Technical.ly On the Record: The challenge of expanding digital access in a pandemic

Baltimore, like many major American cities, has a digital access problem — one that largely falls along economic and racial lines. What does that mean for education when COVID-19 has forced students to learn from home, whether they have Wi-Fi and a personal laptop or not?

In the seventh episode of Technical.ly On the Record, our interview series taking you inside the reporter’s virtual notebook to explore local economies in change, this editor chatted with Technical.ly Baltimore’s Donte Kirby. The reporter and Report for America fellow has been following attempts to increase digital access in the Maryland city by a variety of stakeholders — city government, community activists, big tech companies, the school district.

Read his latest on the topic, “3 takeaways from the Baltimore City Council’s hearing on tech access and education,” and listen to our conversation on stakeholders’ latest moves, where Baltimore is looking for guidance to get its citizens better connected, and how Kirby — three months onto his tenure as local reporter and resident — is getting to know his new beat and city.

Here’s the audio version:

And here’s the video recap:

Reminder that in Technical.ly On the Record, you can expect to hear the why, how and what’s next of each featured topic from the Technical.ly reporter who wrote about it.

Here are some other big stories we published over the past week:

• What does workplace culture look like when there’s no shared place to work? (Philly)
• Nearly 30% of all businesses in the District are Black-owned. Here’s how that compares to peer cities (DC)
• Red Clay students band together to demand change in the district (Delaware)
• Biotech manufacturing facility near BWI gets COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing deal (Baltimore)
• How can I diversify my hiring pipeline? (National)