Last month I wrote about the digital divide that impacts 3.4 billion people in the world. A common misconception is that since home broadband penetration is relatively high in the US - according to the Pew Research Center, over 82% of households with children have home broadband internet access - that lack of high-speed home connectivity and the benefits that it brings is not a pressing issue in this country.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The US is rife with digital inclusivity issues driven largely by income and geography. Students who do not have home broadband Internet access had "lower assessment scores in reading, mathematics, and science across a range of national and international assessments," according to the International Center for Education Statistics.
This is called the Homework Gap and it affects 12M school aged children nationwide. Children on Native American reservations are particularly hard hit. That is why I believe that it is imperative to bring broadband connectivity to indigenous communities through the determined efforts of organizations like Muraland the Southern California Tribal Chairmen's Association and its Tribal Digital Village.
I am pleased to share their experiences and perspectives regarding this critical work.
Pick up nearly any publication and you'll see at least one story about how Fifth Generation (5G) networks will extend the scope of mobile communication services from interpersonal communication to smart inter-connections between billions of devices - 27 billion by the end of this year, according to Statistica.
Fewer people are discussing the new challenges being posed to underlying cellular network resources by this massive number of interconnected devices and the diversified nature of the services that they support.
Marconi Society friend, Ted Rappaport, was honored with the IEEE Eric E. Sumner Award for his pioneering research contributions to communications technology.
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The Air Cognizer app, created by our India Celestini Program team under the leadership of Aakanksha Chowdhery, was highlighted in this article about Indian innovations.
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Marconi Fellow Arogyaswami Paulraj discusses India's economy and the steps needed to gainfully employ the 1 million youth entering the workforce each month.
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Marconi Fellow Tim Berners-Lee speaks out in support of Stephen Schwartzman's $188M gift to Oxford to form an institute to study the ethics of artificial intelligence. "If A.I. is to benefit humanity we must understand its moral and ethical implications," said Berners-Lee. Read More...
Marconi Society board member and chair of the IEEE's Adhoc Committee on Diversity, Inclusion and Ethics, Andrea Goldsmith, shares the IEEE's plans for creating a more diverse organization. Read More...
Vint Cerf and Network Startup Resource Center (NSRC) Director Steve Huter talk about key challenges in closing the digital divide based on NSRC's experience bringing Internet into more than 100 communities. Read More...
Public key cryptography innovator Whit Diffie shares his thoughts about blockchain and cryptocurrency at Coindesk's Consensus conference. Read More...
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Established in 1974 by the daughter of Guglielmo Marconi, the Nobel Laureate who invented radio, the Marconi Society promotes awareness of key technology and policy issues in telecommunications and the Internet, and recognizes significant individual achievements through the Marconi Prize and Young Scholar Awards. More information may be found at www.marconisociety.org.
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