EDC Recognized for Innovative Technology Partnerships
October 2000
The Congressional Black Caucus's Education Braintrust, chaired by longtime advocate of technology access Congressman Major Owens, recently honored EDC's Center for Education, Employment and Community (CEEC) for pioneering public-private partnerships to close the "digital divide."
"Investing in youth and lifelong learning must be our country's first priority if we are to secure economic prosperity in this Information Age," Congressman Owens said. "These programs were selected as exemplary models of forging new relationships, leveraging technology to empower communities, and shaping the contours of our new cyberciviliation."
Vivian Guilfoy, EDC Vice President, accepted the award on behalf of CEEC at "Closing the Digital Divide: Build Schools First," held September 16 in the US House of Representatives. Guilfoy praised the seven CEEC projects for "doing remarkable work with people who face multiple barriers to success," teaching participants to harness technology "as a vehicle to express their dreams, learn new skills, help their communities, and demonstrate achievement."
The "Pioneers of Private-Public Technology Partnerships" awards went to:
- High Point Village Neighborhood Networks Center, HUD Neighborhood Networks, and Thinkquest, bringing technology to people of all ages in HUD housing, and specifically encouraging young people to engage with technology.
- St. Francis House Moving Ahead Program helps people with substance abuse problems who are also homeless recover, receive training, and restart their lives. Its success rate, as measured by a long-term evaluation by Harvard Medical School, is 83%, compared with the national average of 26% for drug recovery programs.
- Rompiendo Barreras . . . Breaking Barriers, works with more than 20 community-based agencies to empower Latina women and their families to prepare for the workforce and take leadership roles in their communities.
- Ohio's Cuyahoga County, Department of Justice Affairs demonstration school-to-work program, which teaches IT and job skills to incarcerated youth and enables them to pursue work or further training.
- The Women's Educational Equity Resource Center (WEEA), using online courses to engage teachers in thinking about how to reach girls, students of color, and other minorities with high level math and science content.
- Information Technology Association of America and National Alliance of Business, CEEC's business partners in Building Linkages and Techforce, which develop industry standards for IT and expand the involvement of IT employers in education nationally.
- East Cleveland Public Schools, working with community-based agencies and employers to use IT to open doors both to higher education and to promising careers.
Focusing on technology as a tool of transformation, the Education Braintrust is part of the CBC's annual week-long legislative conference, this year entitled "Tools for 2000: Launching a Century of Equity and Empowerment." The CBC conferences have been held for the last thirty years and typically draw more than 20,000 African American and other leaders from education, government, private sector and community-based organizations.
CEEC has long been involved in making technology accessible to all people. Last year, CTCNet, a coalition of Community Technology Centers then housed at EDC, also received recognition from the Education Braintrust of the CBC.
Other public-private partnerships awarded at the CBC Education Braintrust event included the CISCO-HUD partnership for wiring HUD housing, the National Science Center collaborations with private companies to interest young people in science and space, FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) for its partnership with LEGO to involve young people in designing robots, and the Intel Computer Clubhouse Network and PowerUp, both of which bring nonprofit and private companies together to improve technology access and IT opportunities for young people.
The Pioneers of Public Private Technology Partnerships event was sponsored by Education Technology Think Tank (ET3), SBS Corporation, George Lucas Educational Foundation, Intel, and SunMicrosystems.
