A strong digital infrastructure is crucial to creating jobs in rural America

In this episode of Work in Progress, Josh Elder, vice president and head of grantmaking for Siegel Family Endowment, joins me to discuss the importance of tech connectivity in creating access and opportunity to jobs in rural America. We also talk about the overall impact technology is having on society, education, and the way we do our jobs.
For more than 10 years, the Siegel Family Endowment, a private family foundation, has supported a wide range of grantees that are focused on understanding and shaping the impact of emerging technology on society. Of late that conversation has be more and more about artificial intelligence.
"The way that we've been thinking about it is understanding how AI is impacting work today, both in terms of the impact it is having on employers, but – and this is where we want to elevate this conversation – the impact of AI on workers," Elder explains.
He says the big questions they are examining with their grantees are whether AI is being done to workers or is AI being done with workers. "Oftentimes when you hear about AI in the workforce, everyone immediately jumps to thinking about is AI going to replace people? Is AI going to displace people and reduce jobs? And we know we've seen some of the early stats and some of that is happening."
He adds that as AI tools and products continuing to evolve, it is important to make certain the workers' voice is being listened to and integrated into those tools "to really mitigate some of the harms and the bias that we unfortunately are seeing day-to-day with more and more emerging technology taking place and impacting workers, especially marginalized workers in the workforce."
Early on, our conversation in the podcast turns to jobs in rural America and the importance of access to a solid tech infrastructure, connectivity, and broadband.
"If you don't even have the fundamental elements of connectivity, you're already facing obstacles and challenges that are putting you behind. That's something that we've really been looking at – especially in places like rural America – to really create the connectivity and digital infrastructure that's needed to then connect to both the physical and social infrastructure that you're going to (need) in the workforce," says Elder.
As rural America faces a "brain drain" of younger adults moving out of their communities to find jobs, that digital infrastructure takes on more importance.
"I speak as someone who grew up in rural America. I felt like I had to move out in order to be able to find the opportunities or pursue opportunities for things that I was interested in. I know some of that, unfortunately, is still the case.
"What we are trying to do, especially with CORI (Center on Rural Innovation) and others, is look at how can you create a rural innovation ecosystem and hubs that can provide more opportunities, either for entrepreneurship or for other companies to be developed, that can actually support and provide opportunities for citizens there and also grow talent pipelines.
"There's amazing talent that exists in these rural communities. They often just don't have connection to the opportunities to be able to build out for success. We're really interested in looking at the connection between education, workforce, and infrastructure needed to be able to scale these opportunities at a rapid rate," says Elder.
Josh Elder goes into much more details on how Siegel Family Endowment is working with grantees to address these issues, the importance of building equitable access to jobs and education, and how we all should have a voice in tech's impact on society.
You can listen to the entire conversation here, or wherever you get your podcasts. Or you can catch the interview on my Work in Progress YouTube channel.
Episode 329: Josh Elder, vice president & head of grantmaking, Siegel Family EndowmentHost & Executive Producer: Ramona Schindelheim, Editor-in-Chief,