 Hello, my name is Alex Binay and I'm the president and CEO of the Canada Science and Tech Museums Corporation and it's great to have this opportunity to look back at a pretty eventful year in the life of the corporation and its three museums. One of the things that's made me particularly proud this year is the way we've been able to reach beyond the walls of our museums to connect with the wider world. So as many of you are undoubtedly aware, our flagship, the Canada Science and Technology Museums currently closed for what is a massive renewal project and it's been exciting to see how innovative our staff has been in continuing to get our messages out, but more on that a little later. The purpose of this little chat is to reflect on our achievements over the year 2015-16. With respect to our overall corporate vision, it remains the same to inspire Canadians with particular reference to science and technology. I think everybody recognizes that we're in an age of profound science and technology and the good news is that Canada does well in these fields and we all know that we can do even better and it's part of our mission to help partner with Canadians, inspire Canadians, especially young Canadians, but overall Canadians to just be as good as we can be and to be one of the leading nations in fact on earth with respect to those dimensions. Over the past year, our two open museums have been very active in producing a full slate of public events and programming. From family events such as Bug Day and the Sheep Sharing Festival at the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum, to Remembrance Week and National Child Day at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, to events attracting adults such as Bacon Palooza at the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum, visitors have been able to do everything from canning vegetables to imagining what it would be like to live on Mars. You may know that we preside over one of the great collections on earth of science artifacts, over a million artifacts. Many of them are brilliant. We have wonderful staff who take care to preserve it and in all ways make sure that it's there for all Canadians to cherish for decades to come. We all know that the future is defined by how our youth do with education and innovation and all that kind of inspiration and so I think we're playing our part an important part in engaging young Canada to really embrace that whole area. I mean it's fine to play hockey, it's fine to do all the other things that young kids do but it's important to really latch on to science innovation as a key dimension of everything that we do and I feel we're playing our part in that regard. In terms of the future as we get into more apps it's our ambition to link with every kid and every kitchen table and in every classroom every day so we'll be bringing you really exciting manifestations of how the world is developing and you can plug into it and play games and do contests and really get in the swing of how it to help a country become a masterful in the future of the world. Museums are of course not really museums without exhibitions and we've had some great ones this year. At the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum food will win the war showcased food production during the Second World War from large-scale farming to individual victory gardens. At the Canada Aviation and Space Museum Life in Orbit the International Space Station developed by the museum in partnership with the Canadian Space Agency looked at what it's like to circle the earth while living for months in space nor has the closure of the Science and Technology Museum kept it from producing exhibitions for travel including energy house and game changers that will be ready for travel in the fall of 2016. Each year the corporation adds objects of national and international importance to its collection. This year's key acquisitions included not only scientifically and technically important objects but also acquisitions that are important for social reasons. Among the many acquisitions the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum acquired an early production model of a Dion Thresher from the 1920s made by Dion and Freire in Quebec. Dion is a Quebec success story because it has remained an independent agricultural implement designer and manufacturer which is a remarkable accomplishment in this age of global mergers and takeovers. Meanwhile the Canada Aviation and Space Museum acquired archives documenting the early aviation career of Manitoba born aviator William Edgar Robinson. He trained at the Wright School of Aviation in the United States and he served in the Royal Naval Air Service on the western front and in the Mediterranean during the First World War. A prize piece in the Robinson archives is a document signed by Orville Wright pilot of the world's first powered flight by a heavier-than-air machine. The Canada Science and Technology Museum acquired a Lenoir meter one of the earliest standard brass meters that survived from the beginnings of the metric system around 1800. It was used in an official Bureau of Verification in France and this artifact is now the earliest metric object in Canada. The Science and Tech Museum also acquired some great examples of domestic technology and design from the 1970s. A set of three Viking brand household kitchen appliances built in Quebec, a range, a refrigerator and a dishwasher. They are an autumn red one of the fashionable colors of the time and they represent the ongoing economic boom and middle-class prosperity of the post-Second World War years. Viking was the house brand of the now defunct Eatons department store. The museum also acquired a homemade robot equipped with artificial intelligence that successfully hitchhiked across Canada. The famous robot called Hitchbot began its journey at the side of the road in Halifax, Nova Scotia on July 27th, 2014 and hitched 19 rides to successfully complete its journey to Vancouver, British Columbia on August 21st only 25 days later. Hitchbot also took digital images every 20 to 30 minutes which were uploaded to a server and used by the Hitchbot team to share moments from Hitchbot's journey online. Hitchbot represents a number of interesting technical innovations and fills an important gap in the museum's communications and computing collections. The last Science and Tech Museum acquisition this year represents the intersection of technology with the drama of human life and struggle. I'm speaking of objects collected by a Canadian physician from a migrant rescue ship in the Mediterranean Sea. Amongst the many objects is a mariners compass found on overcrowded inflatable raft, children's flotation aids and emergency medical devices. These objects have been displayed at the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 in Halifax and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg. Information and photos of these and other artifacts in the national collection can be accessed in the collection online database on our website. We are a Canadian Museum as you know, a Canada's Museum of Science and Technology. We have exhibitions that go back and forth. We have some regional opportunities for people to visit stuff or belong periods at a time. We're going to be getting much more into that in the years to come because of what else science and technology as all these apps make so much more possible than is ever the case. These days, of course, compelling virtual exhibitions and online programming are a must. Here again are institution excels. Bees, a honey of an idea, is a fascinating virtual exhibition introducing visitors of all ages to bees and their importance to agriculture. This past year, the Canada Science and Technology Museum also became the first national museum to launch a virtual exhibition in partnership with the Google Cultural Institute. Another fun feature is our Google Hangouts, which this year included family hangouts on bees and airplanes, attracting hundreds of people to the live hangouts and afterward to the recorded YouTube videos. And of course, we also have extended online resources available for children, schools, families, scholars and researchers. Any public-facing organization worth its salt, and this goes double for knowledge-based institutions like ours, has to have a massive online presence and reach. We're highly active when it comes to social media, posting often on Facebook, on Twitter and in blogs. And for several years now, we've also been posting videos on our YouTube channel. Travelling exhibitions are, of course, one of the key ways in which we connect with audiences beyond the national capital region. Over the past year, several of our exhibitions have traveled the country, reaching 3.5 million visitors in cities ranging from St. John's, Newfoundland to Fort McMurray, Alberta to Vancouver, British Columbia. But one of the areas in which our museums are way ahead of the pack is in our apps. Over the past year, we've developed some outstanding mobile applications that allow people to train as First World War flying aces as they take to the skies in early aerial combat, and coming soon, an app where the user travels and lives on Mars, and another one that explores the importance of these to our world. So far, our apps have been downloaded in over 170 countries. The closed Canada Science and Technology Museum didn't stop reaching Canadians face-to-face. The Science Mobile continued to travel to schools, daycares, and libraries, offering programs for young, curious minds. We reached more than 40,000 children and adults in a year. While all three of our museums have always been active in pursuing their individual mandates, there are some overarching initiatives that are handled by the corporation as a whole. Some of you may have already been aware of our Let's Talk Energy and its outreach arm, Talk Energy Week. Both spearheaded cross-Canada conversations about the place of energy in our lives. This past year, more than 2.2 million people took part in Talk Energy Week, which is a very impressive number. In addition, as part of our ongoing commitment to science, outreach, and engagement in one of the ways we will be celebrating Canada 150, we launched an interactive digital storybook to capture the people, places, and artifacts that tell the story of Canadian invention and innovation. The digital story book is called InnovationCanada150.ca, and we want you to join in. Two years ago, we put our collection data online for open access, and this year we have taken a leadership role by providing open access to our museum's research and information assets. This initiative will provide digital open access to the knowledge we hold in trust for all Canadians. As part of our continued mandate to celebrate Canadian innovation, I'm pleased to report as well that we are an official partner in the newly launched Governor General's Innovation Awards. We balance our budgets, we do things on time, we get rave reviews from what we build or renovate, and so, thank you to the team that leads that and does that, and I believe we are making Canadians proud in that regard. And finally, infrastructure has been a major theme at our museum. We were very fortunate for Canada to invest over a million dollars in booting as we use that word, the Museum of Science and Technology, and now it has be briefed us another $154 million to build a magnificent collections building that's going to be a showpiece for the entire country, and we look forward to having that up on time, on budget, to rave reviews, and of national import. Those are the four overarching commitments that we make to the people of Canada. And now to what, for many people, is the most important issue when it comes to our group of museums, the renewal of the Canada Science and Technology Museum. Before we embarked on this $80.5 million project, we held public consultations and the feedback we got was invaluable, but even more heartening was seeing how important the museum is to Canadians and to the national capital region. It is us obviously welcome news to all Canadians that the Canada Science and Technology Museum is undergoing a massive renewal of its building on both its galleries, its amenities, and its exhibits. I don't know about you, but I can't wait for November 2017 when the museum opens to the public. Speaking of the future, we're also pleased to be building a state-of-the-art collection and conservation facility in partnership with the National Gallery of Canada and the Canadian Conservation Institute. When it opens in 2018, that building will serve not only as an outstanding home for everything from turbines to fine art, but also as an example of what can be achieved when institutions pool their resources. The progress so far on the renewed Canada Science and Technology Museum and the planning that has started on the collection and conservation center prove beyond any doubt that the corporation has the best teams in the country carrying out this work. I want to thank two groups of people in particular. One is our full range of partners. We have private partners, provincial partners, municipal partners, and they're all wonderful and they get it. They get why it's important to invest in science and technology, and so thank you to all of you. And finally, I certainly want to thank and acknowledge the Government of Canada itself for everything that it does. Most of that quarter of a billion dollars to which I just referred comes from the government, comes from you the taxpayer. I promise you that we will honor it, we will deliver on task, and the country will be better off as a result of this extraordinary investment in science, technology, and innovation. So there you have it. It's been a very successful year. We've had our share of challenges, but with government support and a dedicated staff and of course the ongoing and enthusiastic approval of visitors both on site and online, it's been a year which we're all justifiably proud. Nearly 410,000 people have visited the two museums that are currently open to the public. We reached 14 million people via social media with 1.1 million visits to our websites, 840,000 interactions via Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. The list goes on. More than 93,000 people connected with our virtual exhibitions, more than 75,000 downloads of our educational activity kits, and more than 61,000 downloads in over 170 countries of our new Ace Academy Black Flight app, which I might add launched only a few short months ago. All told, we reach more than 21,600,000 people as we continue to inspire Canadians to celebrate and engage with their scientific, technological, and innovative past, present, and future. It's been a pleasure to head up the corporation like this and I'm proud of what we've been able to achieve over the past 12 months. Popular exhibitions, a strong national and international presence, outstanding programming, online innovation, and initiatives that continue to reinforce the definite importance of science and technology to everyday life. It's been an exciting year and I can't wait to see what's next.