Greetings all,
The final Technological Advisory Committee Meeting of 2022 for the Federal Communications Commission will be held 8 December.
ORI was a member of the TAC for 2022, contributed to several reports, and will be represented in person at the closing meeting.
I’ve represented Open Source and Amateur Radio concerns over the past year on the Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) working group of TAC. I co-chaired the sub-working group about “Safe Uses of AI/ML” with Paul Steinberg of Motorola, invited and organized a variety of speakers to present to the working groups, and had the opportunity to work on “how AI/ML is affecting bandwidth and throughput” paper with excellent FCC staffers. The amateur radio service is highlighted in this report.
The work consisted of two meetings a week and a lot of time in between to prepare, organize speakers, and manage deliberative discussions.
The final meeting in DC summarizes work for the year and sets out an agenda for next year. This year was a very difficult “rebuilding” year for TAC, as it had been shut down at the beginning of COVID. I am honored to be a part of getting TAC back up and running.
Thank you to everyone that has supported ORI participating at this level of US government. It’s been very successful.
Karen Rucker (ORI Secretary Emeritus) was instrumental in the application process, and I’d like to recognize her service to ORI and the FCC.
Paul Williamson, with experience on standards committees, has been invaluable in terms of providing advice for deliberations and decisions.
A special thanks to Marty Woll of YASME Foundation for his guidance and advice, and to ARRL counsel for coordinating and cooperating with ORI on a wide variety of issues we’ve taken to the FCC over the past year. ARRL is ably represented at FCC TAC by Greg Lapin.
If you are interested in “sticking up for amateur radio and open source at the FCC”, then you can make a positive difference in the US regulatory process. This is much more involved than filing a comment or complaining on social media. It is a significant commitment of time and effort.
Please get in touch and I will do all I can to support your application to groups like the FCC TAC. There are many ways to participate, and all of them affect the future success of open source and the amateur radio services that we care so much about.
-Michelle Thompson CEO ORI