The Rise of Public Technology

Exploring the past, present, and future of public technology centers, and how these libraries and community centers are key to providing those without devices at home the benefits of the internet worldwide.

The movement to provide public technology centers started in 1983 with a single center located in Harlem, New York City. Opened by Antonia Stone and and called Playing To Win, the center thereafter became the first ever location to provide public access to computers in low income areas. Stone believed that giving people who lived in low income neighborhoods access to computers would not only bring them exciting new opportunities for learning but would also prevent large groups of people from being left behind as the world moved more and more toward a technology-based environment. Initially, this center would enable approximately 500 people each week to have access to computers on a regular basis. This included both children, whose schools did not have enough computers for each student and adults who were interested in learning new computer-based technological skills, including data analytics and coding.

The Playing To Win Network would later become the Community Technology Centers Network. In 1995 the Network received a five year grant from the National Science Foundation, enabling them to expand their reach into a regional network of 55 affiliates and later becoming a national network of over 600 affiliates in more than 4,000 locations. Access to technology access centers and large community affiliates, such as the National Urban League, Boys and Girls Clubs, YMCAs, public libraries, and local cable stations are all included in this membership. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has helped fund hardware, software, and training for CTCs in public libraries. This has resulted in over 7,000 libraries in both the United States and Canada having access to the internet. CTCs have played a large role in lowering the digital divide among young people in lower income communities by providing both access to technology and the skills needed to become impactful content creators. People are learning basic skills such as typing as well as more complex ones including graphic design techniques. These are helpful skills to have when it comes to getting jobs in this ever digitalizing world.

Notwithstanding these public access centers, the digital divide still exists; some communities have all types of home computing systems, and other communities have literally no computer technology at all. Although mobile phones and home computers have become popular globally, public internet and computer access venues are still very much relied on in less developed countries. Unfortunately, public access to the internet and computers has dramatically decreased in the past few years. Though the availability of new personal computing devices has increased, a study conducted by the Technology Social Change Group at the University of Washington Information School over a five year time period and across eight countries found that public access is still a critical resource that is needed to give people important information and skills as the world becomes more and more digitally advanced. This study showed that community access venues for internet and computers still greatly benefit education, health, and employment for people in low income and middle income countries, especially marginalized groups such as women and the underemployed.

To try to learn about patterns of public access use, the researchers surveyed 5,000 computer users at libraries, telecenters and cybercafes, as well as 2,000 non-users at home. The study also included 7 case studies in 8 low income and middle income countries globally, including Bangladesh, Botswana, Brazil, Chile, Ghana, Lithuania, Philippines, and South Africa. They concluded that for one-third of the surveyed users, public access venues were their only source of internet and these centers provided half of these individuals their first computer usage. Among lower socioeconomic groups and female populations this number was even greater, which shows that there is a greater impact on marginalized groups. Furthermore, it was found that more than 50% of those who participated in the study said that their computer usage would drastically decrease if they were unable to access these public venues. As a solution, they suggested that local governments should support access to public internet venues and should even incorporate them into pre-existing facilities such as libraries.

All this being said, providing public technology access venues is critical to narrowing the digital divide. Whether it is between cities or countries, everyone is connected through the internet, and while the world is becoming more and more technology based, the digital divide, problematically, still exists. As a result, many people still don’t have the access to the internet or technological skills that will be needed to be successful in the near future. Projects like the Community Technology Centers as well as ours are thus ever more important as the world attempts to close the digital divide, in this case by helping by giving people public access to computers that they cannot otherwise afford at home.