 Colonel Michael Pilly, Boiland Faulcher, Boiland Roller, Coleran Schaap, and Majan, and like a weapon, you all here this morning, there's many, many colleagues here from DCU, or friends from outside the university. But can I particularly welcome our visiting professor, Professor Brony Cunof from the University of Leicester, who has been a huge aid to us in developing our strategy over the years, and then headhunting indeed for the whole area of digital area, you very welcome, and it's very, very appropriate that you be with us here this morning. What's more, there are many remarkable things about this morning, but one of these is the size of the crowd here today. I think if one said that at 9 a.m. in the middle of August, a sunny day in August, no less, that we would have over 120 people here squeezed into the gallery, I think people would say, we'll go back, take the tablets, bring it in. And also, thank you all for being here. To the Minister for Education and Skills isn't here to see this level of commitment and engagement, I think it's very impressive indeed. Can I also particularly welcome colleague Professor Darryl Keough, President of the College of Ford, I think. The coming together of the various institutions, as Patrick's College and Conrad Matter Day Institute, Church of Ireland College of Education with DCU, to create among many things a new Institute of Education of International Significance and he's very pertinent to today's event as well. So I'm delighted that Darryl could be with us and I think other colleagues from other institutions may well be joining us. I think Dr. Anne Lodge, I think is here as well, Dr. Anne McGrady, Dr. Anne McGrady, and you there as well, published as an issue from Director of Matter Day Institute of Education. And I think Dr. Anne Lodge plans to be with us as well, so all our partners are here to see this. Today is a very significant day for us. I mean, I think it's linked to the fact that we're on the cusp of developing, I think that would be the most transformative entity in education in Ireland through the Institute of Education, but it's a clear recognition of DCU's commitment to 21st century education, to the future of education itself. So while today is about revealing a brand, announcing a brand, it is much more than that. The brand without substance is simply a shell, but today is about much more commitment to the learning experience and to the global nature of the learning experience itself. Those of you inside university who know that our vision for the university is about a globally engaged university. And this is particularly true in terms of the modalities of education, the affordances coming from digital technologies. Today is about also embracing the affordances, the power and strength of digital technologies to offer a quality education from DCU, no matter where the student is in the world, whether that student is on campus, or in any of the far-front places around the world, whether that student can be leading to DCU itself. And as many of you would know, online learning is not a new development at DCU. Osco, which has been DCU's online and distance education platform, was established in 1982, so we're over 30 years in this space itself and has provided many thousands of adults, primarily from all over Ireland, with an excellent third level education with wonderful stories of where the writers of those programs went and where they went on to make huge impact. But this is about embracing the future and we always felt that the Osco brand itself and Shane was just confirmed this was, it was a different one to sell and tell the story of overseas. And more and more we're having an impact with our education research on an international basis. That was one of the reasons for the change. I took over as president in just over four years ago and certainly one of my objectives at that time was to actually maintain DCU's reputation as an innovator in education itself. And I remember within the first six months I met with then Deputy President Professor Anne Scott, who was also was registered chair of our education committee. And we discussed this and I said, I shared my vision of what we wanted to do and I asked Anne to take on the role of actually developing a strategy for this and quite a number of you in the audience or part of the group she established with the horribly unmarket friendly name of Vogue, the virtue of online learning group. But Annie, the Vogue did, despite the brand, did fantastic work and produced a comprehensive report and submitted that to us. We approved that executive about 18 months ago. But within the significant recommendations in that report was one to establish the center of excellence at DCU of digital learning, to appoint a high profile chair of international standing in the area of digital learning, to integrate all our expertise in this space into one center and to develop a distinctive brand which will have those significance. All of these with today's launch have now been addressed and I want to, and as you know, I was moving on to a position in Liverpool and I want to wish her and thank her for role in this but also the many members of the Vogue team that are in the audience here this morning. You also have the satisfaction, unlike many reports nationally and internationally, your recommendations are being implemented or actually