    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
    [April 4, 2000]
    [Pages 614-618]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks on Efforts To Bridge the Digital Divide
    April 4, 2000

        Thank you very much. First of all, Julian,
    I thank you for your introduction, for your remarks, and, mostly, for
    the power of your example. I find very often when we do these events in
    the White House, by the time I get up to talk, everything that needs to
    be said has already been said. And I certainly thank you.
        I want to thank you, Senator Barbara Mikulski, for being the first Member of Congress to talk to me about
    the digital divide. And once I realized you were interested in it, I
    stopped worrying about whether we would address it--[laughter]--because
    no one will ever say no to the Senate's sparkplug of energy. I want to
    thank Secretary Herman for her support. And
    Secretary Glickman, thank you for being here.
    Harris Wofford, the leader of our national
    service movement; and Gene Sperling, my
    National Economic Adviser, who has pushed this whole digital divide
    issue so passionately.
        I want to thank the Members of Congress who are here. Over to my
    left, Senator John Breaux, my neighbor from
    the Mississippi Delta, where we are very interested in the potential of
    the computer and the Internet. And we just had a large delegation of
    House Members that have come in. They've been voting, and I'm glad
    they're here. I hope I have all their names, but I'd like to introduce
    them: Representative Maxine Waters,
    Representative Bart Stupak, Representative Ellen
    Tauscher, Representative Lucille Roybal-
    Allard, Representative Silvestre
    Reyes, Representative John Larson, Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Representative Zoe Lofgren,
    Representative Ruben Hinojosa. Thank you all
    for being here. Did I get everybody?

    [[Page 615]]

    Thank you. And Elijah Cummings from
    Maryland; he's on the front row.
        I'd also like to thank Governor Angus King from Maine for being here. He is working to create an
    endowment fund in Maine to provide portable computers and Internet
    access to all seventh graders, so they can actually be taken home.
        There are many other distinguished Americans here who have worked on
    this. Bob Johnson, the head of BET, thank
    you for being here. And I want to acknowledge the presence of former
    Governor of West Virginia Gaston Caperton,
    now the head of the College Board. West Virginia, under his leadership,
    was the first State to provide computer access to all elementary school
    students. So we're glad to have you here, sir. And I thank you all for
    being here.
        I want to talk about what we're doing now as we set the stage for
    the administration's third new markets tour, which will begin in the
    week of April the 16th. But before I begin, I would like to acknowledge
    two very important developments yesterday in America's ongoing fight to
    protect our children from the dangers of guns falling into the hands of
    criminals and children, one of them in Senator Mikulski's home State of Maryland.
        Last night I called Governor Glendening and Lieutenant Governor Kathleen Kennedy
    Townsend to congratulate them and
    the Maryland Legislature for passing legislation requiring built-in
    child safety locks on new handguns, ballistics testing for new guns, and
    safety training for gun purchasers. And yesterday Massachusetts began
    enforcing tougher consumer product safety rules, banning junk guns and
    requiring trigger locks. Next week I'm going out to Colorado to support
    a citizen ballot initiative there that would close the gun show
    loophole.
        These are all great efforts, and I think it's worth pointing out
    that they are bipartisan efforts in these States. Colorado, for example,
    Republican registration has gone up in the last 6 or 7 years, and this
    ballot initiative today is overwhelmingly in the lead on the ballot. So
    this should not be a partisan issue in Washington, DC, if it is not a
    partisan issue in the rest of the country.
        And again I say, I challenge the Congress to send me the commonsense
    gun safety legislation by April the 20th, the anniversary of the
    Columbine tragedy. We have to close the gun show loophole and require
    child safety locks and ban the importation of large scale ammunition
    clips that make our assault weapons ban a mockery. It requires national
    legislation, as well. So congratulations to Maryland and Massachusetts,
    and I thank the people in Colorado, but we still have to do our job
    here.
        Now, I cannot imagine a better place for us to kick off our next
    chapter in the new markets effort than here in the East Room, for it was
    in this very room nearly two centuries ago that Thomas Jefferson and his
    personal aide, Meriwether Lewis, laid maps on this floor to chart the
    Lewis and Clark expedition. Today we are here again to chart a new
    expedition, to open new frontiers of possibilities for America, the
    digital frontiers. Our mission is to open that frontier to all
    Americans, regardless of income, education, geography, disability, or
    race.
        This is a fortunate time for the United States. We have the
    strongest economy in our history, the lowest African-American and
    Hispanic unemployment rates on record, the lowest female unemployment
    rate in 40 years. But we all know there are people and places that have
    been left behind.
        Over the last year I have traveled to many of these places. I have
    been to Appalachia and the Mississippi Delta, to the inner cities of
    Newark and Watts, to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
    Every place I have gone I have seen how we could do more to bring the
    benefits of free enterprise and empowerment, with private sector and
    community organization cooperation, for new businesses, new jobs, new
    training and education that will make a real difference in people's
    lives.
        I want you to understand that while most people talk about the
    digital divide--and it is real, and it could get worse--I believe that
    the computer and the Internet give us a chance to move more people out
    of poverty more quickly than at any time in all of human history. That's
    what I believe. But it won't happen by accident. We'll have to work to
    make it happen.
        On this upcoming new markets tour, we will focus specifically on how
    to pool resources to help communities get access to and take best
    advantage of the tools of the information age. We will visit your
    hometown of East Palo Alto, a community where 20 percent of the
    residents still live below the poverty line, to show that even in the
    heart of Silicon Valley there is still a substantial digital divide, but
    that things are being done about it.

