With it being the first full day of summer, we are excited to announce a new storytelling initiative in partnership with Comcast -- "Summer of 50 PGH Tech Stories." Over the course of the summer, the Pittsburgh Technology Council will interview 50 people from across our technology ecosystem that are both innovative and inspirational. Today at noon, we will we welcome Aaron Mimran, Regional Vice President at Comcast Business, and Vanessa Buffry, Senior Program Manager Digital Inclusion at Neighborhood Allies, to detail how the initiative will help raise funds and awareness for Beyond the Laptops. Plus, Aaron will detail Comcast's efforts to keep people and businesses connected through COVID-19 and how its Internet Essentials helped a new newly-launched business Branch Creative Group.
Transcription:
Hey everybody, this is Jonathan Kersting here, bringing you the business as usual, I'm filling in for Audrey Russo she's having some some issues with her laptop. So last minute switch. For the time being I'll be leading the conversation today. So hopefully we know audio we back in the groove of things tomorrow or maybe later in this in this episode. So first and foremost, as always, we want to thank our sponsors that make all this great programming happen. It's hard to believe I think we're now like on our close to our 60th episode of this thing. So we've been bringing you all types of fun, great stories. And actually business as usual was kind of the inspiration for what we'll be talking about today. And for that question, I think Huntington bank, they've been with us since day one to make this happen. I don't know Huntington, you got to know these guys, especially when it comes to all things SBA. They are the number one SBA lender and all around good friends and good people. I can hook you up and help you out. That is absolutely positively For sure. So, as Audrey always does in her beginning of these webcasts, there's some rules here just to keep things all cool. Everyone's mics are muted just to keep the noise down. I know my dogs bark like crazy all the time. They're always reaching for the mute button. And of course, we have a chat section to ask questions. We really encourage interactivity on these calls. We want to keep it fun and lively. And but try not to burn out here to like sell wares and services. It's just to ask the questions. And we all know that by now we've been everyone's been really good at obeying those rules. That is for sure.
So today's show I'm just super pumped about because we're talking about what we are just launching today. It's the first day of summer it's hard to believe that summer is upon us now. Like Where did the time go? And so we are spinning up. What is our summer of 15 Pittsburgh tech stories, and we're doing that with the help of Comcast is completely fired up to do this. So what is the summer of stories we're going to tell 50 stories between now and 20 is the end of summer, which I believe is around September 20 21st. I'm sure the meteorologists out there somewhere, they'll give you the exact time. And it's like two or three in the morning when it does become the, the autumnal equinox or something to that effect. Anyhow, during this nice like 90 days, we're going to be telling the coolest stories happening in Pittsburgh tech sector.
And this all kind of started with business as usual, way back in March when we fire this thing up because we wanted to connect to our members, right? And we're doing this our members are reaching out to us saying, Hey, we want to we want to be on business as usual. We want to be on tech vibe radio, we have a story to tell we're surviving this pandemic, we're finding ways to innovate around this pandemic. We're helping other people through this pandemic. And we had so many stories, we didn't have to do them all. So I created a little experiment called one mic stand where we took 50 stories. And as we kind of evolved it, we realized we went to more of these stories and that's where Comcast stepped in. They're like, Guys, we won't be part of this with you guys. I mean, we've been partnered with Comcast, I think forever like it probably goes back to like before with Comcast.
