September 12, 2017 Meeting – Seattle Community Technology Advisory Board
Topics covered included: Seattle IT Chief Privacy Officer Ginger Armbruster discussed the Surveillance ordinance; Settle Schools Chief Information Officer and CTAB member John Krull discussed major technology initiatives for the schools; David Doyle reported on the privacy risk assessment and the All Civic Hack to Take on Challenges of Aging event; Charlotte Lunday gave an update on CTAB comments and cases submitted to FCC for Restoring Internet Freedom; Cable and Broadband Committee reported on the WAVE franchise agreement approval, David Keyes provided an update on the Digital Equity Initiative, evaluation design, and upcoming events.
This meeting was held: September 12, 2017; 6:00-8:00 p.m., Seattle Municipal Tower, 700 Fifth Avenue, Suite 2750
Podcasts available at: http://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/CTTAB/podcast/cttab.xml
Attending:
Board Members: Jose Vasquez, Heather Lewis, Karia Wong by phone, Chris Alejano by phone, John Krull, Mark DeLoura, Torgie Madison, Steven Maheshwary
Public: Dorene Cornwell, Harte Daniels, Lloyd Douglas, Charlotte Lunday, Adam Owen (Century Link), Steve Cathersal, Shankar Narayan (ACLU), Yes Segura, Vicky Wei, Smriti Sastry
Staff: Ginger Armbruster, David Doyle, David Keyes, Cass Magnuski
22 In Attendance
Jose Vasquez: Welcome, everybody to the September CTAB board meeting. We have a really full agenda today, so I apologize if I cut people off in order to keep moving, but I’ll make my best effort to make sure everybody is heard. First of all, we’ll start with introductions.
Introductions
Jose Vasquez: Do we have a motion to accept the agenda?
Mark DeLoura: I so move.
Torgie Madison: Second.
Jose Vasquez: All in favor? Opposed? Abstentions? Motion passes. Some of us are running a little bit late. I believe Chris Alejano and Karia Wong are trying to connect via Skype, so we’re still waiting on them. Do we have a motion to approve the minutes from June and July?
Mark DeLoura: I so move.
John Krull: Second.
Jose Vasquez: All in favor? Opposed? Abstentions? Great. Motion approved. Now, we’ll get started with Ginger Armbruster.
INTRODUCTION AND SURVEILLANCE ORDINANCE UPDATE
Ginger Armbruster: It used to be Gary, which was much easier. Hi, everybody. I just have a quick update on a new ordinance that has gone into place this week in Seattle. We are standing up a working group to look at the new surveillance ordinance requirements for community engagement. I’m here tonight to talk to you a little about it. Have most of you been involved intimately –Shankar from the ACLU has–have most of you or any of you have any familiarity with the Surveillance Ordinance? Let me tell you just briefly what it’s all about. As of September 1, a new ordinance has gone into place for all technologies that Seattle acquires that are used for surveillance. This ordinance has a number of requirements around it. That includes reviewing all of these technologies against some criteria and definitions. There are some exclusions, largely around police cameras, lapel type cameras, cameras for security–certain things that we recognize are probably not reviewed this way. They have a different process. But some of the technologies that we use on an ongoing basis already or new technologies introduced to the City will be reviewed against criteria that take a look at civil liberties to make sure they are not disparately impacted by the use of these technologies, that there is awareness in the community. And that’s what I want to talk to you about. Community meetings that allowed folks to understand what’s coming into their neighborhood, perhaps, provide an opportunity to know what’s going on.
We reached out to a variety to internal groups in City departments that work with communities: Department of Neighborhoods, civil rights groups, refugees. the Mayor’s office. And we’re talking in small working group environments about who would want to reach out to the community and help us understand how to communicate to the communities.
There are two parts to what we’re trying to do. First is, when we have a new technology or are reviewing ones that already exist, how do we best engage with community and let them know about it? We may have upward of 100 different technologies that we’re going to be reviewing over the next few years. How do we do that? How do we engage people meaningfully? How do we do that with different cultures, languages, understandings of technology? How do we do that best, reach out to organizations and people with what we do here or through other outside community interactions and engagements? Best practices, basically. We have 28 different departments with varying understanding of how to do this kind of thing. We don’t want to do it wrong. So, what’s the best way to do it? The second important part of this is actually required by the board, which is to provide to the City Council by December 15, advice around how to include the community in policy making. So the next time we stand up a revision to our Surveillance Ordinance or other policy out there, how do we engage community so they have an opportunity to do that in a way that engages the people who may or may not be affected by the technology. So, what I was asking–and we were starting to brainstorm in this working session we had–was who should be involved in this? And when I first reached out to CTAB, because one of the requirements of the ordinance was to include you all–was including you all in a working group, we’d especially love to have you there or we’ll never get anything done if we have 15 or 20 people in the room while trying to write something. But, could we ask you to consider putting this on your next agenda to have a full conversation among yourselves? I’ll send you more details. How would you advise us on doing that. And if there are any people with a technology background that can help us advising that way–some of you have more community interactions around technology: That’s what we’re trying to get at. How to communicate effectively about this. That advice will be put in with all the rest that we’re gathering, and we’ll submit it to City Council for best practices around policy making. So, I’m here to talk about that. Torgie, our representative from CTAB has joined us, and I want to open that up.
Some of the ideas we have are going out to organizations like the ACLU, who does this kind of work on an ongoing basis–going out to organizations that we interact with on an ongoing basis with other kinds of communications. Department of Neighborhoods is one I mentioned. Apparently, they have something like 70 different contracted people they work with who do community engagement with different demographics. Hopefully, they have a lot of expertise doing that. That’s what they do for a living.
So, does that sound like something you’d be interested in? I’m only proposing, but we would sure enjoy and appreciate your perspectives, and we want the larger group to have an opportunity to speak about that. I know you have a packed agenda, so I don’t know what will work for next month. But if you have time to do that, and then, Torgie, if you would be so kind as to bring that back to us and to our working group, that would be really good. So, does that sound like something you might consider? I’ll let you guys think about it and talk about it.
What I can do also is forward you a copy, a link to the ordinance. I can forward you the specific asks that are coming out of this community discussion. Is it best to send it to you, so you guys get a sense of what we’re really looking for. I hope I expressed that okay with no Powerpoint today. I’m kind of Powerpointed out. Does that sound like a graspable thing?
Jose Vasquez: Thank you for that introduction to that process. We’ve been emailing today about this conversation with the Privacy Committee. We’ll figure out how that will work moving forward.
Ginger Armbruster: For updates about how this is going to be run. I’d be happy to take part in that, too. This piece that we’re really grappling with, if I can just get your perspective, is one of the things when I wake up in the morning, I’m thinking how do we do this. We’re going to have a lot of different technologies just for different stuff with different mission purpose. Some of these will be public safety, but some will be traffic, and some — you know when you’re going places where you’re dumping trash or waste, there are cameras watching your behavior. That’s surveillance. There are different ways to think about what these technologies are, and the meaningful ways they can give us their feedback, and discuss this other part like policy making. I hope you will try to capture some of the capillaries, everything from social media, kind of scanning what people want to do for customer service purposes only to actual physical cameras. So that’s what it’s all about. I’ll send out a little more information and you guys can mull that over. I really appreciate any feedback you have.
Jose Vasquez: Thank you. It’s our role at CTAB to provide that advocacy and feedback for City Council. It’s a perfect fit. And also, the Technology Matching Fund grantees that we work with are a perfect opportunity to engage community at large. People that are able to come to these meetings are great, but there are a lot of community out there who are unable to make it to these meetings, or don’t engage.
Ginger Armbruster: Yes. We can’t have everybody in because I can just imagine how overwhelming that would be, but we would love any engagement you have outside of here where you can ask the same questions and come back with best practices. This actually came from Immigration and Refugees. A participant, Joaquin, came back and said, “We have a lot of examples on what doesn’t fly in certain cultures, or language that just doesn’t translate.” Idioms. Don’t do it. Or different ways to help make those discussions and how best can you help City folks who don’t do this for a living. they don’t do technology for a living. They don’t do the engagement part. How can we do that effectively?
Jose Vasquez: Thank you. Learning the details of these conversations and taking them out to the communities that we engage with and bringing that back to the officials. Keep that in your mind as you go out talking with technology sector partners.
Harte Daniels: I can talk to you offline. Some of my experience was innovation for Superstorm Sandy. There were a number of community groups that would not engage. Your heroic first responders, etc. There are other lessons learned that might prove useful or different than just trying to go find a community member who knows six community members. The TMF may have had 16 groups in each year, but that by no means touches the depth that you are after. You have this diversity of services. My suggestion is that under duress some of these other organizations have learned lessons that can cross pollinate.
Ginger Armbruster: Okay. And I would invite Torgie to be out representative here. I’m going to be having these conversations across a lot of groups, so please if there is anything that you have to offer, it would be just fabulous. If you would consider maybe following that in a way, I’d be happy to come back and hear….
Harte Daniels: Who I worked with was inter-agency, so there are people who you have contact with more than Torgie, but I will talk with Torgie as well.
Jose Vasquez: Definitely on the CTAB matter, Torgie will be our point of contact there. Thank you for those comments. Adding to that, especially with this political climate, people might not want to engage with a government agency.
Ginger Armbruster: Let me give you one example. In the ordinance itself, and calling out anybody who is involved in this language, forgive me, but there is direction in this ordinance: The direction is hold a community meeting, gather demographic information about attendees, and contact information for the attendees, and their comments, and what comments were about. I thought to myself, you know, I can see that being very scary in a certain context. Some community members will say, “I don’t think so. I’m here complaining about surveillance and you’re going to write down my name? I don’t think so.” We’ve got to be mindful of what we’re asking. Is that really the right thing to do? Can we maybe suggest better alternative solutions for gathering the right information? These are the kinds of things we need to help everybody with.
Steven Maheshwary: Within the arm of neighborhoods, I know there is a newly formed, community-involvement commission. In case you need any stakeholders, there’s a Get Engaged member that’s on that team, so if you need a connection….
Ginger Armbruster: All of these angles! That’s exactly what I wanted from all of you. That’s great. Lois Maag of the Department of Neighborhoods, she is the chief PIO. You may or may not know her name. She was trying to give some thought to this. Marta Idowu of the Civil Rights also deals with a lot of the commissions. Marta has been with the City for 37 years, so she’s looking at all the commissions she can bring this information to, also. I’ll give you a little FAQ on what we’re asking, and then I’ll give you the information you need to go forward. Thank you all very much.
Jose Vasquez: Now John Krull will give a brief introduction on what the Seattle Public Schools major technology initiatives are.
SEATTLE PUBLIC SCHOOLS’ MAJOR TECHNOLOGY INITIATIVES THAT AFFECT THE COMMUNITY
John Krull: Thanks for inviting me to talk. David Keyes asked me to say a few words about what’s happening at Seattle Public Schools. I’m the chief information officer for schools. That’s a fancy word for head of IT. I’ve been there for about nine months. Everything in IT, except maybe compliance, and some infrastructure, is all based on our district goals. So I thought I’d share a couple of things.
One, we have a district strategy that we passed three years ago, and we just expanded it into another year. This is our district strategy. And this is what we’re doing this year. (Passes around hand-outs.) I have enough of these for everybody. Maybe the glossy ones you can share. And you can fight over who gets to keep them.
David Keyes: John, if you want to send them to me, then I can just add them to the CTAB minutes.
John Krull: What I thought I’d do is go over our district strategy. This white paper that gets into the basics of our district goals. And as I talk about a goal, I’m telling you about the technology projects that are related to that goal.
Our three main goals are education, excellence, and equity. But the key things under there are what we call in the district “EOG.” So that is ending the opportunity gap. In Seattle Public Schools, we have, compared to the whole country–urban school districts–we have the fifth largest gap in achievement between our white students and our historically disadvantaged students, which include African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans. That’s a real problem in the district. and we call that an opportunity gap. The opportunity is the leading indicator; the achievement gap is the final indicator. What we’re trying to solve is the opportunity gap. The other one, the first goal, is MTSS. Of course, in education, we use a lot of initials. We’re trying not to say “EOG” too much, but we say it a lot. MTSS is Multi-Tiered Systems of Support. What that is is just our core instruction plus interventions that meet the needs of every kid. Those are definitely related.
Why don’t I start with MTSS. In MTSS, we have a lot of data projects because in good instruction you want to base that on data. If you know where the kids are, you can design a program, give the instruction, assess the students, see how they’re doing, and then just repeat the cycle. So that’s the cycle of inquiry. With that, we’ve rolled out Tableau. That project has been kind of cool in that we didn’t really have a visual data program across the district. We were using Microsoft SSRS reporting, which was good for reporting, but this is the first time that we’ve got a really good visual display of how our schools are doing. Right now, to start off with, we’re using ways to basically compare schools, and finding out how certain schools are doing in that achievement gap. Where are they? Our default view on that is the white student compared to the disadvantaged student, and how is that school doing. We’ve identified about a dozen schools that were outliers, where they’re actually outdoing their peers in the district and they’re outdoing the state, as far as equalizing that opportunity. We’re really trying to use data to inform our instruction. So we rolled out Tableau. We’re also rolling out a school-based data system which you guys probably never heard of. It’s called Homeroom. It’s by School Data Systems. That’s going to be at the school level. That’s kind of a day to day type program that the teachers use. So, we’ve got one system, Tableau, that’s looking at schools and comparing schools, and then we’re using this other data system called Homeroom, which is school-based. Those are both relatively new.
We’re rolling out a nurse data system, because health care is really important. That was a big plus. We hadn’t been able to have a system for our nurses. So, we’re rolling that out. We put in our Windows 10 upgrade and our laptop roll out in closing the opportunity gap, because we’re trying to make sure that all of our students have the devices that they need, and all of our teachers do. It’s kind of exciting as we’re rolling out laptops to all of our teachers this fall. Believe it or not, that’s the first time that they’re been given a laptop. They’ve been operating off of desktops. We opened seven new schools this fall. And it’s the first time we’ve rolled out our new schools with laptops. Every classroom has 16 laptops, and the teachers will have laptops. And then, we’re trying to expand that rollout, and a lot of things that we do–and I think the City is the same way–is we try to have an equity lens towards all of our rollouts. Our continued rollout of laptops is based on not just equality across the district and doing a formula, it’s looking at the needs at each school. And perhaps the technology can bridge any gaps at that school.
One thing I was going to introduce: Pretty much all that we do with technology at Seattle Public Schools involves the community. Because we are –as a lot of you probably know, we have levies, and over 80 percent of my budget for technology is from a levy. We do BTA levy, which is billings, technology, and academics every three years. And then we do another levy three years after that So every three years, we’re doing a levy cycle.
MTSS: That one, as I talked about a little bit already, is mainly, as far as IT, is getting the data to the school so they can make informed instruction. Improve systems is that middle area: Strategic Goals. Last year and into this year improved systems that morphed into ‘we need money.’ A lot of you may have heard about the McCleary issue where we basically are not funding public schools enough. They’ve made some improvements this fall, but it’s not enough. Part of our improved systems is just getting enough money.
But on the technology side, it’s kind of exciting. We’re an SAP shop. And we are really trying to improve SAP. We’re rolling out Questica, which is a budgeting module, to better track our funding. One of our goals — I’ve enjoyed getting with David Doyle a little bit — one of our goals is being more transparent with our data. So we’re looking, especially with our finances, getting more transparent and making those data available to the public a little bit more readily. We’ve got a student information system call Power School, and that is the basis of our student data. What we do is make that available to parents through an application called The Source. What we’ve tried to do is make The Source the portal for all parent information. In that, you can find out your students’ grades, and you can look into that to make sure that your demographics and your personal information is correct. So that’s like the basis. What we’re rolling out now is pretty exciting. We’re rolling out online payments. This year, we’re going to be rolling it out all across our schools. It’s called School Pay. Folks can pay online fees; they can pay overdue library books; they can pay their lab fees; things like that. So anything parents had to come in before to pay with cash, we now have that online. So, that’s kind of exciting. We rolled out online registration this year. Believe it or not, up until this year, all of our enrollment was done by paper. People had to come down to SODO and enroll that way. We rolled out the ability to do that online. And we’ve also made sure that the online application was available in our top five languages, which was important to our community. And then we also didn’t make it as simple as you have to enroll online. We also included a high touch version, so if you still needed to come in and get some help, we try to get the message out to the community that yes, it’s online, but if you want to come in, we’ll walk you through it. The cool thing about coming in is that we have translators available; we have special education available; we can do those assessments right away. That’s been a big improvement.
The last one is community engagement. Community engagement, just like with the City, is super important in everything that we do. One thing that we’ve had trouble with is having interactive engagement. We’re adding this year a tool that will be — it’s not a survey, but it’s more an online bulletin board. It’s almost like voting up ideas, trying to do something more engaging, so we get input. So, it would be more ideas from the community, and then those ideas can be voted up, voted down. So we’re going to experiment with that this year.
Lots more stuff. The thing I wanted to end with is equity and access are really important in the school district. One thing that we’re doing is trying to partner with the library, because they have pretty good programs right now for checking out WiFi hotspots, having access at the library. So, we’re trying to figure out a partnership where our students might be able to check out a device from the school district, but then either get a WiFi hotpot or of course, go to the library. So we’re working on that. We’re also working on a unified library card. We’re piloting that at some of the schools, where a district library card is also the Seattle Public Library card, just making it easier for the student to move between the two environments, and to encourage them to use the library.
That’s kind of a quick overview I have a whole other slide about things that are on the horizon. We definitely want to partner with the City. We definitely want to partner with City organizations because they understand our community. So, with that, I’ll take any questions or comments from the board or from the community.
Jose Vasquez: Thank you, John. It’s always good just to understand what the school district is working on. One thing I do want to say, the last time we talked about this, you said you have a goal of doing more low income broadband. And that qualifying process for families, how we can integrate also through the library. I know here at the board, we’re strong advocates of low income broadband programs. Especially working with our local broadband providers to make sure that those programs are accessible and how to make it easier for families who really need these services to get access. Actually, how to make it easier.
John Krull: That’s a really good question. Right now our plan is to try to work with the library on that. One thing with the school district, we’ve had pressure to not promote, say Comcast or etc. If we promote Comcast, it seems like we’re promoting a company. What our plan is is to promote the library. The library doesn’t have the restrictions that we have, to talk about low income broadband. That’s our plan right now. I’ve had a couple of meetings with the library so far. We’re thinking that that kind of goes good with these other partnerships that we’re working on.
Torgie Madison: I was curious to know if the online enrollment has been used yet or just made ready for next year?
John Krull: I couldn’t believe my team, which did an awesome job. That was a project last spring that we kicked off and we’ve rolled it out this year.
Torgie Madison: Do you know how many students were able to enroll exclusively online?
John Krull: It was in like the thousands.
Torgie Madison: In percentage points?
John Krull: It was 80 or 90 percent. That’s a good question. I can get back to you on that. But it was quite a bit. We definitely encourage people to do it online.
Steve Cathersall: You must be doing a good job, because I didn’t get any questions on it and I have two kids in school.
John Krull: The online enrollment that we rolled out this year was renewed for new families. And we’re working on data verification for existing families and reenrollment as they move through the system.
Torgie Madison: How did you deliver that message? I’m thinking of the Surveillance Ordinance and disseminating information.
John Krull: Most of it was through the web site. Normally, people would find out how to enroll through the web site, and then this year we encouraged them to try online. And like I said, we tried to offer the traditional way as well if they needed to come down and get some help.
Jose Vasquez: Okay, two more questions.
Mark DeLouria: John, I just have a quick question. Do you have any tact that you are using as a bridge between formal learning and information learning? You talked about working with the library. We have a pretty great museum community and our community here, too. I think about computer science education, which hasn’t permeated as much into formal learning in Seattle Public Schools, where some of the museums and libraries, like the living computer museum. They have programs and it could be interesting as an auxiliary happening, but there would need to be some kind of transmission of credit. So, if somebody were to take a scratch course at the computer museum, it would be great to communicate that back to the school in a reliable and trustworthy way. I’m just curious if you have considered using any of the packages. I’m not sure if Homeroom would support something like that.
John Krull: We have a learning management system called Schoology, which I didn’t mention because they had already rolled it out. That being said, we are working on partnerships with Living Computer Museum. We’re actually holding a board work session. I’d like to invite the community to that. I’m going to have to tell you later, but I think it’s September 26. It’s the last Wednesday of the month. we wanted to push the Living Computer Museum, so I arranged to have the technology work session there with the board. And that’s the session where we’re working with the board. We’ve got about $15 million for technology for classrooms. And we’re just kicking off a discussion with them with some ideas. So, we’re definitely pushing Living Computer Museum. We are piloting learning with 50 of our teachers. We did all the training at Living Computer Museum this summer, and then we’re giving them carts. We’re also working on a partnership with Code.org, which is actually based here in Seattle. I used them in Oakland. We’re trying to get them into our schools.
