In this PLATO Panel Talks, our host, Mike Hrycyk, brings together PLATO’s Founder and CEO, Keith McIntosh, and Ron Hyggen, CEO of Kitsaki Management LLP and board member of PLATO. Keith and Ron share with us how PLATO came to be and how, together with partners like Kitsaki, PLATO has been able to achieve its goal of Indigenous ownership. Keith and Ron talk to Mike about how Indigenous ownership helps PLATO and Kitsaki bring more opportunities for Indigenous people in the tech industry. Sharing their experiences with PLATO and Kitsaki, our panel also shows how a strong social mission and bringing more communities from across the country to the table brings expertise and opportunities they could’ve never imagined when they started.
Episode Transcript:
Mike Hrycyk (00:00):
Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of PLATO Panel Talks. I’m your host, Mike Hrycyk, and today we’re going to talk about the ownership of PLATO and what that means and how it relates to our mission. We will be talking to our panel of experts, Keith [McIntosh] and Ron [Hyggen], and I think this is interesting to everyone because they are interested in our social mission and what we’re doing, and this is a really good, monumental change for our company and into the future. So let’s sit back and hear what we’re going to say. So I’m going to turn it over to you, Keith, to introduce yourself.
Keith McIntosh (00:28):
Thanks, Mike. I’m Keith McIntosh. I’m the CEO and founder of PLATO Testing. Prior to that, I was the CEO and founder of PQA Testing and that’s all part of the story we’re going to tell.
Mike Hrycyk (00:39):
Awesome. Thanks, Keith. Ron, can you introduce yourself, please?
Ron Hyggen (00:43):
You bet. Thanks, Mike. Ron Hyggen, CEO of Kitsaki Management LLP and board member for PLATO Testing.
Mike Hrycyk (00:48):
Awesome. Thanks Ron. Thank you for coming today. Alright, Keith, let’s get started. Nice and simple at the start. Can you tell us what the origin story is for PLATO? Where did the idea come from?
Keith McIntosh (00:58):
Well, the idea for PLATO came from discussions I had when we were a part of the Governor General’s Canadian Leadership Conference, and that was in May and June of 2015. Right at the same time that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report came out. We happened to be on a First Nation where the water wasn’t very good and in conversation with Denis Carignan, you know, why isn’t somebody doing something about this? How do you fix that? And Denis, rightly said, it’s a very big complicated question. And as an entrepreneur, my idea was, why don’t we just try to do something, start something? So at the same time that that was going on, you know, we’re in technology, our biggest problem is finding enough people. What if we combined our job openings with people that really needed employment as a way of building a more stable foundation? And that’s where it came from. I was running, at the time, a company called PQA and we thought, well, we can create a new company that trains and offers employment to Indigenous people across the country that starts them on their path. So that’s where it came from.
Mike Hrycyk (02:00):
Okay. So that’s great. And, I love it, and I’ve been part of it since I started in 2016. Why was achieving Indigenous ownership for PLATO an important part of our journey?
Keith McIntosh (02:11):
If you read some of the cause to action, my idea was that it should be about giving people the ability or helping people have the ability to build their own stability, build their own wealth. You know, the old adage, if you give a man fish, he eats for a day, but if you teach a man to fish, they’ll eat forever, right? And that was sort of the idea is it’s one thing to give something or provide something, but it’s a whole other thing if you give people the ability to create their own wealth, create their own opportunities. So when we said it, that was the model that we wanted to follow, is we’re going to create a company that’s staffed, led, and owned by Indigenous people.
Mike Hrycyk (02:51):
Right. So maybe the gap we have here – and I’m going a little bit off script – is what does Indigenous ownership mean for us? And Kitsaki is part of that, and we’ll talk about that in just a second. But what did it mean to go to Indigenous ownership?
Keith McIntosh (03:12):
What our intention was, was more around the idea of changing how people approach things. And I know myself that I work harder, I feel more of a sense of accomplishment if I’m doing something for myself. So we didn’t want to end up with Indigenous employees. We wanted to end up with Indigenous business people, and Indigenous entrepreneurs. People that understood that they were doing work for themselves, not just for, you know, the man, you know, not for the corporation, but doing something for themselves. And that was the original idea. It turned out to be economically powerful by opening procurement doors and having other companies want to work with us. But, I think that’s secondary. This has been a social impact play, and you can have more social impact by giving people the ownership and the feeling that they’re doing something for themselves.
