Digital Equity Leadership Lap aims to create the next wave of digital equity leaders in Baltimore

The Robert W. Deutsch Foundation is graduating the first cohort of the Digital Equity Leadership Lab, a pilot leadership program that offers training on everything that a person seeking to be an expert on internet advocacy needs to know. The five-week program covered topics including laws governing the internet, core concepts about network engineering and the workings of community internet networks, like mesh networks. The group of 25 participants also met with guest speakers, such as former Federal Communications Commission Commissioner Mignon L. Clyburn, and advocates for building a more equitable internet. The group included Baltimoreans from ages 16 to 70, mixing folks that work for the city, church leaders and others from immigration and education advocacy spheres. The foundation plans to relaunch the program in the fall, and is working on a case study with Benton Faculty Research Fellow Dr. Colin Rhinesmith to put a program like the Digital Equity Leadership Lab into a national context.