Wired High Rise: a community-based computer network: final report

This report summarises three years of research on the immediate social effects of e-ACE (electronic - Atherton Community Enterprise), a community-based computer network established between 1999 and 2004 and based in Atherton Gardens, a high rise public housing estate in Fitzroy, Melbourne. The e-ACE initiative is the product of a social partnership generated by Infoxchange Australia, a not-for-profit Internet service provider, in alliance with community groups, private companies and local government, and with cash and in-kind support from the Victorian state government The aim is of the initiative has been variously stated, but it has been expected to increase access to information and communication technologies for low income people, to contribute to neighbourhood renewal and to build the social and economic participation of residents with high needs. This is the last in a series of detailed analyses of information technology skills, the impact on families and communities of access to computers and computer networks, and subsequent patterns of use.