hi there i'm claudia hoskey from fedinsider and on behalf of the george washington university center for excellence in public leadership and servicenow i'm pleased to welcome you to today's webinar digital transformation as infrastructure hi everybody uh my name is jonathan albaum and i am the federal cto at servicenow and i have the pleasure of being today's moderator so prior to joining servicenow i worked in the federal government as a chief information officer for many years including as the cio at the department of agriculture and throughout my federal career my teams and i always seem to be on a mission to update and modernize our technology infrastructure and ultimately we're trying to digitally transform the way our agencies work to ensure the success of our mission and that idea is really at the crux of today's webinar when the infrastructure investment and jobs act or otherwise known as iij was signed into law in november of 2021 it allocated 1.2 trillion dollars for infrastructure initiatives across the country while the focus has been on large trenches of funding allocated for sweeping categories of infrastructure things like roads and bridges or internet connectivity and water systems less attention i think has been paid to the role of digital transformation within these groups now digital technologies are at the heart of everything we do today an agency's technology strategy is now also its mission delivery strategy in my opinion so for instance rebuilding or expanding water systems isn't simply about laying new pipes it can include installing smart water meters or setting up an online portal for customers or digitizing and streamlining internal workflows to make uh customer and employee interactions more more successful rebuilding bridges may also include embedding sensors to track variables such as traffic volumes or icing conditions states and localities have the opportunity to incorporate these and other and many other digital innovations to maximize the value of these projects and today we're really fortunate to have four great experts share their thoughts on this topic we'll be talking about how to re-evaluate long-term infrastructure plans and strategies to incorporate funding from iija we're going to discuss ways that new infrastructure projects can incorporate digital transformation to maximize the value of these projects for our users and communities and we're going to define the elements of i.t information technology and ot operational technologies along with cyber security capabilities and digital transformation activities that are current currently and can be applied to to these kinds of infrastructure projects i'd like to have our panelists introduce themselves so they call your name please share a little bit on your background and describe your focus as it relates to infrastructure i'm going to begin with lee jones who is the director of the rural prosperity network at my old agency usda thank you jonathan uh this is lee jones i'm the director of and that's a little bit of a misspeak there but it's a rural partners network at usda rural development but no no no worries near no worries at all um and i'm the executive director for rural partners network i have about 25 24 years with rural development most of which was spent at the state level in louisiana as uh as assistant state director helping to deploy projects uh and deploy resources available through rural development and for the last year or so i've been working on developing and rolling out the rural partners network and it's a methodical rollout and we're operating in five states right now those are georgia mississippi kentucky arizona and new mexico and we will soon be rolling out to an additional six states and i want to call those out as well very quickly north carolina west virginia alaska nevada puerto rico and wisconsin looking forward to rolling out more and we definitely want to take advantage of this historic amounts of funding that's available in the opportunity to collaborate thank you jonathan yeah and lee having worked at usda i know that you know you really your team's become the face of the federal government in rural america and you you're able to indeed quite a bit so i can't wait to talk more about that i want to introduce uh i want to have laurel uh les verrier assistant administrator telecommunication programs also at usda introduce herself thank you so much and good afternoon everybody my name is laura lavarier and i'm the assistant administrator of the usda's telecommunications programs in that role i get to oversee usda's five telecommunications programs most of our programs are focused on providing funding to private entities sometimes to communities as well to extend broadband service into rural communities where that service doesn't currently exist we have a number of programs that we are actively engaged in working with our community partners and our private sector partners to expand those networks and i'm really looking forward to joining the conversation today thank you thank you laurel um next i'd like to have shannon mccarthy who is the communications director and special assistant to the commissioner for the alaska department of transportation public facilities introduce ourselves jim thank you thank you uh shannon mccarthy i am the communication director for alaska d.o.t and for those of you who are not familiar with uh what what alaska dot covers it's actually quite extensive in terms of transportation we cover roads and highways obviously and then we also have a marine highway that covers about 3 500 marine miles for the state coastal communities and then we also have an aviation system in which we have approximately 235 airports that we take care of including two internationals so it's a it's a lot of work to do and what i've spent the last 25 years my career doing is really learning how to reach and engage and really incorporate the public into our transportation program and now we're tackling more of internal communications with all this additional iia money we also have to be very concerned about making sure that our staff has the tools and resources that they need to be successful right and to be able to manage those funds is no simple task so we'll talk more about that as we as we move on um last but not least i'd like to have dr david mussington who's the executive executive assistant director for infrastructure security at cisa introduce himself david um thanks um david mushington great to be joining section of gus group um my title is evidence of sort of a scope creep into the job i am responsible for the infrastructure security programs at scissor um broad spectrum from doing assessments of physical infrastructure physical and cyber physical infrastructure to make sure that um cyber hygiene and other security principles are um used to assess the fragility of critical infrastructure and that's infrastructure that will be rebuilt refreshed through iija and other infrastructure to a set of services that we deliver to state local territorial and tribal stakeholders and clinical infrastructure stakeholders across the country the priority is to make sure that decisions that are made of security risk informed and hopefully to help people make new projects more defendable more defensible and more secure thank you dave we're going to be talking more about risk as we go on we'll be sure to have you highlight some of the great work you're doing at system support of these efforts so but i want to get started um with a question to to lee now the infrastructure uh bill includes 1.2 trillion dollars as we discussed for lots of different kinds of initiatives and you know in your focus on rural america how do you think these uh how could digital tools help make these projects successful that's a great question jonathan thank you for posing it um you know first i want to say that you know in in rural partners network we are so very much looking forward to the extensive partnerships that we're able to establish with uh with various federal agencies and our local and state partners um among others and especially looking forward to collaborating and connecting with shannon as we get ready to roll out to alaska here in the very near future um you know i think about from a rural focus we're talking about you know the potential project delays and uh you know frankly project delays tend to be kind of a fact of life when you're rolling out federal especially on the federal projects um but that's only exacerbated by you know by rural projects and even more of a risk when we're talking about the more distressed rural areas which is the focus of the rural partners network you know of course resources are more scarce providers are more scarce and things like that so we feel like the network represents an opportunity for collaboration we have 20 plus federal agencies that are at the table actively engaging with us because we recognize that anytime you're talking about historic amounts of funding it could either be a new normal or it is what it is it's a it's a historic amount of funding and it's incumbent on us to make sure that we take advantage of that while we have it um so it doesn't stop you know it doesn't stop there we're also working collaboratively with state and local governments and uh private and philanthropic partners to leverage each other's resources my point there though is uh through the intentional and unique partnerships paired with you know a heightened use of digital tools to manage projects i feel like we can ensure that rural communities haven't you know have an optimal chance of success especially as it relates to uh to tech projects uh and i would i would be remiss if i didn't state um we can no longer assume that rural communities have less of an interest in the in the digital space we want to play a role in shrinking that digital divide between rural and the more densely populated resource-rich areas by making sure that those opportunities are available and uh and accessible by uh you know our distressed rural communities that we're focusing on through rural partners network it becomes really an equity issue uh on that level with you know people don't have the same access to technologies and therefore they don't understand access to resources or other educational opportunities and things like that so i really appreciate the uh the work that you're doing and as i think i shared one of our prep sessions you know when i spent time at usda it was sometimes questionable about the connectivity in a rural community and without high-speed access and laurel i'd look for you to jump in on this there's there is you know limited ways to serve customers at times or a tool we build that works in the washington dc area doesn't work in the rural community and you know we don't we don't get the most out of the technology investments we make or the infrastructure invested so laurel i'd love for you to share a little bit about how you know you're bringing um telecommunications capabilities into these areas of the country that maybe haven't had them in the past yes absolutely so at usda as i said we have a number of programs that are investing in our rural communities to provide funding to extend broadband i think the the one that gets the most attention right now because it has the most funding is our reconnect program and in the last two years we've provided 1.5 billion dollars in funding through that program um and i i know just note that you know we've started running that program in 2018 right before the pandemic and i think the biggest sort of takeaway for us after the pandemic was in rural communities the need for broadband service became so critical and essential right um we all know we use broadband every day but you know suddenly your child couldn't go to school and you know we know that these broadband networks that we are helping to finance provide opportunities for rural communities to have access to distance learning telemedicine which is so huge right now there's so much going on in that space and then additionally and especially in rural communities we know that our rural homes equate to rural businesses and they need robust broadband in order to compete in the digital marketplace so we really see broadband as a way to help level the playing field for our rural communities but only if they have that access there [Music] shannon i'd love for you to you know pick up here i i i you know you're representing state of alaska there's obviously a lot of communities in alaska that benefit from technology and we have um funding now to to do so and you know i'm sure there's a connection into the work that you're doing in the department of transportation so how do you see um this bill bringing capabilities and opportunity into into your communities well it really represents a significant opportunity for us and you had mentioned earlier that uh or or perhaps another speaker did that that there shouldn't really be a gap between um the needs of a rural community and means of an urban community in terms of they they all need this transportation transportation these upgrades um one of the things that we have to be mindful of when we when we're developing projects and reaching out to the communities is to make sure that we're providing a wide variety of technology for them to tap into um and just thinking back to an example we when we were doing a public meeting we had this very high-tech streaming capability we were streaming to social media streaming to a website we also had a phone line open and the local we had made an arrangement with a local radio station to repeat the audio from our phone line so to really be creative when you're working with rural communities while they're building up that infrastructure to make sure that you're still keeping everyone informed and allowing them access that's a great point you really have to meet people where they are and provide multiple channels um the government's not a not a private sector business it's not only going to do it the most singularly efficient way we have large groups to support so i think that's a really important complexity for people to uh hear and recognize and impacts you know the way the way you do your work and i think that's going to come up more as we as we continue our our conversation uh david i want to i want to pivot to you for a moment because you know these projects that we're talking about they carry a lot of risk uh project risk can they get the work done but also cyber risk you touched on this in your opening remarks how how do we how can we use technology to mitigate these risks and what's this a doing specifically first thanks to that great question i think that it's important to know to only balance the way we portray these things with uh with the cost and the benefits obviously these projects are designed to deliver benefits to stakeholders in rural america and to other american students and while assuming we focus mostly on on risk and risk mitigation we know that the project these projects aren't launched to minimize risk they're launched to deliver benefits so what we're trying to do is emphasize and here's the from best practices which you will hear me on describing the under the familiar label cyber hygiene security by design patching of at-risk systems which they do all systems and the provision of technical advice or consultant consultancy to our field force where we have 10 certain regions which are the same geographic footprint as fema regions but we really emphasize the idea that if you take cyber risk seriously when a project's being devised it'll be much more it'll be less disruptive to project execution and you're more likely to have long-lived risk mitigation impact and what does that mean that means that at least for for us we have a field force of over 140 uh protected advisors and a similar number of cyber security advisors and other security specialists around the country that can provide technical assistance and advice alongside a set of digital services that are available online gov to anyone who is launching an effort under iiga or any other similar grant opportunity so we're here as a service provider we're here to give advice and we're here to to ensure the best practices are visible to those who can benefit from well and david just you know um you know building on that the the idea of getting the risk and security teams engaged early in projects always you know is is always sounds good we always want to do that but my experience there's a lot of excitement about getting the money and getting started and people want to jump into design or building something so quickly they don't have time for security uh you know but we should all have time for it it's all of our responsibilities any ideas or suggestions for you know panelists or people in the audience who want to do what you just said but maybe don't know how to engage early well you know i think the first thing to do would be to go to uh pizza.gov and look at our service catalog and look at some of the services that we have available yeah so self help or self-deployed services for everything from assessments of infrastructure to um saq files on what to do about cyber cyber risk and project management to actual humans um to provide technical assistance who are in the regions and localities where people actually live so i think that finding out who your local protective security advisor by going to citizens.gov or going to our 800 number which of course i don't remember right now but i will have that right before the end of the call um that allows you to put a name and a space um to your local community to a project in your local community so that you can do outreach we also have 10 to the regional offices which can do outreach to localities which um are thinking of applying for some of the grant-based access points to some of these projects so a combination of accessing services through our domain system.gov and outreach by our field voices will i think provide at least a portfolio of services that might be of use very very good and it really builds into this this next concept that i that i want to um that i want to talk about communication so um you're describing david ways to you know begin a conversation around uh risk but you know and shannon i'm going to address this question to you but i i'd like for you all to think about how to respond but you know these shannon these projects that you do are really complex in alaska and they require a lot of parties to make them successful so can you talk about the communications tools and techniques use the department of transportation to coordinate across a lot of teams and a lot of stakeholders that have an interest in the work you're doing yeah so we we're doing a couple things obviously we really do have to rely heavily on technology to bring people over bring people together over a large geographic area um so we're using some really you know high-tech virtual platforms um digital medium class and things like that but we're also starting to develop some online tools for you know when it when a rural community or a small community would like to apply for a discretionary grant for example we're developing an intake clearing house so that when they have an idea they're able we're able to interact with them relatively quickly and they can identify you know the sponsor the the project and we can hook them up with resources right away uh smaller communities oftentimes don't have the capacity to uh to take a federal project from beginning to end because because of the maybe they lack the contractual expertise um but we're putting we're putting them together with those experts those grant writers those contractual expert you know experts all the technical support that they need to be successful so a wide range that's a great one no that that's that's a great it's a great service and it's going to make a difference and and again you know create opportunity i think for more more groups to get access then than not um john i'd like to jump in there yes go yeah yes please yeah um so i'm thinking in terms of uh of rural partners network um you know i think about how we how we rolled out cohort one in the midst of a pandemic uh and we did all of our in our virtual our engagement sessions virtually using zoom but here in the near future uh what one thing that i'm most excited about that's uh that's a function of rural partners network or two things really um is in terms of access and and engaging early so it does kind of touch on your last question as well um the federal partners um you know are not uh are not situated the way rural development is in terms of the way of our reach into rural communities but what they're doing is they're identifying what we're calling rural desk officers uh that's a kind of a front door to each federal agency so that we can have that early engagement and then the the most exciting thing about our about rural partners network for me is the creation of kind of a one stop shop in terms of what we're calling rural.gov that's r-u-r-a-l-gov um it is in existence now as a landing page we're just kind of collating resources but in the future the vision is that uh you know as we outreach it and make people more aware of it that a rural community a rural business just a real stakeholder in general might come to rural.gov search for whatever it is they're looking for whether that's a particular type of program if they need water resources broadband resources whatever being able to connect them to the federal agencies that offer the resource you know offer the opportunity to address that issue that they may be having but also an opportunity for um you know for them to get helpful tips grant writing tools grants management tools um those kind of things so that so rule.gov just presents an excellent opportunity for us to be even more responsive to the needs of rural communities lee i like how you keep saying role.gov role.gov rural.com hopefully everybody hears that world.gov no it's great i mean you're making an excellent an excellent point you know if you need assistance you shouldn't have to know what in your per you're a citizen you're a person in rural america you shouldn't have to know what all the programs are and where they all sit navigating all those individual bureaucracies is a full-time job so if you can create a front door and behind it have a have a capability that connects people to programs and systems and data that supports them you know you're again you're changing the way people think about their federal government and you know we know we need to you know as people who work in around government it's very important to uh make it very clear how the government uh is there to help i really do believe that's a great a great example and while rule.gov development right now i will state that the rural desk officer that i referenced that we are up and running with that so as uh rural communities need resources or need access to federal partners we're able to make the connections to those real desk officers and get those resources now very good yeah and so yeah go ahead sorry um just to make the same token as i said i'd provide a one-stop shop for scissor and here we go central city.gov if someone wants to know who their productive security advisor is locally sending an email to that domain will get you a response very quickly with a named person and contact information uh going to services will also get you into the program um portfolio so that you can choose what you think is appropriate for your for your elite david can you share that email again you may have cut up for a moment sure sorry central dot gov very good so um i know that after uh this presentation people will get an email with information uh related to our presentation and and david when we when you get that request please include that information and lee if you want to include information about rural.gov you'll have an opportunity to share that out with everyone um who's uh participating yep um so we actually have a couple of questions from the audience that uh really fit in with this conversation we're having and i wanna i wanna pivot pivot to those for just a second um the first question came in um when we were when we were talking about the introduction of these questions came when we talked about the introduction of new technologies and first question is how do you how do you address communities that want access to technology but at the same time also see much newer technology as intrusive as an intrusive element to their privacy and daily lives this combination between access and opportunity and am i going to give somebody my data am i going to interact with uh with the government um you're all dealing with that on on on some level i'm curious if there's anybody who wants to jump in and provide some perspective um i'll take that first just to the the theme center i think it's what we think about a great deal in terms of uh access should not mean compromise of personal privacy or or or any other sensitivities that one might have we offer best practice guidance on how to protect one's identity in high value services as our director director eastlee says multi-factor authentication using more more than just a password to secure one's data when accessing a service is a central defense against someone getting a hold of your data and abusing it also we think about what we expect of providers service providers when they get your data when they receive your data what expectations you should have what you should ask providers about what they do with your data beyond the immediate service that you're purchasing so best practices access to services to tell it to describe what some of the vulnerability the risks might be and some guidance on what to do about it is basically our perspective well that those are great points david about you know the technology and the controls behind the data but you know to to lee and laurel and shannon you're dealing with people in in rural america or communities that may not be trusting of the government uh it may not be trusting of organizations to to manage their their data how do we have you had conversations with anyone that you're you know in the past people in the communities that you serve where people are you know suspicious or skeptical um about what's good what are you gonna do if i take on this uh this money or i take on this this uh this service and share my data with you does that come up in your in your in your worlds this is shannon mccarthy shannon why don't you go first okay um yeah it absolutely has come up in in conversations and when we use uh technology we're actually trying to make sure we we offer um the ability to be anonymous uh and it is uh it is one of the things that we we really work on trust with our communities because we do want them to be able to access the same way that other folks are accessing you know from from urban areas so trust is important and then providing them those options that should they want to interact anonymously to provide that as an option and do you find when you when you offer this ability to be anonymous people believe you you know they believe it and they they buy into it or is there still a skepticism we have found that people um buy into that option yes that's very good i i mean kurt i'm encouraged to to hear that laurel i think you were trying to jump in there as well yeah absolutely so for the programs that i oversee at usda you know when i thought of this question there are a couple two things that i i think similar to i've definitely heard concerns from individuals um and on clients of ours regarding you know privacy concerns um and i also think you know one of the things we try to do is really refer to the communities and the entities themselves to make decisions about what makes the most sense for their community you know for instance you know i work in the telecommunications space people have a lot of strong opinions about putting up wireless you know putting up cellular towers uh in certain communities whether that's a concern about potential uh impacts of those radio frequencies on on people's health um or [Music] whether those concerns be about just sort of the the look of those towers um and so we always try to to work with those communities to really get a sense of like how can we work together to bridge those concerns sometimes it means we have to locate the equipment maybe in a slightly different place maybe not in the housing development or something um the other thing but i think really more to the crux of this question privacy rates absolutely and and for our clients at usda most of the folks who receive funding through our programs are cooperative for-profit companies and that's always the first thing they want to know um and a lot of our entities also are regulated by the fcc and so we get a lot of questions about well are you going to share this data with the fcc who regulates us and what could be the impact of that so you know i think most of it is just more about wanting to have awareness and maybe there's a little distrust about how it's going to be used and so we try to you know approach those things with education about why we ask for things what the purpose is um but yeah i we always laugh in my office like hey we're the federal government and we're here to help you like i mean truly there is i think just a personal perspective of like wait you're who and you're going to help me how um so well i mean i saw the same things when i worked when i worked at usda introducing services to simplify interaction sometimes reviewed as intrusive or uh you know we got a lot of questions about why we were uh attempting to provide a service and have somebody do something online when they used to be able to go into a county office so you know there is um you know you you have to meet people where they are and if that exists i think uh shannon uh you and laurel you're describing ways to to overcome that which is really positive uh i'm sure you know much appreciated and you know there's a follow-on on question uh lee that i think maybe you you might be interested in addressing about uh potential uh resistance to change of introducing technologies or maybe the new infrastructure capabilities into rural communities are you seeing a resistance to starting projects or help from the federal government at all absolutely uh you know and i i think by and large there's there's uh there's wide-scale support for uh what we're attempting to do in rural partners network um but at the same time you know it that does not get us away from you know that concept of i'm sure most folks are familiar with that nimbyism you know they're not in my backyard uh there's always going to be uh be naysayers and detractors and and uh you know how we work past that is by being inclusive on the front end and making sure that we're that we're receptive to what these individuals or these organizations or whoever it may be to receptive to their concerns and respectful of those concerns as well i mean and i think that just really goes a long way in ensuring the success of any given project that we may be pursuing um i i have a present example of that on a project that we're working on in greenville mississippi um and and of course there's a fair bit of pushback on that but at the same time it's such a great opportunity uh from an infrastructure perspective for the region as a whole that uh by and large everyone sees the vision but uh there again i just uh just reiterate that the need to be respectful uh of other perspectives and addressing those where appropriate right and you know the so there's this one side of what you're describing there's you know a nimbyism or there is a uh um maybe a resistance but at the same time the pandemic you know really spurred the adoption of new technologies and that's right it's changed the way people interact um is that changing expectations uh you think in in rural america and in elsewhere as people are considering how to use the funding that's in this infrastructure bill uh well you know jonathan the way the way you just i'm sorry well i was about to the way you the way you described it there uh you know just in terms of making it uh making it real to that person sitting at home like uh your use of technology has changed so much through the through the pandemic just in the way that you communicate with people uh folks that may not have uh you know might have an apple phone but have never gone near a facetime you know things like that so if you can make it resonate in that way uh you know make it real to them make it up make it personal i think that goes a long way in making sure that we you know that we can explain what we're trying to accomplish through this broader project and uh and you know help folks see the bigger picture that may that may be detractors on in the early going but again it's important to get that um you know to establish that early on uh uh shannon are you seeing that in alaska as well yeah yeah very much so in fact i was just uh anecdotally thinking about a in person meeting that we just had we finally decided we could meet in person and we had an outcry from the public because we weren't stringing it to um to social media so we ended up streaming it to social media so folks could listen at home and now i'm finding that we're doing we're doing it all we're streaming we're recording we're transcribing we're doing phone access texting we're using as much technology to meet people where they're at yeah and that's definitely a best practice in government or foreign industry we know that you know we some we have to talk about the future of work but uh it's the future of government it's the future of communications that human interaction is is hybrid you know it's gonna be in person for some people and it's to be you know at my convenience to stream it other times and sometimes i might want to stream it sometimes somebody want to attend in person but i expect access to meetings or i expect access to work or communication um under any circumstances and and that that's a that's a real evident change i think in the way you know we i've been interacting with uh people in government uh over the past couple of years and you're you're sharing that and you know laurel you you highlighted um you mentioned the pandemic tour really highlighting the the need for broadband technologies in rural america that was a real challenge i guess in the early days of the pandemic i'm curious if you could elaborate a little bit on areas as broadband comes in capabilities that that you see really spurring rural america forward in this country what kinds of things are are are they longing to do that you know may be missing right now yeah absolutely so um you know after the pandemic i think in looking back at data that we have access to it's very clear that the bandwidth that we are all using at home went up significantly right and it's not surprising when you consider the fact that suddenly i mean i'll speak personally for my home you know my husband and i both worked outside of the home my kid went to school and suddenly in the pandemic we had two of us that were working from home zooming online with you know a first grader who was also doing school online so i think that the pandemic changed the way that we're using broadband at home where there was a more essential nature to having that access in the home right because suddenly people were able to go out and