Many thanks to Nathaniel James from the Media and Democracy Coalition (MDC) for featuring ODIS in their weekly media newsletter. ODIS was a success! Both the program and participants mirrored the richness and diversity of Oakland. Representatives from Center for Digital Storytelling, Women of Color Resource Center, East Bay Asian Youth Center and other community based groups in Oakland complemented panel sessions focused on grassroots solutions to bridging the digital divide, as well as policy making strategies that support the creation of broadband, tech access, and community internet networks. Media Alliance, the primary coordinators of ODIS, would like to thank all the speakers, panelists, performers…and most of all, the participants for making ODIS 2008 an engaging, inspiring and powerful event.

Pleases check digi-I regularly for ODIS wrap ups, media from ODIS and other resources to help with digital inclusion efforts in your area.

For those of you who have already registered – THANK YOU!  We look forward to seeing you tomorrow! For those of you who have yet to register – don’t worry, you can register on-site.  Registration starts at 10:00 a.m.  Just look for the green and white ODIS signs to direct you.  We will see you in the morning.  Dream sweet…

The Oakland Digital Inclusion Summit is hours away now, and we are expecting an AWESOME roster of speakers and presenters. Oakland is full of organizations and individuals that work hard to give back to their community. When I listen to and watch the young people of this community, I sense the nascent fruit of that investment. A key to the integral growth of Oakland’s generations, like anywhere else, is access to knowledge. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) facilitate that access. Through ICTs, people have more information at their fingertips with less cost to receive that information. But access to ICTs is only the beginning. Communities like Oakland must adopt digital inclusion strategies to promote affordable and reliable technologies accessible to everyone in their own language, as well as the availability of the technical training needed to use those technologies. The repercussions of such a policy could be monumental.

Be the spark that lights this fire. Join us at the Oakland Digital Inclusion Summit, 10 a.m., Friday, February 15th at Laney College.

ODIS is thrilled to launch our main events on Friday with a keynote speech by Bay Area hip hop authority Davey D.

Davey D is a Hip Hop historian, journalist, deejay and community activist. He’s been down with Hip Hop since 1977 in the Bronx where he started out as an emcee for two crews: TDK [Total Def Krew] out of Co-op City and the Avengers out of the Marble Hill Section of the Bronx. Later Davey D came out to Cali to go to school at UC Berkeley and started deejaying in the Bay Area. His mobile deejay work and community activism eventually lead him to deejaying at radio stations including KALX, KPFA and later KMEL. Davey D is a proud member of The PROs Record Pool where he served as director for several years in the late 80s -early 90s. He is also a co-founder of the Bay Area Hip Hop Coalition [BAHHC]. Davey D is also a member of the Bay Area Black Journalist Association [BABJA]. Currently he’s the webmaster for what is considered one of the oldest and largest Hip Hop sites on the web Davey D’s Hip Hop Corner– which can be found at www.daveyd.com. The writings on his website are frequently referenced and quoted by journalists, scholars and professors and fans from all around the world. He writes for numerous publications and magazines and puts out a popular Internet newsletter called the FNV Newsletter, which has a subscriber base of 100 thousand people. His newsletter, like his website, is frequently referenced and quoted. In early 2002, Davey D launched another newsletter called HHPN [Hip Hop Political Newsletter].

Davey D’s been featured in documentaries, magazines, newspapers, videos and TV news shows like Rap City Rhapsody, CNN’s Talk Back Live, ABC’s Nightline, Australia’s Lateline, BBC Radio, Internet Cafe, Computer Chronicles, BET Television, VH1 Television, Soul Beat TV, KRON TV, KTVU TV, Bay TV, KPIX TV, KBHK TV, The Tavis Smiley Show, The Laura Flounders Show, E-40’s Charlie Hustle the Blueprint of a Self-Made Millionaire, 2Pac’sThug Angel documentary, Straight From The Streets documentary, Jahi’s Redefinition documentary, Impact Magazine, Radio Facts Magazine, Rollingstone Magazine, Washington Post, The NY Times, The NY Post, Oakland Tribune, USA Today, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Guardian Magazine [London], The Vallejo Times Herald, The SF Bay Guardian, Vibe Magazine, Stress Magazine, Redeye Magazine and The Source Magazine to name a few. He was profiled in the January 2003 edition of The Source Magazine as being one of the Top 10 most Influential people in the country when it comes to dealing with Hip Hop and politics. In 2000 Davey D was nominated by the Bay Area’s City Flight magazine as one of the Bay Area’s Most Influential African Americans. In 2001, Davey D was voted by the East Bay Express Newspaper as the Best On Air Personality in the Bay Area. The daily radio show he co-hosts, Hard Knock Radio, was voted Best Radio Show in the Bay Area. Davey D is originally from the Bronx and now a native of California. He graduated from UC Berkeley. Davey D also pens a Hip Hop/Political column for the San Jose Mercury News. Davey D also hosts a weekly Hip Hop/Political TV talk show on Oakland’s Soul Beat television. Davey D sits on the advisory board for civic organizations like Black Youth Vote as well as Rock the Vote. Davey D was also the guest curator for the Rock N-Roll Hall of Fame Hip Hop Nation Exhibit when it came to San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center in June of 2001. Davey D has been a featured speaker at high schools, universities and community centers throughout the country. He speaks on topics ranging from Hip Hop to Politics to bridging the Digital Divide.

