In this episode, we will explore the LGBTQIAP community in Pittsburgh’s technology and innovation industries with three business executives/entrepreneurs across three technology market sectors, including health care/tech services, instrumentation and industrial tech. Denise DeSimone, CEO & Founder, C-Leveled; Israel Alguindigue, PhD, VP, Analytics, Fortive Corporation; and Rick Cancelliere, CEO, Treatspace, will provide their perspectives on the challenges, opportunities and next steps to embrace diversity and create more inclusion across Pittsburgh and its tech ecosystem. As recognized leaders in the tech industry, each of the panelists have unique insights on building a more inclusive future for Pittsburgh.
Transcription:
Okay, good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to business as usual, this is Audrey Russo. And I have a great program here today. So don't go away. I think you're gonna be interested in all the things that we're going to talk about. I am president of the tech Council and joined with me is my co host Johnson person. He's all things media. Couple of things about today's call. And it wouldn't be possible without our long term friends of Huntington bank, and the web law firm. Both of those companies have been with us right from the onset and almost everything that we do. So we really appreciate them taking a bet on this work by knitting the community together. So I also want to tell all of you that your microphones we muted all of you. Although I am hearing a little bit of some, some sort of ambient noise, there really is some noise going on. So Brian, make sure that we've muted everyone except for our guests. And that said, we have an opportunity for chat. So there's a chat room right at the bottom. And this is your opportunity to ask questions and make some comments related to today's conversation, but not to sell your wares really appreciate that. So today's session, we have three esteemed leaders from our community here in Pittsburgh. And we're going to focus on the role that the LGBTQ community plays in Pittsburgh technology innovation industries, and explore some of the unique challenges and opportunities that can exist for regions that really embrace creativity, diversity, and inclusion. So we're going to have a conversation that we're going to hopefully dig in a little deeper into.
Have some of the topics but let First I want to just introduce the guests by name, and then let them just talk about for a minute about who they are. So first we have Denise Simone, CEO and founder of C-Leveledl, Denise. Hello, thanks for having me, Audrey.
And then Israel is PhD and vice president of analytics of Ford of Corporation. And if you haven't heard of it, they actually acquired Industrial Scientific, and who has been a long term partner in the work that we do at the tech Council. But Israel comes to us recently from Chicago, and he'll tell you a little bit about his role and the work that he does. And then last, and certainly not least is Rick Rick, if I can see your face there. Rick Cancelliere he's CEO of TreatSpace. So I'm gonna pass the baton really quickly and I'm going to introduce a more recent to Pittsburgh, Israel, Israel come to the tell us a little bit about who you are, what your experience has been, and anything personal that you think you'd like to share that people should know about you.
Yes, good morning. And thank you so much for having me. I, like you said I came from Chicago, I used to work for a company called uptake there and came to work for 45 here. We're very fortunate to be co located with industrial scientific. And you know, prior to that I was at GE and Emerson and other iconic industrial companies, and I also serve on a corporate on a couple of corporate boards, but more importantly, I am married to a wonderful guy named Brockie for the last 30 years and we have a son Pablo who's 24.
Who are delighted to have here in Pittsburgh? You're in depth and demick because he's office in Chicago has been closed. So thank you so much for having me. Wow. Well, lucky for you to have your family together. There's always bitter sweetness to all of this. So now I'm gonna jump over to Rick. Rick co treat space. Good afternoon. Tell us a little bit about you.
My name is Ricky Cancelliere. I was born and raised in the Pittsburgh area. I grew up in an old steel town called Elwood city. I was raised by a single grandmother who taught me that gay people were mentally ill. And I grew up in a church that taught me that gay people were immoral. And I even went on mission trips to every continent except for Antarctica, on just on Christian mission trips and I met gay kids my age and learn that I was neither ill nor immoral. And my first jobs are in technology. I think I lucked out. I started some technology companies and those companies opened a lot of doors for me. I paid for my education at TED. I was the first in my family to graduate from a four year and four year university. And I started a software company treats base that tracks the number of lives we save every month. And I've been incredibly lucky to be surrounded by a team of people that support and celebrate me from my board of directors to my employees. And my partner is a brain scientist in the laboratory at Pitt focused on Alzheimer's. And I've had a very interesting life here in Pittsburgh. One of my neighbors last year was cited by the police for calling me a faggot. Another neighbor calls me Tiger King because I have a dog. And I've learned when to draw the line and how to do it more often. While also learning how to thrive.
Thank you. Thank you for your candor on that. Denise, Denise assignment, CEO and founder of sea level and many other companies. Thanks for joining us. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Well, I am from Uniontown have been in this area All my life I moved away during the 80s and ended up running, you know, a good successful business. I was able to sell it and decide to come back to Pittsburgh.
It's you know, I've had a similar experience to Rick because I grew up in a small town and, you know, I only heard about 20 times a year that I just haven't met the right man.
But, you know, I'm fortunate that you know, I have a wonderful spouse and we have three kids. All boys.
And we're we're living probably a couple miles from my office. So you know life is good. My partner's a teacher, which I'm very proud of and can't understand why I could never do that job.
But fortunate and, you know, we're happy to be here.
So here we have so we we've set this table here with three different personas and three different sets of experiences and lenses. So Israel, you moved here a year and a half ago, right? And then of course, we've been in this pandemic for the last, you know, few months. What is your What is it like for you to be a leader in Pittsburgh and be a gay man.
You know what I think I'm trying, I'm still trying to figure that out. I don't come from Chicago, Minneapolis where, you know, the community is much more visible.
It's, it's, it's been a difficult transition from that regard because I haven't really met that many people that are leading and are members of the community. But I think in general, there is a great disposition from, from, you know, the companies themselves the Enterprise's themselves. In learning, I've had so many interesting conversations of our people that are just trying to learn what this is all about. And it looks from the outside, like a very complex community that's very diverse in and of itself. But I've always found that that, that intrigue, you know, interest in learning about how to best work and how to best, you know, extract the contribution that we can make to the tech community here, but it's very early for me, I'm still trying to figure it out to reflect with you know, I really appreciate that. And, you know, just, you know, I take a personal responsibility in terms of all of that as well. So
Let's let's go to Rick, what's it like? For you, Rick, what's it like for you to be an executive in the startup community and to attract and retain people to work for you?
So I, earlier on, I think that you have to learn when to be on guard and when you can be transparent.
And you're if you're lucky, you build a foundation that's as solid as concrete and you find support.
Your enemies also find you, they attack you. Sometimes the enemies are hidden. But I think that Pittsburgh has a solid foundation for the LGBT community in in its hopes and dreams. I think it wants to be good for us. And I think that it doesn't necessarily know like, most rustbelt cities how to get there. But I think that I'd like to imagine a world where leaders like myself, find boardrooms where sexual orientation is as irrelevant as your glasses or your shoe size. Right. I think that we'd like to find a place where we we don't have to question whether our partners will offend an investor, right. Or, you know, being a member of a community shouldn't really be any different than anything else. And I think that ultimately, there's a tax that we pay for being different here. And I think that it's more significant than other regions in the United States. And that tax introduces walls, hurdles and obstacles that have to be overcomed. And in Pittsburgh, like other minorities.
Right, you have to become very skilled at overcoming obstacles and paying higher taxes if you want to excel. And if you're able to do it, kudos to you. Right. And, and there's, there's a lot of learnings that you get going through that.
So that's, that's interesting. I want to I want to jump to Denise quickly because Denise has shared some stories. I mean, she has plenty of stories to talk about what it's like to be, you know, to be a lesbian running a company in Pittsburgh and trying to and getting work right and, and just getting work. And so Denise, I want to pick on the spot, if you can, you don't have to give names of companies but give some examples of the tribulations that you've been through.
Yeah, you know, when I left Pittsburgh, you know, the the climate here in the community was rough and when I decided to come back.
I was expecting. I was expecting it to be a whole lot different and in reality it wasn't that different. And, you know, I agree with Rick's points. I mean, I think Pittsburgh as a city wants to be a good citizen, for our community, but, but it really isn't achieving that. You know, I've had early on, you know, people tell me that, you know, we, they were not they were taking us out on the RFP process because they didn't do business with iKON.
I've had people advise me that I should let a heterosexual guy present at a board meeting on services that we were providing. So you know, I don't think the city does a great job of helping support us and and i believe Law, there's a lot of a lot of changes that we've made and we've improved as a city. I think for the, for those of us in the business community, it hasn't. I mean, when you look at the city of Pittsburgh website, while I really like a shade tree committee as part of the government, there's no LGBT community on the on the website, so, you know, I think we're in that city, you know, we'd like to check the boxes but I really don't believe there's a serious push to help improve our community.
