Okay, good morning, everybody. Glad to see we have some folks who are returning Manny Villa haven't seen him in a long time. And a number of other folks who the afternoon just didn't work for him. So we're certainly glad Manny to see you and others that we haven't seen in a while. So Milan, good to see you also. So, so anyway, I think we have some new people who will be who are joining us today. And Brian, good to see you made it this morning. And we'll put you on fairly soon also.
Okay, very good. Thanks. You bet. So,
let's see what we got here. Janet, Major, I haven't seen you in a while either. Good to have you back.
Good morning. It's great to see everybody. So,
so Susan, we were just talking Susan better Smith, you want to introduce yourself quickly and let people know who you are and represent.
Certainly, I'm one of those that that goes back away. Susan Bitter Smith, I'm the executive director of the Southwest cable communications Association, where the all of the licensed cable operators in Arizona, New Mexico.
So at some point, Susan, maybe we should put you want to do a kind of a presentation and kind of what you're seeing what your members are seeing with lots of things since the days we started with you many, many years ago.
I'm embarrassed to tell you how many years ago but Yes, happy to help if there's any value and
well, many of us are in that boat. And Mark and lots of others. Mitch Gorson, do you want to introduce yourself with Cisco Systems?
Cisco Systems, I am the program manager for public sector broadband and cybersecurity. Thanks for having me on
You bet I met so we need to have more conversation with you in the future about how we can collaborate with you.
I have there several of my colleagues based in Arizona will be that person. But I'm glad to be here today.
Ready? Thanks. Is there anybody else that's new that I've missed? Okay, well, if not, let's go ahead and get started. So I want to we have a couple of issues, as most of you know that we are in the process of trying to create a cybersecurity Taskforce. And because of that I've been trying to identify who are some key people that we need to have some communication with. And so we're fortunate to have a couple of people with us this morning. And just a reminder, again, that we're developing this cybersecurity Taskforce, JT and Jon Haas have stepped up to take a lead on that. And we'll be meeting with them and figuring out how do we best move ahead with that. But in the meantime, today, we have two really key people who are engaged with cybersecurity, and are also going to be participating in our task force. So I want to introduce Jerry Keely, who's a cybersecurity adviser for region nine, with the US CISA. Many of you know CISA, the US cybersecurity and information security agency. And so Jerry is traveling. But Jerry, can I turn it over to you and tell us about two things about CISA and also the training program that you've been working on personally?
Okay, good morning, everybody. And thanks for having me. Yeah. So I am your your local, Southern Arizona cybersecurity advisor for CISA. And we also have Mike McMahon, who I also work with and he's a CFA for Arizona as well. And so we partnered to cover all of Arizona and southern Arizona. Yeah, so I had several initiatives going on.
Excuse me. Can you tell people what CISA is? I mean, can you tell people what CISA is there? A lot of us know what CISA is a lot of folks may not.
Oh, okay. Sure. Yeah, so CISA is the cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency, which is a component of Department of Homeland Security. It's a newer agencies vendor. Now since 2018, and the focus of of CISA is protecting and defending critical infrastructure in the United States. And so we focused on 16 sectors of critical infrastructure with transportation, dams, schools, government facilities, pretty utilities and things that we all rely on for our day to day life. And role is to go out and identify ways to enhance the posture and mitigate risks for all the critical infrastructure out there, which affects every one of us. So we have tools in our toolbox at CISA, where we can do do assessments, we have vulnerability scanning, we have, we also have physical security team members that can come in and do physical walkthroughs. And do personalized run hide fight, we also offer tabletop exercises, both generic ones as well as custom ones, we have an entire team that will build out a custom tabletop exercise for any entity that's out there. And probably the biggest part that people like to see here is these services come at no cost to you. Okay, you're a member of the critical infrastructure. So everything that we do is not a dime out of your budget whatsoever. And now, we don't say it's free. Prepaid, you already paid for the services, by submitting your 1040, right, you paid your taxes, that's what pays for all these services for your organization. And so since it's already prepaid, we always encourage you to use them, because you've already paid for it. And so really, that's kind of a great position to be in, because I get to offer in all these resources, and education, possibilities, and some risk assessments and things like that, to help improve the security posture of any entities that out there, no matter what level of maturity that they're at, you know, some are struggling with budgets and staffing and things like that. We are pretty short staffed, as you all know, in the, in the cyber industry, as far as that as far as cyber talents, and things like that. So we can step in and help help people in those those areas to increase their security posture. Because you know, kind of, you know, critical infrastructure, we all rely on that. So this is extremely important for every one of us. We rely on our utilities, we rely on our our schools, we rely on our banks, we rely on all this stuff, each and every day. And so it's really important that we get to help assist, protecting and defending and helping them defend themselves to protect our data and ensure our safety and security. So that's the whole did I covered that pretty good.
Yeah, I think so. Any questions about that before we move on? And Jerry? Or is this a new position here, or up here, and we just didn't know it?
Now is new. I've been with Cisco for about three months now. I was the Cisco for Pinal county government. And I retired from them after 17 years of service, and took this role. So I've been in the government space and in the infrastructure side of Arizona. For many years, I was actually one of the leading members of Brian Murray's cybersecurity tools, committee member, and helping develop that program for five years now. So very, very active and involved in that program as well. I heard somebody mention that earlier. And so I'm a big part of that as well.
You kind of answered my question with a question that I would have had, which is your relationship with Ryan and the work that they're doing in school, and all that sort of stuff. So
absolutely. We were at a big meet up last night, meeting a bunch of schools and things like that. And I spoke on behalf of Ryan for, for those security tools. Because I am. I've been a part of that since its very early inception, working with Mike Letman. And Owens, George. And this all kicked off way back in the day. And I've been a champion of it and an active participant in that as well. So well versed in those. Well, that that helps me when I get to go and talk to our local customers. Because not only can I talk about the business services that we have, that we can offer them, but then I can also you know, because that segues nicely into the tools that are available for people to help secure their environment as well. So it's really a it's a hand in hand. All state initiative that works really well together.
Awesome. So Jerry, so any questions for Jerry he's going to talk also about a cybersecurity training program. He's personally been working on that. Any questions about Sissa before we move on to that next face? I guess not. So Jerry, you're on about talking about the awesome training program you're working on?
Yeah, so but and I guess I'm not understanding what you're talking about. I've got a few different things I'm working on. One of them is, you know, basically Security awareness, specifically net for the public and for schools and things like that. There is
the one you were told me about.
Yeah, and so that really is just more of a, an awareness of cybersecurity in general for pretty much the population as well as for people in the workplace. And that overall education, because we know one of the obvious things everybody knows is the kind of the biggest vulnerability every entity has, is the users they are, they are the main vulnerability. And so making them part of your outer perimeter and making them be involved with your cybersecurity and your cyber posture is extremely important and absolutely required. Because if they're not part of that, and they're not engaged with that, then your entity wherever you work with is not going to avoid getting nailed by some cyber cyber attack, mostly ransomware is where that comes in. So that was one of the things we had talked about. And then there's some other initiatives that Sousa is focused on that I'm going to be, you know, getting actively involved with. One of them is obviously the K 12, Safe Schools initiative. So those of you that are in the edu space, or you know, people that don't need the space, since it has a summit coming up in November, that is going to is really trying to bring a nationwide initiative to the to the school safety, that's both physical and cyber carrying tools, resources and things like that, and developing a nationwide presence of schools and edu, which is really important, because a lot of that kind of tries to live on an island with limited budget limited staffing, and trying to pull in, the greater the greater groups, we will probably be doing a little bit that kind of Arizona focus as well, trying to do our little part as part of the nationwide initiative. But anybody that is interested in that, go to this as a website and look at the the summit that's coming up in in November and see if you can if it makes sense for you to attend get that information. And then there is another
does that kind of be only in person? Or is it going to be an online option to participate in that conference?
It makes and why. So it will be online, there'll be some online options there. Yeah, I mean, getting the entire nation's schools together in one place, I can imagine a facility that can handle that exploit. And so there's another newer initiative, that was actually two initiatives. And I don't know how this plays within your org, since I'm brand new, leading your team and kind of understand where you're going. So I'll just throw these out there, I don't know if they're a fit or not, one of the more recent ones put out is secure by design. And that is something that director easterly is really promoting for software, trying to change the paradigm that the software vendors can just produce bad software and unsecure software. And that's a customer's responsibility to find the vulnerabilities patch it respond to it. And the vendors just get to sit there and keep throwing out junk code. And we just keep buying it up, they're trying to shift that over to be it's the vendors responsibility, you put out bad code, you got to figure out how to fix it. And pretty soon try to get the mentality of the people buying this stuff that if they can't prove that they're producing secure applications and software, they need to sell by them. And by default, they will be they'll be weeded out of the herd. And so that's really kind of a great initiative being being introduced at the federal level. I know all of us in the industry would completely agree with and have agreed with for many, many years, and I've been frustrated with. So it's really nice to see one of those things being pushed at the federal level, and probably start bringing in legislature and countability to the vendors. Probably long term solution, but you got to start somewhere. And then another initiative that is newer is the the post quantum cryptography can be a really key cryptography initiative. So we've all known quantum computing is coming. But it was only a matter of when most of us don't really do much with that. I'm certainly not smart enough to do that. But quantum computing brings, you know, a lot of smart things faster. And that means that's gonna affect cybersecurity can affect pretty much everything we do. But so NIST is going to be coming up with some guidelines and standards next year. And so kind of the goal with this post quantum cryptography cryptography initiative. I apologize. I can't say that word is new. There are several cryptography standards out there that are substandard and will not meet the requirements because the quantum computing era will bypass those immediately. And so how being hired cryptographic and algorithms and things like that to try to promote the topic, but dissuade the quantum computing world that we're heading into. And so really what we're trying to do is really start getting entities to identify what cryptography algorithms are their applications third party vendors and and their designs are using and identifying which ones are considered weak or unsupported in our future, and developing a roadmap on how you're going to talk with your vendor, how you're going to hold them accountable, and what your vendors are doing to get off of the legacy cryptography so that they can be more resilient in the quantum computing age, if that makes any sense to anybody. I'm still learning about it, by the way. So reporting into Congress. Any questions on any of those types of initiatives? And are anything any of those things in line with what your group is looking to do?
Or understand?
Well, I think it fits perfectly with, with what our interests are. And also, since you're collaborating with Ryan and and the work that they're doing with with the schools, again, it fits in my opinion, it fits perfectly with our, with what we're interested in. So any questions for Jerry? Questions, comments, thoughts?
Mark Goldstein, just wanted to mention Thank you, Jerry. Three days ago, CISA. NSA, NSA did publish a factsheet on quantum readiness. So I did post the link in the chat to that.
Great, thank you for that.
