Issues of Digital Equity and Action Taken to Improve

In today’s world, the internet plays such an impactful role on society. Especially in first world countries, but as the internet continues to grow, so does the importance of people having access to it. The world is moving in the direction of being online, which means access to the internet gives people endless opportunities. A lack of access to the internet only sets those people further back. In the article about the issues and challenges relating to digital equity, they put a graph explaining the percentage of populations that have access to the internet or how they put it was internet penetration. I was surprised to see North America on top with almost 90%, but even that still means 10% of the population lacks the opportunities that are given to 90%. That 10% needs to obtain access if they ever want to be able to catch up.

The goal of digital equity appears to be in the distant future based on where we are now worldwide. That does not mean we should not take the right steps and actions towards making it a possibility. Only 50% of the world population has access to the internet, but some steps to bring that number up is free internet access in public places. Minneapolis has taken steps to solving these problems, by giving free public hotspots in areas of the city. These are the type of steps in the right direction cities need to make, because if people have devices but no access to the internet, they still lack the opportunities, but free access to hotspots changes that. Obviously it does not solve the problem, because not everyone has devices to access the internet, but I think the first step in solving the problem is to increase public WiFi. There is no point in giving out devices to people if they cannot access the internet first. That is why Minneapolis took the right steps to bring the city closer to digital equity.