Digital Inclusion Program

About the Program

Category: Information Technology (Best in Category)

Year: 2016

Computer literacy and internet access are considered necessities in modern-day life. Palm Beach County is home to numerous impoverished communities where residents can neither afford nor have the requisite computer skills to utilize the internet. The Digital Inclusion Program focuses on wireless network (WiFi) projects in the economically depressed communities of Palm Beach County. It is a collaboration among community partners which seeks to establish public WiFi zones surrounding a neighborhood school where residents, businesses and visitors will have free internet access, and where families with qualified school age children receive refurbished desktop computers, computer training, and wireless internet access. The program was initially conceived in 2010 and the West Palm Beach Digital Inclusion Project went operational in the 1st quarter of 2011. The Digital Inclusion Project in Delray Beach went operational in 2013 and a third project is currently underway in Lake Worth. In West Palm Beach, more than 300 families with school-age children received refurbished desktop computers, computer training and wireless internet access. A two-square mile public WiFi zone was also created where residents, businesses and visitors access the internet free of charge. Through the Delray Beach Digital Inclusion project, WiFi coverage is provided in the neighborhoods surrounding S.D. Spady High School and Atlantic Avenue.