Freedom Rings Partnership: what it is and how public-private partnerships fuel its success [VIDEO]

Philadelphia residents prepare for a basic computing class at VICA Technologies LLC at 42nd Street and Lancaster Avenue in West Philadelphia.

The following is a report done in partnership with Temple University’s Philadelphia Neighborhoods program, the capstone class for the Temple’s Department of Journalism.

Elaine Skoczylas said she knows how to type. It’s just the other things that are tricky.

“I’ve never really learned Microsoft Office. I don’t have a computer at home, but I had one in my job that I was using, I really didn’t need to know that other stuff,” Skoczylas said. “I knew how to type on our own system, so I got let go and now I’m trying to apply for jobs and I haven’t applied for jobs in 39 years.”

She’s trying to find a job now and has realized that just knowing how to type isn’t going to be enough.

“That’s why I’m trying to learn this.” she added.

To try and rectify her situation, Skoczylas signed up for a free Microsoft Office training course at VICA Technologies LLC, which is located near 42nd Street and Lancaster Avenue. She was able to take part in the class thanks to the Freedom Rings Partnership, a collaboration between 16 different community organizations, nonprofits, universities and city government officials charged with the mission of giving Philadelphians access to computer technology and the Internet while also training them in its use.

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OpenDataPhilly.org: city data catalog to launch April 25 during Philly Tech Week

The City of Philadelphia already publicly shares a considerable amount of data and information, but there has never been a reliable place to find what’s available, request more and learn what’s coming, says Robert Cheetham. That’s about to change.

As part of Philly Tech Week on April 25, Azavea, the GIS application development company Cheetham founded, will unveil OpenDataPhilly.org. The searchable site will aim to be the resource for all relevant, civic-orientated tools, applications, data and information in the region from both governmental and non-government groups. Technically Philly and WHYY are also partnering on the project, which has the support of the City of Philadelphia’s Division of Technology.

“Philadelphia has had many public data sources for more than 10 years, but there hasn’t been a place to bring it all together,” Cheetham says. “This is intended to do that, thereby making it easier for developers and other people to use that data in useful and inspiring ways.”

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IBM Smarter Cities Challenge to support Freedom Rings initiative: Mayor Nutter [Video]

Nearly half a million dollars in consulting and technology support from IBM that yesterday were pledged to the City of Philadelphia are more about education than gadgets.

The Smarter Cities Challenge, announced fall 2010, is a three-year initiative from IBM that will spread $50 million in services and tools to 100 city governments in the world. In the next six months, a half dozen consultants from IBM will start landing in Philadelphia and 23 other cities in this the first year of the Smarter Cities Challenge. Philadelphia is the largest of eight U.S. cities chosen in this round.

“I want to thank IBM for the opportunity to help us work smarter and more strategically about how we tackle the many challenges that face this great city,” Nutter said a small press gathering Wednesday. “This will lay the groundwork to create a citywide strategy that uses technology to support literacy and workforce development programs.”

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Digital Philadelphia: what it is, where it’s going and why you need to get involved

Two years ago this May, the City’s Digital Philadelphia initiative bore public birth. Some movement has been made and details secured, but what can we expect to come?

In front of 75 people at a Refresh Philly gathering in May 2009, then City of Philadelphia Chief Information Officer Allan Frank introduced an IT overhaul plan that would receive unprecedented city funding. The specifics were fuzzy then, but that summer Mayor Nutter signed an executive order that put Frank in charge of every piece of IT in the city’s gaze and there were growing budget plans, including the six-year $120 million IT capital budget authorized that year.

“My goal is for Philadelphia to be ground zero for the road map of moving an industrial city to the knowledge economy,” Frank told Technically Philly before leaving office.

What was meant to follow the incomplete Wireless Philadelphia initiative, became a platform on which Frank could fawn over the biggest and boldest plans. Those plans became the foundation of his legacy, the public face of on-going internal IT upgrade needs. By November 2010, weeks before his announced resignation, during public appearances Frank had his Digital Philadelphia pitch down pat, in three neat categories:

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‘Give us the data that is ours:’ Digital Philadelphia Code for America open gov event [VIDEO]

Code for America fellow Matt Lewis leads a brainstorming session on what data residents would want to see. Photo by Sean Blanda.

City government collects the people”s data, and the people need to take it back.

That proved something of a theme of Wednesday night’s Digital Philadelphia Open Data event sponsored by Young Involved Philadelphia and Technically Philly.

Held in the beautiful third-floor theater of the Gershman Hall thanks to the Corzo Center of the University of the Arts, more than 50 interested residents and technologists came for a half-hour panel discussion followed by brainstorming sessions on what types of government information Philadelphians might most want.

Find photos of the event by John Mertens here.

