Introduction

When Plugged In was created in the Fall of 1992, our goal was to build a computer center where low-income children from East Palo Alto and neighboring areas would be able to use the equipment to strengthen basic skills. In our first year, two things happened which helped draw national attention to our work: in early 1993, East Palo Alto became nationally known as the homicide capital of the United States. A few months later, a group of graduate students at the University of Illinois published NCSA Mosaic, the software title that started the Internet craze. All of a sudden, people started looking at our program as a model for proving that the information revolution could benefit people of all backgrounds. With support from the information technology industry, we were able to rapidly grow our program and broaden our programmatic offerings. Five years later, we are closing the first chapter in our organization's existence and developing the blue-print for our second organizational phase.

This document is a biographical sketch of Plugged In. It is put together from information gathered through individual interviews with key staff, community and board members. Some of the staff were interviewed on camera. A tape version of these is available is VHS format. In some cases, the same people spoke off-camera to elaborate on specific points.

The story is divided by year, each section illustrating the challenges we have faced as a start-up "social enterprise." Throughout the chapters, we have tried to articulate internal program and operations issues as well as our relationship to the "outside world."