 Can start Harry, would you like to get us started sir. Yes, absolutely. Well, let me just say by welcome and thank you for joining the webinar series, connecting states financial economic and digital inclusion initiatives. This afternoon, we will explore the third webinar in our series refurbished laptops with financial and economic inclusion resources. Now just real briefly, my name is Terry Lee and I'm a community fair specialist for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, aka FDIC for the Atlanta region. And since we have you know such a diverse group joining us today let me briefly mention that FDIC is an independent agency created by Congress to maintain stability and public confidence in the nation's financial system. Now, as a independent, or I should say industry regulator, we are not equipped to address all the challenges facing low and moderate income communities alone. However, with the assistance from those of you joining us today are our panelists here. All things are possible. So, let's see we go to slide to Bob. Here, these are the remaining webinars that will guide us through the rest of this month, and into the November and into December, as we highlight and uncover systemic approaches to assist states digital equity planning leaders, connect and collaborate with local, state, and national financial and economic inclusion leaders. So if you, if you joined us from the, from the start of the series, or just now picking up the conversation. Let me just let me just say that, you know, we started off in webinar number one, assembling these diverse agencies and organizations, you know, really simply to say, you know, we see what you're doing, we see the lane that you're in. But it's time to get out of those silos, take a look around, take a look left, take a look right, and just simply recognize that we can work together. And then we followed up with our second webinar, not only, you know, not only taking a look at the organizations and all the tremendous resources that they bring to bear. So we just wanted to take a look and say now these are potential possibilities that you can, that you can work towards when it comes to the financial, economic and digital inclusion efforts, and of course other dimensions. So now that now that we've done both webinars and we're looking at number three. You know, they really did, they really did what they were designed to do, which is bring us together, introduce us, kind of kind of get the conversation started across silos. And so, now I like to say for webinar number three we really get into some tangible pieces of what we've been talking about, and you're going to hear from our presenters, you know, some of the efforts that they've been focused on, how they've been going about operating in that in that sphere, and what you know what it looks like to give us a real sense of, you know, what, what, what are we talking about with these inclusion dimensions. Next slide please Bob. So here's a, so here's a snapshot of the agenda today. And after my opening remarks, my good friend and co-host, Dr. Robert McLaughlin with the National Collaborative for Digital Equity will provide a little bit more background and aim of the webinar series. And also, Robert is his legal name but those that talk to him and have that friendship like to call him Bob, just to keep it pleasant. And also, for we have joining us today for the conversation. I'll tell you what we have a another, another great cast of actors here, Mike Logan, Senior Vice President with Blum, Tom Finn, CEO for Avid Products, Aaron Seagress, Vice President of Community for Octo, Octomus, and Dr. Jerry Hanley, Executive Director for Skills Commons, and playing cleanup for us, we have Bill Mills, President for Florida Prosperity Partnerships. Next slide please. So, oh, I guess we are ready to get the party. Yeah, well, I should I should just say that, you know, with the, with the presenters here to kind of frame their conversation for today, you know, we really asked them to take a look from their vantage point, you know, scalable and and sustainable approaches, and the ecosystem that was created to kind of address the refurbished computers bundled with inclusion resources and also other possibilities that we're going to be taking a look at. And so let me just say that, you know, the views expressed in the presentation here today are the presenters and do not necessarily represent the views of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. And so with that, Bob, I will turn it over to you. Yes, thank you, Terry, very, very much. And I want to a big shout out to you and your colleagues at FDIC for doing so much to make this entire webinar series possible. We're very, very excited about this and this is being done in partnership. As many of you saw no doubt in the invite messages that went out in partnership with the FCC and TIA US Department of Labor a whole a whole cast of characters who are really excited about the opportunity that the federal grant program for digital equity under the infrastructure bill. There is a five years of support through US Department of Commerce's NTIA for states to develop and then implement over the next five years. So we have a lot of equity plans in support of economic opportunity and inclusion, and we're really taking that to heart in, in terms of bringing together not only digital equity leaders at the local state national level but also leaders in financial and economic educational and other dimensions of inclusion, because we regard this grant program as a heaven sent, maybe once in a generation opportunity for us all together to collaborate in each state to bring together inclusion to really make a make an impact on intergenerational poverty. That's really the, that's the, that's the, the, the diabolical plan here is to really bring inclusion leaders together so that state digital equity plan leaders know about others who are involved in different complementary aspects of inclusion so that state plans, which can under the federal infrastructure bill be addressing systemic inclusion not just digital equity, we want to help do all we can together to make that a reality in every state. So that's, that's the plan here with the webinar series this fall. And as, as you mentioned in previous webinars, Terry, we're going to be culminating this whole series of conversations. This spring, we hope in Atlanta on March 1516 and we say we hope because the facility, we've been hoping to hope house, house the National Summit for state systemic inclusion planning teams is we just learned might still be under renovation, but we're committed on March 1516 in next year to bring together national state planning teams to continue this conversation and to share promising practices with each other, so that our respective state plans for systemic inclusion are as impactful and as rich as possible. The last piece of the puzzle, you'll see in this bottom bullet here on this slide inclusion junction. This is a tool set that was kindly developed by Michelle Chandra, who is is not only the leader for software development for Oracle health, but very kindly philanthropically donated his own time to create inclusion junction as a simple tool set by which inclusion leaders can find out about each other and share their own contact information. So this is all part of a capacity building as a national collaborative infrastructure to bring inclusion leaders together. Now with that said, very briefly, what we're looking at as a quick overview why we all together felt that this topic would be really a fruitful for a national webinar around refer to laptops. What we're really thinking about a several key points here. And by the way, we will send out the slideshow, as well as this webinar recording to everybody afterwards, who's registered and will make the links to the slide deck and to the webinar recording available on our websites. Also, so please don't worry that these details maybe whizzing by, you're going to find these slides are richer than we have time to do justice to that's actually by design. We want the slides to be rich and a resource for you afterwards. We also want to allow for as much time for Q&A at the end, at the end of today's webinar. That said, broad brushstrokes, what we regard as really strategically important with refurbishing laptops in the whole national digital inclusion for economic opportunity context is refurbishment is not only an environmentally sound thing to do. It's a very cost effective way as we're going to explore with our fellow panelists here in a moment. It's a very cost effective and environmentally responsible way to leverage recent use computers that are robust enough to do everything you can possibly demand from them. As we've seen in our recent, the partnership we're going to be sharing about today. There are other wonderful refurbished laptop initiatives like PCs for people. Other local and national refurbishment networks are doing some some wonderful work in this space. This particular flavor you're going to hear about today takes advantage of drive imaging. If you're going to use a device clean, you wipe the dry clean and and or put on a new drive is you can point to other inclusion resources on that drive image so we'll be exploring that today. And we think that's a very significant point of in this whole webinar. Another point is that if you're not already aware of multiple sources of funding for these and other refurbished devices. We have the Affordable Commitivity Program, which can provide a subsidy a one time subsidy of up to $100 per device, but also federal apprenticeship funding work force investment. TANF recipients can get subsidies in some states to finance devices Pell grants for those on financial aid can cover these, the cost of new and refurbished devices. There's a variety of funding sources that we're going to be sharing information about after the webinar as well, but how to fund with that said, we're going to we're going to move right to my my esteemed colleague Mike Logan with bloom, and Mike if you would kindly do the honor sir. Thank you Bob I really appreciate it so as Bob mentioned my name is Mike Logan and I'm with bloom technology. We want to go to the next slide we'll spend just a second on that one. This slide was really included for those who aren't going to watch the presentation live and the only get the information through the slide deck. So this is if you don't know who bloom technology is just a very very quick snapshot we're one of the largest technology companies in the country, specializing in just about everything a company would need from a mom and pop to a fortune 500 meeting rooms solutions networking, digital science, really everything that you can imagine around the umbrella of technology. bloom bloom focuses on providing those services but today, we're focused on a very very specific side of what we do, and that's the itad or the buyback the recycling and refurbishing of devices. And so I just want to walk you through the process and help you understand exactly what it is that the recipients of the programs, the low income families are going to be receiving as part of this fight against the digital equity. So, you know, we're just going to take a sample device, let's say there's a Windows device eighth gen processor, and to put that in perspective that's about a three to four year old machine which is about when they're removed from service at a corporate America. The device needs to be refreshed that decision has been made and so what happens next. There's really two passes that it can take the first one is unfortunately it can end up in a landfill and this happens more often than you might think. Landfills are absolutely loading up with electronics only 2% of landfills are made up of electronics but they still equate for 70% of our toxic waste. We can keep these devices out of landfills we can keep the heavy metals out of the environment. We're going to be doing ourselves a huge service and I know this is about digital equity, but I think that the importance of recycling devices needs to be brought up in the environmental impact that it has. So maybe that's a Bob maybe that's just a little bonus for people to enjoy as we move into this. So what's the alternative away from a laptop away from a landfill, so the device could be given to bloom technology, and then we're going to evaluate the condition of the device. If the devices is beat up if it's busted up if it's just beyond repair, and it's not something that can be reservable. Then we're going to go ahead and harvest the parts we're going to remove all the metals we're going to recycle it correctly by recycling the plastic we're not going to go into single stream recycling but we're actually going to pick it out and recycle it correctly and keep all that toxic waste out of the landfill. So that's one thing that we're going to do we're also going to be harvesting the parts and that's important because again some of the parts on those machines might still be usable. Then the other side of it is where if the device is in pretty good shape we're going to look at the device and we're going to say this is a research or this is a device that can be recertified. The recertified process is not to just wipe it down with a Clorox wipe and put it in a box and ship it back out. You know, unfortunately there's not a lot of standardization around recertified devices so when you go shopping online if you were to look online at recertified devices there's a huge disparity between the process people go through. This technology is one of the larger recertification companies in the country. We have actually in North America we have three facilities. We have the Dallas Minnesota and the Toronto facilities all doing recertification. And when we look at the recertification process, we do a complete data destruction and that's documented it should be documented for anything that's coming out of a state local government, a school system. If we look at those two corporations that we work with ask for a, you know, some sort of documentation of data destruction. Then I always like to say the devices scrub clean because people say, What do you mean by scrub clean do you mean digitally or physically and the answer is yes. So we do scrub it clean we we do disinfect the device physically, but then we completely scrub it of any user information that that could still be left over if there's digital information that's in the device. If there's cosmetic damage we we can fix it we basically touch it up with touch up paint just as you might expect. If there's a cracked panel then we'll go ahead and fix that replace it as needed will always replace the hard drive. There's really two consumable pieces in a laptop. It's the hard drive in the battery so both of those consumable pieces are replaced. So they're getting a brand new hard drive they're getting a brand new battery screen hinges have a tendency to get a little bit loose. So if you ever, you know I always like to tell people just think about the last time you opened up a brand new laptop and you open it up and it was a little bit stiff, right it was a little bit hard to open, and you just knew at that moment you had a brand new laptop. And so we want the people that are receiving these to have that same feeling so we do go ahead and tighten up all the little hinges we tighten up the fans vain things loose inside will basically give it a good tune up. Then the device is fully tested for quality control so we're going to run it through all the quality control tests, make sure every aspect every component of that device is working. Then we'll install windows install office and then install some other programs that Bob's graciously put together that are going to be really beneficial for people who are receiving these machines, and then the device is reintroduced into the market for additional Now, the important thing about this is, I went ahead, Bob, you know, based on our conversation earlier in the week I decided to check and see what kind of, what kind of machines are they are being, you know, repurposed. So the ones that were just recently sent out were $1,100 machines four years ago. So four years ago companies were buying these giving them to sales people today. And the executive in a fairly large organization I can tell you I could take one of those machines and easily get through a week of work and certainly longer. There are machines that you would expect to be fully serviceable and corporate America and that's what they are so these are not the, you know, with perhaps the danger of sounding crass. They're not the cheap black Friday machines that you see for $200 at Walmart. They're very, very good their corporate grade executive grade machines that are being recertified and being given to the low income families. So that's really a blooms part in this. And, and then what we end up doing is we bundle them with the set of headphones and I'm going to get the pleasure of introducing my good friend Mr Tom Fen from avid products, he's the CEO. I've known him for a few years and I think that the opener Tom that I'm going to give you is, you know, we have to make lemonade out of lemons and, and earlier in this call we struggled to get our videos working. You know, so the cameras just wouldn't quite come on the way we wanted them to so Bob said I you know what we'll just go with audio it'll be fine. And he's 100% right. If we go with audio it is fine but without audio this call was a bust. We would cancel we would have had to reschedule. There's no chance we could have actually had the call. So when you're watching any type of a presentation and you're listening to the presentation, consider the value of the video versus the audio. And that's really what Tom Finn and his company provides is a really high quality audio experience for these for the recipients in the program so Tom, without further ado I'll turn it over to you. Thanks Mike. Thank you. You know my mom always said I had a perfect face for radio. I guess today is proof of that. Well it's an honor to be here with all of you today particularly Bob and Terry, Mike Sarah Jerry and Bill, you know, I'm Tom Finn CEO and employee co owner of avid products based in Middletown Rhode Island and we are a 2526 person employee owned company that provide audio solutions for learners of all kinds wherever they might be on their learning journey. But before getting into avid and the headsets which I think are particularly important, you know when we were with the group the other afternoon, preparing for this conversation, what struck us collectively and what I'd ask all of you participants to think about is this is more than computers and a bundle. But what's a bundle it's inclusion resources you'll hear from Sarah and Jerry and Bill subsequently is really a platform for access and inclusion and connectedness, which is so fundamentally important to all folks and lacking for so many I think something like 5 million US households with children lack consistent access to connected devices. One in five kids ages three to 18 live in those houses that don't have access so really this is about access inclusion and connectedness the program we're sharing with you today sure includes some hardware devices, but those inclusion resources are that make it you know the complete deal. It's a scalable tangible and impactful program as Mike referenced and Bob did as well it's a sustainable and responsible model from an eco friendly is more broadly than just providing the access but really making contributions to the communities that are so critically vital to all of us. And it's enabled by purpose driven committed and capable thought leaders like my colleagues here with us and all of you who invested the time today to listen. So why headsets. Well, headsets and the computers are really vehicles to provide that access and connectedness headsets in particular we learn this we've thought about it for a long time a coven really demonstrated it at their core they deliver sound through speakers and capture sound through microphones. But the headset also eliminates ambient distractions which then lead to greater attention focus and engagement and efficacy, enable the participant to hear well and clearly but also to be heard. And there's a double entendre there, right to be heard through the microphone but also to have voice and related to that is a sense of self and agency, not being in a distracted household or classroom with all sorts of stuff going on but that's the person in that moment. Hearing and sound are particularly important when we think about social emotional learning or language literacy, or English as a second language. And then there's something really magical it happens through sound and a little graphic you see here. It's just a reminder to me and I hopefully a sharing with all of you that when sound hits the brain some amazing things happen. You can see on a computer screen. But what happens when we actually hear something the brain reacts to it, you know whether it's emotional processing high level valuation of abstract stimulus, high level sequencing templates of stuff we've seen before heard before that get remembered in the moment, reward related predictive stuff so you know I'd invite you all to visit us we've got some links down at the bottom of the chart to hear more about not just the company but the power of audio, the power of connectedness through sound. So thank you for the opportunity Bob and Terry and colleagues, pleasure to be part of this really an honor to be contributing our small part to it. And I'll do what Mike did for me. My honor to introduce Sarah that got me into this. Sarah is an amazing connector of interesting people and sometimes people like me that have the pleasure of connecting with interesting people Sarah thank you for this and for all that you do for all of us. Thanks so much Tom, and great to hear from everybody here. It was interesting when we did a prep call and it felt felt like a little bit of a strange family reunion of sorts I've known work with Bob for many years and I've gotten to know Terry and others to that so Sarah Seagrest here with octosmos which is my consultancy but I'm a specialist in emerging technology specifically for education. And I want to talk about for Bella today for Bella is a virtual world platform that I've also been working with for the last two and a half years. I know you've heard of the metaverse in the news and don't let that scare you, but but this is an element of what is being talked about, however what's not being talked about in the media as much is how these virtual worlds in this technology can produce amazing good things and and has been doing for a while. Rebella has been around for 10 years, and has been working with global companies for that time. And the most interesting things about Rebella and access to the Rebella open campus which is a virtual world will be provided on these laptops for LMI students and families to be able to access for building community. And that is one amazing thing about these worlds is their ability to facilitate a feeling of presence and community. So even though you're being represented by an avatar and it looks very game like and it is built on a gaming engine called unity, but we're bringing that gaming technology to a professional purpose. And so there are hundreds, sometimes thousands of people that work together every day and in Rebella worlds. And I welcome any of you to come visit for Bella open campus anytime it's a free world that you can access. And it really has a unique power in bringing a quality of voice and representation. So by having choice or how you represent yourself in the world. Having choice now you can communicate with others from audio, like Tom was talking about the importance of audio and spatial audios you have that sense of realism and you feel embodied in that avatar because you have that that control and and it feels like you're really present with others there, but you can also communicate with nonverbal gestures like a wave or a clap, and you can also use text based communication. And that choice of communication tends to bring those who might not typically have a voice or feel like they have a voice up up to a level where where they feel confident in being able to talk or communicate with others. So the specific application that we will be using for Bella for with this program is to help support financial literacy education and mentorship and and bringing people together. So I want to point out on this slide before we move to the next one of the different purposes that Rebella is being used for today. This is from recruiting for employment onboarding learning and developments user engagement and building a persistent online community meetings and mentoring and events and job bears and that is being done by the likes of PwC Stanford business has ongoing classes in Rebella world so does MIT, Arizona State University is used for Bella, the World Bank, you can see Johnson and Johnson Deloitte, they're doing this today and so we can provide a lot of evidence data around the advocacy of communicating and connecting in a virtual world, which is something you can't get in zoom. And in some ways you can't get in person for some of the reasons mentioned. So next slide please Bob. There is studies out there this one is from PwC but there are many others that four times faster to train individuals than in in person classroom or an e learning. And a lot of that is about that choice of representation, the equality of voice Rebella was designed by an organizational psychologist and so it comes at it from that perspective, not a tech perspective. Technology is meant to support the human beings, and it comes at it from that angle and that design, which makes it very different from a lot of the other technology that you'll see out there today. The confidence to apply the learn skills that that are learned in worlds like for Bella can be astronomically more. And it really does help to support the underserved in particular. I'm working with a group called ITCAN represents persons with disabilities, whether it's visual impairment or physical impairment or hearing impairment to get into technology fields, and the benefits for them for a virtual world are immense. It really levels the playing field. So last slide please. I'm going to keep an eye on my time. One more slide for me there Bob thank you. Last but not least, and there's so much more to go into I would be happy to have conversation with anyone interested about all of the nuances behind this, but an enterprise grade security is a big differentiator for Rebella, as is the ability to support hundreds of people in a world, all at once. But, but because of the path Rebella has taken, we can pass the security requirements of these global organizations and governmental organizations, which no one else really can so this is sort of behind the curtain to talk to compliance info sec. We don't store anything other than an email and a name. And that that is a big differentiator as well we're not marketing to our users. Data security SSO and our enterprise ready for these large organizations so that's a big difference as well. And with that, I would love to kind of tee up Dr Jerry Hanley with skills Commons, who's amazing learning materials will have in this world in this classroom to help facilitate the connections with the cohort we're talking about here and Sarah if I could Jerry if I could just steal a second just to help folks. I should have explained more fully I think just very briefly at the start that when we're describing these resources and we talk about about them as being bundled as you know Sarah with refurbished laptops. What we're doing is taking advantage of wiping drives clean putting on a new putting in a new drive and sawing windows 11 on it. That allows us to also put office, the full boat of office on there. We also point to the rebel of open campus