This is the FCB Podcast Network. This is The Laws Extra. Welcome to the Outlaws Extra. This is Darbio to Kingpinmorl. Don't forget too Like us on Facebook at facebook dot com, slash the Outlaws Radio, follow us on Twitter and Instagram at the Outlaws or Radio. We're gonna talk about an issue today that is impacting communities all across this country, and that is the lack of reliable internet access. We've gone from a place where the Internet was a luxury and now it's become a necessity. As many of us all through COVID, where everyone was forced to stay home, and now your meetings were on Zoom and your children were, for better or worse, learning on the computer and all of those sorts of things, and that what we all just went through with COVID show I think how important the Internet is, and we know that there are communities that lack access. Whether it's in the inner city or whether it's in rural America, there are places that do not have the connectivity that they should have, and in the urban areas in particular, there is evidence to show that that was intentional, that it was essentially for lack of better term digital redlining. So we spent a little time talking to an expert on this subject. His name is Joshua Edmonds. He is the CEO of Digital c which is an internet provider that specializes in providing low cost internet in places where the big service providers won't go or where they have a spotty and unreliable coverage. So we spend some time talking about really the you know, looking at this from a more grandular level in terms of its necessity, whether it's like I said, whether it's meetings, whether it was school or even now you know, telehealth is really big, and that obviously relies on Internet access. Those of you who are listening to this show right now, you can't listen to this show unless you have Internet access, right like it's whether you're listening to us on your phone, whether you're listening to us on the computer or wherever you know, any of the other tablet or whatever everything that you listen to, or even if you listen to us in your car, because many of the the cars now come built in with with the platforms that we're on, whether it's iHeart or app car playing or whatever. But it's all built around the Internet, and the Internet is a fact of life that isn't going away anytime soon. As a matter of fact, things are becoming more integrated in our lives with the Internet. So this is something that's very important for a social from a social standpoint as well as an economic standpoint. So for those of you who have listened to Outlaws extras and you know how this works for everybody else, what we're gonna do, what we normally do in our extras, is we take a break now and then we air the interview in its entirety. And that's exactly what we're gonna do. So stay tuned. You're listening to the Outlaws Extra. Fuck up, sir, Welcome back, Welcome back, you're listening to the Outlaws Extra. Make sure that you subscribe to the show on Apple, Podcast, Spotify, iHeart, or wherever you get your podcast. And if you listen to this show on Apple, make sure you leave us a five star review and a comment is very important for the algorithm. And for those of you who have already done so, thank you, oh so very much. And now let's get to our interview with Joshua Edmonds, the CEO of Digital c We have a very special guest on the show today. He is with a organization that you may be aware of and some of you may not, but I think it's an important organization that we all need to learn more about. Joshua Edmonds, he's the CEO of Digital c Welcome to the show. How you doing, sir, Thank you for having me and I'm doing well. Eager to start the week, and obviously thankful for the opportunity to share more about digital see absolutely man, So let's start right there. Tell us about digital. See what is digital? Se so digital? See where five or one S three? Nonprofit? However, you know you'll hear me use interchangeably at times where technology social pervice and what that means is, you know, we're committed to expanding our service, which in this case is internet access, all to the tune of eighteen dollars a month to impact as many households as possible in the city of Cleveland. We are found. We were founded to bridge the digital divide. Obviously digital divided there pervasively sol those defects during COVID nineteen, but even moving forward, we can't do the sight of the role that internet access plays and facilitating a you know, a larger life for a number of people, whether it's at the intersection of education, healthcare, workforce, you name it. And so we look at this larger digital divide to be something that can and mostly addressed by internet access at home. So we're a full blag Jennet service provider and again we provide at eighteen dollars a month, and we also operate out of the Midtown Typhi that is our headquarters, and so we do run that as a co working, collaboration and community space. On one hand, you hear us in next hand community and culture. The other hand you hear us and next hand connectivity and technology. Okay, So so tell us a little bit more about the services that you provide and and the price point. I mean, obviously you know that's a lot cheaper than some of the other big guys. So talking a little bit about the services that you provide and your ability to be able to provide those at that price point, that's right. So when it comes to our services again, I'm going to start with the internet portion. So again you heard it correctly, that is eighteen dollars a month, and that's no fine five point gimmick. Where after six months that's the promotional period. And then we're going to then jump up to seventy dollars or eighty dollars a month, like, we don't believe in that. I think that's what contributes to a lot of Cleveland being under connected, and a lot of cities across the country have the same issue. And so for us, that eighteen dollars was intentionally designed to be affordable or most while at the same time allowing ASA has a traditional nonprofit to then fundraise for people who can't afford it. And if you break it down, it's two hundred and sixteen dollars a year or internet significantly cheaper, or if you want to go even more grandular at sixty five cents a day. And so when you think about internet access through that lens, affordability was one of the bigger things that we're trying to address, but also quality too. We knew that, you know, the big guys, they've been here for a while. They've been providing service and I'm not going to endorse whether it was good or bad, but they were providing a service to residents eleveland and we saw where they were and we said, how do we give Clevelanders a product that they deserve. We believe that Cleveland deserves affordable internet, and quite frankly, a thirty percent poverty rate will both sign that belief, but separate from affordability. We also believe that if we were to give people the latest and greatest in technology, what they could do with that, And we don't have the answer to that because quite frankly, you know, this is where humans are going to take it, wherever humans take it. But we don't want people limited by their internet or their infrastructure. And so looking at the history of digital redline in Cleveland specifically, and where these big companies invested their infrastructure in the suburbs and not really to the same token in Cleveland, it's created pockets where the infrastructure is unreliable, not worth, not worth with their pricing it at And at the same time people know that people can feel that, and so for us, we said, that's come correct by one not charging people to a point that we then operate as a forefront because again we're a nonprofit, so not charting people this rate at which our shareholders that we don't have but if we did would be happy. But second to that, also building a product from a technology standpoint, I can stand the test of time. I can last, you know, minimum a decade. That would allow people to be able to connect and perpetuity. That's something that they know is better than everything else out here. And so that's what we're coming to the community with and we're thankful that, you know, we have the ability to deliver. This would be something if I was like, oh, well, we would like to do this, No, we are doing this. You've already demonstrate this technology and several areas of the city, and pending a boat from city Council, will be able to expand this citywide and every Clevelander will be able to have access to eighteen dollars a month Internet at minimum one hundred one hundred speeds, which in many cases is faster than a lot of the DSL speeds that people get here in Cleveland. All right, you just touched on something that I want to expand on a little bit. You talked about digital Redline. Now, you know, I'm someone who is from the Inner City. I lived in the Inner City for most of my life up until really a few years ago. The internet service in my Inner City neighborhood was trapped. It was awful, and you know it really didn't realize the difference until I moved, and then when I moved, it's like, yo, this is this is insane. So most people understand the concept of redlining, but talk about digital redlining. What is digital red line? Digital red lining and the shortest terms, is the actually the reason why we exist. And I told people we exist to erase the red line. We look at ourselves, at the digital green lining organization, but in practice, digital red lining to your point, in your neighborhood, I'm not sure which one, but I can guess, actually, but in your neighborhood. That is experience that has felt throughout inner cities across America where these big companies essentially built out these networks. In some cases they infuse them the old infrastructure. It's so old cabling that happened like a hundred years ago, and they keep repurposing, repurposing. They'll make the strategic upgrades in the suburbs, They'll roll out the newest, latest and greatest product in the suburbs, and then though essentially not circle back to these inner city areas. And so you'll see you'll see even in Cleveland, certain neighborhoods that can you can look at a number of factors where we can already say these neighborhoods are historically underserved, underinvested, disinvested every way you want to slice it. And then those are actually in many cases predictive qualities to see the quality of internet because a lot of times and when you talk to some of these big companies, they'll say, well, these are business decisions. We're gonna go where you know, we're gonna get the most bang for our buck. We're gonna go where people are going to pay their bills in time. We're going to get our ROI as a company. And I understand that approach, which is why I say again through their business decisions that we'll call redlining, but they'll try and use their pr machine a business decision, we know what it is. That then gives justification from why we exist that we are going to put our purpose in motion, so purpose over profit, you know, people over profit. These businesses aren't wired to do the same. And so as a result, what we get is a bit of predictive analytics to say that well, if you're living in this area, chances are you are not going to have this latest and greatest and they're not going to come your way because they don't have a business ROI to do it. And so for us, we've been very strong on ensuring that when we show up, we're showing up with our word. Our words are bond and saying we're keeping this up affordable. We're not here to price goulge you and trick you or any type of way. Now it's eighteen We're not here to sell you a lesser tier service because we believe you just deserve last like no for meeting where you are, and we see your family as an extension of our family. I tell people my niece and nephew and my sister, they're on this network, Like this isn't something that for me, I'm speaking about a neighborhood I've never been in, or a city I never stepped footing, Like no, this is personal to me. And so to be the CEO of a company and to have my direct lifeline using this network that means something where now I have to go the extra mile because I see my future in this too. And so when you have that type of combination from the Internet all the way to the personality here and the clause digitally, redline are too calls the digitally green, and I should say the counter the red line, and that puts us in a really unique scenario. Digital see to show upen ways that quite frankly, no other Internet provider has ever shown up before in Cleveland. And you know, I think sometimes people still have a view of the importance of the Internet that's not really tethered to reality. I think we still kind of view it as a luxury when really it's almost a utility at this point, right And we saw what we just went through with COVID, where you know, if we didn't have the Internet, you know, we wouldn't have had anything. You know, I have a company that is largely Internet based. We are conducting this interview over the Internet right now and stuff like that. So talk about the importance from a social and economic standpoint, the importance of internet access. Why why does this matter? You know, I'll do that. I actually even want to further contextualize this and some other research that so it hits even a bit more a lot of people in this country. According to the American Community Survey, you can look at measures and numbers through various cities, we are going to be least likely to have access to high speed Internet and least likely to have access to the computer. That's those are the facts by way of the American Community Survey connected by the US Census, and that's conducted in a five year rolling average. And so when you think about it that way, you begin looking at social conditions, begin looking at the way that the workforce is now just dependent on the Internet and I might even talk from work from home. That's just one specific example, but even looking at a workforce where people who know how to type actually is correlative to a productivity skill. People knowing the ins and outs of even emails and outlook or whatever like, those things have to be taught. And some of the digital natives that we see that are growing up everyone has that one little baby cousin or whomever who is just a subvant with their iPad, subant with the phone. They know how to do this stuff in ways it's like, wow, it's incredible. But see what we also don't see at the same time is this expansive viewpoint of technology and it's impact that it's having on minds and people who quite frankly or you, having to use technology that wasn't designed for them. When you look at the over sixty crowd. They are forced to use technology that was not designed for them, forced to find housing, forced to find information online, and they can't tell what's real or fake because it's very hard for them. We see that oftentimes with dark classes that we conduct here and educating seniors and cybersecurity awareness. But from a social isolation standpoint, the internet is incredibly valuable. From a workforce standpoint, valuable from a healthcare standpoint. I used to sit and chair the FCCS Telehealth Committee. We see the future of healthcare in this country is going to pass through the telehealth gates almost exclusively. At some point it's more efficient padway. And so when you look at the future of all the things I'm saying now, the presence depending on it, the future, there will not be a reality where the Internet does not go through every door, every gate that is set up in whatever industries were in. Whether it's from economic to health, to wellness to well being, it doesn't matter. The Internet will undergird and support all of that. And so making sure that everybody, but even specifically black people who are least likely in these situations, to have the understanding and to be treated with dignity and respect. I think that we can model that in Cleveland, and my goal and my hope beyond all this stuff and connecting every Cleveland household would be to so that this is a model that can scale and work and to make sure that black people are not going to be the least likely and whatever city that access high speed internet or computers. Yeah, so as we go into more of a digital world, if you have people who are locked out of that, you know that you're you're basically creating another underclass because if they don't have access to reliable internet, good internet. Not just because it's one thing to say you have the you have access to the internet, but if it does work when you need it to work, then you really don't have access to it. But if you if you are in a world where kids are taking classes online and like you said, telehealth, that's something that that became really big through COVID and stuff like that, all of these sorts of things. If people don't have access to the Internet, isn't it's basically locking them out of the world, so to speak. That's exactly correct, and I think that's a part of the reason why there's another part of our business model. This is more so on the nonprofit side, and yes we are a nonprofit. However, you know, our internet at some point, you know, we do have a goal for that to be revenue generating for the company where we are then providing this, you know, citywide at scale with a certain percentage of market penetration. But separate from that, we also do conduct digital literacy, digital skilling, and computer classes. We know that's important. We can't just give people this last fancy car that is the Internet and then them not knowing how to drive it. You go to driving school so you know how to drive your vehicle and then you can get license or whatever whatever you need to do. But I don't think that that same safety net exists on the internet side. You know, you have many ways that one could access the Internet, whether it's you know, public computer or Wi Fi at home or a number of other ways. But what is that curriculum that is preparing people to be protected online? What is that curriculum that is allowing people to even grow their home based entrepreneurship ventures. I mean there's just a number of thing, building, website, all this stuff. We need to make sure that we as digital see as well as all of our partners on the ground here are good community partners to ensure that people are taking full advantage of what they're giving. I would hate for us to be able to provide internet and someone thinks that Internet is just YouTube. I would hate that because there's now there's a lot on YouTube and we all