Mass Digital Navigators Alliance

Posted July 27, 2026 by Jake Goldman

I was fortunate to attend the first annual conference of the Mass Digital Navigators Alliance this Spring in Southbridge, MA. Digital navigators encompass workers across fields such as libraries, councils-on-ageing, healthcare, community organizations, and municipalities who are working to advance digital access, engaging in efforts to build digital literacy, and providing support to people to navigate the increasingly complex digital world. Some things digital navigators do include assisting people access online benefits systems, housing, education, telehealth, and other essential online services. We in LIS have a lot of experience with this kind of work and it’s great to see a broader coalition joining together around our shared experiences and the need to advocate for the importance of this emerging field from across various backgrounds. One attending digital navigator based in healthcare systems relayed a story about helping a patient to set up a medical device. The biometric monitoring function required linkage to a smartphone app—a daunting prospect so anxiety-inducing in the patient that they deferred using the device for months. Later another participant told me how upon re-entry following incarceration their work with a digital navigator was key in finding a secure footing in a world changed over time both in terms of requisite technical skills and broader but related social changes. The DNA is currently advocating for H.4596, a bill to create a statewide credentialing for Digital Navigators in Massachusetts.