Philly’s new “Power Up Tour” is giving away laptops to residents “most in need” in each of the City Council districts. The city will eventually provide 500 devices in total, with about 50 distributed in each of the council districts.
Lack of personal device access is a “huge barrier” in the city right now, said the Office of Innovation and Technology’s Broadband and Digital Inclusion Manager, Juliet Fink-Yates.
“We know access to a computer is invaluable for making sure that [residents] can do their schoolwork or work on their resumes or get jobs,” she said. “I think that if we all only worked on our mobile phones, there’s a lot of things we can’t do with that.”
Fink-Yates emphasized it is difficult to find laptops that cost anything less than several hundred dollars. While she said there are sometimes affordable workarounds to internet services, living without a consistent device at home can be a major blow.
“We hear all the time from our digital navigators that the number one need is actually a computer,” she said. “The price of a computer at the lowest cost is like $200-300 for a new computer. Even a refurbished one is often a real barrier. Folks can’t come up with that amount of money to purchase a computer.”
According to the city’s most recent data, 25% of households in Philadelphia don’t have a functioning laptop or desktop. Fink-Yates said this can create a big disparity for those with and without working technology.
“[Residents] want to be able to leverage technology to do what they want to do,” she said. “I think having the pandemic really showed us that having a computer in your home creates equity across the city. So it enables anybody to be able to do the things they want to do safely in their own home.”
Life without devices/accessibility
For those who may not have reliable internet access or devices, Fink-Yates said there are options. These may include libraries, community centers or nonprofits. But, she emphasized, there is more security with a consistent device, and that a lot of people may resort to using their phones for certain tasks.
“A lot of folks are working on their phones, and they are trying to do things that are really hard to do on their phones,” she said. “Like submitting applications and resumes, which are really hard to format nicely when doing all of that on your phone.”
She adds having a personal computer can aid in providing privacy and comfort for all residents, which is part of the city’s aim with this program.
“They may not want to go to the library or a public space to look up a health condition, right?” she said. “They may want to do that in the privacy of their own home. And having the ability to do that and do that safely, and know how to do that is really critical as part of our digital equity work.”
And while technology is not a “primary” need, like food or shelter, it can really limit someone’s options to provide for their primary needs, said Alex Wermer-Colan, the executive director of Philly Community Wireless.
“Access to digital technology, while maybe a secondary need, is essential to getting those primary needs,” he said. “Without internet access, it can be hard to get healthcare, it can be hard to get a job, it can be hard to connect with others.”
Philly Community Wireless is working to build large-scale wifi networks around the city. Wermer-Colan explained this kind of work, along with the city’s Power Up Tour initiative, can help to make important, positive change for Philadelphians.
“The city’s done a lot of research that has shown the need to help people get over the hurdle of making an expensive purchase for something like a laptop, and that kind of gift or that kind of donation can greatly change someone’s life,” he said.
Jonathan Wilson is the executive director of the Fathership Foundation – a nonprofit that worked with the Power Up event. He explained equity in technology is important as it allows people to have equal opportunities in school, work and other spaces.
“Say a student doesn’t have a computer,” he said. “They may have to rely on public spaces like maybe a recreation or learning center. For that student, it just limits their performance. Say they forgot an assignment, they may have to wait until the center opens or wait until they get to school to complete it. If they’d had a laptop, they could’ve logged into their account and finished whatever they had to do. This gives them the opportunity to keep up with everyone else.”
The Fathership Foundation regularly works with community members to provide education, offer health programs and close the wealth gap. Wilson explained his organization worked to identify those most in need of laptops.
“Our role was identifying those people in need,” he said. “Generally, we did just look back to our database and [who] had participated in our programs and we were familiar with who were really in need. And we were able to pinpoint those who really needed computers.”
A more connected future
Fink-Yates said there are several moving parts that go into providing affordable technology and internet to Philadelphians. She said the Power Up Tour is a good way to get over the initial cost of a computer.
“So we hear all the time that there is a huge need across the city,” she said. “We hear that folks don’t have computers, they’re not working, or they’re old and broken. That’s the other thing. Computers need to be replaced or upgraded every few years, typically, to continue to work. And a lot of folks don’t have the ability to do that or the capacity to do that, and so it’s a persistent issue across the city that folks are in need of computers.”
Beyond this, she said it’s important for Philadelphians to have reliable Internet access in their homes. She said this can create consistency, and is important, especially for bigger families.
“Everybody needs internet access in their home,” she said. “They need high-speed internet access. It has to work reliably for them, and it also has to work reliably for everybody in the family using it at the same time, for many applications.”
And for digital equity groups like Philly Community Wireless, establishing widespread internet connection around the city is important, Wermer-Colan said.
“If you don’t have internet, if you don’t have a home, you should still be able to access the internet,” he said. “It shouldn’t be something restricted by price.”
For the future, he explained the group will continue to install internet infrastructure around the city – particularly in outdoor spaces.
One thing the city can do to continue helping is leveraging its real estate, he said. The city’s access to buildings can uniquely benefit organizations that need permission to enter spaces to install wireless.
“Organizations like ours uniquely benefit from access to that sort of real estate, and the more that communities can leverage public property to share and expand resources available to community, the better,” he said.
Wilson is also hopeful that the city will continue with similar initiatives that serve many people – as there are many more people who could use expanded internet access.
“I think the Power Up Tour is a good initiative, and I hope they’re able to scale it,” he said. “It was a drop in the bucket and we are touching the people in our community. But there are so many more people in need.”
As for the city, Fink-Yates said the Power Up Tour is one of many initiatives that provide people with both internet access and technology.
“We collaborate across the city with different departments,” she said. “So we collaborate with the Free Library, we collaborate with the Parks and Recreation Department, we work closely with the school district. So our team is constantly talking with various departments across the city around this work.”
She explained she hopes the combination of these resources and programs, along with other initiatives like the Power Up Tour, can continue to bridge the gap in internet access across the city.
There are three upcoming Power Up Tour stops, on May 28, June 3 and June 21. For more information about these stops or the tour, you can visit their website.
