Mayor Ron Nirenberg
- On San Antonio
“Broadband internet is no longer a luxury. It’s a necessary utility. Access to broadband is essential for economic development, education, and workforce attainment and growth. The City of San Antonio is dedicated to continuing to find collaborative strategies that will increase access to our communities.”
- On Next Century Cities
“Most cities share this challenge of broadband access, it’s important to have a network to share best practices and lessons learned in the hopes of reaching success a lot faster.”
- What San Antonio is working on
- The City of San Antonio understands the importance and quality of life impact of having access to the following three vital components: internet, devices, and digital literacy training. Throughout the years, the City of San Antonio has enhanced access to all three components through its public facing departments that include: the San Antonio Public Library, Department of Human Services, and Parks and Recreation. Together, these departments have provided access to millions of Wi-Fi, computer, and training sessions over the years. The San Antonio community is also supported by other digital inclusion organizations that include: Goodwill Industries, Each One Teach One, San Antonio Housing Authority, OATS, Bibliotech, school districts, colleges, universities and many more.
- In addition to those existing services, in 2018, City Council approved the creation of a Smart Cities team within the Office of Innovation. The Smart Cities team leads a collaborative SmartSA partnership and their vision is to be a connected, inclusive, and resilient community supporting a high quality of life. The team spearheads three focus areas and one of them is “access to services.” Having “access to services” in their strategy has led to a collaborative digital inclusion project that will help inform San Antonio and Bexar County leadership for many years to come.
- The City of San Antonio, in coordination with the University of Texas San Antonio (UTSA), SmartSA, and Bexar County, is leading this collaborative digital inclusion project. The project will include the following:
- Community survey to outline the digital divide in the City of San Antonio and Bexar County
- Provider survey to capture entities already doing digital inclusion work in San Antonio and Bexar County
- Potential collaborative strategies and best practices to minimize the digital divide
- The City of San Antonio is looking forward to the results of this collaborative project with the aim of ensuring that the City and the County are more connected.
