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VOA Connect (03/23//2018) Giving Back & Culinary Arts


VOA - CONNECT
[AIR DATE: 03 23 2018]

[FINAL TRANSCRIPT]

OPEN ((VO/NAT))
((Banner))
Ways to Cook

((SOT))
“I grew up in a very Chinese environment but I am trained in the French cooking. This was an expression of the melding of the two things that I know.”
((Animation Transition))
((Banner))

Upcycling Plastic Bags

((SOT))

“It breaks. It bends. It stretches. It doesn’t go bad. It’s nice.”

((Animation Transition))

((Banner))
Innovative Libraries

((SOT))
“So a lot of people say, “oh, library is books and only books, like how do you still exist if there is Google, and there is Amazon, why do to the library?”
((Open Animation))

BLOCK A
((Banner: Rethinking Community))


((PKG)) 3D PRINTED HOUSE
((Banner:
A New Kind of Home))
((Reporter/Camera:
Elizabeth Lee))
((Map of
United States showing Austin, Texas))
((Courtesy:
New Story & ICON”))
((BRETT HAGLER, FOUNDER, NEW STORY))
“We work with really the poorest families in the world that don’t have shelters.”
((End Courtesy))
“The magnitude of the problem that we face is so big, it’s about a billion people that don’t have one of life’s most basic human needs and that’s safe shelter. What we really need for the size of the issue is exponential growth and that has to come through significantly decreasing cost, increasing speed while doing that without sacrificing quality.”
((JASON BALLARD, CO-FOUNDER, ICON TECHNOLOGY))
“So I’m standing in front of the first permitted 3D printed home in America. This house is actually printed in high winds, blowing dust and rain.”
((Courtesy: New Story & ICON”))
“The end goal for this printer is to print houses in the developing world with unpredictable infrastructures and circumstances. We sort of dove right into the deep end of the pool and proved that we can do this outside of the lab.”
((End Courtesy))
“I believe this isn’t just an interesting little cool improvement in construction. This is a complete paradigm shift that has unbelievable advantages in speed, affordability, resiliency, sustainability, waste reduction, you name it.”
((Courtesy: New Story & ICON”))
“We ran this printer at about a quarter speed to print this house and we were able to complete the house in less than 48 hours of print time which means if we ran it at half speed, we would be under 24 hours and if we ran it at full speed, we would be under 12 hours.”
((End Courtesy))
((BRETT HAGLER, FOUNDER, NEW STORY))

“Instead of it taking about a year to build a community, we could do it in just a few months.”
((Courtesy: New Story & ICON”))
“Traditional style on a New Story home is about $6500 per home.”
((End Courtesy))
“But we believe over time, we can get the new home below $4000.”
((JASON BALLARD, CO-FOUNDER, ICON TECHNOLOGY))
“The material we used to print this house is actually one of our biggest breakthroughs. It’s a very specialized….”
((Courtesy: New Story & ICON”))
“….cementitious mortar concrete compound.”
((End Courtesy))
“You come up with the secret sauce, the secret concrete I guess, and that’s what makes this possible.
((Courtesy: New Story & ICON”))
“We are very committed to site printing because we think that’s ultimately what has to happen to achieve the affordability and speed breakthroughs that are a promise of 3D printing.”
((End Courtesy))
“The printer is made of light-weight aluminum so it’s very easy to move around. Two people can set it up and move it. It’s easier with four of course but it can be done with two people. So it’s very light weight, very transportable. In order to create the number of houses that need to be created for the developing world or even if we just think about getting as many new custom homes in America created on this kind of platform, there need to be hundreds of printers in the world. That is not as technically challenging as it sounds. It’s actually a lot more simple to build a printer than it is to build a house.”
“Bringing housing to the poor and underserved of the world, usually those are the last people to get advanced technologies and advanced materials and it’s awesome that we’re starting there first.”
((BRETT HAGLER, FOUNDER, NEW STORY))
“We’re very proud of what’s been created. Obviously it can be better. This is version one but the next step is actually going to El Salvador with the 3D home printer, printing our first set of homes there, learning from those and then the end goal is printing our first community….”
((Courtesy: New Story & ICON”))
“….of homes in history. We do not focus on temporary shelters.”
((End Courtesy))
“We focus on homes that people can build their lives on and that they can have a generational impact and what’s so exciting about 3D home printing is that that promise is there.”


((PKG)) CROCHETED PLASTIC BAGS FOR HOMELESS
((Banner:
Giving Comfort))
((Reporter:
Faiza Elmasry))
((Camera:
Adam Greenbaum))
((Adapted by:
Martin Secrest))
((Map
of United States showing Frederick, Maryland))
((NATS))
((BANNER:
The Loyal Order of the Moose is a service organization founded in 1888 in Kentucky, now with 1.4m members))
((BANNER: Women of the Moose members are making crocheted mats for the homeless from plastic bags))

((NATS))
((KAITLIN BARKER, MEMBER, WOMEN OF THE MOOSE))

“We collect the bags. We started a newsletter, and we said, “Hey, we’re collecting your Wal-Mart, grocery, Wegman’s bags.” And then what the ladies are doing behind me is they’re taking those bags, they’re separating them out into colors, so that we can make a white mat, a grey mat, a brown mat, a blue mat, whatever other colors we may get also. And then they take the bags, they flatten them out, four to a stack, and then we cut off the seams, we cut off the handles, and then we cut strips, so they’re continuous loops. And then we loop them together, and we make a long string of yarn.”
((NATS))
((MAUREEN BARKER, BOARD MEMBER, WOMEN OF THE MOOSE))

“I think it’s absolutely amazing to be able to help people. There’s a lot of people who have addiction problems that live on the streets. People who don’t want to accept help and this is our way of providing it for them to hopefully make things a little bit better for them, especially with these – the cold weather, being on the cold ground – that creates illness and sickness in the homeless. And hopefully this will keep them off the elements on the ground. They’re lightweight. We thought we would have enough bags to make one mat. And it’s grown into something a lot bigger than that. All of the members here, the men and the women, would bring bags, day after day after day, for about six months before we actually started making the mats. And then they continued to bring the bags, and they’re continuing to bring the bags. So, it’s been very heartwarming as to what we’ve been able to do for the community through this project.”

((NATS: “It’s just like rolling dough.”))

((PKG)) DC INNOVATIVE LIBRARIES
((Banner:
Gathering Together))
((Reporter:
Iuliia Iarmolenko))
((Camera:
Dmitriy Savchuk))
((Adapted by:
Martin Secrest))
((Map
of United States showing Washington D.C.))
((BANNER: The West End Public Library is a state of the art public-private venture))
((NATS))
((RICHARD REYES-GAVILAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, DC PUBLIC LIBRARIES))

“The library of the 21st century has to have a few things that are crucial. Spaces in which people can get together to work either collaboratively or as individuals. It needs to be inspiring. It needs to offer dignity. It needs to offer comfort. It needs to offer natural light. It needs to offer everyone who comes into the building a sense that they’re in a place that respects them and encourages them to do whatever they’re here to do, whether it’s work on a resume, or get in from the cold, or participate in the kids’ program. It’s really just a community anchor. The library service model has been evolving for the last maybe 15 or 20 years where books frankly just become part of the universe of services. The fact that libraries in the states now concentrate on offering programs for children, a relentless number of programs, and places where people can meet, and technology that is both ubiquitous, it’s everywhere in the building, often times it’s invisible, so you’ve got strong Wi-Fi signals. The library in the United States has become more of sort of a community education hub as opposed to just the place that we remember maybe as children where you would just go, and it would just all be books, and you would grab the book and you would leave, or you would sit down. So it’s much more about people, as opposed to things.”
((NATS))

((KEVIN OSBORNE, MANAGER, WEST END PUBLIC LIBRARY))
“If you look around, you see people having conversation, working together. We no longer ‘shhh’ - it’s not a thing we do anymore. We encourage people to interact with one another. We encourage people to engage. We are really more of a common area than a silent reading place. We have five little rooms that you can get for free, that are totally silent, so you can read by yourself, if that’s what you want, but the bulk of the building is not that. We are more than just a place to get books. We are a place to do whatever you need in the community.”

