Luckily, they have Amy Huffman. Huffman is the policy director of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA), a nonprofit that supports digital equity. In that capacity, Huffman was thinking about how to help states since before the ink on the new funding was dry, advising them, for example, to hire digital equity managers. And when she gives advice, she knows what states need to hear, having herself spent more than six years in North Carolina’s Broadband Infrastructure Office. In 2019, in fact, Huffman became the first full-time digital equity staffer within any state.
“I understand what it’s like to work in the state,” Huffman said. “When I talk to state offices, I’m not coming out of left field with advice that’s not relevant to them or grounded in the understanding of what it’s like to operationalize things in a state government.”
Huffman helped create NDIA’s free State Digital Equity Plan Toolkit and organized a cohort for states to support each other through the funding allocation. Started in 2022, that cohort includes members from 44 states and territories. It’s still meeting today, with on average 41 attendees meeting every two weeks. As the money flows, the group is the main way states are communicating best practices. Finally, Huffman also helped with NDIA’s State Digital Equity Planning Workshops, in-person events held throughout the country.
