InformationWeek

March 26, 2001

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Divided We Fall

continued...page 3 of 3

Online only:

Reporter's Notebook: Musing From East Palo Alto

More on the digital divide:

sidebar: IT Assessments Are Key To Avoiding Hidden Costs

Worklife: E-Inclusion: It's Not A Choice by Richard Florida

Global Opportunities

E-Learning Crossfire (2/26/01)

IT Execs Speak Out On Technology (1/8/01)

TechWeb: Broadband Have-Nots Face Life Without E-Business (12/27/01)

The Networking Academy is also Cisco's top digital-divide initiative. "It's great for students at risk and schools in [federally designated] empowerment zones," says Susan Jeannero, senior manager of education marketing. And it's close to Cisco's core values. "Education is always top of mind. An educated workforce is critical to adapt to the Internet economy." In addition to schools, Cisco offers the program in community colleges, adult learning centers, juvenile detention centers, and even homeless shelters.

Still, Menlo-Atherton decided not to continue with Cisco's Networking Academy after using it for a year. The vendor's offer, which included hardware, teacher training, and a two-year curriculum, was "very sexy, but not as successful as we'd hoped," principal Hartwig says. "From an IT point of view, it's very accessible, but the curriculum is more sophisticated than a lot of kids are ready to handle."

That's not to say he thinks it couldn't work. Hartwig would like to see the IT industry get more involved with implementation; in Cisco's case, to release an employee for a year to work in the schools. "That person could become familiar with adolescent learning and psychology, and learn how the school system actually works," he says.

In some of the poorest neighborhoods, where schools often lack computers, there are other ways for students to get their hands on technology, thanks to after-school programs such as those supported by San Francisco startup Salesforce.com Inc. through its foundation, Salesforce.com/foundation.

Launched in December 1999 with an initial $2.5 million of Salesforce founder Marc Benioff's personal funds just two months after the company was born, the foundation supports 14 community technology centers at schools, after-school centers, a YMCA, and even a residential detention center for teens. Benioff says his company works hard to leverage its partnerships: Gateway Inc. provides the hardware, Cisco the networking equipment, and Amer-ica Online the Internet access. Secretary of State Colin Powell's PowerUP organization provides the working model and ancillary support. In addition to funding for staff and other center needs, Salesforce volunteers its staff as teachers, mentors, and IT experts.

Benioff explored the idea of corporate philanthropy firsthand while working at Oracle, when CEO Larry Ellison asked him in 1997 to head company efforts to get technology into schools. Suddenly, he was living in two worlds. "I spent half my time in management meetings and half in schools in places like south-central Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.," Benioff says. Meeting Powell especially inspired him. When it came time to launch his own company, Benioff wanted to bring what he learned to his new venture.

Photo by David Turek Suzanne DiBianca, chief service officer and head of Salesforce.com/foundation, advocates a partnership approach, in which Salesforce and the schools and community centers collaborate from the beginning. "Be up-front about the partnership and how deeply you want to be involved," she advises. "And choose organizations that have great visions for what they would do with the money."

One such group is Community Bridges Beacon, a community technology center housed at Everett Middle School in San Francisco's economically disadvantaged Mission district. The center attracts dozens of neighborhood children and teens after school each day for classes, to do homework, or just to have fun.

Because the most sophisticated IT infrastructure in the world is useless without people who know how to use it, Salesforce.com/foundation requires organizations that receive funds to use at least three-fifths of the money, typically $30,000 of $50,000, to hire qualified staff. IT employees also volunteer in the community centers.

In Salesforce's first six months, its staff put in 500 hours of community service; DiBianca says she hopes to double that this year. The executive team is behind it, she says, and it's good for morale and employee retention.

Many companies want to be generous. Pragmatically, they hope to redress the IT labor shortage that will likely continue for years. Employees also like working for a company that extends its core values of innovation, intellect, and invention into the community. But despite the efforts of contributors across the country, many schools still struggle against big odds, and sometimes, the computers in the classroom come from unexpected places.

Early Intervention Remember the six iMacs at Link Community School? They came from the "have" side of the digital divide, but corporate America had nothing to do with it. It was a student project by 17-year-old Tiffany Halo, a senior at Morristown-Beard Prep School. With guidance from her parents, she started a foundation called the Students Urban Renewal Fund, raised $5,000, got a matching grant from the Victoria Foundation, which awards grants to address the needs of the Newark community, and gave the money to Link for the iMacs.

Now, in part because of Halo's project, the school will standardize its student hardware on the Macintosh platform. It's a start. IT director Becker's $256,000 technology plan for Link calls for a LAN and Internet access, a state-of-the-art technology learning center, and the creation of an interactive Web site. In her ideal world, the entire building would be wired and each classroom would have Internet access. "I want them to have computers so badly," she says. "It's all about the money."

For forward-thinking companies--technology and otherwise--the money is the easy part. The challenge to corporate philanthropy is tougher: to forge partnerships with education in order to transform the digital divide into digital opportunity for all children. The future IT workforce, and the strength of the nation's economy, may depend on it.