Technology: Bridging the Digital Divide

By Michele Darr

In the over 30 years since computers and online access went mainstream, technology has fundamentally changed our society and nearly all of our systems of communication and commerce. Almost everyone has experienced interacting online in some capacity, from utilizing email and online banking, to surfing the web and using social media. However, due to exclusion from software development at the onset of digital technology, and despite representing the fastest growing segment of users of everything from smartphones to social media, grave disparities continue to persist with regards to African American access and participation in the lucrative software design industry.

Luckily, though, there are people and organizations blazing pathways through the inequity. African American CEO, Frederick Hutson, created and founded Pidgeon.ly, the world’s most comprehensive inmate population database and developed products to efficiently connect inmates with their families through low-cost services (inmate phone and mail). Also rising to the challenges of identifying internal and external barriers to access and usage and then implementing strategies to narrow the gap, is the Intel Corporation. As the world’s biggest manufacturer of semiconductors, the company has installed Australian Cultural Anthropologist, Dr. Genevieve Bell, as their Director of User Experience at Intel Labs, the company’s research arm.

In order to develop culturally relevant technology, Dr. Bell leads a team of about 100 researchers who travel the globe, studying how consumers interact with technology. She is quick to point out that on the surface, it might seem as if technology and it’s components are neutral and cross-cultural, unaffected by human attitudes such as racism and classism. The preponderance of evidence overwhelmingly indicates, however, that technology itself is rife with built in barriers to equity and justice, reflecting the racial origins, preconceptions and biases of those whom are creating and programming systems.

“You don’t think about things like your wireless router making assessments about you and your life and then carrying that assessment to the planet,” Bell emphatically states. “Every other piece of technological infrastructure does the same thing, with a focus on who should use it, how it should be used, our bodily structure, such as in airbags, designed to protect you but not me, ideal body sizes, etc…I can remember that the first cameras didn’t do well with dark faces, couldn’t render the darkness of skin properly into photos,” she recalls.

While far from perfecting the scope of realizing diversity in the digital world, communities nationwide are going further than ever before in addressing the gap through digital inclusion programs. In Oregon, Mary Beth Henry is the current Director of The Office for Community Technology, an agency that addresses ongoing disparities in access and opportunities to programs, through Digital Inclusion Summit workshops.

“OCT is a program that catalyzes investment of resources to ensure the benefits of communications technology are available to all as part of an equitable, sustainable and economically healthy community,” Ms. Henry states.

Another front runner in the race for inclusivity, is Code Oregon. As a cutting edge, statewide partnership between Worksystems and Treehouse, Code Oregon is leading the nation in providing FREE online interactive education platforms. Their stated goal is ”to create new designers and developers to fill the huge number of jobs that are being created.” To meet this lofty goal, Treehouse provides “quality online training that teaches high-demand languages such as iOS, Android, HTML, CSS, WordPress, PHP, Python, JavaScript, Ruby, and more. Top students will be identified and WorkSource will then provide them with career services, mentoring, and additional training to be vetted as job-ready.”

“Initiatives like Code Oregon help people find high-paying, rewarding jobs more quickly,” said Ryan Carson, co-founder and CEO of Treehouse. “We want to start the Code-to-Work movement, which will take someone from no experience, to job-ready, to a rewarding career – all without a degree and zero experience. The rules are all changing. You just don’t need a Computer Science degree any more to get an amazing job in the tech industry.”