I am thrilled to announce that Peter Johnson and I just published the 20th anniversary special issue of The Journal of Community Informatics. As we explained in our editorial, the first issue of The Journal of Community Informatics was published by Michael Gurstein on October 1, 2004. Since then the journal has remained an open…
New Job Announcement: Joining the Faculty at UIUC!
I am incredibly excited to share the news that I have accepted an offer to join the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on January 1, 2025 as an Associate Professor in the School of Information Sciences!!! The appointment is conditional upon the University of Illinois promotion and tenure process and subsequent Board of Trustees approval. Therefore,…
Defining Digital Equity Ecosystems
As I shared in a previous post last year, I am writing on book on Digital Equity Ecosystems that will be published by the University of California Press. As I have been working on the book, I realized that the definition that I’ve been using from my work with Susan Kennedy, published by the Benton…
Special Issue on Homelessness and Mobile Media Published
My article, titled “‘It’s one of the most important things we carry for us”: How mobile hotspots support people experiencing homelessness” has been included in the new Special Issue on Homelessness and Mobile Media just published in volume 12, issue 2 of Mobile Media & Communication. The article, first published last November, presents findings from…
New TechTank Podcast Episode on the Affordable Connectivity Program
It was an honor to join Dr. Nicol Turner Lee, Senior Fellow, Director of the Center for Technology Innovation at The Brookings Institution, and the host of the Brookings Tech Tank podcast, alongside Dr. Fallon Wilson, Vice President of MMTC and Director of Black Churches for Digital Equity to discuss the upcoming end of the…
Libraries and Digital Equity Coalitions
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…
Call for Submissions: 20th Anniversary Issue of The Journal of Community Informatics
Call for Submissions: 20th Anniversary Issue of The Journal of Community Informatics Community informatics (CI) is the use of information and communication technology (ICT) to support community-defined development goals. It is a multidisciplinary field that includes researchers and practitioners from information studies, social work, rural sociology, public policy, urban planning, among other areas. Similar to…
Community Informatics and AI
(Lego Mesh Wireless Network at the 2011 Allied Media Conference photo by Colin Rhinesmith) [Editorial re-posted from The Journal of Community Informatics] In yesterday’s Op-Ed, titled “For all the hype in 2023, we still don’t know what AI’s long-term impact will be” written by Open University Professor John Naughton and published in The Guardian, Naughton…
New Report Highlights Participatory Action Research Project with Tech Goes Home
Over the past year, my team and I at the Digital Equity Research Center at METRO co-led a participatory action research project with Tech Goes Home (TGH). The purpose of the study was to develop a theory of change for TGH, as well as an analysis of the challenges and opportunities facing community-based organizations in…
New Article in Mobile Media & Communication
I am thrilled to announce that my new article, titled “‘It’s one of the most important things we carry for us’: How mobile hotspots support people experiencing homelessness” was just published in the journal, Mobile Media & Communication. It will be part of an upcoming special issue on homelessness and mobile media. MMC’s Social Media…