The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has awarded the Davis Community Network an $80,000 grant to participate in the Civic Networking Initiative (CivNet).

CivNet will combine the efforts of UC Davis, Yolo County, the City of Davis, and the Volunteer Center of Yolo/Sacramento Counties with those of DCN to enhance the quality of community-based Internet services.

Vicki Suter of Information Technology, a long-standing participant in building partnerships between UC Davis and the Davis Community Network, will serve as technical project manager for CivNet.

Initially, a joint project by Caltrans and UC Davis to illustrate the "smart community" concept, the Davis Community Network assists community and government organizations in using the Internet for communication, information-sharing, and community problem-solving. Beneficiaries of DCN services include the City of Davis, Yolo County, the Davis Joint Unified School District, and other community-based organizations such as the American Youth Soccer Organization.

The $80,000 award, which will be available by the end of September 1997, will enable DCN and its partners to develop four new areas of information services:

• An Internet-based community volunteer management and recruitment system (where participants can earn donated computers and services from participating agencies by volunteering their time and skills for community projects);

• Development of an education and outreach program at regional training and demonstration centers, including the UC Davis Sun TREC facility, newly-endowed by Sun Microsystems with over half a million dollars in equipment;

• A document database linked to the World Wide Web that will provide online access to complex documents (like the County Code); and

• Geographic information systems that will provide mapping information for citizens. One of four projects chosen to participate in CivNet, the Davis Community Network was one of 120 applicants competing for the CivNet grant money.