Name: Impact Initiative 2023: Minding The Digital Gap
Uploaded: 2023-09-13
Duration: 17 min 43 s
Description: Charlene Lake, Chief Sustainability Officer, AT&T Bruce Jackson, Associate General Counsel, Microsoft Danita V. Knight, President and CEO, YWCA of Greater Atlanta Moderator: Holly Ojalvo, FORTUNE

Charlene Lake, Chief Sustainability Officer, AT&T Bruce Jackson, Associate General Counsel, Microsoft Danita V. Knight, President and CEO, YWCA of Greater Atlanta Moderator: Holly Ojalvo, FORTUNE

Impact Initiative 2023: Minding The Digital Gap

Conferences

Thank you everyone and welcome back. I hope you enjoyed the conversations over lunch. So now we're really on to the home stretch of our program and our next session is taking a deeper look at the digital divide that stretches across America. So earlier this year, the Biden administration announced the launch of its internet for all initiative, a program that will work with nonprofits and government stakeholders to raise awareness and help eligible families access discounted or free internet. And although this is a crucial initiative, the private sector also plays a really important role in creating the digitally literate workforce of tomorrow. So this is what we're about to discuss and here to talk about the key steps their organizations are taking to close the digital divide. Please welcome Charlene Lake Chief sustainability Officer at at and T which has committed $2 billion to closing the digital divide. Bruce Jackson, associate general counsel at Microsoft, whose airbag initiative has helped more than 51 million people gain access to internet. And Denita Knight, president and Chief executive officer at the YWC A Atlanta, whose Digital Skills Academy program is helping bring digital literacy to women in the Greater Atlanta area and they'll all be interviewed by Fortune Impact Initiative, Co chair, Molly Wood. Right. Hello again. Hello to this wonderful panel. How exciting and what an important conversation we're gonna have. Um And I wanna be mindful of our time and everyone's interested. Yes. By the way, there has been a wardrobe change. I realized I was literally camo off with the stage in that last dress. So that's what's going on, but it was fabulous. I know you. I know I miss it already. I feel I owe everyone an explanation before we get to this much more important topic. Ok. This is such a persistent problem. It was identified at least 25 years ago and has been very stubborn. Um In terms of something that we solved as a society, there are several parts of this kind of bigger problem broadly labeled the digital divide. There's digital inclusion, digital participation, digital skills, media literacy, digital accessibility, access to hardware, access to software, access to broadband, it goes on and on. Um I wanna start with you Charlene and Bruce. Uh AT&T and Microsoft have done wide ranging programs. You heard a little bit about the dollar amounts that have been contributed to address multifold issues. How do you given that long list of priorities start to focus and prioritize? I'll start with you Charlene. Well, thank you Molly and thank you for fortune for, for recognizing that this is such a major problem. Um But I'm so optimistic that we're at a great time to be able to solve it too. So how we are approaching it. Um It's really the core of our business. And so our purpose is to connect people to greater possibilities. So we really believe that if we get them connected, they can have better futures, but it takes all of the company to do that. So it's our policy team, it's our product team. It's our fiber network team, it's our product team and it's our social innovation team working out in the community. So we surround it because it's not just one problem, it's access, it's affordability, it's adoption. You got to lay the fiber, you have to make it affordable, then you have to make sure you get over this really vaccine adoption problem, which is really complex and you list it off some of those issues within that adoption issue. So it's also really important for all of us. It's not just the people who are being affected by it because not only do they not have access to online learning or telehealth or they can't work at home but they can't access any of your products and services that you're offering on your digital platforms either. So it's really a problem for all of us. So you prioritize by making it the priority priority. It is the number one priority. Bruce. How about you? No, I think it's the same thing. I think we're a global company. It really starts from the top to the bottom. It's a major priority part of the culture of the company. And we have a host of programs to really address this issue in the US, but also abroad, right? All of our subs are really actively involved in the programs that we roll out here. And we're basically involved in this sort of initiative in all 50 states, multiple programs in 50 states, right? I think you brought a broadband broadband to us is one of the key sort of issues, right? Because of our broadband, the digital vibe, we saw result of the pandemic and basically just widen those who are fortunate and privileged, took advantage of the internet access and it just widened the gap. It's not sure that those who are unfortunate and grew up in urban areas as well as rural America, right? Has continued to suffer and firsthand, I tell you, it's still the same way. I grew up in urban New York and a underserved population, the public housing and I go back the other day and the problem still exists today. So we have to try to get people on broadband. We talk about affordable but affordable is not affordable at all. Right. And you talk about rule where the infrastructure is not there and it's essential for education is essential for telehealth, as you mentioned, is essential for looking for jobs and all the training. We're trying to do people have to be connected, right? And not just connected. Now, we have the issue with affordable devices because without, with the connect connection and without the device, it's it's not gonna really work. So the gap is continuing to wide. So we need all of you just because Microsoft A T and he is investing a ton of money that doesn't exclude you from doing any and all that you can do and you can collaborate with us. Although, although we compete on certain issues with some of the customers or big companies out there, when we talk about issues like this, we're perfectly aligned and it's all about collaboration, not just with government, with uh companies as well. That, that as a community based organization, the YWC A Atlanta takes a hyper local and a partnership approach uh through its programming. I wonder what you know, from the ground that Microsoft and AT&T don't know, you know, what are the challenges that you're accounting uh encountering in those partnerships that give you that hyper local knowledge? Thank you Molly and, and thank you all for giving us the opportunity to be here today. So what we know is what we learned from talking directly to the people that we serve. And that's really the most appropriate way in my mind for us to move because I think it would be inappropriate for us to make some assumptions in terms of what ideal service or ideal customer service might look like in that regard. So we take the time to do the research to hear from our clients in terms of what they need and then respond and also make them aware that we've heard them and we've seen them and that's a very important way to move forward. And then we move forward with our corporate partners and other friends based on the knowledge that we have to say this is the reality, not the reality that we have made up at YWC in Greater Atlanta. But the reality that our, our women, our, our participants, our folks who are part of our programming talked to us about. Yeah. Can you give us some examples? I mean, what are you hearing? That is counterintuitive. Sure. So I'll use an example of the digital Skills Academy and I'm so excited to have our program manager. So Soraya Williams with us here today. So with that particular program, we took it to the west side of Atlanta where it's very active and we are launching a cohort in next week in that regard. And we said we have this wonderful program that's based on digital literacy and also based on financial literacy to give you the opportunity to go higher with your career if you wish or to learn simply more about how to use a laptop and a hotspot, whatever is of value to you. Talked to women, ages 18 and older, some as old as 70 said, tell us what you need. They told us very specifically what they needed, which has helped us to shape that program again, which launches the next week in a way that is collective in terms of support but also individualized to each of the women being served. Um The Secretary of Education recently called the Digital Divide, the equity issue of our moment. The president has pledged that the whole country will have high speed internet access by 2030. But the person who coined the term digital divide, writing in Fortune magazine said there are so many roadblocks built into some of this legislation. I wonder how you all approach speed. You know, I mean, because again, here we are 25 years in there are always, there's gonna be red tape, there are going to be requirements, there's gonna be, you know, issues of access, there's gonna be I'm sorry, slightly slow fiber deployment um in certain areas like my neighborhood. Let's talk later. Yeah. Call me. Yeah. What I mean? If you could, you know, if you could pick a tool out of the box, a magical wand, what would make us go faster? I don't think there is one. Yeah, I'm sorry to disappoint you on that, but I will tell you why there never is, but I keep trying. This is a really, really important time right now and I don't think we've ever been in a better position to actually come up with solutions and make a significant inroads into solving this problem. And it's because companies like ours have been investing in fiber. We laid 60,000 miles of fiber last year. Other companies are doing the same and Congress has appropriated $42 billion that's now going out to the States for companies to extend their infrastructure even more in the public, private partnerships. And what's really important is they've also appropriated $14 billion for consumer subsidies because it's not enough just to have the network run by the home, the people have to be able to afford it that $14 billion. And this is really important is probably going to run out the first quarter of next year. There's 20 million people who are now getting that subsidy. And so it's really important for Congress to extend that so people can continue to be able to participate in this digital economy. But that's why I'm hopeful because everybody understands now that it is a significant problem and it's like all hands on deck to fix it. Now, are you all seeing the same that everybody has? No, I would agree. I think that I was gonna bring up the point that the money is running out. So we need to make sure that we continue to have that money allocated for those who need it for the low cost service. So call your congressman. Um I love an action item coming out of this. We uh in sports and style, we'll be taking questions. So if you have one, put your hand up and our runner will find you in the audience. Um Let's talk more about partnerships, public, private, clearly a huge part of this. But Anita I'm gonna come to you for profit and nonprofit. Um Even between industry competitors, a big theme of some of our conversations today has been cooperation. So how I wonder and I'll start on this end and come on back but jump in. Um how do we get behind? I think you called it checkbook philanthropy, get beyond that and use these partnerships really, really effective. So it takes a village to make a difference. And in our case, once we understand what our program participants need, the next step is to provide context to our corporate partners. So we were talking earlier just about the value of these parts partnerships. And in Charlene's case with the AT&T team, we've been in partnership for over a decade and so grateful for that. But as we also talked about earlier, it's not enough just to receive the check on our end, we have to provide programmatic context and information about the individuals being served. So that, that syncs up ideally with what Bruce and Charlene are talking about as our corporate partners so that together we can make a difference. Yeah. Yeah, we just don't write a check, right? I think the reality is we have, we cannot scale to do what we do without partners. So partners are crucial, particularly those on the ground. They know the customers that they serve better than we do. But what we do is work with them, right? That's why we have, we're in all 50 states and we use partners really to deliver our skilling services, right? In terms of till, which is what we do from a tills perspective of the program where we bring computer science to the high school. So we'll teach the teachers about computer science so they can roll out programs in high schools and, and another thing valuable program. I think it's all about cyber security, right? It's about how do we fill all the opportunities that are available? 700,000 jobs that are available. So we partner again with the American Association of Community College because we think that's what we're getting a more diverse student body and we worked them on building a curriculum for community college around cyber security. So it's all about working with someone else who can help you deliver and they can execute on your mission. Um Can you keep giving us giving us examples? I'm gonna pick up on that and ask you for more specifics because I think these partner, these specific examples hopefully can inspire companies in the room to pursue similar partnerships if they're not already doing them. Yeah, absolutely. Um Our partnerships, I'm so proud to share the stage with Denita. Um It's for relationships and for expertise and for scale. And so Denita knows her clients by first name, right? She knows her community, she knows the neighborhood, she knows what they need and that's important to us. Her neighborhood has the trust in her and her folks. And so that's really, really important to us is why we support the digital skills program. It's also why we do um community centers connected learning centers with trusted organizations in the neighborhood and provide fiber and wifi and employees who come in and volunteer, all your employees can come volunteer, right? So there's a way to get engaged. Um And so the relationships are important, the expertise is important because we know connectivity, right? We don't know education, but we partner with the education experts and we have a digital learning program called The Achieve. And so we have um content that's um aligned to common core standards to make online learning really helpful. And so again, that expertise is important and finally scale um because, you know, we can't do it alone. So for example, the Public Library Association, we have all kinds of digital literacy programs, thousands of courses that are going on across the country. There's libraries and there's four right here in Atlanta that we're working with. So um scale is really, really important because we need the local community, but we need to spread it across the country too. Are there questions in the audience? What? Talk to me about this learning process over time. I think there is still a tendency when you hear digital divide to just think, well, broadband, right? It's just about access, maybe it's about a device, talk about the kind of progression of this understanding of all of these facets that go into truly closing the digital divide. And because I think that there may be people who are just sort of realizing that it's not only that complex but that, that complexity gives you a way in that you might not have been able to see before. Yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll start, um, so someone can have the fiber running right by their house and they can be told that they can get it for free with a government subsidy, but they still don't sign up. They're afraid to admit that they don't know how to use a computer. They may not have a computer, they may not understand that there's a real value in it. And that's why initiatives like digital Navigators who go work with each individual person to say, what are your barriers? Why aren't you on it? Why do you know about the AC P program that can give you this, um, this service for free? So that adoption piece of it is really the most complex, the most see part of it. And that's why all of the community programs are so important because those are the ones that tackle them right? Once you move away, the financial barriers, then you're right. It's about training people on how to use and access the information on the internet. And, and, and you have to rely on the community organizations because they're there. They're, they're the most valuable resources for us is a community based sort of program that we run. I agree. And you all have done such a beautiful job of explaining the partnership which I still appreciate. And for us on the programming side, we have to build trust. So we were talking earlier about the importance of coming in and using people who've been through our programming, who came through it and who thrived based on it to go back out into the community to say, try this. This is a proven product. Look at what it's done for my life and my family's trajectory and look at what it can potentially do for you and your family. And so we are so proud to say we're impacting the program participants, but their families, their friends and in some instances, a larger community as well. Amazing. So it sounds like the the big takeaway here is call your congress person, make sure that funding is continued and tell everyone. My brother works for the Oakland school district and was working with a teacher just the other day who just, just using a, a wifi hotspot from the school because she doesn't know about that program and was too afraid to take advantage of it. So thank you for everything. You do. What a wonderful conversation. Thanks so much to our panel and I think we'll leave it there. All right. Thank you.