the free campus and other resources. And, and so, for example, we're we also point to 211, which is a national agreement between the United Way and the FCC. The United Way the ability to staff in every state if you call 211, you get pointed to a help desk that staff 24 7365 by folks who sit in front of a database of human service providers across that state that can provide free supports for low and moderate income folks. And one of the this this and bundling with the financial literacy resources that Sarah you mentioned verbela, and now as we pivot to, to Jerry's exciting work with skills comments. What we're doing is taking advantage, rethinking what refurbished laptops can make possible by by transforming a refurbished device also into a into an inclusion resource delivery mechanism. So with that, would you please take it away sir. Great thank you so much Bob and, and again I'll just say it's truly an honor to be here with Terry Bob you Mike Tom, Sarah and Bill. I think the theme is all around empowerment. When you look about what Mike is providing a mechanism with that refurbished laptop to bring the world to the fingertips of your LMI student and family. And when Tom is giving voice to that empowerment process of the learning process and what Sarah has described as an amazing environment that can really enable people to engage in many new ways that they don't can't do in their physical environment. And what we have to help to contribute to this is a set of learning resources to help people find career pathways for sustainable family income so so next, next slide. So, over the after over the last many years, I've done a number of projects with US Department of Labor, and one of the US Department of Labor projects is called career one stop. So looking at how do you enable people to explore the possible careers and what the income might be, and is it a growth opportunity and, and what's required for me to get into this profession, and where can I get training. Well the Department of Labor has supported this website career one stop that provides some amazing resources and I'm going to highlight some of these next so Bob next slide. Here's the career one stop.org. Here's what the website looks like and you can see I can find training explore careers search for jobs get some help in my local communities and next slide. And one of the things that that you can find is really explore careers and here's an example of, if I want to look into plumbing, and I can say, is this job likely to improve over time. The US Department of Labor uses data to say yep, this looks like it's got an average growth, and what would be the median income. It's like $60,000 a year so might say boy this can be a really sustainable income for myself and my family. Perhaps the type of education might I need in this area. So career one stop allows you to virtually explore all this information based on excellent data from the US Department of Labor. So imagine going through, you know, Sarah's virtual environment, going to your local virtual library and say, What would it be like to be a plumber or next slide. So I wanted to go into construction. And this one is this boy the future looks very bright, and the average salary 30 medium salary 38,000. And, you know what, I got a high school degree, I can make it to right. So, in the next slide, or they might say I may want to go into healthcare areas, and there's surgical technologists. Right. And again, this is another one that's average growth, you have salaries of 48,000. And here I, you know what I'm going to need an associate's degree so I'm going to have to look at career and technical education community colleges that that I may want to pursue there. And finally, one more here. And since the banking industry and the banks and the Community Reinvestment Act is such a powerful initiative to enable things, looking at people getting into the banking industry. And here's a case where you say boy the outlook looks bright. The income is looking at medium income of $77,000. But here I'm going to have to pursue a bachelor's degree. And one of the things that's important about career one stop. And this is a little bit set up for Bill that the next person from Florida is, you can say, Where am I, and what are the projected employment that I have in my state. So we have in Florida, there's a 23% change in increase in the demand for accountants and auditors. So with that, imagine going in and allowing people to explore all types of careers, and have them make choices. And we are empowered with the resources that you're providing with the network that that you're providing the financial literacy skills that they can acquire to have that sustainable family income. Next slide. One of the other things. So you have career one stop. Now, the US Department of Labor also invested $1.9 billion over an eight year period for every state in the nation to look at how can they really reinvent and innovate in workforce training materials. And one of the key requirements of that of those materials developed by 256 different projects across the nation in the areas of healthcare manufacturing it energy facilities agriculture culture all these areas was they were free and openly licensed I mean that you can download and customize these resources for your own local training program. And so these are all available in the library so you can think alright so well we can have a little skills commons library over in the your virtual world that you can create, and then, and explore these training resources and if you go to the next slide. And so this is the, the simple website, you got a search bar there you pop in in your topic that you want, and then it'll generate those resources. And so again, in verbella, going to this virtually with your refurbished laptop, listening to stories and you engaging with people, all can be brought together for your own for free, no charge, just got that internet connection. Now, one of the important elements in enabling people to really become immersed in understanding the skills and knowledge that they need to be successful in the job is our apprenticeship programs. And again, this is another big priority for the US Department of Labor, and it also can be a way that people can explore those careers in the real world, once they have the skills and knowledge and. And so apprenticeship programs become so important. Then how do you design really effective apprenticeship programs and skills commons, working with all these programs across the nation have organized materials about you think about tool kits for how to design successful apprenticeship programs. And so next slide. And so in this slide. Originally, there's some animation in here, and you can play with it when you can download it. It says here's how you use and what you need to do with an apprenticeship programs. And if I want to find one in healthcare or it or manufacturing or finance. We have specific programs around those that give you more detail, and we can even