The Department of Commerce has announced that the first round of broadband grants has been fully awarded – 82 grants worth $1.2 billion touching 45 states. I’m really excited about what they’ve accomplished.
Here’s a great grant – One Economy teaming up with a host of partners to put together $28.5 million in stimulus funding and $23 million in private-sector support to train people, support, deploy networks, and develop applications for people in low-income/affordable and public housing in more than 31 states.
We know that most of the broadband non-adopters in the US are low-income and people of color. But you can’t just bring in wires – you’ve got to show people that the Internet is relevant to their lieves. One Economy proposes to train 2500 young people who can train 235,000 others; to bring wireless mesh networks to 159 public housing developments to connect 27K people; to expand applications to connect people to job, health, finance, and learning resources online.
This is quite a package, and One Economy will be measuring its effectiveness – it’s exciting.