University of California, Berkeley

Department Member, Institute for the Study of Societal Issues (ISSI)

VIsiting Scholar

Institute for the Study of Societal Issues (ISSI), UC Berkeley

Thesis Title: Low Income Communities in the Information Age: Technology, Development and Community Practice

About

Blanca Gordo (Ph.D.) is a visiting scholar at the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues at the University of California at Berkeley where she is writing her book, Digital Destitution. She is also a principal investigator at the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI) in Berkeley, CA where she is conducting an evaluation of the California Connects Program. Most recently, she was the Academic Coordinator for the Center for Latino Policy Research (CLPR) at the University of California at Berkeley, where she directed public policy initiatives, program development, and the Technology and Development Research Group.

Dr. Gordo holds a doctorate in City and Regional Planning from the University of California, Berkeley. She specializes in regional- local economic development, urban poverty, local technology development processes, organizational analysis and development, public policy, ethnic populations (African Americans and Latinos), demographics, and social inequality structures.  She has taught related courses in the departments of City and Regional Planning and Ethnic Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, Department of Sociology at the University of San Francisco and Department of Mexican American Studies at San Jose State University.  Dr. Gordo examines public policy relevant issues affecting low income populations in the United States. Currently, she is engaged in and writing about: 1) emerging problems and obstacles facing low-income populations vis-à-vis institutional change and economic restructuring with the integration of technology into society’s productive development processes; the structure of public policy interventions and civic programs addressing the effects of social change on the poor under institutional crisis and disconnection of low income places and people from evolving development processes underway.

In her book, Digital Destitution, Dr. Gordo empirically addresses two policy-relevant questions: what are the new forms of inequality that arise with the integration of technology into the productive functions of society; and under which conditions, through what social processes, and under what governance structures could social and ethnic populations living in low income places benefit from digital network technology?  She offers a comprehensive theoretical framework for viewing and examining the effects of the the digital divide. Her research is grounded in a thirteen year analysis of technology development programs.

She has given her expertise to national and state institutions and organizations addressing the lack of technology by the low income such as the: U.S. Department of Commerce National Telecommunications and Information Administration, California Emergent Technology Fund (CETF), Latino Issues Forum, TechNet and the California Business, Transportation, and Housing Agency (BTH Agency), National Council of Teachers of English, University wide AIDS Research Program, the California State Office of AIDS, California Education and Prevention Project, Community Technology Foundation of California, CENIC Corporation for Education Network Initiatives, California Governor’s Infrastructure for the 21st Century Commission, State of California Policy Department, California Broadband Policy Network, California Community Technology Policy Group, Plugged In, and Computers In Our Future and others. 

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