By Todd Cohen
New York
For B. Keith Fulton, access to jobs is a function of technological know-how.
As director of technology programs and policy for the National Urban League, Fulton's job is to deliver the benefits of information and communications technologies to low-income communities.
That means integrating technology into the league's national office in New York and its 114 local affiliates.
The league has provided technology services in low-income communities since 1968. But in the past three years, thanks to $1 million from Bell Atlantic, $650,000 from the U.S. Department of Commerce and $300,000 from other funders, the organization has stepped up its tech efforts.
It has created technology education access centers in 65 cities, including pilot centers in Baltimore; Boston; Binghamton, N.Y.; and Newark, N.J.
By 2006, the league plans to have a center in each city in which it has an affiliate.
Each center will feature a full-time coach or trainer, Internet access, formal curriculum and walk-in programs.
Some affiliates already offer commercial technology services for a fee. Lucent Technologies, for example, has contracted with a for-profit arm of the Urban League of Hudson County in Jersey City, N.J., which installs Lucent handsets on a national basis.
"We know that in these communities, there's rampant unemployment," Fulton says. "People are out of work. There's a demand for information-technology workers. And we know we've been good at training."
In Los Angeles, for example, the league in 1997 trained 1,400 people at its tech center. They had combined salaries of $31 million and paid $2.1 million in taxes, Fulton says.
His goal is for each Urban League affiliate to add 600 to 1,000 employable tech workers a year to the workforce.
The league's approach to technology is not simply to make it available, but to teach people how to put it to productive use.
"We don't believe just dropping technology in place is smart, or just making technology available over the Web will yield all the desirable results," Fulton says. "You need to have some coach or trainer or facilitated learning."
In addition to providing tech centers, the league makes tech grants. In 1997, for example, Microsoft named the league one of its inaugural nonprofit technology leaders and donated $2.5 million in software that the league then distributed to its affiliates.
The league also uses technology to serve its affiliates. It distributes information using list-serves and the Internet, for example, and makes programming available through real audio over the Internet, allowing local affiliate officials to tune into meetings they don't attend. It also provides tech training for local officials.
The league is now building an intra-league network that will provide proprietary information to chief executive officers of local affiliates and other key staff.
And this year the league will launch a digital campus that will make "streaming courseware" available over the Internet to local tech centers. The goal is to make consistent, high-quality curriculum available to local affiliates, allowing the league to transfer marketable information technology skills to program participants.
"We're building technological oases in low-income communities," Fulton says, "with enriched and facilitated learning environments."
Todd Cohen can be reached at
tcohen@mindspring.com
