Cuba: The Weekly Package

To make internet connectivity accessible and affordable across Africa, Dr. Harold Omondi developed “internet from the moon,” a technology that uses satellite dishes to communicate with transponders placed in the moon several years ago by NASA. The transponders can send and receive information and, since the moon keeps the same side of its surface pointed towards earth, the connection cannot be lost. Still in the piloting phase, the system currently offers free internet at Jomo Kenyatta University, where over 1,200 people login every day, and has another station in South Sudan serving 300-500 people daily.

Across the United States, tribal lands have the lowest access to internet, an issue that restricts opportunity and education in those areas. In New Mexico, several small tribes have partnered to lay fiber-optic cables that connect the libraries, which serve as primary sources of internet connection, to faster, cheaper internet.

Cooperatives owned by the people they serve give communities control over local telecommunications infrastructure. The member-owned Kit Carson Electric Cooperative provides access to broadband Internet in a remote region of northern New Mexico not served by the large telecommunications companies. In addition to leveling the playing field for small, underserved localities, networks owned by coops allow users to retain decision-making power over their telecommunications infrastructure in the absence of net neutrality protections.

Access to the internet is an important tool to addressing inequity at the scale of the community and the individual. Detriot’s Equitable Internet Initiative is a coalition of media, tech, and community-based organizations working to bridge the digital divide in underserved neighborhoods.

The Equitable Internet Initiative (EII) is transforming community organizers into “digital stewards” who are literally building out internet connection in their communities. In Detroit, where 40% of residents don’t have internet access, this service through the EII is invaluable. The program is also equipping youth of color with relevant technology skills and creating a stronger sense of place for the three Detroit neighborhoods it serves.

With no alternative, some community college students in Talihina, Oklahoma sit in the parking lot of the local hospital at night, logging on to the internet network to complete research papers, oftentimes on smartphones. With Obama-era broadband infrastructure improvement plans now uncertain, one nonprofit is getting "out of the government's umbrella" and working to ensure the goal of connecting 350,000 people nationwide by 2020 is still met. By both building infrastructure and making it more affordable, ConnectHome Nation seeks to answer, "What could they become ... if they just had an equal shot?"

A woman named MaiLy Do started a Vietnamese-language radio show in Oklahoma City after she realized on Sept. 11, 2001 that her family back home with limited English had no way of finding out if she was okay. Today the station broadcasts for 24 hours across the US and 40 other countries. It offers a voice to the Vietnamese-American population in Oklahoma City and is also essential in disseminating critical information to residents who have limited English skills.

In an effort to address a lack of broadband access, Indigenous communities are working together, and with local organizations, to acquire funding to bring internet access to their communities and close the digital divide.

Black Churches 4 Digital Equity partners with local congregations and clergy members to connect people with internet access helping them get signed up with the Affordable Connectivity Program, which provides discounted internet access and a one-time discount for laptop, desktop, or tablet purchases for those whose income is less than 200% of the federal poverty line. Through community outreach and events, local clergy have helped more than 230,000 households enroll in the program.

Community advocates in Clearfork Valley created their own public internet hotspot to bridge the digital divide, especially as the pandemic rendered high-speed internet more of a necessity than a luxury. Broadband companies were reluctant to run fiber-optic cables through the valley because the rural area wouldn't bring in a profit for the internet providers. A small nonprofit, Community Tech, NY, stepped in to help solve the problem by providing Portable Network Kits which provide internet access. Although it creates a small network, it's a huge step toward "stepping onto the technology highway."