Class II

Since graduating from Columbia University, Xavier Leonard has forged a career that has merged his efforts as a multimedia artist, community educator, and technology ambassador. Beginning with work in West Africa as an International Artist Fellow under the auspices of the Institute for International Education, he has gone on to present conceptual multimedia works, create award winning commercial designs, and develop community-based technology training programs on five continents.

Leonard has been featured in museums and galleries, nationally and internationally, including the Pamela Stockwell Gallery, the Knitting Factory, and the Kathryn Bache-Miller Theater in New York; the Henry Gallery in Seattle; The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Painted Bride Art Center and The Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia; Intermedia Arts-Minnesota in Minneapolis; The Institute of Contemporary Art in London, England; the Treppentheater Festival in Florsheim, Germany; and the Centre Culturel Francais in Burkina Faso. His community programs have been recognized and supported by national institutions in several countries including the United States Department of Justice, and he has garnered awards from the Lila Wallace-Readers Digest International Artists' Program, The Pew Fellowships in the Arts, Franklin Furnace Emerging Artists Program, New American Radio, The International Association of Webmasters and Designers, The Pennsylvania Council of the Arts, and The Western States Arts Federation. In 2003, Leonard was honored with the ET3 Tec Champion Award by the Congressional Black Caucus.

His work is profiled in the book Parallaxis: Fifty-five Points to View by Lucy Lippard and Rina Swentzell, and he is founder and Executive Director of Heads On Fire.

My experiences growing up in uniquely diverse East San Jose motivated me to study cultural anthropology at UC Berkeley. During my sophomore year, I was a part of a pilot project with AmeriCorps - I attended school full-time and served as an AmeriCorps member part-time. After college, I joined forces with San Francisco Unified School District and coordinated an after school program in the heart of the Excelsior District. The grant that funded my position allowed me to re-haul the computer lab with one of my mentors and my passion for technology advocacy ignited.

When my son was born in 2003, I moved back into the neighborhood where I grew up and took a position with One Economy Corporation. One Economy focuses on closing the digital divide by leveling the technology playing field for youth and families of all cultures, religions, and languages. I am now a full time mom and enjoy working with and being inspired by the people, families and kids in San Jose. Providing youth access to technology drives my motivation in working with ZeroDivide.

heeba Soundararajan is a Tamil Dalit Web Developer and Media/Tech Justice organizer. She has worked with young people and adults in San Francisco, California and Rio de Janiero, Brazil on the production of web design and development, focusing on anti-war, land reform, economic, media and environmental justice messaging. Before Third World Majority Theeba worked with WITNESS in New York City, an organization that uses video to document human rights violations through video advocacy. Through WITNESS Theeba has worked with partner organizations in the United States, Brazil, India and Mexico on a spectrum of issues: casteism, reproductive rights, land reform and popular education. As the Media and Technology Justice Coordinator at Third World Majority Theeba provides the technical support in the production of online journals(blogs) for member organizations, and has produced web journals for The All People’s Power Summit in Flagstaff, Arizona and the Grassroots Global Justice Delegation at the World Social Forum in Mumbai, India. She currently serves as a board member of the Online Policy Group, an organization based in San Francisco, CA that supports free speech on the internet by providing domain registration and website hosting at no charge for non profit organizations. She speaks Tamil, Portuguese, Spanish and English.

Balding white guy who believes that the world would be a better place if more people met more people. A little Pollyanna I know. I promise my approach is more practical than my vision. Introductions are critical. It is much more difficult to hate someone you actually know.

I see myself as an educator. I was a classroom teacher for 7 years and a high school administrator for 3 years. I moved into corporate philanthropy with the intention of creating a positive impact more exponentially than I could through direct services. I miss working with people. I like people. And, I have yet to realize the goal of creating positive impact on individuals in an indirect, exponential way.

I believe that technology is most powerful as a communications tool. I believe that teaching technology as workforce development is over-emphasized and that it is critical for people to conceptualize technology as a powerful way to tell your story. To advertise yourself, your community, your issues, your products. I believe the most power science wielded today is Public Relations / Marketing. Can we use these extraordinary powers of persuasion for the forces of good and light? We can convince people of the necessity of the latest Nike. We are capable of creating need from whole cloth. What if …

I have lived in West Oakland for my entire life, with the exception of four years spent at Macalester College in freezing St. Paul, Minnesota. As a woman of color from a low-income community, I have seen the power of community organizing to bring visionary solutions to simple problems like not having curbs and sidewalks in my neighborhood and more complicated ones like re-routing the Cypress freeway after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and stopping the INS from building a detention center in our community.

