Our Mission

Communities across the world seek to leverage technology in order to improve local economies, enhance government services and quality of life for their residents.  These communities look to technology as a tool to equalize access to economic opportunity and to enable social mobility. However, technology can also exacerbate economic and social inequalities.

Erik Brynjolfsson, a professor at MIT’s Sloan School claims that  “technology is the main driver of the recent increases in inequality” in the U.S. and other developed countries, because technology replaces the work of less skilled workers and reward the most skilled workers.  A recent Brookings report cites “the spread of digital technology increasingly rewarded the most talent-laden clusters of skills and firms” causing the increasing divergence in between prosperous and economically stagnant regions.  The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) points out that while over one half of the world’s population is online, developing countries lag far behind their developed counterparts in Internet infrastructure, access and usage.   And within developing countries, the ITU notes that a large gender gap between men and women in mobile devices and Internet usage. While the gender skills gap is most pronounced in countries with the highest levels of gender inequality, the ITU surveys find that women lag behind men in standard digital skills, even in developed countries.

Globally, these digital divides reflect historic patterns of inequalities by gender, income, age, education levels, race  and population density (i.e. rural versus urban areas). The economic divide is increasingly a digital divide, and the digital divide is increasingly a skills divide.  And this skills divide further exacerbates the economic divide.

Many communities are rising to this challenge.  Smart Communities are seeking to expand the innovation now include digital inclusion, coding, maker spaces and STEAM education as part of their economic development strategies.  They have targeted training programs, mentorships and internships provide pathways to skilled jobs.

The GCTC Education SuperCluster provides a forum for communities to work together across different sectors to enable an innovation ecosystem that is inclusive, accountable and diverse.   The Education SuperCluster works to increase access to technology and educational resources for all members of the community regardless of socioeconomic status, prepare people for the innovation-based workforce of the 21st Century, and expand the role of education, inclusion and civic engagement in the Smart Communities movement.