[1st-mile-nm] City of ABQ and NM Tech Council Partner to Consider Community Broadband
Richard Lowenberg
rl at 1st-mile.org
Thu May 26 16:24:53 PDT 2016
City of ABQ and NM Technology Council Partner to Consider Community
Broadband
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/city-abq-nm-technology-council-150107139.html
May 3, 2016
ALBUQUERQUE, NM--(Marketwired - May 03, 2016) - Today, the City of
Albuquerque announced a partnership with the New Mexico Technology
Council to coordinate and establish a focus committee to discuss efforts
to bring community-based fiber optic networks to Albuquerque. The
announcement comes after Mayor Richard J. Berry and William Wallace,
Executive Director of US Ignite, announced earlier this month that the
City of Albuquerque has been named a US Ignite partner, joining a select
group of Smart Gigabit Communities nationwide. Smart Gigabit Communities
are selected by US Ignite, a non-profit organization launched in 2012
with inspiration from White House Office of Science and Technology
Policy and the National Science Foundation to assist American
communities take advantage of next-generation networks.
The focus committee, which is to consist of selected community leaders
and stakeholders from business, government, technology, and community
organizations is designed to facilitate discussion, gather information,
and exchange ideas regarding current and future broadband needs and
accessibility.
The City of Albuquerque's partnership with the New Mexico Technology
Council to establish such a broadband focus committee seeks to build a
comprehensive action plan for developing a technology-ready community by
reviewing the technology landscape, developing regional partnerships,
establishing local teams, and conducting a thorough community
assessment. The gathered information from the focus group meetings will
be used to help create the official Technology Action Plan for the city
community.
"The New Mexico Technology Council has a diverse array of public and
private sector members in technology sectors across the state," said
Peter Ambs, CIO for the City of Albuquerque. "They were a natural choice
for us to partner with to facilitate these discussions given their
existing relationships with stakeholders."
The US Ignite partnership will serve to augment existing collaborations
with the City of Albuquerque and the University of New Mexico (UNM)
dedicated to bringing smart gigabit applications and services to the
community. The partnership will further enable Albuquerque to create and
leverage next-generation applications from other communities to push
economic and technological innovation within the city.
The effort will serve as a complimentary piece to cornerstone technology
programs and initiatives planned to be made available through the
Innovation District, Route 66 fiber deployment, and many of the Smart
City initiatives the City is currently pursuing through the Bloomberg
I-team and TechHire programs. As the City of Albuquerque has
communicated, Albuquerque's success in this initiative will serve as an
example of the potential for next-generation technology to accelerate
economic development and spur the development and adoption of high-speed
broadband applications and services.
"We are excited at the prospect that the broadband focus committee will
help to position our city as a hub for tech growth and will encourage
collaborative input from all its partners and stakeholders," stated
Nyika Allen, Executive Director of the New Mexico Technology Council.
"We are looking forward to learning from other cities who have
implemented broadband programs such as this one and hope this group can
serve as a model for other cities around the country."
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More information is available via the NM Tech Council web site, which
includes added links.
https://nmtechcouncil.org/peer-groups/community-broadband-focus-committee/
RL
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Richard Lowenberg, Executive Director
1st-Mile Institute 505-603-5200
Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504,
rl at 1st-mile.org www.1st-mile.org
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