dart - technology is power, get the point?

Many years ago a guy called Nick Robinson got in touch with me to let me know about this wonderful project he was involved with. It was called DART - that's Disability Access to Resources in Technology -- a free resource for people with disabilities who want to develop skills in computing. Nick wondered then if I could give them some publicity as they were just getting off the ground. Of course I agreed, and wrote something somewhere about DART.

A couple of weeks ago, Nick got in touch with me again. This time he wanted me to know that DART had a Web site. The students were just starting their own web-pages and "looking for contacts to exchange mail with."

Why am I so interested in spreading the word about Nick and DART (other than it being a damn fine initiative, and me being a damn fine individual)? Simple. I used to be disabled myself, and I know all about the lack of training and employment opportunities. I know how hard it can be to find people who are prepared to help by letting you help yourself. I was in a wheelchair for the best part of 6 years.

I sprang free through a gateway called "belief" that opened up to me thanks to the Internet. I found a real world where my mobility and my self esteem were restored, and where eventually I was given the chance to prove my worth as a person -- not as a "disabled" person.

But it goes further than that. It's also got something to do with how this whole Web thing is more than just a bunch of flashy pages made possible by corporate coders cashing in on a wave of financial tomfoolery. It's about the simple pages, the ones put together in a back bedroom in Brixton, the ones that go wrong, look bad, do nothing. I believe that what it's really about are the people behind the pages. And never has there been a better example than DART.

I know there are broken links, I know it won't win any awards for design. I also know it doesn't matter. Because: here are people putting together web pages for the first time, people who probably thought they would never have the opportunity to attain the skills required; never have access to the equipment required, never have the money needed to make it all possible.

But DART, the web, and the true spirit of the Internet has made it possible.

So I ask again: does it matter that this isn't the most impressive site you've ever seen? What's important is that it is an impressive principle put into action; that DART has allowed opportunity to knock at the door of those usually denied it.

madivan said:

Is also another thing is taking into accounting...if is being online, is taking away experience of purchasing album. Is changing beyond recognising. Is ending of "cover art" as is knowing. Could being birth of new era in purchasing music, but is certain death of everything is knowing in old. Ivan Ivanovich

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