Digital Divide: Red Hook Initiative Brings Wifi and Tech Skills to Community

Digital Divide: Red Hook Initiative

Almost 2 million new Yorkers do not have internet access in their homes. In a new week-long series, we explore how increasing demands for a computer literate society is leaving nearly one third of the city on the wrong side of the Digital Divide. 

 
After Hurricane Sandy, it wasn't just the lights that went out in Red Hook. A neighborhood already plagued by poor connection lost even more of its ability to access the Internet. That's where the Red Hook Initiative came in.
 
"It really helped a lot of people contact family members and all that stuff," says Robert Smith, one of the program's first Digital Stewards. After the storm, they helped build a "mesh" network to bring free wifi to the Red Hook community. The Initiative aims to train young people from the neighborhood, like Smith, to become experts in the tech fields. He says digital know-how is required in today's world.
 
"Not knowing how to use technology or not knowing how to use those tools, you kind of end up in a dark age. And it's weird, though. How can you live in a dark age in such a technical world?"
 
These students are propelling both their community and themselves out of the dark. One steward, Clint Mars, is trying to merge two processors together.
 
"I know it's possible that you can do anything with a computer, but I want to test my limits," he says in the basement of a warehouse building with a dozen other young men and women, all working away at complex computer problems. Robert Smith says before the program he wanted to be a dog trainer, but being around all these inventive people changed his mind.
 
"I'm glad that I was able to mature in an environment like this where I was around people that are doing innovative things and creating things. It changed my mind on a whole bunch of things."
 
Smith wants to go college now. Thanks to his experiences as a Digital Steward, his life goals have gone from canines to computers. 

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