 Thank you everyone and welcome to our Wednesday webinar from the university network. The title of our talk today is the challenges and opportunities for black, indigenous and people of color, public interest technology and entrepreneurs. This might seem like a long list that it's a huge deal and we want to talk everything about it. But we're also really, really excited to launch the report also from within this topic around the topic of entrepreneurs. We're going to share the link at our presentation, so please make sure to check it out once the webinar is done. We're happy to be collaborating with the University of Michigan's Public Interest Technology Knowledge Network and Black Tech Futures Research Institute. Without further ado, let me introduce the lead of this conversation, Tayo Falbusuri. He is from Richard faculty at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, and Tayo, before us all yours. So, we will do things a little bit differently today. But before I kind of show you the lay of the land, let me quickly introduce my panel members. So we have a well-rounded panel composition here today. So with us today is Dr. Fallon Wilson, who is the co-founder of Black Tech Futures Research Institute. We also have Ray Mahamsha, who is actually working with us on the U.N. side as a strategic advisor for our Peep Knowledge Network initiative. We also have Emeka Egwekwe, who is the executive director of Code Crew that is based in Memphis, Tennessee. And we also have Selena Sihar, who is a recent graduate of her experiential learning program and is now a legislative staff member at the office of an Reptant of Canada in Detroit. So, we will have two presentations for you guys. One of those I will be presenting in the first 10 minutes. And Melissa Brown, who is the co-founder of Black Tech Futures Research Institute, will be the one coming immediately after me. So, thanks a lot. Thanks for joining us today. And then without much ado, I think we will start. One of the few things we're trying to do as much as possible is to get the audience member excited about this presentation. And so, along the lane, we really appreciate if you could chime in, punch your questions in the chat box, and we will see it on this end. But quickly, we're going to have two set of presentations for you, and then we'll spend roughly 45 minutes with a panel itself. And then we will try now, 20 to 25 minutes that we will use to engage with the audience. But just to kick off this session, I want you to think in terms of the pitch space, when you look at the public interest technology space, and you think about the constraints, what comes to mind. We just think from you, just one word. This is kind of like a virtual poll. And so, from your own hand, you don't need to sign in into the maintenance. Just go in there, and then kind of input the word that comes to your mind. Just ride off the bat without giving it much thought. Maybe this could be something that in some way you run into now and then just kind of give us one word in terms of what you see when it comes to constraints within the pitch space. So once we have that, I think I would like to go on with the presentation. I will be the one leading the presentation roughly for 10 minutes, and then I will give the floor to Melissa. What we're trying to do with this session is to actively engage with you more in terms of the discussion. And then actually more in time, and then learn from you in how do we build a career of pathways for diverse public interest tech entrepreneurs. So one of the few things we've been trying to do on our own hand as much as possible is to listen to folks who are in the 20s or in the fields when it comes to the pitch space. And this is one way by which we are engaging with the audience, and it's an obstruction of how you want reports with grants from New America. Next slide. So a year one grant has one primary objective. I mean, having some understanding of the lead experiences of paid entrepreneurs. And then once we have a very good sense of what that looks like, using those insights to strengthen their career pathways. So just to give you kind of a 50,000 foot view of the approach that we use, we kind of blend that we married a top down approach that is heavy on the secondary data set, using US US sensors public use micro data sample files. Essentially, we did analysis for the older the continental us. We have a good sense in terms of what does the market of these population, what does it look like, and what parts of the country are they concentrated. What is the social demographic makeup of this population. And then we now married out with with more of a bottom up approach that is made up to to to to like layers. And then he's a qualitative interview with BIPOC, paid entrepreneurs, you know, so like essentially, we'll schedule this interview is and we have detailed conversations with these folks. And then that was complemented with an experiential learning class that peer students with by POC paid entrepreneurs in the Detroit area. So one of the few things we're trying to do is, can we get to a thread that essentially spans all these. And what I mean by that is that there's a micro criteria, which essentially that caring the experiential learning class is a micro portion of it. And then there's a mess of which we switch will now expanding unlike in her year to grant to kind of ramp up the numbers of folks that are active in the space that we're having deep meaningful conversations with. And then there's a macro part of it, which is a top down approach that is more like secondary data set driven. And the other purpose is that at the end of the day we could characterize, we could paint this landscape. We could have a sense in terms of areas where proven to be made, and hopefully be able to roll out interventions that's fixed. So I know no consensus of any terms of what public interest technology means. And so here just a kind of like animate these conversations with we've just put two here and both those two have from New America. You could see the text that were in bold. And you could see even in even like in terms of the pitch that has been made, but I would challenge you to take a look at two things there. One, you want in terms of what, what do you have doubt, or what do you have life so that's that that's it. You could see that, like the first part of the division is about applying something or have done to them typically tend to be like a skill set, like an expertise. And then what do you deploy that to, once you have a sense of the skill set of the expertise, what do you deploy that to. For a lot of it's to kind of promote the public good, you know, it's kind of kind of essentially to have bands of public interest, and there is no debate about that. But for the former in terms of the skill sets, it's it's it's still seems I see they are really still some gray areas in terms of what skill sets qualify here. And that's one of the few things we've kind of like been ruminating chewing on on the same saying okay, what does it mean about the sociology background and I'm active in this space. Even though I may not have technical technological expertise, where does that place me within the product ecosystem. Next slide please. So, one of the ways we've been trying to think about this is still is still is to have a fairly formalized approach to defining this space. Maybe take a look at the first and the last cycle or like oval shapes, the social entrepreneur and technologist in some way. When you marry them, the interface the intersect is what would define us. Take entrepreneur, you know, essentially you're doing some social good, but maybe enriched with like technological solutions. But if you take a look at the last bullet point on the right hand side, it says how to clear the vision and inspire enthusiasm for tech solutions. And so this means that you do not actually you may have a soft background for that you see benefits in tech solutions, and you're willing to cheerlead these you willing to kind of advance that agenda. And once we now couple that with the first, with the first oval shape, in terms of exploring opportunities to create positive impact and common good. That is what we see in terms of the pay entrepreneur. And now we have interest in blacks, indigenous and peoples of color, in terms of their lived experiences, you know, and being able to find ways by which we could collectively surface that elevate that and move that into the mainstream. So that is what explains in terms of why the interest is on by POC entrepreneurs, and the next slide provides more insights into that. So we take a look at it as a Venn diagram, and the innermost call it essentially represents the court, the segment of buy up with entrepreneurs. They bring diversity of experiences live experiences. I mean, into this debate, you know, and they strengthen and enrich the collective knowledge and problem definitions within PIT. We think it's really crucial that voices that have historically been marginalized and surprised be amplified, you know, I don't believe that I don't think there's any debate that if you have interest in the collective good, then it has to be the case that there are voices that they should have been pushed to the peripheries abroad to the core. And that