learn a lot from it. But as you know, there's so much more to it than that. And that's why us being able to provide those digital skilling, digital literacy, and computer classes that protect people and empower people, motivate people to do more and aspire for more through the Internet. That's kind of why we did this one too punch here and so that is another service that we offer at scale throughout the city of Cleveland. And we're thankful that people have been able to get jobs off of these services now because now they feel much more confident to be able to utilize the Internet for things beyond entertainment. We're talking with Josh Fladmans' is CEO of Digital c So tell us a little bit about your background, how you got involved in this work in this industry in the first place. Yeah, you know, I was always interested in computers. It's funny my dad actually got us computer didn't have Internet on it, but he got us in computer was a Windows ninety five. Pretty system. Yeah, real old. We used to play that pinball game all day. In any case, I would just play around in the control panel and just play around with computers, and I didn't really think anything of it. I didn't go to school for at least undergrad I went State Local Notre Dame College. I was English major in the Spanish major. I did work at best By during that time, and I did do tech support when I was there, but again, computers the back of my mind. Then I went off to Howard University study technology policy out there, to the public Policy discipline, and that's when something opened up a bit and I'm like, okay, I'm seeing something. I spent some time never Then I moved back to Cleveland and I worked at the Hogo Housing Authority. Working at TMJ, I worked on President Obama's Connect Home initiative, and that's where things really started starting for me, where I'm like, Okay, I see something. An entire initiative was near towards ensuring that presidents living in public housing had access to the Internet. So this is where this stuff starts to start. At me where there's a fire that is lit, I'm doing focused group president. I went every single estate that's in Cmcha houping avout for participants about their internet access needs, so that little fire was able to do some some some things there. I actually worked with Digital c at that time to deploy Wi Fi one of our buildings, which I WiFi network is still up and running, which is great. But then I moved over to the foundation. I was investing in digital innovation practices throughout the city, throughout Northeast Ohio. I then moved to the City of Detroit where I spent four years as their Director of Digital Equity Inclusion, where I focus on smart city stuff, infrastructure, fiber optic pretty much I need to think of it as related to technology that lived under me. And then I moved back here to assume the role of CE of Digital in November twenty twenty two. All right, awesome, So as we as we start to wind down here, I can tell you you're a younger brother. I think we're around we're in the same age group for the people behind us. I mean, you have you've accomplished a lot. You know, you've you've gotten to the point where you're running an organization like this. So for the people behind us who are aspiring to do things to impact their community, what what advice would you give them? The very first thing I would say is to believe in yourself a lot earlier. And I I wish I would have. And it's funny that I'm saying that because to your point, yep, young CEO. But at the end of the day, had I believed in myself earlier, I'm just wondering where I would have been. Maybe I would have been in the same spot, but I don't know. So believing yourself earlier for sure, to making sure that you actually like read Like I know a lot of people might be smart, and there's always a thing, well I'm smarting can figure out was like no read for real. It sharpens your mind the ways that you sometimes don't see. And I would just say the third thing is just mastering the art of communicating them ensuring And I don't mean being able to communicate and tell your story, rather being able to communicate and build relationships with other people, seeing them, prioritizing them, and I don't know, just making sure that you're not all in your own head. And I think that was a big thing I struggled with early on in my early twenties. I spent a lot of time in my own head. I might have had great ideas I couldn't communicate to at least communicating to a degree which I could be effective. And so I feel like if people did those three things the very least in your twenties or even in your thirties, I mean probably all throughout your life, I think that you're going to see that your life will change in ways that you might enjoy. Absolutely, man, absolutely let everybody know if you want to get more information about Digital C where they go to the website, If you have social media, all that gives that's great. So one, I do want to put a disclaimer out there and say our website is still under construction. However, if you want to learn more about us, you can go to www got digitalc dot org. In addition, if you want to learn more about our service, you can actually call our digital se hotline. That's two one six seven seven seven three eight five nine, and quite frankly, if you want to just pull up. During Cleveland sixty nineteen, England, we're at the Midtown Tech That is where we're headquartered. I'm literally downstairs. I'm downstairs right now. I'm downstairs all the time. So if you want to learn more about me or about Digital c you can go through those channels. But you know, we have this beautiful space and I would love to see anyone who has questions, comments, concerns, recommendations about Digital se I'd love to meet them here. All right. Awesome, man, thank you so much coming on the show and spend us some time with us. Man, We really appreciate it. No, I appreciate so having me. Thank you one more time. Thank you to Joshua Edmonds for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. We are out of here. We'll see you next time. That This has been a presentation of the FCB podcast Network, where real talk lifts. Visit us online at FCB podcasts dot com.
