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Identify your community’s strengths and weaknesses, priorities and capabilities
Building a wireless network – a popular way for communities to bri
ng universal Internet access to their citizens – is a worthy endeavor, but with the right planning and support, communities can move beyond solely technology-based initiatives to develop programs and services that enhance many facets of community life. Health care, education, economic development and public safety are just some of the areas that can be enhanced by a comprehensive community technology strategy.
Once you’ve begun to think about the transformative power of connecting your community, the first step is often to mobilize others and brainstorm around the array of community interests and/or issues that can be addressed by broadband technology. Perhaps you already have a group of people who share your passion for community broadband; if not, you can begin reaching out to others in your community and invite them to participate. Quite often, a small handful of your early collaborators will become project champions or leaders who provide the vision and momentum that drive your project throughout your community and through to success.
From there, the next step is often to engage in a community assessment, by which you and your team of collaborators develop a sense of the issues, infrastructure, and potential stakeholders that may contribute to or impact your project. If your community has one or two particularly strong sectors or industries – a world-class hospital, large university, an influential philanthropic contingent, and so on – it might be wise to approach those institutions early in the process to gain their support as well as the programmatic opportunities that they can offer. Similarly, a community’s weaker areas – struggling school systems, an inadequate workforce or high crime rates, for example – can also serve as starting points for community transformation.
It’s also important to understand what others in your community—whether they be individuals, civic organizations, for-profit companies, nonprofit groups, governmental bodies, educational or health care institutions, and others—have done in the past or are doing currently that may affect the community issues you’ve identified as most important to your working team. Often, these groups and their priorities dovetail with your own. By reaching out to these groups early, you may enlarge your group of influential and active stakeholders and participants.
Once you accomplish this initial outreach, you and your team can begin to brainstorm your community’s unique issues or areas of interest in terms of potential programs or services that you may ultimately want to offer via the use of broadband internet technology. We call these community solutions. For instance, Fairfax County, VA instituted the 24/7 Student Information System to grant students access to school resources and each other around the clock in order to increase school performance at the national level. One high school alone now experiences graduation rates increasing to 99% and standardized test scores increasing 50-100 points.
Next Step: Build Momentum