Success Stories
Welcome to the Knight Center of Digital Excellence’s collection of Success Stories, featuring communities around the globe that have embarked upon and sustained a wide variety of community technology projects. Whether to stimulate economic development and drive industry to their regions or to more efficiently provide municipal government or health-related services, these communities have used technologies to improve the lives of their citizens.
Please browse the community stories below, and be sure to check back often as new content will appear frequently. If there are communities or projects you’d like us to feature, please send us your suggestions.
Described as “courageous and insightful,” a Canadian province has taken an innovative, holistic approach to bridging the digital divide to benefit its citizens. Alberta now delivers high-speed broadband access to its rural and urban communities with 80% of its able to receive access via a public-private partnership business model. By employing an inclusive, “big tent” strategy similar to the successful model developed by Cleveland-based OneCommunity, Alberta is able to take a bold step into the 21st century economy by providing access in spite of challenges inherent to a province made up of numerous communities with populations of less than 100.
Known more for steel than technology, old economy than new, Northeast Ohio is driving a globally competitive, new economy through a coordinated, sustained effort by the private, philanthropic, and public sectors. Investing in the talent, innovation and infrastructure needed to succeed in an information-based economy has become a priority for the region. And to realize a successful community technology program requires an emphasis on the platform that the 21st century’s information-based economy is built – broadband networks. Northeast Ohio’s long-term investment in broadband and other infrastructure that fosters talent, innovation and entrepreneurship has allowed the region to leap ahead of other, similar “old economy” regions to transform its future, enabling it to excel in the new, global economy.
“In a way Gangnam invented e-government,” claims Indrajit Basu, as she discusses Gangnam District’s recent receipt of the Intelligent Community Forum’s Intelligent Community of the Year award for 2008. Basu has a compelling case. Launching its e-government project in 1995 to improve its local economy and the lives of its citizens, Gangnam has consistently demonstrated its commitment to transforming itself into a broadband community. As a result, the district has not only become one of the most digitally active across the globe, but more importantly, its digital activity has also had a profoundly positive impact on its local economy and residents.