February 27, 2025 AZBSN Digital Access Task Force Recording
5:44PM Feb 27, 2025
Speakers:
Steve Peters
Erin Lorandos
Shereka Jackson
Mala Muralidharan
Rory Conaway
Kelly Krusee
Anthony Constantini
Gordon Fuller
Reid Sharkey
Michael Kendall
Angela Cruz
MIchelle Mindala Freeman
Keywords:
Digital Inclusion
Broadband Office
Digital Equity
Connectivity Standards
Arizona Department of Education
University of Arizona
AI Industry Program
Cyber Security
Data Science
E-Rate
Bead Program
De Program
Spectrum Issue
Universal Service Fund
Public Libraries.
Okay, now I think I'm comboulated. So good morning. Everybody. Glad to see you all today. People little slow joining this morning. I guess people wanted to sleep in or something anyway. So we have at least one new person, Michelle mandala, you want to introduce yourself. I just met Michelle last night at a tech Council event, and she wanted to drop in see what we're all about. Yeah, just quickly introduce yourself.
Sure thing. Hi everybody. My name is Michelle Mandela Freeman I'm based in Marana. I am new to Arizona, and as Steve mentioned, we just missed last night, my day job is with the connectivity standards Alliance. We create open, global standards for the Internet of Things. What compelled me to join today was this concept of Digital Inclusion, and one of the big premises the standards we create is that using IoT and standards for connectivity is there to benefit everyone everywhere. So I was particularly interested in this org and what this team does, and asked to sit in. So thanks for letting me come in and see how I can be of value, sure,
but glad to have it. Glad we had a chance to meet last night. Michelle, how much you got my email today? We have anybody else who is new this morning? I don't think so. So let's, let's just jump in and get started here. So just, just quickly, hold on just a second here, and let me get down to the agenda. So this morning, we have several things on the agenda today, just a reminder that after the meeting, for anybody who wants to hang around, after we we end the meeting. And then anybody who wants to stay, on in kibbitz, we turn off the recording, and people who want to stay on kibbutz, share information, ask questions or whatever. And that may be one person, it may be five people, maybe 10, we just never know. So it's just totally informal. So I wanted to mention that secondly is just a reminder. I think you all get my newsletter, and most of you probably don't read it, but, but anyway, but I do try to capture both what's talked about at the meeting and also other information that I gather about what's happening the state and locally and so forth, and federally. And so I try to include all that information in the newsletter. I was talking to somebody earlier yesterday, and I say, Well, I just scan through it, and that's fine. Hey, whatever grabs you. I know that not everything goes interest to you, but we do have links, contacts and all of that information. And I do send out after. Those of you who have been around know that I do send out after the meeting. I send out the the video, the read the registration list and everything, so that you have all that information pretty readily available to you, including the chat. So I just wanted to mention that, and while I'm talking about chat, those of you who've been on meetings with me know that I tell you every time that you can download the chat. If you go to chat at the very top right hand corner, you'll see three ellipses, and if you click on that, you can click on that and save the chat to your computer. So if you've heard something or you want to see a link that somebody mentioned you can capture that right away. So just wanted to mention that to you. So what's on the agenda this morning? Several things. Of course, we're going to get our updates from the broadband office. And Michael Kendall, if you have anything from the Arizona Department of Education. And then we're going to hear from Angela Cruz. Angela is glad to hear you're feeling better, and she's doing some pretty amazing stuff, and they're doing some pretty amazing stuff over there at the university. And so we're going to hear from her, and then reach Harkey is back again with the Betton Institute to give us another installment of what do we know? What do we think we know and what don't we know about what's happening in Washington regarding broadband and Digital Inclusion and so forth. So Reid, we're glad to have you back again. And so with that, oh, just one other reminder. And again, the link is in my newsletter that Paul Ross, Paul, I think you're online, aren't you? You want to tell people again about your video.
You're muted. Paul,
okay, it's an Arizona broadband. Piece. It's a little musical item, dancing, whatever you want to do, but just enjoy.
It's really fun. It's really great. And of course, I'm sure Paul would be glad to have you share that with anybody in the world. So just wanted to remind you about that. Thank you, Paul, for doing it's pretty amazing. And so with that, let's just jump into we got a lot to cover today, so let's just jump in. Erin and Kelly want to give us an update on what's happening with the broadband office.
We would be honored to Kelly, do you want to go first? Do you want me to go first? Uh, you can go first. Okay, I'm going um. So biggest news of the day. Drum roll, please. Yes, I will, Steve, actually, before I do that, I have to tell you a quick story. Have you ever been to the Milwaukee airport in Wisconsin? No, I think of you every time I go through there, because they have, after TSA, they have a recombobulation area, and it literally says that on a sign. Alright, so my name is Erin Lorandos. I am the Digital Equity program manager. I get to work with Kelly in the state broadband office and a ton of other amazing people. The state broadband office is housed within the Arizona Commerce Authority, for folks who may be unaware of that, and we administer both the bead and Digital Equity funding out of our office. So my piece of that is the Digital Equity side of things, and my big news of the day is that by the end of the day, our Digital Equity page on the Commerce authorities website will be updated with the requirements for our sub grant process. So for folks who are new to this, this is the the implementation phase for our Digital Equity plan. So the Digital Equity plan was approved back in April of last year by NTIA, and that made us eligible to apply for funding, basically to do what we said we wanted to do in the plan. So back in December, we were awarded our capacity grant, which is just over $16 million and this kicks off a five year implementation period for our plan, or for the work that we laid out in the plan. And so, because we are a very small team, and we know that there are tons of people across the state doing amazing things in this space, one of the largest mechanisms for implementing our plan will be to support the work that is happening in organizations across the state, be that established programs that deal with Digital Equity or, you know, new things that that people are wanting to test out, basically any project or program that allow that aligns with the goals and objectives in the plan that are eligible for sub grant will be considered, and we hope to hear from lots of people in this space and on this call. So by the end of the day, the the kind of the rules and regs for applying for that funding will be available. However, we are not accepting applications until May 1. So may 1 through June 30 is the window that will actually be accepting the the actual applications. But we heard from a lot of folks, many of which are here in the space, that it would take time to get approval to apply. People needed to see what they were going to be asked to do before they could get that approval, and so we wanted to give as long of a runway as possible for that to happen and to make sure that we truly are being inclusive and equitable in this in this distribution. So over the course of the next two months, we will be hosting two public roundtables, one on March 11, and one on April 8, from two to 3pm both days, and those will be identical. Um, so whichever one works for folks is the one that you should come to. Um, they will go over the requirements of the application process, answer any questions that folks have. We will track the questions and post publicly on the website the questions and answers that that are provided. And you know, in in the interim, if you have nothing else to do today, while you're waiting for that website to update, the the biggest thing is, is if you're interested in applying, to familiarize yourself with the goals and objectives and see which of those best aligns with the work that you want to do. So that's my update. Any questions?
