The Digital Equity Competitive Grant Program will support efforts to achieve digital equity, promote digital inclusion activities, and spur greater adoption and meaningful use of broadband among Covered Populations (includes (1) individuals who live in Covered Households (defined as households with income from the most recently completed year of not more than 150% of the poverty level), (2) aging individuals, (3) incarcerated individuals, other than individuals who are incarcerated in a Federal correctional facility, (4) veterans, (5) individuals with disabilities; (6) individuals with a language barrier, including English learners and those with low levels of literacy, (7) individuals who are members of a racial or ethnic minority group, (8) individuals who primarily reside in a rural area.)
?Specifically, the Digital Equity Act authorizes funds to be used for:
- the development and implementation of digital inclusion activities that benefit the Covered Populations
- programs that facilitate the adoption of broadband by Covered Populations to provide educational and employment opportunities
- training programs that cover basic, advanced, and applied skills
- workforce development programs
- access to equipment, instrumentation, networking capability, hardware and software, or digital network technology for broadband services at low or no cost
- construction or operation of public access computing centers for Covered Populations.
Awards will focus on addressing the needs of the Covered Populations not met by the Digital Equity Capacity Grant Program and will strive for a diverse pool of recipients. To ensure funds are directed to the most effective programs with the greatest reach, and to minimize administrative overhead, NTIA encourages proposals that demonstrate a broad partnership of entities with the ability to administer significant resources and address the varied concerns of the Covered Populations.
This is a new grant opportunity thus award history does not yet exist.