Inside the Digital Divide: Connecting Youth to Opportunities in the New Economy
Bob Pearlman , Former President, Autodesk Foundation

A new study by global management consulting firm A.T. Kearney and Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network, however, finds that technology access is still a serious issue and a necessary precondition to solving the Digital Divide. But the study, the "2002 Workforce Study: Connecting Today's Youth with Tomorrow's Technology Careers," doesn't stop there. The Digital Divide in the Silicon Valley, the study finds, incorporates four components: a workforce gap, an educational achievement gap, an interest gap, and a technology skill and access gap. A significant finding is that providing technology equipment to the disenfranchised is not a comprehensive answer; rather, social networks that link our young people and citizens to the people, businesses, and institutions of the new economy must be expanded.
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For the 2002 Workforce Study, A.T. Kearney developed a unique, innovative framework, the "Stages of Individual Technology Acclimation," that begins with access and then tracks how an individual uses technology, develops awareness of technology careers, acquires skills, and interest which leads to employment. The stages of individual technology acclimation are: Access, Content, Usage, Awareness, Preparedness, Interest, and Employment. "The Digital Divide is not just about access to technology," says Robert Caret, President, San Jose State University, and a Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network board member. "It's about access to education and careers."

... a major new finding: high levels of technology access do not translate into high awareness of, or motivation, to pursue technology careers.
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But the most significant finding in the study is that a student's social network can have a significant impact on his/her career choice. Students whose parents are both in high-tech careers are more likely to be interested in technology careers themselves. In addition, 83 percent of students rely on personal connections for career-related information and guidance.

Role of Social Networks

The standard recipe for student success has been to provide students with a traditional K-12 and college program, with its heavy emphasis on rote learning and academic papers. Others believe that such education needs to be enhanced by skills, including hard skills like technology and soft skills such as communication, collaboration, and work ethics.

But the new report from Silicon Valley suggests that even this better recipe lacks a crucial ingredient: social networks.

Even though social networks are not part of the standard recipe for student success, it should come as no surprise. Isn't it through social networks that adults both learn and connect to education and career opportunities?

"Social networks that can bridge across geography, race and class are key to success in the new economy," says Professor Manuel Pastor, Jr., University of California, Santa Cruz, who has studied social networks in Los Angeles among Latinos. 'Hard' skills are essential, but it's the connections and mentoring that provide information about what skills are necessary and a vision of how acquiring them can lead to new opportunities for all our residents".
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Minority students in a Boston regional desegregation program "noticed that white high school students got interesting summer jobs through their parents' friends, and that those experiences helped on college applications. "Networking is white people's affirmative action"," concluded one of the graduates [vi]

The need for education to be enhanced by social networks is a given in the new field of "Behavioral Economics" [vii] , where success is linked to factors greater than monetary incentives, including the role of identity and cooperation, both of which depend upon social networks. Kids need to be linked humanly to the real world of adults in the workplace, in schools and colleges, and in the community.

Research on "informal learning" in high-performing workplaces also has significant implications for youth development. A landmark 1998 study, led by Monika Aring at the Education Development Center, showed that people learn 70% of what they know about their jobs informally, through projects, meetings, and networking. Real learning, the study finds, is both social and situated. [viii]

A traditional education is not enough. Students lack motivation for learning and also lack the human relationships to connect them to internship, college, and career learning opportunities. The recipe for student success needs a new ingredient, social networks, or expanding a student's adult connections. The new recipe should read:

Education + Skills (Hard + Soft) + Social Networks => Student Success

Enhancing a Student's Social Network

So how do you enhance social networks for all students, particularly those from disadvantaged communities? Obviously you are not going to change a student's parents or relatives or community, but you can give them schools, and programs, that link them to caring adults in the new economy.

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The best youth programs today connect students with caring adults. Intel's Computer Clubhouses (http://www.computerclubhouse.org/), based on a design developed by the Boston Museum of Science, provides middle school students with a technology-rich after-school "workplace" and provides each student with an adult mentor.

Including internship or mentor experiences is also a key feature of many successful Community Technology Center programs (see http://www2.ctcnet.org/ctc.asp) programs for both youth and working adult programs. Year Up (http://www.yearup.org/) is a one-year, intensive training program that provides urban, young adults 18-23, with a unique combination of technical and professional skills and a paid corporate internship. Technology Goes Home, sponsored by the Boston Digital Bridge Foundation (http://www.digitalboston.org/) and the City of Boston, joins young people and their parents in a ten-week training program leading to a computer and internet access in their home.

Bridging the Digital Divide

The widening gap in both dial-up and broadband access, here and abroad, must be addressed. Investment is needed from both government and public-private partnerships to bring to scale programs of digital opportunity. But more than access and awareness is needed to bridge the Digital Divide in both the high-access Silicon Valley and in communities around the globe and to end what Colin Powell calls "Digital Apartheid".

Few students today, either in the Silicon Valley or elsewhere, have the kind of learning opportunities that Stephanie, Aiyahnna, and Oscar have. Fortunately, with the publication of this new study, some Silicon Valley leaders now understand this need and are calling for scaling up those programs that enhance social networks. "The 2002 Workforce Study emphasizes that a cooperative regional effort is needed to expand the social networks that connect young people with the Silicon Valley jobs of tomorrow," said Rebecca Guerra, Vice President, Worldwide Human Resources at Riverstone Networks and a member of the Joint Venture Board of Directors. "We must ensure that young people of all backgrounds have access to accurate, reliable information on high-tech careers and have relationships with role models and other adults who can provide valuable career-related guidance."

Praveen Madan, principal at A.T. Kearney's Silicon Valley office and leader of the 2002 Workforce Study, calls for regional action: "We need to increase students' affinity for high-tech careers in order to both prevent future workforce shortages in the Valley and prepare today's youth to be full participants in the region's economic future. Simply providing access to technology - something 99 percent of the students' surveyed already say they have -- is clearly not enough. Businesses, civic leaders and educators must work to increase students' exposure to and understanding of technology professions."

Madan's counsel for regional human and economic development speaks not only to the Silicon Valley, but to all emerging technology regions in the U.S. and around the world. It also speaks to more than the technology field. To engage the next generation of citizens and workers, businesses, civic leaders and educators need to increase students' social networks to the workplace and the larger community.

Further information about the 2002 Workforce Study can be found at http://www.jointventure.org/workforce/index.html. A PDF of the study can be downloaded at http://www.jointventure.org/workforce/Workforce_Final.pdf.

Bob Pearlman is a strategy consultant for education reform. He is the former Director of Education and Workforce Development at Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network and the former President of the Autodesk Foundation. He can be reached at bobpearlman@mindspring.com and http://www.bobpearlman.org. This article may be reprinted in the publications of non-profit organizations with the permission of the author.

9:26:33 PM  #  

I've had a nice exchange with Jesse James Garrett, author of an elegant article called A visual vocabulary for describing information architecture and interaction design.  and the forthcoming book The Elements of User Experience,  

Here's an excerpt from the article, followed by a little well-received axe-grinding and value-adding by me.

9:24:41 PM  #