Ready.net's new VP joins the Beer and Broadband broadcast during the Mountain Connect Conference to discuss closing the digital divide through partnerships.

<figure class="image"><img src="https://api.broadband.money/uploads/6_12_2022_Scott_Woods_pmcdougall17_25_1_25_ccc14cd62c.jpg"><figcaption>Scott D. Woods Vice President - Community Engagement &amp; Strategic Partnerships at Ready.net</figcaption></figure>In this podcast event, &nbsp;Ready.net's new VP Scott Woods joins the Beer and Broadband broadcast during the Mountain Connect Conference to discuss closing the digital divide through partnerships. Beer and Broadband brings notable broadband names together to discuss the bringing of broadband to communities and how Community members are more than just statistics.This talk's participants include:&nbsp;<ul><li>Megan Beresford - CMP Director of Broadband Programs at Learn Design Apply, Inc.</li><li>Scott D. Woods Vice President - Community Engagement &amp; Strategic Partnerships at Ready.net</li><li>Justin Roller - Executive Vice President of Strategy and Technology at Bonfire</li><li>Nick Dinsmoor - Host of Beer and Broadband Podcast</li></ul>

 Alrighty, good morning everybody, live from Mountain Connect in Keystone, Colorado. We are here with Beer and Broadband, we've got an amazing panel today, lots of smart people, much smarter than me, we're gonna have a really good conversation. So, as everybody knows that's listened to us before, this is about education, inspiration and of course, entertainment. So, we don't take ourselves too seriously. It is the morning, so we will not have the beer, which is very unique for us, but we figure it is early, so we're gonna stick to the coffee and broadband, I think right now. Alright, so let's kick it off and we'll do some introductions before we start this. I will start with the lady to my left. Do you want to introduce yourself?

 Yes, my name is Megan Beresford. I am the Director of Broadband Programs with a company called Learn Design Apply. We are a grant consulting company and it's a very exciting time right now in the grants world. 

 You don't ever hear those words, grant and exciting at the same time though really, you know?

 Once there's a B, we're excited, exactly.

 Yeah, so I'm Scott Woods. I am right now currently the Director of the Office of Minority Broadband Initiatives at NTIA, but we just announced this morning, I'm leaving NTIA and will be the new Vice President for Community Engagement and Strategic Partnerships with Ready.net, so it's my pleasure to be here this morning...

 Well, cheers. Yeah, congratulations to the new opportunity. That's awesome.

 And I'm Justin Roller, Executive Vice President for Strategy and Tech at Bonfire and I work on the grants program. So I'm very excited to be with you guys this morning.

 Alright, well like I said, a bunch of smart people here today. Let's start it off with... I guess I'll do the easy question, you guys are all here at Mountain Connect, what are you looking most forward to?

 I would say beyond meeting all the people...

 In person versus over Zoom right? Look I can...

 In person. In person, face-to-face, I know, right?  Would be getting more info on BEAD, obviously from our grants perspective, that's kind of pressing issue. What do we need to know? What's new? What can we take away to make sure we can have the most compelling applications and make sure that we are doing the work correctly. Yeah.

 I think from my perspective outside the snow, it's getting the snows, totally unexpected.

 Totally unexpected to be 40 degrees and snowing. It's really to get the pulse of the community. And that community is the... It contains the service providers, state broadband leaders, state and local government leaders. This is an unprecedented time of historic broadband funding. This is the first event post the announcement of the NOFOs that NTIA released and so, it's an opportunity to really gauge where people are. How excited... I know there's a lot of excitement, but the amount of work that has...

 You said billions, that's where the excitement came from. [chuckle]

 But the amount of work that has to be done, and the amount of coordination that we have to do. And it's really between the service providers, the communities, the state and local government leaders, the community leaders, the faith community, everyone has to come together if we're gonna make this work and address the issues and challenges that we have. I just didn't expect to have to do it with snow shoes.  But Mountain Connect, I guess, I should have probably planned for it...

 No, I think that's right, I think it's an opportunity to see the community and how everybody's reacting to this because it will... I think you said it really well, it's gonna take that... It's gonna take a community. Obviously look at BEAD, that's gonna come to the states and then states are gonna figure out how to deploy with the communities and the counties, and so how is that all gonna trickle down and finally get implemented across the different states and hopefully serving the whole country. So, I think it's great to see what people are thinking and what are those conversations, what are those key issues? It's a cool opportunity. And to do it in person, I think, yeah, for sure.

