In May, the US celebrated National Small Business Week and then attention shifted in the last week of June to Amazon Prime Days: showcasing the stark contrast across the local to global continuum underlying the dynamics of current markets and the complexity business owners have to navigate. Small businesses continue to be one of the greatest opportunities for community economic growth and resiliency, and in a past Forbes piece, I focused on the need for better connectivity , particularly in rural areas to assure such businesses can succeed. As an example, how could a small business have successfully participated in Amazon Prime Days without having reliable access to the Internet and a marketing strategy that fully harnesses technology?

In addition, Kori Hale highlighted that if the digital divide persists , it has significant implications for persistent inequality across communities and populations. To highlight where and how connectivity is improving with investments, Forbes has promoted the best rural Internet and national fiber providers connecting US communities. But beyond the hard infrastructure needed by small businesses, it is important to promote the initiatives that also focus on the technical assistance and start up support needed by small businesses to fully leverage market opportunities and challenges.

Technology Catalyzing Small Start Ups

One example of an initiative to jointly elevate entrepreneurs and address connectivity is the AT&T Small Business Contest, offering an annual grand prize of $50,000. This past January, AT&T announced the winner of the 2025 AT&T Small Business Contest: Nourish + Bloom Market , the first autonomous, AI-powered grocery store. Nourish + Bloom Market was selected from a strong group of finalists, including Bold Crumb House, Sensori, SOJO Coffee Company and The Blueprint University—all recognized for their community impact and commitment to growth and meaningful change.

The 2025 winning concept, Nourish and Bloom Market, highlights the interesting intersection between innovation and technology. As the winner, husband-and-wife duo and co-founders, Jamie and Jilea Hemmings, received $50,000 to invest in their business, a year of AT&T fiber service for their business location, a new mobile device and access to resources and networks for continued growth.

With their contest, AT&T highlights how innovation is a key change agent for any size or age of business, so they provide fiber service, as well as the visibility and mentorship, as part of their prize package. The annual contest is open to small businesses with 50 or fewer employees that are driving positive change in their communities. This year they are accepting applications from now through the end of July 2026. AT&T strives to be a trusted partner to small businesses ….the Small Business Contest has grown over four years into a thriving network of entrepreneurs creating real change in their communities,” according to Shelley Goodman, a Senior Vice President with AT&T.

Crossing the Digital Divide To Boost Community Impacts

Nourish and Bloom stood out among the 11,000 plus applicants (a 80% increase in nominations compared to the year before) because of their clear intention to harvest technology in order to make a clearly defined community impact. This is a small business with a localized focus, which is an interesting example how to translate global concepts, like Amazon’s always open, delivery available model, to a more community-focused solution, while still integrating technology in a way that serves customer’s demands for service, convenience and access to quality products. In short, enterprise level solutions for businesses of all sizes is important for start-ups of this nature.

Talking to Jilea, a co-owner of Nourish and Bloom, she shared that their business idea spurred from concerns they saw about food access during the pandemic. Given their backgrounds in the food space and technology, they knew they could apply AI to create solutions and remove the friction of getting food to people 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (24-7). Previously, Jilea had started a food brand focused on better choices for her own child with dietary limitations and saw the need for market access first hand.

Once they opened the first Nourish and Bloom store, it opened their eyes to how significant the barriers were to food access among many communities, and they started exploring how to expand their impact. Another technology integration was their choice to accept Electronic Benefits (an electronic platform connected to the United States Department of Agriculture Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Benefits) by repositioning their AI-driven check out technology: another way to lower barriers to food. Another perceived barrier to food shopping is distance (she noted many households are over 1 mile from food in urban areas and 5 miles from food in rural areas) so they incorporated delivery options as well.

Plus, there is also a time and convenience barrier, with challenges to shop for food at off-times of day (7 pm to 7 am) for those who work two jobs or atypical hours. Not surprisingly, the first pilot Nourish and Bloom identified to address the 24-7 challenge is a hospital partner in Grady Hospital, a trauma hospital that has employees who need access to fresh foods 24 hours a day. Sage Accounting in San Jose is trying another option by including Smart Fridges with Nourish and Bloom technology into their workplace. A partnership with Sodexho is coming next to expand their reach into the University food space, another market where 24-7 convenience is in demand.

Beyond their own store footprint, Nourish and Bloom are trying to grow the reach. From partnering with existing brick and mortar stores, to offering franchise opportunities in new locations as small and flexible as smart fridges and shipping containers, they hope to offer better food access solutions that work for all.

Investing in Small Business Technology and Mentoring

As you might guess, connectivity is a big issue for all these partnerships. Jelia noted that winning the AT&T prize was a great boost to their enterprise at an important point of their scaling up (it was their 3 rd time competing, but this year was the right time). The prize dollars and mentors not only helped to power up one of their own stores, but also allowed them to open their first shipping container market (an important prototype in their expansion model). Now, Jelia hopes to have AT&T as a technology partner to make sure that as they expand into digital deserts, they can offer locations solutions to be connected.

Beyond this competition, you will see various government and industry leaders highlight the need for continued investments to realize the full potential of technology and the small business owners who might use it. AT&T announced new commitments to invest in connectivity across the country, signaling their intentions to have impacts beyond the scope of the Small Business Contest. Of course, all of these exciting opportunities are being cast in an era when conversations are turning to the implications of data centers and AI, conversations I will leave for future writing.