Latino Education Issues Task Force

We have seen the dramatic impact of the Internet over the past decade. The developing national and international cyberinfrastructure is making available Internet resources of particular importance to research and education. This task force will briefly discuss the current thinking of the One Gigabit or Bust Initiative and the developing cyberinfrastructure.

The goal of this task force is to help shape the vision, and explore such issues as:

• How would or should ubiquitous gigabit connectivity impact Latinos in California?
• What positive impact could it make in their education, their quality of life, socially, politically and economically?
• What impact could it make on Hispanic-Serving Institutions and their students?
• What are the opportunities for Latinos and the challenges?
• How could the One Gigabit or Bust Initiative help California Latinos, including and through their institutions of higher learning, "leap-frog" over the "digital divide" to full participation in the Information Age?
• What are the obstacles that must be overcome?
• What is the long range strategy to follow?
• What are the next steps?

The products of this task force will be:

• Conducting a workshop to begin to shape the vision answering the above questions.
• Identification of next steps needed to ensure the Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs) and their students are engaged in the fostering, deployment and education of a one gigabit ubiquitous network in California.
• Consideration of how the California work can foster a stronger relationship between national cyberinfrastructure efforts and California HSIs.