Eugene: Mozilla Gigabit City & Beyond

It has been a year since Eugene, Oregon was named a "Mozilla Gigabit City".

Once I obtained the title of "Gigabit Community Fund Portfolio Manager", and began the 3,000 mile journey in my trusty ol' Subaru Outback from Washington D.C., it was time to get to work. I was a Duck flying back to make lasting community change.

I was overjoyed, optimistic, and a bit intimidated when more than 200 people showed up to my initial event - advertising the grants to the community, being treated to a speech from the Vice President for Research & Innovation from the University of Oregon, as well as showcasing some of the potential uses of the technology we were all going to create together in Eugene.

Despite some initial trepidation, the floodgates of possibility opened once diverse groups of community members starting pouring into that event, getting engaged, staying engaged, and holding community conversations to discuss their creative ideations. Every day I get to wake up and help support community innovators attempting to utilize Eugene's fiber network (EugNet) for social benefit. I have been given amazing creative freedom from Mozilla, and have made good use of it with the mindset, "the beauty of innovation is that you don't know what is possible until you try".

Sometimes, this risk-taking results in massive success. Sometimes it results in absolute failure. One year and $193,000 in small grants ($12k-28k) later - and I can safely say that our local innovators, educators, entrepreneurs, technologists, and community supporters have made these 11 "pilot" projects a resounding success. Were there bumps along the way to innovation? You betcha. Unreliable rural broadband in underserved areas, unpredictable purchases thinning out budgets, partners backing out or providing poor communication, and lack of local resources in niche technical areas (4K streaming!) were all roadblocks that forced our grantees to pivot and adapt.

But, adapt they did. They always found ways to overcome these shortfalls and turn them into assets. Lane Arts Council had a partner school back out last-minute - so they found a replacement. Redefining Women in Tech couldn't find the perfect platform for interactive live-streamed co-located distance learning events - so they stitched together several local partners. Though these trial and errors were exhausting and stressful at the time - they resulted in community successes. We now have a much more robust and ever-expanding network of folks who are skilled in using hardware to provide interactive distance-learning experiences. It also helped expose some of our needs in terms of skills and infrastructure.

The number one quote I've received since starting this work was, "regardless of the decision, whether we get the grant funding or not, the connections we have been able to make through this process have been priceless." Coming into this work, I wanted to do more than simply hand out money and wipe my hands of responsibility. We have been able to integrate our work with local startups, nonprofits, accelerators & incubators, annual events, coffee get-togethers, professional development trainings, and workforce development programming like Elevate Lane County, Eugene Chamber industry tours & TAO's Experience Oregon Tech, Northwest Arts Integration Conference, BarCamp Eugene, Lane Workforce Partnership sector strategy meetings, and much much more.

"Regardless of the decision, whether we get the grant funding or not, the connections we have been able to make through this process have been priceless."

City of Eugene Mayor Lucy Vinis & City of Springfield Mayor Christine Lundberg

Community Collaboration

Despite being a staff of one locally, this has by no means been a solitary effort. We wouldn't even have gotten here without a strong application and advocacy from diverse stakeholders within the Eugene community. "You guys had 15 to 20 people show up talking about your community and what a wonderful network of people you have already thinking about the issues that Mozilla cares about,” said Lindsey Dodson, Director of the Gigabit Community Fund upon announcement of Eugene as a Mozilla Gigabit City.

These partnerships have not slowed down. I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the community leaders - executive directors, small business owners, CEOs, educators, public officials, students, artists, community development experts, and local leaders who helped make these impactful decisions along with me:

Round 1

• Courtney Stubbert, Owner/Designer, Arts Digital Co.
• Joe Maruschak, Director, RAIN Eugene Accelerator
• Heidi Larwick, Director, Connected Lane County & Lane STEM
• Kristina Payne, Executive Director, Lane Workforce Partnership
• Raymond Hardman, co-founder and CEO, Emerald Broadband
• Dr. Susan Rieke-Smith, Superintendent, Springfield Public Schools
• Harjasleen Gulati, Student, South Eugene Robotics Team
• Rebecca Sprinson, Executive Director, Eugene Education Foundation

Round 2

• Stephen Parac, Chief Operations Officer, XS Media
• Rebecca Sprinson, Executive Director, Eugene Education Foundation
• Mark Davis, Developer Evangelist, CBT Nuggets
• Shula Jaron, Director of Business Development, NemaMetrix
• Joshua Monge, Director of Economic Development, Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce
• Kate Hammarback, Impact Investment Consultant, Occam Advisors
• Amanda Baca, Program Coordinator, University of Oregon College of Design Office of Development
• Vonnie Mikkelsen, President/CEO, Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce

Think Globally, Act Locally

The work we have done, and the things we have accomplished, have not been contained by the confines of downtown Eugene. In fact, they go far beyond the greater Eugene-Springfield area. We have had extensive rural reach - partnering with Oaklea Middle School in Junction City, OR (Lane Arts Council) and Al Kennedy High School in Cottage Grove, OR (NEDCO) along with additional schools outside of the city-center where a majority of students receive free and reduced lunch. The Eugene Public Library will even be deploying their maker van to under-served communities to spread the knowledge of VR and other emerging technologies.

Bethel School District is the site of two Round-two projects: Lane Arts Artists Residencies & Bethel Education Foundations Wetlands GPS project. Although Bethel schools, such as Kalapuya High School (KHS), are only about 20-minutes from Eugene city center (though, they do have an entire working farm on campus) - they often have problems receiving adequate resources and representation. KHS works entirely with at-risk students and under-served populations who receive less services, support, exposure, training, education, and access to technology than other subgroups of students (57.9% of student families as considered low-income). The Wetlands project has received attention due to it's plan to bring a highly-coveted job skills (satellite-based radionavigation system mapping) to these under-served students.

Where else have our efforts been felt? Representatives from Redefining Women in Tech, Technology Association of Oregon, and Connected Lane County were able to travel internationally - to London, England in the Fall of 2017 - to represent the work being done in the community. A few of us even live-streamed back to Eugene at 2 a.m. to say hello to the UO Innovation Summit participants from the London Mozilla Headquarters:

We were in London attending Mozilla Festival (MozFest) - an annual get-together to discuss innovative ways of preserving the open web - keeping it "healthy". To us at Mozilla, a healthy web is one that cares about Privacy & Security, Openness, Digital Inclusion, Web Literacy, and Decentralization - read more about what a healthy internet means in our annual/crowdsourced "Internet Health Report". I was also lucky enough to present in the Digital Inclusion space with Amina Fazlullah, Mozilla Tech Policy Fellow on a session titled, "The Forgotten Community: Understanding how broadband access and digital inclusion are critical components to successfully revitalize struggling communities around the world."

Read about Lauren Jerome's (Redefining Women in Tech) MozFest experience here:

We have also made connections and impact in Austin, TX (Hack for Change, SXSW, and our partnership with Kiwi Compute), Kansas City (Smart Cities Connect Conference and Expo, 2018 US Ignite Application Summit, and our partnership with BigBang), Phoenix, AZ (Gigabit 101 Workshop), Lafayette, LA (Gigabit grant reviews), and Oregon's very own Portland - for the 2018 Global Sprint.

Moving Beyond a "Gigabit City" to Become a "National Tech Epicenter"

The success of the Mozilla Gigabit Community Fund is one in many in Lane County. Tech has become Lane County's fastest growing industry. For those who are unfamiliar with the Pacific Northwest, logging historically dominated the economy (much like coal did in Appalachia). In the early-1990's, the northern spotted owl became the symbolic figure of federal land management regulations which required the economy to diversify and steer in new directions. Thirty years after regulation changed the market, many logging-intensive economies are still reeling and looking for their new specialties. Thanks to both inter-sector and intra-sector collaborative approaches, Lane County is quickly ascending and has reason to be optimistic - thanks in large part to diversification and dedicated leaders.

In November 2017, Eugene/Springfield joined 24 other communities worldwide when it was selected as a US Ignite smart Gigabit Community - in large part due to it's previous selection as Mozilla Gigabit City, but also due to the strong cross-sectoral partnerships not typically seen in other applicant cities (all 5 Mozilla Gigabit Cities are now also US Ignite Smart Gigabit Communities).

In Eugene/Springfield's first round of eligibility for Smart Gigabit Applications - the city was awarded four grants (our of a possible eleven). Receiving over a third of all of the worldwide grants is a huge win for the Silicon Shire.

US Ignite Smart Gigabit Community Steering Committee

This strong sense of community is interwoven into the fabric of the Eugene technology community. As the local Mozilla Gigabit Portfolio Manager, I have had the pleasure of not only distributing a pot of money from the National Science Foundation - but serving on local community education/technology councils and boards, serving as a mentor for young people, and supporting positive community events such as (the first annual!) BarCamp Eugene, Hack for a Cause, and the Northwest Arts Integration Conference.

Mozilla also partnered with the Eugene Public Library to hold their own event - speaking to community members about the benefits of high-speed, low-latency "gigabit" internet (and virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), 4K video, artificial intelligence, and related curricula) through a Gigabit 101 Workshop - an open source, interactive, education session.

