Unveiling the Digital Divide: Cleveland's Future Unlocked

00:00:00 what this program is doing the program is called digital C and he is the CEO of digital C you you can look at any Facebook comment any Instagram comment thread and that’s road rage too the passion and what sparked digital Equity me I mean I think that was a lifelong thing because as we’re getting into this future Focus uh economy as we’re looking at the rise of digital infrastructure digital access AI Quantum Computing all those things that’s the digital now toes down keep it than most he do it

00:00:31 for the culture that’s always the goal this is strategic moves with [Music] Kow this is strategic Movic [Music] Kow hey good evening welcome to another engaging episode of strategic moves where we talk about movers and shakers and today we have not just a mover and a Shaker but we have a disruptor in our our audience with us today he’s shaping the future for what’s going on in Cleveland as it relates to digital and WiFi and digital divide that we’re facing here in the city of Cleveland especially in some of the impoverish

00:01:16 areas and he’s going to talk a little bit more about what this program is doing the program is called digital C and he is the CEO of digital C and I want everybody in the program let’s welcome Mr Josh edman to our program thank you for having me in the program thank you thank you sir we trying to work out a new thing just to try to get a different flow of our program I used to do a different intro but this my first one so we trying something new so work with me as we get through sounds disruptive what’s that I see I got cut

00:01:50 out the intro I didn’t cut you out you didn’t give me a chance to say much I was just getting ready to go there sir so without let me everybody want to hear and you see it our best podcast producer in history I’m gonna take his title from him because he just thought we wasn’t gonna cut him out of his little his intro but we can’t do this program without our our producer of this program his name is DJ true DJ what’s happening today sir I’m good I’m good I’m good man how you feeling today is your mental okay in there man I’m

00:02:25 good man I I am good have you ever experienced road rage all the time all the time and what do you do when you experience road rage like most people holler scream stop you know I used to be I used to be a person who was very aggressive but now I kind of like ah just mad because it’s crazy folks out there and if you think you’re raging it’s somebody raging a lot more worse than you are and so and and that’s what I learned because um some people told me you know kind of close where because I went to Kent so I’m familiar with sto

00:03:06 that uh some some road rage incident happened at a Taco Bell out there where a lady got killed yeah yeah that happened they just I saw that that was crazy and then the guy killed himself yeah CA I and I was similar I don’t know do you remember um and this might have happened probably maybe like three four years ago I think it it might even happened before Co but do you remember the guy that just was he went on the Rampage and then he shot a old man I think it was actually on that was here yeah that was here and

00:03:47 he um then they caught him somewhere kind of in Ohio I don’t know if it was Dayton or yeah wherever it was and then he wind up killing himself you know what’s so crazy about that that that guy used to work for me he used to work for you yeah what did he do for you right well you know I used to you know promote at a lot of different events right so he used to be the guy you take your you know the picture man and he was always like a cool guy never had any issues with him and when I heard about that I was

00:04:28 just like I like wow you never know what a person is going through or that’s what I’m telling what kind of stuff they on until the door blows open so that’s why I say when you think you raging there’s always somebody else ringbody always raging a lot harder than a lot harder than you so that’s why when you in the road rage and you believe I’m about to go there you just got to ask yourself am I ready to go there cuz and we gonna get started with my guest but um the Taco Bell thing what made me think about to do was I believe he was a

00:05:03 classic case of road rage he got pissed off he got out of his car with his weapon before he know it he shot this woman and she was dead and I think at that time he knew that his life was over yeah that’s all and I think he said I’m gonna go and take my own life because I can’t deal with everything that’s just about to go down with me for killing this lady in this drivethru I truly believe that and I I believe that that was an active road rage I think that gentleman got up that morning saying I’m

00:05:32 going to shoot somebody and go through this I think it’s what you’re just saying that that rage sometimes happen and you ask what do I do and I say hey I gotta calm down and I guess that’s what we’re telling everybody at some point you have to just say oh mad that person did this and you gotta calm down I very seldom get upset on on the road I just kind of let people go you know now I may beat my horn you know if they almost caused me to have an accident but you know I’m not about to do anything

00:06:07 foolish you know I just try to stay away from that because people will chase you down give you the finger do this that and that you racing them I mean it can go there man and I I ain’t the one to just try to take it there to be honest all right so we gonna get started with our guest today man all right I want to do we’re gonna redo his opening again today I’m excited to welcome a guest who not only is Bridging the digital divide but is doing it so that in a Relentless passion and Innovative right here in Cleveland so let’s welcome

00:06:45 the CEO of digital C Joshua edmas to our program thanks for coming on to our program today man we we’re glad to have you on here we we’re talking about road rage today because I guess Latif must have had some today no I didn’t have no roadway I don’t know man you you you was on this road raage this morning for some reason so hey you know it happens I get it there is a unique parallel to road rage and on the information Super Highway as you can see um you you can look at any Facebook comment any Instagram comment

00:07:25 thread that’s road rage too oh that’s road rage so that happens on the digital infrastructure highway it’s interesting you want to know something and that could get you raised too it can get you going that’s a whole another Avenue of Road ra people that got killed doing that too yes they have people have lost their mind over that I had um start running some ads for um a campaign we doing called win with black men trying to get more black men to vote man you should see the hateful stuff that comes

00:07:58 on the thre and I will you know I I’m as old I’m 56 years old and I’d be acting like I’m so surprised and shocked by stuff I’m like oh my god did you see I mean people wrote on there you know uh and you know I will say this on the air because I’m just that guy one guy wrote um you know this the most racist thing I ever seen in my life it says win with black men what if I wrote a thing that said let’s win with white men and I wrote I responded back to him I said you do and it’s called the Republican Party

00:08:30 [Laughter] okay so that’s what y’all got so so that’s what it said so my little element of Road Ray right there we talk about it was that and then I said you need to stop because you know what happens when you go into these dudes that that’s all night all day and they gonna start trolling and it’s over that’s right so I said let me let that go and go into that so today we have a gentleman and I’m glad you came on to our program because you are all about digital you all about Wi-Fi you all about digital connecting

00:09:01 and the digital divide in our community man but I want to ask you a question Josh you went and started u from the beginning your career has been a fascinating Journey you were America’s first U Municipal director of digital inclusion in Detroit before um taking a role here at digital SE what sparked your passion in digital equity and how do you how did your experience in Detroit prepare you for your challenges here in Cleveland uh I I would say the the passion and what sparked digital Equity I mean I mean I think that was a

00:09:35 lifelong thing you know as we look at inequality today I mean obviously we have the historic inequality but we look at this digital divide as the Last Frontier of inequality because as we’re getting into this future Focus uh economy as we’re looking at the rise of digital infrastructure digital access AI Quantum Computing all those things that’s the digital now so we went from sticks and stones and Fire to digital this is the Last Frontier for us and as we begin looking at that I think as a young person strategically

00:10:07 it’s like look you’d want to be looking at what the future looks like and what role you have in that I would say that you know part of this fight on Equity was fostered and nurtured uh just through I was just my parents my upbringing really uh my mom is a huge supporter of fairness anytime something’s not fair so so so let someone know and that that is the thing that she hates and so I feel like I I inherited that from her okay um and then my dad he made a point to surround us with enough technology what I mean by

00:10:36 that is I was one of those kids raised by video games okay I for sure was uh but in addition to that we had a Windows 95 computer okay that’s computer that I grew up on and um there were be times when the mouse didn’t work or something didn’t work on it and I would just get lost in that control panel in those settings I just play around with it and after a while I think that Affinity towards techn was planted there but then just the reality of being black in America well that then creates like this

00:11:06 this need this desire this obligation for Equity to then be the foundation for what I do so you pair technology and you pair Equity together you get digital equity and you know Detroit prepared me in such a unique way because I I’m not from there you know I grew up in Painesville Ohio about 25 minutes from here really yeah so so I was going to get to that so I’m glad you do that take us back then so you grew up in pain mom and dad so you brothers and sisters yep I’m the I’m the youngest of three

00:11:34 okay yeah so my brother is 11 months older than me he’s he’s actually a deputy for Lake County now okay uh then my my sister she’s a substitute teacher she’s four years older than me and you know it’s funny because we went from Paynesville and then right around high school that’s when we moved to Twinsburg okay so to Twinsburg for high school then went to Notre Dame college for undergrad and then Howard University right after that and then I just was moving around ever since then what did you man you’re at Howard when you went

00:12:04 to Howard uh so public policy with an emphasis in technology policy so that’s where I again I started seeing something I didn’t know what it was but I’m like okay there’s something here uh I was I remember I was infatuated at the time of looking at Amazon’s drone delivery services and what impact that would have on public policy really so like how would that impact Rural America if a drone had a lithium ion battery and it crashes and then someone’s crop scul in fire so like things like that were the

00:12:33 things I was like the implic implications of Technology on society and how we could explore that it just so happens to be now that I’m working in telecommunications doing this but I would argue that it doesn’t really matter what vertical and Technology I would have been doing this regardless it just so happened to be telecom you know that’s that’s very interesting that you made that analogy about you know the drones and it falling in that can ruin a whole I mean gez that takes out a whole crop and everything and that’s done you

00:13:02 know and and I think that’s the part where cuz I I’ve even asked myself too like how do we end up here how do we get here in Telecom like what but it’s like once again I would say the skills that I learned at Howard on being able to deconstruct a problem an issue and look at it from multiple angles is something that then paired with I grew up in the church so I saw pastors all the time so I got this public speaking skill that I was downloading that entire time watching these these these these pastors

00:13:31 up there and so seeing these two things together and then allowed me to go into a municipal government in Detroit wasn’t from there but you know it’s a it’s 87% so how you get in there then I mean you know that you you you became what is called the first and when I I got that I was like wow the first person to be named in that role and also in that I I read here that you helped um secure and raise over 70 million dollars yeah and and digital Equity incentives while you were there so tell me about that and how

00:14:06 how did all of that come about how like how you get to Detroit and how did you get the job and how did you raise the money so so interestingly enough right now post so post pandemic digital Equity we’re in the age of awareness and Enlightenment where people are were well aware of the digital divide they’re well aware of the implications on the digital divide post pandemic because the pandemic obviously exacer ated the conditions that would cause a digital divide okay however prior to the pandemic pre pandemic digital Equity was

00:14:37 not really it was a thing but it was growing it didn’t really have the agency or the weight of a pandemic to co-sign it so at that time there weren’t really too many people I had I had already my my first digital Equity job was actually working at the KGO metop problem Housing Authority here CJ yep so CJ was my first one uh so I got selected through a fellowship and I worked on President Obama’s connect home initiative okay and so that was a an entire initiative focused on connecting residents and

00:15:08 public housing or residents receiving vouchers with affordable internet training and tech support and devices so when I was doing that uh I had created a Cleveland Housing hackathon and that notion was how do we hack housing and equity in Cleveland so I sat down technology developers with residents in public housing and if we could develop Technical Solutions to some of our social problems when that happened the Cleveland Foundation took notice and said hey how would you like to be a digital Innovation fellow with us and

00:15:37 how would you like to then help us create an investment strategy for bridging Cleveland’s digital divide so I worked on that again more convening more stakeholders more activations uh Detroit took notice of that I was like hey how would you like to do that within the context of municipal government I’m like sure and so I went over there and it was a split Fellowship between um the city of Detroit and University of Michigan so I was faculty at U at U ofm but I was appointed to work for uh the city of

00:16:05 Detroit okay and so in that role my job was to go to bed and wake up every single day and only think about the D digital divide think about all the numbers that went into it think about the conditions think about the partners and think about any type of funding opportunity give people talking points I had to give talking points to speaker Pelosi at one point I mean I was okay I was that person who studied this religiously and uh January 2020 um so I moved out there in um about the end of 2018 beginning 2019 I moved out

00:16:34 to Detroit and First full year I was just fundraising and I wouldn’t say fundraising I was doing landscape scan getting to know people I wasn’t from there but thankfully I have a twin out there I never met him but apparently I got someone out there who looks just like me so I feel like that helped me but I was people always say man you look like so and so man was and you know I’ll go to the churches and thankfully Joshua works well in the churches okay Mee with pastors oh that’s a powerful name okay

00:17:02 that worked for me uh but as I’m as I’m going out there and I’m building these relationships meeting people I began putting together a strategy strategy to bridge Detroit’s digital divide and it all started with a vision and this is where I would say that most people their Visions are a little bit too small to get that level of investment the vision that I had painted was I said I was going to make Detroit the national model for digital equity and that I was going to do something so bold because in the

00:17:29 backstory here what I don’t oftentimes say publicly is I was angry to leave Cleveland I didn’t want to leave Cleveland I felt like Cleveland wasn’t willing to give me an opportunity to showcase who I was and Detroit was willing to do that Detroit’s like man look young brother if you got it you got it give this man the room let him let him build and so as I’m building these relationships my first year I raised half a million from General Motors um and I read everyone’s strategic plan too so I knew what everyone’s priorities

00:17:56 were so I could take digital equity and I could then translate it into like the value that it could bring that company if they invested in it and so General Motors was my first one then after that um rocket Community Fund with Dan Gilbert they they started investing then Microsoft and then everyone just started just dumping in but January 2020 I got a call from the US House of Representatives before the pandemic to testify in front of Congress when that Congressional testimony happened that’s when I would say that’s when I got

00:18:26 stamped that’s when people like okay this brother knows what he’s doing if the Democrats are going to call him um and he he’s looked at as an expert nationally and ferally then locally we need to make sure that we’re we’re paying attention and so that’s when I was able to raise official our our first our first set of millions and then through um the and or through the American Rescue plan act 50 million was allocated to uh my budget specifically to do digital Equity investment uh we had raised it’s actually over 70 now I’m

00:18:57 thinking of it but we raised over 20 million uh through a program called connected Futures that gave every single kid in the public schools a computer um tech support internet access and then we raised another four million through tele Health initiatives I used to chair the fcc’s tele health committee uh but all this stuff that I’m naming now a lot of it’s just positioning that I saw coming and making sure that there was the right steps at the right time to be able to do that and so all this fundraising yes

