On Chicago’s south side, hundreds of students gathered for a special announcement before they headed off to their first year of college.
“Today, AT&T is giving each one of you a free laptop computer,” said Eileen Mitchell, AT&T Midwest States President.
The reaction – a roar from students and family members — made her follow up question rhetorical: “What do you think of that?”
For its “Chicago Connectivity Week,” AT&T provided 1,000 refurbished laptops and backpacks to Chicago-area students and families as they prepare to go back to school.
On the city’s south side, many of the 200 students participating in the Chicago Housing Authority’s “Springboard to Success” initiative already had big plans for how they planned to use the laptop computers they were just handed.
Homework. Research. A personal memoir. College applications. Fun and games.
“It was magical,” an organizer called the announcement.
“Connecting changes everything,” Mitchell said, “and during this Chicago Connectivity Week, we’re grateful to work with Compudopt and these outstanding community organizations to provide students with connectivity that will lead to opportunities.”
Because millions of people in the country remain unconnected to the internet, AT&T is helping bridge this digital divide by providing free laptops, backpacks assembled by AT&T employee volunteers, and a digital literacy training session for students and families at distribution events in Chicago. It’s all part of the AT&T Connected Learning® initiative.
AT&T worked with nine community organizations that identified students and families in need of their own computer, including:
- BUILD, Inc.
- New Life Centers of Chicagoland
- Marillac St. Vincent Family Services
- Springboard to Success (Chicago Housing Authority)
- Friends of the Children – Chicago
- Bethel Family Resource Center
- Chicago Heights Alumni Association
- Youth Crossroads (Berwyn)
- Governor’s State University
These distribution events are part of a broader AT&T employee effort to help bridge the digital divide and equip 20,000 students across the country with laptops and backpacks before they head back to school in 2024. In addition to supplies like notebooks, pencils and headphones, the backpacks included cards of encouragement written by AT&T employees.
AT&T announced in April 2024 that it is committing an additional $3 billion by 2030 to help close the digital divide across the country, bringing the company’s total commitment to $5 billion since 2021. This cumulative commitment includes an ambitious goal to help 25 million people get and stay connected to affordable, high-speed internet access throughout this decade.
Providing free laptops to families is just one way AT&T is working to bridge the digital divide in Illinois. AT&T has:
- Invested more than $4.7 billion in our network infrastructure in Illinois from 2019–2023.
- Opened two AT&T Connected Learning Centers in Chicago, providing students, seniors, and families with free access to highspeed Internet, Wi-Fi, computers and technical resources.
- Distributed 3,800 computers to students and their families across Illinois since 2022.
- Supported more than 170 digital literacy workshops to help parents and families build skills and confidence using technology.
