How Tech Influences Travel & Security
Watch this webinar to hear from Former Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan about COVID necessitated the need for emerging tech in travel and homeland security.
Meagan:
Welcome everybody to today’s Dcode virtual session. I’m Meagan Metzger. I am the CEO of Dcode. And for any of you on the line that is new to Dcode as an organization, welcome. You’re now a part of our community and we really have one mission at Dcode, and that is to connect the tech industry and the government together so that we can make forward progress and really improve the way that our missions operate. As part of our Dcode virtual series, we’ve had a fantastic lineup. I think last week we had the federal CIO, Suzette Kent. We also had Congressman Seth Moulton. We’ve had some assistant secretaries, and today we have a really special treat for you.
The former acting secretary of DHS, Kevin’s joining us today, and he might not need an introduction, he is probably most well known for his last position, but Kevin has been a longtime civil servant serving in numerous positions across the government, including the commissioner of CVP and some other positions. But welcome, Kevin. We’re really excited to have you here today. And first wanted to do a quick intro from your side. I know you’re a very mission-driven, passionate person, so what are you passionate about? It’s my first question, and then in two seconds or less, what’s the funniest thing that’s happened to you on a video call since lockdown started?
Kevin:
Two good questions. So in terms of what I’m passionate about, I mean this conversation. The best parts of my government career were when we had moments where we had public-private partnerships come together and were taking innovative technology and applying it to make things either safer, more secure, or more facilitative and better for customers. So those two things are exactly what we’re trying to do with this accelerator. So I’m excited and passionate about that. Probably the funniest thing was our new puppy making it down in the basement and knocking over the computer when I was trying to teach a West Point class. Although the cadets loved it, it didn’t turn out to be too embarrassing or affect the business, but it was a moment for sure.
Meagan:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I’m extra excited for today’s conversation. So maybe to start, I think we can all agree it’s not a secret. You open up any newspaper. We know that the travel industry’s been hit pretty hard with COVID-19, but what do you see from your viewpoint of where there are challenges and opportunities in that industry, particularly related to this most recent pandemic?
Kevin:
Yeah. I mean, the impact has just been devastating. The only reference point that was relevant in the first couple of weeks were the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and making travelers feel safe as new procedures came into place. But this has been much longer lasting and far worse in terms of the forced reduction in demand that this pandemic has created for everyone in the industry. And it’s not just the domestic travel and tourism, which is millions of jobs. But on the international side, the part that I used to oversee, many don’t realize that tourism dollars spent by foreign nationals in the US are actually the largest component of our export economy. It’s over 10% of US exports. So this is a critical industry to get back on its feet to help with our overall economic recovery and really the global economic recovery. And it is probably the most challenging aspect because diseases move in vectors of travel, and that’s obviously what we’ve seen with the spread of this pandemic.
Meagan:
Sure. So let’s talk a little bit about behind the curtain, if you will, inside that industry. We know from our work at Dcode that a lot of the challenges with adopting the solutions like emerging technology capabilities is much more than just introducing technology to the problem set. What type of challenges do you see in the trade and travel industry that maybe prevent them from being a little bit more forward-leaning or seizing the opportunity to leverage emerging capabilities?
Kevin:
Yeah. It’s set of challenges for this industry, and it’s one for me that I’m personally very invested in, not only in setting up our new firm plan, but I was an airport director at LAX, one of the best jobs I had at US Customs and Border Protection and really stayed with the industry trying to innovate with global entry, with automated passport control kiosks and really and now facial recognition that CBP is still implementing. To understand the various challenges that affect the airports and the aviation industry as they move forward. So you got a couple of dynamics.
One, they are ready to invest in solutions that will help the traveling public gain confidence in returning to air travel, but also to respond to any regulatory impetus that you hear from the federal government, DHS, or public health authorities. The problem is the public health authorities are still actively learning about this disease and the best way to protect people that are moving around and interacting while we still have COVID very prevalent and before we have a vaccine or an effective set of treatments. So that’s a very dynamic conversation between public health authorities and industry.
And secondly, you have this challenge of global standard setting. Anything you do domestically, given the fact that international travel is about 15% of the industry’s business and so critical, as I noted to the overall economy, you really want to see that coordination between the US approach, the European approach, and really a global set of standards emerge. And that’s going to lag partly because of the public health response, but partly because the energy and intensity on the national government level is very focused on protecting the public and their own domestic responses. I’m hoping that will change with the G20 preparations that are going to be occurring this summer and again in October with the leadership of Saudi Arabia bringing together the G20. It’s got to have a travel and tourism focus. It’s got to bring forward standards that help the industry know what to invest in and what to do.
