August 7, 2026
STEM x Arts in Action: A Trip Across Utah
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Routy, GFiber’s official router device mascot, joined the Utah road trip too! Check out the interview highlights with our partners below. |
This July, I took a one-day road trip across Utah with our in-house social content creator, Omar Guzman-Cuellar, to visit our community partners. The day showcased the intersection of digital literacy, artistic expression, and opportunity—all backed by GFiber.
United Way of Utah County, A Decade of Digital Literacy
The trip kicked off in Provo, UT with the United Way of Utah County (UWUT). Provo holds a special place in GFiber history as one of the first cities we offered service. The local United Way has been a close partner since then, too. GFiber has sponsored digital skills training classes taught in English, Spanish, and Russian there since 2015. To power their community reach, the UWUT relies on GFiber’s ultra-fast, 20 Gig service option. Organization leaders noted that this high-speed connection kept them operational during the COVID-19 pandemic, providing the heavy-duty bandwidth needed to pivot dozens of programs to a virtual format.
The current combination of virtual and in-person digital literacy classes at UWUT has created a new experience of learning for so many community members. During a recent graduation, a senior citizen student proudly displayed her digital literacy skills certificate, celebrating her very first academic diploma and assuring her instructors that it wouldn’t be her last.
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| President and CEO Bill Hulterstrom of the UWUT (center) with
GFiber’s Omar Guzman-Cuellar and Alberto Garcia (left), and UWUT staff (right).
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“There's a culture that comes out of GFiber that is a culture that many organizations want to emulate: 'Can we do it better? Can we serve people along the way?' And that's something that we want our organization to believe in—let's innovate to better serve our community.”- Bill Hulterstrom the President and CEO of the United Way of Utah County.
Creative Community with the Salt Lake City Arts Council
Heading north into Salt Lake City, a warm welcome was extended from the Salt Lake City Arts Council for the second stop. Supported in part by GFiber for over five years, the SLC Arts Council is famous for its Annual Living Traditions Festival, which has celebrated the city's rich cultural, ethnic, and culinary diversity for 40 years. Beyond the festival, the council runs training and apprenticeship programs that use art to teach STEM and digital skills as well. By combining creative design with technical training, the SLC Arts Council demonstrates how artistic spaces can serve as gateways to technical learning.
Heading north into Salt Lake City, a warm welcome was extended from the Salt Lake City Arts Council for the second stop. Supported in part by GFiber for over five years, the SLC Arts Council is famous for its Annual Living Traditions Festival, which has celebrated the city's rich cultural, ethnic, and culinary diversity for 40 years. Beyond the festival, the council runs training and apprenticeship programs that use art to teach STEM and digital skills as well. By combining creative design with technical training, the SLC Arts Council demonstrates how artistic spaces can serve as gateways to technical learning.
"We know that the arts bring people together. They're a lens for culture. It's a way that we build community. It's the way for us to understand other cultures, to learn about new art forms. And we think that is fundamental, like it is in other city services... just in the way that trash and sewer and water is important, we see arts as critical to the health of our city and people kind of belonging."
- Felicia Baka, Executive Director of the Salt Lake City Arts Council
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| We think Routy is a work of art and the SLC Arts Council agrees. |
Launching Rockets and Scientific Curiosity at Craft Lake City
Next was Craft Lake City, a trusted partner for more than a decade. Craft Lake City was founded 18 years ago by Angela H. Brown to host creatives for the purpose of community, connection and visibility. The D.I.Y festival is the best known event hosted by Craft Lake City (and has their science building sponsored by GFiber), but the Rocket Launch program is shooting up in popularity.
Next was Craft Lake City, a trusted partner for more than a decade. Craft Lake City was founded 18 years ago by Angela H. Brown to host creatives for the purpose of community, connection and visibility. The D.I.Y festival is the best known event hosted by Craft Lake City (and has their science building sponsored by GFiber), but the Rocket Launch program is shooting up in popularity.
The Rocket Launch program brings hands-on science to elementary schools in lower-income areas. Students build and launch soda-bottle rockets, learn physics, engineering design principles, and collaboration. Students can continue learning at home with a bag of supplies to keep the rocket launches going in their backyards.
“It is so refreshing to have a partner understand the common denominator between science, technology, and art. It's really about using science and tech tools with the power of creativity to innovate. It's so important for us to get people of all backgrounds and all different ages engaged in STEM, especially as our society leans more into that." - Angela H. Brown, Director of Craft Lake City
spyhop: Where Youth Can Create The Future
The final stop of the day was spyhop, a state-of-the-art youth media center serving over 10,000 youth across Utah from the greater Salt Lake basin all the way to Zion. The spyhop facility features everything from a full stage for theater production to a dedicated electronic music room where students mix their own EDM tracks. Alberto and Omar witnessed digital arts education at spyhop in its most creative form: invention. Students were coding their own video games in one area and audio mixing music and sound effects in a separate studio space.
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| Alberto and Routy at the one of the stop of the day, spyhop’s Kahlert Youth Media Arts Center. |
"We teach young people how to find a story that they want to tell and give them the tools, the mentorship, and the platform in which to tell that story." - Lissa Trout, Director of spyhop
By the end of the day, one thing was clear: access to technology is the key to unlocking potential. From launching rockets and coding video games to composing digital music and earning a first computer diploma, these four organizations are bridging the digital divide with GFiber.
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Posted by Alberto Garcia, Government and Community Affairs Manager