 Good afternoon everyone and welcome. My name is Shobita Parthasarathy. I am a professor of public policy and the director of the science technology and public policy program at the University of Michigan, which is based in the Ford School of Public Policy. Thank you all for joining us today to discuss our recently released Community Partnerships Playbook, which is a collaboration between our team in the science technology and public policy program or STPP and three of our community partners, Detroit Disability Power, we the people Michigan and Detroit Justice Center. I'm just going to spend a couple of minutes telling you a little bit about the STPP program and our community partnerships work. So the STPP program is an education, research, public and policy engagement center that's devoted to ensuring that science, technology and related public policies are in the public interest and bring us closer to the goals of social equity and justice. We do this in a variety of ways. We have a really robust set of educational programs. We have graduate undergraduate and postdoctoral programs and we also engage students in all of the applied research that we do, including the partnerships playbook that you'll hear more about today. We house multiple applied research programs. Our technology assessment project aims to use the history of technology to anticipate the social equity, environmental and policy impacts of emerging technologies. We've issued reports on facial recognition technology in K through 12 schools, vaccine hesitancy, large language models or generative AI, and we're currently working on a project on small modular nuclear reactors. So look for that later in 2023 or early in 2024. But we're all here to discuss our community partnerships. Our community partnerships initiative, which we'll be discussing more today is based on the idea that communities have important knowledge and concerns when it comes to science and technology, and that science and technology can better achieve the public good and social justice if we center communities in the conversation. So we work with community organizations to identify their needs and perspectives, and then support them by providing research briefs, reports, FAQs and one page shares. Our community partners then use our analyses to advocate for science and technology policies that are guided by the public interest. This includes, for example, analyses of tenant screening algorithms, acoustic gun detection systems like ShotSpotter, decentralized wastewater treatment, incorporating people with disabilities into climate action planning, and municipal fiber networks and its hope for bridging the digital divide. Our work is publicly available so that others can benefit from it as well. We're also hoping to expand our work in the coming months and years by helping our community partners build technologies that they want. And we currently have 12 community partners and we've done a number of projects with them, but if you're interested in working with us, whether you're in Southeast Michigan or the Detroit area or beyond, please do get in touch. You can email us at stppatumich.edu. So now I will turn it over to Molly Kleinman, who is the leader of the playbook on the STPP side. And I think you'll tell us a little bit about the playbook and have all the members of the team introduce themselves. Take it away, Molly. Thanks so much, Shobita, and thank you everyone for being here today. I also just quickly want to thank Kristen Bergard and Tracy Van Duzza, who've done a whole lot of work behind the scenes to support the playbook and this webinar. I'm Molly Kleinman. I'm the managing director of STPP and I was the lead on the playbook project. So yeah, I'm going to briefly give an overview of what the community partnerships playbook is and why we wrote it. Then all of the panelists will have a chance to introduce themselves and we'll dive right in. Just a quick moment of housekeeping. We will have time for audience Q&A at the end. So if you have any questions, you can enter them into the Q&A box at any time during the webinar and we will have time to get to them later. So as Shobita mentioned, the playbook is a collaboration between STPP, Detroit Disability Power, Detroit Justice Center and We The People Michigan. It brings together advice from staff at all of these organizations who've had a range of both positive and negative experiences with researchers, academics and technologists, along with the insights that we've developed from our community partnerships initiative and up-to-date scholarly literature. Next slide, please, Kristen. As the popularity of community engagement grows among technologists and academics, it's vital to ensure that we engage communities in ways that are equitable, that benefit the people they're supposed to benefit, and that don't cause harm. Next slide. The playbook's purpose is both to guide researchers and to support and lend authority to community organizations as they advocate for partnerships that will benefit their constituencies. I saw that in our audience today, we have people from tech companies and universities as well as nonprofits and community organizations and funders, and I hope that there is something in this playbook for all of you. For folks who haven't had a chance to read it yet, a quick overview of what's inside. You'll get a lot of the meat of these sections from the conversation that we're about to have, but high level, the playbook includes qualities of good partnerships, guidance for community organizations who may be fielding these kinds of partnership requests, or looking for researchers to work with them on a project because they already have a question in mind, guidance for researchers who are often under pressure to do community engagement but don't necessarily have access to support or training for how to do it well and do it in ways that don't unintentionally cause harm. And then finally questions that both partners should answer before the project begins across three different categories, values, goals and logistics. Goals and logistics may feel more obvious, but aligning on values is really crucial and we'll probably talk today about why. And then finally an overview of the literature on approaches to community engagement in research and technology development