Podcasts about square kilometre array ska

Half of the world's population cannot enjoy the night sky due to light pollution. Fortunately, South Africa has a significant geographic advantage, allowing us to experience our stunning night skies. The country aims to leverage this with its substantial investment in the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), a multi-billion-dollar initiative to construct the world's largest telescope. In an interview with Biznews, Shamilla Chettiar, the Deputy Director-General of the South African Department of Tourism, said that R352 million will be allocated to the project in the Northern Cape to stimulate economic growth and combat unemployment. Dr. Chettiar said that Sutherland, home to the largest optical telescope in the Southern Hemisphere, has seen a surge in tourism, generating R50 million annually for the region. A Science Exploratorium will be established in Carnarvon, where the SKA is located, and the astro-tourism strategy will include the indigenous storytelling traditions of the San people

Hosted by Dr. Jacinta Delhaize & Dr. Daniel Cunnama. The 5th of December 2022 sees the commencement of construction of the long-awaited Square Kilometre Array (SKA)!   SKAO: https://www.skao.int/   The SKA Observatory (SKAO) is a next-generation radio astronomy facility that will revolutionise our understanding of the Universe and the laws of fundamental physics. Formally known as the SKA Observatory, the SKAO is an intergovernmental organisation bringing together nations from around the world. The observatory consists of the SKAO Global Headquarters in the UK, the SKAO's two telescopes at radio-quiet sites in South Africa and Australia, and associated facilities to support the operations of the telescopes.   The SKA telescopes: Composed of respectively hundreds of dishes and thousands of antennas, the SKAO's telescopes will be the two most advanced radio telescopes on Earth. Together with other state-of-the-art research facilities, the SKAO's telescopes will explore the unknown frontiers of science and deepen our understanding of key processes, including the formation and evolution of galaxies, fundamental physics in extreme environments and the origins of life.   We've added a new way to donate to 365 Days of Astronomy to support editing, hosting, and production costs.  Just visit: https://www.patreon.com/365DaysOfAstronomy and donate as much as you can! Share the podcast with your friends and send the Patreon link to them too!  Every bit helps! Thank you! ------------------------------------ Do go visit http://www.redbubble.com/people/CosmoQuestX/shop for cool Astronomy Cast and CosmoQuest t-shirts, coffee mugs and other awesomeness! http://cosmoquest.org/Donate This show is made possible through your donations.  Thank you! (Haven't donated? It's not too late! Just click!) ------------------------------------ The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by the Planetary Science Institute. http://www.psi.edu Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at info@365DaysOfAstronomy.org.

In dieser Folge geht Tejpreet auf die Prozesse ein, die beim Wachstum von Galaxien eine Rolle spielen. Von den Bestandteilen der Galaxienbildung über die Rolle des James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) bis hin zu Radiobeobachtungen mit dem Square Kilometre Array (SKA) erforscht diese Folge die komplizierten Prozesse, die unser Universum formen. Tejpreet spricht auch über […] The post #23 How do Galaxies grow? appeared first on Kanal K.

Hosted by Dr. Jacinta Delhaize & Dr. Daniel Cunnama. The 5th of December 2022 sees the commencement of construction of the long-awaited Square Kilometre Array (SKA)! We are honoured to be joined by the SKA Observatory Council Chairperson, Dr. Catherine Cesarsky to talk about this momentous occasion. The SKA Observatory (SKAO) is a next-generation radio astronomy facility that will revolutionise our understanding of the Universe and the laws of fundamental physics. Formally known as the SKA Observatory, the SKAO is an intergovernmental organisation bringing together nations from around the world. The observatory consists of the SKAO Global Headquarters in the UK, the SKAO's two telescopes at radio-quiet sites in South Africa and Australia, and associated facilities to support the operations of the telescopes.   The SKA telescopes: Composed of respectively hundreds of dishes and thousands of antennas, the SKAO's telescopes will be the two most advanced radio telescopes on Earth. Together with other state-of-the-art research facilities, the SKAO's telescopes will explore the unknown frontiers of science and deepen our understanding of key processes, including the formation and evolution of galaxies, fundamental physics in extreme environments and the origins of life.   Dr. Cesarsky was appointed Chair of the SKA Board of Directors in 2017, and her distinguished career spans some of the biggest international astronomy projects of recent years. As Director-General of the European Southern Observatory she oversaw the Very Large Telescope, the start of construction of the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) and launched the Extremely Large Telescope project, one of the key astronomical facilities of the coming decades along with the SKA. Among her other prestigious roles, Dr Cesarsky was President of the International Astronomical Union and High Commissioner for Atomic Energy in France. She is known for her successful research activities in high energy and in infrared astronomy and is member or foreign member of science academies over the world, including Europe (Academia Europaea), France (Académie des Sciences), United Kingdom (Royal Society), United States (NAS), Sweden (Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences).   SKAO: https://www.skao.int/   We've added a new way to donate to 365 Days of Astronomy to support editing, hosting, and production costs.  Just visit: https://www.patreon.com/365DaysOfAstronomy and donate as much as you can! Share the podcast with your friends and send the Patreon link to them too!  Every bit helps! Thank you! ------------------------------------ Do go visit http://www.redbubble.com/people/CosmoQuestX/shop for cool Astronomy Cast and CosmoQuest t-shirts, coffee mugs and other awesomeness! http://cosmoquest.org/Donate This show is made possible through your donations.  Thank you! (Haven't donated? It's not too late! Just click!) ------------------------------------ The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by the Planetary Science Institute. http://www.psi.edu Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at info@365DaysOfAstronomy.org.

Pippa Hudson speaks to Dane Dodds the director of the documentary, !Aitsa. The documentary explores the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project in the Karoo, and delves also in the traditional roots of the Khoi and San populations of the region.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Guest: Dr Michael Kahn is an independent analyst of innovation systems, he joins John to celebrate the success story of ‘Alphawave,' a company that has grown from a start-up to an international Square Kilometre Array (SKA) contract success,See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hosted by Dr. Jacinta Delhaize & Dr. Daniel Cunnama. In celebration of our 50th episode, we are joined by a titan of astronomy, Dr. Bernie Fanaroff, who speaks with us about his illustrious career and his vision for the future of astronomy in Africa. Bernie is a world-renowned radio astronomer! While working on his PhD in the early 70s, he and British astronomer Julia Riley, made a breakthrough discovery about radio galaxies. They found that the radio luminosity of these galaxies is related to the shape of their huge radio jets.   This method of classifying radio galaxies is now called the “Fanaroff-Riley” classification system. Over the past few decades Bernie has been dedicated to making South Africa and South African Astronomy stand out in the global community. He was the Project Director for South Africa's Square Kilometre Array (SKA) bid. He lead the team that paved the way for the construction of the MeerKAT Telescope, resulting in Africa being chosen to host part of the biggest global scientific project; the SKA.   We've added a new way to donate to 365 Days of Astronomy to support editing, hosting, and production costs.  Just visit: https://www.patreon.com/365DaysOfAstronomy and donate as much as you can! Share the podcast with your friends and send the Patreon link to them too!  Every bit helps! Thank you! ------------------------------------ Do go visit http://www.redbubble.com/people/CosmoQuestX/shop for cool Astronomy Cast and CosmoQuest t-shirts, coffee mugs and other awesomeness! http://cosmoquest.org/Donate This show is made possible through your donations.  Thank you! (Haven't donated? It's not too late! Just click!) ------------------------------------ The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by the Planetary Science Institute. http://www.psi.edu Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at info@365DaysOfAstronomy.org.

In this businessline podcast, Chhaya Dhanani, Portfolio Head Engineering for Research, Thoughtworks, provides valuable insights into the MeerKAT radio telescope.  The MeerKAT telescope is a cutting-edge radio telescope located in South Africa. Unlike optical telescopes, MeerKAT can capture radio signals day and night, making it highly sensitive. It consists of 64 antennas and serves as a precursor to the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), set to be the largest and most sensitive radio telescope in the Southern Hemisphere.  In 2018, Thoughtworks, a digital transformation consultancy, joined forces with the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) in Pune for a two-year collaboration. Together, they aimed to specialise in data processing software for MeerKAT.  Thoughtworks contribution to the MeerKAT project involves building an automated image processing pipeline called "ARTIP." This pipeline handles the massive amount of data generated by MeerKAT, eliminating noise, calibrating signals, and automating data processing, significantly speeding up the analysis process.  This collaboration has led to two significant discoveries, including the detection of rare hydrogen atoms in distant galaxies, offering insights into celestial body formation and gas generation.  MeerKAT's impact on radio astronomy is multifaceted. It will enable scientists to study galaxies, black holes, gravitational waves, dark energy, and the origins of life. Additionally, it has driven innovation in high-performance computing, accelerators, storage mechanisms, and energy-efficient solutions. It offers a unique opportunity to explore the unknown and advance both scientific knowledge and technological capabilities.  Overall, this conversation highlights the exciting developments in radio astronomy, the role of automation and technology in data processing, and the significance of the MeerKAT radio telescope.  --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/business-line/message

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is an international radio telescope project being built in Australia and South Africa. - Es ist ein Projekt der Superlative, das gleich zwei Kontinente überspannt: Das neue Square Kilometre Array- oder kurz SKA-Teleskop. Mit Hilfe von Tausenden Antennen wollen die Forscher unter anderem herausfinden, ob wir wirklich alleine sind im Universum. Barbara Barkhausen ist der Frage nachgegangen.

