- This month on The SPARK our theme is "Rides, Research, and Robotics".

We'll learn more about a new program aimed at solving transportation barriers in our city, offering Memphians free rides to a variety of healthcare services, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing the fight against cancer through patient resources, education, and community-based research, and a local company creating state-of-the-art robotics to improve logistics industry operations.

We'll also share a special moment from our Spark Awards 2022.

- From our very beginnings in 1954, Lipscomb and Pitts Insurance has been built on the values of customer service, leading with integrity, and supporting our community.

We believe in promoting the positives, encouraging engagement, and leading by example to power the good.

Lipscomb and Pitts Insurance is honored to be a presenting sponsor of The SPARK.

- (male announcer) Additional funding for The SPARK is provided by United Way of the Midsouth, EcOp, the Memphis Zoo, My Town Movers, My Town Roofing, and by Meritan.

- Have you ever been excited by a new idea?

Inspired by watching someone lead by example?

When we talk about creating change we start by sharing the stories of everyday heroes who are making a difference in their own way, so we can learn and do the same.

I'm Jeremy Park, and this is The SPARK.

They have a new program aimed at solving transportation barriers in our city.

We're here with the Chief of Staff for Innovate Memphis, Courtney McNeal.

And let's start, give us a little context around the nonprofit, Innovate Memphis.

- Yes, well one, thank you for having me and you know, it's always a pleasure.

But yeah, Innovate Memphis.

We started out in like 2011 as a part of Bloomberg's innovation team.

So we were one of the five pioneer cities that were selected to work closely alongside city government to address these various civic issues and bring about sustainable, civic, and innovative changes according to the mayor's priorities.

So, that took place then.

And after that grant cycle ended, we actually transformed into our own 501(c)(3).

People still wanted to see our work in the community, and so that's what happened.

We're still here today.

- Let's go ahead and dive in, 901 Ride Choice, the program.

Give us some background.

- Yeah, so we launched 901 Ride Choice back in 2019, and at that particular time, it was just serving as a free telephone number that connected, you know, callers, residents to transportation information.

There are so many transportation providers in the city of Memphis.

So, we have a large inventory of providers, but people aren't aware of them.

And thanks to the city of Memphis and MATA, we were able to, you know, create this program, and we connected callers to transportation options that best fit their needs.

And over time we seek additional funding, and we reach a level to where we can get subsidized dollars, you know, for our rides.

And so, you know, we understand like one of the biggest barriers to getting transportation, getting to point A and B, is money.

You know, our targeted different demographic are those who can't afford a vehicle, or you know, they rely on public transportation.

So we understand there's a need, we identified that, and we have a solution.

So we partner with LISC, as well as Uber Health, and again the city of Memphis for some additional dollars to connect our residents, our callers, to transportation services.

So, we initially started out with far as the subsidized programming, Rides to Wellness, which we, you know, connected callers to non-emergency ambulatory services.

So, if you're wheelchair bound or need a stretcher or something of that sort, we can get you to where you need to go.

But today we now offer a Rides to Resources.

So, basically focusing on social determinants of health.

So anything that is affecting that.

It could be spiritual health, physical health, mental health, you know, just pharmacy, grocery store, wherever you need to go, we can connect you, and get you a ride at no cost.

- Talk about how the program works, because when you look at the access to healthcare at no cost, it's a huge benefit for our community.

And so talk about how it works in terms of terms the scheduling, how far in advance?

Give us some of the details.

- Yeah, so you call us at 901-RIDE-901, it's an easy way to remember it.

Or 901-743-3901.

But 901-RIDE-901 is easy.

So, you'll speak with our call center agent and they'll go over a series of questions with you to ensure that you are eligible.

And basically if you are an adult living in Memphis, Shelby County rather, you basically qualify.

So we get your trip information.

We do ask that you call two days, at least two days in advance.

So like if you know you have a doctor's appointment on Friday and you know if it's Tuesday, go ahead and call us, or Wednesday, call us and get it scheduled, so that you know, we are prepared, and you know, we run into no issues trying to get you booked.

So yeah, call, get it booked and your ride will come at the designated time that you selected.

And that's pretty much it.

- What does success look like though when you look at tracking it for Innovate Memphis and for our community at large?

- That's a good question.

I mean, success is basically connecting all callers to whatever resources that they deem as, you know, something that will increase their overall quality of life.

So, we just want it to be a seamless process to where everyone can have access.

Yes, we do have like numbers in mind, in terms of like each month ta rgeting these specific goals, but overall we just technically and like literally care about connecting people to the resource.

You know, this program has grown so much to where it's kind of serving as like a info hub.

So people not only call about rides, they may also call like, "Hey, where can I get assistance with utilities?"

and things like that.

And so we have a database of all this information as well.

So I think it's just a beautiful thing to see how this thing grows.

And again, it's all about connecting residents to resources.

- How can the community help your efforts?

- Continue to spread the word.

This is a program that will actually end in December unless, you know, we get a notification from LISC, our partners and say, "Hey, let's extend this."

If the public can just share this information, especially because it is really a need in our community, and you know, we can do all the interviews, and you know, social media posts and the outreach events that we want, but we're still missing, you know, we're still missing a few people, you know, it's not getting to everyone.

So, if we can get this information out, that will be amazing.

- So, where do we go to learn more to make the connections?

So mention the phone number, website, where do we go?

- You can always give us a call 901-RIDE-901, and I highly suggest when you do call that number, it is Monday through Friday between 9 AM and 3:30 PM.

We prefer that timeframe.

But yes, you can always call us during those hours, and we'll be happy to assist you.

You can also go online, whether it's Innovate Memphis' website or directly to 901ridechoice.com, and information can be there as well.

- Well Courtney, thank you for all you and your amazing team do.

Thank you for coming on the show.

- Thank you for having me.

[upbeat music] - They're advancing the fight against cancer.

We're here with the Executive Director of the West Cancer Foundation, Leighanne Soden.

And let's start, give us the mission for the West Cancer Foundation.

- Thank you, Jeremy, and thank you for having us on the show.

We're very honored to talk about our foundation.

Our mission is to break barriers to cancer care in the community.

Our mission is to bring the entire cancer community together in one fight against cancer.

Because as a community, we all need to come together.

We're working towards the same goal.

So we wanna break those barriers, bring the community together, and also fund research and education.

- When you talk about the patient support services, let's start with transportation.

- Transportation across the country is the biggest barrier to healthcare in general.

In Memphis, it is probably the biggest barrier to cancer care.

Patients cannot miss a radiation treatment, which can be five days a week for anywhere from 6 to 18 weeks.

And research shows that if you miss one of those, that can affect your outcome.

So, we wanna make sure those patients have safe and reliable transportation to get to their appointment.

This program is growing exponentially.

We anticipate by the end of the year, we will have invested a quarter of a million in this program.

And to date, we have already served over 4,000 patients to help them.

It's very difficult sometimes when people who don't have the means to have to make a decision, "Well, do I put gas in the car, or do I feed my children?"

And we don't want anyone to have to make that very difficult position.

- Carry that into providing wigs and garments, which is extremely helpful as well.

- If you're a woman and you're going through any type of cancer treatment, not just breast cancer, losing your hair is an incredibly emotional thing for women, and I can certainly understand that.

So, we have a newly opened wig boutique in our new offices, and women can come in, it's a very warm and private area.

Come in, bring a friend, they can try on as many wigs as they want, and we will give them a wig, whatever they want.

We're gonna help them with that, because some wigs are really expensive.

Our lymphedema and post-mastectomy programs, this is something that we are the only organization that provides this for any cancer patient in the community.

Lymphedema is a very horrible side effect of a lot of chemo, radiation, and surgical procedures for cancer.

It's causes a lot of swelling and pain in the extremities.

And we'll provide wraps, garments, sleeves, gloves, whatever the patient needs with a physician's referral, we'll provide that for them.

If they can't afford the copay, we'll buy that for them.

These products are very expensive.

And we also provide post-mastectomy products for ladies who have gone through a mastectomy, and the women wanna feel whole again.

And this is something that again, insurance pays for some, but not all.

We'll pay for it completely or we'll pay for the copay for the patient.

And they're fitted at a couple of our partners here in town and given the free prosthesis, under garments, anything they need to help them after they lose their breasts.

- Education plays a very prominent role in your efforts as well.

Talk about the education and the outreach.

- It's a sort of a two-pronged focus that we have.

One is we have a young lady who is our boots-on-the-ground with outreach and engagement in the community.

She goes out to the areas of town, health fairs, churches where we know patients need our services, and she talks with them.

And that is part of the education, especially breast cancer, talking about how important that early detection is.

We also fund research at University of Memphis, more of the socioeconomic effects that cancer has on people.

And at University of Tennessee Health Science Center, we fund oncology fellows.

We're excited about this program growing.

We've built a great re lationship with Peter Buckley, the chancellor at UT, and we wanna fund more of those fellows, so we wanna fund them, and then after that we wanna make sure they stay here and keep that talent in Memphis.

- Talk about how the community can help.

How can we help you advance the fight against cancer?

- You know, one of our biggest needs, and it doesn't cost a thing, is volunteers.

We can't do any of our events, we can't go to health fairs, 'cause we get invited to so many, especially during breast cancer awareness without our volunteers.

They're our greatest asset.

We have some folks that come to our events, and they arrive at 3:30 AM, and they stay with us to the very end, picking up trash after the event.

So, these people are so important, and my board of directors, they are volunteers as well.

And I have an incredible group of board members who are so committed to our mission.

- You also too, obviously being a nonprofit rely on events and funding.

So, financial contributions, talk about events, a normal calendar of events and then also to obviously where we can go to make the financial donations and contributions.

- Of course, we just completed our West Fight On, which is our signature fundraising event, and we met our goal today of $5 51,000 raised for that event.

And that's an annual event that happens every September.

The Ride2Rosemary, these are 72 men who train all year to ride their bicycles 500 miles to Rosemary Beach, a hundred miles a day, and they train all year.

They're very dedicated.

It grew from 11 men to now we have 65 that are heading out this year.

That's an incredible event that really shows what it's all about as far as the strength, the endurance, and fighting cancer because that's not an easy thing I can imagine to ride your bike 500 miles.

And also a group of ladies have started their own cycling event called She to Sea.

That happens every March.

And these ladies have grown very quickly in just the last couple of years.

They head out in March, and they haven't picked their beach choice yet, but they very soon will.

But it'll be 500 miles as well.

And they have raised a lot of money, in just the short two years, almost $75,000.

- So, where do we go to learn more and get involved with the West Cancer Foundation?

- To learn more, please go to westcancerfoundation.org, and learn about our program, our events, and all of our volunteer opportunities.

- Well, Leighanne, thank you for all you and your amazing team do.

Thank you for coming on the show.

- Thank you, Jeremy.

[upbeat music] - The SPARK Awards annually recognize and celebrate individuals and organizations that have made outstanding contributions to the community.

The 2022 Individual Youth Award went to Megan Yost.

[uplifting, quirky music] - I'm Megan, I'm a senior at St. George's.

I run cross country, and I play tennis.

I got involved in the Green Bag program two years ago, because my friend kind of introduced it to me, and it was really important to me to kind of just be able to make an impact on the greater Memphis community, and it's really cool to be able to see that in action, 'cause it's my job.

The Green Bag program is an organization that kind of allows volunteers around like 300+ like families to gather donations like six times a year.

My job is to coordinate everything, and make sure everything gets to the food bank.

So, I send emails, and I run logistics and communications between all of those volunteers and the people who go around picking up the bags every two months.

The friendships I've formed are so cool.

All of the volunteers that go around driving and picking up the donations every two months, they're so kind, and I've gotten to know who kind of, they want to get involved in the community more, because they want to see that impact that they can make as well, and it's really cool to see that happen.

Of course, like every donation is appreciated.

Most often we get like non-perishables, pantry items, but definitely women's products and infant care items are really appreciated, because they're often overlooked an d sometimes expensive.

It's really cool to see all of the donations once they come together at the food bank.

So my mom and I, we donate, we actually drive to the food bank.

Sometimes I'm in school so I can't be there.

But the times that I can be there, it's really cool to see all of the donations once they're together and all of the numbers once th ey're weighted and everything.

So since 2015, over 100,000 pounds have been donated to the food bank.

It's a big deal and a lot of responsibility.

It's really important to me to just like make sure that everything gets done.

So, it's really cool to just like work with William Gotten and everyone else involved.

It's a really easy program to get involved into, because you only donate six times a year.

And even that like, although it's like- it makes such a difference with al l of the donations we get, it's really important to just say like, it's only six times a year.

It's so easy to get involved.

You just make a step to get that non-perishable item out in your front door every six months.

What puts a smile on my face is just seeing all of the people at the food bank once we deliver everything there.

And then also just like all of the donations once they come together and just seeing it, once like I'm there in person every like- not all the time, 'cause I'm in school sometimes and I can't be there, but when I'm there and I see all the donations together, it's really cool just to see everything altogether.

I definitely wanna find more ways to grow the program.

I have a club at my school that also kind of coordinates with the Green Bag program.

We have like certain people in our club that also donate every two months, along with the people outside of my school.

So, I want to kind of grow that more and make sure that the program continues once I'm gone.

Once I get home, it's really satisfying and it makes me really happy to just know that I've made a difference.

[uplifting music] - They're a local company using state-of-the-art robotics to transform the logistics industry operations.

We're here with the CEO and Co-Founder of Dextrous Robotics, Evan Drumwright.

And let's start out, give us a little bit of history for launching Dextrous Robotics.

- Thanks Jeremy, thanks for having me on.

We started Dextrous in 2019.

Myself and my co-founder, Sam Zapolsky, both alums from Toyota Research Institute.

We were focused on building a robotic platform that could eliminate a lot of the heavy manual labor that people undergo in the logistics industry.

- When you talk about DX-1, let's go ahead and unveil DX-1.

And so give us an idea, because it's like really cool chopstick-like environment that allows for mobility.

So, go ahead and dive in.

- Okay, well DX-1 was born around the concept of being able to take a couple of chopsticks, which we know can pick up all different sizes, shapes, and materials of things, and scaling that up to the size of a robot.

So, that is really what it has been designed to do.

It hasn't been designed to be general purpose like a humanoid robot or to have hands like a human.

It has been designed to be able to pick, that means go in and actually get the chopsticks around something, essentially anything that can be shipped within a semi-trailer or shipping container.

- And so talk about how this is used in terms of unloading large, small, everything in between, but unloading large items, big boxes and how that really is saving backs.

I mean, physically saving backs and making things so much more operationally efficient.

- Yeah, so you run into a big problem in the logistics industry, which is almost everything nowadays comes through on a truck, and people have to get those items out of a truck.

Most of the time they don't come loaded onto palletes where you can use a forklift.

You've actually physically got to go into a truck, and remove those items one by one.

And sometimes those items are light, but oftentimes they're heavy.

Some of the weights can range up to 70 pounds or even more, depending on whether or not one or two people is supposed to carry that object.

And when you're in this role, you are reaching down, you're lifting way up, you are having to twist around.

It's highly likely that you're going to be injured.

There's not much of a career path for you doing this.

Nobody says how many years have you been throwing boxes?

And so this is the problem that we're solving is one of human drudgery and injury, and at the same time, being able to make it faster as well.

- Talk about being a Memphis company.

So here in the Mid-South based, but yet obviously you have the ability to work with companies all over the world with this, and you do have a partnership already with one local company to already put this in motion.

So, talk about being Mid-South based.

Talk about working with other companies.

- Okay, well, the Mid-South is obviously the logistics heart of the US.

You can find so many customers here, which is really great, because one of the things that we've looked for in selecting pilot customers is being able to find people that are close to us, and that have an interesting package mix.

And the Armstrong Company, who is our local customer that we've been- they're also our first customer, is exactly such a company.

They're sending interesting mix of packages in every single truck that comes along.

It allows us to prove that our system is able to manipulate things that competing systems can't move.

And we look forward to being able to work with more local Memphis companies and solve their needs as well.

- For you personally, what does it mean to be able to launch this in Memphis and the Mid-South to be able to have an impact locally?

What does it mean to have a hometown impact with this?

- It means everything.

We could have started this deep tech company in Silicon Valley.

That was, I think, what a number of people expected us to do.

And I think we were very progressive in seeing that Silicon Valley was not as great of a place to raise a family, to build a business.

And since we have started Dextrous, we have seen other companies follow suit, moving out of the Bay area, and yeah, it's super gratifying to be able to bring it here, and you know, take advantage of the thing that Memphis is best at, which is, you know, in my mind, logistics.

- What has your attention, when you look at the technology that you use for DX-1 and obviously for Dextrous Robotics, what has you excited for the future for where AI and all of these technologies will continue to carry and go forward that will allow you to do even more?

- Ooh, that's a tough one.

So, I don't wanna get too deep into the weeds here, but people talk about artificial general intelligence.

The ability for a machine to have some of the common sense that people have.

That would certainly make our jobs a lot easier.

We do a lot of robot programming.

So, that would be a pretty big sea change.

But we are seeing advancements in every single area of technology related to our robots on a daily basis.

It's frankly, it's an amazing time to be alive and to watch all of this rapid progress.

- Well, this is definitely one of those conversations we could carry on forever, 'cause there's so much exciting news to share.

But go ahead and wrap up with website, information.

How can we carry this conversation forward?

Where can we go to learn more?

- Our website is our best place to learn more, www.dextrousrobotics.com.

We also have a LinkedIn page, and just be expecting to hear a lot more from us in the short time to come.

- Well, Evan, thank you for all you and your amazing team do.

Thank you for coming on the show.

- Thanks Jeremy, I appreciate it.

[upbeat music] - As we journeyed through this month's episode, we witnessed compassion and care, determination and innovation, all centered around the theme of "Rides, Research, and Robotics".

Here in our city, transportation can be a challenge for many trying to access needed programs and services.

So, aiming to reduce those transportation barriers, Innovate Memphis designed, launched, and is now administering the 901 Ride Choice program, which offers Memphians free rides to a variety of resources and healthcare services, including behavioral health appointments, case management sessions, and food.

Removing barriers to cancer care is part of the mission for the West Cancer Foundation, which is dedicated to the fight against cancer by providing patients with resources to improve treatment and recovery, including rides to treatment, and access to wigs and garments, along with providing early detection and education to reduce critical cancer outcomes, and community-based research to improve health inequities.

And Dextrous Robotics is using state-of-the-art technology to automate bulk container unloading and precisely move packages and objects with super human strength and speed, which is saving backs and creating safer and improved logistics operations.

So, we hope you enjoyed this passport to the future of technology with a blend of compassion and care, so you know more and can be a spark to get involved in our city.

To learn more about each of the guests, to watch past episodes, and to share your stories of others leading by example, visit wkno.org and click on the link for The SPARK.

We look forward to seeing you next month and we hope that you'll continue joining with us to create a spark for the Mid-South.

- From our very beginnings in 1954, Lipscomb and Pitts Insurance has been built on the values of customer service, leading with integrity, and supporting our community.

We believe in promoting the positives, encouraging engagement, and leading by example to power the good.

Lipscomb and Pitts Insurance is honored to be a presenting sponsor of The SPARK.

[upbeat music] [acoustic guitar chords]