Episode 270: Erik Stromquist

Navigating Funding, Technology, and the Future with Erik Stromquist of CTL.

[00:00:30] Fonz: Hello, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us for another wonderful episode of My EdTech Life. Thank you so much for joining us on this beautiful day. Hopefully wherever in the world you're joining us from or listening to us. , I hope you've had an amazing day so far. Thank you all for all your continued support.

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And today I'm really excited for a great show. We're going to be talking about just technology, technology overall, as you know, post pandemic, we have received funds in many of our school districts. And if you're a leader in those school districts or an instructional coach, or just a, or a teacher, I should say, please, um, understand We know that the tech has helped us out, but now as the years go by, we see that the technology might be just kind of lacking a little bit, and we're trying to figure out ways that we can go ahead and improve on those things.

So today I am delighted to welcome Mr. Eric Stromquist from CTL to the show. Uh, Mr. Stromquist, or may I call you Eric? Eric, thank you so much for joining us today. How are you doing?

[00:02:14] Erik: I'm doing great. I'm super excited to be here. Super excited to be, um, involved in your show and I'll definitely be a subscriber after this.

[00:02:21] Fonz: Excellent. Well, thank you so much for being here. And I know Michelle contacted me and we spoke. And I was like, wow, this is amazing. And this is a wonderful opportunity because in my current role, I do get to see some of those pain points and just some of those things that are happening right now, as far as the funding and how that may affect the impact on learning and also on instruction.

So I'm just so thankful that you're here today to share not only what you're doing in, Uh, through CTL, but share your expertise and what it is that you're seeing. So I'm really excited to learn about the CTL story. So Eric, if you can go ahead and give us a little bit of an introduction, as far as kind of your journey within this space.

And then of course, uh, how CTL started and that backstory, that way our audience members can know a little bit more about not only you, but also about CTL as well.

[00:03:16] Erik: Sure. I mean, I've been with the organization for a while so that the story is kind of weaved together along the way. But my background is, uh, I've been with the organization for, you know, multiple decades now.

And, you know, I'll tell the CTL story, but my journey really started off in, uh, finance. And I have a degree in accounting and finance and decision science, which is statistics. Um, and, you know, going to school in the late eighties and nineties, I, Found a love for computing, particularly the spreadsheets back then.

And I would say that I was probably leading in that having one of my, you know, one of the only ones with a personal computer and doing all those things that automated tasks. So I fell in love with it early on just on what it could do. Some of the first, I think the first technology book I read was about sun microsystems and.

Um, you know, Bill Joy and Scott McNeely and all those guys, how they started, and of course, the Apple story and all the all the kind of superstars of tech were happening as I was going through my university, including Bill Gates and the rise of Microsoft. So, when I eventually graduated. I didn't I was going to go into public accounting, and, uh, somehow I met this guy is running a computer company at a time.

Same as David Kim. And then, you know, really, I got the chance to be in the industry, which I didn't expect, um, but, you know, in addition to being a tech enthusiast, you know, I spend my time. I have a 2 young twins. So very active in that space. I'm seeing how they are interacting with technology in their schools.

So that's really helpful. Um, and, uh, But in my spare time, I'm really into running and fitness, although I need to do a lot more work in that area. But also along the way, I got involved in the music business to a little bit. I learned how to write and record and perform songs, but also license the music.

And this is going back to the technology. Days of MySpace and Spotify and, and digitizing and monetize all those platforms, which really, I want to say all weave together with the talk we're having today because innovation and technology and business models are really kind of the innovation that CTL brings to the table.

So, they're 1 in the same. The other thing too, about, uh, you know, we're very international based and we have a very global view of a lot of the things we do. Not just the United States. So that's kind of become part of my character, I suppose, on thinking about the global nature of our business and certainly how these economies work together.

The, you know, what's going on with the United States and China and Taiwan and all these inner geo geopolitical issues that affect our industry too. So, um, you know, that's me in a nutshell, essentially tech enthusiast, but also an innovator, I think, uh, but can also put on my suit and grind financial statements.

If I have to.

[00:06:10] Fonz: And that's excellent. That's very well rounded. And definitely a lot of what you mentioned definitely ties into the work that you're currently doing right now. And you said, you know, you've been in the business for a couple of years now and, you know, CTL has, is definitely growing and I, You know, I know that for sure.

You're one of the largest Chromebook manufacturers, um, you know, also specializing in the education space or edu space, like I like to call it. So tell us a little bit about that, you know, for our audience members, like I mentioned, there are other, you know, maybe. Sellers or resellers that are out there, but you are actually a manufacturing these devices and you're also, you know, a very, uh, working obviously as an OEM working directly with customers and so on.

So tell us a little bit about that as far as, you know, the difference for us. Uh, and I mean, for us, as far as like myself in my role and maybe CTOs, is there a reason why maybe some CTOs choose to go maybe with. A third party vendor instead of working directly with, you know, maybe someone like CTO who actually manufactures.

Is there a particular reason why?

[00:07:22] Erik: Well, I think that's a complicated question. I mean, there's multiple channels of distribution that customers can choose from. I mean, they can choose to do business with omni channel vendors like CTL or Dell. Um, we're certainly closer to the product and closer to the solution.

And then, then there's the historical way of doing business, which let's take like an HP Lenovo model that is OEM based, which Lenovo and Dell and HP are OEMs. And then they sell to a distributor and the distributor sells to the reseller and the reseller sells to the end customer. So you might say that that's an antiquated business model in many cases, uh, probably the more successful PC guys of the, you know, the last 20, 30 years have been Dell.

And gateway to some degree, although they got sidetracked and other things, but take Dell, for example, they've always been direct to the customer, right? And that allows them to have a lot more control of the experience, but also control of service control over the things that customers want. If you buy from reseller who buys from a distributor, who buys from a manufacturer, they might be really good, but they're very disconnected With the market, they might be behind on what the technology is, but nevertheless, their ability to solve problems goes diminishes because they're just further away from the solution.

That's not to say a lot of these guys aren't great. I mean, you're talking about major powerhouses like CDW and insights and other ones that are really good at what they do. Um, but in many cases, if you're buying from, you know, a reseller down the street, there, there are many layers away from the people that designed it and the intention of the product.

So I think it might not be in the best interest of the customer. At that stage, but it's hard to say, uh, you know, resellers bring some, some things to the table like services and local touch and things like that. But certainly at CTL, who's a omni channel supplier, we think about those same things from an OEM point of view on how we can build capabilities that we think customers want.

We think that because we talk to them and they tell us so we can provide the solution all the way up the chain Quickly, whereas a lot of people cannot do that.

[00:09:36] Fonz: Mm hmm No and you know one thing that you mentioned that I absolutely like is as far as being an OEM which For all our audience members, OEM, if you're maybe you've, you've listened to that, maybe you're part of, you know, the, the technology department and so on talking about original equipment manufacturer.

So I think that that is something that is very important that I absolutely love that you mentioned is how you are not. That many layers away from servicing the customer. And that point of contact to me is so important. And so I understand, like you're saying, you can see things in different ways. And of course, you know, there, there's always an upside and a, and a downside to certain things, but to me, I kind of liken it to this and, and I'm going to put myself out there and say this, but many times, you know, as, as people, Move within an organization, you become a little far removed from the way things used to be in the classroom.

And then there are layers that you have to go through. And then sometimes decisions are based on, you know, maybe past experiences and things that, you know, maybe are have changed significantly. So sometimes, you know, when those solutions are brought up, they're like, wait a minute, like, We're not quite there anymore yet, but here you're mentioning like just that layer of service, it just being one step away.

I think that's something that is definitely beneficial. And I think, you know, for what you're currently doing in CTL in providing The Chromebooks and working in the education space. I think that's something that's very important because in, I know in our experience, buying from third parties, sometimes it's just the wait time.

Uh, sometimes it's like, Hey, you know, they're not, they haven't been shipped yet, or this shipment got stuck here because of certain chips and things of that sort. So it's like too many layers. And my, my biggest concern is the following is. The return on instruction, you know, the students are missing out or the teachers are missing out on that instruction time because we can't help them.

So I wanted to ask you, as far as, you know, the service is concerned, you being an OEM and original equipment manufacturer being kind of just that one layer away. You know, what is it that, you know, kind of sets you apart as far as that service? Can you, uh, you know, go a little bit more into detail. So let's say I'm a CTO, I order from you something, you know, maybe there's some repairs or anything kind of like that.

What is it that CTL can offer me to make sure that my students are still learning that my teachers are still going, you know, with their devices?

[00:12:10] Erik: Sure. And yeah, well, Let me level set the industry how it works. So there's OEMs, which are original equipment manufacturer, like you pointed out. Essentially, we're, we're the brands, right?

We're the, we're the responsible party that designs and services and supports these brands. And then one layer up from us is what's called the ODM. And they're the ones actually working with us to assemble these. And there's very few in the world. And there's very few top, top ones. Most of them are based in Taiwan, and we're talking about brands you've never heard before, like Quanta Computer, Compal, Inventech, Pegatron, names you've probably, they don't run off the tip of your tongue, but they're producing, those between those four guys.

Probably they're producing 99 percent of the Chromebooks in the world. In addition to Quanta builds MacBook Pros and whatever. So they are the heartbeat of the ecosystem and they're very difficult to get access to, but they're very good. I mean, they have their share of problems too, but they're the ones doing, running the factories around the world and working with brands like CTO.

So, um, but anyway, to get to your question, I think that Because we're an omni channel OEM and we're working with directly with ODMs, we have insight into what goes into our product. Cause we choose it. We design it, right? They build it for us, but, but it's our product. So we know the strengths and we know what really works.

But at the same time, you know, when problems occur, we typically know those too. So, you know, if someone says to CTL, like, Hey, uh, I've seen this issue on this X, sometimes it's new to us, right? It could be like, Oh, we've never seen that before. But we take that information and we go back and say, Let's test on this.

Is this, is this an isolated incident? Is it something we need to investigate more? You know, and we'll do that work to make sure that it, that our solution is the right for the customer and then we can change it. All right. So let's say, oh gee, I don't know. Years ago, we had a situation where like during the COVID era, like kid, you know, kids were really tough on devices that year, but like our battery was like bouncing around and like tugging on the keyboard.

