 My name is Autumn Mcdonald, and I am the director of New America, California. New America is a think-and-action tank based in Washington, DC. And we also focus on issues of economic equity, innovation, civic voice, etc. And in doing that, part of the way we do that is through forums that we host from time to time. And we are excited to have you join us for this one virtually. I want to tell you a little bit about who's joining us here today. We have John Irons, who is a New America fellow, New America Future of Work fellow. We have Gene Hong, who is the chief data officer for the city of Los Angeles. We have Anmal Chhada, who is the director of the Equitable Futures Lab at the Institute for the Future. And we also have William Kehoe, who is the chief information officer for Los Angeles County. My co-moderator today is Niles Friedman, who is a executive advisor with Star Insights. Thank you all for joining us. And again, this is a conversation that is going to delve into what it looks like to reimagine the workforce, to reimagine work, and to think about what mobility and digital innovation looks like in that context in this moment, if you will. If you want to take this conversation online, we ask that you go ahead and do so. You can do that by using the hashtag reimagining work and tagging at New America. Feel free to also tag any of the speakers to include them in whatever conversation you want to start online. And with that, I am happy to get us started. I will begin with John. Hello, John. Hello. I would love for you to tell us a little bit about yourself, a little bit about your background, and then finally just tell us a little bit about your current role. Yeah, sure. So first, thank you very much for putting this panel together. You know, if I weren't on the panel, I'd be tuning into the panel. So I'm very much looking forward to the discussion today. As you said, I'm the future work fellow at New America. I also have affiliations with research centers at the new school MIT and Stanford as well. My work over the last several years has very much look at the intersection between technology work and social impact. Before joining New America this winter I directed inclusive economy programs at the Ford Foundation also the Rockefeller Foundation before that so I tried to approach these issues both from an academic perspective, but also from an eye towards change and impact as well. So I'm very much looking forward to the discussion today. Thanks so much, John. I'd love to ask you to tell us a little bit about yourself and your background and your current role. Sure. So my name is Jean Holm and I'm the Chief Data Officer at the City of Los Angeles. I'm new in that role. I was previously the deputy CIO for the city for a few years. I spent 32 years at NASA as the chief knowledge architect, six years with the Obama administration as the evangelist for open data and helping to run data.gov. And then which I hope you all gotten data from. And then a few years working through Central Africa on training and capacity building with the World Bank around open data. I'm very excited to be here and help me to share the story of what we're doing in Los Angeles and learning from all of you, and, and excited about bringing forward the ideas about equity and digital inclusion. Fantastic. Thanks for being here with us. Hello. Hi, how are you. I'm on mulchata I work with the actual futures lab, which is part of the Institute for the future in San Francisco Bay Area. We deal generally with looking at the economic broader economic and social transformations and how they can, they may be creating opportunities to address problems of economic and social inequality. I've previously been at the Federal Reserve Bank where I worked primarily on improving job quality and low age industries and for low age workers and around issues around racial wealth and equality. And right now, the big project that we're working on and that cool futures I have is to coordinate and manage the future work commission in California that the governor created last fall. Fantastic. I've had the opportunity to attend most of those future work sessions commission sessions. Thank you so much for that is those have been fantastic. Bill, would you please tell us a little bit about yourself, your current role, and you're back on. I'm sorry, I think you're still meeting. There we go. All right. Good afternoon everyone bill kehoe I'm the chief information officer for Los Angeles County. I also am very very happy to be here today. This topic is very relevant for LA County and for all, all of government and in all the country right now is working through this in this coven 19 pandemic and we're working through the changes and work life that that presents. For LA County I was a, I was the CIO for King County Washington for seven plus years and before that the CIO for the Washington State Department of Licensing. I would say that in my CIO roles I've been fortunate that I've been put in as a change agent to modernize organizations, reimagine how services are delivered by implementing new and emerging technology, and to help transform business and so it's a little bit about me. Looking forward to the discussion. Hello everyone. This is Niles Friedman really excited to be here to co moderate with autumn autumn I just want to say this has been an absolute pleasure to collaborate with you on this webinar, and really sort of elevate this topic and engage some real amazing across California. You know I think today there's a lot of different areas we want to hit on with some of the questions. I think before we go into some of that we really wanted to frame what this meant. So I think terms like mobility, digital innovation innovation for that matter are used quite widely. Sometimes they're used to varying degrees of depth. So we really wanted to frame as we go into this discussion about challenges and progress and your vision for the future as we think about the workforce. But specifically what does mobility mean to you what is digital innovation me to you. And we look to have you guys each spent about maybe one to two minutes giving us your insight and thoughts. And Jean, if you'd like to kick us off that would be great. Sure I'd be happy to so people often think about mobility as the movement of people and goods and in cities that makes a lot of sense, but I actually think that it's also includes the movement of data and ideas. So how do we make that happen a lot of us who are able and have the privilege of being able to work from home. Goods and services aren't necessarily moving and yet we're still able to get a lot of things done. So when we think about that we think about sort of traditional things like autonomous vehicles and an urban air mobility as we think about autonomy in the air. We use drones for the city of Los Angeles for our fire department and that our port of Los Angeles we do a lot of automation. But it's also about mobile access to city services for us so trying to make sure that that mobility of data and ideas occurs. And when we think about digital innovation. I think it's really the ability to harness data and technology together to improve the ability for people to thrive in a way that is ethical and respects data privacy. So I think those last two pieces are really part of more current conversation around data and technology which is really this idea that we have bias in some of the systems and some of the things we do. So there's a lot of things that I think we'll talk about today that are that blending for digital innovation around data and technology and human the ability for humans to thrive. Thank you, Jane. And I love the fact that you're integrating innovation into data and analytics and it's sort of this holistic package. I think that's a really important dimension as we sort of engage on this topic. John would love to hear your thoughts on again mobility and digital innovation through your lens. Of course when when I think about mobility I think both about mobility of data like like genie said, but also think a lot about mobility in terms of the economic dimension of it, economic mobility. And that's both people's ability to get ahead sees opportunities, both during their lifetime throughout their life, but also think about intergenerational mobility and how people move from generation to generation, both in an absolute sense about are people able to do better than their grandparents and their grandparents, but also in a relative sense of people able to move up from one income quintile to another income quintile. So that's another dimension that I that I tend to think about on the automations around the digital innovation side. I think there's been a lot of discussion and everybody's been in a million discussions about the role of technology innovation on work through automation AI robotics that seems to be what a lot of people tend to talk about. But for me, I tend to also think about how innovation is really changing the way we connect to work. So the job itself might not have changed very much you're still driving a car around driving a taxi, but you connect to it through an Uber. You're still doing housework, but it's connecting to it through a task rabbit, or something similar so I think that's an important distinction to make about technologies both changing work. It's also changing how we connect to work. I think that second piece for me can might be the bigger influencer and in the changing workforce and work. Good. Thank you john and I mean really speaks to the diversity of this panel that we've got either the lens on the economic impact as we think about these topics, but through the lens of research and policy as well so thank you for that vantage point. Bill would love to hear your thoughts on mobility and digital innovation, what that means to you. Great. It's going to be tough in two minutes but I'll give it a shot here. I love what Virginia and john. How they defined it, I think we have a mobility strategic goal here in LA County so we have a very pragmatic I think understanding of what we're trying to achieve there it has both an internal employee perspective. Giving the, our employees the ability to work anywhere at any time, and our residents so it has an external component as well. That we want to provide our residents the ability to receive services and transact with LA County anywhere anytime without having to drive into the city and, and go to an office so there's both of those, those components. I think it's important from an internal employee perspective that, you know, we're providing the right tools, whether that's devices, whether that's collaboration platforms, so that when our employees are remote and we're seeing over 30,000 LA County employees now during the COVID pandemic that are working remotely, that they have the right tools they have the right devices, and they have the right infrastructure to be successful and be productive as they're working externally and then for our residents, making sure that where we can that we provide the ability to transact with the county and receive information online, without having to come to an office and without having to mail in a form and have that form processed and so on and so forth so those are both. Important from from a mobility perspective for us in LA County we're trying to make strides in those directions and we've been forced to make quick strides during the pandemic. As far as digital transformation. To me that is transforming our services that we provide the public by infusing new technology innovation, but really solving business problems and creating internal efficiencies as well with technology so we're focused on that. I think, as Jean said data plays a big role in that and the in the future, how we use our data is going to be extremely important so we're focused on creating that linkages with with our data and I call talk more about that and upcoming questions. Thank you bill and I think this is a really important dimension of this discussion as we think about reimagining the workforce you can your case with LA County go directly to the 30,000 employees and giving them the infrastructure and the tools to be mobile to deliver services but at the end of the That's going to impact residents of LA County and so how does that impact them and is that being brought into the discussion. So I love that distinction to really think about like how do you mobilize the employees, then how does that lead to maybe better services for the delivery of services to the residents. In this case of LA County. Very good. I'm all you have a really unique perspective giving your background and research and technology transformation and then some of the work you've been doing at the state level would love to hear about your vantage point and take on mobility and digital innovation. I think, you know, I think with my background, especially in social science and in social policy like like john I tend to think of mobility in terms of social mobility and economic mobility. And he laid out a really great description and definition of what that looks like whether it's between generations so that how people, their life looks in relation to their parents, or even within their own life course where they started from depending on what neighborhood they were born into what schools they started in or and where they end up later in life and the potential for being able to move up in the social social strata within our society I think it's so close that that concept of social mobility so closely linked to inequality and that's mobility inequality are often used interchangeably I think it's important to think about the ways of those can be a bit distinct as well. You know, sort of metaphorically from think of a ladder social ladder and mobility is the sort of how easy it is for people to move between the rungs of the ladder in society but inequality really shows us how far apart those rungs are. Right and so you can imagine, theoretically at least the situation where maybe people can move between those rungs with relative ease or easier than in some other society so you have more mobility but the rungs are still quite far apart. So the situation where the rungs maybe are closer together so there's less overall inequality but people are really stuck in their station in life and so we have much less social mobility I think they do tend to move in the same direction so we see more inequality we also see less mobility between strata but it's important to really sort of define what the problem is that we're that we're interested in, and that will influence of course the solutions that we think about and sort of addressing those problems. Thank you very much for that. I mean I think this just speaks to the depth of expertise that hits on so many dimensions, whether that's research, whether that's policy, whether that's government operations and strategy, technology, and so I think this is really a great foundation from which we can jump off or some of the other questions. Thank you all for engaging in that. Hey, and just as now said it's important for us to be able to see what we're talking about when we're talking about data innovation or digital innovation as well as what we're talking about when we talk about mobility, recognizing that there are some differences between the weavings between those terms but what we're ultimately doing is using those as we think of what it is to reimagine the workforce or how we work. And using those as levers makes us have to think about what is it that we're reimagining or what is the way that things have changed. Thank you for each of you to talk a little bit about your role, your lens, how you've come to this, and how it has changed since COVID. So if if you would be willing on my I'll start with you to tell us a little bit about how you were seeing the key challenges, the key kind of goals of your work in November, November 21. And I think that now on May 21. That's great. That's a great question. So, I think before in the last year before COVID there was or last several years I think there was a lot of discussion around what what became this the field of the future of work and that was a big concern. I think it's important to look back over the last several decades if you look back to the 1990s and there's huge policy debates around social welfare social policy and welfare. And at the time the debate was really whether welfare had failed, right, whether welfare welfare had failed to do whatever it was intended to do. And the sort of the votes in Congress were based on this idea that welfare had in fact failed and that the solution to whatever those fellows should be work. Work should come to take the place of welfare and it should provide that by relying on work people will be able to access a livelihood and be able to support themselves and their families etc. And then I think that in the years since and especially in the years in the previous years leading up to COVID, what many workers are many families saw many working families saw was, you know, while some of us were talking a lot about the future work a lot of people also would have been asking about the failure. Right, that from the 90s work was meant to be a solution to whatever the shortcomings were social policy but in many ways for many many people work had failed to do that work had failed to provide a decent livelihood it failed to provide access to mobility to move up and a lot of that has to do with the proliferation of low wage jobs, the disappearance of middle wage jobs so whatever skills or training people could get through whatever programs existed. There weren't necessarily jobs for them to move into that would that would improve their circumstances so I think thinking about the way that work and jobs had failed many people even before COVID and then I think, I think in California especially we're quite familiar with there's a sense of a few different kinds of crises there's an environmental crisis there's obviously housing crisis in California and I think we began to see there was also a job crisis and more specifically a job quality crisis. So, even in the context of an extraordinary economy 10 straight years of month to month job growth. What we saw was that the majority of people working in the state were in jobs that they did not define as a good jobs, a fully a third of all people working in California were earning less than $15 an hour before COVID. And so, even though we California had sort of was really the most successful economy field got macroeconomic measures that we had seen so many in the state had failed to benefit from the from from those economic achievements and I think that was that was where we were at before COVID and the Future Work Commission was engaging with that very deeply. And then since COVID I think in many ways, it's revealed so much of that in much starker relief. Annie Lowry from the Atlantic had a great piece last week I think about essential workers and how essential work has has really been systematically devalued or undervalued and primarily through policy choices over recent decades and we're seeing that now in very very sharp in addition to really high unemployment but you know we it was, if we had folks running around, not considered direct employees during deliveries or driving people around but then when we had a massive unemployment crisis hit very suddenly, there was no policy mechanism to even deliver really pretty basic social supports to them so I could talk a little bit more about how we've been thinking about framing some of those issues but that's just sort of sort of initially how I think where we were a year ago lines up with where things are at today. Can I jump in on that real quick because I think my point is directly related to that and then you can skip me later if you need to. But I think one of the particular ways that the jobs have failed people is a lot of jobs are increasingly what we would call precarious. So part time temporary outsourced gig like fissured fissured meaning you work for a contractor works or subcontractor works or you know a company up the food chain, and those jobs are just much more insecure. And even for jobs that are full time 40 hour week, those are beginning to feel more and more like insecure jobs to. And what this recession has done this crisis has just shown that for what it is that it's exposed that weakness right the same way in the 2009 recession that exposed financial crises financial weakness. This is exposing the weakness in the late market and jobs how we had. For me that's the biggest thing that has been not so much changed, but exposed by the current crisis. Thanks for jumping in john because that point is obviously very much connected to what was just said and I appreciate both of you. This is ultimately about what does it take to thrive right so this question at least in the way that you guys are coming at this time. And that that hasn't changed is as a challenge. It hasn't changed that not enough people have, you know, middle wage jobs. They're far more low, low paying jobs. In some recent human centered research that we've done at New America California. We spoke to some 35 different workers, and one of the key findings was that there are some jobs, but not enough good jobs. And so it speaks to that piece of economic precarity. I would love to move to bill and ask you to share a little bit about your November 21 versus what day are we on May 21. There we go. Thank you. Okay, well, yeah, different world for sure. I'll just address this from a county services perspective. You know, we've had a very clear strategic plan that we had in place in November. And before that related to mobility so we weren't really moving in that direction around mobility but also trying to increase the engagement with our, our constituents. We had a little civic engagement strategic plan as well. And then really looking at empowering our workforce training our workforce for the modern world, transforming our procurement process and really innovating around the services we were, we were delivering so there were some good things happening. The urgency around those especially around mobility. We went from about 13% if that of our workforce that was working remotely. We still had a lot of folks. The majority of our employees commuting into the city into county facilities and, and then during the day, driving out to meetings and, you know, and, and so the commuting and the inefficiency of that was something we were trying to address. And quickly we had to pivot to, you know, 32,000 employees now that were telecommuting so that that has accelerated a lot of the strategies we had a head in place it's validated those strategies as well. I get a lot of wow that that that goal that you keep talking about ad nauseam is actually really important. We should be providing the option of our employees to work remotely. We're looking at things like hoteling now reducing our facilities footprint, more opportunities for the public to receive information and transact with the county over the web so it's changed dramatically and now when we were looking at okay now what's what is the return to work look like. I don't think it's ever going to look like it did in November. I think we're going to have, and I don't want to use the word new normal because it's overused but our work life is going to be much different moving forward. And for that I think you hit on the urgency that is brought up by by this own color the situation but this new if you will. And I noted in the chat that someone was just asking the question about, you said that it was 13%. Is that correct. And now all 32,000 employees are telecommuting. Yeah, yeah. Quite a difference. Yeah, a huge difference a huge difference. And the other thing that's really interesting about this is just this idea of what it looks like to figure out what kind of those next steps are in terms of what you might be doing differently. And we're figuring that out in a different way right like normally you have a new idea of how you might transition to something else that your organization or business does. There's a whole bunch of ideation we ideate some more than we ideate again, and then slowly we move to the next thing and that hasn't been allowed now on my. My husband is a physician, and he was talking about how they have been thinking and talking about telehealth and doing visits, you know, and then suddenly let's got to get it done. And I think it's a really interesting point point that you bring up as as we think about the urgency and the need to just kind of get it done quickly. Jean, I would love to ask you that same question. November 21 to May 21. What were some of the key challenges, what were the things you were thinking about setup. So I think on November 21 I was in Barcelona, Spain at the Smart Cities World Congress. I could imagine getting together with 80 to 100,000 of my closest friends now in that kind of a space. And I think it'll be a while till we get back to what we consider normal or how we define the new normal right like this is really how we reimagine the spaces and places and ways we want to work together. But, you know, kind of at the end of last year, we were really focused on a few key issues in Los Angeles. They'll mentioned a few of them. Homelessness first and foremost issues around equity, which Amal and John have talked a lot about climate change the mayor Lee Mayor Garcetti leads the C 40 and so we were very focused around what we thought was going to and what will still be a defining aspect of this, this decade which is the way in which we mitigate climate change. Those are all pieces that we were focused on we are a city that has adopted the sustainable development goals from the United Nations. And so we were looking really at global growth and collaboration. We deployed last year our shake alert LA app which is an early early quick warning app and built on some of the excess of other mobile apps and getting people access. And we had been focusing a lot on partnerships so we started the data science Federation which is a collaboration with 18 local universities, and we just realize that not that that the way in which things have changed is not just how and what we choose to focus on we still have to focus on those things, but we focus on them I think you've all mentioned with an urgency that we didn't ever expect to be able to address. So we have about 50,000 employees at the city of Los Angeles. All of those jobs can be virtualized but within 11 days we were able to telework 24,000 so about half of our workers, but we still have to pick up trash we have to care for the animals at the zoo and the shelters and. So there's still some pieces that have to be done physically. But that was one of the very swift changes that happened so that we could be able to keep city services running and and and help. And really the focus post COVID has been with the emergence of COVID is public safety public safety public safety right. Everybody has become a data scientist, everybody needs to have data literacy and digital literacy in order to be able to understand why the city officials are and the mayor and others are asking people to stay safer at home. It's really just, I mean people could choose to do other things, people could choose to go out, but they are being convinced in a way that they haven't traditionally paid attention to with data. And some of the digital tools we have to be able to help them make these decisions and understand why we're asking so much of people and asking people to sacrifice so much. And we're also focused even more on digital inclusion aspect so as we have moved to more services online and as we've closed down public counters and libraries. We've realized that there's, well, we always knew that there was a big digital divide and we've worked on a variety of digital inclusion efforts, including computer giveaways and digital literacy training and support through our public libraries, you can check out a computer or a wifi hotspot but a lot of that came to a bit of a crashing halt. And we've been just really working again in partnership with our telecommunications companies to provide free services through get connected Los Angeles for basic needs. And, and the one thing that was a big concern before that is not a concern now and this is probably true for wherever you live is traffic. We were number one in a bad way with traffic in Los Angeles and, and now it's, it's, it's very bizarre and drive down this the streets of the city. And, and I think that the shift has been one about not just on public health but a shift to this ability to urgently and very quickly make fundamental changes and watch the, the aspects of behavior change from the people who live in a city to the people who live and work in the city, and really understanding what, what motivates people and how to communicate with them we do a lot of sentiment analysis on social media to understand what messages are affected with folks and what people are asking about so that we can modify the policies to be as supportive of what people are struggling with as possible. I really get to the end where kind of them all started on this part of the conversation, which is really around equity and social mobility and, and all of this is just breaking at the edges, the fragility of some of our social systems and the ability for people to have social mobility. So when we talk about digital innovation, I just I really want us to think about not how it helps many people but how it helps all people and helps get in digital inclusion and reskilling and tech skills and the future of work as being sort of helping the poorest among us to get access to those skills and those capabilities. That's an important point right like we have to figure out what it looks like to use these tools things like digital innovation to be able to allow us to answer this larger question of what it takes to thrive. And that's why we kind of listed it as a kind of key tool through mobility through digital innovation. We all have just brought up the point which is that these problems were here, and there's the greater urgency they've been excessive at exacerbated, and it's upon us to figure out how to not let a crisis be squandered if you will this opportunity that exists to potentially rebuild we imagine to not go back to the way it was but instead to move forward in a really powerful equitable and inclusive way. Thanks to the panelists. I mean, I think this really is a great segue into their next question and just to piggyback on what you were saying on and I think the environment pre COVID, as you can hear, there were a lot of investments. There were a lot of there was a ton of advocacy happening within government and on the policy level. I think it really speaks to the leaders on this panel but I think a broader swath of leaders that have really been pushing for really a strong mobility strategy how do we redefine the workforce and I think being very intentional I totally agree with you on the aspect of innovation. How does that become an enabler to something much larger. So I think in the spirit of this we really wanted to also get into this mode of progress and movement you guys have tapped into that and touched on this a little bit in the context of the challenge discussion, but obviously there has been a tremendous amount of work that's been done in a relatively short period of time, and we'd love to hear a little bit more about that. Practically, you know what does that mean for LA County what does that mean for the city of LA what does that mean for research and policy at the state level and other jurisdictions I think that's going to be a really important dimension of this. So I'd love to hear from each of you guys for you know maybe about three to four minutes about what you've seen as it relates to progress what you've seen as it relates to movement. So I'd love to harness that as you start to think about the way forward. Bill would love for you to kick us off here given some of your perspective and work within LA County. Great, yeah I could talk about a lot of things here. I'm going to focus on the data aspect, and what we're doing there, because it's really important as we're looking at analyzing covert testing results and analyzing the impacts of that, making adjustments in our strategies and feeding that to our public health frontline workers and our first responders. So we have a really important asset in LA County, we call it our information hub and over the last four years. We have been linking client data within our health community and that vertical within our family and social services departments, and also our justice departments and the the intent of that was to be able to provide research and analytics to our data science family around the types of services that clients are receiving from LA County. That 360 degree view of those services for an individual, which is very powerful and then instead of looking at just what types of services a an individual is receiving. Also then looking at the effectiveness of those services so how effective is a service when an individual is released from jail and receive services. What happens after that do they go back into jail, are they do they now become productive citizens, and then also looking at this data from a homeless perspective, which is a huge crisis in LA County. And what can we do better in that situation in terms of the services we provide and the outcomes that we receive. And during this COVID crisis, I would say that our team here has been tapped and the information hub has been tapped to really do some deep analytics around COVID around the testing around those most susceptible and really take some more proactive steps than reactive steps. So the power of data, the power of linking data. The power of looking at the effectiveness of the services you're providing and making adjustments to those based on the data. That to me is is the innovation and the type of a digital transformation that can occur. If we're using our data more effectively linking it and then we're putting that information in the hands of the decision makers so that is a focus that we're going to continue to do in terms of linking additional data and really using that more effectively in the future. Thank you, Bill. And I think what you're speaking of also really connects again with this whole idea of reimagining the workforce if you're able to use analytics and data and information hub within the county to better support what residents need what users need what customers need other services that really reshapes how you define the workforce how they're structured who they are what is the background but how does what you said from the beginning, the tools and the resources and that mobility infrastructure can really be used to better leverage at the end of the day service delivery for residents of the county. So I love that whole promise and gene on this from the beginning with respect to sort of that integration between data and digital innovation and mobility. I'm all would love to hear your perspective, you know, again you've been doing a lot of work it sounds like at the state level most recently. I don't know if you've seen and seen some movement and progress given your work there and outside of that given the work with the lab. I think the most straightforward thing at the state level is just is the way that they're the state, the capacity of state government to keep up with extraordinary demands that's been placed on it in this current situation just unprecedented numbers of people either filing for benefits or just even trying to access the systems. And I think we've seen that that perfectly throughout the throughout the state government. I do think it's interesting and I learned so much from these conversations from from the other panelists as well I think it's it's really interesting to me to hear about what how digital innovation is talks about in the private sector and how it had been especially with and then to hear a couple of the panelists who are from the base in the public sector, talking about what digital innovation looks like there, and what I think what some of the driving either values or principles maybe they're quite different right that are about serving a broader public and equitable effective efficient way. And that's very encouraging I think to folks it should be encouraging to all citizens and especially encouraging people who work in policy. Whereas I think before the sort of private, the tech community may have been focused on apps or services are about delivering, you know, using digital innovation to, you know, to more effectively or quickly pick up laundry and get that clean and deliver to people and meaning sort of what whether those needs were how critical those needs are may have been questioned and I think there's a before COVID what I hope is that now this new new context is a brighter light being shine on the public sector and its capacity for digital innovation and, and the way that they're implementing a lot of these new ideas so I'm learning a lot just just listen to Bill and Jean. I would love to just change to hear that. Great. Thank you and I mean I really connect with your sentiment there I spent probably the last 15 years of my career really looking how to build innovation capacity within government both at a global level in Africa. At a level state level in California and with the county in Los Angeles and I absolutely agree with you that there's not only a desire but there's a real interest to figure out how to mobilize and engage and create those partnerships. I think you know what you're seeing is this also focus it's always been there but there's a real deliberate focus also on user needs customer needs resident needs. How do we start with that from the beginning. How do we think about outcomes as it relates to those types of investments, and how does that really link in so I think that's a really important point as we start to think about this on a broader scale. Jean would love to hear your thoughts coming from the city of LA. I'll start at the smaller level, which is, we really have seen a huge investment in virtualization of services but with an eye on equity. So I suddenly feel like I could foresee the future because a year ago we virtualize a 311 call center at the city. And I just seen this struggle that people had they were a lot of them were in the sandwich generation where they're caring for aging parents and young kids and they're commuting from a long way away through LA traffic and. And so you know we just had a conversation with the people in the call center and said why don't we see if we can't let some of you work from home. It's been a long time, but we got all the right people involved and we had, we changed some of the policies for the call center. We worked with labor unions we worked with all the folks there and so for a year before COVID, we had virtually all but a few who didn't want to be able to work virtually and so we had to immediately virtualize the city. We had a well thought out set of policies that people had lived with and had evolved over the last year. And so we had something to build from and I think, I think, in many cases and I noticed in the chat, some people are talking about the need to be able to pivot that innovations about being nimble and being able to pivot quickly. And I think that that's spot on right this idea of digital innovation is sometimes just being able to do things really quickly and change to accommodate differences in the environment. We have mobile worker program at the city which means that people have cell phones and rather than desk phones in many departments and that made it very simple for people to access it. And we also, I think, have changed our investments in mobility. We used to architect. I mean, LA is very much a car culture and Bill can kind of validate this. Right, we architect our cities around vehicles roads I think make up something like 15% of all land in Los Angeles, and, and parking structures make up an ungodly amount of land. And, and what we've been doing even before COVID but particularly now as we have this opportunity in the midst of this tragedy is to think about architecting our cities around people around spaces that support people in healthy ways. We're