for people who want to dig deeper into this topic or take a look at what the peer reviewed literature has to say on these things. So, rather than much more detail, I want to use most of this time for our conversation with the panelists in the process of putting together the playbook. The student assistants who worked on this project and I were really lucky to have conversations with each of the co-authors about their experiences with partnerships, what's worked and what hasn't. And everything they said was just one gem after another. And so for this webinar I really wanted to just bring some of those conversations directly to the audience. So let's move right along to panelists introductions. I want to note that one of our panelists today Nancy A Parker with the Detroit Justice Center was not one of our original contributors. That was Aaron Keith, who was also at DJC. She couldn't be here today, but Nancy has graciously agreed to step in. In addition, Casey Polar, who was one of the authors with DDP was also unable to join us. I just wanted to recognize those authors even though they couldn't be here in the webinar today. So I'm going to ask each panelist to briefly introduce themselves and their organizations and to give an example or two about the kinds of projects or partners that they have worked on. And Nancy, why don't we start with you. Thank you, Molly. Good afternoon, everyone. As Molly stated, I'm Nancy A Parker. I use she her pronouns. I'm the executive director of the Detroit Justice Center. And I am stepping in for Aaron Keith who was managing policy council that worked very closely with the whole team. And we appreciate you guys very much at the Detroit Justice Center. We are a nonprofit law firm. Specifically, we are abolitionists. We are prison industrial complex abolitionists, which means that we are working towards a world where we do not have cages. Policing surveillance and we're working towards a just city. That's what we have coined it. And so we work alongside the community here in Detroit and the Metro Detroit area. In supporting grassroots organization through our legal support through any other avenues that we can help campaigns and to address the grave effects quite truly of mass incarceration as it has been directly felt by black and brown communities and poor communities here in the city of Detroit. And so we are a team of attorneys and non attorneys that are working to go on the defense to save people all from evictions and traffic to offensive and helping folks create community land trust and trying to be dreaming for the future that we actually won't where we don't have courts and I'm out of a job because we have a restorative justice deep in our community and no one is picking up the phone the call 911 with that threat of harm. And so, at DJC, you know the phone rings a lot from time to time. However, one of the sayings that we have now embedded in the culture at DJC is that if it is not a hell yes, it is a no. So that means that for the partnership to thrive it has to be worth that fits into our mission and our values, and one that our staff and the order at large is excited about doing because we truly believe that this will contribute to the the greater level that we are working towards. And I recognize that not I mean there could be some folks here on the call today where me saying and I'm an abolitionist and you're confused and blinking your eyes and now you got to go to Google to look it up right so I we understand that we are considered radical that we're the far left of the left. And so, the partnerships with folks were coming in with eyes wide open that not all participants will be abolitionist, and you don't have to be. But as long as you're working to address the ills of mass incarceration, as long as you, you know, recognize the work that we do and where we stand in that field. We have the beautiful partnership with STPP that you know has been ongoing where there's values on both sides, and it has been nothing but a pleasure right we're respected we feel that respect. We know that our expertise is valued at the same level as the researchers at the same level as the academics, not something that's different or less than, but literally equal that we are coming as the experts in the field, and of, you know, whatever that issue is, and we mutual respect is very much felt and when it is not there it's readily apparent. And so, because we have that mantra of if it's not a hell yes it's a no. We have been lucky enough to be in a position where we routinely don't engage with the cold calls for let's pick your brain. Let's get quotes what do you think about that, which feels very extracted and is not trying to further our work. Instead, what they're looking for is opposition quotes or what is your position on, but you're not actually working towards the end goal of liberation of all people, which is what we're all doing this work for. So with that, I mean, there have been times where we have had more corporate researchers reach out. One, I think was about prisons and women incarceration rate. And, you know, we come with our expertise we come with what we know to be true. Right. And I understand that there will always be a push and pull of pushback that that's how you can get great discourse, but this counting things that people are saying is not a good relationship you're not reading trust. And it also makes us not want to work with you. We're in at the end. Your output may be something that you know we don't disagree with, but it really did move the needle and I think in that instance it was about women's incarceration rate, the fact that they're increasing. This person wanted to come and give me some more other information to show the oh in fact they're decreasing, which I didn't agree with that premise but at the end of the day the issue is they're still an issue. And so I think being clear at the outset of what is this work supposed to be what are you trying to yield is very critical. In contrary, we see a stark difference when we work with community researchers. So with the what was in Detroit green lights green futures that kind of fizzled but they still put out their report and in putting out their report, you know they came back to us and I was part of those focus conversations and the outcome was a very handy