September 5, 2024 AZBSN Digital Access Task ForceRecording

9:43PM Sep 5, 2024

Speakers:

Steve Peters

Ilana Lowery

Erin Lorandos

Shereka Jackson

Mala Muralidharan

Bryan Carter

Ash Black

Anthony Constantini

Amelia De Jesus

Gordon Fuller

Randy Luening

Gina Cooper Benjamin

Ash

Brian Miller

Keywords:

gina

arizona

inclusion

ash

digital

work

ai

conference

artificial intelligence

people

technology

steve

hotspots

community

conversations

folks

organization

call

students

created

Hey, good morning, everybody. Glad to see you all here already, bright and early. So I want to get started because we have, I was telling people who were on here earlier that every once in a while, those of you have been been attending meetings, every once in a while, I get a little carried away with get excited about some things that you need to hear about. So want to make sure we have plenty of time to cover those things. But first of all, as we always do, is there anybody who's new to us today that would like to just say hello and introduce themselves

to Caroline, I think you've been here before. You want to tell us who you are, please.

Okay, maybe not. Okay. Amelia, we haven't seen you in a long time. Hi there. Sorry.

It took me a while to get off my mute.

No problem. Glad to see you. Same here. Okay,

alrighty. Well, let's just jump into it again. We got a lot, lot to cover today, so I'm very excited about about the agenda this morning. So just a couple of quick reminders that. So first of all, as you know that people do put things in the chat. And two things, you can download the chat after the meeting, and I also do send out the chat when I provide the updates of the meeting. But if you're interested in doing that right away, you can go to chat at the very top, there's three ellipses, three dots. If you click on that, you can download the chat to your computer, so you'll have all that information and links and all immediately. So I wanted to mention that secondly is, I think you all probably know by now that I am going on vacation next week. I'll be gone from the 11th through the 28th and so I've decided, rather than trying to do meetings every week, that we're having this meeting today and then on the 19th, and then not until October. So I just wanted to remind you about that, unless something comes up. I wasn't quite sure about whether I was going to have decent internet, that it looks like where we're going to be on the 19th I should have fairly decent internet to be able to do to do a meeting. So anyway, I just wanted to to remind you about that I will be checking my email and phone if you need me. Just Be advised that it may be if you try to call me, unless you want to use WhatsApp, that it may be a long distance call. So with that, going to just jump right into quick updates. Erin and Kelly, you guys have any updates from the broadband office? Please?

No, I think we're good for today. Not much has changed. Folks should still be watching the website for the project area maps to be released, likely by the middle of this month. I don't have an exact date for you on that. Otherwise, definitely keep your eyes on upcoming engagements on our website and feel free to reach out with any questions, and I'll drop our contact information in the chat. Thanks. So

Erin, not to put you on the spot here, but do you have any idea of the latest plans on who the lead entities might be, who are applying for the competitive grant?

Oh, well, I mean, I've shared this with this group, I think, before, since we're not eligible to apply, really, our role in the competitive grants from ACA is just, you know, sharing information out and having that, that spreadsheet available for folks to connect. I haven't been told, you know, definitively, from any group that they're planning to apply necessarily. I really hope there are a lot of people that are considering because that's an amazing opportunity for us here in Arizona, but I don't have an idea of for sures at this point. I think we'll probably find out. You know, once they've applied, you know, people will start sharing that information with us.

Okay, thanks, Kelly, do you have anything? Any updates? Anything's happening in the next few weeks?

She may have stepped away for a quick phone call with Sam deep so I would just, on her behalf, remind folks of the engagement calendar on the website, and I'll drop a link to that momentarily. Okay.

Thank you. Erin. Has Nicole joined us? Or not? I. Okay? And Beth Neely, are you on? Okay? So a couple of quick things. So as I mentioned, I get carried away every once in a while with agendas, and so I want to just jump right into our presentations or discussions this morning. And I'm very pleased to welcome Gina Cooper Benjamin, who is the Deputy Director with NDIA, the National Digital Inclusion Alliance. As you probably all may know by now that on May 20 through 22 that the NDIA net Inclusion Conference will be at the Gila River Indian Community here in Arizona, and we do have a planning committee. There's several people on this group, Elena and Aaron and myself, and and others, Mala, I think, and and others who are participating in planning that conference. And we recently had a planning meeting, and Gina was leading that. And Gina, I hope you're feeling better. Your allergies are in check by now. But anyway, so Gina was leading that. And I said, Hey, Gina, maybe ought to come and talk to us at our meeting this week. So anyway, please to introduce Gina and turn it over to her to kind of give us an update on the plan. It's very exciting that we're having this national this national conference. Big Deal conference. I know that several people on this call have have attended that conference in

Sorry about that. Okay, so anyway, so we're very excited that Gina is here this morning to kind of give us an update. And even though we do have our planning committee that if you have any thoughts or suggestions about what what that conference should look like, now is a good time to give provide some of that input. So with the with that, Gina, I'm going to turn it over to you. I'm going to stop sharing. Actually, I don't know if you have anything to share or not.

I do not see how many minutes, by the way. Sorry, I should ask. How many minutes do I have?

Whatever you need? Okay,

I will not, I will not talk the entire time. I promise. Hi everyone. My name is Gina. I am located in Boston, Massachusetts. I work for ndia. As Steve pointed out, I'm the Deputy Director and also lead of net inclusion. And so before I get into net inclusion, I don't know that everyone here is familiar with NDIA, so I'll just spend a few minutes talking a little bit more about what the NDIA does and who we are and the important digital equity and digital equity and digital inclusion work that we do so NDIA advances digital equity by supporting community programs and equipping policymakers to act. I always like to tell people that that first part of it by supporting community programs is we bring we bring community members together for learning, educating in fellowship to celebrate for lots of reasons, in different ways, and that is, we have community calls. We have a fairly robust listserv, so not like normal listservs or not a normal listserv, it's a very informative and practical listserv where that people go, they ask a question, and in real time, you get answers, and it's there are really robust conversations happening there. We have tools and resources that we share with community members across the country, and we are able to do so much of this great work is because we are very much in tune with the folk, the work happening on the ground, and the folks doing that work, including yourselves. So we so that's one part of the work we do. The next part is we have when we say we're we're coping policy makers to act. We are often in conversations with policymakers or other policy or other advocates across the country about about digital equity. And what we do is we bring our community members along to share their own voices and share their own unique community situations. But sometimes it's three hours before some a White House conversation, and Angela's just like, I need, like, I need, I need to talk about this specific thing, and we're able to speak for you in those cases, so that you so that your voices are heard by way of ndia. So we're really in tune with both on the ground work and then what's happening at at the at all levels of government, including the federal level, level of government. So that's a little bit more about ndia. Does anyone have any questions about NDIA before I get into that inclusion? You can raise your hand, I think if you raise your hand, I'll be able to see it. Or you can pop or you pop a question in the chat.

I just want to say one thing, Gina, which I should have said earlier. Many of the people on this call probably know about NDIA, but you probably are the premier organization here in the country, maybe even internationally, who are leading the charge in digital equity. So really appreciate all the great work you do. Thank

you, Steve, and so for those of you, so now I'll just talk about that inclusion. So when I say, we bring will, will do okay. So I'm getting, I'm reading some of the things in the chat, and so yes, yes to everything I'm seeing, but I'll do that after so I'm not multiply tasking too much the other so every year that NDA has an annual conference. It's called net inclusion. It's a premier Digital Inclusion Conference in the country. I don't just say that because I work for ndia. It is it is facts. And so we are in a different location every year. Last in 2024 we were in Philadelphia. Last year in 2023 I think we were in San Antonio. I've been here since 2021 and we were, for a period, we were doing a virtual conference. So even when during the pandemic, NDIA had this conference, they pivoted to a virtual format. And now we're back in person. So that was Portland, San Antonio, Philadelphia, and now we're going to be in super excited about this Gila River Indian Community. So this is and so this, this location selection is important. So as much as we're celebrating digital equity and digital inclusion, this location has a deeper meaning to ndia. So NDIA has done very has worked in partnership with other, with with other with, sorry, I'm trying not to mix my words up here, with commute, with communities doing digital inclusion work across Indian country, across the country. So we are really excited to be you know, to this is a part of India's commitment to working with tribal communities in Indian country and uplifting their work in, you know, in respecting their inherent sovereignty, including their digital sovereignty. So all of that important work that is happening in Indian country, this is a time to uplift it. So Halo River Indian Community, Indian community that it, we selected this location very intentionally to uplift the amazing work happening happening across Indian country. Net inclusion is going to be at Wild Horse pass. I don't know how many people, I don't know how many of you have been there. I have not been there yet, but I hope to get there before net inclusion. But we'll see. I've seen all of the photos. I have team members who have been there. Apparently it is the most majestic place that one can, one can hope to go. So it's going to be a lot of learning, a lot of fun and a lot of resortiness. Oh, apparently there's this big, beautiful pool, and yeah, I'm like, Oh, wow. I don't know. I'm just like, I'm concerned that people are going to be more interested in doing resort stuff than doing conference stuff. But, you know, I think we'll keep people's attention long enough, and so there will be 1300 attendees. And so just to put this into a little bit of perspective for you, when I started at NDIA in 2021 I think we had, I think our first in person conference was about 800 attendees. And I think that was Portland, Oregon, right? And so in a few short years, we are at 1300 conference attendees. In fact, we would probably have more attendees, but we base this on how many people we can fit in a ballroom. So if we could fit more than 1300 people in a ballroom for lunch and plenaries and networking and fellowship, then we would, but we can only fit that many. So that's just to show like that's not just a testament to NDIA work. That's testament to all of our work, like we have done such great work that there are now 1300 people that want to that want to be in community with one another once a year at this amazing conference, some of the types of attendees so everyone from state to local and municipal governments. We have planning agencies who attend nonprofits of all sizes. So a lot of the folks on the ground who are doing the work big tech. So we have like, we have Dell there. Dell is going to be in attendance providers. So Comcast has been a huge supporter and partnership partner. NDIA, but other, but other in other communities, Comcast has been a partner school systems, healthcare systems, federal agencies and all of like intersecting interests with digital equity and digital inclusion. So we actually, so last year we had some housing authorities, so library systems, lots of folks across the board, who are doing this work, who you will be interested in meeting and learning from and sharing what you know with, will be there. So that's like, kind of a profile of the types of attendees. What we talk about is a range of things. So when we talk about digital inclusion, sometimes we talk about a digital inclusion pathway, and is as the way we get to digital equity, that's true. So we will be talking a lot about broadband affordability and adoption. We'll talk a lot about accessible devices. We'll talk a lot about digital skills, and we'll talk a lot about digital navigators and that technical assistance piece. But there are other topics that come up that you know people that we continue to bring back, because people continue like to strongly advocate for them. So we have been doing racial we have been we have been integrating racial equity conversations into the conference and so around racial equity, inclusion and belonging, accessibility is really big. So this is, this is accessible technology, devices, how we build technology, how we build web pages, how we're how we are being intentional about making everything accessible to those in the end, within the disability plus community and yeah. And so those are some of the topics. There are lots of other topics. Sometimes we have topics based on geography. So last year, I moderated a panel on on what, what the work being done digital equity, work being done in black, in the black rural South, which is very like niche topic. And so we were able to find four amazing community members who have a specialty in that area. And they were able to talk specifically about the black rural South, which was amazing. And I'll also and what it's like to navigate conversations, these conversations in in different communities. Because, you know, I say digital equity, equity loosely, but I actually should have asked you, Steve, I don't know that Arizona is a state that uses that word, so I apologize.

