Wednesday, September 10, 2008

A New Knight Center and a New Freelance Piece.


My latest step in my slow ascent up the ladder of freelance respectability is here, a lead in the Knight Foundation newsletter about the Knight Center of Digital Excellence. Attentive readers may recall that when the Knight Foundation and OneCommunity announced plans for an Akron WiFi zone, they announced creation of this Center of Digital Excellence as part of the overall effort. They moved into their new offices in the United 1 building a couple of weeks ago and hired me to cover the event for their members.

If you aren't inclined to click through to review my work I'll say that the Knight Center (still getting used to saying that and meaning something other than the Convention Center) is a nationwide pro bono networking consulting service run in partnership by the Knight Foundation and OneCommunity. They work toward community internet access by playing what baseball teams call small ball -- small, focused connectivity projects here and there build out networks (mostly in what tech guys call the middle mile) and communities build on that to connect their populations.

It's no small thing for Akron to have gotten this. The effort is getting serious looks as a sort of next generation collection of connectivity models now that some high-profile muni wireless efforts have cratered. I was honored to have been present, if not at the creation, at least on moving day.

(Just so we're clear, my contract with the Foundation was fulfilled by the article; I'm writing this on my own because it's pretty cool and Pho-phriendly news regardless.)

6 comments:

Village Green said...

Great news! Thanks for letting us know.

Jason Haas said...

Nice piece, Pho.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for spreading the word. Hopefully Akron and the region will see some real benefits from the Knight Center being located here in the years ahead. The OneCommunity team is really pushing the envelope.

Anonymous said...

Kudos to you, Pho!

Anonymous said...

Perhaps I've misssed a few key paragraphs, but amidst the discussion of millions of dollars and "talking with" K-12, where is the plan to promote success of Akron's schoolchildren? That's the Governor's top goal*; is it shared by Akron's community leaders?

Perhaps we could get One Laptop Per Child to take pity on Ohio's urban schoolchildren and give us a boost so we can catch up with Rwanda...

(Disclaimer: The Constructive Provocation Index of this comment is 8 on a 10-point scale.)

*Or is delivering Ohio for Senator Obama the Governor's top goal?

John Ettorre said...

Wow. Great piece, great gig. Good for you, Scott.