ColoradoJam and the Next Frontier of Statehood

for those of you that have been paying attention to what's you know this whole edition of colorado jam um we've added some interesting things right so those of us that live in colorado have a belief that colorado represents the next frontier of statehood in fact this is a view that um our state leadership shares as well this isn't something that we just kind of came up with and just are hoping and praying but this is something that we're actually working with state leadership to enact and our next conversation with louis cordova who's a special adviser to the governor on digital transformation and russell castanero who is the director of digital transformation for the governor's office of information technology uh the three of us are going to discuss this conversation and like how did we get here and where are we gonna go so hey guys good to see you lou good to see you good to see you too virtually um so let's just kick it off i think um a lot of our participants here you know you and i we've all discussed this are possibly skeptical about you know when we say things like blockchain for the win or you know we're gonna be the first digital state it's like okay sure okay let's see what you really do so lou um you work directly with the governor on you know sort of casting this vision for what the state is planning on doing can you tell us a little bit about the uh let's just chat about the digital statehood like what does it mean to be the first digital state well we're we're still exploring some of that you know we're we're definitely trying to reimagine every single agency what we do uh from the dmv you know how long have your parents and your parents before them gone in waited long lines at the dmv and you know you got to take all that away you've got to be able to go to like a little kiosk you got to be able to go to a starbucks or walgreens and have a machine there and take your tests and things like that and so part of it's reimagining every single agency how do we pay taxes you know how come in australia it takes a few minutes and here it takes you know 100 pages and you have to you know play this game of guessing right what your taxes are you know it's we just really have to rethink everything about it but more than that we have to rethink about what a constituent means right that we live in colorado yet guess what i'm not in colorado right now um and what does that even mean you know to be in a digital world and be connected digitally so we really want to challenge ourselves to think way way out of the box and even the box that is outlined by the state of colorado to think how we serve people in a digital world and what it means to like say own your own identity i think i think it's a good segue rascal do you want to um tell us a little bit about the kind of i know you're going to do a demonstration a little bit later this afternoon on my colorado id but you know the notion of identity is you know really if you think about it in practical terms identities owned by the state of colorado i mean they own my driver's license they own my birth certificate record they own these other components so like there are people in the blockchain space that talk to this reality and say look you know if if we don't do something to shift the ownership of individuals you know what this could get you know over time it could get it could be bad so tell us a little bit about my colorado id and where we're going sure thanks john so so uh you know years ago when i was in hawaii um we were trying to put together a um a land title uh proof of concept based on blockchain uh so we could do all the title records from uh that were going back and forth for atlanta they had a pretty complicated system there and uh we decided not to do it at the time for for a number of reasons but the biggest one was that uh identity wasn't something we could digitally confirm right so we didn't have any way of of doing all that and that was the first time i realized that even though all this crypto stuff was great and blockchain was great that identity wasn't um when we when you know when i came here to colorado and started working we had my colorado which is a a digital representation of your polycarbonate id and so we we launched that and what we really what i realized and many of us realized oit and the governor's office was that um now we have a way for you know really making a digital identity that's state-sponsored right uh and everybody you know in in this space i'm sure is talking about sovereign identity and things like that and i'm a big fan of sovereign identity however um we probably won't get to the point where sovereign identity is something people trust until they get ready get used to the idea of digital identity so back in october of 2019 we launched my colorado really just to to socialize and normalize the concept of a digital id and we're already now you if you get pulled over in colorado springs or in broomfield or by the uh um the state patrol you have a contactless method of sending your your identity attributes directly to the police or to law enforcement that you're dealing with which is really exciting because this is the first step in the first stage in the technology that's going to enable us to do everything that you have to be in person for in government and there's a lot of them a lot of those types of things now you have a way to mathematically prove you are who you say you are and um since we can do that we can start making it so that people don't have to go in line at the dmv and see speedy or don't have to go if they want to have a conversation with the department of revenue the tax office on their um on on what their tax situation is and their specific account they can know that they're talking to the right person and if you're you know um if you are licensed by door like you're a nurse or something you'll have to make a copy of your driver's license and scan it and send it in you'll have to do all these kinds of things that are tedious and not necessary what it comes down to is colorado is the first state that has this space state-sponsored digital id and the dmv doesn't really own the id as much as it is the trusted validator right of that and it's the trust anchor for everything if we can provide that trust anchor electronically we can do things like i mean i'm sure a lot of people here have gone through the experience of trying to get onto a crypto exchange and kyc happens if it's really