Café Batey Urbano, a project of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center, recently put the finishing touches on its homework lab, a 6 station pc lab that runs on Linux Ubuntu, an open-source OS that is fast, secure and includes an MS Office compatible application, Open Office, that is also open source. Samuel Rivera, an 18 year old Put Illinois To Work (PITW) employee worked with Rishi Desai, the Humboldt Park Smart Communities Program Manager to image the desktop computers. All computers have internet access and share a printer. The Café Batey Urbano also runs radiobatey, an internet radio station that uses Macintoshes running Pro Tools to produce and edit community and youth oriented interviews and shows. Jessie Fuentes, the coordinator of the Batey, said,’The two different kinds of labs will help us offer Humboldt Park youth more options, both in terms of having a safe space to finish their homework on a computer and learning about computers alternatives, like the Linux operating system.’

For more info: jessicaf@prcc-chgo.org