Let's just look at these in general. We'll start with epithelial tissues. Epithelial tissues have the job of lining and covering body surfaces. Anywhere you have a surface on your body, you're going to find epithelial tissue. So if we think about the skin, that's epithelial tissue.  If we could shrink down into the size of a water molecule and go into one of our sweat glands, we would find that sweat gland is lined with epithelial tissue. All ducts that are lined with epithelial tissue, glands are lined with epithelial tissue. If you stuck your finger in your ear as far as you go, you're going to be touching epithelial tissue. So epithelial tissues line and cover body surfaces. And since that's the case, they always have what we call a free surface. And that free surface is just what it sounds like. It's the part of the tissue that's not touching another tissue. In other words, it's covering or lining that particular surface. Another thing about epithelial tissues is they always have a basement membrane. They always have a basement membrane. That basement membrane is on the other side of the free surface. And it's what attaches the epithelial tissue to whatever tissues are deep to that. So one side is the free surface of the tissue, and the other side is what we call where the basement membrane is found. Now, epithelial tissues can be either simple or they can be stratified. Simple epithelial tissues have only one layer of sales. So in a few minutes, we'll talk about simple squamous epithelium, for example. And simple squamous epithelium has one layer of sales. A stratified tissue, on the other hand, has more than one layer of sales. We'll say layers of sales. So epithelial tissues may be simple or they may be stratified. Let's think about some functions of epithelial tissues, just some general kinds of things that epithelial tissues do. One thing epithelial tissues may do is they may be involved with protection. It makes sense that if they line and cover the body surfaces that we have to have some sort of protection there. And so that's often what we call the first barrier of defense. If an organism gets inside of your body, it has to do so by crossing some membrane, and that's where epithelial tissue comes in. Epithelial tissues are also useful for secretion. We'll look at some goblet cells in a little bit, and the goblet cells secrete mucus. And so any time we have secretion going on, then there may be an epithelial tissue involved. Epithelial tissue can also be involved with moving cells or debris, and we'll look at some examples of that. But the lining of the fallopian tubes or the uterine tubes, for example, contains a ciliated epithelial tissue that helps to move the egg cell gently down towards the uterus. So protection, secretion, moving cells, and debris are all examples of what epithelial tissue is involved with.


policy that contributes to the public good within diverse communities. So we really applaud this effort. And we're all about data as a crucial starting point to policy. And in reading the report, I was really struck by the data in there, unfortunately illustrating San Antonio's challenges on the digital divide, but also really encouraged by the effort going into fixing this problem. First I was thinking about this topic. Yesterday I took the opportunity to talk to some of my undergraduates, because it was the first day of school. And I wanted to talk to them about any experiences they might have had with the digital divide in their high schools, because we hear a lot about that aspect of it. And they talked about it. They said yes, there were definitely people in high school who couldn't keep up, who couldn't do their homework, who got frustrated, and who dropped out. But it was interesting because it wasn't those students. None of my students had those big challenges. And here they are in a UTSA classroom. It was just the other kids they knew who were the ones who dropped out. And I was thinking about that because two days ago, the day before the first day of class, we had convocation. And it's one of the really cool things I get to do in my job. Cuz convocation is when we bring all the new freshmen in to main campus. And we teach them how to sing the Alma Mater. And it's just all kinds of fun stuff. And if you can see those faces, they're so excited and so proud to be there. And I was thinking yesterday after I spoke to my students about all the students who couldn't be there. So a lot of our students do face a lot of challenges. But the students who face the bigger challenges are the ones that we never see. And we have lots of room here, so we wanna have more students. And again, we so support this effort because one aspect of the digital divide will really have an impact on what we do here at UTSA, especially with our local students. So I especially wanna thank the group that brought this opportunity to us. And I don't wanna miss any names. So Richard, Rosario, Madavelle, Jordana, and especially Mooney who is an alum, I lost track of her, there she is. Who is an alum of our program, Things in the World. Thank you to Nalcast. Nalcast has been our great partner in so many ways in getting our events out to the public, and we really appreciate them being here again today. It's now my pleasure to introduce a truly dynamic force in our city. And if you know her, you realize this is actually an understatement. Lila Powell serves as Mayor Taylor's Chief of Policy. She previously served under County Judge Nelson Wolfe and Mayor Ed Garza. Lila's worked with local government, nonprofits, for-profit organizations to finance and manage affordable housing production, and to develop policy supporting inner city revitalization. And because we're a university, we always have to say what everybody's degrees are, so hers are really good. So she's a native San Antonian, she has her bachelor's degree from Stanford University, and she has her master's degree in community and regional planning from the University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture. So please welcome Lila Powell. Now I have to be interesting and on point, and really my purpose here is to read a letter from the mayor. But I will give a little bit of background because of some topics that Francine just touched on and also the goal of this session to address CRA responsibilities and the opportunities to close the digital divide as part of that focus area. So many of you may know that the mayor comes from a planning background and an affordable housing background. So these topics that you're touching on today are very important to her. And she and I first worked together almost 20 years ago when she came to San Antonio as an intern to talk about how we let the broader community know the challenges that are facing low income neighborhoods and residents in San Antonio. So this issue of how we give folks the tools to prosper, but also how we talk about that in the larger community and how we integrate that effort into our banking, our education, our media and entertainment industry. Those are things that the mayor has been working on for about 20 years now. So with that being said, I want to read a letter from the mayor who is right now at a budget work session. And in two weeks, three weeks, we'll be adopting our city's annual budget. And so that's why she couldn't be here today. On behalf of the City of San Antonio and Mayor Ivy R. Taylor, welcome and thank you. Thank you for convening today to discuss such an important issue, to acknowledge the increasing challenges our residents face and the need for action and to learn about strategies for closing the digital divide. Technology is changing our lives more quickly today than ever before. Job applications, medical records and government information are all online, which makes life much easier for many of us. This is the promise of the smart city revolution. However, and as we all know, these changes aren't good for everyone. If you don't have access to internet service, if you don't have a device, if you can't read, these trends are troublesome. While we in local government often turn to digital communication to make government more transparent and more accessible, we run the risk of further disenfranchising certain populations, very low income families and the elderly, for example. You are here today to help address those negative impacts. And I commit to you that the City of San Antonio will continue to partner with organizations such as the San Antonio Housing Authority and the University of Texas at San Antonio to make that happen. We have been delighted to work with HUD and Saha on the Connect Home Program, which ties into excellent work being done locally by our city and county public libraries and by private sector partners. And we look forward to producing our first city digital inclusion plan this year as part of the Mayor's DI2 Digital Inclusion Initiative. We know that the digital divide can keep our residents from participating fully in a tech-based government or local economy. And so, just as we are committed to build San Antonio into a smart city, we must also focus on inclusivity. My vision at San Antonio is a globally competitive city that offers everyone the opportunity to prosper. I know the work you are doing here today will help us reach that goal. Thank you. It is now my honor to introduce Jordana Barton. And I get to introduce such impressive people, but I have to read their bios because they're so lengthy and impressive. So Jordana Barton is the Senior Advisor in Community Development for the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, the San Antonio branch, where she supports the Federal Reserve System's economic growth objectives by promoting community and economic development and fair and impartial access to credit. Her focus areas include the Community Reinvestment Act, Community Development Finance, Financial Education, Affordable Housing, Workforce Development, Healthy Communities, and Small Business Development. Jordana holds an MPA from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Prior to working with the Federal Reserve, Jordana served as Vice President for Community Development Banking at Capital One Bank. In this role, Jordana built community partnerships and managed investments to promote economic revitalization and access to financial services in low and moderate income communities. Jordana also served as Vice President for Development and Communications for the Microenterprise Small Business Organization, Oxyone Texas, which is now LIF Fund. She was a member of the leadership team when the organization won the next award for Opportunity Finance from the MacArthur Foundation, Wells Fargo, and the Opportunity Finance Network in 2007. So please welcome Jordana Barton. Thank you, Dr. Romero. Click on this. It's great to be here. It's great to be at the College of Public Policy, specifically UTSA. Dr. Romero, Dr. Patricia Jaramillo, I've heard a lot about you. And I've been stealing, I think Dr. Jaramillo knows, my sister's public policy books. She graduated from here in May, and I've been using all her books to inform my work. And indeed, your interns in the College of Public Policy had a huge impact on this work. Maria Giovanna Valverde was interning with the Texas Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors in a partnership with us. Catherine Rose Barton as well, and of course Munire Jester, who's now a Digital Inclusion Fellow. So it's wonderful to see the students making these connections and really delving deeply into public policy issues. And one of the most critical policy issues of our time. I will just begin by saying one of the things that I say in the book and I want you to hopefully keep this with you as we're going through this presentation. Digital inclusion is economic inclusion. And I would like for you to think about that as we go through this presentation. I had a great deal of fun for the students who are here. I want you to know how fun it is to delve into policy issues that you might not have a lot of experience in. You have some pieces of knowledge, but you really need to find out to help people solve a great challenge. And that's exactly what happened to me. I had done a study of the Texas border colonists, Las Colonias in the 21st century for the Federal Reserve. And it took me to the border. In order to tell the story of very low income communities, you have to do a mixed method study. So I did quantitative and qualitative. And in those conversations with residents, I was hearing the stories about the digital divide. And it was just two paragraphs in the report when I was talking about what's keeping people from regional labor market opportunities. Two paragraphs about the digital divide about not having access to broadband. And how it limits people in the workforce, accessing workforce opportunities, which we're going to talk a little bit more about. As well as children, the homework divide. I was hearing those kinds of stories as well. And that, those two paragraphs ended up being major federal policy in the Q&A's for the Community Reinvestment Act. And they ended up being this guide for financial institutions for investing in digital equity. I will begin with this quote about the connection or the similarity between electricity and how it came to the United States and broadband. Like electricity a century ago, broadband is a foundation for economic growth, job creation, global competitiveness, and a better way of life. It is enabling entire new industries and unlocking vast new possibilities for existing ones. It is changing how we educate children, deliver healthcare, manage energy, ensure public safety, engage government, and access, organize, and disseminate knowledge. Certainly broadband is the new electricity. And the major efforts in this country that had to go forth to bring electricity to everyone is what we're undertaking right now. And how we're coming together to make sure that people have this very, the platform for basically to access everything and to participate fully in the economy. So what is the digital divide? The gap between people who have access to broadband services and know how to use the internet and those who do not have such access or knowledge. And who does not have access in our country? Low income households are most impacted. Low income minority, elderly, people that live in the south. Many characteristics of those that are not included in broadband access. And in the report which you have before you, I start by showing the US cities with 100,000 households or more with the worst connection. And that is what's plotted out on this graph that you see before you, are those cities. And you can directly see the correlation between income. So on page one, it has the chart of all the cities. And this plot chart, you can see that income is directly correlated with broadband access. So people with higher incomes, 80,000, 90,000 have the least gap, right? Have the most access to the internet. Whereas Detroit and others, such as El Paso, Detroit has about 40% who lack access to the internet. There was a recent New York Times article, which we'll talk a little bit about in the workforce development section that talked about just what that challenge means in places like Detroit. Households with less education have lower rates of broadband adoption. And one of the tools, one of the purpose of this paper is two things, of this publication. It's to inform and to share with financial institutions what are some of the best practices for investing in digital inclusion. Kind of laying out how to understand your performance context. And I'm just gonna use some language of CRA, which is basically understanding your communities and being able to describe what are their greatest challenges and understanding that and being connected to that community. And so, it's for financial institutions. But as you can imagine, it's also for the nonprofits and local governments and other entities that are partnering with them in their communities to solve some of the greatest challenges. So this is who this publication is for. It's for all of those groups working on this issue and specifically tailored to financial institutions. So one of the things I introduced to them in this publication are the broadband maps of the Department of Commerce. How connected is my community? You can find the broadband maps. And this one shows from a big picture point of view, right? The counties and what it looks like in this country. And you can clearly see from this big picture point of view that the south has a distinct digital divide. Those are the highest gaps, right? And lowest rates of broadband adoption are in the south. You can see the Texas border region there. And in fact, when I was on the Texas border during the Colonial study, let me tell you about Maribel, one of the women that I was talking to. She was talking about, she had been selling some of the produce that she would grow and produce at the area pool or flea market. And she'd been doing that. She had a Puesto or a stall there. And she really wanted to participate in this workforce training program of South Texas College. She talked to me about it. She was so excited. She wanted to go for a nursing degree. And she really wanted to participate. She couldn't participate because a lot of their programs are online. And she had to be able to have connectivity in the home. So you're gonna see some statistics on the border region of the broadband gap. But you can imagine even more in Colonias and very, very low income communities how difficult that is. She also talked about her children and driving back to school when she had access to a car or one of her fias would come and help her. Driving back to school so that her children could do their homework so they could access the Wi-Fi at the school. And that challenge drove the Federal Reserve to find out more and to come up with a solution. But those red areas, those are real people. Those are people without access and it's impacting their everyday lives and impacting our economy in a very huge way. Metropolitan households generally have more broadband access in general than households in rural areas. But it's important to zoom in. Because the big map tells you only so much. If you zoom in to any of those areas, the green areas and so forth. Definitely, the Federal Reserve, we wanna turn the country green for sure. We can't get into red and blue. But we can say we wanna turn the country green for sure. But you have to zoom in to your community in order to understand your performance context. You have to zoom in to your community. You're San Antonio. So you can see, even though it was not red, per se, on that big map, it has a significant red. Those with the biggest gap in broadband on the south side and central part. And you can see how it's correlated with broadband access. How income is correlated with broadband access. So it's very important when you're using those tools for financial institutions and others planning your work in the community to be sure that you zoom in and also you can implement other kinds of surveys and so forth to really understand what's going on with people. The Federal Reserve is gonna be setting an agenda and partnering with local governments to make sure they have the data that they need that Lila talked about. For example, that Mayor Taylor wants to engage in. We're gonna be a partner in producing that data as well. So the Community Reinvestment Act, just for those who are not bankers, the bankers here know it very well and I see many of them in the audience. It's a law that encourages banks to make loans and investments. Investments include equity and equivalent investments and grants and to provide services. So having financial institutions reach out to communities and provide financial services in low and moderate income communities. Every year, CRA helps to bring over 100 billion in capital to low and moderate income communities across the country. There is not a pot of money per se, but each financial institution tries to understand its community and makes its own plan for how it's gonna implement its Community Reinvestment Act strategic plan. Past in the 70s, that's why our communication today and working together in these ways to find best practices is so important. It was passed in the 70s by amazing activists who wanted to ensure that low income people had access to credit. And it was in response to the red lining that was happening based on where people lived, where banks were not serving them. And this was just embraced by the financial services industry and most banks have a CRA strategic plan. And how well they do on that determines whether they can grow, whether they can open new branches, and so forth. But more than that, a lot of the people that I know that have gone into banking, see it as a social service, as an important part of a community people's important access that they need to have to be able to build assets and do what they need to do in life, like send their kids to college. So a lot of them are motivated beyond the law of CRA. But just because it's good business and it's good for their communities where they live and work. It's intended to be flexible and responsive to changes within communities. That's important too. That's why the regulations, like the ones that I'm talking about on this slide, that we just had the new Q&As come out. That's how the federal government makes regulations and makes changes or adapts a law to make sure it's relevant. They only tell you so much. And what they told us this time, which we worked very hard on, is when the interagency group, the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Control of the Currency, the FDIC published the CRA guidance, the interagency Q&As. It told us that broadband, according to these institutions, is an essential infrastructure. The argument has been for a long time that broadband, that's a luxury. But like President Obama said, it's not a luxury. It's a necessity for people now, right? So Federal Reserve and the others weighing in that this is essential infrastructure. It's not just something that you could have if you can afford it. Broadband is included as a form of infrastructure investment. And in Appendix A, which the appendices in this publication are really important, it shows you the types of broadband investment that different communities might need. And as we meet with financial institutions, bank regulators and so forth, we're going to come together to talk about some of the ways that they can invest in those forms of infrastructure. Under the CRA service test as well, there was an important Q&A and talks about how banks should show evidence that their alternative delivery systems, i.e. online banking and mobile banking, access to financial services, i.e. have access to banking. And we can move more people from the unbanked category to the banked category. The key is going to be to show results, right? To show that you're having impact. How do you do that as a bank? You're busy doing your banking thing. You partner with incredible community organizations like Connect Home who have a plan to show impact, right? Who you can partner with in a true partnership to achieve the goals, for example, of Connect Home by supporting the scholars perhaps. You can work with a university and put in a grant to have paid intern, to work with low income residents in digital inclusion programs. You can invest in the last mile infrastructure, the Wi-Fi infrastructure that might be needed in San Antonio area. And we're going to learn more about as we talk with Connect Home about what their exact needs are in terms of infrastructure, digital inclusion programs, you could do a financial literacy, online financial literacy program with them. You could have an extensive relationship with people and really show results that they're increasing their online banking usage. They have bank accounts, more unbanked, becoming banked. And we can probably even show that they're improving their credit scores or improving their savings and so forth. So those kinds of partnerships are going to be very important. And I went down instead of up. And so this framework, what I try to help financial institutions and others understand is what this issue is about, the digital divide. And how it fits into community development and the Community Reinvestment Act. Basically, what I knew I was doing when I was writing this, it was a very practical guide. I wanted it to be useful and so forth. But I also knew that I was writing something that was going to change the whole field of community and economic development. And that it was establishing beyond a shadow of a doubt that digital inclusion is part of community development, just as affordable housing, small business development, and workforce development and so forth. Digital inclusion is the platform, and it is a key area of community development. So let that stand. And we're in the right place at a policy school to talk about that. Hopefully, the UTSA School of Public Policy, College of Public Policy can impact policy programs around the country with this endeavor, this partnership that we've already formed with you and your students. I wanted to identify best practices, right? We need to find what is the smart thing to do? What have we learned all these years and bring it all together in one place? So this publication is the start. I'm also producing a website, Federal Reserve System website, so that you can access more resources and all the incredible citations that I have kind of laying out how you can use those resources and who you can turn to as financial institutions or community partners in implementing digital inclusion. How do you identify opportunities in your assessment area? How do you prepare your case for the bank examiners? How do you tell your CRA story and all the appendix resources that are included in the publication? So what I established is that broadband is essential infrastructure. And what's important to know with broadband infrastructure is that when we're talking about digital inclusion, we talk about the three legs of the stool. We talk about infrastructure and digital inclusion programs include affordability, computer access, and affordability, as well as training and technical assistance. Well, it's important to note that the three legs of the stool are not equal. If you do not have broadband access, if your community has not invested in digital and broadband infrastructure, then it won't help you to have a computer very much because you won't have access to the internet and all that it can provide. I look at workforce development and how it impacts workforce development, access to financial services, which we've begun to talk about already, small business development, profound implications for small business development, and a community's vitality as far as entrepreneurship, affordable housing. Secretary Castro at HUD is proposing that for all HUD qualified housing developments in the future, that there's broadband access included, or for most, and he's trying to make inroads there. And also, of course, with the major effort to connect home across the country and certainly in San Antonio, how critical it is for people to have broadband access in the home. That article from the New York Times that I talked about, that I was talking about, Detroit, it told a great story. It told the story of Maribel, the one I told you about that I met on the border, and many like her that I met as part of that study. Oh, and there's Maria on that picture, as a matter of fact, in Webb County, who was asking me how she could make her phone into a Wi-Fi hotspot. It didn't work there. To have Wi-Fi, you have to have broadband infrastructure.  Yes, it needs like a pole to go to so it can communicate and so forth, so hopefully we're making the invisible, which is invisible to most of us. It was invisible to me before I started the study, more visible, right? So that we can really understand the architecture of things that are so critical to us. And affordable housing, of course, I talk a lot about connect home and how important it is for people to have access in the home because if they go to the library and apply for a job, maybe they stood in the line, they worked at the library, very important access. But how do they know if they got an interview or if they don't have an email account or they can't communicate? Likewise, accessing jobs. Most jobs, 83%, I think I say in the report, are posted online, you have to do your resume and submit online and so forth, so those are challenges. And then access to healthcare as well, I talk a lot about. That's my next paper is telemedicine and health on the Texas-Mexico border and hopefully it'll help promote telemedicine and its promise for the future and helping create healthy communities. So in workforce development, I do talk about the statistics, right? We have a digital skills gap. Those are the jobs that are fastest growing. Basic digital skills as well as advanced digital skills and we have a gap in this country of people not being prepared, so that's the importance of digital inclusion programs, right? And I make the connection between digital literacy and the internet economy, because I think it's very important for us to see because the children that you're working with in low income communities, they're gonna go, they're gonna participate in all of these ways, including being the programmers and coders that are gonna be creating the most incredible, innovative solutions in this world and amazing businesses, right? So understanding that broadband access is the basic and then you want people to be digitally literate so they can participate as consumers, they could sign up for healthcare and so forth, right? And financial literacy and all the way up to computer programming, for example. So small business development, one of the quotes that I give in the paper is, Uber, the world's largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world's most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world's largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate. Something interesting is happening. Something interesting indeed. It's totally transforming business, it's totally transforming our society. The fintech industry, financial technology industry, is partnering with banks to create efficiency, incredible opportunities for innovation. I talk in the report, I won't go too, in too much about it because I got my signal, but definitely show how broadband, high-speed broadband access impacts GDP, how it impacts creating an entrepreneurial economy with a vibrant economy. That report by Sosa really shows how, for example, Chattanooga, Tennessee with its municipal broadband has generated major GDP and major entrepreneurship and innovation in its community. And the important thing to remember with regard to small business development is that what the internet provides is that before innovations happened in telecommunications in the center of the network with engineers who were working in the industry, now with the internet, a person and their computer is the place where innovation is happening. That's incredible. That's an incredible opportunity for low-income communities. I won't go too much into fintech industries, you can read about those in the paper, and the implications for rural communities basically makes geography potentially irrelevant for some businesses. It won't matter where they are, because they'll be able to reach people. Access to financial services, this was one of the funnest parts to write about because of the amazing changes in the financial services industry, how people are using mobile and online banking to a greater degree. We have to be very concerned, like I said, with the digital divide, but if financial institutions can partner with great programs in the community to have an impact, we can, there's a promise, and the FDIC has confirmed this in a 2015 report, which I cite in the paper, that there's a lot of promise for mobile banking to reach more people, the low-income people that are hard to reach with banking, there is a great promise. We just have to work together and work collaboratively to make it happen. Here, I show how visits to branches have declined, and certainly with the millennial generation, but with everyone and paper checks falling, and very significant changes in the industry. In the report, I talk about the importance of the Three Legs of the Stool, which I already mentioned, that programs that you support as bankers, that the communities develop, you have to make sure you take into the Three Legs, take into account the Three Legs of the Stool, broadband access, computer access, training, and technical assistance. The best practices I talk about for financial institutions is to make sure you're supporting programs that are taking those into account, that are measuring outcomes, and the Department of Commerce, I give some resources, they're developing resources for communities to develop the metrics for how to determine this. So if your community partners are using those metrics to help them and developing some of their own, they're gonna be able to show success and show the evidence that you're gonna need for your CRA exam. And training programs for youth and adults should cover the subject of internet safety and security. There's a program