About the Nashville Digital Inclusion Needs Assessment
The Nashville Digital Inclusion Needs Assessment is one result of strategies set forth in Connected Nashville, Metro's multi-year smart city plan, published in 2016.
With its first execution during the spring and summer of 2021, the Nashville Digital Needs Assessment is a countywide resident survey to better understand the needs and resources available in different communities across Davidson County, and to determine which needs are not being met because of the digital divide. The study addresses seven major facets of digital inclusion: awareness, access, adoption, ability, accessibility, affordability, and application.
The study is conducted through a partnership between the Digital Inclusion and Access Taskforce, organized and led by Dr. Fallon Wilson (#BlackTechFutures Research Institute) and Dr. Samantha Perez (Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce), The Equity Group Community and Public Relations Firm, and Vanderbilt Peabody College. The first iteration of the study was generously funded by Frist Foundation, Google Fiber and Nashville Public Education Foundation. The work of the taskforce is guided by an advisory group made up of local leaders from various sectors.
- Pearl Amanfu, Metro ITS
- Jurnell Cockhren, Civic Hacker
- Katie Cour, Nashville Public Education Foundation
- Alex Curtis, Greater Nashville Technology Council
- Keith Durbin, Metro ITS
- Kaki Friskics-Warren, The Maddox Fund
- Melissa Jaggers, Alignment Nashville
- Dr. Hasina Mohyuddin, Peabody College
- Tom Ward, Metro Nashville Public Schools
Impetus for the 2021 Study
In 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Metro Government and local agencies came together to develop solutions for remote learning to support Metro Nashville Public School (MNPS) students. Utilizing funds received through the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) act, Metro Government was successful in distributing laptop devices and hotspots to school students to address the emergency requirement of online learning. Yet, there remained a need for the community to come together to support MNPS families, and our city as a whole, in equitably addressing other areas of need to support sustained success in a remote world.
Dr. Wilson and Dr. Perez were both familiar with and involved in work to build equity and inclusion in digital spaces. Each of them found themselves on multiples committees focused on addressing the immediate and expanding local needs around digital inclusion.
Through a series of conversations and engagement, together they assembled an advisory group of local leaders from multiple sectors to discuss ways to provide the kind of surrounding support that, in addition to devices and immediate connectivity, ensures long-term digital equity: technical skills and digital literacy education, culturally competent trainers, culturally relevant resources, available, reliable and affordable broadband, and effective public communication to build awareness of the types of resources available.
As a starting place, the group sought out the single most important element to successful planning: Information. To make recommendations to successfully address the specific needs of Nashville and Davidson County, the group engaged researchers at Vanderbilt Peabody College to develop a countywide digital needs assessment in the form of a survey distributed by mail, telephone, email and live field team, translated into Spanish, Somali, Burmese, Kurdish-Behdini, Arabic and Vietnamese in addition to English. The survey was executed from April to June of 2021, with results published on Nashville.gov and Nashville Open Data on July 1, 2021.
View the survey response data on the Nashville Open Data Portal
Davidson County Digital Inclusion Needs Assessment Executive Summary, June 2021