Publication Date: March 28, 1997

NetDay97: A Barn Raising for Cyberspace

By Ken Shulman

What do the United States public schools, the high-technology industry and President Bill Clinton all have in common? NetDay97, the latest but not the last chapter in a nationwide push to connect all of America's schools to the Internet by the year 2000.

"The Internet is the newest world of information, and the newest frontier to conquer," U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy said recently in an address to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in Boston. "Much like the shot heard around the world, our dedication to our students must be heard all over the globe," said Kennedy, who has been instrumental in rallying government, corporate and private support behind the NetDay effort.

Born in California in March 1996, the NetDay movement has spread quickly across the United States. Last October, during the first national NetDay, tens of thousands of volunteers wired over 26,000 schools, giving 150,000 teachers and students access to the information superhighway. In Massachusetts alone, NetDay96 organizers used 5,000 volunteers and close to $8 million in corporate donations to wire 400 schools. Organizers in Florida wired almost one-quarter of that state's 5,000 public and private schools. This year, legislators in Alabama, one of the nation's poorest states, are debating a bill to issue a $125 million bond to finance a fiber-optic network to connect every school in the state to the Internet.

"When we held the first NetDay in California on March 9, 1996, we had no idea how popular this idea would be," says Ann Murphy, a NetDay national organizer in San Francisco. "Within one month, we had received inquiries from 40 U.S. states and 15 foreign countries. We also received a request from the White House asking us to take this movement nationwide."

This year's national wiring date is April 19, although Massachusetts will hold its wiring day on April 5. All 50 U.S. states will participate, and the number of hands-on volunteers is expected to exceed that of the October event.

Like its predecessors, NetDay97 is a partnership between community, government and corporate America, based on a commitment to prepare the nation's youth for work and life in the technology-oriented 21st century. The high-technology industry has been an active supporter of the effort, with corporations including AT&T, IBM, Southwestern Bell, Lotus, Cisco, Sun Microsystems, Digital Equipment Corp., Synet, and DCI among the many major donors and participants. Many of the corporations have relationships with the schools that go well beyond the wiring to providing hardware, software and instruction.

"Our participation is part altruism and part self-interest," says Paul Karoff, New England public affairs director for AT&T. "Our commitment is based on the premise that having an educated work force and technically literate school graduates is imperative to AT&T. We understand the value and the power of the Internet, both as a medium for learning and as a medium for doing business."

Along with its commitment to the NetDay movement, the telecommunications giant has established a $150 million, five-year technical education program for U.S. public schools called "The Learning Network." Many other corporations also fund their own technology education programs for the schools.

The volunteer response for NetDay97 has been invigorating, with parents, teachers and even small business owners leaping on the bandwagon with a spirit that you might liken to a barn raising. Murphy observes that volunteer activism does not stop when wiring day is over. Many volunteers stay in close contact with the schools, and participate in other projects.

Volunteers come in all sizes and shapes, and from unexpected sources. In Garden Lakes, Ariz., a rough-looking man dressed in black leather and riding a Harley-Davidson roared up to a local elementary school, opened up his saddlebags, and pulled out his tools, wiring kit, and a diet cola. In Florida, a six-location restaurant chain, Vinny's Pizzeria and Bakery, put Netday96 and '97 information on all of its menus, and had its staff wear NetDay96 T-shirts.

"The thing we are most proud of is that this was a statewide effort," says Victoria Zepp of Intermedia Communications, a Tampa-based telecommunications company that helps direct Florida's NetDay97 efforts. "Politicians walked hand-in-hand with their rivals, and corporations walked hand-in-hand with their competitors. Everybody came together on this one, because they knew that this was the right thing to do."

Ken Shulman writes from Cambridge, Mass.

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DCI is a proud supporter of NetDay97, providing training for volunteers and teachers. For details, please see our announcement at http://www.dciexpo.com/internet/netday.htm.

For more information on the NetDay movement, please visit the national organization's Web site at http://www.netday96.com.

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