Yeah, so Erin, maybe you can explain. Maybe you did, because I get distracted looking at some other things here, but come on, related to the meeting, so I'm not helping. La La Land, try and see who's online and all that kind of good stuff, if I understand correctly, so somebody can be a grant, sub grantee to apply directly to you, and then they can contract with contractors. Is that Is my understanding correct about that? So
sub grantees can have sub grantees. So for example, if an an organization wants to start, let's say, a digital navigator program, but then the people or the resources that they use to offer that service. They can come from someplace else. So there are, there is the opportunity to sub sub grant that will just need to be, you know, detailed in the application, any partnerships that you're establishing, you know, we want to know that you've actually done that legwork, you know. And then those people are on board the sub sub grantees are not required, I guess is the right way to say they're not required to adhere all the way up to all of the federal guidelines. So basically, it's like a step system. So I have to report to NTIA, my sub grantees report to me. I put all that together. I reported to NTIA. If a sub grantee has sub grantees, obviously they're responsible for their work, but that stuff isn't on all of the same rules and things like that that you see in the original NOFO, if that's helpful, but yes, a sub grantee can work with other entities to do the work or to complete the project.
Okay, thank you. Appreciate you clarifying that, because that's pretty important, actually,
yep. And you know, a lot of that information, you know is, you know, it's in the NOFO. And so folks who are applying as sub grantees, you know, should definitely take a look at that original NOFO. There's information there. And as you know, as we get into that education phase, we do have additional resources that will point out the NTIA website has a technical assistance hub that has a ton of documentation. You know, really easy to navigate information about like the difference between a subcontractor and a sub grantee and things like that. And so a lot of that information is publicly available, and just part of that process for application, for sure.
Great. Any questions. Erin, so before we move on to Kelly. Do you know anything more I saw that the city of Phoenix has been recommended for an NTIA $11.8 million Digital Equity competitive grant. Do you have any more information about that by chance? Well,
the state broadband office has no part in the competitive grant process, we are not eligible to apply because we are administering the capacity grant. So, you know, folks across the state that applied for the competitive grant would be the best source of information I know, you know, just nationwide, and we do have a few of those folks on this call. I see Paul just popped his camera open so he's, he's welcome to jump in. I just know, you know, across the country that there is still, you know, there's still a little bit of a waiting game happening with with those just because of, you know, appointees at the federal level not being in their seats yet. It's, it's likely that not a lot will change until those key people get in place. However, I've also heard from some folks across the country that they've gotten their CD 450s and things like that that they hadn't before. So I think it's, it's a good a guess on anyone's part, but we do have a number of of organizations and entities in the state that were recommended for those awards. And of course, you know, we at the state broadband office want to work in concert with them. You know that everybody's got the same goal. So, you know, I've been in contact with the the folks that have been recommended here in the state, but it's really their story to tell. As as far as the the next steps are concerned.
Thank you. Erin, of course. So Kelly, let's move on to you.
All right, good morning. Um, I'm going to see if I can work bobulate into a sentence today at some point, if not now, too much thunder here, huh? Yes. Well, I noticed, you know, I use it every time I apologize for my dogs behind me. Um, okay, so I, I'm Kelly Kelly from the state broadband office Community Engagement Manager, and I get to work with Erin and the rest of the office. And updates since last week. Not much is new, but I'll remind everyone. So we are in the first round of applications for bead. For Arizona, and applications will close next Friday. For round one, I'll put a link to our website in the chat. I can't talk and do that at the same time, like Erin can she's I got you. Kelly, okay, thank you. So again, round one of applications will close next Friday. Round One is prioritizing fiber. And then round two, there will be a second round of applications, and that will be to kind of collect areas and go for the areas that were not covered in round one. And also is for alternative technology. And that will open June 3, and be open for 30 days. So again, next week, it will close, we do anticipate sending out, you know, a newsletter and some updates after it closes and after we've had some time to review applications, to send out information to stakeholders so they know, you know, kind of some high level results of the application process for round one. So definitely take a look at that. I've been collecting emails again, if you want to make sure that you receive that, you can put your email into the chat. And then again, because we're in round one, and we are in that application window and procurement is active, all emails to the office can go to broadband at AZ commerce.com, I'll put that into the chat as well. Oh, I think Erin already did, so she's ahead of me, reading my mind, and that's the best way. Again, because of procurement, we want to make sure that all the information is going to the same place and being managed following procurement guidelines, so that we are not giving special treatments to any particular applicant, that everybody's getting the same treatment. So that's what's happening on the bead front.
Okay, any questions for Kelly? Great. Thank you. So moving on quickly. I don't believe Nicole is here. I know she's been really busy. So couple of things. Excuse me, so a couple of quick updates. Mala, do you want to give us any updates real quickly at the state or federal budget? Are you online? Yes, I am. There you are. Do you want to give us any quick updates, both for the State Library, as well as what's happening nationally. And of course, we can hear from Reid about some of the national stuff happening. But go ahead, sure, sure.
