Washington Informer, 8/21/2013 (Monique Berry, Michael Bijou, Francisco Nunez)

BDPA Helps Bridge 'Digital Divide'. The digital revolution in the U.S. was growing 38 years ago. Corporations were replacing electric typewriters with desktop computers. Consumers started purchasing computers for home use. Schools placed computers in classrooms. But in Philadelphia, Pa., Earl Pace and the late David Wimberly, both African Americans, worried that African Americans and other people of color would be left out of the IT (Information Technology) industry.

They founded BDPA, which currently has 45 chapters, including the District’s, and more than 2,000 members. Its ethnically diverse membership includes IT professionals and college students majoring in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM).

“The ‘digital divide’ has become wider” despite BDPA’s efforts, Monique Berry, BDPA’s national president said. “It starts in elementary school, where our children are discouraged from taking the harder sciences. In colleges, our students don’t have mentors in the sciences and IT. BDPA mentors and encourages college students to enter IT.”

Read the rest of the Washington Informer article.