Reimagining Educational Solutions to Close the “Homework Gap”

As COVID continues to impact the lives of millions of Americans across the United States, parents, educators, and students have had to prepare themselves for an alternate reality, where education at home is no longer for after-school homework.  The kitchen table is The New Classroom.   Parents have been forced to take on the daunting task of homeschooling or supporting their children’s educational distance learning programs while simultaneously working full-time from home.  

Research shows that despite varying factors that could impact a parent’s ability or lack thereof to support learning from home, much of the challenge faced in many American homes is related to a lack of equal access for connectivity and learning platforms.  More than 30% of students across the nation lack the proper connectivity and technological devices to support a successful learn-from-home environment.  This is referred to as the “Digital Divide” or the “Homework Gap.”

 

Tim Dentry, CTO, WIN Connectivity

Enter wireless connectivity solutions provider WIN Connectivity and Chief Technology Officer, Tim Dentry, who is working to reimagine educational solutions that allow K12 and Higher Ed institutions to provide greater access and opportunities for their students to continue to learn and grow outside of the traditional four walls of their schools.

Imagine a private cellular network underpinning a smart community, where dedicated network access and wi-fi service is available to students whether they’re learning from home, on a bus, or sitting safely, socially distanced in the open air of a city park.  Imagine further that this private, secure bandwidth-rich network that stretches for miles rather than meters, can be leveraged by other community partners for the empowerment of children in their local communities.  Boys and Girls Clubs, libraries and libraries-on-wheels, after-school programs, initiatives aimed at addressing at-risk kids experiencing homelessness, extending connectivity to low-income housing complexes, and underserved areas that do not fit into commercial carrier expansion plans.  These network assets can also be used for safety and reliability issues for school system assets such as geolocation data, maintenance, and performance data.  Further, the network can be a joint partnership across communities and counties, extending services to utility providers, community security technology, and other constituencies.   

This is just one example of how WIN is at the forefront of massive innovation, pushing the boundaries and providing industry partners with profitable and sustainable technology solutions.

“My focus is to add technology and wireless capabilities that solve problems. It’s rethinking how to build services and products for industries such as manufacturing, oil, gas, healthcare, retail,  the public sector, venues, and large open spaces—ways to make wireless everywhere and access ubiquitous,” Tim said.

In an ever-changing technological landscape, where enterprises continue to find increased value in wireless, WIN Connectivity is injecting themselves in the equation as an alternative connectivity partner with a focus on taking the economic challenges out of the equation by offering Connectivity-as-a-Service.    

Historically, the company’s business model revolved primarily around system integration. However, as the industry landscape continues to evolve, accelerated by COVID and the democratization of the 3.5GHz band known as CBRS, also referred to by the FCC as the “Innovation Band,” the company now finds itself at the brink of an opportunity to provide wireless solutions to address a variety of use cases.  

“We intend to leverage the “Innovation Band” as a critical enabler of higher-level technologies for our customers.  I am fortunate to have had opportunities to be at the forefront of technologies where the technology is poised to be massively adopted.  This is truly an exciting time,” Tim added.

And with 25 years of technology experience, and a wealth of knowledge that comes from experience working in everything from software quality assurance testing, interoperability testing, data center information & technology, IT consulting around networking, network design, installation and support, data center builds & infrastructure, and cybersecurity, let’s just say Tim is equipped for the challenge.

“Part of my job is to identify the best-of-breed technology vendors to work with. To identify who our partners will be and who we can win with.  We are proud to be aligned with SMC² as we build out our managed services and customer engagement platform.  They bring to us rock-solid software personalities in a tailor-made, task-organized team.  I say ‘personalities’ because our SMC² teammates have become much more than colleagues.  They are friends who intuitively understand what we are doing and help us succeed. ” 

And SMC² is proud to be one of those partners as we collaborate in WIN Connectivity’s efforts to build the company’s IT infrastructure and customer engagement portal in the cloud.  For more information about the wide range of industry partners we serve click here or contact Trent Michaels, Director of Business Development at Trent.Michaels@SMC2.com

 

 

More Perspectives:

SMC2 Blog: Building an Engaged and Retained Team for Your Global Capability Center

SMC2 Blog: Building an Engaged and Retained Team for Your Global Capability Center

In the journey of establishing a Global Capability Center (GCC), one of the pivotal steps, as discussed in our previous article “How to Hire the Right People for Your GCC in India”, is ensuring you have the right team on board. However, the journey doesn’t end there. As COO and Co-Founder of SMC Squared Steven Stephan emphasizes, “Initiating, recruiting, and nurturing a team that’s not just skilled but is also deeply engaged and retained is equally crucial.”

read more
Scale Your Tech Output: Step 1

Complimentary Strategic Assessment Meeting. Send us a message and tell us when would be a convenient time to learn more about what a Global Insourcing solution can do for your organization.