I am incredibly excited to announce the publication of our new report, titled “The Digital Equity Action Research (DEAR) Fellowship: A Participatory Action Research Project” published today by the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society.
The report features essays from our amazing DEAR fellows and their hosts who participated in our six-city virtual fellowship program that began in November 2021 and wrapped up in January this year. As my colleagues from the Black Brilliance Research project and I describe in our introduction to the report up on the Benton Institute’s website today,
The DEAR Fellowship helped young adults, ages 19–24, learn participatory action research skills to examine and address the root causes of digital inequities in their communities…As part of this initiative, one organization in each of the six participating cities—Baltimore; Boston; Cleveland; Long Beach, California; San Antonio; and Seattle—took part in the fellowship and hosted one DEAR Fellow.
The end goal of the fellowship was to increase the skills and capacity of the DEAR Fellows and their communities and to identify and address the root causes of digital inequities while learning from peers around the United States. The fellows learned new participatory action research skills, an approach that brings together advocacy and research methods to create change with those closest to the problems in community settings.
During our short time together, we had an incredible opportunity not only to learn from one another, we met with Federal Communications Commissioner Geoffrey Starks’s office during a Zoom meeting pictured below. The DEAR Fellows shared what learned during the fellowship and asked Commissioner Starks and his wonderful team questions related to digital equity policy.
I feel incredibly privileged to have had the opportunity to work with Shaun Glaze, Chris Webb, Sabrina Roach, and my colleague Malana Krongelb on this amazing fellowship program. As I wrote in the “Afterword” in the DEAR Fellowship report,
As states develop their Digital Equity Plans so they can qualify for digital equity funding from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, my hope is that the stories and examples found in this publication offer both guidance and inspiration for what’s possible when community members have a seat at the table. This participation not only benefits communities most impacted by the digital divide, it is also a requirement in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