 So, let's... To that point, what are people underestimating about all this? You said we've gotta bring together the communities, the providers, the technology, what do you think people are really underestimating now that... It is the money is unprecedented, it truly is. So, are people like, "Hey, now it's here." Are we stuck? Are we paralyzed? What are they not thinking about to be able to move things forward?

 I can... That's a great question. I think it's, how do you do it? How do you start? Where do we begin? I think that's the mounting issue. In the past, it's always been about funding. You never had enough money. Now really, depending on who you talk to, there's enough money. There's some perspective that it's not enough...

 Do some people think there's not enough? Really?

 They do. Some people think it's not enough to connect every single home and business to high speed broadband, but this is historic. I think we have to at least acknowledge that. And I think the more that we collaborate and collectively come together, we can... There's more that we can achieve. And I think for the first time from my perspective, now we have both the service provider community, we have state and local government, we have really much all of the stakeholders on board and ready to engage, and so I'm excited about being able to move forward.

 I would kind of echo a little bit what you said at the beginning, I think figuring out these channels of communication, there's a big emphasis for this on public-private partnership and all people need to be involved to get the work done, but from things I've been hearing, it's initial of, "Who do I talk to? What can my role be? What can I do?" So I think kind of next step is explaining and opening those channels of communication and getting everyone involved. I think we're excited, it's now just bringing them together to the table.

 I think the bringing together is gonna be another part of the challenge though, because you've got a lot of opinions and a lot of different ways that people would like to see this done, a lot of... Just defining what served means, what underserved is, what unserved is. And how are you gonna apply standards fairly across all communities is... Those things just, they sound easy on the surface, but just those simple definitions are gonna be challenging to get to something that the majority think is fair.

 So how do you move forward? How do people move forward? And at the end of the day, we're trying to give insight to people like, "Hey, let's take this step." What are some tips that we can provide to them? Just say, "Hey, I'm a community leader. I could be a faith leader. I could be a technology leader." What's the advice that we should say to tactically or strategically move the ball forward? Because I think you're right. I think... But people get stuck 'cause these are complicated questions that they're nuanced, how do we move them forward?

 At least with the BEAD and digital equity. And then there's also state money and private equity money that's out there. We've got to get involved, and what does that mean? I mean, we've gotta be at the table. So with... Like we are now, very nice table. But we have to... Community leaders, we have to engage, particularly with the Digital Equity Act and the BEAD money, you have to engage with the state broadband office that exists right now. We have to be at the table when these pre-planning and planning discussions are happening. To his point, talking about where are unserved and underserved areas? And what does it actually mean for us to develop a plan of action to address their needs? And it's not just the physical infrastructure, that's... To me, that's easy, that's easier than the digital inclusion component, because that's the human capital component about what communities need and obviously what our children need to be successful as we move forward. So I think at a baseline matter, let's get involved and then figure out from there, I think the framework that NTIA has outlined and the NOFOs give you a roadmap that I can plug my new company just a little bit.

 I think there's an opportunity for people to engage on the digital community and broadband money as well as the tool that we just released this morning that will help ask the question... Answer the question, excuse me, of where do we get started? And I think as a baseline, understanding the data in your community, where are the unserved and underserved communities actually? Where are your community anchor institutions that lack gigabit connectivity? The only way you're gonna do that is to have conversations around that proverbial table with the stakeholders who can provide answers to those questions.

 Yeah, I would add to that, that and this is something I actually saw in the NTIA webinar last week, I think. But actually getting out into the community, I think it will be an important component that sometimes comes to mind later on. But, when you're even just talking about digital equity, we wanna reach the people who might not know about this program. Those are the people you really wanna help, and that does mean often getting on the streets, going into these neighborhoods, going out to meet people where they are and language translators, making sure that you're reaching people who, English isn't their first language. So I think there's gonna be a lot of groundwork and not just... I think everyone will need to be involved in that.

 I think that's ironic, if you don't mind me jumping in, I think it's ironic. We're talking about technology, but to reach the communities that we're talking about reaching, it's gonna be interpersonal communication. It's gonna be on on-the-ground, as you said, engaging with them directly with the goal, hopefully, of being able to reach them through technology and other technological platforms.