Mike Hrycyk (04:26):
Right. So last year – when we first started, we thought about having the employees be the owners, but last year what we did is we sort of changed that path, and that’s still a possibility, but we went out and looked for Indigenous investor partners. That’s sort of what I was getting to.
Keith McIntosh (04:39):
Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah. You know, being an entrepreneur, it was always clear to me that everybody wants to be an entrepreneur. That everybody wants the full responsibility – it turns out that I was a bit naive in that. Not everybody wants to have that responsibility. But it was still very important that when we said we were going to create this company, we spent eight years building faith and having people believe in us that this is not a bait and switch. So, we said it was going to be Indigenous staffed, we said it was going to be Indigenous lead, that we said it was going to be Indigenous owned. So it’s very important. And that was one of the things that we’ve always built that company on – is it’s important to do what you say you’re going to do. But it turns out, you know, I’ve learned at least as much, if not more, creating PLATO than I ever did in, in running a company before. It’s not like we gave something away. We get equal – we get more value and more learning back than we’ve ever given.
Mike Hrycyk (05:29):
That’s good. I think it’s a good segue into talking to Ron and telling us, because Kitsaki is our biggest investor partner – let’s start with, tell us who Kitsaki is and what’s your role in the partnership?
Ron Hyggen (05:42):
So Kitsaki started back in 1981. We’re owned by Lac La Ronge Indian Band. Northern Saskatchewan based with about 12,000 members. So a very large group of people. And from the very beginning, I guess the biggest thing is, well, how do you get all these people jobs and find them a path to make a living? So they created Kitsaki Management to operate and purchase companies to give people further opportunities in the north. And honestly, we grew up in the mining sector, so really focused on servicing our clients in the north that operate in our area. In more recent years, we’ve been looking to diversify what we do and kind of grow options cause again, we’re a full population. It’s like servicing a city. Not everyone can be cooks. Not everyone can do underground mining. So our focus has been, okay, what else can we provide in their area that makes really good sense?
Perhaps it’s in the north, but also, of course, our membership is 12,000 people. Not everyone lives in Northern Saskatchewan. We have membership across the country. How can we service them? And also get into a new area that seems to be emerging for us that we’re really interested in. And one of the first ones we had identified was IT. And we had a relationship built between our past CEO Russell Roberts and Denis Carignan one of the founders of PLATO. And they kind of started chatting about what it looked like and what it meant. And when I heard the story what I really liked was the vision and mission kind of matched, right? So Keith mentioned the power of giving people a job and being able to find their own path. Well, absolutely, same for us. Understanding what PLATO does technically also really kind of matched to what I believe in.
And you can do this job from anywhere. So it really fits kind of our people. We have six communities, massive groups and a lot of need out there. So is another area that we could offer our group and our ownership as well as looking for the future. So another piece of what we’re trying to do at Kitsaki is build bridges across the nation. So we don’t, we don’t need to own everything, that’s for sure. We want to work with other First Nations, other companies that have that same vision and understand that hey, we can actually work together and do this together and move us all forward.
Mike Hrycyk (07:51):
Great. I love the partnership. The story is tremendous.
Keith McIntosh (07:55):
Can I just add a little bit onto Ron’s vision of reaching across the country? Partnering across the country is important cause a lot of times, a lot of the projects and technology could be, you know, a lot of people. We have projects where there are hundreds, a couple hundred people on it, and any one community maybe can’t do that. But by being able to bring nations and bring people from all across the country together – because it doesn’t matter where you are as long as you have an internet connection. Finding there are partners that have that vision of it’s not all about what I do for my community today. It’s how big a reach do we build and for the future was important to us too. So it’s been a really great fit to work with Ron and, and, Kitsaki Management, not just about North Saskatchewan. It’s about creating opportunity all across the country and combining the strengths cause we’re better together, we’re better with multiple communities and multiple points of view.
Ron Hyggen (08:45):
And I’ll add onto that as well, Keith. Just because again, when we kind of start talking about this, PLATO’s a little different because a lot of companies that we would talk to aren’t interested in giving away control or most people want to control everything, and then they’ll add you as a partner. But the end game is not to really, you know, put it in everyone else’s hands and say, okay, let’s build this together and work together to something that’s even bigger than I thought of.
Mike Hrycyk (09:07):
Well, to highlight the partnership, maybe Keith just tell us what we’ve done in Prince Albert already?
