May 30, 2024 AZBSN Digital Aceess Task Force Recording

4:23PM May 31, 2024

Speakers:

Steve Peters

Ilana Lowery

Mark Goldstein

Mala Muralidharan

Michelle Simon

Kirk Busch

Vaughn Croft

Dario Solis

Brenna Leasor

Bill D'Agostino

Kelly Mukherjee

David Mclevain

Keywords:

asu

working

dario

opportunities

packaging

broadband

side

program

acp

people

arizona

support

technology

kelly

put

semiconductor

capabilities

innovation

digital inclusion

ntia

Okay. Okay, we are now recording the meeting. Welcome, everybody. Glad to see you again. Have a couple of quick things. First of all, do we have anybody new joining us this morning? You might be new joining us this morning. I take that to be a no. Okay. So one quick thing, I am going to have to end the meeting earlier today at nine o'clock, the new White House Whitehouse cyber director is going to be here at the Pima College at 10 o'clock. And that's like halfway across the city for me. And so I don't want to be late for that meeting. So I do need to get out of here by nine o'clock. So I just wanted to let you know that it's kind of a big thing. For him to be here. He's going to be they're going to be talking about they have actually a panel of several people. You know, most of you know Ryan Murray with Homeland Security and, and several other people are going to be on a panel. So it's going to be a big deal. And so they're going to be talking about the cyber workforce, both here in Tucson, Arizona, as well as workforce and cyber ecosystem. So it's going to be pretty cool meeting. And I didn't want to didn't want to miss it. I said on their IT advisory committee so. So that so that was the first thing. Secondly, I want to remind you, if you haven't, that I do send links in the newsletter all the time, to please fill out our Google form. So that I have your contact information, your phone numbers, email, and all of that sort of stuff. It just makes it easier, first of all, to share information about who's participating, and secondly, to be able to connect with you. So that's that. So moving on, quickly. I don't know Do we have anybody from the Broadband office? I know Aaron couldn't be here. I think most of them are traveling today. So I don't think we have anybody from the Broadband office here this morning. But a couple of quick things. I got a note from Aaron that they have submitted the state capacity grant to NTIA. So that's done and on its way. Secondly, they are having a June Community Roundtable webinar, Tuesday, June the 18th, from three to 4pm. And again, I want to remind you that a lot of the stuff that gets announced at these meetings is in my newsletter. So times links, contacts, most of that stuff should be in my newsletter, if you want to follow up. And I know people do also put stuff in the in the chat, and that's fine. So the next thing is the subgrantee application process that the Office of Broadband office is developing their sub grantee application process. And they are if you are interested in applying for funding, there is a form that you can complete. The form does not require you to do anything if you're not if you're not sure. But you think you're going to be interested in applying for a grant, you can fill out that form. And they're just trying to get an idea right now of what organizations may be interested in, in, in excuse me in applying for those funds. So it doesn't commit you to anything at this point. They're just trying to get an idea of what's what's happening. And then I don't know what to call where you want line. I don't think so. And Drew are Judy, Judy here. Brenda, are any of you online? This morning?

Hey, Steven here. This is Brandon. Oh, good

product. So can you give us her latest update? Last night last night I saw is not looking great for ACP again. But can you quit a quickie update? Please? Yeah,

honestly, not much of an update. Since Congress is out on recess this week. The last week?

Could you introduce yourself real quickly, please? Yeah, no, of course.

Brenda Lee. Sir. I'm the tech Policy Council with common sense focusing on AI or Broadband and AI and cyber and things as well. But yeah, on the ACP front, there isn't a ton. Isn't Much of an update, especially since last week, Congress is out this week. So we've heard that Senator Cantwell may be willing to bring forth some sort of ACV proposal next week or the week of June 11. That's gonna be tonight. I think there might be some movement on that front. But so far, not really any changes. For the past couple of weeks, there's been quite a few proposals put out by different members of Congress. And we don't really see a strong path forward at this moment for most of them, except for the potential inclusion of funding for ACP and Senator Cantwell spectrum bill, although that's been pulled from markup a few times now. I'm so unsure if that'll, that'll stay on any upcoming markups. And then, Senator Luhan, his proposal for a national ICP funding and we there actually were two additional Senate co sponsors added I think, in the past week to that, though, so I think they're at maybe six or seven Republican co sponsors. I know they're looking to get 10. So we'll have to see, see what that what transpired with that in but otherwise, not a lot of updates, obviously. either today or tomorrow, 31st. It's going to be the last day it is easy. So we'll continue advocating as well, for different, potentially or just a separate job. Low, low income subsidized program, but not sure about the future, basically. I don't know.

Okay, yeah. Thank you, Brown. Oh, do you want to add anything?

Well, I put some stuff in the chat for folks. Just sort of like where we're at, as of now from the report from a couple of things that NTIA sent out if anybody wants to look at Senator Liu, Hans bill, it's there's a link in the chat. But yeah, Brenda, Brenda gave a good update, there's really not a lot of good news. And just, you know, there's still some hope. But anyway, you look at it, there's going to be a gap and we're going to be kind of right back to square one. If even if anything good happens, we're going to have to sort of start over with getting people enrolled and all of that. So yeah, there are, there are resources that I can share, Steve, if anybody wants some for their, for their community, like, you know, talking about low cost plans, and a couple of other things that are available on the Connect Arizona site, if people are interested in putting something together for their communities.

Okay, okay, good. Thanks. Anything else? Yes.

Sorry. One other one other point about ATP, just for argument's awareness. So like politically, the current issue with ACP, since it is a very generally very bipartisan, bicameral. ACP has a lot of support, either through its the current program requirements or even just making modifications, but continuing the program, essentially, the the disagreements, or I guess the holdup, comes down to currently right now that they obviously need Republican support in the Senate side for both House and Senate side for ACP are enough to make sure that it can pass on the floor. And there's a holdup between leadership wanting to put the the bill forth to allow a vote, and making sure that there's enough people sign up ahead of time. So people don't want to sign on as official co sponsors until the bill is going to move forward. But then they don't want to move the bill forward until there's enough co sponsors. So kinda between a rock and a hard place. I

thought it was looking a little more positive for a while there was a lot of people signing on. And then, of course, well, I won't make any more comments about Congress.

Yeah, it's, there's, there's a lot of support. There has been some, I think some of the, the issues as of late has come out around the CBO scoring the most popular legislation and not with the revenue generating measures not generating as much money as anticipated. So like, they could renew the program, but there wouldn't necessarily be a enough revenue to cover what they wanted to do to extend it is at a high level.

Okay, thanks. So Brana anybody have anything else I want to say about ACP at the moment? I will mention and then hopefully we'll have him on the program. I'm here in the next week or so, but T Mobile, many of you probably know has project 10 million. That's providing no cost tablets and iPads, free hotspots and internet. And the application is due on June the 17th. So it's first providing that support for schools, and maybe schools and libraries. And so if any of you are interested, I put the contact information in my newsletter, and again, that the submission date, the final submission date is June the 17th. So it's coming up fairly quickly. Okay, anything else? So So moving on quickly, first of all, she dropped off early last week, but just wanted to say congratulations to our Arizona Rockstar, if I'm at VeriSign, you, Michelle, Michelle Simon with the the Pima County's Office of Digital Inclusion, and she is the executive director. And she was invited. Well, I'm gonna let you tell the story. Michelle, you're funny. Thank

you for the congratulations. I appreciate it. On May the 15th, well, basically, I was invited by NTIA to highlight our fiber optic, our middle mile, Broadband fiber optic ring project in Pima County, as part of infrastructure week, in May, our projects along with one from Alaska, and one of the tribal nations were highlighted. And it was really a great opportunity to really showcase what we're doing in Arizona and Pima County and how we're working together to really make inroads into the part of Digital Inclusion. That is difficult the infrastructure piece. And so I was really excited about it. I appreciate the time, but to say something about it, and I appreciate it. Congratulations. In the chat. I put the link to the slide deck and the webinar if you're interested in seeing what NTIA is funding in the way of projects.

Right, thank you. Thank you, Michelle, you'd be getting all kinds of acknowledgement for the work you've been doing down here. In Pima County. It's pretty awesome stuff. Um, so a couple of other quick things. And I want to get to the program. So we have plenty of time for that. On June 26, there's a workforce outreach Summit. Vaughn, I don't think you're on the call are you? too, but there's going to be building southern Arizona's workforce talent pipeline from nine to 130. Here in Tucson, again, that information is in my newsletter, if you're interested in attending. And then I think it's the last thing is that I got a note from the site Tech Institute, that they've teamed up with pipeline AC, and the Center for the future of Arizona to bring our state a Department of Labor grant to develop or expand out of school time programs, workforce development and support services. If you're interested in applying for those funds, you need to contact Dr. Jeremy lavender, who is the Executive Director of the site Tech Institute. And I put her His contact information is on the site. And again, it's also in my in my email. So are there any other announcements, important things coming up before we get into our programs? One last thing I'm sorry. So one last thing I have mentioned, I'm working on trying to put together this Pam, two panels. One is for talking about municipal networks, and actually meeting with some folks again tomorrow morning to figure out what that's going to look like. But basically, we're going to want to talk about what is the municipal network? What's the mob different models, pros and cons and roles of providers, and so forth. And so, I'm not sure what this is going to look like yet. Whether we'll do a just a regular ACBS meeting. It might be an extended meeting, or it might be a separate, separate event. Because the 4545 Minute panel is just not going to be an I'm trying to cover everything. So that's that. So moving on, let's just jump into our program this morning. I'm pleased to well welcome. And of course, he's been attending pretty regularly. Dr. Dario, solace, Business Development Director for innovation technology partnerships at the IRA, a Fulton schools of engineering. And he's doing amazing stuff he's going to tell you about many years ago coming up today, he's doing a lot of international work and so forth. So with that, Dario, I'm going to shut up and turn it over to you. Do you need to share anything? Yeah,

I would like to share some slides. And of course, as always, I have more than I can cover in the time that we have available this morning. However, I would like to use the material so that I can follow a sequence or the one second, this side over here. Okay, sure. Can you see that window? Yep. All right. So I'm going to leave it in that mode, so that I can go to the left and choose exactly what I would like to share with you guys. Of course, there is a lot going on. And I would like you to use me as a source in case anything that I say today is of interest. And you see an opportunity for collaboration or for us to pay attention to something we are missing. I named it technology innovation, federal grant opportunities and global workforce accelerator because you know, of course, the talent, the times that we're living today in these micro electronics and semiconductor manufacturing, in our area here in Arizona, and so globally, with the partners that we have here, which are the top two companies in the world. That's why it's important to mention that. So before I go too far, I would like to just welcome Kelly Mukherjee from ASU and we had a great visit yesterday, we have zoom, because what I do at ASU mostly is a kind of write the main program because we have all kinds of sub routines running all the time. And Kelly's gonna join me at the end, and Phil asked me to share some of the work that she's doing. And Kelly and I are gonna be working together. So I cannot employ the capabilities that we are developing at the photo schools of engineering with the platform that they have been put in place. So you will hear from Kelly in a few minutes. The other the other observation I wanted, I wanted to make was that we have these wonderful website, which is in microelectronics at ASU. And the reason why I think it's important because all these topics I'm going to be discussing today, they changed so fast that that none of my slides are up to date, none of them, I wouldn't have to spend significant amount of time to update them. But if you go here we have the recent one, the infrastructure, workforce development, the Industry Council, the swamp and other news so please say that microelectronics.asu.edu So that you can get the the greatest and latest. Last week we talked about technologies and I had a chance to visit to bring one of our Ian tvip champions in in we did a complete review of the dreamscape learn capabilities and also how we are going to apply them to workforce development research, operations, design, etc. Working together with with this important company so I would love we would need a whole presentation just work dreamscape learn and perhaps we can have a tour of the facilities if you instead of meeting anyone I would like to come to ASU we could take a morning or an afternoon and so you can experience it yourselves. You know you can you have to put the accolades every time we do a presentation but of course you know, you know that are ready. Similarly the School of Engineering, largest school in the country, growing every day, growing amount of research and responsibility of our leadership in leading national programs. In particular, I'm referring to the ones in microelectronics and semiconductor because it's the one that is growing so fast right now, but there are other programs as well that are growing a at the same time. So there are some numbers here in terms of research and number of schools. In the previous slide, we showed the School of Integrated engineering which is the one on the west campus. We have the school manufacturing system segment works that we're building a brand new buildings going to be ready for 2025. And it's going to be a beautiful building that is going to be able to do very advanced academic training and research and also colocation with industry. So it's going to be kind of a place that you can see the equipment running, we're going to even have a small cleanroom there to do some of the semiconductor manufacturing, teaching and experimentation, as well. And then the goals. And this thing is, I have kind of a wheel that I use to show how, how things are improving and accelerating in a fashion that it was almost unbelievable. In the past, for example, you know, we in the last two years, we have hired about 200 faculty, very talented faculty aligned with the needs and the growing opportunities in the state and the nation and the world. We are attracting talent. Very, very, very good students. And also we are serving underserved regions and communities and they are succeeding, we're doing better research. And and that's something that is the matrix aspect by themselves. By the the cells, we have these academic programs that keep on evolving. And that's the nature of ASU that we keep on trying to grow the programs that are needed, a funding has gone so that my doctor has a kind of a goal of having $1 billion of research expense expenditures per year. And I think we're close to 900 million or something like that. So funding is increasing facilities. We're building facilities like crazy, not only manufacturing systems and networks, but our micro technology works facility for semiconductor manufacturing. And then we have this industry, collaborate, very close Industry Collaboration, it exploded after Arizona State University was awarded the hub, the advanced prototyping hub that we have one of eight hops in the United States. And we have more than 150 companies working together with ECU to deliver a capability that is unique in the United States, and that will help support economic development here in Arizona. So the model for that. As you can imagine, these micro electronics systems are everywhere. So even though you could have students at ASU looking at, at these very small nano nano systems in which they are designing and building these computing and graphical processing units, and, and memory chips, and all kinds of stuff, there is a lot of societal needs that are affected or impacted by those innovations. And then on the left side, and this is a slide we put together two years ago when we were talking about the regional innovation engine, supported by microelectronics, and you have all kinds of applications on the societal needs. And we always need to make sure to start from there. How is this going to impact positively and in sustainability in jobs, in healthcare, in transportation, housing, so there is huge amount of opportunities that we need to pay attention, and then technologies, all kinds of technologies. And if we could give you an update on every single technology you see, and what is it that we are doing what the students are doing in AI and machine learning and supply chain, smart cities, 5g, I mean, there's all kinds of things and then the economic growth potential, you know, they're thinking by 2030 is gonna grow to be around $1 trillion. And what we're trying to do is to pay attention to opportunities for new businesses, and for all business businesses to grow so that they can generate more more jobs and better and wellbeing for everybody. In terms of the outcomes of all these research, we we get inputs from existing ideas for

