Transcript 0:00 [gentle music] So I think those opportunities are there. The impediment is, is public acceptance, basically. 0:09 And there are examples, uh, uh, in Toronto and other places where people have tried to ignore privacy kinds of considerations or data security kind of situations, and it's been a, uh, a, a disaster from the technology acceptance point of view. 0:24 So I think it's critical that we have very clear policies, get public buy-in to those, and have transparent operations in, in how we use technology, because the public acceptance is really critical to being able to use the kind of in- incredible capabilities that you're talking about. 0:39 [upbeat music] Welcome back to The Peggy Smedley Show, the podcasting voice of IoT and digital transformation. Hello, listeners, and welcome back to The Peggy Smedley Show. 0:56 I'm your host, Peggy Smedley. My first guest has more than 40 years industry experience as an innovator in the fields of satellite and terrestrial communication, computing, and information science. 1:08 He has been a principal in seven startup companies and has helped build four national scale business accelerators for the intelligence community, for DHS, and in areas of cybersecurity and smart cities. 1:23 Currently, he is leading the Virginia Smart Communities Initiative and is working with the Virginia Unmanned Systems Center at CIT to bring the new generation of capability to all Virginians. 1:36 Please welcome David Airy, Chief Technology Officer, Center for Innovative Technology. David, welcome to the show. Yeah, thanks very much. Glad to be here, Peggy. 1:46 David, you have an incredibly impressive resume, and so I'm excited to talk to you about all the things that we're doing. And this month, we're really talking about public safety and first responders. 1:57 And so I would love to just start for our listeners to help them understand how did you get started just basically in the area that you're working today? It just... 2:05 Your knowledge and wealth of experience is really wonderful. I'd love for our listeners to understand your background a little bit. Oh, sure. Uh, uh, so happy to talk about that. 2:14 Uh, uh, so I was, uh, in Princeton at, uh, Sarnoff Corporation, the old RCA Laboratories, when the, uh, September 11th attacks happened in Washington and in New York. 2:26 And very shortly thereafter, uh, we were working with the, uh, the fire department and the, the police department in New York City, putting in place some communications capabilities for responders and, uh, providing some other supporting technologies. 2:39 So it's really been, uh, close to 20 years now that, uh, I've been actively involved with, with public safety community. 2:46 So from a personal perspective, how important is it to really be involved in public safety related technologies? How does it feel to really... 2:54 Especially now when you think of what's happening with COVID-19, how important is it to really know that first responders are able and having the technology to help them do the things that they have to do? 3:05 Oh, it's critical. You know, I, I... The... It's hard to come up with people who, uh, put themselves on the line more frequently in, in such a wide range of situations. 3:15 You know, when you talk about terrorist attacks or, uh, responding to COVID, when you talk about just everyday responses to fire or flood, uh, certainly we've seen, uh, y- you know, kind of the civil unrest that we've been facing recently. 3:29 So across that range of things, uh, it's critical, I think, for our, our society, for, uh, the public to have the, the best capability that we can. 3:39 And in many ways, uh, over, over the years, the public safety community has, has been a bit underserved in terms of resources and has, has not always had the, uh, most recent technology capabilities at their disposal. 3:53 So I think it's crucial to, uh, uh, provide whatever we can to help them do their job more effectively and then more safely, save lives, and help, uh, reduce property damage. 4:03 I talked on one of my radio shows about the importance of having the latest connected technology. I would imagine over the years that you've seen technology really change in the past couple of decades. 4:15 In your opinion, you know, when you think about it, you just said terrorist attacks, or right now we're talking about COVID, or fire, or flood. I mean, you just listed those. 4:23 You know, there's a plethora of things that we need first responders to have the best cutting edge, whether it's 4G, or now we're talking about 5G. We want connectivity in urban, rural areas. 4:34 Talk about how that's changed just in the last decade or two decades in your mind, in your opinion, you know, when you look at that. Well, certainly. 4:42 So, uh, you know, clearly, uh, we all have, you know, cell phones in our, our pockets now, uh, and responders do as well. Uh, we used to call those supercomputers, just given the capability. 