Youth interns and the strategic deployment of ICTs for public access

This paper connects discussions of ICT use as developed through the Canadian government Community Access Program, with the experiences of the CAP Youth Initiative. While it is argued by policy designers that youth internships would bring needed human resources in the form of social and training skills to the technical infrastructure provided by CAP, it was unfortunately the case that the necessary oversight resources, networking opportunities and effective reporting mechanisms were insufficient to support this and as a result the programs have not achieved the degree of success which might otherwise have been possible at the community level.