Okay, okay, digital

equity? Yes, we use those terms all the time.

Okay, great. Okay, so states don't even use the word equity so at all. So, you know, just like having those conversations, how do we get this work done when we're all saying using one term, and everyone else is in my state won't let me say that word at all. So, you know, a lot of hard conversations. Fortunately for me, I am i i have a lot of help internally at NDIA to make sure this conference happens. And then an amazing group of group of folks locally. We call them a local planning team, some of whom are on this conversation. So I saw, I saw Steve is here, and then Elena's here, and I can't see everyone else, but I Elena said hi to me. So I know Elena's here. And so just a group of wonderful local planning team folks who are helping to organize some parts aspects of the conference and for and for as the local planning team, the really important parts are the things that I sitting in Boston, Massachusetts, will not know. So please help me out to get this right, you know. So it's the things around. How do we how do we create a inclusive cultural experience for everyone? How are we recognizing, how are we recognizing local communities when we are in a new space, and then we're going to do things like site tours. What sites do we hit up? I really love this part of the conference. We do this, this thing called diner rounds, where, in local communities, we are uplifting, like eateries, which is always fun. So where are we suggesting people go to eat? Dining rounds, cultures, site tour visits, sponsorships. They are helping me to kind of figure that out. One of the things that people don't know about net inclusion, that I am always very transparent with, is that net Inc, we get net inclusion is a conference that NDIA produces lovingly, we do not make any money off of net inclusion. So sponsorships are important. It helps with things like technology, AV on site, and then, if we can offer scholarships to folks, we want to offer scholarships. So it go. Sponsorships go a long way at net inclusion. And also, for those of you who have planned conferences before, I did not know this about conferences until I came to NDIA, even though I had planned events, conference food, for some reason cost so much money, so much money, and that sucks up a lot of the budget for this conference. So that's like, that's kind of like the high level net include. Inclusion. I'm sure you guys have questions, I'm happy to answer your questions. If you have ideas or thoughts, I'm happy to do that as well. I will be I will be cautious. I'm going to tread lightly around idea ideating. At this point that inclusion is like a big conference, and we want to make sure that we want to hear input, and so I also we, sometimes we make decisions, and input is we hear your input and we use it, and sometimes I hear your input and we're not able to use it. So I just want to be careful about thought out about that. So

Gina, one thing I want to pick up on was you mentioned sponsorships. So they are looking for sponsorships. And I know we've got a number of organizations who are both local Arizona as well as nationally. And so I don't know Gina is the sponsorship package available yet, talking about it at the planning meeting the other day, but

it is. I sorry. I thought I had pulled up the link, but the link is not up on my computer. I do have the link up. I'm gonna, this is not what you asked for, necessarily, but I'm gonna put the link for the net inclusion.

I just did that. Gina, perfect. Thank

you so much. So it's amazing to have, like, some helpers here somewhere. Here, I have some of the links up, but I'm just, like, getting to them and copying and paste them is hard. Okay, and then okay, and so, what other questions do people have?

So let me just finish. Gina about the sponsorship. I will be sending the links and information so that you can find the information on how to become the sponsor for the conference.

Thank you so much, Steve. I really appreciate that.

Okay, questions, comments, thoughts about what you'd like to see at the conference.

Also, I probably talked really fast, so if you would like for me to clarify anything I said, because I don't, I don't want to take them all the time, then let me know, because I'm happy to do that.

You know, you have no enthusiasm about this,

like, my favorite work I do at ndia. So there's, like, probably a two to three month window where I'm not working on that inclusion, sometimes not even, like, this year, I didn't get that window at all. I would been working on that inclusion since the last net inclusion ended. It is so fun,

questions, comments, input for Gina

Steve, I think the only thing that we would want, but nobody can make it happen, is cool weather in May. So we can all wish and hope, but we all know Arizona May is going to be a little toasty.

I was literally just talking to someone about this in in she was just like, Gina, I get it because when you're putting on a conference, you have to like in order to get the like the best deals, you kind of have to go where the like, the seasons dictate that. That's another thing I'm learning at ndia. So we were in Philadelphia in February, and everyone's just like, why February it was so cold. And then we're in Arizona in May, and everyone's just like, it's going to be so hot. So I'm actually putting together a net inclusion blog post now in which I'm going to, like, make everyone aware of that kind of specific thing, because I think it's, I think I want people to bring, like, bring the right clothing. Please do not overheat at the conference. Bring your water bottles. Bring everything. Because I want,

well, hydrate before you get here. Don't hydrate once you're here, because if you try to hydrate once you're already here, you're behind the curve. Okay, so you have, they have to start hydrating at least three, four days before they even get here, to be hydrated while they're here.

Okay,

and Gina, isn't it in Chicago the following year, in February, it is.

So that's what I'm saying. It's like, that's where we got the best deal. So, yeah, I guess you guys could expect a little bit more of that in the following years.

So just FYI Gina did put her email, and I will also be sending that out to follow up with the meeting.

Hey, if I could ask a quick question. Gordon, yeah,

go ahead. Gordon,

Hi, Gina. I just wanted to ask is, is there anyone working on spatial computing for augmented reality applications, where one places the beacons and technologies in the environment as nodes and helps to propagate spatial computing information.

I don't think so. Do you? Is there an idea there, or is there like, what's going like, yeah,

yeah. It's just that simply. Direct to the home is great, but filling in the blanks we need to have the capability of using mobile to facilitate access. And then, from the standpoint of accessibility, one of the things that's really missing for people with disabilities is information about accessibility. Where do you find it. Where's the ramp? Where do I who do I call if the courthouse is locked and and I need to get access to an elevator or ramp, those kinds of things. And so with spatial computing, we know where you are with the environment. And with that, we can, we can provide extension among the digital signals are signals that give spatial data for for resolving your your position. And so it's kind of an extension of the broadband into the realm of the fabrics of Spatial Mapping.

Okay, it's, this is a very new car I know, I know augmented reality, like I've heard I've talked about that, can you schedule some time to talk to me, or can you send me an email? And I can, and I can, we can have a deeper conversation, because I it's not something I've heard of. Like last year we had, which is not the same. We had an AI bot provided by Dell, but this sounds very different, and so I would like to have a conversation. If that's okay.

Would be delighted. Let's do it Okay, so just

send me an email and happy to talk.

So much so Gina, the person who was speaking, and I know he, I don't think he minds if I tell people that he's blind. And so he's very, obviously, we've had lots of discussions about that. And so keep would be, actually, I'll send you his contact would be, I think, a good addition to our planning committee.

Okay, definitely love that. Can you send that to me? Steve, yeah,

he actually has a very extensive background in technology development and so forth, but not to mention that he's has great understanding about the needs of the disabled community.

Excellent.

Okay, anybody have anything else for Gina? Okay, if not, if not. Thank you, Gina.

I'm gonna hang around just for a minute so I'm not spying on you or anything. I'm actually I want to make sure I address everything in the comments before I head out. And so I'll be here for a minute. I'll be listening, but I'm not, you know, I'm not a spot. We're not

doing anything secret, so, except that you have to have a secret decoder ring.

Thank you for having me,

you bet. Well, thank you for being here. We really appreciate it. So next up on the agenda is quick. Are you still here? Ash? Where are you?

Oh, yeah, yeah. So I think Brian. Brian was up first. I

think, well, I'm going to put you next, and then we'll leave more time for Brian. So I'm glad to welcome ash. And I believe Bryan also is on, has been participating with you, but we're welcome. Glad to welcome ash Black. He's been busy, busy, busy with a great new project. And so ash, you want to confess a quick update on you know what you're doing and the summer internship program that you did. Yeah,

for sure. I'll try to try to keep brief and touch on some of the highlights. So my name is Ash black. I'm with the Institute for computation and data enabled insight at the University of Arizona, and specifically been spending the last eight months or so building a program called the AI core. Ai Corps is a student workforce development program that takes an experiential learning startup Silicon Valley style approach to knocking out projects and sort of wielding new technology. I think we're all pretty aware of the incredible investment that's going into artificial intelligence and the extreme potential the technology. Our approach is to work hands on, day in and day out with with young students who have, frankly, native skills. The young people are just good with technology, and this experiential learning method gets them going really fast. So let me show you a few things that happened this week. I mean, this summer and and, and I'll try to frame it in the context of a couple of the comments I've seen. And, you know, keep keep it relevant interesting. First of all, we did have a large group. So I will show you the the team photo first. So this is how we how we. Ended at the end. So you can see a lot of a lot of students there formed a real fun company culture and produced a lot of artificial intelligence, for example. To start, let me show you a couple things that would be here. Yeah. Okay, so we brought them in and gave everybody a sort of crash course in GPT development. Gpts are the way that we customize the large language models like open AI's, chatgpt and Claude anthropic in order to do specialized things. So we were really proud that we had about a dozen of these created, a Dungeons and Dragons bot was created, a cooking assistant bot was created, a study advisor, a maze maker, a Pokemon bot. These are all demonstrations of basic chat bot development skills, which are, frankly, I think, pretty valuable for most businesses. That's a lot of where AI is at right now. It's like, how can I get a chat bot right? So we've got a lot of students who understand how to do that, because they were able to learn a little modicum of web API programming and some of the technology underneath it, but they're able, again, like I said, pick it up really fast. They so I'm really we're really proud of that. We also exposed them to generative AI, so they created this artwork, and they could do that now in their jobs, the once we, once we had the that sort of foundations, which took about three or four weeks, we just launched into straight project based learning. So I'll show you a couple things that came out of that a caller, I didn't catch your name, but just a minute ago, you were asking about spatial computing, and I wanted to share that. Let me switch tabs here real quick. This is sort of a showcase of some of our creations this this week, these are a rundown of our projects, and I'll show you, in particular, a video that we put up of the retail lab. So what you're seeing behind me is a digital twin, virtual reality reconstruction of a mock storefront. That is. It's actually a physical space on campus. It looks a lot like this VR, so we're really proud of what they were able to do, and they've populated it with with all of the objects that are in the physical space. It's now in the process of being synchronized with the actual cameras and sensing equipment that is in the testing physical space so that we can create virtual reality and artificial intelligence leveraged understandings and models of what's going on inside the retail space. So we're kind of pushing the envelope of retail science by bringing in artificial intelligence. If you take a look here, you'll notice behind me. There's a there's a player character standing behind him. His name is Andre. He should come up here in a minute. Andre there is in the background. Andre is a human non player character that's powered by an AI. So when you're in this virtual reality environment, you can actually talk to this person. They can follow you around. They can comment on what you're looking at. They can help you check out and things like that. So it's pretty wild, and there's a huge growth opportunity for us, and I think just for the whole economy, in this intersection between spatial computing and artificial intelligence, that's one of the main essential focus foci that we have in at ba core moving forward, as well as other technologies. But in particular, this blending of spatial reality with language models that can sense and comment on their environment seems to be really, really, really cool. Moving along, we did another project that we're carrying forward. It looks a little strange. This hand floating in space. It's a little a little dystopian. But what it is is it's, it's a another virtual reality model that is being populated in real time from a generative AI that's been trained to produce skin pathologies in a nursing environment. So we haven't connected it to a whole, a whole body. But the idea is that that soon, you know, training in nursing will be involved being in an immersive virtual reality environment, which is, of course, much cheaper to produce than an actual, you know, staged environment, physical environment, wherein they are able to interact with pretty highly realistic renditions of human beings that have different like skin cancers or tumors, or maybe it's not a tumor, it's just, you know, some kind of growth, and all of that's being produced through artificial intelligence and mapped in real time onto the skin textures. So that's a example of sort of the research potential of it. You know, another one that I don't have a image of at the moment is. Is a really neat project we're doing with the Pima County Visitor Center, which is to create mixed reality experiences of the Pima Air and Space Museum. So basically, what we've done is we've modeled an airplane and attached to it an AI that understands the nuts and bolts. Like, when did the service panel get changed out? Oh, 1972 you know, like that. Because people who go to the Air and Space Museum, they people really like that stuff, you know, like it get really into like, you know, how many service hours would have? What happened on its third mission? What happened on his 15th mission? Who was the pilot? All of that perfectly suited for artificial intelligence, because AI doesn't get tired, and it doesn't forget that kind of detail stuff. So we're building that out this year. So this is just a little taste of some of the things that we discovered how to do moving along. I don't have images to share with you, but real briefly, just for anybody on the call who's fascinated or interested in this, we also explored quite a bit over the summer.

Excuse me, if I can interrupt you for just a minute. Looks like Dean is going to bug out here. So I just wanted to say, Gina, first of all, thank you. And secondly, is that I think that what he's talking about has some real implications for digital inclusion and looking at not only teaching people the skills, but also how do we use these technologies for digital inclusion and whole new ways that we haven't really understood yet.

If I could jump in real quick. Gordon Fuller, again, this is an opportunity to promote an idea. I must say it is simply that it's the killer app, the idea of digital inclusion, but sometimes a little hard to explain to people, and in weird states where they're hateful about it, you know, hard, but the idea of equity really embraces the idea of accessibility, which is overlapping on all relationships to digital inclusion, and accessibility is the killer that can use market driven forces to build out the rest of this, because the money is a little short for getting everybody but with facial computing technology overlaid as part of the community infrastructure, you have a killer app, and there's $15,000 per retail Location tax credits, which is $10,000 deducted from your state or federal tax and $5,000 check from the federal government from going ahead and turning your store, as we see here, into an accessible virtual reality environment. And if you're a wheelchair user, knowing where the ramps are, and if you're a blind user, finding the products and having someone to answer questions and having AI behind it, guiding you, what a technology. Thank you.

Thanks. Thanks. Gordon,

yeah, for sure. Gordon, um,

steel ash, Ash, if I can also say that so you have another role as the director of AI and industry. So when you're ready to get to that, you might want to talk about how that syncs with, of course, what Gordon was just talking about and so forth. So anyway, I'm sorry to have interrupted, but I wanted to thank Gina before she took off.

Sure, yeah, no, I'll just wrap up. It's good, yeah. So the role that Steve's alluding to is that I direct the AI and industry programming, the student engagement or student workforce development effort, is the primary vehicle for that, right? Because the vision is to is to produce workforce that can power the economy that can power innovation in Arizona. So we're really keen to get this, these students out working with state government, with with industry and local partners across Arizona, with these AI skills, just skipping ahead to the to the big picture, and then that's all I've got is, is the you talk about the Gordon you mentioned about the how valuable spatial computing would be. And I think, I think you mean that in the context of all of this broadband that's coming in. And I very much share that vision. That's that's the reason why I enjoy this group, you know, tactically, is because I do see a future in which we have fantastic services and a new reality to explore. I know it's a little bit scary. The world is scary. There's nothing we can do about it. This. It's moving really, really fast, but there is a tremendous opportunity and and I think it's inevitable that we will, we will engage in a digitally mediated universe. We're already doing it with our smartphones. Spatial computing makes it like in ways, better adapted to Homo sapiens, because we can look around in all directions, not just a little tiny postage stamp sized phone, you know. So I think these things are good, but, but for sure that what we can do with the bandwidth. And then I would add one thing other to one other thing to it, which I think might be part of everybody, Nicole, which is that the very. Nature of artificial intelligence is that these language models are kind of running away with the features at the moment, and they're getting bigger and bigger and bigger. They're also very, very expensive. So the idea of there being some kind of Arizona chat GPT, it's, it's just like, we're not, we're not, we don't think we're gonna be able to do that. What we think we can do is run very large open source foundation models, depending on how the law breaks out, which would allow us to build, certainly at the university, but then more broadly across Arizona, we'd be able to build artificial intelligence services that are private and that are oriented towards the needs of our communities, and, most importantly, informed by the intelligence in our communities, right? So it's not just like a chatgpt vision of the world. It's much more localized. The university is working to do that, and that's another fantastic expectation to or that's something we can get excited about in terms of the broadband it's coming in, is the ability to push out and pull data from our environment and bring this spatial computer, this spatial environment that Gordon is alluding to, like imbue it with life or with intelligence, not life, but with intelligence. So that's kind of like the vision. It's a vision, and we're piling ahead as fast as we can, and we're doing it mostly with the energy of our students, who are able to put a lot of hours in solve problems really quickly. And of course, they're they're super excited, because for them, it's like the whole new world is opening up. So that's a little taste of it. I'm happy. I'll put my contact info in the chat. I'm happy to to discuss we are scaling up and and still working on developing the ability to take talent out of the university and place it into the workforce. The AI moves fast, but I can tell you that the institutions don't. So I need, I need help, and I need, you know, a little bit of patience with that. But we do have talent, and they're, you know, they're being recruited out. So I'd like, if you want to talk about that, that's good. And then finally, we really enjoy speaking. So I like to show up and talk about artificial intelligence and its impacts. And we bring the students and let them talk. And, you know, people really like that. So if your organization wants to know more about rag databases or vector embeddings or just, you know, where's this going, or how can we use it, or is it going to take over the world, all those kinds of conversations, I would recommend the AI corps speaking. We'll come out and talk. And it's really nice to hear from young people who are like, living and breathing this stuff

Ash Could you stop sharing please? Yeah, sure.

So. So one of the other people that I'd like to put on the spot. Here is our good friend Bryan Carter, who many of you know, Bryan is a partner with this project with ash. And so Brian, can I put you on the spot? And have you kind of just say a few things, particularly, as you mentioned in the chat that you're working with spatial computing. And actually, if you guys could define what that means, because I'm guessing that a lot of people don't know what spatial computing is.

Sure. Thanks, Steve, and I was just about to pop off because I have another meeting, but briefly I couldn't have said it better than ash. I've worked with ash for a number of years, and we're actually currently teaching a vertically integrated projects course together this fall, along with another colleague of ours, Matt Briggs, Ash is an amazing resource here on campus, and the idea of creating these digital twins, which will allow us To do spatial computing and drop in holograms or avatars or other forms of interactivity is really what what he and his his team specialize in, we work with digital scanning and and here at the center and assisting with with those kinds of digital twinnings are amazing when you think about all of the applications that can come out of that. We heard a couple of them today, right? And I think that that's only the tip of the iceberg. When you think about how you can, how you don't have to, you no longer have to be fully immersed in an environment. That environment can now come out to your your real world space, and you're able to to interact with the real world along with virtual objects within that and within your real space in some very interactive ways. And as ash said, it's not going anywhere. So we might as well embrace it. Teach our communities how to leverage these technologies in order to make an impact, not only their communities, but also in their lives, their families lives, but also to really understand the impact that these technologies are having on the rest of the world. And I think that's just a whole conversation that not only are ash and his students very cognizant of, but also here at the Center for Digital Humanities, where we're really in tune with with underserved groups and communities and and really looking at. How often these technologies tend to bypass those communities, and how this technology really does give us an opportunity to to be very inclusive with regards to how these communities may be positively impacted.

So this, all this technology, new technology, I think, has waste, my opinion, has great opportunity for digital inclusion. And we've had some sort of general conversations by Brian Nash about the about that, but we have never really sat down and said, Okay, now what and how can we best use this here in Arizona, with all the digital inclusion things that are happening?

I yeah, great job, Ash. And we can't wait to see the students produce this this particular fall semester. And for those of you that are in town in Tucson, please come by the Dunbar pavilion. Ash's students will ultimately be involved in that as well, but my students here at the Center have already done some grand openings at our Dunbar pavilion, which is basically the where the the NTIA grant is being implemented in some meaningful way. So stop on by the hours there are nine till four daily, and then every other weekend. And so the other the coordinator there can give you more information, and it's a really, really interesting space.

Great. Thanks, Brian, always good to see you. Do want to take a minute and just talk about the Arizona Technology Council has an AI, and we've talked about this before, but can you just take a couple of minutes? We do have a lot of new people about the Arizona Technology Council AI Task Force, or whatever they call it. Are you still there? Ash, oh, there he is. Can't hear you.

I think he'll take a pass on that, because I've just not been concentrating on it for the last he put me on the spot. Like, I don't want to like, sorry, I want to make, I do want to add one comment, though, to what Ryan was saying about how actually you said, Steve, that there's a huge opportunity for inclusion, for like, a new inclusivity, or equity in terms of the technology. But that's because it's relatively, relatively inexpensive to like, give everybody the new tool. But what has to happen as well is the kind of work that, frankly, Brian's doing, and that's why I love working with it, which is to to empower people to understand how to express and manifest their vision of community in this new technology. I mean, it's not going to be that big of a deal. It's not going to help anything, if it just becomes another form of entertainment that's just fed to you, right? That's that's like that, that won't change things. There has to be also a sense of command or mastery, or or or understanding that the that the new digital reality is, is a medium that's created by humans with with machine, machine help, but it's created by humans. I just want to make that plug that it's a two way, it's a two way solution, and I'm happy to keep looking forward to, you know, tackling this as the years go by with, you know, groups like this. But it will take, it will take a lift.

Great. It's good to see you. Thanks for joining us last giving us a last minute update here. Just talked to ash yesterday about this, so appreciate your being prepared to present this morning. Okay, so moving on. Let's see. So we do have one more presentation this morning with Brian Miller and Brian, I want to turn it over to you. Do you have anything that you need to share?

Yes, I do, if I may, you bet.

So remove spotlight. That's what I want. There we go. Oh, there he is. Oh, there you go.

There we go. Okay, hey everybody. I'm Brian Miller. I will have probably half of the enthusiasm of Gina and a quarter of the coolness of ash. And Brian, my work is much more tactical and supportive in the digital equity role nationally. And I spoke to Steve a couple weeks ago and said, you know, we're doing this work here on my side in the broadband world, and just wanted to connect to folks in the digital equity spaces nationally to share what we're doing. So Steve, thanks for having us, and I appreciate your time and willingness to fit us into the schedule in a in a short time frame. So let's see here Brian Miller and a little bit about me. 25 years in healthcare, actually, so healthcare technology, and then the last 10 in nonprofits. So that's me and my world, and then I came to nonprofit and technology with digital equity. A Mobile Beacon. So we're an organization providing broadband to anchor institutions across the country. We like to get together a lot, and there's a picture of us having a semi annual outing a little bit about our history. So we started in 2010 and the goal is really to provide reliable internet access to folks around the country. We're the second largest educational broadband solution provider in the US. We're an extension through this national American educational programming Catholic educational programming Foundation, which we call Nasif. We're a nonprofit. So we are nonprofits, and nonprofits across all 50 states. We're located in Rhode Island, in the ocean state. And really the goal, again, is providing equal educational and digital opportunities to all Americans. So how we do this really simply, it's through hotspots, iPads and routers, and that depends on the solutions at the organizations that you'll use it and a little bit about this history. So we've worked with 15,000 nonprofits in the country, 2500 libraries and 2500 schools, and then about 170 healthcare organizations. So as telehealth really ramped up, we were late to the game, and they actually hired me in 2023 to bring this to healthcare organizations and telehealth, remote patient monitoring. So a little bit more on that, we've donated 150,000 devices through a couple partners, which I'll talk about, 3600 hotspots and laptops through grants, 9.2 million worth of equipment donated and helping over 2 million Americans. That guy's email. I want to show you something. Okay, so then a little bit about our network. Here we are national. As I mentioned, I want to send to you. We've done this through T Mobile. So our partner is T Mobile right now, and the way we've done this is we have our own we have proprietary rights to spectrum across that too. In this case, excuse me,

I've mentioned the community anchor institution, and our service is 5g for 10, the the business value here, and we're national coverage across all 50s houses. Councilman in Arizona. You can see the coverage a little bit more closely here. And admittedly, our coverage in Arizona is one of them, the you know, they're intermittent places that you'll find it. If you look at Northern Arizona, I just wanted to highlight the the two tribes, the the tribe on the left and then the tribe on the right. We've got much better coverage at the Navajo nation through ours and our partner networks. And then, as we look at the folks that we're helping in Arizona right now, 18 schools, 400 and some devices, 18 libraries that are different than schools, about 650 devices. And then nonprofits, so about 1400 devices in Arizona overall, across 150 organizations, and some examples of these folks are here. So when we think about the folks providing Internet solutions to those needing it in Arizona, these are the folks that we have active accounts with right now who are providing either hotspots or have tablets or routers in their organization. So in education, it's really about focusing on getting the Internet to people in a way that's that's valuable. The primary one, of course, is helping students get access to the internet when they're not at school, meeting the Common Core State Standards initiative, low cost backup. So we've got a lot of schools that actually buy these solutions as a backup solution. In case the internet is down or in low spot areas, it's an accessible solution, and then as they're outside of the building, they're able to go ahead and use hotspots. In the case of libraries, we piloted the library lending program. That's the Providence Public Library. There we pilot it with them, and the concept is just like borrowing a book or the in their lending bag of things they can lend, they lend out the internet the same way that they would lend out a book. We work with about 1700 libraries. And if you noticed in my list of accounts before. For in Arizona, many of them, we have many libraries in Arizona. Nice quote. So then in healthcare, this is really allowing organizations to pivot and spend time caring the ways in which we support that is through telehealth initiatives, facility connectivity, for especially small organizations, remote patient monitoring devices and remote employees. So when employees are on the road, going from organization to organization and a team, they can be working while they're traveling, it's a big win. And in healthcare, this is a nurse that's explained how they were able to help their patient. They could not afford health care, actually, so they gave them telehealth monitoring devices. And then in the world of nonprofits, this is pretty simple, too. One of the places that I find this most often used, especially in small nonprofits, is they'll buy a router and they'll connect, and it's 5g unlimited service, so they're able to power their organization for $10 a month, as opposed to 100 or more, let's say field based staff, as I mentioned. So signing up volunteers, backup solutions and a hotspot for free internet access for your community, and then lending solutions, as we mentioned. So this is all very much the same. The applications align based upon the organization. So some of the partnerships we have are TechSoup, digital wish and ocean is our local regional education network, and we're regional technical partner with them. I'll talk about these partnerships now in the case of three more. So we've got Connect for success as a program, we offer Wi Fi lending grant, and then Bridging the Gap our three others, in the case of TechSoup, who gets it is 501 c3, organizations. How it helps is $10 a month internet service, of course. And then these are what you get. So you can get up to 11 devices, of a, 4g 11 of a 5g and five discounted tablets. And you can bulk order if you'd like, and then with digital wish. This is aimed at schools, of course, universities, academic libraries. It's $10 a month internet service. And there's the the product offering. You can get up to 15, 4g and 12 5g with the Connect for success donation program, students at local communities with digital equities are able to get it. You get one year of free internet, plus hardware needed to complete your homework assignments and so forth. And schools up to 25 laptops they'll get in devices with free, mobile, high speed internet for the first 12 months with the Wi Fi grant. This is your community members, patients, members, patrons. You tell us so you will provide we have this grant open. You will provide us this information, and we'll pick two winners of 25 laptops and free mobile, high speed internet access for 12 months. That's limited, so you want to do this by the end of October, and then bridging a gap is our partnership with PCs for people, so nonprofit schools, libraries. This provides high speed internet service for as low as 1125, you'll get a refurbished computer, and you'll get the Internet access the way that I'm working with these digital equity folks nationally now, as I look at this map, is one of two ways, typically. So in scenario one, the digital equity partner that that organization receiving the grant actually is our partner, and they will buy the product and distribute it to their sub organizations. Or the second, quite often, is, as I think Steve is doing, is we're making organizations available to understand, hey, here's a partner in the community that provides these services. So the solutions are the hotspots. We have iPads and tablets and then routers that I mentioned. So those are the prices there. In the case of the hotspots, with the TechSoup partnership, you can get that $57 device for 18 and the 5g for 155,

and that's the very i We don't need to read through these quotes. You understand the value that we have here. That's it. So questions from you guys, that's what I've got. That simple

questions for Brian. Everybody's so quiet today.

So again, the concept is, as you look at your hotspot lending programs for do. Digital equity, and also for school year, for library lending programs, as those fiscal years come up and renew, we are an organization in the field that's providing those $10 a month for the Internet service and then the good priced hardware. Okay, good.

Stop Sharing please. Sure.

I have a question for Brian. Sure, it's great. What you're doing is great. I'm just wondering, since it what our what we do at Common Sense Media is provide resources for those who are newly connected, resources like online safety materials, digital literacy materials. Do you do you take it to that next step where, I mean, I'm assuming you don't just connect people and then walk away.

We look to the partners that are connecting to provide we are the connectivity piece of programs. So we look for the partners to say, here's how they'll use it and the solutions, how they provide it within their solution.

Excuse me a second, Brian, can you stop sharing your screen? Please? Yeah.

And I don't see. How do I stop now? Let's see if I go to share it shows that I'm

that I'm not sharing

this says that you're sharing this. Here's for you. Maybe not. There we go. Okay,

so to answer the question, we are the connectivity piece, and we look to the partner to provide that other piece. Now what we'll have is for our for our hardware. We'll have training information on how to turn on device, how to set it up and how to care for it, so we are doing that piece of it.

Thank you. Sure.

Other questions for Brian, going once, going twice. Well, thank you, Brian. Appreciate appreciate the time and the update today.

Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

You bet and Randy, you had a question earlier in the chat. Do you want to just say something quickly.

Oh, yeah, yeah. No, thank you, Steve, yeah. No, I was, you know, just doing a countdown. There are 18, there are hundreds of shopping days before Christmas, but 18 application days before the competitive grant. And we're, you know, we've been doing, kind of working on a lot of analytics, and talk to people every day about about number crunching for the competitive grant, and so anyway, that was just wanted to say. And I know of a couple things that are are percolating here in Arizona, but I'm sure there are others who are brewing other things and looking for data. So just wanted to kind of throw that out, since I know this is probably our last meeting before the deadline, and people are probably late in the game.

Thank you. Randy. Amelia, you want to introduce yourself. Haven't seen you in a while.

Hi there.

Thank you. I think I've known most of you, but for those of you that I don't know, Amelia de Jesus, I'm Vice President of Workforce Solutions here at the wireless infrastructure Association, we've been very active, working across a number of states, helping them to determine what their specific labor needs might be, I know the big buzzword is bead these days, but for us, it's more about connectivity across the United States. So whether it's be CPF middle mile, whatever the funding opportunity is, we know that in our industry, there's a labor shortage, and so wie has been really active in trying to make sure that we have sufficient education and screening that's available, whether it's at a state level, higher institution, higher education institution, or just with employers through our apprentice program. Tirap, so that's kind of the short version, Steve, and if folks have questions, I'm available. I'll put my contact in the chat as well.

Any questions for Amelia, okay, Mala, do you have any updates? Mala or Anthony the State Library?

Steve, no, not this time.

Okay, Anthony, you have anything?

No big updates from east to you. Thank you.

Are you still looking to hire some folks, or you got those positions filled?

We're in the process. We're doing interview. Right now. Okay, yeah,

okay. So a couple of quick things. As you know, we are not meeting next week. I will hopefully see you all on the 19th Mallory. You and I need to chat hopefully today, and I'm going to stop, I'm going to stop recording. I'm.