Monthly Archives: September 2021

Innovation–the launchpad out of the crisis – McKinsey

Posted: September 16, 2021 at 6:10 am

As companies prepare for the recovery from the pandemic, many leaders hope innovation will set them up for the next phase of growth. In this episode of the Inside the Strategy Room podcast, Laura Furstenthal, whose client work focuses on healthcare organizations and innovation transformations, and Erik Roth, leader of McKinseys global innovation practice, explain how to establish a sustainable innovation process. This is an edited transcript of the discussion. For more conversations on the strategy issues that matter, subscribe to the series on Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts.

Sean Brown: Laura, perhaps you can set the stage. How do you define innovation in the corporate setting?

Laura Furstenthal: If you look up innovation in a dictionary, you see definitions like creating novel ideas or even just the word creativity. We believe you have to think about the impact, so our definition of innovation incorporates delivering net new growth that is sustainable, repeatable, and substantial. You can focus on new products, markets, customers, or business models, but however you measure it, innovation has to increase value and drive growth.

Erik Roth: The word substantial is really important. Organizations often experiment with incremental initiatives that take up a lot of resources, but if innovation is to be the growth engine, it has to be large enough to matter.

Laura Furstenthal: For successful organizations, innovation is a choice. It has to be backed by a commitment. Putting your organization on a new growth trajectory requires both deliberate action and resource allocation. However, while innovation is at the top of most organizations agenda, far more fail than succeed at driving successful innovation. In fact, 86 percent of executives we surveyed told us that innovation is a top three priority, yet fewer than 10 percent say they are satisfied with their organizations innovation performance.

Sean Brown: How should business leaders decide what innovations to prioritize, especially when there is still so much uncertainty?

Laura Furstenthal: We have found that every successful innovation throughout history has come at the intersection of three lenses: an unmet customer need, or the who; a technology that generates a solution, or the what; and a business model that enables you to monetize that solution, which is the how. Another way to think about it is to ask yourself the three questions. First, does what you are doing matter? Will customers benefit from it? Second, can you build it, and what technologies do you need to do that? And third, will it win? Is there an opportunity for the innovation to take on a market? Because all of these lenses are required for successful innovation, the best way to generate new concepts is to collide them in a very structured and purposeful way.

Every successful innovation comes at the intersection of three lenses. The lens we find organizations often spend the least amount of time on is building a scalable operating model.

Think about the famous inventor Thomas Edison. In every case, he did not just invent the what, he also invented a how. He was often not the first person to create the innovation, whether its the light bulb or the motion-picture player, but his unique contribution was to make it salable and scalable. In the case of the light bulb, he created the filament and the vacuum tube that allowed it to turn on and off, and he developed the production process that enabled mass production. Thats a great example of all three lenses, and the lens we find organizations often spend the least amount of time on is building that scalable operating model.

Sean Brown: You both mentioned that the innovation has to be substantial to merit the resources you allocate to it. How do you determine if the innovation concept will deliver that substantial outcome?

Laura Furstenthal: We often find that people come up with ideas and build business plans, laying out all of their assumptions, but those assumptions become assertions over time and their teams end up trying to prove that their assumptions were right rather than testing them. Instead of building a business plan, we recommend building what we call a reverse P&L: What would need to be true for this idea to meet your hurdle rate and get to the level that you would consider a success? Then take those assumptions and rank them by the level of uncertainty and the degree of impact they have on the business case, and test the highest ranked first. If those assumptions fail, you know you need to pivot early. We often find people test the customer interface first, but its the business model or the supply chain or the technology that require early testing.

If you are going to innovate, start with the size of the business you want and work backward. If nobody can conceive of a way to get it to that size, maybe its not the right business for your company.

Erik Roth: We recommend getting rid of business cases altogether. They are a waste of energy and time. I will go so far as to say they actually increase risk, for the reasons that Laura mentioned: everybody writes down their assertions, showing hockey-stick growth at the end, and I am willing to bet the models are dominated by market growth as the dominant variable, not growth driven by your innovation. If thats the case, there is no point in creating something. The point is, if you are going to innovate, start with the end goal. Start with the size of the business you want and work backward. If nobody can conceive of a way to get it to that size, maybe its not the right business for your company. Many teams then apply what looks like a new product development (NPD) process, which is a sequential risk-management tool. The problem is that innovation processes are iterative and learning based, not linear and risk management based.

Sean Brown: The past year has forced companies to get innovative to overcome constraints the pandemic imposed on us. What are your favorite examples of organizations coming up with clever and valuable solutions to these challenges?

Erik Roth: Its always interesting how the old becomes new again. The pandemic obviously hit retail in an unprecedented way, and retailers ingenuity in leveraging their store assets, retaining some level of customer experience, and reconnecting the brands with people was incredible. One of the more fun examples is Walmart using their giant parking lots as drive-ins to create entertainment and connectivity to the brand in a time when we were all hungering to be outside of our homes but still safe.

Sean Brown: Did innovation take a back seat during the pandemic at most companies?

Laura Furstenthal: We did some research looking at pre-COVID-19, during COVID-19, and the expectations for the post-COVID-19 environment, and we found that most organizations battened down the hatches during the crisis and focused on the core business, with the expectation that they would focus on innovation projects once they recovered from the crisis. So we asked, is this the right thing to do? We looked across multiple crises, including the SARS epidemic that ravaged Asia and became the impetus for widespread adoption of online transactions, and back to World War II when we saw rapid growth in manufacturing of convenience technologies to capitalize on the fact that women were working. During the financial crisis, stranded assets and an unemployed workforce spurred the sharing economy, among other things. The lesson is that those who innovate through a crisis come out stronger (exhibit).

Exhibit

Sean Brown: How do you determine if your organization has the capabilities it needs to innovate successfully?

Erik Roth: Innovation is a context-specific sport. However, our research on about 5,000 companies over the past seven years has identified about 100 activities that we know promote, support, and enable innovation, and that research allows us to quantitatively understand the state of play in terms of an organizations innovativeness. Those activities are grouped into eight categories that we call the eight essentials of innovation, and they in turn fall into four buckets. One is about strategy and portfolio, and another is about the ability to create distinctive value propositions that are not only products but business models and other forms of value creation. Launching and scaling up is another bucket, which refers to accelerating those innovations paths to market and making them as big as they can be. The last one is about mobilizing your culture and external partners so you get reinforcement and celebration of success.

Normally, organizations track their R&D spending or patents or other indirect indicators of innovation. We instead looked at how public companies stack up in terms of economic profit creation when they apply those essentials. Organizations that satisfy up to seven or eight of the essentials generate 2.4 times the amount of economic profit as their competitors.

Sean Brown: Can you offer any examples that illustrate what these activities involve, and how companies can determine whether they have those capabilities?

Erik Roth: Each essential has a test question. For aspire, for example: Does your organization find innovation or net new growth critical to meeting its future objectives, and has it cascaded those objectives down to the right parts of the organization? If you answer yes, then you are probably well on the way to meeting the biggest challenge of innovation, which is reallocating resources to the best opportunities. Why is that so hard? We use a heuristic to assess whether an organization is prepared to be a great innovator: Does it have a green box? The green box represents the gap between your aspiration and what your organization can expect to deliver on its regular growth trajectory. Say on one side you have todays revenue and on the other is revenue you want five years out. There are four ways to get from one side to the other. One is selecting the right market segments. If you did nothing else but get the average growth rate in those segments, that tells you your baseline. You could then outperform your competition through all the activities in your annual plan and some incremental innovation, such as ingredient changes or functionality improvements.

If you only do those two things, how close do you get to the five-year aspiration? Is it a small gap, no gap, or a big gap? Companies that have no gap are the ones that struggle the most with innovation. No matter how many times executives make speeches to inspire people to innovate, if the business model and the growth model tell employees, Just keep doing what youre doing, they will cheer at the speech, then keep doing what they were doingbecause there is no green box. The business can achieve its objectives by performing those first two steps. Sometimes M&A fills in the gap, which is the third way. But unless there is a green box designed into the strategic plan that only innovation can address, it is hard for an organization to reallocate resources toward risky propositions like innovations.

What is interesting is that when organizations dont have a green box and their executives get frustrated, they start creating appendages like accelerators and corporate venture-capital units and incubators that are meant to satisfy the green box but actually sit on the side and struggle. They might create interesting things but the core business does not need them to satisfy its growth ambition.

