CommuniTech
CommuniTech is a partnership between the City of Rochester, the 3COM Corporation, digital ROC, and The Academy. It was started in October of 2002 through a 3COM Urban Challenge Grant of $100,000 worth of networking equipment. It is currently funded through a City of Rochester Community Development Block Grant and in-kind contributions from the Academy.
CommuniTech is about helping Rochester's not-for-profit community bridge the digital divide by providing over 50 community based organizations, agencies, and schools (over the next three years) with a:
- Secure community-wide computer network for communication and information
- Resource for solving computer problems through its Community Helpdesk
- Unique environment for supporting community technical education programs
It is a collaborative effort of local government, educational, industrial, and community based organizations, all of whom have significant histories of successfully working with Rochester's marginalized populations. By increasing our citizens' access to computer technology and information resources we build a stronger, well informed, and better served community.
CommuniTech's Uniques Features
- It provides affordable and continually available technical support to individual and
organizational end users in underserved communities - a need not previously addressed - The sustainability of the program is achieved through a services fee-schedule that, while being affordable for the participating organizations, will also ensure that the program can support itself over the long run.
- Using modern Internet technology, it provides a community network that will improve the access, use, and responsiveness of the overall city/community digital infrastructure, thereby increasing and improving communication productivity and response to consumers by participating municipal services and community organizations.
- CommuniTech is a "Community Serving Community" model in which professional technical support services are provided by trained Computer Support Specialist apprentices from Rochester's underserved communities who deliver services back to community agencies in their own neighborhoods.
Since October 1. 2002 CommuniTech has supported 64 remote computer centers located at a variety of Rochester community and faith based organizations. 48 of these sites were connected directly to the CommuniTech Network to enable on-line Remote Diagnostic services. During this period, a total pool of 1628 remote computer systems were supported and 7,044 helpdesk calls were taken. 1,946 of these calls resulted in technical support services at the remote sites. In addition, CommuniTech provided 455 technical education services, and trained 171 technical support professionals who provided all the above services in a supervised environment. Nearly all of the organizations currently supported through CommuniTech deliver educational programming to children and youth.
All persons trained as technical support professionals (through our CSS Apprenticeship Program) were either disabled or disadvantaged and had household incomes less than 200% of the Federal poverty level. Most of these individuals were receiving some form of public assistance at enrollment. Public tuition funding (VESID/Dept. of Labor) was available for less than 25% of these individuals, while the remainder attended their program at the Academy at no charge (public nor private).
The community and faith based organizations we serve are very critical computer and internet access points for our underserved populations, and reflect the strong will and determination of our community to bridge the digital divide that exists for these populations. Although access is very important, the need for formal educational programming is equally important. Unfortunately, consistent delivery of this programming has been impeded by a number of factors. When we asked the site coordinators what were the most limiting factors in providing educational programming at their sites, common responses were “lack of funds to support instructors “ and “inability to provide consistent educational programming due to volunteer schedules and availability of qualified volunteers”. Therefore, in addition to a continued growth in helpdesk and technical support services to an expanding number of CommuniTech sites, a major focus of CommuniTech will be in the delivery of both technical and other structured educational programming to remote sites via the CommuniTech Network. Scheduled for release in 2006, The CommuniTech Distance Learning Network will provide the mechanism and infrastructure for blended educational programming that will include instructor-led synchronous and asynchronous distance learning protocols and self-paced tutorials.
All ComuniTech support Services are provided by Computer Support Specialist Apprentices who are supervised by Academy technical managers.
