This is the FCB podcast network. Great when they trying to. Job boot change at top, Jun, we don't listen to y'all this out. We don't listen to y'all this the hotel. Make m scream out now that that sound don because the rockets in the crowd like a tune in the charge for the outdoor. Tune in the charge for the outlaw. All right, we have a very special guest on the show today. He is the CEO of Digital c Josh Edmonds, walking back, How. You doing, sir, man? Well, how are you doing today? I'm all right, man, I'm all right. So a lot of stuff been going on. Uh, first of all, before we get into the into all of the festivities, first of all, how you doing man? Otherwise man, I'm solid. I'm all right. Uh. You know, to your point, there's a lot of stuff going on, but you know, being able to just keep it clear ahead, staying rooted in Bath and being able to show it for family, you know, that's what's been really important right now. So let's start here first before we kind of get into the nitty gritty, talk a little bit about the project itself, what you all like the vision and what you all are trying to do for city residents. Let's start there. Yeah, so at its core, we're bridging the digital divide. You know, the digital divide wasn't just something that existed because of the pandemic. This existed beforehand, and in Cleveland, we've been one of the least connected cities in America. That designation was unfortunately given to us in twenty fourteen, and so since that time it has been a decade of interventions and so what we do at Digital c as a nonprofit, we're committed to bridging this digital divide, not just for some residents, for all residents. And how that materializes. We provide home internet access throughout the city eighteen dollars a month, and for the kids in the school district it's free. We also provide training, and we are headquartered at the Midtown Tech high By twenty twenty seven, we anticipate having twenty three thousand, five hundred households taking our service at the eighteen dollars a month or even less from a price standpoint, and currently our network coverage exceeds over one hundred thousand households, and we anticipate having the full city covered by June of this year. So talk a little bit about what makes kind of what you're doing at Digital c the initiative unique versus like some of the other Internet providers like. Talk a little bit about that. Yeah, So, typically an Internet provider, they're going to go to the areas they deem profitable first. So if you're going to contextualize this. In Northeast Ohio terms, they're going to go to Lakewood, they're going to go to Solon, They're going to go to all all the suburbs first, get their money, and then they eventually might come to Cleveland and they might build something that's comparative. However, what we're doing is we're starting in Cleveland. We started around Central and been building out from that approach. You don't typically have that happen where you would have an Internet provider go to Silicon Valley, take all of the advanced technology and then bring it back here and deployed in Central, deployed in Buckeye Shaker, deployed in Glenville, deployed in That doesn't happen. And so we are reversing the way that we look at value. And this is a future investment. If you're going to give Internet access to people who historically haven't had a degree, which we're providing it in addition focusing on the kids. That's game changing. That does not happen, which is why historically we've been the least connected city because someone didn't take the intentionality to build these relationships to go on the ground and then that our residents in some of the most challenged conditions would have the best technology. What we have historically had is residents of the most challenging conditions have the most challenging Internet circumstances. And so now that we are leveling that playing field, I think that we're just incredibly optimistic about what the future looks like for Cleveland, specifically Clevelanders who have kids in the public school district. We're talking with Josh Adman, CEO of Digital c and now let's get to the issue. So there's been some interesting media. Reports about your project and what you have and have not done, so allegedly, let's just dig into it ourselves and let's get it straight from the source. Talk about what you have accomplished so far and how that compares to the goals that were set. Yeah, so we had three goal that we primarily needed to focus on last year in twenty twenty four. So the first one was training. So from a training standpoint, we again we provide digital literacy and skilling training and residence. It's a complimentary piece of bridging the digital divide and it's free. And we had to train seven thousand, five hundred residents. Last year. We trained seven thousand, six hundred and twenty two. I believe that was a number that we reported. So exceeded the first goal and that means we had the contract sign up. I mean we shout out to LaDonna on our team, who just led a phenomenal effort. Second one was coverage. We started building our network in January of twenty twenty four, and within one year's time, we had exceeded the goal that we reported, which was seventy five thousand homes covered. I believe by the end of the year last year we had eighty three thousand homes covered. So I missed permitting challenges and delays like, we still exceeded that goal. And then on the third one, we. Said that we were going to connect