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Broadband Enabling Americans with Disabilities
As the Democratic National Convention kicks off amid soaring rhetoric and hopeful initiatives for the betterment of our nation, Americans with disabilities are looking for signs that their struggle for equality will be affirmed. At the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), this struggle is not merely a political campaign, but also one that encourages economic opportunity and access to the latest innovations for the more than 50 million Americans living with disabilities.
The AAPD is the largest national nonprofit cross-disability member organization in the United States dedicated to economic self-sufficiency and political empowerment. One of their key goals is to conduct programs to enhance the lives of people with disabilities, including programs to reduce poverty and unemployment, to assure that every disabled person has the right to his or her own living arrangement, and to assure that every child or adult with a disability has access to and funding for assistive technology.
They are also in a coalition with other disability organizations to protect Americans with disabilities from discrimination and to empower them to fully put their skills and talents to work in society. Unfortunately, too many people with disabilities are being left behind in an economy that increasingly demands sophisticated skills and access to all that the high-speed Internet makes possible in our lives—from innovative assistance to expanded economic opportunities.
In 2005, according to Cornell University’s Employment and Disability Institute, the percentage of working-age people with a disability was 12.6 percent in the United States. In other words, 21.5 million of the 170 million working-age Americans reported one or more disabilities. And, unemployment and poverty hits the disabled particularly hard. In 2005, according to Cornell, the poverty rate of working-age people with disabilities was 24.6 percent—nearly three times the rate of the working-age population at large.
With the growing importance of the Web, AAPD is helping people with disabilities find new opportunities to break out of the poverty trap, especially as broadband becomes ubiquitous in urban and rural areas. Distance learning has also been a great boon. In June 2007, AAPD and Cornell collaborated on a forum that addressed “Harnessing Technology to Expand Employment Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities.” One idea presented was to require computer science students to have courses on usability to ensure that new technologies are accessible to all.
Despite the progress AAPD has made, there’s more work to be done. For example, a United Nations survey of Web accessibility in 20 countries exposed serious shortfalls in many websites’ functionality. “This survey shows that we’re not close to reaching the Internet’s full potential for use by persons with disabilities,” said Thomas Schindlmayr, policy specialist for the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
So, as the convention pageantry and politicking wraps up in Denver, let’s celebrate the progress that disabled Americans have made in society—and recognize the increasingly important role that broadband—and policies that support broadband investment and innovation—are playing in creating new opportunities for all Americans.
Broadband is Just What the Doctor Ordered
NextGenWeb took a seat at the DNC’s “Winning Health Care Reform in 2009” event sponsored by Families USA and SEIU. Some may still wonder, how is broadbrand the right medication to cure our nation’s healthcare woes? Well, the stacked panel — U.S. Representative John Dingell, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sibelius, and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell– had some interesting points to share.
In underlining what is really needed to ensure every American has access to affordable, quality healthcare, Governor Rendell described the important contributions technology makes to the health care system and the vast cost savings healthcare technology can deliver. These cost savings are attributed to programs ranging from electronic health records to an enhancement of remote monitoring programs. In Pennsylvania, there is already a program that offers financial incentives to hospitals that increase their use of medical technology.
Broadband makes programs and initiatives like these possible. It allows people living in rural America to get a medical check-up without ever leaving their homes. Americans who are traveling and encounter a medical emergency can have immediate access to their electronic health records. It gives a broader reach to specialized treatment. Broadband offers real solutions to health problems and the networks that make it all possible must be part of the health care debate.
New Democratic Network . . . New Roles for Broadband
NextGenWeb has been keeping busy at the Democratic Convention and made sure to make room in the schedule for the “Two Million Strong and Growing” panel discussion hosted by the New Democratic Network. The panel addressed the role that new media has begun to play in politics and campaigns, especially during this election cycle. Broadband is bringing the democratic process directly to Americans for the first time in history at this prominent level. It is allowing citizens to organize like never before, optimizing political participation.
The most interesting point in this debate is that broadband is a necessity for these new media applications to thrive, yet the network is so often forgotten in the discussion. Sites like my.barackobama.com are revolutionary for their ability to bring together mass amounts of people with a common goal, and provide them the avenues through which to start their own blog, join groups, fundraise, and so much more. But without the network, none of this would be possible.
New media is not only changing politics, but its changing everyday life for millions of Americans. At an increasing rate, people are turning away from traditional media sources such as print, television or radio, and instead choosing the more personalized approach to media that you can get online. None of this would be possible without robust broadband networks.
NextGenWeb catches up with MySpace online video award winner Matt Britten
Nextgenweb recently caught up with Matt Britten, winner of a MySpace online video competition that awarded him full media credentials throughout the DNC 2008 Convention. Matt came to Denver—traveling all the way from New York City—hoping to be able to utilize new technologies, made possible by broadband, to tell the story of the convention from a personal perspective and put a new spin on “interactive media.” From MySpace to Twitter to Newsvine, technology and the Internet have enabled Matt to accomplish these goals and bring the convention to life from the point of view of a true “Citizen Journalist.”
Click below to see our mobile interview with Matt and learn more about his story.
Broadband Carries ASPIRA’s Leadership Learnings to Latino Youth
Ronald Blackburn-Moreno
President and CEO, ASPIRA
At ASPIRA, we’re all about empowering our youth in America’s Puerto Rican and Latino communities. We do that through education and leadership development. And increasingly we do that through broadband.
Since ASPIRA’s founding in 1961, we have provided 250,000 young Puerto Ricans and Latinos with the personal resources they need to remain in school and contribute to their communities. We develop and nurture the leadership, intellectual and cultural potential of these young people so they are able to contribute their knowledge, skills and heartfelt dedication to the Puerto Rican and Latino communities where they live and work. We call our young protégés Aspirantes, or those who aspire to grow to be our future leaders.
ASPIRA maintains a rich curriculum of online resources for its centers, facilitators and youth. Our curriculum is rigorous; our facilitators are vigorous. A large part of our success is making our training available online at broadband speeds so downloads and interactive on-line sessions for Aspirantes take place real time. Broadband speeds complement the speeds at which their young minds work, grasp concepts and internalize new learnings. Anything slower would fail to engage them.
With broadband access, learning is fun, just like playing a video game. Where youth might be bored by books made of ink on paper, reading a book online is an exciting adventure. They crave the technology; it’s fun to them. Online, they barely notice they’re improving their research, reading and writing skills along the way.
Today’s Puerto Rican and Latino youth are a tech-savvy bunch. Jupiter Research reports that Internet users who are Latino tend to be younger than those who are not. This predilection for connection serves us well at ASPIRA because we cater our teachings to broadband technologies. Broadband access makes ASPIRA’s programs more available to more youth in more places in the electronic media where they thrive.
ASPIRA’s 150 Community Technology Centers are computer labs with broadband access. At the centers, in addition to our leadership development on-line curriculum, we also help Aspirantes better learn practical applications, such as desktop technologies, desktop publishing, word processing and others, so they can then integrate the technologies into how they live and work. We want the technologies to become second nature to them.
Like many other education-centered organizations, ASPIRA recognizes that broadband can make geographical and financial barriers to learning disappear. Whether you call it e-learning or distance learning or online classroom or digital curriculum or something else, the fact is that broadband opens up a wide range of educational opportunities and resources that previously were inaccessible, particularly to minorities. The Internet captures all human knowledge in one place, where with broadband it’s accessible and free. Broadband access can be the great equalizer to bridge the gap to the underserved.
Three out of four Americans connect to the Internet via broadband; last year broadband subscriptions among Hispanics grew nearly 20 percent. Michael Horn with the Innosight Institute in Massachusetts predicts that 50 percent of all high school courses will be taught online by 2013. That all adds up to the need for deeper broadband access to richer educational content.
Tomorrow’s leaders need a strong foundation in technology starting today if they are going to have the skills to compete successfully and contribute to their community’s economic future. At ASPIRA we believe that we are helping to make that happen by immersing our Aspirantes in computer technologies. We complement the content of our leadership development curriculum with on-line delivery via broadband. That way technological competitiveness and leadership acumen develop side by side, each strengthening the other.
Latino Leaders Luncheon Live Stream
University of Colorado Silicon Flat Irons Live Stream
Broadband: Keeping America Competitive
Dr. Robert Atkinson
President, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
I had the pleasure of hosting a Center Stage Roundtable Forum on Competitiveness and Innovation at the 2008 Democratic Convention. The event featured CEOs and leaders from six influential American biopharmaceutical and technology companies, as well as key Democratic Members of Congress. The forum included conversations on the critical role of government investment in fostering business innovation and the most effective legislative and regulatory means of spurring innovation in the private sector. Speakers also discussed the need for adequate protections for intellectual property, maintaining a strong and qualified research and development workforce, and spurring innovation, including IT innovation throughout the economy.
