City Startup Labs is the recent recipient of a Digital Champions Grant from the North Carolina’s Department of Information Technology’s (NCDIT) Division of Broadband and Digital Equity. As one of 63 community service, nonprofit, higher education and regional organizations across the state, CSL was awarded $400,000 to launch a social enterprise to address a specific digital divide pain-point — device repair.
Consider this, when you need to get your phone, laptop or computer fixed (and it’s bound to happen), who do you call, and where do you go for tech support and servicing? If you’re an Apple user, you’ll probably take a trip to an Apple store or authorized service center. If you own anything else, you can likely count on making multiple trips to different tech support providers, like a Geek Squad or UBreakIFix. You get the point — whichever the product, the experience can often be frustrating, lengthy, expensive, inconvenient or all of the above.
Now imagine that you live in one of the City of Charlotte’s Corridors of Opportunity, communities that have experienced under-investment, economic dislocation, and neglect, as identified in the Raj Chetty study that brought about the City’s Leading on Opportunity initiative. Chances are you’ll be lucky to find reliable, dependable, affordable and convenient device repair and tech support. Enter – the City Startup Labs’ ReConnex project.
You see, the digital divide isn’t only about providing high-speed broadband services or device access, where it currently doesn’t exist, but it can also be about making sure that our neighbors and businesses have somewhere to turn to when their stuff needs fixing.
City Startup Labs plans to use the NCDIT award to launch ReEntry Connections or ReConnex as a social venture that meets the people’s needs in a hyper-local fashion. By the way, digital device repair is absolutely necessary as a direct way of managing the growing global e-waste problem. As the saying goes, “think global, act local.”
CSL will be partnering with iFixAmerica, an Omaha-based device repair company and industry-recognized certified trainer to bring ReConnex to market in early 2025. ReConnex will be the first social venture hatched out of the Labs of City Startup Labs, which will serve as a way for aspiring entrepreneurs to build new scalable tech-centric or enabled businesses in a less risky manner.
Our experience with budding formerly incarcerated entrepreneurs, through the ReEntry Entrepreneurship Program (REEP), is that the standard hurdles for most startups are compounded by the challenges faced by justice-impacted individuals. While the REEP incubator remains a vital way for developing entrepreneurial talent and capacity, as an organization, we want to play a more direct role in business building along with highly motivated entrepreneurs. We can equip them with the resources needed to build and manage social enterprises that address specific market opportunities.
Additionally, as an organization, we’re committed to addressing the challenge of socio-economic mobility experienced within the communities sighted by Chetty – communities that certainly can make use the ingenuity of the returning citizens we train and deploy. One unique way to tackle this challenge is by organizing our social enterprises as worker cooperatives. We believe that democratically run ventures will allow for the owner/operators all share in the fruits of their labors, while also accruing benefits to CSL as well.
Needless to say, we’re very excited by the Digital Champions award and appreciative of NCDIT’s acknowledgement of the need for a ReConnex in helping to close the digital divide.
Join me for the 10th Anniversary Breakfast Celebration
City Startup Labs is now 10 years old (hard to believe) and I want you to mark this milestone with us. Our 10th Anniversary Breakfast Celebration, set for October 10th at the beautiful Beau Monde’s Collector’s Room, will bring together community leaders, entrepreneurs, members of the CSL family and our supporters. This event will include great conversation, new connections, stories of inspiration, transitions and triumph, and an overview of our good works while we break bread together.
Thank you for being a part of our journey over the past 10 years.
We look forward to sharing more updates and successes with you in the coming months.
With gratitude,
