April 16, 2012 by Kate Pope Hodel, KCSourceLink

Tech Leaders Assist with Playbook Development

Aaron Deacon of Curiolab and Dave Sandel of Sandel & Associates are working with MBIT to finalize the playbook for Kansas City’s Google Fiber Project. They gave a short update at a recent MBIT meeting.

Objective of the playbook:

·        Ensure the success of the Google investment for Kansas City

·       Understand how this can be used as a platform for innovation and economic development

They emphasized that the months of work the MBIT team have put in builds on much of the exciting activity happening within Kansas City.

The Google Fiber Project has already directly inspired several initiatives, including:

  • GoogleConnectsKC.com, including Kauffman’s Gig Ideas generator
  • The Gigabit Challenge sponsored by Think Big Partners
  • The  Building the Gigabit City report produced by The Brainzooming Group and Social Media Club of Kansas City (SMCKC)
  • SMCKC’s Give us a Gig project to engage neighborhoods
  • K-20 Library Initiative from the KCK Public Library
  • FiberKC.biz and forums on technology workforce development

Deacon reported that Kansas City has already learned several things: Google Fiber has energized the discussions around innovation, people have lots of questions about implementation and great ideas have emerged from conversations in various sections. The playbook will bring leadership and funding framework to the process.

And from other cities, we’ve learned that a metropolitan Internet is 90% sociology and 10% technology…it’s not really the fiber. We’ve also seen that thoughtful alignment of organizations and resources is key to that we can build on supportive ecosystems.

To that end, the playbook is intended to complement many of the Kansas City region’s other collaborative initiatives and organizations that support innovation and economic development, such as:

  • KCnext – The Technology Council of Greater Kansas City
  • CityCampKC
  • Charlotte Street Foundation
  • Arts Council of Metropolitan Kansas City
  • The Forum at Middle of the Map Fest
  • KCMOmentum
  • KCSourceLink
  • The Kauffman Foundation
  • Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at UMKC

Deacon and Sandel will be working with the MBIT sector leaders to identify emerging ecosystems, integrate best practices and finalize the playbook in May.

 

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  • Thanks for this! This is exactly the playbook that we need - to come to Kansas City and offer our unique form of job training and creation.

    Having a stable infrastructure means more than just bandwidth and laptops. Our model is based upon all the assumptions this playbook has made. Lets say we get the funding, we align the stakeholders, and get everyone playing from the same playbook?

    Then what?

    How do we ACTUALLY create those jobs we're hoping for? What do you do WITH all the bandwidth?

    posted by: Marc Canter4/17/2012 9:29:14 AM