So Jerry, if I saw correctly unless it's updated, that you guys also have just recently are in the process of developing a strategic plan versus versus a Is that correct? Yes. I'm not up to date.
I'm not up to date on that. I really can't speak much to it. I just know that that's going on out there. But I, I'm not up to date on that. I'm sorry. Okay. Thanks.
Any other questions for Jerry? Well, Jerry, it's great to that we discovered you. And definitely look forward to you collaborating with us on the Cybersecurity Initiative we're working on. So we'll definitely be in touch.
Okay, Steve post my email address in the chat, if you could, and anybody that has any questions or would like to learn more about this visit services, or even the cyber tools initiative, reached out to me, and let's have a chat, we can do a deeper dive, you know, a little little better to do that offline than it is in these kinds of sessions. And I can't I don't have the resources or the answers, I can get you to them. And so please reach out. I'd love to talk with each one of you and your entities and involved wherever I can be of assistance.
Sounds great. Thanks, Jerry. Have a safe trip. And we'll definitely be following up with you.
Sounds great. Okay, everybody, have a great day. Thank you.
Okay. And of course, this is an important entity and agency. So it was great that we found Jerry is a representative here in Arizona. So any other questions or comments about that before we move on? So, Karen, I don't know. Are you online? Yeah. Karen Z. Are you here by chance? Okay, so I don't want to I want to make sure that we so we do have before I go on with Brian Daly looks like we do have some other new people who have joined us. Ron Freeman, do you want to introduce yourself?
Ron, are you there?
I am working on theory. I think I'm here. Okay. Can you hear me? Okay, there
we go. Yes,I'm with K 12 ITC, we're a technology company specializing in K through 12 education and a friend of Milan.
Good. Well, welcome. Glad you could join us today. Who else we have some other few other names that I saw. Brian's here excuse me, Cory Ringenberg.
Hi, I'm Cory Ringenberg with the Coconino County manager's office. special initiatives director for Coconino County and I'm here You're on behalf of economic development today.
Okay, great. Well glad you could join us today Cory
Thank you very much.
David Shipley
I'm outside sales with gray bar electric just learning what you have to teach.
Right? You want to tell people quickly what Graybar is.
So Graybar electric we are suppliers. We're a vendor for electrical broadband fiber. You name it, we probably do it. Okay.
I don't know if we're there are some there were a couple of other people from gray bar that were going to join us today. I don't know if we have anybody else. And . Have you introduced yourself before?
I don't think so. I'm Teresa Gault. I'm with Coconino. County Community Action. Hi, Cory.
Good. Okay. Anybody new that I've missed? Steve, I'm not
new. But you know, I'm representing and I realize that I'm representing another company. And I haven't introduced myself. So I don't know. We can do it today.
Go ahead, Lindsay. Oh,
yeah. So thank you. So my name is Lindsay Dietz, Shion Consulting. I'm a lead consultant, I represent HR consulting. Today, we are our consulting firm, basically working with some of the community service agencies and community health centers. We specialize in grant writing, grant compliance. And some of the adult learning systems, we are able to design systems for a whole entire organization. And we also focus on some of the behavioral health training, especially when it comes to change management and getting people ready. You know, when it comes to the implementation of these initiatives, so I will put my information in the chat if you guys would like to know more about it.
Thanks, Lindsay. Glad you could join us if I missed anybody. New. Okay. If not, let's, let's move on. And so our next update is from Brian Daly with AT&T Brian's been with us. And he's actually done a presentation at task force some time ago. But he is, well, I'm gonna let him tell you who he is. But he's a vice president, follow him and Assistant Vice President for wireless technology and standards at AT&T. But I'm gonna let him talk about the the North American fraud and security group that he that he chairs. So with that, Brian, I'm going to leave it to you. Do you want to share? Do you want me to stop sharing?
Yeah, if you would, I'll share my screen.
So obviously, this was moving to morning was a good decision here.
So So Thanks, Steve in the group for having me talk about some of the work that we're doing in the North American fraud form and security group. Let me let me just look, let me see here,
figure out how to move forward. So
let me let me start with just an overview of the GSM Association. If you're not familiar with it, the GSM Association is a global global organization that has been around the name is kind of misleading because the GSM Association started back in the days when GSM a GSM technology was prevalent in Europe. And since then, there's been a merger of technologies. And you know, now we're on 5g technology. But still, the GSM association is still a global organization that looks to develop business environments and look at connectivity using wireless technologies. Most of the major operators globally, as well as organizations, vendors, across the mobile ecosystem are part of this. That as mentioned here, there are over 1000 mobile operators and businesses that are part of this ecosystem that are part of the G SMA. And it does offer data resources and tools to help the ecosystem work together. are better. And one of the major things that it does is facilitate roaming on a global scale. So if you take your ATT T Mobile or Verizon phone and go to Europe or go to Asia, that device will work on the network's over there. And that's all due to the work of the GSM Association. GSM Association obviously does also focus on security, to look at threats targeting the mobile ecosystem. This is through Industry Collaboration, expertise through subject matter experts and looking forward to look at what the industry threat landscape is. There is a fraud and security group at the global level that looks at fraud and security matters related to mobile technology networks and services. And the whole goal is to increase the protection of mobile technology, as well as the infrastructure protect customer identities, and provide security and privacy for the end user. The front end security group is an open, receptive and trusted environment where fraud and security intelligence can be shared. What the fraud and security group does is assess the global fraud and security threat landscape and look at the state of the industry at regular intervals. It does specify fraud solutions and security enablers, such as security algorithms drive their adoptions by suppliers and network operators. It reviews and analyzes new and existing architectures to make sure there's adequate protection by design. It defines fraud and security requirements and minimum standards for the industry to support on the global scale, as well as promote fraud and security awareness across the industry established processes to handle fraud level security incidents, and assist members with the investigation of fraud and security incidents. The key topics that are addressed are protecting customers against fraud, detecting fraudulent access to mobile services, identifying abuses of services, service Terms and Conditions. Fast identification of fraud committed while roaming, mobile operator brand and reputation protection, minimizing wholesale risks to mobile operators near field security, such as Bluetooth, LTE network configuration and roaming security, 5g security, infrastructure security and testing, interconnect signaling security mobile malware, mobile device and application security, IoT security as well as SIM card or universal SIM card security. The GSM Association also runs what's known as the DF GSM a device check, which is a database to find out instantly whether a device has been reported lost or stolen through the world's most accurate registry of device status. And it helps resellers identify and eliminate stolen devices before they can enter supply chains. It confirms device authentic authenticity and help calculate device value and discuss discourages theft by reducing the value of a stolen device. It also confirms the network operator that reported device stolen or lost, which helps with repatriation to the rightful owner. Within North America, we have the North American regional interests group under the GSM Association. And this is really looking at emerging technologies and digital solutions ensuring the North American remarket remains innovative and prosperous. It does serve as a forum for GSM a members to meet unresolved regional issues. And they do have a number of working groups. I won't listen, read them all fall here. But note at the bottom there is also a fraud and security group. And that's where I come in. I'm the chair of the GSM Association's North American fraud forum and security group. This the whole goal is this is to promote fraud and security awareness and encourage best practices by recommending solutions and information sharing. We worked very closely with the global fraud and security group to address fraud and security issues in North America. My deputy chair is Stacy Auggie of union wireless, which is a small operator operating out of Wyoming and supports several of the surrounding states A sample of the topics addressed stolen handsets, which has been a big issue with the FCC and local law enforcement here in the US. So we did integrate the US operators into the GSM, a device check. And we also have the CTIA stolen phone checker, which again uses GSM a device check to provide access to the database to limit the resale of lost and stolen mobile devices in the US, and also help consumers businesses and law enforcement agencies make informed decisions about the status, you can actually go on to the CEO CTIA stolen phone checker and check to see if your device has been reported lost or stolen. Or any device you might want to buy, for example, on eBay or through a third party, you can check to make sure that device hasn't been reported stolen. And law enforcement also can go and check there and hopefully return found mobile devices to the rightful owners. Another related areas contraband handsets, and this is looking at ways to combat contraband devices that are used in correctional facilities while protecting legitimate wireless consumers in those facilities. contraband handsets and correctional facilities is a big problem. Because when the inmates get a hold of these devices, they can use it to call the external world. And you know, who knows what they're going to be doing with that. We also look at network resiliency. This is especially true with with what happened in Maui recently, we saw you know, networks go down communications go down. So how do we make our networks more resilient to such events. And we also address hot topics in the US and Canada. We address papers that address security issue, for example, at the Black Hat or DEF CON conferences. We also review government security issues and reports. And, you know, as Mark put in the chat that the recent ces a report on on quantum that's a big issue that's being addressed not only within the North American fraud forum, but within the global industry as well. So with that, that's, that's an overview of what we're doing. So I'll turn it back to you, Steve.
Okay. Thanks. So Thanks, Brian. Okay, so anyway, any questions for for Brian? going once going twice, I take it. That's a no.
So Brian, thanks again. We appreciate your your involvement and your commitment also to participate in our cybersecurity task force that we're going to be developing.
Yeah, I said also mentioned that one of my other hat says, I do work with the FCC on the communication security, reliability and interoperability Council, or Ciceri. We just recently completed the latest round and published reports on 5g security as one example topic. So a lot of work insecurity going on within the industry.
Yeah. And that's great to have you. Because the industry folks are important for the work we're doing if they they secure their work, it will help us to protect our folks that we're interested in making sure that we're protected. So, any other questions or comments for Jerry? If not, let's, let's move on. So what will you Lee, I see that you joined us this morning. Do you want to take a couple of minutes and introduce yourself? You have a key important position with the with the broadband office and so it'd be good to at least get the can to meet you. Hi, everyone. Good
morning. My name is Lilian. I am the digital equity program manager for the Arizona commerce authority. And at this time, I'm more than happy to give an update on our end if you're okay with that, Steve. Absolutely. Wonderful. So as many of you know, we kind of have two programs. We have the digital equity aspect and then we have the broadband aspect. I do want to say that yesterday, we did finalize our bead five year plan and it is up on our website for everyone to view so after I'm done speaking, I will drop the link for everyone in the chat. There. There's a lot of alignment between this the digital equity plan that we are producing currently, with this five year plan, this broadband five year plan, so please take a look at it. Our state digital equity plan is underway. We are currently in the middle of writing it, I do want to say we are coming towards the end of that and that draft will be up for public comment in October, our next community listening session that we host every month, we are going to be discussing what that public comment period will look like and what strategies we're taking. So I highly recommend everyone here register for that.
Anything else Lilian
so we that is it from our end? Okay.
Thank you very much. So let's move on with some other updates today. Janet, we're glad to have you here today. You want to give us an update what's happened with telemedicine? Sure,
thanks. It's great to be here. I missed everybody. We've been very busy. We've been very fortunate. Our team has just done a couple of training events, which were such a thrill to be producing events. Once again, what's your like plain old vanilla multi point comfort video conferencing, but with bodies in the room at the same time, I really feel like hybrid events like that are our future, you know, to be able to share lunch and visit with our colleagues, while being able to include people who don't have the opportunity to travel is, is where we really are. And if we want to build those types of rich experiences, I think that's what we need to do. So we went to Nevada, and we scheduled facilities in Reno, Carson City and Las Vegas. And we did a telehealth statewide training about Nevada sharing the battery sources about Nevada broadband and promoting ACP and all the great things that make telehealth happen. We then also have an audience online. Well, last week, we went to Colorado. And we did only half of that. And it was somewhat disappointing because the other thing you get with a hybrid event is the gift that keeps giving right you can have a recording at the same time that you're producing that great hybrid experience. So we went to Denver last week, and it was amazing. It was a a national caliber augmented reality virtual reality, psychiatry Department of Psychiatry innovations at the University of Colorado and they brought in other national experts. Well, you know, we met, we measure our success in numbers. And it's unfortunate to say, we had 50 people in the room. But it was a great experience for us. 50 people, right? If this had been hybrid, we maybe would have had another 100 people online, right, we would have put together all of all of our energy and sharing these amazing resources with a lot more people and we'd have that great package at the end. And we do have beautiful PDFs of people's PowerPoints and great information to share. I learned a heck of a lot. But it is labor intensive to do it that way. And, and there's a couple of really great upcoming events here in Arizona. One is for tribal health equity, and it's on the focus of diabetes, it's being produced with the Arizona diabetes coalition. And I haven't been able to sell them on this whole hybrid idea. But I think about doing outreach here in Arizona and and now we are all very aware that we have 22 tribes that we should all be serving. But I don't think there's a lot of us who can name those 22 tribes and some of them are very difficult to reach in terms of outreach. So I think about our future and telehealth and health equity and digital equity and, and being able to use technology to prepare the healthcare workforce of the future, to reach people in remote places. I really do think if we want to truly be equitable, and do outreach to all of those 22 tribes and serve the entire state of Arizona, we still have to do things in a hybrid way. I really do. I don't I don't think we can continue to require people to be at their desk, but I also don't think we we live in a world where we need to require people to travel to participate in these in these greats, educational opportunities. I've shared my PDF in the chat because there are a couple of other really great upcoming events. There's a community health worker conference that's taking place here in November in Tucson. It's November 7 through ninth and it's being produced by our Arizona, Native American Area Health Education Center. And there'll be a lot of folks who are producing educational materials and working with CHWs. And for those of you who aren't familiar, you may have heard me and others talk about it before, you know, the the end the workforce that really connects people to health care here in Arizona been busy doing that as as digital navigators before they were called that. The community health workers, community, promo tours, promo, promo tours, they salute in southern Arizona as well as as challenged the Arizona community health outreach workers have all settled on this global term, nationally of CHW. And they are all people that do the same job for different communities and have different levels of training. And our access here in Arizona has approved three billing codes for these people to teach technology, which is really great news. It's really It's exceptionally great news for Malia and Erin and is we work on telehealth and libraries. Because what this means is there's a billing code for primary care providers, and community health centers. To assign a community health worker who has been certified and can have their time billed they can, they can actually assign a CHW teach technology to people at the library, where we've been investing in technology for people who don't have it. And I think if we as we work towards digital equity, we have to continue to accommodate and make plans for public spaces for people to have private conversations about their health, we need to spend and invest some of that money in connected devices for people who don't have them. But we also really need to count on those digital navigators and digital health navigators to be the people who teach that technology to get people connected to a breast cancer support group in their own language or to get people connected to diabetes education. And the key to everybody's success in the world of health care is is isn't billable, and well, now, teaching technology is billable. So it's a really exciting time. And there are a couple of those resources in that PDF PDF, too, that I shared so so please check it out. There's a lot going on. And we are working hard to produce our next telehealth and libraries location into the city. And this is something that the team is all very excited about and being able to have available some basic telehealth peripherals, we're working on planning educational events in which we can support the technology when we invite patrons to the libraries. And it's been wonderful to work with Aaron who's been working on building these great digital navigator resources. And we're working together with other organizations and community partners to look at how we can also produce and share digital health navigators and something that's really been helpful for me is to network within the Arizona Digital Inclusion network with other people who are doing that exact thing. So that we are we are cohesively collecting along with the National telehealth resource centers, great ways, great places, building building links, to really connect people to to really excellent healthcare resources and, and connecting people to healthcare who don't have it. And to me, you know, digital equity equals access to technology, which equals access to connected technology, which equals access to health care, and it's a fantastic project to be working on. And I would love to, if we have time, maybe maybe Molen Aaron can share an update to from the library's perspective.
We're going to get to them in just a minute. But absolutely, it's great to have you back in the air as always all the great work that you're doing. Any any any other questions for for Janet.
Okay, thanks.
If not, we're gonna move to what you were just talking about. So Mala. Erin, you have any updates from the library? Sure.
Let me let me take off from where Janet stopped and we we are planning the next event held fair at tuberosity on the 21st of September. Working towards it just as we did in Arivaca and our whole we want to introduce to the community the healthcare that we will have available at the library and health kit that can also be taken or loaned out to other libraries for them to have similar events, of course sustaining This is also important not just having one off health fair, we would like the equipment to be used. And hence the educational component that Janet was talking about having telehealth Thursdays or something like that, where we would have community based a health based community event events at all of those three libraries that we started this project on. Also, simultaneously, we did health care approach cancer preventive health care at Navajo Nation. This was there were two tribes that have been shown to have in the medical studies that have been shown to have a predominance of liver cancer and one of them was the Navajo Nation. And we did a preventive scanning for we thought the goal was to do about 20 a day, and we wanted to do only one day, but then there were more than 100 participants that had registered to have that reverse scan. So it was extended to the second week and we covered all of those 100. We're planning to do a similar one in the northern tribes and cells. We're still working on getting all the clearance and things like that, because this is this involves human beings that involves healthcare, we need a lot more of the permissions and things like that which we are waiting on. This is being done in partnership with NAU and U of A and NIH grant from NIH, as well as from the LSTA that the library is using. So that's my update for telehealth, do you want me to give you the update on ERate as well? Okay. Yes, the entity at tribal broadband Summit is coming up next week. It's on August 28 to 30th at the Wild Horse Park pass Hotel and Casino at Chandler, AZ USAC will be there. So I encourage those who would like to attend to register. I dropped the link in the chat. I want to say several miles ago because there's so much that has happened in the chat after that. So if you scroll up, you may be able to see that and you can register for it. If you are unable to find the funds to register, it's $350 I think let me know I'll put you in touch with Sona Matson was organized, it was a to assistant who will give
you passes if possible if there is still passes available.
If I'm not mistaken, though, that attendance is limited to certain kinds of people, if I'm not mistaken, to tribal broadband providers, not to the open public.
Not really. If you're in the telecom field, it will benefit of course, the tribal folks but the the conference itself, the summit itself, attendance is open. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah, I did talk to her about that and the attendance is open.
Okay. Okay, maybe used to be limited, so that's fine.
I think that a lot of people haven't registered. That is the reason why they're opening it up. I'm not sure Marlin might know better. But that's my take on it. And so when I talked to Sona soldier, she said yes, others can attend as well. Okay. Okay. Do you did ask me to comment about the USF this one, one. Okay. The deadline is tomorrow. The Universal Service Fund working group has requested for comments and this working group has been set up by Senator Luhan. Senator Tony Klobuchar, capital, Peters and Moran all of them are a part of that working group. And they have invited folks to submit comments to share thoughts and concerns and ideas and proposals regarding the future of USF. This goal is the goal As to make policies on USF. But they're also concerned about evaluating the effectiveness of the existing USF programs. To achieve the goals for broadband, they are looking at transparency and accountability and cost effectiveness to support all the four programs because it is not the only program. It's the high cost support the low income support schools and libraries program, which is the E Rate program and the rural health care support. So they're looking at reforms in all all of those areas to address mainly inefficiencies waste fraud, and abuse in and duplication, with other government programs, and, and also looking at the contribution factor, because currently, the USF contributions are limited to the landline operators and they want to include that looking at what it would take to include broadband service providers, wireless service providers, and any other service providers that can be asked to contribute because currently, the contribution factor is over 30%. And it is revised every quarter. So hopefully, this will bring that contribution level down if it is spread to more groups. As Shelby has done a study called us forward, if you Google that, you should find that study on what models can be adopted and what impact it would have on the future of the USF. So back to you, Steve, unless anyone
ever do you by any chance or Shelby have a kind of a draft letter. We sent that out today to everybody that they could respond. And and also, Lillian to put you on the spot, and you may not know the answer to this, whether the broadband office is planning to provide any input or to the senator or tomorrow.
This I do not know. Okay. Mala, do you have
anything? Any thoughts about if we can get something together? Today even?
I'm not sure we have the time to do that. But let me check if I can send you something that you set for you. That shall be sent. I can. I'll forward it to you. Okay, that would be helpful. And I'll drop this, the link in the chat where? For the working group and the questions that they're thinking to address.
Okay. And I also have included that in the meeting announcements.
Drew also put
also put in the chat, the comment opportunity.
Yes, that's the one. Yes. Yes. That's the same one that I was going to drop. Yes. Yeah. It's in the chat. Alright. Yeah. Thank you.
Thank you, Drew. Me. Yeah. Any questions for Mala. So Aaron, do you have anything that you want to share?
Yeah, really quick. And I do apologize. I'm gonna have to jump right after that for another meeting. But I wanted to share that this last weekend, I was invited to booth at the gathering for Native American Veterans down in Tucson. And so we were able to share resources around connect Arizona and a few of the projects that we're doing with the telehealth in libraries. And then also I wanted to share that we have put together a programming kit that will be distributed to libraries via our newsletter at the beginning of September for digital inclusion week coming up, I dropped a link in the chat to where it's living on the Connect Arizona website. And so you know, if there are other organizations in this group that do programs or any kind of community engagement, digital inclusion Week is coming up October 2 through the sixth. And some of these ideas that we wrote for libraries might be something that you know, could could work in a social media campaign or something like that for your organization's as well. So I do apologize, I gotta jump off, but if there are any questions, just reach out to me and I'd be happy to talk more about that. Have a wonderful day, everyone. Sounds great. Thanks, sir.
Okay, moving on. Let's see you. Oh, so Department of Education. I currently read Do you have anything that you want to share at this point and my one while you're at it,
Hi, Karina.
Hi, Steven, hold on, I'm trying to for some reason I'm not able to turn on my camera today, I have been struggling with camera but good morning everyone. So not much to share here we are the Department of Education currently is, is exploring a new initiative and new new work that is moving under what now we are calling educational technology. So these used to be Office of Digital Teaching and Learning now is rebranding under educational technology and, and the goal is to directly utilize data standards and other technology integrations for the benefit of academic achievement. So we are directly working with the academic team to develop strategies around content management and data integrations that will aid educators in the future but still strategizing and still high level planning of the initiatives that we are going to be having. So not much to share at this point only a high amount of dreams and goals. And this is the fun part of the work as as we start looking ahead for how we can assist, continue to assist education. At the same time, Milan continues the great work on connectivity and broadband. So I let Milan speak on that side of things.
Right. Thanks, Karina.
Thanks, Karina. Good to hear from you this morning. Good morning, everyone. Steve, appreciate you moving the meeting so that we could get better participation on your meetings that your meetings are good thing.
I want to just tell people who you are.
Does anyone not know who I am?
Well, we have a number of new people who have joined us today. And so they actually may not help
at all right. So I'm Milan Eaton, I'm the State direct director for schools in the state of Arizona. I manage email program for all of our schools. I also manage the broadband special construction program, which we created in 2017. With the help of education superhighway, and the Arizona Corporation Commission, I manage the final mile project, in conjunction with the Arizona Rural Schools Association being in it's funded by the Department of Education. So those are my my three big tasks. Most of it falls in the eighth grade except for the final mile project, which has nothing to do with the rain. For our eraser side, we have about $45 million worth of funding so far in our 20.3 funding year. Which is good, middle of August, it's a good good funding rate. We're looking at probably 75 to 85 million by the end of the funding year so we're right on track or typical year or even more seven days open people are starting to post them we have a state contract, state carrier contract for rural broadband at State Procurement Office posted of a Senate we have an open 474 that procurement and all those carriers interested can respond to the RFP via the via the procurement website. Once the state makes an award, those carriers of the award will be eligible for the next five years to provide services do for for seven months for earring and various. We have seen that takes care of the earache side category one side for our final mile projects. We have 13 of them that have been funded by the Department of Education. And they
can you explain what that final mile project is?
The final mile project is the beginning of COVID. The Rural Schools Association realized a problem with students being at home with no internet access, especially in our rural areas. We know that in our metropolitan areas. We have lots of options for internet. It's not that they don't have internet it's just that they may not be able to afford it. But there's lots of carriers offering Internet in Phoenix and Tucson Flagstaff Yuma but and places like silver tube ash fork yucca, there is no access, or it's so poor that it's unusable. So the final mile project is we build Internet access in those rural areas where there either is none or it's so poor that it's unusable. And we do that by typically will take one of our special construction projects when we go over to a location. And we'll take up a pair of fiber line it up and transmitted wirelessly into the community and provide internet services, typically 100 by 25, automatic over 25 to the residents for educational interview to $10 a month. These providers also provide regular commodity internet, anywhere from 40 to $60 a month for those the residents in the area and the businesses in the area. So we're we're we're bringing services into rural communities where they haven't done today. And one of them that is a really, I'm really proud of right now that we're halfway through within the syndicate area. Right now in the Apache area. Syracuse, a small community, school middle of nowhere, they have very poor internet access, they have the school district pays $50,000 a month for their students to have satellite access Geosynchronous Satellite access using geosynchronous, they can't do a zoom call like we're doing today. So it's not an interactive learning session that students can. So we are now in Sydney cue Conway on try, it's actually going to work. But we're in Sydney cue installing the the network, we're installing the homes up to 30 new ones installed right now. And since we have no reliable internet there, we've actually have three upgrades from space net, or SpaceX, to provide our backhaul to bring those internet services into the community and then distributed via wireless network. So that's, that's what the final mile project is doing. We're providing services and areas. So we're saving the school district $50,000 a month, and we're providing good internet to those students and the rest of the community.
Any
questions, feel free to shoot me an email, call me on my cell phone, whatever you like. Awesome.
So my, um, you've been at this a long time, people like you and maava who have brought millions of dollars to the state and e re funding, you guys have done a great job. And then this final mile project is just awesome.
You know, Steve, we were told in the beginning, you know, don't we don't want to mess with residential. We don't want to really mess with residential internet, we don't want to get into that business. But in these places where there's no services, somebody needed to. And the only reason we're doing is because no one else is. If we take the billion dollars that the state has right now, and we utilize those funds, and we get services to every home in the state, they will no there will no more need to be a final mile project, we will have finished it. So a third of my work will go away, hopefully. Until that happens, and as long as he keeps funding it will keep going into these little communities that have nothing and we'll be building the services for them. And the best thing is we're doing it you know, we're providing educational internet for $10 a month there was like you can't do that. Like, oh, we're doing it Rory right there triad is has been doing it. And that's what I got the idea. It's entirely they were doing it before claiming wild project name. So it's been done. We're doing it today. And it works in there with these the commodity internet, as we call them. And they have students in school and they don't want the educational package, but they want the full blown internet so they can watch Netflix and they can surf and they can do all this other stuff. They can still get the $30 a month put it on their phone bill from the provider. And now that 100 day that they're going to pay for commodity internet is on their bill because $30 a month getting covered. So this is these are great. These are just fantastic life changing projects for those remote rural residents and it's just it feels
awesome, Rory, I think you were online or if you're still there. You want to comment while we're at It
might have built it up pretty pretty well, there's not much more we can add, you know, the biggest issue and Violence Program, which was unique over every other government program we've worked with was, he had the foresight to say, basically, the final mile funding covered the capex. And that's the biggest hurdle to us to any wireless provider or any any provider coming into any community is the capital expenditure in the smaller communities. The return on investment would not was not reasonable for the catback they the amount of money we would have had to spend the dough to go into the communities, because there's just not that many people. So this program allowed us to deploy very quickly and get in make it profitable. So now it's a self. They're all self sustaining entities.
