What's New in Civic Tech: Pew Releases State Broadband Map
Source: GovTech | By Zack Quaintance
The recently passed federal infrastructure package will send a historic amount of money to broadband connectivity and digital equity efforts, doing so by funneling the money to the work through lower levels of government.
Chief among the recipients of these funds — which makes provisions for $65 million of funding related to broadband and another $2.75 million for digital inclusion work — are public agencies at the state level. While what happens to this money will vary by state — the nature of digital equity work is a mosaic approach, wherein different actions tend to work better in different communities — the fact remains that states have a lot of work ahead of them as conduits for these monies.
Some states have had existing broadband or digital inclusion offices for a few years now, complete with staff members and some (mostly modest) established funding. Other states, however, are not quite as far along when it comes to ensuring that all the residents they serve are able to participate in our increasingly digital world. To this end, a new data visualization makes it easy to gauge what's happening right now in this area within every state.
That visualization is the work of Pew Charitable Trusts, who updated an existing map related to…