Gregory Pranzo, founder and CEO of PranzoTech Solutions, is urging communities to take immediate, local action to bridge the digital divide, arguing that the issue is being neglected by both private industry and government. Pranzo, based in Baltimore, made the call in a recent interview where he highlighted the real-world consequences of digital exclusion for residents and small businesses.
'We don't need another press release about broadband expansion plans,' Pranzo said. '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.'
According to the Baltimore Civic Tech Survey (2024), 35% of households in underserved Baltimore neighborhoods still lack reliable internet access. Nationally, 43% of adults in low-income households do not have home broadband, per Pew Research Center (2023), and more than 30 million Americans lack basic digital skills, according to the National Skills Coalition (2022).
'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,' Pranzo said. He noted that these gaps strain city budgets, workforce pipelines, and healthcare systems.
While his company builds dashboards and automation tools, Pranzo stressed that solutions need not be 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. In 2024, he helped launch a citywide digital skills accelerator that trained 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.
Pranzo recommends that individuals, businesses, and civic groups take local ownership of digital access by donating working laptops or tablets, hosting free tech literacy workshops, mentoring others, and advocating for city budgets that support digital navigators. 'Innovation isn't about building for the top 1% of users,' he said. 'It's about making sure the bottom 30% can still participate.'