00:19:25 it’s a combination of vision a lot of that a lot of me studying to know the enrs everywhere but being able to communicate that value to a resident and also to a Dan Gilbert and being able to get everybody in between a lined how old are you I’m 32 geeez you did a whole lot that’s what I’m sitting here listening to you and I’m like man this guy did a whole lot in a short period of time in a area where like you say you have managed to put yourself as like we say a very official person that people can call on

00:19:57 and say hey this guy knows what talking about he’s very official I understand this and um he’s an expert in this matter so that’s huge man big kudos for that man that’s huge for you brother I appreciate it but you know what’s interesting about it uh it was a will to to to win this when I tell when I tell you win I remember I’d be 2 three in the morning driving in Detroit screaming why is it so difficult to get things done like it I went to a very very very deep place to pull some of that stuff out so

00:20:30 like I’m saying it casually now yeah but it taxs me oh no it works and listen and cuz that’s a lot of work you did in a short period of time yeah so I that meant that you were grinding you were definitely grinding oh yeah oh yeah so what made you come back to Cleveland then so I did my four years in municipal government I lik him that and it’s funny we were talking about Taco Bell earlier that was my first job I did four years there too so so there’s there’s um kind of a thing where I’m like all right I

00:20:59 knew that at that point the infrastructure was in place I I gave I gave what I needed to do I used to run track and field I ran my leg of the relay so now I’m like hey look I’m done I’m not running another lap here right like I’m done and so I knew that I was leaving there were three job offers one was in Detroit that was a phenomenal one I’m not gonna lie I that was that was a great one they offered me uh then there was another one in uh San Francisco and uh I was to work for a really unique organization I can’t name but um I would

00:21:33 have been able to do some pretty pretty cool stuff but then digital C came up and I tell you I said no to this opportunity I they called me I didn’t pick up the phone I knew it was a recruiter calling I knew what they were calling but I did not pick up the phone I’m like I was not interested and then uh I thought about it long and hard and I said I could fail but digital c i could fail those other companies I wasn’t going to fail there they they were so well resourced but here’s a company that uh had so many

00:22:03 things going wrong in its history they didn’t really have a a trajectory that we could see there was so many other things that I’m like I could fail and that was why I did it because I knew that if I could fail early on in life I’m okay with that I’m okay failing now I don’t want to fail when I got a family I’m like I’m like you know I got way more on the line then right now it’s just me I’m not married I don’t have kids I’m like it’s just me out here so yeah let’s let’s let’s be risky so that’s why digital C presented the

00:22:30 biggest risk but also the greatest reward and it do it in Cleveland when I left Cleveland again I wasn’t happy to leave that’s correct I felt like I had unfinished business and so now coming back here I’m like okay no no no all right I went off to Detroit just like Miami LeBron went off to Miami he did his time but he has he has to deliver the ring in Cleveland right and so this is me um delivering that ring and then I’m like all right I Gotta Give I got to give them that championship and this is

00:22:55 this is a championship level effort this is significantly harder than anything I’ve ever done all right now so let’s tell my millions and millions and millions of viewers out there what is digital C and what does digital C does so digital C we are a nonprofit technology social Enterprise so first things first yes we’re are 501c3 we don’t have shareholders we don’t have any of that we are the only internet service provider headquartered in the city of Cleveland we’re one of the only blackl Telecom organizations in the

00:23:25 country if not the world wow and so when we look at what we’re doing locally in Cleveland we’re building out a future Focus Network that is providing gigabit speed up to gigabit speed internet and our our price points if not free are $18 a month for every consumer that we touch we started construction of the network in January uh by the end of this month we should have north of 60,000 homes uh passed with coverage um we have a goal this year of connecting 3,500 residents to our service we have a goal within the

00:24:00 next three years Beyond this year to connect 23,500 in total to our our home internet and so there’s some unique things that we do um one we’re not allowed to change the price of our $18 plan for the next five years so it be $18 for the next five years that’s right so anyone who signs up for us right now I’m like I I look at people like look y’all it’s $18 it’s not about to be in six months it’s 21 then 20 next you know you’re paying $110 it’s none of that it’s $18 a month the next five we hire

00:24:30 local um 100% of our team lives in Northeast Ohio over half of us live in the city of Cleveland myself included uh this is meant to be local Pride everyone that we’re working with local entrepreneurs uh the the swag even from the fashion that we have that’s a local entrepreneur when you see our vans driving around the city local entrepreneur when you call our uh hotline 26777 3859 local entrepreneur did the van wrapping for that stuff like Ian and and even not not vaning they they’re the ones who did their call center so the

00:25:00 Cleveland site Center and War 7 they’re the ones who pick up the phone really so I’m not even it’s not a 1-800 number we’re not routing you overseas we’re ring someone here so even as we got the investment from uh all our private and public sources last year we raised 53 million um even with that level of investment we’re keeping it local because I want to prove something I want to prove that Cleveland we don’t have to acques to external forces we can do for ourselves we know we can do for ourselves we can own our information we

00:25:31 can build networks that we’re proud of we can build Partnerships that are lasting and we can make history and I feel like softon in Cleveland what I’m seeing is for so long scarcity has became the norm here that the minute we start talking abundance people don’t know what to do right and so I want people to look at digital infrastructure and opportunity in an abundant way to say no no no it doesn’t have to be something that you can’t afford you can afford this you can take pride in this and it is cool to root for Cleveland and

00:25:58 it’s cool to root for Cleveland company and we absolutely are a startup in many ways but it’s cool to even proudly say I love the work that digital C is doing and consider me a fan or a supporter interesting let me ask you this digital Z has some really big goals that’s right rolling out affordability Broadband access across Cleveland what has been some of your biggest challenges that did you um some of your biggest challenges you have since you um took the range over at digital C so you know I I

00:26:30 I there’s something that happens when you cross 30 there’s something that happens when you cost 30 uh the energy that I had in my 20s I’m not gonna say that I don’t have it anymore but it’s it’s now I look before I leap a little bit I’m like that’s gonna be taxing right and so when I took over the position I didn’t give myself any time but when I moved from Detroit to to Cleveland uh my last day in Detroit I want to say was um I think it might might have been the September 30th or something like that then October

00:27:02 1st I started into in Cleveland wow I didn’t give myself anytime I moved all that stuff and it was tough my very first day in the job was in front of City Hall so Council no it wasn’t Council then it was just the administration the administra side okay yep and I mean they’re asking us questions about the RFP that I didn’t write with people in the leadership team that I didn’t hire wow oh so you coming in and this has already been in moving and you coming in now got to get a handle on it and wow okay I didn’t know

00:27:33 that yeah so I I I show up and the first thing I remember I was told from someone I’m not gonna name anyone at least not yet uh the first thing I was told was you know y’all aren’t gon to get that Grant you know you’re you’re not gonna win I sat there I said okay okay and I heard from someone else yeah yeah you know it’s cool that you came back but I don’t know why you came back you’re not winning that so I’m hearing that and thankfully Detroit did enough of making me a little bit aggressive at times

00:28:02 where I said I’m not accepting that so I said I hear you talking but I’m not accepting that and so I think the big challenges were one even from the people who who historically supported me they didn’t even think we could pull this off so I’m like okay I didn’t have that in addition to that the team that I had incredibly well-meaning people very well-meaning uh the P yo did a great job of getting some some people with some hearts in there but I think a few things one they didn’t reflect the community