So it caused some issues. So, you know, we went back and investigated and sure enough, I mean, in certain environments, the battery could, could tug on the keyboard or cause some damage. So what do we do? We change the connection to the keyboard and we were able to fix that and deploy, you know, services to our customer to address it.

And when they called and say, Hey, we're having this with keyboard, he should be like, yeah, we've seen it. Here's the fix. Now let's say if we're a reseller of a reseller and that comes up, Hey, Eric, I bought all these things from you two years ago. I'm a reseller. I have no idea. I've got to call the distributor.

Who's going to maybe call. the manufacturer guys to find out, you know, you just don't get access to that information. So we're very close to the customer. Uh, we think that's a super strength of CTL that also allows us to take their feedback, build better products. Uh, I think if you look back, uh, at CTL's history, We were one of the first ones to bring a rugged Chromebook to the market in 2014.

We collaborated with Intel and some others and brought the first one that had ruggedization to it and water resistance. That was us. So, I mean, that was based on market feedback and knowing the customers, right? And the rest of the industry was oblivious to those things. They were just doing it like they'd always done it.

So we, we think we're an agent for change. Um, we have our restrictions and our limitations too, but we certainly fight hard for change. To make a better product at CTO.

[00:15:52] Fonz: Yes. And you know, I, I truly, I truly do believe that. And what you're saying, just the model itself, the fact that you're getting that feedback and using it, getting that customer, you know, review customers, you know, service that, that.

Point of contact because you're not layers away really helps you take that feedback, you know, back to the manufacturers. And one thing that I love that you said is based on that feedback, it's like, okay, we'll improve the product. So now you're working with school districts. And can I ask real quick, just before I continue, how many school districts do you service here, you know, or do you service worldwide as well?

[00:16:32] Erik: Yeah, we service worldwide. I think, you know, the dominant. The dominant geo for our education devices is, is the United States and in Southern Europe, um, you know, thousands and thousands of districts. Um, I think there's over 15, 000 in the country. We've touched a lot of them. Can't say all, we still have a relatively small market share compared to our peers.

We think that's an advantage to CTL because, um, you know, that allows us to. Maintain a lot of control. I mean, we continue to grow and, and a target is to grow our share, but we don't mind being small. We think that's an advantage to us compared to Lenovo's, you know, doing a lot of different products, including education or HP, which is a massive company, and so a lot of times they.

They care, but not that much. They really care about their enterprise and corporate business. Um, CTL does have other lines of business in the enterprise space. Specifically, we build Google equipment for the conference room with Logitech and other OEMs. And that's a large business for CTL. We touch. A lot of countries, there are more than 50 for that business.

So, yeah, we are diverse, but we're having focused on education.

That's

[00:17:43] Fonz: great. And, and, you know, so that's what I wanted to add, like you mentioned is to the, the fact that how easy it is for you to support, and I know you're multiple countries, like you said, in multiple districts, but the fact that you are still big and, you know, within, you The, the, the environment, but still small enough to get that feedback and say like, okay, guys, this is what we're seeing.

And maybe this is what the teachers are asking for, or, you know, what, as platforms change, resolutions change, you know, what can we do better to provide, you know, a great. You know, piece of hardware for our students to be able to effectively have a great learning experience, you know, because one of the things that I mentioned, and we're going to get into this is just that the funding and sustainability aspect of it, where it seems like now some of that funding, it has gone down or is pretty much on its way out.

And now. How are we going to sustain these devices and making sure that our students have it on hand? But I love that customer service aspect of it in, in that, uh, that you offer, because like you mentioned, sometimes we can be stuck in doing things a certain way because that's the way we've always done it.

Uh, but sometimes, you know, it's okay to kind of step outside the box and see what's going to work best. And, you know, oftentimes I think it's just, uh, an optics just saying, well, this company is this much bigger. We haven't had the best experience with them, where maybe this company is a little bit smaller, but man, that attention and we know what we're getting and we know that there isn't going to be a disruption in education, uh, within our campuses or within our teachers.

I think that's very powerful. So I'll give you an example

[00:19:25] Erik: of one thing we did years ago. Uh, it was a problem that we discovered what was happening is our, our, our SSD. Our EMMC on the board was like, Google did an update and it was like killing, killing drives, like quite a pretty big extent. I don't remember the percentage, but noticeable.

We were kind of freaking out about it because like, we didn't understand it. We didn't know the fix. So we ran into some of our friends at Google and, and they look, they have a database. They can see what's going on, by the way. Um, but anyway, they looked it up. Yeah. Hey, this is really happening. They're like, yeah, of course it is.

So they assigned an engineer, the engineer, uh, You know, kind of went heads down for about a month and wrote some update for Chrome OS that would basically go in there and recover the drive and you couldn't do it over there. It was something you had to manually do. Okay, so we got the fix. Took a while, but our customers were happy because we could recover their motherboards.

Well, it turns out Lenovo was using that same motherboard, same situation, and their machines were dropping left and right out in the field. Hopefully Lenovo is not watching this. But we had the fix for the Lenovo fix too. I'll So when we ran into the problems of Lenovo's device, the machines were like, Hey, we see you have a lot of Lenovo's.

