Jabari Simama (born on March 6) is a retired educator and public official. Simama served as President of Georgia Piedmont Technical College for 6 years. He also served as Deputy Chief Operating Officer of Development and Chief of Staff in DeKalb County government from 2009 to 2012. In 2001 he was the chief architect of a large municipal technology program to bridge the digital divide, the Atlanta Community Technology Initiative where thousands of citizens were taught how to use computers and the internet. Simama also organized broadband in cities' and towns' summits from 2006 to 2009 in Columbia, South Carolina which explored how broadband technology can serve un-served rural and urban communities. Featured in John Barber's book The Black Digital Elite: African American Leaders of the Information Revolution, published by Praeger Publishers, Simama is also the author of Civil Rights to Cyber Rights: Broadband & Digital Equality in the Age of Obama, published in July, 2009. Education Simama graduated from Hickman High School in Columbia, Missouri. He attended Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri. He received his BA degree from the University of Bridgeport in Bridgeport, Connecticut, his MA degree from Atlanta University in Atlanta, Georgia, and his Ph.D.from Emory University, in Atlanta, Georgia. Career Simama began his career as a college professor at Atlanta Junior College (currently, Atlanta Metropolitan College). He then moved to the University of Cincinnati in Ohio where he taught in the African American Studies Department and became the editor of Studia Africana. In 1979 he took an appointment as an Associate Professor of English at Morgan State University. He returned to Atlanta in 1980. He became the first general manager of the Public-access television program in Atlanta, sponsored by the cable operator, then Cable Atlanta. Through the program five neighborhood-based studios were opened to teach Atlanta citizens television production skills. At the end of 1986, Simama left the cable company and ran for elected office for the Atlanta City Council. In 1987, he won and became the first African American elected in the South with an African name. He served two terms as the District 3 council member, before embarking on an unsuccessful campaign for council president. In 1994 he became a columnist for Creative Loafing (Atlanta), and as co-author of a series of articles entitled "Outside the Fences" in 1996 he won third place for the Alternative Newsweeklies Association (AAN). He published the weekly