CLEVELAND DIGITAL VISION |
Cleveland Digital Vision |
The Adelphia - Cleveland City Council Neighborhood Technology Fund The Digital Vision coalition first formed early in 2000 to hold a citywide conference on Cleveland's "digital divide" and community strategies to overcome it. The first Digital Vision Conference in April 2000 attracted 120 people to the downtown public library. Later that Summer, Digital Vision representatives appeared at Cleveland City Council hearings to propose the creation of a Neighborhood Technology Fund as a condition of Council approval for the sale of the city's cable TV franchise to Adelphia Cable. City Council adopted this idea and negotiated a $3 million commitment from Adelphia for community technology programs. This money was deposited with the Cleveland Foundation as a special fund, to be disbursed by a committee composed of three Council Members, three Adelphia representatives and one Foundation executive. City Council has since added several hundred thousand dollars to the fund in contributions from other companies. The first round of funding from the "Adelphia - Cleveland City Council Neighborhood Technology Fund" was approved in the Fall of 2002. $471,000 in grants went to twenty-one community computer programs throughout the city. The second round of grants was approved at the end of 2003 and appears to be significantly smaller than the previous year. See details here. "Creating the Digital Community" Conference The transition to a new tech-friendly administration at City Hall in 2002 gave Digital Vision new opportunities to pursue our mission. Several Digital Vision leaders were part of Mayor Jane Campbell's Technology Transition Team, helping shape the Mayor's program for IT business growth, digital infrastructure development, and community tech programs -- as well as improving the City's own primitive Internet capabilities. Our second citywide conference, held on May 30 at City Hall and the Convention Center, took the next step, bringing more than 100 community activists, public officials, educators, church and business people together to discuss concrete strategies for "Creating the Digital Community" in Cleveland neighborhoods. "Creating the Digital Community" Conference description and notes |