[GRT] Grass Roots of Technology

I'm at the 5th annual Grassroots Use of Technology conference. There are maybe 200 of us — an overflow crowd — packed into an MIT lecture hall. The crowd is dominated by hardcore organizers who know about tech, rather than techies who think they know about organizing. Many are the voluntary poor who work fulltime, every day, on making life noticeably better at the most local of levels.

The conference proper begins with a panel of case studies and field reports. Andre Leroux tells of community redevelopment efforts in Lawrence, MA in which low tech is more valuable than high because too many people in the community just don't have Net access. On the other hand, they send people out with PDAs loaded with a Lawrence map; they click on the map and enter notes about locations. (GIS is everywhere — actually, not such a bad motto for a GIS organization.) Khalida Smalls tells how integrating databases enabled various transit-rider action groups (including the Transit Riders Union) to affect the hike-the-fares/lower-the-quality strategy of Mass Transit. Judy Brewer of the W3C makes a plea for accessible websites so more than 10% of your constituency won't be cut off. And Cliff Graves of Groundspring and Deborah (no last name given) talk about how the eBase database can help organize groups. All hands on, skinned knees, aching feet activists. Great to be in a room with them.