[1st-mile-nm] City of ABQ and NM Tech Council Partner to Consider Community Broadband

[Richard Lowenberg]

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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