 No, I think that's right, because I was just at a stakeholder meeting for the state of Colorado had in the southwest part of Colorado, which is one of the more underserved parts of the state of Colorado, and came down, the broadband office came down from Denver to meet people in person and hear what they had to say, 'cause a lot of it's like, "Look, I've seen the maps and it says we're covered, but I live here and I'm telling you, we're not." So, what do we do? What do we do to challenge that or overturn that or tell our story? Because I think there are... Everybody's putting a lot of hard works into the maps and the data, but the data is always gonna be a little bit imperfect, and so you need those stories that the people can tell you, they deal with it on the ground. They're like, "I don't have connection in my house. So even though it says I'm covered, let's talk about what's reality for me." And I think that's really important to get that out. Like you said, those are the people you have to reach in person. You can't... They need a chance to have a voice, and I think some of the states are doing a good job of trying to get out there and talk to those people directly so they can be heard.

 It's interesting, even if you look around at the... And if you'd go down the exhibitor hall, everything is about technology into... All three of your points, it does seem maybe we're overlooking that piece of the true feet on the street, the engagement in the community, how do you actually get them involved in this process? Because you're right, I think we've solved the technology problem. I think we can all agree that we understand how to deliver broadband, whether it be fiber optics, whether it be fixed wireless, whether... There's all lots of ways to deliver it, but that community piece, it seems like we definitely need to put additional focus on.

 Well, and I think there's already a good start. This is one thing that I think we saw with the CMC program, is that there are a lot of people already doing this work. A lot of the applicants say, "I'm in my community, we have a program like this already where we go and we tell people about how they can get cell phone coverage." There's people out there doing this work already, so I think utilizing those folks who have the experience, who know how to do this kind of on-the-ground community engagement. It's not reinventing the wheel, there's people out there doing it. It's making sure we get them involved. They're experts in...

 Widening the approach, having more people at the table and...

 So how do you get to the... How do you get people to the table though?

 You gotta use all hands on deck. So you have to podcast like this, or webcast, we have to do community meetings, you have to engage local leaders, you have to go to the faith community, we've gotta get the word out beyond just posting something on a website or putting something through the fallacy wants, right?

 It's not filled with dreams, just build and they will come, it's not... 

 Yeah, just build and they will come. We've gotta... And that's why I think this comprehensive approach of having all of the stakeholders involved will, I will say, filter down. I don't like that trickle down, filter down. We want the information to go down to the community who can then act accordingly.

 You need a fire hose? You want a fire hose down?

 Because if you look at a lot of communities, and she referenced the connecting minority communities pilot program, which I have the honor of being able to stand up in NTIA, we engaged a lot with the institutions of higher education, particularly HBCUs, TCUs, MSIs, they already have a presence in the community, they are the life blood in many instances, the economic and social hubs of the communities in which they sit and serve, so filtering information through them that then gets out into the community is fairly easy. The hard part is, many of these communities do not have relationships at the state level, and some don't even have at the local level, and so what we can do through this process using service providers and entities like Learn Design and Apply, we can really bring all of the principal stakeholders to the table to really address a fundamental issue that I think we should be embarrassed quite frankly in this country, that we have such an equity when it comes to the provision of broadband and technology. If you just look at the pandemic, and it uncovered how much of a challenge it is for communities that don't have robust broadband access, and it's time that we do something about it.

 So let's... Right now, between the three of you guys, we have people that are involved in helping acquire money, obviously in your former role, like policy and community engagement obviously in your new role, more of an enablement, I would say. And then Justin, from a Bonfire perspective, obviously the design of a network, future planning, how do you create something that is gonna last generations, not just a flash in the pan and it's done, we're gonna move on. To your point of partnership, maybe how does it all work together? You guys kinda start at the beginning all the way through, what's the best way you can create partnerships like that, and are there other partnerships that the states or the local should be working on that we can help push?

 I would say it's... I wish there was an easy answer to that 'cause everybody likes to say, "Oh, public-private partnership it's how we're gonna solve this." But then it's like, "Well, how are you gonna form that?" And it's...

 I deliberately didn't say those words because... 

 I think it's really hard 'cause on the private side, it's like, well, who do we engage with on the public side, and how do we do this in a way that isn't gonna take forever because there's gonna be so many stakeholders and so many decision-makers, and it's gonna be, it's gonna take time, and I think on the public side, you look at it coming from where I was previously, you look at it and you go, "How do I know this maybe service provider isn't taking advantage of us?" How do we have enough knowledge to know that like, "Are we getting a fair deal?" That this is gonna be equitable for us because, I used to work for a tribe and the tribe going, "Well, we're gonna get this money, so how much of this is ours versus a service provider?" But if you don't have a broadband background, how do you know that you're... How do you know what's fair? And I think... So I think there has to be a lot of conversation. Unfortunately, it's a lot of conversation, it's not gonna be easy, it's gonna be a lot of conversation to find the right partners and people that are looking for true equitable solutions and not just trying to take advantage of, "Oh, I'm gonna get some free money to build some free network."

 And those conversations have to be transparent. And I think oftentimes in this sector, people are reluctant to say they don't know, and I think we have enough smart...

 That's the whole country, right? But I think in a certain matter as he was saying, you engage in transparent communications, and then when you get to an impasse or something where you just don't know, say, "I don't know." But then don't stop there. Let's put together smart people to figure it out, but I think you gotta have that level of trust and communications to be able to address that, 'cause there are a lot of smart people addressing this issue from the service providers, from the grant community, from the community community, local community, there are people if we collectively come together, we can solve the issue, but I think we have to put egos aside.

 A lot of humility. Recognize that some of this stuff, if I can say it...

 'Cause some of this stuff is gonna be hard to do, but that doesn't mean we stop because it's difficult. We would not have gotten to where we are in this country just because stuff is hard. So we should embrace that it's difficult to do, but still do it.

 I was having a flash back to JFK's speech about the Moonshot, we do things because they're hard not because they're easy, right?

 I would say definitely to a big point, putting aside these egos and I think accepting... I don't wanna say accepting losses, but knowing that sometimes you're not gonna be the solution.

 Concess... Yeah, something that... Knowing that you're... Whatever we wanna call it, accepting that maybe...

 And that being able to get past that, I think it's how it's really gonna work, which is a personal thing that maybe a lot of people will have to work on, but...

 I think that's where I think the transparent communications come into play. I think the community... And we worked a lot in the community. I think the community understands that they want their local service providers to be profitable. They just don't wanna be taken advantage of. We want you to make money and make revenue and be able to build and scale and do all the things we need you to do in the community. We just don't wanna feel like we're being taken advantage of or not getting a certain technology deployed to us because of factors beyond our control. But, absolutely, I think we can talk about it and people have to put their egos to the side. And maybe you won't make all the money, but if you can still be profitable and make some money, maybe it's on you to then develop a business plan for you to be profitable. I don't know, but it starts somewhere. You gotta start somewhere. I think transparent communications is a good way to go.

 And I think a part of that, and I think of... I say this to my nephew, to put on your listening ears, right. [chuckle] You need to listen to what the community is saying. They know what their issues are. They know what needs to be done. So being open and not coming in with an immediate solution to problem-solve, I think will be important, listening ears. 

 Maybe we should all behave. Take the hints from children, right?

 Brutal honesty, listening, and all those things, the attributes of...

 It's not what you say. It's how you say it, right?

 Well, guys, I wanna be respectful of time. I know there's a busy schedule. But I'd like to... And we always do parting thoughts on the podcast. I'd like to, maybe what advice or parting thoughts would you give? Let's go around the room to different constituents. So what would you tell a service provider and what would you tell a community about what they really... Based on what we've just talked about, about being transparent and humility, What tangible advice would you say, your parting thought from each of your perspectives, we'll do the service providers first and then we'll go back around for the communities lets start with you.

 Are we sure we don't wanna start with Justin?

 All right. I could, sure, I think for the service providers, I think it's more of what Scott said. It's looking at how can I be a part of the solution here? And not just how can I make the most money? I think the service providers have a great opportunity to make money out of this, but not necessarily a get rich, quick scheme. But it's how can I be a part of building my own community up? 'Cause you are a member of that community. So it's doing some of that reach out being available, being transparent, maybe doing some education for people I think is an opportunity service providers have a lot of knowledge that the people in the community just don't have about some of the realities of building a network operating a network signing people up, there's a lot more to it, and they can be a part of that education process to help build a true partnership, instead of just a relationship where they're gathering money.

 Clearly I think people don't... I think we can all agree that the complexity of doing this is not understood. 

 Yeah, no, I would follow up on that build on that, I would challenge them to think beyond traditional ROI models. Think about investing in the community to build future customers, and future opportunities to grow your business. That's kind of odd, right?

Beer and Broadband | Closing the digital divide through partnerships

Join Gigi Sohn on Monday, July 17, at 2:00pm ET for our latest episode the Ready or Not? Podcast LIVE! 

