Category: Digital Divide

  • Panel: Civic Tech Breakfast

    This morning I participated in a panel discussion about community technology resources with Alderman David Moore (17), Alderman Roderick Sawyer (6), Edward Coleman, Chief Innovation Officer of Bethel New Life, and Tina James, Director of Commercial and Technology Services at Greater Southwest Development Corporation. We spoke about the need to support and fund community technology for all.

  • CUTGroup Book

    CUTGroup Book

    Civic User Testing Group as a New Model for UX Testing, Digital Skills Development, and Community Engagement in Civic Tech documents a methodology I invented while I was Executive Director of the Smart Chicago Collaborative. The model has been implemented in about a dozen cities across the United States.

  • News article: Proposed Illinois budget threatens digital literacy program

    Here’s an article from today in the Chicago Tribune about funding for community technology centers. Snip: Dan O’Neil, an advisory committee member who also is executive director of Smart Chicago Collaborative, whose mission is to increase Internet access, said at the meeting that he believes funding should be doubled. See also this post I wrote on…

  • News Article: “The Responsive City: Chicago”

    Here’s an article from this month’s Broadband Communities magazine by Stephen Goldsmith and Susan Crawford  of Harvard University about Smart Chicago’s work with SWOP in collecting neighborhood-level building information for use in collaborative decision-making. Here’s a snip: SWOP, O’Neil’s team realized, could use this app to digitize its processes for tracking neglected properties. LocalData gave Smart…