(gentle music) (upbeat music) - You know, I love working with you guys on "What If...", but there is technology we could replace you with.

(upbeat music) - Or somebody else could lose their job.

(upbeat music) - [Giada] Hello, welcome to "What If..." I am your new host, Giada.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Technology that's finding problems before the power goes out.

Three faiths bridging differences in one location.

Haircuts, mentoring, and counseling in a bus.

- "What If..." (upbeat music) (upbeat music) Hey there, welcome to another episode of our series on innovation and creativity in Nebraska, "What If..." Giada is going to help us out a little bit today.

A couple years ago, Jojo's Gelato and Grill was having some challenges hiring, especially when kids went back to school.

So they took an innovative approach and bought a robot.

To help out, not to replace humans.

It's the same sort of innovative thinking that led Dusty Birge to create something that may help keep your lights on.

(electricity buzzes) (upbeat music) This power line has a problem.

A transformer is failing, and that will cause an outage.

- Dusty knows.

(classical music) - How?

(classical music) - Mental telepathy?

(psychic buzzing) (classical music) - X-ray vision?

(psychic buzzing) (classical music) (gravel crunching) (classical music) - [Dusty] So you can see this secondary connection here is glowing hotter than the others.

So there's an issue right there on that pole.

- [Narrator] No superpowers needed.

Just a super idea.

Used car-mounted technology to inspect lots of power lines quickly and find issues before they become problems.

That's the simple explanation.

More detail about how this works in a bit.

First, let's meet the guy whose real superpower is ideas.

- [Dusty] So, originally from a small town in Benkelman, Nebraska.

My very first business was actually a candy store in grade school.

I had a really great business model.

My mom would go to Walmart and buy candy bars, and I sold candy out of the bottom locker in school, even to teachers.

And it was a really good model, because I'd sell candy, and then when I'd take the money at the end of the day, I'd go to the arcade and spend it.

And I had no cost of goods, because my mom just kept buying me candy to sell, but I never had to actually buy it.

I had other businesses in school.

I scooped sidewalks.

I started a small engine business.

I'd wake up and I'd take an order from my mom and dad and cook breakfast, and I'd charge my parents for breakfast.

And I collected tax, but I didn't pay sales tax.

(chuckles) - Sounds like you could possibly be audited at this point.

- (laughing) Yeah, I think I was underage, maybe.

But it was really neat that my parents supported all the crazy ideas that I had, even if it was just cooking breakfast at home.

I was so young and I wanted to be in business.

And so I would look at how other people were running businesses and I'm like, "I want to try to do that."

(car engine whirring) - [Narrator] After college, he worked for General Electric and launched archery, laundromat, and drone businesses.

Selling two of the three.

The stage was set for the next idea.

- [Dusty] I really like to solve problems, and we were in a position of needing to think of a business idea that could scale.

I have a big utility background, and so I went to utilities and validated, "I have this idea, does this actually solve a problem that you have?"

And multiple utilities said, "Yep, that is a legitimate problem."

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] What's the problem?

Start with 6 million miles of power lines in the US, most above ground.

(upbeat music) - [Dusty] And the challenge with our electrical grid, is it's so vast that a lot of utilities take over 10 years to do a system-wide patrol.

Look out the window as you're driving, and just the visual inspection of each structure as fast as you could, you know, but it pretty time consuming to drive, stop, and look, and then stop, drive, and look.

- [Dusty] The US actually has more power outages than any other developed country.

And the challenges due to the interval between inspections, - components fail.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] And bad things happen when things fail, outages and wildfires.

- [Dusty] In electrical applications, when components begin to break down, they generate heat, and that heat will lead that component to failing.

Unfortunately, the human eye does not see temperature.

So we use thermal cameras to visualize those issues.

And so by putting this technology on top of a car, we can drive down the road and highlight issues that the utility doesn't know about.

(space age music) (car engine whirring) - So it all starts up there, right?

- Yep, we have four thermal cameras mounted on the roof, two for each side of the road, and then they mount it on a pan tilt unit that allows us to reposition the camera in the event of uneven terrain or varying pole heights.

- And then all the stuff you get up there comes down into here.

- Yep, all the cameras feed through about a dozen wires through the rear window and then power a television display, a monitor, that allows us to intermittently check and make sure the cameras are in a proper position and properly focused.

By using this joystick here, we're able to independently select cameras and then move them without having to get outta the car.

And we can do this in motion.

- And this is like a 1970s video game, right?

- [Dusty] Yeah, just an arcade.

It's an arcade joystick with a few buttons.

- [Narrator] For demonstration purposes Dusty set it up to show realtime results in the car and he put up with a little silliness.

- [All] "What If..." (upbeat music) - Normally the Fast Forward car gathers thousands of images in a day without stopping, then they're downloaded into software for evaluation.

So when you come back in, you are laying all of the thermography information you've gathered over the map that you've already created.

- Correct.

- And that's what we've ended up with there with all the all the dots and the different color dots showing the problems, right?

- [Dusty] Correct.

- [Narrator] Okay.

To demonstrate, we're looking at data captured in Cozad.

A city Fast Forward is doing a pilot project with.

- All the white dots are pole locations.

- Pole locations, okay.

- We're able to quantify which structures have issues, but then we're also able to quantify how bad the issue is.

And so if you zoom in on the map here, there's different color dots representing different levels of severity.

- We're looking at Pole 415.

Which is, looks like it's right in downtown Cozad.

-- [Dusty] Yep.

-- [Narrator] Okay.

- [Dusty] And they, they've since made a repair on this, but we were able to flag this.

And on this image here, you can see two spots.

- Right, there's, yeah, and they look similar, but they really stand out.

- [Dusty] They very stand out.

We do this inspection at night because it helps us find really minor issues that may get overlooked during the day.

We're trying to make as little amount of work for the utility as possible to implement the repair.

So they want to know what's wrong, where it's at, and how bad it is.

All the other steps that we can automate, that's our goal.

- So what is this going to do for ya?

- We was able to go out, prevent the outage, do it during working time where we could schedule the outage according to how the customer's needs were needed.

So we get that repaired all without any unexpected interruptions.

-(gentle music) -(crowd applauding) - [Narrator] In 18 months Fast Forward grew from idea to office dedication.

- Yeah, I've never started a business that has grown this fast.

- [Narrator] It hasn't always been easy getting parts and figuring out how to mount cameras to capture 5,000 pole pictures a day were challenges.

- I'm Dusty.

- [Narrator] But investor and power company interest tells Dusty, he's onto something.

- [Dusty] That is a scalable and economical way for utility to implement system-wide and they don't have to increase rates to their consumer because just the cost savings alone in the power outages pay for the whole project.

- Is Dusty kind of a game changer in your industry?

- [Jerry] He is.

- [Dusty] The intent is to build the business to a point to where a national entity can acquire the company and build it even bigger.

But I like to solve problems and so I think as new technology comes out, there'll be another problem to solve.

(classical music) - So here's how the robot works.

Staff puts an order on Giada.

Selects the table number.

Sensors help it avoid collisions.

Giada follows a programed path to the table.

- [Giada] Please take your food.

Pretty cool!

So our next story is about something you may not see anywhere else but Omaha.

An ongoing experiment where three religions are learning from each other in one place.

(gentle music) This creek has seen a lot over the years, early settlers struggling to cross it, golfers hitting balls into it.

Now an experiment happening around it.

What if you had three religions practicing different faiths and learning about each other in one place?

(spiritual music) (spiritual music - [Narrator] What is Tri-Faith in a nutshell?

- The Tri-Faith Initiative is a educational non-profit with the intention of growing a community of both meaning and belonging.

-(gentle music) - [Narrator] Jewish, Muslim, and Christian congregations worshiping on one campus, connected by an interfaith center, providing opportunities to learn and interact.

- [Wendy] This movement of interfaith or inter-religious cooperation is a potluck.

We all want to bring our own flavor for those who are uncomfortable with our differences.

We want those people to lean into our similarities.

And for people who are comfortable with we want to push ourselves to appreciate difference.

- You know, that's how I imagine it.

- When you eat together and when you pray together, no one's asking.

No one's at the door asking you whether you're Sunni or Shia or Muslim or Christian.

- [Narrator] So when there aren't services, you see small informal things.

- [Gail] Oh, my favorite part is the connection with people in one-on-one learning about people who believe other things.

- [Narrator] And big events.

More than 6,000 people from the three faiths and general public attended Tri-Faith events in a recent year.

(people chattering) And there's the Tri-Faith garden started in 2019, interfaith volunteers, including master gardeners, now grow more than 5,000 pounds of produce yearly.

It's almost big enough to be called an urban farm.

So a hundred percent of what you're growing gets donated to people who need it.

- All volunteer, all donated.

- [Narrator] Yeah.

You name it, they grow it, including potatoes, which take some work to harvest as I discovered.

Ready to work.

- Okay, so I just dig around?

- [Marcia] Right.

- Did you already dig this one up for me?

And just, this is like a prop potato?

(upbeat music) I have some legitimate potato skills.

- [Marcia] I will give you an A for potato picking.

- [Mike] Well, just because I'm doing your work.

- Well I figure if it's my work, yeah.

- [Narrator] They're growing more than produce here.

- [Marcia] You know it's led to us having deep personal relationships, learning about one another's faiths, going to activities, sharing food, family and friendship.

- [Bonni] Because they, we talk about ritual.

It's somebody's ritual for getting married or for a funeral or when there's a baby.

We talk about all of that.

We learn about those things and usually we start like all of these differences that we have and we circle back and we find that there are so many commonalities between the way that we have managed that culture.

- The people who work in that garden have been an incredible source of role modeling of what relationships can look like.

- [Rick] It creates conversation.

It creates our ability to talk with one another and not ignore one another.

And I think that's key.

-(birds chirping) -(gentle music) - [Narrator] Conversation shortly after 9/11 led to all this.

- [Wendy] What if we deepened our relationship with the Muslim community that had grown out of the 9/11 experience of our country?

And what if we went to not only the Muslim community, but the Christian community and said, "Let's build a neighborhood.

Let's do something that hasn't been done before."

- [Narrator] Temple Israel and the American Muslim Institute had practical needs for newer, better space, but also an interest in ensuring values and interfaith commitment.

They built first.

Christian Partner Countryside wasn't looking for a costly new building.

- [Rick] We're not moving for the space, for the building, we are moving because of the cause, so to speak.

- [Narrator] None of this has been without challenges.

Religion and faith can be polarizing, sometimes creating conflict, especially between Israel and Palestine, Jew and Muslim.

The decade old Tri-Faith experiment was challenged more than ever in the fall of 2023.

- Thank you for coming.

There's tips on the back to you on how to have difficult conversations.

Meander around the bridge and there's a poster - to sign at the end.

- Thank you.

- [Wendy] And we've been just in a world of pain and for us to come together to walk the walk to stand and bridge difference, especially in knowing that there are things we don't agree on right now.

And it's really a beautiful model for the world.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] Back to the creek, it's seen folks overcoming challenges for a long time.

The golf course that was here, a reaction to antisemitism, built in the 1920s when Jews weren't allowed to join other country clubs so they created their own.

The name given to it by 19th century settler, Hells Creek.

You know, it was named this way because of a settler who just hated getting across it, - but figured out a way.

- Right.

You know, I guess that also reminds me that this work that we're doing here to celebrate difference, to bring people who are different together and honor that each person in their uniqueness, sometimes that work is hell, right?

- We can enjoy other faiths.

We can live side by side.

We can live in peace, harmony, we can be friends despite different religions.

I think this is really putting wrench into the narrative that religion is a negative thing.

That it has to be violent, abusive, intolerant, and so on.

- [Deana] We don't try and force our beliefs on the other.

We don't try and change our relationships to be one big community.

We specifically have separate buildings.

But what it means is that we have the opportunity to share about our faith and our religion and our traditions and values and to bring other people in and to go into other spaces and learn about them.

- [Narrator] So this whole thing, is it working?

- It's an experiment in progress.

Can we do more?

Can we be better?

Can we try new things?

You bet.

Have we?

Yes, is everything working according to that plan?

Yeah, I think so.

- I mean, there is no blueprint for this, right?

- There still isn't.

We are building this ship while we're flying it.

I think when we look back 20 years from now, we are going to look at our foresight in appreciating our different cultures as something that saved our society.

- [Wendy] It's hard.

People disagree.

People get uncomfortable.

And yet it's beautiful, right?

It's all true at the same time.

- As Salamu Alaykum.

- Shalom.

(gentle music) - Amen.

(gentle music) - Religious innovation is nothing new in Nebraska.

Like the unusual tiny church that folks in tiny Keystone built a century ago.

(organ music) (organ music) A Catholic and a Protestant walk into a church.

Not the start of a joke, the start of a story about a unique place where both could have gone to services a century ago.

A tiny building in a tiny village.

(organ music) - [Barbara] It is touted as the only one in the world.

(organ music) - [Kathy] Most people are amazed at what's actually here, that it's here and how special it is.

And we think it's a real treasure.

- [Barbara] It's just really a special place.

- [Narrator] Here's how it works.

There's a Catholic altar on one end, Protestant altar on the other in between rows of pews on hinges that flip whatever direction is needed.

Same with kneelers pulled out from either direction.