Great. Thanks. Any any questions for my one? Our comments or questions for Rory or my
one? Okay,
if not, Cindy Hogan, you still online?
Yes, I am Steve. Hi. Know,
Cindy, you got a digital inclusion network meeting coming up this afternoon. And you're back at the helm there?
Yes, yes. Hi, everybody. My name is Cindy Hogan. I'm co founder and current chairperson for the Arizona Digital Inclusion Alliance. We are a growing coalition of organizations and individuals from across the state. We're affiliated with the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, and we're working to advance the digital equity in Arizona, we meet every we need to Thursday's a month. And we have a meeting today at noon. If anyone would like that I can like to attend that I can put my email, I'm going to send my email out so anybody can let me know they want an invite to that. Today, we're hosting Nikoline Miam, the National the federal program officer for the bead program. She's with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. She's going to talk to us today about defining and identifying community anchor institutions that should be considered for bead um, she was in DC a couple of weeks ago and learned a lot about that and is looking to tell us how that how we can be involved in defining a community community anchor institution for in our in the state of Arizona. And where we are currently looking for new members, we're going to get a letter together to send out to potential members, we're looking for people that are involved with digital inclusion work, whether in programs or advocacy. And we really want to build up our strength as a coalition to represent digital inclusion to the to the ACA broadband office. And so we'd be looking for people's input on that. And I think I can keep it fairly simple. With that Aaron Lorenzo's covered the the digital inclusion week. That happens in October, the first week in October. So we'll be we'll be talking about how our how Aiden wants to participate in that and get community organizations involved. It's a really good way to expand people's understanding and knowledge of digital inclusion. So that's what I have to report today, Steve.
Thanks, Cindy. So if I missed anybody? Any Mark, do
you want to say anything about what's happening with the SEC counsel? And I know you're probably not happy with me that I haven't you haven't gotten some stuff from me. But
well, I did get stuff from you last Friday, and that had normally been my due date. Things drifted in through last week. So I didn't beg a reprieve till tomorrow on my submittal for the next rounds of editing, and so far beyond Sandeep who I interacted with early on, I did get five sets of markups, Henry Goldberg violin, you Steve libraries, and Alana and Drew, and I've integrated all of that, except I am still struggling with the cybersecurity stuff you gave me which was at least six times longer than I could possibly use. Trying to distill it down to a cogent single paragraph that's an end library gave me a few paragraphs that are very good about Library's role, but too long doing dead as is. So my last two struggles today are to lock down the new end user cybersecurity recommendations and observations as well as a tighter version of Library's role from what I got from state libraries. So that will go in tomorrow. I'm hoping I get Sandeep a copy by tonight. So he has a last chance, as he's considered my co author to review that. So that's where we are with that. And after that's done, I'll share it. I'm not sending out this late term draft for comments, and further markups. I will have a minor opportunity somewhere later in the editing project process for some adjustments, but did get good input. Thank you all for that and wrapping it up in this next day. And then I would like to just say something about the smart city and IoT conference. I put it in the chat. Coming up on Tuesday, September 19. Some good panels with some people, you know, and then I will moderate a 45 minute Fireside Chat with Sandeep that closes out that event. So that's it. Skysong, September 19, one to six. I don't think there's any virtual option for that meeting. It's on site only. Registration is $40. For check council members, which does include all ATI C board members, though they generally have to contact Daryl Emerson to get that discount, and 55. For the public though. Carla Morales has been kind to provide a CBSN discount codes. And Steve, you might want to ask her for one that you can include in your announcements of that meeting.
Kurt just put an announcement that he'll get an an ACP as he'll
get it. Right. So Kirk has been on the program committee for that and he's moderating one of the panels as well. Okay,
KIrk, do you want to add any more about that?
Yeah, Sandip and I spent a lot of time in his planning session to name the fireside chat and missed the billion dollar fireside chat. I can't believe Martin didn't lead with that. I it's in
the it's in the notice I posted but you're right. I didn't say that. Thank you.
But yes, too many words for dumb guys like me to read, you know, we get a big headline billion dollar Fireside Chat. Now we're looking forward to it. It's gonna be great. It's gonna be great event. And I'll get I'll get codes for the AC BSN folks.
Any other any other announcements, anything people want to share before we end for today?
And also good to see myelin haven't seen you for Well, thanks, Marlon, for jumping on. And thanks for all you do. It's amazing what you guys have accomplished. And really when we talk to other people in other states, like your kid, what, $10 an hour? I mean, $10 a month what? Yeah, thanks. I mean, it actually is amazing. We
Well, I think one thing you all heard this morning and not anything new, is that we have some amazing people. We're doing some great work here in Arizona, people like myelin and myelin and, and others. And so we really appreciate all the work they do. And with that, I think we're done for today. Karina, I need to chat with you. I'll call you in just a little while.
If you're still on. Okay,
if not, I think we're all done for today. Thank you all. If you're interested, as you know, we try to do a kibbutz in session after this meeting. If anybody wants to stay in mind and chat, I'm just going to stop the recording. And if you want to just visit for a while. If not, we'll