is one of the few things we're trying to do here. Next slide please. So these are, these are some of the findings given given, given the fact that we don't have the luxury of having time. I mean, I want to kind of just speak to these issues. Maybe like kind of a 50,000 foot view, there are three key ceiling findings that we come in, help with from a young one. Activities. The funding issue, and then the gender and racial inequities, and then networks and networking and coordination coordination challenges, and I will speak to each starting with the next slide. That's bigger access for seed funding. Next slide please. So this is the way we take a look at things when we look in terms of access to seed capital, you know. Oftentimes, depending on how big your network is, you know, you could tap into like friends, you could tap into family, you could tap into like maybe like angel investors to essentially give birth to your idea. And one of the primary constraints for BIPOC entrepreneurs has been able to access the seed capital. We know that these are high risk ventures. That is just the way it is, you know, and that typically a lot of them will fail. And then when you take a look at in terms of similar initiatives in the private sector, they tend to be like high risk, high yield, but actually there's an extra challenge here where not everything is dollar denominated. There's a public good that isn't it because I'm trying to create, and it's really like a bought in some and hundreds of tasks to get assets to seed capital. And so a lot of the consensus, a lot of the findings that come in from the folks that we talked to in the pitch space really speak to the issue. Next slide please. So, the second one is looking in terms of networking and coordination challenges. And so what I mean by that is, it tends to be the case where we've been with, we have tried to, to use this drops of water to represent these individuals, you know, and you tend to do well in this space if resources and information flow are not constrained. You know, you tend to do well in this space. If linkages could be built across these droplets of water, you know, you tend to do well in this space. If in some form folks could relate to your own experiences that could be subjective, it could be heliosyncratic, you know, it could be peculiar to you but they just said this is my life to in some form, I can relate to this. And then finally, you tend to do well when your own process your own journey, you see it reflected in terms of what has been done in terms of what has been mainstream. And so that's what I mean by in terms of the standards and the challenge between what is the core and the paraphernalia. So, examples are done here in it, where even folks who are supposedly well meaning, they just use their own live experiences to essentially impose a standard on his space. Okay. And everything else is measured relative to that standard. So classic example is the US dollar folks will say that was a result currency of the wall. And the US government could print dollars to essentially find us is on debt. Very few countries can do that. That is that is kind of the analogy that you have in this space, where by and like some people, again, maybe well meaning, essentially define this standard based in terms of their own experiences. And by so doing this kind of the experience of orders that may not have the same. I may not have the same outlook to life. Next slide please. So, one of the few things that we observe from the second data set that we walked on is that these massive golf, you know, in terms of even like returns to like, I mean, in terms of the income, you know, so like the average white male in 2018, make closer to time. We have a black male within the pet entrepreneurship. And what we did we did it. I mean, these may not be given the data that we have to walk with we have to make some assumptions. What we're looking at is in terms of whether you respond that saying you have a stem or stem related background, whether you walk in their health social entrepreneurship, and whether your next code where you walk in some form. You know, so that may be more of like a ceiling, but it beats flight blind it still reveals some information to us. And then you can go back to some sense in terms of seed funding you could see that every $100, you know, that all male he respected of race, racist. I mean, I mean, they have extremely racist like roughly four or five of that. And the degree to which there are returns that that that that are essentially conditioned by the size of your enterprise, all these things big follow. You know, and so I think again that's why a lot of what we're seeing is, you have to be of one form of one structure before, before you are seen to be believable within the state. And then immediately after that place. So we have a year to grant that we currently walking on now. And I want to speak to those recommendations within the context of that year to grow. Like a lot of what we're looking at is, when you take a look again, the landscape, the lay of the land, the forest, what does it look like. And in what ways can that landscape or forest can in what we can even made healthier. And what we mean by that is this, you could see if we use the forest has Hanology, it's green, it's lush, it's driving, it's growing. But more so in this space, we are interested in a landscape that is democratic. And when we say democratic, this is not about votes per se, it's more in the functional sense, where by and large we could strike some balance among the competing needs of different interests of group of people within the society. I think that is really, really crucial. And to the degree to which some folks voices have been discounted, or even entirely erased, then we do not have a democratic landscape on ecosystem. And so one of the reasons we're trying to do is, is we need to address the numbers problem. Of course, blacks, indigenous, they have to be more visible within this space. They have to be much more visible. And to the extent to which, even though you may not be at the frontiers, that you are an informed consumer of these, and you could hold people's feet to the fire in some of the folks who are in the cause of power who are making some of this policy. We think it's very, very crucial. And the unison of visibility, now in some way kind of bleeds into a representation. So what do we mean by that. People will say about bias in our garden. We could have debate about that for, I mean, from now to God knows when. There we talk about data that may not be representative of the population. All those are valid for reality today's talk in terms of framing of the problem. And we know that if you know the problem conditions, what solutions you're even thinking of, you know, if you're not in the room, if you do not have a seat at the table, then a lot of those compass a lot of those potential feasible solutions may even exclude what will even kill the pain points that you have. And the third one we do reckon is so crucial in terms of learning is these folks leave experiences that may be subjective that there are ways that we could put structure around them that they are now made explicit and transferable. You know, we think that is really crucial that I can relate better to you if I can see my life reflected in terms of what you do. You know, we think that that is really that that that is something that we have to put a lot of investment in. And then finally we want to explore and exploit the strength of week ties, what do I mean by this. I mean, the folks of us now that you guys can see, let's say we belong to the same household, the house or that we know the same set of people. You know, we have the same set of friends, and we tend to put a lot of emphasis on that, but it turns out a job become available somewhere. You know, maybe known by someone that is one or two degrees removed from me, and that I'm restraining terms of these types that may not be that strong. And that if we could, if we could stand up a platform, where some of these conversations could take place where some of these virtual interactions could be hard, you know, where some of the relationship could be seated. And if I get into these information constraint that in some way we kind of crack the door open when it comes to access to resources that I mentioned a little bit earlier. Next slide please. And finally, just a quick wrap up. That's the link to. Yeah, one report which I'm about to just put in the chat box, we really encourage you to take a look at it. There's a saying that money makes the world go round. We acknowledge support from New America. They were the ones that funded these a year one brand. Shout out to the students and Peter entrepreneurs that took part in a, in a special learning class, and the interviews that we conducted. And then a huge thank you to my collaborators, Jessica and Rima. And then finally, Robert Hampshire, who was the PI on the initial grant that we had from New America. So, Robert is planning to leave at us do to have the chief science officer. He has made and continues to make a lot of input in this space. And we benefited immensely from his contribution. Thanks Robert. Thank you so Melissa, I think the floor is yours now. Hi everyone good afternoon. My