As a live show, we encourage the audience to participate in the chat function of our livestream. However, for this session, we will not be accepting question in the chat.We expect this to be a well attended event and we will almost certainly be able to get through everyone's questions, so if you have a question you would like to ask Gigi, please email them ahead of time to our show's producer, <a href="https://www.broadband.io/u/cd20b121?show_back_link=true">Benjamin Kahn</a> at <a href="mailto:ben@ready.net">ben@ready.net</a>, with the subject line "Question for Gigi."

<h2 style="margin-left:0px;">About our guest</h2>Gigi has worn many, many hats over the course of her career. Among her credits, she is a senior fellow at the Benton Institute for Broadband &amp; Society, a Board Member at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and as of May of this year, the first the Executive Director of the American Association for Public Broadband. She also served as the co-founder of Public Knowledge.&nbsp;Gigi holds a Juris Doctor from the University of Pennsylvania and a bachelor's degree from Boston University. &nbsp;

Ready or Not? LIVE with Gigi Sohn

Scott Woods, Vice President of Community Engagement at Ready, and former Director of the Office of Minority Broadband Initiatives at the NTIA, joins the Light Reading Podcasts to discuss the NTIA's notices of funding opportunity for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) and Digital Equity Act programs. He explains what the agency got right and where its rules "missed the mark." We also discuss his current role at Ready and how the software company is helping ISPs and other broadband stakeholders prepare for funding opportunities.

Scott Woods, Vice President of Community Engagement at Ready, and former Director of the Office of Minority Broadband Initiatives at the NTIA, joins the Light Reading Podcasts to discuss the NTIA's notices of funding opportunity for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) and Digital Equity Act programs. He explains what the agency got right and where its rules "missed the mark." We also discuss his current role at Ready and how the software company is helping ISPs and other broadband stakeholders prepare for funding opportunities.

 Hi, I'm Nicole Ferraro, and this is The Divide, a podcast from Light Reading, exploring the ongoing digital divide, why and where it still exists and what needs to be done to get people everywhere connected to reliable high speed internet. Today, I am joined by Scott Woods, who is the current Vice President of Community Engagement at Ready, and the former director of the Office of Minority broadband initiatives at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration or the NTIA. Scott spent over a decade working on broadband in the federal government and has now brought that expertise to Ready, which provides software to help ISPs manage their networks, apply for broadband grants and more. We talk about the NTIAs recent funding rules for roughly 45 billion in fraud band grounds on what it got right and what it didn't, and how Ready is helping service providers prepare for new funding opportunities. Scott, thank you so much for joining me. Welcome to the podcast.

 Thank you, my pleasure to be here with you and the audience today.

 Well, it's a real honor to get to talk to you today, I'm excited for the opportunity to start out, we have a few things to talk about, but I'd love to just start out to hearing a little bit about your background working in the federal government, you had worked on broadband for quite a while there, and a bit about your recent role as the Director of the Office of Minority broadband initiatives at NTIA.

 Absolutely. So again, first of all, thank you for having me on the show today. I initially came to the Federal government after a stint in private practice as a telecommunications attorney, but I joined the initial Obama administration to administer the BTOP program at the time, which was the broadband technology opportunities program. At the time, it was one of a kind for a billion dollar grant program designed to build out a minimal infrastructure and computer centers across the country under the American investment and Recovery Act programs. And so that was my initial entry into the federal government space, I had previously served in the federal government as a grad student, when I was pursuing my public policy degree, I worked a stint in the Department of Justice at the time, which was IMS, as a program analyst, but this was all before, before law school and before broadband just became the exploding issue and topic that it is now.

 And most recently... You were at NTIA, right?

 Correct. Most recently was the NTIA was at NTIA for 12 years, like I said, I started in the Obama administration under be top and then transcended all the way through programs like the broadband USA strategic initiative, the Technical Assistance Program, which I led. And then most recently, the connecting minority communities pilot program and the implementation of the IIJA programs, the B digital Equity Act programs.

 Great. So let's talk a little bit about those programs. They are the hot topic of the moment, the NTIA put out there notice of funding opportunities for B... For the middle mile program and for the digital Equity Act. So from your purview working within the federal government and from all of your work on broadband, what do you think are some of the most essential rules and stipulations within the NOFOs, and what feedback are you getting from some of the communities you've worked with and are currently working with...

 Yeah, those are great questions and really timely, I think last week or a week and a half ago, I actually did a webinar on this with an entity called tele competitor, where I broke down key provisions of the B-nofo, we focused on the B, and one of my initial observations, administration and NTIA is very clear that the B and digital equity NOFOS are connected. So the planning activities, the emphasis on equity and infrastructure expansion, that's one of the greatest lessons learned, I think from NTIA from our administration of the BTOP program, is that it's not separate, these are not tangential, these are companion strategies that absolutely have to be lock and step to ensure that communities have access not only the infrastructure and that it's affordable, but also the training and the devices and the utilization of all that comes with having robust high-speed broadband infrastructure. So that was one of the first observations as there is a keen tie and connection between the B-planning and the digital equity equity Act planning. Also talked about some concerns, number one is the letter of credit and the match requirement, 25%, which is a flaw...

 I'm concerned about that, particularly the impact on smaller providers, impact on minority-led people of color led isps, that's gonna be a problem, the match along with the letter of credit requirement, I think NTI missed the boat on that, but I think NTIA also hit the mark on the local coordination piece, to ensure that whatever plans move forward have to be again, lock-in-step with the needs of the community, so there are number of provisions, I think The NTIA could have improved. But also I think it hit the mark again on the local coordination piece, and again, the coordination of Bid and digital equity to ensure that there is a comprehensive approach to address the lack of broadband and making sure that such as affordable... As we move forward with these projects in the future...

 So I wanna back up a little bit because it's such an important point that you make about some of these stipulations being harder for black led isps, for example, which quite frankly, I don't come across nearly enough of them in my work, so what... First of all, is there a way for NTIA to address that despite the fact that the rules have been written, especially given the fact that the Biden administration's whole point of view is that digital equity and inclusion should be at the center of everything, and of course, that's somewhat taken care of on the consumer end with the digital Equity Act in some of these rules, but as you point out on the provider, and it may be actually cutting out some of the minority led, black-led Isps and other service provider vendors in this...

 Yeah. I think it missed the mark. Somewhat, I think it encourages... When you look at the Bid nofo and the digital equity, no foe, in the plans that the state submit to NTIH for consideration, they have to lay out the processes by which they encourage diverse participation, not only on the service providers, but in the provision of goods and services that will be funded under the NOFO, I think encouraged. I think they probably should have taken a stronger track and had it a requirement and really outline what states had to do, but instead they took a softer approach and left it up to states to interpret what that means to encourage Minority Participation in women-owned businesses. They stayed away from... They highlighted women owned, they stayed away from minority-owned black-owned isps, and I get it right, they didn't wanna cause too much controversy, but I think they missed the mark on being able to utilize this 50 billion dollar package incentive, if you will, to really... Will, say mandate, but really outline the requirements to ensure diverse participation, not just on the ISP side in the provision of broadband, but also in the provision of the goods and services that lead up to the build out of infrastructure and the providing...

 In the provision of service, so again, I thought it missed the mark as the one who was internal that provided recommendations, and not all of my recommendations where in the Billnofo. Again, I think it missed the mark, but again, flipping on the other side, again looking at the local coordination component, looking at there is equity language in the nofo, there is encouragement that states outline a process to include women and minority owned businesses and the provision of goods or services. So it's not that it's lack of... That is absent or void. It's just its not as strong. I think that the language could have been and probably should have been, to ensure that their participation were leading too much to the states to interpret it, and as you know, State's gonna do different states are gonna interpret it differently, unfortunately, depending on their politics, which is the reality of it.

 Yes, indeed. Okay, well, that's interesting and disappointing, but let me shift gears a little bit because you are no longer working within the federal government, which allows you to speak a little more freely about things like Nofo...

 Absolutely do you too. Tell me how you feel Skye.

 Yeah, yeah, I don't... I really... I do not feel like someone who is talking from the NTIA right now or has an NTIA.gov email address, you currently have a role at Ready or Ready.net. So maybe you can tell us a bit about what that is, how it intersects with the broadband industry and what your role is there.

 Thank you I appreciate it. Before I do that, let me do say I enjoyed my time at NTIA, there are some great professionals there, the folks that are working on and have worked on the Bid and digital equity NOFOS and the CMC program, my team that I left behind are absolutely great at what they do. And so the fact that I've highlighted had been critical of components does not take away from the great work that's done over at NTIA, and that has been done historically even before my time there, so I wanted to make that clear for the record... The record is clear.

