Devices

City of Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey and County Executive Rich Fitzgerald created the Pittsburgh Digital Equity Coalition (PDEC), a working group of anchor organizations already working to promote digital equity and smaller community groups with intimate knowledge of the community need.

Older adults and people with disabilities cannot equitably access the same health information and care as people without disabilities when hospital websites are not accessible. The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) found the following key insights relating to digital accessibility and its importance to older Americans:

• Hospitals and health care systems in the U.S. need continuing education on the role of web accessibility in American Disability Act (ADA) compliance given the significance of newly issued federal guidance.

Connected Nation is launching a Digital Literacy program in collaboration with AT&T. The program is part of AT&T’s national digital literacy initiative to help narrow the digital divide. The Digital Literacy program will offer in-person and virtual digital literacy training workshops across the country where this training is needed most for the digital empowerment of residents.

While the telecommunications industry has spent the past few decades touting the ever-increasing bandwidth of their various broadband products, a panel of top cable experts said that consumers are increasingly looking to how those services perform as they continue to pile devices and applications onto their networks. Users are becoming more concerned with how their different applications and services interact with their broadband network, Charter's Justin Colwell said. Home networks are getting more sophisticated as they increasingly have to handle more and more devices per home.

To provide schools and libraries with the digital services they need to expand remote learning, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has created the Emergency Connectivity Fund (ECF). To date, the ECF has doled out $7.171 billion. What libraries and schools are doing with the money will inherently vary depending on their individual needs. One library in Chicago Ridge, IL, however, recently detailed what it has done with its ECF money.

Urban communities face unique challenges in effectively gaining broadband access, which primarily involve affordability and literacy. As government agencies plan for federal broadband distribution opportunities, there are steps to take to ensure digital inclusion efforts reach urban communities, those working in the space contend.

The Federal Communications Commission is committing nearly $55 million in new funding rounds through the Emergency Connectivity Program, which provides digital services for students in communities across the country.

More than ever, services and businesses from banks to doctors' offices and restaurants to airlines expect users to have access to smartphones — but many older people still lack digital skills, and products don't always take their needs into account. A December 2021 survey conducted by AARP found that three in four people over the age of 50 say they rely on technology to stay connected, but 42% of them say that technology is not designed for all ages.

New York City (NY) will begin the citywide launch of ‘Big Apple Connect’ — a landmark digital equity program that will make free high-speed internet and basic cable TV available to approximately 300,000 New Yorkers living in more than 200 New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) developments by the end of 2023.

Incarcerated people often have limited access to technology and pay exorbitant rates for even basic communication tools, like phones. The Last Mile, a nonprofit organization established more than a decade ago to teach entrepreneurial skills to those in correctional facilities, pivoted to web development classes in 2014 because it found those skills were most effective in helping people find jobs after their release.