Digital Inclusion

What is the Digital Divide?

Broadband  internet is the country's most inequitable infrastructure and contributes to major underlying differences in life outcomes. In 2020, access to the internet means access to education and employment opportunities, healthcare, community and civic engagement, and participation with the wider world.

The Internet poses huge opportunities and challenges for individuals and communities alike, but these challenges and opportunities have not been evenly distributed. Embedded racism, economic inequality and white supremacy are in every aspect of our society and our digital spaces are no different.

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Digital Exclusion and Privilege

Digital technology has opened new spaces of exclusion and privilege, leaving some feeling isolated from the vast digital realm. Equitable access is not enough: increasingly, digital life requires that we be more than passive users. We are now content creators as much as content consumers and must be equipped with the media literacy skills of a 21st century context.

Our Impact

MetroEast invests heavily in our communities to address the digital divide experienced by families in east Multnomah County (read Digital Equity Action Plan Report). We foster individual and community success through our popular digital and media literacy programs, such as:

  • Virtual Art Night

  • Smartphones for Seniors

  • Digital Portfolio Class

  • Mobile Media Innovation Lab

MetroEast is a proud participant in community-led coalitions, including:

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Read about our participation in city led initiatives push for digital inclusion!

Download the Digital Equity Action Plan

 

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Current Projects

Connecting Portland During COVID Crisis

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MetroEast is on the front lines fighting the digital divide having a history of cultivating Digital Navigators, an essential role adding digital equity to our social safety net. Learn more by reading Support for Digital Inclusion Practitioners

 

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We are helping to shape the landscape in Oregon through policy-driven approaches that concretely address the needs of communities lacking digital access in Oregon.

The root of digital inequality today is intangible. It is the knowledge and capacity for understanding, discernment and judgment of the digital world. MetroEast resolves to build tech-enabled communities with plans and goals driven by BIPOC, underserved, and silenced communities. Empowered by the technological revolution, the  power of a digital society is capable of transcending the most pressing issues and can create a platform for a long-term, more inclusive and less unfair horizon.

We believe in a future with broadband access to all, engaged digital citizens, freedom of expression and democracy.