green booklet that says surveillance ain't safety, and that's that's what you want you want community partners to be in this work together that whether you're in Detroit or the metro area, you have a stake in this so it's not just my clients and the folks that work in my office, but you as a resident as a commuter as someone who traverses the city of Detroit, you should also want these things and we see just a world of difference when we're working with folks who are community oriented so thank you very much. Thanks Nancy. Eric, how about you next. Yeah, thank you. Eric Wells be I'm the advocacy director at Detroit disability power. We're a social justice organization focus primarily on organizing and building the political power of people with disabilities. You know, with a focus particularly in Detroit, but honestly statewide working with statewide partners to address, you know, the barriers that exist on everything from voting to, you know, any number of policy or is housing, you know, and other things. You know, we're very fortunate, I think to have partners with organizations like STP P, you know, who, you know, we're small organization we have nine, nine people and in a slew of interns from from U of M and Wayne State to help us but as a small group, you know, there's only so much we can do when people ask for our time. We can do it to be selective in that in that capacity, but to have partners like STP P that really, you know, as truly and deeply ask us what what do you need what are what are the questions you want answered but don't have the capacity to answer. And we can use all the great minds we have access to and the tools and all of that to help us, which you know I think you know and finding, you know, way away to first both to get advantage right where students can learn and practice. You know, for for their future careers, while also, you know, providing us with real tangible data so we go in and talk to city council or talk to state legislators. It's not just telling us telling them what we see, but having that you know solid solid background. And finding you know in every research partnerships a little bit different with other places I've worked we had partnerships on research where, you know, our organization representatives from our organizations have been co principal investigators along with university researchers right so we have real stake in the game and have that position of power to you know voice and help guide that research in a way that's productive for the communities we serve. You know that we're not subjects of research but we're part of it. And you know that can benefit both, you know, the researchers, the universities and the community organizations and our neighborhoods, and really making sure that everybody is getting some advantage and we can do our the best we can to avoid, you know, some of the information that you know in the past has happened through research where, you know, research have come in, you know, popped in, popped into a neighborhood got their data asked questions, took people's time, and all that and then left and those communities never heard from them again, never found out what was the result of that research, did it lead to anything. And really pushing back on that to say, you know, people need to be involved in the planning they need to be involved in the execution of research, and they need to be involved in the results. And that's really a way to, you know, make communities feel that they're not being exploited, but also empowering communities to use that research to make real change to make the improvements that I mean, most research when they come in are trying to solve that problem. Let those communities be part of solving, actually solving that problem, because they're probably better equipped than, you know, people from outside of that those communities. And so, you know, we really appreciate STVP putting energy into this and allowing us to be a part of it. So hopefully we can make better relationships, you know, for everybody involved. Thanks Eric. Moving on to Yvonne. Hi everyone. My name is Yvonne Navarrete. I share her pronouns. I'm the policy director with We The People Michigan. We The People Michigan is a statewide organizing grassroots nonprofit, looking to build multiracial working class power across the state. What that looks like is we organize with folks in local to statewide policy campaigns. Those campaigns range from looking to repeal the ban on local rent control, reinstating driver licenses for undocumented folks, and holding investor owned utility companies accountable from among other campaigns. And it's been a really wonderful experience to have partners like STVP and the other folks on this call in partnership in our campaigns. So I'd like to pass it to Merida to talk a little bit more about the ways we've specifically been able to partner with STVP. Yeah, thank you Yvonne. Hi everyone, my name is Merida. I use Stacey pronoun. I am a policy analyst with We The People. I've been able like been able to work with STVP over the last few years and develop like really good relationship with you all over a good length of time before started working with STVP when in 2022 I work along with community partner works like DJC shout out to Nancy. Like began a fight against the expansion of shot spotted a faulty surveillance systems. I work with Detroit that asked to use upper money meant to expand like services for like community members and residents. We were able to use a report from STVP on the very like technical definitions of like what the technology does. And because of the research that they were able to provide really expanded organizing efforts and like our partner organizing efforts in that one it elevated the credibility of like the organizers on the ground. When we brought up the issues with shot spotted and surveillance technology to public officials and specifically to Detroit City Councils and being able to say this is a finding from the University of Michigan's And even though which the panelists and myself will touch upon later that like live experiences of community members are very, very like important and critical. A lot of the time. This credibility is overlooked just because it's not from historically important, or like because it's not from like institutions like universities or think tanks and such so being able to like site this resources and making the research accessible to the community members and the public and in terms that they can convey and like integrated into. Hey, like, this is what the technology actually does to a community. Being able to do that is very, very valuable to us. And because of that, along with like the organizing of people and like community members showing up to public comments of shot spotters. We were able to push back against the expansion of shot spotter at least like freeing up seven millions of money from being used on this surveillance technology. So, just like very, very appreciative of STPP. And recently, we partnered with STPP and little sis on a report to advance our campaigning goals on on just on like centering on people on like energy. Thanks, if on and marita. And then next up, Maddie Cutler. Hi, I'm a one of the research assistants. I'm a team for the project. I'm a senior undergraduate student at the Ford school of the policy, and I've been a research assistant since last May. Alongside Molly and Divya, I worked on all parts of the projects of from the research to the interviewing of the partners who we just heard from, and the actual writing of the project. So yeah, that's me. Thanks, Maddie and Divya. Thank you. I'm Divya. I'm one of the other research assistants that student research assistants on this project. I'm also a graduate student in computer science and I work on kind of the governance and responsible AI questions. Thank you. So, you all discovered so much about so I had all these great warm up questions to sort of get us going but I feel like you've already touched on that so much that I'm just going to take us right into the deep end. So, you know, one thing that came up a lot in our conversations was the power dynamics between researchers that are associated with the universities or companies and staff in community organizations like yours and also community members themselves. Let's talk a little bit about how those power dynamics play out and what both sides can do to mitigate them. Feel free. I think people can just unmute and jump in and if it gets too unruly, I'll start to call on people. I'll jump in here, Molly. I think in terms of mitigating the dynamics. So, what I touched on earlier about like making sure like we're equal equal partners. Like that is literally felt and we can, we know at the outset, whether this is going to be something that's going to feel not good to us and again that is going to be a collective exploitative or if it's something that we actually want to be a part of. So, what is it? Like, what is the end goal, right? You're going to get a research paper, a white paper. What is your intention? What do you want to do with that? Is that something that is supposed to serve the community to inform stakeholders to make a change? And so we need to know very clearly what is the goal of this, like very early, because that will show us whether this is something that we want to participate in. And also very concretely and this has happened before and I just have to like pawn people off. If there is no exchange of compensation for my labor. That is a clear indicator that you are not valuing me, you know, value of my expertise and what I'm bringing to this conversation. So if you feel like this is one of those things where like, hey, let me get an hour of your time, let me sit down for this, and you have raised nothing about how much you are going to compensate me for this. I'm not doing this, right? We can talk about how much funding you have, right? What has been approved? What are your limitations? I get that. But as Eric stated, like, we're all just young non-profits that are trying to pay our staff and change the world, right? And these researchers, these institutions, these universities, you have a wealth of resources at your disposal. So to come to us without that offering of what a compensation package looked like is a non-starter for me. And so I just want to put that out at the outset instead of burying it. That is the lead. Are you coming to these people and saying we value you, we respect you, we want your input, your expertise, your knowledge, and this is how much we have for this project, period. And if I can add on to Nancy, even beyond taking care, you know, making sure that there's compensation for the non-profit is, you know, so much of this research, you know, isn't even about our non-profits, it's about the communities we serve. And really making, you know, making it a point of how are we taking care of this community? You know, a lot of times we're, you know, we want to do interviews or panels or focus groups with members of the community. You know, people who aren't researchers and also aren't working for a non-profit. People who have jobs and families and busy lives and their time isn't free either. You know, and it doesn't mean paying them hundreds or thousands of dollars. Sometimes it's $25 or $50, you know, for and out. But it's still, it's saying there's value in that. And that I'm asking you to give up what you normally do to do this, right? To just make sure that, again, we're not, we don't look at, you know, members of a community and their time is something that's just mine to use. It is something that they are choosing to share with me and with the researcher. And they should be, you know, their expertise is clearly the thing we need, their lived experience is what we need, and we should be willing to compensate them for that. You know, and so making sure that that's part of the discussion, you know, and really, you know, you know, using that as, you know, getting back to Molly's original question about that power dynamic, right? Some of our power comes from the fact that we have access to the people that researchers need, right? Universities, particularly, you know, sometimes and other researchers are isolated sometimes from the communities they want to study. But that's where these community organizations like ours come in. We know who the people are. We're a trusted messenger. And if we're going to put that trusted, you know, messenger power to work, like, you got to prove to me that it's worth putting out there because if that gets burned for us with our members and the communities we serve, like, that's a long term issue for us. We don't put that at risk, or we don't put that out there. We think someone's going to exploit it. We can't, because if we lose that, we're way behind in the work we need to do, you know, and so that's really a big part of where our power comes from is protecting our community, protecting the people we serve and serving as that gatekeeper. If you want access to our community and want access to people we serve, you got to prove that you're in this. You're in this, you know, we're in this as a partner and you're in this in a way that is going to make sure this community knows that you're not here just to exploit them. Yeah, and another way that challenging the power dynamic between researchers and community partners is critical is putting the power of deciding and commissioning in a sense the research into the partners hands instead of as a researcher already coming with a designed or proposed or requesting like support in their own research project. Something that I've appreciated about the way that we engage with STDP is that they say these are the resources we have and the type of support we can offer. How can we use that to support your ongoing work. And that's exactly how we came to design and create the consumers energy report, because we had been doing long term organizing around holding investor owned utilities accountable, but largely based out of Southeast Michigan where our energy provider is DTE. And so we had done a DTE report and had plenty of data around how much DTE is exploiting, extorting from communities and working class people of color specifically around Detroit, and how much they're using that to line their investors profits, but we didn't have that data and analysis for consumers energy, which is the energy company out in West Michigan and as a statewide organization are organizing reaches the entire state and so being able to create that resource, not just for our organizers but to then utilize it to inform legislators and decision makers who are in the past may have turned their nose up and said, Well, I'm only seeing DTE data, and I'm a legislator and go rapids that doesn't affect me. Now we have data to back up the claims that this is a statewide issue. And we hold all investor owned utilities accountable. I think related to this, this question of power I wanted to talk about pace for a minute. So, at different times I've heard a few of you use the expression, move at the speed of trust. What does the speed of trust look like to you and how does that play out in partnerships. I'll jump in here Molly because that is one of those sacred text or affirmations that we say is that we move at the speed of trust and we really do mean that. And so, as a legal arm. We feel that we have to hold that dear because we have to move at the speed that we the people Michigan DDP Detroit action, what feels good to them. It serves no purposes we have lawyers are like okay now we got filed a lawsuit we got to do this. And they're like, no that that's not right we need to talk to the people we need to organize me, you know what I mean. We do that ourselves. And so when we're working in partnerships with researchers and outside folks. Deadlines are artificially created. Right. Some human is that we want to pump this out by X amount date. The timelines reflect the actual time that's needed to build trust with the community to talk about set issue, or to produce, you know the information that's necessary. And so it shows up in what is the speed that you're trying to move. Does that actually align with the project and what it will take. You get to know you first, you can't just have one intro zoom and then like, all right, give me all this information. We need to know who we are working with. And while we have found post 2020 quite honestly being in the racial justice space post the lynching of Joyce Floyd and the murder of Breonna Taylor, people started co-opting our language. And you hear people talking about this racial reckoning and restorative justice and accountability. But are you just spouting these words or do they actually hold true to you. Yo deep drop the question in the chat that's apropos of this because this is part of our values. And so we have to work with folks that are values aligned and now I do JC we have a list of very specific, very personal values that we fold. We don't expect everyone that we work with to check. All of those boxes, but there has to be synergy within there. And so going back to what I said at the top in terms of paying people. That's a value that we hold within the ore. So any intern that comes to us, we believe in paying people for their labor. So we're not asking an outside partner something that we don't follow through on. That is just an ethos of how we move. You must pay people for their labor in this country too much. We just extract labor and resources from people without actually compensating them right. So that's one of the things and moving with a sense of responsibility and a desire to use that to serve the community. So these are our values and when we work in partnership, we can tell very early is this a project that is going to be in alignment with our values. Do you believe in the liberation of all people. Do you believe in disability justice and access for all do you believe in LGBTQIA plus people having autonomy and rights like everyone else. We don't work with people who are transphobic. You know, who are able is right. We try to vet them because if we are at a disconnect, it will bear in the work. It will show up very easily because the two just can't coincide. And so we try to bake our values into when we are presented is this a intergenerational work, you know, again, who will benefit. Do you believe it as lawyers and also just the org and large. We believe in democratizing access to the law, which means that we are not trying to be gatekeepers of anything that we have mastered quite to the contrary. We want to disseminate that information and teach the man to fish. Right. So that whatever information we gain, we're trying to synthesize it and disseminate it in a way that people can use it. They understand it and they no longer need me. That's what I want to see from your research. And so I'll stop there and let others jump in. I think like this touch on this question and also the previous question, but what Nancy and Eric share on like really showing up for the work that you're working with value alignment that means that showing like your partner that your collaboration is genuine not just like, Oh, here is a deliverable that we work on and then we never like hear from you again type of thing. But like what we really appreciate it from like STPP during our fight. Again, short spotter. Remember, Molly, like coming to our press event and being a speaker at the press events right before the public comments. So being able to show up for us with a notice and just like elevating continue to like advocate for us not just like in this like short time frame and continue to doing that and like a year later. Kristen like coming to one of our open meetings with the STPP coalitions and community members and getting to know more about the issues like with the residents here. So really, really appreciate that. And it's about like expending capacity not like, Oh, we want to do research on you. But like, yeah, just being genuine in your collaboration. Awesome. All right, so this is, I'm realizing that we're, we're coming up on time to take audience questions I'm going to do a quick question specifically for Maddie and Divya the students who worked on this project because I do think for us and STPP one of the one of the things for us in these partnerships is that we are training students and training, especially in the case of Divya technologists and future technologists who are going to go off and know how to do these kinds of partnerships and do this work in a way that that serves communities and so I wanted to ask about the view. If there was anything that surprised you and the in the process of having these conversations and doing this work something anything that came out that really stood out to you about this process. I guess the main thing that I noticed that was a little bit surprising but in retrospect, perhaps not so surprising is that people who do this kind of work like the three organizations that are here and other organizations that do similar work are already thinking about all these topics we've been discussing on their own is part of what they do. So when we asked them questions like what do you look for in a partner or what hasn't worked for you in the past, it became really clear that these questions are actually like really close to how they do their work on an everyday basis and community organizations are easily able to share with you how their core values and missions guide whether a certain project is a certain or whether a certain project is a good idea and they have actual benchmarks and procedures to go through this process. And I think for us to learn about those benchmarks and those processes was really really illuminating and guide us a lot of really great information. And it was kind of then when I realized that the real value of what we're doing is bridging the gap between those organizations and getting that information out to others, like, whether it's an academic institution like us who we learned how to be better from this project, even though we've been working with other organizations in the past, we've learned this helped us learn how to be better, or even outside technologists that organizations often work with. It was kind of obvious to us that we didn't, they weren't waiting around for someone to ask us these questions, or ask them these questions. These questions were already very important how they do their work and I think that that should be shared with as many people as possible because that's really important. Yeah, so for me, I think that I actually made these sentiments and also one of the things that really stood out for me with Nancy's, you know, comment about like importance of value alignment. It's, it's so crucial to having partners and technologists work together and I think as somebody who comes from an engineering background it's so common to kind of like not talk about values not talk about subjectivities because you know you want to be objective you want to talk about how you're doing this from a neutral standpoint, but I think for a fruitful partnership. It's very important to acknowledge this, acknowledge this politics as values and kind of come to a shared understanding. And this takes a lot of time. And I think this was, I think that just putting it out there is so important and I think this is a message that we should carry you back to our spaces. Thank you both. So then before I open it up to questions from the audience. It is, I think, really a treat to have this much advocacy knowledge and power in one virtual place all of you together. And so I wanted to give us a chance to ask you, give you a chance to ask each other questions. I know some of you work together, like, you know, completely independently of anything as TPP is involved in. But I just figured while we're all in one place that might be a chance to sort of continue some of those conversations or bring out bring out things that you say to each other that researchers need to hear but maybe haven't. This is there. Not necessarily a question but just kind of a thing. You know, we recently moved into a brand new building with other social justice organizations, including the Detroit Justice Center as well as our upstairs, no, downstairs neighbor. But, you know, the opportunity this gives us to be in a space with, you know, four or five organizations that are all social justice but we're all doing very different things. But the ability that these spaces create for us to work together. And, you know, through some of the other coalitional partnership work we're doing, both in Detroit and across the state right help allows us to identify where our strengths and weaknesses are and how that can then we can we can properly work together. And, you know, one of the things I love in the relations we have with any number of organizations that when someone comes to us, like STPP or others come to us and ask us, Hey, can you do this, can you not when we can't. We probably have someplace else we can connect you with who can, who has the capacity or has better background knowledge in it. And so, you know, recognizing how the relations we have. We can't do it, we probably can connect you does because social justice