A computer in every living room
Program wires low-income homes
BY MARK WALSH
      Bringing low-income New York City families into the digital age is the goal of a pilot program launching this fall.
      Beginning in October, the Manhattan-based nonprofit Computers for Youth will begin placing computers and modems donated by local firms into the homes and schools of disadvantaged city students. Besides receiving the equipment, recipients will get training and technical support provided by CFY in conjunction with private technology companies and tech-savvy high school students.
      The first beneficiaries will be 220 families whose children attend the KIPP Academy, a South Bronx public middle school.
      The program's home-centered approach is intended to encourage intergenerational learning, as technically adept students teach parents how to use computers.
      "By placing computers in the home, we're treating the family as one learning unit," says Elisabeth Stock, executive director of CFY, which plans to launch www.cfy.org this week.

Digital divide
      Despite falling computer prices, the digital divide remains wide between affluent and poor households, and between whites and nonwhites.  A recent Department of Commerce study found that among those earning $15,000 to $20,000 annually, more than 32% of white families owned computers, compared with 19% of black and Hispanic families.
      Access to computer technology in schools is better, but New York City schools are far from being paragons of high-tech learning.  There are only 7.7 computers for every 100 students in the system, and nearly 75% of the computers in city schools are so old they cannot run most new software, according to a 1996-97 state Education Department report.
      To get inner-city families connected, Ms. Stock is enlisting the help of private and nonprofit firms.  She expected to have 330 used computers, donated by companies including Israel Discount Bank and law firm Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison, by Labor Day.  Only 486s or later models are accepted.  CFY has also raised over $100,000 from entities such as George Soros' Open Society Institute, Home Box Office and Citigroup.

Firms including Israel Discount Bank and law firm Paul Weiss have donated some 300 used computers
      The city Board of Education is supplying warehouse space in Long Island City, Queens, to house the equipment and will also handle shipping to homes and schools.
      "We constantly get offers of donated computers, but until now we haven't had a fruitful way to respond to them," says the board's deputy chancellor for operations, Harry Spence.

Volunteer tech services
      One of the unusual aspects of CFY's "Project Patchwork" initiative is that beyond supplying donated hardware, it provides volunteer technical services and support.
      "What makes us different is that we care about what people are doing with the computers," says Ms. Stock, an MIT graduate who developed a national Computers for Learning program while serving as a White House fellow in Vice President Al Gore's office two years ago.  That program provides surplus government computers to needy schools.
      Going a step further, CFY has lined up the assistance of C3i Inc., a Silicon Alley firm that provides help-desk services to Fortune 500 companies such as American Express and Pfizer.  C3i will create a help desk at the School of Cooperative Technical Education in Manhattan and train vocational students to give families technical support over the phone.
      CFY is also working with Big Brother Big Sisters of American to match students with on-line mentors through its Workplace Mentoring Program.
      It is also seeking a new media partner to create a "virtual community" for recipient families, and will give students the chance to develop their own web content at community centers run by the East Harlem Children's Aid Society.