Everyone needs a connection. 

That’s the newly updated motto of Silicon Harlem, an NYC-based social enterprisey innovating workforce development strategies to create a more digitally inclusive world. “It used to be, ‘Everyone deserves a connection,’” says CEO and founder Clayton Banks, “but we changed it in January. We see the Internet as a basic necessity.”

It’s no surprise the Internet plays an essential role in workforce development. According to The Economist’s Inclusive Internet Index, 68% of those surveyed say they leverage the Internet to develop new skills and 63% say it has improved their career prospects. And while most schools teach basic computer skills like typing, word processing, and online researching, only 10% of K–12 teachers nationally feel comfortable teaching the higher level skills employers are looking for.

COVID-19 has only exacerbated the consequences of this workforce divide, allowing employees who can work remotely to stay relatively sheltered while service industry workers, care professionals, and others find themselves on the front lines or furloughed. Although the divide between positions that lend themselves to telework and their in-person counterparts does not fall exactly along income or racial lines, white Americans have much higher levels of access to remote work than Black or Hispanic Americans do.

Silicon Harlem, a “for-profit social venture that leads with the heart,” aims to close the digital divide in its eponymous neighborhood via training programs, infrastructure projects, and public-private partnerships. We interviewed Clayton Banks about the role of the Internet in workforce development and his hopes for a better connected Harlem.

Can you describe what Silicon Harlem does?

We’re a for-profit LLC but we look at ourselves as a social venture where people come first. There are four key components in our work. First, we prioritize connectivity infrastructure. We’ve built a couple of free, outdoor networks in New York City, because we realized there were digital deserts in Upper Manhattan. 

Second, it’s difficult to get the community to move forward if you don’t provide digital literacy training. Our strategy is: the more digitally literate people are, the more they’ll embrace connectivity and have more opportunities, access, and exposure.

Third, we work very closely with our universities. A lot of people don’t realize that there are 14 colleges in Upper Manhattan alone. 

Finally, we want to make sure the people in our community sees connectivity as an economic driver and not just something interesting coming out of Silicon Valley—these are the tools we all need to move forward in this era.

How does connectivity impact workforce development? What are the outcomes for communities and individuals?

Here in New York, the unemployment rate before COVID-19 was something people were really proud of—it was around 4 or 4.5%. But even at that time, the rate was double in Upper Manhattan, at 8, 9, even 10%. You can pull this thread further when you look at connectivity rates. In downtown NYC, home connectivity is at 90%. Uptown, it’s 60%. They can’t afford it. 

If you don’t have a connection, how do you get a job these days? How can you travel? How can you find educational opportunities? You’re looking at a community of people who’ve never had an Amazon box delivered to their door. They have to walk to the store with a basket and walk back home with that basket. There’s something wrong with that whole picture, and it impacts workforce outcomes.

Connectivity impacts workforce across the board, whether you’re looking for a new job, trying to access education or training programs, or you need digital skills to be competitive in the marketplace. If you don’t have connectivity, you’re excluded.

What are your most impactful workforce development strategies?

Everything we do at Silicon Harlem is about collaboration. We sit at the center of a five-spoke wheel: government, private sector, academia, community stakeholders, and the city itself. We provide the connection between each part of this group: we help the academics speak with the government agencies, and we help the community stakeholders speak with private companies. Silicon Harlem works with each of these groups and helps them collaborate in a way that will create real, measurable outcomes. 

And it’s so important to have the community’s voice present in these decisions. When you leave people’s voices off the table, you can’t serve them. When you can’t serve them, you create a crisis.

Any success stories?

We were the first ones in the country to have an outdoor 5G test bed. We wanted to open it up so companies like IBM and others could see how 5G might impact their technology. But we also built a curriculum for local high schoolers about wireless connectivity so teachers could use the test bed for projects in the classroom. Now you’ve got IBM and high school kids working in the same test bed. It’s unprecedented—it’s never been done before, especially not in Harlem. And now, those kids’ view of the world opens up. Those kids may end up studying STEM; they can see how these skills create pathways. That’s transformative.

What are the greatest challenges to digital inclusion?

The disparities that create digital exclusion go beyond whether you have access to connectivity. When you’re living in a building that’s moldy or leaking, fixing that issue will automatically become your priority over getting connected to the Internet. Lack of access, in addition to access to the devices and the digital skills, is often tied closely with poverty. It’s one piece of a larger puzzle.

It’s a real problem, but it’s a problem we can solve. We have to get rid of the idea that access is a zero-sum game—it’s not. The more people that come to the table as we increase our collective connectivity, the more ideas we have at that table. Everybody benefits. 

What are you most excited about for the future of connectivity? 

Well, I love this question. The future is bright. I like to say that. I really believe that it comes down to education. A teacher of mine in college said, “There’s two things I want you to do: learn how to ask great questions and then learn how to solve them.” That’s the approach we use in our training programs. Every year we’re moving kids towards computer science and STEM education, which puts them in the most robust area of workforce in this country. Some of these kids may not be excited about the program when they start. But we treat people the way they should be treated. They’re smart. They’re capable. We’ve just got to get them the access and infrastructure and let them run.