“We need to tell the City that we can be better participants in our government if we can access our data,” said Aaron Ogle, a former Azavea developer and current Code for America Philadelphia team lead.

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Allan Frank wants to be the Pat Croce of technology: Q&A on leaving city CTO role

Chief Technology Officer Allan Frank listens to remarks during the Information Technology Opportunity Summit. Copyright City of Philadelphia. Photograph by Mitchell Leff.

The first consolidated leader of IT in City of Philadelphia history stepped down earlier this month after two and a half years at the helm. While we covered Allan Frank’s legacy and interviewed his interim successor Tommy Jones, much was left unsaid.

Frank, who wants to be ‘the Pat Croce of technology,’ says his tenure as Chief Technology Officer has connected him to Philadelphia in a special way. He says he’s set the stage for a renaissance to come and is keeping his Overbrook Farms home so he can watch it all come about.

Below, in his own words, Technically Philly talks to Frank about how he wants to be remembered and what is next for him.

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State launches interactive broadband map

After nearly a year of research and development, the Commonwealth has launched an interactive map to detail broadband access across the state in an effort to support broadand stimulus projects.

Mapping was part of $7.3 million federal broadband stimulus grant to show wireline, cable and wireless networks and to identify anchor institutions like schools, hospitals and government buildings, as we reported in January.

The information will be used to help business owners and residents identify places to locate their operations or families, according to a press release. It will also be used in a national map to be launched in February, which will additionally serve to inform broadband accessibility projects funded by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

The maps compliment unreleased prelimary documentation efforts performed by the City of Philadelphia when it applied for several broadband grants last year, a process we detailed in our Digital Philadelphia series.

The City applied for more than $35 million in federal opportunities, as we reported last September.

In July, the City was awarded a $6.4 million grant to fund public computer centers in the city, which will bring 800 new computers to 48 centers at city rec centers, homeless shelters, public housing and community-based organizations.

In coming months, Technically Philly will be investigating the economic impact of broadband accessibility in three distinct Philadelphia neighborhoods, as a winner of a grant provided by J-Lab’s Enterprise Reporting Fund, a William Penn Foundation-funded endeavor.

There are lessons for the city from Federal CTO visit

Aneesh Chopra, the first Chief Technology Officer of the United States addresses the Chamber of Commerce event at the Cira Center.

If you think Philadelphia is mired in debt and inefficiency, try wading through the federal government.

The nation’s first Chief Technology Officer, Aneesh Chopra, offered a peak this morning inside the Obama administration’s use of cloud computing and crowdsourcing to help streamline the inner-workings of the federal government and overcome a culture of bulky IT budgets and lack of accountability.

With a bustling 30th Street Station as a backdrop, a room full of business leaders listened to Chopra outline the inefficiencies of the old way government was conducting business in an event hosted by the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce. He said that the president wanted to add transparency, collaboration and smart investment to help government be more accountable and effective.

Sound familiar?

As Philadelphia struggles with the fate of the Board of Revision of Taxes, the DROP pension program and its plans for a Digital Philadelphia there may be lessons to learn in some of the government’s efforts:

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Prize for best Google Gigabit Philly idea announced, $8,000 and growing

It’s not often that one is monetarily rewarded simply for an idea. But the prospect of Google building its ultra-high speed broadband Internet here is raising the stakes.

This morning, Philly Startup Leaders announced that it will award a prize of $5,000 - donated from the organization’s own coffer – for the best idea submitted to Gigabit Philly supporting the city’s grassroots effort to convince Google to build ultra-high speed fiber in Philadelphia.

In a matter of hours, six individuals and organizations have pledged to donate to the prize offering, bringing the award to more than $8,000, Startup Leaders founder Blake Jennelle told Technically Philly in a phone interview this morning. Startup Leaders hopes that the prize will continue to increase as Google’s deadline on Mar. 26 quickly approaches.

“We’ll consider this a victory if it shines a light on the grassroots movement in Philadelphia. We take things into our hands, step up to the plate, move quickly and rally together,” Jennelle says.

Only ideas submitted at GigabitPhilly.com will be included in the contest. Organizers are urging folks to spread the word on Twitter with the hashtag #gigabitphilly.

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Event Highlights for March 15-21, 2010

The big event this week isn’t in Philly at all. But Philadelphia has quite a presence in Austin, Texas, this week for South by Southwest, for sure. Our reporter Sean Blanda is hot on the trial, chasing down Philly’s representatives. He’ll follow-up with a report later this week.

That said, there’s some great opportunities here in Philadelphia, too. Join Microsoft’s Malvern branch for its CloudCamp unconference to discuss the growing cloud computing industry and Philly Startup Leaders hosts a fishbowl of City of Philadelphia’s Digital Philadelphia vision with city officials.

All events listed on the event calendar are free to attend. Be sure to check our complete calendar for more.

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