Flush with stimulus funds from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's broadband stimulus program, non-profit One Economy and the Broadband Opportunity Coalition (BBOC) plan to spend $51.5 million on broadband initiatives throughout the U.S. that will include delivering affordable high-speed Internet access, digital literacy training, local online content and public purpose media as well as sustained broadband adoption to families.
One Economy and the BBOC were awarded $28.5 million in federal stimulus. Through partnerships with AT&T, Comcast, National Association of Broadcasters, Cisco, Google, the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association and others, One Economy and the BBOC are supplementing the stimulus award with private sector matching support valued at $23 million.
With the federal funding and corporate matches, One Economy and the BBOC will increase current work and collaborate with 159 housing developments to bring subsidized broadband connections to 27,000 affordable housing units. A national awareness campaign to promote digital literacy will reach 20 million people. Through One Economy's seven-year-old Digital Connectors program, a digital mentoring and volunteer program for at-risk youth aged 14-21, 235,000 people will receive training with the launch of 167 Digital Connector programs in at least 80 communities throughout the country.
One Economy has already brought broadband to many housing developments across the country, including New York, Chicago and san Francisco. The non profit partnered with Meraki more than two years ago to deploy a managed WiFi solution that is self configuring and can be remotely managed via cloud architecture.
For more:
- see this release
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