The other side of that coin though is I think there’s a real opportunity for disruptive and innovative technologies that can address parts of this process that need to have greater protective measures in place. Things like touchless and contactless technologies. You saw in the TSA announcement just today their expectations for how people interact with the checkpoints. They don’t want people handing over their boarding passes anymore. They don’t want; if you’re using your mobile device, to go to the TSA officer, they want the travelers to hold onto that. Just a simple first step in limiting that contact. They’re giving guidance on how travelers can keep things in their carry-ons and which things they need to take out to successfully get through the checkpoint that I think people are going to listen to a little bit more carefully in a post-COVID environment.
Those are just the beginnings of that conversation. But those things need to become established. They need to become global standards, and the industry I think is waiting for those signals, masks, food service limitations, and trying to control their load factors on aircraft. They’re doing all those things. Those are obvious immediate steps, but the longer-term investments that need to be in place are going to be part of that dynamic between public health authorities, global standard setting bodies, and the industry. But I think technology is the solution and technology in each of those stages of the process.
Meagan:
Yeah. That’s interesting. So I have two follow on questions to that. One, as we’ve been working in the federal market to include CBP and some of the organizations that you named, one of the things that we realized is that tech is a big part of the solution. But we stood up training courses for government leaders on changing culture, navigating policy, getting overcoming procurement barriers, and things like that. So when you’re looking at bringing these standards and these technologies to those players, talk about the complexity of all the stakeholders involved and what types of knowledge do they need to gain or what cultural barriers do they need to tear down actually to start implementing some of that.
Kevin:
And I think that’s a really important aspect is not only is industry going to be the critical customer here, but governments a customer of these solutions as well as you’re seeing with both CBP and TSA investing in biometric technologies. I think that’s going to accelerate dramatically. But you’re right; you’ve got to both teach the government how to do their procurements and how to reach out to these emerging technology providers and access them more expeditiously. But also you got to teach the emerging tech industry. Here’s how you work with a government customer. Here are the various ways that you can engage and deliver your capability, whether it’s through pilots to get started or contracts that have more flexibility in other transaction authority engagements. We’ve got to help on both sides of that equation because government has to learn how to buy emerging tech and emerging tech has to find their government customer, and that’s going to be part of this solution as well in restarting and really increasing the safety and facilitation of travel.
Meagan:
So what opportunities do you see, you talked about all the contact lists, and transactions that we can have to fix the existing problem, but I think a lot of folks are saying, ‘We’ve learned a lot by going virtual and realizing that we have an opportunity not to return to normal, but to return to a better place than where we started from.” If this industry capitalizes on this well, in leveraging some of the tech, not just to get back to operating safely, but what other advancements can we see? Is it going to be a better travel experience for passengers? What is the silver lining in all of this?
Kevin:
Yeah. So I do think one of the silver linings, and we’ll start with where you started the question, on the touchless technologies, really making sure that traveler can move through the system, both the check-in, the aviation security process, a border crossing process, a boarding of an aircraft without handling documents and handing them over to various officials in that process. That has to change. That’s going to be a fundamental result of this. And you see the various recommendations, whether it’s the International Air Transport Authority, International Civil Aviation Organization, they’re all rallying around a touchless process that’s biometrically enabled. So I think that’s going to be a fundamental shift that’s going to happen, that’s going to be better. It was already in process, but not really with the adoption and deployment as quickly as the technology’s moved. So I think that’ll be accelerated dramatically.
I think you’re going to see a very different approach to baggage. I don’t think you’re going to see baggage in the terminal in the hands of travelers as long or as often. I think there are moves to take the bags earlier in the process, whether it’s at home, at a rental car center, at a transportation hub, and not have that in the possession of the travelers and enter the terminal. That reduces cross-contamination. That reduces handling issues between the traveler and various personnel, carrier personnel, or authorities.
And I think that’s going to be a long-term improvement in the process as well. And I hope and this is a challenging aspect of it. I hope you’re going to see information about that traveler move between in the industry authorities and regulatory authorities in a much more seamless manner with privacy protections and with trust and control of the traveler in place. And that’s a tech solution for each step of that process. The actual resubmission of the data five different times doesn’t make sense anymore. We have to find a way for that packet of information on the traveler and the analytics around that to move between authorities in a seamless fashion. I think that’s going to be a fundamental shift resulting from this process as well.
Meagan:
And I was going to ask about that. I think when it comes to data and health, it’s always an interesting debate because in a lot of ways, sharing more information about where we’ve been and who we’ve been in contact with and the health of passengers keeps everyone safer. But how do you do that while protecting privacy? And how much of a privacy implication will this accelerate, to your point, beyond what you just talked about?
Kevin:
Yeah. So I think that’s a really important question. And you see the government and industry grappling with the contact tracing aspects of it. Once you have community spread and an ongoing pandemic in 50 states, the contact tracing at the front end is less relevant, but it’s going to be really important for the next epidemic or pandemic or the next phase if we have one unfortunately of the global effort to combat COVID-19. So how do you manage that? And I think there’s some really good thinking going on in the tech industry, the approach that Google and Apple are taking to this challenge, giving the traveler more authority, giving the customer more authority over whether they want to participate, whether they want their information shared and whether they want to know of potential interaction with a COVID-19 patient. I think that’s the thing that could gain consumer or traveler confidence.
But does it meet the requirements from the public health perspective? Do you get to the percentage level of movement and potential contact that helps you manage the disease? So that’s a really tough balance and a fine line. So more work is on procedures that the traveler or consumer trusts, but that get to the public health threshold where it can be meaningful in combating the disease. That’s really important work. And I don’t think that we have all the answers on how to do that. I think that’s going to continue to require innovation and outreach.
Meagan:
We’ve had pandemics not of this caliber in the most recent history, but we did have Ebola outbreaks and things like that. Are some of the solutions that you’re talking about going to help us become more resilient so this industry doesn’t become hit as heavily should, God forbid this happened again, in the future? And what are the two other things you would recommend that we do to make sure, not only do we rebound, but we become more resilient?
Kevin:
Yeah, absolutely. I think all these steps will increase our resilience. I mean, you could talk about the macro picture and there’s going to be a reckoning on the role of the World Health Organization. There’s going to be a 9/11-style commission that studies the US response and missed opportunities. But these technology implementations with better policy, with better surveillance capability are going to definitely make us more resilient. And frankly, I think part of the analysis will miss opportunities on the speed of the reaction at the borders on the international travel between China and the world. We saw that the key vector for this disease appears to have come from China through Europe to the eastern seaboard of the United States. That could have been addressed with better surveillance, more resilient processes, or in contact tracing that was trusted and effective earlier in this process.
So I think establishing those capabilities in response is going to be key to being more resilient. You’re right to reference the Ebola example we put in granted, Ebola is a very different pathogen, not as infectious. You can’t go for weeks asymptomatic in movement. It’s a very different pathogen. But the measures we put into place at the borders with partners in Europe at transfer hubs were effective at surveilling the disease and preventing its spread in the United States from the foreign vector. That’s the thing I think we can do with future pathogens better, even if they are as challenging as coronavirus has proven to be.
Meagan:
Sure. And it sounds like a lot of this comes down to collaboration, as you mentioned earlier, between the countries and what do you see the role both in the US government and I would say even in organizations like the Trade & Travel Accelerator that Dcode and Pangiam have stood up together in helping facilitate that collaboration to make sure it’s consistent across the countries and we are monitoring it correctly.
Kevin:
So I do think that private sector leadership is going to be critical to helping governments do that collaboration. What you’re seeing emerge now are more regional or country pair agreements, for instance, Australia, New Zealand that has a certain level of confidence, a little easier with island nations to address the disease and to ensure monitoring are starting to open travel in a more facilitative way. I think that the examples of the US negotiating with Canada and Mexico on how to manage essential travel and commercial travel versus traditional tourism or day trips at the land borders have been an effective model as well.
How do we see those regional agreements expand to more global understandings of how travel can move between places that have the disease under control or at least under surveillance? Again, on the private sector side, if we can help at Dcode and Pangiam to bring solutions to the fore, especially if they are stronger than the individual solutions with the sum of a cohort that each has different contributions to the technology, I think that can help the government see a path to setting standards that work.
Again, I think the former FDA commissioner, Scott Gottlieb, who’s been a leading voice on this management of this epidemic, a pandemic has talked about, we’re going to innovate our way out of this disease. I firmly believe he’s right on that. And if we can show technology solutions that can work and create processes that are safer, I think government standards will evolve and adapt to the potential out there in the industry.
