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e-inclusion

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Catalyzing opportunities for economic growth
in East Baltimore

The inner city community of East Baltimore, Maryland is home to 36,000 people. Forty percent of its residents live below the poverty level and 84 percent of them are African American. With a working waterfront once dominated by manufacturing, East Baltimore has experienced challenges common to many inner cities over the past decades such as business closures, declining employment, population loss and disparity in access to technology within the community and its school system. It is an area rich in talent but until recently, lacking in opportunity.

Designated a federal empowerment zone in 1994, East Baltimore was selected for the HP Baltimore Digital Village (BDV) in 2001. HP chose this "empowerment zone" for one of its first Digital Villages in part because it offered the unique advantage of leveraging existing infrastructure and community momentum already in place.

Additional information

»	HP Investment Promotes East Baltimore Small Business Development

»	Accomplishments

»	Philanthropy fact sheet

»	BDV official web site

"In every community, there is a hidden power just waiting to be untapped. If together, HP and our community partners, can tap into that power and provide opportunities, then we can help this community go places it has never been before."

—Debra Dunn,
Senior Vice President, Corporate Affairs

The BDV represents a steppingstone toward assisting East Baltimore's citizens in reenergizing their neighborhoods, growing their schools and fostering sustained economic opportunities that will improve inner-city quality of life. Its programs are helping to provide the people of East Baltimore fresh access to greater social and economic opportunities by bridging the digital divide in this previously technology underserved community.

HP and the Baltimore Digital Village Vision

The vision of Baltimore's Digital Village is to create an "e-living" culture where technology is available to everyone for learning, working and playing. Technology will become an intrinsic part of everyone's life; more than just a tool, it will become the means through which each resident can experience connection with the broader community, city and world.

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