Corporate giants lock arms with nonprofits to connect Dallas’ disconnected

Good things happen when good minds come together to tackle bad problems.

AT&T and Texas Instruments volunteers recently distributed laptops and hotspots at Jubilee Park and Community Center to students and youth in southern Dallas.

The event was part of a small, but mighty coalition of the Fortune 500 corporations, two private foundations and the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas that’s targeting particularly technology vulnerable neighborhoods. They call their initiative Digital Bridges.

The 2,854 devices given out to students in kindergarten through 12th grade and young adults aged 18 to 24 has provided equipment and high-speed internet to an estimated 8,600 people in some of the least connected households in all of Dallas.

Commit Dallas estimates that roughly 87,500 households or 218,000 people in Dallas lack broadband service, with the highest concentration of those in southern sector ZIP codes.

“Internet access is now an expected utility, similar to water and electricity, allowing us to engage in the most basic of life’s daily necessities,” said Andy Smith, executive director of the TI Foundation and a key player in the Digital Bridges initiative.

“But even in Dallas County, one of the wealthiest in Texas, head south of interstates 20 and 30 and connectivity either slows down or drops off,” Smith said. “And, if broadband service does exist, it’s unaffordable for many.”

Last year, AT&T gave United Way a $1 million grant to partner with Computdot Dallas, which takes in and refurbishes donated laptops, loads them with software and gives them to under-resourced youth and their families.

Since then, AT&T’s foundation, the foundation of TI chairman Richard Templeton and his wife Mary, TI’s Foundation and the late TI founder Eugene McDermott’s foundation have kicked in another combined $4 million in the effort.

United Way CEO Jennifer Sampson points to two southern Dallas County examples of extreme need. South Oak Cliff’s 75216 ZIP code has an estimated 7,000 households with children but no internet. Nearly half of the children who live there also are living in poverty. Pleasant Grove’s 75217 ZIP code has 13,000 households with kids but no internet and a children poverty rate of 40%.

“We focus on areas where we see the greatest need and consider a variety of factors including, income, educational attainment and more,” Sampson said. “We’re encouraged that these contributions will help us reach more families across Dallas, primarily in the southern sector that will now be able to participate in the digital world and we’re inspired by how that access will change their lives.”

» Read more about the issue: Dallas’ digital haves and have nots

Charlene Lake, senior vice president of corporate responsibility at AT&T, said the marquee coalition is making a statement that she hopes others will join.

“By working with the United Way of Metro Dallas, we can scale our impact and bring the tools all individuals and families need to succeed and thrive in today’s world, be it finding a job, completing an education or managing personal finances,” Lake said. “We know we cannot narrow the digital divide alone.”