This project takes a holistic approach to address the technical, legal, and social challenges facing under-served urban communities experiencing a growing digital divide. A novel community-owned edge cloud computing architecture is investigated that disaggregates the edge equipment for lower cost, improved energy efficiency, simplified management and intrinsically stronger security. The project targets a community within Harlem for initial concept exploration. Indeed, the Harlem community like many diverse urban communities is facing obstacles that extend beyond broadband access and include the entire home, office and IoT/smart city technology eco-system. Beyond the edge cloud, the project will include development of low-cost KVM (Keyboard, Video, and Mouse) systems that will be used by a diverse set of community members to establish proof of concept and performance metrics for the edge cloud, and identify system usability by community especially as it relates to closing the digital divide.

Prototype hardware and software will be developed to study this architecture in both a lab environment, user trials, and in participatory technology assessments by users in the community. Optimal design rules will be derived for urban communities based on experimental performance data and incorporating user constraints and use cases within the Harlem community. Community ownership will be investigated as a means to overcome longstanding legal and social challenges. The community edge cloud will be studied as a constructed commons and governance models will be explored considering different stakeholder relationships. This project will provide a new dimension to and understanding of edge clouds and community network ownership that can be widely applied in smart city environments elsewhere. Disaggregated devices open up the potential for a new breed of consumer interfaces with dramatically lower cost and energy use - as well as simple software and hardware management and security. By virtualizing these technologies within the edge cloud, potentially transformative benefits can be realized. Such technology would provide a powerful tool in combating growing digital divides.