So, you know, I'm Israel's, comes to this town, and he has comes out of Chicago, for example, or even Minneapolis and Minneapolis, which is like a comparable city to Pittsburgh. He points out and I'm going to give the floor back to him a little bit. He You know, he was some of the words I hear Him uses surprised, hard to navigate. I'm not telling our story, etc. Israel, could you compare to us like if you would have imagined us doing it well, in terms of being welcoming, or being seen as an inclusive city, what does that what would that look like and and give us your perspective from your experiences which are richer than the rest of us who are, you know, here right now on this panel?
So, Brian, can you unmute Israel?
Sometimes Sometimes with zoom, you like have to hit the thing like three or four times? Yeah, there you go.
You know, that's a really, really interesting question. I think that from from a marketing perspective, what i what i think we could do a lot better is to market in the city and the technology landscape here as a as a great wealth of opportunity for diverse people, right? And I think we do we do great work in marketing the city to tech, but we don't really talk about how inclusive we we strive to be. And I think that that would be a big part of that. And I think also, you know, they, in order for that to become reality, you have to have some kind of support structure, right. And I keep thinking about organizations in Chicago that are out in tech is one that I remember vividly with which I was involved there. They're just their organizations that are there to highlight, you know, the wins, the talent, the opportunities, the networking, and I think something like that will will help us a lot here to get to that point. But I think in general, it's also different because people are a lot more visible in those markets in Minneapolis or Chicago. There is tons of have leaders that are out and and they reach out to their community and they become mentors to many of us along along the way, and that helps kind of boot people up. And I think that some of that is what we need to do here.
Mm hmm. Yeah. And so what what about to comment from, from all of the I mean, we're, you know, we know, the backdrop, the pandemic, everything going on here.
It's going on all around the world. And, you know, I worry that during this period of time, that we may have taken a step back in terms of really trying to build on some of the stories and the assets of all people, you know, because we just have gotten really preoccupied with what what is really not working. Now, what is not working. I mean, Israel gives a great example of the storytelling and the marketing and sort of like just being able to be abusive, and everyone know that this is the environment what is what's not working?
Denise read along? Well, I you know, to me, I don't think that the city of Pittsburgh is really dedicated to the cause. I think it's everybody. I don't think anybody in our community are many, you know, communities were surprised when Amazon said we weren't really that diverse. Right. So I think the city of Pittsburgh likes to say that we support that. But when there's no initiative coming from the city, it's hard.
I don't I don't believe in like I said, I use one example of, you know, on the on the website, there's boards and commissions, and, you know, we should be represented on one of those commission. You know, for a year they've been toying with this Advisory Committee. Well, that's just not enough.
Okay, that's your saying it's back to the whole thing about checkboxes that we talked about early on. Rick, do you want to jump in on that one?
Sure. And oh, I'll preface by saying, I think there's a lot that is working and that there is a lot that can be improved upon. But this discussion is about what isn't working. So I'm going to harp on a few things that are important.
I don't want to come across as a Debbie Downer.
First off, I think that at least regarding the pandemic, and and all the racial and justice issues that are happening right now, I find that right now we need to support the African American colleagues that we have in the city and address in justices and in a number of ways I mean, Stonewall, you know, it's anniversary was last year. And the whole effort began as a riot because of injustice in the community and murders and raids that are happening. And and I think that, yes, it's Pride Month, and there hasn't been much discussion about it. But I think that it might not be our time right now. And so that might be the right or wrong thing to say. But I feel like there's there's other platforms that are incredibly important that need attention right now. And when I think about what's not working, I can drill down into a couple areas. And I'll happily start with legislators. You know, less than two hours after our administration was sworn into office, all mentions of LGBTQ issues were removed from the White House's web page, right. I mean, LGBTQ data was, was completely rescinded and struck from the title 20 senses, right? We're appointing judges that are anti LGBTQ.
Trump was joking about pencils desire to hang LGBTQ people in 2017. Right. We we have legislators that it refused to even condemn or attack the crimes that are happening in Chechnya where gays are being murdered for being gay in the street, right. I mean, you have a country that's refusing to let LGBTQ people seek asylum here and flee from in countries where they're being killed. I mean, it legislation is a big issue for me. And so it may not be just a Pittsburgh issue, right. I think it's a national action. But when you look at the workplace, I think that employment discrimination against LGBTQ people is an issue. And our current administration is submitting briefs to the Supreme Court supporting discrimination. Right. And they're banning transgenders in the military, they're rolling back non discrimination protections. Right. And there's, they're issuing rules to license discrimination at the Department of Justice level. So there's a lot that's broken from a legislation and workplace standpoint.
And, and, and there's some major challenges too, and it's not just our city. I mean, you look at public companies, like there's not a single black person on the board, Adobe, Nvidia, Cisco, or or, or even Procter and Gamble, right. There's major issues around diversity right now throughout the whole country. So thank you for that. Jonathan. There are some statements in here that their statements and some questions and I'd like to give Israel a chance to hear some of them because some of them around prove it.
Being provincial. Yeah. And can you read a couple of these? I mean, two of them are in here. Absolutely. And asked, I have a question that came in on the private chat for Denise as well too, that I want to get to, which I think is a really good question. But um, so here's here's some insight from from Michael Steiner, and curious to see what it will say about this. So this is a long one here, so bear with me here. He says, when I was a student in university for the first time in the 80s, and some sexual choices were illegal. He thought this is unheard of. I thought to make it illegal was unlawful. We've had 2020 this is still an issue makes me feel that we are all to blame. Otherwise, how could this be you know, 40 years later? This is still an issue Why?
Okay, um, so, keep going, though. Keep talking. There's there's something in here about new comments on my chat, so I hear from from Brent says there is no information specifically focusing on newcomers, which means we as a region need to dissect the new cover population by realities, professions, students, country of origin, gender churches, and this way newcomers will find a group where they can find common points of interest. Interesting point there. Many families would love to have groups alike. Also human resource managers prefer to hire locals and so on. I think that's a really good Yeah. What do you think about that Israel in the time that you've been here? You know, I think I, I hear that comment. And I and I know that this is a this is a community that's very grounded in family. And so family is very important, and it's hard to network. My personal experience has been that, you know, that it has been a times difficult. It's all about trying to get into the right circle, right. And that's probably a lot of personal work that everyone has to do.
I mean, the other thing that I would say is, you know, I don't think. Don't ever believe that anything is just one dimension. Any problem is just one dimensional. I think we all have, you know, a responsibility and a burden and what's going on. And I think we all have to become more visible and ask for what we want. We have to go and seek out this mentorship. I always tell people, I talk to MBA classes every year, at least three different classes. And I tell everyone reach you reach out on LinkedIn, and I love to be your mentor. And I rarely get one single person to take me on that offer. Right? And that is a really bad thing to let pass when somebody offers you that kind of support. So I think we all have a responsibility on what's going on. We all have to reach out and try to get what we want and blame what's ours, frankly.
And there's another comment here about that people have their own networks and it's hard for them to share it. And that's, that's that's one of the things that I think about as a as a no because you're sure your network is. You're gonna have less of a network because your show your network, you continue to cultivate great connections. So I think it's, we have just have to look at it differently. Right and, and realize that the people that we need to grow this economy locally, and to grow the tech community and define the talent that we need. I'm not here, necessarily. We can not make enough of those. We have people from the outside, come here and help us out. So I deal with that every day. Audrey, I've got a question for Denise, can I interject real fast? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I wanted to get back to the thing about hiring so keep going, everyone to get to suit Denise. Um, obviously, you also being a woman that has to make things even even doubly hard for you at times as well, because you're you're facing discrimination. Often, I would assume, on both ends being a woman and also being gay. So I would assume like you'd have to become one tough cookie to get through or these days.
Yeah, you know, it's challenging. You know, um, you know, when I first started out in in tech, it was. There was nothing about me that was appealing to the tech community, you know, a gay woman in tech.
You know, so it's it's been a challenge. And I think it's a little bit like Rick said, you know, it just may we have to be better and smarter and more creative and all of that, to even get a seat at the table. And I think, you know, the older I get, and now with children, I also have a responsibility that, you know, I have three white boys that I have to teach to be respectful to women, respectful, and LGBT, be their own person, be respectful, and make sure they understand that Black Lives Matter and I mean, it is it is a world of responsibility right now. And, you know, for us as, as members of our community, you know, we also have to take a little risk ability for the lack of progress. You know, we have to ask ourselves, are we doing enough for the the younger people coming up? And I think that answer also is No. Well, it's it's nice to say it's I don't think it is one dimensional either, like Israel sad. I think it's it's a situation that we have to really be committed to the younger people coming up.
So, there's still there's still a couple of more. Um, someone just got a shout out to you. Yeah, cool. Sign up, said My God, a woman in gaming needs to apologize for being amazing. Rick.
I would like to comment on that.
There is a researcher named Vivian Ming that was published in the advocate a couple years ago that she did this amazing research where she applied machine learning and big data to analyze workplace bias. And she's the one that kind of revealed the tax on being different. Right and, and she called it a quantifiable cost of not being a straight white male in the workplace, and it's paid in the form of additional degrees, longer work histories, more prestigious schools and generally having to over prove yourself everywhere and and it was funny because she started to apply me financials to it she said okay, in, in in the UK, being gay cost you an additional $70,000 on average more than being straight largely in longer work 10 years, but being a lesbian in eastern Asia, right in the tech industry comes with a bill that's $1.2 million in additional education and time versus other people, and then she began to compute it down into specific cases like she can actually tell you what's the tax on being black, gay and an Exxon in Houston, right.
But I think what's more important to is something that's really important you have to work harder just to receive it just to get the same outcomes like and black people have the same feeling. Women have the same feeling. And when you have multiple layers of that on the same element, the I say this is a white male right? I mean, young gays internalize that tax and give up on STEM careers because of it. And leadership right and they choose to focus their lives on fun or family and then anything else where they just can't be taxed and, and we try to convince them to choose a career path.
And lean in, right? But what sort of choices that when you're working twice as hard for half the outcome when other options are available. And this is what we see every day in our category. And the choice is fundamentally inequitable and distributed. And so you have to really look at things like, you know, for trans people, the choice of gender transition means sacrificing everything, not just a career, family and phrase, in some cases, that every impact they they ever had hoped for in the world. And that's how they feel, but it's wrong because of the tax that's placed on them by society that isn't and shouldn't be there. Right. And so how many amazing lives have been, you know, not lived, because the tax imposes different choices? That's the question, and that's why I love the research that Vivian did because it applies reality to it.
Well, I want to jump now back to Israel because both Rick and Denise have been able to carve their own companies, right. So it gives both of you a different kind of autonomy. And you know, it has its pros and cons like everything Israel hat works in corporate America. Right? He works in environment. One of the things that I've talked to him offline about is how a How do you decide who you work for? Right? Because he's not the CEO yet. I bet you one day he will be of some company, but he's not the CEO yet. How did how do you decide what your fit is given given your history? So Brian, if you can unmute Israel, I'd just like to talk about because, you know, Pittsburgh is made up of corporate companies as well. And lots of people that are working in tech and you are recruiting new people, for your team. So Israel that's that's a that's a question that happened.
Many answers. But I would say to give you a pretty direct answer. I think early in my career, I will I wanted to work for the big names that had, you know, great cloud, right? And what you find out is that you have, there's there's a lot it's there's still a lot of implicit what I call implicit bias, right? stuff that people don't talk about, but they that comes to their, to the decision making as it as it relates to growth and opportunities, etc. I think at some point, I decided that when a company wasn't a good fit for me, I would get out.
And so I made that decision. And since then, I have actually been pretty, pretty direct about this issue when I'm interviewing for a job. And so I had the opportunity to work in Chicago for for a great start up and then when the opportunity came to, to work at 40. If that was one of the first questions I asked, it's like, this is this is my family. This is what I want, you know, they, the things that I value, and I've Then, you know, started a conversation about, you know, how that contributes to the overall culture of the company and their overall you know, internal dialogue around diversity and inclusion. So I am at the point now where that's central to its choice about where I work. And it's not only at 45, which is a company that actually lives this value on a daily basis, and really, really care for the people that that are diverse and want to grow that segment of our work force. But I also did that when I was asked to be on a board, it's like, because wars tend to be different, they tend to be very conservative at times. And I that was one of the things that I brought up first, it's like well, this is my reality. Are you okay with that is that fit with your strategy, right? So you kind of have to take control and not let that be a second. Second thought but be be upfront when you make the decision.
So the So the good news, Israel is that you are in Pittsburgh.
In a place where perhaps we don't have the out community, in leadership in compared to other places where you've been, but you're working for a very inclusive company that embraces your values. So we probably have a lot to learn from from Florida. Absolutely. And I think, you know, corporate America in general has made great progress.
But still, still, there's so much more work to do. And I think someone mentioned earlier, we also have to take responsibility about how do we, how do we groom these companies for the next generation of LGBTQ workers and talent, it's a big deal, and I think we have a big role to play in that.
And so we have a we have like lots of statements here. One rec column Dean wants to know if you can share that URL report. We'll figure that that out. And I want to get that out on our link as well. Like we're we're seeing through the chat.
But some people are saying, Oh my gosh, thank you for the richness of this conversation. But also, I will say I never had an issue here being gay and I'm out period. And I love seeing that as well. And I'm also hearing that people are talking just about the parochialism in Pittsburgh and that many people just have never left Pittsburgh intend to stay whether that means they're from, you know, the concentric regions. beyond what and in terms of wrapping this up. What are some of the things that you think at the end the tech slash innovation community, we should be doing? Better?
What do you what do you think? Because I know each of you goes through your hiring. I know Israel's building a team here. Denise, you know, has certainly gone into you know, hiring and developing new clients Same thing for treat space. So what what should we be doing to as a tech community that supports our leaders that we're not doing
And now we're going to one of the ideas.
I'll start quickly.
I really like what Israel had to say earlier on about the organization of the community. And I think having an organization like out in tech here in Pittsburgh, you know, they have 16 cities that have chapters now with 40,000 members. And their whole purpose is to inspire you know, in support LGBTQ folks in tech. And I think that having a platform where folks are organized where there's a home will start to set a stage for pollenization I guess is the word where you know, like the bees are buzzing and people can work together.
To get out into the city and help foster the change that needs to happen. I think organization is a really important piece of it. So I'll just offer one idea out and not stop.
Okay, nice. Yeah, I think you know, the tech community has a big voice in Pittsburgh. I think it's real Pittsburgh resin to a city that is recognized for its tech and I think what the tech community can do for our community is to help push things at the city level.
Just help us push to where we're represented, on committees on boards on you know, so it really helps if our voice is heard, and I think you know, those conversations and help from the tech community would be great. Mm hmm.
Okay, and and Israel.
You are you, Israel, you hiring people? Are you looking for talent right now? Yes. What are you hiring for? So we were building an AI practice here in industrial scientific. So a lot of the functions that we look for are data scientists and machine engineering, machine learning, engineering, people data, data, engineering, data, architects, that kind of thing. But I think, Audrey too, just to kind of put you on the spot a little bit, I think, you know, the tech Council has probably a big role to play here. And I want ya know, like bringing people together connecting the dots. I mean, this might be bigger than us. This might be this might start with the universities, right? And do that to the students there know what resources are what jobs are always hiring the right. And it has to focus on diversity, right. I think everything that that Rick mentioned is also great.
Great. And what a great way to think about it. But I would say go back to my point earlier, I think we need to all be visible. We need to own this challenge and see how we can individually reach out and and get more conversations going.
But I think you you can definitely, within the council, you know, some great discussions like this, this might be a serious for ob No, right. I'm wondering about that. And further leaders visibility as well. So thank you for doing this. No, thank you. First of all, thank you all we've gone, we've gone over, but people are still here. And you can see by the chats people had lots of statements of positivity. And just to appreciation for the three of you, in terms of just just your candor in a short period of time. And maybe we do continue to have lots of conversations here and work on that and those of you that are actually you know, listening in, can reach out to any of us You know, and if you want to get ahold of rep, you want to get a hold of Denise or Israel, we're happy to make you know, those connections as it makes sense because that that's, we want to get out of the way and forge these relationships. I am very lucky to know the three of these individuals. And I can tell you that they opened my own eyes all the time, in terms of perspective and change. And they they all want to see change. And those are those are leaders. Those are people who are sticking their neck out and leading. So I deeply appreciate the three of you for being with us today.
Let's hear from everyone that's on this call, and others who want to join and figure out some good ways to bring some things to action. I don't look at this. The tech council doesn't look at this as a one event conversation. This is really just just the beginning. And I really appreciate all of you spending time with us today. And thank you, Israel. Reckoned Denise for the work that you do across our community. So with that note, I'll see everyone here tomorrow and have a great rest of the day. stuff, signing off.
Thank you. Thank you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai