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A broad plan to improve the use of technology throughout New Mexico could receive upwards of $8 million in federal support after a government agency recently accepted a final draft of that plan.
New Mexico's Office of Broadband Access and Expansion, established through the 2021 Broadband Access and Expansion Act and administratively attached to the state's Department of Information Technology, had its statewide Digital Equity Plan accepted by the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration, or NTIA, in early April.
The Office of Broadband Access and Expansion, or OBAE, crafted the digital equity plan using close to $750,000 provided by the NTIA under its State Digital Equity Planning Grant Program.
NTIA allocated New Mexico $8.6 million under its accepted digital equity plan. But that money hasn't been distributed yet, said Drew Lovelace, OBAE's acting director.
He said a programmatic change to NTIA's digital equity program means the office must complete a separate application to access those federal dollars through the NTIA's Digital Equity Capacity Grant Program. The office has until May 29 to finalize that follow-up application.
NTIA expects to begin issuing grant awards to state applicants no later than August 28, 2024. Once the $8.6 million comes through, Lovelace said, OBAE plans to open a notice of funding opportunity for different types of organizations like nonprofits and local governments to apply for a share of the federal grant dollars.
Those dollars would be used for "non-infrastructure" digital equity projects, Neala Krueger, OBAE's digital equity coordinator, said. That includes digital literacy programs, such as education surrounding common technology platforms like Zoom, outreach to rural and remote populations in New Mexico and improving access to tech devices.
OBAE recently launched a survey asking groups throughout the state working on digital equity efforts what types of programs might need more funding. Survey responses are due by May 3.
"I think it's going to be really helpful to touch base with a lot of the community that's already doing this work," Lovelace, OBAE's acting director, said.
Feedback will inform what OBAE includes in its Digital Equity Capacity Grant Program to access the $8.6 million in federal dollars. It's important for the office to use those federally allocated funds efficiently, Lovelace said, "because, I'll be honest, $8 million is not very much to get a lot of this work done."
While local government agencies and nonprofits are the primary focuses of sub-grant funding because "they tend to work in the space already," he said there could be "phenomenal" opportunities for businesses to partner with those types of entities on various digital equity programs.
For instance, Lovelace said there are a lot of companies that have devices they turn over frequently.
"If they're looking at donating or partnering with a nonprofit to build a program, that would be a phenomenal application. We would look forward to seeing something like that," he said.
Annamia Mourning, OBAE's lead data analyst, pointed to Teeniors, an Albuquerque-based company that hires teens and young adults to coach older generations on technology use, as another business example.
Workforce development and tech-focused curriculums at community colleges are other creative ways to extend technology access to especially more local communities, Krueger, OBAE's digital equity coordinator, added.
Krueger said OBAE can use the $8.6 million allocated to New Mexico over a five-year "performance period." The office can then re-apply for future federal funding allocations in the coming years, each with the same five-year performance period.
New Mexico received $5 million through the NTIA's Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment, or BEAD, Program in late 2022, money focused on research and data collection around broadband availability and digital needs throughout the state. Collecting that sort of "baseline data" is important to make "good policy decisions," Mourning, OBAE's lead data analyst, said.