If you run into this problem, here's the fix for it. We've, we, we found the fix and we can fix their machine too. We probably should fix tens of thousands of Lenovo's for customers because CTL got the fix first. We cared enough about to go to the bat for the customer. Obviously Google helped us a lot and we got it done, but we extended that to other brands too.

And we took care of a lot of customers that didn't even buy from CTL that had a competing device. So, you know, those are the things that we could do. Cause we're just paying attention to the market a lot closer to, you know, than others, um, You know, often I don't have, I don't have a problem with customers calling me.

And I get texts from them all the time. We're very accessible. Um, and that's the way we like to work. Maybe we get so big that we have a bunch of layers in the company, but that's not the case or very accessible and that's the way we like it.

[00:21:26] Fonz: Excellent. Well, that's wonderful. Well, that's a great, you know, kind of backstory and the work that you're doing and obviously sharing with our audience, you know, what it is that you have done and, uh, you know, just the difference between, you know, those, uh, third party distributors and obviously what you're working and doing.

The different layers. So I'm glad that you were able to share that. But now what I want to do is I want to move a little bit like we were talking about as fun as far as like funding and sustainability. And because this is something that I know you get to see firsthand, kind of like, you know, from an overview, because you work with so many districts, I get to see it just from what's happening in my district and maybe neighboring districts and friends of mine.

That work, you know, within that same space, um, has, you know, instructional techs or digital coaches and, uh, CTOs and so on. But, you know, that we, we know that the pandemic obviously created this situation where all of a sudden we flipped. the or we had to flip the switch and go completely virtual from brick and mortar to virtual and not having enough devices and then having to do device rollouts and so on.

But you know, funding is something that right now this year and going well into next year, at least in my district and neighboring districts is something that everybody's already talking about and everybody's already. Trying to tighten up. So can you share some of the challenges that you have seen many schools face, you know, as this funding is slowly trickling away?

[00:22:55] Erik: Well, let's talk what is contributing to this problem too. I mean, you pointed out the pandemic funding was, you know, off the charts. Um, you know, the industry went. I don't remember all the numbers, but, you know, generally speaking, industry went from like 16 to 17 million units a year in education in 2019 to 25 million units in 2020, 25 million units in 2021, and then it corrected to about 18, 19 million units, and it's correcting again.

So you have this massive wave of devices that were purchased during those years. Um, those devices were, OEMs like CTL in 2000. 18 and 17 two years before that no one had any prior knowledge or any vision that these things were going to be In these kids lives from the camera and the classroom and virtual learning and all that stuff.

Intel didn't envision that from the Wi Fi point of view. So they bought all these devices. They consumed them. They got to one to one. They did. We got to, we got to almost 100 percent saturation. That means every kid has a device and we're hovering around. I think it's starting to drop now. So we achieved one to one.

Okay. So the challenge of that is like, okay, now that you've achieved one to one, how do you maintain it? How do you maintain those numbers? Because they're massive. And I think that's where, that's the beginning of the troubles of the education sector, is now they have to maintain the one to one. Forget about the sustainable funding model and new devices, but what about all the stuff you have?

How do you maintain it when kids, you know, break them at a high rate? And that all depends on the school district and digital citizenship. So if you look at the successful programs, and you're really talking about the state of Maine. You're talking about Nevada Reddit 21, the ones that came all the way before the pandemic, they were doing one to ones at a pretty large scale.

They started with digital citizenship. They started with, uh, you know, district stakeholders, the teachers, everybody who's involved to work together to have a successful outcome. They also talked about what the outcomes were. They talked about how they measure outcomes. So there was a lot of, Investment from not only the student stakeholders, but the teachers, the districts, et cetera, and all those elements contributed to very successful programs.

Well, pandemic comes along. No, 1 put a lot of that planning into place. They had to buy from just requirement point of view. So what happens? Well, the break rates are really high. Managing those things, the outcomes kind of flew out the window. Um, districts lost a huge amount of Chromebooks, the broken Chromebooks.

So now they're like, oh, how do we manage these things? And here we are, right? We got to one to one, forced in some cases, you might say, but now we're having to figure out how to make it work. So it's a very complicated, complicated question. I think it first starts with, Google recently extended the support by two years because they got a lot of grief for sustainability.

I think that they got wrongly accused of contributing to e waste during that period of time. I think, you know, all the suppliers have the same problem related to e waste, but Google got singled out because they're the dominant market share during that period of time. So, you know, to maintain the life and improve sustainability, it needs to start with.

You know, being able to repair your own devices is one way. Uh, and we support those things and we support the right to repair movement. CTL allows customers to repair them. We make parts available. We've been doing this for years and years and years. Um, and that's a movement that I think that can help sustain and, you know, extend the life of the device.

Um, so that's one way we're starting to do new programs to where we're really getting the circularity of the business. That means that we're offering trade ins or credits on your old devices to bring them, you know, bring them back in. Uh, oftentimes we refurbish those and sell them back into the market and customers augment their investment by using refurbish to get another year out of their devices and avoid a full replacement cycle.

So that's part of it. Um, and then you get into the whole funding model. What is the, you know, if you have these kind of big waves of, uh, funds, they come in, and then you have the maintenance attached to it, the alternative business models, like, uh, we have a rental model, and then you have the leasing models, and then you have some other models that really have predictable funding.

