Digital Equity Is Having a Moment. What Happens When It Ends?

Digital equity is having a moment, but what happens when that moment ends? Angela Siefer, Executive Director of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA), asked, “How do we keep this going?” The answer, Siefer said, is to figure out what the work needs to live on, specifically how practitioners can create “sustained, robust digital inclusion ecosystems in every community.” Digital inclusion ecosystems is a concept that the NDIA has already defined—a digital inclusion ecosystem is “a combination of programs and policies that meet a geographic community’s unique and diverse needs, where coordinating entities work together in an ecosystem to address all aspects of the digital divide, including affordable broadband, devices, and skills.” And the definitions the NDIA creates in the space have a history of becoming official, with their meaning for digital inclusion now codified federally as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The work that comes next for digital inclusion is strengthening them. This includes having programs and policies that address all of the aspects of the digital divide, including affordable and subsidized broadband as well as device ownership. There should also be multilingual digital literacy and skills training available, tech support, and digital navigators to guide residents in all of the above. Finally, there needs to be collaboration on digital inclusion work between policymakers, advocates, social service groups, community leaders, and, really, anyone else in a given community that holds public sway.