Cross-Departmental Collaboration Increasingly Vital to Digital Inclusion

As life increasingly migrates into the digital realm, more agencies within municipal government are finding that digital inclusion — the effort to provide all residents with equal access to technology, as well as the related skills to benefit — is vital to the well-being of the public. Cities such as Seattle (WA), Portland (OR), Austin (TX), Kansas City (MO), and Louisville (KY) have laid out official digital inclusion strategies and forward-thinking plans, and many other cities now have appointees or departments dedicated to the issue. At the same time, the number of tangentially related government agencies contributing to the work is rising, and as it does local government leadership is acknowledging that digital inclusion is an increasingly vital foundation for healthy, equitable cities, cities in which the entire populous has a chance to advance and thrive.