Some problems seem too big to solve—at least alone. Digital Deserts and Artificial Intelligence Enigmas are among those problems in my mind. Thankfully, it is not my mind or yours that has this problem to solve. This problem is a “we” thing.

As I did the research for this article, I realized that many of the difficulties with the digital and AI gaps were already familiar to me. I realized that I have experienced the consequences of this gap. It has been since I enrolled as a late-blooming digital immigrant in the high-tech digital environment of the University of Arkansas that I have been trying to close my own knowledge and access gap. Thankfully, the University had a laptop library where most of the time I could borrow a laptop to perform my assignments.  Thankfully, I was surrounded by young friends who showed me how to create documents, attach and download, and perform the basic functions needed for college survival.

Thank God for those “typing” classes I took in 1978!

I am a baby boomer.  I will be 60 this year.  I grew up without computers or cell phones, and only began my journey across the digital divide about 21 years ago (I was 38) when I enrolled in college as a non-traditional, single parent, baby booming, analog, hard copy lover. I was a freshman thanks to full PELL grants and a voice scholarship. I just didn’t have the money for technology. Even my children did not grow up with access to a computer, or handheld phones unless they were attached to the wall. 

Before that first semester in 2002, I did not even have an email and had no idea how to download or attach documents. That first semester was challenging for multiple reasons, not the least of which was that I could not do the simplest tasks on the computer, nor access the assignments and syllabi that were required for me to find on a strange new thing called “Blackboard.”  I made my lowest grades that semester. The literalness of the word “blackboard” even confused me as I kept trying to figure out why they didn’t just give me a piece of paper and write things on the REAL blackboard that I had grown up with.

Three years later, at age 41, I graduated with my bachelor’s degree and a GPA of 3.89. The way I was able to learn and adapt so quickly had everything to do with the students I met. They are the ones who are crossing the modern digital and AI Edmund Pettus Bridge. They are extending access and the opportunity to rise to people who are economically excluded and those who lack the skills to access technology to participate in solutions.

I’d like to introduce you to my friend, a classmate that year I went back to college.  He, like all the other students, was the age of my oldest children, 18 – 22, at the time.  I met Brandon Watts in the Gospel Choir at the University of Arkansas.  If I am not mistaken, Brandon is one of the students who took time out in one of our practices to teach my ten-year-old son, Sammy, how to step. Sammy went with us everywhere. We toured the United States, sang repertoires of Gospels and Spirituals in Historically Black Churches, and community events, and we even went to China together to perform in Tiananmen Square and the Beijing Concert Hall (their Carnegie).

“The answer is in the room” is a statement I often heard from the Fortune 100 CEO where I worked after graduation. But, I am blessed at my current “mature” age to still maintain contact with Brandon and many of those “Inspirational Singers.” The blessing is often in seeing them as full adults, working in their fields of talent.  As we rode the tour buses together, I got an insider’s glimpse into the lives of Brandon and so many other singer-students. Although I am not a bit surprised, I think that tour bus held many of the answers to our current day problems.  Thinking back on those tours, and remembering my young friends, who referred to me as the “field trip mom.” I’m now thinking, “The answer was on that bus!”

Brandon is now a full-time photographer and videographer, entrepreneur of B Watts Photography. He has also started a non-profit to teach kids the art of photography, Kidz N Cameras (kidzncameras.com). Their mission is to “provide access to high-quality photography education and resources. . . empowering children and teenagers from diverse backgrounds, including those from low-income families, children with autism, kids in the juvenile detention center . . . to tell their own stories and share their perspectives in the world.”

The answer was on that bus. Just as Brandon is creating space and access for the next generation of photographers and digital geniuses, I have also seen the other students I traveled with those years show up in the world with the answers to so many questions for which I have no words or expertise.  They are crossing the bridge, closing the gap, and making a difference for the next generation, especially for the next generation of Black, Brown, and economically challenged children.

Those Inspirational Singer students are all now young adults in their 30s.  While I may be too far behind to make much difference in the tech gap, my husband and I are supporting as many Black and Brown businesses, and non-profits as we can. Would you please check out Brandon’s Non-Profit and consider financially supporting them in this effort to close the gap?

Our answer is here, with us, working among us.  My young friend, Brandon, is but one shining example of how Brown and Black young people are not only crossing the bridges of inequity but lifting the children of today forward with them.  Salute, Brandon Watts!