Nicholas Goldsmith: Hello, everybody, and thank you for coming to the nets Ep. Score. Webinar. So i'm Nicholas Goldsmith. I'm an assistant program director with the networking technologies and systems cluster. And today we're going to talk
Nicholas Goldsmith: about the next program, and most sort of targeted way for people who are in upscore jurisdictions.
Nicholas Goldsmith: It's
Nicholas Goldsmith: It's the Cooper age.
Nicholas Goldsmith: Okay. So today we'll talk a little bit about the upscore program and then we'll discuss the size directorate and the networking technologies and systems program.
Nicholas Goldsmith: We'll then spend some time on the core small program. Then we'll talk about some resources that are available to the community.
Nicholas Goldsmith: Some supplements that you might have access to either when preparing a proposal, or if you have an existing award, then we'll talk about some other notable solicitations. Before moving to Q. A.
Nicholas Goldsmith: I'm. Joined by a couple of other program directors in the next cluster. We will introduce before that Q. And A. Segment at the end, and
Nicholas Goldsmith: please use the Q. And a function in zoom. It will help us to keep organized and make sure we get to as many questions as possible,
Nicholas Goldsmith: so i'll start by talking a little bit about the f-score program. The Ep score program stands for the established program to stimulate competitive research
Nicholas Goldsmith: and essentially up score seeks to enhance the research competitiveness of targeted jurisdictions.
Nicholas Goldsmith: And it does so by strengthening science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, capability and capacity through a diverse number of programs. So you can see. Here is a map of the upscore jurisdictions which includes
Nicholas Goldsmith: variety of of those States and territories.
Nicholas Goldsmith: Now the fscore program is particularly notable as it came up in the Chips and Science Act, which was recently passed, and in the Chips and Science Act there were targets put forward for funding to institutions in F Square jurisdictions.
Nicholas Goldsmith: So for our current fiscal year, fiscal year, two thousand and twenty four, That's sixteen percent
Nicholas Goldsmith: uh It will increase over the years until it reaches twenty percent in two thousand and twenty nine.
Nicholas Goldsmith: The Trips and Science Act also identified some areas to prioritize in ep score funding
Nicholas Goldsmith: so prioritizing infrastructure investments to help build capacity in at score jurisdiction, institutions, scholarships, fellowships, and traineeships, ah partnerships between upscore and not ep score institutions
Nicholas Goldsmith: things that can be done to increase the capacity, build the capacity at emerging research institutions and minority-serving institutions and to try to build sustainable innovation ecosystems in fs or jurisdictions.
Nicholas Goldsmith: So it's just a bit of a highlight of the Ev Score program.
Nicholas Goldsmith: And now we'll move on to talk about uh size and nets.
Nicholas Goldsmith: So size is the directorate for computer and information science and engineering, and it focuses on advancing research, innovation and education in computer science, information, science and computing computer engineering.
Nicholas Goldsmith: There are four divisions and offices within science. So there's the division of computer and network systems which is where the next program is.
Nicholas Goldsmith: There's also the division of computing and communication foundations, the division of information and intelligence systems, and the office of advanced cyber infrastructure
Nicholas Goldsmith: to give you a sense of the size directorate, and it the size of should size directorate. Here's some numbers from fiscal year, two thousand and twenty-two size had a budget over a billion dollars.
Nicholas Goldsmith: We got over six thousand four hundred proposals, of which over one thousand seven hundred were funded. So a little over a quarter of the received proposals were funded
Nicholas Goldsmith: three hundred and seventy-six different institutions were supported.
Over six thousand six hundred graduate students.
Nicholas Goldsmith: Over twenty thousand researchers were supported ranging from senior researchers down to undergraduates.
Nicholas Goldsmith: The funding, reached all fifty states, as well as two of the Territories, and of those three hundred and seventy six institutions, seventy four of them. Were minority-serving institutions.
Nicholas Goldsmith: Chew
Nicholas Goldsmith: size has a broad reach across the country and is important for the computer science and information science and computing engineering research
Nicholas Goldsmith: enterprise.
So the networking technology and systems program is a program within the division of a directorate of computer and information, science and engineering.
Nicholas Goldsmith: And the next program seeks to advance knowledge about how networks work, increase and optimize the performance, security and functionality of existing networks create new or improve existing protocols or algorithms, things like
Nicholas Goldsmith: routing and traffic engineering, naming and network management
Nicholas Goldsmith: that also seeks to rethink design and redesign. Ah, various aspects of networking. So that could be machine learning applied to networking various network components say, adding programmability to parts of the network.
Nicholas Goldsmith: Various network systems, including integrating storage, integrating compute into the network, wireless, networking
Nicholas Goldsmith: as well as next generation sort of nextg wireless networks.
Nicholas Goldsmith: The next program supports research in both wired and wireless networking and does so at a variety of scales. So
Nicholas Goldsmith: local networks data set center networks Internet scale networks, iot sensor networks and other networking systems,
Nicholas Goldsmith: And it supports this research through a variety of different funding opportunities and funding opportunity sizes. So there's a career award which is for
Nicholas Goldsmith: early career faculty. There's Cr. Ii. Which is a research initiation, and there's small medium and large core projects. Among other programs.
Nicholas Goldsmith: The nets portfolio has over four hundred active awards. You can actually see all of these active awards at that Url. That's just a sort of custom query for the public award search.
Nicholas Goldsmith: Those four hundred and thirty two active awards have received over two hundred and twenty million dollars to date
Nicholas Goldsmith: and of those active awards, thirty-four are to upscore uh institutions.
Nicholas Goldsmith: Just again, to give you an idea of the kind of research that that supports, and the breadth of the research that that supports, you know. Here are some of the kinds of topics that are in our research.
Nicholas Goldsmith: So we have Ai and machine learning for networking, programmable networks in network, computing, storage, application, aware networking of various aspects of network management, including monitoring measurement, traffic, engineering,
Nicholas Goldsmith: network, performance, whether that be things like latency or quality of service network protocols, verification, resilience, security,
Nicholas Goldsmith: quantum networking optical networks. Next, G Networks distributed machine learning in the wireless context. Mimo
Nicholas Goldsmith: Tera Hertz Networking various aspects of wireless network protocols and systems, mobile edge computing network function, visualization, wireless spectrum, monitoring measurement, sharing allocation as well as network function visualization.
Nicholas Goldsmith: It's
that's to give you a sense of the kinds of things that nets funds.
Nicholas Goldsmith: Next, I'll talk about the size core program and in specific the size core small. You can find the solicitation at that Url.
Nicholas Goldsmith: For the size core program.
Nicholas Goldsmith: The size core program is in as of twenty, three, five hundred and sixty one that includes small projects. The
Nicholas Goldsmith: The small category is for projects with budgets up to six hundred thousand dollars, with a duration of up to three years, and notably small projects do not have a deadline, so we can accept small proposals at any time, and can fund them on a roller basis
Nicholas Goldsmith: in terms of who's eligible to submit a size core program uh
Nicholas Goldsmith: proposal uh institutions should be us-based they Could be institutions of higher education or us-based non-academic organizations that have educational or research activities. So things like museums and observatories
Nicholas Goldsmith: to be eligible, to be a Pi Kelpi are the senior personnel. You must either have a tenure track position or have a primary full time paid appointment in a research or teaching position at an algebra institution.
Nicholas Goldsmith: Also pis and Kopi's are limited to two core proposals for twelve-month period. The
Nicholas Goldsmith: so what that means is, if you submitted a proposal to the core today, you wouldn't be able to submit your third proposal to the core program until February fifteenth. Ah, fourteenth. Ah, twenty, twenty, five. So two proposals in a twelve month,
Nicholas Goldsmith: and the size core. Small proposal is particularly well suited for research projects that involve one or two investigators, say Api and Co-pi and at least one student or post-doc.
Nicholas Goldsmith: We can accept proposals that involve multiple-sized research disciplines. So if your idea involves both networking technologies and systems, research as well as something else,
Nicholas Goldsmith: the computer science, information, science or computer engineering umbrella, we can set up a
Nicholas Goldsmith: of course. Small proposals also can be collaborative,
Nicholas Goldsmith: so they can involve multiple institutions which could involve institutions that are both ep score, and not that score
Nicholas Goldsmith: for collaborative proposals. Both institutions submit a proposal. The
Nicholas Goldsmith: there's also a sub award mechanism in a sub award situation. The sub awardy gets their funding through the leading institution, and does not have a separate. And
Nicholas Goldsmith: now in the the case that an Ep score institution is a civil ward. Ah, that doesn't count towards the Chips and Science Act. Ah, e score targets! Ah! Unless the leading institution is at school, but for collaborative proposals, if one of the institutions
Nicholas Goldsmith: with a submitted proposal as F score that counts towards the upscore targets.
Nicholas Goldsmith: So we would encourage collaborative mechanisms.
Nicholas Goldsmith: So if you're interested in preparing a
Nicholas Goldsmith: small proposal. There's a variety of things to make sure that you include. Ah, so you need a title, of course, that should include the program acronym as well as the project class. So if you were submitting to a nets small, it would be nets then small in the title,
Nicholas Goldsmith: You need a project summary. This will include sort of an overview paragraph, an intellectual merit paragraph, a broader impact paragraph, and then keywords. So you should have three to six keywords or phrases that describe what your proposal is about.
Nicholas Goldsmith: You'll need to have a project description that must uh
Nicholas Goldsmith: clearly state the work to be undertaken.
Nicholas Goldsmith: It should include a section that's labeled Broader Impacts
Nicholas Goldsmith: for Nets core proposals. We also need you to include an evaluation plan about how you're going to.
Nicholas Goldsmith: I evaluate
Nicholas Goldsmith: at outcomes
Nicholas Goldsmith: the project Description has to be fifteen pages or less. You can't go beyond fifteen pages for the project description,
Nicholas Goldsmith: and if you've received in a set funding in the past. Then you need a prior in the results of prior Nsf. Support.
Nicholas Goldsmith: Your proposal will also need to include a budget. The total budget, including cloud computing resources later is restricted to the budget limits for the project class. So for a small proposal, then six hundred thousand dollars.
Nicholas Goldsmith: You'll also need to include a data management plan.
Nicholas Goldsmith: So this data management plan is basically about how you will support reproducibility and replicability
Nicholas Goldsmith: of your research. So the kinds of things to go in. The data management plan are how you'll provide access to things like datasets, models, simulation tools, and code
Nicholas Goldsmith: for a reasonable period of time beyond your project life cycle.
Nicholas Goldsmith: In addition to those aspects, there's some supplementary documents which
Nicholas Goldsmith: uh, maybe required, or may depend on more specifics about your proposal.
Nicholas Goldsmith: So you are required to include a list of project, personnel and partner organizations as a supplementary document
Nicholas Goldsmith: you're requesting cloud computing resources. We'll discuss more later. There's a supplementary document we need to include for that
Nicholas Goldsmith: uh, for small. If there's more than one investigator, you can include a collaboration plan if you're submitting a medium or large, and it includes more than one investigator. You must include a collaboration plan.
Nicholas Goldsmith: You look about how you'll collaborate.
Nicholas Goldsmith: You're submitting a medium or large. You need to also include a broadening participation and computing plan.
Nicholas Goldsmith: There are some situations in which you may need to include letters of collaboration. Say, if you're going to use a resource at an outside institution. Um! And then, as a proposal guidance, more information on exactly what should and should not be in those letters of collaboration.
Nicholas Goldsmith: Ah! Certain kinds of supplements, if you're including them with your proposal, those need to have a supplementary document. The prime example of that is the research experience for undergraduate supplement, which we'll discuss more later.
Nicholas Goldsmith: There are also a specific
Nicholas Goldsmith: aspects to proposals that you can find in an Ss proposal guide that require their special documents. So there's the rui which is research in undergraduate institutions. There's also goalie which are, grant opportunities for academic liaison industry.
Nicholas Goldsmith: If these are relevant for your proposal, then you'll need to include a supplementary document for them.
Nicholas Goldsmith: And one thing to note is the submission has a checklist, or the solicitation has a submission checklist in it. You should look at that submission checklist to make sure you have all the required materials.
Nicholas Goldsmith: The
Nicholas Goldsmith: now we'll discuss a bit about what reviewers and Nsf. Will be looking for in your proposal when they evaluate it.
Nicholas Goldsmith: So there are two nsf-wide criteria
Nicholas Goldsmith: that we use to assess all proposals to the
Nicholas Goldsmith: and those are intellectual merit and broader impacts. So intellectual merit is the potential for your proposal to advance knowledge in its field. So when reviewers are looking at this or when you, Asf is looking at your proposal, they'll consider their potential to advance knowledge,
Nicholas Goldsmith: but also consider broader impacts, which is the potential to benefit society or in advance a desired societal outcome. A broader impact is in a checklist. You're not required to have everything, but they will assess the broader impacts that are a part of your proposal, and want to ensure that there are broader impacts in your the kinds of things that might fall into these broader impacts are integration of your research into education.
Nicholas Goldsmith: A twelve outreach
Nicholas Goldsmith: efforts at broadening participation.
Nicholas Goldsmith: If the content of the research itself addresses a major societal issue. That would be a broader impact.
Nicholas Goldsmith: If your project has a lot of potential for technology transfer that might also fit into broader impacts. And Then, if your project has the potential to have an impact beyond the research discipline, say
Nicholas Goldsmith: maybe it's useful for policy or setting standards that would also fit into broader impacts
Nicholas Goldsmith: in addition to those intellectual merit and broader impacts criteria. Ah! Reviewers will also look at the solicitation-specific review criteria which in the case for the size core. That's how well does a proposal describe an evaluation plan that assesses, and where appropriate
quantifies the research outcome.
Nicholas Goldsmith: That evaluation plan is a something that the reviewers of your proposal and an as that floor.
Nicholas Goldsmith: Now, i'd like to discuss some additional resources that are available.
Nicholas Goldsmith: One of these are cloud resources. So this is relevant. If you're requesting cloud resources as part of your proposal, proposals can request cloud computing resources through Amazon Web Service, Google Cloud, platform, Ibm Cloud and Microsoft azure through the Cloud Bank program.
Nicholas Goldsmith: The requested budget for these cloud computing resources and your budget for the project cannot exceed the budget limits, So that's six hundred thousand dollars for small.
Nicholas Goldsmith: If you're interested in this, you need to include cloud access as a keyword, and you need to include a supplementary document that details your cloud computing request.
Nicholas Goldsmith: It's also worth noting that there are computing resources available. To noseph awardes as well as other us-based researchers.
Nicholas Goldsmith: You know there's a lot on this slide. We'll make sure to have the the slides posted on the event Web page as well as the recording that we're taking, but also feel free to screenshot. This because I'm going to go through it kind of quickly.
Nicholas Goldsmith: But if you are in need of cloud computing resources for your research. There's things like the access program which is the advanced Cyber infrastructure, coordination, ecosystem that has scientific computing offered to researchers in advanced computing. Research.
Nicholas Goldsmith: There are a variety of
Nicholas Goldsmith: different kinds of computing resources available through access, which doing does include gpus,
Nicholas Goldsmith: chameleons another resource You can access. So chameleon is a large-scale configurable experimental platform.
Nicholas Goldsmith: It has bare metal access. So you can have full control of the software, stack including group privileges, kernel customization, and console access there's more information on their website.
Nicholas Goldsmith: Cloud Lab is a flexible scientific infrastructure for research in the future of cloud computing. It enables you to build your own clouds with experimental architectures.
Nicholas Goldsmith: So if that's relevant for you, you should check out their website. There's Nrp. Which is the national resource uh platform that has over three hundred nodes, nationally distributed computing systems that include Cpus gpus, as well as other
Nicholas Goldsmith: resources.
Nicholas Goldsmith: And then there's Osg, which is the open science grid, which is a nationally funded consortium of computing resources that offer various types of compute services that may be useful for you. So if any of these might be useful, for your research would encourage you to look more into them
Nicholas Goldsmith: in addition to those computing ah resources, There's also test beds that might be useful for your research. So one of those is fabric which provides adaptable programmable research infrastructure for computer science and engineering applications.
Nicholas Goldsmith: There are multiple fabric sites that have compute and store and are in connect, interconnected through high-speed, dedicated optical lines.
Nicholas Goldsmith: There's also the platforms for advanced wireless research or power. If you're doing wireless research there's four of these platforms there's powder which is a programmable advanced wireless research test. Then there's cosmos which is a software-defined mobile wireless tested with edge computes
Nicholas Goldsmith: there's airports which is an aerial, wireless test bed that includes us, Davies. And there's Aura, which is a wireless living lab that focuses on wireless technologies and their applications in precision, agriculture.
Nicholas Goldsmith: So if any of these are relevant to your work, I would also encourage you to look into that
Nicholas Goldsmith: he's.
Nicholas Goldsmith: Now I'd like to talk about supplements. Some supplements are open to people when they're submitting their grant. Application
Nicholas Goldsmith: and supplements are also open to existing awardees.
Nicholas Goldsmith: One of the major supplement programs I want to. Highlight is our and you the research experience for undergraduates program. You can submit this as part of your proposal,
Nicholas Goldsmith: or if you already have an award. You can submit an Rau to help you pay for undergraduates to join your research.
I'm
Nicholas Goldsmith: these are you. Supplements are for up to ten thousand dollars per student per year, and you can request up to two students per year that Ah! That ah Url contains all of the information about what you need to include in the supplemental requests,
Nicholas Goldsmith: so make sure to check that out. If adding undergraduates to your Research might be useful.
Nicholas Goldsmith: We'd also encourage you to get these in sort of earlier in the year than later.
Nicholas Goldsmith: Try to help.
Nicholas Goldsmith: I's the
Nicholas Goldsmith: There's also the R. A. T. Or research experience for teachers supplement program again. You can request this when you're requesting your initial proposal, or if you already have an award, and this might be helpful, you can submit. This
Nicholas Goldsmith: is for up to fifteen thousand dollars per teacher per year, and can support up to two teachers per year.
Nicholas Goldsmith: How these typically work is that these teachers are integrated into your research program for six to seven weeks during the summer, and during that time they'll work to create modules and resources to use in their platform.
Nicholas Goldsmith: This is a great way to potentially Add some of that K. Twelve outreach. If you're interested in that and build the capacity
Nicholas Goldsmith: for research that way. So same letter as the are you supplement? If this is potentially interesting to you?
Nicholas Goldsmith: Ah! In addition to those that are available to people for new awards and existing awards. There are a variety of things you can ask for supplements, for if you already have, and you should talk to your program director, if you're potentially implemented interested in adding a supplement to your existing
Nicholas Goldsmith: um. A few examples of things you could ask for supplements for um
Nicholas Goldsmith: include. If adding graduate students would help you expand or enhance your existing project. You could ask for a supplement for that
Nicholas Goldsmith: also. If adding a postdocs or other cyber infrastructure professionals would help you to expand it or enhance your existing project. You could ask their supplement for that
Nicholas Goldsmith: an additional item, a supplement category that's worth pointing out for existing awards is the Career life balance. Supplement. This one's written out in the Proposal Guide that she is,
Nicholas Goldsmith: and this is ah to provide funds to bring on additional personnel. Ah! For situations like primary dependent care, or other family considerations, so say someone's going to go on parental leave. You could use these career lifestyle, and supplements to help bring on additional personnel to cover
Nicholas Goldsmith: that time.
Nicholas Goldsmith: And these career Life balance supplements are available to existing research awards. They're also available to post-doctoral fellows and graduate research.
Nicholas Goldsmith: Yeah, Well, we wanted to focus on this size course. Small program There are a few other solicitations. We thought we would like to point out to all of you.
Nicholas Goldsmith: So there are infrastructure solicitations that you might be interested in one of those is Circ, which is the community infrastructure for research and size. Ah! That funds, the planning creation or enhancement of research, infrastructure for use by communities of researchers in size disciplines
Nicholas Goldsmith: the upcoming deadline for, sir, will be in September the thirteenth
Nicholas Goldsmith: um.
Nicholas Goldsmith: And this funds a variety of different projects,
Nicholas Goldsmith: classes. So there's planning proposals in which, say you're trying to assess what the community needs or build community buy in. There's exploratory development proposals in which you're testing potential designs for research infrastructure.
Nicholas Goldsmith: And then there's medium and grand size research infrastructure awards.
Nicholas Goldsmith: There's also the Cc Star program, the Campus Cyber infrastructure program that has a deadline in April as well as October.
Nicholas Goldsmith: There are five areas in this ranging from ah compute data and storage and networking infrastructure. But for the nets community we specifically want to point out the network integration and applied innovation.
Nicholas Goldsmith: And so this network integration and applied innovation category of Cc. Star has the goal of taking advantage of research results, prototypes or emerging innovations and using them to enable specific research in a networking context.
Nicholas Goldsmith: So if that might be relevant to you, I suggest you look at the Cc. Star um solicitation. And there is that upcoming deadline in April for that
Nicholas Goldsmith: there are a variety of other programs that you may be interested in. There's Cps which is cyber physical systems which focuses on
Nicholas Goldsmith: research on engineered systems with integration of cyber and physical components that could include compute control, networking learning, autonomy, security, privacy, and verification or other application domains,
Nicholas Goldsmith: and it includes the small and medium size rewards.
Nicholas Goldsmith: There's the Saty program, secure and trustworthy cyberspace um that supports research, addressing cybersecurity and privacy, drawing on expertise in a variety of disciplines. So the Satsi proposals absolutely can be interdisciplinary.
Nicholas Goldsmith: They have small and medium awards that include transition to practice and ed all boards, and they accept proposals at any time. So that's of interest to you. You should look at the satsing program.
Nicholas Goldsmith: We also want to point out that you can write proposals to hold a conference or workshop. There's information in the Proposal Guide about what these require. But if you're interested in holding a conference or a workshop. Talk to the program directors
Nicholas Goldsmith: about that.
Nicholas Goldsmith: Nsf. Also provides travel grants again in the Proposal Guide. These are for situations like the
Nicholas Goldsmith: Mit. Ctl and say a conference is being held, and you want to have a student travel Grant program in a sof can supply the money for that student travel Grant program. Again, if you're interested in potentially running a travel Grant program. So you're a part of a conference organizing committee. Reach out to the Gdp.
Find out more
Nicholas Goldsmith: before I turn it over to Q. And A. I'll talk about a few other ways. You can learn more about the nets program.
Nicholas Goldsmith: So I
Nicholas Goldsmith: There is a nets newsletter that's sent out around once a month, sometimes more or less, depending on
Nicholas Goldsmith: how many solicitations and special events are going on. This next Newsletter includes information about the next programming.
Nicholas Goldsmith: The next program uh Nets community relevant workshops and relevant new solicitations. It also often includes information about the infrastructure programs, like power and fabric and cloud resources To subscribe to this newsletter, you send an email to lists and
Nicholas Goldsmith: served at Nsf go with no subject line and subscribe nets and outs as well as your name
Nicholas Goldsmith: uh, and that will uh automatically subscribe to the
Nicholas Goldsmith: Nsf also has regular email updates.
Nicholas Goldsmith: Um: at that. Yeah, Url: you can sign up for them Ah, of particular interest to this community is probably the in sof funding opportunities and updates category that does have a size option. So that will send you an email when size submits a new um.
Nicholas Goldsmith: Solicitation releases a new solicitation,
Nicholas Goldsmith: Nits holds other Webinars like this one. Now we hold them periodically. Typically, when a new program or solicitation or dear colleague letter is announced, so you can keep out an eye for those
Nicholas Goldsmith: also we find it's it's helpful for people to serve on panels. See what kinds of things reviewers are looking at when they look at proposals. See the kinds of things people, including our proposals, and then, of course, network with your peer researchers. So if you're interested in potentially serving on a next panel. We have two surveys that we often use to help us identify reviewers. There's a wired and a wireless one, and you're welcome to submit
Nicholas Goldsmith: to both of those. If you just follow those urls, you can fill out their surveys.
Nicholas Goldsmith: Then we'd encourage you to talk to program directors.
Nicholas Goldsmith: If you have an idea you're not sure what program it might fit with. You know you can reach out to us if you have an existing award, and you're interested in the supplement you can reach out to us. You can find our information at the the nets page, on which is that, Yeah, Url at the end.
Nicholas Goldsmith: Okay. So i'm going to introduce my fellow nets team members who are here, and then we'll we'll go to Q. And A. So i'll start with
Ann Von Lehmen: Yeah, Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to the Webinar. So i'm being von Raymond. I'm a program director and the cluster lead for nets. And um. My expertise is mostly on the wired networking side
Nicholas Goldsmith: you're saying,
Alhussein Abouzeid: Hi! Everyone! Welcome through this Webinar. My name is Hussein Abu Zeta, my program director in the next cluster. My expertise are primarily on the wireless side. I'm. Also on leave from
Alhussein Abouzeid: It's nice to be you, Tally.
Darleen Fisher: Hi, i'm darlene fisher program manager at the nets, as as all of us are here, and I'm in the wired side, and i'm the one with all the institutional history. So if you ah want to know something about. You know where we come from. Ah, you should email me or talk to me, and i'm so glad you're here. I think this is an exciting, very exciting opportunity, and we want to help in any way we can, so that we get really quality proposals from people
from upscore states,
Nicholas Goldsmith: and Brian
Nicholas Goldsmith: probably might be having technical difficulties,
Nicholas Goldsmith: so if he made it still
you
Nicholas Goldsmith: Okay? Well, if you manages to come on, well, well um
Nicholas Goldsmith: have him introduced himself.
Nicholas Goldsmith: So with that I think we'll open it up to questions. We'll also turn. Stop the recording Now for the Q and A. Period.