During the coronavirus pandemic, we have had our feelings assaulted by its negative impact, which has affected everything from our health and the economy to education and leisure.

Yesterday, Jan. 6, National Technology Day, is a worthy moment to consider the impact and importance of technology on how we live. Whether it’s the wheel or the smartphone, we feel its impact every day. For most of us in recent years, the internet has produced an inevitable leveling of access for the first time to worldwide information.

And access is the crucial ingredient to this information. Our reality demonstrates that many of our citizens, especially in low-income and rural areas, have inadequate or no broadband access.

"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home -- so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world….Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world."
Eleanor Roosevelt