As I have grown older and been privileged to study political science, geography, and public policy and to work with young people in many capacities from solving textbook math problems to identifying strategies to gain a stronger voice in their schools and communities, my commitment to community organizing as a means of connecting the public to decision-makers has remained strong.

I began working at Freedom Archives two years ago. I was charged with working with a diverse group of students, historians, activists, radio producers, and educators to make the materials that comprise the nearly 7,000-hour archive more accessible to the public. Through a strong program training students and other young people in audio preservation and production, historical research, and communications, we continue to develop their ability to make connections between historical events and the struggles that persist today for young people in finding their voices and a means of expressing them. I am challenged, inspired, and driven by this struggle each day and become newly committed to supporting and empowering them as they take part in it.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?,” was a question that struck terror in my heart as a kid. I’d rather spend the day at the dentist than be cornered by the well-intentioned career counselors of my youth.

That’s probably because I didn’t know the job title for the position Gandhi held. Or, for that matter, Thich Nhat Hanh, Thomas Merton or Dorothy Day.

But I did know that I wanted to be about what Gandhi called the “constructive project” even as I headed off, unchaperoned, in my first protest march while I was in eighth grade.

Later I spent ten years post-undergraduate in direct service on projects ranging from living with men on Skid Row in Seattle and adults with developmental disabilities in Syracuse, New York, to promoting a consistent ethic of respect for life in the cramped and ever-shrinking dialogue space between peace and prolife activists. For most of the next decade, I developed social justice programs and directed university ministry on various campuses. During that stretch technology access was a secondary concern at best.

That changed with the rise of the Internet and especially the Web. At that time I had been examining the models of community generated by Western Christian monasticism. It became natural, in that environment, to focus my doctoral work around a major text digitization and analysis project. This became the research tool on CD-ROM “The Rule of St. Benedict: Primary and Secondary Sources.” From there a foray into the for-profit world of software development created the opportunity to pursue a new dream – closing the Digital Divide.

Having done some technology education with faculty, students, monks and customers I found a whole new world open up as Manager for Computer-Assisted Education with a northern California developer of affordable housing. The sad adage that, "War is the way that Americans learn geography," took on a personal face as I worked with refugee adults and children who had fled turmoil and found shelter in the US. Bridging the digital divide worldwide, as a consequence of working with displaced populations here in the United States, is the theme of these past six years of my work in technology advocacy.

This month marks the 32nd year since I was paralyzed with a spinal tumor. Increasingly, the concerns of my own community occupy my thoughts.

Gains made in the past three decades are eroded through head-on assaults as well as that tectonic slippage of class where my community still remains at the forefront of the un- and under-employed. And this in spite of heroic efforts at closing the Digital Divide through innovation and Adaptive Technology. My work includes interventions designed to turn this trend around.

I am committed to pursuing the only "career path" that has ever made sense to me - the pursuit of justice on a social scale and the construction of the infrastructure required to guarantee it. I am reinforcing my work, together with an invigorating mix of entrepreneurs, activists, service professionals, philanthropists, designers, engineers, and architects, with the principles of Universal Design to bring new solutions to light.

Paul Hernandez brings over twenty years of experience working and volunteering in the community around social justice issues.

Before joining the MAAC Project as the Director of Community Development/ Community Technology, Paul worked in a variety of academic settings. For the past ten years he has worked as a professor, teacher, and mentor at Harvard University, the University of California at Santa Cruz and at California State University at Monterey Bay. There he taught a variety of courses, all touching in some way on issues of social equality and social justice. At Cal State Monterey Bay Paul helped the Queretaro Research Project pioneer technology tools for the use in basic anthropological research.

Through his work in the city of Watsonville (originally, the city was his field study site) Paul was able to bring innovative programs and technologies together to serve the rural poor. In the mid to late 90s, working out of a converted city jail, Paul successfully built the Enterprise Community Technology Center into a thriving hub where community members and technology created new possibilities to address issues of social injustice and the digital divide. Paul also created, working closely with the youth of Watsonville, the YCREW (Youth Computer Resources en Watsonville). Originally intended to build web sites for non-profit agencies, the YCREW has now added the entire City of Watsonville web site to its portfolio. For this work, and for his work with at-risk youth in the community, Paul received a congressional commendation from the office of Congressperson Sam Farr.

As Director of Community Development/ Community Technology at MAAC Project, Paul is responsible for all of the technology initiatives being undertaken in the communities that MAAC serves. Computer Technology Centers, course and curriculum development, digital video production --- just to name a few. In addition Paul is currently working on one of the most ambitious technology projects ever undertaken by a non-profit of MAAC’s size --- a wireless broadband grid, providing access to the poorest region of the City of San Diego, Barrio Logan. The CHISPA Project’s (Community/ Household ISP Alliance) broadly stated goal is to make technology an effective tool of empowerment for the residents who live there. The CHISPA is dedicated to overcoming the three largest obstacles to technology use in these underserved areas: accessibility (internet access), affordability (computer purchasing programs), and applicability (community based web portals).

Paul Hernandez holds a B.A. from the University of California at Santa Barbara and is currently finishing a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology at Harvard University.

Michelle is the Associate Director of The Stride Center (formerly Street Tech) where she contributes to the expansion of a highly successful technology workforce development program. Since 2001 Michelle has worked in community technology as the associate director for the Youth Media Initiative at the National Alliance of Media Arts and Culture (NAMAC), One Economy and the Bay Area Video Coalition. She has been an entrepreneur and business consultant to the commercial sector, as well as social benefit corporations. Selected as a fellow of the Congress-Bundestag exchange, she addressed the German parliament on issues of cultural exploration and understanding. Michelle is a Full Circle Fund Fellow, a member of the Community Technology Network, a former steering committee member of the Information Technology Consortium in San Francisco, former steering committee member of Webgrrls.com/SF, an avid supporter of public broadcasting and lifelong UNICEF advocate. She has worked for the U.S. Congress and supported the local political process in San Francisco. She has a BA from the University of Georgia and a Masters of Nonprofit Administration from the University of San Francisco.

Martina Virrey is a native of California's Central Valley. She was raised in Stockton, California where she and many of her family members currently reside. She left the region for several years to study at California State University, Monterey Bay where she earned a B.A. in Liberal Studies with an emphasis in Human Communication.

Ms. Virrey chose CSUMB because of the university's emphasis on providing access to quality higher education for traditionally underserved and low-income populations. The university integrated cultural competence, multicultural perspectives, and service learning into all courses and majors resulting in a learning environment supportive of self-reflection and the exchange of ideas. While attending the university, Ms.Virrey participated in various community service projects such as Monterey County America Reads Program, where she helped second-grade students in Salinas improve their reading skills; Second Saturday Network, where she served as Tech Advisor for their quarterly newsletter distributed as a resource to African-American and mixed heritage families in Santa Cruz; The Big Sur Land Trust, where she served as a Jane McKay Fellow with the Outdoor Education Program teaching youth about environmental and land issues; and the CSU, Monterey Bay Hunger & Homelessness Awareness Week, where she worked with fellow students and community leaders to coordinate a week-long event to bring the issues of homelessness and hunger to the attention of students, community members and policy makers. These experiences along with many others strengthened her commitment to affecting social change through grassroots efforts and community service.

In 2002, Ms. Virrey joined the staff of Great Valley Center, a private nonprofit whose mission is to "support activities and organizations that promote the economic, social, and environmental well-being of California's Great Central Valley." As Program Coordinator for the Central Valley Digital Network program, she works with AmeriCorps*VISTA members (National Volunteers) who give one year of their life to create sustainable community-centered programs that address the unique needs of Central Valley residents.

Ms. Virrey also works closely with local human service agency leaders throughout the 19-county Central Valley region to increase opportunities for underserved communities to access technology and training that can potentially improve their quality of life. As a member of two public policy-related committees, the California Teleconnect Fund Administrative Committee and the California Community Technology Policy Group Steering Committee, Ms. Virrey advocates for affordable access to information and telecommunications technology for rural and underserved communities. She believes the ZeroDivide Fellowship will provide further opportunities to affect positive social change.

Marc B. Levine has been involved in the development of public policy and its impact on underserved populations since his days in college. This early interest in affecting change through the positive use of policy and innovation led Marc to join the Community Technology Foundation’s ZeroDivide Fellows program.

Marc previously worked at Benetech where he led the Martus Project. Martus software helps nonprofit organizations organize, collect, secure and disseminate information. Working with Benetech's expert computer engineering team, he managed the development of the software since inception. Marc has introduced the program to civil society organizations in the United States, Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America. Already, the software has been downloaded in over 60 countries and is in use around the world. In 2003, the Martus Project was named a Tech Laureate of The Tech Museum of Innovation’s annual Tech Awards.

Prior to Benetech, Marc pursued his academic interests at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA, and earned a Master of Arts degree in National Security Affairs while establishing the school's Office of Alumni Relations. Before this, he was employed with a leading public affairs agency working to influence policy in the energy and environmental sectors.

During college, Marc served as both student body president of his alma mater and chairman of the California State Student Association while at California State University, Northridge advocating for educational policies that most benefited California's student population.

Today, Marc likes to cook, ski and scuba dive. He lives with his wife in San Rafael, California.