Bring it Home Initiative Offering Free Technology Packages

We now live in a digital age. We can use the Internet to track and grow our wealth; further our education and position in the job market; and manage and improve our health. The paradox of the digital age is that while technology expands opportunities for significant numbers of people, it can also divide us further by highlighting the disparities between the haves and the have-nots – those with engaged and meaningful access and those without. When low-income people lack access to technology, they become further isolated from the social and economic mainstream.

One Economy is a national nonprofit organization created to be a catalyst for innovation and change. We help bring access to technology into the homes of low-income people around the country. We use that technology to connect low-income people to information and tools they can use to build assets and improve their lives.

Today, the self-interests of consumers, government, nonprofits, schools and businesses converge around issues such as expanded markets, quality workforce, education and investment. All of these entities have an interest in reaching the consumer. Technology offers the potential to provide cost-effective and scalable means to achieve this goal. With technology, low-income people need not be an ignored market any longer.

One Economy has created an opportunity for nonprofit organizations to deliver information and services; for governments to communicate with constituents; for businesses to reach new markets efficiently and for low-income people to move beyond being passive recipients of services to being better-informed consumers and producers.

The strategy is to help low-income people use technology to build assets and join the economic mainstream focuses around three key areas: access, content and demonstrations of what works in sites we call “Digital Communities.”

Over the next three years, One Economy, through AT&T’s new signature program, AT&TAccessAll, will provide technology packages to 50,000 low-moderate income households, including Habitat for Humanity families. The AT&TAccessAll signature program includes hardware, software and Internet access, as well as relevant online content. With the assistance of the AT&T Pioneers, AT&T’s volunteer organization of employees and retirees, families will receive in-home installation of their technology package and training.

In addition, these families will connect to The Beehive, www.beehive.org, One Economy’s bilingual consumer web site which has been used by over eight million people to date. The Beehive covers topics including; health, education, jobs, family and finance.

The initiative will be accompanied by a three year longitudinal evaluation on the impact of technology on the lives of the families we connect. This program will have significant impact on the educational and economic status of the participating families and they will receive interim reports throughout the life of the program.

One Economy invites people to identify potential organizations and partners who would benefit from this initiative. The only guidelines are that we install the technology package into the homes of low-moderate income people and that they live in a local service area of AT&T (formerly SBC). We look forward to connecting these 50,000 households to the new digital economy.

One Economy Corporation will enable affordable technology solutions, including Internet access, to 50,000 low-moderate income, single-family and multifamily homes using the following two-pronged approach:

One Economy corporation will work with local Habitat for Humanity affiliates to equip up to 15,000 households with an AT&T foundation subsidized technology package which includes a computer, printer, desktop software, and Internet access. Families in all 589 Habitat for Humanity affiliates in the AT&T service territory will be eligible for the program.

If you are interested in learning more about the program and to see if your organization qualifies, please email your inquiry to accessall@one-economy.com.