 The record is clear. Alan Davidstein still loves you Amanda loves you.

 Really good person... I like those folks over there a lot, but recently joined, Ready as vice president of Community Engagement and strategic partnerships, and it really is a ground-breaking time and so much enthusiasm in the industry right now, not just because of the 50 to 65 billion dollars. It's just coming out of covid, there is a demonstrable need to address inequality in the provision of broadband, just based off of what we went through in the heart of the pandemic, and so I saw this as an opportunity to utilize my expertise, both from NTIA in the legal and the business side, to join a company like Ready that has three pillars, number one, it's develop a software as a service product that will allow service providers primarily isps, to conduct detailed into in management of their networks and customers on a proprietary basis, utilizing the latest technology and map and information.

 It's a really cool software product, I'm not giving it justice enough of how I just described it, and then the second component is the broadband, that money digital platform, that is a component of the Ready.net software, but it's a digital community right now that's growing, we're giving a lot of stakeholders a platform to come together to talk about, to discuss provisions that are going on in the state grants and federal grants and things that are going on, and locally, I get a platform to highlight what's going on in the community, really highlighting un-served and underserved areas, and making sure that these grant funds, both state and federal, and the private equity money are really geared towards...

 And we'll go to achieve the results that we all want, which is to significantly address inequality in the provision of affordable broadband services in this country, and then the final sort of platform or division that we have is Ready impact capital, where we have a team that will invest money to support isps to ensure that these projects will be implemented and constructed and finished. So we talked about the issue with the Marks, we talked about the issue of the letter of credit, already impact arm will partner with jurisdictions with service providers to ensure they have the capital that they need to be successful, and it's done so under the guise of what we call patient capital, so it's not a traditional high rate of return, double digit yield in two or three years, and it's really more of we want to ensure these projects are successful, and we'll provide capital and financial assistance at reasonable returns, a reasonable basis to ensure these projects can be successful, so I'm excited about all three of the platforms that we offer here at Ready.

 Yeah, really interesting Would you say it falls under a consultancy or a technology vendor.

 Probably technology I think the company is... The base company is a software company, it's a tech company, but again, it's flexible and modular enough to see that their needs and there are spaces that we can play, but the essence, the core, the company is the software, and it's probably some of the most smartest computer engineers software engineers, data scientists in the world that are working at this company and on this product, and they truly have a hard to ensure that the isps are successful, the grant funds are successful, and so it's my pleasure to be able to join them on this journey.

 Yeah, so yeah, so essentially it feels like Ready kind of has a product for each step in the process of getting the funding and building these networks and connecting different stakeholders together, are my understanding that... Right.

 Absolutely. It's more than that. I'm sure I would encourage folks to go to Ready.net or broadband.money to get more information, we're scheduling demos of the tool and the product. To join broadband money is free, it's a digital community. We have a lot of resources of a media team that they're doing stories that are highlighting achievements of communities, highlighting stakeholders, both good and the challenges, right. So I think we give a holistic 360-degree view of what's going on in the guise of sharing information, but I think the... The flavor, the tenor of the company is a tech company, it's a software company, and that means... We don't take no for an answer. That's one of the few things that I've learned here is, no, is not an answer. It's always... We never thought about that. Let's think about that and see what we can do to address that. So that's refreshing, 'cause coming from the federal government. The answer generally is no. Generally, the answer... We can't do that. We've never done that before. That's not... We don't have such constraints at Ready and broadband.money.

 So what have you guys been hearing from service providers at Ready and at broadband money since the nofos were released, and how are you seeing them using the platform? I'm just curious to see, now that these opportunities are open, are they coming to the broadband.money platform and saying, Hey, I need resources on X, Y, Z, or Hey, I'd like to connect with a vendor who does this, or, Hey, how do I get to know my state broadband offices. Are those the kind of connection you guys can help facilitate?

 Absolutely, just going back at my time before Ready and my time with Ready, the number one question I've always received, whether it was from an ISP, whether it was from a state and local government representative, a community member is, where do I get started? What do I do? And if you look at the NOFOS, you look at the B, the digital equity, the middle mile, they're heavily data intensive you have to know data, you have to know what's in your community. You have to know where broadband is, where broadband is not, you have to have a basis to challenge the FCC maps that are coming in any of those household determinations that will be in that mapping platform. And so I believe we have a product that addresses all of that data down to the individual household level, as well as a community that you can figure out where do I get started, what resources do I need...

