Category Archives: Uncategorized

In their Digital Inclusion Coalition Guidebook, the National Digital Inclusion Alliance has defined a coalition in the following way:

• “Is a collective organization of organizations (e.g., local governments, libraries, educational institutions, housing authorities, community technology training and network providers, other social service and civic organizations, etc.).
• Operating in the public realm, with a reasonable degree of transparency about its activities, governance and finances.
• Function within a collaborative structure (formal or informal), that may include process for decision making, leadership responsibilities, rights and obligations of members, regular meetings, and open process for joining.”

If you work at a library and have been (or would like to be) involved with a coalition working to advance digital equity, please consider sharing your experiences in this 5-10 minute survey below about your library’s experience.

Findings from the study will be shared back with you (if you choose to include your name and email address), as well as in my book on Digital Equity Ecosystems for the University of California Press. Thank you!

I am excited to share the news that my colleagues, Malana Krongelb, Jie Jiang, and I have an extended version of our Digital Equity Leadership Lab (DELL) case study published in the new issue of The Journal of Community Informatics, which my Co-Editor-In-Chief Peter Johnson and I put online earlier today.

I also hope the case study will be helpful in the broadband policy context, as the Federal Communications Commission has established a Task Force to define and prevent what they are calling “digital discrimination.”

Here is the abstract below.

This paper presents the Digital Equity Leadership Lab in Baltimore, Maryland as a case study of community leadership development to promote digital equity and justice. While several studies of community leadership development exist, few are focused on its role in promoting digital equity and justice. This case study attempts to address this gap in the scholarly literature through the following research question: How might DELL serve as a community-based leadership training model to develop the next wave of digital equity leaders? Through our analysis of interviews with community leaders, outside experts, and community foundation staff, we discovered the following three main findings: (1) bringing national policymakers and advocates together with community leaders is powerful and transformative; (2) digital inequality is a social, not a technological problem; and (3) community leaders need access to a shared platform and to each other to create change. These findings suggest that community leaders can benefit from seeing their work within a digital equity ecosystems framework, which calls attention to the importance the interactions that exist among individuals, populations, communities, and their broader sociotechnical environments that all shape the work to promote more equitable access to technology and social and racial justice. This case study report concludes with recommendations for community leaders, including community foundations, working to uncover systemic discrimination shaping digital inequality today to advance digital equity and justice.

The full paper is open access and available for download on the journal’s website.

(Image above by Daniel Kohn available via a Creative Commons license on Flickr)

I’ve been meaning to share this post from April 7, 2017, which I shared on Facebook with the community of friends and family I had there at that time. This was a deeply personal post that I’d only shared with those who I felt most comfortable with.

At the end of this mental health awareness month, I thought I’d share that post more openly here. It was this article written by Colleen Flaherty for Inside Higher Ed that inspired me to share the following story.

“I don’t often share personal stories here on Facebook. But this week was particularly difficult and challenging for me. As someone who has struggled with severe anxiety and depression my whole life, I am just now coming to terms with my mental illness as a disability. I am extremely grateful to my family, friends, and colleagues who have been there this week to support me during a very rough stretch. And it helps me tremendously to know that I am not alone, as a faculty member on the tenure track in a job that I deeply love, in working to accept and come to terms with who I am. This is perhaps my first attempt to go ‘public’ with my announcement that I have a mental illness and I know it’s okay. I am also grateful to know that other brave faculty members have shared their own personal stories and struggles with mental illness. I feel proud to be part of this strong community of powerful and brave people.”

Today, UCLA announced that the Center for Critical Internet Inquiry (C2i2), led by Dr. Safiya Umoja Noble and Dr. Sarah T. Roberts, received a $2.9M Award to launch the Minderoo Initiative on Technology and Power. As the C2i2 website explains,

“This initiative will critically investigate the social impact of digital technologies on communities and the broader public good. It will create new paradigms for the public to understand the harms of tech platforms, predictive technologies, advertising-driven algorithmic content, and the work of digital laborers.”

I am excited and incredibly humbled to announce that I have been invited to join the Scholars’ Council at the Center with a number of amazing “scholars, artists, activists and leaders who share a commitment to standing up to unjust technologies and systems. As such, they are an integral part of our growing community and represent the breadth and depth of the work we can do together.”

Now, it’s time to get to work.