Bill Coleman was pleased to accept the EDAM award for economic development initiative on behalf of the Blandin Foundation last week. (learn more)
The Blandin Foundation Broadband Initiative is a unique effort to stimulate the deployment of broadband networks and to increase the effective use of these networks as a means to enhance community vitality.
CTAC founder, Bill Colem and and the Dakota Future were recently in the Rosemount Town Pages. Bill is leading the county-wide economic development group in an effort to become one of the top seven Intelligent Communities in the world by 2012. The award promotes smart use of broadband technology.
Pursuing the award is a good way to help Dakota Future make a concerted effort to use technology wisely to support economic development. Winning the award would bring worldwide recognition to the county.
(as posted on Blandin on Broadband)
Broadband is in the news these days. Stimulus funding, the state broadband task force, municipal networks, new technologies are all topics for discussion – not just for techies anymore. Some skeptics are right to ask, “What’s the point?”
My answer is, “The point is to become more intelligent, as individuals, communities, regions and countries.” This morning, I cast my vote as a jury member for the international Intelligent Community Forum (www.intelligentcommunity.org) awards. I was privileged to review the applications and community reviews for seven communities around the world. Casting my vote was both difficult and exciting. All of these communities are combining efforts to develop robust networks and create a culture of use. Strategies for broadband development included a blend of private, public and private-public networks. Strategies for increasing use focused on schools, senior citizens, entrepreneurs, research universities, health care and government administration and citizen participation.
The international rankings for broadband deployment have had the U.S. falling in recent years. As I read about how these communities are using broadband for community and economic development, it seems clear that we are also falling behind in application development and usage. At the recent MHTA Spring Conference, Marc Lautenbach, IBM’s North American General Manager, talked about a smarter planet and how the world is changing. His primary question to the audience was “How are you changing?” It was a definite wake-up call that we all need to think smarter and act more quickly to keep up with the global pace.
We need advancement, not just on broadband infrastructure. We need better services over the infrastructure. We need more people using broadband. We need those people to be doing more and more sophisticated applications over the network. I ask you and your community’s leadership, “How are you changing?”
Posted with permission…
Date: April 22, 2009
To: Prospective Partners
MN Broadband Stimulus Application
From: Bernadine Joselyn
Director, Public Policy & Engagement
Re: Call for Partners
Blandin Foundation intends to develop and submit an application for federal broadband stimulus funds and is inviting interested prospective partners to join us in a collaborative effort to bring significant federal funds to Minnesota. Blandin Foundation brings financial match, grant-making expertise and broadband program experience to the project. We have a talented and experienced grant writer in place to facilitate application development.
Blandin Foundation’s interest is focused on funds targeting community education, community access, market development, broadband-dependent application development and economic development. Ideal partners would be statewide, regional or local organizations with capacity to assist in the implementation of projects, especially at the regional and local level.
This Blandin-led initiative will not be seeking funds for significant infrastructure development. Organizations seeking those funds may find benefit in citing the Blandin project as a value-add to their infrastructure initiatives. We would be pleased to include your initiative in our application as one that would participate and benefit from our prospective market development programs.
Organizations with definite interest in pursuing this collaborative effort should contact Bill Coleman at 651-491-2551 or [email protected] for additional information and next steps. We are planning meetings with organizations that we have identified as key stakeholders. Bill may also be contacting you directly to determine your interest in this project.
Organizations with an interest in working with Blandin or looking for other partnerships are invited to share their ideas through the Minnesota Broadband Coalition site: http://www.mnbroadbandcoalition.com/stimulus.html
Thanks for your consideration.
Earlier this week, CTAC founder, Bill Coleman spoke with other members of the Blandin Broadband Initiative team to folks around the state you are interested in improving broadband access in Minnesota.
Bill Coleman is a founder of the Minnesota Broadband Coalition, an ad hoc group of citizens, businesses and organizations that believes that more, bigger, better broadband is needed to ensure Minnesota’s and our own future.
The vision is to ensure a high quality of life and a globally competitive future for its citizens, businesses and communities, Minnesota must be committed to making the necessary investment to become a world leader in the universal deployment and use of ultra high-speed next generation broadband.
We’re looking for new members. If you are interested in more, better broadband, please join us.
Connected Nation is currently working on a map of broadband access and speed throughout Minnesota. The results of that map will be used by the Ultra High-Speed Broadband Task Force in making recommendations to the state in regards to broadband policy.
Much of the mapping is created with information supplied by broadband providers in the state. To balance out that information they are asking Minnesota homes and businesses to test and record their speeds by visiting the Connect Minnesota Site.
Help do your part by visiting the site and recording your speeds.
Bill Coleman was one of a handful of people asked to speak at Senator Klobuchar’s Broadband roundtable at the Capital this week. Here are his comments on the experience:
It was fun to be a part of this meeting and hear the perspective of Senator Klobachar and the importance that she places on broadband development.
I tried to emphasize that there are multiple considerations to this discussion – getting broadband of some sort to everyone while making significant efforts to get big broadband to where it is needed right now.
The mapping project was discussed briefly as it related to the state broadband task force. Knowing where 1 Mb broadband is available does not inform a future oriented broadband policy. One map would be easy to draw – that would the map that shows where 50 Mb service is available at prices comparable to our economic competitors in Europe and Asia.
Senator Klobuchar has scheduled a Rural Broadband Roundtable for December 29th at 10:00 a.m. at the State Capitol, Room 125.
Roundtable participants will discuss the need for rural communities to have greater investment in and access to high speed broadband internet. Attendees will provide real world examples of the challenges rural communities face as well as success stories. Senator Klobuchar will discuss her priorities around “Information Infrastructure” and the Obama administrations emphasis on funding this effort.
The Blandin Broadband conference was a great success last week. More than 140 people registered. I was involved with the Community Broadband Awards as well as the planning of the conference.
It was great to help the award winners celebrate their hard work. Each community had different challenges and their own definition of success but they shared a local passion for implementing their broadband project and found expertise to help lead the way.
You can see a recap of the conference and presentations online, including my presentation on the Community Broadband Resources: