This week we are giving you a double dose of our new Building For Digital Equity podcast. In Episode 4, our research associate Emma Gautier interviews Kim Ilinon and Ella Silvas, two Interactive Media Design students from the University of Washington-Bothell.

Kim and Ella, who both gave lightning round presentations at Net Inclusion 2023 in San Antonio last month, discuss how they got into digital equity from a design background and what they have learned about who is doing digital equity work in Washington state.

You can watch their 3 minute lightning talk here:

And you can listen to the 12-minute long B4DE podcast with Kim and Ella here:

Also available is Episode 5 of the B4DE podcast, which features Susan Corbett, Executive Director of the National Digital Equity Center, an organization that has long been involved in policy around Internet access and digital equity both in Maine and across the United States.

ILSR’s Community Broadband Networks Director Christopher Mitchell discusses with Susan how she got started doing digital equity work in 2005 as the owner of a small ISP in rural Maine. They also explore how the National Digital Equity Center uses a database and surveys to track the progress of their programs to ensure they are effective, having launched initiatives around distributed devices, skill building, and now involved with the Maine Digital Equity Plan.

That episode is 14 minutes long, which you can tune into here:

In our third episode on the Building for Digital Equity podcast, we are joined by Mikhail Sundust, Executive Director of the Digital Connect Initiative (DCI) at GRTI - Gila River Telecommunications Incorporated.

A tribal telecommunications company, GRTI has offered telecommunications and now high-quality Internet access to tribal citizens living on the Gila River reservation (and beyond with subsidiaries) for more than 30 years.

The podcast covers the lessons DCI has learned along its digital equity path, including making sure people have the basic digital skills needed to build more advanced skills and confidence. Sundust also discusses how they developed a "bring your own device" program for learning, and have crafted programs that work well with tribal elders.

Finally, Sundust talks about how other Tribal telecom companies are starting to incorporate digital equity planning into their work.

This show is 14 minutes long and can be played on this page or using the podcast app of your choice with this feed.

Listen to other episodes here or see other podcasts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance here.

Thanks to Joseph McDade for the music. The song is On the Verge and is used per his Free-Use terms.

On the one hand, Cleveland is one of the worst connected cities in the nation. On the other hand, it’s also a metro region with among the highest Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) enrollment rates.

That’s because of the efforts of digital inclusion practitioners like Gina Burch, Program Coordinator at the Ashbury Senior Computer Community Center. In the second episode of our new Building for Digital Equity podcast, Gina talks about how they trained digital navigators to help enroll eligible Clevelanders into the program that provides a $30/month subsidy for low-income households to pay for home Internet service.

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As a new nationwide campaign to boost ACP enrollment is underway, Gina touches on something that is key for enrolling skeptical would-be beneficiaries: the need for trusted messengers and organizations with roots in the community to be a part of the process.

She also highlights some of the challenges they are seeing on the ground and why having high-speed Internet access, as well as the digital skills necessary to get online, is about so much more than shopping or streaming movies. Gina talks about the link between Internet access and access to health care such as making Covid vaccine appointments.

You can listen to the 14 minute interview below or it can be played using the podcast app of your choice with this feed.

Also, you can listen to other episodes here or check out our long-running Community Broadband Bits podcasts here.

Our new podcast series – Building for Digital Equity – debuts today with an insightful conversation with Margaret “Meg” Kaufer, President of the STEM Alliance in Westchester County, New York.

Meg shares lessons about what they have learned in delivering low-cost Internet access to people in Yonkers and beyond. She also discusses how they recently retired their wireless CBRS network and have embraced signing households up for the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP).

Our regular followers may recall her appearance on episode 500 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast where she discussed their foray into CBRS. On the B4DE podcast, she not only updates us on those efforts, but also explains how they have developed a replicable strategy for signing people up for the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), helping eligible participants navigate the cumbersome paperwork requirements.

The B4DE podcast features short interviews with our team, talking to those doing behind-the-scenes digital inclusion work through local efforts aimed at giving everyone, everywhere, the opportunity to participate fully in the digital world.

You can listen to the podcast below or put this feed into your podcast app. And don’t forget to visit our B4DE podcast page for this and future episodes. Please leave us a rating if you like it!

Header image of podcast microphone courtesy of Maciej Korsan, CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0)
Public Domain Dedication