I'll be very quick E Rate. Yesterday was the last day when applicants could file their own RFPs. After today, they have to, because you have to do, if you do your own RFP, you have to wait 28 days before you can award a contract. And that ends, the application deadline is March 26 so you will not have 28 days if you do your RFP today. So from after today, applicants can use the state master contracts. Those are available the state master contract for cat one, that category one for internet, is available through the State Procurement Office, and for Category Two, which is internal connections, is available through the Mojave educational contracts both Mojave education is a cooperative, and schools and libraries are already members of the cooperative, and they can use those contracts right until the last day. And the last day for Application Filing is March 26 the period that this will cover is July 125, to june 30 of 26 Okay, and so I'm, I'm really in the throes of doing that, so not paying attention to much else. But a couple of things that I wanted to talk about. One is, Oh, of course, I forgot to say who I was, and you didn't remind me, I'm Mala the state E Rate administrator for public libraries. I work at the State Library. I am then I also represent the State Library at Shelby, which is the school's health libraries, broadband coalition. Shelby has a transition in leadership, as Steve mentioned last time, after 16 years of leadership, John went housing is stepping down as the executive director and the new executive director that they have chosen is Joseph Wender, and he brings a lot of expertise in both broadband policy as well as funding. He's been working as the director of the capital projects fund at the US Department of Treasury, and he will a. Um join on March 10. Couple of things that at the national level that we are watching out for is the hot spots through the E Rate program. Yesterday, we had a hot spot webinar that was conducted by Shelby. Several of the hot spots applicants spoke about how they use hot spots and the importance of it. And I will put a link to the webinar slides. As soon as I receive it, I'll send it to you, Steve. I think there is a summary of it on broadband breakfast as well. I won't go into the details enough to know that there was a lot of need, and more than 1000 libraries have already applied for it, and a lot more schools have applied for it, even though it's just the beginning of the application period, and there will be 1000s more applications before the end of March. So. But I just want to remind folks, though, that if this legislation, that it is this legislation is coming, is being opposed by several Senate as well as House Republicans, led by Thun Senator Thune, this is going to come to the floor as announced next week. If this comes to the floor as a Congressional Review Act, the resolution, if passed, will mean that we cannot take up hot spots as a resolution, as a legislation anytime soon, not in the state or the format in which it is. But I do want to remind folks that all is not lost, at least in Arizona, because AC st offers. AC st is the organization that does recycling of computers and computer parts. They are offering hot spots at if I'm not mistaken, $30 a month and with a $50 deposit, no questions asked, no documentation to be retained, as required in the E Rate program. So that that's one the the eyes on the board act, again, is another one that is being opposed. This is kids of social media act that Senator shots would put on the table. Senator Cruz is a big supporter of this. He says that the schools will not receive, may not receive E Rate funding unless they limit or ban student access to social media or limit access filtered access to social media. So this is also hotly being debated. And the last thing that I want to say is that USF funding, we are watching that really carefully at the Supreme Court is is doing a hearing on March 26 I think, if I'm not mistaken about the date, and there has been tremendous support for the validity of this. Last month, there were several practitioners that filed amicus briefs defending the USF, arguing that the commission has the authority to assess fees on telecom providers, and this can be used to support the four programs that it supports currently, E Rate being one of them. Any questions otherwise, I'm going to hand it back to Steve. Okay.
Any questions for Mala? Okay, thank you, Mala. So Anthony, are you on? Anthony Constantini, I didn't see you. Are you here? Yeah, I'm on. Oh, there you are. So Anthony, I have not been good. I keep putting you on last, and this time I wanted to remember to put you up front here. So do you have anything to talk about regarding the State Library and Digital Inclusion work
right now? We're just, you know, looking forward to the the capacity grant information coming out, and we'll be looking at that, and really just exploring options there. But no, no other updates, as far as we're concerned. On my end, at least,
okay, thank you. Anthony Michael Kendall, you have anything new to add from the Department of Education? I.
Sure this is Michael Kendall, project manager with the Arizona Department of Education. I manage a lot of network infrastructure projects in addition all of the broadband expansion here. And focus on our office is we we provide support for cat one special construction. So we haven't seen a lot of new activity the last week or two, new requests for funding and rest, but we do have, we do have probably half a dozen projects that are in flight. And one thing we do in our office is that we meet bi weekly with with representatives from the school, if they have E Rate consultants, the general contractor and their carriers, and we talk about, basically construction updates, and we assist, especially if there's some dependency on other agencies. And basically assist any way we can with maybe they're having difficulty with permits right away and that. So that's a little bit of what we do in the office. And so it's kind of, I would say, in general, just business as usual, not a lot of new requests, but just trying to keep the other other projects moving on.
So Michael, at some point we might want to have you provide a little more detail about the projects you're working on and understanding the funding and what you're doing with the schools.
Okay, I'll have something prepared for next weekend. Okay,
sounds like a plan. Any questions for Michael? So a couple of quick things before we move on. So I saw so Shereka, you've got an event coming up, and so I don't want to forget that. Give you a chance to make an announcement. I know you're looking for people to participate, so take it
away. Good morning, everyone. My name is Shereka Jackson. I am the founder, CEO of future starts Inc, which is a nonprofit that does STEM programming in the south Phoenix and Maryvale community, we will be hosting our 10th annual hands on STEM Fair, which is a big party celebration. We're looking to have about 30 different STEM activities this year. In the past, we've had about 20. We will be hosting at least 10 of those activities. So we're trying to find at least 20 organizations or businesses that have hands on activities that you would like to bring out to the kids in this area. Our goal is 500 400 to 500 participants, but you would only need to bring about 200 items, because there's so many things that they're going to be participating in. It's the largest event in South Phoenix, the high the population is 98 to 100% people of color, where STEM education is needed. So I know Steve has sent out the packet before, but I will drop my email if you are interested in the volume or providing there is no fee to anyone. We provide the tables, chairs and the tent, and we will also have food trucks out there this year, as well as a mobile mammogram. For those that maybe have never had a mammogram, they will be able to get a mammogram. So hope you or your organization can come out. Some of you I have sent it to already. If you didn't get it, let me know, like Mr. Ross or anybody else that I have personally sent it to, would love for you all to come out. Thanks, good.
Thanks, Shereka. And if you can't do it, but you know somebody who can, please pass that information on. Shereka Does some great, great stuff. And one last thing before we get into our main presentation this morning. Well, we've got two this morning, but Rory Conaway, haven't seen you in a long time. Glad to have you back.
Ah, it's good to be back. We we do have an announcement. TRIAD is going to be merging into a another with another company called wi fiber here shortly, actually should be going through end of the week or middle of next week here. So we're going to have the the triad by by wi fiber here sort so that we can handle larger expansion options that we we couldn't, couldn't do as a smaller company.
So worry we don't have much more time today for this, but would like to hear more details about that at a future meeting. Okay, no, no worries. Sounds good. So with that, I want to jump into we have two presentations this morning, and so the first one, I want to introduce Angela Cruz, who is director of programs and operations with the University of Arizona Institute for computation and data enabled insights. And she also is a data science instructor with the University of Arizona College of Information Science. And so Angela, I'm going to turn it over to you. Do you want to share?
Yeah, I can make sure I can get my I will stop sharing. Oops, hold on. Give me one second.
And while she's doing that, if I can speak for Angela, I see Paul Wagner is on today, yes. So he is a part of that, that gang over there, and so I'm sure he may have some things to also add to Angela's presentation. And
can you all see my slides? Okay, yep, great. Well, thank you, and I am glad to be here today. I was supposed to be here last week. My voice is still a little froggy. I might have to pause to get water. Stay healthy, take your vitamins. Sleep well, everybody. So I'm Dr Angela Cruz. I am the director of our programs and operations, like Steve said, for the Institute for computation and data enabled insights. We are housed on the research innovation and impact side, and so we are part of the research institutes and centers within rII. And what that means is that we really take in the land grant mission of research and the mission, and then we also support all types of faculty and staff and students across the campus. So we're not dedicated into only one college. I do teach for the College of Information Science. My colleague, Dr Wagner here, he teaches within cast, but we also collaborate extensively across campus. So as important as it always is that because we are our land grant, we also do our land grant mission, and that is that we respectfully acknowledge the University of Arizona is the land and territory of indigenous people today. Arizona is home to 22 federally recognized tribes, with Tucson being home to the autumn and the Yaqui. The University strives to build sustainable relationships with sovereign Native nations and indigenous communities through education offerings, partnerships and community service. And so with everything going on, we are within our group, still pushing this mission forward wholeheartedly. So as I had mentioned, we really do a lot with embracing our land grant and one of the main focuses that we look at is that idea of university research, community connection, advancing research with community participation. We really like to work towards advancing education for our K 12 and K 14. Really it's even the in between across the state, and so we understand and why we're really excited to be here is we understand the connectivity issue across our state is one of the biggest constraints that affects our opportunities for education. That also is part of us wanting to pull our research across the state to increase the economic development for the state. And again, it's very difficult to have a lot of economic prosperity without this really reliable connection. And so it's one of the areas that we work in within IC di and so I got our little land grant mission here. There's a really great one pager, and it really is the history of how we've really wanted to structure the U of A as connecting research to our communities and the benefits for communities. So a little bit about who we are. We were established by, well, we were established by the Board of Regents, which was a little funny. It's a funny story and a delayed a bit, but we were established by Board of Regents in about 2022 our Executive Director, Barney McCabe, who's usually on these meetings a lot, and he might be here, I'm not sure, but was the director that has come in as our executive director. Barney was CIO for New Mexico, was also working as a director out at Oak Ridge National Lab, and came in really to start building out the idea of increasing computation and just the idea of knowledge, of data, just writ large. That was one of the main goals that ABOR recognized. The technology move was going to be very big, and we had to have a resource and a center that was going to help leverage that across the state, through the university, right? So we wanted to bring the research out. I joined in in October of 2022 with my colleague, Stephanie doster, and together, the three of us and a great admin assistant, worked really hard for about a year as we started to build up our program. And with that, we've started hosting out workshops, connecting with other universities, connecting with other conferences, to find out how they are working successfully within their state, to look for models that we can maybe bring over to help not only all of our faculty on campus, but how we can leverage that over to some of the state needs that we have. And then let's see. We had in about the end of December. Let's see, yes, at the end of 2023 we had. Had ash black join, and I believe Ash has also been to some of these meetings. He's the director of our AI Industry Program. He runs a really great organization or program out of there called AI core. We'll get to some of that, and some of the work he does in a little bit. Dr Tyson swetnam runs our open science research, and that is a lot of the focus on the high performance computing infrastructure, all of the data cycles, everything that has to do with making research really successful in a new, emerging technological world. And our newest director to join us is Dr Paul Wagner, and he is the director of our cyber Science Academy. He's also a professor out of the cast program. And so he really brings in that cyber security component. We, you know, we always think about data, we think about artificial intelligence, and in that area, sometimes we talk about emerging technology infrastructure connectivity. You really can't do any of that well without having well trained cyber security individuals. And so we want to bring that to the state as well. And then we have a really wonderful support team that comes in with our program managers, our Executive Administrator. We help host events that are really important for not only the campus nationally, but also for the state, and sending and spending some of that out also within the communities around Tucson. So some big, high level concepts, essentially, of what we do with that land grant mission. As part of our lens of how we move forward is we like to build connections with U of A local, state, national communities, and it's the overarching ideas to address the issues that are related with AI, computation, cyber security and data as the part of, we figure is going to be part of every kind of grand, big challenge that's going to be out there. We like to work with our we are working currently now with our work state stakeholders, excuse me, and we really want to start working on increasing our Arizonans access to advanced cyber infrastructure. And that's going to be again, everything from connectivity, hardware, software and people wear so we can't have any one thing without a well trained workforce for our state and without access to really great tools and materials. Through that, we like to build connections with our K 12 educators, and in that, we're enabling pathways for students to start understanding what these new future careers are, what these technologies are. So we do that with some engagement directly with students, as well as train the trainer or train the educator type models where we can get that information to our educators across the state. And in that we also are doing our workforce development. So we understand that sometimes our educators can be some of the great people that work move out to workforce development. They are trained in our future workforce development, but we like to take this information and where we're growing. One of our areas is out to more of a continuing education so that we can continue to support current Arizona employees, individuals in building out stronger skill sets to be able to be ready to meet all of the new emerging technologies that are coming forward. And then with that, we are also supporting our campus with advancing the research across campus. So we work on multiple grants and opportunities, support hardware and different types of matching opportunities to advance the research on campus that we hope then will bring out to our community and to our state. So
