There is an alarming gulf between people thriving in the digital economy and those shut out of it. That gulf grew wider during the COVID-19 pandemic as tech workers enjoyed the ability to work from home while people in service jobs struggled with layoffs and housing insecurity. Rep. Ro Khanna has watched this crisis unfold in...
Santa Clara County wants to close the digital divide
Santa Clara County policymakers are reaffirming their commitment to give tens of thousands of residents faster, more reliable internet. During Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, county officials promised to issue a draft master plan no later than November for closing the digital divide in the county and expanding broadband internet service to unserved and underserved residents. Supervisors...
UPDATE: San Jose council approves license plate readers to curb crime
San Jose has approved leasing new license plate reading cameras, although questions remain about their deployment. The San Jose City Council agreed Tuesday to spend $250,000 in federal relief funds on license plate reading cameras. The proposal was prompted by several high-profile robberies and thefts at retail stores in the Bay Area. Details about collection,...
Silicon Valley Rep. Ro Khanna’s campaign to pay $16K to FEC
A San Jose congressman’s campaign will pay $16,000 to a federal watchdog for using software that divulged donor history for fundraising purposes. The Federal Elections Commission (FEC) reached a settlement with Rep. Ro Khanna‘s campaign to pay for using information from the commission’s database to send people emails during his 2014 and 2016 runs for...
San Jose high school student raises $15,000 for Chromebooks
One year and 10,000 macarons later, an idea Shrobana Sengupta cooked up in a kitchen turned her into a social entrepreneur. The Presentation High School senior raised $15,000 for 72 Chromebooks through a GoFundMe account for the nonprofit Sunday Friends. The laptops were donated to low-income families helped by the nonprofit. In exchange, donors received...
The Capital of Silicon Valley struggles with email system
Despite complaints and frustration from the mayor about San Jose’s email platform, the city can’t afford to switch its operating system. “That kind of migration and transition would be a huge project for (roughly) 7,000 city employees,” Chief Information Officer Rob Lloyd told San José Spotlight. San José Spotlight last week revealed that Mayor Sam Liccardo...
San Jose, school districts push for digital equity
Students are resuming in-person instruction this school year, but some will be returning with significantly different experiences from their months of virtual learning. Erendia Diaz, who has sons in the Alum Rock Union School District and East Side Union School District, experienced this gap firsthand. When her sons switched to virtual learning last year due...
San Jose business group may have violated rules in CEO hiring
Silicon Valley’s powerful chamber of commerce announced its new CEO a week before its Board of Directors could vote to approve it—an apparent violation of its bylaws. And now some of the group’s top leaders are questioning the hiring process and calling it flawed. The Silicon Valley Organization, plagued by months of scandal over a...
San Jose mayor: Stop blaming tech companies for our problems
San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo says it’s time to stop blaming tech companies for the Bay Area’s problems. In a recent question-and-answer session with Jim Wunderman, president of the Bay Area Council, Liccardo opined that Bay Area companies and workers are leaving because of mistakes made by local policy makers. “(Tech companies) are a little...
State task force questions Silicon Valley tech companies about political ads
As politics and big tech increasingly collide, a new state task force is examining whether more regulation is needed to increase accountability for Silicon Valley companies who run digital political advertising. The Digital Transparency Task Force, a division within California’s Fair Political Practices Commission, recently questioned representatives from Google and Facebook about their political advertising...