CTEP Awarded 750K ADC Grant

MINNEAPOLIS, December 10, 2010 – ADC Foundation announced today that it will make a round of strategic grants totaling $3.75 million to five community partners in the Twin Cities and Juarez, Mexico. Each grant will be $750,000. The Foundation’s grants will be used to promote transformative change in engineering education programs and effective use of computing and communications technologies to better serve disadvantaged populations.

The Community Technology Empowerment Project (St. Paul, MN) received $750,000 to continue and expand their efforts.

This grant will underwrite expansion of CTEP’s AmeriCorps program that places technology specialists in more than 20 Twin Cities neighborhood organizations, expand CTEP’s public outreach, and facilitate the development of community leadership for technology and communications.

Digital Inclusion Forum Coming UP!

http://pplforums.eventbrite.com/

Our world is increasingly ‘digital,’ but thousands are being left behind, limiting employment opportunity, access to education, and stifling full civic participation. Join us on December 6 as we develop an agenda to include everyone in the Twin Cities in a digital society.

December 6, 2010
Registration 3:30 p.m. Program 4:00 p.m.
The Humphrey Institute University of Minnesota

Keynote David Keyes
Community Technology Manager, City of Seattle

Emcee Kit Hadley, St. Paul Public Library

Moderator Catherine Settanni
Community Computer Access Network

Discussion by a panel of community experts

Register at pplforums.eventbrite.com

National Conference on Volunteering and Service

I will be moderating a panel at this year's National Conference on Volunteering and Service. Speaker Bios and Conference Information.
Session 1395
Session Title: Funders as Investors-- Engaging 21st Century Grant Makers(Scheduled for 10:30 AM-Noon, June 30th)

Public Comment, BTOP Grants

In response to the open comments period at NTIA regarding the BTOP grants, I have submitted the following comment. Also have been working with Emy Tseng and David Keys (SF and Seattle) on Emy's two minute presentation for later today...Apologies to my friends at Libraries and Community Colleges, this is in no way a slam for the work you do, simply an expansion of the definition of technology programming/ providers or intermediaries in the federal language.

"Those of us involved in Digital Inclusion efforts feel strongly that federal funds/grants should focus on strengthening the capacity of local, community-based Digital Inclusion programs.
Community-based programming, delivered through social service agencies, stresses the importance of helping residents in underserved communities learn basic technology skills. While access to computers and broadband are important, what is most needed is training and support for new technology users.

We heard this loud and clear from underserved residents via community surveys and town hall meetings held in conjunction with our City’s Wireless Initiative (Wireless Minneapolis). As a result, Minneapolis’ Digital Inclusion efforts reflect this.

National efforts often fail to identify or address existing barriers to digital inclusion that local programs both understand and successfully address through innovative programming.

Libraries are terrific at making computers and the Internet available, but Libraries do not have the staff or expertise to teach technology literacy, or help individual residents seek jobs, education, or resources online.

Community Colleges are great at helping students and staff navigate online technologies, but do not provide resources for those outside of their college communities, such as recent immigrants, youth, seniors and people with disabilities.

Community Technology Centers (CTCs) are critical to reaching new and novice technology users, and are instrumental in developing workforce initiatives from skills training through online job search.

Municipalities and Community Foundations are often in the best position to oversee and leverage CTC programs at the local level, and can engage private partners to help advance adoption and use.

We urge this committee to expand the eligible grantee list to specifically invite Municipalities and Community Foundations to act as “re-grantors” or regional grantees for BTOP funds.
From our perspective, national non-profits and state governments have been neither effective or efficient in various Digital Inclusion efforts over the past decade, so we ask the committee to favor locally originated, community based programming over national efforts in terms of this grant program.

Senate Network Neutrality Hearing Recap

Thanks again to the Benton Foundation for coverage on this issue-- network neutrality is a critically important component in any Digital Inclusion strategy. The FCC position on this as expressed by Chairman Martin is encouraging. For the hearing recap, visit http://tinyurl.com/5fhvxc

Digital Inclusion White Paper

I found this interesting report on the W2i website. It's very academic, but it's about time someone starting looking at the issue in this kind of detail, and internationally.

Benchmarking Digital Inclusion
Download the entire report here (pdf)

A White Paper by gov3 limited
At the World Summit on the Information Society, every national government in the world
committed itself to build a people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society. This White Paper is intended to help them measure their progress towards this goal, and to identify sources of international government best practice to help them succeed.

--The current level of Internet use in society: which countries are now ahead?
--Growth trends in Internet use: which countries are enjoying strongest continued
growth in Internet use, and which are starting to slow down?
--Future drivers for increased Internet user: how do countries compare on the three
factors which are identified in "Achieving Digital Inclusion" as the key drivers of Internet
use: access, confidence and motivation?

Digital Inclusion Fund Announces First Round of Grantees

The Digital Inclusion Fund has awarded grants to nine local agencies working to ensure Digital Inclusion in the Twin Cities. For a list of grantees (and advisors) visit:
http://www.digitalaccess.org/dif_advisors.htm