Michael Phelps, Kylian Mbappé, and Serena Williams. What do these sports legends have in common? They each captivated the world as teenagers; with Williams winning her first Grand Slam at age 17, Phelps earning his first Olympic gold medal at age 19, and Mbappé, also at 19, becoming the second-youngest player ever to score in a world cup final.
As well as sports, however, young people and teenagers worldwide are out there applying their talents, brains, and zeal to addressing some of the world’s most urgent challenges — from climate change, to inequalities, to hunger and food insecurity, to lack of education access.
One of these determined activists is US highschooler Ayush Agarwal, who moved to the US from India aged three. Now aged 17 and in the 11th grade, Agarwal is the CEO and co-founder of nonprofit ClosingTheDivide (CTD).
Alongside the group of fellow highschoolers that make up the CTD team in the US and in countries around the world, Agarwal works to close what’s known as the “digital divide” — or the unequal access globally to resources like technology, computers, the internet, and digital literacy. In Northern Europe, for example, 98% of the population have access to the internet, whereas in Middle and Eastern Africa, it’s 25% and 26% respectively.
The team does this through both mobilizing the donations of computers to low-income families across the US and globally, as well as providing coding classes for students to increase digital literacy. What’s more, they also aim to cut down environmental pollution by diverting e-waste from landfills, to instead be refurbished for a new lease of life.
CTD exchanging devices with partner TechExchange in June of 2021
Closing the digital divide globally is important, because with access to computers and the internet comes vastly improved access to things like education and health care via remote platforms, employment opportunities, and lots more. The COVID-19 pandemic particularly put the digital divide in the spotlight — with children all around the world facing school closures yet not able to access the resources necessary to continue their education online.
Now, just over a year after it launched in March 2021, CTD has expanded from an aspiring Bay Area nonprofit to an organization reporting a presence in over 29 countries and US states — with over 950 computers donated and 10 computer labs constructed or in construction.
We spoke with Agarwal to find out more about the digital divide, the incredible activism of young people, his work with CTD, and what comes next.
Ayush, what do you do in a sentence?
CTD in a sentence is essentially tackling digital inequity and divide by providing low-income families and schools with devices, internet, and digital literacy access, so that they can succeed in the future, especially in STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] roles.
So what is the digital divide?
The digital divide can be broken down in a few ways. The first is the internet digital divide because no matter how many devices you give out to people, there’s also the issue of them needing the internet and the broadband, the fast broadband, to access the internet on that device.
So that is very key because, along with just providing the device, we have to also provide the internet …….
Source: https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/us-digital-divide-e-waste-computers-internet/