Contact Information
Organization Name:
Midpeninsula Community Media Center
Address:
Media Center
900 San Antonio Rd
Palo Alto, CA 94306
Website URL:
http://www.midpenmedia.org
Why is your organization interested in increased broadband usage among your members and community:
Our vision is of a community that explores and uses video and other electronic communications technologies to tell its stories, learn about the diversity of the community, and engage in a dialogue that crosses political and cultural boundaries. We see these technologies as tools for public engagement, as affordable communications tools for local governments and non-profits, as a means of creative expression, and a path to an attractive career. In our community, all residents and community organizations will have the opportunity to learn how to use and apply these tools, and to share their opinions and creations with the rest of the community. Our youth will understand how to create and analyze video as a means of communication and expression. Local governments will have easy access to communications channels to keep the community informed about services, events, and policies of local interest. Community organizations will have affordable access to those channels to tell their stories and attract support.
Demographic Information
Service Area Congressional Districts:
Does your organization serve a federally recognized tribal entities? If yes, please identify:
Does your organization serve vulnerable population groups? If so, please identify:
Hispanic
Black/African-American
Asian
Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander
English as Second Language (ESL)
Disabled
Low Income
Unemployed
Senior Citizen (55 and over)
Youth
Number of hosehold subscribers:
Estimated population size of your service area:
Please provide demogrphic information for the population you serve:
We serve four cities/towns and some unincorporated areas in both Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties. For this project we are focused on an area called "East of Bayshore" that includes the entire city of East Palo Alto (population: 33,000) and the east side of Menlo Park (population 6,300).
The ethnic makeup of this area is:
* Hispanic (58.8%)
* Other race (34.7%)
* Black (23.0%)
* Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander (7.6%)
* White Non-Hispanic (6.5%)
* Two or more races (4.6%)
* American Indian (1.6%)
* Filipino (0.7%)
* Asian Indian (0.5%)
Education:
High School Dropout rate 33%
High school graduates or higher: 48.2%
Bachelor's degree or higher: 10.6%
Graduate or professional degree: 3.6%
Jobs:
The most common jobs for males: Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations (16%)
Unemployment rate in February 2010: 20%
Supporting Vulnerable Populations
Please describe the specific affirmative steps that your program will take to engage and serve the groups identified:
The Media Center has a twenty-year history of targeted outreach and relationship building in the East of Bayshore area. We have collaborated with many different organizations and city agencies on over 100 community media projects. These funds would enable us to offer new services to enhance civic participation, strengthen community-based organizations and schools, and create jobs for youth.
Specifically actions the Media Center would implement:
1) videotape city council and commission meetings and put them on the web - in real time and as video-on-demand available to viewers on a 24/7 basis
2) create indexed versions of each meeting so that viewers can go directly to the agenda item they are interested in
3) videotape community forums and put them on the web - in real time and as video-on-demand available 24/7
4) train and pay local youth and residents to do the videotaping and internet publishing
5) develop a citizen-journalism outreach and training for East of Bayshore organizations - enabling them to make short videos and write articles & e-news that would be part of a new citizen journalism web site for the Midpeninsula
6) train and pay local youth and residents to offer basic, (multi-lingual) classes and tech support in computer use and internet tools and navigation (This would bolster a program already in place called Computers For Everyone.)
7) develop a new Drupal web site for the Media Center that will enable East of Bayshore organizations and residents to self-publish media from their homes or offices to a robust web site filled with aggregated news and features about our region
(The required bandwidth infrastructure is made possible by a project already in place, called WiFi 101 that has recently installed wireless nodes strategically located throughout the East of Bayshore area. The Media Center will continue its collaborative work with One East Palo Alto which administers WiFi 101.)
Please describe the ways your center will be accessible to people with disabilities and technologies will be used:
The Media Center conducts all its work with the public on the first floor of its two-story building. That includes its state-of-the-art classroom with nine computer stations, its TV studio, editing stations, and field equipment checkout area. Our experience includes the training of numerous individuals with physical or mental challenges. We will recruit additional trainers to assist in classes where individuals have special needs.
Do you offer, or plan to offer, multilingual training and outreach? If so, please describe and identify languages it will be in:
We plan to offer citizen journalism classes in Spanish. We will publicize all the activities listed above with flyers and public service announcements in Spanish as well as English. As for the meeting coverage we will provide at the Ravenswood City School District board meetings and the East Palo Alto city council, both agencies have a policy to provide real time translation services in Spanish whenever there is a request for that. All meetings that have simultaneous Spanish translation will be uploaded to the internet in each language version as video-on-demand. The Media Center operates two government cable TV channels and whenever both are available we will be able to play a Spanish and an English version in real time on TV as well as a simultaneous real-time webstream in each language.
Local Drupal Development Commitement In addition to what the OMF will provide through this grant, we
estimate that a successful implementation will require a minimum of 80
hours of local drupal support (through trained staff, contractors, or
volunteers).
How many hours of professional drupal development support can you commit to securing between Oct 2010 and Oct 2012:
What is the estimated Cost (or value, if volunteer) of this commitment:
Current Capitial Equipment Commitment If your organization already has some or all of the equipment
required to implement the Open Media Project, or the capital budget
necessary to acquire it, that value will be included as part of your
match. If not, grant funds will be used to acquire the equipment you
require.
Current Digital Broadcast Server(s):
Current Dedicated RAID Storage:
Other Current Equipment Value:
If other, please explain:
We have a different server that presents five simultaneous webstreams of our five cable TV channels and a lot of video on demand - including indexed government meeting videos from several municipalities. Its value is $2500 and the associated RAID is mentioned above ($1,000).
We also have $30,000 in field equipment that will be available to those who become citizen journalists in our upcoming workshops.
We have 11 editing stations with a value of $27,500.
Note re: Broadcast Server
Our Tiltrak, digital broadcast server was purchased for $150K about seven years ago. We plan to purchase a new one in 2010 but the cost will be less than the original Tiltrak.
Future Capital Equipment Commitment If your organization already has some or all of the equipment
required to implement the Open Media Project, or the capital budget
necessary to acquire it, that value will be included as part of your
match. If not, grant funds will be used to acquire the equipment you
require.
How much Capital Equipment budget could you devote towards the
acquisition of the following equipment:
Future Dedicated RAID Server:
Future Digital Broadcast Server(s):
Other Future Equipment Value:
If other, please explain:
field equipment for citizen journalists
Technical and Administrative Support We estimate that a successful implementation of the OMP will require a minimum of 80 hours of technical and administrative support
(through involvement of your ED, bookkeeper, engineer and other staff). Any time contributed will count towards your in-kind match.
How many hours can you commit to securing between Oct 2010 and Oct 2012:
List each staff member, position, number of hours committed, and hourly wage (or equivalent, if salary):
* Note: Except for the Drupal developer, the hours below represent time committed in year one. We hope to have the OMP implemented in that time so we can move on to the other activities mentioned above.
Chris Pearce; I-T; 96 hrs; $30 p/hr
Stan Ng; Webmaster/Drupal; 192 hrs over 2 years; $26.50 p/hr
Annie Folger; Exec Dir; 24 hrs $40 p/hr
Judy Blumenstein; Bookkeeper; 24 hrs; $35 p/hr
Lupita Segura; Admin Asst; 24 hrs; $20 p/hr
Video Content Commitment Partners will be supporting Sustainable Broadband Adoption by
addressing the primary hurdle identified by non-adopters: a perception
that broadband is not relevant to life, especially in low-income and
minority communities.
What is the value of the staff time and resources you are willing to
devote to supporting the production of video content that will address
'broadband relevance' from the perspective of members from
disconnected communities"?
If other, please explain:
The best way to engage people in broadband media is to produce content that is meaningful, enjoyable, and useful to their lives and to publicize it in ways the community will notice. To that end, we will publish indexed versions of government and school board meetings. We will train local organizations to create short-form media that is more geared to internet viewing. We'll also present local sports and arts events. We will use a variety of methods to publicize and gather feedback to hone our approach.
Also we will offer computer/internet training and tech support - to help those who are less confident about using their computers to watch media and communicate online.
Additionally
1077 hrs p/yr to videotape city council and school board meetings
432 hr p/yr to teach citizen journalism classes (2 instructors x 6 cycles of workshops)
24 hrs p/yr internet and computer classes at neighborhood locations
48 hrs p/yr computer/internet tech support
30 hrs p/yr program scheduling and publicity
Broadband Training Program
If you intend to provide training or education, how many people in total will your program(s) reach:
How many hours of training do you expect to provide per person on average for your program(s), through completion of training:
How many Full Time Employee (FTEs) will you employ for broadband and digital literacy training purposes:
Describe the qualifications and training of full time employee instructors of broadband and digital literacy training:
We will offer several different types of training.
1. Citizen Journalism training for organizations and individuals - using video production/web publishing instructors; additionally there will be mentors for the new journalists from the ranks of professional journalists; journalism students at nearby schools; and those who graduate from Media Center classes and demonstrate great skills
We expect to train 35 people per year - who will each take 18 - 20 hrs of workshops.
2. Internet navigation and Computer skills instruction - we will teach one two-hour class every month at One East Palo Alto and other facilities in our target area. We will use multi-lingual instructors.
We expect to train 120 persons in these classes over the course of a year.
3. Tech support for people having computer/connectivity problems.
We will collaborate with One East Palo Alto to augment an existing program they run called "Computers for Everyone."
We expect to provide tech support to 40 people over a year.
Jobs will include:
15 p/t video crew for government meeting and community forums coverage (mostly youth)
3 p/t citizen journalism instructors offering 20 hrs instruction every 2 months to different groups
1 p/t job for internet/computer instructor
2 p/t jobs for tech support specialists (mostly youth)
Job Creation
How many direct jobs will be created from this project:
