In this episode, we'll be joined by Allison Sakara, executive director of the institute, and Maurice Ramirez, co-founder and board chairperson, as they discuss their roles and the Institute's mission. They'll also be answering the question, "what is a disaster?"
Guests
Allison A. Sakara, Executive Director, High Alert Institute [@High-Alert-Inst]
On ITSPmagazine | http://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/allison-a-sakara
Dr. Maurice A Ramirez, Founder and President, High Alert Institute [@High-Alert-Inst]
On ITSPmagazine | http://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/dr-maurice-a-ramirez
Sean Martin, Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine [@ITSPmagazine] and Host of Redefining CyberSecurity Podcast [@RedefiningCyber]
On ITSPmagazine | https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/sean-martin
Host: Marco Ciappelli, Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine [@ITSPmagazine] and Host of Redefining Society Podcast
On ITSPmagazine | https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/marco-ciappelli
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Episode Introduction
Welcome to the second episode of the High Alert Institute, where we delve into the important work being done by the institute to ensure disaster readiness and education, animal welfare, and environmental and space healthcare. In this episode, we'll be joined by Allison Sakara, executive director of the institute, and Maurice Ramirez, co-founder and board chairperson, as they discuss their roles and the Institute's mission. They'll also be answering the question, "what is a disaster?" and discussing how the institute is working to prepare individuals, organizations, and society as a whole to be ready for any eventuality. So, whether you've listened to the first episode or not, come and join us as we explore the work of the High Alert Institute.
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Resources
High Alert Institute: highalertinstitute.org
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TRANSCRIPT NOTE
Please note that this transcript was created using AI technology and may contain inaccuracies or deviations from the original audio file. The transcript is provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a substitute for the original recording as errors may exist. At this time we provide it “as it is” and we hope it can be useful for our audience.
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SPEAKERS
Marco Ciappelli, Allison Sakara, Sean Martin, Maurice Ramirez
Marco Ciappelli00:00
Sean! … Did you see you usually say Marco first, but I beat you on that.
Sean Martin 00:06
I know. We are switching things up now for Episode Two. Yeah, introduction, and we're probably testing people's alertness to who's introducing?
Marco Ciappelli00:21
Well, you're scaring people now they're probably thinking you're gonna, you're gonna do it run a test to see who would listen to the first episode.
Sean Martin 00:29
That's right, there is that if you haven't heard the first one, we certainly encourage you to do so we'll probably crossover back into that a little bit. But there's so much to cover, for sure.
Marco Ciappelli00:42
Yep, we are back talking with our partners and friends in the refining society's channel of itsp. Magazine. And we're going to talk again about the high alert Institute. And there is not really, again, because there is so much that they do they were actually taking, taking smaller episodes to go over everything. And I want to start with having a quick introduction of Allison, Alison and Maurice, they're here with us again. And then we'll go in a little recap of what was the first episode so not, not test here. But we'll give it we'll do it for you and dive in what is new this time? So Alison Morris, thank you for being back again on the show.
Allison Sakara01:34
Pleasure to be here, Marco. And Sean, thank you so much for the invitation.
Marco Ciappelli01:37
Thank you. Of course, it's family. It's definitely family. So we are expecting a lot of conversations with you. But again, because not everybody knows everything about you yet… why don't you do a quick re-intro not not as long as the first time because we do want people to listen to the first episode. But IAlison let’s start with you: what's your role into the High Alert Institute.
Allison Sakara02:05
My role at the institute is as executive director, and I have held that role since it became a 9501 C three, back in 2011, February of 2011. Sometimes I have to think back because our origins were 10 years before that, on the for profit side. So our mission and our vision has been going on for now 20 years. My background is as a nurse and nurse practitioner. And so a lot of healthcare is brought into the Institute and the things that we do, but not solely.
Maurice Ramirez02:45
And I'm Maurice Ramirez, I'm an ER and a disaster medicine physician. And I'm the co founder and the chairperson of the board of the high alert Institute. So with Allison and myself, we have been at this for well over 30 years each 20 within the institute. And we are just thrilled to be with it with our ITSP family on redefining society.
Marco Ciappelli03:14
And that's excellent and exciting. And it is about redefining society. And even even more than that, because we're talking about society, we think about humans, but here we're talking about animals, the environment. And it's all again, you use the word family, I'm really happy to hear that, but his whole family to the whole globe that we live in. It's all synergy coming together. And I think that's what we're kind of missing when we focus too much on one thing and not the other. So really quickly. In our last podcast, the first one we kind of went into an overview of what the high alert Institute does, it will learn it is divided into three main section, disaster readiness and education, animal welfare, and environmental and space healthcare and AI informatics. I think we left something out short last time in the space healthcare in AI. But I want to start with the question that probably people think so. Disaster. But how do you define that? I don't know who wants to start with this. But what is a disaster? Yeah, apart from Sean, which already know for everything else,
Maurice Ramirez04:30
well a disaster most simply put is when your needs your immediate needs exceed all the available resources. So, a disaster therefore can be very small. It can be an individual family or a company or a neighborhood that where they not only do they not have the resources in house, but they can't tap into any resources in their community or their locality to meet that need. Of course, disasters can be larger they can be community wide, statewide, regional, even national are global, but it comes down and in the end to not having enough resources to meet your needs right now.
Sean Martin 05:08
So as you describe those things, or use, I immediately think well, how does one I guess if one is in the middle of a disaster, they probably realize it. But maybe not still. But I think a big part of what you do is preparedness for disaster, knowing what might come, how it might materialize, how you prepare to, to fend it off, deal with it if it happens. And to me, that sounds like a lot of education there as well. So can you tell us a little bit about the institute's disaster readiness and education section? What do you do there
Allison Sakara05:51
certainly are disaster readiness slash preparedness, however you wish to say it. Section, it's it's evolved from our prior boots on the ground responses that that we have done in the past. And we've transitioned that lately in the most recent years, to more leadership, and guidance, advisory and advocacy roles. And as we started our journey, and all of this in the wake of 911, our focus was mainly on health care, and on frontline workers, and first responders, and all of the educational needs that they would have. But over the years, we've expanded that now to include a scope that that is more global, in an all hazards hazards, one framework paradigm that we refer to often, this concept includes all of the folks that that I've already mentioned, but has expanded to animal welfare organizations, animal welfare workers, environmental causes of all sorts, businesses, families and individuals. And as you would expect, in a one framework, construct the bullet items, if you will, have remained the same over time. And we continue to support, promote and provide services across a number of different areas. And I'd be happy to talk about a few of those if, if that would be all right. Please do. One, I'll go through the list. First, that's a top of mind. And then perhaps a few examples just to flesh that all out would make more sense. We these bullet items that are referred to are in the realms of education, resources, planning, and then also research and development, and promoting awareness and resilience. The first couple may seem a little more straightforward when you're thinking about disasters and disaster readiness. But the other two also have extremely important roles that are growing, not just for us, for us, but for many other organizations. And in education. Previously, we had done a lot of in person, education lectures, training programs. What we've graduated to now is being able to provide a library of education and training, materials and videos, and hopefully these podcasts so that individuals and organizations can get all of the information that they need, and for no cost to them. Those budgets of 10 and 15 years ago for disaster preparedness and training really don't exist for a lot of organizations nowadays. And this also helps to remove some of the barriers to access for continuing education that all responders and volunteers need and to meet any job or legal requirements associated with your volunteer or paid position, or within your organization even when there's no budget to do it. Looking at the resources in addition to the educational resources, one of our key Institute resources is our large complement of subject matter experts. And all of these experts, by the way, volunteer their time and expertise. They really want to share what they know and how they have done things for the common good. And for the greater good. For the disastrous section specifically, we offer our resources to human and animal care organizations so that they are able to serve their own staff and their own communities in the best way possible. And without spending precious funds that are needed for other tasks. On the planning side, we have and continue to exist It, excuse me assist sir disaster readiness and preparedness and planning for many different types of organizations, whether they serve humans or animals, or habitats or some combination thereof. We also have shared our knowledge and experience with those who are looking to incorporate disaster readiness, or business continuity, because they really are the same type of topic into their community or organization, in research and development might not be something that people think right away when they're talking about disaster preparedness and response. But supporting research and development of products that can and services that can benefit the greater good is really an important part of all of this. Historically, we've contributed literature, resources, articles, training materials for disaster readiness and response, including a lot of work that we did during COVID-19. And for COVID, 19 response. Currently, we're involved with several projects that are crossovers, in disaster readiness and climate change, which is its own type of disaster. And again, back to that same one framework concept. Everything is interconnected, just like those Venn diagrams that we all learned how to make when we were in grade school. Promoting Awareness and resilience is something I also wanted to mention, it is one of those bullet items that I mentioned, as we talked about in our podcast last time with you, Marco and Shawn, the Institute has been involved in MIT for many years in disaster behavioral health projects, over time, our scope, in that same category for promoting awareness and resilience has grown, preventing or reducing the impact of disasters, and the risk of those disasters for all people, all animals, all habitats, needs to be integrated, integrated into awareness, education, awareness, training, and planning. And that's what is ultimately able to allow for resilience on an on a global scale. And on a personal scale.
Marco Ciappelli12:24
That isn't a project right there, all of that together.
Allison Sakara12:31
And of course, , I would be remiss if I didn't mention that integrating diversity, equity, access and inclusion practices, and addressing determinants of health. Again, tying back to that whole our whole history, myself and Maurice and based in health care, is essential for any awareness and resilience endeavors.
Marco Ciappelli12:56
Very good. And I'm thinking this Maurice, as you probably go into describe some more of the specifics of the project, the one that we didn't cover last time, because you know, there are so many, maybe a little refresh on that the one framework if you can summarize it, in a few words, what what is the that goes behind that and into that as you as you make it happen, and you're orchestrate it?
Maurice Ramirez13:26
Absolutely, well, all hazards one framework is the concept. And actually the planning and preparation practice of looking at what are vulnerabilities what are the resources that you will need, regardless of what kind of disaster event or what we in our in our world calls the disaster scenarios. planning scenarios are in are attacking you at that moment. So you may have a wildfire followed by a mudslide and flooding because wildfires come with their own weather front and eventually result in heavy rains. So you started with one disaster that progressed into two others over two over a period of time. If you've only prepared for a wildfire, you aren't ready for the flooding and and the mudslides that come afterwards, because you're working out of a single play playbook. Instead, as Allison alluded to last time, we look at it a lot more as a large three ring binder, where we look at what are all the hazards that could occur in your locality. So everything every disaster is local. So we want to make certain that your disaster planning, preparation, response, recovery and even education are specific to your needs. And we do then do a risk assessment. Look at what resources you will need What resources will come will will come up short for you personally or within your organization, as well as within your community possibly even at a state or national level. And then try to mitigate that risk by increasing number of resources. You see this all the time when a natural disaster is coming at, for instance, a hurricane headed towards Florida, you'll see days in advance and emergency declaration declared. And what that does is it makes state and federal resources that are not normally available to communities and individuals available ahead of the event. This means that now you can gather your resources, if you have a plan. If you have planned in advance, and you know what you're going to need, when something bad happens, you can have that on hand, stocking up on water, food, fuel for your generator, etc, etc. And you don't have to keep those things on hand and be in and stockpile them at all times, you can get them in advance.
Marco Ciappelli15:49
And that's when you actually have an adds up, which is a nice thing, thanks to technology that the case of a hurricane or, or that kind of front weather front. But there are other times where other situation where you really don't have much of a heads up I'm thinking like an earthquake or, or something like that. Can we can you go into some of the example of what if program related to disaster readiness and education in the project for good framework? It sets a few examples for our audience to really understand how you apply that.
Maurice Ramirez16:27
Absolutely. Well, as Allison already mentioned, we have our curated libraries of resources, educational links, and educational programs, as well as as a as a fairly vast library of articles that are available in disaster readiness for disaster readiness, education, as well as planning, and disaster behavioral health. We also have educational programs, specifically in Disaster Behavioral Health, for several different sectors, including healthcare and animal welfare workers. But more importantly, well equal importance perhaps is a better way of saying that we have a number of inventors and companies that have approached the Institute for help in looking how their products services, or in some cases, just their intellectual property can have an impact for the greater good. And by looking at these products and services, through that all hazards one framework lens, we've been able to show these companies, these inventors, these individuals, new purposes for and new populations, that their great invention, their great service, their great idea can benefit and in some cases, we help with their development as well. And, in fact, we call these companies partners for good we call the experts that we work with in this realm and others experts for good, because it's all about the good, it's all about that positive global impact. We are truly trying to redefine the concept of what it is to be entrepreneurial. In the in modern society. We're trying to show people that they can be entrepreneurial and financially successful in a for profit model, and still do good
Sean Martin 18:15
in the world. So so I don't know who wants to take this. But I'm really curious of how that that larger program works with the different parties involved. Because I mean, just Just the mention of having fuel on hand and having a backup generator for power and having water. Not everybody has extra money lying around to to buy and stockpile those things may not have stores to do that. And then on the flip side, when when something bad happens, you see stories and hear stories of people being gouged trying to get those ahead of head of an incident and even during an during an after an incident as they're trying to recover from it. So how does, how does what you do kind of play into that whole world of, of having resources available. Maybe one personally can't handle and manage that themselves. They rely on others, but then the others do it in a way that's ethical and moral and actually helps see the disaster through not adding any additional pain.
Maurice Ramirez19:31
Part of what we want to see people and companies and individuals and organizations doing, Shawn is we don't want to see them stockpiling things to gather dust. We very much tell people that they need to practice or prepare the way they will play if they're in business. Knowing how to get something last minute is more important than keeping eight of them on the shelf. Not having multiple supply chains, knowing that you can purchase the same item from Three different vendors. And then looking at as an example, and then looking at who actually stayed open the last disaster, local disasters tend to come recurrently. Marco mentioned earthquakes, if you live in an earthquake zone, you know that there's going to eventually be an earthquake. So you do have to look at the risk of that. And what you would need to get through it at a small quake, you know, hide under the Hide, hide in a doorway, or underneath of a table, when it's past clean up the mess, and you're all good, or a large, large event where highways collapse and power is out. You mentioned backup generators. And those are you, you right, those are huge expenses, and they're very expensive to operate, they can cost 10, your fuel can cost as much as $10 a gallon if you're if you're using propane. And your backup generator cost you one $200 a day just for a 2500 square foot facility, or home. But what you can do is use integrated hybrid programs. In fact, the Institute runs a demonstrator for that exact purpose that we call good for planet. It involves solar panels, we have a wind turbine, we have battery backup, we've used all common off the shelf technologies, nothing avant garde, nothing custom made, things that can be financed as part of a regular green program for business or home, add value to the structure, add value to the business or to or to the homeowners property value, and pay for themselves over time. So our green energy system has been in place now, for seven years, one half of the oldest half of it has already paid for itself, the newer component will be paid for within about three more years, just on the energy savings when we're not having a disaster. That doesn't count the fact that this year two hurricanes we've spent $0, on propane. The last hurricane we had before we installed installed the most recent upgrades to the system. We spent $4,000 on propane, and that was when propane costs during the disaster were 399 a gallon. The current price in Florida during the disasters for propane were 999 a gallon, and that's not even price gouging. That was market cost at the time. Of course we also have some other programs in our in our projects for good getting back to Marco's question that are again, companies and inventors who have come to us one was what we call in the IP business and the intellectual property business stranded IP, they had a great idea they had some great they had had some great initial prototype success, but they hadn't figured out how to move it forward. And so the company had partially shelved the idea. But we have a company that is a provider of neuro resilience training. Now that's a big term. But basically what it means is getting the left and right brain to work on a problem simultaneously. And it's a great training program for people on spectrum. And for people with neurocognitive injury like like traumatic brain injury and veterans or stroke patients with particularly stroke patients with a failure. But their program is built into a stem steam program. So the kids learn the the neuro resilience before they ever have an injury, even a concussion before they ever have a need from a behavioral standpoint for coping skills. So that when the when the disaster strikes, and this gets back to that concept of stockpiling, they've actually stockpiled a neurologic pathway that improves their mental and emotional capacity to deal with adversity.
