First, my apologies for not responding sooner to the policy piece. I
know you were trying to moves this discussion along last week -- hopefully
these comments come not too late in the process. I should note that these
comments are my personal views, and not necessarily those of the Markle
Foundation.
You make an important point in stating that creating a policy
environment conducive to the equitable diffusion of technology happens not
only at the federal level, but at state and local levels as well. There
needs to be symmetry between local and national public policy efforts as
the magnitude of such issues as broadband deployment make it unlikely that
they can get resolved exclusively at one level or the other. A group in
Oakland, CA was doing some interesting work on this last year, as the city
was developing a city policy on bridging the digital divide, while holding
to national policy under the Telecoms Act of 1996 of advancing a
competitive environment. Interestingly, the elements they suggest in
developing a coherent and successful city policy include: recognition of
the work of CBOs; developing a community based for market-oriented
innovation and diffusion of advanced technology; employment and training
policies that promote opportunities to move from secondary to primary
labor markets; and the creation of industry/community consortia to develop
local applications.
Policy that mobilizes private sector resources, and new public private
partnerships is key. The creation of these incentives, whether through
merger reviews (like AOLTW, or the PacBell-SBC Communications merger that
led to the creation of the $50 million Community Technology Foundation of
California) or through tax or other incentives is vital in demonstrating
and creating sustainable new markets beyond the 'low hanging fruit' of
typical corporate R&D. The few initiatives that I'm aware of that have
tried to do this, mostly using the financial services sector, have found
it hard to develop buy-in from the corporate sector. The argument that
this is not about corporate philanthropy but rather new market development
hasn't taken hold -- the marketing folks see it as work for corporate
foundations. I'm interested to hear from others if they know of success
stories here (Ben, maybe we need to catch up?!?!) and whether future
research efforts might focus in part on gaining new understanding of what
makes new market development tick, and how CBOs can leverage their work,
reach, and reputations in the community to help create viable corporate
opportunity.
The second important thread in your piece is on content, and at Markle
we agree that access alone is not the answer; that technology is not a
gift for anyone unless it delivers information, goods and services that
can improve people's lives. Key to this effort is creating functional,
user-friendly applications that provide pertinent content, at the right
literacy levels.
The example of the program you cite in Portland, OR supports work that
we're funding at the Children's Partnership, Online Content for
Underserved Internet Users. As a result of their initial research (report
issued March 2000), TCP has focused subsequent efforts on identifying and
evaluating specific technology tools and content for an online resource
center portal. The portal will be a practical and functional set of tools
for low income users, including appropriate search engine capability and
language translation tools.
We're also supporting some interesting "content" work at the
Ella Baker House in Dorchester, MA, where low income, "at-risk"
kids -- many referred by the Department of Youth Services -- participate
in an after school program that teaches high-quality culturally relevant
content through a curriculum based on Encarta Africana, the CD ROM
encyclopedia of African and African-American history. The program has just
piloted its first "semester" and should have some interesting
findings as to how kids learn computer skills (and self-esteem) when taken
through content that is culturally relevant. The project is run in
partnership by the Baker House and Harvard University, and funded by both
corporate and philanthropic contributions.