organizations in particular I think in this area of the state are really doing very intentional work around building connections with each other, so that we can all take our limited capacity but collectively really do exponentially larger work. And, you know, I think that's huge for us. I think it's also huge for, you know, researchers that getting a good relationship with one of us opens up the possibility to have a good relationship with a lot of others which is good for individual research but also entire departments and institutions who have all kinds of very research expertise and not everything is a DDP that some things, you know, DJC is much better equipped to talk about and help with them we are and we love we love connecting them, you know, and so, you know, always be aware of how our networks work and how, you know, how much that can that can help lift all boats. Thank you very much Eric to that I like to posit the contrary to my panelists and then also folks who are listening, you are privy to this as well as much as we talk to each other about the good research projects and the good one. Y'all, we have to start letting each other know the researchers and universities and folks who are hitting us up that are coming to us completely sideways and we're like never again. And we internally know who they are right, but I think it's time we start, you know, talking that dirt as well for that. Yeah, that internal Yelp review of beware of this researcher, because, you know, they didn't handle with care and consideration and hold those values sacred so y'all who are listening in, just know that similarly to how things go well, we will share that knowledge and pass you off to other friends and colleagues in the space. If it doesn't go well, you're also shooting yourself in the foot because we have that power to, you know, talk to each other and say hey, don't work with these folks ever. So just want to put that out there that we we get our yelp page going. I had a quick question for the panelists kind of based on what Nancy was talking about in her introduction but for anyone. When it comes to really trying to figure out the values based match when whether it's about disability specifically, or larger ideas like abolitionism and supporting trans rights and other ideas that your organization is firmly in support of. How much of a toll does it take how much work does it take on your organization to go through that process intensively and how what are some of the struggles or like the kind of stopping points that you come to when you're trying to address those deeper values because I know that sometimes it can be hard when you're trying to partner whether that's more surface level like indicator signals that you're getting that are supposed to sound a certain way versus actual genuine values grounded in the actual work so I was kind of curious like how is it how hard is it to kind of differentiate between those two. One of our models is the way we do the work is the work. And one of the things I've learned about that is when you're talking to new organizations you go very quickly, figure out how they do the work, you know, based on how they approach, you know, setting up even that first meeting. You know, and how, you know, open they are to to changes and adjustments, you become very clear how they do the work and as a as a disability focus organization right there's a lot of things that we do different than other organizations, right to make sure that all of our members. You know, regardless of their their disability, you know, and, you know how that might impact their way to engage right we want to make sure that every single one of our members, every single member or community can be involved in everything we do. And so we know we can quickly kind of evaluate like are you actually open to, but the flexibility necessary for everyone to be engaged. And when we don't see that, you know that that that very quickly shuts it down because you're an exclude part of our membership, then then we probably don't have time, because we can't teach you. We got we had a lot of work we got to do. So, you know that that's for us. You wanted you also have something you wanted to add to that. Yeah, I can quickly add something I think that if research partners don't like meet us where we are. Typically, we don't have the capacity to engage like if participating or accessing resources to do research through your organization or funder etc requires the application interviews, etc, like this lengthy process beyond like also us assessing right values alignment and getting to know if like this makes sense for us. Typically we pass on it and so being able to like, I guess, research partners, self bet themselves if they come to us, they've already made done a couple of steps to be able to find us and offer their resources in the way that makes sense for us. And typically when we've had to like, look for specific technologists or posters or things like that where we do need specific kind of support. It is quite a lengthy process it takes some time and relationships like asking each partners, who they've worked with before, and their experiences otherwise yes. You have to go through a hard learned experience to be able to figure out who is worth working within that. Great. And so I think we have time for a couple of audience questions if you haven't put any questions in the chat yet now is your moment put them in the Q&A box. Nancy already started to address this question but I want to sort of bring it back to the whole group and it's also connected to what Maddie asked. Nancy, you mentioned the importance of values alignment. Can you say a bit more about how you use your values when betting a partner. So we sort of started hearing about this but if there are other other things to say about that piece. Yeah, kind of like I mentioned before I mean it's and it's with everything that we do right it's not just with our research partners is with facilitators that we bring in it's with vendors that we use with the money that we accept. There has to be a level of accountability as to who we're working with. And if anyone is causing harm in our communities, those aren't people that we want to be in partnership with in any way shape or form. So there is a level of like who are you do we already know your name kind of like in the streets what have you done. Your work precedes you like we're going to know who you are. And as Ivan alluded to or stated outright, if you're coming to us you know who we are. So don't come to me and think that at DJC you're going to get a reformist position on anything we are abolitionist. And so if that right there, you're, you know, not open to acknowledging and accepting that as a true concrete, you know, praxis, then we don't need to be in partnership with one another. When you work with nonprofits that are mission focused mission driven, the values bear out with everything so if we're if we're and we're still learning all the things right which is why we love DDP as a partner, they provide us with the needs where we learn like oh wow okay, we thought we were doing this right but we actually every event we have, we need to make sure there's ASL or at least ask people what are your accessibility needs right so we were not perfect. We learn as we go and that's what we expect of those that we work with. If someone is misgendering our folks, we should correct you, you should accept that correction and change and do better. But if you're like nah I don't care that's what well now we're not going to mess with you, you know what I mean. So it's it's not that people have to be perfect. But is that our do you recognize who we are do you see us do you acknowledge us and then in working together are you open to change and so it's very critical. It's part and parcel of just how we move. And Eric said like how we work is also who we are, it is the word and so. Yeah, vetting folks if I can't find any information on you, or if it looks like, and this person is very centric in right leaning, well, we're diametrically opposed and why even get in this relationship. Right. So, and even if they're like, oh, we're going to offer you X amount of money. Then that's where you it's a whole calculus that you're taking into consideration because not all money is good money and we cannot be bought. So, are you here for the substance of the word, and to move each mission forward. Are you here so that everyone in the state of Michigan has electoral power and their voices being heard and they're getting their utilities and everything they can actually thrive. Are you moving towards a society that is accessible for everyone where you're honoring different access needs. Do you have closed caption on the zoom, you know, I mean, just do you are you trying to tear it out mass incarceration because you've seen what has done to devastate the black community. And if you're not in line with these basic principles, then there's nothing that we can do together. Awesome. So I think we've got, I've got one last question here that sort of an adapting a question that came in through the chat, which is, so when you're engaged in community partnerships. Is it harder or easier when it comes to issues specifically of science technology so where the science technology and public policy center, like our program. When we come to all we sort of say we can do all these different things science technology is a big umbrella but we, you know, there's still a portion of it so I'd love to hear if there's anything particular that you all have noticed about those kinds of science and tech questions and issues that we deal with and what that means in terms of working with partners. I mean, I can say, I think science technology are super interesting. I don't know anything about that. Right. And so, you know, we come at it from a very, you know, we're looking at how things are impacting people with disabilities and I know there was a question in the chat related to, you know, AI technology and things like that which you know I have enough understanding of it to know what it is and that's about it. But to be able to, you know, talk with with people. And, you know, one of the things I love about working with STPP is, I don't always know the question. But I can talk with them and they can, they work cooperative help us find the right question we need to be answering. And to answer the questions or community but also to answer the questions of, you know, particularly in my case, like talking to policymakers who often don't understand technology either so. And so, you know, that that I have a partnership and that ability for me to have a very poorly formed concept in question and bring it to people that understand this and and can help, you know, help us find that middle road of their understanding of technology and my understanding of policy and the impacts on people with disabilities to find that real question where we can get the data and the research we need. So that I sound much smarter than I am about these things. You know, it's it's walking that really careful line because I can't be an expert in everything. If I if I'm an expert on anything. But, you know, this partnership really does allow us to to be impactful on things that I think we try we show the capacity to dig as deep as they can. And so, you know, I'm very again, you know, grateful for the opportunity to, you know, use all of their experience of knowledge to help make our our work stronger. So I thought that when it comes to science and tech, maybe it's harder to find partners that you are values aligned with. And so, in that sense it's harder but when you do find partners that are willing to like use their research and resources to support and support your campaigns related to surveillance technology, utility companies, etc. It's really worth it and it makes our work much easier in the long run. It makes our ability to understand the technology and data around it easier. Our ability to synthesize and share it with the public and our base and the people we need to mobilize and our ability to hold elective accountable and showing facts in their face and applying pressure to them makes it much easier for sure. Thanks so much. So we are at time. So I just want to, again, thank all of our panelists and co-authors. And thank you all for joining us here today. If you are interested in finding the playbook or other reports that we've done, including for all of the partners that you heard from here today, you can find all of that on STPP's website at stpp.portschool.umich.edu. Thanks so much everyone. Have a great evening.