4:53 And, and so I think, uh, uh, that kind of individual capacity to, uh, have access to information in real time across a variety of applications, uh, is probably the biggest change over those couple of decades, but the supporting infrastructure has not necessarily kept up with that. 5:12 And the, uh, as you say, you know, the nature of the situations that people face has changed, uh, uh, in the, 5:19 uh, the ability to, uh, do some special purpose things, like understand where firefighters are in tall buildings, uh, what floor they're on, not just how far away they are from an exit or something. 5:31 Uh, some of those challenges still remain. Are we talking about trying physically from the infrastructure from a broadband perspective? 5:38 We talk about physically we've seen from over time that we struggle as a society to invest in the proper infrastructure. I think we don't understand that as citizens what we really need to do. 5:49 We talk about now we have IoT. 5:51 We say there's an app for that from a software perspective and technologies like that, but we really need to be investing in the really cutting edge things all the way to be able to get the things that you just described so that we always have always on connectivityYeah, I, I think it's, it's clear that, that, uh, certainly the communications infrastructure and, and now when we talk, uh, Internet of Things, the sensor in- infrastructure that goes with that, that kind of infrastructure investment is really critical now. 6:21 And you, you can certainly see that at the, uh, the federal level, the, uh, interest and the support for 5G deployment, you know, higher speed, uh, deployments. But as well, uh, rural broadband, you know? 6:32 So we, uh, right now we, we know that there are many, many people who are trying to, uh, work from home or, uh, their kids go to school from, uh, home, and they just don't have broadband access. 6:45 Uh, and, uh, you know, similarly the trying to respond to public safety issues in those areas, uh, is, uh, there's a handicap because that, that infrastructure is not persistent everywhere. 6:57 I think we've done a great job in terms of the cloud and access to the cloud, uh, uh, the data, the ability to handle data once it gets back into that sort of core infrastructure, but the connectivity at the edge is, is we're still struggling with that. 7:11 We talk about now when we, we say the edge, we're about 85%, but it's still not enough. How is the cloud then pa- playing a role in just that? 7:20 I mean, we've seen, you know, everybody wants to use Zoom and things like that for communication, but when we talk about we're, we're, we're overloading this kind of communication or whatever we need. 7:31 If we need to have our first responders be able to get access, to be able to get information, what you just described in rural areas, how do things like that, the cloud then gonna be able to give them the access when they have to talk, uh, you know, treat a patient or something in a rural community to get information when they need it at the time that they need it? 7:51 Yeah. So I, I think the, what the cloud does is it provides a sort of a central place where data can be, uh, uh, posted and accessed. 8:00 Uh, it used, used to be that, uh, you would have a separate application for each individual, uh, capability that you wanted. 8:08 So if you had w- uh, one for healthcare data and one for map data and one for, you know, different types of data, now all those data types are brought together in the cloud. So once, once you have connectivity there, 8:22 uh, uh, you know, many of those issues become much easier, and the ability to, uh, do analysis across different types of data, uh, becomes much easier. 8:31 So I think the opportunity is there to have, uh, uh, for certainly for public safety officials to have a much more holistic view of situations that they're coming into. 8:40 Uh, potentially much better data about, uh, um, you know, are there, uh, hazardous materials in the area that they need to be aware of? Uh, are there special situations? 8:51 Uh, uh, you know, we start talking about, uh, you know, drones, uh, you know, are there things, uh, going on in the, in the vicinity that people need to be aware of? 9:01 Uh, so the critical enabler though, again, is that, that last, last hop connectivity. 9:07 Can you get data into the system, and can you get it back out to the, the various displays that, that responders would have available to them? 9:13 It's an interesting point when we talk about, and you mentioned IoT and using IoT information, devices or whatever, and you just mentioned drones. Are we going to really see drones? 9:23 I mean, everybody wants them, and they talk about that. 9:26 That's an interesting idea of using drones for public safety, the idea of being able to use that to get our firefighters or to get our first responders more information about something that's happening in a first response situation. 