I was excited to learn that the FCC is holding a field hearing on broadband access at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis.   It will be on Saturday, Dec. 5 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.  You can send an e-mail to fcc504@fcc.gov for more information, and if you happen to be in the area, you can attend the meeting, as it is open for public attendance.

I can’t imagine a better backdrop for dialogue about digital inclusion and broadband equality than by hosting a forum at a location of such significance to America’s struggle towards civil rights.  Of course, the museum was once the Lorraine Motel, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated on April 4, 1968.   In support of striking sanitation workers, his remarks the previous day are commonly known as his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech.   He focused on the need for economic justice and described how pleased he was to see some momentum in their efforts.  “Something is happening in Memphis, something is happening in our world,” Dr. King said.

Considering the movement afoot towards creating opportunities for Americans, particularly minority, low-income and underserved Americans, I don’t think anyone would doubt that today, Dr. King would have broadband access on his agenda for social and economic justice.  I suspect he would be more passionate than any of us, maybe even scolding some of us for not doing even more!  Our debate on broadband access is often a matter of tossing out economic statistics, research reports and intellectual reasoning. But the real discussion is about equal access to opportunity, how we must make sure we are never left out again and bringing back into focus how far we’ve come and how far we need to go.  Sometimes, we may just need a little more fire.  Dr. King’s speech in Memphis does that for me.  Here’s the link: http://www.afscme.org/about/1549.cfm

1.    First I would need to learn how to build one. I went to the library and found 3 books on Iphone development that I could take out (for free). Next I went to the Internet and found out that there is class that Stanford offers on Iphone development that you can watch on Itunes (for free.) You can get it here . You can actually see all the schools that have classes on Itunes for that matter here .

2.    Once I had all this information, I then found that the tool which apple offers to create the apps (called Xcode) is offered (for free) here.

3.    Once I go through and create an app I can get it uploaded to the app store by joining the developer program here for about $99 .

Now this is a high level walk through of what it would take to get going, but compare it to what it would take to open a restaurant, or a Laundromat or any physical business. I mentioned for free a lot in those points to highlight that money is not a barrier here. Also take into account that there are many businesses on the iphone app store that started  out with just one person and now are making 6 figures in sales or their apps. The larger point I wanted to send home is that many of the people we know would not even think about this as a possibility let alone go through the steps. That is what has to change.   If you have children of your own or know that you can affect, encourage them to wonder how things work, who builds them and can they make a living doing it. Help to develop the problem solving mindset that is in all of them. The holidays are coming so I know young people are asking for the Wii, Xbox, playstations and phones like the iphone.  Take a few minutes to get them to take a look on the Internet or go to the library to see what it takes to create the content they are consuming. The bottom line is that adoption and consumption of these technology mediums is great, but if we as minorities don’t get involved in the creation process then how can we ever have any level of control?