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$1.1 Million Total Goes To Programs In Chicago; Kent, OH; Los Angeles; Nashville, TN; New York City; St. Paul, MN; San Francisco and Washington, D.C. Area Dulles, VA, June 7, 2000 - The AOL Foundation, the philanthropic arm of America Online, today announced that 12 programs in eight cities across the country have been selected to receive the first ever AOL Foundation Digital Divide Bridge Grants, totaling over one million dollars. The AOL Foundation's Digital Divide Bridge Grant program is an ambitious plan to cultivate innovative programs across the country which are on the cutting-edge of efforts to bridge the gap between those who have access to technology and those who do not. Despite the unprecedented recent growth in Internet access and computer ownership, there are wide differences in adoption rates across geographic, income, and education lines. The Digital Divide Bridge Grant program supports projects that help bridge the divide in resourceful ways. It was developed to help give underserved communities a fuller appreciation of digital opportunities as well as to lend AOL support to the most promising and visionary of those activities and help them grow. The 12 winning programs, set forth on the attached sheet, will share in the total grant amount of $1,120,222, divided in accordance with the amounts requested by the individual programs. These trailblazing proposals include, among others: a healthcare project that uses the Internet to serve poor, mentally disabled, rural adults; a technology training program that puts welfare recipients into high paying tech jobs; a proposal to develop a series of regional conferences to help Historically Black Colleges and Universities address ways to build digital opportunity on campuses; a website that makes immigration-related information and news available in multiple languages for inner-city immigrants; a task force that provides national leadership for efforts to bridge the digital divide among Tribal Nations; and, a multi-media news service that voices the views of underserved youth. The programs, which were selected from over 900 applications submitted to the AOL Foundation, will use the online medium in creative ways to help bring the Internet Revolution to underserved communities. They represent a diverse and dynamic group of activities and ideas. Each is aligned with the AOL Foundation's mission and focus -- to use the Internet to benefit society, to create diverse, public interest content for underserved populations and to bridge the digital divide. Steve Case, Chairman and CEO of America Online and a member of the Board of Directors of the AOL Foundation, said: "In the Internet Century, access to technology and the training to make the most of it is not only empowering, it's a necessity. We must all work together to make sure that no one is left behind, and ensure that all communities receive the full benefits of this new medium quickly. The AOL Foundation's efforts, including the Digital Divide Bridge Grant program, call attention to the importance of creating digital opportunity and the special challenges many remote and technologically underserved communities face." Jim Kimsey, Chairman of the AOL Foundation and AOL Co-Founder, said: "The quantity and quality of the compelling applications we received for these grants exceeded our wildest expectations. Moreover, each of the programs has strong evaluation components and therefore we hope to learn a good deal from them. We are very excited to support these innovative trailblazers."