TechTank: To Build Back Better, the U.S. Needs a Digital Service Corps

Nicol Turner Lee
Monday, March 22, 2021, 1:45 PM

Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With
Brookings

This podcast is part of a three-part series on the various parts of a Tech New Deal, a proposal to center technology as part of our economic recovery efforts that includes infrastructure, workforce development, local investments in adoption and use, and national service.

In the 1930s, Franklin Delano Roosevelt established the Civilian Conservation Corps to employ millions of young people in restoring the country’s parks, and worked towards economic recovery in rebuilding roads, bridges, dams and other infrastructure. Now, broadband infrastructure are the new roads in our nation, and the services that run along the network are the new fuel for economic and social opportunities.

How do we establish programs that improve upon the tech pipeline, while at the same time, ensuring that we have enough workers to nourish and grow our burgeoning broadband networks and services?

Further, how do we ensure that everyone has an opportunity to participate to make national service an overarching bridge builder as we make our way out of this pandemic and the more prominent racial divides that we are currently experiencing?

In this episode of TechTank, Nicol Turner Lee speaks with Amanda Renteria, president and CEO of Code for America, and Nick Sinai, venture capitalist and former deputy chief technology officer under President Obama, about a digital service corps.


Dr. Nicol Turner Lee is a senior fellow in Governance Studies, the director of the Center for Technology Innovation, and serves as Co-Editor-In-Chief of TechTank. Dr. Turner Lee researches public policy designed to enable equitable access to technology across the U.S. and to harness its power to create change in communities across the world. Her work also explores global and domestic broadband deployment and internet governance issues. She is an expert on the intersection of race, wealth, and technology within the context of civic engagement, criminal justice, and economic development.

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