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My 'Native
Digital Divide'
My work in "Bridging the Native
Digital Divide":
I have been working for over 15 years to
help get Native American Nations on the Internet
 . I designed and implemented
the "first" National Supercomputing Program aimed at Native
American high school students for Sandia National Laboratory (SNL) and the
Department of Energy (DOE), called "Countdown
To Supercomputing®" to teach Native American High School students from Bureau of
Indian Affairs (BIA) schools to use ‘the Internet, Fractals, Virtual Reality, and
Environmental Supercomputing,’ from 1990-95. I was part of the original
Navajo Nation’s Technology Committee in 1991-95. I helped get Southwest
Indian Polytechnic Institute (SIPI) "first" Internet connection
in 1993. I designed, implemented, and maintained the "first"
International Native American Network called the "AISES Information System" in
1993-95. I helped get the Crow Nation’s five Tribal Colleges "first" Internet connection
with Sandia National Laboratories’ Montana Consortium in 1994. I worked with
Dine’ College (formerly Navajo Community College) to get their "first" Internet connection in 1994-95. As an entrepreneur/co-founder/Vice President, I helped
start one of the "first" Native American Internet companies
called "Advanced Tribal Integrated Information Networks, Inc. " (ATIIN) in
1995-96.
 With my 1995 Internet Company, ATIIN, I
designed ‘Community / Tribal Networks’ for the Isleta Pueblo, Tesuque Pueblo,
and Rough Rock Community Schools. I designed Websites for over 25 Native American
businesses in the Nations "first" Native American E-Commerce
Mall, called Native CyberTrade. (Written up in Wired
Magazine, Dec 1999: See Native Nets in WIRED Magazine
and Internet Indian Wars)
I designed a National Network to connect up 49 Tribal Nations for the Council of Energy
Resource Tribes (CERT) in 1996.
As a Technology Consultant,
via this website as an online "Virtual Office" , I utilized 'web
project management techniques' to conduct Statewide
Technology Assessments for Hawaii
(Polynesians - 7 Community Colleges), North Dakota (5
Tribal Colleges), Alaska (College of Rural Alaska – 7
Tribes) & the Navajo Nation (Four states - AZ, NM,
CO, & UT). I have also worked with Technology Teams on Internet Infrastructure
Development for Dine’ College (formerly Navajo Community College) in
Shiprock, NM, Southwest Indian Polytechnic Institute (SIPI) in
Albuquerque, NM, and the Montana Consortium (5 Tribal Colleges) in
Montana. I have conducted Technology
Assessments for Schools & Tribes, such as Rough Rock
Community Schools, Rock Point Community School, Turtle Mountain
Chippewa Tribe, Tesuque Pueblo, Navajo Nation, Isleta
Gaming Palace & Leech Lake Tribal College. I have also
designed Virtual Online Schools, such as the Western Governors University where I design a
virtual campus-wide information system behind the web pages that connects higher education
institutions from 19 States and 3 countries, and am currently working to
create a Virtual Pueblo University, and am working with the National Computational Science
Alliance to create High Performance Computing (HPC) Online, to distribute and conduct HPC
classes over the Internet from over 164 universities while utilizing
high-speed Internet2 type technologies.
Now with my online
"Virtual Company", Internet Technology
Services at www.InternetTechnologyService.net , I
am using my extensive Internet Expertise to provide Internet Solutions to
Tribes, Native organizations, and Native businesses, as well as online marketing
and online business solutions to help sustainability and promote
Tribal Sovereignty.
- First
Nations Cafe' opened in Imperial Beach, CA, USA to house an
accumulation of Internet Technologies and create a business model for
Tribes to sustain their own Tribal Economic Development.
-
IndianTraining.org was designed & implemented in 45 days, from concept
to reality, to create an American Indian Workforce in Web
Development and Film & Video Production.
- "First"
Sovereign Tribal Network Design: submitted to Dep't of Commerce -
Economic Development Administration
- Statewide Inter-Tribal Network Design for
19 Pueblo Nations
in New Mexico, USA
-
Kumeyaay Community College: Online designed and implemented to help
facilitate the Kumeyaay Nations' Education: 12 Kumeyaay Tribes in
Southern California and 5 Kumeyaay Tribes in Baja California, Mexico
- Became a Collaborative Internet Technology Advisor
to the Tribal Digital
Village project to work with 18 Mission Band Indian Tribes in
Southern California, USA.
- Have put 23 American Indian owned businesses and
organizations on the Internet by providing a Web Presence in
WebWorks.
 The
BRIDGE: Indian Training Trust Fund, Pinnacle Endeavors, and
Internet Technology
Service, LLC have formed a partnership which has
led to opening
an Internet Cafe': serving a
smorgasbord of Internet Technology, with a wireless Internet
access 'hot spot'
in
Imperial Beach, CA at 206 Palm Ave.
We opened our
NEW Internet Cafe' on March 20th, 2003
in Imperial Beach, California, USA
Below are links to Newspaper articles and Magazine
publications about my work, just over a single year, 2000:
American Indians try to bridge 'digital
divide'
Indian Country Today (Nov 1, 2000) SACRAMENTO, Calif. - These
days at small community gatherings and large-scale pow wows someone brings it up. In
American Indian conferences it usually becomes a topic of conversation. Tribal councils
and politicians keep warning Indian country about it
http://indiancountry.com/articles/commerce-2000-11-01-03.shtml
Indians seek on-ramp to information highway
The Denver Post (Oct. 16, 2000)
The American Indian Higher Education Consortium, Whitehouse' Tribal College Initiative,
and American Indian College Fund, joined private companies and federal officials,
educators, American Indian leaders and other stakeholders in finding ways to help tribal
colleges acquire state-of the-art information technology.
http://www.denverpost.com/news/news1016a.htm
Caught in the Digital Divide
As record numbers of Americans go online, the gap between those who have access to
technology and those who don't may be widening. Education World looks at
the digital divide and what it means to educators. Included: Links to information and
resources on the digital divide. (An article in Education
World - Technology in the Classroom)
http://www.education-world.com/a_tech/tech041.shtml
Pictures from the
Havasupai site getting their "first" Internet connection at the
bottom of the Grand Canyon.
NAU, Navajo Nation, and Starband have connected over 70 of the 110
chapter houses on the Navajo Nation and will complete connecting the rest this week. Last
week the Hopi Police Dept. also received a system that will connect them with the FBI data
center and other public safety agencies across the country. This system also allows
individuals who buy the system starting October to take courses on the NAU
university-house network from home. (see also: Mule trains and
satellites bridge the "digital divide" at Starband )
http://www.evanscraig.com/NativeDigitalDivide/Havasupai.htm
 Dine'
College becomes the "first" Tribal College to setup and utilize
the Access Grid
President Clinton returned to New Mexico and became the first presiding President
to visit the Navajo Nation. During his address to the Navajo Nation, President Clinton
pledged to bring attention and corporate funding to the digital divide.
http://www.evanscraig.com/NativeDigitalDivide/clinton.htm
A Strong but Sensitive
Computing Initiative for Native American Communities
Envision - a quarterly Science Magazine for National Partnership for Advanced
Computing Infrastructure & the San Diego Supercomputing Center (NPACI & SDSC):
As Internet technology has permeated nearly every aspect of everyday life, the
"Digital Divide" separating citizens into "haves" and
"have-nots" has become a hot topic of discussion and policymaking.
Statistically, Native Americans are technological have-nots, as Internet access is
uncommon—if not impossible—on reservation lands where telephones are sometimes
rare, and few Native Americans pursue careers as computer scientists or technologists. An
impulse, then, is to "fix" this situation by bringing universal access to all
Native Americans. However, cultural issues affect the number of tribal people who wish to
pursue education and careers in the field. Other factors, including the rural nature of
reservation lands and the structure of the Tribal Colleges system, limit the opportunities
available to Native Americans. Increasing the inclusion of Native Americans in computer
science, then, requires a program that addresses both cultural and technological issues.
http://www.npaci.edu/enVision/v16.2/native-americans.html
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Research Foundations on Successful
Participation of Underrepresented Minorities in Information Technology: A Cyberconference
National Science Foundation (NSF) publication:
U.S. demographics predictions indicate that African Americans, Hispanics, Native
Americans, and Asian/Pacific Islanders together will constitute the majority of the
population in both schools and the work environment by the year 2030; the State of
California is experiencing this shift in 2000. To address this change in society, a recent
Coalition to Diversify Computing (CDC) workshop report, "Recruitment and Retention of
Underrepresented Minority Graduate Students in Computer Science," offers 25 practical
suggestions for university computer science departments to attract and retain minority
students.
http://www.cise.nsf.gov/itminorities.html
My 1999 Research: Native Digital Divide
This research paper answers the question; "What are the obstacles to
integrating technology for improving education into Native cultures?"
by identifying the barriers, reporting possible solutions and summarizing the various
online reports in the "Native American Distance Education Community’ website.
According to reports over the last decade, the lack of Native American infrastructure
development and accompanying skills needed to maintain it, cooperative Tribal commitments,
and collaborative government policies are the most common barriers affecting Native
communities. Other questions about Native American telecommunication infrastructure are
also examined, as well as reporting suggested possible solutions that Native communities
can utilize to overcome these obstacles.
The full online report and the accompanying Appendix A is at http://www.eot.ahpcc.unm.edu/Community/Reports/NativeDigitalDivide.html
contains a listing of the online reports, papers, and groups are identified by date of
issue, then summarized, the identified obstacles are listed, and their conclusions are
stated.
See also my Native American Websites:
The Native American Distance
Education Community where we are "On the Road
to Forming an Indigenous Distance Education Institute." My Vision: to
form an Indigenous Distance Education Institute that provides the necessary integration,
connectivity and dissemination of widely separated resources and programs among the Native
American distance education community. Now each region, school, tribe, consortium acts on
their own, and each has unique programs and resources that could be shared by others. I
envision a common place or means by which all could share their unique resources"
& the Tribal
Computational Science Program where I house the Tribal College Internet Status:
A summary of the Tribal Colleges capable of utilizing some sort of Distance Education
technologies, as well as an updated Tribal College President's contact list. And lastly, Countdown to Supercomputing® - Online,
the "first" National Supercomputing Program aimed at Native
American high school students in collaboration with the National Computational Science
Alliance, the Albuquerque High Performance Computing Center (AHPCC), the National
Partnership for Computational Infrastructure (NPACI), the San Diego Supercomputing Center
(SDSC), the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), the Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory (LLNL), Sandia National Laboratory (SNL) and the Department of Energy (DOE),
called "Countdown To Supercomputing®" to teach Native American High School
students from Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) schools to use ‘the Internet, Fractals,
Virtual Reality, and Environmental Supercomputing,’
Other Digital Divide Resources
[ Return to
Resource Page ]
 Evans
Craig - Internet Technology Consultant
Copyright © 1997-2004 by Evans Craig
All rights reserved.
Revised: January 06, 2004.
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