Digital Equity Advocates Rally to Restore Funds, Sustain Their Work
In The News Piece in Tech Policy Press
July 24, 2025
Jessica Dine, policy analyst at New America’s Open Technology Institute (OTI) and Wireless Future, is quoted in a Tech Policy Press article about how the Trump administration’s abrupt cancellation of competitive grant awards under the Digital Equity Act (DEA) undermines a wide range of U.S. investments in technological innovation, including artificial intelligence (AI).
“You can’t get ready for AI if you are not even online,” said Jessica Dine, a policy analyst at New America’s Open Technology Institute and Wireless Future Project. Dine has called for the development of a national “digital skills” framework, and wrote about Trump’s cancellation of DEA on Tech Policy Press in May. “The US does not have any coherent national digital skills strategy. We can’t become competitive in a world where people are not ready for AI, and not connected.”
Related Resources
State and Community Adoption Initiatives: Maximizing Federal Broadband Investments (OTI, February 2025): An online panel event organized by OTI, in partnership with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) and the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA), exploring the pivotal role that the competitive grant awards under the DEA were set to play in modernizing the United States, maximizing federal broadband investments, and achieving universal connectivity.
Why Broadband Adoption Matters and the Programs That Make It Happen (OTI, July 2025): A new article recapping the online panel event that OTI held in February 2025 alongside ITIF and NDIA.