City Startup Labs has received $400,000 in grant funding to bring to life a new initiative created to help eliminate Charlotte's digital divide.
The venture, dubbed ReConnex, is an expansion of the Charlotte-based business accelerator and Black millennial founder incubator's flagship ReEntry Entrepreneurship program, or REEP. The REEP initiative, launched in 2019, aims to give formerly incarcerated citizens the tools they need to earn a living wage through innovation and entrepreneurship.
The ReConnex concept has two purposes. It will operate as a retail digital device repair business that CSL will run as a workers collaborative from a physical location in one of Charlotte’s Corridors of Opportunity. Those corridors are six specified areas with historical underinvestment and lack of access to capital.
CSL expects to open the first location in the first quarter of next year, with plans to eventually expand to the other five corridors.
The other goal of ReConnex is to provide under-resourced communities with access to hyperlocal tech support. That service is in partnership with Omaha-based iFixAmerica, a mobile device repair training program that will provide expertise, training and technical assistance. Participants of ReConnex will learn how to provide tech support and customer service for electronic devices and products, while learning how to run a jointly-owned social venture, the organization said.
Henry Rock, CSL's founder and executive director, told CBJ the idea of ReConnex sparked after the organization designed and deployed the MeckTech computer distribution project in 2020. That initiative is now managed by the Charlotte-based Center for Digital Equity.
"Our ReEntry Entrepreneurship Program (REEP) shifted more toward workforce development during the pandemic, and we had our participants get credentialed with the Google IT Pro Support certification," he said. "That shift prompted us to think about how our REEP participants could deliver tech support to people and businesses experiencing the digital divide, which was exacerbated by the pandemic."
CSL said ReConnex will address reentry, entrepreneurship, socioeconomic mobility and digital equity.
Rock said he hopes the new initiative will meet people's needs within areas that have been continuously underserved in terms of digital and tech support.
"Providing reliable, dependable and affordable digital device repair services that are proximate to where people live and work will always be a need in a digital age," Rock said. "If you have a device, chances are it will need servicing at some point."
The accelerator was among 63 North Carolina entities to receive grant funding through a Digital Champion grant program by the state's Department of Information Technology Office of Digital Equity and Literacy. The Digital Champion grant program awarded more than $30 million to organizations working to grow digital equity across North Carolina.
Several other Charlotte-area organizations received a slice of the funding. That includes $1.5 million to E2D Inc., $1 million to the Center for Digital Equity and $300,000 to the Catawba County Library System.
Rock established CSL in 2014 to share valuable education tools and resources with aspiring Black entrepreneurs. In February, the organization moved its office from UNC Charlotte's main campus in northeast Charlotte to Central Piedmont Community College's Central Campus.
