Why Digital Inclusion Matters in Nashville
Metro Nashville recognizes that reliable internet, digital devices, and the skills to use them are essential for full participation in modern life. Even though broadband is widely available, many residents still face barriers such as affordability challenges, limited digital skills, language differences, accessibility needs, and lack of awareness of available resources. These barriers disproportionately impact students, job seekers, older adults, and families navigating essential services. Digital inclusion ensures that every resident—regardless of income, language, age, or background—can access opportunities in education, employment, health, and civic life.
Key factors:
- Many residents lack devices, digital skills, or language access.
- Growing workforce demand: over 90% of jobs require digital skills.
- Digital exclusion affects health, economic mobility, and academic performance.
What Is Driving Metro’s Digital Inclusion Strategy
As Nashville grows, Metro ITS is aligning its programs with broader community needs, local workforce priorities, and rapidly evolving technologies like artificial intelligence. With increased federal and local funding, the city is focusing on building sustainable partnerships across public agencies, nonprofits, educational institutions, and private-sector organizations. These collaborations strengthen support systems for families, ensure programs are culturally and linguistically accessible, and prepare residents for the digital skills required in today’s economy.
Strategic drivers include:
- Workforce development and regional population growth.
- Language accessibility and equitable service delivery.
- Responsible and transparent use of data and AI.
- Expanding funding opportunities through federal and state programs.
How Metro Will Advance Digital Inclusion Over the Next Three Years
Metro’s roadmap focuses on practical, community-centered actions that expand digital access and skills while strengthening long-term digital equity infrastructure. Efforts include improving multilingual and accessible online services, expanding asset mapping and partnerships, supporting nonprofits and community organizations, and leveraging data visualization and mapping tools to understand needs at neighborhood and hyperlocal levels. The plan also prioritizes sustained investment in digital inclusion programs, development of surveys and research, improved collaboration tools, and ongoing engagement with residents to refine services.
Key goals and actions:
- Expand community partnerships and resource mapping efforts.
- Improve accessibility and language access across Metro services.
- Strengthen digital skills programs, device access, and technical support.
- Use data, mapping technologies, and collaboration tools to understand and respond to community needs.
- Build sustainable funding models for long-term digital equity initiatives.
Secondary Data Sources
Metro Nashville uses a wide range of secondary data to guide the design of digital inclusion programs and inform key decisions about community needs. By analyzing data on broadband access, digital skills gaps, language diversity, health outcomes, and employment trends, Metro is able to identify where barriers persist and which populations are most affected. This evidence-driven approach allows the city to tailor services such as skills training, device access, and multilingual support to ensure they meet residents where they are.
*The Inclusivics dashboard through the Tableau Cloud Service is a great example of how metro is sharing their analyses that uses publicly available data.
