Digital Opportunity in Action

I recently attended a wonderful event sponsored by the Blue Ridge Broadband Alliance. The BRBA is headquartered in Asheville and is focused on improving broadband in the many rural counties in Western North Carolina. The Alliance is being led by Sara Nichols with help from two great sponsors—The Benton Institute for Broadband & Society and the Dogwood Health Trust’s Digital Opportunities Initiative. The event I attended was a Digital Opportunity Pitch Party, where four local groups made a pitch to the crowd and to a great panel of judges to vie for funding to support their digital opportunity efforts. The four organizations that made pitches were AB Tech, OurJourney, Swift App School, and Through the Trees in 828. All four pitches highlighted great local efforts to assist people in the region with digital assistance. The overall winner was OurJourney. This is a non-profit organization whose founders were formerly incarcerated and now have a mission to support those who are returning from incarceration with their reentry journey. People often tell me that they don’t fully understand what digital opportunity training really does. OurJourney is one of many examples from around the country of local organizations and programs that are helping those who most need the help to navigate the digital world. They are doing it in the only way that really works: by helping people one-on-one.