Get to Laney College early on Friday – you do not want to miss a beat!

ODIS 2008 Program

Only four days left till ODIS 2008 at the Laney College Theater! Here’s a quick rundown of what to expect:

10:00 am – 10:25 am Summit Registration

10:25 am – 10:45 am Community Sharing
Dancing Feathers & United Nations Singers

10:45 am – 11:30 am Welcome
Guest Speaker: City Council Representative Jean Quan
Keynote: Davey D., Journalist, Hip Hop Historian, Community Activist
Presentations from The Center for Digital Storytelling and
Bruce Buckelew, Executive Director of OTX West

11:30 am -12:30 pm Session 1
Bridging the Gap: How Communities Attack the Digital Divide
Moderator: Davey D.
Panelist #1: David Glover, OCCUR, Eastmont Computing Center
Panelist #2: Laura Valdez, Caminos Pathways
Panelist #3: Xavier Leonard, Heads on Fire
Panelist #4: Cynthia Mackey, Mayor Dellums Citizen’s Task Force
Panelist #5: Craig Settles, Successful.com, Consultant, Author

Session 1: Bridging the Gap: How Communities Attack the Digital Divide
In this session, panelists will focus on their organization’s approach in tackling the digital divide in their communities. The role of non-profit organizations and community-based groups in developing strategies that engage marginalized and low-income communities and individuals as active participants will be explored. How to bring community voices to the forefront of digital inclusion initiatives and partnerships will also be discussed.

12:30 pm – 12:45 pm Community Sharing
Presentation from The Women of Color Resource Center

12:50 pm – 1:20 pm Lunch Break

1:20 pm – 1:35 pm Community Sharing
Korean Drumming Performance

1:45 pm – 2:45 pm Session 2
Creating Platforms for Success
Moderator: David Mathison, Be The Media
Panelist #1: Esme Vos, Muniwireless.com
Panelist #2: Sascha Meinrath, CUWiN
Panelist #3: Greg EplerWood, Vermont Triple Play Ownership Project
Panelist #4: Dr. Faye McNair-Knox and Solomon Hill, One East Palo Alto
Panelist #5: Bob Glaze, Chief Technology Officer, City of Oakland

Session 2: Creating Platforms for Success
This session will look at case studies of where technology has been used successfully to achieve digital inclusion and broadband access. Information from this session will focus on revenue generation and approaches to developing a community Internet network that is both sustainable and accountable to communities with the most need. Panelists will consider questions around ownership, maintenance, and funding for digital inclusion initiatives that meet the specific needs of diverse user groups.

2:45 pm – 4:45 pm Session 3
Break-out Sessions:
Session A: Digital Inclusion Oakland: Steps to Increasing Access
Session B: Building State and National Connections

4:45 pm – 5:00 pm Coffee Break

5:00 pm – 5:40 pm Townhall Sharing
Report backs from break-out sessions

5:40 pm – 6:00 pm Closing Ceremony
Presentation from East Bay Asian Youth Center’s Streetside Productions Performance by Cov Records from Covenant House – Oakland

6:00 pm – 7:00 pm ODIS Reception

7:00 pm ALOHA! – Congratulations on a job well done!

Breakfast, lunch, and refreshments will be provided to all registered ODIS participants.

The Laney College Theater is located at 900 Fallon Street in Oakland. If traveling by BART, get off at the Lake Merritt Station and exit via the 9th Street exit. We encourage summit delegates to use public transportation, as street parking is limited. Please visit www.bart.gov/stations/schedules/lineSchedules.asp for exact times and route information.

ODIS 2008 was made possible through sponsorship from the following organizations:

Media Alliance, Oakland Technology Exchange-West, California Consumer Protection Foundation, ZeroDivide, Full Circle Fund, Media Action Marin, First Voice Apprenticeship Program at KPFA, and Community Technology Network

The Oakland Digital Inclusion Summit is this Friday, February 15th! Be sure to register if you haven’t already. For more information, check out the following links:

- Digital Inclusion Advocacy Toolkit

- ODIS Press Release

- ODIS Flyer (also available in Spanish)

- Other ODIS Materials

You can also now view the ODIS Program Overview here .

Eloise Lee spoke with Be the Media and Media Action Marin about digital inclusion and the upcoming ODIS in January. Check out the video here. Entitled Community Internet for All: Internet Access as a Public Utility, this show was the first part of a two-part series on community-driven Internet initiatives. The second part of the show, covering various community Internet solutions around the US, will be taped at ODIS on February 15th.

Eloise Rose-Lee, Broadband Project Manager and ODIS Organizer from Media Alliance, visited the KPFA offices on January 18th to spread the word about ODIS. You can listen to her discussion here.

Eloise spoke with First Voice, a co-sponsor of ODIS, about the use of digital technology in community empowerment. First Voice is a program of KPFA. The mission of First Voice is “to facilitate community building and creative empowerment through healing, creative expression, and the adaptation of information technology. The ‘First Voice’ exists deep within ourselves, it is the consciousness or intuition that leads the way.”

The ODIS speaker lineup has grown into an exciting assortment of digital inclusion experts! These speakers are sure to get the Oakland wheels turning toward a digital inclusion strategy. Get to know the speakers a bit:

Joshua Breitbart

In addition to being People’s Production House’s Policy Director, Joshua Breitbart is a principal of The Ethos Group, which advises municipalities and civil society on broadband development, and a producer of the Allied Media Conference, the premier national gathering of community media hosted in Detroit, Michigan. He was a founder of Brooklyn’s Rooftop Films, now one of the largest film festivals in New York City. From 2001-2004, he worked with Clamor Magazine as a Consulting Editor and from 2000-2005 he helped organize the global Indymedia movement. Josh writes about media and technology on his blog, A Civil Defense, and is a regular contributor to GovTech’s Digital Communities.

Bruce Buckelew

Bruce Buckelew is the founder and Director of Oakland Technology Exchange (OTX) West, a large noncommercial refurbishing program dedicated to eliminating the digital divide in Oakland, California. Bruce is a retired IBM engineer who began doing volunteer tech support in an Oakland school near his home 12 years ago. The poor quality and lack of equipment in this inner-city school caused him to start a refurbishing operation in the basement of Oakland Technical High School. Bruce is one of the veterans of the field, running a 2,500 computer per-year refurbishing program. He is still an unpaid volunteer, but has three full-time staff members who run the administrative office and production functions. OTX West is a large model program that operates out of an 18,000 square foot warehouse and attracts visitors from all over the country to see how this work can be done optimally. OTX West supplies computers to the Oakland schools and to the families of low-income students in the schools. OTX West program also has a CTC training lab that families must use before they can acquire their computers.

Davey D

Davey D is a Hip Hop historian, journalist, deejay and community activist. He’s been down with Hip Hop since 1977 in the Bronx where he started out as an emcee for two crews: TDK [Total Def Krew] out of Co-op City and the Avengers out of the Marble Hill Section of the Bronx. Later Davey D came out to Cali to go to school at UC Berkeley and started deejaying in the Bay Area. His mobile deejay work and community activism eventually lead him to deejaying at radio stations including KALX, KPFA and later KMEL. Davey D is a proud member of The PROs Record Pool where he served as director for several years in the late 80s -early 90s. He is also a co-founder of the Bay Area Hip Hop Coalition [BAHHC]. Davey D is also a member of the Bay Area Black Journalist Association [BABJA]. Currently he’s the webmaster for what is considered one of the oldest and largest Hip Hop sites on the web Davey D’s Hip Hop Corner– which can be found at www.daveyd.com. The writings on his website are frequently referenced and quoted by journalists, scholars and professors and fans from all around the world. He writes for numerous publications and magazines and puts out a popular Internet newsletter called the FNV Newsletter, which has a subscriber base of 100 thousand people. His newsletter, like his website, is frequently referenced and quoted. In early 2002, Davey D launched another newsletter called HHPN [Hip Hop Political Newsletter].