busy like you know elon musk bought a bunch of bitcoin uh it takes three weeks to get on board into an exchange uh we could do something like that in real time with uh with a digital id um as could many of the others so so this is i think probably the most important fundamental building block that we have to change what we define as as statehood to move it to this sort of concept of digital statehood and really defining the frontier of statehood yeah it's really interesting it seems like everything comes back to the the notion of identity everything else is built on that right like if we don't get the identity layer right like how could we possibly do any of these other things that we want to do you know john it's true but but what russell said something that was interesting compared to what you just said you opened up and said the state owns our id and russell said the state doesn't own our id the state's the trusted holder like we choose what state we live in and by that choice we have to choose which state's going to trust our id but that's until we can get something like our ideas on blockchain or ideas with us intrinsically there has to until we have that you have to have a trusted party kind of hold that information well the trusted third party which is you know that's my point about the sort of trusted component of that right like exactly government hasn't exactly in some cases been uh the most benevolent stewards of everything and there are populations even in situations where trust does exist where they still don't trust the situation so i think i think you're absolutely right i think i was i was more making a point on there are some in our community that feel that way and um especially behind this sort of decentralization movement and like where does identity and data and all of that belong it really belongs with the individuals it's kind of the thesis that we have as a community but i i totally agree with you so um let's move on to a question about um you know the state goals and incentives you know we have a lot of people that ask me about like what are we willing to do as a state to you know what are the things that we're talking about as a state to consider getting more people to come here move here build here invest here can you talk about that a little bit yeah everything from concrete ideas i mean we talk with big corporations about moving to colorado all the time lots of states do that we just have a nicer state to live in than a lot of states so we're an attractive state from that point of view but on top of that we're actually looking we're exploring things like having tech towns like okay if you don't want to move your company to colorado what about seeing if your employees would like to live in colorado and work remotely because there's a lot of people out there who love our outdoor lifestyle they love skiing and hiking and boating and all these kinds of things right so what if they could work here with you know high speed high speed uh you know broadband and be able to kind of work for any company around the world so we don't have to just attract companies it's really the employees the individuals do you want to live in colorado and on that note i think there's a lot of individuals we refer to them as digital nomads in our space you know in the in the kind of blockchain space they the profile is that they might need to work for multiple projects um they're they're often 1099 as far as classification goes they're not really employed by any one company they do quite a bit of travel perhaps even internationally um of course non-covid time and they they really do value this so i think what what i'm hearing you say is that the notion of the it's sort of almost decentralizing the idea of incentives down to the individuals like you know creating partnerships with organizations projects etc right just bring their you know bring their feet and yeah and they're just nomads i mean not just those you know people who have found the holy grail of being able to work anywhere in the world but now we're that's gone mainstream that is like something that we can operate that a huge number of people and i'll give you an example you know the when the pandemic had i was running the department of revenue within two weeks actually within the first week we got 50 of all people were working from home within two to three weeks we had 90 of all people working from home and if we didn't have to go back to the dmvs and open that we would still be there right we're still at around 70-ish people and and that's going to be permanent right tell me about productivity then so what have you guys found at the state level with productivity are people working remotely now actually it's it's we have the opposite problem we have a problem where people are so productive at home we're having to make sure that they separate work life it used to be that you know you left the office you went home then you were in your private life and and now together it's really almost become the people-centered workplace that we've talked about forever but didn't quite know what that meant until now and now people are being so productive that it's like okay turn it off you know russell it's 11 30 at night you know go to bed okay in just a little bit but what about this what about that so it's state people especially because what people don't realize there is the people who work for state have chosen to live lives of impact right they they get paid less not a lot less a little bit less but they get paid less but they they really want to have a life where they can impact the most number of people and because of that passion we have to make sure that they don't get burned out and that they don't work too hard and that you know that they are finding that new balance so we're learning how to manage people differently than we did before it's probably the biggest challenge we have is how to make remote workforce because we don't have practice it's really interesting because i think the um it's sort of counter-intuitive to what i probably state leadership would have thought would have happened i mean it seems like it's almost like the opposite it's like you know we have these big buildings and these big office spaces and all this to like yeah people in right and and all of a sudden it's like wow this is like the opposite it's totally the opposite when i first came in we were so impacted with office space and i said well why do we have some people working from home right because we