Recommendation 2

We should invest in powerful but not-yet-developed ways in which ICT can help improve outcomes for children in important areas of their lives.

• Allow children reading one or two grade levels behind to catch up and help us achieve one of the key goals of the No Child Left Behind Act: that all children are proficient in reading at their grade level by 2014;
• Use children’s attraction to games to teach at-risk youth skills such as how to start a business successfully or manage family finances;
• Use the persuasive power of multimedia to reduce the prevalence of behaviors like teenage pregnancy, smoking, dropping out of school, or using drugs; and
• Create public health information systems to dramatically reduce the gap in childhood immunization between wealthy and poor neighborhoods.

Just as we used the value of property to finance public education and land grant colleges in the 1800s, a Digital Opportunity Investment Trust (DO IT) is being considered by Congress to invent ICT tools that advance societal goals in our knowledge-based economy. The proposed trust, financed by revenues from investing $18 billion received from mandated FCC auctions of radio space, would serve as a venture fund for innovation much like the corporate sector used when it invested in a variety of ICT business applications.

We believe it is appropriate and important that DO IT be enacted into law and serve as the vehicle for supporting the development of innovations that can substantially improve the quality of life for all children. Its investments should tap the experience and knowledge of researchers, experts in child development and education, and other specialists. They should place a high priority on what works for the low-income, ethnic minority, and disabled children being left behind in the digital age.