Here are the notes from Mayor Graham Richard’s keynote presentation. Mayor Graham Richard hosted the Killer App conference in April in Fort Wayne. It was fun to hear about his experience in Fort Wayne.

I’m going to post the notes asis and I’ve added his slides.

We wish we had a Blandin Foundation in Fort Wayne.

Fort Wayne population 250,000
1980 = 105% average wage
Gas pump invented in Indiana – but was a rust belt

Met a few years ago to ask – What can be the future of a once mighty city? What if we become stellar Internet users – wired and inspired. This meeting was essential to set the stage.

How do we awaken those who could be better partners – from local ISPs to Google? How do we work with a legislators?

The World is Flat – great ideas and messages. Convergence of the 10 flatteners – meant we’d have unparalleled opportunities through Internet – potential of collaboration.

Indiana brought people together to serve the under-served. Start with talented people and ask them to figure out the challenges – don’t start with the technology.

In Indiana they asked – can we make the city safer with the technology? So they set up a Public Safety Wireless Broadband system. Used a private, local vendor to set up system.
Next they worked to get schools to talk together. They asked – what if we could get all of the schools to work together and talk together?

The presentation offers some great examples of applications.

Questions/Comments from the Audience:

Eric Lampland: How do you address interaction among/between networks?

We’re in the process of connecting fiber to the University based center. We need to build that statewide inter-connectability. Indiana is a big player in Internet 2. The city is pulling wire to pull those bridges. We also need to work on small businesses.

Eric Lampland: How do you get competitors to work together?

“Silo-ization” of life helps. We needed people to share info and now they do because the connectivity helps everyone. But the government needs to get involved. They need to user their convening power. If the mayor invites the vendors and the customers to a party; they will all come.

What are you going to do when you are done being the Mayor?

Spend time with grandkids. Writing a book. Setitng up a national place to share info on successful broadband stories.

Do you have a background in the topic?

I talked to people and keep up. I was a business person, had some related experience but really need to try to keep up.

How many people know what these are?

Internet 2 http://www.internet2.edu
Abilene http://abilene.internet2.edu
Lambda Rail http://www.nlr.net

(I added the links.)