Steve Clift writes: I thought I'd try to stir up some thinking related to the pending economic stimulus package by proposing 30,000 digital Community Infrastructure Builders:
http://citizensbriefingbook.change.gov/ideas/viewIdea.apexp?id=087800000 004pDg Cheers, Steven Clift Steve, How about having the 30,000 Community Infrastructure Builders work with 2000 Community Connector Town Halls (or intelligent and "early warning system" Building Blocks in each in an area of about 150,000, or about 4 1/2 per Congressional District which average 675,000) hosted at a familiar local community center, hospital, college or other place persons go to "all 4 seasons of the year"? One of the tasks for Community Infrastructure Builders would be to help translate the Stimulus Infrastructure spending and tax cut proposals, the TARP housing security/local credit/foreclosure prevention and Health/Safety Homeland Security investments -- which Obama and Congress have said will be posted Online nationally for a week before Congress votes -- and in scenarios of potential local impacts on Lives of families and communities, as backdrop for local vision/trade-off/cooperation/monitoring discussions across so many kinds of financial and people mobilization activities. Then, the Builders can help host, develop digital presentation materials for, and expand community participation in citizen-business-education-health-public official Transparent Town Halls (e.g. America Speaks and InternetForAll-like models), which would have responsibility to use keypad polling for Digital Quality of Life Report to the President (and American People) which could become a Weekly Online Report (or Health/Safety/Opportunity/Resourcefulness Quality of Life indicators, or so-called Community Life SCAN). Such a Weekly (NOT MONTHLY) Online Quality of Life Report could be a helpful press-worthy discussion point, locally, in states and regions and nationally, as a Near Real Time open source health-and-enterprise-sustaining tool, with credibility and basis for action by individuals, families, businesses, institutions and public agencies. See below notes on Digital Illinois as one state model for Obama Innovation, Technology and Transparent Government Reform agenda, showcasing $5 million investment this week in rural healthcare fiber + wireless infrastructure build-out along with urban and rural medical IT consumer health records investments. Stay tuned for postings in February at www.illinoisclicks.org via library resource for regional broadband outreach and infrastructure planning. Look forward to continuation and expansion of DDN discussions, including consumer capacity building (demand side) or infrastructure entrepreneurship building (supply side by business, nonprofit and public enterprises) whatever the online forum! Layton Olson Community Life Initiative Chicago ____________________________________________________________________ Non-Illinois broadband interested parties, FYI Legislation passed Tuesday on last day of 2006-elected session _______________________________ Community technology and communication colleagues - Illinois to Launch Rural and Urban Broadband State of the Art Health Services With $5Million in State Funding On January 13, the Illinois General Assembly adopted legislation to allocate $5 million in currently unused funds to unlock $21 million in FCC-awarded Illinois Rural HealthNet project funding, plus launch patient electronic medical records programs across Illinois. The legislation, which will be effective immediately upon completion of enactment, is an important step toward making Illinois a Digital Age and Digital Government state. Under SB 1132 (Search www.ilga.gov) $2 million is allocated to Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity for IRHN, led by Northern Illinois University, to trigger the December 2007 FCC award to link rural hospitals and clinic with fiber and wireless infrastructure in a 3 year plan. Www.irhn.org $3 million is provided to Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services for model Medical IT projects in 15 DHFS urban and rural regions across the state. These world-class investments were supported by a cross-section of community, business, health and public sector leaders in General Assembly, in administrative agencies and among supply and demand side parties in Illinois Broadband Deployment Council. They reinforce another $4 million in DCEO RFP for high speed Internet extension in rural and urban areas for economic development, education, public services and health needs. This project is designed to begin mid-2009, and parallels City of Chicago Digital Excellence investments in 3 year projects in Pilsen, North Lawndale and Auburn Gresham/Englewood begun in 2009. The $5 million health communication infrastructure investment was the top priority arising from the July 2008 Digital Government hearing of Illinois House Computer Technology Committee, convened by Rep. Constance Howard and Rep. Julie Hamos, and facilitated by Community Life Initiative, IIT industrial management and technology program, Illinois Association of Regional Councils and Chicago-based Lumity. That hearing, including testimony by CIO's of State of Illinois, Cook County and City of Chicago and Illinois Rural Healthnet, pledged Illinois leadership as a Digital Age Activities and Digital Government state, as a strategy facilitated by Benton Foundation to link local-state-national initiatives. See Benton December 2008 report Action Plan for America: Technology and Innovation to Address Our Nation's Critical Challenges. www.benton.org In sum, Illinois has taken an important step to meet the Obama Administration pledge to provide electronic patient records for all Americans within 5 years by expanding Access to better health information through a rural broadband backbone and through better tools for urban and rural medical professionals and citizens. Additional information on Illinois as Digital Activities and Digital Government state are attached. Layton Olson Community Life Initiative Howe and Hutton Ltd. Chicago, Illinois www.howehutton.com 312-263-3001 -----Original Message----- From: digitaldivide-boun...@digitaldivide.net [mailto:digitaldivide-boun...@digitaldivide.net] On Behalf Of Steven Clift Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2009 10:01 AM To: digitaldivide@digitaldivide.net Subject: [DDN] Digital Divide Bridging as Economic Stimulus I thought I'd try to stir up some thinking related to the pending economic stimulus package by proposing 30,000 digital Community Infrastructure Builders: http://citizensbriefingbook.change.gov/ideas/viewIdea.apexp?id=087800000 004pDg Cheers, Steven Clift _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@digitaldivide.net http://digitaldivide.net/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to digitaldivide-requ...@digitaldivide.net with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@digitaldivide.net http://digitaldivide.net/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to digitaldivide-requ...@digitaldivide.net with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
