Ed Farm And Apple Are Using Learning Labs In Underresourced Southern Cities To Combat The Digital Divide
Innovative learning labs are being planted in southern underresourced cities to combat the digital divide.
Ed Farm
Launched in February 2020, Ed Farm, with the support of Apple and the Alabama Foundation, works to reach students, teachers and the workforce with the goal of establishing an epicenter for education technology, Ed Farm CEO Waymond Jackson told AFROTECH™ during the Future of Learning Summit 2025 on June 5.
The organization initially focused on the Birmingham, AL area, launching with a partnership with Birmingham City Schools before expanding to Montgomery Public Schools and Atlanta Public Schools by 2021. Today, its efforts have scaled to Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and California, per The Business Journals.
The arrival of Ed Farm came just weeks before the pandemic.
“We were just working with one school district, which was Birmingham City Schools. What I continue to tell my team was that we positioned to be a strong partner to districts during COVID. And we were built before this to do exactly this,” Jackson mentioned.
Ed Farm’s infrastructure includes its Teacher Fellows program, which provides resources and training to empower K-12 educators, coaches, and administrators in technology over 12 months, according to its website.
Pathways to Tech is another year-long initiative that ensures those aged 18 and older can transition into career roles in technology through career coaching, digital skills training courses, over 30 certifications, Swift programming language training, and more. Graduates of the program have collectively earned over $1 million in increased salary.
“When you think about the 90% of individuals that’ll need digital skills by the year 2030, we want to significantly decrease that, especially in the places where we’re operating in,” Jackson said at the Summit.
Spaces
Ed Farms also introduced Spaces, which are learning environments designed with the unique needs of schools or communities in mind. Spaces work to foster innovative, real-world experiences that include podcasting, video production, and audio engineering.
The first two spaces were established in the Alabama Black Belt, an area with a high poverty rate and teacher shortages, according to information shared with AFROTECH™.
In March 2025, Ed Farm opened the InnoLab in Warner Robins, GA, to the community in collaboration with the City of Warner Robins and Mayor LaRhonda Patrick. People of all ages now have access to video and photography labs, mixed reality spaces, e-Sports technology, and gaming stations, as well as Apple’s Mac, MacBook, iPad, and Vision Pro devices. Community members are receiving instruction on coding.
“The focus for me is going to be the coding aspect, because coding positions are becoming more and more required,” Patrick told AFROTECH™. “For example, positions at Robins Air Force Base and some of our defense contractors require that type of a skill and for some, when they get older, they don’t wanna touch it because it just seems too hard. So, exposing our kids while they’re young to coding is a priority of mine. But that digital fluency overall for my entire community is really the passion we have in our InnoLab.”
At Huffman Middle School, located in Center Point, AL, Ed Farm launched the Vikings Hub, which marked the fourth space for Birmingham City Schools, according to the school’s website.
Vikings Hub emphasizes audio engineering and features a video production lab, podcast studio, and music recording studio. Seventh-grade student Khari Pope, secretary of the student government association, used the lab’s equipment to produce beats and created a track titled “ACAP RAP.”
Christopher Finley, a seventh-grade civics and geography teacher who has been at Huffman Middle School for three years, told AFROTECH™ that there’s a lot of excitement among the kids who have been working with the equipment.
“Kids are curious about audio engineering and trying to figure out when they’re gonna have an opportunity to get it down,” Finley said. “I feel like they are excited to come in and get started on some of their own personal projects.”