 Thank you all for coming. We are recording this, so if anyone would like it to remain private after the recording is finished, let me know at the end of this event and we'll make sure not to make it public online. But the idea would be that we would share this recording online afterwards so people who couldn't make it could see it after. Hello, welcome. We have name tags scattered here. You can feel free to write your name, your preferred gender pronoun if you like, and what else? Housekeeping, there is bathroom down that, bathrooms down that hallway. There's some water fountains. The, the ladies bathroom is open, but I understand that that might not be the case for the whole event. They might lock them. Other, in that case, there's bathrooms downstairs somewhere. Not sure exactly. Yeah? Thank you, Sue, to Shay and to the Mock TV and CCTV for venue and recording and all sorts of stuff. Thank you. Yes. Oh, and also to say, for those of you who know me, that I am, I am not here in official Burlington telecom capacity today. I'm here as Abby in the telecom. Anyone who has things they want to discuss about any sales related things, I'm happy to stay after and hear that, but this is something separate. So thank you all for being here. Thanks Abby, and thank you for helping me connect with all these folks. Okay, so momentarily I would like to go do a round of introductions and hear all, where you're all coming from, what brought you here to give some context for this particular event. I'll do an introduction of myself and this particular event, and then we'll jump into some stuff that I prepared to look over and then get to some activity where we're brainstorming about particular questions and topics related to digital inclusion. So my name is Julia Valera. I'm relatively new to the area. I moved here about a year and a half ago, a little less than that. So I'm really excited and inspired by the energy and the people that I've been meeting since I've been here. I've had great conversations about internet related issues and a few of them being related to digital inclusion and web literacy in the area. I'm really excited by the initiatives and the services and the various projects that I'm learning about since I came here. So I'm here as someone who is very passionate about the topic of digital inclusion. I've been working on that topic and web literacy for the last six years. I moved here from New York City and then in addition to that, I've been working in the area of media and arts for over 15 years, probably closer to 17 now. So I'm at this intersection between digital inclusion, technology, art, design, and I dabble in all of those things and often they overlap. So I'm here just to meet everyone and really dig in more with all of your expertise in the room. And I've been managing a lot of local and global projects as well. I work at Mozilla Foundation right now and before that I was working with a lot of different nonprofits in New York City, running events and doing different types of trainings for professionals, teachers, young people, collaborating on lots of projects with fellow artists and designers. So I'm very excited about the idea of collaboration and that's what brings me here. This particular event, I'm hoping, is the first of many more. So we had a previous event during Innovation Week that drew a lot of interested people on the topic of internet health and lots of issues that tie into that. And this is the kind of continued conversation of that event, but I think drilling down into the digital inclusion piece of that, which we're going to do today, is really a good start to thinking about what we want to do to move forward and with all the people in the room, how we can leverage that in continuing this conversation. And then just the last thing is that it's a flexible agenda. So this is, I'm very much interested in hearing the expertise that you're bringing here tonight. And so I've kind of created an outline and an agenda and have topical questions to get to, but at the same time, like I want to hear from you and feel free to, you know, surface questions or thoughts or any relevant examples as we move on throughout the event tonight. So with that said, just briefly, this is what we'll be going through. We're going to do introductions. I'm going to go through some slides that cover some information related to local initiatives and statistics. And then we're going to do a group activity that I'll talk more in detail about. And then I really want to take a good amount of time, like 10 minutes or so at the end to have reflections. So we'll have some time to maybe give feedback on this event, what we could do better next time, what we need to include and things like that. Okay, so now I'd like to know about you all. If we could go around the room and do our name, prefer gender pronoun if you prefer to do that. And what brought you here today? Where you're from? And I added your favorite winter activity here. For selfish reasons, I'm very curious to know since I'm new to the area what all of you like to get into during the winter months. Yeah, and please try to keep it short just so we there's a lot of people here so we can, you know, get through it all. So maybe no more than a minute each would be preferable. All right, so does any side of the room or corner want to start? Let's maybe go this way. Starting in this corner here. There. Sounds good. Well, I didn't what you were all about. I heard Bruins and telecom. And that's what I'm interested in. As you know, we just have the whole sale of that and everything involved with that. And so this kind of got my attention. I'm not particularly interested in the internet. I never really learned it. And I frankly don't like it very much. And I find it very difficult because it seems to change all the time. And unless you have somebody sitting right next to you telling you what's happening, you're just out of it. Thank you. And my, I'm Barbara Wieneroth. And I'd say to describe myself, I'm a community activist here. Great. In Burlington. Thanks for coming. Oh, and what's your favorite winter activity? Voiding snow. Okay, well noted. Okay, next. I'm Dennis Moynihan. I'm the executive director for BTV Ignite. And I'm here because digital inclusion is one of the things that we're very interested in BTV Ignite. Our mission is to position Burlington to thrive in a 21st century digital economy and digital inclusion, making sure we're inclusive. And we have web literacy is a huge part of that. And my favorite winter activity probably involves something that comes with the core. Maybe Steven in the back and then Jeff back front. Steven Barraclough. I run Burlington telecom. What brought me here today is that we're in a very changing world. And I think it's critically important to me and many people that somewhere like Burlington actually becomes a an expression of what you can achieve in an engaged community on the front on the on digital literacy and digital inclusion. Now, what can we do that actually brings the best of providing equal opportunity to everyone and actually have Burlington be an example of that? My favorite winter activity used to be skiing. As I got old, my favorite winter activity became planning some. Good one. Thank you. I'm Carolyn Bates. I'm from Burlington. I've been a resident here since 1973. I came today because some people from Burlington telecom and from KBTL, which I remember, suggested that I come. I have been an activist since way back in the really 90s when we were trying to put dog parks in the city. So anything that seems to go across who I am or what I believe in, I like to, you know, well, I just like to get things going right and backwards. And so I hope that the internet and net inclusion and net neutrality and all of this, somehow I could help with that. And winter, well, let's see, I like walking on the ice along the lake to see all those summer cabins that I can't see in the summer. That's a good idea. But you have to be sure the ice is cold. Oh, yeah. Great. Thank you. Welcome. So I'm Alan Matts. And I have been very involved with the KBTL cooperative that had put proposal forward for the telecom. I think we're trying to figure out next steps. And I also know that Shay got us involved to help sponsor a bit, I think, through Reds and Moccasie to help out with the evening this evening. And like I said, so I'm here partly thinking about personally and with the cooperative of what next steps might be. And I live in Vermont because I grew up in Minnesota and I love winters. It's hard to pick a favorite. But keeping on Carolyn's theme, I also like walking along the ice close to shore. But usually I need to have about 10 to 15 holes drilled with my tip ups down ice fishing. Cool. Thank you. Welcome. My name is Dan. I'm a recent Berlin resident who moved about two weeks ago here. I work remotely with Harvard's Tourism and Client Center for Internet Society doing research on Internet content controls and censorship. I also just recently got back from a year long travel fellowship on the topic of Internet infrastructure, censorship and surveillance around the world. And so I'm here to see what kind of initiatives are already in place, what kind of needs need to be addressed to see if there's any room for volunteering in getting involved. I'm from Florida so there's not a lot of difference between winter and the rest of the seasons but I'll take any excuse for a hot chocolate. Thank you. Oh, let's just get over here and then we'll bounce back. My name is Paul Simon. I'm a communications coordinator for the City of New Ski. Abby's tweet actually very appropriately is what brought me here. Obviously a lot of this stuff is in the work we do trying to communicate or programming. It's sort of city happiness in the community. And I'd say right now my favorite winter activity is helping our community members understand the winter park events. Our community is the winter park events in New Ski. The parking bands in New Ski, the winter parking bands? Yes. Yeah. That's my favorite activity. And the computer? My computer. No, just let people know Sean is here. Thank you. We have someone skiked in. Is he there? He turned off his video. Sean, can you hear me? You want to introduce yourself? And then we'll bounce over here. I'm Sam Phillips. I'm a remote employee for Google. I grew up in Vermont. And I'm here about a year ago. And I'm here because Julia sent me a message after I published an article. And he knew about ventrality and drones and telecom. And my favorite winter activity is going ice skating with my two girls. You are important to me. Great. Thanks for coming. Maybe we'll do zig-zag. So we'll go straight back and then around. I'm Elle Wagner. I'm a member of PBT Local. And I'm here for the digital inclusion thing because I think it's incredibly important. And I agree with Steven that we have an opportunity here to create something that the whole country can take a look at and learn from. And I hope we can pull that off. I've been here since the early 90s. My job is helping people with their computers. So my favorite winter activity I think is shoveling snow. Because it gives me a great opportunity to get fit, stay fit, and get something to accomplish at the same time. Not that I don't like cross-country skiing and stuff like that, but I especially like snow shoveling. That's great. Thank you. That's very funny. More on that later. My name is Kitty Andrews and I've been back here in Vermont since 1984. And I'm a member of KBTL Co-op. And what brings me here tonight is I really value the KBTL Co-op community like to spend time with KBTL Co-op people. I'm not quite as internet illiterate and phobic as Barbara is, but I'm pretty illiterate and not deeply interested in that stuff. So one of my favorite winter activities is snow shoveling. I had no idea someone else was going to say that. You're sitting right next to each other. I know. Now, a favorite activity A favorite activity around the holidays is to find a messiah singalong and there's one tonight in the New North End. So I'm going to be leaving here early so I can go sing the messiah. Wow. Thanks for coming. We'll go right next to you in the back. I'm Don Shram. I live in Burlington at Burlington Co-Housing. And I'm here because this seems to be an issue that Abby was really concerned about. Well, if she's concerned and interested in this, maybe something I should find out about. So I don't know much about it. So that's why I'm here. And my favorite winter activity is doing what is cross-touching skiing. Thanks for coming. My name's Matt Cropp. I spent a number of years in my 20s doing kind of frontline work. Doing computer literacy as a social worker with people who've been recently housed after having been homeless. So I've had my fingers in that world. My other affinities are a member of the Laboratory of the Hacker Space. And I'm generally involved in a co-op movement soldier on many things. So KBGL ate a lot of my time over the last five years. But I'm really sort of interested in seeing what things that kind of our community can pull together that are both kind of ethically designed and non-extractive and also very involved in the platform co-operativeism movement. So I'm curious to see what people bring to the table. Thanks for coming. I'm Andy Crawford. I work for KBGL. Yeah, sure. We run a bunch of programs at CCTV Channel 17. We have a state-wide nonprofit organization that helps fight the war. And then we have we also operate a small open-stack cloud attached to the Relics.com network. So I'm interested in access to resources, digital resources. Access to digital resources for everything from civic data projects through small-scale entrepreneurial projects with a focus on localism and hyper-local. I'm also interested in the policy of the small and large-scale structure. David Lansky, I've lived in Burlington 20-some years. I've been on the board of KBGL and many local have been. I'm the new member to the board, so it's only been about a year, and I've been very actively involved. I'm here to join the conversation in one of the places that hopefully we're going is if KBGL had managed to buy DT, what would we do with it? And how much of that can we do even though KBGL doesn't? Just figuring out those things we can act on gives us some direction. What is my favorite interactive existence? Thanks for coming. I'm Barbara Nolfi. I have lived in Burlington for a long time. I live with Don, who's next door to me there. And I am interested in where we think we might be going. I feel pretty confident about technology and my favorite way of activity is probably sledding. Thanks for coming. We'll go diagonal. I'm Lauren Glendavidian. I work at CC2B, Center for Media and Democracy. We've been interested in digital inclusion for many years, I would say since 1990 when we started the Old North Bend Community Technology Center. And my favorite winter activity is shoveling. Thank you for coming. My name is Sol Bay and I live in the Old North Bend, Burlington. I've been there since 1991. And I'm here because I'm interested in all the concerns about the use of the internet and people not understanding some of the risks of things that are going on with commercialization and data profiling and manipulation and filtering. And so I'm very interested in trying to educate people to understand some of those factors that the cool factor about apps is sort of distracts people from really recognizing what's going on. And so I'm now thinking about ways that the inclusion part of it is part of it. Everybody understanding options for use of the internet same thing, but ways to deal with potentially having to try to anonymize things so that you can actually use the internet without having to be profiled and monitored and tracked and filtered, which I have a serious concern about. And helping people understand what programming is about and how you are being programmed if you do not understand the programming that is behind everything that's going on. And my favorite activity, I mean I like shoveling too, which I just came from before I came here, but I like walking and snowshoeing and cross country skiing and ice skating. Thanks for coming. My name is James Lockridge. I'm from King Street a couple of blocks over. And I direct Big Heavy World which is a volunteer run non-profit that supports local music for years, for close to 21 years now. Used emerging technology to support our local music community. So I've got a community building there. As a candidate for city council in Ward 3 in Burlington I have a very key personal interest in inclusion of all kinds. And for winter activities I enjoy walking around downtown when it's snowing. I'm just seeing this living in a beautiful place, but my favorite of all and this is a bit of an echo of shoveling what the road cloud gives me in front of college. I like the triumph of that. Thank you. Thanks for coming. Hello, I'm Jessica Bray. I'm President of Laboratory B. Some of my work has been around trying to keep Pacific Cloud running and just generally promoting technology in the community. I imagine I'm probably one of the few people with an actual networking degree in the room, but not the only one. Maybe there's someone else. So I do know a lot about the internet and technology. I may bring that to the table. And I endeavor to do as much work towards that so it's really freedom of the internet and what I would say is internet works. In my role as President of the lab I kind of feel that part of it is that everyone has a network and the internet work is a network of networks and really while you're buying, when you're buying ISP is the ability to connect to other people's networks and if people don't understand it on a fundamental level I don't think we're explaining it very well. My day job is at CCTV but I think that sometimes takes me away from my work like many people's jobs. But I think internet helps you get your work done. Winter sport or winter activity? Probably I'll say video games. I'm doing quite some so I get a lot of blue skies and helps with like seasonal not seem blue skies. I like it. Thanks for coming. Hello, I'm the director of the Fletcher Free Library. The library has a long tradition of digital inclusion and providing internet service to the community so we're always very interested in this conversation. Particularly I'm interested here in Burlington. We have this incredible internet service access to everyone but not everyone is getting it. So I'm really interested in trying to find hard data on what are the barriers, why people are not getting connected and what we can do to help that. Oh and perfect conditions cross country scheme. But can't be sticky, can't be too cool. Thanks for coming. I work for the Fletcher Free Library. I am one of the people who are now in the tech center so we are dealing a basic day with people who want to access an internet and people who want some help with their computers. So I think this is a good thing to know about more about what people need and if we can add some experience about what we are dealing with every day by participating in this kind of meeting. So for the winter activity I'm new in the snow and I do have a particular winter activity. That's okay. You get lots of ideas. Stay warm. I'm going to let Abby come back. So this is Henry. He's super individual. He would be in the audience. And I'm Abby Takaki and I almost simultaneously moved out of Burlington to Essex and started working for the city at Burlington Telecom which for better or worse has given me the opportunity to meet all of you and get really passionate about fiber internet technology, smart cities, gigabit cities. I'm also an executive fellow of BTD at night. And Stephen Hildoki made me regretting it today. He was the one who said look more into this digital divide thing and find out how it can be implemented here and it got me really worked up and passionate about the frustrating lack of data that we have in the city even though everyone knows there's a need. So I had a really great experience during Innovation League with Julia and I'm excited that she's excited that she's excited to continue the discussion. And my favorite winter activity just in the past three years has become making snowmen. It's good. It's snow people. Great. So did we get everyone? I think we did. Awesome. So there are a few goals for today. I'll back up so you can see these. And again this is a flexible, can you hear me okay? This is a flexible event so we can steer in whatever direction we need to steer in. But in general, we want to tonight draw attention to the digital divide that impacts many diverse communities here in Burlington but also in Burlington area. We want to identify what we are all currently doing so that was a great start. And what we could be doing to increase digital inclusion in the area. And then also just to figure out ways to leverage the uniqueness of this area. So our large new American population and the universities that we have here. The services that are available. Like all of these really great resources. Really think about how to leverage those in the best way. So very quickly the last event we did in case some of you weren't there was an event that focused on a broad view of Internet health and that's a term that has been getting more and more attention lately. Mozilla Foundation has been doing a lot of work around five issues related to Internet health. And one of those issues is digital inclusion. Another one of those issues is web literacy. And some of these questions were what we really focused that event on. So you can see as you read them they're pretty broad facing but some of the outcomes of that were there seemed to be some trends happening. So one of the trends during the event and then as we looked at the notes afterward was the need for more data. So a lot more granular data on what we know about who's using the Internet, why they're using it, why they're not using it and how that may paint a picture of gaps and places where we need to really focus on. And then another one of those outcomes that we noticed was the need to share the resources that already exist more on the forefront of the communities that we work in and that we serve and are a part of because we do have a lot here already. So that was another thing and I think another one was just that there's a lot of examples out there that we can draw from. From other cities that are close to our size or have a similar I don't know geographical location and access that we do that we could really learn from. So those were some bigger outcomes. So today we decided to drill down onto the digital inclusion topic specifically and before we do that and look at some other stuff I just wanted to make some clarifications about terms. So there's two here. One is digital divide and one is digital inclusion and those terms often are used simultaneously or in conjunction with each other but for the sake of this event I just wanted to clarify kind of how they're different. So digital divide is a term that refers to inequalities and the access that people have to information technology. So that's a very specific way of pointing to gaps that we know exist. And then digital inclusion is more of a framework and that framework is used to assess and consider the readiness of communities to provide access to communities. And then within that framework and again these are definitions, there's many definitions out there, many and a lot of them are great. I picked these because I think they really kind of are quick and easy to understand for the context of this event. So to think about digital inclusion as a framework here there's three areas we can think of access, adoption and application. So the access is just simply the affordability and the availability of these tools and these resources that connect people digitally. And then the adoption is that digital literacy piece, so how people understand it how secure they are and safe they are using it. And then the application of it, so how they're using it to better their lives and create opportunities and seek out opportunities in a community. So that's kind of the framework we're talking about when we're talking about digital inclusion. This is a great quote that was, I pulled from a research project called Digital Inclusion Survey. It was from an association that was here. Yes. Will this be better? I'm worried about the mic though. I'm okay? Okay. I'm trying to speak loudly. Yes. Hold the mic? I think I'm okay. Can you hear me Alex? I'd like to hold the mic though. Let's try that then. I think it'll be okay. I'll manage. You've got plenty of slack out here. Oh yeah. So you can take a read. I won't read it verbatim. But basically this quote is referring to that fact that access is one thing, but then there's a larger issue of how people understand what they're accessing and how they apply that. Mimi Ito is a researcher and the founder of Connected Learning Research Network. This is another great quote that I think does a nice job of demonstrating how the way that we disperse these tools and the way that we're informing people about them and creating resources around them is a huge part to making them accessible. Go ahead. Now I just wanted to point to existing resources where we can find data related to what I know of. Obviously you all have been doing this work for a while and probably have even more places to point to. I'm obsessed with quotes. You'll see a lot of these in this presentation. Justin Reich is another really great person to follow. He's managing a research project out of MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This is a quote just related to that data piece, how important it is to have data in order to know exactly what to make to serve people and to really bridge that divide. We looked at this. Mary brought in some slides at the last event and I just wanted to refresh everyone's memory. This is the broadband availability data set that is available. I pulled just the Chittenden County stats here. It's hard to see. I know it's very small. But basically it is an assessment of the total number of buildings and then the percentage of those buildings that have access to different levels of broadband. This section is 100 megabytes per second download and upload speed. 100 over 100 and then it goes down 25 over 3 and then 4 over 1. You can see the different cities and towns in Chittenden County and how it breaks down. If you look at it, the rate for Burlington is 91.9 with 100 over 100. That's pretty good. What does that mean? Does that mean that these are the buildings now? Is every apartment in that building have access? How does it break down further? I think there's some pieces there that we could learn more about. Center for Rural Studies at UVM. I don't know if anyone has worked there or knows more about this. I was intrigued by this report but it's old. It's from 2010. This report does do a lot of detail about household internet connections through a survey. This is Vermont-wide. This particular one I pulled as an example is just going into detail about household income in comparison to ownership of computers, access to broadband and then some other combinations of the both. I think this is great to do this again. Yes, Lauren. The Long Department of Public Service is updating the ten-year telecom plan, which they do every three years. They will have the most accurate data from the state along the lines of what Mary showed. Maybe even more detailed. You could talk to them if you want more data. Awesome. Thank you. I'm going to check with you later to make sure we get it written down so I remember. Yes. The percentage with computers, is that considered more desktop or smart phones or Chromebooks? Probably anything that people can get access to. That's a great question. A network, would they imagine? No, that's a great question. I'm not sure. A lot of this stuff, I don't know how it breaks down. Mobile, are they laptops, desktops? I don't think there's any computer problems with desktop. Desktop or laptop? Yeah. When did the iPhone come out? But anyway, a really great place. Does anybody know Center for Rural Studies? Yeah. Okay, so do you know if they're doing more current reports in this type of way? They're calling themselves now the Vermont Data Center. Michael Moser is the primary contact there. So he's the person to ask about if they're updating. Typically, they do contract work. So someone will hire them to update certain data sets. So he's a good resource to talk to about the status of the data. Great. Perfect. Okay, next slide. And this little gem over here, what is the Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy, the CEDS. And this is a report that characterizes the state of Chittenden County's economy, its strengths, its weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. And then identify strategies and actions to maintain and to grow it. So this is a lengthy document, but it goes into a lot of detail. And then I just put this image here because I think it's an interesting way to explain in a short way this circle of prosperity that they are talking about in this report, which is kind of how things like the health of people and the quality of education really affects the workforce, which then affects the increase of regional income and opportunity, which then affects the healthiness of the environment and the vibrancy of where we live. So I put that in there as just kind of, I thought that was a neat way of doing it. Next slide. And so within that framework of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, there's