San Diego’s Push to Tackle Digital Divide

About the city. The city of San Diego is developing its plans to bridge the digital divide with donated end-of-life computers.

Goal

The aim of the project is to help bridge the digital divide for thousands of San Diego residents while avoiding potential future costs related to recycling the technology.

Implementation period. The project started in 2020.

Fact

• The coronavirus pandemic has further exacerbated the challenging digital divide in the United States, with millions of people forced to work, study, and receive medical advice remotely — often via a poor or non-existent Internet connection. While this partnership doesn’t specifically address the lack of connectivity it does address the lack of devices across the city.

• According to the U.S. Census Bureau, between  2013-2017, there were 7.3% of households without a computer, totalling 242,759 households in San Diego County.

Solutions

The City of San Diego has partnered with the non-profit San Diego Futures Foundation to upgrade and distribute the city’s end-of-life computers.

In July 2020, the City Council Economic Development and Intergovernmental Relations Committee unanimously approved a partnership to start helping some of the nearly 30,000 local households that do not have computers.

If approved by the City Council, the partnership will allow the San Diego Futures Foundation to receive, repair, and distribute approximately 800 computers that the city considers obsolete for its employees each year. To date, the city has 2,271 desktop computers ready to be repaired and distributed that would otherwise be destroyed.

Through this partnership, the San Diego Futures Foundation will provide training to help computer recipients get started quickly and provide them with resources to find affordable Internet services.

While this new partnership may ease this technology gap, it may also be more environmentally friendly than relying on traditional recycling services.

Challenges

The city currently uses a contract vendor to recycle or destroy outdated computer equipment, such as desktops and monitors. Changes in the global recycling industry may put this free service at risk in the future. The current contract for these services has expired and will wind down within two years.

Team

The City of San Diego, San Diego Futures Foundation.

Timeline

The project will help nearly 30,000 local households in need.

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