Sean Brown: How can companies identify the innovations that will fill that gap the green box represents and meet the threshold you mentioned of being substantial?

Erik Roth: Great innovation, as Laura said earlier, starts with a valuable problem to solve. It starts with the outcome, or the value of a potential opportunity. Then we use a formula. How many customers are excited about that outcome? How much do they pay today and how frequently does that occur? The most important thing, which is often forgotten or never asked, is the customers frustration levelwith the existing solutions. If that level is high, the likelihood of the customer switching and being willing to pay more goes up. You can quantify the opportunity using this formula and understand which problems are valuable and the degree of difficulty in solving them.

Sean Brown: So if I am a leader frustrated with the lack of innovation in my organization, Laura, what should I do tomorrow?

Laura Furstenthal: First, make sure you are reallocating toward the future. As we say, innovation is not an ideas problem, it is a resource reallocation problem. COVID-19 has caused a massive disruption and customer needs have changed. You probably have a long tail of innovation initiatives in your organization, and there is an opportunity to redeploy those resources toward a few big, bold moves that will really move the needle.

Secondly, embed flexibility. It is important to put a structure in place where it is not okay to say, This is the way weve always done it. You need to find the way we now do it and role-model that in your organization. Finally, hack your processes. Over time people develop a compliance mindset, risk aversion, and process discipline. They put in place various things that get in the way of what is at the core of innovation, which is finding ways to delight the customer.

Innovation--the launchpad out of the crisis - McKinsey

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Red-pilled: Can The Matrix Resurrections reclaim Neo from the alt-right? – The Independent

Posted: at 6:10 am

Its one of the most famous scenes in modern film history. In The Matrix, the 1999 phenomenon that introduced the world to bullet-time fight sequences and briefly made fiddly little sunglasses without arms the height of fashion, Laurence Fishburnes Morpheus offers Keanu Reevess Neo a simple choice. After explaining to him that he has lived his whole life in a virtual prison for [his] mind known as The Matrix and offering to show him the truth outside of that cage Morpheus presents him with a pair of colour-coded pills: You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe, he says. You take the red pill, you stay in wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes remember, all Im offering is the truth, nothing more.

That moment was invoked this week in a viral marketing campaign for The Matrix Resurrections the fourth film in the franchise which is set for release this December. The films website allowed viewers to choose between a red or blue pill, which in turn determined the teaser trailer theyd be shown. The decision to place the choice between the two pills front and centre in Resurrections marketing feels purposeful: a possible attempt by director Lana Wachowski to reclaim the contemporary narrative that surrounds the scene. It isnt hard to find evidence that she and her sister Lilly, who created The Matrix together, have become unhappy with how its meaning has been twisted and reinterpreted. In May 2020, after Elon Musk tweeted: Take the red pill and Ivanka Trump replied: Taken!, Lilly responded pithily: F*** both of you.

The red pill, of course, is the same pill that Neo chooses. In the film, his decision symbolises his rejection of received wisdom, and his brave determination to reject comforting illusions and keep seeking out the uncomfortable truth. Later, however, that symbol took on a life the Wachowskis never could have predicted.

Mens rights activists vociferously adopted it, believing that theyd seen the truth that society is unfairly structured to benefit women. They called themselves red pillers, and congregated online in deeply misogynistic groups like the subreddit r/TheRedPill, which proved so unruly even by Reddit standards that its been placed in the sites quarantine since 2018. That means its subject to tighter controls, is invisible in the sites search function and that anyone trying to visit the group is first warned that it is dedicated to shocking or highly offensive content. One of the groups core rules forbids anyone declaring in a post that they are, in fact, a woman. From that ignoble interpretation, the idea of taking the red pill became a running motif for Trump supporters, QAnon followers and anyone else who believed they were declaring their rejection of a perceived liberal consensus. If youve taken their version of the red pill, you probably havent had the Covid vaccine, either.

Needless to say, this was not the message the Wachowskis intended their film to send out into the world. When they made The Matrix in 1999, Lana and Lilly had yet to come out publicly as trans women. Lana transitioned after the sisters made Speed Racer in 2008, and then in 2016 Lilly announced she had also transitioned. Last year, in an interview with Netflix Film Club, Lilly Wachowski was asked what she thought of fans now interpreting The Matrix as an allegory for the trans experience and she pointed out that it had always been. Im glad that it has gotten out that that was the original intention, she said, before hinting at why that fact wasnt publicly discussed at the time: The world wasnt quite ready, at a corporate level the corporate world wasnt ready for it.

The trans symbolism of The Matrix is easy enough to identify. Neo is living a double life. By day, hes an office drone known as Thomas Anderson. By night, he is a hacker with a name hes chosen for himself. He is troubled by the nagging sensation that something is off about the world, something he cant quite put his finger on. In other words, he is suffering from dysphoria. Neo only becomes his true self when he breaks free from The Matrix, but not everyone is happy about it. Hugo Weavings terrifying baddie Agent Smith only ever refers to Neo by his original, socially approved name Mister Anderson, a practice known as deadnaming when done to trans people. Then theres the red pill itself, which can be seen as analogous to hormone therapy. The metaphor is a neat one: in the Nineties, prescription estrogen given to transitioning trans women did indeed come in the form of a red pill.

The Matrix Resurrections: First trailer released for sci-fi sequel

It remains to be seen whether Lana Wachowski will take the opportunity presented by her return to the world of The Matrix to make these themes more explicit. The fact that the red pill/blue pill dichotomy is so prominent in the new films advertising, though, does suggest shed like to reclaim them symbols not of right-wing nonsense, but of positive change.

Its about time. It is, after all, the red pill that allows Neo to become the hero he was always destined to be, by first allowing him to become the person he always was.

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Red-pilled: Can The Matrix Resurrections reclaim Neo from the alt-right? - The Independent

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White House Coordinates Efforts of Departments of Energy, Transportation, and Agriculture to Meet the Grand Challenge: Reduce Aviation Carbon…

Posted: at 6:10 am

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ENGLEWOOD, Colo., Sept. 13, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Gevo, Inc. (NASDAQ: GEVO) is pleased to share the news that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) entered into memorandum of understanding (MOU) outlining the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Grand Challenge (the Grand Challenge). The Grand Challenge spells out action steps to reduce the cost, enhance the sustainability, and expand the production and use of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) that achieves a minimum of a 50 percent reduction in lifecycle greenhouse gas (GHG) compared to conventional fuel to meet a goal of supplying sufficient SAF to meet 100 percent of aviation fuel demand by 2050.

Secretary Jennifer M. Granholm of the DOE, Secretary Pete Buttigieg of the DOT, and Secretary Tom Vilsack of the USDA, along with NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and the Department of Defense represented by Secretary Frank Kendall III of the Air Force, all participated in the roundtable to discuss the details of the Grand Challenge. The MOU states that, increased production of SAF will play a critical role in a broader set of actions by the United States Government and the private sector to reduce the aviation sector's emissions in a manner consistent with the goal of netzero emissions for our economy, and to put the aviation sector on a pathway to full decarbonization by 2050. In recognition of the critical role that drop-in synthesized hydrocarbon fuels from waste streams, renewable energy sources, or gaseous carbon oxidesor SAFwill play in addressing our climate change crisis and its role for jobs and the economy, the Parties undertake this MOU to ensure the highest level of collaboration and coordination across our Agencies.

Dr. Patrick Gruber, chief executive officer of Gevo, shared his thoughts at a virtual White House Roundtable to discuss the future of SAF, along with other industry leaders. As a near-term goal, government and aviation stakeholders pledged to try to achieve 3 billion gallons of SAF production and reduce aviation-related emissions by 20 percent by 2030.

This is an exciting time for our industry, Gruber said. We are both honored and thankful to have been included in this collaborative event. Through Gevos current off-take agreements with Delta Airlines, Trafigura, Haltermann Carless, Air Total, and SAS, as well as the proposed collaboration with Chevron, we are ready to take on the Grand Challenge, and are already approaching a potential combined off-take of 250 million gallons per year of advanced hydrocarbon products, which include SAF.

According to the MOU, The activities underlying this MOU represent an investment in America that not only reduces our environmental impact, but also supports energy independence and creates jobs in agriculture, forestry, infrastructure, research and development and other areas where America already excels at production. This MOU also supports a just transition of the energy industry to a low carbon future. Environmental responsibility, equity and economic sensibility go hand in hand with this effort.

The Grand Challenge is a roadmap to a future that allows transportation growth to continue while flattening related carbon emissions, says Gruber. Its only through this type of cross-discipline effort that the effects are multiplied. Our Net-Zero 1 Project is expected to be the first of its kind to be convert renewable energy into SAF and other energy-dense, liquid hydrocarbons and we dont expect to stop there. Our vision is to reach a billion gallons by 2030, which will require additional facilities with the potential to achieve net-zero GHG emissions across the lifecycle of the fuel.

For agricultural based feedstocks, Gevo believes in working with farmers as partners, to encourage sustainable farming and regenerative agriculture and were delighted to hear Secretary Vilsacks thoughts about agriculture. Secretary Vilsack said during the event, USDA and American agriculture will make sustainable aviation possible in concert with our federal and industry partners and their stakeholders. We can expand our ability to power the nations aviation sector with fuel grown right here at home by hard-working Americans, while creating economic opportunity for American farmers, business owners and rural communities. Participating in SAF supply chains is also a big win for the aviation business, consumers and the planet.

In addition to Gevos approach to utilizing sustainable field corn as a feedstock for producing SAF and renewable gasoline, Gevo also believes in the technology to utilize cellulosic feedstock, such as wood residues.Gevo believes that the U.S. Department of Energys (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory model utilizes the most up to date, scientific carbon accounting. Argonne GREET is the premier science-based life cycle inventory model for determining GHGs and other sustainability attributes across the life cycle of a fuel. Gevo believes that by rewarding farmers to improve their agricultural practices, by capturing carbon, by reducing run-off, and by producing large amounts of protein, Gevo can address several problems at once. Gevo believes it is possible to make this world a better place, with better nutrition, while eliminating fossil based GHGs.A link to the White House fact sheet can be found here.

About Gevo

Gevos mission is to transform renewable energy and carbon into energy-dense liquid hydrocarbons. These liquid hydrocarbons can be used for drop-in transportation fuels such as gasoline, jet fuel and diesel fuel, that when burned have potential to yield net-zero greenhouse gas emissions when measured across the full life cycle of the products. Gevo uses low-carbon renewable resource-based carbohydrates as raw materials, and is in an advanced state of developing renewable electricity and renewable natural gas for use in production processes, resulting in low-carbon fuels with substantially reduced carbon intensity (the level of greenhouse gas emissions compared to standard petroleum fossil-based fuels across their life cycle). Gevos products perform as well or better than traditional fossil-based fuels in infrastructure and engines, but with substantially reduced greenhouse gas emissions. In addition to addressing the problems of fuels, Gevos technology also enables certain plastics, such as polyester, to be made with more sustainable ingredients. Gevos ability to penetrate the growing low-carbon fuels market depends on the price of oil and the value of abating carbon emissions that would otherwise increase greenhouse gas emissions. Gevo believes that its proven, patented technology enabling the use of a variety of low-carbon sustainable feedstocks to produce price-competitive low-carbon products such as gasoline components, jet fuel and diesel fuel yields the potential to generate project and corporate returns that justify the build-out of a multi-billion-dollar business.

Gevo believes that the Argonne National Laboratory GREET model is the best available standard of scientific-based measurement for life cycle inventory or LCI.

Learn more at Gevos website:www.gevo.com

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements relate to a variety of matters, without limitation, including Gevos technology, the White House fact sheet and virtual roundtable, the production of SAF, the attributes of Gevos products, and other statements that are not purely statements of historical fact. These forward-looking statements are made on the basis of the current beliefs, expectations and assumptions of the management of Gevo and are subject to significant risks and uncertainty. Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements. All such forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and Gevo undertakes no obligation to update or revise these statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Although Gevo believes that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, these statements involve many risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from what may be expressed or implied in these forward-looking statements. For a further discussion of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those expressed in these forward-looking statements, as well as risks relating to the business of Gevo in general, see the risk disclosures in the Annual Report on Form 10-K of Gevo for the year ended December 31, 2020, and in subsequent reports on Forms 10-Q and 8-K and other filings made with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission by Gevo.

Investor and Media Contact+1 720-647-9605IR@gevo.com

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White House Coordinates Efforts of Departments of Energy, Transportation, and Agriculture to Meet the Grand Challenge: Reduce Aviation Carbon...

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These Are The Altcoins Everyone Loves Right Now – Forbes

Posted: at 6:10 am

Market participants and project leaders discuss their picks for the altcoin universe. Looking for ... [+] new cryptos to buy? Here are some ideas.

Is Cardano (ADA) considered an alt-coin? Basically anything thats not DeFi, an NFT, Bitcoin and Ethereum is probably alt. Well, after a couple of rough trading sessions last week, the less energy intensive blockchain is expected to rise up. I own it. Boy, am I glad.

Cardano is on a clear upward trajectory and theres no reason to think that this will come to a halt any time soon, says Nigel Green, founder of the DeVere Group in London. Momentum is likely to pick up. I believe that the price of Cardano will reach all-time highs in the next month, hitting more than $3, he says.

Cardano, the "green" blockchain.

There are three main drivers currently fueling the price of Cardano. First, its being pulled by the broader crypto market rally. Total market capitalization is back up to $2 trillion again. Second, its upcoming network upgrade this month, putting its blockchain in a strong position to take on Ethereum, the most used blockchain in terms of smart contract functionality.And third, Cardano will keep benefitting from its reputation of being a green cryptocurrency compared to the likes of Bitcoin, which is not considered as efficient in energy consumption, says Green.

It used to be that every crypto basically tracked Bitcoin. Maybe not to a perfect 100% degree, but 70% and more was common. We have been seeing, and for some time now, a break in the correlation with altcoins and the Mother of all Cryptos: Bitcoin (BTC). To some extent, there is also a split between other coins and Ethereum (ETH). In other words, just because BTC and ETH are down, it doesnt mean the entire crypto portfolio is going down with it.

We are now seeing some coins breaking away from that correlation, says Ian Mvula CEO and Founder T.E Markets Ltd. As at January 2021, Bitcoin dominance was well above 60% of the total cryptocurrency market capitalization. Thats dropping like a stone. Hitting below 50% at one point last week thanks in part to Ethereums rise, but also numerous altcoins. That should give you an idea of how much growth we've witnessed in the alt coins space lately, Mvula says.

Other than jumps in Cardano, Mvula names Axie Infinity (AXS); Binance (BNB); Polkadot (DOT) and Luna (LUNA) heading towards or having already surpassing their all-time-highs. He, of course, touts his own companys coin: TEMCoin. He said holders will be able to participate in staking programs on high yield projects like the African Consolidated Exchange (ACEX), as well as their own product lines: TE Properties, TE Micro Funding and TE Capital, to name a few.

In the crypto world, the overall picture remains more or less the same at all times, regardless of exchange. The most popular trading pairs are major cryptocurrencies such as BTC, ETH, and Litecoin against Tether (USDT). They are followed by different altcoins traded for BTC, ETH, or the token of the exchange where the trade is taking place. At the moment, ADA and DOT are at the top of all alt-coin charts. These projects are considered alternatives to the more expensive, gas heavy Ethereum.

Edmund Hillary has got news for Cardano and the like, this coin has done way better in terms of investment gains: Avalanche (AVAX).

Without a doubt the answer for me for altcoins is AVAX, says Hillary, co-founder and lead architect of RelayChain. The AVAX token has seen over a 400% price growth since BTC started recovering and liquidity and demand has poured in as a result of their Avalanche Rush event. Hillary said that his bridging traffic from Avalanche to Polygon for the AVAX token is accounting for over 40% of their total bridge traffic at this time. We expect it to jump more as the AVAX token becomes available on more chains, he says.

Wow, this chart is pretty.

Avalanche versus Cardano over the last three months.

AVAX has been a massive winner. Against BTC, the other gas tokens have performed extremely well, as well. BNB is up over 50%, Huobi Token (HT) is up nearly 100%, and Polygon (MATIC) is up about 100% as well, Hillary says.

I asked all of these guys, looking for ideas myself: if you were investing in altcoins trying to catch BTCs journey back to $50,000+, what would you be buying and why do you like these projects?

NFTs are as alt as they come, even if they have a different name. Yaroslav Gordeev, CEO of London-based Phenom Ecosystem, a decentralized project uniting several high tech solutions and, on its website, touts that it helps turn your phone into a cash machine, likes Enjin (ENJ).

NFTs are still crazy popular, and this trend is not fading away, so its worth trying, Gordeev says. The Phenom Ecosystem includes the Phenom Network, Phenom Chain, Phenom Exchange, and Phenom Metaverse, which is the world of NFTs.

I would take a closer look at Enjin, a project that helps you integrate NFT tokens into any video game, including Minecraft. This year, weve seen some games that can be monetized with the help of an internal currency. For instance, Axie Infinity became the first NFT game on the Ethereum network that gained over $1 billion in sales. This might give you a hunch of the Enjin potential.

I have a small investment in Enjin. Its been a dud so far, so heres to hoping Gordeev is right. Patience has proven to be a virtue in this market. Pre-pandemic, Bitcoin was worth less than $10 grand.

There's a pot of crypto at the end of the rainbow. What it's worth depends on the day.

Another example of an altcoin thats became more popular due to the limitations of the market is cryptoexchange FTX, seen as an alternative to Coinbase and Gemini here in the U.S. Its battling Coinbase over fees. Coinbase is ridiculously expensive. It reminds me of the days when it cost like $7 to trade stocks on E-Trade.

FTX has risen 28% in roughly four weeks. I expect it to keep rising, Gordeev says. Other projects that have not been mentioned yet by anyone and has great potential: Chainlink (LINK), he says. Chainlink is one of the major market players taking care of transferring and processing tamper-proof data, while Polkadot aims to facilitate cross-blockchain transfers. Multichain will be the next big thing, he says.

Id be buying DeFi and NFT's, as well as layer two solutions (Ethereum-related scaling solutions) and decentralized exchange coins almost exclusively, says Handy Barot, co-founder of StorX (SRX), a peer-to-peer decentralized cloud storage network for those who hate Jeff Bezoss AWS, perhaps. StorX says it does encryption, fragment, and distributes data across multiple hosting nodes worldwide.

As far as the Ethereum scale-up angle goes, Barots would look at a few names in particular. Many have already been named.

The greatest impact to the market by both proportional gains and volume come from layer one and layer two platforms for smart contracts such as Ethereum, Polygon, Cardano, Luna, Avalanche, Polkadot and (some new ones here), Solana (SOL) Unibright (UBT) and Cosmos (ATOM), he says. But also the DeFi and NFT segments, he stressed again.

Back to Hillary, here are some coins that move in near-correlation with some of his favorites so far:

Avalanche: JOE, BENQ, Coin98 (C98), Pangolin (PNG)

Solana: Mango Markets (MNGO), Serum (SRM), Raydium (RAY)

Polkadot: Moonriver (MOVR), Moonbeam (GLMR), Kusama (KSM), Air (AIR)

Fantom (FTM): Spookyswab (BOO)

These are less correlated to the fortunes of BTC and ETH, Hillary says. I think these are some of the names that are core to the new ecosystems.

These Are The Altcoins Everyone Loves Right Now - Forbes

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Behind the hatred for Justin Trudeau is a racial power dynamic that Canada has failed to address – Scroll.in

Posted: at 6:10 am

Canadas snap election has increasingly featured threats of violence against Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau. Though not the only leader to be harassed, Trudeaus campaign stops in recent weeks have been disrupted by small, hostile, mostly white crowds one protester was charged with throwing gravel at Trudeau during a campaign appearance.

Outside of Canada, people might be surprised to hear about the anger directed at a politician known internationally as a youthful, charming, energetic progressive. But our research into Canadian memes has found a persistent, visceral dislike of Trudeau among many right-wing online communities.

In Canada, Trudeau is a polarising figure online, people either love or immensely dislike him.

Trudeau, the son of famed former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau who enjoyed a similar international celebrity, ushered in another bout of Trudeaumania when he won his first election in 2015. That campaign was defined by a focus on sunny ways and Instagram style as part of a progressive reset after years of Conservative rule.

Trudeaumania 2.0 was real, another example of how closely linked celebrity and political culture can sometimes be.

Two years later, Trudeaumania had largely dissipated, though it never existed among right-wing groups. In 2017, a friend shared a post from Ontario Proud, part of Canada Proud, a popular Facebook page run by a right-of-centre media strategist. It was a cartoon that originated on an alt-right sub-Reddit suggesting Trudeau has betrayed white, wounded male veterans.

The Islamic crescent on Trudeaus socks is perhaps a conspiratorial explanation of the false belief that Trudeau paid out to Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen who at the age of 15 was detained by the United States at Guantanamo Bay for 10 years for the wartime killing of a US army sergeant in Afghanistan. This allegation ignores the violations of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that led to a $10.5 million court settlement with Khadr.

Accusations that Trudeau has betrayed Canada was a common theme as we began studying grassroots Facebook pages in 2019, another election year. We found no Trudeau meme pages celebrating the leader.

Instead, we watched anti-Trudeau pages describe him as a traitor who deserved to be treated with contempt.

In another meme, Trudeaus name had been reduced to Turd.

These right-wing groups had a distinct reaction to the blackface scandals that erupted during the 2019 campaign. They believed, as did some mainstream commentators, that the prime ministers past behaviour symbolised Liberal hypocrisy, accusing him of a performative and superficial embrace of equality and social justice.

The blackface, however, seemed to matter less to right-wing groups than framing Trudeau as a sexual predator. They uncovered proof of Trudeaus alleged lecherous conduct at past schools and targeted the placement of his hands in a photo from a 2001 Bollywood gala.

Memes became evidence collages designed to prove Trudeaus past sexual misconduct and used to negatively taint his contemporary image.

Trudeau was a sex symbol, alright, but the worst kind, according to these groups. Trudeau denied the allegations and apologised for one incident though he said he had no memory of it. But the claims had made their mark in these communities and further soured their adherents on the Liberal leader.

The Covid-19 pandemic offered these groups further cause to feel betrayed by Trudeau.

Pandemic lockdowns, vaccine mandates, vaccine passports and disruptions to businesses offered new ways to interpret Trudeaus arrogance and betrayal. The reaction was not exceptional most countries in the world are dealing with anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers but rather the continuation of anti-Trudeau attitudes that regard him as an incompetent leader who is not to be trusted, whether with women or with the economy.

Our observations show a darker side to Trudeaus celebrity status. As much as Trudeau may be regarded as a likeable person by many Canadians and international observers, he is disliked by right-wing groups for perhaps similar reasons: he is a rich, entitled white man in a position of privilege and power who they view as betraying what they often call old-stock Canadians.

This may explain Trudeaus niche unpopularity online and the white, violent crowds appearing at his rallies.

As journalist Fatima Syed writes, these largely white groups of protesters that have followed Trudeau have an unfair privilege that has been afforded to them by all aspects of society: they largely get away with their hateful rhetoric and actions, and dont get called out or punished for it.

That privilege might also explain a media blind spot. There is a multitude of right-wing rage online, and as a society, Canada needs to urgently make sense of the racial and cultural power dynamics that are underlying angry and hateful discourse.

Fenwick McKelvey is an Associate Professor in Information and Communication Technology Policy and Scott DeJong is a PhD Candidate and Research Assistant, Communication Studies at the Concordia University.

This article first appeared on The Conversation.

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Behind the hatred for Justin Trudeau is a racial power dynamic that Canada has failed to address - Scroll.in

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Islamophobia is getting amplified by bots on social media – Quartz

Posted: at 6:10 am

In August 2021, a Facebook ad campaign criticizing Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, the United States first Muslim congresswomen, came under intense scrutiny. Critics charged that the ads linked the congresswomen with terrorism, and some faith leaders condemned the campaign as Islamophobic that is, spreading fear of Islam and hatred against Muslims.

This was hardly the first time the pair faced Islamophobic or racist abuse, especially on the internet. As a communications professor who studies the politics of race and identity online, I have seen that Omar is often a target of white nationalist attacks on Twitter.

