East Cleveland Collaboration Bridges Digital Divide

Submitted by Sudhir Kade on Fri, 09/09/2005 - 15:31.

Date/Time: Saturday
September 10, 2005 at noon
Location: Martin
Luther King Civic Center - 14801 Shaw Avenue, East Cleveland
Contact: Norm
Roulet, REALinks - (cell): 216-534-1732 (email): norm [at] realinks [dot] us&YY=57644&order=down&sort=date&pos=0">norm [at] realinks [dot] us

At
a press conference on Saturday, September 10, 2005, at 12:00 noon, at
the city of East Cleveland’s Town Hall Meeting, Mayor Goggins will
announce the beginning of a free distribution of previously used
corporate laptop and desktop computers to East Cleveland residents
needing assistance.

Approximately
50 computers will be distributed to Shaw High School seniors and
senior citizens identified by the Helen S. Brown Senior Center. Over
100 additional PCs are being prepared for later distribution, and
additional donations are encouraged.

The
computer equipment includes Dell Pentium II and III desktop
computers, various makes and sizes of monitors, and some Toshiba
laptops with Pentium II processors, donated by Progressive Insurance,
Benesch Friedlander Coplan and Aronoff law firm, and Case
University’s Sociology Department. REALinks staff loaded the
computers with free open source software, including the Linux
operating system, OpenOffice and Firefox.

This
program is an outcome of the East Cleveland 2010 collaboration of
academic, government, corporate, and non-profit supporters of the
city’s pursuit of new economy opportunity for residents, business
and government. This collaboration now includes:


City
of East Cleveland


Progressive
Insurance


Benesch
Friedlander Coplan and Aronoff


Case
Western Reserve University


Cleveland
State University


Cleveland
Institute of Art


Cleveland
Foundation


McGregor
Foundation


OneCleveland


REALinks


David
Porter

Representatives
of these partnering organizations are invited to this East Cleveland
town hall meeting to discuss their vision.

In
addition to the ECHO computer distributions, this collaboration has
led to the city partnering with the Cleveland Institute of Art and
REALinks on a world class virtual community portal, and OneCleveland
bringing their ultra broadband capabilities, consulting and
relationships into the collaboration to make East Cleveland a
demonstration community in the world renowned Digital Cities
initiative.

We
are continually looking for key contributors and philanthropic
assistance with this effort. Donated resources in the form of
computer hardware, financial contributions, and volunteerism are
always greatly appreciated.

( categories: )

back!

I am back with my robataka account. Thanks Derek.

Ubuntu

Hey Rob - we look forward to your help on this and other exciting initiatives here in Northeast Ohio - and to welcoming you and your family from Okanawa.

We distributed the comuters with Ubuntu, OpenOffice, and all the other great stuff with goes with that. It'll be interesting to see how many of the users stick with OSS or reload their computers with Microsoft stuff... we'll do our best to track that and provide training and support.

Kubuntu

Ubuntu. Nice. Being a KDE user I just installed Kubuntu on my daughter's pc. It was nice enough that I am putting it on all the pcs we are selling to friends and neighbors. Personally I am a Gentoo user....

I am really looking forward to going home, and helping out with things like this.

It seems like we've been runn

It seems like we've been running through about every version of Linux available, this summer. I'm still a newbie with all of them - all better than Windows.

NEO, Cleveland and REALNEO look forward to your help - give us some notice when you'll be arriving and we'll have a welcome home party!

Let's Party!

Norm,

The goal is to arrive in Cleveland on the 14th of October. We were ready to go earlier, but Mom, whom is going to put up with us until we get settled, asked us to come no earlier than the 14th since she is busy.

We will be in Tokyo from this weekend and will spend the week meeting with friends and family, and the Japan Zope User Group is giving me a send off - it'll actually be the first time I meet most of them.

Today, my family and I are going scuba diving. First time. Friend of mine opened up a dive shop(Japanese only) this year and refuses to let me leave Okinawa without diving at least once. So today's the day.

My 100Mbps net access goes away on Thursday of this week. :'( At that time it will really sink in that we are leaving the island.

Did you say...

Did you say 100 Mbps?!?!

Wow...now that's what we need in Cleveland. Darn Baby Bells...

Derek Arnold / d.arnold at realinks dot us

That's what i said

100Mbps. Yes. I think I am going to have a very hard time getting used to the net access speeds when I move back.

In Japan, basically you get 100Mbps(best effort) on a fiber-optic circuit into your home for about $50. Add on the $20-$30 dollars for the ISP fees and for $80 bucks you have real broadband. Even here in tiny little Okinawa.

Additionally, they are advertising a Gbps service which isn't here yet, but may be available in Tokyo. It is the first service, I believe, that will be using IPv6.

Yesterday, the took out the six 100Mbps circuits I had upstairs. Sigh. Today, the last one goes....

Yay for population density

When there is sufficient population density, you can do stuff like that (fiber to every home).  As long as people insist on living in McMansions in Medina and abandoning the innner ring, we will be behind.  The telcos could have still done this though.  The only reason they got off of their duff at all was because cable companies started to offer fast internet.  The most I can get is 4 Mbit (non-dedicated) through my cable modem. 

Does cable tv have the capability to use the same fiber connections?

 

 



 

Derek Arnold / d.arnold at realinks dot us

Derek, sorry for the delaye

Derek, sorry for the delayed response. However, I am now in Cleveland so hopefully we'll be able to meet at some point.

Initially the fiber-optic services don't provide TV services....yet. Some of the big news recently is the attempted takeovers by internet-based companies of tv stations. The intent is to provide TV over IP, and the battle is over who controls it; traditional media or new media. The fiber is owned by the local telephone companies(NTT East and NTT West). The basic technology is there to provide TV over IP(particularly with Gbps services coming out) though the big issue is really DRM.

s'alright

 I will be around tomorrow so we should get to meet.

You moved your family from another CONTINENT!  Lag time is understandable :-).
 

 

Derek Arnold / d.arnold at realinks dot us

re: Kubuntu

I have slept on KDE but a presentation at the Ohio Linuxfest (http://www.ohiolinuxfest.org) awakened me. I have tried Kubuntu and was impressed. These days, I install Ubuntu then apt-get kde so I can get both. I like messing with Fluxbox or Window Maker as well.

Derek Arnold / d.arnold at realinks dot us

Aaron

Yeah, I am sorry I missed Aaron speak. My first desktop was windowmaker back in 2000 or so. Being that I was a recent convert from windows, I quickly settled on KDE though. Never did like Gnome. But who can account for taste.

Being a Gentoo user for the last couple of years, I am still getting used to Debian. Apt-get is great though, and not having to compile is also refreshing in its own way.
Tempted to switch my laptop to Kubuntu.....

emerge

I wish I had a faster box or else I would give Gentoo a spin.  I would set it up in a triple-boot with WinXP and Ubuntu on my main home desktop.

Derek Arnold / d.arnold at realinks dot us