College of Engineering Magazine- Spring 2001

Crossing the Digital Divide

High-tech Inequality Is the Target of New Institute

By David J. Craig

Professor Roscoe Giles (right), executive director of the Institute Despite its power to revolutionize access to information, the Internet certainly hasn’t transcended existing social inequalities, at least so far. That’s where the newly formed Institute for African American E-Culture (iAAEC) comes in. It seeks to curb the “digital divide” that exists along racial lines by promoting research and community-based technology projects nationwide. A collaboration between BU and several other universities, iAAEC looks for new ways to reduce the disparity between technological haves and have-nots.

The institute, which was awarded a $3.2 million grant last year from the National Science Foundation, is headed by Roscoe Giles, ENG professor of electrical and computer engineering and deputy director of BU’s Center for Computational Science. An emphasis of the institute, says Giles, will be examining how culture influences the development and design of information technologies. Institute researchers from MIT and Auburn University, for instance, will develop alternatives to the desktop metaphor employed by most computer operating systems, which is based primarily on the traditional white-collar office environment.

“Terms like desktop and file folders are used to help people understand what a computer is doing, but not everyone works with files and folders,” says Giles. “We’re not aiming to change the file folders metaphor, but we believe that it’s important to consider metaphors from different cultures when building information systems, and so we’re looking to create new paradigms that companies could pick up on. “Traditionally, the development and creation of new information technologies has been limited to technology people,” he adds. “People like me create something keeping in mind the needs of the users, and afterwards telling them how to use it and why we made it the way we did. Part of this project is getting the users involved in the process of design and creation.”

Giles, with John Hurley of Clark Atlanta University and Valerie Taylor of Northwestern University, will examine how African-American communities may be able to connect to the Access Grid, a distance-learning tool that uses a federally maintained supercomputer network more powerful than the Internet to accommodate videoconferencing and other long-distance computer collaborations. “Our research is about building the fundamental technology that underlies high-end distance learning,” Giles says. “It’s an infrastructure issue.”

Giles hopes the institute’s work will convince policy makers to fund programs that promote the involvement of members of minority groups in technology, and will develop new ways of doing so. “We’ll look at the impact of current public policy, such as that which stimulates ownership for information technology businesses within the black community,” he says. “There is this whole world of venture capital funding supporting the IT marketplace, but if you’re starting a company at a low level, there are a lot of questions about what’s the best way to attract funding.”


Crossing the Digital Divide High-tech Inequality Is the Target of New Institute By David J. Craig Despite its power to revolutionize access to information, the Internet certainly hasn’t transcended existing social inequalities, at least so far. That’s where the newly formed Institute for African American E-Culture (iAAEC) comes in. It seeks to curb the “digital divide” that exists along racial lines by promoting research and community-based technology projects nationwide. A collaboration between BU and several other universities, iAAEC looks for new ways to reduce the disparity between technological haves and have-nots. The institute, which was awarded a $3.2 million grant last year from the National Science Foundation, is headed by Roscoe Giles, ENG professor of electrical and computer engineering and deputy director of BU’s Center for Computational Science. An emphasis of the institute, says Giles, will be examining how culture influences the development and design of information technologies. Institute researchers from MIT and Auburn University, for instance, will develop alternatives to the desktop metaphor employed by most computer operating systems, which is based primarily on the traditional white-collar office environment. “Terms like desktop and file folders are used to help people understand what a computer is doing, but not everyone works with files and folders,” says Giles. “We’re not aiming to change the file folders metaphor, but we believe that it’s important to consider metaphors from different cultures when building information systems, and so we’re looking to create new paradigms that companies could pick up on. “Traditionally, the development and creation of new information technologies has been limited to technology people,” he adds. “People like me create something keeping in mind the needs of the users, and afterwards telling them how to use it and why we made it the way we did. Part of this project is getting the users involved in the process of design and creation.” Giles, with John Hurley of Clark Atlanta University and Valerie Taylor of Northwestern University, will examine how African-American communities may be able to connect to the Access Grid, a distance-learning tool that uses a federally maintained supercomputer network more powerful than the Internet to accommodate videoconferencing and other long-distance computer collaborations. “Our research is about building the fundamental technology that underlies high-end distance learning,” Giles says. “It’s an infrastructure issue.” Giles hopes the institute’s work will convince policy makers to fund programs that promote the involvement of members of minority groups in technology, and will develop new ways of doing so. “We’ll look at the impact of current public policy, such as that which stimulates ownership for information technology businesses within the black community,” he says. “There is this whole world of venture capital funding supporting the IT marketplace, but if you’re starting a company at a low level, there are a lot of questions about what’s the best way to attract funding.”
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