As digital inclusion advocates look to get their bearings amid an all-out assault on federal broadband funding programs, the next Building For Digital Equity livestream offers a port in the storm.
Slated for March 13 from 3 to 4:15 pm ET – and once again co-hosted by ILSR’s Community Broadband Networks Initiative and the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) – the keynote speaker for the UTOPIA Fiber sponsored event will be Revati Prasad, Vice President of Programs with the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society.
“Charting the Course: Adapting to Policy Shifts While Keeping Our Eyes on the Prize” promises to bring hundreds of digital inclusion practitioners together to regroup and recalibrate while hearing from those working in the trenches to adequately address broadband access challenges across the nation.
Registration for the increasingly popular live stream is now open here.
Prasad will focus on Benton’s recently published report: “The Human Infrastructure of Broadband: Looking Back, Looking Around, and Looking Ahead.”
One of Benton’s larger research projects, the report aims to help both policymakers and practitioners better understand “what constitutes the human infrastructure of broadband; how this human infrastructure helps people, particularly how historically marginalized communities can make meaningful use of the Internet; how an investment in human infrastructure is necessary to ensure a return on investment in the physical infrastructure; what program models and approaches can be replicated or scaled; and, most crucially: how we can support and sustain the work…even after current federal investments have ended.”
But before Prasad takes center screen, the livestream will feature a poetic kick-off with Kyla Williams Tate, Digital Equity Director for Cook County; followed by NDIA’s Policy Director Amy Huffman who will provide an update on an upcoming NDIA “Hill Day” visiting federal lawmakers and to share with attendees the latest on the state of the Digital Equity Act.
Two other speakers are also slated to join:
- Massachusetts Law Reform Institute attorney Virginia Benzan, who will detail efforts in the Bay State to advance an affordable broadband bill similar to New York’s recently enacted Affordable Broadband Act.
- Public Knowledge policy director Alisa Valentin, who will offer attendees five tips on how advocates can best communicate the importance of funding state programs to beef up broadband adoption efforts, especially amoung the “covered populations” enumerated in the bipartisan infrastructure law, now threatened to become casualties of the war on “DEI” sweeping the nation’s capital.
The livestream will be available (and later archived) on Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn with live viewer questions answered by the invited speakers and presenters. We will also be live posting from the Community Broadband Networks Bluesky page.
Register now here.
Watch the previous #B4DE with Blair Levin and Angela Siefer below:
Inline image of compass and antique map courtesy of PICRYL, Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal
