BRIDGING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE: These IEEE students want to bring technology accessibility and knowledge to underserved students who don’t currently have it.

IEEE students fix computer network for local high school

Civil engineering students aren’t the only ones building bridges. Members of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) are building digital bridges they hope will help financially strapped communities and schools straddle the digital divide, that rift of opportunity created between those who do and don’t have access to technology.

Today, students with restricted access to the Internet or limited exposure to technology are dramatically hampered in their educational and professional growth.

Recognizing that they are on the fortunate side of the digital divide has spurred some IEEE members to create the Digital Divide Community Service Project.

On the morning of the Big Game in November, seven IEEE members helped slightly narrow the digital divide in their backyard.

The Digital Divide Project was funded by the East Bay professional chapter of IEEE and spearheaded by one of their members, Cal engineering alum Christopher Flores (‘83).

“As students of technology we feel we have the obligation to help provide technology to those who can benefit. It is nice to know that even as students we can still make a difference,” says Digital Divide organizer and EECS sophomore Kedar Shah.

While federal law mandates that all public schools have computers for Internet access, technical problems can shut those systems down. Sometimes schools don’t have the resources or manpower to solve the problem. One local example was Kappa Continuation High School in Richmond. Kappa’s technical problem with its Internet ports was neglected until IEEE stepped in.

Though none of the students had ever done this type of work before, they single-handedly restored high-speed Internet access by fixing the connection to broken ports. The project only took four hours to complete.

Digital Divide members don’t just fix technical problems but they also pitch their services to local institutions in need. Their next project is to fix the network of the Richmond Youth Network After School Program.

To maximize their impact, the group is considering teaching introductory programming classes to underserved middle school and high school students.

“Another part of the digital divide is not having a role model. Fixing infrastructure is one thing, but interacting with students is another. We want to help motivate them to become engineers,” says IEEE senior Jason Bayer.
While their motivation to bridge the digital divide may come from a philanthropic place, participating students say that they personally gain from the experience.

“Even though we’ve taken a lot of computer classes, we don’t often get much practical experience solving real world technical problems like this,” says IEEE sophomore Vincent Liu.

To learn more or get involved visit ieee.eecs.berkeley.edu or e-mail bridging_digital_divide@uclink.berkeley.edu.

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