State’s education Innovation Challenge internet contest ‘a bust’

The state Department of Education’s Digital Divide Innovation Challenge, a $1 million contest announced during the pandemic to deliver high-speed internet access to all Californians, has not resulted in any winners or significant inroads in solving a long-standing problem, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The contest, launched in 2020, was intended to spur innovation that could provide broadband to the 20% of California’s student population who lack high-speed internet access at home. Several private tech companies, as well as the Tulare Office of Education, spent money and time on their contest entries.

But two years later, the state has yet to award a winner.

“We see that it was too big of a lift,” Mary Nicely, chief deputy to state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, told the Chronicle. “We were pretty much trying to figure out anything” to provide internet access during the pandemic.

One company, Bay Area-based Dalet Access Labs, spent more than $700,000 on its contest entry.

The Innovation Challenge is now slated to become a $2 million grant program, the state said, although the timeline is unclear.