Antonia Stone

Antonia "Toni" Stone (born Antonia Halsted Cushing; 1930 – November 21, 2002) was an educator and pioneering activist against the growing digital divide who created the United States' first community technology center. After 20 years as a mathematics teacher in New York City private schools, Stone changed her focus to technology education for poor communities and formerly incarcerated adults.

Early life and education Stone was the daughter of music critics Mary Watkins Cushing and Edward T. F. Cushing, and grew up in New Canaan, Connecticut. In 1952, she earned a degree from Sarah Lawrence College.

Educator career Stone began her efforts to bridge the burgeoning digital divide between the rich and poor through her collaboration with the Fortune Society, an inmate advocacy group, to instruct former prisoners on how to use computers. In 1980, Toni Stone set up Playing to Win (PTW), a nonprofit organization dedicated to countering inequities in computer access. PTW looked to serve inmates and ex-offenders by teaching them computer skills and offering technical assistance to prisons and rehabilitation agencies. In 1983, Stone and PTW Corporation opened the Harlem Community Computing Center. This center was located in the basement of a Harlem housing project it provided the neighborhood with public access to personal computers. Taking advantage of the success of PTW, Stone created a network of centers known as the PTWNet. CTCNet led the movement for the adoption of community technology centers (CTCs), with over 1,000 centers established through the U.S. by the early 21st century. from the Association for Computing Machinery in 1999 for her work in humanitarian application of computers. In 2001, Stone was awarded an honorary doctorate from DePaul University. Stone also received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Harvard chapter of Women in Technology.

Death Antonia Stone died in 2002 due to complications from myelodysplastic leukemia.