Partners
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MassIMPACT has a collaboration
with the Center for Reflective Community Practice (CRCP) at MIT
focusing on bridging the digital divide among residents at Camfield
Estates, via its Creating Community Connections Program. This
collaboration, headed by Professor Ceasar McDowell of the Department
of Urban Studies, has produced several results over the past
three years. First, via a resident training program,
headed by then MIT doctoral students Randy Pickett and Richard
O'Bryant, eighty-seven (87) residents of Camfield Estates were
trained in computing technology and provided with brand new HP
computers and Microsoft Office Professional software. In addition,
the Program is currently providing these residents with High-Speed
Internet Access though its Wireless Cloud follow-up project.
Through this collaboration, MassIMPACT has played a lead role
in guiding the residents of Camfield Estates in the use of technology
and the Internet to support their growth and development as a
community.
This collaboration also led to the participation
of MassIMPACT Executive Director Thaddeus Miles and Camfield
Estates President Paulette Ford in a graduate fellowship program
at MIT, where they worked with Professor McDowell to help MIT
graduate students understand what it meant to do constructive
work in community development and planning, and successfully
use technology to support such work. Today, the collaboration
continues to produce success stories of how technology can be
interactively and successfully utilized by urban planning professions
to support urban renewal by actively including the voice and
participation of residents in process.
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