Embracing Digital Equity at Dallas Innovation Alliance

On this episode of Bridging the Digital Divide, we welcome Jennifer Sanders, the Executive Director at Dallas Innovation Alliance in Dallas, Texas!

With Jennifer, we talk about how Dallas Innovation Alliance creates digital equity in their communities, their recent projects, how the non-profit gathers valuable information from local people, and more. The Dallas Innovation Alliance is a public private partnership on a mission to find innovative ways to help their community’s most challenging issues. Listen in!

Read the full transcript:

Jennifer Sanders: Kind of the first piece was how do we define what that North Star is at the inset that everyone can rally behind. And so, as opposed to everything about smart cities being anchored around technology, we really focused on a holistic approach.

Ally Peters: Welcome to Bridging the Digital Divide, a Smart City Podcast from Soofa, where we explore the places where urban landscapes are intertwined with technology to see how connectivity thrives, innovation sparks, and sustainability grows. 

Welcome to Bridging the Digital Divide, a smart city podcast from Soofa. I'm Ally Peters. I'm the Content Marketing Specialist here at Soofa. And I'm joined by my colleague, the Director of Marketing at Soofa, Kiel Hauck. Kiel, thanks for being here.

Kiel Hauck: Yes, very excited. We're getting better and better at this podcast thing every time and learning so many great things about developing smart city infrastructure. Every conversation we have, I feel like, is more and more enlightening about how communities are approaching and solving these problems.

Ally Peters: Yes, I definitely agree. And so today we are talking to Jennifer Sanders, who works as a co-founder and Executive Director at the Dallas and North Texas Innovation Alliance. She's had an eventful career so far working in cities, and she's definitely no stranger to implementing community development projects. A little bit about the Dallas Innovation Alliance. It was established in 2015, and it's a public private partnership dedicated to the design and execution of smart cities and strategies for Dallas. 

Ultimately, their goal is to help elevate Dallas as a city and provide community and economic opportunities for all its citizens. And I definitely got that point from our conversation with Jen. She is involved with these projects from start to finish, and she definitely has a lot to say about it. 

Kiel Hauck: You know, so much of Jen's story. And just like the beginning of the Dallas Innovation Alliance, it took a lot of really bold steps from Jen and the people that she works with to, one, actually get this off the ground as an organization. But then when you hear some of the stories of impact that they're already made, specifically around what she talks about as digital equity, and ensuring that the access to information, the access to the tools and resources that people need is that playing field has always been more and more leveled across the community. 

It was just really amazing to hear the hard work that they put in to begin enacting this across all the different communities that make up the city of Dallas, and it was just a really great conversation.

Ally Peters: Yeah, it definitely reminded me of our conversation with Bridget Anne Morin from Bay Harbor Islands as well, too, just in terms of their goals being so centered around technology and citizens and making technology accessible for everyone. I think that's such an important point. So I was definitely excited to hear more about that from Jen too. So yeah, without further ado, we are going to get into our conversation here with Jen Sanders from, Dallas and North Texas Innovation Alliance.

Kiel Hauck: Jen, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us.

Jennifer Sanders: I'm so grateful to be with you and running my mouth about all my favorite things. So thank you.

Kiel Hauck: Absolutely.

Ally Peters: We would love to start just by hearing a bit about your background because you've definitely had a very eventful career so far working with cities. But not only have you worked with cities, you started your career working communications and in the startup world. So we would love to hear a bit about your career path and how you ended up working with cities.

Jennifer Sanders: Sure, no, my pleasure. And the joke that I always make people say, how did you do such a deep career transition or such a strong industry transition? And I said, well, it turns out you get really excited about something, you go and raise money and then you go and do that. And that's really kind of the simple version of my story.

But to y'all's point, I started in public affairs and communications consulting and worked with clients across industries. And about in about 2014, I really saw this intersection between my energy clients, my technology clients, my economic development clients into this kind of integrated concept of smart cities and just really thought this holistic approach to using technology to improve cities and quality of life was so fascinating to me that I went to my co-founder, Trey Bowles, who's a serial entrepreneur and who I've known for years and years, and just said, Dallas really needs to get on this. What do we do? 

And he said, let's go meet with the mayor. So we went and met with the mayor and just tried to explain to him what this was and our estimation and how important it was. And he essentially said, sounds good, report back and let me know how we do it. And so, in working with other city staff, we just said we really think an independent nonprofit is a really smart way to do this because we can move independently, we can bring everyone to the table, we can move more quickly than the city can internally. 

So how can we help support and gathering best practices and learnings and testing that gives the city ammunition to really scale what makes sense and make those investments? And so we were able to launch at the White House in 2015, and Trey also jokes that if you launch at the White House, very few will try and stop you at that point, which I imagine is true, and have just been on a wild ride since then.

Kiel Hauck: Yeah, that's really cool to hear that story. And it rings true with so many of the conversations where we've had. You talked about having a passion or excitement about something and going and making it happen. So many of the conversations that we've had have had that same sort of beginning story where somebody has this passion, they go and people are like, yeah, how do we make that happen? And then that's where the rubber really meets the road and the hard work begins.

And I'm interested in knowing between those early conversations and bringing this idea to the mayor and co-founding the DIA in 2015. What's changed for you? Has your mission evolved at all as you've gone along and learned, what are some of the biggest things that stand out to you of what you thought it was going to be then, versus what it has become now?

Jennifer Sanders: Well, I think the industry is so young in the U.S. Even now, and certainly in 2014 and 15, very few kind of knew what this was, how to approach it. Everyone had different definitions. And so kind of the first piece was, how do we define what that North Star is at the inset that everyone can rally behind? And so, as opposed to everything about smart cities being anchored around technology, we really focused on a holistic approach. 

One of my favorite things to do personally is how do we connect puzzle pieces that no one realized could or should be connected at the inset? And so really saying, if we're going to use these tools to solve problems, ultimately the end game is how are we improving quality of life? How are we improving resource efficiency, how are we creating economic development broadly, but also inclusive economic development using technology and data as a tool? But ultimately, it's about people. And I don't think that that has changed. I think that that's still very much centered in the work that we do. 

I think where our focus has shifted a bit, and intentionally so, is our first round of projects was this concept of a smart cities living lab and taking this corridor to test eleven different projects across five problem statements and really say, not just how do each of them perform individually, but how are we looking at an aggregate picture or an integrated data analytics measure? So we really understand what the potential here is and really learned a great deal. It was a very fast pilot compared to how much time it generally takes. 

But then in 2018, we always knew our second phase. We wanted to be focused on solutions to equity driven issues because Dallas has a very deep North South divide. And we said, number one, Dallas is massive. Every neighborhood is going to have different needs, with some through lines, and we really wanted to focus on those issues that dramatically impact a large portion of our population. And that's really where the majority of our work centers today, is around digital inclusion and the digital divide.

Kiel Hauck: Yeah, you're bringing up so many of the things right off the bat here that we're excited to kind of dive in a little bit deeper on. And Ally, I know that one of the first things that you flagged for me as we were kind of looking into Jen and her work was the Living Lab project. And I know you kind of had an interest in sort of how that came about, right?

Ally Peters: Yeah, definitely. I mean, as I was exploring the website, you have a whole separate tab there. And I don't know, I think the idea of equitable access to technology is such an important topic, and I feel like sometimes it goes under the radar of what is important for a city. So, yeah, that was definitely something that stuck out to me.

Kiel Hauck: Tell us a little bit more about that project and sort of how those initial conversations happened in the development process to bring it to life.

Jennifer Sanders: No, absolutely. So the first kind of cluster of organizations that made up the membership at DIA included people like, obviously the city and the county, the public transit system, the utility chamber of commerce, university systems, and private sector partners. And so really getting them in a room. And we did a greenhouse session at Deloitte, actually, is where we kicked off and spent a whole day really mapping what do we think the biggest problems are, what do we really believe that strategies like we're talking about can solve? And so when we landed on those, that's when we really started to look at what technologies would be most appropriate for there wherever possible, we tested multiple solutions within a use case, and an example would be for the smart street lighting. 

We tested both LTE and WiFi based connected solutions for the smart nodes or for parking, we tested both camera based solutions as well as kind of the hockey puck nodes. And so what we really wanted to do was look at how could a neighborhood be revitalized by incorporating the use of technology in both early stage and otherwise. Because we made it a point to work with very young companies and the big Fortune 100 companies. And so we really wanted to look at how can all of these efforts combined elevate a neighborhood that had been the central entertainment district and really not rebounded, from some dips like some other districts downtown. 

So it started with a collective session where we really looked at where is their consensus. We did a lot of resident engagement and workforce engagement in this district because it's a heavy employment center and growing visitor population. So that was a very important step to us in getting a baseline on, did these ring true to this neighborhood?

Ally Peters: Yeah, absolutely. Just based off of what you're saying, it seems like there's so much preparation and work that goes into starting a project like this. And as I was looking at your website, too, I noticed one of your more recent projects was the community anchor site. And, I would love to hear a bit more about that and how that project started to come to be.

Jennifer Sanders: Oh, absolutely. So, the digital divide work that we started in 2018, there's a lot of learnings and twists and turns along the way. But we launched our first project in 2020, which was this mobile learning lab, retrofitted WiFi bus and went and parked in under connected neighborhoods, provided STEM and after school programming. It was really centered on the homework gap and then COVID hit. And so this program launched in May of 2020 when it was critically needed, but also couldn't quite operate in the way that we had intended it to in terms of no one was allowed on the bus. How do we modify that so it's accessible and provides an environment conducive to applying for jobs, using the WiFi surrounding the bus, et cetera. 

But we took those learnings and started building programs that provided access to internet in different parts of the city, combined with community organizations. An example, again, during COVID is we provided connectivity to allow for vaccine registrations on site. So we were able to walk residents through that. We were able to help them make appointments to go get those vaccines, help them book a free ride to get to the vaccine sites. But all of that required outdoor Wifi boosting for those services to even be able to occur.

And all of that is kind of built toward this umbrella kind of program called Connected Dallas, where we really interviewed service providers around the country and looked at, we have to hit every communication channel, every possible way to reach our friends and neighbors based on where they are. And that includes, if you can self navigate, we have a real comprehensive website, we have text and chat functions, we have community anchor sites and then individual ambassadors that are trained in the community. 

And so the community anchor site is the brick and mortar component of this program. And so in working with local nonprofit organizations that were established and perhaps needed some capacity to expand services and to have computers and good WiFi in their building for lots of things. We wanted to partner with established nonprofits to outfit this computer lab walk in center and then staff it to be able to provide classes, to be able to provide one on one case management across any service that requires digital access. 

So learning to use tele-health, learning how to use the public transportation app which is a barrier for a lot of these folks that aren't really familiar with the phone. Maybe it's a senior population that doesn't know how to book a paratransit ride, but just really trying to say you give them internet, you give them a computer, what if they don't know how to use it? What if they don't know how to take advantage of all of the ways that technology is making my life easier, but many either don't know how or don't know it exists at all.

Kiel Hauck: That was great. And it leads into, I think, the heart of what I was most excited to talk with you about. Because for us at Soofa, in addition to just sustainability best practices, a core piece of what we're about is providing equitable access of information to people. And so many of us in our daily lives just don't stop to think about how easy it is for us to get access to anything we need at any given moment, and how many people don't have anywhere near that kind of access to the things that they need that can make their lives better. 

And a big part of the word, part of what this podcast, I think, that we want to really key in on is smart cities can mean a lot of things, and there's a lot of great things associated with that. But one of the most important things, I think, when it comes to thinking about building a smart city is that connectivity of everyone at every place, every community has access to the information and the things that they need. And so when I saw on the DIA website that you have a specific page devoted to digital equity, I really kind of lit up, because I was like, this is really what we like to talk about. 