Shankar Narayan: I have a comment and a question. The comment goes back to the community engagement piece around the Surveillance Ordinance. Just to put out there that one of the things that we were trying to drive in having the community engagement requirement was actually driving the development of competency in community engagement in the City. And particularly in agencies that do work a lot with communities that are now becoming more technologically adept, having necessarily found the best ways to push that out to the community. As this group is thinking about how to do that community engagement, on our side we have about 15 community based orgs that all kind f touch theCity in different ways, that have lots of suggestions as well as to how to engage. I would encourage you all to use that resource. I’ll convey that to Ginger, as well.
The question I have goes back to the Tableau and Homeroom rollouts, and the data collection that is going on. Can you give me a better sense as to what is being collected, individually student identifiable data, aggregate data, and how is it reviewed and shared.
John Krull: Very good question. For a school district, we definitely need individually identifiable data. That’s definitely there for our teachers and administrators. But we’re very careful about privacy. And the release of that information is strictly guarded. We do do aggregated reports. I didn’t mention this, but we have a — and again, it’s on the open data side of things — we just started putting out aggregated data on our web site, where we are again, very careful. Even that database that’s feeding aggregate data with no filter of the individual student data, it just has no individual student data in there at all. So, we’re very careful with that. I have a team that is dedicated to security, and they vet all of our processes. We actually have a data sharing agreement with the City, that, again, we’re really careful with how and where we share data.
Jose Vaquez: Thank you, John. Very informative. Now, we will move to the E-Government Committee. We have David Doyle presenting on some open data and civic apps.
E-GOVERNMENT OPEN DATA AND CIVIC APPLICATIONS
David Doyle: I just have two updates. I don’t need 15 minutes, so I’ll give you back some time. You may remember last February, the Future of Privacy Forum were here to present the privacy risk assessment of the open data program. That project has been going on since then. Some of you may have seen — I think David Keyes has done some outreach over email — and we’ve done some outreach over social media a few weeks ago. But right now, the project is approaching the final stages and it’s open to a 45 day public comment period, which ends on October 2. Later this week, we are going to do another wave of outreach over social media, target emails, and so on. We’ve already gotten a lot of feedback but obviously, we would like more.
Right now, there are a couple of ways to access this, but basically it is hosted on MyMadison (see Link to background & comment) so that you can provide comment there. The entire risk assessment draft is there, but also they have created a new framework [that helps us] assess data sets for privacy before we publish them on our open data platform. In addition to the risk assessment of our program as it exists today, there is also a new framework out there that they developed. And so they want feedback on the framework, essentially. Because, not only will this be applied to us here in Seattle, but it will be applied across all government agencies that want to publish data publically. It’s a long report but I strongly encourage you, especially if you are on the Privacy Committee, or you have interest in this space, to spend some time reviewing and providing feedback, if you have any. As I said, October 2 is the cutoff point for feedback.
And then, after that, I’ll be working with Ginger Armbruster, who was here earlier, on some other stakeholders in the City to think through how do we implement the recommendations coming out of the risk assessment. I’ll actually be speaking at a conference in San Diego on the 17th of October with the FDF folks and some other people on this project. Hopefully, by the end of October, this report will be final and published and shared with governments everywhere. I think this is the first time something like this has been done in the U.S., so we strongly encourage you to take a look at that and provide some feedback, or at least to be familiar with what we’re doing.
Again, John, I think this will be something of interest within the schools, as well. So that’s really what I wanted to say on that. We’ve been talking about this over time, but I just wanted to make sure that you know that we’re now in the latter stages of the comment period.
David Keyes: So, if somebody’s got 15 minutes to a half hour to spend on a particular area….
David Doyle: It’s hard to say, because it’s too big. There’s the actual risk assessment of our program. You know, the program is continually evolving, so we’re constantly working on that. But I would say, for sure, read through the risk assessment of the program, and then feel free to bring that comment and feedback to me here, or to contact us directly. I think it would be interesting for CTAB to start thinking about the program and how it’s structured today, and other things we could be doing differently in the future. Especially, as you know, we’re hopefully going — part of my job — publishing a lot more data in the future. As the data gets rolled out, we want to publish the data in real time. I’ve been getting data from those services driving notifications from our open data platform. We think about the open data program as really creating a platform of data, so this is really critical, to make sure that we mitigate for risk and compliance, security, and privacy. Take some time. Have a look. It’s a great report, but I think there’s still some more.
And then, the second thing is just another reminder. David sent out an email on this, I think last week, on the City for All event that’s coming up from the 22nd through 24th of September, here at the City. I’m not actually driving the project. This is Candace Faber who you might is the Civic Technology advocate for the City. There have been a lot of sign-ups for that event. There’s about $5000 in prize money up for grabs for the best project. You can register at Event Brite. David Keyes is looking for the link. Just check it out. It’s City for All, but with an eye to creating a better environment within the City around those scenarios. If you haven’t had a chance to look through this, take a look. I believe you can still register. If you’ve got interest and skills that you can apply over that weekend, then we would love to have you there. I’m just reinforcing the message here.
David Keyes: If you can’t do the whole weekend, you can come to the Friday kick-off talks or the Sunday when the hack teams report out and showcase.
David Doyle: The Friday night actually has a guest speaker with a very interesting talk. So it’s a big event. I would just encourage everyone to come or show up at some point and take a look or take part.
Harte Daniels: I have two comments, one on each point. David Keyes sent out the link and the email. On your commentary, you said that you also wanted comment on the framework, the framework from the link that David Keyes sent out.
David Doyle: Yes, everything is in ….
Harte Daniels: Okay. Just make sure that you see the framework and comment on it as well. and then the second thing is….
David Doyle: It’s there.
Harte Daniels: Thank you. I just wanted to make sure that you could get to it from — that a second link wasn’t needed.
This comment was made at Seattle Parks, and it was made at the Designs Forum, and others. Are you working with representative people or are you working with the same old people. This is a hack-a-thon. You need to use another format if you want to include them. Hack-a-thons are designed to be anti-disabled people. The way that they’re run. I think that we have a lot of creative people in the room here that we can connect. In the Designs Forum, he was very interested in finding other ways in talking about engaging the community. But hack-a-thons are for white privileged, able bodied, and there are other ways. You could do a competition. You could choose teams. You could give them more time than one weekend, etc. It’s been done by the government. Stop using hack-a-thons if you want equity. I want all people to be included.
Jose Vasquez: Thank you.
Harte Daniels: Sorry to be so strong in my language.
Dorene Cornwell: I love strong language, even if I disagree with it. Dan and I and one other guy showed up at one hack-a-thon. We were kind of team curmudgeon, and they made us honorary accessibility honorable mention because first I showed up and said I’m interested in accessibility, but I can’t be here all weekend, so here is my blog and here is how to contact me. Two teams contacted me and two other teams [unintelligible], and so now, this time, there is a whole new category for how they’re judging about accessibility. I read the page and said, “Oo, this is cool.” The other thing I was interested in — I actually think AARP is privileged white people, and I did notice in the promotional materials that they were collaborating with AARP. Could you say anything more about that?
David Doyle: I cannot, because I’m not the person organizing this. I’m literally the messenger tonight, so I’m taking the arrows, and I’ll give them to the organizers. it’s great feedback from you both….
