Tech Matching Fund awards up to $20,000 in matching funds to community projects which increase resident access to information technology, increase literacy in using technology, and/or apply technology to foster civic engagement and community building. …
The Ethiopian Community in Seattle (ECS) serves all persons of Ethiopian origin by providing help to those in need, and empowers them to live productive lives. With support from the Technology Matching Fund last year, the organization revitalized their computer lab. When asked to reflect on the impact of the grant, Computer Center Coordinator Tefera Gulelat shared these comments: What were the greatest successes of your project? “The ECS computer center has become an invaluable resource for large number of low income people in their quest to learn new technology and to better themselves. They surf the internet for job search, tutorial services, homework help, research their class projects and engaging their friends through social media. It is really heartening to see a good number of senior citizens frequenting our facility.” What were your most difficult challenges? “We were challenged in several fronts when we tried to procure our native Amharic language word processor. The lack of standards in their encoding (ASCII or Unicode) scheme, compatibility with various operating systems and the varying cost made it harder for us to choose among several competing vendors.