Broadband Access Levels Education Playing Fieldīack in 2012, we decided that it was time to make a difference in the world. Take us back if you will to the formative years of Education SuperHighway.

After a quarter-century spent as a serial entrepreneur in the telecom, software, and hedge fund industries, Evan decided that the second act of his career would be about giving back.Įvan has been honored with a World-Changing Ideas Award, named as one of the Top 30 Technologists, Transformers & Trailblazers, and received the 2015 Visionary of the Year honor by the San Francisco Chronicle. Our guest today is the Founder and CEO of EducationSuperHighway, Evan Marwell. So the EducationSuperHighway team embarked on a new initiative, K-12 Bridge to Broadband, to help connect students to broadband for remote learning. Instead, the pandemic revealed another related challenge – that of America’s homework gap where upwards of 10 million students don’t have broadband access at home. Having completed its mission, the project was slated to sunset in the fall of 2020.

EducationSuperHighway has also had support from America’s leading CEOs and governors of all 50 States.ĭue to the efforts of EducationSuperHighway, more than 99% of America’s schools now have high-speed broadband connections capable of providing enough bandwidth to enable their students and teachers to use technology in the classroom. EducationSuperHighway was founded in 2012 with the mission of upgrading internet access in every public-school classroom in America, funded by national philanthropic organizations, including the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, the Chan Zuckerberg initiative, and the Salesforce Foundation.

Long before the global pandemic of 2020 shined a white, hot spotlight on the need for access to digital learning by students nationwide, an organization based in the Bay Area of San Francisco has been hard at work making high-speed broadband a reality in schools across the country.

Listen to the entire discussion here on The Broadband Bunch. The following transcript has been edited for length and readability.

The homework gap