Disconnected at home: KC’s pandemic-fueled race to get Internet access for all
Photo of the Kansas City Coalition for Digital Inclusion virtual meeting by KCPS Digital Learning
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One by one, technicians are rebuilding desk top computers and laptops.
One by one, volunteers are delivering them into hands that need them.
School district digital teams are canvassing student-by-student to get families out of the Internet dark into the light of connectivity.
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Hot spots are in short supply. Laptops are harder to provide than desk top computers. Not enough families and individuals are getting connected to low-cost Internet plans.
But above all of this and the other tales of the struggle that were shared in Friday’s virtual meeting of Kansas City’s Coalition for Digital Inclusion, one thing is clear:
Never has the race to get everyone connected to the Internet been so engaged.
The COVID-19 pandemic has lit a fire.
“The digital inclusion we have been working on,” KC Digital Drive Managing Director Aaron Deacon said to the advocates gathered on a Zoom video call, “has come in stark relief in a new way.”
Teams of technicians at the non-profit Connecting for Good are working with an influx of donated devices to reprocess desk top computers and laptops, said CEO Tom Esselman.
The teams are putting out more than 50 a day, getting computers out to many places of need, including Operation Breakthrough, Literacy KC, the Housing Authority of Kansas City, apartment communities and the KIPP Academy, Genesis School and Hogan Preparatory Academy charter schools, he said.
But more help is needed.
Connecting for Good is serving as a hub to receive requests for help from people who need to get connected, and for gathering donations of devices, hot spots and financial help that it is distributing with partners throughout the area.
Anyone needing access to the Internet can fill out a form to get help by clicking here. Anyone who can donate help can click here.
Advocates for connectivity also believe that too many people are not aware of opportunities that most major Internet service providers are offering to give free or low-cost plans. The National Digital Inclusion Alliance has gathered contact information to ISPs here.
LEANLAB Education in Kansas City is gathering links to resources for schools and educators.
The Kansas City Public Library is working to get more people connected, even as its buildings are closed because of the virus. The parking lots and the perimeters of all of the branches are acting as WiFi hot spots in their communities.
The coalition is also collaborating with the Kansas City Public Schools to park some of the district’s WiFi-connected buses at library branches to help provide help in some of the digital divide’s access deserts. The Southeast and Bluford library branches will be the first sites.
Other projects are racing forward to try to help, including a collaboration between KC Digital Divide and the online news outlet, The Beacon, to try and create an interactive map of digital hot spots — a difficult project, Deacon said, because the data is hard to corral.
There is “a global shortage” of hot spots, Esselman said. Connecting for Good has been encouraging many of the individuals and groups they are working with to consider receiving a refurbished desktop computer with a WiFi adapter
As schools expect now to be closed deep into April and possibly through the rest of the year in May, many administrative staff and teachers have been individually surveying district families and one-by-one making digital connections with devices and hot spots to empower education at home.
The work will only gather steam ahead, digital inclusion coalition members said, as they advocate for state and federal relief to support the connectivity campaign, and rally the newfound urgency for a cause they have championed for years.
By Joe Robertson, LINC writer.