Gregory Pranzo, Founder and CEO of PranzoTech Solutions, is calling for urgent, community-led action to close the digital divide, a problem he says is being overlooked by both the private and public sectors. "We don't need another press release about broadband expansion plans," says Pranzo. "We need people on the ground showing others how to use the tools we already have. It's local, it's urgent, and it's everyone's job."
In a recent interview, Pranzo shared how his work in Baltimore has revealed the hidden costs of digital exclusion. He points to small business owners unable to access affordable automation tools and families left out of city services due to a lack of basic digital literacy. "When a resident can't apply for a housing program because the form is online, that's not a tech failure—it's a systems failure," he said.
The scale of the problem is documented by several studies. According to the Pew Research Center (2023), 43% of adults in low-income U.S. households do not have home broadband. The Baltimore Civic Tech Survey (2024) found that 35% of households in underserved Baltimore neighborhoods still lack reliable internet access. Furthermore, the National Skills Coalition (2022) reports that more than 30 million Americans lack basic digital skills, such as creating a spreadsheet or sending a professional email.
"These gaps don't just impact individuals," Pranzo adds. "They impact city budgets, workforce pipelines, healthcare systems—everything." The digital divide creates systemic inefficiencies, limiting economic participation and access to essential services, which ultimately strains public resources and hinders regional growth.
While Pranzo's company builds advanced tools like dashboards and smart infrastructure, he stresses that solutions aren't always high-tech. "Sometimes the most important thing you can do is help someone sign up for email or show them how to use a shared document," he said. "That's how change starts." In 2024, he helped launch a citywide digital skills accelerator, training over 300 Baltimore residents in basic tech fluency, many of whom had never used a computer before.
Pranzo also volunteers with Code B'More, a youth organization teaching coding and robotics in underserved neighborhoods. "We can't build smart cities if we leave whole communities digitally invisible," he emphasized. This work underscores that technological advancement must be inclusive to be sustainable and equitable.
Pranzo urges individuals, businesses, and civic groups to take local ownership of digital access and education. He recommends actions like donating working laptops to community organizations, hosting free tech literacy workshops, mentoring neighbors in digital skills, advocating for city budgets that support community technology staff, and designing tools with non-experts in mind. "Innovation isn't about building for the top 1% of users," he says. "It's about making sure the bottom 30% can still participate."
The call to action highlights a shift in addressing digital inequality: moving beyond infrastructure debates to focus on human-centered, grassroots education and support. This approach recognizes that access alone is insufficient without the skills and confidence to use technology effectively, which has broad implications for economic mobility, civic engagement, and social equity in an increasingly digital world.
