Three community tech workers stand on stage holding a microphone with banner behind them for Digital Inclusion Week

DNEP’s Community Tech Worker Project Expands to Live6 with National Science Foundation Grant

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The University of Michigan School of Information was awarded a $750,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to expand the Detroit Neighborhood Entrepreneurs Project’s Community Tech Worker (CTW) program from the eastside to Detroit’s northwest side by partnering with Live6 Alliance.

Started in 2022 as a partnership between the University of Michigan and Jefferson East Inc. (JEI), the CTW program began with the dual mission of bridging the digital divide and providing access to good jobs for local community members. Detroit residents are trained on different business technologies (website platforms, social media, and point of sale systems) to become community tech workers who provide free tech support to Detroit small businesses. 

Inspired by the community health model, the CTW program is the first of its kind in the country. So far, it’s been remarkably successful: 273 have been served and the program has been integrated into the Detroit Means Business website. Approximately 98% of the businesses served are Black-owned; 70% are women-owned. The majority of businesses served are black and women-owned. 

“We’re really excited about the expansion and to be Detroit’s first westside organization hosting the tech workers,” said Caitlin Murphy, executive director of Live6. “We have a lot of legacy business owners that have been located in our business for decades and could really use an improvement in web presence.” 

The expansion is expected to roll out in summer 2025 when the grant funding will be available. Meanwhile, the DNEP, JEI, and Live6 team are in the planning stages. Beyond expanding the geographic footprint of the program, Live6 also hopes to increase outreach.

“Instead of just having CTWs in our Live6 office, we’re hoping to have a few tech workers outside doing on-site visits with businesses. If businesses don’t have the tech support they need it’s probably because they’re already at capacity and don’t have time to seek out help. For owner-operators who can’t leave their business, we want to meet them where they are,” said Murphy.  

About the CTW Program 

The CTW program arose in response to Detroit businesses asking for more help with learning technology skills. 

“There’s a digital divide: resource-constrained businesses don’t have the time or capital to invest in learning digital tools,” said Julie Hui, principal investigator for the CTW program and assistant professor at the University of Michigan’s School of Information. 

“Many business owners can’t take a bunch of classes or hire an expensive professional. But during COVID, digital skills became critical: you had to have an online presence to connect with customers and stay afloat.”

CTWs bridge that divide. By meeting 1:1 with business owners, CTWs help diagnose the problem, research the available technology, and recommend the tools most suitable to a particular business. Especially in the Jefferson Chalmers neighborhood, where a significant portion of business owners are older and not digitally native, the current CTWs stationed at the JEI office have met a critical need. 

The most common problems CTWs help businesses with are website setup and management, social media, and search engine optimization. 

“There’s been huge cost savings for business owners through the CTW program,” said Lutalo Sanifu, Director of Community Engagement for the University of Michigan’s Center for Innovation, who formerly managed the CTW program for JEI. 

The end goal isn’t just solving a problem, but empowerment. “CTWs don’t just do the work but teach the business owners how to fix the problems on their own in the future,” said Hui.

A key aspect that sets the CTW program apart is that it’s on the business owner’s schedule. CTWs are available Mon.-Fri. for in-person meetings at the JEI office or virtual appointments. For virtual meetings, CTWs have software that allows them to take control of the business owner’s laptop, just as any in-house IT professional might do.

“Instead of technology events or classes, this model puts the power back in business owners’ hands,” said Sanifu. “You can come in with a specific problem and get it resolved instead of sitting through a presentation that may not meet your needs.”  

The proof is in the pudding: most business owners who’ve used CTW services have become repeat clients—businesses schedule an average of 5 appointments each.

Scaling up 

So far, CTWs have primarily served businesses in the Jefferson-Chalmers area. “But we need this kind of technology support all over the city,” said Sanifu. 

Expanding the CTW project to Live6 gives other areas of Detroit much-needed access to technology support. Located on the Avenue of Fashion, Live6 is at the intersection of four different neighborhoods with a high density of small businesses around. 

“The Livernois/Six Mile area is one of DNEP’s targeted areas,” said Christie Baer, managing director of the University’s Detroit Neighborhood Entrepreneurs Project. “We have already seen strong uptake in our free accounting services at the Live6 Home Base. By adding free technology support to this location, we hope to replicate the magic that we have seen at JEI and in our summer internship program — the growth that comes from integrating finance and technology.”

The expansion is also a boon to Live6’s Shops on Six: a collaborative community marketplace coming soon to Live6’s West McNichols office. “For many business owners who will be selling in a physical space for the first time, having on-site CTWs could help with POS, website refinement, and ecommerce platforms,” said Murphy. 

The Live6 expansion also presents an opportunity to make the CTW program scaleable. With the NSF grant, the Live6-CTW site will have two CTWs. “We would like to integrate U-M students into both locations,” noted Baer, “The exchange of social capital between local Detroiters and University of Michigan students was part of what made this pilot so extraordinary. But, we will need to raise some additional funding to make that happen.” Currently, the DNEP-JEI team is working on a curriculum to train these new tech workers. 

When the CTW program first started in 2022, the original CTWs underwent intensive in-person full-time training for 1.5 months: a mixture of technical training on platforms like Wix, Wordpress, Squarespace and cultural humility training. 

Currently, the DNEP-JEI team is working to adapt the curriculum so it has the same content but is more flexible in format and easier to scale. 

“Our end goal would be making it possible for any organization within and beyond Detroit to take the CTW curriculum and apply it to their own neighborhood program,” said Hui. 

Being a CTW: A ‘life changing opportunity’ 

Beyond impacting Detroit business owners, the CTW program has also changed the lives of the community tech workers themselves. 

Many tech workers are local Detroit residents who have an interest in technology but lack experience. For them, being a tech worker not only means helping their community, but getting the training to break into the tech industry. 

So far, 8 community tech workers have been trained: 5 University of Michigan students and 3 Detroit residents. From the original pilot, two of the Detroit residents continue to work full-time for JEI; one of the U-M students graduated and moved to Detroit, where she is now a digital navigator with JEI.

“Being a tech worker took me in a different direction in life,” said Diamond Hatcher, a current tech worker at JEI. “Previously, I had only worked manufacturing or fast food jobs. When I started I was a bit confused, I wasn’t very good at public or 1:1 speaking.” 

Since then, Hatcher has found her groove. She’s leveraged her background in the community to build relationships with business owners.

“I love seeing the difference I’m making with businesses. The business owners show so much gratitude — they’re literally so happy. Sales sometimes skyrocket by us fixing something as simple as a broken link on their website,” said Hatcher.

“Being a CTW has helped me in career choice and understanding there are jobs beyond what we’re conditioned to see,” said Hatcher.

“Having the opportunity to be a CTW was the biggest step for me,” said Danielle Taylor-Basemore, a former CTW who now works as Jefferson East Inc.’s digital navigator. “I’ve grown in confidence as a leader. I’ve honed skills. I learned I really enjoyed working with data and now I’m applying to grad school for data analysis.” 

“One of the reasons the CTW program works so well is not only do business owners learn technology skills, but the tech workers learn professional development skills from the business owner,” said Hui.

Looking ahead, the current CTWs at JEI will help train the new CTWs at Live6. 

DNEP is still fundraising to add University of Michigan students as CTWs to the Live6 cohort. Prospective donors interested in learning more can reach out to [email protected] or visit DNEP.umich.edu

Written by Allison Wei (Ross ‘25)