January 18, 2024 AZBSN Edited Digital Equity Study Recording

9:00PM Jan 21, 2024

Speakers:

Steve Peters

Cindy Hogan

Ilana Lowery

Nicole Umayam

Erin Lorandos

Mala Muralidharan

Drew Garner

PJ Way

 Sandip Bhowmick

Vaughn Croft

 Candace Hamana

Maggie Farry

Marilyn Anderson

Corey Christians

Maryanna Milton

Michael Holcomb

Michael Shivers

Keywords:

plan

state

arizona

acp

digital

folks

programs

goals

erin

objectives

populations

provide

ntia

navigator

bead

question

funding

telehealth

equity

nicole

Okay. All right recording is in progress. Fantastic. I do just want to take one quick moment to to acknowledge that Nicole Umayam is with us. And she will have a few slides at the beginning of the presentation. So she'll also get to hear from her, I'll let her introduce herself momentarily. But before Steve has me say it, I'm gonna say it. My name is Erin Lorandos. And I'm the Digital Equity Program Manager at the Arizona Commerce Authority. I joined the ACA just in November, right at the spot to help push the Digital Equity plan across the finish line. So, you know, I have to give credit to the amazing work that the rest of the team and, and our contractors and of course, Cindy, when she was with ACA did to to get the plan, you know, into the space that I was able to pick it up and take it just the last few yards. So I just want to acknowledge that that this was a very big group effort, and everyone was playing such an important role. So I'm gonna go ahead and start my slideshow here. And then I will pass it off to Nicole for the first little bit here. Let me just push all the buttons.

Okay, while you're doing that, Nicole, I apologize. I should have introduced you early on to

it, we'll get there. No problem.

Oh, you know what I just realized, okay, sorry, I have to share screen and then do that. Geez, I need a digital navigator. You guys. Okay. All right. You don't need to see my email. All right, here we go. And hold on. Let me switch swap here. There we go. All right, I think everybody should be seeing the actual presentation now, which is fantastic. And so once again, we're gonna be spending some time today talking about our Digital Equity plan. Um, you know, the, the information that I've copied over to the slides is definitely being copied over to the slides. So always refer to the actual plan, you know, when you're making your comments, and honestly going to go ahead and click next, Nicole, if you want to just tell me when you're ready to switch slides, I'll be happy to do that.

During a little bit of a background noise

if everybody could just stay on mute, unless you'd like to add to the conversation, of course, just go ahead and raise your hand or, you know, stop us. But overall, if we can keep the the other people muted, that would be fantastic. Awesome. Thanks so much. All right, Nicole, it's all you.

Sounds good. Well, good morning, everybody. I'm Nicole Umayam. I'm the federal program officer for Arizona with NTIA, I live here in Phoenix and I love being able to serve Arizona and work with my many communities here. So in my role, I'm really one part grant administrator, one part Broadband office support and many parts stakeholder engagement and supporting all the initiatives to get the goal of internet for all achieved here in Arizona. Really what that means is implementing the two different grant programs, the BEAD and the Digital Equity Act grant programs that were established in the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law. So I'm starting with this slide, because these are the covered populations that were dictated by Congress in that bipartisan bipartisan infrastructure law. And it's these covered populations that the plan is always having to point back to, and that over this year long planning process, the state has had to work with specific ways that these populations are impacted by digital inequity, and come up with actionable solutions. So you know, maybe by the time you finish reading the plan, you'll have these eight memorized, but these are the ones that are specifically required in the statute to be to be addressed throughout the plans. So everything comes back to these ones. And you can see, it is quite broad. So all rural inhabitants, you know, there's, you know, from my opinion, there's not a lot that binds, binds that population, besides the fact that they happen to live in a designated rural area. But even so, issues of Broadband access, adoption and affordability, you know, there's some some unique interventions for for people who live in rural areas versus those in in urban areas. And, you know, the same case goes for, for supporting all of these covered populations. And I think the plan does a really good job of talking about the intersectionality of, of individuals who might belong to more than one covered population, and even exploring ones that are explicitly named here. And Erin, and I love to have those conversations with all of you as well. We can go to the next one area. There we go. So there are 15 requirements that the plan has to address. And these are, are reviewed by a team of internal reviewers at NTIA for each state. And it's actually quite a lengthy technical assistance process throughout the year. And once we get into the reviewing phase, really, we're going to kind of exacting guidance on making sure that things are worded and framed in an appropriate way. And always with an eye towards towards action. The state plan is informing the future of work of Digital Equity and how the state may implement their their capacity funds to pull off all these activities. So NTIA is emphasis is on making sure that the proposed activities, the proposed means of of engagement are all spot on and set us up for success. So it's it's a involved process. But we wanted to share the requirements first. So you get a sense of how reviewers think of the plan, how the authors have been thinking of the plan, and then how you all are thinking of the plan as well. So the first half of these programs here, you'll you'll see those covered populations mentioned for most of these. So you know, the first step is really to make sure that there are identified barriers for each covered population. And that literally means at least one barrier identified for each of the eight covered populations. So that's something that we look at carefully. And I think you'll be interested in those, those discussions and in Arizona's Arizona is county approach that will that we'll take a look at one of the key requirements is requirement to so this is the measurable objectives. And so we'll see sort of these broad goals and the action steps inside. And they do have to address all eight of those covered populations and consider these five different areas, five or more different areas on top of those covered populations. So, you know, what does Broadband technology access look like for veteran populations in particular? So we'll look over, over those. An interesting section in the in the top is how all of these objectives interact with the state's broader goals. So you'll see Governor Hobbs state goals for you know, for her administration, you'll see reference to the statewide workforce plans, different health plans and how the the state's Digital Equity planning has incorporated those, you know, those relevant contours into the plan here. Another interesting section is the plans for collaboration. This actually comes later in the plan, but it's you'll see the stakeholders that are involved in the planning process, and then the intention to continue to to work with what we call key stakeholders in implementing all of these programs. Requirement five is a literal list of, of partners throughout this process, which is a little different than the sort of assessment of key players and future work. Requirements six, that's the state's vision for Digital Equity. So similar to a vision and mission state statement from a major organization. So this is all informed through the planning process as well. The the needs assessment. So this is a little different than barriers by a covered population. This is looking at the players on the ground, the strengths and the assets that existing programs, existing counties, you know, different organizations already bring to the table and just getting a lay of the land so somebody can read this section and understand who's doing what in Arizona and obviously that helps us in the planning process. We can move over to the next one Aaron. So, similarly, the asset inventory, this is section together so there are little, you know, one of them is a little bit more text based and then the asset inventory Horry, I believe is in the in the appendix. And that's a trying to be as most the most comprehensive listing as possible. We also have the coordination and outreach strategy, which I think will be of interest to this group. So the ways that the Broadband office intends to continue working with all sorts of stakeholders and the pacing available there. It's also accounting for all of the the existing local Digital Equity or digital access related plans. And, you know, reviewing, reviewing those and discussing how that has helped inform the plan that we're we're going to take a look at, importantly, the implementation strategy. So this is really getting down to the core activities of those big goals and objectives that we've seen. So then looking at, well, what does you know, what does that look like and even asking to have a quarter by quarter breakdown of of what those activities look like, including the updating and the evaluation of this plan and updating this plan as we go. There's also looking at making sure that this strategy is, is really addressing gaps. So we we sort of see that throughout Arizona's plan,

it is required for the state to also talk broadly about how how their implementation strategy is, is partnering with workforce and labor organizations and institutions of higher learning, and other other public service entities as well. So we'll see we see that in the plan. The timeline is obviously tied to that inflamation implementation strategy. And then the last requirement is the way that the use of funds is going to be coordinated. So this is the BEAD funding, as well as other state and federal funding, and how the Broadband office intends to make sure that everybody at the table is, is coordinating so that we can maximize this sort of investment. There is a secret 16 not so secret 16th requirements, and that is the public comment, period, which is what we're in now. So the state actually has to has is bylaws required to have a 30 day public comment period, so that they can get input from all sorts of stakeholders and everybody involved and impacted by this plan. And they also have to demonstrate to NTIA how they are implementing all of that feedback and collect, collect all those comments. And, you know, I've been a reviewer for other state plans. And I know that this is this is taken very seriously. So I commend you all for for being here and participating in this process. And, you know, just we can't encourage you enough to to share your thoughts and your feedback, because it is it is read and it is it is going to impact all of Arizona. So thank you for being here.

Thank you, Nicole. And you know, I always love your presentation, because you really put it in some context about what the plan needs to include and what it doesn't include, which is that it's not boiling the ocean, but every population out there that there are some specific requirements from NTIA. So I think it's really helpful that you provide this overview.

Thank you. Unless we have questions on this one. I'll let Erin take it away. But I am going to post a link in the chat where you can read all of the posted draft plans from other states. If you're curious on how Wisconsin approach some of these things are California. I'm guessing those are out for public comment. Now. You can take a look, with the caveat that these are not approved plans. These are draft plans that are just publicly posted.

Are there any questions for Nicole?

I have one question. Maybe this is for Erin. But my understanding is that the covered populations as you alluded to cover a lot of people. Do you have like a percentage of the state that is covered?

Yes. So in the plan itself, we go into that detail. There's a ton of statistics around the percentage of folks in the state who fall into these categories, or potentially more than one category as Nicole mentioned, it does. You know, it's a very broad swath of people for sure. But yes, and we can look at that um, Live if we want to in a little bit.

And okay, I think I know a little bit of the background on that question, because because it's a good question. The percentage of covered population actually informs the formula of the capacity money for states, among other things, so it's, it's a good one to pay attention to.

Any other questions?

So Erin, before we move on, I see excuse me that Maggie Farry has joined the meeting. Oh, Hi, Maggie, just give her a minute to say hello and to introduce herself. Maggie, if you would please.

Hi, sorry not to take away from the Study group. But one of the say hello, my name is Maggie Farry. I'm the Director of Intergovernmental Affairs for Governor Hobbs and I run her Broadband policy portfolio. So I get to work closely with Erin and Nicole on Ensign deep on Broadband related activities for the state. I'll put my email in the chat if there's anything that I can do to be helpful. We run working groups for the governor's in our agency and community Broadband Advisory Council once a month. So if you'd like to join or learn more about that, please reach out.

And I did include the information about those meetings and when they take place in my email announcement about this meeting. So if you're interested in joining, the information is there, as well as the contact information for Maggie. So Maggie is an important part of this process. She didn't make that quite as clear as she, but she's an important part of this process, important part of the team. So with that, Erin, I'm gonna go back to you.

Okay, awesome. All right. Well, let's dive into the plan a little bit. So our plan kicks off with an executive summary, which is meant to provide a high level overview of the contents of the plan and also kind of give a bit of an introduction to two the work that we're hoping to do, I have to give credit to Candace, she was instrumental in coming up with the most amazing tagline, I guess, if you want to call it that as part of the executive summary. And so of course, you know, about Arizona's five C's, we've got copper, cattle, cotton, citrus, and climate. And each of those sectors plays a pivotal role in Arizona's history, and as well as its further development. And as we are transcending into this new chapter of the Arizona story, we are stepping into a more connected and digital era. And we are adding a sixth C connectivity. And I just absolutely love that image. It is the coolest image ever. And Candace, I just have to give you props, because it was just the coolest thing ever. We're making T shirts. I'm not joking.

You want a t shirt too? Okay, well, well, we're gonna do a test run, and then we'll open it up for maybe it'll be some maybe you know what, maybe state 48 would like to make us a connectivity t shirt. And then there can be funding Digital Equity in the future. But I just I wanted to take a moment and talk about that, because I think that that is a really beautiful image for Arizona. And I love in our plan, how we can tell that Arizona story, you know, and, you know, as Nicole mentioned, there's obviously plans from every state, and many of them are available to read. And that's one of my favorite parts about looking at other states plans is seeing how they're telling the state story, not just, you know, the stuff that's required, but the unique aspects that that make every state in the country. special and unique. So I just wanted to give them a moment to that. Yes, Steve, I

want to interrupt you for just a second. There's lots of people on this call that probably should get introduced. But I did want to introduce drew gardener. I'll put you on the spot Drew. But Drew has been partner with us quite a long time. But he has a new job with the Benton Institute. So I thought Drew, maybe you could just take a minute to talk about your job because you're really into the policy side of things. So want to just take two minutes to talk about what you do and so forth.

Happy to Thanks, Steve. Yeah, my name is Drew Garner. I work closely with Ilana Lowry at Common Sense. My former colleague, I'm now at the Benton Institute for Broadband in society. I don't want to spoil everything Erin's gonna say but in case it's helpful for anyone, Benton is doing summaries and articles on all state plans. And we're hoping to have ours on Arizona done sometime early next week. So for the busy people who may not be able to read 200 pages, or the executive summary, which is there, too, we'll have something to help you. And I also work with Mignon Hollis, who's helping to do some coalitional work in Arizona. And we'll be reviewing the plan and hoping to give some positive support to the aspects we like, and some feedback to where we think it could be improved. So we look forward to participating in the comment, period by deadline February one.

Yep. Sorry, Erin. He's, yes, he

does. Um, no. And that's a fantastic segue. Actually, I did just, I hadn't had a chance to say this out loud yet. So I do just want to call out the fact that, you know, while we are having, hopefully a very robust conversation during the session today, and throughout our other opportunities to dive into the plan, we, we just want to highlight the fact that we really do need you to formally submit comments, so that we can track them and respond to them per the NTIA requirements. So I just wanted to put that out there. And we will go into depth a little later on how to actually submit those comments. There, there are, there are a number of ways so but I do appreciate that. And, you know, this can be kind of the time where you think about what comments you might be making, and maybe you know, kind of test the waters and say them out loud and get feedback here. But you know, we do need them formally submitted as well so that we can track. Okay, thanks so much. All right. Okay, so on that note, let's dive into the goals and objectives of the plan. And we will go to the plan live here in a little bit. But I just wanted to bring the the goals and objectives and a couple of other sections out onto slides so that there'll be a little bit easier to read. And I don't give anyone motion sickness scrolling through 200 pages of the plan right away in the morning. So you'll notice that the plan kind of identifies a few main buckets of goals. And these kind of speak back to the the requirements that Nicole mentioned as well. We oops, sorry about that. I just clicked on the wrong thing. So over the course of the the last year, as we mentioned, there's been a constant comprehensive data collection process with our contractors, which included statewide listening tour, online roundtables and surveys that were administered both to community members as well as our community anchor institutions, allowing Arizonans that fall into one or more of these covered populations, to describe the challenges and barriers that they're facing to Digital Equity. And we found a number of common barriers that kind of informed these buckets, they fell into categories such as Internet cost and stability, concerns about online safety and privacy. There was some themes of general distrust of the government and distrust of the internet. So that kind of speaks to the the cybersecurity the staying safe online, how to navigate those concerns. We also saw a theme of people being interested in getting more support services, digital literacy, upskilling opportunities, those informal education opportunities, can device access and affordability came up, of course, and then also the physical limitations of a user and how those limitations might affect person's engagement with the technology and the internet. So to help address these barriers to Digital Equity, that we have laid out a number of goals and objectives in the plan, and we can dive into those right now. So the first main goal that we identified is to increase the availability and affordability of reliable high speed Broadband internet. So of course, this speaks primarily to the work that the BEAD program is going to be doing, but the actual, you know, connections for for every Arizona and to the internet, or the availability of that connection, at least. So this, this goal has been broken down into a number of objectives. And the first one is to increase enrollment and affordable connectivity program. I want to pause here just for a moment because, of course, if folks have been following the news, they know that this objective might be a little tenuous now with the current situation around ACP and I would be more than happy to open this up to have a little bit of a conversation about this, we have many experts on our call around the exact status of things. But generally speaking, if, you know, my top level overview of this is that as we currently stand, we don't have funding for ACP past the first quarter of this year. And there has been guidance provided now by the FCC to to wind down this process. And in fact, as currently stands, folks will no longer be able to enroll in ACP for new enrollees past the first week of February. And so obviously, these plans have been in the works for a whole year, and a lot of this language was written before those, you know, shoes dropped. And so you know, this is something that we are looking at, potentially changing our language to, to include a more general frame. The downside, of course of that is, we really want ACP, you know, to continue or something very, very similar to it. So, I also see a benefit of leaving some of this language in there. Because then when it is reviewed at that federal level, you know, it provides support for the continuation of the program. So many plans, especially in the affordability section rely very heavily on the idea of ACP. And so you know, that might be a way to, to prove its importance, you know, we have over 500,000 people in the state that are currently benefiting from ACP. And, and I love all of the comments that are coming into the chat with with all of these people who know way more than I do about the details chiming in. So that's fantastic. And I'll give you guys a moment to speak in second here too, if you'd like. Um, but you know, it is a hugely important part of affordability going forward. And, you know, I'm not to go on too much of a tangent, but you know, it, it, it doesn't really matter if people have access to something that they can't afford, right. And if people are, you know, unable to capitalize on that, then that's really going to affect the efficacy of all of these plans, and all of these programs that the federal government is supporting so, so I just wanted to take a moment to that. Drew and or Elena, I see both of you chiming in in the chat, if any, if either of you would like to take a moment and say anything about ACP? I would I would love to hear your your viewpoints.

Well, I'll just quickly say that, in addition to the wind down, there's also been a bill introduced, it was right around the same time that the FCC guidelines came out about the the wind down in the in the freeze. And so we don't know what's going to happen with the ACP Extension Act. We're hearing that it's kind of been kicked down the road to march. And so the idea is that there will be a transition period between the freeze and you can still so you can still enroll people in ACP up through the time of the freeze, and then the money is slated to run out towards the end of April. So they could at least people could at least get two or three months of the benefit. For those of you that want to know like, you know, what happens afterward. There are some ISPs that have said that they would keep people on a discounted rate, until this is all ironed out. So there's lots of movement and lots of things happening right now around this. And we really don't have any definite answers. Even the FCC doesn't have any definite answers around what's going to happen. So it's not, you know, it's not necessarily all bad news. But it is frustrating to say the least for FCC grantees and other folks that have been working on this. But yes, I don't know if Drew wants to add anything, but I just wanted to mention that, that bill that was dropped last week.

I'm sure you've all sort of seen and read this. The one thing I'd encourage you to look out for is on January 25. That's the day that ISPs are required to notify every enrollee so all 22 point 5 million enrollees will get a text or an email or a physical letter or some form of written communication, notifying them about the end of the program. I would love to see those notifications. So if anyone is working with enrollees and is able to get a copy of those notices that would help. Please share them with me if you can help me to anonymize them, but I would just like to help sort of see what providers are saying so that we can make it because I want to make Get clear, this is the notices are gonna be coming from providers. But this is ultimately Congress's decision providers aren't the ones who are sneaking the rate up on you. This is, this is still something you can do something about. So we're trying to do advocacy. So January 25 notices go out, February 8, enrollment freezes. And at the same time enrollment freezes any of the ACP our 20s are going to lose access to some of their funding, the FCC grants they've gotten. So that's I'm sure everyone is already paying attention to that. But that will, the FCC outreach grantees may be the first ones to really feel this financially, in addition to the 25 million households who are shut out of the program are eligible but not yet enrolled. So that's all I'll add. Happy to talk more if anyone's interested. Thanks, Drew.

Thank you so much, both of you for that. That's a fantastic overview. And there are a bunch of really amazing resources in the chat if you if you haven't seen that yet. Are there any follow up questions or comments about ACP generally or this?

This is Mala. I just a quick just a quick question. And I'm not sure it was clear in the webinar that FCC had. This is candy outreach, grant money that has been received, be used to send out notifications to, to the enrollees or some something to say, hey, you know what Drew said, you know, this is not the fault of the service providers, please approach your congress or whatever, you know, so can since they have some outreach money left that they haven't used, if they can draw down and use it for that.

Yeah, I mean, the the webinars that I have been a part of that's definitely encouraged, you know, if you have connection with folks who you've helped sign up, or, or, you know, of folks who are enrolled in the program, because, you know, you've been working with them. And, you know, as a digital navigator in a library situation, whatnot. You know, I think that, from my perspective, I think that that's an appropriate thing to do. Yeah. And in there's, there's probably some more specific guidance about that, you know, about how to phrase that and whatnot. But I think you know, what Drew said, I think is spot on with that, you know, that this is, you know, this isn't the ISP. And it's going to be a fine line, right? Because historically, I think that's kind of the feel, right? Like, oh, I signed up for a deal. And then in a year, you know, the prices go up and all of that. And in this case, it's definitely not that happening at all. So, I mean, from my perspective, I would say that, if folks have the opportunity to have that conversation with people, it would be good.

By Mariana here from AZStrut. Hi. I mean, hey, it's no wonder people have a mistrust of the government. When you sign up for a program, and then you get dropped, whether or not you know, it's the government not. But my comment, question is, what kinds of discussions are going on at the state level to create our own version of ACP

are the same question. Great question. So actually, the next objective, conveniently, I'm just going to switch forward to it because it will give an opportunity for you to look at something new for a while while we talk. Objective two is to launch an increase enrollment in the BEAD, low cost plan. And so part of our BEAD, five year action plan, and the implementation of that is to create a low cost plan within, you know, within Arizona's ISPs, and, and encourage folks to enroll in that as well. Would with someone on the team that would like to kind of dive into that a little bit more from the BEAD perspective. And then we'll see if that helps answer Marianas question. I don't think that you know, there isn't necessarily a way for us to replicate ACP. But this is this is kind of meant to be in tandem with so if someone would like to speak to the BEAD side of things, that would be wonderful.

Thank you Erin now, I'll just provide a quick update. So and Mariana, thank you so much for the question. In our BEAD plan, it's a it's a requirement from NTIA that we have to present an option if there is an situation where ACP goes away. So if you look at look into our BEAD plan, outposts requirement here, I think it's requirement 18. So we described briefly that the ISPs was receiving BEAD Funding need to offer a plan of for low cost, low cost plans so, and from our standpoint, it was $30, which is also recommended by NTIA, you will see different number in different state when the speed has to be 100 by 20. And that's the BEAD requirement. You all also said if the ACP goes away, in case of ACP $30, in regular places that will wipe off basically, all the internet bill for a family and $75 on tribal land will wipe off the internet bill for a family. So, and we also said in the plan that if ACP goes away during the BEAD deployment, they have to stick to this plan. So if it's a $30 plan, they have to stick with this plan so that families can pay $30 or $75 on tribal land. I understand that this is not a not an alternative for ACP, but it just something we can still do to keep the pricing within the control. Having seen that I I saw my Maggie's hand up. So I would like to invite Maggie to add a little bit more on top of that.

Thank you. Thank you. Sorry, it was unmuting and putting myself on video. So it took a second. Yeah, so I think certainly, as Sandip mentioned that a lot a lot of states are in the situation where we're kind of preparing for our, our planning ahead without the the ACP sort of locked in as a future option. So what we've done in the Volume Two proposal that we submitted to NTIA is we've changed the tie to ACP, we've kept the eligibility as those who are eligible for ACP. However, we've changed the price structuring to 70 or sorry, 35% of the FCC urban benchmark rate. And the 2024 Broadband benchmark rate for 100 by 20, was just released in December and that's 9124. And so 35% of that is 31. So it does, the low cost plan for BEAD does end up being very close to ECP, which is 31.9. However, we had to tie it to the FCC benchmark rate because ACP is obviously looking like it will no longer be an option barring any action from Congress.

Thank you, Maggie. Questions for Maggie here before we move on.

I see Cory hand. Go ahead.

Hey, Cory Christians a Yavapi County. Just a quick question on the the low cost BEAD option if ACP goes away, Sandip, are you saying that it will be proposals that have a an alternative to ACP provided by the Broadband provider will be more competitive when considering bids? Or is the state going to be funding an ACP alternative?

BEAD low cost plan is the BEAD low cost plan is required by sub grantees and subgrantees. The folks who get BEAD dollars are required to provide that low cost plan. Although there is a piece of the application process at well as well that makes your application the score higher depending on the affordability of the plants that you offer. However, in terms of with sort of the requirements for the lifetime of the network, that's the the BEAD low cost plan.

Okay, so So if they haven't, if they're required to have a low cost plan to be competitive, or they will not be considered if they don't have a low cost plan.

This is after they are selected. So after they're selected, they're required to provide that low cost plan. And if they're if you're in and then it's sort of a both and situation. So in the application process, your application will be considered more competitive based on the affordability pieces of the service you provide. And then on the back end, if you are selected as the sub grantee, you are required to provide that low cost.

Low cost plan offered to every household in the BEAD area or just ones that have a low income. It

will use the same eligibility as the ACP. So if if a family was eligible for ACP, then that that family would be eligible for the BEAD low cost plan if they are covered by a BEAD subgrantee.

So would the ISP be running those requirements? Or would that be a state in Arizona State Department that runs those requirements? Vi

as well, the ISP that were the sub recipient. Okay.

Okay. Thank you.

And I'm just curious about the timeframe, then, like, what are we talking about in terms of if ACP goes away? When Yeah, the BEAD program

kick in?

That's, yeah, I think that's a very valid question. And so if we have, you know, if the projections are correct, will the ACP will run out of funding in the spring? I think earlier this week, the FCC said that the last day that folks can apply for the ACP is February 7, or eighth, I'm sure. Drew will correct me if I'm wrong in the chat, which I appreciate. And then in terms of what the BEAD build out, looks out looks like. So once Volume Two is accepted by NTIA, then the the which will likely be sometime in the spring, the state has 365 days to get those dollars out to sub grantees. And then the sub grantees have four years to build out those those networks. And so that's a longer it's a longer longer term solution to a short term problem, I suppose.

PJSC your hands up?

Yes. Good morning. How are you today?

Great. How are you? Well, I

just had a quick question when it comes to low cost and those those types of selection processes? If so, if the selection process, if I understand correctly, low cost impact would would be a requirement after the warranty was selected? Then understand that part, correct?

Yes, that's correct. Okay.

And does that mean, does that qualify also, for as I understand the new some of the other changes that have come about which is also discussing wireless? So if wireless is going to be eligible for BEAD wireless services also be eligible for BEAD funding? Yes. So a provider that would may provide the lowest cost may be wireless, when a wired connectivity is also available? Is that? Will that be delineated that the lowest cost of wireless or was cost of versus lowest cost of Wired, connected physical infrastructure? Does that does that play a part or not at all, in weighing out how a low cost plan is effectively evaluated?

The answer is yes. And I think Sandip is probably the best point of contact, he's kind of dove into this requirement from NTIA and did some really creative work there. Although I don't want to get too off of what Erin was working on with her presentation here. So maybe what we could do is Phillip, I have your contact information? Do you have Sandip's contact information?

Oh, yes, absolutely. Okay,

wonderful. Maybe the three of us can jump on a call offline and kind of go into the wireless requirements that Sandip did a really wonderful job breaking out and he can kind of talk you through it.

Okay, Maggie. Yeah, I really appreciate it. I was just curious, really, for the for the entirety of the group also, just just from a standpoint of, you know, low cost carriers for a low cost plan, maybe effectively, some of the least desirable services that we're looking to implement. Yeah, I appreciate it. I would welcome the conversation. I appreciate it. Maggie, thank you so much for your doing.

So wonderful. Yeah. And then feel free to chime in.

I think this is Digital Equity session. So let's just go with that. And Philip, you, me and Maggie can touch base offline or probably take the discussion into our monthly roundtable for local government. Sounds great. Thanks. And

I mean, it's al so interconnected. I expected this, you know, conversation to include all of the things so thank you so much. I appreciate it. Um, okay, so I'm gonna go on to to the next goal, then, you know, the important part about these first couple objectives with goal one is that, you know, we're trying to make space for the promotion of what and you know, In an increased enrollment in whatever low cost, high speed, you know, options for Internet are available, whatever that looks like, past, past all of this shaking out, and of course, you know, I think Maggie made a really good point that, you know, the timelines for these things are happening all at the same time, but they're on different timelines. And so I think that's an important thing to to note. All right, so the next big goal that we set is to increase inclusivity, and accessibility of public resources and services. So this goal is broken out into a number of objectives, um, that really kind of speak to online spaces and content being more accessible. You know, and so this, this is, this is where we start to, to be able to collaborate with people who know way more than we do, which, you know, is key to key to the implementation of many of these goals, of course, but you'll see here, implementation for this school is to collaborate with our experts and advocacy groups and forming task forces around accessibility and speaking with our disability advocates to identify and integrate best practices for digital accessibility. So this kind of starts to speak to that bucket that we saw around you know, limitations, or differently abled accessibility qualities for for different folks in the state. And then, of course, we want to try to ensure that our public and state offices and organizations that might be receiving state funding, have guidelines and training around accessibility and understand what those qualities might be for different groups. And then we will also engage with state agencies, content creators and designers, the the IT folks in the comms departments to ensure that we can be in compliance with the web content accessibility guidelines, and enhance existing sites accessibility as well. The second objective in this goal is, is to establish local and tribal designated Digital Equity specialists. And so this starts to create a feedback loop for us across the state to ensure that as we move into the implementation of the plan, that we stay in alignment with local needs, and the things that people are seeing on the ground, I want to take a moment with this objective because this, you know, this is, this is a supposition or a designation that we're hoping to create in tandem with our contacts across the state, identifying these folks. It's sort of like our point person in every county, and hopefully, in many, if not all, eventually of our of our tribal communities as well. We'll be able to have that person provide us feedback right away. And also we can use these folks to help disseminate information about implementation bits in the plan and all of that. So we are planning to create this cohort and support those people going through some sort of certification or a formal training to become what we're calling Digital Equity specialists. And you know, those those specific certifications and formal trainings haven't necessarily been fully identified yet. But for folks on this call, who might be familiar with the Digital Inclusion leadership certificate that the that ASU and the Marconi society put together, it's something like that, that we would be looking at, to ensure that these folks have the same baseline understanding and that we're all kind of coming from the same frame of reference for the work that we hope to do. And, you know, we would hope that through the capacity grant program, we would be able to support any, you know, scholarship or whatnot that is needed for these folks to participate. Cory, I see your hand.

Yeah, just to make sure I have this, this Digital Equity specialist position correct. And its function. Is this intended to be more of a leadership position that will help implement programs across the locality or the tribal area or whatever the case is?

Yes, and so these would be people who would be identified in conjunction with, you know, local government, we could work with, you know, organizations in the area that are already doing this work, and we would help between you know, that conversation we would identify our one person, you know, so for example, Cory is our person in Yavapi. And if I ever need to do you know anything in Yavapi, you're the first person I talked to, and then also, you would be able to get together with your counterparts across the state, on a regular cadence with us to ensure that, you know, any implementation that's happening is in alignment with local needs, any changes that need to be made, we could communicate that up and down, you know, in a really effective way. It's sort of the idea, you know, in, in government, we use Lean, right, and so it's like that that cadence of the stand up meetings, you have your local conversation first, and then all the leaders of that go up to the next one, this kind of creates that next level, so that we can ensure that what we're doing at the state level, you know, is always in coordination and in alignment with what's happening locally. And this would not be a position that we would expect to be a new funded position or anything like that in an organization. You know, we're hoping to identify people who are already working in those spaces, you know, someone you know, in the library, let's say, or someone in the local government, someone in the, you know, education, you know, feel whatever it is, that, you know, they're already there, they already know their community. You know, we, we wouldn't want to have to force, you know, counties or anything to create a new position around this. It's mostly just a point of contact. Does that help? Yes, okay, fantastic. Marilyn, I see your hand. Hi, Marilyn, how are you?

Oh, there you are. Hi. Um, so? Yeah, I think your question. So, you know, like, with the work that we do with adult education, we already have people identified to support both Digital Equity and digital literacy initiatives. So it'd be getting them specially certified in this system is what kind of what you're talking would be an example.

Um, yes, I will say that, you know, the, they're still going to be those groups of people, like, for example, within the Department of Ed, you would have that group that's already working, then we would know, you know, in all of the county, one person would be this person. So, you know, we would obviously, this is going to be a huge collaboration, effort, you know, where, who that person is, right, or who their, their, their potential designee is, you know, because we totally understand, of course, that, you know, putting one more monthly calendar meeting and all of that, you know, might be might be difficult. So we just want to make sure that we know that one person in every county that we can start that conversation with, and have that, that continuous interaction with, but yeah, someone, you know, someone, for example, in the Department of Ed, that, you know, was already that point person, you know, this isn't to say that other people can't participate in that certification and things like that, in fact, I highly recommend that, you know, going forward that as a state, it'd be super awesome for us all to have that same baseline understanding of what we're talking about. And I will say, you know, this is a little bit of a tangent, but, you know, when I came into the official Digital Equity space, I, you know, my experiences in libraries, so I know about, you know, the digital literacy, the informal education, the connecting people with the resources, all of that, but I don't know as much about the BEAD side of things. Right. And so having that, that baseline understanding was super important for me, when I went through the certification, you know, to, to just be able to have that understanding of what people are talking about, you know, on both both parts, because they all work together, as you're seeing very effectively in this call. Right. So, yes, and Elena, I agree, you know, that course from ASU is absolutely fantastic. You know, it is, it's not free, though, you know, and so I just want to put that out there that, you know, that we understand that there would be a financial, you know, burden to two groups are doing this. So, you know, we don't know how much money we're getting for capacity yet. But this is one thing that we are hoping to, to, you know, be able to offer to the Digital Equity specialists. And I know that I've heard ASU talking about making a version of their curriculum available for more local use. And so maybe that's another opportunity that our Digital Equity specialist in every county could then help other organizations or other, you know, groups like the point people within Department of Ed, for example, could all come together and take a version of a certification provided through that train the trainer model to so yes, definitely. Paul, I don't want to miss your program here. What will be the or what your Question What will be the process to certify a training program? So that's a little TBD at this point. And it has a lot to do with the fact that we don't have the details around the capacity grant program yet, from the federal level or obviously, than from the local perspective. But we will identify what that process to certify will be as we get further down the path with this. So not pushing your question down the line. But you know that that's a little too to come yet. You're right. It is not it is not the only potential provider. I'm just using that purely as an example. And we know that there are many. One, one other. One other one that we're looking at, you know, provided ACP related activities continue is the ACP cohort from education superhighway. There are many opportunities out there, and it will be part of our evaluation to figure out which one is the best. So no, that's an excellent point. And I should have clarified I was using it purely as an example. Not as a this everyone is taking this. Thank you for bringing that up. Steve, I see your hand. Yeah. So

Erin, I wanted to go back to Corys question. And Corey, you guys did a great job in your community, to bring people together, create a plan, and go after funding for Broadband, and a waste of my opinion. And those of you who've been around me enough, know that I'm a big advocate of doing the same thing for Digital Equity, being able to create a Digital Equity team, bringing people together and creating a plan in a local community. And I believe, to some extent that that's addressed later in the plan. But since this came up, I just thought I'd emphasize that I think that that's really important. Many of the communities, some who were on this call, have done a great job because they have created those Broadband teams. In some cases, they have a leader in some cases, they had to hire consultants, but either way, I believe that that's an important if we're looking at sustainability, for Digital Equity, as well as collaboration and effective use of resources that I think that really has to happen at the local level also, oh, my four cents worth.

That we owe you two cents back then goodness. Um, okay, awesome, ya know, that that is going to be key moving forward, for sure. You know, and hopefully, you see, as you mentioned, as we go through the plan, you know, there's space for some of that to be happening with support from from the plan as well. Okay, I do want to go on here, we have a quite a number of goals yet to tackle here. So I just want to share a little bit quicker not to discount anything here. But there's a lot so. So objective three within the schools to support the local and tribal capacity for Digital Equity planning and activities. This basically creates the space for any local activities that are potentially in the works or that, that folks are thinking about, you know, through our Digital Equity plan, we want to support those, those activities in whatever way that needs right. So, you know, creating a dashboard within our website, for example, to show to showcase and collect all of the local and tribal resources is an example of that. We are thinking of ways where, especially our tribal communities can can view Language and Cultural Preservation through a Digital Equity lens. And so you know, supporting activities that are already happening within our state around this is is the aim of this objective. Let's see here. Click forward to the next one. The next objective is centered around increasing our telehealth access points and supporting health navigator services. So, in case folks are not sure what telehealth access points are, these are locations where telehealth services can be accessed. So for example, our telehealth and Libraries program that the state library supports is an example of all of these telehealth access points creating the spaces within libraries that have the the equipment necessary the connection to the Internet, a you know, a laptop or computer with a with a good camera, and also maybe some of the equipment that a doctor might encourage you to use throughout a telehealth appointment for example, stethoscope away scale, things like that. Um, that, you know, the average person may not have at home. And so these locations kind of help support that telehealth access. And then Health Navigator services. This is a little bit different than a digital navigator in that they have the health care background as well and supporting programs that offer those services. If you happen to be coming to the internet for all event next week, we actually have a panel that discusses telehealth services and telehealth navigators in the state. And so we can get some more information there if you are attending. But this goal is really around, you know, supporting the the increase of access to telehealth. And many of those, those resources are, you know, still obviously, very important. Even if you have access at home, you still might not have that knowledge. Right. So the Health Navigator could help with that. You might not have that equipment, you know, that's more medical, in focus. And so you know, having those things available is is what we're hoping to support with this. Steve, I see your hand. Yeah,

Erin. So if I can put Mike Holcomb on the spot. So he is with the telemedicine program here in Arizona. I guess he's actually the acting director. And, Mike, I don't know if you have anything that you want to comment about this particular issue.

Mike is actually presenting at internet for all with us next week. So Hi, Mike, nice to meet you. Hi,

nice to meet you, Aaron, and everyone on the call. Yeah, thanks. For a moment here. Just a couple of thoughts. We would be eager to partner with anyone and working on these particular areas. We've done some work primarily through Janet major on our team who is retiring shortly. Just in a few days and I would have worked with Mala and the State Library system to work on some telehealth access points. There's a resource that is national in scope that is operated by the Northwest Regional telehealth Resource Center comm find telehealth that has a basically to map the entire country is not mapped for telehealth and healthcare providers at this point, it's limited to the western states that have been funded for that. That is a fairly expensive prospect to populate that information. But there is the telehealth Access Point portion of the map that are public access points that can be added for anywhere in the country at no cost. And it's a free service to use. So I'll put that link in the chat but just wanted to mention that that resources available. There's I think there's only one listed for Arizona right now. But hopefully we can get some traction around people adding sites to that resource.

So Mike, I know you guys have often looked at the various grants and funding to expand telehealth and Arizona. And I assume that's going to continue. Yeah,

we are avid supporters of really any health grant work and happy to partner provide letters of support those types of things to aid in those efforts to secure grant support. Work around telehealth.

For those who don't know, the Arizona Telemedicine Program, is one of the top telemedicine programs in the country, if not the number one. So they just do an awesome work. And of course, I've partner Janet major who's who we're sorry to see go but she's moving on, has done great work and working with the local communities and with the libraries and so forth. Agreed.

Cory, I see your question in the chat. Is that what your hand is up for? Or can I just Yes, give you Okay, okay, so are you looking to support taps and oops into scrolled and Health Navigator services through funding? So, you know, through the capacity grant program, which again, the the exact details are still unknown for us. That is a potential you know, anything any applications to our capacity funding within the state that directly aligned with our goals, you know, of course, our our kind Know what we're looking for? Um, so yes, that's, you know, the those exact details are, of course yet to be determined. But, you know, we're hoping that they're just gonna give us all the money and we can do all the things, you know, but until we know what that dollar amount looks like, you know, and actually, that's a good a good note for this because we write this plan and we come up with these goals before we know how much money we have. There will be, you know, a lot of conversation. Of course, once we know what that money amount is, you know, if there needs to be changes to the priorities of a plan and things like that, that is part of the process from the state perspective of, you know, to the to the federal government. So I just wanted to kind of name that. Yes. Yes, Janet is going to be sorely missed. But I don't think she's going to go too far. I mean, she'll still be involved. I don't think you can. I don't think she can walk away that quickly. All right, number three. Sorry. Go ahead.

And this is Mala. Just a quick note to answer Corey''s question. The part one you answered, you know about the Health Navigator services funding. But if if there's any other technical aspects that you would like, Cory, I'm handling it interim till we get someone in are someone new in our Digital Inclusion, recruitment. But if you need to know anything about the pilot programs that we had so far, and the lessons learned, I'm happy to share that with you, or with anyone else who wants to participate in the telehealth program, lots of ducks to get in a row before we actually, you know, implement. So I'm happy to help.

Thanks, Mala. Appreciate it.

Awesome. I don't want to skip forward. I Are there any other comments or questions on what we've discussed so far?

Steve, I've got one short one. For you, please. Sure. Yeah, Erin. I'm not trying to be devil's advocate. So don't get me wrong. But is there? Are there any downside negative downsides that you're running into that need more attention that this group would be helpful in working on? Or is that is that oh, is that just overstating what really, we don't need to engage in

I? Well, right now, the thing that I desperately need from this group, and every group that you know, of, is to read the plan and provide public comment. You know, that is that is key to this part of the process for sure. As far as the going forward parts, some of that, you know, is TBD, so I can't really answer that until I have more of those details. But you know, if there are things that you're considering, I'd be happy to, you know, to connect and, and we can go for things to Alright, thank you, of course, and I didn't put the slide at the beginning. But at the end, there's a slide with all of our contact information. So in case you need any of our emails or anything like that, I'll be providing those shortly. Okay, so goal number three is around providing relevant digital literacy skills training tailored to the needs of the covered populations. And so the objectives in here, I saw, you know, some conversation around digital navigators and digital literacy upskilling opt chat, and I didn't ignore it, but I wanted to wait until we got to the goals that talked about it. So this first objective is to increase digital literacy and skills, in alignment with the learners personal objectives. And we really feel that that is critical for encouraging adoption, and meaningful use of this technology that people will have access to, you know, we have found through our conversations with digital navigators and with learners that individuals are much more inclined to to maintain and expand those skills, if they perceive a relevance in their daily life. It's, you know, it's, you know, it doesn't, if there isn't an applicable use, then you know, it's more difficult for people to to continue to be engaged with it. So, so our digital literacy skills training will be focused around how it connects to people's lives. Through that the objective to is to strengthen our community support for learners through digital navigation, service utilization. So this is where we will be working to increase the awareness of digital navigator programs around the state, a number of which, you know, have come up already in conversation and also to create increased the capacity of those programs to you know, to ensure that that folks, especially within the covered populations are able to access the resources and are aware of what is available, we are hoping to incorporate an aspect of monitoring in, you know, the efficacy of our goals and our program through intake forms or through surveys, you know, distributed through our navigator services, you know, some of these, some of these goals and objectives will rely on that anecdotal, you know, data that's collected through conversations with our with our digital navigators and with the informal education setting. And so we will work to ensure that folks who are in those roles and having those opportunities to provide that data back to us are equipped to do that, we will also increase support to organizations that are serving folks across cover populations, you know, might not have a formal digital navigator program. But you know, these are, these are our partners within the adult education realm, and even k 12, who are working with folks who are in these covered populations. And then, of course, ensuring that any learning platforms and resources are available in preferred languages of the of the user, and also formats that work well for for folks across our covered populations. So really just ensuring that, you know, the resources that are already out there are accessible and increasing awareness of these off these offerings. Did that answer the questions? I think was it Corey that asked about digital navigators support up chat? Was there anything else that?

Well, it's the same question for me if there'll be funding for that. I mean, the idea is, of course, if we can get some initial funding to implement a program demonstrate that it's successful, we could continue with that program after BEAD goes away. It's the hope, of course.

Yeah. And you know, same answer, which I'm sure you're used to hearing now, when, you know, when we when we know more with those details, yes, these are these are the goals, we're hoping to support through the capacity funding. So yes, yep.

I guess one comment I have Erin about the whole thing is, you're talking about all kinds of programs with no estimates of what the costs of the programs are. I don't see how the federal government is going to, I mean, I imagine this is going on in other states as well. But I don't see how the federal government is going to determine how to allocate funds to states if they don't know how much the costs are of all these programs. are, you know, there's no estimate of what the costs are, what the priorities are? How do they determine how much to allocate and they only have very limited funding to allocate for all these programs? I just I think that's an issue that needs to be considered with the NTIA on all this.

Yeah, no, that's an excellent question. And, Nicole, if you want to provide more information about this, feel free but I know that the allocation is based on the percentages of covered populations within the state. And so that, you know, it's a formula based on that, because every plan, and every state schools will be different, they aren't necessarily looking to allocate based on dollar amounts within a plan. It's it's about the the percentages of covered populations. And then once we find out how much money we are getting, we'll go back to our plan. And If changes need to be made, that's kind of part of the process going forward. No state knows, you know, at this point, how much money they're receiving. And so no state is attaching dollar amounts to specific programs, because those priorities might change depending on how much money we get. Money

is very clearly limited, you only have 1.4 4 billion for all the states. Yep, I think in the capacity grant program, which I think, as I remember, is is about only $29 million per state for the five years, on average. So it just seems to me it's a very hard process for NTIA to go through and determine how to allocate funding because you're gonna have to have funding for devices for digital literacy skills training for navigators for technical support. And if you don't have estimates of how you're going to provide these programs at what costs then I don't see how they're going to make decision. about how to allocate this funding in any way that will come anywhere close to meeting the needs that are involved for all these covered populations. And another major problem I have with with I imagine, like I say, I don't think it's probably unique Arizona, it's probably all these plans is, you have to have assessments of what are the like you have a covered pot to track the success of these programs, you have to have an estimate of it seems to me by county, what is the size of the covered populations in each county? Like you have it statewide? You would, it seems to me, you should be estimating for each county, what is the size of the covered population in each county have all these eight covered populations in each county to track the progress you're making in providing devices, digital literacy skills, training, technical support, and digital navigators. And I don't see that anywhere in the plan. It's, it's like you have a statewide number, but not by county estimates. And then, so you need that to track the progress in the counties and estimate what the you know, what the costs would be in providing these services by county in an efficient way. And so I see like a lot of gaps there. And all of of all that tracking of the progress and in the data that you have, and in the estimates of the costs of all these things. I I'm wondering if there needs to be more. I don't know if there's a second phase to how you're going to be going about this, but I don't see how NTIA is going to decide how much artists, whether they're going to be meeting all these needs, whether they're going to be, you know, in terms of the money that they allocate from these high level goals that don't don't specify the costs involved to do to do this, particularly by county. So I, you know, I think that's something that needs to be discussed more with NTIA. And I imagine it's a problem of all the states in the way they're approaching this, asking for all kinds of programs without assessing how much it's going to cost. And what funding is available, the limited funding that's available.

So some of this will, will come in, you know, the capacity grant application part. And, you know, because the, the point from the state perspective is to, you know, support work that's happening and scale work that's happening. And so some of those estimates will need to come from the program providers, right. As opposed to us dictating how much you know, something is going to be is going to cost. We are not intending to necessarily create new programs. You know, we're hoping that our partners and our assets within the state who are doing this work daily, are the ones who will, you know, be supported by the capacity grants. So, so a little of that is is not for us, as in the writers have the plan to dictate as far as funding allocation is concerned. You know, I That's a great question for NTIA. And I don't know if Nicole can provide any additional information on that. But you know, I know that the overall allocation is based on percentages of recovered population within the state, you know, we do break down our our plan and our needs assessment by county, in our in our county profile section. But ultimately, everything rolls up to a state view from NTIA is prospective. And so, um, so we tried to do both in our plan. I do. I do appreciate the need to put some of that statistic, statistical analysis around the counties from our perspective because we know the differences in the counties and we know the, you know, the the urban centers versus the rural areas, etc have very different needs. And that's an excellent comment. I think that that is something that we are considering doing, you know, adding county specific data around the covered populations. So thank you for bringing that up. And, and I would encourage you to submit that as a formal public comment so that we can track that

error and that can I add something here. Yes, please. Okay, thank you. You know, as it pertains

to Candace, can you please introduce yourself quickly?

Hi, sure. I am Candace Hamana. I am part of the team here with Erin and Sandip. Perla Krystal and Vanessa. Were with the state Broadband team. And I am the tribal liaison here at the Arizona Commerce Authority. With respect to tribes, and this Digital Equity plan, I think that the approach that we're taking is first understanding that, you know, tribes have their own government and systems and services that they they provide to their members, for example, and as it serves as it relates to the the increasing support to organizations serving individuals across covered populations that provide informal and formal digital skills training, you know, that the donor awesome community college already has an existing program, it's actually an internet subscription service that's provided by the donor awesome utility authority, and they've got partners, but this program has been in place and through the to cc through their community college there, they offer their members, you know, six months of training with a digital literacy. And there's three levels there. I think when it comes to, you know, doing this work, and making it feel inclusive, from a tribal perspective, it's not going to be our approach to come in and tell them, This is what this is what you need to do, quite frankly, there are some fantastic systems and services and programs that the tribes have already provided to their community members, it's really just being able to reach out to them, you know, when we understand what that allocation or what the funding could look like, and see how we might be able to support their efforts, as they are providing that service to their enrolled communities. So as Aaron was saying, you know, we're not trying to go in and reinvent the wheel, it's really about making sure that we're tapped into the existing networks, and the existing organizations that are already doing this work, and really just amplifying it, and making sure that there's increased awareness that serves that covered population, that that organization exists, and that they're already doing the work. So it's how are we able to amplify that work and their contribution to, you know, bridging this digital divide in rural and tribal communities?

Erin, we should probably keep moving on, we only have less than a half hour left.

I know. Um, yes. Agreed. And thank you, Candace, for that perspective. I think you said it very well. You know, it's like, we're hoping that organizations across the state serving these covered populations see their work in the goals that we're providing so that we can support them through the capacity grant program. Yep. Thank you. Yes, Steve, I know, I have a lot to do yet, don't I? Okay. All right. I'm not going to. I don't want to rush through the goals. I think what what I'd like to do at this point is maybe encourage folks to, to definitely take a look at the remaining goals in the plan itself, and then maybe we can skip forward into a couple other aspects of the plan. I love this feedback, though. This is the kind of stuff that we want to hear. So generally, you know, we're hoping to ensure workforce development opportunities, both for programs or pardon me, jobs created by the BEAD program, as well as other workforce development aspects. In goal for

this carrier. I'm gonna go ahead, again, to go back to the workforce because I know there's been a lot of questions about the workforce plan and issues and stuff like that. I know there's a couple of people on this call who are particularly interested in workforce. So anybody have any questions or comments about workforce development?

And maybe what what I would encourage at this point to just so that we can ensure that we are talking about the other aspects is As folks who have specific questions that, you know that that maybe we don't have quite as much time to dive into, we can set up separate conversations as well. And I will be sharing our contact information shortly, I just want to show that there is space for it, and we'll plan on. Okay, so Goal four is around privacy and security of digital spaces. So this is around the idea of online safety, and encouraging folks to understand cybersecurity and their agency in keeping themselves safe when they're navigating online. Again, you know, our space for community partners and community anchor institutions to, to help us disseminate this information to our communities. Goal five, gets into affordable devices, specifically that meet the needs of the user. And again, I know there's a section that a lot of folks on this call have a vested interest in. So let's find some time I'm looking at you Mariana, if you, you know, would like to have a separate conversation, we would encourage that and welcome it. Objective one within this section is to increase the affordability of devices. And, you know, this is really about awareness. For organizations that are providing subsidized or free devices, this is, you know, device distribution, and, you know, leaning into refurbishing and things like that objective to, again, matching the needs, the device to the needs of the individual, you know, kind of going back to the digital literacy skills section, you know, there, there's a reason why there's a vast array of devices and encouraging those conversations with digital navigators and others that are working directly with users to identify what those needs are and finding appropriate devices. And we are talking at a state level, of course, about creating minimum requirements. And that kind of conversation around this, folks who work in this space will be are very important partners, of course, to make sure that what whatever you know, device requirements are needed is what is being provided. All right in through third objective in this section is around device distribution, working with our partners who, you know, provide the refurbished devices and doing outreach, you know, again, this is hopefully a space where organizations in the state see their work and see how you know, the capacity grants could amplify and increase the impact that that organizations in the state can have with our covered populations. So goal six, this is the last big bucket here. And this is where we get into the monitoring and evaluation of impact of what we're laying out in the plan and our progress towards achieving Digital Equity. So this, this is the part that gets a little difficult to, you know, to quantify without some of these other steps in place where we have more baseline data, you know, we understand that a number of our goals and objectives would benefit from further assessment and further, you know, baseline data collection. And so we are making space for that we can use a portion of our capacity grant funding to continue that process. And so we do intend to, but, you know, we are naming the fact that, of course, you know, we we can only see our progress and see if we're succeeding, if we have that data in place, and we're continually evolving, pardon me evaluate evaluating our work. And so we're leaving space for that. Second objective here is, of course, around continuous engagement. And I'm going to skip over this kind of quickly, that's gone over the last year. So as I mentioned earlier, our contractors helped us with data collection through listening sessions, we also hosted our community roundtable conversations that many of you have been a part of, from the ACA, and we did survey the community as well. And now, as we mentioned before, we are in our public comment phase and so this is the time where we really, of course, encourage folks to take time to read the full plan. You know, we know it's long and thank you, but you know, grab your popcorn and and make a day of it. And we we're hoping that we get a lot of really good public comment through this so that we can ensure that the plan is meeting the needs of the folks in our communities. So now Next, I would like to briefly discuss our engagement plan going forward. So this, this was also detailed in the BEAD in the BEAD, five year action plan and initial proposal. So if you'd like more information on this, it's in both places now. But we are in, we are engaging in a statewide in person outreach over the course of the next year. Briefly, I'll go over the top part. And then I'd like to tag in Kansas, again to speak to the tribal engagement pieces. So in the course of the next year, we are going to be visiting all of the regions so you can see how it's broken out here by a quarter, but the different areas that we are planning to, to go to, and so of course, we are already in quarter one. So we you know, we are working on identifying more specific information about these visits, and information about that will be shared as it becomes more cemented. Candice, would you like to speak about the tribal engagement at all?

Hi, yes. So working in tandem with the outreach that we're going to be doing to the counties and the local municipalities, we definitely want to be accessible in access in person, points of contact for the tribal communities, the tribal nations in Arizona. So what we did was we basically correlated the different tribal communities that are in the same areas. So for example, in quarter one, we'll be out visiting or engaging the members of the Navajo Nation Shiprock agency, the Navajo Nation, chidley agency and Fort Defiance agency. I think that when we took this approach, we just understand that a Navajo Nation is the largest tribe in the country, with over 500,000 enrolled members. And so we really have to take a little bit more time to make sure that everyone is feeling like they're getting the same information and being able to, you know, move along with this process that is a statewide outreach effort. And then over the next course of the remaining quarters, we'll be branching out beyond Navajo Nation. And the Hopi tribe will actually get into the eastern regions, and then down with the engagement of the Southern Arizona tribes, before making our way out towards the tribes that border along, you know, the Arizona and California State. So you've got the Colorado River, Indian tribes, and then down into Yuma. So, really trying to be intentional, and also make sure that we're going to be having the most impact as we travel as team through the different areas of the state.

Thank you so much. And of course, we are also planning to continue hosting our community roundtable conversations. We will continue of course to participate in the governor's interagency and community Broadband Advisory Council and working groups and state agency coordination meetings on on a regular cadence as we have been, we will also participate in you know, organizations around the institutions of higher education and those coordination meetings as necessary. And as requested, of course, any engagements with our tribal colleges and local educational agencies, and then of course, any stakeholder meetings as requested, you know, and we're obviously always in the AC BSN space, the Aden space. If there are other locations that we should be please feel free to invite us and we will we will be where we are needed unwanted sometimes we'll just show up anyway. But no, but this is you know, this is key you know, we don't always know where all the meetings are especially of this you know the the coalition's and you know those those working groups, and so, we encourage folks to let us know and to invite us. Um, alright, so I did want to briefly go over the timeline. Again, as I mentioned, we are in the public comment phase right now. Public comment will be available through February 1. So end of the day, February 1, we will shut it off. And then we will address our public comments and make any changes to the plan as needed, and submit that plan to NTIA mid February for what they refer to as a curing period where there's some additional back and forth with NTIA. And then final submission occurs at the end of March. And so that is kind of where we are right now. We encourage you to submit feedback via our website, through email or by leaving us a voicemail. And I'm going to show you that information here briefly. But I wanted to share our contact information before closing out of the slideshow part. So you'll see up at the top there are our everybody gets the the Broadband emails. And so that is an excellent place to get a hold of all of us all at once. That is where we encourage you to submit public comment again for tracking. And then you'll also see all of our individual contacts here on the screen. So with that, I'm gonna go ahead and stop this share and end my slideshow real quick. And then I am going to make sure the right screens are up, I'm going to reshare I briefly want to show you what the website looks like and all of that aspect. So now you should be seeing on my screen, the Arizona Commerce Authority is website. Down along the left hand side of the screen, you'll see all of the navigation and a link right here for the Arizona Digital Equity plan. So this is where you can access the full plan, of course by clicking on this view Digital Equity plan. Link and that opens up a new tab with the full 200 page PDF for you to read at your leisure. One really great thing about the way that this is set up is the table of contents is hyperlinked so if there are specific aspects that you want to dive further into, for example, the goals and objectives, you can click right on it. And you'll get to the draft version of the the full thing here. And just to note, you know, since we have some conversation around those measurable objectives, you'll notice here that in our plan, there are more detailed information around our KPIs, our current baseline data, and what those targets look like. So this is the full version. The part that I put on the slides was kind of the the narrative version of our, our goals and objectives. So definitely take a look at those areas. And then on the screen, you will also see the the modes by which you can provide your public comment. So you can simply fill out this form right here, with as much of your contact information as you're able to provide us, we are very interested in finding out if our public comments are coming from folks who identify as belonging to or serving any of the covered populations. So definitely take a look at that section and ensure that you are letting us know if you are identifying that way. And then there's space here to let us know which part of the plan you're commenting on. That'll be really helpful for us when we go back to integrate, we have received quite a number of comments that are general comments about the entire plan. And of course, you can say that as well, especially folks I saw in the chat that have you know, a lot of comments, you can say the entire plan. And then in your in your comments, you can also tell us what section. And then there's a nice little comment box here where you can type or copy paste your your comments and submit. Another option for you would be to download and fill out the fillable PDF version of that same web form. It is exactly the same as what I just showed you on the website, you can take the time, you know offline and fill in your comments here. And then either email it back to us or you can upload it through this, this function here on the website and submit it to us. You can also give us a call. We have our phone number on here. And there should be a way to leave a voicemail for us there those regardless of how you submit, we transcribe or save the exact comments. And that goes into a document that does get shared back with NTIA. I will I will note that NTIA gets the identifying information but that information is not made public. So there's there's two versions of the public comment. There's the section where we track everything that we received and what our response was to it. And then you'll also see in the final draft of the plan, a section in our public comment description that takes out all of the identifiers kind of lumps the comments together into Major themes if we see that or addresses individual comments and how we updated the plan accordingly. But of course, in that public facing version, there will be no publicly or personally identifiable information, of course. Let's see here. A couple other things in the near future that I wanted to highlight. I do want to acknowledge that, due to the timeline and various other factors, we were only able to purr to provide the draft of the plan in English and only through the the PDF on our website, we understand that that is not the most equitable way to approach that. And so I just want to let everyone on this call know that we are working on ways to share the final plan in a more equitable fashion, including translating it and also hopefully in partnership with some sounds in the State Library, making an audio version and providing alternative modes of for folks across the state to to engage with our plan, we will also be creating kind of like, I don't want to call it this, but like the Cliff's Notes version of the plan that is significantly shorter, and kind of goes through the highlights of the plan. Once the plan is approved, those those steps will will start to happen as well. So I would like to open it up if there are any final comments, questions, or anything else that we can help with in the last few minutes of this. But before I do that, I just want to say thank you, Steve, again, for creating the space for us to have this conversation. It's super important for us, of course, to get as much feedback as we possibly can on land, because we want to make sure that it's truly, you know, answering the needs of our community. So Vaughn, I see your your hand up.

Yeah, real quick Erin. And thank you for all that great, great information. I'm I'm approached? Well, periodically, I'm approached here in Pima County, from an organization that engages in with by trip by term digital literacy, both what is it? How do I use it? How do we engage it? And then when I'm into it, then how do I benefit from it? I didn't, I was kind of in and out on your presentation. I apologize if you covered that concept of training that might be out there for the general public. That's my question.

Yes. Um, so in our goals, we are definitely creating space to increase the work of groups like that across the state. And, you know, also, hopefully through that capacity grant program, helping them upscale upscale, pardon me upscale, there are upskilling options to opportunities. There's a sentence for you. But yes, the easy answer is yes. We are hoping to increase the awareness of groups like that and the work that they're doing and also increase the the use by groups who would benefit, you know, within the covered populations and across the state. All

right, now we're gonna interrupt now I want to cover a couple of things real quickly. First of all, again, the summit is coming up next week, I believe the first day is sold out if I'm not mistaken. The second day, there's still space available. So that's the first thing. Secondly, for those of you who are looking at your screen, you might see NTIA and that is not the NDIA that most of us know. And if I can take two minutes, Michael Chivers to join us, Michael's very engaged in cybersecurity. And, Michael, if you just want to introduce yourself real quickly in about when NTIA is because it's not the NTIA we all know.

Thank you, Steve. My name is Michael Shivers. I am the president of the NDIA, which is the National Defense industrial Association and our territory covers Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. And we are 100 year old organization with chapters and pretty much every major city and we're basically kind of joined at the hip with military and things to do with military. However, as a chapter president, we like to look at local initiatives, the things that have to do with you know, where we live and work in I've met Steve at a couple of our conferences, cyber southwest. And he's been inviting me to these meetings for about a couple years now. And I apologize for not being able to meet but I recently retired. So it has freed up a lot of time for me to do these types of things. But I still keep my hand in my areas, I guess expertise would be cybersecurity and workforce development. And I did want to find out a little bit more about what the skill sets as far as workforce development would whatever you're trying to achieve to it as far as workforce development, that's something that's near and dear to my heart as far as education goes. And if it what NTIA can do to bring its power to bear to help you achieve these goals.

Thank you, Michael. And thanks for joining us.

Thank you, Michael, I just want to address the workforce question really quick. Because, you know, that is obviously a large partial portion of the goals there, specifically around the digital literacy aspects needed for folks who might be entering the workforce, especially around the the BEAD implementation. So there is a lot of technical stuff, you know, obviously, I use stuff lovingly, you know, that goes into that side of things. And maybe we can find some time to chat offline about some of those details. But, you know, again, as with many parts of the plan, it's, it's sort of, we're glad that you see yourself in the goals, and then we can figure out how to to, you know, increase the the impact that that various groups are having in the state in those spaces. So okay,

so the last thing. Well, last thing I have is Cindy, are you still there? You want to just tell people quickly about the alien meeting this afternoon?

Sure, yes, I'm Cindy Hogan. I'm the chair of the Arizona Digital Inclusion network and the call to ADIN. And this afternoon at 12, we're going to be going through aspects of the plan to present to develop and present our own comments to the to the state for for their use in updating and working through the draft and getting it to the final final stage. So if you would like to do that, I can put my email in the chat and you can contact me and get on our zoom list. And appreciate all of the discussion today. Great job, Aaron. Thank you.

So last thing, Erin. Good job. Great job. And thanks to all of the Broadband office team. Thank you for all being here today. And thanks to all the rest of you. And hopefully I'll be able to see most of you next week and in Mesa. Anything else anybody else needs to comment or share before we end? We have about two minutes left. It just we're done.

Thank you so much, everybody. I really appreciate the time and please do submit those public comments. We really appreciate it and we hope that you you know, see your your work in our plan. Thank you.

Thanks again, everybody.

Thank you