An Ideal CTC: Strategies for Community Development from Austin Community Technology Centers

Introduction (Part 1 of 2)

In September 2001, our research group embarked on a nine-month project to learn how Austin community technology centers (CTCs) are working to provide public access to technology at the neighborhood level. We identified this issue as timely for a number of reasons. CTCs are community organizations that share many of the same assets and liabilities as other organizations and are among the "newer" approaches to serving communities. While technology is not the only solution to building community capacity, it is certainly a form of communication on which our society is increasingly reliant in daily life. And finally, the current presidential administration claims that the digital divide has been eliminated, although 75% of the poorest Americans still lack access to computers and the Internet.

Our research led us to conclude that CTCs traditionally emerge in three forms: the low-cost access site; the human capital, or workforce, training site; and the educational model site. We suggest a fourth model, our "ideal" model. This ideal CTC incorporates some of the promising practices of the first three types, and incorporates innovation, problem solving, and critical thinking into the learning process. It is these additional elements, we argue, that will ensure true community capacity building in neighborhoods served by these programs.

We recognize that there are barriers to development that incapacitate organization growth. Merriam-Webster defines "ideal" as "existing as an archetypal idea." Our ideal CTC is not a checklist to find where organizations fail. Rather, it is a way to integrate and organize the "promising practices" of CTCs we have worked with and the principles we learned from background research. It is a way to recognize the barriers to development and identify solutions. And it can be used as a checklist for organizations that want to improve by highlighting the most important factors that affect individual and community development.

An Ideal CTC: Strategies for Community Development from Austin Community Technology Centers

Introduction (Part 1 of 2)

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