9:40 Do you think we'll use them more and more to be able to access and get them to the places they need to be? Yeah, I, I think we're already seeing that, and Virginia has certainly been a leader in that area. 9:50 So we're now across the commonwealth in a number of instances, uh, uh, routinely using drones to support public safety. 9:58 Uh, you know, and you, it's easy to envision things like, uh, you know, if, if a crash happens on I-95, uh, uh, to, uh, you know, traffic backs up, rather than trying to get a, a patrol car there or state police officer to the scene, uh, the first guys on the, on the situation might be from a drone because you can get it there quickly, uh, and so forth. 10:20 Uh, certainly in terms of search and rescue, uh, we w- you know, if there are massive flood events, uh, or hurricane-related events, uh, the ability of drones to easily cover very large areas, uh, and, and provide that kind of information, uh, I think is critical. 10:36 So, you know, I think you're already starting to see that, and, and that will continue to increase, uh, pretty rapidly on the, on the public safety side. Now, I'm a big fan of using technology for all kinds of things. 10:47 Tr- uh, for training, like digital twin, for firefighters in buildings. 10:51 When I hear you talk about drones and things, I always think about the challenges 'cause, you know, I have to say it, there's a lot of crazies out there. You know, they wanna shoot them down. 10:59 They wanna use lasers to cause problems for pilots. What are the hurdles? 11:03 Because I got to imagine, even though you're saying you're using them, and we think we can advance the technologies, you know, there's the crazies out there who just don't want to advance technology because they wanna create more harm for our first responders and them being able to do the job they need to do. 11:19 Well, I don't th- I don't think that drones introduce new challenges in that area, right? I mean, there certainly are, uh, people who, y- you know, don't- I know you're being nice. 11:31 I know you're trying to be nice about it. [laughs] But we know there are. I mean, come on. I mean, the fact is, I mean, I, the world today is not a very kind place right now. 11:39 I wish it was, but it's not for whatever it is. We talked about the civil unrest. I mean, I, I... 11:45 If I'm a first responder right now, I'm sorry, I wanna say, "I'm going out there to help people, but I don't know what's happened." You know? 11:53 I just don't get it right now because I'm sitting there, I want our, I want our young people to go out there and do the things they wanna do, but to go out and burn things, and then to have our, our first responders having to go into that is just not what I think. 12:07 So that's when I think technology can be used to protect them. But I, I think that's what I'm saying. 12:13 I, I, I'm, I'm sitting there thinking we've gotta use, you know, machine learning and AI to protect them so we're notHaving them get hurt, you know? Because I think that's the problem right now. 12:24 I, I just think we've got way too much going on all around us that shouldn't be happening. 12:29 And so somebody like you who's really super smart has gotta be thinking about how do we take this to the next level so our first responders are safe. Yeah. 12:38 I, you know, that clearly the, the primary goal is to save lives and to reduce property damage, and there's certainly lots of crazies out there, uh, uh, you know, whether or not you're using any particular type of technology. 12:50 Uh, to me, the challenge is, uh, balancing, uh, how that technology is used with, with, uh, sort of the, uh, the notions that we think are fundamental in our democracy. 13:03 So you can certainly look at China as an example where, uh, uh, the surveillance state and, and sort of social control has gone to an extreme that I certainly hope the US never goes towards. 13:15 Uh, and so, uh- You think- Absolutely... we have unrest right now, imagine what happens there. [laughs] I mean, come on. The biased AI or whatever the heck is going on there. I mean, I'm- Right... I'm sorry. 13:25 I, I just have to say we're already talking about people are spying on us now and come on. I mean, we wanna use technology for technology's sake that's good, not to make it all that everybody's freaking out. 13:37 We already freaked out about Big Brother, now we're thinking on all these other things. I mean, w- h- how do we use technology? That's a really good point that you're... 13:45 And I didn't mean to interrupt, but I have to ask you, how do we use technology? You are a super, super smart guy, and you've got people that working with you. You've started, uh, several companies. 13:54 How do we use technology to, to get these young people to see that they can be innovative, they can find ways so that we can say, "Look, we can move forward, and if we are unhappy, we can, we can diversity, we can do all the inclusion in ways to say, 'Look, let's move our country forward and not worry about what all is happening in the rest of the world. 14:15 Let's bring them in for a positive and, and, and save lives instead of what we're doing right now.'" I, I just... That's what I want... I wanna know, how do we do that? Yeah. 14:24 So there, there's plenty of opportunity with the technologies, and we work all the time, again, in Virginia with, with, uh, startup companies who are 14:32 in- i- incredibly innovative and employing a wide range of technologies. So I think those opportunities are there. The, the impediment is, is public acceptance, basically. 14:42 And there are examples, uh, uh, in Toronto and other places where, uh, uh, you know, people have, have tried to ignore privacy kinds of considerations or data security kind of situations. 14:54 Uh, and, and it's, it's been a, uh, a disaster from the technology acceptance point of view. 15:00 So I think it's critical that we have very clear policies, uh, uh, get public buy-in to those, uh, and have, uh, transparent, uh, operations in, in how we use technology, because the public acceptance is really, uh, critical to being able to use the, the kind of in- incredible capabilities that you're talking about, whether drones or AI or, uh, you know, IoT, what- whatever the various technologies are. 15:26 Don't you think we're going to see that, though? I mean, we have multiple generations right now. 15:31 We have an opportunity right now that the younger generations get the idea of what we can use information for, and we have older generations that are going to be retiring and that they're gonna maybe be resistant, but the younger generations are o- are open. 15:48 They're the digital natives. They get it, and they can say, "Look, we understand," and the cybersecurity side of this, and they're gonna be more embracing of this. 15:56 So as we move into this transitional state, don't you think we have a greater opportunity to be able to embrace more of this? Absolutely. 16:07 I mean, I, I think it's going to happen, uh, there's no question that it's going to happen, uh, regardless, right? 16:14 I mean, the technology's gonna continue advancing and that, that the range of applications that we use it for, uh, is gonna con- continue to expand. 16:22 The question is what we want that to look like and, and, uh, how we want technology to serve the society that we want, not just technology for its own sake or technology because, you know, it helps people make a lot of money. 16:35 Uh, so I, I, you know, again, I could, I could spend a lot of time thinking about, uh, what is the proper role of technology in society, not, not just what's the next greatest gizmo that we can put on the streets. 16:47 So then help me understand that. We've been talking about for first responders what should it look like. You're doing things in Virginia. Use that as a model for me. What, in your perception, should it be? 16:58 Because that's what we need. We need great minds like yourself to help us understand where should technology be, not just for technology's sake. 17:05 That's what you just described, and maybe that model should be if we understand it for first responders, we understand it for healthcare and then for manufacturing and then for construction and infrastructure and it's, and so on and so on and so on. 17:16 You just, you're helping us make the bubble larger, and it's not inclusive. It's a- you know, it's, it's widening this thing so that we're in- including everybody. It's, you know, we're not limiting anything. Yeah. 17:29 So here's, here's a couple of the principles that I would say. 17:32 One is that we've had pretty good success when we say we're going to use technology, uh, from a public safety point of view to respond to an incident that happens, not just to collect data because we're able to collect data. 17:45 Uh, you know, I think there's a, a concept that we put forward called anonymity at the edge. 17:51 So for many applications, uh, certainly for government-Sponsored applications and I think local government or, or, you know, state level government, uh, you're, you're interested in, in patterns of behavior, how many people are, are moving from one place to another, but you don't necessarily need to tie that to who those individuals are unless something happens. 18:12 Uh, you know, the, the types of data that you store on a persistent basis, uh, and how you protect that data and how you use that data, all, all are the critical things that will really allow the expansion in a way that people will be willing to accept. 18:25 So you just described once we can really take this data to the edge, the capabilities of what we're ca- what we can do is what's gonna change the model of data. 18:36 You know, that's truly gonna be the new oil that you've just described. What data's gonna be once we can really use it at the edge for first responders across state lines. Is we're not gonna be limited within a state. 18:48 We can do things, you know, help, you know, combat fires, like what's happening in California, or floods anywhere, and the information, because we can treat patients, whatever, because that information can be shared so widely. 19:01 That... Am, am I hearing you correctly then? Yeah, that's, that's the, that's the benefit. The, the control point on that is, is to be able to turn the sharing on and off. 19:12 So, uh, you know, when you talk about California fires, you certainly wanna be able to bring in fire, uh, units from other areas, from other states, uh, and be able to share the latest information while they're in transit, uh, to, to the fire scene. 19:27 But when that's, when that event is done and they go back to their home state, you don't necessarily want them to have access to everything that's going on. 19:34 Uh, we- we've looked at a question, for example, of, uh, children on a school bus, right? 19:39 And if, uh, uh, you know, if an incident happens on a school bus, you want the, uh, the public safety responders to, to have access to that data right away. 19:50 But most of the time you don't want them to have access to that data. Parents don't want, uh, uh, y- you know, police necessarily looking in on their kids on an, on an ongoing basis. 20:00 So that ability to share data but then stop sharing data when you want, I, you think is another critical aspect of what we're talking about. So that triggered my... 20:08 me to think about that is when you have an Amber Alert, you wanna share that out to multiple states, but then once you find that child, you wanna shut that down so that it's not just out there, is what you're saying. 20:17 Because now what I'm hearing is now the bad guys who are out there, who are trying to constantly hack things, that's the ability for you to shut that down. 20:25 So, you know, s- police departments aren't having to pay these stupid ransomware kind of things that might happen when they get hacked. 20:33 Yeah, and I, and I think that's for mu- municipal governments, that's a huge concern. There's certainly talk now about the upcoming election that ransomware may be an issue. 20:42 Uh, and that's, that's the data security and, and how you, uh, secure and control that data. 20:47 So when we talk about how you do, a- again, for example, Internet of things, the fundamental principles there are the cybersecurity, the data security, and then the policy privacy, uh, policies that go with that. 21:01 How does all of this now fit into how we have a mindset? We've had COVID-19's come in, and it's now changed the way we all look at things and the way we've shared information. 21:12 We were all very nervous about the way we shared. Now, COVID-19 happens. We have a pandemic. We seem to be much more open to realizing we have to be socially more aware of the information. 21:26 Has it changed our mindset a little bit? Uh, you know, I, I think it's, uh, highlighted the fact, uh, um, the role of government and the role of, of industry, right? 21:37 So, uh, you know, I know we went through a process here where getting used to, uh, y- you know, which, which platform are you using for, for your video calls, you know, Zoom or Microsoft Teams or whatever the platform is. 21:51 Uh, uh, and understanding 21:55 w- you know, what, uh, what access that those platform companies would have to your ongoing video calls is, I, I think, a question that, that, uh, maybe some people thought about that they hadn't previously. 22:07 Uh, to me there's a, there's a clear distinction between w- the role of government in handling data and, and how we think about private companies. 22:16 Uh, and many people choose to share lots of information on Facebook that they would be, uh, uh, not so excited about their local, uh [laughs]- Yeah... their local, uh, government having access to. 22:29 So I, you know, I think that consciousness, uh, uh, both the consciousness of that difference and... 22:35 But then I think it's easier for local governments to engage with their populations, with the people who live in that area, and come up with, with mutually, uh, agreeable principles on how they behave. 22:47 You know, governments are not in the business of having to resell your personal data for, for a profit. 22:54 And so they actually kind of inherently and legally have, I think, more flexibility in terms of protecting people's data appropriately. 23:03 Social media changed our world, but yet at some ways now that we see what's happened and we're putting all of this information out there, but yet now we have to be careful about what we've put out there because we've let every nefarious character out there see everything, and how they use that can come back to really create havoc on our world. 23:20 So now what's next then for us? I mean, we as a society have to be very careful about what we do as consumers versus what we ha- we do as governments with our data? 23:31 Well, you know, you mentioned, uh, the generational difference a bit earlier and, and I think that's relevant here. 23:36 Actually, most of the information that I've seen is that, that, uh, y- you know, generations that are just, uh, uh, emerging now, uh, uh, are... 23:46 have a much different view of, of privacy and data privacy than, uh, you know, my generation did. And, uh, you know, to me, again, I think the opportunity is here. 23:57 We're kind of at this cusp where, um, we can collectively have a discussion about what we want our society to look like in the future-And what those expectations are between, uh, sharing data for public good or for personal good, uh, and being able to protect data, you know, the way that Europe, for example, is doing, uh, in, in terms of, uh, uh, the GDPR regulations or that California is trying to do with their, their privacy legislation. 24:23 So how do you balance those things to make a, a society a place where we all wanna be and wanna live? 24:29 When we look at this right now just from, is there some big technology that's gonna come, you know, that you think is next to change our life? Well, I think artificial intelligence is, is right on the cusp of that. 24:41 Uh, it's certainly being widely used in, in a number of, uh, applications, a very wide range of applications. 24:48 Uh, the, um, you know, there's certainly issues that have been identified with that in terms of, of, uh, you know, bias in the, in the AI and so forth. 24:57 Uh, but, uh, you know, that's gonna be a huge change in the dynamic in terms of, uh, even jobs that people perform versus jobs that computers perform. 25:07 Uh, and, and so what we want that balance to look like, I think, is gonna be a critical social issue that we're going to, to need to address. Uh, there's some, some, uh, other ones out there. 25:19 You know, I, uh, have been exploring a little bit around quantum computing. I think it's going to change the, uh, how we think about data security, what's, what's secure and what's not. 25:30 Certainly the, the, you know, passwords for every different account that we're all used to are, are gonna be obsolete before too long, and so how do we, how do we think about keeping data private? 25:41 Uh, and then there's some, some, uh, scary things that are out there from my point of view, right? 25:45 The ability of what's called deep fakes to, um, you know, make me say things that I've never said in the real world and, uh, uh, you know, put that out there as, as an actual factual event. 25:58 Uh, how we, how we, uh, determine the difference between actual information and disinformation, I think, is, is gonna be critical going forward. So those are... 26:08 There's a couple that, uh, you know, I spend a fair amount of time on these days. And the big thing is we need to keep our younger generation interested in helping us move everything forward, right? 26:18 I mean, we've got to keep them interested in STEM, 'cause that's gonna be the most important so we, um, see when these deep fakes are occurring. I mean, is, is that important too? Sure. Uh, sure. 26:28 I mean, i- obviously, uh, and, uh, both in the schools, the, the STEM curriculum, uh, then, uh, you know, in the, in the workforce, uh, Virginia spends a lot of time and resources on workforce development. 26:40 Um, you know, I [laughs]... Uh, so the STEM curriculum for school kids is, is clearly critical on an ongoing basis. 26:49 Uh, but what I've seen a lot of people in the workforce, uh, the issue isn't keeping younger people, uh, interested and excited about what these technologies are. 26:56 It's, uh, keeping, uh, us older folks from, uh, uh, implementing things in a way that, that, uh, really have negative consequences down the road. So [laughs] Well, I think that's the point. 27:06 We need to keep our multi-generational group all connected together. I think that's it. Yeah. 27:11 Well, David Airy, Chief Technology Officer for the Center v- Center for Innovative Technology, thank you so much for your time today. Where can our listeners go to learn more about what you're doing? 27:20 It was an amazing conversation today. Yeah. Thank you. Uh, excited to be here, and, uh, uh, our website, uh, www.cit.org, uh, is a great place for lots of additional information. All right. Thank you so much. 27:34 All right, listeners, that's all the time we have for this segment. Check out our website at connectedworld.com or our show website at thepeggysmithyshow.com. 27:41 But most importantly, tweet at us at connectedwmag any questions you have or thoughts. Let's engage in a great conversation, 'cause that's the things we need to do. All right. 27:49 This is The Peggy Smith Show, the podcasting voice of IoT and digital transformation. And remember, with great technology comes great responsibility. We'll be right back after this commercial break. [upbeat music]
