July 15, 1999 | Read Time: 2 minutes
A new breed of non-profit organization is bringing technology to poor neighborhoods — and encouraging residents to use it to change their lives and their communities for the better, says Fast Company magazine (July-August).
The magazine profiles three organizations that it says operate on the belief that “a plugged-in computer is only useful when it becomes a tool for disadvantaged people to change their own lives — and, in the process, to use that power to make change in their communities.”
In East Palo Alto, Cal., Plugged In (The Chronicle, January 14) runs a storefront center that provides low-cost access to copiers, fax machines, computers, and the Internet and offers computer classes. The organization also boasts an after-school computer program for children and a Web-design business run by teen-agers.
Break Away Technologies, in Los Angeles, uses donated computer equipment to set up computer laboratories and networks for non-profit groups, schools, and churches. The group also offers programs that provide low-cost access to computers and the Internet, involve young people in a Web-development business, and teach the elderly how to use the Internet.
Street-Level Youth Media, in Chicago, arranges for artists to teach teen-agers how to use video and computer graphic-design programs to express themselves. Both the Chicago Historical Society and the Museum of Contemporary Art have hired the group to produce video projects for them.
Bart Decrem, founder of Plugged In, told the magazine: “If left alone, technology will reinforce the existing disparities of opportunity in this country. A lot of people are saying that technology can level the playing field, that it can create opportunity. That doesn’t just happen by itself. It takes a lot of hard work. Our job is to realize that change for our community.”
The article is available on the magazine’s Web site at http://www.fastcompany.com.