me, Dario Shereka, is that you? That's that were no. No, it's either. Oh,

I was hearing somebody talk about that. So they were agreeing with me. So, So anyhow, the this model, the research, development, demonstration, and deployment, covers all kinds of opportunities. And we have activities, we have centers, we have schools that are supporting all those levels, like for example, the science and technology centers with Arizona for work. It's an opportunity for small companies to come from the ideas have some funding to match their own resources and and test some of their, their their products or technologies that they want to commercialize. And then and there there is levels, like for example, Applied Materials 200 million plus investment in the from materials to fabrication. And that is something that could cover from basic research to actual prototype and etc. The same thing with the hub from the laboratory, app technologies, etc. So, so we have for everybody, there is an entry point. And we can see how these advances in the different areas can help go to innovation, commercialization and entrepreneurship. So social impact and talent. If we miss it, then we analyze what what what are the challenges that remain so that we can continue with that. In case of the training and education, of course, we are targeting to use advanced technologies. And that's why I mentioned dreamscape at the beginning, because there is so much content being created, so many experiences being created, facilities been expanded. And then there is a lot of opportunities for new jobs. But instead of just waiting for students to graduate and apply for a job, etc, we are trying to collapse that connected connection with with industry and governments so that we understand what we require men are and connect them with a total pool of people that are available to take advantage of the opportunity. So we take for example, it last week, I mentioned something along the lines of working with Intel. So we understand really well what their needs are, and then take that information all the way to when we do boot camps. And we go to high schools and explain to them what those opportunities are. In between we have several, several, several levels, of course training and education, even though it's drawn as the same size as the other ones. It includes a bunch of different things. I mean, and I don't have time to go over the whole thing. But the idea is to engage the the the engage the learners, recruit them, and the difference between engagement and recruitment is engaged means more get their attention and allow them to understand what the opportunities are. But recruitment is when they start deciding what their pathways are training education is clear certifications, normal BSMS, PhD level, et cetera, and then please, cement is okay, what are the jobs that are available for you, once you complete your training and education and hiring is the is the is a component that we would like to have more capability on. So that so that they don't they don't waste too much time in insecurity in those those positions. So one, one example that I wanted to give to you is that of what we were discussing a year or so ago in terms of technology, and then the K to 12 system. Because I have been talking to you about dreamscape, I've been talking to you about all these different virtual reality augmented reality techniques. And then but of course, if we don't have connectivity, and access and sustainability, to make sure that these communities have have the actual Broadband access, etc, then they cannot take advantage of that. So that is an important component. We have people at issue of course, I work with school districts directly. And not all school districts are added at the same level. Some of them are very, very just getting connected. Some of them are the typical group of them as the two what I call here is the three set ones that are the most advanced, there is a lot of peer to peer learning opportunities, and a lot of data assessment. So on the right side all the way to the right, you see this program assessment that that allow us to learn how people are learning with the tools, what is it that they are lacking? How can we help them write a improve? And then we send that that information back to connectivity, for example, in terms of technology, what kinds of technologies are being developed, working with the companies and this program that we are dealing with? In Arizona right now. It's, it's a, it's a beautiful opportunity for us to help with that. On the technology. In the middle, we see the technology in the middle because it's a feed forward to the application and uses the technology but also it feeds backward into how to think about the right scenarios to implement so that not only we can have the learners achieve their goals, but also think about entrepreneurship and innovation, what kinds of jobs you can generate with that. So this is just an example for you to think about how how we can bring people into into this conversation how we can Introduce new technologies, how we can have people learn from each other, and then how we can make sure that all these capabilities used by the community. So obviously, it's not just semiconductors in we were mentioning that a global opportunity. And I could give you a very quick update on the opportunity that we have with Panama. I just came back from Panama, of course, we also work with Costa Rica and countries that you see here. We are, we're a global outreach and extended education, we have a whole team that dedicated, is dedicated to that, with respect to Panama, they were included by the Department of State in a list of number of countries that they would like them to try to help the United States bring back some of the capability that we lost in the last 2030 years for advanced for assembly, testing and packaging of semiconductors. And then they have a supportive a scholarship program to send about 100 students in the last in the next four years, to come to ASU because we have such a colocation of all these opportunities in the semiconductor semiconductor area that having a student come here from a country that is thinking about developing an ecosystem like this, it's like it's like a miracle that they are going to be able to have internships to actually see these things. And then they go back 20, every two years back, 2040 6080, etc. And they are going to become the actual leader technical leaders in their country to take advantage of these opportunities. I have I have, of course, a other other important programs that we are we're doing and and we have the event in April with Pat Gelsinger, Michael Crow, and they are in conversations about how to fully take advantage of all the all the all the growth in the region, and then how to how to make sure that this gap that we're anticipating on the amount of of talent and in the in the right areas, is reduced to almost nothing. So But anyhow, I have touched on several of the important things. Of course, we don't have a lot of time, and I want to make sure that Kelly has some time to talk about what what she's doing. In terms of the research side, there is one huge opportunity on the packaging side. And ASU in particular is becoming a leader in packaging, which differentiates Arizona because of course Intel is invested in packaging here. And we have a su increasing packaging capabilities. And then we have this workforce development program that is connected directly at the most advanced level and also at the most tactical level for technicians and high school students. So anyhow, I think I I'll stop here on semiconductor packaging,

code design modeling for advanced packaging, micro electronic packaging.

Model, are you asking a question? Sorry, sorry, I'm not. I'm sorry. Okay.

