October 09, 2005

Andy Carvin (Digital Divide)

Andy Carvin, the director of the digital divide network, spoke to us this week. He's an inveterate blogger and a cutting-edge photo-blogger, video-blogger and podcaster, too. The man is a media junkie, clearly.

Carvin explained about the pernicious digital divide, and how it's widening. Currently less than 30% of the poorest quintile of the US is online, compared with over 80% of the richest quintile. As the government is moving more services online, they also tend to close down physical spaces devoted to servicing the same problems, and more and more the internet is the only channel for distributing important information (as opposed to paper, TV, etc.).

Hearing Andy speak reminded me a little bit about the time I spent working for the Organizer's Collaborative, a non-profit dedicated to creating software to help grassroots organizers maintain their mailing database, among other things. I applied/interviewed for the internship from afar, so the first time I met the people involved and saw the office was on my first day of work. I remember being dismayed and a little surprised when I found that the office was half of another group's office and there were only two people involved day-to-day: a director and his assistant. And now, me.

But as I worked there I saw that you don't need a cadre of people to make a difference, and hearing Andy speak about having an office in Boston with "just 8 interns and [himself]", I saw the similarities, and I felt like I understood where Andy was coming from. At least geographically.

One thread I've noticed, at least through the past two speakers, is that I draw a lot of inspiration from people who I feel are intimately connected with technology but not intimately concerned about it for its own sake. Both Andy and Ze Frank are people who use technology as a tool to tackle larger problems/ideas. And this in turn reminds me of the words that my physical computer instructor, Tom Igoe, gave us as advice when doing our "device, instrument, tool" project. He said that the tool should recede so that the focus is on the expression, not the tool used to express.

I feel like Andy and Ze both do this. They are using technology to service their goals. I think this is kind of a goal of mine, to use technology but for a purpose other than just the technology.

Posted October 9, 2005 05:49 PM. Categories: Week 5 | Permalink