Digital Stewards Program
Training
The Digital Stewards Program, developed by the Detroit Community Technology Project, trains neighborhood leaders in the technical and community organizing skills necessary to design, build, and maintain community wireless networks. Graduates of the program will be eligible to apply for employment in the build-out of and adoption of wireless networks in their neighborhoods.
The goals of this training are to:
- Provide Internet connectivity to 150 households in underserved neighborhoods at speeds of 25 megabits per second through the redistribution of three Gigabit connections.
- Train 45 residents of these neighborhoods in the digital stewards curriculum and support 15 residents to organize network build-out and adoption campaigns to bring their communities online.
- Support the resiliency of these neighborhoods by generating preparedness plans that untilize community wireless networks in the case of an emergency to support the resiliency of these Detroit neighborhoods.
Apprenticeship
A team of five Digital Steward Apprentices in each neighborhood participating in the Equitable Internet Initiative will work 20 hours per week from July 17 - December 16th to complete their classes’ community wireless plans, organize neighborhood advisory boards, and coordinate community events that support in bringing their neighborhood online once the network is built.
As a team, the Digital Stewards Apprentices will be responsible for the following activities to ensure their networks are community centered and high functioning:
- Design and organize a community meeting to recruit 50 homes to receive internet
- Work with your digital stewards team to design, build and organize a wireless networks that provide internet with speeds of 25mbps to 50 homes with low or no previous internet connections
- Work with a neighborhood advisory board to develop a network sustainability plan, identify community need, develop a set of digital security and privacy practices, and organize activities that will support neighbors in using the network
- Develop workshops that Build digital capacity of the 50 residents so they utilize their new found internet connection
- Configure routers and assemble tools needed for installations
- Install and manage a local server that can be accessed by all 50 homes to share resources and access local applications