Harte Daniels: The thing about the hack-a-thons is they are all-nighters. And the woman from AARP said you can’t leave. And there are people that have physical conditions, and that’s why if you want to be inclusive, let’s be imaginative. There are other solutions out there. And if you want to be a leader in the country, then don’t follow what everybody else is doing and be a leader and be inclusive. Think of something innovative. And break the mold.
Jose Vasquez: I think that’s going to be a perfect opportunity for us. I’ve had conversations specifically about how we can engage communities at large related to hack-a-thons or whatever we want to call them. And I would definitely like to refer this conversation to the Digital Inclusion Committee, who can maybe come back with some recommendations for the City to improve their processes. I love this conversation.
Harte Daniels: We’ve said it over and over again, but nobody has picked it up.
Dorene Cornwell: I’m into little increments, so maybe like one thing that would be worth doing. The hack-a-thon is skinny, plastic folding chairs and lots of people milling around. And if you don’t see well, or are in a wheelchair, or don’t move easily. So, maybe I’ll go to Candace and say, “Candace, who is going to be at this event?” But either the Friday or the Sunday when we do that.
Harte Daniels: Do a competition to design an accessible event.
Jose Vasquez: For the matter of time, I do have one minute left. What I would ask of both of you, maybe you could give me a list of some ideas and recommendations? We could definitely elevate that up and collectively do it. That is something we should be doing. Thank you.
Dorene Cornwell: I just made a really nasty reasonable accommodations request at my faith community, because we were screwing up so badly. It’s a soap opera. In fact, we might just need to have a team at the hack-a-thon.
David Doyle: I’ll pass on your feedback. I like your suggestion. We will definitely take it back, not just to Seattle IT, but to City Hall, as well, to those who are involved in the decision making process. but also, Candace recently has given at least a few talks on the layouts for hack-a-thons, and I think she speaks to this publically, as well. If you haven’t checked out those talks, go take a look and she can share those with you. So, you know we’re not in violent disagreement with you at all. So, thank you for your feedback and thank you for your time.
Jose Vasquez: So now we have a quick networking break. We’ll come back at 7:10. There are some snacks here.
BREAK
Jose Vasquez: All right. Welcome back, everybody. Up next, we have an update on the CTAB comments on the piece submitted to the FCC on Restoring Internet Freedom proceedings, including Net Neutrality and Broadband. There is a link to this on the agenda, so if you’re not on the mailing list, and you want to see the whole statement that was approved by CTAB.
UPDATE ON CTAB COMMENTS AND CASES SUBMITTED TO FCC FOR ‘RESTORING INTERNET FREEDOM’
Charlotte Lunday: Last time, we were together, which I believe was in July, we discussed the comment that the group of us on the FCC task force–I think it was made up of people from three committees — so it wasn’t really E-Gov itself but a coalition. We’re good at coalition building.
We talked through the comment. The comment was approved by the group. the major theme was talking bout implementation of the Lifeline program. We changed some language around that and made that section a bit more robust. I also was able to get a former FCC attorney’s feedback on the last little legal thinkings about Lifeline. We tweaked the language to be more accurate. And then we submitted it on July 16. It was due the 17th. We also put in a note in the original comment that said that we would be submitting more stories and impact statements from people around the community. That’s where Dan and Smriti really took charge on the second half of it. Dan was able to get Open Seattle involved, and Smriti made this really great Google forum that we were able to distribute on social media nd through Open Seattle networks to collect different impact statements from people. Dorene Cornwell and Karia Wong also submitted statements of their own. I appreciate the time and effort that went into that, because they were really thoughtful comments. Smriti actually engaged an attendee, she compiled them all in a comment at the end, and then hung on the phone at the last hour that we could submit. Seriously, we got an FCC staffer on the phone to make sure that we were able to submit the impact statements. I don’t know if you all know the original deadline for the reply comments was in mid-August and they ended up, due to, I think, public interest, extending it out to the end of August. So we took the whole month and collected stories to submit. I checked late last night or early this morning — it all runs together — to see if there was any update on the proceeding, and there wasn’t. Whenever we find out what happened, we can let you know, but otherwise, our work here is done.
Any questions?
Cass Magnuski: Did you know that there was a bot attack on the comments, something like 17 million–is that what I remember? It made the comment period much shorter?
Charlotte Lunday: Yes, I know I heard, especially early on, about a bot attack. They made a lot of false comments, which has been somewhat of a controversy in itself. Because the current leadership of the FCC is really adamant about overturning these rules. A lot of these bots were supportive of keeping the rules, it was kind of used as a way to undermine the public support for it, which is something that’s frustrating.
Harte Daniels: In 2013, there were 3.2 million replies, and they said at that point, the government had never received that many comments. This time it was 22.7 million. And he has said over and over again that he will not listen to any comment unless it was lawyerly or written by a lawyer. Everybody has done what they’ve done, and the next step is up to Congress. You’ve got two weeks–it was requested eight weeks by the ACLU and some others–and he has also turned down a FOIA, Freedom of Information Act–on the behavior of the ISPs and the quality of their service. And that is making its way through the courts. So the next step is going to be Congress and the courts.
Charlotte Lunday: Yes. Any time there is a regulatory rule change, it is usually followed by litigation. As we discussed early on when we were talking about writing this comment, one of the most important things about the comment is creating a factual record for courts to look at and determine whether the FCC really did their job and considered these comments, and explain their reasoning thoroughly and addressed any of the issues that were brought up by members of the public that seem valid. And if they didn’t, if they acted in a way that the court says is arbitrary and capricious, then their actions can gt overturned. I don’t know if I necessarily explained this all while we were working with it to develop a comment. Certainly, one of the things I was thinking about was what are some of the stronger arguments that we can make to force a response from the FCC and make them really justify their position. A lot of what we worked on in developing was specifically targeted at some of their strongest arguments. But Torgie had a question.
Torgie Madison: More of a comment. Just saying as a member of the FCC Net Neutrality task force, I would like to thank Charlotte for taking on that huge role. Your effort and energy made a thoughtful response.
Harte Daniels: We were so fortunate to have a person of your skill to put this together in that legal manner.
Charlotte Lunday: I’m flattered. Especially in the second part, it was a group effort and I would not have been able to manage it without all of you. Smriti and Dan, you guys taking the lead. Getting the second part together, that was really awesome. And then Dorene and Karia working together to get actual statements. And then Mark and Torgie, with a lot of their research, helping us. Especially helping me work through a lot of these really difficult technical question. And Mike was able to connect us with technical legal experts. I think when it was first said, it was meant as a joke, or a little bit of a snide comment, but when I say I stand at the shoulder of giants, I thank you all.
Steven Cathersal: I don’t know if you explained this last time, but are they obligated to reply to the comment in any way?
Charlotte Lunday: I don’t think they’re obligated to reply directly. But yes, they are supposed to look at all of the comments out there. And this is what the courts will end up determining. At the end, they have to submit. They will publish their rule that they landed on, and then an explanation. Significant comments they have to respond to in their explanation. The reason being that, if you think about administrative agencies making laws, these are not elected officials. This is a pretty undemocratic process. So it is really important that they engage the public. Technically, truly, it is pretty unconstitutional. We just kind of look over it. So, yes, they do have to make some kind of response.
Jose Vasquez: I want to echo our gratitude for all of the participants who stepped up and put in all of the work and the hours in their effort to do this. Because as community members, we are here to hold our elected officials and our government agencies accountable. I will say that our work is never done here, especially now that it is up to Congress. As board members, as community members, we can give our efforts to make sure that our elected representatives are first, aware of these issues; and that they know it’s a priority for our community. And how it impacts our community by sharing those stories that we’ve been collecting. So, thank you, Dorene and Karia for stepping up and doing that.
David Keyes: Also, we did share the comments with Washington State Access to Justice board, to their technology committee, and so they ended up approving and filing comments, too. So our comments helped provide some input on that as well. Michael Mattmiller and other chief technology officers from some major cities were just back in DC last week to meet with the FCC to reemphasize that support for maintaining net neutrality.
Jose Vasquez: Thank you, everybody. Let’s give ourselves a little round of applause.
Steven Maheshwary: I don’t know if this is stupid, but to give visibility to comments like that, is it helpful to reach out to press who are covering these sorts of issues?
Heather Lewis: Yes! We actually put together a playbook of sorts that we thought we could use for the next similar event. The timing didn’t work very well this time around, but we now have press contacts that are planned and dropped press releases that I think we could update.
Dorene Cornwell: Another thing is if you know people that are interested in the issue, those five million comments are out there and anybody could go read them. The request for comments have like a hundred sections, but there is a lot of stuff out there. That is another aspect of the open government crowd sourcing. Press coverage could pick up something important, and that’s a way that press could become involved.
Harte Daniels: Additionally, all of the volunteers on committees, as well as the board members, and employees attended Maria Cantwell’s town meeting. And she was asking the public to try to engage the press also. You could probably do that through her office.
David Keyes: if you get a chance, could you send me the FCC link on those comments? I posted on the CTAB web page that if anything does come up and there’s an event, in the CTAB Policies and Positions link. I did post the statement submitted there. I took it from a PDF I had gotten earlier. That’s an opportunity, too, for the press, when something else hits, this is now there to say we’ve got CTAB experts that have commented and you can talk to them and hear their position.
Jose Vasquez: Thank you. That worked perfectly, because it went into our public comment section, so if there is public comment from anybody at-large, this is your time to give a brief update, any upcoming events, and statements you would like to make to the board.
PUBLIC COMMENT AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
Harte Daniels: There is an open comment period on the Secretary of Education. Jose might want to read that one. Dorene and I had had a conversation about a need for technology and accessibility people living in Houston and probably now in Florida. There is a call out on that.
Dorene Cornwell: They are looking for people with disabilities. I was a little unclear about what they were asking, but I did sort of figure out what would be helpful and then figure out communications channels things. If anybody has any thoughts and want to weigh in, email me. I have no desire to go to a flood zone, but here is how I might be able to help.
Harte Daniels: They were offering per diem and flight, etc. to go down there. I had a lot to do with Superstorm Sandy remotely. They were looking to helping people with various issues in transiting out of the shelters and back home.
Jose Vasquez: If you want to send us that information, we can share it out.
Yes Segura: As you all know, I work with self-driving cars. Right now my business is putting together a design [unintelligible], in which we’re going to be inviting stakeholders and also the general public in helping to envision Seattle with self-driving cars. We’re going to be doing that by using a design showcase. From that it’s going to be pretty much identifying policies and prioritizing what is a community, what are out constituent concerns, and needs, when it comes to planning our cities for for self-driving cars. That’s going to be at Impact Hub. I was thinking it would be great to give a presentation maybe at the next meeting to get everybody brushed up on what is happening.
Harte Daniels: What is the date?
Yes Segura: The date has yet to be set.
Jose Vasquez: As soon as you know, send it our way and we can promote it. Thank you. We have a few minutes. I did want to make a personal comment.
Julie Pham made a presentation at the rally last Wednesday, based on the announcement from Jeff Sessions about ending the DACA program. As we know, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Google, and several other of our private sector partners also came out with statements in opposition to ending the DACA program and its support of DACA individuals or immigrant communities. This is something very personal to me, because I’m a DACA recipient. And the reality is that some of us might think it doesn’t really affect us, but we might all know somebody that this really impacts. We are very much a part of this society. We are very much a part of this community. We not just what gets told out in the news or in the media that we’re here to steal jobs, or as criminals, or as this President put it, bad hombres.. Well we’re not. We’re here. We’re part of this community. I grew up in this City. I love this City, and this is why I do what I do here. So, I just wanted to make that statement and make it known that I’m not planning on going anywhere anytime soon. And I know I have a strong community behind me that is supportive. Our Attorney General Bob Ferguson very strongly put it that this state will do whatever it can to protect DACA recipients. And for me, being able to hear that, has been very helpful in going through this process. It hasn’t been easy, but I just wanted to put that out there, so that we’re aware that this really does impact a lot of people. And lots of times when we hear these big news stories, we feel like that doesn’t affect me, or I might not know somebody. But here we are today.
Steven Maheshwary: Jose, I don’t know if this is helpful, but if you are able to share any links or resources that I know the Latino community is working on, that we can share or if there are actions that we can take, thta would be helpful to know.
Jose Vasquez: Actually, we’re currently fundraising for a resiliency fund to assist individuals who have DACA permits. Their work permits are about to expire before March 5, 2018. They have until October 5 to renew. And since that’s an immediate need, a lot of individuals, especially young students, don’t have access to $500 right off the bat. So we’re fundraising for that through the Latino community from my own organization. This is my nonprofit hat put on, but thank you for bringing that up. Also, moving forward after October 5, when permits start to phase out, providing legal assistance for those individuals, and providing more informational workshops and logistical support for organizations. And particularly outside of — and I know we’re here in Seattle and in Seattle, we have a lot of support. If you say I’m a DACA recipient, my work permit is about to expire, you can throw a rock at somebody who would probably help you. But outside of Seattle, outside of King County, it’s quite the opposite. So, let’s leverage the resources that we have here in our City and our communities, because the need is not just here. It’s all across the state in particular areas that are not as progressive as our City is.
Steve Cathersall: If you can send any link, I can see if I can get it on Amazon somehow.
Jose Vasquez: Thank you.
Charlotte Lunday: An organization is actually doing trainings for attorneys to figure out how to help people, so this should be like a blitz of attorneys doing pro bono work on the behalf of DACA recipients.
Jose Vasquez: Afterwards, if anybody is interested, we can talk, because we are connected with Colectiva Legal del Pueblo on their immigrant rights project. We definitely could use all of the help we can get right now.
Heather Lewis: Also, if there are ways to engage the tech community and there are things that we can be tweeting out, we should be.
Jose Vasquez: All right. Moving on to the Cable and Broadband Committee. Karia, are you on the line? Hello?
Karia Wong: Hello. I don’t have an update, because we didn’t meet last month. But I am wondering whether we can get an update from Tony Perez or anyone regarding the WAVE franchise renewal?
David Keyes: Yes. I can tell you. Last week, the committee approved the WAVE franchise renewal and that went to full Council yesterday. Full Council approved the new agreement yesterday. I don’t know exactly when that takes effect. The Mayor has to sign it and it becomes active after 60 days. We can check on that and Tony Perez can affirm that. There is also in the documents as part of that legislation, there is a public benefits comparison between Comcast, Century Link, and WAVE franchises. It’s pretty interesting just to see, in terms of what the City benefits are from them, what the low income program differences are in terms of cost and bandwidth and so on. But we know that this WAVE franchise did move forward. They will have a low income internet program for WAVE. That affects all of those families that use the utility discount guidelines. So, it’s a relatively broad set of guidelines. That was something that was recommended here. It also approves–they’re going to do a continuation of some free WiFi in a couple of spots on 23rd Avenue, and some increase of about five sites per year and continuation of the free cable broadband program for nonprofits that are providing community services. Those are really great wins with some significant benefits. And then they are considering right now–and I don’t know exactly the status of it–the other piece was the WAVE ownership transfer proceeding. They had a first hearing on that last week. That will be coming forward to Council.
Harte Daniels: Does the new ownership agree with this?
David Keyes: Yes, the new ownership was at City Council. The hearing on the WAVE franchise was the same day as we had Tech Matching Fund before Council. A few of the board members were there. Karia Wong had spoken with them and spoke up. The new proposed owners of (investors) in the WAVE franchise were there also, and they affirmed that they are supportive, and endorsed the franchise agreement as it was moving forward.
Karia Wong: Thank you, David.
Jose Vasquez: Digital Inclusion. Chris, are you on the line?
Chris Alejano: I am. David Keyes has the reins on the update. I will give up my time to David.
DIGITAL INCLUSION COMMITTEE UPDATE
David Keyes: I’ll do a couple of quick announcements and then get started on what’s happening on the Digital Equity Indicators project. We hosted an end of summer graduation event for 70 to 80 teenage students from the Urban League, who went through their summer institute that provided exposure to STEM and some coding training and some graphic design training. They all came down to City Hall. For about two-thirds of them, it was their first time at City Hall. So that was kind of a nice opportunity, to say they own City Hall, too. they could pick their own chair, maybe run for Mayor. Jose also participated in that. It was great to see that kind of knowledge and energy transfer happening.
The big thing coming up that you all have received an invitation for is we’re doing our 20th anniversary of the Technology Matching Fund celebration on Thursday, September 28, which I think is the day after the Seattle Schools Working Group at the Computer Museum. That’s going to be at El Centro de la Rasa in Capitol Hill. Come on along. We’ll have lots of grantees there. It will be a kind of a fun celebration, and a good chance to schmooze and talk about some of the impact that has happened, and celebrate this year’s recipients and the on-going matching fund grantees.
Since our last meeting the Tech Matching Fund stuff did get approved. So we’re working on those contracts now. We’ll be getting the certificates to folks at our celebration on September 28.
While I’m still on this, the next meeting of the Digital Inclusion Committee that Chris Alejano will send out information about, is going to be next Wednesday at 6:00-7:30 at the Sitting Room on lower Queen Anne on Roy Street. Chris will send out a reminder to the email list. That’s next Wednesday evening, the 20th.
I think we’ve been having some discussion about the next step on the Coalition for Digital Literacy network, so that will be in the hopper.
I’ve been working a lot with the University of Washington on the Indicators and Digital Equity evaluation. I want to spend a couple of minutes to give you an intro on where we’re going with this, and I could do more in depth feedback and talk about what it’s doing.
Here are some slides to show our progress on the initiative:
As we’ve been doing the Digital Equity Initiative–we’ve got this vision about technology opportunity, equitably empowering folks–so far this year, there have been a number of things underway. We got the additional funds from Comcast. Some of those went to increasing the Tech Matching Fund grants. Facebook contributed to that. We started doing more device distribution, working with the libraries and others. We’ve got about 55 or so computers and internet connections that have gone out to participants–young adults in the Rapid Rehousing Program, working with nonprofits and helping place formerly homeless young adults in homes. We’re connecting them with laptops and Sprint internet service from Mobile Citizen. This WAVE franchise we talked about. The WiFi in community centers: We’ve seen about at least a tripling of the use in community centers. We deployed 78 new WiFi access spots over this past year in 28 different community centers. We’ve just seen a huge growth. I think it’s about 21,000 unique users are using them now.
I’ve been working on a strategic plan with Parks on the community centers Direct Tech computer labs. How to make those innovation centers, and so on. Seattle Public Library: I don’t know if any of you participated. They held a Digital Equity conversation with Marcellus Turner, the head librarian. They are continuing to do the WiFi check outs.
Public WiFi: Maybe Jim Loter can comment at another meeting. I know that we completed the RFI and a report on WiFi and designating some potential zones, looking at opportunities as the next step of that is where do we go forward with it and what funding do we need if we are going to implement something. You will be hearing more about that, I think.
Digital Inclusion network: We developed a template of some goals and we’re refining that with the committee and so on.
The Tech Access and Adoption Survey: We’re just getting close to putting that out for contracting. We have been talking to other cities to kind of know what they’ve been doing recently in their methodology. Austin did a mail-out survey. Tacoma did a combination of some mail-out and street interviews. I have the results of the recent Tacoma survey I can send out. That will be a big piece of work coming back to you guys also, starting a little bit later this fall. In the evaluation piece, remember there are three major goals: the connectivity, skills training, devices and tech support. And then a fourth tier, as we’ve been working on what outcomes do we want, and those three, what capacity do we need to build to be able to building to be able to sustain and engage people over time in those things. I’ll talk a little bit more about that.
We developed a logic model around the Digital Equity outcomes, and realized that we were looking at individual outcomes, but there are some organizational outcomes we need to add some structural outcomes. You’ll see where that plays out a little bit more. But we need those organizations that we partner with. John referred to those other anchors on the front lines in the community in order for us to make a difference to put out technology access and training. From that high level theory of change, what we’ve been doing is developing from the individual in those four different areas (skills, devices, tech support, connectivity, and capacity building) what are some of the activities, and then what are some of the short term and long term outcomes from that. This is more a reminder here that some folks maybe knew in terms of these are some of the things we have done in the skills training for boosting those, and looking at some categorization of types of skills. And this might be something that the Digital Literacy network will talk a lot more about. How to improve that pipeline and capacity. In connectivity, three of the threads there around how do we improve internet for low income residents in multiple dwelling units. Tony Perez and the group in the cable office have just about completed a survey of owners of multiple dwelling units and some tenants to get a sense of what are some of the opportunities and barriers for competitive broadband in multiple dwelling units. That will help inform what kinds of policies or what kinds of things we can do. One of the things that they’re going to be doing is organized a best practices for design. I think it’s going to be November or December to bring some of the results from this survey and talk about what are the next steps on that. We’ll talk a litle bit more about internet to individuals, public internet. We sort of parsed out public internet and WiFi. There is public internet available in community institutions and organizations, like the Chinese Information Service Center, or maybe there’s a school opening up. That’s access.
And then one of the other threads around outcomes is that we have it, but what is the awareness of where to go for public access. In devices and tech support strategy, that sort of folds out to helping individuals own devices, helping organizations get devices for community use, and then developing tech support programs. And then there is a strategy and goal of increasing assisted tech at community sites, both in City facilities and community facilities. In places like the STAR Center where Dorene lives, maybe that makes the most sense since it has the most capacity to offer the assistance that people need to make effective use of assistive technology, or maybe that’s in an area that’s serving that community.
In capapcity building, we’ve kind of lined up six sets of activities, providing strategic services, where do we advise people on how to think about digital equity as you’re rolling out a transportation plan, or as you’re rolling out new parking meters or another kind of service. There are some goals around developing funding and resources. We talked to the Digital Inclusion committee about what are the mechanisms if we’re going to go for funding to do that. There are a few options there. Supporting both leadership and partner development locally, and then nationally, are tied to that. The communications policy, and then research and evaluation. I’ll come back and provide more detail on those.
What we’ve done with that is in each of these areas, we’ve identified and mapped out some short term intermediate end outcomes. And the color coding–I’ll hand out a couple of them–because here is the sheet around connectivity, and here is a sheet around skills training. We’re not really going to have time to go into detail, but I’m happy to talk a little bit about it and then we can carry it on in the Digital Inclusion committee. Again, this color coding: There are structural and organizational things that then lead to those individual outcomes. I’ve been working with the folks at the University of Washington Information School, Mike Crandall and Staci Wedlake. I’m taking what we had on the Digital Equity Iniative plan and then mapping out. Remember, in the Digital Equity Initiative, there is the small ‘c.’ It’s the city, not just the City of Seattle’s Digital Equity Initiative. We’re still fine-tuning these and this is an opportunity for some input and where we keep going. This is a living, breathing document, and so some of the things will change and some of it may not be done by our department. Maybe it’s done by Century Link, or maybe it’s done by Google, or by the Office of Economic Development here, or maybe it’s done by the Community Technology program in partnership with a community group. There are some things that we will want to put into place at the City, and some things that are broader in scale. From the point of view of what does the Seattle IT deliver, our next step in this is refining and saying, given our current resources, what are the key items that we’re moving forward on, and what are the key items have a partnership developing, and move that forward.
The thing I find exciting about having this digital equity outcomes model is this gives people a framework to say, “If you want to move and increased number of individuals with internet connectivity, then this is the pathway you need to use and the structural things and these organizational things.” That’s one of the things I’m excited about that this does.
I’ll also just pass out the — here’s the building capacity one. What would be helpful, generally, is to have you guys look at this not in five minutes, although we could do sort of a speed treatment and come back. And I can email this out. But I think we’re getting closer in terms of saying here is outcomes we’re heading towards and some of the systems that need to be in place, or the determination of funding mechanisms. What we’re also doing is we are now in the process of identifying indicators for each of these outcomes. What are measurements and what are sources of measurement for those indicators? For instance–I’m just going to pull up the skills one. Skills is probably the most complex one in many ways. There are different skill areas. These are these gateway skills, applied life skills, job skills, youth education, parental engagement in education, and then small business. That was the other area that was identified as a vulnerable population. One of the things we discovered right now — what is that uniform thing — is we’re moving to ensure that people get training, then at what level? If that skills check list is what the Seattle Schools has or the State has as it’s tech standards, maybe that’s the thing to use for youth education. There’s probably some relatively common agreement about gateway skills, but if we’re on the same page about that, then we can together say, yes, 10,000 residents have now achieved this level of competency. What we’re talking about is doing that gateway, doing those check lists, picking some areas, or working with others who are, we can fold that into our grant program and our data tracking and look at what other data people are already tracking. And we may have a combination of, on some of those skills, and how many people have those skills, when we have programmatic data, how many students in Seattle Schools have gotten to this level of reaching these competency standards.
And then we may also have some population surveys. When we do our tech adoption survey this coming year, the choice will be what questions to include to be able to say 45 percent of the population is comfortable at this level. But there is this disparity, still, between folks of this community and that community on at least that level of skill. Some may be more robust than others and so on. That’s the next big step. I’ll stop there for now.
Jose Vasquez: Any questions while we have time?
John Krull: Did you do the one for devices?
David Keyes: Oh, we didn’t print the one for devices. I’m mail it to you.
Harte Daniels: I just have a request and I don’t know where it fits in: partnering with organizations. I kind of would like to see Seattle try something that other Cities haven’t, which is make the RFP go to a Corp B organization. That will create, I believe, more innovation. And especially some of the ISPs and others that we have who have on a State level put in anti-competitive legislation. When some of our under-served organizations don’t have access to broadband, etc., and they will say we have a fiduciary responsibility, we’re stakeholders. If you’ve got your RFP that says it will go to a Corp B, then they can form a division that’s a Corp B, but Corp B doesn’t have that same fiduciary responsibility. It is not for the community. So if they want our money, they have to work for the benefit of the community. And if you put that into your RFPs, or any time you are using money from the City, we don’t have to beg. We don’t have to try to find some other way to tweak their noses or whatnot. If they want the money, they’re going to have to do social purpose and put the community first.
Jose Vasquez: Thank you. I’m going to ask you to explain what a Corp B is.
Harte Daniels: A social purpose corporation….
Jose Vasquez: We don’t have time right now. What I would like to do is put a link on the minutes to make sure everybody knows. https://www.bcorporation.net/what-are-b-corps We have one last question.
Steve Cathersall: Usually, when I see long lists like this I wonder about priorities. I see Seattle IT builds, builds, builds…on a limited staff. I’m just curious about finding priorities in here. They all look great, but something has to give, particularly when ….
David Keyes: You’re absolutely right. What we were doing is we decided to start this by filling out based on all the goals and strategies in the Digital Equity Initiative, what it would look like to map out. For Seattle IT, that’s our big next step. Like four lines from this whole thing. Actually about 30 lines. Functionally, I think that they’re maybe not fully represented here, but I hope that will happen that maybe there are other organizations, other bodies in our partnership, that are doing something that serves these goals and help us get further along on these goals. It may not be on here right now, and may have some other outcomes or some other activities, that we then ultimately reflect when we talk as a whole about what Seattle does to support digital equity.
Jose Vasquez: Thank you, everybody. David has been putting a lot of time and energy to make sure this moves forward. So thank you for that.
David Keyes: I’m happy to drill down deep.
Jose Vasquez: I know we at CTAB have always been supportive of pushing digital equity at the City. Thank you everybody. Real quick, wrap up summary and next steps. We’re going to promote or share the City Open Data Risk Assessment comment period. We’ll send it out and if everybody can please promote it via social media and your networks to make sure that we have public comment and that people get a chance to review it. If we want to start engaging or start a similar process for comment to the Secretary of Education, the Digital Inclusion committee, John and Chris, might want to connect and see if that’s an option, if we want to take it on and create an official statement from CTAB, that’s always a possibility. So thank you for that suggestion. There is a design charrette coming up, so we will be promoting that, as well. I’ll send a link, so thank you for that.
David Keyes: For October I know we’ll put the surveillance report on the agenda.
Torgie Madison: Really quickly, we’re meeting four times a month. Every week. So we are going to have four meetings for every one of these. So I will be reporting in, hopefully with good info, for the next probably three CTAB meetings. Up until December.
David Keyes: And in October, we’ll also have the new Smart Cities coordinator, who will be at the meeting.
Jose Vasquez: Great. Sounds like another fun meeting. Thanks, everybody.
MEETING ADJOURNED