Barbara the Catholic, and Kathy the Protestant are two of the less than 100 folks who live in Keystone.

They keep the little church and its history from fading away.

- [Kathy] Dedication was Reverend Dean George Beecher of Omaha.

- [Narrator] Keystone was founded in 1906 with a hotel, some businesses, but no church.

- [Kathy] The idea was brought by a group of teenage girls who were called the King's Daughters.

And they were under the direction of Mrs. Georgia Paxton.

Mr. Paxton, her husband, Bill Junior, they had a ranch just northeast of town here.

- [Barbara] So the girls decided we needed a church and they went about having sales, bazars.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] And the idea for two-way pews, likely something the well-traveled, Mrs. Paxton saw in big city cable cars, which had seats that flipped because the cars couldn't turn around.

The Little Church opened in 1908.

The unique concept occasionally got attention in other parts of the country.

One article called it "imminently sensible, neighborly, and effective."

Catholics and Presbyterians alternated Sunday worship here at first.

Presbyterians left and a Lutheran congregation moved in, then Catholics left and it was a Lutheran church until the last regular service in 1949.

(organ music) - [Kathy] I think it speaks well to the pioneer spirit.

We figure out what we need and we figure out a way to do it.

And we usually get along while we're doing it.

And I think it's a simple solution to so many issues today if we could just all do this.

(gentle organ music fades) - Check out a longer version of our story about The Little Church on our website.

There you can also learn about all the original music featured in our stories, including some created by a guy who's featured in our last story.

It's about an unusual approach to youth mentoring that includes this.

(hair clipper buzzing) -[KB] Are you going to start lifting weights too?

- [Lawrence] Yeah, I have a bench in my basement, man.

- [KB] Yeah, because you definitely need to get a little stronger, man, yeah.

(laughing) Now your left side, you know, I'll give it to you.

You're strong on your left side, but your right side is kind of weak man.

- [Narrator] Conversations cover a lot of ground when KB has Lawrence in the chair.

- [Lawrence] I read a book recently that I wanted to tell you about, which is pretty cool.

- [KB] You watch the news a lot?

- [Lawrence] I mean, they say that the 300 hurdles is one of the most difficult races in high school, you know?

- [KB] Right, sweets are my weakness.

- [Lawrence] I can tell.

(laughing) - I have to redeem myself.

- [Narrator] KB and Lawrence met in this barbershop.

Instant friends, meh?

- [Lawrence] Always just loud and obnoxious and I just absolutely did not like him at all.

- [KB] And I knew I liked this guy.

I was like, yeah, and I thought he could take it.

I thought he, you know, his skin was alligator skin.

So I'm like, I know you could take this, you know.

- [Narrator] They bonded over music, DJing, And MCing weddings.

They started brainstorming about helping kids.

Started a nonprofit called Visionary Youth.

Then the barber and the counselor had an idea, (hiphop music) ♪ Your life started, had a whole lot of problems ♪ ♪ You were searching for an answer ♪ ♪ A solution just to solve them ♪ ♪ You could never get a break ♪ ♪ But the world was still revolving ♪ ♪ You were making big mistakes ♪ - [Lawrence] He's like, "Well what about bringing the mentoring and barbering and also counseling into this mobile component and taking that around and being able to serve people where they are?"

And I was like, "Now that's a really, really cool idea," because there are no mobile counseling spots.

- [Narrator] So yeah, a barbershop in a bus.

Here's how it works.

- Hey Darius, how you doing?

- [Narrator] 9 to 13-year-old boys who for different reasons need a little extra help or support in their lives.

They come from the Malone Community Center, a program partner, to the bus for 90 minutes once a week for 10 weeks.

The barbers come from Oasis Barbershops owned by KB, but volunteer for this program paired with the same kid each week.

- [Mikayah] Ask them about what they would like to accomplish in the next session.

- [Lawrence] We prep our barbers before they go in to work with the young people and they know what subject they'll be talking about that day.

And then they're using the curriculum that we created to ask questions and guide them along this journey of development as they go through the 10 week process.

- Ask them just normal questions that you would ask in a barbershop, but in a formal type of way.

- [Mikayah] Are you better playing on a team or by yourself?

Or does it depend on something?

- So what is one of those things in school that you had to be confident about?

- Like reading in front of the class.

- Reading in front of the class?

How that make you feel?

It make you feel weird?

- Like anxious, kind of.

- Anxious.

- Yeah.

- You like to be on defense or offenses?

- I don't know.

- You don't know?

You just like to kick the ball, huh?

- Getting the grades looking good too?

- Yeah.

- That's good, that's good.

- We gotta keep them up.

- I know.

- [Narrator] When you guys are in the bus, what are you talking to the kids about?

- About just about life and how they doing in school and how can we help them have a better day to make them happier.

- Hobbies, activities, things they like to do.

- Also about any goals that they have.

Helping them open their mind to see different perspectives and to take on new challenges for themselves.

- I'm going to have y'all go talk to Lawrence.

- [Narrator] Barber's leave the counselor steps in.

- Like what do you do with that feeling?

You know, because it's so easy for us to talk about sad feelings or depressing feelings.

We don't talk about exciting feelings a lot.

- Tell me about your role in this thing.

- I provide the mental health element to the mentorship where I just provide the psychoeducation that makes sure it goes in a direction where kids are developing different social skills, coping skills, communication skills.

So I get to see if memory issues, recall issues.

It helps me identify some things that the kids might need to work on just by watching their relationships with the barber.

- [Narrator] A lot happening in a short period of time in a small space, and turning an old party bus into a barbershop with a bathroom, lights, towel warmer, the barber pole, nice touch.

All in compliance with state regulations for barbershops?

-Not easy.

-(upbeat music) But how creative did you have to get to figure out a way to put four barber chairs and everything else in this bus, which is decent size, but it's not huge.

- No, just a 36 foot.

We have to get real creative on trying to get the nooks and the crannies right.

And just the measurements from barber chair to the stations and how many barbers we can get in here.

So everything that a barbershop would normally have, we got in here and then we got great barbers and great conversations.

- [Tyler] Have we ever tried to give a haircut while the bus is in motion?

- Nah, that's a lot.

That's real dangerous right there.

(laughing) (bus engine whirring) (gentle music) - [Narrator] Youth mentoring programs aren't unusual.

Same with mobile barbershops.

But this?

- I have not seen mobile barbershops where mentoring is also provided and counseling in the same space.

That's the uniqueness I think of this project.

So what really makes this stand out is that, you know, the space where it happens is a very therapeutic, intentional intervention space.

- When I can get them to look good and just open up on how they want their haircut, then that just opens up everything else.

- [Lawrence] Especially when you come in looking rough or feeling rough.

And that person can actually utilize their hands and mold you like clay, so to speak, and make you feel better and look better.

- [Mikayah] We're natural therapists.

Sometimes we're their first contact after school, after work, after a tough time, and they just need somebody to talk to them.

- Counseling in a space that doesn't look like it's counseling.

- That's the key.

(upbeat hiphop music) ♪ Shout out to my hustlers out there ♪ ♪ Making those moves when the rest are unaware ♪ ♪ You deserve an standing ovation with the ♪ ♪ way you innovate ♪ ♪ And make it work pulling money out the air ♪ ♪ I feel you in my heart ♪ - [Narrator] It's kind of an experiment.

Mind Mobile launched just a couple months before we shot this story.

They're collecting before and after info to evaluate.

For now, success is based on assumptions that it's a good 90 minutes a week most young people never get, especially often underserved young males of color.

Support, mentorship, positive relationships, counseling, all with other youth in the same place at the same time.

- [Lawrence] There's so many challenges that these young people face that we don't know anything about.

And what we wanted to do is just create a space for them to feel better.

And when we see those kids come out of the Malone Center and run to the bus, that's enough for me.

(upbeat music) The big picture is that we could create a curriculum.

We create a project that can be duplicated across the United States.

- [Narrator] Big ideas born from two friends talking trash in a barber chair.

(whooshing sound) - What kind of spray is that?

It smells like mosquito spray.

You trying to put mosquito spray on me or something?

Man, that's a distinguished mustache.

That looks good.

- That's it for this episode of "What If..." Giada, really happy that you could be a little part of our show, but you know what?

You can't have my job.

- [Giada] Excuse me.

- But thank you to Jojo's for helping us out with all of this.

You can watch all of our segments, our episodes, and our Innovator Insights educational segments online.

Plus follow us on social media #whatifnebraska.

Thanks for watching!

(upbeat music) - We look at that.

- Look at the camera and just say, "What If..." really loud.

- Say "What If..." - And then do this.

- Big hand gesture.

- Seriously want us to all three do that?

What If?

(whirling sounds) (rustling sound) (camera thudding) (rustling sounds) (laughing) Do you have a gesture choice?

All right, do a gesture of choice.

- Macarena!

- 1, 2, 3.

- [All] "What If..." - Sorry.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)