Page 43 - Innovation Delaware 2021

INNOVATION IN THE COVID AGE
Crucial human services — vaccine appoint- where we are expecting an overnight jump in people’s
ments, housing support, grade school
education — are available now at the click of a button. But what if you don’t have that button? What if you have it and don’t know how to use it? And what if you live miles from an internet connection?
“Fifteen years ago, 10 years ago, you still did homework on paper, you still went to the job site to fill out an application, or you might go to your guidance counselor for a scholarship opportunity— those days are over,” says NERDiT NOW founder MARKEVIS GIDEON. A few years ago, his sister’s grade school homework moved completely to Schoology, an online platform. “If you don’t have a computer or internet,” he asks, “what do you do?”
The answer is, you fall behind. The “digital divide” is not a new phenomenon; it’s not even really about technology. It’s a divide that falls along familiar lines of race, poverty, and a lack of access to the mainstream, basic benefits of American society. “I see it,” Gideon says, “as something that has existed for decades.”
People in low-income communities, especially people in low-income African American and Latinx communities, are less likely to use the internet and are less likely to have broadband in their homes, according to data from the Pew Research Center. Leaders at Delaware-based nonprofits report that these same groups are less likely like to have computers, laptops or tablets, and if they do have the hardware, they are less likely to know how to log on and sign up for services.
“We see it with the gap in vaccines,” says DESA BURTON, executive director of Zip Code Wilmington. “You see these reports of how in underrepresented and impoverished communities the vaccine rollout isn’t going very well, but then you see how they’re doing it — they’re saying, ‘sign up online for your vaccine,’ and you’re [talking about] a community that has no laptops or doesn’t know how to log on and make appointments online — this is not a community that uses the internet. It’s one of those situations
use and access to technology but we have not put the infrastructure and the training behind doing it.”
MARKEVIS GIDEON
Improving Internet Access
While Delaware nonprofits are leading the way, in recent years — and especially since COVID-19 laid bare the disparities in access to technology — corporate and government players have stepped up contributions. Governor John Carney’s Delaware Broadband Initiative is aimed at bringing high speed internet to every resident of the state, particularly those living in what have historically been “broadband deserts” in the more remote regions of Kent and Sussex counties; the initiative got a $20 million boost last year in federal CARES Act funding.
“We’ve worked hard over the last several years to eliminate internet deserts and make high-speed broadband a reality for all Delaware families,” Carney says. “Now more than ever, we know how essential reliable internet is for daily life, for school, for remote work, and to connect with family. Our additional
INNOVATION DELAWARE 41
BY MATT WARD
CLOSING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE
Delaware companies and nonprofits work for equitable access to tech equipment, jobs