00:28:29 in addition to that they they weren’t the team needed to get it done and so I did have to fire a lot of people and that was not easy yeah you know I I’m uh I’ve watched um city council and TV I watch it like a soap Rober so when that ain’t on I’m sitting here watching what what everybody doing so I watched your whole soap op oh my everything you guys went through so I I I I got it that was rough and and you were going up against some Big Boys you was going up against spectrum and all the big ones on there

00:29:00 you right it wasn’t just them telling you the hell I was even sitting here like that brother ain’t that oh he a young Dude too oh this Cleveland OH he a getting m i mean I think people if they were betting people boy I think You’ have had a whole lot of people walking around here like man I lost my farm on that one man that was a huge accomplishment a huge contract and a huge opportunity and you beat a lot of people out on that so that that that was really big and I had to give a shout out to um so J Jerry Prim was actually the

00:29:36 one that um really stepped in from a lobbying standpoint because we’re a nonprofit We don’t do the lobbying historically we haven’t I can’t take one of these these decision makers to a floor seat of a game like I can’t take I can’t fly their or take their team to get stake like we don’t have the money to do that correct so it’s like how do you do how do you navigate how do you figure that stuff out so Jerry Prim was instrumental and sitting me down with black leaders at the time and saying this is one of our our black leaders and

00:30:07 you see what they’re doing to him we can’t let that happen because if they do it to him they’re going to do it to our kids they’re gonna do to any any of these other young people they’re going to do it we need to draw a line in the sand now say no and so that was a message that then allowed us to then begin aligning we did a lot of different tactics a lot of different Community organizing tactics to to to get it over the finish line but I’ll say one of the big things that I noticed and that kept

00:30:30 coming up which was the theme of like look you’re not going against one giant you’re in the land of giants now and you can’t be afraid to kill these Giants and so yeah they were lobbying against us they were doing a whole lot of stuff some of the stuff that was a little bit nasty but I’m like whatever I’m gonna let it go because y’all didn’t want to see us get that money we did but at the end of the day I would say it definitely forced me to pray a lot more than I ever have and it forced me to I would even

00:30:56 say mature and being able to under being to handle public pressure I’ve never been publicly punched in my life corre that was my first time I got punched and if you watch either the first or second hearing by the end of it I’m slumped over because they were hitting me the entire time for three hours or just punching me in the beginning I’m like this I’m but after a while I’m deflated and that was a very deflating and humbling experience but it also taught me you know where where my strength comes from you did good I mean I watched

00:31:24 the whole thing man you did good I I you made it through it and you got the contract at the end of the day so I obviously did well and I again I never thought a million years you was going to get that thing I really was like because I and to be honest you know I’ve been here a while I’ve been doing work here a long time so I knew other people who got hired by the other come the big boys and they were calling me up like oh that ain’t gonna happen I’m sitting there like really I said man I’m watching this

00:31:50 every day and I’m think I like young blood is getting it in man I’m trying to tell y’all y’all it’s going to happen they did not believe it and then I I watched it happen I said he pulled that off and they were mad they were mad they were mad but you know what if we go back to the beginning of this when you said you know why digal scene I began talking about because I could fail right that was the first time in my career that I actually saw a failure right in front of me that it was like the difference between me giving an

00:32:18 answer a or answer B right like you’re running at 159% yeah yeah and and and and in that room the answer the answer ain’t always the best answer man that’s right you know what I mean you you giving them and and and depending on how they feeling or what’s going on you can say something and it’s it’s just bad I mean counsel that that’s that’s the worst inclination than um going through that would probably hell of a lot worse than going through Congress Congress they they sitting back there you answer your

00:32:50 question these guys man they in your face and they like oh ain’t no internet in my w you be like well what you mean I just did internet in your War what you mean no you ain’t got no internet in my War you be like I can show you all the papers where we got internet in your W and they’ll be like there’s no internet in my war and you be like okay all right this ain’t G I ain’t gonna win this argument so that’s what say so sometimes the right answer ain’t always the best answer in that’s right so when it come

00:33:16 when you talk about Bridging the digital divide and um it’s not just about putting internet in homes it’s about education economic opportunities empowerment how does digital address the deeper systemic issues that are going on hand in hand in the um our community as it relates to broadband access you know it’s interesting is we look at this digital divide sometimes people look at it as a binary thing as if you’re connected or you’re not and it’s so much more of a sophisticated issue than that it’s

00:33:53 actually a a paradigm and within paradigms you have to have Paradigm shifts even our understanding our execution the way we do things and so digital C represents that paradigm shift from the old models even I when I explained our pricing $18 a month five years School District it’s free if you have a kid in cmsd it’s free for you really yes and that’s something that we knew again that if we’re going to empower the future then we need to remove the barrier it can’t be all right it’s $49.99 when you sign up and now I’m

00:34:26 paying whatever that would disenfranchise people in perpetuity as you see the disinvestment from Banks from brick and mortars and you see the rise in Cleveland’s underbank population how is someone supposed to digitally compete with this varying price point that will disenfranchise people that’s correct and so it’s the fact that our pricing structure alone forget what what we even charge the set rate that’s already disruptive for Telecom especially for five years that’s unheard of in addition to that the speeds that

00:34:53 we’re able to get again people did not expect that the fact that we’re doing this within the city of Cleveland first and then going to the suburb second because yes we have a desire of expanding this model we absolutely do but typically what you would see is they would start suburb first then go within the city that’s correct if they decide to go to the city and somehow conveniently neighborhoods and E High keep getting skipped but in this case we said no no no no we’re building this infrastructure in Cleveland first

00:35:22 suburbanites you can get at last So when you say that are you um building east side first so right now heavily we are heavily building primarily all of our stuff right now out the 60,000 homes I was talking about primary a lot of those on the east side uh we have some apartment buildings on the West Side CMHA still but the east side is one who has the majority of coverage we actually have the greatest coverage in W seven right now uh where we’re headquartered but we have about uh I want to say about 80% of

00:35:51 that W is covered now uh but yeah we’re primarily on the east side we haven’t been able to go as far as the Deep Parts award one yet I mean that’s that’s that’s out there uh but yeah we’re primarily on the east side and as we as the permits go live then we just turn them another radio tower the what we promis to have completed by June of 2025 is that this entire city is going to be covered June of 2025 that’s correct next year this time the whole city listen y’all y’all heard he said that right

00:36:21 bring right into the camera looking right in that camera he’s saying that next he’s coming back here this time next year we gonna see how much this city is covered that’s right so let me ask you on that let’s get a little techy a little bit so you saying you building infrastructure and all of that and people act like we know what the hell you talking about you know they ain’t got no Dam they ain’t got no clue about what fiber optic is any of that stuff that you talking about so let’s do a little education when you say you have

00:36:47 to actually build this out what does that mean that you in a neighborhood that means you running wire to everybody’s house that means you got to put Towers up you tell everybody what does do that really mean when you say that you guys are bringing digital um technology to a community what does that mean so in the past it would have been actually much more complex now it’s a little bit easier what we’re doing so thankfully with the advancements in technology let’s say we were to make a phone call in this room right now okay

00:37:17 we’d be making a phone call off of a radio tower that’s already up correct uh I believe that Carnegie Tower is probably the one that we’d be we’d be connecting to so Carnegie Towers really great example of this big radio tower that’s already up what we do is called a collocate we will take our radio and we’ll put it on that same pole okay and so sometimes it’s at the top of the pole or maybe at the bottom of the pole but it doesn’t matter it’s high up enough where then that that signal then beams

00:37:44 in a radial fashion and then what we do is we take a customer premise equipment which like a little box we will install it on the siding of your house not the roof but the siding and then that siding then communicates with that radio and then that radio then communicates back to our headquarters and that’s how we beam the internet throughout that’s Wireless yep really so we do fixed Wireless uh the advancements and fixed Wireless are ones where we now we now are so sophisticated that in the past

00:38:10 you’d get great signals in the winter time and then as soon as the spring roll around you get a terrible signal why because the trees and the leaves will come back wow but now of a sudden our technology actually has the ability to bounce off of buildings and bounce off of trees and reaching The Signal Point you that’s interesting I remember you saying that in the um council meeting because they were complaining about they getting the signals that’s right they was like we didn’t get no signal you and

00:38:36 I remember you because when you mentioned the trees I was like I remember you saying that that’s right wow that’s interesting so we’ve actually even evolved it even more and I I I always have councel to think for this because they kept asking us this question does your technology penetrate the tree canopy yeah right and uh interestingly enough we actually branded our internet as canopy for that very reason because we wanted to show them like oh not only does it we’re going to Brand it as such to let you know we know

00:39:01 where this came from and we use that same brick that you threw at us to make the foundation for this brand so we say canopy we got you covered EXC last year was just a really great year for us like I said you did great I watched you let me ask you this then as it relates to um the way things used to go because right now I have Spectrum at my house I’m in Cleveland he store I got spectrum and they run a wire to my house right that’s what we’re used to yep you’re saying with your technology it won’t be no more

00:39:32 wires well so we’ll run we we will run a wire from our customer prise equipment that we put we install in the house yeah we’ll run one inside that connects to our Moto Mar all right so you do run that in but there’s no wire from the poll that kind of stuff that they do that’s what I’m talking about which is why like okay uh we can look at the uh earning reports uh for why cable companies are losing big it’s a lot easier for us now these wireless companies come in we can put up this technology the fact that we can get

00:40:01 Cleveland built in a little bit over a year’s time that should be terrifying anyone in the Telecom industry because it’s like look we figured it out how to do it so what’s stopping us from doing this in Detroit but stopping us from doing to Milwaukee Chicago anywhere and we can do it for a fraction of the cost especially if we’re charging $18 a month and they’re charging 70 right at some point someone’s going to wise up and say even if I made a large upfront invest M of $50 million in digital C that sounds

00:40:31 like a whole lot but then I would argue okay well if you have 400 or 500,000 or so people paying $70 a month how much is that a year and how much is that in 10 years that’s correct so it’s actually cheaper to go with our option it makes more sense to go with our option and so at some point either their job is to kill us as fast as they possibly can or they’re going to then have to adjust to the way that we’re playing or right because it’s all dollar I mean it comes down to marketing that’s correct and and

00:40:56 and who’s going to keep up with who let me ask you this Dan um well before I ask you I’m G ask you the other question what is fiber optics then so so fiber glass think of glass or plastic where we’re able to transmit information at insanely high speed so when everyone everyone has Fiers King fiber’s King fiber is king and the beautiful thing about our network is our network runs on fiber so what ends up happening we do what’s called aerial fiber all of our radio towers that we have we already have fiber running to those hours okay

00:41:28 so then we are taking it from the ground level and then beaming that connection that’s where the fiber kicks in that’s correct so it’s the fiber kicks in the signal you’re getting that you get to push out and you want fiber because you want the strongest signal you can push out exactly and fiber is what does that you got it and so when I looked at the city of Cleveland there’s another company that’s involved that’s actually bringing the fiber in to the city that will be working with you guys is that

00:41:56 correct um or they bringing in fiber TBD we we don’t know so like we I so I know this company sci-fi I actually spoke to what I spoke to their CEO or one of that is that the English guy yeah yeah so I I spoke he’s Irish Irish or English he one of them he’s European he’s definitely European he got an accent I was like that dude he’s not from Cleveland no no but you know what they’re doing conceptually they have an incredible model okay conceptually that was a model that similar what I was actually pushing

00:42:28 when I was in Detroit okay and uh pretty much what their model is is they’re going to put fiber throughout the city of Cleveland okay and it’s going to be open access what Open Access means think of a toll road in a toll road you got to pay the toll correct but the thing about the toll road is you have six Lanes to go through that’s essentially what they want to do with internet where it’s like I can go with prider 1 2 3 4 5 6 S 8 9 10 riding these different strands and so that’s what Open Access does whereas a

00:43:01 traditional model is I have this wire running to my house and I can only get them open access is like no no no no you have 20 wires running to your house you can pick whatever provider you want so it’s going to force it to be insanely competitive where now everyone has to compete wow which is where I’m like okay I they just providing fiber and they like y’all get it that’s right wow and they’re not the internet service provider all they are is the operator got and so like for us for digital C it’s actually a unique opportunity now I

00:43:32 don’t know what their pricing is I told them like Hey we’re a nonprofit so if you want to charge us as it for a for-profit oh so that’s another part to it too they charge a fee that actually you will have to at some point push on to the consumer that’s correct wow okay now see now he educating us y’all we gonna get this right all right okay so but here’s where Open Access I I’m a huge champion of it okay the reason why I like it is because it forces everyone to earn their business it’s no longer

00:43:59 going to come down to you lazily putting a commercial on TV and thinking that’s going to work oh the NBA sponsored by blank provider nope now at this point you got to earn it because now you’re competing against six other ones who desperately want that house just as bad as you do wow and so now everyone’s going to be knocking the doors they’re gonna be knocking their prices down because it’s gonna be funny what competition does what I like in this too in a fast food sense is like I can have mean resident restaurant one and mean

00:44:25 restaurant two who doesn’t really have good customer service and as soon as a Chick-fil-A pops up now everyone’s saying my pleasure now everybody cares now suddenly everybody’s local now you can call a number now everybody picks up funny what competition does exactly exactly that that’s exactly what competition does let me ask you this go ahead so like you know how cable companies and internet companies they have like a area and even if another company has a cheaper you know WiFi package is like you always get

00:45:01 unavailable or they’re not in your area so are they going to break down the barriers of people having monopolies over a certain area yeah yes so this this is the Monopoly killer um this will kill monopolies that’s why cable companies are deathly afraid of Open Access which is why you never see cable companies on Open Access networks they don’t like playing in this uh and I know this by experience because I try to push open access in Detroit and I I did get out lobed I lost that one U that was one

00:45:31 of my my big losses in my career uh they were able to out Lobby us they were able to get to people I couldn’t I couldn’t convince and they killed the idea right now I would say digital C we have to do what we have to do we had to build this network we had to make sure that our network does exactly what we promis it to do I don’t know when this network is going to get built on the other side from sci-fi I don’t know when they’re going to do the fiber I don’t know when it’s happening conceptually I agree with

00:45:55 it I don’t know if they’re actually going to to pull off what they say they will but admittedly they said the same thing about us too so I’m not in the position to judge them at all in the slightest but I will say conceptually that is a game-changing model and if that gets underway in Cleveland you’re going to see a massive shift in Telecom a massive shift in business and a massive shift in entrepreneurship in Cleveland let me ask you this Josh what do you see the future of Cleveland look like once everybody is connected are you

00:46:25 talking about a smaller City smarter City or more competitive City or how do you see the city evolved and once we all connected and everybody is doing their thing what you see the next steps in that kind of thing goes I see Cleveland at that point will be a much more humanitarian city and what I mean by that uh smarter maybe maybe that’s a good thing but I think that really what’s going to come down to the insights that we’re uncovering right now on the ground when we’re not KN IND doors we’re connecting some of these

00:46:58 residents some of these residents who’ve never had internet we’re seeing the status of Cleveland’s mental health we’re seeing things that are going on that people don’t talk about when you go in some of these homes and when you see that you can’t look away and so I think what it’s forcing us to do is have a very tough conversation about the periphery of Cleveland that’s oftentimes not discussed that is now getting front and center now attention at least from us and we’re not about to just hold this

00:47:26 stuff to ourselves like no we have an issue in Cleveland we have a mental health crisis in Cleveland even all the connection that we do we have a mental health crisis in Cleveland there’s violence in the city we know that we see the conditions and so with a more connected Cleveland to me it allows for us to have front and center more more issues that we need to be discussing I also think that you’re going to have a much more engaged City politically if we know around election years we know what

00:47:54 happens when deep fakes are at an all-time high you’re able to pray on people who have limited access to technology who don’t know the difference between this or that AI has been killing them because they can’t spot when something’s ai ai or not I think what we’re going to have is a more informed City a more engaged City and I think that that then will be the foundation for then Cleveland becoming what Cleveland needs to be Cleveland can’t be a city where you only have 10% participation ruling over 90% of people

00:48:23 you know what that that is so true I mean that is and and was crazy about it is I uh you go to like these meetings the council members and everybody have it seemed like it’s just the same like you say 10 or 15 people there that’s making the decision for 24,000 people that lives in those communities yeah and and to your point having the digital piece because everybody can’t come to a meeting but if you were able to live stream it if you were able to record it so that when I’m having my insomnia moments at 2 or 3 in

00:48:59 the morning I can’t sleep maybe I will watch what happened in this the council meeting today or what happened in not even couns what my community mean because that’s where I’m more concerned about what’s really going on in my neighborhood that’s right and I just didn’t I don’t like going to the meeting because I don’t like being around all those people whatever the reasons is and and to that point and health I believe it’ll help us healthy more be more healthier as well right oh absolutely if I were to ask a question right now how

00:49:22 tell Health ready is Cleveland how would we even be able to answer that question when you have over a third of people who struggle to maintain an internet connection wow or if I would ask for how strong from a Workforce standpoint is Cleveland and for the same reasons how can you answer that question quality of life standpoint when you start looking at all these things it starts to become very very clear that the internet in a connected city is the enablement for tough conversations necessary Investments and

00:49:50 a foundation for Cleveland again articulate what Cleveland needs to be not what they would like to be ask this digital C has been around for a few years now and you’re trying to scale quickly yeah all right but but scaling comes with Growing Pains how do you manage the expectation both within the organization and in within the public oh that’s a tough one it’s a tough one not to answer but a tough one to live you’re right that’s the best answer for that question uh you know I I think one managing the expectations in internally

00:50:27 it’s it’s it’s tough I mean we put a lot on our team I have an incredible team a phenomenal I can’t stress it enough my team is great but it’s the fact that oftentimes they have to go home with a lot of this work too they got families I got someone on vacation right now who still like hey if you need me if you need me you need me truthfully I kind of do but I’m not even gonna you you let them have vacation I need you but when you come back you know you’re about to get hit I need you but it’s like you

00:50:54 know we have we just have a great team around us uh and it’s we love each other it’s fun but externally you know I think that one the we had to be very proactive about our reviews I mean we’re embrionic in our in our in our growth still and in that stage the smallest incision can do massive damage to you so when someone says something like well uh you guys promised to be out here at two o’clock you guys came out at four one star that one star is is is very damning to us right now we don’t have the ability to

00:51:28 have negative reviews so now what it forces us to do is be incredibly present with consumers like no no no hey we notice that was a bad St anything we do to help and that responsiveness is where clevelanders have thankfully said no man you know I appreciate you for being responsive you know it took you a little bit longer to do this but you know you’re responsive and I appreciate that I understand that you guys are you guys are growing so I’m willing to give you a shot and that’s where I had to give

00:51:51 credit to the Cleveland residents because Cleveland has been the city on the residential side has actually embraced us has actually been saying like man I appreciate y’all you know clearly our our our field team they’re they’re from Cleveland we hired locally and so people are walking blocks that they grew up in they’re connecting neighbors or connecting their family members to this service that’s correct and I feel like that’s the part where the expectations are much more it’s almost familial now where if I mess up

00:52:18 you know deep down I didn’t mean anything by it and you’re willing to like I’m not g to say keep letting me mess up but you’re willing to hear me out and say you know what that’s fair all right just don’t let happen again like okay my bad I won’t do with that again so Cleveland as a community from the residential standpoint they’ve been very forgiving and patient and lenient with us obviously there’s exceptions to that but by and large I would say this the community is rooting for us and they’ve been incredibly supportive of us

00:52:43 are you having any issues or are there any holdups or hesit sees with Cleveland residents getting into the program and if so what are those you think that you want maybe address today that might be uh they call them um stuff that’s not true or or or you know uh neighborhood um what’s the word I’m looking for Latif um they call them like um neighborhood gossip gossip and something like that that they’ll say oh they’re not good or you know rumors or that so let’s some of those myths that’s what I’m saying to

00:53:17 the fiction yeah yeah so the first thing that we’ve seen and let’s let’s look at this from a bell curve standpoint right now we are primarily serving the early adopters okay because the skepticism is at an all-time high against us and the American Consumer is so burdened by everything else that $18 they want to set aside you know some people don’t even have that that’s correct so if I’m gonna go with you it better work and so that is that that’s our backdrop right now and I think a lot of people are

00:53:41 looking at us saying man that’s too good to be true that’s corre no way it’s $18 yes it is in addition to that another thing is well I don’t qualify everybody in the city of Cleveland qualifies that’s a so you don’t you don’t need to be in a prog you don’t need to have this everyone qualifies if you have a kid in public schools it’s free for you whoow like those are things where it’s like wait so well what if I already have Spectrum can I then you can have us both fine when that power outage happened and

00:54:11 and they they still had some outages on their side our network was up so that’s why like the people who who I mean if the power was out in your home then you couldn’t use us anyway but you still had Wi-Fi if you needed it but it’s one of those things where when the power came back on our Network was still up wow so people were still able to connect to us and that’s that’s the thing where I’ve seen a lot of consumers what they’ll do here locally and it’s a PSA it’s like yes you can have both so if you are just

00:54:37 so skeptical and you got a kid in Cleveland Public Schools it’s free for you so why in the world wouldn’t you do it anyway like sign up W what’s the speeds on that so uh our minimum speed we offer is 100 symmetrical 100 download 100 upload uh for cmsd specific specifically because they have a greater presence of kids in their homes at times it’s 200 download 100 upload still free uh we’ve been able to actually test a gigabit so we can get you know 900 down 800 down we’ve been able to do that we

