Keeping up with AI Innovation: Reflections from October’s Meeting of KC Coalition for Digital Inclusion

by | Oct 24, 2025 | Innovation Hubs/Tech Districts, Gigabit Ecosystem Building, Digital Skills Training, Digital Inclusion

The October 17, 2025, meeting of the KC Coalition for Digital Inclusion focused on the transformative impact of AI and the urgent need to prevent the creation of an “AI underclass” among vulnerable populations. The session featured four organizations...

Further Reading

When Your Address Determines Your Access

The June meeting of the KC Coalition for Digital Inclusion brought together four voices from the region’s affordable housing and digital equity sectors for a rich conversation on how housing stability and internet access shape each other. Health Forward Foundation’s Adriana Pecina and John Tramel, LISC Greater Kansas City Executive Director Geoff Jolly, Hispanic Economic Development Corporation (HEDC) Executive Director Pedro Zamora, and Phoenix Family Program Manager Jessica Welch joined KC Digital Drive Digital Inclusion Program Manager Leslie Scott to explore what it means to live at the intersection of two of Kansas City’s most persistent inequities.

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How Researchers Address the Digital Divide Through Social Drivers of Health

In recognition of May as “Research Month”, Children’s Mercy Research Institute’s division of Health Services and Outcomes Research organized several “Lunch and Learn” sessions to highlight important topics for their researchers. The final session focused on the challenge of representative studies for improving both for quality and reach. KC Digital Drive worked with the CMRI team to provide further context for the session’s presentation, but also to help them create a version of Digital Drive’s Digital Divide Simulation (DDS) so that the researchers could see first-hand the circumstances which touch many of their patients and even more families beyond.

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A Laptop Means Dignity: Empire Dreams and KC Public Library Close a Device Gap

Not everyone building a business has a laptop. For Empire Dreams entrepreneurs, that gap was a wall. A connection through KC Digital Drive brought them to KC Public Library’s Chromebook lending program. Three weeks later, program participants weren’t pitching on phones anymore. They were building decks, creating marketing plans, and feeling official.

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