This article by Smart Cities Dive highlights local efforts to get more older adults online with the help of federal broadband investments to bridge the digital divide, including OATS’ Senior Planet program. With the onset of the pandemic, Senior Planet developed telephone hotlines and made outbound calls to help seniors get onto Zoom, ultimately reaching thousands of older adults. Senior Planet program leads in Colorado, San Antonio, and Palo Alto discuss how programming helped seniors get familiar with their devices, teaching basic functionalities online, and how tech lectures on topics that addressed questions like: How do I use Netflix? What is a podcast? What is cloud storage? and more.
Image permission granted by Selfhelp Community Services to Smart Cities Dive.