The Digital Literacy Initiative is one of the program areas of the Digital Equity Partnerships Program designed to meet the state's digital equity goals.
Establish and implement digital literacy training programs to ensure that target populations have the requisite skills to use devices, online resources, and digital tools to needed effect. Partners will work with sub-awardees such as community based organizations, community colleges, healthcare providers, libraries, senior centers, councils on aging, educational entities, youth groups, and other organizations that serve the target population to determine the appropriate scale of digital literacy training that meets the needs of the end user along the continuum of digital literacy – ranging from basic computer schools to digital navigator and digital stewardship models.
Partners will either directly provide digital literacy training or assist in the procurement of a digital literacy provider and the implementation of digital literacy services. Partners will be able to augment these digital literacy programs with the provision of assistance for devices access, childcare, transportation, or other upstream barriers that would prevent an end user from taking advantage of potential literacy programming, in alignment with guidance provided by U.S. Treasury.
| Lead Grantee | Project Summary |
|---|---|
| AgeSpan on behalf of the Mass Healthy Aging Collaborative |
Project Description: AgeSpan will partner with the Massachusetts Healthy Aging Collaborative (MHAC) and its network of Aging Service Access Points (ASAPs) to help older adult residents across the state access the internet. This will include implementing training services to help blind or visually impaired individuals and increase awareness of fraud. Geographies Served: Counties involved include Essex, Middlesex, Worcester, Suffolk, Norfolk, Plymouth, Bristol, and Dukes |
| Baystate Health, on behalf of the Western Mass. Alliance for Digital Equity |
Project Description: Baystate Health and the Western Mass Alliance for Digital Equity will work in the targeted geographies to reach residents with the greatest digital divide barriers and build upon evolving pilot programs to provide digital literacy and skills training. Geographies Served: 101 cities and towns in Hampden, Hampshire, Franklin, & Berkshire counties |
| City of Boston |
Project Description: This MBI Partnership grant will invest over $1 million for Boston Housing Authority’s onsite Digital Literacy Programming. Geographies Served: Boston |
| Metro North Workforce Investment Board |
Project Description: This grant will increase the workforce board’s digital equity initiatives through the Digital Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Consortium, which will assist clients by recruiting, hiring, and training a cohort of 32 digital navigators to provide digital literacy classes, amongst other digital equity services. Geographies Served: The JEDI Consortium will assist clients at the MassHire Metro North Career Centers, MassHire North Shore Career Centers, and the following communities: Revere, Chelsea, Everett, Malden, Somerville, Cambridge, Lynn, Salem, and Gloucester. |
| Tech Goes Home |
Project Description: Tech Goes Home’s (TGH) vision is to help Massachusetts become the first state in which all individuals have access to the digital tools, skills, and connectivity they need to thrive. This grant will support TGH in achieving this vision, by expanding its nationally recognized digital literacy programs in Gateway Cities. Geographies Served: Gateway Cities of Brockton, Chelsea, Everett, Lawrence, Lowell, Lynn, Malden, New Bedford, Pittsfield, Quincy, Revere, Springfield, and Worcester |
| UMass Lowell |
Project Description: UMass Lowell’s higher education community partners will provide the student workforce and cultural competency to drive outreach, engagement, and rollout of digital services, including a cohort of student digital navigators who, along with UMass Lowell and other partner faculty and staff, will create a multi-tiered digital literacy and navigation initiative that establishes a regional help desk at UMass Lowell and advances new digital literacy programs in the service area. Geographies Served: Gateway Cities of Leominster, Fitchburg, Lowell, Haverhill, and Lawrence, as well as many communities of the Merrimack Valley, Northern Worcester County and the North Shore |
| Vinfen, on behalf of the Human Services Alliance for Digital Equity |
Project Description: The goal of the Human Services Alliance for Digital Equity is to increase digital inclusion among eligible end beneficiaries of low-income people with physical, behavioral or cognitive disabilities and people who are homeless. The Alliance will deploy 15 regionally-based Technology Navigators who will support people with disabilities to obtain devices and learn how to use them. The Tech Navigators will be employed by the eight organizations of the Alliance. Geographies Served: 235 cities and towns of the Human Services Alliance for Digital Equity service area, in all counties except Dukes, Nantucket, and Bristol* *one Alliance organization, Riverside, does serve a small number of individuals in Taunton |