| As the Digital Divide Narrows, A
Large Goal Looms: Using New Technologies to Reduce
Social Inequality Americans are making impressive progress in closing
the digital divide, but a much larger challenge still
looms ahead: using digital technology to overcome
deep — and possibly widening — social divisions.
On that front, the battle is far from won. That was the message delivered by Mario Morino,
head of the Morino Institute, in a keynote address
to the Technology Opportunity Program's 2000 "Networks
for People" conference October 30-31. "The movement
to close the digital divide may well close the gap
in access to technology . . . within this decade," Morino
told more than 400 former, current and aspiring TOP
grantees, as well as numerous technology leaders
from the nonprofit sector. But, he added: "Now, another
question must be posed: to what end?" Answering his own question, Morino continued: "We
now have the opportunity to turn what is the farthest
reaching, fastest growing civic movement of our time
into a true social force — one that helps close
core educational, economic and social divides," he
said. "By fully tapping the potential technology
offers us, this movement can make great strides to
ensure that everyone can enjoy…economic mobility,
personal advancement and a higher quality of life." The gathering, TOP's fourth annual "Networks for
People" conference, attracted took up Morino's challenge
to focus on the hard work of moving beyond seeking
to increase access to technology in low-income communities
to looking for ways to help communities achieve substantial
social change. During two days, plenary sessions
examined the skilled-worker shortage, reviewed efforts
to promote nonprofit networking in the international
arena, looked at the need to design technology to
enable disabled people to participate in the digital
age, explained technology funding priorities of private
foundations, and explored privacy issues raised by
social service networking projects. Smaller meetings, meanwhile, stressed even more
pragmatic issues — in particular, the need for
nonprofit organizations to take an entrepreneurial
approach as they tackle technology issues. The specific
topics covered during the break-out sessions included
how nonprofit organizations can use networks as business
tools, how to use evaluation techniques as management
tools, what combinations of entrepreneurial tools
and talents are required for successful leadership
in nonprofit organizations, and how organizations
can make resources and information available and
relevant to the communities they serve. The conference came at an auspicious time. Gregory
L. Rohde, assistant secretary of Commerce for Communications
and Administration, told participants that congressional
budget negotiators had tentatively agreed to triple
TOP's budget for grants to nonprofit organizations,
to $45 million, in the current fiscal year. That
could help accelerate progress toward closing the
gap in access to digital technologies. At the current
rate, half of all Americans will have Internet access
by next summer, Rohde said. "We have truly crossed
a new threshold," he told the conference. But, Morino cautioned, it's no time for celebration.
While the digital divide movement has focused almost
entirely on increasing access to technology, he said,
deeper social divisions are not narrowing, and may
even be growing wider. "The same new economy that
makes prosperity possible is also exacerbating the
already formidable social divides," Morino noted.
As a result, the digital revolution "risks leaving
more people farther behind, if not cementing a permanent
underclass in America — maybe for the first
time in our country's life." To prevent this, Morino said the digital divide
movement must go far beyond its current emphasis
on increasing access to technology, concentrating
instead of finding ways to strengthen the "community
infrastructure" in low income areas. "Making sure
that technology is in place is just the first step
in a long and challenging journey," he said. Equally
important, he said, is the need to invest in building "human
capacity, in the development of leadership and the
capacity of organizations and in the skills of individuals." Drawing from his own experience as an entrepreneur,
Morino argued that the digital divide movement must
help community leaders develop a more comprehensive
and expansive vision for what technology can do.
That doesn't happen overnight, he noted. Corporate
America invested billions of dollars in technology
in the 1960s and 1970s, but significant gains in
productivity didn't materialize until well into the
1980s because it took business leaders time to realize
the potential of technology, and thus to make effective
use of it. "Old practices and ingrained attitudes
made it hard to usher in the profound change that
technology enables," Morino said. "It's very easy
to put a computer in, it's very easy to put a technology
center in. But it's hard to change the minds of individuals
and communities and organizations around that technology." Besides helping leaders develop a vision for what
technology can do, it's essential to increase the
capacity of organizations to use technology effectively,
he continued. Indeed, 70 percent of the technology
funding should go to train staff and develop organizations,
he said, while only 30 percent should be earmarked
for hardware, software and technical services. Morino
also suggested that funding organizations should
invest strategically, making long term — four
to six year — grants that help organizations
build their capacity and focusing on "pressure points
that are levers for change." Morino concluded his remarks by proposing five
steps "to transform digital divide movement into
a social force." First, he said, "We must make the
case for technology, but even more so for how it
can be applied with relevance to the needs of people
and the organizations that serve them in low income
areas." Many people, he noted, still see little reason
to embrace technology. "The digital divide movement
must make an investment to demonstrate this relevance
to individuals in our low-income communities," he
said. Second, Morino proposed creating an "academy for
leadership in technology" to help people in low-income
communities and in the social services community
develop a clearer vision for what technology can
do. The movement has done tremendous work to provide
technical training, but it has done very little "cognitive
training" about what technology can do. It must show "tangible,
real-life examples" of how technology can drive real-life
change." Third, he proposed creating a "digital peace corps" comprised
of "committed individuals who would work to empower
people and organizations in low-income communities
to use technology to improve social outcomes." Members
of this corps would serve as "involved advisers,
analysts and innovators, not technology consultants," he
continued, stressing that they should have strong
expertise in specific disciplines such as education,
microenterprise development, health-care, housing,
transportation and other fields essential to strong
communities. Fourth, Morino argued that new ways are needed
to deliver technology to social-service providers.
Macroeconomic factors such as the shortage of labor
and the complexity of technology are working against
the social sector's use of technology, he said, so
creative solutions are needed to enable organizations
to deploy and manage technology more cheaply and
more reliably. Technology outsourcing and an emerging
field of application service providers offer great
promise of helping with this problem, he said. Finally, Morino argued for the need for a "social
entrepreneurs' learning community" — a place
where people who are applying technology to improve
social outcomes can come together to learn from each
other, codify their experiences, and create a web
of support for each other. "Creating a forum for
turning individual actions into collective intelligence," he
said, "can be a powerful source of support, growth,
learning, and change."
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