The problem with those predictable funding models is you still don't have the service element. You're still on the risk and you're still on the hook about maintaining those devices, which often can be more expensive than the cost of the device. The total cost of ownership is something that everybody needs to start thinking about.

And, you know, CTL competes at a worldwide scale. We see some of these ridiculous prices. Uh, sometimes that people buy at and we're like, are you thinking about the cost of ownership and like three and four and five years? What does the cost look like when you're talking about a heavy maintenance load for your team, your small team?

How do you deal with that? So those are all kind of the inner weaving questions that need to be answered. And some, In those questions, there are some solutions, but therein lies the big problem that schools face now. Uh, and you got ECF funding helped quite a bit and there's three rounds of that and you have the ESSER funding, but all of those are winding down.

So now you're stuck with state budgets, local levies, local funding, and voters are not very excited about approving those these days for schools. So how do you deal with it? I think, I think some of those things I just talked about are ways to extend the life, but we're going to go there. Like it or not, um, to maintain some of these machines.

[00:28:52] Fonz: Absolutely. And you know, that's something that I know that we have seen now our CTO, like, for example, in our district, they do like a 20 percent replacement program. Like I think it, it just kind of continues on and on. So it's like 20 percent one year and then the next 20 percent and then the next 20%. So, you know, that model has kind of worked in the past and then now it's, I know that that's going to change.

I don't have a lot of know how, as far as how they're managing that now, because obviously with the purchase of so many devices, um, you know, I know that that's going to be different, but I know what we have done is first of all, you know, with pandemic, everybody was one to one it's Everybody can take their device home.

Obviously during pandemic, when we returned, then there was some changes because now it's like, okay, we got to think about the future and how we're sustaining, um, you know, these devices. And then, so now slowly it's been kind of like, okay, we're going to have a class set. And then, so there's only certain grade levels that are able to take their Chromebook home.

And then usually the elementary levels are kind of, they have a class set where they just, Plug in into this wall, a little case just so they can be charged and be used there. And in hopes of not having a lot of losses there, you know, being a, you know, kind of either if something breaks or something goes wrong, but then at the same time, you know, you also, we are a BYOD district where we do allow students to be able to bring in their device.

But then we run into the issues of. The student says, well, I don't need the Chromebook. I have my own device. But then when state testing comes, it's like, well, you need the device anyway. So just hold on to it. So there's a lot of factors there and a lot of variables, you know, once we start getting into those details, as far as, uh, And obviously having to replace and, and, uh, repair a lot of those Chromebooks too, as well, because of accidents and, you know, things like that, that occur.

So now you mentioned the, the rental model and you mentioned that leasing model. So for our audience members, you know, that, that can be, you know, in a position where I'm in, or maybe, you know, CTOs or maybe new CTOs. To being a CTO, can you explain a little bit about the difference? Because maybe this would be something helpful to them to be able to understand and maybe bring up to the other stakeholders and see how they can be able to manage and have a, uh, you know, hardware for students and for the learning.

[00:31:24] Erik: Well, I think we approached, we called it Chrome as a service and it is essentially a rental model, but it's a, it's a service model. So, I mean, the, the gives and takes really are that you as the district give us money. We give in manage the devices and give you an uptime. And that means that you're going to refresh more frequently to give your students the latest technology.

Uh, you're, you're, you're operating cars costs should be fixed because the way we approached is like, okay, for 20 bucks a month, I think that was one of the, one of the solutions we cut, we de risk you for everything. The, the repair, the license, everything comes with it. And your job is just to pay us the 20 bucks a month.

We provided some buffer stock. We, you know, we have a lot of those things built into it. But again, the give and take was you give us the 20 bucks a month and we give you a working device with it with a 99. 9 percent uptime. So it's just like the, the software as a service model that you, that we subscribe, many of us subscribe to, you know, the give and take is you pay and your machine works, your software works.

So we approached it from that point of view, the leasing model is fine because your funding is, is stable. However, it doesn't cover the operating costs of break, broken, damaged, etc. So you have these unknown variable costs that you can't predict. And as good as vendors are, they can't de risk you 100 percent from things, from your students.

breaking things. But to your original comment on going back in the classroom with no more take home, we're actually going backwards now. We're going backwards to what all this funding allowed us to do, which every kid had a device, every kid had an access, access to it, all the time. And now we're saying, well, you can't now, it's in the classroom.

So we're actually going back on the vision of one to one computing a little bit, which is a bit, Sad, but I understand why schools are doing it because of the funding models. So we're seeing the one to one penetration, which I told you is a hundred percent dropping.

[00:33:35] Fonz: That's great. And you know, I

[00:33:36] Erik: don't know what it is now in the low nineties.

Yeah.

[00:33:40] Fonz: Excellent. Now I know, and we will be sharing this in the show notes and everything, but I know your website, uh, you have definitely a lot of great resources there, but there is an article there on sustainable funding. That is available there for any educators and obviously in anybody in my position as a digital coach, if you can take that and share that with your CTOs or share it there with your district, too, that would be great.

So can you tell us a little bit about what we're able to find in that article that can be something that's helpful to us as far as our conversation that we're having here as well, that, uh, can help. Those decision makers just kind of, you know, at least start thinking about this and, and maybe saying like, Hey, maybe we need to reach out to CTL.

[00:34:23] Erik: Well, I think in that, in that particular article, we, we proposed several scenarios. One was of course, our Chrome as a service model, which we think is a sustainable way of managing it. And, and, you know, we haven't really gotten to your discussion at the very beginning, which is what about the technology and the screen size and all the stuff that everybody wants and needs.

Um, and then there's some other things that we've been experimenting with, and we have active customers in pilot or actually commercialized. And that is, uh, the, the parent funded model, and that's a little bit BYOD like you mentioned, however, it's, it's designed to have parents funded if they can, and it's designed to augment the students that don't have parent funding to use school resources to cover the costs there.

So it basically is a system where the school picks the device and they might pick device X because they like it or whatever reason. And we were able to, we were able to provide that to the school and parents can transact with our company and buy them. And then when kids that don't have a parent that can buy those for them, we can initiate a coupon code where they could use that.

And we would build a school for the business, the difference. So no one would know that the kid couldn't afford the device to your

other

[00:35:44] Erik: VOAD point. It should be that they all have access to the same devices because if Sally has a MacBook Pro and Jimmy's using an old piece of crap Windows machine from 10 years ago, that's not equitable.

Sally has an advantage. She's going to be perceived differently than the Jimmy that's carrying around a 15 pound Windows laptop that's constantly updating all the time. So our system solves the equity issue too because No matter about their family income, and we use the free lunch model to support who gets the coupon, everybody gets access to the same device.

They're on the equal playing field. So that is another 1. of course, then there's the, you know, the, the public private partnerships that exist, and there's all kinds of things that are happening around the country there. Each 1 is, you know, not 1 of them is the same, but there's a lot of funding that comes from different models.

And we just did a project and I think it's in the document with with a city up in Washington, where they were trying to solve digital divide issues and they put up a private network. Which is like a, your own cellular network, essentially. And they're able to blast the cellular connection to these kids homes.

And CTL builds a special cellular connected device that connects to this network. So the city paid for it and gave it to the school. And 1, 200 kids or so have now these devices that they can use in their home that connect free of charge to the private network that the city installed. They also use that, that same network for emergency services.

Some other services on there. So it's a very versatile network that they put up, including distributing internet to the kids. So I think we talked about those things. Um, of course, sustainability and funding. We talk about other big, you know, geopolitical issues like the rights repair and the self service maintainer and using, um, student education labs and kids to gain skillsets, like learning how to repair, which is a vocational skill.

You know, that's something we encourage, support and develop programs to. You know, use this group of kids that really are excited about technology. Well, they can repair and swap out a keyboard and, and they're learning skills, they're learning how it works and how to work with vendors and all those things.

So using something already doing as a vocational program is another way we think about the business. And that's a trend too, that's out there.

[00:38:27] Fonz: That is amazing. And you know, for myself, again, just being an end user, and then of course being in charge of helping implement and roll out, uh, New platforms and so on and really being hands on with the technology.

I mean, sometimes we don't think about all of this that you're sharing with us. And I think for myself, I have a deeper respect and now more knowledge as far as what goes into, you know, getting devices. And then of course, like you're mentioning, you know, on your side as CTL and what you're able to offer, I find that something that's very useful.

And I'm glad that there are companies. That are out there such as yourself that really have that hands on approach that customer service, and then also rely on that customer feedback to better your products, which is great. And then, of course, you're also sharing solutions here that might be able to be used by certain districts based on, you know, what you have seen and through your experience.

And so I really thank you for sharing these resources because oftentimes. There may be, you know, people that are just kind of like, okay, what do I do now? And I, I'm a member of a, of a message board that's, you know, it has a lot of CTOs in it and you just see continually just like, Hey, what's going on here?

What's happening here? What are you all doing? What are you doing? And so on. And so they're looking for that knowledge and obviously there needs to be a knowledge base. So I love that. Your website does offer that learn section where you do provide just a lot of great articles and blogs that have a lot of great information here.

Now, I wanted to kind of touch base a little bit more, like you mentioned, you did mention internet access and service. So I wanted to ask you too, as far as, you know, moving from LTE to 5G. Tell us a little bit about that and how, uh, you know, CTL is on top of that and being able to be a, you know, I guess you would say, uh, I don't know, just part of this change in this technology and making that available and accessible to our students.

[00:40:25] Erik: Well, first of all, we're the, we were the first, well, back in the early days of Chrome in 2011, all Chromebooks had LTE back then, the very first Chromebooks, because Google had a different vision of what the business model for Chromebooks, but, and they canceled that along the way. So for many years, there was no cell phone connectivity on devices, and 2018 CTL was the first one to do it again.

We partnered with Sprint, and so we'd always had a cellular element to CTL. We had done a lot of work with T Mobile and other carriers in the past. So it wasn't that strange for us. But so we launched it and that was pre pandemic. So there's very, there are very niche use cases for that, uh, mobile workforce, you know, a lot of kids that were, you know, distance learning and things like that.

And of course, pandemic comes around and then you have to solve. Not only providing devices, but also in many cases, providing internet in the home to your students, all of them flock to hotspots. So millions and millions of hotspots were sold, you know, a year later, all those were canceled. But nevertheless, everybody flock to hot spots.

So now they had a device, they had a hot spot, you know, so and then dad could use the hot spot, you know, it's a very big mess on who who was able to use it. So we did quite well during the pandemic, providing those solutions with great partners like Ajit and Verizon and other, uh, carrier partners. But anyway, it became not only a niche thing, but a solution, uh, where you could ditch the hotspot and having everything integrated, you know, Then, you know, everybody's device looked the same.

You didn't have this dongle that you would lose. Um, and then, you know, with 4g, you, you, you're getting really, really impressive speeds, which leads us up to the 5g movement. Um, and now we're looking at envisioning where we're trying to get the cost down. And we just, we just showcased this thing called, you know, 5g red cap, which is kind of, uh, uh, a new technology on 5g.

That's more affordable. So everybody seems to be really excited about that, but we can get devices. We think under 300 with a cellular modem inside. So imagine a world where just there's a cellular modem in every Chromebook and pandemic 2. 0 or 3. 0 comes along. And all you have to do is turn on the cellular connection with your carrier.

And boom, you're in business. You solve all those problems with one shot. So that's what we're building capacity for. We think we have a vision of very, very low cost embedded cellular, and certainly there are big competing, you know, things Intel thinks they're going to solve the problem with wifi 6e and wifi 7 and wifi 8 and the carriers, of course, which we all use on our phones every day, which solve it from the, the, the carrier networks, right?

So. We're taking both approaches. We have wifi only, but of course we're heavily invested in the cellular ecosystem. We think that solves a lot of problems, uh, long term for these discussions we're having today.

Wow.

[00:43:26] Fonz: That is amazing. And like you mentioned, hopefully that never comes as far as like the pandemic 2.

0 and so on, but. Just you're absolutely right. The number of hotspots and, you know, all of a sudden it's, you're spending this extra money on this piece of hardware. And then obviously sometimes getting lost. I know that there was an issue with certain hotspots that were purchased, you know, that I heard from friends nearby where they were just overheating, just very, you know, and they had to bring them back and then be having to.

You know, send somebody to go and deliver them and so on. So having this integrated into a device would definitely be something helpful. Um, also just the fact too, I think that even for the learning and for our learners, many times I know our school has wifi in parking lot, and then of course you have to drive.

To the school and park there in the parking lot to be able to get access and so on, but just if it's something that is already enabled and you have it within your device, you have learning that can still take place at home or pretty much anywhere. And I think that's something that is a great solution.

Um, you know, in any case, whether pandemic or not. Students still have access and talking about the digital divide and equity. You're absolutely right. You know, and, and we even see it within our school district from the North side to the South side school, you know, there's still some difference there and divide, because in some areas you have parents that can and have devices, For their kids.

So they really don't rely on our school devices. But then on the other end, you really have those students that really need those devices, but they don't have access at home. So it's just one of those things where now students can have that access anywhere at any time and have that equity and be able to learn.

And so that's very powerful. So this is great

[00:45:13] Erik: shakes out. I think if if the costs get competitive enough on on You know, these new 5G devices. I think it's I think it's a realistic, uh, solution where they're just with everything the work that Google's doing on the Google management console. Obviously we have insight into that and they're, they're making a lot of investment.

We're going to actually give a talk at the Kosen convention, which is the, you know, where all the CIOs get together on what the future holds for what Google's doing, what CTL is doing. So we're pretty bullish on this business model. But let's see. And we've heard some schools that are willing to dump Wi Fi for students altogether and just go 100 percent cellular and keep the Wi Fi networks for teachers and IoT devices and network security and, and put all the kids on the cellular network.

Oh

[00:46:03] Fonz: my gosh, that would be great. Again, just also even with APIs, like getting overloaded. And sometimes we've seen that, and we've run into that where some Chromebooks won't connect, or you have to go like, Step right, put him out right outside the door and then come back in and then they connect. There's just

[00:46:19] Erik: too many on the channel.

I mean, Wi Fi 16 solves that, but cellular is good at putting a lot of a lot of people on one network and the range obviously is a lot different, but then you can augment it with private network too and put up your own cellular connection. So anyway, we think that the possibilities are pretty huge and, uh, We spend a lot of time thinking about this with great partners like Google, Intel, guys like Rolling Wireless, Crypto, etc.

[00:46:45] Fonz: That is amazing. That's wonderful. Now, I want to talk a little bit too. I mean, it's, we're talking about what you're able to offer and you're offering school districts and so on. But, so I want to ask, you know, is there anything new that you have been working on as far as, you know, You know, new devices or, you know, rolling out, I believe on the website, I had seen something about, uh, the, uh, uh, NL 73.

Can you tell us a little bit about some of the products that you are offering and especially this one?

[00:47:12] Erik: Sure. I mean, that's brand new. So we're starting to ship those now. Um, the key element that here is Intel has a new architecture called Alder Lake, which is the N 100 and 200 processors. So that's in there.