Yeah. And yeah, and, you know, we can talk about any of this stuff, but because it sounds, it sounds, you know, some people don't some of the packaging is but we'll go into this future in which we have this different chiplets are different, dissimilar chips that are connected into a substrate. And that creates a huge amount of opportunity for innovation. And having the right capabilities here to look into that, and to support the community is, is, as you know, this is very, very expensive equipment that normally is inside the companies. But the companies cannot wait until they are inside the company to learn. They're trying to see how much we can do. And that's what the federal funding opportunities are important. So, So anyhow, like I said, I would like to work to make sure that that we know that we have a constant consultation with industry, we have a huge ecosystem that is interacting with us at this time. We are trying to be aligned with your opportunities with the leading companies in this area of great growth. And because of that we want to feed into this virtuous cycle of growth and innovation in the area. Yes, sir.

This is Kirk Busch The Big Data southwest. Another thing that a packaging issue which is which is huge when it talks to being a value to the entire ecosystem for decades, we'd make wafers here, ship them over to Southie Stasia for packaging. Not only did Intel build that state of the art packaging facility right on rural road a bunch of years ago, they've just now brought fab nine back online and Albuquerque, Rio Rancho. You guys are doing the chiplet thing. And what's chiplets says, imagine a lot of different computer chips all in one package. That's what that means. So now we're using semiconductor processing to enable the packaging process, which makes even more power in one device that then gets put on a bowl. Amcor has a $2 billion investment going on. And all they do is packaging in Peoria next to the TSMC plant. And they'll packets for all chip manufacturers, which there again, brings all eyes back to Arizona will actually be packaging chips here in chiplets, where the wafers come from all over the world, including Global Foundries in New York. Just a little sidebar on the packaging side of things. That's

That's fantastic Kirk and having the support from our prime materials, having the support from Intel from TSMC, in this area of great opportunity for innovation and having a zoo growing in that direction. It's something that we should we should be proud of. And we should support it and make sure that everybody knows about it so kids can visualize it prior to them getting to the age that they have to pick what they're going to study. Yeah,

it's just awesome to see for an old, old Motorola chip guy like me. Absolutely. Awesome.

So Dario, do you have more stuff to share? Or should we stop sharing so we can see everybody? Yeah,

I would like to stop staring. And then and then we can, if you don't mind, make sure that Kelly can can participate.

Steve, I got a short question for him. Okay, my Leonardo electronics here in the Tucson area. Is that a company that does some things we use a few.

What company a Leonardo electronics?

So a couple of you're familiar with? I'm not testing you. I'm just curious. No.

Well, you know what, I don't have 150. I probably know 60 of them. But I can't. But if you send me a note, I'll make sure to update you on where we are. We're working with them. Yeah,

we're just trying to learn a little bit more about this whole movements going on with the chips, etc.

Glad to GLAD glad to work with you on that. Well, you're

very helpful. Thank you. So Dario, how is the Well, I obviously you're in the thick of working on workforce development, particularly for Intel and TSMC. I know there was a slowdown for a while with TSMC, because they couldn't find the the people they needed, both for building the plant as well as being able to operate. I guess related to that is do you know, offhand how much money we're getting from the chips act? Here in Arizona? I think you guys might be getting some money, Intel is getting money. I'm not sure how TSMC

Yeah, it's a significant amount. Because if you look at what TSMC gathered around six point some billion and Intel 8.5 billion plus plus the loans that they got, I would say that it goes beyond $20 billion, just just from the support from the chips act. And then for workforce development, each company got about $50 million, which is not just for Arizona. But you may imagine that because of our colocation and our current relationship with them, we are expected to be able to support them at the highest level possible.

dirt up can you also speak to the connection between that and what's also going on with National Science Foundation and the quantum computing connection? And how that's also funding and helping drive some of this ecosystem? Yeah,

we have a whole team working on the quantum computing and establishing the right relationships because even though some people see it that something's going to happen far into the future. There are some results that have been demonstrated for hybrid computing that uses partly a the quantum computing and partly the traditional way of doing the computation. So ASU is leading an effort along those lines and it's got a good, healthy group of companies are working with us. And what I can do is provide you with more information i The National Science Foundation has been generating all kinds of opportunities, and we are trying to respond to each one of them. So, but to your question exactly on on where we are, I would have to get back to you with more details.

What? Give Kelly a little time Dario just one thing? I don't know, I haven't seen anything recently, but I believe the College of optical Sciences at the U of A had been working on quantum computing. Do you guys partner with them at all? Absolutely.

The optical side? And yes, the answer is yes to that. And not only that, but in several other things. So I think we have we have good connections. And I have somewhere in there, that we have connections with the community colleges, and also the universities. But in particular university, Arizona has been a partner in that optical side of the of the equation, and also in in quantum computing, because they have a whole center on that. So I'll, I'll send you some information on that the quantum side, and you'll see where the other universities are, that are playing

a college of optical Sciences at the U of M is one of the top colleges of optical sciences in the country. Absolutely

good resource to have in the in the state of Arizona.

Kelly, you want to share some stuff with us, please? Thanks, Steve.

And good morning everyone. My name is Kelly Mukherjee from Asus enterprise technology. Derya. Thank you for sharing the space and time with me. I'm the director of our Broadband and Digital Inclusion programs. And I have the pleasure of working with our CIO love Gornick, who has over 30 years of experience in Broadband and Digital Inclusion. Namely, he's been well known for his work in Ohio, Cleveland, Ohio. Here I'm here to talk to you about the work we've been doing in the past couple of years, called the Maricopa County Broadband initiative. Maricopa County has been very generous to partner with us and give us some federal grant money for us to then partner with some quarter network and the Digital Equity Institute in order to really expand Broadband infrastructure and then do digital skills building digital navigation support, device provisioning. And then I get to lead a team that does Broadband mapping. And so in this capacity, I've been able to make friends with people like Michelle Simon and so that Maricopa County and Pima County can work together as one. We've also released a web portal in the past year called as one happy to maybe put up a little visual so you all can see and maybe get a QR code in case you'd like to. So here's a slide that just shows our relationships Maricopa County as our sponsor, Arizona State University running the program and grant management, Broadband mapping work suncourt Our network in charge of the Broadband infrastructure expansion, and then Digital Equity Institute, working on the human side of things as Erin Carterton likes to put it. Let's see. And as I said last year, we produced a web portal called as one it spelled AZ dashed one to look like a highway sign. Just as a reminder that our connectivity in the state of Arizona needs to connect to all parts of the state, much like our highway system does to connect us all together. So in case you aren't familiar with as one we welcome you to come and check us out. Here is the website. But here's also a QR code. If it's easier, I'm happy to also send out a link in the chat after afterwards. And happy to answer any questions. We're so fortunate here at ASU to have such a large organization, enterprise technology, which I belong to has about 800 employees. So if I ever have a question on needing help, I can tap the 800 employees. And if I can't find answers within enterprise technology, I can reach out to buddies like Dario. And you know, the over 18,000 staff we have at ASU to get some answers and partner and figure out the best ways to help our community. And now in my current capacity, it's such a joy to now connect with all of you on a community partner level. Working with Common Sense Media, I mean, working with Pima County, working with the State Library working with the ACA now and Steve, thank you for setting up this platform for us all to come together as one as well. So thanks.

Thank you, Kelly, and appreciate that you're participating with us. Okay, can you stop sharing please let me know Okay, so Dario, Kelly, anybody have anything else that they want to? Do either of you have any more that you want to share?

You know what Michelle had a great question for Dario. So since we still have some more time. Yeah. Would you like to ask your question directly? So you can get Darius answer?

Oh, absolutely. I just put in a, you know, which engineering pathway is the most appropriate for like Brian, BAM communications engineer? Yeah,

no, that's an excellent question. A Broadband, as you know, the electrical engineers and have a lot to contribute to software engineering has a lot to contribute. But there is also the computing people, the AI and machine learning are playing a role. Communications Technologies are divided in several school programs. The good thing is that students from different programs can have access to the different courses. And we could send you some information about the different pathways that exist, either between those individual courses, because there is more than communication protocols, there is also have to look at the computing side and hold on to it look at the tools that you can run, and also the different applications for latency, etc. So the normal ones electrical, you know, software engineering, and computer engineering, they play a role, but then you go to the infrastructure side, and the structural side also demands other other other pathways.

Right? Well, that's what we're we lack a lot of capacity in the construction management of a fiber optic project. Right, understanding what is required. And putting those two things together, right facilities and Broadband and telecommunications together. It

that's an excellent point. And one thing that we're creating in the construction management and civil engineering, sustainable engineering at ASU is a consortium of companies for these advanced technologies, facilities and, and deployments. So that because it is not business as usual, it is advanced technologies, communication, technologies, computing, data serving, manufacturing, so so that that group is going to shape the pathways for the students so that they can be certified are these areas that we are lacking talent and capabilities?

Great. If you have information about that in the future? I'm very interested. Thank you.

Hey, hey, Michelle. It's like a segue. Dario has been involved too, in some of the workforce development efforts we've been doing in a data center space, because we have the same issue, right? It's so broad amongst the engineering disciplines, both on the construction side, project management side nit, and the and the and a technical side that we've the data center industry is kind of coalesced and foremost thing called az datacenter.org. We're meeting tomorrow and launching the website for AZ data center dot Oregon, az workforce.org. The workforce efforts are going to be primarily to mission critical construction, both in data centers and telecom. We're going to be merged in at 10 marks on here somewhere, I hope our chairman of the era that okay that the Arizona Technology information Council will also be a big contributor to that to try to do just that. And that's bring more work force. Eyes, if you will, on telecom and data centers. Because we are very unique, right? We go across all those disciplines, we got to dig trenches to latest fiber to so there's all the mission critical construction issues, and Dario has been involved in helping us with, you know, develop programs on the data center workforce development side.

So, because I do need in this meeting pretty quickly. So first of all, Dario, thank you for being here today. And participating regularly with us. Here in Felton, so many amazing, amazing climate vanes. That's pretty phenomenal. So appreciate you participating with us.

We're having Thank you for having me. And I'll send you a list of resources. That includes some of the slides I used, and also some of the links so that you can you can use that to, to see if you can get some answers. Yeah. And

so the second thing is just quickly, Bill, the Augustino. Put John, on the spot real quickly, Bill, because you're involved in a lot of what Michelle was asking about, if I'm not mistaken in terms of workforce development. So can you just take a couple minutes again, we don't have much time but just quickly. Yeah,

sadly, I just joined I had another call that ran way over. So I caught the tail and I'm an advisor with the wireless infrastructure. Share Association WA. And we have an extensive workforce development program for the industry. We have training courses, we have over 250 companies that our members of the association that do all of the things that I'm sure you just discussed in terms of construction management and engineering, etc. So I have further information on that, that I can share and some links I can send out as well, that might be helpful. And if there are other groups that I should join, I'm happy to do that as well. Right.

And we're going to feature bill at a future meeting to talk more about the training program that they've got. So thank you, Bill for being here. David McElveen, McIlvain my pronouncing that correctly. Can you introduce yourself quickly?

Oh, yes. My name is David McKelvey and I'm here with the Fort McDowell yep, I play a nation. I was asked to get information to do a feasibility study abroad bed. And I'm just here to listen and catch up. Great,

thank you. Well, you're more than welcome. I'm going to add you to our email list. And you're welcome to attend any and all of our meetings to talk with you and talk with you some more. So one last thing is next week, there's a big step conference, that's going to be here in Tucson, and we've mentioned it earlier. And so I know that a number of our people, I know Mala was saying she's going to be there. Aaron's going to be there, and a bunch of other folks, or any a lot of you other people planning to attend that conference too. I'm just debating whether we should meet next week. But it sounds like it may not be a big issue. So I think we'll probably go ahead and meet next week. So anything else for the good of the order? If not, I believe we are done for today. And we'll see you all next week. And I'll try and get my newsletter out here fairly soon.

Okay, guys, thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Steve.

Yep. Oh, there's Mark. Mark. I didn't know you were online.

Yep, a bit late to the game today. But I've been here for a while. Okay,

I didn't see you didn't see you. I could have had you speak. But anyway, I gotta go. So thank you all. And we'll see you David. We'll definitely get you added and look forward to your participation in the future. Okay,