Knight Foundation Commits Up to $2.5 Million to the Community Foundation of North Florida

The Miami-based John S. and James L. Knight Foundation has announced that it will award up to $2.5 million over the next seven years to the Community Foundation of North Florida to help foster a more informed and engaged Tallahassee.

Awarded as part of Knight’s $70 million Community Foundation Initiative, which is designed to ensure that Knight-influenced communities have the information they need to make informed decisions, the grant will be used to help the community foundation enlarge its donor-advised fund to support the work of local nonprofits.

The grant will change the way Knight works in the Tallahassee region and requires that local grantseekers in the area apply for funding through the Community Foundation of North Florida. In addition, a new community foundation director in Knight’s Miami headquarters works with an advisory committee in Tallahassee to guide the community foundation on how to use the funds. The new approach is be introduced in other Knight communities as well.

“Knight’s commitment to additional resources in our community comes at a time when resources for local nonprofit organizations are in such short supply,” said Joy Watkins, president of the Community Foundation of North Florida. “These new funds and a re-directed focus on informed, engaged community truly will be transformational for our community. We will work diligently to support Knight’s efforts in our area.”

“Foundations Deepen Partnership to Advance an “Informed, Engaged” Tallahassee.” John S. and James L Knight Foundation Press Release 3/16/10.

Primary Subject: Community Improvement/Development
Location(s): Florida, Tallahassee

http://ow.ly/1CYma

Google Broadband Plan Stirs Hunger For Speed

The company’s announcement last month that it plans to build a series of experimental high-speed fiber optic networks to deliver broadband connectivity at speeds 100 times faster than average in the U.S. has unleashed an unexpected flood of requests from individuals and communities around the country who want to be part of the project.

The project will provide Internet speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second to somewhere between 50,000 and 500,000 people once it is completed.

http://ow.ly/1CVNr

BET Makes Submission of National Sustainable Broadband Adoption Project

WASHINGTON, April 21, 2010 – BET Networks announced on Monday its submission of a proposal to the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA) for a grant under the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program. The BET program, called the National Sustainable Broadband Adoption Project would, if successful, increase broadband adoption among African Americans by providing compelling reasons for new households to adopt broadband, BET said in a release.

The program will address three specific problems: Increase the awareness of “the promise” of broadband technology; Increase the relevance of broadband technology to marginalized African Americans; And increasing the digital literacy of those who have been “left behind” in as many targeted communities as possible.

“BET Networks is proud to have the opportunity to create a public-private partnership with such a strong group of organizations on such an important campaign impacting African Americans,” said Debra Lee, Chairman and CEO of BET Networks. “Our proposal clearly communicates a comprehensive plan to increase the adoption of broadband technology among some of the most vulnerable within our community and specifically addresses meaningful opportunities for them in health, education, and employment.”

http://ow.ly/1CWM2

Bringing Nationwide Interoperable Communications to America’s First Responders

One of the most pressing recommendations of the FCC’s National Broadband Plan is the proposed creation of a nationwide interoperable public safety broadband wireless network (“public safety broadband network”) for first responders and other public safety personnel.   One major strategy for developing this ambitious and critically overdue component of our emergency communications infrastructure is establishing the rational basis for public funding to ensure the network is deployed throughout the United States and has necessary performance, capacity, coverage, resiliency and redundancy.

http://ow.ly/1CWM2

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03/2010

I had the pleasure of speaking with the Dr. James McLean, VP of Special Projects at Edward Waters College on Friday of last week and here is the update on the Broadband grant that is still pending review from last fall…

EWC slated to partner with HBCUs throughout Florida and Georgia to develop a multi-faceted network infrastructure in partnership with Joytel and Suntel. The network will be shared at the local level to power each college with broadband capacity that meets the e-learning needs of on-campus students and local residents of New Town Success Zone.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield is committed to offer a 20% match on funding to expand the infrastructure from Jacksonville to Atlanta. EWC will increase the expansion of the Schell Sweet Center as a Public Computer Center for youth and seniors to use video conferencing and benefit from broadband education and digital literacy. A strong health component also shapes the curriculum to provide the local community with e-health-related services.

More details to follow!

http://commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=e4dff96a-41dd-4e65-8dde-968bc7902e52&ContentType_id=77eb43da-aa94-497d-a73f-5c951ff72372&Group_id=59da2fee-2988-4fe9-b1dd-ee3219b6f868

Blacksonville Community Network collaborates with Director of EWC Schell Sweet Center on Broadband BTOP grant

The Blacksonville Community Network uses niche-base research and applied knowledge integrated with the latest technology, data management, and community asset mapping to learn more about the needs of families and youth in the urban community.

This video highlights a recent, longitudinal data set/white paper about minority broadband use. It authenticates over a decade of work Blacksonville.com has developed to bridge the digital divide.

