With all the mobile apps and resources available for games, entertainment and media, have you ever thought about the impact that mobile apps could have on your health? Introducing mHealth, the term used to describe the use of your mobile phone for health. The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies released a report entitled “Minorities, Mobile Broadband, and the Management of Chronic Diseases,” which evaluates the vast potential of mobile broadband technologies to help address our nation’s most pressing health concerns.

Currently, chronic diseases disproportionately affect minority communities. These diseases include diabetes, heart disease, cancer, arthritis, and obesity to name a few. The CDC reports that each year 7 out of 10 Americans die from illnesses related to chronic disease. Heart disease, cancer, and stroke account for more than 50% of all deaths in the US. In 2007, $2.2 trillion was spent on healthcare in the US, with $1.7 trillion spent to prevent and treat chronic illnesses. Eventhough chronic diseases affect minority communities disproportionately, many individuals lack the ability to effectively treat and monitor their health due to geographic, financial, cultural and linguistic barriers. Considering these facts, mHealth is our answer to breaking down these barriers.

Read more at Politic365.

Ralph B. Everett, President and CEO of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, released the following statement on Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski’s announcement that he will step down in the coming weeks:

Over the course of his term in office, Chairman Genachowski has worked vigorously and effectively to expand broadband access and adoption in all communities and thereby broaden opportunities for Americans to succeed in the digital economy. In the wake of Joint Center research showing that only 69 percent of African Americans and 59 percent of Hispanics were using the Internet, the Chairman sought to ensure that the National Broadband Plan would address this problem. And since then he has led the way toward ensuring that communities of color will realize the enormous potential that digital communications technologies can mean for health care, education, civic participation and economic empowerment.

Chairman Genachowski fully understands what broadband can do to break down barriers and make America a land of opportunity for all. We appreciate and salute his efforts to make that vision and that promise a reality.

Download the press release by clicking the icon below.

The Federal Communications Commission hereby announces, consistent with the Federal Advisory Committee Act, the members of the re-chartered Federal Advisory Committee on Diversity for Communications in the Digital Age (“Diversity Committee”). See the attached list.

The Diversity Committee is a critical component of the Commission’s diversity agenda. Chairman Genachowski re-chartered the Committee in December 2012 to extend the terms of the current members and to ensure that they have adequate time to continue their important work. The Committee’s expert insight has informed Commission policy on vital issues like capital access, broadband infrastructure and adoption, the importance of data driven action on diversity, nondiscrimination in advertising, and many others.

The Committee’s mission is to advise the Commission regarding policies and practices that will enhance diversity in the telecommunications and related industries. In particular, the Committee focuses on lowering barriers to entry for historically disadvantaged men and women and creating an environment that enables employment of a diverse workforce within the telecommunications and related industries. This Committee will continue to work on (1) unlicensed spectrum opportunities for diverse communities and entrepreneurs; (2) how exemplary EEO practices by telecommunications industry participants can contribute to the FCC’s goal of viewpoint diversity; (3) how exemplary supplier diversity practices by industry participants can contribute to the FCC’s goal of ownership diversity, and (4) reviewing past diversity initiatives that have positively impacted ownership diversity and determining how these initiatives can be incorporated in the Commission’s current diversity agenda.

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Vice President and MTI Director Dr. John Horrigan was selected for this committee.

To read the entire press release, visit the FCC.

Six new members have signed on to the inSPIRE STEM USA Coalition, including Dell Inc. and General Electric Co.

The group, also known as the Supporting Productive Immigration Reform and Education coalition, is urging new immigration and education policies that would result in more workers with expertise in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. InSPIRE STEM is chaired by former Sen. John E. Sununu of New Hampshire and Maria Cardona, a former adviser to the presidential campaign of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

In addition to Dell and GE, the Afterschool Alliance, Code.org, the KISS Institute for Practical Robotics and the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies have joined the fold of 36 members.

“The reason groups representing education, business and advocacy communities have come together is that they recognize America must improve its record in producing students trained in STEM and computer science fields,” coalition Executive Director Beneva Schulte said.

Read more at Roll Call.