    [[Page 616]]

        We will visit Shiprock, New Mexico, a small town in the Navajo
    Nation, to demonstrate the unique challenges faced by geographically
    remote Indian reservations. I will speak at the influential COMDEX
    Conference in Chicago, where I'll talk to representatives of every major
    computer and Internet company in America and ask them to join our cause.
        And then the following week I will go to North Carolina, where we
    will discuss the importance of connecting rural America to the same
    high-speed, broad-band networks now proliferating in metropolitan areas.
        On all these stops, I will make the case that new technologies can
    be an incredible tool of empowerment in schools, homes, businesses,
    community centers, and every other part of our civic life, arguing that
    if we work together to close the digital divide, technology can be the
    greatest equalizing force our society or any other has ever known.
        Imagine if computers and Internet connections were as common in
    every community as telephones are today, if all teachers had the skills
    to open students' eyes and minds to the possibilities of new
    technologies, if every small business in every rural town could join
    worldwide markets once reserved for the most powerful corporations--just
    imagine what America could be.
        Let me say, first of all, I see Congressman Jefferson and Congressman Rush and
    Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee. There
    may be other Representatives, but as they come in, I'll try to
    acknowledge them. There's a ton of interest in this.
        Let me give you an example. You know, I just got back from India, a
    country of 900 million people with a per capita income of $450. We think
    we have challenges. But I saw what you could do there to close the
    digital divide, to use technology in an affirmative way.
        I went to a little village in Rajasthan called Naila, typical low
    income Indian village. And in the public building, the village's public
    building, there is a computer with software where the programs are in
    both English and Hindi and can be adapted to other local languages as
    the case may be.
        And the first thing I saw was a mother who had just given birth to a
    child come in. And they have all the public information from the Federal
    and State government on this computer, so she goes--she brings up the
    Health Department's page on newborn babies. And there's so much visual--
    there's such a good visual component to this software that you could be
    almost illiterate and still work it. And she identifies the instructions
    that any new mother might want to have, and then she pushes a few
    buttons. And there's a printer. She prints it out, and she now has
    information just as good as she could get if her baby were born at the
    Georgetown Medical Center here and she were going home.
        Then I met with this women's dairy cooperative--keep in mind, in
    this little village in India--where every transaction, every time they
    brought milk in, it was all entered on the computer, what the fat
    content was, what the volume was, what the price was. And every time the
    milk was sold, it was entered, so that they got a regular computerized
    record of not only what they had put in but what they got out.
        Then I went to Hyderabad, which is sort of a high-tech center of
    India. But in that whole State, you can now get 18 public services on
    the computer, on the Internet. Nobody goes to a revenue office to buy
    their license anymore. You can get a driver's license on the Internet.
    Now, Governor, if you do that, you can
    be Governor for life. They'll repeal the term limits, repeal everything.
    [Laughter]
        My point is that you can see the potential of this, for even the
    poorest people in the world, is truly explosive. That's why we want
    these 1,000 computer centers out there, because we don't want to wait
    even for all the schools to do this right. We want adults in rural
    areas, in isolated areas, in poor areas, to be able to come in and
    access the same sort of services, and use them and get the same sort of
    information and access.
        The potential of this is truly staggering. We need not see the
    digital divide as a threat. It is the greatest opportunity the United
    States of America has ever had to lift people out of poverty and
    ignorance.
        But I will say again, if you look at the whole history of economic
    development, whenever there's a change in the paradigm, there's a divide
    that opens, because some people are well-positioned to take advantage of
    the new economy. It happened when we moved from being an agricultural
    nation to an industrial nation. Some people are well-positioned to take
    advantage of it, and others aren't. So new divides always open when the
    dominant way of making