three thousand, five hundred households in twenty twenty four to our internet. We connected twenty eight hundred and two homes to our internet. Now we are above our three thousand threshold currently, but again they are just measuring from January twenty twenty four to December of twenty twenty four. So let's talk about You mentioned the challenges with some of the permitting, permitting issues that you've had, and I know you and I had had a conversation about that offline as well, and I was actually kind of surprised because I didn't know that that was another hurdle to have to deal with. So talk a little bit about the issues that you had with the permitting when you were supposed to get it versus when you got it, and the impact that you saw in terms of sign ups after you received the permitting. Yeah. So Cleveland is a city of relationships, and the more relationships were able to build, the more successful essentially can become. And that is absolutely reinforced through home internet. And so we were told in I mean this is public from city council. The chairman had continuously. Lifted up that in order for us to do this work to knock on doors, we needed to have a permit. So in twenty twenty three summer twenty twenty three believed July twenty twenty three. To be more specific, we applied for a permit to do the door knocking. We didn't get an approved permit until September of twenty twenty four. Wow, So it went over a year for us. We didn't we didn't have a permit. Now, it was brought up again in the beginning of twenty twenty four because we had a hearing at that time as well, and it got brought up again. Hey, you know, you guys need this permit and we can be helpful. So the expectation was that we have a permit in short order and you know, we'd be able to attack the summer because, as you know, in this city, it's a seasonal city. Summertime, people are outside, they're grilling. It would have been so nice to be able to walk up on someone's porch and say, hey, I see that you're outside playing cards right now. I just wanted to drop this off with you. I'm Joshua, by the way, and this is well we didn't get that interaction. It wasn't until September and then in the end of September where we actually able to do that. And as a result of you know, us getting that permit approved, we saw like one hundred and fifty percent increase in our subscriber number because again, we're able to knock on doors, we're able to build relationships. People can see us, they can see that we're not a scammy company. And the reason why it's important that that happened in twenty twenty four was because, as you know, that was an election year, and so with twenty twenty four being an election year, with all this stuff that's going around, like, we needed a way to authentically engage in community and we weren't able to do so until we had the permit, which again happened in September for a contract that started in January. And for people who may not know, like if you're going into a lot of these the neighborhood the type of neighborhoods that you're going into, these are majority black neighborhoods, and we are very suspicious of everything, so very much so they have to see you, they have to be able to look you in the eye and talk to you and then you know, determine whether they want to get. Your service or not. That's very important for our community because we are suspicious of everything. Understandably. So so one more time, when you had the permits, talk about the increase that you saw. Let's stick in today. Yeah, so, like I said, a one fifty percent increase and the growth of our subscribers and what they look like on the ground. I mean, word of mouth is by far our biggest way for residents figure out who we are. And so when we're knocking on doors, you know it. Was a nice young man or a nice young lady who I'm out there knocking on doors with our team, Like, it's not like I'm so removed, Like, nah, I'm out there too, but basis on something that collateral. And so as we're passing this stuff out to people, you're seeing trust being built in a way that then they're telling their grandmother, then they're telling their auntie, they're telling Okay, we might be in Glenville or Fairfax, because I know we for sure knocked on Fairfax last year too. Right afterwards, so yeah, while we're knocking indoors in Fairfax, some and so might be calling someone who might live and outhweight our car or park. And now we have this chain reaction. And so the chain reaction happened when people saw who we were, we built that relationship, and then again one hundred and fifty percent increase simply off of a permit being signed. Yeah, there's no way around that. For people who who may not be aware, like an our community, that is very important. That being able to reach out and touch that's very, very important. There's no way around that. So in that last quarter, we did more in that last quarter than pretty much we did all year. See what I'm saying as it relates to subscribers, it's a it's. Like the power and the permitting. I mean, we can't understate that enough. Yeah, And so the fact that we were able to have the incredibly successful quarter we had. Like, we're thankful for it. We just wish that it would have came a lot earlier, Yeah, because then those factors would have obviously given OUST ability to hit a completely different number than we. Did exactly, And if you understand culturally, you understand the importance. Of being able to have those permits. So another thing, too, is that you guys have raised thirty million, over thirty million dollars in outside funds to support this. How does that. Compare to the city's investment And talk a little bit about what that says about the confidence that the other funders have in the you're doing. Yeah, so you don't have to give the biggest shout out to the Mandel Meyers Foundations of Cleveland, the Jewish Federation in Cleveland, I should say they've been really, really supportive of us, even through all of the interesting media articles. And you know, they gave twenty million dollars to support us, and we received a ten million dollars investment from the State of Ohio, so you know, real big shout out to Governor DeWine and the folks over at Broadband Ohio and a three million dollar ear mark from Congress froman in Huntel Brown. So those are our outside funding sources. And that's essentially what what's done everything thus far that's built the network, that's connected people. The school district has been subsidizing services at twenty five dollars a month or residents, and so we have all those people and all these great stories. And then it comes to the city's investment. So all the work that we've done to date, none of that money has came from the city at all. And so I think it's it's worth mentioning that the work has already been done. Yes, it's continuously getting done as well. And so the city their money. That's the twenty million. So we brought more money than you know, what the city had available for this contract. And on this side, the twenty million is really meant to be in many. Cases like a reimbursement. So it's like, if we've already done this work, we're essentially getting reimbursed for what work that was done. And so the confidence that we have from our funders, I mean, it's. Beautiful to see. It's beautiful that people are willing to stand with us and say this is disruptive, we're here to support it. We see the way it's changing lives for Clevelanders, and we believe in Digital CE. Having them say stuff like that that motivates us to keep going and when things aren't the easiest, when things do get tough, knowing that our funders are and funders and friends are still standing with us and still pushing us to go deeper into this fight against the digital divide, I think that's a beautiful testament to a number of things. But I'll probably boil it down to just our great team we have here at Digital CE. True say we're talking with Josh Admins, who's the CEO of Digital. C, and let's let's go to. Some of the the as we we both kind of alluded to the reports that have been out there. Part of it has been reports on the hearings that you have with City Council, and essentially city Council penalized you for not hitting the target without mentioning that the main reason is you didn't have the permitting when you needed it and it ended up basically being a one million dollar penalty. Against Digital C. So talk about. How that impacts your mission and what message do you think that sends to the community when you're out here trying to do this work. Well, you know, it's interesting because I saw one of the headlines like Digital C loses a million dollars or something like that, and I wanted to. Say, no, no, no, no, no, Cleveland. Residents lost a million dollars, because that's what this money is going to. The work is going for installs, it's going for the labor that then could bring an Internet connection to someone's house. It doesn't take eighteen It takes way more than eighteen dollars to connect someone to the internet. Our Internet might be priced at eighteen dollars, but all the labor that we do we pay union labor fees. So say we're paying union labor fees already prevailing wages to then do the work. But in addition to that, as. I said before, we went to Silicon Valley to get this technology, so it's not cheap. So by the end of the day, when you take a million dollars allegedly from digital c it's like, no, you're taking a million dollars from home. Internet connections for families in Cleveland. That's where the million dollars came from. And so when we look at that, that is a direct attack on our mission. Our mission is a bridge of the digital divide for good, meaning we are eradicating this. We're not here to manage it. We're not here to piecemeal, We're not here to take some money off the top and try and figure out No, this money was earmarked to bridge. The digital divide, period point blank. So now what we've done is we've created a situation where we are now going to manage. The digital divide instead of eradicating it. Every dollar counts, every second count and every connection counts. And if we're willing. To move things around for any of those, then we need to reassess our approach towards what we actually want as a city. Do you want to bridge this digital divide, then prove it. But if you want to address it, then you're proven it the other points. You're on the other side of this question too. The message that I believe it sends is one, if we're going to do this with Digital C, then we better do this across board to everybody, anyone who ever gets a dime or a dollar from the city, then let's make sure that we're doing it this way across the board. And again, despite whatever is being communicated or whatever is being said, I just went this across the board and there was in a subsequent hearing someone brought up that it felt like it. Was targeting on Digital C. And the response was, well, Digital CE has a. Pass and whatever. And I'm like, okay, hold on, time out, Digital C. This is our ten year anniversary. In ten years, you mean. To tell me that we're gonna have a full fledged citywide network that's built. You're gonna have residents who never had internet connections now being connected, Families who didn't have internet, and there wasn't a way, and they're having this and somehow someone saying our pass is in question, Well, there were some things where you guys over promised and under delivered. I will say this, and I'll I'm glad the opportunity to get this story straight. No city has bridged the digital divide, no one. Everyone has failed. And so the fact that right now digital c there's not another infrastructure like it. Right now, you can't go to Baltimore and see this. You can't go to Philly, you can't go to Detroit, you can't go to Memphis. It doesn't matter what big city you name, you're not going to see another digital see. So by the same token of all. The failures we have, you can tell a lot by a city or by a person by their relationship to failure. Because those who learn from failure and improve that success. But somehow throwing up that digital see in the past might have failed on things, that doesn't make us unsuccessful. That's what makes us successful because we did the things wrong and we've learned and we've improved, and now we're in the position to say no, we got it right. That's how this works. And so for people to throw our past against us is if that's something wrong. That's why I'm like, no, we're telling the wrong story. Well, and also like you are in your way addressing a part of issues that have plagued our community in this city for decades. For decades, we are all trying to do everything we can to address these issues and to finally fix these problems. The issue and I've heard you talk about it before of digital redlining. That's another form of rendlining, which is something we've. Been dealing with for like a hundred years. That's right, you know what I mean. It's so I find that very interesting. I find that perspective very interesting. Oh well, you didn't fix this issue. Or that issue. Nobody has nobody And I mean there's not like there's a precedent that's said like, oh well, all the telecom companies that we've worked with, who bridge the digital gvide have done it in one year or so. It's like, no, this is single handedly the most successful intervention on the digital divide that Cleveland has ever seen ever. Like that is it? This is the most successful one. So again, our attitude towards this right now, Mike, what is influencing or who is influencing what's coming out, because there's no way you're gonna look at this and say, this company went from zero and in their first year they connected this many people. They overperformed on the majority of the goals, and yet the standard now is penalization, Like that's the standard for this when they overperform. And then in spite of this, in spite of that, we didn't predict that we were gonna have a tornado that was gonna do the damage that it did. The last time we had a tornado that did any damage like that and the city was in the fifties. So it's like, were we supposed to predict that that was gonna happen? I hope not. I hope that's not the standard. So also, how long have you been CEO of digital site? So became CEO no member of twenty twenty two. Okay, So I think also. In my view, the most important thing is dealing with what you all are doing. Now, that's correct. So you I think it's unfair and this is just my just just me editorializing here. I think it's unfair to make you answer for things that you had nothing to do with the only thing that you can be held accountable for is your own record. That's right. That's all we ever ask for, anybody can ever ask for is to be held accountable for their own record. And so to me, in my view, the thing that is that matters the most is what digitalc has been doing since you got here, because you are the CEO today. That's right, That's right. Yeah, I love that you're you're looking that up. I mean, there's been times d I've been asked questions about stuff that happened in two thousand and eight. I'm like, I'm still in high school at that time. I'm like, guys, like, I don't like, at some point we have to focus on the future. We are a future focused company. There's a reason why you keep hearing us index on the kids, because it's like, man, get these babies the technology that. They need to speak. So when you're bringing up stuff from two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, twenty ten, I'm like, what do you all want me to say? I'm learning about I'm learning algebra at that time. There is no so being able to have a conversation about from November twenty twenty two and beyond. Judge us on that judge us on. How we went from not having a network build at all that within one year we were able to get over eighty thousand homes covered and today we have over one hundred thousand homes covered. Sorry judge us on things. Like Okay, this year, we're already on track to train more than ten thousand residents. Ten thousand. These are numbers that somehow, when we say them in any other context, we're launding them. Is so successful. But as soon as it becomes the US, it's like where you're supposed to do that, Like, okay, well, then show me that standard of work across the board and all Cleveland and then then I'll stop talking. But if we're the. Only ones who are really knocking out the part I should say the only ones, because there's a lot of great. Partners who are doing a lot of great work in Cleveland. But if we're doing that work at that level, then and you are appreciating those other ones when there's social love to Digital C too. Right. Absolutely, we're talking with Josh Edmunds, CEO of Digital C and we have a few minutes left. But one thing I wanted to talk about, especially because you mentioned the kids, is the mind boggling fact that you're basically being penalized also in addition to the to the one million dollar penalty, the tax, if you will, that's coming from that, Like you said, it's not being money taken out of digital c is being money taken away from the residents. So it's essentially a. Tax, an additional internet tax. On the residents. In addition to that, you're getting penalized for signing up CMSD families. It doesn't count towards the goal that the city set, which is absurd to me. Talk a little bit about that, and also you mentioned it briefly, talk about why it's important that Cleveland's children in particular get access to the Internet. I didn't think we'd have to have this conversation after going through COVID, but apparently people must have forgotten already. Oh man. So yes, we were. Allegedly we were penalized for the CMSD numbers we had submitted them. And we're connecting these families, like I said, we're bringing out ladders, trucks, equipment, engineering to get these houses connected. So we do all that work to connect them. CMSD says, you know what these are our families for twenty five dollars a month we'll pay for their internet bill. So the internet bill is completely separate from the actual deployment standpoint. So all that money that goes into deployment, all the back hall network equipment, all that stuff we built, that stuff, we were and then to have someone say, well that doesn't count, it's like wait a second. Hold on these families and a lot of cases, they didn't have home internet beforehand, so that kid was not being when they go home. There's no internet connection for them to do their homework. There's no internet connection for that family to check that kid's performance in class because we have the applications now, so it's like we're not having that stuff. So it's like we did that stuff in good faith to say, all right, this is our future. We want to make sure that more than anything, that they're covered a city, Like you can tell a lot about a city's trajectory by looking at the way that they're treating their future. So if you're saying that the future essentially over here doesn't count, what is the big message that's being sent? And I think that's the stuff, whereas like we need to be thinking about that way. But again, the decision was made that all the work that we did to connect those households, all the relationships we built with with with the school district families, and a product that they can trust, that's something that's finally working to empower them in their families. Well, it was voted that it didn't count, and so we were a little bit confused because they fit the criteria per the contract, they fit the criteria, yet we were penalized and we still don't have a clear answer. But what Digital Seed is going to do moving forward. We're committed in connecting these CMSD families because again that's our mission. We're committed bridging the digital divide for good and specifically as a company that's focused on the future, we know that these internet connections are pivotal for our families to not just compete today but also tomorrow, and so we're not taking a back seat on this. We're going to continuously connect these CMSD families and if we need to have more conversations about why that's important for people. Well then we're willing to do that as well. And so also, so there was part of your answer in there that kind of made me think about this. Here, So. You mentioned earlier that there's no city, no other city has anything like what Digital c is doing. And we know that the digital divide is not just in Cleveland, it's it's across the board, particularly in minority correct minority cities, minority communities, minority neighborhoods. Et cetera. So, given the chase, given the challenges that you all are facing, particularly politically, how do you think the situation that you're dealing with will impact future efforts to close the digital divide, both on a local level and on a national level. I think that we are in an age, obviously with the presidential administration, where they are looking at government efficiency and attacking in many cases. This is social service delivery. What we are is the evolution of. Social service delivery. In many cases, this is digital social work. This is what you would want to see happening that instead of twenty people knocking on a single. Door, you now have a connection that goes into this. Household, that has an information pathway that we now can communicate efficiently with our residents. You would want that to happen. You'd want to build something to say, all right, Cleveland, we typically don't lead efforts like this We're typically not known for being the most innovative one in the room. We have that right now. And so to all these other cities, they're asking us, they're throwing RFPs at us to say, hey, would you want to do this? Would you want to expand? You do you want to expand? And so when we're looking at this stuff in Cleveland, we're like, why are we being treated this way when we're the ones winning? We are winning. We can go to any telecom conference in the United States, we can bring up digital c everybody knows eighteen dollars a month. Everybody knows that we're doing here. But as soon as we have this local political conversation, it's discounting all the things that we build, and it's muddying the waters that don't need to be muddy. It's like, lean into what we're doing, let's do it better, let's get everybody connected. But let's stop trying to pick apart and dissect innovation. That's not how this works. Innovation is meant to be fast, it's meant to be destructive. But people trying to slow it down and tack on and pull this and pull that. That's not the environment that sustains this type of work. And so what I believe is going to happen in the future when people look at digital divide efforts, I think this, We're gonna have some partners who are like, no, thanks, because I see what you all did over here, and who wants to work in that standard that if you're willing to do everything and go above and beyond, and even things are outside of your control, you're still gonna be penalized for why would anyone want to work in that environment or that condition? Right, So, last couple of questions here. One, Since you guys have been dealing with all of this, dealing with the issues with the council, also the media reports, many of which have been inaccurate and unfair, how are you guys, How is. The staff doing? How are you keeping you keeping your spirits up and still continuing to do this work in spite of you know, opposition. You know, our team is a team of fighters. As a team of fighters in here, there are people who are legitimately angry, but anger. Is kinetic if you let it be. So like if you're able to transfer this to action, that's where they are. Like we had meetings, we said at the beginning of the year, y'all, they're coming for us. I think that there are certain actors that are not reflected here who are influencing opinions strongly, and I think that those actors would have a unique business case for us not to exist. And so when we see that type of influence, our team is ready. We're locked up together. Were saying no, We're willing to weather this storm. And one of the most beautiful things that I've seen is the way that the residents and Cleveland have been supporting us. Cleveland residents who have now been coming out saying and their testimonials and their reviews, hey, keep your head out Digital See. We believe in you. Way to go SEEO like stuff like that. That gives me goosebumps because I'm seeing the power up community organizing. I'm seeing that now you have residents who are defending us, and to have these residents continues to grow. When those articles were coming out in January, every single slot day slot we had for internet was booked because people started saying, no, you're not going to mess with Digital See. And we the residence, we the people of Cleveland. And so it's really cool seeing the juxtaposition are at least the different points where what's being said by some people versus what the actual story is happening on the ground. The way that residents are lining up to support us, that is beautiful. And you know, for anyone who's on the other side of us, you're not standing next to residents because the residents are standing with us. And that's evidence by the way that they've been signing up, the way they've been reviewing our service, and the way they've just been communicating to others. Again, word of mouth is our single handed hand, single handedly the greatest metric that we have for customer growth, and that has outpaced every intervention we've had. The people are talking and the people are supporting Digital. C And so to close here, if there's one thing that you want the public and city leaders in particular to understand about digital see the work you're doing, the importance of that work, what would it be. What's what's the one thing that you would want them to do. What's the one takeaway you want them to have from this? I would want people to assess their stances, assess their position. That would you want to be what side of history do you want to be on because history is being made. Regardless, residents are are getting empowered, regardless, there are people who are having their trajectories and their generational trajectories change as a result of having access to information. This is a time period that we've known where great wealth is being able to be created. And that's tied to access to information. And so people should assess their position and where they're standing, assess the words that they're saying, because it's going to be etched, and it will be etched, and we're going to remember where people were, and I think that people would want to say that when history is being made that they were on the right. Side of it. Let everybody know how to get in contact with you if they want to sign up and all that good stuff. Yep. So first please call us at two one six seven seven seven three eight five nine. I did not give you a one eight hundred number as our two one six seven seven seven. Three eight five nine. In addition, they can go to www dot digitalc dot org. It's a website, or if you can come to the. Midtown Tech High sixty ninth in Euclid and we can sign you up there as well. All right, thank you, so much Man for coming back on I really appreciate it. Appreciated as well. This has been a presentation of the FCB podcast Network, where real talk lives. Visit us online at fcbpodcasts dot com.