But online attacks on Muslims are not limited to politicians. Twenty years after the 9/11 attacks, stereotypes that associate Muslims with terrorism go far beyond depictions in newspapers and television. Recent research raises the alarm about rampant Islamophobia in digital spaces, particularly far-right groups use of disinformation and other manipulation tactics to vilify Muslims and their faith.

In July 2021, for example, a team led by media researcher Lawrence Pintak published research on tweets that mentioned Omar during her campaign for Congress. They reported that half the tweets they studied involved overtly Islamophobic or xenophobic language or other forms of hate speech.

The majority of offensive posts came from a small number of provocateurs accounts that seed Islamophobic conversations on Twitter. Many of these accounts belonged to conservatives, they found. But the researchers reported that such accounts themselves did not generate significant traffic.

Instead, the team found that amplifiers were primarily responsible: accounts that collect and circulate agents provocateurs ideas through mass retweets and replies.

Their most interesting finding was that only four of the top 20 Islamophobic amplifiers were authentic accounts. Most were either bots algorithmically generated to mimic human accounts or sockpuppets, which are human accounts that use fake identities to deceive others and manipulate conversations online.

Bots and sockpuppets disseminated Islamophobic tweets originally posted by authentic accounts, creating a megaphone effect that scales up Islamophobia across the Twitterverse.

Twitter has a little over 200 million daily active users. Facebook, meanwhile, has nearly 2 billion and some use similar manipulation strategies on this platform to escalate Islamophobia.

Disinformation researcher Johan Farkas and his colleagues have studied cloaked Facebook pages in Denmark, which are run by individuals or groups who pretend to be radical Islamists in order to provoke antipathy against Muslims. The scholars analysis of 11 such pages, identified as fakes, found that organizers posted spiteful claims about ethnic Danes and Danish society and threatened an Islamic takeover of the country.

Facebook removed the pages for violating the platforms content policy, according to the study, but they reemerged under a different guise. Although Farkas team couldnt confirm who was creating the pages, they found patterns indicating the same individual or group hiding behind the cloak.

These cloaked pages succeeded in prompting thousands of hostile and racist comments toward the radical Islamists that users believed were running the pages. But they also prompted anger toward the wider Muslim community in Denmark, including refugees.

Such comments often fit into a wider view of Muslims as a threat to Western values and whiteness, underscoring how Islamophobia goes beyond religious intolerance.

This is not to suggest that real Islamist extremists are absent from the web. The internet in general and social media in particular have long served as a means of Islamist radicalization.

But in recent years, far-right groups have been expanding their online presence much faster than Islamists. Between 2012 and 2016, white nationalists Twitter followers grew by more than 600%, according to a study by extremism expert J.M. Berger. White nationalists outperform ISIS in nearly every social metric, from follower counts to tweets per day, he found.

A more recent study of Bergers, a 2018 analysis of alt-right content on Twitter, found a very significant presence of automation, fake profiles and other social media manipulation tactics among such groups.

Social media companies have emphasized their policies to identify and stamp out content from Islamic terror groups. Big Tech critics, however, argue that the companies are less willing to police right-wing groups like white supremacists, making it easier to spread Islamophobia online.

Exposure to Islamophobic messages has grave consequences. Experiments show that portrayals of Muslims as terrorists can increase support for civil restrictions on Muslim-Americans, as well as support for military action against Muslim-majority countries.

The same research indicates that being exposed to content that challenges stereotypes of Muslims such as Muslims volunteering to help fellow Americans during the Christmas season can have the opposite effect and reduce support for such policies, especially among political conservatives.

Violence toward Muslims, the vandalization of mosques and burnings of the Quran have been extensively reported in the U.S. over the past 20 years, and there are indications that Islamophobia continues to rise.

But studies following the 2016 election indicate Muslims now experience Islamophobia more frequently online than face-to-face. Earlier in 2021, a Muslim advocacy group sued Facebook executives, accusing the company of failing to remove anti-Muslim hate speech. The suit claims that Facebook itself commissioned a civil rights audit that found the website created an atmosphere where Muslims feel under siege.

In 2011, around the 10th anniversary of 9/11, a report by the Center for American Progress documented the countrys extensive Islamophobia network, especially drawing attention to the role of misinformation experts from the far-right in spreading anti-Muslim propaganda.

Five years later, the entire country was awash in talk of misinformation experts using similar strategies this time, trying to influence the presidential election. Ultimately, these evolving strategies dont just target Muslims, but may be replicated on a grander scale.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Islamophobia is getting amplified by bots on social media - Quartz

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If You Had $5,000 Right Now, Would You Put It On Solana, Ethereum Or Dogecoin? – Yahoo Finance

Posted: at 6:10 am

Every week, Benzinga conducts a survey to collect sentiment on what traders are most excited about, interested in or thinking about as they manage and build their personal portfolios.

This week we posed the following question to over 1,000 Benzinga visitors on cryptocurrency investing:

If you had $5,000 to invest, would you put it on Solana, Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) or Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE) right now?

Solana: 21.7%

Ethereum: 42.8%

Dogecoin: 35.5%

‘Alternative proteins are moving in all directions it’s becoming like a jungle out there’: Givaudan discusses its new Protein Hub launch -…

Posted: at 6:10 am

Ullram told us the alternative protein market is quickly evolving beyond the ubiquitous soy and pea. Todays manufactures are discovering an ever-expanding bouquet of new ingredients and technologies available to them. This allows food brands to make products of appeal to the rising numbers of flexitarian consumers who say they want to cut their meat consumption for environmental, health and ethical reasons.

Givaudan has therefore expanded its global protein innovation network with a new Protein Hub at its flagship 12,000 square metre Zurich Innovation Centre in Kemptthal, Switzerland, which itself recently opened in 2019 ata cost ofCHF 120 million.

The Protein Hub builds on Givaudans expertise in taste, texture, colours, proteins and ingredients, and aims to provide the experts, technologies and equipment to help accelerate the development of alternative proteins.

"The market is going in all directions, said Ullram. It's almost becoming a jungle out there with so many new ingredients coming up every day."

For instance, Givaudan's 2019 study withresearchers from the University of California, Berkeley identified -- from a group of42 plant proteins -- sixpotentially game changing proteins all boasting viablecommercial, nutritional and sustainability credentials. These were oats; mung beans; chickpeas; lentils; flax seeds and sunflower seeds. Whats exciting about these newer ingredients, said Ullram, is that manufacturers may look to use them in combination with each other to improve the taste, texture and nutritional qualities of the current crop of meat alternatives."We believe there will be more combining of the different protein sources in order to get the best out of the taste and texture, Ullram told us. This will also help get the supply chain issues right. If we see there are protein shortages, combinations of different proteins will help address that.

All of this is being done in an environment of improving production technology: namely high moisture extrusion, 3D printing and clean meatexpertise.

But this febrile climate can bring both challenges and opportunities. Newer ingredients may promise better versatility and ease of use in a range of applications. But they may bring unintended consequences, such as allergen and legislation discussions.

Meanwhile, the European market is experiencing country-specific changes, which can influence how brands can look to expand meat-free products in different regions. Soy, for example, has a good reputation in some countries like France, which is home to a large number of soy farmers. Other countries -- like Russia, where it was used for a long time to produce very cheap, processed fake meat -- are more suspicious of it.

Givaudan aims to provide its customers the right, tools, partners, ingredients and technology to help themthrough this alt protein jungle, said Ullram.

We believe that the way forward is to stay on our toes and to stay as agile and flexible as possible, he said. Were trying to bring in as many partners to the game and provide our customers the best experience to solve their specific challenges.

Some recent reports suggest a saturating market. But citing figures from MarketsandMarkets, Givaudan says the market for plant-based protein globally has reached US $4.3 billion and is projected to grow to US $290 billion by 2035. Around the world, many consumers are shifting to plant-based options and other alternatives for health and ethical reasons, added Louie DAmico, President Taste & Wellbeing. The Protein Hub brings together customers, start-ups, academics, chefs and other partners to co-create protein experiences that not only taste great, but are good for body, mind and planet.

As a large, taste,fragrance and flavour company, Givaudan says it can pull a wide variety of different expertsto address potential roadblocks in the market and discuss different impacts around price, nutrition, sustainability, flavour and texture.

