All the right
ingredients: By Jen
Muehlbauer You hear the phrase "digital divide" a lot lately. Many bright
people aren't
entirely sure how to equally distribute technology, including
attendees of Harvard's recent Internet & Society
conference. But just eleven Red Line stops south in Dorchester , a movement is
quietly bridging the divide every day. It's called community
computing.
Ground zero for Dorchester geekiness
At first glance, the only dot-com presence in Codman Square comes
from ads on the side of the 23
bus. But duck inside the former courthouse at 450 Washington
Street and you'll see a world-class computer center in the making.
About half the 21,000 square foot building, which was purchased
for the Codman Square Health Center by an anonymous donor, will be
earmarked for technology. Community Technology Manager Kate Snow
takes me through newly-remodeled, mostly-empty rooms and points out
where a digital music studio and training room will go. Every time
we turn the corner, there's room for another lab.
Not that this is the only place for Dorchester residents to log
on with their neighbors. There are many community computing spaces
nearby at schools, churches, libraries, the Y, and other
organizations. But this building is where all of the satellites can
come together and host programs.
What's the point?
Computer classes are pricey, so low-cost training is a blessing.
And even though computer prices have gone way down, not everyone can
afford the hardware they'd like. Snow gives the example of the Somerville
Community Computing Center, which first attracted laid-off baby
boomers working on their resumes and struggling artists who couldn't
spring for a scanner. A lab can also buy more cutting-edge equipment
than most people could buy individually.
Even if you can afford an adult ed class and all the gear you
need, you might learn more from your neighbors than from a lecture,
or from fumbling around by yourself. Your teacher might be someone
you know from the neighborhood, which makes the process less
intimidating. Not to mention that it's more fun to hang out and
compute at the same time.
Community computing programs also help teenagers go beyond what
they can learn in school. The Codman Square Cyber Shop -- a
student-run, Kinkos-esque copy shop -- gives summer and after-school
jobs, including advertising and sales positions, to local youth.
What's the secret to getting teenagers to spend their summer inside,
turning into entrepreneurs? "Pay
them," joked Snow.
Who's behind this?
Some may say the local community computing movement began almost
10 years ago, at the first Computers for
Social Change conference. Four hundred people attended, from
radical presses to progressive email networks. Several people I
talked to gave props to Peter
Miller, a community technology activist who was "at the center
of a lot of it," said Snow. Lotus and Apple were supportive, too.
Some of the early, community-based organizations have passed on,
unfortunately.
Miller, Snow, and plenty of others work for CTCNet, an award-winning network of
350 centers worldwide. I happened to visit Dorchester, but there are
many CTCNet ventures locally.
There's also Boston and Providence's iRazor and the on-hiatus Virtually Wired.
CTCNet, oddly, is an affiliate of the Codman Square Health Center. Snow
gives a pretty good explanation for this. Technology leads to
employability; better jobs lead to better civic health. With good
enough training -- and Snow's wish list for future classes includes
network certification, web design, and computer repair -- the center
will be a magnet for corporate recruiters. The Dorchester center
already works with CitySoft,
a Watertown Netco that hires from underrepresented urban areas.
Isn't this all starting to sound a bit too nice to be true, like
that 80s movie with
the inner-city math champs? No matter how cynical you are, you must
admit the barriers to entry for the computer-phobic or
tight-budgeted are lower than they used to be. So if you have a
neighbor who wouldn't know how to read this article online, do him a
favor and check out CTCNet's big list. Even if
you think the only dot-coms in your neighborhood are ads on buses
and cabs, there might be a computer lab hidden down the street.
Jen Muehlbauer's column appears every Friday in digitalMASS.
Her e-mail address is jen@englishmajor.com.
In a neighborhood nicknamed
'Dot,' the 'com' also stands for 'community'
Special to digitalMASS
