Digital Excellence Connections - The Community Movement

Community Groups Create Wi-Fi Networks And Community-Accessible Wi-Fi Hotspots

Who's waiting for city, county, state and federal officials to "get it" when it comes to creating community-based digital excellence initiatives and community-based wi-fi networks? Not community activists and organizations in Chicago's North Lawndale and Bronzeville communities. One wireless network is up, the other is launching, and at least four more community groups are talking about starting their own networks.

Learn more about what's happening in these communities with the w-fi networks, community-created media, digital excellence initiatives and much more. We'll be listing those activities and the action agenda for bringing communities into the 21st century digital age.

UPDATE: Southside Technology Cooperative NFP partners with Chicago Digital Access Alliance, Black Metropolis Convention And Tourism Council and One Economy to create community wi-fi network. The launch is imminent.

Universities Meeting To Get Involved With Community Digital Excellence Initiatives

Digital excellence should be a cause celebre for everyone concerned about our future in the digital age but particularly from an educational perspective for the universities whose educational futures would seem to depend on attracting a digitally-literate student body and delivering to employers a digitally-empowered workforce.

On April 22, reps from six universities met to launch the first in a series of dialogues and action agenda meetings around digital excellence initiatives that universities have launched and can get involved with. The meeting, "Bridges To Digital Excellence", hosted by DePaul University April 22, 2008 at the downtown DePaul campus, featured universities including DePaul, IIT, U.I.C., U. of C., Columbia College and the University Of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.

In photo at left (left to right), Ms. McWhorter, representing the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, Lynda Jones, NCP Washington Park director, Sonya Malunda, VP of Community Development, University of Chicago, and Shaz Rasul, Internet Project Coordinator, University of Chicago, discuss digital excellence initiatives.

The meeting was faciliated by Thom Clark, President of the Community Media Workshop and co-sponsored by the Chicago Digital Access Alliance, Community Media Workshop and DePaul University Egan Urban Center.

A follow-up meeting is scheduled for early June 2008 at DePaul University's Egan Center.

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