working with a slow streets program like a few other cities are which is trying to make sure that we are able to allow people more outside space, even if it's along a street, and being able to create sort of spaces that give people that ability to connect with green spaces so our investment in mobility is, is, is looking a little different than we might traditionally think which is better architecture roads, but our department of transportation and the general manager there Salita Reynolds has really been thinking about how we do with how we deal with mobility around this supporting architecture for people which I think is really interesting. And one of the things too that is kind of an opportunity in the midst of this pandemic is what's happening with climate change. So, we just recently were awarded a NASA grant for a couple million dollars around a project called predicting what we breathe. And I serve as the principal investigator on that and this is looking at combining satellite data and ground data from our internet of things smart, smart city data sets, which could be on a streetlight or a trash truck. And, and we work with bills team and the air quality management district here in Southern California to really look at how we can better predict the kinds of changes we make as a city and the policy changes and what effect that has an air quality. Well, we didn't realize when we started this project and that uses machine learning and AI. What we didn't realize when we started this project is that we would have this crazy opportunity where human activity essentially ceases for a large portion of the population. And the earth is given a moment to breathe. And now we can look and see if we were to do these kinds of change, not that we intend to do these kinds of changes, but, but in small ways, would these changes have a positive effect on air quality. And, and there's just so many people that are affected by issues around air quality and lung disease. And so I think, I think when we, when we, with that, that aspect came up in the chat with the, with the group here about pivoting and nimbleness. It's digital innovation is not just about doing the things that are necessary to be mobile and, and innovative and getting out in front of other cities. So I think about how we look at these moments of opportunity, when there's so much tragedy and concern, and trying to find ways that we can become stronger at the end of this, and be able to have an environment in a world in a city that's designed around supporting the people in it in the ways that they want to live. Okay, thank you, Jean on that. I mean, I think you're hitting on many different sort of topics. But I think what I'm hearing from you is this lens of possibility and can we pause and step back and see what we can do differently. I think it's really connects into some of the work that Bill was talking about on a practical level right within the systems right within the mechanics of how government works. Can we step back and see, hey, we've been able to do this as respect to a remote workforce in a matter of months. Can we step back and figure out what else can we do in a matter of months versus years. So there's a real theme here that you guys are really starting to, I think hit on which is really powerful as you start to think about internal operations within government how to deliver services to the public. And then these more broader civic issues around the environment. I mean, you're really talking at a real macro level of what can we do. How can we think differently. I think this ties nicely into policy work. John that you're doing and would love to hear your perspective on both the progress and the movement that you've seen, you know, in the last couple of months. I'll echo a lot of things that have already been said to and I'll pick one of them, which I think is intriguing, at least to me at this current moment, which is essentially the rapid modeling that's being done out there, particularly in the case of COVID but this happening other places to where people are taking data from different places and putting them together and doing really interesting modeling around it. And I think that with, you know, the COVID projections that are connecting with sell data to determine the connectivity to people, right to the mashup of different kinds of data that's being adapted and updated in a really rapid fashion. I think that that mindset could be applied to other areas too. And I think that I know best that I can work in jobs. I would love there to be, you know, that level of detail prediction about where jobs are being lost, whether what's being projected. Who are the people who are going to be losing those jobs, how fast they get them back. And that kind of rapid modeling I think could be really a benefit as like an early warning system. And I think that the Kinza map for for the economy, right so Kinza is the, for people who don't know, they make thermometers, and they connected to an app. And so we have all this data about elevated levels of people's temperature at a very granular level, all across the country. And so what they do is a model where they would expect a certain degree of elevated temperatures to be where they're seeing deviations from that as a way to predict potential hotspots on a daily or hourly basis, right. So it's that kind of data and the modeling around it which I think could be hugely, hugely valuable in many different areas. So it's a little bit of a mindset change that I think would benefit many different areas. But I do have one kind of open question though to and I would love if Jean or Bill had perspective on this also. I'm worried or not worried but I'm wondering I'm curious about, you know the jobs have become remote. Is it simply about doing the same job someplace else, or is a job itself going to fundamentally change. My gut says that it might be the latter in the history of innovations, when you do see a new technology, you then see the job that interacts with that technology also changing in an interesting way. That's very hard to predict. So I think we might be seeing this that same kind of dynamic play out we're first going to see the same job being done remotely, and then you can see the jobs change over time so that's something that's in the back of my head. John I mean again this is I think the power of a group like this you guys come from such diverse backgrounds but you're hitting on some real key themes and I think really start to elevate this discussion. We want to be mindful of time and I know we want to get into some of the questions that participants have been asking and make sure we get those in front of our panelists. So why don't we do this on maybe just kind of engage a bit on the visionary question. We wanted to sort of tee up with each of you. You guys have touched on it so I think it's a great way to sort of segue into what is the vision of the future look like what does the workforce of the future look like, given the work that you all have seen over the last you know the scenario that autumn pick from November 2019 to May 2020. But what is the next six or 12 months look like. What do you envision. I know you guys are amazing thought leaders and probably have a ton of ideas of where this can go. So I think after a few minutes on from each of you on normally what is that vision but sort of how how you see it playing out and on a practical level what can be done, you know, ideally in a matter of months versus years. John, why don't we have you kick us off, giving you sort of teed up I think that great discussion around analytics. I think this is the hardest question. So, you know predicting the future is always a risky risky business, especially now. You know my perspective is that in the near term you think six to 12 months is being relatively near term. You know I think it's going to be the virus that dictates what the work looks like. You know there's a lot of questions about what shape the economy will be will be like a U shape or will have a long downturn will be a V shape or will bounce back relatively quickly. My perspective is that our response to the virus to the health crisis will dictate what the work situation looks like, not not vice versa. And that we really need to, you know, do first with the health experts say now, because that's going to be the number one thing we can do to keep, you know, keep as many jobs possible, and keep the economy running. So, you know, my thinking that I think like a lot of other people, you know, has a dramatically shifted horizon. You know, what's happened 12, you know, six months 12 months now is what's on my mind, the five year horizon which is what I used to think about is now seem to be very dependent upon that the six month horizon, which, you know, I think there's potentially negative consequences to that because we do need to be thinking about the long term at the same time we're thinking about this the short term. And so our attention is focused on the here and now that it's getting harder to see with a long term vision looks like, but I agree with what people said we're not going back to a things were I agree with the team that like the 80,000 person convening in Barcelona. Hard to see that happening again. There's a lot of things that I see in my future that, you know, I would not have guessed I would not be doing. I think that's where we are. Thank you john bill would love to hear about your sort of ideas on a future vision as it relates to mobility and how digital innovation really supports that and enables that. So, you know, the future, the way that I see it in the way that we're trying to paint that picture in LA County is from an employee perspective. Our jobs are going to change dramatically. I think we're going to have to at least on the technology side we're going to have to be much more nimble and fast in in what we do, and very focused on the investments we make. You know the economy taking a hit is impacted the county tremendously so going forward, you know the investments that we do have are going to be very focused. So we're going to take on projects that are much more innovative that go towards a high impact in terms of transforming the services that we have introducing technology like robotic process automation and AI and technologies that can provide efficiencies, but also high and transform some of our internal services and external services. I think, as john indicated, I think our jobs are going to be much different in the future. I think that's an accurate statement. I think we're going to be much more focused on assessing the services we do provide introducing data and data analytics into, as I said earlier, analyzing the effectiveness of those services, making some fast adjustments and then on the technology side, inserting technology where appropriate, but not for technology sake. We're having a lot more discussions on the digital divide. And what can we do about that. That's a that's actually become front and center during this crisis, and we're looking for partners to help us with that situation so that we don't have communities that can't get access to the internet. We don't have communities disadvantaged by that. So I think a lot more focus on innovation, a lot more focus on investing in high impact, low cost solutions, and then really making government respond much faster than we have in the past. Great. Thank you, Bill. I think that's a very inspired vision and I love the love a lot of the tentacles and sort of aspects of what you guys are doing and what you're thinking about. Sounds like a real shift in culture and a shift in way, the way that the county potentially operates and serves the public. I'm all it would be great to get your perspective on sort of a future vision. What are your thoughts, any ideas you have around this topic. Yeah, I think I think that John was spot on in terms of the next and the short term or near term thinking about how the course of the virus is going to really dictate what the jobs look like what the economic conditions look like I think in terms of policy and policy and other responses. I can, you can think about three, I think distinct phases as it rolls out I think the first is the is relief, and then which is the phaser stage that we're in right now. And then moving into a second phase of stimulus and then that third phase which is probably a longer term phase of recovery so from the relief to stimulus recovery and I think there's so it's so urgent right now around relief that I hope that we can also keep an eye towards what that recovery will look like and try to ensure from the policy perspective that it's a high road recovery. That it's a recovery that is really about the creation of whatever of new jobs that are good jobs well paying jobs that come with the sort of either benefits or guarantees or protections that that will provide people with a path upward. That will be a place or really throughout their lives and be able to support their families and things like that I think when we think about the last crisis that we face though the more than 10 years ago coming out of the financial crisis. We had a recovery from that that didn't that that we know led to wider wealth inequality as a lot of economic gains that came out of that were concentrated towards folks at the top and that wages didn't really increase in any really meaningful in over those last 10 years so although the macro economic situation they look better and the employment numbers look better we didn't really see the benefits of that really being shared throughout the economy. I think it's when we think about usually in policy conversations around jobs and work it seems that for a long time people would often would almost universally go to something around skills and training as sort of the obvious solution to any sort of jobs or work problem I think this current situation is I imagine will really challenge that and to show that you know if we're in a situation right now where we have at least 15% unemployment by official accounts and will likely be much higher than that. And these skills and training programs and sort of certification programs aren't going to be enough to overcome that really huge huge economic obstacle. I think the state of Michigan last week or two weeks ago puts put out an initial recovery plan that that really emphasize certifications as a path forward for people who are using their jobs I think something like that looks really insufficient. I think it's important to think about what tech tech change tech innovation digital innovation can do and what it can do and I think there's a lot of opportunities here but we also some underlying structural problems and the economy in the labor market, we're necessarily created by the lack of technological innovation or digital innovation so digital innovation can be an important part of beginning to move towards a different future but it's really addressing some of these structural underlying structure problems is going to be a major part of that and I think last I'll just say I think at a much higher and much broader level or higher level I think for a long time the conversations had been especially around the future work have been sort of anticipating how work would be changing because of technology, especially because around automation. What sort of what will the jobs of the future look like and what kind of skills or things would people need to be able to do the jobs of the future and essentially what will we need to be doing for work in the future and I think when we approach things now and we see it from a much an equity lens and some of the values or principles that we care about rather than focusing so much on what it is that we anticipate we will have to be doing for work or for our jobs. It's really important I think from the policy side what is it that we want jobs and work to be doing for us. What is the role or the social role that we want work to play for whether it's people in California, or, or beyond if people are working full time job. What, what, what's the social compact around that we've had we had that for decades. We had a recent idea around that we know if we expect work to change to the social compact need to be updated and what we look for jobs and work to perform for citizens. And then how do we chart a vision to reaching that or how do we try to path to reach that vision that we have for jobs in the future. I love this are practical steps and you're outlining and I think trying to create this connection and integration, and you're talking about data to drive prioritization you're talking about different phases of recovery. A big theme on some of the chat questions from participants has actually been about how do you guys as a as a group think about automation because this was a topic before coded but how does this impact the workforce workforce on a very different level, especially with issues around the economy, job growth, etc. So I think this is something maybe we can unpack in the q amp a, but I want to make sure Jean you have some time. You've already sort of teed this up in the last question which is great but kind of your vision what are you thinking about in the next six to 12 months what is the city thinking about and look to get your thoughts on that. Sure. And I love all the ideas that everybody's put forward I resonate with components of each of those. I think there's a piece maybe that hasn't been addressed which is the nature of what is a business is changing. So we do have a social compact. I think that's been a bit shattered over the last couple of decades with businesses and employees and lots of different things that are there. But, but this idea of what kind of businesses will survive the next couple of years is is a little bit uncertain, right. So, so I used to travel all the time for work and I do not envision doing that a lot in the future, even, even after a vaccine and even after as john points out, the virus drives a lot of the behavior. Fundamentally adjusted to certain things and whether or not that adjustment persists is yet to be determined. So I think we need to look at some of the big industries like tourism and travel and the oil industry. There's just a lot of things that have radical changes that may or may not survive in ways that we recognize in the future. So, so putting that into the context, let's just think differently, maybe I'm going to disagree with one of our panelists here with them all a little bit. So I'm a professor at UCLA, I've been teaching for over 20 years, and I teach in our poor communities in Pico Union and South LA. What I think is that the ability for reskilling with certain caveats and taking this time when people are at home may actually be an opportunity that we can all try to make happen. So if we think about small aspects of digital and data literacy. If we look at small certificate micro certificate I'll go way down. I won't, I won't try to tread on that Michigan territory micro certificates if we look at just the ability. If you're a waitress today, but then you have a little bit of financial literacy and a little bit of digital literacy training. So that you're able to kind of accommodate more online orders and support the restaurants in a different way you may be more hireable as we move forward and who knows exactly how that will all happen. I think there's this opportunity for education and training to play a role. If we address three things one is what industries are going to survive in each community, and be able to rehire large numbers of folks. Number two is how do we deal with people across the digital divide. How do we get people connectivity accessibility and data, digital literacy. And number three is how do we get people to want to do this. And I think that that last piece is the piece that we're still trying to understand. All of the data all the information has affected the people way people behave and change their behavior, and people have made great personal sacrifices huge sacrifices to try to help their community be safer during this outbreak. And I think as we move forward, people are going to need to figure out what their new balances what their new norm is for how they are able to participate in the economy, have a game, have gainful employment and be safe and and we haven't figured all of that out yet. I posted an opportunity in the chat for folks. We are launching a coven computational challenge doesn't get much geekier than that. It's going to be one day and actually opens it up to a global community to help us understand some of these issues and challenges. We're using LA and I'm partnering with those team as a geography to understand, what are the risks for me to go out in public. And how do I understand those risks in a way that's really simple and I don't have to have a ton of literacy and I don't have a ton of technology. And so this challenge will bring ideas together and data and tech and innovation and storytelling to really try to move us forward into that space of how we find our new balance and our new norm. So, so I believe that at the end of this we will be a stronger nation together will be a stronger global group of innovators and entrepreneurs and data geeks who are able to find a way to make the best out of what is really a difficult situation and one which we can come out the other side stronger together. I think that has led me perfectly into our final question before we go to questions. At New America California, we do these forms to the end of something being different some tools some resources some information that's accurate some way for people to act. You've already started us on that with your is a good way for you to engage. I put it in the chat. I'd love to ask each of you briefly because I do really want to get to the questions to tell us just maybe one or two things that you think those listening should know if it's a resource is the tool we're doing it this way check out this link. Is there anything that comes to mind besides the one you just shared Jean that you would like to lift up. Yeah, I mean there's a ton of tools and things out there but I would like to point out that for everybody wherever you live the strongest tool you have is the community of people who care about making where you live a safe place. The businesses the residents the people passing through everybody there wants to come out of the stronger on the other side and reach out to them build a coalition work together. Open up new partnerships and that is the best tool that we're having in Los Angeles for getting through this. Fantastic. Let's see Bill do you have a tool resource thought of how people can make a difference in this in this moment. Yeah, I will focus. I think on our partnerships with the civic tech community and the partners that we have I think that whole relationship is is going to change. I think we need to partner more on the, the innovation side, and less on, you know, very large multi year type projects. So I think our, our relationship with our, our partners is going to change we just launched in our finalizing a homeless tech innovation challenge that I think is going to be a model that we build on and improve on, or we're asking the tech community to come in within four challenge areas and really tell us how they can innovate around those without prescriptive requirements. So I think there's an opportunity to redefine how we partner with our tech community and our tech partners. And I think we need to take advantage of that moving forward and I know there's some, some questions around that in the Q&A. Fantastic. John, do either of you, or both of you have to lose us. I might flag one. And this is in the spirit of we have to really think about redesigning the economies broadly right so it's not just about work not just about tech it's about everything fitting together and at the local and regional level as well not just nationally. And there are steer people to an organization called Engend, the new growth innovation network, NGIN. It's a network of local economic development professionals who are really thinking about equity in a serious way participation in a serious way, and how to think about designing broader systems at the local regional level. So for many people who are on this, this video that might be relevant to you and your work so I'm sure you can find it on a quick Google. I'm on their board. So, so I think they're a very good group. Thank you. Yeah, I would just add just two really quick ones I think last week of the Omadiar network put out a really thoughtful, I think framework for thinking about how we can think about the new economy and work, especially in after in this new context of COVID and address some longstanding issues but then also thinking about what COVID has has has revealed and sharpened. So I would check that out. And then the other group that I think is really at the forefront and had been before COVID continues to be is the National Domestic Workers Alliance has done a lot of incredible work before they had developed a platform for benefits for domestic workers. Over the last couple of years, and where employers who hire domestic workers could pay into a fund that can be used for benefits for domestic workers that has now been repurposed as a way to get emergency assistance directly to domestic workers. It's an occupation that typically falls outside a lot of state or government regulation around work, and is extremely difficult to support through social policy so I think they're, they're incredibly innovative and are one of the most impressive actors out there. That's fantastic. Thank you so much. Thank you all. I want to segue into some questions. I'll jump in with the first one and then I think Niles will ask the second. Also just that I'm all thank you so much for noting I Jen blue she is just phenomenal. So all things she does just huge fan. So the first question I want to ask is kind of related to partnership if you will. The question is, how can the IT industry help governments. What do you need from the private sector. And just to orient anybody who feels like they have a response to this can answer you don't all have to answer if you don't feel like it's relevant for you. I'll address that so the IT industry has stepped up in Los Angeles and in a lot of amazing ways. We have an Angelina fund which provides support to families who are struggling financially, and we've had many tech companies donate cash to that. We've also seen them come up. I also dropped in the chat link to our get connected Los Angeles site for the telecommunications companies which I mentioned before have been really generous and providing at least temporary low cost or no cost services particularly to healthcare professionals educators and students. So I think those things are really meaningful and helpful. And the tech issues I think both john and bill have mentioned the digital divide is is a matter of life and death and the tech companies that can help families and individuals and kids kind of overcome that right now are really doing, you know, amazing work. And I'll just add to that that we need. I'll just take off from my last, my last statement we need a new relationship. We need the tech community to understand what our needs are, and to introduce and partner with us on solving those very very crisis type problems that we have a digital divide homelessness is another one. In terms of the services we provide so we can continue to assess and improve our services quickly, a lot around data, we need a lot of work to help us around utilizing our data analyzing our data. But I think this is an opportunity for us to redefine that relationship and have the tech community innovate around our problems versus us telling them what we need in a typical government RFP so I'm excited about that. All right, there's no other thoughts will jump into a second question. The question stems really we were talking about this a little bit earlier around automation so the automation movement has impacted the workforce well before coven. The participant that sent this question and said this is obviously accelerated that movement, and has emphasis has put an emphasis on the knowledge of work. Their question is pretty pointed you know how do we navigate this disruption. And for folks that are not able to potentially, maybe get the skills as it relates to coding or data scientists, the data science, excuse me. What, how do folks basically navigate what are some suggestions or recommendations for folks that are interested to engage in the workforce and the changes ahead ideas that folks might have from the panel. Maybe I can jump in a little bit there. And I think we need to distinguish a couple of things right first is like this short run. We're going to have 25% unemployment for, you know, weeks if not months. And so there's like that immediate crisis that we need to to address that has very little to do with automation. Anything at all. Right, so there's getting ourselves on solid footing is by far the first priority. Yeah, I think now in the longer run I, you know, I think automation has played some minor role in a couple industries and displacing jobs. And I think that the, there's so much other forces that are in play that have potentially larger impacts, potentially trade as an example, loss of unionization, another example right so a lot of the problems we're seeing are not necessarily driven by automation. Having said that, I think whatever trend there is is likely to to the question is point likely to accelerate. And here I think we need to have essentially early warning systems. So we need to know which industries are likely to be both high touch, or even what occupations with industries are high touch, and highly automatable. Right, so if we understand those combinations, then we'll have a sense of where we need to look first, in order to provide some assistance, either to reskill people before the jobs are lost, or to support people. If and when their their jobs are lost to. And I think that's important to say that's important to support people broadly. So no matter why you lose a job, a lost job is a lost job. And from, you know, a personal perspective, if your job is lost due to trade, or due to automation, or due to something else for you, that's still a really bad outcome. So we need to be supporting people and developing the systems to support people no matter why no matter how and why they lost their job, and to do that in a permanent way. I think that a lot of what the federal government has done unemployment insurance has been really good. It just pains me to think that we'd have to do that again, in an active way right so shouldn't take an act of Congress to provide short term support that should be built into the system. I don't think that that's what we have have right now and so that goes to the longer term change I think we need to see. Great, thank you john. Does anyone else have any input or thoughts on that question. We need automation. I'll just say that our processes are somewhat manual and I believe the automation like I mentioned robotic process automation will really help employees that were were maybe stuck on a job where it's not manual, learn new skills so it's not going to replace the job but it will provide opportunities for employees to learn new skills which is exciting. Very good. Yeah, thanks Bill Jean did you have some thoughts. Yeah, I was just going to say that it was a little ironic john that it doesn't you said it doesn't take an action take an act of Congress to give people help they need but it does. I think that that people like Bill and I have to think differently about what this means for the future of cities to like what is our, our responsibility, I mean traditionally the city in LA doesn't deal a lot with social issues and public health and yet right now we're, you know, all in it together and so our teams are very integrated and working together. I think that that collaborative, maybe a little more boundary less aspect of how people support their communities and how they think of their social responsibilities is changing and you see that with everybody, everybody on the street who's wearing a mask is taking on a social responsibility and doing something that is awkward and inconvenient and sometimes difficult because they care. And I think that that is something that we can build on coming out of this is is how to to take that caring spirit and and figure out how that helps people who are an economic hardship. How do we lift up each other to be able to, you know, make these businesses transform in ways that will engage and reemploy. Well thank you guys for responses to that question. Thank you all. I would love to ask this kind of final question which is a mix between a call to action if you will something that you would like those who are listening to do. And then also, maybe what would you like them to use their platforms for for instance is there's some sort of message, some high level kind of thinking that you would like them to be the ones to be trusted messengers of. Either or it could be both if you are able to share them rather succinctly we would love to hear your call to action and I'm going to start with a mall. Oh, that's a tough question. I think I think the challenge is that there's so many, there's so many efforts to respond to the urgent crisis today that are happening at so many different levels. But especially state and local governments are, are, are already facing huge challenges and I think that will continue for a while so I think it's somewhat inspired by some of the panelists today I think thinking about how people can plug in best to support the efforts they really have to be innovative efforts that are happening at the local levels and at the state level, at least in California I know the governor's created a larger task force to guide the recovery from COVID. And it's a large group of 80, 80 folks that are really tackling a lot of really difficult questions around what what this looks like going ahead and then I think in a lot of ways we don't have a lot of answers but I would say the more we can focus on ensuring again like I said a few minutes about the recovery we do end up with is a high road recovery and I and also the sense that how we come out of this isn't necessarily it's not inevitable right that these are the result of policy choices. Or that through policy we have the ability to shape a lot of this terrain and the way that these forces play out that they're not that whether it's automation or whether it's other economic forces that they're not just sort of things that will just play out how they do they play out within a certain context within a legal and policy context and and through state government and federal government a can lay down a lot of the guardrails or how that plays out and, you know, from the past major economic transitions and industrial transformations have affected different groups different people differently. So I've gained others have faced, especially if we think about deindustrialization even in the last about 30 years ago or so, that a lot of the costs were borne by low skilled workers by black workers or workers the cities, especially in the Midwest and industrial belt. And so the gains are not evenly spread apart and neither are the costs so I think we're facing another transition major economic transition coming ahead so I think, whether it's at the local level or the state level where people can really act to ensure that this that the transformations and recovery looks like a vision of what they wanted to be, except that it's not inevitable that we can play a role in shaping that. Fantastic. Thank you so much. Bill, I'll go to you and share your thoughts, closing thoughts. Well I will just say and I don't want to take too much time, but I will just say that what I believe has this crisis has shown is that we have incredible public servants that are dedicated to serving their communities. And we have folks that are working day in and day out to whether it's putting our homeless population in in hotels project with a project room key, whether it's our first responders, whether it's our public health in our health workers on the front lines. I think what you're seeing is an example of a response by government that's just incredibly inspiring. I think it's brought us closer to the people that we serve. And it's shown how important it is to have a strong government and how important the services that we provide are to the people we serve. So that's a message I really want us all to take away is that we are doing everything we can through this crisis to provide good information, to provide the services we need. And, and in a lot of cases, our frontline workers are putting their themselves at risk to serve those that need to help so very inspiring to see. Thank you very much appreciate that. And then, John, if you will share your putting words in there. Yeah, I mean, I think at the risk of issuing a call to action that everybody's already doing. I think that what I've seen and what I've been encouraged by our degree of partnerships between private sector government social sector and every combination across those those three. You know, I think, you know, maybe a challenge is if you haven't done that, do that. If you work for a tech company reach out to a local nonprofit reach out to the government. If you're in the government reach out to, you know, a tech company or some other private sector organization. And I think if everyone just challenges themselves to do that. I think we'll come out of this with more innovations and better solutions. And I think that I think that's already being done and part of what I'm encouraged by going forward is the number of people who are setting aside prior self interest and coming together different kinds of ways so I hope that can continue. Thank you so very much. And Jean, if you'll just close us off. So, I've hosted another opportunity in the chat. So I would just encourage people to think about joining our coven computational challenge or becoming a data angel here in the city of angels, where people work on data science problems, and we're particularly focused on COVID right now obviously. So those are just two like very tactical things and every government has some kind of a volunteer core that you can make a difference so if you're not in government but you'd like to be part of helping right now there there's an opportunity in your hometown wherever you're at. The other thing is sort of as a call to action is really to hold forward hope. Right. This can be a really daunting time. Things can be really overwhelming. People are losing friends and loved ones. It can seem like we're never going to get past this right. But in this time, we have this opportunity to step into this space that's been made to share to help others be safe to make your community stronger. And each of us has different skills that they're bringing in different challenges and different things that are going on in your own life and, you know, working families are home trying to homeschool their kids while they're, you know, struggling to get employment. But just think about what you can do with your own skills to help your community be safer and stronger. We will get through this together a vaccine is eventually going to get there. It's going to take a while and we all have to be patient and realize that there's hope at the end of it and that that's the reimagined future is one where we may not be doing the same jobs we were doing in November 21. But we're going to be doing meaningful and important and gainful employment in the future. Well, thank you all. I feel like this has been just fantastic in terms of your insights or thinking the way you've inspired us and you've also educated us, I think. Thank you to all of those who are in attendance, your conversation in the chat has been fantastic. And just as a quick piece of follow up, there will be a recording of this session available on the same website where you registered within 24 hours. And then also, there will be a follow up email that kind of pulls together some of the key takeaways and key thoughts that have been shared today. Thank you all so much for being in attendance. Thank you to our panelists for their time and their insights. Be safe, everyone.