Consumer Action, Capital One host digital literacy skills webinars

Future Edge ^SM is a self-directed, video-based curriculum designed to help diminish the digital skills literacy gap in low-to-moderate-income communities.

Future Edge gives consumers access to the digital skills needed for today’s middle-skill roles—jobs that don’t require a bachelor’s degree but do pay above average wages. Capital One developed the free and open program in partnership with the educational organization Grovo to ensure that the thousands of individuals looking to develop their basic digital skills would have access to the learning and tools essential for success in the 21st century workforce.

Consumer Action hosted two webinars on April 26 to educate its community partners on the program. Seventy-five partners attended the webinars led by Katherine Rotunno, a Grovo account management manager.

“Future Edge is excellent because it covers all of the critical digital literacy subjects, with ten different modules, ranging from how to use Microsoft Word to how to establish your personal brand on social media,” said Consumer Action’s Audrey Perrott. “As a national consumer organization working with community groups across the country, we’ve seen a tremendous need for this type of digital skills training. After hosting the Future Edge webinars, we often receive requests from partners on next steps to implement the program at their local sites.”

Community groups that are interested in utilizing the free Future Edge tool can send an email to Rotunno or Mitch Isetta. The message should include the following: name of organization, description of organization, expected number of program participants, proposed date of program, and a spreadsheet with the email addresses of proposed administrators and students. Currently, the tool is only available in English, but will be available in Spanish by the end of the year. Individuals may also register to access the free educational materials here.

Capital One and Consumer Action will host another webinar together (the date of which has yet to be determined). It will highlight Capital One’s free CreditWise® credit monitoring tool, which provides consumers with access to credit scores, alerts, credit score simulators and more.