Keith McIntosh (09:13):
Yeah. We opened a new class. We started a classroom and we shared it with, we’re using the office space that another Kitsaki company has Optek, which was Prince Albert Photocopier, I guess as well. And we created a classroom there. We’re running our first class there, but that’s huge for us to be able to have a partner that helps us go in the north. Helps us go outside of the main stream places. So do we’re really excited about the possibilities of proving that this can be done. And doesn’t have to be done in Regina, it doesn’t have to be done in Saskatoon, it can be done, you know, in Prince Albert. And the next step for Prince Albert is to do it in Lac La Ronge.
Mike Hrycyk (09:44):
And, it’s probably not important, but I think the majority of that class comes out of Lac La Ronge, right?
Keith McIntosh (09:49):
No, actually, unfortunately, none of them came out of Lac La Ronge First Nation.
Ron Hyggen (09:55):
It just makes me think of the opportunities in the North have changed. So we’re all seeing it across the country as, we come outta COVID-19, the huge demand on employees and skilled labour and especially on the IT side. Massive draw for those folks anywhere in the country because they can work from anywhere. La Ronge is no different. So we did have a lot of people looking for work right around COVID time, but now we have a lot of job postings out there that we’re having difficulty filling, honestly. It’s just the market is hot and, you know, people are in high demand now. So I like this model, no, we didn’t get the numbers we wanted from Lac La Ronge this time, but we did have really good Indigenous people joining our class in Prince Albert. And we hope that this first kind of – this first run will attract more people once we have success in that first group. So I think we have some very strong candidates. I’m just excited to get ’em going, and they have a good representation from the community that they live in.
Mike Hrycyk (10:48):
Well, and you know, we’ve run 27 classes now, I think nationwide. And that’s what we see everywhere is that there’s always a mix of people from a lot of different backgrounds, and it’s great
Keith McIntosh (10:59):
And, the first class is the hardest. Once people see that this is real. Cause this is new for almost any community, this is a new concept of I can work in technology. That’s the first thing that they don’t see technology as a career. The second concept is I can work full-time, not shift work and it, my client could be anywhere. We’ve had a kid from Ground First Nation in Northern New Brunswick testing software for LinkedIn, Los Los Angeles. We have people in from Batchawana and Garden River, Northern Ontario testing software for people in Vancouver or Boston or Ireland. It’s a new concept. So it takes a class or two. It takes an example or two for people to see, yeah, this is real, this is for me. We keep getting stories about parents whose kids now see them working in this and seeing it’s a possibility for them. And that’s the really encouraging thing is it is sort of spreading and catching on that this is a possibility.
Mike Hrycyk (11:47):
Right. Okay. So the next question, so let’s assume I’m another company and I’m looking at what PLATO’s doing. What is Indigenous ownership mean for the future of a company like PLATO?
Keith McIntosh (11:56):
Well, you know, if another company – and we hope that really is it. That they see that we’ve done this, that we’ve led an example, and it works. We now own, it’s now about 52% Indigenous owned. Which sounds like, you know, it sounds like we gave up 52%, but we didn’t. Myself and, some of the other sort of minority shareholders have 48% of something that’s three times bigger than when we started down this path, right? It really opens doors, and it’s successful. As I said, we’ve learned a lot of stuff about running a company that is showing that investment today for the future pays off. And it’s sort of a different way of doing things. Ron and I were just on a call this morning with a leader in a company that’s very interested in what we’re doing. I think other companies are looking at what we do as an example of: Can we do this ourselves? How do we recognize that the social impact might not pay off on bottom lines today, but it certainly will pay off multiple times over in the bottom line of tomorrow.
Ron Hyggen (12:52):
I think of this model as like, to me, the evolution of business. So, if you want to work in the future, you need to get things right today. So I always look at new partnerships, new ventures as, okay, what does this look like 25 years from now? And also when we’re all long and retired has this moved forward? Has it made impact for those that we want to make impact with? So again, our model right now is really focused on outside of our own borders and, of course, to create new opportunities but also to bring people together. Cause I really do believe in that model. And for PLATO to see that and understand that including all Canadians in ownership is very powerful. When you’re recognized by international companies as saying, “Hey, I really like what you do”, that’s a real feather in the cap.
Mike Hrycyk (13:32):
I agree. And, one of the stories I like to tell when I get in front of a customer is it used to be that when we went to a national billion-dollar company in Canada, we said, “Hey, we sell testing, we’re PQA.” And they would say, ” PQA who?” and not talk to us. Now when we go to those same boardrooms, and we say, “Hey, we’re PLATO Testing, we have an Indigenous testing story,” and they say, “Well come on in.” It doesn’t mean we win the work, but at least we get to tell our story. So I think that’s really powerful and, for other companies looking to go down this path, it’s something you should consider that way. Alright, so I think we’ve sort of answered what does it mean for Indigenous stakeholders, but what does it mean for Indigenous – what does a partnership like this mean for the Indigenous employees or future Indigenous employees? Let’s start with you this time, Ron.
Ron Hyggen (14:12):
Well let me start with Indigenous ownership first, if you wouldn’t mind. Cause again, what I really like about this model is yeah, we came in early as Kitsaki, as did Raven, but looking forward, we’ve kinda left room for other First Nations to join, other Indigenous groups to join. And that’s by design because to us, we don’t need to control, we don’t need to own the majority as Kitsaki. We want First Nations, Indigenous folks to own the majority. And to me, the strongest strength is bring some ownership in from across the country. Employee wise? So as a past Deloitte employee, it was interesting being there and I learned a lot because they’re a massive machine and they have almost unlimited knowledge for you to access. But as an Indigenous person myself, to be in that system, you kind of feel like you’re on a little bit of an island at times. And I think Deloitte is working towards changing that model and making it more welcoming. And I always think of a critical mass of people. So when you’re joining any company you want to be joining a critical mass of people like you. So when you walk in there, you feel comfortable regardless of who you are, of course. But if you’re walking into a new company alone, it’s always a little more daunting and more difficult to kind of transition and stay long term. Versus what the model of PLATO is – you bring in a group of trained professionals when they’re done and say, now, okay, I’ve kind of grown up with these folks. They’re now part of me. We’re a family, and we walk into PLATO, and we’re not leaving because we’re there to support each other. It’s a totally different model than most places say, okay, we’ll put a job ad and hire who we can, you know, and we have ESG (Environmental, social, and corporate governance), but it’s not the same model whatsoever. So I really appreciate that.
Keith McIntosh (15:41):
Yeah, that’s exactly it. You know, you’re not alone. You know, PLATO is approximately one-third Indigenous staffed, and that’s huge. You know, to go anywhere by yourself it’s scary. To be part of something – and we’ve had, you know, mothers and sons working together. We’ve had people bring their other family members into work because it feels good; it feels safe. But when we first started the idea we thought, well we’ll just – we’ll open up the jobs, and we’ll hire Indigenous people. But we found out pretty quickly that a lot of Indigenous kids don’t go to post-secondary to take technology cause they haven’t seen it as a career. So by having a company with a critical mass of people in technology, that becomes an example for the next generation of kids to say that’s a path I can take. My own goal for PLATO was to prove it could be done. Now we’re in the middle of scaling it, but our training piece 10-years from now should be irrelevant because enough people – we’ll still be doing it, but it won’t be necessary cause other people will be doing it too. Kids will be taking it on their own. People will see it as a career path. So I think that’s happening already. It’s interesting you asked how is it good for the Indigenous employees. I think it’s also been really, really good for the non-Indigenous employees. Mike, I think you joined in the summer of 2016 maybe –
Mike Hrycyk (16:53):
January. Yeah.
Keith McIntosh (16:54):
January 2016. Prior to that, we were just like any other company, and I came back from the conference in June of 2015 and said, we’re going to train and employ Indigenous people. We were about a company of about 80 or 100 people then. And nobody said, but what about me? They all said, how can I help? And when we ran that first class we brought 12 people in January, 2016. They all came in together, as Ron said, as a group. So that’s safe. They all came into the middle of an office where we were surrounded by technology people from all over. And the culture changed over the last eight years. The culture of this company has changed from being just purely about, you know, cranking out code or finding mistakes or, you know, writing out test plans to being, everybody talks together. You know, in the offices where you have a fair Indigenous component the atmosphere, the collegiality, the sharing together just really changed overnight almost. And so, I would say that everybody involved has benefited. They’ve learned how to work in technology in some cases. They learned how to work with different groups of people and respect all cultures. We’re about a third Indigenous, about third of us are also other visible minorities. And then, we’re over 40% women. So there’s a just tremendous spread. So we are whatever, you know, the ESG or diversity and inclusion, that’s what we are and I wouldn’t have – I was surprised how much everybody in the company has enjoyed this experience.
Mike Hrycyk (18:18):
No, and I agree completely. Our first class of graduates graduated the week after I started. And I didn’t know anything about it before that happened. And it just has changed the way I view juniors. It’s changed the way I train people. It’s changed the way we look at diversity. It’s changed the way that you handle individual cases. And I have learned so much more than – I mean, I grew up in northern small town British Columbia with reserves all around me, and I’ve learned thousands times more about Indigenous people and their communities at this company than I ever did when I was growing up. And that’s just absolutely fabulous. The next question we have here is for people who are looking to do this, they’re at a non-Indigenous company, and there are executives, and looking to this, what advice can you guys give those executives to figure out their path down reconciliation? Whether it’s ownership or, or anything else? Alright let’s start with you this time. Keith
Keith McIntosh (19:07):
Start. The only piece of advice I have is start. It seems big, it seems daunting. Take a step. People are people. People are willing to work. Nobody expects – and Ron can answer on this too, but my feeling is I’ve talked to First Nations leaders all across the country. Nobody expects somebody that didn’t grow up in that community, grow up in that environment, to get everything right. But if you’re honest and willing to try and willing to come part way and start, then that’s all you need to do. So patience and perseverance, and understanding are important, but the first thing you have to do is start doing it. Stick your hand out and shake hands.
Ron Hyggen (19:45):
Yeah, I agree. It always begins with start. And to me, that was actually reading the Calls to Action, going through them, and understanding what we could do as a group of companies to support. Of course, all of our profits go back to Lac La Ronge Indian Band. So we know that money does what it needs to do in the community for certain calls to action. As a business, we’re focused on 92. And same thing in our partners such as PLATO. Yeah. Obviously the first step is to understand where you fit, what can you do. Small things like your vendors, is there anywhere you can make sure that you’re encouraging Indigenous folks to work with your company?
Mike Hrycyk (20:21):
Great. Keith, is PLATO still looking for further Indigenous investment?
Keith McIntosh (20:25):
Oh yes. We you know, are. Kitsaki, as Ron said, they are too. We’re working together to bring in more because there’s need and desire to participate all across the country. We’re having some conversations with a First Nation here on the East Coast. We’re looking at all the way across the country. So absolutely we are. There’s room for everybody at the table. I think what you’re gonna ask, well what’s the future of PLATO? You know, PLATO, we’re a testing company now. We do test software. We test, you know, anything to do with testing and quality. We do. But there are all kinds of other places in technology where there are opportunities. As I’ve said many times, Mike to you and others, the idea from PQA and PLATO came from the call center idea of Frank McKenna’s in New Brunswick. Bringing opportunity. Looking for niches where you can train people enough to get them in the door of specific training and then have them grow in those jobs to create careers. So it doesn’t have to just be testing, it could be call centers or it could be like service desks, it could be data management, it could be programming. Eventually it will be programming and website design, and content management. There’s lots of growth. There’s lots of opportunities. So we’re absolutely looking for more. And, it’s not one – a lot of times people are looking for, I want to own 51% of something. And that’s not – we can have 10 people owning 10% each, or 20 people owning 5% each. And it’s just that much of a bigger opportunity for everybody. I started this with a – I don’t know, I think I started my five year retirement plan about 10 years ago. And this keeps dragging out. But at some point as I do look to retire, I hope that, ideally it’s entirely Indigenous-owned at that point.
If you remember, Mike, when we had PQA, and we started PLATO, and we said, well, what’s the exit plan? Success would be that PLATO would grow enough to – you know, PQA was the mother company and nurtured it and wrapped her arms around it and grew PLATO. But success would be when PLATO was big enough to buy PQA. Well, that happened. PLATO became the big company. PLATO became the reason that the company existed. So that in January this year, PQA and PLATO merged together. Well that’s step one. But step two is having enough honest interest and not just economic interest from groups like Kitsaki, but capacity building and understanding that they want to be part of something that builds capacity in the communities all across the country. If I can walk out the door in a few year’s time where there’s enough investment to take it all, then that will be fine.
Mike Hrycyk (22:40):
That sounds great to me. And I’m going to get your side of what’s next in a second Ron. Something that you’ve said, and we’ve said before, and this is a point that I like that maybe I can get you to speak to Ron, is we talk about spreading the ownership across the country into more different places. I think one of the falsities that happens in Canada is if it’s Indigenous, it’s just Indigenous and, it’s not the same. Indigenous people are a diverse group. And when you’re looking for ownership, having diversity across the country brings more opinions, more understanding of needs and more understanding of the people. Can you speak to that Ron?