Community members learning about AR/VR at Eugene Public Library

The goal is to increase participation in technology innovation in support of a healthy Internet where all people are empowered, safe, and independent online - and to imagine what advanced high-speed networks enables citizens to do in a classroom and beyond for positive social impact. Connected Lane County & Lane STEM will be holding a professional development Gigabit 101 program for teachers and educators in Spring 2018.

Sustaining Eugene: facilitating a homegrown culture

Despite raising a group of digital natives - there is still a disconnect between young people utilizing technology and:

1. Having a hand in the creation of those technologies, and
2. Learning the technical/applicable skills in order to move into a career with those technological skills.

This is where local groups like Elevate Lane County come into play. I have had the pleasure of attending several events such as job fairs for graduating seniors, tabling sessions for middle-schoolers, and more. I, along with other diverse professionals from a range of industries, were able to help young people with resume reviews, mock interviews, and just chatting with them about the variety of paths we took to get to where we are today. It's important that young people learn there is a multitude of paths to get into different careers - none of which are "right" or "wrong". It's also important to teach them, with the weight of the world on their shoulders, that despite external pressure: life is not a race. There is no finish line, no perfect route to run, and nobody is timing you. It's been a pleasure being able to be a small guide along the journey many young people in Lane County are taking.

Elevate Lane County youth experiencing touring local technology companies

Project Outcomes

One year, and 11 projects, later and we have seen some tremendous results in the greater-Eugene area. We have parlayed ~$200,000 into career-readiness, changed lives, applicable skills, new friends, permanent scalable programming, closer-knit community partnerships, and some pretty cool hardware.

City Synth | Harmonic Laboratory

• People impacted: 200
• Hours spent: 519
• Locations: 5

City Synth, led by Harmonic Laboratory, worked with engineers, technologists, and students from the South Eugene Robotics Team to transform the city of Eugene into a musical instrument. This resulted in an interactive mixed-media installation displayed downtown that remixed & synthesized audio and video gathered from around the city.

South Eugene Robotics Team (SERT) successfully built six Raspberry Pi camera modules for the installation and figured out how to code a general Python program to stream video over the internet. The code created by SERT is open source and now available online c. City Synth opened in February as part of Lane Art Council’s First Friday Artwalk. The installation was part of the guided tour series, which was led by Eugene Symphony’s conductor, Francesco Lecce -Chong and had over 100+ community participants.

The coding of live video for SERT proved difficult. Up until the week before the installation, the Pis were streaming video at 2 fps. SERT member Tiffany Huang explains, “We faced a surprising challenge of streaming full HD video at 30 fps. Because of this, we decided to switch from Raspian commands and FFMPEG to a Python program to stream. Thankfully this did the trick!”

The month -long installation also proved more challenging than other intermedia works we’ve done before. Having the installation in a public space with offices that was open to the public 20 hours a day, we had to create lockable units for the computers, had to code in ‘quiet-time’ to be considerate of local businesses, and had to develop a robust crontab to ensure the project’s longevity.

"I was sitting at South Eugene High School when the team figured out the solution. It was awesome to experience the huge cheer and elation from the team when the “I got it! I got it!” moment happened," said Job Bollena, co-Director of Harmonic Laboratory. This was HarmonicLaboratory’s first time partnering with Lane Arts Council to be part of their First Friday Artwalk. We were immensely happy with the public turnout and interest in the project. Surveying the crowd during the artist talk, many of the 100+ audience members didn’t know about the gigabit network, and the group spent time afterward talking with individuals about the the network and its possibilities.

Four video cameras built by SERT were placed in four different locations across the City of Eugene, including two outside locations. The live video feeds streamed views of Eugene over the gigabit network in real time. XS Media, a local internet provider of EUGnet, the largest ‘open access’ fiber network in Oregon, provided the dedicated IPsfor the four camera feeds. XS Media also ran an Ethernet line inside the Broadway Commerce Center lobby, where Harmonic Laboratory was able to plug-in and access the four video feeds using the gigabit network.

SERT members who directly worked on the project had no prior experience programming Raspberry Pis nor experience with video conditioning.

Connor, a freshman, jumped into the unknown having had some experience with Arduinos. He began programming the Pis and getting the camera to work. Joshua, a junior, then used Raspbian programs to stream video at low frame-rate over the internet. As the technical obstacles to faster frame rates became clearer, Jackson, a freshman, became involved and programmed a solution in Python. Through coding an open- source application for streaming video online in a cost- effective manner, SERT was able to demonstrate how others may leverage gigabit technology to connect online.

The project constituted a tripartite partnership between arts, STEM education, and local business. SERT students visited and problem solved their initial ideas with local business partner, XS Media, and their final solution had to be tweaked to interface with the network while also being resilient enough to work outside in the elements. The SERT team explained, “Eugene is known as an arts- centered city, so to be able to integrate STEM with music is an amazing opportunity to show our community the role that STEM can play in our lives.” The interactive installation let community members play with the network throughout the month of February as a positive display of exploration.

Harmonic Laboratory was able to provide SERT with a stipend to not only fund the work they do, but to develop an educational and community outreach program designed around Raspberry Pis and coding for gigabit video. The project, tentatively called "Community Pi" is already being developed. Watch out for it in a neighborhood near you!

?Gigabit Residencies | Lane Arts Council

• People impacted: 143
• Hours spent: 3,821
• Locations: 5

In Lane County, only 19% of educators in rural and low-income schools have formal arts training. By bringing artists to the students, rather than putting the burden on families to get private tutoring, Lane Arts Council is drastically increasing exposure to the arts in youth. As part of the Mozilla grant, these students gained skills in graphic design, audio engineering, storytelling, and more by leveraging lightning-fast gigabit internet through cross-city collaboration. The project also provided web-based professional development for teachers in order to increase the exposure to the arts in a ongoing manner.

The Pilot Gigabit Residencies were a tremendous success. At the end of the grant cycle, the students who participated in the Residencies had produced over 50 completed projects to showcase to the community, and 137 students and six educators had been engaged in the art of storytelling and had learned at least one new technology. After the Residencies’ close, additional stories are being created, specifically at Kelly Middle School and North Eugene High School, where the story creation through technology has been built into the curriculum of the classrooms.

“Olive has an infectious enthusiasm for the diverse toolbox of digital storytelling tools she explored with the students," shared one of the teachers who expanded the work full time.

Five teachers were able to learn directly from Olive on how to incorporate Digital Storytelling into their classrooms in future years, and all educators expressed a deep appreciation for the time Olive spent working with them in their classroom.

A student added, "I love working with GarageBand! Olive lets us DJ in between videos and mixing music live is so much fun. We all take turns because everyone wants the chance to be the DJ for the class. GarageBand makes it super easy."

The pilot Gigabit Residencies’ final showcase took place at the First Friday Artwalk on March 2, 2018. Project partners, community members, students’ family members, and other educators attended the showcase to observe the stories created during the Residencies.

The project also received a second round of funding - this time with plans to add Virtual Reality to the mix of digital storytelling and creation.

Connected Youth Financial Foundations | Neighborhood Economic Development Corporation (NEDCO)

• People impacted: 29
• Hours spent: 291
• Locations: 8

NEDCO is a nonprofit community development organization that has been serving the Eugene-Springfield area since the 1970’s. Through this grant, they were able to utilize gigabit high-speed internet connections to create high-quality interactive learning experiences and counseling opportunities for underserved youth.

“It is hard to quantify the power the Mozilla grant had on the DNA of our organization’s programming,” said Ross Kanaga, NEDCO's Lead Community Financial Educator “Tech can be used to build non-profit capacity and bridge the urban-rural digital equity divide”.

After taking the Connected Youth Financial Foundations class, student Blaize opened a Roth IRA immediately.

The 29 youth served were an extremely diverse cross-section including youth who were experiencing poverty, homelessness, disabilities, alternative schooling, public high school, home school, and conservation corps work-study programming. Redefining Women in Tech even reached out to one of NEDCO's youth who has interest in tech to help guide her on a career path in the industry.

"This project allowed our agency to see new possibilities to use technology to reach populations who face particular barriers to coming to our site, provide those who lack high--tech equipment with access, and expose the rural classroom to guest speakers in the city—which would have not been possible without a classroom stream," said Stacey Yates, NEDCO's Youth Asset Building Specialist.

NEDCO plans to make finance/tech classes, and distance learning, a permanent part of their youth and adult programming for years to come.

Interactive Video Learning Events | Redefining Women in Tech

• People impacted: 125
• Hours spent: 100
• Locations: 2

Redefining Women in Tech used interactive 4K to help women (though all were invited) navigate the often inequitable tech sector with job resource training, professional development opportunities, and community organizing - building on the organization’s success creating events that connect women with the resources and community they need to thrive in tech careers. The collaborative workshop format used real-time, low-latency video and interactive technologies to engage speakers and participants in multiple 4k-enabled locations.

The project was capstoned with two major events in February - "Extreme Collaboration: Getting Ahead with Unexpected Allies" & "Training + Technology: Inclusion by Design in the Gigabit Era". Simultaneously connecting two classrooms and doing collaborative learning, interacting, and community connecting in real time.

The events attracted 78 participants from greater-Eugene/Springfield. Redefining Women in Tech also became regional experts, and advocates, for live-streaming along with local technology group EugeneTech. Together, they helped the entire portfolio of Mozilla Gigabit grantees navigate the world of high-quality, interactive, streaming video.

See these articles for more information:

Coder in Residence (AKA "Gigabots") | Lane STEM

• People impacted: 390
• Hours spent: 2,070
• Locations: 15

The Coder in Residence program puts "Gigabots" — gigabit-internet enabled robots — in 4th & 5th grade elementary school classrooms. The project was led be an all-women robotics programming team - consisting of eight local tech sector professionals who acted as robotics mentors in the classrooms. But, the education didn't stop with the students. Lane STEM created professional development learning opportunities for educators in order to sustain the work far beyond the grant period.

Eight Coders-in-Residence (six pictured) volunteered from the local tech industry to visit fourth and fifth grade classrooms.

"Our project was enthusiastically received by students, teachers, and coders. We heard many stories of students who were thrilled when they caught sight of their Coder -in -Residence because they knew it was “Gigabot Day," said Erin Maloney, Coordinator at Lane STEM.

The students learned what a robot is, what code is, how to program a robot using the Gigabot dashboard, and a little bit about how robots receive code over an internet connection. Lane STEM made an open repository of lesson plans, code snippets and Gigabot model (“JimmyKyle”) build plans that were used to build 30 Lego Mindstorms robots - all meant to align to current classroom standards (ISTE, NGSS) and be accessible to all students. This, along with the GitHub repository of Gigabots firmware (thanks to BigBang, the creator of "The Gigabots", makes this a truly open-sourced project.

Lane STEM has wasted no time in spreading and scaling the work - as our partners in Lafayette, Louisiana have already begun working with Lane STEM to adapt the massive successes from Eugene.

Most students had no experience with programming or robotics and this project allowed students in upper elementary school to gain experience as creators, rather than consumers of technology, by working with code in a simplified form. LaneSTEM also assured students, especially female students, were able to interact with a female adult role model who works in a STEM field, with the hopes of normalizing the experience as they approach adulthood.

The Future

Giga-Scapes | TechToneGraphix Using internet-connected board games, this project allows people hundreds of miles apart to play together. It also features STEM workshops for local students, taught by game-industry experts.

Gigabit Residencies | Lane Arts Council This project provides virtual reality and video game development training to teachers at low-income schools.

Real Time Wetland Restoration Mapping and Analysis | Bethel Education Foundation This project empowers at-risk students as environmental watchdogs — teens will use Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to track land restoration initiatives.

Educational Equity VR | Treadwell Ventures This projects uses virtual reality training to help eliminate teachers’ unconscious biases — and, as a result, mitigate disproportionate suspensions and expulsions for minority students.

Opening Access to Virtual Worlds | Eugene Public Library This project provides training in the fields of virtual reality and video game development for community members.

Path to Python | Kiwi Compute This project provides an interactive Python curriculum to students in low-income schools between Austin, TX and Eugene, OR by partnering with Connected Lane County & Lane STEM.

Other Press Coverage

• https://nbc16.com/news/local/eugene-becomes-a-gigabit-city-i-think-its-an-opportunity-for-folks
• https://www.techoregon.org/blog/talk-tech-me-mozilla-gigabit-city
• https://eugenemagazine.com/feature-stories/tech-in-eugene/
• https://klcc.org/post/eugene-joins-ranks-mozillas-gigabit-cities
• https://klcc.org/post/citysynth-imagines-eugene-player-piano
• https://klcc.org/post/wetlands-mapping-teacher-bias-research-and-other-eugene-based-projects-get-mozilla-money
• https://medium.com/read-write-participate/mapping-oregons-wetlands-with-help-from-high-schoolers-and-gigabit-technology-d526677aaf41
• https://klcc.org/post/eugene-women-tech-group-re-imagining-video-events
• https://registerguard.com/rg/news/local/36124913-75/eugene-springfield-groups-to-share-83000-in-grants-from-mozilla.html.csp
• https://kval.com/news/local/eugene-springfield-leaders-meet-with-mozilla-to-discuss-grant-money
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwcbC7jTrCE

Thanks to all of the amazing partners who made this work possible!