In 2003, Net Literacy (originally called Senior Connects) began when a middle school student used the money he was saving to buy a car to pay for forming a nonprofit and purchasing computes and supplies. He began teaching senior citizens how to become digitally literate and wrote four lesson guides to help facilitate and standardize their training in ways that he hoped would facilitate their learning. Then, he gathered his friends and they all began teaching senior citizens computer, Internet, email, and social media skills. In 2004, Senior Connects was expanded to include repurposing computers, teaching and serving youths and other members in the community. Net Literacy has always been an all-volunteer nonprofit with no paid staff, and until our pivot away from computer repurposing, our Board of Directors has always been 50% comprised of students that managed the organization.
Now, after more than 20 years and more than 46,000 repurposed and donated computers, we’re pivoting full time to rebuilding our website and continuing to progress our AI Literacy programs. Since 2003 when Net Literacy started, a lot has changed: many school districts have 1:1 student to laptop programs and tablets and Chromebooks are much less expensive to purchase than cell phones!
We’ve donated more than $16,500,000 in services and equipment, increased broadband access to 100,000s of individuals, helped increased Internet safety awareness to over 1,000,000 individuals through in-school “students teaching students” training programs and dozens of public service announcements run on cable television, engaged 4900 mostly core city student volunteers, have been highlighted by the FCC in the National Broadband Plan presented to Congress, co-hosted national technology summits including with Google and Harvard University, was nominated by Intel and won Computerworld’s international 21st Century Award for creating “the most innovative application of IT to extend the distribution of digital information and access to Web-Based programs and services to previously underserved populations“, and our successes were honored by two American Presidents, including one at a private White House ceremony.
At Net Literacy, our student volunteers were not tomorrow’s leaders, they’re today’s leaders!