TEASE ((VO/NAT))
Coming up….
((Banner))
Out of the Kitchen
((SOT))
“I've been cooking professionally since I was 16. It's all I've ever done. So I felt like I've been building up to this.”

BREAK ONE
BUMP IN ((ANIM))

BLOCK B
((Banner: Food Prep))

((ANIMATION W/ GFX, CAPTION, PHOTO))
((Banner: Traditional))
((PKG)) TIM MA – PEOPLE IN AMERICA
((Executive Producer:
Marsha James))
((Camera:
Kaveh Rezaei))
((Adapted by:
Zdenko Novacki))
((TIM MA, MASTER CHEF, ARTIST, RESTAURANTEUR))

“My name is Tim Ma. I’m the chef and owner of Kyirisan, Water & Wall and Chase the Submarine. So we specialize, here at Kyirisan, in Chinese French cuisine. I grew up in a very Chinese environment, but I’m trained in the French cooking. This was an expression of the melding of the two things that I know. For sure, a lot of attention is paid on a scallop dish that we do here. We simply wanted to match basil and coconut, and we got to this point where we’re like, “Well, let’s just do something off the wall and see what happens.” And we were like, “What if we take something cold and melt it in something hot and that infuses the flavor by mixing it in.” And that’s where we landed with ice-cream. The response was good. It just started steamrolling from there and that’s one of our more popular dishes.
When I get home, I don’t want to cook. You know, open the mac and cheese box and dump it in with some milk and butter and it’s done. I don’t like to cook outside of the restaurant, which is actually surprising to a lot of people. I also think that’s true of a lot of chefs. You know, I get all my cooking out of me while I’m here.
I do believe that I’m creative as a chef, but I also think that a lot of our success, up to this point, has been through just sheer hard work. I think in this country, you can create your own success just by working hard. Not because you’re smarter than anybody, not because you’re more creative than anybody, just by working hard, and I think that’s why a lot of people end up coming to America.”

((ANIMATION W/ GFX, CAPTION, PHOTO))
((Banner: Online))
((PKG)) CHEFS WITHOUT RESTAURANTS
((Reporter:
Faiza Elmasry))
((Camera:
Adam Greenbaum))
((Adapted by:
Zdenko Novacki))
((LOCATOR:
Frederick, Maryland))
((CHRIS SPEAR, FOUNDER, CHEFS WITHOUT RESTAURANTS))

"Other independent chefs were referring customers to me. I started doing that back to them, and kind of thought there's got to be an easier way to do this but more than just one or two. So, building this infrastructure where someone contacts me because they wanted dinner next Tuesday and I'm booked, I built a Facebook page for the members. So, we're in a Facebook group where I can just post and say, “next Wednesday, a customer wants to do a dinner. Here's their price range. Here's where they live. If anyone is maybe interested, send me a personal message, and I'll get you their info."
((BOBBY BROWNER, FOUNDER, BENT & BENT EVENTS))
"I think that it was grand idea. Chris is on to something. This is a wonderful feeling because I've been cooking for quite some time and it's a real competitive field but the alliance that's being formed is a lot of camaraderie, a lot of openness and a lot of sharing.
((CHRIS SPEAR, FOUNDER, CHEFS WITHOUT RESTAURANTS))
"I think a lot of chefs, say, work in an Italian restaurant and then they get really obsessed with Mexican cuisine and you can't kind of cook that or do that. Restaurant business is so hard. Not that owning your own business is easy but having the flexibility to say "okay, you know, it's Valentine's Day. It's more important for me to be home with my wife than to be at work cooking for someone. Those are decisions I can make."
"It's free, I'm not charging members anything. I wanted to just build the infrastructure that we could help each other because I spent seven years building my business, having no idea what I was doing and I want to help someone out. If anyone come to me and says, "I want to be a personal chef", what would you do? I'll lay it all out for them. There's no secrets. I'll show you what I did. I'll say, “this market has been good for me. This is where I buy china. You should talk to the shop owner because they have really cool vinegars and oils.”
((SHARON STREB, OWNER, OLIVE OIL AND VINEGAR))
"We like to share our knowledge of olive oil and vinegar. So, I think it allows us to share with the chefs, and then hopefully they'll come in and visit us, then also we can get a lot of recipes from them also and then share it with the community also. So, it's a win-win situation for both of us.”
((TERRI ROWE, OWNER, MARYLAND BAKES))
"They bring connections. They bring a variety of talents and gifts. They bring creative ideas and just the whole network of independent people joining together. So, it's a big community."
((CHRIS SPEAR, FOUNDER, CHEFS WITHOUT RESTAURANTS))
“I would just love to see benefits, see that everyone is kind of getting the benefit that I'm hoping that they're going to get. It converts to more jobs or I really want to get together and do fun events. That's part of it, you know. I came from running a business that had over 100 employees reporting to me and now I have zero."
((LANA BROWNER, FOUNDER, BENT & BENT EVENTS))
"Chris is really very outspoken and outgoing and he's willing to take a lot of risks and get out there and meet a lot of people and network. I think the biggest hurdle for a lot of chefs is that they really don't form an alliance because they're all kind of competing with each other, but you don't have that in this group."
((CHRIS SPEAR, FOUNDER, CHEFS WITHOUT RESTAURANTS))
“I've been cooking professionally since I was 16. It's all I've ever done. So I felt like I've been building up to this and I just wanted to be able to do something that I felt was fulfilling.”