Marco Ciappelli23:54
Oh, can I can I ask you something about this? So I'm gonna be a little bit critical of society here because I do that, but I don't. I didn't do it. I mean it in a mean way. But usually, there's needs to be money, a touch to any form of business. And it's what it you know, drive our society sometimes is what drives our innovation, right? I mean, some people they do do it for, for the good. But sometimes, as you said before the business can make money and do the good. Do you feel both of you based on your experience that something is actually changing in our society where we do go and really put a higher value on good considering all the way that we have damaged our society and environment and in everything around us? I mean, do you see like a tipping point that our brain start to work in a different way both for individual With, with disabilities, both for everything environment and so on.
Maurice Ramirez25:06
I think Marco Yes, in looking at, at scientific literature at market research literature, we know that that younger consumers and younger investors, people under the age of between 20 and 35 years of age, regardless of gender, regardless of race, in, in the United States, as well as in the EU, will spend up to 37% more for the same off the shelf product, if the company's ethos, if their ethics and their impact are consistent with the belief system of of the of their consumer, for the purpose of improving either the environment, or some other cause societal good cause that they believe in. When we're looking at projects for good, that's one of the things we look at is, is this a is this a technology or a service or a product? That can be an alternative to something that doesn't have that impact for good? Yeah, what a couple of great examples in our in our program in our projects for good. We work with a company called Opteron they make they make welding shields, but they also came up with this great fog free see through mask and 95 level surgical mask. And it's great for patients. And the thing is that this item at no real additional cost compared to the standard orange duckbill masks that every hospital hands out, allows people to see the lower half the face, the lower half of the face is very important, most emotion particularly empathy. And that that that appearance of not being a threat are conveyed by the muscles below the cheekbones, the very muscles that we cover, and have covered during the pandemic. With masks. It's one of the reasons that people reject masks so strongly is they can't see the bottom of your face. And therefore at a very primal level, they have the concept that they don't know your intent. And they don't know if you're friendly. They feel threatened. This see through mask allows for for you to see that somebody smiles. Now imagine taking away from pandemic and disaster. Imagine being a child on Alison's oncology Ward when she was at Yale, you're you're surrounded by masks all the time because you're immunocompromised. You never see a face without a mask, sometimes even your own parent, and they're sticking you with needles, and they're doing all kinds of things that as a child, you don't fully understand, even though it's been explained. Now swap that up, change everybody to a mask where you can see a smile, where you can see that this person feels empathy for you, maybe even a little wince when they stick you. Yeah, that they come in. And it's good news. Imagine being that parent, and everybody walks in with a mask and you never even know is the doctor and nurse bringing good news about my child who's still in surgery, because they walked in with a mask that you couldn't see their face. Now you walk in with a mask. And you can't see the face. I was recently a patient I arrived with my own see through masks. The most striking statement was from was from an anesthesiologist, who looked at me and said, I love that mask. I know if you're comfortable and doing okay. Very powerful, no additional cost. And this is a company who came up with this idea. Just because they happen to have the technology and the materials and then again became stranded because they're in the welding industry. What do they know about contacting health care, or getting this out to to hearing impaired individuals and special needs teachers or teachers in general in all of our schools, in the event that mask mandates come back at some point in the future. And we know sometime in the future, they will we have yet another company very small company pocket stream who came up with this great idea. They call it a portable water fountain. It's simply a powered cup with a straw. But it has the ability to pump water at a very comfortable rate for for hydration, but it makes hydration fun. Hydrating kids is one of the most difficult things to do when they're under stress, whether they're whether it's in a healthcare environment, or even in a sports environment. And you see you see all the time. Trainers and people squirting water into people's mouths from squeeze bottles. The reality is is they get very little that water and contributes to their hydration. This system is just as easy you push a button and it pumps until you stop drinking like a real water fountain. But it's portable. Again, they had no idea where to where to take this awesome cool little invention that they had patented. And we introduced them to disaster workers to people who have to wear camo backs, or hazmat gear, and are going to end up dehydrate, because you can't hydrate and most in most of that gear. But now with this kind of a system they can
Allison Sakara30:16
or rehab centers, I can speak personally from that, that particular need. And again, these are people who are doing the exact same products that they were going to develop anyway, but are looking for ways that it can do more than they ever dreamed and touch more people than they ever thought they could help. It's all coming from that profit margins, the same, the inventions, what is the impact of those things? And that
Marco Ciappelli30:47
these are brilliant, sorry, Alison, I mean, I would love to do an entire episode with you. And Marie's about all these invention that, you know, ingenuity, really, and sometimes it can come from people that as they say, you know, it's the need that the mother of all invention, right, like, you just see a need and, and you create a solution. And sometimes it's so much more relevant than what you thought it could have been. I absolutely know
Sean Martin 31:19
You know what else Marco, I want to jump in here. What I'm, what I'm taking fitness and carrying over from the last conversation as well is that we find and maybe both of you can confirm my position on this or tell me I'm full of it, but I feel that that we find something that works and we apply it and it becomes the common solution to the problem. And then we encounter situations like this, where the common run of the mill solution that works 90% of the time doesn't really work for some and we expect those that it doesn't work for to kind of adjust or just deal with it and and I'm gonna go because I know we're coming close on time here and I'm going to use this kind of useless message if you will to drive a point around the world last time we talked about the the freshwater Aquatic Animal Shelter and aquaponics systems that you are working with. And I guess people think well this is I'm doing something good this this mask is good. And therefore we've met the need and when I'm looking at the the the aquatic situation where somebody says okay, here's some fish I need to save them from this disaster. What am I going to do? I need to get them into freshwater their freshwater fish let me put them in some freshwater where's that? Well, that's in the lake behind my house or a pond behind my house or a stream behind my house or or down the toilet because that's water. But the those not those are always the best situation not just for the fish that are quote unquote being saved, but the impact broader that that decision that we think is okay can have downstream unintended. So I don't know if if Marie's if you want to maybe touch on that. I know Allison, you discussed it a bit last time as well. But some of the some of the the aquatic stuff, animal rescue, and in general is a broader, broader topic.
Maurice Ramirez33:42
Well, Shawn, you're absolutely correct. A lot of people don't don't know what the other options are. And that's a large part of what the Institute does. But then, you know, relative to the aquatic shelter, it's in our operations there, Allison?
Allison Sakara33:57
Well, for us, all of the animal wellness and environmental projects we're involved in are very much tied to our disaster readiness and education programs and mindset. For administrative or budgeting purposes, they may purposes, they may fall into a specific section, but there they really are all overlap. We're going back to those Venn diagrams. Again, and guess we did talk last time about making making choices that are globally minded when it comes to those sorts of things. You said, putting you're taking you're you think you're rescuing a fish from a small pond that maybe is doesn't have enough water and you're going to take them and put these in the local lake or a local river, figuring they'll they'll at least they'll be okay. You're kind of setting them free without understanding all of the rest. cautions there have it that sounded like kind of where you were going with that with that, Shawn. And that that comes back to an an education point. Exactly.
Marco Ciappelli35:14
Yeah, doesn't make sense. So while we're here and why don't you Allison tell us a little bit more about the disaster readiness and education section for the Aquatic Animal Shelter?
Allison Sakara35:28
Sure. On site currently, we have approximately 3500 gallons of living space for the animals that we care for and rescue here. These are non native aquatics, mostly koi fish and ornamental goldfish that either don't have a place to be someone, someone may or someone may no longer be able to care for. It all started with with one rescue fish. We had a friend whose pond actually broke it was a very small pond. And she didn't have the money to be able to rebuild it and didn't want the animals to die. So she actually drove over here with our animals in a cooler and said can you please take care of these we I know you have a tank that is big enough to add my tiny little fish and it all started with that one fish. What we're looking now to do is because we have learned that this is a need across the United States for rescuing non native aquatics have given them a place to go for decades of their lifespan, we're raising funds to expand our shelter to 60,000 gallons we already have it engineered we already have the the plans all set, we have a great organization that wants to help us build these ponds. And now we just have to again to collect the funds for it hopefully next year. With his expansion. We'll be partnering with several universities to become a model facility for high efficiency aquaculture, which will include the use of renewable energy something very, very much a passion project for the institute. And also in coordination with this we have a mutual aid compact essentially a co op kind of going back to 1960s language I suppose that is working to connect all of these same like minded freshwater aquatic rescues in the in the continental United States into one cooperative network. Hey, do you have room for this? Yes, great well we we know of a park that is has been lost its funding and it's going to have to close its doors and they've got this big koi pond and no place for the for the fish to go. Great you take you take half I'll take half and everything well we'll have have a home. And a number of us also have sites within adopt a pet and certain other places like that, where you can actually adopt the koi fish that we have rescued or that have been willed to one of the rescues so that they have in place to continue in life and don't end up being part of the problem in the rivers and streams and ponds which then have to get fished out and destroyed
Maurice Ramirez38:48
and the coop also has the opportunity to assist in re homing these animals particularly to to to aquatic nature preserves and and botanical gardens and aquatic gardens that very much want these animals but again we get back to that funding. Koi are not cheap if you have to buy them from from a breeder. Very small koi you can buy for 1015 $20 or you can go to Walmart and buy koi that you don't know or not. You don't know the progeny of for a few dollars, but then you have to place them in isolation just like any zoo or aquarium. The problem is with with with koi and other freshwater aquatics isolation period is a minimum of eight weeks. And most facilities just don't have that space. We already have them isolated. Our coop partners already have them isolated. They've already been certified by vets they're ready to go and go straight into straight into a a public pond or public public garden or a national botanical garden where they can live out their lives and then possibly keep that facility? Yes, with spawning fish for decades to come.
Marco Ciappelli40:07
Yeah, that's sometimes we just don't think about everything that goes into one thing. Exactly. That's why we haven't like you're listening and and started saying like, Oh, wow, I didn't see that angle, I didn't see that angle. And now it's not a one framework. And the synergy of all of this comes together. So I think we, we should start closing here. And maybe, I think you may have something to connect what you just talked about, about the aquatic animal shelter with a connection with IP for good programs, because it sounds like there is a lot of technology also that can be advanced there. And as you finish doing that, maybe you want to tease it for for next step is and what we'll we'll cover at that point, which I know is going to be very exciting for me. So tell me about it.
Maurice Ramirez41:03
Absolutely. So it, you know, our IP for good, which is our technology transfer program, intellectual property for good. These are stranded technologies, these are great ideas. And patents, they are already patented ideas that and we mentioned this last time, have been developed along the way towards some other products or some other service. And then the company that owns the patent or the individual inventor doesn't have a mechanism to get it to market or they don't know where their market exists. And these things aren't free to maintain patents cost money to maintain over time, they have to be updated, they have to be kept. They have to be renewed from time to time. And eventually if you don't develop a market for it, you lose that patent capability. So we turned it into an opportunity for them to donate the patent to the institute. And we've had several patents donated we've had a wind energy conversion system wind turbine noise reduction system, we actually installed the prototype here at the Institute. As I mentioned, we have a wind turbine. When we first installed our wind turbine, the wind turbine produced what we expected about 94 decibels at the measuring distance at the standard measuring distance, which is not actually that loud. With this system installed, we dropped that to 47 decibels. Significant so low that the next day while we were doing 24 hour monitoring suddenly had a spike in noise, it turned out to be the cicadas. A week later, we had another spike in noise turned out be the frogs that had eaten the cicadas. The week after that, guess what, here come the birds that ate the frogs. And they were all singing in chirping at dawn and spiking our sound it took us a month to get a full week of sound recordings to demonstrate that this never went above 50 decibels.
Sean Martin 42:54
We had to work your way to the snakes.
Maurice Ramirez42:57
Well, we needed quiet animals. You're exactly right, John
Marco Ciappelli43:03
just went with the circle of life there.
Maurice Ramirez43:06
The forest was too loud for the wind turbine as opposed to the other technology that was otherwise abandoned. Similarly, we've done you know, we have two projects involving solar PV and hot water that we can talk about it another day. And then that came when we develop the coop, we also needed a way to move animals. And we discovered that it's very expensive if you want to move fish, even if you're an aquarium if you don't have a commercial aquarium of zoo to move fish because you have to move them in 24 hours. So sometimes you're flying Yeah, 2000 pounds of water to move an animal. We we found a company that had a stranded technology that allows the tank to be filtered and aerated and can actually be converted to also be an emergency tank that for those places like Alison mentioned, where their tank is temporarily offline. So that Shawn, they don't have to do what you were talking about where they're going to lose power, they know their fish are going to die in the pond. And so they have to, they have to abandon them or dump them in some lake somewhere on their way out of town to their own shelters for humans. They can move those into this into this container. Close it solar panel on the top filters it aerates it and when they come back. Yeah, they have hungry fish, but they have live fish. And for commercial for commercial operations that have fish, that's a big deal. If you're a restaurant and your fish die in that pond, the health department has all kinds of requirements for cleaning before you're allowed to reopen. So in commercial operations, these this is very important technology. And then the the the most recent project we're working on is that we're partnering with several organizations to remove fluorinated hydrocarbons and pee fast chemicals from the forum. contaminated air Land and surface water, as well as, as eventually aquifers. So this is a environmental remediation project we're very excited about. And on a future podcast will tell you all about it.
Marco Ciappelli45:13
Yeah, I think everything you mentioned, it's can be his own podcast. So I'm sure we're not running out of ideas in
Sean Martin 45:23
connection right now.
Marco Ciappelli45:24
Exactly. Now, let's, let's take those last couple of minutes to kind of tease for what is coming next. And I mentioned before, it's, I'm excited about it, because I know we're finally gonna get to space space, healthcare and AI informatics policy section, which is something that Shawn and I already discussed here. And they're all the ethics of advanced technology and so on. But there is some aspect here that I know that we're already talking in private when we were meeting each other that gonna be fascinating. So give us a little tease, and then we'll say goodbye till the next episode.
Maurice Ramirez46:02
Absolutely. So this one's near and dear to both Alison and my heart because we're both Trekkies. We both love this. And we're not we're not exclusive to to the, to the Trekkie franchises. We also love love Star Wars and going all the way back to 2001. And, and before that, so the opportunity to work with astronauts, with space healthcare experts to create the frameworks on which all of the all of the technologies that we will use in space for healthcare and immediate disaster healthcare responses will be will be based, licensed and regulated. One of the interesting things about space healthcare or space law is that as you know, if you saw the movie, The Martian, no individual government can extend its authority beyond 90 miles above the earth's crust. Now, if you're on a spaceship, in free space, it's considered, it's considered international waters. But as soon as your habitat becomes a colony, and there are several markers for becoming a colony, again, from the movie, you saw that one was raising and harvesting food, or printing food with a 3d food printer qualifies you as an independent jurisdiction, you now don't have any laws that authorize health care. So we've been asked to assist the International Space court Foundation. And now we're also working with some of the of the spacefaring nations actual space agencies to build those frameworks. And our experts for good are working there. And that immediately flowed into the concept of AI as a disaster responder, the idea from Voyager again, I'm back to Star Trek of the emergency medical hologram. Well, there are a lot of regulations that come into that because is it a medical device? Or is it a provider? Does it need to become a digital citizen? Very much very much like to Sofia robot is a is a actual digital citizen, and has an carries a un passport? What are the regulations and of course, the legalities. And we've been asked to do that. And that's our next pod. That's a big topic of our next podcast.
Marco Ciappelli48:18
Now, this is gonna be our next 60 podcasts vary so much. I mean, we're going let me just say Trekkie, we you just crossed into the Sci Fi and in the what if and the real like putting our thin foil hats and really start thinking about the future. So really, really excited. I'm sure I can speak for Sean.
Sean Martin 48:44
I'm afraid we're gonna we're gonna take all your time doing podcasts and not much left for actually doing good, good for society
Marco Ciappelli48:52
stuff. I don't think so they are on a mission here. There is no no questions about it. All right. So I'm just going to quickly wrap these. Thank you again, Allison, Mr. Reese for going one more step one more paragraph into actually, that chapter into what this entire High Alert Institute does. And we're gonna we're gonna come back with one more, at least to introduce it. And then as we point out and tease a few time here, we will start really digging into this kind of conversation and even make it broader into bringing some guests and some other people that can join these kind of topics on the other society, which is where we have all these panels to really try to discuss the important things that are regarding society and hard to find something that is more important than all the things that you have been highlighting and that you're taking care of you're dedicating your life to. So thank you very much.
Allison Sakara49:59
I have right welcome Marco and Sean and I very much look for forward to showing you how we can take a one framework paradigm to the moon to the Mars and beyond.
Marco Ciappelli50:11
Beautiful. That's, that's that I'm gonna cut it right here. Goodbye, everybody. Stay tuned for another redefining society episode. Thank you very much.