Dr. Nicol Turner-Lee (featured in video below) is Vice President and the first Director of the Media and Technology Institute for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. While at One Economy, Dr. Turner-Lee played key roles in all aspects of its core business, including residential and community broadband access, online public purpose media and youth technology training.  She helped to establish broadband connections in thousands of affordable housing units, supported the development and distribution of One Economy’s core media properties and expanded a national technology service initiative from 250 to nearly 3,000 youth in less than two years.

Currently, she is the “urban voice of broadband” and leads the national agenda to establish broadband connectivity in urban communities throughout the country.

BCN is organizing a Florida public interest group to advocate and lobby for broadband, interconnection and non-discrimination that may preclude degradation or inferior treatment of applications, content, and related-services.

• EWC School of Urban Education on a mission (blacksonvillejacksonville.com)
• New Broadband Study (blacksonvillejacksonville.com)

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School districts are scrambling to embrace “systemic change” in predominantly black, urban schools across America. The pressure of education reformation lies on the shoulders of District Superintendents like never before. Federal dollars have been targeted for professional development, educators are going through transition after transition, neighborhood schools are shutting down due to low enrollment.

Is there a current, proven model in place for systemic change in urban schools? Is the model itself, sustainable, affordable, and all encompassing?

In a study paper published in 1993 titled “Principles and Actions: A Framework for Systemic Change”, a model was shared ‘to help school districts evaluate themselves during the implementation of systemic change’. This report is still relevant to the community-wide, aggressive change policy makers are pushing from the steps of Washington.

Excerpt below…

Data on nine participating school districts were obtained from interviews and site visits. Twelve systemic change principles emerged from the data: (1) the purpose must be clearly articulated and widely “known and owned”; (2) the purpose must be based on a consciously developed philosophy and rooted in shared theory; (3) the need for change must be understood and accepted; (4) the “top” must demonstrate the envisioned change; (5) significant new investment must be made in educating/training prospective participants in the new philosophy/theory and relevant skills; (6) participation in the new processes and approaches must be voluntary and active; (7) power sources and relationships must be visibly altered; (8) partner-customer-supplier relationships must be consciously developed; (9) individual affirmation must be balanced with collaboration; (10) processes at all levels must be emphasized over end results; (11) communication barriers must be eradicated; (12) data-based decision making must be required and enabled; and (13) efforts to learn and improve must be total, dynamic, and generative.

The Blacksonville Community Network will take you inside the education community of Duval County to understand what is taking place behind the scenes in the halls of elementary, secondary, and post-secondary academia. Check back for exclusive video with area principals, town hall meetings, education forums, and more! If you would like to add to our commentary, click here to share your article, video, or simply comment below.

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As we enter middle ground of the Recession, unemployment remains at an all time high, funding has declined, and most employers are required to work double the time with less pay. To help low income employers and cope with this alarming increase in workload, the Blacksonville Community Network (BCN) in partnership with Edward Waters College School of Urban Education will assist in the development of a “Community Resource Network” (CRNetwork) charged with the delivery of career counseling and professional training using an integrated-approach to education, youth services and curricula designed specifically for seniors, adults in transition, and “at risk” youth. Our technical staff will support area CBOs and businesses by empowering case workers, counselors, and employees with online resources, tips, and eLearning tools that will help them work more efficiently and effectively. We also assist social service agencies in the recruitment and retention process by implementing new ways of intake, assessment delivery, hiring, skill-building, and community awareness strategies. We understand the importance of innovative methods of training that meet diverse learning styles.  For example, a caseworker can reduce administrative and transportation time by E-mailing or texting her follow-up reports from a client’s home without returning to the office.

EWC School of Urban Education will be supported by community partners, a central office and training center, and a minimum of one full time technical assistant /trainer provided by the Blacksonville Community Network (BCN). Its local partners, its partner’s clients, and the designated sites will be linked through the internet using a local broadband provider, such as Comcast or Bellsouth. By using a local internet service provider, the CRNetwork will be able to directly affect community-wide growth in underserved areas in need.

The CRNetwork’s website and information will be hosted, developed and maintained under EWC’s School of Urban Education’s Middle College  by the Blacksonville Community Network. To expand reach, a dedicated channel under the Blacksonville Community Network’s top ranked homepage (www.blacksonville.com) will also link Partner sites creating an effective listserv of neighborhood activities, events, businesses, and services to establish a strong since of community ownership and inclusion.

The vision is for the CRNetwork is to link the homes of 25-50 disadvantaged youth, foster care recipients, mentees, etc  to their caseworkers so they can interact more frequently and effectively leverage our the various support programs.

To meet this end, Blacksonville will advocate for improved Broadband infrastructure in order to integrate support services and automate administrative processes so that dedicated caseworkers will have adequate time to communicate effectively with their clients. As part of this automation, Internet connections with high speed broadband will permit CBO’s access to existing State and City social service agency networks to collapse administrative process cycles and pertinent information, thus affording more time for conducting and evaluating private counseling through a password-protected, intranet environment, as required by law. As well, the CRNetwork will facilitate entry into the job market for able seniors and foster care students by connecting them to virtual job banks, providing online mentor matches and by offering supportive and practical business advice, such as resume critiques, broadband usage tips, and job listings to process employment applications online.

BCN will support new media training for youth (Digipreneurship) who aspire to pursue higher wage technology-related jobs by offering real world experience to program participants. Finally, it will offer more effective, efficient and personalized “life skills” training with computerized Individual Action Plans (IAP) to create full-functioning, responsible adults who are better able to retain the jobs they acquire (as measured by job retention rates and expressed employer satisfaction). Last, it will give computer-based training to residents and small businesses seeking to enhance their knowledge and competitiveness while supporting them to mentor and advertise online.

In practice, a participating teenage foster child will be able to log on a PC at home using the minimum requirements for Broadband, as defined by the National Technical Information Administration NTIA as “a means of providing two-way data transmission with advertised speeds of at least 768 kilobits per second (kbps) downstream and at least 200 kbps upstream to end users or providing sufficient capacity in a middle mile project to support the provision of broadband service to end users”.

The first thing the user will see is an Internet access screen to EWC’s School of Urban Education, Pre College Academy (P.C.A.) with recent posts about the latest news from the Community Resource Center. From there the foster child can move to other content and pages where he/she can see his/her training class schedules or use a web browser to access other websites to research or complete online projects that have been assigned by the designated BCN trainer. A user can email his/her caseworker or mentor, assist another trainee with their assignment and use File Transfer Protocol (ftp access) to download or upload material from designated Internet sites. The caseworker will be able to collaborate in “real time” with clients or other caseworkers to compare experiences and interact online using the latest remote applications that fit our processes.

The Internet will serve as an efficient means of support care, customer service and to create a low-cost community network. This electronic community model is scalable, replicable and interoperable.  The Community Resource Network will link two CBO training Centers: DOT Street Complex and the Schell Sweet Center across from Edward Waters College.  It will also link a minimum of 12 public-access PCs, mentors and the 80 program participants.

The Blacksonville Community Network has serviced the greater First Coast community for nearly ten years. The private, minority owned and operated (MBE) company has helped more than 1,000 local businesses survive and creates employment and entrepreneurial opportunities to promote sustainable models of urban development.  In order for public computer centers to become self-funding and highly functioning entities for its stakeholders, most Community Based Organization (CBOs) charge fees for training. CBOs are also PC distribution centers for the sale of affordable state-of-the-art computers and service delivery. The Blacksonville Community Network will recruit wholesale manufactures and create dynamic fundraiser opportunities for donated PCs, IT services and other necessary items. As part of this initiative, BCN will administer and assess Individualized Action Plans (IAP), design a broadband awareness and education campaign, install and network all training labs, hire and train all computer trainers, develop offline and virtual curriculum, provide access to affordable  computers, and ensure high speed broadband Internet access to all project participants.

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EXECUTIVE NARRATIVE

The primary purpose and application areas of Edward Waters College new Urban Education Institute is to develop a  21^st Middle College integrated education initiative supported by scientific-like knowledge that practitioners can apply at the local level to solve local problems. Outreach from the Urban Education division will be closely monitored and developed over a five year learning plan that reinforces academic excellence throughout the District, civic engagement and service learning, and heavy emphasis on career training and local job placement. The institution is anticipated to start by the year 2012.

The Blacksonville  Community Network (BCN) in partnership with Edward Waters College School of Urban Education will serve as management consultant and IT project manager on behalf of the Community Resource Network (CRNetwork) to assist in the creation of a sustainable, action-driven, urban model that promotes and implements online and offline programs in diverse learning environments.

The Mission of the Middle College component of the School of Urban Education (called the Pre-College Academy) is to empower socio-economically deprived youth through quality, integrated education and web-based training in new media in preparation of college placement and/or high wage employment. The advance career and academic curriculum will garner volunteer and paid support from competent and confident professionals and experienced educators committed to develop excellence in scholarship, research and community service.

BCN will partner with and train community-based organizations (CBOs) to help local disenfranchised residents, particularly African Americans who most suffer from the Digital Divide, to obtain and retain high-value employment using technology and telecommunications.  BCN’s primary goal is to create an economic development initiative in Jacksonville, Florida by galvanizing support and the adoption of broadband technology to create an Internet-based network that identifies community assets and connects community residents to critical information exchange, virtual learning tools, events, and online business mentors for continuing support. It will also provide adult “life skills” and technology-based employment training (including digital media, web publishing, journalism, and basic computer services), internships, and linkage to higher wage jobs.

Read more

EWC School of Urban Education as an institution is committed to a policy of equal opportunity in employment. In offering education, psychology, and health studies, the College is committed to providing expanding employment opportunities to persons of color, women, and persons with disabilities in its own activities and in society.

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