Intelligent CIO North America Issue 05 | Page 10

NEWS

Michigan Moonshot bridges digital divide by expanding Internet access

The digital divide in Michigan is being addressed with the expansion of free Wi-Fi access at more than 50 community locations across the state ’ s southeast .

The project is part of Merit Network ’ s Michigan Moonshot initiative and is supported by contributions from the Toyota USA Foundation and Cisco . through Wi-Fi networks which are accessible outside buildings .
Detroit Public Library will extend its Wi-Fi network beyond the walls of nine sites , during normal business hours .
Washtenaw Intermediate School District is co-ordinating 30 different access points at area schools and community partners across the county .
“ It is our responsibility as business leaders to step up and mobilize the tools and innovations at our disposal to help curtail the growing disparities in our communities caused by the digital divide ,” said Nick Michaelides , Senior Vice President , US Public Sector at Cisco .
“ For thousands of students across the state of Michigan , the pandemic has introduced new challenges or highlighted existing ones . We expect this to help both rural and urban communities access the Internet for basic informational needs ,” said Charlotte Bewersdorff , Merit Network ’ s Vice President for Community Engagement .
The project will provide community organizations with the technological ability to extend their existing Internet connectivity

Mimecast opens new data centres in Montreal and Toronto will deliver this under the strict certifications of ISO27001 / 17 , CSTAR and SOC 2 .

“ As a global company , it ’ s critical to be grounded in creating opportunity in the communities and the countries in which we operate ,” said Dino DiMarino , Chief Revenue Officer at Mimecast .
“ Mimecast is the best way to secure Microsoft 365 environments and today we already support more than 500 Canadian organizations , securing hundreds of thousands of users . Over the last year , Mimecast has seen tremendous momentum as the team has grown in Canada .

Mimecast , a leading email security and cyber-resilience company , has opened two new data centres in Canada .

The replicated data centers are located in separate facilities in Montreal and Toronto and operate on their own proprietary cloud infrastructure and Mime | OS software architecture . The Mimecast Canadian data centers , which opened for business in October , will enable Canadian data residency and sovereignty for customers and
“ Adding Canadian data centers to our global network are important investments for Mimecast so we can better serve the Canadian market and provide stronger cyber-resilience to customers .”
Mimecast services are available to support Microsoft Exchange , Microsoft 365 , Google and on-premise email environments .
The company ’ s advanced email security , security awareness training , Business Continuity and archiving services are designed to protect data in accordance with Canadian data protection laws .
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