when we talk about a little bit about our building connections, what I wanted to do today was just tell you a little bit of the highlights that we've done. Like I said, we've only really been in name for about three years. We've been in full force action, I would say, for this past year. So we're a new institute, and we're growing, and there are so many options and opportunities out there, but we've not had necessarily the bandwidth to and increase our access to partnering, but that is one of our biggest goals this year and the next coming year. So I'm really excited to be here, and I'm taking copious notes about all the great things everybody's doing. And I'll make sure I get my email in the messages too when I'm done here, because I think there's some wonderful opportunities for collaboration. One of the big things we do is with the Arizona Department of Education and our partners in societal impact, we run a program called natives who code. And this is really increasing computer science for Native American students across the state. So that's we have a lot of educators that come in, and we teach them different ways to engage with predominantly when they're teaching predominantly Native American students within their schools how to increase the access to computer science, programming, how to make it very engaging, but really also those ideas of how those students can take all that information back to better their tribal nations. We work with some national agencies. We've started building out partnerships with those. And really that's looking at some of the intersections between right now we're working on agricultural. Agriculture and renewable energy. We have some other partnerships we're looking at with DOE that are interested in some of the work that our faculty are doing. So we want to create partnerships out that benefits the United States as a whole, and just advancing research in that way as well. In some of that, we also do a lot of conference connections. So we've got larger grants. We've gone for some of the larger Nair grants, working towards the AI federal grants. That's, you know, obviously a little bit on pause, and we've got a lot of stuff in the cooker that we're waiting to have reviewed. But again, as stuff changes and new opportunities come up, whether it's local or national, we want to be able to start partnering with some of the organizations across the state. One of the things that we also do is we do a lot of programming across the state, and I'll go more in depth on that, but one of the things we've done are the county and Tucson connections that we've made. And in this we'd go out and we do a lot of workshops, seminars, we do trainings, and it's really in supporting the AI development, it can be cybersecurity development or just data information, so people can start thinking about their organizations and assessing what they have as data. One of the great programs that are, I think, are very cool, that our students led, and these are predominantly undergraduate students, is they've built out virtual XR and digital twin mappings of the county. So it's creating a County Tourism engagement for AI, and then having some interaction in there. And then they did a digital twin of klossal Cave. We've worked with city and Tucson on talking with them about how to build in AI and doing some more of the machine learning mapping that over into some automation for them. And then we've gone in to do consulting with local businesses, and then some of our schools as well. And so one of the big things that we are looking to grow this next three years as part of our agenda is really to help Arizonans access to advanced cyber infrastructure. And again, we talk about this really, largely because there are so many components to it, and recognizing that we have a lot of researchers on campus, a lot of wonderful students on campus that can help fill in gaps, step in and help with opportunities, on grants, programming. And so our current focus that we are currently working on right now is we have a southern Arizona Education Data Commons, and we are also working on a statewide, excuse me, with the tri University effort for Arizona Health Data Commons. These really came out of the last administration's office of science, technology and policy, where we recognized the leadership then, at that time, recognized during COVID that there was a lot of mismatch and connection between data and communities, counties, states, and there was a lot of missed opportunities for advancing health care options there. So with that, the initiative out of the OSTP office and their data science focus, we're interested in how we can encourage states to create these data commons of shared health data, and how do we deal with the security, the privacy and the responsibility with that? So those are one. Those are two groups that we've been working with here in Arizona right now to start building these out. It's a it's a longish process. It is not going to happen overnight, but we've got great stakeholders at the table, and we're working on those strategies. One of the ways that we are able to do that is through cybers. And so I really encourage folks to check out cybers.org They're through our colleague team, the Data Science Institute, and it is really an opportunity for access to high performance computing, various ways of really responsible data storage and management. So we think about fair and care principles in this area, there are different security measures that go around that. So we're working really closely with Tyson swetnam, our director. He is one of the CO PIs on this. So we work on building this platform, which is a former NSF funded program, to become now a big statewide opportunity for us to start working to have responsible data usage and how we share that out. So our future focus, like I said, is really broad. It's this idea of this economic growth. So we've got a lot of things to think about, what that means for different regions, for different communities, and how we can support them. In some of that, we are working on some advancing of agriculture and mining technologies through our partnerships. And then the other big one is getting that connectivity across the state through our science drivers. So we previously know that there's a lot of opportunity federally, if we can demonstrate out science drivers for some of our rural schools and we can get some of that connectivity. And so some of the work we're doing is starting that as that pilot opportunity for connectivity, and then going through and looking for. Or donations, foundations and other opportunities to create that sustainability. So we do work on K 12 and increasing that pathway to our emerging technology. And we use emerging technology as this broad term, because there are just so many components when you say stem even or just technology or computation or data. So we've been we've been lumping everything together in this emerging technology, because what we all know is that there's just this continuous growth that is happening. We're all seeing it in the news. We're feeling it. So we are really looking at all the elements that are important to support the continued growth and innovation there. And one of those was bringing in our colleague, Paul Wagner to do the science cyber Science Academy. And Paul, I'll do a brag about you here. Paul is just a innovative thinker. Moves forward, rapid fire, bringing this information to our schools and communities. So I highly recommend you go to our website. He's got some really great programming going on. It's bringing that awareness to students, but then also taking that out again to the educators, so they can start building that into some of the language they're doing with their curriculum. Besides the fact of looking at building out a big opportunity for the entire state for that security operations center, so we can get people focused in on workforce opportunities internships, but also then supporting our businesses, local or public institutions as well across the state. We also partner with sarsaf, and in that we are working on a lot of teacher professional development. So about every other month we're hosting out an artificial intelligence in education professional development. And really the focus there is how to help educators know how to use AI, especially just generative AI, when we think about chat, GPT, or any of the other tools on helping them with making their curriculum stronger, or making, you know, using as a tool and a resource so they can get back some of their time. We also support out the ACES camp, and that's our middle school girls from underrepresented populations. And we are bringing out all kinds of fun career in education, in STEM this year we're supporting out hardware chip design, so chip manufacturing, thinking and engineering. We're bringing out with that group as well web design so that the students can work collaboratively. And they start going in these multiple components. And then they work as one kind of inter science, or interdependent, interdependent kind of group. And then they create these really great websites where they can start showcasing out the way they have their robots moving, or the lights that they're turning on. The Summer STEM is also going to be just a little bit more of a replication for that. It goes up a little bit to, I believe, the high school students. And there's another program that's coming out of that too, that's for our Native American students. So we have some really great curriculum. We've been working with colleagues across the state, our own directors, and then some of the educators, obviously, within the U of A to build these out. Some of the other stuff that we do here as well. Well, you know, I'll put that onto the other one. But this is also the other thing where we're going in and trying to work with Arizona Department of Education when we think about how to think about data and getting our students ready. What does Arizona need to start thinking about for the standards for the community college entrance into the state or into one of our state universities in those sort of pathways.
And so when we think about the super charging Arizona's workforce in this area, we have our AI and industry engagement. And this has got a multi component. One of the big ones is we do an experiential learning opportunity for our students at U of A so they get all the theory and the information that they're learning within their classes, but then we give them an opportunity to come in and play around with the newest and coolest tools. So we have some really amazing projects that these students have put together. Like I said, it's our undergrads that put together recently a digital twin for the Lundgren Learning Lab, and that is where the teachers can take this software, put it in and teach retail sciences, where students can create models and labs of how they would implement retail theory, I guess we would say, but retail practices. So the AI core has a, I have the QR code there. So if you want to grab it, AI core, they have a really great communications the prompt, which is really fun because we think about prompt engineering, and it's a, it's a, I think they come out every month, and it's just this really great in depth student led communication about where we are in the world of AI. So our students write all about the newest things, how they've tested different tools out their opinion pieces, I think they've started generating some really fun crossword puzzles that are super silly but really cool. And I will say, if you like crossword puzzles, definitely check it out. But our AI core and our director. Black also partner with industry public entity. So while we might find something that we can connect on infrastructure wise, if your industry or your group or your organization or your department is interested in how to bring in AI as a useful resource tool to help you with your job, your management, what you want to do with it, or to start thinking about what your data looks like to utilize it for marketing. We've got a couple projects where we've sorted through, say, large documents, where we can start finding the red flag in something that would hinder opportunity to move a contract forward, right? So we can do all kinds of work. So we get our students involved in this, and they help with the project building, again, overseen by our director. But with all that too, we go through and we do trainings. We're looking to work out into the community too, to bring that out beyond our schools and local businesses. But we want to get out into the community with just making sure that our regular you, Tucson citizens, our southern Arizona citizens, just understand what's going on with AI. That also goes back to some of that security aspect too. We want to make sure people are empowered with the new technology that's coming out.
And Joe, if I can interrupt for one second, so hash has been here before, and he's going to be here, I believe, the end of March, and he's bringing some of his students to talk about the project he's working on. So I just wanted to mention that,
okay, well, I would highly recommend everybody show up. They I will say this program, obviously, AI is huge, and it's just moving rapidly forward, on, on, I was a teacher in my past life here, so when I get to watch our students do the amazing stuff, it is just really fun. But also it's very exciting to see the different ways we can utilize AI for an example, again, as as projects that they can work on, and they have worked on. For me, personally, I'm not an engineer, but I work a lot with our hardware manufacturing or tip design group, and we have an AI hardware design League, and I needed to get through a lot of engineering and computation literature. I don't know how much fun people like to have in the evenings, but I don't think reading 15 pages of engineering hardware design is the idea of fun, so my students built me a chat bot so that I could go in and get all the pertinent information that I need with citations on it, so that I could get the foundation of what I need to help support the programs that we're moving forward. So there's a lot of great things and wonderful ideas these students come up with, so I'm excited he'll be able to present to you all. But the idea really is to get our students in all disciplines across campus. So we've had nutritional science students, we've had fashion degree majors besides our computation students, our information students that come in, they get these AI hands on skills, and they're able to implement and start thinking about how they merge their future trajectories in with AI and use it as a tool and a resource. So it's a really wonderful program. Students are going out we, I will say, with our our AI core, it's sometimes hard to keep our students employed with our program, because they get snatched up in internships, high paying internships, because they have really wonderful skills. The other thing is that we are also getting them ready to go on to graduate school, so that they can take this technology and start applying it right away into research once they get into grad school. And then the other program we have is our Open Science Initiative, and this really came out of the federal response to making sure that science is open and accessible. Public data sets that are used public funded research should be available to everybody to have access to the benefits of it, to learn from it, and so we've taken that as part of our initiative to maintain that mentality. We'll see where that goes. A lot of that has changed here, but it is still really important for us to make sure it does match with our land grant mission, that our research is taken out into our communities. And really it's not just the benefit for the few, but the majority within our state, so people have access to it in that we also is the part where we work a lot with the different areas of infrastructure, where we're thinking of the the hardware and our high performance computing, the people, where, how are we going to have the workforce that's ready to hit all of the regions of Arizona? How do we make those regions really excitable for people to go to and build up those communities in that we also help researchers with sustaining their artifacts. So we think about large data sets. How do we manage everything from A to Z on the data research process? So we're working with the libraries, with our group on making sure that we start setting up really reliable programming and support for our faculty. On campus we are also part of and really spearheaded by our director, Barney McCabe, on the Arizona Research Computing and that's where we're really trying to build out the tri University High Performance Computing that we can be these hubs that help out the regions that we are closest to to have access to better infrastructure, better knowledge. So that is a really exciting program that we've started working towards building out and getting it stronger. Up there's Paul. I don't know if you even knew this is on our base DECA slide, so I'm glad you're here. But this is Dr Paul Wagner. He's my colleague here. And really, again, what we're really thinking about in icdi is bridging academia, industry and everything in between to help Arizona prosper. We have so many wonderful resources here. It's a really great state that our team just really is passionate about supporting and watching it grow and really, really flourish. We have a lot of wonderful opportunity coming forward too, with chip manufacturing. How do we make sure that everybody gets a part of that opportunity? And so we're working towards that. A lot of us through our hands on opportunity, getting access to training. And so when, when we were coming in here. And why I was so excited to join is that I've just today hearing what everybody's doing. My light bulbs go off. So one of the things I want to stress is I would love to be able to meet with folks. If you think you see somewhere, you just have a question, there's likely an opportunity that we can help support, some sort of an an opportunity that we can find together moving forward, or we can find someone on campus, or some of our state colleagues that we think we can find a good collaboration. It is one of the reasons why I CDI is here is that we want to push this forward for our all of you, as well as just the state and our communities in general. So I'll leave this here. Our website is data, insight.arizona.edu. We do have an Instagram page, and you can find us on LinkedIn. Our wonderful marketing team does all this cool stuff, and I have no part in it, but they I love being able to see when I get on Instagram and I can see, oh, that's that's my group. That's our team. So if you like to follow that, you can sometimes see the fun things we're doing. A couple quick updates that I think would be interesting for folks to come see at the end of March, 22 and 23rd it's a weekend. We're having our hack AZ. We are revamping out and re invigorating up the hack AZ program. It, like many things, paused during the pandemic, but we're going to have some of University of Arizona's, I would say, I don't, I think all of the students are brightest, but super engaged and excited about technology. So we've got, I'll be teaching some courses on web scraping, and if you want to, got some fun activities, the students will do as innovative data innovative data set building. We've got, I'm teaching a course on introductory to Python and GitHub, but we have all kinds of other projects, and our AI core team, Ash Black is teaming up with biosphere to create many large language models that are focused in and will work together because we want to start thinking about food sustainability. And then the exciting part for the students is how to take that out and consider using that information in space. So those are some fun things that are coming up in March. We also have our Women in Data Science event that will be, I believe, March 27 whatever, or 28th it's that Friday. I believe Dr Catherine diagnosio is going to be coming in as our key speaker for the WiDS program. She's a fabulous data scientist. Does a lot of citizen participant research. Works a lot from unique theories on how we start thinking about the equity, on how we use data, how we've collected data, and how we advance data forward so that everybody can be engaged with with the participation in data science and our algorithm building. So I think those are the two big key things. Our U of A website, and our instant and our website specifically too will have some of that information up as we start having events as well. So that's a lot. I feel like I can
talk forever. I think I know why you now work from what, six o'clock in the morning to six o'clock at night.
I gotta say, our new program manager, Amanda. Every day I see her when I come into the office, I always tell her, I'm so happy she's here. I actually can get weekends off now, but
good for you. Well, I'm sure people have a lot of questions and all, but I do want to take, we only have a few more minutes left in the meeting, and I do want to give Reid at least a few minutes, and maybe We'll reschedule him. Reed, I apologize that we're let's,
let's make sure he has time, and then I'll put my email in in here, and I will put, um. Sure. You know, I can put our general email too and our program manager. So if you have any questions, or you know some of the stuff we're doing, you can think of somebody we might be a great partner with or should meet. Please feel free to reach out to us. We're always happy. Just to let Erin know, and Shereka know, I will be emailing you, Mala I probably will be emailing you. We've got some hearing some of the work you're doing. I think that there's some really great overlap. And then Michael Kendall, I also wanted to connect with you too about some of the stuff with AZ Department of Education. So but thank you for letting me share all of my fun stuff.
Thank you, Angela. It's so great. You know, we hear a lot about ASU, and it's just really great to hear what, of course, I'm biased being down here in Tucson, but it is great to hear about some of the great work that the U of A is doing. And so again, I wish we had more time, because I'm sure people have lots of questions and exploring opportunities, but please contact Angela, and we may even bring her back for another, more discussion, kind of thing. But with that, I'm going to shift over to read and read again. I apologize, we're running a little late, but do you want to share a few things and maybe we'll bring you back again? Also,
sure. Yeah, happy to and yeah, no problem at all. Really great presentation. Was happy to sit through it and learned a lot. So thanks, Angela, the all, yeah, all moving kind of rapid fire. And would love if this is a more of a conversation, if people have questions about anything I say or something I don't say and maybe I forgot, or one of my colleagues can answer a question better at federal level, I'm happy to make connections there. So I'll start, and a lot of this was covered by all the great folks who have who've talked throughout the meeting. So I'll start with kind of briefly talking about the confirmations and appointments at the federal level, and kind of as they relate to the bead and de programs. First off, not an appointment or confirmation, but we just got word and announcement yesterday that next Wednesday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee will be having a hearing with this title Biden's broadband blunder. So you can imagine how that is going to go. That's, I believe, representatives from Kentucky and a couple other states are introduced that hearing and are working on that so that will mainly focus on bead and highlight a lot of the cost saving. What the Republicans are branding is cost saving changes that they hope to impose on bead in one way or another. And I'll get to a couple of those in a moment. But moving to Howard lutnic confirmation, who is now confirmed at Commerce, there's not a whole lot that he has said directly on bead. He in his hearing and his confirmation hearing, he was asked a couple questions about bead namely one about non deployment uses of bead. He was asked by a Republican member, if he was would ensure that all money in the bead program is spent on deploying broadband infrastructure, which those who are familiar with the bead program, will know that there are cases when all of broadband money is money is all of the infrastructure needs have been met as identified by the bead program. There are non deployment uses. But he didn't seem to know about that, and said, No, all of the money will be spent on infrastructure, which rang some alarm bells for folks in the space. We think it's more likely that he's got a lot of programs that he's learning a lot about very quickly, and he probably just didn't know about that somewhat niche case part of the law. And then when followed up in his written response, he said he would follow the law which would be to allow for non deployment uses of bead funding in cases where all of the beat addresses have been accounted for to have infrastructure deployed to them. So as far as LUT mix views go on the bead program, they are that's pretty much what we know at this point. He has also said, as many of Trump's appointees have said, is that they view Trump as their boss. They're going to do. Know what he tells them to do, even in some cases where there is some conflict with maybe what the law says. So even him saying that he'll follow the law in his his written responses doesn't mean that there aren't some threats to bead that are possible from his position. So don't want people to take this away as business as usual. There's nothing to be worried about. But also it's not. The world isn't falling and as you heard from the commerce authority, folks, states are moving ahead, and we appreciate that at the NTIA Ariel Roth is the appointee. She's a former cruise staffer. She has said similar things to Cruz, Senator Cruz on the bead programs, so we somewhat expect her to follow his tune there. That is that the bead and de programs should be paused while the commerce, or while Commerce has an ability, and NTIA under Roth have the ability to review those programs and look for cost saving opportunities in them. But as I just said, we acknowledge that many states, including Arizona, as Erin highlighted, are moving ahead with their capacity grants. Those grant windows are scheduling or being scheduled and opening many competitive grant winners, we've heard are receiving their funds, receiving their city for 50s, as also mentioned by Erin. So those in areas where you know there aren't roadblocks that have been imposed, and where states are. You know, there haven't in the de program, there haven't been any formal pauses. So the Yeah, Erin, there was, you were, you were pinging as as you were speaking. So I was happy to, happy to see that don't have to go as in depth and confirm that I'm not, you know, speaking incorrectly. Yeah, so de is moving forward in many states, and despite the what you might hear out of Washington, and we appreciate that, that all the good folks at the state levels are are doing what the law is a had told them to do, and they've done a lot of work to this point to to get the work done, and it's finally great to see the money start to go out the door. Overall, I think the takeaway is NTIA and NIST, which is the organization or the entity that approves the has final approval over the state plans and grant money. Ultimately, they're providing mixed signals on how the programs are going to move forward. So amid those mixed signals where the law implores states to keep moving and grant winners to keep moving, they're doing so that's what we're hearing on the hill side, I spoke to my colleague drew Garner yesterday. He's been meeting with some Senate offices over the past few weeks, and they, in most states, are either supportive of the de money, so the competitive and capacity grant funds, or they don't know the difference between bead and de money, which also we view as a positive sign, because most folks are supportive of the bead money, and so not knowing the difference between them is a good thing, we think, at the at the Senate level, moving on to Brennan Carr, who is Now the FCC chairman, as many of you know, he's been busy, but not necessarily in broadband land. He has been going after section 230 in rhetoric, talking about getting rid of that to go after big tech, which many will know that FCC doesn't have regulatory authority over section 230 so could be viewed as time wasted and going after liberal bias in media by reviewing complaints the main FCC. The piece of news over the past week was an executive order, and I don't have the number right in front of me that the executive branch has the right to take control over independent agencies, so FCC being one of them, that would represent a massive change in the way that agencies like FCC work, and that the executive branch could move fire commissioners at will, basically with no cause, or, you know, they with cause, but shakier Cause then, then previous law has case law has admitted so that would represent a massive change, and would give the executive power to just completely wipe commissioners at the FCC and replace them with their with their party and folks that align with their vision. So that is another thing where it's kind of a wait and see. Not much can be done that will play out in the courts if something like that were to happen.
But it's that executive order raised some alarm bells for us. So I'll pause there, and I know that we're over time on the meeting, but those are the those are my updates for the confirmations and appointment side of things, the the new faces at the at the cabinet level. So if there are questions there, happy to talk or just have a conversation about them, anything I said, I have a couple other topics. If we want to keep moving. Or, like you said, Steve, I'm happy to come back. I
think Reid will probably schedule you to come back. People will start, are already starting to drop off. And yeah, so I want them to to miss that because we didn't get to we had a couple of folks on on the call that I had talked to about, talking about the spectrum issue, which is becoming a fairly hot bed issue also. And so that could be a whole nother topic of discussion related to what's happening at the federal level, and, of course, the Universal Service Fund and what's happening with that? And, I mean, there's just
great so, yeah, that's next or no, not next week the Universal Service Fund, March 26 that case is being argued. If folks don't have that on their calendar, yeah, at the Supreme Court.
So any quick questions for Reid, going once, going twice. So any other quick announcements, go ahead. Erin,
sorry, I threw this one in the chat. This one just dropped yesterday, so I'm not sure if you've had any time to analyze it yet, but I'm wondering if you have any thoughts that you can share on specifically the section of the implementing Doge one that came out yesterday, reviewing, you know, the the already established contracts and grants, and if that is of one of concern for us specifically, yeah,
that's a good question. And I, I saw it come out, haven't thought super thoroughly Well, other than Whoa. But haven't talked to my colleagues about it yet, and namely, our legal counsel general, Andy Schwartzman, who a lot of a lot of the our analysis on the executive orders have come from him. My initial takeaway, which just is that it's another it's like what cruises letter kind of established. It seems to be along that same tone of trying to pause, slow things down, and give an opportunity to maybe make changes to grant programs that have already started and gone in progress. But I Yeah, it's we, what we're looking at, what we kind of see as happening is trying to move alternative for bead, move alternative technology further up the
read, I think we lost you,
yeah, to be free,
making all the states do that we can basically redo. What would maybe be preferable is the a base waiver being allowed, like a template waiver, so a state could just submit this waiver and say, Yeah, we want to allow alternative technology from the from the get go, and have that approved. Yeah, and so to not disregard the massive amount of work that states have done at this point to get the original bead rules to the point where money is going out the window. So from a de perspective, I don't I think it's probably, yeah, just another, another way for them to try and slow things down. But yeah, that's a good question.
Thanks. I would have Gordon here in Tucson. I just had another quick question. What about accessibility? It's been on the target of the Deia, and I'm wondering how with the 21st century telecommunications Accessibility Act and other aspects, any word on anything about accessibility being tossed in under the bus?
No, not that, not that, I've heard that's, that's, yeah, it's, I think you would probably maybe have better insights to that than I at this point. Can you? Can you elaborate what you mean by accessibility?
Well within the 21st century, Telecommunications Act requires captioning on television and movies, things of that nature, and then accessibility, the Deia people that were all let go accessibility for websites and for content. Yeah,
yeah, no, I don't that's a great, great, great point. Great question. I don't know about that, but thank you.
Okay, any other questions for Reid? Okay, any other quick announcements before we go to kibbitzing? For anybody who chooses to stay online, we're already kind of over time, but I'm going to stop the recording and.