just had no more places to put people and they said oh people can't work from home you know their jobs won't allow it well voila six months later you know ninety percent of the workforce is working from home really well not for everybody some people don't have a good homework environment some people can't they're families they're the way they're wired can't do it but a lot of people can i mean russell what are you seeing in the oit side of it well i mean we we uh we were struggling so when i started in july of 2019 um we were struggling with office space um telling people that they had to you know they that you know we were everybody was fighting over who could sit where you know really was i mean i had uh i won't mention names i had some some you know some some negotiations some negotiations on on seating and everything and one of the things that i was tasked for is like let's get 25 of uh of our staff uh working remotely by um by june 30th 2020 and who knew that um between february and march uh we would do that like you know we'd do that and uh and as far as oit goes office of information technology um i think we're probably about 87 percent working remotely and uh and there's there's actually um a task there's a committee i think i can't remember the name of it but and they're just trying to figure out what to do with all of our space yeah we've connected four buildings yeah yeah i mean we're major builders we knew when at the department of revenue like had this beautiful timing thing that came as if anything could be good timing with covid but like the lease was up so like we're out they they moved out of one of their whole big big building downtown uh but you know there are so many cool things that we can do and you know and getting back to you know john your question earlier about what should we what what are we doing that will bring people here i think it's uh you know the idea of like these like neil stephenson-esque nations that you can join from wherever you live are really cool and everything but what's even cooler is the i am i am a firm believer that when you see things working for you as an individual working for you in government when they've given a crap about you about the way that this system works when you can look at something and say hey that worked out really well that was exactly the kind of experience i wanted and that you had ways of resolving your issues that come up you could see that the state actually is trying to do things for its citizens and its residents in a good way you feel better about your government you feel better about the things that you're trying to do you feel you know you want to be part of that community even more and we have this community here that is unreal they are motivated they are interested in making diff making a difference we are you know we're the underdogs because we're going up against the west coast and the east coast on just about everything um and we're in better shape than they are so uh um so i think you know i think all of this and blockchain fits right into that the blockchain tank web3 it's it's people realize that they can do work on the tools that they love the the software that they want to develop and make a huge impact for the state for its people and you know and not necessarily be in this sort of startup turn-in churn sort of culture but being something that is trying to make things happen um for its people for our for our residents and our citizens yeah take a look at the greenfield pitches right yeah like four o'clock right today yeah we got about four o'clock yeah we have 16 16 sort of future casting you know challenges that we put down as a gauntlet to the community and we've got actually we we had so many submissions that i i squeeze in 10 of them so we're gonna be doing like lightning round it's like six minutes a piece and and and we'll we will be following we'll have to follow up with other submissions because like we're gonna have to do another one of these events or something for just that particular component because we have that much international enthusiasm and we have project submissions i think from 12 countries well how how many times do you get to be in some country around the world right you're in the philippines or something like that and you can solve a state problem in colorado because they're listening and they're asking i mean did the very first lottery hackathon and no other lottery's done that but i mean lottery is just such an old game right it's like how do we get millennials in there how do we get people really contributing because our lottery dollars go to outdoor and open space and school construction and things like that and the game ideas that came out of it i will tell you that we're not something that our lottery division would have thought of on their own right they had some really great news they wouldn't have and and i think that's what's to me the thing that really stands out as a differentiator is the willingness to really crowdsource the creativity from the community and not just being like okay we only want to see pitches from colorado companies but really crowdsourcing from the greater community from as we call it the ether space right so it's it's like you know bring your intelligence we got a big tent and a blank canvas come and show us what you got we've got problems here and we're actually open to hearing about what it is which is uh really leading into the next thing let's talk about the uh the technology incubator and and the um the colorado gem technology sandboxing incubator so governor polis announced this along with russell in oakland's opening ceremonies the support for this right so this is a private entity that's part of the ethember community and it's a pilot sort of incubator for state challenges right so the greenfield pitches sort of dovetail into this because tell us a little bit about what we're going to do well i will tell you you know russell you can go into more details and stuff but you know i've got a a background in this right i ran textairs foundation ran an incubator way back when and work in a non-profit right now that helps entrepreneurs all over the world underserved entrepreneurs all over the world and so this is what you do to take it to the next step because once you crowdsource the creativity if you just sort of say okay that was cool you know thanks you know it's about execution and you just you gotta move to the execution stage and if we can incubate these best ideas then we can execute