Stuart joined Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation (RIEDC) in July, 2004 as Business Development Manager for IT & Digital Media. He spent three of his five years at EDC focused on broadband technology and the industry through his work on the RI-WINs project. Prior to his move to RI in 2004, Stuart spent over 20 years in the high tech industry, where he held senior-level marketing and product management positions both in New England and Silicon Valley for companies such as Digital Equipment Corporation, Apple Computer and various startups.

In an endeavor that is probably no surprise to any geek or techie, President Obama and his administration have identified broadband infrastructure and use as a key factor in Economic Development to stimulate the creation and sustainability of higher paying jobs in a 21^st Century economy. No surprise because anybody reading this post knows that our lives are dependent on the Internet and access to broadband. We couldn’t live without it.  

Although other presidents have talked about it, Obama is the first President that has actually raised it to the level of public policy and is investing significant capital to fill in and expand the broadband infrastructure of the United States.  

To that end, the Federal Government has created several programs to support the mission. Last year Congress appropriated $7.2B in a combination of grants and loans that will pay for the build out of broadband infrastructure in unserved and underserved communities across the United States, as well as publicly accessible computers in places like libraries, community centers and public housing. These programs are known as the NTIA (National Telecommunications and Information Administration out of the US Dept of Commerce) Broadband Technology Opportunity Program (BTOP) and the RUS (Rural Utilities Services out of the US Dept of Agriculture) Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP).

In addition to the BTOP and BIP programs, the government invested $350MM in a program also managed by the NTIA called the Broadband Data and Development Program (BDDP). The goal of the program is to create a map of all the broadband infrastructure and assets in the United States and six (6) territories. All fifty (50) states (and six (6) territories) are participating in the BDDP and will contribute their data to a massive database and map supported by the U.S. Dept. of Commerce and accessible to the general public.  

Just before the New Year, RIEDC received a grant award for $1.5MM in Federal Stimulus money to manage the development of the RI piece of the map. The grant consists of $1MM for Broadband Mapping over a two (2) year period and $500K for Broadband Planning over a five (5) year period.  

The Mapping portion of the grant ($1MM over 2 years) will mostly be contracted to a professional engineering firm that we selected through a competitive bidding process, as well as the URI GIS department (aka the URI-EDC or Environmental Data Center).  

We are fortunate in Rhode Island to have a strong broadband infrastructure but using hackneyed sports analogies, we are still in the rookie seasons with regards to the changes that broadband access and the Internet are and will bring to our lives. The grant has created an opportunity to develop a planning process to assess current usage and knowledge of broadband in our state and figure out where we need to get to with regards to broadband across all aspects of our lives including healthcare, education and homeland security. 

The Planning portion of the grant will be retained by RIEDC and used to undertake broadband planning activities for the state which include: 

• Develop and provide a baseline assessment of broadband deployment for the state and create a geographic inventory map of broadband service
• Identify and track the areas with low levels of deployment and the rate at which residential and business users adopt broadband service
• Identify barriers to the adoption of broadband service and information technology services in underserved areas
• Collaborate with broadband service providers and information technology companies to encourage deployment and use
• Facilitate information exchange regarding use and demand for broadband services between public and private sector users 
  

The mapping project team includes the RI Dept. of Information Technology (Jack Landers, CIO), RI Statewide Planning (Shane White, State GIS Coordinator) and URI Environmental Data Center (Greg Bonynge, GISP) and the planning activities which will commence in the spring will include all sectors of our economy including the private sector, public sector and education.  

I look forward to reporting here on the progress of the project as it unfolds.

Update: See the good news below - thanks, everyone, for your support!

This bill proposes to do away with the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation you know today with NO PLAN to put anything in it's place. Yes, do away with economic development in the midst of the state's biggest recession in recent years.

This includes all of the business development, community creation, social networking and other programs that EDC has sponsored over the last few years to help the ITDM community crystallize including RI Nexus, Every Company Counts, and the new Green Economy efforts we are undertaking, as well as the sector specific work that I and other my business development peers do with your individual companies.

If you (like me) believe this is a bad move for RI, particularly in a down economy, which will set us back even further than we are today and sends a bad message to both businesses inside and outside the state please contact your local representatives and let them know!

This bill is scheduled to be voted in the house Wed (June 24) and in the senate after that. Make your voice heard and help save the programs and organization that has been central to the coming together of the Geeks community and ITDM sector in this state.

"Hi everyone – I received an SOS from the school based coordinator at the new Providence Career and Technical Academy who's in desperate need for a robotics coach this year.  Her students are incredibly excited to participate in this year's state-wide competition at New England Tech on Saturday, March 7.  Yikes – only 4 weeks away!!, but neither she nor they have the necessary skills to design, program and build a robot.(She’s a European history major!)  The students have attended every practice session both at school and at New England Tech.  She'd like to give her students a fighting chance and has asked for my help in finding a robotics coach that might be able to help the students, even just once or twice?  They are willing to stay any day after school, come in on Saturdays and over February vacation. In anticipation of the competition, they’ve attended every practice session both at school and at New England Tech.If you know of anyone at your company/organization who would be interested in volunteering a few hours a week for the next month or so and helping some energized inner city kids, please get in touch with me right away.  Thanks so much…. Best, J"

JoAnn Johnson, Manager
Youth and Education Programs
Tech Collective
3 Davol Square, Box 183, Providence, RI  02903
P: 401-521-7805 x 103
F: 401-521-7809
www.tech-collective.org

The inauguration from a techie point-of-view...Stuart 

Staff Finds White House in the Technological Dark Ages

By Anne E. Kornblut
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 22, 2009; A01

If the Obama campaign represented a sleek, new iPhone kind of future, the first day of the Obama administration looked more like the rotary-dial past.

Two years after launching the most technologically savvy presidential campaign in history, Obama officials ran smack into the constraints of the federal bureaucracy yesterday, encountering a jumble of disconnected phone lines, old computer software, and security regulations forbidding outside e-mail accounts.

What does that mean in 21st-century terms? No Facebook to communicate with supporters. No outside e-mail log-ins. No instant messaging. Hard adjustments for a staff that helped sweep Obama to power through, among other things, relentless online social networking.

"It is kind of like going from an Xbox to an Atari," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said of his new digs.

In many ways, the move into the White House resembled a first day at school: Advisers wandered the halls, looking for their offices. Aides spent hours in orientation, learning such things as government ethics rules as well as how their paychecks will be delivered. And everyone filled out a seemingly endless pile of paperwork.

There were plenty of first-day glitches, too, as calls to many lines in the West Wing were met with a busy signal all morning and those to the main White House switchboard were greeted by a recording, redirecting callers to the presidential Web site. A number of reporters were also shut out of the White House because of lost security clearance lists.

By late evening, the vaunted new White House Web site did not offer any updated posts about President Obama's busy first day on the job, which included an inaugural prayer service, an open house with the public, and meetings with his economic and national security teams.

Nor did the site reflect the transparency Obama promised to deliver. "The President has not yet issued any executive orders," it stated hours after Obama issued executive orders to tighten ethics rules, enhance Freedom of Information Act rules and freeze the salaries of White House officials who earn more than $100,000.

The site was updated for the first time last night, when information on the executive orders was added. But there were still no pool reports or blog entries.

No one could quite explain the problem -- but they swore it would be fixed.

One member of the White House new-media team came to work on Tuesday, right after the swearing-in ceremony, only to discover that it was impossible to know which programs could be updated, or even which computers could be used for which purposes. The team members, accustomed to working on Macintoshes, found computers outfitted with six-year-old versions of Microsoft software. Laptops were scarce, assigned to only a few people in the West Wing. The team was left struggling to put closed captions on online videos.