Back in like 1983, as far as that is, and so what we're gonna do is over the course of the entire summer is tell the stories one by one, it's video, it's audio, you can find it on a YouTube channel, it's gonna be on our website. It's also across all the major podcast platforms. And I just can't wait to get cracking because there's so many stories to be told. And as we tell these stories, we are trying to raise awareness of the digital divide, which has been brought up so many times is doing business as usual. One of our first guests was neighborhood allies as they spun up the beyond the laptops. And that all started with us helping them raise some money to put laptops into students hands at Pittsburgh public schools, like our minds were blown as to how many students couldn't connect. And as we learn more about that, we learned that Comcast was making sure that they had the signal in order to get the computers to link up so all these pieces kind of came together and they said, You know what, guys? Let's do this project. And as we do it, we are going to raise more money for the neighborhood allies aim for the beyond the laptop projects, which is gonna be a Vanessa buffer here today. She's our Fifth Beatle of this show 100%. It's like we're gonna pay you royalties pretty soon. But as for being on the show so many times, we also have Aaron member and stopping by today with Comcast to talk about why they want to sponsor our storytelling and how they work with neighborhood allies. And all the other great stuff that these guys have done to keep us connected during the pandemic, even brought a test case with a Steve Fleiss our today who's actually using some of the Business Essentials in order to get his business up and running, which he accidentally started the beginning of COVID-19. And he's up and running, and he's doing great work. So we got a lot to kick off today. So many stories to be told this summer. And I'm going to run out of breath pretty soon. So Vanessa, let's start with you. Because I want everyone to know about what's going on with the digital divide what neighbored allies is about, and of course, the beyond the laptops and we're gonna jump over to Aaron to talk about what Comcast has done. And before we know it, we're beating lunch, it'll be 1230. We'll be out here.
All right, I think that's my cue. I want to queue and set it up. Absolutely.
I don't want to keep the audience from Steve's story because that really piqued my interest. So I'll keep it brief. I just shared the link to our website beyond the laptops.org, which is a wonderful resource to see what we're up against and also what we've done and where we're going next. I'll very briefly go into some of those statistics when coat when Coronavirus started a day after the lockdown. The Digital Inclusion division at neighborhood allies was on the case to try to activate as many laptops as possible to get into community members hands. The reason being was that not not just that people had to do their school remotely, but for some families in the Pittsburgh area. They had no devices in the household which constituted a complete blackout during Coronavirus. It was like this is how you bank This is how you order your groceries you can't go out and you get the news and how you connect with families. Some of our computers for example, went to the department Human Services so people with children in the foster care system could fundamentally connect with family members could receive telehealth services. And then of course, we contributed a large number of computers to Pittsburgh public schools for students to be able to do their work remotely. And as Jonathan said, that entire the big just about initiative began with the help of the Pittsburgh tech Council, who helped connect us to their membership base, many of whom are in the audience today, who contributed devices contributed money contributed to expertise and as an entire city, we were able to activate about 1600 laptops. Our announcement last week was that we connected 1000 households, which is about 3100 individuals who now have internet access through Comcast Internet essentials, and we're still chugging at it. So
A lot of money has been raised so far, the dollar amount is just astounded me it's like whoa, and then we set the goal even higher. So we did.
So we started off with a challenge grant which was generously put together with the lead of Aurora, the self driving car company, they originally with partners from foundations and other tech companies contributed 200,000 and we were able to match that I think we're actually not quite there. We're just like 7000 away from getting the other 200,000 total 400,000 we got to make that happen. Come on, that's gonna be we're gonna really help you do that through what we're doing here with our summer of 50 Pittsburgh tech stores because what we're doing is on this, anytime we interview somebody and anytime we promote our podcasts and video cast, we're saying Come on, just make a small donation, 20 bucks, 50 bucks, whatever that is, and help get a laptop into into some students hands because we're not Trying to just do refurbished stuff. We want brand new equipment as well. We want the best of the best for these kids to make sure they're good to go for many years to come. As far as that is so dumb, throwing the challenge down right now people that step up, listen to these fun stories, get inspired, and then make a donation and make it happen. So I'm excited to be working with you guys this summer. It's gonna be a fun 90 days. I'm fired up. I can't tell anything else, Vanessa? Well, we're gonna circle back and ask a couple more questions as we go along. Really excited to bring on Aaron here. Aaron, thanks for being part of this today and really can't thank you enough for for Comcast support of tech council initiatives. And things like this. We literally could not do this work without you guys. And we're looking forward to opening a bunch of ears and eyes to learn about some of the great things happening in Pittsburgh's innovation sector. So first off, what's your background? What do you do with with Comcast and then why the heck do you like hanging out with tech counsel and helping us tell fun stories?
Well, first of all, thank you, thank you for the opportunity to partner with you. We're just as excited To spend time with you, Jonathan and all the great work that Vanessa is doing and excited to share our story with Steve today as well. But so my so what I do is my role is I actually lead Comcast business for one of our regions. So Comcast is comprised of 15 geographical regions throughout the country. And our region here, which is headquartered in Pittsburgh is called the Keystone region, aptly named. And so my team is Comcast business about 150 professionals all in excellence, folks, operations, folks, marketing, folks. And that's what I do. And so why we like to hang out with you. Aside from the fact that you're really cool, and you guys are a lot of fun. We'll keep going. I like to write a really No, no, keep them coming. Right.
Well, it was, first of all, you know, to that point, I have to speak kind of personally for a minute because, you know, I've been in my role I've been with Comcast. Let's see six years. I've been in my role eight months but one of the very first things I did in my role was actually attend the tech 50 Awards last year and had the opportunity to speak and you know, if you've been in Pittsburgh more than five minutes, you know, this is a hub of technology, you know how cool this place is. But that night in particular, really blew me away you know, the the 50 stories themselves on that particular night. were incredible and I'm particularly reminded of the robot that kind of goes along the tanks that looks for the specific you know, stress fractures. I remember that particular company or frenzy, Gecko robotics. Absolutely. Just and I just that story in particular, really just, I was blown away. But you know, I think as we also think about this to you sort of the call this out earlier in our kind of pre conversation. The real story is that businesses are trying To figure out their way right now, we see this every day. You know, the stock market is doing some historic things and gaining historically. But the real story is, is that you've got businesses that are trying to figure out how to reopen. Some of them are reopen, they're running at 50 capacity. Others are figuring out how to deal with the influx of new business because there is a silver lining for them. And it is our desire to, you know, help and find that way. Because the thing I would just end on is and I love the work that you all are doing. The DNA of Pittsburgh is its resilience, quite frankly, on it, man.
People, people talk all the time about the Renaissance and everything that happened in the 80s and 90s. Well, I'm here to tell you that, in my opinion, it's happening again.
And this is just another example and I think frankly, you all at the tech council are at the center of it and I'm I'm personally grateful as Comcast and that's that's why we want to do this work with you. I appreciate it. As I said, we're getting ready to roll on to we released our first one today. And the first guy that we interviewed, he's actually gonna be on business as usual on Friday, then a potion low from XP, this guy is beyond quadruple genius. He has figured out in the course of a few weeks how to develop what is believed to be the first, the first anonymous contact tracing app for COVID-19. Uses Bluetooth technology. And he's like, it's simple. It's a math equation. It's measuring distance. And so he breaks it down into math. And so we have companies, we have people, we have women and men like Poe, who are developing these types of solutions. This is this is solving a worldwide problem happening right here in Pittsburgh. So for us to tell those types of stories to me is just like superduper exciting as far as that goes. So just switching gears a little bit. I know one of the big things he talked about is businesses you up and running, staying up and running, getting up and running. And the same thing that you guys have done with neighborhood allies here is getting that connectivity. So you're working with David allies to make sure that when the kids have laptops, they can get online. Just as important as keeping our businesses online. And we have a really fun interesting story with Steve here from bridge creative group where literally opens his business up right as COVID is happening. And he worked with Comcast on the with with with your internet essentials in order to get up and running and stay running. So hey, Steve, welcome to the show. Thank you for being here today. And tell us about branching what you guys are up to.
Thank. Absolutely. And thanks. Thanks for having me on the show. I mean, this was this was very exciting when I got the opportunity to learn about this on Friday through Comcast, and then our rep was like, you need to need to be honest, this is this is a good story about you. And I'm like, sign me up. Fantastic. And well, we're glad you're here. I like good story. So yes.
I mean, we started a creative group, with the premise that we were going to be the branch of an existing marketing department for either a mom and pop organization all the way up to like a fortune 500 company because that's the experience that we've had over the past 11 years, because we were managing partners at another Pittsburgh agency. And it seems like when we were sitting at the table with your chief marketing officers, your VPS, and also the other agencies that were involved, we were privy to so much information. We're like, this is fantastic. I mean, my background, I mean, I barely graduated from high school, and the fact that the fact that I'm here right now, and yeah, I mean, we're, we're just like, truly blessed with this. And the idea behind branch creative was not only to help all of our clients that reached out to us and encouraged us to actually start this business, and a lot of them actually helped fund it, which is amazing. We never thought we'd have anybody that would really invest in us like that. It's kind of crazy. But you know, at the same time, we also wanted to give back to the community because over the over the many years, we've helped various Christian organizations and things like that with just just whether it's a finding contribution or whether it's a volunteer initiative, we wanted to create some kind of business that would that would just focus on giving back. You know, we don't want to be rich and whatever. But the thing is we want to help our clients. We also want to help the organizations we represent. And the best part about the whole Comcast story was none of this could have happened unless Comcast was there for us. The week of the ninth structure we had I'm going up the best buy the best by buying equipment and everything like that trying to get us up and going because we already had deadlines established with with the Coronavirus if things were pushed out a little bit, but still there were still some tight deadlines and we needed to get up and running. Because of our business model with Master Data Management. We have to actually be working within our clients environments, whether it's for marketing automation, or you know, either a catalog or whatever. But with Comcast coming in and it was it. It was up to I think it was Nine o'clock in the morning on Saturday, the seventh. And we were back and forth. Is this going to happen? Yeah, you'll be fine. We're, we're right at the cusp of shutting everything down. And you know, and you did it, you came through for us. And it was fantastic. Once we were alive with internet, internet service and phones, we the IT company came in, set us all up. And we were communicating back and forth with our clients. And awesome, we hit the ground running and the doors were open, and you were virtually running your company at that point, which is, which is so cool. And obviously then keeping that up and running throughout this whole thing is another task within itself. So I'm sure yeah, Eric can cancel out. I know, like like throughout the whole COVID thing. Comcast put a number of really nice offers out to keep people up and running can tell us about some of the different things that Comcast did and also talk a bit more also how you work with a neighborhood allies as well too. And that engagement.
Yeah, so I would call out everyone Just two things. So specific to the work that Vanessa is doing and neighborhood allies. She had referenced earlier internet essentials. And that is a very specific brand that we've had in place since 2011. And it originally was designed to help low income families connect to broadband. And we've done so now with over 8 million families since 2011, which is, you know, just incredible. So what we did is, as soon as COVID hit, you know, in March, we had recognized this need similar to what Vanessa and her team are doing. There was a, there was a need, we couldn't have folks without internet. So we actually set up the internet essentials program to be free for two months. And our plan was to have that expire in June 30. You know, we were talking earlier that, you know, we thought maybe this thing would be wrapped over by then, right? Yeah.
It's become a thing as you can see, exactly. Here we go. Um, having said that we just announced a few days ago. We're actually now going to extend this offer all the way through the end of the year. Oh, cool. And so what that means is for those who haven't been signed up, yet, they have the opportunity now to be signed up. And it isn't just low income families, it's actually veterans and seniors and people with disabilities. So really, we all know that in the you know, in any normal environment, but let alone COVID environment to be without internet is really taking a step backwards, and we can't allow that to happen. So that's, that's what the internet essentials program is about.
I mean, Aaron, if you think about this, and I know Steve will agree, I know Vanessa will 100% agree with me. If this pandemic would have happened, like 10 years ago, it would have been so much worse, because we would not have had the connectivity and the apps and the technology to keep us up and running. And actually, I hate saying this being more efficient. I mean, I used to think I work super hard at work doing my 50 hours of work, but now it's like no, I think I was slacking because I'm just I'm just crushing it at home. Unfortunately.
That's right. In fact, you're sleeping right now. Nobody even knows Exactly one time he says, like, that is so good. You know, you guys have extended that out as far as that is. And then so then how are you then partnered up with a neighbor and allies? Then what? How are you working to make sure that the students has connectivity? Cuz I know there's so much talk about trying to make sure that every student be connected? And I think people often forget that a lot of organizations like Comcast already are doing that. Right.