more opportunities than what I pulled here, but these are the ones that are significantly reflective of technology. So they kind of go through like engaging highly skilled and trainable retirement age population because we have statistically, we have a large retirement population supporting and growing new American populations. We have that unique feature here in this part of Vermont to promote telecommuting and remote workforce here. So these are all opportunities that in this report, which is relatively recent, is pulled out as something we really need to take advantage of. So that's a great list. Next slide. Another thing this report does is suggest 14 initial target clusters and industries for attraction and development efforts. And out of the 14, almost half are technology related. So we have info tech here, digital media, e-commerce, clean tech, and green tech. We have nonprofit organizations. I think that ties very closely. And then we have higher ed, and I would say business and administrative services also is very closely related to this topic. So I thought that was interesting that this report is general, it's looking at all industry, but even in their suggestions of what we need to progress, half of them almost are tech and digital related. And so this kind of buried in this report is something called the environment community opportunity and sustainability scorecard. Has anybody heard of the scorecard? Yeah. Okay. So what this scorecard is, it basically takes these top line indicators. Yes. There's indicators, but there's several indicators for each of the I guess you would call them objectives or overall kind of markers. Results. Yes. So there's these results and then indicators that show how those results are met. Is that a good way of saying it? So I kind of dug around, dug around, dug around. It's intriguing if you like data and you like to read through this stuff that you should definitely go look through it all because it reports on all kinds of stuff like outside of tech, sustainability efforts, clean water, all kinds of stuff. So in my effort to find the broadband and internet related stuff, it was buried in this result here which is to ensure adequate infrastructure and facilities and then IE, water supply waste water, storm water broadband solid waste and recycling. So it's buried in this it's buried in like this infrastructure kind of group and then in the indicators there's no indicator that points to broadband. So I don't know how we could get that in there and in my opinion even more create a result that's only broadband and then have like a handful of indicators that speak directly to that. But I love this as a tool. Next slide. And you probably are all familiar with the VTD performance dashboard that's online. This is through the city website and each of these are clickable links that bring you to this dashboard that does an assessment of these different topic areas. And we have a city open data portal which is where the any open data like where you can go search for broadband access, for example would be located or any other types of open data that we would want to find. So I think this is a great place. I couldn't find much here yet but I think it's an opportunity. It's brand new. Great. But I love that it's there. Okay so that's kind of a landscape of all the things that I could find and I'm very eager and will have a chance to talk about more that aren't weren't there because we can get them all written down. I wanted to show some examples of digital inclusion initiatives in and outside of Vermont. And of course here's another quote. Dana Boyd is a researcher and author that is very well known on the writing about this topic and especially around teens and how they're using the internet. And she says in a world where information is easily available strong personal networks and access to helpful people often matter more than access to information itself. And I think that's very powerful and I agree completely. Okay so I'm not going to go through all these projects and I'm going to make this slide deck available after so you can if you'd like. But I do want to show two or three of these that I think are very very influential for us in this context. And I think we'll go like from small to big. So there's a project and Abby introduced me to this so I'm going to let her speak about it but it's called E2D is located in Davidson, North Carolina. Do you want to talk about that? Yeah just a quick overview of Davis, North Carolina for anyone who isn't familiar with E2D is literally started with a daughter who came home and said to her dad, all of our homework assignments are on the internet but I know that I have a friend who's homeless and she doesn't have a computer, she doesn't have a home, she doesn't have internet. That's not fair. And he said you're right and that has now grown into a digital inclusion effort that started in tiny little Davidson. They raise money with lemonade stands every year. Lowe's is headquartered near there so they ponied up some support. It's just a really great example of a very small town that made a very big effort turned it into something even bigger. It's growing every year and now they're taking care of all the middle schools in Charlotte so like they went from tiny to huge city so I think that's a really cool example of small and then growing to be something really big through something just a simple question or a young girl who pointed out something that's just not fair and it resulted in that so I thought that was a really cool example. Yeah that's great grassroots kind of project to show. Can you click on Open Austin there? So I have a tree set up. So Open Austin is a volunteer organization that's been running for several years now and is focused mostly on open data or started as a focus on open data so their mission in the beginning was to get the Austin government to share their data openly online and they've been very successful and so since they've kind of reached these goals and as they reach these goals of certain data sets to become available they've kind of expanded at the same time so at the top here we have there's events, projects, advocacy and then just various ways of support and each of these have like the projects do you click on these? Yeah. So these are all open projects that live on GitHub which is a place for sharing content and open source code and these are all you can see like there's a fake news project there's community data project. These are all community driven projects so they've identified needs in their community in different regions in Austin and built these projects and Open Austin features them in host events around these projects so there's a lot of ways that they're making it possible for citizens and residents in these different areas to participate in the digital inclusion progress in these areas so I think that's brilliant and then the other thing they do if you scroll all the way back up go to advocacy so they've created agendas that they've put here on the website and they've can you click on candidate questionnaires? So they've actually prepared questionnaires anytime somebody runs for office that they send out to each candidate and they say fill this out and this speaks directly to the digital inclusion and particular needs that they've identified and they say what do you think about this? What would you do about this? And so you can actually go through these and you can read each of the candidates responses and get a very clear understanding of how they feel about digital inclusion and if there's a plan or if there's not a plan all of that good stuff and this is the tip of the iceberg with this project so it's like a little bit bigger than the grassroots North Carolina project but it started there and so now they have all these other elements that are embedded in it. Can you go back? Well it's all hosted there the site I don't know if the site is open it looks like it might be hosted there but I'm not sure but all of those projects are hosted on github and then resources their primary goal is openness so all of the resources that they use to run their organization is also on github so you can access all of that stuff. Can you go back to the slide deck? We're going to open up it's okay just go down and go back to that slide 24 and click on the top so this is kind of the next level and this is the Austin City government page that is read entirely to digital inclusion so if you scroll down on this page each council district has a report and each of these reports is a highly detailed version of what digital inclusion looks like in that region or in that district so I mean click on one just as an example so this goes into great detail about the events that are happening in that region what progress has been made for digital inclusion in that region the data in that region and Austin is a lot bigger than we are so I mean that says that could go two different ways like it's a lot bigger so they have more resources or we're a lot smaller so we could do this too right so maybe we could like there's somewhere in the middle but I just love how much details included in each of these reports and on that main website page there is a map that people can see any upcoming event related to digital inclusion and internet related and digital topics yeah this one okay let's go back to the slides yeah people in general just putting information on this or there's a specific group of people that put information that's available to everyone that's a good question for the events it's probably more closely but it looks like people are just submitting events so when they run an event they post it and then that gets shared on that kind of big map that we saw but the reports themselves happen through the city so they have I'm guessing either they work with organizations to do that research or they have people that work internally but those reports come from the city yeah those are important so those are examples a lot of these others are wonderful I added some Burlington ones and there's a lot more than this but these were all really inspiring to common good Vermont code for BTV Burlington telecoms edunet and lifeline so there's lots of stuff happening locally here that we can use as an example and leverage but yeah just kind of a snapshot thank you the big question of the evening time is it right now okay great perfect we have plenty of time again this is I don't know what had just happened is that an old quote did I do this one can you go back a slide okay great so we're in the right place so this was we're going to break up that right now and have a break but also think about and brainstorm some questions particularly and if you go to the next slide Abby so I don't know what we want to do I don't have the answer none of us have that exact thing that's going to make everything better right but we have each other and we have all of this experience so these are some things that we can tonight start to brainstorm around so one is do more research and we have I've put these posters up around the room so I don't know where this one is but it's either how can we improve so there's a poster back there that says who can help us get the data we need to identify barriers to digital inclusion so like you know Lauren had some great suggestions so anything related to people organizations initiatives research hubs like who can we reach out to to help us try to get more specific with this data identify existing resources what would a one stop shop look like for digital inclusion in Vermont like what could we model it after open Austin like what or we would we want to put it on that city portal that I showed as an example like where would it live what would it look like and then build alliance so you know having having strong advocacy and support and buy-in from the mayor's office and other other institutions that are very prominent here it's really important and just recognizing that no single organization can solve the digital divide right it's it's it's a combination of many so you know what would those guiding principles be for digital inclusion and how would we be able to craft them with all of the expertise in the room and then just reaching a targeted population you know we have all of these great diverse communities here seniors the employment population low income households new Americans public housing residents veterans so there's like all of these very specific groups that if we had more data we would we might know how to serve them better and and bridge that gap so these are some top line things to kind of think about and what we're going to do next is next slide we're going to focus on these three questions and I pointed out one already which is who can help us get this data how do we how do we start this who can we talk to and there's markers and I have some post-it notes so we're going to add ideas related to that question in the back the second question is how can we improve future meetings like this and what could we include to make them more beneficial so like like I said in the beginning I'm hoping this is the first of many conversations so what would we want in the next one how could we really start to be effective with this group and on this topic and the last question here is what is our BHAG for this movement and what is the change we want to see does anybody know what BHAG stands for I have a hand in the back exactly so in other words what is that big crazy goal that we that we want for this movement digital inclusion movement so all answers are welcome this is a brainstorming opportunity and then in addition to that question is just what is the change we want to see so we may not have these answers tonight it's likely we don't because we don't have a lot of information yet but we could have fun brainstorming a little there the last poster I have is the parking lot poster and this is a very important poster because this parking lot poster which is in the back as well is a place for you to add things that aren't on these posters yet so questions that we still have that I didn't address topics or concerns that we didn't address tonight that would affect digital inclusion suggestions anything that you think is relative to this conversation but can't put it on a poster throw it in the parking lot and we'll use it for the next conversation I think that's the last slide you're right I failed it's all over we can all go home okay so I'm gonna end there before we jump on these posters here and take questions if you have them I would like everyone to go on a break you know I've been talking for a while but yeah what do you got any questions what is the big hairy goal here yeah good question I'm curious good question and I don't have the answer if you stop moving the floor becomes lava or the room becomes dark or something we all have to constantly shift I'm curious does anybody have a thought on that what that goal would be like every single person in Burlington has every single person in Burlington and then Chittenden County and then Vermont and then the country and then the world has affordable or you know whatever free super affordable access to the fastest internet available and all of the tools and resources necessary to use it I think we should rephrase that I think everyone should be able to make their network personal network access any other network on the planet because they want to inter network it with the other networks on the planet and they need to own and have their own network first to inter network with another network and whether their network is simply their phone and that's why I'm asking those questions whether it's a phone or Chromebook or a more comprehensive computer and you may have a router or network you know what is it where is that barrier if you own someone only has a phone but they say they're connected are they do they have their own network that can connect to other networks is that the barrier I think those are good questions to ask. I love that that's an example then of how that is two different things you know it's different for every one of us and the people who have no interest. I'm struggling with the big goal too but for me it's something different than digital my voice carries it's something different than just giving people access because 17 more people have access than they used to but I often say that as we talk about a digital economy the pace of change is accelerating in our society it wrapped around digital technology digital technology is empowering us but also changing our world and I summarize that when I'm talking about what I'm trying to do is to make sure that this disruption is happening for us as a community and not happening to us. Now that means lots of all kinds of very woolly things but it's the fact that our employers are able to be cursed with people using the technology in a way that they get access to the right employees and that our recent graduates are speaking the same digital language as our employers for example or that something that works for you today doesn't change on you the internet somebody said the internet is always changing so how do we make sure that we're riding that wave and we're proactive and it's a very very broad thing and I think it needs to be nailed down but that there's something around that that for me is a big challenge material you showed from the Austin community based was hosted on github and if that's really done on github and it's all open source I think that's a crucial piece of the model that I think it's very important that whatever happens here is a very it's important that much if not all of it is done in open source tools with available code and that any research is reproducible research so that you're publishing here's the code we used to process the data here's the link to the data here's the report that came out of it so somebody else can dissect it and it is fully transparent if we build that into the culture of what we're doing and then we also bridge to the maker community who is working with you know raspberry pies and arduinos and experimenting and making everything from art to robots with this technology using open source tools in transparent ways we make this more accessible to everybody I think that's a real that accessibility takes the mystery out of it and makes it available to all of us hold on one minute Alex are you good? yeah absolutely we'll do a couple more I saw three hands go up and then I do want to capture these suggestions so they don't get lost in the air so let's do the rest that at the hands I saw are you writing? oh thank you yes in the front I find that my difficulty is that people even though they know a lot about the internet don't know how to teach it and they'll walk into the jargon of the internet and lose me within seconds and you're always trying to you know get what they're saying but they're going so fast and aren't really good teachers so I think that's a skill that's very different than the average teacher I agree completely we're getting all these notes down yes I was going to piggyback on what Barbara said and saying that we need classes that have extremely easy ways to understand things and I think we should use Mac computers because I think they're a lot easier maybe there's some place in part of city hall where they have classes where people can come in and people can teach them on one-on-one help them find exactly the things that they need and I would look to think there was a book written by one of the Photoshop gurus on how to use your iPhone when it first came out and I compared that with one for those other computers it's so easy to understand it that maybe we can look to someone like that to write a comprehensive use of the internet book that goes nationwide or international so we can start all having similar in the same language I could just quickly add, Jessamyn West who's a librarian in Vermont has written that book actually and she does work on digital inclusion I think she'd be a great person to bring up here she has given very simple ways to discuss how to use computers, how to use the internet working in all different kinds of demographics she's also, she serves on the board of wikimedia and she's based in Vermont we need to get her to come next time I'm Jessamyn, I'm from Jessamyn but I think sometimes we keep hearing this is something that the library can do, we have classes, we can book a library and we'll sit side by side with you and do this thing sometimes our resources are really stressed right now and I think a lot of what we're hearing now is we're getting the late, late, late, late adopters and they are definitely the hardest folks to bring along and it's a challenge but I'm hearing a lot of similar kind of feelings so people understand visually non-verbal this will be something entirely different and I may end up making a total fool of myself even though I've worked in technology for quite a while I don't think of my digital IQ as being particularly high but Barbara and I live in a community of different families and they're all ages lots of different abilities, lots of different incomes we're basically a privileged community so it's anyway there may be some benefits but it's a community we can study it's already happening, a canopy that you introduced well I've been going to different families showing them how they can get access to that but that's just a minor example we have so many different levels we can do a survey very easily it would be nice to make a study out of this thing start with a survey so we can identify where we're starting at try to define the goal and where we want to be and then sort of measure that and figure out a project that we can use as a model for doing this with other communities now there's being a co-housing community collaboration is a really key piece and we're learning how to do that and one of the things we're learning is about how the internet is a source of abuse you need to be careful we gradually have more rules within our community about what you say in an email to everybody and what you don't so there's that piece so there's the social piece as well as the digital skills and resources and I don't have I mean I have a little piece of an idea of how we could do this but boy we would do this I would need a lot of help just even coming up with the original survey and I would love for that to happen it's kind of exciting that's a perfect example like having people invested and involved that could say like take the survey so that we know what we need to serve and how we can serve you better we just did a survey and got 41 responses out of 65 which are a whole different thing but it's a community where you could do that but I wouldn't even know exactly what questions to ask to begin with right and that's what we would want to build that's something we could think about here with this group I think the notion of reaching folks where they're at and trying to really assess what are their barriers to accessing the digital economy and I serve on a few boards and in a couple cases residents one of them is affordable housing it's north gate departments and a few of the board members don't use email and don't use the internet and it really puts them at a significant disadvantage and I can already tell that there's like a divide in our group and it's unfortunate because the board is almost all residents I happen to be a community member who serves on that board but it's 10 residents and 4 community reps and it's the largest affordable housing complex in Vermont it's resident owned resident controlled it's a truly unique community but right there in that group we've got folks who are being left out and left behind so I think engaging people where they're at to find out what would make you more able and capable to access technology do you want to first of all of course and if you do and you see the benefits what supports do we need to give you to be able to access that and if you don't why not kind of related to that I was on a board that's kind of I'm one of the youngest people on it it's mostly kind of two generations above me and so we had there's a lot of tension for a while over use of technology because there's and I think this is something that I'm involved in the neighborhood planning assembly in the New North and this is something I think there too where we see kind of open meeting law hasn't caught up with what's possible for engaging online governance and so we eventually got to the point where I sat down with all the people on the board who wanted to and was like this is why we don't send attachment emails is why we use Google Docs instead this is and this is how we use this kind of online voting system so we don't have to make all of our decisions in in-person meetings and after when it was kind of when we got drilled down and got clear on what are the benefits of these things adoption was very quick but it was sort of there's sort of there's kind of like a block of without sort of comprehending what those benefits were you know why learn the new system of the old system is somewhat workable even because those gains in efficiency and sort of what's possible aren't visible and so the thing that I've been kind of really thinking about in terms of setting goals is you know so the idea of having in-person once a month neighborhood meetings is great but it also there's inherently just a limited number of people who can show up and be involved in things that are you know key for engagement with city counselors and you know development planning in the in each neighborhood and if you know we can kind of set for me what the Big Harry Audacious goal would be is getting the citizenry of Burlington to the point where we could have complimentary online platforms that could that people would feel comfortable with but that could engage a vastly greater number of people than are currently engaged by these in-person meetings yeah that's great so I think we have the notes down Lauren's writing vigorously over there yeah I saw a hand over here I just want to point out from just hearing the room I just hear three basic categories which is just general access to internet working education about anything of everything surrounding technology and then particularly applications which are much more thermal and are going to move you know the thing that might be applicable today might just might be something better tomorrow like you know 10-15 years ago email was so like awesome and fast right but yeah we have a better way of doing it yeah for a lot of things also the irony here the fact that you're I don't know the right word like clearly we're all in this room because of the internet like that's how you found out about this meeting but we didn't do anything to reach out to people who were trying to help so how do we bridge that and make this whole thing more inclusive well-owned as a soft invasion yeah this is perhaps an oblique comment but I think maybe necessary is to think about consent with who gets the internet and whether they want it in the first place we've heard like fitterings of that in other comments but I just want to drill down and say that as we think of the internet as a salutary force it's you know has all these benefits good for job applications increasingly necessary throughout your life it's also can be used as a tool for surveillance and for privacy violations and with many of the targeted groups they are also targeted when we think about the ways that we're going to bring out surveys to vulnerable communities and then how to engage them in ways that first has their consent that they want to be using the internet and then also that whatever apps or resources that are provided to them have very transparent ways of saying this is how your data is being collected, how it's being used and that if you want to request your data you can other people were talking about open source and get how that's one effort for transparency so I guess I would be concerned in the process that both in method and in outcome there's privacy built in and I think that also ties into the notion of having, being a contributor to what content is being created so like in a very basic level like if we're going to make surveys or ask for information like maybe the people who were surveying should have a role in that process or you know whatever the case but that's a really good thing to remind us of, yes. That was sort of related to what I was going to say is that I have serious concerns about people using the free apps and thinking it's so cool and there's so much going on that they don't know and we don't really have a good way of right now there's no rules about that so I have concerns about all the Google apps that everybody uses and so even Facebook and Twitter and all of these things I choose not to have a Facebook account not because I'm technologically illiterate and could not do it I'm very concerned about this and so one of the scary things is that this inclusion process and access process is layering on top of free apps that are to make it convenient and efficient for us to network and get to know each other and share information and documents but in fact it's just totally being data mined, profiled and so it really bothers me that every time somebody says oh let's just, I hate to say it, the Google Docs thing and others we don't have platforms that are actually the equivalent that we know what's going on and that we have the ability to say no and so I'm really supportive of what you're saying because to me it's really a tricky thing right now because the way everybody's connecting with is