And all of the projects you've mentioned so far obviously lead into this, but talk a little bit about what that means to you, the idea of digital equity and how that manifests itself in just the day to day, not only of the functioning of DIA, but just the way that you approach any new project that you take on. And how the city buys into that.

Jennifer Sanders: It's a great question. And when we did switch our focus so heavily to the digital divide and digital equity, digital inclusion, so all of these terms are kind of evolving to be more empowered. I think it was digital divide for a long time. And so what we continue to hear is this is about providing opportunity and not starting from a really negative connotation that to equity and inclusion is shifting. But I did get a lot of questions of, oh, so I guess you're not doing smart cities anymore. And I said, no. I said, this is such a critical component of building a smart city. 

If we're talking about a smart city as one that improves quality of life, access to opportunity, incorporates technology into all of these things, that's a really foundational principle that's so baseline that I think it doesn't get to the flying cars. We talk a lot about shiny object syndrome within smart cities. And so that foundational layer of infrastructure can be then used by residents, but also for city service delivery and efficiencies. So I think the interweaving of that is direct. And there are cities like San Antonio where their smart, SA initiatives are so equity driven, place making, plus internet, plus all of these things that I think that's a really good example of a really holistic approach to this. 

But for us, in taking on a project, and I am guilty of scope creep, I am guilty of getting excited about anything that I think we could contribute to a solution for. So my team is trying to keep me in check a little bit more because we can't do everything. But certainly we look at, is this something that we believe that we have some level of expertise in looking at new solutions, we want to try brand new things, but at this point, I don't think I should become an expert in this thing that we've not touched yet. I think that we try and find those adjacencies, but I think we approach every project in the same way. In terms of where did that idea come from? Was it direct from a community member? And how can we, at minimum, empower them to know where to go to advocate for themselves? Do we believe that there's a technology solution in existence or a tool that maybe they weren't aware of and it's an awareness connection point? Or who do we need to bring into the table to say, we don't know what other people are doing, we don't know what the best practices are, can we first just get everybody into a room and train everybody up? 

Examples of that lately are things like data privacy. What is the responsibility of the public sector in protecting residents? Not just protecting the data that is being housed within a city or any institution, but what proactive steps should be taken to empower, educate, and develop technology specific to go to residents and their protection? And so, looking at those ethics, we're bringing in legal experts, we're bringing in regulatory experts, we're bringing in technology, we're bringing in peer cities, we're bringing in kind of national think tanks and academic folks that are looking at this. And I'm like, we just need to look end to end at all of these before we figure out, where do we want to go? And, where does there appear to be opportunity and moment and willingness to really take a look at these? Because some things come up and I say, okay, who wants to raise your hand? Or who's ready and who wants to do this? And we may not be there yet. And so I've learned to say, okay, well, let's look at what we can do. And then we need to circle back and see if there's a comfort level to engage yet.

Kiel Hauck: Obviously, the possibilities are endless, and there's so much that can be done right? And you talked about kind of reining yourself in sometimes, but ultimately there's these points where you have to sort of prioritize what do you have the expertise in what's going to make the biggest impact on the community? And a lot of that is learning from the community about what the true need actually is. So what sort of strategies do you use to collect that information? That feedback from citizens, from communities around Dallas so that you know that you're working on the right projects at the right time, or that you're actually solving the root issue of what a need might be.

Jennifer Sanders: I think the first thing is to try not to reinvent the wheel. So if there have been recent studies or recent focus groups or anything in a similar vein that other organizations have done, whether it's the city or a foundation or a nonprofit, we try first to look at, okay, what did we learn there? What did they learn there? And then kind of go from that starting point. Because one thing that we heard really early from community members was there is just massive survey fatigue. Like, it's just one example we can talk about. 

