Connie

COVID-19 has brought social and racial inequity to the forefront and reminds us that health equity is not a reality. Over 21 million under-connected older adults from racial and ethnic minority groups as well as from BIPOC, LGBT+ and physically impaired groups faced the digital divide, a barrier that excludes them from community resources and can become a matter of life and death. The problem is compounded as inaccessible and underutilized support services pose a supply chain problem for community-based organizations (CBOs) trying to help, and an expensive problem for taxpayers.

Being incubated at the American Society on Aging (ASA), Connie is an enterprise communication platform to help CBOs connect, engage and provide services to underserved older adults. By eliminating technology barriers Connie can increase CBO utilization by 25%, save taxpayers $6B in Medicaid spending, and improve quality of life for older adults across racial, ethnic, and special needs populations.

As local CBOs migrate onto digital delivery systems, essential public information, social services, and digital healthcare like telehealth and vaccine distribution are becoming less accessible to under-connected to BIPOC. Initially, the problem and the solution seem clear as 42% of the nation’s over-65 population (>21 million) do not have access to broadband internet services needed to access these resources online. This gap is referred to as the "Digital Divide" and logically, both public and private initiatives have tried to eliminate it by expanding broadband services in rural, low-income, ethnic areas. These initiatives have not had any significant impact as CBOs continue to struggle to connect and engage with underserved older adults. Clearly, more and cheaper broadband alone won’t close the digital divide for older adult minorities. 

Based on an extensive case study and data analysis, we’ve identified two additional factors preventing fully inclusive access to online community resources. First, expanded application UI functions to better meet the needs of older minorities who may have physical disabilities or language barriers. The second involves making better use of new technologies that help establish, build and manage relationships online (not just connect IP addresses).

Guided by the belief that internet access has become a basic human right and that expanding broadband access alone isn’t the solution to the digital divide, we’re developing Connie, an end-to-end, enterprise communication platform that picks up where well-intentioned subsidy efforts by the FCC and large ISPs leave off in their attempts to close the digital divide for BIPOC older adults.

Connie extends enterprise communication and case management tools to CBOs from a cloud-based administrative back-end, helping them better connect, engage and deliver services at scale. On the front end, Connie uses integrated mobile phone and cloud programming assets to intelligently match the needs of BIPOC older adults with vetted local resources available to deliver real time help. Whether the user is connected to wifi, LTE, or has no internet service, they can deploy Connie thanks to service worker technology and advanced device caching. Connie inclusive design helps older minorities find, schedule, and receive resources curated for them in an environment designed to meet their needs. Connie turns internet access into conversations and ultimately to life-saving outcomes. The Connie platform is built to scale nationally, committed to inclusive design and to maintaining the safety and security of all network participants.

Since 1954, the American Society on Aging (ASA) has developed and led the largest, most diverse community of professionals working in aging in America. As a result, ASA has become the go-to source to cultivate leadership, advance knowledge and strengthen the skills of our member community-based organizations as well as develop deep, evidence-based understanding of their strengths, weaknesses and market opportunities.  As a nonprofit that unites, empowers and champions our community, ASA is a trusted voice and thought leader on critical systemic issues that influence aging, including helping CBOs improve outcomes for BIPOC older adults with new technology adoption, strategy development and continuing education. True to this mission, Connie is being developed as a 2-sided platform application that will serve two very distinct, but connected user groups: enterprise groups consisting of community-based organizations (CBOs) and an end-user group consisting of BIPOC older adult who count on them for access to support services and resources. 

ConnieTM For Service Provider / CBOs 

ASA conducted a technology needs assessment in December 2020 as a part of a widely attended Digital Divide summit  (2021 Aging Service Providers & Technology Survey). The assessment covered key dimensions pertaining to CBO’s use of technology and the results indicated that active social media programs and increasing paid media advertising were not driving expected results related to online engagement and utilization rates with older adult audiences especially in the lowest income and minority neighborhoods.  Specifically we determined that less than 10% of all online outreach made on social media actually reaches seniors they were intended for and even less to BIPOC seniors, yet over 90% of our CBOs continue to use these ineffective social channels as the primary means of community outreach. A lack of affordable, effective alternatives was the top driver. From there, our team conducted root cause analysis focus groups to better understand the drivers, but the impact opportunity was clear and Connie was born. The end result is a development roadmap to Connie’s minimum viable product (MVP) which helps CBOs:

• To reach BIPOC older adults in a direct and familiar way, side stepping the noise and congestion of social media channels. 

• Do a better job of establishing and managing relationships with older adults in online environments with easy-to-use enterprise tools. 

• Initiate and maintain conversational dialog flow as well as set priorities, track outcomes and report against objectives.

At the end of the day, Connie helps CBOs re-establish some aspects of location-based service delivery that have been lost in the online migration in a way that’s easy to deploy and maintain. CBOs will be more in control of messaging to BIPOC populations and easily toggle between broadcast and one-to-one modes. Scheduling tools will ensure tasks are completed on time and that user expectations are met.

Connie For BIPOC Older Adult Minorities 

Consider an older person that you care about for a moment, perhaps a parent or grandparent. Have you ever had to help them set up a Netflix or online bill pay account or side step a malicious email or robocall intended to defraud them? Many older adults are struggling with the transition from high-touch, hyper-local support to the new digital normal that’s evolving at warp speed. The matter is easily compounded by physical limitations that are common with advanced aging such as impaired vision, hearing or dexterity or for older people who aren’t native English speakers. Well-intentioned efforts by the FCC and ISPs are valuable, but throwing more bandwidth or deeply discounting internet packages in the lowest income neighborhoods simply doesn’t address the problem at it’s core and therefore will never be a viable solution to helping older minorities access critical community resources online. Connie will address these issues with the following end-user focused features identified for MVP.

• Easy to install and deploy on a mobile device and no app store is required.

• Responsive UI/UX features developed with W3C for accessibility first.

• ASA gerontologist-developed needs analysis and intelligent resource matching.

• Push notification system that delights users and fosters engagement.

• Safe, secure and reliable access to diverse localized resources from fully vetted, N-990 verified CBO providers.

• Cached locally to prevent 404 related errors when poor or limited broadband access is available.

• No exposure to 3rd party advertisements or vendors.

We are prioritizing continuous end-user involvement at all stages of Connie development from roadmap to MVP and beyond. We have already deployed extensive technology needs assessment evaluations for ASA member CBOs and held focus groups to help us better configure features and UI elements to better meet CBO user expectations. On the front-end / end-user side our technical lead Chris Berno sits on the W3C Web Content Accessibility Advisory Team and is dedicated to exceeding standards for inclusion and accessibility. 

Connie will provide BIPOC older adults with unfettered access to supportive and potentially life-saving community-based resources. Consider how COVID-19 vaccine resources are mainly accessible online, thereby unfairly reinforcing the digital divide that exists for BIPOC older adults. Fortunately, 77% of older adults own smartphones, including 71% of adults with income of less than $30K. That is why Connie uses integrated mobile phone and cloud-based platforms to reach and connect older adults with local, life-saving vetted resources from CBOs. Connie will connect BIPOC older adults with social services bypassing biases and barriers that otherwise exist.

We are classifying Connie as Prototype based on 4 factors:

1. We’ve Completed Proof of Concept & Feasibility Testing: This worked helps us move from the discovery of the unmet need for enterprise communication tools to getting initial reactions and feedback around proposed features from actual CBO leaders. 

2. Defined Feature Set Requirements (MVP): all features and capabilities for Connie MVP have been agreed upon and finalized by stakeholders. A corresponding development roadmap and corresponding tracking tools are being finalized.

3. Defined Server-side, Network and Systems Requirements (MVP): The information from proof of concept, feasibility testing and feature set development allow developers to align the best server side technology options, specifications and frameworks with the required feature sets.

4. VPS Development Server Live with non-functional Code Sprints underway. We are actively assembling our code base and learning from initial testing workflows and design interaction across each feature type.

Connie presents an opportunity to innovate by eliminating the technology barriers that exist today for BIPOC older adults by enabling easy, reliable access and on-demand connections to CBOs who can deliver vital resources to them at scale.  

ASA  member organizations form a powerful ecosystem that Connie can leverage to deliver innovative solutions to older adult minorities. Our Q4 2020 needs analysis and CBO interviews helped identify that increasing broadband access alone wasn’t going to drive meaningful engagement with older minority adults.  We also identified key drivers behind most CBO’s inability to connect with the most marginalized and underrepresented BIPOC older adults in delivering their life-saving services - particularly at scale. With help from data partners, we merged our internal findings with end-user data that helped us innovate an authentic, end-to-end, platform solution. 

We learned that 77% of older adults own smartphones, including 71% of adults with an income of less than $30K. That is why Connie uses integrated mobile phone and cloud-based platforms to reach and connect marginalized older adults with local, life-saving vetted resources from CBOs. By leveraging the ASA ecosystem, Connie will catalyze older minority ability to connect to the digital economy in a secure and easy to use way using existing technology that's now going under-utilized on older adults’ mobile phones - service workers.

Connie is not currently in production and serving 0 older adults. 

With the help of the Purdue University Center For Regional Development and volunteer ASA member CBOs we are currently evaluating three location candidates for our initial trials and MVP launch; Philadelphia, PA, San Diego, Ca, and Nevada. Based on our projections we expect to service 214,000 older adults across all three locations in our first year, including a larger percentage of BIPOC older adults. 

Projections beyond first year and MVP are not finalized. We know that accurate and reliable demand forecasting will be essential for us to maximize positive outcomes, however looking at even the most recent data sets pertaining to broadband access and demographics by location is not at all an accurate way to forecast future demand. There are a number of powerful moving parts happening in real-time ranging from local ISP activity to changing FCC regulations and even new product launches such as StarLink coming online that must be factored into our market selection strategy. Building the most reliable, working models for market selection that help us maximize outcomes is one area where we would like to seek help from the SOLVE community.

Thanks to Connie’s communication technology and ASA’s in-house evaluation expert, the metrics and analytics we will use to track success and impact will be quantitative and qualitative. Analytics will align with ASA’s goals and be easily accessible for all stakeholders. Outcomes and outputs to be measured will include: 

Community Impact Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) - To demonstrate Connie’s impact and provide actionable, data-driven insight for CBOs, we will collect metrics such as: rates of service uptick/willingness by demographic and geography; ease of finding resources; # Connie CBOs and total $ value of CBO subscribers by market; # Connie users signed up for resources;

Network Performance KPIs - To identify traditional customer service level indicators, we will collect metrics on activation rates, daily active user rates, churn rates, and customer satisfaction (via NPS). Looking beyond MVP, key financial metrics will come online such as cost per acquisition (CAC) and monthly recurring revenue (MRR), and CBO service ratings;

Development Phase Metrics - To ensure expectations, we will collect metrics related to developer operations such as: Developer Task Cycle times, Open Tickets, Recurring Ticket rate and error rates.

3 full time; 1 part time

We're assembling a diverse, distributed, and strategically skilled team at  Connie. Our founding team responsible for the formation and early development includes: Robert Lowe, ASA's COO, brings over 20 years of IT operations management at ASA, and a deep understanding of CBO member organizations and their needs. Rob is uniquely positioned to ensure Connie solutions are valid, reliable and that we’re leveraging the CBO ecosystem for maximum innovation and impact. Technical Operations is led by Christopher Berno, ASA’s Acting CTO with 12 years of enterprise technical operations leadership and proven ability to deliver enterprise cloud solutions to small business customers. Chris's ability to lead technical teams from architecture to MVP is a mission-critical skill that Chris brings. Dr. Leanne Clark-Shirley,  VP, Programs is a social gerontologist and evaluator, formerly of AARP.  Leanne’s experience and authority have been critical for discovery and defining the customer journey for older adults in the Connie ecosystem. 

Peter Kaldes, ASA’s CEO, is a former Executive Director of a CBO serving older adults, foundation executive, lawyer and Obama White House economic advisor. Peter's first-hand experience leading an aging services CBO uniquely positions him as a trusted authority who will provide general management at Connie and oversee strategic business development and market growth.

Looking forward, our business plan identifies strategic staff additions including two Developers (one frontend, one backend), one Lead Designer and two Account Managers to provide CBO support.  Connie will also leverage interns and volunteers to ensure community awareness and achieve better outcomes. 

Since its inception, ASA has believed in an inclusive, equitable world for people of all ages. Our leadership team is made up of 3 openly gay men and one heterosexual woman. ASA’s entire team and Board also reflect the diversity of our country. In fact, as our country grows older, we are also becoming more diverse. Older people are the most diverse segment of our population, with preferences, needs and assets shaped by lifetimes of experience. And, within 15 years, this highly diverse group will for the first time outnumber children younger than age 18, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

This makes the fight against discrimination and bigotry in all of its forms, including ageism, racism, ableism and heterosexism, all the more urgent. ASA is strengthening its commitment to weaving equity throughout our programs and organizational structure, elevating voices that have historically been underrepresented and suppressed, and inspiring members to take growing action toward inclusivity.

ASA is:

• Investing in diversity, equity and inclusivity training for all staff and board members.

• Proud of our historical commitment to maintaining a diverse Board of Directors, while intentionally recruiting new board members to ensure fuller representation. 

• Designing year-round educational programs and initiatives that tackle inequality, social justice and inclusivity, including ASA Rise, a leadership and social justice training for BIPOC leaders in aging. 

• Building new, practical On Aging toolkits and briefs to inspire action toward equity

• Launching advocacy initiatives to help members learn about and organize around diversity, equity and inclusion.

Becoming a SOLVER team is very important to us at Connie  for a number of reasons. First, ASA is seeking access to MIT’s social impact community. As we build infrastructure and workflows for our pilot markets, we know that scalability and network security will be a key factor in our ability to deliver the output and achieve desired outcomes.  Having access to coaching and mentoring from leaders who have gone before us from across different verticals and geographic locations could result in massive time and cost savings that may not be otherwise possible.  

In addition to access to expert impact coaching resources, we know that SOLVER teams may get access to funding from sources that understand social and impact business models. Whether it's for marketing, market intelligence, or fraud prevention, we would greatly benefit from relationships with and deliver value back to MIT network funding partners. 

Finally, we're seeking to inspire other aging-related organizations to innovate. If COVID-19 has taught us anything it is that we are woefully unprepared to deal with an aging society - particularly made up of BIPOC older adults who have faced inequities their entire adult lives. If Connie is successful, we can revolutionize our approach to aging in this country.

Exposing the Connie vision, value proposition and the technology that’s powering it all on a national stage will help challenge and validate assumptions on a broader scale. We believe this is specifically true as it pertains to customer discovery, PR and market expansion beyond our initial markets. What works in Philadelphia, PA may not work the same way in Peoria, IL. But awareness alone isn’t enough and we believe that we will get maximum value from being a SOLVER team in areas pertaining to customer discovery in various US markets, PR and strategic market expansion. Leveraging MIT’s network to get better insight about the people we intend to serve and do a better job of involving them in the design process on a national scale is an invaluable asset. Should we expect different outcomes in different locations due to local differences? Inclusion is at the core of everything Connie does and is a fundamental value of ours so access to the MIT network could lead to better, more authentic partnerships with local vendors, brand ambassadors and partner organizations and would be one key area we seek advice and mentorship from the SOLVER network.

Regarding Inclusion & Accessibility in the development and design phases of the Connie platform our focus has been on exceeding W3C accessibility standards, which we are proud of, but is inclusion based on ability enough for a next generation platform service like Connie? To accurately reflect ASA values and to achieve the outcomes we expect, Connie accessibility standards must expand to include race and further expanded to achieve world class accessibility and inclusion standards at scale. We want these inclusion standards to originate in the architecture and development phases and not just in the design and distribution phases (system admins should be as accountable and influential as our designers are in terms of inclusion). We want to be a role model here and would look to MIT Media Lab to help us achieve this next level of inclusion. Specifically, exposure to and involvement in the work that Dr. Katlyn Turner is doing with Anti-racism Technology Design may be a great starting point. 

In terms of addressing Network Security and integrity as we scale,  we would appreciate exposure to MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). The objective would be to quantify a minimal, optimal and global leader security goals for our network and the steps we’d need to take to achieve them. Further, we know that CSAIL can help us ensure that our development road map reflects the right sprint activity to achieve our security goals the first time and that those tasks are prioritized properly. 

Older adults accounted for over 80% of COVID-19 deaths, with a disproportionate impact on low-income communities of color primarily due to healthcare inequities. Now with vaccine resources mainly accessible online, the inequities that exist for BIPOC older adults are further exacerbated. Increasing  access to the digital economy requires a trusted and targeted approach to these marginalized communities. Since 1954, ASA has developed and led the largest, most diverse community of 4000+ professionals working in aging. As a result, ASA has become the go-to source to cultivate leadership, advance knowledge and strengthen the skills of our member organizations. ASA is a trusted voice on critical systemic issues that influence aging, including ensuring our members combat racism.  Incubated at ASA, Connie is based on extensive research and ASA collaborations with member organizations who serve communities of color. While 21 million older adults lack internet at home, 77% of older adults own smartphones, including 71% of adults with income of less than $30K. In fact, cell phone ownership is much more common than internet use among older African Americans. Just 45% of African Americans ages 65 and older use the internet, but 77% are cell phone owners. That is why Connie uses integrated mobile phone and cloud-based platforms to reach, engage and connect marginalized older adults with local, vetted resources from subscribing ASA community-based organizations (CBOs). ASA will use these funds in two key ways: expanding into markets with greater numbers of BIPOC older adults and ensuring Connie is translated into multiple languages.

Peter Kaldes, ASA’s CEO, knows how racism impacts the lives of older adults. As the CEO of the South Florida Institute on Aging, Kaldes served a low income, primarily BIPOC older adult population, who unlike the stereotype of retirees in south Florida, were not cruising and shuffle boarding, but rather struggling to get by thanks in part to structural racism. Through volunteer, caregiving, lifelong learning and technology adoption programs, Kaldes tried serving as many older adults as he could. Despite his best efforts, many of his organization’s  services were underutilized forcing the nonprofit to forego valuable resources. But more importantly, BIPOC older adults weren’t connected to needed resources, which is a phenomenon he later witnessed at the national level as ASA CEO and exacerbated by the pandemic. While 21 million older adults lack internet at home, 77% of older adults own smartphones, including 71% of adults with income of less than $30K. In fact, cell phone ownership is much more common than internet use among older African Americans. That is why Connie uses integrated mobile phone and cloud-based platforms to reach, engage and connect marginalized older adults with local, vetted resources from subscribing ASA community-based organizations. ASA will use these funds in three key ways: expand into markets with greater numbers of BIPOC older adults, ensure Connie is translated into multiple languages, and build capacity in local CBOs to learn how to incorporate technology-based outreach methods in serving older adults.

Older adults accounted for over 80% of COVID-19 deaths, with a disproportionate impact on low-income communities of color. Now with vaccine resources mainly accessible online, the inequities that exist for BIPOC older adults are further exacerbated. Increasing  access to the digital economy requires a trusted and targeted approach to these marginalized communities. Since 1954, ASA has developed and led the largest, most diverse community of 4000+ professionals working in aging. As a result, ASA has become the go-to source to cultivate leadership, advance knowledge and strengthen the skills of our member organizations. ASA is a trusted voice on critical systemic issues that influence aging, including ensuring our members know how to help adults tackle the digital divide.  Incubated at ASA, Connie is based on extensive research and ASA collaborations with member organizations who serve communities of color. While 21 million older adults lack internet at home, 77% of older adults own smartphones, including 71% of adults with income of less than $30K. Cell ownership is much more common than internet use among older African Americans. Just 45% of African Americans ages 65 and older use the internet, but 77% are cell phone owners. That is why Connie uses integrated mobile phone and cloud-based platforms to reach, engage and connect marginalized older adults with local, vetted resources from subscribing CBOs. ASA will use these funds in two key ways: expanding into markets with greater numbers of BIPOC older adults and ensuring Connie is translated into multiple languages.

In 2018, older women outnumbered older men at 29.1 million older women to 23.3 million older men. Increasing  access to the digital economy requires a trusted and targeted approach to older women, many of whom come from these marginalized communities. Since 1954, ASA has developed and led the largest, most diverse community of 4000+ professionals working in aging. As a result, ASA has become the go-to source to cultivate leadership, advance knowledge and strengthen the skills of our member organizations. ASA is a trusted voice on critical systemic issues that influence aging, including ensuring our members know how to help adults tackle the digital divide.  Incubated at ASA, Connie is based on extensive research and ASA collaborations with member organizations who serve communities of color. While 21 million older adults lack internet at home, 77% of older adults own smartphones, including 71% of adults with income of less than $30K. Cell ownership is much more common than internet use among older African Americans. Just 45% of African Americans ages 65 and older use the internet, but 77% are cell phone owners. That is why Connie uses integrated mobile phone and cloud-based platforms to reach, engage and connect marginalized older adults with local, vetted resources from subscribing CBOs. ASA will use these funds in two key ways: expanding into markets with greater numbers of BIPOC older adult women and ensuring Connie is translated into multiple languages.