00:55:11 don’t offer that today to people we could I think what we’re trying to do is just see how does a 100 100 compare or how does it compete here a big point that I want to highlight on the educational side often times people will say well with this provider I can get 300 and I can only get 100 from you I’m like okay and what’s your upload speed well I don’t know I’m like that’s convenient and I’ll tell you why most people don’t know their upload speeds because they’re slow the reason why they’re slow is because if I’m a cable

00:55:40 company I’m a Content company so I want you to download and watch shows all day but I don’t want you competing with me uploading things so for my millions and millions of people out what is a upload and we know you give them both tell us what’s a up when we’re uploading and tell us when we’re downloading when you are uploading let’s say you’re you’re you’re uploading a video to YouTube You’re uploading data you’re doing video stream you’re you’re um doing a video call okay so during the pandemic when

00:56:08 everyone needed they wanted higher speeds I’m like no you needed higher upload speeds you’re now uploading content uploading information over the web whereas if I’m watching Netflix I’m downloading something so what we like to say is our our product is going to incentivize producers and consumers equally versus is creating a nation of consumers every single time the that the the standard for highspeed internet for years was 25 megabits download and three megabits upload there’s a reason why there was a discrepancy now they’re

00:56:39 moving it to be 100 download and 20 upload okay so it’s still one that’s going to favor the producer and not or favor the consumer not the producer whereas our product I’m like no no no judge us on the upload speed too because what you’re going to very well see is at $18 a month 100 download 100 upload is single-handedly the most competitive offer in Cleveland so I have a family of four I have myself on my laptop doing my work I’m uploading and downloading that’s right I have my daughter who’s doing homework who’s probably just doing

00:57:15 a regular thing but she’s probably doing her homework and she’s streaming on her phone I have my wife who’s probably just on her phone WiFi and it up on her phone looking at whatever I have uh or my wife could be watching TV streaming she’s on Amazon watching Amazon Fire state right and I got a son on the Xbox doing his thing you handle all of that that’s correct and so that that’s interesting that because that’s the best way for I think people understand they how to do it okay yeah so and I think that there’s

00:57:49 so we can handle with our package right there we’re we’re talking 12 to 14 connected devices wow that’s that’s what we can handle for ours wow and at some point per home yeah per home wow and so at some point what we’re able to do again as we roll off this 100 100 if someone want to raise their hand and saying hey I W faster I want faster we’re like cool let’s take inventory of who wants faster but before you do that let’s just see how how this works right now because I promise you there’s a lie

00:58:18 that’s been told for forever that people need so much bandwidth that they don’t even get I guarantee if everyone says well I pay for 300 I get 300 I’m like okay do a speed test and then tell me what you actually get because it’s like no most people don’t get what they think they get okay most people are getting maybe 60 down 70 maybe they’re not getting the the speeds that they think they’re getting and so it’s like already I’m going to tell you no at peak hours you you can go home at 6 PM when

00:58:47 everybody’s on that everybody’s in the house on the previous Telecom systems namely cable everyone is sharing that connection in the neighborhood or in the node everyone’s doing it so at at your best time at maybe 3 in the morning yeah you might get 300 down then but it’s like you’re sharing the bandwith across the board right whereas our Network that’s a dedicated connection to you and so that’s the part where I’m like no you’re going to get a superior quality out of us too I think the thing once

00:59:16 again it’s Optics it’s almost like if I were to go to a car wash and I I select the deluxe car wash every time when I don’t really need the deluxe that’s correct I select it because I’m like well I’m feeling good today I got a haircut fine 20 but for real you could do it for 10 but it’s like I I think that the American Consumer has been so conditioned with this approach that we always take more than we need when it’s like y’all don’t really need that I’m telling you you don’t need that you are wasting your money and every single time

00:59:44 they pretend to give you this upgrade you are wasting your money you’re not even you’re not even using that bandwidth but every was like I need a gig for what what are you doing at home where you need a gig and if you’re going to tell me all you’re doing is playing some video games checking some emails and watching Netflix I promise you you don’t need a gig I promise you but you know they doing such a great job of upselling I know they they do a great job of that because you you you don’t call there about the originally about

01:00:11 your bandwidth you call there about something else and they say it’s the bandwidth is your problem that’s right and you need and just because you call the day we got a special that we gonna give you more band so it act like they giving you more speed to your point of we given you more than what you really need in the first place when that really wasn’t your issue that you called anyway so it they do a great listen because I’ve been with I done been to them all um you verse every last one of them man

01:00:38 and and and I done been upsell quite a bit on that and just listening to you talk about it I’m like I’m probably up sale right now every time they call now I just like not interested not interested no no are you sure yes I’m sure I’m positive and then how do you know if you need more with in how do we if you’re a customer if you’re home how do you know I really do need more speed you know if you’re in a constant state of buffering it’s like you’re buffering all the time okay run a speed test and to run a speed test you

01:01:10 can go Google right now you can just type in speed test Google already has it built in you just there’s a blue button it says run speed test you run it if you’re not getting I would say over 25 megabits okay if you’re not getting over 25 and let’s say you test more than once test more than once and test at different times of the day if you consistently see that your Internet is slow and that you’re not getting you have that empirical data to say look this isn’t enough for me I’m always buffering this is always slow my house

01:01:38 and that’s under 25 under 25 okay at that point that’s when I would say that you should be making the call okay for us we have a different standard on us okay because we promise 100 100 and so we have to deliver 100 100 minimum uh and so on on our side of the house now there’s some things that might let’s say if you’re trying to test in the attic and and you got the router in your basement okay well then yeah you’re not going to test at 100 100 however for us we’re under a different set of rules

01:02:05 because we publicly communicated that okay but yeah running that speed test and seeing that those slow results yep and if you’re always buffering always yeah now if you’re up around one o’clock or two in the morning and you notice that you’re buffering that’s not a speed issue that is the maintenance window now a lot of people know that so if you’ve ever been up at late at night pulling all night or you just can’t sleep and you’re go online your internet’s bad that’s because they’re actually doing

01:02:29 maintenance but most people don’t know that maintenance window all right Josh I’m gonna let you out of here I’m ask you a couple more questions I think Latif got one he want to ask you before you go and we gonna get out of here these are my quick ones these you’ll like these ones okay all right at this time we call this our quick fire if you could have dinner with one Tech Legend Dead or Alive who would it be one Tech One tech Legend dead or live I’m gonna go with a live I’m going to go with David Stewart now who is he and

01:02:58 tell us why David Stewart is one of the richest black men um in America and he uh founded worldwide technology uh technology company and I actually had the pleasure of meeting Mr Stewart um about two months ago he’s in St Louis and I met him at a fashion show uh and we were we we were actually invited digital C was because we we worked with the local fashion designer Chad and we did a uh a bomber jacket that got the attention of NASCAR wow and so uh because we’re driven to connect and that that right there did you get that on the

01:03:37 car oh yeah oh that’s sweet so so that’s sweet in those conversations I was able to meet Mr Stewart and um you know he’s just he’s wealth of knowledge he’s he’s he’s been able to even create his create his wealth through telecommunications and through strategic thinking at a higher level and he wasn’t limited by the resources he didn’t have he figured it out and so that’s just someone that um when I met him it was an honor and you know I would definitely want to get dinner with him what’s one Gadget you can’t live without I’m might

01:04:10 have to probably go with I mean I’m not gonna go I’m not I’m notna say my phone or my laptop I probably to go with my Nintendo switch uh but you know when I go home when I go home from work uh you know I grew up like I said I grew up on video games um and you know I I definitely went through my phase or the Xboxes the PlayStations but see the Nintendo switch it’s meant for entertainment where you can kind of just zone out none of the games are so difficult I don’t know what to do I mean it’s like games for kids I swear and so

01:04:39 like the ability just be able to when I have a tough day just being able to zone out on something that’s not hard and just allow my mind to just wonder yeah what game you play uh so I’m I’m big into one of the The Legend of Zelda games I mean you can explore forever in those but even the um uh I I now play OverWatch that’s that’s such a nerdy game but like that is the game where I would just I’ll get lost when someone calls me I’m like H and I I try and talk to I try and do both I I really can’t

01:05:11 because I’m so focused on the game but you know it’s just my way of unplugging my kids play the switch and they I got older kids too so they they grown they grown and they they on that switch and my son he lives in Willoughby and they be I have three girls and one son and the three girls they the two girls be on it and my son and he be in will be and they be yelling screaming and they still I mean almost every day or every other day they all get together and they play that switch and they serious about he

01:05:41 comes over to the house with a bag with it switch in I’m like y’all are really y’all too old for this but I guess not man it’s a it’s a community anytime I see someone in the airport with it I’m like nice exactly exactly that’s awesome man let me ask what’s your go-to food man what you like what’s your comfort food to get rid of all that stress man you a stressful guy you look like you in good shape I’ll probably be a thousand pounds as much stuff you going through so what you do to stress uh so I’ve inherited a Trager Grill uh my

01:06:14 those are sweet so my dad had it he didn’t like it because he wanted a bigger one he gave it to my brother my brother didn’t like it because he got a bigger one so now I have it and so um I honestly I just I just like I like smoking meat the weekends uh you know this this last weekend I smoked some some some red snapper I smoked some chicken I even smoked a little halit okay and I went to I go to the Westside Market in the morning I pick up all my stuff and then I just you know for about three to four hours I did smoke a

01:06:41 brisket before too on it and that that that took me some time but I just enjoy that whole process especially when you take that first bite and it’s good I’m like oh yes oh yeah I really enjoy that I I got um Family bought me a a pet smoker for um Father’s Day oh yeah I love it man yeah I I used to barbecue the oldfashioned way but now with the pellets can’t I’m like easy so easy can that you can’t and and to be able to get those pellets and and it smells so good it smells so good oh I love that Latif

01:07:12 you had a question for our guest before he leave all right um now how could somebody you know get into the technology business as an entrepreneur you know after you know hearing all what you’re doing with digital C is it easy to get into the industry or if you have a idea because you know technically I’m in you know kind of the tech space with you know video live streaming photography how would I get into that space um and be successful how would you tell somebody you know or encourage somebody to get in your space get in

01:07:55 your l so there’s a quote that is said often in Detroit Dan Gil people push it a lot but um they didn’t they didn’t make it but they definitely use it um Innovation is rewarded execution is worshiped and I think that there’s a lot of people who have Innovative thoughts and innovative ideas who do not execute and I would say that success is execution that’s correct and so it doesn’t really matter what you do because again I even said at the beginning I was interested in drones and I just ended up in Telecom uh and I

01:08:32 would also pair this and say that there’s a difference in entrepreneurship and Entrepreneurship I would argue that I’ve been a a career entrepreneur where I will go into organizations and I will be able to diagnose something that the CEO can’t figure out something and then I just make that a thing did it at CMHA did at the city of Detroit did at the clean Foundation that that’s what I did and so uh even through those type of channels uh you heard me in the beginning saying no I was studying religiously like I was going very deep

01:08:59 on things that I’m like if you want to separate yourself from the forest and me that tree away from that Forest then it’s like you’re you’re literally gonna have to do things that no one else would do the minute you think that’s crazy no that’s that’s what you should do that is the standard and I would also argue um you know looking at certain Trends and not losing yourself in the trend you can draw inspiration from something but you got to keep you you um when I’ve been looking at scaling this company

01:09:27 surrounding myself with people who they don’t even have to be friends of mine surrounding myself with people who just think differently that rubs off on you if you’re around your your your friends your family and all it is we’re just talking about the Browns all the time I’m telling you it’s not going to work you’re going to need those people who are doing something very similar or thinking disruptive you’re going to need to be surrounded by that I was and so even as we do things at digital C at the

01:09:54 tech Hive every first sat every month we do the Cleveland tech industry mixer that everyone was full of entrepreneurs that is essentially my subtle way in partnership with other people of giving back and saying like look we’re doing this thing for everyone to network together so it’s like if you have that idea or you have that thing Now’s the Time to do it because what I’m starting to realize is like everyone has an idea I promise you everyone thinks that they have that million-dollar app that man if

01:10:19 I just sat down I really did it I know this could hit it’s like yes yes we were actually all given that but for the people who actually then executed on it that’s where success is and success is whatever you want it to be if it’s you want it to be a million dollar company it will be billion dollar company it will be uh but just making sure you have that Vision that’s clearly there and the realistic discipline needed to accomplish that but it to me it’s it’s all an execution I I and I agree with

01:10:46 everything you said man and I you’re a young brother and you got a lot weight on your shoulder you got a lot of responsibility you’re doing good man like I said I’ve been watching you with been a fan of what you’re doing was glad to have you come on our program in and spread the word we went a little long because you got a lot of information that a lot of people just need to understand and and my thing is that people we like to act like we know stuff but we really don’t you know they everybody’s so scared to ask the

01:11:13 question that’s one the reason why I got it I’m not scared I be like I don’t know you tell me so I I’m glad you was able to help clear that up we’re gonna let you wrap this up like we talked about with um you leaving um off with this here I’m going to give you an opportunity to tell the world anything you want make sure you tell them about the mission of digital C and how they can get in touch with you guys and get on board and all of that but anything you want to say to the people there you go all right well people our mission at

01:11:40 digital C is the bridge clevel digital divide for good if you want to take our service be a supporter and be a fan you can call 26777 3859 in addition to that you can go to our website www.dc.gov Vis visit us at the Midtown techhive it’s on 69th in uclid and I’m there we have an entire team there we’re doing programming there all the time um I would say that this is this is a homegrown effort so if you love Cleveland we love Cleveland so if you support Cleveland we support Cleveland if you support black businesses we are a

01:12:15 black business and so for anyone who’s really really looking to invest their time effort money energy advocacy into an organization that’s committed to seeing Cleveland have a successful future a digital one I would just ask that you uh support us any way that you can hey I want to thank you guys for jumping in on our show please sure we’re going to keep make sure that we put all the information in the description on how you can reach Mr Edmonds at his location at digital C and until next week we’ll see y’all and thanks for

01:12:44 tuning in peace this is strategic mus Dow [Music]