Instituto Aspen seeks to stimulate digital equity in Mexico with a call

It is already well known that the pandemic it revealed a problem that had existed for decades, but which only worsened with this global crisis. Amid Zoom meetings, remote work and virtual classes, the digital divide became even more latent, as well as the need to eliminate it.

That is why last year the Aspen Institute launched the call for the Digital Equity Accelerator, with which they supported 7 organizations in the United States (EU), India and Morocco, dedicated to addressing this problem in different communities and now , by 2023, Mexico, together with Malaysia and South Africayou will also benefit from this.

“With COVID we saw that digital inequality is a global problem. Despite the fact that Europe and the United States have a greater reach to the internet, you continue to see that access to technology tends to be concentrated among people with greater purchasing power and who live in urban centers”, commented Hazami Barmada, director of the Accelerator, in a telephone interview with VANGUARDIA.

One of the revelations of the first edition of the project was that there are communities like the migrants, racial minorities, the elderly, and those in underserved areas who do not have access to the internet, which in turn prevents them from having job opportunities and access to government, health, social or education services online.

“One of the organizations we selected specialized in digital literacy through young students, from high school and college, because in that demographic there are high unemployment rates, especially among young people of color. This organization, called ‘E4 Youth,’ uses technology training to not only give them jobs, but to preserve the history of communities of color that don’t have the tools or infrastructure to do it,” she noted.

“We don’t care about technology itself, we care about digital access as a tool to create a more just and equitable world. Especially since, more and more, the world is going digital. So applying for jobs, knowing how to navigate the internet, being able to take classes online, for example during the pandemic, you start to see the disparity and the communities that have been left behind and because they don’t have access they fall into greater poverty and become they are even further behind in accessing these opportunities,” he added.

Barmada pointed out that the Aspen Institute seeks to work from the intersection of Internet access, as the basis for eliminating the digital divide, access to devices, without which the former does not exist, and digital literacy, an essential part of the effective use of these technologies.

“If you don’t know how to navigate a government website, to find information or receive any announcements… or the websites are simply not created fairly. Digital access from the perspective of people with visual or hearing disabilities, the lack of accessibility in design also leaves these people out,” she said.

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About the inclusion of Mexico In this second year of work, he commented that, despite being the number one new place in the global digital market, it also suffers from the same disparity, with only a few wealthy sectors and in urban areas as beneficiaries of these tools, but that there is interest on the public and private initiative for addressing such a problem.

The call to participate in the Digital Equity Accelerator closes on January 23 and you can register on the website https://www.aspeninstitute.org/programs/digital-equity-accelerator. Those selected will receive around $100,000 in scholarships, as well as access to a strong network of International leaders, mentors and advisors with technology expertisesocial innovation, nonprofit management, and social impact, not to mention visibility through the Aspen Institute.