Over the past 10 years, a remarkable institution in California has been fueling sustained progress in closing the digital divide, bringing many thousands of low-income households the benefits of broadband internet services.

Now, with its original source of funding at an end, the California Emerging Technology Fund is working to find new partners to bring an added 500,000 households online in the next five years.

That is a number that would look huge in most every other state, and even in populous California it represents a big challenge. But CETF and the state government have set a goal of wiring 90 percent of the state’s households by 2023. Today, connections are in place for between 84 percent and 87 percent, though close to a fifth are connected only through smartphones. Each percentage point in the huge states represents 130,000 homes.

Bringing internet access to struggling urban and suburban neighborhoods plus isolated rural areas is seen as a prerequisite to giving residents there a better chance to improve their lives. In particular, school children need these services to stay connected with the world, to complete homework assignments and to gain skills needed to advance in the fast-changing modern world. So federal, state and local governments and philanthropic institutions have been working to address the divide for well more than a decade.

Read the full article about the innovative tech fund bringing internet access to low-income communities at Route Fifty.