John Singleton's block buster movie, Boyz N The Hood (1991), brought the colloquial black urban culture term "hood," meaning neighborhood, to the consciousness of mainstream America. As a result, when the term "hood" is colloquially used, it means specifically poor black urban neighborhood where one resides. Cyber space is billed as the last frontier for empowerment through knowledge and opportunity for financial gain. Thus, it is no surprise that a brother originally from the "hood" - the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, New York - would launch his own technology firm, called Inner City Software (ICS). Ken Granderson, an MIT alumnus, founded Inner City Software (ICS) in 1992, a software development company based in Dorchester, MA, that specializes in creating educational, productivity and entertainment software for PCs utilizing Microsoft Windows.
Granderson, an avowed "technology evangelist" preaches a powerful message of the benefits of utilizing technology as a tool to uplift the minority community. ICS is obligated far beyond acquiring wealth (getting paid) as a minority technology firm, but is also committed to developing programming and other state- of-the-art software, as well as the development and nurturing of talent from within the inner city and other disadvantaged communities in the United States. ICS' mission statement says unequivocally ... "We are committed to involving more people of color in the software creation process so that we can benefit from the positive creativity that can come from the ... 'Brains In The Hood' tag line to the company's name."
Inner City Software initially established a presence in the computer software industry via the electronic bulletin boards and networks that span globally. Since its inception, ICS has produced several software products that have a customer base of several thousand users distributed across 27 different countries. The lions share of ICS' business currently consists of contact programming services. However, last year Granderson decided to focus his company's software publishing efforts toward developing software targeted to the minority community. He says this focus is in line with the vision of his company and is "based on the premise that the availability of more culturally-oriented software would generate more interest in technology within the Black, Hispanic and other minority communities."
To this end, Inner City Software (ICS) created a multimedia version of African-Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years, based on the book of the same name by author Robert C. Hayden. This year ICS kicked off this interactive program offering in Boston with a Black History Month introduction and s local public information campaign. The Boston Public Library has licensed ICS to develop this multimedia title in order to educate the public about the historical contributions of African- Americans. In addition, this Interactive Multimedia CD-ROM will lead to future collaborative efforts with minority professionals from every field of endeavor. ICS is interested in locating teachers, artists, musicians, producers, authors, programmers historians, sales people, illustrators, and students interested in applying their creative energy to uplift the minority communities through the power of technology. A commercial version of this program will be released to the general public this fall.
Granderson is proud that his company is located "smack dab in the hood" and muses that he would love to hear rap artists rapping about the Internet, the World Wide Web and Cyber Space. He says, "my deepest desire is to see the minority communities avail themselves of this new technology, because there are no barriers to entry, and cyber space is virtually unrestricted - the playing field is level, and for the price of a couple of pairs of Air Jordan's, Black folks and other minorities can get aboard cyber space, where opportunities abound." For more information on ICS, call 1-800-538-6946, or E-mail, kennyg@innercity.com. or web site http://www.innercity.com