Public Health Institute of Western Massachusetts

Alliance for Digital Equity

The Alliance for Digital Equity, housed at Baystate Health, is a Western Massachusetts based collective of multi-sector, community-focused organizations working toward digital equity for all people. The goal of the Alliance is to get people the access they need—to the equipment, to the infrastructure, and to the knowledge and skills—and that will allow them to fully participate in the digital world. The Alliance works to develop big picture solutions as well as the routes that lead to them. By bringing people and existing community resources together, the Alliance acts to increase the rate of positive change.

 

Digital equity is necessary for people to fully participate in modern society. It plays a vital role as part of overall personal and community equity because all major parts of life—including health, housing, food, education, employment, child care, banking, transportation, and civic engagement—have gone online.

Coalition Building

Our Role

The Public Health Institute of Western MA is a proud member and supporter of the Alliance. With funding from the Massachusetts Broadband Institute, PHIWM is bringing our convening and implementation skills to their efforts through the following initiatives:

  1. Supporting libraries and older adult-serving organization by developing and facilitating a “library network” and an “older adult network”, which provides spaces to think, share, and inform about digital equity, as well as support the implementation of digital skills training and other digital resources funded by the Alliance.
  2. Piloting a digital navigation project with Revitalize CDC, which will be receiving referrals from health care and the community and providing digital navigation services directly to people in their home or community spaces.
  3. Facilitating a digital skills network for digital skills programs that serves as a learning community for programs to share best practices, raise issues, identify gaps and solutions, and coordinate efforts.
  4. Developing 413Cares as hub for available digital resources in Western MA and supporting programs in setting up referrals.
  5. Developing and implementing the evaluation of the Alliance and its MBI-funded activities.

More Information

Liv Anna Homstead
Beyonca Twiggs

Contact Liv Anna Homstead or Beyonca Twigs to learn more.

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