By Andy Stutzman
NCC at the Digital Opportunity Summit Pre-Conference
After an incredible drive down through Appalachia, I was excited to visit Chattanooga, Tennessee for the first time. On Monday, July 22, the Enterprise Center held their Digital Opportunity Summit pre-conference titled The Chattanooga Story: A Decade of Digital Opportunity Partnerships at the Bessie Smith Cultural Center. The Enterprise Center is a unique nonprofit that provides training and opportunities for small businesses, entrepreneurs, youth programs, and supports the Tech Goes Home program to provide digital skills training and devices to the local community and across the state of Tennessee.
The keynote panel focused on the success of the HCS EdConnect powered by EPB program. Through a partnership between Hamilton County Schools and the local public utility, EPB. EPB has been providing electricity to the Chattanooga area for over 85 years and broadband connectivity since 2010. Their ongoing investment in fiber optics connections has led Chattanooga the name “Gig City.” In 2020, HCS and EPB, along with multiple partners, endeavored to provide free fiber optic connections to each student household forever. With the support of Benwood Foundation, they raised over $8 million to support the project, the EdConnect program has linked over 13,000 students to the free service over the past four years.
The EdConnect program is one of many initiatives launched by cities across the country to provide free broadband connections to students during the height of the global pandemic, but it is one of the only efforts that has continued to provide connectivity in this phase of the pandemic , so far living up to its promise to support students forever.
How have they been so successful? The multiple partnerships with advocacy foundations and other philanthropic organizations to fund the connections is one of the ingredients to achieving their outline goals. Since EPB is a public utility, it cannot provide free services and must legally charge at minimum the cost for the deployment and the maintaining the connections. Fundraising has been a key to their success and as discussed by Evan Freeman, Vice President, Government & Community Relations at EPB, the costs of the program decrease once the fiber has been deployed. However, Deb Socia maintains that the EdConnect program is successful because no one is concerned with who gets the credit for the program’s success. I agree with this conclusion. In my experience , removing ego from the equation paves the pathway for success.
The rest of The Chattanooga Story pre-conference was a wonderful mix of breakout sessions focused on the future of workforce development, supporting entrepreneurs, and connecting rural communities. The event was an incredible success with the support of the Enterprise Center leadership and their student volunteers.
NCC at the Tennessee Digital Opportunity Summit
Led by Tennessee’s Department of Economic and Community Development, the second annual Tennessee Digital Opportunity Summit directly followed the pre-conference,kicking off on Tuesday, July 23rd. Welcome remarks from Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp came with the promise to connect the state’s most rural communities and rightfully earn the name “Gig County.” Tennessee Broadband Director Taylre Beaty and her team provided an overview of the state’s broadband initiatives which include both federal and state investments in infrastructure and digital equity initiatives. In 2020, 20% of Tennessee households lacked a broadband connection, since then through both infrastructure and digital opportunity funding, the state has narrowed that gap to 5.4% by connecting over 138,000 households leaving just over 151,000 households unserved or underserved.
However, the primary focus of the Summit was on the state’s digital opportunity investments. Through a mixture of state and federal funding, over $113 million has been invested in digital skills and digital equity programs to date, many of them in the current calendar year. However, even through their incredible outreach programs, the state was not able to get the participation of all of their 95 counties leaving many households out in the cold.
I was encouraged to see a diverse audience at the event and by the work of Holly Rachel who spoke about the integral role of leveraging partnerships. Holly helped start the Nashville chapter of Blacks in Technology and spoke about how through strategic partnerships she managed to develop more tech career opportunities for Black learners. Katie Cour, CEO of the Nashville Public Education Foundation, reiterated the importance of partnerships like those that she developed, especially as the Foundation came to realize that just assisting students in need wasn’t enough. To make the most significant impact, it was imperative that they work with established partners to assist the digital and connectivity needs of the entire family.
My first visit to Chattanooga was an incredibly enlightening experience. I was heartened by the passion and sincerity of folks I talked with and tthe biggest takeaway from this visit was learning about the impact of the Tech Goes Home program across the state as they have assisted other programs in replicating their service model to create a broader reach. In Hamilton County alone, Tech Goes Home has trained more than 5,000 people and provided over 4,700 devices to the community; their influence goes far beyond the county borders.
