 So I'm going to jump right into the questions and I will just pose this question and folks can just jump in. So lack of access to the internet has many ramifications. Some of your clients are affected by the digital divide. Can you share how they're affected and what your organizations are doing to address the need for technology access and training? Sure. So many of the programs that we provide are supporting individuals to grow either in their careers or in their education. We have a lab on site. We also have laptops and can go out into the community, but where we see that large divide to sort of piggyback on what was being discussed earlier, the majority, a good portion, maybe not the majority, probably 40% of the individuals we serve are low income and don't have internet in the home. And so that gap of how do I complete my homework, how am I able to access my healthcare records from home, a lot of things that would be made much easier for the individuals that we support. There's just a really big gap there in addition to the fact that most of our folks don't have the financial means to own a computer. So we do a lot of training around how to best use a smartphone because most of the individuals that we support do have a smartphone, but I'm sure that everyone can imagine that's a pretty significant barrier if you're trying to do homework. Most of that you can't complete on a cell phone. So we are looking for more flexible ways to loan equipment. We have been very fortunate to be funded by some of the folks that were up here earlier, both AT&T and Comcast around hardware and creating lending libraries. So that is something that we're currently piloting. Kind of close that gap. Thank you. I think just a piggyback on that also for seniors who live in single room occupancy hotels. There are many apartment buildings that have shared toilet and shared kitchen facilities that do not actually have access to Comcast or AT&T wiring for fiber or connectivity. So folks, even if they wanted to purchase internet access, are not able to do so. So in order to bridge that divide, we have a computer lab. We have classes throughout the city through our senior nutrition centers that we partner with the senior county to provide. It's part of the San Francisco Connected program. Also, we know that families have children that do not have access to computers to do their homework. So we've partnered with Comcast to do the digital connectors program for youth to provide digital literacy, community engagement, volunteering, giving back. Also for leadership development so that they can become leaders in their communities using technology as a tool. And also, kids help families. So once they're connected, they will be able to help their seniors, their parents to access vital critical social services and different benefits and resources on financial literacy, sufficiency, et cetera, that could really help families get the information that they need to better themselves and their lives. So some of the programs that we have to help people bridge the divide. We do coding labs, free coding labs around the city. What we've run into is for people that are looking to get into learn coding or web design or some introductory web development programs. They don't always have internet access. So we have a lab here at the library, at the Twitter Neighborness College Track in Bayview, and we were working with the Success Center as well to fill more, to provide access to computers and to an online learning platform so that people that don't have the ability to use the online learning platform can have a place where they can come once or twice a week to be able to work with the tutor and work at their own pace to learn whatever skill they want to learn. In our case, most of the community that we serve are Spanish speakers only. And around 80% of the community are very low income families. And that means they earn less than $20,000 per year. So in our case, well, for very low income people, inadequate or non-access to technology can impede them of learning tech skills, but also apply for jobs, apply for affordable housing, buy cheaper products, learn language, or getting a certification, or even connecting with their families. I think all this could delay their economical professional and personal success. And at the Women's Building, we have technology access. We have also a computer lab. We teach them how to use any device or the computer one-on-one. We provide a one-on-one tech assistance, and we have these classes every day during the week. We also connected this program with the job search program because this is also another need. Right now, I think 80% of the companies that require online applications only and many of the clients that we serve don't have the skills to do that, to use a computer or any device to apply for a job. So we are helping them into this area. So this question is somewhat similar but a little bit different. As technology evolves, it becomes more integral part of how we work, communicate, educate, and entertain ourselves. So what is the biggest pain point for us? What is the biggest pain point that this technology evolution has created on your organization and its ability to meet your mission? So from your organizational standpoint and how you're trying to execute, which is a variety of missions, what's the biggest pain point? And I'll start with Kristen. I mean, I think the first part of it is the benefit. We have a lot of individuals that because of how systems had worked previously, maybe they weren't able to connect. And so the ease of connection is wonderful now. Along with that, I think we have the same challenges that most parents probably have. Understanding your public face, what you're putting out there on the internet. We have clients that have been victims of identity theft. We have clients that have ended up in situations where their safety was really at risk because of their access to the internet and not necessarily understanding or having the judgment to know who they're interacting with, which I think is more of like a societal issue, probably not just specific to our client base. I think one of the other big pain points for us is kind of understanding how to use computers and use the internet for good, how you're using that to apply for jobs, how you're using it for school, and for it to not just be an entertainment device, because I think that we see a lot of that. But my biggest concern and I would say the thing that we're constantly chasing is safety and identity protection. Others? Yeah, I would say that one of the biggest pain points that we have is there are so many people that want to get into tech, that want to learn basic technical skills and just having enough resources to serve them and having places to send them that's going to get them what they need. So I think that's probably one of the biggest challenges that we face. Winnie? Yeah, Ashley. We also operate a career center in Chinatown. It's the Chinatown Neighborhood Access Point and one of the pain points is helping limited English proficient job seekers finding work and being able to navigate the third party application systems that often companies now have developed. So in an information age of making applications more accessible, it has also somewhat removed the person quality to job search. So hiring managers are now relying on third party application platforms to vet all these applicants and unfortunately removing the face to face opportunity to meet with them. And if you don't know the exact way to navigate that database to get through, you're not going to get that interview. So part of the challenges of being a career advisor at our center is helping folks navigate those platforms that are sometimes backfiring on companies that are trying to recruit right now when we have about 2.8% unemployment rate. So they're desperate. So sometimes technology helps, but sometimes it might not. That's a good point. Yeah, the women's building is more or less like the similar because many of the clients that we serve are women over 40 and they used to apply to jobs like in person. So these like the digital divide, it's really affecting them. I think the consequences and the impact that the digital divide has now is a lot more than it was 10 years ago. And also the identity thefts and scams when you start using a new account or a job application or anything new, you have a lot of questions. You open all the emails or everything you receive and do whatever they say because you really want the job. So protection, safety, identity theft and scams are very, yeah. And I think having a trusted network of community-based organizations or volunteers organization uses, we have about 80 volunteers on any given month that are out in the community. Those volunteers are relied upon for their expertise and also, hey, I got this email. Do you think I should give them my password? That's a huge opportunity for the volunteer to save that person from disclosing that information. So for anybody interested in volunteering out there, you could come talk to any one of us. So to make this real in people's minds, I think it helps to share stories of real people. So I'd love to start with Tanya to tell us some stories from your clients whose lives have been impacted in a positive way because of their access. Yeah, I think technology has, like, different areas of where it can impact. I'm going to talk about Donna Gladys. We ask them if we can share their stories. So here it is. One of many great examples of the positive impact that women's building and the community research room has on our community is Donna Gladys. Donna Gladys is a retired woman in her sixties living in San Francisco with her retired and sick husband. She is his primary caregiver. They lead very modest lives with just enough money from Social Security to cover their basic housing and living expenses. She is from a professional generation in El Salvador that did not rely nor require technology knowledge. By the time she and her husband emigrated to the U.S., the jobs they undertook also did not require technology skills. As a result, they found themselves in San Francisco thousands of miles from their children and grandchildren isolated by both physical distance and a technology divide. At the time, Donna Gladys began coming to the women's building. She had a smartphone but not internet access. She and her husband had a computer and a tablet at home gets from their children but no home internet access. Donna Gladys had a desire to reconnect with her family using technology. She began attending group technology classes and seminars at the women's building and eventually also took one-on-one classes with some of our volunteers. Through this process, Donna Gladys learned how to use email, Facebook and other social media to connect with family in El Salvador and with friends in both North America and Central America. She even shared her knowledge with her husband and they purchased home internet access so as to use their other devices at home. At one point, Donna Gladys' smartphone broke and she found herself without her primary means of communication. Unable to afford the new smartphone, she joined the women's building computer lab. A volunteer suggested she entered the smartphone program at the women's building. Through participation in that program, Donna Gladys learned of the immense power of their handheld devices. She could for free stay in constant contact with her family and friends throughout the world. She and her husband could even watch their grandchildren perform at residals using live video chat applications at real life changes and transformative experience. Thank you for that. And I know that the rest of you weren't necessarily prepared to share a story but if one comes to mind that you'd like to share, that's not necessarily as detailed. I'd love to hear it. Sure. I think that one of my favorite things about technology and the different devices that are available right now is that it really allows you to work around literacy. We have a lot of individuals that we support that read at somewhere around a first grade level, maybe lower. And as we focus on workforce development, that can be a really large barrier and we have an individual who has been able to use his iPhone to do all of his communication internally at his job. And he's actually making very good money now working at the Audi dealership near our offices. And so he's been able to, there are some really nice site reading programs on the iPhone that will highlight as you go. So it will help you with visual tracking. He can dictate all of his e-mails and have them read to him. And this was an individual that I think without that bridge really would have probably, he had been bagging groceries and I think that's probably where he would have stopped and now he's making $500 an hour and has a really competitive job. So being able to just provide that bridge is really powerful for our folks. Yeah, I can share something as well. So one of the main things that we do is we provide, we work with the city to get fully funded scholarships for individuals that are unemployed or underemployed to get technical training, career counseling and job placement support. And a lot of people don't know about the Tech of Staff scholarship so when they hear about it like, oh, I've been, you know, I was a computer programmer and I got laid off and now I'm driving Lyft so I'm working in a coffee shop and I don't have money to get more training. It's just great to see that connection with like, oh, there's actually scholarship money available for me to get that service and to get help getting a job and career counseling. So because to get, if you've been unemployed for six to eight months, you know, your skills can get rusty and your programs come out, you don't know how to use them, so that it's great to see that the city does provide avenues for fully funded training so that people can get back to work even if they've been, you know, out of work for several years. A quick story to share. So with the development of many apps like WeChat and WhatsApp, a lot of seniors are able to communicate with their families overseas without paying a lot of money on long distance phone calls. In the past, there were a lot of telephone long distance telephone calling card scams. The seniors fell prey too because, you know, they would pay for this and then they would use it and then, you know, the minutes would be up like one minute later, you know, you've used up all your minutes and so this new technology not only allows them to connect with family and friends overseas, but also with each other to support each other. If one, you know, learns about a new opportunity, and have it handy, they can also share freely the knowledge that they have. So each one teach one. We have had a volunteer who retired and helped to really teach our senior digital literacy classes for many, many years, I think 15 years, and he was a graduate of the class and he wanted to give back. And that's, you know, many of the stories of seniors who like to give back to the community after they retire and so we were very proud of that. And also digital connectors have a final project at the end of the year and some of them take on projects about smoking cessation, about eating healthily. So that they produce content that is not just for entertainment, but really infotainment to share with their family and friends in bilingual messages that help motivate them to be healthy and to connect with their communities. So, we will be opening up for questions in about 10 or 15 minutes or 10 minutes or so. The next question I have has to do with envisioning what our world would be like if everyone's connected. And how would that affect your community? How would it affect your programming? Is that something that you would like to dream a little bit about and how that would make a difference in a positive or potentially negative way for your community members? I think that there are a lot of things, I feel like we have a lot of individuals who are very isolated and to be able to form those connections without physically having to travel throughout the city, travel throughout the world. I think that's really powerful, especially for a population that's been sidelined for most of our history. I also think that technology continues to evolve and we see access technology really being built into most of the products that we're buying, so you're not necessarily having to buy special software for special people. I think that that's breaking down a lot of walls for workforce development. So I see a lot of positivity in the world being more connected and the individuals that we support being more included. I think my fear continues to be around this is a population that's very much at risk and now they're very accessible to people that may want to steal their identity or do them harm. So I think continuing to couple that with education and really understanding some of the risks that are out there and to your point and for many of our clients and honestly even a lot of our staff came to us not needing a lot of technological skills and many of our great ideas are based around technology and so we are playing a lot of catch up to just get our staff kind of up to the point where we could be paperless or our clients could be tracking their own goals or travel training could be done in a much more tech enabled way but we're seeing that divide not just with the individuals we support but the staff that we employ. Good point. I think technology is great in connecting everybody it's the global village it's wonderful there's always a double-edged sword I think with technology is that it grows really fast and we have to keep up and we're also evolving so my question is you know once things are available and technology develops very quickly have we implemented safety nets in place to make sure that people are not left behind and that they are able to connect and learn the tools and be able to use them in a way that is safe, that is accessible and that is affordable that people can actually access. Yeah I would think I would say as well that one