Efforts to close digital divide commendable

One in five of Cuyahoga County’s households – 20 percent – lacks internet access, although ours is an era and society that depend more and more on electronic networks for work, pleasure and help.

Moreover, the coronavirus afflicting humankind is making it increasingly likely that, for now, schooling for many children, perhaps most, will be provided online rather than in person.

And the pandemic is speeding the expansion of telemedicine services, already underway before COVID-19 struck.

That’s why the recently announced Greater Cleveland Digital Equity Fund is such good news for so many, including Clevelanders age 65 and older, and people in Cleveland households with annual incomes of less than $20,000. More than half the people in each of those groups lack computers or internet access.

That fences off those men, women and children from swathes of contemporary life.

Cuyahoga County, the Cleveland Foundation and T-Mobile U.S. Inc. are making $3 million in commitments to create the fund.

The George Gund Foundation is providing an additional $1 million in laptops, and hotspot and Wi-Fi technology, to the Cleveland Metropolitan

School District.

Meanwhile. Lt. Gov. Jon Husted announced Friday that schools can apply for a new $50 million Broadband Ohio Connectivity Grant.

The grants will help provide students with hotspots and internet-enabled devices, according to a news release.

County Executive Armond Budish is among those lauding the local initiative.

“We do not want any family left behind because they don’t have access to a computer or (the) Internet,” he said in a written statement. County Council member Shontel Brown, also in a written statement, said the Digital Equity Fund could help reverse the “digital abandonment of the most vulnerable members of our community.”

Among other items, T-Mobile will contribute 7,500 data hotspots and an additional $1 million in in-kind donations.

Two nonprofit organizations, PCs for People and RET3 Job Corp., will provide schools with up to 10,000 computers. And as the Digital Equity Coalition grows, cleveland.com’s Peter Krouse reported, the coalition said its Equity Fund will help “support a strategy” for K-12 pupils not just in Cleveland but also in “East Cleveland, Euclid, Warrensville Heights and additional inner-ring suburbs that have high need.”

This constructive undertaking offers opportunities to Greater Clevelanders who were up to now bypassed by the digital stream that helps empower so many others.

The Equity Fund’s formation is welcome news.

Read the editorial from the Plain Dealer at bit.ly/3izmYLd

This constructive undertaking offers opportunities to Greater Clevelanders who were up to now bypassed by the digital stream that helps empower so many others.