((ANIMATION W/ GFX, CAPTION, PHOTO))
((Banner: Off the Path))
((PKG)) FORAGING IN THE CITY
((Reporter/Camera:
Gabrielle Weiss))
((LOCATOR:
Austin, Texas))
((Matthew Battles, Creative Researcher and Associate Director, MetaLab, Harvard University))

“That part in there is edible. Right there is perfectly edible. ((BANNER: These men use invasive urban plants for brewing beer and other culinary pursuits))
“Now the question Keith is, can you imagine a brewing, a fermentation approach to bamboo shoots?”
((Keith Hartwig, Graduate Researcher, MetaLab, Harvard University))
“They’re pretty tender as they are but it would be interesting to sort of imagine a sort of tart, crunchy, not unlike pickled carrots or other sort of shoots.”
((Matthew Battles, Creative Researcher and Associate Director, MetaLab, Harvard University))
“Oh, I imagine it’d be quite mild and quite nice, and there’s just a ton of bamboo, and this is listed as an invasive by the state of Texas. Our particular project, Invasive Spirits, is looking at nature in the city and our experiences of nature in urban spaces. So ,the project that we’ve been pursuing at Harvard at MetaLab has been about taking those invasive species, taking samples of micro-organisms that live naturally in the environments all around us, and using traditional peer production, collaborative practices in brewing, fermentation and the culinary arts.”
“We brought it to South By Southwest because even though it is a practice that is about foraging and indeed pulling weeds in the city, there’s a technological dimension in that many of the practices, ((BANNER: South By Southwest is an annual tech, music and cultural festival))
the virtues of work in the digital age, peer production, the sense of a commons, these have deep roots in traditional practices like brewing and fermentation.”
((Matthew Battles, Creative Researcher and Associate Director, MetaLab, Harvard University))
“I think we’re going to hand out some materials that we’ve been gathering here from some of the weedy edges at South By Southwest. I just want to ask you not to eat any of these things. Some of them may be hallucinogenic in fact. In any case, I will tell you that these are all invasive as identified by the state of Texas. We’ve been trying to get at this question of who belongs and who doesn’t and how can we get along through our senses. And one of the chief ways that we’ve been exploring that has been through brewing.”
((Keith Hartwig, Graduate Researcher, MetaLab, Harvard University))
“We wouldn’t necessarily go down there and forage and prepare a meal out of something that is so visibly entangled in run off from the city because we are conscious at least of the accumulation of toxins and things. But it is curious to point out that we would be comfortable going to a grocery store and purchasing a conventional form of produce that we know, in fact, has accumulated herbicides and pesticides and fungicides.”
((Matthew Battles, Creative Researcher and Associate Director, MetaLab, Harvard University))
“Even if we didn’t want to ingest these berries, they’re covered with a sort of cuticle which is probably fungal. Yeah.”
((Keith Hartwig, Graduate Researcher, MetaLab, Harvard University))
“We’re actually going to take them back to Boston with us and do some sort of collaborative brew, capturing some of the essence and some of the energy of South by Southwest. Let’s go brew some beer.”
((Matthew Battles, Creative Researcher and Associate Director, MetaLab, Harvard University))
“Yeah, yeah. Cool.”