of the main things that I would hope to see in the future is more access to training to stay up to speed on what's coming out especially like people that are in the 30's or 40's or 50's when you hit a certain age and you want to switch careers or you feel like my resume would look a lot better if I had this skill but it cost 24,000 dollars for me to be able to get this skill I don't have that time money so to be able to have a way for people to get the training that they need at an affordable price or free even better would be fantastic. Yeah I would say that education is I think the primary thing that I'm thinking about my concern will be on the other side that if everyone would have the technology skills and internet access then what else is going to be like I have a big question mark because technology is just like changing every day so once I teach them how to use let's say I don't know what's up there's a law on the other side right so there's a lot of like applications but also other like programs that they will need eventually but yeah Yeah and that touches on staff training and staff capacity and a lot of folks say oh you must be really tech savvy organization your name says so and I'm like well that's kind of funny because we're all using down laptops or our own personal laptops and it's a challenge being a non-profit in general because of our budgets being tight and whatnot but also we want to hire from the community we want to provide opportunities and sometimes the folks we're hiring don't necessarily have the skills of a 22 year old so I recognize as we bring new people on staff regardless of their age that we're asking them to learn about 10 new technology tools within a week and making the assumptions that they'll know the difference between Dropbox and Google Docs and not to be tech elitist but part of me is like well don't you but it's a real problem especially if we want to provide more opportunities for older workers that they're going to be working regardless if it's an office if they're working in other types of service opportunities they might be handed up an iPad and asked to track things on an iPad and they may have never touched one before but this idea of the digital divide and digital inclusion has lots of facets to it one that we haven't dove into yet which is equipment the providers talked a bit about equipment we can't spend a lot of time here but I know some of you are providing equipment in some way so let's have that be our last question before we open up for Q&A and I'm going to hand it off to Tanya because I know that you guys had been giving out some phones yeah so in the community research room at the women's building we have a technology program and within this program we have a smartphone program in which we give cell phones for free to anyone who needs it because we know there's a need to have a device like this in your hands to do many many things so we have two different situations one if you need it but don't know how to use it we have a app program in which we teach you how to use it and how to use it for your benefits which applications you might need to download how to use them, how to navigate it and everything and then on the other side then there's the fact that you did have a phone before but maybe you lost it or something happened to it so in that case we can also give you a device without coming to all these like technological classes because you already have knowledge so many, this is a very popular program because many of the community that we serve which are mainly Spanish speakers Latinos, women over 40 and minorities don't have a computer at home or internet access at home because it's cheaper to have a phone than a data plan or a Wi-Fi connection than a computer or a laptop so in that case we have helped a lot of our clients and we are doing it right now with these devices and teach them how to use them other device donations I think and you touched on it, I think one of the hardest things is that we are training individuals we place a lot in tech in our workforce development programs and the reality of our budget versus the employer's budget I, you know we all kind of struggle with this guilt around our technology not being up to date as much as their employer's technology is going to be so are we we're preparing them as well as we can I think that can be a really big struggle for the individuals we support that struggle to generalize information so if they've learned how to use a Microsoft product that's four years old and they're now at a new company and that looks completely different it can often feel like you're starting maybe at square two instead of square one and I also think just being able to keep up is difficult, you know we get like a bunch of iPads donated or whatever it is and then two years later they're kind of out of date by the time we've really gotten our staff up and running and all of those things that need to happen make the budget impact and access is really a struggle and I'd like to share information about one of our projects we just launched called tech allies it's in partnership with another nonprofit called little brothers friends of the elderly where we're going to be giving 75 iPads to iPads to 75 elders and connecting them to the internet in their homes with trainers in their homes so we'll be doing that over the next year and a half and hopefully and we're working with UCSF to do a full evaluation and hopefully we'll have a nice paper written up about how absolutely successful this program is at reducing isolation and improving the quality of life because if that happens then money will just be pouring in to make this happen so with that I'm going to start our Q&A we have a gentleman up here who has a question and they'll bring a microphone for you I'm Peter Warfield I'm head of library users association touched on some of the issues in certain respects that I have but basically number one I'm disappointed first of all that the big boys seem to have left but much of what's on the internet is basically a tremendously