free apps and you don't have any control over what's going on and the people that do Ancestry DNA, I mean what are you thinking? Things like that, just crazy. Well let's do UNAS and then we'll go over it. Okay I have a candidate VHAC. What? Oh okay VHAC. VHAC, Audacious Goal open source user completely controlled data version of Facebook Social, no, they're VCA funded It's doing. Social.co Yeah, I mean LL, which is in Burlington is kind of a step towards that but I don't use Facebook for the same reasons. I won't put anything out there that I mind that I can't take back. And I mean yeah and there's so many parts to that and there's so many ways. It's still I think knowing what those vulnerabilities are are a part of digital inclusion. Choosing how to use it is very much part of the conversation but knowing why you're choosing and like what you can say, I don't want to use this because I have to sign this agreement that makes me give that so like that literacy is a big part of this conversation. In effect a movement to build a we own it, we manage it, we use these principles to guide what's out there. This is a very different approach. My VHAC would be to live in a community where there are no barriers to connection. So we need that data. Right. And I would just echo what you said about there's definitely a literacy component about working with what you have and making it as safe and secure and you can be offensive in the way you act online that can thwart some of those things. But people have to know and you have to teach them. And having a healthy digital community does that. Yeah, I agree. I'm choosing to be excluded because the lack of ability to control anything. Exactly. And you are fortunate because you have all of that knowledge to say like this is dangerous. But I'm also excluded from participating. Exactly. My friends know more about my sister's activities than I do. I don't participate in LinkedIn so professionally I have challenges. Any of those things. It's really a digital exclusion of a different form. Absolutely. Well that brought me to the point that I was making and really trying to take a step back and say what are we talking about as a group here and what we tend to get into with folks that don't understand technology is we're talking about this application or that application or this application and all is built off of two things which is really the networks you're talking about. The computer systems that use those networks and our part of that network and the literacy around that and the education around that and that's what she's really getting at. Part of that might even be you can't necessarily even escape the surveillance how many people have a cell phone in their pocket right now that's picking up your voice, picking up everything we're doing like every moment we're here you can't actually escape it how many people are buying a messenger app on their phone right now that's picking up everything we're doing but there's at least one in the room. Point being is education lets you understand what the applications can do and what the capability of these systems might be. It might be better to flood with disinformation and I think that you can actually do it completely but that's an education thing. It's not about whether you're using that application or not. Does that make sense? The default should be privacy, not open it and give it all away. That's my concern because you can't educate. You just don't live in that world as I guess the education I'm trying to get. Is that an education aspect and a network aspect and we get lost in these conversations when an application's talking about this application or that application and I think it would be very difficult to start saying unless we come up with something, is there some kind of application that we think is really going to help our community access the internet and education around the internet? That's why I'm having a hard time sympathizing from our conversation. Another thing is just like we should have something to match an online service in an offline way. This education that we're speaking of, obviously putting stuff online is very beneficial for people who know how to get to it and feel comfortable getting at it but we should also have things available for people that don't feel comfortable in those spaces but can access the same information and learn the same thing in perhaps an in-person session or with printouts. It's like providing options I think at least at the stage we're at and the communities we may be wanting to reach is important. I'm looking at hearing everyone and just my own, having been with the internet for years, I still get lost on it, I still get mixed up, I still hit the wrong thing, I still have pages fly up or blow up or won't open and I'm looking at things that ARP has with that phone that's supposed to be a Simpleton phone and it has I think six or seven words on it and his phone and his messages and his photos and you just push it and it opens up. I'm looking at perhaps we need to really write a software, maybe it's specifically a software for a town that wants to have a private bomb or just in town space that we use or regardless, one that's super simple for us to use so when someone opens up the computer screen, all they do is press go or they press stop or they press maybe one of four words to get where they need to go and it just keeps simplifying the process instead of complicating it as I feel it does as I try to dig beyond the very basic thing and even still trying to go to Google and sometimes it doesn't happen so can some of us start writing or is there some software out there that's called easy for the seniors, one word only at a time and that could be cool, people here could write it and then it could be sold to other people and maybe we could make a little, I would love it. These are all really great suggestions so I mean obviously it's going to take us a little while to figure out what we want to do and to figure out what that big Harriet Audacious goal could be for this group and I think it'll be in steps so for the next if we think about this as a movement let's say a local movement to really kind of grow digital inclusion in the area what would be our immediate next step? Would we want to turn this into a regular gathering? How frequent would it be? Would we want to create a place online for us to connect using an app like Signal that's encrypted and one of the safest that exists as far as privacy is concerned right now to connect with each other and share content what do you think, how could we move forward in a small way and to meet the capacities we all have and the interest that we all have, what do you think? What would be good? Synthesizing a lot of these comments is the first thing, I think I will collect it all Lauren? I think there's a lot of work that's been going on for a long time on this issue and I'm not sure that starting a movement is particularly the next move in my opinion I think there is a decentralized there's the future, a decentralized effort, I think that we need to identify who's doing this work and needs and we can leverage their efforts because there is already work that's going on to give resources, skills, training through the library and maybe other places and the library's probably got resource constraints and they've got issues that they can use help with so I would say leverage what we're already doing instead of creating work and then see what the data actually does show about where the gaps are that for example the library or other entities may not know and that might point towards another area or a particular group of people as you said but I think that we want to apply our effort to what's working and help it work better and then from that new things might come but there isn't anything new that anyone's said I think what we're missing as a community is a digital security plan and that might not be the way to put it but that we actually have a plan about how we, what our goals are and which I think is what you're trying to get at what are our goals as a community you know we want open networks, we want access for all, we want whatever the people have said and then we want privacy protection and then each one of those is deliverables underneath them in the legislature they're looking at privacy and for data not only for broadband providers but data aggregators so there's stuff going on now, there's stuff there's a telecom plan going on and nobody ever shows up to talk about it when they ask for input so exactly so this is a long way of saying I just think there's a lot happening and building on that inventory of what's happening and seeing what resources are needed and then the collective effort of this group of intelligence can open pressure in a movement like way on those areas where we need to leverage more resources and more protection I saw lots of hands kind of sprinkle it's just a quick story about something that happened here when the city was pursuing a cable company the cable company said to the city and Bernie was mayor we're going to stop you and Bernie said yeah right you're going to stop us we're going to do it anyway they said okay how what do you need and Bernie said I need you to ensure that senior citizens living in public housing and other low income seniors will have a fixed cable rate forever and it didn't last forever but it lasted as long as that company was around it was a million dollars as well to please the city so it was a ten dollar flat fee for all seniors from there on it lasted for well over a decade probably 15 years maybe closer to 20 and it was before BT arrived obviously so I'm just saying something like that that ensures access for folks who really need access would make a huge difference and I think we just have to be practical right exactly right and a device too right yeah I'm looking at this and seeing all these different areas and let's see if we can't pick one maybe it's the library where we can let everyone know that if you have questions at all about the internet you can go to the library as a starting point because you're they're always there so we don't have to worry about someone not being there and people can go to the library free it's wheelchair accessible it has bathrooms it has nice places to sit and that at least the conversation can be started there perhaps we can help initiate or fundraise whatever you might need to start collecting information that people are bringing in access and helping you get access that they need to use so that they can work on the internet and let you be the focal point from which we all can bring in information and as you have questions you can come back to us maybe we form an email forum to come back to us but we need to centralize all of this into one space and it seems like we really need education and we need access and we want some privacy and we need to simplify the whole system this one we landed at we have so many resources how do we let everyone know about them and then how do we utilize them and leverage them in the ways that we need and building a new collection or growing your collection at the library might be exactly it and then how do we get the word out that that is the hub for Burlington digital inclusion and just talking about resources we know that BT offers a very reduced rate to folks in the community ten dollars a month but we have people that aren't taking advantage of it so we still feel like what are the barriers they don't have the device is it that they are nervous about security and I think we really need to drill them I would say that usually when people are struggling that hard going to check all their teas and get everything figured out is probably very helpful for them we have to get to them because they can't drive them so the library is the hub from which everything works and do a fundraiser for it I think what's most interesting to me in this whole conversation and certainly it's things we've thought about before sitting here talking tonight is the idea of regionalization we're coming from Winnowski we talk about things that are happening in Burlington I think quite often our community is compared I think other communities we can talk about assets and stuff like that it's kind of unfairly to say there's different tax bases I think regionalization is huge so we talk about some of these things with Burlington telecom I know one of our projects that our planning commission is looking at right now I don't know if you guys saw this but there's the Main Street revitalization project so within that there is sort of this research around including along with some of the stuff that you are showing about waste water and all that stuff it is very much included to sort of think about the gas speed and the virus of the sea lights building I love the video so they have the Burlington telecom if I'm wrong supply gigabit so many of our community members always ask how come we don't have access to Burlington telecom by the way your 10 offices have voted to telecom as well so yeah a lot of our community members say why are we boxed into Comcast why don't we have access to this Burlington telecom in that conversation one of the most fascinating things I saw one of the yellow eyes was sort of this idea that it could be regionalized or it could be offered at least to other communities to get into that and I think to answer a lot of these questions of talking about the security or access or anything regionalization is huge so they talk about regionalizing you know the emergency responses and I won one stuff there's conversations about regionalizing the airport there's sort of I think we often get lost within our own boundary lines right and I think that's it's huge in the work that we're trying to do I think it's going to be huge in the work that everybody's trying to do so let me just clear up quickly that the whole reason that BT got eight letters of intent was because of the regionalization aspect and the whole focus going forward is expanding more broadly throughout Burlington County and that'll start happening sooner rather than later and the whole focus beyond that should be how do we actually broaden even further so that broadband can become a reality in some of the more remote communities you know Vermont is full of meaningfully underutilized fiber networks that crisscross the state that run past most towns and cities or through most towns and cities in the state and they're just sitting there unused say couldn't agree more with you. And I wonder too to sort of share the burden right if an organization like the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission CCRBC you know they've been super gracious with us and a number of huge amount of projects and it's great they've got a great team they're a huge resource for us and I think regionalization is going to be key That's a great point Is there a mailing list or a website or something where I could access or others could access the things that we've been talking about Is there one to tap into? Is there anyone here that didn't actually register for the events online? Yeah so if you did I don't have to get to you but anybody who didn't register online if you want to just give us your contact information before you go and then we'll create Yeah we can use this group as a way to start a community but also if there's one that already exists we could connect there as well so I don't know it's kind of a question and an offer at the same time like we could I and I can work to connect all of us on an email, maybe do the library I don't know we can figure that out but also if that already exists somewhere there's a community that is good to leverage to continue this conversation we could also do that I don't know if anyone has thoughts on the best thing to do Is it almost 7.30? I'd say listen to a lot of different ideas that one thing that I've learned building products for a while is that it's easy to get ahead of yourself and to start thinking about the features and the aspects that you're going to be delivering but the real key is whose life you're making better through the product and so if we're looking at digital inclusion then the first people that we should be talking to are people who are digitally excluded and it's tough to you can get really ahead of yourself thinking about what you think their problems are but until you actually meet them and talk to them and understand it could be a different whole concept so the things that we might think in this room might not be the real solutions that they need Don't create a solution for a problem that doesn't actually exist So that data that like information can keep So I'm like a kind of metric skeptical so I really like talking to people so I would try to find the people whose lives would be better because lots of stuff can get lost in that tabulation topic and so I think that could be an interesting next step is say if we had an inclusive Burlington, what would be different and who are the people that we think would have a delta of change here and go to them and say how would you live out this idea of the library or this other idea or what's your idea of mayor or other city council candidates that as they're knocking on doors would be willing to start those conversations for us I plan on doing this I'm running in Ward 3 and I plan on We have in Burlington bike recycling where if your income below a certain threshold they'll set you up with a bicycle and they have a program where they train young people to work on bikes and it's a great program between resource and the schools we can do a program where kids are learning how to repair computers are showing up to somebody's house and for $20 here's a used laptop or a used computer I mean resources selling used machines with windows on them for $75 We've tried to work with resource and for a number of years now and what the challenge we found is really them being able to have enough scale and capability to do anything in a meaningful way. We've even bought machines, refurbished machines from resource and then further subsidize them to deliver at an even cheaper price to low income families but it's never proved to be sustainable because of just the lack of hardware Yeah, our inability to get populations that need it the most so that they know that this resource exists So a little program that struggles to build on I just wanted to say is that I did a lot of photos at COTS and met some of the people there who are part of COTS and it's a group of maybe 30, 40 people Perhaps we could start right there, they're homeless, some of them, most of them and that's why we started small and see what we can do with them, I know the heads of it I'm kind of leaning towards now after hearing all of this maybe we should plan the next conversation but it's invite individuals from communities or places that are within have those barriers, maybe as the next step at least, because I don't think we know really enough right now about what we need to make or how we need to do this So maybe that's something we could work on and then what we'll do is send you just a follow up and maybe a survey just to get feedback on this event and in that survey it could be like what communities do you know of that we could reach out to to invite to the next conversation So we can start to think about what to build, what we need to do Does that sound like a good plan at least? to start collecting data from people coming Yeah, we'll talk So yeah, thank you everyone for joining, this was a really amazing conversation I'm thrilled with everyone's experience and contribution tonight and I can't wait to read through those notes that Lauren's taking because there was so much good stuff that was said Thank you