TEASE ((VO/NAT))
Coming up….
((Banner))
Finding His Way
((SOT))
“A very good writer. God has gifted him with amazing talents.”

BREAK TWO
BUMP IN ((ANIM))



BLOCK C

((PKG)) BLIND WALL STREET ANALYST
((Banner: The Accountant))
((Producer:
Kim Kwang-Jim))
((Camera:
Kim Min-Ki))
((
Adapted by: Martin Secrest))
((NATS))
((BANNER
: Shin Soon-kyu begins his day as an analyst for a major Wall Street firm in New York))
((Shin Soon-kyu, Chartered Financial Analyst, Brown Brothers Harriman))

“People who have never worked with blind people before, they don’t really get it. When I talk to people who work for finance, they read everything, look it over, look at the graphs, so they can’t imagine it.”
((NATS))
“Go early.”
“I can’t. I have a presentation today.”
((BANNER: Born in Seoul, Shin Soon-kyu was diagnosed with glaucoma as a newborn))
((Shin Soon-kyu, Chartered Financial Analyst, Brown Brothers Harriman))

“I had a lot of surgery because I had detached retinas, but I ended up losing my sight when I was nine years old.”
((Gary Simonelli, Co-worker))
“ ‘S-K’ (Shin Soon-kyu) and I have worked together for fourteen years now. ((NATS)) I think he’s very professional, very well spoken, a very good writer, excellent in mathematics and analyzing. God has gifted him with amazing talents.”
((NATS))
((Shin Soon-kyu, Chartered Financial Analyst, Brown Brothers Harriman))

“Because of my piano playing, I was discovered by a US missionary before I was fourteen, and went on a fund raising tour.”
((BANNER: Shin’s piano tour led to a home stay with an American family to further his education in the US))
((Shin Soon-kyu, Chartered Financial Analyst, Brown Brothers Harriman))

“It felt really miraculous, living in that house for four years while I was studying in high school. I treated them like my own parents and they treated me like their own child.”
((BANNER: Shin Soon-kyu studied sciences at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) ))
((Shin Soon-kyu, Chartered Financial Analyst, Brown Brothers Harriman))

“Harvard had about 6400 students. Only three were blind.”
((NATS))
((BANNER:
Shin Soon-kyu met his wife Grace when she was a volunteer for the disabled))
((Grace Shin, Shin Soon-kyu’s wife))

“It’s been twenty one years since I married him. I met someone who was already accomplished. Sometimes I wonder, is he really disabled? I forget and feel bad when I say something like, “Honey, bring the red one over here.”
((NATS))
((BANNER:
The family includes son David, and now Yejin, who had been in an orphanage in Korea))
((BANNER:
The family attends church in New Jersey))
((NATS))
((Joo Whang, Pastor))

“YANA is from the first letters for ‘You Are Not Alone.’ I started YANA as a message to the underprivileged children in Korea, and to the children with no parents in Korea, that you are not alone.
((BANNER: Shin Soon-kyu is Operations Director for YANA, and Yejin joined his family through the program))
((NATS))

((Shin Soon-kyu, Chartered Financial Analyst, Brown Brothers Harriman))
“Yes, there is a purpose of studying abroad, but we want to bring these children to the US and give them the opportunity to grow up in a home.”
((NATS))
((Shin Soon-kyu, Chartered Financial Analyst, Brown Brothers Harriman))

“No matter how hard I think about it, America is a very different country. You can’t change the unfair world in one day. For a person to come from abroad to make an effort to make a good living, and be given an opportunity to make a living with these foreigners, makes this country unique and rare. I think it’s a country where anyone can get an opportunity to reduce unfairness, and move closer to a more equitable society.”

CLOSING ((ANIM))
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SHOW ENDS


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