And so every organization, everyone and their mother is like, oh, we'll just go and ask these local nonprofits to distribute a survey. And the community has done 15 surveys over the last six months, and nobody ever came back to tell them what was going to happen as a result of their feedback. So some of it is, how are we not reinventing the wheel? How are we listening primarily, doing as little talking as possible? And how do we make sure that we have the capacity? Or basically, how do we make sure that we are scheduling a commitment to follow up, even if the answer is, I'm so sorry, we can't figure this out right now, but we hear you. And we've communicated that, but the trust is paramount to even get honest answers. 

And I think the data piece, one of the interesting stories when we were first working in South Dallas is I took in a map that had all of the 911 data mapped out. And I put it down, and I said, does this look right to you guys? And they said, well, some of it. They said, but right here. And they pointed to a corridor that there were barely any dots on. And they said, I don't ever let my child walk home from school this way or X, Y, and Z. We avoid this corner like the plague, and it's just not safe.

And I said, Why aren't there dots here? And they said, the police won't come out. Like, we don't bother calling anymore. Or they say they fear retaliation or whatnot. But that, to me, was one of the best examples of you can have hard data, but you have to get the qualitative. You have to go and talk and cross check that. And so I think we try, one, to leverage the network of partners and not local nonprofits and not neighborhood organizations that we have and then really do. 

We're doing a lot of door to door canvassing around the community, anchor sites and making sure the community knows that these resources are there and that they're welcome. So it's really a mix, but that is the most human capital intensive stage, really. It's just making sure that we're talking to enough people and have the answers and have that, affirmation that this is the right thing to do. That truly is the longest time investment that we put in for phase two before we launched a project. I spent about twelve months just meeting with the community before we even said, okay, we think this is a good first project, first way to go.

Ally Peters: Yeah. And I don't know, that story you told was sticking with me, and it just shows how important people's voices are. And, you also mentioned how important it is to show follow up after a survey or something like that, and yeah, it seems like you guys are doing really great work to make sure that you're really listening to the citizens and making things happen that they need. As we kind of get towards the end here, we would love to know where you or the DIA draws inspiration from. Are there any other communities or organizations that stick out to, you know, you draw inspiration from? 

Jennifer Sanders: There’s so many, so I think, you know, depending on the area that we're looking at, whether it's transportation or public safety or infrastructure, there's really good best in class for all of those things. I think some of the recent, one I mentioned San Antonio already, I think the work they're doing is really incredible and really, again, anchoring their roadmap in community engagement and keep people centered design of these strategies. 

We were just in Long Beach for a conference and learned a lot about how they're engaging the public around, privacy and understanding of just flagging here's this city technology, here's the data it collects, here's why it does, here's what it'll never do. And really working with a taxonomy based system, in order to kind of practice how are we proactively answering questions and informing. This camera is here, but here's why it's here, and it's here to do X but not Y. And here's how it improves your life ultimately is really important to make sure it's understood as well. So I think what they're doing around that piece, which is really uncharted. It's very early in terms of what do we do about this, is a really great example. 

Always look to Chattanooga around both their infrastructure and there's a lot of awareness around the fiber network. Beyond that, all the wrap around programs and development that's been happening there is something I watch with a magnifying glass and talk to there at the Enterprise Center, is just incredible. And then Coral Gables, there's so many I could mention, but Coral Gables in Florida. Ray Mundo has done one of the best, most incredible jobs around their data platform and integration and how they're managing and measuring different services. I just think he is a best in class for approaching that entire foundational element, which is one of the most complicated.

Kiel Hauck: Yeah, it's interesting because every city is so unique and so many of these strategies are applicable, and we've talked with folks from a city like Washington, D.C. Or a smaller place like Augusta, Georgia. I mean, Dallas is a big city in a southern state, and I would imagine there's lots of complexity when working. I mean, it's massive. You're one person, this one organization. How does that look like for you? I mean, what are some of the biggest challenges you face when just thinking about the scale of the city that you serve?

Jennifer Sanders: I think so much of it is about communication and connecting the dots, because I also run a regional organization focused on all of North Texas. And so a lot of it's getting people in a room, a lot of it is really trying to understand what everyone is already doing. And I will say that we learn as much or more from our smallest members as we do from the giant ones, because the lessons are applicable. We have cities as small as 4,500, and we've got the region, which is now over 8 million. And so, really looking at what can we all learn from each other? 

And I think a city like a sister city that we have learned an incredible amount from is Peachtree Corners, which is based outside of Atlanta. Their Curiosity Lab initiative and just all of the work that Brandon and that team have been able to create in the context of what is the city's involvement in these kind of p three testing grounds? How do you create mechanisms with which to bring extraordinary economic development and job growth and testing? But really, how are we elevating an entire community and the safety and all of the pieces that go into that, but I think I learn every day from Peachtree.

Kiel Hauck: That's awesome. Well, to wrap up, a final question. If you think about the other Jen Sanders of the world that are in their own city and they've got an idea and they're ready to bring this forward, and just imagine yourself back in 2015. What would you tell anyone out there in that place, in that stage today, like, advice that you would give them as they walk into this world of pushing forward smart city initiatives?

Jennifer Sanders: Well I think one is, some things can move very quickly and some things do not. And so I think the level of patience or just knowing that these teeny tiny wins or these teeny tiny pushes towards things that are. Bigger, like policy or things that I call above my pay grade. Right. So have a crazy idea, get people in a room and then say, here it is on a platter. I'm praying that this moves forward at this scale, but really what is within your control and what is not. But then also that you need to be called crazy at least once a month. 

Somebody's got to tell you you're out of your mind to be trying to either get these people in a room to get things to move forward. And so I think if you're doing this work, you have to be willing to throw out the hairbrained schemes. Right? And that's the title, the subject line of many of my emails is, Jen has another hairbrain scheme. But those conversations are really fun when I talk to executive level folks in the public or know in all these sectors, they're like, these are the most fun calls that I have. And it allows me to take some things and flow them through or come back where we can. So I think don't be afraid to throw out the big ideas. That's the only way you get there and just understand the pacing and I think know when to say, you know what, this is clearly not going to happen right now. And be willing to let that go too, I think, is something that I’ve learned, so yeah.

Ally Peters: Jen, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us today. I definitely learned a bit more about Dallas and how DIA is doing some amazing work.

Jennifer Sanders: Thank you so much for having me.

Ally Peters: Thank you so much for listening to that conversation with Jen Sanders from Dallas and North Texas Innovation Alliance.

Kiel Hauck: Yeah, she was really generous to share her time with us and share some of the stories of the work that she's doing. You know, one of the things that really stuck out in the conversation was when she talked about that idea of survey fatigue and the way that they think about the data that they have, that can tell them one story about the needs of a community, but it may not totally reflect everything that's true about what that community really needs. 

And so it was amazing to hear the extra steps that they take, the extra work that they do to really know the communities and neighborhoods that make up Dallas and what's unique between each of them and how to actually solve, not a perceived problem, but a real, true problem that impacts the people that live there. I was really inspired by the amount of work that it seems like to do it the right way.

Ally Peters: Absolutely. And I feel like this has been a common theme throughout a lot of our conversation, is that the foundation is just building strong relationships within your community to actually know what's going on. And so therefore, you can actually create projects that are going to actually impact and make a positive difference for them.

Kiel Hauck: Yeah, absolutely. So, great conversation, we hope you enjoyed it. If you did, be sure to check out what the Dallas Innovation Alliance is doing by going to dallasinnovationalliance.com. Ally, thanks as always for being on the show today.

Ally Peters: Of course, you too.

Kiel Hauck: We'll be back again with some more great shows coming forward, but until then, we'll catch you next time.

Thanks for listening to Bridging the Digital Divide. If you enjoyed today's show, make sure to subscribe to our podcast and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform.

Ally Peters: Platform and then come visit us at soofadigital.com to see how we're pursuing. Doing a mission to make every city smart, social and sustainable.