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The Divide: How Project Nandi is addressing Internet inequity in the Twin Cities
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On this episode, we hear from community leader Ini Augustine, founder of Project Nandi: a program that provides devices, technical support and broadband assistance to local families in Minnesota's Twin Cities. Project Nandi was launched in 2020 following the onset of COVID-19 to help prevent Black, Indigenous, Latinx and Asian students from being left behind by remote learning.
We recorded our conversation shortly before the first anniversary of the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, and shortly after another Black man, Daunte Wright, was fatally shot by police during a traffic stop in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota.
She and I discuss how her community's digital divide was worsened by the coinciding crises of the pandemic and police violence, why solutions like Project Nandi to address broadband inequity are necessary (though extremely hard to get funded), her plans to start a community fiber project and her message to legislators working on broadband bills in Washington, DC.
Donations to support Project Nandi are being accepted here: https://www.givemn.org/organization/Project-Nandi
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