name is Melissa Brown. And as Taiyo has said I am one of the co-founders of Black Tech Futures Research Institute. My co-founder, Dr. Fallon Wilson is one of the panelists. We want to thank the University of Michigan and New America for this opportunity to participate in this panel discussion. In the next few minutes, we're going to talk about the work that Black Tech Futures Research Institute is doing. We kind of consider it on the ground working with the Black Tech ecosystem builders. What that looks like how do they view themselves. We conducted a survey, a purposeful survey actually a very small sample. So we're going to see where there is an alignment with the folks that we work with and how they fit into this broader discussion and how they view themselves as pit entrepreneurs or not. So, next slide real briefly. Okay, so Black Tech Futures Research Institute. Our mission is to build a national network of city based researchers and Black Tech ecosystem builders who I'll define what that that term means in a moment. Who conduct research to build sustainable and vibrant Black Tech ecosystems. And we just find Black Tech ecosystems as an ecology of institutions within cities and within Black communities that are optimized and aligned through a lens of liberation, inclusion and equity. We believe that by utilizing three methods, we can help build thriving Black Tech ecosystems that those approaches or methods include an ecosystem approach by eradicating the intersecting racial tech disparities within cities through the alignment of community leaders and collective impact from community led research by increasing our goal is to kind of increase the number of Black researchers that are focused on innovation technology and public policy. When we do this by growing talent within our cities. And then, of course, making change black through policy Black Tech policy, using the research that we collect the data that we collect to inform liberating policy recommendations and advocate at the municipal state and national level. Next slide. So the purpose of this survey, as I mentioned before, is to ascertain how Black Tech ecosystem builders and BTE builders as we've referred to them shortly, or briefly, is individuals who may support the tech pipeline, support stem and computer science, particularly K-12, support Black Tech companies, or they may work with city leaders to create innovation communities in Black neighborhoods in their cities. The survey was to view that, how they view their work, the impact they have, and how they view themselves. So we did a survey of 18 respondents from across five cities, Birmingham, Chicago, Houston, Memphis and the state of the state of the state of the state of the United States and it is a national. And the screen here gives also some demographic, brief demographic information of our survey respondents. Next slide. So our fellow, we refer to our BTE builders as fellows in our program. And I want to take a moment to say that the work that we're doing is funded by the the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation grant. So we want to also give them a thanks and a shout out as well. So our findings are showing that 78% of our fellows that were surveyed identified themselves as BTE builders, less than 6% identified themselves as public interest technologists. Next slide. Our results also show that 44% work full-time as tech entrepreneurs with roughly 17% or just under 17% either doing this work part-time or working a separate full-time job and also doing tech work on the side. Next slide. So we asked on what type of community tech work do you do in the Black community? 65% of them said that they focus on diversity inclusion for the Black community within those cities. To this definition of public interest technology, our group of fellows do not see their intervention work based on the popularized public interest technology work of working on algorithms and programming and things of that nature. 47% support tech startups, 41% are researchers or community advocates within their communities. Only 18% as I mentioned only work on dismantling bias algorithms. Next slide. So we asked them why did you start working in tech? 77% said it was basically to encourage themselves and others to build the future that they want and to create a future where tech job options that there are tech job options for Black people. And then we have different, we have other responses that include to bridge the digital divide, to provide a foundation for tech entrepreneurs like themselves to find support, and finally to build a bright future for Black people in an emerging automated economy. Next slide. So what were the pressures that they found in terms of being a Black tech ecosystem builder? 53% basically said they felt tokenized by local stakeholders who only want to use them as part of their diversity inclusion issues within their organization. So basically as the face of saying we are diverse, right? 47% said that they are asked to help non-people of color in tech organizations with no pay. So basically to volunteer their time for this work. Another 59% as I again said work both full, have a separate full-time job and volunteer and do work within the local Black tech community. Next slide. So when we're thinking about the topology of Black public interest technology, as you've defined it, Taiyo or University of Michigan, and your research has to find it and where our fellows identify. Where it says to take the characteristics of a public interest technologist is to take on the invisible labor within institutions by advising leaders and volunteering to help strengthen DEI practices. That's similar for us. 72% again said that they are asked by city leaders within their cities to help tech-related issues for minority communities. And 59% agree that working full-time jobs can be and doing this tech work can be stressful. But that's something that we, all of us on this panel, all of you that are watching in know that or probably have experienced. Next slide. So in the crosswalk of what a technologist and our BTE builders, here's where there's differences. When it comes to developing and refining product prototypes, 28% of our fellows have a tech background. So they have that tech degree, engineering degree, or computer science related degree. When it comes to translating technology concepts into non-technical language, 65% of our fellows report doing this work, trying to build a digital divide for our community. And only, but only 28% of them actually have that technical background needed to, or not needed, but technical background that we think is needed to do this work. And then when it comes to articulating a vision to inspire enthusiasm for the, for technological solutions, 59% of the fellows surveyed wanted to build a bright future for our community. But only 28% of them, again, have this tech background. So what are the next steps and recommendations for policymakers, folks that are on this panelist, those of you in the room should consider? So one is to develop a malleable definition of public interest technology, hence the purpose of today's discussion. That includes a lived experience of black people doing tech work in their cities, who may lack the technical background skills. So they may come from other majors or other backgrounds. We should deconstruct the popularized field of study and work with emerging public interest tech fields. But we shouldn't just focus on the algorithms and big data concerns, but also, or more importantly, like the digital divide, internet access, the loss of automation, the loss of jobs through automation and so forth. And then something similar to what Taiyo had said, develop the funding mechanisms that not only support the development of program and projects, but to accommodate the amount of free labor that our community is asked to do within their cities to solve the tech disparities. And I want to turn it back. I wanted to see if there are any questions from the crew, from the, or in the panel that, and or turn it back to Taiyo. Yeah. Thanks, Melissa. There is a question that is perfectly meant for you. So there are some questions coming. I think it makes sense for us to take two of those. Something to do with slide number 18. Let me just read it out. Can you describe the activities? I know what it means to dismantle buyers and algorithm for the rest are unclear. And so this is to you, Melissa, in terms of reasons for studying tech work in the black community. Well, the reasons for studying tech work within the black community? Yeah. Is that what you said? Well, we have to think about the biases that are inherent in the tech algorithms that are currently being used to either, to either, Val and feel free to join in here. Let me just jump in super quickly because I'm going to start with the question differently. How we operationalize the other ways that they do community tech work. So when you talk about digital divide, we mean you're working either at the local level or at the state level to get broadband access for your community. And if we're talking about social entrepreneurship or working tech entrepreneurship, you're working to either find capital for black tech entrepreneurs in your city because your local entrepreneurship or incubation center does not allow for that level of engagement. And so that's how they interpreted those questions. And that came out in our conversations with them. Awesome. So maybe for reference, if Angela could help us bring back slide number 18. So that kind of side of kind of a point of reference for this question. Thanks a lot, Melissa. I think a lot of what you kind of alluded to, most of it was the talent, the tokenism, the kind of walking without pay, which kind of that last phrase itself kind of reveals a lot in terms of what's the value that folks put on this walk. If in some form, folks are asking you to do it without pay. There's another question that came in with regards to, I believe, both our walk, but also looking in terms of dealing with universities, saying if universities wanted to replicate their studies, could the questionnaires and methodology be shared? So I take it that these are the instruments that we use on our own hands. So this is from Kenneth. And yes, we'll be happy to share those instruments with you. We essentially re-walking them for high year too, but we'll be happy to share those. There is one more question, but I reckon that I would just say that I want to when we move proper into the panel discussion. And then I will field it at some point. So can we, we will switch gears now. And then we kind of move into the panel discussion proper. Again, I would just like to quickly just acknowledge my panel members, Arlan, Reema, Mecha, and Selene. Among them, they essentially check all the boxes in terms of what we need across the spectrum of the paid text space. And I think we really appreciate them making the time to have this conversation with us. Given the fact that a lot of what we're talking about is about pathways, which we know maybe crooked, which we know maybe jagged, you know. I would like Farlan, Mecha, and Reema, depending on who chooses to go first, if you guys could kind of give us some insight into the unique pathway that you took into the pet felt. Mecha, you want me to start? I can jump in. So, you know, I would definitely say that my pathway was definitely not linear at all. I started off with the interest in social entrepreneurship. I left the world of banking to think about how can I use my skills and finance to support the social venture that I was developing at the time, helping young people pay down a student loan debt through volunteering. And so that sort of idea sort of led me to an academic career path at Carnegie Mellon University. And I rolled into the Hines College to study public policy and management. And through there, essentially being at the nexus of you know, policy and technology, social skills and technical skills, and sort of, you know, merging these two disciplines together. In a sense, I was sort of in this space of public interest technology before the space was even defined. It was through that experience where I actually was able to connect with information systems students, engineering students, computer science students, to actually develop the social venture, this idea that I had, and really fostered this belief in multidisciplinary approaches to, you know, defining problems and implementing solutions with other people who have different perspectives, different experiences, etc. And so from there, I graduated, ended up working in consulting, working for federal clients, and leveraging some of the skills that I developed at Carnegie Mellon in terms of management science, thinking about optimization, portfolio management, some of these technical skills that I learned, in addition to, you know, policy innovation and creation, was able to sort of leverage those skill sets through client work. So this summer of 2016, you know, the death of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling at the time really, you know, shook up my career pathway. Here I was developing these skill sets and working directly with clients, but in the back of my head, you know, this trauma, this generational trauma, and sort of all of the historical baggage that comes about, you know, by seeing, you know, folks like myself, you know, wind up in these situations where, you know, our lives are snuffed out. And so I had to make a decision and I decided to pivot a bit in my career path and I joined a national nonprofit organization, and it was the first sort of experience where I was directly addressing racial equity, and what the role of sort of these lived experiences and community engagement, what that even looks like in terms of, you know, designing solutions and problem solving. And so I was able to work in, you know, over 100 communities across the country. And, you know, I eventually used that experience to start up and help co-found an organization to help social entrepreneurs because throughout my experience during community engagement nationally, I was seeing these practitioners on the ground who had these very local and specific solutions to address problems in their communities. And so during my time working at this organization, I was able to put together pitch competitions, been able to sort of surface from the ground some of these best practices and some of this knowledge, you know, that was present. And so I used that to sort of develop relationships with social entrepreneurs. And through that experience sort of led me to the University of Michigan project where we were thinking about these characteristics of social entrepreneurs, thinking about race and equity, and, you know, thinking about, you know, how can we begin to build and develop these pathways for individuals, you know, who are considered themselves social entrepreneurs who are using technology? How can we build these pathways into this space that's, that's, you know, is it a nascent condition as we speak? And I really began to think about how do we excavate some of these lived experiences and build knowledge that's helpful for this, for this, for this career pathway, for this field of public interest technology. So that was my sort of entrain into public interest technology. It certainly was not a linear one. Thank you very much. That was, that was, I mean, thanks for that comprehensive expose. Okay. Fallon, can you, can you? Yes. And I thought, I thought you're going to call my brother, Mecbeth, you know, I try to go beauty before age. So thank you for calling them. My introduction into the field of public interest technology is very interesting because like Raymar, I feel like I existed before we decided to canonize this term. And I think I'm going to come and answer the question from three lenses. First, I'm going to do the institutional lens. How did I get here? And then I'm going to do the personal lens. How did I get here? So my background, my research, my PhD is really in gender studies and looking at systems that are created to either create achievement or not to create achievement for black and brown girls in various school contexts. And so I have to begin there and say, I don't have a coding background. I couldn't code myself out of a paper box. And if you ask me to, what is a script? I would say it's, one day I should win a Tony with a script because I would do a play, not a language. And so let's begin there. But I was working with a historically black college and university institution in Nashville, Tennessee. And it's one of the noble historic institutions that train John Lewis, Congressman John Lewis, and is known for civil rights, social justice. It was the site for the sit-in movement in Nashville. The president came to me and he said, Dr. Wilson, you're young. You're finishing up your dissertation. Clearly, you can teach technology. Help us to understand this world of technology. And I was like, at first I'm like, I'm not that young, but sure. I started doing a deep dive on how in 2013 and in 2012, the worlds of higher education was changing as related to innovation. There were moments where the Obama administration wanted campuses to experiment with boot camps and other types of technical partnerships and how we redefined the Carnegie credit hours. So it was a lot of amazing conversations on mass operating courses and how MIT was doing this and how Stanford was doing that. And all of these ivy leagues, yet this small historically black college and university in Nashville, Tennessee has asked me to think about how they who do not have a science based curriculum could compete and re-engineer themselves for this new world of technology. And so I kept hitting roadblocks with that. Primarily because yet again, having conversations in this new space of higher education, number one, HBCUs don't come up in the conversation. Hispanic serving institutions don't come up in these conversations. And minority serving institutions at a whole are not a part of these conversations. And so I would go to Code for America and I would go to all of these amazing conferences they had. And I'd be like, look, look at our institutions, look at how they're changing and how they will have a historical and a federal mandate to be able to empower people of color and knowledge. And when I think about public interest technology, it just seems that there was a nexus there. Because when you look at first generation college students, black students, what do they major in? They major in low earning, but socially