provide you the instructional materials for for the different programs, all these freely available. Within skills commons and skills commons.org. Now the next slide is around the critical role that bank employees, particularly with the Community Reinvestment Act, reaching out to bring their expertise in financial literacy, and become educators. And again, this slide had a little animation behind that says, you know, just because you have the content expertise doesn't always make you an excellent instructor. And so what we've done in skills commons is actually created little tutorials online that could be self directed self paced, or we can work with you to create customized ones that help you understand how to really take the technical expertise that you might have in banking in financial literacy in pursuing educational pathways that you have that expertise, and how do you effectively teach it and it could be in a classroom, or could could be on a job site. There are different methodologies and so we give you these little pointers to help you jumpstart your effective instruction and that's going to be an important element of our strategy here to support your local community who have the passion and the expertise to support the local community that you're serving. And with that, just an outstanding example of how in Florida, they are doing just that. I'm going to pass it over to Bill Mills. Thanks so much Jerry so yeah Bill Mills with FPP coalition. So, FPP is a nonprofit coalition of financial capability practitioners we got a lot of folks that are doing financial education financial social work counseling coaching that type of thing and our mission really is to elevate financial capability for all and I want to remember that specific term financial capability but before I get deep into that I just want to look at a couple of things that we have on our website. Just to tell who we are and the type of work we do. There are different roles there, but on the right is the platforms for prosperity. And basically what we do is we try to partner with any organization really that has that platform for helping people to become more financially capable. You can be there that you know it's where they live learn work banks start businesses get healthy receive social services worship are entertained whatever it might be. You can always think that there are a couple of things that are common in all of these platforms. One of course is money. There's always money involved in pretty much everything in life right. Another one is technology and it's not something that we always think about I know that when my kids were looking at where they're what they're going to do for college and not knowing exactly what they were going to do I'm sorry, looking for where they were going to go for college school and not thinking of what where they were going to do and we have a couple of different programs here in central Florida why live where they were looking at there's technology based magnet schools there's also some schools for finance and such and my thought was, you know you can't go wrong with either one because they touch every part of our lives. And so, when we look at what is financial capability Bob can go ahead and advance to the next slide for me. We have a particular financial capability to continue on that we look at that our partners help people to move from financial crisis to stability on to security, hopefully on to well being in prosperity. You see that those areas go both ways because well yes, you can go both ways and on that continuum, but specifically I keep mentioning the term financial capability. And the reason I mentioned that term specifically is because yes financial education is great, but you also have to be willing to put that knowledge into practice. And then you also have to have that means to do so, hence financial capability it's not just the knowledge but it's also that willingness and the knowledge. So, sorry, the willingness and the means with this project that we're working on. We're giving them all the resources here for the knowledge where it's kind of on them for that willingness, but we're also giving them the means to do so and that's why this really is financial capability. It's putting the in in the hands of individuals that opportunity to advance themselves through all those different platforms that I just spoke about. It's helping them to advance themselves in education it's helping them to advance themselves in work whatever it might be by going with this type of a refer the refer refurbished laptops, but we're also giving them that extra step as well to help them make they can do that and that's by go ahead and go to the next slide for me Bob that's by giving them all the different tools on this refurbished technology. And of course I can't go without going doing a little bit of a plug for spawn dulex which we plan on putting on this, these platforms. So, dulex is FPP's financial edutainment broadcast platform it's the only one of its kind. We currently broadcast 24 seven financial education done in an entertaining way. And so this will be available on all of these laptops, coming forward thanks Bob for putting that up there spawn dulex.org. Coming soon this next year we're actually going to have audio podcasts on there, and we're going to have some blogs as well for people to look at, but we already have 30 content providers. We're providing edutainment, like I said 24 seven so can go without promoting that so just remember financial capability. It's not just the knowledge. It is also that willingness and the means to do so. Bob I'll send it back to you. It's fabulous bill thank you so much let me just add a couple of things before we pivot and open up for Q&A there's some really good questions and comments in the in the chat. Want to share with everybody and get the panelists to kindly respond to, but one of the things that that bill you were very understated about and very modest about bill in in leading the Florida prosperity partnership is a rockstar in the national community called bank on bank on is the national initiative that we point to with these refurbished laptops as well. There are 16 statewide bank on coalitions, and there are about 90 local ones as well. And in Florida bill leads the Florida the bank on Florida as well as seven I'm losing count I think it may be up to eight or close to eight local local coalitions and one of the things we gratefully do with the drive image thanks to all our partners on this call is we have the drive image point to the national map where folks can who get these free computers that are financed through these offices will get into that in the Q&A in a moment, but it points to the bank on coalitions that are in their state or in their community or as close to them as possible. What bank on offers are free checking accounts or very low cost with no bounce check fees, and many of them also offer financial literacy education for free. So we're doing thanks to Sarah and her friends that that she's worked with for years at Verbella with our with our free use of that wonderful virtual campus, working with Jerry Handley's from industry from industry expert to expert instructor course in skills commons in Verbella, we're in the process this fall of working with interested banks who line up volunteers to go provide free financial literacy coaching which is one of the most common things that the nation's banks and credit unions routinely do. What we want to do is help them with their pedagogy. In other words, what do you do. If you are an expert you're a bank branch manager and you go into a room full of a velociraptors aka carnivores aka high school kids, or a college students and you need to learn about some things to know how to be very engaging with the content that you're brilliant at. What we're doing with bank on is piloting this fall, leveraging the nation's hundreds of thousands of hours of free financial literacy coaching that banks and credit unions and upping the game on pedagogy to all this and making we're pointing through these refurbished devices to those resources but knowing also you don't need our flavor of refurbished laptop to do that. But this is just a way to to help folks find out about these resources and build what you all do with with bank on it in Florida is really exemplary. That said, oh good Jerry you put a link to that course from industry expert to excellent instructors in the chat so there's that but let's let's go back if we could, before we get to inclusion junction, make sure we take time for folks questions. So Shelby Hinkle post a question, and this, I think Mike you could really help with this a lot. Could you send devices and once donate devices to be refurbished from across the US to bloom, or do you have to be in one of those three states or communities, where you have your processing plants, Mike could you share about that. Sure that's a great question. The answer is anywhere you can be anywhere in North America to donate devices and we can arrange the shipping of the devices and we can work with you on how to package them up and everything else so we have multiple locations that do the refurbishing but it's important we have four large headquarters offices but we have a presence in all 50 states and Canada. So anywhere in North America, we're happy to help you and I put my email on the slide. I can type it again here in the chat just reach out to me, and then based on your location I'll put you in touch with the right people that can help you, you know, take that donation. I think it build on that Mike really quickly on that question that excellent question Shelby, one of the, one of the, the aspirations we have as in partnership with the FDIC FCC and NTIA of commerce and other partners in this whole webinar and summit series is we're hoping to have every state digital equity planning leader with this kind of information about how you can, how they can help promote not only our but other refurbished laptop programs were really again wanting to, wanting to leverage the federal, the $25 billion for the nation states over the next five years for digital equity planning development implementation to really make this information much more easily available, and to bake this into every state plan. So we're going to be taking your questions and condensing them. We've been invited by Angela the Bennett, the program officer with NTIA, who oversees digital equity, put together a guide with our partners for the nation state digital equity planners. The questions are going to be excellent ones that we're going to be trying to address as best we know how in this guide for state digital equity planners so we definitely want to make sure we follow up on these questions, then Lisa in the chat. I think it again is a good question Mike for you and I think for others as well. And I'd like to share a quick thought about this too. Lisa asked what is the best way to get a refurbished computer for someone. And, and, and again how can we donate computers which you just touched on. Lisa also kindly comments that this is wonderful that these refurbished devices are a few reused instead of going into landfills. Amen, that's definitely part of our plan. One of the things I will share is that this right now, we're hoping but we're not there yet. We are hoping to equip the 211 help desk in every state in the union, which is staffed by and finance by United USA. We're hoping to provide them with information so that when somebody calls up or or goes on online, www.211.org, and says I need to I need a refurbished laptop, I'm low income, and there's a simple vetting process for them. We're hoping to get, we're not quite there yet. What we're hoping to do and you'll see a slide earlier in the slideshow when we send it all out to you. There is a, an aspirational vision that we have for creating a statewide ecosystem, a sustainable ecosystem to get folks not only to donate resources for refurbishment, but also get funders, state and federal agencies for low and moderate income individuals of all ages, like US Department of Labor apprenticeship dollars, Pell Grant funding, CRA from banks, there are a variety of funding sources. And we need to mobilize because we're all not there yet and as I'm sure most people on this call already know the affordable connectivity program is helpful. It does a one time subsidy of $100 per device, but that doesn't go far enough. And Mike, would you like to add something to that sir. Actually, I was going to address the other question that came up is so two things if you want to obtain a device you can certainly reach out to me. And I'll put you in touch with the right person but the other thing was really a great question is around, you know, the fact that they still need digital literacy skills and affordable community based computer maintenance and repair. I have to just give you a big shout out here because in the early stages of this program Bob was insistent that we offer at least a 12 month and we came to an 18 month warranty repair. For so it's a full maintenance repair, everything that you need on the laptop so these aren't just being shipped out with a 30 day warranty. That's a really good point. David and you know appreciate you bringing up and it's a it's a good point that these do have 18 month warranties on them. Thank you, Mike and and let me add to this brings them on another comment in the chat, a question about how to how can we point users to tech support. Well, this is where the National Digital Inclusion Alliance and their brilliant work on growing a national network with many, many hundreds of partners. I'm sure many who are on this call right now. There is there's an initiative known as digital navigator, which is a capacity building effort to train folks to provide that kind of support and pointing to tech support and how do you get a free laptop that sort of thing. There are many many state and local programs that provide free tech support training. We want to go as home in Boston is really quite famous for this. They're, they're one of the things we want to do. We're not there yet to be transparent about it, but we certainly aspire to being able to provide information with help from from We wanted to equip the nation's 211 help desks that again are staff 24 7365 and have on call translators and TDD and TDI for those with visual and hearing impairments. So 211 is an extraordinary infrastructure. We want to provide the 211 help desk with information on digital navigators, as well as when we can get the funding streams to provide a supply in advance, free of refurbished laptops as well. So these are pieces of the puzzle and we just want to be honest about we're not it's all not yet in place, but we believe that the federal digital equity planning program can help us do that together. Let's scroll down here to the next comment. Let's see here. So David says, yes, as as you alluded to like David Rosen commented about how how important is that we help make sure that those who receive these refurbished devices and any free device with the digital literacy skill that they need and local sources of support for maintenance and repair to make sure that we have an AM on that. And yes, they should be. And David, your question raises a good question for all of us, I think on this call together panelists and participants alike. To assist and expect our state digital equity planning leaders to address your question stated to make sure that every state plan does have provisions. It's going to be $1 billion over the next four years to implement state plans. There's certainly room for capacity to make sure that every state does indeed make digital literacy skill development and community based maintenance repair part of that strategy. Now let's see. Let's see Shelby you say. Is it available to be purchased. And Mike, would you like to comment about that. Sure, they are available to be purchased now to be clear the, you know, we've worked with some really good partners on our end people like Microsoft have really stepped up. If you're looking at purchasing this for a low income family or low income individual, we can offer them at that same price to, you know, to everybody, if they are for individuals though they're not eligible for those programs so just to be super clear they have to be going into a program that supports low income individuals. And to and related to that Mike there's a question from Denise Camarillo Cruz, which says to add to Shelby's question there are many people in my community who also need refurbished devices can we buy them directly on the site. Yes, you can just contact me we can put you in touch with the right people. We have a website setup because there are some stipulations but based on what you're saying I'm sure it's going to be, it's going to qualify for the program so we can put you in touch with the right person that can just take the information and go ahead and get you know everything that you need in order to place the order. And there was another comment about there are other resources for research, recertified devices and, you know, I won't I won't certainly hide behind that that that we're the only company out there, but I would say that the program recertification very a great deal. And it's important to really understand the process and to trust the process of the people that are doing the recertification. You know, when when you look at one of our devices it's difficult to really tell it it's not a brand new machine. And that was something that Bob was really insistent on early on. And you know they are replacing the hard drive we are replacing the battery putting a lot into these machines outside of just taking them, wiping the hard drive and putting them back into the field so you know there are companies that do a good job we're certainly I believe one of them, but I would say when it comes to recertified devices you want to be real careful who you're who you're purchasing from. So, and you know the other side of is, you know the scalability so the thing that was important to Bob was the fact that bloom is as large as we are, and you know we can. And I think though the very first time Bob said, Mike how many, how many devices could you get if we need them and I said I think we have about 300,000 stock now Bob how many do you need. And he said 12. So, so, you know, it's the supply and demand won't be a problem is as we need more will continue to purchase more and more. And just to just add on this Tom, to what Mike described. So, you know, the device. When you boot it up it's got all the inclusive resources that Bob and the other panelists have shared, and I assume more to come over time. So I don't think you get a certain recertified computer anyplace else with all that pre booted. We're really excited about this and this isn't you know, this is so you all should one takeaway is drive imaging ought to become one of the phrases you become fluent with drive imaging allows what Tom does share. It allows you to put links on these devices if you're going to put a new operating system on like when it was 11, why not take advantage of that to point to inclusion resources at no extra cost it's a it's a it's a really, it's kind of an old brainer thing. Now we've got in the in the one question in the in the chat from Christie Bean is the webinar being recorded yes and you will get a link to the recording. Absolutely. And Maribel Martinez hello this is alumni weekend to see you on this. Yes, Bloom can provide was refurbished laptops to needy people now. Absolutely. We're doing this with state agencies. This is at scale. We're looking to, we're looking to scale with other bank on coalitions around the country, like like bills wonderful whole infrastructure there. And then, okay, so we've got let's see, just making sure maintenance and repairs and issue for stages, but yes. Yes, we are David Rosen comments that he's glad that we're all planning to advocate to state digital equity planning leaders that they need to allow for they need to provision and their plans for maintenance and repair absolutely we want this to be. It's going to be really impactful and good Mike has just put his put his content in there and I think we are. I think a few folks have had to have had to jump because we, we've extended beyond our time, really want to thank our panelists and and all of you. Any final comments for to stir up more good trouble before we close Bob Terry again here real quick just wanted to say, with all the great questions and people staying on even over time. I know we struck a nerve. The webinar series is going great. And I just want to thank all our panelists. Thank you for your insight and taking the time to share all the possibilities that are that are available right now. And so now's the time to act. And thank you. Thank you and Terry deepest thanks for your making this whole, this whole conversation possible. Just amazing. Thank you all so much. We'll stop the recording there.