidation, NADA helping dealers put families on the road through a new national partnership, and Bojangles turning EV charging into a side of biscuits with its new “charge-and-dine” concept.Stellantis is laying out its “FaSTLAne 2030” plan, and for dealers, the headline is simple: more affordable metal is coming. The automaker says North America will get nine vehicles under $40,000 by 2030, with two slipping under the $30,000 mark.Stellantis' five-year, $70B plan sends 70% of global investment toward Jeep, Ram, Peugeot, Fiat and Pro One.In North America, Stellantis is targeting 25% revenue growth, 35% volume growth and 11 all-new vehicles.The company expects U.S. factory utilization to reach 80% by 2030, helped by increased domestic production.Globally, Stellantis plans to simplify 50% of its vehicles around three core platforms, including the new “STLA One” architecture designed to boost efficiency, lower costs and increase shared components across brands.CEO Antonio Filosa said, “FaSTLAne 2030 is the result of months of disciplined work across the company.”NADA and Vehicles for Change are teaming up nationally to help dealers put more families on the road to stability. The new partnership gives dealers a turnkey way to donate vehicles and support low-income families needing reliable transportation for work, childcare and daily life.NADA and Vehicles for Change will officially launch a national dealer partnership on May 27 in Pennsylvania.#1 Cochran Buick GMC will donate two vehicles to local families during the kickoff event as an example for dealers nationwide.The program includes a dealer “playbook” with step-by-step guidance for stores wanting to participate in their own communities.Vehicles for Change says it has already helped more than 8,200 families gain affordable transportation through its Keys to Independence program.NADA Chairman Rob Cochran said, “This event demonstrates the powerful impact dealers can have.”Bojangles is entering the EV charging game, turning fried chicken stops into charging stops. The chain just launched its first EV charging station in Savannah, Georgia, pitching a new “charge-and-dine” experience as it looks to expand chargers nationwide.The company partnered with XLR8 America and Energy and Environmental Design Services to bring level 2 and level 3 chargers to future locations.Bojangles says the goal is to transform charging downtime into a hospitality experience built around food, comfort and convenience.The company says its charging network is designed for more than 97% uptime as EV adoption continues to grow.CIO Richard Del Valle said, “This is about more than charging vehicles. It's about redefining the stop along the way.”“At XLR8 America, our philosophy is simple: charge where you park, not park where you charge,” XLR8 America CEO Frank O'Connor said. “Bojangles gets that. When a driver pulls in for a Bo-Berry Biscuit and the battery tops off while they dine, that's not a coincidence — that's the charge-and-dine experience made real.”Join Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier every morning for the Automotive State of the Union podcast  as they connect the dots across car dealerships, retail trends, emerging tech like AI, and cultural shifts—bringing clarity, speed, and people-first insight to automotive leaders navigating a rapidly changing industry.Get the Daily Push Back email at https://www.asotu.com/JOIN the conversation on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/asotu/

On May 20, JWE president Helena Cobban sat down with Dr. Yingnan ("Chris") Yi, a Research Fellow at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University in Beijing, to discuss the role that China has played and can play in finding a speedy, lasting, and equitable end to the U.S.-Iran war. This conversation came just a few days after the end of Pres. Trump's trip to Beijing where he held a notable series of summit-level meetings with Pres. Xi Jinping. This conversation took the distinctive form of an interactive dialogue, in which Dr. Yi. and Ms. Cobban each had the chance to pose some questions to the other. It also ranged broadly over a number of key items on the China-U.S. agenda, in addition to matters related more directly to the ongoing U.S.-Israeli war on Iran and Israel's assaults against Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank. The two scholars also assessed the broad changes in power dynamics that the world is seeing today.This dialogue was also the latest episode in Just World Ed's continuing series on the Iran Crisis. Find the multimedia records of this episode and all its others at this Online Learning Hub on our website.Support the show

Have you ever felt like the world's volume is turned all the way up — and no one else seems to notice?For autistic people, sound sensitivity isn't just a quirk or an overreaction. It's a daily, exhausting reality. In this episode, you'll hear what it actually feels like when everyday sounds become unbearable — and learn the science behind why it happens.In this episode:Why between 50–70% of autistic people experience sound sensitivity at some point in their livesThe elements of sound that can push an autistic brain into overdrive: frequency, duration, quantity, repetition, and volumeWhat's happening in your brain when a disturbing noise sends your nervous system into fight-or-flightWhy the common advice to "just get used to it" can actually make things worse for autistic peoplePractical tools and strategies that can help — from noise-canceling headphones to acoustic wall panels to earplug alternativesMeet My Autistic Brain is a podcast for late-discovered autistics and anyone who wants to understand what life on the spectrum really looks like — no filters, no sugarcoating.Listen, subscribe, and share with someone who needs to hear this one.Support the showRATED IN THE TOP 0.5% GLOBALLY with more than 1.2 million downloads!If you are an autistic person who has written a book about autism or if you have a guest suggestion email me at info@theautisticwoman.com.InstagramKo-fi, PayPal, PatreonLinktreeEmail: info@theautisticwoman.comWebsiteJune 24-28, 2026 In Rewilding Together

Welcome to Multiverse News, your source for information about all your favorite fictional universes.During Disney's annual upfront presentation on Tuesday, Marvel Television revealed that the long awaited VisionQuest series will hit Disney Plus later this fall, with the debut streaming October 14. A trailer for the Paul Bettany led spinoff was also shown to media buyers and advertisers and reportedly featured a look at James Spader's return as Ultron. This exciting update comes on the heels of Daredevil: Born Again's Season 2 finale and the release of the Punisher special presentation; with all eyes on the upcoming Spider-Man: Brand New Day and, of course, Avengers: Doomsday,Disney's Tuesday presentation also shed some light on Lucasfilm's streaming future with Ahsoka Season 2 promised for an early 2027 release window on Disney Plus, more than 3 years after Season 1 streamed in 2023. Rosario Dawson took the stage where she teased, “This season, the battles are bigger and the stakes are higher.” Ahsoka creator and Lucasfilm co-head Dave Filoni backed Dawson's comments while featured in a sneak peek of the upcoming season.It's been a while since we discussed DC's Deathstroke & Bane team up feature with details remaining sparse since it was first announced in September; now Deadline is reporting that according to its sources not only is the film still in development, but multiple directors including Greg Mottola as a frontrunner are in talks to helm it. Mottola is no stranger to the DCU or James Gunn, having directed episodes of Peacemaker. While DC has yet to comment, Moon Knight writer Matthew Orton reportedly wrote the initial screenplay for the villain duo team-up and is set to do a rewrite if Mottola does end up being the choice. In other DCU news, Friday Night Lights actor Sinqua Walls has joined the cast of Man of Tomorrow in an undisclosed role. Deadpool and Wolverine director Shawn Levy is now attached to direct an original sci fi film written by Max Taxe titled Somewhere Out There for Netflix. New release Mortal Kombat 2 came in third place at the box office this weekend, behind The Devil Wears Prada 2 and Michael. Globally, The Devil Wears Prada 2 has crossed $400 million dollars and Michael has crossed $500 million dollars. Mortal Kombat 2 earned a worldwide box office total of $63 million dollars with only $23 million of that total made overseas. NBCUniversal has confirmed that a live-action Fast and the Furious series is in development. Vin Diesel, who will serve as a producer, announced the project, which is set up at Peacock, on stage at the NBCUniversal upfront presentation Monday morning. Florence Pugh is set to star in and produce fantasy drama The Midnight Library, which will be directed by Garth Davis. The Midnight Library is based on a novel of the same name by Matt Haig.Conan O'Brien will return to host the Oscars in 2027 which will make his third consecutive year as the host of the ceremony.Breaking Bad star Aaron Paul has joined the cast of season 3 of Prime Video's Fallout. After bringing Michael Crichton‘s theme park vision to the screen scripting 1993's Jurassic Park and two sequels, screenwriter David Koepp is looking to tackle another one. Deadline hears Koepp will revisit Westworld, the 1973 film written and directed by Crichton. A major unnamed director is also circling the project for Warner Brothers.

Culture Changers Podcast is 7 TODAY! Award-winning. Globally ranked (top 1.5%) Almost 300 episodes and a million downloads. And to celebrate, I'm doing a ridiculous marathon livestream starting today at 1pm EST.  And I might even go for SEVEN HOURS! Join me LIVE (please comment and say hi - surprise guests, surprise announcements, spice level 1000.  YouTube Facebook LinkedIn Instagram Definitely NOT Twitter/X

How do you turn employees into active brand advocates in less than 90 days?In this episode, Anna Laura McGranahan, the driving force behind the social media strategy at Aptean, an AI-enhanced enterprise software, shares her blueprint for migrating from manual, untrackable social sharing to a high-performance advocacy engine that hit its end-of-year goals in just four weeks.Listeners will discover how to build a structural foundation for scale, from navigating IT requirements like Single Sign-On to leveraging executive leadership to drive immediate adoption. Anna Laura also pulls back the curtain on her use of Generative AI agents to remove the “blank page syndrome” for employees, ensuring that even engineers and R&D teams feel confident posting on LinkedIn.Resources:Want to know how your employee advocacy strategy really stacks up?Grab your FREE Employee Advocacy Health Check and see how you compare against your competitors.Book a call to discover how employee advocacy can benefit your team:​Ready to elevate your employee advocacy? Get a free copy of Bradley Keenan's essential book, ‘Employee Advocacy: 101 Cheat Codes' for deeper insights and actionable strategies.​Download the 2026 Employee Advocacy Benchmark Report.Subscribe to the Employee Advocacy & Influence Podcast on Spotify or your favorite platform to never miss an episode.

Did you know that AuDHD is its own unique experience, not just autism plus ADHD co-existing? In this episode Megan Griffith, author of Welcome to AuDHD: How to Survive and Thrive as an Adult with Autism and ADHD, gives us the inside look at AuDHD from her lived experience. Some of the things Megan talks about: Why AuDHD is its own unique experience, not just autism plus ADHD stacked on top of each otherHow autism and ADHD can mask each other, leading to late or missed diagnosesPractical advice on employment, salary negotiation, and finding work that fuels rather than drains youWhy autism and ADHD are often misunderstood as behavioral issues instead of neurodevelopmental disabilitiesMisdiagnosis and what to look for in an autism/ADHD assessmentLearning to make accommodations instead of trying to “fix” yourselfWhy many autistic and ADHD people struggle with self-trustThere's so much more!The book: Welcome to AuDHD: How to Survive and Thrive as an Adult with Autism and ADHDThe Neurocuriousity Club Megan Griffith website Support the showRATED IN THE TOP 0.5% GLOBALLY with more than 1.2 million downloads!If you are an autistic person who has written a book about autism or if you have a guest suggestion email me at info@theautisticwoman.com.InstagramKo-fi, PayPal, PatreonLinktreeEmail: info@theautisticwoman.comWebsiteJune 24-28, 2026 In Rewilding Together

Coming up don't miss an incredibly informative interview with Rhona O'Connell, Head of Market Analysis with StoneX Financial – a global leader when it comes to financial services, commercial hedging, foreign exchange and physical commodities. Rhona has over 40 years of experience as a commodities analyst and is a recognized authority in the precious metals sector.   Don't forget to also follow us on social media for more important precious metals updates! https://www.youtube.com/@Moneymetals | https://www.facebook.com/MoneyMetals | https://instagram.com/moneymetals/ | https://twitter.com/moneymetals | https://www.pinterest.com/moneymetals/

Ken's Top 5 CliftonStrengths are: Strategic, Maximizer, Command, Relator and Arranger  Ann's Top 5 CliftonStrengths are:  Responsibility, Belief, Developer, Restorative & Empathy Ken and Ann met as students at the University of Texas  and upon graduation they  marred joined staff with Cru staff and served in various countries  including living on the gospel frontier in East Asia  for 13 years.  Currently Ken  serves as Senior Vice President of Leadership Development at East-West, whose vision is making disciples of Jesus in the spiritually darkest nations. Ken is a co-founder of Indigitous, a ministry helping people in digital spaces reach their world. God's calling has led Ken  to 60 nations, serving and strengthening Christ's leaders. Ann has led in a ministry called God Tools and currently enjoys  her work in a local floral shop!   They recently celebrated their 40th anniversary and love hiking, camping, cycling, and spending as much time as possible with their six grandchildren. They reside in Plano, Texas.  Link to take the CliftonStrengths Assessment Coaching and Workshops with Barbara Culwell Subscribe & Leave a Review on Embrace Your Strengths  

Despite the historical energy disruption from the Iran conflict, stocks are back to record highs. Our Global Head of Fixed Income Research Andrew Sheets and our Head of Commodity Research Martijn Rats discuss different views and fundamentals driving markets.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Andrew Sheets: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Global Head of Fixed Income Research at Morgan Stanley.Martijn Rats: I'm Martijn Rats, Head of Commodity Research at Morgan Stanley.Andrew Sheets: Today: oil, oil inventories, and the price at the pump.It's Wednesday, May 6th, at 2pm in London.Martijn, it's great to talk to you. We remain in this very unique market where on the one hand, the energy market is severely disrupted. On the other hand, we're making new all-time highs in the stock market. And part of this debate is a creeping sense that maybe the energy market is just a lot more resilient than many people initially thought.So, let's just jump right into it. As you look at the current state of the world, the state of things, how are you seeing the energy market at the moment?Martijn Rats: There are definitely two views in the market. I would say commodity specialists, oil traders, people that trade oil and gas equities for a living, tend to focus on the size of the supply shock. And it is neither hyperbole nor disputed that the size of the supply shock is the largest in the history of the oil market. We have the statistical data to back that up. That is not a controversial statement.But at the same time, the other view in the market, generally held by your generalist investors who invest across many markets. They tend to focus on the likelihood or possibility that this supply shock might also be uniquely short. It was there all of a sudden, from one day to the next, the strait was closed. It felt a bit man-made, so to say. It was an outcome of a political decision, and that can also be undecided. And so, this is – the to-ing and fro-ing in the market is; on the one hand, this shock is very, very large. But the other hand it may also be very, very short.Now we went into this supply shock, arguably well-prepared. In the sense that during the course of like late 2024, all of 2025, and the very early part of 2026, we were telling a story of oversupply surplus. And on top of that, given the military buildup was going on in January and February, a lot of countries in the Arabian Gulf – Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait – visibly put out a lot of oil at sea.So, in the oversupply of 2025, we put oil in storage in lots of places that we can't always see. But that seems very likely. Oil in the water was very, very high. So, we have been living off these buffers, and that has helped. And then, yeah, at any point in time, there were good enough reasons to assume that on a timeframe of a couple of weeks, this would largely be resolved. We would eat into these buffers, draw some inventory.And it has been hard for the market then to really capitalize the size of the supply shock and say, "Yeah, really oil prices need to spike very, very high." And in that sense, we're left with this significant supply shock, but we haven't taken out the highs that we saw in 2022, for example.Andrew Sheets: So maybe a way to think about this, right, is that if we imagined all of that oil as sitting in a big tank. We've kind of stopped a lot of the flow into the top of the tank as the Strait of Hormuz has remained closed. But oil's still able to drain out of the bottom, kind of, like normal because that tank is being drained. Those inventories have been drawn down. Maybe that's a quite a crude analogy, to forgive the pun.But how long can that last? I mean, if we think about these inventories, if we think about the speed of which they're being drawn down; and I think that's an important point that you mentioned, that these inventories were unusually high going in. But they're obviously not unlimited.Where does that stand? And I guess, you know, what is the limit of that? How long can those inventory draws last?Martijn Rats: Yeah, yeah. To say that this is the billion-dollar question would be understating it, Andrew. It's also a unusually complicated question to answer in the sense that it depends very heavily on the region, on the product that you're looking at. Jet fuel in Europe, NAFTA in Asia, you might see something sooner. But other products in other regions, you know, might take longer.We often don't really know where the operational limitations of inventories are. Globally, we see something like 8 billion barrels of oil in some form of storage. That is an enormous amount. We can't draw that down to zero because a lot of that is there for operational, like working capital type reasons. Just to facilitate the operations of the industry. Is the floor seven? Is the floor six? These things are hard to answer.Andrew Sheets: You've got to have some oil in the pipeline to make the pipeline flow…Martijn Rats: Exactly, exactly. You can't operate a refinery if you don't have at least some storage right next to it. It just doesn't work. So, these things are hard to know. But I would say that we are eating through these buffers very, very re-rapidly now. Oil on water has largely normalized and is no longer elevated.We are seeing very large inventory draws across every data point that we have on refined products. Refined products are universally drawing. On crude, the data is more patchy. But we are seeing large inventory draws now coming through in the United States. I would say – and this is partly having worked with this data for a long time and sort of developing some market feel rather than very analytical spreadsheets, so to say. But I would say that if the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz does not resume on the sort of next four to six weeks, we will get very, very tight by June, early summer.And, well, look, I mean, from there, it's simply… You know, if you then were to forecast. You know, project forward from there on. It would be getting tight by August, September. But of course, that's done under the assumption that the flow remains impaired over that period, which I would say most market participants would not assume at the moment.Andrew Sheets: And another point that comes up sometimes, at least in my conversations, is, ‘Oh, but, you know, maybe Venezuelan oil is going to be coming online.' There's more investment. The U.S. seems very focused on increasing oil output in Venezuela. You know, can that match in any sense the scale of what we've had disrupted here?Martijn Rats: No, that is a complicated issue in the sense that, you know, growing oil production takes time. It takes capital, it takes equipment, it takes a lot of people. Venezuela at the moment, produces a bit more than a million barrels a day. I'd have to say, like, relative to the size of Venezuela's production, the last two monthly data points have actually come in better than expected. But you're talking about 100,000 barrels a day, 200,000 barrels a day, that sort of thing. Relative to a supply shock that is 13-14 million barrels a day.The fastest ever single amount of production growth of any country in any year was 2018. U.S. shale with natural gas liquids included grew 2 million barrels a day in a single year. But yeah, even that…Andrew Sheets: So, 2 million barrels relative to 14 million barrels lost is…Martijn Rats: Yeah, exactly.Andrew Sheets A drop in the bucket. Martijn Rats: And that had a huge run-up of several years of putting the infrastructure in place to do that. I mean, it…. You don't turn it on a dime either. So no, that remains difficult.Andrew Sheets: So, you know, maybe a dynamic to close with is actually another way that I think people care about the oil price, you know, besides their portfolio – which is they drive.And, you know, you had a great stat in your report that one out of every 11 barrels of oil that's produced ends up in an American car. And the U.S. is a big producer. Its inventories have been drawing down. There are clear signs that the U.S. is exporting a lot of energy, and as a result, gas prices are also going up in the U.S.So, you know, what… If you could just talk a little bit about the move in gasoline and maybe, you know, I think this could be a good segue into this idea of distillates into, kind of, parts of refined product. And how those prices can deviate or not from the barrel of oil we often talk about. And then even just more generally, kind of what is the price at the pump that people might need to think about as you head into the summer – assuming, you know, this conflict is still somewhat uncertain.Martijn Rats: Yeah. So, the United States is very interesting at the moment. In the sense that the regular discourse about the United States is that the United States is energy independent because it is a net oil producer. And at the most aggregate level, that is correct. But that doesn't mean that the United States is not connected to the rest of the world from an oil market perspective. I would say actually it's the opposite.The U.S. oil market is deeply connected to the rest of the world. It is a net exporter because there are very large imports, and there are very large exports, and it just happens so that the exports are a little bit bigger than the imports. So, it's a net exporter.But flows in both directions exist for every product – for crude, for diesel, for gasoline. So, the U.S. should be the last place to have physical disruptions because the supply is close to home. But in the end, it's so connected; that in the end, there's only one global oil price – and we all pay it, including in the United States.Now, because of the deficits at the moment, in Asia, to [an] extent in Europe, there is a very large pool on oil from the United States, and we're seeing that across the board. Crude oil exports were 4 million barrels a day, at the start of the year. They're now running sort of 5.5, even 6 million barrels a day. So, there's a lot of crude being pulled out of the United States. That is partly also the SBR release, the release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. But the export's very, very large.Another product where that is also happening is in gasoline. Now, the gasoline market in the United States has a degree of complexity to it in the sense that the U.S. is a big importer of gasoline in the East Coast and the West Coast, but then a big exporter from the Gulf Coast.Andrew Sheets: Hunh! Okay. Yeah.Martijn Rats: Net-net, it's an exporter, but in the East Coast and the West Coast, big, big importer. Now, in Europe, for example, we are normally long gasoline, short diesel. We export our surplus to the U.S. East Coast. But, at the moment, it's tight in Europe, so we're not exporting that much gasoline. So, imports in the United States have dropped a lot.At the same time, Asian customers, Brazilian customers, Mexican customers [are] pulling a lot of gasoline out of the Gulf Coast. And as a result, the net exports are unusually high for this time of the year. On top of that, the Strait of Hormuz issue has tightened the diesel market so much relative to the gasoline market that it is favorable for refineries to maximize their diesel output over their gasoline output.Andrew Sheets: Hmm. And these are decisions you can make in terms of how you crack that barrel in a refinery and split it up.Martijn Rats: Yeah, exactly. Within a relatively narrow window, but you can make tweaks that are significant. Now, normally, we're going into this summer driving season, refineries switch from what we call max diesel to max gasoline. At the moment, they are not doing that.Andrew Sheets: Mm.Martijn Rats: So, you have low gasoline production, and you have large net exports of gasoline. Over the last 11 weeks already, we have seen a very significant, very significant decline in gasoline inventories in the United States. And prices have risen at the pump. The nation's average is now $4.50 per barrel, as of reports this morning.The summer driving season has yet to start. That can become $4.70, $4.80. That can become $5. Above $5 is historically a point where people get, yeah, worried about demand destruction. And it has a real impact.Andrew Sheets: Well, Martijn, I think this remains such an important and interesting story. And even if, you know, it can seem sometimes like the market has moved on to other things, clearly there are a lot of other factors driving the equity market. It remains pretty historic, pretty significant, and pretty complicated. Also, something that I think, you know, affects the day-to-day spending and lives of a lot of people out there.So, Martijn, again, thank you for taking the time to talk.Martijn Rats: Thank you.Andrew Sheets: And thank you, as always, for your time. If you find Thoughts on the Market useful, let us know by leaving a review wherever you listen. And also tell a friend or colleague about us today.

Marty Loughlin from the Digital Irish Venture Fund joins Dave to unpack what makes Irish founders default to global markets from day one, why Ireland punches so far above its weight on founder output, and what the next wave of Irish startups crossing the Atlantic means for the US-Irish business ecosystem. If you're an Irish founder thinking about scaling internationally, or anyone curious about why Stripe, Wayflyer and Tynes aren't accidents, this one's for you.Marty Loughlin is a partner at the Digital Irish Venture Fund (DIVF), the fund built on the back of the Digital Irish Angels investment group, founded in 2016. DIVF backs Irish founders scaling globally with a particular focus on those entering the US market, drawing on a network of Irish-American business leaders across the diaspora.What We CoverWhy Irish founders default to global from day oneHow founder ambition has shifted in the last five yearsThe biggest mistakes Irish founders make breaking into the USWhat DIVF looks for, and why traction matters most

This week we talk about industrialization, antibiotics, and child mortality rates.We also discuss corruption, instability, and progress.Recommended Book: Empire of Silence by Christopher RuocchioTranscriptDemographic transition is a social sciences theory that posits, based on all sorts of modern historical data, that societies tend to change, demographically, as they transition from a largely agrarian, low-industrial society, to that of a less-agrarian, high-industrial society.Most modern, post-hunter-gatherer societies have started out plowing the vast majority of their labor into bare subsistence, human beings spending their days, throughout their whole lives, working the land in order to produce enough food to live. All sorts of social and economic systems arose around this base-level fact, including those that tied laborers to the land, allowing for the rise of a leadership or ruling class, regional militaries, and other sorts of specialists. But until relatively recent history, the majority of people in a given society labored to produce raw essentials, and that was just the shape of things.This began to change with the dawn of the industrial revolution, and in some areas a bit before that, as precursor technologies allowed societies to produce more food and other essentials with less manual labor and using fewer foundational resources, like land. These technologies, as they became more widely distributed, more effective and efficient, and cheaper to deploy and operate, allowed more people to do more sorts of things, leading to a ballooning of industry and commerce in industrializing regions, and that allowed said regions to invest in other things, including medical knowledge, education, and so on.Life wasn't exactly a cakewalk in these industrializing areas, and all sorts of new abuses and issues, including long hours at factories and problems related to pollution, arose and became common. But because these sorts of societies required professionals with new types of knowledge and know-how, and because they were able to sustain an increasing number of specialities beyond working the land to generate food and other bare necessities, keeping people alive, longer, and ensuring more people had the specialized knowledge required to do all those things, became more of a priority, and one that could actually be addressed because of the concomitant ability to feed and clothe and house and address more of the needs of more people.There were gobs of other spiraling forces in the mix, of course, including religion, politics, and so on, but that general tendency to shift away from raw subsistence into more complex and diverse economic systems was a driving factor behind a lot of what happened from around 1800 until, well, now.What I'd like to talk about today is a specific data point, or collection of data points, that arguably, more than any other such data points, show the benefits of the industrialized, modern society we're living in, today, despite all the accompanying downsides.—So most societies, at this point, have undergone significant changes as a result of our widespread application of technologies that allow human beings to get more done with the same amount of effort.We're able to generate more value, of all kinds, than our ancestors, and though it's possible to criticize the change in priorities and focus on all the negative knock-on effects of these changes—and there are many such negative knock-on effects, like large-scale military conflicts and rampant pollution and climate change—it would be difficult to argue that there haven't been some fairly significant upsides for humanity, as well.One key upside is related to that demographic transition I mentioned. As societies shift and it becomes better for everyone if more people know how to do more things, and it thus becomes a priority for more people to live long enough to use the knowledge and know-how they acquire, it has increasingly made more sense for governments to invest in our overall longevity and survivability.We can't just say, I'd like everyone to live longer, and then snap our fingers and make that happen. But we can, and have, invested in technologies and systems that make longer lives more likely, and from 1800 onward that's generally been the trend, with a huge upswing arriving in the mid-20th century, when a bunch of new tools and technologies, including things like modern antiseptics and early antibiotics, first arrived on the scene, dramatically reducing the mortality rate associated with all kinds of medical procedures.Arguably the most significant social gain during this period, though, has been the bogglingly large reduction in child mortality rates.Child mortality refers to the death of children under the age of five, and this figure is, today, usually expressed as the likelihood of a child under five dying, per 1000 children in an area. So you might say in India, the child death rate is 92 in 1000, which means 92 of every 1000 children resulting from live births in India die before they reach the age of five. And that was actually the real child mortality rate in India back in the year 2000.And the story of overall global child mortality rates is actually pretty well exemplified in India's rates, as the country has seen a dramatic drop in all-cause child deaths in recent decades.In the year 2000, as I mentioned, it was expected that 92 out of every 1000 children would die before the age of 5 in India. As of 2024, though, that number has dropped to just 32 out of every 1000; a 68% drop. If you go back as far as 1990, the progress is even more impressive, those 2024 numbers representing a 76% drop in child mortality.This progress has largely been the consequence of intentional, targeted health interventions by the Indian government, including institutionalized child delivery services and widespread, well-funded immunization efforts that ensured more children got vaccines and other sorts of care that was previously lacking, or which was not widely disseminated beyond wealthy families. They've also invested in newborn care and neonatal units at hospitals, which has increased child survival outcomes in a large radius around these facilities.Southeast Asian nations still account for about 25% of all under-five deaths, globally, but improvements in India mirror those in China, which made rapid and sustained progress on this issue beginning in the 1950s, but really hitting their stride in the 1970s, when their child mortality rate was 143 per 1000 children; that rate dropped to just 12 per 1000 by 2020.Globally, right now, the average child mortality rate is just under 40 per 1000, which is down from 93 per 1000 in 1990.That's a staggering amount of progress, but it does mean that nearly 5 million children still die each year before their 5th birthday, which adds up to something like 15,000 of such deaths per day.At the moment, the vast majority of these deaths, about 80% of them, occur in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. The cause of these deaths varies a bit based on location, and there's a time component to this, too, as some areas have seen much higher rates due to epidemics, but most of the causes of child death before the age of 5 are consistent, with premature birth and pneumonia, birth asphyxia or trauma, malaria, diarrhea, congenital abnormalities, and sepsis representing about 60-70% of such deaths, globally.Almost all of these issues are preventable, and the major barrier to reducing these numbers further is access to resources and expertise that are more widely available and accessible in the wealthier world; there are huge disparities in child mortality between rich countries and poor countries, in other words, and while the number of child deaths has decreased everywhere, including in the world's poorest countries, over the past 100 years, countries like Finland see about 2 in every 1000 children die before they reach the age of five, while countries like Niger see nearly 115 in every 1000 children die before the age of five.This figure was previously around 500 in every 1000, globally, so about half of all children would die before the age of five, even in relatively recent history, even in the wealthiest regions, just a few hundred years ago—so again, stunning progress in this area; and looking back, in addition to families needing more hands to work the fields, before everyone started industrializing, families would tend to have as many kids as they could because it was generally just assumed that about half of them would die within the first couple of years; some cultures still have traditions of not naming their children until they've lived for a few years because of that earlier child mortality trend.There's still plenty to be done in this space, though, and the changes necessary to dramatically drop this mortality rate even further, regionally and globally, are not revolutionary in nature, it's just a matter of more widely and equitably disseminating tools and technologies and cultural and economic infrastructure that already exists across much of the world, to the places where it doesn't exist yet.That's a tall order in some locations, though, as part of why some high child mortality rate regions still have those high rates is that they've also had persistent government instability, which has in turn led to persistent internal conflicts and government overthrows and long histories of grift and corruption at the top-most levels of society.In other words, it's extremely difficult to improve these sorts of numbers when those who are in charge of a high-mortality-rate region are seemingly incapable of keeping things stable, and always seem to be enriching themselves at the expense the the country they're meant to be governing.That's a much larger systemic issue, of course, made up of numerous fractal issues that each have their own distinct causes and potential solutions.But the main takeaway here is that child mortality is already an immense success story of modernity, and even more progress is possible, but in order to achieve that kind of progress, a bunch of other problems will probably need to be solved in these still-highly-afflicted areas, first. And solving these problems will likely be a truly heavy lift, for anyone who tries to tackle them, until and unless something fundamental changes about governing norms and corruption, and the many forces that enable that kind of high-level corruption, globally.Show Noteshttps://data.unicef.org/resources/levels-and-trends-in-child-mortality-2025/https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india/un-report-highlights-indias-79-decline-in-child-mortality-rates-a-major-contributor-to-global-child-health-advancements/articleshow/129660557.cmshttps://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality-in-the-pasthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_mortalityhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transitionhttps://www.statista.com/statistics/1041851/china-all-time-child-mortality-rate/https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7138028/https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/themes/topics/topic-details/GHO/child-mortality-and-causes-of-deathhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_and_under-five_mortality_rates This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit letsknowthings.substack.com/subscribe

Something a little different this week! Natalie Diggins, former guest and author of the Autistic Adults Toolbox, reached out with a guest suggestion for the show — and that guest was me. So we turned the tables, and Natalie took over the hosting chair.In this episode, Natalie pulls back the curtain and asks the questions I usually ask everyone else. We talk about how and why I started this podcast as a sitting judge — anonymously, and with a lot of hope — and what it was like to finally have an explanation for a lifetime of feeling different. We also dig into the moment that changed everything for me, how my understanding of autism has shifted over the years, and what I've learned from the incredible guests and listeners who have been part of this journey.We also get into:What it's like to keep your autistic identity private when your whole life requires maskingWhy I don't think we can "learn our way out of" autism — and why that's actually okayThe episodes and topics that have resonated most with listenersNavigating jury duty as an autistic personWhat's coming up next for the showSupport the show:Leave a five-star review on Apple PodcastsComment or ask a question on SpotifySupport on [Patreon / Ko-Fi / PayPal]Share this episode with someone who will benefitSupport the showRATED IN THE TOP 0.5% GLOBALLY with more than 1.2 million downloads!If you are an autistic person who has written a book about autism or if you have a guest suggestion email me at info@theautisticwoman.com.InstagramKo-fi, PayPal, PatreonLinktreeEmail: info@theautisticwoman.comWebsiteJune 24-28, 2026 In Rewilding Together

Join us on Talk Cosmos, Sunday 3 MAY 2026, 1–2 p.m. PDT (4-5 p.m. EDT) for an inquisitive discussion on “Mars Chiron 28° Aries”. Relocated to Seattle, Astrologer Tara Aal returns to join host Sue 'Rose' Minahan and panel member Dr. Laura Tadd.Chiron: The Wounded Healer: Chiron's 50½-year orbit marks a profound rite of passage — a reckoning with our deepest wounds and the wisdom they carry.In myth, Chiron was abandoned at birth, raised by Apollo, and became a Master Healer — yet was struck by a poison arrow he himself had taught others to make. Unable to heal his own wound, he surrendered his immortality to free Prometheus. Zeus immortalized him among the stars. The wound that cannot be cured becomes our greatest gift by sharing our experienced wisdom in service with others.Chiron's 8-year transit through Aries touches on identity at its most primal — the becoming of selfhood, the right to exist as we are. Wounds here often begin at birth itself. Globally, the question echoes: Who belongs? What is a nation's true identity?The December 21, 2025, square with Jupiter in Cancer drew us back to our earliest roots — childhood, family, ‘belonging'. The energies asked how those old wounds shaped who we believe ourselves to be.May 16th, 2026, Aries ruler Mars conjuncts Chiron at 28° Aries. As Chiron's 8-year transit in Aries nears its completion, this meeting falls on the Taurus New Moon. Mars empowers our will, while Taurus grounds us in emotional self-trust and self-reliance. The celestial sky map turns our focus inward: what parts of ourselves have we excluded, denied, or left wounded — and what would it mean to finally include them whole?By summer 2026, Jupiter enters Leo and Chiron moves into Taurus — an invitation to build something lasting from all that has been transformed.The wound is not the end of the story.TARA AAL: An eclectic astrologer, writer, educator, artist, and tarot reader from Seattle — and co-author of Astrology by Moonlight and Natural Astrology. Since 2011, Tara's consulted, taught, and spoken at the Living Astrologies Conference, NORWAC, UAC, Kepler College, and ISAR. Building community is important to her. She nurtures it in the small groups moving through my private classes, and Astrology Essentials program. Tara also facilitate workshops with colleagues Stephanie Phillips and Walter Jager weaving together Jungian ideas, IFS (Internal Family Systems), and astrology.As an IFS-informed astrologer, her approach is human-first, embodied, imaginal, and experiential — helping to open and deepen relationships with our selves (our inner multiplicity) and each other. One of Tara's great passions is Living Planets 1st, an active, living astrological ritual for bringing out the planets within and without. She currently serves as Ethics Chair for CAPISAR.LAURA TADD: A spiritually oriented psychological astrologer, Dr. Tadd works as an astrological counselor, writer, teacher, and lecturer both in-person and remotely with people worldwide. Laura teaches 6–8-week online courses on astrology and personal mythology and co-facilitates retreats internationally. Creator of “Moon Journal”. Info at website: MythicSky.comSUE ROSE MINAHAN: an Evolutionary Astrologer Consultant, speaker, writer. Vibrational Astrology student, and Dwarf Planet Astrology graduate. Member of Kepler Astrologer Toastmaster Club, and WineCountrySpeakers.org. Holds an Associate of Fine Arts Music Degree and a Certificate of Fine Arts in Jazz. Mythology enthusiast, Musician, Artist. Founder Talk Cosmos since 2018 where weekly conversations awaken heart and soul consciousness to align personal meaningfulness, connect curiosity and creativity to successfully develop life's turning points on YouTube, Facebook, radio & podcasts. Website: TalkCosmos.com and YouTube.com/@TalkCosmos.#MarsChiron #Aries #UranusinGemini #SaturnNeptune #TalkCosmos #Astrology2026 #TaraAal #SueRoseMinanan #DrLauraTadd #AstrologicalCycles #WoundedHealerSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

More growers are utilizing biological products on their crops—it's an emerging category that includes biostimulants, biopesticides and biofertilizers. The global agricultural biologicals market is expected to more than double in value in the next decade. It's promising technology to help with productivity and many other key areas.“Globally, the biostimulant market is growing, and that market is going to explode here in the United States once we get a clear path to market,” remarked Keith Jones, Executive Director of the Biological Products Industry Alliance (BPIA) in Washington, D.C. Jones said a key benefit would be a uniform federal definition on biostimulants, which is being considered by Congress this session. The BPIA's mission is fostering continued improvements to the biological products regulatory process. The industry's leading market research firm DunhamTrimmer expects the global non-microbial biostimulant market will reach nearly $8 billion by 2030. FInd out more at BPIA.org and DunhamTrimmer.com. 

What if the joint pain you've been told is “just part of getting older” is actually something you can fix? Amy Hudson and Dr. James Fisher continue the Strength Training Reverses series, and today the focus is joint pain. In this episode, they break down how prevalent joint pain really is, the most common areas it shows up in, and why it tends to get worse with age. They also explore what's happening inside the joint, how it affects daily movement and quality of life, and what the research actually shows about strength training as a way to reduce pain and improve function.Dr. Fisher explains how to recognize the most common types of joint pain. He points out that while low back pain is often more musculoskeletal, the real hotspots people struggle with daily are the knees, hips, and especially the hands.Learn why joint pain becomes a problem as you get older. Dr. Fisher breaks down osteoarthritis as a degenerative condition where the cartilage that cushions your joints slowly wears down over time. Globally, it affects around 7% of people, but once you hit your 50s and 60s, that number jumps to nearly 25%.Dr. Fisher explains what's really happening inside your joints as you age. Cartilage does not have its own blood supply, which means it cannot repair itself the way other tissues can. As muscle mass declines and small injuries add up over time, more stress gets placed directly on your joints, which is where the real problem begins.Amy covers why building muscle is one of the most overlooked ways to protect your joints. The stronger the muscles surrounding a joint are, the more support and stability that joint has during everyday movement.Dr. Fisher explains why joint pain affects more than just your body. He describes pain as a lived experience that is difficult to fully understand unless you have gone through it yourself. It can quietly shape your mood, your confidence, and even how willing you are to stay active.Learn what the research actually says about strength training and osteoarthritis.Dr. Fisher walks through a large review study that looks at how resistance training impacts pain, strength, and overall function.According to Dr. Fisher, most people in pain avoid movement because it feels like the wrong thing to do, but not all movement is the same. Unlike repetitive activities like walking or running, resistance training can strengthen your body in ways that reduce stress on the joints.Learn what happens when people with joint pain start resistance training. Within just four to nine weeks, participants in these studies experienced less pain, more strength, and better physical function. That improvement often spills over into better quality of life and more confidence in daily activities.Amy and Dr. Fisher explain why reducing pain changes how you show up in life. As discomfort starts to fade, people naturally feel more energized and more willing to engage with the world again. That spark to move, connect, and enjoy life starts to come back.Dr. Fisher explains how strength training works inside the joint itself. When you avoid movement, your knees stop producing synovial fluid, which leads to more stiffness and discomfort. Resistance training helps release synovial fluid without the repetitive stress that can make conditions like osteoarthritis worse.Learn how stronger muscles take pressure off your joints. When your muscles are weak, your joints absorb more force than they should. As you build strength, your muscles start doing their job properly, which reduces the load on your joints and makes movement feel smoother.Dr. Fisher explains why exercise can reduce pain almost immediately. There is a concept called exercise-induced pain relief where strength training helps lower discomfort across the whole body, not just in one joint. This means the benefit is not only long term but can also be felt right after a session.Learn how to start strength training even if you are dealing with joint pain right now. Dr. Fisher encourages starting with guidance from a coach or a personal trainer who understands your situation and can adjust accordingly. Taking that first step is often the hardest part, but it is also where progress begins.Dr. Fisher explains why getting past the fear barrier changes everything. Once people realize that strength training is not making their condition worse, they begin to build consistency. Over time, the evidence is clear that it reduces pain, improves strength, and supports long term joint health.Why working with a personal trainer can speed up your progress. When you're dealing with joint pain, guessing your way through workouts often leads to frustration or setbacks. A trainer helps you do the right movements, at the right intensity, so you actually see results without making things worse.Mentioned in This Episode:The Exercise Coach - Get 2 Free Sessions!Submit your questions at StrengthChangesEverything.comThis podcast and blog are provided to you for entertainment and informational purposes only. By accessing either, you agree that neither constitute medical advice nor should they be substituted for professional medical advice or care. Use of this podcast or blog to treat any medical condition is strictly prohibited. Consult your physician for any medical condition you may be having. In no event will any podcast or blog hosts, guests, or contributors, Exercise Coach USA, LLC, Gymbot LLC, any subsidiaries or affiliates of same, or any of their respective directors, officers, employees, or agents, be responsible for any injury, loss, or damage to you or others due to any podcast or blog content.

Let's be honest. You're tired of friendships not working out and convinced they never will. Maybe you don't try anymore and who could blame you? But don't give up before you hear this episode with Caroline Maguire, author of the just-released book, Friendship Skills for Neurodivergent Adults. This is not the same old advice we hear. These are step-by-step details about how to make it happen. From walking into a room full of strangers to keeping a friendship going Caroline tells us how to leverage our neurodivergent traits. Ready to learn how to be a good friend? Listen now. Caroline's websiteThe book: Friendship Skills for Neurodivergent AdultsCaroline's YouTube ChannelSupport the showRATED IN THE TOP 0.5% GLOBALLY with more than 1.2 million downloads!If you are an autistic person who has written a book about autism or if you have a guest suggestion email me at info@theautisticwoman.com.InstagramKo-fi, PayPal, PatreonLinktreeEmail: info@theautisticwoman.comWebsiteJune 24-28, 2026 In Rewilding Together

Have you ever wondered what actually goes on behind the scenes of a podcast like this one? The editing, the scheduling, the content, the systems — all of it? This episode is a little different. I'm pulling back the curtain on Effective Fitness for Women and officially opening up my internship program — and I want you to be part of it. Whether you're a college student building your resume, a stay-at-home mom thinking about reentering the workforce, or someone who's been dreaming about starting their own online business and wants to see how one actually runs — this episode is for you. I'm sharing exactly what the internship looks like, who it's for, what you'll walk away with, and why I created it in the first place. Apply or learn more:

In this episode of the PPC Den Podcast, host Michael sits down with Emanuel Popescu, the Director of Account Management at AMZ Advisors, to reveal the high-stakes world of global Amazon expansion. Managing a massive team of 80 people, Emanuel shares the "hard-won" secrets of brands that successfully break into Europe, Japan, and beyond.If you've ever considered taking your brand international but felt overwhelmed by the risks, this conversation is your roadmap. You'll discover why your successful US listings might actually fail in the UK or Germany if you don't change a single word or image, and why most sellers lose money by treating expansion as a simple "copy-paste" side project. From the nuances of localized keyword research to navigating the complex tax landscapes like VAT, Michael and Emanuel break down the top five mistakes that can sink an international launch and provide the exact PPC strategies you need to dominate foreign marketplaces from day one.We'll see you in The PPC Den!

In this episode therapist, author and autistic woman Sharon O'Connor shares her deeply personal journey to a late autism diagnosis and the burnout that changed everything.Sharon shares what it was like to begin recognizing herself in her young son's autism evaluation, how two dramatically different diagnostic assessments shaped her understanding and how she has healed from autistic burnout.Topics covered in this episode include:What it's like to receive an autism diagnosis as an adult, and why the diagnostic experience matters as much as the outcomeThe relationship between masking and autistic burnout — and why burnout is never a personal failureEarly warning signs that burnout may be approachingWhy energy is the foundation of autistic life, and how sensitivity to others' emotions is often a form of self-protectionHow burnout affects our sense of identity Practical suggestions for managing burnout when leaving a demanding job simply isn't an optionWhy connection with other autistic people can be transformativeWhat life can look like on the other side of burnoutWebsite: SharonKOConnor.com Book: Healing Autistic Burnout — available in print, e-book, and audiobook https://a.co/d/028qGW4aSupport the showRATED IN THE TOP 0.5% GLOBALLY with more than 1.2 million downloads!If you are an autistic person who has written a book about autism or if you have a guest suggestion email me at info@theautisticwoman.com.InstagramKo-fi, PayPal, PatreonLinktreeEmail: info@theautisticwoman.comWebsiteJune 24-28, 2026 In Rewilding Together

The British had instigated a war in the Transvaal which fired off in early 1881, but they had already ignited another flashpoint - in Basutoland. This was a fascinating conflict, and it has modern overtones. For the new British government of Sir William Gladstone, the fact they had stimulated a simultaneous slew of conflicts in South Africa was more than irksome, it was expensive and ill-timed. While Britain was dealing with a humiliating setback against the Boers, it was struggling to enforce authority in Basutoland—highlighting how imperial control was both stretched and inconsistent in southern Africa. Following Basutoland's transformation into a British dominion on 12 March 1868, it became the target of rapid westernization efforts by the Cape Colony administration. By 1879, the Cape Parliament had extended the Peace Preservation Act to Basutoland, with the aim of disarming the people of the territory. This did not go down well. Guns, like horses, were of immense significance in Basotho society. Most Basotho who worked on the Kimberley Diamond fields bought both muskets, and later rifles, as well as Boer ponies and other horses before making their way home. What was going on in the minds of the Cape Colony, and those in the imperial colonial office? It is important for our story to understand global events of the time. For decades all of the European governments concerned with the coast of Africa, both east and west, had tacitly agreed not to allow the quarrels of their respective traders and officials to become occasions for empire. That was the theory. The ministries in Paris and London wanted nothing more than to continue their gentleman's agreement, although each suspected the other of wanting to break it. Napoleon the third had nourished a few sporadic projects for African expansion, but the catastrophe of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 had slowed them down. The French Third Republic pulled out of the Ivory Coast and was considering renouncing all options in Dahomey. It wanted to leave Gabon as well as the Congo. But Senegal was another matter. The French colonial government in Daka had developed a local expansive programme derived mainly from the French army's influence rather than pure economics. There were plans to build a major railway line to the upper Niger River which would link Senegal to Niger. The French rulers of Senegal were expanding eastwards as well as southwards, and had begun to encircle Gambia. All of these moves in Africa must be recognized as part of our story here in South Africa. Globally speaking, the main British nightmare was the Russian advance towards the Dardanelles, Turkey, Persia, India and China. So the British maintained a navy allied with Turkish armies in the near east to protect the Indian route through the Suez against the Russians. London allied with the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II who ruled greater Turkey and his subordinate Khedive Ismail of Egypt. They were being schmoozed as reliable vassals who served Britain's financial and imperial interests. Britain could avoid seizing territory directly which would be expensive and politically ruinous. No boots on the ground, just deploy the one-step away approach via their the navy it was thought. The Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid ii however had been borrowing heavily from the English and even more from the French, while his revenues fell short of expenditure, and debt mounted so he raised land tax. Christians in Bosnia and Herzogovina revolted against Turkish rule, more loans defaulted, and the Sultan, and therefore the Turkish Ottomans, went bankrupt. With that as the backdrop, let's return to the Basutoland Gun War. Tension had been growing for many years between the Basuto and the British. The southern corner of Basutoland was settled by the Baphuthi led by chief Moorosi who had been a tributary ruler of Moshoeshoe. In 1869 he had agreed, somewhat reluctantly, to merge his territory with British Basutoland.

STREAMING THE MAKING OF THE JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW, FEATURING JEFF BLISS AND GERMANICUS (MICHAEL VLAHOS). 4-17-202681 BCE SULLAJeff Bliss and John Batchelor discuss the vibrant developments in Las Vegas, where the President of the United Statesrecently arrived on Air Force One to promote a "no tax on tips" policy. The city is diversifying, becoming a sports mecca with Formula 1, World Wrestling at Allegiant Stadium, and a potential NBA franchise. Bliss recalls the legacy of the Rat Pack, Elvis, and Sinatra, while noting new landmarks like the Museum of Ice Cream in Area 15. Additionally, a massive In-N-Out burger restaurant is being built on the Strip, and the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino is adding rare balcony suites. Batchelor even jokes about a future Museum of Potato Chips featuring Lays.In California politics, the race to succeed Governor Gavin Newsom is intensifying under the Jungle Primary system. Newsom reportedly spent 1.5 million dollars to purchase 67,000 copies of his own book. Current candidates include Steve Hilton, a former Fox contributor; Tommy Steyer, a multi-billionaire; and UC Irvine professor Katie Porter. In Los Angeles, Mayor Karen Bass faces a tight race against Spencer Pratt. Batchelor mentions an interview between Bass and Jim Acosta on CNN, where she appeared defensive regarding homeless encampments in Venice and Hollywood.Other local issues involve the California Coastal Commission canceling Long Beach fireworks. On Catalina Island, once a secret CIA training ground, Batchelor recalls the Four Freshmen singing about the sea while discussing a police canine apprehending a suspect in Avalon. Bliss recounts his own experience being bitten by a German Shepherd when analyzing the intensity of such arrests. Additionally, a massive Animal Crossing bridge is under construction across a Southern California freeway to protect wildlife like buffalo.Globally, Germanicus warns of the "consolidation" of wars. Russia is reportedly upset by Ukrainian drone attacks launched from the Baltic states and Finland. Germanicus explains that 96% of Russian casualties are now caused by drones produced in Europe, Israel, and Turkey. Germanicus also highlights that leaders like Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer are meeting to address the crisis at the Strait of Hormuz. Despite a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, there remains a risk of "spasmodic responses" involving Russia's hypersonic Oreshnik missiles. John Batchelor concludes the session by noting that there is no certainty anywhere in the world except for their conversation. This dialogue captures the intersection of local entertainment, state politics, and global military strategy during a volatile and high-stakes historical period in history.

Episode 5290: What The War In Iran Means Globally; Taiwan's Opposition Leaders Meet With China