access it the same way so i think number one we saw a huge uptick in the bandwidth that consumers were using both in urban and rural communities and then i think the the thing that really is specific to rural america is those folks who don't have didn't have access to broadband i mean it was a critical issue that kept them from having access to a lot of things right you think about school kids who when everybody else went online if you didn't have online at home you couldn't access that so i think certainly we also saw a more personal need for that access within the um you know rural homes yeah and that that's the human element that you know we've been talking about before my school goes online and i can't get online my kids are out of school you know they can't they can't learn and it's uh it it was always there i think is you know a point you were making but the pandemic just highlighted it really made it so visible um how how disparate the availability of these services were and you know we should be you know proud of this country i think that we passed this bill that will create some some parity and bring and bring equity and there's so much that you're going to be able to do uh you know with these funds to change people's lives and that's so much of what government is about and what the usda the usda is able to do so you know it's i think it's it really uh deserves to be uh to be highlighted here so thank you for do for for your work here um i want to ask david a a follow-on question you know as we're adopting all these digital tools and you've talked about you know in the context of these projects rolling out uh good cyber security uh tips and whatnot but what is for implementing this question but what advice do you have for the users of these technologies and the workforces and you know these organizations doing these projects how do we educate them on digital tools and related cyber security risk so i think that first [Music] as i said when we start i think it's clear these projects are being done to to convey benefit to users and that's got to be the highest of the highest value here unfortunately the same expansion in broadband and the same extension use of online services what would it be steep uptick in abuse from ransomware to identity theft to denial of service and a whole combination of malware issues in between i think that there's some guidance that siva offers on scissor.gov and through other outlet through our regional forces that advises people on what the risks actually are i think it's best to have clear you know clear-eyed view of what what some criminal may want to do to you or want to steal from you when you access high-value services be it be it the security of data on on our students in schools to transacting business um with a distant online um vendor or outlet there are risks and there are things like password policies and other acceptable use policies businesses small businesses and levels of government can adopt to reduce the risk that they will be that they'll be abused so some of that can come from online sources of information because gov and partners for example there's something called the joint the defense collaborative that is scissor and a group of online service providers that provide best practice guidance and services to citizens and to businesses on what this they can try and avoid i think secondly there are some things like multi-factor authentication and other cyber hygiene practices again listed on cis.gov that can advise citizens local governments and small businesses on what to do and what to avoid when they're using services for example don't use the same short password on multiple sites that you go to because that's going to heighten your vulnerability to someone stealing your identity in one place and then accepting services across the board also think about the cyber security list for your children who may be on accessing online services but don't fully understand what can happen over time if their identity goes stolen so you know it's appreciated today with the government law and we're here to help you but civic is for the federal government obviously it is offering um advice self-help tools and human beings to come out and talk to communities that have risk concerns because there isn't there is considerable legitimate criminals and and lee i suspect that there's you know tremendous opportunity to get this some of this education out into rural america and i don't know if world.gov has a connection into some of these resources but if you can challenge like there's another point i would say that our services are well the taxpayer is paying for them persistence they are mostly free but if you go to services.gov and you put in a question into our search blog you're most likely going to find a free publication or tool online tool a self-help tool an assessment tool that might actually meet your needs without you spending any dollars at all and that's something we've tried to work on uh lee i'm sorry go ahead lee yeah yeah and the pre appreciate appreciate the flag you know it's it's i'm becoming more and more uh aware that it's incumbent upon us and we're partners network to ensure that we make that connection to cisa as well um i mentioned that there that we're at 20 plus federal agencies now and and i you know i recognize that that list is ever growing uh and says it may well may very well play a role there and in terms of rural.gov uh the beauty of rural you know another thing about real.gov is not designed to take the place of any existing uh website that's out there i think ultimately anytime a constituent may be seeking a particular resource it should eventually roll them back to the the you know to the the agency that's uh that can be responsive and in this case uh you know if scissor has creative tools that can you know that that can help um you know answer some of these concerns in rural in rural areas it makes sense for us to possibly uh feature those items on on our site uh periodically as well so uh i think there's there's there are definitely opportunities to collaborate here and making sure that we're we're using world.gov to the extent to the fullest that that it can be used and right and it's so it's such a visionary site that uh we're you know we're really wide open in terms of what we feature on the site excellent thank you thank you dr bustington uh i mean we're creating connections and uh you know hopefully in you know doing doing the right uh kind of work here to make resources that are available to all americans really available that accessible and um you know it's it's uh it's great that you you two are having this conversation people are all getting to learn together that's right if we were on teams of zoom i'd be hitting my handclap button right that's right that's right now um laurel and and shannon i'm curious as you're working in your you know in your communities are you seeing the need for um education about how to use digital tools are you seeing that with your workforces to uh get them up to speed to get the most out of these re investments that you know we're making in digital technologies shannon i'm curious what your experience has been you know it seems like the public is actually pretty quick to adapt and pretty patient with us when we are trying out a new technology our workforce however we absolutely need to make sure that we're providing them the support and the training that they need and i and you can never assume that just because of someone's age that they might be more open or less open to technology it really is an individual thing that we need to make sure that we're providing it it's tough because technology is moving so quickly um but but we yeah we are providing that to our employees it's just super important uh laurel are you seeing the same um the same things yeah i completely agree i think people are really quick to adopt these things for themselves you know i mean they see the connection to their life whether it's being able to you know get online to have your doctor's appointment or you know a variety of different things but i do think the challenge that i see is from a workforce perspective you know there are certain types of you know roles that are needed for these types of networks that we finance that i do think that's a challenge and making sure that we have that workforce there to support where there's the need and i think it's kind of interesting because then when i think about like with my work you know quite frankly the federal government is behind the private sector in terms of deployment and the adoption of technologies and so you know i think we definitely have some catching up to do um and you know we all want to make those investments but you know it just be quite honest we we do lag a little bit behind but it also gives us the opportunity to see how these tools are utilized in the private sector and then take advantage of them um so you know it's definitely a push pull but i think on that workforce piece is the biggest challenge that i see at least in the telecommunications sector well um i think you're you're touching on something that's part of this next set of things we want to talk about it's about building it's about building trust and when people look at the government and they see an antiquated uh technology or they have a customer experience that you know feels dated or they can't access something you know online that they should do we start to question you know the government especially when you know the private sector has as you noted adopted new technology very rapidly and really changed significantly during the during the pandemic so it impacts the way people think about their government and that impacts trust and you know i think building trust is we've already talked about that a little bit today we all have a responsibility working in around government to be focused on this and i i know that um there's a lot of money out there we talked about this already 1.2 billion dollars and this money is to improve people's lives but people are going to be wondering uh these are taxpayer dollars and how is this money being spent where is it going uh and i'm curious shannon in alaska and you're receiving these funds what kinds of capabilities do you have to track how the money is being spent and you know demonstrate accountability and the responsible stewardship of these taxpayer dollars yeah so we actually have had you know our our state our statewide is basically our federal funding program online but it certainly wasn't an online tool we're actually converting now to an e-stip so that the public can go on there and they can track their project you know soup to nuts they can see how it's moving if there's a delay they can you know you know kind of match that data any way they want to and and track us uh and i think that's gonna be it's gonna go a long way because one of the number one complaints we get is i don't understand your spending program you know my project was was moving forward and then something happened and now it's delayed by two years you know what what's happening so we really think some of these upgrades will help the public help our transparency with the public es and right that public transparency i think is really um really a key to the way the way people think about government and how we we move forward as as a country and you know as you're um empathy and laurels are impacting you know rural america um say on telecommunications projects laurel is there a way for the public to see how these these funds are being spent and the value that they're bringing to these communities yeah absolutely i think that's an area that we have really focused a lot of our time and energy because for our broadband projects you know they do touch so many different communities and we think that there's you know a transparency piece we want to have with stakeholders in the community as well as you know companies that are involved in the telecommunications industry so we have a website at usda where we have uh gis maps electronic maps of the service areas for each of our awardees and then we give our clients five years to build out their networks during that time we actually leverage some of these online tools so that they can report to us regarding where services made available and then we use our staff to go out and to monitor that construction i mean if there's a piece of that project that doesn't get filled out we hear about it because those people aren't getting that service that they were sure they would have so we spend a lot of time around that and it's one of the areas that i think we're really benefiting from some of these newer technologies and what that can do for us where it enables us to collect very detailed information from our clients and then be very transparent with that as we move forward what do you do when you collect the uh that data are you are you sure you're able to share you're doing analysis on it and making decisions or just the benefit of people knowing that some information yeah yeah absolutely i would say that information is utilized in a a multitude of different ways for us at usda the service area maps for our clients is really critical that's the piece that's the area that we're going to come back to them and say hey did you get that served we have 25 gfrs all over the country and so their job or general field representatives and their job is to go out and actually monitor these projects so they'll go on site and they'll see hey did you extend that fiber line do people in this community have access to service and then they have tablets that they can use to actually collect the lat long of the areas that are receiving the service so we use that at usda to make decisions if if somebody is inserting that whole area we're going to go back to them the other thing we do is we share that information with our federal partners as you have alluded to a couple times on this call there's a lot of money for infrastructure and in the broadband world you know the infrastructure bill that was passed provided 80 billion dollars for broadband infrastructure funding we at usda received two billion dollars of that but so there's a really huge pie out there right and so um we are working with our federal partners at the fcc federal communications commission as well as our partners at the department of commerce and that department of transportation all of which have received some type of funding that can support broadband and so we're trying to share with each other about the geographic areas where we've provided funding um so that we don't you know then don't end up having another agency providing you know more funding for the same purpose it's a again a huge amount of money but i love the fact that there's this cross-government collaboration i i am confident that is what the public is expecting of of us as we work these projects that we're talking and we're and we're and we're communicating i think you're sharing some really um really great examples of that we only have a few minutes left and i want to make sure that we were able to talk about this idea of value and providing value to taxpayers not just about tracking the money but it it as we as we conclude i'd love for each of you to share you know a best practice an idea around making sure that the uh the value of the work we do is understood and what does it take to get these projects implemented and successful what do we have to do to make this all work and um lee i'd like to i'd like to start with you to get your perspective on value and any best practices or lessons learned you have to share as we as we conclude our webinar yeah thank you uh and you know we're we're very new uh in rural parks network and and our success is going to be is going to be predicated on that story that we tell so uh you know from a best practice perspective you know i i think it's important that that we continue um the collaborations that we have uh we've identified community networks in the five states that i mentioned earlier and it's important to us that that we that those community networks represent sectoral um and and personal diversity uh and making sure that there's a you know from the equity perspective making sure that that component is covered as well so we get as many voices at the table uh as as possible uh as many useful voices should i say at the table as possible uh and be able to tell that story as we as we uh as we uh spear investment into these distressed rural communities uh thank you lee and uh david from a cyber security perspective uh hard to show value um unless you know the value is you weren't hacked the value is you didn't lose your data it's hard to see that uh how do you you need best practices or ideas for people to see the value of the work i think one best practice is meeting people where they are in terms of their their awareness of cyber risks and helping them make informed decisions that's why our national footprint of 10 10 regions with over 100 protective security advisers and hundreds more security and other specialists to do outreach to the public where they live providing awareness subject matter expertise and best practice guides on what to do to avoid being victimized i think that the value of broadband value of all these services is sort of self-evident and that's why they're so attractive one thing that is necessary to keep in mind however is that when one adopts risky technologies and these are while provision and benefits is central they also bring potential abuse closer to values that we all want to protect so making sure that people understand uh that we're there for them nationally to protect not only critical infrastructure that people use but the well-being the livelihoods of people who depend on these services that's something that is our mission and we work hard on that 24 7. all of us that's a duty thank you and uh shannon um any any final thoughts from from you and your team in alaska you know when people are adopting or wanting to adopt new technology um you know kind of don't be afraid go ahead and embrace it start small and build up from there and the public will will really appreciate it thank you shannon great advice and laurel you get to have the final word on the things we should do as a community in a group to demonstrate value to get these technologies rolled out be successful no pressure right uh well i just want to say i thought shannon nailed with the the point about starting small i can't emphasize that enough i think that's uh one of the biggest sort of things that we've learned in our world the other thing i would encourage is please for folks in the public like take advantage of folks like lee and myself and shannon um i i think you guys well i hope at least at our agency we really want to be supportive of folks who are in this endeavor and you know i think sometimes people don't assume that they can call the federal government and get a person to connect with them but we do have staff across the country we're here to be helpful when we can be and i would just really encourage anybody who's not sure where to start to reach out to us as a starting point and i know for myself i'm happy to connect people to other folks within our organization or other agencies yep well very good and we learned today world.gov lots of resources assisted.gov lots of resources the government is here to help you it's not a joke it's real and you should feel comfortable reaching out and i know we didn't get to all the questions and i see some state and local uh people from different counties and others have asked some things so i think that's just evidence of how much interest there is in this topic and the need to make sure that we're working together across levels of government and in communities and across stakeholders and i think you all provided a lot of great ideas on on how to do it this is a topic that we're going to talk about for a long time 1.2 billion is a lot of money and it really has the potential to completely transform the country and uh you know this this is uh an important conversation we had today about how we modernize infrastructure how we provide cyber security and now we show real value to taxpayers so lee and laurel and shannon and david thank you for the work that you do it's important um you all contributed a great deal to the discussion today and i learned a lot i hope we can continue this conversation going forward to everyone in the audience thanks for attending and i want to thank the teams at fed insider and my colleagues at servicenow for helping to make today's conversation possible i'd like to turn things back over to claudia hoskey for some final thoughts and close out claudia thanks again jonathan and uh thank you to our audience for your questions and comments we're looking forward to following up with those training certificates will be emailed after the webinar ends today and remember to log back in in the next day or two to download a copy of today's captioning transcript we have many webinars in the works so be sure to visit thatinsider.com to see what's coming up and to register for multiple events at the same time and while you're there you can check out our podcast feds at the edge and with that this is fed insider signing off