Community Technology Leadership Program (CTLP)

Technology leadership is about doing more and getting more with technology. It's not just for techies; it's for regular people who want to get the most from technology. Technology leadership must be built into communities like infrastructure to get maximum economic impact from gigabit broadband and other digital technologies.

Small and medium organizations (SMO) that make up the bedrock of local economies just don't have the time or expertise to sort through all of the technology options. Consequently, they miss opportunities and run risks because they're not using technology.

The best way to learn technology leadership skill is for by helping actual small and medium organizations utilize digital technology. Diverse participation multiplies and spreads the positive impacts to more and different parts of the economy.

The Community Technology Leadership Program (CTLP) is problem-based learning for emerging, frontline, and grassroots leaders to develop their capabilities by helping small & medium organizations put digital technology to work. During the Spring of 2017, Eduity piloted a CTLP in Chattanooga with support of the Mozilla Foundation's Gigabit Community Fund.



Eduity is developing CTLP as a public service, to be openly available and able to be replicated in any community. The Eduity app will be useful for conducting and following up on CTLPs, but it’s not necessary.

CTLP involves:

  • A convener and program-runner
  • 8 to 12 solution-owners who participate in the entire program
  • At least one SMO problem-owner whose organization is the subject of the program
  • A few technologists and other resource-owners to guide and inform solution-owners

The CTLP process is reasonably simple:

  1. The convener and program-runner identify prospective technology leaders, potential SMO subjects, local technology resources, and program sponsors, and then recruit them to participate. Find a good facility, and schedule program activities. Confirm participants’ commitment.
  2. Hold a kick-off session to engage participants, introduce them to each other, and go over the program’s goals and key results, the CTLP toolkit, and the digital development model. Review the program activities and confirm participants’ commitment.
  3. Conduct the seminars with the toolkit, biweekly or once per month, whatever works best for everyone. Capture and process the data from these activities.
    1. Defining the problem: Problem-owners work through value-chain mapping with solution-owners to identify key opportunities, strengths, threats, and weaknesses.
      • Have participants do homework or hold a working session between seminars.
    2. Searching for solutions: Solution-owners quiz resource-owners about possible solutions and how to best approach the problem.
      • Have participants do homework or hold a working session between seminars.
    3. Building the strategy: Solution-owners analyze problems for digital development and apply approaches suggested by resource-owners to establish a strategy and generate recommendations for problem-owners.
      • Have participants do homework or hold a working session between seminars.
  4. Hold the pitch session for solution-owners to share their insights with problem-owners and others. Celebrate participants’ learning. Plan to follow up.
  5. Use the evaluation tools from the toolkit to review the program. Follow up with participants, especially problem-owners, to assess developments.

The CTLP guide and toolkit will be available online soon. Check back here for updates or sign up for Eduity’s newsletter. Fill out the form below and we’ll be in touch soon.






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