having a huge difference. In our strategic plan launched in 2012, September 2012, transforming lives in society. Again, we followed up on the recommendations and the core element was this commitment to establish a center of excellence in digital learning in which we're supporting pioneering technology and enhanced learning to revolutionise the learning experience for both campus-based education and off-campus education to DC. That's the very wording for this. Last year, you recall we were delighted with the minister and Lord David Putnam to launch the National Institute of Digital Learning and particularly delighted to appoint Ireland's first professor of digital learning as director of the Institute, Professor Mark Brown. I have to really pay credit to Mark. I mean, he came with high recommendations from Browning and we would be very proud of him if he didn't live up to those expectations. And we have to say he's had a transformative impact since he arrived on the university, and I think along with his colleagues, Mark Gladen and Seamus Vox and all of the teams behind us, but have really been responsible for developing all of this and bringing us to where we are today. So thank you, Mark, for that. We're delighted that you're alive. Good joy to see you this morning as well. Thank you for that. So today's launch really plays a key part in our continuous and ongoing efforts to be a hub for digital learning, to create a blended learning experience for all our students, whether they be on or out on campus. We want to combine the strengths and we'll never renail the strengths of face-to-face learning, particularly for younger learners, with the absolute strengths of technology and hands learning, using all the affordances and strengths of digital technologies which continue to develop. We certainly will see a future where adaptive learning or personalized learning will actually have a huge impact on learning at all levels, we're beginning to see that. So apart from enhancing the learning experience for DCU students, whether they be on or off campus, we want to be a pioneer in developing new areas of research, but also policy development nationally that will influence the learning experience right across the country itself. Today we are launching a new brand encompassing all DCU programs offered in an online format to students studying off campus, wherever they be, whether that be nationally or internationally. You know that we really haven't been engaging internationally with some success. This time last year we were celebrating the work of Evog, Prodigy, Margaret Farr, the Jesse program, where we delivered a very successful program, had 180 graduates across 12 nations in the African Union. This was about capacity development using online learning. I went up to the graduation ceremony and was usually impressed by the impact. You saw that actually the quality of developed programs here at DCU could impact on emerging leaders across 12 nations in one of the most difficult regions of the world itself. That to me really reinforced the importance of us moving from something which was entirely nationally focused, to something with global impact, and that we as a young dynamic university could make that impact and be true to the mission in our strategic plan of transforming lives and societies through education, research, and innovation. So I think it's time to reveal the new brand. Those of you on Twitter who have seen leaks this morning of this, but anyway, can I ask Mark to... So DCU Connected is the new brand that's out and Mark worked very closely with trees and Murray and our team communications and marketing colleagues at the University to come up with this. There's a tie-dye in both of this as well, Mark, but there's a quality of education wherever you are. I think that's an important add-on to this. The Connected, and I did my Latin studies last night, a Council of the Latin Connect era, about binding together and working into religious hymns of this stage in the morning itself. But it is about connecting the learners wherever they are in the world to the university itself. You can see the play on the ed as an edX that other people have used as well. But I think this notion of a word that explains exactly what it is that does exactly what it says and intends to students all around the world. You are connected to DCU wherever you are and you can access all we develop in education from that stuff, but it's a quality education and wherever you are in the world through the affordance of digital technology, you can connect to this DCU education itself. So we are extremely pleased, we round this by senior managers, extremely pleased by the words, the message, the brand itself, what it says of DCU, how consistent it is with the DCU load itself. All of these bits come together to give us a new message that we go out as a former marketing brand from next Monday. So the commitment to attract students into these programs and we'll start to actually manifest itself from next Monday itself. So in launching this brand itself, consistent with the focus on the learner experience, we've chosen a number of students to be the public face of brand itself. So the whole additional marketing area going with this and these are our connected learners here. So you've got Deirdre, Michael and Patrice and you'll see some of their stories