Category Archives: Events

Events, News, Policy

Community Broadband Hearing at Columbia University on Dec. 11

6 Comments

UPDATE: This is a Community Broadband Hearing by Columbia University, not an FCC Field Hearing. Sorry for the confusion!

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

8:00 Registration and Breakfast
8:45 Welcome (Bruce Lincoln, Columbia Engineering)
8:50 Opening Remarks (Dean, Feniosky Pena-Mora, Columbia Engineering)
9:00 “An Overview of the New York State Broadband Vision and Strategy” (Edward Reinfurt, Executive Director, New York State Foundation for Science, Technology and Innovation, NYSTAR)
9:30 “Vision of New York City’s Broadband Future” (Gale Brewer, Chair, Committee on Technology and Government, New York City Council)
9:40 Short Break
9:45 Practitioners Panel Session
10:15 Audience Q&A
10:30 Community Visioning Session
11:30 Wrap-up
12:00 Adjournment
Events

Come join us for Breakout Festival's BETA Session: What's The Craziest Place You'd Work?

breakoutlogo

Do you do your best thinking on a bike racing through traffic? Do you get inspired in the shower? Is blaring techno music the only way you can clear writer’s block?

IMG_3241

If so, then join us at the second of a series of Breakout! Beta Sessions taking place in Manhattan in August and September. We bring the Wi-Fi and some gimmicks to get your creative and collaborative juices flowing. This Friday, we’re going to brainstorm locations for outdoor  coworking during the festival in September, and record them on the Breakout! Wiki. We want to get off the beaten path, and find the craziest, most stimulating, electric environments for creative work in New York City.

When: Friday, August 14th, 2009, 3 pm – 6 pm

Where: Bryant Park (Look for the Breakout! signs and balloons in the southwest corner along 40th St. – see map)

7 to 5th Ave, B, D, F, V to 42nd St – Bryant Park

RSVP: Via  Meetup or email elysse@breakoutfestival.org

Breakout! BETA Sessions happen every Friday through September 4, in preparation for the Breakout! Escape From the Office Festival September 17–October 16.

Events, News

NYCwireless Launches New Hotspot in Clinton Hill For Brooklyn's Underserved Children

5 Comments

We are very proud to announce the launch of our newest hotspot in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. The hotspot is a collaboration between Child Development Support Corp (CDSC), HARLOWTOWN and NYCwireless.

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.

Events, News

Help Make Breakout Festival a Success this Fall (Meetup on July 1 @ New Work City)

Come join us for a meetup to solicit ideas, interest, participants and planners in the upcoming Breakout! Festival on July 1 at 6:45pm at New Work City (200 Varick Street, Suite 507b).

This summer the BREAKOUT! Festival will return creative work to the streets of New York. Using coworking as a model, and injecting lightweight versions of essential office infrastructure into urban public spaces, BREAKOUT! will explore new and productive niches for working outside of traditional office buildings. BREAKOUT! seeks to create a new architecture for the creative city by appropriating public spaces for the collaborative knowledge work that drives the contemporary city.

This meetup gathers together fans, volunteers, and planners interested in helping make outdoor coworking and the BREAKOUT! Festival a success.

The Agenda? Discuss:

  • the upcoming New York Festival (September 18th – October 30th)
  • ideas for facilitating breakout sessions
  • cool things needed for breakouts
  • how to participate in a breakout
  • how to do more
Events

Movie Nights at Brooklyn Bridge Park

The Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy has posted the schedule for their 2009 Movies with a View movie nights this summer. As many of you know, BBP is one of NYCwireless’ premiere hotspots, and offers a stunning view of Manhattan from just over the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges.

There are some great movies planned for this summer, and the best part is you can use the NYCwireless hotspot that’s in the park while you get your seat ready and wait for the show to begin (you wouldn’t use your laptop during the movie, would you?).