Culture
Can You Build a Tech Ecosystem in a City with a Huge Digital Divide?
Access for all was one of the hot topics at The Atlantic's Start-Up City: Miami conference.
It's temping when talking about tech ecoysystems to focus on the early adopters in a city, the tech-savvy young professionals who live their lives online, who know what's coming in gadgets and apps and digital ideas before any of the rest of us do. They're the ones who will launch companies and create markets (and make money). And cities are famously fighting for their attention.
We spend considerably less time talking about the impact of an increasingly technological world on those people who have no access it. And yet, it's hard to imagine any city truly thriving as a tech center when so many of its citizens lack basic access to computers and WiFi.