Whether it is causal or coincidental, it is those at the lower end of the socio-economic strata that are often without access to broadband-based information services. The Pew Center tells us that those on the wrong side of the Digital Divide are people with less education and less money, African Americans and Hispanics, seniors and people with disabilities. This zone offers insights, resources and references to promote inclusion, education and empowerment across the complete socio-economic spectrum.
I grew up in the telecom industry with a specialty in operations. Operations is all the stuff that makes networks really work: billing, maintenance, provisioning, traffic management, etc. And over the lifecycle of any network, the operations costs eclipse capital costs on the balance sheet. That said, operations was often an after-thought. At meetings, we Ops guys usually got the last 15 minutes on the agenda after the switching guys had waxed on about call-models and switch modules and the transport guys had talked about bi-directional line switched rings and the latest in optical switching.
Of course this background prepared me well for working in the area of Digital Inclusion. Digital Inclusion is occasionally a leading concept; but more often a necessary post script to consider after looking at the Access Points, mesh networks, emergency preparedness and government services. That all changed last month, when W2i launched the Digital Inclusion Forum - an event where Digital Inclusion took center stage.
The December 10th event in Washington DC brought together about seventy experts from around the country to review research, share best practices and collaborate on actions that will create inclusion in our society. Coincident with the conference, the Wireless Internet Institute launched the Digital Inclusion Forum web site to serve as a central point for collecting and sharing resources, practices, white papers and most of all, IDEAS about Digital Inclusion. The site also has "expert zones" and I am very pleased to take the lead in shaping the zone for socio-economic inclusion.
Related Blogs- Expert Opinions from Around the Web
Weblogg-ed by Educator Will Richardson on "discussions and reflections on the use of Weblogs, wikis, RSS, audiocasts and other Read/Write Web related technologies in the K-12 realm, technologies that are transforming classrooms around the world."
The Fischbowl by Karl Fisch, high school teacher and blogger exploring constructivism and twenty-first century learning at Arapahoe High School, Colorado and author of Do You Know/Shift Happens and Do You Know v2
Dangerously Irrelevant by Scott McLeod with "ruminations on technology, leadership and the futures of our schools.
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