CommunityTechnology.org
Title
ACT Home
Description
Background
The Alliance for Community Technology was launched in 1997 as a strategic partnership between the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and the University of Michigan through its new School of Information. The partnership was motivated by the perspective that information technology has emerged to the point that it could have an increasingly vital role in the Foundations’s fundamental mission to help people help themselves through the practical application of knowledge and resources to improve their quality of life and that of future generations.
Although the raw processing power of microchips doubles every 18 months and Internet traffic is doubling every 6 months, there is not commensurate growth in our principled understanding of the current and potential use and social impacts of such technology. Also, although the Internet has the potential to provide data, information, knowledge and human interaction any time and any place, we are a long way from providing it for any one. The Kellogg Foundation sought partners to enhance its ability to better understand and effectively apply fast moving advances in information technology to its core programs, cross-cutting themes, and special opportunities. It also began consideration of ways its grantees could develop greater capacity to use this technology to improve private life and the household, the community, and social infrastructure. WKKF could also enhance is capability to lead by example for other philanthropies in exploring ways to harness information technology to contribute more effectively to the civil society sector.
The partnership was attractive to faculty, professional staff, and students at UM-SI because of the potential for resources and connectivity to link their teaching, learning, and professional practice more directly to community-based and not-for-profit organizations, especially those that serve the most vulnerable in our society. They were looking to enhance opportunities to ground and inform what they do through practical engagement in community settings. Faculty, professionals, and students from other parts of the University of Michigan as well as other universities will eventually also participate in ACT.
