Deb Socia has been working on equity for others in a variety of ways throughout her career and so it was no surprise to us that she received this year’s Charles Benton Digital Equity Champion Award. Deb received the award on April 18th in Cleveland at Net Inclusion 2018.

Before serving as Executive Director of Next Century Cities, Deb spent three decades working in education as both a teacher and school administrator. While working in the Boston Public Schools, she acted as founding principal of the one-to-one laptop initiative at Lilla G. Frederick Middle School, an award winning school. Her continuing efforts in digital equity included a role as Executive Director of the Tech Goes Home program, also in Boston, that connected students, parents, and schools to technology resources.

We Love Deb

We’ve spent many hours working with Deb in her capacity at Next Century Cities. Her ability to bring local communities together to share victories and voice common concerns make her ideal for this role. She’s able to see a broad spectrum of issues related to digital inclusion that influence local communities’ ability to improve economic development, enhance public education, and improve their quality of life. Her personable leadership qualities at Next Century Cities and throughout her career inspire trust and confidence.

It’s no surprise that Deb has received a long list of other awards, including the Community Broadband Hero Award from the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors (NATOA), the Pathfinder Award from MassCUE, “Leadership and Vision” from CRSTE, Frederick Community Advocate Award, and an NTENny award. Be sure to check out this profile of Deb from Motherboard; she won a Humans of the Year award in 2017.

In Detroit, AT&T is facing a formal FCC complaint accusing the telecom giant of deploying discriminatory “digital redlining” tactics. This is the second such complaint filed against the telecommunications giant since the first of the year.

Demanding Equality in Connectivity

The complaint filed by civil rights attorney Daryl Parks says the FCC violated the Communications Act which forbids unjust and unreasonable discrimination. A month earlier, Parks filed a similar complaint on behalf of three Cleveland residents. In both instances, Parks and community members maintain that AT&T is withholding high-speed Internet from minority neighborhoods that have higher poverty rates.

These complaints fall under Title II of the Communications Act, which contains not only net neutrality rules but important consumer protections regarding discrimination. Title II SEC. 202. [47 U.S.C. 202] (a) clearly specifies:

It shall be unlawful for any common carrier to make any unjust or unreasonable discrimination in charges, practices, classifications, regulations, facilities, or services for or in connection with like communication service, directly or indirectly, by any means or device, or to make or give any undue or unreasonable preference or advantage to any particular person, class of persons, or locality, or to subject any particular person, class of persons, or locality to any undue or unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage.

Mozilla’s All Access Pass with Veronica Belmont explores local broadband initiatives in episode 6. She sends reporter Dominic Girard to speak with folks in Renville and Sibley County, Minnesota, to discuss the RS Fiber Cooperative.

Girard talks with Mark Erickson who spearheaded the project and describes how difficult is was for farmers who needed better connectivity for 21st century agriculture. Jake Rieke, a local farmer, shares the concerns he described with us in episode 198 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast - how awful Internet access could negatively impact his family’s future.

The crew also interviews Angela Siefer from the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) who describes the local desires to invest in better connectivity but state barriers that often interrupt those efforts. Angela gets into the ripples those barriers and access to the Internet interrupts the ability for women, people of color, lower-income folks, and the LGBTQ community to participate in civic engagement.

The show also ventures to the way a group of entrepreneurs are using the Internet to help Syrian refugees adjust to a new life. Their program has changed people from refugees to coders sought out by tech companies.

The show examines how access to the Internet - or lack of it - has become a factor that impacts one's life for the better or worse.

Listen to episode 6 of All Access Pass here.

Learn more about the RS Fiber Cooperative from our 2016 indepth report RS Fiber: Fertile Fields for New Rural Internet Cooperative.

Net Inclusion 2017 from the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) and hosted by the St. Paul Public Library is less than a month away. The event will be on May 16 - 17 in Minnesota and early bird registration prices are available to April 20th.

From the event website:

Participants will discuss current and potential local, state and federal policies and policy innovations that could increase digital equity, current and potential sources of financial and programmatic support of digital inclusion programs, and share digital inclusion best practices and new strategies from across the USA.

Maya Wiley, Senior Vice President for Social Justice and the Henry Cohen Professor of Urban Policy and Management at the New School will present the Keynote address. Read more about her work here.

The event will start on Tuesday, May 16th, with tours of local inclusion programs and lunch at the historic James J. Hill Center. Participants will then move to the St. Paul Central Library and City Hall for the Break-out Sessions. The Charles Benton Digital Equity Champion Award will be presented on Wednesday along with some other special discussions on local government investment and the digital divide.

Christopher will be speaking on Tuesday at the 2:45 p.m. “Statehouse strategies: State-level digital inclusion advocacy and programs” panel. Other familiar speakers include:

• Chris Lewis, Public Knowlege
• Joanne Hovis, CTC
• Laura Breeden, NDIA
• Nicol Turner-Lee, Brookings Institution
• Bernadine Joselyn, Blandin Foundation
• Matt Wood, FreePress

…and many others.

In addition to speakers from national organizations, the agenda includes quite a few participants from St. Paul and Minnesota groups working toward digital literacy and finding ways to bridge the digital divide.