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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Community launches support portal for Google gigabit fiber

Philadelphia’s tech community is looking for your support to bring Google to our backyard.

After announcing last week its intent to apply to be a test bed for Google’s ultra-high speed fiber, city officials have collaborated with community developers to launch an external initiative to drum up buzz for its proposal.

Working at Independents Hall over the weekend, the groups helped launch a portal—at gigabitphilly.com—that solicits feedback from local users to help fulfill Google’s Request For Information. The page drives home Philadelphia’s notability as a “city of firsts,” much like it would be for Google’s broadband pilot program.

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Nutter proposes “unprecedented” $120 million IT budget, moves toward paperless

Mayor Nutter has announced plans to significantly invest in city information technology and pursue paperless government efficiencies in an attempt to improve tech infrastructure, cut costs and streamline city services.

“We may not be completely paperless, but we will use less paper,” Nutter said in his budget address to City Council this morning before a packed crowed that filled the historic Council chamber’s floor and balcony seating.

If City Council approves the budget, Nutter says that an “unprecedented” investment in city technology will provide $120 million to improve IT over the next five years, including $25 million in FY11.

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City Council bill would make IT permanent part of city government

Councilman Bill Green and five members of City Council have co-sponsored legisilation that would create a permanent Charter position for a Chief Information Officer and would consolidate all of the city’s Information Technology resources under the Division of Technology.

The legislation would require the CIO to report directly to the Mayor and to create an annual IT strategic plan that includes productivity enhancements to help the city utilize paperless services. It also gives the CIO more oversight over city department technology appropriations.

“When they wrote the Charter in 1952, no one imagined there could be a paperless system,” Green told Technically Philly during a telephone interview this morning. “[The legislation would] make investment in and continual upgrade of our technology a permanent part of city government.”

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Feds announce second round of broadband stimulus funding

By now, the city’s Division of Technology must think the federal government is playing games.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration and the U.S. Rural Utilities Service announced Friday a second round of federal broadband stimulus funding, PCWorld reports. The agencies, which have split the funding into two pots, will dole out $4.8 billion for broadband projects, to be awarded by September.

It’s never a bad time to try to get a piece of $4.8 billion, but the NTIA announced last week that Pennsylvania received funding for broadband research, data that could have helped local applicants strengthen their pitches, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Office of Administration spokesperson Luc Miron told Technically Philly last week.

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Comcast comments could hurt city broadband stimulus plans

Another blow to Philadelphia’s bid for federal stimulus dollars to help bridge the digital divide may have come the way of a Center City skyscraper.

Comcast has filed controversial commentary that some speculate could hurt Philadelphia-based requests for broadband stimulus grants.

In a move seen elsewhere in the U.S., the Center City-based telecommunications giant submitted formal comments to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration on three Philadelphia-based applications—each seeking a piece of $4.6 billion in broadband grants—including the infrastructure portion of the city’s Digital Philadelphia vision.

Local pundits say the move is intended to challenge Philly’s broadband proposals. Broadband activists, like Rutgers University Professor Todd Wolfson, say it is an attempt to suggest that the applications are ineligible for grants, which seek to provide money to areas “unserved” or “underserved” by broadband connectivity.

The NTIA requires that grants go to locations where the rate of broadband subscription is below 40 percent of households. Though broadband penetration is estimated to be as low as 50 percent in Philadelphia, Comcast’s actual coverage blankets higher percentages of the population.

Comcast submitted to the NTIA a summary of its coverage area and subscriber information in the Philadelphia region, Comcast spokesperson Sena Fitzmaurice tells Technically Philly.

“We would not describe it as a ‘challenge,’ we describe it as filing factual information,” she said in a telephone interview. “There was an opportunity to object, but this is just a straight description of where we provide service and where we don’t.”

Wolfson, though, says it’s about business competition. He points to a story published in October by Bloomberg, pinning Comcast Vice President David L. Cohen against proposals that undermine Comcast’s business.

“Those applications don’t qualify for funding primarily because they are applications to provide service in areas where there is already broadband service,” Cohen told the publication.

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City CTO: “We have a heck of a shot” for federal broadband stimulus money

From left to right: Doug Faith, Derek Pew, Bill Green, Allan Frank, Todd Wolfson.

Five known members of Philly’s technology community discussed the impact of Wireless Philadelphia, the city’s digital divide and its application for federal broadband stimulus dollars Tuesday evening.

Local technology leaders and policymakers agree that lessons learned from the failed initiative put the city in a unique spot to advance its technology foundations, and they are hopeful that the city is awarded federal grants for the Digital Philadelphia Broadband Initiative.

Read about the history of Wireless Philadelphia.

More than 75 business leaders, policymakers, academics and activists filed into the Connelly Auditorium at the University of the Arts’ Terra Hall to hear the panel discuss broadband policy in the city.

“There’s really no other municipal network that has quite the resonant experience, not only in the tech side of networks but of its downfalls,” said Derek Pew, CEO of Network Acquisition—which now owns the Wireless Philadelphia assets.

“Something can happen. We’re in a unique place, where a large asset, history, experience and desire have come together.”

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City of Philadelphia requests $35 million in federal broadband stimulus application

The City of Philadelphia hopes that federal agencies awarding federal broadband stimulus grants will fund $35 million to its Digital Philadelphia Broadband Initiative, according to documents published by the National Telecommunications Information Administration.

Executive summaries detailing combined applications between the Division of Technology and the Free Library of Philadelphia call for $21 million for middle mile infrastructure and $14 million for adoption programs.

“The 21st century will undoubtedly be defined by the advent of the digital age,” the Free Library’s application stated. “However, in Philadelphia 41 percent of residents do not have Internet access at home and are being left behind without the ability to connect with job opportunities, healthcare information or educational resources.”

Several other Philadelphia-based organizations, including the Philadelphia Housing Authority, Philadelphia Prison Society and the Delaware County Library System also submitted applications for stimulus funds, documents reveal.

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Friday Q&A: Kelly Lee, Innovation Philadelphia President & CEO

Updated 9/11/09, 2:15 p.m.: Clarified summit tracks, noted “no frills” package clarification, and updated Philly panelists.

If it wasn’t for the first Global Creative Economy Convergence Summit in June 2006, Innovation Philadelphia may not have found it’s niche in the creative industries.

President and CEO Kelly Lee says that it was the attendees of the inaugural event, hosted three years ago, who inspired the economic development organization to shift focus from the broad spectrum of technology-based businesses to creative ones—art, design, web development, and others, in place of biotech and life sciences.

This year, Lee is spearheading the second of the summits, the well-marketed and polished 2009 Global Creative Economy Convergence Summit, which happens next month, October 5 to 6 at the Philadelphia Convention Center. [Full Disclosure: Technically Philly is a panelist for GCECS2009, "Creating a Culture of Entrepreneurial Journalism" on Oct. 6]

The summit focuses on economics, entrepreneurship, workforce, technologies and sustainability, five interdependent tracks that Lee says make up the creative economy and that cities and regions need to have a strategy for.

There are dozens of workshops, panels, roundtables and presentations that include innovators and leaders from across the globe and the Philly region, like keynotes from author Elizabeth Gilbert, entrepreneur Peter Shankman, game guru Jane McGonigal and global economic developer Randall Kempner.

From flyer to Web design, packed-schedule to text message update technology, there’s little doubt that the nonprofit has invested quite a bit in this year’s summit. The organization has even launched a series of glossy, high-def videos on the conference website this week that features local entrepreneurs and policy-makers who will attend. It certainly doesn’t appear that Innovation Philadelphia is taking GCECS2009 lightly.

But critics aren’t taking their words lightly, either, including high-profile members of our business and technology communities.

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Nutter gives Allan Frank greater control of city’s IT

Philly Rocket Man Allan Frank has gone from Philadelphia’s chief information officer to chief technology officer and the staff he oversees has more than tripled to 520.

The reorganization of the city’s Division of Technology comes with Mayor Michael Nutter’s ninth executive order of the year, as reported by Marcia Gelbert on the Inquirer’s Heard in the Hall city government blog.

Sure doesn’t seem like the city wanted anyone to know about it though.

No press release or media advisory was dispatched or placed on the mayor office’s sleek Web site for which your tax dollars paid. Frank wasn’t immediately available for comment.

The details are below.

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