digitalLIFT is thrilled to welcome Kimberly Harris, its newest Board Chair! With decades of experience, Kim is a leader at the intersection of aging, technology, and digital and health equity.
Harnessing Technology for Connection
Kimberly’s career journey has taken her across the globe, beginning in Vienna, Austria, where she helped students connect with Holocaust survivors living around the world. It was here that she realized the transformational power of technology to create meaningful connections:
“In 2003, we didn’t even have internet at the school. But the kids were determined to connect, so they were resourceful. They went to libraries and archives and started looking up surviving family members online and emailing them.”
“And what was unexpected was that survivors answered, and they started building these intergenerational, international connections. And then, as access to the internet increased around the world and people got access to technologies like scanners, they could send over family photos or school photos, too. [With technology], the relationships started getting even deeper and more magical.”
A Champion for Digital Inclusion
Kim’s work with digital inclusion then took her to New York City, where she joined the nonprofit Older Adults Technology Services (OATS) which was focused on digital literacy for older adults. Reflecting on one of her first teaching experiences, Kim said:
“I was teaching a woman how to move a mouse, and when she figured it out, she stood up and shouted, ‘Holy smokes, I’m dragging it!’ That joy and pride—that’s what it’s all about.”
In doing this work, Kim also began to recognize the economic and other disadvantages of being offline:
“There’s a tax on people, really, who aren’t online. If you have to just shop for the toys that are in the toy store in your neighborhood, if you even have one, you can’t comparison shop and get the discounts. It’s expensive not to be online. If you call to book an airline ticket, they charge $50 extra. For people living on a fixed income… it’s just absolutely unfair.”
She also saw how access to technology dramatically affected almost every element of older adults’ lives, from educational and workforce opportunities to the ability to participate in civic initiatives. Thus, Kim worked for almost a decade to build Senior Planet, OATS’s award-winning flagship program, which has since become a program of AARP and expanded to thousands of sites across the country.
Kim has also worked on digital equity nationally as a consultant on various projects—such as Comcast’s Internet Essentials program, which helped people access low-cost internet, devices, and training—and with the ILSR’s efforts to expand community-owned and tribal broadband networks. Additionally, Kim supported various other collaboratives, nonprofits, and startups looking to develop best-practices for funding aging and technology.
Health and Digital Equity: A New Frontier
Recently, Kim co-founded a company called Health Tequity to advance health equity in underserved communities through the use of digital technologies. One of the company’s flagship projects, ACTIVATE, was created to address health challenges in California’s Central Valley:
“ACTIVATE is a care coordination and remote patient monitoring platform that helps monitor diabetes and hypertension and that’s really equity-driven,” she says.
“It was designed during COVID-19 alongside farmers that mostly spoke Spanish, didn’t have devices, didn’t have [internet] connection, didn’t have digital skills, were unhealthy, didn’t know what health numbers (like key metrics like blood pressure or blood sugar levels) meant, and probably didn’t have a consistent doctor. It worked because ACTIVATE addressed every barrier—from internet access and digital skills to clinic capacity and technology integration.”
Kim emphasizes the importance of creating systems that are designed for the people they serve: “There’s so much tech available now, but that does not mean it’s accessible –it wasn’t designed with and for the people.”
Health Tequity is currently working on bringing ACTIVATE to more underserved communities.
Why digitalLIFT? Why Now?
Kim has admired digitalLIFT for years, particularly its leadership under Executive Director Kami Griffiths, whom Kim calls a “powerhouse.”
“There are very few organizations that do this work and very few that do it at the level that digitalLIFT does…I hope I can be a resource, because the organization is going to continue to grow very fast.”
Kim’s vision for digitalLIFT is grounded in the belief that digital inclusion is necessary for equal opportunity. As she says, “[Digital access] cuts across all of the areas of our life, of education and health and work and socialization and information and politics and civic engagement.” She sees it as a tremendous social and economic equalizer and a super social determinant of health.
Welcome to the Team
Currently, Kim serves on the advisory chair of the intergenerational collaborative LinkAGES, as well as on the aging leadership committee for the UJA-Federation of New York. She is also a member of various aging-focused and digital equity working groups in multiple states.
Overall, Kim brings unparalleled expertise and passion to digitalLIFT’s board of directors. Her commitment to equity, innovation, and community-driven solutions will undoubtedly amplify digitalLIFT’s impact. We’re excited to see the incredible work that she’ll do with us.
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