Everyone.Digital: Connecting Communities to Bridge the Digital Divide

According to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Library System, 1 in 5 local households are behind the digital divide. For Blacks and Latinos, the number is even more severe: One in Three. These 60,000 households need immediate scalable solutions to introduce low-cost technology and culturally-relevant technicians to bring this inequity to a close.

Based out of UNCC's PORTAL building, Informative Technologies Inc. is a social enterprise that has researched and developed scalable, market-driven solutions to the digital divide and electronic waste since 2014. This is made possible by our ReviveOS™ software, which revives “obsolete” computers so they can run better than ever; thus breaking the cycle of planned obsolescence that’s built into competing operating systems today. To get these devices to those who are affected by the digital divide, we are building a community-based ecosystem that connects donor companies with recipient community organizations. We have been recognized as the most frequented IT internship worksite under Charlotte Works and MeckEd, and our model has been awarded 1st prize in Improving Social Equity and Empowerment by Sustain Charlotte 2016.

In light of the social science behind Asset-Based-Community-Development, and the commercial success behind sharing economy platforms, we plan on making our approach available citywide through the Everyone.Digital app, detailed in our videos and images below.

Our team is lead by our founder, James Walker (ceo@informativeinc.com), who is also chairman of Vance High School's Academy of Engineering Advisory Board, and is a joint collaboration with Khalia Braswell, founder of the INTech coding camp foundation (khalia@INTechcamp.co). Khalia was recently recognized for her work in teaching young minority women how to code HTML + CSS by Queen City Forward and the Black Chamber of Commerce 30 Under 30 award, and herself is a success story of the power of being introduced to a laptop as a fourth grader growing up in West Charlotte - now off to join the user experience team at Apple's headquarters!

The app prototype is hosted within a POPAPP.IN interactive wireframe, which means it is best viewed from a full screen and is a hyperlinked set of stills. Simply navigate to www.informativeinc.com/everyonedigital/ and click to see the live areas highlight or animate. Some screens would allow for scrolling, which is achieved by dragging your mouse within the iPhone.

Beyond this, we highly encourage everyone to watch our 10 minute narrative walkthrough (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFy-1upkdsI) which shows real photos of the organizations and real-world solutions provided by Informative and INTech that make this app stand out: this is not merely a proof of concept, it is a means of spreading the success we have already had in high-poverty schools like Vance and Garringer. Community Care Partners of Greater Mecklenburg, Habitat for Humanity of Wake County, and the Harris YMCA are already piloting this process with Informative ahead of back-to-school shopping rush to provide devices for as low as $50-$100 while employing Title I certified through our curriculum to be paid technicians to rebuild and services the systems. Using ReviveOS, the devices (up to 10 years old) run and feel like a new Chromebook, while fully compatible with MS Office documents. (See Screenshots).

We are honored to submit our concept as a compelling App for Social Good.