This was by no means the only such forum at the convention on technology and innovation. And the presidential candidates for both parties have laid out technology policy agendas. (see ITIF web site for a forthcoming side-by-side campaign tech policy comparison.) What we are seeing and hearing in Denver at the Democratic National Convention is no exception. We’ll hear many of the same issues debated next month in the Twin Cities when the Republicans gather. As someone who spends much of his time working on innovation and technology policy issues, I am gratified by the heightened focus on innovation policy issues and particularly broadband policy. Innovation, including the diffusion of information technology throughout the economy, is the key to boosting productivity, which in turn is at the heart of increasing living standards for all Americans
Broadband telecommunications is a key component of our nation’s technology infrastructure. The principal objective of U.S. broadband policy – which enjoys rare bipartisan support – is that broadband should be universally accessible to all Americans. Achieving this national objective will require policies that encourage diverse, vigorous investment in the nation’s broadband networks, and innovative public-private partnerships and concerted efforts to spur investments in under-served areas.
As our nation’s two main political parties meet to debate the challenges we face, it is essential that forward-looking U.S. innovation policies carefully consider the potential positive impact on the growth and innovation that robust broadband investment today is making possible throughout our economy, in education, health care, the environment, public safety and many other areas. Indeed, as ITIF will document in a forthcoming report on “Digital Quality of Life” IT in general and broadband in particular is now a major driving force in real improvements in people’s lives and society as a whole.
But IT and broadband are also economic engines. This is because information technology-related sectors, powered by broadband, will remain the fastest-growing areas of our economy during the next decade. The converging broadband sectors of telecom, media and information technology lead U.S. GDP growth, adding nearly $900 billion annually.
Indeed, information technology is now the key technology driving the economy, not just in the IT industry itself – which continues to see high-wage job growth – but also in the use of IT in virtually all sectors to boost productivity, quality, and innovation. In an article published in the Fall 2007 Economic Development Journal titled “Measuring Up,” I pointed to the historic transformation that occurred in the 1990s “when semiconductors, computers, software, and telecommunications became cheap enough, fast enough, and networked enough to become so ubiquitous as to power a surge in productivity growth.” That’s why virtually of the increase in productivity since 1995 has been attributable to IT and telecommunications.
Today’s economy is driven by innovation – the development and adoption of new products, processes, and business models. Nations, states, regions, firms, and even individuals compete on their ability to accumulate, aggregate, and apply their assets in ways that create value in new ways for increasingly diverse customers all over the world. For example, as R&D is the key fuel of the engine of New Economy growth, it is not surprising that business-funded R&D has almost doubled from 1.19 percent of GDP in 1980 to 2.02 percent in 2002.
Investment in broadband technology is similarly spurred on by private sector investment. More than 90 percent of the U.S. communications infrastructure is maintained via private capital. In 2007, the nation’s 1,360 facilities-based broadband service providers invested approximately $60 billion in modern communications networks. The Yankee Group estimates that through 2011 annual capital spending will be in the high $60 billion to $70 billion range.
Yet, fundamental changes have created an economy where the United States is being forced to compete on the basis of innovation, and more complex, capital, and knowledge-based production. Increasingly, the entire nature of technology research and broadband deployment – are changing dramatically.
A report published last month by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation showed that approximately two-thirds of the award-winning U.S. innovations involve some kind of inter-organizational collaboration – a situation that reflects the more collaborative nature of the innovation process and the greater role in private sector innovation by government agencies, federal laboratories, and research universities. The report, titled “Where Do Innovations Come From? Transformations in the U.S. National Innovation System, 1970-2006”, noted that “for better or worse, the U.S. innovation system today is much more collaborative than it was several decades ago and the federal government is playing a much more supportive and important role in innovation.”
This points to the need for smart public-private partnerships in a whole host of innovation policy related areas, including broadband. For example, groups like Connected Nation, focus on integrated solutions, ranging from government broadband loans to consumer education efforts to promote more widespread demand and use of this vital resource. The state-based Connect Kentucky public-private partnership has helped raised broadband availability throughout the state from 60 percent to 94 percent – connecting 542,000 households. The number of college graduates who remain in state to pursue careers has nearly doubled and more than 18,400 IT jobs have been created in the state. These initiatives point to the fact that the U.S. innovation system has become much more collaborative in nature. Federal policy needs to reflect this fact.
America remains today the most competitive nation on earth. Maintaining robust investment in broadband infrastructure will be a critical factor in our nation’s ability to maintain its leading edge in today’s sophisticated global economy. To enable ongoing American innovation and growth broadband speed, capacity and innovation must continually improve at a substantial pace.
Keeping our nation competitive and connecting all Americans to broadband’s many opportunities requires an innovation policy that recognizes not just the important role of private investment and market based approaches, but also the critical importance of public-private initiatives.
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