Karen Archer Perry

Director of Community Outreach & Programs

Karen Archer Perry joined the Knight Center of Digital Excellence in June 2008, bringing a wealth of expertise in developing programs that help communities capture the opportunities presented by broadband access and information services. Karen’s team works within the 26 Knight communities to help accelerate transformation by promoting digital inclusion. Her team assesses needs and opportunities, builds community partnerships, and strives to create and implement innovative programs that increase the availability and applicability of broadband services and other technology.  As part of the leadership team of the Knight Center of Digital Excellence, Karen will work with thought leaders across the county to identify and create best practices and tools for the Knight Center’s Resource Center.

Prior to joining the Knight Center, Karen founded Karacomm LLC, a consulting practice that developed programs for inclusion, education and empowerment.  Karen has worked with cities and corporations throughout the United States to assess needs and shape community digital inclusion programs to address them.  She has performed community assessments, designed PC purchase and training programs, documented best practices, and helped establish a variety of other digital empowerment programs.  Karacomm has supported programs across the country including those in Philadelphia, San Francisco, El Paso, Los Angeles and Winston-Salem. Before establishing Karacomm, Karen worked for the AT&T, Lucent Technologies and Bell Labs family of companies for twenty five years.  Her work at Lucent/Bell Labs included extensive work in software, network management, applications, sales and business development.

Karen is a seasoned speaker who has presented at national conferences such as Educause, CTCNet, Digital Cities, the Digital Inclusion Forum and MuniWireless. She served as a member of the Education Team for the New Jersey Connected Broadband Summit, and she is currently serving on the New York State Broadband Economic Development and IT Workforce Development Action Team.  Karen’s work on technology empowerment best practices was featured at the Intel Visionary Conference for Educators in 2007.  She recently collaborated with Microsoft to create a guide, “Innovating for Inclusion: A Digital Inclusion Guide for Those Leading the Way.”

Karen holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Cornell University. She is active in Girl Scouts.