May 4, 2023 • 31 mins
This is a bit of a special episode. We are in New Hampshire for the NHCTO Clinic, so we prerecorded a few interviews. The first interview you will hear is with Andrew and George from Lakota Local School District. George is a student in high school and is completing their Cyber Academy program and gaining Industry Recognized Certificates (Including Security+ and CEH pro). This has opened doors for George and he is currently working as a cybersecurity professional for a company in his area while going to school. It's a really cool program and has given us a few ideas.
The second interview you will hear is a chat with a number of representatives from Absolute. They go into detail about what their product can offer schools.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:22):
Live from the somethingcool.com studios
this is the K-12 Tech Talk podcast
this is going to be a little bit of a
special episode because we have a couple
interviews that we've recorded that
we're you're going to hear tonight uh
but first Chris is with me here uh I
guess it's really no secret we're in New
Hampshire right now um we're at the New
Hampshire CTO clinic and we've had to
(00:43):
pre-record some interviews to get an
episode out this week to everyone
um but first let's talk about our
sponsors that are with us every week we
have ntp uh they awesome EDR Solutions
get a hold of David Wren over at ntp I
think let me let me see if I remember
this email
d-w-r-e-n at ntp Dash
incincinc.com
(01:05):
they do a bunch of stuff but uh they're
one of their big things they've got
right now is uh EDR solution from
Sentinel one with a 24 7 monitored sock
go ahead we want to thank extreme
networks as we always do you can email
Dominic mayor D Mayer at extreme.com if
you're looking for switches for wireless
for whatever check out extreme networks
(01:26):
and then Fortinet a proud responsible
Tech Talk podcast
reach out to them as well and we have a
special so so let's unpack the special
interviews we got to sit down with
absolute yep several the guys from
absolute because we've been unpacking
them over the last several episodes but
we've been doing an okay job yeah so we
had the experts come on to impact them
about what they really do yes so the
(01:49):
best way to explain it is LoJack for
laptops right so they
um if you've got a they'll they'll
monitor several devices but if you've
got a Windows laptop they've got a
client that gets installed and goes
straight into the BIOS you can't remove
it
um kind of like an MDM type solution uh
so they'll they'll explain that in their
interview and kind of their company
history they used to be a different name
(02:10):
computrace I just remembered that uh and
I used to use computers shoot man 15
years ago at a different company I I
work for so it was kind of cool uh
putting the connecting those dots
together and seeing their their history
as a company uh the other interview that
we're going to have during this episode
is a really cool interviews with
yeah Andrew wasn't the tech director
(02:32):
there but he was like I guess he was one
of the instructors for this program so
tell us what that's about yes so we got
to meet Andrew and George uh in
particular Andrew I I Eric the intern
hung out uh when we were at the coast
and Conference to learn about this is a
high school that has a great cyber
security program so Josh and I we talk
about our our our student text that fix
(02:54):
Chromebook screens fix Chromebook Parts
this school took that way next level uh
and they're into cyber security yeah
they have like a a I got the vibe almost
an entire high school he said they had
250 kids in the program which is
astonishing to me
um but what they do is they focus in
these different tracks and cyber
security and if the kids want to they
(03:14):
end up coming out with certificates in
different programs like Network plus a
plus George was going for he just passed
Security Plus this week yes shout out to
George you're gonna you're gonna hear
from him but yeah George you're going to
listen to this congratulations on that
that's a big deal and I think you're
going to be blown away with some of the
stuff that George says he's doing he's
he's more or less working as a cyber guy
(03:36):
for a company near their school and
doing some red team stuff doing some
training it's funny because he was
talking about how his dad is in I.T and
they were on a road trip as a fan like a
family vacation or something and his
dad's on a conference call George is on
a conference call and they're they're
George is a senior in high school and
he's on a conference call with a
international company about a cyber I.T
(03:58):
problem so like this kid's in high
school and he's he's doing that because
of the Cyber program that the Lakota
schools in Ohio has so it was a pretty
impressive interview and I think uh
Georgia is going places like these kids
coming out of this High School they've
they've got a foundation and they are
super super marketable yeah listen to
that because that's a I think that
challenge us with our absolutely kick
(04:20):
butt and we do have kick butt kids uh in
in our uh student tech programs but
there's some other stuff that we could
do with our high school kids for sure
yeah absolutely we're looking at adding
a plus to our program so uh give it a
listen and uh we'll be back regularly
scheduled I guess in two weeks because
next week you're gonna hear some
interviews that we've done here at New
(04:42):
Hampshire and uh that'll be next week's
episode so we appreciate you listening
uh stay tuned thanks
all right so we've drug in Eric the
intern again what's up Eric wow and you
brought some friends along with you that
you also drug in from somewhere I don't
know how you convince these guys to hang
out with us for a few minutes but you
(05:03):
pulled it off yeah this is uh coasting
keeps on giving I just kept drink
dragging people in and we keep dragging
them in now
so who we got today all right we've got
Andrew and George uh and they're gonna
talk to us a little bit about the cyber
security program they have going for
students and their school and I'll let
(05:25):
you guys introduce yourselves where are
you from what are your names
what do you like to do
yeah so uh my name is George from
Cincinnati Ohio
um I mean you know it's easy to say my
passion is in cyber security but um I'm
a passion outside I like baseball a lot
um played Sports all my life but uh
definitely had a huge interest in
computers
(05:45):
um from her early age to be honest so
yeah just computers and baseball really
what grade uh senior in high school when
I'm gonna be going to University of
Cincinnati for uh cyber security next
year and what high school awesome other
Cody East High School there we go yeah
uh my name is Andrew I'm the director of
secondary curriculum here at Lakota
schools and so I oversee all of our
(06:06):
programming grades 7 through 12.
um
and I've similar I've got an interest in
technology my whole life but actually
was a social studies teacher for a
number of years before I get into the
curriculum world and have just had the
pleasure of working with Lakota schools
to help build a cyber program we're
about our fourth year the Cyber program
about 240 students and
um you know George is a really great
(06:27):
example of the the students that we have
in our school districts so just excited
to talk to you guys about that
you have 240 kids and you're in your
cyber program yeah
wow that's two high school we have we're
a two High School District
um and our cyber program essentially
spans grades 10 through 12. and cyber
one cyber two cyber three and we have
(06:49):
240 students in the program so it's
amazing Define that program Define what
that is sure I'll give it kind of a high
level and then I'll let George kind of
fill in with what that's like from a
student experience
um we we started out with uh industry
Partners who are like hey you guys
should really build a cyber program and
we're like okay let's do it and from the
very beginning we we had a cyber
(07:10):
Advisory Board uh because we knew we
needed the industry support guidance to
to spin this up and to do it the right
way uh you know in education and we kind
of have a specific approach and business
can sometimes have a different approach
and we thought it was best to put our
minds together to do it so one of the
advice that they gave at the very
beginning is they said try to keep these
courses
um with kind of vague names because the
(07:32):
industry changes a lot so instead of
having you know like 15 different
discrete courses you know just do the
three courses align them with industry
certifications and what standards and
stuff are out there and then we'll
provide you know the industry partner so
they provide a lot of support and That's
essential we did so cyber one is
sophomores generally speaking cyber 2 is
(07:52):
um you know Juniors then cyber 3 is a
Capstone course mostly for C seniors for
the most part the curriculum is
generally
um aligned to Security Plus with a bunch
of offshoots and areas for students to
explore some of their own injuries and
things like that
um George anything from your kind of
perspective yeah so like cyber one
really I mean cyber security is kind of
(08:14):
a really hard thing to grasp so it's
almost summer one's like a Basics right
of you know you know running a Cali
Lakes machine and doing all sorts of
stuff like that of learning the basics
and then cyber two you're really jumping
into
um you know Security Plus and studying
for that
um and like you said the Capstone
project so for My Capstone project right
I'm I got uh serve out ethical hacker
Pro certification and then I am taking
(08:36):
Security Plus I've already taken it once
I got close to it I'm taking it this
weekend so it's really just do your own
learning and and however much you put in
you get out so it's it's been a program
that's really fit around me too so
so from a curriculum standpoint you know
you've got cyber one two and three
they're also taking their core classes
(08:58):
right like English math so are are you
guys from a curricular standpoint are
you adjusting what math class classes
they take or cert any any other
adjustments like that not really
um you know our students paying quite um
you know a wide range and one of the
things that we try to have done in the
(09:20):
program and I don't think I have to tell
you or the listeners this but I'll say
it anyway is that you know cyber is
almost as broad as Tech and you can
maybe even argue it's broader because
you could get into uh policy and you
know geopolitics in the world of cyber
um so we don't have any sort of other
courses that are mapped to it or
expectations and you know we we want to
(09:42):
be able to provide students who are
really not Tech focused but maybe are
into social studies and or maybe want to
go into some sort of government work or
public administration or political
science work to also learn enough about
cyber security that that would be uh you
know a value add to them also and I mean
for me too it's like I had a lot of
interest in social studies
(10:02):
um but I took a lot of computer classes
and I didn't like coding but I mean I
like the fundamentals of building a
computer but I don't like coding as much
as you know some of the stuff that cyber
security gives me so that was one thing
that really attracted me my sophomore
year was saying like you know I can sign
up for this class this computer class I
don't do any coding but I'll learn the
basics in ins and out of computer which
was huge I actually think we have a lot
(10:22):
of students who are into Tech but don't
like coding or learn they didn't like
coding that's kind of been an
interesting one for us so these are all
credited classes right like like you're
getting a grade not a pass fail
yeah and I mean the one thing I'd say
too is is it's called we get college
credit for some of the classes like for
our soft the Cyber 2 class is a CCP
(10:43):
class at a local community college
awesome so I'll have that course off
taken off of my college and then the
class we took a class I took cyber three
for several ethical hacker Pro
um I get that also off my college so you
get college credit too and then those
are taught by our teacher our teacher
got dual credit adjunct status and then
teaches the course in-house to our kids
(11:04):
kids get dual credit
now that's a that's something that blew
me away Andrew when you were talking
about that at coast and um because I
think that's one of the struggles that a
lot of our schools have and it was one
of the first questions I had when I
walked into your session where the heck
am I going to find people to teach this
so who did you find to teach your
classes now yes
um well our opinion was that I'll take
(11:28):
one step back uh cyber security doesn't
have the most typical educational
pathway for the people who are
practitioners in it right
um only recently did colleges even have
programs like only the past four or five
years there really aren't many
um you know high school programs so
there are definitely some around the
country
so a lot of people are in the cyber
security took alternative paths so we
(11:50):
also knew that you know we weren't going
to be able to pay cyber security wages
so what we did is that we looked for
teachers who were great teachers and kid
magnets
um and were ultimately the number one
criteria was like are you willing to
learn and do you feel like you need to
be the expert in the classroom and so we
looked for teachers that were doing that
so our two teachers one was a math
(12:11):
teacher by trade and the other was the
English teacher by trade then we train
them up and part of that is the support
that we get from our cyber industry
partners and um you know send them to
various trainings so we get support from
our College Partners industry partners
that we got them up to speed from the
cyber security side but from a student
standpoint like let me talk about your
your teachers and oh yeah what they
(12:31):
bring I mean it's like the two teachers
that we have here are really special and
I think that I think like Andrew said
like with the kid maggot they can really
they can really talk to us right they
can explain it and I think cyber
security is something that almost
everyone around the world is almost
learning right now right so it's a
growing industry and stuff like that so
um from a teacher aspect it's great I
(12:53):
think that you know they're learning
with us and they're not you know they're
not afraid to say that right they're not
to be out you know they're not afraid to
say you guys might know more than me
because some kids in our class do
because some kids love just you know go
home and you know Tinker with a calorie
machine right and they might know more
commands than Mr daughtery does but that
doesn't mean that you know he's not the
teacher right so it's really special
from that aspect of it
(13:14):
so do you would you say you view the
teachers is kind of like a guide really
leading them through the curriculum
yeah I think God would be perfect
um I mean like
that's exactly what they are to us yeah
would you unpack so you talked about
working with Partners in Industry
Partners uh
(13:35):
unpack if I'm thinking about doing this
at my school so I know I need to find
some good teachers that can work with
kids well uh how did you go about that
initial stuff or what advice would you
give to a school that's thinking about
getting started who do they reach out to
so some things that we learned along the
way is as soon as we put the word out
that we were doing this just people from
the community just came out of the
(13:55):
woodwork you know the number of
businesses that reached out to us
parents who worked in cyber security and
were like oh cool you guys are starting
a program I work in the space how can I
help
um there is a sense that the cyber
security Community have been like
ignored for a long time and like they
finally got an opportunity to like shine
and they're like yeah let's go and help
out so we've had tons of folks who uh do
(14:18):
that so we have people who Mentor we
have guest speakers at this point like
every other Friday every Friday and high
quality individuals too high qualified
individuals um we have Mentor or not
mentors but industry Partners who
um we've asked for internships and and
do that and so for I would say the
advice for the school is like just
(14:39):
publicize it as much as possible and and
you're gonna find the people in your
community who are more than happy to do
anything from just share advice to get
into a classroom you know
to mentoring students you know on all
those different levels that was not a
challenge I could see that maybe be more
of a challenge depending on what part of
the country you live
(15:00):
um you know we're in a the Cincinnati
Metro metropolitan area I could imagine
maybe if you're you know more rural it
might be a little bit harder to find
quite the the community to be able to
support but I still think that you'd be
able to find folks who are close enough
to cyber security or in the tech space
that can help out kids and virtual
breaks down most of those uh
(15:20):
geographical barriers now that you can
bring people in on a zoo I mean yeah and
honestly most of our guest speakers are
virtual at this point it just does not
make sense that people come in
yeah so um are you able to name any of
those industry partners are you do you
have students doing internships at any
any companies right now
yeah so uh I'm actually intern right now
(15:41):
at this company called Spinx Electronics
we're a goal manufacturer I've worked
there since last June so last summer
um I've been working there for about a
year and I work around 10 hours during
the school year and I work try to put in
20 hours and you know breaks in summer
and they I had they had me doing tons of
stuff like uh encryption on their
computers and patching on their
(16:01):
computers and uh I've done some side
projects like rfids using them in the
office
um even red teaming uh so I'm wrapping
up project right now on hacking and
stuff like that of of in and even
physical
um
uh you know physical and social
engineering stuff like that so
um yeah it was huge I think the
internship too especially I'm so
(16:22):
grateful for it because I think that
being able to learn yeah in the
classroom is great but being able to
learn soft skills and being able to talk
to a boss right or my co-workers who are
in a different you know engineering
people sit next to me and being able to
talk to them right that was huge for me
is is being able to learn soft skills
and Technical experience in that
internship outside the classroom and
you're even doing stuff like globally on
(16:43):
different time zones too yeah like um
meetings I've had to get out of school
for meetings because some people were in
Japan and Portugal and I had a you know
the time didn't work out so stuff like
that right where it sounds cooler you
know I mean it sounds cool but then
you're stuck in a meeting for 30 minutes
but it's so much you know it's a lot of
fun and I love being able just to talk
about it because it's like a lot of
people were like wow that's that's
really great and I think that's that's
(17:03):
one thing too that I just love talking
about too is it's great George you also
have family working in an industry as
well don't you yeah I have so my dad
works uh for Salesforce um I.T right and
uh I have some extended family that are
in I.T as well and so they you know I do
definitely get that sort of aspect of
(17:23):
you know my uncles and sometimes they
know what I'm talking about but some
people you know my grandparents stuff
like that right they there's not a clue
but this program has allowed me to kind
of spread cyber security too I mean like
you know my I don't think my
grandparents really knew much about
cyber security but being able to uh talk
to him about hey like you know this
email that you're getting is this is a
phishing this is what that means right
that was that was cool for me too yeah
(17:44):
teach the older ones of my life here
grandma this is how your Facebook's
gonna get hacked grandma
yeah
Josh I would say I've always been which
I am prideful on my TSI of tech support
interns and if it's Chromebook screens
and blah blah blah
um but cyber security and throwing in
that realness of it into a school system
(18:06):
is amazing it it uh it hit help it hits
home for us right now because we are
looking we've we've modeled a
student-led help desk after what Chris
did
um and ours has been really successful
and and we're really wanting to give
those kids a little bit extra something
in the near future and we're looking at
offering
(18:27):
um
oh a plus certification through test out
for those for whoever wants to do it
like we we currently have like 25 kids
in that program
um we don't think all 25 will do it but
if we get three or five kids that do it
and we're able to give that class
um as a credit then instead of a pass
failed class and it qualifies for some
(18:48):
higher
um State reporting scores because of the
College and Career Readiness it's an IRC
industry recognized certification
um that that's something that we're
looking into so this this is this is
fantastic that you're doing this
um I'll I'll say George that uh one of
the things that will get you hired more
often than not you know it's one thing
(19:09):
to have certifications behind your name
and you know you can prove that you know
what you're doing with technology
having those soft skills enabled and
being able to have a conversation with
someone and take the content that you're
trying to get across to that person and
and be able to uh refine your delivery
so that anybody in the room can
(19:31):
understand it at multiple levels that
that skill in itself will get you hired
more times than it will
um that is very very rare in the I.T
field I think the guys and you know
Chris and Eric
um they all have that those two guys I I
consider myself to have that skill as
well
um it's it's one of the reasons we're in
(19:52):
the positions that we're in
um so if you refine that skill and you
keep using that it will take you far
just that skill alone
but by all means keep going for those
certifications
I and I wanted to kind of highlight some
of the certifications George you said
you got the ceh yeah ceh no not the CH
the uh test out yeah okay yeah yep and
(20:14):
then
and then like I said Security Plus
um a couple kids in my class have gotten
that and then I'm taking that once I'm
taking again this week and then we've
had kids get a plus
um I know okay last year and we got
Azure Azure and then there's kind of my
class taking AWS before summer begins so
just you know there's a lot of different
(20:35):
certifications out there too and we
don't require our kids to get them we
definitely highly encourage them
um and then we support them if that's a
decision that they want to make and so
that's cyber 3 course really allows for
that because it's a Capstone so if a
student says you know what I'm just not
interested in Security Plus but I really
want to do Azure or whatever then we
help provide the resources for them to
(20:56):
get that on top of explore other topics
that are part of the curriculum and
whatever else has the district been
pretty willing to to pay for some of
those certifications because I know we I
mean
no not because the district's not
willing it's the district
by our choice refuses because that's
what our industry partners are for oh so
(21:18):
um from a industry partner perspective
that's a pretty easy ask uh to say Hey
you know there's going to be an 18 year
old that's about to
go out into the world and have a
Security Plus and or Azure or ethical
hacker Pro or whatever else
um you know 200 bucks here and 300 bucks
there is
I think um something they're more than
(21:39):
happy to sign off on it's very tangible
for them and from a give back
perspective it's you know if that's been
an easy one for us perfect and the fact
that they are then taking these our
students as either interns or co-ops or
employees that's
that's cheap right well I think what's
great about it you've set up a model
(22:01):
that fits the cyber security realm but
it also fits in the it realm too
especially for smaller school districts
everybody's got I.T even if they don't
have a cyber security Focus but just the
fact that you're reaching out to the
community at large and finding those
sponsorships and the support is really
amazing because that's what we're all
about is is integrating with our
(22:22):
communities and being um good stewards
of the
of of the resources we have so I think
that's awesome yeah and I'll just go
back to the I didn't finish completely
finish your your question about our
other partners so started with standards
because I know that's who George um
interns with but also U.S Bank Fifth
Third Kroger GE Aviation
(22:43):
um ATC Technologies to a local company
it's been incredibly supportive trying
to think if there's anybody I'm missing
but those are the big ones
um in belcan yeah uh all those companies
provide internships uh mentors or some
sort of financial support or a
combination of all three
(23:05):
and why I think during your session you
guys were just kind of telling some
stories of your internships and I was
really captivated by those just the
things that you're getting to do
um and it's often a challenge in our
Tech departments to bring in student
interns because we have confidential
data or whatever it seems like it kind
of throws up a barrier to you being able
(23:25):
to give admin access yeah but I was
impressed that you guys were even
digging into like email uh compromise
and those types of things within an
institution like that yeah it's I mean I
I'll paraphrase and help me out here but
I know Colin was talking about
um for the internship that he works at
you know had they had some sort of big
incident and they pulled them into the
War Room you know and he's a part of
(23:46):
part of trying to figure it out and
we've had students who I remember one of
our students was doing where like when
employees left
he was doing all of the making sure that
they weren't taking sensitive
information with him which was like wow
that's pretty cool for 18 year olds yeah
given that level of responsibility but
hey that's your choice
um yeah so and I know George you tell I
(24:08):
always like your story about like being
in the car trying to do yeah yeah so um
I was going on vacation last summer and
uh like I said my dad works for
Salesforce so he's on a lot of calls and
we were in a car to uh South Carolina
Hilton Head
um and I had to get a meeting because we
the company was starting to do MDM with
mobile device management and enrolling
that and I had to be on that call and
(24:29):
we're in the car and I had my computer
on my headphones and talking and then my
dad was had a meeting too while he was
driving and his detention in the car was
just too much because you know you got
one company the other company and then
you know MBM and Cloud it's just my mom
was looking back at me and was like oh
gosh it's just not good it's stories
like that right it's just fun to tell
because it's like you know as an 18 year
(24:49):
old not many people have heard that and
it's it's I'm really grateful for that
right of being able to do that just tell
you stories and you know all that it's
real yeah
that's awesome
um so this was a presentation right that
Eric hung out with you guys at cousin is
that could you send us that that we can
put that in the podcast description
Maybe
(25:10):
yeah the presentation doesn't the actual
like slide deck doesn't have a ton of
information because the goal was really
to have George and Colin talk as much as
possible but there might be a recording
of it so let me see if I can find a
recording of it and see if that'd be
great
and I guess we can wrap this up by
saying if you're listening to this and
then if if you're wanting more
(25:31):
information I'm sure you can email us
and we'll try to get you a hold of these
guys to to talk about that more
yeah we're happy to help oh yeah for
sure
awesome well thanks for hanging out with
us guys
yeah thank you yeah thank you thanks for
your time
all right so we've been talking about
absolute on the podcast for several
weeks now
(25:51):
um I think we know that you do it
management cyber security compliance you
help out with the school's one-to-one
program uh but Bobby Warren Oliver uh do
you guys want to explain absolute to us
I I've been doing my best to talk about
absolute but I'm sure I'm not doing a
good job so if if I'm a school district
tech department uh would you just tell
(26:13):
me a little bit about absolute what you
guys what what do you guys do
sure Chris thanks and uh um appreciate
you having us on on here today you know
I think before we jump into kind of what
we do you know one of the things that
we've seen in you know a lot of change
in in how it management school districts
works because of what's happened in a
(26:33):
kind of post-covet world and well I
think we all saw and need to conduct
congratulate all the districts out there
that actually got technology in the
hands of students we all saw you know
laptops being handed into cars as they
drove by to give to students so they can
go home and learn and
um really was an amazing job you looked
at kind of what Corporate America had to
(26:54):
go through to do a similar thing but
most people had technology in their
hands already so getting technology in
the hands of students was really a
Monumental lift and I think that needs
to be recognized because uh somehow a
lot of these districts weren't even
ready to go one-to-one at all and
suddenly they were thrown into this here
you go you have to get the technology in
the hands of all the students and I
think a lot of the what happened and the
(27:15):
problems that we're seeing now stem from
that because you know a lot of folks
didn't even write you know that they had
the technology
in a spreadsheet was really all they
were even even that so a lot of what
we're trying to do today is to try and
solve some of the problems that came
from that a lot of it is really where is
the the technology that I handed out to
(27:36):
these students
um isn't it in a point in time where
where it's it's manageable uh is there
an inventory that we can control from
that and the biggest problem that we've
seen now and is is just the loss of
those devices not necessarily kind of
your classic theft around someone broke
into a car or someone you know broke
into a school and took a cart of uh of
(27:56):
Chromebooks or what have you but just
loss of inventory you know these devices
are out in the wild they didn't look at
them for for or or collect them for for
a couple of year period of time and now
here we are and we want to get our
technology back into the enhance the
district for summer so we can refresh
these machines and lo and behold you
know we can't find numbers as high as
we've heard as 20 so those of us that
(28:19):
have known absolute over the years even
back to our days of of of computrace
which was our nomenclature for a long
long time that's all we really did was
tracking our recover losses to own
devices and we've found that that use
case is has really been uh what we've
we've been used for in the K-12
Community more than anything else
whereas my work really it's the where's
(28:40):
my stuff right and we do a really good
job of helping you understand you know
where your equipment is uh what's on the
equipment uh how it's being used and
ultimately at the end of the school year
or even during the school year let's
make sure it gets back in the district
so we can we can make sure that kids can
keep learning Bobby think you want to
add there
yeah I think what's what's maybe a
(29:02):
little unique about
how that works for absolute is we're
actually in embedded in the bio so we're
in the we're at the firmware level of
every you know major device that's out
there and so we kind of have that unique
you know unbreakable tether to that
device so in the situation where maybe a
device is stolen or a device becomes
(29:23):
compromised or someone tries to maybe
switch out a hard drive to use the
device for other reasons you know that
agent you know reactivates itself comes
back online and we can still see
maintain manage track trace and take
action on that on that device
it's funny you guys mentioned computrace
I didn't realize that was who you were
(29:44):
years ago we at a hospital that I used
to work for
um we used computrace on on laptops that
we had it it's funny how some of this
stuff it it's actually a pretty small
world when it comes down to it uh we we
uh called it LoJack for laptops
right yeah understand what it what it
(30:07):
does
um so you kind of talked about the uh
auditing part of that from a from a tech
deployment OR tech department deployment
perspective
how does how does that work and take us
from from footprint to footprint you
know laptop versus Chromebook versus
whatever else Hardware wise
(30:30):
um what the Management console looked
like give us an idea of what that's like
sure and and Bobby did mention the BIOS
integration that we have on the PC side
things work a little differently on
Chrome of course and we we support
anything outside of iOS
um so your your Apple devices uh your
Mac devices your your Chrome and PC
devices
(30:50):
um implementation of the software is
actually very easy and I'll start with
the PC side of things it can even be
implemented at the factory of your PC
OEM so whatever device you're packed
will be buying because we're already in
the Bios of that device in a dormant
state it just takes a software load to
activate that agent and install the
agent onto the hard drive of the machine
and once that's installed then that bios
(31:13):
agent always looks after that that
software agent so you can't remove the
agent once it's been
um once it's been activated
um so if it's not a factory load that
you've done at that point if you have an
existing Fleet of machines it's just a
simple MSI you have to push out to your
devices and activate that boss agent off
you go for Chrome it's just an extension
of the of the Google Management console
(31:35):
um and does a lot of as we mentioned a
lot a lot more deeper uh you know a lot
deeper uh data is pulled from the Google
Management console along with you know
as we mentioned some of the you know
geolocation and device freeze and some
of the things that are on from there and
any of the Apple devices are very
similar so the implementation is
extremely simple
um this is a cloud-based solution so all
(31:56):
you need to do once it's been and loaded
is is just access our customer center
console and once you're into the console
you can see all of your devices where
they're calling in from and that calling
feature is really an important component
to that because once the agent is is
loaded on the device all it does is
multiple times a day just connect back
to the server and give data about the
(32:17):
device and once we have that connection
from the machine then we have a a lot of
different features and and and really
solutions that we can provide from that
from hey let's recover the device if
it's lost or stone it's freezing machine
Let's spot up the device let's track and
recover let's geolocate let's push out
scripts to really do anything at that
point so once we have connection from
(32:38):
that machine from that unbreakable
tether certainly from the bio side of
things
um you're good to go all you need at
that point is just access to the console
and the ability to provide action to
that device
you're muted Josh
what a what a noob
(32:59):
I've never done this before yeah let's
make sure that makes the final edit
there yes
[Laughter]
so give give us some examples of schools
that kind of like a use case or uh you
know a quick uh white paper type on a on
a district that has used absolute to
(33:21):
either recover equipment or get a better
picture of where those assets are living
yeah I'll tell you as Warren's mentioned
I mean that's in in the K-12 space I
mean the the the primary use case is
that device recovery right there's a lot
of other things we do which we'll we'll
mention here shortly but
um I mean countless school districts
(33:42):
have reported device loss in the 20 25
30 of these devices they're just not
getting back
not necessarily that they were stolen
right but just they're just not getting
them back
um and
I mean numbers of school districts
who've deployed this have gotten that
device recovery or that device lost down
(34:04):
into the low single digits right so you
know when you're going back to the
school board and you're trying to beg
for budget for you know next year's you
know Hardware refresh
um you know being able to uh you know
stand firm and say hey we were able to
get the large majority of our deployed
devices back we do need you know a
little extra budget to uh to refresh a
(34:25):
certain certain subset of our Hardware
versus going to the board and saying
man we had a we had a challenge
recovering a large number of our devices
and we're going to ask need to ask for
you know more budget or go tap into more
federal funds uh in order to support our
student needs
I think secondarily you know a big part
(34:46):
of of what we're seeing use and maybe
they if someone's purchased us because
they've got a large kind of lost problem
but because we touch these devices every
day or the devices really call home and
touch us every day
um and for us to be able to go and find
a device we need to know where it is all
the time and there's there's a lot of
use to that to be able to say hey I just
need an inventory of all my machines
(35:07):
um and we find that you know smaller
districts probably have a little bit of
an easier time trying to accomplish that
task but when you get into these large
urban districts with tens of thousands
or even hundreds of thousands devices
that task gets harder and harder so just
to be able to say here's where I have my
technology here's what just schools that
are in here's how many are going home
(35:27):
here's how many are are not going home
uh and here's really the health of these
devices
um is really a secondary uh probably the
biggest secondary and probably what you
use us more for ultimately uh because as
Bobby said our goal is always to drive
that kind of loss rate down to you know
single digits you know then what do you
use this for and really it's just
maintaining the day-to-day of those of
(35:48):
those devices and we can even start to
take our technology and and either have
other inventory Solutions like a haze
tip web for example uh ported into our
solution or ours into theirs
um so there's a lot of things that we
can do around just the inventory of
those devices
um and then really just maintaining
control of them
um and the data that's on them and maybe
(36:10):
student devices don't have the data
that's important but maybe it's your
admin or teacher machines that have uh
you know for regulated data what have
you and you want to be able to freeze
that machine or delete that data or move
that data should something happen with
the machine so really those are I think
would be the three main components is
the loss of the device the inventory of
the device and making sure that the the
(36:30):
data that's that's housed on there uh is
is
um is not compromised
and you know uh Josh that you you
mentioned you know use cases there's
um we've had we've had a number of
districts here recently that
um are leveraging our technology for
those those very things that Warren just
just detailed
(36:52):
um but we've actually had some some
districts have some
um success with identifying and finding
lost students
um certainly not something that the
technology was designed for nor are we
necessarily touting that but you know if
you think about a student gets reported
as being lost or missing
(37:13):
um you know the IT team is notified they
you know activate and accurately search
out where that student's device may be
most of the time students are
carrying their phone and their device
with them right their their Chromebook
maybe
um and you know I've had three school
districts here over this past year that
have reported back to us that hey they
(37:35):
they were notified of a missing student
and thankfully all three situations the
student was found uh in one situation
they went to their grandparents home
after school as opposed to their parents
home and no one knew that that's where
they were supposed to be one student got
on the wrong bus
one student was a troubled student and
and was missing for some time but they
were able to track that student down and
(37:56):
get that student taken care of so kind
of a unique application leveraging
identifying that technology to
ultimately maybe find that that missing
student or troubled student
if I could add you know one more thing
and I think one of the the things that
most districts are worried about right
now is it is some sort of a ransomware
(38:17):
situation and having and having a device
that gets back into the district with
with something on it
um and you know at the top Bobby
mentioned our our bios persistence and
and we've always persisted ourselves to
make sure that that if something happens
to our agent we reinstall our agent
we're now using that agent to reinstall
(38:38):
and to to harden other agents that are
out there so that could be something as
simple as your VPN or your SCCM or your
uh you know name that particular product
but a lot of it comes down to if you're
starting to use an EDR solution or
you're having other solutions that are
out there to help you with your cyber
security we can be that last line of
defense to make sure that whatever
(38:58):
you're deploying to those devices and
this is more on the PC side than the
Chrome side but whatever you're
deploying on those devices we can make
sure are always on
um and we find that there's when there's
human interaction with an agent often
that agent can be can be corrupted or
removed we hear a lot about SCCM having
corrupted agents for example and we can
rebuild or reinstall or really do
(39:19):
whatever is necessary to make sure that
particular agent or any other agent
really is on there we you've got a we've
got a library of I think it's 60 some
odd agents that we we persist today and
and make resilient
um and uh that really helps to make sure
um that things like a potential breach
or or ransomware can be
(39:40):
um uh your tools that are there to make
sure that those things don't occur are
always on and running
um and we know all that's that's one of
the worst case scenarios that you run
into the situation where students can't
learn because you're in this kind of
ransomware situation and we want to try
and help protect from that as well
great so if somebody listening wanted to
(40:03):
get a hold of one of you guys to find
out more get pricing get a demo who who
would they contact
well the easiest way is to reach out to
sales at absolute.com
um and uh obviously you can reach out to
myself Warren and Oliver and Chris I
don't know if there's a way for us to
share our contact information but we can
(40:23):
certainly yes so for sure I've been
putting Oliver's in the podcast
description and Josh continues to
disrespect Oliver because of his
username oh Schmidt and Oliver on behalf
of the K-12 Tech Talk podcast I'm sorry
about Josh it's all good you should try
pronouncing my middle name if you think
my my uh my name right now is
(40:45):
interesting so
now did you do that alone did you have
parents like did you have parents that
went out of their way to come up with an
O name so they could say oh Schmidt
yeah that's a great question or was that
was that just coincidence I think it was
coincidence but my initials are OBS
(41:07):
my middle name starts with a B so we're
sorry about that so they really just
doubled down on that one so Oliver you
got to quit while you're ahead bud I
know digging a hole buddy yeah we'll
just get a double down
so we'll put an email into the podcast
description for sure sure and to make
(41:28):
things really easy the other place that
you can go if you're ever interested in
absolute we don't sell anything directly
but talk to whoever you buy your your
Chromebooks or your PCS from but they
all know but absolute um they will be
the place where you probably buy them
from and one of the beautiful parts of
of what we can do is we can just
incorporate right into your laptop or
(41:48):
Chromebook Chromebook buy so we just
become a light item right so you know
you add you add the in and out there and
there's pricing differs between a PC
because we do a lot more than in a
Chromebook and obviously Chromebooks
these days can be you know as low as a
hundred and hundred fifty dollars and we
want to make sure it's priced
appropriately there but
um you know that's another Avenue that
you can always look at and they'll get
(42:09):
in touch with us from there but Oliver
is your best uh uh point of entry but
really anywhere you buy a device from we
can we can certainly um uh start there
as well great is there anything else for
the big the calls that were missing uh
you guys have listened to the episodes
that we already talked to you or talked
about you is there anything else that
(42:31):
you want to make sure that listeners
know about absolute
well I think the other thing with it
reaching out if there's some interest I
mean we are we are on standby we're more
than happy to provide you know demos and
show you the the you know the console
and how the technology uh works I think
most customers that that first response
(42:53):
they get when they see our you know our
console and our demo and they they
understand all the you know technologies
that are available one of their most
common responses is I had no idea that
some of this stuff was even possible
right so okay um we'd love to take you
through a demo and and and get your
feedback as well plenty of sales and
engineer folks uh uh on standby ready to
(43:14):
ready to roll
awesome well Oliver Bobby Warren thank
you guys so much for hanging out with us
Chris Josh thank you really appreciate
your time today yeah thanks Chris Josh
we appreciate it all the best thank you
for having us thanks guys thank you
Live from the somethingcool.com studios
this is the K-12 Tech Talk podcast
this is going to be a little bit of a
special episode because we have a couple
interviews that we've recorded that
we're you're going to hear tonight uh
but first Chris is with me here uh I
guess it's really no secret we're in New
Hampshire right now um we're at the New
Hampshire CTO clinic and we've had to
(00:43):
pre-record some interviews to get an
episode out this week to everyone
um but first let's talk about our
sponsors that are with us every week we
have ntp uh they awesome EDR Solutions
get a hold of David Wren over at ntp I
think let me let me see if I remember
this email
d-w-r-e-n at ntp Dash
incincinc.com
(01:05):
they do a bunch of stuff but uh they're
one of their big things they've got
right now is uh EDR solution from
Sentinel one with a 24 7 monitored sock
go ahead we want to thank extreme
networks as we always do you can email
Dominic mayor D Mayer at extreme.com if
you're looking for switches for wireless
for whatever check out extreme networks
(01:26):
and then Fortinet a proud responsible
Tech Talk podcast
reach out to them as well and we have a
special so so let's unpack the special
interviews we got to sit down with
absolute yep several the guys from
absolute because we've been unpacking
them over the last several episodes but
we've been doing an okay job yeah so we
had the experts come on to impact them
about what they really do yes so the
(01:49):
best way to explain it is LoJack for
laptops right so they
um if you've got a they'll they'll
monitor several devices but if you've
got a Windows laptop they've got a
client that gets installed and goes
straight into the BIOS you can't remove
it
um kind of like an MDM type solution uh
so they'll they'll explain that in their
interview and kind of their company
history they used to be a different name
(02:10):
computrace I just remembered that uh and
I used to use computers shoot man 15
years ago at a different company I I
work for so it was kind of cool uh
putting the connecting those dots
together and seeing their their history
as a company uh the other interview that
we're going to have during this episode
is a really cool interviews with
yeah Andrew wasn't the tech director
(02:32):
there but he was like I guess he was one
of the instructors for this program so
tell us what that's about yes so we got
to meet Andrew and George uh in
particular Andrew I I Eric the intern
hung out uh when we were at the coast
and Conference to learn about this is a
high school that has a great cyber
security program so Josh and I we talk
about our our our student text that fix
(02:54):
Chromebook screens fix Chromebook Parts
this school took that way next level uh
and they're into cyber security yeah
they have like a a I got the vibe almost
an entire high school he said they had
250 kids in the program which is
astonishing to me
um but what they do is they focus in
these different tracks and cyber
security and if the kids want to they
(03:14):
end up coming out with certificates in
different programs like Network plus a
plus George was going for he just passed
Security Plus this week yes shout out to
George you're gonna you're gonna hear
from him but yeah George you're going to
listen to this congratulations on that
that's a big deal and I think you're
going to be blown away with some of the
stuff that George says he's doing he's
he's more or less working as a cyber guy
(03:36):
for a company near their school and
doing some red team stuff doing some
training it's funny because he was
talking about how his dad is in I.T and
they were on a road trip as a fan like a
family vacation or something and his
dad's on a conference call George is on
a conference call and they're they're
George is a senior in high school and
he's on a conference call with a
international company about a cyber I.T
(03:58):
problem so like this kid's in high
school and he's he's doing that because
of the Cyber program that the Lakota
schools in Ohio has so it was a pretty
impressive interview and I think uh
Georgia is going places like these kids
coming out of this High School they've
they've got a foundation and they are
super super marketable yeah listen to
that because that's a I think that
challenge us with our absolutely kick
(04:20):
butt and we do have kick butt kids uh in
in our uh student tech programs but
there's some other stuff that we could
do with our high school kids for sure
yeah absolutely we're looking at adding
a plus to our program so uh give it a
listen and uh we'll be back regularly
scheduled I guess in two weeks because
next week you're gonna hear some
interviews that we've done here at New
(04:42):
Hampshire and uh that'll be next week's
episode so we appreciate you listening
uh stay tuned thanks
all right so we've drug in Eric the
intern again what's up Eric wow and you
brought some friends along with you that
you also drug in from somewhere I don't
know how you convince these guys to hang
out with us for a few minutes but you
(05:03):
pulled it off yeah this is uh coasting
keeps on giving I just kept drink
dragging people in and we keep dragging
them in now
so who we got today all right we've got
Andrew and George uh and they're gonna
talk to us a little bit about the cyber
security program they have going for
students and their school and I'll let
(05:25):
you guys introduce yourselves where are
you from what are your names
what do you like to do
yeah so uh my name is George from
Cincinnati Ohio
um I mean you know it's easy to say my
passion is in cyber security but um I'm
a passion outside I like baseball a lot
um played Sports all my life but uh
definitely had a huge interest in
computers
(05:45):
um from her early age to be honest so
yeah just computers and baseball really
what grade uh senior in high school when
I'm gonna be going to University of
Cincinnati for uh cyber security next
year and what high school awesome other
Cody East High School there we go yeah
uh my name is Andrew I'm the director of
secondary curriculum here at Lakota
schools and so I oversee all of our
(06:06):
programming grades 7 through 12.
um
and I've similar I've got an interest in
technology my whole life but actually
was a social studies teacher for a
number of years before I get into the
curriculum world and have just had the
pleasure of working with Lakota schools
to help build a cyber program we're
about our fourth year the Cyber program
about 240 students and
um you know George is a really great
(06:27):
example of the the students that we have
in our school districts so just excited
to talk to you guys about that
you have 240 kids and you're in your
cyber program yeah
wow that's two high school we have we're
a two High School District
um and our cyber program essentially
spans grades 10 through 12. and cyber
one cyber two cyber three and we have
(06:49):
240 students in the program so it's
amazing Define that program Define what
that is sure I'll give it kind of a high
level and then I'll let George kind of
fill in with what that's like from a
student experience
um we we started out with uh industry
Partners who are like hey you guys
should really build a cyber program and
we're like okay let's do it and from the
very beginning we we had a cyber
(07:10):
Advisory Board uh because we knew we
needed the industry support guidance to
to spin this up and to do it the right
way uh you know in education and we kind
of have a specific approach and business
can sometimes have a different approach
and we thought it was best to put our
minds together to do it so one of the
advice that they gave at the very
beginning is they said try to keep these
courses
um with kind of vague names because the
(07:32):
industry changes a lot so instead of
having you know like 15 different
discrete courses you know just do the
three courses align them with industry
certifications and what standards and
stuff are out there and then we'll
provide you know the industry partner so
they provide a lot of support and That's
essential we did so cyber one is
sophomores generally speaking cyber 2 is
(07:52):
um you know Juniors then cyber 3 is a
Capstone course mostly for C seniors for
the most part the curriculum is
generally
um aligned to Security Plus with a bunch
of offshoots and areas for students to
explore some of their own injuries and
things like that
um George anything from your kind of
perspective yeah so like cyber one
really I mean cyber security is kind of
(08:14):
a really hard thing to grasp so it's
almost summer one's like a Basics right
of you know you know running a Cali
Lakes machine and doing all sorts of
stuff like that of learning the basics
and then cyber two you're really jumping
into
um you know Security Plus and studying
for that
um and like you said the Capstone
project so for My Capstone project right
I'm I got uh serve out ethical hacker
Pro certification and then I am taking
(08:36):
Security Plus I've already taken it once
I got close to it I'm taking it this
weekend so it's really just do your own
learning and and however much you put in
you get out so it's it's been a program
that's really fit around me too so
so from a curriculum standpoint you know
you've got cyber one two and three
they're also taking their core classes
(08:58):
right like English math so are are you
guys from a curricular standpoint are
you adjusting what math class classes
they take or cert any any other
adjustments like that not really
um you know our students paying quite um
you know a wide range and one of the
things that we try to have done in the
(09:20):
program and I don't think I have to tell
you or the listeners this but I'll say
it anyway is that you know cyber is
almost as broad as Tech and you can
maybe even argue it's broader because
you could get into uh policy and you
know geopolitics in the world of cyber
um so we don't have any sort of other
courses that are mapped to it or
expectations and you know we we want to
(09:42):
be able to provide students who are
really not Tech focused but maybe are
into social studies and or maybe want to
go into some sort of government work or
public administration or political
science work to also learn enough about
cyber security that that would be uh you
know a value add to them also and I mean
for me too it's like I had a lot of
interest in social studies
(10:02):
um but I took a lot of computer classes
and I didn't like coding but I mean I
like the fundamentals of building a
computer but I don't like coding as much
as you know some of the stuff that cyber
security gives me so that was one thing
that really attracted me my sophomore
year was saying like you know I can sign
up for this class this computer class I
don't do any coding but I'll learn the
basics in ins and out of computer which
was huge I actually think we have a lot
(10:22):
of students who are into Tech but don't
like coding or learn they didn't like
coding that's kind of been an
interesting one for us so these are all
credited classes right like like you're
getting a grade not a pass fail
yeah and I mean the one thing I'd say
too is is it's called we get college
credit for some of the classes like for
our soft the Cyber 2 class is a CCP
(10:43):
class at a local community college
awesome so I'll have that course off
taken off of my college and then the
class we took a class I took cyber three
for several ethical hacker Pro
um I get that also off my college so you
get college credit too and then those
are taught by our teacher our teacher
got dual credit adjunct status and then
teaches the course in-house to our kids
(11:04):
kids get dual credit
now that's a that's something that blew
me away Andrew when you were talking
about that at coast and um because I
think that's one of the struggles that a
lot of our schools have and it was one
of the first questions I had when I
walked into your session where the heck
am I going to find people to teach this
so who did you find to teach your
classes now yes
um well our opinion was that I'll take
(11:28):
one step back uh cyber security doesn't
have the most typical educational
pathway for the people who are
practitioners in it right
um only recently did colleges even have
programs like only the past four or five
years there really aren't many
um you know high school programs so
there are definitely some around the
country
so a lot of people are in the cyber
security took alternative paths so we
(11:50):
also knew that you know we weren't going
to be able to pay cyber security wages
so what we did is that we looked for
teachers who were great teachers and kid
magnets
um and were ultimately the number one
criteria was like are you willing to
learn and do you feel like you need to
be the expert in the classroom and so we
looked for teachers that were doing that
so our two teachers one was a math
(12:11):
teacher by trade and the other was the
English teacher by trade then we train
them up and part of that is the support
that we get from our cyber industry
partners and um you know send them to
various trainings so we get support from
our College Partners industry partners
that we got them up to speed from the
cyber security side but from a student
standpoint like let me talk about your
your teachers and oh yeah what they
(12:31):
bring I mean it's like the two teachers
that we have here are really special and
I think that I think like Andrew said
like with the kid maggot they can really
they can really talk to us right they
can explain it and I think cyber
security is something that almost
everyone around the world is almost
learning right now right so it's a
growing industry and stuff like that so
um from a teacher aspect it's great I
(12:53):
think that you know they're learning
with us and they're not you know they're
not afraid to say that right they're not
to be out you know they're not afraid to
say you guys might know more than me
because some kids in our class do
because some kids love just you know go
home and you know Tinker with a calorie
machine right and they might know more
commands than Mr daughtery does but that
doesn't mean that you know he's not the
teacher right so it's really special
from that aspect of it
(13:14):
so do you would you say you view the
teachers is kind of like a guide really
leading them through the curriculum
yeah I think God would be perfect
um I mean like
that's exactly what they are to us yeah
would you unpack so you talked about
working with Partners in Industry
Partners uh
(13:35):
unpack if I'm thinking about doing this
at my school so I know I need to find
some good teachers that can work with
kids well uh how did you go about that
initial stuff or what advice would you
give to a school that's thinking about
getting started who do they reach out to
so some things that we learned along the
way is as soon as we put the word out
that we were doing this just people from
the community just came out of the
(13:55):
woodwork you know the number of
businesses that reached out to us
parents who worked in cyber security and
were like oh cool you guys are starting
a program I work in the space how can I
help
um there is a sense that the cyber
security Community have been like
ignored for a long time and like they
finally got an opportunity to like shine
and they're like yeah let's go and help
out so we've had tons of folks who uh do
(14:18):
that so we have people who Mentor we
have guest speakers at this point like
every other Friday every Friday and high
quality individuals too high qualified
individuals um we have Mentor or not
mentors but industry Partners who
um we've asked for internships and and
do that and so for I would say the
advice for the school is like just
(14:39):
publicize it as much as possible and and
you're gonna find the people in your
community who are more than happy to do
anything from just share advice to get
into a classroom you know
to mentoring students you know on all
those different levels that was not a
challenge I could see that maybe be more
of a challenge depending on what part of
the country you live
(15:00):
um you know we're in a the Cincinnati
Metro metropolitan area I could imagine
maybe if you're you know more rural it
might be a little bit harder to find
quite the the community to be able to
support but I still think that you'd be
able to find folks who are close enough
to cyber security or in the tech space
that can help out kids and virtual
breaks down most of those uh
(15:20):
geographical barriers now that you can
bring people in on a zoo I mean yeah and
honestly most of our guest speakers are
virtual at this point it just does not
make sense that people come in
yeah so um are you able to name any of
those industry partners are you do you
have students doing internships at any
any companies right now
yeah so uh I'm actually intern right now
(15:41):
at this company called Spinx Electronics
we're a goal manufacturer I've worked
there since last June so last summer
um I've been working there for about a
year and I work around 10 hours during
the school year and I work try to put in
20 hours and you know breaks in summer
and they I had they had me doing tons of
stuff like uh encryption on their
computers and patching on their
(16:01):
computers and uh I've done some side
projects like rfids using them in the
office
um even red teaming uh so I'm wrapping
up project right now on hacking and
stuff like that of of in and even
physical
um
uh you know physical and social
engineering stuff like that so
um yeah it was huge I think the
internship too especially I'm so
(16:22):
grateful for it because I think that
being able to learn yeah in the
classroom is great but being able to
learn soft skills and being able to talk
to a boss right or my co-workers who are
in a different you know engineering
people sit next to me and being able to
talk to them right that was huge for me
is is being able to learn soft skills
and Technical experience in that
internship outside the classroom and
you're even doing stuff like globally on
(16:43):
different time zones too yeah like um
meetings I've had to get out of school
for meetings because some people were in
Japan and Portugal and I had a you know
the time didn't work out so stuff like
that right where it sounds cooler you
know I mean it sounds cool but then
you're stuck in a meeting for 30 minutes
but it's so much you know it's a lot of
fun and I love being able just to talk
about it because it's like a lot of
people were like wow that's that's
really great and I think that's that's
(17:03):
one thing too that I just love talking
about too is it's great George you also
have family working in an industry as
well don't you yeah I have so my dad
works uh for Salesforce um I.T right and
uh I have some extended family that are
in I.T as well and so they you know I do
definitely get that sort of aspect of
(17:23):
you know my uncles and sometimes they
know what I'm talking about but some
people you know my grandparents stuff
like that right they there's not a clue
but this program has allowed me to kind
of spread cyber security too I mean like
you know my I don't think my
grandparents really knew much about
cyber security but being able to uh talk
to him about hey like you know this
email that you're getting is this is a
phishing this is what that means right
that was that was cool for me too yeah
(17:44):
teach the older ones of my life here
grandma this is how your Facebook's
gonna get hacked grandma
yeah
Josh I would say I've always been which
I am prideful on my TSI of tech support
interns and if it's Chromebook screens
and blah blah blah
um but cyber security and throwing in
that realness of it into a school system
(18:06):
is amazing it it uh it hit help it hits
home for us right now because we are
looking we've we've modeled a
student-led help desk after what Chris
did
um and ours has been really successful
and and we're really wanting to give
those kids a little bit extra something
in the near future and we're looking at
offering
(18:27):
um
oh a plus certification through test out
for those for whoever wants to do it
like we we currently have like 25 kids
in that program
um we don't think all 25 will do it but
if we get three or five kids that do it
and we're able to give that class
um as a credit then instead of a pass
failed class and it qualifies for some
(18:48):
higher
um State reporting scores because of the
College and Career Readiness it's an IRC
industry recognized certification
um that that's something that we're
looking into so this this is this is
fantastic that you're doing this
um I'll I'll say George that uh one of
the things that will get you hired more
often than not you know it's one thing
(19:09):
to have certifications behind your name
and you know you can prove that you know
what you're doing with technology
having those soft skills enabled and
being able to have a conversation with
someone and take the content that you're
trying to get across to that person and
and be able to uh refine your delivery
so that anybody in the room can
(19:31):
understand it at multiple levels that
that skill in itself will get you hired
more times than it will
um that is very very rare in the I.T
field I think the guys and you know
Chris and Eric
um they all have that those two guys I I
consider myself to have that skill as
well
um it's it's one of the reasons we're in
(19:52):
the positions that we're in
um so if you refine that skill and you
keep using that it will take you far
just that skill alone
but by all means keep going for those
certifications
I and I wanted to kind of highlight some
of the certifications George you said
you got the ceh yeah ceh no not the CH
the uh test out yeah okay yeah yep and
(20:14):
then
and then like I said Security Plus
um a couple kids in my class have gotten
that and then I'm taking that once I'm
taking again this week and then we've
had kids get a plus
um I know okay last year and we got
Azure Azure and then there's kind of my
class taking AWS before summer begins so
just you know there's a lot of different
(20:35):
certifications out there too and we
don't require our kids to get them we
definitely highly encourage them
um and then we support them if that's a
decision that they want to make and so
that's cyber 3 course really allows for
that because it's a Capstone so if a
student says you know what I'm just not
interested in Security Plus but I really
want to do Azure or whatever then we
help provide the resources for them to
(20:56):
get that on top of explore other topics
that are part of the curriculum and
whatever else has the district been
pretty willing to to pay for some of
those certifications because I know we I
mean
no not because the district's not
willing it's the district
by our choice refuses because that's
what our industry partners are for oh so
(21:18):
um from a industry partner perspective
that's a pretty easy ask uh to say Hey
you know there's going to be an 18 year
old that's about to
go out into the world and have a
Security Plus and or Azure or ethical
hacker Pro or whatever else
um you know 200 bucks here and 300 bucks
there is
I think um something they're more than
(21:39):
happy to sign off on it's very tangible
for them and from a give back
perspective it's you know if that's been
an easy one for us perfect and the fact
that they are then taking these our
students as either interns or co-ops or
employees that's
that's cheap right well I think what's
great about it you've set up a model
(22:01):
that fits the cyber security realm but
it also fits in the it realm too
especially for smaller school districts
everybody's got I.T even if they don't
have a cyber security Focus but just the
fact that you're reaching out to the
community at large and finding those
sponsorships and the support is really
amazing because that's what we're all
about is is integrating with our
(22:22):
communities and being um good stewards
of the
of of the resources we have so I think
that's awesome yeah and I'll just go
back to the I didn't finish completely
finish your your question about our
other partners so started with standards
because I know that's who George um
interns with but also U.S Bank Fifth
Third Kroger GE Aviation
(22:43):
um ATC Technologies to a local company
it's been incredibly supportive trying
to think if there's anybody I'm missing
but those are the big ones
um in belcan yeah uh all those companies
provide internships uh mentors or some
sort of financial support or a
combination of all three
(23:05):
and why I think during your session you
guys were just kind of telling some
stories of your internships and I was
really captivated by those just the
things that you're getting to do
um and it's often a challenge in our
Tech departments to bring in student
interns because we have confidential
data or whatever it seems like it kind
of throws up a barrier to you being able
(23:25):
to give admin access yeah but I was
impressed that you guys were even
digging into like email uh compromise
and those types of things within an
institution like that yeah it's I mean I
I'll paraphrase and help me out here but
I know Colin was talking about
um for the internship that he works at
you know had they had some sort of big
incident and they pulled them into the
War Room you know and he's a part of
(23:46):
part of trying to figure it out and
we've had students who I remember one of
our students was doing where like when
employees left
he was doing all of the making sure that
they weren't taking sensitive
information with him which was like wow
that's pretty cool for 18 year olds yeah
given that level of responsibility but
hey that's your choice
um yeah so and I know George you tell I
(24:08):
always like your story about like being
in the car trying to do yeah yeah so um
I was going on vacation last summer and
uh like I said my dad works for
Salesforce so he's on a lot of calls and
we were in a car to uh South Carolina
Hilton Head
um and I had to get a meeting because we
the company was starting to do MDM with
mobile device management and enrolling
that and I had to be on that call and
(24:29):
we're in the car and I had my computer
on my headphones and talking and then my
dad was had a meeting too while he was
driving and his detention in the car was
just too much because you know you got
one company the other company and then
you know MBM and Cloud it's just my mom
was looking back at me and was like oh
gosh it's just not good it's stories
like that right it's just fun to tell
because it's like you know as an 18 year
(24:49):
old not many people have heard that and
it's it's I'm really grateful for that
right of being able to do that just tell
you stories and you know all that it's
real yeah
that's awesome
um so this was a presentation right that
Eric hung out with you guys at cousin is
that could you send us that that we can
put that in the podcast description
Maybe
(25:10):
yeah the presentation doesn't the actual
like slide deck doesn't have a ton of
information because the goal was really
to have George and Colin talk as much as
possible but there might be a recording
of it so let me see if I can find a
recording of it and see if that'd be
great
and I guess we can wrap this up by
saying if you're listening to this and
then if if you're wanting more
(25:31):
information I'm sure you can email us
and we'll try to get you a hold of these
guys to to talk about that more
yeah we're happy to help oh yeah for
sure
awesome well thanks for hanging out with
us guys
yeah thank you yeah thank you thanks for
your time
all right so we've been talking about
absolute on the podcast for several
weeks now
(25:51):
um I think we know that you do it
management cyber security compliance you
help out with the school's one-to-one
program uh but Bobby Warren Oliver uh do
you guys want to explain absolute to us
I I've been doing my best to talk about
absolute but I'm sure I'm not doing a
good job so if if I'm a school district
tech department uh would you just tell
(26:13):
me a little bit about absolute what you
guys what what do you guys do
sure Chris thanks and uh um appreciate
you having us on on here today you know
I think before we jump into kind of what
we do you know one of the things that
we've seen in you know a lot of change
in in how it management school districts
works because of what's happened in a
(26:33):
kind of post-covet world and well I
think we all saw and need to conduct
congratulate all the districts out there
that actually got technology in the
hands of students we all saw you know
laptops being handed into cars as they
drove by to give to students so they can
go home and learn and
um really was an amazing job you looked
at kind of what Corporate America had to
(26:54):
go through to do a similar thing but
most people had technology in their
hands already so getting technology in
the hands of students was really a
Monumental lift and I think that needs
to be recognized because uh somehow a
lot of these districts weren't even
ready to go one-to-one at all and
suddenly they were thrown into this here
you go you have to get the technology in
the hands of all the students and I
think a lot of the what happened and the
(27:15):
problems that we're seeing now stem from
that because you know a lot of folks
didn't even write you know that they had
the technology
in a spreadsheet was really all they
were even even that so a lot of what
we're trying to do today is to try and
solve some of the problems that came
from that a lot of it is really where is
the the technology that I handed out to
(27:36):
these students
um isn't it in a point in time where
where it's it's manageable uh is there
an inventory that we can control from
that and the biggest problem that we've
seen now and is is just the loss of
those devices not necessarily kind of
your classic theft around someone broke
into a car or someone you know broke
into a school and took a cart of uh of
(27:56):
Chromebooks or what have you but just
loss of inventory you know these devices
are out in the wild they didn't look at
them for for or or collect them for for
a couple of year period of time and now
here we are and we want to get our
technology back into the enhance the
district for summer so we can refresh
these machines and lo and behold you
know we can't find numbers as high as
we've heard as 20 so those of us that
(28:19):
have known absolute over the years even
back to our days of of of computrace
which was our nomenclature for a long
long time that's all we really did was
tracking our recover losses to own
devices and we've found that that use
case is has really been uh what we've
we've been used for in the K-12
Community more than anything else
whereas my work really it's the where's
(28:40):
my stuff right and we do a really good
job of helping you understand you know
where your equipment is uh what's on the
equipment uh how it's being used and
ultimately at the end of the school year
or even during the school year let's
make sure it gets back in the district
so we can we can make sure that kids can
keep learning Bobby think you want to
add there
yeah I think what's what's maybe a
(29:02):
little unique about
how that works for absolute is we're
actually in embedded in the bio so we're
in the we're at the firmware level of
every you know major device that's out
there and so we kind of have that unique
you know unbreakable tether to that
device so in the situation where maybe a
device is stolen or a device becomes
(29:23):
compromised or someone tries to maybe
switch out a hard drive to use the
device for other reasons you know that
agent you know reactivates itself comes
back online and we can still see
maintain manage track trace and take
action on that on that device
it's funny you guys mentioned computrace
I didn't realize that was who you were
(29:44):
years ago we at a hospital that I used
to work for
um we used computrace on on laptops that
we had it it's funny how some of this
stuff it it's actually a pretty small
world when it comes down to it uh we we
uh called it LoJack for laptops
right yeah understand what it what it
(30:07):
does
um so you kind of talked about the uh
auditing part of that from a from a tech
deployment OR tech department deployment
perspective
how does how does that work and take us
from from footprint to footprint you
know laptop versus Chromebook versus
whatever else Hardware wise
(30:30):
um what the Management console looked
like give us an idea of what that's like
sure and and Bobby did mention the BIOS
integration that we have on the PC side
things work a little differently on
Chrome of course and we we support
anything outside of iOS
um so your your Apple devices uh your
Mac devices your your Chrome and PC
devices
(30:50):
um implementation of the software is
actually very easy and I'll start with
the PC side of things it can even be
implemented at the factory of your PC
OEM so whatever device you're packed
will be buying because we're already in
the Bios of that device in a dormant
state it just takes a software load to
activate that agent and install the
agent onto the hard drive of the machine
and once that's installed then that bios
(31:13):
agent always looks after that that
software agent so you can't remove the
agent once it's been
um once it's been activated
um so if it's not a factory load that
you've done at that point if you have an
existing Fleet of machines it's just a
simple MSI you have to push out to your
devices and activate that boss agent off
you go for Chrome it's just an extension
of the of the Google Management console
(31:35):
um and does a lot of as we mentioned a
lot a lot more deeper uh you know a lot
deeper uh data is pulled from the Google
Management console along with you know
as we mentioned some of the you know
geolocation and device freeze and some
of the things that are on from there and
any of the Apple devices are very
similar so the implementation is
extremely simple
um this is a cloud-based solution so all
(31:56):
you need to do once it's been and loaded
is is just access our customer center
console and once you're into the console
you can see all of your devices where
they're calling in from and that calling
feature is really an important component
to that because once the agent is is
loaded on the device all it does is
multiple times a day just connect back
to the server and give data about the
(32:17):
device and once we have that connection
from the machine then we have a a lot of
different features and and and really
solutions that we can provide from that
from hey let's recover the device if
it's lost or stone it's freezing machine
Let's spot up the device let's track and
recover let's geolocate let's push out
scripts to really do anything at that
point so once we have connection from
(32:38):
that machine from that unbreakable
tether certainly from the bio side of
things
um you're good to go all you need at
that point is just access to the console
and the ability to provide action to
that device
you're muted Josh
what a what a noob
(32:59):
I've never done this before yeah let's
make sure that makes the final edit
there yes
[Laughter]
so give give us some examples of schools
that kind of like a use case or uh you
know a quick uh white paper type on a on
a district that has used absolute to
(33:21):
either recover equipment or get a better
picture of where those assets are living
yeah I'll tell you as Warren's mentioned
I mean that's in in the K-12 space I
mean the the the primary use case is
that device recovery right there's a lot
of other things we do which we'll we'll
mention here shortly but
um I mean countless school districts
(33:42):
have reported device loss in the 20 25
30 of these devices they're just not
getting back
not necessarily that they were stolen
right but just they're just not getting
them back
um and
I mean numbers of school districts
who've deployed this have gotten that
device recovery or that device lost down
(34:04):
into the low single digits right so you
know when you're going back to the
school board and you're trying to beg
for budget for you know next year's you
know Hardware refresh
um you know being able to uh you know
stand firm and say hey we were able to
get the large majority of our deployed
devices back we do need you know a
little extra budget to uh to refresh a
(34:25):
certain certain subset of our Hardware
versus going to the board and saying
man we had a we had a challenge
recovering a large number of our devices
and we're going to ask need to ask for
you know more budget or go tap into more
federal funds uh in order to support our
student needs
I think secondarily you know a big part
(34:46):
of of what we're seeing use and maybe
they if someone's purchased us because
they've got a large kind of lost problem
but because we touch these devices every
day or the devices really call home and
touch us every day
um and for us to be able to go and find
a device we need to know where it is all
the time and there's there's a lot of
use to that to be able to say hey I just
need an inventory of all my machines
(35:07):
um and we find that you know smaller
districts probably have a little bit of
an easier time trying to accomplish that
task but when you get into these large
urban districts with tens of thousands
or even hundreds of thousands devices
that task gets harder and harder so just
to be able to say here's where I have my
technology here's what just schools that
are in here's how many are going home
(35:27):
here's how many are are not going home
uh and here's really the health of these
devices
um is really a secondary uh probably the
biggest secondary and probably what you
use us more for ultimately uh because as
Bobby said our goal is always to drive
that kind of loss rate down to you know
single digits you know then what do you
use this for and really it's just
maintaining the day-to-day of those of
(35:48):
those devices and we can even start to
take our technology and and either have
other inventory Solutions like a haze
tip web for example uh ported into our
solution or ours into theirs
um so there's a lot of things that we
can do around just the inventory of
those devices
um and then really just maintaining
control of them
um and the data that's on them and maybe
(36:10):
student devices don't have the data
that's important but maybe it's your
admin or teacher machines that have uh
you know for regulated data what have
you and you want to be able to freeze
that machine or delete that data or move
that data should something happen with
the machine so really those are I think
would be the three main components is
the loss of the device the inventory of
the device and making sure that the the
(36:30):
data that's that's housed on there uh is
is
um is not compromised
and you know uh Josh that you you
mentioned you know use cases there's
um we've had we've had a number of
districts here recently that
um are leveraging our technology for
those those very things that Warren just
just detailed
(36:52):
um but we've actually had some some
districts have some
um success with identifying and finding
lost students
um certainly not something that the
technology was designed for nor are we
necessarily touting that but you know if
you think about a student gets reported
as being lost or missing
(37:13):
um you know the IT team is notified they
you know activate and accurately search
out where that student's device may be
most of the time students are
carrying their phone and their device
with them right their their Chromebook
maybe
um and you know I've had three school
districts here over this past year that
have reported back to us that hey they
(37:35):
they were notified of a missing student
and thankfully all three situations the
student was found uh in one situation
they went to their grandparents home
after school as opposed to their parents
home and no one knew that that's where
they were supposed to be one student got
on the wrong bus
one student was a troubled student and
and was missing for some time but they
were able to track that student down and
(37:56):
get that student taken care of so kind
of a unique application leveraging
identifying that technology to
ultimately maybe find that that missing
student or troubled student
if I could add you know one more thing
and I think one of the the things that
most districts are worried about right
now is it is some sort of a ransomware
(38:17):
situation and having and having a device
that gets back into the district with
with something on it
um and you know at the top Bobby
mentioned our our bios persistence and
and we've always persisted ourselves to
make sure that that if something happens
to our agent we reinstall our agent
we're now using that agent to reinstall
(38:38):
and to to harden other agents that are
out there so that could be something as
simple as your VPN or your SCCM or your
uh you know name that particular product
but a lot of it comes down to if you're
starting to use an EDR solution or
you're having other solutions that are
out there to help you with your cyber
security we can be that last line of
defense to make sure that whatever
(38:58):
you're deploying to those devices and
this is more on the PC side than the
Chrome side but whatever you're
deploying on those devices we can make
sure are always on
um and we find that there's when there's
human interaction with an agent often
that agent can be can be corrupted or
removed we hear a lot about SCCM having
corrupted agents for example and we can
rebuild or reinstall or really do
(39:19):
whatever is necessary to make sure that
particular agent or any other agent
really is on there we you've got a we've
got a library of I think it's 60 some
odd agents that we we persist today and
and make resilient
um and uh that really helps to make sure
um that things like a potential breach
or or ransomware can be
(39:40):
um uh your tools that are there to make
sure that those things don't occur are
always on and running
um and we know all that's that's one of
the worst case scenarios that you run
into the situation where students can't
learn because you're in this kind of
ransomware situation and we want to try
and help protect from that as well
great so if somebody listening wanted to
(40:03):
get a hold of one of you guys to find
out more get pricing get a demo who who
would they contact
well the easiest way is to reach out to
sales at absolute.com
um and uh obviously you can reach out to
myself Warren and Oliver and Chris I
don't know if there's a way for us to
share our contact information but we can
(40:23):
certainly yes so for sure I've been
putting Oliver's in the podcast
description and Josh continues to
disrespect Oliver because of his
username oh Schmidt and Oliver on behalf
of the K-12 Tech Talk podcast I'm sorry
about Josh it's all good you should try
pronouncing my middle name if you think
my my uh my name right now is
(40:45):
interesting so
now did you do that alone did you have
parents like did you have parents that
went out of their way to come up with an
O name so they could say oh Schmidt
yeah that's a great question or was that
was that just coincidence I think it was
coincidence but my initials are OBS
(41:07):
my middle name starts with a B so we're
sorry about that so they really just
doubled down on that one so Oliver you
got to quit while you're ahead bud I
know digging a hole buddy yeah we'll
just get a double down
so we'll put an email into the podcast
description for sure sure and to make
(41:28):
things really easy the other place that
you can go if you're ever interested in
absolute we don't sell anything directly
but talk to whoever you buy your your
Chromebooks or your PCS from but they
all know but absolute um they will be
the place where you probably buy them
from and one of the beautiful parts of
of what we can do is we can just
incorporate right into your laptop or
(41:48):
Chromebook Chromebook buy so we just
become a light item right so you know
you add you add the in and out there and
there's pricing differs between a PC
because we do a lot more than in a
Chromebook and obviously Chromebooks
these days can be you know as low as a
hundred and hundred fifty dollars and we
want to make sure it's priced
appropriately there but
um you know that's another Avenue that
you can always look at and they'll get
(42:09):
in touch with us from there but Oliver
is your best uh uh point of entry but
really anywhere you buy a device from we
can we can certainly um uh start there
as well great is there anything else for
the big the calls that were missing uh
you guys have listened to the episodes
that we already talked to you or talked
about you is there anything else that
(42:31):
you want to make sure that listeners
know about absolute
well I think the other thing with it
reaching out if there's some interest I
mean we are we are on standby we're more
than happy to provide you know demos and
show you the the you know the console
and how the technology uh works I think
most customers that that first response
(42:53):
they get when they see our you know our
console and our demo and they they
understand all the you know technologies
that are available one of their most
common responses is I had no idea that
some of this stuff was even possible
right so okay um we'd love to take you
through a demo and and and get your
feedback as well plenty of sales and
engineer folks uh uh on standby ready to
(43:14):
ready to roll
awesome well Oliver Bobby Warren thank
you guys so much for hanging out with us
Chris Josh thank you really appreciate
your time today yeah thanks Chris Josh
we appreciate it all the best thank you
for having us thanks guys thank you
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