Coalitions and Digital Equity Planning

It was wonderful to be part of this year’s Net Inclusion Webinar Series, which took the place of this year’s Net Inclusion Annual Summit. On April 21st, NDIA hosted the webinar,  “Coalitions and Digital Equity Planning” moderated by amalia deloney of the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation with speakers Curt Williams (Cleveland Foundation), Sharonne Navas, (Equity in Education Coalition), Aaron Schill (Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission) and me.

The webinar will be of interest to those looking to start a digital equity coalition in their community or for those coalitions interested in learning more about what other communities are doing to promote digital equity during the pandemic and beyond.

To learn more about our research mentioned in the webinar, please visit our report titled “Growing Healthy Digital Equity Ecosystems During COVID-19 and Beyond” which was published by the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society in November, 2020.

CBSN Interview on Affordable Internet Access and Biden’s Infrastructure Plan

This evening, I joined CBS News political contributor and BluePrint Strategy founder Antjuan Seawright to talk with CBSN’s Lana Zak about the necessity of affordable internet access and President Biden’s infrastructure plan.

For more on the “Homework Gap,” I would recommend my colleague, John Horrigan’s excellent work in the recent Alliance for Excellent Education report, “Students of Color Caught in the Homework Gap” and the Common Sense Media report, titled “The Homework Gap: Teacher Perspectives on Closing the Digital Divide.”

For more information about the necessity of affordable access to the internet, please see my 2019 article, titled “The Ability to Pay for Broadband” for the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society with my colleagues, Dr. Bianca Reisdorf and Madison Bishop. To learn more about the high cost of internet service in the U.S., check out the excellent “Cost of Connectivity” report from New America.

Finally, to learn more about the Federal Communications Commission’s Emergency Broadband Benefit program, which will provide subsidized broadband access and internet-enabled devices for qualifying low-income consumers, see this excellent primer from Next Century Cities and additional information and resources from the National Digital Inclusion Alliance.