Davey D’s been featured in documentaries, magazines, newspapers, videos and TV news shows like Rap City Rhapsody, CNN’s Talk Back Live, ABC’s Nightline, Australia’s Lateline, BBC Radio, Internet Cafe, Computer Chronicles, BET Television, VH1 Television, Soul Beat TV, KRON TV, KTVU TV, Bay TV, KPIX TV, KBHK TV, The Tavis Smiley Show, The Laura Flounders Show, E-40’s Charlie Hustle the Blueprint of a Self-Made Millionaire, 2Pac’sThug Angel documentary, Straight From The Streets documentary, Jahi’s Redefinition documentary, Impact Magazine, Radio Facts Magazine, Rollingstone Magazine, Washington Post, The NY Times, The NY Post, Oakland Tribune, USA Today, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Guardian Magazine [London], The Vallejo Times Herald, The SF Bay Guardian, Vibe Magazine, Stress Magazine, Redeye Magazine and The Source Magazine to name a few. He was profiled in the January 2003 edition of The Source Magazine as being one of the Top 10 most Influential people in the country when it comes to dealing with Hip Hop and politics. In 2000 Davey D was nominated by the Bay Area’s City Flight magazine as one of the Bay Area’s Most Influential African Americans. In 2001, Davey D was voted by the East Bay Express Newspaper as the Best On Air Personality in the Bay Area. The daily radio show he co-hosts, Hard Knock Radio, was voted Best Radio Show in the Bay Area. Davey D is originally from the Bronx and now a native of California. He graduated from UC Berkeley. Davey D also pens a Hip Hop/Political column for the San Jose Mercury News. Davey D also hosts a weekly Hip Hop/Political TV talk show on Oakland’s Soul Beat television. Davey D sits on the advisory board for civic organizations like Black Youth Vote as well as Rock the Vote. Davey D was also the guest curator for the Rock N-Roll Hall of Fame Hip Hop Nation Exhibit when it came to San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center in June of 2001. Davey D has been a featured speaker at high schools, universities and community centers throughout the country. He speaks on topics ranging from Hip Hop to Politics to bridging the Digital Divide.

Lauren-Glenn Davitian

Lauren-Glenn Davitian is Executive Director of CCTV Center for Media & Democracy based in Burlington Vermont. For more than twenty years she has worked to secure free speech and public access for Vermont communities through the start up and protection of 43 public access TV channels across the state. In an effort to secure public access to all technologies of the information age, she worked to establish the state’s first community technology center (1995) and is now actively involved in state and national policy efforts. In the past year she edited the People’s Guide to the Telecommunications Act of 2006 and Community Media Centers 2.0 for the Alliance for Community Media’s (ACM) Community Media Review. In additional to local efforts, Lauren-Glenn serves on the Board of the Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN) and the Media and Democracy Coalition - which includes 20 regional and national organizations working to ensure that local communities maintain control of the airwaves and public rights of way that belong to them. In recognition of her dedication to community media and free speech, the ACM awarded Lauren-Glenn the George Stoney Award for Humanistic Communications.

Tony Fleming

Tony Fleming is the Executive Director of Eastmont Computing Center, a community technology organization that provides direct training, education and computer access to over 300 East Oakland residents per week; delivers high-quality, technology-focused employment training to members of Oakland’s under-served communities; provides technical assistance designed to create community technology centers throughout Oakland; links Oakland’s under-served communities to advanced technology applications and infrastructure to enhance community building and economic development; and catalyzes action on community technology issues in Oakland.

Xavier Leonard

A Zero Divide Fellow, Xavier Leonard is Founder and Executive Director of Heads on Fire, an organization teaching multimedia tools to disenfranchised people in turbulent political environments, such as homeless youth and California women prisoners. Since graduating from Columbia University, Xavier Leonard has forged a career that has merged his efforts as a multimedia artist, community educator, and technology ambassador. Beginning with work in West Africa as an International Artist Fellow under the auspices of the Institute for International Education, he has gone on to present conceptual multimedia works, create award winning commercial designs, and develop community-based technology training programs on five continents. Leonard has been featured in museums and galleries, nationally and internationally, including the Pamela Stockwell Gallery, the Knitting Factory, and the Kathryn Bache-Miller Theater in New York; the Henry Gallery in Seattle; The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Painted Bride Art Center and The Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia; Intermedia Arts-Minnesota in Minneapolis; The Institute of Contemporary Art in London, England; the Treppentheater Festival in Florsheim, Germany; and the Centre Culturel Francais in Burkina Faso. His community programs have been recognized and supported by national institutions in several countries including the United States Department of Justice, and he has garnered awards from the Lila Wallace-Readers Digest International Artists’ Program, The Pew Fellowships in the Arts, Franklin Furnace Emerging Artists Program, New American Radio, The International Association of Webmasters and Designers, The Pennsylvania Council of the Arts, and The Western States Arts Federation. In 2003, Leonard was honored with the ET3 Tec Champion Award by the Congressional Black Caucus. His work is profiled in the book Parallaxis: Fifty-five Points to View by Lucy Lippard and Rina Swentzell.

Dr. Faye McNair-Knox

Faye McNair-Knox is the Executive Director of One East Palo Alto, a community-based convener, broker, advocate, capacity builder, and resident leadership incubator. One East Palo Alto improves the overall quality of life of residents in the community, especially those in need, by bringing together its vast knowledge of available resources, relevant/applicable work conducted by CBOs and neighborhood groups, key local players who are or should be involved in a given issue, and funders that are invested in and/or want to invest in EPA.  It is uniquely positioned to bring its knowledge and relationships to bear on efforts to find solutions to critical community issues. As a native of East Palo Alto, Dr. McNair-Knox has had a long term association with Stanford. She received her undergraduate degree from Stanford in ‘72, her Masters in ‘73, and her Ph.D. in ‘85. While finishing her Ph.D., she became Assistant Dean of Students and Director of the Black Community Services Center. She filled this post from ‘81-’87 and was known as a tireless worker, an advocate for students, and an ambassador for community service. Dr. McNair-Knox, a Fulbright Scholar, later became Assistant Director of African and African American Studies where she taught classes on African American English and Language and Social Issues in America. She left Stanford in 1991 for a teaching position at William Patterson College in New Jersey but is remembered as the consummate intellectual, teacher, mentor, and friend.

Sascha Meinrath

Sascha Meinrath has been described as a “community Internet pioneer” and an “entrepreneurial visionary” and is a well-known expert on community wireless networks (CWNs) and municipal broadband. Leading news sources, including the Economist, the New York Times, the Nation, and National Public Radio, often cite Sascha’s work in covering issues related to CWNs. Sascha is the Research Director for the New America Foundation’s Wireless Future Program. Additionally, he coordinates the Open Source Wireless Coalition, a global partnership of open source wireless integrators, researchers, implementors and companies dedicated to the development of open source, interoperable, low-cost wireless technologies. He is a regular contributor to Government Technology’s Digital Communities, the online portal and comprehensive information resource for the public sector. Sascha has also worked with Free Press, the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA), the Acorn Active Media Foundation, the Ethos Group, and the CUWiN Foundation. Sascha holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Yale University and a Master’s Degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, both in psychology. He is a Telecommunications Fellow at the University of Illinois in the Institute for Communications Research, where he is finishing his PhD on community empowerment and the impacts and interactions of participatory media, wireless communications, and emergent technologies.

Craig Settles

For 20 years as president of Successful.com (formerly Successful Marketing Strategists), Craig Settles developed and executed innovative marketing campaigns for technology companies that educated audiences about the business value of clients’ products. In 1994, he began writing about and implementing Internet strategies to improve marketing, general communication and overall business operations. His clients for these services included companies such as Microsoft, AT&T, Lotus Development, and Symantec. His first wireless industry client signed on in 1993 for PR services. Several years later he became Director of Electronic Commerce for Metricom, which marketed the Ricochet wireless Internet access service, the pre-cursor to today’s municipal wireless networks. He has since provided strategic market development services to Nextel, AT&T Wireless, AppForge and others. In 2002 he wrote Wireless, Inc., a planning guide that helps organizations use mobile and wireless technology to make money, save money and run a better business. His 2004 book, I Only Have ROIs for You(first of three published by Hudson House Publishing), updates that information. Pilots to Profits, co-authored in 2005 with Intellisync Chief Marketing Officer Rip Gerber, is a guide to help organizations manage more effectively the logistics of deploying mobile and wireless applications. Fighting the Good Fight for Municipal Wireless is Mr. Settles’ latest book. It tells the Philadelphia Wireless story and presents a roadmap that helps cities and counties use municipal broadband wireless and mobile workforce applications to improve government efficiency, responsiveness and fiscal strength. A staunch advocate of creative yet practical uses of technology to improve business operations, Mr. Settles keeps abreast of new developments, tactics and techniques that will help organizations thrive in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

Laura Valdez

Laura Valdez is the Executive Director at Caminos Pathways Learning Center in San Francisco. Caminos uses computers to provide educational and employment opportunities to low-income, immigrant women of the Bay Area. Classes in technology and a job skills program help to strengthen the self-reliance of each participant and contribute to the greater health of low-income communities in San Francisco. CAMINOS staff and volunteers provide tuition-free education and job training opportunities for women limited by low literacy, poverty and inadequate English language skills. CAMINOS addresses the challenge of helping the unemployed or underemployed immigrant community move from manual or service labor to desktop publishing and technology work.

Esme Vos

Esme Vos is the founder of Muniwireless.com, the portal for news and information about citywide wireless broadband projects around the world. Muniwireless.com has become the resource for city officials and IT directors, systems integrators, wireless ISPs, vendors, community wireless advocates, journalists, legislators and policy makers. Esme is an intellectual property lawyer who has put her legal practice on hold to focus on delivering valuable and timely information about municipal wireless networks. In addition to running Muniwireless and speaking at conferences, Esme writes research reports and delivers consulting services to cities and companies in the wireless industry.

On February 15, 2008 Oakland is hosting its first Digital Inclusion Summit (a.k.a. ODIS) at the Laney College Theater. ODIS will bring together community members, policy makers, industry professionals, educators, and nonprofit agencies working across the digital inclusion and government sectors to discuss policy direction, strategies, new partnership opportunities, and how best to utilize emerging technologies to provide affordable technology and internet access throughout Oakland. Particular attention will be given to neighborhoods and areas with minimal coverage and low-income communities.

A direct implementation of Mayor Dellums Citizen Task Force on Universal Access to Technology and the Internet, the summit will also feature the launching of Digital Inclusion Oakland – a network of service providers and resource centers with a broad range of technical and educational offerings. ODIS aims to thoughtfully develop policies that comprehensively address issues of ownership, hardware, content, and training in a community-focused environment.

The key objectives of ODIS are to raise awareness, especially among policy makers, of the issues surrounding digital inclusion in Oakland, assess the effects of the digital divide in Oakland, identify appropriate strategies to tackle the digital divide, showcase Oakland digital inclusion projects and technologies, network with the various players in digital inclusion, such as service providers and community organizations, and begin to develop digital inclusion policies for underserved and low-income communities in Oakland.

A snapshot of the ODIS sessions includes an overview of current perspectives on Oakland’s digital divide, an analysis of case studies where technology was used to achieve digital inclusion, and break-out sessions for service providers, policy makers, and other community stakeholder to brainstorm next steps in making community internet and digital inclusion a reality for Oakland. Oakland organizations and community groups will also showcase examples of how they are using information and communication technologies (ICTs) in creative ways that benefit underserved communities in the area. Live performances from Bay Area artists will also be featured!

The current lineup of ODIS speakers include Esme Vos, the founder of muniwireless.com; Craig Settles, author of, “Fighting the Good Fight for Municipal Wireless“; Sascha Meinrath from the Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network (CUWiN); Laura Valdez, Executive Director of Caminos Pathways Learning Center in San Francisco, Xavier Leonard, Director of Heads on Fire in San Diego; and Josh Breitbart, Policy Director of the People’s Production House. As we approach the February 15th ODIS date, we will go into more detail on how these and other speakers, sponsors, and participants play an important role in BUSTING the digital divide in Oakland…and beyond!

In the next post, we’ll talk about the Eastmont Computing Center (ECC) and their innovative programs in technology literacy and training to the residents in East Oakland. Directed by Tony Fleming, ECC is partnering with Bay Area community development groups to create state of the art learning centers serving community and residential stakeholders in East Oakland. Imagine, “digi-smart” (yes, MA’s outreach team has coined a new term) affordable housing complexes in what was infamously known as “6-9 Village” (the actual site that was the subject of the movie New Jack City)!

Exciting things are brewing out here in Oakland! Read more about ECC and other digital inclusion (DI) stories on our next post. Also, feel free to share your DI stories by posting it on our community forum!