InFocus featuring Kathy Bisbee (Alliance for Digital Equity)

From the 22 News Plus Studio, this is 22 News In Focus with Patrick Berry. Hello everyone and welcome to this edition of In Focus. I'm your host Patrick Berry, and in some way shape or form you are watching this program on some sort of digital device. It could be your connected TV, which is most likely how you're watching this, or it could be your cell phone, your tablet, computer. Some form of digital device is how you're listening to me and seeing me today and all my In Focus interviews. But you should consider yourself one of the lucky ones to have access to digital devices, the internet, and so forth. There is a whole group of people out there who don't, which means think about your everyday life, your doctor's appointments, job applications, contact with your schools for your kids, whatever it might be, is all done via some sort of electronic communication, which is why I'm excited today because joining me across the desk is Kathy Bisbee. She is the director for an organization called the Alliance for Digital Equity. Kathy, thank you for joining me. Appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me. Big picture. What is the Alliance for Digital Equity? So the Alliance came together in 2020 during the pandemic when my predecessor, Dr. Frank Robinson, who was the Vice President of Public Health at Baystate Health, realized that digital equity was a super social determinant of health, but also of many other challenges that folks face. Having access to health care, having access to their doctor, having access to jobs during the pandemic really put digital equity into a spotlight that perhaps it hadn't been, but it should have been for a long time. So the Alliance formed during that time when folks from around the valley came together to talk about how they might together come up with collective solutions that would reduce the digital divide and improve the residents' lives all across western Massachusetts. Were you and the other members involved shocked at the number of people who don't have access to these simple things to really, in this day and age, to maintain life? Yeah, I think a lot of people are shocked. I was not shocked. I had a family member during the pandemic who was a young person, and I think that is a myth that I want to break, that digital equity is only about seniors or only about aging adults. But that is a myth that's out there. But I had a family member who was using a flip phone, using a prepaid cell phone, a young person trying to find a job. We hear stories all the time of folks who are sitting outside of Dunkin Donuts using their fast Wi-Fi because their Wi-Fi that they could afford was too slow. So I think it's important to remember it's not just having access to a digital device, it's also being able to afford high-speed internet at your location. And of course, in Western Mass, we also have a lot of locations who can't get high-speed access because the network isn't built out to some of those communities in the Hilltowns, in the Berkshires, and throughout all four counties of Western Mass. So I think it wasn't surprising. I was surprised, however, back in 2024, at the beginning of 2024, the federal government eliminated the Affordable Connectivity Program, which had given really affordable internet access to folks all across the country, millions and millions of people. And in Western Mass alone, there were 77,000 people affected by those cuts. That is surprising to me. That was very surprising. It was one in four Western Mass residents struggled to be able to pay their internet bill and to get the kind of internet access that would allow us to do things like Zoom. I mean, you need higher speed, better broadband to be able to access, even being able to be a part of the conversation, to watch YouTube videos, to watch this video. So I think that is surprising. And I do run into legislators and decision makers all the time who think that having a phone means that digital equity is not a problem. It's not just having the device. It's not just having affordable access to internet, to high-speed internet. It's also knowing how to use it. And right now, we're at a really interesting time because AI literacy is really the topic that we are spending so much time trying to help people navigate through. And I can give you so many examples about that, where it's a challenge for everyone to really have this new language that we're all struggling to try to understand and use in our daily lives. I was lucky recently, I had a couple of guests sitting across the desk from me. One was from the West Springfield Public Library, and one was from the Massachusetts Library Commission, right? And they talked about how libraries help fill that void. Absolutely. And are they part of your partnership? Absolutely. And we have 200 members. And I have a slide here that has a map on it, which shows you we've actually been able to fund 83 different communities in Western Mass. About a year into building the coalition, we were able to add the Berkshires as well. So we're really able to represent and put funding out there in all four counties of Western Mass. We have partners, 200 organizations that have joined the alliance. The alliance membership's open to everyone. If you're excited about making sure that everyone has access to the internet, has access to devices, that has the digital literacy skills, you can join the coalition. We have monthly calls the first of the month that everyone's welcome to join. We have municipalities. We had an event last year for 55 municipalities that showed up to talk about how they could implement good digital equity policies and plans in their communities. But libraries, county offices of aging, community media centers, folks at social service agencies, folks in health care are all really utilizing digital equity strategies to make sure that our most vulnerable populations have access to these tools. Because we all recognize, in today's world, you need digital access. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's even to the point where you think about one of our partners, Revitalize CDC here in Springfield, they had a client that they were working with who had a box sitting in their room that was their remote monitoring device for diabetes. They had been diagnosed with diabetes. And for three months, they sat and looked at the box and were really apprehensive about, I don't want to break it. I don't want to do anything wrong. We find this a lot, even amongst people who are able to access the internet, who have a device. There's a lot of fear. There's a lot of uncertainty. There's a lot of concerns about security and confidentiality or not wanting to break the device. And so one of our digital navigators, who is a trusted guide in our communities that we've deployed out to communities across Western Mass, was able to help that person put their remote monitoring device on. And in just a couple of months, their numbers for their doctor, their doctor was able to get real-time data, health data. Exactly. And so I think, you know, this is a problem all across the country. Folks in rural areas like Western Mass have a lot more challenges getting online and having high-speed internet, having the kinds of devices. We even see problems with, you know, I think of my 84-year-old veteran father in Western Maine, very similar climate to Western Mass, where, you know, he had a device, but it was so outdated that every time he tried to get onto Zoom, it would crash the entire computer, right? So we see, I think it's really important to communicate that it's not just devices, it's not just digital literacy, it's not just affordable internet and accessible at your location, but it's also understanding how to update your own device, how to make sure that it works properly. We are up on our first commercial break. There's plenty more to talk about when it comes to the Alliance for Digital Equity. Stay with us, we're back in just a minute. Welcome back, everyone, to today's discussion here on InFocus. It's about making sure everyone has equal digital access, and I use that as sort of the umbrella because, you know, as you've mentioned earlier, Cathy, it's not just about having a device. It has to be about access. You know, you might have a device, but your internet might be slow. You might have fast internet, but a slow phone, or no computer, or whatever it might be. So Cathy Bisbee is with the Alliance for Digital Equity, and that's what we're talking about today. When you left, or excuse me, when we went to the break, you talked about your digital navigators and their importance. Tell me a little bit more about the help that the navigators are doing in the public. Yeah, well, digital navigators is a term that just came out of the pandemic, in fact. And it was, I think, before that time, it was, you know, librarians are like the OG of digital navigation, to be quite honest. I talked to my librarian friends, and they say, well, we've been doing that for 50 years. You know, community media centers have been around doing public access television, and they help people with technology problems. People come in, and they say, oh, I'm trying to get my video on YouTube. Same in the libraries, I'm trying to get my application in for housing. So the kinds of things that digital navigators today, with this new definition that really came out of the pandemic, the things they're doing are the same things that folks have been helping folks do with technology for, you know, decades. And that's just solving problems. Solving problems, exactly. But what we saw is that there was really a need for an intermediary. So what was happening is, you know, say I'm at a social service organization, someone comes in, and I'm helping them get an application in for housing, for affordable housing, and they don't have an email address, or they don't check their email address because they're just not comfortable using technology. So the front desk person would have to solve that problem for them, really, to be able to help them sign up for that service. So I think with a digital navigator, what we realized is that there's this skillset and this way of helping people that a lot of folks were already doing, but had never been defined as sort of a job, a real job, a real profession. But yet they were doing this work, and they had a particular skillset that was really important that you don't necessarily see anywhere else, which is the ability to solve problems, to be, you know, curious, and have cultural humility, perhaps, and be compassionate, and be understanding, and at the same time, being able to go through steps to help somebody figure out how to get whatever technology problem was really blocking them from being able to access services, access their health care, access new job opportunities, or even communicate with their family. And that that spotlight really happened during the pandemic, but it's been going on for a long time. But if you think about the importance of all of that, I just, you know, it's funny, in my everyday life, I'm trying more and more frequently not to have my phone in my hand, not to use digital devices. But conversely, to your point, it's your connection to everyone. It's connection to my kids who live in Boston and New York, connection to my family who lives up and down the East Coast. For me, the luxury of being able to put it down is one thing. But there are those people out there who don't have the luxury to put it down. They just don't have the luxury of staying in touch. I don't think most of us do. I mean, I fight the same impulse. You know, when I'm on vacation, I'm not on my phone as much, and it's such a blessing. But also, to do any work that I do, on a daily basis, I need to have some kind of digital device. I need to understand how to use all of these different tools. I need to know how to go through a step-by-step process online and talk to AI chatbots. You know, those are things that we all take for granted that you have to know how to communicate with in a digital age. We are in a digital age. You cannot really, it's very difficult to hide from that and be able to make a living, connect with your family, get healthcare, all of that. You know, it's interesting, your point, and you said this in the first portion of the comment, is I think the common misperception is those 60 years and older. But those under age 30, I think they're the most crucial demographic to having proper digital access, because they're our workforce, our up-and-coming workforce. And if they don't have the skills or the ability, then all these business owners have jobs unfilled. And we're already seeing, you know, I have mixed feelings about AI. I'm definitely AI literate. I definitely use AI. But what we're seeing is that using AI can minimize your critical thinking skills. And this is really important in all of the work that we're doing. And in fact, I'm really happy to see some of the folks who are big proponents of AI are talking about how it's important to have a literature degree or humanities degree to come into the AI workspace because you need to have critical thinking skills. And, you know, there's lots of literacy issues around AI. I'll give you an example, another one in my family, which is when my mother-in-law sadly passed away from breast cancer last year, her brother and her husband looked up on ChatGPT what her life expectancy was going to be. And they, ChatGPT said that she was going to live, and she died a month later. And I think about how that affected my family and how other families would feel if that kind of reliance on AI without the literacy skills, without the understanding of really how that works and what the pros and cons and the pitfalls are of using different technology tools. It's the same as, you know, going online and clicking on the first link for your passport and then realizing that it's a scam. So it's, you know, those same issues of critical thinking and understanding how technology works and understanding the scams and the frauds that are out there are the same if you're 60 or 90 or 23, really. So I think one of the things that the digital navigators, a lot of those DNs were people who were sitting at the front desk at, you know, we have Springfield Housing as one of our partners, Greenfield Housing, the New North Citizens Center and organization. We have Wayfinders here in Springfield who have all been partners with us, Tech Foundry, of course, who also provides a lot of digital literacy work and workforce development to folks here in the region, as well as the librarians who are saying, hey, we have some of these things written up that we typically help people with, but we need people to come to work with us who have these skill sets. And so we started to see that there was a specific kind of skill set needed for a person to be a tech helper at a municipality, a social service agency, what have you. And we started to develop training programs of our own and we created a digital navigators network. My team member, Lashree Weems, is our digital navigator network coordinator who's been coordinating all of the digital navigators in the region, we call them DNs, to talk together to figure out, okay, what are the things that are coming up at our housing organization? What are the things that are coming up at our library? How do we create training programs for our peers? And so it's been really interesting to watch them, and this is really the philosophy of the alliance, is that no one person can solve this problem. Of course not. It takes a team. It takes a team. It takes people who've been dealing with these problems for years or who are just getting into this work and realizing, oh, wow, we need to help our clients, our customers, our residents understand how to use city government. They can't find anything on the website. Why is that? Because sometimes, sometimes we're not developing it for people, but also sometimes people just don't have the kind of digital literacy skills to understand how to find those things. Absolutely. We are up on our second commercial break. We have still plenty more to talk about. So join us. We're back in just a moment. This is 22 News In Focus with Patrick Berry. This is 22 News In Focus with Patrick Berry. Welcome back, everyone. Today's In Focus discussion is about making sure that every one of us in our community has the access to digital devices, high-speed internet, that we all take advantage of because, I mean, you think about it, you're paying your utility bills online, your doctor and your medical records are all online, your kids' school information is all online. So across the desk for me today is Kathy Bisbee. She's the director of the Alliance for Digital Equity. We have covered so much ground, Kathy, and I appreciate you giving me some of your time today. It is a fascinating organization. We talked a lot about digital navigators. If somebody wants to be one, what do they have to do? Well, you might already be one. Is it a volunteer gig? It is in some cases. Yeah, there are volunteers. We do have volunteers as part of our network. We're really a network, really a coalition. So anyone can join us. Folks can come to our meetings. They can find out about our meetings on our website, which I know you've thrown up on the screen here. And folks can get training with us as well. There's also a few national organizations now that are giving training for specifically this role. And we have a bill in the legislature that Rep. Sabadosa has co-authored with us. And that bill really is moving through the process right now to create a credential for digital navigators. And one of the things that I got to say, Massachusetts is, you know, we like being first. We, 20 years ago, passed a community health worker credential that helped kind of a similar role of folks, but in health care, which, you know, a lot of folks in health care were helping people with social services. You might come in for a health issue, but then the person helping you realize, oh, maybe you don't have housing. Maybe you're having, you're struggling, maybe you have an abuse situation. Right. They're a patient advocate. Absolutely. So we, as Massachusetts passed a credentialing bill that really formalized that role and enabled community health workers to really amplify that profession. And I think that's what we're trying to do really with digital navigators. We have certainly a conference that's coming up in a couple of weeks on May 13th, but we're also going to be doing other events throughout the year in the region. We do convenings where people from all over Western Mass come and talk about the role, get training. So they can certainly contact us for training for that. But volunteers, we love them too. We'd love to have volunteers doing this work. I would be remiss if I didn't pull up a slide that talks about the highlights and some of the impact that you folks have done. Talk to me about that. Thank you so much. Well, you know, we were very fortunate to get a grant from the Mass Broadband Institute, MBI, which some folks have known because they've had an impact for years in getting more broadband out to Western Mass. And they certainly are doing a lot around that now. Unfortunately, we lost federal funding a year ago that would have brought even more funds. We're hopeful that our congressional reps will be fighting the good fight to try to reinstate some of that funding. There are lawsuits, as you can imagine, trying to get some of that funding back. We'd like to see that. But with the funding that we had, we were able to reach about 5,000 folks throughout all four counties. We've had 3,300 hours of digital navigator sessions just in the last two years. We've had over probably now we're up to about 700 hotspots that have been distributed. We've had about 2,500 computer devices. We just got an additional 500 that we're going to be distributing throughout all four counties. We also have a partnership that is about to start that we'll be, we haven't announced yet, but we will be announcing with the sheriff's offices to provide laptops to folks who've gone through a training program while they're incarcerated and then having support for them as they come out. I mean, the sheriff's office in Hampton County had an example that they gave me about someone who had been inside for 25 years and hadn't had access to these kinds of tools and was really concerned about, you know, how am I going to, I don't even know how to use a phone. I don't know how to use a smartphone. I don't know how to use a laptop. So we're going to be providing that. Smartphone isn't even 20 years old. It's not even 20 years old. Yeah. Yeah. It's true. It's true. So I think, you know, we're going to continue giving out hotspots, laptops, digital navigation, one-on-one guides, partners throughout our network. They're all running their own programs as well. Some of them have been funded through us. Some of them have not. And everybody kind of comes together. It's a, it's a coalition of the willing, if you will. And folks who really care about these issues and they care about our most vulnerable populations who often don't have, they're not at a community college. They're not at a university where they have access to this. And I think it's important that we bring everybody, you know, rising tide lifts all boats. And I think that's something that we've been really fortunate to be based out of Baystate Health. We're kind of a project within Baystate. And our funding for this grant runs out in December and we're working really hard to make sure that we're going to be able to continue doing the facilitative work of the coalition and probably doing a lot of work inside of healthcare and at community clinics to make sure that community health workers and digital navigators really have a conversation about how they can support each other's work. And we hope to continue supporting these projects throughout the community. Well, Kathy, I can't thank you enough for joining me today to give us, you know, kind of an overview of the Alliance for Digital Equity and the importance that it means to our community. Thank you so much. Good seeing you. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate your interest in the topic. Absolutely. Because it's what we do here. It's all digital. This is 22 News In Focus with Patrick Berry.