Cities Can Bridge the Digital Divide by Offering Free Tech Support
“America’s digital divide is essentially boiled down to three things. ‘Nationally, you will hear device access mentioned along with internet access and training as the three-legged stool of digital inclusion,’ says Delano Squires, head of OCTO’s digital inclusion initiative Connect.DC. Yet there’s little benefit in having a computer that’s infected with malware, or a smartphone you don’t know how to set up. What residents like Allen needed was tech support. That became apparent to Squires, who leads All Hands on Tech, and his team as they ran their computer training programs. Many participants didn’t have a computer to practice at home, he says, but some did have older ones lying around that they couldn’t use.”