Crossing The Digital Divide Newsletter

"CDD Director, Kathleen Patton, plays host to guests at CDD's Spring Fundraiser at the World Famous Magic Castle in Hollywood on May 12th." CDD Computer Training : Needed Now More than Ever Every day we hear news of another round of budget cuts. Quoting a CNN Article from March 21st, 2010,”Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is proposing "painful" layoffs and service cuts to close a $485 million budget deficit as the city struggles to cope with an economy beat down by a recession.” At a time when the need for services and support are increasing, important programs are, being eliminated. Upmost on the mind of our CDD Members is how these cuts effect our students and centers. I have to report that, unfortunately, each center is being hit hard and are feeling the pinch. Read full story Intel Pushes Nettops The company says it has many programmes to support emerging countries across the region in the deployment of nettops in an effort to bridge the digital divide. Intel's general manager for nettop and netbook computing, Noury Al-Khaledy, said nettops were expected to be vital devices to help Asia-Pacific countries to bridge the social gap in access to information and communications technology because it not only cost less, but also had flexible form factors that could be adopted Read full story Africa Calling: Mobile Phone Usage Increases Africans are buying mobile phones at a world record rate, with take-up soaring by 550% in five years, research shows. "The mobile phone revolution continues," says a UN report charting the phenomenon that has transformed commerce, healthcare and social lives across the planet. Mobile subscriptions in Africa rose from 54m to almost 350m between 2003 and 2008, the quickest growth in the world. The global total reached 4bn at the end of last year and, although growth was down on the previous year, it remained close to 20%. Read full story Author Inspires Students Kathryn Autrey can't remember exactly why she picked up the book that her mom had been reading last summer. Maybe she was attracted by the cover photo of three girls about her age.They're all wearing white headscarves, and reading. Maybe she just liked the intriguing title, "Three Cups of Tea." Right away, Kathryn was captivated. The book describes the harrowing, true-life saga of Greg Mortenson, an American mountain climber-turned-humanitarian who is leading a campaign to build schools for girls in remote regions of Pakistan and war-torn Afghanistan. Read full story
CDD Announces Graduating Classes The first teaching session of 2010 culminated on March 23, 2010 as Crossing the Digital Divide celebrated with a Graduation Ceremony held at the Santa Monica Recreational Center. There were nearly a hundred guests in attendance to honor the 28 graduates from the three computer centers: Cri-Help, House of Uhuru and Walden House. Beginning just after 7pm, the emcee, Loryn Napala, welcomed guests and congratulated students for their dedication and hard work. To inspire the students, keynote speaker Caroline Corser, contributing author to the book, “Happiness is a Decision of the Heart” was introduced. Read full story Read Cri-Help Course Report Read Walden House Course Report Read House of Uhuru Course Report See Photo Slideshows
CDD Starts New Sessions at Walden House, Cri-Help and Uhuru CDD is currently conducting computer training sessions at the Walden House, Cri-Help and Uhuru Centers in the Los Angeles area. Last graduation was held on March 23rd. View information about dates and locations on the CDD Calendar.
Student Stories One of the requirements of our course curriculum is that students write a story about their life goals and experience. These stories illuminate the struggles that our students contend with to rebuild their lives. To read our students’ heartening personal stories. Read more
CDD Spotlights Volunteers for their Efforts This month CDD spotlights volunteers from the install, instructor and web teams. We are grateful to these three spotlighted volunteers for their exceptional contribution to CDD. Read their stories Crossing the Digital Divide actively seeks volunteer teachers, tech support, website assistance and general administration. Find out how you can contribute to helping our clients cross the digital divide. Volunteer!
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Publishers: Shahab Inamdar, Kathleen Patton, Kaoru Ito, Derek Crimmel, Soni Nagatani