impactful careers. They are human services. They are social workers, which I must train social workers. So I shout out the show social workers. They are community activists. They are all these things. But in this new emerging space, though the public interest tech space, and I had some conversations with Foundation officers too, they couldn't see how that was a nexus. And that really caused me challenges. Because if our major universities are being able to re-engineer because they have large endowments, our minority serving institutions too should be able to re-engineer in this new space because they are more likely to take high impact, high need students of color than our predominantly white institutions. And so that's one entry for Dr. Wilson into it. The second entry was, I realized that working in my historical black college university, they're going to let me do so much. I mean, institutions are by design, bureaucratic, and they don't move as quick as they should. And I know that's for most universities, not just for minority serving ones. And so I developed an organization in Nashville called Black and Tech Nashville, because I realized that I, Dr. Wilson was being asked by the mayor's office to write the smart city report to, of course, to bring all the D&I to it. But of course, I gave them way more than D&I because I do have a PhD from the University of Chicago, and helping the city to do a lot of tech work. And I can see on the horizon how Nashville will change in the next 10 years. And I worried that people that looked like me could not take, take advantage of the benefits of this new space, right? So I founded an organization with two co-founders, and we started having conversations, and we hosted the first conversation statewide in Tennessee around inclusion, diversity, equity, and tech. We pulled on the state, we pulled on our cities, and we said, we need to have a conversation about this. And then all of a sudden, it begins to roll, right? Then I began to ask, at the state level to do things, all these things not paid, not paid, even though I bring the expertise that they need in this space to really make it inclusive. And so my entry into it has been through institutions wanting to reengineer themselves to compete, even though historically and by definition, I think they fit public interest technology. Secondly, encountering government and government interactions that told me that they really did not understand it themselves, let alone why it should be an inclusion framework to it, pushed me even further. And then most importantly, my personal reason. I grew up like many, I'm only one generation removed from poverty, right? Which is significant to tell, though I don't like telling the story because I think some people think all black people are poor and we are not. But I have to, I haven't had to tell the story. And so my father worked as a mechanic, and in the 80s, and many academics would talk about ergonomics and how so many jobs were outsourced overseas. He lost his job, and there are a lot of other types of social outcomes that came from that. So when we had crisis in our family, we had to go to my uncle who drove a $28 18 willer, he made $28 a day. And so we went to him when we had like severe crisis moments financially. I tell people, not just academics, because I think you get it. But I tell people who are non-academics, people that are like my mom and my sister, why should you care about this new innovation space? It's because I fear what my experience with poverty will look like if every job that had a wheel attached to it was no longer in existence this very moment. And so the notion of a future where either deficits and code and algorithms and all the deficit data we collect on black and brown people became what we fed computers and what they came to know about us gave me great fear personally to be able to understand and translate. And also, as Andrea knows, so the great colleague of mine, push against the formation of this new discipline. I am going to push it to grow so that it includes black and brown people at its core, not as a periphery, which means challenging the definitions on how we canonize this new space and that technology as a tool into itself may not be the ultimate driver outcome of what we should be looking at. As I said, again, I am not someone who has a tech background. I understand research and data and I understand people and I'm a translator. Thanks. Thanks a lot. Really, I appreciate that kind of kind of a multi-dimensional insight into your pathway. I mean, I think you could speak to, I mean, this should be your forte. I mean, in terms of what you see is what you get. I mean, in terms of this with the week, but these bias algorithms, the data, but I think kind of couch that within the broader framework of your home pathway, you know, into pay. Sure. Sure. My own pathway probably was a little more direct in this regard than my fellow panelists in the sense that I knew from the time I was a 10-year-old boy that I wanted a career in technology when my single mother who was raising my brother and I in South Memphis, which is an economically challenged part of Memphis, made a miracle happen for me to get a Texas Instruments home computer. And I learned how to make my very unusual name show up on the screen and then I went and bragged to my mother back when, you know, the computer was plugged into the TV that my name was on TV because you never saw my name on TV. So that was my sort of foundation of becoming a producer of technology as that little boy. And I had the good opportunity in high school to go away to boarding school in New England and was exposed to a much wider world than I grew up in in South Memphis, and including much more intricate perspectives on history. I was already a good math and science kid and I was already interested in computers, but it was there in boarding school that I got gained an appreciation for the history, especially with respect to Africans and their contributions to math and science. And that's when I realized that, you know, I had a role to play in changing the narrative that too many of us falsely believe that we had this false narrative that this is not something that black people could do, right, that or if we had contributions we were followers or we were just footnotes. And it was it was there that I began to be introduced to the idea that the originators of much of what we take for granted in this space look like me. And so I decided after a visit to Morehouse College that's where I was going to go to college and I majored in computer science there and was just I like to think I was a strong student, but I will definitely say that it was at Morehouse that it gave me, it really helped me to appreciate the complexity and diversity of black men, right, and that gave me an appreciation of the complexity and diversity of the wider world. And in those foundations that Morehouse offered me with respect to democracy and equality and justice and respect for humanity really cemented for me what I still didn't even clearly understand then, but now I can look back with, you know, 2020 hindsight and recognize were those seeds with respect to public interest technology. I went on to get a master's degree in computer science and then I went and worked as a software developer for 19 years. And in doing so, all along the way, I was driven to be engaged in the community in different ways, volunteering, you know, taking kids on college tours and, you know, you know, volunteering on boards of schools and things of that nature and volunteering in my own kids schools. And ultimately, and I give a lot of credit to Kimberly Bryant of Black Girls Code, who allowed me to launch the Memphis chapter of that great program, really, because I was trying to get my daughters interested in that boring thing that daddy did. And that I led for about two and a half years before founding Code Crew with two others. And Code Crew back in 2015 was our way to focus on especially on this particular market, which is in Memphis is we're, you know, 65% African American city. We are our county is majority black and soon the entire metro area will be majority black, assuming assuming they got the census right last year and what messed up by that last guy. That we'll probably see that reality. And so and so Code Crew are nonprofit is a nonprofit organization very focused on on getting black and brown men and women boys and girls to to see themselves as producers of technology and to be contributors to a better world with using technology and being tech producers, whether they pursue college career entrepreneurship in the space. And so and we've always done that from a perspective of you're not just learning these skills. You are you are making a unique contribution. And you're empowered with skills that are increasingly shaping the world. How are you going to do that? You know, so found as a foundational as this as the as the tech skills that you learn are also the non-technical elements from how you present yourself to the ethics of of technology and how to use that to better communities. And so so whether it's whether it's kids and now we also train adults, whether it's it's kids focusing in a hackathon on school health or human trafficking. We've had them build systems along those lines to to to adults recognizing that they're on the front lines of a of a new ecosystem, if you will, that that includes them and that they have a an outsized role to play in in changing what we know power historically has been slow to concede as Frederick Douglass alluded to. And so and so that that has that's been my pathway that it's been sort of independent passion with respect to public interest and public good tied to my 10 year old boy interest in technology that turned into a career to where five years ago I quit my job to do this full time in the form of code crew. So that is my that is my pathway in my story. Thanks a lot Emeka. And actually I want to just say something quickly. So I mean across here in the viewpoint from from Hemeka, from Reema, from Fowlen, I mean we could see that there's kind of a variety of like ways of getting into a pit filled. We could take a look at each of these folks as if they're like archetypes or like persona that could represent a whole group segment of population. And I know that that we have like a 130 kind of a kind of a when we have to wrap things up but I reckon that these conversations are really really crucial and that there's a need for you to just kind of let it flow the way you kind of see it and I think that's really crucial. I'm going to kind of just switch things a little bit and I'm going to bring Selena Hahn. So she was part of our experiential learning program and I want a unique student perspective on this. Looking in terms of the parent that you have Selena in terms of being matched with a pit entrepreneur, can you can you kind of give us some insight into that particularly in terms of what is the value added by that interaction? What did you gain from that proximity? Can you can you can you kind of shed some light on that? Yeah, sure. Thank you. I must promise my remarks with saying that this is off the record and off duty given my professional work. But as you mentioned, Tio, while at the University of Michigan, I took part in the experiential learning course by Professor Hampshire and got an opportunity to work directly with a BIPOC entrepreneur. His specific work really entitled and worked towards, he hosted a think tank in Detroit to kind of look into technology and see what opportunities were available to have conversations around technology, both on human capital end and both as resources to kind of give to the local Detroit area. So while working with directly with an entrepreneur, I was really able to I think see from his perspective the importance of just being, I think, an entrepreneur of color and coming in with a very different perspective while working with him, his name is Dwayne, we worked on trying to evaluate short term learning programs, specifically coding boot camps in the Detroit area. And I tended to figure out, you know, the marketplace, not only for coding boot camps, but how are students of color being allowed or not allowed to enter that pipeline and more generally short term education programs and whether those programs actually prepare them to be part of public interest technology or enter, you know, a technical career in technology. And so it was just interesting, I think, with him to be able to go on this journey, you know, we got a chance to talk to a local coding boot camp that he had connections with entitled Grand Circus in Detroit, and really saw, you know, that an ecosystem around coding boot camps in Detroit existed, but it was very national. It was not hyper local, which was what Grand Circus was, and what Dwayne really wanted to, I think, bring about in his work with his organization as a BIPOC entrepreneur. He really wanted to leverage, you know, local programs and technology for, you know, students of color in the Detroit metro area. And so it really, I think, touched the point on, you know, the purpose of the course, which was to ensure that, you know, students like me had an opportunity to learn from entrepreneurs of color and how they see, you know, the work on the ground and how important that is to their daily jobs and to their communities. And so I think my ultimate takeaway from working with Dwayne and really helping evaluate, you know, the purpose of coding boot camps in the local Detroit area was to really see, you know, the conversation that we're having right now, you know, the importance of understanding how the pipeline to tech careers works and, you know, whether existing structures like short-term education programs are working for students of color who, you know, want to come into technology careers or want to learn more. So I think we really had an opportunity to continue those conversations, but also, you know, bring in very important, I think, pivotal, you know, public leaders, you know, whether it was the leader of Grand Circus or, you know, wanting to connect to, you know, local government officials to kind of share what we had found, really building that network, you know, not just, I think, within entrepreneurs themselves, but across their communities. I think those were one of the biggest takeaways. Thanks a lot. And I'm going to come back to that at some point. Even more so, these interface where we're looking in terms of how we could use some of these insights to better engage with folks in the corridors of power, you know. But in the interest of time, and given that I see questions and popping up here, I'm going to kind of take one of these questions and then throw it back to the house. This is a very good question. It says, a typical refrain that I hear in entrepreneurial cycles is not to be afraid of failing. Yet, I hear from underrepresented groups that there are consequences, and these consequences are much higher when you fail. And these changes, they risk calculus for potential entrepreneurs. Can one of you address that? I'm saying that they are afraid to fail. Meanwhile, there's a lot of consequences when this happens. I can speak to that, Ty. I mean, this is a great question. I think that was Kenneth Wong, I think, who posed that question. So I'm going to give him a shout out for that. Definitely is a phenomenon I think is especially felt for black and brown entrepreneurs. Is this fear of failure? This fear that you get one shot, and depending on how you succeed or not, it's sort of representative of your entire community, which is a problem. And I think we talk about black futures, we think about BIPOC futures in tech. I mean, there has to be this ability to fail. They have to be this ability to be able to fail, to learn, to iterate, to try again, and to do that over and over and over. Because only until then is we will actually be able to develop knowledge, develop new solutions that can address some of our society's most pressing challenges. And so I definitely have experienced that personally, failure, and what that looks like as a social entrepreneur. And in our research, this kept coming up. And so I definitely think that within this pathway to public interest technology, the ability to be able to sort of create a lab or a sandbox, I use this example of a sandbox. A lot of these solutions come from a hypothesis, some tested knowledge that you have, but you have to have an opportunity to test those. So yeah, thanks for the question, Ken. I would add and probably push back a little bit on Ray Maher on this one. I fundamentally believe that I don't think black people have to fail anymore. I believe that the experiences that, and not to essentialize, but the experiences that black people have had in order to create a social impact model does not necessarily, they don't need to go through iterations. They need capital. I think you put a lot of weight on entrepreneurs of color, whether they're doing social impact or regular business models, to say that they have to go through these iterations. But it just belongs to the fact that there's no capital for them. And I would venture to say, hey, I wanted to create public interest technology as it filled unto itself six years ago. I created Humanity EDU, which would re-engineer HBCUs for this new space. But six years ago, I could not get traction. I think one investor told me, oh, such a lofty goal found to think that these historic institutions that have produced iconic black people who have led movements could be the place where we grow public interest technologies and be at the vanguard of canonizing the space. But I'm not going to fund you. It's a lofty, it's a great goal found, right? What I found, working with historically black or brown people and institutions and with the types of social impact models that they have created to help their communities, they have clients, they have the product, it has been verified and tested, and they continue to fail not because of the product, but because we have yet to figure out the value proposition of funding them fully, right? And part of the work that I have done with the FCC recently, we just put out a report that looked at diverse tech entrepreneurship support organizations across the country. And the main thing that came back from those organizations is we have the clients, we have the customers, we have the impact models, but we can't find the funding because we don't fund black dreams, we don't fund people of color dreams, right? And I'm talking to someone who had to reposition herself from the humanity EDU and now do non-profit work to build the ecosystem so that people don't have experiences that I've had over the last six to seven years trying to do this work, not because Fallon has gotten 10,000 rejection letters from all the fellowships, but let me not, let me not, they're only like six social impact fellowships in the country, right? They can help fund people of color who don't come from generational wealth to do the amazing work that they're trying to do. I don't know if we need more time to fail, we need more capital. No, that's, I mean, actually, I like kind of the way you guys took the, took different views there. And at some point, I think I'm trying, maybe I would try and reorient, reorientate it where I'm looking at those broader conversations looking in terms of not just the challenges, but also opportunities and using that to frame a vision of the future. And so I'm going to come back to that, you know, but I think I want to quickly take this question that is made for Emeka, but you guys feel free to kind of chime in. There's a question from Justin, which I like a lot looking in terms of what are the, looking at the specific challenges of rural areas. So he said, is there a certain mixture of census data that can help us target areas for educational impact? How local can we get with our focus on enabling access to tech? You know, I know that larger cities do get more attention, but I can get the idea out of my head that the more rural and possibly disconnected towns and communities might provide alternate pathways that do not currently exist. Emeka, do you want to make a stop, take a stop at that? Sure, sure. So, you know, our work at Code Crew, at least, has been very focused on all, right, that, you know, we do a lot of policy and advocacy. And when I make the argument at the state level here in Tennessee, at least, that every child in every school and every grade should have access to quality computer science education, right, that, that there's a focus on all, which really is a matter of addressing those who have been historically excluded. And we know that black and brown people have been historically excluded. We also know that rural communities are historically excluded from, from opportunities when it comes to like, our model of how we distribute the internet in this country, right, and how that is lacking in rural communities because of cost factors, but a lot of weak excuses if you ask me, because it's not been a priority. And then many, many on the flip side in urban communities where the, the infrastructure may be there, but the ability to pay for it isn't there. And so you still have zip codes like here in Memphis that have 80% with lack of broadband internet access, for example. And so, so there's parallels, if you will, between a lot of urban centers and rural communities, but the, but absolutely, you know, there's some fundamental infrastructure things that need to be addressed, certainly on the, on the, on the, from rural perspectives. And then when you're talking about, I think your question was how local can you get respect to this focus? I mean, you can get very local, right? You know, I think, I think, like I said, it's both macro and micro in the sense that we need to advocate for all, right? And that's every community having a certain basics, right? That these things are, are right today to no longer a privilege, right? Or, you know, 150 years ago, having a toilet in your house was a privilege, right? But now, you know, now that's, that's, that's a basic right today, right? A basic sanitation is the right today. And then access to technology, both in terms of infrastructure as well as the educational opportunities is a basic right. And so there, there should be advocacy on every community in this regard. You know, boots on the ground in your rural communities is the same as that we do around the country that no community is more important or significant in this regard. And that ultimately, it pays off for everyone, right? Because especially, I think COVID has outlined or highlighted for us that, you know, you can live in this rural community and work for New York company, right? And, or start a startup in a rural community, which I've seen in places like Corinth, Mississippi, and other places. And so, so, so absolutely, it's, it's, it's, it's thinking globally, thinking nationally and acting locally is something we all ought to be doing within this context of public interest technology. And so, so I say to people, don't be afraid, even in a rural community to, to, to join this movement in there and, and, and grow your network in terms of connecting with others who are like-minded to make a difference in every regard. Thanks. Thanks a lot, Michael. I have, I have a question that I want to direct to Selena looking in terms of, and feel free to tag her disclaimer here. But I know that you waste in the public policy. And now you're on the kind of in the field of trenches as a legislative staff member. But you, what are your thoughts in terms of effective ways by which folks in the pit domain could better engage more constructively with, with, and folks in the corridors of power, policy makers in the public sector, you know, elected and folks and what are your, what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, thanks, Chail. That's a great question. I would say that I, I think personally I was introduced to public interest technology in an academic environment, being, you know, a graduate student at the University of Michigan. And so in itself, you know, we all understand or have an idea of what is, but we can't assume that I think members of Congress understand it the way that we do. So I think it's very important to, you know, as we leverage our resources as we're connecting, you know, tech entrepreneurs of color, you know, to this pipeline, that we're also preparing them to be, you know, educators about what pit is. I don't think, you know, a lot of the work that, you know, we're doing today, you know, in some sentences has reached the hollows of Congress, you know, when we talk about diversity, equity and inclusion and the importance of diversity in technology. But I think the conversations that we're having today, and the way that we frame public interest technology has not. So it's important, you know, as we develop this network to organize it, and to be able to, you know, continuously be educating of public officials about the importance of public interest technology, and the role that that has specifically for, you know, entrepreneurs of color. We can't assume, I think that, you know, our public leaders understand, I think what is going on, you know, at this point, we're trying to leverage the knowledge that we have on the Hill, and we have, you know, I think a minimal understanding of technology and, you know, how to be literate around it. And so, you know, that includes, you know, ensuring that folks who enter Pitt, perhaps like myself, you know, go on to public service, whether it's a digital service, whether it's, you know, other public service within a federal agency, or even, you know, Capitol Hill, to be able to, you know, relay these lessons, and, you know, relay the importance of public interest technology. So I think there's a lot of pathways, but ensuring that we are, you know, constantly educating, that we are preparing, you know, folks to organize, and that we're creating, you know, pathways into tech careers, but also into public service, specifically, you know, into roles that will allow us to kind of leverage public interest technology as, you know, a structure. Thanks. Thanks a lot for that response. I want to go back to both Rayman and Fallon. I like the positions that you guys took on the last question, you guys responded to, but I want to frame it in a broader context here. Where are we looking at the challenges, the opportunities, but then with a view towards the future, you know, kind of the vision. There's a question from one of the Haudenosaunee's members saying, what are the recommendations to increase moonshot funding and partnerships? The demographics that we have addressed that we engage with face not only social and economic challenges, but also connections and networks. Can you guys respond to that question, given the way I have it framed? Where you acknowledge that there are issues at stake, but then with that high towards the future and maybe using as a vehicle this kind of a moonshot funding to kind of accelerate or kind of catalyze the chain process that you will want or envisage. I'll jump in. So, you know, I think when I think about moonshot funding, I definitely, you know, it's definitely something that's exciting to think about. But, you know, taking a step back, I mean, it is very, very risky to fund moonshots. It's very resource-intensive to do it. And so, I think finding a set of benefactors and funders that are patient in the sense of, you know, discovery is a long journey. And these moonshots, you know, are certainly capable. But I think, you know, funding underrepresented communities and perspectives, I think is part of the puzzle. Really engaging these underrepresented voices into solutions, I think, is one of the first steps. But I think I'm going to go back to what Selene was alluding to, I think, and she, you know, from her experience in terms of, you know, this pathway that she's on, I think these connections really do matter. The finding people that you can collaborate with very easily. And so, you know, a system, you know, what we're thinking about is, you know, what's the process of knowledge creation, right? And so, our year two efforts around, you know, developing a public interest technology knowledge network, that we can be able to make these connections within the ecosystem to spark innovation and new ideas. And these moonshots, these moonshots can come from these, you know, with tile refers, you know, another strength of weak ties. Like when you begin to interface and interact with people who are different from you, you come, you know, you develop new and innovative ideas. And I think that's also a foundational kind of aspect of the work that we're doing is, how can we make these connections for more people? And how can we do it in a way that's efficient, efficient? And so, when I think about those moonshots, definitely come down to funding, finding the right benefactors, making these connections within the ecosystem that we're not currently making. And then, you know, essentially just allowing these relationships to develop. But yeah, I think step one is really organizing all of these practitioners and putting them on a knowledge network. And certainly, we talk a lot about that in our report. So, definitely encourage folks to pick that report up. And there would be sort of, you know, let's start the conversation on how we can do this and be more intentional. And I would say, I am not sure if the, given the work that I've done, and not only Black Tech Feud as we search and see, but the work that we've done in tech entrepreneurship spaces for people of color, I don't know if I'm dependent on philanthropic communities or other. I think they should fund broadband. I think everyone should be connected to the internet in this country. I feel like that is a safe way to begin talking about how you get a robust and continuous pipeline of tech entrepreneurs, and also of those who are technologists. We have 40% of our country don't have access to the internet. And when you're able to do that, I think, I think funders can see that as an immediate type of thing, trying to get them to buying two products, our social impact products. It is, it has shown consistently that we just don't, they don't have it to give, not financially, but the conceptions on the value propositions for why we create the products we want for our communities to help solve social problems. So I'm going to give, so let's give them a social problem they can't solve, give everybody in the country access to the internet. And then by doing that work with community organizations on the ground with the municipalities who are already doing the work, the work that Mecca does with Co-Crew and also hosting a conversation in Tennessee about interrogating the concept of what constitutes a broadband internet that just because you have 23 down five up, and you have a household of five, and you're located in the rural part of the county, it means we need to really think about better definitions. But working with those organizations who may not consider themselves to be public interest technologists, because I'm also talking to the challenges, right, to the second part of your question, Tayo. We really have to push beyond institutions of higher education and really begin identifying practitioners who already are doing this work based on the typologies we have created, and be giving, give them the funding to do the work, right? Once again, I gave up my business aspirations of being an ex-EDU Udacity for the people because I couldn't get the dollars, I couldn't get people to buy into my vision. And so I spend my time now running a non-profit, working with non-profit organizations to do this so that we, so no one has the experiences that we have. And so when I think about the field of public interest technology and how we have to really bend the definitions, bend what consists of practitioners, bend which institutions are invited, right? It requires that we have a very concrete conversation about even the privileges that our universities have to even begin having this conversation to canonize a discipline that is going to guide our country into a more equitable, automated future, and those who are not at the table to have those conversations. And I think everything Ray Marr said makes good sense to me, but I am of the mindset now that I have to find, and the work that we do with Black Tech Futures Institute, we look at churches, we look at historical cornerstone institutions within Black communities that have helped us, as my grandmother would say, come over hard times, right? That would be our churches, that would be our HBCUs, and how to figure out to make them better and stronger for this new automated world. And so if any funding needs to go, it needs to go there to anchor institutions, then out to community organizations that is working with tech entrepreneurs to grow their businesses. Thanks a lot. We want to be respectful of folks time, but we're indulges. If you could give us five more minutes, I think that would be good. I promise you it would be time well spent. But right now we want to kind of reveal the finding from the poll that we conducted at the beginning of the session. How about it? Can you? Okay. All right. So this is kind of a what cloud, just kind of that kind of probs is the number of times these words were showing up. I mean, and it's just to kind of reveal the frequency to which each one was punching the chat box. I would like one of the panelists to respond to these. Number one, looking, does this in some way reflect what you were expecting, but it does not. Why is that a case? And then finally, time permitting, if we could look in terms of when we take a look at these constraints, in what way can blacks, indigenous people of color who are in the tech space, in what way could they be empowered to address these challenges? I think it's fascinating that access and equity seem to be the dominant terms here. I think that's consistent of what, I know that there's may not necessarily always be exact clear consensus on even public interest technology, but as it moves forward to being that established field, foundational in that regard, I think is access and equity. And so it's refreshing to see that reinforced here amongst the responses. And so, you know, what was the second half of your question, Tai again? Yeah, so like looking in terms of these findings, which in some way, you know, kind of proxies the frequency to which folks feel strongly about each other's words, whether it reflects what you were expecting, but now tied to blacks, indigenous and folks of color who are active in this space, in what way could they be empowered, you know, to address, I mean, these issues? Yeah, so I, you know, I'm, so a lot of great points have been made about, and I have to happen to agree with both Fallon and Remar about the issues around failure and capital, right? But being empowered to, with the capital that you need to have that longer runway when things don't go perfectly, right? When some things do inevitably fail, right, that there is this power to iterate. While at the same time, these well-developed ideas that we often bring to, you know, to have access, you know, that just need capital to make scale, we need to make that happen, right? And we need to, so in terms of us being empowered, black and brown, we're black and indigenous and people of color being empowered in this regard. You know, it is capital, it is room to fail, it is getting access to the skills, you know, it's also being empowered to build the networks that we need to work together in this regard. It is more attention on policy and how that has a wider, more reaching impact. And, you know, so orienting ourselves in that regard, but in also orienting the community in that regard, and us driving that conversation to, to where we, we achieve that reality. So that's how I would answer that. Thank you a lot. I really, I really appreciate your contribution. Each of the panelists member, so Leonard just said she has a hat, one 30 hat stop. We appreciate you taking the time, following Rehmer America. I just saw something in the chat box from Justin saying equity equals to ownership of access. And I think that he's spot on. I think we need to push these, we need to get to these regime, you know, where these access is not skewed. And in such a way that penalizes a segment of the population. So I will now button over to Alvarado to kind of round us up. Well, first of all, it was an amazing conversation. I know that I learned a lot and I'm sure that our attendees learned a lot as well. I just want to finish this conversation and just post them again the report from that was published by this in New America. So please copy it, tweet it, and share it around, make it make some noise. We thank you again for joining us and we will be posting this conversation on YouTube. So you also share it again. Please let us, let us join again on our next Wednesday webinar. Please keep an eye out for our newsletters and our website. Thank you so much. Have a good day.