Quickstart Guide for becoming a Digital Equity Advocate in Washington

A blog post by Kim Ilinon

The digital equity work here in Washington is constantly evolving as new challenges and opportunities arise. But there will always be a need for digital equity advocates. If you're curious about becoming an advocate, you may be looking for a place to start. To help you ease into the world of digital equity, we put together a short list of great places to begin your journey as an advocate.

1. Become a digital navigator

Passionate about directly working with your community? Consider becoming a digital navigator, where you can provide hands-on support to those who need it. As a digital navigator, you get to work directly with individuals to help with the following:

• Educate on affordable internet access

• Teach technical skills

• Device acquisition

• Application support

There are a couple of ways you can become a digital navigator. Only got a few hours a month? Find organizations or social service agencies looking for volunteers to help them share available resources with community members. Interested in making it your full-time career? In that case, you may want to look into institutions like libraries, social service agencies, and community-based organizations and find ways to partner with them and become one of their staff members.

2. Join the conversation

When you're ready to dive in and learn more about the digital equity landscape here in Washington, a great place to start is the Digital Equity Forum. This forum focuses on discussing plans and solutions to provide more access and connectivity for those experiencing the digital divide. According to their website, “The Digital Equity Forum is committed to hosting accessible events that promote belonging, justice, and dignity.” Accessibility is attained by providing interpreters, written information in other languages, and other services.

If you're local to King County, you can also find more virtual meetings at the Digital Equity Learning Network. In these meetings, you'll learn about the happenings in the community directly from practitioners and gain perspective on what steps are being taken to meet their goals.

3. Connect with other advocates

Take a look at our advocate profiles page, where you'll find stories from practitioners firsthand about their experiences in the field. These interviews highlight the many highs and lows of digital equity work and the importance of collaboration. Even though the featured advocates come from different backgrounds, they all share the same mission: to make sure all people have the digital resources they need to succeed in any endeavor they're taking on.