exploitative economy some people call it well it basically Facebook Google and so on these people basically are making money from the surveillance of the public whether the public knows it or not and often in ways the public doesn't know they're exploiting all the information they can get for their own profit and that breaks people's privacy it also involves censorship it involves the filtering of information and of news the control of information that people get and the distortion of reality there's talk about how Facebook folks put their best foot forward and it depresses the other users who don't have quite as glamorous an image so I think those are some very serious problems certainly within a library the privacy and it's connection with interfering with intellectual freedom if people have to worry or know that they're being surveilled there are other issues involved as well for example radio frequency radiation issue and that's still a potential health problem I think there's a paradox which I think some of the comments just now touched on which is you become a kind of victim of an arms race a continuing getting sucked into the whole industry so that this year you figured out how to apply for a job using this technology next year you have to get other technology other learning and so on used to be a person went to the went to the office or could go mailed to them so I'm concerned about maintaining the old systems which actually were economical and universal telephones mail system walking in for a job and finally there's yeah there's the paradox of the more technology is a mandate the more people get left behind both the ones that aren't involved at all I'm glad to see some nods and the ones that are involved who are scrambling constantly there as an Alice in Wonderland running to stand still and all of this is at the particular profit of those folks who are running the technologies and the Facebook and the Googles so what do you have to say about all that and how are you folks dealing with it including perhaps pushing for some regulation that's quite the question so we're going to parse that apart I'm going to start with the Facebook the privacy and surveillance question because that's come up a few times about us being concerned about peoples at least I'm disclosing information that could result in some harm so does anyone want to talk about what they're doing for privacy yeah I mean I think on the Facebook side both the privacy and sort of living in a post-truth world for I think you have to be a pretty savvy consumer and even the savviest of consumers are getting information and they're not really sure where it's coming from and it looks like news so that's terrifying I do think as far as the surveillance and peoples information being used you know simple things like pop-ups and all the things that are kind of coming at you as you are navigating the internet especially in internet search and in social media I think that those are traps that are perfect for the individuals that we support it's really that clickbait is really easy to fall into so we do a lot of training around that we also do a lot of training around you know which probably all teenagers need to like whatever's going on the internet there's no way for that to ever come back so whether it's Snapchat which is fun but I think the idea that it's only up for a certain amount of time and then it goes away takes away some of your accountability so we've been doing a lot of training around that but yeah it's a really big it's a really big question we are not currently doing any specific advocacy or policy work around the privacy piece but we have been partnering with those organizations many of them that are our employers to better set up our clients for success when using their products there's also the national digital inclusion alliance so to touch on the policy question that's a national organization and they're doing more work on policy that's what they're around to do to wrestle up more money and to help change the way our government supports our work and the challenge is they're taking things putting everything online and taking away the offline options and they're doing that because it makes more sense financially so what I would love to see is that for the money that they're saving a portion of that savings goes back into community education because we are hearing so many people who are being completely left out of being able to do certain things because you can only do it on the internet and the library is absolutely essential in helping provide access but there's not always somebody here who can answer your question and help you with that file or what have you any other comments for the fates privacy or policy or maintaining old systems I think it's just important for when we teach whether our seniors or youth to really be a strong vigilant monitor of your own media consumption and use and use you know like any tool use it safely understand what you're getting yourself into and that for job seekers everything including Facebook LinkedIn all those social media accounts you know can be viewed by your colleagues your employers etc and to just be aware of your media consumption time how much time are you spending doing what you're doing versus face to face interactions because sometimes those technologies can really usurp a lot of our time without us being aware and one other thing to just kind of throw in there on the workforce development side so efficiencies are being created for the employer but that lands on the cost of organizations like ours so we have employment specialists that will sit with you so that you can complete your online application we have a large program with Amazon they're one of our biggest employers but when our clients are applying that is a pretty time intensive sort of personality survey that they need to do and not only for individuals with disabilities but if you're in English as a second language learner some of these questions that I'm sure the intention is not for them to be a trick but they are sort of these critical thinking questions that can have some hidden meaning would trip up a lot of individuals and when we're in an economy where the unemployment rate is so low and especially hiring for part time positions, high turnover positions you need to know the people that are applying for these jobs so we do a lot of internal advocacy with the Google, Facebook, Amazon folks on you know these are positions that you need to have filled you keep turning over you're losing money by doing this it's costing you a lot by having to continually fill these positions and if you were able to more directly connect with the CBO or if you could have some of those opportunities even if it's a job fair where people can have more of that face to face because I think that sometimes technology outpaces us and not to our benefit thank you same Claire so she's got the microphone great job Cam you first of all for moderating this panel sharing some insights of your own for any or all of the panelists I'm curious to hear what is one thing that people in the community who have tech skills and want to use those tech skills for social good either for you as individuals or your organizations what one thing might we be able to do to help you do all the great work that you are doing and take that to the next level excellent question thank you it says if I asked him to ask that question and before we answer that on Thursday here's a little pitch for the event that's happening at 5pm here at the library volunteer opportunities for techies so please put that on your calendars so I will pass it and then I'll think of what my answer is one thing one thing I think donate your for us donating your time and talent and resources to teach the people we support how to do the work or to help us do that resumes those sorts of things so that we make sure that they're as competitive as possible in applying to the companies that you work for Winnie sharing resources whether that's time, money whatever you're able to give it's good because that helps to build capacity internally for individuals as well as staff working with individuals to help them stay connected to learn skills for themselves yeah I would agree with both those points and I would say if there's a non-profit or a social cause that you're passionate about find a job at that place or see if they're hiring someone that you can bring your high level of skill to a small non-profit it's invaluable I would say become a volunteer we have many of the programs that we have in the community research room are run by volunteers so either the job search program the technology program and all the programs that you see in the community research room are mainly run by volunteers so volunteer part of your time would be very very gratefully appreciated by many clients in our case because you will transfer that information to them and many people need this one on one attention for one hour and this is something that we do in the community research room we help them we teach them and we assist them on anything they want to one-on-one any day during the week and lastly would be to advocate on behalf of those who don't have access there's so many people who aren't connecting at home or they're barely connecting on their phones and they don't really know how to use it and the majority of our city are techies that are making these tools that are being forced upon us and I think there's a general lack of understanding that there's still this digital divide or that the digital divide is not a problem because everybody has a phone so if you could share with folks that this is an issue that there's more and more people who need connectivity at home a device and skills because the internet it's not going away more and more we need to use it for everything and we need to help people get connected so yeah the more advocacy we can do the more people we can inspire to give their time, talent and treasure then I think that we'll have a shorter amount of time to close the divide although I think the divide will always be a little bit ahead of us as we've said technologies keeps changing so other questions yeah first of all I wanted to thank you all for doing what you do it's incredible work and my question was about this real huge inequity that we have in the city and what Kami was just talking about which is that it's sort of hidden you know there seems to be a certain group that understand what these numbers are just at a basic access level you know I can't get on not even getting yet to the training or helping folks in that way so I'm wondering what your organizations are thinking about doing or have done in the past to advocate at a city level to just give voice to so many people who you know just might really be able to contribute and connect and not be so isolated in many of our marginalized populations so I'm just curious to hear you know what you're thinking about raising those voices up and if you've been able to do any of that work thank you Catherine I can jump in so at the women's building we are one of the one of our board members is part of public voice consultancy which is doing trials of the government sites and the community that we have at the building is helping them it's giving them feedback on all these public services and their sites to see if they can understand them and navigate them because many of our clients are Spanish speakers only they also incorporated this Spanish staff member and with our help we are helping them like filling the survey getting like to apply and then to the point in which they consultant and share their experience the last one that we have was with public transportation yeah we talk with the city quite a bit the Office of Economic and Workforce Development because they basically they're the ones in charge of the Tech SF Scholarship and one of the main things that we see being kind of on the front lines is a lot of people that are switching careers because they can't afford to live in the city anymore so they're like I have to start working in tech or I have to have my tech skills in order to just stay in the city so but there aren't a lot of affordable training opportunities for people that are trying to switch careers especially if they've been laid off you know they don't have the money to go back to school so that's a big part of what the Tech SF Scholarship program is trying to do now just a month two months ago it used to be four training providers and now it's eight so like Code Tenderloin is new to it CCSF Meta a bunch of other ones so there is now more availability for adult learners to get no cost training a huge problem I do orientations every week for this Tech SF Scholarship and I would say 60% of the people that come have no tech training they just know that they need to get it in order to survive so I think providing access to adult education that's affordable is super important and I would add that there's a few groups I'm a part of the Tech Council which has been around for a couple of years I think there's a few members here that's a group that's focused on adults with disabilities and older adults and to advocate for more funding and programming to help those populations get the training and connectivity that they need so that's the Tech Council and then Community Technology Network on Wednesday will have our Digital Leaders Award so this is year number two for this event which is a pretty big deal folks on the stage will be getting awards or their organizations will be getting awards so the Women's Building in Bayback but we'll in total be giving eight awards out and the hope of this event other than wanting to party at Twitter for a few hours and have a nice view and eat some good food is to really highlight the great work that's happening in the community so that folks A, know that this is an issue that we're addressing B, that these groups are doing really great work and C, inspire them themselves potentially or become volunteers and I hope because we are giving one city agency an award and one person who works for a city agency an award that the city will really see oh these are all these great things that are happening so we're all working hard to educate our co-workers, our community members and the government but there's always more to do I think there's just a lot of noise out there that we're fighting against so we welcome other ideas as well and I want to recognize Katherine's organization MetaFund for supporting Tech Allies which is the program I shared about bringing iPads into the homes of elders other questions one last question and I think we'll have to wrap it up Hi Kami, thank you for mentioning the National Digital Inclusion Alliance my name is Mary Beth Henry and I actually traveled to San Francisco this week to talk with some of you who are running innovative programs here and we do a lot of advocacy at the national level and as you know that's very challenging right now with what's going on at the Federal Communications Commission I just want to encourage you to advocate at the local level because really the action is at the community level right now that's where we're actually making a difference so thank you for your work if anybody has any questions about the National Digital Inclusion Alliance please see me we're a relatively new organization but the whole idea is to bring incredible work that you're doing highlighted nationally and then replicate and remix programs and successes that you're achieving across the country and other communities who are not yet this evolved in terms of digital inclusion so thank you and I look forward to the rest of the activities this week thank you Mary Beth so like the previous panel maybe we can go around in just one last statement to wrap up our panel sure I would encourage those of you who are working in the private sector to partner with us and to share your time and resources so that we are able to be more competitive and to continue to keep an eye out for this gap because I think as it's been said before a lot of it is happening under the radar in a city like San Francisco and right now it feels like it is ever growing so we appreciate your partnership and advocacy well thank you for being here first of all and spending your time to share with us your thoughts and to have a dialogue about digital inclusion is very important I would piggyback and say share your time, your energy, your resources with non-profits, local based community, based organizations that you could connect with to help in whatever capacity you are able to and if you are a creator of content or a creator of technology also think of the users who might have limited English capacity limited capabilities and be able to navigate that technology successfully so that people of all abilities would be able to use that technology successfully and to make opportunities for technologies that are for social good and connecting those very talented people in the tech industry to solve some social sector questions and issues I I would say that there are a lot of no cost resources out there and a lot of times people just don't know about them and I think that's some of the fact that it's non-profits and also the city we don't have the resources to do giant ad campaigns that say free coding lab or this is a fully funded scholarship or you can get this free training over here so there are a lot of ways to plug in no matter where you're at skill wise it just takes some digging because a lot of the organizations that do it don't have the resources to let everybody know so if you're interested in learning there usually is a place where you can plug in I would say that technology should be accessible for everyone and we should all be connected in order to achieve many of the goals that technology has so if you're interested in passing some information just teach the person that is next to you today at night or tomorrow one skill that you learn during the week and if one of us pass one knowledge one skill to other person and we replicate this we'll make something we'll do a difference great with that I'd like to wrap up and thank all of our panelists