    [[Page 617]]

    a living in any society changes. But this empowerment tool gives us a
    chance not only to close the divide quickly but to actually lift poor
    people in a way that has never before been possible.
        I just got back from northern California, and I learned that now--I
    met with some people from a lot of different computer companies, but the
    people from eBay told me that there are now 30,000 people plus, making a
    living just trading on eBay, not working for the company, and that many
    of them used to be on welfare. So it's important that we see this not
    only for the problem it presents, but for the phenomenal opportunity
    that it presents, important that we see it not only as a way to close a
    gap so people don't fall further behind but a way to give people a tool
    that will enable them to leap further ahead. But again I say, it won't
    happen by accident. It requires government, business, educators,
    librarians, civil rights, religious leaders, labor union leaders--thank
    you, Mr. Bahr, for being here today--community-
    based organizations, foundations, volunteers. Everybody has got to work
    together.
        Today I want to issue a national call for action on digital
    opportunity, to help us achieve two vitally important goals: first, to
    bring 21st century learning tools to every school. That means we have to
    finish the job of connecting every classroom to the Internet, ensuring
    that all students have access to multimedia computers, creating more
    high quality educational software, helping all teachers learn how to
    make the best use of these tools. And this is very important.
        Again, I want to thank the Members of Congress here who have
    supported our efforts in the aftermath of the Telecommunications Act of
    1996 to create the E-rate, which has made it possible for the schools,
    no matter how poor they are, to have access to the Internet.
        The second goal is to expand efforts far beyond our schools, to give
    every citizen Internet access at home, by bringing technology centers
    and high-speed networks to every single community, by helping adults to
    gain the skills to compete for IT jobs, and inspiring more people to
    appreciate the great value of getting on line.
        Today is the opening of this national call to action. More than 400
    organizations already have signed the pledge, and this is just the
    beginning. For the rest of the year we will try to inspire hundreds,
    indeed, thousands more to sign up. We will work with Congress across
    party lines to build support for budget and legislative initiatives to
    meet these goals. And you heard Senator Mikulski outline some of them. We have to be willing at the
    national level to do our part. This is a worthy Federal investment.
        During the new markets tour, we'll have an opportunity to announce
    many commitments tied to this call to action. Today I'd just like to
    review four of them, all of them vivid illustrations of the kind of
    visionary partnership and barn-raising spirit that we are working to
    foster.
        First, to reprise something Senator Mikulski mentioned, AmeriCorps will make an enormous contribution
    to closing the digital divide by marshaling the power of active citizen
    volunteers. Thanks to the leadership of Senator Mikulski and Harris
    Wofford, AmeriCorps is committing $10 million
    to recruit 750 new members to serve in a brand-new E-Corps. The E-Corps
    will be a large battalion of volunteers, trained and devoted exclusively
    to projects like providing technical support to school systems and
    teaching computer literacy to adults and children.
        The Corporation for National Service will also unleash the power of
    students helping students by providing funds to allow 90,000 high school
    students to get involved in digital divide projects as part of their
    educational curriculum.
        Most young people I know can run circles around me and most people
    my age when it comes to computers and the Internet. AmeriCorps is going
    to tap their capacity so that they can help others in their communities
    to close the digital divide.
        Second, to help get AmeriCorps' E-Corps off to a running start,
    Yahoo will donate a million dollars in Internet advertising to attract
    potential E-Corps members with high-tech skills.
        Third, in partnership with the YWCA, 3Com is launching an innovative
    initiative called NetPrep GYRLS--g-y-r-l-s. Currently less than 30
    percent--listen to this--less than 30 percent of our computer scientists
    and programmers are women. NetPrep GYRLS will help to right this
    imbalance offering free computer network training and certification to
    hundreds of high school girls across our country.
        Fourth, the American Library Association has pledged to greatly
    expand the information literacy programs of its members in at least 250
    communities. So this is just the beginning, but I want to thank the
    people who were involved for these four initiatives. There will be many
    more, but I thank you very much.

    [[Page 618]]

        I've heard Harris Wofford, who worked with Martin Luther King and
    who was in Selma with me the other day and was in Selma 35 years ago
    when the first march took place, say that making sure all young
    Americans share in the opportunity and promise of America is the
    unfinished business of the civil rights movement.
        It is appropriate that we are meeting here on this subject 32 years
    to the day after Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis. He was
    there working to lift the economic fortunes of disadvantaged people. I
    think if he were with us today, he would therefore say closing the
    digital divide is a righteous cause.
        In his last Sunday sermon, he ended with a prayer that said, ``God
    grant us all a chance to be participants in the newness and magnificent
    development of America.'' That's what this is all about. We need more
    people like Julian. We need more people like
    you, not only clapping for people like Julian but helping them to live
    their dreams.
        We do that when we help young people, when we help seniors in rural
    America get medical advice over the Internet, when we create tools that
    allow people with disabilities to open new doors of possibility. We give
    our neighbors a chance to participate in this astonishing American
    renaissance. We have done something that would have made Dr. King proud.
    And the new technology of the digital age gives us a chance to do it for
    more people, more quickly, more profoundly than at any time in human
    history. It's up to us to seize that opportunity.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 3:04 p.m. in the East Room at the White
    House. In his remarks, he referred to computer skills teacher and
    website developer Julian Lacey, who introduced the President; Harris
    Wofford, Chief Executive Officer, Corporation for National and Community
    Service; Robert L. Johnson, chairman and chief executive officer, BET
    Holdings, Inc.; Gov. Parris N. Glendening of Maryland; and Morton Bahr,
    president, Communication Workers of America.