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TranscriptLisa Kiefer: [00:00:03] This is method to the madness, a biweekly public affairs show on K-A-L-X Berkeley celebrating Bay Area innovators. I'm your host Lisa Kiefer. And today I'm speaking with Gabriel Zucman Professor of Economics and Public Policy here at UC Berkeley. He has just co-authored a book with Emmanuel Saez called The Triumph of Injustice --How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay. Welcome to the program, Gabriel.Gabriel Zucman: [00:00:36] Thanks for having me.Lisa Kiefer: [00:00:37] Why did you write this book. What was the problem or problems you were trying to solve?Gabriel Zucman: [00:00:42] So the main problem is the rise of inequality in the US. So if you look for instance at what has happened to income concentration, in 1980, the top 1 percent highest earners in the U.S. earned about 10 percent of total U.S. national income today they earn 20 percent of U.S. national income. Now contrast that with what has happened for the working class for the bottom 50 percent of earners. They used to earn 20 percent of income and now about 12 percent. So essentially the top 1 percent and the bottom 50 percent have have switched their income share. And the reality of the U.S. today is that the 1 percent earns twice as much income in total than the bottom 50 percent a group that by definition is 50 times larger. So you have this huge level of inequality and this big increase in inequality and the tax system is a key institution to regulate inequality. And so we wanted to know OK does it do a good job? Does the tax system limit inequality or does it exacerbate the rise of inequality?Lisa Kiefer: [00:01:58] And as you say in your book all the way back to James Madison the whole point of taxes yes is to raise revenue but the other significant point was to reduce inequality.Gabriel Zucman: [00:02:07] Exactly.Lisa Kiefer: [00:02:08] And that's something that's been kind of forgotten since 1980.Gabriel Zucman: [00:02:11] That's been forgotten despite the fact that it's deeply rooted in American society. The U.S. was created in large part in reaction against the highly unequal aristocratic societies of of Europe in the 18th century and ever since, many people in the US have been concerned about becoming as unequal as Europe. Europe for a long time was perceived as as an anti model, too unequal, at least until the middle of the 20th century. Now it's the opposite, it's funny to see how these beliefs and perceptions have changed over time. Now many people in the US feel that Europe is too equal, but in fact for most of US history it was it was the opposite. The US invented some of the key progressive fiscal institutions designed to limit inequality to regulate inequality. Let me just give one example. In 1943 Franklin Roosevelt goes to Congress. He makes a famous speech. He says I think that no American should have an income after paying taxes of more than twenty five thousand dollars which is the equivalent of a few million dollars today. Therefore I propose to create a top marginal income tax rate of 100 percent above twenty five thousand dollars. And that's the idea of a legal maximum income. That's an American, a Roosevelt invention. And people in Congress they hesitate a little bit you know 100 percent, maybe it's too much, but they agree on 93 percent which when you think about it is that very far from 100 percent. And then the U.S. kept these very high modern 90 percent top marginal income tax rates for a long time. So there is this deeply rooted tradition in the U.S. of using the tax system to limit the concentration of income. The idea being that wealth is a good thing for the working class, for the middle class. It provides safety, provides security. But for the very rich,wealth is not safety or security. Wealth is power. And an extreme concentration of wealth means an extreme concentration of power, of political power, of economic power, which is detrimental to the rest of society and so one key function of the tax system is to prevent such a concentration of wealth and such a concentration of power from happening.Lisa Kiefer: [00:04:52] You've been consulting with Elizabeth Warren and others adopting pieces of some of the ideas that you had. How does Elizabeth Warren's plan, when you plug it into your model in the book, your 1980 model,what was the outcome of plugging in her wealth tax.Gabriel Zucman: [00:05:09] So Elizabeth Warren proposes to create a wealth tax at a rate of 2 percent above 50 million dollars and 6 percent above 1 billion dollars. So just let me explain what this would do. It means that if you have 50 million dollars in wealth or less, you pay zero. One of the things we do in the book we tried to imagine how the U.S. economy would have looked like if such a tax had been in place since 1982. So let me first start with what has happened to wealth concentration since 1982. If you look at the 400 richest Americans, you know Forbes magazine has estimates every year of their wealth. And according to Forbes magazine, the 400 richest Americans owned about 1 percent of U.S. wealth in 1982. And today they own about three point five percent of U.S. wealth. That is their wealth has been growing much much much faster than the economy as a whole and than average wealth in the economy. If the Warren wealth tax had been in place since 1982, inequality, wealth concentration would have increased much less, it would have increased a little bit. That is, today, the top 400 richest Americans would own about one point five percent of U.S. wealth. So a bit more than 82 but that would be much less than the current three point five percent. So this shows something which is very, to me, is very striking, a 6 percent tax on wealth. It's a big deal. You know it means that someone who has a hundred billion dollars has to pay six billion dollars a year in taxes. So it's big. And even if that tax had been in place since 1982, billionaires would still have seen their share of wealth increase.Lisa Kiefer: [00:07:00] In other words they'd still be billionaires.Gabriel Zucman: [00:07:02] Not only billionaires but multi billionaires. Some of them would still have tens of billions of dollars because the rise of wealth inequality has been so massive. The growth rate of wealth of billionaires has been so much higher than the growth rate of wealth for the rest of the population that even with a big wealth tax you know it would not have been enough to reduce inequality.Lisa Kiefer: [00:07:26] Well you give a good example about Warren Buffett. You know he's always bragging about how "I pay taxes. I pay a lot of taxes."Gabriel Zucman: [00:07:32] Yeah. So Warren Buffett is a good illustration for why we need a wealth tax. He's one of the main shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway. His wealth, according to Forbes magazine again, is about 80 billion dollars. His true economic income is his share of Berkshire Hathaway's profits. It's something like five billion dollars a year. That's his income. But what he does is that he instructs this company that he owns, Berkshire Hathaway, not to pay dividends. And so his only taxable income is when he sells a few shares every year of his company, is a taxable income of the order of 10 to 20 million dollars. And on that 10 or 20 million dollars he pays three or six million in capital gains taxes. And now you do the math. His true economic income is 5 billion. His tax bill is something like 5 million. So his effective tax rate is essentially zero percent.Lisa Kiefer: [00:08:41] It's lower than his secretary.Gabriel Zucman: [00:08:43] It's not only lower than its secretary, it's it's zero. Essentially you know five million compared to five billion. It's nothing. Then you have a number of proposals such as oh but let's just increase the top marginal income tax rate or let's just increase the tax rate on capital gains.But you see the problem....Lisa Kiefer: [00:09:01] That's what Bill Gates says.Gabriel Zucman: [00:09:03] That's what Bill Gates, Warren Buffett himself, there is this so-called Buffett Rule that was popular at some point among Democrats and the idea was we need to increase the tax rate on capital gains. Fine. You know it's not a bad idea. But you have to realize that the Buffett rule itself would make essentially no difference to Warren Buffett's tax bill, because even if you increase the capital gains tax rate to 100 percent let's say, then Warren Buffett would have to pay let's say 20 million in taxes. 20 million divided by five billion, which again is his true income, would still be zero percent. So if you want to tax billionaires like Warren Buffett or like Jeff Bezos or like Mark Zuckerberg, the proper way to do that is with a tax on the stock of wealth itself, with a wealth tax. Because when you're extremely rich it's very easy to own billions or tens of billions while having very little taxable income. And so you cannot tax billionaires well just with the income tax. You also need a wealth tax.Lisa Kiefer: [00:10:10] Gates also argues estate taxes and I like your argument in the book, you say well you know fine but are we going to wait around all these years? Some of these billionaires are very young.Gabriel Zucman: [00:10:21] Yeah exactly. You look at Mark Zuckerberg you know he's in his 30s. He's not paying much taxes today. Just like the Warren Buffett example because Facebook doesn't pay dividends. Facebook doesn't pay a lot of corporate tax. So is it wise to wait for 50 years or more before some of the country's wealthiest individuals stopped paying taxes. I don't think that's very wise. You Know, essentially because there are all these needs for revenue for early education, for university, for health care, for infrastructure. These are immediate needs and some billionaires can contribute much much more than they do today. There's no good reason to wait for 50 years to make them contribute.Lisa Kiefer: [00:11:12] If you're just tuning in, you're listening to method to the madness, a bi weekly public affairs show on K A L X Berkeley celebrating Bay Area innovators. I'm speaking with Professor Gabriel Zucman about his new book The Triumph of injustice how the rich dodge taxes and how to make them pay, co-authored by another economics professor here Emmanuel Saez. They advocate for a progressive wealth tax as a solution to global inequality, one that rethinks both evasion and the goals of taxation.Lisa Kiefer: [00:11:48] You talk about labor versus capital and I want you to explain that a little bit because you said for the first time in history labor pays more than capital. Why do the working class pay so many taxes right now. And that has to do with that labor capital crossover.Gabriel Zucman: [00:12:04] Absolutely. So historically the U.S. has taxed capital a lot. The corporate tax was high. The estate tax. Taxes and dividends, on interest. Property taxes. So there is a long tradition of relatively heavy capital taxation in the US. The main change that has happened since the 1980s is that these capital taxes have been rolled back, have have been cut massively, so the corporate income tax is a prime example. In December 2017, the Trump tax reform slashed the corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. Another good example is the estate tax which used to generate quite a lot of revenue in the 1970s. Today almost nobody pays the estate tax and even the very wealthy who are supposed to pay it can claim valuation discount and avoid it in many ways so that the revenue generated by the estate tax is extremely small. Dividends are taxed less than wages and so on and so on so capital taxation is essentially disappearing,it has not disappeared completely but has it has been dramatically reduced. And at the same time Labor taxation has increased. So Labor taxation, what is it? Taxes on wages, you know the income tax, but also the payroll taxes. So no matter how low your wage is in the United States today, 15 percent of that wage is paid in payroll taxes, that fund Social Security and Medicare, and these payroll taxes they used to be quite small you know in the 50s-60s, less than 5 percent of income. And they've grown a lot and these are taxes that are essentially only on wage income. And so you have this process where wages have stagnated for the working class for the middle class. In fact at the bottom of the wage distribution, wages have declined a lot because the federal minimum wage has declined enormously since the 1970s. Today it's only seven point twenty five dollars. It's a number of states and and municipalities like Berkeley have higher minimum wages. But if you look at Southern states for instance they only have the federal minimum wage seven point twenty five dollars an hour, much lower than in the 70s, and at the same time as minimum wage workers so their income fall, their taxes have increased because of the big increase in payroll taxes. And I don't think that's a sustainable process.Lisa Kiefer: [00:14:40] And not only that, the cost of childcare, education, I mean when you think about it, they could be considered taxes on the working people. You know you're out of pocket for everything and not to mention medical care and a lot of people do not even have medical care.Gabriel Zucman: [00:14:55] Absolutely. And that's a very important point. When you look for instance at health care, health insurance, it is in effect a giant tax today on working families. If you are lucky enough to work for a firm or an employer that has more than 50 workers, the firm has to provide you with health insurance, that's mandatory. And the way this works is that employers pay premiums to insurance companies and these premiums are enormous, the costs for covered work today on average is thirteen thousand dollars. That thirteen thousand dollars that in effect reduces the wage of employees. Okay. That's something that could be added to their wage for instance if there was a public insurance program, if everybody was covered by Medicare, workers could get thirteen thousand dollars more in wages and it would make no difference for employers. These insurance premiums are in effect a huge tax on labor, a huge hidden tax. There mandatory.Lisa Kiefer: [00:16:04] You call it a poll tax.Gabriel Zucman: [00:16:05] We call them a poll tax or head tax because they are of a fixed amount per head, that is, the employer pays those same essentially for a secretary and for an executive-- thirteen thousand dollars. So it's the most regressive type of tax. It doesn't depend on income, it doesn't depend on your ability to pay. It reduces wages by thirteen thousand dollars for all work workers no matter what their wage is. This is a huge problem. This is a big part of the reason why wages have stagnated since the 1980s for the working class and the middle class. Their wages have stagnated because employers have to pay more and more to private health insurance companies and so that leaves less and less money that can be paid in wages.Lisa Kiefer: [00:16:56] In the Democratic debates, why are they not explaining this. They seem to defend the choice of a private insurance tax. "Oh let people choose." It doesn't sound like people truly understand what they are choosing.Gabriel Zucman: [00:17:11] I agree. We are trying to explain that in the book and we are trying to explain that to as many people as we can. There are many problems with the way that healthcare and health insurance currently works in the US, but the main problem is how it reduces wages dramatically for the working class and for the middle class. And we have a solution. In my opinion, this is how things should be presented. If you move to a universal public health insurance program let's call it Medicare for all. What would happen the first Year? Employers would be required to convert insurance premiums into wages. That is, an employer that used to pay thirteen thousand dollars for the health care of each employees, would add thirteen thousand dollars to their wages, so this would be the biggest pay raise in a generation. First year of Medicare for all, everybody's wage increases by thirteen thousand dollars. And then of course you need to collect extra taxes to fund Medicare for all. But if these taxes are smart enough, if they are not head taxes or poll taxes that doesn't vary with income but rather if they are taxes based on your income or your wealth or if you tax corporate profits, you can make sure that the new tax would be much lower for the vast majority of workers than the extra wage that they gained. And so you can make sure that 90 percent of workers would benefit from a transition to Medicare for All in the sense that they would have a huge wage boost. They would have to pay a bit more in taxes but the extra tax would be much less than thirteen thousand dollars. Any my way is the proper way to explain Medicare for all. Your wages have stagnated. Big part of the explanation is there so much money that goes to private health insurance. There's going to be a law that says all the premiums are converted back into wages. Part of your wage was stolen. Now we're giving it back to you. You have a huge wage boost. We're going to raise taxes. But in a progressive manner so that the bottom 90 percent of the income distribution has a big net of tax pay increase.Lisa Kiefer: [00:19:33] With a wealth tax, it seems like the taxes for middle class and lower class would actually go down, even paying for Medicare for all.Gabriel Zucman: [00:19:41] Yes that is, if you include current health insurance premiums in your measure of the tax rate which I think is legitimate since these premiums are essentially like private taxes, mandatory payments. And if you abolish these premiums and replace those by progressive taxes, you get a big tax cut for essentially 90 percent of the population.Lisa Kiefer: [00:20:05] That's something no one's talking about.Gabriel Zucman: [00:20:07] Not yet. I'm not losing hope.Lisa Kiefer: [00:20:09] One of your most interesting chapters is on tax evasion and tax competition, which is going to be a challenge to any kind of change to our tax system. Can you talk about what you discovered and actually it goes back to when you were working as a young man at Exane.Gabriel Zucman: [00:20:26] Yes. So many people have that view that in a globalized world it's impossible to tax multinational companies, impossible to tax corporations, because if you do that they would move their profits to tax havens, the Cayman Islands or Bermuda. Or they will move their factories or their headquarters, their production activities, to low tax places like Ireland. And so according to that view, the only possible future is the race to the bottom with respect to the corporate income tax rate. So countries slashing their rates one after another. And we are very much in that situation today where countries are slashing their corporate tax rate. And for a long time I thought OK no this this makes sense. I understand why in a globalized world, countries want to attract some activity by offering lower rate and there's going to be tax competition and it's the huge pressure that pushes towards lower rates. But what we understood by doing research, that the research is summarised in the book is that this view is actually wrong. That is tax competition, just like tax avoidance or tax evasion, these are not laws of nature. These are policy choices. So we've embraced as nations, collectively we've embraced a certain form of globalization, which is characterized by tax competition and tax avoidance. But that's a choice. It's not a very democratic or very transparent choice, not a very well-informed choice, but it's a choice that's been made, and we can make other choices. There's another form of globalization that's possible. There's no tax competition. There's no profit shifting. There's there's much less tax evasion. So the way this would work for instance is this: right now if you are a U.S. multinational company and you book your profits in Bermuda, for instance, where the corporate tax rate is 0 percent, you don't have to pay taxes. Bermuda chooses not to collect taxes and the U.S. essentially doesn't tax the profits booked by its companies abroad. Okay that's that's a choice but we can make another choice. We could say the U.S. is going to tax all the foreign profits of its companies. It's going to collect the taxes that other countries choose not to collect. If Apple for instance, books a billion dollars in profits in Bermuda, taxed at 0 percent, and then the corporate tax rate is 30 percent in the U.S., the U.S. is going to tax that billion dollar at a rate of 30 percent in the U.S.. If Apple Books profits in Ireland taxed at 2 percent in Ireland the U.S. is going to collect 28 percent, so that the total rate would be 30 percent on a country by country basis.Lisa Kiefer: [00:23:12] So that would change everything.Gabriel Zucman: [00:23:14] That changes everything because then it removes any incentive for firms to book profits in tax havens, or to move real activity to low tax places, one. And second, since firms wouldn't have incentives anymore to do these things, it removes any incentive for tax havens to offer low tax rates in the first place. Now they would have incentives to actually increase that tax rate as so you see how you change the race to the bottom into a race to the top.Lisa Kiefer: [00:23:48] Yes and manufacturing might start to happen more in the countries that had previously been taking them offshore.Gabriel Zucman: [00:23:54] Exactly and what might also happen is that instead of competing by offering low tax rates as countries do today, a very negative form of international competition, we would move to a more positive form of competition, where countries would compete by providing the best infrastructure for companies or by having the most productive workforce thanks to good universities, good schools, good hospitals. So that's how globalization could look like. You know it's good to have some competition but the form of competition that we have today, which is you know countries are competing by slashing their rates, a very negative and bad form of competition. We could have a much more positive form of competition once you put taxes out of the picture.Lisa Kiefer: [00:24:46] So this would require cooperation amongst countries and just the will to do this.Gabriel Zucman: [00:24:52] Yeah and look there's already a lot of international economic cooperation. We've made a lot of progress. For instance, when it comes to trade agreements, some of that is is unraveling today with the Trump administration. But if you take the longer view. We've made tons of progress. Reducing tariffs in terms of facilitating access Lisa Kiefer: [00:25:14] Access to data which helped you with this book.Gabriel Zucman: [00:25:16] Exactly, in terms of access to data, so does there is international coordination. But the problem is that there's way too little coordination on the tax rates themselves. So for instance when countries talk about free trade agreements these days, these free trade agreements are essentially about property protection, protecting the rights of foreign investors and dispute resolution settlements. So know how to protect the rights of investors, but property cannot come with only rights and no duty, no, property also comes with the duty to pay taxes. And so the way to make progress, to reach an international agreement on taxes, in my view. is to put taxes at the center of free trade agreements, is to say, we are not going to sign any of any new free trade agreement if it's only to guarantee new rights to investors and ignores taxes. Any new free trade agreement should have taxes at the center stage and that's how it would become possible to make quickly a lot of progress in terms of tax coordination.Lisa Kiefer: [00:26:19] And that's also true when you think about the constitutionality of any tax reform here in this country, it's going to require the will and the cooperation of our legislatures. It can happen.Gabriel Zucman: [00:26:32] Yeah it can happen because the current situation is is similar in many ways to the discussion during the Gilded Age in the late 19th century early 20th century. Inequality was rising a lot with industrialized nation, with urbanization, you know huge fortunes were being created. And second, the tax system was very unfair. At the time, the only or the biggest federal tax was the tariff. So taxes that essentially exempted the very wealthy and that that made the price of goods more expensive and so that hurt the working class, the middle class. The situation today is pretty much the same. Inequality is rising a lot, the tax system is less regressive than than during the Gilded Age, but this is much less progressive than what people think it is. During the Gilded Age you have all these debates about the creation of a progressive federal income tax. The 16th Amendment 1913 allows the federal government to levy progressive income tax and it was a huge success. So the income tax very quickly became extremely progressive with rates in 1917 of close to 70 percent. So it's it's a huge change in just a few years. In 1912. There's no income tax. People say it would never happen. It's unconstitutional. You know there's no way this is going to become reality. And then in 1913 the constitution changes. 1917, ,70 percent of marginal income tax rates for the highest earners. So I'm not saying that the same process is actually going to happen for the wealth tax today. But when I look at history, I see dramatic U-turns and changes and reversals and retreats so the history of taxation is far from linear. There is progress and that's what fundamentally makes me optimistic about the possibility for change and for reform.Lisa Kiefer: [00:28:27] Well when 50 percent of the population makes eighteen thousand five hundred dollars a year, it's untenable. You created a Web site. Tax Justice now dot org. That's all one word.Gabriel Zucman: [00:28:40] We developed this website to make the tax debate more democratic, because it's not for economists, it's not for experts, to say what taxes should be. It's for the people through democratic deliberation and the vote. And we want to give the tools, the knowledge, to the people. So it's a tool for the people to simulate their own tax reform. It's user friendly, it's very simple to use. Everything is is transparent. It's fully open source, with all the code you know online for people who want to dig into this. But the Web site itself is extremely simple. You don't need to be an expert or to know anything about economics. What the Website does is two things. One, it shows how regressive the U.S. tax system is today. When you take into account all taxes paid at all levels of government, the website shows what the effective tax rate for a group of the population and how it has changed over time. And then you can change taxes. You can change let's say the top marginal income tax rate. You can change a corporate tax rate. You can create new taxes like a wealth tax, change the rates, change the exemption threshold. And the website shows how this would affect the progressivity of the tax system, one. And second, it shows how much revenue would be collected. So let's say you want to fund Medicare for All, or free college, or student debt relief. These things have a cost and there's several ways to fund these things. And so the user can very simply say OK, with that combination of taxes, with that tax refund, I can collect enough revenue to do these important policy changes.Lisa Kiefer: [00:30:24] Obviously you guys have plugged in all the numbers and come up with the ideal type of tax and you call it the national tax. Can you describe that and how it might be different from or in addition to a wealth tax?Gabriel Zucman: [00:30:37] The idea here is, how do we fund universal public health insurance and more broadly how could the U.S. increase its tax collection in a sustainable manner? The way that European countries do this is with value added taxes which are taxes essentially on consumption, better than sales taxes, but still pretty regressive because they're only on consumption and the rich consume a small fraction of their income whereas the poor consume most or even sometimes more than 100 percent of their income. And so what we are saying is look the U.S. doesn't have to introduce a V A T --A value added tax like other countries, it can leapfrog the V.A.T. and create a new tax which like the V.A.T. can collect a ton of revenue, but can do it in a much more progressive manner. And we call it the national income tax. And so the idea is for instance, if you want to fund Medicare for all. Step one is you convert the premiums into wages and so everybody's wage increases by thirteen thousand dollars. Step two, maybe year or year three. You create this new national income tax, which essentially is a tax on all labor costs and all profits made by corporations. So it's the broadest possible form of income taxation. And the beauty of it is that because it's so broad with a tax rate of only 5 percent, you can generate a lot of revenue, enough to replace all the insurance premiums that employers pay today.Lisa Kiefer: [00:32:20] What about education?[00:32:20] And you can increase the rates, go to 6 percent or 7 percent and that generates a lot of revenue that can be spent on early education, an area where there's nothing in the US in terms of public spending essentially, something municipalities do spend some money, but the U.S. is at the bottom of the international ranking when it comes to a public child care and early education in general. So that's a high priority. It's easy to collect a percent of GDP with that national income tax to fund universal early education. It's easy to collect an extra 1 percent if you want to make public universities, much more progressive than than anything else that exists.Lisa Kiefer: [00:33:01] And it's still less than what I would be paying today.Gabriel Zucman: [00:33:03] Of course.Lisa Kiefer: [00:33:04] Way less!Gabriel Zucman: [00:33:05] That's the beauty of it because today you're paying so much in child care, for college, for health, in a way that's very unfair because it doesn't depend on your income. It's the same amount essentially for each individual.Gabriel Zucman: [00:33:22] Essentially what's at stake is the future of globalization and the future of democracy. If globalization means ever lower taxes for its main winners, big multinational companies and their shareholders, and at the same time, higher and higher taxes for those who don't benefit a lot from globalization or sometimes suffer from it, retirees or small businesses, then it's not sustainable, neither economically nor politically. The problem with high and rising income and wealth inequality as as the Founding Fathers themselves understood at the time is that excessive wealth concentration corrodes democracy, corrodes the social contract, and we're seeing this today when you look at, for instance, what has been the main piece of legislation of the Trump presidency so far, it's been a big tax cut for wealthy individuals. So you've had three full decades of rising inequality and then on top of that, a law that adds fuel to that phenomenon. And it's hard to analyze this other than by saying that it reflects a form of political capture of plutocratic drift. That's the reality of the U.S. today and so if democracy is to prevail, and if we want to have a more sustainable form of globalization, we need to tackle this issue of tax injustice.Lisa Kiefer: [00:34:53] Thank you for being on the program,Gabriel.Gabriel Zucman: [00:34:56] Thank you so much for having me.Lisa Kiefer: [00:34:58] The book is The Triumph of Injustice --How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to Make Them Pay. The website: TaxJusticeNow.org and you also have a profile in the October New Yorker which is really great reading. So thanks again for being on the program.Lisa Kiefer: [00:35:24] You've been listening to method to the madness, a bi weekly public affairs show on KALX Berkeley celebrating Bay Area innovators. Today's guest was Gabriel Zucman, professor of economics and public policy here at UC Berkeley. We'll be back again in two weeks. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Method to the Madness host Lisa Kiefer speaks with CALSTAR Yoga program faculty Saraswathi Devi and Claire Lavery about their innovative adaptive yoga class on the UC Berkeley campus that teaches students how to help members of the public with disabilities.TranscriptLisa Kiefer: [00:00:27] You're listening to Method to the Madness. A bi weekly public affairs show on K A L X Berkeley celebrating Bay Area innovators. I'm your host, Lisa Kiefer. And today, I'm speaking with faculty members of CalStar Yoga, a program that helps people with disabilities practice yoga.Claire Lavery: [00:00:51] I'm Claire Lavery.Saraswathi Devi: [00:00:53] And I'm Saraswathi Devi.Lisa Kiefer: [00:00:54] Welcome to the program. And you're both on the faculty of Cal Yoga.Saraswathi Devi: [00:00:58] I guess you could put it that way.Lisa Kiefer: [00:00:59] OK. Well, why don't you tell us about your program?Saraswathi Devi: [00:01:02] Well, we call it CalStar Yoga and at their recreational sports facility, the RSF, there is a little program called CalStar, which serves people who live with different kinds of disabilities and it's open to the public. So our part of that is an adaptive yoga class.Claire Lavery: [00:01:19] The class has been going on since 1996,.Lisa Kiefer: [00:01:22] Since 1996. Is it for just students or.Claire Lavery: [00:01:26] It's open to anyone with a disability in the community or in on campus, on staff, on faculty and any member of the gym or outside the community?, campus community can also join?Lisa Kiefer: [00:01:39] I thought it might be useful for our listeners to know how you define yoga and how you define disabilities.Saraswathi Devi: [00:01:47] Yoga is an ancient practice and it's a lot about body and mind health. It comes from an ancient root, yog, meaning to join. So it's all about balance of body and mind and the quiet aspects of the self and the more assertive aspects of the self. It has a lot to do with exercise, which is how most people in America know it. But it also has to do with mind training, with making your intellect more sharp and your emotions more clear and peaceful. And some people pursue it as a spiritual practice as well.Lisa Kiefer: [00:02:22] And could you define disabilities for this class?Claire Lavery: [00:02:25] We define it as someone who is living with some kind of an ongoing condition that limits their presence, their ability to move in the world. Most of our participants have physical disabilities. We don't work too often with people with intellectual disabilities.Lisa Kiefer: [00:02:44] Are you speaking of autism?Claire Lavery: [00:02:46] Right.Lisa Kiefer: [00:02:46] So you don't service.Claire Lavery: [00:02:48] We've had students with those kinds of disabilities in the class, but they've definitely been in the minority. And it's much more about the people who are living with more physical limitations, people with multiple sclerosis, people with cerebral palsy, people with post stroke syndrome, injury, trauma. So we've had quite a wide range of different kinds of disabilities represented in our class. And people with multiple disabilities are, have been long term members as well.Lisa Kiefer: [00:03:14] I didn't know that this existed, honestly, and I want to know how it got founded. What was the reason behind it? Were you there at the beginning? Well, Saraswathi is the one to tell you.Saraswathi Devi: [00:03:24] Well, I've been practicing and teaching since the mid 70s. And as the years went on in the beginning, in the early days, we just had everybody in class. We would have kids and seniors and people who were injured or disabled. Everybody would just be glommed together.Lisa Kiefer: [00:03:42] On campus?Saraswathi Devi: [00:03:42] No, in the community in Berkeley. I was trained by and served very closely a yoga master from India who lived here part of the year. But then as the years went on, we found ourselves specializing. So I began to teach pre and post-natal yoga and children of all ages and seniors and adults at different levels. And then I found myself partly because I have some of my own disabilities. I found myself very attracted to the whole subject, observing a person who was not typically abled and so found myself to the Multiple Sclerosis Society and other places and began to develop a practice that seemed to be really helping people. And that gradually led me to UC Berkeley, where I was hired. Well, at first at the Hearst Gym and then down at the RSF. Lisa Kiefer: [00:04:28] Did they hear about you and hire you or did you know approach them?Saraswathi Devi: [00:04:31] They did. It's a kind of long, convoluted story. But there was a really forward looking woman working in the RSF who hired me. And what I have tried to do is in serving a person who is living with a profound disability or multiple disabilities, we're trying to offer them a practice that they would never otherwise have access to. So we're taking yoga to a place that you wouldn't imagine it could go, so somebody might not be able to speak or move outside of a power wheelchair, whose body might be contorted or who might be having a lot of involuntary movement and and meeting the whole person. So sometimes a person on the street will see somebody living with a disability and they'll either discount them or not have proper regard and respect for the humanity of that person. They just see a bunch of equipment on a wheelchair. But anybody who comes over the threshold into our class is automatically recognized for their rich humanity and just loved and respected instantly. So what I tried to do is take other disciplines that I recognize as another form of yoga in a way and sort of a broad way of thinking. So I'd like to add massage and acupressure and range of motion and sometimes even using free weights.Lisa Kiefer: [00:05:50] Do you use water?Saraswathi Devi: [00:05:51] No, we're not. I would...Lisa Kiefer: [00:05:53] There are pools here and I thought maybe...Saraswathi Devi: [00:05:53] True. Well, I love aqua yoga and if we had a way of somehow having a pool, we would do it for sure. But we lift people out of their wheelchairs who are not ambulatory. They'll be four or five or six of us carrying a person. Proper word is transfer out of the wheelchair onto the floor and then people who are much more mobile who will arrive in class with mobility aids like a cane or a walker, or even walking on their own in a maybe halting way. They're also in the class, so it's a broad range.Lisa Kiefer: [00:06:28] I can imagine that you've encountered some really beautiful transformations for people who have never experienced this before.Saraswathi Devi: [00:06:36] It's a lot of hard work, but it's a joyful experience for all of us. For the students themselves. For Claire, for me, for our volunteers and for our young undergrads who help us every semester.Lisa Kiefer: [00:06:48] And how many undergrads help you?Claire Lavery: [00:06:50] Well, we have a range. We often have up to 60 or 70 students. They enroll in an undergraduate course that gives them two credits. It's a DeCal course. So they come and help us every week.Lisa Kiefer: [00:07:03] And they learn how?Claire Lavery: [00:07:04] We train them. We supervise them. We keep an eye on them and they blossom. They do wonders. Many of them arrive without any experience. Many of them arrive thinking that they're going to be doing yoga. And we tell them right away that's not the case. But some of them decide that's not for them. Some of them despite their fears or trepidation, stay with us. And just are wonderful helpers.Lisa Kiefer: [00:07:29] Are any of these students disabled that come to you?Claire Lavery: [00:07:31] Yes, some of them are. We've had many students who didn't tell us right away that they had a disability and some are significantly disabled, but would gradually feel safe enough to reveal that. And sometimes they found that they couldn't do the kind of heavy lifting or harder work that we asked them to do. And we are fine with having them help in whatever way they can.Lisa Kiefer: [00:07:54] It seems like they would have the most empathy and understanding of where that person might be.[00:07:59] Sometimes that's true.Lisa Kiefer: [00:08:01] Not always, but.Claire Lavery: [00:08:02] Not always. And many of the students who come have a family member with a disability or an aging family member or have had an injury and and can apply that emotional information to the work that they're doing with the students.Lisa Kiefer: [00:08:14] And how many of your students are Berkeley students and how many are community members generally?Saraswathi Devi: [00:08:21] At the moment, we don't even have one Berkeley student, but we've often had maybe four, three, four or five, maybe a professor or two. But actually the better part of the student population is from the surrounding area.Lisa Kiefer: [00:08:35] Do you do this every semester?Saraswathi Devi: [00:08:36] We do it all year round and we have a summer session.Lisa Kiefer: [00:08:39] OK. Claire, how did you get involved in this?Claire Lavery: [00:08:43] Well, I had started teaching yoga in the mainstream yoga classes here at Cal and had been doing that just for a couple of years. And the same wonderful woman who hired Saraswathi knew me and said, you know, there's this great class that you might like to help with. They're always looking for volunteers.Lisa Kiefer: [00:08:59] Is she still around?Saraswathi Devi: [00:09:00] NO,Suzanne McQuade, she retired. We miss her terribly. Claire Lavery: [00:09:06] Unfortunately, she's not there, but we're trying to keep it going. And she steered me to help out with this class. So I showed up as a volunteer. And I just kind of stayed. I learned a lot.Lisa Kiefer: [00:09:19] It seems so innovative. Do you know of any other programs, anywhere else that are like this or is this unique?Saraswathi Devi: [00:09:25] For a lot of years, we thought we were the only place in the country or maybe beyond. And we're starting to see others somewhat similar programs sprouting up, but we still haven't found anything that that goes as far as we go. And the reason why I say this, once we have the opening of class where we're sitting in concentric circles and doing a little bit of breathing or light meditation, then we will transfer people onto the floor. And then we essentially divide ourselves up into two groups where Claire works with the people who are more ambulatory during that part of the class. And I work with people who are less mobile and. So with the people who are more mobile, they'll be two usually two people serving each of the students and they'll be on the floor. They'll be sitting up. They'll be standing against a wall using chairs and yoga blocks and people's hands and arms and legs to help hold them with good alignment in yoga postures. And that actually draws up the strength and balance and alignment from within the person's body. It's not just an artificial hole. On my side of the room, we're moving people on the floor and forward and backward bending movements and yoga postures that look pretty conventional. But there might be two or even five or six people clustered around each of the students holding them at the shoulder at the low back and stretching their feet. And then we incorporate, as I said, a lot of massage and acupressure and other methods.Lisa Kiefer: [00:10:58] If you're just tuning in, you're listening to Method to the Madness, a bi weekly public affairs show on K A L X Berkeley celebrating Bay Area innovators. Today, I'm speaking with faculty members of CalStar Yoga, a program that helps people with disabilities practice yoga.Saraswathi Devi: [00:11:24] We had a woman who came in the other day and this is a few months ago, and she had been injured rather badly in her back and was able to after her initial rehabilitation, this was probably 20, 15 or 20 years ago, after her initial rehabilitation, she was able to walk at first with a walker and then with a cane. And then she was able to somewhat haltingly walk in a conventional manner. And then as she started to age, gradually, she found herself in a wheelchair. However, it's a manual chair, so she gets around quite nicely. But she came in very suspicious, trepidatious, and frankly, bitter, understandably highly educated, very productive, talented woman. And she was a little resentful, understandably, of of this new loss of full action in her body and and in some ways in her personality and affect and effect. And so came into the class and we tried to humor her and love her and respect her. And then she said to us, I feel transformed. At the end of the first class now, she's a very stalwart member.Lisa Kiefer: [00:12:30] Once you founded this, what were your major challenges in getting this up and running and accepted?Claire Lavery: [00:12:37] We've had challenges. Initially, the class was really only supported by volunteers from the community and Saraswathi would put out messages in the free papers. This was several years ago before there was a big Internet presence, posters and flyers and put out the word on the street asking for people to come and volunteer. And so we struggled along and it would only be maybe five volunteers and we still have about that time, 10, 15, 20 yoga students. So we couldn't have two people working with each yoga student. We didn't have the manpower of a woman person power. So we would revolve. And we'd do some poses as one person and then we'd set them up comfortably and we'd move on to the next. So that was a little difficult. We had a really innovative and wonderful undergraduate volunteer who had a brainstorm in about 2003 and said, we should make this into a DeCal class because then students would get credit and then.Lisa Kiefer: [00:13:30] ..Tell me what a DeCal class is because some people may not know.Claire Lavery: [00:13:33] A DeCal class is an undergraduate led class in the university and there are hundreds of them. They range from things like baking, hip hop music, to electronic engineering theory or more esoteric interests that students in in Cal hold and want to share.Lisa Kiefer: [00:13:52] And there's credit, course credit?[00:13:53] There's course credits. So our student who was interested in social work and in our class really wanted to make this accessible to more calendar grads. He thought they'd be interested. And so he went registered as a DeCal. And he was right. People came. When that happened, we had many more students and we did start to get the numbers of people we wanted to see to really fully support our yoga students. I know Saraswathi's dream is to have 75 students every semester so that we can have a really full bodied support group and we get pretty close sometimes now.Lisa Kiefer: [00:14:29] Do students have to pay to get into this class?Saraswathi Devi: [00:14:32] Yeah, it's a modest fee and they get a little bit of a discount for proving that they they might come in in a wheelchair and not able to speak, but they still are required to bring a doctor verification. That's understandable.Lisa Kiefer: [00:14:43] I wanted to ask you what you think your greatest impacts have been. You've been at this for several years now,.Saraswathi Devi: [00:14:49] Since 1996.Lisa Kiefer: [00:14:50] Yes. So what do you think has been the greatest impacts or accomplishments?Saraswathi Devi: [00:14:55] I think as far as the yoga students, probably the best benefit that they derive from the class is psychological. They feel seen, respected, loved. They are touched. And I don't mean that in any kind of negative way. They're touched in a nurturing and helpful way. And many of them also experienced good physical effects. They're more relaxed. They feel more cheerful. They have better sleep. Sometimes they have a considerable reduction in pain and stiffness. Many of them find that their circulation has improved, their digestion, a whole host of physical benefits. So I would say really in some ways, though, it's more, one of our students who had been coming for some years who is living the after effects of having been assaulted. So he was brain injured. So he asked what we would call TBI, traumatic brain injury. It affects his vision. So he's legally blind, almost completely blind, and his brain somehow recovered quite amazingly. So he has a very sharp mind, but very halting speech. So he has a speech aphasia. So he walks and speaks in a halting manner and uses a cane. So one day he said to us, when I come into this room, I am treated utterly differently from anywhere else that I go. People just see me as a disability and don't see me. So that's a huge part of it. For our yoga students, volunteers, the undergrads, we always at the end of every semester we ask them to write a reflection paper and we'll give them a certain theme, but essentially it's asking them in some way or other to tell us what their experience was and what they derived from it. And many of them, well, undergrads often will try to write to what they think the professor wants to hear. But nevertheless, you can hear a lot of sincerity in it, too. Most of them will say they were, they had never met a disabled person, with a small exception of some of them who do have as Claire said a disabled person in their family. Many of them have never met a disabled person, or if they have or seen people in the community, they've discounted them or really not given them much credence or attention. And then they also will say that they were terrified that they were gonna do something wrong. They didn't want to touch or hurt anybody. And then they started to get to know our students while we're practicing. There's a lot of really fun, gossip and conversation and everybody's giving each other mutual support and mutual interest in each other's lives. And so they discovered that these are full human beings. Some of them are UC grads. As I said, some are professors. They're all incredibly interesting. And so they find their lives utterly transformed. And we've had a small percentage of of them also change their majors. We've had some who decided to be an attorney giving pro bono services to people who were disabled and any number of really interesting trajectories to their story as they moved through the semester and have their their experience transformed. For me, it's impossible to describe. It's each of the people that we serve is an entire universe as it is for any human being. And I've gotten to know almost all of them, at least those who've stayed for many, many years. I've gotten to know them very well. Some of them have become very dear and close friends. So for me, it's it's like seeing the face of all of creation in the eyes of each person. So I feel like it's the huge super consciousness of the universe. Me and this other person in this lovely communication together across all conventional societal membranes, across any way that you might think that there's an encumbrance when you are communicating with someone who is not is typically abled.Lisa Kiefer: [00:18:33] Well, that kind of leads me to the next question, which is when you're doing these movements, do you also provide some sort of a lecture on the philosophy of what you were just talking about, which is, it's so beyond the physical, that we can, you know, reach each other beyond the flesh.Saraswathi Devi: [00:18:52] We do that in a variety of really subtle ways, and we do it increasingly quietly coming in the side door for our young undergrads as the semester goes on, through reading assignments, through the opening in class, where we give them some internal practices and in some other ways. So.Claire Lavery: [00:19:11] I agree. And Saraswathy said it so beautifully. We don't approach them head on. These are skeptical young people and really don't want to be told what to think or how to think. But they do come into class pretty much glazed over and heavy and distracted. And in our opening session, where we do some meditation and some breathing exercises, you can see them visibly relax. And we have had people, undergraduates right in the end of this semester that that meditation session was what transformed their experience and how they've got to understand what we were really doing. Many of them say that they are now going to start doing yoga. Of course, as we've noted, that might just be so that they look good in our eyes. And I do see some of them in my classes, in the mainstream classes. We do have some readings that we ask them to consider. And when we veer from the very technical or practical readings into a little more theory, they're sometimes a little bit at sea. We just had them reading the Bhagavad Gita which is a pretty familiar text to many Westerners, but it's dense and it talks about a lot of mythological people that are not familiar in the Western culture, and that's enough to really put up a wall for many of the students. So when we discuss it, we have to kind of break down and ask them what did they understand? And some of them are just unwilling to engage in that. They want to be, they're scientists, they're practical, they're 21st century kids. So some of them get it from the meditation. Some of them get it from the theory and the Bhagavad Gita. Some of them have their own understanding or practice of yoga that they bring with them. And some have other traditions that are congruent or complementary to the kinds of thoughts that we were just discussing.Saraswathi Devi: [00:21:03] And partly also when we're teaching a technique because they're learning hands on as we go over the semester, we're not training them for weeks. And then we have weekend workshops throughout the semester, several of them. But part of what we're doing, too, is we're helping them to see a link between this kind of beautiful ancient ritual form of exercise and the quietness and focus of mind and emotion that comes to the yoga student who's being served, but also comes to the volunteers who are doing the serving. Because here we are, we're holding a little bit challenging position and we have to breathe slowly. Yes, there is a lot of fun conversation in between. But there's also a lot of slow, deep breathing. And anyone who experiences that kind of breath on a regular basis will find that it has a very focusing effect on the mind and emotions and makes your brain more clear. So one of the things I like to say when we're doing an opening meditation with these undergrads is this will help your memory, your ability to focus and do well on finals. So sometimes that..Lisa Kiefer: [00:22:04] that's kind of a carrot... Saraswathi Devi: [00:22:05] that helps.Lisa Kiefer: [00:22:06] Well, this Igen generation after the millennials is the first to have grown up with so much technology in their lives. Have you been able to monitor the difference in the students you've had over the years since technology has become so prevalent in their lives?Claire Lavery: [00:22:22] We kind of saw a sea change about 10 years ago in the way the attention spans worked. Students are a little, a little antsy at the start of class. They generally settle in and they can focus. They're intelligent and they're used to working hard and intellectually hard. But they're not always used to working emotionally hard or are focusing in a more subtle way. We do have them take their phones out, turn them off and put them on the side of the room for class. And that's challenging for a lot of them.Saraswathi Devi: [00:22:52] we have a little bit of fun with that.Lisa Kiefer: [00:22:55] Probably helps them in school. What you're doing?Saraswathi Devi: [00:22:58] They've said that. Yeah. So we all benefit everybody. And they. One of the things that they will say to us often is this was a great ending of my school week. I've left class feeling really refreshed and ready for the weekend.Lisa Kiefer: [00:23:12] Do you have anything else going on that you want to tell us about coming up?Saraswathi Devi: [00:23:16] People have been asking Claire and me in all of the different universes that she and I both live in. Asked if we would please do a teacher training. So we're in the very, very first steps of organizing that. And we're going to do it collaboratively between the two of us and a third person who has been an on and off volunteer with us, who's very talented. So we're just in the beginning stages of formulating that. And then we have to do outreach and funding and all of that.Lisa Kiefer: [00:23:42] And where do you see this heading out to?Saraswathi Devi: [00:23:43] We'd like to serve other yoga teachers who are interested to make a foray into this universe. And many of them, most of them have not. They couldn't even imagine it. And we'd also like to find ways of influencing and giving some practical strategies to someone who's a family member or a caregiver who could help someone with a disability at home.Lisa Kiefer: [00:24:06] It sounds like you've got a lot of data over the years that you maybe collected?Saraswathi Devi: [00:24:10] We do. It's it's very informal, but yeah.Lisa Kiefer: [00:24:13] Still, that's very valuable. I would think from a lot of different people it would be of value. Are you going to put together guidelines, like a book?Saraswathi Devi: [00:24:22] There will be our training manual. Yeah. Okay. And it may end up and we'll see. Claire, we're both so busy, but it may end up that we'll have satellite programs that will come from that where we'll we'll start with a basic teacher training and then we may find that we'll do some specialty as an extra specialty training over there. You might do some kind of weekend workshopy kinds of things. We haven't figured it all out. Yes. But it's something that we really we have a responsibility to do. We need to share it more widely than just here.Claire Lavery: [00:24:53] We would like to have medical professionals in our trainings that would learn a different way to communicate and work with the people they see on a very regular basis.Lisa Kiefer: [00:25:03] Are you talking about physical therapists?Claire Lavery: [00:25:05] Physical therapists, doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, the whole spectrum. We want them to be aware that this is an alternative to the very strict regime of drugs and hope.Saraswathi Devi: [00:25:17] You know, we have the father of one of our students who lives with cerebral palsy one time said to me, what you're doing here is much better than most of the doctoring my daughter is ever going to receive. He's a physician. I thought that was maybe a little dramatic, but actually in a lot of cases, I'm sure it's quite true.Lisa Kiefer: [00:25:34] If somebody is interested in the community, whether that's a student or a regular person out there, how would they get a hold of you? Do you have a Web site? And how can they help you or join up?Saraswathi Devi: [00:25:47] One way is to contact the RSF, the recreational sports facility, on the UC Berkeley campus on Bancroft at Dana. And it's right near the student union.Lisa Kiefer: [00:25:58] Is that reachable via the Web?Claire Lavery: [00:26:00] There is an online website presence under CalStar. So if you look under recreational sports and there's a drop down menu and you'll have to look, I think it's under group exercise or you can type in the search bar. CalStar, one word C-A-L-S-T-A-R and that's the program. And if you write CalStar yoga, it should bring you to the page that describes our class.Lisa Kiefer: [00:26:24] And if people wanted to volunteer, it's the same. It is the same place you go to the same place, whether you want to volunteer or take the class.?Claire Lavery: [00:26:32] Right. And in either case, if you're interested in volunteering or in being a student, you could drop in to one of our Friday afternoon classes and just see the first class.Lisa Kiefer: [00:26:41] And where are those classes located? Where would they go?Claire Lavery: [00:26:44] They're in the RSF, the main gym on campus at Bancroft Way. They're in the combatives room, which is unfortunate for a yoga class. It's on the first floor. You'll have to tell the guard at the gate that you're going to CalStar Yoga and they'll let you in and you'll walk down the hall. It's the last door on your left.Lisa Kiefer: [00:27:00] And how long are your sessions, generally?Claire Lavery: [00:27:01] We meet from 1:30 to 3:30 Friday afternoons every week.Saraswathi Devi: [00:27:06] I like sometimes for someone who's inquiring, who might be interested. Who really wants a description of the class beforehand. Some people like to just jump in. Everybody has a different way. I would be happy to give my email address if somebody wanted to contact me. I would be very pleased to describe the program and just try to light a little psychological fire in the person. So it's info@yogalayam.org. I teach and live in a yoga and meditation center. So yogalayam is all one word spelled y o g a l a y a m.org.Claire Lavery: [00:27:42] And it is a good idea before joining the class, especially as a yoga student, to communicate with us so that we can both understand what you are going to experience.Lisa Kiefer: [00:27:52] Before we leave today, I wanted to ask you what advice you might give someone before they start this program.Saraswathi Devi: [00:27:59] And I believe you're talking about people who would come in as a volunteer and also people who would come in as a yoga student. I would say for the volunteers, please come with an open mind and realize that you will probably learn more than you thought you could and that you will enjoy what you're doing and feel a certain psychological upliftment that you might not ever have imagined you could. For the yoga students, again, I would ask the person to come to the class with an open mind and see if they feel like it's a good fit and give themselves a chance, coming even more than once to see how we can stretch the practice to accommodate anyone's needs.Claire Lavery: [00:28:42] I would also just advise everyone who comes to come with an open heart and to be open to the transformations that might not feel familiar.Lisa Kiefer: [00:28:54] It seems like this is such a valuable experience for anyone of any age to to take part.Saraswathi Devi: [00:29:01] I would say the human body, mind and heart have an amazing ability to survive. If you find yourselves, caught yourself, compromised in some way. If you're not able to garner all of the themes and abilities and structures and functions that you typically have or used to have, other people can come in and make up some of that difference. They can support you not only physically with their hands, but really, I would say psycho spiritually surrounding you and helping you to find and sustain what is profound and essential in yourself. Even if you can't do it all by yourself.Claire Lavery: [00:29:43] I can say from my experience, I am an able bodied yoga instructor. I have been fortunate to be fairly strong and healthy. I get so much out of this class. I get emotionally an uplift. I get a calming effect. I get love. And I'm a cynical New Yorker, so it works for me.Lisa Kiefer: [00:30:07] Well, I want to thank you both.Claire Lavery: [00:30:08] Thank you so much for having me.Saraswathi Devi: [00:30:09] Thank you very, very much.Lisa Kiefer: [00:30:16] You've been listening to Method to the Madness, a bi weekly public affairs show on KALX Berkeley celebrating Bay Area innovators. You can find all of our podcasts on iTunes University. We'll be back again in two weeks. 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Rev Lebaredian, Vice President of Simulation Technology at Bay Area based company, NVIDIA speaks about innovations in artificial intelligence, gaming, and robotics as well as how technology is impacting our humanity.Transcript:Ojig Yeretsian:This is Method to the Madness, a biweekly public affairs show on KALX Berkeley, celebrating Bay Area innovators. I'm your host, Ojig Yeretsian. Today I'm speaking with Rev Lebaredian, vice president of simulation and technology at NVIDIA, where he leads gaming technology and simulation efforts. Welcome to the show, Rev. What is VR?Rev Lebaredian:Well, VR stands for virtual reality, obviously. What most people imagine when we say VR are these clunky headsets that you put on your face or some little receptacle you place your phone into before putting it on your face. VR is actually something that we've been experiencing throughout mankind from the very beginning. All of our perception actually happens in our brains. You're not seeing with your eyes, you're seeing the world around you interpreted through what your brain is actually doing. When we sit around and we talk to each other like we are right now, [inaudible] elephant, and you just got an image of an elephant in your brain. There's not one around here. You conjure up this image and that's me incepting this image into your brain a virtual reality that we're constructing. Here we are talking, having this conversation, we're constructing a reality amongst ourselves.These new versions of virtual reality that we're starting to see are just a more direct way to create an immersive virtual reality experience. It's not actually the end yet. We're not totally at the end of this thing, it's just one of the steps along the way. Humanity has figured out ways of creating this virtual reality, this just communicating, telling stories to each other verbally. Eventually we had books, you can write them in there. You could do recordings like the one we're making right now, movies, video games, but the end game is going to be where we can start communicating even without words, potentially. I highly recommend you look up Ken Perlin from NYU. He's one of the greats of computer graphics, where he describes what virtual reality means to him. I completely agree with what he's saying. My piece in this is construction of virtual realities and virtual worlds through simulation, that's fundamentally what we do at NVIDIA. Our core as a computer graphics company, we power most of the computer graphics in the world, at least the serious stuff.Constructing these virtual worlds so we can inject them into these virtual realities is what our currency is.Ojig Yeretsian:What is AR?Rev Lebaredian:They're actually related. So, virtual reality is a new reality that you create that you're completely immersed in, but it's on its own. AR stands for augmented reality. Another term is mixed reality, MR. Some people use that term instead. Currently we're in a reality of our own right here. We're sitting in this room talking to each other and I'm perceiving you sitting there. Mixed realities or augmented realities are ones where I can blend in other realities into this world more directly. The current manifestations of this, the beginnings of AR, we're seeing through your phones. I mean, every iPhone and Android phone nowadays has something, that crude thing we call AR, where you can point your phone at something in your environment and it creates a digital representation of some reality mixed into it. The first one to make this popular, the first app, was the Pokemon Go. It was very cool but still extremely crude. A few years from now it's going to be far more compelling and far more immersive.Ojig Yeretsian:AI versus deep AI.Rev Lebaredian:These terms are very contentious. What is AI? What is intelligence? We still haven't really defined that. Generally speaking, when we colloquially speak about artificial intelligence today we're talking about algorithms. Computers doing things that we used to think only humans could do. We've been going through series of these things throughout computing history. One of the first challenges that we had for computers that we thought only humans would be able to do is playing chess. In the 90s, Garry Kasparov, the world champion at the time, was beat by Deep Blue. It reshaped what we thought computers could do and what is the domain of humans. Interestingly, it didn't kill chess which is what one of the things that people assumed would happen once a computer wins. Turns out, we don't really care what computers can do. We mostly care what humans do. So, I'm sure we'll make a robot one day that could play basketball better than any NBA player, but that won't kill basketball.Ojig Yeretsian:It won't replace it, no.Rev Lebaredian:We have people that run really fast and we really care about how fast they can run, and we go measure that at the Olympics, but just because cars exist or even horses that can run faster, it's just not particularly interesting. What we've assumed all of these years, that there are things that only humans can do. It's something special. So, we've defined artificial intelligence as the things that computers can't do and that humans do. We're inching along over here, occasionally make big steps. We have computers do things that we thought would be impossible. The big one in recent history, it was around 2011 in Geoff Hinton's group at the University of Toronto, there were a few grad students, they took some of our processors, our GPUs that were used for gaming and they were able to use a machine learning, a deep learning algorithm to train, to create a new algorithm to do computer vision. To do classification of images. There's a longstanding contest called ImageNet where all these computer vision experts in the world would have their algorithms compete with each other to see who could get the highest accuracy classification.Look at an image and you say, "This is a dog. This is a blue bicycle." Traditionally extremely hard problem. It's been there since the beginning of computer science. We wanted to solve this problem. At first we thought that it would actually be pretty simple and then we realized it's extremely hard. I mean, I've been coding since I was a little kid. I never believed I would see the day when a computer would be able to tell the difference between a cat and a dog properly. This magic moment happened when these grad students took their gaming processors and they applied an older algorithm, but modified, using the computing available to them. This extreme performance that they could get was a super computer inside their PC, afforded to them by the fact that there's a large market that wants to do computer games. They took that and they created a new kind of algorithm where instead of them writing an algorithm directly, they trained this algorithm. They fed data into it which was only available because the internet had existed long enough for us to have these images to begin with.They shattered all the previous records in terms of accuracy. A few years later these algorithms started to become superhuman, and by superhuman I mean humans when they look at these images are sometimes not accurate. They don't know exactly what kind of dog is in the image, or maybe sometimes they think it's a dog but it's really a hyena in the dark. Humans make mistakes but now the algorithms are superhuman. Before that moment we believed that only humans could do that kind of classification, but that changed. That changed over night. Now computers are actually better than us for doing that. What does that mean? Is that intelligence? It's hard to say but the trend, if you look at it, we keep figuring out new ways to make computers do things that we didn't think was possible. It's happening so fast. If you extrapolate, you imagine maybe at some point we will have machines that are superhuman in a lot of the things that we consider the domain of humans. Emotions, humor, things that we call human. Or, maybe not. Or, maybe they'll be some other thing that we don't quite understand.Ojig Yeretsian:What are you working on these days?Rev Lebaredian:I've been here for almost two decades. I really found my calling when I was around 10 or 11 years old. I saw this image in an [inaudible] magazine of two spheres, these balls, floating above a checkerboard floor. They looked so strange. I'd never seen anything quite like it. I couldn't make out whether it was drawn or whether it was some kind of weird photo of something. I read a little bit more and I realized that it was an algorithm that produced that image. That it wasn't actually drawn by someone, nor was it real, or a photograph of something. I was hooked. This image was created by Turner Whitted, who invented ray tracing back in 1980. He published [inaudible] on this. Luckily I got to work with Turner years later. He was with us until he retired recently at NVIDIA doing some amazing work. I got to tell him that, that the reason I was there at NVIDIA working with him was because of that image.What really excited me was that I could finally draw without having to know how to draw. I could use the tools that I'm good at, which was programming a computer to produce these images.Ojig Yeretsian:If you're just tuning in, you're listening to Method to the Madness, a biweekly public affairs show on KALX Berkeley, celebrating Bay Area innovators. Today's guest is Rev Lebaredian, vice president of simulation and technology at NVIDIA. He's speaking about gaming technology, robotics, and artificial intelligence. Rev Lebaredian:So, what is computer graphics, what is a digital image that's been constructed? Basically, computers aren't really drawing or drawing in the traditional sense. What we have that computers do is through simulation. We have some understanding of how light works and the physics of light, and the images that you see are the products of this simulation that's happening around us in the real world. We're trying to approximate that. Light travels through space. It interacts with matter that's present all around us. It reflects, it absorbs, transmits, it refracts, it diffracts. There's all of these things that happen, and so what we do with computer graphics is we try to get as close as possible to what reality is and simulate that. So, those images that we're producing for a video game, or for the Avengers movie many of the people probably just went and saw, it's fundamentally a simulation of the physics of light. When NVIDIA started before I joined, our CEO Jensen Huang who's probably the smartest person I've ever met, he realized how important the computer graphics is, the simulation of light, but also realized that it's important to find a large market that could support the development, the amount of R and D that goes into creating something like this. Previous to then, most of the companies doing really advanced graphics were in fairly niche areas like making movies, or professional CAD design and stuff like that. What we did was we took this to the masses through video games. Realized people love playing video games. What we're creating in a video game is a simulation of some world, and in this world you have to do the simulation of light. That's the graphics that we produce, and you have to do it really fast because it has to be interactive. We do it in a 60th of a second instead of the hours it takes to produce one of the frames in the Avengers movie. We have to simulate physics and the interaction of objects, how they collide with each other. We have to introduce some kinds of AIs to drive the opponents or the virtual cohorts and people you have on your team. You need to collaborate with other people or play against them and deal with the interaction of people in these virtual worlds and large distances between them. They may be on the other side of the globe. They have to interact with each other and make it all feel like they're present there at the moment. Video games are actually the hardest problem, if you think about it, for computer science because you have to do everything in order to make the best experience. One day when we have the ultimate video game experience, it'll feel no different than being in reality here. We're actually going to feel like we're inside it. That's the ultimate game. So what Jensen realized was that there's demand here, and the fundamental technology needed to create that is one that's important for mankind in general, but you need this large market in order to pay for the development of this thing. There's an entertainment purpose over here that's large enough where we can afford every generation GPUs we create. It's $3, $4 billion dollars that we invest in creating that. None of the other single markets can support the development of that, but through video games we get this core, and then we can have adjacence. Simulation for robotics, for autonomous vehicles, for design of products, for collaboration. Maybe one of these days we'll be doing an interview like this inside a virtual reality that's powered by that same gaming technology. So, my team is focused on building the tooling and the fundamental technologies at that layer to create these possibilities with these applications. Whether they be video games or simulation for some of the things I mentioned like robotics and autonomous vehicles. Ojig Yeretsian:What are some of the problems you're trying to solve?Rev Lebaredian:There's a whole lot of them. We still haven't solved rendering. Simulating light is really, really hard, and then doing it fast is even harder. We understand the principles of light, physics, well enough so that we can do approximations but what we have to do is simulate billions and billions of photons bouncing around in a scene, and figure out which ones hit your sensor whether it's your eyeball, or a camera that you're modeling. Doing that extremely fast, in a 60th of a second, it's hard. Even the best that we do for movies, which don't have that restriction, they can afford to have supercomputers. Thousands of computers they put in the data center to calculate those final pixels that you end up seeing in the movie theater. They can spend hours and hours, or even days rendering a single frame. We have to do that in a 60th of a second in real time. So, the first problem that's on my mind always is, how do I take the things that we are doing that take hours for a film and make it so that we can do it in a 60th of a second? Once we can do that, then we can really approach, get close to making a virtual reality that's believable. So that if I stick you in this virtual reality, you might not actually know that you're in it. Ojig Yeretsian:Sounds to me, from all that we're talking about, is that the future is coming faster and earlier, and it's forcing us to contend with our understanding. It's like a culture shift. It's like a paradigm shift for us. AI is already here. There's technology to do gene editing. There's facial recognition, there is amputees with robotic limbs, sensors on the steering wheels for cars that if they sense that you're getting sleepy or your mood is changing, the car will start talking to you to keep you awake and engage you. These are all these that were unimaginable.Rev Lebaredian:There's a lot of technology we're building inside the car, not just for self driving cars, but for assisting drivers. Technologies like that where we have cameras in there that can see if your eyelids are drooping or if you're agitated, and try to help you, it's remarkable.Ojig Yeretsian:To help reduce road rage perhaps. Sebastian Thrun developed machine learning algorithm to help diagnose cancer, and that radiologist's role is going to change as a result of this. That they're not going to be necessarily replaced, but they're going to have augmentation of what you mentioned, with classifying and reading of the CAT scans and the MRIs and the X-rays, and do better classifying, and the radiologist will be more of the cognitive end of thinking about disease. So, how do you see technology impacting our lives and humanity?Rev Lebaredian:Understandably, all of this technology happens so fast it's scary. It's even scary for me even though I'm in the middle of it. It's happening at a pace that mankind hasn't experienced before, so it's hard for us to just digest how fast it's happening, what the repercussions are to each of these things. So, we have to be very careful about how we integrate technology into our lives, and really be thoughtful about it and not just assume that they're by default good. Technology is neutral, but the application of it isn't necessarily, right?Ojig Yeretsian:Yeah.Rev Lebaredian:That being said, one of the biggest fears is that AIs are going to make people obsolete. I just don't see that. It doesn't make sense to me that we would feel that way. A lot of the things that we think about are manufacturing jobs, and stuff that robots can go replace. If you look at it traditionally, those jobs didn't exist to begin with. It's kind of weird to think that the pinnacle of mankind is a human standing in an assembly line, toiling away hour after hour doing mundane, monotonous tasks. We were mechanizing mankind, which is odd. Humans are creative, they're wonderful creatures that are interesting. We should try to do everything possible to make it so that they can reach their potential without having to do the mundane and monotonous things. We were just discussing virtual worlds and simulating them, but one of the bigger problems actually with virtual worlds is the creation part of it. Creating a virtual world is extremely expensive. It takes thousands and thousands of people to construct a really large virtual world experience. One of the most important ones in recent times is a game called Grand Theft Auto V. It was released in 2013, I believe. If I recall, they spent about seven years building this game and they had, at some points, probably 1,000 artists constructing this virtual world. It's still extremely popular. People play it all the time. If you go search on YouTube, you'll find millions of videos of people creating movies inside the Grand Theft Auto world. They take it and they modify it and they insert their own characters, they put Marvel superheroes in there. The reason why it's so popular is because it is the most accessible, the largest virtual world that you can go access that's of high quality, but it took 1,000 artists seven years to create this. It's a micro version of Los Angeles. They call it San Andreas in there, and it's great but it's nowhere near what we really want. Something that's as rich as the real world we live in, and even more, except we've reached the limit. There's only so many hundreds of millions of dollars you can put into creating these virtual worlds. So to construct them, how do we take these thousands of artists and augment them with AI tools, not so we can put them out of business, but so that they can create not just this little micro version of Los Angeles but they create the whole globe? So that you can go walk into any building, into any alley, into any basement and it's detailed, and rich, and filled with all of the objects that you would expect there to be in the real world. It'd be based on maybe the real world. We can take our Google Maps data that exists, satellite data, and use AI to go augment that and build these worlds out.When we introduce these AIs, I don't believe there's going to be a single artist that goes out of business. What we're going to do is we're going to take away the monotonous task of handcrafting every single piece of geometry, every single little thing in there, and I think that's what's going to happen in general. Now, the scary part is when it happens fast. There's this period where you have people who have been doing something for a long time. Sometimes they're not even capable of adjusting to the new thing, so there's pain there. We need to get better at that as a society. How do we make people not dependent on one specific task as their job or career their whole lives? People should be adaptable, and creative, and we should be progressing together and learning to do new things. Ojig Yeretsian:So, you believe that we're not prepared?Rev Lebaredian:I don't think so, and I particularly don't think we're prepared here in the US. We're actually notoriously bad at dealing with new technology. If you look at it in the political landscape, I don't think we have leaders in politics that truly, really understand what's happening as we speak, and there's no plan for this. Hopefully that'll change soon. There are of course smart people in government, in our various agencies and whatnot, but just in terms of leadership you could see it any time congress calls tech leaders to-Ojig Yeretsian:Fly them out there [crosstalk].Rev Lebaredian:Summon them out there to talk. There seems to be no understanding or even respect for what it is they're talking about.Ojig Yeretsian:The European Union has the General Data Protections Regulation. Article 22 that states Europeans have a right to know how an automated decision involving them was reached and a right to know how an automated process is using their personal information. Is this something that you welcome?Rev Lebaredian:Well, I welcome governments thinking about these things. I don't know if the particular way they've implemented is the best, but at least they're doing something. We comply with all those, and as far as I can tell so far there hasn't been any negative repercussions except we had to do extra work to go comply with them. All of those things are important, but I think something is necessary and society should be engaged. These are important questions.Ojig Yeretsian:There's a lot of concern that machines are making decisions instead of people, and that there's an inherent bias embedded within algorithms. Is this something you encounter in your work?Rev Lebaredian:The algorithms that we deal with usually are not probably the ones that you're thinking about there. We're not Facebook or Google where we're dealing with peoples' personal information and social media. So, bias to us means something else. It's this car thinks there's a lane to the left here versus to the right. Something like that. That being said, I'm actually less worried about machine bias than I am human bias. Human bias we definitely know exists and we know it's really bad. Machines might have bias right now, but we know how to fix that, and we know how to test it, and we know how to measure it. I don't think we know how to fix humans yet as far as their biases are concerned. I can imagine that sometime in the future, maybe not so far future, we'll have judges and arbitrators that are AIs that make decisions. I trust them to make a decision on a criminal case involving a minority holding up a liquor store or something like that over most of the judges that are currently in place, and probably do it in a far less biased way. Ojig Yeretsian:I've heard the example of in a hospital exam room, where a machine assisted healthcare is actually reducing the numbers of hospital acquired infections and sepsis. I had never heard it on the more moral and [inaudible] realm such as the judicial system.Rev Lebaredian:Yeah, we trust humans to be arbiters of things that they probably have no business doing. I'd rather have an algorithm or math to decide these things.Ojig Yeretsian:What could go wrong?Rev Lebaredian:The work that I'm doing is actually to help us solve these problems before they cause harm. Simulation is actually the key to do that. So, one of the most direct examples is a simulation we're doing for autonomous vehicles. Before we put these cars out in the road and really sell them to people, we need to make sure that they're going to work well in every possible environment and every possible situation. With other crazy humans around them, driving around doing crazy things. There's actually no good ethical way to do a lot of the tests we would really like to do. How are you going to be sure that the self driving car doesn't run over a parent pushing their baby in a baby carriage when they go out into the road without looking both ways? Can't test that in real life. We can try to mock it up with some cardboard cutouts of those humans or something like that, but it's not the same thing.Ojig Yeretsian:Yeah, it's scary.Rev Lebaredian:So, all this work that we're doing to construct these virtual worlds and do them in real time, that ends up helping us here. We need to put humans inside these worlds that we test our cars in, and have them drive millions of miles and fool these cars. We're building a brain for this car that perceives the world and decides to act upon it. Our simulators are virtual reality for those car brains. We produce these graphics and pipe those pixels directly into the sensor inputs on the computer that's running inside the car, and the car, if we do our job right, doesn't really know the difference between reality and the virtual reality we're giving it. So, if we can simulate it beforehand, the better we can do these simulations, the higher fidelity simulations, we have a better chance of averting some of the really tragic things that might happen. We can all imagines what happens if an autonomous vehicle goes awry, but I'd actually argue that we already know what happens when humans go awry. There's plenty of-Ojig Yeretsian:Examples.Rev Lebaredian:Plenty of bad drivers. I'm sure you've experienced some of them driving out here earlier.Ojig Yeretsian:Absolutely.Rev Lebaredian:So again, I think in a lot of these realms, best chance is to make algorithms that are less biased and not as flawed as humans.Ojig Yeretsian:How might this create a better world?Rev Lebaredian:That's a good question in general, and what does that mean even? A better world. I think there's some simple metrics of better worlds. They have less babies dying. That would be a good thing. People living longer, more people with enough food in their bellies so they don't have to worry about it. People getting educated so that they can keep their minds busy. Without technological progress, we wouldn't be where we are today. I know things seem pretty crazy, but it wasn't that long ago that a good portion of our babies used to just die at birth, and the mothers along with them. We take it for granted now. Babies are born early, like my sons, they were born weeks early. That would have been a death sentence for them before, but they're alive and kicking right now and thriving because of technology. Everything that we're doing, there's the dangerous aspect of it, but generally the world has always gotten better as a result of it.Ojig Yeretsian:What's exciting for you in terms of new technologies? What do we have to look forward to? Rev Lebaredian:Well, in the near term the things that we were just discussing, the things that I've been working on for the past few decades. In terms of virtual worlds and computer graphics, I feel like we haven't realized the full potential to them. We've been primarily using them for entertainment, which is great, but we're almost there where we're going to start weaving these virtual realities into our daily lives. 40, 50 years ago the average person didn't have a video camera. The average person barely had a camera, and if they did, it wasn't something that they could use all the time. To go get film developed, it was expensive and cumbersome. You look at our children now and they're all videographers, they're all photographers, and they're creating content and worlds themselves. Everybody is. I want to do the same thing for 3D worlds, for virtual worlds. I want to get to the point where my grandchildren hopefully, hopefully before but at least my grandchildren, are going to be able to construct virtual worlds that are more complex, richer, and more beautiful than what Grand Theft Auto has done or what we saw with Avengers: Endgame.By using whatever device is there or just by speaking, I want to see my grandchild step into a virtual world and say, "I want a forest here," and a forest appears. "I want a stream with a unicorn jumping over the stream." Just describe it and have this world unfold in front of them. Once we get to that point, I can't even imagine the things that people are going to do with it. So, that's the thing that gets me excited.Ojig Yeretsian:How can folks get more information about your innovative work?Rev Lebaredian:Well, you can definitely go to our webpage and all our social media feeds. NVIDIA.com or find us on Facebook and Twitter. If you're a developer or into the technology directly, we have Developer.NVIDIA.com where we provide most of the technology I've been speaking about directly for free for people to download and go incorporate into their tools. One of the most interesting things I've ever worked on, and my passion right now, is a new project that we just announced that we kind of hinted at about a month or two ago. We call it NVIDIA Omniverse. It's a platform that we're building that allows for a lot of the things that I've been talking about here. We want to connect various tools in different domains whether you're an architect, or a product designer, or a video game creator, or a director for a movie. All of these domains have different tools that they use to describe, things that are actually quite similar. They're constructing objects, and worlds, and scenes.So what we're building is a platform where all of these can come connected together, and we can allow people to create these worlds together using the tools that are specific to their domain. We showed an example of this. We called it the Google Docs of 3D. Just like how you can go and edit a spreadsheet with your colleagues or friends simultaneously, we want to provide these and we are starting to provide this for people creating 3D worlds. So, you and I can be in completely different parts of the globe using our own tools. You might be using a tool to paint textures on a model, and I could be using a tool to construct a building using something like Revit from Autodesk, which many architects use. We can be collaborating together, building these worlds together. So, you can go check that out if you search for NVIDIA Omniverse. We're doing some cool stuff.Ojig Yeretsian:Thank you so much, Rev.You've been listening to Method to the Madness, a biweekly public affairs show on KALX Berkeley, celebrating Bay Area innovators. You can find all our podcasts on iTunes University. We'll see you again in two weeks. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Vincent Medina and Louis Trevino, founders and chefs of Cafe Ohlone by Mak-'amham in Berkeley speak about their vision and experience with sharing traditional Ohlone food. They are reclaiming and reviving native ways while serving only pre-colonial foods.Transcript:Ojig Yeretsian:This is Method to the Madness, a biweekly public affairs show on KALX Berkeley, celebrating Bay Area innovators. I'm your host [inaudible 00:00:12], and today I'll be speaking with Vincent Medina and Louis Trevino, founders and chefs of Cafe Ohlone by Makamham, a restaurant serving traditional Ohlone foods located right here in Berkeley at 2430 Bancroft way.Vincent Medina is a member of the Muwekma Ohlone tribe from the East Bay and Louis Trevino is a member of the Rumsen Ohlone tribe, which originated in the Monterey Bay area.Together they now run Cafe Ohlone by Makamham, where they serve traditional foods and a very welcoming and engaging environment. I got to experience their cafe for the first time recently and was impressed by the design of the space, the meaningful exchanges, and the delicious food.Welcome to the show, Louis and Vincent. Thank you for being here.Vincent Medina: Thank you. [foreign language 00:01:01]. In our Chochenyo language, that means hello.Ojig:Your cafe is receiving a lot of positive attention and great press. Tell us what inspired you to open Cafe Ohlone.Vincent:Both Louis and myself, we grew up very proud of our Ohlone identities that was instilled in us from our families. Our grandparents had a lot of influence in our lives and our great grandparents. We saw how valuable and how meaningful our culture is.Our identities were able to be carried on, and in my family, our connection to our land has also been able to be carried on. In my family here in the East Bay, no generation of our people have ever moved away from this space. There's a lot of power in that. We see how hard that our families have worked to keep our culture alive, but we also know that because colonization hit us really hard here in the Bay Area, especially here in the East Bay with the urbanity that surround us, it meant that not everything could be carried on naturally because of very forced oppression that came as a result of people coming here, invading our homes and trying to erase the original culture of this place.However, our ancestors and our elders, the people who are even alive in our families today, were able to carry on as much as they could and the amount of what they are able to carry on it's amazing, and it gives us a lot of pride to know that in spite of those hardships, these things have kept going.The ancestors of our community found ways to keep what wasn't able to be passed down because of how hard again, colonization affected us, they found ways to keep those things alive as well through old ethnographic recordings that they wrote and recorded in the 1920s and the 1930s that gave us the hope that one day we would be able to have those things again in our lives.Louis and myself, we decided to create this organization called Makamham, which means, our food in Chochenyo language, because we wanted to be able to recognize those sacrifices from the people before us that they made. That one day when things were better and safer, that all these things could come back out again and we could have them in our lives and they could be passed down again to Ohlone people, and our elders can see these things respected again as well.We want to acknowledge that this work, it's not just being done by us, but it's being done by many people in our community. Many people who are doing this work quietly. A lot of times people don't get that acknowledgement and we want to give that acknowledgement to our people and to acknowledge that it's not just us doing this work, but we're part of this work and we can only do this work because of those people before us who allow us to have these things.It's disrespectful to those people not to be able to carry on our culture. We also want to create spaces, physical spaces, where we can see our identity reflected outside of our homes. It can be isolating and lonely when you're Ohlone growing up and you don't see any reminders that you exist or that anybody cares about you or wants to know about you outside of your home, even though you're right in your homeland.We wanted to be able to create the space because growing up we didn't have these things, but now the Ohlone kids who are growing up, they get to see these things and they get to go to a restaurant where their culture is reflected and their food is served.While it might be a small space right now, it represents a lot of hopes and a lot of dreams that our people have had for a long time and it also represents a lot of vision and to where our future is going as well.Ojig:Would you like to add anything to that, Louis?Louis Trevino:It's just that for our families, those living elders, people who are around today who remember these foods being eaten in their childhoods, they're the same generation that remembers also hearing our language when they were young people, who remember seeing those cooking methods, whose mothers and grandmothers took them out to gather plants for food.They're also the generation of people who, for many reasons, we're not able to learn to speak our language, even though they heard it. Who were not taught the proper names of these plants always, and that knowledge was not passed down to them. In the case of my family, specifically because that older generation of people was trying very hard to also protect their children from the harm that the world around us was putting on us.By doing this work, by bringing these foods back, by simultaneously continuing to work on reviving our languages, by bringing our family into this work and feeding them, we're also repairing that part of our family's history, that loss.By feeding our elders, we're also feeding their parents and also feeding their children and their grandchildren and their great grandchildren, so that we can all have these things again, and so that harm that was done can be undone by us.Ojig:Before Makamham, where would one go to eat native food in the East Bay or the Bay Area?Vincent:Before we started our organization, there were a few foods that our people were still continuing to eat. Especially, for our elders, because they reminded them of foods that they ate when they were a young person.I started to talk to my grandmother about foods that my great grandmother would gather, and she would tell me all these stories, Louis too, she would tell stories to him about how she would gather these foods, where she would gather them.Because she's in the city, she would even have to gather them sometimes that when she was waiting for the bus at the Hayward bus station, her native plants that she loved, that she would find there, and you think about that, there's just something that's so cool about that thought of like resilience right there. Like, this strong, Ohlone lady, right there in her home, right where that's in the same area that where she's gathering this that our ancestors have always lived in, right along [inaudible 00:06:48], [inaudible] creek is right there in that area, in this urban setting, waiting for a bus in 20th century at that point and still gathering plants.Probably, putting them in her purse right there. There's just something that's so cool about that with shows like how people just never give up these things no matter what's around us, how stubborn we are and how proud we are. Those are the people that I always look up to.I know that in our family though, only a few of these foods really could have ... They were continued. Not many of them though were, just because of how hard things impacted us here. How accessible is it to go and gather our foods when we're in the middle of the city?All of the inner East Bay where our people are raised, which is right in our traditional homeland as well is urban. It's definitely hard to be able to have access to these foods. And so, we wanted to be able to change that and that's why we created this organization before we even started with Cafe Ohlone.We named it Makamham, because again, that means our food, and we named it this intentionally because we believe these are our collective foods. These are foods that belong to our people. This is also representative of the fact that Ohlone people, our tribe, we don't just want one thing back. We don't just want just simply language back or just simply our stories back or just one particular item, but all these things are interconnected with one another.The truth is, we want everything back, because everything that was taken from us, was taken from us against our wishes. Those things that couldn't be carried on, we want to see all those things come back, including our land. Yes, that's the truth as well.One thing that I try to work for and envision with Louis and with our people is what it looks to have a holistic revival and a reawakening, where through being in our homeland and gathering these foods, using our language alongside of the gathering methods of this food, speaking our language to one another, we reconnect with those old villages that our ancestors directly came from where we gather for an example, the Yerba Buena that we make tea. That's right in an area that where my great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother was born. All the way back.As we do these things together collectively, it inches us back into that traditional world, and we see how much our people have always loved these things and it also is a reminder that when we are given the chance to be able to nurture our traditional culture, ever since colonization has come here, our people have always chosen to go back to traditional culture whenever given the chance. Right now, we're seeing that happen again in a modern day form and it's really exciting.Ojig:If you're just tuning in, this is Method to the Madness, a biweekly public affairs show at ALX Berkeley celebrating Bay Area innovators. Today we're talking with Vincent Medina and Louis Trevino of Cafe Ohlone by Makamham, a restaurant serving traditional Oglone foods.Vincent:We want to be able to just be mindful that this food that we're serving, and we say our food is full of justice as well, because our food, it's connected to helping people better understand that Ohlone people are here, that our culture is strong, that our culture is rooted in this place that we're in right now, and that our people will never leave here.When people understand that we're here and they understand how rich what we have is and how much we care about these things, and after they're empowered with that truth, then they have no reason to not stand with our people. And so, this is the need to be able to have allies with us, to be able to work for a better future that includes Ohlone people central to the story here in our homeland, and this is why we're doing this work as well.The primary goal of this has always been to empower our community, not just to have these traditional foods back, but also for the wellness of our people. We know that when the government imposed foods on our people, they were often foods that cause great harm to our health. We believe that when we take out those things that aren't good for our bodies and eat the things that our bodies recognize that our bodies get stronger. When our bodies are stronger, we're more capable of fighting back against the injustices that we face.We also believe as well that culture is central to keeping our identity strong and that when we have a robust, full culture, with many different things and we are also able to adapt new things in our culture over time, that represents a living identity. That also is able to keep our culture strong and also able to be carried on within these modern times that we're in as well.Ojig:You touched on a number of aspects of language and culture and violence and healing and repairing. It's just such a rich space. Also, a different kind of space that embodies some of these elements that you value, your vision and the context in which you're innovating.It includes words and pronunciation of certain words in Chochenyo. You also use Chochenyo phrases and language with diners at the cafe. Why is language so important?Vincent:Our language first of all has been very, very revived, and we're extremely proud of that revival. It's something that collectively we're excited to see happen and we know our language will never go to sleep again. We never say that it died, but we say it was sleeping, and it was sleeping for about two generations.With the right effort, our people breathe life into it, and now it's awakened again. Now, it's spoken with fluency. I speak it. People in my community, young people are growing up speaking the language right now, and elders as well.Louis:Our language in my family was used until at least the mid 1930s, and that might be true also of the Rumsen language in general, but when we work with language documentation to look for information about our languages, those things were recorded in the 1920s and 30s.There's one woman today in my extended family who heard our language when she was a young girl. She is in her upper 80s now, Gloria Castro is her name. She is my great grandfather's first cousin, and this beautiful woman, she just loves what we are doing because it is exactly what she has wanted to see for a very long time.In the early 1990s, she visited the language archives here at UC Berkeley. During the first, what became breath of life, and she's always been hungry for that information, for things that she remembered seeing and hearing, but not understanding from her childhood.The people that she heard using our language were her grandparents and her mother, and her mother never used it after her grandparents passed away. She remembers hearing it at these family times when all of the family would get together for weeks at a time and all of the adults would go into the house and all the children were made to stay outside of the house, and there was a woman who kept watch and made sure the kids didn't get too close.She does know that they were using our language and that she heard things. She remembers them preparing food in our old style, earth ovens, at the creek side there, which is a very old method of cooking. She remembers being chased out of her grandfather's garden, and this is when she very clearly heard our language, when he yelled at her and her cousins to get out of the garden.She had this memory for years. She was six years old when he did that, and that's the phrase that she remembers, and she says that she remembers exactly that sequence of sounds because she and her cousins looked at each other and they laughed because they didn't understand what their grandpa was saying. She says that laughter imprinted that memory in her mind, and she's been looking for that expression ever since, and she's always wondered and she's had times when she doubted what she remembers hearing.But, during the last breath of life, last summer, in the language archive here on campus, we were reading through Alfred Kroeber's notebook from 1902 where he records a relative of ours, [inaudible 00:14:50], and Gloria wanted to read every single line out loud, and so that's what we did. We spent a couple of hours doing that with her. We came across [inaudible 00:14:59], and we just had to stop everything, because Gloria finally found the expression that her grandfather used, and she could hear his voice in her ear, she said.There it was. It was this confirmation of all of those experiences that she had as a young girl was confirmed and now she knows that he was telling her to get out of there.Ojig:It took 80 years. it's amazing.Louis:There were the sounds. These are why our language is so connected to our foods, because those same people who were using our language, were the same people preparing our foods, were the same people who we are sure prayed in our traditional way, who did all of these things and kept all of these things close to themselves, because these things all come together.When we work to revive our language, it's very organic that that work leads to the revival of all of these things.Vincent:That's right. One of the powerful things about language, it's able to convey a worldview that's there. Our world view, I feel, is embedded within our language. Helps people who are coming to Cafe Ohlone better understand that this place was never a new world. This place was never a blank slate, but this place has culture, it has language, identity, nations that are here already, has a great food, great diet, great people, all of these great things that are already here.One of the most harmful things about this narrative that exists that we're trying to change is, it almost seems that anything that's introduced here can just be called Californian. People talk about Californian cuisine, but it's made up of nothing that's California, nothing that's native to this space. Just because there's avocados or something that's seasonal or fresh doesn't mean it's native to California. That doesn't mean it's California and cuisine.We believe that when people can understand what the true identity of this place specifically is, and I also want to add that what's native to us here in the East Bay isn't native to [inaudible 00:16:51], down south in Los Angeles or other areas, and we're all different here in California. That's one of those beautiful things, but by focusing here on East Bay Ohlone culture, and I'm aware, in Louis' family's area, in [inaudible] Rumsen Ohlone culture, we believe that we can show people the specifics of these things that helps people better understand and respect our identities.Ojig:What is the website address?Vincent:The website address, it's makamham.com. We did that intentionally because we believe that people can learn how to say Makamham. It's not that hard. Makamham. It's three sounds, and those sounds, they mean our food. Ohlone people have had to learn a lot of really difficult words over time, and so you know we believe that people can put in a little effort to say [inaudible 00:17:37].But, then Cafe Ohlone is also there as well. Cafe Ohlone is like the public face of this work. That's also the cafe space that we run over in Berkeley, but the website is makamham.com.Ojig:On the website you can get information also about the price of brunch, [inaudible 00:00:17:54], lunch and dinner. These prices include much more than just Ohlone food.Can you walk us through what a diner's experience would be like?Vincent:We always prepare everything fresh the day that we are going to have our events. We are always cooking with only what's seasonal, what's available to us, and we try to gather as much as we can here in the East Bay. If we can't gather it, we source it. The same ingredients from just a little bit further out. Ideally. Here in California.We never want people to think that we're just a standard restaurant where people are just going to go and just be able to consume food and walk out without any thought. We're slow at Cafe Ohlone because we want people to understand the intention as well as the purpose of the work that we're doing there. We say we want to elevate people's consciousness to help people better understand what [inaudible] here in the East Bay is, what contemporary Ohlone identity looks like, but also how delicious our foods are.Like what I was saying previously, we believe that when people are empowered with knowledge about how robust the living Ohlone culture is, that they'll respect us in a different way.Because of that, every meal that we have, we bring people in, and before anybody pays or before the meal starts, we ask everybody to sit down.Everybody sits down and we have [inaudible] that are out. They wrap themselves in one. We have all of these beautiful native aesthetics that are out, our baskets, our gaming pieces, the raw ingredients of the plants that we use, the salt that our tribe gathers and native plants and flowers that are on the tables and abalone shells and huge basket pattern that's painted in goat milk on one of our back walls with abalone adornments hanging down.People just sit there and look at everything. And so, for so many people, it's unfamiliar and new. We understand that that's unfamiliar for a lot of people, but we want also to help people better understand these things without making them feel bad for not knowing these things.Instead of just pointing fingers and making people feel bad about not knowing these things, we want to be able to help people understand them in a way that's really caring and loving, because to us, those are the things that we grew up with, which is learning to talk about these things with a lot of love and care.We also believe that when we're preparing these foods and when we're serving them, we only want the best words and intentions to be around them, because in our belief as well, if you're making food and you're in a bad place or you're serving food in a bad place, that's going to come into that food as well.You leave the drama out at Cafe Ohlone, right? No drama, no problems, and it's just good intentions. When we come back there, it's just celebration about our identity, telling people about why these foods are being eaten, but talking honestly and candidly about the fact that these foods weren't in our family's lives for a couple of generations because of our history, because colonization. Not because our people didn't care about these things, but because of the abuses that our people had to endure. Needlessly endure.As people understand these things, then we introduce the ingredients. We talk about, we try to change the narrative of how people understand our culture, because we talk about our history honestly but then we talk after that about our survival and the fact that we can have these things again, that we can be able to keep these things going, which shows triumph, which shows victory.That's what we want people to understand, is to associate our culture less and less with tragedy, but more and more with victory. We want people to look at Ohlone people and to say, "Those people are strong. They survived all of that and they're still doing this, they're still in their place, they're still eating these foods. They're still speaking their language."When people understand that, they view us in a different way. After that, we say a prayer, and we always make a plate at every meal that we have for our ancestors. We do this intentionally, and this is something that when we make these foods we do at home as well, because these foods, we're only able to know them because of our ancestors. We're only able to have these things in our life because of the strength that those people before us.Before we eat anything, we all pray. I'll share a prayer, Louis shares a prayer in Rumsen, and me in Chochenyo, and we pray to what these foods represent, and that starts off, this meal, this experience, on a note that this is different.When you slow down, then you can really taste these first flavors of the East Bay. We always ask that elders come up first, because that's something that we value in our culture. After we eat and we have music, contemporary indigenous music that's there, we answer questions. Then, usually, we'll bring out some traditional games, and we'll play some games and then at the end of the events, we'll always have a call to action.Ojig:What are some of the ingredients in the Ohlone foods you're serving?Vincent:We're always making seasonal dishes, and so right now we're cooking a lot with mushrooms, because mushrooms are in heavy abundance as well as hazelnuts, which the season just recently ended as well at winter time.Right now, we're also with the earliest growths of the native greens that are coming up. We've been gathering those. And so, I'll just walk you through a few of our foods just based on seasons. Right now, for an example, we're having these delicious, delicious, delicious mushroom hazelnut muffins, where we get black trumpet mushrooms and candy cap mushrooms and [inaudible 00:23:16], and we saute those with bay laurel that we gather up in our village sites and in walnut oil and pickle weed from the East Bay shoreline. The salty succulent that we chop up, then our tribe gathers the salt from those old salt ponds that our ancestors, the same exact salt areas that our people have always gathered salt from.We still go out there with digging sticks and chisel away at that salt and we add that to that mushroom mixture. We grind down the California hazelnuts and make a hazelnut flour, and then we bake that hazelnut flour with some dried porcini, [inaudible] base salts. We add those mushrooms, cook one of those edible flowers that are coming up right now on top of it, bake that. Serve that with an all native green salad of watercress and Indian lettuce that's coming up right now after the heavy rains, with that base salt and gooseberries, blackberries. A dressing of walnut oil and bay laurel, popped [inaudible] seeds and pinon nuts, roasted hazelnuts that we roast every morning before we have our events.We'll have a vanilla chia seed porridge with blackberry sauce and hazelnuts that we crush a mortar right in front of the people who are dining, and we'll usually have like something like an acorn bread as well. A traditional bread that is one of our most traditional foods. A bread that's made out of the acorn soup that gets cooked down and has this crisp outside and this sweet jelly like pudding inside.We'll have smoked venison and mushroom skewers, there's a hunter who hunts up a just a little bit north of here in the Pomo area, and often will be gifted venison. We'll butcher that and smoke it for hours and hours until it's soft and just has all of those wonderful smoke taste from the Oakwood.We add the bay wood as we're smoking it, and we'll smoke the mushroom skewers as well, that's something that we've been doing recently and salmon that's smoked from Enterprise Rrancheria that's gifted to us.All of these foods are flavors our ancestors would recognize, and I quickly would like to say, just in our language what these foods are so you understand that we have words. We have [foreign language 00:25:20] in the Rumsen language, [foreign language 00:25:22], the deer meatballs, [foreign language 00:25:26], the blackberry sauce. [foreign language 00:25:28], the acorn flatbread. There's [foreign language 00:25:31], the mushrooms, [foreign language 00:25:34], the popped [foreign language 00:25:35] seeds. [foreign language 00:25:37], the berries and the nuts. [foreign language 00:25:43], that's mushroom soup cow. [foreign language 00:25:44], that's bitter greens with flowers, popped [foreign language 00:25:54] seeds and berries. [foreign language 00:25:57] quail eggs. [foreign language 00:25:59], sweet acorn. [foreign language 00:26:03], the sweet a seed cakes.These are foods our ancestors recognize, and when we eat these foods we commune with them.Ojig:Since the Ohlone are the original peoples of the land on which the cafe is located, I would hope that you're being embraced and supported by Berkeley and East Bay communities.How are folks responding?Vincent:Extraordinarily. Yes, we're ecstatic to see the response from the community and it also gives us a lot of hope to what's possible. 10 years ago, this wouldn't have been thinkable.Ojig:Moving forward, what would you like to inspire with Cafe Ohlone?Vincent:Well, we know it will keep going, but we would like to see it expand as well. Can you imagine having, we have all of these beautiful place names all around the Bay Area and all around the East Bay that are Oakland, it's [foreign language 00:26:48], and if you want to go over to to where we live at, it's hulking. If you can imagine [foreign language 00:26:53], [foreign language 00:26:53] and [foreign language 00:26:54], [foreign language 00:26:56] in San Jose that are run by our tribal people, it would be such an exciting thing.That's a big dream. One of the things I always imagine, and Louis and I talk about this a lot, is getting one of those old warehouses over in West Oakland or Emeryville, making that a cultural space for our people, but also having a large restaurant space there as well a few days a week for the public, but also making that like an urban rancher here as well for our people. Having a space where we can go and have language lessons, have basketry, have all these things that our people want to see in our world, but we always want to keep that small space that we have in the back because it represents a lot for us as well.Ojig:I want to ask also, food sovereignty seems to be a large part of your space. Can you elaborate on your role in this movement and what you'd like to see moving forward with the food sovereignty movement?Vincent:I'm a member of the [inaudible] Ohlone tribe and also a councilman representing my family's lineage and our tribal government as well, and this work that we're doing with Makamham and with Cafe Ohlone, it's very much connected on a larger scale. It's specific to us and we're doing this work for our people, but there's also a larger movement that's happening here, which is touching on many other indigenous communities, which is about decolonization, but also returning back to our traditional foods.Louis and I, we're a part of this organization called Slow Foods Turtle Island, which works on an international level with other indigenous people to protect our food sovereignty and also working with agencies at the United Nations and with Slow Foods international.It's really powerful, because there's challenges that we have to be able to gather these foods. We hope that we will be able to see our people though, our Ohlone people, specific here in the East Bay [inaudible] Ohlone people, be able to have more access to gathering, be able to have more access to going into those areas and gathering our foods without restrictions, because right now there are still numerous restrictions that exist against our people for gathering.Ojig:How can folks get more information about your important work on the cafe?Vincent:Our primary way of communicating our messages is through our Instagram, @makamham. Our Instagram, we specifically have chosen just because of we like to be able to share beautiful photos of our food and the work that we're doing. Instagram has just been a really clear platform for us. We're also on Twitter at @makamham, and our website address, once again, it's makamham.com. All of the information about our work and also our hours are listed there.Ojig:Thank you Louis and Vincent for talking with us today and for your work.Vincent:Thank you, [inaudible 00:29:32].Ojig:You've been listening to Method to the Madness, a biweekly public affairs show on KALX Berkeley, celebrating Bay Area innovators. You can find all of our podcasts on iTunes University.Thanks for tuning in. We'll be back again in two weeks. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Nina Meijers discusses FoodBytes! (San Francisco event showcasing startups disrupting the food and agriculture space) and former FoodBytes! alumna Claire Schlemme, CEO & founder of Oakland-based Renewal Mill that is fighting food waste by upcycling okara.Transcripts:Lisa Kiefer:This is Method to the Madness, a public payer show on KALX Berkeley celebrating Bay Area innovators. I'm your host, Lisa Kiefer and today I'm speaking with Nina Meyers of Foodbytes and Claire Schlemme, CEO and founder of Oakland based and alumni startup of Foodbytes Renewal Mill. Welcome to the program.Nina Meyers:Thank you.Lisa Kiefer:I'm particularly interested in what's coming up next week with Foodbytes, but first of all, Nina Meyers, tell us what you do for Foodbytes, how it got started, what's the history and what's the problems that you're trying to solve.Nina Meyers:Sure, happy to and thanks for having us. Pleasure to be here. Foodbytes quite simply is a pitch competition and networking platform for sustainable food and AG innovators. So it started four plus years ago. We're actually about to do our 15th Foodbytes, which is in San Francisco, which is where it all began. So it's founded by Rabobank. Rabobank is one of the largest food and agriculture banks in the world and in North America, our clients are some of the largest and mid sized food and AG companies. We started to see that we're working with a lot of our corporates and they're facing a lot of challenges in innovation where we're all faced with this idea that we're going to have 10 billion people on the planet by 2050. We need to feed those people and we need to do so efficiently. There's lots of environmental challenges and there's a lot of startups that are starting to create nimble ways and test and experiment and are basically building technologies and products that are solving those challenges.So we, four and a half years ago said, we want to do something that's just for food and AG. There's lots of pitch opportunities out there for tech startups. There's lots of things that are cross-disciplinary, but we said, let's bring our knowledge to the table. Let's bring our corporates to the table and investors that are just looking at food and AG start to create an ecosystem where those startups can make the connections to help scale their technologies and on the converse side of that that the corporates can start to build relationships and really start to think about these ways that innovation is happening to bring it to their own businesses.Lisa Kiefer:Tell me how it operates. Is it a competition?Nina Meyers:Yeah, so it is a competition in its most essential form. We look through hundreds of applications. We score them and we come to 15 startups that we select to come and pitch from all around the world and we're looking at on the product side, on the tech side, on the agriculture tech sides. We're looking at like AG tech, food tech and food products and they basically have a two day experience jam packed, but we basically bring together our network of mentors in the room, experts in legal deal structuring, branding, PR and they have intimate mentor sessions with them. They get to build camaraderie and relationships with one another as the entrepreneurs. They get to practice their pitches for the judges that are going to judge them the next day and they really have this full day of just like, it's kind of like a mini business school. Learn as much as you can.Lisa Kiefer:Do you find that many of these startups don't have business skills?Nina Meyers:I wouldn't say that. I think it's like you're just trying to build your business day in and day out and you have to focus on that and this, we're doing this one day kind of takes them out of it a little bit and that they're like, "Oh I've been a tech company. I've been really focused on how do I build a relationships with corporates or how do I build the MVP of my technology, but I wasn't thinking about the brand. I wasn't thinking about how I should structure my series B round when I'm fundraising, when I'm just in this infancy of my seed stage." They start to just have a lot of information around them.Lisa Kiefer:It would seem like creativity doesn't have to go hand in hand with business skills. I mean getting the right people together.Nina Meyers:To an extent. It depends on which entrepreneur, which startup, but I would say that they kind of say, "I took a day out of my life, my building, my business life, but I got to get all these different intros and different insights and also of course the insights from the other entrepreneurs that are there who are facing similar challenges, building similar businesses." So they do that and then there's a pitch day, which is a traditional pitch competition. There's hundreds of people in the room. It's focused on investment, but it's also focused on Rabobank bringing our corporates into the room so that they can pitch for these potential partners.There's a lot of media there covering it to see what's kind of the cutting edge of food and AG innovation and then what we started with was this pitch competition. Now it's built into two days and we started to build a continuous community around that. We say, "Hey, do you want to meet with X, Y and Z?" They're really interested in thinking about partnering with you. We have a database of thousands of startups and we're always thinking about how can we continue to build relationships?Lisa Kiefer:Do you sometimes do that with those who maybe didn't make it, but they have a great idea? Maybe they don't have the right skills but you match them up with somebody else?Nina Meyers:Yep, absolutely. So we have a database of thousands of companies that have applied, but we also, we have 250 now alumni of the platform. We're looking at everyone who's ever sort of come across our radar who is an innovator in this space. So that's what happens over the two days, but we kind of say that it's a discovery platform, but it's also like the beginning of a relationship where Rabobank can kind of be this connector, be this matchmaker, be this champion for both sides of-Lisa Kiefer:Tell me about the judges. How many and who are these people?Nina Meyers:They change. Every food rates has had a different grouping of judges. I think we've had something like 75. It's probably closer to a hundred and mentors, but essentially they're some of our sponsors and partners. They're legal experts who work with startups to help them structure their deals and figure out how to engage with investors. They are actual investors in need of a CPG space or on the tech side. They are sometimes policy experts who are really focused on sustainable food policy and-Lisa Kiefer:So some academics?Nina Meyers:Yeah, academics. Exactly. So literally we've had judges sort of from all across the board. We've also started having an alumni come on as a judge to sort of speak from that first hand perspective of this is what happened when I was there. We have-Lisa Kiefer:That's a great idea.Nina Meyers:Yeah, we have Abby Ramadan from Impact Vision who is an alumni of our platform and she's been very involved. She's also based out here. We want the judging panel to be able to provide varying expertise.Lisa Kiefer:Does it always happen in the same city?Nina Meyers:It's global. We've been in San Francisco the most. We've been in Silicon Valley the most. This is our sixth San Francisco edition, but we've been in Australia. We've been in London. We've been in the Netherlands, New York. We're headed to Chicago in September. Oh, we were in Boulder. We were in Austin, but yeah, we're-Lisa Kiefer:So how many times a year are we talking?Nina Meyers:So we were doing three to four for awhile globally for 2020 and 2019 we're doing two so that we can really focus on doing more and providing more value for everyone in our ecosystem and the in between.Lisa Kiefer:So this year you have how many participants?Nina Meyers:We have 15 companies.Lisa Kiefer:And two are from the Bay Area?Nina Meyers:Yes.Lisa Kiefer:One of them I'm particularly interested in. That's SnapDNA.Nina Meyers:Yes. We talk a little bit about some of the challenges that the companies are solving and one of them is sort of this idea of transparency. It's this idea of we all know about recalls that are happening in food all the time and there's a lot of opacity around what happens from the fields to your plate or wherever it comes from. So there are companies, there are a lot of innovation in this space that's happening around food safety and pathogen detection. So that SnapDNA is one of those companies that's really creating a real time test for folks in the food supply chain to get that information on whether food is safe or whether it has certain pathogens and we've seen a number of different sort of innovators come through that are focused on this, but this is something as a point I just made that's very, very well event to the corporate focus in the room.Lisa Kiefer:That can save so much money.Nina Meyers:It's about efficiency. It's obviously about safety. It's about consumer trust, which we know consumers want safer food, more sustainable food, healthier, more nutritious, cleaner and they're willing to pay more for it as well. So this is something that's important to all those players.Lisa Kiefer:Okay, and the other one is Planetariums and they're out of Palo Alto. Do you know much about them?Nina Meyers:Yes I do and the Planetariums is an up cycling company, which what does that mean? So it's and Claire I'm sure will talk more about this, but it is a waste stream that's up cycled into a new food essentially. So they are taking defatted seeds, which are a byproduct of the vegetable oil process and they are basically making that into a very nutritious protein rich flour. So they just announced today that they got, that they just raised a $750000 seed round and one of their investors is Barilla, which is the largest pasta producer in the world. So for a company like Barilla, to just give you an example is looking at this up cycling space and saying, "Yeah, of course we make pasta out of wheat, but we know that consumers want different things. Consumers want chickpea pasta. They want gluten free pasta. They still want traditional pasta, but let's look at ways that we can really provide something that consumers are starting to relate to.Lisa Kiefer:That's interesting. I've had a couple of your alumni on this show and one of them was Andrew Brentano who does cricket protein.Nina Meyers:Yes.Lisa Kiefer:And the other people were in perfect produce and they also, we're trying to save money by getting rid of waste in the food marketplace.Nina Meyers:Yep.Lisa Kiefer:If you're just tuning in, you're listening to Method to the Madness, a biweekly public affairs show on KALX Berkeley celebrating Bay Area innovators. Today I'm speaking with Nina Meyers of FoodBytes and Claire Schlemme, CEO and founder of Oakland based Renewal Mill. So I want to kind of shift over here to Claire Schlemme and Claire, you were an alumni of Foodbytes a couple of years ago.Claire Sclemme:Yes.Lisa Kiefer:We got up to the point where it's talking about judging. You made it to the finals.Claire Sclemme:Sure.Lisa Kiefer:What happened?Claire Sclemme:So as Nina mentioned, it's really it was a two day event for us. So the first day before the actual pitch competition, we had the opportunity to talk to a lot of different experts in different fields, which was, which was really great. So I think going back to that point, even with some business experience under our belt, it was a lot of really quick concentrated information that we were able to get from that day, which was excellent. So a lot of touching on all these legal issues, packaging issues, marketing issues, so really being able to touch all those different points and then also being able to have a pitch in front of the judges before the actual competition was also-Lisa Kiefer:So like a practice pitch.Claire Sclemme:It was a practice pitch. We got feedback on it, which was great. We could incorporate the feedback into our pitch for the next day, which was also very helpful and it really-Lisa Kiefer:Maybe you should tell us about your company.Claire Sclemme:Absolutely. So, so I'm the cp-founder and CEO of Renewal Mill and Renewal Mill up cycles byproducts from food manufacturing into high quality ingredients and products. So essentially we're building a portfolio of ingredients that are all being sourced from different byproducts. So the first-Lisa Kiefer:Like what?Claire Sclemme:So the first ingredient that we brought to market commercially is called Okara flour and it's made from the byproduct from soy milk production. So it's basically taking the soybean pulp that's generated when soy milk is made. We dry it, mill it and turn it into a high fiber, high protein, gluten free flour. So that's one example. There's a lot of other other places in the food system where this type of waste is happening. So particularly in food manufacturing waste is a really good place to be looking at food waste because it's kind of low hanging fruit in terms of being able to attack the food waste problem.Things coming out of a food manufacturing facility are food safe already because they're in this facility and they're often very concentrated in their scale because it's food production is pretty concentrated. So you have the ability to hit that economy of scale that you need to make a profitable business or make a business that can make sense. So we're focused primarily on these fibrous byproduct streams. So anything that's coming from really coming from that first step of bringing in anything from the field, the fruits, the vegetables, the beans, things like that and you get a lot of fiber rich byproducts because a lot of what we're processing out of our food system right now is fiber.Even though that's the one macronutrient that western diets are very deficient in. So we're starting with Okara. Okara production in the US is very concentrated actually. There's just a handful of major production facilities. So it's a strategic starting point for us from that point of view. From there we're looking at other byproducts of nondairy milk production. So within this big world of fibrous byproducts, we're looking specifically at these nondairy milk byproduct streams. So the byproducts coming out of almond milk production, oat milk production, that's where we're going to be headed at next.Lisa Kiefer:So anything with [holls 00:12:31].Claire Sclemme:Exactly, yeah.Lisa Kiefer:So you're up before the judges and you know your company well. What happened? What did they ask you? Give us the scenario.Claire Sclemme:That's it. That's a great question. So a lot of the feedback, the feedback always helps you kind of see things, obviously from outside eyes that haven't heard your story a million times. Basically a panel with different backgrounds be able to weigh in on things that are causing confusion for them or things that didn't quite come across.So really being able to make sure that we can really hone in on the right story that we want to be telling and making sure that it's coming across that way and being received that way by the judges and also making sure that we're presenting all the information that somebody would want to know. So making sure that we've addressed issues like competition in the field or kind of what our growth strategy is and making sure that we haven't left something kind of major out that a judge would want to see. So that was very helpful and I think it was also just helpful to get a sense of what the space is like and it's a pretty big event with quite a few attendees. So it's nice to feel comfortable on the stage and in front of the judges [crosstalk 00:13:35].Lisa Kiefer:How many minutes are you up there?Nina Meyers:It's three minutes now. So as far as-Lisa Kiefer:Wow, that's not much time.Nina Meyers:[inaudible] competitions, it's pretty tight, but the judges also ask questions after the companies go. So that it's like another layer of sort of engagement and that's-Lisa Kiefer:And do they get materials ahead of time?Nina Meyers:Yes. So they spend, obviously they're with each other the day before, but they also get materials many days in advance and they now they have meetings with some of the startups. So Claire participated two years ago and we've really continued to evolve what the programming looks like as people. We always get feedback. So the entrepreneurs say, "I actually want more time with investors that are, I know I'm going to meet the right investors." So we're doing actually an investor power hour for the first time this time around where we're strategically matching them with one or two investors and we're doing, it's not a speed dating because it's like 20 minutes, but basically meetings with those specific folks whose investment these align with what the startups are doing.Lisa Kiefer:Is the networking what they win or do you actually get funding?Nina Meyers:There isn't direct funding as a result of Foodbytes, but there are a number of prizes. One of the main ones is for all the three winners is that they, Rabobank hosts a huge summit in New York at the end of the year. So December and all of our corporate clients, so big food and AG companies are there and the winners across all the events from that year get to come and pitch and have targeted meetings with the corporates that are relevant for their businesses and they have a few days where they're just really targeted and meeting with folks that can potentially help them as partners. So that's one main prize and then a lot of our sponsors who are, like we said, experts in many different fields, there's also consultations with them so that they can get five hours of legal consultation on how to structure their deal. They can get PR consultation and branding consultation on how to build the best investor materials and DAX and present their brand in the best possible way.Lisa Kiefer:Claire, what was it you found to be the most useful out of winning this competition?Nina Meyers:So we weren't the winners from our cohort. We were in the finalists but actually kind of going back again to all the people that we meet during the two days, that was a very valuable thing for us that made the participation in the event very worthwhile for us. So we actually continued to have some conversations with some of the lawyers that we met there to talk about some of the legal structuring, some of the agreements that we were currently in the process of structuring and we also had continued conversation with folks that were very knowledgeable about packaging for food products because there's a lot that goes into making sure that the product fits all the legal regulations and the requirements. That was great to have both of those connections coming out of Foodbytes.Lisa Kiefer:Once you get involved with say a VC or some sort of funding source, do you ever worry about losing your company's mission? That it will begin to sort of move away from you?Claire Sclemme:Yeah, that's a great question. So actually one of the things that we did when we first founded the company thinking about that very point was that we incorporated as a public benefit corporation. So we wanted that to be really built into our mission and so we structured that into the type of business we actually were and one of the pieces of kind of feedback that we got at the very beginning was that maybe you don't want to do that because you might be closing yourself off to investors that aren't interested in investing in a benefit corporation and we said, "That's exactly why we want to do this, because it essentially is going to kind of self select the types of investors that we're looking for." So that was kind of the first layer and then the second of course is making sure that when we're talking to investors that we do have that mission alignment as we're taking on investment.Lisa Kiefer:Getting back to you, Nina, you've done this for several years now. What trends in agriculture are you seeing pop up from the startup companies? I mean, you talked about some of the problems in the AG industry. What are you seeing overall?Nina Meyers:Yeah, well a major trend. I'd say a cross food tech, AG tech and CPG as is this idea of waste mitigation. So up cycling is one avenue in which that's happening. Another one is of course packaging. We're seeing more and more edible packaging. We're seeing more compostable packaging, plant based packaging. We have a company that's pushing in Foodbytes called Coremat and that's exactly what they're doing. They're making compostable, plant-based packaging that's basically-Lisa Kiefer:That's awesome because all these cities are now saying it's too expensive to recycle.Nina Meyers:Exactly and from a regulatory perspective that this sort of clampdown is increasing. It's happened in Europe, forcing lots of innovation in the packaging world in Europe and it's starting to happen here. That's one massive trend and huge need that startups are really looking to solve and obviously an incredible opportunity for collaboration on the corporate side of things as they start to realize we really, really need to be focusing on it. It's happening [crosstalk 00:18:31-Lisa Kiefer:Why are you giving me a plastic bag?Nina Meyers:Why are you giving me a straw? Right, exactly. So that's one place where we're seeing a lot of innovation and then on the waste mitigation side as well, right? Stopping waste before it can happen. So more and more technology companies are saying, let's use data and technology to stop waste before it can happen. So a company like [Winnow] who's come through our platform, they basically have a scale for food service and back of house at restaurants that weighs waste as it's going out and then gives restaurants a better picture of their wastage so that they can decrease that. That's the-Lisa Kiefer:What's the incentive for someone to reduce their waste at the restaurant level?Nina Meyers:Money. They save restaurants globally $25 million a year and they're not that big yet. I mean they're just starting out. So it's money.Lisa Kiefer:It sounds like you've put together a lot of qualitative data.Nina Meyers:Yes, we, like I said, we started with a very, very small team and over the last year or so we've built up the team like I said. So we've just brought in a data analyst who is amazing and we're sort of at the tip of the iceberg for what data are we sitting on and what are we saying? But yes, we have a really good picture of trends that are happening. That's one major, major trend that we're seeing. The other one is sort of just the environmental impact of food-Lisa Kiefer:Climate change?Nina Meyers:... Production, of climate change and also to hand in hand with that that consumers have more and more knowledge of that and are demanding better, cleaner products.Lisa Kiefer:Yeah, look at the Midwest right now.Nina Meyers:Yes.Lisa Kiefer:All the flooding and that used to be our bread basket.Nina Meyers:That's when it has to change and startups are really heeding that call on the plant based foods side of things as well. Just if we're talking about packaged foods in general, we're seeing so much innovation in that space. We're seeing at least 40% of the companies that apply that have a product that apply to Foodbytes are in some way related to the plant based space. To sort of talk about some of the companies that are pitching coming up in San Francisco we're seeing new and novel plant based proteins. So we have a company called [Tali] and they are making waterlily seed puffs. So we see the puffs as like a huge category in the food product world, but this is a new type of puff. It's basically bringing in an heirloom varietal.It's gotten more protein, more nutritious. They're doing some really interesting flavors. So we're seeing companies like that who are bringing this plant based protein view to snacking. We also have a company called Gem and they basically have the first FDA regulated supplement product, food supplement. It's for women by women. It's made from algae and a number of different plants. Real food. It's clean food. So we're seeing things in that type of space. I was just at Expo West, which is the largest natural foods show in the country and I think it's 1500 exhibitors, 90000 people.Lisa Kiefer:Where was it?Nina Meyers:It's in Anaheim. It's 90000 people. So it's very, very intense and there's a lot of companies that are doing very similar things. There's the plant-based trend just continues to grow year over year. So whether that's new algae products, that's lots of cauliflower products, you see the confluence of a lot of trends.Lisa Kiefer:Are any UC Berkeley professors or policy people judging this year?Nina Meyers:Not this year, but next year we're going to make it happen.Claire Sclemme:Oh excellent.Lisa Kiefer:Can anyone go to this?Nina Meyers:Yes. It's open to the public. We really want people there who care about these issues, who care about sustainable food and AG, who want to see what the innovators at the bleeding edge of sustainable innovation are doing. Next Thursday, the 28th of March, starting at 2:00 PM, it's really an opportunity to see these 15 startups pitch, to engage with them and see their products and technologies, have some delicious food and drinks and if you want to get into food or if you're a journalist or if you're a student and this is where the world you think you want to go into, we absolutely encourage you to come. If you're an investor or you're a food corporate and you're trying to figure out what's next, we 1000000% encourage you to come.Lisa Kiefer:And you have a website?Nina Meyers:Foodbytesworld.com. Instagram is Foodbytes by Rabobank. We've profiled all the companies who are going to be pitching. There's lots of content. Claire's on there somewhere. So check us out on Instagram, Linkedin, Twitter, and then Foodbytesworld.com is where you can get tickets to come and see us next week.Lisa Kiefer:And Claire, your business is located where?Claire Sclemme:Oh, we're in Oakland.Lisa Kiefer:Okay, what have your challenges been since you participated in Foodbytes?Claire Sclemme:Oh, that's a good question. Our biggest challenge I would say is that, so working in the byproduct space, we're really a bridge builder between the production and then bringing that into the market. We have less control over being able to scale in a way that other companies might be able to have as they're creating products. So we're really bound to the amount of byproducts that are coming out of certain facilities. So being able to match that production with the sales is really, I would say one of our biggest challenges. So it kind of swings back and forth from having more demands than we have a production for to having more supply of the ingredient than we currently have sales force. So it's kind of bouncing back and forth as we try to strike that perfect balance as we bring these ingredients on board.Lisa Kiefer:And are most of your sources local?Claire Sclemme:So right now they are. So our first source is in Oakland, which is why we started out in Oakland and why we're based there. So our first partner facility is Hodo Foods and they're a tofu manufacturer. So the first step of making tofu is making the soy milk and so that's where we're basically harvesting the Okara from is from Hodo and our next two facilities that we will likely be using as our sources of production are also in northern California.Nina Meyers:When you sort of spoke about what do they get out of this, the alumni who come through our platforms have raised a combined 550 million. I believe it was something like 150 last year. So even though it's not directly a prize, this is what we've seen as the companies who've come out of who we've chosen, who we've selected, this is how they're moving forward and getting that investment to scale their companies.Lisa Kiefer:You must be checking the failure rate of these companies as they-Nina Meyers:Yes.Lisa Kiefer:... they leave Foodbytes. What is the failure rate?Nina Meyers:It's under 10% because we're doing really like a lot of due diligence in the process of picking the ones that we think are really going to be successful. It's relatively low. It's lower than the average.Lisa Kiefer:Do you have a business background?Nina Meyers:I actually went to college in upstate New York at Skidmore college. I studied at a liberal arts school and I had was working in a sustainable restaurant, a farm to table restaurant the summer after college and my Mom is a chef and so I grew up around food. Food is my whole life and I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do next when I moved to New York during the recession in 2009. I started working for a restaurant company in New York in the creative department. I got sort of my foot in the door there and started working on marketing and design for the restaurants.So that was really a sort of honed my skills there on the marketing side of things. Started to realize through being in New York that what I really cared about was sustainability in food and agriculture and trying to figure out what to do next. I then went onto work for Food Tech Connect, which is a site of record for food innovation essentially. We did a lot of events in this space and meetups and consulting and hackathons, which is really all focused on sustainable food and agriculture. So I was there. I was working with startups directly. Spent about four years there and then we started working together with Rabobank to build Foodbytes out from its infancy.Lisa Kiefer:Claire how did you get into this pat of the world?Claire Sclemme:Yes. So my background is actually in environmental management. So I have in my masters in environmental management from the Yale School of Forestry. I had primarily actually been involved mostly in the space of sustainability and energy and so I'd worked at a renewable energy startup in India and worked with UN climate change, but I started to realize how important the food system is in the space of sustainability and I, kind of my first transition into into food was actually co-founding a juice company in Boston where I was living at the time. So we started as a food truck and we were connecting farmers to folks in the city through juices and smoothies and then in that process saw how much waste is created when you're juicing. It was really kind of like this moral issue.At the end of the day we'd sourced all this great produce from these farmers and it was all organic. It was mostly local. You'd spend a lot of money to buy all this produce and we're throwing out a huge amount of it at the end of the day, ll that pulp that's left over from juicing. On the the other side, of course we're selling the product that we are making, we're selling at a price point that's pretty high for the, it wasn't a super affordable food for much of the city and so those two pieces together kind of where you know really struck me as a challenge and that was a space that I really wanted to continue working in after I left that company.So when I had really just a fortuitous conversation with the owner of Hodo Foods in Oakland, the owner of the tofu factory and saw that he had this challenge with his byproduct that he was producing, which was very similar to what I had seen at the juice company, but at this much bigger scale and that it wasn't just a Okara, it was lots of different opportunities and lots of different sources of these types of byproducts. That was really the beginning of Renewal Mill was looking into how we can solve both food waste and also increase affordable nutrition in the food system.Nina Meyers:Claire really pioneered this space and now there's a company that's much younger than you, but it's called Pulp Pantry and they're doing, they're solving the problem that Claire just outlined. It's like entrepreneurial serendipity. They saw the same problem and they're making value added snacks out of juice pulp.Lisa Kiefer:Wow, you should all join forces and become the next Nabisco.Claire Sclemme:I know. Exactly, exactly.Nina Meyers:[crosstalk 00:28:19].Lisa Kiefer:[crosstalk] better.Nina Meyers:That's exactly what Foodbytes wants to have happen.Claire Sclemme:Yeah.Lisa Kiefer:Well, was there anything else that is coming up with Foodbytes besides this conference next week?Nina Meyers:Rabo has a whole other food and AG innovation platform called Tara. It is basically the next step in the cycle for startups to engage with Rabo after Foodbytes. That's what Tara is all about. We're going into our fourth cohort and applications are open now. Tara is like, how can we do the best possible matchmaking for startups and corporates? So applications are open now. That website is Taraaccelerator.com. They're open. They close on April 26th. So any startups, anyone you think is interested, you can learn about the corporates that are participating to see and so you can learn more there.Claire Sclemme:In addition to kind of all of the structured support that's coming out of Foodbytes, I think the other piece that was really valuable to us was actually meeting the other companies that we're pitching and there there's been some valuable connections that we've had in terms of the the business and actually finding uses for our flour with some of the other companies that have been on the platform, but also just really to talk to other entrepreneurs and be able to just talk about some of the other challenges that you're facing from a business perspective and also from a personal perspective as well. So it's a really, I think it's a really great community of entrepreneurs that are being brought together as well.Lisa Kiefer:Well thank you so much for being on the show.Claire Sclemme:Thank you.Nina Meyers:Thank you for having us.Lisa Kiefer:You've been listening to Method to the Madness, a biweekly public affairs show on KALX Berkeley, celebrating Bay Area innovators. You can find all of our podcasts on iTunes University. We'll be back again in two weeks. [music] See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Elie Katzenson interviews East Bay Alternative Book and Zine Fest (EBABZ) organizers Gillian Dreher, June Hong, and Maira McDermott about the specialness of zines and their relevance as underground publications for activists, artists, and writers in search for total creative freedom and publishing options.Transcript:Elie Katzenson:This is Method To The Madness, a biweekly public affairs show on KALX Berkeley celebrating Bay Area innovators.I am Elie Katzenson. I am here with the organizers of EBABZ, which stands for the East Bay Alternative Book and Zine Fest, which is coming up this Saturday, December 8th at Omni Commons in Oakland.It's from 11:00 to 5:00. That venue, Omni Commons, is located at 4799 Shattuck Avenue, which is super close to the MacArthur Bar, and there's a drop off on the sixth bus line in addition to other bus lines. For now, I am here with Jill, June, and Mira. Hi y'all.Mira:Hey.Jill:Hey.Elie Katzenson:Let's start by talking about what a zine is.Mira:A zine, in my opinion, is really anything you want it to be. It doesn't even need to be printed. You can have online zines, digital zines. It's anything that you feel really passionate about or interested in that you want to share with other people, and you just kind of put together this little book.It doesn't have to be a traditional book shape. It can be any shape you want. Staple it, copy a bunch of pages, hand it out. That's a zine.Elie Katzenson:Zines are interesting because, as I understand it, historically they've been and they continue to be like an underground publication used a lot by activists, artists, and writers that are looking for the ability to self publish, which affords them total freedom.There's a lot of identity exploration that maybe traditional publishing houses wouldn't allow for that space, and so you have lesser represented communities exploring their identities.With this, I'm thinking queer people, I'm thinking like there's a lot of diasporic exploration, mixed identities, mixed ethnic identities, anarchist groups, a lot of unique politics are getting space. Then kind of nontraditional relationship models. I've seen some like polyamory and nonmonogamous related zines.Really valuable information that isn't able to get exposure elsewhere, in zines gets massive exposure. These fests, which take place across the country, they are really hubs of, this is a big word to say, but like revolutionary information sometimes. It all starts it seems on a small scale, but this work can have major repercussions in a positive sense for a lot of people.Mira:In my personal experience it has been revolutionary, because through zines that's how I have found the words to work through my own gender identity, and that was revolutionary for me.Elie Katzenson:What Mira just said is proof of why zines are so important. In your experience why are zines so special?June:I think the beauty of the zine is, as Mira said, the total freedom and creative control you can have over your publication, and because you don't have to go through the process of a publishing house, and you self publish, you can really make it anything you want it to be.Jill:I also love the element of like speed and spontaneity. An event can happen and you can make a zine about it immediately. I think it's so great for like activism, or current events, because you can react, and share your ideas. Any idea, super quickly.Elie Katzenson:When I think of something like writer's block, or like fear of showing your work, zines, in this punk way, emphasize the naturalness and the power of your first response,and sort of like first thoughts. How do you let go enough to just say like I'm going to put myself out there. I'm going to put my work out there. How do people do that? I'm so impressed by that with zines that I've seen. They're very thoughtful, but they're not over-thought and they're not manicured to the point of perfection.June:I feel like that's such like a classic problem with creative work or like an issue is at what point do I feel comfortable enough to like share my work. With zines I feel like there's such a broad spectrum. Even the range of zines that I've seen some look definitely more spur of the moment, first draft, made photocopies, and published versus zines that look more like traditional books.I feel like the answer to like when do you feel comfortable? Like how do you get over that hump? Like is this getting over your own perfectionism to publish is something that zines kind of help with, because it is so easy to make. That's one less barrier for you to like put your content out there.Elie Katzenson:How zines have been seen more in the mainstream, and so you're talking about the first draft zine, which is a little more, not less marketable. Then you have commercialized zines that maybe are a little less substance oriented.Maybe a little less political, a little less extreme, a little more surface level, and I've been kind of curious about what the dynamic is within the zine community in regards to content.Is there more collaboration in the same community? There seems to be maybe a little bit more friendship. I know that treating your zines is a big part of what you do when you table.Jill:I've had really good experiences making friends through zines, and even making friends zines on Facebook groups, and then traveling to those people's fests, and let me stay at their house.I've never met these people, and there's just a level of trust that comes in I think when you're sharing your work that's really personal. You kind of get to know someone and then they're like, "Yeah, I've never met you but I think you're not going to murder me, so come stay at my house for a weekend."Thinking specifically about when I went to Omaha Zine Fest, and the organizers of that fest were super sweet. I think there's just a lot of camaraderie in the zine community, because we're all just kind of doing the same thing. Not the same exact thing, but we all have the same passion for this art form.Elie Katzenson:This is the ninth year of EBABZ. As I understand it, it was kind of born out of people enjoying Portland Zine Fest, and San Francisco Zine Fest, and thinking that there was enough artists and creators in the East Bay to have a fest here, and even the organizers nine years ago are different than the organizers that are y'all, right?Mira I know that you kind of had like this sub-zine fest, The Bay Area Queer Zine Fest. I think that the space that EBABZ creates, not only at The Fest, which I've been to a couple of years in a row, but the work that you're championing and really like helping proliferate, how can people and the community of the East Bay in general help EBABZ thrive and help zinesters thrive. How can we support the creation of this work?Jill:Volunteer.June:Yeah.Mira:Show up day of. That's really important still.June:Please volunteer.Jill:It's crazy. My boyfriend especially lately has been in awe of all of the work that we've been doing. I think with events like this you don't realize, you always think, "Oh, someone's in charge."No one's in charge. We're just kind of making all this up as we go, and like working together and like figuring out how to get stuff done. Like I'll come home from our meetings working sessions and he'll be like, "Oh what did you do today?" I'll tell him and he'll be like, "What? Like you're doing so much stuff. That's so cool."So yeah, it would be great for people to get involved.Elie Katzenson:What kind of things can people do?Jill:So much, so everything, from all year long, we have different events. Mira's always really good, and June at like planning, fundraising events, getting in touch with like different organizations, figuring out how we can work together, teaching people how to make zines, like workshops like that.We also do planning stuff throughout the year. We have to like send out applications. We have to figure out like what are our mission statement is.Mira:There's administrative work, but all the way to like really fun poster makes.June:Yeah, make a flyer. InstagramMira:Follow their Instagram y'all.Jill:There's fun stuff happening. Voluntaring looks fun if you follow the Insta.June:I think a lot of people are afraid to volunteer, because putting yourself out there is always really scary. Also maybe in capitalist society in general, there's the concept that you have to pay a lot of time in a place before you have any power or say, and so you think that you shouldn't be there helping, or deciding how things are run because you're new, but EBABZ is a democracy as far as I can tell, a major democracy, and people are really welcome, and like radically welcome. It's radically inclusive.Jill:A friend of mine reached out to me and said they were too busy to volunteer but they know this person who's in high school who was looking for like some way to get involved with zines.We brought them on, and they have just gone for it. They reached out to like all the different high schools in the area to ask for people to get involved, share their zines. Any level of effort is appreciated.Mira:For sure. I feel like that can happen in such different ways too. Like so as we said, there's like many different capacities in which you can volunteer, but also like we all started volunteering at the same time three years ago, and how I showed up was I just saw like a volunteer meeting on Facebook.I just like showed up without really knowing that much about The Zine Fest. I'd like gone the previous year, but my friend had posted it on Facebook, so I was like, "Yeah, well I'll just like show up, and now I've continued to stick with it for the past three years, so you never know how it's going to go.Elie Katzenson:Tomas is one of the organizers who I think is not strictly active anymore, and he was talking about the idea that a zine more than maybe certain other mediums is really like a one-on-one interaction between the creator and the reader.What makes a zine one-on-one interaction? Why is that one-on-one interaction really essential, especially when you're talking about subject matter that is frequently very intimate, and life changing I guess I would say, because I think so much of reading zines is related to identity, and people find a sense of belonging that maybe they're not experiencing as frequently in reading fiction.Mira:In my experience it's been kind of like handing someone my diary, and they just happened to be standing right in front of me sometimes making really awkward eye contact. It's terrifying, but that's just kind of what it is.I don't know. It's really cool to have these one-on-one interactions with people even if it's not in person, and then have them give you feedback, or tell you that, "Oh, this zine meant a lot to me, because x, y or Z," and then it's like, "Oh, I'm not alone in what I'm feeling. Wow, this feels great." There's like solidarity with other people over just, I don't know, stuff that maybe you felt like you were alone in.Jill:There's those kinds of zines. I feel like that with a lot of mirror zines, and a lot of per zines, that are like diary type zines, but there's also the zines where it's more communal, and I feel like rather than like a one-on-one, it's this feeling of entering into a group just through reading.I'm thinking of ones that are collaborative that community produces, or ones that maybe share like history of like a place or a thing that you weren't familiar with. It's like you're entering into this world more of a shared base instead of one-to-one. It's one to a bunch. Even if you've never met those people, or seen those people.Elie Katzenson:When people think about getting involved in community, it seems like you have to be a people person, and really enjoy being extroverted all the time, etcetera. What's interesting about Zines is there's face for everyone, and there's sensitivity to whoever you are.You are just radically accepted and loved, and that respect is just so special. I don't think that's really a question, but I think it's something that I want people who maybe aren't familiar with zines, or who haven't participated in an event where zines are shared to know that that is really the environment that is created at a fest.Like Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory where you're going to find the level that you want. Maybe you find the blueberry early, and you get rolled away, or you make it to the end and you get your gobstopper. You know? So.June:Yeah, totally. That reminds me of how earlier we were talking about how to support zine communities and stuff, and we talked about volunteering, but also what I found that has been super important to me within zine organizing, and the Oakland art community in general, is I found that people are so supportive and welcoming, and down to help you out with your projects.People's generosity and acceptance has really blown my mind. It's super inspiring to see people be making things and helping other people make things, and being able to express their selves, and creative projects through helping each other out. That's another way to support is help a friend make something.Elie Katzenson:Totally. I read this newsletter, it's called The Creative Independent. I'll have to send you a link, because it's really great. They interview an artist every day, and sometimes they talk about in different art worlds there's more competition than others. Right?One of the pieces of advice that I read today was about being confident in charging for your work. People can pay for your work, and I don't know why that seems so radical to me, because it can feel so hard to say like, "No, that costs money, or that Zine is 10 bucks." You have really made something, and that's like a sacred exchange.Mira:It's hard sometimes, but I feel like the time that I'm most able to stick out for myself and my work is when people just try to take it off the table like it's free.It's the only time I'm really adamant like "No, I put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into this." That happened at zine event that I'm tabling at. It's hard to put a price on something you've created, but sometimes it's necessary because you have to even or you have to pay your bills.Elie Katzenson:Right? I mean even beyond breaking even though, right? It shouldn't just be, I just had to pay for my materials. It's like, "No, it's okay for me to make money off of a work that I made."Jill:Totally. Yeah.Elie Katzenson:But why does it feel so hard to do that?Mira:It can be hard to do because money obviously is not like the end-all-be-all of the world, but you also need it to survive, and pay the bills. It's something I do think about is why do we not hesitate to buy a five dollar coffee, but you have a problem with buying a five dollar zine, or something like that. I don't know. Not that it's always necessarily like that, but-June:Yeah, I think it is important to keep in mind value and the effort that people put into making creative work that isn't necessarily sold in a store, and for some reason that seems more official. Okay to give money to.Mira:Both as organizers charging for space, and on the zinester side of the table, charging for these things filled with ideas. We've been conflicted with anticapitalist sentiment too. Then like charging for things.If I'm making something that's against consumerism, and then I'm charging for it, like, "Oh, what do I do? What's happening?" It's all about valuing yourself, and your ideas and-Elie Katzenson:Right. You still have to function in the environment that we were functioning in, [crosstalk]June:It's not that we like money, but-Mira:Yeah.June:Give me my moneys.Mira:Yeah, that's, yeah. Personally I feel like that's been really hard.Elie Katzenson:It's interesting to me, because the price that you're charging the zinesters is quite fair in my opinion. I think it's what, 50 bucks if you're accepted?June:No, not even that.Mira:It's less.June:That's for a double.Mira:For a half table we have a sliding scale, 20 to $40, and then if you have a full table, it's 50 to 75 I want to say. We also-Elie Katzenson:You've always employed a sliding scale?Mira:Always a sliding scale, and also if people have financial struggles, they could email us and we waive the fee.Elie Katzenson:Wow.Jill:Some zine fests are not like that. It's really nice to be able to be a part of one that is like that.Elie Katzenson:I want to talk about The Fest schedule in general. I know the Rock Paper Scissors Collective did a memorial fund, The Rheo Memorial Fund, where they were giving away grants of $100 for people to make zines.You could apply for this zine scholarship. That was really special, because again, $100 means a lot. Be it to EBABZ if they can get a table, or just being able to make 50 copies of their work.Okay. So again, reminder the East Bay Alternative Book and Zine Fest is this Saturday, December 8th it's from 11 to five at Omni Commons, 4799 Shattuck avenue. It's free to get in. No admission. All these tables you can buy zines and peruse.I know that there's some workshops happening. Can you tell me a little bit about that?Mira:We have three different workshops. They're each about an hour long. We have writing from the margins, creativity, and embodiment for artists of color with Fatima Nasir. This one sounds awesome. It's a writing workshop, meditative practices, some brainstorming, and sharing stories.Elie Katzenson:What Times that?Mira:That one is at 12 and then at 1:30 we have mixed media sticker making with Raphael Tapra the third. Sounds extremely fun. You just use a bunch of stuff and make stickers. Very DIY. That's at 1:30 until 2:30, but you can stop by. It's kind of like an in and out situation.Elie Katzenson:Awesome.Mira:Or you can say the whole time. At 3:00 we have letterpress basics with Christie Holahan, and she's gonna show how this tabletop water press works.Then everyone's going to get to make good thing. They're gonna choose a phrase, and then everyone's going to let her press that phrase.Elie Katzenson:Cool. What part of Omni are they doing those in? Do you know? Cause it's like those two big rooms, right? The entry room, and then the larger back room.Mira:It's in the entry room and it's way in the back. You'll see these big wall partition screen things.Elie Katzenson:Oh cool.Mira:It's behind the partition.Elie Katzenson:Awesome. Couldn't have asked for a better workshop description. I was reading online that you are doing something new this year. I think it's called a zine store.June:Yeah. So the zine shop is something new that we're trying out this year. Mostly in response to how we were feeling that we wanted to include as many people as possible, because there are a limited number of tables, but we do get a lot of applications.For people who either didn't get to table, or just have like one or two zines, and don't feel like they can fill a table, they actually still have time to drop off their zine at five Friday at E.M. Wolfman Downtown. It's a bookstore. The organizers will be there the whole day selling them instead of having all of those people having to table.Jill:Another thing we're trying different this year one of our organizers had this cool idea. At all these fests, it's always a person behind a table, and it is super weird. I'm sure for anyone who's been to an event like this, or a craft show before, when you're walking around, and you're like, "Do I make eye contact? Do I not make eye contact? I want to look at this stuff. But I don't want them to feel offended if I don't buy the stuff."It's this kind of tense relationship sometimes. Sometimes it's really fun and you make good connections and you have a great time. Sometimes different personalities, some people feel awkward.One of our organizers was like, "What if we move the zinesters out from behind the table." It creates a more like open layout, and visitors can kind of like file through and peruse without having to have these tense eye contact moments.The tabler will still be there, but it's off to the side, and it creates more opportunities for organic conversations.Elie Katzenson:That's interesting.Jill:Yeah it's our first year doing it. So we'll see.Elie Katzenson:Oh I'm really excited to hear that, because I'm totally used to the awkward dynamic. I just put that Mona Lisa smile on my face for like an hour.Jill:Yup. Same. It's like part of the thing.Elie Katzenson:Yeah.Jill:We still have tables like that, so you will get an opportunity to show your Mona Lisa smile. But yeah, it'll be cool.Elie Katzenson:I think sometimes I personally want to engage in conversation, but I'm conscious of taking up too much space, or maybe they need to spend time with other people and I'm scared of taking too much attention, but sounds like people are maybe more open to speaking than I think that they are. Right?Jill:Yeah. We should mention that we're only using the wheelchair accessible rooms, and it's kid friendly.June:We have the childcare room, but we do not have childcare. BYO Care. You can use the room. That's what Rebecca said. BYO Care.Elie Katzenson:It's wheelchair accessible and you can bring your kids. You can't bring your dogs.June:No.Elie Katzenson:I know. My life is not fair.Jill:You can't have it all.Mira:You really can't.June:After The Fest, there's a EBABZ after party that's happening from six o'clock to around 10 o'clock at Classic Cars West slash Hello Vegan Eats. So yeah, come through.Mira:There's going to be like 10 djs.June:I think it's going to be like six.Mira:Six to 10.June:Six to 10 djs.Elie Katzenson:If you each had kind of one last sentiment or thought to put out into the world as an EBABZ organizer, or something that you'd like to put out there for the end of this interview.June:Just every year. I'm so grateful for zine community, the applications we receive, and the care that is taken in those applications. Also my fellow organizers I'm super grateful for it, because everyone really tries their hardest. Put's a lot of effort into it. Also, yeah, I'm eternally grateful to Aura for introducing me to this community and I think of her.Jill:I went to cal, and I was super DIY, and in high school I feel I was super punk into all this stuff. Then you grow up, and you have to get a job and you have to make money. I have a mortgage now.I start to get out of touch with all my roots and this happy community and what matters in life. Coming to Zine Fest, and volunteering with Zine Fest, reminds me of all that stuff, and keeps me connected, and keeps me grounded in reality, and what's good.Mira:Sort of to echo what both of you were saying, I think organizing EBABZ has been one of the most fulfilling things I've ever done. For that I am eternally grateful to Aura for getting me involved. Also if you come to The Fest, please bring caffeine for the organizers.June:Yes.Jill:I don't drink coffee.Elie Katzenson:The East Bay Alternative Book and Zine Fest is taking place on December 8th from 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM at Omni Commons, which is located at 4799 Shaddock Avenue in Oakland. You can follow EBABZ online on Instagram at E-B-A-B-Z-I-N-E fest, or visit them at their website, EBABZfest.com. Thanks. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Berkeley filmmaker, novelist, playwright and teacher, Mary Webb, discusses her latest short film Living Room Revolution: The Race Dialogues which shows how the power of listening can tackle stereotypes and build community.Transcript:Announcer:This is Method to The Madness, a biweekly Public Affair Show on KALX Berkeley Celebrating Bay area innovators. Today, host, Ojig Yeretsian, is speaking with Mary Webb. She's a novelist, playwright, teacher, filmmaker, trailblazer and peace builder. Her latest short film is Living Room Revolution: The Race Dialogues.Ojig Yeretsian:Hi, Mary. Before we launch into the film, can you please tell us what inspired you to create a dialog group in the first?Mary Webb:In the first place, it was a film and it was called Long Night's Journey into Day, not to be confused with Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night. It was two Berkeley women, Deborah Hoffman and Francis Reid who made this film. I saw it alone. It wasn't as if I was chatting with my friends afterwards.I was thinking and thinking it was a film about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. I thought we used to pick at them because we thought we were ahead. Now, it seems as if they're ahead. A lot of people on the radio were talking about people should talk about race and they don't do it. I thought, "Well, I know some people. I have a living room. Why don't I do it?"Ojig Yeretsian:Did you ever think in those days that whatever you created would move forward 18 years?Mary Webb:We've started the 20th. I didn't think about it one way or another. I'm not a big think about the future person. Let's deal with what we're doing right now.Ojig Yeretsian:You just had your 72nd meeting. What do you think it is about this dialogue group that sets it apart from other conversations?Mary Webb:That's a great question. It's an attempt to get people from very different kinds of backgrounds to communicate with each other on a deep level about one of the worst problems in our society, namely racism. People have to say why they're there at the beginning. A lot of people say, "I'm here to listen and learn." That's kind of beautiful. I think that's true. We share food as they say in Africa first. Everybody brings food, no money exchanges hands. We have a topic each time. We have two moderators to keep us in check mildly. We go at it.Over the years, relationships have developed between people who would never have met had they not come to my house for this event. That's a wonderful thing too.Ojig Yeretsian:As a society, we're so entrenched in our particular set of viewpoints and polarized. Why are stereotypes and racism so hard to talk about and why is it so important to talk about these things?Mary Webb:That's a big question. For certain African-Americans, for example, they would not particularly want to talk about what they really felt in front of white people or after all the perpetrators in terms of a group. Some white people are maybe carrying a lot of white guilt and they would think they didn't want to talk about that. But people, in general, if you can get them into talking as they eat and as they make personal contacts, I think do want to go deeper.I was aware when I started this that I was probably going to give up a lot of my social life if I did this because it would be work to get it going. But it is a social life, and it's a social life on a much deeper level. I can remember going to parties when I was 19 and saying, "Why don't people discuss serious things at parties?" Everybody would say, "Oh yes." Then, they'd go back to what they were doing. And I'd say, "Well, why don't you do it now?" This was not a popular thing to say. I was a troublemaker even then.Ojig Yeretsian:How do you create or ensure safety in this environment? What makes this environment so special?Mary Webb:The moderators do that. We go around the room at the beginning and the moderators ask each person to say why they're there. We get a little sense of people if they're new people there. If you're having a dialogue in your house against racism, you try to make the house feel friendly to people.I also teach classes in my house. For me, it's fairly easy. I love the idea of people using my home in this way to actually communicate with each other on a very deep level about important things and then they get to know each other and they come from different groups. Some people might never have gotten to this. Now, people say from Africa, one of our moderators, Deborah Hailu is Eritrean and Ethiopian and our other moderator at this time is African-American, Karl Debro. Those are the people who are "the authority figures" in the room, but it's very gentle in a way and yet there's a lot of freedom.Ojig Yeretsian:With topics such as race and health, African-American, and immigrant groups, rivals or allies and parenting against racism, conversations can become heated. In my experience with dialogue, it requires a certain level of openness to being uncomfortable. How do you maintain respectful communication when there is strong disagreement in the room?Mary Webb:Well, I have to go back to the moderators. The moderators are the main reason that that happens. Kate Mayer, who's my filmmaking partner, makes these incredible brownies. Every now and then, a few people would get too upset and it was close to dessert. Someone would say, "Give them one of Kate's brownies." It's become a joke that people come only for Kate's brownies. There's a lot of joking. There's a lot of laughter. If you look at the film Living Room Revolution: The Race Dialogues, 10 minutes, you'll see laughter there. That helps.Ojig Yeretsian:Can you tell us about any problems you've had to face as founder and host of the Living Room Dialogue group on race, racism and ethnicity, and from where do you draw your energy?Mary Webb:I think that, to the extent that I plan, that I always plan to have things I start continue. That's just the way I think. I have, they told me, a fair amount of energy. I think everyone has energy and they choose to put it somewhere or somewhere else. I try not to spend most of my energy watching other people do things. I like to go to the theater. I like to go to movies, but I've also done stage productions. I'm learning to make films. Kate and I made this film with Ed Hertzog who was our cinematographer for that Living Room Revolution: The Race Dialogues. That's how we learned to make a film.I would rather do things with my energy than watch other people do things or sit around and talk about the world would be wonderful if only these people would do this. My reaction to that is, "But what are you doing?" I love doing things, and I love seeing these people come together and I realized that isn't just social, but it is social.Ojig Yeretsian:I think people get inspired from seeing your commitment and your level of perseverance. Having been to a few of your meetings, I know how exhausting it could be afterwards because your mind is still spinning and your heart has opened in a way. It's like vulnerable making.Mary Webb:The solution to that is that some of us sit up for three or four hours in process and then sometimes people stay over and we go to brunch the next day. Processing is helpful. You can do as much or as little of that as you want. I suppose you could have a small group meeting, say, the week after to see how something went if you wanted to do that.I always meet with Deborah Hailu and Karl Debro way ahead of the date so that we can get a date, a specific date we can all do decide on the topic and talk about any difficulties that might have occurred at the last dialogue.Ojig Yeretsian:What compelled you to make this film?Mary Webb:I was thinking about that only yesterday. I always knew from the very beginning that there had to be a film if I was going to start the dialogue. Ed Hertzog happened to be in my class. He was in my writing class and I said, "Ed, would you make this film when we start this?" We hadn't even started yet. He said, "Sure." He could work it out. He did all the footage and then he had too many things to do.Suddenly, he couldn't do the whole film and then I thought, "Well, Kate Mayer had actually made her living doing videos at one time, medical videos." I said something to her about, "Would you look at this footage?" She said, "I was thinking about the same thing you were thinking." It ended up that she took it all home and two weeks later, I was involved as a film maker with her because she liked the idea of us doing it together, and I did too, but there was always going to be a film. I don't know why because it popped into my head very soon after the idea of doing the dialogue.Announcer:If you're just tuning in, you're listening to Method to The Madness, a biweekly public affairs show on KALX Berkeley celebrating Bay Area innovators. Today, Ojig Yeretsian is speaking with Mary Webb about her innovative social justice endeavor, The Living Room Revolution: Race Dialogues.Ojig Yeretsian:Do you think it's a resource and an example like a way to show people to demonstrate what dialog is if they might be interested?Mary Webb:It's an amazing resource. We had Mark Verlander, graphic artist who made us a beautiful card, so I can give the card to strangers and say, "I have something I want to give you." Then, I showed them this and say, "This film will take only 10 minutes of your very valuable time to see and perhaps you'll be interested in starting one yourself or in coming to ours."Ojig Yeretsian:The film is available for viewing by the public. It's available at livingroomrev, R-E-V.com, One word livingroomrev.com. Yes.Speaker 4:People are talking about race and single race groups, right? When people get together with people are their own race, they're talking about their perspectives and what they think. But very rarely is it the case that people are talking across racial lines to each other about their experiences. That's what's missing in that sort of the national dialogue about race. It's almost exclusively a single race discussion.Speaker 5:It brought to mind my own history of having been born during the Second World War Jewish and the tremendous push, unspoken push, to not connect with my Jewish heritage in any of the religious or history to feel culturally Jewish. Yet in terms of the interface with other kids at school, it was this message of don't forget you're Jewish and fit in. It's very painful, painful.Speaker 6:When I speak about my experiences, no way intended to silence you for one or anyone else. If that needs to be the space, if I can't tell you that something bothers me, then I decided to myself that racism perpetuates itself in silence. I want you to always feel that you can speak up and I may not respond to you in the way that you might feel comfortable with, but that's okay.Speaker 7:If I wanted to fill out an application, I'm supposed to really fill out the white. Did I feel the racism or anything in this country? I don't know if I can call it racism, but I never felt comfortable.Speaker 8:My other friend was a little surprised. She didn't feel to me a minority. In some ways, when she came to the dialogue, she realized, "Oh my goodness, I'm a minority." I mean, who is white? I don't know. I don't feel white because even though I tell them, "I'm white." Who are you? What are you? I say, "I'm white."Speaker 9:I'm trying to figure out what that means and what we're talking about when they say, "Iranians are considered white by who and where and how has it manifested?"Speaker 10:It is great to have a place to come where you can commune with people, where you can break bread and share thoughts and feel like you have a community that provides you with a psychic support and spiritual support and, sometimes, even political support.Speaker 11:That's really a joy to sing with that group of eight bases and I am the only white boy.Speaker 12:What are you? People want to classify you. If they can put you in that kind of box, they don't feel good, I guess. I don't know.Speaker 13:If you don't have a lot of color in your skin, you can't go around really saying that you're a person of color or can you?Ojig Yeretsian:On there also are other resources such as starting your own dialogue in 10 easy steps. You're trying to get the word out and you really want to promote this as a way to navigate our political cultural terrain by having these civil conversations with each other.Mary Webb:Yes, I want it to be a national movement and some have started in San Francisco, one in Half Moon Bay which is bilingual. As we build communities that are multicultural, as people begin to understand each other's points of view more deeply, that's conceivably a deep cultural change. If you feel that you want to start something like this and you feel you're not the most perseverant or extroverted person in the world, you need to get a partner to work with you who will do the things that you don't want to do. As we start the 20th year, we have had only two sets of moderators, one producer, me, one place to have it.People feel good when they walk into my house. This is what I've been told. When you open the door into the living room, the living room invites you to come in. You could have arranged the furniture in 60 different ways that wouldn't have been as good. Everyone can speak from every chair in the room and reach everyone else. Occasionally, when we're really crowded, we have a few people sitting on the stairs and they sometimes have to stand up and come down so people can see them. But for a limited space, it works very well. I cannot emphasize enough how important food is.Ojig Yeretsian:I'm more familiar with dialogues that take place with groups that are in conflict. There's Palestinian, Israeli, Jewish, Arab ones, and the one you host is unique because it focuses on the American experience with all the diverse cultures and the history and the background of racism. Tell us how you've come up with the topics.Mary Webb:Okay. We have this thing called the box. It's a cardboard box, and I was trained in the south, although I grew up in New York City, I was trained in Letcher County, Florida, in doing things the grassroots way. That means the simplest possible way you could do it with the least amount of money spent. You take a cardboard box, and you cut a slot in the top. People can take three by five cards out of it if they're going to have to write down what they will say later because they have to wait. They have to raise their hands and wait.They can also put a topic in the box on a three by five card. Then, we try to encourage people to give us a lot of topics, choices. Then, Karl and Debbie and I meet, and we go through all these. We try to either pick one or synthesize some and come up with a topic that will be interesting enough and popular enough so that people feel it is worthy of their coming to this event and giving up after all, in our case, it is a Saturday night when you could be doing many other things in the Bay Area.If you knew this was going on, why would you want to be anywhere else? There's nothing like this anywhere else. Now, what I want to see happen is there will be things like it anywhere else. Yours is different. Each one is different and that's fine. They can be done in schools, workplaces. They can be done in people's homes.Ojig Yeretsian:It seems like it builds community and promotes understanding and growth. Where can our listeners get more information?Mary Webb:If you go to livingroomrev.com, and it will tell you some things about it and you can contact me through my email, maryh as in Harry, webb13@yahoo. Please, when you email me, give me your phone number too. It's much faster.Ojig Yeretsian:That's Webb with two Bs. Why race, racism and ethnicity?Mary Webb:I don't think I picked it. I think it picked me. I had been in the civil rights movement in the south. I had started an African-American dance troupe, which I was told by white people in Berkeley I couldn't possibly do. I did it. I ran it for seven years, and it's still going on with my lead dancer running it. Currently, it's called the LaVern Porter dance troupe because she's the one who's running it. This is something that's bothered me since I heard of it and I started studying in the Holocaust when I was eight years old because I went to a largely Jewish school and people were all impacted by that.I thought if we have anything like this, I'm going to be involved in it. Of course, I didn't realize we had already had many, many things like that. That's always been something that I felt that I needed to deal with, and this was a new way of dealing with it. I'm very, very, very passionate about this and very, very committed to it. I believe that the more dialogues you start, the more you will see what a flexible way of getting people together it is.People are always complaining about getting people together and my response to that is, "Fine. Get them together then." It's not that hard. It takes some work, but anything that's worth doing takes work.Ojig Yeretsian:It seems like in Berkeley, it might be easier to get people together to talk about race. Maybe, that's an incorrect assumption. How about other places like rural parts of the state or in the country or other geographic regions?Mary Webb:One of the reasons I get to do so much is because I do things rather than thinking about what could happen if I were to do things. I'm throwing this out to people right now. If you're interested in starting something in your workplace, I don't care if you live in Berkeley or Timbuktu. Then, you can email me. If you leave me a number, I will call you back, and we can talk about it.I don't believe that it's much easier in Berkeley. I think it's different. I saw how things were done in the south. It was easier to build community in the south than it is here because, here, everybody thinks they're right and that they know it all. This is not good for learning and listening. It's nice to see those people get in there who know everything and have them say they'd like to listen and learn.We're in a high-powered intellectual community. That doesn't mean that everybody's heart is educated. We're educating people's hearts. It's terrible what's going on in this country. Of course, there are terrible things that have gone on all over the world. When people get together and they respect each other and they learn sometimes to love each other, everything changes.Ojig Yeretsian:In your group, it encompasses all different ages and ethnicities and cultures.Mary Webb:We have someone from Zimbabwe who has very interesting things to say.Ojig Yeretsian:And Filipino-American and South American and Asian like there's a breadth.Mary Webb:A lot of-Ojig Yeretsian:Of voices.Mary Webb:A lot of African Americans, a lot of, say, European descend and white people. Those would be the two large groups. Then Africans, obviously, Deborah Hailu, Eritrean-Ethiopian and [inaudible] from Zimbabwe and [Anne Wigo]. It's different every single time. Wilfred Galila, our cinematographer, is Filipino and he's been with it a while.Ojig Yeretsian:Having come from a deep tradition of activism, being the founder of these dialogue groups, what have you learned?Mary Webb:I've learned more patience. I've learned flexibility about certain things. You think things should go one way, but maybe they shouldn't because you want to meet the needs of the whole group. I've learned that you can't keep everyone happy "at all times" but you can keep the group growing and going and being wonderful and everybody's sense of humor is enormously important in this.Never think that you're not doing the work when you're laughing because that's one of the most important things to really understand the deep, deep, deep level. I learned this in teaching too. This is not about you meaning me. It's about the group. There are times when you have to sacrifice some of your own needs really quickly to get the group to be as powerful as you wanted. At the end of each dialogue, we stand and we hold hands.I feel very strongly about this, and people can meditate or do whatever they want to do. But at the very least, the energy is going from hand to hand to hand. We take that out when we leave.Ojig Yeretsian:Do you have any experience or any initiatives working with children in the schools?Mary Webb:Well, I'd love to do it. I'd love to start dialogues there, but somebody has to ask me to do it. I did run a daycare center. When I ran a daycare center with two, three and four year olds, I had the children vote for the rules of the school. Then, we posted them at the height of a two-year-old, and you take a little two-year-old named Sabrina Boo and you say, "Boo, what did you do wrong?" She says, "Running in the classroom."Then, I remind her that she voted for that rule, and I said, "You won't do it again, will you?" She says, "No." Two year olds are capable of voting for their own rules. These dialogues are perfect for elementary school, middle school and if you didn't get it before high school.When I said that I was studying the Holocaust when I was eight years old, that's the most important thing in a sense because it was always there with me. I was very independent at a very early age.Ojig Yeretsian:Was there a seminal moment that led you to your activism on the East Coast and was there a seminal moment that led you to your activism on the West Coast?Mary Webb:No, I mean this is the way I've always lived. When something comes up, if I think of something, I tend to start with my own ideas. The dance troupe was my idea as far as I know. I was in Berkeley dancing to something called Very Last Day. That was the song, and I was a dancer. I had some dance training. I saw African-American girls in black leotards and tights doing a dance to this.Now, did I really see them? No. I saw an image. If you use the word visionary and it doesn't get to, oh my God, a visionary kind of thing, I am a visionary because I see things like a picture of the dancers and I go, "Oh, I will do that." Then, white people in Berkeley tell me I can't possibly do it as I said before. Then, my vigor is a redoubled by people's projection. I have the kind of personality where if you say, "You can't do this," it's like in my head I'm going, "Just watch my fire."Ojig Yeretsian:You weren't afraid of failing. It was a risk taking you were very comfortable with. As an innovator, that kind of courage and fiery spirit, I think, is what we want to hear about.Mary Webb:There is a time to give up something that isn't working. That's part of it. Now, how do you get a fiery spirit? I don't say, "Try," and I don't say, "Despite the outcome." I say, "I'm going to do this." I have a living room. I know some people. With the dance troupe, I said, "They don't have an African-American dance troupe. I will start one." I got there. We were moving there from California, and I got there and they didn't have a dance troupe. I started one. I didn't know how to do it. I learn how to do it in the process.Ojig Yeretsian:Is that the same with the Living Room Dialogue?Mary Webb:Absolutely. It's what I do with everything. We'll figure it out. Not everybody has a seminal moment. I mean I know who I am very well and very deeply. I don't ever know what I'm going to do next. In fact, I have a website called Suck the Juice Out of Every Moment. It's about my experiences and my philosophy sort of.Ojig Yeretsian:Can you please tell us about your published works?Mary Webb:The first one I published, Dark Roads, R-O-A-D-S, under another name, Leah Ross because there was a Mary Webb already that people had heard of at that time, and I didn't want to go into competition. That was a novel about the south and some of my experiences in the south that has dance troupe in it.The second one, which we're bringing out in a second edition within the next six months is The God Hustlers, which is about religious cults and the nature of evil. The question I'm asking myself in that book is when all around the world there are terrible tyrants and they want to take away everybody's right and kill them and torture them if they're not willing to give them up, how is it that so many people are willing to give up their own rights and join something where someone else is going to run their lives? I'm not a big fan of religious cults as you might imagine.This took me five years. It was spurred in 1978 by what happened at Jonestown. If you turn over your paycheck and your personal rights to a group, there is no limit to what the leader of that group may ask you to do. Check out Alice Miller, the psychiatrist, her books, the ones that are really about the process that went on in various countries that allowed people to take over everything from other people.Ojig Yeretsian:Okay, awesome. Thank you, Mary.Mary Webb:Pleasure. I love it.Announcer:You've been listening to Method to The Madness, a biweekly public affairs show on KALX Berkeley celebrating Bay area innovators. You can find all of our podcasts on iTunes University. We'll see you again in two weeks. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Host Ali Nazar interviews Shawn Lani, Director for the Exploratorium's Studio for Public Spaces, on the Bay Area institution's founding story, outreach programs, and preparations for their 50th anniversary.Transcript:Ali Nazar:You're listening to KALX Berkeley in 90.7 FM and this is Method to the Madness coming at you from the Public Affairs Department here at Calex celebrating the innovative spirit of the Bay Area. I'm your host, Ali Nassar, and today I got with me Shawn Lani, he's the Director for the Studio for Public Spaces at the Exploratorium in San Francisco. Hey, Shawn, what's going on?Shawn Lani:Hey. Nothing. Just here, jabbing this morning.Ali Nazar:Yeah, thanks for jabbing.Shawn Lani:Yeah, my pleasure.Ali Nazar:Appreciate you coming in. So we're going to talk about a few things. Exploratorium, obviously, is a beloved institution in the Bay Area, but I always ask people when we first start out about organizations like the Exploratorium, they're very unique and they start out with a kind of a problem statement in mind. What is the problem statement that Exploratorium is trying to solve?Shawn Lani:That's a good question. A lot of people think of the Exploratorium as a science museum that was formed in the way that a lot of things were formed, but the culture institutions tend to be a product of their times. They're responding to a need, and at the time, there was an educational reform movement going on in America and the 60s were happening. This is 1969, it was founded and Frank had spent many years-Ali Nazar:Frank Oppenheimer?Shawn Lani:Oh, yes. Frank Oppenheimer had spent many years as a teacher on a ranch kind of perfecting a hands-on method of learning and was convinced that people really needed a place where they can get their hands on things and figure things out for themselves. One of the things he used to do is take his kids out to a junkyard and a very non-traditional approach, take things apart, find out how they work. It was definitely a sense of the authentic was always a driving force and also a trust that people were naturally curious and could be inspired to kind of explore their own inquiry. And that turned out to be a very powerful model for teaching and learning.Ali Nazar:Yeah, and I think any of us have been to the Exploratorium totally get that feeling because that's what the place is all about. But taking just one more kind of step down memory lane, can you tell us a little bit more about Frank Oppenheimer, who he was and how he came to found the museum?Shawn Lani:Yeah. Frank Oppenheimer was Robert Oppenheimer's younger brother, he's sometimes called the Uncle of the Atomic Bomb. He worked on the Manhattan Project, and for many years after that he was ostracized from universities and ended up in a ranch in Colorado. He was a natural teacher. He was very much a humanist, and so as he spent many years out there kind of basically, surviving, he ended up coming to San Francisco. He still had a lot of contacts, a lot of people knew who Frank was and started the San Francisco Project and found the Palace of Fine Arts. He wrote up a rationale for a science museum and ended up stomping around the City Hall drumming up support for it and got a 30-year lease for a dollar a year at the Palace of Fine Arts. Ali Nazar:Wow.Shawn Lani:Yeah. That's not a bad deal.Ali Nazar:Wow, yeah, pretty good. San Francisco real estate.Shawn Lani:Yeah, exactly. Well, the funny thing is even at the time when Frank walked in that behemoth of a building, he already thought, "This isn't going to be big enough," and, in fact, we added onto that building some years later, a second floor. And then eventually, we outgrew the building altogether and moved to Pier 17 just five years ago, Pier 15, sorry, in San Francisco.Ali Nazar:Well, Great. So thank you for that story and understanding kind of where it came from. So we're almost 50 years into the Exploratorium's founding. What's the journey been like? Where are we today?Shawn Lani:Well, the Exploratorium is, I think, necessarily evolving and I think this is true of any cultural institution. They need to evolve with culture in order to respond to it and be relevant. And as we started as a science museum with exhibits that quickly grew into a explainer program that integrated teens on the floor explaining and working with visitors. We started professional development of teachers very early. We were one of the first 600 websites when that started to evolve. And so the museum's always been kind of a slowly growing institution with new feature-sets and more and more of those have become interrelated over time.And so when I think about the Exploratorium, I went there as a child, three and four years old, you kind of fall in love with the place. And even all these years later, I walk through and there's something familiar about the way that we respect humans as learners. And in everything that we do, the way that we approach the work is very much in support of somebody's own sense of wonder and inquiry and to enable people to ask questions of the world and find those questions useful and even to question the answers they get back when they ping the world. We want them to know that they are active learners, they're in control of what they understand. And so that's always kind of been a thread throughout all of our work.Ali Nazar:Yeah, and it's so fascinating to me, as I'm listening to you talk, and think about many times in this show, we have people who have started an organization six months ago or eighteen months ago. They had this dream and this vision and I've been part of founding teams too and I think one of the things that a founding team dreams of is to have something be sustainable and go on for a long time and now, we're sitting with something like that in the Exploratorium. We're almost 50 years in. How does the governance work? How do you guys keep the mission vibrant and alive and even though Dr. Oppenheimer has long since gone?Shawn Lani:Yeah, he passed in 1985. He used to say that the Exploratorium was anarchy and Frank was the anarch and there was a certain kind of a glue that he could bring just through kind of force of personality and his intellect was somebody once said, "Walking through the Exploratorium was like walking through Frank's mind," but in fact the places evolved a lot since frank has passed. And I think that was also by design because just like we've always treated visitors as part of the equation, staff has always felt like it was part of their job to generate new ideas and to figure out new ways of engaging with audiences increasingly diverse and in new ways and on subject matters that are important to them. When I first got there in '93, we were doing some work with the National Science Foundation, which is a long-term supporter.But I was kind of surprised at the number of people doing things that I didn't think at all were related to the Exploratorium. And eventually, we had a Body Show, we had shows about memory, we looked at our Light and Color and Sound exhibitions, we renamed them Seeing and Hearing, thinking more about how people are not only sensing the world but perceiving it and the acts of perception is active. You're construing, you're making sense of the world as you find it. And so reframing the world is actually a really powerful tool for allowing people to see things in a new way, and then from that moment forward, carry that with them. It's not something that happens in the museum for that moment, which is static, it's dead when you leave. You might pick up some information, but that's just information. A way of seeing the world is far more influential I think.And actually, it's far more respectful because what we don't do is say, "This is the right way to look at the world." What we do say is, "Have you thought of it this way? Have you thought about how when you look out at the Bay, say it just all looks like a bunch of water," right? But the long story behind that is where it comes from, the push and pull of the saltwater and the ecologies that live there. And once you tell that narrative, for a lot of people, I think it builds an appreciation for a way of looking at the world that's more animated. It's more animated and it's actually, it's much more fun. It's much more interesting. And so I think that's the way that we've drifted over the years as we added more and more program is how do we do that more? How do we connect with people in such a way that they feel like they're a little different from after they've brushed up against us? And likewise, I think the museum needs to feel like, "Hey, we're being changed by our visitors as well because we're in conversation."Ali Nazar:Yeah. And it's so appropriate. I think for the spirit of the Bay Area because I always think of us being kind of like the furthest on the west of the Western civilization and kind of able to question everything. That's kind of where we're at and just geographically we're the most newest of all the cities to come. And so we can kind of look back and say, "Well, should we think about it this way? Should we be thinking about it that way?" And Exploratorium really embodies that kind of spirit.Shawn Lani:Yes. It's easy to take for granted, especially if you grew up here and I know you're raising some children and once you have kids you start to realize like, "Wow, we are in the middle of so many things." We watch movies, there we are. You hear stories or you see movements come out of the Bay Area that are global. And I've been lucky enough to travel a lot because of the Exploratorium. We have a lot of global influence from the Bay Area and the Exploratorium itself. We do global consulting, we do a lot of professional development. We train over a 1,000 teachers a year. We've trained over 30,000 teachers since the inception of the Teachers Institute. And that's the kind of influence that that continues on. So those 1,000 teachers teach 15,000 students, right? There're 30,000 teachers. Think about all the kids they've reached. And all we've done is given that teacher a new tool, a way of using inquiry and informal approaches to learning about the world, and then they take it and move that forward.So that's the kind of impact I think the Exploratorium, for me, in my mind, when I think of it, I don't think of it as a place as much as a kind of movement and I think it's continuing to be a kind of movement. We occupy space in people's minds sometimes because they went there as a kid or because they bring their kids or they ... But there's something about the place that just glows, and the more we can export that glow, the better. Right?Ali Nazar:Yeah. Bottle it up.Shawn Lani:Bottle it up. Yeah. But don't commercialize it. There's that beautiful blend of sharing. It's a kind of sharing.Ali Nazar:Yeah. And the amplification effect is so much what's so special about founders in my mind is someone has this idea in their brain and if they're successful, like Dr. Oppenheimer was, look at the amplification effect and how many lives he's touched just because he pursued that thought in his brain of, "Well, people should have experiential learning."Shawn Lani:That's right.Ali Nazar:And look what's happened since 50 years later.Shawn Lani:That's right.Ali Nazar:And it's really amazing. So we're talking to Shawn Lani, he's a Director for the Studio for Public Spaces at the Exploratorium in San Francisco right here on Method to the Madness on KALX Berkeley 90.7 FM. Shawn, so let's talk a little bit about the Studio for Public Spaces. So there're lots of programs there, but before we get into that, I want to just get a little bit of your background. Tell us about yourself.Shawn Lani:Well, I grew up in the Bay Area primarily. I was born in San Leandro, lived in Oakland and so definitely a Bay Area person. I was lucky enough to spend a lot of time out on a ranch in eastern Nevada and was inspired by just the raw nature of that landscape. And, in fact, it brought a lot of that work into the Exploratorium and that way of seeing those landscapes. And I studied at Davis and really enjoyed English and art history. I studied a lot of things. And the funny thing was I wasn't a science guy. I was handy and I could fix things on the ranch, but mostly when I was supposed to be digging holes, I was staring at springs or watching birds and so it wasn't a great rancher either.So somehow I landed up, ended up at the Exploratorium. I got a Masters in Museum Education and Design at John F. Kennedy University. And I just never thought I could work in a place that wonderful. I didn't even think to apply and it popped up, but it seemed faded. I lived only three blocks away from it. I was just extremely lucky to find it and that place changes over time. We've gotten a lot bigger and its mission has shifted not unnecessarily. And I was able to slot into a place and then move through the museum and experience what the global impact is like, what it's like to work locally. And then in 2008, we opened a show at Fort Mason. It was an outdoor Exploratorium and rather than introducing phenomenon like we do in the museum, we capture it out there.We framed it and we looked at the landscape as kind of a subject matter and tried to do these conceptual framings that allowed people to see the world in a new way and was really hooked, really fascinated with the idea that you didn't have to go inside the museum to have a really poignant experience. And, in fact, I was struck by how different it was. I wouldn't say better, but having it be a part of your daily life seemed to make it much more accessible and far more interesting as a developer, as a designer because then it's like you're in the ultimate a flea market, right? Like, "What's that? How did that happen? What the?" All these questions come to mind and sometimes when you dig a little bit, you find the most amazing answers. We're curious, Pete Richards, a senior artist at the museum, he'd heard the Golden Gate Bridge moved up and down because of the heat.So we put a GPS tracker on it. We talked to Leica. We really did our research and it turns out, sure enough, it moves up and down a foot or two depending on the temperature of the day. And there's kind of a mean temperature in the middle. So we put a scope on the bridge from a mile and a half and actually, it's three miles away with a little line in the middle. And we called it a bridge thermometer if it was a hot day, the bridge would be low and it was a cold day, the bridge would be up. And it was just such a lovely kind of observation that Pete had brought along. And then we were doing evaluation later and a runner came by and she stopped and she looked at it and she took off and our evaluator chased her down and said, "Well, that's usually not a good sign if somebody just does a glancing blow."And she said, "No, I just like to see where the bridge is every day when I went by, I want to see what the bridge is doing." So it was such a wonderful thing to think of reframing that big static thing in the distance, not as kind of a thing that doesn't move, but a thing that's being responsive to temperature. When the sunrises, it takes a couple hours for the bridge to heat up and sag. So there's all these beautiful thermodynamics going on and it's that kind of animation that really caught our attention.Ali Nazar:That's super cool. I mean it reminds me of just in such a hyper-creative environment of almost in I would think like Saturday Night Live where you have all the writers around pitching ideas. There're like lots of ideas. How does it work? Because I would think that the staff there is super-creative and comes up with all sorts of interesting thoughts like that.Shawn Lani:Yeah.Ali Nazar:How does the process of getting something approved and funded go?Shawn Lani:Well, we prototype a lot and you might have an idea, but if you don't test your idea, nobody's going to believe you. And the ultimate test is how the public responds to it in the final form. And so one of the things we do, we utilize evaluation in a more formal way but also in an informal way. We tinker about, we try things. And that's true of most subject matters. Even as we move into the social sciences and thinking about stereotypes and thinking about how do you exhibitize some of those experiences? You don't really know until you go out and you try it with people. And the beautiful thing about that isn't that there again to prove or disprove what you thought was right they're most likely going to inspire you to do something that you wouldn't have otherwise thought of. That collaborative effort extends far beyond your immediate development team. I mean we might beat each other up about whether we think it's a good idea or not, but that kind of healthy criticism can only really be verified by the end-users.Ali Nazar:Sure, which is very much part of the spirit of San Francisco tech life. Lean startup and 20th-century design, hi-tech.Shawn Lani:Starting in '93 there was no tech, there was no ... I didn't have a computer on my desk. If you wanted something, you called the old guy that worked at the part shop and you told him what you needed, right. But the language started to come from tech eventually started to seep and some of it was familiar and some of it sounded kind of, I wouldn't say naive but there was the beginnings of that ... Because that kind of iterative culture, the prototyping culture takes a long time to get good at. Not 20 years, but a few years, and the lessons that tech learned sometimes it's in this much shorter cycle so they'll learn part of the lesson. But the full lesson really is, I think, it goes to the maturity of an organization and as a creative person and who's able to work with others and also listen, it's not an easy thing, but when you get it right, you understand why it works.Ali Nazar:Yeah. Well, so back to your story, so you joined in 1983. It sounds like you just lucked into the perfect job for you, which is congratulations.Shawn Lani:Yeah. Yeah.Ali Nazar:You've been there for a long time now, so that's awesome. So you're right now on this Studio for Public Spaces project. So tell us about that and how it came to be.Shawn Lani:Yeah. So as an exhibit developer, back then, you would develop exhibits for the floor for people have experiences they learn from those. It was something that you learned. It took about five or seven years I got my chops. And that project at Fort Mason was interesting because we had this kind of instrumented landscape, right? You can walk through and experience it, but what I think we missed, I found out later with subsequent projects, is that places have people in them and those people are part of that landscape. That social landscape is also the raw material of future experiences, future exhibits, you can instrument the landscape, but you can also help instrument people's behaviors and how they're moving through the world. And so after we opened Pier's 15, 17 we did the first living innovation zone on market street.And that was through the Mayor's Office of Innovation with Mayor Lee. And we worked with Neil Hrushowy over in city planning and Paul Chasan and others. And it was a remarkable experience because we put a pair of listening vessels, which are eight-foot-tall dishes done by Doug Hollis on Market Street. At the Yerba Buena Lane and nobody really knew what to expect, including us. But we had this notion that that inquiry's a natural kind of social lubricant and that there were lots of rules on Market Street. We know this, right? You don't look people in the eye, you don't talk to anybody, you don't put your bag down. It's like a human freeway. Right? So we put these listening vessel's kind of diagonal to that freeway and people really responded. I think they responded in a better way than I had even hoped.They were willing to talk to strangers. They were kind of joyous and celebratory. They would watch each other play and figure this thing out. They tried to find out where it was plugged in. So these dishes, you can whisper in these dishes and hear each other from 50 feet away very clearly. And it's also very intimate because it sounds like somebody's just in your ear because the way the sound is focused with the parabolic dishes. And so after that, the Studio for Public Spaces was founded with the goal of bringing more of these inquiry-like experiences to public spaces because the audience is vast. The impacts are amazing really in terms of how it shifts people's behavior in real-time, in real space in cities. And so since then, we've done many projects throughout the Bay Area, San Leandro. We're working on a project currently on Fulton Street between the Asian Art Museum and the library across from City Hall.And to bring this methodology work the way they explore terms work traditionally the prototyping, the integration, the respect for the learner to a public space. And I think especially with social sciences, understanding how we construe the world, what science can teach us about how we understand things and how and why we process the world. Exploring that in a public space, especially when it challenges you in Plaza and The Civic Center, it's improving. There're a lot of things going on there now, but there's also a lot of friction. It's right in the middle of it. I mean you had to put a pin in San Francisco and say, "Where's the middle of it?" It's right there. And it's a powerful medium to be in. And I'm exploring topics like how do we categorize it? Why do we so immediately categorize people? Why do we stereotype folks? What biases are driving ourselves? This is all a way of thinking about the human mind.What you know of the world is directly proportional to what you know of yourself. And to understand how we're thinking on a meta-level is incredibly empowering because it allows you not to be a victim of your own fast-twitch thinking. You can slow down and you can reconsider. You can look for the options when you look at a scene. Not only, "This is what I think about what's happening," but, "Why am I thinking that and what other alternatives might there be?" So it's been fascinating and I think also humbling to have such a dynamic mix of emotions, cultural issues, and then trying to do this place-making maneuver in the middle of a place that is kind of inherently inhospitable.Ali Nazar:We're speaking with Shawn Lani, he's the director for the Studio for Public Spaces at Exploratorium Museum in San Francisco here on Methods of the Madness on KALX Berkeley 90.7 FM. I'm your host, Ali Nassar, and Shawn, so you're talking about different projects that you might be doing in different municipalities across the Bay Area. So take me through how does that work? I mean, this sport team can't just parachute in, "Hey, we're going to do this," right. "Get out of the way."Shawn Lani:That's the worst case, man. You never go where you're not invited. That's the rule.Ali Nazar:How do you guys build these projects?Shawn Lani:Yeah. They're very complex networks of partnerships. So that city is one level, but we also have formal relationships with the Gladstone Institute, NASA, the Smithsonian, UC Davis, UCSF. We've worked on the Resilience by Design design challenge with Tom Leader through the Bay Observatory. And so those networks have been forming over the last 50 years, literally. And I think the last 30 and even 20 years, we've really accelerated that partnership. There're strategic partnerships, meaning that we have partners where we benefit from each other's expertise. And we've always brought in a lot of Ocher Fellows, which is a program where we have visiting scientists who've had Nobel laureates, we've had Poet Laureates, right? We've had MacArthur Geniuses, four or five of those coming through the program in order to do enrich the work.And I think that's the natural mode for the museum now is to have many, many receptors. Because what we can do, I think, is make some of that really important work, especially when it comes to the environment, environmental issues. We can provide a platform for people to understand that the complex issues that are going on around them, and a way of sorting through the information and figuring out what they think is important and not telling them what's important. It's not that kind of advocacy. It's advocacy for the visitor to feel like they understand what's happening. So they could make a more informed decision, which is very much about one of the tenants of Frank's founding, the Exploratorium was we need an informed citizenry to have a healthy democracy. You can't have it without that.Ali Nazar:Now, more than ever.Shawn Lani:Now, more than ever. And I think the need continues to increase. It's never gone away. And the notion of learning is what the body of work that we learn about is a bunch of facts. That's not true. It's the cultural pursuit of what we collectively value and that shifts over time. So only through partnerships and only through this way of thinking can the Exploratorium remain relevant. So with our work in the Studio for Public Spaces, we're working with urban planning. We work with the mayor's office, we worked with REC and Park, we work for the Trust for Public Land. We work with other people that are invested in public spaces. So oftentimes there're community groups, groups like Green Streets over in Buchanan Mall, Citizen Film.They're smaller nonprofits, but they play an incredibly important role as guides in how to make this work. And guess what? Mayor Lee used to say for the first [inaudible], "We're going to make this a bureaucracy-free zone, so you guys going to come in and do ... So it turns out it was actually bureaucracy-light. There was still a lot of bureaucracy.Ali Nazar:Yeah, that was aspirational.Shawn Lani:Yeah, it was aspirational, but you got to reach and it got us in, right? It got us the gig. But to be able to go through those permitting processes with DPW or with MTA and have a good working relationship and even watching those departments bend a little when they're not totally sure it's going to be okay. I think it's really a hopeful sign. I mean there are so many good smart people working in city government. I know that sounds crazy, but I am shocked at how dedicated they are and how willing they are to bend a little and to help things that might not be known as this is going to be a total success. But the way we work is two-year pilot projects very often. It's worth the risk to find out does this help? Are we prototyping a way for the city to work in the future and what can we learn from this lesson? It's heartening to see how many people will support that kind of activity.Ali Nazar:Yeah, I think so much as to do with the vision. So we had Ben Davis on the program who was the thought leader behind the Bay Light Shore Bay Bridge. He had to get a few different municipality organizations together to make that happen. But the vision was so strong and everybody loved that bridge. So they were like, "Yes." Like, "I get it, we want to do it," and I think you guys have that power too because you have a vision that people, like you said, you feel it's not just about when you're at the museum, it's about the next day or that night.Shawn Lani:Right.Ali Nazar:I feel that with my kids when we take them there because we're members of the Exploratorium and they talk about it for a few days afterwards, "Remember that thing? Remember that thing?" And it's a vision that's so powerful that I think is galvanizing for people to get behind.Shawn Lani:Yeah. I always joke, "It's almost a cheat when you come into a situation that's in a public space." The Exploratorium comes and like, "Oh, you guys are here." Oh, he's always so happy to see you. Like, who's going to fight with Exploratorium? Like, "We don't fight. We just want to come here and have some fun and talk about things," and so it really is a leg up to build on that many years of goodwill and tradition and I think that's super important. When it comes to brand value, people don't want a brand the Exploratorium has always striven or strived, striven? Stroven?Ali Nazar:Strove? [inaudible].Shawn Lani:Thank you. To be authentic, it doesn't lie to people. I mean, I remember, this is how crazy we can get. If you have a box of wires, it's always a question whether or not you could make it out of plexi or you should make it out of wood because if you can't see it, you might not trust that it's not just going through or connecting up. So oftentimes we'll reveal the back of an exhibit just so people can kind of test it. And I wish government was like that actually, that radical transparency, right? "Is it doing this?" And like, "I don't know, try it out." I mean if you can't tell, that's not a good exhibit. Right?That's not a good experience if you're wondering, you're scratching your head and wondering if somebody just put one over on you. And so we have always tried to have that kind of relationship and that really pays off when we go for partnerships. They sense that we're not going to get between what it is that they think is important and what they're trying to show and what the visitors are going to take in. We're all about facilitating that understanding.Ali Nazar:Well, it's, it's super cool work that you're doing and thanks for coming in this morning. I do want to ask you just next year's the 50th anniversary?Shawn Lani:Yeah.Ali Nazar:So it's such an amazing institution that we're all proud of in the Bay Area. What can we expect for next year to happen at Pier 15 or across the Bay Area?Shawn Lani:Well, we'll be opening the Social-Psychology show in July of 2019 and so that is going to be 12 to 14 exhibits outside Public Space Installation and that's going to be paired with a show about identity at the Exploratorium. This is a really interesting move I think for the museum to move into the social sciences because they're not traditionally easy to approach. But I think they are incredibly relevant, given the time. And so those are going to be two peak ... Now, we also have a lot of ongoing programming about the environment and ecologies. So we have conversations about landscapes, we have Lab and Lunch.We just hosted the climate summit, several talks about the climate summit, so we're going to be continuing that work moving forward. And also our After Darks, are every Thursday nights and those are heavily programmed. So we're kind of like a piece of broccoli in that way. You have the broccoli sprout but then you have a lot of other little things going on and then you have a lot of other things going on. But those are some of the big lobes but there's lots of other stuff going on as well.Ali Nazar:Okay, I'm sure everybody knows how to get ahold of the Exploratorium, so how about for the Director, for the Studio for Public Spaces? If people want to learn more about that, how would they learn more about it?Shawn Lani:Well, just type in Studio for Public Spaces at the Exploratorium, and you'll see the website that has a list of our projects and also a lot of the thinking and the framing of the work. We have some publications there as well, and an ongoing blog.Ali Nazar:Okay, well, great. Well, we've been talking to Shawn Lani this morning, the Director for the City for Public Spaces at the Exploratorium in San Francisco. Shawn, thanks for coming in.Shawn Lani:Oh, my pleasure. Thanks so much.Ali Nazar:And you've been listening to Method to the Madness on KALX Berkeley 90.7 FM, University of California, a listener-supported radio. I'm your host, Ali Nazar. Thanks for listening everybody and have a great Friday. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Tiny Farms CEO and co-founder Andrew Brentano thinks cricket protein will ensure future food security. Tiny Farms is an AgTech and Precision Farming company that produces food grade cricket protein for use in pet food and animal feed applications offering a sustainable, safe, reliable protein source for pets, livestock animals, and people.Transcript:Lisa:This is Method To The Madness, a biweekly public affairs show on KALX Berkeley, celebrating Bay Area innovators. I'm your host Lisa Kiefer. Today, I'm speaking with Andrew Brentano, the Co-Founder and CEO of tiny farms. Welcome to the program, Andrew.Andrew:Oh, thank you.Lisa:You are the perfect guest for a show about innovation. Co-Founder of Tiny Farms. First of all, tell us what Tiny Farms does, and what is the problem you're trying to solve.Andrew:We are basically, precision ag company. What we're doing, is we're trying to grow a whole lot of crickets. The big problem we're addressing is that we basically cannot produce enough animal protein to keep up with the demand. We've got growing population, growing per capita consumption and also a really huge growing pet food market, which is consuming a huge amount of meat. Traditional meat consumption, your livestock, your pigs, your chickens and your cows, is a hugely resource-intensive endeavor.You're concentrating huge amounts of feed, 25 30% of all the crop lands on earth are just growing feed for animals. Then we're also grazing about 25% of the earth's surface for cattle. There's really not any room to expand. We really have to find these higher efficiency ways to supply that animal protein that people need.Lisa:You have found, what I think is a pretty unique niche in this market of cricket farming, protein farming. I know the argument about cattle using energy and all of that, but what you're saying is that dogs, chickens, all of these other animals. If we can feed those animals your product, we can make equivalent savings, maybe?Andrew:Yeah. We can offset these huge resource environmental footprints. If we take the pet food example, in the US, we're feeding about 30 billion pounds or more of meat just to dogs and cats every year. That market is growing like 6% year over year. If we can, instead produce crickets, which use just a tiny fraction of the food and the water and the space required, we can essentially get more from less. We can meet this demand without just completely overextending our current resources.Lisa:Okay. When did you start this company?Andrew:We started in late 2012. We initially got the idea ... of course it took a while for markets to actually developed. We were a little bit ahead of the curve. We've been-Lisa:Do you mind if I ask how you came to this? Were you doing market analysis studies or looking at big data? How did you figure out that this was a niche?Andrew :In that moment, what we were doing was really just thinking about big existential problems. We were trying to decide what should we be spending our time and energy on and had really started drilling into food production. Everyone's got to eat. It's the largest and most resource-intensive endeavor that humans do on this planet and also one of the most immediately going to be effected by climate change, population growth, et cetera. What we realized when we were diving in was that meat production was this huge concentration of where all the resources were going, It was the most inefficient place and also the highest demand. Everyone wants to eat meat. We thought, wow, this is-Lisa:Yes. Especially with incomes going up.Andrew:Exactly.Lisa:First thing they want to do is have the steak that you and I have.Andrew :Exactly.Lisa:Right?Andrew:This westernization of diets around the globe, all these trends were pointing to essentially meat crunch in really the relatively near future. People need this protein, but how do we produce protein more efficiently but that still has a high-quality nutritional profile? We're looking at agriculture. We were looking at algae and fungus. Then we came across a body of research about insects and their nutritional values and their production efficiencies, historical uses around the world, and it just made so much sense.Lisa:Who's using crickets? I assume some of these countries have been using crickets for thousands of years, is that correct?Andrew:Yeah. Particularly in Oaxaca, in Mexico and some other Central American cultures. There are long traditions of eating crickets and grasshoppers, both interchangeably. A number of African cultures also like different types of crickets that are native, crickets and katydids. Then in Thailand, more recently, I think there's been a long tradition of eating different insects. Very recently, there's been quite a growth in, particularly the cricket market there. The Thai government has even, for the last 10, 20 years been sponsoring and promoting this. There's now tens of thousands of small backyard cricket farms supporting those largely street markets.Lisa:How did you start? Were you right out of college, or what was your motivation here?Andrew:I guess, I was about two and a half years out of college. I went to University of British Columbia, studied absolutely unrelated to agriculture, a program called cognitive systems. It was AI information systems, linguistics. What that did instill was this mindset of systems thinking. I'd worked an AI startup. My Co-Founder Jenna, who's now is my wife, had been working for an artist. She went to Rhode Island School of Design. She was managing an artist business in LA. We'd been living in LA for a couple of years and decided this wasn't fulfilling. This wasn't really where we wanted to be or what we wanted to be doing.That was where we took a summer, went and started doing freelance web development just to pay the bills and took this time to decide what are we going to do with our lives that's can be meaningful. That's what led us into this. It was important that, you we found something that we could do that would apply our creativity and actually be meaningful. HLisa:You know how we're all about organic and sustainable. How does that fit into the cricket industry? What do they eat? How do you follow the path to make sure they're sustainable and that they're organic?Andrew:Yeah. The great thing about crickets is they'll eat anything, pretty much. I mean, they're basically omnivorous. Anything you could feed a pig, or a chicken, or a cow, or basically any other kind of animal, they can eat. They really have a very high, what's called feed conversion ratio, which is basically the amount of food they have to eat to grow a certain weight as a ratio. With crickets, it's about 1.7:2 pounds of food to get 1 pound of cricket. To give comparison, chickens are more like 3:1. Pigs are between 4 and 6:1. Cows can range from 8:20:1, depending on what the diets are. Even if you fed them the exact same thing you fed a commercial chicken, you're using much less of that feed.You've got this corresponding, way much smaller land and water footprint. Then because they are so efficient converting that feed and they'll eat anything, we can then take food by-product streams and agricultural by-product streams and incorporate that into the feed formula. That can range anything from stale bread, which commercial bakeries, large scale ones are producing millions of pounds of stale bread or excess bread. They essentially overproduce by about two what they actually sell. Then we can also go to agricultural processing. There are huge streams of by-products, like dried distiller grains that come out of ethanol production, spent brewer's grain, juice pulp from the citrus industry.Lisa:The wine industry.Andrew:The wine industry. Exactly. Almond holes are huge one in the United States, or in California alone, we're producing 150 million tons of almond holes every year.Lisa:They're kind of like goats in the insect world.Andrew:Yeah.Lisa:They'll clean everything up.Andrew:Right. All we have to do is balance the different inputs, so we get the nutritional profile that grows the cricket efficiently We understand that pretty well. We can basically say, okay, we'll take 20% of this, 30% of that, 50% of that, blended altogether, and then we can just grow our crickets.Lisa:You been able to notice differences in tastes of your crickets by what you're feeding them?Andrew:One of the reasons crickets are so good, is they have a pretty mild and generally pleasant taste regardless what you feed them. You definitely can tell different things. You'll get either a nuttier cricket. Sometimes it'll be because the cricket is a little fatty or a little leaner.Lisa:What would you feed it to make it fatty?Andrew:You could feed it, for one, more fat or a higher carb diet. You can make it leaner by having more of a protein and fiber formulation. We've fed them carrots in the past and they turn just a tiny hue, more orange. They actually pick up a tiny bit of that sweeter carrot taste.Lisa:Do you ever feed them chocolate?Andrew :We've never fed them chocolate. It's a bit expensive.Lisa:How do your vegetarian or vegan customers feel about this product? Do they have any concerns?Andrew:There's two camps. There's one camp where folks are vegetarian and vegan primarily because of sustainability issues, humane treatment of animals, ethical issues. Those are exactly the issues that we're targeting and trying to address with cricket production. Those folks are generally very, very receptive to incorporating insect protein into their own diets. What's really exciting for these people is when we say, yeah, did you know there's dog and cat food you can get with insect protein? You've got vegetarians and vegans, but they still have a pet cat that they have to feed meat too.It creates a real dissonance for them. It's an amazing solution for those folks. Then there's folks that maybe have a religious or spiritual aversion to actually eating living animals. For those folks, that's fine. That's a different set of issues. Insects are living things, and if they decide that's not what they want to eat, it's not the product for them. We generally think that we have a great solution for the folks that really see the fundamental environmental and ethical issues around meat production.Lisa:If you're just tuning in, you're listening to Method To The Madness, a biweekly public affairs show on KALX Berkeley, celebrating Bay Area innovators. Today, we're speaking with Andrew Brentano, the Co-Founder and CEO of Tiny Farms. Tiny Farms is building the infrastructure for a new category of our food system, cricket protein, one that will play a big part in ensuring future food security. Talking about your products, and you just covered one, which is feeding pets. What other products do you have, and who are your customers?Andrew:Our core business is the design and development of a high-efficiency cricket production facility. That's really the big problem. We want to get crickets out into the market, but how do you do that? How do you produce enough crickets cheap enough that it can actually become this bulk commodity that could reasonably offset traditional meats. In a way, our core product is actually this method for producing them and then also how do you process them into palatable ingredient.Lisa:I read that your method was unique in that it avoids the monoculture of most agriculture.Andrew:Yeah. One of the fundamental problems that we see in traditional livestock production, farming in general, is that you have these huge centralized productions, whether it's, say 10 thousand acres of soy beans or if it's a mile-long chicken house with 4 million chickens in it. When you think about ecosystems and biology, that's a really unhealthy ecosystem. Also, it's incredibly risky because if something comes in there that's a blight, or past, or a disease [ 00:10:48], it just can, wipe out everything very quickly.The approach that we take is a more distributed model where we'll set up smaller production units, and then we'll put them around in a cluster, in a region. That way, you never have this just huge, enormous centralized population issues of just having a lot of animals in place, breathing and pooping and eating and all of that mess and the potential for pollution. Also, that you significantly reduce this biological risk.Lisa:Crickets get disease and die out like other ...Andrew:We've been lucky. We've never had a blight. We have a very tightly controlled environment, keep the biosecurity levels pretty high. There have been, in actually a different species of cricket than when we grow, there is a disease. It only affects crickets. There's no risk to any people or animals but that have gone around and wiped out some of the cricket farms that have existed in the US. One of the cool things about insects, again, too, is that biologically they're so different from people that you don't have the same zoonotic transfer of diseases the way that you've got your swine flu or your bird flu, which can jump to humans. It's this huge health risk.Every animal has diseases and parasites that can affect them. The cricket is so different. Its life cycle's so different. They don't carry that kind of disease that could jump to a human. It's much safer. Even with a mosquito or a tick, they're transmitting a disease, because they're actually holding some like human blood, Mammalian blood in them. It's not that that animal itself actually gets a disease that can transfer to a human.Lisa:You have a cricket powder, but that's primarily for feeding animals. Does it also go into human-Andrew:We produce this cricket protein powder. It's completely food grade. It's completely perfect to use in human food products or pet food products. We focus on the pet food market, because we see a really, really big opportunity to offset a lot more of the consumption in that space. There are a ton of human food products out on the market, and a bunch of being produced right here in the Bay Area. Chips and snack foods and energy bars and baking flour mixes and stuff that-Lisa:With cricket powder.Andrew:With cricket flour. Yeah. Exactly. In that market, it's awesome. It's a really great way to start introducing to people this idea that they can eat crickets. Long-term, the best possible thing is we stop eating animals as much and we eat much more insect protein. Put it in something that people want to eat anyways, crunchy, healthy snacks.To really have the big impact we want to have, we have to figure out how we can start really replacing the meat that we're using as quickly as possible and as big of volume as possible. That's where we're really focusing on the pet angle. There's actually another company here in Berkeley called Jiminy's. They've released a line of dog treats. The only animal protein in that dog treat is cricket protein. Dogs love this stuff.Lisa:You don't have any retail human products yourself as a company.Andrew:We do supply another brand that is currently distributed at the Oakland Days Coliseum and it's called Oaktown Crickets. In the cricket production, get more into how that works. You harvest most of the crickets at a certain stage in their life when they've got the optimal protein content to make into the protein powder. Then you maintain a chunk of your population to go through adulthood and breed your next generation. Those breeders, we call them, they've got a higher fat content because they're, particular the females, are full of eggs. They're really, really tasty.In Thailand, those are the prized ones that people want. They'll fry them up and sell them in the market. For the protein powder application, they're not very useful. What we do is, those get sold for culinary use. We had local chefs use them in different specials, and then they're being fried and seasoned and packaged in little snack packs and distributed at the Colosseum. [crosstalk] Extra tasty.Lisa:One of your main goals is to address the challenges that are facing agriculture, what we just talked about. Are there any other challenges that you've experienced as you enter this marketplace?Andrew:One of the big fundamental things about how the agricultural system is set up is it's very linear. You extract resources, you dig up phosphorous, you create nitrates and nitrites for fertilizers. You pour them on the fields, you grow these plants, you harvest them out, you process them. You throw away the byproducts. Then you feed the animals, and the animals create a huge amount of poop. You don't know what to do with that. It just sits there. Then the animals get eaten. It's this very just linear extractive system of production.That's part of why we're having so many issues with soil degradation and waterway pollution. We're also just running out of phosphorus, which is its whole own problem. What we really see is an opportunity for insects is to help start close some of these loops and create more of a circular system. If you've got your wheat industry and it creates all of this chaff when you process the wheat into flour ... well if you can efficiently convert that, instead of just say composting it or throwing it out there or using it more inefficiently to feed dairy cow, you can turn that into a really high-quality protein, putting that through the base of the cricket as a bio converter.We've spent the same amount of nutrients and water to produce all parts of that plant. If you only eat a little bit of it, that's not very helpful. Then the cool thing about the crickets is, the waste they produce is completely dry and stable. They're not releasing-Lisa:The cricket poop.Andrew:The cricket poop.Lisa:What is it called?Andrew:It's called frass. That's the technical term for insect poops. It's basically the consistency of sand. If you go by Harris ranch or the big feed lots, and they're just-Lisa:Hold your nose.Andrew:Exactly. Producing huge amounts of nitrous oxide and methane and ammonia. These are greenhouse gas emissions that are many, many times more potent than CO2. Instead, you've got this very, stable, safe product that can be applied directly as soil. It's actually produced dry. You can cost effectively transport it. You-Lisa:And amend your soil with it.Andrew:Exactly. Yeah. You can take it back to the source of production, or you can put out into gardens, community gardens, home gardens, anywhere. The frass, which is our by-product, we've just recently gone through the approval process with the California Department of Agriculture to sell that as a retail fertilizer. We now have one pound and five pound bags of that.Lisa:Where could I find that?Andrew:We've just listed on Amazon, and we're starting to starting in the Berkeley area. We're getting it out to some of the local gardens stores. We're hoping that we'll have a chance to really take on a life of its own. Besides that, we're also able to sell that wholesale to bigger garden and farming operations in the area.Lisa:How did you find the funding to start all these operations?Andrew:Definitely, financing is the least fun and hardest part of starting a business. We were able to bootstrap the first several years. We were just actually building websites on the side while the initial pieces came together. Then when we realized that we really understood what the business model was going to be and what the growth plan was, we were able to go out and convince a handful of angel investors to come in and put enough money that we were able to launch our first R&D farm down in San Leandro.That was really just a process of getting out there, both going to pitch events, networking, going to basically the places where the kind of people are who care about sustainability and the food system, who understood the issues. Actually, a number of our investors found us, which was great. We had enough of a presence on social media and had been featured at a few events that they said, "Hey, I really believe in what you're doing." They understood why, and they knew it was going to be a long road to get there.They were very supportive. Then, from there, once you've got initial traction, then as you need more funding, you go out, find ways of getting in front of the right people and being able to tell that story and show how the payoff is going to happen down the road.Lisa:Everybody's pretty aware. It's a huge problem.Andrew:It's amazing how the awareness and focus changed from 2012 to now, because when we started and we're going out there saying, hey, insect protein is this amazing solution. People just raised eyebrows. Now, we go out there and people say, "Yeah, we know, but how are you going to implement it?" Which is much better conversation, because we actually get right into the meat of what we're doing and how we're solving the problem. We don't have to worry about spending half an hour just convincing someone that they should even take us seriously.Lisa:Who are your major competitors?Andrew:The industry is so new, The demand for the product keeps growing at a rate that, essentially, we're not able to directly compete, because we're all just trying to keep up with the scaling of demand. There's a farm down in Austin, Texas, which has gotten some great funding and done some cool stuff, building their operation. There's a big operation up in Ontario, Canada that's been one of the major suppliers in North America.Lisa:Internationally?Andrew:They're a good number of companies in Thailand and Southeast Asia, starting to be a little more presence in Mexico. When we think about it, for us to saturate this market, they're going to have to be thousands of cricket farms, right? We have this concept of a benign competition. When they have a win, that's good for us, because we're growing this opportunity together. It's much less cut throat than you find in more matured and saturated markets.Lisa:There's room to grow in it. Yeah. For sure.Andrew:Huge, huge opportunity.Lisa:Have you had any negative response?Andrew:Certainly. Particularly early on, you got a lot of ew, yuck. What are you doing? What's great about people, is that we really quickly get used to ideas. The same folks we would talk to six years ago and say, "Hey, we think you should try eating crickets." They'd say basically, "No way in hell would I do that." My test is based. I'm sitting on an airplane and the person next to me says, "Hey, what do you do?" How does that conversation go? Six years ago, went one way. Now, Lyft drivers or just folks out of the coffee shop I say, "Hey, we do cricket protein." Almost immediately, people now start telling me why it's a good idea. I mean, it's amazing how the public perception has shifted. I think it's really just a consequence of exposure.Lisa:If you can find a tasty way to get protein and not have to pay what you pay for meat ...Andrew:The market's so young. It's still a pretty premium product. The price point is similar to that of an equivalent meat product. So like the cricket protein powder is basically a dried ... It's 60% protein, 20% fat. It's this really nutrient dense product. It costs similarly as if you bought meat and dehydrated it. What that would cost, 15 to $20 a pound, which seems like a lot. Then you think you're reducing that down. You can get your fresh crickets. The costs of production is similar to your higher-end meat now. What's great is that's with really barely any R&D that's been done over the last few years.Lisa:Barely anybody in the marketplace.Andrew:Barely anyone in the marketplace. You think about what the price of chicken and beef is right now. That's the result of 50 years and trillions of dollars. Our industry, with five years and a few million dollars of development, is already getting competitive with meat. In the next few years, it's just going to soar below that, which is great. Up until very recently, there'd never been really any indication of actual opposition to the idea. It was just niche enough. No one was really worried about it. We did interestingly have the first high-profile shot across the bow.What happened was, late in July when the Senate was starting to go through their appropriations bill process, Senator Jeff Flake actually introduced a amendment that would specifically ban federal funding for research projects around insects for food use. This really caught us all off guard, what seemed to come out of absolutely nowhere.It was very strange and essentially someone had brought to the senator's attention that a handful of small innovation grants had gone out from the USDA to companies that were developing food products with insect protein. It's not the kind of thing that someone like Jeff Flake would just pick up. Someone out there suddenly cared enough to bring that to his attention. We don't really know exactly what went on there.Lisa:You don't know what went on.Andrew:Not yet. Yeah. We have an industry group. There's over 90 companies in the United States, Almost every state, there are companies working with insect protein, whether it's for pet food or animal feed or for human food, both on the production side and the product side. This is actually an amazing opportunity for American economic growth, American leadership. It's very surprising that something would come along like this that you would want to block federal research funding. Specifically, it's the small business innovation research grants that were being referenced. We've received some of the same grants as well.Lisa:Was that this year?Andrew:This was just a few months ago. Now, very luckily, that amendment was not accepted into the final version of the appropriations bill. We realize like, oh, there are people that care enough to start throwing up some roadblocks. That's actually a good sign for us that we're being taken seriously in that way.Lisa:That's a positive way to look at it.Andrew:For us, anytime that we have a conversation with someone and I convinced someone that they should take this seriously or they should go to A's game and buy a pack of crickets or they should go to the pet store and get some Jiminy's treats that they can feed their dog. That's a huge win for me.Lisa:Yeah.Andrew:Every time I'd ride in a Lyft or sit on an airplane, that's an opportunity. Yeah. I mean, there's already been this level of engagement, which is great.Lisa:I wanted to ask you about other projects. One of them I'm intrigued with is the Open Bug Farm.Andrew:In a earlier stage of our business development, we actually developed an open source mealworm farming kit, basically for people at home who are interested in this. The could either buy the kit from us or the designs were online. It was all off-the-shelf components, so they can make it themselves.Lisa:Like having chickens in your backyard.Andrew:That was the same kind of idea.Lisa:Instead, it's crickets.Andrew :Exactly how we were modeling it. In fact, a lot of the people who were interested in that, wanted to grow the mealworms to feed their chickens. That project didn't end up being really good business model for us. We didn't keep selling the kits, but we kept the designs for it out there. What was really great was around that project, we just launched a forum and a huge number of people came to that forum and asked questions and provided expertise. We were able to share some of our expertise on the topic.Now, there's this huge information resource that just has tons and tons of discussion about raising different kinds of insects at different scales, from commercial to home scale. We're really happy that exists out there. We get a lot of inquiries from people that say, "Hey, I just want to start growing some crickets for myself or some meal worms" or whatever it is. We don't have time to help every one of those people individually. We're able to say, "Hey, go over to the forum here, because there's just this huge drove information."Lisa:What do you see in the future?Andrew:Looking at the future, there's just so much room for growth. For us, the key thing is just get more commercial cricket farms built over the next years. Get the production ramped up, instead of just being able to have niche premium pet treats on the market. There can be full-diet pet foods and then maybe even your mainstream pet foods. If the Walmart brand of dog food could have even 5% cricket protein instead of meat, we'd be saving millions and millions of pounds of meat, hundreds of millions of gallons of water. It's all just about being able to grow the production volume to be able to meet those demands.For us, the path to doing that is not just building cricket farms ourselves but to be able to take the facility that we've designed and package that into a turnkey product that we could then license out to a production partner. Because we got a lot of inbound inquiry from folks that say, "Hey, I would love to start a cricket farm, but I don't really know how." There's great opportunity to leverage that and provide a ready-made solution where you can say, "Well, here's the setup and here's the training. We can provide the technical support." Then you can grow these crickets, and then we can help you process that into the protein powder that we can get out to the market."That's really the longer term growth strategy, is being able to engage with all these partners. Over the last several years, we've had hundreds and hundreds of people contact us, say, "I'm a dairy farmer, but I want to get into crickets." A lot of folks with agricultural backgrounds, maybe they grew up on a farm, but their parent's farm isn't quite big enough to support them coming back to work on the farm. They say, "Hey, maybe I could throw up an outbuilding and we could have a cricket farm there."There's a huge amount of opportunity for people that essentially have cricket production as their own business and be able to feed into the supply chain where we can have this huge impact offsetting meat. Fundamentally, what we are after is really converting, like I mentioned, this linear extractive food production system into a circular sustainable food production system. Right now, we're just so overextended on our demands, on the very limited resources that we have available in terms of water and soil and arable lands and even just nutrients available to grow crops.We're going to stop being able to produce food. When we talk to folks in the chicken industry or the beef industry, they're actually all very interested in the potential for the insect protein in the feed for their animals. Because all these animals are not just eating plant-based proteins. Almost all the animal feeds out there also have some amount of fishmeal in them, which supplements key amino acids and fats that you don't find produced in plants. Fishmeal production is a really shocking industry. We basically send out ships that scoop up indiscriminately, all the small fish. Particularly, they'll go scoop up whole schools of anchovetas and anchovies. Then they just grind that up into a powder and send it off into the animal feed formulations.Essentially, all that farmed salmon is basically eating wild fish that's been caught and ground up and pelletized and then fed back to that salmon. Something like 90% of fisheries are on the verge of collapse or have already collapsed. There's a huge amount of interest in introducing insect proteins into animal feeds. The FDA and AAFCO, which is the organization that controls what can go into animal feeds, have already approved soldier fly proteins, which is another insect that's being widely grown for use in salmon feeds. Now, the FDA has also just indicated that they think that should also be allowed in poultry feed. Poultry feed is one of the biggest consumers of fishmeal in the land-based agriculture.Lisa:Do you have a website that people can go to?Andrew:Our company is Tiny Farms. The website is just www.tiny-farms.com. Yeah. You can check out our basic offering. You can contact us through the contact form.Lisa:Are you selling tiny farm hats, like you have on? [crosstalk]Andrew:We've printed short-runs of shirts and had these hats made just for the team. There's enough interest that I think we'll get those listed up there soon. We just have to start thinking about the food system, in terms of a self-sustaining system and not like feel good sustainability. This has to be a system that can continue to produce food forever.Lisa:There are a lot of us living here, and we'll need every tool we can use if we want to keep enjoying it.Andrew:Yeah. Exactly.Lisa:Thank you, Andrew, for being on program.Andrew:Thank you. This was fun.Lisa:You've been listening to Method To The Madness, a biweekly public affairs show on KALX Berkeley, celebrating Bay Area innovators. You can find all of our podcasts on iTunes University. We'll be back again in two weeks. 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Eric Leenson, Co-Director of the Business Alliance for a Heathy California, speaks to host Lisa Kiefer about the status of Single Payer Health in California and how a simpler, publicly funded system would deliver real reform.Transcript:Lisa Kiefer:Method to the Madness is next. You're listening to Method to the Madness, a biweekly public affairs show on KALX Berkeley, celebrating Bay Area innovators. I'm your host, Lisa Kiefer, and today I'm speaking with Eric Leenson, the co-director of Business Alliance for a Healthy California. They believe that healthcare is a human right, and that all Californians should have affordable, high quality, cost-effective healthcare.Eric Leenson:Hello. Thanks for having me, Lisa.Lisa Kiefer:You have always been a person I think of around sustainability, and in this new venture, you're working to make healthcare more sustainable as we move to the future, all of us citizens of the US. Tell us about what you're doing at the business alliance for Healthy California.Eric Leenson:Essentially, we created the Business alliance for a Healthy California about a year and a half ago, to support the implementation of a single-payer type system here in California. You know, we can get into discussion about what single payer means, but it was kind of a response to what's been happening in Washington, where we see all kinds of major roadblocks, as far as protecting people's healthcare and in not even talking about expanding it. So here in California, we have a very strong group of people who have been pursuing single payer healthcare for a long time.And back in 2017, the California Nurses Association sponsored a bill called the Healthy California Act, Senate Bill 562, which would bring a single payer healthcare to the state of California, because we just don't see it in the cards on a national level for long time. But here we are in California, as everyone likes to say, the fifth largest economy in the world. We should be able to provide quality healthcare to all of our people.Lisa Kiefer:But, as we all know, this SB 562 is dead in the water right now.Eric Leenson:Right now, it's dead. Basically-Lisa Kiefer:So tell us what happened, and what's going to happen.Eric Leenson:Okay. The bill garnered really amazing grassroots support and it passed the Senate, so it was approved by the California State Senate. In the assembly, it was blocked primarily by the Speaker of the Assembly, who did not want it to come to a vote.And he didn't want it to come to a vote, in my opinion, primarily because it's embarrassing to the Democrats. There's no Democrat these days in California, that's not "for single payer," but you know, we have people that really support it and are ready to implement it, and others who say they support it, because politically it's convenient.Part of of where the Democrats are going, certainly in California, but also nationally, is in the concept of a Medicare For All-type program. So what you have is a situation where, on the legislative floor, if the bill had been brought up, then the Assembly people would've had to take a vote and show whether they supported this for real or not. And it was much easier just to sort of stall on it.It wouldn't, he didn't allow it to go to committee. Even for further review and discussion, they were claiming, "Well, the bill's inadequate," and there's no doubt there was more that needed to be flushed out in the bill, but that's part of what the Assembly's supposed to do through their committees, and they wouldn't even allow it to go to committee.At this point, there is no bill. What's happened is, I think everyone's got their attention really focused on the elections coming up in November, particularly the Governor's race.Lisa Kiefer:Right. I want to talk to you about John Cox, the Republican candidate, versus Gavin Newsom's position on single payer.Eric Leenson:Well, it's pretty much black and white-Lisa Kiefer:Yeah.Eric Leenson:In many ways, although there's always gray with, when you talk about politicians, the black and white part is that John Cox is absolutely opposed to any form of single-payer.Lisa Kiefer:Is he fiscally opposed? I read that there's a range of, from $330 to $400 billion is what people are saying it's going to cost Californians.Eric Leenson:Well, so what I would say is that as a Republican, he's opposed to it not only financially, but ideologically. He does not believe that government should play an extensive role in healthcare. So these would be the same Republicans that want to cut Medicare, because it's government-controlled, in a way.Finance, I should say, not controlled. Gavin Newsom has been a strong proponent of single payer, and in fact has a history of introducing healthcare reform when he was mayor of San Francisco. So he has been an outspoken proponent of single payer, and that's the black part.The gray part is, well, when you actually get elected, what do you do? Because health care represents 20% of the entire economy of California, and nationwide, as well. You're not talking about a small budget item, you're talking about an industry, whether it be pharmaceuticals, hospitals, physicians, insurance companies, that affects a huge swath of people.And when this gets out, you know, it gets discussed. It affects people's interest dramatically. I mean, basically ,if single payer were to be implemented, there would be no role, not much of any role, I should say, for private health insurance any longer. Can you imagine how many people would possibly lose revenue, because they sell insurance, or the insurance companies are making a lot of money.So, you have the problem, whenever you're dealing with trying to make major reform to the healthcare system. And it's extraordinarily complicated. I don't mean by any stretch of imagination to try to simplify it. You're going to have huge vested interests. Everyone uses healthcare, so everyone's concerned about what their healthcare is going to look like as a consumer. And you have, as I'm suggesting, a tremendous number of industries and businesses that basically survive on the revenues that are generated through healthcare.So it makes it difficult, and it makes it difficult for an elected official to really implement. They're going to need strong support from backers in the legislature, and insistence by the general public that this is beneficial.Lisa Kiefer:So I was thinking about this, a great percentage of money will be saved. It seems like if inefficiencies will be gone, so you're going to save a lot of money, but all of those people who deal with the phone calls to the insurance company are without a job. So whoever has to figure out this fiscal analysis has to incorporate job loss to the state. Very complicated.Eric Leenson:It's very complicated.Lisa Kiefer:And do you know if that cost-benefit works?Eric Leenson:Well, let's put it this way. Virtually every study that's been done, that I'm aware of, shows enormous cost savings through single payer. If you look at the numbers right now, the administrative costs of private health insurance are around, between, let's say 10% or 15% administrative costs. For Medicare, which is, in fact, single payer-Lisa Kiefer:Single payer, yeah.Eric Leenson:The administrative costs are 3%, so you're talking off the bat, you know, 10-12% savings. Just by streamlining that system, number one, and part of that administrative savings isn't only on the insurance side of it, you know, who's financing. It's also on the doctor side.You realize that in this country, every doctor has to hire me. I mean, every two doctors have to hire at least one or two administrative people, just to deal with the billing. I mean, we all have the experience of going to the office, and, "Are you covered by this, are you..."They spend endless amounts of time, instead of giving healthcare, on the phone, arguing with the insurance companies, whether or not there's coverage. This simplifies that entire thing.Number two, the other large savings is that if there were a single payer, they would be able to negotiate pricing, with hospitals and with pharmaceutical companies, because right now we pay so much more in the United States for healthcare than any other country industrialized country in the world. It's kind of ridiculous. I mean, we're spending, often, more than two times as much as any other country and not getting results that are even as good as those countries. It's all about the cost.Lisa Kiefer:If you're just tuning in, you're listening to Method to the Madness, a biweekly public affairs show on KALX Berkeley, celebrating Bay area innovators. Today I'm speaking with Eric Leenson. He's the co-director of Business Alliance for a Healthy California. He's working to educate and organize the business community to support universal health care.Eric Leenson:Back to your question, there have been studies done, and serious academic studies. You can imagine, this debate's been going on for decades, and in the case of California, let's just hone in on California.Yes, the cost of cost of healthcare in the system right now, everyone kind of agrees on, is about $400 billion a year. And the opposition, the single payer has done a great job in propagandizing the role of who's paying for what? So they come out with this phenomenal number of increase in taxes.Well, let's walk through the numbers. So let's say it's $400 billion right now. That's $400 billion being spent, where you still have 3 million people in the state that don't have insurance, and you have 14 million people in the state who are underinsured. Under insured means they "have coverage," but the deductibles and the copays are so high, they can't afford to use their insurance. So they don't go for the help they need.Lisa Kiefer:It's just catastrophic, at that point.Eric Leenson:Yeah. Yeah. Well, it often gets a catastrophic, because they're not going on a preventative basis. But what people don't understand is, right now, of that $400 billion, 70% is already being paid by government, 70%, if you add in, you know what the federal government is paying through Medicare, through Medicaid, which is huge, especially in the state of California.What local governments spend, think about it, all the government employees there are in the state. All the firemen, all the policemen, all the teachers, they have health insurance, right? So you're talking about 70%.What you're really looking at funding is 30%. Well, where does that 30% come from? That comes from premiums, and typically, a lot of it is paid for by employers, and some of it's paid for by employees. And some of it is just paid by individuals who aren't employed at all.Well, it's all about how you look at the pie. The numbers show that you could probably insure, you could probably implement a Medicare For All type package in California, for everyone, paying less than what we're paying today. So there's savings in the system. The problem is, where are those savings coming from?And that is, I pay premiums for my health insurance. Is that a tax? I mean, we're playing a little bit of a semantics game. Someone's paying this money. There's $400 billion in the system. That's what we're paying. So why do people say, "Well, if we use single payer, and it costs," let's say, 400 billion, it'll actually costs less than that.Why do they say, "Well, we have to raise all these new taxes?" Well, it's because, instead of paying healthcare premiums, people will pay taxes. That's the difference. So based on studies, serious financial studies, it appears that single payer is financially feasible, without the scare of all these new taxes. The money's there.Lisa Kiefer:But will we continue to get the money from the federal government, if we win on single payer here in California? Or would it be cut off?Eric Leenson:Okay. It is dependent upon continuing to receive the funding that exists in the system today.Lisa Kiefer:Both state and federal.Eric Leenson:Correct. One of the largest stumbling blocks is about the federal portion, because it's not impossible. In fact, it's very likely that Washington, under this administration, would refuse to go along with this. There are what are known as waivers available for states to experiment and do different types of financing within healthcare, still using federal money, but it's got to be approved by the federal government.So it's not impossible. But when people raise the question about, "Well, it's going to be a really hard slog to get this done, because we're not going to have the federal government." Well, the reality is that shouldn't prevent us from doing it.I mean, it's like saying, "Well, we shouldn't regulate our car emissions, because we got to fight the federal government." What's the difference, in some sense? And the reality is, given the breadth and depth of the healthcare system impact on the overall economy, this is not something that's going to happen overnight.So it makes, in my opinion, lots and lots of sense, to get California prepared, to be able to launch a program. And by the time we have the laws in place and things happening, then we'll hopefully have a new type of administration in Washington, and see about those possibilities. But it's going to take time. If we don't start preparing now, we're really going to be caught cold.Lisa Kiefer:Are there other states? There are other states that are experimenting with single payer.Eric Leenson:Not really.Lisa Kiefer:You know, I used to lives in Massachusetts, and that was-Eric Leenson:What? That's Romney Care.Lisa Kiefer:Okay.Eric Leenson:Now, I mean, the difference between single payer is literally, you're taking private insurance companies out of the mix.That's where a lot of the savings come from, because I would contend that they provide no value. What they are are middlemen who collect a revenue, for basically not doing anything, and they game the system so that they can maximize their revenues.This is why you see, I mean, you know, getting into the business part of this... In the 562 bill, because you asked, there were clear provisions within that bill, there's a certain amount of money allocated for job retraining. So you asked about the people-Lisa Kiefer:Yes, whenever there's a disruption, people retrain jobs.Eric Leenson:Yeah. There's tremendous concern. No one wants anyone to get hurt on this, but you know, it's the reality. Okay, well, should we continue hiring longshoreman to unload ships by hand, and not use technology?Lisa Kiefer:Right. So I think you explained what single payer actually is.Eric Leenson:Well, [crosstalk 00:14:29]-Lisa Kiefer:Why don't you say it again, for people who... unless you don't really care.Eric Leenson:Okay, what's really important to understand, single payer is not what people think is "socialized medicine." It's not government control of the services, medical services, that people receive. Right now, the way Medicare works is, the federal government is the financer of this. They set the rules of what can be paid for certain services, devices-Lisa Kiefer:Prescriptions-Eric Leenson:Prescriptions, things like that. Although, unfortunately they can't set the prices for prescriptions.Lisa Kiefer:The Veterans Administration can.Eric Leenson:Yeah, the Veterans only, but it has nothing to do with the actual provision of medical services. So I, as a Medicare recipient, go out and I pick the doctor and the plan that I want, and the government does not control that. And all of the services I receive are run by individual plans, clinics, doctors. It's not owned by the government.So, understand we talk about single payer, it's only the financing part. It's got nothing to do with the benefits that you receive as a consumer. If anything, it will help regulate them, so that you get better services, and you know what you're entitled to, rather than having to play this game.I mean, you probably know, that you can go to eight different hospitals in the same area, if there were eight hospitals, everyone would have a different price.Lisa Kiefer:Right.Eric Leenson:And there's no way of knowing what you're getting, what the value is, and the prices are extreme. It could be 300% more in one place than the other, with absolutely no difference in service, right?Lisa Kiefer:So you've got the support of nurses, and do doctors generally support this too? I would think they would.Eric Leenson:I would say there are a number of doctors who do, and then there are many who don't, because they fear that since the government will regulate pricing, that they may not be as profitable as they were. I would say it kind of breaks down to the primary care physicians, for the most part, are in favor.Think of it this way, in some sense, and I don't want to take this comparison too far. Kaiser's like a single payer. Kaiser has hospitals, Kaiser has medical staff, so they're providing a one-stop service. You Pay Kaiser, and then you have all your medical care taken care of. Unfortunately, Kaiser is also an insurance plan. So Kaiser is against this, because-Lisa Kiefer:And they have high deductibles, depending on what you choose, I mean-Eric Leenson:Yeah. They're an insurance company, and unfortunately, the insurance company kind of dominates, I think, when it comes to the issue of single payer. But no, I think in the cases you're describing, there would be huge benefits.We allow doctors, and you talk to Canadians, doctors for example, who've been here and been there. It says, you know, single payer gives them a chance to really be doctors, instead of administrators and paper pushers.Lisa Kiefer:And I've saw something like this, I watched a wonderful documentary that I got through you.It's called, Fix It: Healthcare at the Tipping Point. And in these next few minutes, you'll see the history of healthcare. It hasn't always been like this.Speaker 3:In 1969, Blue Cross Blue Shield had a community rating. Everybody paid the same rates. It was a truly nonprofit, and in every state, they were, Blue Cross Blue Shields were regulated to serve the public interest. That's what we gave up on.Speaker 4:Some executives at life insurance companies saw an opportunity to come into this area, to come into this space, and make some money. So they came in and started offering cut-rate policies, but only to those who were younger and healthier.Speaker 5:The group of people subscribing to Blue Cross Blue Shield became less and less healthy, more and more expensive, forcing the Blues to raise their rates more and more. And by the late '70s, early '80s, in every state in the union, the old Blue Cross Blue Shield model was dying. These companies were going bankrupt. Nonprofit companies couldn't make it.Speaker 4:For-profit insurance companies over the years became so dominant that they actually controlled, came to control the healthcare system. They bought a lot of the Blue Cross plans. A lot of the Blue Cross plans now are for-profit companies.Speaker 6:The US has, we're on the shortest length of stays in hospitals of any country, and we're told we have to shorten it. We go to the doctor about 4.2 times a year. The Japanese go 13 times. So we're told that we use too much healthcare, and we have to restrict access to save money, when in fact, we're below average when it comes to comparable countries.Speaker 5:The whole system is set up to discourage people from using healthcare.Speaker 7:The insurance companies are specialists at figuring out ways of covering less or paying less, the sicker you are.Speaker 4:So not only are people having to pay more money out of their own pockets for care in these plans, or they're finding that the choice of providers has been narrowed.Speaker 8:As a primary care physician, I have selected the specialists that I'm most comfortable working with. As it stands right now, I've got to say to my staff, "Check if Dr. Brown is a member of this patient's insurance." And so, referrals are so much more limited in the current system.Lisa Kiefer:They interviewed doctors, they interviewed business people, and that was the fascinating part, and I wanted to talk to you about that as how healthcare today affects small and medium-sized businesses. What have you seen as the challenges it presents?Eric Leenson:It's good that you've differentiated small, medium size from really big businesses, because they're two different animals entirely.In the case of small businesses, single payer would be a huge boon to small business.Lisa Kiefer:And why is that?Eric Leenson:Because under the Affordable Care Act, they're, they're not required to have insurance unless they have, I forget the exact numbers, either 25 or 50 employees. So you have a lot of small businesses, let's say 20 employees that basically are on their own, have to deal with the private health insurance market, and simply can't afford to have insurance.So right now, as I recall, of small business, only about 20% provide any health insurance for their employees. And it's not, they don't want to, it's, they really don't think they can afford it. So a single payer plan would really be beneficial to small business. Their employees would therefore have health insurance.So what that means, in the case of small business, is first of all, it gives them a boost in competition. Because right now, what happens, you're a small business, and you can barely pay a wage, but you can't provide benefits. Well, guess what? If you get a good employee, if you're able to get a good employee, qualified employee, as soon as they get an offer at a bigger company that's providing even a comparable wage, but providing benefits, they're gone.Lisa Kiefer:They take it. Because people need benefits.Eric Leenson:People need benefits, because you can't exist in this society.Lisa Kiefer:And they have children, and-Eric Leenson:Right. So, basically, it would sort of level the playing field for them, in a way that doesn't exist today. It would also be a real boon for entrepreneurs. Because a lot of people that would like to start their own businesses don't do it, because they're afraid of leaving where they are, because I have health benefits. And they can't go out on their own, and you know, they're taking a risk already by opening a business. You're doubling that by the question of providing for healthcare.Now I should mention this. I mean, the Affordable Care Act, it was passed,, Obamacare has helped the situation. I mean, a lot of people are able to get health insurance now, that are entrepreneurs, that weren't able to previously. But that's all up in in question.Now this will be tremendously beneficial for small business. Large business is a different story. It's a different story, because again, they have the resources to function within the system. Warren Buffett, the famous investor, has called healthcare the tapeworm of the US economy. You can't have a globally competitive economy that has 20% of the cost of healthcare.I mean, right now, the US businesses that go to Canada, and have the, the single payer system there, you know, are thrilled, because it reduces their costs significantly.Lisa Kiefer:And they can put that money toward capital investments, and-Eric Leenson:Employment, the whole, the whole business.Lisa Kiefer:Yeah.Eric Leenson:But you've got a situation in which, and in fact, there are a lot of initiatives now, starting up, of private companies that are beginning to do their own health insurance.I know there was a very, there's a very famous new grouping formed by Warren Buffett, I'm going to get this wrong, I guess Microsoft, and Citibank, I guess, that is looking into how they can provide health insurance for their combined million employees. Because they can't fathom the present system as being so expensive, that it's just not workable for them.Lisa Kiefer:And so, what you, backing up to what you said about large. So you're saying, it doesn't affect large businesses so much, because they have so much more moneyEric Leenson:Well, it does. I mean, it's gotten to the point where it is affecting large business so much, that they're looking for alternative solutions, but at the same time, they're not really interested in doing a generalized single payer type route for the whole society. They believe, first of all, for the businesses that don't want to do single payer, they believe they can handle it regardless, because of their incomes.And the other thing that's important is, a lot of the larger businesses, especially in like a Silicon Valley situation, they use health benefits as a perk to get employees, to attract employees. So there are a lot of large companies that don't want to give up the control of healthcare, because they see that as a way they provide value for their employees-Lisa Kiefer:Right.Eric Leenson:In a competitive mode. The other aspect is, you know, ideologically, there's generally a distrust of government. And even though you can show the numbers till you're blue in the face, they're going to raise this as, "Well, you know, we prefer a private enterprise solution. We don't trust government. The quality's going to be bad. Who's going to really be responsible?"So those are the issues. But at the same time, as I started to say, it's gotten so out of control, the costs, have gotten so out of control, that businesses now are beginning to set up their own alternative systems, in which they will negotiate the prices of services.For example, now you have companies that are contracting with specialized hospitals around the country, whereby, if one of their employees needs a specialized operation, they send them to that hospital rather than a local hospital.Lisa Kiefer:To most people here, it's a no brainer. Is there anything that could go awry with a single payer system here? What could go wrong?Eric Leenson:What could go wrong?Lisa Kiefer:Yeah.Eric Leenson:The people putting it together could be incompetent, and really not make it as efficient or as beneficial for the general population. I mean, it's got to be done carefully. It's complex. You run into a situation where you're now giving all these wonderful benefits to citizens. What happens in the case of an economic downturn? The government's on the hook now.Lisa Kiefer:Yes, in this case, it would be the state of California.Eric Leenson:Well, if there were single payer in California.Lisa Kiefer:Yeah.Eric Leenson:Yes, yes.Lisa Kiefer:And Jerry Brown had said that he, in 10 years, he predicted a serious downturn.Eric Leenson:Right.Lisa Kiefer:I don't know what he was basing that on specifically, but-Eric Leenson:Right. But then, I think it's important to look at values. I mean, you look at what a government is for, what our society should stand for. Well, it seems to me, that healthcare is a right, that everyone should have access to good healthcare. And if you have to pay for it, well guess what? You have to pay for it. And you figure out how a society should do that.Maybe there are other parts of the budget that are not so important as healthcare might be, especially for people that don't have any, or are really underserved.Lisa Kiefer:Well, what is it people should be looking at?Eric Leenson:We have the elections coming up now in November. I would really encourage people to look at the candidates, and what their standards are on this issue of single payer.And again, unfortunately, you have to go below the surface, because rhetorically, all the Democrats are going to be it. But within the Democrats, you have people that really want to push it now, and others who are gradualists, that say, "Look, we can't do anything for the foreseeable future. It's not worth the time."Well, that I think that's a defeatist attitude that we have to, you know, look out against. I mean, I know, here in this Assembly race, we have a situation like that, where there's one candidate who probably is mouthing the words, because they sound good, and one who's really serious about it. Then I would say, once the elections happen, to really hold people's feet to the fire, if they're elected based on the fact that they're going to do something, really, don't let them get away without doing anything. Just sort of, you know, work.There'll be groups organized to put pressure on legislators to continue to fight for it. I mean, again, it's going to be a process. There's so many stakeholders involved in this issue. There needs to be coming together of the various groupings.And one thing that has happened, you're probably not aware of, is that in the last budget, there was a $5 million allocated to set up a commission to study how to implement what they call unified healthcare financing. Now, they specifically didn't say single payer, but we believe the intention is to certainly consider single payer within that. Because it'd be very interesting to see-Lisa Kiefer:You're not involved in that-Eric Leenson:How it goes.Lisa Kiefer:Are you, on that committee?Eric Leenson:Oh, no, no, no. This is going to be, this is a five-person committee, that three people were selected by the Governor, one by the Assembly, and one by the Senate, and we're hoping to get at least one strong single payer representative on that grouping.We're going have to see, because again, it could be, we've seen it before. This could be a bluff, where they put together a commission to study something, which means, "Okay, we don't have to deal with it for two or three years."Lisa Kiefer:"We're still studying it."Eric Leenson:Because we've got a commission going on it, right?Lisa Kiefer:Yeah. Well, Eric, if people have questions for you, or do you have a website you would direct them to?Eric Leenson:Sure. They can go to the Business Alliance for a Healthy California.Lisa Kiefer:And I have to say it's a good website. That's where I found the link to the documentary, Fix it. I really highly recommend it to anyone, and you can watch it on Vimeo, online and everything, and-Eric Leenson:And we're sort of in the, in the process of repositioning, because as I say, things are going to change dramatically, once we see who become the new elected officials, particularly on the Governor's side, and the poss... It's going to open up a whole, especially if Gavin Newsom wins election, a whole new set of possibilities to be explored about really trying to do something positive.Lisa Kiefer:Well, thank you for being on the program.Eric Leenson:Sure. Thank you.Lisa Kiefer:You've been listening to Method to the Madness, a biweekly public affairs show on KALX Berkeley, celebrating Bay area innovators. You can find all of our podcasts on iTunes University. We'll be back again in two weeks. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Host Ali Nazar interviews Jason Marsh, Editor in Chief of the Greater Good Science Center, on the campus organizations work on quantifying what makes people happy.Transcript:Ali Nazar:You're listening to KALX Berkeley 90.7 FM, University of California and listener supported radio. And this is Method to the Madness coming at you from the Public Affairs Department here at CalX, exploring the innovative spirit of the Bay Area. I'm your host, Ali Nazar. Thanks for joining us today. And with me in studio I have Jason Marsh, the founding editor-in-chief of Greater Good magazine. Hey Jason, how's it going?Jason Marsh:All right, how are you? Thanks for having me.Ali Nazar:I'm good, thanks for coming in. And so, we have lots of founders on of organizations and I always asked the same question to start because you usually create something because you see like a gap. You're trying to fill something. So what's the kind of the problem statement that Greater Good is trying to solve?Jason Marsh:Sure. Well they're really to kind of at the heart of of Greater Good. And one is that there is a whole lot of great research and big ideas generated within universities like Cal, that never really see the light of day, never really make it out into the world and have an impact to improve peoples' quality of life, to improve relationships, to public policy or education. And so, Greater Good was really born to this idea that we should have a more of a bridge between science and practice. There should be ways where the fruits of research, should really make its way out to the public, to really benefit the public, improve public wellbeing really broadly and improve individual wellbeing, improved the way people relate to one another and improve institutions, like schools and workplaces and healthcare systems and and political systems as well. And really, the second animating idea behind Greater Good was that there's this fundamental misconception about human nature.There is, has been a prevailing belief that we're sort of born bad, born aggressive, born antisocial. And yet, there was this emerging body of research over time really pointing to this more positive narrative about human nature. Suggesting that actually there are really deeply rooted propensities for goodness, for altruism, for compassion. And by changing that narrative and changing what people expect humans are capable of, we can really change behavior and really change some of those institutions as well for the better. So there was really this marriage of ideas that there's a real need to get the word out about this research coming out of academia, coming out of social science, to really change people's understanding of who they are, what they're capable of and in effect, provide a huge bridge between what the scientific community was starting to understand and what the rest of the world could really benefit from.Ali Nazar:Wow. It sounds amazing and so needed in these times. And it makes me wonder about kind of the history of the science of happiness. Like that doesn't seem like a science, when you think about sciences. What is the history behind this study?Jason Marsh:Sure. So, backing up, for decades really, for much of the 20th century, a lot of psychology and other behavioral, cognitive, social sciences were really focused on the roots of pathologies. The roots of why is it that people do evil, do bad things, how to institutions become corrupt. But starting, there had been this strain of research that really toward the late nineties started to take off and focusing on, let's look not just at human pathology, let's look not just to what's wrong with people, but really try to understand what can go right and how we can actually help people have a greater sense of thriving and happiness and wellbeing, both to address some of the deficiencies that we experience and also to take certain situations where people might feel like they are just sort of getting by in life and to really infuse a greater sense of thriving, of happiness, of wellbeing, to really create in some ways a more positive ripple effect through society as a whole.And so, that there has been this growing movement, some call positive psychology, in some ways to distinguish it from other strains of psychology. Focusing really on happiness and wellbeing, and our center has in some ways built on some of that research, but we've also really drawn on work, not just on individual happiness and personal wellbeing, but really social relationships. And there's, at the same time, it's been a growing emphasis, not just on personal happiness, but on social relationships, on compassion, on altruism, really what makes people do good and what makes people feel good.Ali Nazar:So that it's a relatively new science is what you're saying.Jason Marsh:Yeah.Ali Nazar:Late nineties, so it's a 21st century type of study.Jason Marsh:Exactly. Yeah.Ali Nazar:Interesting. Okay. So before we dive further into what Greater Good does, can you tell me a little about yourself? Like how did you come to become founding editor of a magazine dedicated to this topic?Jason Marsh:Sure. Yeah. I sometimes think of myself as like the luckiest guy in Berkeley. I came out here in the early 2000s, about 2002, just at the time, the center ... At the time, the center was called the Center for the Development of Peace and Wellbeing. So it was a a real mouthful. And it was a bunch of psychology faculty who kind of knew, really broadly that they had this mission to take this new research of wellbeing, new research of compassion and generosity and help get it out to a wider audience. But they didn't quite know how to do that. They didn't have as much experience on the communication side, on the journalism side.My background's in journalism, I got connected to the faculty. They basically invited me to pitch what I would do with some kind of publication focused on this research, on these topics. I had been doing something sort of coincidentally somewhat similar type of work in Washington, DC had been editing this more political journal on civic engagement and community building. A lot of overlap and so put together kind of my dream job basically for what I would do with a a magazine along these lines that I thought would really be beneficial and really make a big public impact and really help people. And you know the team, liked the idea, we developed the first issue as a pilot and that was published in 2004, and it's kind of taken off from there.Ali Nazar:14 years later.Jason Marsh:Yeah.Ali Nazar:Still publishing, is it a monthly/quarterly, what is it?Jason Marsh:So it started off as a print magazine. It became a quarterly, 2009 we shifted to be entirely online so it's now, Greater Good magazine is now entirely online. And then, since that time as well, we've grown other programs and projects out of Greater Good. So there's still the hub, Greater Good, greatergood.berkeley.edu, is still the hub of all kinds of content, thousands of articles and videos and podcasts. But we have also an events series, a couple of online courses, host of other programs, all basically focused on the same research.Ali Nazar:Cool. Well I want to get more into kind of what you guys do and the breadth of it. Right now we're talking to Jason Marsh, he's the founding editor and chief of Greater Good magazine right here on campus at UC Berkeley. And before we get into the breadth of programs, I did want to get a little bit more into that founding story of the Greater Good center itself, because this show really focuses on this kind of spark of how do things grow from this one idea. So it sounds like you had could walked into an organization that would just kind of beginning, can you give us the history of it?Jason Marsh:Yeah, so it's a really amazing and pretty powerful story. So, there were a couple Tom and Ruth Ann Hornaday, who graduated from Berkeley in the early sixties and then sadly in the nineties lost a daughter to cancer. And they both were trying to honor her memory and spirit and also build on their great love and affinity for Cal, and came to the university and said essentially, we want to do something to foster peace and wellbeing in the world and to honor her memory and honor ... But they knew it was really the great research and great ideas coming out of Cal. And they, together with George Breslauer, who was dean of social sciences at the time, came up with an idea for a center that'd be different than a lot of other centers at Cal or beyond, that it wouldn't just be focused on research. It would really be focused on taking research conducted at Cal and even more broadly and really focusing on getting that work out to the public. So it had a wider impact on families, on schools and society at large.So there was sort of this initial brainstorming committee of a few psychology faculty at Cal. So Dacher Keltner was our founding faculty director, Steve Hinshaw and Phil and Carolyn Callan were all psychology faculty whose research in one way or another, all focused on, how do we not only address sort of what's wrong with people, but help them build really lives, positive relationships. And so, together came up with the idea of ... and I should say as well, Dacher and and Steve and Phil and Carolyn, all were committed in their own work, not just to doing really top tier research, but also really to find innovative ways to get that work out to the public and have it serve a real public benefit.So, together they came up with the idea for a center that would do that, came up with the idea for a Center for the Development of Peace and Wellbeing. Fortunately, I was able to connect with them just at that moment where they're contemplating how to really get the center out to a wider audience, get the research out to a wider audience. And I should say a few years after that, after Greater Good launched as a print magazine, we changed the name of the center to be the Greater Good Science Center, instead of the Center for the Development of Peace and Wellbeing.Ali Nazar:Yeah, Greater Good's a little catchier.Jason Marsh:A little catchier, a lot of confusion about what exactly we did. And it was also really hard and long to say.Ali Nazar:Okay. So you're ... Jason, you're someone who traffics in this knowledge of what makes people happy. So I have to ask you the question, what makes people happy?Jason Marsh:A good question. So the simple answer is strong social connections and positive relationships. There's a line from the research though, sort of with a caveat, is a line from the research saying relationships are necessary but not sufficient to happiness, right? So, if you don't have positive relationships, it's going to be really hard to find true happiness in life. And yet, it's not just about relationships itself. There could be other factors, other extenuating circumstances, other things in play that could still hinder your happiness. But the relationships are often really a foundation and key starting point.So out of that work, there's been a whole host of studies, lots of research looking at the benefits and also how do you then build successful connections? How do you build successful relationships that are so strongly linked to happiness? I should say as well, when we talk about happiness, we're not just talking about fleeting feelings of pleasure, and just feeling good. A definition that we use is, it is partly about positive emotion, but it's also about this deeper sense of purpose and meaning and satisfaction with your life, that goes beyond just moment to moment experiences of pleasure. So that's why our tagline actually for the Center is a science of a meaningful life. Right? This deeper sense of goodness or commitment to something beyond the self.Ali Nazar:It's really interesting that that's the definition as you see it, because it speaks to the interdependence that we all have on each other, as opposed to like, you know, it's a very American, I think concept to be very independent.Jason Marsh:Exactly.Ali Nazar:To not need anybody. So, it's like our society is maybe not set up to be happy in some ways if that's what you guys have found in the science.Jason Marsh:Right. Yeah, exactly. And that's, in some ways, makes the work somewhat challenging, we're running against some pretty big cultural currents. At the same time, that's what gets us up in the morning to feel like there is a need for the work, it isn't just something that people are already completely embracing, and you know that's already, totally dominant beliefs or practices in our culture there are these competing ideas. And don't get me wrong, I think there's a lot to be said obviously, for individualism and for independence, but part of our work and part of the research suggests is that it's really important to find the right balance, right? Between both pursuing your own personal goals and dreams and wellbeing and also recognizing the ways that you are also living in community. Your actions affect others and a lot of your wellbeing is both contingent on and helps to influence the wellbeing and contributions of others.Ali Nazar:So have you ... I would think in the science of happiness, there's been studies of many different cultures and like this is a social science, right?Jason Marsh:Yeah.Ali Nazar:So that's a lot of like looking at long trends and surveys and stuff like that. So what are some of the learnings that have been found from other countries that maybe aren't as individualistic capitalistic as America?Jason Marsh:Yeah, so you know, it's a great question. In the last five, 10 years or so, there's been, as the science of happiness has taken off and really gone global in a lot of ways, there has emerged a broader sense on happiness around the world. There is now a world happiness report, put out sort of in connection with the UN regularly, that often finds that the countries that are ranked the highest on measures of happiness, looking at several different factors, are the ones that have in some ways a a stronger egalitarian spirit, have a stronger sort of social democratic tradition of greater commitment to the common good and less inequality.So, a lot of those values that are more community-minded, more civically-minded, often translate into greater happiness for individuals within the country itself. Which is sort of paradoxical, right? We often think about those two things being somewhat at odd, right? Like having to sacrifice your needs for the greater good. When in fact like actually having that commitment to the greater good, having a commitment to something bigger than yourself. Having a a culture and even on government that tries to foster that greater sense of like, we're all in this together. Actually, the individuals within those societies, do better, feel better individually as well.Ali Nazar:Are there any places in the world, like if you're, you know, looking to be an expat American, you want to become a happy person, where should we go?Jason Marsh:Denmark always ranks really high. Denmark, Norway-Ali Nazar:Scandinavians.Jason Marsh:And other countries. Yeah. Costa Rica does as well actually often in a lot of those surveys.Ali Nazar:Is there a correlation between higher tax rates and happiness?Jason Marsh:That's been looked at a little bit, because [crosstalk]Ali Nazar:A little bit of theoretically that's the go for ... you're giving it to other people, right?Jason Marsh:Right, exactly. Yeah. I mean there's, that the tax rate itself hasn't, I wouldn't say it's been proven as a definite cause or clear determinant of happiness, but certainly there were a lot of other sort of correlational data, a lot of other data suggesting that there is a strong relationship. At the very least, there's evidence suggesting that inequality is bad for happiness, right? And inequality is also bad for pro social behavior as well. Pro social as supposed to antisocial behavior, right? So in situations where there are greater power imbalances, it's not just bad for the person who is on the lower end of the totem pole, but also for someone who is in a higher level of status, there's evidence suggesting that they're actually their skills at connecting with other people being more altruistic, being more compassionate, those skills are actually compromised by their elevated status. So all the kinds of skills that you need really to make the kinds of connections that are linked to happiness are impeded by elevated status.Ali Nazar:Yeah, it's really, really fascinating. We're talking to Jason Marsh, he's the founding editor-in-chief of Greater Good magazine from the Greater Good Science Center right here on campus. You're listening to Method to the Madness on KALX Berkeley 90.7 FM, I'm your host, Ali Nazar.And so, one of the founding principles of this center is to bridge the gap between academia and the real world. And so, I was looking at your guys' website, you have a lot of programs for different types of real world applications. So I'd like to dive-in a little bit about kind of how you guys are delivering on that promise of the mission. So first let's talk about parents and families, it's one of the constituencies you kind of name on your website. And I'm a member of a family and it's hard, with little kids and all that. And so happiness is a thought that comes around a lot, because like you're kind of always yelling at some little kid to do something. So what have you guys found and how do you apply research to that setting?Jason Marsh:Sure. So, I mean, one of the main things we've tried to do, really from day one, is to produce quality research-based materials, resources for parents who are often up at 2:00 AM, I've been in this case with a kid of my own, googling ways, looking for ways to be a better parent, to yell less at your kids, to be more understanding, be more patient. And so, part of our focus has been from day one, to really focus not just on common wisdom, conventional wisdom, but really what the research suggests are really effective ways to foster happiness and wellbeing within families. And also to raise kids with the kinds of skills that lead them to a sort of happy and meaningful lives. So from early-on we had produced, when we had the print magazine, a lot of articles on families and child development.We had for a number of years a really popular parenting blog called Raising Happiness by actually a Berkeley PhD, Christine Carter, who wrote a book of the same name, that also proved to be a really great resource for parents. And more recently we've actually launched a new parenting initiative, we have a great parenting director at the center, Miriam Abdula who runs a program, where she's both writing about the science of wellbeing for parents and families. And also, running a program where we give out grants, sort of modest sized grants to different community-based programs around the country that want their work to serve parents and help their kids, help parents help their kids develop the kinds of skills that we know are linked to happiness and wellbeing and leading sort of positive, meaningful lives. So providing both funding and also helping to connect those programs to researchers who can help ground their work a little bit more deeply in the research to make sure that there's a really strong scientific basis to it.Ali Nazar:Okay, cool. And tell me about some of the other programs. I saw there was a bunch of different people or constituencies that you kind of focus on, but tell me about some of the main programs right now.Jason Marsh:Yeah, so like parents, we've also focused a lot on educators over the years. Really helping people who are trying to help kids, especially both so that they can provide useful resources and tools for kids and also to serve their own wellbeing. Right? I mean, educators, there's huge demands, a lot of stressors, a lot of evidence that there's really great burnout and turnover in the profession. So we've tried to provide resources both so that teachers can better serve their students and also so they can better serve themselves and make sure that they don't burn out.So similarly, we've a whole host of resources on our website for teachers. We also for the last six years, have run a summer institute for educators. We've had teachers come from just about every state in the country, from dozens of countries around the world, to come to Berkeley for a week and get really a crash course in the science of wellbeing and explore together how they can take the science and really apply it meaningfully to their classroom.And now more recently, our education team is developing a new resource coming soon, early in 2019, really to serve as a clearing house, really the best tools, best resources, best practices and strategies, so that to make it even easier for teachers to take all this wisdom from the science and really incorporate it into their classroom, into their school, without having to add yet another thing on their agenda to make it as seamless and hopefully as painless as possible.Ali Nazar:Cool. Well it sounds like there's ... your website has a lot of tools it sounds like, for helping people to access the different programs you have. And then when I was looking through, there's a breadth of things you guys do. There's events, there's content being published and-Jason Marsh:Yep, exactly.Ali Nazar:So I did want to ask about, you talked about what makes people happy, but this science, I would think in the study of this would give you some tips on how to change someone who's not happy to become happy. Like that's the trick, right?Jason Marsh:Yeah.Ali Nazar:There's a lot of people out there who are weighted down by a lot of different stressors of all different types. So what's your recommendation? You guys have all access to all this knowledge. If there's a listener who's not happy, what should they do?Jason Marsh:Yeah, so there are ... it's been a really big question in the field, right? Because early on, focus on happiness was like, let's just figure out if we can take people who are, you know, moderately happy and try to make them happier. More recently, there's been a focus on, let's look at more at risk populations and people even who are having suicidal thoughts are at risk for depression, and see if a lot of these same strategies can be effective for them as well. And fortunately, many of them have been. There are ... should say, like offer the caveat right up front for people dealing with serious depression or serious psychiatric problems, it's still, most important for them to see a mental health professional. The tools that we offer on the site are not supposed to be a substitute for therapy say.But certainly there's a huge number of people who just feel like ... who are kind of unhappy, who are maybe struggling with maybe some symptoms of depression or just feel like they're not as satisfied with their lives they'd like to be. And so that, the research has found, successfully found that there are ways that they can actually benefit over time. One of the big focuses of that work has been on gratitude as a practice. Right? So there's been, for the last 20 years or so, a huge emerging science of gratitude. We focused on a lot, which in some ways is just really simply, recognizing and appreciating the gifts and good things in your life, that you might otherwise take for granted. Right? So they basic idea is, there are lots of positive things that might happen to us over the course of a day that we just kind of ignore or take for granted.And by training our minds over time and focusing a little bit more deliberately on some of those good things, we can gradually kind of change the narrative that we're telling ourselves about our lives and change kind of the emotional tone of our lives, so that it ceases just to be about the ways that people have taken advantage of you or been mean to you. But you start to recognize ways that people have actually gone out of their way to be kind to you and nice things that people have done for you and you see yourself differently in relation to others. You see other people differently and you see sort of human nature differently as well. So, and at the same time, you're creating more of these positive memories, right? By actually noticing and appreciating and savoring more positive experiences, you're then creating these positive memories you can return to over time as well. So it provides both these greater momentary experiences of happiness and also these greater lasting memories and lasting resonating feelings of happiness as well.Ali Nazar:It's so interesting that you say that we're speaking with Jason Marsh is a founding editor of Greater Good magazine. It's interesting that you say that because our society is moving to a place with less time and less and less time. So like you're talking about getting space to recognize positive things and have gratitude for it, but it feels like we have less and less space.Jason Marsh:Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's a huge issue and I think that's been something we focus on in the last few years, especially is the impact of new technology, especially on wellbeing, on being able to hone a lot of these skills. Because yeah, I mean gratitude, there's also a huge emerging science, which a lot of people have read about on mindfulness. A lot of it places really strong emphasis on taking moments essentially to pause and notice your surroundings. Even savor and appreciate some of the good you might pass by otherwise. And that is really at odds both with the pace of our culture, with our work lives, with technology. And so, in some ways it's a great challenge, but in some ways it's calling for the need for these practices to be as widely spread and embraced or embraced as widely as possible because there are so many other forces that are pushing in the opposite direction.Ali Nazar:Yeah, yeah, well the work is really needed. So I appreciate you coming in and telling us about it. I always end interviews Method to the Madness with the same question. This is an organization founded with a thesis to help bridge the gap between the academic research on happiness and getting it out there in the world. So, if everything went perfect five years from now, like what would the goal of Greater Good Center look like?Jason Marsh:Yeah. So if everything went well five years from now, we've been asking this question of ourselves a lot lately. I think we would see a lot of the tools and ideas we're putting out in the world, embraced not just by more individuals. Like we were really pleased to see the growth in our organization as ... in general. We-Ali Nazar:How many people work there?Jason Marsh:When we are a print magazine, let's see, we have a staff of 14 but other Grad students and faculty who are involved. When we started as a print magazine, we reached 5,000 subscribers. We now have about 600,000 unique visitors to the website each month. We have an online course that's enrolled about 600,000 students as well.Ali Nazar:Anybody can enroll?Jason Marsh:Anybody can roll. It's a free course. Anybody can access the resources on the website, they're all free. So that's all really, really gratifying to see so many individuals really hungering for and based on our own surveys and research, seemingly benefiting from those resources. However, we feel like there's still just really huge needs in organizations and institutions. In our education system, in our healthcare system, in our workplaces. And we're starting more and more to work more directly with schools and districts and companies and leaders in healthcare, and where we'd really like to go and where we'd like to see the work go is to see it embedded even more directly to inform and really influence and shape the policies and best practices within some of those major institutions that just have influence over, millions if not billions of people worldwide.Ali Nazar:Cool. Well, it's a great vision and mission. So thanks for coming in today, Jason.Jason Marsh:Thanks for having me.Ali Nazar:We've been speaking with Jason Marsh, he's a founding editor-in-chief of Greater Good magazine. And Jason, just a quick plug for people want to understand how to get involved and access these resources. Can you tell them how to do it?Jason Marsh:Yeah, thanks Ali. Best place to go is our Greater Good magazine website, that's greatergood.berkeley.edu. And best way to stay on top of what we're doing and stay in touch is to sign-up from that site for our free weekly newsletter.Ali Nazar:Okay, great. Well you heard right here, this is KALX Berkeley. I'm your host Ali Nazar and Methods to the Madness. Thanks for joining everybody, and thanks again for joining us, Jason, and everybody have a great Friday. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Host Ali Nazar interviews Shaun Tai, Executive Director for Oakland Digital, on the organization's innovative approach to bringing tech and design jobs to underserved populations in the East Bay.Transcript:Ali Nazar:You're listening to KALX Berkeley, 90.7 FM, University of California and listener-supported radio, and this is Method to the Madness, coming at you from the Public Affairs department here at KALX, celebrating the innovative spirit of the Bay Area. I'm your host, Ali Nazar, and today with me I have Shaun Tai on the phone. He's the Executive Director of Oakland Digital. Hey, Shaun, how's it going?Shaun Tai:Hey, what's up, man? How are you doing?Ali Nazar:Pretty good. Really appreciate you joining us today.Shaun Tai:Oh, man. I'm happy to be here, man, and spread the knowledge. Spread that inspiration. I'm ready.Ali Nazar:Okay. Great. I always start this program with the same question, because you are a founder of an organization, and founders usually come to the decision to put so much energy into something like starting an organization, and dedicating their blood, sweat, and tears to it because they see a problem in the world. Tell us, what is the problem statement that Oakland Digital is trying to solve?Shaun Tai:Communities of color, specifically community college students, lack the same opportunities afforded to privileged communities. We focus specifically on artists of color, predominantly women of color, that are looking to break into a design career. Our problem really stems from, honestly, my own story of not quite the community college level, but the state level, of Cal State-East Bay, which I love. The teachers are doing a great job. They're teaching software. But they don't have the resources, and to be honest, the time, to be like, "Yo, check this out. Here's what they do at Twitter. Here's what they do at Facebook. Here's what they do at the local agency level." That's what Oakland Digital does, is we take those students and get their foot in the door, of not just tech, but business, non-profits, and some really cool creative agencies.Ali Nazar:Cool. Okay. You alluded to a little bit about your background and how you got to this. Can you tell us a little bit about you and where you come from?Shaun Tai:Man, well I come from the Bay Area, man. As anyone listening knows, the Bay is super real, authentic, dope, to be honest. It's just real. I've always wanted to do something real with my life. My dad passed away when I was two months old. I was raised by a single mother. Very small family. Born and raised by an entrepreneur. A woman entrepreneur of color. That was just the ultimate inspiration, from a work-ethic standpoint, of seeing my mom work seven days a week in Oakland, running a furniture design studio. Just seeing that work-ethic of not just her going to work, and showing up early, but coming back home and cooking for me and my brother.Then, after she cooked dinner, sketching, so 10:00 p.m., 11:00 p.m., and faxing those designs to a factor in Hong Kong to just create some dope furniture. Create things. That mix of creativity, that mix of hard work, really passed on to me, and that's what gave me that spirit of not just creating, but doing something with meaning and purpose.In my mom's case, it was making her customers happy with some great furniture. For me, it was how do I give back to the community with things that I love? Creativity, technology, community, social good, social impact. Really, my mom gets full kudos and credit for being my inspiration.Ali Nazar:Nice. She sounds like an amazing woman.Shaun Tai:She is.Ali Nazar:She put that idea into your brain, and that spirit into you, but what about your training. Did you go have another job or a career before starting Oakland Digital?Shaun Tai:Yeah, man, I'm, dude, I'm glad you asked. I know we were talking offline about music, and how powerful music is. In 2006, my partner Ray Luv, who's actually a Bay Area rap legend ... I grew up on Mac Mall, [inaudible] Tupac's music. We got together and created a YouTube channel when it wasn't hot. YouTube was cool in 2006, but it wasn't what it is now, with people getting billions of hits.We created a show called Pushin' the Bay TV, where we chronicled the Bay Area hip-hop and rap history. Interviewing people from Shock G, Dru Down, Spice 1, Too Short, E-40, The Jacka, rest in peace, and all of these Bay Area rap legends who did not have an online presence, right? But we were the first to say, "Hey, why don't we do this and celebrate the beautiful rap history in the Bay?"Ray Luv and I, we would just go around and interview people. We went down to L.A., East Coast. What I found was how powerful technology was. Specifically the YouTube platform. In one year, we received around 14 million views, and for that time, that was groundbreaking, and ground-shattering. What I found from talking to the young people was how influenced they were by these videos.But what I learned about the game were some of the things that were, I don't want to say negative, but definitely not the things I wanted to promote. After a year of success, and things were going up, I actually decided to give it up, and to cancel, because I wanted to do something for social good. Not that it wasn't powerful. Not that it wasn't getting impressions, but I thought, "How do we use tech for good?"That very simple core of "tech for good" is what birthed the Oakland Digital spirit of tech for good, and then, of course, myself being a designer and a creative, "creative tech for good," right? Those concepts birthed the idea of how do we help artists become professionals? Just like that young 13 year-old watching that YouTube video, how do I not just consume this technology, but create something cool, too, and then take those skills to get a career?That's the birth of OD. Oakland Digital.Ali Nazar:Wow, man. That's such a powerful story. Thank you for sharing it. We're speaking to Shaun Tai, who is the Executive Director of Oakland Digital, here on Method to the Madness on KALX Berkeley.Not a lot of people would have the guts to leave a burgeoning career like that, and take a left turn and follow their passion, so that's definitely commendable. I'd love to hear about, after you got to that point of understanding that, "Okay, I want to do something for social good? Creative tech for good." How did you then formulate the idea of how Oakland Digital would actually be an organization pursuing that goal?Shaun Tai:Yeah, I mean, I did gloss over a few details, like one of the biggest things that I learned while doing Pushin' the Bay TV was, there was an event at Stanford. I know you guys are rivals, but Stanford. Shout out to them, too. I met MC Hammer, Chamillionaire, and Mistah Fab, and Quincy Jones III, with Ray Luv and Mac Mall. They're friends. Everyone in the rap industry is friends.When I met MC Hammer, that day, he was introducing this crazy idea called Twitter. This is 2006, 2007. It was this thing that, in 140 characters, you could write about what you're doing. The whole crowd was confused, because here are effectively three rappers that are using this thing called Twitter, and in the crowd, I think very few people were.That's when I learned like, yo, tech doesn't have to be disseminated by the top-down. It can be actually by the community-up. After that day, actually, that same day, I went up to MC Hammer, and I'm like, "Yo, I'm here with Ray Luv and Mac Mall, who you know. Much respect. I love everything from your music career, but also your entrepreneurship. How do I get in touch?" Because he's like, "I love Oakland. I love the A's. I love technology."I tweeted him that night, ironically, I tweeted him, and from that year exchange, back and forth, we became friends. He's still an advisor to Oakland Digital, to this day. Between finding mentors, advisors, early on, to finding people that believed in the vision. Board of directors, co-founders, people that just believe in what you're doing.Then, of course, here's the big thing. Legal. After MC Hammer's like, "Yo, I'm with that idea of tech for good." I was walking down, and this is a true story, I was walking down Broadway, and I see City Hall, in Oakland. I literally said, "I'm just going to walk into City Hall and find out how to start a non-profit."I remember going up inside, checking in with the security guard, going up to the ninth floor, I believe. I met with this lady named Kathy Littles. I don't know if she's still around, but shout-out to Kathy Littles. I said, "I want to start a non-profit that's tech for good." She was like, "What is tech?" She literally said, "What is tech?" Because you have to remember, at this time, '08, right? "Tech" didn't exist in Oakland the way it does now. That was 10 years ago. Nobody even understood the word "tech."I said, "Well, it's these companies like Google, and Facebook, and how do we use that for good?" She was like, "Oh, okay. Well, here's a stack of contacts." Literally probably 10 pieces of paper, front-to-back, of non-profit people. "Contact all of them, then get back to me." Literally, I looked at it like, "Yo, this is crazy." I asked, "Well, how do I get paid?"She laughed. She said, "Non-profits, you've got to fundraise." I was like, "How often?" She laughed again. She said, "You've got to fundraise every day. Every week." I just didn't get the concept, coming from a for-profit background. I literally took that stack of papers, but I found one piece of paper where I started. I just called everyone. I just called everyone. Some had phone numbers, some had e-mails.Then I finally e-mailed one person. She's an artist. She's the only person that got back to me from probably a week of phone calls and e-mails. She said, "I have an art non-profit. Now it's defunct, but a guy named Don Tamaki, who is the," I think she used the term "godfather of Asian law. He helped us get started, but he's too big for you, Shaun. He won't get back to you."I remember cold-calling this law firm, Minami Tamaki LLP, shout-out to them. They're still in the SF. The receptionist picked up, and I said, "Hey, I'm Shaun. I'm just doing a cold call. Could I talk to Don Tamaki?" Just like wide-eyed, didn't know what the hell I was doing. He didn't pick up, but an assistant picked up and said, "Okay, I just shared that you want to start this non-profit. He said come in." On this date and that time, and I go in, and I think I'm wearing jeans and a shirt. I pitched this. There was two gentlemen next to him, who I found out later is his son and his son's friend, who go to Cal, by the way. They were interning with him for the summer.I threw this pitch about "tech for good." Completely vague. It was so bad, I don't even know what it was, but it was really bad. But he saw that passion of helping people with tech for good, and with design. Just taking everything that I cared about and presenting that, right? At the end, he was like, "Shaun, I'm going to help you get incorporated. Get your bylaws. Build your board. I'm going to put my son on this project."Really, that combination of passion, that combination of timing. There's a huge one for your listeners. Things have a time period and time relevance. You know what I'm saying? You can't come up now and start the next Snapchat. That's already over, right? Timing-wise, Oakland was not hit with tech yet. Timing-wise, Don Tamaki had his son interning, right? All of this things had, timing-wise, MC Hammer's talking about Twitter. You know what I'm saying? All of these things just were like a storm of positivity, and just relentlessness, to do something very positive for the community. Right?After that, he helped get us incorporated. We got incorporated July of 2009. And yo, now we're in Downtown Oakland, and we have benches, billboards, bus ads, helped almost 5,000 people to-date. We're just doing big things.Ali Nazar:That's awesome. Well, it's a great story, and I think a really great example of there is a serendipity to the formation of an organization like this. There's the timing, but there's also the passion. The passion that bubbling up from things that have happened in your life, is another thing that depends upon timing, and so-Shaun Tai:Right.Ali Nazar:We're speaking with Shaun Tai today. He's the Executive Director of Oakland Digital, on Method to the Madness here on KALX Berkeley. July 2009, and we're sitting here in 2018. It's been almost 10 years, so just tell me about that journey. You got some momentum there. You got your organization set up. But it's not a clear product or service yet, so how did you get to where you are today, with all of those numbers you just quoted. 5,000 people helped.Shaun Tai:Oh, yeah. I'm so glad that you said that there's no clear purpose yet. I think what's wrong with now is that there's almost an abundance of resources. Speaking about UX and UI. You can download a mobile-UI kit and build a start-up right now, right? But I think what's so dope about that time is there was so much exploration to be done. Right? There weren't solutions, there were questions.Think about that. There were questions, not solutions, at that time. The fact that people believed in the vision, at that time, says something. We had no product, and I talked to one of my advisors at the time. He was only 19 or 20, but he had worked at HP and AOL at 14 years-old. He's just a genius dude. His name is Jordan.I was like, "Jordan, yeah, we're a non-profit now. What should we start doing?" He was like, "Shaun, what are you doing today?" I'm like, "Nothing." "Let's go downtown. Let's pick one block in Oakland." I think it was 14th Street in Oakland. "Let's just go up to every single small business there and ask them what do they need with design and marketing." Right?I remember going to our first business, a small business owned by a Black woman, and she was like, "Oh, my God. I was praying to God, like literally, that someone would come and help me." She was like, "I can't find my phone line." Out of everything in the world, right? "I can't find my phone line." And we [crosstalk]-Ali Nazar:You guys were a gift from God, huh? [crosstalk]-Shaun Tai:No, no. I mean, it was like, she just was like, you know how it is, you're sitting there every day, no one comes through the doors. It's desperation, right?Ali Nazar:Yeah. Yeah.Shaun Tai:We did that, and we were like, "How do people find you?" She was like, "Yelp." That's it, it was like, "Yelp." We literally claimed her business on Yelp. We hooked that up, took photos of her studio, helped clean up the room. That was our first client. Then word of mouth, just going to businesses, talking to students.Really, between helping these small businesses, predominantly women-owned businesses, just like my mom, and then helping local students, Laney College, we were like, "Great. We're helping these two different groups of people. How do we connect them?" Right? Get those young people skills, build up their resume, their portfolios.It's not just pairing them with non-profits and businesses, but solving problems, right? What we ended up doing was start building out programs. One's called Inspire Oakland, where we go to community colleges, and state-level colleges, and we say, "Do you want your artwork on a billboard?" The whole room says, "Yes." Right? We're getting them inspired to have a professional career.Right? Because at school, you're like, "Okay, I know PhotoShop. I know Illustrator. But how do you apply that to anything real?" We, effectively, with Inspire Oakland, are the clients for these students. They're designing billboards for us to spec. Literally, commercial-spec billboards, bleeds, color, visual hierarchy, following the creative brief, going through multiple revisions, iterations of designs. That's what gets the students really, really excited about their careers.We only pick six winners, and those are the winners you see up all over Oakland right now, buses, benches, and billboards. But the question that we ask all of the students is, "Do you want to be an apprentice at Oakland Digital?" Once the billboard competition ends, while the billboards go up, we select, from around 70-80 students, a cohort of 10-12 apprentices. Those are the students that, yo, once they get through Oakland Digital, they're ready for hire. That's what we're doing right now. We have 10 apprentices learning UX. These are raw artists that are super talented with pencil and pen, but not so much the digital space, right? The reason we pick the tech space as the formats and the learning environment is that those are the highest-paying jobs. Now, here's the thing, brother: we're not telling them to get tech jobs. In fact, I'm very proud that a lot of them don't want to get tech jobs. However, the mindset of design-thinking, the mindset of design sprints, the mindset of creating products, of launching [tings], notice I said "tings," not "things." Those are the same tings you need to be successful in the non-profit world, opening a small business. I was so proud when we were at eBay with the UX designers, and we have super-exclusive events. We're at Twitter, Salesforce, Google, Google.org every Wednesday. They're in the tech world, and these professionals ask, "What do you want to do after this apprenticeship?"I'm so happy to say 80% are like, "Do my own ting. Help our community." That's the answer I want, right? We're using tech as an educational platform, as a learning platform, to get those skills to game up, to level up, but the goal for us is how do we give back to our communities? Tech for good. Oakland Digital. Holla.Ali Nazar:Wow. Wow. So much going on there, what you just said, and really impressive how it's come from that. You founded it with passion, with not necessarily the concrete of what the programs are going to be, and now you have so many different programs. I have a couple questions about that. One is, in a cohort of, what is it? 70 or so students-Shaun Tai:Yeah.Ali Nazar:... and they're getting to be up on billboards, and whatnot, where's the funding sources coming for the non-profit right now? Is it all through, is it earned income from you guys selling services?Shaun Tai:Yeah, and I actually, I want to touch upon that, for anyone listening. What I hear from students a lot is, "I want a work-life balance." That's one. The second thing is, "I want to start my own business." My honest answer is, "If you want a work-life balance, do not start your own company." I want to make that very clear.Ali Nazar:[crosstalk].Shaun Tai:If you want a work-life balance, do not start your own company. Work for someone, go there at 10:00, go home at 5:00. You know what? Props to anyone that wants to do that. But just don't get it twisted that you can do both. I think you need to make that decision early on in your career, not later.Ali Nazar:[crosstalk].Shaun Tai:If you are ... How do you feel about that, brother?Ali Nazar:Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. You can't have everything. They're all good things, but some of them are mutually exclusive. That's what you're saying, and I agree.Shaun Tai:Absolutely. I'll start there, and I will say that for the first three, four years at Oakland Digital, I received zero dollars. I had a six-month gig at Facebook. I had a five-year gig doing marketing for the former Chief of Science at Amazon. Shout-out to Andreas Weigend, who teaches at Berkeley. I had all of these part-time jobs to pay the bills, but I realized that if I don't give up everything for one, I'll be good at few things, terrible at most of them, and not really great at one. Right?I found that what's the one that I would call my baby? I was like, "That's OD. Oakland Digital." What happened was, I dumped everything, kept OD, and that next year, which was 2015, Google funded us. To your point, Google.org funded Oakland Digital, because they saw us as one of the only groups in the Bay Area really using tech in creativity to empower overlooked talent, specifically communities of color. I was really proud that Google saw that vision.When we got that three-year grant from Google.org, shout-out to Justin, Adrian, [inaudible], and Chelsea. They saw that we were talented. We were raw. We were grassroots. We were making an impact, but we just needed some funding to make big tings happen. The question that we were addressing that they wanted to fund, the solution, was Bridgegood.com. It's a platform called BridgeGood, that connects talent to amazing opportunities.Right now, if you're an artist, you don't have an online portfolio, you can go to Bridgegood.com, you sign up. By the way, we don't sell your data. We're not making profit. It's a completely not-for-profit platform. You can sign up, get a free portfolio. You can attend VIP events, including working out of Google every Wednesday, going to cool places like LinkedIn, design studios, even small businesses. That's the way that we wanted to scale Oakland Digital, in a very organic way, because everything that you sign up for, we'll be there. We'll also introduce you to some key connects. That's our biggest funding partner, is Google.org, but I would say the majority of our funding, in terms of year-round, is just ordinary people. Like, "Yo, I just saw your bus ad. I think it's dope. How do I make a contribution?" Things like $50. $100.Another thing I'll say is, if you're trying to start a non-profit to make a living, or get money, I would also say don't do that. It's not necessarily rewarding financially, and I would say do it because you actually care about that, the mission, the impact. The non-profit world is equally as cutthroat as the business world. Everyone's fighting over the same funding. I just happened to be very lucky to have an amazing team around me that really cares deeply about the art community, but also about successful designers, and really getting involved in the tech world in a meaningful way. When I say "successful designers," I mean "making money from doing something you love," right? We all say that. We all hear it. But it is possible, but you do need to feel uncomfortable in the sense that you might hate tech. In the Bay, a lot of people do, but you still need to understand it, explore it, and break it down. Right? You don't want to just be ignorant towards it. You want to actually understand it, and see what makes it tick. Because we can take those same concepts and make non-profits blow up. I think that Oakland Digital is one of those examples of how do we use tech for good, and utilize those resources? Not just money, but talent, too. We have a lot of volunteers from the tech world. And give back to the community in real, deep, meaningful ways?Ali Nazar:Wow, so that's awesome that you guys had Google as a benefactor, and I'm sure not just the money that they gave you, but the other doors that are opened are plentiful. We're speaking with Shaun Tai, he's Founder and Executive Director of Oakland Digital, right here on Method to the Madness on KALX Berkeley.Give us a little bit of a taste of what is the scope of it now? You went on this journey, it sounds like, almost 10 years ago.Shaun Tai:Yeah.Ali Nazar:How many employees? How many students have you had? Give me some of the breadth of this thing.Shaun Tai:Yeah, no. One of the things that I learned about the non-profit world, I sit on the grants panel for the Cultural Arts Program, and we just distribute money to artists, and we distribute money to non-profits. Last year, so I've been doing it two years in a row, for the City of Oakland. I've been noticing how much non-profits are struggling. A lot of the non-profits were in debt. What I noticed was non-profits are paying staff full salaries, because they should get paid full salaries. However, it's hurting their impact, right? Let me give you an example. Those four years that we were figuring out what we were doing, and making an impact, I don't think I deserved pay at that time, because I was still learning, right? I think that it's keeping that lean, agile methodology of how do you run as lean as possible, with as much impact as possible? I feel that the non-profit world needs a shake-up to think that way. Because if non-profits are just, quite honestly, fundraising to pay staff, that doesn't equate to community impact. You know what I'm saying?Ali Nazar:Yep.Shaun Tai:I don't have the answer, other than what I said earlier about "How do we take some of the things that start-ups do?" Right? Contractors, and paying people per-project. Compensating them what they're worth, but maybe on a contract or project basis, to get goals accomplished, right? And build some cool products, launch some cool things, the same way a start-up would do in the tech world.That, to me, I think that mindset, the growth mindset, is what the non-profit world may be lacking right now. But I do see things improving. I do see non-profits using design-thinking methodologies, and design sprints, and things that we in the tech world normally do to launch cool stuff.One example is, on BridgeGood, we actually give our students the experience of working with engineers and becoming UX designers by working on the platform itself. They gain, because they don't have to spend $15,000 for a boot camp, and they have a portfolio piece that's actually tangible. That's a way where both sides can win, right? The student can gain experience, build a cool platform, but at the same time, they can build their own career, and impact the community.Long story short, I think the non-profit world just needs to rethink how they spend money. Rethink, this is a good example, when we as non-profits apply for a government grant, which we don't even do that, you're tied in. Let's say you get a $1 million grant. Sometimes, you'll be doing more work than that $1 million, in terms of you'll run out of money. I've seen non-profits go under that way.How do we just rethink non-profits? How do we rethink and re-imagine the way non-profits run? Grants? Grant cycles, you're applying for a grant a year in advance. I don't know about you, brother, but every month for us changes. Do you know what I'm saying?Ali Nazar:Yeah, I mean-Shaun Tai:How can you apply a year in advance? These are the things that, about the non-profit world have, these confuse me. I don't understand why they do things the way they've been doing them for 100 years, when society's changed.Ali Nazar:Yeah, I think you're right on to something there. I have participated in the non-profit world, as well. That's why I asked the question around earned income, because that's ultimately what gets you sustainability as an organization, is that you don't have to rely on anybody else.Shaun Tai:Right.Ali Nazar:But you guys are in an interesting position, because you do have a product or a service you can provide, but monetizing that's a different question. It's a very challenging, I think, question, and one that I think many people are trying to answer right now.Shaun Tai:Right, and so, the impact that we've generated from BridgeGood is, we have a calculation of how do students get a job in design and/or tech? We've boiled it down to these three things: education, whether it's a BA or an AA. Two, some sort of apprenticeship or internship, and then help with their resume or portfolio. The portfolio is like 90% of getting a job in design. We figure if we can help a student build all four of those, it's a 90% likelihood that they'll get employed in some entry-level design position. What is the impact of that, right? Times, right now, we have 5,000 users on BridgeGood. We calculated roughly 300 have obtained some type of entry-level work. That times between 20,000 and 30,000, that's a lot of impact. But now to your point about-Ali Nazar:[crosstalk].Shaun Tai:Yeah, I know. It's super dope. It's super dope. When we just did a study of going back seven years on LinkedIn, of all of the students that have been through our program. We've had people get jobs at Yahoo!, Apple, YouTube, local non-profits, which I was super happy to see. That's really the impact. There's no quick solve.I mean, think about your career, right? You're like, "I've been in this for eight years." You and I, we're kind of a rare breed, where I think people growing up now, they just expect jobs right away. If there's one thing that I have learned, there's no free handouts. You've got to pay your dues. I feel-Ali Nazar:Wow. Shaun, I ... Sorry. Go ahead.Shaun Tai:Yeah. Nah, nah. I just feel like that's what we've got to get organizations to understand. Be committed. Stay committed, and keep doing things for good.Ali Nazar:Yeah, and I think following your passion, which you've certainly done. Oakland Digital is a great asset to the community. We have about a minute left, and I always like to close organizational founders, like you, with the same question. If everything went perfectly for Oakland Digital over the next five years, where will it be?Shaun Tai:Yeah, where would we be? We'd have a 15,000 square-foot building, with the ground space leased out, for some revenue. Then we would have a designer residence program, where we could facilitate, and make sure that the artists going through our program would actually be employed. 100%. 100% success rate, and really seeing the whole Bay Area respect artistry and creativity. Also, also be the Mecca of non-profits for the rest of the world. To be like, "Yo, the Bay Area has the best non-profits. BridgeGood Oakland Digital. Holla."Ali Nazar:Nice. Nice. All right. I'm so behind that. It's very interesting, also, that you added real estate to that vision, because it's like with-Shaun Tai:You've got to.Ali Nazar:... the housing costs the way they are, non-profits have to own a piece of the land, or else they're not going to be able to survive. [crosstalk]-Shaun Tai:I'm telling you, brother. I'm telling you brother, hey, and I appreciate what you're doing, because a lot of people behind-the-scenes do not get that credit. Thank you for what you're doing for the community. Let's keep pushing this, inspire the Bay Area together, man. Let's do it.Ali Nazar:Thanks, Shaun. Well, you've been listening to Shaun Tai. He's the Executive Director of Oakland Digital. To learn more about them, you can go to oaklanddigital.org. Any other ways to contact you, Shaun?Shaun Tai:Bridgegood.com. If you want to get a free portfolio and kick it, we can hang out. Let's do it.Ali Nazar:Cool, okay. That's how you get ahold of Shaun. This has been Method to the Madness on KALX Berkeley, 90.7 FM. I'm your host, Ali Nazar. Thanks for listening, everybody, and have a great Friday.Shaun Tai:Peace. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Is social media harming us? Dr. King, the Director of Consumer Privacy at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School, discusses what is wrong with the current internet algorithms, unseen manipulation, and behavior modification techniques.Transcript:Lisa:Method to the Madness is next. You're listening to Method to the Madness, a biweekly public affairs show on KALX Berkeley, celebrating Bay Area innovators. I'm your host, Lisa Kiefer. Today I'm speaking with Dr. Jennifer King. She's the director of consumer privacy at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School. We'll be talking about the problems with social media today. Welcome to the program, Jennifer. Jennifer:Thank you. Lisa:You've recently gotten a new job at Stanford Law School. Can you first of all tell us what you're doing down there? Jennifer:Yes. I just graduated my PhD back here at Berkeley. Lisa:In what?Jennifer:Information science. At Stanford, I am the director of consumer privacy at the the Center for Law and Society at Stanford Law School.Lisa:You just started though.Jennifer:At Stanford, yes. I started in April before I graduated. Lisa:Last week, I had an interesting conversation with Jaron Lanier, who just wrote a book called Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now. I thought I'd have you on the show to talk about some of the ideas that we talked about since that is your area. Everybody knows there's something wrong right now in our society. Journalism is failing. Politics is failing. People are afraid they're losing their jobs to AI. Whether they are or not, they're afraid of it. There's a lot of social anxiety. What do you see as the problem with social media or do you?Jennifer:With social media specifically? Because there's a lot there. I think one of the challenges with social media is that it de-individuates us or it takes us away from our humanity to some extent. It's the same way when you're driving in a car and there's that object between you and the rest of the world and you might be a totally reasonable person in real life and then you get behind the wheel and you get road rage or you just find that you treat people more like objects than other people. When you communicate with people through a computer, it's that same object between you and them. I think it prevents us in some ways from connecting with people. Lisa:There's a lot of research now that backs up, especially with young people, that there is more anxiety, there's more sadness. I don't know exactly how they're measuring sadness but that people are acting out differently, particularly young people, which is scary. I think we need to re-examine Google and Facebook and others. Some aren't in the business of behavior modification, but the business model, it's not that the people behind it personally are doing this, but the business model they've created with machine language literally takes us on a downward path. It's not left or right. It's actually down because the algorithm support and make money off of negative emotions. Jennifer:Sure. I've worked in Silicon Valley, and I can tell you having been-Lisa:Who did you work for?Jennifer:I worked for Yahoo. I worked for other startups too, but I worked for Yahoo back in the early 2000s, and was part of not directly developing social media software that was part of that scene, you could call it in the Bay Area back around 2000-plus where I was part of those social networks that emerged during that time. I think we were all very optimistic, and there wasn't a lot of thought about what the consequences were of any of these things people made. It was mostly like, let's just try this and see what happens. I think at first, there was an optimism driving it. We're doing this because let's see what happens. It could be really interesting. I think that shifted. It shifted over time from that to let's do this and maybe we'll get acquired by somebody to now let's do this and see how much personal data we can potentially mine from this product and from these people using it. Part of that is the consequence of building this entire infrastructure off the idea that it's free and not making people pay for it. I think the other piece of it too is that most of the people in this space, I would argue, are not thinking about what these products would do or these services would do to kids. It was one thing to put a lot of this in the hands of people who already had a solid footing on what it meant to talk to people in reality. We didn't grow up with phones and we barely grew up with computers, many of us, and so we had a foundation for what it meant to interact with people. Now suddenly, you have kids who've grown up immersed in this technology and it's shifted to where it's almost as if they don't know how to interact with each other. Lisa:Right. It's a big intermediary for them. Jennifer:Yeah. Professor Sherry Turkle has written extensively on this. I think she's done some of the best research on it. Lisa:Where is she?Jennifer:She's at MIT, and she's published several books in this area and that's where I'm drawing some of my own insight. Lisa:It's an unfortunate collision of math and human biology. Jennifer:Yeah. I would say, too, part of the challenge is that being a technologist has suddenly brought with it a lot of power in the society. We don't educate technologists to think about other people. If you are a Berkeley or a Stanford computer science student, for the most part, I don't believe you even had to take any ethics requirements in the past. I know that's changing, but you've been able to tinker with this giant social experiment without necessarily having any education or training or having been challenged to really think about the consequences of your actions on other people. It's mostly just been a chase to see what cool thing can we make next. I think we're seeing the consequences of that.Lisa:We are. There seems to be a groundswell now of people, at least researchers, academicians, economists, who are now looking at all of this behavior modification and the implications. They're also looking at data as labor instead of data as capital because for the first time ever, I think there are just a few people who own these big, what Jaron Lanier called siren servers, and they're making money on everybody else. There's only one buyer and multiple sellers of information so it's a monopsony. Jennifer:Yes, a very hard word to say. Lisa:Yes. I want to talk about that, all of the data that's been pulled from us with our knowledge and without our knowledge. Jennifer:That's a tough one because from my perspective, I study privacy and I study people. I try to understand how information privacy, how people think about it, what they care about. I'm willing to bet that most of us have figurative piles of digital photos hanging out either on our personal computers, on our phones, and managing all those things is really hard. I don't think I know anybody who actually has a grip on the number of photos they take. Lisa:I don't even look at them anymore. Jennifer:Right. I think you can extend that to your own data. We talk about a lot about we want to give people more control and we want to put them in control. If we could just somehow get our hands on this ephemeral data, then it will be okay. My skepticism with that just comes from the fact that it's such an information overload that it's possible we could build an infrastructure that makes it easy for people or at least easier. Right now, I think the push to get people's hands on the data isn't going to necessarily have the effect we want it to or that we might be hoping it will. I think there are good reasons for making the companies open up their platforms that have to do with issues of power and control and just trying to force a level of openness that doesn't exist presently. Whether that ends up with empowering people individually because they can actually see what data is collected about them, I'm a little bit skeptical of that actually.Lisa:What about data? People talk about universal basic income, but now people are talking about you've gotten these companies rich off of all this data and with your consent. You've given this away, but now-Jennifer:Kind of your consent. Lisa:Yeah. There are people, groups like datavest and researchers. Even at Stanford, they're looking at the idea of monetizing your data so that in place of a universal basic income, someday you might get every month a certain amount of money in return for the barter that you've given away your private life. Jennifer:Not to wallow in trendy technologies right now, but I think we've ... I don't know if your listeners or if you've talked so much about blockchain. Lisa:Oh yeah, I've had people on here actually from the UC Berkeley blockchain group. Jennifer:Great. I don't know if blockchain is the answer to that problem, but it seemingly could potentially be an answer to the data management piece. Every proposal I've seen in this vein has (a) put the burden on the individual to manage it in a way that I don't think most people want to do. You can't manage your photos. You don't also probably want to manage your personal data on a day-to-day basis. Lisa:Exactly.Jennifer:I don't even balance my checking account anymore. I just ... What has to give? I have to say I don't know too much about the blockchain proposal insofar as I have seen it voiced as a potential solution for this distributed data management problem. Lisa:It seems to me that if Facebook and Google were smart, they would get off this business model that's on a downward anyway because it's going to implode. You can't take data as capital forever. If they would say, okay, we realize what we're doing and now we're going to turn around and give you back something, they'll probably never do that because their business model, they make too much money. There are groups like of datavest. They propose a co-op organization where they are the intermediary between the big computer monsters that they're leasing to do this complex mathematical, but blockchain would be part of that probably, keeping accounting records and-Jennifer:Right. Making it manageable for end users, for individuals. I think that the challenge is that right now in some ways, collecting data is more valuable than it potentially has been before because companies are using this to feed their AI systems. It's a big training base. Given how much focus right now is on AI and improving those systems ... As an information scientist, I can tell you that you need data to train those systems to improve them. Lisa:Like language translation. Jennifer:Absolutely.Lisa:You need real people. They're grabbing real people's translations in order to make the Google Translate work better. Jennifer:Which I think is actually a really excellent example of this being used for good in a sense.Lisa:It is, but what about the jobs of human translators? At some point, there's real no artificial intelligence right now, but at some point when perhaps there is, they won't have a job anymore. Jennifer:Well, I don't know if it necessarily obviates all human translators, but I will tell you I was in Mexico last year. I wasn't going to hire a translator to go with me from place to place to place, but Google Translate was really helpful for trying to talk to a cab driver because my Spanish is terrible. Lisa:I agree with you there, but let's pay those human translators for that data. Jennifer:Sure. Yeah. Just to go back to that thought though. One of the reasons why I don't think you'll see the recognition by the companies that this could be a downward slope right now is because right now as they're trying to improve their consumer AI systems, there is probably a fanatical need or desire for as much data as you can get. Given that, I think if you want to see the changes you're talking about, it will probably emerge through civil society and other groups putting together proposals and pushing it. I think you'll have to see it from a government side ultimately. I don't know if you'll see it in this country. Lisa:There does have to be some oversight. I don't know. I feel like this problem is so urgent right now. When you look at the Annapolis shootings, which some people are saying were triggered by trolls online, and that could be misinformation. It's hard to find the truth that is hurting our society. Also with journalism, I use that as an example a lot because they missed the Trump election. They missed the recent Brooklyn, the young woman who beat out the stronghold Democrat challenger. That was completely missed. What's going on? They can't afford investigative journalists. Most organizations can't anymore, so finding out the truth is really difficult. I think that's changing us. In so many ways, it's making us more siloed. We don't know what red states are thinking because we only see what the algorithms want us to see. It's creating this bifurcated society. In fact, it turns out a lot of technologists send their kids to Waldorf schools and Montessori schools because they're worried about this. Jennifer:I don't let my kids use a lot of technology. Lisa:You don't? Why?Jennifer:Well, I guess to go back full circle to the social media piece. Again, I think using social media is a different experience for those of us who have developed the skill in her personal communication and relationships in person and that it's a much different equation when you're talking about kids. It used to be that the internet was connecting us across space, and now we're seeing it used in a very hyper local way when it used to connect people who were sitting right next to each other. That's a very different vision, I think, than where we started from, and I don't think we've thought so much about what that means for the people inhabiting that space together. Certainly with teenagers, you see it in terms of the competition it fosters for I want the best Instagram photo. I would say it's a double ... two big parts to it. One of it is parents saying something, I mean really being involved and understanding what their kids are doing, which I realize is not always easy, especially if you're not particularly tech literate. I'm just, as a parent, I'm often amazed how many small children I see who are just given phones and parents are ignoring them and they're just going on and on and on. It just amazes me. There's definitely been greater calls to tech companies to really start thinking more about the implications of what they're doing, not only on this, but a lot of parts of their work across society. I think that the types of restrictions we have on phones, for example, are in their infancy. We could do a lot more in terms of thinking through like what's an appropriate set of parental controls you can put on a phone? For example, to get to meter kids' usage so you can teach them, bound it, like this is what it means to be on your phone for 20 minutes and when the 20 minutes are up, you're done. You're locked out.Lisa:They can get around that stuff though. They're going to be so much more tech savvy than you or I.Jennifer:I have younger kids, so I'm still-Lisa:They'll just hack your restrictions. Jennifer:I'm still biased towards the fact that I can take the thing away from my five-year-old versus having a 15-year-old with a phone, which I realize is different.Lisa:If you're just tuning in, you're listening to Method to the Madness, a biweekly public affairs show on KALX Berkeley, celebrating Bay Area innovators. Today, I'm speaking with Dr. Jennifer King. She's the director of consumer privacy at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School. Well, I wanted to ask you about your new job at Stanford Law School. California just passed this pretty intense data privacy law. It isn't as restrictive as Europe, but can you talk about that and explain what's going on to our listeners? Jennifer:The law that was just passed was the result of we'll say panic by the tech sector with the upcoming ballot initiative that was to appear on the ballot in November. There was a ballot initiative or it was placed on the ballot that would have had placed some more restrictions on privacy with respect to tech companies. Some of the provisions in the ballot measure ended up in this final bill but not all of them. When I looked at this bill, again I'm not a lawyer so that's my disclaimer for my own analysis, but one of the things I actually was frustrated by, which I don't know if we'll see addressed ultimately because a lot of the talk last week was around the fact that doesn't go into effect until 2020 so we may see amendments to it. It was that it doesn't place any limits on the collection of data nor on the reselling of it. It gives consumers a little bit more power than they had before, but I'm actually fairly disappointed with the outcome of that bill because I don't think it really does much beyond allowing you to say, hey, don't sell my data. A lot of the big companies that we've been concerned about actually aren't selling your data to begin with. They're collecting it, and they're selling access to it, and that doesn't change at all under this bill. It doesn't curb some of the, I think, the worst cases we see of data being collected without your explicit consent. It does nothing about that consent issue. If you download a free app for a smartphone and the app developer is using a third party advertising service that serves ads in the app, that service is collecting data from your phone about your usage as you're using it. The same with any website that you're not blocking third party cookies or third party ad trackers on, if you're using a regular computer and a browser, those ad services are also collecting data from you or from your browser experience. This bill doesn't really do anything to curb that. Lisa:Does it do anything about the cameras on your phones and computers that are looking at your facial expressions and that goes into the machine language algorithm as well, the listening that goes on with your devices?Jennifer:Yes, you have devices in your pocket that can listen to you and can take your picture. Certainly the way they get consent from you is often not clear. Lisa:Most of the time, you don't read the consent anyway on these sites that you go to. Jennifer:However, it is against the law for them to be surveilling you without you having consented. At the same time, you might be using a service that wants to capture your voice as part of what it does, so take a smart speaker, for example. That's an area I've been looking at a bit lately.Lisa:Like the Alexis and Siri.Jennifer:Right. They're voice activated. They need to listen to you. For how long and what it records and the duration and what it does with that recording is an interesting question, but that is the essence of a smart speaker so you do have to let it capture your voice. It's just a question of then what happens to that data. Lisa:In your capacity, in your new job, what are the problems you're trying to solve in the near term? Jennifer:My job is research focused, so part of it is about the type of research that I am looking to do. Because I just graduated with my PhD, some of it is about publishing my own dissertation work.Lisa:Which was on what?Jennifer:Privacy. I don't think I want to go into the details. It's a long and complicated thing. Lisa:It's private.Jennifer:It's not private, but I think it would bore a lot of people. Some of the issues that I've been interested in exploring in this new role are genetic privacy. Actually, a part of my dissertation research was on 23andMe users. I was very interested in looking at-Lisa:What they do with that information?Jennifer:Yeah. Also just people's expectations around it and what motivates them to have their DNA sequenced and what happens to your DNA after you give it to a service like that. That's an area I've been interested in looking at, as well as emotional privacy because I think one of the things that's been a side effect of Facebook and Cambridge Analytica and something I saw in my own work is that people often get the most concerned about their privacy when it comes to data about them that really gets to who they think they are. By that, I mean it's one thing for a credit reporting company to collect your address and your credit history. That's important information and, of course, we're upset if it gets breached. Your sense of privacy around it I think is different than, for example, another piece of my dissertation research was looking at people's search queries. One of the things I found was that actually of the people I looked at, I asked these 23andMe users about their genetic data as compared to their search queries. Most of them were far more concerned about the content of their search queries than about their DNA. That was mostly because they felt like their DNA, sure, it identifies you uniquely, but they felt like it didn't tell people about them. The way that if you looked at five years of your search queries, your unfiltered search queries, that could tell you much more about who they are, what they're thinking about, what they care about. Lisa:That's interesting. Maybe because search queries are free, but the 23andMe, you have to pay to join that service. I've done it, so I know there's a certain fee. With that fee structure, maybe that makes people think, oh well, data is private. It's not going to be-Jennifer:The question of paying for it, yes and no. Yes, it definitely ... When people pay for something, what I've observed is that there are definitely more expectations around I paid for this, so they better not sell my data or at least I hope they won't. With free services, there's also an expectation of privacy. It's not as if most people use something like Google search and assume that their search queries are going to be used in a multitude of different ways against them or released to the public. People had privacy expectations in that data even if it was [crosstalk].Lisa:That's important to talk about.Jennifer:What Cambridge Analytica and Facebook has also shown us is the power of the emotional data, which is something I'm also trying to focus on because I think that's the next frontier. I think it's the next frontier in terms of the types of data we're going to try to let's say extract from people. There are people focusing on emotion recognition as a way to improve different experiences, technological experiences. I, of course, being a skeptic, I'm always skeptical leading into these things, so I'm really curious to keep an eye on companies that are doing emotion detection and see where that goes in terms of the next type of data we've been collecting about people would be your emotional state. There's lots of research into computer mediated communication that charts basically all of this. The research is there. You just have to know where to look for it and put it into play. Lisa:Maybe we should start educating people at a very early age, like elementary school about privacy. Is that something-Jennifer:You can talk to my rising fourth grader.Lisa:Have you thought about that? We need to institute this in schools if we're going to-Jennifer:Yeah, there are definitely people in the privacy research field who have worked on curriculum for at least high school students. I agree that it should go probably at least middle school and maybe the fifth grade, fourth grade, fifth grade level. There are definitely people working on that. How widely distributed that curriculum gets, I think that's the challenge. It'd be nice if California as a state did something with it rather than it just being a one-off one teacher in one school being interested in that issue. Going back to the genetic data piece and the search query piece. One of the things though that is really interesting about the genetic data area is the fact that a lot of what you're doing with that is sharing it with other people in the service. Whether that's looking for relatives or with 23andMe, you can share it with the company for their development or for their research purposes. One of the things I thought was really interesting about the people I talked to who used it was how much they were motivated by that sharing, the research sharing with the expectation that, hey, if my data is used to develop a new drug that can help the world, great.I'm a skeptic so my counterpoint was, sure, it could be used, but it might be used to develop a drug that then their pharmaceutical partner charges $50,000 a dose for. There's no-Lisa:Right, or that you get absolutely nothing for-Jennifer:Right. You don't get anything from it monetarily. That's another interesting area of people willingly contributing their data to a private database for private development with no guarantees that there'll be a public benefit from it. Lisa:I really think we need to innovate that business model and return, in some way monetize this data that is benefiting a few people. You look at Facebook. 60% of it is owned by Mark Zuckerberg. They don't have that many employees. It needs to be more democratized. Jennifer:Well, I would argue. I was reading something recently online that was asking four notable internet theorists about basically what went wrong. It got me thinking about like what would I do? What would I have changed about the last 25 years? I think that going back to the mid to late '90s, there was a real ... The drum beat from Silicon Valley as much as it was an internet business at that point was very much like leave us alone. Don't regulate us in any way. Don't crush the internet. Let it blossom. Let it grow. There was pretty much a total hands-off approach with a couple of small exceptions along the way. I think if I went back in time, the thing I would change is not necessarily regulating, but I think making this expectation that there needed to be a public benefit. I don't know how I would do that, to be honest, if it's that the companies needed to ... Actually, I think maybe not a bad model would be looking back at radio and the development of radio and the fact that you used to have the fairness doctrine and public service announcements. There was this explicit recognition that the radio waves were a public resource and that they would lease them to private broadcasters, but there had to be some public benefit that they gave back. I wish we could have made that more explicit in the development of the internet.Lisa:Some people think what went wrong is that it was free, that if we would have had to pay just a nominal amount of money for the right to browse or whatever, we wouldn't be dealing with all the advertising and behavior modification and so on. Jennifer:I was interviewed recently by some undergraduates at Stanford, and they asked me some pretty challenging questions that I had to stop and think about it too. Part of it was like, why do you do this? Why are you interested in this stuff? Given how many bad things feel like they're happening today, it's a real challenge to think about why are we doing this? Why am I involved in technology? Why don't I just run away and do something else? I think because there have been some real positive changes, despite all of the negative ones. I guess at the end of the day, I feel like it's not worth giving up on it at this point. Not that we even could, but I think that we let industry drive everything for the last 25 years. I think what you're seeing is a real recognition by people that they have to take this back into their own hands to some extent, both in terms of how they're being used and their data and just the power these large companies have to shape society in a way that I think people are really recoiling from. How we do that, I think some of the things we've talked about today are some of the hints that people collectively getting together and thinking about what can we do to shift the power balance. I think it is important to remember that this technology gives you a lot. There's a lot of things. I think if you asked us, would we go back to 1995 and give up some of the things we have now such as your ability to use a map online or a map on a phone? I think that's a pretty powerful tool.Lisa:[crosstalk] from your child at school. Jennifer:Right. I always joke when I first got a cellphone, the first thing, I was living in Hawaii, the first thing I did was went to the beach and called people back in California going, "I'm calling you from the beach."Lisa:It's not the internet. It's not the technology that's a problem, I think. It's the-Jennifer:It's the people.Lisa:The behavior modification algorithms. I think it's just we need to change the model. We're not going to get rid of the technology, but make it better, like you say. I think that's wonderful. It's a good goal. You have a lot of work ahead of you. Jennifer:Yeah. I can't retire anytime soon. Lisa:I'd like to have you back on at some point and once you've been in this role for quite a while and see what you're thinking then.Jennifer:Yeah. Lisa:You've been listening to Method to the Madness. You can find all of our podcasts on iTunes University. We'll be back in two weeks. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Oakland entrepreneur Jessica Gray Schipp shares her life's journey of coping with multiple food allergies and her book #AllergicToEverything, a cookbook and guide for people living with multiple food allergies.Transcript:Lisa:Method to the Madness is next. You're listening to Method to the Madness, a biweekly public affairs show on KALX Berkeley, celebrating Bay Area innovators. I'm your host, Lisa Kiefer, and today I'm speaking with Jessica Gray Schipp. She's the author of a new cookbook and guide for people suffering from multiple food allergies.Welcome to the program, Jessica.Jessica:Thank you.Lisa:You just wrote this book called Allergic to Everything, which is an incredible guide and a cookbook for people with allergies. Are you allergic to everything?Jessica:I'm allergic to several things. It's called #Allergic to Everything and I am allergic to wheat, gluten, corn, soy, oats, eggs, shellfish, and possibly sesame.Lisa:You've been through a lot.Jessica:Yes.Lisa:This has taken decades to put this together. How did you figure out what to do first? Tell us your life's journey.Jessica:Well, I knew I was lowered to shellfish when I was a little kid. I was about six and I had an anaphylactic reaction and that was really scary, so I kind of grew up conscious of what it was like to have that happen. And then when I was in my, I would say like mid-twenties, I started getting a lot of hives and odd reactions that I didn't know what it was.Lisa:And this is out east?Jessica:And this is on the East Coast, yeah. And I was just going to literally every type of doctor that I could think of. My mom's a nurse practitioner, so she was sending me to like specialists and using her network and my body just slowly got worse and worse and worse. And then I ended up in Bloomington, Indiana with a friend from grad school and I arrived on her doorstep and I essentially looked like I was just dead. I had sties, I had hives everywhere and I didn't even know kind of how sick I was because I was so used to living that way.But she forced me to a doctor and they were basically like-Lisa:That was the first time you'd seen a doctor about it?Jessica:No, I had been seeing specialists but nobody identified it as food allergies and they didn't really know. So they just kept throwing me on steroids and different medications. And finally at that point in Bloomington, I was just in a place of I'm either dying of cancer or I have food allergies and I have to see what I can do. So I moved back home at that point and I did an elimination diet using all of these different tests I had gotten done with the food stuff because I was basically everything I reacted to. And I think that's also because my system was so hyperactive because it was so irritated all the time that it was triggering responses to more than what I really-Lisa:What does that mean? Elimination Diet? Because you talk about that and you also talk about the symptom tracker that you put together, which is also in the book.Jessica:Well I would say the elimination diet, I didn't start doing it with a symptom tracker. The one that's in the book is kind of a design that I came up with from trial and error and my experiences and what worked for me. I initially used something called a health minder, which I had found on Amazon and it was awesome, but it didn't quite track everything I wanted it to, so I've kind of made my own model.But in terms of the elimination diet, I did that without tracking initially. You basically, a lot of people start with removing the top eight food allergens.Lisa:And what are those?Jessica:Those are wheat, eggs, milk, fish, shellfish, nuts and peanuts.Lisa:Not corn?Jessica:No, corn's not one of the top eight, but I guarantee you this is my philosophy actually because we're shoving it in so much of the food.Lisa:Exactly.Jessica:I'm almost positive that when they revamped that topic eight, that that's going to end up on there [crosstalk]Lisa:I grew up in the Midwest and one of the things I noticed was the simultaneous rise of obesity and GMO corn farming.Jessica:No kidding. No kidding.Lisa:Even though no one is pinpointing that.Jessica:Yeah, and it's cheap.Lisa:Why do you think that's been left off the top?Jessica:I think that just not... I don't know. I think there's not a lot of money in research right now for food allergies. There aren't even really very reliable tests that have been developed. Everything does a lot of false positives. So it's really weird, which going back to the elimination diet, that's really the best way to determine what's triggering things.Lisa:It's very time consuming though, isn't it?Jessica:It's very time consuming. Yeah. Yeah. The process of writing the book took about six years, but the process of getting through the elimination phase and starting to learn about foods probably took like three months but a good year of getting used to it because at first I was just eating a piece of cheese or string cheese, just really basic foods like seed crackers, just nuts, like very plain stuff. And then after I got comfortable with that, I was able to expand and start trying to figure out how to cook the foods that I really missed because there's a lot to be missed when you have to take so much out.Lisa:So when you say "cook the foods you missed," coming up with recipes that would taste somewhat like them because you're not using the ingredients and that they've done in this book.Jessica:Yes. Yeah, so it's really a book of kind of comfort food and super holiday friendly and things just like muffins and breads and pizza and pasta sauce and tacos and it's super kid friendly too, I would say. I think I just had this desire to go back to the foods that I had grown up with-Lisa:Comfort food.Jessica:And figure out... Yeah, exactly, and figure out how to go from there.Lisa:Backing up a little bit, you were in Indiana, you went to this doctor, you started the elimination diet and then?Jessica:And then it was a long process of kind of realizing that I had to start tracking certain things when I would have reactions because you're supposed to add one food back in at a time and then kind of wash yourself for up to basically three days, give or take. Because reactions can happen in many different ways. They can be on your skin, they can be in your digestive system, they can be instant or they can show up in three days. It's kind of a bizarre, bizarre world.Lisa:And the other thing is if you're social at all and you go out to eat at people's homes or in restaurants.Jessica:Yeah, don't trust anybody because nobody knows what they're talking about. And I love my friends and they are, some of them are really amazing and truly have an understanding and have memorized stuff and there are certain people that I really trust. But then there are other people who I know they intend well but they don't know that the shredded cheese that they're using happens to have corn starch on it to prohibit mold. And cornstarch really, really gets to me instantly. I get hives, which I hate. I hate when my symptoms show up on my body.Lisa:Well, in a way that's good because then you know pretty quickly something's wrong.Jessica:Right, that's true.Lisa:In the midst of this discovery. Where were you shopping?Jessica:I was in the Midwest at first and basically I went home pretty quickly after that. I went back to right outside of Washington, DC, in Arlington and I moved back in with my mom, which was hard because I had just gotten my master's and I thought I was going to go into the world rather than a retreat. But yeah, so I went home and my mom has always been very health conscious, so she... There's a little place called Mom's Organic Market and I think it's an Alexandria technically, but it's a great little like health food type of store. And I kind of stuck to stuff like that. And Trader Joe's for just basics, which I still love Trader Joe's today because they just offer so much of high quality stuff at amazing prices.My mom trained me in the organic produce selection and I kind of did like a little work trade. So I did their grocery shopping and did some cooking. And in exchange I got to kind of take some time. I had asthma as a kid. My mom kind of suspected that I had some corn allergies as a kid too because she kind of thought that I would get like fussy when I ate things with corn syrup in it. So there were periods where she suspected it, but nothing was identified until I was 27 when all of this kind of came together.Lisa:How did you get out here?Jessica:I eventually started looking for jobs and I'd kind of always dreamed of California and I found an AmeriCorps position working in East Oakland at a school and the whole idea was kind of like teaching creativity and putting creativity back into the classroom, which my undergrad was an art education so it was a really good fit and they give you a stipend to help you move across. So I ended up driving my little Honda Civic out here and it was pretty beautiful and incredible. And then I ended up, I thought I was coming to California and I was going to be this picturesque mountains and everything. And then I wound up like right in the middle of another city and it was kind of like what?Lisa:You mean like East Oakland?Jessica:Yeah. Being here has been the most incredible part of this journey. The food culture here is phenomenal. Really, you just have access to everythingLisa:People don't realize that unless they've lived elsewhere.Jessica:Yes.Lisa:Because if you're in the Midwest, you have to carve out time to find organic food.Jessica:Yes. Or those little co-ops. The co-ops are like the way to go.Lisa:The co-ops, they're usually near universities.Jessica:Totally. Yeah.Lisa:It's not easy.Jessica:No, no.Lisa:To find good food.Jessica:That's, yeah, 100% I agree with that. Yeah, and I guess that's been the blessing of being here is just that a whole... Like Berkeley Bowl and just a whole new world happened for me and I moved in with a bunch of foodies and learned a lot from them. And so all of these different things kind of came together.Lisa:And how did your allergies, did it improve here or...Jessica:Yeah. Yeah, it's been actually a drastic difference. I think the climate is better for me in some ways. So I think my skin in general has been a lot less irritated, but, but I think my quality of life has been better since moving out here. And I'm not sure exactly why.Lisa:If you're just tuning in, you're listening to Method to the Madness, a biweekly public affairs show on KALX Berkeley, celebrating Bay Area innovators. Today I'm speaking with Oakland based entrepreneur, Jessica Gray Schipp, the author of a book called Allergic to Everything for people suffering from multiple food allergies.So tell me when you decided to write this book.Jessica:I didn't really specifically decide to write it at first, I just started writing down the recipes that were working for me and I had a little notebook. I've always, you can see my journal here, I always have a journal. And so I just kind of started writing down what was working and I had some friends over for dinner and my friend Phil had asked me like, "What is that recipe? How did you do that? I can't even tell it's allergen free," which was kind of this real goal of mine was to trick the people into thinking the food had all their allergens.But yeah, and he looked at the notebook and he was just like, "Jess, you should publish this." And I hadn't considered that and I didn't think of it that way. And then I kind of ran with it.Lisa:And then when you say "ran with it," what are the steps that you took?Jessica:Well, it was more of a jog because I was teaching full time. So I started in the summers when I had my summers off. The first summer I basically typed up this notebook and wound up with about, or I guess it took me two summers to do that, but I wound up with about 115 recipes that I developed. And then more recently, so in August, I actually left my teaching job to do this full time and try to give it a real stab. And I sat down and wrote the guide, which I didn't realize was going to be so lengthy but-Lisa:It's comprehensive. I really enjoyed that.Jessica:Thank you for saying that.Lisa:Well yeah, you...Jessica:Thank you for saying that.Lisa:Not only recipes but you list resources for people, you get into household cleaning substances, that you can make on your own. I was surprised how comprehensive. It's over 200 pages.Jessica:Thank you. Yeah-Lisa:And also what to put in a pantry.Jessica:Right? Like your staples and where to get them and how to do it and you can do it affordably and you can also spend a lot of money on this stuff. There's a million ways to do it. Yeah, and it was fascinating to kind of go in because I think before moving out to California, I hadn't started to consider what was in the products I was using on my skin, for example. I was using really sensitive simple lotions and stuff like that. But for hair-Lisa:But even laundry detergent.Jessica:Or laundry detergent, exactly.Lisa:And people use these softeners and they always smell.Jessica:And they're full of chemicals and it's gross stuff and it irritates sensitive skin even if you don't have allergens. So just kind of all of that stuff has gone into it. And then just simple things like reading ingredient labels.Lisa:Just today I read an article that the USDA, they just announced now that instead of saying whether something has GMO ingredients, genetically modified, now they are opting for bio-engineered or BE on products. Some people think it's to avoid the labeled GMO because that's kind of a bad thing.Jessica:It has a stigma.Lisa:But it also allows companies to choose between the option of either writing out the warning saying, "This contains bio engineered food," include a just a BE label or this code that you have to swipe, which they assume most consumers will not do. It seems like it's a constant battle to get the true ingredients listed because...Jessica:Well, I want to comment on what you were just saying about the labeling of food. I think that that's one of the most frustrating things because you can slap all natural on it and it means absolutely nothing. They allow a lot of loopholes in this kind of stuff, which is why it's so important no matter what to flip the package over and actually read the ingredients.Lisa:Some of these ingredients, you look at them and you don't even know how to say them.Jessica:Well, and that's my rule. I have a 10 ingredient or less rule and you need to be able to pronounce all of them. The chemicals, it just, it's really unreal.Lisa:And this is mostly processed food.Jessica:It's mostly processed food, yeah, that has that.Lisa:So people who are shopping the middle aisles are going to see more of that.Jessica:Correct. Yeah. I'm a big a perimeter shopper now. I go into the middles for my brown rice pasta or some crackers.Lisa:Or olive oils.Jessica:Or olive oil, yeah, definitely loved my olive oil. I've been leaning into avocado oil too. That's-Lisa:And you talk about coconut being a good alternative to corn oils and things like that.Jessica:Yes. I think one of the interesting things was too with my skin, how irritated it was at the beginning of this journey. I started just trying to figure out natural things I could use to moisturize because normal lotion wasn't working. So coconut oil was something that was really, I was just like slathering it on. And it was really, really healing for me, which was interesting because a lot of doctors had told me to try these lotions with oats, which I hadn't realized at first that I was allergic too.There are also gluten free versions, but oats just in general give me a scarf rash. And so it was really weird and it was like making me more and more irritated. So then I started going backwards and doing just really simple like olive oil on my skin and it was amazing.Lisa:The difference.Jessica:And anti-inflammatory and yeah.Lisa:So tell me the difference between allergy and a simple intolerance.Jessica:It shows up differently in symptoms. Some things are more severe and tolerance is like your body and your system just can't handle it.Lisa:Is that worse than an allergy?Jessica:Yeah, because you're hurting yourself and you might not necessarily be aware. Like, if you continue, let's say you're a celiac and you're eating gluten, that can lead to huge complications where your digestive system just stops functioning on its own. There's all these thresholds. But I find all of those areas, like I go into it in the book but at the same time I find, I don't like all of the little narrow paths that they put with this. Like if a food doesn't work for you, I think it's good to stay away from it and find an alternative.Because people talk about food sensitivities and food intolerance and food allergy and what is the difference? And it's confusing but I think with intolerance is really your body won't tolerate it and you just have all these weird symptoms and you're used to living with them. So you go with it and you don't realize what's on the other side when you...Lisa:So it affects your mental health as well.Jessica:Yeah. Oh definitely. I think so hugely.Lisa:In your book, you lay out in a really nice way the daily symptom tracker also sort of a guide for the elimination diets. So this book is something somebody can actually start writing in right away.Jessica:Right.Lisa:Is that your copyrighted food tracker?Jessica:Yes.Lisa:It's not available yet?Jessica:No.Lisa:To the public. How did you finance publishing book? How are you doing it?Jessica:I took everything I had saved up from my teaching salary, which was challenging, and my Grandma Donna passed away a couple years ago and left me a little bit of money and I was going to use it for a business or an investment on a house and I decided to put it into this book because I just really believe in it. So I've put about $25,000 into getting to-Lisa:Of your own personal money.Jessica:Yeah, of my own money, into it now. And to finish the project, I decided to go onto Kickstarter and so the project is live now and it's live through June 17th at 11:11 PM.Lisa:And what are you trying to raise on Kickstarter?Jessica:$33,000.Lisa:And that'll take you to where you need to...Jessica:And that'll take me to where I need to be and to do it properly, to get the editing done and the printing, to mail out the rewards. Shipping is phenomenal when it comes to Kickstarter, which was a really interesting to learn.Lisa:What do you mean?Jessica:I would say about a third of that amount of money is what it costs to actually send the rewards to the backers. It adds up. And if you can do media mail for books, which is great, but if you add in-Lisa:What are your rewards for backers?Jessica:Currently we have the book. I have a dinner party option, so that's kind of low end, high end, and then in the middle there are gift sets so you can do like an apron gift set. I'm really, really big into aprons. I'm in love with them. I started sewing my own and then I just actually added a new reward, which I'm really excited about, which is a grocery tote but also a cooler. So it's kind of like bring it to the grocery store or to the picnic because I know you're carrying all your own food if you're allergic. And I'm trying to keep it really, really simple because it's really about the book at the root of it.Lisa:And how do people find out about a Kickstarter campaign?Jessica:I have a URL that is forwarding right now straight to the Kickstarter so people can go to hashtag, the word hashtag, and the word allergic together, hashtagallergic.com.Lisa:Not the symbol, the word?Jessica:No the word. Yeah, so hashtag written out, allergic written.com and it'll take you right there. But also if you're on Kickstarter you can just type in the word allergic or allergies and it should come right up.Lisa:And you also have a website?Jessica:Yes.Lisa:What is the link to that?Jessica:The website is allergictoeverything.life and on the website, this has been kind of a new experiment and I'm still playing around with it. At first it was a platform to share what was going on with the Kickstarter, but I've been working on starting a blog and sharing some recipes through there. So I don't have a huge collection, but it's something I'm going to keep growing so people can go on there for food, food tips, and I have all my favorite resources. I have recipes for my food allergy purse.Lisa:Do you ever list restaurants that might accommodate allergies in the Bay Area?Jessica:No, but that's something that I am really interested in doing actually. And I think that we live in such a friendly place for that. A couple of days ago, a woman from Toronto who has, that's kind of her mission in the food allergy world. She reviews places you can eat and she does profiles of people. So she did a profile of me and she really wanted to get into the places that you know you can eat and that are friendly. And I think that that's so important and I think we're really lucky on the West Coast to have such-Lisa:We are, but you made a point earlier that it was a good one. Even your friends, let's say someone decides they're going to have you over and you're allergic to allium, which is onions, garlic and all this stuff.Jessica:Right?Lisa:And they say, "There's nothing, I swear to you, there's nothing in this." And yet they use a canned broth.Jessica:Correct.Lisa:In a soup or a sauce, which is full of allium.Jessica:And probably maltodextrin.Lisa:And it doesn't say it on the label. It says "natural ingredients."Jessica:Right. That's the most unfair.Lisa:And so you can't get mad at people, but there needs to be a raising of awareness and that's something that you've done in this book.Jessica:Yeah. And I think that's my biggest motivation for all of this is... Well, it's really to make people's lives easier, learning how to navigate all these little intricacies, but awareness is so important because people just don't know and it's not their fault. It's just a matter of education and...Lisa:I just noticed there's more and more food allergies and I can't help but think that it's our air, it's our water, it's our soil. I don't know if anyone is looking at the root causes of this.Jessica:Yeah, I don't think many people are. I think there's a lot of people burying the root causes.Lisa:You don't mention it in your book either. But depending on where you come from, what you're exposed to.Jessica:One of the things that I think about a lot with that, which gets me a little crazy if I think about it too much, but is the fact that, so I'm able to eat meat, right? And let's say I want to eat a steak, but they're feeding that cow corn, which I'm allergic to.Lisa:GMO corn probably.Jessica:Yeah. So how does it affect me with the end product? And that's just something that is mind boggling and...Lisa:It is, but out here you can actually seek out a butcher that that gets meat from local people who they know what they're feeding the animals. But that's not true in most places.Jessica:Right, and most of the population doesn't have that luxury. And if they do, maybe they can't afford it. There's a lot of barriers to it, but I think it's a really systemic problem that needs to be looked at from the ground up. But when we keep coming up with these new, what did you say it was going to be, BE, on the package?Lisa:Yes, bio engineering.Jessica:And the natural ingredients.Lisa:It's deflecting.Jessica:It's deflecting. It's like the whole sugar thing in the 70s or whenever that whole epidemic started, but it's really incredible the lengths that companies go through to bury the truth from people and to just keep people uneducated.Lisa:Even sugar, it's not so easy in some places to find something made from natural sugar. It's either going to be genetically modified sugar beets or corn.Jessica:Yeah, and sugar is super inflammatory too, so it kind of all comes out the same in your system. But corn syrup, I really, I just really hate that stuff. I just feel like it's toxic and it's in everything.Lisa:What were your biggest challenges along the way or maybe surprises along the way as well in this whole process of getting this book out?Jessica:Well, I'm in the midst of the challenges right now. It's been really hard to connect with the community that I'm trying to connect with because there's a lot of barriers. So-Lisa:What are they?Jessica:I'm part of a lot of groups online for example with like food allergy communities. But I'm not allowed to post my project because it's seen as fundraising or an endorsement of a fundraising project. And same thing with every single organization that I've reached out to and I'm sending thirties of emails a day trying to get people to help me put this out there.So that's been the greatest challenge and the greatest barrier really. This isn't even about profit, it's just about getting it into the hands of people who need it, the hands of people who are struggling or just foodies who want to cook. Because really the book is... Anybody can use it. It's not, you by no means have to be allergic to appreciated.So connecting with people has been challenging and I feel like I've really had to prove myself in ways that have just been shocking to me. I didn't think I would have to beg food allergy people to see me as an authentic person just trying to put a resource out there.Lisa:Any positive surprises or challenges?Jessica:A lot of positive surprises. I've been just in awe of the support of family and friends and I had an amazing launch day, which was just incredible. But just-Lisa:When was your launch date?Jessica:I launched on May 15th during Food Allergy Awareness Week. So the campaign will be a total of 33 days. It ends on June 17th.Lisa:Let's talk about what you're going to do if you do make it. And if you don't make it.Jessica:To make the goal, I need a 1000 people to put $20 into the project. I think it's really feasible. And if the project succeeds, the plan is then I want the rewards to get out to people and the book itself to get out to people by December. So I will just jump right into the editing phase and illustration and then getting the book printed and shipped out.So I've been working with editors and plotting around that. I think it should take about between four and six months. I've given myself a lot of given myself enough padding, I think to make that happen. I really believe in this book and I'm not really focused on what's going to happen if it doesn't work because it's going to work. So on June 17th, I will know and I'm just kind of trusting that the next thing, yeah, will come and it will happen.Lisa:And so then you're going to be busy touring with this book.Jessica:Then I'm going to be really busy. Yeah, if it hasn't been busy enough, Kickstarter has been an adventure. It's a lot of work.Lisa:Let's say you get the book out and you're onto the next thing. Do you know what that's going to be?Jessica:Well I already have a another book in mind that is going to be like #Allergic to Everything Light because I think this book has a lot of comfort, delicious recipes. And I think that my cooking has shifted over time. So I kind of want to put just my newer, lighter. Yeah, just a little bit healthier. Initially, the things that I missed were breads and things with sugar in it and things like that. But no matter what, I've always been a teacher and I'll always be a teacher. So however I can teach, that's what I'll be doing.I was teaching for about five years, everything from yearbook to coaching robotics actually here at Berkeley. I was with high school most recently. And I think something that I think about in the future is teaching on the college level. I've kind of snaked my way up through all the grades and I found a really sweet spot in high school. But I think there's a really sweet spot in young adulthood when you're studying what you want and learning how you can manipulate the world and leave it a better place.Lisa:Do you feel like you've reached your comfort zone of allergies? You have your allergies under control?Jessica:I think I have my allergies under control. I don't always have temptation under control because it's a tempting world when everybody you live with is eating pizza. It's not always that easy not to eat it. Certain things I noticed trigger me and I'm still looking at them, like sesame for example. I kind of think that sesame oil causes me issues, but then I don't always think so. So I don't know. I think it's kind of an ongoing process.Yeah, and something to revisit too because a lot of people end up removing things and their system kind of gets this little break and then they're able to reincorporate them, which I've tried that. I haven't found that to be successful for myself, but I think it's possible for a lot of people, so yeah, I think it's a lifelong.Lisa:In your research, do you think that the human body will evolve to accept these bio engineered or GMO products ultimately?Jessica:I feel like we're evolving to reject them. If you look at just the ratio of wheat in things and the ratio of corn in things and that with the number of people affected by these things and the rate of the increase of allergens being diagnosed, especially in kids, it's outrageous. I don't think that we're helping ourselves. I think we're hiding a lot of things behind big bureaucratic systems.The way that the book is written is to be able to be used by anybody who's dealing with any of the top eight allergens. And this question has come up a lot by people looking at the project, wondering if their child's allergic to dairy and nuts, will they still be able to eat? And the answer is yes because every recipe is going to be flexible and your allergen will be able to be substituted within that. And I would say only 30% of the book probably contains those two items.So even without the flexibility of the recipes, there's still a ton of resources for everybody, but it is friendly to to all top eight allergens. And part of the reason that I wanted to do that is because I know that nobody's journey is the same and nobody's allergens look exactly the same and mine aren't all the top eight, but the top eight are responsible for 90% of the food allergic reactions. So I wanted to try to include as many people as I could.I think the things that made me fall in love with food, I think the food is all about our memories and about our experiences and little things go a long way and food attaches us to memories. And that's how we make memories with each other. And there's just a real sense of comfort in it, whether it was my grandmother taking the time to slice the grapes for the fruit salad and just shows love.Friendsgiving is how I started celebrating Thanksgiving when I came out here and just bringing people together. And I think that food really connects us with each other and with ourselves. And it's a big reflection on how we're taking care of ourselves and I think it's important and I think this book is important. I hope that people will consider supporting the project regardless of whether or not you have food allergies. Because I can practically guarantee, you know somebody who has food allergies and they deserve this resource.Lisa:Well, thank you, Jessica.Jessica:Thank you.Lisa:You've been listening to Method to the Madness, a biweekly public affairs show on KALX Berkeley, celebrating Bay Area innovators. You can find all of our podcasts on iTunes University. We'll be back in two weeks at this same time. 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Bay Area music critic and culture historian, Greil Marcus, discusses The Slits and former Slits guitarist Viv Albertine's new memoir as well as his fascination with The Manchurian Candidate.Transcript:Lisa Kiefer:Method to the Madness is next. You're listening to Method to the Madness, a biweekly public affairs show on KALX Berkeley, celebrating Bay Area innovators. I'm your host, Lisa Keifer, and today I'll be speaking with Bay Area native and resident Greil Marcus. Greil's has been writing about music and culture for the last 40 plus years, and today we're going to be talking about an event coming up as part of the Bay Area Book Festival. He'll be speaking with Viv Albertine, formerly of the seminal girl punk band, the Slits, on Sunday, April 29th at 3:15 PM at the David Brower Center, Goldman Theater, right here in Berkeley at 2150 Allston Way. Viv Albertine wrote a debut memoir in 2014 that was shortlisted for the National Book Award. Her new book is called To Throw Away Unopened. We'll be talking about that and much, much more.Did you ever see The Slits live?Greil Marcus:Nope.Lisa Kiefer:When did you first hear the Slits?Greil Marcus:You know, I heard the Slits, I was in England in 1980, and I went over there to do a story about the Raincoats and the Gang of Four and Essential Logic early in 1980, and met everybody, and in some cases had formed lifelong friendships out of that trip. And somebody handed me a record there. Yeah, it was called Once Upon a Time in a Living Room. It was the Slits official bootleg, or maybe, I don't know how official it was. It was on Y Records, and it was just the rawest stuff I'd ever heard in my life. I knew who the Slits were, I was aware of them. I heard their first album and it didn't knock me out, but this destroyed me.The first song, Once Upon a Time in a Living Room, starts off with one of them saying, "You're ready?" And someone else is, "Ready?" And then they just burst into laughter, and then there's this tremendous guitar chord coming down and that's it. There is just this storm of guitar noise with the most joyous back and forth, up and down yelping all through. It really is a song, even though at any given moment you, depending on how you're hearing it, it absolutely is noise. But there is a song, there is a musical theme. There are words, not that you could ever make them out. And I just thought it was the purest expression of punk I'd ever heard and I still do.Speaker 3:You're ready? Ready! Oh, no. (singing)Greil Marcus:I just fall over. How could anybody have the nerve to do this?Lisa Kiefer:They had no role models. It was so fresh. And I wonder, has there been anything so fresh as that period of time where the Sex Pistols emerged? They came on the scene, it was a short time, then they're gone. Do you think there's been anything quite like that?Greil Marcus:Yeah, there are analogies. There are parallels, maybe. Elvis at Sun Records in 1954 and '55. It was a similar explosion of creativity, and it brought people from all over the south to knocking on that same door saying, "Let me in. I want to make records too." And a lot of those people became legends, and there's creativity going on in hip hop, just unlimited. There are no borders. There's no bottom, there's no top. It's not just Kendrick Lamar, it's not just Kanye West. There is a group in Edinburgh called the Young Fathers, which is just tremendously playful and experimental, and at the same time, dead serious.Speaker 4:(singing)Greil Marcus:And I'm just talking about the few things I know, but in terms of coherence, with punk in England you have a time, you have a place, you have a scene, you have all different kinds of people who know each other, who are topping each other, who are learning from each other. Viv Albertine of the Slits, I want to be a guitarist. Well, she finds people who can show her how to be a guitarist, and there isn't envy and there isn't fear. I don't want to teach her, you know, she may end up outshining me. There isn't that spirit and it doesn't last very long. None of them. And yet that kind of camaraderie and a desire to speak and a desire to be heard, that was really what punk was all about, at least as I hear it. That was replicated all over the world and still is.One of the best stories about punk I ever heard was from a friend of mine who was spending time in Andalusia in Spain, and she's fluent in Spanish, and she was sitting in a cafe, and these kids came up to her and they said, "You're American, right?" And she said, "Yes." "But you speak Spanish." And she said, "Yes." And they said, "Well, we're punkies, and we have the Sex Pistols album, but we don't understand any of the words. Could you translate these songs for us?" So she did. And that led them, this little group of people who were trying, they didn't know if they wanted to form a band, if they wanted to put out a magazine, if they just wanted to do disruptive things in public, put on hit and run plays.That led them to rediscovering the history of their own town. The anarchist history of their own town, which had been completely erased and buried. And they started talking to older people, and they started digging into the libraries, and they realized that they were the heirs of a tradition that was being reenacted on this Sex Pistols record. And it gave them this tremendous sense of pride and identity. Now they didn't form a band, they didn't make any records, and yet that is a punk story. That is a story about a punk band, band of people as true and as inspiring as any other.Lisa Kiefer:It's a way of being, like as you've pointed out in many examples in Lipstick Traces, one of my favorite of your books.Greil Marcus:Oh, thank you.Lisa Kiefer:And I find myself going back to that. I mean I bought it when it came out, and the Lester Bangs collection that you edited.Greil Marcus:Sure.Lisa Kiefer:That I continue to go to, and that really opened my eyes. I was listening to this kind of music and I saw the cover and I thought, oh, this is a book about the Sex Pistols. So I start reading it and really it wasn't, but it educated me on the history, all the movements that I considered to be punk. From the Priests going up on Easter Sunday in 1950 and saying, "God is dead."Greil Marcus:In Notre Dame.Lisa Kiefer:Somewhere in France.Greil Marcus:Easter Mass in Notre Dame.Lisa Kiefer:And then, 10 years later, and John Lennon saying, "We're more popular than Jesus." I mean, this has been happening along the way.Greil Marcus:Yeah. And what was so fascinating to me, and the stories I end up trying to tell in Lipstick Traces was that it involved all sorts of people who were not unaware of each other, but are doing the same work, speaking the same language in different formal languages, whether it's English or French or German or whatever it might be.These are people who never met, who, if you told them, if you told the Dadaist Richard Huelsenbeck in the 1970s just before he died, that his real inheritors, his real soulmates were these people across town, he was living on the Upper West Side in Manhattan, people across town called the Velvet Underground, he might say, "I have all their albums." Or he might say, "Leave me alone. I'm a serious psychoanalyst." Who knows? But these people weren't aware of each other, and yet they are following in each other's footsteps and taking inspiration from other, whether they know it or not.Lisa Kiefer:Let's talk a little bit about what's going on Sunday and your conversation with Viv, her first memoir, and now I want to talk a little bit about musician memoirs. I love literature deeply and it's kind of my guilty pleasure to read all of these rock memoirs or whatever, whether it's Keith Richards, Kim Gordon. Have you read Kim Gordon's?Greil Marcus:Sure.Lisa Kiefer:Viv's first one, which is called Clothes, Clothes, Clothes, Music, Music, Music, Boys, Boys, Boys, it was so entertaining. I was so engaged and I didn't expect to be.Greil Marcus:You know, it's a marvelous book.Lisa Kiefer:You called it the best punk book ever.Greil Marcus:I think it is. I think if you want to get a sense of what impelled people, what drove people to step out of their shells, their shyness, their manners, their politeness and reinvent themselves and the joy they felt in doing so for a very brief period of time, this book will show you that, not just tell you, but show that to you, like no other book or film that I'm aware of. But you know, the title really sums up Viv Albertine, I think. Clothes, Clothes, Clothes, Boys, Boys, Boys, Music, Music, Music, which is what her mother once said. "That's all you care about. Clothes, clothes, clothes and boys, boys, boys and music, music, music." And she's, "Yeah, that's right." And there's a wonderful scene at the end of the book. She's in her fifties, she's been married and divorced, she has a daughter, she has this boyfriend and their relationship is not working.And at one point he just explodes, and he grabs her by the neck, and he's shoving her face into the carpet on the floor and she really feels he's trying to kill her, and she's struggling and she's thinking, but she takes you right into her head at that moment. And she says, "Here's a man who I've introduced to my mother and my daughter, who I've cooked for, who I've dressed. I've done everything for this person. And here I am wearing an applique blouse." And she goes and tells you exactly what clothes she's wearing at this moment. And he's pounding my face into the carpet. And she says, "You know, there's just no pleasing some people," and she has that sardonic attitude. But what have you got here? While there's no music in that scene, but you got the boys and you got the clothes, and there's an appendix that tells you what she was wearing and what she was listening to and who she was involved with in any given point of time in the many years covered by this book.The only analogy to that is a Jan and Dean album, the wonderful surf doo-wop group from the 50s and 60s, and it's a collection, and on the back of the album there's a concordance matching the car and girlfriend that Jan or Dean had at the time any given record was released. And what's really fascinating as you read through this is that both the cars and the girlfriends are constantly shifting back and forth between the two of them. They both have Corvettes. One gets a Porsche, the other gets a Maserati. One is going out with Jill, the other's going out with Debbie, and then Debbie is going out with the other one. It's just so funny to read. And so is Viv Albertine's book.Lisa Kiefer:Yeah, she starts her book saying, "I don't masturbate and I never had a desire to masturbate." That's how she starts the book. Later she's talking about Ari Up, who is their vocalist, that she takes a wee right on the stage. I mean, that had to be the first time ever for a girl band to, she had to go and that's where she did it. She was stabbed a couple of times. Really vivid, and you just get this idea that she was so courageous and brave and honest. She's talking about when she first started listening to T. Rex. And why? Because he was a little less aggressively masculine. And I can remember the same thing happened to me in my little town in the Midwest. No one was listening to T. Rex. They did not understand what I liked about Marc Bolan and I loved him, so I've really connected with this book on many levels.Greil Marcus:Yeah, and one of the things that I find so moving in her new book, it's called To Throw Away Unopened, which is another book. I hate to think of them as memoirs because both of these books are so imaginatively constructed, and they really are about things outside the writer's life. The writer is living in a world. The world is present in these books. I think of them as much more ambitious intellectually than memoirs. What happened to me, this all really happened. You should care about it. Why should I care about this? I don't care about this. You have to make me care.This is a book revolving around the death of her mother in 2014, which was at the time that she published her first book, and her conflicts with her sister, and the mystery of her parents' marriage and why it broke up, and who her parents really were. Things that she began to find out after her mother died. Putting all this stuff together, and yet you are always aware of a particular individual fighting to maintain her sense of self, which is constructed, which is self-conscious, which is real, but which could disappear and shatter at any time.There's one incident early on in the book, where she's talking about going to pubs, playing her songs. You know, she's got her guitar, she goes to places, she plays songs because she wants to be heard. She's not making money doing this. She's not supporting herself doing this. It's something she absolutely has to do. And she's in one pub, and there's a bunch of guys right up front who are really drunk and loud-mouthing and shouting and paying no attention to her at all, making it impossible for anybody else to pay attention to her. And there are people there who want to, and impossible for her to pay attention to what she's supposedly doing. So she asked him, "Could you maybe go to the back, maybe go to the bar. I'm trying to get these songs across." And they ignore her. They didn't even say (beep) you. Sorry, we're on the radio.Lisa Kiefer:I'll bleep.Greil Marcus:They don't say a word to her, they just ignore her. And so she gets up, she puts her guitar down, she gets up, she walks over to their table, she picks up a mug of ale, which is the closest thing to her, and she simply sweeps it across the faces of these four guys sitting at the table, and they look at her, absolutely stunned. And then she picks up another mug and she says it was a Guinness, which, this is Viv Albertine as a writer. Every detail is important. It's a Guinness. That's interesting. It's going to be thicker. It's going to stay in clothes more. It's actually going to be more unpleasant to have that thrown in your face.And she throws that in their face and she says, "Your punk attitude, it comes back to you when you need it." And there's a way in which that is sort of the key as I read it anyway, to this new book, as it comes back to you in terms of the the responsibility you have to not back down, to stand up for yourself, but also to stand up for things you believe are right and in jeopardy, to fight when you have to. And to be relentlessly honest, and not pretend you don't care when you do or that you do care when you don't.Lisa Kiefer:I've read her first book. The second isn't out yet. So are they going to be selling it on Sunday?Greil Marcus:Well, she's on a book tour.Lisa Kiefer:So I assume it'll be there.Greil Marcus:So presumably, you don't go on a book tour unless you've got a book that people can go out and get.Lisa Kiefer:And it is the Bay Area Book Festival.Greil Marcus:Yeah.Lisa Kiefer:So, it sounds like you think it's as strong as the first book, which was nominated for a National Book Award.Greil Marcus:It's very different. It's very different, and as writing, it certainly is strong. Whether the story is smaller in terms of the room that makes for the reader, maybe it is, I'm not sure. Viv Albertine is a remarkable person who's done exceptional things in her life, who has a tremendous sense of humor, who has a sense of jeopardy and danger.You can hear it in her music and you can feel it coming off the pages that she writes. I don't know what we're going to talk about. I don't know what this will be like. I just know that as someone listening to the record she made, seeing her play live, reading her books, that she is just a person who can go in any direction at any time. I saw her in 2009 at the Kitchen in Brooklyn, at a show with the Raincoats. She was opening for them, just herself and her electric guitar. Most of what she did was tell stories on stage, was talk. She played songs, but she was mainly telling stories, and it was the most entertaining and diverting and compelling stuff I'd seen in a long time. I was just hanging on every word, and she was both funny and sardonic and cruel to herself and anybody she might be talking about.And at one point she made some reference to how she looks. She was, I think, 54 then. She looked about 30. There was just no question. You say, "Is this real? Is this happening?" And she said, "Yeah, yeah, I know, it's the curse of the Slits." Well, one thing I'm going to ask her is, "What do you mean by that?" You know, the Fountain of Youth? What's going on here? You know, I met her once in, I think, 1991 in England.Lisa Kiefer:When she was doing films. She's a director.Greil Marcus:Yeah, she was a TV director. We were introduced and I said, "My God, you're Viv Albertine?" I'm like, wow. And she was saying, "No, I just, you know, I'm just doing this little TV crew." And I said, "No, this is a big deal for me to meet you." Well, it will be a big deal for me to meet her again.Lisa Kiefer:If you're just tuning in, you're listening to Method to the Madness, a biweekly public affairs show on KALX Berkeley, celebrating Bay Area innovators. Today I'm speaking with Greil Marcus, music critic and culture historian.You've written a monogram on The Manchurian Candidate sometime ago, and you introduced it as part of a film series at the Pacific Film Archive this week. What is your fascination with this Frankenheimer film?Greil Marcus:Well, I saw it when it came out in 1961, saw it at the Varsity Theater in Palo Alto with my best friend. I was 16 and came out of that movie shellshocked. I had never seen anything like it. The only analogy was, I guess the year before seeing Psycho in a theater across the street in Palo Alto. And when that chair turns around at the end of the movie, and you see this mummy, I think you could have peeled me off the ceiling of the theater. But that movie, ultimately it was a puzzle. It was a game. It was a tease for the audience. It wasn't about anything real. You didn't carry it with you. It wasn't like a waking bad dream. It wasn't like a bad conscience that this movie was passing onto, and that's what The Manchurian Candidate was. It was shocking in every way I could possibly account for, and at 16 couldn't begin to account for.I realize now that I had never seen a movie that so completely went to the edges of possibility of the medium itself. What I mean by that is I understood what movies could be after seeing The Manchurian Candidate, and I had never even thought the movies could or couldn't be anything before. The question wasn't even there. The only comparable experience was seeing Murnau's Sunrise quite a few years later and say, "Ah, now I understand this is what movies were meant to be, but almost never are."Lisa Kiefer:With Trump as our president, it's almost like he could be the Manchurian Candidate.Greil Marcus:Well, you know, since John McCain was first running for president and he was, you know, remember he was a prisoner of war and he was beaten and he was tortured. He was filmed, essentially confessing. And there were many people who began to spread rumors about him that he was, and this phrase was used, the Manchurian Candidate, that he had been brainwashed in Vietnam.And he had come back here as a kind of sleeper agent. And somebody once said to him, "How do you make decisions?" And he said, "Well, I just turn over the Red Queen," which is one of the clues in The Manchurian Candidate.Lisa Kiefer:Yeah, I brought one with me. I was going to try and brainwash you.Greil Marcus:Yes, exactly. The Queen of Hearts. That is a crucial marker in the film. But it wasn't that it was showing us a conspiracy to destroy our country, which is part of what the movie is about. And that we would then say, "Oh my God, this could happen. This is so scary. This is so terrible." Over the years, this is 1961 or '62, Kennedy, John F. Kennedy was involved in the making of the movie. He and Sinatra discussed it. Kennedy wanted Lucille Ball to play the role of the mother that Angela Lansbury ended up playing. Kennedy was weighing in on the casting.He and Sinatra were close at that time. Sinatra's the lead in the movie. Kennedy is assassinated in 1963, Malcolm X was later. It was Malcolm X who said that with Kennedy's assassination, the chickens had come home to roost. And then we just go through the decades, it's just a panoply of disaster, whether it's Wallace, whether it's Reagan, whether it's Malcolm X, whether it's Martin Luther King, whether it's RFK, and going on and on to Gerald Ford, two assassination attempts on him, and into the present.As each of these things happened, the movie comes back to people with more and more reverberation because the story, the sense that our politics don't make sense. This is that everything is happening in a world beyond our control, knowledge or even our abilities to comprehend.Lisa Kiefer:And there are so many secrets that we aren't able to know about.Greil Marcus:Yeah, this gets more and more present. So when you end up with a president, a candidate, and then a president who is at the very least beholden to, and at the very worst, under the control of another country, it's almost as if you can't make the Manchurian Candidate argument because it's too trivial. Well, this movie said, but that's what we carry around our heads.But what's shocking about the movie? I want to get back to that because if people haven't seen it, it was unavailable for many years. It was essentially, it wasn't banned in any legal sense, of course, but you couldn't see it for many, many years. It just felt wrong after Kennedy's assassination and it played on TV after Kennedy was assassinated, but then Sinatra controlled the movie. He pulled it. It didn't come out in video. It didn't show on late night TV. It didn't show in revival screenings. It just wasn't there.You could tell people about it as a kind of legend. Now it's available. People can watch it in any way they want, at any time they want. And one of the things that happens in this movie is violence. Violence that from the very first moment is wounding, is disturbing, is hard to take, and it's absolutely in your face. I mean that literally, the movie puts blood splatters in your face. It happens in a way that you're just desperate, as the movie is going on, for it not to go where you know it's going to go. This is not a movie with a happy ending. This has one of the most awful endings that I know. It is an ending of complete despair and self-loathing and hopelessness. The last words of the movie is Sinatra. "Hell, hell, hell!" That's how the movie ends. And there's a thunderclap. Bang. That's it. And you just walk out of there...Lisa Kiefer:Stunned.Greil Marcus:... and it's like your world has been taken away from you. None of this would matter if this movie wasn't made with tremendous glee and excitement on the part of the director and the writer and the editor and the cinematographer and Lawrence Harvey and Frank Sinatra...Lisa Kiefer:Great cast.Greil Marcus:... and Angela Lansbury and Janet Leigh and on and on and on. All these people are working over their heads. They've never been involved in anything that demanded so much of them, that is making them feel, this is what I was born to do. Can I pull this off? Can I make this work? Can I convince people this is who I really am, that I actually would do these terrible things, and going past themselves. None of the people in this movie, to my knowledge or the way I see it, ever did anything as good before or after.They never did anything as innovative. They never did anything as radical. They never did anything as scary. And whether or not they felt that way about their own work in their own lives, don't have any idea, but I don't think so.Lisa Kiefer:I do want you to mention your website, which I have found to be very interesting. What is that?Greil Marcus:Well, there's a writer named Scott Woods who lives in Canada, and he approached me a number of years ago and asked if he could set up a website to collect my writing and just be a gathering place. And I said, "Sure." It's greilmarcus.net, and he just immediately began putting up articles, old things I'd written, recent things I'd written in no particular order, no attempt to be comprehensive, at least not right away. He did it with such incredible imagination and flair, but he started a feature a few years ago. It has the rather corny title of Ask Greil where people write in and ask me questions, and it could be about a song, or a band, or politics, or history or anything, or novels, movies. And I just answered them. I answered them all immediately because if I didn't, they'd pile up and I'd never get back to them. Is Donald Trump a Russian agent? Well, here's why he might be, and that's a complicated argument. So I take some time to talk about it.Lisa Kiefer:Thank you for coming onto Method to the Madness and being our guest here at KALX.Greil Marcus:Well, thank you. It's a thrill to be on your show.Lisa Kiefer:That was musicologist Greil Marcus. He'll be in conversation this Sunday, April 29th at 3:15 with Viv Albertine, formerly of the Slits. This is part of the Bay Area Book Festival in partnership with the San Francisco Chronicle. They'll be speaking at the Goldman Theater of the David Brower Center at 2150 Allston Way. Tickets are $10 ahead.You've been listening to Method to the Madness. You can find all of our podcasts on iTunes University. We'll be back in two weeks. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

UC Berkeley students and founders of RoBhat Labs, Ash Bhat and Rohan Phadte, have launched a Twitter bot checker called Botcheck.me using data science and machine learning to help any user identify fake news.Transcript:Lisa Kiefer:You're listening to Method to the Madness, a bi-weekly public affairs show on KALX Berkeley, celebrating Bay Area innovators. I'm your host, Lisa Kiefer. And today I have two UC Berkeley students, Ash and Rohan, and they have launched a Twitter Bot checker that has really taken off. We're going to talk to them about how they're battling fake news.I'd like to welcome the UC Berkeley students. What year are you guys?Ash Bhat:We're juniors.Lisa Kiefer:It's Ash Bhat and Rohan Phadte. And you've come to my attention because you came up with an innovative Twitter Bot Checker and I assume you've probably come up with a lot of other things too since then. But I wanted to talk to you about your lab, RoBhat lab, which combines your names, that's really great. So tell me first of all, what is a bot?Ash Bhat:Yeah, so one of the things that we've been really looking at was on Twitter. There are a lot of these accounts that try really hard to be human but actually have bot-like behavior behind it. And there are a lot of bots that are really harmless on Twitter. A lot of them are... actually say that they're bots and they actually just tweet out maybe like every word in the English language as an automation exercise, but there are some other bots on Twitter that are actually pretty dangerous and they end up pushing, or re-tweeting a lot of these political propaganda memes or topics and a lot of other people can actually see these bot networks spread this information, look at the information and think that, oh look, my friends are sharing it. There's a lot of people here.Lisa Kiefer:It's legitimate.Ash Bhat:It's legitimate.Lisa Kiefer:Yeah.Ash Bhat:In fact, it's actually been propagated by, you know, hundreds or maybe even thousands of bot-like profiles and it's basically artificially creating this virality on Twitter.Lisa Kiefer:When did you come to the realization that this was a problem that you had to find a solution to?Rohan Phadte:Yes, so in terms of our background, we started out trying to figure out... trying to identify fake news computationally. The way we approached it was trying to figure out where fake news was being spread. So we actually went on Twitter, started looking at the different accounts that are spreading fake news and we started noticing that they didn't look human at all. They were tweeting out every minute, they seem to be tweeting at every hour of the day. And so all of a sudden we're like this seems to not be human. And so that's sort of how we got into this entire...Lisa Kiefer:I read that... What's the guy's name? Yiannopoulos who was here...Rohan Phadte:Oh yeah.Lisa Kiefer:... was that the impetus?Rohan Phadte:Yeah, Milo is definitely an impetus in the sense that's sort of how we got into like the political space. We were both at the protest and while we were there we realized that there is so much misinformation that was being spread about the protest. And that's how we started getting acquainted with the space.Lisa Kiefer:So you are studying what here at UC Berkeley?Rohan Phadte:I'm an interdisciplinary studies field major, so I'm studying like quite a few different majors. So everything from sociology to philosophy to like computer science.Lisa Kiefer:Oh that's a nice mix. What about you?Ash Bhat:I'm studying computer science, electrical engineering. So I mainly the engineering side and doing a little bit of part of breakfast research.So I read that you call yourself Data Scientist. What does that mean exactly?Rohan Phadte:Yes. So in terms of a data science, we're looking at a lot of statistics. Data science is a very sexy word for like a statistical analysis. So we're looking at a lot of texts, we're looking at a lot of numbers and we're trying to make sense of it all. And that's essentially what we do as data scientists.Lisa Kiefer:You started this lab, walk me through your process. What did you need to do first after you realized you want to get truth in the information space?Ash Bhat:It started off as just us working on projects basically just be being like, what can we do? We're computer scientists, we can solve any problem. Like we can try it. You use our technical knowledge like solve any problem and-Lisa Kiefer:You're going to use it for a class project or is this outside of class?Ash Bhat:This is completely outside of class project. Completely outside of class. On nights we're like, "Hey, we should be doing something about this." In fact, one of the interesting things we saw was on Facebook, Facebook announced that they are going to be doing something about solving fake news and like trying to detect and trying to stop spreading it. And then right below that we saw instances of, fake news still being spread by a couple of like friends and profiles.And so we were just like, "Hey, there must be something to be done here." And taking matters in their own hands. We were looking at, hey, we can use our data science and machine learning that we learned at Berkeley to try to create our own algorithms to help solve this problem.Lisa Kiefer:And so what do you do with them? I mean explained to me. I use Twitter very rarely. How would I use your ... What do you call your Bot Checker?Ash Bhat:We call it botcheck.me.Lisa Kiefer:And tell me how I would use that. Walk me through how I can protect my account.Ash Bhat:Botcheck.me is actually a website you can visit and it has a couple of dashboards which talk about the ... Basically talk about the statistics of the current bot network, how they're acting, what are the most recent topics, what are they talking about and there's also a search bar where you can enter in any Twitter username and once you enter then a Twitter username, it will actually send up to our server. We'll run statistical analysis behind the scenes, we'll be looking at the tweets, we'll be looking at the how often they tweet, the tweet timestamps, the number of likes. Basically looking at the profiles network and we can accurately determine whether that profile or not is a bot or human.Lisa Kiefer:How accurately.Ash Bhat:Yeah, so recently when we first launched, we're getting about 93% of high confidence profile bot accounts and then since then, since we have a bunch of feedback from the community, we've actually had about 50,000 users in over 500,000 accounts classified. And that number is just risen since then because has been taking all this input from humans and learning. And so now that number's about 96 to 97%.Lisa Kiefer:That's not bad.Ash Bhat:Because I think it's a great start for understanding the button work on Twitter, especially since there's already not getting out there and just having all the information out there really add can educate a user whether an account or not is actually spreading humans stuff.Lisa Kiefer:When you need this data that to do your analysis, do you have to pay for that from Twitter? How do you get your information?Rohan Phadte:Yeah, so in terms of getting the information, Twitter actually has a public API and so we're actually able-Lisa Kiefer:And what is an API?Rohan Phadte:So API is essentially a ... It's sort of like hitting a URL to get access to information in a way that we can run data analysis on. So Twitter makes a bit of their service of available for developers like us to actually take advantage of and like use for statistical analysis.Lisa Kiefer:Well I didn't know Twitter provided that free. So they're taking a passive stance it sounds like, and letting developers. Why do you think they're taking a passive stance and not doing this themselves?Ash Bhat:We're actually a little bit confused concerning that we're two college students that have been able to build something that you just very clearly want. The response that we've got has been absolutely insane. But that being said, Twitter's a multi-billion dollar company with hundreds if not thousands of engineers and we think they should totally be doing more when this problem is so, so important and a problem that we all face.Lisa Kiefer:Well, have you talked to anyone there? What do you think is the reason? Is it because they need the advertising promotional? They don't want to put any restraints on business or what?Ash Bhat:We're not entirely sure, but one thing that has been pretty fascinating is Twitter hasn't really responded to our comments to us reaching out to them, but also we recently gave a talk at Stanford and I think Twitter was supposed to be there as well, and when they found out we were going to be speaking, I think they dropped out of the talk and so like we're not entirely sure like what's happening. We haven't really heard too much back. But yeah, we are definitely very curious.Lisa Kiefer:Yeah, it seems like Facebook and Twitter and maybe other, they're taking a passive approach like this problem is going to go away.Ash Bhat:Yeah, I mean from I guess one theory that we have and we don't want to speculate too much. It is a very complex area for them to be in, especially concerning even when Facebook try to prevent fake news, they actually got in trouble for seeming a anti-conservative and so there's a lot of this pushback against Facebook or Twitter seeming politically polarized if they were to take a position one way or the other.Lisa Kiefer:One side or the other would accuse them.Ash Bhat:Exactly, yeah.Lisa Kiefer:After all your research, do you think that one side of the political spectrum is using these bots more than others or is it pretty equal?Ash Bhat:In terms of how these bots come out in terms of politics, we've actually noticed bots on both sides of the political spectrum. It's been actually very, very, very scary. We've seen examples such as like the Parkland shootings when bots were tweeting out about gun control from both sides of the debate and what this actually creates is a even more of a divide.And on top of that, the thing that again scares us is these bots are able to sort of influence the conversation. So where in the case of Parkland, where it could have been a conversation were we would've found unity around mental health. It became a conversation where we fought over gun control. These are the different areas where we actually find bot networks incredibly scary in terms of like their effect on how we talk about certain issues.Lisa Kieifer:I mean, how do we know the truth and why is that important?Ash Bhat:Yeah, there was recently an MIT study that came out that said fake news actually spreads a much faster and much broader than real news. And they looked at data from the 2016 elections. And I think the core thesis that we took away from that was fake news is in some ways more sexy, more interesting to read. And thus it spreads virally a lot, easier.That sort of becomes this problem where it's inherently spread spending lot faster, yet it comes with all these different problems that is baked into being fake. And so we're sort of struggling with that. Like, how do we incentivize people to read the truth and also how do we stop fake news from spreading in the first place?Lisa Kiefer:It's an interesting question because education of most people in the country is not that great anymore. And so they're not learning how to critically think. And so there's a reliance instead of doubting something or going deeper, there's just a superficial like, okay that that's the truth. So if you don't have critical thinking skills, you're not going to be able to, to know the difference I think. And that's scary.Ash Bhat:Yeah, like the way we see it internally is like, we almost see it like a mind virus when it comes to like a lot of these ideas in the sense that they sort of spread in the same ways that viruses do. They infect a few like initial people, they start spreading their hosts and the analogy seems to just work almost perfectly.Lisa Kiefer:Yeah.Ash Bhat:Yeah.Lisa Kiefer:And the other side of that is once something is out there, you can't put it back in the bottle. Even if somebody says, no, no, no, no, it's been proven to be wrong. It's already in my head somehow.Ash Bhat:Yeah, it's incredibly hard to quarantine right?Lisa Kiefer:Right. Did you have many challenges when you develop this product and if you did, what were they?Rohan Phadte:Just from a technical standpoint of looking through all the basically statistical models and you have to actually basically teach a computer on how to learn what a bot and what a human is. And so it does take a little bit of engineering time behind it and I a little bit of research to understand how exactly can we make this computer most effectively learn what the difference between a bot and human is.And then even then as you have that very powerful model, it's basically a game of to figure out how can we best release this model out to the public so that they can understand what's going on in their network and how can they use it the most effectively versus becoming a cat and mouse game of like just people calling each other bots and you're a bot, you're not a bot and then making like a flame more based on that.And that's something we really want to avoid. Just want to increase ... Make people more aware of their entire social network without actually making people start calling each other names and saying, hey, you're bot not a bot.Lisa Kiefer:How did you do that?Rohan Phadte:Yeah, so what we wanted to do is we actually made the tool and when we tried to be very careful with here. We tried to basically say, hey, it's a very good tool to help you understand what you're talking to. Is it a bot or is it a human? Are you arguing with specifically someone who actually has an opinion on this versus an automated new account?And our tool is very good at just giving that information saying, "Hey, this is likely to be a bot" but like, "Hey, make sure be warned that this is, this is likely not to be a human." And so it gives that user that information. Just say, "Hey, be a little bit more careful here." If you're arguing and constantly getting, nothing's really making any difference than hey, just be warned that this could be a bot.Lisa Kiefer:So if I'm in conversation with something that may be a bot, what would I see? Some of them are automated at the other end so you can tell the answers are just automated answers.Rohan Phadte:There's different levels of bot to that that we've seen. So some are specifically completely all automated and some of them are are like maybe a mixture. So there's a human behind the scenes and there's could be some automation aspects to the actual itself.And so sometimes you'll be able to like message a bot and you won't get any response back because they're not set up for automation for that. And sometimes you'll be able to get a response back because there's someone controlling it behind the scenes and it's kind of hard to tell. One of the true tales that we can tell from just maybe like the profiles that you can see that there's a lot of retweets, a tweets happened very quickly, a tweets happened every few like few minutes or maybe once every minute happening pretty often close to 24 hours at a day doesn't really stop or maybe specifically re-tweeting the same sources and those are all true tale signs that you can check as a human to see if our this account or not is a bot.Lisa Kiefer:If you're just tuning in, you're listening to Method to the Madness. A bi-weekly public affairs show on KALX Berkeley Celebrating Bay area innovators. Today I'm speaking with founders of RoBhat labs, two UC Berkeley students using artificial intelligence to create a botbuster called Botcheck me, battling fake news.Seems like all of these services started out with a pretty idealistic philosophy, you know, whether it was Facebook or Twitter and the uprising in Egypt, Twitter was great for that. I see it as being a real great tool for journalists who are out in remote areas. It didn't take long though for it to become co-opted. What are your using now besides Twitter? What do you think is the best social media tool right now?Ash Bhat:To answer your question, I think you brought up a really interesting word and that's tool. I think that's totally what these things are, right? They aren't necessarily morally right or morally wrong. It's a tool and can be used in a variety of different ways. And so with Twitter, yes it's been beautiful for things like protests-Lisa Kiefer:Errant springs.Ash Bhat:Errant springs, but that being said, it's also a tool that can be used to create polarization, to create the spread of misinformation. And so like in that perspective, like when it comes down to like what is the best social network? I think all these social networks are tools and it's how we use them and how we like receive our information from them. So it's hard to like answer that question.Lisa Kiefer:Do you feel like you were successful and that you're moving on to new things or are you still working on this Twitter bot?Ash Bhat:So in terms of this problem, the way we've seen it is the first step in solving a problem is identifying it. And so that's sort of what we'd done with Botcheck me like over the past several months, I think society as a whole has become a lot more aware of these problems and we're really happy that we've played a role in terms of helping that happen.But that being said, I guess the next step for us in terms of things that we're working and when we're publishing a report that essentially is going to talk about like, and identify a lot of the different phenomenons that are going on just so that we can start becoming more aware-Lisa Kiefer:What kind of phenomenon?Ash Bhat:For example, like we see these things called DMAs which are distributed misinformation attacks. And so that's sort of what these bot networks are. They're essentially like a distributed way of like a lot of these bots trying to spread misinformation. And so like different concepts like that we're trying to like make available for the public so that we also have understanding for them. And I guess the next step after that is trying to understand ...Once we understand how to detect these problems, how to prevent them so that they don't happen again in the future. And so we're working with groups like the Democratic Party for example, the Democratic National Committee along with different groups to make sure that these sort of things don't happen Again.Lisa Kiefer:Are you working with Republican Party too?Ash Bhat:We've been talking to a couple different campaigns. We haven't had a chance to like have a similar conversation with the Republican National Committee, but we hope to.Lisa Kiefer:So you're moving on to new areas that read that you guys have like a blackboard with 20,000 apps on it. I know you're busy with school, you have to graduate too, but what is your next project or are you just wrapped up completely in what you just told me?Ash Bhat:Yeah, so I guess we can't comment too much on like the different projects that we have behind the scenes just because we have a lot of these different confidential or like relationships that we can't honestly talk about yet. But that being said, this is a problem that we care very deeply about and want to have a huge impact. And so we are actively ... Every single day, we spend time working on coming up with solutions to make sure that these sort of problems don't happen again in the future.Lisa Kiefer:I think it's so wonderful that you are so committed to this idea. How does that happen? You both grew up in San Jose area, correct?Ash Bhat:Yeah.Lisa Kiefer:And you've known each other a very long. Were you neighbors? Tell me about your backgrounds.Rohan Phadte:Yeah, actually Ash and I were basically childhood friends we even get at each other in about middle school. And since then we've been pretty good friends. So we saw each other as like a, you know, in highest and like basically school, I was like competitors, just a little competitive whenever we tried to try like have tests and stuff. But I mean for the most part we've been really, really good friends. We've had cross country together, we used to do robotics together back in high school.Lisa Kiefer:Robotics? Okay.Rohan Phadte:And so yeah, so we've always had an interest in passion in technology and that's just pretty much grown from there. And since when we got both gone to Berkeley, we're like, we have to be a housemates, we had to be roommates. And so that happened.Lisa Kiefer:How does that work out where you're rooming together and you also have a business together? Is that something that must be challenging sometimes?Ash Bhat:The thing that's really interesting about this entire thing is Rohan and I have been building projects since we were like teenagers. What sort of happened was over the past like eight or so years, every year I guess the world just started listing a little bit more and like it's just been very validating to work on these projects that we like build for our friends. And now like we have tens of thousands of people that use us every single day.Lisa Kiefer:And how did you get the word out? I know you grew up in Silicon Valley, so you've probably even run into people that are in this business. How did you make the approach, I don't know, how did you get your support?Ash Bhat:We were working in a space with a huge problem and no solutions. And so, I think it was a byproduct of like us being at the right place in the right time. We're in Berkeley working on computer science in one of the most interesting political probably in history, like in US history. And so like I think there's a lot of a huge component of luck to everything that's going on. And yeah, we're incredibly lucky to be where we are.Lisa Kiefer:Do you feel like the tech field is, it's a crisis point right now? I mean, I deleted my Facebook account. I mean, I just feel like it's not anything but a promotional tool. It's great for marketing, you know, we're companies. But for me personally, I just, I don't know. It's not what I thought it would be. They're definitely getting pushed back right now. There's room for a new company.Ash Bhat:I think we're reevaluating our techno optimism. I think for the past like a generation, we've been very, very optimistic about what technology can do. And in many ways we built these amazing tools that let us be connected to each other, get access to information in a way that we've never had.I have a phone in my pocket that I can ask any question to and it'll give me the answer in a couple of seconds. And like that's an amazing place to be in in terms like a point in history. But that being said, with tools come like the positives and negatives. And I think we're at this point, we've started reevaluating the what technology really means to us. And that being said, I don't think it's anything to base on technology. I think it's more so just natural progression of things.Lisa Kiefer:You're both studying artificial intelligence here?Ash Bhat:Yeah. That's correct. Yeah.Lisa Kiefer:What does that like, can you explain what you're studying here in terms of artificial intel and how you use that in your products?Ash Bhat:Artificial intelligence is a like really fancy word for getting computers to essentially work off of heuristics and essentially automate certain tasks. AI Or artificial intelligence is a very broad term that like covers everything from like machine learning to a lot of the simple apps that we use every single day.Rohan Phadte:So maybe that artificial intelligence is me basically used to make decisions for on layer very large data sets. So on an instance where a human might be overwhelmed with a large amount of data, like gigabytes and you know, penta bytes of data, artificial intelligence is a very good way of basically sorting that in an organizable way. Ways that computers can understand very well and then make high level decisions that are statistically probable to yield the highest result at the end.And this is a very powerful tool. I mean a lot of robots and a lot of self driving cars in fact, use this tool, get a lot of data and then make decisions based off that and they can get some high accuracy results in the end better than a human could.Lisa Kiefer:Right. Except for those few accidents.Rohan Phadte:Exactly. I mean this is all process of development. Yeah.Lisa Kiefer:You've been recognized by wired magazine and CBS News. What other accomplishments are you really proud of since you've gotten into this space of protecting all of us from fake news?Ash Bhat:I think the accomplishment that we're most proud of is the users that we've been able to like work with and the amount of accounts that we've classified. Twitter classified about 6,000 accounts when they came out and talked in front of Congress and I think it was November 1st October 31st last year.Today, we've classified over half a million accounts. Just having like a scope of that, that's what we get up every morning excited about. That's sort of what, what makes all of this so validating.Lisa Kiefer:If somebody approached you, your lab and said, we want to buy you for billion dollars or whatever, would you do it?Ash Bhat:I think at the end of the day like we're chasing after this goal. So like we evaluate all the options that we would have in terms of what brings us closest to like achieving that goal. And so like that's sort of the-Lisa Kiefer:So that's not your goal?Ash Bhat:Yeah. Yeah. That's not our goal. Yeah. Our goal is to like solve the problem that we're working on.Lisa Kiefer:You're natural innovators. Do you feel like this area has a lot of natural innovators because of where you grew up or is it your families? What do you think it takes to truly be an innovator like that? Is it the knowledge you've learned or?Rohan Phadte:Yeah, I think too, in order to be like an innovator in this area, you really need to understand where the problem speaks set and where the problems are in society and how it affects people. And then once you get a good understanding of that, you can actually start developing some interesting technology. And in the case of Ash and I and Botcheck me, we've actually spent months just studying fake news beforehand.Before wrote a single line of code, we studied how it spreads and how it looks at what the previous research papers on this area and looking at specifically how is Facebook and Twitter already trying to tackle this problem already and I think that's really important to truly understand the area before you go and delve in before you can just say, "Hey tech can solve that." Or "Hey, just add a little line of code, artificial intelligence can solve that." It really takes a bit of understanding of the problem space in order to understand what is the best way to attack the problem.Lisa Kiefer:What about money? Did you have to get funding to do this work or are you just doing it? Is it just your own blood, sweat and tears?Ash Bhat:Yeah, so funny story on that. It's our completely our blood, sweat and tears. Like we've been so like so frugal about like every expense we're supporting so many users and like we have to figure out how to like make it super cost efficient. A lot of startups don't necessarily have to like worry about like where do we get money or like they they raise funding. We haven't raised a single cent of capital. It's been just absurd like all the different efficiencies and like hacks that we put together to make this entire service run as as cheap as possible on us so that we can provide it for free for the users.Lisa Kiefer:So how would you make money if you're providing it free? Would you have to run ads on it eventually? What's your model?Ash Bhat:Yeah, so in terms of like monetizing this, we think there, this is a real problem. We see this as like the next generation of spam right now I think, I think we've done a pretty good job of like being sort of the thought leaders and like sort of like the experts in the space. Like as this problem becomes larger and groups like the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, run into these issues, we hope to be the group that solves these issues for them.We have access to the best data just because we have the most amazing users and we have access to the best insights. So like we're thinking through using that and that's sort of where we are looking to like monetize.Lisa Kiefer:So it's like the consulting fee or something like that?Ash Bhat:Not necessarily we want to build products with the insight that have in a scalable way so that all these different groups that are affected by problems like misinformation can actually take our products and solve their problems and we can solve those pain points.Lisa Kiefer:So at some point, you would put a price on that product, is that what you're saying?Ash Bhat:Yeah-Lisa Kiefer:Now it's free but-Ash Bhat:Not for the users, but we are starting to charge big groups like the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, like for these sort of services.Lisa Kiefer:At some point you'll be cut loose of UC Berkeley and you won't have access to that free data, right?Ash Bhat:So we don't actually use any of UC Berkeley's data.Rohan Phadte:So yeah, this is the, for example, the Twitter API is completely public in terms of getting gathering data. We've built this all on our own servers and our own end and so we pretty much have access to everything from the algorithm to the data to basically just the entire pipeline altogether. And so we want to scale this out and the way we can and we want to make it as accessible to all the users as we personally can.Lisa Kiefer:Can anybody have access to this data that you, if you have your own servers and everything?Ash Bhat:We're in a unique position because our users hand classify accounts every single day for us. That's why our models are able to keep up with the changing network. And so that's our proprietary data and the reason why we don't make it public, is because we don't want the bots to learn how we're classifying them as like propaganda accounts. And so we'd love to make that public. But like we were sort of at this like limitation where we're worried that the adversaries that we're sort of going after might learn if we were to like publish the datasets that we're working with.Lisa Kiefer:Has anybody asked you about publishing it?Ash Bhat:People would definitely have. And in terms of adversaries, we are servers get attacked every single day. We get attacked on Twitter every day. We have conspiracy theory videos on us. It's crazy.Lisa Kiefer:Okay. So I would assume that people are going to want to know more about you guys. Do you have a website or how do you let people get in touch with you?Ash Bhat:Yeah, so they can, anyone can email us at hi@robhat.com that's hi@r-o-b-h-a-t.com.Lisa Kiefer:And that's a combination of both of your names, right?Ash Bhat:Yeah, that's correct. Yeah. I make my social media incredibly public like, so it's @theashbot on Twitter and anyone can send me any question. I try to be as responsive as possible. And then if you want to check out botcheck.me like you can just go to botcheck.me, it's just a website and then you can-Lisa Kiefer:And you can download the app and use it?Ash Bhat:Yeah, you can download the chrome extension or you can use a website. We try to make it as easy as possible for our users to use. We've gotten recognized for the work that we've done, but I think from our perspective it's important to like also say that we're like just getting started. We've opened up a lab, it's just the two of us working out of our house right now. We've just gotten started.And so like the, the technology that we're working on to and we hope to release we hope makes a real impact in. We know that we're very lucky that the technology that we've already released has made an impact, but we're really, really excited for what 2018 is going to bring and hopefully what we can do in 2018.Rohan Phadte:We're not the only innovators in this space. There has been some other like great work out there and really encourage that because honestly the adversaries against us and the adversities against democracy in general are great. Automation has created a huge industry for adversarial attacks.In fact, there's actually some new research coming out for like deep fakes and other lip sinking, which is basically like you can use AI to modify videos and modify actual content and there's already Photoshop out there for images, but imagine deepex is basically modifying actual videos so it looks like someone else's face has been photo-shopped on someone else's other face and you get all those same expressions. You get it all the exact same like voices and stuff.Lisa Kiefer:Wow.Rohan Phadte:Like basically content and media in the future is in jeopardy. In fact, really, really dangerous. And so we want to find some sort of way where we can protect all content and make sure the content that you see is completely factual and 100% real because it can be very dangerous if an adversary gets access to this algorithm and basically photoshops a celebrity's face on some other celebrity and you can create these viral trends where fake news is being spread and you can have some really, really powerful consequences.Ash Bhat:Yeah, and I guess to add to that, the thing that really scares us is we already have people in positions of power that call real news, fake news. And the moment that we can't tell the difference between real and fake, we just run into this very slippery slope where those people can call anything fake news and we're not going to be able to prove them wrong. And so we want to build the technology now so that we don't run into that problem in the future.Rohan Phadte:Technology has made everything so accessible, made and use, so easy to read. Get up in the morning, just checking your phone and having the news app tell you, hey these are the top headlines. That convenience, that access is something that's incredibly valuable but it can also be taken in a in a way that can mislead, right?That you have clickbait titles, you have headlines that are completely false and then the content is actually like the complete different from the headline. And so yes, there's going to be some ways where the technology can be used in an adversarial way and I think it's up to technology to try to find ways to fix that again and make that completely a tool that is actually helping humans and helping humanity move forward and getting their information and not just become a disastrous tool that can be used to mislead.Ash Bhat:I also think like we're sort of past the point where we can go back in terms of technology like the Internet, like all these different services are here to stay. Like our generation like grew up on them and doesn't know a world without it. But that being said, I think the way we should be thinking is that with these amazing technologies, we've also created these problems that we should start thinking about solving now before they become much, much worse. And we're already seeing like the effects of that.Lisa Kiefer:But you're both pretty optimistic.Ash Bhat:Yeah. One we do think people need to start thinking about these problems now and we do think there are solutions in the space. Yeah, we are very optimistic that hopefully there's this amazing quote that goes "In the cave that you fear lies the answer that you seek." That's one of the quotes that like we should sort of share within RoBhat labs and, and yeah, this is a very scary, scary time in terms of technology, but that being said, we are optimistic. We might discover we might create something completely new that we were unaware of by like diving into solving this problem.Lisa Kiefer:Okay. Well thank you Ash and Rohan for coming in today.Ash Bhat:Yeah, definitely.Lisa Kiefer:And I'm going to keep track of you and I'm going to want you to come back in when you solve this problem.Ash Bhat:Definitely, yeah.Rohan Phadte:Yeah.Ash Bhat:Thank you.Lisa Kiefer: You've been listening to Method to the Madness. Goodbye weekly public affairs show on KALX Berkeley celebrating bay area innovators. You can find all of our podcasts on iTunes university. We'll be back in two weeks. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

UC Berkeley students Nadir Akhtar and Ashvin Nihalani, members of Blockchain at Berkeley, discuss blockchain technology and token economies.Transcript:Lisa Kiefer:Method to the Madness is next. You're listening to Method to the Madness, a biweekly public affairs show on KALX Berkeley, celebrating Bay Area innovators. I'm your host, Lisa Kiefer. Today we're going to unravel the mysteries of blockchain technology. I'm speaking with-Ashvin N.:Ashvin [Nilani 00:00:20].Nadir Akhtar:Nadir Akhtar.Lisa Kiefer:Two members of Blockchain at Berkeley. And before we start talking about blockchain, can you tell me what this organization is and when it got started here at Cal.Nadir Akhtar:Fall 2014. It was originally a Bitcoin Association of Berkeley. Get together club, social club where you just talk about Bitcoin, talk about related technologies, blockchain. But in Fall 2016, a man by the name of Tobias Disse from the Netherlands, exchange student, said we should start a blockchain consulting group. And that was when our entire organization changed.We went from a social club to several layers of management producing output, high standards organization, like a company. But the leadership is entirely students.Lisa Kiefer:In the paper every day, there's something about blockchain, something about cryptocurrencies; and a lot of people don't really get it. So can you in layman's terms describe the blockchain technology?Nadir Akhtar:A blockchain is essentially a ledger shared by multiple people, which any one of those people can edit. The difference is that you don't have to trust any of those people when making edits to the distributed ledger. Analogy I like to use is if you're watching a sports game and there's the referee; you can either trust the referee alone to keep track of the score.It's much more efficient to know what the score is at any given point, but you trust that referee to be correct, not to be bribed or to just slip up. If that referee makes a single mistake, there's no check unless you have other people watching. A blockchain is like putting the burden of keeping track of the score on the audience instead of just on the referees.Now, you can poll every person in the audience at every stage of the match after every game and ask, "Okay, what's the score now?" And then the entire audience will respond. A lot of people may not have been paying attention. A lot of people may be voting in their own favor, but if you trust that the majority is honest, then you'll always have a correct vote if you trust the majority, or if you go with what the majority vote is.Ashvin N.:So, a succinct way to put it in one sentence is a distributed, replicated, append only ledger. That's what I kind of go for. My one line, and then I'll use it to explain it to anybody.Lisa Kiefer:When the financial crash of 2008 happened, shortly thereafter, a gentleman by the name of Satoshi Nakamoto came up with this idea of an open protocol system.Ashvin N.:You're right. Satoshi Nakamoto, a moniker that we don't know who exactly he is, he created a system for a distributed, trustless financial network. He worked on that, and then a bunch of other people joined in. We had the buildup of Bitcoin and he called it Bitcoin, and then eventually we had it expanding on beyond that, and now...Eventually, the banks and other institutions got interested, but Bitcoin had been associated with some negative aspects, including the Mt. Gox hacks and the overall dark web and the trade in there. So then banks and other institutions said, "We like the technology behind Bitcoin, but we don't want the necessary negative stigma associated with it." So they rebranded it, called it blockchain.Nadir Akhtar:It was rather they focused on the blockchain aspect rather than the cryptocurrency aspect. It was called a blockchain and the technical white paper back when it was two words. When you thought of blockchain back then, there was just the Bitcoin blockchain; but then banks wanted to focus on the technology and what that could do for other services rather than cryptocurrencies.Lisa Kiefer:I don't even want to talk about the cryptocurrencies yet. I want to talk about the social and political revolutionary change that blockchain as a technology will bring to me as a consumer. It's going to eliminate that middle layer of business that I'm not going to need anymore. When I buy a house, I'm not going to need to get my title from a title company. There's going to be a massive disruption in certain industries. Right?Nadir Akhtar:The way I expect is that most of these third parties, they just serve as execution bodies. It's because we didn't have autonomous agents back a few hundred years ago that we had to develop these services like banks, like brokers, that would take care of the middle layer for us.Now that we have blockchain, or now that we have automation in general, we can take things that humans used to do and now we can make sure that those things are executed in a secure and unstoppable way.Lisa Kiefer:In the early days of the Internet, it was supposed to be this decentralized, very democratic system and it evolved into something completely different than that, where we have these monoliths like Facebook and Google and...Ashvin N.:At its core, it's just about decentralized decision making. That's all it is.Lisa Kiefer:What's wrong with centralized?Ashvin N.:Well, I mean that's the question, right? There are certain cons associated with blockchain. These include some technological cons and certain governance cons that you'd come in and are those worth, in some cases the decentralized governance? Is it worth it?Lisa Kiefer:So this is an open question.Ashvin N.:This is an open question. Right. I'm really glad actually that you brought up that it's analogous to the beginning of the Internet because it really is. You have everybody trying to assume that, hey, we're going to blockchain this, we going to have to blockchain that. Similar to how everybody said everybody had a personal website and everybody had their own little company page. But is it actually useful in some cases? Maybe, maybe not.At its core, it's decentralized decision making and that's what makes it so attractive to some people.Lisa Kiefer:Efficiency-Ashvin N.:I wouldn't even say if it's efficient. Right? In some cases, the way you implement a blockchain is less efficient. I mean it comes naturally. Rght? There are certain benefits to centralized decision making. Going back to Nadir's referee example, it's much more efficient for one single person to keep track of the score rather than having everybody keep track of the score. Right?Both in terms of memory and in terms of-Lisa Kiefer:Energy.Ashvin N.:Energy. Right, and that's another point we'll get to; but it's about are the cons associated with blockchain worth a decentralized decision making?Lisa Kiefer:Your organization, do you really honestly debate this?Nadir Akhtar:It's very easy to to bow down and worship something and not question its implications. The thing is that blockchain is unique. We recognize that it's unique. Blockchain is an interdisciplinary field. No other field mimics the way the blockchain works. You have to know from economics to computer science to cryptography in order to understand fully the implications of blockchain, but blockchain solves very specific problems in the world.There are aspects of blockchain that are more useful than other ones in certain situations. When you have a very specific problem, when you have this decentralized decision making, this trust issue between parties, that's when you want a blockchain because now you can have this immutable ledger that also comes to consensus in a way that doesn't rely on any single person. Instead, you trust this math in the protocol when you're making decisions when you're operating within the system.Lisa Kiefer:Can you give me a couple of every day examples that are going on right now that use the blockchain?Nadir Akhtar:Cryptocurrencies do come to mind.Lisa Kiefer:Define what that is.Nadir Akhtar:A cryptocurrency is a currency that's built off of economics, computer science, and cryptography. Economics in order to understand the behavior of every actor in the system; computer science in order to make sure that the information can be stored in an efficient manner, because keep in mind, because this is a distributed ledger, it's going to cost a lot of memory in order to handle all this information.We're storing hundreds of gigabytes all the way from 2009 on our computers in order to store the bitcoin blockchain, for example; and cryptography in order to maintain security and privacy for the people involved.So when you submit a transaction to the Bitcoin network, you don't send it to a single person who takes care of it. Instead you send it to thousands of people who all can act in your behalf to verify your transaction, but there's a certain voting process which is known as proof of work that decides who gets to actually decide what transactions go into the next block of the blockchain.Lisa Kiefer:It's kind of a competition between data nodes, like who can do this better and that's where all the energy use happens in the network. Correct?Nadir Akhtar:Precisely.Ashvin N.:It's faster and not necessarily better. I'm kind of looping back to your original question and I would like to make one small addition. Many people mistake that cryptocurrencies is like a financial network of some sort where you transact; but, especially as we've seen the industry mature a lot, it's not at all. I mean, all cryptocurrencies he mentioned it; that it's a system that uses economics, cryptography, and computer science to kind of, and a token to kind of achieve some purpose.I think it's an important distinction because there are cryptocurrencies that have a token associated with them and have a economic volume but they achieve completely different purposes. There's a supply chain one; there's a property deed one; there's one that tries to solve AI on a blockchain.There are all of these principles that's being developed and it's not necessarily just meant for financial network anymore even though it is one of the most prominent examples because it's the one that we've started off with. It's the one that's been tested the most often. It's the one that has the most underlying principles associated with it.But kind of looping back, we have cryptocurrencies, which is a tokenized network. And then we have supply chain is being tossed around a lot by these kind of big companies that want to get into blockchain. Then we also have some kind of medical records are getting interesting. Medical records, there's certain problems associated with that.Anywhere that you need, that you don't necessarily trust that the data either is going to be secure or the updates to the data aren't there. And once again, looping back to the general theme that you want decentralized control or decentralized decision making.In general, blockchain is being used to enforce accountability and reliability. Kind of like the fact that the data that you sent is kind of true and it's kind of secure. That's kind of where it's going. There are interesting applications being developed for the renewable energy credit market and then also in general, just overall accounting as being kind of revolutionized by blockchain.Lisa Kiefer:If you're just tuning in, you're listening to Method to the Madness, a biweekly public affairs show on KALX Berkeley, celebrating Bay Area innovators. Today I'm speaking with Ashwinee Panda and Nadir Akhtar, members of Blockchain at Berkeley. There's that kind of an irony with energy because it uses so much energy. And let's talk about data mining.Nadir Akhtar:The fascinating thing about Satoshi Nakamoto's innovation when it came to Bitcoin and the first blockchain was that he changed the way that a voting system works in a distributed network. Distributed systems are something we've known about for decades. Research has been done for the last 30 years about how to make distributed systems secure and efficient where a distributed system is merely a bunch of computers trying to achieve the same goal as opposed to a single computer.The reason that this plays into Bitcoin is because every single person who's participating in this Bitcoin network is essentially their own computer, their own system, their own entity, and all of those people need to be able to coordinate with each other despite not knowing who each other are, despite not knowing how much resources another entity has, despite not knowing how much influence another entity has.In Bitcoin, you solve what's known as the double spend attack. The problem that prevented online decentralized voting, like voting on transactions in Bitcoin for example, was the civil attack where someone can at little cost to make another identity and use that extra identity in their own favor.So if I'm with 10 other people in this Bitcoin network and identities are easy and to make, I can't trust that one of these people isn't actually just belonging to someone else, that all 10 of these people aren't just the same person, in which case my votes as a single entity is being overruled by another single entity.In a distributed system, all entities should have equal voting power. Satoshi Nakamoto's innovation was to go from one identity, one vote to a one CPU, one vote system, meaning that instead of casting a vote because you have an identity associated with the network, you cast a vote by computing the answer to a puzzle.And this puzzle, you can't solve by hand; you can't guess the answer to. It's like a brute force puzzle, like solving a password. You just try as many inputs as possible until you finally find the output. And that's where mining comes in. Because you've restricted the voting process to machines, a person can't duplicate those the way that they can duplicate their online accounts or their online identities.And that is what prevents a person from voting more than they are allowed to because you tether their identity to the resources instead of to their online entity.Lisa Kiefer:So all these machines are grinding out this competition and that's the mining?Nadir Akhtar:Precisely. That's good.Lisa Kiefer:And that uses a lot of energy obviously.Nadir Akhtar:Mm-hmm.Ashvin N.:I would like to point out that there are alternatives. I mean, the cryptocurrency and the blockchain space in general has known that this is a problem. We've known it for a while, especially with the widespread adoption we're seeing now. We see it as a very big problem and it's gotten to the point where it's no longer decentralized. Right?And one of the very big points in voting, like when we decide on what voting algorithm to use is how centralized is it? Because in this case, it's gone to the point that you can only mind by having specialized hardware. They're called ASICs, application specific integrated circuits. And if you don't have one of those, you're not going to be able to mind successfully. You won't beat out anybody else.So what's happened just to the nature of an evolving marketplace is that all the smaller players have been pushed out, and now we have these giant farms sitting in China and India. China, India, Iceland's a very good one because they use their temperature to keep the electricity costs low. So we have that and it's not really centralized anymore.So there are alternatives being developed that do consume less electricity or consume no electricity at all. The most popular one would be proof of stake where you basically say that you have to hold in reserve some of the coins that you associate to votes. So instead of one CPU, one vote, it's one coin, one vote. And if you act badly or you lie about it, then we slash your vote; we take away the coins that you've put down.There are alternatives being developed and it's a big thing that we noticed. I'm just saying that, especially in a lot of industrial applications, they're not using proof of work. Proof of work is considered by a lot of people to be kind of an antiquated system. It was good back when it started off, but because they-Lisa Kiefer:It used too much energy.Ashvin N.:It used too much energy. I mean, what was the last estimate? It used more energy than Iceland or something like that?Nadir Akhtar:Yeah, it's been insane about how much energy it is.Ashvin N.:It kind of ties into the greater problem or a greater trend in the blockchain industry is that we are becoming more and more concerned about our impact on the world. You see it with a lot of people who want to be ethical. A lot of knowledgeable people. We ourselves kind of do that on our part by trying to propagate like the correct knowledge and how to do things.Lisa Kiefer:Who else is looking at this from all sides?Nadir Akhtar:Blockchain at Berkeley is unique and that's one of the only neutral arbitrators of information, being an academic organization run by students and not by companies. There are other organizations like the MIT Bitcoin Club, U-Penn's Blockchain Club that are also doing this. To my knowledge, they're not as prominent in the general blockchain space.Lisa Kiefer:Let's talk about some other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum.Ashvin N.:Ethereum is unique in the fact that it has decentralized applications called depths. Basically, Bitcoin does have that, but it's to a much limited degree. It's a very, very limited degree. You can only concern financial transactions.Lisa Kiefer:It's like applications sitting above the blockchain.Ashvin N.:Yeah. In Bitcoin, the only thing you can append a financial transactions. You can only say that I'm moving money from this to this. However, in Ethereum, it's built in such a way that you can append much more than that and then you can append full on application changes. Right?Sorry if I get a little bit technical, but the state changes are recorded, right? I mean that's saying that there's one state right now and then let's change it up and then that state, and then you can do applications. There's a Minecraft application that was built on a Ethereum. Minecraft's a game. It's completely run on Ethereum. It's really quite interesting.But going back to other cryptocurrencies, bitcoin has an anonymity problem that's been widespread without. Rather than being truly anonymous, it's tied to a mask instead. That's the best way I can say it, that it's like everybody's wearing a mask.Everybody still knows that there's a specific person associated with the mask. They just don't know who's behind the mask. And that's kind of the definition of pseudo anonymous. But there are other applications. Monero, Zcash, that try to make things truly anonymous so you can't trace any type of transaction amount or in between the participants, except for the participants.And then there are other things. There are all these new alt coins coming out that try to solve other problems. For a long time, there has been a problem with AI and blockchain because those are the two sort of big buzz words going on. So, let's do AI on blockchain. There are a lot of cryptocurrencies that try to solve AI on blockchain.Lisa Kiefer:What would that mean to use AI on the blockchain?Nadir Akhtar:AI and blockchain serve two different purposes. The issue is whether or not using one can facilitate the accomplishments of the other. AI is in data analysis and processing and blockchain is in data storage and agreement. Let's say that it's 2200 and I want to make a supreme overlord that is an AI, something that is making decisions for all humans.But I don't want to put this decision making power in the hands of any single computer. So I create an AI that lives on top of a blockchain. So on one hand, you have what looks like just a single entity that's running this AI; but in actuality, it's a blockchain network. And every update to this blockchain is an updates to either the AI's model, so to say, its decision making strategies or an update to the actual decisions, the computation that the AI has done.Lisa Kiefer:Could it keep the AI ethical?Nadir Akhtar:Well, that's all in the hands of the people who run the end points, who control the blockchain notes.Ashvin N.:A lot of people say that blockchain will eliminate the middle layer or increase trust or make sure that we all can live in harmony; and the reality is it's just as susceptible to corruption or anything like that as other people.Lisa Kiefer:I thought it has never up to today, it has not been corrupted.Nadir Akhtar:It's never been corrupted in that the math and protocol behind blockchain is secure. The difference is that if you don't trust the end points when you're dealing with things like supply chain, then in that sense you can corrupt the blockchain.A blockchain doesn't facilitate the transfer of information from the real world to the virtual world. It doesn't stand behind some person who's inputting data into a computer, but what it does is ensure that it's much easier in this virtual landscape to keep information accurate and uncorrupted once it's been inserted into the blockchain.Ashvin N.:And then I think it's important to realize that it's not really developed yet. We had the Ethereum, the Dow hack of 2016 that resulted in over... I forgot the exact amount. A certain amount lost. We had the Japanese exchange that was hacked a week ago.It really comes down to the fact that blockchain allows for a secure or efficient way to distribute and decide about information, but whether that information is correct or not, or whether you can control the voters, that's completely up to kind of whoever's in the system. It's unique in the fact that the voters don't have to trust each other, but there's also problems associated with the network as a whole.Lisa Kiefer:Right now, if you're on Facebook or Amazon or Google, my life's history, if I use those monoliths, if they have it, they use it, they make money on it. Will blockchain enable people to monetize their private data, get paid for our personal data via blockchain? Is that a possibility?Nadir Akhtar:There's a lot of research going into this. It's tricky to say, for the reason that I haven't seen anyone yet successfully do it; or if they've done it, it's too early to tell whether it be successful. Traditionally, Facebook stores your password, stores your email address, stores all the information.With blockchain, you're responsible for holding on to that information yourself. It takes the burden off of a central organization and puts it on the user. The issue is that if the user isn't securing their own information correctly, it's just as vulnerable, if not worse. Right? We sort of enter a social contract when we go with these big companies because they handle a lot of stuff in exchange for a lot of free stuff.Lisa Kiefer:So I would get value for my data, but I would also have to really manage it and make sure no one steals it, and how many people know how to do that? The regular layperson.Ashvin N.:Right. It comes to problem when you see people... If you ever browse certain support forums, they'll say, "I lost my pass- or private key in this case. How do I get my money back?" Or our one thing is that we've seen due to adoption of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, we've seen a big jump in hackers and there are certain security protocols.When somebody posts that, "Hey, I got hacked." And at that point, there's nobody to blame. I wouldn't say nobody to blame but yourself; nobody can help you. There's research being done in, about account recovery and so forth. But at this point, like I said, there's no organization that's going to hold your hand and say, "It's OK, let me refund you."Lisa Kiefer:Is this where a regulatory body comes in or some sort of a governmental controls?Nadir Akhtar:That's the very funny thing about blockchain. When you say we want to put regulations on this deregulated network, there's always this conflict between putting the trust on the end points, the users, letting them make their own decisions freely or having some centralized or central-ish entity that makes decisions on behalf of all of the users.There was this one project, it was an ICO or initial coin offering known as Tezos. What Tezos wanted to do was put governance on the blockchain. When Bitcoin and Ethereum undergo changes, it's an informal process; sort of like an ad hoc group of people who know what's going on, who say, "Yes, I think we should do this. Yes, I think we should increase the block size," for example, to allow for more transactions per second. "Yes, I think we should change the way that we read information in a block or whatever it may be."Typically we say, we go on to some forum online, make a post about what we want to change and everyone says, "All right, I'm going to update my software at this point." What Tezos wanted to do was make rules about the rules. In other words, you vote within the blockchain about what the rules are governing, that voting process and the blockchain instead of having to do it outside of the scope of the technology itself.Lisa Kiefer:How did that work out?Nadir Akhtar:It's funny. Tezos has actually been sued twice. In summary, Tezos was not actually producing what they said they would be producing. They said, "Here's our plans for the future, here's our expectations, here's how much funding we need," and people paid them because it did sound like a good project.There's a lot of problems that can be solved with the solutions that Tezos was proposing. The issue is that once the developers have millions of dollars in their hand, they don't really want to work.Ashvin N.:So going back to Tezos, right? It's still doesn't solve the issue we're talking about. It's a big problem we see in ICOs because there's whales coming in with massive amount of money and then they'll manipulate the market. Nobody's going to control them. Nobody can control them because it's a decentralized network and then even in Tezos, even if you have to do Tezos, you have to get the entire community or majority of the community to agree that this person's bad and then they can always subvert the system by creating another identity.Just because of the nature of blockchain, it's very, very hard to introduce any kind of regular oversight. The only way that governments have successfully been able to do it is that these end points that we keep talking about, like where you get into this space where you buy a coin or so forth, those can be regulated.The most prominent ones, if the view is neo coin base is where you buy it though Coinbase has succeeded to federal oversight on multiple times and they have started giving it over records and so forth. It goes back to the fact that blockchain itself isn't inherently suspect free or anything.All it does is that it makes sure that the system itself, there's a... I guess the best word would be error free and then however the users act, that's up to the users.Lisa Kiefer:Tt sounds like there's a lot of challenges; but do you think in the long run, blockchain is going to be a standard and if so, how many years are we talking about?Nadir Akhtar:I don't want to replace every single database with a blockchain for the reason that I wouldn't replace every single mode of transportation with an airplane. Airplanes are very good at doing some things, like transporting passengers quickly and boats are very good at transporting large amounts of cargo. Each one serves its own purpose.Similarly, blockchains, they serve their own specific purpose just as centralized databases do, just as a distributed but fault free or nonpublic systems do as well. I think blockchains could be a standard when it comes to eliminating third parties. I do believe that.The only reason that we haven't done it yet is because we just didn't have the capability to remove the human execution error that we have dealt with for the past few thousand years as a species. Once we have enough research done to where we can make secure regulatory bodies through a blockchain, I do think that they will be the standard for the middle layer of trust that we have put in these third parties.Ashvin N.:You'll never actually know that a blockchain exists behind your application and you never should. Blockchain, for better or for worse, is very much a back end technology, for those familiar with computer science terms. It's the way to make a database more resistant and more secure, but you'll never know it. Will blockchain become a standard? No, not necessarily.One concern that I personally have is that I have yet to see a good use case other than a financial network. One that's fully developed out or so forth, and then governments will never want their money to be on a blockchain.Bitcoin, for better or for worse, is a financial network that does really well. Ethereum is a distributed computer, but there are certain problems with their end that have yet to be addressed. People are jumping on the hype and saying blockchain will rule the world. No, it won't. We really won't.Blockchain at best will improve the efficiency and security of several already existing applications and that'll be a go. But once again, blockchain is not meant for the end user to directly interact. They'll interact with an application and then the database, the application associated with it, will be a blockchain.All you hear about Bitcoin is one of two things. "Hey, it's super volatile. I made 10x money." Or that you heard that, "Hey, somebody got hacked." I mean, there's been a very big negative stigma and that's been a limiting factor for company adoption and also people are doing it.Chase has been in the market. JP Morgan has been in the blockchain one for almost two years now. They had developed their own private blockchain. IBM-Lisa Kiefer:Do these blockchains communicate with each other? Can they?Nadir Akhtar:They can.Ashvin N.:There's two separate you can do it. You can either do it with a main chain and associated side chains or you can have completely separate chains that interact with each other. IBM sponsors a research group slash set of products called hyperledger and they're all meant to interact with each other. So interesting capabilities there.Companies are slowly adopting it. Currently, there's a bad stigma associated with it. A lot of lack of talent is another big thing that companies-Lisa Kiefer:Oh, interesting.Ashvin N.:Yeah, companies are hiring up. If you want to get money real quick, if you want to get a good six figure salary, become a blockchain dev. There are tons of resources available, including our own dev courses that we kind of provide.Lisa Kiefer:Tell me what your organization offers the community both on the campus and outside of Berkeley.Nadir Akhtar:We have three main departments, each of which has their own vision and mission. We have education, which as the name implies is focused on teaching people, but not just students; entire communities, companies, anyone who is dealing with blockchain, we want to educate. We have two courses that we teach on the UC Berkeley campus. You actually can take the course online this coming May when it's going to be released on edX. It will be the first blockchain crypto course fully on edX.We actually are developing certifications for different parts of the blockchain space. We have certificates for blockchain fundamentals, for blockchain developers, for blockchain consultants or researchers, and these certificates are tests of knowledge similar to the SAT. It's a standardized test that says whether or not you have the aptitude to understand some aspect of blockchain.This certificate I mentioned related with edX is a certificate of completion saying that yes, you have actually gone through this online course as opposed to just going through a bunch of YouTube videos and now claiming to be an expert. We have the consulting branch, which does work with companies and trains internal members, devs, and consultants.The consulting branch has worked with Airbus, Qualcomm, BMW, and going to be working with more of this coming semester to build real projects that are used by these companies. We've also worked a lot on internal projects. This one pharmaceutical problem, a supply chain, the U.S. passed a bill saying that by 2022, 23, all pharmaceuticals, the entire supply chain needs to be recorded and tracked in an immutable, auditable way. Right?Naturally, blockchain lends itself easily to that, which is another project we worked on internally.Ashvin N.:Then the third department is research. Research and development, R and D. These work on solving several fundamental questions and issues that are still prevalent in the research space. We are currently partnering with the Kyber Network, which is a distributed exchange and also that we're working with Ethereum foundation to start working on some of the scalability issues.We try to be an all in one company and we try to do everything at once; and so we provide education to our members, both to the public in general and to companies as well. We kind of develop software and developed products and then we also do research. We do have events for all levels, all ranges of knowledge; from beginner all the way to end and then if you do want to jump into the deep end, it's not hard. We do have our previous courses available on an archive so you can just go and look through those.Nadir Akhtar:You can actually audit our courses here at Berkeley for free. Conveniently for those who have work, there is the blockchain fundamentals course on Saturdays 2:00 to 4:00PM that I and others are teaching, from Blockchain in Berkeley. We have the blockchain for developers course as well. If you're interested in those events, that education hosts, just go to blockchain dot berkeley dot e-d-u; and check out the education tab.Lisa Kiefer:And you can find out about all this stuff you just talked about. Thank you for coming in.Nadir Akhtar:My pleasure.Lisa Kiefer:You've been listening to Method to the Madness, a biweekly public affairs show on KALX Berkeley, celebrating Bay Area innovators. You can find all of our podcasts on iTunes University. We'll see you in two weeks. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Center for Carbon Removal co-founders Noah Deich and Giana Amador, a non-partisan, non-profit organization based in Oakland working to clean up carbon pollution from the air, discuss carbon removal solutions happening today in the U.S. and around the world, such as carbon farming and carbon capture & sequestration, profitable and sustainable ways to reverse CO2 rise.Transcript:Lisa Kiefer:Method to the Madness is next. You're listening to Method to the Madness, a public affairs show on KALX Berkeley celebrating Bay Area innovators. I'm your host, Lisa Kiefer, and today I'm interviewing the co-founders of the Center for Carbon Removal, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization based in Oakland. Working to clean up carbon pollution from the air. I'll be speaking with managing director Giana Amador and executive director. Noah Deich.This year the concentration of carbon in our atmosphere is up to 410 parts per million, maybe it's higher at this moment. And there's a lot more carbon baked in. This can't be a more exciting time for you guys to be doing your work. Can you tell us what the mission of your organization is? And that's the center for Carbon Removal.Noah Deich:Yeah. Thank you again for hosting us. Excited to be here. We got our start here in Berkeley, not far away from this studio. And so, it's exciting to be back on campus. But yes. Our mission is exactly that. There's too much carbon in the atmosphere. It's causing climate change. And we need to figure out how to clean up some of that carbon from the atmosphere, as well as figuring out strategies for stopping additional carbon from being added.Lisa Kiefer:How is it that you do this?Noah Deich:So, in downtown Oakland, what we do is work to catalyze the development of a whole range of different solutions for cleaning up carbon from the air.Lisa Kiefer:They call you a think and do tank.Noah Deich:Exactly. Our goal is to have a range of businesses and new enterprises flourish in this space. We look at both natural solutions, so photosynthesis.Lisa Kiefer:Carbon farming.Noah Deich:Exactly. The oldest technology in the book to take carbon out of the atmosphere, but as well as technological options. In the same way that plants use biology and photosynthesis to clean up carbon from the air, machines can do a similar type of filtering CO2 from the atmosphere, pulling it back out. And we work to create innovations in both the way that we manage land and in the technologies that we deploy to clean up carbon.Lisa Kiefer:But you are policy people, right? Am I right about that? You're not actually scientists, you're working with scientists to get this on a political agendas?Noah Deich:Exactly. So business and policy, both are critical in addition to the science. And it's those three pillars of activity that are going to help inform the smart way to clean up carbon from the atmosphere. And in a way that's not just smart on paper, but actually benefits the communities around the world that build. And then deploy these new innovations and businesses that clean up that CO2.Lisa Kiefer:I feel like it's an urgent topic and the Paris Agreements aren't going to fulfill what we need to have done by 2030. Two words that cause a lot of problems politically. Let's stop thinking about it as climate change. It's a waste product that we have to take care of.Giana Amador:I think we tried to really take on that solutions oriented frame and say, you know, carbon is something that makes up all parts of our life. It makes up plants, it makes up you and me. And so, by being able to harness that carbon and take it from the atmosphere where it doesn't belong, and turn it into our soils and make our lands more productive, and use it to make valuable products like cements and plastics, really gives us the opportunity to harness that liability and make it an asset.Lisa Kiefer:Instead of feeling bad about it or feeling guilty, it becomes a product that is recyclable.Noah Deich:Exactly. It's turning something that's a waste into something that's valued. We have to not just talk about that. We actually have to show the way. And help people understand the different ways that they can take action.Lisa Kiefer:So, what's happening right now, who's doing some demonstrable projects?Noah Deich:So, I actually got the opportunity to go to Iceland a couple months ago where there's a really groundbreaking project. A Swiss company actually has figured out how to capture CO2 directly from the air using more or less a shipping container sized box. They've teamed up with a geothermal power plant in Iceland. Iceland has all of this great volcanic activity, and they harness some of that heat to create power. They have a little bit excess power. This box is sitting at that power plant, taking that free clean energy, and capturing CO2 from the atmosphere and storing it underground. And they are working to essentially create this new type of waste management business where they are harnessing this abundance of clean energy.Lisa Kiefer:What form is it in?Noah Deich:So, it pulls it out of the air as a gas, and then it takes that concentrated gas, and it separates out all of the other pieces of the air. So, air is made of oxygen, nitrogen. And it filters out that stuff and it is left with this pure concentrated CO2. And what it does is it just injects that CO2 underground.Lisa Kiefer:And that's still a gas?Noah Deich:In a gas form and underneath the earth, the type of rock that this power plant is situated above actually reacts with CO2 just naturally. And it turns that CO2 into a stone. To carbonate mineral. And so it's, this is a natural process that happens all the time. The catch is that this rock is buried, so it doesn't have contact with the air. Or it would just filter out that CO2. And so, if you inject this pure concentrated CO2 underground, within even a couple of months, you start to see the rock transform from this dark black solid. It turns into this light gray carbonate material and it's amazing.Lisa Kiefer:Like limestone?Noah Deich:Essentially. That's one type of carbonate. And this is a different type of chemistry in the geology, but it's the same principle. It's turning what was once a gas into a solid, and it's permanently sequestered.Lisa Kiefer:What do you do with all that rock? Where will that physical limestone go? I mean, isn't it going to be a lot?Noah Deich:So, it's actually not that much at the end of the day when it comes to weight. So, we've put 2000 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere since the industrial revolution, which sounds like this massive amount. But there is more capacity to store that CO2 in our geology.Lisa Kiefer:Underground.Noah Deich:Underground many times over. The capacity is not the limiting factor. It's figuring out the engineering, the business models and the policy. And I think there are actually some really interesting ways that we can do that. Not with the geology but actually with our farming and our agriculture.Giana Amador:The agriculture space is one that's really exciting and really near and dear to our hearts. The Marin Carbon Project, which is a research project that's coming out of UC Berkeley actually, that is applying compost to range lands. And I think this is a really exciting opportunity, because we always read these articles about why beef is so bad for the climate, but the Marin Carbon Project is actually able to turn that on its head a little bit.Lisa Kiefer:Oh, that's interesting.Giana Amador:And so by applying compost, which is really kind of just organic carbon to these range lands up in Marin, they're able to sequester carbon in soils. It boosts the productivity of the grasses that are growing, that are then grazed by the cattle. And those cattle can actually help sequester carbon in the soils. And so, they're producing a meat product that is more environmentally friendly. And one that again kind of turns this climate change narrative on its head where it's no longer about us doing things that are bad for the environment, but how can we turn our actions and really help fix this problem?Noah Deich:It's really exciting to me that there's such a diversity of solutions. You can go to Iceland, which feels almost like an alien landscape, or you can go to Marin. And it's the diversity of solutions that's just the tip of the iceberg. We can figure out so many ways to harness our agricultural systems, our forests, our heavy industry, our manufacturing and our consumer goods. All of that can really change the paradigm of we extract carbon from the ground to make things. And instead we work to extract carbon from the air, put it back in the ground.So, one of the companies that's really exciting, and one of the fields really, is cement. Which is a really boring topic for most people. But it turns out there are more Google searches about cement than there are climate change every year. And it's a billion ton industry. There's just a huge volume of material that gets moved every year. And it's a big contributor to climate change. But what companies are figuring out how to do is take waste CO2 from an industrial facility, eventually directly from the air, and recycle that into new formulations of cement that are actually stronger and better building materials.Lisa Kiefer:Where's this happening?Noah Deich:There are companies that are all over North America working on this. There's one called Carbon Cure that has a facility, in I believe Mississippi or Alabama. There's a company out of New Jersey called Solidia, that they have facilities around the U.S. You don't hear about this that often, because if you're in the cement industry, the idea of being a green product is not always associated with positive value for building materials. If you're building a highway, you don't want a green highway, you want highway that stands up.Lisa Kiefer:That's the reframe that you were talking about.Noah Deich:Exactly. And so, the fact that they're able to make stronger materials that happen to be green, is an amazing thing and they don't even sell the green part. They're actually just selling a better product. Over time I think we'll start to realize that you can make better products that are also green, and it's that reframing of it.Lisa Kiefer:You just quit calling it green and make $1 billion on it.Noah Deich:Exactly.Lisa Kiefer:If you're just tuning in, you're listening to Method to the Madness, a public affairs show on KALX Berkeley. Celebrating Bay Area innovators. Today I'm speaking with Noah Deich and Giana Amador, co-founders of the nonpartisan nonprofit organization Center for Carbon Removal.What have you found to be your major challenges? You have a small staff.Noah Deich:So, I think one of the biggest challenges is the chicken and egg involved in not having that many enterprises out there doing this today. The real way that we can show progress is by creating new companies that create jobs and.Lisa Kiefer:So, somebody can go and actually see what they're doing and say, I want to do that.Noah Deich:Right? So, we spent years looking into integrated assessment models that scientists were producing. And even for folks whose job it is to understand them, it's not a clear and concise thing that's easy to communicate out. But you go to Iceland and you see a machine that's pulling CO2 out of the air, and you can see the rock that has CO2 in it and the rock that doesn't, it's very clear. If you can go to Marin and see a farm and you just look at the fence and the farm that does these practices is it has more.Lisa Kiefer:It's like night and day.Noah Deich:Yeah, it's amazing. And so, having those concrete examples is critical. But in order to get those examples, we need to provide support for the pioneers. In this case.Lisa Kiefer:So capital are you talking about?Noah Deich:Capital is critical, but resources writ large. We need to enable students to explore this and create new things. We need to figure out how to get entrepreneurs the support that they need, and the training they need, and the networks they need. And then the last piece is the policy. How do we get them the supportive framework the public markets will not provide. Capital? How can government essentially bridge that gap and provide research funding as well as early risk capital, so that we can have a history of plants so the private sector feels confident scaling this up. And we work to fill that gap across those areas so that we can create this whole ecosystem. Tackling all of these amazing opportunities for carbon removal.Lisa Kiefer:I know you're a young project, but have you had any major successes yet?Noah Deich:One of the things that was most successful here at Berkeley is we marshaled a group of academics and philanthropists to encourage the national academies to write a research and development roadmap for carbon removal. Scientists were saying, we need more research, we need more activity to commercialize solutions. But nobody had gone in and done the details of, here are the 10 research projects for soils. And the 10 research projects for air capture machines. And laid out what it will take and in what sequence. And with the support of that network of scientific luminaries and philanthropists, they were able to go to DC to convince a number of the key funders for the national academies alongside us to get that study launched.And we expect that to be open to the public, the spring time of of 2018. These big national academy studies, they tend to take a little longer, and err on the side of making sure they're getting it right and have consensus before they they release. But it should be soon. And that will really help inform the conversation about where to invest from governments, from universities, and even from the foundations and investors that are really forward thinking. And then we can move on from there into policy wins and investment wins. And that's where we think we're gonna see real impact.So, I think we've already had amazing success with some policy foundations in DC, believe it or not, there is bipartisan support. That's the hope and what we see is that where some of these solutions are hopelessly polarized, this is the type of activity that can garner support from both sides of the aisle. In particular, the idea of cleaning up carbon from the air and supporting these early innovators is something that's widely acknowledged by Democrats and Republicans alike. And we've seen that reflected in some of the carbon capture legislation that has passed through the Senate and been introduced in the House.Giana Amador:Some of the great feedback that we've gotten when we've been in DC and talking to some of these Republican senators or Republican representatives from states that are in the middle of America or potentially don't always prioritize climate change as their number one political priority, they're really interested in how these farming practices or forestry practices can help revitalize rural areas. Can make their farmers more money. Can make their lands more resilient.Noah Deich:And even if climate change is a bad word, people are experiencing the impacts of it. Whether it's getting more extreme droughts, more severe, we see fires here.Lisa Kiefer:Hurricanes.Noah Deich:And what we see is that the solution is what carries the day. People don't want to quibble about whose problem it is, who created the problem, how bad is a problem going to be? They want to know how do I make my community better with a solution. That's where I'm most excited about all of these agricultural techniques is they're not being sold on, hey, we're going to pay you to clean up carbon, farmer. They're saying, hey, make your soils healthier, more resilient. Make your farming operation more profitable, and open up new markets for these climate conscious consumers. Even if you don't agree with them, they're willing to pay a premium. They're not going to turn that down.And so, that's one of the real opportunities to help farmers be on the front lines of climate change. Whereas traditionally they have not been on in that tent of climate solutions practitioners. And I think it's a huge missed opportunity from past climate action. And a huge opportunity moving forward to figure out how to harness these solutions. Because I think the signs that we do see are very positive and as we start to get more intellectual support for exactly what to do, building the policy will, and crowding in the investment dollars, will really help.Lisa Kiefer:Can you tell me about your ASU collaboration? The Initiative for a New Carbon Economy?Noah Deich:Yeah, and that's the other big win. So the New Carbon Economy is a group of universities and national labs with the shared vision that there are 2 trillion tons of CO2 in the atmosphere that we have put there over the past hundred plus years of industrial activity. That causes a problem in the atmosphere of climate change. But if we're able to take it out and harness that and translate that 2 trillion tons into value, it's one of the biggest business opportunities that we've ever seen.That's not gonna just happen. If that was an easy thing to do, we would be doing it already. We need lots more research across the spectrum of interdisciplinary fields, as well as topics. So, we need to have the economists and the engineers and the scientists and the policy experts all working together to figure out how to unlock the value of that CO2 in the air. One institution can't do it alone. In order for this to actually get to the scale to meet that promise, we need to work across a lot of different institutions.And so, that's what we're working on with ASU right now. And it's not just ASU, it's about a dozen other research groups around the U.S. that all bring different capabilities.Lisa Kiefer:Are there any local?Noah Deich:Livermore National Lab is in the bay area, and they're one of the key participants. They've been doing pioneering work on this topic for years now.. And they're really leading the charge from a national lab space. The fact that they're sitting down at the table with institutions from across the U.S. that come from many states that are not necessarily known for their climate leadership, Arizona, Wyoming, Iowa, and Indiana that are necessarily associated with think California as climate leaders. But all of these other places are seeing the opportunity to be at the front of that new wave of industrial activity that also deals with our climate problem.And that's what's so exciting about that consortium is they're going to move forward. And with that leadership, and hopefully the work that other groups like the national academies and the the philanthropies are putting together, they'll be able to start doing that pivotal research and figuring out how to collaborate with each other, and build the types of research networks and mega science projects that we need to really understand and crack the challenge around cleaning up carbon.Giana Amador:A lot of these conversations are happening in a very siloed nature. Even in the academic community, technology developers, the people who work on climate science and the people who work on the kind of more natural versus engineered solutions, are all having these conversations separately. And we're really trying to pull that together to be a more interdisciplinary conversation. So that it's not just academic institutions who are doing the basic science and the applied science, but that they're making sure that the science that they're doing feeds into the technologies that the corporations are going to use, or the products that they're going to buy. And that the policy makers know what the research challenges are, that they know what sort of support people need to actually implement these practices. So, I think we're really trying to have an interdisciplinary, more diverse conversation that really connects all of these pieces that we'll need to be connected if we really want to make this part of our economy.Lisa Kiefer:It would be great to connect the public too. I mean, I envision being able to walk over to UC Berkeley and see a demonstration product. And as an individual resident in Berkeley, be able to invest.Noah Deich:That's what we need. And the question is how do we get there as quickly as we can and figure out ways for individuals to contribute what they can? So, if there are opportunities for people to contribute to a urban farming operation, for example, that sequesters carbon. Or if they're investors, if we can connect them to exciting new entrepreneurs in that space that needs seed capital. Or eventually are there ways for people to put their retirement in only companies that are aligned with this mission of cleaning up carbon from the atmosphere.Lisa Kiefer:Yes. And that way we can vault over the politics.Noah Deich:And in order to make that a reality, we have to create that foundation where the innovators are not just thinking about all of these ideas, but actually have the resources to go build out the things that can then get scaled up. And so, we're still in that phase of making sure we get the ideas into the market, not how we take the ideas that are in the market and really bring them to scale.And so, it's going to be a marathon. Not a sprint for sure, but.Lisa Kiefer:A short marathon, I hope.Noah Deich:Yeah. Or a fast marathon.Giana Amador:We're trying to make it as fast as possible. We think of this, the carbon removal field is something that's very analogous to the development of solar or wind. And so, we've been working on that problem since the 80s. And we're just now starting to see commercial deployment at meaningful levels. So, what we're really trying to do is accelerate that technology development curve and that solution adoption curve, so that we can help solve this problem.Noah Deich:There are clear ways that we can improve upon that. We've learned what works and what doesn't for a lot of these energy technologies and just the general advancement of relevant technologies for manufacturing things in smart and additive ways and figuring out materials that work way better than they did 40 years ago. We are farther ahead. And so, how do we stand on the shoulders of what has and has not worked and make sure that it doesn't take us 50 years to develop these solutions? It takes us much less. So, that we have the option to scale up the ones that look most promising in the areas that need them the most.We're convening universities across the U.S., and helping them identify what these key research needs are. And connecting those university researchers who are doing all this amazing work on the ground, with funders from corporates, foundations, connecting them to policy makers so policymakers know the value of this and what things that they can support when political conditions do change. That's what we mean by a platform essentially is creating that home where people can come and work together to get all of the resources that they need to succeed.Lisa Kiefer:Tell us how you came to start this wonderful project.Noah Deich:This actually started when I was in business school here. And I came to Berkeley just enamored of the energy innovation happening in the Bay Area. I was on the east coast myself doing more traditional energy consulting and passionate about climate change, but didn't see these big energy companies moving anywhere near as fast as they needed to in order to address the problem. But startups here in the Bay Area, completely different story. At the same time, the idea of cleaning up carbon from the air, it was this thing that scientists understood and had been talking about for a while. There was climate change discussion happening, but it just, it didn't incorporate this idea at all. And we said, why is that and how can we start to to change that? Is it right to leave this off the table?Lisa Kiefer:Were you on the east coast as well Giana?Giana Amador:No, I was not. I was here. So, I was an undergraduate studying environmental economics and policy.Noah Deich:And where we got connected is through the Energy and Climate Institute. It's a fantastic organization that is able to provide support for both student fellowships, as well as new startups. And so, that's how we got connected is through both a a fellowship program that brought Giana into the energy and climate orbit, and a small fund that helped new organizations launch out of Berkeley. Which is where the Center for Carbon Removal came. And we teamed up. And what we set to understand was how do we bring this conversation out of the academic halls and into business policy and civil society discussion, because everyone cares about climate change. Everyone knows that we're not doing as much as we need to be doing and we're not as solutions focused. So, how do we put this on the radar and make sure that we drive towards action and make the promise of all of these solutions a reality quickly?Lisa Kiefer:What's coming up in 2018?Noah Deich:So, a couple of really exciting things. First is figuring out how to get this university consortium, the New Carbon Economy consortium to scale. We need a lot more research, and we need to do it fast. So, there's going to be research roadmaps that come out from this consortium, as well as we'll start to see the beginning of the projects that are the fruits of this collaboration. I'm very excited to see where that goes. We're also hopeful that there's going to be activity both in the business community and the policy community. And one thing that I'm really excited about is figuring out how to get new entrepreneurs into this space, making money, cleaning up carbon and turning it into value. And so, we're thinking about how to build that entrepreneurial ecosystem, and leverage all of this Silicon Valley experience in building new companies to do that for carbon.The policy conversation actually might move quickly. What we've, what I've learned is to stop making predictions about what will happen at all when it comes to policy at this point. But we're seeing so many new opportunities for policy makers to create impacts around healthy soils programs, which are in six states across the U.S., and on the docket in many others. As well as really innovative carbon capture policies that both at the federal level and here in California. So, I expect there to be a lot of progress on both the business and policy front. Exactly where that ends up is kind of anyone's best guess. But I think this'll be a space to watch in 2018 for sure.Giana Amador:The really exciting thing is that we're seeing this almost turning point for the carbon removal field. When we started in 2015, we constantly had to explain what carbon removal was, what we're doing, and why it's important. And we're starting to see that conversation change, and we're starting to see carbon removal featured in more news publications.Lisa Kiefer:I read it in The New Yorker. The New Yorker.Noah Deich:Exactly.Giana Amador:And so, I think that turn is a really exciting point for us, because now it's not what are you talking about? But how can we help move this forward? The New Carbon Economy consortium is a really exciting place for our organization and for all of these research universities to start putting science into action and really making that business case for carbon removal solutions.Noah Deich:The resources that we see talking about this, not just The New Yorker, but other major publications aimed not just at scientific audiences but at the mainstream public and the business community and philanthropy community, that has changed dramatically even in the past year. And we have a weekly newsletter that compiles all of those resources. So, as a shameless plug to go to centerforcarbonremoval.org and sign up for that newsletter. And I think what we'll see over the next year is just a complete shift in the narrative coming out into looking at all of these different sources of action and activity. And that conversation moving to solutions, not just, hey, this is a potential problem that we weren't seeing or an opportunity that has not yet been achieved.Lisa Kiefer:Or more action oriented.Noah Deich:But yet here's what's happening and how people are seizing that opportunity and solving the problem.Lisa Kiefer:So, if listeners want to get ahold of either one of you and learn more about your organization, what was that website again?Noah Deich:Centerforcarbonremoval.org.Lisa Kiefer:And they can actually reach out to you individually from that site?Noah Deich:Yes.Giana Amador:Definitely.Noah Deich:This feels like the frontier of the climate change conversation. What we need today is pioneers who don't necessarily know what lies ahead, but are excited to go on these expeditions professionally with their volunteering, with their investing and chart new territory. And to me, this is the unexplored piece of a climate conversation that's going to be pivotal for our society going forward. And in order to make that succeed, we're going to need so many more people in this space who are pioneers in spirit, and are out there trying to navigate all of the uncertainties. But knowing that where we're headed is this incredibly important and valuable activity. For me personally, figuring out how we can get more great minds and fearless leaders into this space is the most important thing to actually achieve the potential.Giana Amador:There's so much that we can disagree about, but really what we've seen in the carbon removal space is something that unlikely allies can come together and work towards. And that's something that's been really empowering as we've done this work. Something that keeps us going. And that I see really accelerating this space at a level of progress that we need to address this issue of climate change. Moving forward, we should really work to expand the tent of people who are working on climate change, expand the tent of solutions, and really work together to address this gargantuan problem.Lisa Kiefer:Thank you so much, Noah and Giana for coming in to Method to the Madness.Giana Amador:Yeah, thank you for having us.Noah Deich:Yeah, thank you for hosting.Lisa Kiefer:You've been listening to Method to the Madness, a public affairs show on KALX Berkeley, celebrating Bay Area innovators. You can find all of our podcasts on iTunes university. We'll see you in two weeks. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Host Ali Nazar interviews Rabi'a Keeble, founder of Berkeley's Qal'bu Maryam, the first women led, all inclusive mosque in America.TRANSCRIPTSpeaker 1:[inaudible]. Speaker 2:You are listening to k a l x Berkeley 90.7 FM, university of California and listener supported radio. And this is a method to the madness coming at you from the Public Affairs Department here at Calyx celebrating the innovative spirit of the bay area. [00:00:30] I'm your host, Colleen Huizar. And today in studio we have with us a special guest Rabi'a Keeble from the women's mosque here in Berkeley. Hi Robia. How are you? I'm fine, thank you. Um, and Rabiah, uh, has joined us today after launching, uh, the mosque in the last few weeks. So we're going to get into that in a little bit. But first, Ruby, I have a question for you. The same question I asked all founders of organizations. Sure. You have seen a problem [00:01:00] there. Usually people start something cause there's a vacuum or a void, right? So, um, can you explain, please tell us what's the problem that your new organization is trying to solve? Speaker 3:Wow. You know, it's a whole, uh, list of things actually, and it's not likely that Cowbell Mariam is gonna solve all of these problems, but at least we're opening up the conversation and hopefully there will [00:01:30] be a robust sort of conversation that continues on this topic. But some of the things that I, I believe have been issues for me personally, uh, and my journey as a Muslim since I converted, uh, 15 years ago is, is mainly accessibility. Um, I never could figure out, now I, I know the [inaudible] very well [inaudible] to death and all this, [00:02:00] but I never could figure out why women had to sit behind men if they were allowed in the same space at all. Second of all, why women were using separate entrances sometimes, uh, separate buildings, sometimes, uh, not allowed at all to attend a mosque. But the places that I've [00:02:30] been to right here in Berkeley, right here in the bay area, we still have mosques that do this. Speaker 3:And I was like, I was not entirely a mosque copper. I did settle in at one mosque where I, I stayed there for some time, but there were times when I was invited other places and I was surprised. I was really surprised. You know, it's a lack of accessibility to the mom, uh, to facilities. Uh, quite often [00:03:00] you'd go to these women's areas and they were not clean, uh, distress looking. Um, many of them were just very cutoff. Uh, one place was just a room, a separate room, no plasma TV screen, no projection. It was just a separate room. And I, I recall asking someone like, well how do you know what the mom is saying? How do you know when this is happening or that is happening? [00:03:30] And I was actually told by one of the sisters that, well, you know, we don't really need to know. Speaker 3:You know, and I think over time, perhaps not intentionally, you collect all of these things, you know, and it gets to the point where you even have a lot of questions and where do you go to have your questions answered? The most that I attended the women's sat behind the men, but there was [00:04:00] still an acknowledgement that we were separate. Um, but often the men would talk to the mom, they would ask questions, there would be conversations going back and forth, and the women are all the way in the back. And it's like, what if I have a question? What if there's something that's nagging and I want to ask him about it? I can't just chat him up like these guys are chatting them up. I have to sit back here and then I have to wait [00:04:30] until June was over and I have to plow through all the men who are trying to get at him. Speaker 3:And that means I don't get an opportunity. So I saw it also as just an issue of accessibility. Um, there's also, I think a problem when you separate men and women that men lose an opportunity to know women better, to actually learn from women. Um, [00:05:00] you know, there's like sort of ships in the night, you know, if you even say some lady come to her brother's like, what did you just say? Oh, you know, we're just exchanging a greeting brothers. Nothing more than that, you know, but even that is sometimes chancy. So how do we establish, how do we establish like a normalized kind of, uh, of interactions and normalized kind of relationship with our brothers is, [00:05:30] you know, a lot of people say, well, why do you want to kick me to the curb? Or You mad at men? This is not being mad at men. Speaker 3:This the same join us, but let's get together in a different way. Let's be allies, let's be friends. Let's, let's, let's ignore all these odd little things that are traditional things for sure. Uh, that you can't talk to a woman in lunch. This your, you know, like what's going to happen [00:06:00] if you do that or, uh, I think maybe it was the chronicle article where they talked to any mom in Santa Clara, like about men praying, potentially praying behind a woman. And I think is the answer was, well, you can do it, but I don't want to see the repercussions. I was like, holy macro, what, what repercussions are we talking about here? Speaker 2:Well, there's so many different interpretations of all scripture, and I think, [00:06:30] you know, uh, enlightened Muslim men argue that something like the hijab is the first responsibility is on the man to avert his temptation and desire. There's lots of different ways to look at things. I think that the, uh, that a mom, you know, who knows where he's coming from, but, uh, no. Uh, but, you know, I think I want to follow up on that question is, is a beautiful statement of the problem statement you're trying to solve is, I think what I think I'm hearing you say is that the moss [00:07:00] that you're starting in Berkeley is to rethink that relationship between men and women and have them on an equal playing field in the eyes of cod and in front of an a mom so that everybody can pursue mama and Mama. Is that, what, is it the feminine of your mom? Okay. So I'm to everybody can be an equal footing to pursue their spiritual enlightenment. Um, but before we get further into the vision and how this is going, tell us a little bit about you. How did you, uh, arrive to Islam and, and [00:07:30] you know, what was your journey to, to this religion? That's pretty complicated. Speaker 3:Try and kind of like reduce it into a digestible portion. Um, I was some nominally race as a Christian. Uh, my family was not very religious, although we, you know, grew up with a lot of religion around us. We didn't belong to a church, uh, but I absorbed a lot [00:08:00] of the, uh, Christian, you know, lifestyle knowledge ethics because we were surrounded with it. Um, I would say that, uh, I was always interested in scripture even at a very young age. Uh, I was always very interested in knowing more. I wanted to know God, I really, I wrote really recall being very young and wanting to know who god was. And [00:08:30] I really thought that I could find it in the Bible and I would read the Bible and read the Bible and read the Bible. And I actually at a very young age, knew the Bible incredibly well. Speaker 3:I could quote it. Um, but that was my, you know, that was my initial journey. And I think like a lot of young people, you know, you wonder off the path, you start exploring life in different ways and is not a big deal for, for most, you know, college kids and whatever. They're not [00:09:00] thinking about that. They're thinking of other stuff. And so I think I was like any other adolescent or teenager, I sort of didn't care. And, um, there came a point in my life when I was looking for something healing another path, I don't know. And I actually came across a flyer at Berkeley Library, the main library that said Sufi healing. And I was like, hmm, I don't even know what Sufi [00:09:30] is. I don't, I wonder what this is. I had time, so I said, I'm going to check it out. And I came up on campus and, um, I went to this gathering and even though I was not really sure what was happening, I really loved the people I was around. Speaker 3:I had never been around people who were so welcoming, so kind. And it appeared so forgiving and loving. They weren't [00:10:00] afraid to show love and to pull me in and to, and to, you know, acknowledge my humanity. Does that make sense? And to treat me honestly and fairly, even though I was asking stupid questions, which I was asking a lot of at the time. And eventually, um, you know, exposure to Sufism absolutely exposes you to Islam because [00:10:30] who FISM is Islam, excuse me, can no for coal. And, um, with the exposure to Islam through Sufism, I sort of, it felt like something had opened up to me, you know, really beautiful. It was like, it was very unusual. It was like, what is this wonderful thing? Speaker 3:[00:11:00] And so, you know, many people see Islam and Sufism as separate and it's just not so, and, um, I think if you're really a lover, as Sophie's would say, of the beloved, it makes you want to dig deeper and to Islam, you know, to find the roots of this, how these people, whoever they were, were able to tap into this [00:11:30] very unique and wonderful way of expressing their worship in their love of God. Um, I didn't know until later that in some places Sufism was looked down upon. Um, and I didn't understand it. I never could understand it. Uh, I would hear things like dance that's wrong. They use music that's around the men and women dance [00:12:00] together. That's even more how wrong. It's like Akash you know, what kind of existence is that? Where are you doing is looking for things to yell? Ha. Rahmat yeah. Which is unfortunately Speaker 2:very much so much part of the Muslim world these days is that's how they operate is as a judgment. And, you know, uh, you know, I'm a Muslim myself. Um, it's a tragedy to see the characterization [00:12:30] of the religion that's happening in popular culture today because it's the antithesis of what you're talking about. It's not the love base of my tradition that I grew up in was very much similar to, you know, looking at, uh, the, the world who wondrous eyes, who the love the beloved spirit. Um, as opposed to this, uh, the absolute opposite, the negativity of like, you're doing this wrong. You're doing this wrong, which turns people off their religion Speaker 3:turns to people. It just, it's, it's, it's kind of a weird paradox. [00:13:00] You would think it would turn people off and you think it would push women back and make them like what really, you know, think a little bit [inaudible] you see just the opposite. You see these women that are so willing to be controlled, so willingly following even very mistaken and misguided people in a lot of cases, not all [00:13:30] shakes, any moms are misguided, but in a lot of cases they are. And I'm just so shocked sometimes when women act so afraid or they will come to me and they'll will say, well sister, what makes you think that it's okay to pray with men or for women to lead prayer? I said the Quran, have you read it? You know, and they're always, you know, like very suspicious. Like really? But the Koran says that, you know, [00:14:00] a great, the great majority of people that I talk to have never read the crown for themselves. Speaker 3:They've always had someone tell them what's in it. Interesting. And their spin on it as a matter of fact. And so this is one of the biggest problems I think that we run into as Muslims, is that it's always like, I feel like there is this desire to spin things to [00:14:30] maintain control rather than to educate rather than to elevate. I had this conversation with someone, I forget who, and he was insisting that a man could not marry a divorcee. Right. And I was thinking to myself, I said, but where's that in the car? I don't know if a woman's divorce, she can't marry her. Well, I'm sorry, but what some Kadesia [00:15:00] I divorce a problem. Speaker 2:[inaudible] married a divorce woman. Speaker 3:I divorced one man, you know rom you. Yeah. Ridiculous. There's so many people [inaudible] women who don't know that. Yeah. They don't know that he hadn't like up to nine wives in his lifetime. Maybe more. And a few of them were widows or divorcees. So, you know, I think [00:15:30] it's becoming very clear that education is such a huge, huge part of this and women necessarily have to start educating women and men because we're not as tied to status quo as men are. I think men feel like they have to carry this. They have to continue with it. They they, they have to do this thing with this, but it's like, okay, [00:16:00] you know, after, while don't you understand that this is something you can share, that it's okay to talk to a knowledgeable, educated sister or maybe one who isn't but has good questions in that you can sit and talk and not worry about who's married and who's wearing hijab and who's this and that and the other thing and just work on that. Because we're in a, we're in a situation here in America [00:16:30] all over the world where the world thinks of us, Hispanic people, they think of us as terrorists. They think of us as people who want to destroy their comforts and to change how I had someone, some woman asked me, she goes, well, I just don't want to have any Shiria law. I said, are you Muslim? No, I am not. I said, you don't have to worry about because it's not for you. It's for [00:17:00] Muslims. Speaker 2:Yeah. Wow. That's a talking point of the right. I mean it's, this is scare tactic, but we're talking to Rabiah Keel. She's a Kibo, she's the founder of, uh, Kaaboo. Mariam is how you pronounce it. Um, it's a, a brand new moths here in Berkeley, California. Um, and it is the, um, first mosque in the nation that is led by women that it's all inclusive. So it's, uh, open to men and women, but led [00:17:30] by women right here in our fair town of Berkeley, California. Thanks for joining us. Rubia um, Ga, Berkeley. I want to ask you about, um, you know, you're an innovator and it's not always, this is, this show is about innovation. Okay. And it's not always, um, easy innovate in the business world. I talk to a lot of people, it's kind of put up on a pedestal because you know, people love this term, especially in the bay area to disrupt and has startups, but you're innovating [00:18:00] in a place that people don't always love religion. Speaker 2:Right? You know, people have their dog Ma and you're talking about men who have trouble seeing, um, why there's problems. Cause it's kind of always been this way. And in my experience with religion, people rely on their tradition. That's one of the comforts of religion. Sure. It's always been this way. Doesn't change. Absolutely. So I want to ask you about that leap that you've taken of how you saw the problem and said, you know, why are the sisters behind the brothers? Why can't they talk [00:18:30] to the mom? So you decided to do something about it. And I'm fascinated by this and people who take this jump from seeing a problem to actually doing something about it. Can you explain to us what, what spurred that notion in you that you need to do something about this? Speaker 3:Well, I didn't think I needed to do something about it. I felt like somebody needed to do something about it. And I waited. I actually waited and I would, [00:19:00] you know, I also tried to be the obedient Muslima. I really did. I was, you know, I'd sit and watch stuff go down and not say anything because I was afraid of backbiting and I did all of that stuff. And you know, uh, yeah. I mean, but I waited, you know, I was patient with it. And honestly I believe that it's kind of a divine [00:19:30] intervention. I don't, I don't think by myself that I would have done this because I would've been afraid. But I think that God has basically been with me throughout this. I've, I felt it, I felt led. Um, the way things were sort of falling into place was just unbelievable. And the support, um, I'm sure there's elements [00:20:00] in the Muslim community that wanted me to fail. Speaker 3:I have no doubt about it. There are people in the Muslim community that see me as an upstart and troublemaker and all that. I get that, um, because I also address very powerfully racism and all those other things that we don't ever want to talk about. Polite Muslims, don't want to talk about it. But that's sad. I don't think it was me. [00:20:30] I think it was God, I think this will, it will be successful or fail based on God's timing, not mine. Um, I decided from the beginning to step out of it to not have my and cage tenant and I, there's been times, there was a reporter from mouches Sarah last week and she was insisting, she says, well, I cannot film, [00:21:00] there's no men here. There's only women here. Speaker 4:Okay, Speaker 3:how is this inclusive if there's no men here? I said, because I don't hire people. It's like any other mosque. Whoever wants to come, comes, whoever does, I want to go and they don't come. So I said, I'm sorry, I can't help you. She says, okay, I'll come next week and can, can you get some brothers, call some brothers and tell us. I was like, so [00:21:30] la. Anyway. Speaker 2:[inaudible] well, um, let me ask you about, um, a more general question for our listeners. Probably most of them are not Muslims that don't understand the importance of the mosque to Muslim life. And, um, and, and we're speaking with, uh, Rabi'a Keeble. She's the founder of called Marianna Hae, a woman's Moss. All inclusive. Mazda started here in Berkeley, uh, in April, I think is when, is that when you launched the official list? Yeah. So just last month, right here in Berkeley. [00:22:00] Um, so can you tell us a little bit about what is the importance of the mosque and why is it so important to have one that, uh, matches the kind of ethos you're talking about? Speaker 4:Well, Speaker 3:I don't know exactly what you want me to say here, but, um, the way I see a mosque and having been exposed to Christian Christianity and the way Christians to things, especially Black Christians and [00:22:30] Black Christian women, for me a place of worship is part of my life as a woman. I didn't see myself excluded because in Christianity, the type that I grew up with, southern Baptist women were not excluded. Women were leaders. So oftentimes pastors are doing very important things. So coming into Islam, I didn't leave that behind. [00:23:00] That's part of me where if I'm in a worship situation, I'm looking for female leadership as well as male. Right. Um, I believe that mosque are community oriented mainly, uh, in the west. It can't really be that way because we don't have neighborhoods around, you know, people will drive an hour to get to the mosque or [00:23:30] whatever. You don't just walk over and it's not the center of the village or the city or whatever. But I believe the intention is it was that, and it was the place where you would go to hear the news, to hear announcements, um, to hear the word, to heal, hear inspiration, um, to ask questions, whatever, you know, it was in that gathering space. Speaker 3:Was it original? The question is, [00:24:00] was it originally conceived of as a place where men and women attended jointly? Uh, no, probably not because that was not the culture of the time. Speaker 2:No. Bar Arabia in the 600 Speaker 3:does very, very, very gender, you know, uh, specific about things. You know, only women did these things. Only men did these things and blah, blah, blah. You know, the whole thing. So I [00:24:30] think that this was seen as a male space, but that was because that was what it was like an Arabian, the seventh century. Yeah. Very divided, very, very, uh, you know, assignments, uh, for gender that which informed I think other things. But, um, now in the 21st century here in America, how does that model work for us? And I would say it doesn't work so well. Yeah. It's not the reality [00:25:00] of our everyday life as it was then. We go to work, we mix, we go to the store, we stand behind or in front of somebody who's of the opposite gender. Um, we drive down the street, we go to the gas state, whatever. Everything that we do. It's mixed. It's mixed. Yup. Speaker 2:So I think what I'm hearing you say is the importance of the mosque is to reflect the society [00:25:30] that we live in, to build a community of, of worshipers, of Islamic worshipers, but reflective of more of our times. Yeah. And, and which is, I think the problem you're trying to solve, which is so appropriate. It is an innovation that's needed and the bravery that you're showing to stand up and, and do it is really amazing and inspiring. So thank you so much trivia. I really appreciate you coming here. I wanted to ask you one last question. Um, you've created, you're creating [00:26:00] a space, right? And what struck me, I went to one of your launch events was the diversity of people that were there. Yeah. Um, so can you tell me maybe one or two stories of your favorite things that have happened so far? Surprises to you cause you're creating a space of worship for people to come and express. Yeah. Things that maybe they haven't been able to express anywhere else. Cause you've created this safe, wonderful, diverse space. Yeah. Well what's, what's happened to you so far that you've been like, wow, that was, that was amazing. Speaker 3:[00:26:30] I tell you the whole time I've been like, wow, yeah, I fully expect it that nobody would show up. I fully, I did. I fully expected that, you know, the word would get out over there. Don't do that because me as doing whatever it is, but it didn't turn out that way because God is guiding this. And, um, I think one of the most powerful things, it wasn't a big thing. There was a, uh, a brother who [00:27:00] came to one of the Joomla's and, uh, I had done the call to prayer, I had called [inaudible] and I had never done it before my life, but you know, that tells you something, right? That I was exposed to it enough that I knew it. Yeah. Speaker 2:And Juma, for those who don't know is the Friday prayer is the Sabbath of, of uh, Muslim. Speaker 3:Alright. [inaudible] and this brother said to me, one thing that we're doing, uh, is that after Solat, [00:27:30] instead of everybody bolting, leaving, I ask questions. I say, do you have questions? I want you to talk about what's on your heart. I want you to ask questions. And, um, this brother raised his hand and he said, you know, I really like this because I want my wife to be with me in worship. I want her in the kid sitting next to me. [00:28:00] I had never thought of that. I really had never thought that that might be something that's very supportive and comforting for man is to have his wife next to him. And it really touched me. Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a beautiful story. I'll share with you what really inspired me. Plus as someone who's a Muslim but also loves music. Um, when I went to one of your launch events, um, you had a convert who got up there and talked about how she had missed gospel music [00:28:30] from when she was growing up as a Christian. And so she decided to incorporate gospel music into Islam and then did an Islamic prayer in a gospel way. She just blew my mind and my wife and I look at each other like, this is the place for us. This is amazing. Although we don't do that in Juma. We don't do that. Yeah. I mean that was, uh, that was the initial launch, but it was, I think, part of the spirit, which is that you're creating a safe place for people to express themselves and in Islam [00:29:00] that hasn't been easy to do in my lifetime. Um, so it's, it's amazing, amazing innovation. This, this store, this, this show is about innovation. And, uh, I especially like having spiritual, uh, people on the show to talk about. They're helping to forge new paths in the bay area. So we've been speaking with, uh, Robbia Keeble. She is the founder of Kobu. Maryam is a women's all inclusive mosque here in Berkeley. Just started Rubia [00:29:30] if people want to get involved, they want to attend a service. If they want to join the congregation, how can they do that? Speaker 3:They can do that by Friday, Fridays at 1230 [inaudible] at two, four, four one cod avenue at the Graduate Theological Union star King School of the ministry, which is only a block or two from UC Berkeley. Um, you can join us and, um, the doors are open. Please join us. So 1230 on Friday Friday's [00:30:00] graduate theological union, Starr King School, the ministry to four four oh one, La Conte. Great. Thank you so much for coming in today. Thank you for having me. They come slow on. Best of luck. Okay. Listening to method to the madness on KALX Berkeley 90.7 FM. I'm here. I was telling the czar, have a great Friday. Everybody. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hilary Abell, co-founder of Oakland based startup Project Equity, talks about her organization's mission to help small business owners secure their company's future by transferring ownership to the employees.TRANSCRIPTSpeaker 1:You're listening to cake, a l x Berkeley 90.7 Fam, university of California listener supported radio. And this is method to the madness coming at you from the Public Affairs Department here at Calyx celebrating the innovative spirit of the bay area. I'm your host Ali Nasar. And today we have Hillary [00:00:30] at bell with us. Hi Hillary. How are you? Hi Lee. I'm doing great. And Hillary is the cofounder of project equity. Um, it's a a, is it a startup or as relatively Speaker 2:we are a startup. We'll have our third anniversary and a couple of weeks. Speaker 1:Third Anniversary. Yeah, based in Oakland. That's right. And a really interesting idea we want to get into. And every, uh, cofounder I have on the show, Hillary, I usually start by asking, uh, the same question, which is, uh, you're someone who started an organization from scratch [00:01:00] because you saw an issue. So can you give us the problem statement? What is project equity trying to solve? Speaker 2:We're aiming to address the growing income and wealth gap between the rich and the poor across this country in particular starting in the bay area and in other regions where we're already working. I personally have been working with employee ownership and worker cooperatives for the last 13 years intensively. And, and going back further than that, and I know from my own experience that there are powerful [00:01:30] force for improving job quality and building wealth for low wage workers. And my co founder Alison Lin gain has decades of experience in larger scale social ventures for profit and nonprofit. And we share this passion for addressing the wealth gap, the racial wealth gap and income inequality. And when we realize that my experience in worker cooperative development and employee ownership and her experience with larger scale social ventures, we're a perfect combination. We decided to launch something new to take on this problem. Speaker 1:Okay. Well it's a really fascinating [00:02:00] idea. I'm really excited that you're here today. Really speaks to me. And before we get into kind of what it, what project we does and what a work we're cooperative is. Can you, uh, just give us a little bit about your background. How did you and your journey come to looking at and saw seeing this problem that you want to solve? Speaker 2:Sure. So, so I started out right after college as a teacher in the inner city and that wasn't something I was able to do for a long time. I wasn't great at classroom management, but I did get to see urban poverty up close, get to see the resilience and the amazing [00:02:30] kids that were in those communities. Um, so that was one of my first, um, influences on why I care about this problem. I then worked for a worker owned company called equal exchange. And I got into that not because I was interested in business to be honest. I wanted to be on the front lines of social change. But I came to equal exchange through some community organizing I had been doing in relation to the wars in Central America. And when the war in El Salvador ended, um, equal exchange approached me and others at organization I was working for [00:03:00] at the time about using coffee and fair trade coffee in particular to help promote peace in El Salvador after the war. Speaker 2:And so through that and through the fair trade mission, I got into using business as a tool for social change. And I was in my sort of mid twenties and learned how to be a salesperson, something I never thought I would do. I learned how to work with farmer partners in Latin America who were organized in cooperatives and also got elected to the board of directors of that growing company of equal exchange as a worker [00:03:30] owner. So I also experienced incredible learning. I got to sit next to leaders of larger scale, socially responsible companies on that board and learn about business and how business can be a force for good. So that opened my perspective and helped me see how cooperatives can change the world. And from there I did a bunch of work in the nonprofit sector related to fair trade and other international issues and then found myself working with a local organization in Oakland called wages. Speaker 2:And we were building cooperatives and work around businesses [00:04:00] from the ground up here in the bay area. And that's, I was there for eight years and we saw incredible impact from the work we were doing. We built five eco-friendly home cleaning businesses that were owned by about a hundred immigrant women from Mexico and Central America. Wow. How cool. It was really exciting and I saw an incredible change from the time I started there in 2003 to when I left in 2011 when I first got there, we were doing an impact study that one of our foundation funders had helped us set up and we found that one of the cooperatives [00:04:30] was experiencing 40% increases in household income among their members. Wow. And that was very inspiring. That really mattered Speaker 1:to cut the middleman basically. Like they, they were getting all the income straight to them, Speaker 2:the workers. That's right. And they also built and owned together an infrastructure that would support them growing the company and working full time instead of working part time. Okay. So it was a combination of sort of better hourly pay and full time work and stability instead of just kind of casual variable schedules. And then they [00:05:00] got health insurance as well. And so that inspired us to try to scale up that model. We built a larger cooperative business in Oakland that eventually got to have 35 women [inaudible] owning it and then built a new one in San Francisco as well. And through the one in Oakland, we saw that eventually their household incomes were increasing by 80% wow. So went from 40 to 80 and the good trend. Yeah. Yeah. That was a great, it was a great trend and not all employee on businesses will have, you know, that degree of increase in, in [00:05:30] household income. But in general they do create better quality jobs. And so when I saw that [inaudible] I just knew that I wanted to do more of it and wanted to make the business model of employee ownership more accessible to to more low wage workers. Speaker 1:Yeah. What a, what a fascinating journey that you've been on. And thanks for sharing. Uh, we're talking to Hillary Ebell. She's a cofounder of project equity here on method to the madness on KLX Berkeley. Um, and before we go further into what project equity [00:06:00] does, I'd love to just take a step back and have you define for us what is a worker owned cooperative Speaker 2:project? Equity works with employee on businesses in different forms. And the one that we've started with and work most closely with is the worker owned cooperative. The definition of a Co op is a business that's owned and controlled by its members. So in the case of an employee owned cooperative, it's the people who work there who own the business and control it democratically by having the majority of seats on [00:06:30] the board of directors. So that's kind of the fundamental definition. There are actually seven cooperative principles that govern consumer cooperatives, farmer cooperatives, credit unions, and other kinds of cooperatives that are actually much more prevalent than worker owned cooperatives in this country. So there are seven common principles Speaker 1:and what, what is the, is there a governing body for cooperators? What are those seven principles? Who, who owns those? Speaker 2:There's something called the international cooperative alliance, which is global and does have kind of regional networks [00:07:00] through different parts of the world and has, you know, subsets for the different types of cooperatives. Um, and then there's also the model of employee stock ownership plans, also known as Aesop's, which is a u s specific model that is more commonly practiced than worker cooperatives. And we also see that as having a great role to play in this movement. And it's something that we're looking forward to working with directly as well. Speaker 1:So, um, let's talk a little bit more about the aim of project equity. Um, so you've given us some generalities around, um, your background and, and, uh, [00:07:30] the power that you've seen of unlocking business for, for, uh, for good. But it seems when I was doing some research on your company or your organization, you guys are, um, really focused on transferring, uh, companies and who are currently owned by an owner and a different ownership structure and, uh, having them go through a transition as opposed to starting something from scratch. That's right. You tell, tell me more about why that's the strategy you guys pursued. Speaker 2:That was a very explicit decision [00:08:00] for us in our first year. Um, 2014, we were fortunate enough to have a grant that allowed us to research different pathways to scale as we like to refer to them. So we looked at doing scale oriented startups and we looked at converting successful existing businesses to employee ownership. And we did choose the ladder. We were one of the first movers and an early champion of this strategy, which is actually now, um, being, uh, uh, uptaken has been taken up by, um, actors around the country and we're part of a national [00:08:30] collaborative and a growing movement that's supporting transitioning successful businesses. And there's two reasons that project equity saw this opportunity. One is that demographically the huge shift that we're going through as a country and as a world actually with baby boomer retirements is incredibly significant. We tend to hear a lot about it in terms of the impact on health care and the impact on social security and things like that. It also is already having a big impact on our small business community, about [00:09:00] 50% actually a little bit more nationally of privately held businesses are owned by baby boomers here in the bay area. Project equity has just done some original research that we released back in February that shows that 45% of privately held businesses that employ people in the bay area are owned by baby boomers. 45% 45% Speaker 1:present of, of jobs. Overall jobs are small businesses that provide jobs, Speaker 2:small businesses that provide jobs. Okay. That's right. And it's actually 63,600 [00:09:30] businesses in the nine bay area counties. Wow. And it accounts for about 626,000 employees and almost 150 billion in total sales. 626,000 Speaker 1:employees and there's about six or 7 million people in the bay area. That's right. So 10% of the area is employed by baby boomer businesses that are, that are going to end at some point unless they figure out what to do. Speaker 2:Absolutely. So, so we've been [00:10:00] asking ourselves the question and asking dozens, hundreds of other people this question for the last two years, what's going to happen to these businesses? So it's been known for some time. The SBA actually did a study back in 2004 that showed that only 15% of family owned businesses will pass on to the next generation. And it goes down to about 5% when you go to the third generation. So this classic concept that we have of a business being handed on to a son or a daughter just isn't happening for the vast majority of businesses. So what happened? Speaker 1:It's to them [00:10:30] first. It's only 15% goes to the first or second generation. The other 85% do they die? What happened? Speaker 2:Yes. Um, they, many of them do die. And that's what we're concerned about is there a lot of really healthy, vibrant businesses that contribute so much to our local economies and to the unique nature of our communities that that could actually close. Um, and many are closing already. We're hearing about it every day in the bay area. Um, some many will also get bought out and often that'll be by a large corporation or by an out-of-state buyer and out of area buyer. And usually when there is [00:11:00] an acquisition like that, there's a lot of change that happens. So some people will get jobs in the parent company, but there are always a lot of layoffs and sometimes the companies are even shut down. And you know, just the parts are the like you're like, you would take parts of an old car, you know, they'll take the assets of the business and the client list, but not maintain the role in the community. Sure. Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, we're talking to Hillary Ebell. She's the, uh, Co founder of project equity, a startup based in Oakland that is helping companies transform themselves to uh, uh, [00:11:30] an employee owned cooperatives. Um, so I wanted to ask you about something I like to ask a lot of entrepreneurs like yourself. Um, once you had the idea, it sounds like you have a lot of experience that's led you to see this problem and really and passion around solving a major kind of social issue that we have. Um, but there's a big leap between seeing the issue and then actually starting something. So can you [00:12:00] take us through that process of how you had the spark of like, I got this idea, you and your partner, but then how did you actually get this thing off the ground? You mentioned a grant, like how did you get to that point? Speaker 2:Yeah. Um, so Alison Lynn gain and I spent probably two years meeting weekly or biweekly developing the idea, thinking about who we wanted to talk to about it, where we could potentially get some funding to get going, what we would want the program to look like, what we would actually do, how we would contribute to scale, which really was our [00:12:30] guiding guiding principle. The reason to do something together was this combination of scale and the value of employee ownership and really trying to scale that up for the benefit of, of low wage workers. So we spent a couple of years meeting casually and planning and there were two things that helped us turn it into something that we could pay ourselves a little bit to do and really start focusing our time on. One was that we had a first investors, so there's nothing like a seed investor. Um, my can again of give something back office products, which is an Oakland based, [00:13:00] um, national company, one of the original certified B Corp's and socially responsible businesses. Speaker 2:I'm sure in the country. We buy all our products from them and my work, they're terrific. They're a great company and Mike is a real visionary, has been involved in workforce development locally and also in, in socially responsible business. And we knew Mike and we sat down with him one day and told him what we wanted to do and asked if he would support us with a seed grant. And when he said yes, that was a big boost to our confidence and to our, just our gut [00:13:30] sense that this was something that others were gonna want to support. And then there was a unique program called one bay area. Uh, it was, and they had an economic prosperity pilot program that they did, um, back in 2014 and to be honest, we got very lucky because this was a very unique grant opportunity, one time only as part of this five year initiative called Plan Bay area. Speaker 2:And as a startup, we never would've been able to get it, but we were able to partner with an established organization, [00:14:00] the East Bay Community Law Center and with another partner called the sustainable economies law center. And we designed a program to start, um, an initial community-based training program for worker cooperatives that we called the worker co-op academy. And then also to do research on strategies for scale. So when I talk about Alison and I having looked really closely at what industries we would work in, what would it take to do larger scale startups versus this conversion strategy that grant funded us to do that research. [00:14:30] And when we looked at the conversion strategy, we found that there was a lot of interest. There was a lot of curiosity among business owners. We had a lot of conversations, did some focus groups, and we also did some research on companies that had between 20 and 200 employees in Oakland in particular. And found that there were a handful of industries where there were a good number of, at that size, employing the workforce that we wanted to support. Um, so we could see that there were a lot of opportunities even just in the city of Oakland for businesses that would [00:15:00] potentially benefit from employee ownership. Speaker 1:[inaudible] well, so it sounds like it was a very measured kind of process. Right. We're definitely the sort of, um, logical types of entrepreneurs. And I know a lot of people just go more by Guy, but yeah. Yeah, we got very lucky with that first name later. That's not your style. Not as much as most entrepreneurs. Well, um, you know, one thing I wanted to ask you about, which is, so why I'm very passionate about the topic is I believe in a very, I think it's a very American concept of [00:15:30] ownership and the power of ownership. And I think that's one of the central thesis that you're, uh, basing your organization on. So tell, tell me a little bit about your take on how important ownership is for workers. Speaker 2:It's a game changing concept. Um, and I can talk first maybe from my own experience. I mentioned that when I went to work at equal exchange as a 22 or 23 year old, I wasn't interested in business. It wasn't [00:16:00] anything that was on my mind. Um, and I didn't think of myself as entrepreneurial in any way, but when I got inside of this business that was co owned by all of the worker owners, I started to be able to, to build muscles and get exposed to business concepts and um, business experiences that inspired me and that built my skills. And then getting to work on strategy and financial management and analysis and things like that by being on the board and not just being a front line sales and producer relations person, which [00:16:30] was my day job. Um, I got very passionate about it and learn so much. Speaker 2:So I saw the, how one can build skills through shared ownership and at that time I never would have started something. Um, and in fact, in, in my previous role at wages, I was, was part of the startup team for the two worker cooperatives that we started during my time there. But until project equity never started something on my own. And of course I didn't do it on my own. It was having a great co-founder that I think has been a secret to success for us. And actually for most startups they say that [00:17:00] it's much better to co-found than to found on your own. Yeah. Um, so, so that was my own experience that through shared ownership I was able to become an entrepreneur and I do see that with low wage workers as well. So if you think of, um, women from Mexico and Central America that I worked with in the green home cleaning businesses, uh, this woman named Clementine F for example, who when she started with the cooperative, she was working two jobs and was having to have her older son feed her other three kids, [00:17:30] you know, hamburgers that she would pick up at McDonald's before she ran off to the second job. Speaker 2:Just a very, very hard life. She was a single mom and when the cooperative got going, she was able to leave one of those jobs, go full time with the co op and eventually it became just a really awesome skilled, cleaner using green techniques, very cutting edge. At the time, this was in the mid 1990s, there were green cleaning companies. Um, and then she got trained to, to train other women and served on the board of the cooperative and had that sense of ownership. She, she actually shared literally in the ownership [00:18:00] financially, but she also developed that sense of ownership and leadership roles through being a co owner of a business. So that's another example and I do see it even with the companies that we're working with right now. So for example, there's a pizzeria in San Jose with 33 workers that is about to complete their transition to become a worker cooperative. Speaker 2:We've been working with them for a year and we work most closely with a core team of the two owners and five of the employees who will become co-owners. And as we've taught them about how to read financial statements, [00:18:30] how to understand the finances of this actual business that many of them have been working in for five or 10 years, believe it or not, in a high turnover industry. So this is a company that is much beloved by its employees already, but they go that extra step of taking that ownership perspective. And the owner, Kirk Vartan has actually told us that his conversations with as employees, he's always gotten their input on hiring for example. And he's found that people are starting to have a different conversation with him when we asked when he asked for that input. So they'll say, you know, [00:19:00] this person seems really cool, nice person. But when I think like an owner, I'm not sure I would hire them to work here for x and y reason. So already we're seeing, they haven't even become a cooperative yet, but already that sense of ownership is coming in. Yeah. Speaker 1:Which creates value for the company because people care more. So that's a great example is if you hire the wrong person, it sets a company back in so many different ways. So if you have the actual employees care about who you're hiring because they feel like it's going to hurt their pocketbook, [00:19:30] then it's a very powerful motivating force to do good for the company. Yeah. Um, so you know, we're talking to Hillary Bell. She is the cofounder of project equity, a startup based in Oakland, and it helps companies transition, um, to being worker owned. Tell us, talk a little bit about the actual process of transition. What does, what does that mean? What, how does it work and where do they, where does point a, where are they start or when did they end up at point B? What, what, what changes [inaudible] Speaker 2:it's a really interesting process. I'm, I'm finding [00:20:00] it fascinating and really exciting to, to work on multiple layers with these companies. The first thing we do with a company is to help them assess the, the fit for their company of employee ownership and also what kind of employee ownership. So would a employee on cooperative be the best fit for them? Would an aesop be a better fit? And the way that we look at that is, is through conversation of course, primarily with the owners and also through financial analysis. So we'll, we'll look at the numbers. We'll look at the expected future cash flow of the business. And [00:20:30] we always get asked how can the workers afford to buy the business that they work in. And most of them can't, especially since we focus on on low and moderate wage workers, what happens, many of these transactions have been financed primarily by debt and there are a number of other as well creative forms of equity that can be used. And in fact project equity, we'll be publishing next month a an investor's guide to worker cooperatives. So how can impact investors, for example, play a role in [00:21:00] helping companies transition to become employee owned? Speaker 1:Interesting. A lot. Why? Where does the deck, who would loan the workers that the, the money to buy the company? Is there a community banks or something like that? Speaker 2:It is mostly community development, financial institutions or CDFIs at this point. And there are handful of them around the country that are actually focused on cooperative businesses. So they are the ones, some of them are national, so they're the ones that are stepping up to do some of these early deals and have done the historic deals. So historically [00:21:30] about 40% of today's worker cooperatives were created through the conversion of a successful existing business. But until the last couple of years, there has never been a proactive initiative to encourage and support these transitions. So right now it is these CDFIs that are supporting the Tra the conversions. We have done a lot of work and in fact published a FAQ, if you will, for lenders about this. It's available on project equity's website and we've talked to a lot of community banks as well as more [00:22:00] mainstream banks in the bay area and around the country who are interested in this and trying to figure out how they can make it work. So there's some immediate barriers that they come up against. But some of that is just perception. So education can go a long way and somebody is thinking maybe a little bit differently about underwriting, although of course the businesses would have to meet the normal criteria for being able to pay back loans. Speaker 1:Part of the, the kind of value proposition of project equity is to have the know how but also bring the capital to the table for the right deal. Speaker 2:Absolutely. Yeah. We're not ourselves a capital [00:22:30] provider at this point, but we do have partnerships with capital providers. So that is something that we do bring. Um, and once the feasibility has been established then there is a deeper conversation with some of the employees to just to see if there is a there, there on the other side. Once the owners have said, we think we'd like to do this, then we'll help them gauge the interest among the employees. And if that's a go ahead, we'll bring them formerly in as a longer term project equity client and work with them to create a roadmap for the transition. And that has several layers to it. So first there is that [00:23:00] financial layer and that involves, we know that it's feasible, but what do we think the right prices for the business? Well, we'll recommend an outside formal evaluation that doesn't always happen, but it can be a helpful ingredient in the process, will help the owners. And the employees make an agreement about the price and help them structure the deal. So will it be seller financed at all? Will it be outside finance? Will there be any equity? How much will worker owners put in and how much of that is up front versus paid over time? Speaker 1:Is it, uh, is there a, uh, stipulation [00:23:30] that there must be a majority transfer of, of shares or are you doing somewhere the workers get a minority of ownership and the the owners actually retained control? Like is that a cause it sounds like for you, for this to work they have to have board seats and they have to really have a lot of control in some ways. Is that, is there a percentage that makes, makes it work or is it doesn't matter? Yeah, Speaker 2:we, we support the kind of standard definition of a worker. Unemploy on cooperative would have the majority [00:24:00] of board seats filled by worker owners. Um, but we're also very supportive of phased transitions. Right now. The ones that we're working on are there actually seller financed so that the transition formerly happens in one moment in time. But the, the debt is paid off over about five years. Okay. So the owner, we're right at the point where we're designing in the transitional control and figuring out exactly what that might look like. Okay. But with the owners staying in, in these particular cases, they do play a role that's sort [00:24:30] of akin to a general manager. So they still have a very strong leadership role while they, you know, start to work with a board of directors and, and share, share the um, governance level decision making. Speaker 1:What an exciting project. I'm so thrilled to hear about what you're doing and excited to see what kind of things you guys do. You know, we talked a lot about the, um, the workers and their motivations, but let's talk about the owners for a second. And you know, when I was reading your website, a lot of it is geared towards the owners as you're trying to convince them. And it sounds like you've [00:25:00] got a lot of great owners who want to do the right thing and that's why they're doing it. And the word that Kinda came up for me was legacy. That seems to be like the overarching reason. Why is that? Would you say that that's accurate? Speaker 2:That's exactly the word I would choose and I'm delighted that that's what came across to you because that is our goal with a website is to communicate that that owners who are concerned about their legacy and want to leave a legacy should really consider employee ownership. We had an interesting experience when we did that focus group in Oakland back in 2014 with local business owners and we started [00:25:30] by talking to them about employee ownership and asking what they knew about it, if they'd heard of any employee owned companies, what their impressions were, and then we transitioned to them what they wanted when they left their business or when they retired. And that was when the conversation started to click cause what they said was we want our customers to be taken care of. We want our employees to be taken care of. We want our business to live on this thing that we've put our blood, sweat and tears over years into creating. Speaker 2:We want it to continue to be an important presence in the community. And those three things [00:26:00] are things that employee ownership is uniquely positioned to do. So it is really all about legacy and we think that the companies that we're working with right now are kind of the cutting edge. Maybe you could call it for up from our purposes, the low hanging fruit, the sort of first movers and what we're working towards for the future is getting in conversation with the more mainstream business sellers. And they don't have to be, have any particular attitude for this to be a fit. They don't have to be staying in, they could be leaving, [00:26:30] but if they are concerned about leaving a strong company for the future and their legacy, it could very well be a good fit. Speaker 1:Well I wanted to ask you about, um, like one of the big buzz words around the bay area is liquidity. You know, start companies to get rid of the company a lot of times to sell it or go public and lose control. And is that concept exists and once you've converted over to becoming a worker owned cooperative is how you get money from your equity. Basically just distributions of the profits. [00:27:00] And there's, there's really never a big check that comes from selling it. Speaker 2:That is generally true with worker cooperatives. Um, Aesop's can be different. Um, so ESOPs are created initially with evaluation and then evaluation is done every year and they're owned through a trust. Employees on stock through a trust. And that trust does appreciate or depreciate according to the valuation every year and employees retirement accounts, you know, go up if the company valuation goes up. Um, Speaker 1:and there's a set valuation methodology [00:27:30] every year. That's how, yes. Okay. Yeah. That would take a big controversial how, how'd that happened? Speaker 2:Absolutely. It's a key factor. Yeah. Yeah. And in worker cooperatives, it's a, it's a little bit different in that the cooperative businesses are generally built for longevity. So often there is a provision in the bylaws of the cooperative that would incentivize at staying as a cooperative and not de mu de mutualizing, if you will. So if you go to a place like northern Italy or Spain where the Mondo Ground Cooperative Corporation is the largest worker cooperative in the world [00:28:00] with 100,000, um, workers, you'll, you'll find that they, the workers there will talk about their, um, the next generation in their family working in this company and seeing it as, as part of the community, part of the economy for the longterm. So in, in general, most cooperatives look to maintain being a cooperative in the future and are not valued based on a share price. Yeah, Speaker 1:it's really, it's really great work. A really excited, like I said, to see where you guys go. I always asked, uh, we're talking to Hillary of Bell, she's a cofounder of project equity here [00:28:30] on methods of the Madison KLX Berkeley. And I always, this is my last question. I always ask an entrepreneur like yourself, so you started this journey, you created this thing out of scratch. You have a lot of passion for it. You see a problem in society, you're trying to solve really important one. Um, if everything goes right for you five years from now, what will project equity look like? Speaker 2:I'm looking forward to seeing us with an expanded team. I don't think project equity itself will ever get huge, but maybe we'll be a team of 10 [00:29:00] or 20 people and being a thriving part of an ecosystem in the bay area and in maybe five or 10 other regions around the country where we have a project equity sister organization or a branch of project equity that is doing the same kind of place based employee ownership scaling that we're piloting here in the bay area. And we're also getting started in the twin cities in western North Carolina this year. And I hope that we'll have really strong relationships with everyone from the city economic development [00:29:30] officials to the wealth advisors, to the business brokers, to the boutique investment banks. Um, so that everybody in those regions will have seen enough about employee Speaker 1:ownership have, it will become normalized as an idea and we'll be talking to the businesses that they provide services to. You know, whether you're a CPA or a lawyer or whatever it may be about this business model. Great. Well, good luck on that vision. It sounds like you're on a good path to, to realizing that. [00:30:00] Um, we've been talking to Hillary Bell, she's the Cofounder Project Equity Hillary. How do people get in touch with you guys or learn more if they want to get in contact? Um, please visit our website. It's project hyphen equity.org and um, you can contact us@infoatprojecthyphenequity.org. We would love to hear from you. Great. Okay, well thanks everybody for listening today. This has been method to the madness on KALX Berkeley 90.7 FM. I'm your host is our, thanks for tuning in. Thanks Hillary for joining and have [00:30:30] a great Friday. Everybody. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

TRANSCRIPTSpeaker 1:You're listening to method to the madness on KALX Berkeley 90.7 FM. I'm your host, Stalin Huizar. And today we have with us Gus Newport, former mayor of Berkeley. Hey guys, how's it going? Fine, thank you. Good to be here. Uh, thanks for coming into the studio. Uh, and Gus is going to be with us today [00:00:30] talking about his illustrious career. He's had so many different amazing, um, experiences and achievements, a civil rights leader, uh, a beacon of the left. He's been involved in so many different things. So I wanna ask you about a few of the different experiences you've had, guests you can educate us. So first I want to start in Boston. Um, and with the Dudley Street project, it was already on the Speaker 2:way when I got there, I was a mirror of Berkeley for two terms, eight years and decided I didn't need any more. [00:01:00] I was invited to University of Massachusetts at Boston as the first senior fellow in the William in North Trotter Institute. I taught a class, um, alternative economics and public policy and people from the Dudley Street project started monitoring my class. Then I was asked to speak on several panels. It turned out, it started with a couple of guys, one in architect and one on news reporter who had discovered [00:01:30] that the poverty money that was being sent to Boston was being spent downtown to build up different areas around city hall and whatever else and wasn't getting to this part of Roxbury, whether it was real poverty, a lot of vacant lots and whatever else more is than the poverty money. What was that? It was CDB. Speaker 2:Junk is different kinds of money that came based on poverty, statistics in indexes and whatever else to upgrade, say the quality of houses, bring [00:02:00] jobs, uh, just beautified the place and whatever else that was, that was kind of money that was available to cities during that time. It had since the 60s going back to the Johnson era. So these guys put his initiative on the ballot, uh, for Roxbury to CC'd from the rest of Boston. And that blew the minds of the city. I first read about it in England, you know, through the Herald Tribune when I was over there visiting and they invited me to be on some of their early panels and things. So [00:02:30] because of what we'd done at w shoot and how East Palo Alto got formed when they're separated from Palo Alto down here. So it really was a shock to the city. And, um, they began working, engaging people, working with MIT, with department of Urban Studies and planning, gathering data and whatever else. Speaker 2:So it was a lot of vacant lots, a with a whole lot of debris on them because developers, what we [00:03:00] called the environmental racism in those days, we just dumped their debris because they didn't, didn't have to pay the tipping fees and all that, and there was no political might in these areas. So, uh, what kind of, uh, people lived in Roxbury at the time? Mainly black people from, uh, Cape Verde keep people from Haiti. Uh, some people from the Caribbean, et Cetera was like, as I recall, 30% black, [00:03:30] something like 27% Cape Verdean, another 15, 20% Latino and 10% white. And, uh, but, and this thing Hank thing happened after they started engaging and got organized, they decided they wanted to create an organization that would help turn around the city and they decided that the makeup of the boards, that community residents should control 50 plus percent of it and [00:04:00] they gave four seats to each ethnic group, didn't take it out of balance because of the numbers and the academics in Boston, which has more cows, colleges, university and place that blew their mind. Speaker 2:They said, my God, we didn't ever thought about that, but the people said we want to focus on the issues and not on each other. And so they came up with this study sheet organization that was an organization to create advocacy, planning and organizing. And because of the law in the state of Massachusetts, very sellable [00:04:30] Muse that a nonprofit can get eminent domain and 30 under certain circumstances, they said, we want to create our own master plan. And out of that master plan, they were given eminent domain authority to this day is the only nonprofit in the United States of America that was able to get that power. That's amazing. To guesthouse a little bit about, for people who don't know a lot about community development, what is a master plan or what is the purpose and function of a master plan? A master plan is to get all the data to look at the poverty index is to look at a [00:05:00] lack of jobs, crime, et Cetera, and things like that. Speaker 2:Look at the gaps, uh, take this data and create gis maps and whatever else so that you can educate everybody from people in the community to bankers to academics. We were very lucky because MIT assisted us, Tufts assisted us, Umass Boston, so we got a lot of help and they would send students to walk the streets with us to go door to door to get data so that we can create the agendas from that or whatever [00:05:30] else. But in communities like this, 70% has a household as single women and 70%. Right. And that that, that, that happens until this day. And they're shy about asking questions because they think they're not educated. They don't know. They come to find out that the questions they had were all similar. Everybody was concerned about the same thing. So this was an empowering sort of fact. We early on got a professional facilitation organization to come and teach facilitation skills to parents, [00:06:00] to young people, the small businesses, and to nonprofits so each could have a discussion and create an integrated sort of plan that became the master plan. Speaker 2:We asked the people, because most of them, their lives aren't stable because rental housing, you know, kept moving and going up. Just like we got today, almost the median cost for housing in Boston back in the eighties and those days is between 500,000 and million dollars. [00:06:30] Home-Ownership rents kept going, sky high, et Cetera, whatever else. So when you asked finally people within the master plan, what kind of housing do you want? We want affordable home ownership, if that's possible, to stabilize their lives. We willing to keep moving from place to place. And that's how we looked at the land trust. We went to the land trust. The first community land trusts in the U s was founded in southwest Georgia called new communities. And they got the idea by a group of people, including Slater, king, Martin Luther King's uncle Andy Young, [00:07:00] a guy named Dan Gel, nick who was on the Berkeley City Council from New York, but Jewish lawyer and whatever else. Speaker 2:And they had a meeting and we said a group of people to Israel to look at a plan for community land trust to create affordable home ownership into perpetuity for people who were farmers and whatever. And that's where we got the original. I do that there, the idea of preceded Israel and India, Mahatma Gandhi creating this kind of playing for people who are victims of the caste system. So we then brought [00:07:30] that over and we were able to get the banks to go along with it because we had the data, whatever else. And the banks created a community development corporation for affordable housing and one for small business. And because we challenged them. So that's when the community reinvestment that came on board. They put 50% community people on the boards and every bank put up between 500,000 a million dollars into that pot. And that's how we're able to turn this whole place around. We started out taking those vacant garden, fifth 15 acres of [00:08:00] 30 were owned by the city. They taken through tax arrears. The plan was so good, they conveyed those acres to us and we got them to mitigate the taxes. Then we use that as collateral to get a $2 million program related investment from the Ford Foundation to purchase the other 15 and all of that became collateral with other kinds of subsidies and whatever. So this is housing built into perpetuity for people with limited incomes that Speaker 1:yeah, and it's, it's so uh, it's such an interesting story, especially in today's time or we're struggling [00:08:30] with the concepts of affordable housing and the, the mayor's race here in Berkeley is kind of centered on that topic, but all throughout the bay area, it's a big deal. And what I think is so fascinating about kind of the innovations in your career, Gus, is your ability to kind of help ground up movements like this. This is very much the story of Delancey street project seems to be this facilitation of a budge, a bunch of the local neighborhood people and being able to take of their own kind of a future through the acquisition [00:09:00] of real estate and the building of this thing. For people who don't know what a community land trust is, can you explain to us kind of what does that mean? Speaker 2:Just as a nonprofit organization, which has the board, the land is taken into perpetuity by a plan to build, could be affordable homeownership, could be some co-op, it could be farms, it could be a variety of things based on what people think they most need. But that land, like I said, it's kept in the perpetuity, [00:09:30] which is 99 years to be utilized for something like that. So then private for profit developers can come in and just take it, uh, push people out or whatever else. If somebody who owns a home in Atlanta trust gets on their feet and generates better income when they sell it, they can't take out any more than 25% profit based on improvements they made. And whatever else at the house itself. They, the houses. Yeah. Right. They land is owned by the nonprofit organization. Speaker 1:[00:10:00] So it's a, it's a way to kind of create some shared ownership over us. And this was a big, you said it's uh, how big was the geographic? Speaker 2:It was 30 acres in the beginning, but it was sort of in the same area, sort of a blanket approach. It grew because other people, including people who even owned their own homes and wanted to move into it and the city came in as Dudley street to do this and all the other neighborhoods, even in a city as great [00:10:30] and as well, highly educated as Boston. And of course, you know, the financial analysis and all that stuff was actually finalized in the Kubota system in Israel and whatever else. So we had the knowledge of how to do that. And then we also had an institute for community economics, which is a national community land trust organization, which created community development. The suits that made there were banking funds available at lower income. I ended up directing ice [00:11:00] instead for community economics use after I, I ran Dudley Street. Speaker 1:Right. So I'm now 30 years later. What's the, what's kind of the epilogue of dead tissue is such an amazing project and has created, um, a lot of interest in community land trust. But how is it, what's, what's happened? The federal government a few years ago here to know Speaker 2:a program called prime neighborhoods or something like that. Dudley Street scored number one in the country. And for [00:11:30] that they get like I think 5 million a year for five years. And they were able to create their own charter schools based on planning with the community for what they wanted to see in their schools. An example of how to upgrade this cause they were able to get the best teachers in the school. They noticed that the, uh, the, uh, one, the schools, the schools for, for, for young kids, these kids were always coming home with scratches on their legs and whatever else. But, but, [00:12:00] but, but the school yard was made a CMN community convinced them to dig, get up and put sand in there. And after a while they had no more scars. So it's just common sense thinking which government school this and everybody else often doesn't think of, you know, always trying to cut corners and think they have such brilliant thing, but they're not focused on people all. Speaker 2:We had a lot of young kids who were in our, our junior group gets scholarships to Dartmouth and places like that [00:12:30] and they came back and continued to work in the area and whatever else and people began talking about that. My God, how did you help them do that? We were able to get them scholarships. That was just when student loans were starting to come online. And you know, as you young students, no student loans, it's just, it's criminal. I mean when I taught a graduate course, they, my teeth, I couldn't believe some of these young people coming out of college with student loans of 200,300 $400,000. It was just [00:13:00] terrible. So from a movement standpoint, those are the kinds of things you've got to focus on. And we're talking to Gus Newport is former mayor of Berkeley and has done so many different things. It's hard to explain them all, but we're talking about one of his major accomplishments is facilitating the devotees street project in Boston and community land trust. Speaker 2:That is still going strong to this day. One of the questions I have for you guys, kind of closing up that chapter is the governance structure. You talked about, which is really innovative of having community members who are kind of at the controls of a nonprofit [00:13:30] that owns a bunch of land. How, how did you guys set up the, a sustainable structure to keep it that way? Well, like I said, 50 plus one 51% of the all had to be community residents, but also you also had board seats for small businesses, for representatives of churches, for some nonprofits and a couple of seats. Even for elected officials though, we never filled those. Uh, and so everybody felt that [00:14:00] they had a role and you could have OK. And also the land that was conveyed to us from the city. We have, we call it four by four committee for the board representative, the four representatives from the city. Speaker 2:So we make common decisions on how to disperse that land at what time, you know, and whatever else. So it was a learning situation for everybody. So it's the way that the actual nonprofit is structured is that that structure has kept that authenticity of yes representation all these years, 30 years later. And that was written as we [00:14:30] learn new things. We would have amended from time to time, things that were more creative and more beneficial. But that's it. It's a constant analysis and learning thing. And today, do you know like the community land trust model, which is so successful in this instance? Are there a lot of other ones in the country today? There's about 400. I just came back from a conference in Park City, Utah, um, a month or so ago and it was very, very, very pleasant. A lot of people participating in such a, [00:15:00] um, we had a little bit concerns because the name of the national organization now is grounded, used to be grounded community solutions. The name got changed, the grounded solutions. And that's because three of the sponsors is Fannie may know wells Fargo and Citibank. So I'm going to go in back and challenge that. And I think with the likes of Wells Fargo and them, they ought to be glad to get whatever they can to clean up Speaker 1:their own. Yeah, we were talking to Gus Newport, former mayor Berkeley's his method to the madness on [00:15:30] KLX Berkeley 90.7 FM and Gus, let's, let's rewind a little bit in terms of, uh, your timeline of your career and talk about the time when you were elected mayor originally at Berkeley and kind of how that story came about because that was another kind of innovative time and, and uh, political, uh, environment that I think, uh, is very interesting story to tell, especially with this political season we're in right now. Speaker 2:Well, I first came to Berkeley in 1968 I was working with an organization [00:16:00] called you guys as research and Development Corporation in New York that was working with the Department of Labor on the new jobs programs and whatever else. I was sent both to Puerto Rico to do some jobs development programs as well as out here to California. And then I worked in Puerto Rico from 1971 to 74, the Department of Labor. And um, a friend of mine was running [00:16:30] federally funded programs and things for the city of Berkeley and invited me out to help them with some assistant youth develop jobs and other kinds of things. And I did a wage compatibility survey for nonprofit organizations in both Berkeley and Oakland to look at the compatibility of wages they were receiving and whatever else. And then I was put on the Planning Commission, the Police Review Commission, [00:17:00] and I was then hired back to the city, including the, I forgot what it was, another department. But I had to engage the laws of the nonprofit and community organizations. I work with BCA to reorganize their whole status. And we wrote a manifesto saying what all services city government should provide, whatever. And [00:17:30] uh, Speaker 3:yeah, Speaker 2:Berkeley's first black mayor, Wharton wide. There was an office when I got here, Berkeley had determined that it was going to take over PG and e and who have a Master Police Review Commission and Warren, why'd you move the middle and didn't do these things? So that was the first black man, right? So Ron Dellums and John George and BCA and other people asked me would I consider running PCA [00:18:00] was Berkeley to discuss this action. I still had to compete against somebody that was already a BCA member on city council. John Denton, who was a white lawyer. And we went through several weeks. You had to get two thirds of the vote before you could be the candidate. Um, I was nominated and it was funny thing because you know, Berkeley probably gets more credit [00:18:30] for being progressive city than it is. I mean, Berkeley is a good community with a population. 50% of the people had undergraduate degrees and 25% graduate degrees. Speaker 2:And there were a lot of what I call single issue liberals. They pulled on me cause they wanted somebody that was going against Warren. Why? Then of course I was also known having been a close friend of Malcolm x cause [00:19:00] I was trailing knock four days before he was assassinated and when he moved from the nation of Islam to the organization and for American unity, I was one of the founding members. So I was fairly well known for some of those things. That's why we're doing this documentary now because the country does not yet know how Malcolm and Martin Luther King will come close together and Ma Malcolm had given up violence and was moving to the civil rights movement and he and Martin Luther King were about to go before [00:19:30] the United Nations to file a suit against American hegemony, imperialism and colonialism. And one of the things we're getting this documentary is we've got a tape overhearing Jagger, Hoover, FBI saying these are the two most dangerous men in the world. Speaker 2:35 days after he made that statement, Malcolm was dead. Of course Martin Luther King got killed actually a year after he gave the speech to break the silence, you know, against the Vietnam War. So all those things, civil rights [00:20:00] and whatever else. Also teach you how to engage community development. Because when I was with the civil rights movement, I wrote the first concentrated employment training grants with department labor for Rochester, New York, my hometown and I and a guy named Bob Turner, Phd from Kansas State and a road scholar went to several cities, including Philadelphia to the, the Jewish economic vocational training and other kinds of places to look in job development and all these kinds of things. [00:20:30] So you know, you're not even thinking what are you learning what you're taking in, you're just on the run. So then you show up in Berkeley with that and you have a chance to be here. I want to ask you about that perfectly citizen actions that manifest that which was very famous. And you talk about Berkeley and I maybe having a um, Speaker 1:reputation that maybe it proceeds itself in terms of, or being a little bit more progressive than it is. But that document was very left wing, Speaker 2:right? It was. It wasn't, of course, [00:21:00] I'm not suggested. Berkeley wasn't very progressive. I'm because of cause the free speech Boohoo was founded here. Sure. About the same time as the civil rights movement and the antiwar movement and the antiwar movement. Yeah. And of course, so there was, there was, there was a lot of transition but, Speaker 1:and you were becoming mayor after a lot of those things were kind of transitioning into the 80s and a different timeline. But can you speak to a couple of the maybe revolutionary planks in that manifesto that Berkeley citizens [00:21:30] action and you as a leader kind of came to power on? Speaker 2:Well, for instance, we were the first city to divest that was on the ballot when I ran divest from South Africa in Africa. We were the first city to past domestic benefits, benefits for gay couples and stuff. What year was that? That would have been 1981 1982 and that's because there was a day, there was [00:22:00] a gay faction within the Po politics of Berkeley. And I don't know if you know the name Holly near [inaudible] who was one of the new song singers who was very close to Jane Fonda. Jane Fonda mentored her. She was a play in New York called hair, I believe it was. And Holly had her own recording company. She was gay. I was the first man on the board. Uh, going back to Tom Hayden [00:22:30] just dying. And we also work with him. And Jane Fonda actually did a fundraiser for me when I ran for mayor the first time in the day that I reported to my office. Speaker 2:When I took office, I walk in, there's all these TV cameras, Jane Fonda sitting at my desk. So it was just all these kinds of things. And there was a lot of student involvement in DCA too. We put students in. My appointed to the planning commission was a woman named Theresa Cordova who was getting her phd [00:23:00] and planning and um, she was at the Institute for Study Social Change that which was run by Troy duster who probably graduated more black and Latino PhDs than anybody. And Troy duster happens to be the grandson of Ida B. Wells. So I mean Troy was like my mentor. So I was a fellow at the Institute for Studies Change Here in Berkeley too, and he ended up the sociology department and one time. So all these things are in the mix. Speaker 1:Yeah. Well and such a fascinating story [00:23:30] in terms of the timeline, the history of what was going on. Then you got to, I think you, you very much viewed your time as mayor, as a kind of the bully pulpit to go and talk about a lot of progressive issues, not just right. Speaker 2:Very much so. For instance, getting back to the university, Harry Edwards, who's quite a spoke for us first, and you know who organized those three blacks that if raise their fists at 90 68 Olympics was on faculty and had more students attending his class. He taught [00:24:00] sports psychology and sociology, I think, and was quite ill. He had the most heavily attended Subaru who came time for him to get tenure. It was going to be a difficult thing, but, but Haman, Mike came in was the chancellor at that time and Haman said, we're going for it, but Gus, you're going to have to help us and other stuff. We did some national calling in Haman when he became chancellor, had been chair [00:24:30] of the planning school and both the law school he came to some of us with, some of the professors were progressive and said, Gus, I'm going after chancellor. He said, it's going to be difficult. They've never had a juice chancellor before. We pulled together everything we could, including national friends to assist and whatever else he became the chancellor. Speaker 1:Nice. Well it's so much, I mean, you've broken down so many barriers in your career and I, I, to [00:25:00] not end this interview without asking you about kind of where we sit today. It's 2016 and so many of the issues that you fought for in your civil rights career are still persistent today. Even though we have, we've had a black president, so we've made progress. And so I want to ask you from your seat of the wisdom and knowledge that you have, can you give us some of your, um, kind of positive thoughts about where we can take, um, our progressive society going forward [00:25:30] and kind of use a lot of the stuff that you've accomplished and consolidate those gains and go forward? Cause there's so much negativity around right now. I want to provide some positivity to people. You made a difficult, we'll use a buzz of thoughts. Um, okay. Well anyway, Speaker 2:no, I worked with Bernie Sanders and you know, the millennials were just great. I mean, uh, I was never so proud as the role [inaudible] played in movement. And a lot of them told us that after Bernie [00:26:00] didn't make it through the primary. And of course we know that there were problems in the primaries. I mean, Bernie didn't get 3 million votes that should've been to him in California, New York and other places in the Sierra delegates are a problem. Right? And, and a lot of the millennials told us they were not going to vote for Hillary because we have problems with Hillary. And with bill going back to welfare reform and NAFTA and Gatt and some things like that. And, but the old friend of mine, Jack O'Dell, who just turned [00:26:30] 93 last month was Martin Luther King's right hand man. And he wrote, um, I forget the NAACP had a, a regular paper that was created by WB Dubois freedom ways. Speaker 2:He was a co-editor. He called me from, he lives up in Vancouver, British Columbia now. And he said, brother Gus, he said, you know, I've always liked you because, [00:27:00] uh, even though you were greatly left as I was at the end, you use common sense. So I said, all right, bud, Jack, what are you getting at? He said, well, I was proud that you and Danny Glover worked for Bernie Sanders. But now the next step is the election itself. He said, remember you and I used to talk about when you got drafted in the military, when you reported to Louisiana, [00:27:30] um, Kentucky, that you weren't allowed to go and eat in certain restaurants as a black person says, yeah, remember we talked about there were places during the Jim Crow era, very close. We were people, black people were getting hung. I said, yeah, he said, we've moved past that, but if Donald Trump gets elected, we're going to go back to that. Speaker 2:He said, we may not totally agree with like Hillary, but we do at least know that she [00:28:00] won't carry us back to that and we can put our foot on her button and keep on pushing. You know, the next one we've got to go. So I said you right. So we started talking to millennials. I think looking at the polls and whatever now it looks like she's going to make it. I was sorta set back last week being in Tennessee and hearing some of these white, uh, organized people in the political move and talking about they thing's going to be violence in some of their neighborhoods or whatever else. And [00:28:30] so you have to have an analysis like Martin Luther King I always talked to about the beloved community. The beloved community basically was centered in the church. We had ministers that used to play a role out today. Speaker 2:Church doesn't play a great role in the inner city, but people shared everything. And because of segregation, blue collar, white collar, no collar, everybody lives side by side. But we're there to help one another. But I had to explain to people last week [00:29:00] that the beloved community was not an integrated community. It was a segregated community. Many of you were in the civil rights people, but you did not live in the beloved community. You lived in Peyton Dale or whatever they used to call that. Whether it was a whole lot of things going on. And that's what we got to get back to because when Mahatma Gandhi and other people were talking about nonviolence, this, that if you're going to turn around and society has to be a vision of love, Cetera, and whatever else, it's such an inspiration [00:29:30] and chair, um, at that, you know, pardon me for saying hell, can't wear it on. I buy the age, year out. We are still going so strong and a inspiration Speaker 1:to all of us. And thanks so much for coming in today guys. We'll be speaking to guests, Newport, former mayor of Berkeley. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Explains the founding and mission of the interdisciplinary Berkeley Food InstituteTRANSCRIPTSpeaker 1:You're listening to KALX Berkeley 90.7 FM. And this is method to the madness coming at you from the Public Affairs Department here at Calex celebrating the innovative spirit of the bay area. I'm your host Ali Nasar and today we have Anne threat with us. Hi Anne. How are you? I'm great, thank you. And she is the executive director of the Berkeley Food Institute. A really interesting organization here on campus or really happy to have your insight, have her here with us in studio. Um, so again, you know, we have a lot of, uh, founders and new organizations [00:00:30] on to talk about, um, their, um, problem that we're trying to solve. So that's the first question I always ask is why was this organization created and what's the problem statement of you're trying to solve? Well, thank you very much for having me. And yes, I'm, the Berkeley Food Institute was formed purposefully with the intention of addressing some of the very large challenges in society that have to do with food and agriculture systems. Speaker 1:So it's not purely foods specific, but also the way our food is produced all the way from farm [00:01:00] to fork. And you're probably aware that there are a lot of environmental concerns as well as social concerns about the current food system that are really contributing to some major problems for society. Um, those include, um, issues of climate change, uh, toxic chemical exposure and the environmental side on things like soil erosion, uh, water depletion. So those are really large environmental challengers. And there's also, there are also very large challenges in terms of the social issues. Um, both, [00:01:30] uh, food insecurity. And um, also on the flip side, obesity are major public health issues. Um, and very often actually food security insecurity goes hand in hand with obesity curiously enough. So those are just some of the major problems. Um, we also have major problems with farm worker exposure to pesticides, um, and inequitable systems of payment of wages in, in the food system, which is very clearly illustrated both in the farm work in agriculture, but also in restaurants. Speaker 1:[00:02:00] So those are just some of the many, uh, array of problems that we're facing in society that really cross cut a hole. Um, you know, just many different topics. And the, the fortunate thing is that at Berkeley we had many different people working on these issues, but they're often in different departments in different disciplines and not always collaborating together. So the Berkeley Food Institute was founded about three years ago with the idea of bringing many people together to solve these very difficult [00:02:30] questions and to come up with innovative solutions, which brings this issue of innovation and finding entrepreneurial and unique policy ways to, you know, and also, um, scientific elements together to solve complex problems so that, um, yeah, the, the institute was brought together about three years ago with the involvement of the College of natural resources as well as the Goldman School of public policy. And then we also got on board the School of journalism with Pollan who was very [00:03:00] involved from the beginning and the school of law and school public health, which has become increasingly involved and very actively involved. Speaker 1:So they're really, we have the fortune of getting people from multiple disciplines. There's also the college of environmental design has many people working on food and agriculture issues. We also have people in, in letters and sciences. So it really brings together people. It's food has really become a catalyst to generate lots of, lots of concern. And there are many, many students as well as faculty members [00:03:30] interested in the topic. Oh, how amazing. I mean, there's so many different people involved. And to create an umbrella organization in, in a, um, on a campus that's so high caliber with so many different really smart people must be a really fun position for you to be and to really harness this power and attack this huge problem set that you're talking about. Exactly. Yeah. It's very exciting because we're really being able to bring together serving as a hub to have this interaction amongst so many [00:04:00] people who care about this issue deeply. Speaker 1:Um, and you know, we're fortunate again at Berkeley because Berkeley is an epicenter of innovation in this field, in both in the natural sciences and the social sciences. And a lot of people don't know that. I mean Berkeley is known for what are his actually at land grant college where the classic universities that has a connection to agricultural production and you know, being a land grant colleges has leadership in agriculture, but people don't think of it that way because we're not in a rural setting [00:04:30] yet. There's so much work going on here that has to do with food and agriculture. So I think the Berkeley Food Institute is not like we're reinventing anything that's happening at Berkeley, but just bringing people together to create greater visibility and also to help facilitate cross disciplinary interaction. So I can talk a little more about that, but I should mention that we right now have 110 affiliated faculty members from across the university and we welcome more, we're happy to have more faculty members join us. Speaker 1:And we also have many, many students [00:05:00] who are engaged and interested in this. And we've had the fortune of being able to upload employee, a number of students as well as provide some fellowships for students. So I understand and we're talking to anthrop, the executive director of the Berkeley Food Institute here on method to the madness on k, Alex Berkeley. And um, I'd like to understand first, you know, the founding of this organization. It sounds like it sounds so complicated, so many organizations you just walk us through. How does something like that happen on such a made big campus like this and [00:05:30] first from kind of the genesis of the idea to actually kind of getting it implemented in, in off the ground has to have to get its own slice of funding or how, how does this whole thing work? Well, great question. There are a number of, you probably know many institutes and centers on the university campus and some of them are within specific disciplines. Speaker 1:Um, but as I mentioned, the Berkeley Food Institute is highly interdisciplinary. And what happened actually initially, one of the sparks that made this happen was that there's a person is an alum from Berkeley, um, and he [00:06:00] was a, he's a philanthropist and very interested in environmental issues. Um, his name is Bob Epstein and Bob, um, was very interested in, in the idea of, of developing an institute, um, uh, three years ago that really Dell went beyond environmental issues that he was very interested in previously. I mean, it's still obviously food systems relate to environment, but he developed an interest that went beyond that. And um, Bob has a phd from, [00:06:30] uh, from cow in engineering and he came to the College of natural resources, Dean, um, named Keith Gillis and the dean of the Goldman school public policy. And Bob was actually on the advisory board for the Goldman school and expressed his interest. Speaker 1:He also got Michael and, and involved early on to talk about this idea of bringing people together at, at cal to really help make a difference in food systems. Um, Bob, as many of us share the, the notion that it, that food [00:07:00] systems really is an crucial issue that intersects with some of the very critical issues of our time. So, you know, again, these social environmental, economic marketing policy issues across the board. So he felt that there was a great prospect of bringing together many people to leverage the research that's going on here collectively to effect policy change and to affect practical change. So that's what Berkeley Food Institute was founded on the basis of really wanting to [00:07:30] leverage research and bring researchers together with practitioners and policymakers to affect change. So it has a very outward facing mission, which is to support transformative change and food systems and to promote diversity, justice, resilience and health and food systems. Speaker 1:Is there anything else like this in the world? You know, there are other institutes, um, at other campuses and in fact, food systems has gained great attention, uh, throughout the [00:08:00] nation and in fact the world. But I think on the Berkeley Food Institute is, is somewhat unique and, or is unique in the sense that there we have so many disciplines involved. We have done sort of an analysis of, of different institutes that have some similarities and um, some of them are interdisciplinary indeed, but they don't necessarily involve the policy elements and the cultural and the sort of journalism. So we have, you know, the assets of having multiple dimensions that aren't quite covered as much [00:08:30] as other institutes. So I think we have a great promise in that way of really effecting change. Like, you know, you had a great momentum in the founding story of having someone with a vision and having some, some introduce disciplinary leaders involved. Speaker 1:Right. So how, tell us a little bit about your background and they had this idea and then they needed someone to actually run it. So how did you get involved? Well, I should also say before I've personally got involved, um, the deans involved, um, [00:09:00] decided to, uh, appoints faculty co-directors to get it going. And so we have two faculty co-directors, um, named Claire Kremen and Allister Isles, both from the College of natural resources. And they had already been very active in developing what we call the diversified farming systems center. So that also had to do with sort of diverse and ecologically sound agroecology methods that are used mostly in organic production systems. So that was something that they were already doing research on. And, um, the Dean and [00:09:30] others felt that they were be good co-directors, Dick Chair to get the ideas going and they formed a committee to help get that going as well from multiple disciplines. Speaker 1:Um, and then held a, a sort of a founding symposium to get ideas from external stake holders as well. So all that, that first sort of year was really focused on kind of getting ideas and figuring out where it was going to go. And then they announced the executive director position. I applied for that and I was unfortunate enough to receive the position after [00:10:00] many interviews and discussions with the group. So yeah, it was a no loss and practically, yeah. Well I have a background, it's very interdisciplinary, which is appropriate for this job. Um, I, um, it actually was years ago, a postdoc here at Berkeley, so I know Berkeley quite well and have had interaction for many years with, um, with people who work at Berkeley. Um, but I have a background in both the natural sciences and the social science is mainly in sustainable agriculture. Speaker 1:And, um, [00:10:30] I did work internationally in Latin America on the intersection of environment development and food systems. So I was very interested and did a lot of work on, uh, social issues having to do with the impacts of, of unsustainable farming in developing countries, uh, and in the United States, but mostly in Latin America. And then I worked for some years in research, but then I worked in a policy institute called the World Resources Institute as the director of sustainable agriculture for many years. Um, and [00:11:00] then I worked for a short time and the government actually to, um, providing a grant program to sustainable agriculture programs. Um, and then I was in the private sector. I actually was a sustainability director at a, at a organic vineyards up in Sonoma county for many years. And I worked very closely with growers and with cooperative extension. Um, but my, my background really touches on a lot of areas for quite a while. Speaker 1:Actually my early work in my dissertation for my phd was, um, on farm worker issues, um, and exposure [00:11:30] to pesticides and the banana industry. So that was in Costa Rica. So I, yeah, I really have addressed a lot of different issues, but my passions are really about justice and, uh, sustainability in, in food systems and broadly. So I was really excited about this because I think that BFI brings together so many different, um, interesting people topics and it just seems like a great fit too to create help to create this building of partnerships. I, my own background [00:12:00] has really always been cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral. So even though I have worked in a number of different jobs, it's been similar themes that help to bring together multiple parties to the table to help to make significant changes in society. Okay. We're talking to anthrop today. She's the executive director of the Berkeley Food Institute, a new ish organization here on campus, interdisciplinary. Speaker 1:We're talking about, and this is methods to the madness on KL expertly. I'm your host. Tallinn Huizar and um, [00:12:30] so, and you, you were given this like, uh, after a year's worth of idea generation by the, the, the faculty co-chairs, um, your committee members, the committee members, you were, uh, handed over this kind of, you know, grand idea with lots of different ways it could probably go. So I'm interested to understand how it's been a couple of years now. How did you decide what the initial projects or where you're going to invest the [00:13:00] institutes time initially? Because the problem statement that you started off the show with is huge and you could go a million different ways. So how did you decide where to, cause I'm, I'm assuming you want to move the needle on a few different things and really make an impact. Definitely. Well, so even before I joined the group involvement, the, our faculty co-directors and others involved in the initial executive committee, um, had identified a few areas where they felt, you know, important work needed to be done and in particular, um, people were interested [00:13:30] and I was very interested in, in greater utilizing the existing research on campus and to be able to leverage that more effectively, communicate that more effectively to policymakers and also to engage in public education that can help raise awareness of not only the strengths of the university professors and researchers, but also connect with community people. Speaker 1:As you know, again, Berkeley is known for some of the leading work, like um, leading innovations and not from Alice Waters and Chez Panisse and all that, but [00:14:00] also food justice activism is very strong in this area. So we really was an interest in connecting the work of the university with that broader community. And some of that was definitely already happening. Absolutely. But the idea was to give greater visibility and strength and support to those efforts. I mean, another example would be a lot of education was going on by a motivated by students and initiated by students like the student organic gardening association. And again, we just wanted to be able to give greater strength and visibility to those kinds of opportunities. So [00:14:30] when I came on board, um, we realized that one of the first things that we could do is develop, uh, a small seed grant program, uh, for projects that were innovative, cross disciplinary and aim to effect change. Speaker 1:So we put out a request for proposals to all faculty members on campus, um, to uh, come with projects that were cross disciplinary in nature and aim to address some of the major issues that were of concern in food systems. What is the seed [00:15:00] grant proposal? Well, a proposal. What basically what it meant is that they put together project ideas that were about different issues, um, ranging from urban farming issues to nutrition and health challenges and then their small projects. And we had small amounts of funding and like $25,000 for each grant. Um, but they were going to be doing research on these topics. It proposed research to us that, um, were going to affect these, these, you know, help provide information that [00:15:30] could solve these issues or come up with new innovations. So we had 24 applications in the first round, which involved literally dozens of people across the campus cause they weren't just alone applicants. Speaker 1:They were working in partnership. Um, so we only could pick five out of those 24 are, we're expecting maybe 12 or dozen or so, but we're really excited. So I have to say this was, the development of this program was done in collaboration. Of course [00:16:00] with our faculty co-directors, it wasn't just me, but we came up with the search committee and, and we were just really delighted at the quality, um, and the array of things that were proposed. Um, great projects. And unfortunately we can only choose five. Um, but then we did a second round of those, those research projects, um, are the requests for proposals in the second year too. And we'll do the first one was in 2014 as one of the first things that I was involved in doing when I came on board. And of course that, that great for me to [00:16:30] learn more about all of what's going on on campus. Speaker 1:I already knew some of what was happening here, but part of my initial orientation was just to meet lots and lots and lots of people to learn about what's going on here. And then people applied to this program, which advanced my learning too. So can you tell us what are some of the grants that were awarded? Well in the first, yeah, so in the first round we have one that's very, very unique. We received a lot of attention. It's unique. It's on, um, urban foraging that is basically hunting around for interesting. [00:17:00] Um, you know, uh, plants that are edible that are underrepresented and people don't realize that these kinds of plants are actually edible, but they actually can provide good nutrition. Um, when you go to the farmer's market or to a grocery store, now you can buy Dandelion Greens that are grown, but it actually, there'll be available in your own backyard for many people in their own backyard. Speaker 1:But they're also located often in kind of urban lots. And so this project did an analysis, kind of a mapping analysis of all of these places where they could find so-called [00:17:30] weeds, but which actually could be foraged plants. Um, so that was one of the interesting projects and it actually morphed into a more complex project that involves also identifying in farms in rural areas, these types of weed. Um, you know, weeds that have always been considered weeds on farms are marketed very small quantities, but they're trying to explore the opportunity for further market potential by getting upscale restaurants involved in others. So I mean, there was a concern about how these weeds could [00:18:00] be used in so-called food deserts. You know, in areas where there's a lack of nutritious food. Um, and certainly there are some prospects for, for these weeds in those areas, but there also are opportunities in other areas to greater utilize these. Speaker 1:So that's one area. Another one of them was on, um, on, uh, urban agroecology. So similar urban farming areas. We have one that has to do with um, farm workers and farm small farmers in Salinas Valley [00:18:30] that are interested in land access to develop their own farms and still another one on nutritious and healthy making, um, snap this food stamp recipients, um, considering, uh, healthy beverage purchases as part of a package of Ben or opportunities and potential restrictions on unhealthy beverages for snap recipients. So those are just some of the kinds of things that we're, that we're supporting. Um, and in this we also have one on on, on labor conditions. [00:19:00] So that's another area and it's really important in the restaurant workers industry. So it really spans quite a range of issues. Um, and we also continue that program this year. We are continuing the program this year. Speaker 1:Um, so yeah, that's a really interesting, a lot of great ideas. So, um, exhilarating to mind this, you know, very fertile ground for ideas. It is. Yeah. And it's also been interesting cause the scope ranges from very local [00:19:30] to global. Um, I think people have had the impression that most of our work is focused on California and local, but we are very interested in many faculty are doing international work and we've even had a chance to delve into that. So basically research is one of our main areas of work, but linking that to policy into practice. So if you notice most of the topics I mentioned do have a link to affect change. So we're really trying to encourage these kinds of projects that really have prospect to communicate results that can help lead to change. [00:20:00] And we're speaking with anthrop here. She's the executive director of the Berkeley Food Institute here on campus. Speaker 1:And this is KLX Berkeley 90.7 FM method to the madness. I'm your host Ali in his are. And so we were talking about the seed grant program, but you guys also do a lot of other things. We do, yes. So tell us a little bit about a lot. There's a lot of educational things there are. Yeah, we sound like they're both for the community and at large on campus. Tell us a little bit about that. Well. Um, we've been really doing a lot of public education events. Um, we have had [00:20:30] for the past, uh, two years, um, of forums, monthly forms that we call the food exchange forum, but also hosted every other public education events. And that brings together, it's usually a forum that involves internal speakers or Berkeley speakers, but also people from other sectors of society like, like Ninjas, nongovernment organizations or um, government agency representatives and or, um, farmers in some cases who come [00:21:00] to speak on critical issues. Speaker 1:And we've covered a huge array of topics in that ranging from climate change and agriculture to livestock issues and animal agriculture. Um, also issues of farm, you know, farm worker issues. Um, and let's see a number, oh, we also did a really interesting forum on innovative businesses that are exploring innovative business models. So there really has been a whole array of different topics. We also did a really great forum that attracted more than 300 people [00:21:30] or about 300 people last spring on justice and food systems that had some really excellent speakers. Um, talk, talk about that very important issue on all different levels. So, um, yes, those public education events are free and they've been available to the public. Um, and we've continued them this year we were doing, um, fewer just because of, we don't have the capacity to do too many, but we're doing an event that's going to feature Marianne Nessel who's a very well known speaker and [00:22:00] writer, um, talking about her new book on Soda Politics and it's actually going to be focused. Speaker 1:That book is focused or one of the main issues is focused on the Berkeley soda tax. So that will be on November 4th. Um, and we also have a speaker who is the secretary of the California Department of Food and agriculture who's coming on November 9th. And we're very excited about that too. She's going to be featured in it in a public, in a public forum. So those kinds of events have just raised attention to these, to [00:22:30] these issues. And also again, enable this kind of cross-fertilization between different people who are working on these issues from different perspectives. And for people who want to really see the full calendar where they go to food. Dopper Clinton Edu. Yes, that's our website. Yep. food.berkeley.edu and the events, um, section has, has our calendar and also information on these featured events. We also publicize events for other people. So there are many other events that are happening on campus that have to do [00:23:00] with food and agriculture. Speaker 1:So we are happy to post those events on our calendar and that goes right into the cal calendar. So, um, and also community events in the bay area, we sometimes publish publicize those as well. So it's a great place for people to go who just want to learn about what's going on with food systems. Okay, great. So I'm going to say in addition to doing those public education events, we've been very involved in facilitating a committee that has developed a minor in food systems. And some [00:23:30] people, especially from the community might want to know what does that mean. So basically, um, as you know, when you're, when you're in college you can get a major in something. Well you can also get a minor in a topic and many, many people are interested in food as a minor. So they may have a major in like in like ecology or in pest management or in um, let's say, um, anthropology, but they might want to minor in food systems because they have a particular interest in let's say food and culture. Speaker 1:So they might have a major in anthropology and a minor [00:24:00] in food systems and then focus on that same thing with like nutrition. They may focus as their major in nutrition sciences, but they won't want to do food systems more broadly as a minor. So we're really excited that, um, that Berkeley has now, UC Berkeley has now launched a new food systems minor and the Berkeley Food Institute played a role in enabling that to happen by facilitate facilitating a committee that helped to put together the curriculum. So now any student, any undergraduate can minor in food systems, which is a [00:24:30] needed topic. Definitely. That's my next question for you is as we come towards the end of the interview is, um, one of the fundamental issues we have as a race now is just the explosion of the populations. We've got the same earth, but we've got a lot more people that we've got to feed. Speaker 1:Right? So as that, you know, supply and demand equation and starts to change fundamentally. What do you, from your seat and someone who studied this your whole career and is now at the nexus of all this innovation, what do you think is the biggest [00:25:00] kind of levers that we need to push to really create a, uh, a system that is just, and, and healthy and like where, where are the really big bets that have to be placed? I mean, I know my big super progressive friends are always like anti Monsanto. Like either if we get rid of them, we'll have everything solved, but I'm sure it's much more complex on that. What's your opinion on that? Well, it's very complicated of course, and it'd be very difficult and just a short interview to kind of characterize the complexities. [00:25:30] But I do think one thing we really need to stress is that often the problem or the issues of food access and food security internationally are posed as one of just a technology question of feeding the planet by increasing yields, increasing productivity. Speaker 1:But in fact, so much of the challenge has to do with distribution and access. I'm not saying that there's not a production problem because there isn't many places, but in some parts of the world, including the United States, there's actually overproduction of some [00:26:00] goods and products. So I think part of the challenge is to reframe the question of feeding the world as one of, you know, how do we enable access to healthy and nutritious foods, affordable foods for everybody in the on the planet, and to overcome these great discrepancies in inequities that we have and where people do have incredible abundance and over abundance of food and in other places where they have great scarcity of food or scarcity of good food. So it has to do with income issues. [00:26:30] It has to do with poverty, it has to do with policy, it has to do with control of food systems. Speaker 1:So it's very complex issue, but we're trying to address those issues in a holistic way. This really, we believe at the Brooklyn Food Institute that solving these issues and coming up with innovations really requires a multi-sectoral, you know, systems approach. And we've focused in on a few key key topics or themes. Um, and we're trying to hone in on more of those. And, um, I'm actually say focus even more of our efforts [00:27:00] in those areas. But one of the areas is, does have to do with, um, ensuring that all people have access to, um, nutritious and affordable food. And another area that we think is really crucial when there's a great gap of work has to do with ensuring healthy and fair, uh, labor conditions, which is often something that's not addressed that much in food systems. Um, but as key to sustainability of food, food provision and food access. Speaker 1:And then the third areas is accelerating [00:27:30] the adoption of what we refer to as agroecology, which is the integration of agriculture, antiques or ecological principles in agriculture, but also addressing the social issues in agriculture. So people refer to that sometimes as sustainable agriculture. But agroecology has a particular meaning that has been actually really, there's a lot of innovation and pioneers in agroecology here at the University of California at Berkeley. And we really feel that that, you know, accelerating the adoption of agroecology is crucial, um, at a [00:28:00] global scale. So those are some of the key areas, but there's a lot more to be done. Of course, market issues, consolidation in the food system, you know, there really are a multiplicity of, of challenges but also opportunities. And I think the excitement that has been generated at Berkeley in this area is just one reflection of promise actually. Speaker 1:And um, you know, real potential to bring about change. And we're, I mean to me it's exciting at this point in my career. I've been working on this for many years, always in partnership [00:28:30] with lots of people. But I think right now I've just feeling an accelerated element of, of, of interest in and enthusiasm on the part of many, many people from multiple sides. So that's great. So I always like to end the interview with asking you, um, if everything was to go exactly right, what would happen five years from now, what would you think? What would be, if I Berkeley Food Institute, you check it out everybody, whole lot of food.berkeley.edu what kind of impact, what would the organization look like five years from now? [00:29:00] Well, I do think that our, our vision is really to, to achieve, you know, some elements of transformative change in food systems. Speaker 1:And it's hard to know exactly how that will be characterized, but I think we can put ourselves on the map by achieving, you know, really greater equity in access to nutritious and healthy food. And that has to come about through policy change. I didn't get a chance to talk too much about our policy program, but really we need people on board from, you know, the government, [00:29:30] all government agencies to really place this on the forefront of healthcare. Um, you know, really food is can be an entry point to health. Um, and also for assuring, um, the wise use of natural resources and mitigation of climate change can happen through effective agriculture practices. So I think we really want to put ourselves on the map and you know, really, um, uh, develop this organization so that we can leverage the research and really effect these changes through policy and through practical changes. Speaker 1:[00:30:00] So I think the, the possibility is in reach and we just need to focus in on a few key issues. So. Okay, great. Well there you have it. That's an through up the executive director of the Berkeley Food Institute and Interdisciplinary Institute here on campus. Go check them out of food.berkeley.edu. They got a lot of great events coming up this fall. You should get involved if this speaks to you, if you're a student, consider getting a food systems minor. It sounds like a really interesting topic. You can check out our programs and our events to, yeah, there you go. [00:30:30] So thanks a lot for listening everybody. Uh, this has been method to the madness on KLX Berkeley 90.7 FM. I'm your host selling his art. Thanks for joining and have a great Friday. Everybody. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Using demographic information to predict and track neighborhood gentrification urbandisplacement.orgTRANSCRIPTSpeaker 1:All right. Good afternoon everybody. You're listening to method to the madness on k a l x Berkeley 90.7 FM, university of California and listener supported radio streaming on the World Wide Web, a k a lx.berkeley.edu. However you are listening to us this morning. Thanks for joining. My name is Eileen is r and this is method to the madness, a public affairs show that celebrates the innovative spirit of the bay area. And today [00:00:30] I am fortunate enough to be joined in studio by Dr Miriam Zuck. Hi Doctor. How are you? Speaker 2:I'm good. How are you? Thank you for having me. Speaker 1:Uh, I'm great. Thanks for coming in. And um, today we're going to be talking about, um, a new project that had just been published, uh, of which Dr Zuck is the program project director called the urban displacement project. Tim, before we get to that a, we're in and we're going to talk a little bit about gentrification and some of the macro trends happening in the bay area right now. My first, I wanted to, [00:01:00] uh, start off by, we usually in this, uh, program talk about innovative ideas and projects that are bringing light, bringing to light, you know, um, issues that aren't necessarily fully understood. So I think what you're doing is a perfect example of that. Um, but we first kind of talk about what's the problem set, like, what led you to, uh, want to solve this problem? What are you trying to solve? Speaker 3:Okay. Speaker 2:This particular pro problem. Well, [00:01:30] um, I actually came to this issue sort of in a roundabout way. I, um, became, I used to work in air quality, um, policy. I lived in Mexico City for a number of years and was starting to get interested in issues of transportation since that's one of the biggest, um, emitters of air pollution in, in Mexico City and in a lot of urban areas. So I became interested in issues of land use and transportation and how people get around in cities and how do we make them healthier for people. Um, and when I did my [00:02:00] doctoral degree here at UC Berkeley, it was really that intersection of health and place. So how do we make neighborhoods healthy for everyone? So not just healthy for, um, the wealthy, but healthy for low income households as well. Um, so I was doing research in Fresno, um, and looking at neighborhood revitalization and a lot of the efforts there, um, a lot of it going on around high speed rail and transit and access and how do we revitalize [00:02:30] neighborhoods. And as I was there, um, people were excited about revitalization but really anxious. They, they thought, who are you revitalizing our neighborhoods for? And is this going to lead to displacement? So that actually is what got me interested in the issue. And um, this project is kind of trying to answer those questions, um, of when we do invest in neighborhoods, when, especially when we invest in transit and access in neighborhoods, um, is that [00:03:00] leading to displacement and how do we help people stay in neighborhoods as they improve? Speaker 1:Okay. So that's a, I think a really great, um, summary. I think of how you got to it. Now I want to ask about, uh, before we dive into the project itself and I want to hear kind of a little bit the, the history of how you went about achieving this really cool map, which everybody can check out@urbandisplacement.org. Um, I want to ask is this, uh, is this a unique problem? Like usually we can see problems and look back to history of [00:03:30] some kind of precedent, but it seems the macro trend of this flight kind of back to urban cores, um, is the reverse of the previous trend of people going out to the suburbs and leaving the cities. And so is this a new problem, this idea of gentrification? Is it a 21st century problem or has it always existed? Speaker 2:I mean, there is the, the, the issues of, of people sort of homesteading, let's call it. Um, and moving into sort of low income neighborhoods and pushing out low income households is not [00:04:00] that new. I mean, I, in terms of the academic literature on it, um, could dates back to the 1960s in London when people started writing about it. And really coining this term gentrification. Um, but you know, we, if you search back even further, you can find all sorts of evidence. I'm a brown stoning and in, um, New York area, um, all sorts of issues like that. So I think the issue of place and, and whose neighborhood is it and you know, what are the amenities there [00:04:30] and who has the right to be there span history. Um, the, the current issue of gentrification and people trying to go back into city higher income households moving back into the cities, um, is a little bit more recent. But I think if you think about it more generally about displacement and, um, and right to break to the city, it's, um, it's not that now. Speaker 1:Okay. And, um, uh, looking from Dallas [00:05:00] from a historical perspective, that question, but thinking about like where we are in a moment in time, I can't think of a more timely project with the rising rents in the bay area, which is really priced so many people out of being able to live in the kind of core inner bay area. Um, and some of the statistics that you were seeing these ages staggering. I think I saw the average rent price in San Francisco is getting around $3,000 a month, which is, you know, I think I'm thinkable for a lot of people, yet there is this elite class of people [00:05:30] who can afford that and it's not a big deal. So having us really understanding what this trend, how it's happening and how to, how to handle it, I think is super, super important. So let's talk about the maps. So we'll actually, before we go there, I want to ask you a little bit about, so you're housed in a place, as I understood, it's called the community, the center for community innovation. And that's a cow, um, organization or department, the center. So tell us a little bit about Speaker 2:that. Sure. It's a center started by a [00:06:00] professor, Karen Chapel and the department of city and regional planning. Um, and did generally a lot of, um, uh, professors and researchers here. We'll create centers to sort of how's their research and, um, have sort of an identity to their research. Um, and students that work with them. So this center was started by a professor chapel and really looking at housing community and economic development. It started with issues in the bay area, but we've gone regional [00:06:30] and international. Um, she's done work throughout Latin America. She's done work in Dubai. Um, so we're, we've expanded greatly, but especially in the last 10 years, a lot of our focus has been around transit oriented development just because that is sort of the dominant frame in city planning right now. Um, we want to get people out of their cars, we want them to use more transit, we want to be better for the environment. Speaker 2:Um, and so this project really [00:07:00] comes out of that, comes out of a statewide interest in this, right? So because of, uh, AB 32 and the global warming app, global warming act, um, the state is trying to encourage regions to do a better job of linking housing and transportation and land use planning, um, and really trying to encourage transit oriented development. So we have a long history of doing research on this. Um, and, and as those programs have been coming out through [00:07:30] what's called the sustainable community strategies, um, communities are anxious, they're anxious that this is going to lead to displacement and, um, advance advancing gentrification, especially in places like the bay area and Los Angeles hot market cities. But we do see it in, in places that you might not expect as well, where we do see these kinds of pressures in communities throughout California. Speaker 1:Yeah. When we're talking to Dr Mariam Zuck, the, she is the project director of the urban displacement project out of the [00:08:00] Center for community innovation here at cow. Uh, and this is a method to the madness here on k a l x Berkeley 90.7 FM. And you know, it was interesting, I was doing a little bit of research on your center and I saw that it was, um, reference Ab 32, which I didn't draw that connection when I first saw the map. But I guess the, the, um, targets that are put out by that, uh, Bill are, are very, very aggressive and there's, so there's a whole interdisciplinary focus on satisfying those targets. [00:08:30] And I guess it does make a lot of sense to have, um, a lot of urban planners involved because that's going to be the core of kind of figuring out the longterm effect you guys have. When you're looking at, um, the types of trendings that you're looking at. Do we have in your mind the population growth that we're going to have to solve for in places like the bay area? Speaker 2:Um, so the bay area is currently going through an update of its community strategies which are mandated under SB three 75, which is sort of one of the implementing [00:09:00] mechanisms of Ab 32. Um, and it's called Plan Bay area and, and that's what they do. They do a lot of forecasting with that. So they know the future population. Um, or they, they, they forecast rather the future population and the future number of households with that. Um, I don't have the exact numbers on hand cause they are currently going through an update of it. Um, but they, they're required to, once they project out those households and project out what the transportation [00:09:30] is gonna um, the transportation infrastructure is going to be there trying to create plans that will meet the needs of those future households. So one of the goals, at least in the last plan bay area, um, was to house the entire population. Um, which is hard, um, the future population, right. Without, without having to displace people outside of the bay area region. Um, Speaker 1:and which is technically the nine counties that touched the bay. Is that right? And that's [00:10:00] approximately what, six and half million people now [inaudible] Speaker 2:oh, sure. Yeah. My numbers. I, I think it's something around there. Five to six, something like that. Yeah. So I don't know what the current projections are out out. Um, I think the plan bay area might project out to 2030. Um, so they're currently working through those forecasts right now. Speaker 1:But I do know that the macro trend in, in terms of the United States and the world in general is just way more people and not having too much more space [00:10:30] in terms of lease in like a densely populated urban core, like the bay area. Yeah. Speaker 2:People want to live in cities. Yeah. So, so that's certainly one of the issues that that plane barrier is trying to solve. Right. We don't necessarily want our workers to have to move out to Tracey and Stockton, um, and commute those really long commute. So that's actually shooting ourselves in the foot in terms of trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions if we're, if all of our low wage workers are living outside of the region having to commute [00:11:00] in. Speaker 1:Yeah. So the answer isn't to build bigger freeways, it's to build more densely populated urban cores that have access to public transit. Yeah. And is there anything being thought of besides bart in terms of public transit options in the bay? I know we're getting a little bit off of what you're doing, but do you know anything about that? Speaker 2:Well, there are, I think, 75 new stations or train stations and train routes planned throughout the bay area. Um, so there's the Bart going out to eastern [00:11:30] Contra Costa County, if I remember correctly, the smart, um, which goes up through, um, north Bay. Um, there's extensions of Bart, right? So right now we're seeing the extension down to San Jose going on. So there's a lot of upgrading our existing transit, but there's also trying to, um, I know you've probably heard about the bus rapid transit, um, efforts going on in Oakland. Um, Berkeley unfortunately didn't want it. Um, and I'm sure there's other [00:12:00] areas around the bay area that are trying to use buses similar to the way that we use to trains to get people to places faster and at lower cost. Speaker 1:Okay, great. So that we, we went, veered off a little bit there, but I'm so interested in this topic, but let's get back to, okay. So you, um, are at the center for community innovation and you see this problem of, um, gentrification and wanting to do some research on it. And we see the product to the end result, [00:12:30] which is this incredible map. And I encourage everybody to go check it out@urbandisplacement.org. Uh, but tell me a little bit about how you came to even wanting to build something like that, or how did that idea come about? Speaker 2:So I would actually say this is an intermediate product where actually, well the product project is ending officially, um, next year. Um, at least the state funded piece of it. Um, but the, we were also funded by the regional planning agencies to do this work. And [00:13:00] the idea behind it, especially from the regional agencies was help us figure out where we can both Papas understand where we're experiencing these things right now, these, these pressures, um, and where we expect to see them into the future in part so that we can do a better job of enacting policies and investments, um, in the right places. So that's where it came about. Um, we were fortunate to, to participate in the regional prosperity plan, which was part, [00:13:30] um, it was run by the regional agents, the planning agencies. Um, and it was a project funded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, um, the, the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. Speaker 2:Um, so as part of that project, um, right there was this, the, the, they called it the regional early warning system for displacement. So what can we learn from what the information we have now about where these processes are [00:14:00] going to continue or advanced in the future? Um, so it was both sort of a, a data exploration, um, endeavor as well as, um, we did nine community-based case studies as part of that project. So working with community based organizations to better understand what are the pressures that they're experiencing, what are the policies that they think that they have seen work and the on the ground. And then how do we compare the experience on the ground to what the data is saying. [00:14:30] Um, so that sort of where it came about. Speaker 1:So there's a quantitative and qualitative component. Speaker 2:Exactly. And we're also working for the state law, um, piece of this project. We're working with UCLA. So there is a la component to the research, um, where the idea is what can we provide for, um, regional plan planning around the state to help them better understand these issues. So we're continuing to work with them, um, and figure out sort of how can we generalize [00:15:00] this information to other communities around the state. Speaker 1:So, and the quantitative side really kind of has this visual component of this map, um, and, and playing around with the map, you have a lot of different data sets in there. So how did you go about deciding which data sets to visualize that really would it got, I'm a very big, um, I have a huge interest in data visualization. I think it's one of the new, I think I've, I view as an art form, you know, trying to figure out ways to unlock the secrets of this [00:15:30] data. There's lots of different ways to look at it. So you have looked at lots of different data sets. How did you decide which data sets to visualize in your map? Speaker 2:Sure. So first we started with, I mean, we had a long list of all the data we wanted to look at. Um, some of that got thrown out because we couldn't get data that covered the entire region. The goal was to cover the entire region and to be able to go back at least 10, 20 years. So that, because we know that these are long processes. Um, so [00:16:00] some of the things that we wanted, we had to throw out, um, like we thought we could get information on, um, housing discrimination complaints, um, and we could get it at the city level, but we wanted it at a smaller grain, right? We want to understand what's happening at the neighborhood level, so, and, and we couldn't go back very far for that. So, so that was one narrowing step. Um, I think we start off with like a hundred variables that we wanted to look at. Um, so we narrowed it down based on that. Then we collected [00:16:30] all sorts of data a lot from the census, which has its limitations, right? The, our data ends at 2013 and you don't have to be rocket scientist and the bay area to know that things have really skyrocketed since 2013 so we know that what our estimates are conservative right now because we don't have more recent data, at least on demographic data. Speaker 1:And is it, isn't it, um, the census data doesn't get down to the neighborhood level, does it? Speaker 2:It does. We looked at the census track level, which is, you know, three to 5,000 [00:17:00] people. Um, you could get block group level data, um, but the quality of the data, there's a lot of uncertainty at those levels. So yes, Speaker 1:that's your, is that your most granular unit is the center Speaker 2:and distract? Right now we're trying to do a little bit more granular analysis in San Francisco. Um, but yeah, the census tracks is how we decided to summarize the data. Um, so once we had a clean data, so we, most, a lot of it was from census. Um, we purchased assessor data, um, tax assessor [00:17:30] data to get information on housing units, um, transaction data to see sales prices. We have, um, vacancy data from the postal service. There's all sorts of different data sets that we collected and we cleaned them and we started running, um, statistical models to see, you know, what are the variables that really look like they're important in terms of predicting neighborhood change. Um, so we would all dumb down. [00:18:00] In addition to that, we did a bunch of, uh, uh, we did a bunch of academic literature review to see what if other people found and how are they defining gentrification specifically? Um, displacement. We separated it out, um, in part because we didn't want to enter into the current debates about does gentrification necessarily involve displacement or not? So we've separated them. Gentrification we're looking at is mostly demographic change in, in neighborhood. Um, and Speaker 1:is it a demographic, like is it ethnic, is it, [00:18:30] but as, as a more just, um, economic, Speaker 2:it's mostly economic, um, because there's an income, right? So we looked at growth in median income as well as educational attainment, which tends to be a better, um, uh, tracker of, of class, um, than income just because there's issues about the way people report their income. Um, sure. Speaker 1:It just as a matter of understanding this, the gentrification, the definition, gentrification one is the changing mix of kind of undergraduate [00:19:00] degrees or something in a certain census tract. Speaker 2:Yes. Right. Well, it's, the definition of gentrification where you using or to to for the modeling purposes are, um, it starts off as a vulnerable tract. So it starts off with a higher proportion of low income households. Um, higher proportion of rentals. Um, there's two more, which of course are escaping me right now. I know hot in the studio right now just so, um, [00:19:30] there's, um, a higher proportion of people of color. Um, and there's one more, which of course it probably is a higher proportion of people with less than a bachelor's degree. Yeah. Um, so, so it starts off as a vulnerable place. Um, we see demographic changes we just discussed and we also see investment in real estate. So we see growth in sales prices, new development, um, because it's all cash purchases. We do not. Yeah. That's something that you probably could get from the [00:20:00] assessor's office. Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah, we do because there's a, there's mortgage information on there too, so, yeah, that's a good point. So, um, so that, so that was kind of how we define gentrification and we looked at displacement simply as the loss of low income households. Um, we've toyed with a bunch of different things. Um, people, a lot of people have been asking, well, but couldn't it just be that people are moving up and the income scale, which is true. Um, and we did a little bit of analysis. [00:20:30] Unfortunately you don't have that kind of data available, um, at the household level. But what we did analysis that we did right ends in 2013. So this is the period of the great recession. And, um, when we looked at national level data, we found the opposite to true. Right? You have many more people who are going down in the income ladder rather than up. So for at least for this period, we feel like it's a decent enough proxy for displacement. Speaker 1:Interesting. So we're talking to Dr Miriam Zuck, she's the project director [00:21:00] for the urban displacement project coming out of the Center for Community Innovation here at Cau. You can check out the map that she built and published a, it was last week was when it came out as, or is it this Monday? This Monday came out of the urban@urbandisplacement.org and she's been doing the rounds and different radio stations here in the bay area. So we're very lucky to have her here. Thanks for coming in again. Um, so I wanted to ask about, um, you were just talking about the data collection and the visualization is really cool. Um, but I think one of the intents here [00:21:30] is to not only visualize what's going on and identify places that are at risk for displacement, but provide some kind of actionable intel to organizations. And that's really, I think where the rubber meets the road is we know this is happening and you know, anybody who's been to, like I used to live, uh, in the western edition in San Francisco 15 years ago, and if you go to Divisadero street now, it is like Disneyland compared to what it used to be. Speaker 1:So this is something that's happened happening and everybody knows it. But the question is, what do you do about it? Because [00:22:00] these are market forces and market forces we all know are very powerful. So supply and demand, if someone wants to live there and they're willing to pay more, it's hard to stop that from happening. So what do you think is the, the, the actions that can be taken out and whether they be on an individual level, government level, um, what do you think is the real way to combat displacement? Or can we, or is it just inevitable? Speaker 2:I don't think it's inevitable. And so part of the thing that we're trying to emphasize with these maps are that somebody had called them on the continuum [00:22:30] of gentrification the other day. And I said, no, no, no, it's not a continuum that, that, that implies some sort of inevitability. Um, there are things that we can do and we're currently working on a policy tool that will really help community organizations and cities and people interested figure out what's, what are the right tools for my place. So originally we thought that we were going to be able to say, okay, you're a place at risk. Here are the things that you need to do. But there's so much diversity in neighborhoods and cities that it didn't make sense and [00:23:00] we didn't want, you know, to give out some generic lists that then people can just be like, man, this doesn't apply to me and, and move on. So we're currently in the process of developing a tool that will really try to match what the conditions are in the place with what are the appropriate policies and investment in types. Um, but there's a lot that cities can do. Um, there's a lot that land on or you know, property owners can do being good, being good, uh, uh, landlords, um, mean not raising the rents, not or, [00:23:30] or just, uh, raising the rents a moderate amount instead of doubling them, tripling them, um, just because they can right now. Yeah. Because Speaker 1:who was the first city in 30 years for somebody to enact [inaudible] Speaker 2:yeah. So, yeah, which is, it is a step can do that and still struggle. You know, there's, there's petitions out right now to try to repeal it. Um, of course. Uh, and so, but it's shows the leadership over there, um, that hopefully other cities will follow in suit in. Other cities [00:24:00] are actually saying like cities that you wouldn't expect. Um, um, places in San Mateo County or talking about rent control, which I think a lot of us thought that there was no hope for anybody in acting, rent control anymore. Um, yeah, but, but we see that it's happening and people see it as a solution. So, you know, there are things that cities can do in terms of helping people stay in place as the, as the neighborhood is changing. Um, things like tenant protections are in control, just cause evictions, ordinances, um, [00:24:30] preserving affordable housing. So a lot of affordable housing stock is at risk. Speaker 2:The, the subsidized housing stock is at risk. So, um, you know, people are no longer accepting section eight vouchers because they don't have to, they can get more money if they don't. Um, so enacting policies, anti-discrimination policies could be helpful and then there's making more affordable housing. Um, and w kind of similar into the preservation. Um, you know, historically most low income households [00:25:00] have lived in non subsidized housing, but it was affordable to them. That doesn't really exist in the bay area anymore. And so trying to convert some market rate housing into subsidized housing is what some cities are looking into. Um, and just generating no new resources or being open to citing affordable housing in your communities, which is a big hurdle in a lot of communities. Um, is another thing that we're looking at. Speaker 1:Are you talking about Nimbyism? Like people want it, but they don't want it for a housing in their [00:25:30] neighborhood. Is that what you mean? Speaker 2:Absolutely. I mean it's a huge struggle. Um, you know, they'll say, oh, we don't want the density or we don't want the traffic, but really they don't want, um, people that are different from them and their neighborhoods. Um, and certainly asset building, you know, we're seeing a lot of movement, especially in minimum wage, but even the new minimum wages that's going to be enacted, what over a three year period in some of these cities, um, it's still not going to [00:26:00] meet the demand that the need for housing. I mean, I think you need to be making over $25 an hour to be able to afford housing. Um, so, Speaker 1:so highly controversial. And some of the owners like restaurants I've been noticing is they're just getting rid of their best stuff. Yeah. Cause they just saying they can't afford it too though. They just need to, waitresses and the waiters have to do more work basically. Yeah. Um, so I mean it's a complicated Web, but, uh, and you know, you've, you've been, you've done great work in helping us to understand a little bit more. [00:26:30] I want to ask them the last questions here in Burleson. We're talking to Dr Miriam Zuck here on methods to the madness on KALX Berkeley 90.7 FM. I'm your host Ali Nasar. Um, when you're doing research, I, one of the most illustrative, um, tasks in the research process is the quantitative or qualitative side. So we were talking about the quantitative. Can you share with us a story during the qualitative part of looking at this that really crystallized this problem for you, that really made you really understand it and like redouble [00:27:00] your efforts to try to solve it? Speaker 2:Sure. Um, so our case studies, um, were selected for a variety of different reasons. Some of them were places that have already undergone gentrification, like the mission. Some of them were places where the anxious about it, like marine city. Um, and some places were places where, you know, we see pockets of low income and um, households that we feel like neighborhoods are changing. But there wasn't quite enough information there. So for [00:27:30] instance, um, the monument corridor in Concord, nobody really thinks of Concord as a gentrifying area. Um, and we started working with a monument impact, a community based organization out there that's been heavily involved with the downtown revitalization efforts and trying to really protect tenants. Um, and we started doing interviews, uh, with all sorts of different kinds of stakeholders. And in one of our interviews with a landlord, we heard him say, um, or he responded [00:28:00] when we asked him his opinion about the bart stations, cause it is near a Bart station. Speaker 2:There's all sorts of reasons why you might want to see it. You might see investment there. He said, you know, I don't really care about the Bart station, but, um, I know the laptop crowd does. So I, uh, I'm planning on evicting all of my low income Latino households. Um, eventually I want to convert to condos and I want to make room for the laptop crowd to move in and more like, where are we? We're [00:28:30] out in Concord, you know, and there's that speculation happening all over the place. Um, so property owners see that the demand is regional and they know that eventually we're gonna run out of space, um, in more of the hot market parts of the bay area and they're prepping for this. And so we're starting to see change in areas that we wouldn't expect. Um, and when we heard that story, we were like, this is a really, this is a huge issue and we're only scratching the surface at this point. Speaker 1:Great. Well that's [00:29:00] a really powerful story and I think helps to crystallize, you know, the issue here of, like I said earlier of the supply and demand problem, you're always gonna have capitalists trying to take advantage of it and that's one of the basis of this country's built on. But yeah, to be able to mitigate that somewhat and make it have a fair playing field, I think is the trick that we've got to find the bay area being a progressive leader in the country. Hopefully we can lead the way for others to really understand this. So thanks for all your work, Dr Zack. Absolutely. And I, like I said before, I really encourage everybody to go to the urban displacement.org that's the map where you can [00:29:30] go and play around with all the data that she's visualized for us. And a, you can check us out@calixdotberkeley.edu if you want to learn more about the program, this is method to the madness. Thanks for joining. Have a great Friday. Speaker 4:[inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [00:30:00] [inaudible] [inaudible] [00:30:30] [inaudible]. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Lawyer, TV host, playwright, and author Wajahat Ali joins Method to the Madness to talk about how he went from UC Berkeley undergrad to becoming one of the most well known and well respected voices of moderate American Muslims.TRANSCRIPTSpeaker 1:Okay. Speaker 2:You're listening to KLX Berkeley at 90.7 FM and this is method to the madness and shove coming at you from the Public Affairs Department here at Calex celebrating the innovative spirit of the bay area. I'm your [00:00:30] host, Elliot Huizar and today we have UC Berkeley's own or Jihad Ali, which Ah, Ali is a lawyer, a playwright, an essayist, a. He's appeared in the Washington Post, the Guardian Salon Atlantic. He's a consultant to the USD department. Uh, and currently also his hosts of Al Jazeera, America's social media driven talk show of the stream. And [inaudible] joined us via phone, myself and my partner Lisa Kiefer over phone to talk about the Muslim [00:01:00] American experience in America. And first off we talked about how he grew up as a Muslim American in the bay area. Speaker 3:You know, I was, I am essentially a multi hyphenated multicultural kid, born and raised in the bay area, who, you know, I'm an American Muslim of bucks I need to send and it very much, I am a product of both old school and new school America, right? Old School, American music, traditional immigrant story, new school America, you know, having to danced the [00:01:30] fault lines of this man, a minority majority country, which I think, uh, is the major cultural shift that we are kind of embracing and rejecting as a country right now, which will really speak volumes about how we evolve or devolve as a nation in the next 20 years. And for me, you know, growing up as awkward a fact and in our tradition of South Asian tradition, you never say fed said quote unquote healthy. I was a very, very, very healthy, [00:02:00] awkward, a set of bucks. Speaker 3:Any immigrants whose parents thought it'd be hilarious to teach them only three words of English. And you know, I had tumeric and lentil stands on my shirt. And um, you know, I ended up going to all boys Bowerman Catholic high school. And then I went to UC Berkeley where I ended up, ironically graduated with an English major. So if to actually kind of look at my background, it is very an American background, but totally very culturally specific lens of an American that, uh, is seen right now in [00:02:30] this moment in history as an outsider, as an other, as a threat, as an antagonist. You know, the Muslim boogeyman. And I think what's interesting is this is nothing really new. If we kind of look back in American history, this has happened before to the LGBT community still happens. Mexican immigrants, African-Americans, Japanese Americans, Irish Catholics and Jewish Americans. And for me, just by virtue of growing up, I had a decision to make whether or not I was going to share my story and engage with people or whether I was going to compartmentalize these different aspects of my t my right, [00:03:00] yes. Speaker 3:Shamed my brown Nester or be ashamed of my mostly mean this or be ashamed of my Americanist. And then, you know, I just decided early on, I think that by virtue, by early on, I mean like eventually you grow up and you realize, I'm always going to be a Dorky outlier. Like, I'm never going to be like that dude who gets like Jessica though. Like you know the hot white girl and he gets invited to like join the all star track team or football team. I'm always going to be that awkward multi-syllabic healthy kid. And I think somewhere in college [00:03:30] I made peace with the fact that I'm never going to fit into this model, a narrative of a quote unquote America that didn't represent me and I was just going to be myself and let my freak flag fly. And the reason why I mentioned that is kind of, this was a gradual evolution, right? Speaker 3:Cause I was always an outlier, but I was always this guy who wanted to share my stories, my culture, my identity, my experiences with my classmates and I always did. And growing up in the bay area, like you guys know, it's such an ethnically diverse community [00:04:00] that you're forced to interact with people who are different than you. And I kind of was innately, if you will, a storyteller without me realizing it. And I did it purely for the joy of doing it, number one. Number two being an awkward, Dorky fat kid usually would for survival because anyone who's run on fatness listen to this. You know, elementary school every day is like world war three and you literally are not the fastest kid on the block cause you're like fat, but you can be them the sharpest can you do. The [inaudible] school was also good survival survival tool and it's uh, you [00:04:30] know, to win over my bullies. Speaker 3:And number three, I just kind of really enjoyed it. I, I, you know, I could make people laugh. I could tell stories and kind of this innate trait that I had growing up in childhood, you know, just telling stories, making movies with my friends, uh, writing small sketches, uh, was the DNA essentially without me realizing it, of what I do now as a profession. And I think storytelling is the key way for us to kind of bridge the divide that exists not only within America, but actually what's happening, quote unquote, between [00:05:00] the West and Islam. I have a question about your impetus because I know Ishmael Reed and I understand that he really should be getting a little credit here for getting you kind of on the right path to your real passion. When he asked you to write a play for his class about a Pakistani American experience after nine 11. Speaker 3:I think that's a great story. And um, and then it led to your play. Can you talk about the play that came out of that? [00:05:30] So I've been very lucky and privileged in my life for, for many reasons, but one of the privileges I've had as I've had great mentors and also my parents have not been stereotypical South Asian immigrant parents. They've also, they've always encouraged me, uh, since my childhood they spotted a talent and they always told me to write issue. I'll read those of you who don't know MacArthur Genius Appeal that your prize nominated Titan who was living in Oakland with his family. Uh, Carla Blank. Also his partner in crime for the past 40 years. He was my English professor, [00:06:00] uh, back in the day when I was at UC Berkeley as an English major. And in fall, September, 2001, I happen to be in a short story writing class and after the two towers fell, he took me aside and said, you know, I've never, I've never really heard about the Pakistani American experience or the Muslim American experience, even though this is a short story writing class. Speaker 3:I think you are actually a natural playwright. I think dialogue and characters are your strengths. Don't waste your time on this class. I'm going to take you out of this class. [00:06:30] You're gonna have 20 pages of a play to pass the class. Okay, great. Go write it. And I was like, oh my God, please let me do anything except this. And the play that came as a result of him quite literally forcing me to write it as the domestic crusaders, which is an old school kitchen drama in the form of American dramas. Like you know, Long Day's journey into night, death of a salesman, fences one day in the life of three generations of a Fox. Any American Muslim family, six characters, uh, that grandfather, the immigrant parents who have achieved the American dream. [00:07:00] And there's three American born children all forced to reconvene in the house for before the youngest son's 21st birthday. Speaker 3:And Ishmael literally kept at it for like a year telling me to, you know, to, to, to finish this place. Start it from my 21st birthday in the fall of 2001, I submitted my 20 pages to pass the damn class. And then I finally finished it for my 23rd birthday again after I graduated from college. And Ishmael kept at it and then he handed it over to his wife, Carla Blank, who became [00:07:30] the director and dramaturge at this plate and this small little play that has origin and UC Berkeley in the bay area. And then Adam Heran Indian restaurant and Johnny restaurant in Newark, California. And then, you know, Oakland Library. Then went onto Berkeley repertory theater, then went on to New York, then I went up to the county center, then I went to London and got published, uh, [inaudible], which is again a bury a staple, uh, in 2000, I think 10 or 2011 as the first major and Muslim American play they got published. Speaker 3:So that type of [00:08:00] mentorship was key. And the story behind the play I truncated like 13 years is one minute is really kind of remarkable and uh, you know, we, you know, just to show you how sometimes it can be a little bit ahead of the curve. Each model has always been a bit ahead of the curve in spotting kind of thing and it's finding trends. And he always told me to, that was a bit discouraged on 2003, 2004, I'm like, man, I thought the play would picked up and it didn't. He said, he said, listen, America isn't ready yet, but just wait and watch all these other plays are coming out and now they're going to fade. There'll [00:08:30] be talking about your plan 10 years from now just to just your weight. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, whatever. You know. Sometimes he can be very hyperbolic, the people that he praises. And then just one a month ago, university of Maryland tweets out a photo, a professor from the English Department without a photo like teaching and performing, which has all these domestic visitors' with all these white actors playing the box, any American family members as part of the curriculum at University of Minnesota, Peter, that each year and then like London is doing it. You know what I'm saying? Speaker 2:[00:09:00] You're listening to method to the madness on KALX Berkeley 90.7 FM. This is an interview over the phone with [inaudible] Ali, the host of Elijah Z or America's the stream social media driven talk show. He's also a author in playwright, a bay area native and UC Berkeley Grad. Uh, we continued our conversation, myself and Lisa keeper with him talking about him getting his play publish and pilot shopping in Hollywood Speaker 3:just to get it published [00:09:30] was based on the promise I made to an Egyptian budding scholar in 2009, this Egyptian scholar with getting her phd. Then she says Alan write about domestic crusaders, specifically American Muslim art and respond to post nine 11, you know, when it comes to cultural creation, but I need all my works that I write about to be published. And that for some strange reason that said, don't worry like 2010, I'll get it published and then like fast forward. So, but yeah, so the play's getting published, right? I'm like, Oh crap. And so that led to my, you know, friendship with Dave Eggers [00:10:00] and McSweeney's, you know, on a whim, emailing them, saying that they wanted to publish to the play. And I made a vow to myself. I remember when I was like 25 and I said, I'll get the pig to play published. Speaker 3:By the time I turned 30 and mixed, [inaudible] called me and said to come over. And I held the copy, the first copy of the domestic crusaders a day after I turned 30, November 2nd, 2010. So somehow, you know, it was interesting like it took an Egyptian scholar, uh, and I think there was also [00:10:30] an Algerian scholar in London who have written about and under thesis on it to kind of get me off my ass to get it published. It gets published here in mixed Sweeney's and the barrier and get get being taught now kind of across America and across the Atlantic. So it's, it's a wild story but probably probably the TV show pilot that you've written with Dave. It's based on the domestic crusaders, correct? No, it's completely original idea that we had. And um, I read that Atlantic article [00:11:00] and it sounds like you've pulled back from HBO because you didn't, it didn't really, they were taking it in to an area that you didn't want to go. And I wanted to ask you about that. Like how is your story different from the TV show all American Muslim and why did you guys feel that maybe America isn't ready for it yet or I don't know. Speaker 3:We still think Americans ready for it. We think America domestic, we actually were ahead of the curve because I think the TV shows about Yemeni American Muslims. [00:11:30] It's about the American Muslim community of the bay area and the lead character is MJ and [inaudible], yet many American immigrants who becomes one of the fastest rising detectives of the SFPD. Now we get over this idea like three and a half years ago, anyone who's been paying attention to international news, there's a country which is in all the headlines Right now. Yemen and HBO was a fantastic partner and they really dug the idea that we pitched. However, we wrote this kind of during the Heyday [00:12:00] of homeland and walking down and in and, but we kind of realized prior second draft that I think HBO just creatively wanting to go into more John [inaudible], John Rhe driven shows and ours was, remains a very unique different type of beast. Speaker 3:It has its own pace. It has its own tone as his own sense of humor. It's not, it's something deliberately unlike what you've seen on television, right? Like television, HBO would go for something like that. They do choose [00:12:30] odd, you know, they're, you're kind of ahead of the curve in that way. So I'm still maybe, you know, look, two things could have happened. Maybe this was their cup of tea. They pass on good shows all the time and good people pass on good shows or B, maybe they started, it sucked. And so Dave and I are like, maybe our pilot sucks. And, but secretly, secretly, deep down we knew it did it. You know, it's one of those things, you know, if it's good or not. And so I'm kind of a stubborn piece of crap, if you will. And if I believe in something, and same of the day [00:13:00] we don't, we don't let it die. Speaker 3:And so we've been pushing it and once we finally publish it on [inaudible], I think two months ago that I wrote an essay about in the Atlantic, it just seems like anyone who's read the piece, right. But even in Hollywood, I got some meetings with Hollywood agents. We all liked the pilot. That's the funny thing. No one says the [inaudible]. Everyone digs it. The question remains, is there a quote unquote market for us? And I think that's the problem with mainstream media and mainstream Hollywood is that there's this fear as this hesitation that, [00:13:30] okay, if you have a, I'll do an example, a totally different story, but I was pitching another pilot and basically all these, you know, studio heads and agents, par agents met and they're like, great idea, but we can't find a bankable Arab American lead. And I'm like, you'll need a bank of oil Arab American lead. Speaker 3:You just need someone who's good. But that just goes to shoot the mindset of not only Hollywood but also Wall Street. You know, the color of the matters in the end is green. So right now they're like, they kept pitching some names, which was hilarious. Like how about as these, I'm sorry, I'm like, I love these. [00:14:00] I'm sorry. Is it really a San Francisco police detective? You really listen to this? I got nothing again through these. I'm sure you can pull it off, but the point, I'm trying to say that it came down to that bankability and so Dave and I to this day, I'm like, just have faith in it. Make a pilot. Anyone who's read the script, like everyone has read the ship, knock on woods. This is dope. This is unique. This is needed. This was necessary. This is really good. [00:14:30] So I'm going to still push it. And now we finally have the interest a couple of years after it was written. So let's hope that let's cross our fingers. I just want to get up, get out of it. Speaker 2:You're listening to method to the madness on KALX Berkeley 90.7 FM and we're speaking with, with Giachali, a author, lawyer, playwright, s e s in places like the Washington Post and the Guardian Salon Atlantic. He's a expert in Muslim American affairs and host of Al Jazeera America, social media driven [00:15:00] talk show the stream and Lisa keeper. And I interviewed him over the phone and we talked about how did he take the leap from graduating with a law degree to becoming a commentator on TV. Speaker 3:I, I graduated from law school, uh, I think I was about 26. It was 2007. And you guys remember what happened in 2008 and that was right at the cusp of this, you know, this, this great recession and I could not find a job to save my life despite [00:15:30] my best efforts. And despite like all these big companies taking a lot of interest in. So I moved back to my, my house, which was my parents house. And I'm like literally sitting in my college bedroom broke as a licensed attorney. You know, she just turned 27. And my father every day used to put $5 in my wallet cause he said, no man should be without $5. You know, I'm getting South Asian groceries from my mom and I'm feeling miserable and like I'm feeling pitied. And essentially I spent the first half of the day, like [00:16:00] cranky out resumes. Speaker 3:I really worked hard, just nothing stuck, nothing stuck. And, uh, on a whim and just like, you know, madness, I'm like, I just crank out an essay. And at that time, if you guys remember, the Blackwater scandal was all and used in 2007, and Blackwater was a private military contractor, uh, still has that, had committed a lot of atrocities in Iraq. And I'm like, wow. In my second year of law school, I actually wrote a paper on private military firms in Iraq and the legality of such firms in Iraq. So I said, since I know about this [00:16:30] one, I transformed my 30 page paper and look at five page essay. I wrote the essay, I sent it to counterpunch on a whim counter punch, published it and said this was really good. You know, anytime you get something else, send it our way. I said word. Speaker 3:I said, okay. So then next week I send them something else. I said, fantastic. Send us something else. The next week I sent him something else. And then there was another website started from a UC Berkeley Grad Shahad the amount of the Altima, muslim.com he saw domestic crusader as in its first incarnation at the open public library. [00:17:00] And he followed my career and he said, hey, if you ever want to write for us, write for us. So I did in the period of about six months on a whim, I think I ended up cracking down like 50 pieces. I was at the Tasmanian Devil owes a man possessed and I didn't know what I was doing right? Like I just literally had a broken yellow Ethan and cable attached to a dying Fujitsu Laptop in my bedroom of my parents' home with two months fans on my shirts. And I, I literally crank out article after article interview after interview and I bought six [00:17:30] or seven months in, I got this invitation at the UC Berkeley, not the Berkeley one. Speaker 3:Once I graduate theology center right by UC Berkeley. Right. GTU and they're like, hey Carnegie has given us a funding to host like something on journalism and can you come as a new media journalist and talk about new media to these old school journalists? I'm like, who am I? Why are you inviting me? And they're like, oh cause you're a new media journalist. I'm like, I am. Okay. I have no idea. So they started referring to me as a new media journalist and as an interviewer and as [00:18:00] a SAS. And then, you know, at that time I was like, who am I? I'm just one guy living in Fremont. I'm not going to do commentary pieces. But on a whim, on the whim, asa foleys, who became elected president, what was chosen as president does the party one in Pakistan, he hugged, if you remember Sarah Palin, it's like 2008 and so I was sitting there and I'm like, I've got to write something. Speaker 3:So on a whim, I cranked out kind of Jericho, but serious, a thousand word essay. [00:18:30] And I had this one contact from the Guardian. I sent it to him. I'm like, he's never gonna respond to me. Richard Adams from the Guardian response back within two hours. So I love this essay, I'm going to publish it tomorrow, send me any other pitches you've got. So I'm like, okay. And so now I became a commentator. And so one thing led to another and then I made the leap to like SAS to national team. And then I'm curious, what was your seamless, my theme was basically I used this very awkward social interaction [00:19:00] as a metaphor for the dysfunctional volatile relationship between the United States and Pakistan, and I just kind of put it in the context of modern history and I kind of had some tongue in cheek comments about us. Speaker 3:I believe there was already and Sarah Helen as political neophytes, who somehow might be able to control nuclear nations. It was a terrifying prospect for the future of the world, both the United States, Canada, Pakistan, and a little bit tongue in cheek, but it was grounded in reality and in facts. And so [00:19:30] as this was happening, I ended up, I was also a solo attorney paying my bills as this was happening. I also made the vow, this was 2008 that by 2009 nine 11 I would premiere my play, the domestic crusaders in New York. And the reason why I said that it was as if there's a dude named Barack Hussein. Obama might become president and maybe that play I wrote six years ago might be more valuable at a topical now than ever before. So sitting there like literally with my broken [00:20:00] fcoe Ethernet cable, I somehow plotted this ambitious vision and long story short, you know I ended up merging these three or four careers into one and everyone at that time laughed at me. Speaker 3:They're like, you can only be one thing. You can only be an attorney or you can be a writer or it can be a journalist or a blogger or a playwright who can be any of the above. It can be all of the above. And I really rejected that and said, I think I'm going to try all of the above and below. You hold those people and [00:20:30] that's why I kind of made the leap. It wasn't necessarily a leap, Ali, it was like this long lonely uphill trudge towards the tour, the synthesizing, if you will, all these interests, we can kind of think about it. It's all anchored in storytelling as well. How we start off this conversation and that's how I made the condition. Took a couple of years, I finally pulled it off. You wrote your short, credible, you wrote this incredible report that really called out some people that it called Fear Inc roots of the Islamophobia Network [00:21:00] in America. Speaker 3:That was, I guess that was more political than, well it's all political, but that put you in the spotlight. That was something that happened as a result of all this crazy stuff that I just described for the past five minutes of history. How the world works out. Center for American progress is a, you know, a think tank in Washington d C and many people call it, you know, quote Unquote Obama think tank. It's very, you know, progressive, Democrat friendly. And I knew [00:21:30] some of those folks who were following my storyteller, SAS playwright career and in the summer, excuse me, in the spring of 2011 they're like, hey, we want to think outside of the box. Would you be willing to lead the research on this project that we have of exposing what we call these [inaudible] phobia network in America? You know, part of my essays and cometary, they knew that I was kind of exposing these anti Muslim memes and bigots were trumpeting scapegoating and fear-mongering, especially after the 2010 [00:22:00] ground zero mosque controversy that was neither a ground zero nor a mosque. Speaker 3:And they said, you know, you're a non DC guy, maybe you should lead it. And I said, sure. It sounds like an interesting project. I've never done it before. Why not? And it's small little report that was supposed to be a 20 page expo a I ended up, it was just supposed to take me two months that have taken me six months and my first draft was like 180 pages and center for American progress. Looked at it and they're like, you're crazy. Like they literally looked at it like I've mapped it out right. They're like, you're nuts. We don't believe you. And they did an audit of [00:22:30] it for two months. Like okay, okay, you're right. And then report, it ended up being this hundred and 38 page report investigative report called Fear Inc the roots of the Islamophobia network in Americans. That was published in August, 2011 and you, knock on wood, I'm very proud of it. Speaker 3:It ends up ended up being a seminal report, kind of a very foundational report. A lot of people still use to this day resource everywhere you had exposed a lot of these players we can name in a second. And a lot of these means that have unfortunately come from the fringe [00:23:00] that have been mainstreamed, especially after the election of Barack Obama. And especially after like, you know, the 2010 guns or moss controversies such as, you know, Sharita as a threat to America. Uh, you know, uh, mosques are Trojan horses. There's no such thing as peaceful Islam. Uh, traditional Islam is radical Islam. If you're a practicing Muslim, you cannot be a loyal American. You know, these fringe means. Uh, we saw, we just saw recently 2012, uh, elections in nearly every single Republican presidential [00:23:30] candidate ran with the Anti Sharia mean for both money and votes. Speaker 3:We just saw, like last month, governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, he followed the lead of an Islamophobe though we, uh, outed Steve Emerson and said, there's go zones in America. These Shiria infested sounds were Muslims have taken over and they've like, you know, like apparently sprayed their Shiria everywhere and non Muslims are not allowed to come. And you know, he's doubled, you know, he's doubled down on this rhetoric and he knows better, but he's doubling [00:24:00] down on this river because he knows it plays to his base. And you know, President Obama is a Muslim and, and so forth and so forth. So what we did is I mapped it out. Uh, we made it very digestible, connected the dots, traced the funding, and showed the genesis quite clearly the genesis of how a very few interconnected incestuous group of people, very few people were able to create. And then mainstream, uh, these fictitious threats that to marginalized, [00:24:30] uh, American Muslims from America's political civic and social sphere and how it is ultimately dangerous knowledge to America's cultural fabric, but also threatens our national security. And as you, and we've seen example after example and thankfully that has become a foundational resource for not just Americans but also in Europe right now. You see what's happening. Speaker 2:So I'm very glad about that. I'm talking about the report you're listening to KALX Berkeley 90.7 FM and this is method to the madness. We're interviewing [inaudible] [00:25:00] Ali, UC Berkeley graduate and lawyer, playwright SAS and host of Al Jazeera as social media driven talk show the stream. He joined us via phone bridge from Washington DC to talk about the Muslim American experience in America. And we asked him about what he thinks the biggest challenges are facing Muslim Americans today. I want to put this in proper context. I think American Muslims really look at it. Speaker 3:Birds [00:25:30] eye view. It's a success story. And like we have tremendous privileges, uh, unlike other minority groups that have gone through the similar hazing. Yes, we have deep, unique problems and you know, this lot of phobia, anti Muslim bigotry, especially the fact that now it's at a global scale, the local becomes a national becomes, you know, the global story with a tweet or a youtube video. But at the same time, you know, we're the most diverse religious community in America. American Muslim women are the most educated women of any religious group, right behind Jewish American women, [00:26:00] uh, as a group where, you know, educated, uh, above average income, uh, you know, quote unquote moderate mainstream, whatever that means. That's good words. Uh, you know, renounce audit volume extremisms so many of us have achieved, if you will, the American dream. I think the problem internally for American Muslims is whether or not we choose to be spectators or participants. Speaker 3:And what I mean by that is oftentimes, especially with immigrant communities, there was a, don't rock the boat, keep your head down, have a checklist [00:26:30] of success and follow the safe path. Um, and often times we kind of, if you will, have helped this marginal marginalization of American Muslims happen by not investing in storytelling. 90%. It's a American Muslims. And when they did a pull it like 2001, we're either doctors, engineers, or business. So that leaves me about 10, 11% for teachers, activists, politicians, journalists, directors, uh, you know, and so forth. And I think [00:27:00] if you deprive yourself of the opportunity to be a cultural creator, if you deprive yourself of the opportunity to become a participant, if you deprive yourself of becoming a protagonist of not only your own narrative but the American narrative, at the end of the day, you can kind of only blame yourself for being on the margins or being a footnote or being a sidekick or being an antagonist. Speaker 3:And I think it'd be the, the major struggle for American Muslims is how to not lose hope in, uh, themselves and not to lose hope [00:27:30] in America, especially when they are facing an uphill challenge where it seems that they seem besieged by so many palms. I forget. It's like an avalanche every, every step. Uh, everywhere you go, you want to get out of the muck and then isis they want get out of the muck and all kinds of the Arabian peninsula you want to get out of the muck and some loans radical. And then you're always defensive, right? You're always interrogated and you're always asked to prove that you're a moderate. You're always asked to prove your loyalty. And I think it can be easily exhausting for an American Muslim and it [00:28:00] could easily be defeating. And I think that struggle is to have faith in the best, best aspects of ourselves and the best aspects of this country, of the best aspects of our community members to kind of unite in solidarity over shared values and really invest proactively as storytellers. Speaker 3:And sometimes that requires bum rushing the show and doing things on your own, right? If cold, cold, mainstream media or mainstream politics does not have you as a protagonist, where are you going to do? Are you [00:28:30] going to drink your chat as a spectator whine and complain? Or are you gonna use your village's privileged to throw down and bum rush the show? And it might take a little bit of time, but at least you move forward. I think that's something that is very pivotal, not only for a sense of identity and only first sense of swagger and only person's confidence, not only first month of wellbeing, the only sense of creating a positive proactive narrative for this generation, future generations, but also think for honoring this anti Muslim bigotry that [00:29:00] it's poisonous for our national security. And I also think it provides a microcosm of what America will have to do if it wants to emerge as the best version of itself as it approaches a minority and majority country, the way America treats us minorities and the way we treat our marginalized communities, it will be the fault line of how we will either emerge or fail. Speaker 3:I think as a nation, I think that's a big test. Speaker 2:That was what Jihad Ali on Calyx is method to the madness. Now, 30 [00:29:30] minute talk show every other Friday that explores the innovative spirit of the bay area. Well, John is a UC Berkeley graduate, a lawyer, a playwright, essayist consultants, the U S State Department and host of Al Jazeera America's social media driven talk show the stream. Very proud of the work he's doing to communicate the Muslim American experience in America. If you want to follow more of which odds work, follow him on Twitter with his handle at YJ hot Ali. That's w a j. A. H. A T, a. L. I [00:30:00] on Twitter. That's it for our program today. Thanks for joining and special thanks to my partner in crime, Lisa Key for setting up this interview and making it all happen. With that, we'll turn it back over to the music. Have a great Friday. Everybody. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Professor John T. Clarke discusses the goals of the Mars Maven Mission.TRANSCRIPTSpeaker 1:You're listening to KALX Berkeley 90.7 FM, university of California listener supported radio. And this is method to the madness coming at you from the Public Affairs Department here at Calex, celebrating the innovative spirit of the bay area and beyond. I'm your host. Eileen is r and today we're lucky enough to have with us professor John Clark from Boston University. Hello professor. How are you? Speaker 2:Hello. Good, thanks for having me on. Speaker 1:And Professor Clark, uh, happened to be here in Berkeley and so we got him on the show to talk about, um, [00:00:30] and innovation of his that is now, um, orbiting the planet Mars. The is shell spectrograph. So we want to talk about this and learn a little bit more about it. But first, um, I always start the show talking to someone who's invented something with the same question. What was the problem statement that you trying to solve? Speaker 2:Uh, okay, so this goes back quite a ways. Um, I trained as an astrophysicist and I built experiments to fly in space and try to analyze the data to answer particular [00:01:00] questions. Uh, the system that is flying now at Mars addresses one question, but it started about 25 years ago. Um, I was using another telescope to look at the atmosphere of Jupiter and there was something that we didn't understand and we used that instrument in an unusual way that it wasn't designed really to do. And we were able to figure out what was going on there. So I got the idea and then I built a prototype for this, a shell [00:01:30] spectrograph, um, to fly basically on a test bed on a rocket that just goes up in the space and comes right back down. You only get about five minutes of data. That's called a sounding rocket. Speaker 2:So let me back up a step. A spectrograph is a device that disperses light into the different wavelengths, the spectrum of colors and a usual, a normal spectrograph would have a certain resolution that refers to how much the light is spread out in wavelength. And a shell was a particular [00:02:00] kind of system that uses a different kinds of dispersing optic called an a shell grading. And it spreads the light out a lot more than a usual system. And to do that, you only get a look at a small part of the color spectrum, but you'd get a very good resolution on the different colors or wavelengths. Speaker 1:Now are there different, um, can you see all parts of the spectrum, just basically what it's trained on or is it only a certain part of the spectrum that it can see? Is there a specific thing you're looking for with the magnification [00:02:30] it gives you, Speaker 2:yeah, I mean, I can do an analogy here. If you are up on grizzly peak looking to her mouth, Tablo Pius low resolution system would see from Mount Tam to San Francisco and Michelle was zoomed in on the peak of Mount Tamela pious and get good resolution on that, but not be able to see anything else. Speaker 1:Ah, okay. So the problem statement of the shell spectrograph is to get deeper into the analysis of certain parts of the atmosphere by magnifying it. Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. It actually magnifies spectrum, [00:03:00] the color spectrum rather than the atmosphere itself. Speaker 1:So as a, as a scientist, um, when you, you recognize the need for this, um, how do you go about, you know, starting to build something like this and now you started this 25 years ago. So I want to kind of go through the story and understand how we've gotten from there to here. But when you first understood, wow, there's a need for this, how do you go about, do you have to go get grant funding or how does that work? Speaker 2:Well, yeah, you start out writing a proposal and maybe calling the person at NASA who would be able to find you, have [00:03:30] a conversation about whether they would be a light to see this kind of a, of a proposal. And I did that when I was assistant professor back in the late eighties and they agreed and then it took several years to develop the system and fly it. And it flew several times on these sounding rockets before we had the opportunity to propose it for this mission to Mars. Speaker 1:Hmm. So, uh, taking a step back real quick. So let's talk a little bit about your background. So your astrophysicists, where did you do your studies? Speaker 2:[00:04:00] Well, I went undergraduate at Denison University in Ohio. I went Grad School in Physics at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. And from Hopkins I came out to Berkeley to the space sciences lab up on the hill for my first job after Grad school. What were you doing up there? I was doing the same general kind of thing I'm doing now, but I was doing it from ground-based telescopes. I spent a lot of time at Lick Observatory and Mount Hamilton in the South Bay. Speaker 1:Okay. And so, uh, from that point you got, did you became an assistant [00:04:30] professor and you saw you were working with a, uh, a telescope that was looking at Jupiter, is that right? Speaker 2:Yeah, so this was a NASA facility. There was an, a very high orbit around the earth. It's called the international ultraviolet explorer. And that's where I got the idea from Jupiter and then I realized I could apply the same kind of instrument to other planets and other problems. Speaker 1:And so, um, you started to build it, you did some space flights or I'm sorry, some, um, some tax space test space flights [00:05:00] to test the feasibility of it. And um, and this seems like it was a, it's like all kind of a lifetime project, right? You're, you're going to balance it, you know, teaching and doing your regular stuff. And this is a long term project. So take us from the time that you start doing the sample flights to now it's on the, this latest, um, mission to Mars who, tell us about that process. How do you get from kind of the samples to actually getting it onto, I'm sure lots of scientists are trying to bolt things onto something that's going to get orbit Mars. Speaker 2:Yeah, [00:05:30] it's very competitive. Um, and this is not the only thing I was doing research wise, but it was one thing kind of on the back burner for awhile. Um, in 2005, I joined the small group of people from University of Colorado and from Berkeley who were planning to propose for a small, relatively small mission to Mars. Um, so we started meeting in 2005. Uh, it was accepted in 2008 and it was launched in 2013 and it arrived at Maurice this past September and [00:06:00] we're now getting data back. So it's a long process. There's no guarantee it's going to go and there's no guarantee it's going to work even if it's funded. And, and they agreed to launch it. Speaker 1:So what is this? It's called the Maven, right? The via in it. Exactly. What is the a, the Mars Maven Maven Speaker 2:as a mission that stands, it's an acronym. Stands for Mars atmosphere. Volatile evolution experiment. So this is basically a global climate change mission for Mars to try to learn about how Mars has evolved [00:06:30] over its lifetime. In what ways have may be similar to the earth or have been similar to the earth when it was young. And in a nutshell, we think that Mars started out like the earth oceans of water. There is a lot of evidence on the surface of Mars today. You can see what looks just like river channels in flowing patterns, but it's dry. It's very dry today. Any water that's there is locked up in the polar ice caps or maybe into the surface itself like a permafrost. So the purpose of Navan [00:07:00] is to not land. There's no, um, rover a maven. It's orbiting around and through the atmosphere of Mars and trying to figure out the detailed physical principles by which the atmosphere of Mars is changing today. And then we could extrapolate back in time and understand what Mars was like in the past. Speaker 1:So is the hypothesis that, um, we can, um, try to understand better how to head off our own potential losing our oceans [00:07:30] by studying Mars or what, what's the, is it, is there that much of a analog that we can draw between that planet and our planet? Speaker 2:Well, you're painting a very particular picture there and worth looking more at a big picture. If we went to understand how planets in general work, we'd like to understand Mars that could teach us something about the earth. We're not really trying to save the Earth by sending a mission to Mars. Uh, we'd like to understand more of these principles to understand these exoplanets that are being found today around other stars. Speaker 1:[00:08:00] Yeah. And tell us about those exoplanets. What are, what are those that are being found today? These new discoveries, right. Speaker 2:There are new discoveries. The, um, technique by which these are found is the reflex motion of the star response to the gravity of the planet. So the first ones that were found were giant planets that were very close to the star. And now as the method improves, we're finding smaller planets farther away. We're not yet at the point of finding an earth, but it's getting close. Speaker 1:So we're, we're speaking with Professor John Clark, uh, [00:08:30] um, from, uh, Boston University who's, uh, luckily here in Berkeley to talk to us about, uh, the shell spectrograph that he has developed that is on the Mars Maven, um, and is, uh, helping to analyze the atmosphere of Mars. So I have one, you know, as a layman who knows nothing about this stuff, there's one thing I don't understand at all is the time lag between information gathered by Maven, right. And coming back to Earth, like how long does that take? Speaker 2:[00:09:00] Uh, well, it's minutes. It's not hours. Um, it's, uh, on the order of maybe 10 minutes. It varies a lot depending on where nick, the, uh, Mars and the earth are in their orbits around the sun. The distance can change dramatically, um, from one time of the year to another. Speaker 1:What's the mechanism through which the information is sent? Speaker 2:It's just a radio transmitter, just like Cadillacs, a little more, well, not probably not more powerful, but it's beamed back toward the earth and their large dishes on the earth, they pick up the signal. [00:09:30] So we send commands to the spacecraft and we get the data down. Speaker 1:Same Way. Wow. So it's, it's, it's, I'm much faster than I would've thought I would have. Like you hear about like these telescopes that go into deep space and, and you know, they're sending images back, but you don't even know if that telescope still exists. But I guess this is totally different because some closer away. So, um, what are the, it's, it's been orbiting Mars for the last six months or so, right? Correct. So what, what are, what are, what are you guys finding? Speaker 2:[00:10:00] Um, we're just, uh, still in the early phases of, of learning about Mars. When you first get a mission to another planet, like this one, the first thing you do is turn everything on and test it out. And you test your ability to command it, to have the onboard computer, do things in the right order and at the right time. And there's always a process of a few months where you understand how it works and, and, and fix things basically. Um, fortunately Neva is working very well. There've been some little hiccups, but basically everything's working. [00:10:30] Uh, we then get getting data back and we're now getting into more of a routine mode where we do the same thing every orbit around Mars. And then we can build up measurements over the course of a Mars year, a Mars orbit around the sun, and start to understand some of these physicals, Speaker 1:the principles. So, um, the, uh, and how long has a Mars year? Last year was about two or three years to earth years. So, and is there a, an expected lifespan of the Maven? Um, uh, is, [00:11:00] is it just called? It's, it's a satellite spacecraft. Yeah. Speaker 2:Yeah. It is a satellite. Um, it's expected to last for five to 10 years. It's built to last a long time. The prime mission for Maven is one earth year around Mars, but we expect that it would be continued for a second earth year to get one full Mars orbit around the sun. And the science team would like to go longer than that. Speaker 1:And so how did, like your involvement, cause you have one part portion of it. Yeah. Um, how, um, how does it work? Is [00:11:30] Do you have like a, I don't, I suppose you have like an iPhone app that's giving you data. I mean, where do you guys collect the information and is it, can you be constantly harvesting the information from your computer or is there different feeds coming from my phone? It's on air book. Nice. Speaker 2:Um, I mean the data come down, they go to the Lockheed's plant south of Denver and then they come to the science centers. And I would like to point out that the lab at Berkeley, the space sciences lab built several of the instruments that are on maven and several of the instruments were built, the University of Colorado. [00:12:00] And I have one channel of one instrument building Colorado. Speaker 1:Okay. And so your, your channel is, the shell spend should respect it is which is a sending back data. And what exactly in the atmosphere as the shell spectrograph looking at in Mars? Speaker 2:That's a good question. The shell spectrograph was designed to measure the ratio of deterioration to hydrogen in the upper atmosphere of Mars. So deterioration is like heavy water. It's a proton with a neutron in it and it has twice the mass of [00:12:30] a hydrogen atom. Um, the, the quick picture here is that when Mars was young, we think it had a lot of water. We think a lot of that water boiled off in the space. The gravity of Mars is only about one quarter of the gravity of the earth. So we think it lost a lot of its atmosphere. They just floated away. Well, it didn't float. Some of the atoms have enough velocity in their head pointing up. They can escape the gravity. It's a small fraction. But if that happened and water was lost water, we break up into hydrogen and oxygen [00:13:00] and about one and a 10 or a hundred thousand of those hydrogens would be deterioration. Now the hydrogen would boil off faster than the deterioration because it's half the mass. So if you lost a lot of water over time, there'd be more deterioration. And the ratio of those two gives you an idea of how much water was lost over the history of the planet. How long do you Speaker 1:thank you? It'll take to, to um, collect enough data for you to have enough to do your extrapolation that you want to make? Speaker 2:Well, we have [00:13:30] a quick look. Now we know that it's working. We're measuring deterioration and hydrogen. Now we get down into the gritty details of exactly how you analyze that and how accurately you can pin down, um, the numbers. But we don't want to just measure it to turn into hydrogen at one time. We want to look at Mars at different latitudes over the course of its seasons and find out if there are variations in the amount of deterioration in the atmosphere. Speaker 1:Now as an astro physicist, um, what is your, um, opinion of, you know, it seems like [00:14:00] the NASA has shifted years under the Obama, one of his big access to stop the space shuttle program and focus on, uh, more of these types of scientific endeavors. Is this the right move for, for us to be doing right now is going further out and looking at Mars and potentially further exploration? Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean if you ask a scientist, they'll say that robotic exploration is the way to go. It's much less expensive. You don't put anybody's life at risk and we can build very [00:14:30] good instruments to send to the other planets. But a lot of people also believe in and support, um, human space flight and getting away from low earth orbit. And that's another thrust of the current, uh, NASA space program. Speaker 1:So, uh, and so the robots like those rovers on Mars and, and Maven is communicating with those rovers. Right? Speaker 2:Uh, it's not, it's just with the earth. Speaker 1:Oh, okay. I thought that there was a relay is there's an ability for it to really, Speaker 2:ah, right. So you're ahead of me here. So maven was built by NASA [00:15:00] with a relay, so that in the future, after the maven science is more or less complete, they will change the orbit and then use the maven spacecraft to relay data from landers on the ground back to the earth in both Speaker 1:after it's kind of primary or first mission is complete. Right. So tell them, tell me a little bit, you know, and we're talking to professor John Clark from Boston University who is a part of the, uh, Mars maven team about the mission to Mars and the Michele spectrograph, [00:15:30] which he invented to help, uh, understand the atmosphere of Mars and climate change on Mars. So tell us a little bit about, um, just the, the scale of building something like a satellite that goes to Mars to figure out this problem. Like, we talked a little bit about it, but how long does it take? How many people are involved? Seems like a really big endeavor. Speaker 2:It is a big endeavor. We started out in 2005 with maybe a dozen, 15 people around the table thinking about how [00:16:00] we'd write the proposal. Um, it ended up with probably at one point a a hundred, 200 people. I'm working on developing the spacecraft and the instruments and testing them. Uh, the instruments were built at different labs around the country. Um, and then they were put together at Lucky's plant, south of Denver. The whole thing was tested. Um, and there's a lot of testing that goes on, um, with these missions cause it's, uh, you know, you launch these things, you can't go back if anything goes wrong. It's like building a car to [00:16:30] last for 10 years without ever changing the oil or filling the gas tank and you know, things can go wrong. Um, so there's very thorough testing on these things. Speaker 1:What's the failure rate of these types of, I mean, I'm sure that the level of testing is beyond what anybody could really imagine, but is what's the failure rate of these types of missions? Speaker 2:Well, if you run it long enough, something will fail 100%. What you want to do is make sure that it's built to last longer than what you need it to do. And this [00:17:00] has gotten very good at this. Um, Lockheed builds very good spacecraft. NASA builds very good instruments. The, um, so you think about a timeline for these things and how long they're going to go. And, um, I'm thinking of a, of an anecdote. I worked for NASA when I was younger and I was at the space flight center in Huntsville, Alabama where Wernher von Brown worked and they still told stories about him and they asked him, how do you make these, these rockets, you know, how do you make them work? It's very risky. Hard [00:17:30] to do. He said, well, we design it and we build it and then we tested until it breaks and then we figure out what went wrong and we tested again and we do that until it doesn't break and then it's ready to fly. So it's the testing program that's more important than trying to figure out everything that can go wrong. Speaker 1:Yeah. And so I'm, I'm a software, so I understand testing software and coming up with, you know, unit tests and system tests and really, really running through that rigor. But I would think that the level of rigor on something like this [00:18:00] must be much, much, um, greater than, than I could imagine. Is there a certain protocol that, you know, NASA puts everything that's going to go into space through that, you know, it has to pass, you know, 50 million checklists or whatever it is, or how does that work? Speaker 2:Right. There is a protocol. You will test it by vibrating the instrument, simulating the vibration of launch. You'll put it through a temperature cycle, hot and cold, more than the range you think we'll experience in space. You have to put it in a vacuum [00:18:30] to simulate the vacuum of space. There are all kinds of things like that. But the other trick that the aerospace industry and NASA use is to try to use things that have flown before that worked and not try something that's brand new, you know, improve the technology gradually and not just start from scratch. Speaker 1:So there's this, there's learnings from the 1960s missions that are kind of baked into, we just continually improve, improve, improve. Speaker 2:Yeah. But there's probably not much left from the 60s, I hope. [00:19:00] But it is Speaker 1:gradual process. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Well, um, you know what, one question that I wanted to ask you about is, uh, the, there's a certain, um, it seems like the, you know, our, um, humanities race into spaces evolved quite a bit. You know, if I Harken back to the 60s, you had a big competition, but now it seems like there's a lot more collaboration. Is that, is that from an, from a layman's perspective, that's the way it looks. Is that accurate or, we have this, you have just one [00:19:30] international space station and everybody kind of shares. And, um, so is there other other countries involved on the Maven or is it this is a NASA, Speaker 2:we have several European co-investigators. Scientific co-investigators. That's correct. Yeah. And A, we have a couple of people from Japan who are participating in the science, uh, but there's still somewhat of a competition between nations. Okay. The, uh, the Chinese who are trying to do things on their own without getting help from other countries. And, uh, I think that if China landed [00:20:00] on the moon, that might help us in terms of getting this country behind, going back and doing more things in space. Speaker 1:So do you think that there's still much to explore on the moon? We've, we've kind of given up that, uh, before we, we've given up that mission before you really figured out everything and we should've, Speaker 2:well, to me, we've learned a lot about the moon and we should be moving on and doing other things. Um, but I support, um, human space flight. Um, I personally suspect that the future of human space [00:20:30] flight is more in private companies. It might be space x, Elon Musk going to Mars, um, before the government does. And partly I say that just because companies are willing to take on more risk and do things less expensively than the government is. Speaker 1:Yeah. And, and uh, and be more disruptive but potentially be, um, more dangerous. You know, that, that's the scary part of that too. Is that what kind of, there's probably no regulation of space level or maybe there is, I don't know. Speaker 2:Well, the more risk [00:21:00] you take, the more accidents there will be. I think that's true and I expect that things will go wrong. Um, but we know a lot already in terms of building rockets and flying things, launching things into space. And private companies today can take advantage of that history of knowledge and hopefully things will go well. But in the early days of aviation, there were accidents and people got hurt, but they kept going. And that's, I think, the kind of spirit that you need to have. Speaker 1:Yeah, sure. I mean, all great explorers. [00:21:30] They're all gonna eat to cat or yeah. Serious risks with a life and limb. Yeah. I'm the worst. We're speaking with Professor John Clark from Boston University here. Kayla likes Berkeley 90.7 FM. He's a part of the Mars maven team. Uh, it's a satellite that's now orbiting Mars that is, um, uh, sending back information about the atmosphere and climate change on that planet. Um, and Professor Clark also teaches, uh, actively teaches at Boston University. What, what are you teaching there? Right now? Speaker 2:I'm in the department of astronomy. [00:22:00] I teach planetary science, uh, intro astronomy all the way from non-science major undergraduates to advanced Grad students. Speaker 1:Okay. Well I wanted to ask you about, um, you know, as someone who's studied this as a career, what is the, um, you know, in our lifetime we were to say like the next 50 years, what would you say are the big milestones in terms of space exploration that are attainable for us as a race? Speaker 2:Wow. 50 years is kind of a long horizon. Um, [00:22:30] and it's hard to predict. I th I expect that robotic missions will continue to fly over that time period. Um, I think that human space flight will develop, there are a lot of people who have decided that Mars is the place for human beings to go next. It's, um, it's very risky. There's a lot of questions about radiation, about keeping people healthy. Um, it's not going to be an easy thing to do, but I can see that happening in less than 50 years. Yeah. Now, another thing that I find [00:23:00] more interesting in the shorter term, like 10, 10 ish years, is these, um, these things like virgin galactic where they're building ways to take people up into space and come right back down. And I think that, um, a lot of people alive today will have the choice of the cost will come down as they do it more and more. I think they'll have the choice of buying a car or flying in space. It'll be at that cost level. Speaker 1:But flying is patients on a Lark just to experience zero gravity or to actually [00:23:30] go from one part of the planet to the other. Speaker 2:So when I go into a room with a bunch of students, I ask them if you could spend 20 k and flying the space, how many of you would do it? And I wait about three seconds. And then I say, if your hand isn't up, you're not going to do it. If you're thinking about whether it's a idea, yeah, you're not the ones who will be on these first slides. Speaker 1:So it's going to be some kind of a, a something for the Uber rich kind of like to say, Oh yeah, I've been in space. That kind of thing. Speaker 2:A lot of people can afford to buy a car and they might prefer to ride the bus and have the experience [00:24:00] of flying in space. Speaker 1:Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Um, what about, um, as we find these more exoplanets, um, what is your, what is your feeling on what's out there? Is there, is there life out there that we're going to be, um, able to, I know it's the million dollar question by you, someone who's studied this your whole career probably. So what's your feeling? Speaker 2:Um, well I don't, I won't give you any feelings, but I thought about it. We see so many other stars, so many other galaxies and now we're finding so many planets [00:24:30] around nearby stars. It's become clear that most stars have planets around them. They're very common. They're just, if you look at the numbers that are going to be so many of them out there, that there have to be a lot of them that are similar to the earth. And there may be forms of life that we have not dreamt of that could be on other kinds of planets. So if you just look at the numbers, the Azar, there's life all over the universe. So that's the good news. Now the other news is that as far as we know, nothing can travel faster than the speed of light [00:25:00] and at that speed there may be life all over the universe and we'll never find it just because of the distance. It's going to be hard. It may be close by. Okay. I'm not saying it's impossible, but most of it we will probably never be in contact with. Speaker 1:Do you think we'll ever be able to really know? You know, explain it. I mean this is the big question. You know, you have like religion versus science and there's this big leap of faith. You kind of have to take it either way. Like you're saying there, it's probably out there, but how are we ever going to know [00:25:30] unless they come? Someone does can travel faster than the speed of light and show up in our doorstep. Speaker 2:Well, what I described is what we understand today. Now I'm willing to change my mind that the drop Speaker 3:you're a scientist, Speaker 2:it's been, you know, very dangerous to assume that you know too much, uh, throughout history. Speaker 1:Yeah. You know, I always think about 'em, um, as again, someone who is not an astrophysicist about star trek, which is a lot of my understanding of this. And they have the, um, the premise that there's [00:26:00] higher, um, forms that are watching us waiting for us to be able to unlock some secrets of interstellar travel. And once we do, then they show up and say, okay, you know, now you have to learn how to responsibly travel. And you know, perhaps that's uh, that's out there cause there's potential to have so many different kinds of life forms up there. So Speaker 2:it's fun to think about and there's a lot we don't know. But another thing that scientists talk about is a thing called the Thermi paradox. And Rico fare made decades ago said, if there's other life in the [00:26:30] universe, where is it? How come we don't know about it? Why haven't they come here and contacted us? And that's a different way of looking at the same question. Speaker 1:Yeah. So, um, uh, in closing the professor John Clark here from Boston University and on KLX Berkeley in 90.7 FM, if you were to kind of wave your magic wand and get your wildest dreams from this maven exploration and the shell spectrograph that you put on it, what would you, what would you find out? What would be the big, you know, victory for you? Speaker 2:We would learn everything we need [00:27:00] to know about the escape of water into space from Mars to be able to go back 3 billion years and know what Mars was like when it was young. Was Mars earth-like and for how long was that earth-like? Long enough for life to begin on Mars, a questions like that. Speaker 1:All right, well hopefully we'll find that out and it's not, it's going to be pretty quick like in the next couple of years. Right. This is the great, well, best of luck. Thanks so much for the exploration you're doing for all of us. Hopefully we'll all get to learn about it. And you can follow, um, [00:27:30] the Mars may even, there's a page on NASA I believe, that you can find. You can just Google a maven and you will see that. And thanks so much for joining us, professor. Speaker 2:It's a pleasure. Thank you. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Interview with Executive Director of Aspiration Tech which helps nonprofits use technologyTRANSCRIPTSpeaker 1:You're listening to k a Alex Berkeley 90.7 FM, university of California listener supported radio. And this is method to the madness coming at you from the Public Affairs Department here at Calyx celebrating the innovative spirit of the bay area. I'm your host aliene czar. And today we have Alan Gunn joining us, the executive director of aspiration tech. What's up? Got Her. How you doing? I am well thank you. Thanks for coming to the studio today. Um, and um, uh, Alan is the a r u founder. I am not, you know the founder, but you're the the the leader. I am [00:00:30] aspiration tech. So, um, the first question I always ask the leader of an organization like aspiration tech is, give me the problem statement. What are you trying to solve? Speaker 2:Uh, there are a lot of people working to make positive change in this world. Uh, there's a lot of technology in the world that we know today and the people making positive change in the world rarely are able to make effective use of technology. There's a range of reasons for that from they don't prioritize it to, they get taken advantage of. And I have a somewhat embarrassingly [00:01:00] specific, uh, preoccupation with really focusing on what we call preventive tech care, helping those who are working for social justice to use technology in sustainable ways that supports their mission as opposed to detracting from it. Speaker 1:Yeah. Well that's very concise. Thank you. It's interesting cause I have a little bit experience of this and it's, it's this huge gap between the Social Justice Entrepreneur, I like to call them, who have this really incredible vision and passion. But when you get down to the nuts and bolts of the execution, there's a big gap. [00:01:30] Absolutely. And so how many, um, or tell me first of all, how did aspiration tech come come about? How did this organization get created? Speaker 2:Aspiration was founded in 2001 our founding board chair, Jonathan Pizer, and I'm Melissa Pale Thorpe, was the founding director. They realized that there were not appropriate market dynamics to get the need of nonprofit software created. And so aspiration was initially founded with the idea of actually creating the missing software applications for the U S nonprofit sector. And then, uh, the vision [00:02:00] became more global. Uh, the, the organization sort of realized that as a tiny us NGO, they weren't about to go writing enterprise software. And so, uh, I came in a few years later and sort of reshaped the mission around sort of a different approach to building that same technology capacity. Speaker 1:Okay. And, um, so tell us a little bit about, uh, your client base today. Like how does, how does it work? Have someone come and get services from aspiration tech? Speaker 2:Oh, the simple answer is they ask. Um, we work, uh, with a very broad and diverse [00:02:30] set of stakeholders. We do about half our work in the U S and about the rest, uh, outside the u s around the world. Uh, and we work, as I describe it across the so-called, uh, nonprofit technology supply chain. Grassroots NGOs call us up all the time. One of our most subversive offerings is a free proposal review service. So if a tech vendor has written you a document saying they'll charge you x dollars for deliverable Y, we'll take a look at it and we'll tell you if we think it's a fair deal, we'll look for the hidden intellectual property [00:03:00] clauses and Gotchas and lock-ins. The sad story I tell a lot, because it's true, there's a Bay area nonprofit that we've worked with that uh, the director was leaving and signed a five year, 5,000 a month web hosting contract. Speaker 2:And if you know anything about web hosting, that's a bit high. 500 x exactly. And so, yeah, that's $300,000 down the drain just because they didn't have somebody look at that proposal and didn't put a, an opt out into the contract. And so yeah, I mean, so does [00:03:30] this kind of stuff happen a lot? It does. One of the things that's been most disturbing, I started as an accidental nonprofit techie. I was a silicon valley guy back in the 90s and when I first saw the web, I was like, this could be big. And so I started thinking about how all my Greenpeace housemates and all my other tree hug and friends might use the web. I specialized in criminally ugly websites in the nineties I could build those by hand at volume. We all, we all do that. I look back and I'm proud of my flushing animations and other poorly, poorly conceived design judgments. Speaker 2:But I'm, [00:04:00] as I've come to sort of make it a full time job. The thing that has really struck me as most unfortunate is that every level of the market, there's predators. We maintain what we call a clueless vendors list of all of the people that actually misrepresent their services have hidden lock-ins or otherwise exploit the knowledge differential when they're trying to deal into this market. Wow. It's mind blowing that someone would be so cynical to be, you know, be a Predator on nonprofits. But I guess that there's a, [00:04:30] there's someone for every kind of angle out there. There is. So let me ask you about, um, you see so many different, um, business models and, and uh, nonprofits. What is the biggest gap that you see in the tech stack of all these people coming to you needing help? The great unsolved problem of the nonprofit universe, and this is global, is the a supporter database. Speaker 2:Uh, I point out that there's several hundred of these out there and all of them, pardon my French suck. They are just um, brittle. [00:05:00] Uh, some of them are extremely uh, shortsighted in what they let you do. Their extensibility is limited, but most of them simply don't do what nonprofits want to do. And there is this ongoing tension in nonprofit technology about do you bend to fit the tool or do you keep looking until you find a tool that fits the way you do what you do? So that's one great unsolved problem. I think now you're talking about like, um, a CRM type thing for, for donations. Something as simple as a constituent relationship [00:05:30] management system. It is astoundingly difficult for grassroots nonprofits to find inappropriate one a, the most powerful ones out there are sold by some of the most predatory vendors. I can't say enough non-positive things about Blackbaud, which is a company that deliberately locks nonprofits in, charges them hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and just exploits the fact that nonprofits need fundraising and CRM tools. Wow. And is that their primary focuses on nonprofits. Wow. So, um, when you Speaker 1:come in and you're looking at like someone asked for [00:06:00] your help, what's the process for, uh, kind of the assessment of what [inaudible] Speaker 2:they need? It's a good question. It's very dialogue based and we, our belief is, uh, technology is tragically almost all the time seen as a tech problem. And our belief is that it's always a people problem. And my background between Silicon Valley and what I do at aspiration, I worked for a great organization called the Ruckus Society and got a lot of exposure both there and living in a Greenpeace house. Two principles of community organizing. And so what we work with people to do [00:06:30] is to treat their technology challenges as community organizing opportunities. And by that I mean treats your users as your community members, arguably your marginalized community members. And so much as they don't tend to really get any voice in the technology they use. They tend to get told what tools they're gonna use and it tends to be the wrong tools for what they're trying to get done. Speaker 2:So we work with whoever is what we lovingly call the accidental tech lead or accidental tech decision maker to really get them into an engagement stance and a dialogue process where they actually talk [00:07:00] to the people that need the tools they're trying to identify and treat it as an organizational development growth opportunity rather than just a go to Walmart and get a new thing shopping spree. And that turns out to be a fairly effective model to teach them to fish. Is that tired? Uh, phrase goes, it's really fun to get people into a stance of believing they can actually do their own tech planning. Speaker 1:Interesting. Well, we're talking to Alan Gunn, he's the executive director of aspiration tech, a San Francisco based nonprofit that's focused on helping solve tell tech challenges for nonprofits [00:07:30] in the bay area and beyond. And um, that sounds like a pretty, um, people intensive engagement process. So tell me a little bit about the aspiration tech organization. Like who, who is it besides you? Speaker 2:It is seven of us. We're based in San Francisco at 16th and mission street. We run a happy little workspace called The San Francisco nonprofit tech center and have some great housemates. They're with us. Freedom of the press foundation, open whisper systems, upwell, Ruckus Society, peer to Peer University. [00:08:00] So it's a real fun nonprofit tech space. And uh, we work on a range of things. We've got folks that work on so-called human rights technology, helping people to think about digital security, others who work on capacity building across the state of California. Uh, it's easy to get volunteer tech support here in San Francisco. In fact, too easy, far too many people over deliver overly complex technology solutions. Uh, but our passion is the central valley in the rural parts of the state. So we do as much work as we can in Fresno, Sacramento and, and [00:08:30] down highway five. Basically. We've done a number of events at Coachella and places where you don't normally see a real density of tech folks. We're trying there to really help build local tech skills and really tried to build a statewide network of people that share tech, uh, in ways that we think are sustainable. Speaker 1:So, um, as you go through that, you know, you've written this amazing man has fit manifesto online that I think is really great. I want to ask you some questions about it. And one of the things that you just mentioned is taking concept of applying technology to scale organizations and make them more [00:09:00] powerful, um, to places that maybe this isn't something that they're used to. Um, so you have one in your manifest. So you talk about, um, the language for the end user, which, you know, in my experience is so critical. So tell me a little bit about that part of your ethos here of how do you, how do you engage in a way that's not scary to the executive director of WHO's focused on social justice issues and not the latest Tech Gizmo? Speaker 2:Great question. Um, our analysis, uh, we, we refer to it as, as what we call language [00:09:30] justice. And the idea is that if you look at power and class and privilege dynamics with regard to how technology plays out in this sector, technologists are uniquely privileged class and part of their privilege lies in the fact that they use this specialized language that marginalizes virtually everyone else. They'll drop some jargon, use an acronym, and they do it with a disdain that sort of conveys a don't bother asked me about this, you'd never understand it. Sort of a Hubris and so we work with organizations and activists and we say claim, claim your power, [00:10:00] claim your language power and describe what you think you need technologically in your language. Don't feel like you need to say http. Don't feel like you need to say database, but really try to focus on the strategic things you're trying to get done and the outcomes that you're trying to achieve. Speaker 2:One of the myths of technology, this is both in the nonprofit world and the broader world. A lot of people think that tech knows what you want and knows what you need and can do what you need. I'll go out the refrigerator and the microwave and the sad truth [00:10:30] about software and nonprofit technology in particular, it doesn't. And so we try to get people not to assume the tech will magically deliver a solution, but instead to get them to think strategically about the outcomes they're trying to achieve, the strategy that they'll use to get to those outcomes. And then last, the role of technology in those outcomes. We keep all of the dialogue and the vocabulary of the end user, but put it in formats where that same vocabulary makes sense to the techies. We've got sort of a universal format for describing what tech should do that is designed [00:11:00] both to be readily usable by those writing or delivering solutions, but also fully understandable by those little actually have to use them. Speaker 1:Well, it sounds like your engagement process is pretty well defined that you've, you really thought about it. You guys have been doing this for over a decade, it sounds like. So tell me a little bit about how that works. So if someone says I need help and they come to you and you're going to start talking to them in a language is not tech, but how far do you guys go? Do you guys actually implement the technology or do you just a consulting company or what are you guys, Speaker 2:we don't, we lovingly call ourselves pre procurement. Uh, but we'll stay with you all the way through. And [00:11:30] so what we try to do there, there is the other pathology I've seen over the years. People who do social change work are passionate, shockingly about social change. And so when, when you're talking to them about technology and explaining that it's going to take some time, they get fidgety in the big sense of fidgety. They're not happy with that. And when you say, Hey, if you want to do this right, it's an organizational commitment. It requires focus, they go nuts. And so we have a one step, a time model. We try to get them to focus on who will use the technology and then how they'll use it. And to the community organizing [00:12:00] paradigm. We actually get them to get some of their users actively involved in the process. We run live events where we actually get users to react to technology plans and beat them up in a loving way. And so the idea is to really walk folks through the actual visualization of what the tools will do before they pay the money before they get locked in. Speaker 1:So you guys are really generating the, the architecture and requirements of what the organization is gonna spend its money on to go implement. But then you guys step back, someone else is going to go actually [00:12:30] implement it, but you're there as a consultant throughout. Speaker 2:Exactly. At that point, if I can use a boxing metaphor, we then become the trainer in your corner. You're out there, Mano a Mano with somebody that you've got to contract with to make your website or your database or your other application. Uh, there's a certain game theory to dealing with technology vendors and so we basically coach around that. A good example would be, uh, when you're putting out a request for proposal, many earnest nonprofits will actually put the new number of their full budget. They'll say, we only have $30,000 [00:13:00] to do this. Our first coaching advice is don't say 30,000, save a little bit, come in a little bit lower. If you put out a proposal request for 30 K, they'll all come back at 29, nine 99. And so we tried to teach people to sort of keep some gas in the tank and then once projects get going, show them how to track progress and hold vendors accountable. Most vendors disappear into a void and say, oh, it'll be ready at some point. We try really hard to get early engagement around the deliverables so that [00:13:30] the nonprofits know they're getting what they want and they correct errors earlier in the process. Speaker 1:And Are you advocating for a certain type of, um, development methodology like agile, like in a rapid iterative process? Speaker 2:We describe a lot of what we do is grassroots agile. Um, we, we use that term only when it's appropriate to use it. But the concept in the agile software methodology of iterating and pivoting those words drive me crazy, but they're useful words. Uh, and so we try to get people to do minimum viable versions of things. I often described nonprofits, [00:14:00] they have a technology procurement ethic that parallels what people who live far, far out in the country do when it shopping time. They go into the city and they pack that vehicle is full of stuff as they can so they don't have to go back to the city anytime soon. And that doesn't work with tech procurement. If you do the, I want my website with every bell and whistle now you get what we call bloatware. You get technology that doesn't do what you want and it's hard to drive because it's big and it's complicated. So we try to focus on minimalism. Uh, when in doubt, leave [00:14:30] it out. And just a general sense of what we lovingly call subsistence technology because our belief is in the long haul, the less technology you're moving forward, if it meets your basic needs, that's a more strategic footprint than technology. That quote unquote does everything and costs you huge switching pain and legacy costs as you go to evolve with all these technologies are guaranteed to evolve. Speaker 1:When in doubt, leave it out. I love that one cause I use that because that is an awesome one. All right, so we're, we're speaking with Alan Gunn, the executive director of aspiration [00:15:00] tech here on KLX Berkeley 90.7 FM. This is a method to the madness and I'm your host, Ali and Huizar. Another part of your manifesto that I really loved is, um, and it's something that I think is so important, yet people just miss it, which is the fact that it's not about the software is not about the hardware. It's about the data that, tell me about your kind of, you know, the importance you put on the data and, and why is it so important for nonprofits? Speaker 2:Um, at the end of the day, all technology exists to manage information [00:15:30] in some sense, whether that is your digital music player or your radio or whatever. And one of the tragedies, and I think we point this out in that manifesto, software and hardware have cost associated with them. They are budget line items and most nonprofit budgets data rarely does your list of supporters, your list of, um, data samples from an environmental super fund site. No one really assigns a value to that. And so first order problem is that nonprofits think straight to dollars. And if it doesn't [00:16:00] have a number associated with it, they tend to undervalue it. The thing that has become much more of an issue since we wrote that manifesto is that with the proliferation of data acquisition capabilities, mobile data acquisition and crowd sourcing and cloud x, Y, z non nonprofits are now amassing data sets that actually put the people whose data is amassed at risk. Speaker 2:And you know, we see that in so many ways, there are sort of urban legends that are at least part true. Uh, you know, examples that people that [00:16:30] do, um, heat maps, in other words, they do a Google map of places where hate crimes have occurred. The problem with that is that then gives the haters a pretty good clue on where they can go do hateful things. And so there really is a need to do what is often referred to as responsible data practices. We work with a great organization called the engine room that's moving forward a responsible data program. And the idea is to teach nonprofits that with large data sets comes large responsibility and again, when in doubt leave it out. And so as you're collecting data, uh, [00:17:00] there are many times when you want to be circumspect about how that data could be used against you or others in the future. Speaker 2:One other example I use, uh, we worked with groups in the Central Valley that support undocumented folks, uh, in immigration advocacy work. Uh, we are quite sad when we discovered that they keep those folks contact info in Google spreadsheets and you're like, wow, that's just one Faeza or government subpoena away from getting some people deport it or worse. And so we try to make people aware that just because the tool is easy or just cause it's real nice [00:17:30] to see it all in those rows and columns. Uh, you'll want to think about what you're collecting and you'd just as importantly want to think about where you're storing it. Speaker 1:Yeah. I mean it's such a, it's such a huge problem and it's relatively new to humanity cause we never had this much access to information exactly. But this week apple made their big announcement with their new products and one of them is I think health kit where there are research kit where they're, they've created a framework for um, uh, hospitals do research. You can download an app and they can monitor stuff that you're doing, but there's this huge, [00:18:00] you know, HIPAA issues with that as, you know, be putting all this health information on apple servers and they can do whatever they want with it. It's really a fascinating time to be an understanding kind of the privacy laws around data. Yup. Um, now as you look at all of the different, um, you know, engagements that you're doing, um, what are some of the biggest, uh, kind of, you know, um, transformational or disruptive technology trends that you're seeing and nonprofits that are really starting to, you know, you know, we're [00:18:30] talking about some of the negative side with some of the positive things. The technology is so amazing in terms of its rapid advancement. What are you seeing that wasn't around 10 years ago that is really changed, transforming how effective nonprofits and social entrepreneurs can be? Speaker 2:That's a good question. Uh, I tend because we are technology minimalists, I tend to do less compellingly on questions like this. Uh, I'm old school in the sense that I think what really is a magical truth is that publishing a really effective website is now a well-defined process. I thank [00:19:00] the universe that a thing called wordpress came along and I thank the universe that when you outgrow wordpress, there's a thing called Drupal. And those two software packages really do help. The vast majority of grassroots and mid nonprofits publish extremely professional, powerful websites they have control of. I think you can overstate the ways in which mobile is changing the game. I think mobile, when you look at great organizations, you know Copwatch here in Berkeley that's now able to use mobile devices to hold police accountable. I think that's really exciting, but I think you know [00:19:30] whenever people ask me about exciting developments in tech, I I feel like the buzz kill do the glass half empty guy because mobile is a great example. Speaker 2:The power of what mobile can do. If you look@anorganizationlikewitness.org the human rights organization based in New York, they worked with another nonprofit called the Guardian project to put together some incredible human rights documentations, tools and I've been attack and other groups from Palo Alto has also contributed some incredible software. But the problem is that when you're using those phones, you are giving them in [00:20:00] a tremendous amount of data. Anytime you're connected by an actual mobile signal. And so just as you are documenting and collecting, you are almost always putting yourself at risk. Certainly being surveilled and so we try to teach people, as trite as it sounds, there ain't no magic technology bullets. And with every technology opportunity you must model the present and future costs. So to your question, mobile technology is exciting. I'm grateful as someone focusing increasingly on the so-called human rights technology space. Speaker 2:I think digital [00:20:30] security tools have turned a corner, and I think that there really is now a set of tools that really changed the game in terms of what human rights activists can do to be safe wherever they are. You'll never be fully safe. But when you look at where the tor browser has come to and the fact that you can browse online, when you look at what the Guardian software can do on mobile phones, certainly on Android, and when you look at what open whisper systems has done with their red phone and signal apps, which let you have genuine encrypted voice calls on your iPhone and android [00:21:00] devices. To me that's the most exciting thing because I think at the end of the day it's less about the sexy bell or the sexy whistle. It's more about the tools that really help you continue to be effective at scale. Speaker 2:And I'm a bit of a cynic. I think we're in an interesting honeymoon period in the sense that I think right now we see technology as this wonderful, compelling thing. We live in silicon valley and butterflies fly out of, you know, SD ram cards. But I think in the future we really need to model for a fairly dark world where those tools are actually used to surveil us. They're locked down. People have to connect [00:21:30] to the Internet with a global unique numeric identifier. And so I think it's really critical as we use these tools to focus on those that give us longterm agency and longterm autonomy, the people's tools and to that extent, open source and free software. I believe that depending on Google and apple and Microsoft is death unto itself as overstated as that might sound to some people, those corporations have one thing they got to do well and that's make money for shareholders and God bless them or goddess bless them, they do damn well at that particular pursuit here and now. Speaker 2:But [00:22:00] I think it's critical to understand that when the nonprofits get the freebies from Google or the freebies from Microsoft and one of these days, apple apparently is going to give some freebies to um, those are lock-in tricks. Those are surveillance hooks, those are addictions to unhealthy fatty technology. Foods then in the long run are going to kill the movement. And so we practice a, as an preach, if I may a certain rather strident voice around the fact that we need to be consuming open tools, free software technology controlled by the people, for the people, and making that our priority. [00:22:30] So instead of the shiny air or the newer or the more compelling, let us use the open and the free and the stable and maintain control of our longterm technology destiny. Speaker 1:Well, it's a really a powerful, um, image that you're portraying there. And, um, I almost see like a dystopian future novel coming from you at some point in time. Like you, you've got the vision. We've got to, if only more about it. Only Cory Doctorow hadn't already written it. All right. So, um, we're talking to Alan Gunn. He's an executive director of aspiration tech [00:23:00] here on KLX Berkeley 90.7 FM. And uh, we're talking about is a nonprofit that helps other nonprofits use tech for good. And, um, so let's talk a little bit about, um, some stories. So, um, you're in a consultative capacity. You probably see all sorts of transformations from the time you come in to the time you leave working with a organization. So can you tell us a little bit about a couple of, you know, you know, transformations that you really love that are really encapsulate [00:23:30] the kind of mission of aspiration tech? Speaker 2:I'd be glad to. Um, a story I tell a lot just because they're wonderful people that we adore and we're grateful we get to work with them. There's a wonderful organization in Fresno called Barrios Unidos and they work with young mothers to help balance, ah, workforce development and being able to stay employed with childcare, which is a tough double to pull when you're in your teen or early 20 years. And we first started working with them, goodness, about five years ago, our program director, misty Abila, uh, was [00:24:00] the lead on that. And the idea when we got there, they were really just trying to figure out technology basics and they bought into what we were selling in terms of the process that we advocate. The idea that you, you don't count on the tools, you count on your own ability to drive the tools and you count on the tools changing and trying to design processes that sustain your messaging, your engagement and your information management. And they now come to our events and train other nonprofits and everything they do and they've innovated in ways we could have never imagined. And so Yasmin and all [00:24:30] the folks at Barrios Unidos are an ongoing inspiration to us because they're doing the work that inspires us. They're actually making the world a better place and working with them to figure out appropriate tech is sort of really in a, in a nutshell, what aspiration exists to do Speaker 1:to what kind of innovations have they done. Speaker 2:They're using social media to reach people. They're using mobile phones and clever ways to, it's, you know, I think to a silicon valley ear, it's not that innovative, but I think when you're working with zero technology dollars, just the fact that they're sustaining some very compelling online communications [00:25:00] and really mobilizing people using technology to participate in, to be part of what they do, that to us is a big win. Speaker 1:Yeah. And that was a, the one of the, one of the questions I want to ask and follow up to kind of the biggest disruptors in the nonprofit space was social media, just because the democratization of the ability to access so many people I would think would be a great driver of fundraising capabilities for nonprofits. We've seen all sorts of crowdsourcing and stuff like that. Um, and so that's, you got to see that as a positive, right? I mean, in terms of new [00:25:30] developments or what's your take on that? Speaker 2:Um, it's a tough question. I think social media is an astoundingly powerful infrastructure and I, you know, we certainly advise people to play in those fields, but I think it really depends on a lot of variables. One thing that the fundraising professionals, uh, of which I do not, uh, myself identify as one. Uh, the fundraising professionals will tell you, social media is not actually a really good fundraising mechanism. We certainly talked people down from there. I'm going to make this video and it's going to go [00:26:00] viral. Delusions on a regular basis. Um, if there's anything everyone that we work with agrees on what goes viral cannot be predicted. Uh, you know, and even upworthy, bless their souls, work overtime to drive the stuff that they drive viral. So I, you know, I think on a lot of levels it's important to really think about social media, like all of their technologies in the context of what it is or is not appropriate for a cautionary tale. Speaker 2:I'm sorry, I keep coming back to the buzzkill side of your questions. Look at what happened with the Arab spring. A incredible use of Twitter and social media [00:26:30] to mobilize, to put people into Hater Square, to actually let the people's voice be heard. And then as soon as there was a government turnover, uh, they went back to those Twitter logs and they took those people and they put them in jail. Uh, and a close friend and ally of ours, ally still actually in jail, just got sentenced to a number of years in jail in no small part because of its online a writing. And so I think social media, it's a critical tool and it's a place, you know, one of things we say to people, meet people where your audiences are. A lot of people on Facebook, a lot of people on Twitter, but we encourage people [00:27:00] to really strike a healthy balance because Facebook is a great example of an incredibly powerful tool that will double back to bite you. Speaker 2:There's a cautionary tale from a couple of years ago, uh, Facebook, uh, was, uh, I'm trying to think what year this was. I believe it was pre IPO target. The CEO of target was funding hate legislation in Minnesota, anti gay marriage stuff in Minnesota. And some earnest Facebook users set up a boycott target page, which Facebook instantly froze. It got 75,000 likes in one day. Facebook froze it because, [00:27:30] oops, target is a major advertiser on Facebook and you know, their whole patronizing language was that they wanted to maintain the civility of Facebook. You're like, dude, I can show you a lot of Facebook real estate where that is not being enforced, but a point being a, you know, there's that, that old phrase about, you know, whether or not it's going to work to, you know, use the master's tool to dismantle the master's house. I think we're really playing an unleveraged game to depend on Facebook and corporate social media to bring about change because at the point that we start to bring revolution to bear, they'll close our account. [00:28:00] And I think we need to be humble to the fact that the end of the day, social media is a revolution. It is an evolution. It is a powerful infrastructure, but we must distrust it as much as we leverage it because it's going to be taken away at the point that we use it effectively against power and against the corporations that control it. Especially the advertising corporations that generate the CR prices, the generate the dividends that make the 1% do what they do so wonderfully well. Speaker 1:Yeah. And all these companies, Twitter, Facebook, they're all, you know, publicly traded companies now at the holding of their own shareholders [00:28:30] and they're in the rat race of quarterly reports and all that stuff. So well said. So I wanted that close by. Um, you know, you've, you've stated a powerful case for, uh, you know, a, a manifesto that you have online of how to apply, you know, learnings to nonprofit world, which was probably quite a few people listening who that resonates with. So how can they get involved if someone wants to help aspiration tech's mission, how would you suggest they help? Speaker 2:That's a great question. Uh, we do a lot of trainings [00:29:00] at our tech center. We welcome to come by their free trainings. We love to mentor mentors. You know, we, we don't presume to be the smartest men or in the room, but our belief is that, uh, as we teach others that they can go teach others how to do this stuff and what we consider to be sustainable ways. We as a set of movements and a movement supported by a set of techies with certain value orientations around social justice as opposed to whizzbang shiny. Um, we welcome folks that want to sort of grow in that mentoring role, that teacher role [00:29:30] and that tech support role. Because doing that well is really hard. And I say that as somebody who's been doing it for about 20 years. Um, we're available whether you're in California, on the other side of the world, uh, at aspiration tech. Speaker 2:Dot. There's lots of ways to contact us. We can't always help, but we'll always try to find you someone who can, uh, for those that are more techie oriented. Our annual conference in Oakland, it's in November every year. The last full week before Thanksgiving, a the nonprofit software developers summit is a time where so-called open techies, people that are committed to making open [00:30:00] and free software and other technology come together to meet with one another. But at the end of the day, the answer to your question is, if you think we can help, call us up and we'll do our best to see if we, uh, can prove you're right. Speaker 1:Right on. Well, I appreciate you coming in today, gunner and we, you've been listening to Alan Gunn, the executive director of aspiration tech, a San Francisco based nonprofit, really focused on helping other nonprofits utilize technology for good. You can check them out@aspirationtech.org and you, and this has been method to the madness on KALX Berkeley 90.7 FM. Thanks for listening. [00:30:30] Have a great Friday. Everybody. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Interview with Krazy George, possibly the first professional cheerleader who began appearing at Oakland Atheletic's games in the 1980s.TRANSCRIPTSpeaker 1:[inaudible] [inaudible] Speaker 2:you're listening to KALX Berkeley 90.7 FM, university of California and listener supported radio. And this is method to the madness coming at you from the Public Affairs Department here at Calex dedicated to celebrating the innovative spirit of the bay area. I'm your host, Allen Huizar. And today we are honored. Speaker 3:I have [00:00:30] crazy George with us. Hey, crazy. George was out. You said my name. I like that last stop. Let's talk. Let's talk. So we have crazy Georgians studio. Crazy. George is famous for a lot of things, but the number one thing I think you're famous for is being the world's first and longest tenured and only full time cheerleader is, I like your title. You gave it. It's perfect. Yes, right. Summed it up perfectly. I am the only person probably in the world that makes [00:01:00] his job, makes his living cheering for teams, getting people to cheer for the team. That's what I do. And they'd pay me enough to make living. Nice. So let's talk about how you get started as a professional cheerleader. You were a sent, you went to San Jose State, is that right? That's right. Mighty San Jose state test. So what, what started to draw you to cheering? Speaker 3:Like was it something that you had always done or was it in college? How did you get started now? I was pretty quiet person but my best friend don bogged and brought a drum and a bugle to a [00:01:30] football game and I couldn't play the bugle cause that takes talent. So I started playing the drum and started pounding on it and all the students at San Jose state started following me and him. And by the end of the football season, I was just sitting in the stands. Everybody was following me. So the cheerleaders asked me to go out. So I went out and they elected me cheerleader the next year and I was a pathetic cheerleader cause I couldn't remember the routines and the words at the same time, I was really bad. So I went off on my [00:02:00] own. I started doing my own little thing with my drum, not everybody following me. Speaker 3:And over the years I just started branching out to pro teams. They loved it. They started hiring me and in 1975 after teaching for four years, I quit teaching. I had to quit those four kids. I was warping their minds. Yeah, you'd probably, screaming on a field is a little bit more of a appropriate place for you and that's right. Well, I want to ask about a lot of things, but you said that the cheerleaders, you couldn't remember [00:02:30] their kind of traditional attorney, you're like a disruptor. You're not like a normal chiller. You call yourself a cheerleader, but you weren't doing the cheerleading routines. How did they take that when you went off on your own? Well, that was the good part. I'm, since I couldn't really fit in with a squad, it was better I worked by myself or off to the side where I could get all the students and the alumni involved in the game. Speaker 3:And so that's how he sort of honed my style. And then from then, then on I was invited to go do an Oakland seals game for [00:03:00] the NHL years ago and I did one game for, for the fun of it. I was invited by a hockey team, a baseball team, went up with them and I got the whole crowd screaming. Nobody knew me. And at the end of the game, um, everybody was, was talking about me. And the next day in the paper, it was a big article on me. Nice. And one of the players said, if he comes back, I'd give him a ticket. So I called him up, he gave me a ticket. I went to another game producer and I was a regular at the Oakland Seals, [00:03:30] hockey games, Oakland seals. Where did they play? They played there in the coliseum where the warriors play a, it was great. Speaker 3:So you, um, so you were at San Jose state where you kind of found this passion. It sounds like you went, you diverted for a teaching for a little while. What were you teaching? I dumb murdered. Where were you teaching? I was teaching very little. Those poor sleep problems. The subject matter I taught wood shop, metal shop and electronics. Oh, okay. I see what shops make sense. So, um, you, uh, [00:04:00] you came back at San Jose state, you did a little Oakland schools, but wasn't it like the big place you got discovered was that the earthquakes? Is that, yes, that was, that was the first pro team I ever worked for except the open seals, which weren't paying me. They weren't paying you. So you got, when you got to check out the earthquakes. Yes. I went in there and they actually called me up and they said, would you like to open up the season for us and be with us for some of the Games? Speaker 3:And I said, well, sure, I'd love it. And in essence he said, well, how much do you want to get paid? And I said, well, how about 35 bucks a game? [00:04:30] And yes, they gave me 35 bucks a negation asked for more. Well, I did. After about three days, I'm realizing maybe I should ask for more. This crowd reaction was the greatest crowd reaction you could ever see in your life. It just revolutionized soccer up until that point. That was nobody growing over 7,000 people. A game for professional soccer. That game first game 16,000 and they were mayhem there. The fans became fanatics and like [00:05:00] one, well it's not quarters in there, but before the first half everybody was going nuts and I was on full time with that team. Who was, what year was that? 1974 first year. The quakes that I started, I'm still with the earthquakes and I'm opening up their new stadium on the 22nd of March. Wow. Did you say 1974 74 that is for those guys to the math. That's 40 plus years I scares. Yes. Yeah. That's amazing. So your first professional gig of 35 bucks a game. [00:05:30] It was for the earthquakes and then I think I read somewhere that Lamar Hunt. Yeah. [inaudible] Speaker 3:Kansas City chiefs know this is the NFL. The big boys, big boys. He saw you whip this crowd into a frenzy. I see that he saw me doing this earthquake game. The first game. He couldn't believe the reaction that it was his league there. Earthquakes were part of his league. This was not the mls. This is an old league. Right. What the name of that [inaudible] I think what a memory guy. [00:06:00] Yeah, it's amazing. So he saw me there and somehow over the next year he said, I would really like to see George at a football game at Kansas City. And the manager were arranged it and I went in and this was a greatest. And now I'm actually with a really glamorous team. The Kansas City chiefs. Yeah, I'd go in unannounced. Unknown. Nobody knew me. Arrowhead was, it was arrow. It was, wow. It was 60,000 people, 60 70,000 people. Speaker 3:[00:06:30] I went in before the first quarter. I started working the crowd. By the first quarter I had shares going anywhere. By the first half I had back and forth. Kansas City. Oh No. Casey Gay. See back and forth across the stadium. They couldn't believe it. The whole game. They stayed off. Seven 60,000 people stayed and they lost 45 to nothing and wow. And they still stayed in Lamar? I couldn't believe it. He said, when we have a game like this, nobody's here [00:07:00] at the end of the game. And they stayed. I want you full time. Wow. So you got hired full time, full time for the whole season for them. Wow. So you had a $35 per game and in the soccer, what would you be? Well now it went up to 500 a day. Wow. That was good. And that's pretty sweet. Yes. So you're starting to see, you're like, wow, I can, is this the first time when you're like, I could do this for a living? Speaker 3:Well, it started off a little earlier than that. When the [inaudible], the St Louis Blues called me back in like 1972 [00:07:30] and offered me a full time contract. This guy was like a renaissance guy. He owned the blues. He saw me at the, at the Oakland Seals Games. He thought it was so great. He wanted to hire me, he wanted me to quit teaching, come there, and he was going to pay me 12,000 bucks to do the 40 home games. I was making 9,000 a year full time. [inaudible] Lau. I couldn't believe it. So he made the offer, but it had to be in, can it only would it go [00:08:00] out and the offer would be effective if the Oakland seals folded? They were folding my, they were kept there for two more years. And both years you made the offer? Third Year came around, I was ready to go. I was ready to quit teaching and he got ill. Speaker 3:And you stopped working with the, uh, St Louis Blues. So I lost out of that, but it gave me the idea that somebody might pay me that much. So how'd you get to the first kind of, did you ever get a gig where it was like a whole season? Like after the Kansas [00:08:30] City? That was, was that for the chiefs? Did you do the whole, and the Kansas Cassidy, she's already the same time. The Colorado Rockies ice hockey hired me. The BC lions, Canadian football hired me. And that was all in 1975 76. So I was making enough money. I could quit teaching. Nice. So we're talking to crazy George who is the world's only full time professional cheerleader here on [inaudible] at professional male model. I like to think of myself like that. I'm sorry, I forgot that part. Okay. This is a method to the medicine. Speaker 3:KLX Berkeley 90.7 [00:09:00] FM. I'm your host deleon Huizar and so George, you got this crazy idea that you could do this for a living. Now I have a question. First of all, you've talked a lot about different sports. Is there a different tactics that you use in different sports? Actually not really. I act like a fe and wants to react. That's why I'm successful when I go into a game. Well maybe it wasn't that 45 and nothing Kansas City chiefs game that I've did [00:09:30] first, but I do the as many fan cheers as the fans want and I react like a fan wants to. I just stand up. The secret is I stand up, I turn around, I look at the feds, they look down and say, Hey, must be our leader. Cause I'm looking at them and said in the field, well you also have a loud drum that helps. Speaker 3:Well, I don't want to admit it, but 90% of my success is my drum. Don't give away all the secrets right here is the secret. Actually, without the drum getting people's [00:10:00] attention, I would have never been affected. That's my, my secret. I hit that drum. Everybody looks down at me. I wait for the action to die down so I can make them do what I want to do. They understand what I want to do. I get totally attention. I wait for the moment when the cheer should be done. I do that. Your everybody reacts. How do you get, I get like 99% reaction from the fans. So, um, you, you say that the, it's really, it sounds like it's like, um, you're locked into kind of like a vibe with [00:10:30] the fans. It's like it doesn't matter what the sport is, you're kind of playing back for them. Speaker 3:What they want to do. Right. And every sport is pretty similar except for the basketball. It's a tough sport for me to work because the action never stops. It's just up and down up there and they score like every 20 seconds. So with every 20 seconds, if I had to do a cheer, I would die at the end of the game. So basketball's a little tough for me to work. But all the other sports, they are just great. There's a lot of stoppage of the action, [00:11:00] you know, the, in the huddles, whatever they're doing, baseball, they're warming up. It's just great. So I can get in the cheers I need to get in. So what about um, the cheers themselves or is it more, are you like a like, um, you know, a improvisational master of just coming to you or do you come and prepare? Speaker 3:Like you have some cheers you're going to do no matter what? No matter what, I never practice. I never think about it. That was great. From the time I started that first game at San Jose State [00:11:30] with my drum and that my partner handed me. It was just a natural sense, I think. I don't know why I had it. I'm a fan, I guess, of sports, but you know, I just knew when to cheer, when not to cheer, what type of chairs, and I just made 'em up, never think about him. I'm watching the game. I'm thinking about the game. I'm looking at the action. I go, what type of shirt do we need here? And it just comes to me. I do the, it's always the right chair. It's always appropriate, never off colored. I've never done it off cover cheering my life. And, and [00:12:00] another secret why I'm successful is most of these other people that have come along and that in the later years, they get to these outlandish outfits. Speaker 3:They look like they're from Mars sometimes. Well, people don't want to cheer from a guy from Mars. They want to cheer. For me, a human know who that guy, he looks human and not, well maybe not quite human, but close. So they go, oh Geez, George is one of us. And He, they see me sweating. They, they see I'm working harder than the players, man. I get comments from the [00:12:30] fans the third quarter they'll go, George, you're working harder than the players. You're sweating. I sweat so much during the game. So I do see like the Jean shorts seem to be the signature look for you. Is that, is that like a, it had a signature is my signature and I had my Levi shorts on for the last 50 years. I think cheering, always wear the same old raggedy cutoff shorts. Yup. Nice. Okay. Speaker 3:So, um, let's talk about, you know, this [00:13:00] show's about innovation and of course being the first full time mail filtering cheerleader in the world is innovation enough, but you also created maybe the signature crowd move. Now I know it's a linear contention. We don't have to go there, but I'm going to accredit it to you. You, yes, I have it accredited by s, what is it called? New York Times credited me when they credited the paper of record is accredited. Crazy George the way ESPN. ESPN. So the wave [00:13:30] you invented, the way that I invented, the way I gotta die, the way my boat I invented at the Oakland A's, New York Yankee playoff game, October 15th, 1981. When Billy Martin was the manager, I literally bought the building longer. So you were there as a playoff game. People were excited. A's Yankees. Now, how'd you, how'd you come up with this idea of coordinating these like 50,000 people in the stadium? Speaker 3:There was 47,000 fans [00:14:00] and unfortunately for the other places that I actually was doing a pre wave, I was doing waves at other places. Fine. Fortunately there were smaller practice with national TV. There wasn't a lot of witnesses, so I don't, I really could take credit even earlier than that. But the Oakland A's game, I have it on video three separate times. Billy Martin was here, but Joe Garagiola was the Nancy announcer who's famous announcer and he, uh, he had testifies that was the first and best [00:14:30] wave he's at, he's ever, ever saw. So that's why I say that's the day I invented. But it took a process of about four years starting with a three section shear of San Jose state. Okay. Each section of the student body would stand up and just sell San Jose state. And from that idea, as as the years went by as a professional cheerleader, I had a lot of opportunity to do these three section chairs at different places, changing the name. Speaker 3:And finally I got to the Colorado Rockies [00:15:00] and I had to go Rockies, go chair three sections and it was looking good and a section over there wanting to get involved a little. So I tried to do go Rockies, go Rockies four sections and the first section wanted to do it and it kept going a little bit. And from there I said, well it's too complicated going, go Rockies go. So I just say stand up and yell, go. Yeah. So back then I was thinking of it more like the goat share, but they just go, go in. And when I started that and went all the way around the [00:15:30] Colorado Rockies arena, and so that really was about as close as to a wavy she'd get. Unfortunately. And it was, they loved it. But the Colorado Rockies only drew about 5,000 people in a 15,000 seat arena. Speaker 3:So it was very few opportunities to do it in. It was never televised. I never had it on video. So that's the idea of where it started. But the color from there I came, I brought it back and started to Oakland. That's the day I invented. [00:16:00] So at the A's game, um, how hard was it to communicate to the fans? Cause you now everybody knows how to do away. That's right. How did, how did you like telepathically tell 47,000 people to stand up at the right times? A lot of coordination involved in a wave. Yes. See, I know the power of booing. Okay. So I went to three sections and got them organized and by then I'd already been doing the wave at high school rallies. What was continuous, they didn't have, they didn't have aisles, so I had to just [00:16:30] do it continuously. So I knew what I wanted. Speaker 3:So I went to these three second, I said, well you guys stand up. And as they, as it comes around the next day, I want you to stand up. Then I went to the next section. I was screaming and yelling and then I went back to them and said, they understand what you're going to do. You stand up. Then you guys stand up. Then you guys, while I'm yelling so loud at him and I'm preparing this and this all started like in the fourth inning, but I hadn't started yet, but I told him what I wanted, but then I said, when we start this people down there, [00:17:00] we'll not know what they're supposed to do or even see it coming so when it dies and it will die, boom. And so they are already, and I waited for a break of the action and you had to wait for a foul ball or something to give a couple of, you know, 30 40 seconds of break. Speaker 3:So it came and I don't know what the break of action was, but I got the three sessions going, I they started, it would've been since I was yelling so loud at these three to get them organized. I'd say the next four or five could hear me and they sort of got [00:17:30] the idea what they wanted to do. So I started, went about seven, eight sections and died right out. And I had my three or four sections blue and it was a great bu I started a second time. This time it went all the way around. I started way out in the left field and I started it. It came around and went all the way to behind home plate and died again. Now everybody booed and this was a great book. Now everybody in the state have figured out, [00:18:00] oh, we see what he wants. Speaker 3:Started the third time. And it just started rolling and all three decks did it. It was marvelous. They kept coming around with all the way to the outfield all the way back, gets back to upstanding. Everybody in the three sections stands up in unison and applauds. And I'm going, no, you don't get some times to this. It's supposed to gave going. So I started the fourth time, all three deck scape and when it came by, my section [00:18:30] was like a locomotive. I mean it just ripped on by kept long going, went around about seven, eight times. Cloud Whitten nuts. Joe Garagiola was up there and the booth going crazy. Get that on video, that thing. And they didn't know how to film with all the cameraman. The first couple of shots you see the wave all you see as a couple of people, the far right of the screen sort of sitting down. Speaker 3:Everybody else is just sitting cause they're behind it. But they finally got a good shot of it. Nice. [00:19:00] So we're the, we're talking to crazy George here on Kale expert cleans method to the madness. I'm murals telling Huizar and he's telling us about how he invented the wave as the first glorious appearance of the wave on this planet. And now it's pretty much all. Everybody does it everywhere. Oh, everywhere. Everything. Everywhere is the world and the world calls it the Mexican wave. What? Yes, the whole world. It's not the crazy wave. And I have a Seattle trying to claim it, but they did it two weeks. They don't. I finally have them shutting up most of the time, but it's hard to take on [00:19:30] the world. But it went down to the World Cup in an 86 a Mexico had it and they'd already seen the wave up here. Speaker 3:They took it down and they were doing it. All the venues in Mexico for the World Cup game, the whole world saw it. Now the whole world calls it the Mexican wave. So in the A's game, what did the players do as a playoff game? Was like a really high pressure game and all of a sudden the crowd goes nuts. Been for nothing on the field today. Did, was there any comments afterwards? Oh, I mean, the fans loved it. I mean, I, I think I've had 50,000 [00:20:00] fans come at me. Say they were there when it was only 47,000 week. Oh, I was there George. And we saw it. It was the greatest thing. Cool. Well, um, that's like your probably your signature cheer. Like [inaudible]. Everybody knows it, but it's not my signature cheer for when I know I've had the fans in my hand and I know I've succeeded. Speaker 3:That's my back and forth cheer across the stadium with I do KC if it's Kansas City and [00:20:30] I the first, the first Houston oil game I ever did, but Adams hired me because he saw how great I was in Kansas City and he said, George, he says, how long is it going to take you to get Houston Oilers back and forth the game? How many games? And I said, I'll do it the first game. No. And then he says, he says, well, I'm going to get a microphone for you so you can tell everybody. I said, I don't use a microphone. How's it asked you? Have you used a bullhorn or anything? No, not until the last couple of years. [00:21:00] I use a Mike some of the time up till like five years. I never used a microphone. Just your disappear, my voice. But then I says, he said, oh, the advertise you. Speaker 3:I want to advertise. Everybody knows you're here. And I said, no, I don't need advertising. I'll come in unknown. I don't want any microphone. Why? What, how? What do you think about it that way? What? Well, you don't want any help. What does it more way? No, it's, it's, maybe I'm a coward because I don't want the burden of everybody expecting something from me and [00:21:30] I just go in and they really, they don't know who I am. They're just sitting there and all at once, or is this crazy guy in this thing? There's a crazy psi in the next session and an hour later I've hit 40 sections and everybody's going, who is this guy? And they're not thinking about following me yet. Maybe for the first 2040 minutes I'm getting each little section cheering, but every, every section I do, I get a chair. The next section I get allowed to cheer. Speaker 3:Next session allowed a chair next to the point where I can now tie in four or five [00:22:00] sections to a really loud share for the third of the place. And I keep getting work in every section everywhere. So I'm up close and personal. I'm threatening their lives and then it gets to the point, I tell one side, I'm going to the other side and I'm going to yell, Kay, what do you think you're supposed to say? And I, and about 20 minutes later on the other side of the Sam setting up, we're yellingK , but of course not that many people on the c sides ready to go. But once I do, theK is [00:22:30] so loud and then like pointed the other side, I'm waiting, it doesn't come back very loud. The boom comes here and they all boom. When the next one I do k when I point to that, see it's twice as loud as the k and they go nuts over. Speaker 3:But once it starts, it just adds energy to each side. They want to outdo each other's competition in the stands and then I know the team is going to bring me back. All right. So that's, that's the victory you've got. Um, [00:23:00] the wave is the signature thing, but it's really the call and response when you feel like you really oh yeah. Once I rated that back and forth share across the state, they've never, nobody's ever, ever even saw something like that ever. I mean, and now they're seeing this huge, massive response from all the fans and the owner of the team usually comes up after the game says, Oh, want to hire you? Well, let me ask you about, that's like the height. What about like as a professional cheerleader, you've probably had some lows. Like what was, can you give us a story of [00:23:30] you tried something you thought it was like the greatest idea ever? Speaker 3:I know. Just like you couldn't get them to do it and nope. Nope. Never happened. Really. I, I've had one out of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of games I've done, uh, over a teams, well over a hundred teams, but some of the teams I've done 50, 60 times. So I don't know what that multiplies out to, but I have been lots of games. I just never added them up. But I did add up. I've appeared in front of 25 million [00:24:00] fans in front of them. Wow. Out on TV. So it's been a bit more TV. I mean, you've been to playoff games and lots of people have seen you. Right? Wait, I lost track. What was I answering? A quick question. Was I answering well, you said I stumped you. I asked you, have you ever flopped to say, oh well I did have one bad experience and w I still want to kill the group. Speaker 3:It was a, I don't know what the team was. It was a football team and they're bringing me in. I'm going in the same way. I always go in on announce unknown, no microphone. [00:24:30] And some PR guy comes up to me before the game says, you know what, we get George, we've got a big ad campaign going and we're gonna have 12 lookalikes like you carry in drums and then we're going to give them a ward. Who's the, who's the best crazy George. So they got 12 guys looking like me running around and nobody's ever, ever saw me work to start with. I've never been there and I could have killed this guy. Bad idea. It was a terrible idea. And I at the end of the game, [00:25:00] the only solace I have is a, say they awarded some guy, you know, the prize for being the best crazy George look like. Speaker 3:And I had like 10 people standing by me when they awarded. They said, Whoa, crazy George, you're better than them. Why didn't you, you should have got the award. They were pathetic. They were great and I wasn't great. That was so much distraction. That was me. A failure. You're, you know, you're an artist. You can't, they shouldn't be trying to mess with your process. But that was one game out of thousands I've done. Okay, well let me ask a [00:25:30] different question. What's the most dangerous cheer you done? I was looking at some videos of you like balancing and like have you, seems like you're pushing the envelope a little bit. Is there any anyone that's a dangerous thing that got dangerous was my entrances. I made a lot of entrances when I got with the San Jose earthquakes. Um, I started doing, uh, working with Dick Berg, the general manager. Speaker 3:He says, well, want you to bring the ball in the first game? Our opening game in 74 so he had me come, coming in, the ambulance hitting in the back and the whole, the whole crowd [00:26:00] went dead silent years. This ambulance coming in, pulls up in front of the player's bench. They think some player, it died. It's the first day and they didn't know what was going on. They pull a Gurney out, I'm under the blanket. I pull it off and they go nuts. And that's how the game started. Then I had to topic, yeah, every game on a helicopter. One day it's a copter was fun and I'd belt the buckle, but I'd stand on the outside rail. But it was like us standing out you that I came in and Ferrari's. I came in, I came in with a lie and now this is why it gets [00:26:30] absurd. Speaker 3:I came in with a full grown for 150 pound lion and the trainer we get to, we'd get the center field that trainer trips a lion attacks him. No, this, she has life long friends. There are earthquakes. No, no. This was in Dallas, that Dallas Tornado, and now underneath the line he is bleeding. He's getting mauled. I'm 10 feet from an old in my drum and I, when I was with the lion trainer, he told me, never, ever hit your drum around [00:27:00] the lion. I said, good advice. Well, now he's underneath me, underneath the lion and out from underneath that line, I hear the stupidest comment I ever heard. He yells, damn off me. He can't be talking to me. I thought, and I look around the only other guy on the field, and then he had the gall to say it again, get him off me. Speaker 3:Well, what could I do? I took my drum and I went and the lion stopped eating him to try to eat you. This spun right [00:27:30] around and looked at me. I did not like this, but I had to do psych. I don't know if I had to do it, but I hit it when it took like four or five seconds. And by the end the other lion trainer that was off the saw what was happening and by the time that all happened he had already come to the seat and grabbed the other line and helped the guy off and he had to go to the hospital cause he was bleeding well. So you're also, we'll add that to the resume line line trainer nine Tamer. I was a very good line train for four seconds. All right, so [00:28:00] we're talking to crazy George here on KLX Berkeley. Speaker 3:You've got a couple more minutes. So we talked about the earthquakes. So it's coming full circle. You're starting the New Year of Christening the new stadium, right? What's going on with a lot of things going? Yes. I'm Chris sitting in the new stadium on March 22nd that's their first game at home. We're going to christen that. I'm going to be the Grand Marshall of the Rose White and blue parade in San Jose with 35,000 people on the 4th of July. Nice. Yeah, they asked me to be the Grand Marshall. [00:28:30] I'm an, I'm practicing my queen wave and I've been doing corporate meetings. I've been, and my gut, my book, God, you got to talk about my book. So how did this book come about? Oh, my book, my book is called Crazy George. Still crazy after all these cheers and all the fans, just Kevin asking me to write it. And then I did have a controversy with the Seattle about the wave and I wanted to document that in the book. Speaker 3:So I documented that. And then also from writing the book, I found [00:29:00] out I was a huge factor in the 12th man factor for the Santos, for the NFL Seahawks ball for the Seahawks. So I had that strand. But yeah, I, I've loved the book. I took it. I, in fact, I don't know if I'm prejudice, but I think it's maybe the greatest sports book ever written. It could be. It's likely excellent cover. I have it in my hands here. And thankfully, you know, you've cheered for a lot of teens, but you kept it real with the A's or that's who you're representing on the cover. So thank you. [inaudible] [00:29:30] because I invented their wave there and a lot of the articles are about the wave where a lot of book is about the waivers. And so I thought that was very appropriate. I had the greatest time with the A's, the Haas family. Speaker 3:Kepi just treated me great. It was fabulous. So it's called crazy George, the inventor of the wave still crazy after all these cheers. Can you find it on Amazon or something like that? That's on Amazon and it's on a kindle and it's on my website. Crazy. george.com and if you don't look at my website, I'll slash your tires. Yeah. [00:30:00] So there you have a threat from one and only crazy George. It starts with a k. That's how you spell a z. Y. That's right. She's never been a teacher. Yeah. Well you're a shop teacher, so, right. So crazy. george.com yes, that's my website. And then it just like it in the book. I have a lot of pictures on it. Yeah. And lots of pictures. There's videos, there's some really great stuff up there. And so I really wanna thank you for coming in today. Speaker 3:Crazy. George was great to meet you and hear the stories about your 40 plus years of being [00:30:30] the world's only full time professional cheerleader. I like that they got myself professional male model and professional [inaudible] and nominee from people's sexiest man alive, self nominated. And um, that's all the time we have for today. Um, and it's going to be the 35th anniversary. Actually, just a mention of the wave being created this next summer. You can go to the ace and love to go to the ace 35th anniversary. So Mr. Wolf, if you're here, [00:31:00] if you're listening to this, let's get on that. Get Crazy George out to the Colosseum and you are listening to methods of madness on KALX Berkeley 90.7 FM. Thanks again for coming in and crazy Jordan. Everybody have a great Friday. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Save the Frogs is a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising awareness of the world wide to amphibians die off.TRANSCRIPTSpeaker 1:You're listening to k a l x Berkeley 90.7 FM. And this is method to the madness, a show coming at you from the Public Affairs Department here at Calex dedicated to exploring the innovative spirit of the bay area. I'm your host Ali Huizar and today we have Dr. Carey Krieger Krieger with us. Thanks for letting me know the pronunciation and thanks for joining us. Yeah, it's great to be on. Thanks for having me. And I'm, Carrie is the founder of save the frogs. So we want to talk about your organization. But first, um, [00:00:30] I always like to start the program off with talking about kind of the problem statement. So someone will start an organization because they see an issue. What's the issue that you saw? Speaker 2:Yeah, the problem is that frogs and other amphibians are rapidly disappearing around the world. So there's about 7,000 known species of Amphibians, of which at least 2000 of them are threatened with extinction. And a couple of hundred species have gone completely extinct in recent decades. And this is an extinction, uh, [00:01:00] rate several thousand times faster than normal. And when I started save the frog, very few people knew that there was even an issue. So to me this was one of the world's most significant environmental issues, most rapidly disappearing group of vertebrates. And if people don't know that there's a problem, then it's extremely difficult to fix the problem. And Amphibians are extremely important for a variety of reasons. They're eating ticks and mosquitoes and flies that spread bad diseases. We don't want a frogs are very important [00:01:30] in the food chain if they disappear than other animals have problems. A lot of our pharmaceuticals and medical advances come from research on Amphibians. I amphibians are bio indicators. They're sensitive to environmental change. So they're an early warning system of environmental degradation. And also frogs are really cool people like frogs. It's our ethical and moral duty to protect them. So I started save the frogs because there was no nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting amphibians and there was a lot that [00:02:00] needed to get done that was not getting done. Okay. Thanks for, uh, I think that explains the problem pretty well. So, um, Speaker 1:before we get into that kind of the starting of the organization and what it does. Um, can you tell us a little bit about your back? Speaker 2:Where, where do you get your education and how did you come to notice this problem? I grew up in Virginia. I grew up on about 20 acres of land when I was seven. My parents built a pond on the property, which has attracted at least seven different species of amphibians. [00:02:30] And I spent a lot of my childhood and a lot of my um, adult time when I visit my parents, going down to the pond and hanging out there and being exposed to frogs and wildlife and just being outdoors. And then in my teens I started hiking and camping a lot. And eventually when I finished college, actually studied mechanical engineering in college, but was never too into that. And I'd never thought of environmental science as a potential career or environmental conservation. And by the [00:03:00] end of college I realized that was a possibility. Started traveling around the world a lot and camping, going to national parks. I really liked being out in the wilderness, but I noticed that there was a lot of environmental destruction all around and I wanted to do something about that. So eventually he went to Australia and spent four years there doing my phd in environmental science, studying the ecology of Kitsch Radio Mycosis, which is an amphibian disease that's causing trouble for amphibians here in California and all around the [00:03:30] world. So I learned all about amphibians when I was in Australia. And also I learned what was not getting done that needed to be getting done to save them. Speaker 1:Okay. So you're doing your phd in Australia and you're studying an amphibian disease. And then I like to talk about this kind of moment of inspiration, that Sundar bolt that hits and a a, uh, entrepreneur or social entrepreneur like you who decides, Oh wow. You know, I have now seen this issue. I'm going to take the leap. Am I do something about it? Can you describe [00:04:00] for us, when was that, did you have that kind of moment of inspiration? Speaker 2:Yeah, there are probably a couple. Uh, I'll first make it clear. When I was in Australia, I was definitely in the world of academia and it's a lot different than being in nonprofits and not many people who are doing their phd go down the path that I have gone. So before I did my phd between um, college and do my phd, I took many years off and one of the main ways that I supported myself was tutoring, private tutoring, uh, math and chemistry and [00:04:30] a couple of other subjects. So I was essentially working for myself and I really liked working for myself. And during my phd it was very independent research as well. So it was kind of like I was working for myself and I wanted to continue doing that. Also when I was at the University of sell out of bureaucracy. And I also figured that working for government would have at least as much bureaucracy. Speaker 2:So I wanted to work for myself. And at the end of my first year of doing my phd, even though I'd had very little prior amphibian experience, [00:05:00] I got two large research grants, one from the Epley Foundation for research. And one from the National Geographic Society's Committee for research and exploration. And being that I had, uh, very little experience up to that point and did not even yet have my phd, I figured it must be incredibly easy to raise money to do this kind of work. So even though that was a false belief, I went with that. And eventually when I finished my phd, I was, I was, my original plan [00:05:30] was to continue doing research and to do a postdoc for a couple of years, but I could not think of any postdoc that would be as important as starting a nonprofit. So, uh, I had had the idea for save the frogs in my head for probably four years, but never put too much thought into it. Speaker 2:And then, uh, about nine months after finishing my phd, the thought just hit me that now's the time I need get a webpage going and you know, at least [00:06:00] get this thing started a little bit. I was not, I did not yet have any full time position from after my phd. So I had time to start doing what I thought needed to get done. Step one was build a website so that other people in the world would find out what the problem is and know that I was out there trying to do something about it. And what I, what was the timeframe for that? When did the webpage get built? Well, I started save the frogs in early 2008. So we've been [00:06:30] around for about six and a half years. So I built a minimal website and then I've always been adding to it. I add to the website, saved the frogs.com, uh, you know, several times a week. So it's now got several hundred pages of um, free, freely accessible information. Okay. Speaker 1:And we're talking to Dr Kerry Krieger of uh, save the frogs.com here on KALX Berkeley 90.7 FM. And this is method to the madness. And we are talking about how he started this organization [00:07:00] to save the frog. So let's talk about what saved the frogs does. So that's a little bit of how it got created. You started out with a web page and we'll get a little bit more to where you are today. I actually, I found you because you have a retail store front. I'd love to understand a little bit more about the strategy behind that. But let's talk about what is the focus of save the frogs? How are you going out and trying to execute your, your mission of saving the frogs? Speaker 2:Yeah, so we're a nonprofit organization. Our mission is to protect amphibian populations and to promote a society that respects and appreciates [00:07:30] nature and wildlife. As I said, uh, back in 2008 for certain, very few people knew that amphibians were in trouble and rapidly disappearing. And for the first 18 months of our existence, all we did was environmental education. So creating free educational materials for download from our website, giving live presentations, inspiring other people to go out into their communities around the world and [00:08:00] educate people about amphibians. So one of the first things that I did was start save the frogs day, save the frogs. Jay has become the world's largest day of, uh, Amphibian Education and conservation action. The first year and saved the frogs. They always takes place for the last Saturday of April, first year that we had it, we had about 40 educational events in 15 countries and I was the only employee of Save the frogs back then. Speaker 2:Did Not have a much funding at all, but we still got events happening in 15 countries. I thought that sounds like it's [00:08:30] pretty successful program. Let's keep going at it. And uh, since that time, we've had almost a thousand educational events take place in 59 countries. And so what I do is provide education, materials and ideas to people and provide them inspiration so that they will go out into their community, do something beneficial for amphibians that may be giving a presentation to their students or taking people out into, uh, the field to see wild frogs in their native habitats. We've had protests, [00:09:00] we've had rallies, um, 5k events and other things to get the community involved. So that was, um, our main focus in the early days, save frogs was all environmental education. Since then, we've also had, uh, campaigns to get bad pesticides, bands such as atrazine. And, uh, UC Berkeley has a long history of atrazine research. Speaker 2:Atrazine is one of the most commonly used herbicides on the planet. It's been banned in the European Union since 2004. Uh, it's [00:09:30] produced by the world's largest pesticide companies and Genta who's actually based in Switzerland where it is illegal, but we use about 80 million pounds of this herbicide here in America, primarily on corn. It's an endocrine disruptor that can turn male frogs into females at two and a half parts per billion, most commonly detected pesticide in us groundwater, rainwater and tap water. So we've been working to get that band. We've delivered about 25,000 petition signatures to the U S Environmental Protection Agency. [00:10:00] I've spoken there on several occasions. We've had a rally, a saved the frogs, a rally at the steps of the EPA and anyone who wants to learn more about that, save the frogs.com/. Atrazine A. T. R, a. Z. I. N. E. We've also had campaigns against frog legs. We've gotten frog legs out of about 77 supermarkets and two restaurants gotten dissect frog dissections out of about 18 schools. Speaker 2:And, uh, we've gotten habitat protected. [00:10:30] We stopped the construction of a 12 story condominium complex that was destined or slated to be built on Fowler's toad habitat in Canada. And, uh, more recently we've gotten into building wetlands. So we started building wetlands at schools and we planned to be continuing that program and, uh, have a goal of building a thousand wetlands over the next 10 years. California, about 90% of our wetlands have been destroyed or modified. So a lot of times when you go [00:11:00] out, um, walking or driving around, you're looking around, you may see dry fields and not even realize that that used to be a wetland. So one of the best ways we can help amphibians is to, um, create habitat for them or fix their old habitats that got drained. Oh, congratulations. Sounds like there's a lot of action that you've, you've generated to save the frogs. Speaker 2:And, um, but one thing I, when reading your website that struck me was, um, you know, the danger that the frogs are in and, and kind of their place in our ecosystem [00:11:30] gains a little bit about that because I don't think people really understand a critical, they are to the whole kind of, you know, the diversity on, on earth and how long their history is. So how, how much in danger are the frogs? Yeah, I am Fabian's have been around for in more or less their current form for 250 or 300 million years. So all life that's currently on earth is evolved. I'm on a planet that has amphibians. So amphibians are very important in [00:12:00] the food web. As I said before, they're eating flies, ticks, mosquitoes, uh, tadpoles are filtering algae out of the water. Most of us depend on community, um, filtration systems to clean our water. Speaker 2:So Tadpoles are actually keeping the cost of our water down by doing a lot of that filtration work. And, uh, birds, fish monkey, snakes, even dragon flies and beetles eat frogs, tadpoles and frog eggs. So a lot of animals depend on amphibians and if the amphibians disappear than lots of [00:12:30] other animal groups have trouble. And uh, let's see, I think your question was how threatened are they? Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, about 48% of all amphibian species are thought to be on the decline in numbers and about a third of them are already considered threatened with extinction. What threatened with extinction means is that if we don't do anything to mitigate those threats or to remove those threats, then we can expect those species to go completely extinct in the near future. [00:13:00] So that's a couple thousand species that could go extinct and the human population continues to grow. We're the cause of most of the problems that frogs face. And if people don't change their ways, then as the human population continues to grow, these threats will actually increase in the rate of extinction will increase. That's why we need drastic action to save the frogs. Speaker 1:And, um, another thing that struck me about when I was reading your website, we're talking talking to Dr Kerry Krieger, [00:13:30] the founder of save the frogs and you can check out more@savethefrogs.com. This is KLX Berkeley's method to the madness I'm here installing is, are one thing that struck me when I was reading your website, Carrie was um, that kind of symbiosis between frogs and humans. And specifically you talked about how they can be a leading indicator of major environmental issues because of the, is it the, um, Speaker 2:well frogs are bio indicators for a few reasons. They have permeable skin. [00:14:00] Their skin is a lot different than ours. Our skins meant to protect us by keeping things out, but amphibians can drink and breathe through their skin. That also means that bad pollution and pesticides can go straight through their skin and everything eventually makes it down to the waterways cause gravity's going to bring all those bad chemicals from factories, from people's houses, from cars down to the water. Even if it went up a smoke stack and went into the clouds, eventually it's going to come down in the form of rain, get into the water bodies where the amphibians live and breed [00:14:30] and they have that permeable skin. So bad pollutants can go straight into their skin. So, uh, that's one reason they're considered bio indicators. Another is they're amphibious. That means they have two lives, one on land and one in water. Speaker 2:And if something goes wrong in either the terrestrial or aquatic realm, amphibians have trouble. Another problem is that they're slow to move. They can't just fly off like a bird could. If it's forest got chopped down, something happens to the frogs forest or the swamp where it's, it lives, then [00:15:00] it's very slow to move. Uh, it may get run over on roads, picked off by predators, uh, could dry up in the sun. And also a lot of amphibians are just not genetically predisposed to traveling long distances once they're an adult. A lot of them just stick to their pond where they're at. Speaker 1:Okay. So, um, yeah, it's, it's a really, um, as you said, as the, all the kind of pollutants flowed down into the frogs watching what's happening to them could be a leading indicator of what's going to happen to us. That's another [00:15:30] reason for us to really be worried about their ecosystem. Sure. Humans are Speaker 2:disconnected from our relationship with the natural world, but we've evolved here. It's only in very, very recent history such as less than 1% of the time that we have existed that we have had modern day conveniences. But everything that we use comes from the natural world. All the minerals, fresh water, clean air, all of our natural resources for clothing [00:16:00] and building homes, all comes from the natural world. If we disturb our ecosystems, then we're going to have serious problems in the future. And you know, we can, we can coast by humans. They're doing pretty well in general right now, but it's at a major expense of driving wildlife species to extinction. We were in the middle of a mass extinction right now. So even if humans are waking up and being able to get our food really easily, do we want to live in a world where we're driving lots [00:16:30] of animals to extinction? Um, we've, you know, we all live on the planet. We have a right to exist. Frogs have a right to exist. Future humans have a right to exist on a planet with healthy ecosystems and wildlife. Speaker 1:Yeah, I find it really interesting about how you, you're talking about a major, major issue, but you're focusing on, you know, frogs is almost like a symbol of that issue, which is a really great tactic for lots of, um, people who start organizations to really be focused on one particular problem that really is representative of [00:17:00] a, of a bigger problem. So, Speaker 2:yeah, I think in saving frogs, we save a lot of other wildlife species and make a better world for humans. A lot of the actions that it takes to protect amphibians make the world a better place in general. And I do agree when I started, say the frogs, I didn't think of it as I'm going to do something different and focus on one species. But I did quickly noticed that most environmental groups are focused on, um, a type of action such as, [00:17:30] um, restoring habitat or a geographical location such as save some valley or something like that. And it has been really good working with frogs, uh, because people did not know a lot about them. And it does allow us to focus in on one, uh, one topic and really get into, yeah. Well, let's talk about your organization. So you started at, you had said you got to a fun from our grant, from the National Geographic that was actually during my phd and for my phd research. Speaker 2:[00:18:00] So when I started saving the frogs, uh, no, we did not have any funding. I had about $3,000. That was my, uh, life savings pretty much, and dedicated that towards getting saved, the frogs going paint off initial costs. And I actually, um, worked unpaid for 18 months before there was enough money to give me any kind of salary. So, uh, starting a nonprofit definitely is not easy. Um, certainly if you don't have wealthy financial connections and it takes, just takes a lot of hard work. [00:18:30] But we are able in this day and age to get a lot done based on having great technology and you know, you can start a website, it doesn't cost much. You can go out and give presentations, you can give free education, you can get people involved, you can use social media to get people involved. So there's lots of ways to run an organization on a low cost though, you know, it's certainly not ideal. Speaker 2:And if we did have a lot more funding we could get a lot more done. Currently we've got a myself [00:19:00] and two part time employees in the USA. We also have two full time employees in Ghana, west Africa where we have an international branch. But you know, we have so many campaigns that we could be working on. I could easily have a staff of 20 if we had funding available. And what is the primary funding sources? Just grants that you, you go after a, generally it's been donations from individuals. So just people who like what we do donating. And we also have memberships and I encourage everyone out there [00:19:30] to go to save the frogs.com/members become a member of say the frogs. We also have merchandise. We have an online store, uh, where people can buy organic cotton tee shirts, tote bags made of recycled plastic bottles and other eco-friendly fraud themed merchandise that helps us raise funds, help spread the word, gives people a easy way to start a conversation about frogs and educate their friends about frogs. Speaker 2:And we also, as he said, have a retail store slash education [00:20:00] center in Berkeley at San Pablo Avenue at the corner of Dwight. Uh, it's near cafe tree s in the Sierra Club and ecology center. And so people are invited to come by there. We actually, um, have occasional events of interest there too. And we have an events page on saved the frogs.com. And yeah, we also do occasionally get some grants. We just received a $24,000 grant from lush cosmetics. So sometimes those grants are from corporate donors. We've gotten fund [00:20:30] funding from nature's path, Inviro kids cereal, frog tape, chase bank. And we recently got a $20,000 grant for our habitat restoration efforts in west Africa from Disney worldwide conservation fund. Interesting. What does a, what does it make up company care frogs? Speaker 2:Well, yeah, we've actually gotten funding from the body shop also in the past. And I think some of these, a cosmetics company, they're into um, animals and that they don't do animal testing so they have some [00:21:00] inherent interest in animals. And also one thing I've noticed through the years is that a lot of our donors tend to be females and so perhaps females have a more caring side of them, I'm not sure. But that kind of goes along with it. So, uh, the body shop and lush cosmetics definitely have environmental giving programs, which I think, I personally think that all corporations should have environmental giving programs cause all corporations have an effect on the environment. Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, we're talking to doc, Dr Carrie Krieger, the founder [00:21:30] of save the frogs.com and you're listening to KLX Berkeley 90.7 FM. This has meant to the madness and carry you the one thing we have, you know, people who listen to this show who might be students who are thinking about, you know, some of the thoughts that you had as you knew you had some passion around this topic or you took this leap and now it's six years later after you took the leap and you know, you've established yourself and you know, you're the brand. If you will have saved the frogs and you've done so many education and so many actions, um, what kind of advice would you [00:22:00] give to a young person who wants to, who has it passionate about a topic like you have, um, and taking action against that passion? Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll start by saying that we're working on forming a save the frogs chapter at UC Berkeley. So if you're a student and you want to get more involved with save the frogs and definitely contact us, you can send an email to contact@savethefrogsdotcomorjustgotothesavethefrogs.com website or stop by our save the Frogs Education Center [00:22:30] at 25 24 San Pablo Avenue. And you can probably even talk to me when you're there in general, if you're interested, certainly in environmental issues, then I think the key is just learn as much as you can. Study hard, try to volunteer at most universities, there are graduate students doing wildlife research. You could probably use your help and you will learn a lot doing that. And also I think it's important too to volunteer at nonprofits. It's [00:23:00] a completely different set of skills you will learn. Then you generally learn while in the university and it's relevant and applicable to everyday life and professional life and broadens your perspective. Speaker 2:So the key, you know, with, with any career when you're starting out, you have to do your work in school, but you also have to volunteer, find an internship. Um, find a men mentor if possible and just work on getting all the experience you can, uh, try to [00:23:30] stick with things that inspire you. If you're doing some volunteer work and it's not interesting, then it's probably not what you should be doing. So I would just keep, um, keep finding things that interest you and keep working with people who, um, you like they do. And then you'll build up a skill set and get ideas of your own with whatever path forward you want to pursue. Speaker 1:And then taking that idea, like you started your own organization, what would you, what would be your advice for starting an organization like you did? Speaker 2:Yes. [00:24:00] Only start an organization. If you are extremely passionate about your mission and you really want to, um, get that mission accomplished because it takes a lot of time and effort and dedication and there's a lot of difficult times and in the nonprofit world there's a very high chance, especially if you start your own nonprofit that you will not be getting paid for some of that time. Certainly in the early, um, weeks, months, possibly even years. So [00:24:30] yeah, start an organization if there's a need for it. And if you're, if you really enjoy the work that you're doing and you really think that it's important. Speaker 1:Okay. Thanks. And the last question I like to ask people sitting in your seat right now is, you know, you've put so much energy into creating this new organization that has this really amazing mission to save frogs. It's like everybody knows frogs are, we loves frogs and you're trying to save them and it's something everybody can get behind. Um, if you were, if everything wants [00:25:00] to cope it completely right for you and your organization five years from now, what would save the frogs look like? Speaker 2:Yeah, we'd have a lot of people trained in how to build wetlands and we'd have a lot of schools, uh, and private land owners, building wetlands. And I would have an entire staff dedicated to building wetlands. Uh, that's, and I bring that up first topic because that's one of our major new focuses. Uh, we [00:25:30] now, um, have the ability to go out and fix land that was previously destroyed. And we've been, we've already started building wetlands at schools and it's really amazing educational opportunity for the students and teachers who are in, who are involved and it's great for the amphibians. And that school then gets an outdoor classroom for hopefully decades to come where they can spend time outside, which is something that in this day and age, a lot [00:26:00] of students certainly in America don't get the opportunity to do just based on the society that we now live in. So yeah, that's one of our huge focuses is building wetlands. And then I also want to have lots of chapters all around the world, whether they're university student chapters or just community chapters in lots of different countries. Speaker 1:Okay, great. Well, there's the vision from Dr Carrie Krieger, the founder of save the frogs. Um, a a Berkeley based [00:26:30] organization that has a worldwide vision to help our amphibian brothers and sisters survive into the next, uh, centuries and millennia or however long they've been. They've been around what, 300 million? So another 300 million years healthfully. So a, and you'd been listening to KLX Berkeley's method to the madness. My name is Ali [inaudible]. If you want to learn more about Carrie's work, you can go to save the frogs.com and uh, thanks for listening everybody and have a great Friday. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Ali Nazar interviews PhD Christine Boyle, Founder and CEO of Valor Water, a startup that provides monitoring infrastructure to help water utilities better manage supplyTRANSCRIPTSpeaker 1:You're listening toK , a l x Berkeley 90.7 FM, university of California and listener supported radio. And this is method to the madness of public affairs program coming at you from the basement of arrows hall talking to innovators all across the bay area. I'm your host Deleon Huizar and today we're fortunate enough to have Christine Boyle with us from valor water analytics. Hi Christine. Speaker 2:Hi Ali. Nice to be here. Thanks for having me. Speaker 1:Yeah, thanks for coming in. And um, we're excited to have you here and uh, you're [00:00:30] coming to us to talk about water. [inaudible] Speaker 2:I am, it's a, it's a hot topic here in the bay area in California this year. Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Your timing is good. So, um, and you're coming out, I think from a little bit of a different angle, you're talking a little bit less about from the kind of consumer side and more from the municipality side. Is that right? Speaker 2:That's right. Um, Speaker 1:so before we get into, I want to, I'll ask you just kind of on a high level, what's the problem statement? You're creating an organization to solve this problem. What is the problem [00:01:00] as you see it? Speaker 2:So, um, in a nutshell, um, essentially the u s water municipalities and utilities have been providing great water, clean, affordable water across the United States for a long time and they're very good at it. But things are changing. Climate is changing. Um, plumbing is changing, populations are changing. And, and along with that that utilities are kind of needing to change their game [00:01:30] a little bit too in order to respond to these changes. One thing we look at a lot is called we call the conservation conundrum. That is with people using less water, what's going to happen to kind of the revenue side of, of, of uh, utilities and keeping water affordable for everyone while people are using less water and that's actually affecting utilities bottom line. So, um, that, you know, that idea of conservation we know is a good, but it's a little tricky when you're in the business of [00:02:00] selling water and trying to keep it Speaker 1:affordable for people. That's really interesting. So is it, if from a statistical perspective, is it pretty clear that the water usage is, is shrinking? Speaker 2:It is across the country, um, water or you call, you know, from an economic perspective, you call it water demand, water demand, uh, is declining even as populations grow. We've seen it in places as far as from Seattle to Atlanta to New York, North Carolina, California, [00:02:30] uh, the average water use per household is going down, which is good. Speaker 1:Yeah. That's what we want. Yeah. So you're, you're kind of thinking past that in saying, okay, that's going to happen. That's right. And how do we make sure that water is still easily accessible and affordable to everybody? Speaker 2:That's right. Um, and so we provide solutions to water utilities in a number of ways to help them, um, find out who's saving water, who isn't, who might need some assistance in terms [00:03:00] of keeping water affordable, um, and how to sort of target things. And I know Obama used to say, let's do it with a, with a scalpel instead of a machete, kind of to make things a little bit more targeted to specific groups so we can help keep delivering that clean, fresh, nice water that everyone wants to come out of their tap when they turn that tap on. Speaker 1:Yeah. And it's amazing if you've ever traveled internationally, you really realize how much for granted we take having clean water come out of our taps [00:03:30] whenever we want it. Speaker 2:I know it's, it's really, I mean, when you think of American water utilities and the fact that you can turn that tap on without a second thought and know, you know, almost to a 100% level that that water's going to be clean and, um, that you can drink it, you can bathe in it. Um, strangely you use that same water to, you know, water your grass, which is a little odd. Um, but it's, I mean, American water utilities are just some of the best in [00:04:00] the world. And so the idea is to keep them strong even as things are, things are shifting. Speaker 1:Yeah. Interesting. Okay. So, um, that's the problem statements. [inaudible] statements, keep them strong. Yeah. Keep the infrastructure strong. So I think with that background, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you kind of came to this problem. Speaker 2:Um, that is a good question. Well, I studied water. That's how I started. Um, I was, you know, as a kind of more of a younger person. I traveled [00:04:30] the world and like you said, I traveled internationally and I saw um, places where water was really scarce and water was dirty and um, people weren't able to turn on their tap and get water. In fact, that would probably be what was making them sick a lot of the time. Um, so after some, some travels, especially a lot, I spent a lot of time in China, um, since some time in, in South Asia. Uh, came back to graduate school and stayed to study water. Um, [00:05:00] and um, I studied at University of North Carolina. I got a doctorate there and um, worked with many water utilities and was, you know, first of all just really impressed with, with what water utilities were doing. Speaker 2:But I also saw that there were a lot of things that utilities didn't know. And a lot of this was around, um, having a closer look at what, what their customers were doing. And I knew that because I, you know, I also am from Seattle and I knew amazon.com for example, knows exactly what [00:05:30] their customers do. They know, they can know, for example, after you click around on the website, if you're, if you want your Diana Ross CD or you want a power saw, like they're able to tell you what kind of customer you are and to target different types of things to you. And I thought, wouldn't it be interesting if we could kind of build a set of tools so that what our utilities would know, are you an irrigater? Are you a large family? Are you a renter? Um, and be able to kind of pinpoint, um, programs and different types of, uh, messaging [00:06:00] and in a similar way. Um, so I studied that for a long time. North Carolina really enjoyed my time there and then eventually got the call to, uh, come west and came back this way. Speaker 1:Okay. So, um, that something that you just said to too makes me wonder, and we're listening to Christine Boyle, who's the founder and president of valor water analytics, a, um, a, a startup out of San Francisco, right. Based in San Francisco. That's correct. [00:06:30] Um, and so one of the things you just said, and this is method to the madness by the way, on KALX Berkeley. I'm Eileen Huizar and, and I want to talk about, you said inefficiency or you, you inferred that if the, if the utilities want, they're trying to understand more about the their user. That's right. Cause they're, cause they're using water incorrectly. They need to educate them. Is that, is that the problem that you're trying to get at? Speaker 2:Yeah. Um, I mean it depends what the utilities goals are. Every utility is different. And, you know, there's so much [00:07:00] talk right now, the big, you know, Governor Brown came out on Tuesday with his announcements about the drought and there's been a lot of, um, people kind of pointing fingers around the state and saying, you know, hey, look at the coastal regions. They're not decreasing their water use. Um, look at this region. They're not decreasing their water use. And when it, when it comes down to is if you have a great supply, you can use all that water you want. So, um, utilities are only constrained by their supply. So you [00:07:30] can't, there's no kind of like one size fits all rule. Um, we do see that with populations growing and especially in places here like here in California, that efficiency overall is a good thing. And even if you have supply today, you don't always know that what your supply is going to be like tomorrow. So con conservation and efficiency in that way are kind of, um, securing, uh, future. Um, but that being said, I mean, people love their gardens. People love watering their lawns [00:08:00] and if you have supply and if you're willing to pay for that, there can be an efficient use there. But Hey, you gotta pay. Speaker 1:Yeah. Well I guess what I'm asking is, um, the, uh, the Amazon's use case for the analytics is very clear cause they want to sell me more stuff. Yeah. What is the utilities use case for the analytics? Like how, like, like besides just knowing how much water I spend, why would they care whether I'm a family or an irrigator or whatever. Speaker 2:Often it's, it's often, [00:08:30] you know, it can be for different reasons. One is they might, you might be a group that they're trying to protect. Um, like for example, when a utility raises its rates, um, and, and is trying to kind of drive efficiency through its rates, they might end up hurting large families. And that's typically in a pretty vocal voice, um, amongst kind of customer groups. Uh, because those large families, you know, they're doing the and taken five showers a day and such. So they're not necessarily inefficient [00:09:00] users, but they're getting hit with the rate that is meant to target inefficient user. So it's, it's the idea is to kind of, um, the idea behind the analytics and what we call kind of this like business intelligence is to, um, be able to target programming and pricing. And for renters, for example, we're in Berkeley and I lived in a college town for a long time too. Renters often are beholden to the plumbing and leakiness of whatever their landlords do. [00:09:30] Um, so if you know where the renders are, you might be able to, you know, kind of give those landlords low flow toilet rebates and things like that so that the renter, the landlord is gonna help, um, kind of, or the utility in the landlord ultimately will help that, that student, that Grad student, um, behave more efficiency efficiently and have a lower bill. Speaker 1:Gotcha. So it's kind of the, the thought of the knowledge with the knowledge comes the power. They can innovate and they can figure out different angles [00:10:00] to optimize the infrastructure. Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right. And it's so it's not, you know, it's not to sell more water for sure, but it's to, um, you know, kind of approach things in a more, every group is different. Let's, let's all kind of have a, a case that works for us in terms of how we use water Speaker 1:now. Um, was there, uh, was there some incident with water on your trip that made you, did you get sick from water or something and what turned on the water love? Speaker 2:Wow. I have gotten sick from it. [00:10:30] Um, let's see. Well, you know, I think that water's really interesting. I mean, there's so many different aspects of it. You see it, the artists love to draw water. Uh, you know, there's sort of the religious and spiritual aspects of water. Um, there's the environmental aspect of water. But what really drew me into the water was water as kind of a human right and something that I thought like, all people should have access to clean and affordable water and, and, you know, have crossed [00:11:00] this world. They, they just don't. And that a way to kind of empower people to, you know, like take care of their families and have jobs and do good in the world is making sure that they don't get sick. And, and I did get sick from water. I mean, I didn't, I haven't had, um, like typhoid or cholera, knock on wood, but I certainly have lots of friends that have and know lots of people that have, and I've seen that it's just sort of a needless, um, impediment for people to, to live their lives. [00:11:30] Um, and so it, it inspired me, this sort of this, this human right to water in a human right to clean water. Um, that's kind of led me on this long journey and it's been a lot of fun. Speaker 1:Yeah. So you, you, um, the journey kind of began with the phd, it sounds like, so you're now you're Dr. Christine Boyle and that's, that sounds really cool. And you decided to start a company. Yeah. So how did, how did you get to that point of if of attacking water from [00:12:00] this perspective of, of starting a company to all of it? Speaker 2:Um, you know, I, I love being a graduate student and I, and I enjoy kind of the scholarly contributions. Um, so a couple of things happen. One is that, you know, I, I kind of have a bit of impatience about myself that I kind of, I really liked kind of the action and putting, implementing ideas and seeing things. Um, kind of on the ground, bring around the good that I, [00:12:30] that I was kind of seeking in the, to, you know, for my career. Um, academia does that in a, in a more slow paced way. Um, but I can say this to all the students that might be listening to is that I was lucky as a student to, uh, work on a really cool research project. Um, and that research project was this, you know, customer sales analysis that I did at University of North Carolina and with a great team there, environmental finance center. And when I saw that we had created something that we could [00:13:00] kind of scale and bring to, um, to the world, to the market, that was kind of too exciting for me, um, to turn, to turn back from. So I just, you know, I was like, you know, to take a your homework project, your, your Grad school project and then like turn it into bring it to market was just an opportunity that I just saw was like ripe at that moment. Speaker 1:Okay. So the, the genesis of valor water analytics was your research project or your, your graduate project? Speaker 2:It was a graduate project. Yeah, absolutely. And I, so I have a licensing [00:13:30] agreement with the University of North Carolina. Speaker 1:Okay, great. Uh Huh. To do this, to continue to do this work. Okay. So you came out as this um, doctoral student with this really great idea and then how did you go from there? I'm sure there's some graduate students of the year is just like, wow, she started a business. How do you go from there to moving across the country and actually starting a business and tell us a little bit about what is, what is the business, what does it do? So the business, yes. Speaker 2:Um, so we take a water utility customer [00:14:00] data, like, like billing data, de-identified. So everyone's protected. We don't, no one's looking at account numbers or anything, but we clean it and then we present it to utilities as you know, kind of a dashboard of sorts. Um, so they can look in at things like their revenue profile and what their different kinds of customer segmentation profiles look like. And um, even as much as like what, what is our, the financial impacts of drought, um, what are the financial impacts of conservation and how, how does that affect your future [00:14:30] planning? So it's served up as a, um, as a dashboard that they can click on and, um, is updated. And on the back end is the technology part, which is a lot of, you know, the database management and data cleaning and the analytics that we write. You know, for everyone who's in a social sciences or natural sciences, we r which is a great programming language. Um, so that was the part that as a company we, you know, we needed to get some investors, [00:15:00] we needed to test the market a little bit and see if there was gonna be an appetite for this product and, uh, kind of take it from a research project into something that was a little more, um, salient and kind of ready for the market to kind of, you know, put some more pizazz to it. Speaker 1:Yeah. So, and we're, we're speaking with Christine Boyle, the founder and CEO of valor water analytics, which is a water startup in the San Francisco, [00:15:30] in the, in the city of San Francisco. Uh, here on method to the madness on KALX Berkeley 90.7 FM. I'm your host. Tellin is r and d. Tell us a little bit about your investors and how you raise money. It's, um, yeah, it's a hard thing to do, especially for someone who's an academic, it's know something that you probably hadn't done before. How did that, how did that go down? Speaker 2:So, um, you know, I started how a lot of people start is kind of went to friends and family and I had a little, uh, we call like bootstrapping [00:16:00] in the lingo. Um, so started with a little pocket of money and got a demo ready that enough. You know, it's kind of like you need money to build your thing, but you can't build your thing until you have money. It's uh, it's, it's tough, especially when you're kind of new, you know, new to it all. You're not a kind of a seasoned veteran. Um, so I got a little money to build the demo and did that and we have, we have several contracts in the, in the [00:16:30] um, state of North Carolina that, you know, continued to feed some revenue and then built the demo and just kind of went around and started talking to investors and getting people excited. Um, and Speaker 1:is there a like a, a set of water investors like people very interest. Speaker 2:There's some really neat stuff going on in San Francisco. Let me name two that are really, really neat. First is Tamale, which is the accelerator that valor water analytics is in. There's 2014 summer cohort there at urban ventures [00:17:00] accelerator. And we are part of that group now. They've been incredibly helpful to us. Um, and that's solving urban problems is their, their niche and it's, they're terrific. There's another accelerator that we're affiliated with called imagination two o again, like an accelerator for solving water problems. So they also help connect us to, to investors and investment groups. Um, I got and you know, just to sort of like different things to do to Kinda dive into the deep [00:17:30] end of the pool. I joined the Industry Association and was elected chair of the American Water Works Association, um, financial management committee. So I, you know, really got to have my feet on the ground and um, be able to attend all the conferences and, and you know, like just go for it and kind of transition from being a scholar to more of a entrepreneurial side. Um, so I've been busy Speaker 1:and, uh, so you just jumped in and sounds like is the common, [00:18:00] we have a lot of entrepreneurs on this show, almost all entrepreneurs, and that's the common theme. It's just, it's the passion really for the problem that you're trying to solve. And that's what drives everything else. And, and yeah, you can kind of solve any problem as long as you've got that passion. Speaker 2:Yeah. And, and you kind of believe in your solution. And, and I really, I mean from the, we've worked with 12 utilities across the country now. We've just recently signed our, uh, first contract for northern California, which we're excited about. And like, we've seen the results. [00:18:30] And so that part, you know, keeps you going too. Yeah. Speaker 1:Yeah. So, um, so you went out, you started knocking on investor doors, making presentations, um, and then you've, now it's, and when did you start valor water analytics? Speaker 2:Oh, we incorporated in November, 2013. Speaker 1:Okay. So it's been about eight, nine months. I'm like that eight diamond or a baby. Yeah. And, um, and you said you have 14, Speaker 2:we have 14. Several of them were from working at the university. So [00:19:00] they are kind of like a legacy, a legacy contracts, I would call them. Um, so they, we've used, you know, we've done these analytics with them, but they're, you know, they're, they're kind of legacy contracts as opposed to, you know, kind of moving forward. Uh, and, and the California market. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Speaker 1:You made references some success that you've seen. Is that success in terms of getting new contracts or success in the usage of the product by the utilities? Speaker 2:Um, well [00:19:30] both. I mean, we're excited to kind of have points on the board with the contract, but mostly in the results. I mean, just to chat with the, you know, the CFOs and general managers in like, for example, we, we worked with a, uh, a utility that we're able to show them how much use their water use has changed and how much that, that's, um, kind of impacted their bottom line. And they, there was a drought in, uh, 2007, 2008 in North Carolina and we [00:20:00] saw that in fact a lot of their customers, they had aim for a 20% reduction, but 18% of their customers had reduced by 50%. That's, I mean, that's a lot. That's a big reduction. And although that's good, it also meant that they lost one point $2 million in revenue that year and they were kind of scratching their heads about, okay, how does that impact us moving forward? What do we do with that? Is that kind of a permanent shift downward? And we were able to help them, um, kind of strategize [00:20:30] around setting their conservation marks well re remaining, um, fiscally healthy. Um, so Speaker 1:interesting. Yeah, that's great. So it's really exciting nine months in and you're already got customers and getting feedback and this is a very, such a meaningful thing you're doing. So that's very exciting. It's been fun. Yeah. So again, we're talking to Christine Boyle, the founder and CEO of valor water analytics. And so I want to kind of pivot a little bit. We've been talking about your solution and it's really exciting what's going on with you. [00:21:00] Um, but now as someone who is studied water and has, um, an analytics company about water, so you know, a lot, so I wanna I want to ask about when everybody seems to be concerned about as a supply side of it, you're talking about the demand side, which we can control somewhat, but we can't control the supply side unless we start doing crazy desalination things or whatever. So what's your, as someone who sits in a, in this industry and has a lot of experience and knowledge, um, tell us a little bit about what you see on [00:21:30] the supply side. Speaker 2:So supply, I mean in, I think, you know, we can just kind of talk about an arid climate, a place where supply is constrained like California. Um, there are major huge investments going into securing supply and you know, like kind of like I said at the beginning of my e u you can secure more supply, you can disseminate, but it's very expensive. So I think that the, [00:22:00] the balance that communities need to, to, to come to is, okay, you can, there are supply options, but how do you, how do you do that in a way that's keeps water affordable for your community, um, and doesn't completely mortgage, you know, many generations to come in terms of paying for it. I mean, I was just down in San Diego and they, that is a very impressive water agency, but they've invested, um, over $1 billion in their diesel projects and you know, multiple reservoirs and that, [00:22:30] that works for that community and that's okay. Speaker 2:Um, but it's very expensive and not all in you. You have to kind of assume that there's going to be economic growth and such to pay for that and that's not going to be right for every community. Um, so I think it's, I think it's a tough balance, but I am a huge fan of investments in reclaim recycling. Um, I've been to the Orange County reclaimed facility. I think that is a really great way to move forward. I mean water is a renewable resource [00:23:00] and the more you can leverage it as that, the better. Um, but it's expensive. Speaker 1:Yeah. And it's interesting when I hear you talk about it, it sounds like it's so much dependent upon the local municipalities. Like we have East Bay mud here, right. And they have to do a lot of innovation it sounds like because there's a, a, a solution that's going to be just particular for that particular area. Yeah. Um, so are you, um, seeing widely variant strategies [00:23:30] as you travel around the country and learn different ways people are attacking this? Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I think there are some, some trends. I mean, one thing to keep in mind that's tough is the major cost that many communities are facing right now across the nation is a simple replacing of their infrastructure in terms of like kind of like pipes in the ground. Um, these pipes are mostly laid in the 50 sixties and seventies. They're at their point where they need replacement. Um, and does that [00:24:00] alone has for the, for the nation has a huge price tag. So that is kind of, uh, and that means what you have when you, when you don't have good pipes is you have leaks and you have kind of, again, this kind of inefficient system. So the first thing to do, so community to decide, is it better for them to sort of address those leaky pipes before they invest in new supply? Speaker 2:Because, um, you know, that sort of like the low hanging fruit before you start to do other stuff. So you're totally right though. It's [00:24:30] community by community that you meant matters there a kind of willingness to pay their supply options, their, their infrastructure status. So there is no one size fits all, even neighbor to neighbor. So it's, it's, it's remarkable. It's Kinda like, it doesn't make sense to put solar panels on your house if you haven't sealed the building envelope. Yes, true. Yeah. Yeah. It, you know, you want to kind of capture efficiencies when you can and, and being first thing about being efficient [00:25:00] in water is like not to lose water through a leaky toilet or leaky pipes or what have you. Um, kind of continuing that, um, vein for our listeners out there who we are in a drought here in California in a drought. Speaker 2:Can you just remind us of some of the tactics we can all take as consumers to continue the conservation, um, kind of inertia or whatever your momentum sounds like it's happening, but what can we do to make [00:25:30] a better use of the water we have? Oh, that's a great question. Um, well we are in a drought and you know, Eh, it takes the contribution of everyone. I mean, you know, the governor and the State Water Resources Control Board are just put in a law where you can't use what I would call kind of thing. I think people should think about discretionary water use. I mean, this was about spraying your sidewalks. Like it's in a drought. You gotta use a broom, you know, um, you know, when it comes to watering your [00:26:00] lawn, that's discretionary. You know, if you don't need to use it, be mindful of not, you know, not using it in a place where we don't know if we're going to have water for kind of basic uses. Speaker 2:Um, you know, maybe, so that's where we're starting and we're not at a point where, you know, everyone has to take navy showers, but you know, at least at this point it's very important to just limit discretionary water use. Be careful about what, you know, we at my house, we have um, buckets in our showers that we collect water to [00:26:30] take care of our garden and our plants. Um, you can keep a bucket in your kitchen sink and use that water as long as it's not soapy, um, for your garden. So things like that where it's simple kind of easy things that, that, you know, are just going to, um, help help everyone, um, keep kind of beat this drought. Speaker 1:Okay. Yeah, that, that's great advice. And from your opinion, I'm, I mean, I grew up in California, I remember drought, like big droughts before. Yeah. How much [00:27:00] of this is, is related to climate change? Do you think? Or is it just this, we always have dropped patterns. We've absence history, I would think. Speaker 2:Yeah. And this, this drought seems to be severe. I mean, and Joe is interesting because you can measure it in different ways. You can measure drought as a kind of like a hydrologic pattern and this one hydrologically is serious and long. Um, Joe can also be kind of an economic trout where simply, um, your supply doesn't meet demand [00:27:30] and, and, uh, California is a growing state, you know, populations are growing. So in that way, kind of the population pressures are making the impacts of the drought. Um, more serious. Uh, so in terms of climate change, it's hard. I mean it's not my area, but I think that this idea of wider swings in weather of both flood and drought patterns, it's hard to deny that we're seeing these wider swings. And, um, part of my job and my company's job is to help [00:28:00] water utilities kind of build their resilience to these larger swings among other types of changes, um, happening, uh, in our country. Speaker 1:Okay. Well, and you did, you talked about your company and this is Christine Boyle, the founder and CEO of Valor, valor water analytics. And I always like to end the show by asking the question of an entrepreneur like yourself. Yeah. If everything broke totally right for your company five years from now, what would it look like? Speaker 2:Um, that's a good [00:28:30] question. Uh, so w what we want is, you know, what we're selling to utilities, this idea of kind of business intelligence for water utilities and new tools to understand customers and enter in the, um, relationship between customers, revenue and sales. It's a new concept. So it's gonna take a little while to, but what we want is we want, we want to sell the concept, we want utilities to begin thinking this way because, you know, I honestly think that this is going to help strengthen their position [00:29:00] to, again, kind of provide clean and affordable water. So, uh, at some point we would like to partner with kind of larger organizations that are servicing utilities. Um, what are you telling? Is there thousands of water utilities? Um, so, you know, to, to kind of, to reach all those communities is a, is a big job. And eventually we'll, we'll partner with kind of larger organizations that are already kind of, uh, in these places in these communities to help. [00:29:30] Um, but I would love to see, you know, we need to sell the concept first and prove ourselves. So in five years, hopefully we'll have done that and really be kind of integrated into, um, utility operation. Speaker 1:Okay. Exciting. Let's, you know, there's so many different types of innovation and this is one that I think people don't really understand how important is these are infrastructure investments that need to be made in the country to make us resilient and be able to withstand whatever is going to come our way. So thank you for the, the idea [00:30:00] and for coming on the show today. Really appreciate it. And if people want to learn more, how would they get in touch with you? Speaker 2:Uh, you can, uh, reach me probably via email is the best, uh, christine@valorwater.com or look@valorwater.com and reach out to us. I like talking to everyone. I love talking to students. So, um, for the students in particular, um, my heart goes out to you for all your hard work and dedication and, um, always feel free to reach out. Speaker 1:Okay. Well, thank you. Thanks for coming on the show [00:30:30] today. Christine, you've been listening to methods to the madness on k a l, Berkeley. My name is r, thanks for listening and have a great Friday. Everybody. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Toody Maher, founder of Pogo Park, discusses her project to help Richmond’s tough Iron Triangle neighborhood by redesigning a park and creating a safe area to foster free play for the neighborhood’s childrenTRANSCRIPTSpeaker 1:You're listening to KLX Berkeley 90.7 FM, university of California and listener supported radio. And this is method to the madness. I show coming at you from the Public Affairs Department here on Calex that is dedicated to celebrating the innovative spirit of the bay area. I'm your host [inaudible] and today we are lucky to have 2d Mara with us. Hi Judy. Hello Ali. Uh, and today is the founder of pogo parks coming out of Richmond, California. So to the, um, welcome to the show. Thank you. And um, the first question I always ask [00:00:30] entrepreneurs like yourself is, give me the problem statement. You know, entrepreneurs are all about solving problems. What problem are you trying to solve? Speaker 2:Probably is all about children in play. I mean to, um, in order for children to be happy, they ha, oh, in order for children to be healthy, they have to play. And um, so I go into so many of these city parks and they're just so boring and so dull and homogenous and they all look the exact same. And when you really [00:01:00] break it down, there's very few opportunities for children to actually play in, in, in wild ways, which, which is how kids need to be playing. So kinda my first thought was just play leads to health. Speaker 1:[inaudible] define wild way. It's an interesting term. You just use. What's, what's wild? Speaker 2:Well, always, I mean the, I think back into my own childhood, you know, I think that if you look at every entrepreneur, anyone who's done well or has been successful creatively, [00:01:30] they've started a company, they've created a product, they've made a movie. If you look deep into their childhood, they all had rich play ex experiences. So for me, um, I mean I started a s uh, um, uh, block newspaper. I, um, created a, um, play inside our garage and sold the tickets to people in the neighborhood. Um, we, we, we built forts in dark rooms and um, [00:02:00] you know, all sorts of things. So, um, rich play experience, kind of this wild play where you can, um, build whatever comes in to your mind, set up games. I mean with no adults to come in and tell you what to do and not do. Um, yeah, that's wild play. Speaker 1:Okay. Thanks for that definition. Um, and so that's a really, you know, um, exciting and noble cause and I believe you went to cal, right? Yeah, Speaker 2:I did 1978 [00:02:30] to 83 and I took one year off and I lived in Switzerland, but I also actually was a part of the UC Berkeley, the volleyball team. So I was the first wave of scholarship athletes. So I like saying that I got into Berkeley, not because of my brains, but my Bronx. Speaker 1:Was that, is that all because of the title nine stuff? Correct. Speaker 2:So first wave of, um, scholarship athletes at cau. Speaker 1:Wow. Okay. So, um, so you were a volleyball player [00:03:00] was, um, and then you graduated, you probably didn't graduate with the intent to go and, um, champion wild play. So give us a little bit about your background and your story and how you arrived at this kind of problem you wanted to solve. Yeah. Speaker 2:Um, so I graduated in 1983 and the funniest thing is I had never first second thought what I was gonna do next. I never even thought about a career. And suddenly that I was out and I had no clue. Like, now I've got to earn money and what am I going to do? [00:03:30] So I knew somebody who owned a bond firm in La and my job was sitting in this back room with absolutely no windows with four men who smoked. And my job was to type up the transfers on bonds. If someone would buy a bond from the bank that I would actually type up the transfer slip. And, um, so, uh, they made me wear nylons. My nickname is 2d, but my given name is Susan. But I've never been called Susan my entire life. [00:04:00] They insisted they put a plaque on my desk saying Susan. Speaker 2:So they took away my name. They may be wearing nylons. I was stuck in a room with four men smoking. And I just, um, so it turned out that I had played volleyball in Switzerland and one of my, uh, teammates cousin was the inventor of the swatch watch in Switzerland. So I just thought, wow, man, I mean, um, could I import the swatches into the United States? So you'd seen them before they'd come. And so I had seen them when they had [00:04:30] just come out in Switzerland. They hadn't come to the United States yet. So what I would do is I'd go to the bond from each day, from eight til five. I had my hour lunch, then I'd get on a bus and go to the, um, I'd go to the, uh, business library at UCLA and started to look up how to import, export, how to start your company, what is cashflow, what's a balance sheet. And then I contacted swatch and just happened to get the head guy who, uh, who asked [00:05:00] me to do a business plan. And I said, sure, I'll do one. Then I went straight to the UCLA Library to figure out what is a business plan. And I wrote it. So when I did the presentation that he'd said, you know, your, your plan is, is bold, but, um, I like your Chutzpah. And he gave me the starting capital to, to found swatch watch in the 11 western states. Speaker 1:Wow. So, um, you're the reason when I was [00:05:30] in school, like I was in school in the 80s that everybody had swatches in California. Is that right? Yeah. So that, that was my main thing is just getting sweat and swatch was so creative and, and uh, so for our younger listeners who maybe don't know what, what was watching, it was a huge craze in that time. What was it? W I made it so cool Speaker 2:was that, um, they took a Rolex watch, which was one of the, you know, the, the greatest, the watches in the world. And they took, they figured out how to slim the amount of part parts down by a third [00:06:00] and then have a robot make the entire thing. So they were very cheap, inexpensive wrist watches from Switzerland for $30 at retail. And then they got all these incredible artists to come and make them really a design. Um, statement and this, um, kind of formula of just inexpensive, high quality, but high design just took off and swatch became a phenomenon. Like we started with zero in sales in 1983 [00:06:30] and then, uh, and then in our region in 1986 that the watch sales were 30 million. Wow. In three years, three years since swatches became a phenomenal 30 million in $86. It's a lot more right now. So part of it, and then one of our most, uh, the most successful product at swatch was the clear swatch watch. Speaker 2:Um, so what I did was I started another company called fun products and we made the world's first clear [00:07:00] telephone with lights. So, um, that was a fortune magazine's product of the year in 1990 and then in 1990 then I was also, um, awarded inc magazine, um, entrepreneur of the year. So kind of my thing was taking an idea and making it happen. So anything that you can think of, Oh, you know, why don't we make it clear telephone? Why don't we sell these watches all over California? Just give me idea. And I can make it happen. So that's kind of my specialty. But my goal was always [00:07:30] like, I'm going to get one day, I'm going to get so rich. And as soon as I get rich, I'm going to open a city park. Cause the city parks have always been my passion. Just like there's so much good can come from great city parks. Speaker 2:I mean, it's a watering hole for the entire community. You know, it's where everyone, the one thing that everyone loves is to just go places and sit and watch other people. You know, that's kind of like some sort of a town square and you can go and get, um, food [00:08:00] and your children can play and you, you don't know what neighbors that you're, you're gonna see. And, um, you know, just, uh, so I'd always wanted to, you know, that I've kind of like, uh, yeah, really excited to Kinda create these public spaces that are just incredibly vibrant. Speaker 1:Speaking with a Tutee Mar, the founder of pogo parks out of Richmond, California here on method to the madness on k a l x Berkeley 90.7 FM. I'm your host deleon is, are. So that's a good transition [00:08:30] to talk about, you know, you went on this entrepreneurial adventure, I'm assuming you didn't have to wear nylons anymore and you could use your name that you wanted to use. Correct. So, um, you start out on this path, you learned that you had the power to do whatever you wanted, you built companies, sold a bunch of products, and then somehow you ended up in Richmond and you started to actually execute on your passion of, you know, helping parks be something Speaker 2:that are the vibe part of a vibrant community. So take us through that story [00:09:00] of how did you transition from this kind of, you know, very entrepreneurial, but a more, um, private company focused, uh, type of efforts to what you're doing now? Yes. So, uh, when it turned out in 1987 that I wasn't getting rich, uh, my partner just said, look, you know, rather than waiting to get rich to do your part, just do it. You know, I never even thought about that and just doing it. So I was living in Richmond and I just started going to every single park in Richmond. [00:09:30] I, I w that Richmond has 56 parks and I went to all of them and probably the ones that I was most taken with are eight little small pocket parks that the city calls play lots and uh, two of the best play lots. Speaker 2:It was one Salono play lot right by my house. Then I fell in love with. And the second one was elm play a lot, which is a little pocket part lose in the middle of the iron triangle neighborhood in Richmond that's known throughout the Bay of just being [00:10:00] a really challenged, violent high poverty, um, inner city neighborhood. And um, so I kind of, uh, I just, um, started doing a lot of research and I looked at all like the greatest parks around the world. Like, what made them work, what were parks used for? What are the, who are the leading thinkers on parks, what are the history of parks and basically took all the best ideas from, from, from around the world and then applied it to creating this model [00:10:30] in Richmond. I'm calling Pogo Park, you know, where'd you come up with the name? Let's suppose apart from, well we've tried, I mean I'm from the business world. Speaker 2:Everything's branding, you know, so we got brand all things. So what is the name of this different kind of place space? You know, we wanted to have something that wasn't, if people were speaking English or Spanish or Vietnamese that everyone could kind of say it. It wasn't like a boy or a girl. So we were just, you know, again, sitting around one night and my partner Julie was thinking like play [00:11:00] opportunities, something po and then it just suddenly come up. Pogo. So it's a good little name, Pogo Park. It's pretty catchy. Yeah. Yeah. And you guys just were recognized by Google. That's actually how I found you about um, this, uh, grand bearer giving. And you got, I think you guys, we got a part of the top tag. Yes. So, um, of a thousand nonprofits that applied that they selected 10 finalists and the 10 finalists all got 250,000 and then ongoing [00:11:30] technical support from Google. Speaker 2:That's great. So branding's working people are finding you guys and recognizing you. That's so exciting. So, um, today I wanted to kind of, I was looking on your website and there's some elements of, of parks, uh, and it's probably from your research and now your experience and how many parks have you at this point kind of touched and, oh, just like hundreds. I mean now, once he's, I mean now all I do is when I go around, I look at parks I or look at any kind [00:12:00] of spaces that could be children's play spaces, airports, hospitals. I mean, so our thing is just creating like a different kind of play space that is really focused on letting children experience different kinds of play. There's creative play, there's physical play, linguistic play, social, emotional play. Um, so how do we create these spaces that give children the most wide variety of play opportunities? Speaker 1:Okay. So, um, [00:12:30] you're, you're always looking for the opportunities to create these play spaces. And it sounds like you've now in your research and your experience, gotten some best practices that you've published. And I'd like to kind of talk about some of these. I think there's some interesting insights here. You have. So one of them is that you use community designers and builders, which I think is really interesting because there's other models out there for doing in a neighborhood beautification. But a lot of times it's bringing a bunch of outside people in. Right. So tell me a little bit of how [00:13:00] you came to that principle of Pogo. Speaker 2:Yeah, probably if I was operating in a different, in a high income neighborhood, I would have a t a a different approach like that way, like good design can be brought in from people from, from the outside. And the people who are living there have such respect for quality that they're not gonna trash it. But in inner city neighborhoods, the only way is to build from the inside out. I mean you got to engage people who live right there. So they are a part of the whole [00:13:30] transformation of the neighborhood. And the transformation of these city parks is the vehicle for the transformation of the neighborhood. Um, so that is what I realized when my little shit blew into elm play lot, uh, in the iron triangle, I had no intention of starting to work out in a neighborhood like this is just fate had it. I got on my ship and the ship started sailing and I landed in the city park and this is where I had to start my work. So it had, it demanded a different [00:14:00] kind of approach. Speaker 1:And, um, in a place of the iron triangle, which has a lot of gangs and all, and not a lot of, um, I wouldn't think that there's a lot of, you know, um, interior designers who are experts in play are, I know who a kind of designer you have, but how did you find this community partners in this neighborhood that you were in? Speaker 2:The community partners? Yeah. Well, so, um, we've just been so blessed with kind of who we've met. So the first thing is I just started going and knocking on doors of all the neighbors that live there and [00:14:30] started getting to know them. And it took, maybe it took about four years of just constantly showing up for people to actually start acknowledging me, talking to me because it's just so much distrust of, uh, you know, a tall, white liberal person coming in to try and change things. And everyone's seen this procession of failed experiments that everybody comes in and in time that everybody leaves. So [00:15:00] it's really been like a trial by fire to get to know all these different folks. And, um, now we've really become this kind of this real family. And um, and uh, what I just started doing is like every time that I would raise money, I'd, I'd hire somebody or keep pumping money into the community so people were getting a job and their job is we have to transform this park and your job is [00:15:30] to help us make this park work and you're going to be running it, you're going to be in charge and we're gonna. Speaker 2:So we really have like this wonderful band of, of rookies who have learned to do everything that you could possibly think of. So, um, but one of the main things is we have learned a new language how to do the design, how to create the park on site. So rather than handing it over to a designer who comes in, give, get some input from the community [00:16:00] and then goes and does a design for the community, the community's actually generating the entire design themselves and it's like been working fantastically. Then the, we were blessed of connecting with this company called scientific art studio. They're a fabrication shop, really famous for and known for building the Mitt at the giant's Ballpark, that big million in left field. And they just finished a three point $5 million renovation of the [00:16:30] zoo at the playground, at the San Francisco Zoo. And so, um, the owners, Ron and Marin husband and wife are, are just, um, their businesses in the iron triangle. Speaker 2:So they're eight blocks from our park. So they'd been like, our key partners is teaching and training local people how to turn their ideas into reality. So Ron and Marin are basically like our master trainers of help us build and they've got incredible confidence [00:17:00] with the c. The city of Richmond is confident in these folks as well for helping us now that we've got this wonderful partnership going is the neighbors are building the park themselves and it's all passed all the certification and the Ada and the whole thing. So, and the, the money that we're raising to redevelop this park is in large part being directed back into the community, the community. So the community is getting jobs [00:17:30] to actually do the work themselves. So as everybody walks by, everybody knows somebody who's working there. So it's been, I mean in the few years we've occupied this one park that we've not had a single incident of graffiti or tagging or anything because that's just such a respected place. Speaker 2:The of the park again, elm play lot. Ellen play lots of trees. Yeah, this was the first kind of flagship first juggle park. This is the first pilot and it's really like right now [00:18:00] if, and just come down to eighth street in Richmond and see it. It is spectacular. So you were talking about you starting kind of getting involved with parks in the 80s but pogo park itself started relatively recently, it sounds like. Yeah, it started in that January, 1997 so it's been like a seven year journey of getting here. Okay. And I'm listening to today Mara, the founder of Poco Park here on Calex and this is method to the madness, a show dedicated [00:18:30] to the innovative spirit of the bay area. I'm your host, Ali and his are, and some of your other design principles I think were really fascinating. You talked about dedicated staff, which I think is a big part of what you do, right? Speaker 2:As you, you feel like the transformation can't just be the park, you have to have someone there who's helping to facilitate the freed, the play. Is that right? You're right. I mean the one innovation with Pogo Park, which isn't really an innovation, it's just what we're doing is ripping off the idea of the great ideas from, from around the world. There's many countries [00:19:00] now that have people that are trained in something called play work and they are trained. How do you use play to foster the healthy development of children? So in Norway, in Denmark for for instance, and also in England play that you can get a degree in play work. So these folks come into the playground and they seed the playground each day for high, high quality play. Like if it's a hot day, they're going to put out water or some sort of water play. Speaker 2:If it's a, [00:19:30] um, they'll put out, um, things called loose parts of sticks and stones and natural materials and fabric and boxes of, so children can kind of can create their own environment rather than having the environment in posts like, OK, here's a slide and you've got a slide on this mean kids can, you know, turn a log into a spaceship and they can. So, uh, so what we want to do is install play workers at Allen play lot is just have people there all day long that their job is create [00:20:00] this incredible mansion, uh, imaginative, high quality place space for children that is your job and create a safe and welcoming environment for all the families. So you're, you know, you're like the vibe master make, make everyone come in and have a good vibe and give kids a place to play. And this becomes the watering hole of the entire community. And even now people are starting, they're trying to buy houses around our park because [00:20:30] they all just want their kids to run outside and go to the only safe green space in the iron triangle right now. Nice. I think that I want that job title, vibe master prejudism. Uh, okay. Here's another, a w of your design principles I found. Um, interesting cause Speaker 1:you know, this is your kind of feels like you're building your template cause you want to do this a lot of places. So, um, you talk about, um, having basic amenities, there's must have amenities that must be there. [00:21:00] Um, comfortable places to sit, shade, drinking fountains and restrooms. So how did you arrive at that conclusion? Speaker 2:Well, if you ask anybody in the entire world, if you go to a playground, what, what do you want? And everyone's gonna have that same thing. Like first of all, you know, you gotta have a drinking fountain. You know, if kids are playing the, you know, you gotta get some water. Second, you gotta have a bathroom cause you, you, you don't want to go to the playground with your four kids. You got one kids kind of go to the bathroom or where are you going to go? And then, um, parents, the whole thing [00:21:30] about going to the park is you want to sit in the shade, chill, talk with your, talk with the other parents. Oh, watch your children plays. You don't have to deal. You know, I mean this is the good, it's supportive of the parents. Right? And then if you ever want to make a public space come to life, bring food in and bring music, you know, so, uh, we manage and our first pogo park at Allen play a lot in Richmond of getting all those things in. Speaker 2:And um, [00:22:00] the a snack bar was really tough cause I went to the city of Richmond, said, hey, look, the community would really like to have a snack bar and we want to cook our own food and we want to serve it. And the city said, hey, today, great idea. The only problem is we have an ordinance that prevents the sale of foods from city park. So no go. Um, so we worked with, um, a group of nonprofit attorneys in Oakland to come in and work and it took us two years to work with the city to overturn [00:22:30] the ordinance to allow the sale of food from a city park. So Pogo Park in Richmond is the pilot. So we've got food, we've got bathrooms, we've got cool places to Shay to, to sit in the shade and we've got just an outrageously great play environment. Speaker 1:Wow, that's a, that's amazing. You're actually overturning laws to get what you, what you want and that I guess, you know, we'll definitely engender the, the trust that you talked about building with the [00:23:00] community. They see you as a major partner in getting stuff done, which is really exciting. Uh, what occurs to me though is how would you, how would you be able to, this is a long project. How would you think about replicating this in other places when you know, the timeframe? I want to be shorter to actually make the impact. Sounds like it's been a years long project. Yeah. Speaker 2:Well, we got kind of have like the pogo park and big Taj Mahal pilot ship. And then we also have these little, the little tugboat pogo park where we can go [00:23:30] in to any kind of unclaimed forgotten land and quickly and rapidly build a children's play space and then put a shipping container in for $3,000 that doubles as an office and just put somebody there in a hat with a badge and a radio that looks official. And suddenly in two, three months you've got a playground. So, uh, that could run these high quality play experiences for children. So there's, that is kind of where I see as the [00:24:00] future of Pogo Park is we kind of have an all a cart, um, items that we, but, but um, the, we can go two ways of doing like this deep community transformation by reclaiming and doing it like big time or do these small little, um, guerrilla tactics. Speaker 2:Like just go out there and set it up and get it occupied, which by the way, that we're already, that we've been doing. Um, so we've had that we have a couple of parks that are, are pop-up [00:24:30] parks that we've just gone into and claimed and operated that were low in cost and deepen impact. So two ways. And that's exciting. Um, and you know, because one of the keys is having a staff, uh, there, it seems like that's a big question for the organization is how do you fund that? If you're going to have be hiring people, which I think, you know, objectively outside that seems like a brilliant move because then you have a community member whose livelihood [00:25:00] is tied to the park success or they're going to be much more motivated to actually, you know, drum up the support and get things going. Speaker 2:But how do you view that in terms of, you know, making that a long term sustainable position that you're creating? Yeah, so I mean I, I've sat and thought about this many, many a night. Uh, cause this is the, the key thing is how do you sustain the funding for the staffing? And you know, it really just looking from a business perspective, you have to have the diversified income [00:25:30] stream. So it could be quarter of the funniest going to come from the government. So it could be the city of Richmond is coming in with city staff on certain days. So that cuts part of our staffing down. It could be then it's also gonna be, um, contracts with, um, uh, you know, our earned income, um, that we've got, um, you know, and then, uh, foundation. So it, it's, it is going to be a diversified income stream through multiple [00:26:00] ways of, of raising the funding for staffing. Speaker 2:Okay. All right. Um, and we know one more question I want to ask and kind of the, um, you know, w intrigued me was this idea of the oasis of safety. And I know that the staff is a big part of that, but um, that's, you know, really when you talk about transformation, like a place like the iron triangle from, at least from an outsider perspective, all you hear is, oh, it's so dangerous. You know, you don't want to be there. You don't want to be there in a night. Falls. [00:26:30] You're talking about an oasis of safety in the middle of that. It. Tell me a little bit about how you think about that. Well, our little Park Allen play lot has become that. I mean it is become the one place that all good guys who want to do bad things now don't go and do it there. Speaker 2:Cause the community's really has taken it back. And the beautiful thing around this one park is there's all the houses that face it look right over the park. And everybody who's living there is totally investing in keeping [00:27:00] out it, add it up. And um, the way that it's become safe is it's busy all the time and somebody's always there. So if you're going to go do your s your bad thing, everyone knows, go do it over there. And uh, so there's been tremendous respect from the community and also a lot of people doing the bad things are relatives of people or people who are at our park know all their families. So, um, it does feel like there's some [00:27:30] sort of code to not touch it, you know. And, um, the main thing though is to take, to keep that there is to you know, is to keep investing in having this staffing cause really that you think about at work, we're spending $72 million on the police in Richmond, somebody too. Speaker 2:And that it might cost 100,000 in staffing time to just create this oasis for literally thousands of kids. Cause the iron triangle is one of the most densely populated com has [00:28:00] more kids per square foot than any other neighborhood in Richmond. When we looked at the census would, I'll tell you the numbers are low because there's a lot of families don't report. Um, there's something like 3,500 children within a five minute walk of elm play a lot from age oh to 11. So there are thousands of kids all locked inside watching video games, just blowing their mind, drinking sugary drinks, and suddenly here's this place that they know if your school's not doing well, if you're [00:28:30] not doing wallet home, that you can always walk outside Monday through Friday, there's an adult at the park, you're going to go to an environment that's safe, where people care about you. Speaker 2:And it's just been, a lot of kids were having problems at home cause their parents are just, you know, out. They're just coming there all day long. So it's really become, you know, it's safety comes in numbers. The more people are there occupying it and using it, the less problems that we're having. So that's really exciting. We're talking to Tutti Mar, the founder of Pogo Park [00:29:00] out of Richmond. Um, and um, today we have about 30 seconds left. Give me five years from now, if everything goes exactly the way you would want it, would pogo park, you're doing pogo park would be sending teams out to help communities build these little pop up parks all over the country that we'd be sharing all of our best prac practices at no charge to all with the underlying goal is like, let's as a country become known as a place that is creating [00:29:30] great magical places for children that would play cause with high quality play is the way to really build healthy and innovative and managed of children. Well, that's a great vision Speaker 1:from a great entrepreneur and one of cal zone and alumni. So thanks for coming back on to campus and talking to us. Thank you. Um, and this has been method to the madness on KALX Berkeley. You can learn more about pogoPark@pogopark.org. Is that right? D correct. And you can learn more about us by going to the calyx website and searching for method to the madness. [00:30:00] Uh, thanks for joining and have a great Friday. Everybody. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Ken Singer, managing director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology at UC Berkeley, discusses his role in Skydeck, the start-up accelerator, and his own background as an entrepreneur in part two of this two part series on entrpreneurshipTRANSCRIPTSpeaker 1:Method to the madness is next. You're listening to method to the madness of biweekly public affairs show on k a l x Berkeley celebrating bay area innovator. Good afternoon. This is your host, Vanessa ing. Two weeks ago we learned about skydeck and the Berkeley method of entrepreneurship from Equinox. Did you founding director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and technology at UC Berkeley, otherwise known as the CET. [00:00:30] Joining us today is Ken Singer, Managing Director of the CET. Today we'll learn more about how skydeck helps to develop Berkeley's entrepreneurial culture. Thank you for joining us, Ken. So just in case some of our listeners weren't able to tune in two weeks ago. What is skydeck? Speaker 2:Yes. A skydeck is a joint venture between three big groups on campus. The College of Engineering, which is the, the school that I work for and [00:01:00] the business school, Haas business school, and the vice chancellor of research and few years ago the deans and the vice chancellor got together and realized we had a missed opportunity in entrepreneurship, that we should have a a coordinated effort in facilitating and developing startups that are popping up all over campus. You know, we all have different skillsets and different kinds of strengths that we can contribute to the growth of [00:01:30] small companies. And, um, while we were seeing Stanford and several other universities make inroads by having, um, it seemed to be a more collective effort that it only made sense for us to do the same thing and pulled together a brand that was Berkeley wide, right. Berkeley campus wide rather than just in everyone's different colleges. Speaker 1:Could you tell us more about your relation to skydeck? Speaker 2:So I s I started, um, I started working [00:02:00] at, at Berkeley about eight years ago as an instructor for the mobile applications course. It was the first class that they did taught in that and I was running a startup at the time and two years ago the startup was sold and I got, was pretty exhausted. It was five years of just 24, seven working. And I thought, well, what if I go back to the university, maybe teach a little bit more and just kind of take a breather. And, uh, in talking to ECLAC, he said, hey, actually we're looking for someone [00:02:30] who might be people to head up the CET, uh, because I'm moving into developing more programs. And so he brought me in and we became co-directors of the CET two years ago and they had just started skydeck around that. And that was the first, I think, cohort of teams that had gone into skydeck. Speaker 2:And, um, and so I was there kind of at the beginning to help form some of the programmatic elements of how teams might be selected. We at CET were, were [00:03:00] we're, we're, we're partners with skydeck in many ways, one of which is we share resources, we share mentors. But what we also do is we feed teams up to skydeck. So a lot of our teams from CET, which were part of the engineering school. So most of our teams are our heavy engineering based. So some, uh, some devices, some, uh, research based, uh, algorithm stuff, you know, some applications. But [00:03:30] a lot of it is heavy, heavy research based and the teams that have come up with those concepts or those products need a little bit more help before they are ready for skydeck. Right. So a lot of the business school students, they already know how a terms sheet should look like. Speaker 2:They already know what negotiations should sound like. The, they've had some of that training. In fact, most business school students have had business experience. They're back at school, right? But most of our engineers that [00:04:00] their undergrads of course have oftentimes never worked before. And if they're graduate students, they've gone through the whole track where they've never really been an industry. So they, they, they themselves have not had much industry experience. So what we do is we put them through a, what we call an incubator, which is venture lab and venture lab is Kinda like Kinda like your, um, what does that first five kind of head start program for [00:04:30] engineering-based startups where we help you learn how to hire and fire people on your team. Cause many of these people haven't even been hired before, right? Because they've never been in an industry. We help them talk to investors, how to find them, how to talk to them. Speaker 2:We also help them find first customers or how to even talk to a customer, how to even look at a customer. Cause they'll, they'll use the name, hey we want to sell to apple. They don't realize there are multiple groups at apple, [00:05:00] different people who have different agendas that you need to find the right person who will be an advocate. So they don't even fundamentally understand the, the, the challenges ahead of them in some of the things that they absolutely have to master. So what we do is in venture lab and they stay for anywhere between three to six months. We help them through those elements, get used to those, those activities before the ones that are ready, we graduate them up to Skydeck and they perform much better [00:05:30] when they get get up to skydeck cause they're ready for what Skydeck, which we consider a skydeck and accelerator. Speaker 2:And what that means is that a team is pretty well formed. So they know who, what everyone is doing on the co in the company, there's no real hole in the company. It's a strong fundable team. They have a product, they know what their product market fit is, they know who the customers are. They have probably a dozen or so customers and [00:06:00] they know how their customers purchased product and they're there really to fundraise and, and grow. And so what you'll see with a lot of teams up there, they've got really strong presentations, really sharp pitches. They know how to sell their product. They also know their market extremely well and now they're trying to find the right mechanism of for growth. And that could be the right partner that can fund their growth or the right venture capital firm that can fund their [00:06:30] expansion. So it's really for more mature teams that have gone through, you know, they've gone through the ropes either through venture lab or through other means, but they, they tend to be well positioned to get funding and, and grow from there. Speaker 1:Could you tell us how skydeck is different from all the other um, hubs and accelerators in the bay area? If I am an entrepreneur, how would I know which tech space I should use? Speaker 2:Yeah, so there's been, there's [00:07:00] been this incredible explosion of incubators and accelerators and programs and, and, and whatnot. And, and I'm actually part of several international ones to bring companies from other countries here to be incubated or to get injected with some of the silicon valley culture as they say. And I think they have a list of several thousand of these programs around the world. And just in Berkeley I heard there's something like six or seven and sometimes they're topical, sometimes [00:07:30] they are just physical space and other times they're really programmatic. And um, I would say the difference between them and that will actually, let me tell you what I think they are. Incubators are really, they provide a few things. One is obviously space. Many of them provide space and either at a discount or free. They also by virtue of giving you space, they give you a community of other startups and entrepreneurs [00:08:00] who you, by virtue of being next to them, you'll find ways to collaborate and share information and be able to really fast track your, your path to success by learning from each other. Speaker 2:It's a pure driven educational model, right, where you're learning from each other and that actually I would say from being an entrepreneur myself as the way that I learned a lot is that you build a community of, [00:08:30] of likeminded folks who are dealing with same issues and frankly actually what you end up talking about is not much. It's not really the, the technical parts or the vcs. Even you don't. You do share some information about that, but the vast majority of stuff that you share is around, I am dealing with some serious stress right now. I've got a guy who's about to leave or have IP issues or I'm running out of money and it's not really, can you solve this problem for me? It's just can you listen [00:09:00] to me, have a freak out so that I don't freak out in front of my team? Speaker 2:Right? And maybe you can commiserate with me for a little bit and then I can sound totally with it when I'm talking to, to my team. Because being an entrepreneur, being a founder of a company is by far the loneliest experience you will ever have. Because you cannot share a lot of information with a lot of people, especially the people you're closest to your team. You can't tell them you're running out of money, you can't tell them. You might have some concerns about the IP, [00:09:30] you can't tell them you might be getting sued by apple or by Google or whomever, right? And these things happen, right? And so you end up having to hold back enormous amounts of information because that's the nature of the game. And you have to be careful about what you hold back. But there's certain things that will randomize your team or your effort. Speaker 2:And what drives a startup is momentum. It's this belief that you're, you're going to be doing something great. And so it becomes a very lonely road for, for that founder. So if you have a community [00:10:00] of people who, who get together because they share space, you have that valve, it's a safety valve that just blows steam, you know, and, and keeps you saying it's a really important element of all of that. And if you talk to people who have successfully exited out of these incubators, you'll hear a very common theme about, you know, it was really important that we are, we were in that environment with all these other entrepreneurs, right? And this is why the good incubator's and accelerators like skydeck are extremely careful about [00:10:30] who they select because you, you don't want to introduce a wrong element in there that can cause people to stop sharing with each other across the different companies. Speaker 2:The other thing that, that incubators and accelerators do is that they leveraged the extended network of the people involved in the incubator. So you see these independent incubators pop up in San Francisco and throughout the country. And the person who started it usually has a huge Rolodex of people that they know [00:11:00] from investors to partners, to vendors, to all these folks, lawyers, consultants, all these people who can help your business and they become the connector. Right. What's that? The, the huge advantage that skydeck has is its association with UC Berkeley and UC Berkeley has something like 475,000 alumni that who are currently alive and that can be resources for [00:11:30] companies that are starting up and that's where I think Stanford's done a great job. Where we can do a better job here is that they've engaged their alumni network of course are alumni network tends to be very, very technical as well as well because there's so many that stayed in the bay area. Speaker 2:Um, so that network is what drives the growth of these startups. The more people that you meet who might have relevant connection to your business is equivalent to maybe 15 connections because they can introduce [00:12:00] you to so many more people. So you know skydeck because of its connection with Berkeley is probably these potentially the strongest network that you can have. Because it's not just Jeff Burton who runs Skydeck, who's network you're going to be tapping. And by the way, he's a Stanford Grad, right? And he's such a huge advocate for this program at Berkeley. But you're also tapping the networks of all of the deans, all of the executives, the professors, [00:12:30] all the people who want to give back to Berkeley. And we have tons of people who come back who want to help smart, small companies. Those people become your resource that you can't buy. You just can't buy access like that. That's something that you have to be a part of in order to get access to. Speaker 1:It does seem like Berkeley has a very strong alumni network, but a lot of the national press seems to focus on Stanford and its ability to produce entrepreneurs [00:13:00] with great commercial innovations. Why do you think this is the case? Speaker 2:Yeah, so you know, I can take you back as I was, I was a history major. So I like looking at this in a chronological and historical way. And actually it's both historical and geographic. So if you look at Berkeley, Berkeley abuts a hill. And so growth potential for Berkeley for companies that might sprout up around the campus are fairly limited. And that happened [00:13:30] actually fairly early because after World War II, the East Bay exploded, you know, um, and during World War Two, so, uh, there wasn't much room for growth, you know, for, for cheap space. And if you look at Stanford, it, there is a reason why they call it the farm is that there's a lot of, there was a lot of space, not so much anymore, but back then it was a strawberry fields. So geography had something to be to play into it over the course of the last 50 years. Speaker 2:Right. Because companies could find inexpensive places to, to build their businesses. [00:14:00] But also there was a strategic decision that was made back during World War II. Right? Um, during World War II, the government enlisted several universities to help them develop a weaponry, right? So MIT did a lot of work, um, and so did so did Berkeley, you know, with our role in, in discoveries around nuclear technology. And so Berkeley saddled up with government and got a lot of research grants and a lot of research money. And when you start that, it [00:14:30] just becomes easier to get government money. And Stanford went the other direction. They partnered up with the private industry. And so if you look at who set up shop, literally on their campus, you had HP built literally on their campus, you have Xerox Park, you have now SAP. So you have some of the very largest companies literally on their location. Speaker 2:And that strategy has proven out to be probably the better one. Um, and when you are a [00:15:00] private university, you get to make a lot of decisions faster. And I think you're also allowed to make some more mistakes because you know, you're afforded that luxury of, of changing course and, and try new things. So, um, you know, with those two things, Stanford was able to grow very quickly with these, you know, other companies that were built around their campus with their professors, with their students, and it was [00:15:30] also in the company's best interest to promote themselves. And if you think about government research, it's really not in the government's research agenda to promote, you know, on the scale that small, large companies do. Um, what they've been successful at, especially if some things have military application, they don't really want to let people know. So that, that's kind of what I think has created that disconnect between what Stanford now represents and what Berkeley, the, the, [00:16:00] the lack of a PR engine that Berkeley has had. Speaker 2:And you know, with, with the way that these communities work, you can't just be the only one talking about how great you are. You need to have other people talk about you. And when you have thousands of companies down, you know, Google and Yahoo have that all and Cisco and, and sun that spun out of, of the Stanford campus. And of course Berkeley has a role in Sun as well, but you know, when it came out of, out of Stanford, they talk about [00:16:30] that and they end up promoting a, that campus by virtue of, of, of them promoting themselves. Speaker 1:You're listening to method to the madness, a biweekly public affairs show on KALX Berkeley. Joining us today is Ken Singer, Managing Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and technology at UC Berkeley. You mentioned earlier that Stanford's strategy of partnering with Industry ultimately proved to be the better method. What do you mean by that? [00:17:00] Are The CET and skydeck part of an effort to emulate Stanford's entrepreneurial direction? Speaker 2:Yeah, so I, I would, I would correct my previous statement. I do, I wouldn't say that it's better. I think it was more effective in achieving some of the goals that, that I'm sure Stanford had, which was to become the nexus of, of startups and innovation. And, and Berkeley, I would say is on par. If you were to look at just the kinds of innovation that comes off of the Berkeley, uh, Lawrence Berkeley [00:17:30] labs and within our own campus here, but we don't have the same kind of marketing machine or the, or the kind of, um, push towards promoting it. So it's, um, it's, it's different. And this is, if you look at the reputations, and in fact I just have recently talked to some students are trying to figure out whether they should go to Berkeley or to Stanford. And the pitch that they get from Stanford is very much around, hey, we have an entrepreneurial community here. Speaker 2:Everyone's [00:18:00] doing a startup. And you know, you'll, you'll love that cause this is what, uh, what real researchers do. And, and you know, Berkeley is great academically, it's great, but that they produce professors and researchers. And I heard, I've heard that a couple of times now from students who have gotten that, that pitch and to some degree they're, they're right, right? They're right. That Berkeley does produce professors and researchers, but they are world-class that turn around and create companies like Marvell and cadence and, and [00:18:30] companies that you might not be familiar with, but there are multibillion dollar businesses that power every, virtually every machine that you use, right. If you use up in the bay area. Okay. Yeah. Right. So if you use anything with a chip in it, um, other than a potato chip, you're, you're dealing with something that was designed by Kate on Caden software. Speaker 2:Right. We don't know that because many people don't know that because Berkeley oftentimes does the kind of research and the kind of of applications [00:19:00] that aren't necessarily sexy, but they're foundational and so everyone touches them. You just don't necessarily know. You do. So earlier you mentioned that you, uh, had been a history major. I was wondering if you could speak a little about that and then tell us more about your background and how you got here. Yeah. So I, uh, so I grew up in, in the Seattle area and um, had always wanted to be a, a microbiologist. I always wanted to do some research where I could some somehow have an impact. And [00:19:30] My mother was an English teacher, so I ended up coming to Berkeley as a dual major between English and microbiology. And I quickly lost the love of microbiology cause in my classes it was mostly premed students who didn't necessarily like the material, but they're there to, to get good grades. Speaker 2:And I wanted to be around people who I could have interesting conversations with. Right. And where I could find that was in my history courses that I took and I, I took a few too many actually, [00:20:00] and realized in order for me to graduate on time, I would end up having to be a history major. And um, yeah, that's, that's poor planning. But, uh, it was felicitous because I learned an enormous amount. Yeah. And every, it's funny because I always get the first day of class, I teach several classes every year in the engineering school and, and it's a multidisciplinary course. So I have students from, from Haas, I have students from the humanities, but half of them are engineers of some flavor. And I [00:20:30] always get that question from someone who has pulled up their iPad or their their computer and Google searched my bio and there's one hand that goes up and says, um, so I noticed that you were a history major at, at Berkeley. Speaker 2:Uh, can you tell us more about that? Or the braver ones will say, hey, can you tell us how that applies to entrepreneurship? Which would they really mean is how are you qualified to teach me today? Right? Which is a classic Berkeley, you know, it's a classic [00:21:00] Berkeley thing for students to do that. I, I'm used to it. And so what I tell my students is that history is not what you might think it is, which most students, because of AP tests and because of the way we teach thinks, think that it's a string of, of facts and string of dates and people to memorize and wars and all of these things that are just something that you have to, to memorize and get tested for. And what I tell them is if [00:21:30] you take a really good history course, you find out very quickly that history is not about these things. Speaker 2:History is about decisions. History doesn't exist in a vacuum. It actually can only exist when there's human beings involved. That is actually the definition of history. Every day as an entrepreneur, you do maybe 50 to 60 decisions of which three or four are so consequential. If you make the wrong one, your company might die. Right? And so if you've spent years [00:22:00] studying what goes into a decision, what are the consequences, what are the unintended consequences? What are the things that you might not even know might be exogenous things that affect a decision. If you spent years analyzing that stuff, you become very comfortable making calculated decisions that hopefully will be good ones and you're comfortable with that. And so I tell my students, if they haven't studied history, they haven't studied decision making and they're going to [00:22:30] be pretty far behind when they need to make a couple of really key ones in their startup that usually shuts them up. Speaker 2:Could you tell us a little bit about your background in entrepreneurship? So I came to Berkeley as, as I mentioned before, completely planning to do something different. And in 1999, the Internet bubble was still quite, quite huge. It Ha it was still expanding. And I sat down with a couple of friends [00:23:00] and we just started kicking around some ideas and it just kind of rolled down the hill and we started a company, raised a bunch of money. And before I knew it, I turned around and realized I was doing a startup and I'd quit school and, and, and headed down this career path that, that I look back now and go, that's insane. I was 1920. I couldn't even run a car in Germany as I was, as I found out, as I was trying to go to a meeting that was not possible. So, uh, [00:23:30] you know, it just kind of happened I think by the luck of the draw of being the right in the right place at the right time. Speaker 2:You know, you're in the bay area, you're around other people who are innovative and, and, and interested in starting something. And also my father was an entrepreneur. He had started his own company, his of consulting business for, for, for banks. But uh, so it wasn't really foreign in my, in my family to do something like this. And actually they are fairly supportive of me doing that. They were one of the investors in [00:24:00] that first company, which, uh, didn't make money. We ended up selling the remnants of that company to, to a company in Singapore, but learned an enormous amount during that process. And once you've gone through it, it's really difficult to do something else. You know, I'm one of those people who is curious about everything and if you're curious about everything, there's kind of two paths for you. Either you become a museum curator or a professor, which I didn't have the, uh, the patients for that path. Speaker 2:[00:24:30] But, uh, the other thing is to be a consummate tinker and be an entrepreneur because as an entrepreneur, you don't just do technology stuff. If you're tech entrepreneur, it's not just building product. But it's also working with customers. It's also working with finance, it's working with legal, it's working with patents and and conferences and marketing and all the elements that go into making a company fire up all the different [00:25:00] parts of your brain. And it's all interesting. It's all interesting to see how they're all connected. And if you're a systems thinker like I am I, it's just really fascinating how, you know, you pull a string over here and marketing and suddenly product changes, right? You change a little bit on the product and suddenly customers change the type of customers who come to you. And it's just kind of this game of, I was just trying to describe this to someone. Speaker 2:It's like a game of Kerplunk, right? You've got a bunch of marbles on top of this things and you pull different things and suddenly for whatever reason, that last thing that you pulled out and made [00:25:30] everything collapsed. But why was it just that last one? Right? So it's really fascinating to me to seal all those kinds of things. And so I was driven to entrepreneurship and startups. Part of it was because of time and place, but I think I'm well suited for it because of this natural curiosity that I had. Could you tell us about some notable startups that skydeck has helped accelerate? Yeah, so we've had a few that have recently got funded, uh, you know, small, small amounts that pre series a, [00:26:00] we have one company called Lilly and they were two guys who are in my mobile class a few years ago were actually my big data class. Speaker 2:They created a, an indicis outside of of the course. They created a drone company, so that's a bit scary. But what they did was they put a camera on it and a sensor so that it follows you while you're doing extreme sports. So you know you've got the, the GoPro, but it's your, it's very solid cystic, right? It's from your [00:26:30] standpoint, it's where you're jumping off of something. This thing is actually watching you as if you're having an out of body experience. So you can watch yourself do this stuff as if you're an observer. And a, they recently got some and they didn't know each other until my class. One was a business student and the other one was an engineer. And in our, in our class they, they met and now they're best friends and they've created a company together. And I would say that if there was ever a legacy that I would like to leave behind [00:27:00] is that I created an environment in which people who wouldn't have typically met or collaborated found a venue to do that and some really cool, amazing things happen there that, uh, had an impact. Speaker 2:Right. That that would be for me, what I would love to leave behind at Berkeley, we've got a couple others that are earlier stage that we're really proud of. If they're successful, it will be a huge deal. We have one in cancer research and [00:27:30] these guys are, one is a researcher, the other one is a business major. They're called XL bio. And what they discovered was that metastasizing cancer cells are very difficult to replicate out of the lab. Other cells you can replicate outside the outside of the body, right? And um, and metastasizing cancer cells, if you're familiar with it, spread very quickly. And you might have a few attempts at chemo before you know, it ravages your body. [00:28:00] So you gotta get that Chemo right? But you know, chemo is very individual, right? It's, it might work for one person and it might not work for another. Speaker 2:And so what doctors typically do is they find that the chemo that they think would work on you, and that's just based on the population, it works on the highest percentage of people, they'll try that on you. That's the logic they gave go through to figure out what chemo to use. So what these guys have found was they could get metastasizing cancer to replicate outside [00:28:30] the body. They discovered a way to do that and now you can test chemo, all the different types of chemo on the cells outside the body to figure out which one will work for you to tailor the chemo to your body, which is amazing because you know, this has an, this has the potential of saving lives. But it also has the potential of making life a little more pleasant for those who don't have a chemo that will work for them. Speaker 2:They don't have to spend their last year destroying their body and feeling [00:29:00] horrible. They just can have, you know, enjoy the last, last year. So if you think about the human impact of some of this research that's going on, it only happens if someone finds a way to commercialize it. And that's the role that we play is to take these amazing things that are happening up on the hill that's happening on campus and helping those researchers and those innovators turn that discovery into something that can impact all of us. That doesn't just [00:29:30] reside in a paper, but that can have a human impact on us. So that's how I think, you know, if I were to look at what we do as a center, I can't tell people that I'm, I'm curing cancer, but I can certainly say that I'm helping people who are trying to cure cancer. Right. And that that's, it's an [inaudible]. Speaker 2:It's good to say it's, it's a good thing to be able to look at your job and say, hey, we're, we're doing something that has that kind of impact. Thanks so much for joining us today. [00:30:00] If people want to get in touch with you, how can they do so? Yes, so there's a couple of ways you can email me. I have an open door policy. It's at 10 dot singer@berkeley.edu so k e n Dot s, I n g e r@berkeley.edu. You can also go to our website, [inaudible] dot berkeley.edu and you can get more information about our programs. Thanks again for joining us today, Ken. It's been a pleasure. Thanks for having me. It was great. Speaker 1:[00:30:30] If you have questions or comments about this show, go to the k a l x website and find method to the madness. Drop us an email. Tune in again, two weeks from now at this same time. Have a wonderful weekend. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Ikhlaq Sidhu, founding director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology at UC Berkeley discusses Skydeck, the start-up incubator founded by UC Berkeley in part one of this two part series on entrepreneurshipTRANSCRIPTSpeaker 1:Method to the madness is next. Your listening to method to the madness. A biweekly public affairs show on k a l ex Berkeley celebrating bay area innovators. Speaker 2:Okay. Speaker 1:Good afternoon. This is your host, Vanessa Ang. Joining us today is eight o'clock. Did you the founding director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and technology at UC Berkeley. [00:00:30] Today we'll explore the founding of Skydeck, a startup incubator at UC Berkeley. We'll also discuss the Berkeley method of entrepreneurship. Thank you for joining us today at Glock. So what is skydeck give us some background history. Speaker 3:Okay. All right. I'm happy to, uh, fill you in on the history and talk about other things as well. So, um, I, I should say first of all that, um, [00:01:00] uh, I'm the academic director for the Center for Entrepreneurship and technology and this is something that we started in 2005 out of the College of Engineering. It's almost been 10 years since we started it. And it's mission includes some things that, um, that Skydeck, um, has grown into. So a little bit of a understanding of both might be relevant, the mission of the Center for entrepreneurship. And Technology is pretty [00:01:30] much what you would think. It's to educate and probably more more so engineers and scientists, but really all students on the Berkeley campus, how to innovate, how to productize, how to commercialize technology and have a perspective in a global economy. And we have many students, um, probably about a thousand students a year that take classes in topics that are related to this, about three years into the development of the center. Speaker 3:[00:02:00] One of the things that we started to do was not only have classroom activity but also to have incubation or to um, have a place and even some words and connections to venture capitalists and to the relevant people and stakeholders for, um, for actually growing ventures. And so, uh, we started that sometime back that's probably around the 2007 or 2008 [00:02:30] timeframe. And we had amazing success with the few teams that we would pick either out of our classes or across the campus in general. Almost a half of those teams would grow up and become, um, self-standing ventures. And now we are very careful in selecting. But out of that small set, we had a lot of success. And out of that model we realized, um, collectively on the campus that [00:03:00] uh, acceleration is really an important thing. It's not only something that you teach in classes but you, you do this in real life. And skydeck came just a little bit after these experiments that happened and Skydeck is now the 10,000 square feet of acceleration space that's on the top floor of 2150. Shaddock. It's in downtown Berkeley. There's about 20 plus teams, uh, new ventures [00:03:30] that are incubating and being accelerated on that floor. And that's really what skydeck is. It's the combination of the education and the research and we see it in these early startup companies that, um, show or almost highlight the creativity of the students enough. The research that comes out of this institution. Speaker 1:So are the teams that are being incubated by a skydeck composed primarily of Berkeley students. [00:04:00] The teams Speaker 3:are in Skydeck are a mix of Berkeley students who have taken classes in various entrepreneurial programs and they have gotten to the stage where are more polished and ready to be accelerated. And also teams of graduate students or graduate students and faculty that have incubated their early ideas within research projects [00:04:30] that go on on the campus. And they have also gotten to a stage where the story and the narrative and the, um, the work that they're doing is ready to be commercialized. So it's about, it's a research output and it's a, um, a curriculum output that, that results in these students. One other thing if I can, uh, just add that is that skydeck is a collaboration of [00:05:00] the College of Engineering, of the hospice school and of the vice chancellor of research. Uh, so, um, it's really all of these communities that come together and, and make skydeck the accelerator that it is, Speaker 1:it's quite interesting for a university to help fund and found its own incubator. Could you tell us about what you see as the relation between academic research and the commercialization of that research? Speaker 3:So it's not that this [00:05:30] is completely a unique idea in academics, but you know what's causing the need for it, not just at Berkeley but you know, all across the country and in fact all over the world is that there's a category of research which is fundamental knowledge creation. It's over long periods of time that um, that the understanding is, is used and it's a very important part of research. It's, it's theoretical and fundamental, [00:06:00] but there's also research which is applied and um, the applications of that research are more valuable when they are seen, when people understand what they are when they are used. And the idea by itself doesn't reach people or it doesn't scale without investment dollars and without customers who, who value it. And without the research being adjusted [00:06:30] in a way that people can use it. And that's really part of what commercialization is about. So one to have visibility of all of the amazing work that goes on on this campus. That's one very important reason to, to have an activity like skydeck and more than the visibility is the actual good that this work does when it gets placed in a commercial setting. Speaker 1:Do you find that the impetus to scale [00:07:00] and to commercialize then pushes the research that students do in unexpected directions? Speaker 3:Yeah, that's an interesting question. I think Berkeley has been a place a has a history of, I'm going to say diversity, diversity in thought, diversity in ideas. And I think there's a place for um, there's a very large place for theoretical and fundamental work, but um, the state of California and the people in California are also interested in those aspects of their [00:07:30] research, which make peoples lives better, which have societal value, which they can buy to save time or to entertain people in different ways. And that's also an important part. And so I think there's a balance. I don't think one is right, but certainly I don't think it's exclusive that work should be in one category or the other. Speaker 1:What happens afterwards for people who go through all the programs run by the Center for entrepreneurship, it's been quite some years. You know, I think by now we must have [00:08:00] like four or 5,000 alumni that have, Speaker 3:you know, come through our programs and many have started companies and, and they run these companies independently, right? But there's a lot of people that, you know, go through the programs and they have a learning experience and they go to work somewhere and they do well. And so by now a lot of these, you know, many of our alumni are well placed in very good companies or the little company that they started got acquired by [00:08:30] a bigger company and now they've done well in that larger company. And so we have alumni who are executives, I guess is maybe the right word as well as entrepreneurs in the bay area. I'll tell you this one story from venture lab sometime back, which is we had these undergraduate students and they had an iPad application and stood up on the stage and presented it and everyone was like, wow, that's really cool. Speaker 3:I mean, [00:09:00] they did a great job in just their few minutes. And right after that, um, not more than a month, maybe, maybe two months or something like that. They came back into my office and they said, well, you know what, um, I think we want to, um, drop out of school. And you know, my first question is have you talked to your parents about this? And they explained that since that time they had, you know, a million or more dollars of funding for their, uh, for their project. [00:09:30] And there was another little caveat that they had spending so much time on this that they let all their classes suffer. And you know, if they continued with the semester, they would have basically gotten bad grades and in all of these things. And they had gone and they'd done some research and they figured out that if they drop here, there is a way for them to get back into school. Speaker 3:A year later. It's not really like ending, but they could actually take a break of a sore is what it is and do this experiment. And they had, you know, a relatively large [00:10:00] amount of money that they could, could build our company with. So I'm like, so listen, as a person who teaches these classes, silver, I cannot tell you that you shouldn't drop out of school. That's just beyond what I'm like allowed to say here. But, uh, you know, whatever you decide to do, talk to your parents, talk to administration to just know what you're doing. It's, you know, it's really up to you to, to decide what you want to do. But as I internalizes and I think about this, what they are about to do is [00:10:30] take this money and run this company and they're going to be the CTO and the CEO and so forth of this company. Speaker 3:And you can bet that that next job that they're going to apply for one day is a lot better after having done whatever they're about to do for the next year than it would be if they took one more class in what they were doing. So again, like I would never say like, oh, you should do that. That would be really outside of the kind of advice [00:11:00] that, that I can give. But as I think about it, they did very well. I mean, and I don't know, you know, what exactly happened and how many pivots they had and what that translated into. But they had great skills by going through this process. They had just amazingly great skills and I have no doubt that they'll be successful no matter which way they go. So there's a balance to, to this, uh, conversation. And for some people, pursuing their entrepreneurial dream is, is a great [00:11:30] opportunity. Speaker 3:But let me give you the other side to that story. So for all of the people who say, Hey, just join a venture, you'll learn while you're here and why do you want to spend your time in this classroom, in that classroom? And you know, you could get paid to learn. That's the kind of argument that you hear on that side. You know what I'll tell you is that all of these companies that grow and are, you know, there's one bill gates and there's one, there's, you know, and there's war one mark Zuckerberg. And [00:12:00] so forth. And yes, they came out of school and they built some enormous and and great organizations, but all those organizations who are they hiring, they want to hire people who finish school. You know, in the end a company is not just a few entrepreneurs who we'll take that challenge and will not bother about all these conventions. You need certain specializations. It doesn't matter how entrepreneurial you are, you cannot be a doctor because you're entrepreneurial. [00:12:30] It no one's going to let you operate on them just because you think you can. And when organizations need to hire people, they need to hire people with exact skills to do accounting right, and to not mess up the taxes when they filed them and to do everything that the company needs to do. Speaker 1:You're listening to method to the madness on KALX Berkeley. Today we have a clock Stud, you the founding director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and technology at UC Berkeley. He's here to speak to us today about skydeck [00:13:00] and the Berkeley method of entrepreneurship. You're very involved with the Berkeley method of entrepreneurship here at cal. Could you tell us more about this method? Speaker 3:Yeah, so first I should say that, um, the Berkeley method of entrepreneurship is a, um, is a teaching methodology. It's a holistic approach to helping people become entrepreneurs or teaching them how they can be entrepreneurs. And it was developed by myself and with, um, my [00:13:30] co-director, the managing director of the center, Ken Singer. And in many ways, it's has been developed over many years. So we've been teaching people how to become entrepreneurs or, yeah, basically how to become entrepreneurs in our classes for, as I said, you know, almost 10 years now and we've had a number of experiments, some things work well and some things don't work as well. And we've learned over this period of time, well in the last few years we've come to the state where we [00:14:00] can codify it, we can explain what has worked well and what has not worked well better than say we could have five years ago. Speaker 3:And so now when I think about teaching people to be entrepreneurs, I think that there's three types of support or knowledge that we can give them. And one of these types of support is the types of things that you would read in, uh, various entrepreneurship books that can be books that are about lean launch [00:14:30] or ideas like pivots or milestone based planning or how you work out the mechanics of a venture term sheets or you know, all of those types of ideas, um, that are more or less expressed in, in the process of how you, you start companies and are in books. I think that's one category of things. And quite often in classes, that's what people teach. There's another thing in skydeck. So a great example of the infrastructure that you [00:15:00] have to provide to allow entrepreneurship to happen. So that is both space and clear rules on intellectual property and the networks of investors in the way that you can connect to mentors and angel investors and to first customers and all of that kind of infrastructure that, that, um, incubators and accelerators can provide. Speaker 3:But quite often there, there's this missing piece and the missing piece is what's going on [00:15:30] in people's heads. It's their mindset. And, um, mindset is, is basically, um, in part it's the way that you see things and it's a certain set of beliefs that you have and that results in different behaviors that you take. So a person with an entrepreneurial mindset can look at a certain situation and they will act in a way that will lead them to pursue something [00:16:00] entrepreneurial. Whereas someone with without that mindset will look exactly at the same situation and they may just want to be as far away from that situation as possible. They don't see that as an opportunity. These, they see this is something that's not interesting to them. And by seeing things in certain ways, you behave in different ways and entrepreneurs tend to have certain set of behaviors and when entrepreneurs [00:16:30] are in a community and they're sharing this mindset with each other, they, that's what an entrepreneurial culture is. Speaker 3:And Bay area of course has a very strong entrepreneurial culture and learning the entrepreneurial culture, these unwritten rules of how you proceed and go about and work with other people. That's a really important part of being an entrepreneur. And so we're, we're combining all three of these layers together in our approach to teaching [00:17:00] it. Uh, just explain what some of these behaviors are. Um, that would be a natural question. I, I would think probably the most obvious one is how resilient people are to certain situations. So, um, how resilient are you to when people say no to you for something? Um, some people take it much harder or they, they would not want to ask for something if they thought that there's even a chance. The answer might be no. But entrepreneurs have to ask for things [00:17:30] where the answer is no all the time. And um, they can't take that hard at all. Speaker 3:In fact, they have to realize that after someone says no to you, nothing bad actually happened. It's fine. It's like, okay, that's, you know, they might want to ask a followup question like, why not? But nothing bad is actually happening by asking for something where the answer is no. Or sometimes when things don't go right, you know, how resilient are you to it to effectively the failure and do you look at it that way? [00:18:00] But there's more than, than only resilience and, and accepting of experiments that fail and so forth in entrepreneurial culture. Uh, one is how quickly you trust people. If you can trust people quickly and you can share information quickly, you're likely to get feedback much faster than other people. And so your ideas evolve faster. Another is how you negotiate with people. Do you negotiate zero sum, uh, meaning that anything [00:18:30] that you think you can get in the negotiation is something that they are gonna give up or lose? Speaker 3:Or do you negotiate for the longterm really to try to get fairness for both sides? You know, people who negotiate for the short term, they can't count on these people and this help, um, the next time around, or even a little while later on, and as soon as the situation turns in the favor that the other person has a little bit more capability [00:19:00] or resource or power, uh, that person's no longer helpful to them. And so learning to negotiate in a way that is a creative that, that you know, that lets people turn one plus one into three. You know, that type of negotiation is very common with entrepreneurs. Very important for entrepreneurs on a cultural entrepreneurial culture basis is the diversity of networks that they are part of. So it turns out, and you [00:19:30] can, you can think this through logically, that people who are very similar with each other just don't have that much to trade with each other. Speaker 3:So if you're given a job and you're both completely the same, maybe you can do the job in half the time that that's, that's fine. But if you're trying to create value, usually one person brings one thing and another person brings another thing and then now they can trade their skills with each other and they can accomplish more than they could have when they were just one [00:20:00] person. So if you buy into the idea that value comes from diversity of the people that are working together, um, the problem is that the people that you're most naturally wanting to talk to and spend time with are the people that are the most similar to you. So you have to overcome your social barriers to want to spend time with people that are not like you. And you have to be in networks of people who are different [00:20:30] than you. Speaker 3:And that's very common for entrepreneurs, that they are able to overcome these networks quite easily and so forth. So we have a list of 10 of these types of behaviors that entrepreneurs have and we infused that into our teaching models so that we're not only teaching, how do you, um, negotiate a term sheet, but we're teaching these very fundamental, um, behaviors that are much more likely [00:21:00] to make you a successful entrepreneur. Do you think an entrepreneur can really be made? Yeah, I actually think you can make an entrepreneur. I do. And I can almost say that the research, uh, verifies that I don't want to make too strong a statement on that. Just because you never know how that will come back to you. But what we've discovered is that entrepreneurs are the only group of people among three sets of people. Entrepreneur, innovator, manager and [00:21:30] engineer with took those three sets and we discovered that entrepreneurs were the only ones that continued to be comfortable and became more comfortable over time outside of their comfort zone and everybody else after high school regresses just a little bit with how comfortable they are outside of their current comfort with ambiguity. Speaker 3:That means comfort with deciding [00:22:00] to that you will do something even though you don't know what the outcome is going to be. And so if you put these two ideas together that you can only grow when you're comfortable being outside your comfort zone and the fact that entrepreneurs are the one category of people that continue to, to be comfortable outside their comfort zone and the fact that a growth mindset can be taught, it's proven, it's, it's [00:22:30] shown that it has to do with the reinforcement of you know, what, what you get reinforced for. So we feel strongly that you can be reinforced for behaviors that would let you stay outside of your comfort zone and that you could therefore create more entrepreneurs. Not sure it means that every single person can be an entrepreneur, but we can train people in such a way that they're all more [00:23:00] likely to be an entrepreneur. Speaker 3:And there's also other issues that just because you can be an entrepreneur doesn't mean that you want to. And so you have to personally decide that that's what you want to do, which is separate from your [inaudible] capabilities. What are some of the training practices or specific exercises that you have students do to gain this new mindset or gain entrepreneurial capabilities? So we actually use games and exercises built into our courses, uh, to, to reinforce these types of behaviors. An example [00:23:30] that, you know, you could start to understand, let's go back to the, uh, getting comfortable with people saying no to you. So we have our students go out in little groups and one of them, um, uh, uses their cell phone and um, video tapes basically, and the other person walks up to a complete stranger, a person they don't know and ask them for something unreasonable where the answer is very likely to be no. Speaker 3:And they, [00:24:00] uh, make them ask the question and they get them on, on the video and they submit the video. That's their homework. And so people will, will ask for crazy things. Occasionally the person will even say yes. And that happens too. And so there are certain situations I guess where they didn't realize that that wasn't completely as unreasonable as as they thought. So that's one on the resilience side, but there's things that you can do in how you tell stories or [00:24:30] you know, how you communicate with other people and how, how easily did they understand what it was that you are communicating there. There's a number of games basically. And the watching yourself is an important aspect of that because not only do you have to go through the game, but then when you see what you look like trying to do that thing, um, that's part of the learning and that helps you overcome it. Speaker 3:I was wondering if we could now shift gears and talk [00:25:00] a little bit about you. Could you tell us a little about your background and how you came to Berkeley? Um, all right. So I, uh, have three degrees in electrical engineering through phd. I spent almost 10 years running advanced development or large portions of advanced development and used to run about a third of the advanced development for three home corporation. Uh, I was a chief technical officer for three g wireless infrastructure company [00:25:30] and in 2002 I came back into academics and I was a visiting professor at University of Illinois and I started the entrepreneurship program or grew the entrepreneurship program there in Champagne, Illinois. And in 2005 I was contacted did by Berkeley. And in fact, the dean at that time, Richard Newton, he said, well, you know, if you can start an entrepreneurship program in Illinois, you should really [00:26:00] be able to start one in the bay area at Berkeley. Speaker 3:That seemed to make some sense to me. So in 2005, I came here, I've a appointment in industrial engineering and operations research. I, um, my first role here was really to create this, uh, entrepreneurship center at Berkeley. And um, along the way created a number of other things. One was this venture lab, uh, one is that a Richard Niton distinguished innovator lecture series. [00:26:30] One is, uh, I read the proposal for the fucking Institute for Engineering Leadership and uh, became the founding chief scientist of this institute. And I'm probably just a number of other related activities to, to entrepreneurship and innovation. Speaker 1:I was wondering if there were any childhood inspirations or life experiences that set you on this path. Speaker 3:For some reason I had a very early and natural interest [00:27:00] to build things when, when I was small. Um, I used to, um, um, you know, I mean starting out with the simple things, but by fifth or sixth grade, I was building some sort of photography laboratory and then I built a dark room timer out of parts from, um, radio shack and I was building my own clock. By ninth grade. I had built a method or some machinery to [00:27:30] transmit sound over optical pulses so that you could play a tape recorder, they had tape recorders and it would go into a little laser and would be received on the other end. If you put your hand in between the receiver and the transmitter, the sound would stop and he'd take your hand away and it would continue on. Uh, so, you know, it was digital pulse code modulation and I brought that in and basically like the first day of science class in ninth grade. And you know, the teacher was just like, well, I guess, um, [00:28:00] I guess, you know, like way ahead of everybody here. So somehow I just knew that I wanted to do things in engineering. Speaker 1:I was also wondering what made you want to get more involved in academia after your time in industry? Speaker 3:First of all, I probably spend, you know, 10 plus years or something in school. So a a significant amount of time getting my phd and being trained in that way. And then I spent probably an equal amount of time in industry and you know, both [00:28:30] building product and developing intellectual property and so forth that I have 61 patents actually that were developed, you know, during that period of time. And while I was in industry I couldn't help but notice that there were a lot of things that just weren't taught in school. And if only I had known some of those things, it would make my industry life more effective, more productive and so forth. So for me, it's really [00:29:00] full circle, which is that when the opportunity came to then spend the next set of years back in academic setting, the motivation was that I could bring back the experiences that I had had both in larger companies and as in an entrepreneurial environment and in the new venture back into the academics. And that's why the entrepreneurship center actually just made so much sense for me. And ultimately that's the value and that's also the [00:29:30] kind of reward that I get from the study of these things and the teaching of these things. Speaker 1:Now, have any of our listeners has questions or comments? How can they get touch with you? Speaker 3:I think that the first thing is you should look at our website, c e T. Dot. berkeley.edu and of course the skydeck website as well. And, um, I have to say that I'm probably pretty easy to find. You could easily Google me. Thank you for joining [00:30:00] us today on method to the madness at Gluck. It's been a pleasure. Speaker 4:If you have questions or comments about this show, go to the k a l x website and find method to the madness. Drop us an email, tune in again in two weeks at this same time. Have a great weekend. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Archaeologist Dr Diana Pickworth. She is presently a Visiting Scholar in the UC Berkeley Near Eastern Studies Department. Formerly Assoc Prof of Mesopotamian Art and Archaeology and Museum Studies at the University of ‘Aden in the Republic of Yemen.TranscriptSpeaker 1: Spectrum's next. Speaker 2: Okay. [inaudible]. Speaker 1: Welcome to spectrum the science and technology show on k [00:00:30] a l x Berkeley, a biweekly 30 minute program bringing you interviews featuring bay area scientists and technologists as well as a calendar of local events and news. Speaker 3: Hey, good afternoon. My name is Brad Swift. I'm the host of today's show this week on spectrum. Our guest is archaeologist Dr Diana. Pick worth. She is presently a visiting scholar in the UC Berkeley Near Eastern studies department. Dr Pick worth is completing the work related to the publication of two volumes [00:01:00] on excavations carried out by a university of California team at the site of Nineveh in northern Iraq. Formerly she was an associate professor of Mesopotamian art and archeology and museum studies at the University of a sudden in the Republic of Yemen. Diana pick worth is an elected fellow of the explorers club and a member of the American School of Oriental Research. Here is that interview. Hi, this is Brad Swift. In today's spectrum interview, Rick Karnofsky [00:01:30] joins me, Rick [inaudible] and today's guest is Diana. Pick worth Diana, welcome to spectrum. Speaker 1: I'm honored and delighted to be here. Speaker 3: Diana would you begin by talking about archeology and how it got started and how it's blossomed into its multifaceted current state. Speaker 1: There's no doubt that the enlightenment in the 19th century sparked a huge interest [00:02:00] in the eastern part of the Ottoman Empire. And so during this period, the European countries, England, France, Germany, Austria, and Italy, we're sending consoles and ambassadors to visit the Parshah and Istanbul. What happened was these countries became competitive in their desire, both the land and knowledge. And this was fueled somewhat by [00:02:30] Darwin's research and in 1830 his work on the Beagle and subsequently his publication of origin of species spoked enormous questions about the Bible. And it was this desire to understand the truth about the Bible. It had been viewed up until that point is a given that it was correct [00:03:00] and it challenged the world view at the time. And avast and I think changing Manoj and so layered from England, Botha from foams moved east of Istanbul into northern Iraq. And what we see is these two men really pitching at each other to stake a claim for that country to excavate in there tells that they [00:03:30] both discovered in the appetite risk space on and is that how the Fertile Crescent got started? Speaker 1: That whole idea of Fertile Crescent, that was a little later, but the Fertile Crescent represents an area where settlement could first begin and so the ice Asya hat is really a points on a map. It's a way of looking at how [00:04:00] geography, rainfall, and natural geographic circumstances create a circumstance where humankind can prosper and it can farm in what is called dry farming. And so what we find, it's an all running up from about the middle of their Dead Sea on the Palestinian literal all the way up in a circle across the top of what [00:04:30] is today, northern Syria and northern Iraq. Those sites date from as early as 9,000 BC and there's no doubt that's where we are. We all finding humankind's first farming and settlement currently. Then what's notable about the transition from the 19th or the 20th century in terms of archeology? I think on the one hand a tremendous continuity so [00:05:00] that those sites that would claimed in the 19th century tend to still be excavated by the same country. Speaker 1: There's an unspoken but still I think quite rigorous concept that a site is handed on. The perspective has become much more global so that we have people excavating in the Middle East, from South Africa, [00:05:30] from South America, from the United States, and these teams in most we would call the new world are essentially funded or sponsored by their universities. That still remains in the European countries. A tradition of sponsorship by the government and this makes a huge difference. They are able to continue with a very shore knowledge of funding [00:06:00] year after year. You talked a little bit about the Fertile Crescent. What are other examples of old settlements? What's the oldest settlement? I think in photo Cresson, certainly one of the most remarkable sites is Choteau here. And this was excavated by the University of California by Ruth Traynham and has some of the earliest illustrative material and [00:06:30] war paintings in that area. And representative, uh, no doubt of the earliest farming settlements. And it's a dense occupation. Surprisingly, there are dense a little later we see sites that we defined by this ceramic heritage, so at this point we have new written documentation but how suna and hello laugh of these very early pottery sites that are named [00:07:00] essentially from the first site, but we find a spread of occupation across the area. Further east, I'm a hindered Daro 2,900 BC is in what is modern day Pakistan and without doubt one of the earliest settlements Speaker 4: [inaudible]Speaker 5: you were listening to spectrum on k a l experts like archaeologist, [00:07:30] Diana [inaudible] is our guest. Speaker 1: How closely does archaeological training in universities track with the real world application of archeology? I think in many cases very well. One of the requirements of an archeologist above all others I think is flexibility and sturdy resilience, but there are three aspects we're trained theoretically [00:08:00] and this I think is where to refer back to your earlier question. There is a change from 19th century archeology today. We're trained to pose a theoretical question to come up with a hypothesis that we will try to test on the ground. I think an area background knowledge is essential training varies in this regard. For example, [00:08:30] in Germany, archeologists are expected to work all over the world whereas we tend to direct our training two area studies say that my area Mesopotamia and Arabian studies really requires a basis of language study under knowledge of the history of the area and so one becomes a specialist in a particular area. Speaker 1: The practical training [00:09:00] is fairly consistent. I think we begin in in the states, the students are sent in the summers to excavations and throughout their graduate career it's hope they'll have an opportunity to really work in different types of sites and all of us begin or hope to with a semester in a field archeology school so that ones practicing perhaps in a situation where one can't cause too much [00:09:30] damage within the United States field of study, how much might one drift from their graduate area into another area of the world as they start their career? That's an interesting question. In my experience, people do really tend to stay within their area of specialization. We're talking about as much as maybe six to eight years of a language study. The geography and the history of an area [00:10:00] becomes embedded in one's training and in one's doctoral dissertation, so I personally don't think there is such a broad shift. Speaker 1: I think theoretically once capable, there's absolutely no doubt and we find also that students who find themselves not to have strong language studies tend to move into pre history. If you're working in pre history, then really one can go anywhere. It doesn't matter. [00:10:30] There are loopholes in the system, some of the technical methods that are being applied to dating things. Does that mess up the history of it all, the timing, the dating, a lot of the earlier work, does it get overturned in terms of how old is this settlement? I think DNA has made an enormous, perhaps the most significant difference and whole groups of people have been shown to not be native to where [00:11:00] they have claimed in their own written literature that they've always left that spin. I think a delightful surprise, very interesting surprise. Certainly high and duel found that everyone going to the Polynesian islands was going in 150 degrees opposite direction from what he had anticipated. Speaker 1: So we do find that as time passes, the studies can be refined, but I would say it's rather a question [00:11:30] of refinement than are there just totally wrong assumptions. Can I call it it all about what proportion of work is done on newly found settlements, settlements that might've been found in the past couple years versus settlements that we've known about for some time? I think the introduction of Google and satellite imagery has made a vast difference to what we can do most recently in [00:12:00] a northeast Iraq in what is now the Kurdish settlement. Recent work by Harvard has discovered an enormous number of settlements and all of the previous research before they went into the field was done using satellite imagery and so that was unavailable until quite recently. It saves money. There's no doubt with satellite imagery. We can sit in an office in Berkeley and look at the satellite [00:12:30] sites surrounding a large site. We can see a pattern perhaps of movement along a track through mountain ranges from settlement, so that's enormously expanded. What we can do in the office before we go into the field. [inaudible] Speaker 6: spectrum is a public affairs show on KALX Berkeley. Our guest is archeologist in Diana. [00:13:00] She is a visiting scholar of the Near Eastern studies department. Speaker 1: Can you start to talk about some of your own work in Iraq? I first went to Iraq as a graduate student at UC Berkeley. I was invited by Professor David Stronach who is the director of the excavation for our first season. There were six graduate students and it was a relatively short season [00:13:30] to explore the site and decide how an excavation would be approached and what would it be involved. I was very determined to go. I had spent most my undergraduate time studying art history and museum studies, but as time went on I became more and more interested in archeology and really love living in the Middle East. I had lived in the Middle East a long time before. I have [00:14:00] a degree in education. And so I had worked as a governess in the Middle East in Yemen, and I was very keen to go back and the first day I climbed up onto Keon check, which is the tail of Nineveh. Speaker 1: I just knew that I'd found what I wanted to do and it was so wonderful and I liked it very much indeed. And I've been there ever since. Okay. And is there any prospect of going back to Nineveh [00:14:30] presently knew? No. Saul is extremely dangerous at the moment, and so unfortunately that's not a possibility. Certainly we've been invited back and I know that I could go back if it ever becomes a safe to do. So what's happened to the tail is hard to know. The other sad aspect is that there has been an enormous growth in the size of Mosul, the city adjacent on the other side of the [00:15:00] Tigris river. Your time in Nineveh. What was the big accomplishment that you thought you folks had achieved? I think in the three years that we were there assessing everything. Today as we write up the reports, it's incredibly encouraging. Speaker 1: We chose about six different areas of exploration that would represent aspects of the long duration at the site. It's an extremely [00:15:30] old city. And so one exploration on the side of the tail was a step trench down and this has been aided by erosion from water so that we were able to get down to 2,500 BC, um, without digging down through it. We could go in from the side. So there was a component that was of a very early period. The Small [00:16:00] Eminence just south of the sail or the citadel of the city where the royal family lived was also explored. And we expose there a really beautiful elite house, you could say, an administrative house and the surrounding area of that. We also worked up on the northern Northwestern corner by the sin gate. And inside of that we found a very fine [00:16:30] industrial area so that we were able to demonstrate that there was pottery making on the site as well as some metalla Jay, I think. Speaker 1: And then on the wall on the southeast corner, David [inaudible] excavated the [inaudible] gate to Housey. Uh, no gate had really been fully excavated by a Western team, although some of the other gates had been partially [00:17:00] excavated by the Iraqis. And that was where we found the evidence of the destruction of the city, which was extremely exciting. After Iraq, you moved back to Yemen? Yes, I had always studied Yemen. I have roped both my masters degree and my phd on the material culture of Saudi Arabia. And so I had written on the stone [00:17:30] statuary of the mortuary temples and it's very fascinating. A great deal of the material had been moved to Europe, so that had one tried to estimate how much there was there. It would have been easy to say very little, very little at all, but long detailed research program made it very clear that it wasn't, that there was very little, it was that it had been so widely dispersed. Speaker 1: [00:18:00] And so I eventually visited maybe as many as 25 museums and brought it all together again, which proved to be very interesting. And I was able to do a lot of dating from that. And then my doctoral dissertation, which I wrote here at Berkeley, was on the gemstones and stamps, seals of South Arabia and that I used to demonstrate the connection between these South Arabians, small kingdoms [00:18:30] and the greater empire, tight polity of a neo, Syria or other later Syrian period. And so what one found was that this trading network connected all the way across the Arabian peninsula up to Gaza and then on into the Assyrian Kingdom. And so there are in the British Museum at Gates that were sent by the king of Saba from Maarib to Gaza [00:19:00] and then on to Nimruz. And these were buried underneath the temple and they're signed with the king's name. So we knew that they had to been used in that way. So I had an enormous interest in Yemen and stayed there and taught in the university, essentially in Aiden, continue to work there until rather recently. Speaker 6: This is spectrum [00:19:30] k, Aleks, Berkeley archaeologist and visiting scholar at UC Berkeley. Diana, pick work. Sorry. Speaker 1: What advice would you give to people who are considering getting into archeology? I think an undergraduate degree in a hard science is really important in the long term and I think that was advice that perhaps [00:20:00] was less prophet earlier. I think there was more stress on art history and I think students today a well-served with incredibly sturdy technological skills, computer skills and science backgrounds and I think to avoid that is to invite a short career. I really do. I think the training of a hard science is also useful. I [00:20:30] think it makes for a strict discipline, critical thinking, theoretical background in thinking on analytical studies is really useful, very, very useful. And then field training this, no doubt. I think that field training prior to going into the field for the first time at least exposes warm to some of the surprises that will arrive. Speaker 1: I think for most archeologists [00:21:00] you have to think on your feet and so unless one is well-prepared and has made detailed studies of what one's going to do, then it's vital to err on the side of caution when you put the first spade in because otherwise it's destroyed and gone. And so those types of preparations, which are easily available. Field schools are available everywhere. So that prepares, I think an archaeologist for the field work aspect. [00:21:30] But Sonia, small part, the fieldwork is such a small part of the overall, it's like a blip in the middle in a way. There's a long lead in of preparation and research and location choice. Then that's the excavation and then an incredibly lengthy period of um, producing the data and getting it out. And the computers help that most excavations today. It's all of the data is going straight [00:22:00] into the computer and can be sent back to the university, which was an advantage, an enormous advantage. Speaker 1: How do you see archeology going forward? What is its future? What I find is that as one area closes, another will open rather recently, the northern Iraq area of what is now Kurdistan has opened up. It became rather safe up there for awhile. [00:22:30] So that an ability to move say from Syria into that area was seized by many archeologists. So that many teams have been in the field, I would say for the last five years in northeast Iraq. And Kurdistan, I googled to check for you where everyone is digging at the moment. And so there's sort of a narrow tight band of Middle Eastern scholars in Israel and down into [00:23:00] Jordan and that's a huge concentration. And then upon the northeastern potting Kurdistan and we've seen an opening up in Saudi Arabia, so wonderful materialists coming out of the tame excavation, which is led by the Germans, uh, by iHuman. That's been very, very exciting. And they are expanding. There's also been a lot of expansion by more than just [00:23:30] the British into the Emirates and say we have a lot of excavations at the moment and Kuwait behind [inaudible] Ku, Wayne and down into Dubai. So when one door closes, another opens and there are people in Oman as well. No one stays home. It's not appealing. We like to be in the field. Speaker 1: Is there anything we haven't asked you about that you want to mention? [00:24:00] Maybe China. There's an enormous ongoing excavations in China at the moment. It's definitely overturning and changing their own knowledge of their own history. And I find that fascinating. And as a northern southern divide about where the origins of China's more recent civilizations came from and so it's been fascinating for me to watch that. As I said [00:24:30] earlier, I think that we're very flexible people and I suppose that would be where I would move if I could never go back to the Middle East. Diana, pick worth. Thanks very much for being on spectrum. Thank you. I've enjoyed myself. Thank you. Speaker 6: Spectrum shows are archived on iTunes university. We have created a simple link for you. The link is tiny [00:25:00] URL [inaudible] dot com slash KALX at spectrum. Speaker 3: Now a few of the science and technology events happening locally over the next two weeks. Rick Karnofsky joins me when the calendar on May 7th from seven to 9:00 PM UC Berkeley, professor of psychology and neuroscience, Matt Walker. We'll be it. Ask a scientist at the summer street food park, four to eight 11th street in San Francisco. [00:25:30] They'll discuss research showing that sleep is a highly active process that is essential for many cognitive functions including learning, memory, creativity and brain plasticity. The event is free, although you can purchase stuff to eat from the food trucks there. Visit, ask a scientist S f.com for more info. Why are many body problems in physics so difficult? A quantum information [00:26:00] perspective determining the physical behavior of systems composed of several particles is in general very hard. The reason is that the number of possible combinations of states increases exponentially with the number of particles for quantum systems. The situation is even worse in his talk. Ignacio Ciroc will explain this phenomenon in detail and we'll review several approaches to assessing this difficulty and to overcoming it under certain conditions. [00:26:30] NASCIO Ciroc has been director of the theory division at the Max Planck Institute for Quantum optics since December, 2001 this lecture is Monday May 12th at 4:00 PM in [inaudible] Hall, [inaudible] Auditorium on the UC Berkeley campus. This event is free. Speaker 7: Counter culture labs is hosting a few free talks at the pseudo room. Hackerspace two one 41 Broadway in Oakland over the next few weeks. [00:27:00] On May 9th at 7:00 PM we'll hear from Ben Novak, who is it? Paleo geneticist working on using clone cells from cryo-preserved museum specimens and genome editing in an attempt to revive the passenger pigeon from extinction. Then on May 15th at 7:00 PM they will host Anthony Evans who was on the glowing plant project. This project raised a half million dollars on Kickstarter to add firefly DNA to [00:27:30] plants to make them glow. He'll discuss the process, how they've handled the public perception of GMOs and why open source science matters. For more information on these in future events, visit counterculture labs.org Speaker 3: now, Rick Karnofsky with an interesting news story, Speaker 7: nature news reports on an article by Gary Frost and Jimmy Bell from the Imperial College, London and [00:28:00] others that dietary fiber may act on the brain to curb appetite in a paper published in nature communications. On April 29th the team discussed how fiber that is fermented in the colon creates colonic acetate and using radioactively tagged Acetate and pet scans. They showed that colonic acetate crosses the blood brain barrier and it's taken up by the brain of rats. They also showed that acetate [00:28:30] administration is associated with activation of Acetol Coa, a carboxylase, and changes in the expression profiles of regulatory neuropeptides that favor appetite suppression. These observations suggest that Acetate as a direct role in the central appetite regulation. Speaker 4: Mm, thanks to Rick Karnofsky [00:29:00] for help with the interview calendar and with the news music heard during the show was written and produced by Alex Simon. Thank you for listening to spectrum. If you have comments about the show, please send them to us via email, Speaker 8: email addresses spectrum, dedicate a lx@yahoo.com join us in two weeks at the same [00:29:30] time. [inaudible]. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Interview with Cal student Ben Einstein about his venture VapeSecret, which is an e-cig company that is focused on helping smokers quit smokingTRANSCRIPTSpeaker 1:Okay. Speaker 2:[inaudible] Speaker 3:you're listening to Kale expert, clear 90.7 FM. This is the method to the madness coming at you from the Public Affairs Department here at Calex, dedicated [00:00:30] to the innovative spirit of the bay area. I'm your host aliene Huizar. And today we have the founders of vape secret with us. We have Shawn Linehan. Hey Sean. How's it going? Good, how are you? Good. And Ben Einstein. Yeah. What's going on? What's up man? And then we got Dave, you lead. Thank you for having us. Hey, thanks for coming on the show. And this is really exciting cause we have three entrepreneurs with us who are actually cal students. That's right, right? Yeah. Okay. So two of your seniors and Davey, you are a junior. The Junior. Okay. [00:01:00] This is very exciting. And um, we reversed the first question we usually ask on this show is your, you've created something out of thin air. It's came from your brain, right? So give me, why don't we start with you, Ben. Give us the problem statement. Why did you, what is, what is the problem that you're trying to solve? Speaker 1:Hi Ma, I'm actually glad you asked me that because, uh, I think the problem that we had was mine. Um, Sean and I were actually working on a different project, [00:01:30] um, and we're working on the 11th floor of a building and every 20 minutes he would leave to go smoke. And it's really hard to develop any software if you're a coder is leaving every 20 minutes. Um, and so I said, why don't you try e-cigs and he said I did and they all suck. And I said, okay, let's make a good one. And 44 days later we did. What was the project you guys were working on? Yes, so we were [00:02:00] still working on, on that project as well. We're kind of doing two simultaneous things. It's crazy, but it actually is managing to work. Um, the other project is einstein.com which is an intelligent product recommendation Speaker 3:software. It's a mobile app that we're working on and is also making significant progress. Okay, great. So maybe we'll get to that later on in the day of the program. So, um, so you wanted to make an e cigarette cause you saw your friend Ben not be able to Sean not be able to [00:02:30] work for more than 30 minutes in a row, although a lot of coders have the same problem. Speaker 1:Yeah. Um, it was also the scent, um, the owner that, you know, smokers have, we're working in a small space and that was obviously, uh, not pleasant for everyone else. Um, but most of the Burton Lee's my friend, I didn't want him to die. So a good friend. Yeah. Smoking smoking's really bad. My grandfather died from smoking. I've always been pretty against it. And so I didn't really know much about the e-cig business. Sean [00:03:00] did a little bit of research and tried a couple, a couple of products and didn't like them. And so we figured out what the problems were with the existing product on the market. And what are those problems? Um, the most popular electronic cigarette is called blue. Uh, it's a little cigarette looking device, um, lights up blue at the end and it's very small and it doesn't produce a lot of vapor and smokers required a large amounts of smoke or in our case [00:03:30] vapor in order to be satisfied. Speaker 1:So it's not satisfactory. Um, it's also limited in that it's small in size, which means the battery's small, which means that you can't use it all day straight. Um, and we wanted to create a product that, first of all, it delivered the experience of smoking, uh, while simultaneously being able to do that all day while simultaneously being able to be affordable to people like us college students. Um, [00:04:00] and so we looked around and there were similar products that we wanted to create on the market, but there were being marketed for over 60 bucks. And that's out of the price range of most college students. And it's definitely out of the price range of putting entrepreneurs who are going broke. So, um, on here slash students, some students who are, who are on a student budget and spending all their extra money on trying to build, build the company. So, um, it came down to quality, um, [00:04:30] and affordability and, um, you know, we, we were hoping, we were luckily able to, uh, go through the entire product development, um, stage in, in just, uh, 40 days. And, uh, we were proud to have developed a pretty good product. Speaker 3:So what I want to get to your product development, we wanna tell that story. Um, but first tell me a little bit more about, it seems like from someone who's not really into this industry, that the e-cig market and in vape [00:05:00] market has exploded over the last few years or kind of they're everywhere, where you didn't used to see them very often. Tell us a little bit about the, the kind of macro backdrop again of the industry that you guys are trying to disrupt. Speaker 4:Yeah. So the industry has been around for a good number of years. Five to six years was actually invented by a dentist and in Asia, which is interesting, but you know, it, it, it's one of those products that sounds too good to be true. [00:05:30] You know, you get all of the benefits of smoking without any of the, the bad things. Right. And so for the past couple of years, um, you know, people were using them, they were being sold online, but there was so much pessimism about the product because nobody had ever really done any studies on them. Uh, so, you know, more, more and more research was done on the products. Uh, basically we find that although they're not perfectly safe, they are so Speaker 3:much safer [00:06:00] than traditional cigarettes, but they started to gain mass appeal. Um, and you couple that with companies like blue, who we, we don't really like, and they don't think they're that good of a product, but them having a lot of money in their bank accounts has, has really fueled the distribution of e-cigs. So you're 100% right in saying that they've totally exploded recently. Um, you know, it's interesting though because the products that have exploded are, are not the best products on the market. They're just the companies that have the most [00:06:30] money to have a blue, which is, you know, funded ridiculously. And then you have the other guys which are actually owned by big tobacco trying to keep people smoking. And I think they caught the realization that these products weren't going to go away and people were going to use them and people did want them and they joined the bandwagon. Speaker 3:So you're talking, you're listening to Shawn Linea and one of the founders of vape secret and all three founders are here helping us to learn more about the [00:07:00] product that they've come to market and they're also cal students to seniors and juniors. This is very exciting to have some cal local entrepreneurs on the program. So you guys are telling the story about, and this program by the way, as method to the madness on KALX Berkeley 90.7 FM. And so you were telling us about, you guys were building this software program, einstein.com and um, and Ben, you realize that Shawn was going [00:07:30] out and smoking every 30 minutes. Like, Hey, let's do another project to building a e-cig. And I would assume this is my belief. But you were not at e-cig expert when you came up with the idea. Is that right? I'm not at all. Speaker 1:I, uh, I, I was not an expert at then, but I can pretty confidently say that I'm an expert. Now. Tell me Speaker 3:about like when you, you had the idea, and I'm always interested in this kind of, this spark of innovation, like the thunderbolts hits, you're like, Whoa, [00:08:00] that's an idea. I know nothing about it, but it's an awesome idea as to take us from that moment to how you 44 days later, whatever it was, had a product. Speaker 1:So, uh, so first of all, Sean and I are not, uh, engineers in the sense that we don't, we're, we're primarily business guys. Um, we're primarily nerds and second, secondly, we're primarily business guys. And, um, the electronic cigarette idea kind of came about, um, for, for two reasons. First [00:08:30] of all, obviously it was practical because, you know, I didn't want John to smoke cigarettes anymore. But also, um, starting a company with no profitability in forecast is very difficult. Um, especially if you don't have much money. And so we saw this as an opportunity to solve a problem that we had and we assumed that other people had, but also to make money, um, so that be able to find that through our lives so that we can actually work on einstein.com. Um, [00:09:00] electronic cigarette industry is huge. And what we noticed is that aside from there not being a good product for this specific type of, of, of use case that we envisioned, it was also very complicated. Speaker 1:Many people didn't know about this. Um, it's almost as if, you know, you take an alien and introduced an iPhone too. I mean, you wouldn't really understand how to use it or how to, how to get, how to, how to get the value out of it. And a lot of electronic cigarette e-tailers are websites, um, had many, many products and it's very, [00:09:30] very confusing and overwhelming for someone to go through that and figure out what to use. So we saw our space as being the simplest electronic cigarette you can buy in that it literally takes 30 seconds to go through our entire website and fully customize an electronic cigarette. You get to choose from 20 different flavors. It's all done in a very, um, user friendly and beginner focused, uh, way so that people [00:10:00] who know nothing about electronic cigarettes can successfully purchase from us quickly, easily, and with confidence because we explain everything in such simple terms. Speaker 1:And so we sell one product, we have one unit, it's available in six different color combinations. Um, we literally walk you through the process. We tell you exactly what you're getting wide good, what's good about it. Um, and we're really focusing on the people that have been thinking about it. I've [00:10:30] heard about it, but haven't really pulled the trigger on getting electronic cigarettes. And we kind of want to be that first step, that stepping stone, taking them away from smoking these dangerous cancer causing traditional cigarettes and moving them on to this new, this new type of, of electronics of electronic cigarette so that they can get all the benefits of smoking without dying young or through the business car talking. I get that you are a good business guy. He's just giving [00:11:00] me exactly the problem and what you're trying to do to make it easy to solve. Speaker 1:But it take us a little, a little detour here and talk about the engineering side of it. So you guys have, you wanted to build an actual product that like does some stuff right? That creates more of a vapor and is cheaper. And so how did you go about the manufacturing process of coming up with the actual product? Um, so from a, from an engineering perspective, the electronic cigarette [00:11:30] consists of three components. First of all, as a power source, which is a battery, uh, second of all is what's called an atomizer, which actually, uh, takes the vapor, takes the liquid and vaporizes it. And the third component is the liquid that you're actually uprising. What we did is we did a huge amount of research into various manufacturers of these components. Um, we did a huge amount of testing on these products. I would get prototypes, give them to Sean, he'd smoked [00:12:00] them for a couple of days, tell me what was wrong with them. Speaker 1:And we work with suppliers all around the world who made this stuff to put together the unit that we have today, which is basically a collection of components from a bunch of different places. And the way we selected each part was first of all, for again for quality, which is our core. And second of all, for affordability, we wanted a product that was sub $30. Um, and so the, for example, our [00:12:30] liquids, um, they're made with food grade, all food grade materials. Um, our flavorings come from Italy. They're, they're food based flavorings. Um, again, we're trying to move away from the general idea of electronic cigarettes as being dangerous and trying to attach some sort of, of tangible, um, healthfulness though as much as we can in this type of product. So that we can actually say that we've [00:13:00] done our, our, our, our, our, our best effort in terms of trying to make this product as good for you as possible. Speaker 1:So, um, you know, the, the battery we selected was, was selected with, with people like Shawn in mind, people that smoke all day, they need a product that lasts all day. A battery can't die because that's my biggest fear. That's our biggest fear is that someone's battery dies and then they go to seven 11 to buy another pack of cigarettes are real vision is helping people quit. And we've done that very successfully. [00:13:30] And the way we do that is by, by creating a product that lasts all day, it's got a USB charger in the bottom so you can literally plug it into your, your phone charger or your laptop and use it while it's charging, which is a very unique feature. Um, our atomizer is some, one of the simplest on the market. And most importantly in terms of, in terms of, of, of, of our, our consciousness towards the environment is [00:14:00] everything about our product is rechargeable and we fill up. So unlike most of the products on the market where you buy a product and then you have to keep on buying the refills and cartridges and all sorts of new components, which you then throw out. Our product is fully rechargeable and we fillable. So not only is it more affordable for the customer, but in our opinion it's also better for the environment. Um, so yeah, that's basically the, the, the focus that went into the engineering side of what we were doing. Speaker 3:Okay, thanks. [00:14:30] You were listening to Ben Einstein, one of the founders of vape secret, a new company formed here on the UC Berkeley campus dedicated to helping people soft smoking by creating a affordable high quality e cigarette. Um, and I have the founders with me here, Sean Linehan, Ben ice, the name Davey Lee. Um, so 44 days. That's a quick time. So how did you get, it sounded like you had to test some different components and stuff. So how, [00:15:00] how did you get the capital to, go ahead. I'm Shawn you and tell me about how, how did that process work? How were you, how many atomizers did you have to buy before you found the right way? Speaker 4:Yeah, so it's, it's, it's actually really interesting. So we didn't take sort of the bottom up approach to engineering our product. Like you might imagine some companies do. We didn't go into cad and, and mock up all of these individual components that we then have to tool ourselves. We recognize that we [00:15:30] only really had a couple thousand dollars of our personal savings left and we needed to make due on that limited bandwidth. So what we did is exactly what Ben was saying was like, we, we went to factories with premade components and figured out how can we put them all together. Right? Um, so the, the capital constraint was pretty significant. We, we took some of the money from our other company, which we also completely self-funded just from our savings accounts, um, and bought [00:16:00] dozens of dozens of these atomizer components and just kept testing them and when they wouldn't work, uh, and some, some of them just outright didn't work, which is ridiculous. Speaker 4:You know, you're getting samples from companies that were trying to become our main suppliers for these components and they chest were broken, um, and cross them off full list. Yeah, exactly. Those guys we don't even have to worry about, even if their first sample doesn't work, you know, it's just not worth that. Um, so, you know, Ben Ben took the efforts in terms of [00:16:30] getting all of the different sample products and the, the engineering components of it. Um, and he did all of these different pieces simultaneously. So it wasn't like, okay, now we've got to find the perfect this, finished that and then find the perfect that and finish that. No, he, he sourced batteries and clear misers and liquids and atomizers and all of these different pieces concurrently so that we could, you know, test all the different configurations. Um, and you're right, 44 days was, it was a sprint. Speaker 4:So, you know, we had [00:17:00] this other company that we didn't want to ignore for too long. So Ben, while he was doing that, I then went with Davey to work on the website. I don't, we're primarily an ecommerce driven product. We don't sell in stores, we sell exclusively through our website. And so Davie and I worked on trying to perfect a beautiful design for our site, making it sleek, making it intuitive, making it the type of experience that I would feel comfortable having my mom on. [00:17:30] Right. And funny story, she actually did, did quit using our product, which I'm really proud of for my mom, my stepbrother, my brother and my stepdad and my best friend all quit using my product [inaudible] and myself. Quit, quit using it. So you know, that that was the aesthetic that we set out to do. And you know, luckily between Davey and I and Ben's input as well on the design, we were able to make something that, that we're really proud of. Um, Speaker 3:that, that's amazing. Congratulations. I mean, your [00:18:00] return on investment right there is huge. If you have your whole family quit complete smoking cigarettes and you have to, I mean when you say quit, I mean you still smoke, you smoked a e-cigarette. Right? And I've, I've been interested in this. I've seen like people and I was in an airport last week and it's like guys smoking and E-cigarette in the airport. And I was wondering like, what's the, um, there's no actually no second hand smoke issues or bathe second hand vapor issues [00:18:30] with an e-cigarette. Speaker 4:No. So, uh, at least according to the most recent studies, and I'd cite the name if I can think of it off the top of my head, but, uh, basically the, the deal is the only detrimental piece of the second hand vapor is exposure to nicotine. Now to your average healthy adult, non infant adult, like, you know, anybody 10 and up, um, and 80 and down, this has absolutely no problem. Or like, if you're pregnant or you're an infant, [00:19:00] I still would not recommend, you know, having vapor blown directly in your face. It's just, there's no proof that it's very bad for you, but you know, nicotine is in a high enough quantity, not good for you. Um, but for your average person, I mean this, this really has very little health health side effects. The, the vapor itself is comprised of a, of a thing called propylene glycol. It sounds scary, but honestly it's one of the most heavily researched [00:19:30] just components, um, over the past eight years. And it's found to be completely safe. It's in inhalers, it's in food. I mean, it's literally in a significant portion of the products we use on a day to day basis. Um, and that's what makes it visible, the vapor visible, um, and it's safe. So, Speaker 3:so when, when smoking is bad for you, it's not necessarily the nicotine that Speaker 4:creates a lung cancer. It's the smoke, certainly not the, the, the deadliness [00:20:00] of, of cigarettes is significantly, significantly not associated with the nicotine. Nicotine is a chemical is bad for you in high doses, like very high doses, but in the dose, that level that you're using cigarettes, it's not the component that's hurting you. The component that hurting you is the smoke itself, right? Like you're literally burning plants. There's thousands of other chemicals added to cigarettes and that's what kills you. Yeah. Speaker 3:Okay. [00:20:30] Very interesting. So we're talking to Shawn Lenahan, then Einstein and Dave, you either the founders of vape secret. It is a e-cigarette company founded here on the UC Berkeley campus. They're all students here at cal and have launched this new enterprise. When did you guys launch? Speaker 1:We launched a late July, late July, July. We, uh, we, we actually launched a website and a, it's funny, we actually got, um, interviewing by cvs in [00:21:00] San Francisco, um, on television and that was kind of the jumpstart for our business. And um, the, the core for what we're doing is not you selling your product today. We put you on a regimen where we wean you off of nicotine completely, which is kind of backwards. Our business professor theta sort of this, Speaker 4:yeah. Basically we, we aim to lose our customers over time. And the way we do that is [00:21:30] we, Speaker 1:you start you off at at a certain nicotine content and we slow you month to month. We send you new liquids every month that lower at, at increasingly lower nicotine contents. Shaun started off at 18 milligrams, I think. Yup. Um, and he, and now he's, what are you smoking now? Speaker 4:Three. And it's funny because for the first two months I actually was at the 18, um, for a longer period of time than I should have been. Cause I didn't want to, we were running out of inventory. Right. We had a very little capital. So we kept having to [00:22:00] continue to buy small quantities, smaller quantities, bigger quantities at a time. Um, so I was using the 18 cause we had a lot of that and I didn't wanna use the inventory that we were going to sell to our customers to help them quit. So, you know, somebody, somebody that we would, that we would have as a customer starting today would quit much faster than the 10 months that it's taken me. They would quit over a period from lot of nicotine to no nicotine, three to four months, just for frame of reference, 18 milligrams. Speaker 4:So you said, yeah. [00:22:30] What does that equate to? Like how many packs a day is that? It's about, uh, between like three quarters of a pack to a pack a day. Um, it's depending on how often you actually use the device. It works for somebody who's up, even up to two packs a day. It's really the strongest, uh, levels that we recommend using. And how does the, so the, it's almost a years of a service. It's not just a product. Correct. Cause you're sending people the lick, the smokeable liquid, if that's the right term. So a Cho, what are the economics [00:23:00] on our liquid versus packs of cigarettes? Yeah. So one, one liquid, which we sell for $5 is equal to about three packs of cigarettes in terms of time spent using it. Um, so one, one liquid lasts an average person. I'm a little bit under two, a little bit more than a week, which is about the same that somebody would have about three packs of cigarettes. Um, unless they're very heavy smokers. But with the vape it's about a week with the one bottle. So we're [00:23:30] literally saving lots of money. Right. I mean I was a smoker for 15 years, but that was years ago when I quit cause I'm an old guy. So what was the, uh, what are the packs of cigarettes go forward today? The ones hours I was, were Speaker 1:about $7 on the average in Berkeley. Wow. So just right there just to save money, you should, you should buy vape secrets, right, man, we actually have a calculator on our homepage where we can tell you exactly how much you'll save this year. [00:24:00] Uh, if you switch, if you switched to electronic cigarettes. Nice. Um, okay, so you guys started in July, so you've been around for about three quarters now and you, you're showing your whole family as quit basically. It's not a like, yeah, you're on the road to quitting. Tell us some more, like how many have you sold? How many stories do you have of people quitting? Um, we, we try to keep in touch with all our customers. Some people it's easier. Some people it's harder. We actually have discovered [00:24:30] that we appeal more to older people because of the simplicity of the site. Speaker 1:Um, because of the simplicity of the product. And older people are generally not as, uh, into communication, especially the email and things like that. Um, so there's been a little bit difficult for us to, to keep track of those numbers. Exactly. Um, we've taught, we've helped dozens of people quit and we've sold hundreds of units. Um, so, um, the business is growing and our only constraint right now is [00:25:00] really, um, is just, you know, getting the word out there. Um, getting, getting people to learn about it and word of mouth has proven to be our strongest marketer. Uh, we hope maybe this, this presentation might help us also a little bit. Um, but the, the important thing for us is that we want to be able to maintain this experience, this personalized experience, um, without getting that diluted by, by getting [00:25:30] too many customers too quickly. Speaker 1:And so, you know, every package we s we ship out is hand packed by us. There's, you know, we, we hand write a note to every customer and we try to develop a really strong personal connection and relationship with them because smoking is an emotional thing. It's a very personal experience. And we're, you know, who are a bunch of kids that come into someone's life who's been smoking for 30 years and tell them, hey, we can help you quit. Um, it's, it's a very bold statement for us to make and it's something we don't take lightly [00:26:00] and we try as hard as we can to make that experience as pleasant and as professional as possible. So it's only, you guys have two businesses, but you're also seniors. A cow. What majors do you guys have? A, I'm a business major. We've mastered the art of, of being good students while simultaneously, uh, trying to be good entrepreneurs. So you are your business as well then? I know I'm not a business major, I'm just the business guy. Um, I [00:26:30] uh, I made development studies major. Um, I learned about developing economies and things like that. Um, but I read a lot about business and uh, Shawn teaches me everything that's important to know that he learns in Oz. You Speaker 3:guys are, uh, it's April. So graduation is staring you in the face and you have two businesses. Yeah. Is that the plan, you guys are going to go full force after May. Speaker 4:That's, that's the plan. Yeah. And we're not, not gonna [00:27:00] not gonna hesitate, you know, actually can't wait to graduate so we can really sit down and focus. Right? Like focused is the biggest issue. Um, with school you, you have varying schedules all the time. You have different wake up days every day, right? Sometimes you have class at eight, 10, 1112 and we're, we're ready to be able to, to truly dominate. Speaker 3:Yeah. So did tell me about the path to domination you felt like your, and we're speaking with the founders of vapes, secret hearing methods [00:27:30] of the Madison on KLX Berkeley 90.7 FM, Ben Einstein, Sean Lennon and David Lee. These guys who started this business while trying to graduate from cal, they're about to do that. So I want to know now you're going to graduate. The shackles are off. You can drink from the capitalist Downton as much as you want. So what, what's the difference? How are you going to get from where you are today to selling thousands of these helmets? How big a market did you save? This was Ben Speaker 4:big, is it? [00:28:00] So last year it was a one point $3 billion industry and it's projected to hit 15 billion over the next 10 years. Speaker 3:Okay. So if you can get half, half of a percent, you're doing well, how are you going to get there? Speaker 1:Um, we were really working on trying to get our, um, our supply chain in place so that we can actually, uh, produce these products in, in really high quantities. Um, right now we're kind of doing small dots [00:28:30] runs, which keeps our costs higher than they should be or merged. Immersions are still fairly healthy. Um, but we can always do better in that sense. Um, but again, it's in test. This is, um, this is something that we started out of necessity and we realized that this was an opportunity to really help people quit smoking. And so we're actually passionate about it. We really care about this. And you know, anyone we meet who smokes weed, you try and convince them to quit, not just so [00:29:00] we can get a customer, but also cause we, we think smoking's bad. Shawn is in better shape than he's ever been. Speaker 1:He, he doesn't get tired running up and down stairs anymore. Um, not that programmers do that much, but he actually goes to the gym more than any of us do. Um, but you know, for us the, the important thing was, um, you know, what did Winston Churchill said, don't let your school and getting in the way of your education. Um, we, we've learned more in the past year working together than we probably have [00:29:30] in all four years of college. And so at this point, um, where we're going to go, just in terms of the time commitment. Also for me, I'm putting myself through school. So, um, you know, the financial and the financial responsibilities of paying for college, um, have been, have been, uh, pretty serious on my family and you know, the opportunity to be finally be able to work full time, um, on what we're trying to do. Um, the ability to dedicate not only all [00:30:00] of our physical time, but our mental capabilities. I mean, if we're studying for a test until three in the morning and then we try to come into work the next morning, we're not 100%, whereas if we don't have tests anymore, we can actually dedicate our entire, you know, she be you in our brains to, um, to building new businesses Speaker 3:and thanks to you guys for coming on today and telling your story about how you sorted vape secret. We'll have to have you on another time to talk about Einstein. Um, but you've been listening to the band, Einstein, Sean Lenahan [00:30:30] and David lead of the founders of vapes secret. They're a seniors here on campus about to graduate and go full force into this, um, e-cigarette company that I've created. Um, and to learn more that you guys can go to vape secret.com right. That's the URL to check out. Speaker 1:That's correct. And actually there's a, a special cow promotion for Berkeley students. Uh, if you place an order, you put into words, go bears into the coupon code and you'll get 10, 10% off of your [00:31:00] sale. Speaker 3:Alright, we got a plug in at the aunt's, a nice word fan. And uh, thanks for coming on guys. You've been listening to KLX Berkeley's method to the madness. Have a great Friday. Everybody. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Dr. Josephine Yuen is the Ex Dir of E3S Center a collaboration of UCB, MIT, Stanford and UTEP. She is a Physical Chemist, Ph.D. from Cornell. She explains the e3s Center goals, Community College program, and focus on getting the research right.TranscriptSpeaker 1: Spectrum's next Speaker 2: [inaudible] [inaudible]. [inaudible]. Speaker 1: Welcome to spectrum [00:00:30] the science and technology show on k a l x Berkeley, a biweekly 30 minute program bringing you interviews featuring bay area scientists and technologists as well as a calendar of local events and news. Speaker 3: Hi and good afternoon. My name is Brad Swift. I'm the host of today's show. Our guest is Dr Josephine u n. She is the executive director of the [inaudible] center, a collaboration of UC Berkeley, MIT, Stanford, [00:01:00] and the University of Texas at El Paso. Dr [inaudible] is a physical chemist by training with a phd from Cornell University and she was also a postdoctoral fellow at the Argonne National Laboratory. She became a member of technical staff in bell laboratories and eventually held director level positions in product development, product management, manufacturing and supply line management. More recently, she was the CEO of try form x INC which develops and manufactures precision polymer [00:01:30] optics for the communications consumer products and medical industries. After spending 30 years in industry, she was a program director at the National Science Foundation. Today she talks with me about the [inaudible] center here at Berkeley, Josephine Ewen. Welcome to spectrum. Speaker 1: Thank you.Speaker 3: What is the origin story of e three s? How did it all get started? Speaker 1: Well, let's first understand what e three s stands for. It's [00:02:00] an acronym and this acronym for a center does headquarted in UC Berkeley and it's the center for energy efficient electronics science. Our story really began at the National Science Foundation. The National Science Foundation has several programs that fund centers intended to bring researchers from many institutions together to solve difficult problems [00:02:30] and one of those programs is the science and Technology Center program. Way Back and I believe most probably was 2008 there was a solicitation asking technical community and that is universities. Did you submit proposals for a new science and technology center? This type of solicitation comes out once every three years or so and so in two and nine professor [00:03:00] [inaudible] off the east department submitted a proposal that brings together researchers from various institutions, namely UC Berkeley, MIT, and Stanford to propose a new center, a new center that will do research necessary to come up with an alternative to the current day trend system. Speaker 1: No, you may want to ask, why do we need that? After all, transistors are everywhere and [00:03:30] it's in every aspects of our life. The reason we need an alternative is that we need an nutrient system or any kind of electronic components that would draw significantly less energy. Pol consumption in electronic devices have been dropping by virtue of the fact that through miniature isolation, the electronic industry has made great gains, not only in power consumption but in the cost of the device, [00:04:00] but unfortunately, miniaturization has hit a brick wall. It no longer is delivering the benefits it has delivered 10 plus years ago and you can see it by the very fact that the operating voltage of those devices in the past 10 plus years ago when the line was shrinks, you can see a big drop in the operating voltage, but in the last 10 years it's more or less flattened out and [00:04:30] even though the line was has shrunk further, we see that the operating voltage is around a vote, maybe slightly less than a vote now in the state of the art devices, but really we want to get to a device that can operate in the millivolt range and that is what the centers set out to do and we're doing the research necessary to get there. [inaudible] Speaker 3: I wanted to have [00:05:00] you talk about the themes of research at e three s and what made choosing themes and appealing method for your organization? Speaker 1: The center is researching different scientific concepts to achieve different device approaches. No one knows what is the best approach at this point. The current c Moss transistor is ubiquitous. There's no reason to believe is replacing will be [00:05:30] equally ubiquitous. The replacement may be a different solution for different application. That's why our research portfolio includes four themes. Not all four themes address the transistor. If you think of a integrated circuit, it's really a network of switches and the wires that connect us, which is three of the themes, address a different [00:06:00] type of switch while one theme address, how do you have more efficient wires or lower power consumption wires? Today's wars are copper wires, metal to wires, but we are doing research to have the communication between switches being done optically Speaker 3: and just for the record, what are the four themes? Speaker 1: The first theme is Nano Electronics. [00:06:30] The second theme is Nano mechanics. The third theme is nanophotonics and the fourth theme is Nano magnetics and you can see the first, second and fourth addresses. How do you get a different type of switch? While the third theme addresses the interconnection, namely the use of light for the interconnection amongst the switches [00:07:00] that we also call optical interconnect. Speaker 3: How interdisciplinary is the center? Do you have a sense of that in terms of the investigators and the researchers? Speaker 1: The center is highly into disciplinary disciplines involved. Our electrical engineering, chemistry material science and Physics Speaker 4: [inaudible]Speaker 3: [00:07:30] you are listening to spectrum of public affairs show on k a l x Berkeley public. Our guest is Josephine n. She is the executive director of the three s center. In the next segment she details the e three s community college outreach group. [inaudible]. An [00:08:00] interesting part of the e three s center is the program you've developed with community colleges. Do you want to explain how that program began and what its goals are? Speaker 1: A science and technology center is expected to educate besides do research and the education is not only have graduate students, so in I'll propose which NSF we decided to focus [00:08:30] on community college students. The reason we decided to do that is because in California we have the largest community college system in the country and many women and underrepresented minority start their post high school education. In community colleges. Our needs to increase its output of workers in this fuse [00:09:00] state utilizes science and technology disciplines and in order to do that we have to be able to encourage and groom participants from populations that are typically underrepresented in the technical world and this really based on that consideration that we say less focus on encouraging students, helping students from community colleges [00:09:30] develop a career in science and engineering. Speaker 3: What can you tell me about how the program is working and how people participate in it? From the community college side, Speaker 1: we have a program on campus called the transfer to excellence and this program while started by the East Rehab Center has now expanded to include other centers. This has been made possible because in addition to [00:10:00] the east area centers grind, the National Science Foundation also gave us an additional three years grant to expand the community college program and that has allowed the program to place students not only in the [inaudible] center but also to other centers on campus. Namely coins, the deals with Nana mechanics and also [inaudible] that deals with [00:10:30] synthetic bio fuse. The students from community college come on campus in the summer for nine weeks to do research, the first weakest bootcamp with the learn some of the basics to prepare them to go into the labs and then for the other eight weeks they work in the lab on individual projects and at the end, in the last week of the internship, they have to [00:11:00] present their work both in terms of giving talks and also in the form of posters in a poster session and that typically takes place at the beginning of August. And how large is that program? Last summer we hosted approximately 15 students. Speaker 3: Does that sort of what your target is for each summer? Speaker 1: Yes. Between 12 to 15 is off target [inaudible]. Speaker 3: And how do people [00:11:30] in community colleges get involved in it? How do they get selected or how do they apply? Speaker 1: In the fall we go through what we consider our recruitment face. We Post the information about the program on the website of our center. The staff of the center also goes out on campus to recruit. We host workshops to share information about a program and also to provide pointers to potential [00:12:00] applicants, how best to prepare the application. We also have webinars with, again, the purpose of encouraging and guiding potential applicants and how to apply and we also work with various community college or Nay stations to promote the program. For example, we ran a workshop in a Mesa conference. Is it statewide? [00:12:30] Yes. We're very proud to say that we have brought students from Mount Shasta down to south of San Diego from the bay area to the central valley Speaker 3: and I suppose the hope is that the students will then go to four year colleges get degrees. Are you tracking at all their progress in that effort? Speaker 1: Yes. Clearly the number one goal of this program [00:13:00] is to use research to deepen the interests of these students in science and engineering and you can ensure that they will get a good career in science engineering. Minimally a four year degree is necessary, so helping the students to transfer to a four year institution is number one goal. In addition, we want to excite them enough that they would even set this sites to go to graduate [00:13:30] school. The program provides one on one advising on the transfer process, particularly to UC Berkeley but also to four year institution in general and this advising is done by tap advices, which is the transfer alliance projects. There's part of UC Berkeley's campus, 87% of our 2012 class has transferred [00:14:00] to to what you see last fall. Most of them came to UC Berkeley, but others went to other ucs as well and I believe one of them actually transferred to Columbia Speaker 3: and for students that are in community colleges it might be listening. The best way to find out about it is to go on your website. Speaker 1: Yes. That's the best way to find out about the program and is also through our website which is www.ethrees-center.org [00:14:30] this website not only provides information but it just through this website you do your online application, Speaker 3: the community college students that are coming, what are their science requirements? Speaker 1: The program takes students the summer before they apply to transfer to a four year institution. By then we expect the students [00:15:00] to have completed two calculus courses and three signs or engineering courses including one laboratory course. Speaker 2: Okay. Speaker 5: From is a science and technology show on KALX Berkeley. We are talking with Josephine. You went [00:15:30] in the next segment she talks about the hope of research migrating from the lab to Congress. Speaker 2: [inaudible]Speaker 3: the center's focus now is on research. Is there at some point if you're successful with your research, a capability to implement and build something that would be a prototype of sorts. Speaker 1: [00:16:00] We are very much in the science face of our center. As a matter of fact, we are very much encouraged by our funder to really focus on understanding the science as opposed to just using empirical methods to achieve device demonstration. Part of the center's strategic plan costs for at the end of our sentence life, which we expect to be 10 years. We will be [00:16:30] able to have one technology, namely our science will be mature enough that we have a technology that can be commercialized. On the other hand, we are expected along the way to be able to really understand how realistic our approaches so we will be expected to have certain types of prototype demonstration in the second five years [00:17:00] of our center. Also each theme we expect that I'll research may have some near term applications and actually as a example in theme three which is the Nanophotonics we expect that I'll work in photo detectors can have near term applications. Speaker 3: So in a sense kind of spinning off some of the early successes within the center or do you have to move it out of the center to other [00:17:30] players? Speaker 1: They have different ways of transferring the knowledge that we gained through our research. The center has industry partners. This industry partners are leaders in the electronics industry. They have recognized the neat off the center and we should clearly we see them s one of the avenues to transfer technology that Nia term along the term [00:18:00] technologies that may come after center, but as you know, they also many other venues including potentially some of our students taking technologies and creating companies [inaudible] Speaker 3: so the industry partners also are able to feed back to you, give you some reflection on your research. Speaker 1: The feedback will enable the center to conduct this research to be practical and useful Speaker 3: [00:18:30] with the publications. Are there any restrictions on who you can publish with? Are you seeking out open source journals? Speaker 1: The Sentis research results are publish through peer review journals. Many of these journals, one could argue is not open source because you need a subscription to get to them. However, the journals allow the authors to post the papers on [00:19:00] their own website. I'll send to identifies on our website, our list of publications and through the authors own website, the public can gain access to those papers. Speaker 3: Are there other centers or other research groups that are doing very similar work that you pay close attention to? Speaker 1: Yes, there is a center in Notre Dame that [00:19:30] is partially funded by DARPA and another government agency. That center involves not only Notre Dame, Bifido is headquartered there, but it also has members from many of the academic institutions. The name of the center is leased. The center has similar goals as us. We are not the only people that recognized the problem the semiconductor industry is facing, [00:20:00] so there are many efforts and many researchers around the world working on different approaches to solving the problem. We are one of several centers. We believe we differentiate ourselves in part because we have really put a strong emphasis on establishing the science and understanding what has prevented an easy solution. Speaker 3: In your personal [00:20:30] story, you've spent some time on both sides of the granting process being with the NSF. What does it like seeing both sides of the process?Speaker 1: I was the SPI, our program officer at the National Science Foundation before coming to UC Berkeley at the Star Center. A programs officer's job is to figure out what area to fund. And in conjunction with review panels, recommend [00:21:00] which particular proposals you fund. And then after the award, the program office is job is to advise, guide, oversee the delivery of results and ensure that the grantee is in compliance with the program requirements. But when you are grantee, your job is to deliver on what you promise. So a lot of the focus is on results delivery [00:21:30] while a programs office job is to facilitate guide help, but not directly involved with the results delivery [inaudible] which do you prefer? My background prior to going to national science foundation was in private industry. So I have a very strong operating background. So to a certain extent, one can argue that given the number of years I've spent [00:22:00] operating or delivering results, that comes to me more naturally. Speaker 6: Josephine n, thank you very much for coming on spectrum. Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. Speaker 2: [inaudible]Speaker 5: for more details [00:22:30] on the [inaudible] center and their educational program, which covers pre college undergraduate, graduate and postdoc opportunities. Go to the e three s website, which is e three s-center.org spectrum shows are archived on iTunes university and we have created a simple link to help you get there. The link is tiny url.com/kalx [00:23:00] spectrum Speaker 2: [inaudible].Speaker 5: We hope you can get out to a few of the science and technology events happening locally over the next two years. Two weeks. Speaker 6: Renee Rao and chase Jacabowski present the calendar this Monday, February 24th come check out the next edition of nerd night. East Bay featuring lectures such as explosions, [00:23:30] back drafts and sprinklers, how Hollywood gets fire science wrong by Joel Sipe. Then listen to Brian Dote from sweet Mary's coffee and he'll show us how a cherry becomes black gold in his lecture home coffee roasting on the with tools you probably already have and last Vincent tank way will teach us about hyper velocity launchers in his lecture. Hyper velocity launchers, how to launch a projectile at 10 meters per second. That's right. 10 meters per second. Once again, nerd night takes [00:24:00] place. February 24th at the new parkway cinema in Oakland. Doors Open at 7:00 PM on Monday, March 3rd Dr. Edward Stone of Caltech will be giving a talk about the voyager spacecraft missions into interstellar space launched in 1977 to explore Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The two voyager spacecrafts continue their journeys as they search for the Helio pause. Speaker 6: The heliopause is a boundary between the solar wind and the local interstellar medium. [00:24:30] Recently in August, 2012 voyager one seem to be finally entering into the heliopause. The spacecraft reported finding depleted low energy particles originating from inside the heliosphere as well as low energy cosmic rays from nearby regions of the Milky Way. These in subsequent observations of the heliopause are revealing new aspects of the complex interaction of our son with a local interstellar medium to hear a complete history and learn where the voyager is. Now. Join Dr. Stone on [00:25:00] March 3rd at 4:15 PM in [inaudible] room number one on my name, March 3rd at 7:30 PM hello fellow Dr Jacqueline. Ferritin will speak in the planetarium of the California Academy of Sciences. At the close of 2013 the Italian stars with planets orbiting them toppled more than 1000 the majority of these so-called exoplanets have not actually been seen, but rather inferred from their effect on their host stars through pain seeking technical methods and tremendous telescope [00:25:30] 10 handful of indirectly image and these giant planets have shown fascinating diversity in their sizes, temperatures, weather, and relationships to their parents. Speaker 6: Sends over the past several years, an entirely new and mysterious breed of planets has emerged. As genres have discovered a collection of orphans. Planets that are moving through the galaxy, seemingly unattached to a star in this talk fairly will highlight how we discovered these seemingly impossible objects and review how these strange, exotic planets may be key [00:26:00] players in our understanding of planet formation and evolution. Her talk will be held seven 30 on Monday night, March 3rd go to cal academy.org to reserve tickets. A feature of spectrum is to present new stories we find interesting. Tracy Jakubowski and Renee Rao present our news, the deal. Cal reports a new project from UC Berkeley. Researchers may soon allow the power of ocean waves to join solar and wind power as a commercialized source of energy. [00:26:30] The project is led by Marcus Lehman, a visiting graduate student in the Mechanical Engineering Department and supervised by razor alum and assistant professor of mechanical engineering and principal investigator of the research. Speaker 6: The project focuses on building a prototype of a sea floor carpet that can generate electricity by mimicking the properties of the muddy sea floor. Therefore, the group is designing a c floor carpet waive dampening system that will harness the energy of waves passing over it. Theoretically, the [00:27:00] energy generated by 10 meters of sea floor carpet will be roughly equivalent to the energy conducted by a stadium sized soccer field completely covered by solar panels. As more and more people move to live near coastlines, the researchers expect wave power to be a top contender as the next big renewable resource, especially because waves have very high energy density. The cost of building devices to harness wave power is high. LM said, the ocean is a difficult place to work and our devices have to be sturdy enough to combat [00:27:30] the oceans, corrosive and harsh environments, but there's an increasing need for clean and as socially acceptable forms of generating power. Speaker 6: We're working hard with scientists and engineers to make this happen and it's only a matter of time. A recent study published in the Open Access Journal microbiome examine the GI tract of premature infants in the neonatal intensive care unit or NICU. The lead author of the study, Brandon Brooks, a graduate student in the plant and microbial biology department at UC Berkeley, collaborated [00:28:00] with researchers university of Pittsburgh to swab the most touched surfaces at the NICU, as well as collect samples from two premature babies. In a small pilot study, they discovered the microbial environment of the baby's GI tracks was strikingly similar to that of the NICU, which was particularly interesting given that the premature babies were treated with antibiotics and should have had a very limited diversity of micro organisms within their GI tract. Well, most of the micro organisms were opportunistic. A few contain genes that conferred resistance [00:28:30] to antibiotics and disinfectant that was used within the NICU. The study provided an important insight into how the pathogenic, as well as nonpathogenic organisms are able to move from even the most sterile of environments to our bodies. Speaker 4: [inaudible] [inaudible] Speaker 7: the music heard during the show was written and produced by [00:29:00] Alex Simon Speaker 8: [inaudible].Speaker 7: Thank you for listening to spectrum. If you have comments about the show, please send them to us via email or email address, spectrum dev, QA, and lex@yahoo.com genus in two weeks time. [inaudible]. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Michel Maharbiz & Daniel Cohen. Michel is an Assoc Prof with EECS-UCB. His research is building micro/nano interfaces to cells and organisms: bio-derived fabrication methods. Daniel received his PhD from UCB and UCSF Dept of Bioengineering in 2013.TranscriptSpeaker 1: Spectrum's next. Speaker 2: Okay. Speaker 1: Welcome to spectrum the science and technology show on k a l x Berkeley, a biweekly 30 minute [00:00:30] program bringing you interviews featuring bay area scientists and technologists as well as a calendar of local events and news. Speaker 3: Hi and good afternoon. My name is Brad Swift. I'm the host of today's show. Today we are presenting part one of two interviews with Michelle and Harb is and Daniel Cohen. Michelle is an associate professor with the Department of Electrical Engineering and computer science at UC Berkeley and the Co director of the Berkeley Sensor and actuator center. [00:01:00] His current research interests include building micro and nano interfaces to cells and organisms and exploring bio derived fabrication methods. Daniel Cohen received his phd from the Joint UC Berkeley and UCLA Department of bioengineering program in 2013 his phd advisor was Michelle Ma harvests. Together they have been working on the fronts project and NSF f Free Grant [00:01:30] F re stands for emerging frontiers and research and innovation fronts is the acronym for flexible, resorbable, organic and nanomaterial therapeutic systems. In part one of our interview, we discuss how they came to the challenge of measuring and understanding the so-called wound field. Here's part one, Michelle [inaudible] and Daniel cone. Welcome to spectrum. Thank you. Thanks. How was it that [00:02:00] electrical fields generated by wounds was discovered? So I think Daniel should take this one cause he's the, he's the group historian on this topic. In fact, he gave us a little dissertation during this thesis talk Speaker 4: in the day when electricity was sort of still a parlor trick. There was a lot of work being done to try to figure out where it was coming from. There was a lot of mysticism associated with it. And this is in the mid to late 17 hundreds and so Galvani is a name most people have heard. Galvanism was a term [00:02:30] coined for his work and what he found was all the work with frog legs. So he used to dissect frogs and could show that if you had dissimilar metals in contact with different parts of the muscle and the nerves, the legs with twitch and amputate the frog leg. So his conclusion was that electricity had something to do with life and their living things were made alive by having this spark of life. And this was a really super controversial idea because for a long time there had been a philosophical debate raging about vitalism versus mechanism, which is the idea that all living things are special because of some intrinsic vital force versus the idea [00:03:00] that physical principles explain life. Speaker 4: So the vitalist really liked this idea that electricity is the spark that makes living things special. There's a lot of dispute about this, but eventually Volta who is right after him and who the vault is named after showed that it was really just the movement of ions and things in salt solutions, but it was a little too late and the mystical aspect of this had come along. So the problem then was that this idea prevailed into the early 18 hundreds and so Galvani his nephew Aldini started doing [00:03:30] these experiments in England where he was given permission to take executed criminals and basically play with the corpses and he was able to create a corpus that would go like this. And raise an arm or wink an eye at an audience. And this was the idea of the reanimated corpse. So people were having a lot of fun with this, but it wasn't clear that it wasn't mystical. Speaker 4: And so this is the long answer to the question, but that's the backdrop where the science starts to come in. So the first thing is Frankenstein gets published out of this, and everybody's getting into the whole vitalism idea [00:04:00] at this point. And Frankenstein was written as a part of a horror story competition. It was almost a joke. But the funny thing is Frankenstein. Well, how would you say Frankenstein? The monster came to life to lightning? Like that's a line. It wasn't a Hollywood fabrication and everyone assumed that. But Mary Shelley never wrote anything about lightning or electricity. She in fact, wrote the technology was too dangerous to describe in texts for the average person. But in her preface, she explains that the whole origin of this idea, and this is where the answer to the question comes from, was that [00:04:30] she had writer's block when she was writing the story and she overheard her husband Percy Shelley and Lord Byron having an argument about work done by Erasmus, Darwin and Erasmus. Speaker 4: Darwin was a big natural philosopher or scientist at the time who was a big vitalist. So he's really into the idea of the spark of life and also this idea of spontaneous generation that where does life come from when you have a compost heap, fruit flies appear. There was an idea that be composing garbage produced life, and that was part of spontaneous generation. And he did a lot of experiments where he'd seal things like wet flour into a bell jar [00:05:00] and to show that organisms came out in a sealed environment and they just didn't know about microorganisms and things like that. So he did a famous experiment where he dehydrated some species called Vermicelli all. Sorry, I made the mistake. I'm about to talk about 40 cello, which is a little organism. And when he added water again, they came back to life. Now, Lord Byron and Percy Shelley didn't understand any of this, and the conversation that Mary Shelley eavesdropped on was one where they said that Erasmus Darwin had taken Vermicelli Pasta, put it inside the Bell Jar, sealed [00:05:30] it, and through some magic of his own allowed it to twitch. Speaker 4: So he had essentially given life to pasta. Now Mary Shelley wrote that she didn't believe any of this was actually really what happened. But this idea of animating the inanimate gave her the idea for Frankenstein. Then she writes the one line that links it to electricity, which is, and if any technology would have done this, it would probably have been galvanism, which is this idea of applying electricity to something. And so that's where this whole idea of life and electricity came from. By that point, the scientists had finally [00:06:00] caught up with all the mysticism and started to do more serious experiments, and that's when Carlo met Tucci in 18 and 30 something found that when you cut yourself, there's some sort of electrical signal at the injury source. And that was his main contribution that was called the wound current or the wound field and then after him was the guy who really formalized the whole thing, which was do Bob Raymond, who was a German electrophysiologist who found that if you have any sort of injury, he could actually measure a current flowing at the side of the injury. Speaker 4: He could show that that changed over time. He cut his own thumb and [00:06:30] measured the current flow and they didn't have an explanation for why it happened, but they knew that it had something to do with the electric chemistry there. This was the birth of electrophysiology and then he went off and did all these things with action potentials in neurons, which is why almost no one's heard about this injury side and the fact that electricity's everywhere in the body normally and it's not mystical, it's electrochemical. We're much more familiar with the neural stuff and this other stuff on the wound side sort of languished until maybe the late 19 hundreds because it was rare. It was weird. It wasn't clearly important [00:07:00] and a lot of the players involved were so caught up in all sorts of other things that we tend to forget about this. So that was the whole long winded history of where the wound field came from. But it's a good story. It is a good story. Yeah. Speaker 5: [inaudible] you are listening to spectrum KALX Berkeley. Our guests are Michael ml harvest and and Daniel Colon. They're both bioengineers in the next segment they talk about the genesis of the fronts [00:07:30] project. Speaker 6: Michelle, when you approached the NSF yeah. For a grant for this idea, how long had you been thinking about it? The smart bandage idea, how far down stream were you with the idea? We had been toying with the idea for quite some time and there's a bit of background to this as well. So my group amongst other things builds flexible electrode systems. [00:08:00] You can call them for neuroscience in your engineering, and most of those systems are intended to record electrical signals across many different points across many electrodes usually honor in the brain. And so we had this basic technology lying around. This is sort of a competence that the group has had for quite awhile. The other thing that was beginning to intrigue us, and I have to credit Daniel for sort of beginning of the discussions and kind of pushing this along in the early years, so Daniel and I have like a tube man club of sitting around thinking of crazy things and [00:08:30] one of the things that Daniel had been interested in was the idea of resorbing or having so some of the materials disappear as they do their job in the body and this is a notion that's become very popular recently actually over the last couple of years in into community in the engineering community in general. Speaker 6: Which brings us to another question I had, which is the difference between resorptionSpeaker 4: and absorption. Absorption might imply that you're taking the components up and they're becoming part of the body. Resorption is really just a very strange [00:09:00] semantic term. That means something like the body's breaking it down or it's breaking down in some form and it's not really the same as that material winding up elsewhere in your tissues. It may just get excreted or it may go somewhere else. So really we use it when we don't really know what's going on. Yeah, we had been looking at this general area and then I think the last piece of the puzzle, I think in our minds looking at the extant literature, the idea that we could take meaningful electrical data from a wound began to really interest us. And so the [00:09:30] two parts of this really are one, can you use portable, resorbable systems? Something like a bandage, you know, something that that isn't going to require you to walk around with a handcart. Speaker 4: Can you use systems like this to measure electrical signals that are relevant to wounds? And then the other question is if you can do that, and if you have, you know, you learn about this, and by the way, we're not the first people to try to do this. There are a number of people that have been measuring electrical signals in the wounds as Daniel set for quite some time. If you can do this, is there a value to [00:10:00] trying to control or modulate that electrical information or those fields or those currents in the wound? Is there a therapeutic value? Perhaps there are scientific value. Is there something you can learn about the way the body works or tissue works? Both of those are open questions and you know we can delve into each of those, but those are really kind of how we think about them separately a little bit. Speaker 4: The flip side is that when we do a lot of this kind of design for medical things, you will want to know what's already happening and how the body handles its own injuries. And this field doesn't just arise passively. So they had no way of knowing [00:10:30] this when it was first discovered. But when you get this electric field, there is a navigational effect for incoming cells to the injury. So it actually helps guide things in like a lighthouse to the wound site. And so a lot of my phd work was showing how you can steer ourselves with a controlled electric field so you can really hurt them like sheep based on how the electric field goes. And that means that that was a source of this bio inspired part of it, which is we're not adding something that's not already there. We're taking something that's already there and we're modulating it to maybe improve. Speaker 4: [00:11:00] So evolutionary tools or things that the body has, it just happened to work well enough for us to survive as a species. It doesn't mean it's optimized and this field tends to go away very quickly. Nobody really knows whether extending the duration of the field would improve the healing or if we could shape it. Maybe you can control how scar tissue forms and things like that. So there's this idea of looking at how the body already heals itself and then figuring out where you might start to control it. And electricity is one of the areas that's really been under utilized in medical technology for the sort of thing. Yeah. I think for those of your audience [00:11:30] that are sort of tech junkies, if you will, the resurgence of this type of thing. Occurrent Lee I think arises because we've gotten very good at building very low power, very small electronics, and there's been a whole slew of new polymers and sort of new flexible substrates that are also conductive or can hold conductors. And so those two things together rekindled interest and trying to build gadgets that sit Speaker 6: on the skin. Or in the NSF case, we're not only doing the skin, but we're trying to develop a tool longterm [00:12:00] for surgeons to do something inside the body. So it'd be nice to be able to leave something that will help you heal, but then it'll be resorts so you don't have to reopen. Right. Speaker 5: Spectrum is a public affairs show on k a l x Berkeley. Our guests are Michelle. My heart is in Daniel Cohen of UC Berkeley. They want to build a smart bandage for wounds. In the next segment, they talk about the focus of their research. Speaker 6: [00:12:30] So in your approach to the NSF, was there some sort of focus, there's a technological focus and an application focus? The technological focus for the NSF was to point out that there was a lot of fundamental engineering science that had to be done to produce the type of systems that could do this. You know, we're looking at resorbable batteries are real parts wise, how you would build these systems, what polymers you'd use, what the rates of resorption. There's a lot of just fundamental stuff going on. If you posit that there'll be value to [00:13:00] these kinds of things. That's one focus as the other focus. I would say application wise we're looking at two things. The most ambitious is that you could develop systems that a surgeon could use for internal wounds. So the dream is a surgeon is, for example, let's say you have to resect the part of your intestine. Speaker 6: You then have to fuse the two parts that are left behind. There are methods for doing this and there's still research going on into what we know. The clinical methodology for this. It would be very useful if you could leave behind something that [00:13:30] could tell you, if nothing else, the state of how that is healing but would then go away because you're certainly not going to go back and open somebody's abdomen to take out a little piece of sensor that was doing something to intestine. Right? That'd be a not a good idea, and so that idea, that dream that you could leave behind, very small, very thin things that could take data if nothing else. Take data is really what was one of the applications. The other one is surface wounds. There are lots of surface wounds caused by illness. For example, advanced diabetes produces a [00:14:00] lot of problems in the extremities and wounds that are chronic that don't heal very well. Speaker 6: There's just a lot of ongoing interest in surface wounds and not just the technologies for understanding how they may be healing, but in things that maybe could help heal those surface wounds. Those are our full side view welders. I think of them as there are specific things we want to show we can do with our partners at UCLA, but there's also an entire wealth of engineering science that has to be done to build the fundamental. So the NSF was okay with that broad [00:14:30] a portfolio of research. Well, so that's sort of what their mandate is to go broad like that. Cause that seems like you're, you're doing stuff. Speaker 4: I think their main concern here is that they specifically discourage healthcare applications as NIH can fund those. But the difference is that what engineers have found for a long time now is that we don't actually know how to engineer biology. So any technology brings quantification Speaker 6: and an engineering mindset to solving this, like tissue engineering, growing organs. We don't have a lot of engineering for that. But if we start [00:15:00] to monitor everything we can, that chemical signals mechanical, electrical, we build up a set of stimulus and response type rules. We understand how to perturb these systems. So in the same way that you might build a bridge according to a manual of how you build a bridge and how you look at the loads in it and the ways of building a bridge, we might someday build organs. So if that's the pitch, that's much more fundamental science and that's really where it has a medical application. But we can't do it without science and engineering principles that just don't exist right now. There's two points I should mention. First of all, the key is this work [00:15:30] is really looking at the fundamentals of the engineering and the science. Speaker 6: We certainly have our foot into clinical side because I think it informs some of this, right? So that what you're doing is relevant so that someday you could go down that path so you're not in isolation because if you're not assuming that you're headed in this great direction. Exactly. And then you find clinical guys saying less clinically. Right. So the other were very good. And the second thing is that, um, we're funded under a slightly broader grant mechanism than usual. So we have a, what's called an NSF. Every, I think this is emerging frontiers and research and innovation I think [00:16:00] is what it is and these are sort of headline or marquee type thing. So we're very lucky that we were awarded one of these and so I think the NSF has really looking for this broad, far reaching hard-hitting effort. I think there's a good point to mention that this project is really a big collaboration between a number of us and I'd like to mention who they are because some of the material work has done by very talented people in the department on a rds and the Vec Subramanian are two professors in the ECS department and they're very well known for flexible printed systems and [00:16:30] the materials that go into them and we work also with Shovel Roy at UCF and Mike Harrison and Mike is a sort of brilliant pediatric surgeon and shovel. Speaker 6: Roy's well known for the technologies he builds at the interface with clinical need. It's really the fact that all these people come together that we're building all of these tools. Speaker 7: [inaudible]Speaker 3: spectrum is a science and technology show on KALX Berkeley. We are talking with Michelle Mull Harvest Daniel Cohen. [00:17:00] They are researching the electrical field that is generated by wounds in mammals. Their hope is to collect meaningful data from sensors embedded in bandages placed on wounds. Speaker 6: If you approached interpreting and analyzing the electrical field data that you're getting out of the wounds in an animal right now we're being very cautious. We started a first few experiments with rodents over the last six months. What we've [00:17:30] built is a, is a series of systems. You can think of them as insulators with lots of little electrodes all over them. An array of of little electrodes. They're on order of a centimeter or less in terms of you can think of a postage stamp, maybe a bit smaller. We have different varieties of them. Some are stiff, some are very flexible. You can think of it as contact lenses or transparency paper, that kind of thing. And these arrays are connected to electrical sensing equipment. There's a miniaturize a little board that runs everything [00:18:00] and sends data to a block and all this data is collected and what we're currently looking at as a variety of different signals on both open wounds. Speaker 6: So if I, for example, cut the skin and on pressure wounds, pressure wounds or something that people that don't see clinics very often or hospitals aren't familiar with but in fact are huge, huge problem in hospitals right now. Then we lay these arrays over the tissue and we measure a variety of different things. One thing we measure what's known as electrical impedance between different [00:18:30] points on the array and you can think of electrical impedance as how much resistance to an electric current that tissue might produce. It's not a steady current, it's a time bearing current, so we sort of wiggle the current on and off, on and off negative, positive, negative, a sinusoidal and how quickly that current responds and how much of it there is. That allows us to calculate the impedance and there's a lot you can tell from that. You can tell whether things are very wet and conductive. Speaker 6: You can tell whether the tissue is tight knit, so that doesn't let things through a oily. You can tell whether there [00:19:00] might be changes in from one tissue to another. You can infer things about what tissues are might be underneath. The other thing we measure is actually electric potential when the wounds are immediately after they're made. We try to look at what kind of potentials arise and how they're changing. So right now that's in terms of measurement. That's really what we're looking at it. And another thing I should point out as we do these measurements as a function of frequency across a wide range of frequency spectrum up to hundreds of kilohertz. And that's sort of the rapidity with which we wiggle the signal because different components in the tissue [00:19:30] will respond differently at different legal frequencies. Once we have that complete plot, we can look at the difference between them and by to see whether we can build models that tell us, oh well we've, you see this type of distribution. Speaker 6: There's a in tech skin for example. So the dream, in this case, you put your bandaid on and your doctor checks his eye, his or her iPhone every 12 to 24 hours and just gets a different little map of how it's working without ever having to remove the dressing. How are you doing in understanding what those signals mean in terms of healing? [00:20:00] But we just had a meeting, they're doing great. They've basically collected a great deal of data on the latest set of wounds they did and now they're in fact proposing models and seeing how the data fits. They're fitting their models to the data to try to use those fits as ways of discriminating different types of tissues. So we're in the middle of it right now. I couldn't tell you much. We're still putting all that story together for publication. So, and are you able to leverage the work that other people are doing? Oh, absolutely. Sure. Well, I mean you always do that. Like I said, nothing is in a vacuum, right? So absolutely. We follow [00:20:30] the literature and, and we build off of what other people have found and try to add our own contributions. That's, that's how it works. Maybe these ideas came from discoveries from the 18 hundreds and then later on in the 1980s onwards, a bunch of really good developmental biologists have really pioneered a lot of this and gone down as, as showing that Speaker 4: even in an embryo you can detect changes in electrical potential at the surface of the embryo where limbs will form and things like that. So there's a huge amount of stuff out there that gave us the idea for the original thing, but we're barely scratching the surface. [00:21:00] We were technologist, right? We're engineers. So part of one thing and figure it out. Yeah. So the idea of trying to analyze the wound field data, do you have to solve that problem first before you can take on anything else? Like trying to instigate the healing? Yeah. Yeah, I would say so. You would never put this in the body without knowing, knowing that a real lot works. But on the surface it's a different healing mechanism than say a fracture, but it's still the idea that we don't necessarily know what the cause and [00:21:30] effect is yet. So we have to show that getting a field out relates to some state that we can say the wound is in and that we can intelligently put a field back in that actually helps. So we need some metric of success. And without that metric, that number that says the wound is doing better or worse, we're not confident saying that our stimulation is helping. So that's why getting this data first is really important. Speaker 6: The parameter space is fairly large, right? To number of things you could possibly change. Some of the effects are very subtle. And so just willy nilly going [00:22:00] in there and saying, oh, I applied some fields, you know, likely not gonna be very useful. And then there's another subtlety, which is that there are probably clinical contexts in which this is of limited utility, even if it works. And so that is, uh, something we spend a lot of time thinking about. So let me give you an example. Let's say I told you I can make that little cut on your knees heal 5% faster with a $15 bandaid. I'm pretty sure you're not going to buy a $15 [inaudible] except maybe once for the novelty of it. You know it tickles. But [00:22:30] there are contexts where, and Daniel alluded to this earlier, for example, scar formation is a big deal, right? Speaker 6: How a scar forms and the trajectory of the wound healing for certain load-bearing wounds of really big deal, right? Think of your abdomen if you had to go in there and hurt those muscles or hernia. And there are many things like this and so if, and I want to be very careful to say if if it was founded, electrical interventions can affect that type of healing in a way that produces a useful outcome, right? Much better scar developments so that your load bearing properties are [00:23:00] maybe not as good as the original, but a lot better than just letting it sit around with a dressing. That'll be a very big deal. But that's a very big space, right? Speaker 4: And that's why we split it into this in Vivo work on monitoring the surface and wound properties and in vitro work where we have cells and tissues and culture where we can directly stimulate them in culture in a very controlled environment and watch exactly how they respond to different shapes of fields and types of fields and come up with a way of describing how they behave. That doesn't require the Nvivo work. So we have two parallel tracks [00:23:30] right now and hopefully we can put them together. Speaker 5: [inaudible] be sure to catch part two of this interview with Michelle Maha Urbis and Daniel Cohen on the next spectrum in two weeks. In that interview, Michelle and Daniel talk about the limitations of sensors on or in humans, the ethics of sensing and inputs into living systems and moving research discoveries Speaker 8: into startup companies. Spectrum shows are [00:24:00] archived on iTunes university. We've created a simple link to get you there. The link is tiny url.com/k a l ex spectrum. We hope you can get out to a few of the science and technology events happening locally over the next two weeks. Renee Rao and Rick Karnofsky present the calendar Speaker 9: nerd night east space first show of 2014 will be happening January 27th the show features three great Speakers. [00:24:30] First nerd night, San Francisco alum, Bradley boy tech. We'll guide you through how scientists organize and present some of the vast amounts of data available today. Then the Chabot space centers, Benjamin [inaudible] will discuss the most likely places to find life off of planet earth. Of course, finally KQ Eighties Lisa Allah Ferris will tell you what you need to know about Obamacare. The show will be held this Monday, the 27th at the new Parkway Theater in Oakland. Doors open at seven to get tickets for the HR event. [00:25:00] Go to East Bay nerd night, spelled n I t e.com this February 2nd the California Academy of Sciences will host a lecture on the Ice Age Fonda of the bay area. There's a good chance that wherever you happen to be sitting or standing is a spot where Colombian mamis giants laws direwolves, saber tooth cats and other megafauna. Also Rome during the ice age. Learn about the real giants of San Francisco and how you can embark upon [00:25:30] a local journey to see evidence of these extraordinary extinct animals. The lecture will be held@theacademyonfebruarysecondfromninefortyfiveamtotwelvepmticketsareavailableonlineatcalacademy.orgSpeaker 8: February's East Bay Science cafe. We'll be on Wednesday the fifth from seven to 9:00 PM at Cafe Val Paris, CEO 1403 Solano in Albany, Dr. Harry Green. We'll discuss his book [00:26:00] tracks and shadows field biology as art green, a herpetologist at Cornell blends personal memoir with natural history. He'll discuss the nuts and bolts of field research and teaching how he sees science aiding and in conservation and appreciation of nature, as well as give many tales about his favorite subject. Snakes. For more information about this free event, visit the cafes page on the website of the Berkeley Natural History Museum at BN [00:26:30] h m. Dot berkeley.edu/about/science cafe dot PHP. A feature of spectrum is to present news stories we find interesting. Rick Karnofsky and Rene Rao present our news in a letter published in January 15th nature. James us or would a locomotor biomechanist at the Royal Veterinary College at the University of London and colleagues explain why Birds Migrate In v-shaped [00:27:00] formations. The team fitted several northern bald ibis is with gps trackers and accelerometers to measure wing movement. They found that the birds positioned themselves in optimum positions that agree with their aerodynamic models. Further the birds flap in phase with one another when in such permissions instead of the antifreeze flapping, they performed when following immediately behind each other. This in phase flapping maximizes lifted the plot [00:27:30] and is surprising as a team noted. The aerodynamic accomplishments were previously not thought possible for birds because of the complex flight dynamics and sensory feedback that would be required to perform such a feat. Speaker 9: The tenuous place in the human family tree of artifice guest room, it is a 4.4 million year old African primate has recently been solidified. Fossil remains Ardipithecus Ramidus or rd as a species is known first discovered by UC Berkeley [00:28:00] Professor Tim White and his team in Ethiopia in the 1990s and have proven a consternation to classify ever sense rd displays an unusual mixture of human and ape traits. Fossils reveals small human like teeth and upper pelvis adapted to bipedal motion, but a disproportionately small brain and grasping large toes, best suited for climbing trees. Scientists split over whether rd was our distant relative, essentially an ape that retained a few human features from along a common ancestor [00:28:30] or our close cousin, possibly even an ancestor. Recently Tim white among many others coauthored a paper with Arizona State Universities, William Kimball in which they successfully linked the rd to Australopithecus and thereby to humans. The team examine the basis of rd skulls and found surprising similarities to human and Australopithecines skulls indicating that those had already been may have been small. It was far more similar to a hominids than an apes Speaker 7: in in Speaker 9: [00:29:00] the music heard during the show was written and produced by Alex Simon. Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to spectrum. We are happy to hear from listeners. If you have comments about the show, please send them to us via email. Our email address is spectrum dot k a l ex hate yahoo.com. [00:29:30] Join us in two weeks at this same Speaker 10: hi [inaudible]. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Richard Norgaard Prof Emeritus of Energy and Resources at UC Berkeley. Among the founders of ecological economics, his research addresses how environmental problems challenge scientific understanding and the policy process. Part one of two.TranscriptSpeaker 1: Spectrum's next. Speaker 2: Okay. Speaker 3: [inaudible]Speaker 2: [inaudible].Speaker 1: Welcome to spectrum [00:00:30] the science and technology show on k a l x Berkeley, a biweekly 30 minute program bringing you interviews featuring bay area scientists and technologists as well as a calendar of local events and news. Speaker 4: Hi and good afternoon. My name is Brad Swift. I'm the host of today's show. Today we are presenting part one of two interviews with Richard Norgaard, professor emeritus of the energy resources group at UC Berkeley. Richard Norgaard received [00:01:00] his phd in economics from the University of Chicago in 1971 he was among the founders of the field of ecological economics. His research addresses how environmental problems challenged scientific understanding and the public policy process, how ecologists and economists understand systems differently and how globalization affects environmental governance. In today's interview, Norgaard talks about the origins of economic science defines [00:01:30] ecological economics and discusses certainty and uncertainty in science. Here's that interview Richard Norgaard. Welcome to spectrum. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Would you describe how economic theory and the science of economics has been forged over time? Speaker 5: I hesitate to use that word science with economics, but like other patterns of thinking in in scholarly endeavors. It's a mix. There were the physiocrats [00:02:00] who basically were in admiration of physics and said, well, we ought to be able to think of the economy as a bunch of flows and they were on 1750 or so, didn't work out very well in the 19th century. As we knew more about energy, we had people more again from the physical side thinking about value, think about the economy as energy flows and we're still trying to do that well. What we really think of as sort of conventionally economics comes out [00:02:30] of moral philosophy and Adam Smith is sort of asking what makes a good society? How do people behave? And the markets have been around for Millennia. He took another look at markets and said, Gee, this is interesting to people acting in their own interests, make both of them better off. Speaker 5: And this was just a thought experiment. If that's true, then then what? Then what and any expanded that thought experiment, what does it mean [00:03:00] with Spec to the role of markets and the role of government? And that's been the dominant pattern. But what I would say thought experiments, if we look at what's going out out there and say she has it like this, if this this was happening, and then expand that to a more systemic understanding of the economy as a whole is not been by hard data collection and patterns emerging from the data though there is that element to it though, right? Reinforce the [00:03:30] thought. Oh to be sure. Malthus's thought experiment was one of the most important ever and he just thought, well, you know, it looks like agricultural production increases linearly and population increases geometrically and what does that mean? And that meant that you're going to come to the limits and clashes and war and bad behavior and and therefore abstinence would be good. Speaker 5: Late marriage would be good. And he definitely tried to back [00:04:00] that up with data. The data were very poor at the time. But yes, we've always tried to back up our thought experiments with data and sometimes that exchange changes how we think and makes our thinking more elaborate. But when I say we're different from other sciences in that we're less data-driven and more just pattern of thinking driven and then within the profession there are these various schools of thought to be sure we can [00:04:30] do get pressure to align yourself in some way. Where the school of thought, well I wouldn't say so much pressure, I would say it's, it's a desire or human desire for a sense of community and shared thinking and it's much more comfortable working with people who think like you do. And so there's pretty strong lines between people who think markets are most important and people who think power is most important sort of followers of Adam Smith or followers of Carl Marx. Speaker 5: But [00:05:00] yeah, there are times when, I guess you could say you feel the pressure, but it's more just the pressure of a community that and communities are good communities help us think together and dig deeper along a pattern of thinking. But of course they also keep you in the same Rut. And then we, if you become deviant, oh yeah. How are you treated at that point? Well and are you encouraged to be deviant? So anyway, so there are rankings of what's strong economics and what's weak economics. [00:05:30] And on the neoclassical side, the mathematicians have always had bigger Thrones than those who actually go out and study how the markets work. And then those who actually study the, the laws and regulations that determine how markets work. Those are referred to as institutional economists and for many years institutional economists, which are the lowest ranking, they studied the facts, they just studied history. Speaker 5: They weren't [00:06:00] high theorist, but of course it's, it's how, how laws get written that determine how markets work and not the mathematics. Early on in your career you've stepped out of the mainstream. I never was in the mainstream. I, I was out before I was in and I've always been out. I had a very strong experience as an 18 year old, 19 year old as a river guide in the Glen Canyon of the Colorado. And that's now under Lake Powell. And [00:06:30] I was one of a very small number of people who saw this area, but also saw it go under and I became a fairly committed environmentalist and then started thinking, well, I'm you know, 19 years old, I'm a sophomore, junior in college. What do I want to study, what I want to do in life? And I loved biology. I love geology, but nature is not the problem. We are. If we are, then what's the biggest thing? And it was not too difficult to say, well, it's, [00:07:00] it's our economy. It's how we think about our relationship with nature as determined by our economics and economic beliefs. And so I went into economics from the outside knowing that I was always on the outside. I don't recommend it. Speaker 2: [inaudible] you are listening to spectrum on k a l x Berkeley. [00:07:30] Richard Norgaard is our guest. He is an ecological economists. In the next segment, he defines it, logical, economic [inaudible]. Speaker 5: And what role do you think ecological economics has to play in shaping and informing policy? Well, we should probably describe ecologically economics a little bit first. And [00:08:00] I like to put it in a little bit in juxtaposition with environmental economics. Environmental Economics is basically a pattern of thinking that says things are left out of the economy or we don't get the opportunity to buy clean air. We don't get the opportunity to buy healthy environments and, and we just need to put everything in the market. And when everything's in the market, the market will be perfect. And so environmental economics is about [00:08:30] making the economy evermore inclusive by bringing more and more things into it. Ecological economics is not just an extension of economics. Ecological economics is a real effort to understand ecological systems and economic systems and try to understand where they may come into clash ecologies, basic premises, everything's connected to everything else. Speaker 5: And a basic premise of at least mainstream economics is that things can be divided [00:09:00] up and made into property and exchanged the one hand. The economic worldview is everything's divisible and ecological worldview. Everything is connected and that's a fundamental tension and human understanding of systems. And so at least to me is that tension that signifies sort of our ultimate limits of how we understand systems that's embedded in ecological economics. So how do you reveal that tension and then try [00:09:30] to have an impact on policy that would affect that tension. In Our world today is not set up that way. Our world today is set up that science brings answers and a better informed society can make better choices. But we also have sort of the idea that that we can have scientists inside of government that can say this is how things are, and then democracy is just about choosing between options. Speaker 5: [00:10:00] If you really see that fundamental tension all the way down and then science can't give answers and science can say, well look at the world as a divisible world. I see this. If I look at the world, isn't there connected world? I see this and it's up to all of us to then sort of get involved in the judgment process and the way policy is set up now it's very much in the context of a legislature that has certain roles and then the agencies that have certain roles and courts [00:10:30] that have certain roles and then policymakers are sort of in this process trying to set up options and pathways that if you follow ecological economics to its logical limits, we all need to be involved in this. And so I push ecological economics to discourse of democracy that we really need to think of democracy as a shared learning system, not as a vote counting system. Speaker 5: It's a process by which we all come to [00:11:00] better understanding and make compromises and that's very different than the way we think of policy and democracy and and science. Now the long step to their, and by no means do all ecological economists think this way. We do get involved in policy, but then it frequently comes into contradiction with sort of the fundamental problems of, of our understanding. Whenever you're in a system that's not where you think the system ought [00:11:30] to be, you're still stuck with these dilemmas of how do you intervene and, and transform the system. And so I myself get involved in and policy sort of positions and you know, you don't understand the nature of the world you're in unless you're engaged with it. You can't just sit back and say, well, I'm not gonna, I'm not going to engage until it's all set up. Right? So to be sure they're economists who don't see the tension and just say ecological economics ought to fit in the [00:12:00] policy process as it is, or ecologically economists who do see the tension and need to work or choose to work with the system to help transform it. Speaker 4: So in a sense, trying to build a consensus across the political world and just the general population as to the ongoing learning experiment that democracy could be. Speaker 5: Yeah, and we're so far from that now. We presumed that the enlightenment, everybody would become more educated. Everybody would be in a better position [00:12:30] to make rational decisions. But we actually created a world in which we have experts in various fields. We have a market system that divides us into very specialized tasks. And so our understanding is very fractured. And so partly the fact that economics is built on a divisible world has been used to create policy as further divided the world. And it's divided the world with through globalization to the point [00:13:00] where very distance from the production process of the materials, the clothes we wear, the food we eat. And so it's very hard to come to common understanding and make decisions collectively so that the system we devised as created serious problems for common understanding.Speaker 4: There seemed to be some people who are recognizing that more often and pushing back or asking for an alternative to that globalization [00:13:30] and division with this to hope, Speaker 5: this gives me hope, this, this division, this specialization, this fracturing of our sense of common understanding. Yeah, I see it in the drive for interdisciplinarity and the drive or you know, trying to understand the full effects of what we do, the and the bringing all the scientists together to understand climate change. As an example, I'm very involved in a process [00:14:00] in the California delta where we're trying to understand a complex system and we have procedures to try to bring in public input, but we still very much stakeholder staked down. We've got our positions and they're sort of a tension between the common understanding and let's just go to court. Let's sue each other. Let's battle it out. Let's you know I'm right, you're wrong. And that gets back to the community. I am mentioned with economists that you want to be in a shared [00:14:30] community, but if you've already got a shared community of laborers or shared community of capitalists or shared community of neoclassical economists, that's where you go back to and environmentalist are in a similar situation. Speaker 6: Spectrum is a public affairs show on KALX Berkeley. Our guest is [00:15:00] professor Richard Norgaard of UC Berkeley. In the next segment he talks about certainty and uncertainty in science. Speaker 5: Would the tension and increasing tension where systems potentially start to fail and common interest then gets galvanized by the failure of really large natural systems. Does the expression of risk management [00:15:30] start to bring people together? I think that's, that's a fair assessment of the situation where in that we have quested for certainty. John Dewey wrote a book on the quest for certainty and in the push for certainty we pretend we're actually reaching that certainty. And yet the very same time we're seeing that the uncertainty rules and sort of the story of climate science, it was always, well we don't know [00:16:00] this, we know none of this. We need to go back and build better and better models. And as we build better and better models, we, we learned how complex the system in is, is. And we can't really build in all the feedbacks of forest fires and uncertain events that are really contingent on particular things coming together particular time. Speaker 5: If we shift to what we don't know, that very powerful drive to be precautious and to come together and to slow the economy down. But that's also [00:16:30] like asking every scientist is say let's stress what we don't know instead of what we do know. And that's hasn't been, well the public hasn't asked that of scientists. Scientists aren't inclined to put all the emphasis in what we don't know. The whole system is sort of set up that science tells us this and then we can make a rational decision. And you know, you can imagine the climate deniers jumping on the scientific community. Well they do every time the scientific [00:17:00] community on climate becomes more specific and modifies what it knew before it gets jumped on. And so the tension is, is difficult. But yes, in the California Delta we're also in a situation where we really have to confess what we don't know and set up management systems to adapt to climate change, to invasive species to sea level rise and how the future's going to be unfolding is really unclear. Speaker 5: [00:17:30] But at the same time we have laws and legislation that say we have to write environmental impact statements and these environmental impact statements have to predict what's going to happen. And so we have a 20,000 plus page environmental impact statement for this Delta project. Is that information or is that just, you know, it's, it's, it's crazy. And so then is it kind of a general misunderstanding of science? Because really the flip side of science is the mystery and the unknown and that's really what drives a [00:18:00] lot of science is the unknown. And so it makes it so exciting. And so is it just that policymakers, general population only look to science for answers and don't want to deal with that whole mysterious side of science. I think, you know the mysterious side gets a little quasi religious sometimes and we tend to shy away from that. Speaker 5: But I think it's also just the way we've been set up in societies. This science has generated [00:18:30] a lot of technology. It's been technology generated out of just parts of what we know that then has consequences when we actually implement the technology. It changes us socially in the environment, but science has delivered lots of hard stuff. And then can we just extend that ability to understand the whole system and the answer does not look good and too says probably not. And that should then drive us to humility. [00:19:00] But when I went in and you get prestige for being a scientist, for coming up with answers, on the other hand, an honest scientist has to say, we're not holding it all together. We're not able to see the whole system and how do we understand the whole system? Who's going to understand the whole system and the level of understanding we have to have now is much greater as we have 7 billion going on, eight to 10 billion people, and [00:19:30] with the technologies we have today, we are intertwined with this system much more deeply and many, many, many, many more ways than humankind has historically. Speaker 5: And this has dramatically increased just the last 60 years. There's been a tenfold increase in economic activity. That's incredible. To have that kind of change and to think that it can continue, which is the paradigm that's, that will continue. It has to [00:20:00] have by the paradigm, but it, of course, that paradigm is has to be false and it's partly perpetrated by false economics or just reading a portion of what economists know, but that's inconceivable. But as we pushed this system harder, we have to understand it better and better and better and we're clearly not understanding it well enough. Now in your work, which tools and methods do you believe are the most important? I think I'm going to go back to those thought experiments. That's where the breakthroughs [00:20:30] come. Ways of reconceiving. What we're doing that gives us new insights that then help us change. Speaker 5: So Adam Smith's thought experiment gave us a much clearer understanding of what markets can do and we formulated a lot of our social organization along Adam Smith's ideas. We need new thought experiments that become equally popular somehow. [00:21:00] That's an issue because with markets we have stakeholders and with stakeholders then you get political power and then that reinforces existing system and how do we get a thought experiment within economics or ecological economics or from anywhere it comes that we'll reconfigure how we think about our relationship with nature to get us out of the system we're in now. Yeah. That's really the tool is I see it. That's what's been powerful in social theory. [00:21:30] The data collection, you know, fancy econometric analyses. Not so much model building and data driven stuff. Model building is good for understanding sort of the limits of how much you can understand and model building can be really good for bringing people from different disciplines together to have a shared project. That's fantastic, but as soon as you actually believe in your model, you're in trouble and that's [00:22:00] yeah, frequently happens. Speaker 3: Be sure to catch her Speaker 4: to have this interview with Richard Norgaard in two weeks. In that interview he talks about interdisciplinary problem solving. Speaker 6: Co-Evolution diversity and sustainability Speaker 4: [00:22:30] spectrum shows are archived on iTunes university. We have created a simple link for you to make it easy to find. The link is tiny url.com/k a l X. Speaker 6: [inaudible]. Now Speaker 4: the science and technology events happening locally [00:23:00] over the next two weeks. [inaudible] and I presented Speaker 7: the theme of January seconds after dark explore [inaudible] adult happy hour is sharing. Sharing isn't just about kids and toys. It's at the heart of some of the biggest problems facing all of us. Highlights of the evening include exploratorium social psychologist, Dr Hugh Macdonald, discussing the science of sharing the finer points of interviewing [00:23:30] with StoryCorps and a chance to share feedback on new exhibits about cooperation, competition, and collaborative problem solving. Admission do anyone 18 and over is $15 and is reduced for members visit exploratorium.edu for more information. Speaker 4: The life sciences division of the Berkeley Lab will hold a seminar on the effects that the deep water horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico [00:24:00] had on the resident fish populations. Dr Fernando Galvez from Louisiana State University will speak about his research on the Gulf. Upon hearing about the spill in 2010 Dr Galvez and his team were actually able to take water and tissue samples from seven marsh habitats around the Gulf before and after the oil hit in order to assess the long and short term ecological consequences. He has more recently been investigating the [00:24:30] ability of the native fish to compensate for crude oil linking effects from the molecular level to physiological performance. The free public event will be held January 7th from four to 5:00 PM in room one 41 of the Berkeley lab building at seven one seven potter street in Berkeley. Speaker 7: The programs and policies director of the Oakland based National Center for Science Education. Joshua Rose now [00:25:00] well discuss the predecessor of the NC s e the Salsalito based Science League of America at the free Skype talk hosted by the bay area skeptics at Luphinia Cultural Center three one zero five Shattuck in Berkeley on January 9th at 7:30 PM the Science League was formed by Maynard Shipley, a science communicator and former shoe salesman to educate the public about evolution. More information [00:25:30] is that BA skeptics.org Speaker 4: the Henry Wheeler Center for emerging and neglected diseases. Annual symposium aims to strengthen connections between San Francisco Bay area scientists working on infectious diseases of global health importance and the broader global health research, product development and advocacy communities. The theme for the 2014 symposium is academia and the global health pipeline, [00:26:00] basic science, innovation and translation. The symposium features a dynamic list of invited Speakers from around the world, including scientists from developing countries. Participants include academic researchers from UC Berkeley, UCF, Stanford, UC Davis, as well as representatives from local biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies and global health nonprofits. The event will be held January 10th [00:26:30] from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM in the lead cost Xing Center Auditorium. The event is free to attend, but you must register online at the center for emerging and neglected diseases website by January 6th to attend the symposium. A feature of spectrum is to present new stories we find interesting. Rick Karnofsky joins me for the news. Speaker 4: The December 23rd issue of nature news reviewed a preprint submitted to archive [00:27:00] by Notre Dame, astrophysicist David Bennett and a large team of collaborators that offers the first suggested report have an extra solar moon, extra solar planets have been found routinely. We now know of over a thousand that are detected by analyzing how it stars. Light, brightens and dims with time, but detecting the moon is exceedingly difficult. The team saw a smeared out brightness as if two objects had magnified the light. [00:27:30] The study is conservative and notes that their observations best fit a model of the moon with a mass smaller than Earth's orbiting the primary planet of a gas giant, but that other models may also fit while they don't fit as well. They have been observed in more systems. These include a lower mass star or brown Dorf orbit by a fast and small planet about the size of Neptune. Speaker 4: The team stresses that their study shows the power of micro Lenzing to survey such systems and helps [00:28:00] for a higher precision measurements from huddle. The UC Berkeley News Center reports that a team of UC Berkeley vision scientists has found that small fragments of Keratin protein in the I play a key role in warding off pathogens. Professor Susan Fleisig, an optometrist at the University of California, Berkeley says, what we know is people virtually never get corneal infections unless they're a contact lens wearer or unless they have very severe injury to the cornea. Professor [00:28:30] Fleisig, along with other UC Berkeley researchers recently discovered the proteins in the eye called Keratins. We're able to ward off bacteria to test this. Researchers introduced normal cells to bacteria, which predictably attacked and killed the defenseless healthy cells. But when small parts of Keratin proteins were added, the normal cells lived. Scientists have made an artificial version of a small part of the Keratin protein and tested it against different diseases. The proteins [00:29:00] destroyed bacteria that can cause struck throat, diarrhea, and staff. Further research is needed before isolated. Keratins can be used to fight bacteria, but it could be a low cost discovery that might change the way we treat and prevent infections. Speaker 2: [inaudible] music heard during the show was written and produced by Alex Simon. Thanks to Renee Rao for help with the calendar. Thank you [00:29:30] for listening to spectrum. If you have comments about the show, please send them to us via email or email. Address is spectrum. Duck klx@yahoo.com join us in two weeks at this same time. [inaudible]. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Dr. Bea worked with the US Army Corps of Engineers, and Royal Dutch Shell around the world. His research and teaching have focused on risk assessment and management of engineered systems. He is co-founder of Center for Catastrophic Risk Management at UCB.TranscriptSpeaker 1: Spectrum's next Speaker 2: [inaudible].Speaker 1: Welcome to spectrum the science and technology show on k a l x Berkeley, a biweekly 30 minute program bringing you interviews featuring bay [00:00:30] area scientists and technologists as well as a calendar of local events and news. Speaker 3: Hey there and good afternoon. My name is Renee Rao and I'll be hosting today's show. Today. We present part one of two interviews with Robert B. Professor emeritus of civil and environmental engineering at UC Berkeley. Dr B served as an engineer with the U S Army Corps of Engineers, Shell oil, shell development, and Royal Dutch Shell. His work has taken him to more than 60 locations around the [00:01:00] world. His engineering work has focused on marine environments. While his research and teaching have focused on risk assessment and management of engineered systems, he's a cofounder of the center for catastrophic risk management at UC Berkeley. In part one, safety and risk management are discussed. Speaker 1: Bobby, welcome to spectrum. Thank you. Pleasure. You're part of the center for catastrophic risk management. How did that get started and what's the mission? What's the goal? Well, [00:01:30] it started on an airplane coming to California from New Orleans, Louisiana. In November, 2005 on the plate with me was professor Raymond c department, Civil Environmental Engineer. In the early days after Katrina, New Orleans flooding, there were still dragging bodies out, e Eric [00:02:00] and coming, our thinking was, well, why couldn't we help found a group here at Berkeley that would bring together interdisciplinary professionals both in the academic, in Ironman and outside to address catastrophic potential failures, disasters in two frameworks, one after they happen and two before they happen, after [00:02:30] the intent is not blame, shame or hurt, but rather to learn deeply how they happen so that then you can bring it back to prevention mitigation. So we got off the plane, I met with our Dean, Dean Sastry and said, could you tell us how to become a senator here at Berkeley?Speaker 1: I'll never forget it. He got up from his test, walked around to the other side, touch me on the left and right shoulders and said, your center. [00:03:00] That telephone center happened and today the center continues to exist under the leadership of Professor Carlene Roberts and continuing to address a wide variety of accidents that have happened. And once we are working to help not happen. Thank you. Berkeley and the funding is, there is an interesting question. Initially [00:03:30] we thought, well we'll turn to the university for funding. That was not as easy as some of us thought because university was already seriously stretched for funding, just funding itself. So at that point we turned two directions. First Direction principally because of my background was to industry and said, hey and a strength, would you fund research here [00:04:00] and return for your research funding. We'll give you great students with great research backgrounds and research results. Speaker 1: They became excellent funders. We turned to government homeland security for example, or the National Science Foundation. Similar responses. So the funding has come from both industry, commerce and government. Essentially all we had to ask university four [00:04:30] and it's been a precious resource to even ask for it. It has been space and support staff. Are there any of the centers projects that you'd want to talk about? There's I think two. One was a center for catastrophic risk management project at its inception sent bro, PG and e a disaster certainly to the people that were close to land one 32 [00:05:00] that exploded. We followed that disaster from the day it started and carried it all the way through the federal investigations at state investigations and drew from that very, very important lessons, preventative lessons. The other project that has been playing out sort of in sequence with it is in San Pedro, California, the San Pedro, low pressure gas [00:05:30] storage facilities. Speaker 1: It's in a neighborhood and you can see these large gas storage tanks. You can see roads nearby. You can see Walmart in shopping centers and schools and hospitals and homes and you'd say this sounds pretty dangerous. Founded back in the 1950s period. It's pretty old, kind of like Bobby in pre oh and worn out and [00:06:00] it's severed w we call risk creep, which means when they built the tanks and the facilities there, there weren't any people, there was a port to import the gas so forth. But suddenly we've got now densely packed, I'm going to call it political social community infrastructure system, which if you blow out those tanks, we've got big trouble. Houston, well we took on San Pedro in an attempt to help the homeowners that people [00:06:30] actually live there draw or call appropriate attention to the hazard so that they could get appropriate evaluation. Speaker 1: Mid Asian, we haven't been very successful. I think many people say, well, hasn't blown up. It's not gonna blow up. Other people who say, I think I smelled gas and an explosion is not far behind. And then you turn to the state regulation system and say, [00:07:00] well, who's responsible? Answer everybody. Nobody. And at that point it sinks back into the everyday activity of that community and our society. So one horrible experience. We learned a lot of lessons and I'm watching PG and e n r California Public Utilities Commission go through the learning experiences and they're obviously painful. But on the preventative side, art record is looking [00:07:30] pretty dismal. Yeah, that's tough. That's similar to the Chevron fire that was in Richmond and cause you're right, these things get built when they're far away and then developers build right up to them. Same with airports and all sorts of faculty. Speaker 1: Chevron refinery is what our latest investigation and it's got a story behind it because one of the stalwart sponsors at work that's been done by the center for catastrophic [00:08:00] risk management has been Chevron. In fact, they were a member of um, 10 years study that we conducted here concerning how organizations manage very high risk systems successfully. Chevron was one of the successful organizations. So when we saw Richmond go poof, boon, we said something's changed. [00:08:30] They had a sterling record for their operations here. What happened? Well, the story comes that this business of risk assessment management of these complex systems is one damn thing after another. And if you get your attention diverted like, oh, we need to make more money, you start diverting precious human resources working to achieve, say that he them [00:09:00] safety starts to degrade and at that point roasty Pintful only stay rusty so long at that point, poof, boom. Speaker 3: You're listening to spectrum on k a Alex Berkeley. Brad swift is interviewing Bob, be a civil and environmental engineer at UC Berkeley. In the next segment they talk about collaboration. Speaker 4: [00:09:30] Talk about some of the people you've collaborated with and the benefits that flow from Speaker 1: that kind of work. That's been one of the real blessings of my life has been collaboration. One of the things that dealing with complex problems and systems and most afraid of is myself. I'm afraid of myself because I know I'll think about something [00:10:00] in a single boy and I'll think about it from the knowledge I have and then all develop a solution or insight to how something happens. Given that set of intellectual tools and so learned to be afraid of myself and I get very comfortable is when I have people who don't think like me, who will in fact listen to me and then respectfully when I finished they say, [00:10:30] Oh, you're wrong. Here's why. And then of course out rock back and I say, okay, he explains more or less, let's get there. And what I have found in evitable Lee is I end up at a different point than where I started, which tells me the power of collaboration can be extremely strong as long as collaboration is knowledgeable and respectful. If it gets to be ignorance at work and it's disrespectful, you can expect Bob [00:11:00] to become pretty nasty. [inaudible]. Speaker 4: In reflection on your activities in civil engineering and in academia, does civil engineering need to change in some way or is there a subtle change happening that you recognize? Speaker 1: I think there's subtle change having and proud. I think I see it starting to sprout here at Berkeley. The change that's happening is that you struck on with your earlier question concerning collaboration. [00:11:30] So it turns out to be the power of civil engineering collaboration. We've actually got people in engineering working with people in political science, public health business. That is an extremely encouraging sign. As long as we can keep that collaboration going in the right directions. If you do that, do it well. Then this symphony of disasters and accidents, we'll hear that [00:12:00] music go down a lot. You sort of made famous, the civil engineering course one 80 and you're not teaching that anymore, right? That's correct. Did you pass it on to someone you know and give them the blessing? I tried to, yeah. C e one e engineering systems is what it was called, I think was teachable for me because of the experiences. Speaker 1: [00:12:30] I came here after 35 years, 36 years of industry work, and I've been working as laborers since I was 14 went to work as a roofer roofing crew in Florida. I'm not too smart, and so I was able to bring that background experience into the classroom and virtually turned the students loose, said we don't want you to do is first formed into teams. Well a year [00:13:00] at Berkeley, we tend to be what I call a star system student is independent. They gotta be the best in the class working together as something not encouraged. Well, I would say to hell with the star system, we're going to work as a team. So teamwork came in and that's because that hit very strong training through the Harvard Executive Master of Business Administration Program on teamwork and organization and that kind of stuff. So I brought that in and then said, well you have all this [00:13:30] technical stuff. Speaker 1: Get out of Berkeley, go out there and meet the real people, meet some real experts outside of the Berkeley experts and go solve problems. So essentially I turned them loose, but I kept him from hurting themselves. It worked beautifully. Well notice you can't then turn back to normal Berkeley faculty and say, teach it. It's not reasonable because he's not had that [00:14:00] experience. You could think about team teaching, but then you'd say, well ob, we have trouble with enough funding to teach with one person in a class, much less teen teaching. So I sort of agreed with myself to hope somebody remembers and when the university has more resources they could in fact return to these times of real life experience classes. The students that came [00:14:30] through that sort of experiences have made some remarkable contributions already. Good kids. Has anyone approached you about doing any of this online teaching? Speaker 1: Yes, and I steadily said no. The reason is a saying that I was given by a very dear friend and a collaborator, University of Washington, Seattle said a bomb. [00:15:00] Engineers want to believe the planet is not inhabited. We don't like people were antisocial. Go to a party and you can tell it immediately you were in a corner, you know, talking boring shop. Well let, don't want to contribute to e offline internet generation of engineers who do let her work with each other. I have all the liberating intellectual things in the classroom outside of the classroom. So [00:15:30] [inaudible] been very supportive. We need more human contact. Speaker 2: [inaudible]Speaker 5: spectrum is a public affairs show on KALX Berkeley. Our guest is professor Bob B of UC Berkeley. In the next segment they speak about safety. Speaker 2: Aw. Speaker 1: Is there anything that I haven't asked you about that you want to talk about? One of the things [00:16:00] that as I leave my career period in my career at Berkeley that makes me sad for Berkeley really got my attention during the Macondo disaster. Many good friends that I still have at DPE that were in fact involved in the causation of the accident kept saying, well, what we did we thought was safe. The thing that makes me say [00:16:30] is we still have a course to teach engineers what the word means and how to quantify it so that then people can look at it and say, this is acceptable. Those people could be from the school football or public hill. This kind of risk management not happening here. That's I had, and I can look forward. I think all of us can two continuing problems in this area because of a lack of appropriate [00:17:00] education. The engineering thinking in many cases is w explicit thinking about uncertainties, variability and is devoid of thinking intensely about the potential effects. Uh, human malfunctions. The engineer goes through a career of saying the weld will be done according to specifications. There's where it pumps up. [00:17:30] The engineers. Education is one a deals with an imaginary world. There is no significant uncertainty. You sorta by code specification or however inspection do away with that and things will be perfectly [inaudible]. Guess what? It's not the human factor, the human factor. Speaker 4: Given that there's always going to be that human factor [00:18:00] at risk management seems to be a quandary of the open-endedness of it. When do you feel you've done enough of it? When do you feel confident that you're ready to say, yes, I'm prepared for all circumstances? No one can know all things yet at the same time, you do as much as you can or what can you afford? Right. It comes down to the money side of it again. Yeah. I Speaker 1: love your question. I got on this while I was here, so I didn't come in here knowing this [00:18:30] one, when I came in to this risk assessment, management got into the depths of it. I had to do a lot of reading and reading. I was doing coming from many different industries and parts of the world said, oh well risk assessment and even a proactive think before predict cause like you were saying. But the falling that is, you can't predict everything, but they never said it. Okay. And the next thing you said was it's reactive [00:19:00] so that when something bad happens, you reflect on it, learn from it, and you manage the consequences. Well, I'm sitting here and by the way, I came here without a phd, but I got one, all of them white. I introduced interactive management and I'm sitting at home trying to think how to do something for a PhD dissertation that's new. Speaker 1: And I said, oh, there's proactive and there's reactive that gotta be interactive. How in the hell can I learn about this? And I end up working [00:19:30] with two pediatric emergency room management teams, a BB team, I call them [inaudible] into hospital Los Angeles, the other San Francisco general mortality rate, same number of beds in air emergency room wards was a factor of 10 higher in San Francisco. So we went and observed them, students with me, and we started interactive management. The baby can't tell you what's wrong with it [00:20:00] and yet the medical team has to be able to diagnose it, invoke corrective action to save the life and the success shows up in mortality. So we got deep into that and that entered interacted management. Hey, story goes on. We're working with commercial aviation, U S air, United Airlines and southwest airlines. U Us air comes to a confidential meeting and says, [00:20:30] well, we found out where we had five fatal accidents five years in a row. Speaker 1: We had given our flight crews instructions. They were to leave the gate on time without exception. Well, the five that had crashes did the checkout on the taxi out. Two of them found that they didn't have enough fuel to make the next airport unless they have tail. Winston. Of course they had headwinds. Well then experience in his interactive [00:21:00] management. The guy shows up at our doorstep here in Maine, sully Sullenberger and he's learning about what we have been learning. He's heard through u s air about this interactive management. Boy Did we carry him through it and boy did. He carry us through perfect example of how you can prepare a very complex hazardous system to succeed [00:21:30] in the face of failure. What they did that morning and he sent me an email that morning before they took off from the Guardian when they took all laws, both engines totally not predictable, did the scan or the alternative airports and what would happen if they didn't have enough flight path to make it turn toward the Hudson and pulled off. That was totally prepared for including design of back water back flow valves through the air intakes into [00:22:00] the Airbus. He knew what he was doing. Look at the flight inclination of the plane coming into the river. Looks like barefoot skiers toes up. Speaker 1: There's the power of the thinking so you do end up measuring safety just to, you said you never sure you got the spit on it or right. Something could happen out of the blue. Somebody walks across the street that's not supposed to. You then have to have the ability to get through [00:22:30] the system quickly and have the correct response. That's part of risk assessment management. Unfortunately, BP never learned it before the conduct so that when it really hit hard, it hit hard. That night they couldn't respond. They froze and they killed 11 people at White. Yeah, I read the report that you did on that and I was like potboiler. [00:23:00] It's really riveting stuff. Yup. Speaker 1: That's an amazing tale. Yeah, it makes me so overwhelming. Go sailing. You say all in the bay, Yo God, you know? Yeah. I'd taken the boat to Mexico taking the channel islands twice. I'm single handed sailor. Oh really? I've lost my ass once. Those exciting tale about [00:23:30] disaster preparation, I guess sailing alone is a good sort of a risk management hands on practice reason. You'd say, come on Bob, you got it. He's somewhat here, man. I've learned. When I say go, I can only sale, which means I can't think about Katrina or beat pea or San Bruno. I've got to focus totally on that boat and sailing. If not, I ask here quick. So it's a relief and that's why you do the [00:24:00] solo rather than have other people on board. Then you get sloppy, sloppy, and et cetera. Yeah, and so most of my sailing is done solo. Speaker 6: No [inaudible]. Speaker 3: If you're interested in the center for catastrophic risk management and it's riveting reports, visit the website, c c r n. Dot berkeley.edu [00:24:30] to listen to any and every past episode of spectrum for free. Visit our archive on iTunes university. The link is tiny url.com/calyx spectrum. Now two of the science and technology events happening locally over the next two weeks. Cheese, Yucca boss and I presented a calendar Speaker 7: this Tuesday, November 19th the SF ask a scientist's lecture series. [00:25:00] We'll present a talk by a neuroscientist, Adam Gazzaley and magician Robert Strong from ancient conjures to big ticket Las Vegas. Illusionists. Magicians have been expertly manipulating human attention and perception to dazzle and delight us. The team will demonstrate how magicians use our brains as their accomplices in effecting the impossible and explain what scientists can learn about the brain by studying the methods and techniques of magic. The event will take place on Tuesday, November 19th at 7:00 PM in Stanford's geology corner. Auditorium Room [00:25:30] Number One oh five and building number three 20 of Stanford's main quad. Speaker 3: This Wednesday, November 20th the UC Berkeley Archeological Research Facility will host a seminar on indigenous food ways and landscape management. Since 2007 a multidisciplinary research team has been working to implement an Eto archeological approach to explore indigenous landscape management on the central coast of California. This presentation includes results of a study associated with UC Berkeley Graduate Student Rob Casseroles, [00:26:00] dissertation research, which takes a historical ecological approach to integrating major sources of data, including fiery ecology of contemporary landscapes and results of macro botanical analysis of indigenous settlements. The event is open to all audiences and will be held on November 20th from 12 to 1:00 PM in room one oh one of the archaeological research facility on the UC Berkeley campus and now Chase Jakubowski with our new story. Speaker 7: This story is from the UC Berkeley new center. [00:26:30] CRISPR stands for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats for nearly two decades after Japanese researchers first discovered CRISPR in bacteria in 1987 scientists dismissed it as junk DNA, far from being junk. CRISPR was actually a way of storing the genetic information of an invading virus in the form of Palindromic DNA sequence. The bacteria used this genetic information to target the viral invader by chopping [00:27:00] it up with powerful CRISPR associated enzymes capable of cleaving its DNA molecule, just like a pair of molecular scissors. The mystery of CRISPR was resolved by Jennifer Doudna of the University of California Berkeley, a specialist in RNA about seven years ago. Downer was asked by a university colleague to look into this genetic particularity of bacteria and quickly became fascinated. The more we looked into it, the more it seemed extremely interesting. Professor Doudna [00:27:30] said then in 2011 she met Emmanuelle Carpentier of Ooma University in Sweden at a scientific conference. Speaker 7: Professor Carpentier told professor down a of another kind of CRISPR system that seemed to rely on a single gene called c a s nine both professors collaborated on the project and an August last year published what is now considered the seminal paper showing that cas nine was an enzyme capable of cutting both [00:28:00] strands of DNA double helix at precisely the point dictated by a programmable RNA sequence. In other words, an RNA molecule that could be made to order. It has worked beautifully on plants and animals. Professors Doudna and sharpen ta had found the holy grail of genetic engineering, a method of cutting and stitching DNA accurately and simply anywhere in a complex genome. I'm tremendously excited about the possibility of this discovery having a real impact on people's [00:28:30] lives. Maybe we'll offer the opportunity to do therapeutics that we've not been able to do in the past. Professor Doudna said her team is already working on possible ways of using the cas nine system to disrupt the damaging chromosomes responsible for down syndrome or the extra repetitive sequences of DNA that lead to Huntington's disease. What's exciting is that you can see the potential and it's certainly going to drive a lot of research to try to explore it as a potential human therapeutic tool. Speaker 3: [00:29:00] Mm. Don't forget to tune in next week to your part two professor B's interview. He and Brad Swift will discuss the California Delta and shoreline retreat. Okay. The music heard during this show was written and produced by Alex Simon. Thank you for listening to spectrum. If you have comments about the show, please send them to us via email. [00:29:30] Our email address is spectrum KALX. Hey, yahoo.com join us in two weeks. [inaudible]. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Zoologist Toni Bodi is currently developing a genomic diagnostic screen for Alzheimer’s disease and is a founding member of the Berkeley Bio Labs new bio hacker space. Nature magazine.TranscriptSpeaker 1: Spectrum's next. Speaker 2: Aw. [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible]. Speaker 1: Welcome to spectrum the science [00:00:30] and technology show on k a l x Berkeley, a biweekly 30 minute program bringing you interviews featuring bay area scientists and technologists as well as a calendar of local events and news. Speaker 3: Hi and good afternoon. My name is Brad Swift. I'm the host of today's show. Our guest is Tony Bodhi Hickerson, a zoologist who was part of a cognitive study of howler monkeys in Mexico. Tony is trying to organize a noninvasive [00:01:00] dolphin study in the wild using wireless network technology. She is currently developing a genomic diagnostic screen for Alzheimer's disease and is a founding member of the Berkeley bio labs, a new bio hackerspace. Tony talks about cognition, Alzheimer's disease, and creating a scientific community resource in the bay area. Rick Karnofsky and Renee Rau interview Tony on this edition of spectrum. Speaker 4: So welcome to spectrum. [00:01:30] I'm Rick Karnofsky here with Brad swift and Renee Rao. Our guest today on spectrum is Tony Bodhi, Hickerson and zoologist. Welcome to spectrum. Thank you for having me. Can you give us a little bit of a description of what you work on? Kind of a brief overview for the audience. That cognition is essentially the ability to receive and process information and the most abstract form. And we kind of think of it as mental processes, which can be both conscious and subconscious. [00:02:00] And so I do research on cognitive abilities of wildlife and at the moment I'm also working on an application in humans. What wildlife do you look at? Um, well I have looked at primates and I've been also involved in a dolphin project. So high functioning mammals. And how do you assess their cognitive abilities? Well, you can do behavioral studies, which is what I primarily do. Speaker 4: And of course just looking at the anatomy as well. So [00:02:30] I try to be as noninvasive as possible. I don't work in a lab with monkeys in a cage. I actually work in the wilderness and follow monkeys around all day. So where do you do that? I was doing that in Mexico for my last study with seven months and from Sunup I watched the sun come up and uh, the howler monkeys, which is a species that I was working on would call in the morning. That's how we'd find them. So we trek through the jungle and find them and then start our study. And it would usually last, well it would last until sundown. So depending on how many hours a like we had [00:03:00] [inaudible] Speaker 5: can you just walk us through what the study was and what you looked at in the howler monkeys and how you interpreted it? Speaker 4: Well, this study, I was a, the head field managers, so it wasn't my particular study, but I was managing all the data collection and uh, we were looking at two different species of Holler monkey. And they're hybrids. So there's hybrid zone in Mexico where both of these species, which we believe based on genetic evidence have been separated for about 3 million [00:03:30] years. They have different number of sex chromosomes. They're very morphologically different, are coming together and meeting successfully. They also have very different social structures and one group tends to be far more aggressive than the other one is much more communal. It has large groups up to 25 30 and the other one usually has three to five. So to see how behaviorly they come together and genetically they come together because in one cross if you have a female of a and a male of B, they can [00:04:00] have an offspring. But if you inverse it they cannot. So it's really interesting also genetically to see how things recombine. What kinds of data did you take? Oh, we took auditory, so we, they're hollow monkeys. So we had all their calls, which it changes from group to group and obviously from species to species. We also took a lot of behavioral information, affiliative, so like affection and aggressive behavior, like attacks and genetic [00:04:30] information through and study captures as well as fecal samples. Speaker 5: I'm just super curious about what it was like following the Heller monkeys and spending literally all day with them. You, Speaker 4: I started to go insane. You actually do. Um, no, it was a really profound life experience for sure. And I couldn't have designed a better project to be part of. Like if I had designed my dream project, it would have been this project. When I started this project, I didn't speak Spanish and [00:05:00] every single person in my team only spoke Spanish, so I learned Spanish very fast. But during the process of learning a second language, you have this inability to completely express yourself and it kind of makes you go insane. And then when you couple that with standing in the middle of like a really humid forest, you know, surrounded by mosquitoes and following monkeys running through the canopy. I got you about month five I think, and I realized that I started to go insane. [00:05:30] When I yelled at an ant out loud, I paused and just laughed hysterically to myself and realize that like this is the point where like I've reached my mental break. Then I'm yelling at ants and I need to get to a city as soon as possible. Speaker 2: Okay. Our guest today on spectrum is Tony Bodhi Hickerson, but she answers to Tony Bodhi in the next, she talks about her idea for a dolphin stone. [00:06:00] This is k a l x Berkeley. Speaker 4: And what do you do with the dolphins? Uh, the Dolphin project, uh, is not a field project, unfortunately at the moment. It's an education campaign for the international mantle project, which is responsible for all dolphin safe tuna that you've ever seen as well as the documentary, the cove. So they're very avid group on [inaudible]. [00:06:30] And so I was putting together a campaign to try and inspire people that they're really intense creatures and why maybe we should respect them. Speaker 5: You tell us a little bit about those abilities and why they're so intense. Speaker 4: There are three groups of mammals that have large brains that's great. Apes, elephants and marine mammals. And the dolphins came from a very different evolutionary path. So they have different [00:07:00] structures, which is also really interesting. They don't have the prefrontal Cortex, which is what we tend to associate with being human, the sort of emotional side of being human. But they have a very intense limbic system, which is also associated with emotions and bonding behavior and sexual behavior. Dolphins have sort of this mixed reputation of being very kind of aggressive and also being really altruistic almost in their actions. [00:07:30] So looking at not only the hard facts of the biological side of things of like what structures they have and what those abilities are, but also case studies of look at these sort of altruistic behaviors. So their ability to perceive the world around them and to react in an emotional state is potentially really profound. Speaker 5: And um, in your study to sort of understand all the ways that the Dolphin perceives the world and the way that it often feels these things, are you looking at the structures in their brains and seeing [00:08:00] the corresponding place where these thought processes and these perceptions happen? Or are you just observing behavior or are you doing both? Speaker 4: Well, hopefully both. So I'm currently designing a project, which is hopefully gonna do exactly what you just said. Our tools at the moment are very limited, especially because we want to be as noninvasive as possible. Animals don't react in captivity the way that they react in the wild. And obviously they don't have the same space or social structure to be able to do the same sorts of things. [00:08:30] There is an up and coming technology that I hope to apply to this sort of research which would allow biological data to be recorded in real time and it would be completely noninvasive. It would be almost like a sticker, so there'd be no puncturing. There would be no need for captivity. Hopefully we could even apply it with minimal stress to the animal and with that we could have gps data body, we could potentially record the vibrations from their echolocation [00:09:00] and also neurological data and this would be the first information of its kind to be able to correlate if there's an approach or an affiliative behavior between two individuals, what areas of their brain are actually being, you know, lit up and that could really profoundly affect what we know about their structure. Speaker 4: Yeah, that that is sounds really exciting. So it would be noninvasive. Do you know how that works? That must be really amazing. The technology that I'm, I'm hoping to work with [00:09:30] is a flexible microchip and I'm hoping to be working with some of the innovators to make it appliable to dolphins and something that would stick for up to a month. They should scan very quickly, so that is a restraint. I don't know as much of the engineering side of it because I'm not as much tech, but from my conversations with the people developing it, it seems like it might not be up to use for a year or two, but hopefully eventually we'll get [00:10:00] there and we'll have a better understanding of how one of the smartest animals on the planet. Thanks. Are other people currently doing anything more invasive? Captivity can be a very invasive process. How animals and captivity get in captivity are often from Dolphin Slaughters, which kill hundreds of their fellow pod mates to get a handful of dolphins because a live dolphin that is pristine, [00:10:30] you know mark free that goes into entertainment or goes into a laboratory studies. They get taken out and they get sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars and the rest of them get slaughtered and sold into the meat markets. Speaker 6: Mm MM. Speaker 3: You are listening to spectrum on k a l x Berkeley. Our guest today is Tony Bow-tie Hickerson. Tony is a zoologist. In the next segment she talks about diagnosing Alzheimer's disease. Speaker 4: [00:11:00] I actually wanted to ask you a little bit about the work you're doing with Alzheimer's and dice diagnostic work. Could you maybe tell us a little bit about how the process of diagnosing Alzheimer's works currently and what you're hoping to change about that? Well, there really isn't much in terms of diagnosis that's out for the general public. What I'm actually attempting to do, and initially it was for my own curiosity and you know obviously see the potential for other people to use it as [00:11:30] well. I wanted to test myself on this gene. So there is a gene called apoe e and there are three expressions of it and they account for about 95% of all Hymers, one of these types of accounts for 50% of all hammers. I can essentially locate this gene snippet out of the enormous strand of DNA and then look at their two spots where [00:12:00] the nucleotide is a certain sequence that I can tell you. Speaker 4: If that is type one, two or three of that apathy and off of that, they're very strong statistics that will tell you that you have a very high likelihood or very low likelihood of getting Alzheimer's by a certain age. And it's sort of a spectrum due to the fact that we're deployed. So we have two copies of this gene. So if you have this like really strong negative version and one positive version, you will [00:12:30] have later onset Ohio Hymers. Then if you have two really negative versions, but there are really strong numbers that tell us what your likelihood is. But what I would like to do is to make it something that's very accessible for everyone. I don't want to produce this and market it as some expensive tests that's going to just perpetuate this whole medical debt system. I want this to be something that people can access and know for themselves to be able to plan [00:13:00] for their own future and to be able to take care of themselves and their family members more effectively and responsibly. Speaker 4: So it's pretty similar to the aggressive cancer testing would you say? Or? Um, yeah, it's fairly similar. I haven't looked exactly at that one to see. I believe it is also a snip, which is like this single nucleotide change. So it should be very similar. Do you want to tell us a little bit about the process of you sort of isolating this gene? Did you go through and read the papers [00:13:30] and see that this gene was associated with it and develop the processes snippet on your own or I'm in the process of developing the process to snippet. So right now I'm troubleshooting the primer. So the, the molecule that you use to actually cut the DNA, what I have is currently binding to itself. So it is also binding to the site that I want it to, but it's also binding to itself. So I'm trying to sort that issue out. Speaker 4: It's a process that needs to be critiqued a bit before. I'm willing to, you know, expose more [00:14:00] people to the answers cause I want to make sure that it is very accurate before I would to give someone those sorts of answers. You're currently doing some form of genetic screening and you previously did all of these behavioral studies. It's quite a transition. So how, how did you make that transition? Well they're both in principle based on cognition, mental abilities and so all Hymers is the degradation of cognitive abilities, the degradation of being able to recall information as well as [00:14:30] the breakdown of even motor skills and language skills and so that is profoundly interesting to me to to understand where and how cognitive abilities act and then to understand how they're dismantled is the cycle of, of the process of understanding exactly how things work. A lot of times we figure out what parts of the brain do what based on lesion studies, which is causing and disruption. Speaker 4: The initial draw [00:15:00] to this was for my own curiosity. And that was sparked because my father has severe dementia. So I wanted to know for him, is this all Hymers or is it something environmental? And so I want to develop a test for him, for myself and for the public to know what's their likelihood so that they can plan for the future. Are there other differentiating factors you could look at as well besides this, besides this gene? So the gene is pretty profound and [00:15:30] it's significance in whether or not people get all hammers. But there's, there's also, you know, of course a lot of different factors and I should mention that like echoey is a specific kind of all hammers. It's not early onset and not all dementia is Alzheimer's. There's lots of ways to get dementia in old age. So this isn't like a yes, no test. Speaker 4: If you have a really great diagnostic and it looks like you're clear for this, it doesn't mean that when you hit 80 that you're not gonna have problems [00:16:00] still. You still have to take care of yourself. And a lot of studies have shown that simple things and everyone says this, but simple things like diet and exercise. If you exercise on a regular basis, you can break down a lot of these corrosive molecules that cause a lot of mental problems, cause a lot of cardiovascular problems and you have to keep your metabolism up to deal with this and your body will also, you know, work to heal itself. It's just really profound what control you have over your future. [00:16:30] Like I don't want to give people this test and say you're doing, I feel that you two have a lot more control than a lot of people want to admit over the future. And so take responsibility for yourself and take care of your body. Go exercise and eat well and have lots of friends and learn new languages and go travel. See the world Speaker 2: spectrum is a science and technology show on KALX Berkeley. Our guest [00:17:00] today is Tony Bodhi Hickerson in the next segment that Tony talks about, the new Berkeley Bio lab. Speaker 4: So you're involved in a biohacker space. Uh, yes. So actually as of last weekend we moved into a space in Valeho which is my n when the other core members lab on the, hopefully we will be also opening a space [00:17:30] in Berkeley eventually, but for now we're in relay hope and it's essentially like a hacker space, but it's in biotech in general and you pay a membership and you have access to the lab and the materials to do your own research, detached from corporate biases and the strains of academia. So we provide a space in the community to kind of teach each other and [00:18:00] to work in and we allow real hard science to take place and sort of a pioneer setting. What's the name of it and how does it compare it to bio curious and some of the other spaces in the bay area? Speaker 4: Sure. The name of the lab is going to be Berkeley bio labs. Some of the other entities that will be occurring within this lab is a June cell technologies. We're trying to be much more accessible in that our membership [00:18:30] is only going to be $100 a month, whereas a lot of other bio spaces are $2,000 and up a month. I think that having more spaces isn't necessarily a bad thing. We tend to be a little bit more focused on regenerative medicine and stem cell research, so people who are more focused along that lines might be more attracted to work with us, but certainly weren't. We're not discriminating against people who aren't in stem cell research or regenerative medicine. That's just what we tend to do. I shouldn't ask you if you could [00:19:00] tell us a little bit more about the projects that are happening in the space now. Speaker 4: At the moment, we haven't even opened up yet. We were literally still moving all of the giant centrifuges and automated robots. And so right now I'm is my project as well as John's London, which is one of the founding members of the biohacker lab and he works in regenerative medicine and stem cells. [00:19:30] And once we kind of get settled and open our doors, we'll hopefully be screening lots of potential innovators to come and join our project and not necessarily his project but you know, whatever inspires them to try and you know, make a difference. And what will that screening process look like? It'll honestly be very personal. We're going to just meet with people one on one and see what they're interested in doing, what they have done and what they want to see in the future. It's much more about the people and [00:20:00] their drive to do something than the letters after their name. Speaker 4: We all feel that someone who's really driven to take the four or five years after a bachelor's and do their own research potentially has a lot more to offer than someone who might not know what they want to do in his just signing up for pastry. Cause they feel like it's the next step. So we're definitely open to pioneers, innovators and people who are willing to scrap to make a change. How are you getting the word out about the a space? [00:20:30] Well, actually the, the first thing that has happened so far on the 24th I believe it was, we had a paper written about us in nature. And so that was the first real publicity, and this is the second. So the article was called biotechnology independent streak. If anyone cares to look it up in the July 24th issue, it's gotta be super expensive to have all of the high mated robots and the giant centrifuge. Speaker 4: How are you financing [00:21:00] the space? All of the equipment is already owned by John. He's been working in biotech for quite some time and it has accumulated a very impressive stock of machinery and equipment and he's more than happy to share, to enable other people. He's been really phenomenal and assisting me and getting into a lab space, she's really enabled me to be able to do research that I would never be able to do on my own. And he's doing that for hopefully a lot of other people and so [00:21:30] I would hope to perpetuate that and help people get into it and start making a difference. What do you anticipate the future of the hackerspace pain? Well, we hope that we find lots of driven people who want to come and we are overflowing with scientists until we need to open up another space. I would love to see this be a scientific movement. Speaker 4: Science is all about curiosity. It's about having a question and figuring out how to find the answer and I think that that's [00:22:00] something in our education system that a lot of times is not really taught. People are taught facts, they're not taught. How do you figure facts out? You know? It's not about memorization. It's about teaching yourself how to think. How did you get into science? I have always been profoundly curious, but actually I started out as an art major and about two and a half years in I got called into my advisor's [00:22:30] office and I said, you can't take any more science classes. Told me you filled up all your electives and another semester. And if you take another science class, then we're going to kick you out of the fine arts school. So I said, okay. And I put in an application at another university and switched into science because I thought it was completely absurd that they would hinder me from taking science classes, but it was just a curiosity to understand how [00:23:00] the molecular and biological world works. Understand, you know, how life happens and how stars are born. It's something that I don't understand why every single person doesn't have this profound emotional response to understanding all Tony, thanks for joining. Yes, thank you. Speaker 2: Oh, [inaudible]. If you can not always catch spectrum broadcasts, know that shows are archived [00:23:30] on iTunes university, we have created a simple link to the archive just for you. The link is tiny url.com/calyx spectrum. No, a few of the science and technology events happening locally over the next two weeks. Rick Karnofsky and I present the calendar. Speaker 3: Tuesday. August 27th the UC Berkeley Botanical Gardens [00:24:00] will host a guided butterfly walk. Join Sally Levinson, the gardens resident caterpillar lady on a walk through the amazing collections of the botanical garden in search of butterflies to register for a butterfly walk, which is free with admission email garden@berkeley.edu the butterfly walk will be held from three to 4:00 PM on Tuesday, August 27th at the UC Berkeley Botanical Gardens. At this month, [00:24:30] actual science, you can learn how the properties of diamonds are uniquely suited for scientific research. Christine beavers is a research scientist based at the advanced light source at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. Her specialty is crystallography, which is the determination of 3d structures of molecules from crystals using x-rays. Actual science will be on Thursday, August 29th at 6:00 PM [00:25:00] at actual cafe six three three four San Pablo Avenue in Oakland and mission is free. UC Berkeley is holding its first monthly blood drive of the school year on August 29th you can make an appointment online, but walk-ins are also welcome. Speaker 3: You are eligible to donate if you are in good health way, at least 110 pounds and are 17 years or older. The blood drive will be on Thursday, August 29th in the Anna had [00:25:30] alumni house on the UC Berkeley campus. It will last from 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM you can make an appointment or find more information at the website. Red cross.org using the sponsor code you see be wonder fest and ask a scientist present the neuroscience of magic on Wednesday, September 4th at the [inaudible] street food park, 48 [00:26:00] 11th street in San Francisco. You CSF professor of neuroscience, Adam Gazzaley and the comedy magician, Robert Strong. We'll lead discussions from ancient conjurers t quick handed con artists, two big ticket Las Vegas illusionists magicians. Throughout the ages, I've been expertly manipulating human at attention and perception to dazzle and delight us. [00:26:30] Of course, you know that the phenomenon of cognitive and sensory illusions are responsible for the magic, but you've got to admit it still kind of freaks you out when some guy in a top hat defies the of nature right in front of your eyes. The event is free. Now, two news stories. Speaker 3: Berkeley News Center reports a new theory by fluid dynamics experts at the University of California Berkeley shows how Zombie vorticies [00:27:00] help lead to the birth of a new star reporting in the journal Physical Review Letters, a team led by computational physicist Philip Marcus shows how variations in gas density led to instability, which generates the whirlpool like vorticies needed for stars to form. The Zombie reference is an astronomical nod to pop culture and because of the so called dead zones in which these vorticies exist, this new model has caught the [00:27:30] attention of Marcus's colleagues at UC Berkeley, including Richard Klein, adjunct professor of astronomy and fellow star formation expert, Christopher McKee, UC Berkeley professor of physics and astronomy. They were not part of the work described in physical review letters but are collaborating with Marcus to put the Zombie vorticies through more tests. Science daily reports the identification of what may be the earliest known [00:28:00] biomarker associated with the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. Speaker 3: The results suggest that this novel potential biomarker is present in cerebral spinal fluid at least a decade before signs of dementia manifest. If our initial findings can be replicated by other laboratories, the results will change the way we currently think about the causes of Alzheimer's Disease said Dr Ramon true? Yes. Research professor [00:28:30] at the CSIC Institute of Biomedical Research of Barcelona and lead author of the study that was published in annals of neurology. This discovery may enable us to search for more effective treatments that can be administered during the preclinical stage. These C S I c researchers demonstrated that a decrease in the content of micro chondrial DNA in cerebral spinal fluid may be a preclinical indicator [00:29:00] for Alzheimer's disease. Furthermore, there may be a direct causal relationship Speaker 6: [inaudible].Speaker 1: The music hub during this show was written and produced by Alex Simon. Thank you for listening to spectrum. If you have comments about the show, please send them to us via email. Address [00:29:30] is spectrum dot k. Alright. yahoo.com join us in two weeks at this same time. [inaudible]. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Arash Komeili cell biologist, Assc. Prof. plant and microbial biology UC Berkeley. His research uses bacterial magnetosomes as a model system to study the molecular mechanisms governing the biogenesis and maintenance of bacterial organelles. Part1TranscriptSpeaker 1: Spectrum's next. Speaker 2: Okay. Speaker 3: [inaudible] [inaudible]. Speaker 1: [00:00:30] Welcome to spectrum the science and technology show on k a l x Berkeley, a biweekly 30 minute program bringing you interviews, featuring bay area scientists and technologists as well as a calendar of local events and news. Speaker 4: Hi, and good afternoon. My name is Brad Swift. I'm the host of today's show. We are doing another two part interview on spectrum. Our guest is Arash Kamali, [00:01:00] a cell biologist and associate professor of plant and microbial biology at cal Berkeley. His research uses bacterial magneta zones as a model system to study the molecular mechanisms governing the biogenesis and maintenance of bacterial organelles. Today. In part one, Arash walks us through what he is researching and how he was drawn to it in part two, which will air in two weeks. [00:01:30] He explains how these discoveries might be applied and he discusses the scientific outreach he does. Here's part one, a rush. Camelli. Welcome to spectrum. Thank you. I wanted to lay the groundwork a little bit. You're studying bacteria and why did you choose bacteria and not some other micro organism to study? One Speaker 5: practical motivation was that they're easier to study. They're easier to grow in [00:02:00] the lab. You can have large numbers of them. If you're interested in a specific process, you have the opportunity to go deep and try to really understand maybe all the different components that are involved in that process, but it wasn't necessarily a deliberate choice is just as I worked with them it became more and more fascinating and then I wanted to pursue it further. Speaker 4: And then the focus of your research on the bacteria, can you explain that? Speaker 5: Yeah, so we work with [00:02:30] a specific type of bacteria. They're called magnate as hectic bacteria and these are organisms that are quite widespread. You can find them in most aquatic environments by almost any sort of classification. You can really group them together if you take their shape or if you look at even the genes they have, the general genes they have, you can really group them into one specific group as opposed to many other bacteria that you can do that. But Unites Together as a group [00:03:00] is that they're, they're able to orient in magnetic fields and some along magnetic fields. This behavior was discovered quite by accident a couple of times independently. Somebody was looking under a microscope and they noticed that there were bacteria were swimming all in the same direction and they couldn't figure out why. They thought maybe the light from the window was attracting them or some other type of stimuli and they tried everything and they couldn't really figure out why the bacteria were swimming in one direction except they noticed that [00:03:30] regardless of where they were in the lab, they were always swimming in the same geographic direction and so they thought, well, the only thing we can think of that would attract them to the same position is the magnetic field, and they were able to show that sure enough, if you bring a magnet next to the microscope, you can change the swimming direction. Speaker 5: This type of behavior is mediated by a very special structure that the bacteria build inside of their cell, and this was sort of [00:04:00] what attracted me to it. Can you differentiate them? The UK erotic? Yeah. Then the bacterial, can you differentiate those two for us so that we kind of get a sense of is there, they're easy, different differentiate, you know the generally speaking you out excels, enclose their genetic material in an organelle called the nucleus. They're generally much bigger. They have a lot more genetic information associated with them and they have a ton of different kinds of organelles that perform [00:04:30] functions. All these Organelles to fall the proteins to break them down. They have organelles for generating energy, but all those little specific features, you know, you can find some bacterium that has organelles or you can find some bacterial solid that's really huge. Or you can find some bacteria so that encloses its DNA and an organelle. Speaker 5: It's just that you had accels have all of them together. Many of the living organisms that you encounter everyday because you can see them [00:05:00] very easily. Are you carry out, almost all of them are plants and fungi and animals. They're all made up of you. Charismatic cells. It's just that there's this whole unseen world of bacteria and what function does that capability serve, that magnetic functions that it can be realized that yet in many places on earth, the magnetic field will act as a guide through these changes in oxygen levels, sort of like a straight line through these. These [00:05:30] bacteria are stuck in these sort of magnetic field highways. It's thought to be a simpler method for finding the appropriate oxygen levels and simpler in this case means that they have to swim less as swimming takes energy. So the advantage is that they use less energy, get to the same place, that bacteria and that doesn't have the same capabilities relatively speaking, as a simple explanation, it's actually, because it is so simple, the model, you can kind of replicate [00:06:00] it in the lab a little bit. Speaker 5: If you set up a little tube that has the oxygen grading and then the bacteria will go to a certain place and you can actually see that they're sort of a band of bacteria at what they consider for them to be appropriate oxygen levels. And then if you inject some oxygen at the other end of the tube, the bacteria will swim away from this oxygen gradient. Now, if you give them a magnetic field that they can swim along, they can move away from this advancing oxygen threat much more quickly than [00:06:30] bacteria that can't navigate along magnetic fields. So that's sort of a proof of concept a little bit in the lab. There's a lot of reasons why it also doesn't make sense. For example, some of these bacteria make so many of these magnetic structures that we haven't talked about yet, but they make so many of these particles way more than they would ever need to orient in the magnetic field. Speaker 5: So it seems excessive. There are other bacteria that live in places on earth where there is not really this kind of a magnetic field guide. And in those environments there's [00:07:00] plenty of other bacteria that don't have these magneto tactic capabilities and they still can find that specific oxygen zone very easily. So in some ways I think it is an open question but there isn't really enough yet to refute the kind of the generally accepted model on the movement part of it. You were mentioning that they use magnetic field to move backwards and forwards. Only explain the limiting factor. Yeah, that's [00:07:30] an important point actually because it's not that they use the magnetic field for sensing in a way. It's not that they are getting pulled or pushed by the magnetic field. They are sort of passively aligned and the magnetic field sort of like if you have two bar magnets and if one of them is perpendicular to the other one and you bring the other one closer, I'll just move until they're parallel to each other. Speaker 5: This is the same thing. The bacteria have essentially a bar magnet and inside of the cell and so the alignment to the magnetic field [00:08:00] is passive that you can kill the bacteria and they'll still align with the magnetic field. The swimming takes advantage of structures and and machines that are found in all bacteria essentially. So they have flagella that they can use to swim back and forth as you mentioned. And they have a whole bunch of other different kinds of systems for sensing the amount of oxygen or other materials that they're interested in to figure out, should I keep swimming or should I stop swimming? And [00:08:30] as I mentioned earlier, the bacteria are quite diverse. So when you look at different magnatech active bacteria, the types of flagella they have are also different from each other. So it's not one universal mechanism for the swimming, it's just the idea that that the swimming is limited by these magnetic field lines. Speaker 6: [inaudible] [inaudible]. Speaker 5: Our guest today on spectrum is [inaudible] Chameleon, a cell biologist Speaker 7: and associate professor at cal Berkeley. In our next segment, [00:09:00] Arash talks about what attracted him to study the magnetism and why it remains in some bacteria and not others. This is k a l x Berkeley. So Speaker 5: let's talk about the magnetic zone, right? This is sort of my fascination. I was a graduate student at UCF and I studied cell biology. I use the yeast, which are not bacteria but in many ways they are kind of like bacteria. They're much simpler to study than maybe other do care attic [00:09:30] organisms and we have genetics available and so I was very fascinated by east, but I was studying a problem with XL organization and communication within the cell and yeast. We were taught sort of as students in cell biology at the time, that cell organization and having compartments in the cell organelles basically that do different functions was very unique feature of you carry attic cells and there's one of the things I've defined them. I received my phd to do a postdoctoral fellowship. I happen to be [00:10:00] in interviewing at cal tech and professor Mel Simon there he was talking about all kinds of bacteria that he was interested in and he said there's these bacteria that have organelles and I just, it kind of blew my mind because we were told explicitly that that's not true and in many textbooks, even today it still says that bacteria don't have organelles. Speaker 5: I learned more about men and I learned that these magnatech to bacteria that we've been talking about so far, you can actually build a structure inside of the cell, out of their cell membrane and within [00:10:30] this membrane compartment, it's essentially a little factory for making magnetic particles so they can build crystals of mineral called magnetite, which is just an iron oxide. Every three or four and some organisms make a different kind of magnetic minerals called Greg [inaudible], which is an iron sulfur mineral, but these are perfect little crystals, about 50 nanometers in diameter, and they make a chain of these magnesiums, so these membrane enclosed magnetic particles. [00:11:00] This chain is sort of on one side of the cell and it allows the bacteria to orient and magnetic fields because each of those crystals has this magnetic dipole moment in the same direction and all those little dipole moments interact with each other to make a little bar magnet, a little compass needle essentially that forces the bacterium to Orient in the magnetic field. Speaker 5: When I heard about this, I realized that this is just incredibly fascinating. Nobody really knew how it was that the membrane compartment forum [00:11:30] or even if it formed first and the mineral formed inside of it. There wasn't much or anything known about the proteins that were involved in building the compartment and then making the magnetic particle. It just seemed like something that needed to be studied and it was fascinating to me and I've been working on it for 1213 years now. Have we covered what the of the magnetic is that idea behind the function of the magnetism, which is the [00:12:00] structures of the cells build to allow them to align with a magnetic field. We think that function is to simplify the search for low oxygen environments. That's the main model in our field and I think there are definitely some groups that are actively working on understanding that aspect of the behavior better. Speaker 5: How it is that the bacteria can find a certain oxygen concentration. These bacteria in particular, what are the mechanics of them swimming along [00:12:30] the magnetic field and the, is there some other explanation for why they do this? For example, if they are changing orientations into magnetic field, can they sense the strain that the magnetic field is putting onto the cell? Can that be sensed somehow and then used for some work down the line and there are groups that are actively pursuing those kinds of ideas. You were mentioning that this is a particular kind of bacteria that has this capability, right, and others don't. Right. Yet both seem to be equally [00:13:00] effective and populating the water areas that you're studying. No apparent advantage. Disadvantage, so winning in Canada? Yeah, I mean it's a lot of the Darwinian, you could say as long as it's not severely disadvantageous, then maybe they wouldn't be a push for it to be lost. Speaker 5: What is kind of intriguing a little bit is there's examples of magna detective bacteria in many different groups, phylogenetic groups, so many different types of species that will be, let's [00:13:30] say bacterium that normally just lives free in the ocean and then I'll have a relative that's very similar to it, but it's also a magnet, a tactic. In recent years, people have studied this a little bit more and we know now what are the specific set of genes that allow bacteria to become magnetic tactic. So you can look at those genes specifically and say, how is it that bacteria that are otherwise so different from each other can all perform the same function? And if you know the genes that build the structures that allow them to orient [00:14:00] the magnetic fields, you can look at how different those genes are from each other or has similar they are. Speaker 5: And normally with a lot of these types of behaviors in bacteria, there's something called horizontal gene transfer that explains how it is that otherwise similar bacteria can have different functionalities. For example, you can think of that as bacteria being cars and everybody has sort of the same standard set of know features on the car. But you can add on different features if you want to. So you can upgrade and have other kinds of features like leather [00:14:30] seats or regular seats. And so the two cars that have different kinds of seats are very similar to each other. It's just one that got the leather seats. And so these partly are thought to occur by bacteria exchanging genes with each other. Somebody who wasn't magna tactic maybe got these jeans from another organism, but when people look at the genes that make these mag Nita zones, these magnetic structures inside of the cell, what you see is that they appear to be very, very ancient. Speaker 5: So it doesn't seem like there was a lot of recent [00:15:00] exchange of genes between these various groups of bacteria to make them magna tactic. And it almost seems to map to the ancestral divergence of all of these bacteria from each other. One big idea is that the last common ancestor of all these organisms was mag new tactic and that many, many other bacteria have sort of lost this capability over what would be almost 2 billion years of evolution for these bacteria. And then some have retained it. [00:15:30] Those of that have retained it is it's still serving an advantage for them, or is it just sort of Vista GL and they have it and they're sort of stuck in magnetic fields and they have to deal with it? No, but nobody really knows. Actually. The other option is that there was a period of horizontal gene transfer, but it was a very long time ago so that the signature is sort of lost from, again, a couple of billion years of evolution or divergence from each other, but it really looks like whenever this process happened, it was quite anxious. Speaker 3: [00:16:00] You are listening to spectrum on KALX Berkeley. Our guest is Arash [inaudible]. In the next segment, rush talks about organelles in bacterial cells. Speaker 5: [00:16:30] Explain what the Organelle is, so there's a lot of functions within the cell that need to be enclosed in a compartment for various reasons. You can have a biochemical reaction that's not very efficient, but if you put it in within a compartment and concentrates, all of the components that carry that reaction, it can be carried out more efficiently. The other thing is that for some reactions to to happen, you need a chemical environment that's different than the rest of the cellular environment. You can't convert [00:17:00] the whole environment of the cell to that one condition. So by compartmentalizing it you able to carry it out and often the products of these reactions can be toxic to the rest of the cell. And so by componentizing again you can keep the toxic conditions away from the rest of the, so these are the different reasons why you care how to excels. Speaker 5: Like the cells in our body have organelles that do different things like how proteins fold or modify proteins break him down and in bacterial cells it [00:17:30] was thought that they're so simple and so small that they don't really have a need for compartments. Although for many years people have had examples of bacteria that do form compartments. You carrot axles are big and Organelles are really easy to see where the light microscope so you can easily see that the cell has compartments within it. Whereas a lot of bacteria are well studied, are quite simple, they don't have much visible structure within them. And that's maybe even further the bias that there is some divide and this [00:18:00] allowed you carry out access to become more complex, quote unquote, and then it just doesn't exist in bacteria. How is it that they then were revealed? I think they'd been revealed for a long time. Speaker 5: You know, for example, there's electron microscope images from 40 years ago or more where you see for example, photosynthetic bacteria, these are bacteria that can do photosynthesis. They have extensive membrane structures inside of the cell that how's the proteins that harvest light and carry [00:18:30] out photosynthesis and they're, it seems like the idea for having an Organelle is that you just increased it area that you can use for photosynthesis sorta like you just have more solar panels if you just keep spreading the solar panels. Right. So that in this way, by just sort of making wraps of membranes inside of the cell, you just increased the amount of space that you can harvest light. So those were known for a long time and I think it just wasn't a problem that was studied from the perspective of cell biology and cell [00:19:00] organization that much. That's sort of a different angle that people are bringing to it now with many different bacterial organelles. Speaker 5: And part of the reason why it's important to think of it that way is that of course what the products of the bike chemistry inside of the Organelles is fascinating and really important to understand. But to build the organ out itself is also a difficult thing. So for example, you have to bend and remodel the cell membrane [00:19:30] to create, whether it's a sphere or it's wraps of membrane, and that is not a energetically favorable thing to do. It's not easy. So in your cataract cells, we know that there are specific proteins and protein machines. Then their only job is really to bend and remodeled the membrane cause it's not going to happen by itself very easily. And with all of these different structures that are now better recognized in bacteria, we really have no idea how it is that they performed the same function. Is [00:20:00] it using the same types of proteins as what we know in your care at excels or are they using different kinds of proteins? Speaker 5: That was sort of a very basic question to ask. How similar or different is it than how you carry? Like some makes an Oregon own fester was one of the first inspirations for us to study this process in magnatech the bacteria. And what sort of tools are you using to parse this information? In our field we use various tools and it's turned out to be incredibly beneficial [00:20:30] because different approaches have sort of converged on the same answer. So my basic focus was to use genetics as a tool. And the idea here was if we go in and randomly mutate or delete genes in these bacteria and then see which of these random mutations results in a loss of the magnetic phenotype and prevents the cell from making the magnetism Organelles, then maybe we know [00:21:00] those genes that are potentially involved. And so that was sort of what I perfected during my postdoctoral fellowship. Speaker 5: And that was my main approach to study the problem. And then on top of that, the other approach has been really helpful for us. And this is again something we've worked on is once we know some of the candidate proteins to be able to study them, their localization in the cell and they're dynamics, we modify the protein. So that they're linked to fluorescent proteins. So then we can, uh, use for us in this microscopy to follow them within the cell. [00:21:30] Other people, their approach was to say, well, these structures are magnetic. If we break open the cell, we can use a magnet and try to separate the magnesiums from the rest of the cell material. And then if we have the purified magnesiums, we can look to see what kinds of proteins are associated with them and sort of guilt by association. If there is a protein there, it should do something or maybe it does something. Speaker 5: That was the other approach. And the final approach that's been really helpful, [00:22:00] particularly because Magno take it back to your, our diverse, as we talked about earlier, is to take representatives that are really distantly related to each other and sequence their genomes. So get the sequence of their DNA and see what are the things that they have in common with each other. Take two organisms that live in quite different environments and their lineages are quite different from each other, but they both can do this magnetic tactic behavior. And by doing that, people again found [00:22:30] some genes and so if you take the genes that we found by genetics, random mutations of the cell by isolating the magnesiums and cy counting their proteins, and then by doing the genome sequencing, it all converges on the same set of genes. Speaker 2: [inaudible] this concludes part one of our [00:23:00] interview. We'll be sure to catch part two Friday July 12th at noon. Spectrum shows are archived on iTunes university. Speaker 7: The link is tiny url.com/calex spectrum. Now a few of the science and technology events happening locally over the next two weeks. Speaker 5: Rick Karnofsky [00:23:30] joins me for the calendar on the 4th of July the exploratorium at pier 15 in San Francisco. He's hosting there after dark event for adults 18 and over from six to 10:00 PM the theme for the evening is boom, Speaker 4: learn the science of fireworks, the difference between implosions and explosions and what happens when hot water meets liquid nitrogen tickets are $15 and are available from www.exploratorium.edu [00:24:00] the Santa Clara County Parks has organized an early morning van ride adventure into the back country. To a large bat colony view the bat tornado and learn about the benefits of our local flying mammals. Meet at the park office. Bring a pad to sit on and dress in layers for changing temperatures. This will happen Saturday July six from 4:00 AM to 7:00 AM at Calero County Park [00:24:30] and Santa Clara. Reservations are required to make a reservation call area code (408) 268-3883 Saturday night July six there are two star parties. One is in San Carlos and the other is near Mount Hamilton. The San Carlos event is hosted by the San Mateo Astronomical Society and is held in Crestview Park San Carlos. If you would like to help [00:25:00] with setting up a telescope or would like to learn about telescopes come at sunset which will be 8:33 PM if you would just like to see the universe through a telescope come one or two hours after sunset. Speaker 4: The other event is being hosted by the Halls Valley Astronomical Group. Knowledgeable volunteers will provide you with a chance to look through a variety of telescopes and answer questions about the night. Sky Meet at the Joseph D. Grant ranch county park. [00:25:30] This event starts at 8:30 PM and lasted until 11:00 PM for more information. Call area code (408) 274-6121 July is skeptical hosted by the bay area. Skeptics is on exoplanet colonization down to earth planning. Join National Center for Science Education Staffer and Cal Alum, David Alvin Smith for a conversation [00:26:00] about the proposed strategies to reach other star systems which proposals might work and which certainly won't at the La Pena Lounge. Three one zero five Shattuck in Berkeley on Wednesday July 10th at 7:30 PM the event is free. For more information, visit [inaudible] skeptics.org the computer history museum presents Intel's Justin Ratiner in conversation with John Markoff. Justin Ratner is a corporate [00:26:30] vice president and the chief technology officer of Intel Corporation. He is also an Intel senior fellow and head of Intel labs where he directs Intel's global research efforts in processors, programming systems, security communications, and most recently user experience. Speaker 4: And interaction as part of Intel labs. Ratner is also responsible for funding academic research worldwide through its science and technology centers, [00:27:00] international research institutes and individual faculty awards. This event is happening on Wednesday, July 10th at 7:00 PM the Computer History Museum is located at 1401 north shoreline boulevard in mountain view, California. A feature of spectrum is to present news stories we find interesting. Rick Karnofsky and I present the News Katrin on months and others from the Eulich Research Center in Germany have published the results of their big brain [00:27:30] project. A three d high resolution map of a human brain. In the June 21st issue of science, the researchers cut a brain donated by a 65 year old woman into 7,404 sheets, stain them and image them on a flatbed scanner at a resolution of 20 micrometers. The data acquisition alone took a thousand hours and created a terabyte of data that was analyzed by seven super competing facilities in Canada. Speaker 4: Damn. Making the data [00:28:00] free and publicly available from modeling and simulation to UC Berkeley. Graduate students have managed to more accurately identify the point at which our earliest ancestors were invaded by bacteria that were precursors to organelles like Mitochondria and chloroplasts. Mitochondria are cellular powerhouses while chloroplasts allow plant cells to convert sunlight into glucose. These two complex organelles are thought to have begun as a result of a symbiotic relationship between single cell [00:28:30] eukaryotic organisms and bacterial cells. The graduate students, Nicholas Matzke and Patrick Schiff, examined genes within the organelles and larger cell and compared them using Bayesians statistics. Through this analysis, they were able to conclude that a protio bacterium invaded UCR writes about 1.2 billion years ago in line with earlier estimates and that asino bacterium which had already developed photosynthesis, invaded eukaryotes [00:29:00] 900 million years ago, much later than some estimates which are as high as 2 billion years ago. Speaker 2: Okay. Speaker 4: The music heard during the show was written and produced by Alex Simon. Speaker 3: Interview editing assistance by Renee round. Thank you for listening to spectrum. If you have comments about the show, please send them to us via [00:29:30] email or email address is spectrum dot [inaudible] dot com join us in two weeks. This same time. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Dr. Thomas Immel is Assistant Research Physicist at SSL at UC Berkeley. His expertise is interpretation of remote-sensing data and modeling of physical processes in the upper atmosphere & ionosphere. His work includes UV imaging observations from 4 NASA missions. ICON.TranscriptSpeaker 1: Spectrum's next. Speaker 2: [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible]. Speaker 1: [00:00:30] Welcome to spectrum the science and technology show on k a l x Berkeley, a biweekly 30 minute program bringing you interviews featuring bay area scientists and technologists as well as a calendar of local events and news. Speaker 3: Good afternoon. My name is Brad Swift. I'm the host of today's show. Today's interview is part two of our two part interview with Thomas Emel. Thomas is an assistant research [00:01:00] physicist at the space sciences laboratory at UC Berkeley. In April of this year, NASA selected the Ayana spheric connection explorer known as icon to be the next heliophysics explorer satellite mission. The icon mission is to be led by the space sciences laboratory at UC Berkeley. Thomas Emo is the principal investigator of the icon mission icon will be providing NASA's heliophysics [00:01:30] division with a powerful new capability to determine the conditions in space modified by weather on the planet and to understand the way space weather events grow to envelop regions of our planet with dense Ayana spheric plasma. In today's interview, Dr Emo talks in detail about the icon explorer. He gets into the instruments that will be on the icon. What they hope to learn from the mission, [00:02:00] the schedule for the project and the orbit they hope to achieve and what will happen to the data they collect onto the interview. NASA has recently selected the Speaker 4: space sciences lab to do icon and congratulations are in order. Do you want to describe the icon project and how that's come together? Yeah, well thanks. It's been a long process. It was sort of a glimmer in our eye when we first were discovering this [00:02:30] things about the coupling of the atmosphere in the ionosphere, which I've talked about and how it's much stronger than we ever expected and structured and variable. And basically at some point it was unexplainable. And when we devise the mission, we wanted a mission that would measure not one particular thing, but it would measure each of the key parameters of the system that you need to put together to understand, let's drive in the system and how is the system responding? So this was the design for icon and a little bit more flushed out on our, which is icon.ssl.berkeley.edu [00:03:00] explaining what icon stands for to ionosphere connection explorer. Speaker 4: It's one of these things where you come up with an acronym. It sounds so good. Then later on you've tried to figure out what it meant and so we were close but I came up with icon and we have some discussions. We improved it and we basically just simplified it to ionosphere connection and it seemed to make a, it told, it says, well we want to say ins your connection explore because we are in the explorer line, but [00:03:30] icon x didn't sound is too long, so it's just icon. So you have to pitch this to NASA. Right, right. And so you have to verify that all your instruments are going to work and think what's the process of getting, you have the idea, but then there's more to it than that. Obviously in this mode, NASA has some different modes of missions. They have one where this is our mission. Speaker 4: Tell us what instruments you want to put on it. And we'll talk to you maybe and they select your instruments [00:04:00] and then you're on for the ride and the instruments have to meet some requirements and so forth. In this case it's up to the Pi, the principal investigator, to select the right instruments for the science to clearly define the science goals and the requirements for the instruments and demonstrate to the instruments, meet those requirements. So that's the mode we're working in. So it helps to have previously flown instruments that have demonstrated capability. If you don't have a exact replica of an instrument or you're doing some new [00:04:30] changes to an instrument design, then you have to model and predict how their instrument is going to behave on orbit and its capability and show them how much margin you have in your current design. So for instance, we need to know how the plasma is moving in space at all times with accuracy of five meters per second. Speaker 4: And we have a capability of three meters per second. So we have some 60% margin on that value. Do they believe it while we are flying basically a copy of that instrument right now that has that capability [00:05:00] or it would have that capability if they had the pointing capability on the current spacecraft that is flying on. There's a little bit of pointing control and knowledge that we're going to be able to provide better than maybe the last one. So you have to roll all these things in. You know, you have to have the instrument providers talking and knowledgeable of the capability of the spacecraft. You need the spacecraft and know those requirements or the instruments. While you said you need pointed like this, but do you need pointing for three seconds or three minutes or three hours? And so you [00:05:30] have to facilitate a lot of conversations and a lot of discussion in the the principal investigator and basically it's a systems engineering problem through and through and you need a great system engineering look and you need systems engineers in each department talking to each other with the overarching system engineer on the project, making sure that everyone's messages are being conveyed and everything's being captured in your requirements. Speaker 4: Pitching it to NASA. Yeah, we've been through this now twice. This is our second time around when we weren't [00:06:00] selected the first time. Everyone said, well it takes twice, so don't worry about it. Well it was, it was no fun, but we did it twice. And so luckily I don't have to sit here and say, third time's a charm. Uh, we're really pleased to be able to do this now and we think we have a great concept. How much change between the first and the second approach to NASA? Well, we added some capability. We added some real capability to spin the spacecraft very quickly to make measurements here and there. We enhanced the capability of the [00:06:30] spacecraft basically to support a number of different experimental modes that we wanted to be able to perform that they original spacecraft didn't actually have. So we want to spend the whole thing in three minutes. Speaker 4: The whole spacecraft has to spin like a top and three minutes to capture the atmosphere moving in this way and then moving in that way. We want it all. So the new spacecraft's got that. It's got a lot more power to go with that. You need more power. Needed bigger, bigger solar panels to meet your margins on meeting your science goals. We brought [00:07:00] on new team members. We added naval research lab. They're great partners in science and are really one of the original places in the United States for investigations of the upper atmosphere and ionosphere. It's nice to have them on board to have a great wind instrument for imaging. We can image of the wind, which is really cool. Speaker 1: Our guest today is Thomas Emo and the next segment Thomas [00:07:30] talks about the icon instruments and what the project scientists hope to learn from icon. This is KALX Berkeley. Speaker 4: Are there any interesting stories in terms of getting the instruments fleshed out? Testing a design, two instruments [00:08:00] coming from Berkeley and two from other institutions. Ut Dallas and naval research lab. Each instrument is different. The navel instrument coming from naval research lab is a Michelson interferometer and Michelson invented the interferometer to prove that the earth was not moving through an ether back in 1903 so it's not a new instrument, but don't tell NASA. It's not as new instrument. It's a Michaelson guys come on. But they took a very close look at that. It's a very new implementation of a Michelson that's been [00:08:30] proven on the ground and proven in space actually, but in a little different way that was used in space previously. Uh, the UV instruments one is an astronomical instrument that was created to measure one photon at a time, which we have a lot more photons now, so we've got to take off the whole back end electronics that made sure that every photon was actually a photon a, we don't need that anymore. Speaker 4: I'm happy to say because it was massive. We just have the front end of the spectrograph and it's a beautiful little instrument, the far ultraviolet [00:09:00] instrument, which is a little different as an imager and it's a near copy of the one we flew on image, which was the imager we used to make the original observation of the variability in the ionosphere. And again, the Ut Dallas instrument has been flown, I don't know, 20 times. You like to have no interesting stories with your instruments that have whatsoever, so I'm sorry to say. What's interesting is that, you know, it was getting all these instruments that had a lot of heritage, had a lot of experience on orbit, and putting them in the same place on the same time, giving them enough, powering, [00:09:30] putting them in the right directions and designing the science mission to support this. Speaker 4: The interesting thing is the magnetic field at the low latitudes constraints, the plasma controls the plasma at low latitudes where we're going, we're flying out to Florida and we'll never come that far north again. We're going to do a little burn to get to lower latitudes, not too low that we can still operate it from space sciences. I would Berkeley with our dish, we'll still be able to see it in the sky. We're on the magnetic field that we're measuring every, so we're measuring the motion of the plasma and the magnetic field, [00:10:00] and we're measuring the winds and the conductivity all along the magnetic field. The winds of the neutral atmosphere on the conductivity of the ionosphere that together control the electric fields that are generated in the low latitude dynamo or there's a dynamo, it's like a motor where you take a conductor and you run it through a magnetic field, you get a current. So we're on that magnetic field and we're measuring the processes occurring along that magnetic field that drive the currents, that low latitudes. So putting together that mission concept [00:10:30] was actually the interesting part for us and deciding what altitude we had to be at, what inclination was the best trade off for measuring those atmospheric tides, which are extensive and being right at the magnetic equator where you'd like to spend quite a bit of time making these coupled measurements. Speaker 3: Within those discussions, do you rely more on what you know about what's happening or is it blue sky and you're thinking about what are we going to find out? Speaker 4: Hmm, I see. [00:11:00] That's a good question. So depending on who you talk to, we know a lot about the ionosphere and its interaction with the thermosphere, but we have no idea why it changes so much from day to day. And one of the reasons we think we really don't have a handle on that is because we don't have a good measurement of the driver of where that energy is and most of the energies in the atmosphere. So we think that the key to understanding the variability atmospheres to measure that driver first while [00:11:30] you're measuring the response to the ionosphere. So we're measuring the neutral windless first, the motion of the atmosphere, but also key to that is you know how much plasma is on that field line. How much of an electric field are you generating by pushing that plasma across the magnetic field with that wind. Speaker 4: So you need to measure the ionosphere at the same time. Those are overarching belief that the neutral wind is really important. Why is it important? Is it because of the neutral wind pushing the plasma around and suppressing it, keeping it down [00:12:00] or blowing it up? Or is it the electric field that's comes from the Dynamo action itself of the neutral wind pushing the plasma around? Or is it something to do with the temperatures that vary from, you know, this large temperature variability that comes with the tides that can affect the whole upper atmosphere and change how the plasma recombines how it settles at night and change the composition of the apparatus here. One thing I didn't talk about is how in the upper atmosphere that different species separate, so the heavy stuff like and [00:12:30] to basically sits at the bottom of the upper atmosphere, but atomic oxygen becomes a dominant species and as you go up in altitude, the ratio of oxygen, the nitrogen changes, and that's not something that happens anywhere else below a hundred kilometers. Speaker 4: So there's a number of things that can control the atmosphere. And I guess where you'd like to be is being able to predict what's going to happen tomorrow. And if there is a key parameter that you could save yourself some time and going out and measuring instead of flying icon [00:13:00] again, you would fly, say a constellation measure in one thing. Then we should be able to inform that process and inform the next mission or this next space weather mission is trying to capture the most important parameter for predicting the conditions in the atmosphere. Uh, you may be able to reduce your set of measurements we are carrying to enter for ominous for instruments. We're measuring the east, west and the north south wind. Well one of them might make no difference whatsoever and you just need to carry one and [00:13:30] Gosh, you know, it's really, really bright and you only need to measure this part of it. So maybe your requirements aren't so strict as what icon had to carry. You carry a smaller instrument with a smaller detector and a smaller aperture. So there's some things that we can inform in the future. Speaker 2: [inaudible] you are listening to spectrum on Kal experts. Our guest today is Thomas Ilk. In the next [00:14:00] segment Thomas Talks about the icon project integration, presenting the data and how long icon will remain on orbit. And so how long is it? Is Speaker 4: the project going to take the construction side of it before you launch? We're looking at a three and a half year development, so a year of design and then NASA takes a [00:14:30] strong interest in us from now on. I've been arms length for this whole time since it's been a competitive selection. We've haven't really had any time to talk to NASA about what do you really, what do you think, what is this going to work? How you guys gonna like this, you know, we just have to say everything that we think is needed and prepare the way we think and also how NASA requirements cause us to work, do our best job to put together NASA mission. Uh, now we're going to be finally working with NASA very closely on this. So, [00:15:00] um, we have a year of design and then two and a half years of build, which gets us onto this launch vehicle we had planned for a late 2016. Speaker 4: I'm seeing signs that we're probably gonna slip to 2017. So our launch in 2017 is what we're currently planning, but we haven't had our first discussions with NASA yet. They are getting their marvels together and we are too. And we're going to meet later this month and start planning for the future, but we should be launched in 2017 the other instruments are [00:15:30] going to be built at Texas naval research. Yup. And here at the space sciences lab. And then how do you integrate, is that so far out in the distance that you're not there yet? No, we're, we'll integrate here. So the spacecraft has a payload plate where we'll integrate all the instruments on the plate and deliver the instruments all at one time as one unified payload with one interface. So we also build a box that talks to all the instruments that knows what their outputs are that [00:16:00] interfaces to each of them. Speaker 4: So along with our delivery of the instruments to orbital sciences, who's our spacecraft provider will deliver a interface box. So that'll actually go on their side. It'll mount on the spacecraft, but our side is just the payload plate and we'll do that as space sciences lab. And do you end up publishing papers as a result of this or is it really just a making all the data available with something that we've invested a lot of work and time [00:16:30] into the old battle days that you'd sit on your data and never release it and publish all the papers and take all the credit and NASA doesn't support that model anymore. All of our data have to be supplied freely and openly within 30 or 60 days. I forget the exact requirement and so we'll be helping all these other investigators as well get into the data. Speaker 4: So our job is to make the data as plain as possible. What I'm really interested in doing is how to visualize those data so someone can download say a movie or a [00:17:00] some other tool that would really give them our Google earth click here and you show up in Google earth and you can spin around the planet and look at things the way you want to look at them. And instead of writing to particular software, I mean a lot of people don't want to write any software or want to have a look at the data and probably make some headway before getting too deeply into analysis just by having a good view of what you've got. So we will be providing a number of tools to let people do that. I envision a lot of papers coming out of, uh, from these [00:17:30] data and me s I'll be involved in that. Speaker 4: Our team, a number of co-investigators, a lot of professors around the u s at Colorado and Illinois for instance, and at Cornell to make the best sense, we can have our observations given our immediate knowledge of what the spacecraft doing, it's capability, the uncertainties of the measurements and so forth. So certainly expect to be involved in that. It's been a little bit of a lull in my publication career working [00:18:00] on this mission over the past few years, but I think that's going to change as soon as we get on orbit. I'm really looking into looking forward to, uh, just the other day I was writing some code again, I felt fantastic. You know, I've been writing word documents for many years now and it's just been great to get back into some data. And so I really look forward to having the data from his mission as well. And how long will icon fly? Speaker 4: We have a two year mission that we've proposed. [00:18:30] Most heliophysics missions do go into an extended phase. You usually find things that are new and exciting or find other collaborations you'd like to do or other science you'd like to science goals that you might like to achieve in another two years. So we'll have that capability to extend as well. But we actually don't have any fuel on the spacecraft. So we'll be coming home probably 12 or 15 years. Uh, we started 550 kilometer altitude circular orbit, so a nice stable orbit, but eventually it'll be coming back. [00:19:00] But that's the longterm short term is to get up and do our two year mission and then talk about the future. But we will be on orbit for a decade and in terms of coming back to earth, do you have to plot out when and how that'll happen as best you can or is that a randomness to the whole thing? Speaker 4: The only control you have is on the how. You can't the solar panels possibly to try to control the three entry and in our case it will be uncontrolled reentry. A, you need a rocket to take you home if you're going to say [00:19:30] it's controlled, but what we have shown is that everything's going to burn up. Once you crash into the lower atmosphere. Again, you end up burning up everything, all the aluminum and all the gear and all the glass. It does burn up it so it doesn't pose a hazard to any people. Right. Anything below and the chances of running into something else up there, there's something that will be predictable at the time. Yes. You literally, you could camp to solar panels in a wrong direction for a while. Stop Science ops and for a week do something [00:20:00] with your solar panels or see if the guys you're going to fly into are interested in not colliding. Speaker 4: Maybe they have some fuel. For instance, the space station. I don't see any, uh, there's a lot of space in space. Uh, although it's a lot of junk too. There's a lot of junk and we're more concerned about that than ever. We're almost to that point, right where it's just going to start growing no matter what we do. So we don't want to contribute to that. Everything attached to icon will be coming home in 15 years or we're not allowed to contribute to the [00:20:30] problem. Thomas emo. Thanks very much for coming on spectrum. Okay. Thank you very much. Good luck with icon. Thanks. Getting go. Have you back after. That'd be great. Where along the way maybe. Well, here's some horror stories. Well, every mission, some terrifying moments. Speaker 5: So I know that at least I know that now we look forward to that development though and it's going to be a great mission for Berkeley and for NASA. Thanks again. Thank you. Speaker 6: Okay. Speaker 2: [00:21:00] The icon explorer mission website is icon dot s s l. Dot. berkeley.edu Speaker 6: Oh [inaudible] Speaker 2: [00:21:30] now a few of the science and technology events are happening locally over the next two weeks. Rick Karnofsky and Renee Raul join me for the calendar Speaker 5: as part of the second international by annual evolution and cancer conference. USCSF is hosting a free public lecture at 7:00 PM Tonight in the Robertson Auditorium on their mission bay campus. Popular Science Writer Carl Zimmer. [00:22:00] We'll pose the question is cancer or Darwinian demon after his talk science rapper Baba Brinkman will perform selections from the wrap guide to evolution and a preview of his forthcoming rep guide to medicine. For more information, visit cancer dot ucs F. Dot Edu tomorrow. The Science at Cau lecture series will hold it. Student talk, a discussion by the Berkeley Professor [00:22:30] Mariska Craig about the two types of galaxies in the known universe. Well, most consider galaxies as the building blocks of the universe to be incredibly diverse. Professor Creek divides them into two broad types. Those that make new stars and those that don't. Professor Creek will discuss her reasons for making the distinctions and theories over how the differences are originated. The speech will begin tomorrow at 11:00 AM in room 100 of the genetics and plant biology building on the northwest corner of the UC Berkeley campus. [00:23:00] How Lou Longo from the New York botanical garden is giving a three hour introduction to botanical Latin at the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden located at 200 centennial drive on June 22nd learn the names for plants and the way the names are constructed from Latin and Greek. He'll also give simple rules of thumb to pronounce. Plant names with confidence and mission is $30 [00:23:30] register online@botanicalgardendotberkeley.edu June 27th is the exploratorium is Thursday night. Adults only program featuring two physicists discussing the prodigious and Speaker 3: startling theoretical leaps and the epic experimental program that produced the monumental discovery of the Higgs bows on the physicists will be Maria Spira, Pullo Phd and experimental physicist [00:24:00] from Cern and Joanne Hewitt, Phd, a theoretical physicist from Stanford linear accelerator. The 7:30 PM lecture is included with museum admission and we'll have limited seating in the discussion. Spiro Pullo and Hewitt will also explore the implications discovering the Higgs has for future inquiries in physics. Beyond shedding light on the way elementary particles acquire mass, [00:24:30] understanding the Higgs mechanism will likely push the frontiers of fundamental science towards a greater understanding of our universe. June 27th at the exploratorium in San Francisco at 7:30 PM Speaker 7: [inaudible].Speaker 3: [00:25:00] The feature of spectrum is to present news stories that we find interesting. Rick Karnofsky and Renee arou present the news. Speaker 5: A team of researchers led by Lawrence Berkeley national labs. Paulo Monteiro has analyzed a slab of concrete that has drifted in the Mediterranean Sea for the past 2000 years. [00:25:30] The ancient Robin's lab proved to be more durable than most of today's concretes as well as more sustainably made. The creation process of modern Portland cement usually requires temperatures of up to 2,642 degrees Fahrenheit and the fossil fuels burned to reach that temperature are responsible for 7% of industry carbon emissions worldwide. The composition of the Roman slab is such that it can be baked at only 1,652 degrees Fahrenheit, [00:26:00] which would require far less fuel making the production of Roman concrete, both greener and glass expensive. The other concrete uses ash from volcanic regions in the Gulf of Naples that can be reacted with lime and sea water to create mortar chemically similar ash known as Paul is on can still be found in many parts of the world today. Well, currently there are a few green concretes that do use ash in their manufacturing process. This lab has provided the industry with concrete proof of the long term performance [00:26:30] of aspace summit. Yeah. The elusive electron orbitals of the hydrogen atom have been observed directly. Anita stir donut at the FLM for atomic Speaker 6: and molecular physics in Amsterdam. Mark Rakin at the Max Borne Institute in Berlin and their colleagues published these findings in physical review letters. On May 20th the team implemented photo ionization microscopy [00:27:00] first proposed theoretically over 30 years ago. They used UV lasers to excite electrons and then Adam placed and then electric field. These photo electrons went through electromagnetic lenses which focused them onto a CCD detector by collecting tens of thousands of electrons. The team map the shape of the orbitals. Speaker 5: This may you see Berkeley's Ecig Museum of entomology opened a new [00:27:30] citizens science project known as cow book. The museum has begun posting high resolution photos of its more than 1 million specimens and accompanying field notes to the cow bug website where anyone with an interest in the bugs can transcribe the original handwritten information about the specimens, origins and collection. The project is an effort to digitize terrestrial arthropod specimen records with a focus on those hailing from California. The cal boat science team will then use the [00:28:00] newly digitized data to assess how insects have responded to climate change and habit modification over time. The museum began a project in collaboration with eight other California museums in 2010 after realizing that cataloging their vast collection would be impossible with their small staff. The resulting website known as notes from nature host the cow book project as well as her Berrien and ornithological collections. Also waiting to be classified. You can take a look@theircollectionsandperhapsstarttranscribingatnotesfromnature.org Speaker 7: [00:28:30] [inaudible] music or during the show was written, produced by Alex Simon [inaudible]. Spectrum shows are archived on iTunes university. The link to the archive is incomprehensible, Speaker 1: so we created a short link for you. That [00:29:00] link is tiny, url.com/ [inaudible] spectrum, all one word. That's tiny, url.com/cadillacs spectrum. Thank you for listening to spectrum. If you have comments about the show, please send them to us via email. Our email address is spectrum dot k a l x@yahoo.com Speaker 6: join us in two [00:29:30] weeks at this same time. [inaudible]. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Talked to Glen Trip founder of Camp Galileo, a Bay Area summer camp focused on fostering innovation and creativity in kids through active participation in summer camps across the areaTRANSCRIPTSpeaker 1:Okay. Speaker 2:This is method to the madness on KALX Berkeley 90.7 FM university and listener supported radio. My name is Ali Nasar and today we have Glenn Tripp, the founder of Galileo, learning with us. Hello Glenn. Hi, it's great to be here. Hey, thanks for joining us. So we'd like to start off the program with talking about, um, kind of the problem statement. So you started this organization, but kind of what was the problem statement you saw when you started it? Speaker 1:Well, we got the, Saul started back in the fall of 2001 and right [00:00:30] about that time is when the no child left behind legislation passed, which was going to have the effect of focusing schools more narrowly on core academic subjects. And yet at the same time, the first 30 years of my life has shown me that what seemed to really matter in organizations and in personal fulfillment was the idea of being creative and innovative in our lives. And so it seemed like there was an opportunity to try to create some sort of program [00:01:00] that would really embrace the importance of creativity and innovation. And as schools were starting to focus more narrowly on course, I'd, I thought, hey, people care about art, people care about engineering and science education and maybe I could provide that sort of thing under one roof in the summertime. Okay. Speaker 1:So, um, tell us about your path. So you say that you, you know, you, you understood the power of creativity and innovation. Where did that come from? Well, you know, I graduated [00:01:30] from Stanford back in 1992 and I went into management consulting for a couple of years and moved on after I got, um, some great experience there and worked for a different education organization that ran after school programs. And both of those organizations were sort of fast moving early stage organizations where I got to see the power of creative problem solving and the power of group collaboration and innovation. And it seemed like the people that were having the most success [00:02:00] were those who were able to find an opportunity or see something that, uh, was a way that the company could improve or move forward and really make contributions there. And so that seemed to be more powerful in some ways than some of the core academic work that I had done. Speaker 1:So I just thought, gosh, it would be great if we could have an educational program that really emphasized those things more. Did you have a, um, can you see a common thread between the people who were able to kind of innovate and the people that had to kind of follow [00:02:30] those people? Well, the, uh, the thing that stood out the most to me was that one group of people saw themselves as actors in the world, you know, not, and then there was another group of people who seem to be more recipients of what the world would provide to them. And I know that as a parent and as a citizen, I think what I want for all kids is for them to grow up and feel like they can be actors in the world and imagine a life for themselves and, um, [00:03:00] create a vision for themselves and they go out and turn that vision into reality. Speaker 1:And that seemed to be a core differentiator between different types of people. Okay. So, um, so you, you came up with the idea. Yup. Right. And it sounds like you kind of saw you were working with another camp. Is that right? Did I hear you say that? Um, I was working for an afterschool educational program company for about seven years and um, that particular organization was focused on teaching core academic subjects like math and [00:03:30] language arts. And so this was a change for me. This was a chance to really delve into more creative things and offer that up tickets. Well, it's really exciting because you wanted to create a environment for innovation and creativity, but it takes a lot of innovation and creativity to create that environment. So, and I, I've had a lot of entrepreneurs and founders of organizations and nonprofits on this show and one of the things I'm always fascinated about is to kind of get into the process of how [00:04:00] you take the leap from having a nice steady paycheck and a job and you have this idea and then you've kind of cut to take this, this leap of faith. Speaker 1:So can you tell, walk us through that process. How did you decide to do that? Because I think it's very appropriate for, you know, the people that you're trying to train to is that you have to have a leap of faith that you want to take if you're an innovator. So how did you do that? Yeah, it definitely was a big change because I was part of a rapidly growing and successful organization and you know, around [00:04:30] 2001 when I moved on from that organization, I was newly married, had been married a year. My, um, wife and I decided to have kids and, and my wife was pregnant at the time when I got Gallio started. So here we were in our, in our new home and our new life together and I wanted to go off and do this thing that was, seemed a little bit risky. Speaker 1:And so one of the things that was really great about that time is that my wife was super supportive of this idea and, and [00:05:00] we, we kind of agreed together that whatever leaps that we would take, wherever we landed, it would be fine, that we would work through it and get to whatever was next. And so, um, I just started to reach out to people who might be interested in this idea. And I found a couple of friends who were very supportive of, of the concept. And I went down and I had a meeting with an organization called Klutz, which is a book publisher based out of Palo Alto, fantastic organization [00:05:30] and got some ideas from them. And then I went and I met with the Tech Museum of innovation down in San Jose with the education team. And, uh, they were very supportive of the idea and said that they would, would be willing to contribute some, um, curriculum and some support, uh, to getting the program started. Speaker 1:And so, you know, one by one we started to just line up friends and fellow advocates for this kind of education. And that led us to finding a place to start the first camp [00:06:00] in Palo Alto. And, uh, before we knew it, we had created a brochure and started putting it out there in the community. And the one 800 line rang to my home. And, uh, before we knew the program was fall for that summer, we had 264 kids sign up. And so we felt like we'd really hit on something that was interesting to people. Well year was that, this is in the summer of 2002 that we started the first program. Okay. So, um, and what was your pitch to like when you went to the Tech Museum of innovation? I mean, what were you telling them you wanted to [00:06:30] do? Well, what I said is I that I wanted to create a program that would bring design challenge learning to a summer program that we wanted to bring kids together and create a really fun joy-filled learning community where we would pose engineering challenges to kids where we would introduce them to artists and art movements. Speaker 1:And we would also do a lot of fun up things in the outdoors. And would the tech museum be interested in spreading its mission beyond its [00:07:00] museum walls is, I think that's what we represented for them. A chance to take some of the important approaches that they had been developing there and to do them in more communities and they got really excited about it and they actually, you know, we're willing to put their brand on the program. So that was one of the things I think that helped us initially was that in our very first brochure, the Tech Museum and Klutz both had agreed to put their names on the program is as co creators of the program. And that really helped us out. [00:07:30] That's pretty helpful with it cause they have a pretty good name. And especially in Palo Alto and yeah, both of those organizations were very well respected in Palo Alto. Speaker 1:So I think that that was one of the things that gave us credibility out of the box and it's people were interested in coming to a program that, uh, offered the, you know, a museum quality experience in their neighborhood school. Now is a program, an overnight program or is this a day program? These are all day programs and they now operate in 38 different communities around the bay area. So we tend to work with the either public school [00:08:00] districts or independent schools and transform their campuses into, um, you know, very creative spaces that, uh, come to life in a, in a, in a week to week basis. So kids tend to come for a week at a time. Many of them come for three or four weeks each summer. The programs tend to run for about eight or eight or nine weeks at the different locations. Okay. Speaker 1:We are listening to method to the madness on KALX Berkeley 90.7 FM. And we're speaking with Glenn Tripp, the founder of Galileo learning. And so Glen, when you, um, [00:08:30] started that you had the 260 or so kids, the first camp, how did you come up with the curriculum? How do you, how do you create that from scratch? Right. And that was, I think part of the, the amusing part of this story is we created the name and created the brochure before we actually had the program. And that's I think what innovation and prototyping is all about, right? Is that we were sitting there and we came up with a basic proposition and we had some allies, but we didn't yet have a curriculum. And so I sat down [00:09:00] with the, we started to hire staff or that summer we put together a team of just 12 people and we consulted other resources out in the community. Speaker 1:We worked with the Tech Museum, we worked with clots. So we worked with other, other educators out there and we started to write the curriculum for that summer. And, um, you know, by the time June rolled around and we had a, a nice, nice set of, uh, um, activities and themes that we would try out with the kids. And then when we saw it in action and we knew we had gotten a lot of things right. But of course we learned a lot from those first weeks too. [00:09:30] Sure. So can you give us some examples of what are the types of things that kids do at the camp? Oh, sure. Well, you know, at the elementary we, first of all, we have programs for elementary school kids and we have programs for middle school kids at the elementary school level. We choose a weekly theme. Like, um, amusement park might be an example of something that we might do. Speaker 1:And that's something we have going on in the summer. And so, um, kids depending on their age level, will do different kinds of activities. They'll go into the science lab and they will learn how to make roller [00:10:00] coasters or you know, create electrical circuits to create a ride that is of their own design. And the art side. They might learn how to paint or draw or do sculpture related to that theme. Um, in the amusement park example, we're actually teaching them how to do graphic designs so they can actually design the, um, the, how the rides might be titled Or, um, you know, what sort of graphics might be surrounding it. And along the way they might learn about, for example, Alexander Calder who did a lot of great [00:10:30] sculpture, um, examples around circuses. So you know, that we try to tie together the art and the science themes in an integrated way so that, um, we kind of break down those walls between science and art. Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great because, you know, as a, as a math guy and a tech guy, I've always, um, thought that there is a very, um, close correlation between art and science. And I think that's not necessarily thought of in the general population of those things [00:11:00] being, you know, very directly correlated. But if you look at a computer science problem, there's usually, you know, a hundred different ways you can solve that problem. Sure. And the, the route you take is, you know, that's very artistic. To me it's, it's, it's this expression. And I think one of the misconceptions people often have is that creativity is about knowing how to draw or paint or you know, maybe be in a play or something like that. When in reality, creativity, um, is crucial for any kind [00:11:30] of endeavor that you can imagine. Whether or not you're developing a cure for cancer or, you know, being an accountant for a big company. Speaker 1:I mean, all of these things require creative leadership. Sure. And it's also one of the greatest assets of America. You know, our country has always, um, pushed forward because of our creative nature and our ability to innovate and, and see things that maybe other people don't see. And I've always attributed that I think to the cultural mix of America, the great melting pot where you have a lot of different [00:12:00] people with different perspectives coming together and that a lot of creativity is born from those kinds of frictions of different points of view looking at each other. Um, so it's great that you have something that's really trying to be a lab to incubate that and, and, and grow it, especially in the bay area because this is kind of the center of innovation, right? I would think that you've gotten a lot of support from the bay area community over now. Speaker 1:You've been in business for 10 years or something like this is our 12th or 12th summer coming up here and we've had, you know, over a hundred thousand [00:12:30] kids attend our program this summer alone, we'll have 35,000 attendees. So it's, it's definitely a message that people are hearing and responding to. I think, um, from President Obama on down, there's been a big call for developing a new generation of innovators and it's, it's super crucial at a national level that we put more energy towards this. So there's been a lot of talk, but I think that there's, um, there hasn't been a lot of, um, movement yet in [00:13:00] the direction of, uh, restructuring schools, structures or curriculum or to, to develop more innovators. And parents themselves I think are still, you know, while they're perhaps intrigued by the idea of creativity and innovation is still hard for them to let go of some of the constructs that they may have picked up from their own childhood about what education is. Speaker 1:And so, um, I do hope that we can, I do hope that we can continue to find ways to build this [00:13:30] more into our thinking about what it means to raise kids. Yeah. It does seem like there's a huge opportunity for the education system to reinvent itself with all the new technology and learning. I know, um, there's this story about, um, George Lucas soul star wars, um, to Disney, right. And he's gonna donate almost all that money to reforming education in America. Right. Um, and I think his organization called Edutopia is a great example of an organization that's really trying to encourage the [00:14:00] use of project based learning in schools, which is the approach that we use in our, in our summer programs and projects that are super compelling way for kids to learn. And when you frightened, you know, when you put things in the context of a compelling project like at our camps, building a go-cart or making a film or creating a radio, a radio program or whatever that might be, now you're creating a context and a purpose for kids to learn. Speaker 1:It's not just facts for facts six, but you're actually teaching them [00:14:30] concepts that are important to solving the project. And that then becomes a totally different story. Now kids are engaged and they're ready to start to take risks. So then on top of that, you layer on the need for a culture that supports risk-taking and a culture that encourages kids to believe that it's their place to imagine something that's not there and then go out and turn that into reality. It's, I think it's those two things together. The combination of [00:15:00] powerful project based learning and an environment or culture that supports risk taking and breaks down fear for kids that can become such a powerful combination. Have you, um, seen in the 12 years you guys have been operating, have you seen a change in the children because you know that that 12 years is in terms of uh, the pace of change for humanity has been incredible in terms of things like Google and Wikipedia and these things. Speaker 1:We're just getting started [00:15:30] in 2001, 2002, but now they're hugely powerful tools. What, how has that affected the children then their um, receptiveness to the camp and the idea that you guys are giving them there? Well, I think that that it's really a tale of two cities or maybe two stories within one bay area, city here. On one hand we see that kids are less likely to want to take risks today than they were 12 years ago. And that's backed up by um, the different types of creativity [00:16:00] research that's out there that people are becoming or the children in particular are becoming a little bit more concerned with getting the right answer to things and a little bit more nervous about engaging in open ended design. Um, what, why is that? Do they have the most common theories are that it's because we've created such an emphasis on getting the right answer and our standardized testing programs. Speaker 1:So, uh, that coupled with just general societal pressure of getting [00:16:30] better and performing it, everything that kids do, whether or not it's private baseball coaching lessons that kids get or the, you know, 20 to 30 days spent testing per year in the, in the 180 school, 180 day school year. All of those things have our kids, especially kids and kind of upper income or upper middle income neighborhoods. Being very focused on performance and getting the right answer and wanting to perform against external standards. While there might be some benefits to all that. The [00:17:00] negative side is that it, it makes kids, like kids often want to be told what to do. Um, the other dynamic that's going on as the kids are extremely scheduled and a lot of their days and weeks consists of being told what to do from point a to point B to point c each day. Speaker 1:So when kids have less autonomy to make decisions or direct their day or figure out what they're gonna, how they're going to play. And when kids are more concerned about, um, testing and the rigorous are performing well and other people's sides, it just makes them a little bit to [00:17:30] it. It reduces their proclivity to take risks. At the same time, there are all these neat new tools that kids are learning how to use. So we have kids that are making films and we have kids that are building apps and we have kids who are, um, participating in the maker fair. And there, there are many bright spots in the story I think that are showing that there, um, that, that there are a group of kids that are really responding to the new opportunities that are out there. There's a lot going on. Yeah. Speaker 2:So it sounds like it's [00:18:00] kind of, um, uh, it's really interesting because I would've thought the second part of your answer would have been more, um, what I, where I thought kids would might be going would be because of the kind of democratization of information and the ability to create on an iPad. You can mix a song or you can do so many different things and they have access to a lot of stuff. They would become, you know, more open and receptive to creativity. But what you're saying makes a lot of sense. Speaker 1:Well, I think there's attention attention there and I think one of our jobs as parents and educators [00:18:30] is to try to see how we can use all of these tools for, um, for good. I know that, um, you know, I think a lot of the ways that kids are using, um, the technology is for distraction or, or entertainment just like we as adults often do. But boy, the amazing tools that are coming out right now, um, should provide, um, a lot of great opportunities for, for creativity. And so I think, uh, um, the key is to just [00:19:00] figure out which of those ones or which of those tools are most useful for creativity. And, and to also teach the kids the skills that they need to do the thing. You know, it's not enough to, to give somebody a copy of I movie and have them, you know, make a few edits, but let's really teach them how to, um, use story to express something because it's, it's a combination of the tool but also the age old needs that we have is to tell a story. Speaker 1:And so, um, the opportunities are there and there's a lot of great [00:19:30] things percolating. I mentioned the maker fair and there's young maker groups sprouting out around, sprouting up around the bay area, which is really exciting. There's Lego robotics leaks now that didn't use to exist. Um, there's code.org that recently launched and is trying to get kids excited about coding and has all sorts of great online resources. There's a new group called hacker scouts that's recently been formed that is creating guilds of young makers all around the bay area and beyond. There's a new website called diy.org [00:20:00] which offers great, um, ways for kids to learn new skills online and create community with other kids. So, so many great new things are emerging and, um, and, and of course there's programs like Galileo that I think are also meeting that need. So I think it is an exciting time for innovation. There is a movement brewing. It's gonna take some work. Speaker 2:Yeah. Well, you're listening to method to the madness, a show dedicated to the innovative spirit of the bay area on KALX Berkeley 90.7 FM. And we're sitting here talking to the founder of Galileo learning. [00:20:30] This is Glenn trip. And, uh, my name is Eileen Huizar and I wanted to ask you, Glenn. So operationally, it's an interesting meth, um, model because, um, you have kind of a seasonal type of operation where you have to recruit and create Speaker 1:this massive thing. It's about 35,000 kids this summer. So tell us about the challenges of that. How do you, what's the staff side? How do you make that happen? Right. Well, I think that the thing [00:21:00] that's most, I mean I always like to think that Gallo has two parts of its secret sauce, the first being a series curriculum development effort that, that invest hundreds of thousands of dollars every year developing a new and fresh curriculum related to this purpose. But, um, but what parents tell us more frequently and most of all is that the staff that we hire are passionate and enthusiastic, engaged and highly, you know, highly motivated, intelligent people. And, um, so [00:21:30] I think that thing that we're probably have developed the greatest competencies around is how to attract and select and then support and incredible staff. I mean this summer we will have 1100 staff members, um, half of whom are college graduates, professional educators who are leading the instruction, the other half of whom are, um, college students who support the instruction and provide the, um, group leadership and management for the kids. Speaker 1:And, and that's [00:22:00] one of the things we wanted to do differently when we started this program was, you know, since so many day camps are run by high school students and college students, we wanted to up the ante and involved professional educators who really buy into our, our message and who can bring their skilled instruction to achieving this outcome with kids. So yeah. So every year we mount this massive effort to bring on 1100 or more people into the system. Fortunately we retain a very high percentage of the last years group. [00:22:30] But reaching out to college campuses and to schools and to museums and through all sorts of ag organizations is a big part of what we do every year. I think the thing that attracts people to working for gala and the thing that keeps them coming back is that we one our really high integrity about our mission and to from the moment they become part of our organization, we're very, very interested in how we can support their professional development. Speaker 1:So everybody who comes in [00:23:00] is viewing this as an opportunity to become a better educator and they get supported every step of the way. So, um, we really take the whole leadership and team development part really seriously and, and I think that's why we have so many applicants. Okay, great. So, um, you're getting back to the kids. Can you, um, can you give any kind of of your favorite stories or examples of, you know, projects or something that came out that you were blown away with, with the kids came up with? [00:23:30] Yeah, I just, last summer, um, we introduced what we call go-karts extreme for our middle school students. We have one week of go-karts where the kids build, um, a go-kart is a sort of start. So they start with wood and drive, train and wheels in a over the course of their week, build a build a go cart from scratch and it's pretty challenging. Speaker 1:It takes a lot of hard work. There's a lot of drilling, there's a lot of song, there's a lot of painting, there's a lot of sanding, there's a lot of design work. And um, in the end they get to ride [00:24:00] around in their cart, which is something that I really love. Now. Last year we added a program called extreme go-carts where they could bring their go-karts back and take them to the next level. And that was super fun to see because at that point the kids are more competent with their tools. They have more confidence about the whole workshop environment. And then I started to see girls and boys who were turning their go-carts into convertibles. I saw kids adding drink, you know, Cup holders. I saw kids [00:24:30] adding special trunks that could open and close. And my favorite thing is watching kids add sound systems to their go-karts. So they actually created ways that they could plug in their iPods and play them as they rode around in their, in their go-karts. And when you see a girl go from not having ever handled a, an electric drill to, you know, drilling in and designing her whole sound system on the go cart, that's a pretty incredible thing to see. Speaker 2:Yeah. That's awesome. So what music was she playing this calc? So you have to ask [00:25:00] them. I'm just joking. So, um, all right. So now that you've been around for 12 years, do you have any, um, of your, of your students who have gone on and do you have any success stories that you can share with us of what did, what did Galileo to have? Do we have any, someone started Facebook or not exactly. Speaker 1:Well, I know that there was a, one of our campers who, um, got some, uh, some press last year for developing an app, um, while she was in high school that was getting [00:25:30] some traction in science. So that's kind of a neat little success story. We've had a number of campers grow into staff members now, which has been a really exciting thing to see. And I, I, uh, often have a chance to interact with them and hear stories about how they have put their, uh, the skills that they learned at camp to work in their school environment. You know, I like here those, there's a story of a high school student who, um, had both camp come to us as a camper and then later worked with us as a high school intern [00:26:00] and she had started a, um, a filmmaking club on campus. And the thing that she told me was that she had, uh, been inspired by the idea that, hey, if there's not something in the world that you want to be there, and let me say this another way. Speaker 1:If you see a need, if you see, if you wish there was a filmmaking club, you don't have to just wish that there was a film making club. You can actually wish that into reality if you take the steps to creating that on your campus. And she had started a filmmaking club on campus. And I thought that that was a really [00:26:30] great example of somebody who was taking initiative and not being just reactive to what the world gives them, but being proactive in terms of creating an outcome that she wanted. And that's the, that's the kind of thing that we're hoping for that when kids get to high school, when they get to college, that they, um, see themselves as authors in the world. Great. And so I like to always kind of end on, um, asking a founder, like, you who seen this program start from 260 kids to 35,000 kids and you know, such, you've [00:27:00] gotten such great traction and feedback, um, five years from now, where is Galileo going to be? Speaker 1:Well, the first thing is we had, we'd like to, and we've always believed that we will, we won't really want to be deeply part of growing up in the bay area. You know, right now we have a chance to work with our kids for a few weeks each summer. And we would love to figure out ways to go deeper with them throughout the school year. Whether or not that's afterschool programs or weekend workshops or online communities or other things. We would really like to be [00:27:30] more of a day to day part of their lives and their family lives. In the past few months I've started doing parent education workshops around these themes and for example, just got to do on last night in Saratoga where we had a couple of hundred parents who were very interested in the idea of how they can nurture creativity home. I would like to see a support this kind of learning at home as well. Speaker 1:So that's, that's our first goal is to just keep getting better and better here in the bay area and fulfill our vision of, of trying to, uh, um, really have [00:28:00] the kind of deep impact that we want to have on the kids that we work with along the way. We'll decide if there are other metro areas that, um, we think that this could work in and, and we'll consider that. But my number one goal is to really create an institution that is respected here in the bay area and that, um, we'll go on and on long after I'm involved with it. So. Oh, agree. That's actually a, interestingly enough, that's a lot of the, the founders same mentality is I want to create something that is bigger than me and it goes on forever. So sounds like [00:28:30] you're well on your way, so congratulations. Thank you. Speaker 1:Um, and uh, for the people listening, how can they get involved? How can they learn more? Right. Well, probably the easiest way is to go to our website, which is www.galileo-camps.com and that has information on both jobs that might be available for the summer, um, or year round jobs. We're always hiring. And it also has information on the camps themselves for any parents out there that are interested in nurturing creativity in their kids. Okay. Well thanks Glenn. And this has been method to the madness on KLX Berkeley. [00:29:00] You can check us out a method to the madness.org and thanks for joining everybody. Have a great day. Thank you. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Flaminia Catteruccia discusses the molecular basis of mating and reproduction in Anopheles gambiae mosquito. Her research provides insight into the mosquito reproductive biology to better develop vector control. Catteruccia is Associate Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases at the Harvard School of Public Health.TranscriptSpeaker 1: Spectrum's next. Speaker 2: [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] Speaker 3: [inaudible].Speaker 2: [inaudible].Speaker 1: [00:00:30] Welcome to spectrum the science and technology show on k a l x Berkeley, a biweekly 30 minute program bringing you interviews, featuring bay area scientists and technologists as well as a calendar of local events and news. Speaker 4: Good afternoon. My name is Brad swift and I'm the host of today's show. Our interview is with Dr Flaminia cutthroat Chia associate professor of immunology and infectious [00:01:00] diseases in the department of the same name at the Harvard School of Public Health. She is also an associate professor at the University of [inaudible] in Italy. Malaria is a leading cause of death in tropical and subtropical regions. The plasmodium parasite that causes malaria is transmitted by the biting of female [inaudible] mosquitoes. Dr Cutthroat Chias group studies the molecular basis of mating and reproduction in both the female and male of [00:01:30] four species of mosquito. They are looking for the most effective and robust strategies to frustrate mosquito reproduction. Overall, they aim to provide insight into the reproductive biology of this malaria vector, which until recently remained largely unstudied. So the new targets for vector control can be developed. And Dr Cutolo Chia was in the bay area recently for a conference and I was able to arrange an interview Flaminia Katja, welcome to spectrum. [00:02:00] Thank you. What'd you give us an overview of your current Speaker 3: object? Yes, sure. So my research group is based at the Harvard School of Public Health, uh, is working on, uh, the biology of the mosquitoes that transmit malaria in Africa. And mother is still a massive problem for tropical and subtropical countries, but in particular for Africa as it scales almost a million people every year and infects not 200 million people [00:02:30] every year. So it's a massive social and economical problem and malaria is transmitted by mosquitoes. So we believe that if we can stop mosquitoes from transmitting malaria, then we can solve a big problem for the countries that are affected. Three particular, my group focuses on studying some aspects of the mosquito biology that are important for malaria transmission and will focus on reproduction on how mosquitoes reproduce, what makes them fertile. Because [00:03:00] at the end of the day, our goal is to develop novel methods to control mosquito populations. And we think that we could control them by introducing sturdy to international populations as an alternative to what's already been done now, which is mainly based on the use of insecticides to kill them. Speaker 3: And, but they have to be quite targeted ways to use the insecticides by pushing these insecticides on mosquito nets. So that mosquitoes that try to bite on night while people are asleep and the nets get killed [00:03:30] or through sprays or insecticides inside and house walls to kill mosquitoes at arresting indoors. But these methods are not sufficient to stop moderate transmission. And also mosquitoes are becoming resistant to the action of insecticides, which means they're not killed anymore and they change their behavior rather than biting at night inside houses to start by the outdoor and during the day so that insecticides can not get to them anymore. So our thought is our instead is on the idea that, uh, rather than killing [00:04:00] mosquitoes, we can sterilize them so that then there'll be fewer mosquitoes out there. They can transmit malaria and then eventually malaria transmission will stop. Speaker 3: And so we study how mosquitoes reproduce, what's important for their reproductive biology. And we have three major avenues or research. The first one is we try to understand what's important for reproduction because one tracking aspects of reproduction in the malaria mosquitoes is that the females have sex only once in their lives and after that they [00:04:30] completely switch off. They're not interested in more. And so this is quite a vulnerable step in the life cycle of our mosquito because it happens on once. So we are very much interested in understanding what is it that happens to females, what's the switch that completely abolishes that their receptivity to compilation. Because in principle, if we could understand what are the refactoring is as a call to further copulation, then we could induce the same mechanisms in variant females [00:05:00] and trick them into thinking that they've made it. And so they would make any model contributed to the next generations. Speaker 3: So that's a big area of our research where we try to understand what happens to females after copulation after sex so that we can identify what are those factors that change that behavior so that we can induce them. The second area or research and studies is a more translational side. We are interested in developing tools to induce the reality [00:05:30] in male mosquitoes. One idea of control is based on the release of males that are sterile. This males will of course try to find females to have sex with them and eventually those fund them. But there'd be no project coming out of these compilations. And so if we keep doing this over and over again, if you keep releasing sterile males, then we can sterilize most of the females that are natural populations and so the population will crush. And so with malaria [00:06:00] transmission, and so we are trying to find ways to serialize males in a genetic way, introduce genetic stability rather than using irrigations or chemo sterilizations as it's done for other insects. Speaker 3: Because it's important that whatever we do to fertility, it doesn't affect biology. The general biology of this mosquitoes and their behavior and also their fitness and that of competitiveness in terms of meeting and normally irritation or chemo sterilizations, those [00:06:30] can cause severe fitness costs to these mosquitoes. And so we got a little more subtle than we tried to study. So the mosquito DNA and understand what are the factors that are important for my facility so that we can interfere specifically with those factors. And so develop a male mosquito that is sterile and then we can release in the field. So that's our second area of research. And then a newer area research that we're interested in is in understanding what's the impact of what we do in terms of malaria transmission in particular, in terms [00:07:00] of what would be the impact of these measures on the ability of the female to transmit malaria. Speaker 3: Because if we introduce sterility in a population, how does that effect the partial development within those females? We don't want to develop mosquitoes that are sterile, but at the same time that are better at transmitting malaria. And so one new aspect of our research is trying to understand what's the link between reproduction and mosquitoes and Parkside development inside the female. So this [00:07:30] is broadly what our love is doing. Why is it that malaria is so lethal? Well, the mother has been eradicated from large parts of the world, has been eradicated from the u s from Europe and we are actually quite close already getting malaria in Africa as well in the fifties and sixties with the use of insecticides use a queening. And so drugs to kill the precise insecticides to kill mosquitoes. But unfortunately [00:08:00] those programs were stopped because of a number of reasons. And within a few years the number of Americans really went back to what it was before these programs were even started. Speaker 3: So one of the problems with malaria said it's a very dynamic disease from one single case, you can have tens and hundreds of secondary cases that can spread very quickly. So it's very difficult to control. So the synergy between the mosquito and the malaria [00:08:30] is the enabling factor in principle is a preventable and curable disease. It shouldn't be so deadly. However, our ability to control it in the countries where it's presence at the moment is limited by logistic reasons, lack of hospitals, lack of resources, and the fact that the mosquitoes are very efficient at transmitting the parasite. [inaudible] Speaker 4: [00:09:00] you were listening to spectrum on KALX Berkeley. Our guest today is Flaminia Qatari Chia molecular entomologist at the Harvard School of Public Health, researching mosquito reproduction as a way to combat malaria. How long has your project been going? We've been working on it for six [00:09:30] years. So that's kind of new. Yeah. And does it have a length of time or is it pretty open ended? Speaker 3: It's open-ended until I get funded. It's the funding. Yes, yes. Always is, isn't it? Yes. And of course, until it's relevant release, I think the funding will be there until this was a breakthrough. Yeah. A solution. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And Udall, was that a completely empty niche? No one was doing that. So we are really the first ones looking at reproductive biology in this mosquitoes from a molecular [00:10:00] and genetic point of view. Most of the studies before us were performed at the ecological level. So there's actually quite a lot knowing about the ecology of reproduction, but not much known about genetic factors and the pathways that are important for fertility. That's something that is completely new. So whatever we find is novel. So it's exciting for us, but at the same time, we have to do everything you know, is, we have to start from scratch. So it's more challenging maybe Speaker 4: once [00:10:30] the mosquito has ingested the parasite, the malaria parasite from a human, how does it interact with the mosquito? Speaker 5: Okay. Speaker 3: The parasite has a complex life cycle inside the mosquito vector, and it takes a few days to complete from when the mosquito ingests the parasite. When the mosquito can inject the parasite into the next person, it takes about 12 days. And that's the time that the press site needs to go through different developmental stages. [00:11:00] And so once some mosquito takes sliders infected, then the process will have to leave the blood environments. There'll be a stage that happens inside the mosquito midgut and then the prosight will have to leave as quick as possible. Uh, the makeup before he, it gets killed by the mosquito enzymes, digestive enzymes particular, and then it'll have to find its way to the salivary glands, which are these tissues where saliva is produced by the mosquito. And once it reaches the Salami Glands, then [00:11:30] it can be injected into the next person because during blood feeding, the female will inject a little bit of saliva into the team of the person that is this biting. Speaker 3: And so during that process the process can be transmitted. Actually most mosquitoes don't even live long enough for the proceeds to develop. So that's a major roadblock or process in development. Is there any thought to trying to alter the parasite itself? There's a lot of research on modifying [00:12:00] the mosquito so that rather than allowing person development, they'll kill the parasite. And of course there's a lot of research on finding drugs that can kill across sites in people that are infected. And there is research on malaria vaccines as well. We don't have a vaccine yet. There is a vaccine that is now in Stage three trials that could be promising in combination with other control measures. It's quite clear that malaria will not be defeated by using a single measure. So [00:12:30] the use of insecticides, possibly the use of sterile males, hopefully combined with the use of drugs to confirm [inaudible] in people and hopefully also without, without vaccine that could be effective for awhile. We will need all these measures to control the spread of the disease. Speaker 4: How large your group is, is the group that's working on your project. Speaker 5: Okay. Speaker 3: My group is composed by about 10 people at the moment. Speaker 4: And what are the different scientific disciplines you've brought together [00:13:00] with that group? Speaker 5: Yeah, Speaker 3: well it's a combination of molecular biology and genetics and biochemistry. Also evolutionary biology, big of ecology as well. Speaker 5: Okay, Speaker 4: and within the group, how do you orchestrate the workflow of all that? How do you decide which thing you're going to focus on at what point in time Speaker 3: to go ahead and go forward with the research? Oh yeah, those are actually tough decisions sometimes because there is so much [00:13:30] that we can be doing, just so many different ideas. It's circulated in the lab and sometimes it's difficult to prioritize them. So in general, we do discuss ideas all together. I can come up with some ideas and then we discuss, uh, with the group and some we like the brainstorming and then more ideas emerge. And then we focus on what's more important according to our priorities. We always have to make choices. We tried to have projects that are most solid in a way that we [00:14:00] know will give us results quite quickly. And then at the same time also establish longer term projects for maybe bigger goals. So it's a combination of all the two. Speaker 4: What is the life cycle of this mosquito? Speaker 3: So the mosquitoes we work on, um, anopheles mosquitoes that, that are not fillings are the only mosquito, second trust mates, uh, malaria to humans and draw about 30, 40 and awful in species that transmit malaria. And we study in particular, um, our mosquitoes called [00:14:30] Anopheles Gambiae and that's the most important vector in Africa and therefore the most important actor in the world. But we also start in some other mosquitoes out important vectors in other parts of the world. We are now interested in southern American vectors, Asian vectors. So we have four different mosquito species in our lab for comparative studies and Life Cycle is from a female that is, I've been intimidated by a male. Then this female will need to feed them blog to develop eggs. And that's the step that is exploited [00:15:00] by the plasmodium parasite of malaria to be transmitted. And so the female will feed on blood preferentially on, on men, on humans. Speaker 3: She will develop her eggs and then the eggs will be fertilized by the sperm that is transferred from the male. The eggs will be laid water, so the eggs will hatch and give larvae. And then a pupa will with form that doesn't feed. And then after two days and adult will emerge from the PUPA. And so our, as a, as that [00:15:30] little step, males and females will have to find each other for copulation and then the female will have to block feed again. And so that the cycle can start all over again. So overall from egg to egg is about a couple of weeks. The Life Cycle Speaker 2: [inaudible]Speaker 6: this is k a l x Berkeley. The show is spectrum. Our guest is Flaminia [00:16:00] [inaudible]. She's working to eradicate malaria. Speaker 2: [inaudible].Speaker 3: Is there a side effect to affecting the mosquito population so thoroughly? Yeah, that's a very good question. What are the possible effect on the ecosystem of mosquitoes? Useful for anything? Do we need mosquitoes in this world? And these are very good concerns, very reasonable concerns. [00:16:30] However, the Fallon sets targeting fertility is a very specious Pacific control measure. Unlike the use of insecticides where you kill everything that comes in contact with insecticide, if you use mosquitoes to eradicate mosquitoes, that's a very selective way to do that. It's a very specific way to do that. So I think that the effects on the ecosystem will be very marginal, but of course that's something that will have to be followed and would have to be monitored, will be a very insane eco-friendly way to reduce monitor transmission because you would, [00:17:00] we would only target those pieces that cosmic me [inaudible] thousands of mosquitoes species on the planet and only 20 or 30 I at transmitting malaria so we wouldn't kill all mosquitoes and we would only have to target those that ugly at transmitting the disease. Speaker 3: With the mosquitoes that you're growing in the lab, how are you feeding them? We feed them differently depending on their developmental stage, so we, the larval stages, the early stages, we feed them with fish food or cat food and for the adults [00:17:30] we feed them with sugar solutions that both the male and the female will feed on. So it's water mixed with sugar and then the females, we have to feed them on bloods for egg developments, we feed them with blood that we buy from blood banks. So we've completely eliminated the use of animals for that, which is we are very pleased with. Speaker 4: Do you feel you're close with the sterilized male part of the project and do you have plans to try to take it to the next level? Speaker 3: Yeah, we, we are thinking [00:18:00] a lot now about how we can make our system more effective because the way we in use steroids in this males, it's very inefficient in the lab. We need more than a day's work to get 20 or 30 males that are sterile to how do we scale this up. We really need to push and hopefully we can work with engineers and find the best way to scale this up and do the automated way that can be much more effective. Speaker 4: [00:18:30] You're continuing to pursue the female side of it. Speaker 3: The female side of it is what's more exciting for us in a way because there's more biology behind it, but we're also very much interested in understanding what are the determinants of fitness in the males because when we make them sterile, we'll still need to make sure that there will be competitive for meetings with feel females. And so apart from studying the biology of reproduction in females, we're also very much interested in that in what makes a meal good [00:19:00] meal, a fit meal that will have good chance of success once it's released. So yeah, that's why we are studying both male and female reproductive biology. We are not just selling waist to induce 30 but also what are the determinants of fertility? Speaker 4: If you succeed in creating a sterilized male or a female that doesn't lay eggs, do you have a plan or is there a plan for how to introduce them into the wild [00:19:30] or is that something that would need to be developed when the time comes? Speaker 3: We don't have a plan as such, but we are starting to think about a plan in terms of the logistics of it. There is a lot of know how that comes from the release of sterile males for targeting other insects, species, insects, pieces that are mainly agricultural pests like fruit flies, Milo flies, school worms, potato. We will do that. Old insects that cause the via damage [00:20:00] to the agriculture. It's a drug programs and based on the release of millions of sterile flies all over the world really. And so all the issues concerning the mass production of these insects, the packaging and the distribution of these stallions, six to the places where they're needed and then the release, all those issues have already been sorted out for other insects and so in principle shouldn't be too difficult to transfer that expertise onto mosquito work. It [00:20:30] should be feasible. We don't have the expertise in ourselves, but working in collaboration with the people that have it, that should be possible. I'm optimistic that that could be done without huge efforts. Speaker 4: Are you teaching as well as doing your research? Speaker 3: Yeah, I have some teaching to do is not massive. I mainly teach postgraduate students and I teach while they work on, so it's infectious diseases. My teaching load is not very big. Maybe it will get bigger in the next few years because [00:21:00] I've just started a year ago and I'm enjoying it. I enjoy teaching postgraduate students very much because they're small groups and normally they're very interested, very dedicated and also they ask amazing questions. So it's actually quite fulfilling. I know that some of the Harvard students are just brilliant, so it's a different experience from what was used before. I like it very much. Yeah. But I really prefer doing research. You know, it's, it's like that's my first, uh, my [00:21:30] top priority is to do good research, but of course we have a mission to encourage the next generations to get into science and getting into research. I like the idea of contributing to that. Flaminia Katya, thank you very much for coming on spectrum. Welcome. Good luck. Thank you. Speaker 7: I'm gonna [inaudible] Speaker 3: um, Speaker 6: if you would like to hear a previous [00:22:00] spectrum show, they are archived on iTunes university, go to the calyx website, calix.berkeley.edu. Click on programming, select news, scroll down to spectrum and that section. There's a link to podcasts or send us an email@spectrumdotcalyxatyahoo.com and I'll send you the link. Speaker 2: [inaudible]Speaker 8: [00:22:30] a feature of spectrum is to present news stories we find interesting. When the news are Renee Rao and Rick Karnofsky, Speaker 9: the UC Berkeley habitus will play host to the first ever dreambox a three d printing bending machine. By the end of this month, the machine will allow users to take advantage of three d printing technology without paying steep up front costs for the machinery [00:23:00] to use. The machine users will first choose an item model within Dream Boxes Catalog upload one of their own via the web. Next, the print command is given and the order is sent to a cloud based print queue before being directed to the vending machine. Once the item has been created, it is put into a locker with a unique unlock code that is texted to the users. The creators estimate that each use of the printer will range from two to $15 on average depending on the complexity of the object and the materials used. Speaker 8: [00:23:30] A team from New Castle University reported in science that honeybees are three times more likely to remember a learn floral scent when they are rewarded with caffeine. Caffeine occurs in coffea and citrus species and to be pharmacologically Speaker 9: active but not repellent to the bees in higher concentrations. It is known to be toxic and repellent due in part to the bitter taste, but in lower concentrations that occur in nature. It offers a reward. [00:24:00] The team also applied caffeine to the brains of the insects and observed that it increased activity aiding the formation of longterm memories. Speaker 2: [inaudible].Speaker 9: A [00:24:30] regular feature of spectrum is dimension. A few of the science and technology events happening locally over the next few weeks. Rick and Renee present the calendar this March nerd night. East Bay will feature UCB associate Professor Matt Walker on Sleeping Memory Guy Branum on the invasion of Canada and the Chabot space and science centers. Jonathan Bradman on the night sky. This will happen Monday, March 25th at the new Parkway Theater in Oakland. Doors will open at seven show begins at eight. [00:25:00] Tickets are available online for $8 and all ages are welcome. Past spectrum guests, Michael Isen will be speaking to the Commonwealth club on the subject of reinventing scientific communication. While most scientific literature is now online, it remains as inaccessible to the public as it was centuries ago. With the physical limitations of print journals replaced by expensive publisher paywalls, [inaudible] who cofounded the Public Library of science. [00:25:30] We'll discuss the scientific journals and new open access models. Tickets are $20 or $7 for students with valid id. Speaker 9: The talk is on Wednesday, March 27th in San Francisco. There is a reception@fivethirtyandthetalkstartsatsixpmvisitcommonwealthclub.org for tickets and more info this April 2nd the ASCA scientist lecture series. We'll discuss tiny creatures with the ability to invade your body, [00:26:00] hijack your cells, change your DNA, and modify you physically and behaviorally to suit their own devious goals. Jack Mackarel, director of the Center for discovery and innovation in parasitic diseases will lead the talk on the parasitic organisms that live among and inside us. Some of the world's most pernicious diseases are caused by these supreme sophisticated organisms, but according to evolutionary biologist, parasites have also played a significant role in shaping the human species. The event will be held Tuesday, April 2nd [00:26:30] at 7:00 PM in Soma Street food park near the corner of 11th and Harrison. Leonardo art science evening rendezvous or laser has several talks this month. Speaker 8: Jess holding explains the use of light and other natural phenomenon to explore perception. NASA is Chris McKay will speak about the curiosity. Mars mission, USF Vagina and Nagarajan presents embedded mathematics in women's ritual [00:27:00] art designs in southern India. She'll talk about the geometry of rice powder paintings. Finally, Nikki, you Layla will discuss the mechanics and construction of marionettes. Laser takes place@stanforduniversityonaprilfourthfromsevenpmtoninepmmoreinformationaboutthelaserseriescanbefoundonthewebatleonardo.info.Speaker 9: That's pretty good. Tuesday, April 16th in the Tuscher African Hall, Mary Roach [00:27:30] will lead an unforgettable tour of the human insides. Questions inspired by our insides are taboo in their own ways. Why is crunchy food so appealing? Why doesn't the stomach digest itself? How much can you eat before your stomach burst? Can Constipation kill you? Did it kill Elvis? Roche will introduce her audience to the scientist who tackle these questions. She will then take the audience through her experiences in a pet food taste test, lab of bacterial [00:28:00] transplant and alive stomach. This lecture will take place Tuesday, April 16th at 7:00 PM in San Francisco for more information and to get tickets in advance, go online to cal academy.org Speaker 2: [inaudible] [inaudible] [00:28:30] music card during the show is by Lasonna David from his album folk and acoustic made available by a creative Commons license 3.0 attribution. Special thanks [00:29:00] to David Dropkin for helping set up the interview. [inaudible] thank you for listening to spectrum. If you have comments about the show, please send them to us via our email address is spectrum dot klx@yahoo.com join us in two [00:29:30] weeks at this same time. The [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible]. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In part 2, Michael Eisen discusses the Public Library of Science, his position on GMOs and a labeling strategy. Eisen is Associate Professor of Genetics, Genomics, and Development in UC Berkeley's Dept. of Molecular Biology and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.TranscriptSpeaker 1: Spectrum's next Speaker 2: [inaudible].Speaker 1: Welcome to spectrum the science and technology show on k a l x Berkeley, a biweekly 30 minute program [00:00:30] bringing you interviews featuring bay area scientists and technologists as well as a calendar of local events and news. Speaker 3: My name is Brad Swift. I'm the host of spectrum. Today we are presenting part two of our two part interview with Michael Isen and associate professor of genetics genomics in development in UC Berkeley's department of molecular biology. In part one Michael talked about his research of gene regulation this week. Michael explains [00:01:00] the Public Library of science, his feelings on labeling of GMOs in food as well as intellectual property science outreach and science funding. Enjoy the interview. I wanted to talk about the Public Library of science if you were a cofounder of. Yeah, and are you still involved with that? Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm on the board. I've still very actively involved in trying to shape its future and in general in the future of science publishing. Speaker 3: And so can you talk about its business model and how it's changing publishing? Speaker 4: [00:01:30] Sure. The basic idea is that science publishing, it's been around for as long as science has been an endeavor from the 17th century. Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, all these guys were sort of inventing science as we currently know it. And Science as a enterprise obviously requires that scientists communicate with each other and since time immemorial in science, we've had journaled, Francis Bacon, other scientists that 17th century started at seedings of the Royal Society. Right? And for 330 [00:02:00] years or so after they started these journals, they were using the only technology available to them at the time, which was print publishing and a lot of things that follow from the way scientific publishing was structured follow intrinsically from the limitations and features of that printed journal. And as an economic model, the only model that makes sense is for the end users to pay for the first subscription. And you know, there's problems with that. Speaker 4: Only people who [00:02:30] can afford the subscriptions can get access to the scientific literature and so forth. They follow from an intrinsic limitation of a medium. Now in the nineties 1990s that all changed, right? The Internet came along and science was amongst the first groups of people to embrace the Internet, and by the sort of mid to late 1990s basically every scientific journal that existed was online and publishing and electronic edition and increasingly going into their archives and digitizing their, their archives, so forth, so that [00:03:00] by 2000 you now could have had access to a large fraction of the tire published record of scientists. Such an amazing thing to be able to do that, but insanely the business model behind scientific publishing didn't change at all. So publishers who had all these subscriptions, now we're no longer selling print journals or decreasingly selling printed journals. They were just selling access to published material in a database and yet they didn't know innovation and the business [00:03:30] model at all. Speaker 4: They just simply charged people for accessing their database just like they'd been charging people to mail them copies. There was no longer any technical or economic reason why the whole universe couldn't have had immediate free access to the published scientific literature. The only reason that you or anybody else in the world didn't have immediate access to anything published in medicine or science or whatever was that the publishers then let them, so plus and the whole industry of open access publishing around [00:04:00] it. The basic idea is publishers do and have provided an important service and they should be paid for the service they provide, but that as soon as they're done, as soon as the publisher's hands are off the paper, it's freely available to everybody, not just to read, but to use and do with whatever to basically place the scientific literature into the public domain. Speaker 4: Where it belong. Science is a public venture, not exclusively, but for the most part funded by either the federal government, state governments or by public minded foundations. And the idea that [00:04:30] the end product of that investment is the property of publishers is insane and it's a huge impediment to the way science works and to the ability of the public to benefit from scientific information. And so plus has been trying to pull the rug out from underneath this subscription based business model by creating journals that use this alternative business model that are now quite successful plus as a journal plus one which is now the biggest biomedical research journal on the planet. Still only publishes a couple percent [00:05:00] of the total because there's a ton of journals out there, but it's big, it's successful, it's growing. Lots of other publishers are starting to switch not just because of it's a successful business, but because of the pressure from the public pressure from the government. Speaker 4: The NIH now requires that people make papers that are funded by NIH research freely available within a year after publication. Things are moving in the right direction and I think the insanity of a world in which the output of publicly funded publicly minded science is privately owned by people who had nothing to do with [00:05:30] a generation of the science in the first place is, it's not quite over, but it is. The writing's on the wall today. Let's go ahead and there was a bit of pushback on that in the, in the congress. What's the state of that? Is that so it's all a lot of pushback because the publishers, it's an incredibly lucrative business that profit margins for Elsevier and other big commercial publishers exceed those of apple and other sort of paragons of highly profitable businesses. When you have a company that's making $1 billion profit off of the public back [00:06:00] and they see a simple legislative solution to avoiding the problem, I think it's a natural instinct on their part to just try to write a law and you know, basically what happened was someone from their district who has a company in their district who gives them lots of money, writes a bill, gives it to them and says, Hey, could you introduce this?Speaker 4: We have a huge problem. These, you know, radical crazies from Berkeley are trying to undermine our entire business model and to lose jobs, blah, blah, blah. They get this bill introduced and there's non-trivial risk that this kind of things would pass [00:06:30] because they've managed to align themselves with a stronger force in Congress. The pro copyright lobby, they've managed to basically convinced them that this issue with scientific publishing is scientists want to steal publishers content. Just like college kids want to steal music from, you know, musicians the, and so there was a nontrivial risk that this was gonna pass and this is the second time it's been introduced. So fortunately it's very easy to say, look, the taxpayers paid for this stuff. You really think it's right for, you know, somebody who just got diagnosed [00:07:00] with some terrible disease to not have access to information that they paid for. Speaker 4: The publishers lose this every time this becomes a public fight, they're not in a winning path. And so I expect it to happen again, but just like this last time, I don't think they're gonna win. More people in Congress are on our side and paying attention than there are on Elsevier side or those publishers mostly private? Or are they publicly, I mean, they're corporations. I mean, yeah, they're mostly public corporations. So Elsevier is a big publicly traded corporation, but they're mostly from the Netherlands and [00:07:30] London. There's a bunch of big companies, but interestingly we've had as much problem historically with nonprofits, scientific societies, the societies themselves and make a lot of money on their journals. A lot of them do and it's put them in a kind of compromise position where their revenues from their journals are so important to their overall financial stability that they behave like commercial publishers. Speaker 4: It's not just big companies, any established publisher who makes a lot of money on publishing. This is sort of intrinsically compromised I think in this endeavor. [00:08:00] So the next sorta thing Blas is trying to do is to switch to a world in which publishing becomes almost instantaneous, still takes nine months or so on average for most works to go from when an author's ready to share it with the public to when it's actually publicly available, even if the journal is freely accessible. And so there's still a lot wrong with the waste. Scientists communicate with each other and with the public that this is not a close up shop. Once we win this open access battle, it's just the beginning. And this doesn't really conflict with intellectual property rights and things like that. [00:08:30] The idea of open science is really just sharing the information. The intellectual property is independent of how openly accessible the publication is. Speaker 4: On the other hand, I also think that the intellectual property stuff is bad. I've always believed that if you're getting money from the federal government, that the intellectual property you develop should not belong to you. It should be in the public domain, and I think that there's a lot of corruption of the way people behave in science that stems from the personal pressure as well as the pressure from the institutions to turn every idea, every little thing [00:09:00] they generate in the lab into a commodity, and I think it's makes science work poorly, but this is happening and so it doesn't benefit society to have academic, publicly funded research turn into privately held intellectual property. It inhibits the commercialization of those ideas that inhibits the broader use of ideas. Plenty of studies have shown this is generally cost more money to manage this whole intellectual property thing than the system benefits. Speaker 4: At the end of the day, very few universities profit from their intellectual property effort. [00:09:30] Mostly they spend a lot of money on lawyers and systems and they don't have the, you know, cloning patent or whatever it is. But if your interest is in the broader functioning of science and in the broader exposure to the public to the benefits of scientific research, you have to think that this stuff should just go right into the public domain where people want to commercialize it. They can, they just don't own any exclusive right to use it. And I think making it all pre competitive is by far the best thing to do. So while publishing itself to answer the question directly is not a [00:10:00] threatened virtual property. If I could figure out a way to make it so I would do stuff cause I think it's a very, very bad thing that publicly funded scientists, people at University of California that their stuff doesn't just belong to the public. Speaker 5: This is spectrum on KALX Berkeley today. Michael Isen, an associate professor at UC Berkeley reflects on the prop 37 campaign and GMO labeling on food. Speaker 3: Another issue [00:10:30] that involves the public a lot is the interest in GMOs in food. How would you like to see that debate transformed? Having just been through the the election cycle here in California where we had that propositionSpeaker 4: right. As you know, I was very, very much opposed to prop 37 and I think mostly because the campaign against genetically modified organisms was predicated on an ignorance of how the technology works and I felt a fear sort [00:11:00] of of science that the problem for most people was that science was involved in food and there's so many problems with that point of view that it's hard to know where to start. First of all, the reasons why I was particularly opposed to this initiative was that the backers were willfully distorting the science spreading the idea that GMOs were intrinsically dangerous, basically, that the public would benefit from having the wrong knowledge about GMOs, which is what I really felt like they were pushing some. Most scientists look at this and think what GMOs are doing [00:11:30] is so different than what we've done for thousands of years and selective breeding of crop. Speaker 4: The idea that the food we eat is in some natural state is a fallacy. Compare corn to its ancestor teosinte. You compare the tomato you buy in the supermarket to the wild slant islands, the person come. None of these things we eat. Look anything remotely like what you found in the wild. They were transformed by centuries of selective breeding and crossing and all sorts of other genetic techniques. Those are the tools of genetics that genetics has just gotten [00:12:00] better and we can do these things in a different way and yes, genetic modification is not identical, but there's nothing intrinsically weird or intrinsically dangerous about moving genes from one species to another. Putting synthetic genes into a plan. It could be, it's not intrinsically safe either, but the attitude that people seem to take is one of the food we have now is in a natural, untainted state and that the second scientist put their hands on it. Speaker 4: All of a sudden it becomes a dangerous threat, but I also think the industry has been stupid in my [00:12:30] mind and has caused a lot of this problem by basically being secret about it. For me it was sort of a lose lose situation in that neither side of that fight was actually interested in the public understanding the science. So you had a ballot measure from my mind in which more or less everybody involved was trying to promote public ignorance about an issue and it's a struggle. I don't know what the right exact solution is to achieve what I think we really need to do, which is to have the public have a, an understanding of the technology, not a detailed understanding [00:13:00] about what enzymes are used to move plans to do you know, why it exists, how it exists, how it works, what people are doing, why it will benefit them or why could benefit them in the long run and so that they understand it and can weigh the benefits and costs in a rational way. Speaker 4: Not in a rational way. I would love to see the food producers label their food, not with a huge thing on the front that says caution contain genetically modified ingredients, but with a label on back that says, here's where the seeds, the crops that went into this food come [00:13:30] from. Maybe there's not enough room on the label of every plant to give a comprehensive thing, but we know everybody's got a cell phone and a QR reader. Now. It's not impossible to imagine that every food had a little QR code on the back that you could scan and would say, here are the varieties that were used in the food. Some of them are genetically modified and here's why they were genetically modified and here's what benefit accrues from that genetic modification. Here's why you shouldn't be worried about it. I just think somehow we need to get the public more engaged in the, an understanding [00:14:00] of where food comes from, how it's grown, and what the rationale behind this process is so that they're rational actors in the process. Speaker 4: I mean, that's all. I mean, most scientists really want out of this. It's not so much to dictate that the public make particular decisions about science so that we all have our own biases about these things, but that that lack of understanding of the public about these issues and even very simple things like the simple fact that the food we eat has been subjected to genetics and that better education about simple [00:14:30] scientific things like that would make these debates focus on things that actually should be in the public debate, like part of the companies that are using genetically modified crops, exploiting intellectual property in ways that's bad for the public. It certainly seems like in many cases they do. Should we be developing genetically modified crop who basically resulted in increased herbicide use. Those are issues that are worth discussing, but they have to be discussed in a context where people understand what you're talking about and they don't think, oh my God, there's an insecticide [00:15:00] in my corn and everybody's going to die. Speaker 4: And so if I had an easy solution to that problem, we would implement it, but I can recognize when something is not going to achieve it. And I think scaring everybody into thinking that genetic modification is a horrible, dangerous technology that needs to be regulated by the government and some kind of special way was not going to achieve that. Isn't that sort of a difficulty with science in general that oftentimes it gets out in front of the population and presents it with quandaries that it can't grasp and it boils down to fear? [00:15:30] Yeah, I think this is true. This is a lot of this happening with human genetics and things like that. There's plenty of examples of where the way people are used to thinking about things is threatened in some ways or challenged by new science, and I think it's a constant challenge to the scientific community to try to make sure that it doesn't, not so much to make sure that it doesn't get ahead of the public. Speaker 4: That's fine. That's what we're paid to do. Right. But that in doing so, we grapple with the challenge of educating the public [00:16:00] about what we're doing and why and how it's going to benefit them, and it's never going to be completely successful. But I do think that the scientific community is as much to blame as anybody for not having engaged in these issues repeatedly and not having spent it's capital to some extent earning the trust of the public and things like this. You see it with human genetics and probably more acutely than anything with global warming where at some deep level the problem is would an insufficient number of people in the public trust scientists to convey. So what's important [00:16:30] about their understanding of the universe and say they trust them when you do surveys, but it's clear that that trust can be easily undermined with the right kind of PR, right? Speaker 4: It was easy to undermine it from the yes on 37 crowd was easy to undermine scientists as all being self interested somehow all we're all involved in making GMOs and therefore were just shells from Monsanto at some deep level. And though it's absurd and it's easy from the right to say, well scientists, you know, there are a bunch of crazy lefties who just [00:17:00] want us all to be environmentalist's and don't have any care about business. Say these, the public support science. But it's a thin support and it's a thin support because the scientific community hasn't really engaged the public in trying to understand what we're doing and you know, sure, there's plenty of good scientists who are trying to do that, but it certainly have to look at it as a general failure. You know, in terms of scientific literacy in this country. And it bites us all the times in small ways like prop 37 and in big ways like global warming Speaker 5: spectrum is on k a l x Berkeley alternating Fridays. [00:17:30] Michael Eisen is our guest and in this next section Michael Talks about sciences, failure in public outreach and new trends in science funding. Speaker 4: Scientific outreach is a difficult endeavor for a lot of scientists. It doesn't really have a lot of cachet or status within the, and it's tough to fund. Yeah. All that's true. I think it's not without its rewards if fun. I mean, I like talking to the public about science, not because I get anything particular from [00:18:00] it, but just because I like what I do. I like talking about what excites me about the world. I mean, it's fun. A lot of scientists don't feel that way. They don't know they'd rather be in the lab than talking in public. But it's like a lot of things. I think that partly it's just our expectation. We don't expect as a university, as a federal government funding science, it's not considered to be part of what we expect people to do to try to get engaged in communicating. The scientists sort of viewed that there's a another layer of people who are going to be involved in communicating science who are gonna know how to talk to the scientists [00:18:30] and know how to talk to the public. Speaker 4: And there's certainly are fantastic people who do that. But I think ultimately it has to come back to scientists recognizing that it's important. Like if we can't convince the public that what we're doing is important, they're not going to keep giving us money to do it. And so it's a threat to science in every way, not just in its application, but in some practical day to day existence that the public doesn't, when they don't understand us, the scientific community should expect [00:19:00] the people who are doing research or benefiting from the system to do a better job and to take seriously the challenge of communicating it to the public. That's not to say I'm in. Lots of people do it. It's just because it's not organized because it's not expected of people because there's no systematic method for doing it. It peaks me on and he's not as effective I think as it could be if this were a big part of what scientists did and just to tie all these things together. Speaker 4: I'll point out that one of the things I would hope in the long run would happen [00:19:30] as a consequence of the public having hacks as to the scientific literature is that people would start writing papers with the public at least partially in mind when they wrote them. The stuff we do isn't that complicated. I can explain what I do. I could write papers that explained sort of what I'm doing and why and it would be a huge benefit. One of the things we've really, really failed to do is we're good at explaining facts. Here's what we know, here's what we've learned, here's the truth of the system. We're really bad at explaining the scientific method to people and I think people [00:20:00] don't know why. We know things. We know why we believe them. And I think if we were better at writing our papers, I don't expect tons of people to break down the doors and read my papers. Speaker 4: But you know, I think they're interesting and well-written and certainly there are papers that plots publishes that get a lot of public attention to anything involving dinosaurs or anything involving weird sexual practices of animals, right? So when those things are good, really good, strong science, people are looking and paying attention. And if the papers were written in a way [00:20:30] that actually engages the public and thought, well, I'm going to try to explain what I did here to the public that this would probably be the most effective thing we could do, would be to educate the public, educate our students, educate everybody about what scientists do and how we do it. Not just what we discovered, which is I think one of the major problems is focus on facts and discoveries to problem in our public communication. It's a problem in education as a problem just in general for science that we don't talk very much about how we know things, what we're doing [00:21:00] and why. Speaker 4: We just talk about what we've learned. Is there anything that I haven't asked you about that you want to hold forth on? Um, you asking some questions about science funding and about amount of money available for sciences getting tighter and tighter arts, more and more scientists. And I think we're facing a kind of big question about like what does the public want to fund in science? Part of the downside of this big data move in science has been a sort of loss [00:21:30] of appreciation for the importance of individual scientists. And I think that there's all this big science and it's true in biology. People think, well, let's just get a hundred scientists from across the country and we'll all get together and we'll do the most important experiments to do. And these are increasing tendencies for the sort of science by committee kind of way of doing things. Speaker 4: And sometimes that worked, it worked for the human genome project and so forth. But probably one of the things I worry about most in sciences with that, that we're moving away from [00:22:00] a world in which individual scientists get to pursue their own ideas. And you know, which is ultimately where the most interesting stuff usually comes from. You know, genome projects don't win Nobel prizes because their infrastructure, they're not ultimately about discoveries. And so I do worry that seduction of big science is such that funding agencies and other people think that this is a great way for them to control what happens. They're going to put tons of money into these big projects and get everybody to sign on to whatever agenda is coming from the NIH rather than from individual scientists. [00:22:30] And I think it's a struggle we're about to see reach a real head in science as less and less money is available. It's harder and harder to get individual research grants and I think we're just starting to see push back against that in the scientific community. But I don't know who will prevail. I would not like being a scientist if what I did with my days was go to committee meetings with 30 other scientists where we discussed what one experiment we were going to do, which is pieces where things are headed at least at the moment. But Michael lies and thanks very much for coming on [00:23:00] spectrum. Absolute pleasure. Speaker 5: [inaudible] now our calendar of science and technology events happening locally over the next two weeks. Rick Kaneski and Renee arou present the calendar. Speaker 4: Charles Darwin may have been born on February 12th but the fellowship of humanity is celebrating his birthday with the Darwin Day on Sunday, February 24th at 1:30 PM David Seaborg of the world [00:23:30] rainforest fund and a leading expert on evolutionary theory presents the keynote evolution today. Current state of knowledge and controversies, Nobel prize physicist George Smoot and leading expert on Darwin, Peter Hess of the national for science Speaker 6: education. We'll also talk afterwards, enjoy a potluck dinner party with the Speakers. I anticipate primordial soup. The event is at Humanist Hall Three Nine Zero 27th Street in Oakland. Visit Humanist [00:24:00] hall.net for more Info every month. Speaker 7: Nerd night holds an event that can only be described as a gratifying mixture of the discovery channel and beer. This Monday, East Bay's own February nerd night will be held at the new parkway theater. Jessica Richmond will speak about the plethora of microbial cells we play host to within our bodies and what they do there. She will explore the latest research on how our microbes correlate with obesity, anxiety, heart disease, and tooth [00:24:30] decay. We'll Fischer. We'll discuss the history, physics and some modern advances of the processes of creating machines. Finally, Guy Pyre. Zack will speak about his experience as a science planner for the curiosity rover. Nerd night will begin at 7:00 PM on February 25th as the new Parkway Theater in Oakland. The HR tickets can be purchased online at Eastbourne or night, spelled n I t e.com this February 26th the life [00:25:00] sciences divisions at the Lawrence lab in Berkeley will hold a seminar on the subject of life and death at the cellular level. Speaker 7: Denise Montell, a professor of molecular and developmental biology at UC Santa Barbara. We'll discuss her research in the area. Her lab has recently discovered a surprising reversibility of the cell suicide process known as a pop ptosis. She is now testing the hypothesis that the ability of cells to return from the brink of death, so it's to salvage cells that are difficult [00:25:30] to replace such as heart muscles or neurons in the adult brain. The seminars open to the public, although non UC Berkeley students are asked to RSVP by phone or through the lab website. The event will be held in room one for one of the Lawrence Berkeley lab building at seven one seven potter street in West Berkeley. It will begin at 4:00 PM on February 26th this Wednesday at the herps leader in San Francisco. You can learn more about your nightly slumbers. [00:26:00] Professor Matt Walker in the sleep and neuroimaging laboratory at UC Berkeley has found compelling evidence that our light dreamless stage of sleep can solidify short term memories by rewiring the architecture of the brain, burst of electrical impulses known as sleep spindles, maybe networking between the brain's hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex is storage area. His team has also found evidence that sleep can associate and integrate new memories together. Dr. Walker will be in conversation with k a [00:26:30] l w reporter Amy Standen. Tickets for the February 27th event can be found online@calacademy.org Speaker 6: Berkeley Professor Alex Philip Pinko is speaking at the Commonwealth about dark energy and the runaway universe. We expected that the attractive force of gravity would slow down the rate at which the university is expanding, but observations of very distant exploding stars known as Supernova show that the expansion rate is actually speeding up the universe seems [00:27:00] to be dominated by a repulsive dark energy. An Idea Albert Einstein had suggested in 1917 the renounced in 1929 as his biggest blender. The physical origin and nature of dark energy is probably the most important unsolved problem in all of physics. This event will be Thursday, February 28th at five 30 there will be a networking reception followed by the program at six the cost is $20 $8 for Commonwealth members [00:27:30] or $7 for students with valid id. Visit Commonwealth club.org for more info now to news stories presented by Renee and Rick, Speaker 7: a UC Berkeley student team has made it into the final rounds of the Disney sponsored design competition known as imaginations. The competition challenges students to design a Disney experience for the residents of their chosen city. The student team, Tiffany, you on, Catherine Moore and Andrew Linn designed a green robot [00:28:00] food truck called Sammy the students do on Berkeley's reputation as an environmentally friendly city to create Sammy who comes equipped with solar panels and a self cultivating garden. Disney has praised the projects collaborative nature, which incorporates design aspects from each student's major. The students are now presenting their project at Disney headquarters along with five other teams from across the country. Speaker 6: Last Friday, February 16th you may have seen a large fireball in the night sky [00:28:30] over the bay area. Jonathan Bregman of the Chabot Space and science center in Oakland told The Washington Post that meteors that streak through the sky are a very common occurrence. What is uncommon is that it's so close to where people are living. Bregman also noted that 15,000 tons of debris from asteroids enter the earth's atmosphere every year. Usually these things break up into small pieces and are difficult to find. This event was ours. After the 200 foot asteroid named 2012 [00:29:00] d a 14 came within 18,000 miles of earth and after the Valentine's Day, media exploded over Russia and drain more than a thousand people. That media was the largest to hit the earth in more than a century streaking through the atmosphere at supersonic speeds, it created a loud shockwave that broke glass. Scientists estimate that it was about 15 meters across and 7,000 metric tons. Despite this massive size it was undetected until it hit the atmosphere. [00:29:30] Music heard during the show is by Scott and David from his album folk and acoustic released under a creative Commons license 3.0 attributional. Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to spectrum. If you have comments about the show, please send them to us via email. Our email address is spectrum dot k a l x@yahoo.com join us in two weeks at this same time. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In part 1, investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Michael Eisen talks about his research, the field, and both experimental and computational biology. Eisen is Associate Professor of Genetics, Genomics, and Development in UC Berkeley's Dept. of Molecular Biology.TranscriptSpeaker 1: Spectrum's next Speaker 2: [inaudible]. Welcome to [inaudible] Speaker 1: section, the Science and technology show on k a l x Berkeley, a biweekly 30 minute program bringing you interviews [00:00:30] featuring bay area scientists and technologists as well as a calendar of local events and news. Speaker 3: Good afternoon. My name is Brad Swift. Thanks for tuning in. Today we are presenting part one of two interviews with Michael Eisen and associate professor of genetics, genomics and development in UC Berkeley's department of molecular biology. Iceland employs a combination of experimental and computational methods to the study of gene regulation [00:01:00] using the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster as a model system. Isen and his colleagues have pioneered genomic approaches in modern molecular biology and our leaders in the emerging field of computational biology. In part one, Michael talks about how he got started in biology and how his research has evolved onto the interview. Michael Isen, welcome to spectrum. Thank you. My pleasure. Would you give us a narrative of how you initiated your research and how your research has [00:01:30] changed to what it is currently? Speaker 4: Okay. Actually, I grew up in a family of scientists. My parents were both biologists, so I always had an interest in biology. But as a kid, my talents were primarily in math and I was a heavy duty math geek and went to college expecting to be a mathematician and took this freshman calculus class and all the hardcore math geeks tuck. And I did fine. I did well in the class, but [00:02:00] there were several people in the class who were clearly a notch better than me in a way that I think you only can realize and you know, basketball and mathematics at the age of 18 that you're not destined to be the best. And I think math is a field where if you're not the best, it's just kind of boring. And so I stayed as a mathematician and math major in college, but I started increasingly taking a lot of biology classes and had more or less, you know, realized that biology was what really captured my, my attention and [00:02:30] my heart. Speaker 4: And so I went to graduate school but had the idea that I'm interested in biology, but I'm really good at math. So there must be some way of combining these two things. And so I entered a graduate program in biophysics, which is sort of a place where people who are interested in biology maybe haven't taken all the prereqs for a normal biology department but also have a quantitative background go cause. And so, you know, in the way that people sort of drifted into things, I drifted into working on protein structure and [00:03:00] did my phd studying the evolution of the proteins on the surface of flu viruses and using a combination of experimental work and I would hesitate to call it mathematics. It was really just sort of kind of physics and it's, it's a lot of data. You generate a lot of raw data, you generate a lot of data on the coordinates of individual protein molecules and things that they might bind to. Speaker 4: And so it was very natural to start using computers in that work. You know, my background was not in computer science. I programmed as a kid [00:03:30] because my grandfather bought me a computer and I taught myself how to program and I wrote programs to, you know, keep track of baseball statistics and other things like that. In College, I basically never programmed anything in the math department I was in. It was considered not math that you were touching a computer. And so I didn't really do anything with computers until I got to graduate school when you started seeing all this data coming down the pipe. But I wasn't particularly interested in structural biology and I discovered that through six years from graduate school that [00:04:00] although I liked doing it, it wasn't intellectually satisfying, was too small. You're working on one sugar bound to one protein in one virus and I was having trouble seeing how that would expand into something grand and whatever. Speaker 4: You know, the ambitions of, uh, of a graduate student wanting to do something big. And I got lucky in the way that often happens in that my advisor had a colleague he knew from an advisory board. He sat on and he was coming into town because his brother was getting some honorary degree [00:04:30] and I met him in his hotel room, Austin. And he had with him, uh, glass microscope slide onto which had been spotted down little pieces of DNA, each of which corresponded to one gene in the yeast genome. So it's about 6,000 genes in the yeast genome. And you could see them because there was still salt in the spots, but it was a very evocative little device. You could sort of hold it up in front of the sun and you could see the sun sort of glittering on all these little spots. Speaker 4: You could just see the grandness of [00:05:00] the device. Didn't know how people were using them. I didn't know what they would be used for. I didn't know what I would do with them, but I was sort of drawn in by the scale of it all. The idea that you could work on everything at once and you didn't have to choose to work on just one little thing and disappear into a little corner and study. Just that. And so my advisor said, oh, you really should go do this. They need someone who's, you know, understands biology, but can deal with the computational side of things. It's clear that this was going to generate a lot of data [00:05:30] and that, you know, he was right. I mean this was a field that really was in great need of people who understood the biology but could work well in the quantitative computational side of things. Speaker 4: So I packed up and moved to Stanford with a short stint as a minor league baseball announcer in between. Really it was just a very fortuitous time to have gotten into this new field. I mean, the field was really just beginning. So this was in 1996 the first genomes been sequenced, they were microbes, there's bacteria and yeast [00:06:00] and so forth. And we were just getting our first glimpse of the scale of the kind of problems that we were going to be facing in genomics. But what I loved about this device, which is a DNA microarray, it's the sort of became a very hot tool in biology for a number of years was that it wasn't just a computer, it wasn't just data in a computer. It actually you were doing to do experiments with this. I'm interested in biology cause I liked living things. I like doing experiments, I like seeing things and I didn't want to just disappear with someone else's data and [00:06:30] analyze it. Speaker 4: So I went to Stanford to work on these and it really was just this awesome time and we were generating huge amounts of data in the lab and not just me. There were, you know, dozens of people generating tons of different types of experiments and so forth. And we lacked any kind of framework for looking at that data constructively. You couldn't look at those experiments and figure out by looking line by line in an excel spreadsheet at what gene was expressed, at what level and what condition. It just wasn't [00:07:00] the way to do it. And so my main contribution to the field at the time was in bringing tools for organizing the information and presenting it visually and being able to interact with that kind of incredibly complicated data in a way that was intuitive for people who understood the biology and allowed them to go back and forth between the experiment in the computer and the data and really try to make sense of what was a huge amounts of data with huge amounts of information, but something nobody had really been trained to [00:07:30] look at. And so it was there that I really realized kind of the way I like to do science, which is this constant back and forth between experiments on the computer. In my mind and in what I try to teach people in my lab. There's no distinction between doing experiments on the bench or in the field or in a computer that they're just different ways of looking at biology. Speaker 3: This is spectrum line KALX Berkeley. Today, Michael [00:08:00] I's associate professor at UC Berkeley explains his research in developmental biology. Speaker 4: On the basis of that time at Stanford, I got a job at Berkeley and what I did when I started my lab at Berkeley was really tried to focus on one problem. I mean I had been working on a million different problems at Stanford where we had a huge group and a million different people working on, and I was sort of moving around from problem the problem and helping out people with their data or thinking of different experiments. And when I came to Berkeley, I really [00:08:30] wanted to focus on one problem. And the problem that had intrigued me from the beginning of working on the microarray stuff was figuring out how it is that an animal's genome, which is the same essentially in every cell in the body, how it instructs different cells to behave differently, to turn on different genes and to acquire different properties. And so partly because of the influence of people here at Berkeley who were working on fruit flies, I switched my research program to work on [inaudible] when I started my lab at Berkeley, the genome of that [00:09:00] had just been sequenced and I liked working with animals. Speaker 4: I like having something that moves around and you know, had some behaviors and so the lab started to work on flies and pretty much since then that's what we've worked on. That's sort of the story of how I got to where I am. So your research then is you're looking at flies over time? Yeah, I mean, I mean I see how the genes are expressed. I'd say we're looking at classified more as developmental biology in the sense that we're looking at how genes are expressed over time during the lifespan of a lie. To this day, [00:09:30] we can't look at a newly sequenced genome and say, oh well this is what the animal's going to look like. That is, I couldn't tell you except sort of by cheating and knowing, comparing it to other genomes. If I, you gave me a fly genome, I look at it, I wouldn't know it was a fly or a worm or a tree or it's just the way in which the organism acquires it. Speaker 4: Things that make them interesting, their form, their appearance, their function. We have just the tiniest scratch of understanding of how that works. And so it's, for me, the most [00:10:00] interesting problem in biology is how do you get in a complicated structure like an animal out of a single cell. And how is that encoded in a genome sequence? I mean it's a fascinating mystery that I thought, you know, when I first started doing this I thought we'd have solved that problem by now. Not Easily. You know, because we had all this new data, we had the genome sequences we could measure. And a lot of what my lab does is actually measure which genes come on when, during development and try to understand for individual genes where that's been encoded in the genome [00:10:30] and how that happens. And I just sort of figured, well, you know, the problem for all these years was not that the problem was that hard. Speaker 4: We just didn't have the right data to look at this problem. And now we can do these experiments. I can sequence the genome of a fly and in a day I can characterize which genes are turned on when during development. And I sort of naively thought, well, we'll just sort of put it into a computer and shake things up and be clever and we'll figure out how these things are related to each other. And I mean now it's laughable that I would've ever thought that, but it was a very, very complicated thing. It's a process that's [00:11:00] executed by very complicated molecular machines operating in a very complicated environment or the nucleus and it, you know, we really don't understand it very well. We've learned a lot, but it's not a problem. We really understand. And so what is it that you've accumulated in terms of knowledge in that regard? Speaker 4: What do you think you've learned? A small amount of this is coming from my lab, but this is a whole field of people looking at this. But that we know the basic way in which that information is encoded in the genome. [00:11:30] We know that there are tuneable switches that can turn genes on and off in different conditions. And we know basically what molecular processes are involved in doing that in the sense that we know that there are proteins that can bind DNA in a sequence specific manner. So they will stick only to pieces of DNA that contain a motif or a particular code that distinct for each of these factors. In flies, there's several hundred of these factors and for humans that are several thousand of these factors that bind DNA in a [00:12:00] sequence specific manner, and they basically translate the nucleotide sequence of the genome into a different kind of code, which is the code of proteins bound to DNA. Speaker 4: And we know from a million different experiments that it's the action of those proteins binding to DNA that triggers the differential expression of genes in different conditions. So if you have a particular proteins, these are called transcription factors. If you have one in a cell at high levels than the genes [00:12:30] that are responding to that factor will be turned on in that cell. And if there's another cell where that protein isn't present, the set of genes that responds to it won't be turned on. So we know that as a general statement, but working out exactly how those proteins function, what it is that they actually do to turn a gene on and off, how they interact with each other, what conditions are necessary for them to function. All of those things are, I wouldn't say we know nothing about it, but they're very, [00:13:00] very poorly understood. Speaker 4: A lot of this sort of simple ideas that people had of there being a kind of regulatory code that looked something like the protein code that we're, you know, amino acid code that people are familiar with, right, that there'll be a genetic code for gene regulation. The idea that that's true is long disappeared from our thinking in the sense that it's much more like a very, very complicated problem with hundreds of different proteins that all interact with each other in a dynamic way. Something bind recruits, something else. [00:13:30] The thing it recruits changes the coding on the DNA and essence to a different state and then that allows other proteins to come in and that somehow or another that we still really don't understand. You eventually reach a state where the gene is turned on or turned off depending on what these factors are doing and you know, while there's lots of models for how that might function, they're all still tentative and we're getting better. The techniques for doing these kinds of experiments get better all the time. We can take individual pieces of or Sophala embryo [00:14:00] and sequence all the RNA contains and get a really complete picture of what's turned on when the technology is improving to the point where we can do a lot of this by imaging cells as amazing things we can do, but still the next level of understanding the singularity in our understanding of transcriptional regulation is still before us. Speaker 3: Spectrum is on KALX, Berkley alternating Fridays today. Michael [inaudible], associate professor at UC Berkeley [00:14:30] is our guest. In the next section, Michael describes the challenges his research poses Speaker 4: and is the task then the hard work of science and documenting everything's, yeah. Mapping a little bit about just observing. I mean, I'm a big believer in observational science that what's limited us to this has been just our poor tools for looking at what's going on. I mean we still hard to visualize the activity of individual molecules within cells, although we're on the precipice [00:15:00] of being able to do that better. So yeah, it's looking and realizing when the paradigms we have for thinking about this thing are clearly just not sufficient. And I think the fields get trapped sometimes in a way of thinking about how their system works and they do experiments that are predicated on some particular idea. But you know, usually when you have an idea and you pursue it for quite a long time and it doesn't pan out, it's because the idea is wrong. Speaker 4: And not always, but I think the transcriptional regulation field has been slow to adapt [00:15:30] to new sort of models for thinking. Although that is changing, I think that there's a lot of activity now and thinking about the dynamics of DNA and proteins within the nucleus. You know, we tend to think about DNA as kind of a static thing that sits in the nucleus and it's a, it's sort of read out by proteins, but really much more accurate as to think of it as a living kind of warned me like thing in the nucleus that gets pulled around to different parts of the nucleus and where it is in the nucleus is one way in which you control what's turned on and off. And I think people are really [00:16:00] appreciating the importance of this sort of three-dimensional architecture of the nucleus as a key facet and controlling the activity that there's, the nucleus itself is not a homogeneous place. Speaker 4: There is active and inactive regions of the nucleus and it's really largely from imaging that we're learning how that's functioning and you know, we as the whole field and are there lots of collaborators and people who are doing work? Yeah, I mean I'd say oh yeah. I mean it's a, it's an active feeling. Pay Attention to [00:16:30] oh yeah. So it's an active, if not huge field and not just in flies. I mean, I think it's transcriptional regulations of big field and in particular in developmental biology where amongst scientists we're interested in how animals develop. It's long been clear that gene regulation is sort of sits at the center of understanding development and so people interested in developmental biology and have long been interested in transcriptional regulation and I think everybody's got their own take on it here. But yeah, it's a very active field with lots of people, including several other people at Berkeley who are doing really [00:17:00] fascinating stuff. Speaker 4: So it's not out in the wilderness. This is not the hinterlands of science, but it's um, it's a nice field to work in about appropriate size. Our annual meetings only have a thousand, a few thousand people. It's not like some of these fields with 25,000 people. I can realistically know all the people who are working on problems related to ours and I literally know them and I know what they're doing and we sort of exchange ideas. So I like it. It's, it's nice community of people. [00:17:30] Is the field driving a lot of tool development? Absolutely. I say, this is something I really try to encourage people in my lab and people I trained to think, which is when you have a problem, you should be thinking not what am I good at? What can I apply to this problem? What technique has out there that would work here? Speaker 4: But what do I need to do? What is the right way to solve this problem? And if someone else has figured out how to do it, great, do it. But if they haven't, then do it yourself. And I think that this applies sort of very specifically [00:18:00] to doing individual experiments, but also to this broader issue we were talking about before with this interplay between computation and experiment. I think too many people come into science graduate school or wherever, thinking, well, I'm an experimentalist or I'm a computational biologist or whatever. And then they ask a question and then the inevitably hit the point where the logical path and pursuing their question would take them across this self-imposed boundary. Either you're an experimentalist who generated data and you're not [00:18:30] able to get at it in the right way and therefore, you know what you really need to be doing is sitting at a computer and playing around with the data. Speaker 4: But if you view that as a boundary that you're not allowed to cross or you're incapable of crossing, you'll never solve it because it almost never works. You almost never can find somebody else no matter how talented they are. Who's as interested in the problem that you're working on as you are. And I think that's a general rule. Scientists should feel as uninhibited about pursuing new things even if they're bad at it. It's certainly been a mantra [00:19:00] I've always tried to convey to the people in my lab, which is, yeah, sure, you come in with a computer science background and you know you're a coder and you've never picked up a pipette or grown a fly. But that's why the first thing you should do in the lab is go grow flies and vice versa. For the people who come in perfectly good in the lab but unable to do stuff in the computer, the first thing you should do is start playing around with data on the computer and it doesn't always work and not everybody sort of successfully bridges that gap, but the best scientists in my mind are ones who don't [00:19:30] circumscribe what they're good at. Speaker 4: They have problems and they pursue them. When something like visualization, is that a bridge too far to try to embrace that kind of technology? I've always done that. I mean I almost every time I do an analysis in the computer, I reduce it to picture some way or another. You know, because of the human brain, no matter how fancy your analysis is, the human brain is just not good at assimilating information as numbers. What we're good at as thinkers is looking at patterns, [00:20:00] finding patterns and things, looking at looking at images, recognizing when patterns are interesting and important, and there's a crucial role for turning data into something the human brain can pull in. And that's always, for me, one of the most fun things is taking data that is just a string of numbers and figuring out how to present it to your brain in a way that makes some sense for it and the refinement of it so that it's believable. Speaker 4: Yeah, and so then you can do it over and over and over and get the same result. Yeah, and all, I mean it is one of the dangers [00:20:30] you deal with when you're working with, when you're relying on human pattern recognition is we're so good at it that we recognize patterns even when they don't exist. There's a lot of statistics that gets used in modern biology, but often people I think use it incorrectly and people think that statistics is going to tell them what things are important, what things they should be paying attention to. For me, we almost entirely used statistical thinking to tell us when we've fooled ourselves into thinking something's interesting, you know, with enough data and enough things going on, you're going [00:21:00] to find something that looks interesting there and having a check on that part of your brain that likes to find patterns and interesting things is also crucial. Speaker 4: You know, I think people understand that if you flip a coin three times, it's not that we are trying to land on heads, but they have much, much harder time thinking about what happens if you flip a coin a billion times. We're struggling with this in biology, this transformation from small data to big data, it taxes people's ability to think clearly about what kinds of phenomena are interesting and aren't interesting. [00:21:30] Big Data is sort of the promise land now for a lot of people. Yeah. I'm a big believer in data intrinsically. If you're interested in observing things and interested in understanding how they work, the more you can measure about them better. It's just that's not the end of the game. Right? Just simply measuring things that doesn't lead to insight. Going from observing something to understanding it. That's where the challenges and that's true. Whether you're looking at the movement of DNA in a nucleus or you're [00:22:00] looking at people by a target, right? Like the same. It's the same problem. Speaker 3: This concludes part one of our interview with Michael [inaudible]. On the next spectrum, Michael Eisen will explain the Public Library of science, which he [inaudible]. He will give his thoughts on genetically modified organisms and a strategy for labeling food. He discusses scientific outreach and research funding. Don't miss him now. Our calendar of science and technology [00:22:30] events happening locally over the next few weeks. Rick Karnofsky and Renee Rao present the calendar Speaker 5: tomorrow, February 9th from noon to one wild Oakland presents nature photography basics at lake merit. Meet in front of the Rotary Nature Center at 600 Bellevue Avenue at Perkins in Oakland. For this free event, learn to get more out of the camera you currently have and use it to capture beautiful photos of Oakland's jewel lake merit. [00:23:00] Bring your camera and you'll learn the basics of composition, camera settings, but photography and wildlife photography. Okay. Your instructor will be Dan. Tigger, a freelance photographer that publishes regularly in Bay Nature and other magazines. RSVP at Wild Oakland dot o r G. UC Berkeley Speaker 6: is holding its monthly blood drive. This February 12th you are eligible to no-name blood if you are in good health way, at least 110 pounds and are 17 years or older. You can [00:23:30] also check out the eligibility guidelines online for an initial self screening if you're not eligible or you prefer not to donate blood. There are other ways to support campus blood drives through volunteering, encouraging others and simply spreading the word. You can make an appointment online, but walk ins are also welcome. The blood drive will be on February 12th and the alumni house on the UC Berkeley campus will last from 12 to 6:00 PM you can make an appointment or find more information at the website. [00:24:00] Red Cross blood.org using the sponsor code you see be February 13th Dr. Bruce Ames, senior scientist at the Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute will speak at a colloquium on the effects that an inadequate supply of vitamins and minerals has on aging. Speaker 6: Dr Ames posits that the metabolism responds to a moderate deficiency of an essential vitamin or mineral by concentrating on collecting the scarce proteins [00:24:30] to help short term survival and reproductive fitness, usually at the expense of proteins important for longterm health. This is known as triaged theory. Dr Ian Discuss ways in which the human metabolism has evolved to favor short term survival over longterm health. He will also present evidence that this metabolic trade-off accelerates aging associated diseases such as cancer, cognitive decline, and cardiovascular disease. The colloquium will be on February 13th from 12 [00:25:00] to 1:15 PM on the UC Berkeley campus in five one oh one Tolman hall February 16th the Monthly Science at Cau Lecture series will hold a talk focusing on the emerging field of synthetic biology, which applies engineering principles to biology to build sales with new capabilities. The Speaker, John Dabber is a mentor in the international genetically engineered machines competition or ai-jen and a UC Berkeley professor, [00:25:30] Dr Debra. We'll discuss the new technique created in J key's link's lab to make low cost drugs to treat malaria. He will also introduce student members of the UC Berkeley Igm team who will discuss their prize winning project. The free public event will be on February 16th from 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM will be held on the UC Berkeley campus in room one oh five of Stanley hall Speaker 5: on Tuesday the 19th how long now and Yearbook Buenos Center for the Arts Presents. Chris Anderson's talk [00:26:00] on the makers revolution. He describes the democratization of manufacturing and the implications that that has. Anderson himself left his job as editor of wired magazine to join a 22 year old from Tijuana and running a typical makers firm. Three d robotics, which builds is do it yourself. Drones, what based collaboration tools and small batch technology such as cheap 3d printers, three d scanners, laser cutters and assembly. Robots are transforming manufacturing. [00:26:30] Suddenly large scale manufacturers are competing, not just with each other on multi-year cycles are competing with swarms of tiny competitors who can go from invention to innovation to market dominance. In a weeks today, Anderson notes there are nearly a thousand maker spaces shared production facilities around the world and they're growing at an astounding rate. The talk is seven 30 to 9:00 PM at the Lam Research Theater at the Yerba Buena Center for the arts at 700 Howard Street in San Francisco. Speaker 5: [00:27:00] Tickets are $15 for more information, visit long now.org now to new stories presented by Renee and Rick. The Federal Communication Commission has released a proposal to create super wifi networks across the nation. This proposal created by FCC Chairman Julius Jenna Koski, is it global first, and if approved, could provide free access to the web in every metropolitan area and many rural areas. The powerful new service could even allow people [00:27:30] to make calls for mobile phones using only the Internet. A robust public policy debate has already sprung up around the proposal, which has drawn aggressive lobbying on both sides. Verizon wireless and at t, and t along with other telecommunications companies have launched a campaign to persuade lawmakers. The proposal is technically and financially unfeasible. Meanwhile, tech companies like Google and Microsoft have championed the ideas sparking innovation and widening access to an [00:28:00] increasingly important resource. We can add this to the growing list of public policy debate over our changing and complex relationship with the Internet. Speaker 5: A team at McMaster university as reported in the February 3rd issue of nature chemical biology that they have found the first demonstration of a secreted metabolite that can protect against toxic gold and cause gold. Biomineralization. That's right. Bacterium Delphia, [00:28:30] a seat of [inaudible] take solutions continuing dissolve the gold and creates gold particles. This helps protect the bacteria from absorbing harmful gold ions, but it also might be used to harvest gold. The researchers found genes that cause gold, precipitation, engineered bacteria that lack these jeans and observed that these bacteria had stunted growth and that there was no gold precipitation. They also extracted the chemical responsible [00:29:00] for the gold mineralization naming it delftibactin a, the molecule creates metallic gold within seconds in Ph neutral conditions at room temperature. Gold exists in extremely dilute quantities in many water sources and the bacteria or the metabolite might be used to extract gold from mine. Waste in the future. Speaker 3: [inaudible] the music her during the show is by Luciana, David [00:29:30] from his album foam and acoustic, released under a creative Commons license, 3.0 attribution. Thank you for listening to spectrum. If you have comments about show, please send Speaker 1: them to us. Our email address is spectrum dot k a l x@yahoo.com join us in two weeks at this same time. Speaker 2: [inaudible]. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Pioneers in Engineering is a UC Berkeley student-run project that provides STEM outreach in local high schools. PIE sponsors and supports a Spring semester robot competition. Guests include Vivek Nedyavila, Andrew Vanderburg, and David Huang. pioneers.berkeley.eduTranscriptsSpeaker 1: Spectrum's next Speaker 2: [inaudible].Speaker 1: [00:00:30] Welcome to spectrum the science and technology show on k a l x Berkeley, a biweekly 30 minute program bringing you interviews featuring bay area scientists and technologists as well as a calendar of local events and news. Speaker 3: Hi and good afternoon. My name is Brad swift and I'm the host of today's show. Our interview is with representatives of Pioneers and engineering, also known as Pi, [00:01:00] a UC Berkeley student run project. Since 2008 Pi has been doing stem outreach in bay area high schools, Pi sponsors and supports and annual spring semester robot competition, high school teams design, build and operate robots over seven weeks culminating in a thrilling final competition at the Lawrence Hall of Science Pineys UC Berkeley students to be mentors during this year as robot competition. Each [00:01:30] team gets a set of mentors to encourage and guide the team, helping them to realize their potential, explaining Pi, the stem outreach they do and why you may want to join our Vivek Nay Diallo Vala, Andrew Vanderburg and David Hawaiian onto the interview. I want to welcome you all to spectrum. And would you introduce yourselves and tell us what your major is? Speaker 1: Hi, my name is Vivek. I'm a UX major, electrical engineering and [00:02:00] computer sciences. I'm a junior. Speaker 4: I'm Andrew. I'm a senior physics and astronomy major. Speaker 3: Hi, my name is David. I'm a fourth year apply math and computer science major. Andrew, can you explain the history and goals of Pioneers and engineering? Speaker 4: Sure, so pioneer's engineering was founded in 2008 by Berkeley engineers. The general idea is that while there are a lot of good robotics competitions that provide science outreach to high school students, [00:02:30] a lot of them aren't very good at providing outreach to the students who need it. Most. The ones in the underprivileged schools. So pioneers in engineering or pie as we like to call it, is focusing on trying to provide that outreach. So we try to make it more sustainable so that they don't have to pay as much money every year and they don't have to have corporate sponsors. And we also try to make it more friendly so that they don't have to go out and search for their own mentors. They get their own mentors from UC Berkeley and we provide [inaudible]. Speaker 1: [00:03:00] And how did you decide on robots as the focus of your engineering challenge? Speaker 4: I think that robots are kind of a gimmick. They're cool, they're exciting and they have a lot of pop culture and references. But the lessons that we teach them could be applied to engineering, all sorts of different things. Perhaps we could do a science competition and get the same teaching out of it. Robots just provide something exciting. They provide a hook and they provide a climactic final competition where they can [00:03:30] have their robots, you know, compete head to head. [inaudible] Speaker 1: there is a certain kit aspect to what you're doing with the robots in terms of a known entity. A constraint. Speaker 4: Yeah. So we um, give them a very well-defined kit of parts which they can use so they don't have to start from scratch because building a robot from basic electronic components and pieces of metal or plywood is really hard. So we give them a good start. We give [00:04:00] them a kit which they can build upon. They don't have to do all of the electronics. They don't have to do a lot of the tedious work, but they can do something really cool with them in the end. Speaker 1: What's the funding source that you use for this competition? Speaker 4: We see corporate sponsorships. We go to companies like Google, Qualcomm, Boeing, and we ask them if they can support us, if they can. We advertise for them. We put their logos on our banners and our tee shirts [00:04:30] and they also get deductions for supporting charitable causes. [inaudible] Speaker 1: and are you a club? What is your organizational status? Speaker 4: We are technically a project of Tau Beta Pi, which is the engineering honor society and our finances and our organization go through them. Many of our members have or no, not affiliated with Beta Pi. They are recruited by us Speaker 1: beside the robot competition. Are there other projects within Pi [00:05:00] that you're working on? We have a team that actually goes to a high school called Ralph Bunche High School in West Oakland and this team does a program called Pie prep for these kids in which they have 13 or 14 modules of stem outreach kind of and they basically teach them cool things about science and technology and a little bit about robotics and physics and stuff like that and it's, it's once a week. It's intended to be fun and just spark their interest and also give them [00:05:30] a little bit of theoretical knowledge. This has been going very well this semester and from the results in the surveys that we've been taking, we're most likely gonna ramp it up next fall to even more schools. The exact number, we're not sure, but it's going to continue ramping up in the next few years and hopefully touch in the realm of 1314 schools in the area. We're hoping that this is going to be a very successful program and also inspire more interest in our robotics competition for the so we can have something good going on in the fall. It's [00:06:00] something in interest spring so it's like a year round kind of thing. Speaker 3: This is spectrum on k a l x Berkeley. Today's topic is pioneers in engineering. Three representatives from Pi join us. They are Vivek, Andrew and David. Andrew. How is it that high school's become involved in the [00:06:30] competition? Speaker 4: We do a lot of recruiting into high schools who fit our core mission, the ones who probably wouldn't be able to compete sustainably and the other robotics competitions that are out there. So we contact teachers and the sciences and we ask them if they're interested and if their students are interested in putting together a team and then they apply for a team and if we have room we'll take them. Speaker 3: What is the limit on teams? You have a capacity issue. Speaker 4: Yeah. We have a limit of about 20 teams could be up as many as 24 this year and the limitations [00:07:00] are put in place by our ability to produce kits and to provide mentors for them. We would rather have a good competition with 25 teams than one that stretched too thin with 35 Speaker 3: and do schools stick with it. Speaker 4: There is a core group of schools who seem to be building up somewhat of a legacy. They'll come back year after year. We actually just had our first student who is a four year high school participant in Pi Join Pi as a staff member [00:07:30] in college. Speaker 3: Great. That's the goal, right? In a way that's sort of the ideal. Andrew, when the teams are picked, they're picked by the teachers at the high schools. Speaker 4: The teams are I guess collected by the teachers at the high school, but they're based on interest. We've in the past tried to limit the number of people on the team, but we're moving away from that because um, we have a lot more mentors than we have in the past. Speaker 3: How do you try to keep the parody of the experience within [00:08:00] the teams and the resources that they have access to the equipment, the time spent? How do you, how do you try to balance all that? Keep everybody kind of on the same level. Speaker 4: So there are teams who have access to a machine shop in their high school and we can't provide that to everyone. But we do provide as a basic set of tools to anyone who wants them. We loan them out if they want to go to the high school and work with their team. And sometimes the high schools come to UC Berkeley and they can use our tools and our workspace in O'Brian Hall [00:08:30] in north side, we also try to ration the experience level of the mentors. We tried to provide the more experienced mentors to the less experienced teams. As a general rule, we try to provide equal experience and different types of engineering to each school. So each school should hope to have a mechanical engineer or someone who's mechanically inclined and someone who is electrically inclined or programming inclined. Speaker 1: And the number of mentors per team. Last year it ranged between four to six [00:09:00] of AVEC. Talk about your experience as a mentor on the robot competition. My experience at Ralph Bunche high school mentoring and was a series of ups and downs. But in the end it kind of culminated in something special. So started off with a few weeks of mentorship prep by um, Andrew and his mentorship team. They prepped us for what we would encounter a little bit of the social aspect of the kids, but mostly about the uh, technical mentorship. Ralph [00:09:30] onto high is a rather underprivileged high school in West Oakland. There were only three of them in the team and we had to struggle with people dropping out, people coming in because of the small size of the team, small quarrels that were involved, a lot of social issues that we were not as equipped for as mentors coming from UC Berkeley. Speaker 1: Um, not to mention the social barrier itself of where we have all come from in our lives compared to where these kids have come from. And [00:10:00] it was a really interesting experience for me because I actually have had a little bit of experience with kids from underprivileged backgrounds and the experience that I had in pulling my mentorship team into it with me trying to get everyone on the same page with these kids to not get frustrated with them, to not unequivocally say something and like have it mar the rest of our mentorship semesters. So it was a journey and it ended up being very rewarding, um, in the sense that [00:10:30] we got second place in the robotics competition and this team of three kids who were definitely the underdogs and it was just, you know, one of those quintessential underdog stories. They ended up getting second place and I was super proud of them. Speaker 1: So very rewarding experience. David, tell us about your experience last year as a mentor. I think the biggest and rather pleasant surprise, uh, during the tournament was at discrimination the week before and during the actual [00:11:00] tournament at the end of the season. The atmosphere was just absolutely incredible. We had, um, PAC has of spectators. We had epic music classing in the background and in both hers mining hardware. We had the scrimmage and the Lawrence Hom signs where we had to file tournament. The stage was very well prepared and when each team sent up their team members send their robot on the stage to compete. It gives you the feeling that you're these [00:11:30] stars on stage, sort of like maybe no gladiators in ancient Roman stadiums where you're the center of the attention of everyone around you and really at some level I feel like that's where colleges should be about is motivating students, motivating students, intellectual growth and also highlighting their achievements and I think in that sense Speaker 5: the Pi robotic competition has totally exceeded my expectation. I remember seeing a couple up the high school students [00:12:00] who ended up winning the competition, just crying on the stage and joy. I have no doubt that it had been a parade and really life changing experience for them. Speaker 3: Spectrum is on KALX Berkeley alternating Fridays. Today, we are talking with Vivec, Andrew and David about pioneers in engineering Speaker 1: as your involvement [00:12:30] in Pi giving you some insights into where you might want to go with your major. Speaker 4: My involvement in Pi has really been my first major experience in teaching and it turns out that teaching is a lot harder than you would think, especially teaching some of the difficult concepts that we have to do so quickly in our decal. It turns out that trying to break down the concepts into logical chunks and presenting them in a logical way is almost as hard, if not harder than learning them yourself. [00:13:00] So I found that teaching and learning to teach was a really good experience for me and it will help me presumably as I graduate and go to Grad school [inaudible] Speaker 1: because are you thinking of being a teacher? Speaker 4: I'm thinking of being hopefully a professor in the future. I hope that my experience in Pi will give me a leg up from working on that and hopefully make it easier for my students to learn in the future. Speaker 3: [inaudible] David, anything. Yeah. Speaker 5: So I try and Pi as a part of my effort to explore [00:13:30] more in computer science, which I started taking classes last year and I have to say during the course of last semesters tournament, I really enjoy working with the staff member, other fellow UC Berkeley students and Pi. And I also really enjoy working with the high school students on my team to the extent that, uh, I'm starting to look more and more into the idea of working at a technology startup. And I'm also fairly sure I'm going to do computer science as a second major along with math. [00:14:00] And so in that sense, I think it's really solidify my interests in this field. Speaker 1: VEC, how has pi affected your plans for the future? I've actually had, I guess in the last few weeks to think about this very seriously. And through talking with a number of people in Pie, I'm very, very inclined to do something kind of like this as a job in the future. Like being scientific outreach. Yeah, exactly. Scientific kind [00:14:30] of stem education. Stem outreach. Yeah. So there's um, a company called sparkfun that we have grown closer to over the last year and this is kind of exactly what they do. They have a sparkfun kit circuit skit and it's a solderless circuit skit where they can bring it to elementary, middle school classrooms and have these kids play around with circuits. They want to fund a trip across the nation teaching stuff like this to little kid. Just seeing things like this happen in the world makes me really rethink, do [00:15:00] I just want to become a fabrications engineer or something or like do I want to be a programmer or do I need something like this without there the risks are higher, but the reward, the potential reward is greater. Yeah, that's, that's how it's changed my outlook. What sort of a time commitment is there to being a Pi staffer or a mentor? Speaker 4: So being a mentor, we ask that you attend a two hour day call once a week. We ask that you mentor your teams [00:15:30] for at least two hours a week. And we also ask that you do a five minute progress report so that we know how your teams are doing. So if you add in transportation time, it's probably adds up to about six to eight hours a week of time commitment. That won't be distributed evenly necessarily because there'll be weeks where you have weekend events, which lasts all day. But I think that most peer mentors have found that the time commitment really isn't a problem because by the time that the time coming and gets large, [00:16:00] you really want to be there and it's a lot of fun. Speaker 1: And then for staff, so I know this isn't the time for staff to get involved or are you always looking for staff or is it really just at the fall? Speaker 4: So we're always looking for staff. We do need mentors more than staff at this moment, but as a staff member, the time commitment is probably larger, probably order of 10 hours a week for the seven or eight weeks around the competition. At other times it's less, more [00:16:30] of a year long job than this intense seven week period as it would be for a mentor. Speaker 1: Andrew, if you want to become a mentor, what's the process? Okay. Speaker 4: For people who are interested in being mentors to the high school students, we are going to have a mentoring decal which starts in early February. On February 4th that decal will run from six to 8:00 PM on Mondays and Thursdays. And it's once a week. You choose one of those two times and uh, you come to that, you learn [00:17:00] about robotics and then we scheduled for a seven week period starting in March time for you to go to your high schools every week. That's flexible, depends on your schedule, on the high school schedule. The final competition will wrap up around April 28th Speaker 1: and the kind of people you're looking for talk about who can be a mentor, Speaker 4: right? So we accept mentors from every background. We believe that our decal will teach them the basics that can get them [00:17:30] to help their high school students out. And we also believe that learning about engineering is not the only purpose of Pi. We think that other students from other backgrounds can contribute just as much as engineers can because in the end it's not just about teaching them to be engineers, it's about teaching them to go to college, what it's like to be in college, what it's like, enjoy learning and some of our best mentors in the past have not been engineers. Speaker 6: [inaudible]Speaker 3: [00:18:00] pioneers in engineering on spectrum detailing their stem outreach. This is k a l X. Speaker 6: [inaudible].Speaker 3: Do you all find Pi to be a real supportive community for your own personal interests as well as the collective interest of doing the competition and start with the Vac, right. [00:18:30] Then we'll go around. Speaker 1: For me it's the spirit of kind of like self-expression. You're doing something very special for these kids. It's a form of giving someone else what I had when I was a kid in the form of my dad or in the form of other people in my life who influenced me towards engineering and to motivate kids or like allow them to have that confidence in themselves. To go towards stem and at least higher education, one of the main goals of Pie. [00:19:00] Don't be afraid to apply to college and stuff like that. That form of self expression and just kind of helping these kids and self fulfillment through that, that the perk that I get, Speaker 4: I feel as if Pi is a really supportive community because even though the going is often tough as a staff member, there's a lot of pressure because he wants to deliver a good competition to the students. Everyone's willing to help each other out. And I think that it's a really good community to have around you because [00:19:30] even though we're all doing a lot of work and sometimes we can get stressed, we remember that we have each other and that we're all working towards a common goal, which is to give these students a good educational experience. And that's something that a lot of them don't get in school. Speaker 5: So coming from the perspective of surf a semi insider outsider, uh, as a pass mentor, um, I think Pi has given me the opportunity to meet a lot of other people who are similarly interested in science and engineering [00:20:00] from the perspective that these are wonderful things to learn about and to see happen in everyday life instead of just something that you learned together job. And going along that perspective, having met all these really interesting people, empire has given me more social avenues to while to hang out, for instance, for Thanksgiving or just took walk around campus and to know that there are all these people around me who are also likewise striving for a similar goal. And that's comforting to know. Speaker 3: [00:20:30] Vivek, Andrew and David, thanks very much for being on spectrum. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Speaker 2: [inaudible] now our calendar of local science and technology events over the next two weeks, Renee Rao and Ricardo [inaudible] present the calendar. Speaker 7: [00:21:00] Okay. Dr. Shannon Bennett, associate curator of microbiology at the California Academy of Sciences. We'll be hosting a lecture by HIV expert, Dr Leo Weinberger, who will discuss the engineering of a retro virus to cure HIV. While progress has been made in controlling the virus with heavy cocktails or combinations of drugs, more virulent and resistant varieties continue to arise, Weinberger will explore his idea of using the same virus that causes the disease to deliver [00:21:30] the cure. The event will be held at 12:00 PM on Saturday, January 26 tickets will be on sale at the California Academy of Sciences website, $15 for adults and seven for students or seniors. Martin Hellman, Speaker 8: the co-inventor of public key cryptography is presenting the free Stanford engineering hero lecture at the Long Engineering Center at Stanford on Tuesday, January 29th from seven to 9:00 PM [00:22:00] with reception after his talk on the wisdom of foolishness, explorers, how tilting at windmills can turn out. Well in the 1970s Homan was competing with the national security agency who had a much larger budgets than he had, and it was warned that the NSA may classify any accomplishments he made. Despite this with help from Whitfield Diffie and Ralph Merkle, Hellman spearheaded systems that are still used to secure Chileans of dollars of financial [00:22:30] transactions a day. Visit www. That's certain.com for more info Speaker 7: east based first nerd night of 2013 we'll feature three Speakers, Daniel Cohen, a phd candidate in the joint UC Berkeley UCLA program. We'll speak about the theme of collective behavior, discussing the mechanism for everything from hurting sheep to sell your cooperation. Andrew Pike, a u Penn geologist by trade has also been [00:23:00] a contender in the competitive rock paper, Scissors League of Philadelphia. He will discuss some of the surprisingly complex strategies to the game. Lena Nielsen, the Innovation Director at the Bluhm center for developing economies at UC Berkeley. We'll explore technological solutions to extreme global problems that are also financially feasible. The event will start at eight but doors open at seven the event is held on January 28th at the new parkway located at four seven four [00:23:30] 24th street in Oakland. Science fans of all ages are welcome and can purchase the $8 tickets online. Speaker 8: On Tuesday, February 5th at 6:00 PM the Felix Block, a professor in theoretical physics at and the director of the Stanford Institute for theoretical physicist, Leonard Susskind is talking to the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco located at five nine five market street. The presentation is entitled the theoretical minimum, [00:24:00] what you need to know to start doing physics Susskind. We'll discuss how to learn more about physics and how to think more like a scientist. He will provide a toolkit to help people advance at their own pace. The cost is $20 to the public, $8 to members and $7 to students. Visit www that commonwealth club.org four tickets. Speaker 7: UC Berkeley's center for emerging and neglected diseases will hold its fifth annual [00:24:30] symposium this year. A variety of Speakers will present their work in various areas of infection and host response. The theme of the symposium, the keynote Speaker, dawn Ghanem will explore new developments in malaria drugs across the world. Sarah Sawyer, another Speaker. We'll discuss what typically keeps animal viruses from infecting humans. Other topics will include emerging African biomedical research on HIV AIDS, mycobacterium [00:25:00] tuberculosis, and new testing protocols for infectious diseases in developing countries. The symposium will be held in Stanley Hall on the UC Berkeley campus on February 11th from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM it's open to anyone who registers@www.global health.berkeley.edu Speaker 2: [inaudible]Speaker 8: [00:25:30] the two news items [inaudible] that can Renee, university of Cambridge researchers published an article in Nature Chemistry on January 20th that indicates DNA conform not only the classic double stranded Helix, but also structures that are made from four strands. It's been thought that these square shaped g quadroplex structures may form in the DNA of cells, but this paper is one of the first to provide evidence that they do exist [00:26:00] in human cells. They forum when four Guanines make a special type of hydrogen bond. Speaker 8: The telomeres that protect Chromosomal DNA are Irish and Guanine and research points to quadroplex formation. And there is evidence that suggests quadruplex formation could damage these Tila mirrors and may play a role in how certain genes contribute to cancer. The team created a simple antibody that stabilizes these g quadroplex structures and showed how the structures are [00:26:30] formed and trapped in human DNA. When describing the long term goals of the research, the team told science daily that many current cancer treatments attack DNA, but it's not clear what the rules are. We don't aware in the genome some of them react. It can be a scattergun approach. The possibility that particular cancer cells harboring genes with these motifs can now be targets and appear to be more vulnerable to interference than normal cells is that thrilling prospect. Speaker 7: Okay. A joint [00:27:00] UC Berkeley Duke University Study of couches across the nation reveals a disturbingly high percentage of our sofas contained noticeable levels of toxins. 102 couches in 27 states were examined in this study. Of these 41% were found to contain the chemical chlorinated Tris, a known carcinogen. 17% of the couches also contain Penta BDE, which can cause hormonal disruptions. While chlorinated Tris was banned [00:27:30] from use in children's clothing in the 1970s it continues to be routinely used by companies seeking to make foam furniture more fire resistant. Currently, California State Law requires a certain degree of flame retardancy, but does not require that the types or amount of chemicals used to achieve this be disclosed. Well, most cotton will or down catches are naturally flame resistant. Any foam catches will almost certainly require added chemicals to meet current standards. Last June, [00:28:00] Governor Jerry Brown advised the state legislature to reform flammability standards for furniture. Once the new regulations are adopted, the chemical free couches should be available. Speaker 2: [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible]. The music art during the show is by on a David from his album folk and acoustic released under [00:28:30] a creative Commons license 3.0 attributes. [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible]. [00:29:00] Yeah. Thank you for listening to spectrum. If you have common staff to show, please send them to us via email. All right, email address is spectrum dot klx@yahoo.com join us in two weeks. This same time. Speaker 9: [inaudible] [00:29:30] [inaudible] [inaudible]. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Princeton and UC Berkeley trained chemist Delia Milliron is the Deputy Director of the Molecular Foundry at Lawrence Berkeley Lab. In part two, Delia talks about her interests, the Molecular Foundry and its unique environment. foundry.lbl.govTranscriptSpeaker 1: Spectrum's next [inaudible] [inaudible]. [00:00:30] Welcome to spectrum the science and technology show on k a l x Berkeley, a biweekly 30 minute program bringing you interviews, featuring bay area scientists and technologists as well as a calendar of local events and news. Speaker 2: Good afternoon. My name is Brad Swift. I'm the host of today's show. Today we present part two of our two part interview with Delia Mill Iron, [00:01:00] the deputy director of the Lawrence Berkeley national lab molecular foundry, Delia mill iron. Received her undergraduate degree in chemistry from Princeton and her phd in physical chemistry from UC Berkeley. Delia leads a research group at the molecular foundry, which has spun off a startup named heliotrope technologies. Her group is a partner in the newly announced Joint Center for Energy Storage Research, a [00:01:30] multistate department of energy research hub focused on developing transformative new battery technologies. Delia's group was recently awarded a $3 million grant by the Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects, agency energy, ARPA e for her work on smart window technologies. Now the final part two of our interview. Uh, even though nano science is a relatively new pursuit, how have the tools to execute [00:02:00] your research and development? How have they advanced? Speaker 3: The tools have progressed remarkably and many would say that our ability to see material on the nataline scale and by c I mean more than just get a picture, but also to see the specifics of the chemistry, the electronic structure and so on that these advances in tools and characterization tools have [00:02:30] been the catalyst for every other development and nanoscience because it's very difficult to move quickly forward in making new materials. For example, if you can't actually see what you're making. So starting with electron microscopy, which used the fact that electrons moving very quickly, you have a wavelength far shorter than that of light and therefore they have the ability to resolve features on the nano meter and in fact on the atomic lane scale. [00:03:00] That's tremendous, right? That's an incredible enabling capability for nanoscience. But electrons are limited in the chemical information, the electronic structure information, they can probe some of this, but light is still king. Speaker 3: So spectroscopy which is using light to probe chemical bonds and composition and so forth is still king of understanding richness, rich detail about materials. So some of the most exciting events is to me [00:03:30] in the tools for nanoscience are bringing optical spectroscopy spectroscopy using light to smaller and smaller and smaller lane scales. The state of the art, if you use conventional optics, just nice, beautifully made lenses and so on is that you can use light to look at things down to about half the wavelength of light. So for visible light that means things on the order of a few hundred nanometers. If you're doing things very, very [00:04:00] well by manipulating the light further leveraging nanoscale phenomena like the plasmonics I mentioned earlier, you can now squeeze light into extremely small volumes and do optical spectroscopy down to lane scales, tens of nanometers across, so doing full rich optical characterization and materials. Speaker 3: Basically using light microscopy at 40 nanometer lanes scales is now [00:04:30] a reality and the kind of information we can get about materials, their properties and how those are related is just going to benefit tremendously from those kinds of new advances. Are there tools that you crave? Unrealized tools? Yes, sure. I love to be able to resolve rich chemical, detailed dental. The Lane scale of Adams, you know, tens of nanometers is nice, but uh, most of our nanocrystals are smaller than this. They're five [00:05:00] nanometers. There are 10 nanometers, they're not 40 or 50 nanometers. So we still haven't quite brought light in a useful way down to the dimensions of the materials that give us the most interesting properties. The other major thing many of us crave is to bring detailed characterization into three dimensions and really four dimensions. So how they're arranged in three dimensional space definitely affects their properties, but it's difficult [00:05:30] to image. Speaker 3: So microscopic tools still often look at the surface of material and so you get a two dimensional map at high resolution. It's much more difficult to get high resolution images and information in three dimensions. And then the fourth dimension is of course time. So being able to follow a structure and the flow of energy and electrons in three dimensional space as it progresses in time, pushing time resolution shorter and shorter and shorter. Can [00:06:00] we track those processes? So that we can understand how function emerges. Because function is very often dynamic in nature. It's not just a static moment in time. It's the way that chemistry and electrons and so forth progress over time. Explain the user program at the foundry. How do people get involved in that? Sure. So the, the user program provides free access to scientists from all over the world [00:06:30] who have an interest in leveraging expertise, materials, capabilities, techniques and so on that we developed at the foundry to advance their science or technology. Speaker 3: And the mode that people use, the foundry takes all different forms. Uh, one of our favorites is for scientists to send a student or postdoc or a young researcher or in fact visit themselves, for example, for a sabbatical and then actually work with us. I buy side in our lab [00:07:00] can best learn the INS and outs of working with synthesizing, measuring whatever it is, the materials and techniques of interest to them. Um, we found that this is a very powerful way to expose young scholars to the potential for interdisciplinary research as we exercise it at the foundry for this new mode of doing science where people from all different disciplines are talking every day about problems to advance a state [00:07:30] of the art. That's been very productive and I think those students and postdocs go home really changed in their outlook on how they approach science and they bring some of that perspective back to their home labs. Speaker 3: They also, by the way, bring some perspective on our safety approach back to their home labs. And we really enjoy the success stories of having companies even and also academic research lab to use our approach to safety in particular [00:08:00] nanomaterial safety but safety in general as a blueprint for setting up their own labs or for reinvigorating the safety culture and so on if their own institution. So this mode of people coming and working with us and engaging in all with a whole variety of scientists and techniques in our labs and then going back home is then tremendously effective. We also spend time, you know, shipping samples back and forth, doing some characterization on other people's materials or vice versa, shipping our materials [00:08:30] out to people who have specialized characterization, approaches that compliment what we do well and this is in the spirit, I would say of good scientific collaboration in general. But the most exciting thing by far is to bring people together and mix up their ideas and their concepts and see new things emerge. Speaker 1: [inaudible]Speaker 2: you are listening to spectrum [00:09:00] on KALX Berkeley, our guest Delia mill iron of Lawrence Berkeley national lab is talking about her work in nanoscience and nanotechnology. Speaker 1: [inaudible]Speaker 2: can you talk about the safety guidelines that are in place at the molecular foundry and in working with nanomaterials? Speaker 3: Yeah, so nanomaterials because it's a relatively new science to deliberately craft them, [00:09:30] we still don't know in many cases, the ways in which their toxicology and the risk of exposure may differ from the same material found in bulk form. And because we have this uncertainty, we owe it to ourselves and to the environment to treat them with an elevated level of care. And so the Department of Energy was actually the first agency in the u s to create specific guidelines for handling [00:10:00] nanoscale materials in laboratory environments. I was actually part of that process several years ago and that policy is updated every year and it forms the basis for what we implement on the ground in the lab terms of safety procedures. For example, we're particularly concerned about any nanomaterials that are not firmly bound within a matrix or firmly bound to a substrate because these have the potential to become airborne [00:10:30] or volatilized or something like this. Speaker 3: So that we most focus on these, which we call it quote unquote unbound engineered nanoparticles, engineered meaning deliberately created and these are always handled in enclosed ventilated environments. So for us, things like glove boxes and fume hoods and then we validate that those kinds of environments do indeed protect workers from exposure by doing low background tests for particle counts during agitated [00:11:00] procedures. So we exaggerate the potential risk. We reduce the background particle count in the lab with a portable clean room and we use a very sensitive particle counter to see if any countable particles are generated in the workspace of the actual scientists working in the lab. Um, and this helps us form systematic approaches to handling materials in ways that don't cause any exposure. Speaker 2: Is the toxicology of nanomaterials [00:11:30] a growing area of study? And what about the interaction of nanomaterials outside of the lab in the environment? Speaker 3: Yes, definitely toxicology is a growing area of study, but you raise an important point, which is even before a nano material that's out in the world can interact with a biological organism. It experiences the environment. And so the first thing that's maybe preliminary in a way, but it is now taking place at the same time as [00:12:00] to understand the fate of nano materials in the environment. So how do they move through different kinds of soil and medium because surface effects are so important. How do molecules that are just found very commonly around us adhere to the surfaces and change the properties of the nanomaterials before they ever encounter the biological organisms because that will have a big effect then on their toxicology. So the fate of Nano materials in the environment is definitely a growing [00:12:30] area of study and we've had scientists at the foundry who have collaborated with geologists for example, to understand how soil conditions and ph and so forth can affect the transport of nanomaterials that are under consideration for solar energy applications. Should they end up released, how would they respond in different kinds of soil environments and be transported or or not. In some cases they are not readily transported and that's equally important to understand Speaker 2: [inaudible] so it becomes [00:13:00] a life cycle study. Yes, materials and those things can take a long time to really get a grasp of what the impact is. How then do we gauge the extent to which nanomaterials get leveraged in the short term and monitor the longterm impacts [inaudible] Speaker 3: I think monitoring is an important point, right? It will take even longer if we're not paying attention to learn how things interact with the environment and what their fate ultimately is. So the [00:13:30] science in the lab is important, but the science as technologies begin to be released is, is equally important to track what's happening in the real world. Um, in the meantime, it's important to be thoughtful about the expected life cycle of technologies, incorporating Nana materials. So recycling programs, encapsulation recovery, assessment of likelihood of release from a completed say [00:14:00] device, like a solar cell solar cells are completely encapsulated in glass, right? So the initial thought would be, well, if this, if everything's going right, there will be no nanomaterials released. But now what if that panel breaks? What's the likelihood of that? So asking these questions upfront and taking, you know, a responsible role in the life cycle of the technology, I think is essential, particularly given the uncertainties. Speaker 4: [inaudible] [00:14:30] our guest is Delia Mil iron, the deputy director of the Lawrence Berkeley national lab molecular foundry. She was a chemist working at the Nano scale. You are listening to spectrum on KALX Berkeley. Speaker 3: How much time do you spend paying attention [00:15:00] to other areas of science and technology? As much as I possibly can. I think inspiration in science comes from broad perspective and so I am as far as I could get from being a biologist as a physical scientist, but the concepts of how biological systems work are quite intricate and inspiring though new discoveries in biomechanical [00:15:30] processes and so on can become the seed. That gives me a new idea of how to put nanocrystals together in a way that generates totally new phenomena, for example. It's also just fascinating, honestly. I mean I've always been fascinated with science, so paying attention to the uh, developments and the exploration of Mars or in astrophysics. There's a tremendous fundamental physics community at the lab and I love to listen to them talk about the [00:16:00] discoveries they're making through telescope observations of distant supernovas and these sorts of things. Speaker 3: I won't say that I can point to any direct impact that's had on my work. But I think expanding your general perspective on the way the world works at all these different length scales and timescales and so on, it forms your context as a scientist and you know, maybe as a person as well. Are there collaborations in other fields you'd like to see grow? [00:16:30] So this idea of connecting biology more deliberately are the concepts of biology more deliberately to materials research, which is my area of investigation I think is quite powerful and under exploited at this stage. It's amazing what molecular biologists now understand about the mechanisms that underlie life and how molecules [00:17:00] interact in elaborate ways to synthesize DNA, to create proteins to, you know, at completely mild conditions, fold proteins up and do catalytic activity. Things that in the engineering world, you know, have traditionally been approached by brute force, you know, thousands of degrees c and so on. And so if we can take some of these concepts from biology and see [00:17:30] how they can affect the way we approach synthetic materials to a greater extent, I think this will be a very important opportunity. Of course there are some people doing this. I don't want to suggest that that's a totally new idea, but I think that connection could be a much broader avenue than what it has been so far. Do you feel there's an element of art in what you do? Speaker 3: I think so. I definitely enjoy art, although not highly skilled. [00:18:00] My Adventures and creating sculpture, you know, clay wood and so on in my mind are in harmony with what we do on the atomic length scale in the way we try to craft nanoscale materials or madams and then craft macro scale materials from those nanoscale materials, putting them together as these building blocks and it has a sculptural aspect to it. And definitely there's beauty in the images generated when we use all these amazing [00:18:30] cutting edge techniques to visualize our structures. Is there anything that we haven't talked about that you wanted to mention? I think the other comment I'd like to make going back to the molecular foundry and I lit up when you asked me, you know, what's the foundry about? Because I really think that the research environment do, the approach to scientific research being carried out at the molecular foundry is [00:19:00] a beautiful example for the way forward for science that science can be greatly accelerated in discovery of new terrain, new subject areas entirely through this mode of intense dynamic collaboration across fields. Speaker 3: I think it was somewhat deliberate and at the same time a bit of an accident that this emerged from the creation of the molecular foundry. What the [00:19:30] founders of the foundry did that was very smart was to hire a group of very young scientists who had an approach to science where they would clearly appreciate being involved in many different projects coming from many different perspectives. This was essential to make the user program work on your scientists must be enthusiastic about collaborating with all these different scientists who have different objectives, [00:20:00] different contexts and so on, but as a consequence of hiring that group of people and putting them together in one building, what naturally happened is we all started to interact in the same way with each other and the result is that you have a coupled series of dynamic feedback loops that greatly accelerate innovation. Speaker 3: One of them being between our science and that of our users and one of them being between the scientists internal to the building and [00:20:30] the results of that experiment really in scientific structure that's represented by the foundry are just starting to appear because we're still quite a young institution and I think that the impact of this sort of model is going to felt for a long time and is going to be replicated and mapped onto other research centers. We've already seen a lot of interests in understanding the way we do our science as research centers are being set up around the [00:21:00] world and that doesn't happen very often. That's an exciting deviation from the traditional department structure, single principal investigator directed research, as brilliant as one scientists and the research group may be. It lacks that dynamism that we have. So it's sort of a high of mentality to science, if you will, and that's really interesting and gonna yield a lot of fruit, I think. Speaker 2: Delia mill iron. Thanks very much for coming on spectrum. Thank [00:21:30] you. Speaker 1: [inaudible]Speaker 2: tours of the Lawrence Berkeley national lab are available monthly. The molecular foundry is on that tour. Just sign up for a tour, go to the Lawrence Berkeley [00:22:00] national lab website, which is lbl.gov Speaker 1: [inaudible].Speaker 2: A regular feature of spectrum is to mention a few of the science and technology events happening over the next two weeks. It's quiet time of the year, not a whole lot going on, but the Lawrence Hall of Science 3d Theater has daily screenings [00:22:30] of two films, space junk, and the last reef space junk is a visually explosive journey of discovery that ways the solutions aimed at restoring our planets. Orbits Space Junk runs through January 6th, 2013 the last reef was made with new macro underwater cinematography. The last reef reveals and astonishing world rarely seen at this scale. The film presents an unprecedented vision of the intriguing creatures that participate [00:23:00] in altering the geology of our planet. The last reef runs through May 5th, 2013 the exploratorium is leaving its only home at the Palace of fine arts and moving to piers 15 and 17 on the Embarcadero in downtown San Francisco. The new exploratorium will open in the spring of 2013 this coming January 2nd is the last day to experience the exploratorium as it is currently installed at the Palace of fine arts opened in 1969 [00:23:30] the exploratorium has evolved in this unwieldy space for 43 years. Catch one final glimpse. Wednesday, January 2nd, 2013 check the exploratorium website for special events on that final day. The website is exploratorium.edu Speaker 1: [inaudible]Speaker 2: for the new segment. I want to do something a little different. As the year [00:24:00] draws to a close. I want to offer a short update on salient, national and commercial space launch ventures. Starting with the u s NASA reports that the Orien spacecraft is coming together for its 2014 test flight. Orianna is a new capsule that will take human exploration beyond earth orbit for the first time in 40 years. The first unmanned flight test of Orien will be launched a top a Delta for rocket from Cape Kennedy. The capsule [00:24:30] will be flown 3,600 miles above the earth and then return to the earth at 5,000 miles per hour for re-entry. The reentry will test the heat yields the landing at sea and the u s navy's recovery of the capsule. The longer term plans are to test the same capsule launched on NASA's next heavy lift rocket dubbed the space launch system. Speaker 2: SLS in 2017 SLS will launch NASA's Orient Spacecraft and other [00:25:00] payloads beyond lower earth orbit providing an entirely new capability for human exploration. Space x, the U S Commercial Space Company has completed the first of a contracted 12 supply missions to the international space station. Space X is also working with NASA to develop and test the dragon capsule to allow it to transport humans to and from the international space station. On that point. In August, NASA announced the winners [00:25:30] of the commercial crew integrated capability funded space act agreements. This program is designed to supply NASA with a domestic commercial capability to transport humans into low earth orbit, specifically to the International Space Station and back. The winning companies are Boeing with a $460 million contract space x at $440 million and Sierra Nevada corporation receiving 212.5 million. [00:26:00] In June, 2012 China launched this shungite in nine spacecraft, a top a long march rocket. The spacecraft carried three crew members on a mission to dock with the Chinese space station. The mission was successful and is widely regarded as a major accomplishment for the Chinese based program. The mission will be repeated. In 2013 India marked its 101st space mission. October 1st of 2012 [00:26:30] with the launch of its heaviest communications. Satellite Gee sat 10 from French Guyana. The Indian Space Research Organization has 10 mission scheduled for 2013 the tentative capper is a plan in November, 2013 Mars orbiter to be done without any international help. Speaker 2: The Russian space program continues to struggle after a series of embarrassing failures in spacecraft launches and flight operations that have cast [00:27:00] the future of the entire program. In doubt, observers fear that the rise of cheaper, more modern and reliable commercial space companies in the United States will peel off Russia's spaced services customers who currently infuse $1 billion annually into the Russian space. Industry. Insiders say consolidation, innovation, and modernization are required to save the industry. Leadership and funding for such a revival program are missing. At this point. The European space [00:27:30] agency successfully launched seven Ariane five rockets from their space port in French, Guyana during 2012 the Arianne five has had 53 successful launches in a row since December, 2002 Speaker 5: [inaudible]Speaker 2: an interesting space, junk liability arose for the European Space Agency. When a large lower earth orbit satellite nearing the end of its fuel supply suddenly went silent. The satellite is now stuck in a prime orbit corridor [00:28:00] that will take 100 years to degrade and fall to earth during the next 100 years. This satellite may collide with other satellites. If it does, the European Space Agency is thought to be liable for the damage done. No removal method of space. Junk currently exists. That's it. Happy New Year. Speaker 1: [inaudible]Speaker 2: [00:28:30] the music heard on the show is by Los [inaudible]. David from his album folk and acoustic made available by a creative Commons license. 3.0 Speaker 1: attribution. [inaudible] thank you for listening to spectrum. If you have comments about the show, please send them to my severe eating and address is spectrum dot kalx@yahoo.com [00:29:00] chumminess in two weeks at this same time. [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [00:29:30] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible]. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Discussion with Sam Borgeson, a PhD student in the Energy and Resources Group at UC Berkeley. Sam’s aim is to reduce the environmental impacts of our buildings. He talks about building energy consumption, energy conservation, and the challenges building managers face in conservation.TranscriptSpeaker 1: [inaudible].Speaker 2: [00:00:30] Welcome to spectrum the science and technology show on k a l x, Berkeley, a biweekly 30 minute program, bringing you interviews, featuring bay area scientists and technologists, a calendar of local events and news. My name is Brad swift and I'm the host of today's show. Our interview is with three representatives of the organization, community resources for science, also known as crs. They are, relieves [00:01:00] a is cotton Nova crs program, Assistant Professor Bob Bergman of the UC Berkeley Department of chemistry. And Miriam Bowering, a graduate student and Professor Bergman's research group. Community Resources for Science is a nonprofit organization. The goal of crs is to help teachers give elementary and middle school students more opportunities to do science, to ask questions, test ideas, get their hands [00:01:30] on real science activities. Through these efforts, crs hopes to inspire the next generation of thinkers, makers, problem solvers, and leaders. This interview is prerecorded and edited today. We have a group of three people from the community resources for science talking with us about their program. And why don't you each introduce yourself and then we'll get into some details about your organization. Speaker 3: [00:02:00] My name is [inaudible]. Uh, I'm the program assistant at community resources for science. Speaker 4: My name is Bob Bergman. I'm a professor of chemistry at UC Berkeley. And I help to organize an outreach program, which was initially called chemistry in the classroom and then became community in the classroom and now it's called basis and it helps to organize graduate students to do presentations in the local schools. Speaker 3: I'm Miriam Bowering. I am a graduate student in chemistry at UC Berkeley [00:02:30] and I'm also a classroom volunteer. I bring groups of my coworkers into fifth grade classrooms to do science with them. Speaker 2: We're Alyssa, can you give us an overview of what crs does? Speaker 3: Community resources for science is an organization that was started by two parents who were involved with a lot of science in their children's schools and they decided that there was now enough science being done, so they figured out a way to individual teachers [00:03:00] get the resources that they need, uh, Ba snails from a local store or books that they need, um, or waste organized field trips. And it evolved into bringing scientists into classrooms to do hands on presentations as well. And that's grown from that? Uh, yeah. I mean now we're able to organize hundreds of volunteers that we have go into, uh, over 280 classrooms this past year [00:03:30] and get kids involved in doing actual science. And where is it that, uh, that you do this? What school districts? Uh, yeah, we are primarily in Alameda County and the Berkeley and Oakland School districts, uh, that we do the actual presentations because um, our volunteers can reach those areas most easily those schools. Speaker 3: But we go out and provide services to teachers and Castro valley as well. And some of the other West Contra Costa County [00:04:00] schools. What's the grade range that you try to impact? Crs as an organization has been supporting teachers k through five from its beginnings and we've started expanding into middle schools, so mostly sixth grade, um, because they still have one science teacher, but seventh and eighth they kind of start to branch out into different subjects. However, we do still work with teachers in seventh and eighth grade and we're very [00:04:30] willing to provide them with the personal support on an individual basis that they might need, you know, requesting resources and things like that. And we do go into middle schools and do science days where we have four or five lessons going on for different classrooms and they do, you know, one set in the morning and then they switch it around and do another set in the afternoon. And for teachers to get involved, how did they do that? Free?Speaker 5: Uh, yes it is. I think they can just visit the website, [00:05:00] which is www.crscience.org all the information they need is there. So they can not only contact crs to get scientists into their classrooms, but they can also look for other kinds of resources on the website there. Speaker 3: How do you find volunteers? How do you go about recruiting a, we actually recruited a lot more volunteers this past year than [00:05:30] we have in the past. And we're really excited about that. And thanks to our campus coordinators, Leah and Kristen, we were able to really reach out to 20 of the departments on campus and we have volunteers from 20th think what is their 21 departments here at UC Berkeley? So we're really proud of that. And Bob has done a great job of really getting the word out in the Department of Chemistry and college chemistry. A little bit about, how about the history of that is Speaker 4: this really started [00:06:00] almost accidentally. I was at a party and one of the people from crs was someone that my wife had gone to a graduate school at UC Berkeley with and she said that they were thinking about trying to get more scientists into the classrooms and wondered if I knew of anybody who wanted to do that. So I said I would go back to the campus and send out an email message in my department and just see if anyone was interested in doing that because it must have been seven or eight [00:06:30] years ago, I guess. And we started with a group of about 12 volunteers. Uh, we met in a seminar room in the chemistry department and I think it was probably one of the original organizers. It was probably Anne Jennings who came over and gave a short talk about what crs was all about and what they wanted to do to organize this program. Speaker 4: It's not a very simple thing. You not only need to have good contacts with the teachers, but, uh, you can't just throw people [00:07:00] into the classroom directly. You've got to give them some training and, you know, get them to understand what, um, what's age appropriate. Especially for the classes we were targeting, which were grades three to five. So we started with those 12 people and they basically, at that time, I put together their own presentations. And one of the interesting things about this program is that the graduate student volunteers actually come up with their own presentations, mostly isn't canned presentations that they get some [00:07:30] from somewhere else and they've come with, come up with some extremely creative stuff. Um, they're teaching kids at this level of things that I personally, you know, are really relatively sophisticated. And I personally never thought that you'd be able to, you know, sort of do this with people at that age. Speaker 4: But that was reasonably successful and it's really been the graduate student volunteers who've done most of the recruiting. So it started out in the chemistry department and these 12 original people [00:08:00] began to kind of, you know, dragoon their friends into doing this. And so it grew from 12 to 20 to 40 to 50 and then they began to attract and talk to some people in other departments. And then we reached a point where we thought that maybe there was a slightly different way that we could do this. They came up with the idea that maybe instead of doing this on an individual basis, we could do it with teams of graduate students. You may know that [00:08:30] that in most science departments, graduate students are part of research groups. So there'll be one professor who directs a, you know, a bunch of graduate students whom anywhere from three or four to 15 or 20 people, sometimes larger. Speaker 4: Uh, so the idea was to now put together teams that would be localized. Each team would be localized in a particular research group that and that has several advantages. One was that someone who wanted to do this didn't have to join in as kind of a lone individual. There's [00:09:00] always a certain reticence about that. The other thing that I think major advantage of this change was that it generated some continuity so that graduate students are not here forever or at least we hope they are not. And uh, as they graduate and before they graduate, they begin to bring in new students first year students who see that this program is going on and see that there are people who are interested in excited about it. And so that really is a major attraction for people to sign up. Speaker 1: [inaudible] [00:09:30] you are listening to spectrum on KALX Berkeley we are talking with release has gotten over Professor Bob Bergman and Miriam Bowering about their work with community resources for science. Speaker 4: Yeah, I would say that one of the other things [00:10:00] that I worried about when we started this program was what, what their response was going to be from the research directors. That professors that these graduate students we're working with. Okay. Because you know, you, you could envision, um, somebody giving these kids a hard time because you know, they should be in the lab doing research and here they are out doing presentations in the local schools. I've seen my role as trying to, at least in the chemistry department, keep the faculty informed about what's going on. So right from the beginning when we started [00:10:30] this, uh, I, you know, got up at several meetings. My Chemistry Department faculty meets once a week and I gave several very short presentations telling people that graduate students were going to be doing this and that we hope that everybody would be supportive of it because we thought it was not only good for them educationally, but it was a real service to the community. Speaker 4: One of the things that that actually made this thing go much more smoothly than I might've thought is that a lot of people are supported, their research is supported by the National Science Foundation at [00:11:00] Berkeley and the National Science Foundation has actually required as part of their proposals, something called a statement of broader impact. And one of those broader impacts that you can put into your proposals is something about how people in your research group might be, you know, reaching out to the local community. So I think as time went on, people began to view this not so much as an incursion, as a favor to them because they could easily then put in their proposals the fact that their students were [00:11:30] involved in this and these activities. And I think that really was one of the things that that made it a lot less of a problem to do this and many research groups around the, around the campus, what is the teaching philosophy you apply to building your lesson plans? Speaker 4: There's a lot of, you know, ambiguity's about the research that's been done in educating people. One thing comes through extremely clearly and that is the two general ways that you can think of [00:12:00] or for educating people, and this is really true at any level including the college level, are to stand up in front of them and just talk at them and the other is get people involved in doing things, have them actually do hands on stuff. On the two founders started this, they knew that that kind of research had been done and so they started from the beginning making it clear to people that they were not the volunteers. I mean that they were not going to go in the classroom and just a lecture. Okay, just write things on the board and tell people stuff because [00:12:30] certainly at grades three to five and probably at even higher grades, you're going to lose people after about the first three minutes when you do that. So the, the goal of right from the beginning was to go in with presentations that involved having the kids do stuff that with their own hands and that's been something that we've stuck with really I think quite religiously since the beginning. Speaker 5: Definitely all lessons are expected to be hands on minds, [00:13:00] on, uh, inquiry style work. And Bob mentioned that the typical way you get to scientists in a classroom is someone's mom or dad comes in. And also typically what you get is someone's stands at the front and maybe doesn't talk but maybe just blow something up up there, which is fun for everyone. But it's, it's really great to go in there and gives the kids equipment to play with and let them start figuring things out themselves and, [00:13:30] and be able to guide them. I think it's also interesting to see the way we're able to even help educate teachers a little bit about how science works. So I've seen some really amazing teachers through this program, but you know, none of them are scientists and a lot of them don't really understand basically what it takes to be a scientist. Speaker 5: So at the end we usually give a few minutes to talk about any questions the teacher or students might have. And the teachers say, well, what does it take to be a scientist? Um, [00:14:00] and we might say, well just keep observing the world around you. Stay curious, play with things. And the teacher says, so what they meant to say was study hard and no, no, that's not it. You've got to be able to nurture that natural curiosity kids have. So I think that's a big part of what we do is go in there and kill some myths about what it takes to be a scientist. The great thing about the graduate [00:14:30] students that go in is they shatter stereotypes about scientists for the children. What do you see clip art style in your head when someone says scientist. Right. And that's not what ends up in their classroom. And that's really beautiful to see them kind of taken aback by that. When scientists first in, you know, Speaker 3: young and most of our volunteers are female actually, which is another great plus and young female scientists [00:15:00] doing things that kids didn't think was science. Speaker 4: Yeah. I think that it just turns out that graduate students are almost the ideal place in people's Times of life to do this. I have a bit more time flexibility. They still are still working very hard on their research, but you know, it's not, you know, okay, you have to be here at eight o'clock in the morning, you have to leave at five, you know, the way you would in a corporation setting. They're not overly wellmed with classes, at least not [00:15:30] after the first couple of semesters. So they have some flexibility in, in that regard. And there's a reasonable support from the institution. Right. I think that's a big issue that the, the campus and you know, and uh, as I said to a large extent, the, you know, people's research advisors have really provided a lot of at least moral support for this. And so it, it really makes graduate students almost ideal. Speaker 4: I think what relates is said about, you know, shattering these stereotypes is also has been a really interesting sort of eye opener for me. [00:16:00] It really is true that these kids have a very different stereotype about what scientists are from what they see coming into the classrooms and having people who they see almost as kind of corresponding to s you know, to a big sister or cousin or you know, somebody that, you know, they really can relate to I think has had a big effect. And then having people at, you know, sort of the student time of their lives when they're still young enough to be, to be seen as young people by the kids in the classrooms [00:16:30] as I think been an important facet of this. [inaudible] Speaker 1: [inaudible] you are listening to spectrum on k a l x Berkeley. We are talking with releases, got Nova Professor Bob Burg and Miriam Bowery about their work with community resources for science. Speaker 3: [00:17:00] How do you assess the impact your presentations have on students? Speaker 4: Um, no. You put your finger on one of the stickiest issues with respect to all of this kind of thing with respect to education in general, which is not only how do you find out if it works, but how do you define what works? And you know, whether something works and what doesn't, [00:17:30] I think when all of us like to do in the most perfect world is, is actually track the people who experience these presentations and see what difference it makes in their lives. Okay. So this is a big deal, right? Because if you know anything about research in general and educational research, it's not enough to just track the people who have had this experience. You've got to have a control group of people who haven't had the experience, right? And then you've got to track two groups. [00:18:00] And you know, in some ways it's, it's like having a drug that's really effective. Speaker 4: There's a real moral question as to whether it's okay to keep a control group that isn't, doesn't have access to this stuff. Right? But assuming you can do that, um, it would require way more resources than we have to track people, let's say to the point where they've applied to college, right? Or even to the point where they've gone through college to see how successful they've been once they've been in that environment. What we hope and what we sort of believe [00:18:30] deep in our hearts completely intuitively is that people who have these experiences will do better later in their educational lives. But proving that in a scientifically respectable way is a major undertaking and it's one that we really don't have resources for by any means right now. So, you know, we're pretty much working under the, the faith I guess that exposing people to this sort of thing will really make them [00:19:00] more interested in science. Speaker 4: So we really believe quite strongly that a, a major impact of this is not just, you know, generating people who, who might turn out to be scientists. Although we certainly hope that would be one of the things that that happens. But we'd really like to educate the general public on scientific issues, how science is done and why it's exciting and the meaning of many scientific investigations is, and we hope that by catching people catching, you know, kids early and [00:19:30] doing this, uh, really will have a lasting effect. The best we can do is get feedback from the people involved in the program and see whether they like it. And if they like it and they feel it's been successful and there you are at the point at which they're experiencing these presentations, if if they're excited about what we're doing. That's what we're going with. Speaker 5: This is the great thing about community resources for science. There is a staff there who are experts in science education, [00:20:00] so I sent my lesson plan draft to Heidi Williamson who coordinates the basis program and she read it. She gave me a long email with lots of suggestions of various levels of detail and I worked them in and I continued to develop as now my team members are giving me feedback and so are the teachers. So the lessons really do get improved over time from that first draft. It's not, it's not just any graduate student can make something up and go in and help the kids [00:20:30] learn something. There really is some accountability [inaudible] Speaker 4: are there any interesting stories that any of you have that you want to share about classroom experiences with with the program? Speaker 5: My favorite moments in there are when kids really put stuff together. So when they hear what we've told them and they make their observations and then they just come up with something good at their own theory for why a water job looks different from an [00:21:00] oil drop and it really makes sense or why you can get a piece of pencil lead to float on water if it's horizontal but not vertical. And when they can explain that themselves after making the observations, it's just, it's incredibly high ventilation rates if you're not right under the dots, but they actually aren't accomplishing anything in terms of air quality. So that's my plug, I guess, for people to pay attention and think about their environment. Sam Bergeson, thanks [00:21:30] for being on spectrum. Oh, it's my pleasure. Thanks for having me. Speaker 1: [inaudible]Speaker 2: did you see an example of data visualization? Check out the official campus dashboard at the website. My power.berkeley.edu Speaker 1: [inaudible]Speaker 2: [00:22:00] irregular feature of spectrum is dimension. A few of the science and technology events happening locally over the next few weeks. Rick Karnofsky and Lisa cabbage with the calendar Speaker 6: on Saturday, December 1st wonderfest is putting on a special event called end of days. Does Hollywood get doomsday? Right? Planetary Scientists, Chris McKay will discuss this topic as he introduces a special screening of seeking a friend for the end of the world. Starting [00:22:30] Steve Grill and Karen Knightley popcorn is free and a no host drink and candy bar. We'll be there. Tickets are tax deductible and benefit wonderfest and variety children's charity of northern California. They must be purchased in advance for $25 visit wonderfest.org for more info. The annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union is the first week of December at the Moscone Center. Each year they have a public lecture that is [00:23:00] free and open to the public. This year that talk is on Sunday, December 2nd from noon to one and Moscone South Room One oh two lead scientists for the Mars exploration program. Michael Meyer program scientists for the Mars Science Laboratory. John Groton, seeing and participating in scientists on the Mars Science Laboratory. Rebecca Williams, well discuss curiosity driven Mars exploration. Curiosity is the most sophisticated explorer ever sent to another [00:23:30] planet and the trio. We'll talk about its latest activities. A full sized inflatable model of the rover and hands on activities for families will follow the lecture. For more information, visit agu.org Speaker 7: on Tuesday, December 4th at 7:00 PM at the California Academy of Science and Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, Mary Ellen Hannibal. We'll present the Pritzker lecture, the spine of the continent, her book about one of the single most [00:24:00] ambitious conservation efforts ever undertaken to create linked, protected areas extending from the Yukon to Mexico, the entire length of North America. This movement is the brainchild of Michael Sule, the founder of conservation biology. EO Wilson calls it the most important conservation initiative in the world today. In this fascinating presentation, Mary-Ellen Hannibal takes us on a tour of her travels down the length of the North American spine, sharing stories and anecdotes about [00:24:30] the passionate, idiosyncratic people she meets along the way and the species they love. Reservations are required and seating is limited. Go to the California Academy of Science website for tickets. Speaker 6: Now three new stories, and I'm joined by Rick Kaneski and Lisa cabbage. The November 29th issue of nature has an article discussing a massive black hole in the tiny galaxy, n g c one two seven seven one of the galaxies in the cluster that is [00:25:00] the constellation Perseus to the best of our astronomical knowledge. Almost every galaxy should contain in its central region what is called a supermassive black hole. Past studies have shown that the mass of the black coal typically accounts for about a 10th of a percent of the massive its home galaxy that Max Planck Institute for Astronomy. In Heidelberg. Researchers know that the black hole has a mass equivalent of 17 billion suns, that the galaxy [00:25:30] is only a quarter of the milky ways diameter. These observations made with the Hubble Space Telescope and the Hobby Eberly telescope show that the black hole accounts for almost 14% of the galaxies mass past spectrum guests. Nicholas McConnell published a paper last year that holds the current record for the largest black hole, which is between six and 37 billion solar masses. So the black hole in NGC one to seven seven may or may [00:26:00] not top this record. Speaker 7: The journal Nature Geoscience reports this week that the shells of marine snails known as terra pods living in the seas around Antarctica are being dissolved by ocean acidification. These tiny animals are a valuable food source for fish and birds and play an important role in the oceanic carbon cycle. During a science cruise in 2008 researchers from British Antarctic survey and the University of East Anglia in collaboration with colleagues from the [00:26:30] u s would tell oceanographic institution and Noah discovered severe dissolution of the shells of living terra pods in southern ocean waters. The team examined an area of upwelling where winds cause cold water to be pushed upwards from the deep to the surface of the ocean up well, water is usually more corrosive to a particular type of calcium carbonate or arrogant night that terra pods use to build their shells. The team found that as a result of the additional influence of ocean acidification, [00:27:00] this corrosive water severely dissolve the shells of terror pods, coauthor and science cruise leader. Speaker 7: Dr Geraint Tarling says as one of only a few oceanic creatures that build their shells out of air gunnite in the polar regions. Terror pods are an important food source for fish and birds as well as a good indicator of ecosystem health. The tiny snails do not necessarily die as a result of their shells dissolving. However, it may increase their vulnerability to predation and infection. Consequently having an [00:27:30] impact to other parts of the food web. Ocean acidification is caused by the uptake of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere emitted admitted as a result of fossil fuel burning. The finding supports predictions that the impact of ocean acidification on marine ecosystems and food webs may be significant Speaker 2: science daily reports that dozens of climate scientists have reconciled their measurements of ice sheet changes in Antarctica and Greenland over the past two decades. [00:28:00] The results published November 29th in the journal Science roughly have the uncertainty and discard some conflicting observations. The effort led by Andrew Shepherd at the University of Leeds in the UK reconciles three existing ways to measure losses. The first method takes an accounting approach. Combining climate models and observations to tally up the gain or loss to other methods. Use special satellites to precisely measure the height and gravitational pull [00:28:30] of the ice sheets to calculate how much ice is present. Each method has strengths and weaknesses. Until now, scientists using each method released estimates independent from the others. This is the first time they have all compared their methods for the same times and locations. Understanding ice sheets is central to modeling global climate and predicting sea level rise. Even tiny changes to sea level when added over an entire ocean can have substantial [00:29:00] effects on storm surges and flooding and coastal and island communities. Speaker 8: The music heard during the show is by Stan David from his album, folk and acoustic made available by a creative Commons license 3.0 for attribution. Speaker 9: Thank you for listening to spectrum. If you have comments about the show, please [00:29:30] send them to us via email. Our email address is spectrum dot k a l x@yahoo.com join us in two weeks at this same. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Discuss Mr. Ahmadi’s attempt to open a grocery store in West OaklandTRANSCRIPTSpeaker 1:Okay. Okay. Okay. Speaker 2:Listen to KLX Berkeley 90.7 a fan and this is method to the madness, the show about the innovative spirit of the bay area. I'm your host Tallinn Huizar and today we have Brahma Matti with us, the founder of people's community market. Welcome. Brahm good to be here. What is the problem you're trying to solve? Sure. Well, I've been working in the community food movements, so to speak [00:00:30] for about the last 10 years. And the majority of my work has been in West Oakland right here in San Francisco Bay area, low income neighborhood, about 25,000 residents, predominantly African American and Latino. And that community has faced for a long time a real problem of having access to good quality, uh, groceries and food products, um, immediately in the neighborhood in a convenient and affordable way. Um, in fact, the neighborhood has not had a full service grocery store [00:01:00] for quite some time and has really suffered on and off over a number of decades, uh, having a consistent grocery, uh, available. Speaker 2:And the real issue with this is not just that it's a complete hassle for residents because what it means is that, uh, they have to leave the neighborhood by and large to shop. And for a lot of residents, they don't own their own vehicle, so they're relying on public transportation or walking. Uh, so it's really hard to do that on a consistent basis. [00:01:30] Um, and so they tend to rely on what is locally available and, and, uh, that tends to be predominantly corner stores or liquor stores, uh, which of course are not really focused on fresh food or healthy food options per say, or even a, a a satisfactory range of products that residents can really rely on. Um, but nonetheless, people are somewhat depending on the options that are conveniently available, again, because there's someone bound to that neighborhood or at least a good portion of residents are. Speaker 2:And [00:02:00] so this is having pretty substantial health impacts in, in West Oakland. Uh, of course our countries at this point, you know, sees with it with a public health crisis, particularly on obesity and diabetes and what have you. Communities, like West Oakland have disproportionately higher rates of all of these problems. So West Oakland, uh, is in the 67th percentile for diabetes, which is very, very high. Uh, and uh, almost half of the residents are overweight or, or considered obese. Um, and [00:02:30] diabetes is very prevalent through the neighborhood. And of course there are a lot of different factors that contribute to, uh, health or ill health. Uh, but certainly diet is one of the most important factors, uh, that, um, really matters. And so 10 years ago, uh, I, and a number of my colleagues I was doing community organizing work at the time, really began to look at this problem specifically in West Oakland. Speaker 2:Uh, and the way that came about for was [00:03:00] that we were having meetings with community residents around environmental justice campaigns, which is looking at other sort of issues of social and economic equity and land use and policy and health. Um, and in those meetings where we're talking about campaigns and what do residents want in terms of, uh, what they're demanding from, for example, a polluter in the neighborhood or from, from a city. Um, the city government, uh, we were often getting this feedback that a big problem in the neighborhood [00:03:30] was just not being able to get access to good foods, um, affordable, particularly fresh and particularly in the perishable product categories. Uh, and, and we just kept hearing it again and again and again. Um, and residents, even at that time, 10 years ago now, we're already making the connections between their diets and their health. Speaker 2:You know, it's all the rage now to be talking about the connections between, uh, you know, eating and prevention and health outcomes. Uh, and it's often assumed that low income people aren't making those connections, [00:04:00] but, but that's completely wrong. They very much are. And so they were really communicating that with us and I think felt that as organizers, you know, we should do something about it. Okay. So, and you know, historically there's always been low income communities. Is it always been the, they haven't been serviced or has there been a change over times or kind of as supermarkets came into vogue, they just couldn't service those communities and there used to be like a neighborhood grocery store everywhere, right? There did. Yeah. I think that the beginning of this problem, [00:04:30] uh, really began, uh, sort of post World War II, uh, moving into, uh, a development pattern really across the United States, um, where you've started to see fairly substantial shifts in population from urban cores to new suburbs. Speaker 2:So, you know, a lot of Gis came back and they were able to get a home and what have you. Uh, so you saw essentially a flight of capital, uh, as people moved. Uh, and as [00:05:00] a result of that, one of the results of that was a concentration of lower income people in the remaining urban core. Um, and so the economies sort of lost their foundation. Um, so that was a key factor. The spending power just dropped to the point where for a lot of grocers, they just couldn't sustain themselves in, in that kind of a neighborhood anymore because of the demographic changes. Uh, the same time, the reality was that the supermarkets were following the shift, so [00:05:30] they wanted to move to the suburbs as well, partly because that's where the spending power was going. [inaudible] and secondly, because there was an important development in industry around that time around 1950s, uh, which is the dominant retail model today, which is towards larger footprint store formats, uh, you know, the economies of scale and efficiencies that can come from that. Speaker 2:That sort of consolidation of the larger market range and what have you and, and the volume that could be derived all was more attractive and sort of the New Paradigm in [00:06:00] the supermarket and grocery business. The other important piece to that is the availability of large land for parking lots and of course in the 50s was the real rise of the home ownership for the single family in the United States. So I think we saw both, uh, interesting trends in, uh, urban development and policy and planning and sort of overall shifts in population. And we also saw some interesting changes in the industry itself towards consolidation towards larger footprint formats. And as a [00:06:30] result, the shutting down of both smaller stores, uh, and, and, and stores particularly in these urban cores, which had been somewhat decimated as a result of this, this trend. Okay. Yeah. Interesting. This is, this is where listening to problem id here on method to the madness on KALX Berkeley. Speaker 2:And so tell us a little bit about how your background and how you kind of, you got it. You said you were community organizing. How did you get there? I got into community organizing really when I was a kid. So I grew up in [00:07:00] a far eastern La County and southern California. And, um, my early teens I kinda got turned on by some community issues, particularly around environmental justice. The neighbor I lived in was predominantly Latino and there were a number of environmental problems. They're polluting sites and factories that were, you know, emitting carcinogens into the air or, you know, that particular neighborhood had a higher rate of asthma or cancer or whatever. Um, and so I got pretty into that really early [00:07:30] on, um, you know, like 16, 17 years old. And, um, just started volunteering and getting involved in these different campaigns. And then I went to college, I went to Santa Cruz, um, and I started coming up to the bay area on the weekends and volunteering with environmental justice organizations here, like communities for a better environment and green action and literacy for environmental justice, um, helping out with different, uh, campaigns around the bay area. Speaker 2:And then eventually, uh, got a job as an organizer for one of those organizations, uh, and did the mindful justice [00:08:00] work for several years. And it was also doing youth development work as well, primarily with urban youth, low income youth. Um, and then, you know, this, this food access problem emerged and kept coming up. And, and I and my colleagues who eventually went on to found people's Grocery, the nonprofit organization, um, really wanted to make a a shift personally in the work we were doing and creating change and, and social justice in the world. I think we were getting a little bit tired, uh, of [00:08:30] the organizing model that we were working in, um, long hours, not regretting buying. Um, and really hard frankly to feel a sense of accomplishment outside of the objective of shutting something down. That was Kinda the, the measure of success at the time and the Environment Justice Movement of course to its credit, its changed since, has very different kind of objectives these days. Speaker 2:But back then your call was a shut somebody down and get rid of them altogether. Um, and while that was absolutely essential, uh, and PR, you know, very [00:09:00] likely is contributing to better health in the community or at a minimum preventing more sickness. It was really hard to feel a sense of a real impact in terms of advancing progress, especially in low income neighborhoods. And so we were at the same time beginning to get turned on around this whole idea of social entrepreneurship, which 10 years ago, you know, 2001, 2002 was really starting to emerge as this very popular thing here in the United States. And, uh, we attended the social enterprise alliance conference and then eventually a social [00:09:30] venture network conference and were like, this is really neat. We could create a business in the neighborhood that creates jobs and creates economic value while at the same time having an impact on some social health need. Speaker 2:In our case, we were interested in this food issue. Um, and so we initially thought that the best way to go actually was to open a grocery store. I think we had the, the sense, even though we had no experience in that business, that a grocery store was going to provide the most convenience to the neighborhood. Um, in terms of a fixed location [00:10:00] and regular operating hours and abroad selection and what have you. Um, but we also knew that we didn't have the know how to do that. We had no business background whatsoever. None of us. Um, and so we decided to sort of keep that vision in that goal of opening a community grocery store that had, you know, be a goals beyond just retailing quality foods really w could provide a means of engaging the community and, and offering additional value where it was needed in the neighborhood. Speaker 2:Um, [00:10:30] but in the short term we would develop smaller food projects that could on the one hand, begin to address the immediate local need in West Oakland. And on the other hand could begin to give us that first hand experience and sort of knowledge and track records, so to speak, of marketing fresh foods and healthy foods in the low income neighborhood, uh, and providing education and providing job training to that population. Uh, with this sort of sense that eventually we could come full circle [00:11:00] to pursuing the opening of a grocery store and that we would have a stronger foundation to do that with. So people's grocery was the, you're the main attempt to realize this vision, right? Exactly. Was sort of solution 1.0 so to speak. For us it was a, it was a nonprofit organization still exists and it's doing very well today. Um, and it's, it's um, it became a mix of these various projects. Speaker 2:Um, we worked a lot in creating and experimenting with smaller scale food [00:11:30] projects that could distribute food to the neighborhood. So for example, uh, we are very first project was called the mobile market. We literally took an old postal truck and we tricked it out, uh, into a small grocery store on wheels. And this is back before food trucks were their age. Um, and we drove around the neighborhood on a fixed route and schedule three or four days a week stopping central locations and carried a mix of fresh and packaged goods, um, and learned a lot and engaged a lot of people in that process. This truck was [00:12:00] bright purple and orange. It had an 800 watt sound system. It smelled like French fries cause they ran on biodiesel until we caught a lot of attention. And that was really our goal as can be organizers. Speaker 2:That's what we knew how to do, was interact with, with the neighborhood and, and start conversations and what have you. Um, and so we developed a number of different small projects over the years, a little like the mobile market. We also did a lot in urban agriculture developing a variety of food production projects, whether they were school gardens [00:12:30] or community gardens or, uh, greenhouse projects. Uh, and we even ran a four and a half Acre farm for a number of years. And we also, and I think increasingly, uh, continue to go deeper and deeper into education as well. Health Education, food education. Um, because we saw that as really a fundamental piece to the whole equation, uh, not only a, of solving the access problem in the sense that, uh, encouraging people to try out and purchase healthier [00:13:00] foods that are better for, you know, their health needs. Um, but they could also in the longterm create the kind of market conditions to succeed at a retail effort. Speaker 2:Um, by having some sort of critical mass of residents that we were really wanting to support a local independent grocer and really having an understanding on what that was and why it was great for the neighborhood in terms of the economic multiplier and the job creation and what have you. So people's grocery really developed many, many different projects. [00:13:30] And part of our approach was just to experiment kind of wildly with ideas. We were the first to do a mobile market in the country, um, and learned a lot from that. And since many, many other groups around the u s uh, have developed and are even today running mobile markets, uh, and we've been able to share our learning and sort of what we documented and learn from it with those, those projects. Um, and then I think round about 2008 or so, we sort of assessed, [00:14:00] uh, that we, we had come to that place in the organizational life cycle, uh, where we were well positioned to return back to pursuing this original goal of opening a grocery store. Speaker 2:We had built this huge base in the neighborhood. We had all of this firsthand experience in street creds, so to speak. The organization was locally and nationally recognized for its efforts. So people's grocery didn't, wasn't actually a storefront. It was never was a store. It was the mobile truck. It was a bunch of other, exactly. Yeah. [00:14:30] And the name is a little confusing. It came out of our original idea of opening your groceries. Gotcha. Um, and when we decided to put that on hold, we still liked the name, so we kept the name and call it the nonprofit people's grocery. And, um, so at that point in 2008, we said, okay, I think, I think we're ready for this. And the nonprofit can provide the strong foundation, uh, for going forward and bringing all of our insights and sort of knowledge from [00:15:00] all these different projects and experiments and all of the feedback that we had gathered from residents, um, to, to implement a business model. Speaker 2:Um, and, and a really important piece behind all of this wasn't just that we felt ready organizationally, but we were seeing that these small scale projects ultimately were not effective at closing the gap and meeting the need at the scale at which that gap in need exists. So West Oakland, uh, is a, a really a larger [00:15:30] food market than people might automatically assume. It's about a $60 million annual market for groceries. And of that, about 70% of those expenditures are leaking out of the neighborhood every single year, uh, presently. Uh, and so that's substantially kitchen substantial losses to the local economy. But what it really represents, probably more important is just the total hassle and headache for these residents that have to leave West Oakland every time they want to shop at a full service grocery store. [00:16:00] So let me ask a question about the, the business of this because you know, it's really interesting how you talked about your evolution of coming from breaking down barriers or breaking down organizations that you thought were, you know, were were socially injustice or are going to building and being a socially entrepreneur, social entrepreneur, but you didn't know anything about groceries. Speaker 2:You didn't know anything about this business. So you know, you think that the Safeways of the world, they've got a lot of numbers behind their [00:16:30] decisions to, to where they're going to open their markets. So if it's such a big market there, how are you able to come in and actually create an organization that is able to, you know, be sustainable from an economic perspective? Yeah. Well I think there are few few points to the answering that I think the, the most immediate one is that frankly, the majority of established operators have not been interested in low income neighborhoods for a long time. Almost irrespective of the market demand and spending power. It's there. That has [00:17:00] a lot to do with I think a related in secondary point, which is the, again, the dominant business model today in the grocery and supermarket business, uh, is a very large footprint format. Speaker 2:And in a neighborhood like West Oakland where you have high density in development, uh, it's very cost prohibitive to be able to build a store of that size. So for example, there was a recent attempt by the city of Oakland to bring in a large operator. The plan was to build a 70,000 [00:17:30] square foot store in West Oakland, which the numbers, again the market numbers would support. The problem was to do this, they had to acquire an assemble four or five different properties together. Um, and all these other levels of complexity around contamination costs and clean up costs and what have you. And so at the end of the day, the project didn't pencil and yet these operators, I like Safeway only. No. At this point I would wager any anyway only know how to operate at the larger footprint. They [00:18:00] no longer really know how to go back to a smaller neighborhood scale format or are not really interested in doing that anymore. Speaker 2:They've got a good thing going and as long as they can continue to penetrate new markets where that format can operate, there's not a lot of incentive for them to really change their business model or spin off different ones. So your advantage is the scale you're looking at. You're, you're okay with being a smaller operator. In fact, that's exactly, I think what is needed to appropriately serve this neighborhood. So I'm very, [00:18:30] very biased in favor of independent grocers, partly because a, I actually think that they face less barriers to entry in these type of markets situations. Uh, the cost of entry can be lower because they're tending to operate at a smaller footprint, but also because they conserve a specific local community in a much more customized, even intimate way that grocer knows exactly what that set of residents and families wants [00:19:00] and can very quickly cater to those preferences versus a centralized, you know, buying chain in a large corporation, the chain of command to make a small decision around a product shift on a particular shelf can take weeks or months if it ever happens. Speaker 2:Uh, and the, the service isn't nearly as good. Um, not only in terms of, for example, the knowledge and the friendliness of the staff, uh, but the relationship, knowing [00:19:30] people's names, their families, uh, what's going on in their lives, there's really being able to have that rapport. Um, you know, I may be a little bit romantic in this area, but I really think that people still very much desire that quality. In fact, I think there's a resurgence in a lot of neighborhoods, not just low income neighborhoods or in many neighborhoods to have connection, uh, with their local community, their local economy, the businesses that are there then that serve them, uh, and go beyond just an informal transaction to actually having [00:20:00] some degree of a relationship. And I think all of that gives independent grocers a, a competitive advantage in these marketplaces where they can adapt and be much more nimble, they can serve much more effectively. Speaker 2:Uh, and the data really proves that, that they tend to outperform larger format operations that operate in similar demographic market places. Uh, and they most certainly out innovate because again, they're not infringed by a large central decision making process. So if they want to partner with a church [00:20:30] or nonprofit or bring in a farmer and they can do all of that with a very little fanfare, whereas larger chains have to go through a lot to kind of bring those kinds of changes into the way they do business. Very interesting. Yeah, bureaucracy is bad. So I think in this case it the, um, nimbleness. It's necessary to succeed in what is already in you. A fairly challenging demographic area. Sure. Speaker 3:Okay. Well, we are listening to method to the madness on KALX Berkeley 90.7 FM. My name is Ali Nasar [00:21:00] and today we have Brahma Mati on with us. He is the founder of peoples community markets. So let's talk about your latest manifestation of the vision. Yeah. People's community market. So you said about 2008 you realize that you had enough street cred to start actually building the vision of an actual market. So where are we with that now? So I left the nonprofit Speaker 2:in 2010 we hired a great executive director, Nikki Henderson, who took my place. And then I went and actually finished getting my MBA and took some time off after 10 [00:21:30] plus years of nonprofit burnout and what have you. Ah, and then I, it sort of late 2010, fall of 2010 jumped into the process of planning and design, uh, around, you know, the premise that, uh, there needed to be, uh, some real, uh, customization, uh, and adaptation of the retail business model to the specific neighborhood, whether that was in format and footprint, uh, whether that was in product mix, uh, and sort of targeting the cultural desires [00:22:00] of the particular neighborhood, whether that was in the way that we partnered with nonprofit or healthcare organizations to be able to support our offerings with the education and the community engagement pieces. Uh, and so we spent about nine months going through pretty intensive planning process ranging from, you know, architectural design, uh, to really thinking about personnel structure and ownership structure and all these, you know, typical questions that are, that are business, uh, is going to go through [00:22:30] a, and then a roundabout, I suppose, Spring of 2011, uh, we came to a place where we felt ready to begin pursuing financing. Speaker 2:Um, and where we began to get our, our momentum was through an interaction with a have fun that launched in July of 2011 called the California FreshWorks fund. This is a fund that was spearheaded by the California endowment, [00:23:00] uh, which brought in a number of other philanthropic and health partners. Uh, Kaiser for example, is a partner in this, uh, Calvert Foundation and eventually brought in a number of private banking institutions to contribute capital as well. It's a very large fund and it is solely dedicated to financing grocery stores and underserved communities in the state of California. And as a certain degree of commitment to independent grocers, I think with a similar analysis that independent groceries tend to serve these better, these communities [00:23:30] better or can at least customize more appropriately. And, um, also a certain commitment to grocers that are themselves committed to healthy food propositions, whether that's the core of their brand and their offering or they're willing to, uh, make changes, um, and, and make that a more central feature of their business model. Speaker 2:Uh, so the California fresh works fund, um, expressed an interest in providing a loan to us. And of course we were a startup. And so they [00:24:00] said, you know, you guys are a perfect fit in terms of your business plan and value proposition and brand and positioning. Uh, and we would definitely consider a fairly substantial loan, potentially up to 70% of your overall financing needs. However you got to go raise your equity capital first. Um, that's just an underwriting requirement for them. And so we said, wow, okay. You know, that sounds like an opportunity that we can utilize as leverage when we talk to private capital sources that we have this potential loan opportunity, fairly significant one. Speaker 3:What's the total [00:24:30] amount you need to tell him? Speaker 2:It's a bit of a moving target, but it's basically at this point it's somewhere between 3.4 and three point $6 million. Speaker 3:So you need, for the listeners, you need about a million bucks of cash, but an investor and the rest of that money will be made up via a loan from the fund. You're talking about, ideally, something like that. Speaker 2:Trying to, uh, be optimistic that they will continue that commitment with this. Speaker 3:Great. So, um, it's a, it's a beautiful vision. You're in the throws of the entrepreneurship right now, which this show is very much about innovation. [00:25:00] And I've talked to people in different parts of their innovative cycle right now. It's kind of a really important time for you guys cause you're doing the financing part, but let's say that that happens and let's say that I always like the end of the show to talk about the vision. Let's say five, 10 years from now poo people's community market. It exists to vision comes full. Yeah. What's it gonna look like? Well, in your wildest dreams, what kind of impact would it have on West Oakland? Speaker 2:Well, there are three, minimally three there probably really four [00:25:30] needs that, that we're hoping to have some impact on. The first and foremost obviously is, is just improving the community's access to good foods, fresh perishable products in particular. That's the, the largest gap in the neighborhood. Um, and, and also prepared foods is one of the other big gaps in the community. West Oakland on in lacks grocery stores. It lacks any kind of quality sit down, family oriented eatery or restaurant and there's no cafes or anything like that at all. Um, so prepare for [00:26:00] these programs, a fairly substantial part of this and we would love to have a really interesting fun and somewhat targeted menu, uh, to the cultural, uh, neighborhood. Um, particularly the African American and Latino community. Um, the other, another really big need in the neighborhood is, is sort of a safe, positive places for social interaction. Speaker 2:Again, no cafes, no real community venues where people can just sort of show up and hang out and socialize or attend an event or check [00:26:30] out a performance or anything like that. Again, residents pretty much have to leave the neighborhood to be able to participate in those kinds of things. Um, and you know, they're doing it and so we know that if there was a local option, they would likely participate in that. So interesting. Part of our plan vision for this is that in addition to the retail store, the retail format and footprint where we're selling product a, there is an additional space that we're calling the front porch. And the front porch is basically, uh, a semi-open [00:27:00] aired, uh, community venue and, and Patio in courtyard. So it has a, a stage and seating and or private plans actually have a children's play area, a little rip off from the McDonald's playbook and have a little children's space where so parents can bring their kids and hang out, um, and really be able to provide a positive venue. Speaker 2:So the basic idea is that what can we do to enhance both the attributes of our store as a destination in the neighborhood beyond just quality food retailing. Uh, and what additional value can we provide to our customers [00:27:30] if they're coming to shop already. What else can we do in a cost effective way that serves them better and meet some additional need? And ideally for us, has a, uh, an upside in terms of our, our business. Um, so I think, you know, what I would love to see is obviously a thriving retail business that, uh, is linked into sort of regional economy of food economy in terms of we work with a lot of great vendors and producers and bringing great foods that are available [00:28:00] in this region to this neighborhood. Um, but there's also just a lot of, it's a hub. It's a lot of interaction and hanging out and conversation taking place. Speaker 2:So it's not necessarily purely about sales and moving product out the door. It's really being able to provide a positive space where people feel like they can come to and hang out and socialize fairly often. I think another really important need, uh, is, is, uh, residents want a lot more knowledge and information around, uh, health [00:28:30] and prevention and, and, uh, eating healthier and how to do that. Uh, and so we'd like to be able to provide resources to the neighborhood and for people's community market to be a resource to the neighborhood, uh, for that type of information. The way we're thinking about doing that is mostly through partnerships with nonprofit and healthcare organizations because for one, they have the expertise already. Uh, so we don't need to build that expertise to provide those services. And secondly, to be honest, [00:29:00] we won't have the margins to be able to afford these sort of enhanced programs, nutritionists on staff or cooking classes that'd be beyond our budget, especially if a, we wanna make sure we're priced affordably to the neighborhood. And B, we want to pay good wages to our employees, but we have 10 years of history of working with nonprofit and healthcare organizations in this immediate area already. And so we're really excited to bring them all into the fold as partners and sort of figure out a working model where they're very much integrated into [00:29:30] it and we're coordinating and providing space and promotions for those sort of non product based offerings. Okay, great. Well, wonderful vision. You've listened to [inaudible] uh, Speaker 3:who's the founder of people's community market and this is method to the madness on k Alex Berkeley at any 0.7 FM and to learn more about people's community market Brahm how should they, how should our listeners get involved? Our website, Speaker 2:the people's community, market.com one word, people's community, market.com we have a blog and all [00:30:00] kinds of information about our project, its current status generally what the plan is and where we're heading. Of course we're on Facebook and we're on Twitter as well and you can find this there and please pay close attention. We will, I expect get approval fairly soon for this public offering and we are really going to want to be getting the word out for people who want to make a local investment and want to make a community investment or interested in doing something different than this sort of, you know, mutual fund on Wall Street. Speaker 3:Well Great. Thanks for being here rob and thank you for listening. This is method man. It's on KLX Berkeley. [00:30:30] You can learn more about us in method to the madness.org have a great Friday. Everybody. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Discuss Bamm.TV’s model of shooting original content from independent artists and distributing it worldwide to get the artists greater exposure and a secondary source of incomeTRANSCRIPTSpeaker 1:One of our main goals of Calyx is to play music that you haven't heard before. We love doing it. We've done it for 50 years and you can help us Speaker 2:do it for another 50 by contributing during a fundraiser that starts next week. Come on. Calyx has been doing this thing to close 50 years. The music industry around us has changed dramatically. The last decade has brought turmoil with the industry revenues shifting from the offline world to the online and artists trying to find where they stand in this new economy. It ended of use with Fam TV, [00:00:30] the San Francisco startup to proposes to use technology to get art as a bigger share of profits. Stay with us. Speaker 1:My name is Chris Hansen and I am the cofounder and CEO of Bam TV. Okay. And um, so give me your problem statement. We always start with this is kind of you see from a market perspective [00:01:00] what's going on. Where did you see the opportunity? If you look at where the music industry is right now, uh, approximately 96% of recorded music sales come from 20% of musicians. And that is an extreme inequality that is a product of, uh, you know, this, this system that we've inherited, the system that was based on physical products and not on services [00:01:30] or access. And so, you know, in the process over the last decade, um, emerging artists have been left in the dust and there really is no means for them to first of all get exposure. But secondly, to monetize their content, it's, it's almost impossible. So we addressed this problem as musicians. Speaker 1:Um, two of the other early hires and I were in a band together. So [00:02:00] we, we know some of the trials and tribulations of being an unknown artist and, uh, that's really where, where the idea was born out of. Okay. And tell me a little bit about your background. You're a musician and what other kinds of experiences do you have? So I mean, to go way back, uh, the idea really germinated, uh, in Atlanta, um, where I ran a gallery in a multimedia performance space. And, [00:02:30] uh, you know, we did a, in the summer of 2000, we did an eight week series of live video streaming programs. So it was called the blue milk show. And uh, you know, we learned a lot, but we also, one of the things we learned was that the, uh, the Internet and the general public was not ready for live video streaming in 2000. Speaker 1:Um, nobody could watch it. So then, um, you know, at the time I had launched with, with some artists, friends and in [00:03:00] Atlanta and also with my brother. And during the years, my brother and I is kind of bounced the idea back and forth. I came out to San Francisco to get my MBA. And, uh, the capstone of my entrepreneurship emphasis emphasis was, uh, this idea of bricks and mortar media. And the idea at that point was to create a venue that would be open to the public, that would live stream and record performances from, uh, independent and emerging bands [00:03:30] and serve as a content creation factory basically for this next generation of video content. And, uh, we pitched the idea and investors said, well, you know, it's interesting, but, uh, first go prove that you can get traction and that you can find, uh, you know, the talent. Speaker 1:And that you can find an audience. And so that's what we did. My brother and I have bootstrapped it to this point [00:04:00] and we've recorded over a hundred bands. Um, and we've got distribution agreements in place in a 150 countries that isn't there a venue called brick and mortar in Sydney? Is that, is that just by coincidence? It is by that is by coincidence that, that you're referring to? Uh, yeah, it's a, it's a little jazz club. I think it's owned by, uh, the same person that owns the new parish. Uh, used to be Coda. Um, but there is no, uh, [00:04:30] there is no relation. Okay. And um, so you went on the fundraising trail of these investors is do you to go to like a y Combinator or those types of organizations that all this tech startups go to or where, where are you trying to find audiences? Speaker 1:I think there's, there is a place for incubators for a lot of, a lot of, uh, startup ideas. We maybe did things the hard way, but maybe in other ways we were our [00:05:00] own incubator. Um, the idea of recording live performances began in our garage that we had rehearsed in as a band. Um, so from a garage in the inner Richmond, uh, we bands actually came in and recorded a full set and you know, we kind of, we kind of winged it and uh, you know, I was operating pro tools at the time and the other directors were operating cameras. Um, then we moved into a studio in Soma and best thing we ever did for the business was [00:05:30] stop recording on protools and hand the cameras to the film school graduates who actually knew what they were doing. And that's when, um, the content really started to take off. And so about, uh, sort of incubators and an early stage investors, um, you know, I'm not sure that we would've had a lot of believers early on until we just went out and did it. You can't, you can't say, oh, we're going to make content and it's going to be great. You're going [00:06:00] to love it. Um, cause until they actually see it, Speaker 2:ah, that's all extract. You're listening to KALX Berkeley 90.7 FM. This is method to the Nadis 30 minutes show about the innovative spirit of the bay area. I'm your host Ali desire. And today we are interviewing Chris Hanson, CEO of Pan TV. Speaker 1:A lot of companies talk about content or distribution and it's very difficult to do both. Um, [00:06:30] so how did you guys come? It sounds like you guys do both. You generate the content, but you're also building the networks that's your come to that, um, business model. So yeah. Um, I mean just the, the, the nature of the agreement that we have with the artist, uh, we don't charge them anything to record and we split net profits 50, 50. And because of that, they, you know, are more than happy to give us a global distribution license [00:07:00] to the content. And it turns out that, uh, this idea of a global, you know, frictionless distribution arrangement is extremely rare in the music industry. So in this sort of proof of concept phase, we realized a, with an all digital workflow, we could produce HD music video content at a fraction of the cost that it would have, you know, run up. Speaker 1:Even a couple of years ago, I, and B, there was an unmet demand for [00:07:30] content internationally. And it was actually about a year ago, we were at a trade show and a, a content provider from Taiwan, um, said, you know, I'm trying to get music content on onto this cable network, but you know, nobody will give me their content and I've got, I've got a shelf space for it, but nobody will give it to me. So we realized that was a, an entry point. And so a cable operator in Taiwan was actually our first client, [00:08:00] um, that served as, um, you know, a proof of concept for us to initiate a relationship with Samsung. And, uh, and so what we have done as part of our launch is, you know, we've created a unique content offering by way of an app for Samsung smartphones and tablet devices. Seems to be the Internet has enabled global distribution where you don't have to go and negotiate with all these different, [00:08:30] um, countries. Speaker 1:But why, what value add are you guys providing as opposed to them just posting on Youtube besides the production value? It seems like you guys bring, well, it starts with curation. Um, and there we've lowered the cost of production, but there still is a cost and you can only record so many bands. So really that's, you know, the used to be extremely good at this, um, back in the day and they'd go into [00:09:00] the clubs and see the opening band as well as the headliner. And you know, the equivalent of that today is going on my space, going on Facebook. Also go into it to real world clubs and just getting to know the band, seeing what other music blogs are writing about and what festivals are people getting into. And you start to see patterns, um, for bands that are just about to break through. Speaker 1:And I won't necessarily take credit for, you know, them breaking through [00:09:30] if they hit to the extent that they have, you know, some have gone on to Conan and Letterman and Bonnaroo and you know, festivals and that sort of thing. But, uh, I will say that our music director, Phil Bang is, uh, if he could pick stocks as well as he can pick bands, we wouldn't need this round of funding. I don't think. So. You mentioned the patterns. Can you give us an example of a pattern? Sure. I mean, uh, you can do anything in the studio. Uh, you can [00:10:00] add vocal filters. You can do auto tune would it doesn't matter. So one pattern obviously is how is the band well-rehearsed, you know, can the lead singer hit the notes? Uh, because if they can't, in our case, we're just getting a license to a live performance. Speaker 1:So if they can't perform live, it's a nonstarter. Um, but also, you know, how big is the crowd? How many followers do they have? Do you see them doing Kickstarter campaigns? Are they, do they have management? Are they with an Indie label? All of these things [00:10:30] kind of create a picture of the band and uh, yeah. Th then it's just about timing. Are they on a west coast tour? Are they local? You know, are they at a festival that we can go record? Yeah. So let's talk about the content cause we, we've mentioned the content quite a bit, but it's video contents, not the audio. The ban has a deal for the audio with the label, most likely. Well No. So it is the audio. Um, I mean, so I should explain. They can have whatever relationship with a label, indie [00:11:00] or major, uh, that they want with us. Speaker 1:They come in, they record the songs usually a couple of times just so we're sure we get a good take and then we get a license to distribute that, the audio, the video, and we can remix, sample, make derivative works and sub-license the live performance, the live performance. Um, and then let's say, let's say that an independent band comes in, they record, we distribute, everybody's happy, but they get signed [00:11:30] to a label and the label wants to buy back all of their previous recordings. That's fine. We agree to a, a third party appraisal of the content and that becomes the basis for, uh, the exit from, from the deal. So we're not trying to lock anybody into, you know, a lifelong commitment to Bam TV. Uh, we're just trying to know, have a deal that makes sense for, for us, for the artist and for our distribution partners and hopefully [00:12:00] for the labels as well. Speaker 1:But it, is it a, is it a potential that you guys would have your own label too and just do that work? Yeah, I mean, people ask us a lot if, if we're a digital label or, you know, label 2.0 or whatever. Um, and I, I can definitely see that comparison. Uh, there is a little bit of baggage admittedly to calling yourself a label. So, uh, I try to save that comparison for the [00:12:30] end of the pitch instead of the beginning of the pitch. But, uh, but yeah, there are definitely comparisons, but I don't, I think the nature of a label is going to have to fundamentally change in order to survive. And so the big difference from the major labels, the 50% of revenues are still from physical sales. So, you know, they're testing the waters on streaming and digital, but they can't cannibalize entirely the physical side, so they're not able to move as quickly. Speaker 1:[00:13:00] We have no physical revenues. Um, you know, the content is created, edited and distributed entirely in the digital realm. So we can just explore that territory and just find agreements that, that work for everybody. So you said that this business couldn't have, couldn't have existed five years ago because of the, the digital editing technology, wasn't there the end to end process? Can you take us through that process a little bit? Yeah. And what, I mean, it certainly would have been possible, but it would've [00:13:30] been cost prohibitive of just a few years ago. Um, so yeah, I mean, we, we, we have a soundstage, uh, in our San Francisco studio. Um, we, we shoot with anywhere from four to six cameras depending. Um, and then, and so we do a variety of things. We'll do a live switch of, um, the event. So it's available for live streaming, but we really spend a lot of time on post-production. Speaker 1:Uh, we run on final cut and we'll do, you [00:14:00] know, multi-camera editing. Um, and so that 20% of the content that we create, uh, we give away free and clear to the musician. So that's usually the single, and we really try to get creative with that and just make it sort of a spectacular, um, asset for the band to EPK or for, you know, promotional purposes to get subscribers. And then, um, you know, gradually we'll edit if it's five songs, 10 songs, whatever. [00:14:30] Um, it's, so there's any number of ways that we can distribute the final product, uh, anywhere from 60 minute episodes for our cable partner in Taiwan to a curated play mixes, which is how we present the content on Android, uh, with our Samsung partnership. The play mix is basically 10 to 12 songs is Kinda like a mixed tape for the digital age. We encourage our users to, uh, to make [00:15:00] their own play mixes and share them with their friends. So, um, you know, file sharing does not have to be illegal or immoral or give you a guilty conscience because when you get a streaming model, um, you know, we can encourage, uh, the more the merrier as far as Speaker 2:hey distribution, you are listening to k a l x Berkeley 90.7 family streaming on the worldwide web@klxscuffberkeley.edu. [00:15:30] This is method to the madness of 30 minutes share to accelerate the innovative spirit of the bay area. I'm your host, Toby bizarre. And today we're speaking with Chris Hanson, the CEO of Bam TV. Speaker 3:So one thing I wanted to ask you about was, I was looking at your website and there's language about this was created for musicians by musicians and it's very pro musician, um, [00:16:00] business you're creating. And I guess I was gonna say pro musician software, but it's much more than you've got the production, you've got the distribution, you got the software apps, you guys are doing a lot of different things. Um, but the kind of the, the reason behind it all is to help the musician. It seems like from a monetary perspective to cut them into the deal. Can you tell us a little bit about the business of music right now and, and kind of where does the money go right now and how are you going to change that equation? Speaker 1:Sure. Um, [00:16:30] since since Spotify arrived in the u s and especially since the Facebook partnerships with music streaming services has come up, um, a lot of attention is being paid to how music streaming services pay artists, first of all, how much, and secondly, do they keep the same relationship with the labels as they do with independent artists? And [00:17:00] I have sympathy for the streaming services because 50 to 70% of their revenues go to the labels regardless of what they tell you or will disclose publicly. Um, you know, if you look at Pandora's as one as they filed for their IPO, it depends year to year, but it's 50 to 70%. And you know, Spotify is facing essentially the same thing as, as rhapsody as is RDO as is pretty much everybody. So they pay more [00:17:30] to major label artists than they pay to indie artists. Speaker 1:Um, and again, these were the negotiated terms. It was you played this way or you don't make it, you know, into this market. So if you look for independent artists, there's just, there's just no chance that going to make money through digital streaming services as they are today. So that's, that's sort of our sweet spot is addressing that audience and we feel, yes, it's nice to the artist [00:18:00] to be, to do this 50 50 profit share. But frankly, I think it's much better to, uh, to share profits 50 50 rather than to pay revenues 50 to 70%. So it just makes, from our perspective, and maybe we're more of a boutique play in this regard, but, uh, it makes a lot more business sense for us. Speaker 3:And the revenue. Is it purchases made off of the content online or is there advertising revenue as well, like Google's [00:18:30] adsense, that type of thing? Speaker 1:Yeah, it's divided into, uh, direct licensing advertising and premium subscriptions or premium services and a weed. So there are a lot of direct licensing deals where it's free to the end user in whatever market, but they're paying us directly per subscriber. Um, a good portion of the android and Ios, uh, revenues will come from advertising. Um, we have a couple of different advertising partners to help us reach [00:19:00] those international markets. Um, and then it seems to be that anywhere from you can expect anywhere from five to 10% of your, uh, your die hard fans to get some kind of a premium engagement. We also allow for downloads. Um, but you know, it just varies from market to market. Um, what makes sense. For instance, it's, it makes sense to have, it makes sense to have streaming only access in the u [00:19:30] s but if you're in a remote, you know, uh, part of India, perhaps, maybe you would rather have them downloaded to your device. Speaker 3:Okay. And speaking of India, it sounds like you have a global reach. Um, you guys are right now, but, um, you have to curate the talent, right? So that you can't have people everywhere, although you have distribution everywhere. So, um, right now it's mostly bay area based bands that you're signing or how's that working right now? Speaker 1:No, I mean I would for [00:20:00] sure there are a good number of bay area bands, um, just for convenience and there's a lot of great talent here. But, um, you know, most bands, if they're doing a west coast tour, they're going to stop in San Francisco. So we do catch a lot of touring bands that way. And then when we go to festivals like south by southwest or the photosynthesis festival or, you know, different genres, we're able to diversify, uh, quite a bit. In January, we'll be, uh, at does met in [00:20:30] the Netherlands. Um, and so that will be our first sort of European, um, content creation. [inaudible] and even, um, even in Taiwan, uh, we've tried to make the content more approachable to a Taiwanese audience. So we've hired an OnAir VJ who speaks mandarin and, uh, kind of introduces American rock or American electronic music to a, to a Taiwanese audience. Speaker 1:So we're [00:21:00] trying to, even if we don't produce content in a native country, uh, we're trying to address that market if there's interest. Um, I guess one thing I would add too is we have about a third of our content under the umbrella of Bam Latino. And so it's, you know, perfectly addressable for all audiences, but it really targets urban subcultures because it's all Spanish language or, or Portuguese language. Um, and then broader [00:21:30] markets in Latin America. So we're able to get a lot of artists who are filling stadiums in Latin America, but they're playing jazz clubs when they come to San Francisco. And so, um, you know, it increases our reach more than we could. Speaker 3:Okay. I mean, you guys are in some ways, you're, uh, your taste makers, like you are curating the talent. Um, and that's, that's, oh, there's a long tradition of that and the music business. Um, so how do you feel like you can [00:22:00] scale that kind of, you know, tastemaking or finding the people that other people aren't finding do it? Speaker 1:The great thing about scalability and being global is every new international market you, you open up to, uh, you've, you've got a new way to monetize a piece of content. [inaudible] but in terms of scaling the curation process, we actually, I mean, that's, that's one of the reasons why we are, uh, seeking a series [00:22:30] a right now. Um, and there's, in order to, instead of, you know, we do two to three bands a week, and in order to make that eight or 10, we need to have a larger studio so that we can set up multiple sound stages at a time and increase the efficiency that way. We also have plans to open up to third party licensing. There's a lot of great content that's already out there, but there's just no, there's no market for it because it's getting lost on youtube or you [00:23:00] know, nothing wrong with youtube, but it's not great for discovery. Really. Um, so once we, you know, now that we have a foothold in our own created content, um, we're opening up to third party licensing as well. Speaker 3:So, and I would assume that you guys, the content you curate will be, you'll be moving and where that people want it to go as opposed to you guys trying to push new sounds or you're looking for audiences that are looking for that stuff already, right? Speaker 1:[00:23:30] Yeah, I mean, again, it is this idea of looking for patterns, looking for bands that, that, um, are about to break through. And so there is some kind of, I mean there is a consensus with other tastemakers out there to a certain extent. You start to see familiar names. Uh, you know, as you dive in and band names is, you know, are very colorful. So, uh, you either know it or you don't. And, you know, um, so you do start, I mean, I, there, there are bands that deserve [00:24:00] to break through and the best situation for us is to be there when they're, when they're primed for that. Speaker 3:Yeah. Okay. Um, so you wanna give us a couple of examples of some bands that have come through the Bam TV network and it's made an impact on their careers. Speaker 1:Yeah. Uh, I'll, I'll start with, you know, one of the first bands that we recorded in our, in our San Francisco studio is, ha ha, Tonka. And these guys work really, really hard. They're on [00:24:30] tour all the time. And uh, so the first real compliment that, uh, that we got as a, as a company was when they, they told their fans, hey, we didn't have a tie, a chance to, uh, to make a music video for this song song as close every valve of your bleeding heart. And it's wonderful, by the way. And our live performance video stood in for as a substitute for them going to make their own music video. And that I thought was really cool. Speaker 3:[00:25:00] I love to talk to entrepreneurs about their vision. You know, you start something now and you're, you kind of scrap right now in the middle of it. But five years from now, let's say this thing takes off, what kind of impact or disruption will Bam TV have on the music business? Speaker 1:Well, I, I think the best, uh, innovations come from problems that the entrepreneur feels. I mean, you maybe not always, but I think once [00:25:30] you really empathize with the problem, you get a feel for it in a way that, that you can't just intellectually understand. And so I see where the, I see the trajectory we're on as being one element of that. Um, but we also have plans for, you know, ways for artists that are on the road to, um, to earn money directly from Bam t v so now, not just the profit share, but if they get customers [00:26:00] or if they get users to come online and download our app, we'll just pay them, you know, maybe it pays for gas money. Maybe it causes more bands to go on tour and take the leap. Maybe having a, an EPK that's a little bit more polished helps, you know, early stage bands get a better gig. Speaker 1:Um, I, I don't know if the, the music industry is ever going to be as big as it was, uh, you know, in [00:26:30] 99 or 2000 or whenever it peaked and maybe a smaller music industry is okay. Um, and maybe, you know, the only way for it, for a profit share to work is if we're transparent about how much we spend as a business and where our Costco and what we count as a cost. And maybe transparency is what the music industry really needs. Um, maybe it's okay to just shed the, the structures and the vestiges of, of what we had [00:27:00] and just start making it up as we go. And I think once we put artists sort of at the forefront and create a clear path for monetization for them, um, you know, the sky's the limit there. Speaker 3:That was Chris Hanson, CEO of Bam TV, a startup that is disrupting the music industry. We'd like to think of for being on the show today, and you can learn more about Pam tp by going to www dot [inaudible] Speaker 2:damn, that's p a m m. Dot. TV. This is a method to the madness [00:27:30] or websites method to the madness.org have a great Friday. Everybody. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.