The Bronx Digital Equity Coalition was created with the tenacity of a small group of tech advocates across the Bronx and New York City. At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, as a part of The Bronx Community Relief Effort, gathered 30+ institutions in The Bronx who were providing digital resources and services in The Bronx. We met on a weekly basis to discuss challenges our community was facing focused on the digital divide, with our initial focus on education, gathering help from organizations like Community Tech NYC, The Knowledge House, the Point CDC, and many more partner organizations still connected with us today.
In the “digital desert” of The Bronx, technological connectivity, workforce development, and educational access has the potential to relieve the inequities faced in our borough. Barriers to access ranging from online education and training, employment, social and civic engagement, financial resources, quality of life and health have become inextricably tied to Internet access in the 21st century. We are dedicated to meeting the needs of our communities through collaboration and innovation ranging from topics of data sovereignty, community ownership of mesh networks, digital navigation and access to immigrant, low-income and elder communities.
The success of these efforts has inspired us to keep going.
We continued our work in forming The Bronx Digital Equity Coalition to combat deep-rooted disparities in our community, including:
