Minutes from the January 29th meeting

I. DCEO funding: requests for applications due 2/15/2008.
a. Allocations from the government are for five million.
b. Half will be available during this request, the second half available in six months.
c. The state grant has a cap of 10% on administration overhead and maximum for grants was raised to $75,000.
d. Consortiums and partnerships encouraged. Successful grant collaboration last term was between Prairienet, Community Concepts, and Computer Village.
e. Metro East is one of the 10 economic districts created under Blagojevich. This means East Saint Louis grants are not competing with Chicago Metro area and a certain amount of the fund must be allocated to the Metro East area.

Statistics for the Metro East area were available at the meeting.

II. Pastor Keitroy Hubbard suggested a technology fair as means to bringing attention to the many successful CTCs in the East Saint Louis area. Unfortunately funding from the DCEO grants can not be used for such an idea. The idea of a “Tech Day” was also suggested. Similar to an open house, all CTC locations would be publicized and open on the same day so that community members could visit the computer lab closest to them and see what resources were available.
III. Martin Wolske’s 451 class: This is the class that has previously installed refurbished computer labs to community centers and nonprofits in the metro east area. There is an opportunity for a change in class structure for this summer. Students would be coming for 10 days at the end of May, allowing students to work closer with the community and work on more advanced projects. Possible ideas for class projects included a video editing project at Mt. Calvary, mentoring with kids and community members, and making modules that would make tech skills digestible to teenagers. If you have more ideas please post them on the website or send them to Elizabeth at eandreja@uiuc.edu
IV. CTC database. Paul is working to set up a state-wide database of all the CTCs in Illinois. This would be available on the web, searchable so that one could see where the closest location was to them. A graduate student is also working on an independent study evaluating 451 computer labs and providing information for the CTC database. Elizabeth will be contacting all DigitalESL members to set up meeting times with the student.
V. Wireless project: the neighborhood approach. It has come to the attention of Digital ESl that one of the Griffin Centers can not get internet. A possibility for a solution and as a grant application is a wireless neighborhood project. More will be discussed at the next meeting.

The next meeting will be Tuesday February 26th , 6:30 p.m. at the Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church.