 Who can I connect with to assist, and then again, as well as the ultimately the financial arm to help communities get jump started and effectuate and implement the project. So I'm excited about it, but again, I think if you look at the data, if you look at the data components of the nofo, it is heavily, heavily data-intensive, community state broadband offices have to put so much into these plans and they have to understand and know where broadband is, where it is not, where they're underserved and under-served communities are how they're gonna target strategies to address digital equity in all aspects of the community, digital telemedicine Enterprise Community.

 They have to understand all of that. So where do you get started, and that's the number one key, if you just sit down and took a deep breath and say, Okay, how do I begin to fashion a strategy to develop this... The number one question that I've received is, we don't know where to start, and I believe that's the reason... Part of the reason why I jumped over to Ready is because I believe we have a product and a platform that can assist and will help communities and stakeholders and isps address that initial question of how to get started, and then have a product that enable the assist them moving forward throughout the entire life cycle of a project and program.

 Awesome, and just to close us out then, you started working in the federal government when we started caring about the digital divide under President Obama, and you were working there under President Biden when we really committed to it, and seemed to understand it better. I think than we did 15 years ago or whenever that was. I don't really know what time is anymore, so I just love to know from you any key lesson that you've learned about whether it's policy or the technology itself, or anything about the digital divide that's guiding your work now that maybe you didn't understand when you came into it under President Obama, however many years ago that was.

 Yeah, I think that the number one and number two things I'll do number one first is that these are tangential strategies that absolutely have to go together, digital equity and broadband infrastructure. Affordable broadband infrastructure. So when we started, it was the notion of digital inclusion and adoption, which at the time was just the provision of devices.

 And then building infrastructure as a catalyst for last mile deployment and things of that nature, but I think we've learned over the years, and unfortunately the pandemic it was a huge eye-opener. Is it can't just be infrastructure, it's not just providing un-served or underserved communities with devices, there's a whole utilization, there's a whole training, there's economic development and workforce development. That comes along with that there's the Hotel of medicine and telehealth piece spurt, or partly by the pandemic, but it was a phenomenon before then... Of how all of this works together. And then it has to be affordable, so I can spend billions of dollars building infrastructure and devices and training, but if the services aren't affordable, and if I don't have plans to train and include under-served communities, vulnerable communities, our senior citizens, then we're just...

 It's wasted money, and in fact, we have a bigger inequity that exists is not a divide, it's a chasm, and we wanna make sure that we make a significant impact to lower that, I don't know if we can solve it... Totally 100%. I know that's this administration's goal its an aspirational goal. But I know that these funds, these programs will have a significant impact on the digital chasm... The digital divide that exists. If I had to compare and contrast both administrations, just people who care about the mission of the agency, they understand greatly the issues and are working extremely hard to put policies and programs in place to address it from the industry standpoint, what's significantly different than the BTOP days is this all hands on board.

 There's collaborations between service providers and public and private entities, the philanthropic community, the local community community champions, this is indeed an all-hands-on board effort, where in the early part of the BTOP days of the service providers were probably a little more reluctant to jump in and be a partner, and I'm not seeing that reluctance or opposition this time around, like we did, like we saw like we witnessed in the BTOP day, so that's refreshing it, and in fact, we will need an all hands, everybody in collaborative approach to solve this issue so it's refreshing, it's an energy that's in the industry right now that has not been in it for a while, at least from my perspective, and we're excited that we get to play a part in it and ultimately help communities move forward to be more competitive as an American society as a whole.

 So I know that was a lot. I can talk about this all day.

 I can ramble about This all day, but no, it's really a great time to be in this space and working with all of the stakeholders that we get to work with.

 Well, I could talk to you all day as well, but you have far more important work to do than to sit here and talk to me, so I am gonna let you go, but thank you so much for your time and I'm just excited to keep up with your work, I think the industry is lucky to have you in the spot that you're in now, 'cause they're gonna really need your expertise. So thank you for sharing your expertise with us. I really appreciate it.

 Thank you. It's my pleasure to be here with you today.

 Thank you again, Scott Woods for joining me. Thank you as well to our producer, Pierre Leandro for making this episode. Be sure to subscribe to The Light Reading Podcast for more episodes of the divide, as well as interviews and insights from the Light Reading Team. Thank you for listening. We'll see you next time.

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