yeah i uh i gotta say that i've been involved with a few maybe maybe maybe five incubators at some time or another and really what they were was excuses for handling real estate a certain way um i don't know i mean you've got you had more money you didn't come to mind then yeah no but uh but but what i think is really interesting is that there's no real estate aspect of this this is all about stuff and not fluff and and getting you know the best potential solutions in and out if the state can't use it it's okay they they they they did a try you know they we we tried something out and the you know the group that was in it a business or whatever they got a lot of good information too because you know if anybody's done any startup stuff the things you learn that tell you what you shouldn't be doing are even more valuable than the things you learn about what you should be doing and the fact that you know other other states like i remember rhode island did this big blockchain rfi like come up with great ideas with for blockchain and they ran rfi for it and if anyone's ever been part of an rfi it's kind of an excruciating process especially when it's really sort of a vague ask and this is something that can benefit small groups and businesses and investors and the states in such an um such an amazing way um this approach that that we're taking on this and it's an experiment you know who knows if it'll work but it seems to me it's got a lot better chance of working than some of the more conventional and restricted methods that we would have of making some serious progress here so um i think all eyes are on are on us to see what we can do with this opportunity that you've got you know talk about an amazing public private you know private partnership that can result in amazing things and in line with governor polis saying you know we're in blockchain for the win um this continues to cement that i mean we've this is our second year with east denver we had the game jam which lulu did which was amazing um we're only looking to increase this um this work that we're doing with the community we're only looking to you know bring transparency and uh and the inability to mess with records and the ability to tokenize things all of that to um to government and i fully expect that colorado will be the first to go all in on major systems yeah and you know what we're we're exploring john you know we we haven't done this before with a bible on going into an incubator and you know accelerator at the end of that but you know fail fast pivot build a cohort um so much of an incubator is about the entrepreneurial spirit and people getting to know one another and solving the problems that come up while you're trying to solve one problem you solve other ones that are sometimes bigger so you know you just got to go and experiment and jump in there with two feet so that's what we're doing yes it's uh it's going to be quite the experiment i think that's a great way to put it for those that don't know we will be announcing actually the actual structure and the games the game theory design of the incubator and the ownership structure of it but it's we will be community owned so eat denver will be moving to a digital cooperative essentially that involves the community and all this as well so i think it's a massive public-private partnership opportunity and it's going to be really interesting to see what happens now i am i think one thing that that can't be understated enough or overstated enough is the importance of leadership at the state level you mentioned your background lou you come from the techstars foundation you're an entrepreneur by heart you ran accelerators um what else what else is important about governor poulos's background or people like tung chan or even others that are around our state agencies like dr pacioni like why why is this group of characters been put together in the way that it is and how important has that been to actually making advancements well god there's there's so many things john i mean first of all uh i i've had like seven companies right and i will tell you that this cabinet that he's put together is the single largest group of competent com passionate people that i've ever worked with right and i'm talking about having been on companies that went public and things like that i mean this is an amazing group of of people who are trying to really take colorado where it has not been before so we'll start there with you know the cabinet is all like this so many cabinet members gotten involved in in these challenges that you put out and and they got involved in this thing we had a shark tank kind of a thing like what's the most creative stuff you can think of that would change you know your agency and stuff like that so so that's going on the other thing people should know is that you know our gov is not just a gamer you know he's going to play tonight right league of legends with monica still tonight um but but he he grew up as an entrepreneur right with his parents and then on his own and you know he loves small business and he gets business and you know he once said to me something to the effect of why do republicans have to own business friendly businesses create jobs right he says he wants to colorado for all colorado's and that means individuals that means those businesses that are struggling to to be something and to hire more people and create more jobs to the bigger businesses right that can do more and give back so so that's a really unusual type of foot in every camp um you know he's a growth guy he wants to see what people can do he's experimental he'll take risks he says you know be bold he means it he has let me be bold right we've done stuff i mean my first year there we saved 20 percent of our budget and revenue you know right you know it's really it's really good i mean i think we really have the table set and i think your point of like wanting you know opportunities for all it's a really interesting mix of pro-business but in a very kind of emergent ground-up kind of way in a very entrepreneurial way and also um one that is egalitarian but also libertarian but also progressive it's this weird sort of mix of things which i guess is why colorado's often called the purple state so it'll be really fun to see thank you lou and thank you russell for coming um we have a big lineup here coming this afternoon um throughout the colorado gm mini summit so um we will see you guys both a little bit later and thanks so much thank you