Corporate Partners join NSC and BLU in Closing the Digital Divide

National Skills Coalition (NSC), Business Leaders United (BLU), and corporate partners – including Fortune 500s, Chambers of Commerce, and small businesses – have signed on to a set of principles for closing the digital divide. The principles bring attention to the often-overlooked role of digital skill building in digital inclusion.

New, once-in-a-generation federal investments through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, along with investments and partnerships across the corporate sector, present an opportunity to close the digital skill divide. These principles provide a roadmap for how public and private investments can be deployed to close the digital divide.

1. High quality hardware in all hands - The pandemic laid bare the connection between access to notebooks, laptops, and other connected devices and access to education, training, jobs, healthcare, support services, and social networks.

2. Every community connected - Broadband is a foundational service to which all Americans must have access.

3. A digital skill foundation for all - Nearly 50 million people in the U.S. need to build foundational digital skills to harness the power of the Internet through connected devices. Every person should have the opportunity to develop broad-based, flexible digital problem-solving skills for current technologies and ongoing technological shifts.

4. Upskilling for every worker in every workplace - Technology is impacting nearly every industry and occupation in different ways. We can empower workers with industry- and occupational-specific digital skills to adapt and advance in their careers.

5. Rapid reskilling for rapid re-employment - Each industry has specific technical demands. Overnight the pandemic brought structural shifts to our labor market, reminding us that America’s workers must have access to rapid reskilling to move from one industry to another.