off to vancouver
I’m heading to this tonight. I’ll be coming back on the wed night red-eye.
North American Wireless Cities Summit organized by the Strategy Institute. They’re a shop that puts on conferences on hot topics. I’m happy to be invited. I went to the last one they put on in Toronto and they pulled together a fine list of speakers. It’s nice having it *not* be put on by the vendors. It gives it less of that meat-market feel.
This time I get to be one of the “experts” on the front page.
Our exclusive event will share best practices from across the globe and help municipalities develop wireless networks suitable for their environment and that will respond to the needs of their economy.
Hear Industry Experts and Case Studies From:* Peter Ladner, Councilor, CITY OF VANCOUVER
* Karl Kaiser, Chief Information Officer, CITY OF MINNEAPOLIS, MN
* Craig Settles, President, SUCCESSFUL.COM, Oakland, CA
* Michael Lenczner, Co-Founder, ILE SANS FIL, Montreal
* Don Fitzgerald, Executive Director, TEAM FREDERICTON
* Taipei, Taiwan
* Beijing, China
* Seattle, Washington
This is my 5th or 6th muni-wireless conference. At first I really felt out of place- seeing as ISF resembles a real muni-wireless network as much as sea-monkey’s farm resembles the Vancouver MarineLand. But for a few different reasons I am pretty comfortable now.
I’m going to refer to the MonoRail quote (newspaper website screwy. alternative link), the “philly is the cruicible” comment and generally try to help municipal people separate the wheat from the chaff. There are some great places and uses for muniwireless (sp. semi-rural areas that are underserved by the market). But everyone would be served a lot better (including maybe even vendors) if we were a little more realistic about this technology / product.
I’ll be coming back for the final workshop of CRACIN. I’ve learned a lot through this project over the last 3 years. I’ll be said to see it end, even though I’m sure that I’ll continue to work with the people involved. I’ll be presenting there on ISF’s experiences on partnerships with academics as well as doing a presentation of the WhatisNetNeutrality site with Alison.