Monthly Archives: March 2021

By Talal Abu-Ghazaleh

Dear Europeans, do not be fooled by your relief with the new administration in Washington. Your hope for the future of transatlantic cooperation is premature. To get the America you want will be more difficult for President Joe Biden to deliver than you realize. It will require tough love by Europeans. Just make sure your assertiveness is designed to bring the United States and Europe closer together, not drive a new wedge in the relationship.

Biden is committed to rebuilding transatlantic ties. But the recent insurrection in Washington is a sobering reminder of the divided America he inherits. Moreover, his electoral coattails were short. The Democrats barely gained control of the U.S. Senate and lost seats in the House of Representatives. Moderates, not progressives, will have the deciding votes on many issues of importance to Europeans. And the American public is deeply divided. Three-quarters of Trump voters incorrectly believe he won the election. And only 15% of Americans think that American democracy is working well.

This comes in the wake of an ambitious European Union agenda for transatlantic relations in the Biden tenure. And at a time when Europeans are engaged in a long-overdue internal debate about their own sovereignty and autonomy.

In pursuit of such ambitions, Europeans must realize that self-empowerment requires assuming the responsibility to prod or even pressure the United States to do what is in their mutual self-interest.

What European autonomy should not do is create trans-Atlantic divisions. Signing the EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment in the waning days of 2020 was a dramatic assertion of European sovereignty, but it was an ill-timed first step.

It came at a moment when the incoming Biden administration had expressed a desire to work more closely with Europe in dealing with China. If Beijings concessions to Brussels temper European willingness to work with Washington on China, transatlantic cooperation will have gotten off on the wrong foot.

Going forward, European assertiveness should focus on initiatives such as leveraging U.S. climate action, taking on more responsibility for global economic recovery, and creation of a tax and regulatory framework for the digital economy. For all its good intentions, the Biden Administration will find it difficult to spearhead these initiatives. Europe will have to lead.

Biden will rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement on inauguration day. But the United States must also improve upon its commitments to reduce carbon emissions. Bidens campaign pledge of net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 requires big changes in the next decade. With Democratic Congressional majorities dependent on the votes of moderates from coal producing states, a meaningful tax on carbon emissions may be beyond reach.

Biden has also promised executive orders to impose higher fuel efficiency standards, to control methane emissions from fracking and to launch other regulatory initiatives to slow global warming. But, as President Trump learned, courts can block executive orders and the conservative Supreme Court seems poised to curtail the executive branchs regulatory discretion.

Europe has no choice but to force Washingtons hand. It should impose a carbon emissions border adjustment price on products from the United States. This would give the Biden administration some much-needed leverage with its domestic climate change deniers who will then have to choose between paying a domestic tax on carbon emissions or see taxes on American exports fill European government coffers.

Biden has also promised major new spending to revive the economy to avoid a desultory economic recovery. In the wake of the 2009-2010 Financial Crisis, the United States experienced its slowest rebound in modern times, thanks to inadequate pump priming. Europe and the rest of the world suffered as a result.

IMF leader Kristalina Georgieva has called for more U.S. fiscal stimulus. But any Biden spending program will require higher taxes and more debt. His promise to raise revenue by increasing corporate levies and higher income taxes on the rich will face stiff opposition on Capitol Hill. Expect Republicans to rediscover their orthodox aversion to debt. And moderate Democrats up for reelection in 2022 may have qualms about more deficit spending.

This means the burden of global economic revival will rest more on European shoulders. Approval of the 750 billion European Union recovery fund was a good first step. But additional spending will be needed, especially by Germany. Germany is in theenviable position of having ample fiscal space, Shekhar Aiyar, the IMFs mission chief for Germany, commented late last year.

Finally, the digital economy is the circulatory system of the future transatlantic marketplace. The European Court of Justice invalidated the U.S.-EU privacy shield agreement, which permitted companies to transfer commercially relevant personal data from Europe to the United States. Without such a deal, the transatlantic digital economy could be crippled. The European Union should propose immediate negotiations on a new transatlantic privacy accord.

The Biden administration is expected to take a hard look at the anti-competitive practices of Facebook and other platform companies. More than half the U.S. states have already sued Google for alleged discriminatory conduct on its search results page.

The EU has proposed tougher new oversight of the technology industry. And, in the wake of Twitter banning Trump, Chancellor Angela Merkel asserted that regulation of speech on these platforms should be done by law, not by private companies. Brussels should push for a U.S.-EU review of platform companies, with a focus on competition policy and free speech. Closer coordination is needed before Washington and Brussels go down separate regulatory paths.

And, most immediately, the U.S. and European governments need to resolve their differences on digital taxation. The digital economy is woefully undertaxed at a time when governments on both sides of the Atlantic are desperate for revenue. If Washington continues to drag its feet in the ongoing OECD negotiations on this issue, European governments should impose their own digital taxes. This may be the only way to force an American debate about digital companies paying their fair share.

Leading European politicians from various parties acknowledge that there is no return to some pre-Trump time when America led, Europe begrudgingly followed, and all was right with the world. Trump is gone. But the United States is still a much-needed European partner. Yet, in the Biden era, Europe should practice smart tough love on a distracted Washington to get it to move on issues of mutual interest. Europe must have the courage of its convictions and play the unaccustomed role of big brother. This will not be comfortable for either Europe or America. But this is what Europeans longed-for sovereignty means in practice.

Bruce Stokes is the executive director of the German Marshall Funds transatlantic taskforce Together or Alone? Choices and Strategies for Transatlantic Relations for 2021 and Beyond

* Bruce Stokes is the executive director of the Transatlantic Task Force and senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund. He was the director of Global Economic Attitudes at the Pew Research Center in Washington, DC, and is a former international economics columnist for the National Journal, a Washington-based public policy magazine. He is also a former senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Originally posted here:

Abu-Ghazaleh Shares Insights with Bruce Stokes on US Europe: Together or Alone (3) - Ammon News

When a man calling himself Gavin Ambani contacted Pl Hansen out of the blue one day in 2018, the highly regarded portrait photographer wasnt sure what to make of him. Hansen has built his reputation on photographing the likes of Nicole Kidman, Tilda Swinton and Sir Lewis Hamilton, as well as some of the worlds best known chefs for Observer Food Monthly. But Ambani, a loquacious character with a high-pitched voice, wanted him to do some work for his Instagram account.

I said it doesnt sound like something Im interested in, recalls Hansen.

But Ambani was nothing if not persistent. He told Hansen that Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich, the chef-owners of the restaurant Honey & Co, had personally recommended the photographer. Theyre amazing chefs, says Hansen of the Israeli couple. Very well known and lovely people.

This is the process by which Ambani, who is awaiting an extradition hearing relating to fraud charges in the United States, gained peoples attention: affecting friendships with influential people.

He was just a regular customer, says Srulovich. We knew him for coming once or twice a week. He was always name-dropping, not celebrities but people in the food world. We got to talking about Karam Sethi I love his work. And he said: Oh yeah, hes a good friend. Ill introduce you.

Sethi is one of the people behind the Michelin-starred Gymkhana in Mayfair, part of the JKS group of restaurants, which he set up with his brother Jyotin and sister Sunaina.

Ive probably met [Ambani] four or five times in our restaurants, he says. He was a regular at Trishna. One day emails started arriving because a staff member didnt give him the attention he desired. He threatened to call Michelin, and threatened us with attorneys. I called him and said if there was an issue he should come to me. He then completely flipped and became a superfan of our group, and the threats stopped. That was it.

Hansen didnt know any of that. So he agreed to meet Ambani for a coffee, during which, Hansen says, the aspiring influencer informed him that he was from an extremely wealthy Indian family and worked for Netflix in the UK. He said he wanted to become a major player in the food world and to develop the TV side of Instagram with a kind of gastronomy channel. He wanted promotional shots of himself taken in restaurant settings and asked Hansen to name his price. The photographer did just that and Ambani readily agreed.

Meanwhile, according to numerous American media reports, private investigators K2 Intelligence and the FBI, 6,000 miles away in Hollywood a con artist was busy luring behind-the-scenes workers makeup artists, personal trainers, stuntmen to Indonesia with promises of wealth and stardom, largely made through phone calls. Impersonating female film executives such as Amy Pascal, the former head of Sony Pictures, the producer Wendi Deng Murdoch, and Sherry Lansing, the former CEO of Paramount Pictures, the grifter allegedly managed to persuade hundreds of workers to fly to Indonesia on their own expense, where they were then charged excessive daily costs for driving fees or photo permits, all the while being told by Pascal or some other fake female executive that a major project was just about to begin. The whole thing, according to the Americans, was a scam, estimated to have realised $1.5-2m over several years.

Listeners to last years podcast serial Chameleon: Hollywood Con Queen, presented by investigative journalists Josh Dean and Vanessa Grigoriadis, heard that the main suspect in the case was someone who had used a falsified passport under the name of Gobind Lal Tahil. Further digging suggested this persons real name is Hargobind Punjabi Tahilramani, a 41-year-old Indonesian from a privileged background who had served time for fraud back home. He had also been a student in America, where under the name of Harvey he had taken part in competitive debating, specialising in persuasive speaking, until he was accused of using another competitors speech. Dean and Grigoriadis also discovered that Tahilramani was living in England, in Manchester.

Hansen did two photo shoots, the first at the Xu Teahouse in Chinatown, run by Erchen Chang and sister and brother Wai Ting Chung and Shing Tat Chung. Ambani arranged the location, claiming the owners were close friends (the owners say this was not the case and the shoot was arranged with their marketing department). The second was at Honey & Smoke, another Packer and Srulovich restaurant.

The photographs were done in Hansens signature style, filled with grandeur and drama but also intimately conveying the personality of their subject. So in one shot, for example, the waiters framed Ambani as they poured out a rainbow spectrum of colours from teapots to represent the fact that Ambani was gay. At Honey & Smoke he sat breaking bread between Packer and Srulovich, whom he saw as breaking down social barriers with their Israeli-Middle Eastern cooking. Thats what he stood for, he said, breaking down barriers.

The shoots went very well. Everyone had fun and the photographs were bold and striking. The only problem came with the payment, which was more than 4,000. A trail of emails and texts Hansen has shown Observer Food Monthly tells the story. There was some kind of technical hitch, Ambani explained after several weeks, with transferring the money from his aunts account in America, where his cash was tied up. It would soon be sorted out, he said.

Hansen wasnt too concerned. There was something a little odd about Ambani, that was true, but he didnt expect any trouble.

If someone is a fraudster, he reasoned, the last thing they want is to be recognised and seen in a physical document that proves who they are. So you think, he cant be a fraud.

Nonetheless, Hansen says, and the email exchange supports him, the payment continued not to arrive and in its place was a stream of ever more implausible excuses. Sometimes Ambani would say he would deliver the money by hand later that day, and then not show up. Oh my God, he wrote to Hansen afterwards, you wrote 10pm tonight when I meant 10am in the morning. On other occasions he would ask for more time.

Finally Hansen got in touch with Srulovich and asked whether he could check his bank statement to see if this Ambani was who he said he was. Srulovich wasnt able to, but the next day Ambani sent a furious message to Hansen accusing him of a criminal act of defamation in contacting Srulovich.

He said Itamar had given him a hard time for not paying and he ended the text message saying that what I had done [by informing Srulovich] made him feel like he was going to commit suicide.

Its perhaps worth noting that when Harvey was caught allegedly using another students debating speech, he also threatened suicide.

In neither case was the threat carried out, but nor did Ambani pay Hansen. Not even the prospect of court action seems to have bothered him. In the emails he claims to have beaten cancer and, he told Hansen, he would prevail in court too. In the meantime he kept Hansens photographs up on his Pure Bytes Instagram account, taking them down only after repeated reminders that he had not paid for them.

While this conflict was unfolding, a man named Lal Gobind walked into a West End restaurant and, without a reservation, asked for a table. When he was told the restaurant was full, he accused the staff of racism. Oh my God, this was really serious, recalls Gemma Bell, of well-known food PR agency Gemma Bell & Co, who represented the restaurant in question.

She knew she would have to conduct an inquiry to establish exactly what happened. After interviewing all of the staff involved, she says she realised that there was no basis to the claim. She called Gobind to smooth things over and, she says, he was sweetness and light. He was no longer concerned about the accusation that he had made so vehemently. Instead Bell says he asked her to become his PR for some supper club events he said he wanted to set up.

The food influencer known as Clerkenwell Boy had hosted a series of successful supper clubs that highlighted well-known chefs. He would hold them at a private members club once a month and Ambani managed to get into one of them.

All the evidence suggests that Gavin Ambani is the same person as Lal Gobind, who is in turn the same person as Gobind Lal Tahil and Harvey. There are many other aliases, too, but all of them, it is alleged, belong to one Hargobind Punjabi Tahilramani.

Many people in Londons restaurant scene have speculated that Ambani was looking to model himself on Clerkenwell Boy but with one big difference. Whereas the food influencer with a quarter of a million followers on Instagram maintains his anonymity, Ambani aimed to put himself squarely in the picture.

He wanted adulation, says Frances Cottrell-Duffield, owner of the PR agency Tonic Communications. He just wanted people to think that he was wonderful.

Ambani also approached Cottrell-Duffield, in December 2019, to be his personal PR. She says he introduced himself by walking up to where she was dining in a restaurant. Aware of her professional profile, he immediately began fawning.

If you said something completely straightforward, recalls Cottrell-Duffield, he would say: That is the most brilliant thing Ive ever heard. You are the most brilliant woman. I cant believe Im in the same room as you. I thought, youre weird, actually.

He told her, among other things, that he had suffered a difficult childhood and that he was best friends with Karam Sethi. She says that she has encountered name-dropping before in the restaurant world but his was on a scale Id never seen. Despite finding him unsettling, she was also rather fascinated, and agreed to a couple of meetings at her office.

It struck her that Ambani was preoccupied by the fact that she was a woman. He kept bringing attention to this fact. She wonders now if he was perhaps studying her ways, mimicking women at work. She says that when he realised that she wasnt going to work for him, he stopped calling, but she still saw his movements on Instagram.

He put up a post when he moved to Manchester, she remembers, saying something like I had a great night of sex last night. I remember thinking that was the strangest thing. He was walking along the street filming himself, on his own, and it just felt like a complete lie.

Yet another PR whose path Ambani crossed is Dominique Fraser of Fraser Communications. He approached her because he wanted to be on the invitation list to restaurant openings. As Fraser explains, that list is made up of journalists from newspapers and magazines but also, increasingly, social media influencers. I think we always have to be aware of new talent coming through the ranks and new influencers appearing, says Fraser.

Fraser says Ambani gave her the familiar spiel about Netflix there does not appear to be any evidence of a working relationship between Ambani and the streaming giant and the new TV show he was busy creating. He also told her about his Instagram account Pure Bytes, which was the one established reality in his story. Unfortunately he appeared to have forgotten an earlier encounter with Fraser, when she was hosting a dinner and he took her for a minor functionary.

Frustrated that she wouldnt admit him into the event, he told her, she says: As soon as your boss finds out that youre not letting me into this dinner, your careers over. Youre ruined. Youre going to be sacked tomorrow.

Nevertheless she checked out his Pure Bytes account but came to a firm conclusion. I made the decision with Marcus my partner that he wasnt a press contact that we wanted to entertain. Our clients are of such calibre that we are looking for the very best press contacts. He just didnt really factor into that. It wasnt personal at all. We run a business.

That wasnt how Tahilramani saw things. Apparently infuriated by being excluded from a world he was desperate to enter, Fraser says, he continued to turn up at events and openings of restaurants that Fraser Communications represented, forcefully demanding entrance. According to Fraser, he took particular exception to one of her colleagues, whom he began threatening.

For a few months, he would call the office every day, Fraser recalls. Hed say to her: Youre a dirty slut. I know where you live. Things arent going to end well for you. Im going to end your career.

His target was sufficiently intimidated that the company arranged for her to go home by taxi until the threats stopped. Fraser says they considered reporting Ambani to the police but the woman did not want to inflame the situation. The company also instituted a policy in which all communications with Ambani had to be directed to Fraser or her husband, because he was so awful to the team. Yet, she says, when he wasnt being horrendously abusive, he was very charming.

In the early hours of 26 November last year, Tahilramani was arrested by Manchester police in relation to a US extradition request. The net had been tightening around him for some time. There was the podcast Chameleon: Hollywood Con Queen, whose penultimate episode predicted his arrest. But more importantly the FBI were interested in Tahilramani, led there by private investigators at K2, a company hired by some of the senior film executives Tahilramani had allegedly impersonated.

Although his alleged marks in Los Angeles were the little people, and the sums of money extracted from them too individually small to trouble the FBI, Tahilramani seems to have made the mistake of upsetting the wrong people with his impersonations. There are many ironies in this story, one of them being that, even as his alleged activities were being exposed, Tahilramani apparently carried on pretending to be the blockbuster director and producer Doug Liman. The Chameleon podcast played a secretly recorded conversation in which an actor approached by the fake Liman questioned his identity. The fake Liman launched into a tirade of threats, saying that he would have the actor mutilated. In other words, he acted like an angry Hollywood big shot, yet it was the real angry Hollywood big shots who didnt just issue empty threats but set the law on him.

According to the podcast, while still pretending to be Liman, Tahilramani also accused the actor of racism. That didnt make any sense, whichever way you look at it, and probably showed that the stress he was under was beginning to tell.

But why the fascination with London restaurants? As every chef, restaurant owner and PR I spoke to was at pains to point out, its a tight-knit and mutually supportive scene, in which the margins are small and the work is hard. Its not an environment in which to make easy money. Whats more Srulovich and Sethi confirm that he always paid his bills, which makes it even more mystifying as to why he damaged his reputation by failing to pay Hansen in such a conspicuous manner.

In an Instagram interview, Tahilramani told his friend, the Indonesian lifestyle influencer Haseena Narains Bharata, that he was a survivor of conversion therapy, placed in a mental hospital to cure him of being gay. He also told her he was not gay, though he seems to have told pretty much everyone else he was. Embracing the language of self-empowerment, he declared in the interview that: Believing in yourself is first. Thats the hardest thing.

Bharata said that he was lucky to be living in London, a city where he could trust people. In fact he was living in Manchester, and the trust problems were all the other way round. Believing in him would prove to be the hardest thing for too many people.

It seems likely that Ambani or Tahilramani had no financial ploy to play on Londons restaurants. He just wanted to be part of a world that he found glamorous, and the only means of entry he knew were lying, manipulation, exaggeration and threats.

Its weird, says Sethi. I dont know what the end game was. He wasnt well informed about food at all. Digital is now the main way you promote a restaurant, mostly on social media channels. I guess it was an easy way for him to get attention?

According to the extradition request, Tahilramani is wanted on eight charges, including wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft. Observer Food Monthly put a whole range of questions to Tahilramani, via his lawyer, about his alleged behaviour in London and the accusations against him in America. His lawyer replied that Tahilramani had no comment to make, save a few lines from The Rape of Lucrece:Times glory is to calm contending kings,To unmask falsehood and bring truth to light

Shakespeares poem tells of a Roman soldier, Tarquin, who rapes Lucrece, the wife of a fellow soldier, threatening her with death and ignominy unless she complies. It ends with Tarquins banishment an odd literary choice for someone in prison awaiting extradition.

The word in Londons restaurant community is that there are plans to make a drama or documentary series out of the Hollywood Con Queen story. Perhaps the final irony is that its said that it will be screened on Netflix, the streaming service for which Tahilramani claimed to work. Extraditions are never foregone conclusions but what does seem certain is that he has at last found the fame or at least infamy that appears always to have been his dream.

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The wannabe food influencer who's wanted by the FBI - The Guardian

In everything, women must be included in decision-making. At home, in companies, in government, in education, etc. What it is about is that there is rectitude and equality.

The UN estimates that it will take at least 10 years to reverse the economic impact on women by Covid-19. To help address the ravages of the pandemic in the female sector, Entrepreneur and Mastercard do their bit by organizing the Women 4.0 webinar, forming alliances and leadership with a cause.

The event will take place on March 17 at 3:00 pm through the Entrepreneur networks in Spanish.

What is a world power like China or the United States doing in a world where the coronavirus has caused an economic and social crisis? They emphasize investing in technology. This is the keyword in times of pandemic. However, in the technology sector there are very few women working. The latest LinkedIn report indicates that only 27% are CTOs; and only 25% of the workforce is female.

One of the speakers of the Woman 4.0 webinar, forming alliances and leadership with a cause . She is Gabriela Lucke , passionate about the education sector. She is the director of the Center for Collaborative Leadership and Female Leadership at INCAE Business School, where she has excelled in creating and implementing a gender equality strategy.

She is a business administrator with a master's degree in Project Management. As a commercial specialist, he has advised more than 1,000 companies. She has led three editions of the LEADS Mujer by Mastercard and INCAE program . She mentors women both in the personal empowerment process and in the development of business growth plans.

She firmly believes that education is the best tool for people's social and economic mobility . With my international experience and my capacity for strategic thinking, I want to create an impact in the education sector and seek change in order to make a positive contribution to an organization and its mission, Gabriela Lucke shares on LinkedIn.

She recommends giving your mind and concentrating on acquiring a deep understanding of the market your company is in. Investigate, scrutinize, examine the whole world in which you are interested. The creation of a strategic network of contacts is also very important, from high-level government representatives to counselors of educational institutions in Gabriela's case.

Working at the United States Embassy allowed me to lead multicultural teams from different organizations both locally and internationally. I also have experience developing strategic alliances with chambers and associations in order to reach more potential clients .

Art: Entrepreneur

The director of INCAE's Center for Collaborative Leadership and Women's Leadership advises women entrepreneurs to think strategically with limited budgets . The key is in the execution of projects, maximizing the return on investment for your company and your clients. It is vital to maintain an excellent track record in service. That you have clients who can attest to your skills , he assures.

In the last seven years Gabriela Lucke has assisted more than 400 US clients from five industrial sectors to enter the Costa Rican market and has also advised more than 500 companies on opportunities in the Central American market.

Not only do you have to provide knowledge about the region in which you move, but also have experience in various sectors. Trust your abilities to increase revenue, adoption and market penetration in an organization , concludes a leader Gabriela Lucke, leader of the LEADS Mujer by Mastercard and INCAE program.

Join us for the Woman 4.0 webinar, forming alliances and leadership with a cause and get more advice from Gabriela's voice. The appointment is next March 17 at 3:00 pm

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This article originally appeared on entrepreneur.com

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Strategic thinking to create an impact in your sector - San Antonio Express-News

LaceyC. Clark!, award-winning author, speaker, actress, thought leader, and empowerment personality is on a mission to achieve global self-love for women and girls through arts and education, edifying the term Innertainment. Clark! has made history as the first Black woman to live on five continents, put her story on stage and tour it internationally. Her journey began when she noticed an over saturation of influential negative media messages towards young women.

Laceys self-esteem boosting content can be experienced through her thriving brands Phenomenally U, Phenomenal Everywhere, and Sisters Sanctuary. Sisters Sanctuary uplifts self-esteem, self-worth, and self-image of women and girls in a disempowering media climate. Her three-in-one treasure: solo play, audiobook, and budding lifestyle brand, with the autobiographical coming of age story Phenomenal Everywhere, and is a thought leader, teaching self-love through education. Known as Ms. Phenomenal Everywhere, this multifaceted personification of expressive art, rich culture, soulful global travel, and fierce femininity is a strong voice to be reckoned with.

Laceysays, I want to inspire people to LIVE, take risks, create their own paths and be divinely guided into what is phenomenal for them. I want people to reach in and discover their phenomenality. I want them to know that it is possible to overcome and own who they are. Being Phenomenal Everywhere starts from within and having the courage to take that journey to tap into personal liberation.

http://www.peverwhere.com

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Instagram @laceycclark @phenomenal_Everywhere

This insecure little girl from inner city North Philly pushed past her constrictions, attending New Freedom Theatre in Philadelphia for theater, vocal, and dance andattended the Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts. She graduated as a Founders Scholar from the world-renowned Tisch School of the Arts atNYU. From being Clear Channel Radios Unsung Shero to being awarded the State Representative V. Lowery Brown Image Award,LaceyC. Clark! has a rsum full ofnumerous awards and achievements.

Her work has been recognized by BET, Radio One, and Heart & Soul and Rolling OUT magazines. She has delivered hundreds of keynote speeches, workshops, Inner BeauTea Parties, and summits and partnered with organizations such as Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, The American Cancer Society, and World Federation of Mental Health.

LaceyC. Clark! has spoken on platforms along with Les Brown, Hill Harper, and Dr. Robin Smith as well as joined forces with Jill Scotts Blues Babe Foundation to help raise self-esteem in young women. She is the author of Celebrate HER Now! and Phenomenally U and a former radio personality at WURD 900 FM with her segment Phenomenal Philly.Laceyhas worked with the likes of Dr. Maya Angelou, Spike Lee, and Dr. Sonia Sanchez.

Published March 20th, 2021

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First Black Woman to Live on 5 Continents, Who Put her Story on Stage - Influencive

Tell us about your role at International Fashion Week (IFWD).I am the Founder and Managing Director of The Opulence Events LLC under which IFWD is a brand. I am the mastermind responsible for it from inception to date. I operate as the managing director and lead my team with its planning and production. I handle everything on my own; I am satisfied only when I involve myself in each and everything related to IFWD.

Being a woman at the helm of IFWD, what challenges have you witnessed?The major challenge I experienced was acceptance, given that it is a male-dominated industry, many people found it difficult to comprehend that a woman would be able to establish a stake in the fashion events industry. The criticisms and doubts I faced made me channel intense effort to prove that being a woman shouldn't be a limitation to successfully living out your dream.

The year 2021 is about "Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a Covid-19 world". What are your thoughts about it given the realistic scenario in the UAE?Covid-19 has proved that we have the ability to adapt and successfully work our way around any situation. A perfect scenario is IFWD Season 10 that was held for three days consecutively in November last year, almost immediately after the lockdown lifted. It was a huge success and, most notably, nobody contracted the disease, which shows that with proper planning and execution anything is achievable even during these times. Hence the pandemic is not a barrier to achieving anything for me but we need to keep the measures in place.

How do you think the UAE fares when it comes to equal opportunities for women at the business front? The UAE in general is a country whose government has been able to set up respectful policies with regards to women, which is commendable and quite beneficial, as women feel more secure and confident to operate in the UAE business environment. The UAE is globally known as a fantastic country for rapid business establishment and growth because of its ability to embrace cultural diversities with respect to businesses and people. Based on this, I think the UAE is doing pretty well with regards to opportunities for women at the business front.

How do you maintain a work-life balance as a businesswoman?I must confess, it's a handful balancing work and my personal life. I choose to concentrate on work during the weekdays and focus my attention on my family during the weekend, I am also blessed with a wonderful husband and children who are understanding and supportive of me, which is the most important thing and I thank God for that.

What would you say constitutes women empowerment?Empowerment I believe begins with every individual; it is highly important that every person strives towards being empowered in every aspect of life as this is essential for personal growth. Furthermore, there are quite a number of factors that facilitate empowerment especially for women, such as; knowledge and skill acquisition, determination, focus, passion, creativity and consistency. This is what I personally feel constitutes women empowerment.

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Owning the fashion arena - Khaleej Times

Dallas-based Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation uses COVID-19 data, machine learning, and geomapping to help public health officials and area residents find better health outcomes.

ENTERPRISE Care Community BuilderSteve Miff

As everyone yearns for a return to normal life with the pandemic in the rearview mirror, data science and clinical experts at the Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation (PCCI) are helping inform North Texas leaders on the outlook and progress in assisting high needs communities.

When COVID-19 hit North Texas in March 2020, PCCI researchers were already hard at work on ways to improve health in the underserved areas of Dallas.

The team quickly built, tested, and deployed several patent-pending analytical models using machine learning and geomapping to visualize the progression of cases across the area. Challenging times often accelerate innovation and collaboration, said Steve Miff, President and CEO of PCCI.

With the help of their models, PCCI staffers worked with Dallas area governments, schools, and community-based organizations to get help to the most vulnerable.

PCCI President and CEO Steve Miff says his team used machine learning and geomapping to visualize the progression of COVID-19 and to develop a Vulnerability Index to better target resources.

In recent weeks, PCCI published a report saying their data shows the region should reach a critical tipping point for herd immunity sometime in June. By then, they expect 80 percent of adults to either be vaccinated or recovered from COVID-19.

We will get to herd immunity either through continued infection, which is a slow route that will continue to harm the community and economy, or vaccinations, said Miff. This underscores the importance of Dallas County residents registering for and receiving the COVID-19 vaccinations as quickly as possible and continuing to stay vigilant and safe from being infected.

The herd immunity projection is part of an encouraging picture emerging. Earlier this month, PCCI data scientists noted a 66 percent reduction in COVID-19 risk for Dallas County, with some of the citys most vulnerable areas showing significant drops in risk.

PCCI released its own mobile app in January to help people determine their potential exposure to the disease.

[Illustration: Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation]

PCCI was perfectly positioned to assist the region in dealing with the novel coronavirus. The nonprofit health data think tank, which formed in 2016, brings together data scientists, physicians, and public health officials to address pressing healthcare issues in the greater Dallas community.

Whole-person wellness is the best way to achieve good health outcomes in the middle of a pandemic, Miff said.

PCCI developed a Vulnerability Index that includes demographic information, medical comorbidities, social determinants of health, and mobility data. Organizations can use the model to help determine how resources could be deployed.

The team has learned so much about using data to improve healthcare that they published a book, Building Communities of Care, to help other communities manage and target assistance for underserved populations. People with unmet needs are more likely to have poor health outcomes, as COVID-19 has demonstrated.

Although weve been working harder than ever, our work feels more relevant and meaningful than ever before, Miff said.

Steve Miff was featured in Dallas Innovates Future 50 in Dallas-Fort Worth in the 2021 edition of our annual magazine. We talk with the CEO about innovation, the impact of COVID-19, and plans for the future. Heres a takeaway:

2020 has certainly challenged PCCI, just like it has challenged every business and individual across our community. We were fortunate to have the opportunity to provide Parkland Health & Hospital System (Parkland), Dallas County, and other local municipalities with advanced analytics for COVID-19 management.

In a matter of weeks, our team of data science and clinical experts built, tested, and deployed several novel analytical models using machine learning and advanced geomapping modalities. We created a personal COVID-19 Proximity Index, a community-level Vulnerability Index, and daily geomaps for visualizing COVID-19 case progression across the community.

As a result, several patent applications have been filed in connection with this work. In parallel, we successfully launched and published a new book with HIMSS Publishing, Building Connected Communities of Care, which is based on the pioneering experience of PCCI and Parkland in Dallas to developat scaleone of the first comprehensive foundations for partnership between a communitys clinical and social sectors using web-based information exchange.

Based on our lessons learned in Dallas, the book serves as a one-of-a-kind playbook for coordinating medical and community-based resources to change how, where, and when healthcare is delivered. We also built and deployed a novel trauma mortality AI model at Parkland and have been supporting the launch of new initiatives around pediatric asthma and STI/HIV prevention, based on Parklands Community Health Needs Assessment.

Again, the innovations we brought to the table this past year have naturally advanced our mission to help the underserved populations in North Texas. This has also been a source of enrichment for all of the PCCI staff members who put their hearts and souls into our work, especially the efforts this past year to help protect the people of Dallas County from COVID-19.

Challenging times often accelerate innovation and collaboration. This has certainly been the case with COVID-19. Weve strengthened and expanded our collaborations with Parkland and the North Texas community by building new foundational capabilities that will have an impact for years to come. Weve worked closer than ever with Parklands IT and population health leadership, Dallas County, the City of Dallas, Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council (DFWHC), and many other health systems, schools, and community-based organizations.

The pandemic has also forced us to think about whole-person wellness and not just immediate health needs. Whole-person health and individual empowerment is the future of our industry. We developed some meaningful new capabilities that are now serving as the building blocks towards this journey. For example, we created a machine learning, individual Proximity Index for risk of exposure to COVID-19 and leveraged that to guide care towards virtual interactions and to reduce the transportation needs to attend a medical appointment.

We also developed a Vulnerability Index based on a multi-dimensional statistical model that incorporates demographic information, medical co-morbidities; social determinants of health (SDOH) or life factors, and personal mobility data. Not only is this model extensively utilized for COVID-19 (testing, culturally appropriate education/communication, and vaccine distribution strategies), but its already been adapted and extended to flu vaccination strategies and schools virtual learning capacity.

These new capabilities help us generate new pathways to advance whole-person health.

Evidence continues to mount that the health and well-being of a community is the sum of its healthcare services as well as its ability to address the SDOH that in many cases overshadow traditional medical care. This is especially true for vulnerable and underserved populations that often have multiple unmet social, economic, and physical needs. COVID-19 has magnified the challenges for these groups.

Through PCCIs work in the community, we are striving to better understand the social determinants of health (SDOH) that exists in an individuals environment, how these factors impact the individual and provide this information to both healthcare providers and community-based organizations so we can take a holistic, whole-person approach to health.

We follow this same approach as it relates to how we operate as an organization. PCCI, its staff and its leadership team, represents a diverse, multi-cultural group of highly-skilled individuals who work collaboratively to further our mission. We celebrate and leverage this diversity as a strength in our work.

While weve always focused on creating and sustaining a culture of diversity, equity and inclusion, in 2020 we ramped up our efforts. For instance, we promoted a team member into a newly created role of Chief Diversity Office, expanded the work of our employee engagement committee to focus more heavily on diversity, equity, and inclusion, and we introduced company-wide education sessions with industry experts.

In addition to living our values and fostering a culture based on the humble, hungry, smart concept from the Ideal Team Player, we remind each other that I am not different from you, I am different like you, which is a quote from Dr. Laraine Kaminsky introduced by one of our diversity experts.

We are also especially proud of our summer internship program focused on advancing women in data science. The program provides high school, college, and graduate students the opportunity for hands-on training on digital technology and data science projects benefitting the community. Despite COVID-19 challenges, we continued the program (virtually) last year.

The program is named in memory of one of our board members who passed away in late 2019 and who was a tireless champion for advancing women in technology and healthcare. With a lot of hard work, creativity, and flexibility, we successfully recruited, onboarded, and trained eight summer intern students, whose end-of-summer virtual presentations were attended by a large audience of local and national leaders

Several student projects directly contributed to COVID-19 work supporting the local community efforts.

The winning entry of a PCCI virtual Halloween pumpkin decorating contest speaks to perspective. Creator Akshay Arora said you can look at the virus as engulfing the worldor were emerging from the pandemic together through innovation, science, and resiliency [Image: LinkedIn/SteveMiff]

The pandemic has significantly impacted our families, friends, and neighbors in unprecedented and unanticipated ways. As an organization, we constantly remind ourselves how thankful we are to have jobs and the opportunity to meaningfully contribute to the local and national pandemic efforts. Playing a direct role in supporting healthcare frontline workers, leaders, and local municipalities through advanced analytics and data has been a motivating factor for our team. Although weve been working harder than ever, our work feels more relevant and meaningful than ever before. We also wanted to offer the flexibility that everyone needed to do their work and attend to their personal family needs. We went 100 percent virtual the second week of March. Within a few days, we were fully operational in a virtual-based work environment and transitioned all meetings, including team stand-ups and scrum meetings, to digital dashboards, etc. We also increased the frequency of our communications and added a weekly, virtual company-wide stand-up. To keep a semblance of normalcy, we continue to keep virtual team breakfasts, monthly game nights, and even the annual Halloween pumpkin carving contest (the winning entry had a very creative COVID-19 spin.Wecelebrate small and large wins as a team and try to laugh together when possible (and appropriate) and pause enough to recharge. It is important that we take moments as we go to reflect on our work and share what we are most proud of and grateful for.

Building Connected Communities of Care is on sale now at HIMSS Publishing and on Amazon. [Photo: via PCCI]

Our focus remains on pioneering new ways to health, not only to serve the needs of Parkland and our local community, but to pursue additional transformative initiatives that could have a broader impact beyond Dallas. For example, we are collaborating with Episcopal Health Foundation to contribute to projects across six core areas across Texas. With the launch of our book, Building Connected Communities of Care, we also created a strategic collaboration with Healthbox, the innovation arm of HIMSS, a mission-driven global advisor and thought leader (over 80,000 members) supporting the transformation of the health ecosystem through information and technology to drive innovation in the social determinants of health (SDOH). In addition, our state-of-the-art digital data environment, [a trademarked platform called Isthmus], continues to expand in functionality and applications. Combined with our SDOH data hub, Isthmus will increasingly be leveraged to support advanced analytics and digital transformation across markets.

Quincy Preston contributed to this story. A version of this story was originally published in Dallas Innovates 2021: The Resilience Issue.

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Here's How the Parkland Center for Clinical Innovation is Working to Help Dallas Move Beyond the Pandemic Dallas Innovates - dallasinnovates.com

A few months ago, a government ministry representative came to Maagalim for a routine audit. Standing in the doorway, he asked to view the organizations books.

The associations staff immediately complied with his request. But before he looked over the Excel files, he was asked to meet the people behind the data the madrichim (counselors) and the students. He was present at the meeting between the counselors and their charges, and when it ended, he closed the laptop and asked the students, What is the secret? How does the change take place?

One of them replied, Its simple. The counselor relates to whats important to me. I believe in him, and I want to be like him.

This is perhaps the essence of Maagalims success: a team of dedicated counselors and students who recognize that the staff members have their best interests at heart and heed their advice.

Maagalim takes children from outside the mainstream of society and turns them into leaders, says Assaf Weiss, founder and CEO. In the end, it leads to a change in civil society. Instead of these kids being in the back, they become locomotives and drive the train themselves.

Weiss founded Maagalim in 1998. Most of its activities take place for 11th and 12th-grade teenagers in Israels social periphery who come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Maagalim helps to guide them to success, acquire tools and deal with lifes challenges. The organizations goals are integrating them into pre-military preparatory courses, significant enlistment in the IDF, developing a profession and higher education.

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I do not use the term youth at risk, Weiss says. In my opinion, everyone is at risk. A child in Herzliya is also at risk, just as a child in Sderot. It is a concept that labels negativity. I prefer to define it as an unsuccessful environment. We work in broad social and geographical peripheries with teenagers who have not experienced success in their lives. Do you know how a child feels to constantly hear the term at risk? I say to a child like this: You have not had any positive experiences, and I will help you change this.

Weiss lives and breathes the organization, and it is hard not to get caught up in his enthusiasm and passion. The idea for Maagalim began when he met with youth from Hatzor and Tiberias.

I attended a mechina (pre-military preparatory school), and there I began to discover myself. I started working in Hatzor and Tiberias and met teenagers who did not intend to enlist in the army. My friends and I thought about how we could change that. We developed a pilot program and sent counselors to 12th-grade classes. Soon, we were flooded with requests from school principals. They were happy that there was someone alive and young here who could speak their language.

THE ORGANIZATIONS activities take place as part of the curriculum. Students are given tools for the decision-making process: What will they grow up to be? What do they want to achieve? The idea is to contribute to the shaping and formation of the personality leading to greater social involvement and enlistment in the IDF. Today, the organization operates three main programs from Kiryat Shmona to Yeruham. The programs foundations are mentors in schools, a preparatory program for girls, and accompanying graduates after completing their IDF service.

The first step is preparation for military service, said Weiss. Will army service be easy, or can they make a significant contribution? This is a phenomenon that exists everywhere in Israeli society. Students complete 12th grade and want to perform their military service close to home. Part of the process is to fulfill your potential to learn what is best for you and not give up yourself. We conduct regular activities in the schools, have personal conversations, challenging, value-based activities, all accompanied by the school staff. The girls preparatory program is accompanied by girls who have chosen national service far from home, and in the alumni program, we assist our graduates who have completed their IDF service in choosing professions, academia, and dealing with other challenges.

The operative principle of Maagalim is to turn a disadvantage into an advantage. In this way, the children adopt a different framework one in which they realize that the apparent disadvantage is often their most powerful tool.

We develop individual pride. Pride in ones self not in the flag, or a country or a neighborhood, Weiss continues. A lot of kids dont have it when they get here. Because they have a minimal background in math, or because their parents work in sanitation and are not taken seriously, or because of the city in which they grew up. If the child continues in this way, he will ruin his future. We say, Take your reality and make it your biggest advantage. For example, use a trait like boldness and self-assurance in a positive way. These kids decide for themselves and are independent. I tell them, Because you are this way, you are unstoppable. Thats our goal.

Maagalim operates in 90 schools, and runs 330 different groups for about 6,700 students. Before corona, there were 8,200 students. One of the challenges in this year of social distancing was enabling continued participation, even when there is no obligation to attend a Zoom.

Our mentors develop personal empowerment through face-to-face, personal connection. When corona arrived, we wondered how we would connect with them. We switched to a virtual connection, and their mentors accompanied them on Zoom. The educational staff had to reinvent itself on WhatsApp groups, with activities, live and online broadcasts, and even with Good morning messages essential during this period of social disconnection. We used new platforms to reach their hearts. It is much more difficult to reach a child remotely. Without a staff that knew how to bridge the distance, we would not have survived this year. In my eyes, they are the heroes of the year.

How difficult was it to recruit donors during a worldwide economic crisis?

It was very hard at first. Most of our donors are from abroad, and when the skies closed, it was difficult. But, we trained ourselves very quickly. We contacted them and were interested in their well-being. Today the relationship has even strengthened and is closer than it was before. In the first three months of 2020, we almost suffered an economic collapse, but the year ended like 2019. The fear is actually of the future consequences of the crisis, but there are many good people and organizations who believe in us, and I believe things will be okay. The successes speak for themselves, and everyone understands the importance of what we do.

This week, a Maagalim conference was held under the banner Education in a Changing Reality. Among the attendees were President Reuven Rivlin, noted educator Miriam Peretz, Rabbi Shai Piron, MKs Ayelet Shaked, Yifat Shasha-Biton, Naftali Bennett and Gideon Saar, as well as businessmen such as Rami Levy, Ofer Yanai, and others. The conference examined educational and social issues alongside corona realities, and was broadcast live on social media.

The conference was attended by businesspeople, people working in the field, and colleagues. We discussed three main topics: soft drugs and their impact on teenagers, the bagruyot (matriculation certificate) and its importance, and whether socio-economic background can predict success in life.

These are major topics for professors in academia, but for teens, this is their daily routine. We wanted to create a dialogue between them and the conference participant.

For three months, Maagalim collected questions and answers from 3,500 students who answered a survey on Zoom and WhatsApp. The goal was to learn about their difficulties, about coping during this period, and their opinions regarding the conference topics.

Regarding bagruyot, we asked them whether the system should be changed, and if so, how it should be done. Will matriculation lead to greater success in their lives? They said that this was the first time they had been asked for their opinion on the subject. It gave them the feeling that their opinions were important. Another issue we looked at was cannabis and soft drugs. We asked if they have been exposed to them and if they felt cannabis should be legalized. We brought in experts in the field to discuss their answers. The third and perhaps most significant question was whether socioeconomic background can predict success in life. Fully 50% of them answered unequivocally, Yes. This is a stomach-turning number. We analyzed this number and explained how a child in Hatzor and Sderot perceives himself and his future. He was born there, and this is the consciousness with which he was raised. In the end, this will be his reality because it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. In the survey, we asked the child what he thinks of himself, and it is essential that decision-makers hear them.

Which panel particularly moved you?

There was a fascinating interview with Rami Levy. He said that in fourth grade, he was held back a year because he had to work and help his family, and he told what it did to him the shame and the feeling that the system marks you as unequal. He said he had to start over. No one considered social and business skills that might lead to greater success than grades. After eighth grade, he said farewell to the educational system.

At the conference, he said, Imagine what would have happened if the educational system had succeeded with me, and I hadnt dropped out of school. I wouldnt be Rami Levy today. He is not suggesting that students drop out of school, but is telling the educational system, Even if your students only receive a grade of 50, they can still become Rami Levi.

Another statement that greatly strengthened me was when Ofer Yanai, founder and CEO of Nofar Energy, who grew up in Yavne under challenging conditions, was asked about the source of his success. He replied that he felt obligated to prove to his parents that he could succeed despite their origins. It was fascinating to hear about the source of his motivation. At the end of the conference, I thought about the clich of turning lemons into lemonade. How can I take these childrens backgrounds, that is not Herzliya and Raanana, and show them that they can succeed? How do I make them proud of their origins and realize that this so-called disadvantage is what gives them relative advantages? That is the goal of Maagalim.

Perhaps the greatest success of all is when those trainees who were nurtured in Maagalim grew up and became mentors for the next generation?

Most of our mentors are alumni, Weiss concludes. These are students who have gone through a process, become mentors in the organization, and come back to teach and mentor. Its a stunning circle that speaks to the concept. You return to where you came from and set a personal example. It is moving to see how our graduates lovingly return to the neighborhood and want to give back. It is a closing of the circle that conveys our vision.

This article was written in cooperation with Maagalim.

Translated by Alan Rosenbaum.

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Maagalim helping fulfill the potential of tomorrow - The Jerusalem Post