Um, We're super excited about that. A big performance boost. Um, the other things too, we've done some, uh, improvement on the design, higher drop tests, uh, different insets, things like that. Um, but you know, some of the other things too, that are coming on this next generation, Wi Fi 6E. So that relieves some congestion, the networks you're talking about.

And then this generation, once we eventually work with Google to onboard the 5G solution, it will support that too later in the year. Um, the other great thing is Intel extent or Google extended the life cycle. So these are supported from an operations standpoint until 2033. So long, long, long life, which, you know, really helps with the sustainability.

[00:48:09] Fonz: Definitely. Well, that's wonderful. And that's so great to hear, you know, what it is that you're doing and the work that you're doing, uh, Eric, this is wonderful. And it's great for me to know a little bit more about CTL and I'm thankful for my audience too, who's going to be able to listen to this episode and hear more about the work that you're doing, the work that you are, that is coming.

And just for everything that you share today as a wonderful resource to all my friends that are, uh, aspiring CTOs or in the CTO space right now, or, uh, Like me that are digital coaches, but now have information that we can take to our higher ups to be able to, for consideration and things that are out there and that are new.

So I really do appreciate that so much. This has been an amazing, amazing conversation. So thank you so much, Eric, for your time and just sharing. So. But before we end and we wrap up the show, hopefully, um, these are the last three questions that I always love to end the show with. So hopefully you did get to see them in the calendar invite.

But as we know, every superhero has a weakness and we know that Superman's pain point or weakness was kryptonite. So it just kind of weakened him. It was just, so I want to ask you. Eric, in, since you have, you know, more of a overview as far as what's going on in education and through your perspective, I want to ask you, what would you say would be your current EduKryptonite?

What is it in the state of education right now that is like, ah, just kind of weakens you or gives you that, it's a pain point for you that you're seeing right now?

[00:49:48] Erik: Oh, sustainable funding is. Is 1 of the key issues, right? I mean, I think, you know, CTO makes products that we have to be concerned about. What is the, the pipeline and long term view of that look like?

So, sustainability is a key problem to solve. I think it. You know, it doesn't debilitate CTL. It challenges us to solve that. So I think it's a, while it might be some kryptonite, it's definitely a solvable problem. I think when we look at the larger geopolitical issues and like, what, how are we going to, you know, be more self sufficient as a nation to build product to service product, when we're heavily dependent on, you know, these ecosystems that are far away from.

The United States, and we saw that, you know, CTO did a great job during the pandemic, but look how messed up everything got for suppliers and the ecosystem and the supply chain. So, we think a lot about that. I think, uh, you know, working with the Taiwan, Taiwanese vendors to de risk those things. Also, we think, you know, sustainability is key in building products that, you know, really think about using the right ingredients, make sure your labor sources are clean.

Uh, we spent a lot of time in that area. It's not a kryptonite for CTL, but again, it's a, it's a superpower that we think about a lot. It could be a kryptonite if you're not prepared for these things, but, uh, CTL really works hard to make sure we have a business model that is concerned about these inputs.

And we think that's going to make us a long term player in this space.

[00:51:20] Fonz: Excellent. Thank you. That appreciate that. Now, question number two, if you could have a billboard with anything on it, what would it be and why

[00:51:29] Erik: for CTO? Well, I mean, I think really for us fighting against these global giants and many of them are Chinese based and things like that, it's like, you know, what's different, you know, trying to, trying to scream what's different about how our approach, right.

And because we don't have the global reach and a lot of these it buyers are just like, Rinse and repeat, buy the same thing you got last time and just deal with the pain. Many of them don't even know we exist, even though we try really hard to tell them. So I think, you know, screaming to the world, like, Hey, we're a different company.

This is how we approach it. And, you know, give us a call.

[00:52:07] Fonz: Yeah. I love that. Hey, we're different. Like CTL, we're different. Simple. I can definitely see that. We definitely see that that would work. All right. Last question, Eric, before we wrap up is, do you have a favorite hobby or favorite activity that you wish you could turn into a full time profession?

[00:52:28] Erik: Well, I've tried the music thing. I really was trying to study and I wasn't thinking I was going to make any money at it, but I just wanted to understand how money is made and that's a tough business. That's tougher than electronics business. Um, I don't know. I mean, I think we're always trying to innovate and turn things into.

I think if you really are passionate about the business, money comes. You don't need to worry about that. Generally speaking, except for maybe music business. But, um, so I don't know, we're open to all kinds of new business models. Um, and, um, you know, generally if you do good things, good things happen. So that's, that's the view we take.

[00:53:01] Fonz: Excellent. Perfect. All right, Eric. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time. And for all our audience members that are listening or, you know, catching this on the replay, please make sure that you visit our website at myedtech. life, myedtech. life, where you can check out this amazing episode and the other 269 wonderful episodes.

Where you will be able to listen to educators, creators, founders, practitioners, CEOs, you name it. We have a little bit of it, of everything for you. And I promise you, you will definitely get some knowledge that you can sprinkle onto what you are already doing. Great. So thank you so much. And if you're not following us on all socials, please make sure you follow us on Instagram.

All socials at my ad tech life. I appreciate every single one of you, Eric. Thank you so much. And I wish you continued success and CTL continued success in all of the things that you are doing. And my friends until next time, don't forget, stay techie.

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