"We have our food technologists who can help us by, for example, calculating hypothetical Nutriscores by using certain protein adjustments. We can tap into chefs who can help us with taste ideas," elaborated Ullram. It all depends what's driving what a particular company wants to do.Customers can come to the Protein Hub to work on all types of applications and every aspect of the product development process, from initial ideation and consumer insights to hands on prototyping sessionsall with the aim of getting products to market quickly.

Fabio Campanile, Global Head of Science and Technology, Taste & Wellbeing, added: Creating delicious alternatives for meat, fish or dairy from plant-based to fermented products comes with a unique set of challenges and requires a holistic approach. At the same time, we realise that no one company can do this alone. We need to work together to address challenges, accelerate innovation and shape the future of food. The Protein Hub provides the ideal environment to make that happen.

Improving technology promises to have a huge impact on the market, noted Ullram. The Protein Hub is equipped with a state-of-the art development kitchen and a pilot plant that includes a new high moisture extrusion machine. This technology could prove a potential game-changer for meat alternative products, Ullram believes, by allowing bigger fibres to be made which better replicate the muscle fibres of real meat. Without high moisture extrusion, manufacturers are only ever going to be able to make meat alternatives as big as chicken nuggets. The focus of the Protein Hub is everything in the extrusion space, including dry and wet. Quickly advancing extrusion technology means manufacturers can begin to make meat alternative products that mimic whole meat cuts, like a Wiener schnitzel. That's the Holy Grail," he said.

All this will assist the alternative protein market to bloom and to progress from passing trend into one firmly established in everyday consumer buying habits. Givaudan is focussed on making these products appeal to the masses,said Ullram. What do we need to do to reach mainstream consumers, which are not there right now.

What does that mean for innovation in end-products? Will it be confined to plant-based mince, meatballs, sausages, sausage patties and burgers, or will new formats emerge?

A drive to steer imitations to a new authenticity is one direction we will see, said Ullram. But Givaudan also wants to continue exploring trends which may evolve beyond dishes that mimic meat. For example, its most recent Chefs Council event -- where international Michelin-star chefs explore new tastes and textures set to hit the food and beverage industry investigated ways at putting plants at the centre of the plate. The result was a Middle Eastern inspired lambalogue made with aubergine.

We can go in all directions, said Ullram. We have the chefs and the creative minds. We'll go where the demand is.

Gen Z has only known society changed by 9/11: Hear how the attacks have shaped their lives – USA TODAY

Posted: at 6:10 am

On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast:How has a generation with no memory of 9/11 come to understand the event and its aftermath?

Gen Zers across the nation share how their specific identifies and lived experiences, family histories, and the U.S. public education system have shaped their understanding of what happenedand is still happening. USA TODAY's Grace Hauck reports.

Hit play on the player above to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript below.This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

Shannon Rae Green:

Hey there. I'm Ms. Shannon Rae Green and this is 5 Things. It's Sunday, September 12th. These Sunday episodes are special. We're bringing you more from in-depth stories you may have already heard. Gen Z has virtually no memory of 9/11, so how have they come to understand the events of the day and their aftermath? Gen Z, people born around 1997 and after, experienced 9/11 through family history, the US public education system, movies, and social media. On today's episode, you'll hear from a few Gen Zers, each having a lived experience that connects their family and plans that they have for the future, with the tragedy. USA Today reporter Grace Hauck spent the past couple of months talking to Gen Zers about how they experienced 9/11. Thanks so much for joining me, Grace.

Grace Hauck:

Thanks for having me.

Shannon Rae Green:

So why did you think that this was an important angle to cover as part of USA TODAY's coverage of the 20th anniversary of 9/11?

Grace Hauck:

I think it's natural, 20 years later, to think about this new generation that has come of age in a post 9/11 world. Census data would suggest that if we think about Gen Z as those born between 1997 and 2012, which is what the Pew Center has as the endpoint right now, tentatively. That means they're anywhere from 9 to 24, and that would mean there's about 70 million Gen Zers right now, all who, if they were born on 9/11, may have little to no memory and many who have been born since then.

Grace Hauck:

So they've grown up in a world and a country shaped by what happened on 9/11. And many of them now, are of an age where they can vote, they're coming into the workforce and they're shaping our society. And so I thought it would be interesting and important to talk to them about what they think about 9/11, how they learned about it and how their views have changed over their lives?

Shannon Rae Green:

Yeah. It's so interesting that they don't know anything different. So what did you hear from them, Grace? What did you expect to find and what surprised you?

Grace Hauck:

Yeah, so I talked to dozens of them across the country. I wanted to see if there were differences in regional opinions by age, because anywhere between 9 and 24 years old, of course, everyone has a different story. But generally, what I expected most Gen Zers to say is, "They didn't know much about 9/11, it hasn't had a big effect on their life. And that they're more concerned with the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, mass shootings, the crises that are facing their generation now." And I did hear that from some Gen Zers.

Grace Hauck:

One, in particular, Ronnie, told me, Gen Zers would rather focus on the problems of now, instead of looking back to the past. But I was surprised by how many, who said, really expressed a sense of being shaped and formed by 9/11, if they couldn't pinpoint how it affected them personally. And I wonder if maybe that is the sense that has been impressed on them in school or from families, the sense of, we were forever changed by this, and of course, many Gen Zers had varying degrees of proximity to the event. So some who did lose the family member or serving as caregivers for second relatives or had family away for most of their life, have a very different take and perspective on 9/11 and the aftermath than those who weren't as close.

Grace Hauck:

But even again, those who were slightly more distant and didn't have a personal connection or have a family or friend tie, have a sense of, "This changed my country. This created the Department of Homeland Security, and this is why we have TSA." And of course, many Gen Zers who are Muslim or perceived to be Muslim or Arab or Sikh, said that it has cast a long shadow over their communities. And as I expected to find, they feel personally affected by it in a way that many other Gen Zers who aren't Muslim or appear to be Muslim were affected.

Shannon Rae Green:

Were there certain things that you saw pop up again and again when you did these interviews?

Grace Hauck:

Yeah. So many Gen Zers, they talk about this initial exposure to information about what happened or this kind of initial understanding and then that changing as they grew older, kind of a loss of innocence happening there. And so many said that they first learned about 9/11 in school, on the anniversary of the attacks. So instead of in a history class, where they might learn about it in a chronological order of sorts, learn about US involvement in Afghanistan, and then the post 9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and elsewhere. They had a sense of it, separate from history and being this traumatic event that shaped our nation.

Grace Hauck:

And many talked about New York City, few talked about Shanksville or the Pentagon, and so many had that first exposure at school at a young age. Others said it was family who first talked to them and many said that it was a combination of coming home from school and asking family, "Hey, what is this, why are we talking about it?" And then as they grew older, many said that they were exposed to, whether it was social media, whether it was books or movies, or memoirs of Muslims growing up in the US and having a sense of, "Wow, this was a lot more than just a singular event."

Grace Hauck:

And of course, that's happening while the US is at war in Afghanistan and elsewhere. And so there's the sense of coming of age and understanding this event as something that caused a lot of long-lasting harm too. And many said that as they themselves changed or their political views changed, their views on 9/11 changed, as well.

Shannon Rae Green:

So we're going to hear from certain people that you interviewed in today's podcast episode. So let's talk about Meghan Carr. Can you tell me about her family's connection to 9/11?

Grace Hauck:

Yeah. So I got to drive up and visit Megan actually, a couple of weeks ago in Hudson, New York. Her grandmother, Megan Carr Wilkes was a detective with the New York Police Department on that day, when she responded to the World Trade Center. Megan said she either talked to or called her grandmother every single day.

Megan Carr:

Our relationship was really good. We hung out a lot and talked all the time. After I got off the bus at home, she would call me and then come pick me up and we'd figure out what we were going to do for the day. Well, sometimes we'd go get ice cream, or sometimes we'd just hang out at her house, play, just dance, we went out to eat, go to the park. My grandmother was a very hopeful and cheerful person.

Grace Hauck:

Sometimes people talk about having a person, someone's that person and Megan would say that her Mimi was her person.

Shannon Rae Green:

Yeah. It's really beautiful how close of a relationship they had. How did Megan first learn about 9/11?

Grace Hauck:

So it's funny because looking back, Megan will talk about how she always knew her grandmother was sick but had never heard about 9/11, had never heard her grandmother, her family, talk about it. And she was in school in third or fourth grade on the anniversary when they mentioned it, brought it up, and she went home and asked her parents about it.

