Marketing and Outreach
Organization:
CTC Net Chicago Chapter VISTA Name:
Dave Chakrabarti
Program Start:
8/2005
Program End:
8/2006
Project Description:
The VISTA will work to advance the “Policy, Advocacy & Public Education” goals of the Illinois Network, informing stakeholders and demonstrating the impact, relevance and need for coordinated community technology efforts in Illinois.
The VISTA will also work to build a sense of collective identity for community technologists by facilitating regional activities, and by collecting the informational resources that will serve as the organizational core of the network, and which will be leveraged to the benefit and coordination of the network.
Lastly the VISTA will research and document the impact of community ICT efforts, correlating data on grants with political boundaries at multiple levels to facilitate the generation of audience specific presentations supporting sensible community ICT policy initiatives. And also assist in development and execution of sustainability plan for the chapter, including research and writing of proposals and coordination of fundraising activities.
Project Outcome:
We have been on a breakneck pace and I rely upon the Vista for a great deal. We’ve convened several major statewide events: Digital Literacy Showcase, Digital Neighborhoods Fundraiser, the Statewide Conference and the launch of the statewide colaition on Community Tech Day, yet another event. We’ve also formulated the database staretgy, and a sustainability plan (still being refined and executed). We’ve made an impact on the vision for the state community technology sector and we’ve launched a ring of websites in addition to the relaunch of our own site on a content managment system. This makes generation of content much easier, and more easily shared. Additionally we’ve put certain other webtools and communications infrastructure in place: phplist for our ilctc Bulletin, webforms for feedback and hylafax for blast communications.