Senior advisers chafed at the new arrangements, which severely limit mobility -- partly by tradition but also for security reasons and to ensure that all official work is preserved under the Presidential Records Act.

"It is what it is," said a White House staff member, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "Nobody is being a blockade right now. It's just the system we need to go through."

The system has daunted past White House employees. David Almacy, who became President George W. Bush's Internet director in 2005, recalled having a week-long delay between his arrival at the White House and getting set up with a computer and a BlackBerry.

"The White House itself is an institution that transitions regardless of who the president is," he said. "The White House is not starting from scratch. Processes are already in place."

One White House official, who arrived breathless yesterday after being held up at the exterior gate, found he had no computer or telephone number. Recently called back from overseas duty, he ended up using his foreign cellphone.

Another White House official whose transition cellphone was disconnected left a message temporarily referring callers to his wife's phone.

Several people tried to route their e-mails through personal accounts.

But there were no missing letters from the computer keyboards, as Bush officials had complained of during their transition in 2001.

And officials in the press office were prepared: In addition to having their own cellphones, they set up Gmail accounts, with approval from the White House counsel, so they could send information in more than one way.

Staff writers Jose Antonio Vargas and Karen DeYoung contributed to this report.

IBM CEO: Obama's Proposed IT Investment Could Create 900,000 Jobs

Washington, D.C. -- A plan by President-elect Barack Obama to invest $30 billion to improve the nation's IT infrastructure could lead to more than 900,000 new jobs, according to the head of Armonk-based IBM. The company's CEO, Samuel Palmisano, made his pronouncement during a conference call with Obama's transition team, which had asked the computing giant to analyze the impact of proposed IT investments. Working with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, IBM found that the jobs could be created through $10 billion investments each to expand access to broadband networks, computerize healthcare records and employ "smart grid" equipment designed to make the flow of electricity more efficient. Money for the projects potentially would come out of Obama's proposed economic stimulus plan. Palmisano said that more than half the jobs would come from small businesses, according to the Journal.
http://www.rediff.com/money/2009/jan/06bcrisis-it-aid-to-create-9-lakh-jobs-in-us.htm

Nothing like access to money to stir a conversation. With Obama's inauguration looming, there has been an incredible amount of national discussion -- particularly focused at the state level -- around economic stimulus programs to spur job creation and help stem the tide of the down economy (contrary to popular belief, RI isn't the only state in a mess). If anybody has big tech sector (or other sector) ideas for projects that stimulate job growth and economic development, now is the time to get them on the table. Anybody want to start the ball rolling and share their ideas publically (or privately)?...Stuart

After an intensive competitive process that pitted us against the city of Worcester, MA I am pleased to announce that we have landed a new member of the info-tech and digital media community here in Rhode Island! Inquest Technologies will be relocating during the fall from their current offices in Southborough, MA to 300 West Exchange St. in Providence. The move will include about 20 employees and Inquest has plans to hire approximately 30 employees over the next year or so.

Inquest Technologies product is called IQ9, a platform for delivering web-based enterprise business applications that covers a gamut of functions including business process management, project management, and collaboration (think a young Oracle or SAP). Their platform is already being used by leading worldwide organizations including ADT, Verizon, National Grid, ConEdison and the US Navy. In fact, they already have a small office in Newport to handle the myriad of business they have locally with the Navy. 

Some of you may have already met Jeremy Carr, their VP of Engineering, as he attended the Providence Geeks meeting with a couple of his senior engineers in May. He was initially impressed with what he saw and is looking forward to interacting with the geek community for both ideas and new staff.

This success provides further substantiation that Rhode Island (and Providence) has what it takes to attract new companies and talent to the state. Among other things, Mike Colapietro, their CEO, indicated that our “vibrant IT and digital media community” was one of the reasons for their move. Our momentum in the sector continues to build!

I’ve gotten to know them over the last few months and I am excited for both them and Rhode Island. Please join me in welcoming Inquest to the community.