Zack Quaintance

A Q&A with Detroit director of digital inclusion Joshua Edmonds.

The 2020 US Census will be the nation’s first high-tech count, with residents encouraged to primarily respond online. While this has the potential to foster a more efficient Census, advocates and officials say many hard-to-count populations are not comfortable using computers. Or lack access to high-speed Internet at home. Or have cybersecurity concerns. Or don’t know how to find and fill out the Census online.

Seattle’s (WA) Technology Matching Fund is now open for applications from community and nonprofit groups for grants of up to $50,000 in service of work that improves digital equity. The city is seeking “applications for projects that increase access to free or low-cost broadband, empower residents with digital literacy skills, and ensure affordable, available and sufficient devices and technical support,” officials announced.

The Knight Foundation has announced a $1 million investment in that effort for a project called the Civic Tech Experience, which includes a series of programs for the West Charlotte community aimed at helping families there build better digital skills, as well as get access to technology. Other functions of the Civic Tech Experience also include connections to economic resources and chances for community engagement.

Los Angeles Councilmember Paul Krekorian has introduced a motion to study the feasibility of a municipal broadband network that would provide at-cost high-speed Internet to the city's local businesses and residents. The motion calls for a study into the creation of a new public department to oversee what is essentially an effort to improve the city’s broadband capabilities.

Digital equity refers to whether people can access and effectively use the technology necessary to participate in modern society. Another phrase, “digital inclusion,” denotes efforts to remedy deficits in digital equity. Simply put, digital equity is what cities and states want, and digital inclusion is the work they and their partners are doing to create it.

 As cities have begun to collect and release unprecedented amounts of data, questions about citizen privacy have become increasingly relevant.

As municipal governments in New York City, Seattle and elsewhere vocally oppose a repeal, leaders also say they are preparing resources to monitor its impact once it happens.  City gov tech leaders said that a repeal is all but certain to make it more difficult for municipal governments to foster digital equity. As Internet access has become essential to modern life — for applying for jobs, helping kids with homework, finding health care, etc.

Government technology leaders throughout the country have once again condemned a plan to repeal net neutrality regulations proposed by Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai.New York City Chief Technology Officer Miguel Gamiño is one of the loudest voices decrying the rollback, while Seattle’s IT Department has released an oppositional statement and technologists in city governments from Detroit to Cincinnati to Kansas City, Mo., have taken to Twitter to urge the FCC to reconsider. The effort is concentrated and fierce, and it's been going all year.

There’s no exact metric for gauging if Kansas City (MO) is the smartest city on our continent at present, but it’s doubtful that many other US cities would want to call CIO Bob Bennett out on the legitimacy of his claim. Kansas City’s smart city infrastructure is strong — strong and advancing rapidly. Now, as it continues to move forward, city officials have added a new data visualization map aimed at keeping track of digital inclusion efforts as well, so that all populations within the city will benefit from the technological growth of its infrastructure. This new map contains information about Internet speeds provided by AT&T, Google and Time Warner (now also known as Spectrum), with speeds pegged by a Federal Communications Commission support, and it cross references that info with US Census data about poverty levels, creating what is quite likely the first map in the country to do so. In addition, the locations of Kansas City’s popular smart street cars are also available there in real time.