that I cite in the book, which one is it, Catherine? The program that we were talking about, Common Sense Media. Yeah, they have a great digital inclusion citizenship. That's so important, and for minority communities, low income communities, to have relevant digital inclusion training that is really helping you to use the internet for good. I mean, there's a dark side to the internet, right? And we all, we have to own it and know that it's ours so that the dark side won't win. We wanna use it for good, and we want young people to be equipped to know how to be great citizens on the internet. And then, programs should consider the barriers to adoption. What are some barriers to adoption? Anybody can raise their hand. What would stop people from accessing broadband? If they had access, but what would stop them if? Cost, right? Having a computer, buying a computer, keeping it up. What if it breaks? Do you have help with that? Cost is a big thing. Skills, digital skills. Fear, maybe, what would that look like? Yeah, the fear of the unknown and the fear of some kind of harm coming to you. All of those things are very important in digital inclusion programs. That you're developing programs, and I can't wait to work with education scholars, some who are in the audience, and others to develop great digital inclusion programs where kids can tell amazing stories of the community and use the internet for good and really harness that potential. I won't go too much into it, because I think I'm cut off, but definitely as you're looking into your community, look at Connect Home. It's a great opportunity because it's looking at the three legs of the stool and reaching some of our most vulnerable citizens and people who are completely left out, and we can make a huge difference, and they've got the metrics and the evaluation thing down. That's a great thing. I also talk about digital opportunity for the Rio Grande de Valle, of course, because I did the Colonia study on the Texas border and learned so much from them. Huge digital divide on the border region. This is just the metro areas, but you can see the difference between there and Austin, for example. And I'll go ahead and skip a little over this, but we basically are creating, working with the City of FAR first. It's a demonstration project with the City of FAR and Farson Juan Alamos School District, and we're gonna basically build infrastructure and create a digital inclusion program, which is already taking off this fall, and the study right now by CTC Technology is being completed. BBVA Compass, I think Yolanda Davila is here. They have been stepped up to really adopt the program. They're gonna be making financial literacy available at PSJA, and their bankers are excited about participating with the students and families there as well. So those are some, that was our first meeting, and I'm telling you, if you go to a meeting like that, please take Gabriel Garcia with CPS Energy with you. He's a brilliant Utilities lawyer, and official here in San Antonio who came with me and really helped us to lay out a plan with the City and really understand what the assets were and what the needs were and how to go forth. And of course, we're following the Department of Commerce's best practices in having an engineering firm make the plan, so the demonstration is set to be a model for the regional expansion of a major broadband infrastructure network. I give tips for preparing the case for bankers, so just try to look back at that, talk specifically about the Q&As and specifically about how you can talk about your work and show leadership, responsiveness, and innovation. So there's incredible, for a former CRA banker, I was thrilled with this issue because wow, I can really show innovation here. Not only can I lend to develop a broadband network or support Wi-Fi infrastructure, but I can layer that lending service. My bankers can be involved in a digital inclusion program with financial literacy and so forth and lending service and investment, right? So and I can make a loan to support a digital inclusion program as well. So that kind of layering to the bank regulators to the examiners, wow, they say, okay, you're making sure that that loan is a good loan. That's what we're responsible for in banking, right? Making sure that we're doing good business in the safe and sound, first of all. Because you're making sure that there are gonna be adopters, you're investing in digital inclusion in your community or affordability, you're providing computers to this group of families and so forth, right? So all that elegance of CRA is, there's an opportunity for that in this work. The reason it's important to the Federal Reserve. In this country right now, wealth inequality is at its highest. Wealth and income inequality, since the Great Depression, right? The digital divide creates a structural barrier to closing income and wealth gaps and a barrier to LMI family's ability to move up the economic ladder. So in this country, the top 3% account for 30.5% of all income and holds 54.4% of all net worth. America's upper income families have a median net worth that is nearly 70 times that of the country's lower income families. The widest wealth gap between these families in 30 years. So if we wonder how to solve this, we have to solve the digital divide challenge because it's a structural barrier to all of these areas of community development to wealth and asset building in low income communities. By working with nonprofits and other local partners to bring broadband access and adoption to LMI communities, banks can have a powerful impact on what Representative Castro calls the very infrastructure of opportunity in this country. I'm broadening his, he talked about the infrastructure of opportunity in education. But I would hold that broadband infrastructure is indeed the infrastructure of opportunity. Thank you, and I went a bit over. I guess Q and A will be later. So everyone, my name is Munire Jester and I'm a Digital Inclusion Fellow. So I'm part of this National Digital Inclusion Fellowship as a fellowship that's sponsored by the nonprofit technology network and Google Fiber. And I have the pleasure to be working at Saha, the San Antonio Housing Authority. So at Saha Digital Inclusion Fellow, I'm working with the organization in creating a digital inclusion plan for our residents. So it's a really exciting work and I'm so grateful to be here with you guys today. So now I'd like to introduce you to Richard Milk. So Richard Milk is the Director of Policy and Planning for the San Antonio Housing Authority. Richard leads the Saha Strategic Planning Effort, but among other things, he's the driving force behind the ConnectOM initiative. So please welcome me and join me in welcoming Richard Milk. Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for being here. I want to thank the College of Public Policy for hosting us. This is a great space and we're glad to be here. Dr. Hamid, if you could pass on, thanks to Dr. Romero. I knew I had to step out a little early. And I want to especially thank the Federal Reserve and Jordana Barton for a number of things. One, for putting together this report, which I think is a fantastic report, really frames the issue as a critical issue, not just for South Texas, not just for San Antonio, but for the nation as a whole. And gives us a path forward to address it. But I also want to thank her for actually making this meeting happen. I think without her and her energy and her ability to see how these issues can come together and how they can start to resolve them, we wouldn't be here looking at opportunities to work together and bridge the digital divide. So thank you, Jordana. I need to bring up another presentation. So those of you that don't know me, Director of Policy and Planning, I do a number of things for Saha. This is one of the most exciting ones at the moment. And what I want to do just for a few minutes is share a little information about Connect Home. And it's about a year old, as far as at the national and local level. Talk to you about what we've done. Talk to you about what we are planning to do in the near future. I want to talk a little bit about how we think about digital inclusion and then look at next steps. How can we work together to actually take some solid action to address the digital divide? The Connect Home is a national program. It's a national pilot. It started by HUD recognizing the critical importance of the digital divide and focusing initially on HUD assisted housing, public housing in particular, but now starting to look at Section 8 and other HUD assisted housing as well. San Antonio is one of 28 communities that was selected to participate in this pilot and we're very excited to be part of this. One of the things that HUD did was designate a sort of a lead peer agency that had set the stage for Connect Home by breaking new ground and experimenting a year or two ahead of everybody else. And that was Austin, the Housing Authority of the City of Austin. I'd like to recognize Catherine Craigo who's here. And probably I'm guessing won the award for having come the furthest distance to this meeting. Thank you for being here, Catherine. So we've, Catherine's been a great resource. She's visited us many times. We've visited her and trying to understand lessons learned there and how they apply here. San Antonio Housing Authority manages 6,000 public housing units in the area and we also manage 14,000 vouchers throughout the area. We have a number of partners that are working with us. One of the great things that HUD did when they put together Connect Home is secure some national partnerships and national commitments. On the broadband level, Google and Sprint are key partners and I'd like to recognize Clarissa. She was here a minute ago. Clarissa Ramon from Google. She ducked out. I know she was here. Also, we have at the national level commitments from everyone on, the American Library Association, Boys and Girls Club, the College Board, Khan Academy, PBS, from the foundation side, the 80-20 foundation has made an important commitment to Connect Home in San Antonio. And companies like ABCMouse.com and Best Buy and GitHub are also very active. We're working with them to actually to organize initial training in a few months here for youth age 14 through 18. When we started looking at how we wanted to initiate Connect Home here in San Antonio, our mindset was this is a pilot. We've never done this before. We're gonna take some risks, experiment, try different things at different sites, see what works. If it works, then we'll replicate it. If it doesn't, then we'll move on. So we identified a few pilot sites, Springview on the east side, Casiano and Alasana Fache on the west side. For those of you that are familiar with those properties, those are family properties with families, kids. We also started to identify some properties that are focused on serving elderly and disabled households, such as Opish Nabel, WC White, Bear Avenue, and Via Tranquezi. So we recognized that there's gonna be different needs, different interests, different approaches that need to be taken at different sites, and that's one of the things we wanted to experiment with. And the person that really helped us lead that experimentation was Catarina Velasquez, who's here, I wanna recognize Catarina, hello. Catarina is our lead trainer, and she is in the field every day, working with the residents, working with our property managers, getting to know the ins and outs and the uniqueness of each property, the unique assets that surround and that can help support this effort, and the unique challenges of each area. What specifically do we need to think about when we're trying to bridge the digital divide in one particular neighborhood? The city of San Antonio, Lilo, it's been a great support from the start in the mayor's office, it's been a great support. Bear County has donated 100 machines to connect home, it's been a fabulous support. I wanna recognize Wells Fargo as well. Laura Cavani-Aprous is here, I wanna recognize her, thank you for coming, and for providing a neighborhood lift grant to connect home. So we are very excited, and it's gonna help us really get through this year and get through thinking about all the issues that we're gonna talk about in a minute. We're working with Bibliotech and KLRN on a number of approaches. Very excited to be working with the San Antonio Education Partnership and college prep activities. Alamo Colleges, Goodwill, we have Angelica and Angelique from Goodwill here, if you only recognize. Thank you for coming. And Leah Rosenauer from Girl's Inc. is here as well. We're working with Girl's Inc. and putting together some programs specifically for our girls at Casiano and Alaston in the coming months. So a lot of great local partners, I think it's very exciting to have that energy around connect home. It speaks to, I think, the demand and the recognition of the demand among not just us and not just the Federal Reserve but also people that are working on the ground and in different sectors of the community. So I'll mention one additional partnership that's very exciting, and that's N10's Digital Fellowship N10 is a national nonprofit that helps support digital inclusion initiatives and is supporting a series of digital fellows across the country. San Antonio is lucky to have three this year with five, with five. Oh, okay, two from Austin are here. Okay, who are you? I don't know you. Hi, thanks for coming. So you win the award as well. The three from San Antonio, I do want to recognize Mooneray Jester at Saha, Emma Hernandez at San Antonio Public Library and Tanya Hernandez at Each One Teach One. So one of the, there's a lot of benefits to having these fellows working with us. They've already started collaborating, working together. They've brought a lot of energy. They have one year, so they have a tight timeline to meet. They have some goals that they want to, but then they have a great national network that they can draw from to help accomplish goals. So I'm excited to be working very closely with Each One Teach One and the San Antonio Public Library. Carolyn Heath is here from Each One Teach One and Candelaria Mendoza from the Public Library. Thank you all. So this is gonna be one of the engines that drive us through this year, and we're very excited to be working together. But just a few words about how we think about digital inclusion. This is a framework. It's what Jordana described, the three-legged stool. And in fact, the graphic here is from page four of your report. I hope you don't mind if I copied it. Hello. Infrastructure, connectivity, digital literacy, and devices. So I'll just say a few words about each. Connectivity, as Jordana mentioned, is sort of the most important, that the first place needs to be in place. Our goal for Connect Home is a broadband connection in every HUD-assisted unit. The long-term approach is Google Fiber, and Google's made a commitment to provide their high-speed connectivity for free to many of our public housing communities, and that's a great commitment. But in the meantime, since that's not happening tomorrow, in the meantime, we are pursuing some additional strategies to help provide Wi-Fi connectivity or other connectivity on a more immediate basis. What we've done is establish 50 community rooms in public housing properties with free Wi-Fi, and I'd like to recognize David Clark, who's director of public housing, and oversaw some of that, as well as Joanna Alvarado, who is director of IT, and actually made a lot of this happen, so thank you both. We've also established, thanks to Google, 45 shared computers at three sites, these are new computer labs that anyone can use, the residents can come down and use at any time. We're also taking advantage of a Sprint program that provides hotspots to school-aged youth. The hotspots are theirs to keep, and they can put them in their backpack and they're connected wherever they go, and Sprint's providing nearly three years of free service as well, so that's a great program we're rolling out to our kids. Additionally, Joanna has been experimenting with microwave technology and all kinds of cool things that I can't describe to actually provide, to expand our Wi-Fi signal to 145 units in our elderly and disabled sites. So we found some very innovative ways to make use of the technology that we have and leverage it to reach some very impressive goals very quickly. That's not to say there's some opportunities still to come. Others, we've identified Wi-Fi expansion projects on a number of our smaller sites. So far, we've identified $30,000 of projects on four properties that representing about 500 units. These are things that could be done relatively quickly over the coming year. On our larger sites, we're looking at longer-term projects and longer-term solutions. Many of you may be familiar with Casiano, LinkedIn, Alessandro. These are multi-block, multi-acre sites that spread out over neighborhoods. And we do, would be looking at larger-scale Wi-Fi solutions. Joanna mentioned the last mile-type connectivity that would involve partnerships with CPS and the city to make something like this happen and we're very excited to work on that. And we wanna continue with the Hotspot program. Sprint's program only runs for a few more years, so we wanna take advantage of it while it's running and provide hotspots to all our kids, which in public housing amounts to about 6,000 in all. And if we expand to section eight, then that's another 12,000 kids. That's a significant number of households connected. When we, digital literacy is the second leg of the stool, the Connect Home goal for digital literacy is that every resident complete an appropriate digital literacy training class. We'd like to establish a year-round schedule of onsite classes at all the participating sites to the tune of 40 hours per month per site and expanding at a rate of about one site every three months. So far, we've graduated about 150 residents from site-specific courses. We had one particular summer youth employment program, so concentrated digital literacy course that was very successful. And we graduated 60 high schoolers from that program. And we've also trained seven digital ambassadors. This is a concept that we also got from Austin. These are residents that receive additional training and additional incentives. And in return, they serve as a resource to their neighbors. And they're available to provide, to answer simple questions to be helpful. And they also are available to help coordinate additional training. They become familiar with the schedule, with the way that we're rolling out the program and they become a vital resource to the program. As we look forward into the coming year, we'd like to fund 700 hours of internships. We'd like to establish a network of volunteers that can provide four hours of volunteers per week per site. And what might be interesting to many of you is we'd like to add digital literacy curriculum to many additional programs. So we have discovered that digital literacy is the first step towards many other things. I think as the mayor mentioned, Ms. Dordana mentioned, this is a requisite now, but it's also important to set what the ultimate goal is. And the ultimate goal will vary by resident, by the age, by the interests of the residents. But we think digital literacy could be a part of early childhood education programs, college prep, STEM, coding, financial literacy classes, career-specific training, and training that's addressing the needs of older adults as well. The third leg of the stool is devices. So you need a machine in order to take advantage of your connection. And we connect home, we'd like to provide free or low-cost desktops or laptops to all residents. The way we've been thinking about this and delivering devices is as rewards for completing the training.  So to date, we have received 100 laptops from Google GoodWare, 100 desktops from Bear County, 15 Chromebooks, and six Raspberry Pi from Google Fiber. And I think we're pretty close to having delivered all of them to residents who completed their trainings. So when we look at opportunities in the future, they fall into two categories. One is these individual computers for successful trainees. And I'm happy to announce that we're completing an agreement with Goodwill at the moment to refurbish and distribute a steady stream of computers at a rate of about 30 per month to our residents and Goodwill's and very generous in putting together a partnership agreement that benefits them and benefits us and benefits our residents more than anything else. There's also a need for computer labs. I think one of the things we've learned this past year is that where we have built computer labs, they've become huge assets, not just for digital literacy, but for other programs. Anyone can come in and take advantage of those resources. So we'd like to expand that to as many sites as possible, about 15 machines per site. Some sites, however, are laid out in such a way they were built in such a way that there's no way you can ever build a computer lab. They don't have the walls or the doors or the security that you need to keep those machines secure. So what we'd like to try is sort of a mini library system, a loaner system where the main office has a series of loaner laptops where the residents can come down and check out and then use in the community area and then return when they're done. We'd also like to explore the use of tablets for especially for early childhood education. There seems to be some demand for that and we've actually taken some steps in that direction as well. So we're very excited to be here, to be thinking about the coming year. We're excited to have the Federal Reserve as a partner, as a new partner for Connect Home.  There's plenty in front and there's more on the desk. How about your slides? My slides, that we can make them available. The other, and that reminds me, nowcast. SA, thank you nowcast for doing this and I think you're doing this live and you're also capturing it in video form and so there will be a website that you can go to and watch this all over again if you like or more importantly, share it with folks that couldn't make it and let them know about what's going on. Is that address available? Is that something we can distribute? Let me know. NowcastSA.com, thank you. So just to wrap up, I think one thing you should know is that we are thinking big. We started small with small projects and with an ability to experiment and fail fast. But I think we're now we're at this stage where we're the pilot, we're learning from the pilot and we're ready to actually accelerate and expand in an expansion mode in the coming year or so. So that involves a whole different set of priorities and strategies. But it is very consciously done to provide useful information to the mayor's office and the city's digital inclusion plan that you heard about at the beginning of the meeting and the digital inclusion initiative, more broadly speaking, Connect Home provides the initial testing grounds and lessons learned that can then be applied city-wide. So we're very excited about that and very happy to communicate everything we've done well and everything that we've messed up on. So we're very clear about that. I think we shift gears now, right? So we're gonna do a Q and A and there's a microphone in the middle. If you wouldn't mind coming up to the microphone that way everybody can hear your question. And while everyone's lining up, I will also draw your attention to a questionnaire that's on your chair. If you wouldn't mind just taking a minute to fill that out, let us know what you thought, where you think, where do you wanna learn more? We're happy to follow up with you directly to address your interest. But we have a question, thank you. First question's from Saha in the Connect San Antonio. Once you get moved beyond the initial turn up in the generosity of the local partners, including the Google and Sprints, whatnot, what do you see for sustainability of the programs? How is that being addressed and what's that looking like? That's a great question. And I think it's part of it our getting out of pilot mode is really addressing the sustainability question. I think some, because this has been a public-private partnership from the start, I don't anticipate that that will change. I think there will always be a public component and there will always be a private component. But having said that, I think one of the ideas that we see is successful in other cities like Austin and Kansas City and probably several others is that there are nonprofits in each of those cities whose sole mission is digital literacy. San Antonio has yet to develop that capacity and we think there's a great opportunity for that to happen and that would address some of the sustainability issues. I think the partnership with Goodwill is actually a great sustainability solution that provides a steady predictable flow of devices. And the larger really more thorny issue is the infrastructure and connectivity and that will be something that we hope we can inform the bigger city of San Antonio picture in terms of what is the city's digital inclusion plan, what are their goals, how do we set up great connectivity across the city for everyone regardless of background, or is it code or income? Two questions of the 145 Wi-Fi stations. Do you have a map of where they are around the county? Was that you, did I say that? It was on there, said you had 145 Wi-Fi sites. Oh, so that was, yeah, so that's reflective of 145 units that we brought online using our new fangled Wi-Fi technology. Oh, so they're not like hotspots? They're not, they're not, we do have hotspots as well. Those are that we gave out to kids, specifically the kids in school. Yeah, okay, second question that you thought about like Portland has a city-wide Wi-Fi system. They got all the businesses to go together and say, okay, we've got Wi-Fi at McDonald to get Wi-Fi here and there, and we'll just all go together and we'll give Wi-Fi so it's everywhere in the city. That sounds great to me. I think that, I know at this point in time, we're all kind of working in different ways to provide Wi-Fi. I'll point out, VIA has also provided, is taking steps to provide Wi-Fi in transit in the buses and the transit stations as well. And I think there's an increasing, we've got Wi-Fi in the libraries. So I think right now we're, all our partners are working independently but increasingly in coordination to achieve that goal. We have at nowcastsa.com a map of all of the free Wi-Fi all over San Antonio. That's a great resource. Yes ma'am. Hi there, I'm a recent graduate of the College of Public Policy and I'm interested in participating. I did participate in an internship in spring and I was wondering what else I can do to be involved in this, I know that there's the fellowship and stuff. Is there any plans for future opportunities for students? Yes, so I would recommend speaking with any of the digital fellows to get a sense. Can I recommend you, Dr. Jada Mio also? So Dr. Jada Mio may be a resource. But each one, teach one, San Antonio Public Library are also working, we're all working together. So I think there's opportunities probably in many places. Any additional questions, Christina? Good afternoon, Christina Castagna with VIA. Yes, just wanted to clarify that all of our buses today do have free Wi-Fi on them and all of our transit centers around town have free Wi-Fi. We are building our next two Primo lines. We have our first Primo line on Fredericksburg Road that connects downtown to the medical center and all of the Primo stations in between have free Wi-Fi access as well as the two new ones planned on Zarsimora which hit several Sahap properties and on Military Drive, another 25 miles of Primo stations which include about 48 new free Wi-Fi stations. Thank you. I'll mention also, I saw Emilio Castro here from SAISD earlier and I know they've been also experimenting with Wi-Fi on the buses for their kids and as that rolls out, I hope I didn't spill any secrets. Hi, Catherine Crego from Housing Authority City of Austin and thank you so much for inviting our Austin crew to come and learn from what you're doing. First, I just want to compliment you. It's an amazing and wise use of the resources that you have. I don't know of any other city that has so deliberately tested different kinds of connectivity resources at different kinds of properties and so often people go out when they get their first batch of funding and go pick one solution and peanut butter spread it and if it doesn't work then the money's gone but just really commend you on that very deliberate approach. When you think about the population at SAHA, you're about four times bigger than Austin is. When you think about your population here, which population really needs the most help fastest and what kinds of resources are most useful and then Jordana, I have a question, I'm wondering when you think about from the corporate side, what are some of the most compelling objections people have to in making digital inclusion investments and how do you overcome those? I guess I'll go first. And I'm tempted to defer to Catarina to see if you have any thoughts, Catarina, since you've been working with our residents, if there's any particular group that needs the most help fastest is the way you said it, Catherine. Yeah. How many of you have the microphone? When we attended that Connect home convening at HUD last year, there were some interesting considerations that I think we may have to deal with at some point, which one of these issues that came up was what are they gonna use it for? If we connect up these populations with Wi-Fi, how do we know they're gonna use it for the right thing? And I think that's a really interesting question that betrays some preconceptions and some ideas about our ability to put strings and conditions on assistance that we offer to empower different populations. And that may be at a little more theoretical level than the discussion we're having today, but I think it's something to keep in mind. No, I appreciate that. And I think I'll tag it on as a second question to Jordana if I could take that and spin it into what are the outcomes that the Federal Reserve might wanna see come out of something like this, long-term outcomes that may be rising in priority? Now you have two questions. Yeah, so I have the first one from Catherine, I think in Austin, who is asking about what reservations corporations might have and maybe specifically financial institutions might have about investing in digital inclusion programs. And I think the biggest challenge is something that we're trying to address with this publication. That is not knowing where to go. What is digital inclusion? What is the problem? Understanding the community to that level. A lot of, when you're dealing with something that is the platform for so much, sometimes it's harder to see. And where are the organized efforts in your community, that's what I'm trying to pull forth, like Connect Home, what are the organized efforts in your community that are addressing this problem in all these different ways, right? Where they're taking into account the three legs of the stool and all the parts of this that will make it successful. So showing to have that organization and that mobilization on the ground with cities, local governments and nonprofits and schools and so forth, to have it organized and have an organized plan like the one the city of San Antonio is making. Then when they're writing their CRA exam, they can say it's part of the, I don't know what it's called anymore, but the consolidated plan or the strategic plan of the city and this is why we're doing it. That automatically makes it CRA qualified, they understand it, it is identified by the city as a goal. So the same thing happened in the Valley, right? So there has been millions of dollars of investment in broadband infrastructure in the Valley. Why is it red? Why did all the people I met and myself when I was there not have broadband access? When there's been millions of dollars of infrastructure investment. What's wrong? One of the things that I found in the colonial study when I was looking at housing and education in many areas, infrastructure, basic infrastructure, was that in housing, in the Valley, investments have been made, but they've been made band-aid approaches perhaps or in silos where people aren't talking to each other and you can't do that with broadband infrastructure. There has to be a plan, there has to be a network. That's why the Department of Commerce is saying, hey, get an engineer to do the plan for a region like that. For San Antonio, we're gonna be a Google Fiber City. They're working diligently. The city is working with Google Fiber to make sure everyone is included in that. We're all gonna no doubt have to play a role. It can't be one corporation, Google being everybody's answer, but we can be a partner to them. They have a valuable and great plan, right? That is trying to be inclusive of San Antonio Housing Authority communities, right? And how can we play a role together? So I think not working in silos, because we have a broadband ring on the border in the Rio Grande Valley, but there are no on-ramps. There's not that connectivity. It's not the network that it needs to be to actually be that last mile and reach people, right? So how do we assess the assets, mobilize and organize? We organized with the community. It was a community-led effort, the digital opportunity for the Rio Grande Valley. Then there's something to invest in. Then corporations, federal government, and other foundations can come together and say we're going to invest in that because they have a plan. They have a plan that is taking the best practices in this field and they're gonna bring it to fruition. So mobilizing on the ground, having a plan with local governments and county governments and so forth, depending on where you're working, it helps. And taking into account, we're trying to share best practices, broadband USA, the Department of Commerce is also putting forth best practices. A lot of great information that's there for us. So I think we're at that tipping point where we are moving the needle on this. This is an area, I'm proclaiming it right now and since it's on television I can do that. This digital inclusion is a key area of community and economic development and should be part of all universities because it is a critical policy issue and we need to get ahead of it because it's moving fast. It's moving so fast and we have to understand it thoroughly to make great ethical, wise, and forward-looking decisions for our children. So I hope I answered the question. And then the one I put out, those outcomes. Outcomes, so what kind of outcomes are we looking at? So with digital inclusion programs, right, you wanna see great outcomes with your population with, for example, one of the things that Saha includes, they have a workforce development program and they're gonna include one of the things that we talked about when we talked about digital inclusion programs making them relevant, right, for the people that are participating. They're making it very relevant. They're directly impacting their ability to apply for jobs, to get training for jobs, and so forth. So what are the results there? How many people are you able to move into a position to develop digital skills and move into a position where they use those skills or to participate in a nursing training program like Maribel wanted to so badly in the Valley, right, and then becoming a professional in that field? So what kind of impact are you having on people as that goes? And there's gonna be all kinds of interesting metrics that we can develop. I don't have all of them in my head, but I know together we're gonna develop with regard to education. How are we improving the educational attainment of low income children by making sure that they have access to broadband and computers and digital literacy? So those kind of very real things we're looking for, of course, in banking. We wanna see financial literacy programs since the foundation of banking is digital. We wanna see the people becoming banked, fully banked, where they're using mobile and online of financial services to a great degree and that we're basically improving the number of people who are banked and are able to build wealth and assets in this country. If there are no further questions at this point, what's that? Yes, please. Hi, I'm Michelle. I work for the College of Public Policy. This is my first time actually asking a question at one of our co-sponsored events, but I just wanted to know, I do wanna get more involved. I am very interested in maybe becoming a digital ambassador and I just wanted to know the training programs, does that include teaching, security, teaching, especially the elderly who may not have all of the necessary skills to keep their computers secure from someone hacking into their identity. So I just wanted to know if that was included in the plan or if anyone had thought that before or yet into, I know that right now is still in the beginning stages, but I was just curious. Well, I think you've keyed in on something that's critical in the Valley and the digital opportunity for the Rio Grande Valley. We are working with the College of Business that has an IT program, right? They're gonna be refurbishing the way Goodwill is doing here, refurbishing the computers to provide them to the families, but we're also, they're gonna be the ambassadors in that community. So they're gonna be training the younger kids to be digital inclusion scholars and they're going to be working in the communities as digital inclusion scholars. So being able to be that support for the trainings. It's certainly, I mean, you keyed in on our very important things for elderly population and for all people, but that's a very dear to the Federal Reserve, which is security, right? Financial security, the kinds of identity theft and all of that, making great programs that have that included. We're training young people in the universe. I think universities as major anchor institutions are gonna be critical in this whole plan. The way you're working with UTSA is gonna be a model for the country because the young people, and if you don't have young people in your digital inclusion program, the millennials, and I had the privilege of working with several just this year in producing this and digital opportunity for the Rio Grande Valley when E-Ray and the others, you need to include them because they have a really incredible insight and voice in where we can go and the knowledge, right, and the facility with the technology. If I could just add a word of thanks, Michelle, for bringing this all together when I thanked the College of Public Policy. I was really thanking you because I know you did all the heavy lifting and organizing to get this done. Thank you, Michelle. That was a great event. And just a final note that all our digital literacy curriculum does have a security component to it, both from the knowing, protecting your privacy perspective, but also being aware of leaving of what's the word, it's citizenship, etiquette, internet etiquette, what proper behavior looks like online. So that's a field that's evolving every day, it seems like, but it's good to stay on top of. And for those of you who are interested in the field of telemedicine and how important broadband connectivity is gonna be for the future of medicine, providing to low income communities, look out for a publication that's gonna be coming up this year. Dr. Annette Darmada is my, she's a valuable asset in San Antonio, amazing doctor with experience in this area who's advising me on this subject, but we have such a richness here in San Antonio to partner with each other and learn from each other and change the world. Thank you. Feel free to grab some more refreshments. We have the room till about midnight, I think, right? The band will be coming very shortly. Oh, great, let's get, bring them in. There's resource tables just outside the room. You wanna stop by and.


Yeah. Are you are you noticing you know every game is unique and different. But are you noticing any commonalities in these last four games that you guys want to clean up. I mean it's about time we got tested you know in terms of just having to think the game on a different level knowing that teams are shaping up for the playoffs and we've done our best to make sure that we're ready to play. But now we got to think the game going against some of these good teams especially on the road. I mean it's inevitable in terms of going into other people's home home floors. They know the rims well. They know the courts well. I mean everybody feels comfortable in their home. So we just got to be aware of that. And I think these last few games have proven that it's tough to win on the road when you're making mistakes. Turn the ball over and you know sometimes throughout the possessions in the game. You're not playing with the resolve you would want. So stuff happens. But I think it's good that we have these tests now and these challenges. You know. It's been too easy at times. So it's good. What are you on that point. What are you guys learning about yourselves. Coach Joe Harris also talked about adversity being a good thing and this being important before you start that post season run. What are you learning about yourselves right now. I think I want to have a different answer for you. If I was in year six or year five. I mean I'm in year 10. So I've been through just different journeys. I failed. I've succeeded. I've been in a role where I've wanted to play that role. I've been in roles where I didn't want to play. And I think that's the beauty of journeys. You know being being on a team is we have to define that identity. You know we could say that we learn a lot about ourselves through the game of basketball. But really it's just the mind and the body being on one accord. And then us being on the same page. You know it's basketball. We're not going to over complicated. We're not going to make it like this is a war. Is this then it's not an old calm. It's the game of basketball. Like it's just who's better that night. Who's going to stop the other team and be more physical. And who's going to make the right place. You know from beginning to end. So you know I'm not going to make it about semantics or feeling good as basketball. I'm not going to bring that in here. So it's good. Brian Lewis with the New York Post. OK. Going back to your thoughts about thinking thinking the game against some of these really good teams that you're playing down the stretch. Is that elevated in the fourth quarter of these games. I mean the whatever 18 to 1 in Milwaukee the other night and tonight I think it was like 13 to 2 gave up like 60 percent shooting. Is that elevated in these fourth quarters. May other teams know you know especially when they're playing at home that this fourth quarter is one in time in terms of picking up the pace. Both second units ran. You know some starters ran some time. So the game could have different flows. You know if you look at the Bucks game. Primarily they have four starters on the floor starting the fourth quarter. You know that they need to have that type of separation in the game. You know with their players. And tonight you know some starters were in with that second unit. But primarily you know we had a few starters in or K. or Katie and you know just figuring it out in the fourth quarter. But our level of play has to to ride to match or to over overpower over match our opponent. And you know as you're seeing it when teams go on runs we get a time out. But we got to be able to respond. And I think it goes back to my first point. It's just we need to be tested like that. You know we're not a perfect basketball club. I don't think you know we would be doing ourselves the great service if we weren't honest. You know we haven't played well in terms of spurts throughout the game expressing when it matters. And we just got to get better continuity down the stretch. The ice old basketball down the stretch is not going to get us over the hump. We just got to run some some quality play some quality possessions and then figure out a balance of where we're special with our ice old game enables our ability to score. So just finding a balance right now. But it's good for it.


The economic conclusion of the year 2022 convincingly signaled St. Lucia's economic turnaround under the meticulous stewardship of Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Hon. Philip J. Pierre. Growth at the close of 2022 projected by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean and the Ministry of Finance stands at 9.5%. The best performing economy compared to Barbados and member states of the Eastern Caribbean currency union. Despite these difficult times and raging challenges, we have kept our mantra of putting people first. And I've delivered on many of our promises to you as aligned in our manifesto and my made-in budget address in April 2022. Most importantly, we have nurtured the economy back from an unsustainable and potentially destructive path and have laid the foundation for renewed growth. We have done so by attracting solid and dependable investments in our tourism sector, stopped the irresponsible and reckless spending primed and stimulated the economy to keep it afloat and stabilize the country's financing. According to the Economic Projections of the Ministry of Finance and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, we are on course to record between 5-7% GDP growth in 2022. In spite of a multitude of economic headwinds, supply chain disruptions, the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, record high inflation and instability on the global crude oil market, the Pierre administration successfully introduced fiscal policies to shield St. Lucian consumers and simultaneously create conducive economic conditions to encourage expansion and attract investment. The good news is, we ended 2022 in a much better place than where we started. We have entered 2023 before renewed optimism for the prospects of our economic growth. The performance of the local business sector, as reported by the St. Lucia Chamber of Commerce, indicated its membership benefited from increased profitability in 2022. And by the end of the third quarter of 2022, the national employment rate stood at 81.8%. Also, the youth unemployment rate dropped to 27% in the third quarter. The lowest rate recorded for the period July to September since 2013. Investors are showing a high level of interest and confidence in St. Lucia's tourism industry and economy. The value of approved tourism investments between January and August 2022 stands at over $320 million and the government will endeavor to create the best environment to convert these approvals into reality. Despite the presumed economic uncertainties forecast by regional and international finance hawks in the coming year, growth prospects for St. Lucia's economy is well within reach. From the office of the Prime Minister, Rihani Isudo.


Alright, so let's take a look at some methods of subtraction. Now it's important to keep in mind as we look at these methods that the goal is not to learn how to subtract, rather the goal is to be able to subtract regardless of what level of knowledge we currently have. And so in this case, the simplest level of knowledge we might have is we might, at this point, only know how to count. Does this mean we will be unable to do subtraction? Well, let's take a look at it. And suppose we only know how to count at this point. Well, then one thing we can do, we can still do subtraction based on an approach called counting up, and this is based on the relationship between addition and subtraction. We have to understand what subtraction means, but if we understand what it means, then we can use what knowledge we have about counting in general to allow us to subtract. So, again, here's a problem that we might consider, 31 minus 25. Now from our definition of subtraction, remember that 31 minus 25 is whatever it's equal to, if and only if 25 plus that number is equal to 31. And what this means is I can solve my subtraction problem by asking, what do I have to add to 25 to get to 31? Well, if I can count, I can figure that out. So I might just count by ones. So I'm at 25, and I want to count to 31. So that's, let's see, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, and there I am. And so what can I conclude from this? Well, how far did I have to count? I had to count one, two, three, four, five, six numbers. 31 is the sixth number after 25, which tells me that 25 plus 6 is 31, and 31 minus 25 is going to be 6. Well, a little knowledge goes a long way. If I know a little bit more than how to count by ones, I can actually make this algorithm much more efficient. So, for example, I might use the adds to 10 approach. And remember that if I want to go from a 5 to the nearest 10, I need 5 more. In other words, the first step can be to add 5 to get to the next 10. I'm starting at 25. I want to get to 31. So my first step, I might say, well, if I count up by 5, that takes me to 30. And I need to get to 31, so I have to take one more step to get to 31. And altogether, I've gone 5 plus 1 steps. I've gone 6 numbers. And so once again, I get 31 minus 25 is equal to 6. Well, all we need to do is know how to count. And the nice thing about this is if you only know how to count, you can still do subtractions like 112 minus 78. And we'll do this using the arrow notation to record our work. And we'll actually do this three different ways to reflect different levels of knowledge of how much we might know of basic arithmetic. So let's use counting up. And so again, this question is how much do we have to go up from 78 to get to 112? And a lot of basic arithmetic is bookkeeping. And so what we're going to do is we're going to keep track of our work using our arrow notation. So how can we start this? Well, one possibility is we might start at 78 and just start counting. So 78, 79, 80, and well, here's something useful. I'm now at a benchmark number. I'm at 80. So I could continue to count up by once, but let's go ahead and count up by larger amounts. Since 80 is a 10, I can count up by 10. So 80 to 90 to 100 to 110. I want to get to 112, so I have to slow down a little bit here. So I'll slow down and take the last couple of doubts very easily, 111, 112. And altogether, I've gone 10, 20, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34. I've gone 34 numbers up from 78 to get to 112. So that tells me 112 minus 78 is equal to 34. Well, that's one method. And again, you don't really need to know very much at this point to apply this method. You need to know how to find the next number, the next number, and then how to add 10 and slow down a little bit towards the end. So here's something that you can do with a very limited level of knowledge of basic arithmetic facts. On the other hand, if you know a little bit more, there's several things that we can do. So for example, we might consider that it's always easy to add 10 to a number. So instead, I might just count up by 10s from 78. So I might start at 78 and 10 gets me to 88 and 10 gets me to 98 and 10 and 10 and 10. Oh, wait, that's too far. Wait, I only want to get to 112. So I went a little bit too far. So let's get rid of this last step. At this point, I do want to get to 112. I've got to slow down and count up by ones. So here's one more and again and again and again. And altogether, I've gone up by 10, 20, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34. And so once again, 112 minus 78 is equal to 34. And again, this is something we can do if we know very little beyond how to find the next number. Well, if we actually know some addition facts, we can much improve our counting up algorithm. So for example, I'm at 78, I want to get to 112. So the thing I might do is I might count up to the nearest 10 by adding 2. So 78 plus 2 takes me to 80. Now I want to get up to 112. So again, if I know my addition facts, I know that 80 plus 20 is 100. And that's useful because that's a benchmark number. And I want to get up to 112. So I can go 12 more to take me to 112.  And so there again is the third method I have of doing the subtraction, 112 minus 78. And again, at this point, all I am relying on is the fact that I know what the next number is and maybe some additional addition facts.


MT-001 is a novel protein component vaccine candidate that has been shown to confer long-lasting immunity against multiple SARS-CoV-2 strains, including Delta and Omicron BA.1 variants. It is designed for easy manufacturing and distribution, making it a potentially valuable addition to the existing toolbox of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. This article was authored by Elliot Campbell, Julie Dobkin, Louis J. Osorio, and others.