Digital Divide!

"It is one thing to have mobile phones...
and another thing to know how to use them."

- Villy Wang, BAYCAT

Last night I attended the first public event of Community Technology Network, "Digital Opportunities: Is Access a Game Changer?" in the Mission in San Francisco. I was drawn to the the question of how to close the digital divide, and how the Bay Area tech community perceives the issue. What I liked, is CTN is not focusing on the global digital divide, but on local access to the internet and digital literacy. To address this issue was a great panel that included:

Laura Efurd, Vice President and Chief Community Investment Officer of Zero Divide,
Pankaj Kedia, Director of Global Ecosytem Programs for Mobile Internet at Intel
Craig Newmark, Customer Service Rep and founder of Craigslist
Villy Wang, President & CEO of BAYCAT

The discussion was moderated by Kami Griffiths, Executive Director of CTN and Training and Outreach Manager at TechSoup. Here's a snapshot of what I learned:

Federal Stimulus Money

The Director of Technology for the City of San Francisco, publicized that SF was the recipient of $8 million of stimulus funds to support seniors, youth and the disabled to gain access to broad band internet networks. Laura Efurd explained it is part of the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program, BTop Grant, $7.2 billion from the federal stimulus funds for digital access, of which $350 million is focused on technological adoption. While the stimulus money is here over the next 2-3 years there will be well resourced efforts to get more people on-line, but once the federal money runs dry there is still going to be a need to help marginalized communities gain access. I wonder how much of that stimulus money is aimed at supporting internet access in schools?

Smart Phones

Pankaj Kedia from Intel was interesting. He has a very positivist perspective on the benign impact of technology. He marveled at the cost diminishing cost of access to computers and gushed over the penetration of mobile phones to nearly every market on the globe. In India, a nation of 1.2 billion people, he remarked how 1 out of 13 have access to a PC and 1 out of 15 have access to the internet. There are 350 million toilets in India, and now 600 million cell phones. 1 out of 2 people in India has a cell phone, and I guess sanitation is a problem. Personally, I think sanitation is more important than cell phone access, but I assume people are sharing. A true technologist, he described the revolution in computer science that has put a computer on every desk and now a computer into every hand. In five years he says a PC will be as smart as the human brain, and in ten years a cell phone as smart as you. What will happen when a computer or a phone is as smart as, or smarter than you?

Human Capacity

I appreciate that most of the conversation was about how to build the human capacity of Bay Area residents. Villy Wang stressed that it is one thing to have mobile phones, and another thing to know how to use them. Her focus at BAYCAT is to give the Bayview community a voice in the new digital landscape. Her organizations focuses on educating, empowering, employing, and "entertaining" youth. Kids may be turned off to formal schooling, or may have financial or family stresses that bring them down. There are so many ways to get caught up in the streets. But if young people can begin to tell their stories, and learn digital skills like film editing, animation, and music production it can be a connection to get them back on track. She stressed that for kids challenged by the current system, especially kids with disabilities, they are really going to be opened up with access to technology. She encouraged all of us to push our envelopes beyond our immediate circles, to reach out to communities we are not a part of and support their efforts by consuming their media. I like the message!

Digital Divide

Craig Newman has become a consumer advocate and democratic philanthropist on the web. He is supporting a bunch of startups, and his basic effort is to give people access to technolgy so they can find a job. He sees the future as wireless broadband, smartphones and tablets. He admitted that we are always going to have a digital divide, because we have such inequitities in society. Kids who grow up with laptops and access to the internet at home, perhaps parents who work in the IT field, and all of the other experiential advantages that come with an upper middle class lifestyle are always going to be ahead of kids who connect with a school or community center computer a few hours a week.


There are plenty of kids in East Oakland or the Bronx who don't have cell phones, and no computers at home. Our schools do not have functioning computers for every student, or the technology staff to maintain them. Educators are not trained well on how to integrate technology into the class. How many teachers do you know that use Skype, wikis, film production, or blogs to produce knowledge and connect with a wider world? The world is changing and the challenge remains the same, to build the human capacity of developing communities, at home and abroad, so more people can live healthy and socially connected lives. It's not about the tool, but the capacity to do something useful with the tool for your family and community.


As access to the internet and digital literacy become more immersive experiences, essential to our professional lives and maintaining connections with our social networks, this divide has the potential to entrench winners and losers, slowing social mobility.