now and some of the videos that fall. But I think again you start to see how this connected brand starts to work itself. I think the video, can the video play at the stage? Absolutely, you just do that thing. Oh yes, you can do the banners as well so you can see the rest of the marketing. And say the global event, before we show the video, the global dimension of this is very important. I mentioned that our work in Africa, we also have launched and we'll be editing the first students in our international school of biomedical diagnostics with Arizona State University in this year. But that was only the beginning of a very significant development and access to programs that both DCU and ASU that will emerge from that. Also in dialogue with the Middle East, you know our strong connections with the Princess, Nora Bint, Abdulrahman University and Riyadh are very strong and growing link and again there will be online opportunities there. But this is not simply about DCU offering up margin and programs to those locations and then the others around the world. It is also with shared access that our students registered at DCU can access a much wider menu. Also within the 3U relationship with the NUI Windows, the North CSI and the colleagues in DTIG, again we're creating technologies and platforms which will allow mutual access to programs. So all of this is again, you know, what's very important with many of you telling the DCU story, we know this, we've ranked in top 50 universities in the world. It's about many things, it's about the quality of education, it's about the research profile, but it's also about the global recognition and again, this development today, this commitment to a global perspective on our online platforms and technology and that's learning, we'll actually strengthen that as well. So we're very grateful for that perspective as well. My name is Deirdre Hennessy and I studied online at DCU. I completed a Master's in Management and Information Systems Strategy. I live in Clonikilte, it's a great place to live in. I grew up here, I've lived here all my life. I love living in an area where I've loads of space and you just have your own thoughts and just come out and on a sunny morning have your cup of coffee outside. I think what attracted me to DCU was the flexibility of the course, that it was very much, you know, you could study wherever you wanted and whenever you wanted. In one particular case, I even ventured down to Enchidane Beach. I just loved the place so much that I was able to bring my study down there as well. I found my lectures and tutors to be excellent. I really understood everyone's personal situation. I was even able to build up a personal rapport with a lot of them, between Skype and email and everything. You were never afraid to ask a question or to contact them at any stage. One assignment, I was working with someone from Dubai, so it turned out that he was actually from Clare, but he was living in Dubai and we got to know each other really well and even on our day of our graduation, we got to meet each other, but at that stage we felt we knew each other. It really shows you can work with people all over the world and you are connected with them. It really has transformed my life. I guess I've learned how to be motivated, how to be so organised. I've even got the opportunity now to move abroad, to live and to work. It's got to be a big change for me. I wouldn't think I'd have got the opportunity only having my master's completed from DCU. I would highly recommend DCU Connected. So you get a real sense there of someone whose life has been transformed through education at a distance from DCU and embracing the DCU Connected brand itself. Before I finish, there's two things. One is, just in summary, as I said at the very start, today's announcement is not simply about a brand launch. It's much more than that. It's about a public commitment, a public statement of DCU's commitment to be a hub of innovation for technology-enhanced learning, online learning itself, to be connected with the world so that the DCU quality of education can actually be transmitted around the world. It's about embracing the best of digital technologies so our students, wherever they are in the world, can access a quality DCU education stuff. In closing, I also want to thank a number of people and groups who really need to be acknowledged because all of you know whenever you come to an event such as this, so much is involved behind the scenes and actually drawing it all together to give the polished finish. And I thank Professor Mark Brown and his team, particularly senior colleagues, James Fox and Mark Glyn. You know, in particular, for James and Mark Glyn how associated they've been with the evolution of this activity DCU over many decades. I think it's important that their contribution to this and embracing of it because change is often challenging but James, I know you've been an enthusiastic support with this and I think that's wonderful to see. And I think the students, Deirdre Patrice and Michael, and that's purely coincidental that he's there, are the public face of DCU connected to thank them. And I thank Theresa Murray and Tritine for communications and marketing and Mark Brown, for accommodating it. Many times to me how well that engagement worked in terms of coming up with this brand. The staff in the National Institute for Digital Learning here at DCU and particularly those people in the Open Education Unit which we're forming on Azosco, it's been wonderful to see you're inclusive in embracing this new future of online learning, distance learning, digital learning at DCU itself. Thank you for your positivity and embrace of this. Can I thank AAD or Media Agency as well for supporting this. And finally, can I thank all of you for coming out on such numbers this morning to mark this very significant event and very significant milestone in the evolution of DCU as an institution that actually makes a difference not just in Ireland but around the world, they're alive. Thank you very much for that. I'd now like to call on Mark Brown to speak to us a bunch of DCU members. Thank you very much Billy and just extend my greetings and welcome through everyone. There are a few seats if people would just like to take a moment to take a seat if you want to ease your legs but it's really overwhelming to see so many people here I think today which really is for me even though I've had a very short history here at DCU a very significant day in the history of the university. I also think that this is actually quite a significant day at the national level, that there is some national significance in what we're doing here at DCU and I want to share three points if you like. Firstly, the interest story for me reminds just how important higher education is and how much it matters. She shared some of the very real personal benefits that have arisen from her study. Importantly, Dettra did not have the choice of studying on a traditional campus. The choice of transforming her own life by advancing study through more traditional means. Through, if you like, that full-time on-campus experience that we still tend to think of as the dominant metaphor for university education. I think the relative point I want to make is that higher education matters not just for individuals but it also has a significant public benefit and I think it's very important for us to remember at these sorts of times where higher education is very much being challenged. There's an overwhelming body of evidence that shows the benefits, the public and private benefits of higher education but it's the public ones that I think are really important for us to remember at this time. There are economic benefits such as the OECD and documenting the return on investment and you can dispute these sorts of figures and I won't spend time interpreting them but we know from the literature that people who go on to study, who pursue higher education, earn more, they actually pay more taxes, they stay in permanent work longer, place far less demand on the welfare system and support and so on. There are also wider societal benefits as graduates are healthier, their children go on to become better educated and they also, we know, go on to make a much greater contribution to their local communities and civic participation more generally. Now, importantly, the private and public benefits of higher education, well documented, actually have no difference in terms of the delivery mode. So students who are studying as we saw with DEDRA are a subset of those students who make those sorts of contributions to our societies. The second point I want to make is that it really leads me to how DEDRA's story is reminding us of just how important it is in Ireland to have a coherent, a connected and a contemporary higher education system that gives greater recognition or recognises perhaps more than we do now, the benefits that come from flexible provision, flexible models of teaching and learning. The launch of DCU Connected, I think is our response to what I believe is a serious gap in flexible provision of education in Ireland. We know from HGA data and recent reports on the issue that in comparison to other countries, Ireland has a relatively low percentage of part-time learners who often make up students who are attracted to study through alternative means. 16% depending on how you want to cut the pie on the different parts of the sector. In a similar vein, the number of students officially reported, and I emphasise officially reported in HGA data as learning through a flexible mode is very low, in fact incredibly low, 2.7% in this measure under the definition of distance education. I want to argue that ignoring this issue is far greater than the cost of actually implementing the recommendations of the national strategy. And it's useful, I think, to remind us about the national strategy and those recommendations at this time. So DCU Connected is very much linked to national thinking as well. The recognition of more flexible models of teaching and learning, I will argue, is central to the growth of human capital, and ultimately, the long-term prosperity of Ireland. There are clear economic benefits and productivity benefits that come from the ability for people to learn flexibly part-time, perhaps awful time, while still in employment. And I should add whilst paying taxes. My third point is that DCU Connected extends the mission of transforming lives and societies as Brent has already mentioned beyond Ireland. In fact, I think this image comes from one of the examples, the African Initiative. It has important DCU Connected has an important international dimension that I believe positions Ireland as a responsible global citizen in uncertain times in the new digital world in a way that will help us to address some of the major challenges, but also the major opportunities facing humanity. While there will be many DCU Connected courses that provide a unique Irish perspective on the world, we are committed to working with strategic partners that brings a look to this already through online and blended provision to provide local solutions for local problems. Most importantly, DCU Connected, most importantly DCU Connected is not simply a proxy for delivering or pumping online learning through the internet around the world. There's a much deeper philosophy in what we're doing here today. So at this point, having shared with you a little sermon, if you like, I now want to take the opportunity to reveal the dedicated website that will be available with marketing campaign on Monday. This is a new website. It is, if you like, in parallel to the current DCU website. There will be high-level links to this, but one of the interesting initiatives or developments that arose from working in a very dynamic team is we decided the significance of what we were doing needed its own digital space. I won't spend too long here. You can probably see again how we're using our connected learners to really amplify the nature of this brand. Just talking to you very, very briefly, sort of what is DCU Connected, you'll capture the website, capture some of the essence of the philosophy that you've heard already this morning. Our connected courses, undergraduate, postgraduate, notably, you might see also short courses. And we hope that, and I can't say too much at this point, that we'll have another exciting announcement at some stage, hopefully not too far away, about our commitment to provision of customized and online short courses as well. Some of you might think of those as MOOCs. I think we have a slightly deeper and broader philosophy. And then, as alluded to, the international, more than alluded actually, has crucial to this brand, central to the brand, the international dimension. Our website gives some quite rich case studies of some of the initiatives that we're already doing at DCU to help transform lives and societies, both within and beyond Ireland. And at this point, I want to introduce one of those. My name is Emma O'Lives. I'm the Education Outreach and Entrepreneurship Manager here at the Biomedical Diagnostics Institute, which is hosted by Dublin City University. And I'm the project coordinator for the new International Masters in Biomedical Diagnostics. Dublin City University and Arizona State University have had a very strong strategic relationship for a number of years. And there are a number of very exciting projects in development. But one that I am particularly involved in is the development of the International Masters in Biomedical Diagnostics. And we will have cohorts of learners in DCU and cohorts of learners in Arizona State University. And really what we're doing is we're using new technologies, blended learning, to bring both cohorts of students together. The diagnostics industry is one of the fastest growing industries globally. And the program involves our learners finding out about the science and technology that underpins biomedical diagnostics. We're all about developing very small, miniaturized diagnostic devices that will enable the detection of earlier stages of diseases. And really through the development of this International Masters program and through the use of connected learning, blended learning and new technologies, we're developing a new type of graduate, a very rounded, adaptable graduate. So this is a really exciting program. It's a really exciting opportunity for both our learners here in DCU and our learners in Arizona State University because it really globally connects both cohorts of students. So it's not just about developing an international program for the sake of it, it's about really developing graduates that will be much, much more adaptable to industry or whatever they decide to go on to when they actually finish their degree or their master's program. One other example, already alluded to as well, but let's add a little bit more flesh, if you like, in our business school in Princess Nora in Saudi Arabia. My name is John McMackin. I'm the director of the Center for Exact International Programs here in the DCU Business School. The partnership we have with Princess New University involves a delivery of two undergraduate programs, a BSC in international finance and a BSC in marketing innovation and technologies. Up to 140 students per year can join these programs and will study at Princess New or will be taught by DCU Business School faculty. They will receive both a DCU degree and a degree from Princess New University in Saudi Arabia. A core component of what we're doing with PNU is not just the delivery of the programs, but as we're doing it to transfer the knowledge and the capability to deliver it themselves once we're finished. And Senator Ardeen is particularly committed to ensuring that that part of our contract is fulfilled and also in line with our mission of transforming housing societies. The difficulty for Princess New around for Saudi Arabia is that because it doesn't have the depth of academic development that we would have and the history of it, they don't simply have the faculty. So how we could contribute to that was to establish standards that would enable them to achieve world-class business education standards within a relatively short timeframe. They chose DCU particularly with that in mind. When we asked them after we'd got to know them a little bit why they picked us, in conversation with us they realized that we have faculty here who were here when the university started. One of the key considerations in deciding whether we could do this and whether we wished to do this as a priority was to what extent it was consistent with our mission of transforming lives and societies. Our strong sense is that it is a prime example of how we can do that. In one final example, I won't play a video here, but this is an initiative where we're contributing to nursing education in the long run. It's not over yet. There is just one other thing I need to reveal. We are actually introducing, I won't say we're launching, we're introducing another brand this morning. I want to share with you that we've got an exciting development that relates to the digital learning environment that really underpins the connected experience for those students who are studying, whether it be around Ireland or elsewhere in the world, but also for our on-campus students. I want to introduce just a little taster of what that brand is, and there'll be another occasion where we more appropriately share more information. Loop, this is the brand that we've come across, that we've decided up, a very careful consideration, to shift the focus away from digital learning, from technology, from references to the technology, to Moodle or Adobe Connect, any of these technologies, to shift it away to better reflect the nature of the learning experience that we want to provide for students. All of our students under this overarching brand will be in the loop, they will be part of the loop. They're going to play a key role in making and maintaining and actually enhancing the loop. So more to come on another occasion about loop, but it's very connected to our thinking, no pun intended, or perhaps pun intended, too connected. The last thing before I hand back to Billy that I just want to acknowledge is, most of you will be aware that I've come from New Zealand, and I want to acknowledge the fact that my previous line manager and that boss, you could say, is actually with us today, all the way from Australia where she is now, she's just recently retired as the Vice President of Academic and International for Massey University. I identified you right at the back there, Professor Ingrid Day. So that's great to be here. Thank you very much everyone. My name is Michael Connolly, and I studied a degree in Information Technology as an off-campus student with DCU. I enjoy living in Dundalkan back, living where I grew up. Up until early 2008, I was working full-time in Dublin, and unfortunately at that time I was made redundant. In order to give myself an edge, I knew I had to go and do some things in further education. The option that DCU provided was that I was able to manage my own time, I was able to manage the course in my own way. The tools that were provided were fantastic. Flexibility of learning off-campus was so important to me, because it allowed me to carry on working, which I need to do. It allowed me to carry on my music, which is a side career, I feel like I was studying here in the house, I was studying in the library. It's probably fair to say that even though you're not on campus, you're probably interacting with students and tutors more in terms of the work that you're doing. So in a strange sort of a way, the online platform allowed me to be more connected to my fellow students, more connected to the tutors. DCU had a fantastic reputation to my mind, and once I started studying there, that reputation was well justified. I transformed my life to the point that it's opened up a whole load of new possibilities to me that I might not have considered before. I'm delighted and honoured to be visiting Professor here at DCU, and it's always great to have an excuse to come back to Dublin, of course. And I'm really enjoying working with Mark and the team and seeing things, how things are developing. I think Mark achieved a huge amount in a very short amount of time. I think it's a really interesting and challenging time for higher education. And I think DCU is very well placed to take things forward through the new brand, through Connected and the Loop. Technologies clearly have amazing potential in terms of providing our learners with fantastic interactive multimedia, a plethora of ways in which they can communicate and collaborate. We're training our students for a complex dynamic and changing environment. Our students will be going into jobs that don't even exist at the moment. We need to have learning that is transformative in terms of lives in society, but equips our learners to move beyond content, we call, to critical thinking, problem solving, and agile and flexible learning. And I think that is very evident and at the heart of what the new Connected programme is about. I think it's a major initiative, underpinned by the very strong new institute that Mark is heading up, and a very vibrant and exciting team working with him. I think it really does link both to the heart of the mission of DCU, but also, it's been pointed out, fits in very, very much with the current national strategy in terms of islands, and the importance of increasing DEL provision and flexible learning. It's very important, not only in an Irish context, but internationally, and I like the sovereignty of whether you're learning in Sligo, Seville or Shanghai. I think that's great. But also, people like Tony Bates claim that if we need to meet the provision of future learners, we should be building one brick and mortar institution every week. So clearly, flexible learning, e-learning is the way of the future. And finally, I'll just leave you with one statistic. You'd have to estimate there are more than 10 million learners who can't afford formal educational offerings. And I think the kind of flexibility possible through the Connected Programme and through the kind of things that Mark mentioned in terms of short courses is the way of the future. So I wish Mark and the team every success and I look forward very much to working with them in the coming months. Thank you. Thank you, Ronny. And now we're going to hear from another of our students, Patrice Brandon. My name is Patrice Brandon. And I did a BA in humanities with DCU. I love living in the country. I love the quiet. I love the isolation of it. But that hasn't hindered me returning to education. And that's what I love about DCU, that I'm not restricted and I'm not limited by where I live. My lifestyle is actually very busy. I work full-time and I've got three young children. So I needed to find a course and an option that fitted in with both work and my children. The online learning platform in DCU gave me the flexibility to be able to connect with my tutors and also with my peers. I used to study mainly in my own sitting room with my laptop on my lap. Difficult enough, but I find myself being very comfortable in my own surroundings, in my own sitting room. It's where I felt relaxed. I do retreat to our study, which is actually a radio room. My husband is very much into amateur radio. When I'm studying, I can hear this constant Morse code in the background, which I've become so accustomed to now that I find I need it, almost need it, to study. As a family, we've become more open, more questioning. And even my children, which I love to see, my children question everything. That has all come from my education, educating them. DCU has changed my life, but out and out. I have more confidence, I'm more self-assured. DCU Connected has opened every door for me. Next question is, well, what happens next? And I want to talk just a few minutes about it. The first thing is that starting next Monday, we've got a very extensive marketing campaign. Appropriate enough for anyone that's doing online digital learning. Most of the campaign will be a digital one. Google AdWords, websites, et cetera. For those of you who are well used to booking a flight or booking a hotel room and then going and finding that every site you go to gives you that one. And actually, I'm well used to looking at online programs. And it's going to be very nice for me from next Monday to see the DCU Connected brand come up and hopefully follow me everywhere where I'm going. We're not only doing the digital world, we're doing some traditional ones. So we've got radio. There'll be a nationwide campaign starting next Monday. Also outdoor bus rail. You'll see us on the travel and dart and bus tops and whatever. And it'll be very much working with these people, the three students who are the key to our campaign. So it's what you'll hopefully be seeing as you move around the country. And they're very much really concentrating on the fact that this is about not just connecting with students who are getting that flexible online delivery. But as we've heard already about the transformative impact and what we've seen from the videos, the real transformative impact it can have on for our students, particularly the adult and young students. The next thing that'll happen after today will be a lot of work internally. This is already well on the way, working with colleagues. And a lot of you here already know that we're talking to you and working with you. But I'd like to talk about our quest of anybody we haven't talked to here, both in the DCU community and St. Patrick's Matter Day in Rath mines and the CIC. Just come and talk to us. Anything that you think will be under the online programs, short programs, short courses, international ones. We'll probably be in contact with you, but at least I'm asking you the request here. One key part there of course is if you're thinking of anybody thinking of putting a course into an online flexible delivery, part of the national digital learning course is the teaching enhancing unit. And that's a very much part of its mission to help with people going online. That's what I would say I would like to just finish off with again a number of thank yous. Brian has already thanked our three students, Chris Brennan, Darden Hennessy and Michael Connolly. What was very interesting is that all three very readily agreed once we approached them to be part of the campaign. We were actually hoping all three would be here today and unfortunately for various reasons they can't. But I promised to give them a personal thank and send them the video, which we will do after the launch. So again thank you Patrice, Michael and David. I want to just also thank the staff of the national digital learning particularly in the improvement education unit who helped organize today's event. Amanda, Linda Brunen, Patrick who's doing her video, Sherry, Susan and many others. But one person in particular I would like to thank and I'm just looking for is Michelle. Michelle has been absolutely, Michelle Smith's review, oh I've done it back to you. Michelle has been absolutely central, not just to organizing today's things, but about developing the whole DCU connected brand. She's got a very keen eye, I can tell you, she'll point out different shades and I wouldn't see what different meanings. Also as you can see there's been a huge amount of work on into developing the campaign, doing the way by the perspectives coming out of the website and particularly the video. So I'd like to send a special thanks to Michelle for all her huge work and I really appreciate it. Again, again both Brunen and Mark have alluded to the work of two of Marie and her team in console marking for truly to achieve. Thank you, just wanted to say trees has been great working with you and your team in the last couple of months and with AAD, the agency and I think a lot of these matters if you want a job done well, call in the professionals and these were the professionals. And with that I'd like to hand over just to Mark for a final thing to add on to that. Thank you, Seamus. I do need to acknowledge my team and I thought it was appropriate to do it right at the end here. Seamus, Mark being mentioned, but the whole team, Michelle in particular. I particularly also like to thank our President Brunen for the support that he's given us throughout this. Theresa and the team have been just outstanding to work with and I would encourage anyone within DCU to develop that kind of relationship with the people who know better than we do about marketing. Bronja, thank you for coming. Your contribution is very significant for us and we know it continues. There are bound to be others that I should acknowledge. Perhaps I do need to just recognize for a very rare occasion my wife was here and so she has proven to be the sample of one that has given me feedback on some of our ideas and thank you, Denise. On that note, I'll hand over finally to Billy. We almost have forgotten probably one of the most significant things and in a conversation last week, this group often gets ignored, they told us. So it was really crucial that I actually added a slide for AOD for John Henscott and Kevin Scott and Kevin have just been magnificent sitting back there not only working through our comprehensive marketing but going to a media agency that really brought a hot touch to this. They haven't just brought us the brand, it's been part of the philosophy of AOD. So thank you very much and we look forward to keeping on working with you. Before we finally conclude, Brian would like to say a few concluding remarks. Thanks Billy, we glad to know they were very, very brief. I just thought again, it was unpersonally and then to acknowledge in terms of the national dimension of this, I'm delighted that Lewis Persil from the IOA was kind enough to join us here this morning because as Mark clearly articulated earlier, this, when we use the title NIDL, National Institute for Digital Learning, this is not simply a DCU resource, this is something where we want to actually raise all both some digital learning and art in itself and I think through the IOA that's another important arm of that, so Lewis, thank you for being with us here this morning. Also colleagues from DC Around Academy, front-of-the-line lawyers, Ann Horne and Alastair Arfre, Malcolm Alley and colleagues are here with us and that arm of DCU itself, I think there are significant synergies in the whole area of innovation and entrepreneurship that can benefit from the DCU connected and NIDL itself. So today I think a very significant, lots of thank yous, I won't reiterate those again, I think, but it is a very significant day for us and you know, piece of language that's in our press release and I think it came from Gronje, we're moving us, which was a strong brand for DCU for many decades, from really the periphery of DCU to the heart of it, really now digital learning, distance learning, online flexible learning is now at the heart of DCU through a new brand DCU connected and I think that is very significant indeed. And my final remarks, you may have noted from Mark Brown's accent, he's from New Zealand and really couldn't let the week go by without mentioning our wonderful Irish lady, sorry about that Mark but he's become more Irish now and as we started to say, we had a great win against the old guys, some of you may not know but a good number of that team were actually based at DCU and we've been promoting and making some press coverage of that in the coming weeks and the Irish rugby football union, the Irish lady's seventh team for the real World Cup is based at DCU and to say a good number of that team that was successful against New Zealand and the US and hopefully we'll go even further in France and the World Cup are here at DCU so they're DCU connected as well. That note, thank you all very much indeed. Thank you all for being part of this event this morning. I'd like to invite you all to join us for a cup of tea, cup of coffee outside, thank you very much indeed.