Voterbook Manhattan, the Media and Democracy Coalition, People’s Production House and Free Press invite you to a panel and town hall:

WHEN: Saturday, April 3, 2 p.m.
WHERE: P.S. 20, the Anna Silver School
166 Essex Street, Lower East Side

A town hall discussion and panel about Internet access, what it means in our community, the threats from big cable and phone companies to censor your speech online – and how you can fight back.

PANELISTS:
Kris Rios, media policy associate with People’s Production House
Tim Karr, campaign director with Free Press
Dr. Michael Livermore, director of the NYU School of Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity
… and more!

Free and open to all. We will be screening some of the People’s Production House documentary “The Internet is Serious Business,” taking questions, and having a lively discussion.

For more information and to RSVP, contact Jeff Kurzon at jeffkurzon@gmail.com, or Hannah Miller at hmiller@media-democracy.net or 215-888-8036.

We look forward to seeing you!

This year, the Summit is truly going international: its moved to Vienna, Austraia! NYCwireless will be there, and so should all of you. Check out the press release:

The New America Foundation’s Open Technology Initiative, Tech Gate Vienna, the CUWiN Foundation, and the Acorn Active Media Foundation are pleased announce that the annual International Summit for Community Wireless Networks will take place in Vienna, Austria from August 12-15, 2010.

Internet access is increasingly important to all facets of civil society. Since the first National Summit for Community Wireless Networks in 2004, tens of thousands of community and municipal broadband initiatives have been deployed around the globe, but many communities are being left out of this communications revolution. “The global coalition of developers, communities, industry, and advocates working together over the past decade has created one of the most disruptive and far-reaching technological innovations of our generation, yet few know about it and fewer still have taken advantage of this opportunity,” says Sascha Meinrath, director of the Open Technology Initiative and the Summit’s founder. “The International Summit for Community Wireless Networks is the nexus around which this movement swaps notes, strategizes, and organizes its agenda for development and implementation of ubiquitous, affordable broadband networks.”

2010 marks the first year that this group of technologists, entrepreneurs, government officials, academics and engaged citizens will convene outside the United States, a critical step to broaden and deepen international involvement in what truly is a global movement. Participants will learn from each other’s examples, exchange strategies and anecdotes, and build partnerships that strengthen alliances among projects.

Vienna possesses a rich and diverse mix of established technology companies and start ups, new media organizations, researchers and cultural producers as well as a remarkable number of institutions of higher learning. Not only is Vienna well positioned among the top international leaders in the information economy, the city is also home to FunkFeuer, one of the most advanced community wireless networks in the world. FunkFeuer is highly respected internationally for its technical and social innovations, its many collaborations with university researchers and artists, and the scale and scope of its network. The Summit will provide an opportunity to expand upon FunkFeuer’s successes and spread best-methods for developing sustainable metro-scale wireless mesh networks.

The International Summit for Community Wireless Networks focuses on how wireless networks can better serve their target populations, the policies needed to support broader deployment of community wireless systems, and the latest technological and software innovations in the field.

More information on the International Summit for Community Wireless Networks, including a call for proposals, registration, and other logistical information, will be available in the coming weeks at www.wirelesssummit.org.

We look forward to seeing you in August!

There’s an open call for projects, and we think everyone should submit something to the festival. NYC has a lot of innovative, creative, artistic nerds and nerdy artists, and more representation of our great city in SF can only be a good thing!

Recent exhibitions, festivals and conferences across the US and in Europe have taken wireless networks, public space, locative media and urban environments as sites of intervention, creativity, and critique. Formulated within the emerging context of networked urbanism and mobile media, City Centered: A Festival of Locative Media and Urban Community will focus upon dynamics of the shifting, locative, cartographic and social space of the city. It is organized by educational, arts, community-based and civic organizations and asks how locative media can act as a platform and venue for community-led expression.

From within San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, this festival will celebrate the rich possibilities that art and technology offer for urban communication of place and place-based media. City Centered focuses on the use of locative media and wireless technologies for site-specific and neighborhood-based interventions. Artists, designers, architects, community and cultural workers –people, places, and devices — will meet for four days of street-side celebration, public exhibitions, a symposium, and workshops. The festival seeks new work aligned with the themes of creative mapping, urban storytelling, sentient space, body awareness, local history, contested spaces and gaming.

The festival’s main goals are:

• to promote creative public use of free wi fi and open networks in the city of San Francisco
• to encourage meaningful collaboration between artists and local organizations in connection with wireless networks
• to introduce site-specific locative media art to urban places

Be sure to RSVP!

More than a palindromic number, 12/21 is an evening for drinks, hors d’oeuvres, and special guests at the professional networking event for New York technology.
Our mission is to bring together all aspects of technology and the business of technology in one event.

Come rub elbows and connect with colleagues from every segment of NY tech, as we unite the technical and business communities that we’re all a part of.

All are invited – CTO/CIO, junior admin, engineer, developer, entrepreneur, manager, author, speaker, media, and business professional.

This, our third groundbreaking event, is co-hosted by Bootup and Girls in Tech (see our 2007 and 2004 events).

Space is limited and we may have to close RSVPs early.

Date: December 21st, 2009 at 7:00PM
Location: Forum, 127 Fourth Avenue
Business casual attire is required.

Friend Bruce Lincoln, Entrepreneur in Residence at Columbia Engineering’s Center for Technology, Innovation & Community Engagement, sent us an invite for a Community Broadband Hearing taking place next Friday, December 11 at Columbia. I’m planning to attend, and suggest those of you that fill the different roles outlined below attend as well.

If you are planning on attending, leave a comment so we can find you!

It is important that members of the local community have an opportunity to participate in the National Broadband Planning process which is currently underway in Washington.

Toward that end, I invite you to participate in an FCC Field Hearing on Friday, December 11, 2009 at Columbia University in New York. The meeting will be held in Davis Auditorium from 8:45 am until noon.

The field hearing will bring together policymakers, elected officials, not-for-profit organizations, small businesses, anchor institutions, public agencies, broadband providers, foundations, community-based organizations and community leaders, academicians, and researchers. Together we will share thoughts on how collectively we can ensure all New Yorkers have access to broadband and the educational, economic and social opportunities it can provide.

I hope you will be able to attend as a representative of your organization or constituency. To fully understand the importance of broadband access from all points of view, your participation is vital. The agenda includes a “community visioning session” where you will have an opportunity to share your thoughts, ideas, and concerns with the group.

You can confirm your attendance via e-mail to bl2317@columbia.edu.

Agenda

Friday, December 11, 2009
Davis Auditorium, Columbia University
8 am-noon

I’ve been following the evolution of open data initiatives at the municipal level for about a year now, and was really hoping that New York was going to set the bar for future efforts across the country. It doesn’t. In fact it’s hard to understand why some notable local tech superstars like investors Fred Wilson and John Borthwick would sign on to such a lame effort.

First of all, the prize structure doesn’t make sense. First prize is $5,000 and dinner with Bloomie himself. No commitment to fund, adopt, promote or license the app for citywide use. People that build city apps want to engage the public and the investor community, not the city’s political elite. I bet they’d rather have dinner with Andrew Raisej.

Second, despite the fact that the project is primarily aimed at stimulating new business development (it’s coming from the econ dev folks) the rules require all entrants to grant the city a one-year license to distribute the app freely. So anyone thinking of building a paid iPhone app, you’re shit out of luck.

Finally, and most importantly, the NYC Data Mine that is supposed to be the raw materials for these apps, is more of an NYC Data Dump than anything else. Browsing through the 100+ datasets posted this afternoon to the city’s site, you see that about half are just boundary shapefiles easily downloaded or licensed through existing channels. The other half are a dog’s breakfast of static datasets (New! Updated monthly!) in every format from Excel to Access to (gag!) SAS. Hello, people, its 2009. API+XML FTW! Just to take one example, I can’t wait to see what fascinating mashups stem from the historic release of the Department of Consumer Affairs’ list of licensed electronic shops. Because what the world is really lacking is more information about the location of electronics retailers. What this Data Dump looks like is the collected attachments received in reponse to the poor bureaucrat who had to twist every department’s arms for one dataset, so the city could say every department contributed.

As someone who’s spent time brainstorming with government agencies about open data ecosystems, I’m saddened to see that the city has engineered this program for maximum political impact, minimal risk and mediocre innovation. It’s municipal vaporware.

p.s. Guys, you forgot to include the website URL in your press release.

p.p.s The one cool thing they did was used Challenge Post to host the site. Thanks BetaWorks!

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/tliPDpSiR30&hl=en&fs=1&

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/QOtngpfFlXk&hl=en&fs=1&

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/AUpnDP2O_is&hl=en&fs=1&

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/UhH236vYL9o&hl=en&fs=1&

More photos after the break…

On Friday, July 31, 2009 at 11:00 AM at the Playground at the corner of Classon Ave and Lafayette Avenues in Clinton Hill, there will be a Ribbon Cutting ceremony at the hotspot, and we’d like to invite all press members and any NYCwireless member to come out and support the hotspot.

Contact:
Joe Plotkin
NYCwireless
212.982.9800 x9797

Marcia Rowe-Riddick
Executive Director, CDSC
718.398.2050 x8401

Free Wireless Internet For Brooklyn’s Underserved Children

Wi-Fi Hotspot launch set for 11:00 AM on Friday, July 31, 2009

BROOKLYN, NY, July 21, 2009 — NYC’s premier free Wi-Fi installation in a low-income community park, in a groundbreaking collaboration between a neighborhood service organization, Child Development Support Corp (CDSC), and private capital, HARLOWTOWN, will be launched at 11:00 AM on Friday, July 31, 2009 at Brooklyn’s Classon Playground.

The Classon Playground Hotspot represents a stunning triumph of community action to deliver a public service essential in the 21st century: high-speed connection to the Internet, the gateway to the information economy. The 2008 Diamond Report, commissioned by New York City Council, concluded that a majority of the City’s low-income residents, including many children, remain without broadband Internet access and computer skills.

CDSC and HARLOWTOWN, in conjunction with NYCwireless and TECH MEDIA, will provide free Wi-Fi and literacy classes to an underserved Central Brooklyn community. “We felt strongly that our kids needed this now,” said CDSC Executive Director Marcia Rowe-Riddick, “We hope that this partnership may serve as a model for other organizations to bring Wi-Fi and computer literacy into their communities without waiting for government funding or support.”

The Wi-Fi HOTSPOT is at Classon Playground, on the corner of Classon and Lafayette Avenues, flanked by the 88th Precinct Stationhouse to the North, Lafayette Gardens Houses to the East, and the Community Partnership Charter School to the West.

About Child Development Support Corp

CDSC, a 501(c)(3), was created in 1969 to address the needs of low-income and underserved communities of Central Brooklyn. During the late seventies, the organization began preventive and foster care programs to counter the ravages of the drug and gun epidemics in the lives of the families it served. Today, CDSC provides a full range of social service programs for children and families in Community Boards 2, 3, 8, and 16.

About HARLOWTOWN

HARLOWTOWN is a private NGO that sponsors community projects in Brooklyn and the Bronx, as well as furnishing legal services to the needy and to not-for-profit organizations in the US and across the globe.

About NYCwireless

NYCwireless (http://www.nycwireless.net) is a non-profit organization that advocates and enables the growth of free, public wireless Internet access in New York City and surrounding areas. NYCwireless, founded in 2001, is an all-volunteer organization with many active members in the New York metropolitan area, across the United States of America, and around the world. In partnership with city parks organizations, business improvement districts and local non-profit organizations, NYCwireless has built free, public wireless Hotspots at Bryant Park, Madison Square Park, Wagner Park, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Jackson Square Park, Union Square Park (in partnership with commercial wireless Internet provider TowerStream), Stuyvesant Cove Park (the first fully solar powered hotspot in New York), Tompkins Square Park, Bowling Green Park, City Hall Park, the South Street Seaport, the Winter Garden, the Atrium at 60 Wall Street, Stone Street, Wall Street Park, and the Vietnam Veterans Plaza, among others. In addition, NYCwireless worked with Community Access to build free wireless networks in three NYCHA-licensed affordable housing residences. NYCwireless also served as a member of the FCC’s Consumer Advisory Committee.

Friends of OneWebDay,

Today, we are announcing our new Web site, our new social network for OWD organizers – my.OneWebDay.org, and our 2009 theme: “One Web. For All.”

Check out the first blog post from our new Executive Director, Nathaniel James: http://onewebday.org/2009/06/29/onewebday-2009-the-big-what-if%E2%80%A6/

I hope you can act soon to help us build early momentum! If you plan to support or organize for OneWebDay, there are 2 steps you can take right now. All told, these actions should take about 10-20 minutes.

1. Be amongst the first members to sign up for my.OneWebDay.org, our new social network and collaboration platform for participating organizations and volunteer organizers. Here are some things you can do immediately:
   • Upload a picture for your profile. Let’s set a precedent for new members. It looks so much more lively and inviting when you can actually see the people in the community.
   • Start a group: If you plan to help out at the local level, start a group for your local team. We already have the OWD NYC group started. Consider naming your local group something short and snappy (SEA OWD for Seattle, DC OWD for Washington, DC, etc). For some, it will make sense to start a group on my.OneWebDay for your organization if you want to recruit your members to a hub to share your organization’s plans for OneWebDay. One exciting feature: local OWD Teams will be mapped. Don’t forget to add a picture for your group, too.
2. For those who represent organizations: please let us know if we can add you to our list of Participating Organizations. Please let me know specifically how you would like to be listed, and I will pass that information to Nathan. Later on, we will shoot to post logos if you would like your logo to show as your link on that page.

Please let me know if you have any questions. OneWebDay is powered by your ideas, your energy, and your action. Thank you so much for your early involvement and support in OWD09!