Capital Region Coalition for Digital Inclusion (CRCDI) Quarterly Meeting – March 10, 2023
Access the meeting recording HERE.
The Capital Region Coalition for Digital Inclusion’s (CRCDI) Quarterly Meeting took place on Friday, March 10, 2023. The event featured Amanda Bergson-Shilcock from the National Skills Coalition, presenting on “Closing the Digital Skills Divide” – a report which found 92% of jobs in the U.S. labor market require digital skills. The Coalition also provided regional broadband and digital inclusion announcements, and discuss important updates in state and federal funding, along with the state’s digital equity plan.
Register for upcoming CRCDI Quarterly Meetings HERE.
Capital Region Coalition for Digital Inclusion
The Capital Region Coalition for Digital Inclusion, formerly the Sacramento Coalition for Digital Inclusion, started as part of community discussions following the release of a Brookings Institute report on the Sacramento region in the fall of 2018. With the goal of creating a prosperous Sacramento region, the discussion of digital equity was one of the most-spoken components, and in January 2019, during the Sacramento Digital Inclusion Summit hosted by the Sacramento Public Library, the Coalition was created.
The founding Steering Committee includes the City of Sacramento, Sacramento Public Library, Los Rios Community College District, California State University at Sacramento, Capital Region Workforce Boards, Clear Strategies LLC, and Valley Vision.
In its first stages, the Coalition conducted an assessment of needs with community input, built collaborative relationships across industries, and published an initial report which determined digital access to be achieved through affordable Internet and devices, along with digital literacy/skills.
The start of COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the digital inclusion gap, and pushed the Coalition further towards efforts to bridge the digital divide. To support the Coalition’s efforts, Valley Vision has been successful in securing funding to continue and expand this valuable work through the Capital Region Workforce Boards, SMUD, Union Bank, and community partners and stakeholders.
Following the Coalition’s expansion from Sacramento County into the Capital Region Workforce Board 9 county region of Alpine, Colusa, El Dorado, Glenn, Placer, Sacramento, Sutter, Yolo, and Yuba County, Valley Vision partnered with mohuman, a non-profit connecting low-income communities with digital resources, to create the Capital Region Digital Inclusion Portal. The centralized platform was developed with the goal to be a source for community members and organizations to find and upload resources for computing devices, internet connectivity, and digital skill building – including free and low cost computers, internet services, foundational and career-specific digital skill building tools and training, and more.
Capital Region Coalition for Digital Inclusion (CRCDI) Quarterly Meeting – December 9, 2022
Access the meeting recording HERE.
The Capital Region Coalition for Digital Inclusion’s (CRCDI) Quarterly Meeting took place on Friday, December 9, 2022. The event featured a Year-in-Review reflection of the Coalition and focused on Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), featuring enrollment data for the Capital Region and several guest speakers offering insight on best practices and methods for helping communities get enrolled in ACP.
Register for upcoming CRCDI Quarterly Meetings HERE.
Capital Region Coalition for Digital Inclusion (CRCDI) Quarterly Meeting – September 23, 2022
Access the meeting recording HERE.
The Capital Region Coalition for Digital Inclusion’s (CRCDI) Quarterly Meeting took place on Friday, September 23, 2022. The event highlighted digital navigators through a panel discussion consisting of local, state, and national digital navigator programs. The role of digital navigators is essential to ensuring digital equity, as digital navigators address the whole digital inclusion process — home connectivity, devices, and digital skills — with community members through repeated interactions.
Register for upcoming CRCDI Quarterly Meetings HERE.
Quarterly Meeting: Capital Region Coalition for Digital Inclusion
Please join us for our next quarterly virtual meeting of the Capital Region Coalition for Digital Inclusion on September 23rd, from 11 am to 12:30 pm. This meeting will delve into the importance of digital navigators for our region – highlighting local and national programs. Join us to collaborate on this key effort to close the digital divide.
We appreciate your commitment to supporting digital inclusion for all capital region community members. We look forward to connecting with you on September 23rd.
Capital Region Coalition for Digital Inclusion (CRCDI) Quarterly Meeting – June 24, 2022
Access the meeting recording HERE.
The Capital Region Coalition for Digital Inclusion’s (CRCDI) Quarterly Meeting took place on Friday, June 24, 2022. The event featured funding opportunities, tools for educating community members on their internet speeds, service bills, and rights, and how to use the CRCDI Digital Inclusion Portal to connect the community to local digital inclusion and digital literacy resources.
Register for upcoming CRCDI Quarterly Meetings HERE.
Quarterly Meeting: Capital Region Coalition for Digital Inclusion
We invite you to join the Capital Region Coalition for Digital Inclusion’s Quarterly Meeting on June 24, 2022, from 11 AM – 12:30 PM. We look forward to sharing a new tool the Coalition is developing, which will assist community members in reading their broadband bills and understanding their internet speed. We will launch this tool at our next meeting, and look forward to seeing its impact!
Registration for this event can be found here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMof-iopjwiHdcAmDsCQNIQHWq3meUqdUtB
Skills for a Ready Future Workforce (2021)
Valley Vision has been examining Future of Work trends for many years. Our latest research was made possible through funding from the City of Sacramento CARES COVID Relief and in partnership with Burning Glass Technologies. This analysis sought to answer the question, where should resources be targeted to provide the most effective skills acquisition and training, especially to disproportionately impacted community members, to enhance and accelerate recovery from the pandemic.
Building on previous work, Automation Risk for Jobs in the Capital Region (March 2020), this report looks at the potential impacts of automation in our nine county region, recovery from the pandemic and future workforce development strategies need to be responsive to multiple factors. The following white paper highlights the result of these efforts:
Policy Brief: Internet Service Competition in CA and the Capital Region (2021)
This policy brief presents an analysis of the internet service market and providers choices (number of ISPs) serving residential customers in California and the Connected Capital Area Broadband Consortium (CCABC) Region, and its implications on cost and quality of service.
This analysis is based on broadband availability data from the California Public Utilities Commission from 2020 (as of December 2019). Findings of our analysis are that in California, the vast majority of the population (near 87%), households, and housing units, have access to two or less choices of ISPs, which indicates a concentrated and non-competitive market. Furthermore, analyzing the number of internet choices, in areas served at different speed standards, nearly all population (high nineties percent) have access to two or less choices of ISPs.
Preferred Scenario for Unserved Households in the CCABC Region (2021)
Valley Vision, as manager of the Connected Capital Area Broadband Consortium (CCABC) (funded by the CPUC CASF Program), partnered with the California Emerging Technology Fund (CETF) to prepare the “Preferred Scenario for Unserved Households in the CCABC Region.”
This report provides detailed information on 1) identifying unserved households at different broadband standards in the Capital Region, 2) estimating the deployment costs to connect these unserved households, and 3) establishing partnerships with state agencies and broadband stakeholders to achieve cost-efficient infrastructure deployments. It also incorporates demand aggregation of potential community anchor institutions and business customers to ensure a sustainable business model for ISPs in the long term.
The Preferred Scenarios Report will help local governments, ISPs, and broadband stakeholders to accelerate broadband expansion and upgrades in the Capital Region to achieve affordable, reliable, and high-speed Broadband for All.
Launch Event – Getting Connected: A Broadband Resource Guide
Valley Vision, together with the California Emerging Technology Fund and California Forward, invite you to the statewide launch of “Getting Connected: A Broadband Deployment and Adoption Resource Guide for Local and Regional Government Leaders,” on Friday, May 14, from 10 AM to 12 PM.
The Guide provides detailed information and resources on innovative policies and practices to accelerate broadband investment at the local and regional levels, highlighting examples of best practices, toolkits and information resources from communities across the state and nationally. The Guide will help us reach our goal of high speed Internet connectivity and Broadband for All.
The webinar will include a presentation of the results of a statewide survey on the digital divide, an overview of the Guide, and a three-person panel to spotlight some of the innovative models and best practices found in the Guide.
Getting Connected: A Broadband Resource Guide (2021)
The California Emerging Technology Fund partnered with Valley Vision to prepare the new “Getting Connected: A Broadband Deployment and Adoption Resource Guide for Local and Regional Government Leaders.” This is the first update since the original guide was prepared ten years ago and much has changed since then. While progress has been made to address the Digital Divide, Covid-19 Pandemic exposed the stark and growing gaps within and across our communities related to Digital Equity and Inclusion.
The Resource Guide provides detailed information and resources on innovative policies and practices to accelerate broadband investment at the local and regional levels, highlighting examples of best practices, toolkits and information resources from communities across the state and nationally. The Resource Guide will help us reach our goal of high speed Internet connectivity and Broadband for All. Click here to view the joint letter from Valley Vision and the California Emerging Technology Fund announcing the launch of the Resource Guide.
A launch event was held in partnership with California Forward on Friday, May 14th. Click here to view the recording. The event also featured a presentation of the results of a statewide survey on the digital divide, an overview of the Guide, and a three-person panel to spotlight some of the innovative models and best practices found in the Guide. You can view the slides covering these items below: