Personal Democracy Forum co-founder and digital divide
activist Andrew Rasiej made a passionate case at the
PDF 2007 Conference here in NYC to revive the digital
divide as a major policy issue. He asked how many
people in the audience felt the digital divide was
still a problem, and few of us did. Andrew went on to
talk about poor Internet access in low-income schools
and communities, and how inequitable access is
hampering civic participation and democracy.
Rasiej then announced that the Personal Democracy
Forum will launch an online petition to elect "the
first tech president." He's challenging the public to
sign onto the petition and forward it to presidential
candidates to get them to sign on to these basic
principles:
* Declare the Net a public good. Bring broadband
to everyone.
* Wireless public spectrum must be available and
expanded.
* Go from No Child Left Behind to Every Child
Connected
* We need to support Net Neutrality.
* We need to create a connected democracy, where
people can actually hear public hearings and
participate.
* We need to use this to create transparency and
accountability.
* We need a national guard of technologists to
work during Katrina-like emergencies.
For more info on the event, go to
www.personaldemocracy.com. I'm liveblogging it at
www.andycarvin.com. I'll see if I can dig up more
about the initiative. -andy
------------------------
Andy Carvin
andycarvin at yahoo com
www.andycarvin.com
www.pbs.org/learningnow
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