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…
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…
The Necessity of Digital Equity and Care Work
In our 2017 article, titled “Creating Caring Institutions for Community Informatics,” Dr. Miriam Sweeney (University of Alabama) and I explored the potential affordances of applying a feminist ethics of care approach to public libraries and community technology centers–the places where people go when they are unable to pay for the Internet at home. In our…
Biden Administration Should Focus on The Ability to Pay for Broadband
A new article this week from Law360, titled “Biden FCC Shifts Broadband Focus From Geography To Price” describes the shift from the Trump administration’s focus on deploying broadband infrastructure in rural areas to the Biden administration’s policy focus on helping those who are unable to afford the cost of broadband. Based on my own research…
New JoCI Issue (Vol 16) Published
It’s wonderful to be able to finally announce the new issue of the Journal of Community Informatics! The journal is also now hosted at the University of Waterloo Library and sponsored by the Simmons University School of Library and Information Science (iSchool). There are many, many people to thank for this new issue and the…
Broadband Measurement System for Public Libraries Launched
After two and a half years, I am incredibly excited to announce that we have successfully launched our broadband measurement system with and for public libraries across the U.S.! Thanks to a grant (award #LG-71-18-0110-18) from the U.S. Institute for Museum and Library Services, and in partnership with Measurement Lab (M-Lab) and Internet2, our Measuring…
New Report on Digital Equity Ecosystems
I am excited to announce that our Community Informatics Lab at Simmons University has authored a new report, titled “Growing Healthy Digital Ecosystems During COVID-19 and Beyond,” which was published last week by the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society. In the report, my co-author, Susan Kennedy and I present findings from a survey of individuals…
Digital Equity Ecosystems
Recently, in our Community Informatics Lab at Simmons University we have started a new research project to investigate what we are calling Digital Equity Ecosystems. This project builds on the excellent work of researchers and practitioners in the Digital Equity Lab at The New School, National Digital Inclusion Alliance, Detroit Community Technology Project, and others. We…
CIRN Virtual Webinar Series
The annual Community Informatics Research Network (CIRN) conference hosted at the Monash University Prato Centre in Italy has been postponed this year due to COVID-19. In its place, we have organized CIRN Virtual Webinar Series which you are invited to attend. The events are being organized by a team from the Digital Equity Group at…
Joining the UCLA C2i2 Scholar’s Council
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…