Hi, Cardinal readers. It’s Wednesday, which means it’s time for Tech Briefs, a weekly batch of items covering the digital and life sciences landscapes.
Let me know via tad@cardinalnews.org. If you have tips, questions or suggestions for the column.
Indoor farming summit to visit Danville again
The Institute for Advanced Learning and Research in Danville will be the hub for all things indoor agriculture-related in mid-September.
CEA Summit East is set for Sept. 15-16 at IALR, home to the Controlled Environment Agriculture Center that the institute runs in conjunction with Virginia Tech. Greenhouse growers, vertical farm and container farm operators, educators, scientists and other indoor growers will join field growers, extension specialists, suppliers and others interested in business and technological advances, according to organizers.
Presentations will include workforce building, data collection and environmental monitoring, market research, data management and cybersecurity, converting unused buildings for vertical farming, and AI integration. Four “deep-dive” tracks include core horticulture skills. The conference has built-in time for networking, as well.
Early registration prices are $495, or $395 for graduate students and nonprofit organizations. Participants may tour the facilities of event co-presenter CEA Innovation Center.
A potential cloud lifted in late April, when nearby microgreens grower AeroFarms announced it had avoided a shutdown.
For more information, including a speakers’ list that’s still to come, visit indoor.ag/cea-summit-east-2026.
Update on the Digital Equity Act cancellation
A year has passed since President Donald Trump canceled grants from the Biden-era Digital Equity Act, which Trump called “racist,” “unconstitutional” and a “woke handout.”
A legal battle to restore the funding continues in federal court.
The act was to distribute $2.75 billion, including more than $18 million to Virginia, to fund programs ensuring internet access for all, along with the skills to navigate the web. Specific assistance was meant for the elderly, poor people, military veterans, disabled people, state inmates transitioning back to society, English learners or others with low literacy levels, members of racial or ethnic minority groups, and rural residents, according to a page on the U.S. Census Bureau site.
The Ohio-based National Digital Inclusion Alliance filed suit against the Trump administration in October, saying the decision “violates the separation of powers,” since Congress had passed it in 2021. The case continues, with documents filed this month to keep the case alive in what the National Digital Inclusion Alliance has dubbed the Digital Equity Act Month of Action.
The Department of Justice moved to dismiss the case, arguing that under “the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, race-based classifications are presumptively unconstitutional …
“The Secretary of Commerce, after careful consideration and instruction from the President, decided that allocating grants to improve broadband adoption based on whether a grant, at least in part, would serve ‘members of a racial or ethnic minority group’ was not just unconstitutional, but no longer a priority of the Department of Commerce under his leadership.”
Multiple organizations have filed briefs this month supporting the plaintiff at the Washington, D.C., U.S. District Court. D.C.-based think tank and law firm the Constitutional Accountability Center wrote that Trump’s unilateral move usurped Congress’ “power of the purse.”