The Federal Communications Commission will hold its first Technology Transitions Policy Task Force workshop on Monday, March 18 at the Commission's headquarters in Washington, DC. Established in 2012 to "provide recommendations to empower and protect consumers, promote competition, and ensure network resiliency and reliability," the Task Force will use this workshop to gather data and analysis on telecommunications transitions, including the TDM to IP and copper wire to fiber transitions, and connectivity disparities in a variety of American communities.

MTI's Dr. John Horrigan will moderate a panel on technology usage and adoption at this workshop.

The workshop is free and open to the public. For more information, including registration and livestream information, click the REGISTER button to your right.

A significant percentage of American consumers have no wired broadband connection at home, relying instead on smartphones to connect to the Internet. If the trend continues, it heralds a substantial near-term change in Internet access patterns.

John Horrigan, a vice president at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, says an estimated 7 percent of U.S. consumers already are dependent on smartphones for Internet access.

That number may not sound high, but if the growth at all parallels the shift from landline voice service to cellphones across American households, the access market could be on the cusp of radical change.

A report published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in December found that more than one-third of households were cellphone-only for voice service as of the first half of 2012, the latest period for which data are available.

Read more at SmartPlanet.

The Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law will hold a symposium on Competition and Innovation in the Broadband Age on Friday, March 22, 2013 at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. Technology scholars and entrepreneurs will gather to discuss expansion, competition, and policy in telecommunications, cloud computing, and online search.

MTI Director Dr. John Horrigan will join a panel on "Competition and Innovation in the U.S. Broadband Industry" with Robert Frieden of Penn State University and Gregory L. Rosston of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.

For more information on this symposium, including registration instructions, please click the "REGISTER" button to your right.

The Federal Communications Commission's Federal-State Joint Conference on Advanced Services, with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), held a Summit on February 7, 2013 to identify and discuss best practices learned from broadband adoption programs and academic studies/surveys, and how implementation of these best practices can close the broadband adoption gap among Americans – particularly low-income households, racial and ethnic minorities, seniors, rural residents, residents of Tribal lands and people with disabilities.

Vice President and Media and Technology Institute Director Dr. John Horrigan participated in the first of four panels at this event, entitled What Have We Learned from Academic Studies on How to Close the Broadband Adoption Gap. Dr. Horrigan discussed the four major lessons learned since the release of the National Broadband Plan.

Photos from this event can be found on the FCC Flickr stream.

As a prelude to the February 7, 2013, FCC/NTIA summit, Vice President and Media and Technology Institute Director Dr. John Horrigan has released a statement on broadband adoption knowledge since the release of the National Broadband Plan.

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In September 2009, the FCC’s Broadband Task Force, appointed by Chairman Genachowski and run by Blair Levin, made a lengthy presentation before the Commission to give an interim report on how development of the National Broadband Plan (NBP) was going. You can see all 168 slides here. I was privileged to be part of the FCC’s team that assembled the NBP. To prepare for my participation in the FCC’s February 2013 Broadband Summit, I went back and looked at the 2009 presentation which, at the time, represented the received wisdom about the state of broadband adoption. Below I discuss four lessons learned in light of what we thought we knew in 2009 and what we know today.

To summarize, we learned that:

1. The previous decade’s fast growth rates in broadband adoption was not sustainable into this decade;
2. Barriers to adoption are more complex than we thought;
3. The non-adoption problem is solvable. The research showed that non-adopters aren’t a hopeless group of (mostly old) people who dislike technology. The right kinds of programs can lure people to broadband;
4. Smartphones help close adoption gaps, but have limits as standalone access devices and are mostly used to add to users’ access means, not as a substitute for wireline.

The future challenge is how to sustain progress. To do that, I recommend:

• Developing a “best practice” tool-kit on broadband planning to help states and localities better engage with stakeholders to improve their broadband environment, and;
• Using reform of the Lifeline/Link-Up program to direct a portion of Lifeline funds to state and local planning and program activities to support broadband.

That is, the existing Lifeline model, which essentially is a “carrier to consumer” flow of funds, should be amended so it is a “community to consumer” model. Doing this will require legislative action.

Read the entire statement by clicking the icon below.