Well, so what we're what we what we're encouraging everybody to do, just as Vanessa called out earlier, is we're asking you to contribute, first of all right, that's so we're strongly encouraging you to do that. The second thing is, is that we are actually going to work directly with neighborhood allies specifically for the Pittsburgh public schools. And so while we're going to go ahead and extend that same benefit of internet essentials to the families of the Pittsburgh public schools who are eligible, neighborhood allies is then going to come in and actually pick up the billing beyond that two month period for a period of time. Okay. So not only do you have now the machine necessary, now you have the two months that we're offering, as a company with great broadband connectivity on the best network there is. Now you have Vanessa and team jumping in and saying, Okay, let's go out and keep this thing going. So that you have the confidence to know that you can continue your school work, you can continue the connectivity, right. And it's just a fantastic story here in Pittsburgh very much. So Vanessa, how are people reacting to this? I'm assuming it's like, Whoa, okay. We were feeling a little calmer now, knowing that whatever happens in the fall, our kids are gonna be able to get online and continue learning and not slide back.
Yeah, I mean, there's the reality of how cool this is. And then there's the reality of getting 1000 different families individually figuring out how to connect to the internet. I think that the first announcement was like, awesome, and then people are like, but am I eligible? What's going on here and that's where the Pittsburgh public schools comes in. They have, of course, a huge network of teachers who are in regular contact with families. And people behind the scenes who also filter through and make sure that the families who are being connected to Ethernet qualify for that internet. It's not just, you know, you get a you get a internet, you get an internet, you get an internet. Yeah, exactly, exactly. This is really going to the families who have to now have had to make the choice of feeding their kids over the internet, you know, on the hierarchy of human needs. And your net was lower than those base functions. Now, it's actually moved up a little bit as you know, it's such a valuable resource for kind of connecting folks to the world. But But yeah, so Pittsburgh public schools are stepping in, people are excited. And then I think that now we're just dealing with the after effect, which is how do you plug in the box? How do you turn it on how you use your computer, you know, these things that we learned a long time ago, and then reinforced every day, some people are opening a computer for the first time figuring out how to click type. And things. Just try to put yourself back there. No, that's crazy. Yeah, but that I feel like that gaps been bridged a little bit here. So I feel like there's off to a good start. We have we have a comment from somebody here in the in the crowd here from from Dan Griffin. He says, first off, thank you to Comcast, for this incredible community service. He says, How do we share the offer with families we think would be needed to service. He says he's working with the hope in Homewood campaign, and would like to spread the good news.
Yeah, so now go ahead, please.
Well, I want to say that if you're a Pittsburgh public school family who indicated on the home tech survey, which went out in March, that you did not have internet access. Those will be the first families that are connected and then there will be a second round of we have X amount of accounts left over, we still need one. And then if you're not in Pittsburgh public schools, and you need help connecting to the internet, we have set up sort of individual processing through our Financial Empowerment centers. It's Pittsburgh FEC. They are run under the mayor's office to the city of Pittsburgh. And through that you get your free one on one financial counseling, and they will help you budget for digital access. And in some cases, if you really needed that budget will involve actually connecting into digital access.
Very cool. It's good, the resources are out there, you just got to find them. And now it's great to know these good neighbor and allies and you guys can be that Clearinghouse that you're going to point them in the right direction, which I think is fantastic. So I'm gonna switch gears yet again. I feel like I'm like, like, like changing gears all over the place. But I want to get back to the business side. What I love about this is the fact that it's schools and children that are benefiting but also small businesses like like, like branch creative. So maybe Steve talked a little bit more about how you're going to continue to use your service and how it continues to allow you to operate your business as if like, everything's kind of cool right now.
Well, I mean, the more we get out into the communities and things like that and start expanding our business model Like I said, originally, this this whole idea was brought on by understanding the whole virtual workplace. And we firmly I mean, that's the thing we trust everybody that we work with. And originally like I said, we were just going to be a support mechanism for companies but now we have numerous contributors that are all part of this whole virtual workspace for us that are understanding the strategy and just moving the company into a whole whole different area which is fantastic. But as far as the the Comcast relationship, I tell you what we're we're going to be this the building we're in right now on what do you call water dam road, find out we have a dedicated fiber line. So as the business keeps getting larger, we're going to be tapping into that as well.
You can get Fun and Fancy at this point now that's that's kind of absolutely yeah, no, the every everything has been like it's almost like a mirror. Everything is like been aligned perfectly and everything's been working flawlessly, which I mean, I hate saying that because it's kind of Don't jinx anything. Exactly. I know. It's work. No, it's tough man. No, don't be afraid.
Everybody, everybody that's coming into like our virtual or our, our VPN network and everything like that. It's just, there are no hiccups whatsoever with the service. And the IT group that we're using is fantastic. They understand it, that they understood the challenges that we were facing, and it's just you know, just keep praying that it continues to continue the momentum that we're on.
Cool, super cool. We're getting close to lining this thing up. I know Audrey always likes to end these things right on time and be cognizant of everyone's time because we are all super busy. So I kind of like wrap things up maybe with with with Aaron here real fast and just kind of just once again just kind of reiterate like how Comcast has been there, how it's gonna continue to be there. And really, Tony has any kind of cool story you think I should be telling this summer. Anything you want me to explore because I'm going deep. I'm going all around the To find the stories, you're just not going to get by, like opening the paper just finding anywhere.
Yeah, you know, I would just say, you know, similar to the story Steve just told. And you would expect me to say this, I'm employed by Comcast, you expect me to be a promoter, and all those things are true. But if you could kind of set that aside for just a second, if I were an objective observer and had a COVID, company response report card, Comcast is going to get an A plus all day long. And I say that because of two fronts, one on the employee side, you know, when you look at the, the totality of our organization, NBC Universal sky, all of Comcast we have 190 plus thousand employees on just the Comcast piece xfinity and Comcast business, we have 85,000 we figured out how to get 90% of those people working from home in the span of just a matter of a few weeks. Wow. At the ground zero of COVID, which was of course the Ides of March, right, the fifth On the customer side, we have 30 million customer relationships. And so think about this your March 215. You've got to think about the safety of your employee body, which ranges almost 200,000. And then you also have the whole world breathing down your neck saying, Hey, listen, this network better work.
Now more than ever, about pressure testing, man, good.
I've never I can't imagine an organization going through this kind of tension that we know we figured out. And not only did our network stand up, our network is flourishing, right? I mean, when you look at the, you know, the stories that Steve just told, we had a hospital major hospital system reach out to us and say we said, we need a 10 gigabit circuit stood up, It normally takes us 90 days. To build that circuit. We stood up in five days because they had 5000 employees. One had to work from home was Literally lives depending on it. These are the kinds of stories that you don't read about in the paper, but that we see every single day inside our company. And I couldn't be louder and prouder to work for a company like, well, I'm
going to circle back with you because I wanted to talk more about that story about standing up. That's actually now working days because that's gonna be a good story. There'll be some good stuff going on there. I can't thank everyone enough for being part of this remind everybody. It is the summer of 50 PGH tech stories, Comcast is making this happen. We're trying to raise more money from neighborhood allies and beyond the laptops initiative. Listen to the stories, watch the stories make a small donation make a huge difference in some students life as far as that goes, because we're all they're all going back to school and a few months, I want to make sure all the kids have laptops, they all got the most kick butt connectivity going on out there. And if it takes me tell them 50 more stories, I'm going to do it simple as that. Can't think you guys never been part of this can't think Huntington enough. They've been with us since day one sponsoring this show. I mean, that is such a commitment to know that these stories are so important. We continue to get them out here. We're at the Pittsburgh Technology Council and Audrey Russa will be back with us tomorrow her computer was down. But I do believe Comcast seemed like a SWAT team needs to fix her computer for maybe I think Aaron's calling in a helicopter to land in her backyard, maybe and take care of some business, but it's all good. She'll be back. I know she's a much more poised host than I tend to get a little too excited. So I enthusiasts and freak you out. This has been charged with Pittsburgh tech capital. Great.
All right. I think we are out guys. Good job, everybody. Good talking to everybody. Great job to you, Jonathan. Wait, wait a pivot. Yeah. Thank you so much for having us.
Good luck with your new business there. Steve. That sounds really awesome, man, if that's cool, stepping out on your own and keeping it running. And Vanessa, as always can appreciate you enough being part of it. And I'll circle back with Tim to get a little thing made up so we can link our sites up and get some love going back and forth. So thank you. Cool. All right. Got you. All right. Thank you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai