The following transcript has been edited for length and readability. Listen to the entire discussion here on The Broadband Bunch. The Broadband Bunch is sponsored by ETI Software.
Joe Coldebella:
Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Broadband Bunch. I’m Joe Coldebella and we are at the Broadband Access event, making the most of our nation’s investment in digital equity. We’re in Cleveland. This event is hosted by the Pew Charitable Trusts. Joining me is the director of the Quello Center Media and Information Policy at Michigan State University, Professor Johannes Bauer. Johannes, welcome to the Broadband Bunch.
Professor Johannes Bauer:
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Joe Coldebella:
Hey, it’s a pleasure to have you on the show. Before we dive into the topic at hand, I would love it if you could just give our listeners a little bit of background on yourself.
Professor Johannes Bauer:
Yes, I’m an economist and engineer by training and have dealt with issues of information communication policy for a long time in my career. I’m an import from Europe. I got interested in working in the United States in the 1980s when I had a sense that what the Americans do is way superior to what the Europeans do in this field of technology policy. I ended up staying here at Michigan State University. Now I’m directing a center that is dedicated to linking high-quality research and rigorous research with the issues and problems in practice. So we are a research and outreach center that has one leg in the academy and one leg in practice with communities, businesses, and so forth.
Joe Coldebella:
So the hope is that when you produce, in terms of some research that you have, some actionable items behind it.
Professor Johannes Bauer:
Exactly. Translational, actionable research that has a practical impact.
Joe Coldebella:
That’s awesome, because yeah, it’s one of those things where theory is great, but it’s when we can actually get a benefit from the research that’s done, that’s the real big win.
Professor Johannes Bauer:
Yeah. All theory is great unless you can’t translate it into practice and do something practical and useful with it.
Joe Coldebella:
Awesome. Just in terms of this event’s great, I know that you’re working with the Opportunity Broadband Coalition. If you could talk about that, that’d be awesome.
Professor Johannes Bauer:
Yeah. We are really excited to be a founding member of Opportunity Broadband. When we were approached by the Pew Charitable Trusts in possibly joining this coalition, I was really excited about it because of what it does, it feels like a need that exists currently to produce synergistic integrative work. Broadband is a different value system than previous types of information and communication technologies. And access, having high-quality connections, having devices, and having the skills to use them is just one part of the equation. What we also need to do in order to take advantage of these tremendously promising technologies is we need to build new practices in the workforce. We need to build new management practices. We need to build new practices in the public sector, how to interact with citizens in healthcare, and so forth. So that’s what economists call complementary innovations that need to happen to take full advantage of broadband.
Professor Johannes Bauer:
Opportunity Broadband is positioned to look at this holistically. I have to say I’m really excited that the latest funding initiatives at the national level also recognize this complementary between the infrastructure that is an absolute first step, but then these additional innovations that we need to learn how to develop and implement. Opportunity Broadband tries to be a voice in the non-partisan force to think through this and help stakeholders to make the best of the technological opportunities that we have.
Joe Coldebella:
No, I couldn’t agree more. It’s right. In terms of the BEAD funding, obviously, the infrastructure is critical, but there’s an opportunity that folks are left behind. And if we don’t account for that, then a lot of the stuff that we’re doing is going to be for none.
Professor Johannes Bauer:
Yes. And the digital divide is the term coined by NTIA actually already in 1995. It really has multiple components, right? The first level of the digital divide is the access-in-device gap. And clearly, we have recognized that we need to close it as quickly as we can. The pandemic really has opened our eyes here.
Joe Coldebella:
Absolutely.
Professor Johannes Bauer:
But in addition to this physical infrastructure gap, there is a skill gap. And again, digital equities are a portion of the federal programs. Now, state programs and local programs try to really address this very proactively. But then you can go beyond that there’s a third level, right? You have the skills, you really need to use them in the right way in your business environment, in your public policy environment, and in your communities to create the value added that these technologies promise. That’s an outcome divide that also exists. And finally, I would say there’s even a fourth dimension to it. And that technology will not stop. There will be the next wave of technology. There will be the next challenge. We have to learn how to adapt over time. So we have to find sustainable and resilient solutions that work. And again, this is the fourth level of a divide challenge I think that we’ll face in the future.
Joe Coldebella:
No, I mean, wow, that’s a lot there, especially the last point in terms of that technology’s always evolving and always moving forward. And so we’ve got sort of a daunting task at hand because as you say, the term’s been around since the ’90s to close the digital divide. Do you fear that in fact the gap is not going to shrink, it actually could grow even more if we don’t address the issue.
Professor Johannes Bauer:
Well, there are always two forces at work, right? We have been… Despite maybe a lot of public discussion, the US has been able to close the digital divide over the last two decades. Maybe not as fast as people envisioned. There was probably too much trust in how far market forces, unfettered market forces will take us. Most people who know infrastructure development warned from the beginning that the market only works thus far. There are so many areas where there’s no real strong business case unless there’s sort of some form of subsidy or some kind of complimentary policy in place.
Professor Johannes Bauer:
And I think now we are realizing that that was true. We didn’t really fully realize it 20 years ago. But there are challenges that need to be overcome. And right now we are talking about populations that are difficult to serve, high cost, maybe low income, low skills. I’m really excited by all the experiments that are going on across the United States. So many communities have come together in so many innovative ways to close those gaps. And so that’s the force of closing the divide, right? But then technology keeps evolving.
Joe Coldebella:
Right.
Professor Johannes Bauer:
As artificial intelligence, the internet of things, and the internet of everything come along, there will be new challenges and new gaps will open. So there’s always this pendulum swing, right? Opening the divide, closing the divide. And we really have to be alert and agile to not let the widening forces dominate the closing forces, right? We want the balance to be closed, these divides, as they open up.
Joe Coldebella:
No, I think that’s a great point in the sense that it really is an accordion effect because as new technology comes online, we’re always constantly catching up. So it’s one of those things where it’s probably a good thing that we always sort of playing catch up because that’s how we advance in terms of technology.
Professor Johannes Bauer:
Yeah. Let me give you one example where this could have very practical implications. In some of our research for example, when we study the impact of broadband on K-12 education, a lot of the emphasis historically was on the homework gap. And that is a very serious issue. Broadband access of course helps overcome that homework gap, but what we also learned is that there’s a second dimension to this, and that is the digital skills gap. Digital skills are needed to succeed in that current information environment and certainly in the future information environment, but most school curricula currently do not really emphasize the building of digital skills, right? So there is a gap in the way we have structured our pedagogy and our learning. Schools need to adapt to develop new programs that emphasize digital skills and reward digital skills, not just use digital technology to make it easier to finish your homework, for example, right?
Professor Johannes Bauer:
And so we need to rethink in a systemic, like in an ecosystem, how those different pieces fit together. If we have this preparation, then we can also make the transition easier to the next generation of technology. There will be a learning effect that will be simplified.
Joe Coldebella:
That’s a great point. So it’s not essentially learning how to do things. It’s almost like you want it to become second nature for the students. So as things evolve, they can evolve with them.
Professor Johannes Bauer:
Exactly. Some of this learning happens actually in a playful way. And so as we have a national discussion on the role of social media in our lives, for example, and how to mitigate harm, we must not forget that the playful use of this media actually also has a positive effect. And the challenge for the policy will be, how can we emphasize the positive and how can we mitigate the potential negative effects. It is not an easy question to answer. We are still learning how to do this.
Joe Coldebella:
Social media definitely is one of those things where I scratch my head off often. But I think also what is so new is that everyone’s still learning how to handle it. And so as we evolve, I think that hopefully, it will have a less mitigating and less, I guess, dilatory effect on us as we move forward. That’s one of my hope.
Professor Johannes Bauer:
Yeah. And so it leads me to another point that I really would like to make because it’s part of the work in Opportunity Broadband and in many people on the ground from what I can observe, that is the technology can be designed in a more human-centric, more people-centric way. We have not done enough to really experiment with different types of technology architectures, right? Here we are in Cleveland. Cleveland has a long history of citizen engagement with computing technologies, going back to the 1990s, the first days of the modern world for example if those of us who remember. Bulletin boards and so forth. This was a very different model where you had highly decentralized, highly user-driven types of interactions, right? Some of our electronic communication systems have become two centralized in that sense, right? We need to come back to a more balanced way and really reinvent what it means to use information and communication technologies for communities.
Professor Johannes Bauer:
And there’s a new movement. One is called Rural Computing for example, where the question is really, how can we design systems that meet the needs of rural and smaller town environments? There’s also the related movement of public interest in technology development. And here we look for new types of innovations that are more people-centric. We need to come up with different architectures, learn what works, and what doesn’t work, and build a learning system going forward to fully harness the benefits of these technologies. And the Opportunity Broadband and again in our center, we are involved in these discussions and hopefully contribute.
Joe Coldebella:
Could you kind of drill down a little bit more on people-centric? Because I think that it’s a really interesting idea. And just in terms of the interactions I have, is that it almost seems like at least right now we’re sort of getting away from that. We’re trying to automate everything and I think you’re losing that human element. So could you talk a little bit about that?
Professor Johannes Bauer:
Yeah. So there are multiple components. One is that as we design technologies and ecological systems, it would be beneficial to ask users first what they want the technology for and how they are going to use the technology. Let me give you a simple example. Banks increasingly move away from in-person offices. They move a lot of their functions online with apps on smartphones, but they frequently do not think about people who might have some handicap or some different ability that makes it very difficult for them to interact with those technologies, right?
Joe Coldebella:
Sure.
Professor Johannes Bauer:
And if technology developers would think about these populations beforehand, they would develop technology in a different way. They would have maybe a customer service agents that are available. There are many, many ways how we can do it. They would think about different interfaces and so forth. And currently, very little of this is happening. We only have one Facebook, right? But there could be other ways how we can organize those online media that use sort of algorithms that don’t amplify anger and upsetting emotions. We need more experiments.
Joe Coldebella:
This might be a little bit off-topic, but have you examined or looked at the metaverse? Is that something that an area that you’ve sort of looked at as well in terms of a net positive or just the evolution of the internet in general?
Professor Johannes Bauer:
Yeah, it’s an interesting initiative, but we don’t know exactly how this world will evolve. There are a lot of beneficial applications of virtual reality technologies that we already use. We use it in teaching for example, to very, very good effects. So virtual classrooms that use 3D technology can increase learning effectiveness far over the Zoom and other types of [inaudible 00:14:56] that we have. Or we have tremendous encouraging results in, let’s say, the medical field. So a colleague of mine, for example, uses VR to avoid having to give people anesthesia for certain types of surgery.
Joe Coldebella:
Oh really? I’ve never heard that one before.
Professor Johannes Bauer:
Yeah. And it works fantastically well. Not only does it save cost, but it also is way less intrusive. So there are great promises. At the same time, we are at a juncture, right? We should probably think more about what rules would we like this world to obey, and what kind of basic guardrails we want the metaverse to have so that we don’t run into an amplified problem with privacy and the index appropriation of data of individuals as they behave in those new environments?
Joe Coldebella:
Yeah, no, because it’s funny, I had a friend who… I guess at nursing homes, they brought the Meta or the VR to allow folks who were bedridden to exercise and just to have it… Just instead of just sitting there in bed, it was kind of a great thing in terms of the evolution of where we can take these things.
Professor Johannes Bauer:
Exactly.
Joe Coldebella:
So just quickly, I know that you’re speaking today and the topic is how research and institutions can play a role in narrowing the digital equity. What are some of the highlights that you hope to discuss today?
Professor Johannes Bauer:
I see myself more as a facilitator of a conversation and listening than a speaker.
Joe Coldebella:
Okay, which is good.
Professor Johannes Bauer:
Because the experts are really all the participants in the audience today. Opportunity Broadband hopes to scale research activities in new ways that create synergies between the many, many initiatives that had already gone on. There are two or three outcomes that we are trying to see whether there’s buy-in or there’s interest in pursuing those. One is that I think we need more evaluative research. There’s a massive amount of funding that has been coming from the federal and state levels to communities. We need to understand better what works and what doesn’t works. We need to help communities to use those funds in a prudent way so that we can maximize the reach of those funds.
Professor Johannes Bauer:
Secondly, we need to start to think about how we create sustainable models because all these current programs have a timeline to them. But as we said before, technology will not stop evolving. So we have to develop new models that will allow us to continue to upgrade as technology evolves. And thirdly, those two forces, forces that reduce digital inequality and then forces that increase digital inequality, we have to better understand how these work and how those manifest in different technologies, and how we can find local solutions, state solutions, and federal solutions to take advantage of the power of technology while mitigating its harms.
Joe Coldebella:
Okay. And so basically as sort of the moderator, your idea is for the folks in the room to have sort of a free flow of ideas and exchange ideas, because I think that’s the great thing about an event like this, is that you meet folks and you hear ideas that someone else’s in the country is doing. And it’s one of those things where it’s an opportunity for you guys to amplify those.
Professor Johannes Bauer:
It’s a listening session primarily, but what are the needs that people on the ground have, a session where we can try to build bridges between different types of researchers on people on the ground? And ideally, we would like to have a two-way flow of information. It’s a co-creation, right? We have to have a systemic approach as multiple people already said at this conference. That means that all of us have some local expert knowledge, but none of us really understands the whole system. So we need to collaborate and we need to find new ways to cooperate. And for the past decades, many of us moved into an increasingly smaller silo. So we need to de-silo and you need to reach out and learn new ways to collaborate. Many people already do this at the community level, at the state level. And we would like to sort of create additional energy that includes the research community in these discussions.
Joe Coldebella:
No, that’s great because you’re 100% right. One of the great things about the Broadband Bunch is that we hear different stories from not only the United States but Canada, and the UK. It’s interesting in the sense that the way people approach the problems in their areas because all the problems are the same, but they’re all different if that kind of makes sense. And they’ve all got the same problem, but everyone has their own set of separate challenges. So it’s an interesting sort of exercise.
Professor Johannes Bauer:
Yeah. So the good thing about digital technology is it’s very flexible. It’s very malleable, it’s plastic. There are many different ways how we can use it fruitfully in communities. So there’s a range of different experiments. Communities can adapt technology to their own needs, and to their own vision of the good life. And then we can use this diversity to learn from each other and emulate things that work in other places, maybe not emulate those that don’t work, right?
Joe Coldebella:
100%.
Professor Johannes Bauer:
So one of the goals of our conversation today perhaps is to make the first steps to create this dynamic learning system that we can use going forward.
Joe Coldebella:
Awesome. Just out of curiosity, it’s one of those things were just listening to the different terms around here, one term that I heard that I’d never heard before was information and communication technologies or ICT. What exactly is that?
Professor Johannes Bauer:
Yeah, that’s a term that crept into the vocabulary probably as early as the 1980s, possibly, right? Because we used to have communication technology, telecommunications, telephone, and telegraph, the first forms of data communication. But then in the 1960s slowly, and gradually in the 1970s and ’80s, digital technology became part of communications. And as digital protocols were used for communications, it was only a short step to introduce computing and communications, right? And now we have this first wave of convergence where we see information technology, traditional computing converges with telecommunications technology to form information and communication technologies. Many people now use it generically to refer to everything digital that includes the communications component and the computing component.
Joe Coldebella:
Okay. Okay.
Professor Johannes Bauer:
Some people use the term media metrics for the new convergence between entertainment and computing and communications. But generally, most people would use information and communication technologies as the overarching umbrella term for this very vibrant field.
Joe Coldebella:
Awesome. Okay, that makes a little more sense now. And just out of curiosity. As we work to solve the digital equity problem, what’s something that you could say to the folks who are in the field, the boots on the ground? Are there any actual things that you would say for them to help sort of eliminate the digital equity divide?
Professor Johannes Bauer:
Well, as I said, many communities have developed great expertise in those issues and they are really the experts, right? But from my perspective where I sit from a research center, things that would make sense are, first of all, being aware of the multiple levels of the digital divide. So don’t just think about it as an access divide, but also as skills divide and then outcomes and then adaptability divide. And that systemic thinking is, as we’ve heard from many of the advocates on the ground, many of the policymakers, are now increasingly adopting sort of an ecosystem approach, which is I think is very encouraging for me.
Professor Johannes Bauer:
Secondly, again, this is already happening. I don’t think this is advice. This is just sort of happening. And I think a good strategy is to be inclusive of as many stakeholders as possible, make sure to work across those silos, make sure that the education community, the health community talks to the urban planning community and are part of that visioning process. And finally, I think it’s impossible to learn from others. And again, there are many, many initiatives already happening. I mentioned NTIA before. Opportunity Broadband will probably be another one. There are many research groups already that have tried to integrate and synthesize research. So keep your eyes, your radar screen, open for those potential pieces of information to help you come up with better local policies and responses.
Joe Coldebella:
That’s awesome. And no, I couldn’t agree more. I think a general theme that I get always includes all the stakeholders in the process as soon as possible. Because when you get that buy-in, you get everyone going in the same direction. And it’s a lot easier for folks to complete projects.
Joe Coldebella:
The internet of things, just out of curiosity, you hear the term thrown around a lot. I guess, how will it shape the economy as we move forward? Is it one of those things where… I would love to get your thoughts on that.
Professor Johannes Bauer:
So the internet of things is something that is not a thing of the future. It’s already here. If you drive a car, you’re already part of the internet of things, right? I mean, there are many electronic parts in your car, many connected parts in the car. If you wear a Fitbit, if you have a smartphone, you’re already part of this. Your refrigerator may be connected. The idea is that we will network not only with individuals in organizations, but we will also network our physical objects. And increasingly, that is happening. There are many promises that come from it, but there are also many many challenges, right? We network medical devices for example. So monitoring devices for blood sugar or for heart rates of certain types of chronically ill patients. With networking also come risks, right? The risk of privacy breaches, the risk of security breaches, and so forth.
Joe Coldebella:
Sure.
Professor Johannes Bauer:
The field is so dynamic. That whole field of new devices and new software for this internet of things actually has very few standards that would actually secure high levels of security and privacy. I think there’s a huge need in the huge risk to think about this very carefully. Many of us actually think about it now as the internet of everything, where literally, eventually everything will be connected in one form or another. And we really need to watch out what the social effects and the technological risks associated with those systems.
Joe Coldebella:
Yeah. No, that’s so true, but to your earlier point, is that we’re always evolving. And so the internet of things or the internet of everything is it’s slow, it’s almost like it’s noticeable, but then we don’t notice it. And sure enough, in five years it’s going to be everything, the internet of everything, which is a fascinating sort of question to sort of think about.
Professor Johannes Bauer:
These are technologies that are sort of black box technologies in a sense, right? They’re embedded in daily objects. And we may not even be aware of the fact how they work. Thermostats, for example, and apps that we use all the time. So digital literacy training, in addition to policy guardrails for these systems, will be important. But I think we must not fall for the wrong vision that the faster we innovate, the better it is, right? There are certain types of innovations that will benefit from maybe moving a little bit slower, and thinking more carefully about what are the boundaries that we want to set. Many of these technologies are dual-used technologies. They can be used for great good, but they can also be used for great harm. And how do we really create those guardrails to avoid harm? Sometimes that requires moving a little bit slower, moving a little bit more deliberately. I hope that the discussions here and the discussions that are already going on on the ground will eventually help us to really maximize the benefits of digital technology in mitigating the potential harms of those technologies.
Joe Coldebella:
Well, and please correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems like the collection of data is good. The collection of my data is bad in the sense that we’ve got to make sure that those guardrails that are put in properly protect people’s privacy.
Professor Johannes Bauer:
Yeah. For example, data could be anonymized at the point of collection.
Joe Coldebella:
Right.
Professor Johannes Bauer:
For many, many purposes, that would not actually reduce the usefulness of the data. We also have huge issues with the hoarding of data in a few organizations. They’re not just the big tech companies. There are many other organizations too, but most of them try to make a commercial business model of the data. I think we have to rethink what share of this data that we have is in the public domain and should be considered a public resource more like let’s say electromagnetic spectrum. And then how can we create a system of rights and obligations to make sure that enough of the data is shared and is available for others who would benefit from having access to data so that it’s not proprietarily fenced off by a few companies?
Joe Coldebella:
Sort on the theme of the internet for all, it’s one of those things where the data should be for everyone’s use in terms of getting the best benefit for everyone.
Professor Johannes Bauer:
Right. I think there’s probably a balance. There’s probably no problem with having some data, this proprietary, this specific, let’s say, to a financial institution, to a health institution.
Joe Coldebella:
Sure.
Professor Johannes Bauer:
But probably currently, the threshold of how much of the data is shared more publicly is set in the wrong place, right? There’s too much of it is fenced off currently.
Joe Coldebella:
Okay. All right. And then I just have one other topic and then we will ask the two challenging questions that I love to ask everybody. But automation and artificial intelligence, what kind of impact are they going to have in terms of the digital economy moving forward? Is it one of those things where it’s going to be really big or is it one of those things like is it going to be the accordion effect as well where it’s going to happen subtly over time?
Professor Johannes Bauer:
Probably a combination of those two. I mean, so for one, if you think of artificial intelligence as a forecasting or prediction technology in a sense and it’s increasingly benefiting from becoming cheaper and cheaper and cheaper, what has happened in all areas of our life, where things that get cheaper, we’ll use more.
Joe Coldebella:
Right.
Professor Johannes Bauer:
So we will embed this technology more broadly in all our areas. Now, there are enormous challenges, for one, in terms of developing the business practices to really use it well. But there are also enormous challenges in terms of the effects, the social effects of these technologies, right? I mean, artificial intelligence benefits from large training sets of data, but we know there are enormous biases in the existing training sets of data. And so in that sense, what you get is a replication of the past, and that past will become embedded in these automated decisions. Not that because they become more black-boxed, they will be less transparent and we will be less aware of those. And so I think this is a huge risk going forward. And These counter-movements, open AI, for example, are ways to create more accountability to understand how these algorithms work, but this is an ongoing discussion that will be very challenging.
Joe Coldebella:
Well, so yeah, it’s definitely one of those things where it’s a topic that I’m just starting to learn about and it’s fascinating just the potential, but it’s also one of those things that are pitfalls.
Professor Johannes Bauer:
Yeah, exactly. So as I said before, the dual nature of technology can go either way so we have to be really diligent to make sure that we avoid those downsides that come with it.
Joe Coldebella:
So Professor Bauer, as we wind down, I love to ask all our guests two questions. The first question is our Back to the Future question. So I’m going to give you the keys to the DeLorean, you get to travel back in time however far you want. If there was something you could whisper in your ear that sort of would make, I don’t know, your journey a little bit easier, what would you tell yourself?
Professor Johannes Bauer:
Yeah, I would probably go back to the early 1990s. And at that time, everybody was excited about deregulating and creating more competition in the telephone network. Nobody thought about the internet at that time, right? I wish at that time, we had thought more diligently about how those two worlds might interact in the future. So because we didn’t see this as clearly, what happened is that many places went into a detour or into a sidetrack where they considered telecommunications as the traditional regulated area that needed to be unregulated and the sort of information technology as a completely unregulated free market endeavor. Were very, very reluctant to think about sort of those guard rails that would be necessary. I wish we had earlier thought about sort of what guard rails one might need for this digital environment. It was in some sense too early, right? But again, it’s with the benefit of going back to the past.
Joe Coldebella:
Exactly. Right. Exactly.
Professor Johannes Bauer:
That’s exactly what I would’ve suggested. And now we are struggling to reconcile those two. And because the old world of regulated telecommunications was so bureaucratic and was so slow-moving and was dominated by very large companies, many of those new internet-based entrepreneurs were utterly reluctant to engage with it and they really consider themselves as a new role. But what we realize in the meantime is that you can’t completely differentiate those two, right? I mean, cyberspace is in part a new realm, but it’s in part also embedded in our real life and we have to reconcile those two.
Joe Coldebella:
Yeah, no. Wow. That’s a great answer. That’s a great answer. If we could unfurl the crystal ball and I could say, “Listen, if you could look three to five years in the future, where do you see things going just in terms of digital equity or wherever you want to take it?”
Professor Johannes Bauer:
Yeah. I mean that ball has some clouds, I must say. I mean, it has some bright spots and I think that the way policy and businesses and communities have been reorienting in the last decade or so is really encouraging. I think we are really in a transitory phase. So we could maybe use digital technologies more to the benefit of our communities and really come up with this new wave of innovations that many of us have been waiting for. At the same time, there are some clouds on the horizon, right? Whether we see on a global geopolitical scale, for example, we see a fragmentation or a differentiation of values, and we see how these different interests now have affected this broader version of global integrated communications and information infrastructure in ways that we’ve seen more regional bifurcations or regional branching’s of the Europeans have gone their own way. Authoritarian regimes have gone really far in a different direction.
Professor Johannes Bauer:
And there’s no easy answer to how to counter these developments, right? I mean, I think the best way forward for a place that loves freedom and entrepreneurship as the United States would be to showcase that we can actually use this technology in an open innovation environment for the benefit of society. We can develop a showcase of what could be achieved in terms of creating a good society in that framework. We have to work on it. This will not be easy. This will require all hands on deck. As many people have said at this conference, I’m happy for my part to contribute the little part that I can contribute.
Joe Coldebella:
Awesome. That’s a great place to end the interview. Johannes, if folks want to learn more about yourself and your organization, where can they go?
Professor Johannes Bauer:
They just could visit us on the web. Where else? Quello, Q-U-E-L-L-O.msu.edu.
Joe Coldebella:
Awesome. All right, folks, that’s going to do it for this episode of the Broadband Bunch. Until next time, we’ll see you later. Thanks a lot.
