Webinar // Social Distancing, Internet Access and Inequality
Date: Tuesday, June 9, 2020 2:00-3:00pm
Location: This Webcast has ended
Join the conversation on twitter using the hashtag #Broadband4all
Thank you for joining this important conversation. We will be posting a video transcript of the conversation soon. Subscribe to HTTP’s Connected Communities Digital Briefing Series and be the first to hear about upcoming events here.
Description
Join Hispanic Technology & Telecommunications Partnership (HTTP) and the Hispanic Heritage Foundation (HHF) for a conversation on internet access and inequality and its impact on the health and economic wellbeing of Black and Brown communities during the Covid-19 health crisis and beyond.
Background:
For the millions of Americans who have home broadband access the internet is a critical lifeline during this time of crisis as well as becoming the connective tissue sustaining relationships, employment, and commerce. For many members of the Black and Brown community access to a reliable at home broadband connection has become one of the most important factors determining their ability to stay safe by compiling to state issued stay at home orders, recover from the economic displacement of the global health crisis, access important telehealth options, and stay informed.
HTTP and HHF will be joined by MIT researcher Catherine Tucker to discuss the findings of her recent paper “Social Distancing, Internet Access, and Inequality” in which she measures the role of the diffusion of high-speed Internet on an individual's ability to self-isolate during a global pandemic, and suggests that the digital divide---or the fact that income and home Internet access are correlated---appears to explain much of the inequality we observe in people's ability to self-isolate.
Moderator:
Alejandro Roark, Executive Director, HTTP
Panelist:
Antonio Tijerino, CEO, Hispanic Heritage Foundation
Catherine E. Tucker, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Chris Lewis, CEO, Public Knowledge
About HTTP:
The Hispanic Technology and Telecommunications Partnership (HTTP) is the leading national Latino voice on telecommunications and technology policy. HTTP is comprised of 16 of the country’s oldest and largest Latino civil rights organizations. HTTP members share the belief that equitable access to technology and telecommunications is a critical factor in the social, political, and economic wellbeing of Hispanics/Latinos and other historically underserved communities.
About Hispanic Heritage Foundation
Established by the White House in 1987, the Hispanic Heritage Foundation (HHF) is an award-winning nonprofit that identifies, inspires, prepares and positions Latino leaders in the classroom, community and workforce to meet America’s priorities.
HHF promotes cultural pride, accomplishment and the great promise of the community through public awareness campaigns seen by millions. HHF is headquartered in Washington, DC and has offices in Los Angeles, New York, and Miami.
About Catherine E. Tucker
Catherine Tucker is the Sloan Distinguished Professor of Management and a Professor of Marketing at MIT Sloan. She is also Chair of the MIT Sloan PhD Program.
Her research interests lie in how technology allows firms to use digital data and machine learning to improve performance, and in the challenges this poses for regulation. Tucker has particular expertise in online advertising, digital health, social media, and electronic privacy. Her research studies the interface between marketing, the economics of technology, and law.
She is a cofounder of the MIT Cryptoeconomics Lab which studies the applications of blockchain and also a co-organizer of the Economics of Artificial Intelligence initiative sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. She has been a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. She has testified to Congress regarding her work on digital privacy and algorithms, and presented her research to the OECD and the ECJ.