Cleveland Digital Vision
Tuesday, December 30, 2003
DIGITAL VISION YEAR-END SURVEY: Over 1,500 adult Cleveland residents got basic computer training at neighborhood computer centers in 2003. That's one of the findings of Digital Vision's survey of local CTCs, new on our website. Twenty-one centers participated in the online survey about beginner classes in computer skills for adults.
Monday, December 29, 2003
NEW CITY TECH LITERACY INITIATIVE: Crain Tech's Shasta Clark has a story up today about the new City-led computer literacy collaborative.
Melodie Mayberry-Stewart is spearheading, on behalf of the city of Cleveland, a project that aims to make available to every Cleveland resident computer technology, Internet access and computer training.
"We want to ratchet up the computer skills of the city of Cleveland," Dr. Mayberry-Stewart said. "Every Clevelander has the need and the right to have access to technology for enhancing everyday life and for improving the ability to compete in a global society."
Dr. Mayberry-Stewart acknowledges that including "every Clevelander" is a huge undertaking, but she said the city doesn't want to exclude anyone. The project, called Creating a Stronger Digital Community, is for "every neighborhood in the city," she said.
The second half of the story deals with Digital Vision's planned Household IT Users Survey and how the City initiative will use its results.
Sunday, December 28, 2003
CAP'S YEAR-END REPORT: Our friends at Computers Assisting People have just sent out and posted this report on their 2003 donations of recycled computers to Cleveland nonprofits. They had a banner year, with over 500 PCs going out to more than fifty organizations.
We're grateful that eight community computer centers affiliated with Digital Vision benefited from CAP's donations this year.
Soon to be announced: CAP and Digital Vision are teaming up with a local bank, two CTCs and a high school to create a unique training and access partnership. Watch this space...
AND SPEAKING OF PARTNERSHIPS: On Christmas Day, the PD's Chris Seper broke this story about a new collaborative, led by City of Cleveland CTO Melodie Mayberry-Stewart, to take the city's computer literacy and access programs to a much higher level of impact and funding. The initial planning meeting on December 11 at ShoreBank included DV member reps Tiffany Barnes (Tri-C), Stanley Miller (NCA), Amy Eiben (Famicos), Wanda Davis (ASC3), Melodie Allen (Esperanza), Dan Valerian (CSP), Diane Euchenhofer (Growth Assn), Tom Furnas (ideastream) and Phil Star (CSU's Neighborhood Link). Also involved: CAP, the Cleveland Housing Network, One Cleveland, and the PC Users Group, among others. The planning group is chaired by Cynthia Andrews of the local IBM office.
Look for a lot more news about this initiative in the next couple of months.
Sunday, December 14, 2003
FCC COMMISH IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD: Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps was in town Friday to speak at the City Club about media concentration. But first, he made a detour to the North Broadway neighborhood for a special meeting with Cleveland's community technology activists and high-speed network developers.
The meeting at University Settlement started an hour late due to a plane delay, so it was short but action-packed. Copps went away educated and impressed. (He made a point of how impressed he was when he spoke at the City Club later.)
The participants included Kevin Cronin of the University Settlement computer lab, who set up the meeting with Digital Vision's support; US's new Executive Director, Tracey Mason; Dan Valerian of Cleveland Scholarships Program, a DV Board member; Melody Allen of Esperanza; Victoria from Famicos Foundation's Park Village; Mike Fait and Dejuan Perrymond of the Cleveland Housing Network; Dell Klingensmith of One Cleveland; Tom Furnas and Mike Gesing of IdeaStream; Tim Wilson and Pat Vitone of SkyLAN, who are working with Channel 45/49 on an ITFS wireless network in Akron; and Steve Finegold of Tremont WiFi. (Oh yeah, I was there too.)
Dell and Tom described One Cleveland and Idea Stream's planned ITFS wireless project, and all the applications they foresee for education, community development, etc. Tom and the SkyLAN guys got to talk with Copps for a while about ITFS issues that may be looming at the FCC. Then the community tech folks talked about our programs, how we collaborate, the importance of IT literacy to urban neighborhoods, and why the high-speed network development is important to us.
Our basic message was that we're working together in Cleveland; we have a real plan for community broadband; this is vital economic and community development work for the city.
Copps had a lot of questions, and was very interested in the links between network development and digital literacy efforts. He made a pitch about the need for a national broadband policy, but allowed as how Cleveland might be one of the few places that didn't actually need it.
Thanks to Kevin for putting this together, to US for hosting it, and to all the folks who turned out.
(For a look at Commissioner Copps' thinking on Internet issues, see his recent speech to the New America Foundation.)
Tuesday, December 02, 2003
MORE ABOUT RAINBOW TERRACE: The Cleveland project is featured in a September study published by Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies, called The Computer as a Household Appliance in the Subsidized Housing Arena (pdf file). The stuff on Rainbow Terrace begins on page 22, but the whole paper is interesting.