Megan Carr:

Well, when I went home, I asked my mom about it and she told me more and that my grandma was in it. So after I asked my mom, I went to my grandma and asked her about it more. She just told me much like the basics, why she was there and how it happened. She was with her friend, I think her boss, when everything took place and they radioed them and she didn't have to go, but she just decided to go.

Grace Hauck:

She developed lung cancer after her assignment to the search and recovery efforts and was sick for most of Megan's life. And Megan grew up, she calls her, her Mimi, always knowing that her grandmother was sick, but never really knowing why.

Megan Carr:

When she had to go get chemo, I was probably seven, eight. I didn't want to ever watch my grandma have to go do that. Heartbreaking. It was hard for her to walk. She was losing her hair.

Grace Hauck:

Multiple Gen Zers who I talked with too, for the story, talked about these drives they would go on with their relatives to the hospital. And that's something that Megan would do too. When her grandmother started getting really sick, she would accompany her on hours-long drives, watching SpongeBob in the back of the car.

Megan Carr:

When she had to go to New York City for chemo, sometimes I would go with her and after we'd go out to eat and go see my cousins that lived there. I'm glad I have those memories now, with her.

Shannon Rae Green:

I know in your story, you talked about how Megan actually took care of her grandmother for a few weeks when she stayed in her home, and that was actually the summer before she passed away, that fall in 2017, right?

Grace Hauck:

Megan moved in with her grandmother, was a caretaker for her full-time, for those three weeks.

Megan Carr:

We'd make her food, help her go to the bathroom, run to the store and get her things. We used to watch Law and Order, like police shows, her favorite shows. My favorite memories probably were watching TV shows with her. Sometimes we'd sit on the balcony and eat and talk. When she passed away, I felt like something was took from me, like a missing piece.

Grace Hauck:

She's named after her. So Megan and Megan.

Megan Carr:

It feels good to be named after her, so that everybody knows I'm named after someone that did something really good in the world.

Shannon Rae Green:

Since every Gen Zers learn about 9/11 secondhand, it's significant work to process the emotion surrounding the event for these folks. Right? And to grasp how it changed the very culture of America. Katie Brockhage spoke about this. Tell me more about interviewing her?

Grace Hauck:

Yeah. So Katie is based out in Colorado Springs, Colorado, but she was in rural Nevada that day and has blurry memories of being at a friend's house and seeing some of the news on the TV. And she said that she grew up really surrounded by this aura of 9/11, even though her family bounced around several states out West when she was young and wasn't geographically close, it was something that was ever-present in her household. She said she remembered her parents talking about 9/11. She remembers her dad bringing it up in conversations with her when she was young, even if they were out fishing or out hiking. And so she said it really became this horrible event. That is part of what made her want to join the military and as she says, be a protector to prevent anything like that from happening again.

Katie Brockhage:

Immediately after 9/11, a lot of older friends and mentors of mine have told me that the whole aura and vibe in America pretty much changed overnight. They mentioned things like fear, paranoia, Islamophobia, and overzealous patriotism. Of course, not all the changes and sentiments were negative, but it seems to me like overall, they were. As a kid growing up in a world where those feelings were so prevalent, especially in a rural conservative area, before I even knew the first thing about politics, I was quite the young patriot.

Katie Brockhage:

I'd run around in the yard with my best friend Henry all day, after school, pretending to hunt down terrorists. I have no memories of going through an airport that wasn't laden down with TSA security and body scanners, the list goes on. I inevitably grew up with a lot of negative sentiments that I had to overcome, which culminated in me flirting with the alt-right movement during the years of 2015 and 2016, when it was really starting to peak. I fought to work hard to unlearn these feelings and a conscious decision to overcome my own biases. Making Muslim friends, escaping the conservative bubble, and finding a real home in the left-winged LGBT community.

Grace Hauck:

And as she grew older, she said that that view really changed. And it was a combination of events that led to that evolution for her. The main one being, her best friend came out as trans and she began to have more conversations with her friend about that and she then realized her own identity as a trans woman. And as she says, that just created a crisis of her political beliefs in some way, because she had long developed these conservative Republican ideals, grounded in her understanding of 9/11, and what it means to protect a country from something like that happening again. And to then have to challenge those because she's realizing that belief system doesn't allow her to be her full self and to be who she is.

Grace Hauck:

And that she said, was fundamental in changing her view on the US reaction, domestic and foreign policy changes too, after 9/11. And part of that for her is also, not as much as her own transition process, but she talked quite a bit about just being connected into a global community and what that does for someone's worldview. She talked a bit about growing up playing video games and having access at all times to people from around the world. To people in Russia and Europe, and being able to talk to them while they're on video games together and having a much more global understanding of what was happening in the US involvement in the world. She talked about being on Reddit quite a bit, TikTok and just seeing memes too, and having a growing understanding as she got older of Gen Zers having pretty high-level political discussions through memes and TikTok.

Katie Brockhage:

Probably more so than any other generation, we are connected and aware of what goes around all over the world, past and future. It's an extremely powerful thing, and it completely changes how we contextualize and understand major world events. Especially with political issues that spread like wildfire in an almost viral way, over an incredibly wide variety of platforms and places. From deep, hours-long political talks in person, to short, funny meme videos on TikTok and really, just about everywhere in between.

Grace Hauck:

And she says, Gen Zers are able to have that kind of discussion now, whereas 20 years ago, that kind of discussion wasn't happening. And especially because Gen Z has now inherited the US legacy over the past 20 years. And the US wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, elsewhere, as well as the US Patriot Act, the National Muslim Registry. And so she says, like many Gen Zers, that she's become critical of what the US did in reaction to 9/11. And a lot of that discussion, she sees playing out online and on social media.

Shannon Rae Green:

So Katie does hit on this fact that we can't talk about 9/11 without discussing, well, so many layers of things, right? That's coming up in our interview right now. But particularly the war in Afghanistan and the backlash and discrimination that Muslims and people of Middle Eastern descent have faced in America. What did you learn about Gen Z']ers experience of Islamophobia in the wake of 9/11?

Grace Hauck:

Yeah. So I talked to multiple Gen Zers across the country who are Muslim or have been perceived as Muslim and what their life has been like in a post 9/11 world? And many of them talk about maybe having some sense when they're very young of fear in their communities and not really understanding until they were older, why that was happening. Ayoub Affaneh for example, a 24-year-old living here in Chicago, talked to me about when he was younger, about four or so, when 9/11 happened.

Grace Hauck:

He remembers his mother, she stopped wearing her hijab for several years and he wasn't sure why she wasn't wearing it when they would go out to the park or to the mall. And it was only really when he was in college, that she was comfortable talking to him about why she did that. And it was around that time, maybe more toward the end of high school, that his family members, his older siblings, other people in his community, began to open up to him about what happened, particularly in the direct aftermath of 9/11. How there were protests near his mosque that shut down Friday prayers. How many of his relatives were spat on and his female relatives had their hijabs ripped off.

Grace Hauck:

And so it was an awakening and a consciousness that developed for him as he grew older, that he felt shielded from in some ways when he was much younger and he, and many other Muslim Gen Zers I spoke with, point to this generational difference, even between millennial Muslims and those who are older, who may have been older and more aware. And when 9/11 happened and really bore the brunt of this, whereas Ayoubhas grown up in a world that is shaped by this, where this is just the norm for him and he's had to learn about it and why? One woman Mayesha here, she also talked about getting pulled over by TSA every time she flies and always having an agent swab her hijab.

Grace Hauck:

And it reminded me of how Ayoub, when he was 19, he had a car pull up to him and just an older man shouted the word, terrorist, at him and he was just rolled his eyes and was like, I got the sense from his tone, "Really, is this still happening 20 years later?" And Mayesha almost had that sense as well, like, "Really, it's been 20 years and it's ludicrous." And at the same time, many have a sense that their generation is different, that Gen Z and Pulman supports this as well, is a more accepting, diverse generation, the most educated generation that the US has ever seen. And that this is something that they don't have to face as much with their friends or that this is something they don't have to face much as now in their generation. And that they have hope for their generation in the future to combat anti-Muslim bigotry.

Shannon Rae Green:

Well, I certainly hope so. Katie spoke about America's longest war and the chaos of the Taliban coming back to power in Afghanistan, despite American efforts. And this is so tied to the legacy of 9/11. Can you talk about what she had to say about that?

Grace Hauck:

Katie was telling me how she was sitting at work recently, watching live streams of what was happening at Kabul Airport and Afghans attempting to flee, American citizens, attempting to flee, to get on planes. And seeing photos really 9/11-esque photos of people falling from the sky, that she hopped in her car after work, pulled up into her driveway, and just sat there balling until she couldn't cry anymore. Because she was just feeling so much for Afghanistan and feeling so much for all her friends and veterans who had served there for 20 years and who were just wondering, "What was this all for? What have we done?"

Shannon Rae Green:

Yeah, let's hear from Katie.

Katie Brockhage:

When I was younger, 9/11 felt very, one-sided. Obviously, the terrible loss of American lives on that day and every year since, as we were deployed in Afghanistan, are what hurt the most, even today. But what used to be a simple, us versus them situation for me, has evolved into a very complicated set of feelings and emotions. Rather than just a loss of American lives, so much of the legacy of 9/11 is fear, mistrust, countless innocent people caught up in a war they never asked for both in America and abroad. And for an entire minority of people, both in America and in other countries, a lot of fear and discrimination has arisen as a result of this. I hate that.

Katie Brockhage:

You can see the legacy in every American flag flying over a porch and the unity that so many communities have experienced in the wake of 9/11, but also in hundreds of thousands of US service members, living with PTSD, anxiety and depression. Being a veteran and continuing to work in the defense industry with almost entirely veteran co-workers, a lot of my friends and colleagues personally deployed to Afghanistan. It's not my place to throw out opinions about policy, but I can confidently say, that for many of us who were involved in the fight in various ways, though, I should stress that I never deployed personally.

Katie Brockhage:

It's been a real challenge seeing everything end the way it has, seeing everything left behind, those tragic 13 deaths in the final days. Just wondering if what we did and the people we lost, really made a difference, and if they were worth it? Personally, it hurts me to think about what's going to happen over there with the Taliban in control. And I personally really do worry for the people of Afghanistan, in the coming days.

Shannon Rae Green:

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Gen Z has only known society changed by 9/11: Hear how the attacks have shaped their lives - USA TODAY

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The Best Crypto Courses of September 2021, for Investors Who Like a Guided Approach – NextAdvisor

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You can find online courses for everything from how to buy a car to how to invest in the stock market. Naturally, cryptocurrency is no exception.

But there are some caveats to consider before you opt into a course on the latest investing trends. If youre going to pay anyone for financial advice, make sure you know exactly what resources and education youre getting, especially for an industry as new and dynamic as cryptocurrency. In general and with crypto, its a good idea to stick with conventional financial advisors who have a certified financial planning (CFP) certification.

Cryptocurrency courses can range from high-level overviews of blockchain technology to in-the-weeds explainers about how to trade altcoins. We dont think either of these approaches is where beginner crypto investors should start.

Thats because theres plenty of free cryptocurrency information that gives beginning investors what they need to understand the market and how crypto can fit into their portfolio.

The crypto world, by definition, is an open architecture. Most information is free, says Theresa Morrison, a CFP with the Beckett Collective. Sometimes, though, paying for the cliff notes version is worth it. Just know what you are getting in exchange for your money.

But if a module or course-style teaching is how you learn best, and a cliff notes version sounds right for you, here are a few factors to consider when choosing a cryptocurrency course:

In a space thats rife with fraud, scammers, and theft, it can be difficult to find legitimate sources of information, especially as a beginner.

The truth is, you dont need a course on cryptocurrency to get started investing. We researched 10 popular courses, and found most skew heavily toward in-depth trading analysis and technical deep-dives into blockchain technology and its future potential. And then there are the get-rich-quick zealots who are prime examples of the old saying that if something seems too good to be true, then it probably is.

But we did find a couple courses that might be helpful for beginners looking to learn more about cryptocurrency in general and long-term investors looking for strategies to add crypto as a speculative diversifier to their overall portfolio. The first one is free, while the second one has a fee:

We found two courses that offer good cryptocurrency knowledge and basic investing advice. One you can take for free (youll get all of the course material for free, but not a few extras like graded assignments) and is a bit more in-depth. The other comes at a cost, but succinctly explains what you need to know about cryptocurrency. Both courses are well-reviewed and rated by users.

This Coursera course is taught by Jessica Wachter and Sarah Hammer, two professors at the University of Pennsylvanias Wharton School of Business. The course consists of four modules that each take one to two hours to complete.

You can audit the course for free, which means you get access to all of the videos and course materials. Youll need a paid Coursera account to get access to extra features like graded assessments and a shareable certificate. When you first navigate to the website, youll be prompted to pay, but look for a link to audit course and youll be able to access the free version.

This course is more in-depth than a quick explainer, and also devotes a whole module to cryptocurrency as an asset class, which is helpful for people interested in how crypto can fit into an investment portfolio. The module goes through the risks and returns of cryptocurrency investments and how Bitcoin can have a place in a more stable and predictable portfolio.

We like that this course dedicates an entire module to Cryptocurrency as an Asset Class in which youll examine whether cryptocurrency has a place in individual investment portfolios, according to the course site. Youll also dive into thinking about cryptocurrency through a traditional investing lens, and learn about the capital asset pricing model and concepts of modern portfolio theory.

Only the paid version of the course gives you access to the quizzes, but youll still have access to accompanying PDFs and reading material if you do the free version.

This Udemy course is a quick-hit introduction to the basics of cryptocurrency. The course is made up of three sections, 19 lectures, and is 1 hour and 45 minutes long. It costs $94.99, but does frequently go on a significant discount (it was recently available for $15.99). Wed recommend holding off on paying the full price, but keep an eye out for promotions that knock it down to the $15-$20 range, ideally.

The instructor is George Levy, the chief learning officer at the Blockchain Institute of Technology. The courses content covers everything from what is a cryptocurrency to how to convert your crypto into fiat money.

Along with the lectures, you also have access to PDFs and guides that you can read and reference after, including a cryptocurrency exchange starter guide. There are knowledge check quizzes throughout the course to check that you have understood key terms and concepts. These add-ons can help make this course worth the cost, if you think theyll be helpful for you long-term.

The course also addresses a critical checkpoint for investors should you even invest in cryptocurrency in the first place? It is not the right choice for everybody. How can you participate in this space? And more importantly, should you even participate? And if you do, how do you do so safely? We will cover all that, says Levy in one video.

Cryptocurrency is a speculative asset, and even the most well-known like Bitcoin and Ethereum fluctuate wildly in value on a regular basis. Thats why investing experts advise not to put more than 5% of your total portfolio into cryptocurrency, and to never invest more than youre OK with losing.

Buying and selling different currencies is not the best approach if you are investing in crypto as a long-term store of value, as experts recommend. Not to mention, your tax obligations can quickly get messy the more actively you trade. Instead, the best strategy for long-term investors is purchasing an amount of cryptocurrency you can afford and would be OK losing, and holding onto it.

Many crypto courses do skew more toward the complex trading of different cryptocurrencies that can sometimes, though unreliably, turn a quick profit. We dont think this is a good or safe approach, so wed only recommend courses that include how to buy and hold cryptocurrency as long-term investments, the same way as you would other long-term investments.

Crypto courses vary in price, and there are definitely a few free options out there. We dont think theres any great reason to pay for a cryptocurrency course when so much good information can be found for free (Shameless plug: Heres our entire catalog of cryptocurrency coverage.) There are other courses available that may offer free trials, super discounts, or an option to audit for free.

Definitely do not pay for a cryptocurrency course if its out of your budget, and remember that crypto is an asset class that you should be OK with losing whatever youre putting in, so really consider before you spend money on online education.

If youre up for a more self-guided approach, there are plenty or free resources available to teach you all of the basics. Here is NextAdvisors guide to getting started in cryptocurrency investing:

Original post:
The Best Crypto Courses of September 2021, for Investors Who Like a Guided Approach - NextAdvisor

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Monthly Archives: September 2021

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Gen Z has only known society changed by 9/11: Hear how the attacks have shaped their lives – USA TODAY

The Best Crypto Courses of September 2021, for Investors Who Like a Guided Approach – NextAdvisor

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