Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/63913
mentoring and telementoring Technology and Philanthropy FOR HEWLETT-PACKARD, CORPORATE GIVING MOST often means investing in the future of the workforce. In the year 2000, approximately 65 percent of the company's donations of cash and equipment went to improving educa- tion. The company supports a number of key initiatives: s The Diversity in Education program, launched in 1997, is a five-year, $4 million plan aimed at improving the repre- sentation of women and minority groups in engineering schools and the engineering and computer science work- force. The DEI initiative sponsors long-term partnerships between universities and K–12 schools to help students take an interest in science from the earliest possible age. The program has been so successful that, last May, HP was among the companies to win a Ron Brown Award for Corporate Leadership. This award is the only Presidential Award that honors corporations for outstanding achieve- ments in employee and community relations. s The HP Scholars Program, part of the Diversity in Education initiative, puts Latino, African-American, Native American and other under-represented students to work. Students receive scholarships of $3,000 per year for four years and are offered a paid summer internship at HP. In addition, they receive HP equipment—and, just as important, people with computer access in New York City than on the entire African continent, the report noted. These numbers are so compelling that the panel stated that from HP employees. s The Digital Village brings technology to underserved com- munities by offering both equip- ment and expertise. HP selected three communities—East Palo Alto, California; East Baltimore, Maryland; and the Southern California Tribal Community outside of San Diego, California—with which to work in this initiative. Each community receives $5 million in HP products and services over three years. An HP executive on loan, who serves as product manager, is assigned to each community. s The HP Wireless Mobile Classrooms are designed to put wireless notebook PCs and specialized Internet-based applications in the hands of teachers and students. Each mobile classroom is a self-contained unit that houses 30 HP Omnibook notebook PCs, a printer, a copier and fax, and a digital camera. The motorized cart provides the wireless infrastructure, allows the mobile unit to be recharged, and allows it to be moved to additional classrooms. The Wireless Mobile Classrooms are part of a series of collaboration grants HP is offering to ten universities and their respective partner K–12 schools that serve low-income, ethnically diverse students. HP is also providing the Wireless Mobile Classrooms to eight community colleges to encour- age minority students to prepare for engineering and com- puter science degrees. "the issue is not whether to respond to the challenges brought about by the revolution in ICT (information communications technology), but how to respond and how to ensure that the process becomes truly global and everyone shares the benefits." The panel thoroughly refutes the claim that poverty should be addressed before technological disadvantage, arguing that tech- nological access has been proven to be a solution to poverty. It calls for the entirety of the world's population to have Internet access by 2004. (To read more of this report, visit the Web site for the United Nations, www.un.org.) It is for these very reasons, says Stephens, that educational curriculum itself. The result, says Stephens, is that students become more creative in problem-solving. "They might do computer-assisted drawing, they might use a computer to solve a complicated equation. They might design a Web site. These tools enable them to achieve a vision beyond what is possible without technology," she says. While Stephens has always found schools and professors eager institutions—at the elementary, high school, or college level— are essential places for corporations to focus their attentions. The donation of equipment allows students to become familiar with technology and allows teachers to integrate technology into the to receive the new products offered in corporate technological ini- tiatives, she points out that corporations such as HP must have an existing relationship with a university before new products can be successfully introduced. "Such programs are possible because we have a recruiting relationship with these schools, a research rela- tionship, and a training and educational relationship," she says. She believes that philanthropy is spreading among corpora- z tions. "My own external scan shows that, increasingly, companies are getting involved, especially in addressing the digital divide," she says. "Other companies are doing good work—even if it's not exactly the same work. One company can't do it all." s BizEd NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2001 43