One Boston broadband project is considering how to be sustainable...
One Boston broadband project is considering how to be sustainable beyond its federal stimulus grant cycle. Scores of broadband stimulus grantees will run out of grant money in the next year, raising sustainability questions. OpenAirBoston is intended to close the…
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digital divide in Boston, Chairman Deb Socia said on a Gigabit Nation podcast Monday (http://xrl.us/bnx5xb). NTIA gave the Boston project, which encompasses three programs known as Technology Goes Home, Connected Living and Online Learning Readiness, $4.3 million in 2010 as part of its Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (http://xrl.us/bnx5wc). The grantee works at providing hardware, training and assistance to underserved residents, Socia said. “We've really thought about [sustainability] on a wide range of issues.” She said she was referring to the “large” amount of annual funding required. “A more affluent district could actually sponsor the work that we do,” she said, an idea OpenAirBoston hasn’t “pulled off well” so far. She described working together with other BTOP grantees and stakeholders, such as Boston’s public computing centers and libraries, to write joint grants and find ways to generate revenue. OpenAirBoston is a cause on donation site LevelUp, partnered with an annual bike ride and reached out to universities’ business programs for assistance in developing a sustainable plan, she said. The key is diversifying how its programs operate, she said. Given the weaker economy, people aren’t “giving money quite so generously,” Socia said. There’s a challenge in explaining “the broader sense” of the broadband adoption work, she said. She described how to build a brand around the Boston programs and foster the success and trust necessary for this work as well as the importance of measuring the data. It’s important to be a “risk-taker,” she said. “I do wish we would come up with a system by which we had something to sell,” she said. “To be fully sustainable, you just need something as a service that brings back income.” But the work is also “not a money-making proposition,” she said.