“Everyone, no matter where they live, deserves to have access to reliable high-speed internet services, budget-friendly community devices, technical support and digital skills training,” he said.
Nonprofits, educational organizations that are not schools, and organizations that host workforce development programs are among the entities that can apply for a grant. The grant program is designed to provide digital assistance and training for “covered populations,” an umbrella term for low-income households, rural residents, minority populations, veterans, and incarcerated individuals.
The grant program is part of President Joe Biden’s “Internet for All” initiative and the administration’s Infrastructure Spending Law. Mr. Biden’s assistant secretary of commerce, Alan Davidson, and national Economic Council director, Lael Brainard, were on hand to speak about the initiative.
“We’ve been talking about the digital divide in this country for over 25 years, but now, thanks to the Biden-Harris administration’s bipartisan infrastructure law, we finally have the resources to do something serious about it,” Mr. Davidson said. “This program is the beating heart of what we are trying to achieve in our ‘Internet for All’ efforts.”
“The administration recognizes that the success of our broader economic agenda for the nation is fundamentally tied to the success of places like Pittsburgh,” Ms. Brainard said. “That means fixing our roads and bridges, expanding health care access, and making sure that every American has access to high-speed internet.”
In December, Mr. Gainey released a plan to close the digital divide by 2030 through his Digital Equity Coalition, an initiative he founded with former Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald in 2022. According to the coalition’s community strategic plan, 4,252 households in Allegheny County do not have internet access and 77,693 households have slow broadband speeds.
Many children in the county’s disadvantaged communities cannot access online educational resources, Mr. Gainey said.
“If we are going to be serious about reducing poverty in America and in this city, it is up to us to get our children prepared for the digital economy that is here right now,” he said. “Frederick Douglass once said that it is much easier to build strong children than it is to repair broken men.”
Allegheny County has the second-highest concentration of senior citizens in the country, according to a study by the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Social and Urban Research.
The grant could help the county’s oldest residents get up to speed with modern technology, said Rev. Paul Waite, president of the Anna Middleton Waite Adult Learning Center in McKeesport.
“Our seniors do not know how to use these,” he said, pulling a phone from his shirt pocket. “We need to teach them. Everything is digital now — even buying a Girl Scout cookie, you’ve got to get them online.”
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