Welcome to a Cosmos Insights podcast, where we talk to scientists in Australia about the impact of their work.After 31 years of planning, radio telescopes called the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) have finally begun construction. The Australian site in the Murchison region of WA – known as SKA-Low – will eventually comprise  over 130,000 Christmas tree-like antennae.Today Cosmos journalist Jacinta Bowler talks to Professor Cathryn Trott, astronomer and Chief Operations Scientist at SKA-Low about her work at SKA-Low and what the array will achieve.Find the science of everything at the Cosmos Magazine website.Subscribe to Cosmos Magazine (print) or Cosmos Weekly.Watch and listen to all our Cosmos podcasts.Special 10% discount on Cosmos magazine print subscriptions (1 or 2 year), or 1 year Cosmos Weekly subscriptions for Cosmos Briefing podcast listeners!  Use coupon code COSMOSPOD in our shop.

Construction of the World's Largest Telescope has begun. One of the grand scientific projects of the 21st Century begins its construction phase. The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will be the largest radio telescope in the world when completed in 2028. Split across South Africa and Australia, with a headquarters in the UK, the facility will address the biggest questions in astrophysics. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The 5th of December 2022 sees the commencement of construction of the long-awaited Square Kilometre Array (SKA)! We are honoured to be joined by the SKA Observatory Council Chairperson, Dr Catherine Cesarsky to talk about this momentous occasion. The post Episode 59: Construction of the SKA commences! appeared first on The Cosmic Savannah.

Exploring Earth's Ionosphere and its effect on low radio frequency observation with the uGMRT and the SKA by Sarvesh Mangla et al. on Monday 21 November The Earth's ionosphere introduces systematic effects that limit the performance of a radio interferometer at low frequencies ($lesssim 1$,GHz). These effects become more pronounced for severe geomagnetic activities or observations involving longer baselines of the interferometer. The uGMRT, a pathfinder for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), is located in between the northern crest of the Equatorial Ionisation Anomaly (EIA) and the magnetic equator. Hence, this telescope is more prone to severe ionospheric conditions and is a unique radio interferometer for studying the ionosphere. Here, we present 235,MHz observations with the GMRT, showing significant ionospheric activities over a solar minimum. In this work, we have characterised the ionospheric disturbances observed with the GMRT and compared them with ionospheric studies and observations with other telescopes like the VLA, MWA and LOFAR situated at different magnetic latitudes. We have estimated the ionospheric total electron content (TEC) gradient over the full GMRT array which shows an order of magnitude higher sensitivity compared to the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). Furthermore, this article uses the ionospheric characteristics estimated from the observations with uGMRT, VLA, LOFAR and MWA to forecast the effects on the low-frequency observations with the SKA1-MID and SKA1-LOW in future. arXiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/http://arxiv.org/abs/2211.09738v1

Exploring Earth's Ionosphere and its effect on low radio frequency observation with the uGMRT and the SKA by Sarvesh Mangla et al. on Monday 21 November The Earth's ionosphere introduces systematic effects that limit the performance of a radio interferometer at low frequencies ($lesssim 1$,GHz). These effects become more pronounced for severe geomagnetic activities or observations involving longer baselines of the interferometer. The uGMRT, a pathfinder for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), is located in between the northern crest of the Equatorial Ionisation Anomaly (EIA) and the magnetic equator. Hence, this telescope is more prone to severe ionospheric conditions and is a unique radio interferometer for studying the ionosphere. Here, we present 235,MHz observations with the GMRT, showing significant ionospheric activities over a solar minimum. In this work, we have characterised the ionospheric disturbances observed with the GMRT and compared them with ionospheric studies and observations with other telescopes like the VLA, MWA and LOFAR situated at different magnetic latitudes. We have estimated the ionospheric total electron content (TEC) gradient over the full GMRT array which shows an order of magnitude higher sensitivity compared to the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). Furthermore, this article uses the ionospheric characteristics estimated from the observations with uGMRT, VLA, LOFAR and MWA to forecast the effects on the low-frequency observations with the SKA1-MID and SKA1-LOW in future. arXiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/http://arxiv.org/abs/2211.09738v1

Probing galaxy evolution through HI 21-cm emission and absorption: current status and prospects with the Square Kilometre Array by Rajeshwari Dutta et al. on Thursday 22 September One of the major science goals of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is to understand the role played by atomic hydrogen (HI) gas in the evolution of galaxies throughout cosmic time. The hyperfine transition line of the hydrogen atom at 21-cm is one of the best tools to detect and study the properties of HI gas associated with galaxies. In this article, we review our current understanding of HI gas and its relationship with galaxies through observations of the 21-cm line both in emission and absorption. In addition, we provide an overview of the HI science that will be possible with SKA and its pre-cursors and pathfinders, i.e. HI 21-cm emission and absorption studies of galaxies from nearby to high redshifts that will trace various processes governing galaxy evolution. arXiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/http://arxiv.org/abs/2209.09264v2

Probing galaxy evolution through HI 21-cm emission and absorption: current status and prospects with the Square Kilometre Array by Rajeshwari Dutta et al. on Thursday 22 September One of the major science goals of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is to understand the role played by atomic hydrogen (HI) gas in the evolution of galaxies throughout cosmic time. The hyperfine transition line of the hydrogen atom at 21-cm is one of the best tools to detect and study the properties of HI gas associated with galaxies. In this article, we review our current understanding of HI gas and its relationship with galaxies through observations of the 21-cm line both in emission and absorption. In addition, we provide an overview of the HI science that will be possible with SKA and its pre-cursors and pathfinders, i.e. HI 21-cm emission and absorption studies of galaxies from nearby to high redshifts that will trace various processes governing galaxy evolution. arXiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/http://arxiv.org/abs/2209.09264v2

Working Principle of the Calibration Algorithm for High Dynamic Range Solar Imaging with Square Kilometre Array Precursor by Devojyoti Kansabanik. on Wednesday 21 September Imaging the low-frequency radio Sun is an intrinsically challenging problem. Meter-wavelength solar emission spans angular scales from a few arcminutes to a few degrees. These emissions show temporal and spectral variability on a sub-second and sub-MHz scales. The brightness temperature of these emissions also varies by many orders of magnitude, which requires high-dynamic-range spectroscopic snapshot imaging. With the unique array configuration of the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA), and the robust calibration and imaging pipeline, Automated Imaging Routine for the Compact Arrays for the Radio Sun (AIRCARS) produces the best spectroscopic snapshot solar images available to date. The working principle and the strength of this algorithm are demonstrated using statistical analysis and simulation. AIRCARS uses the partial phase stability of the MWA, which has a compact core with a large number of antenna elements distributed over a small array footprint. The strength of this algorithm makes it a state-of-the-art calibration and imaging pipeline for low-frequency solar imaging, which is expected to be highly suitable for the upcoming Square Kilometre Array (SKA) and other future radio interferometers for producing high-dynamic-range and high-fidelity images of the Sun. arXiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/http://arxiv.org/abs/2207.11665v2

Probing galaxy evolution through HI 21-cm emission and absorption: current status and prospects with the Square Kilometre Array by Rajeshwari Dutta et al. on Tuesday 20 September One of the major science goals of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is to understand the role played by atomic hydrogen (HI) gas in the evolution of galaxies throughout cosmic time. The hyperfine transition line of the hydrogen atom at 21-cm is one of the best tools to detect and study the properties of HI gas associated with galaxies. In this article, we review our current understanding of HI gas and its relationship with galaxies through observations of the 21-cm line both in emission and absorption. In addition, we provide an overview of the HI science that will be possible with SKA and its pre-cursors and pathfinders, i.e. HI 21-cm emission and absorption studies of galaxies from nearby to high redshifts that will trace various processes governing galaxy evolution. arXiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/http://arxiv.org/abs/2209.09264v1

Tackling the Unique Challenges of Low-frequency Solar Polarimetry with the Square Kilometre Array Low Precursor: Pipeline Implementation by Devojyoti Kansabanik et al. on Thursday 15 September The dynamics and the structure of the solar corona are determined by its magnetic field. Measuring coronal magnetic fields is, however, extremely hard. The polarization of the low-frequency radio emissions is one of the few observational probes of magnetic fields in the mid and high corona. Polarimetric calibration and imaging of the Sun at these frequencies is challenging. The brightness temperature and degree of polarization of the low-frequency solar radio emissions can vary by several orders of magnitude. These emissions also show dramatic spectral and temporal variations. Hence, to study these radio emissions, one needs high dynamic range spectro-polarimetric snapshot imaging. The Murchison Widefield Array (MWA), a Square Kilometre Array (SKA) precursor, is exceptionally well-suited for this purpose. Calibration and imaging of solar data to extract this information are, however, significant challenges in themselves - requiring a deep understanding of the instrument, capable sophisticated algorithms, and their reliable implementation. To meet these challenges we have developed an unsupervised and robust polarization calibration and imaging software pipeline. Here we present the architecture and some implementation details of this pipeline. It delivers high-fidelity and high-dynamic-range full polarimetric solar radio images at high spectro-temporal resolutions. We expect this pipeline to enable exciting new science with instruments like the MWA. We also hope that by not requiring a significant prior background in radio interferometric imaging, this pipeline will encourage wider use of radio imaging data in the larger solar physics community. The algorithm implemented here can easily be adapted for future arrays like the SKA. arXiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/http://arxiv.org/abs/2209.06666v1

Tackling the Unique Challenges of Low-frequency Solar Polarimetry with the Square Kilometre Array Low Precursor: Pipeline Implementation by Devojyoti Kansabanik et al. on Thursday 15 September The dynamics and the structure of the solar corona are determined by its magnetic field. Measuring coronal magnetic fields is, however, extremely hard. The polarization of the low-frequency radio emissions is one of the few observational probes of magnetic fields in the mid and high corona. Polarimetric calibration and imaging of the Sun at these frequencies is challenging. The brightness temperature and degree of polarization of the low-frequency solar radio emissions can vary by several orders of magnitude. These emissions also show dramatic spectral and temporal variations. Hence, to study these radio emissions, one needs high dynamic range spectro-polarimetric snapshot imaging. The Murchison Widefield Array (MWA), a Square Kilometre Array (SKA) precursor, is exceptionally well-suited for this purpose. Calibration and imaging of solar data to extract this information are, however, significant challenges in themselves - requiring a deep understanding of the instrument, capable sophisticated algorithms, and their reliable implementation. To meet these challenges we have developed an unsupervised and robust polarization calibration and imaging software pipeline. Here we present the architecture and some implementation details of this pipeline. It delivers high-fidelity and high-dynamic-range full polarimetric solar radio images at high spectro-temporal resolutions. We expect this pipeline to enable exciting new science with instruments like the MWA. We also hope that by not requiring a significant prior background in radio interferometric imaging, this pipeline will encourage wider use of radio imaging data in the larger solar physics community. The algorithm implemented here can easily be adapted for future arrays like the SKA. arXiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/http://arxiv.org/abs/2209.06666v1

Hosted by Dr. Jacinta Delhaize & Dr. Daniel Cunnama. This week we take a step back and explore the intimate roots of astronomy here in South Africa. We are joined by retired Emeritus Professor John Parkington, a senior research scholar at the University of Cape Town's Department of Archaeology. We take part in his journey to communicate and celebrate the ‘Intimate Cosmology' of the indigenous people of South Africa and the close relationship they had with the night sky. We discuss the importance of preserving these stories for future generations and we learn that perhaps the only difference between the land and night-sky is how hard you throw something.   John talks about his work with the Shared Sky exhibition, which was launched to commemorate the awarding of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) to both South Africa and Australia. Although separated by great distances, we share more than we think.   We also showcase the work Dan has been involved with in trying to preserve these stories as animations, alongside linguist Dr Kerry Jones and her company African Tongue. Enjoy a first-hand experience of one such animation below, called “Moon's Message”.   We've added a new way to donate to 365 Days of Astronomy to support editing, hosting, and production costs.  Just visit: https://www.patreon.com/365DaysOfAstronomy and donate as much as you can! Share the podcast with your friends and send the Patreon link to them too!  Every bit helps! Thank you! ------------------------------------ Do go visit http://www.redbubble.com/people/CosmoQuestX/shop for cool Astronomy Cast and CosmoQuest t-shirts, coffee mugs and other awesomeness! http://cosmoquest.org/Donate This show is made possible through your donations.  Thank you! (Haven't donated? It's not too late! Just click!) ------------------------------------ The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by the Planetary Science Institute. http://www.psi.edu Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at info@365DaysOfAstronomy.org.

Bio Ian Spence is the Chief Scientist at Ivar Jacobson International. He spends his time coaching the teams working on some of the world's largest and most technically challenging endeavours - such as the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project, building the world's largest radio telescope to explore the Universe - and working with industry thought leaders such as Dean Leffingwell, Dr Jeff Sutherland and Dr Ivar Jacobson to improve the art of software development. He led the creation of the OMG's Essence Kernel and many of the most popular Essence Practices. He has many certifications the most prestigious of which is SAFe Fellow.   Social Media/ Website: LinkedIn https://uk.linkedin.com/in/ian-spence-agile1 IJI website: ivarjacobson.com   Resources/ Books Learn more about Essence https://essence.ivarjacobson.com/ Location to get the Essence game cards (and others) – pdf: http://www.ivarjacobson.com/cards To browse the cards electronically https://pex.ivarjacobson.com/sites/default/files/practice/scrum_at_scale_2020_11.html Link for ‘Better Scrum Through Essence' Nov 2021 course: https://www.ivarjacobson.com/training-courses/better-scrum-through-essence-remote-nov-2021/tue-2021-11-23-0900 Book: Training from the Back of the Room by Sharon Bowman https://www.amazon.co.uk/Training-Back-Room-Aside-Learn/dp/0787996629/ Book: Turn the Ship Around! by David Marquet https://www.amazon.co.uk/Turn-Ship-Around-Building-Breaking/dp/0241250943 Video: David Marquet on Leadership in a Submarine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYXH2XUfhfo Article: Google's 10 Traits of the Best Managers https://www.businessinsider.com/google-discovered-traits-of-the-very-best-managers-2019-6?r=US&IR=T#6-have-a-clear-vision-for-the-team-6   Interview Transcript Ula Ojiaku:  My guest today is Ian Spence. He is the Chief Scientist at Ivar Jacobson International and amongst his impressive string of achievements and accomplishments, he is a SAFe Fellow and an SPCT. Ian in this episode talks about Essence in more detail. And before we move on to the conversation, Ian will be running a Better Scrum through Essence course this November, 2021. And for you, our Agile Innovation Leaders podcast listeners, they are offering a 5% discount if you use the code AILP5OFF. Just go to ivarjacobson.com and search for the training. On to my conversation with Ian Thank you so much, Ian, for joining us on the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast.   Ian Spence: Thank you for having me.   Ula Ojiaku: I've been looking forward to having this conversation with you. I've been to a couple of your courses, you know, the Agile Contracting course, as well as the alpha version of the Better Scrum through Essence. And each instance I had lots of aha moments and lots of learnings. But before we get to that, could you tell us a bit about yourself Ian?  Ian Spence: I'm Ian Spence. (I'm an) Agile coach and consultant, I've written some books, I've done various things. I'm a SAFe Fellow. I've worked with quite a few of the main figures. Jeff Sutherland, Dean Leffingwell. And I was with David Anderson, (Kanban man) last week. And of course Ivar. Over the years, I've spent as a coach trying to help people - sharing knowledge and getting good practice into people's hands so that they can master the basics of the agile practices and then use that as a foundation to then innovate and develop, themselves and their workforce. My job is to make others successful. That's what I like to do,     Ula Ojiaku: And how did you get onto this path?    Ian Spence: When I got around to the age of sort of going to university, at one point I was going to be a Civil Engineer, but then I discovered that very few of them actually get to build bridges. So that took the fun out of that. So I thought I'd like to know how to build robots. And this is a long time ago and there was one course on robotics in the UK. But robots are computers and control systems. So I did a degree in Computer Science and Control Systems Engineering thinking this would be computer controlled, but they're actually two discrete subjects in different buildings. I ended up with a degree in Computer Science and Control Engineering and I got a job as a COBOL programmer in Sheffield. My job existed to fund my musical endeavors at that time. And then I got too old for musical endeavors. So I wondered what would happen if I actually paid some attention to my career. And since then I've had some books published, become a conference speaker, worked on some of the largest, most complex projects in the world. I mean the Square Kilometer Array. I like to talk about them because one I'm allowed to. Most of the exciting things I work on - some of them nano medical technology I was involved in. I can't even talk up. I don't understand what it did and I'm not allowed to tell you, but the Square Kilometer Array is the world's biggest science facility ever built. It's a big radio telescope. It's in Wikipedia. They have a lovely public website and I'd been coaching them probably for three years now.   So they're developing the software for that using the Scaled Agile Framework and agile techniques. And that's the kind of software you build super computers for.    Ula Ojiaku: I wouldn't have guessed you had, any musical endeavors. And I'd love to know more about it. If that's something you're comfortable with sharing. Ian Spence: Oh! That's all in the shady past now. The keyboard player in my band has gone on to be quite a successful electronic musician and producer, but it's all very niche market stuff.  So, it was fun for a bit, but that's oh, years ago now.   Ula Ojiaku: So, am I right in the understanding you were part of a band and did it involve, lots of tours and did you release any records?    Ian Spence: If anyone wants to do some archeology on the internet, you may possibly be able to find out the name of the band, but there's no music available. We were okay , we were pretty good, but we didn't have that magic ingredient you need to be successful.  Ula Ojiaku: And what sort of instrument did you play Ian or were you the lead vocalist?   Ian Spence: Oh no. I was the guitarist - that's what I played   Ula Ojiaku: So how did you, arrive at IJI (Ivar Jacobson International) as the Chief Scientist?     Ian Spence: Well, I was a software engineer for many years, and I was one of the first people in the UK to learn Java. I wrote the first commercially available Java course in the UK. I was doing small talk programming. Got a job with a, consultancy, started doing a little bit of consulting and then unfortunately that company – the owner decided to shut it down. So we went and had some interviews and I had job offers to go and be a serious Java programmer, or to join Rational as a consultant.  So I started doing a lot of work or consulting around the Rational Unified Process. Met people like Dean Leffingwell when I was working at, Rational Software. Rational was a good place, but that got purchased by IBM. So, me and some of my colleagues decided this was an opportunity to leave. And then we sort of merged. Ivar was also leaving Rational and setting up a consultancy at the same time.  So we came together then. So I ended up as Chief Scientist at IJI.  Ula Ojiaku:  So let's go on to, Better Scrum with Essence.  Could you tell us about the course and your involvement with the Essence standard?     Ian Spence: So a long, long time ago in a land far, far away, a group of people had started a new company and they had been doing a lot of work with the rational unified process.  Not surprising as Ivar was one of them. And we were looking at how can we, what can we do to make this more agile?   So we started looking at, is there any way we can have the practice be the first class citizen? So if you look at, Practices say like use cases as a practice, Ivar came up with that. It was the foundation for the Objectory process. It was in the Rational Unified Process. It was in lots of other processes.  Most of those have gone, but use cases is still one of the most popular ways for people to capture requirements. I mean, the term use cases actually entered the English language. So practices last a lot longer. Many of the agile practices, people think they're discovering as shiny new things have been around 50 years or more.   What we wanted to do was free the practices. So we did, something we called the essential unified process, which actually was made out of practices. And he thought this is a good idea, how can we make this more popular? So Ivar founded this organization CEMA, other luminaries, Tom Gilb, Hollister Coburn was there.  They had set some introductory meetings. They were quite successful and, donated the underlying language. Right? So maybe more people could do practices. Ivar loves to talk about the method, prisons and method wars, but (Essence is a way to) basically free the practices.  So the owners, the people who come up with a practice don't have to see their work rewritten, rebranded, recast every time someone built a method. So that teams can put together and plug their own way of working. And we've just been working on that ever since, so we've been trying to get a healthy, vibrant practice community.  And one of the biggest things that's happened for Essence in the last few years is Jeff Sutherland's involvement. So scrum is described in the scrum guide as you know, 19 pages or something, maybe a few (pages) less in the last version, very succinct, very accessible, very good. Lots of good scrum training.  And Scrum is in SAFe. Scrum is in LeSS, Scrum is in Scrum at Scale. People use Scrum in software, they use it everywhere. But if you look at the numbers over 50% of the people who say they're doing scrum are failing or doing it badly. So Jeff is very keen to find any way that can help people do better Scrum. Ivar and I went out to Amsterdam, met Jeff introduced him to the idea of Essence and he got the idea very quickly.  He liked the idea. And I worked with him to create the first set of scrum essential cards. And these have been around; they've escaped into the ether. Lots of people have them and use them.    But Jeff really liked the cards. He started using them in his training courses and he found that just as a simple, an active glossary, you can engage with, you can do lots of exercises. He likes to play a game he calls build your own Scrum.  So he gives people the cards, but no context, and they have to assemble Scrum and a lot of the time, somebody on one of Jeff's course that he learned more in the hour, they spent doing that than he had in the last three years doing scrum. The idea is to bring practices to life  and make them more accessible and actionable to people. You know, having things on cards, isn't a new idea. People have done that for years, but there's a language and semantics behind these cards that allow you to compose practices together. You can actually execute the language so you can generate the task.  It's possible to generate the tasks from the Essence definition. If you want it to go down that route, there are checklists to help with quality. There's also the other thing we have, which we call the kernel, which is… ( holding a little card up to the camera). This defines what it entails to do software engineering, not how to do it, just the what, and that defines the methods space for software engineering.  So when you load up practices into the kernel, you can see where you haven't got anything where there's things missing. You can use it to try and get balanced between the seven key aspects identified in the kernel. So, you know, as you're building your solution, are you keeping your stakeholders on board?  Do you know what the requirements are? Have you got a healthy team? So much can be done with it. The Scrum Essentials are literally a hundred percent aligned with the Scrum guide, but they bring it to life. You can interact, you can play games and you can say which bits you like, and you don't like. You can look at the connection.    So a really good aid for teams starting out, or just to refresh the Scrum - revisit what you're doing. A lot of people are using them and coming up with new games and ways to play them.  And the, the goal is there to be a viable set of practices. And then, you can pull them together. You know, a lot of teams mix Scrum and Kanban together. Wouldn't it be great if you could take David Anderson's Kanban practice and Jeff's scum practice and have the pieces there. so you could, you could see how they fit together, where they reflect, you could merge items together.    You know, I don't really care what you call the person who facilitates the agile team. You call it a scrum master. Do you call it a flow master? Do you call it a team coach, an agile coach? I don't care. What's important is that someone is playing that- has those accountabilities. Agile teams really benefit from someone who's looking, being the conscience of the team, helping them to improve.  Recently I ran some workshops at the SKA. Like I say, they're very nice, cause I'm allowed to talk about them. We used Scrum Essentials - one of the scrum practices we've developed with Jeff called the scrum accelerator to help their scrum teams within a safe environment, get better at Scrum.  Right? So you can take things from different places and mix them together and benefit from that knowledge. And that's, that's really what it's all about. It's a kind of Ivar's 'change the world' mission. We don't make a lot of money from the cards - we give them away for free, but hopefully it's helping people get better.  And that the idea of Essence will spread and every team will be able to pick up and play with the right practices and organizations will be able to establish the kind of common operating model they need. So they have a local vocabulary within their organization, but the teams can then pick up whatever practices are going to help them the most. And even organizations, if they want to, they could mandate some practices. Most companies mandate some financial and accounting practices, because if you don't, you might well not be a legal entity and things like that. Safety critical you have standards. So we can do all kinds of great stuff.  Quality checks, checklists, build life cycles. But the idea is to stop having these big descriptions of everything, which will never last because you know, which practices are improving change in new ideas all the time and have something where the way of working for the organization is as agile and as flexible and learning as much as the people in the organization as a whole.  And that's the end game. It fits very well with scrum, because to use a scrum practice, you've got to pick a load of other practices. You don't have to do user stories, you could do use cases or other stuff. And it works really well with Kanban because it's all based on the idea of evolution.  Ula Ojiaku: I'd have to say, having used the scrum cards that you've talked about, they are really very helpful and it does, I can testify in the sessions I've run, you know, with the teams, I support.  It kind of brings things to life and it just helps. They're not wondering, 'oh, what's a daily stand up. Oh, what's a retrospective', because the definition is there you know, it's clear for them to just read and do the exercises. And one of the things I'm also in the process of trying out is designing an exercise for a team that wants to maybe start adopting some scrum practices, but they are Kanban. kind of build your own scrum, you know, pull what practices you want and don't take anything else -  no more, no unnecessary overheads.  I know that you have a (Better Scrum with Essence) course coming up. Do you want to tell us about this and what the, audience might expect to experience on your course?    Ian Spence: Well, as you mentioned, you went on the alpha course.    Ula Ojiaku: I was and I thoroughly enjoyed it     Ian Spence: So it's covers quite a lot, but I did one with Jeff Sutherland on Better Scrum with Essence. You (Ula) are one of the very select few who got to go on the course and the course is, basically it doesn't teach you Scrum and it's not an alternative scrum master course.  It teaches you how to use the scrum practices to play games. It covers sort of learning games, things you could use just to learn about Scrum. It covers, uh, how you can use the kernel to understand where you are. It covers the scrum accelerator and other games you can play to improve Scrum and it does cover some scaling stuff, how you can use some of Jeff's Scrum at Scale ideas, just to assess and play around with things. , you can use Scrum Essentials, you can use this with teams using SAFe -anyone, any scrum team, whether they're doing software can benefit. One of my colleagues is working at the Royal Navy, 30,000 people learning about Scrum  and he's been using the cards an awful lot too. And they're not doing software development. And a lot of it is hands-on because you start playing the games. Actually, the one we're going to deliver in November is going to be a bit longer so it's very much playing games, exploring things in your groups rather than being lectured. And a lot of the games are transferable to any practice, but it's particularly useful, given that we have the access to the Scrum practices that Jeff helped us develop.  So a great course for any coach, any scrum master, or any, we used to call people, call them process freaks. So if you're really interested in the ideas of Essence, this is a great way to, to learn the practicalities and how Essence would help you before you start going into the language and how to write things in Essence, but you know, people can produce their own practices.  There are companies out there who are using these ideas to document their own ways of working.     And it's interesting because the course would have been so much better if we'd been able to be face-to-face we'd have had so much fun playing the game. There would have been things stuck on the walls everywhere.  It would have been great, but it works well online. We use Mural boards and stuff. So when people leave the course, they've got the cards, they've got the templates. You can literally, the next day I've known people go and start using the stuff that they've learned so that that's great, but you can sit down and very simple in an unobtrusive way with a team, find out which bits of scrum they like which bits they don't like, which bits they're doing, which bits they're not doing and get those conversations started.   Um, I did it with a team recently. They didn't have any Sprint goals. And they didn't know anything about product goal, which was introduced in the latest scrum guide. So that uncovered that in a way that was sort of non-judgmental. And then we could talk about, well, you know, how do you think it would be useful?  Well, why don't you try having some things like that? You know? And if, if we say daily, stand up, we hate it. Well, there you go. There's a, there's a, that's straight away. You've got something to think about how to improve and it gets you away from all of the ‘mad, sad, glad' and all of that. And you could be proactive. One of my favorite things is just, uh, in a retro pick a card and say, ‘well, how's this one going?'  So you don't have to look at everything just randomly pick one and have a discussion about it and see if we're doing it well, if we could improve.    If you were a new team, and you're coming together for the first time, Scrum is a great way to start building that team working.  Right. But scrum does not give you all the processes and practices you need, but some of them you'll have in your heads. Some of them, you can pull it and as you go forward, you might move away from Scrum that's fine. But if you start, if you don't do all of the essential things, then you're not doing Scrum - we're doing something else, but that's fine. It's Scrum-like as opposed to Scrum but at least everyone will know you've got this different. We can start to share those values and we can start to have stuff to build, to build out on that. And it's the same with, with other practices.   Essence is quite big in the academic community. There's a whole community of university lecturers, building courses, based on essence to teach software engineering and to be able to teach software engineering in a way that's independent of the practices, some of the management practices.  So they can teach software engineering and they can use scrum as a tool, but they get that nice separation so that people know what's going on.  Ula Ojiaku: There's something you said earlier on about, teams being able to choose their practices and evolve. And you said something that some people might find heretic, which is that, you know, as they evolve they might move away from scrum practices. Could you expand on that?     Ian Spence: Uh, well, there's two sides to this. If you, if you're doing scrum, you should be doing scrum.  Well, there's a lot of people out there blaming scrum and saying it's not working and they're not, they've never done it properly. They've always done some spray, you know… water, scrum, fall, or whatever. so it's nice if we can actually have meaning behind the words we use and the practices.   A lot of the time people say they're doing one thing as an excuse not to do another, right? But software development should be a profession. People should be professional. We should maintain certain standards. And if we say we're doing X, we should be doing X. But a lot of agile coaches are familiar with Shu Ha Ri. . This comes from martial arts and in martial arts Shu - you are studying the standard forms and you're doing them by the letter. And that's how you build your muscle memory. That's how you build your basics. And then when you get to Ri - you start to be able to mix and match the forms and adapt them a bit.  When you get to Ri - you have transcended. If you're starting out as agile, basic forms, you need to learn as a team, Scrum and Kanban. I think every Agile coach should have their Scrum and Kanban experience. They should have the experience of doing it. Right?  And, um, the cards are to help the teams get that, get that muscle memory. And then when you go up the levels, at some point, you might get to the Ri level and transcend that's when you, uh, that's when you can really invent new forms, that's when you can pick up the existing forms and put a twist on them, but it takes many years to get there.    And seriously, I don't believe there are any, any shortcuts. Right. And a lot of people seem to forget how they got where they are. Practices and frameworks are where you start even things like the Scaled Agile Framework. But for me, that's not an end point it's a starting point because if you're Agile, you're inspecting and adapting. So you have to inspect and adapt your way of working, right?   Now, the problem is with anything that's popular, many people have inspected and adapted it and broken it. One of my SAFe training courses, I did, someone came along from this major company and they said, well, the team have told me they're doing SAFe and she listened and she enjoyed the course and she went back and said, ‘you're not doing SAFe but you ought to be doing SAFe. So we're going to get these people to come in and help us.' So I went in to do some coaching. Now, let's say I was told that there were eight agile teams . Now, the person who was like the lead agile person in the technical side of the organization.  ‘What teams have you got?' By the time they've got to team number 15, which is two testers working alone. They, they were so agile. They had self organized themselves out of agility. to get them go back again, they got put back into scrum teams and then we did the PI planning and they went and they actually delivered the MVP that they'd missed a date for three times before.  So it was a very successful adoption.   But what the practices do is they keep you on the straight and narrow. So master the form and then as you go up from Shu to Ha to Ri, you will be able to start adapting and inventing new practices. But you don't get to that state without going through the hard work of learning, the basic forms and the basics.   I have delivered, SAFe training with Dean Leffingwell. And I delivered Scrum at Scale training with Jeff Sutherland. And I've had some very, uh, interesting experiences where people on Scrum at Scale are trying to bash SAFe; they're more similar than they are different.   Your job, as a coach, isn't to rip the foundation out and say to people ‘you're not agile, you're doing SAFe. You're not Agile, you're doing that.'  What your job is, is to say, ‘Ah, you're doing great. What could we do better?' And if we bring some ideas, what are the other frameworks in… Lots of great ideas in SAFe, lots of great ideas in Scrum at Scale, lots of great ideas in LeSS - you're looking to improve.   And, you know, if you are still doing those essential things from that framework from that practice at least you've got the commonality that people need to work as a large organization.   You can start to evolve and play around and then practices can move about . I see all the frameworks as a starting point. SAFe is brilliant for lifting and shifting large numbers of traditional people and making them all agile.    Ula Ojiaku: This brings me to a question really. You mentioned earlier on, , that organizations, potentially can build their own Agile framework from the ground.     Ian Spence: Um, well we have to be careful when we say Agile framework. An agile framework is a pre-constructed set of practices and a reference model to help organizations create their own operating model. So every organization needs, their own operating model and that could include mandating frameworks and practices, but everyone, you know, you get your competitive advantage by having your own way of working. All right. So as organizations evolve from that standard model, that's useful in many contexts and create the one that's working specifically, uh, you know, optimized for ourselves. And reflects our learning and our skills and our recruitment policies and all those things that are part of a healthy organization.    Ula Ojiaku: Thank you for clarifying Ian, however, would I be right in the understanding that what you're saying is for it to work, that has to be a shared language across the board as a fundamental…   Ian Spence: I'm going to do a conference talk in Russia called, um, Agile Horror Stories.  About how things go wrong. And one of the ways things go wrong is people take a challenge and blow it up and they start blaming other parts of the organizational structure. They'd start blaming all kinds of things for their inability to achieve the goals and outcomes that they had, you know. You don't have to change HR to go agile, but if you go agile, you can change HR to benefit things.  So you've got to look across what, you know, what's the scope, what, what's the challenge, what commonality you need. No organization needs to have everything defined in the same way, but there are, if you want to do, you know, effectively portfolio management across the piece, you need some things that roll up and down across the backlogs and stuff like that.  Then if you're going to go and talk to people, you need some consistent positions in the organization. So you know who you should be talking to, right? You shouldn't have to redefine the positions every time you changed the practice right. I did a talk at the SAFe summit a few weeks ago on the idea of the dual operating system.  Now, a lot of agile people  - I've seen a lot of articles - they said, ‘oh, we don't need any dual operating systems.' And what their people are showing is they haven't understood what it is. We want the agile, the value streams, which flow across our organization to work like a dynamic network. Self-organizing, self-determining we want that right now. Every organization, every human social structure will have a hierarchy in it. If you don't have a dual operating system where you separate the functional hierarchy or position in the organization, from the value streams on the network, the value is never going to have that beautiful unimpeded flow.  Ula Ojiaku: Yes Ian Spence: What people are doing is they are not creating a network. They're creating a new hierarchy, right? And again, all these opposition are in pointless fights about stuff right. Now in the latest scrum guide they deliberately said, Scrum Master is not a role. It's a set of accountabilities. Basically, it's a card that someone picks up and goes, oh, I'm going to be the scrum master.  I know people who act as scrum masters, who are, very senior in an organization because they run their leadership team. They run their lean portfolio management group as a Scrum. I worked at the, Gibraltar financial services commission where they did scrum all across. This is the business of regulations. They're not software.   The first scrum team was the leadership team. And they were great. Every day, you'd see the CEO running to the daily stand up. It was brilliant. All right. And they were leading from the front, but you know, the person who was the, Product Owner for that group was the CEO and that's their position and that's their title.  And they took on the accountability of Product Owner for the leadership team. And they had someone who was a senior coach who took on the role of the scrum master for that. But she was mainly coaching all the other people in Scrum. She was a scrum master for that particular group.  So, you know, no, no changes of job titles. No, disenfranchising of people to start with, but yes, as you become more agile, you will improve everything, including the hierarchy. So yes, a lean hierarchy is better, but the big mistake too many people make is they create these sort of agile hierarchies and they do it and they haven't even dislodged the old one.  So now they've got two hierarchies. So it's like, we don't need a dual operating system. We've got four hierarchies already. It's just crazy stuff.      Ula Ojiaku: Some of the pitfalls you've mentioned, most recently being the one about agile hierarchy and multiple hierarchies instead of adopting the concept of dual operating systems in the spirit that it's meant to be, how can leaders in organizations, that have gone through transformations, recognize this sort of pitfalls and avoid them or remedy them if they've already kind of fallen into a rut.  Ian Spence: I mean, the whole leadership question is an interesting one, particularly with some of the political leadership we're seeing in the world today. Um, but the, the idea of the leader that serves , of, uh, leaders who are empowering and delegating and stuff like that, um, is incredibly, incredibly powerful. So what leaders need is the agile mindset.  Now, when you're looking at practices, right, there are millions of scrum teams in the world. So the higher up as a leader, the more it's about your mindset, your personal skill, you're not following practices. You're not doing routine type work in the same way. So what you've got to do is have that lean and agile mindset. Now, if you are leading a change, symbolic leadership is incredibly important.  So you've got to lead by example. Um, you've got to understand the, the mindset and the principles. You've got to focus on outcomes, the real business outcomes, not output.  You've got to learn how to use metrics and stuff like that, but you've got to go on a journey with your teams. You've got to do that kind of stuff. Um, And, you know, I've coached quite a lot of that. The biggest challenge I find when teaching, you know, leadership is something that you see at all levels of an organization as well.  So every agile team will benefit from some agile leadership. Coaching is not something that's only done by coaches. Every good leader will… certainly a good agile leader will have coaching capabilities… will be developing their people. So you've got to learn about, about that kind of stuff.   But the biggest problem I found when teaching, when coaching senior people say portfolio managers and stuff was basically just never turn up.  they're too busy and that's not good. Don't be so busy that you haven't got time to get better. So take time to learn, take time to do experiments, do new practices.  You've got to get into that. I mean, delegating authority is doing that. Doesn't mean I'm neglecting your own accountability and responsibility. So transparency and empowerment. Agility is there to empower leaders as much as the people being, led. And that's important. So all of these things can help you as an agile leader in agile, organization, you can be a better leader because you can really decrease the decision latency.  You can spend much more of your time. Um, looking forwards, planning, forecasting, steering, creating the buzz, the vision and less time looking backwards. If you're learning to be an agile leader, don't get caught up in all the framework wars and all of that. It's about the mindset and about empowerment, autonomy, purpose, and all those, all those good things. I highly recommend... there's a video they use in the Scaled Agile course. David Marquee, a model of leadership, the nuclear submarine. Yeah. Yeah. So if you don't mind, um, all male or military type examples. It's a great about that leadership by intent and serves the those things. So as a leader, let's become about leading rather than chastising and administering.  And management is incredibly important. Um, Google did some experiments where they tried to take a, we don't need no managers. They tried to get rid of the managers. Nobody was happy. So they bought them back. What they discovered was people like good managers.   And I would assert, and I'm probably not the first person to assert this, but I can't attribute other assert anyway. Um, it's better to work for a good manager in a bad organization than a bad manager in a good one. And if you've ever worked there, I know people who have their whole career has just been moving, following a good manager anywhere.  They went, wherever I go and stuff like that. And often they've gone to a bad company, but you know, you will be looked after because they have a good manager. So good managers develop the people and skills for sustainable organizations. They set the vision, they make the decisions quickly.  Um, they involve more people in that decision making, but they keep their accountability, they keep their responsibilities. They don't pass the buck… Ula Ojiaku: If it goes well, it's the team. If it goes badly, the manager takes the bullets.   Ian Spence: Yeah. The best managers to work for barely take that much credit. they get the credit because they've created that environment for everyone else to thrive. And, and, you know, the agile mindset, if you look at the qualities that Google said, a good manager needs, and if you compare it to the, you know, agile mindset, agile values, stuff like that, very closely aligned, they haven't normalized the vocabulary.   People use the sport analogy and I'm a big arsenal fan.   And I'm a big Arsene Venga fan. He would empower his players and send them out to play. He didn't have rigid systems. Jose Marino was the opposite kind of manager, right. The opposite kind of coach. But they were both fairly successful. Agile leadership is not the only style of leadership.  Right? Many, many big things have been achieved by bad leaders, doing things I personally would consider unethical and stuff like that.  Ula Ojiaku: But the question is how sustainable is it? People don't remember what you do per se, but they will always remember how you made them feel when they worked with you.     Ian Spence: Yeah. There's stuff like that. But, um, I talked to David last week and he said that the, um, the longest living successful organization is the Roman Catholic church. Right. They go back thousands of years, and this is still the same organization and they have changed, changed considerably. But I wouldn't say necessarily of a particularly agile organization, they have quite rigid rules, but their leadership has, has, has learned and developed and listened to people and changed markets and all kinds of stuff over the years.  So lean and agile leadership… it's what a lot of our organizations benefit from and need. So in basic learn about it and hopefully you're going to very successful.  Ula Ojiaku: Where can the audience reach you if they want to get in touch with you? Ian Spence: well, I'm on LinkedIn. And that's the best way to contact me personally. If you want to investigate the Essence stuff, or get a hold of the scrum cards or the other cards.  Then the Ivar Jacobson website. is the place to go. You can freely download that stuff and has articles about that, um, as well…  Ula Ojiaku: Okay. All right, many thanks. And could you remind us the date of your Better Scrum through Essence course? Ian Spence: Possibly it's, uh, the 23rd of November. And it's a online course and it will start at nine o'clock each day, UK time.  Ula Ojiaku: Okay. We'll have the Beatles and the show notes. So thank you so much again, Ian, for this. Do you have any final words of advice for the audience before we close this out?   Ian Spence: The only final word of advice is stay be a lifelong learner, relentless improvement. That's something you should be looking at.  So be, be curious, explore new things. Don't get you to let yourself get trapped in any of these, any of these boxes. And, uh, my other bit for the agile leaders is. If you are investigating agile, don't just allow it to clutter up what you say with more meaningless management speak.  Okay. Keep it, think about it's about getting good outcomes, creating healthy, sustainable team environments, getting the flow of value, watch out for the buzzword bingo.     Ula Ojiaku: Thank you so much, Ian. I've really enjoyed this conversation and I hope we'll get, to have you back on this, show some other time.  That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. I'd love to hear from you so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com. Take care and God bless!

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the Government's $387 million investment to build the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope in Western Australia. We talked about this project with the Chief Technology Officer at Australian SKA Regional Centre Slava Kitaeff. - Правительство Австралии анонсировало выделение 387 миллионов долларов на проект по строительству крупнейшего в мире радиотелескопа SKA. Мы связались с главным техническим директором Австралийского центра обработки данных SKA Славой Китаевым, чтобы узнать для вас все подробности этого проекта.

Fascinating and enjoyable interview with Astrophysicist Emma Chapman about why we are in exciting times for astrophysics and learning more about the universe and our origins. Emma Chapman is a Royal Society research fellow and fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, based at Imperial College London. She is among the world's leading researchers in search of the first stars to exist in our Universe, 13 billion years ago, and she is involved in both the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) in the Netherlands and the forthcoming Square Kilometre Array (SKA) in Australia, a telescope that will eventually consist of a million antennas pointing skywards in the desert. Emma has been the recipient of multiple commendations and prizes, the most recent of which was both the 2018 Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Research Fellowship and STFC Ernest Rutherford Fellowship, two of the most prestigious science fellowships in the UK. She won the Institute of Physics Jocelyn Bell Burnell Prize in 2014, and was runner-up for the UK L'Oreal Women in Science award in 2017. In 2018 she was also the recipient of the Royal Society Athena Medal. Emma is a respected public commentator on astrophysical matters, contributing to the Guardian, appearing on BBC radio and regularly speaking at public events. Among others, she has spoken at Cheltenham Science Festival, the European Open Science Forum and at New Scientist Live.

Rebecca Wheadon is an experienced manager with a background in project management and Mario Kart. She lives for riding her bike in circles over short distances and also happens to manage the CSIRO Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory in the Mid West region of WA. She is a world champion in track cycling and probably also Mario Kart - the latter of which is not necessarily evidenced by proof. Rebecca has joined CSIRO after working in engineering consulting for the last 12 years, where she was first introduced to the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). In our conversation, we talk about the SKA, the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), and her love of cycling. Show Notes (link) [01:08] Rebecca's journey to the SKA. [03:39] What drew Rebecca to the SKA Telescope project. [06:47] Project management is a transferrable skill. [07:25] Western Australia's Radio Quiet Zone. [08:22] The current state of the infrastructure. [09:23] The applications of the SKA. [11:01] The state of technology for this scale. [12:02] Moore's Law. [13:05] Rebecca's role as Site Entity Leader. [15:09] Managing the radio quiet zone. [16:54] Coordinating participation between 15 countries. [17:59] The structure of the SKA Organisation. [19:39] Design and infrastructure considerations. [22:31] Taking a unit in astrophysics. [24:49] Rebecca and her Amstrad. [27:45] Bonus Question 1: What hobby or interest do you have that is most unrelated to your field of work? [28:32] Getting into track cycling. [30:26] Rebecca's interest in the competitive side of cycling. [32:32] Juggling work and the training required for competition. [34:47] At Rebecca's competitive level, where to from here? [37:11] Bonus Question 2: Which childhood book holds the strongest memories for you? [38:42] Bonus Question 3: What advice you would give someone who wants to do what you do? Or what advice should they ignore? [41:20] Reaching out to Rebecca and the SKA. Connect with STEAM Powered: Website Facebook Instagram Twitter Patreon Ko-Fi

Danielle George is a Professor of Microwave Communication Engineering at the University of Manchester and the incoming President of the Institution of Engineering and technology. Starting her career as a scientist, Danielle studied astrophysics at university. However, she quickly discovered the allure of engineering and, after choosing the more practical subjects during her studies, secured her very first job as a junior engineer working on the Planck satellite. Today, Danielle’s research is largely dedicated to engineering the tools of scientific discovery – one of the 14 grand challenges for engineering in the 21st century. She is the UK lead for amplifiers in the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project and has worked with NASA and the European Space Agency to further our exploration of the Big Bang. Danielle is just as likely to be seen in the mainstream media. She makes regular appearances on TV programmes and podcasts, raising public awareness of the global positive impact of engineering and informing the next generation of the myriad opportunities a career in STEM can offer. In 2014, she became the sixth woman to deliver the Royal Institution Christmas Lecture since its inception in 1825. She was honoured with an MBE and awarded the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Rooke Award for the Public Promotion of Engineering in 2016, and the Michael Faraday Prize by the Royal Society in 2018. In this episode of Create the Future, we explore Danielle’s varied career from her work on the Planck satellite through to her current projects such as the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope. We discuss the importance of science communication in the mainstream media, her reflections on International Women in Engineering Day, and what it was like to co-found the world’s first recycled robot orchestra.

Scientists and engineers have joined forces and completed the design of one of the two paired supercomputers in the world called the Science Data Processor (SDP). The group, led by experts from the University of Cambridge and composed of members from 11 different countries, worked for five years to produce the algorithms, hardware, and software of the first SDP. Once completed, the first supercomputer will be placed in Perth, Western Australia, while the second will be found in Cape Town, South Africa. The supercomputers are designed to process data that will be generated by the world's biggest radio telescope network, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). The SKA, which is set to undergo construction in 2020, aims to provide comprehensive information about the universe. To do this, the SKA will gather huge amounts of astronomical data. According to SKA scientist Rosie Bolton, the SDP supercomputers will analyze and convert the data from the SKA into exceptional pictures of the sky and other heavenly objects. After processing by the SDP, data from the telescopes will be sent to different parts of the world where scientists can access them. Together, the SDP supercomputers will be able to make around 250 quadrillion computations per second. The supercomputers will be 25% faster than IBM's Summit, which is currently the world's fastest supercomputer. SDP Project Manager Maurizio Miccolis said that the new software and hardware developments required to build the supercomputers could also be useful in other fields. The SDP's fast-computing power may help in facilitating research in various fields and disciplines that involve cutting-edge simulations, such as in weather forecasting and medical research.

Alien news: UK to become hub of international extraterrestrial hunting effort Article Link: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.express.co.uk/news/science/1099675/alien-news-ska-telescope-project-aliens-discovery-universe-news/am THE UK has joined the hunt for aliens after signing up to be part of a global initiative which will also see the headquarters based in Manchester. The UK joined six other countries to sign up to the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope at a ceremony in Italy, joining the likes of Australia, China, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal and South Africa. The ambitious international project will scan the cosmos through thousands of individual satellite dishes and up to a million low-frequency antennas. SKA is the “largest science facility on the planet”, with antennas and telescopes across three continents with the headquarters based in the UK. Researchers will use the telescope to scan the universe to “study gravitational waves and test Einstein's theory of relativity in extreme environments, investigate the nature of the mysterious fast radio bursts, improve our understanding of the evolution of the Universe over billions of years, map hundreds of millions of galaxies and look for signs of life in the Universe,” according to a statement. This will mean two of the world's most powerful supercomputers will be needed to comb through the data. Overall, the cost of creating all the global telescopes and satellites will cost upwards of €700million with construction to begin after 2020. Business Secretary Greg Clark said: “Science has no borders and the UK's hosting of the global HQ of this international project demonstrates our leading position and influence in leading scientific collaboration and exploration. Show Stuff  TeePublic Store - Get your UBR goodies today! http://tee.pub/lic/2GQuXxn79dg UBR Trurh Seekers Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/216706068856746 Manny Moonraker: https://www.facebook.com/MannyMoonraker/ UFO Buster Radio: https://www.facebook.com/UFOBusterRadio  YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCggl8-aPBDo7wXJQ43TiluA  To contact Manny: manny@ufobusterradio.com, or on Twitter @ufobusterradio Call the show anytime at (972) 290-1329 and leave us a message with your point of view, UFO sighting, and ghostly experiences or join the discussion on www.ufobusterradio.com For Skype Users: bosscrawler

Alien news: UK to become hub of international extraterrestrial hunting effort Article Link: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.express.co.uk/news/science/1099675/alien-news-ska-telescope-project-aliens-discovery-universe-news/am THE UK has joined the hunt for aliens after signing up to be part of a global initiative which will also see the headquarters based in Manchester. The UK joined six other countries to sign up to the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope at a ceremony in Italy, joining the likes of Australia, China, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal and South Africa. The ambitious international project will scan the cosmos through thousands of individual satellite dishes and up to a million low-frequency antennas. SKA is the “largest science facility on the planet”, with antennas and telescopes across three continents with the headquarters based in the UK. Researchers will use the telescope to scan the universe to “study gravitational waves and test Einstein's theory of relativity in extreme environments, investigate the nature of the mysterious fast radio bursts, improve our understanding of the evolution of the Universe over billions of years, map hundreds of millions of galaxies and look for signs of life in the Universe,” according to a statement. This will mean two of the world's most powerful supercomputers will be needed to comb through the data. Overall, the cost of creating all the global telescopes and satellites will cost upwards of €700million with construction to begin after 2020. Business Secretary Greg Clark said: “Science has no borders and the UK's hosting of the global HQ of this international project demonstrates our leading position and influence in leading scientific collaboration and exploration. Show Stuff  TeePublic Store - Get your UBR goodies today! http://tee.pub/lic/2GQuXxn79dg UBR Trurh Seekers Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/216706068856746 Manny Moonraker: https://www.facebook.com/MannyMoonraker/ UFO Buster Radio: https://www.facebook.com/UFOBusterRadio  YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCggl8-aPBDo7wXJQ43TiluA  To contact Manny: manny@ufobusterradio.com, or on Twitter @ufobusterradio Call the show anytime at (972) 290-1329 and leave us a message with your point of view, UFO sighting, and ghostly experiences or join the discussion on www.ufobusterradio.com For Skype Users: bosscrawler

Tamryn Barker is a co-founder and CEO of CORE Innovation Hub, Australia’s first co-working, collaboration and innovation hub focused on the resources sector. CORE provides a common point for operators, suppliers, researchers, entrepreneurs and startups to connect and collaborate on innovative challenges and opportunities across the oil, gas and mining and mining equipment, technology and services (METS) sectors. Leveraging Australia’s strengths in natural resources, CORE is a growing a network of hubs to support the resources innovation ecosystem, providing proximity to skills, solutions and opportunity along thesupply chain, and a culture of entrepreneurship, open innovation, collaboration and speed to market. CORE’s members and industrypartners are focused on leveraging the opportunities from digital technologies into the sector. Tamryn has worked for a number of international organisations including the European Commission in Brussels, Delegation of theEuropean Union in Beijing, the European Patent Office in diplomatic, trade and economic co-operation posts for over 10 years; and on a number of local collaborative initiatives including the international Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope project and data science and innovation projects for the resources sector. Tamryn is committed to growing a community of innovators in WA to deliver the ideas, solutions and skills we need into the future.

Astrophiz 60: Dr Jane Kaczmarek ~ 'The Dish’ Intensified ~ on Soundcloud & iTunes A full-length feature episode on the installation of revolutionary receivers on the famous CSIRO Parkes Radio Observatory ‘The Dish’, featuring Dr Jane Kaczmarek who led the commissioning of the Ultra Wideband with Low receiver, the UWL. Dr Jane is a CSIRO research scientist and post-doctoral fellow who has her BSc in Physics and Astrophysics from the University of Wisconsin and her Doctorate in Physics from The University of Sydney. Then Dr Ian “Astroblog’ Musgrave presents his regular segment ‘What’s Up Doc? where he tells us what's up in the evening, night and morning skies for the next two weeks, and in his bizarre tangent he explains how gravity waves interfering with the rings of Saturn can tell us how fast it rotates and many of Saturn’s internal properties. Dr Ian is a University pharmacology and toxicology lecturer, amateur astronomer and astrophotographer. Follow @jfkaczmarek, PULSE@Parkes and @ianfmusgrave on Twitter. Then just put Astroblogger and Southern Skywatch into your search engine. 
Ian’s blogs come up #1 in searches. Follow @Astrophiz on Twitter, FB & Insta Subscribe to our fabulous podcast on iTunes or Soundcloud or via your fav podcatcher In the news: 1. Here’s our latest SKA UPDATE adapted from a story in Science By Daniel Clery on Jun. 19, 2018
Today, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), a continent-spanning radio astronomy project, announced that Spain has come on board as the collaboration’s 11th member. That boost will help the sometimes-troubled project as, over the next year or so, it forms an international treaty organization and negotiates funding to start construction. In Australia, in an extreme radio ‘quite zone’ where the MWA SKA-precursor has already produced some amazing science using revolutionary ‘spider’ antennae arrays, Phase 1 of SKA will add about 130,000 antennas in Australia. 
 Phase one of the SKA in Africa will add more than 130 dishes to South Africa’s 64-dish MeerKAT precursor telescope, on the wide-open plains of the Karoo desert.
The last of 64 13.5-meter dishes was installed late last year, and next month South African President Cyril Ramaphosa will officially open the facility. Spread across 8 kilometers, the dishes have a collecting area similar to that of the great workhorse of astrophysics, the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) near Socorro, New Mexico. But with new hardware designs and a powerful supercomputer to process data, MEEKAT could have an edge on its 40-year-old northern cousin.
 So while this partnership announcement with Spain is new, though to be fair, Spain has been collaborating and contributing to SKA through their industry, institutions and scientific teams for many years already. Welcome abourd Spain. ¡Bienvenido a bordo de España!
 
 2. And here’s an update on the latest FRB or Fast Radio Burst News from an accepted paper by Vikram Ravi in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society also on the 19th of June.
Here’s an abstract of his abstract:
He presents an empirical study of the properties of fast radio bursts (FRBs) and focussed his investigation on a sample of seventeen FRBs detected at the Parkes radio telescope, and concludes that it is uncertain at present whether they share a common class of progenitor object, or arise from a selection of independent progenitors. 
 3. And to add to the FRB mystery, check out this recently revised paper in ArXiv by Joao G. Rosa, Thomas W. Kephart who hypothesise that FRBs may be a result of spinning Black Holes creating dark matter lasers. 
Read it for yourself at tinyurl.com/blackholefrb 
The mystery of FRBs lives on. Watch this space.

Astrophiz 57: Dr Elaina Hyde ~ Data Science & Astrophysics Our feature interview is with Dr Elaina Hyde. Dr. Hyde speaks four languages, has four undergraduate degrees in astronomy, physics, optical engineering and planetary sciences; two masters degrees in engineering and astronomy and astrophysics; and a Ph.D. in astronomy and physics. She is an artist, a cool coder, and shares her code on Github. She uses data creatively to understand how our universe works. Follow on @AstroHyde on Twitter For observers and astrophotographers Dr Ian Musgrave gives us ‘What’s Up Doc’ and he tells us what to look for in our morning and evening skies, what planets, galaxies and nebula to look for and what occultations are happening. In Ian’s Tangent, we look at CO2 on Mars and Comet PanSTARRS In the news: The Breakthrough Listen Initiative has signed up for 1500 hours of observation time in 2018 with the multi-beam receivers on ‘the Dish’, CSIRO’s famous Parkes telescope and the recent tech upgrade with the multi-beam receivers will see scientists processing about 130 gigabits per second of observational data from deep space. Meekat Update: The 64-dish South African radio telescope, MeerKAT, which is a precursor to the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is complete, having achieved ‘first light’ some time ago and already generating exciting observational data. NASA’s Mars Insight mission was launched last Saturday from Vandenburg Airforce Base because the launch queue at Cape Canaveral was too long. Insight arrives at Mars on 26 November later this year after several Rich Purnall manoeuvres. And finally the Australian Government has allocated $40 odd million dollars for a Space Agency. The policy has not been released yet. It’s a piddling amount, but it’s a start. We will dissect this policy when it arrives and look at the local implications for both industry and education. Next episode: We speak with Jessie Christiansen, a NASA scientist working with the KEPLER and TESS Exoplanet missions

Presented by Dr. Tyler Bourke on 24th March 2017.Australia is part of an international effort to build the World's largest radio telescope, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). In fact, one of the two telescope arrays that make up the SKA will be built in the Western Australian outback near Murchison, about 800 km NNE of Perth, a remote area almost devoid of people, but already the location of two advanced radio telescopes. The other SKA telescope array will be in a similarly isolated location in South Africa. The telescopes of the SKA will provide more than an order-of-magnitude increase in performance over existing radio telescopes, to for example: address fundamental questions on the history of our Universe and the emergence of the first stars and galaxies ; detect the merger of super-massive black-holes at the centres of galaxies through their gravitational waves, and use these events to test Einstein's theories ; detect powerful bursts of radio emission whose origin and nature remain controversial.

Fra qualche anno lo Square Kilometre Array (SKA) entrerà in funzione e sarà uno strumento prezioso per i ricercatori che indagano sulla vita nel cosmo. Lo SKA il più grande network di radiotelescopi al mondo e vedrà i primi risultati scientifici tra il 2020 e il 2025.

Fra qualche anno lo Square Kilometre Array (SKA) entrerà in funzione e sarà uno strumento prezioso per i ricercatori che indagano sulla vita nel cosmo. Lo SKA il più grande network di radiotelescopi al mondo e vedrà i primi risultati scientifici tra il 2020 e il 2025.

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is a global science and engineering project to build a revolutionary new radio telescope with extraordinary scientific ambitions. With funding from ten nations the building of the SKA will start in 2016 and be fully operational in 2024. It will tackle some of the profoundest questions of cosmology associated with […] The post Episode 60: Square Kilometre Array appeared first on AstrotalkUK.

Sir Bernard Lovell, 1913-2012. We begin this episode with a look back at the life of Sir Bernard Lovell [1:03 - 5:56], founder of Jodrell Bank, who sadly died on the 6th of August at the age of 98. We also talk to Prof. Alan Hood [15:51 - 23:53] about the solar atmosphere, Dr. Jacqueline Hodge [24:00 - 30:56] about observing submillimetre galaxies with the VLA, and Prof. Ray Norris [31:05 - 45:16] about the Evolutionary Map of the Universe (EMU) project. This month's Jodbite features Jo Bowler [7:00 - 15:38] who tells us about the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), and Dr Mark Purver answers your astronomical questions in Ask an Astronomer [55:34 - 1:16:13].

Sir Bernard Lovell, 1913-2012. We begin this episode with a look back at the life of Sir Bernard Lovell [1:03 - 5:56], founder of Jodrell Bank, who sadly died on the 6th of August at the age of 98. We also talk to Prof. Alan Hood [15:51 - 23:53] about the solar atmosphere, Dr. Jacqueline Hodge [24:00 - 30:56] about observing submillimetre galaxies with the VLA, and Prof. Ray Norris [31:05 - 45:16] about the Evolutionary Map of the Universe (EMU) project. This month's Jodbite features Jo Bowler [7:00 - 15:38] who tells us about the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), and Dr Mark Purver answers your astronomical questions in Ask an Astronomer [55:34 - 1:16:13].

This week Derek has a chat with Joeseph Lazio, project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope. To find out a bit more about what this next-generation radio telescope is going to attempt to find, and how it will address some of the fundamental questions in astrophysics, physics, and even astrobiology.

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is one of the largest and mostambitious international science projects ever devised, with discovery potential 10,000 times greater than the best present-day instruments. This new generation radio telescope will greatly assist astronomers answer fundamental questions about the evolution of the universe.Professor Richard Schilizzi is the Director of the SKA ProgramDevelopment Office, the organisation responsible for coordinating international efforts on the science case, engineering system design, site proposal process, operational plan, telescope performance simulation and outreach for the SKA.Professor Phil Diamond is the Director of Jodrell Bank Observatory at the University of Manchester. He is also Coordinator of the PrepSKAstudy, a preparatory project which draws together international effortsfrom around the world to finalise a detailed, costed technical design,and to develop the governance and legal framework for the SKA.More information on the SKA can be accessed from: www.ska.gov.au.

Happy New Year and welcome to the first Jodcast of 2007. We start, as always, with a round up of the past month in astronomy. We talk to Martin Hardcastle about active galactic nuclei and radio galaxies (see the fantastic cover art by Aurore Simonnet for an idea of what they look like). We also gate-crashed a recent meeting about the proposed Square Kilometre Array (SKA) to find out what it is as well as finding out about the two proposed sites. We have no ask an astronomer this month but Ian is here to tell us what we can see in January's night sky. We also get a round up of interesting astronomy podcasts and set our first ever competition. You'll have to listen to find out what the question is!

Happy New Year and welcome to the first Jodcast of 2007. We start, as always, with a round up of the past month in astronomy. We talk to Martin Hardcastle about active galactic nuclei and radio galaxies (see the fantastic cover art by Aurore Simonnet for an idea of what they look like). We also gate-crashed a recent meeting about the proposed Square Kilometre Array (SKA) to find out what it is as well as finding out about the two proposed sites. We have no ask an astronomer this month but Ian is here to tell us what we can see in January's night sky. We also get a round up of interesting astronomy podcasts and set our first ever competition. You'll have to listen to find out what the question is!