Metro+East+Digital

=Name Of Project= **Home page**: []
 * Main Country of Operation:** United States
 * Other Countries of Operation:**
 * Contact:** Martin Wolske, [|https://apps.lis.illinois.edu/wiki/display/~mwolske/Martin+Wolske%2C+Ph.D.]

Metro East Digital is taking a comprehensive community approach to broadband adoption by infusing broadband applications, promotion, and awareness where the people are. Initial attempts to address the digital divide must necessarily concentrate on basic access to new technologies. However, education, risk tolerance, and socio-economic status are each determinants in the ability to fully participate. Without the competitive advantage that can come from the efforts of innovators and early adopters **//within//** a community, the marginalized community is condemned to a perpetual dependency on outsiders who benefit from such an advantage.

Metro East Digital (formerly DigitalESL) partners, including lead partners Lessie Bates Davis Neighborhood House, the University of Illinois, CyberPath, Community Concepts/Village Theatre, and Southwestern Illinois College, have been engaged in the Metro East region of Illinois since 1999, working to bridge the digital divide and facilitating effective use of information and communications technologies to achieve community development goals. Metro East Communities include: Alorton, Brooklyn/Lovejoy, Cahokia, Centreville, East St. Louis, Madison, Venice, and Washington Park, Illinois.

The Metro East Digital website is a project being led by Martin Wolske at the University of Illinois to provide a place for Metro East residents to have their own space and own voice online. It is an attempt to engage everyone in the community online, but especially to showcase the broadband-based 21st century projects of local residents.

Metro East Digital’s mission is to:

 * Strengthen community organizations and businesses by helping them provide and retrieve networked information;
 * Empower individuals by raising an awareness of networked information and facilitate training on the skills necessary to access, discern, create, and use this information;
 * Facilitate information and resource sharing in support of community and economic development efforts;
 * Promote equity of access to information and communication resources for everyone in the greater Metro East region.

Metro East Digital Community Technology Forum
The Community Technology Forum is being used by the Metro East Digital volunteers and local Metro East residents to post their technology-related activities, experiments, and insights.

rss url="feed://pcc.metroeastdigital.org/blog/?feed=rss2" link="true" description="true" length="500" number="10" date="true" author="true" enclosure="true"