Meagan:
And diving a little bit deeper into standards, sounds like there’s standards for just physical operations. There are probably data standards. How much of this is a data challenge and the sharing of data securely?
Kevin:
Yeah. I think it’s a big portion of the challenge. We talked about how one area that’s very prominent is just sharing the identity of a traveler. The confirmed identity of a traveler between carriers, regulatory authorities, aviation security, border crossing, and different places in that process. That’s been a very hard problem that I think needs to be solved and can be solved with analytics. With the challenge of managing flow in an airport environment, there’s going to be an imperative to try to maintain social distancing during this initial phase of travel, especially without a vaccine or a globally available effective treatment. So how do you do that? For hub airports, they’re facing two problems. They’re facing longer dwell times of travelers with fewer flights, and they’re still facing the presence of peaks, even with the huge reduction in the percentage of travel because that’s what makes it convenient for those flights to operate.
So how do they keep people moving through their airport environment in a way that doesn’t create queues, a lot of interaction without distance between travelers, but still use their limited real estate effectively. So that’s an analytics problem. How do you help travelers do their wayfinding in a terminal? So that data packaging I think is really important.
And then the answer for the bags, getting them out of a traveler’s hands earlier, but staying with them through the travel cycle is also an analytics problem. How do you take the image of what’s on the inside of that bag and satisfy everybody who needs to know in the process without additional touchpoints, especially with the traveler holding that bag. So those are three aspects of the movement of data that I think can be solved and need to be work on with the tech industry in this process.
Meagan:
Sure. On that note, we have some interesting questions from the audience. The first one here from Joe says, if disruptive tech is going to be a part of the new global travel standards, how does scalability become a critical factor in the success of that innovation?
Kevin:
So scalability is huge. You’re looking for global adoption and deployment at tremendous scale. I guess I would harken back to one of my experiences working with the private sector in the aviation environment and just how quickly the private sector can move once they’re sure that a path forward is the right one. We put in what was called automated passport control kiosks, simple touchscreens that took part of the administrative process out of the government’s hands and made that process more facilitated and secure. We started with one terminal, one vendor and said, “We’ll accept data in this format.” And in less than 18 months, we were in 30 terminals with six different vendors, industry had innovated and pushed at the speed of business instead of the speed of government.
I think you’re going to see that rapid adoption of solutions at work at scale, and a competitive adoption. If somebody finds a solution that’s working, yes, you’ll have a lead, but you’re going to see others follow suit. The travel industry is very responsive and almost a school of fish type of movement once you see things start working. And that’s been my personal experience on the government partnership, and I think that’s what’s going to get us to scale once these solutions emerge for this particular challenge.
Meagan:
Sure. And for the government folks on the phone that may be in a position to engage with the industry, talk about in your position in the government, you are facilitating that first terminal. What other signals can the government provide to industry to kickstart them and say, yes, this is the direction? Go move at the speed of industry?
Kevin:
Yeah. So I think one of the tools that we use very effectively on the government side is pilots and taking a pilot and opening it up very quickly and announcing those standards. That’s how you get that adoption. The other thing is that you’ve got to be willing and able to take risks sometimes in the control of that environment. Government processes, often they go through that traditional appropriations, procurement, strategy and then deployment process, which is years long and is not going to be fast enough to get travel going where we need it for this crisis.
So instead, you set standards, you give guidance, and you let industry come up with the solutions. I think those are the two things from a government perspective, a mindset shift that we’re going to need to do this. You’re seeing that the FDA is very responsive on emergency use authorizations on accepting foreign government certifications on PPE, for instance, but also in rapidly approving trials for vaccines and treatments. That’s the innovation and two-way dialogue that I think we’re going to need to see from regulatory authorities on the aviation side of the industry as well.
Meagan:
Sure. And it’s funny you make me think of in our Dcode advanced class on for government leaders, we do talk a lot about MVP concepts and that prototyping, but a big part of that is actually coordinating with the end users, and in this case, the end users are both the airport operators, the TSA officials, and the passengers. So do you think that engaging with this emerging tech community creates a different opportunity to get input from the travelers themselves? Or how does that engagement work to make sure that we’re putting in solutions that the passengers will trust to your earlier point?
Kevin:
Yeah. I mean, people are going to want to see test data. They’re going to want to see the human factors aspects of interacting with that technology addressed. That’s difficult. I’ve seen government successfully provide environments to do that with test facilities and prototyping facilities, DHS Science and Technology has done a good job supporting that. TSA does a good job with that, but you can also do that from the industry side, whether it’s an emerging tech company, partnering with a carrier, partnering with an airport, or almost a demonstration project. I think that’s a good way to get that interaction and show that you’ve got results that work effectively because again, this has to work in the real world and it has to work at scale, and it has to work in a can’t fail very fast-moving environment. So you’re going to want to test it really from both sides.
Meagan:
So you talked about some things that have worked. What doesn’t work? Where have you seen this go fantastically wrong?
Kevin:
Not involving the mission. Operators are going to have to use it in at the end, whether it’s a frontline employee for TSA or CBP or an air carrier, a check-in agent or a traveler. You could have a perfect process and the traveler doesn’t understand how to access it, how to interact with it or what to do it. It’s not going to gain that uptick. So I’ve seen that not work in a number of contexts. So that communications aspect is going to be critical as we move forward too. And ideally, you want to see a government official next to an air carrier executive, next to an airport executive saying, “Hey, when you come to the airport, this is what we’re going to do and this is what we need you to do as a traveler to take responsibility for your part of the process.”
Meagan:
Sure. So I don’t want to ignore the second part of Joe’s question, which paraphrased a little bit, is if we make all these advancements in airports and around the world and we create standards, how do we also help bring along maybe parts of the world that won’t be able to adopt this technology either economically or whatnot to make sure that those don’t become hotbeds? How do we make this a global movement in the travel industry, not just isolated to the countries that can afford to?
Kevin:
Yeah. No, that’s a really important question. And frankly, I think policymakers are going to be facing this challenge. There’s some interesting thinking going on right now about the second wave and the fact that poor developing nations have been behind the first world in terms of the peak of the pandemic and their countries, and what happens when they hit the peak when Europe, US, China, others are exhausted from managing the effort in their countries and are now starting to get to restart. How does that interaction happen? I think travel’s going to be one of the areas that create difficulty. So one of the things from a US perspective, is there’s a lot of hub travel. So we can address those risks with the hubs with the pre-clearance program, which is a critical aspect of this in North America and the Caribbean as well as emerging in Europe.
But I think other countries need to look at those opportunities as well. A number of European countries have similar liaison officer programs where they can work with smaller, less advantaged governments on their security processes, and their safety processes of travel to those hubs. And I think that’s going to have to be expanded. That’s got to be part of the global strategy. But I don’t want to suggest that it’s easy and there’s a lot of concern at will developed nations have the funding, the will, the bandwidth to support less developed countries dealing with this challenge going forward. I think you see that whether it’s the vaccine deployment once we have one, through just the public health aspects, the PPE supply chain, as we saw was so challenging for so many countries as well, including the US.
Meagan:
Sure. And I think that’s related to another question coming in from the audience here, but wanting to talk a little bit more about this interaction of industry and government, the implementation of these technologies. What other recommendations do you have for those in the industry of where to get started and how to get started interacting with the federal government? And do they have a role in also taking these types of capabilities to the countries we were just talking about?
Kevin:
Well, that’s a good question for you too, Meagan. So maybe you can help me fill in this answer. But I think as you noted at the outset, that is Dcode’s mission and that’s why we’re excited about participating in this cohort is bringing some companies through a process with mentoring, with specific guidance on how to do that effectively. It’s not easy to be candid, but I do think there are opportunities, again, with other transaction authorities, with pilots to start approaching a government customer. It is a little bit difficult without Sherpa, without a guide for an emerging tech company that’s never done any work with the government industry. But there are a lot of resources out there, both on government websites. Certainly in your last several interviews here that you’ve done on the web with Dcode that can help companies start to see how to do that effectively. But I’d love to turn it back to you to round out that response.
Meagan:
And just a quick summary of what we’re talking about with trade and travel, for those of you that are new to it, Dcode and partnership with Pangiam, which Kevin is a part of, is launching a program specifically for emerging technologies to come in and impact this travel industry and tackle all the problems we’re talking about today where Dcode and Pangiam serve as the sherpa to educate on how they buy, who to sell to all of the policies we need to navigate, how we start rapidly implementing the tech. So when you come out the other side, you understand how to effectively work together with the government to get the implementations in. So great softball question for sure. A couple of other questions coming in from the audience. This one’s interesting. What is your take on a couple of developments? I’ll start with the first one here, which is what are the thoughts on immunization markers on passports?
Kevin:
Yeah. That’s a very interesting question. I think when we have widespread adoption of a vaccine that starts to become relevant, and that’s potentially one of those data management challenges. I mean, there are a few areas of privacy and data protection that are more important than health information. We’ve seen discussions about people that have successful antibody tests that’s shown they’ve either had the disease or had an immune response to a vaccine, maybe being able to move around in the economy earlier in the process. I think some public health authorities have expressed that that’s risky. You don’t want people holding COVID-19 parties for those of us who are a little older, chickenpox and measles parties when we were kids. That’s not a good idea with this disease. So I think that that’s a careful policy question as well as implementation. But I think once you have an effective vaccine, that’s widely available, that very well could be part of a discussion on movement and travel, especially if we’re facing second or repeated waves of coronavirus outbreaks.
Meagan:
Sure. And then the second part of that, and one other take is do you think we need a health and safety organization for the travel industry similar to a TSA, or do we have the infrastructure we need with the current agencies?
Kevin:
I think there’s going to be a real reckoning and a real conversation on the right way to operationalize our public health capabilities going forward. I think that’s going to be part of the commission that studies the US response. I’m just assuming one will exist. And really, that’s a tough question. We’ve got tremendous doctors and experts at CDC, at NIH. We’ve got tremendous operators at DHS and at FEMA and other parts of the government. How do you integrate them most effectively to respond, especially early on when surveillance picks up a potential threat? That’s challenging. I was in government during four potential near pandemics, whether it was Ebola or H1N1, SARS or MERS. And each time that coordination had to be rebuilt through inter-agency processes. I think a standing organization, some fundamental change is certainly worth a serious conversation coming out of this crisis.
Meagan:
Yeah, absolutely. So shifting a little bit from COVID-19, what else is next? I know passenger health and safety is going to be the focus of the first program of that accelerator. By the way, last plug on that, if you are a tech company looking to really change and impact this market, applications are open through June. If you are a government employee or in the industry and you want to get involved, it’s always free for government to connect with the technologies. Definitely engage as well. But after that, what other opportunities are there in the trade and travel industry that you think you’ll tackle next?
Kevin:
So obviously I’ll go on my soapbox for just a second. There’s been a lot of discussion about this pandemic being a black swan event that couldn’t be anticipated. I think it was a known threat. It’s just an expensive one to prepare for, and government wasn’t where it needed to be globally. I don’t think any government would say they were ready. The other one that is in that category for me is on the cyber side. So working on some of the emerging and current cybersecurity challenges is another place where I think emerging tech can have a huge impact in supporting government. I think DHS and CISA, the new cybersecurity infrastructure security agency, still relatively new, is doing a great job working on these issues, whether it’s election security, infrastructure security, but this is a massive, massive challenge and it’s going to need continued daily innovation and industry’s going to have to drive that for government to be successful and to keep up.
Meagan:
Sure. And we’ve even seen that with, I would say UAS and counter-UAS infiltrating some of this market. Lots of interesting problems that are out there for sure. Last chance to get in. Any other questions that you want to ask of Kevin right now, but really enjoyed this conversation. I think there are lots of opportunities and challenges that we can all tackle together when the industry unites and really runs at something. I’m excited for the future.
Kevin, if you had one parting thought here of a piece of advice for industry and a piece of advice for government on how to continue to push us forward related to this challenge, what would it be?
Kevin:
Yeah. I would say, first of all, I’m very excited for this opportunity to work with you, Meagan, and the Dcode team, to bring this together, the emerging technology and the government needs and the industry needs to help solve this problem but ongoing opportunities in the trading travel sector. I think my best advice for government having been on that side most of the last two decades, is you got to think in new ways. You have to open yourself to approaching this problem more flexibly, more rapidly, and at the speed of business, not at the traditional speed of government and looking for those innovative solutions that do exist in your authorization and pushing for them if necessary with Congress, is needed and critical right now.
On the emerging tech industry, don’t give up. Don’t think that working with government is too hard. It can be a tremendous customer and really working in a highly regulated environment to provide your solutions is possible. And we can help with that of course, but don’t give up regardless. So I think those will be my two parting thoughts.
Meagan:
Those were perfect. Kevin, sincere appreciation. Please stay healthy and hopeful and everyone on the line, please stay healthy and hopeful and look forward to speaking again soon. All right. Dcode, signing off.