Ron Hyggen (23:12):
Yeah. And as you’re kind of walking through that, Mike, it makes me think of how Kitsaki started because, yeah, we had a few partnerships in the beginning and that really grew out into much larger partnerships. Our first one was based on trucking. It was with a major trucking company firm across the country and now international and, us as Kitsaki. We formed a new partnership, a new company. We were 51-49. And over time today, we have 11 minority partners that are all First Nations included in that partnership. So again, we’re regionally based, but 7 of our 11 companies have partners other than us. And, it’s a model that’s been used everywhere. But if you really want to have full inclusion and understanding across the province or country that’s how I see the best way to do it. Cause again, it’s not our model to walk out and take on other territories, right? I like to make sure we respect the areas we work in and talk to every Indigenous group out there that might have interest in this. Because I think that’s the nice thing about it again, is strategically Kitsaki went into this partnership knowing we would be willing to trade off some of our shares when the right partners come to the table and are interested in joining. Again, not a lot of groups, I don’t think, would be doing that, you know? Okay, now I’m part of a major corporation. We’re loving it. Let’s hold onto to what we have. Well, that’s not our model. We want more inclusion because the real impact is including everyone across the country.
Mike Hrycyk (24:35):
Alright, so wrapping up, we already got the wrap-up question from Keith where you told us what was next for PLATO, but, Ron, what’s next for Kitsaki in the tech world?
Ron Hyggen (24:43):
Well, we continue to look. So we do have two tech focused companies currently in our portfolio. And we continue to look in that area. So never-ending expansion it seems in the world. And with new technologies emerging, we’re continuing to look. So for now, I mean, as a director of PLATO, my focus will be always supporting and making sure I have the best interests of our group first. But if we can, of course, roll in other areas that we work in currently. So, we’re working with a lot of folks across Saskatchewan and Canada already. If we can roll those into what we do currently, that’d be awesome.
Mike Hrycyk (25:17):
Great. And if you generate any opportunities, we can help with –
Keith McIntosh (25:20):
<Laugh>. Well that’s interesting you say that Mike, cause they already are. You know, it’s interesting that one of the companies that Kitsaki owns is Athabasca Catering, Ron, is that right?
Ron Hyggen (25:28):
Yeah, that’s right.
Keith McIntosh (25:29):
And Athabasca Catering is part of the future aircraft training program bid. Which is a huge technology play. So, you know, all the companies, we’re part of the Kitsaki group of companies, and we sit at the table, and we hear everything that they’re doing. There’s lots of crossover. Every opportunity has technology in it somewhere. And there are lots of ways to crossover and grow each other. You know, Optek being another one. We see opportunities for help desk, service desks sort of work. Essentially reselling of hardware in Ottawa and whatnot. If we can bring in Kitsaki companies along with us, that’s another piece of growth. So I think you can probably tell for this conversation that Ron and I, and I’ll speak for Ron, I think we’re both quite happy to be working together. And that’s part of the secret of, you know, having a successful partnership with this is you have to appreciate and respect the other groups’ desires and what they’re trying to accomplish. You know, we’ve been looking for the right partner for quite a number of years and, Raven is our other major investor and they’ve been wonderful to partner with too, cause our vision, our goal is aligned with each other’s and we’re really pleased to be part of the Kitsaki group and to have them on board.
Mike Hrycyk (26:33):
Thank you. Any final words from you, Ron?
Ron Hyggen (26:35):
No, I just to echo what Keith said is we’re also happy to be part of PLATO. We do believe in the model. We believe in what you do. And to me, it’s a little different when large companies say one thing, it’s often you don’t get that same result when it actually comes to, you know, rubber hitting the road. Keith and PLATO, the whole team, stepped up and we immediately got to work on setting up the first course from Prince Albert. So instantly, once we joined <laugh>, we started marching forward, right? And to me, action speaks more than words. So very appreciative of that. And again, I think we align really well, and I think we now, together, have a really good vision for the future of PLATO.
Mike Hrycyk (27:14):
Well, thank you both. Thank you both for coming. So I would like to thank our panel for joining us for this really great discussion about PLATO and its journey to Indigenous ownership. And thank you to our listeners for tuning in. I think that we’ve learned a lot. If you have any questions following up, reach out to myself, reach out through our channels, reach out directly to Keith if you can find that path. If you have anything you’d like to add to our conversation, we’d love to hear your feedback, comments, and questions. You can find us @PLATO Testing on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook or on our website PLATOtech.com. You can find links to all of our social media and website in the episode description. And if anyone else out there wants to join in on one of our podcast chats or has a topic they’d like us to address, please reach out. If you’re enjoying our conversations about everything software testing and more, we’d love it if you could rate and review PLATO Panel Talks on whatever platform you’re listening on. Thank you again for listening, and we’ll talk to you again next time.