City government hasn’t taken the gamble
we need. So we will.
We’re wagering every dollar we have — all $5,000 of it.
We have been saying for years now that Philadelphia
has the best grassroots tech and creative community in the world. Now
it’s time to make that obvious to everyone else.
Google
has created a national competition among cities for the
opportunity to have ultra-high bandwidth gigabit connectivity installed
in portions of the winning city. This is part of a massive social and
technological experiment designed to accelerate worldwide broadband
adoption.
The Google Gigabit competition ends in just eight days, on March 26,
2010.
Philly’s grassroots communities have thrown our hat in the
ring with Gigabit
Philly, a website spearheaded by Alex Hillman
and Branimir
Vasilic and built by members of Philly Startup
Leaders, Indy Hall
and a band of dedicated individuals. Among those individuals are City
Councilman Bill Green and City Chief Technology Officer Allan Frank.
But that’s not enough. Not nearly.
Google will never choose a city where the government and the broader
community doesn’t do something dramatic. We need to show that all of us
can work together and dedicate ourselves to making this experiment an
over-the-top success for Google.
Because as vague as Google has been with their selection criteria, we know this much: they want
the winning city to use gigabit in a way that becomes the envy of the
world. They want an example city that inspires other cities and towns
to drastically accelerate ultra-high bandwidth adoption.
What has the city of Philadelphia done so far? Essentially
nothing. Let’s not be too surprised. Government in these cases
can do little. The imagination and energy is going to have to come
from the grassroots. It’s time for us to take the lead.
That’s why we’re taking matters into our own hands.
Philly Startup Leaders is investing every last dollar that’s not
allocated to our upcoming Entrepreneur
Expo event to seed a massive community-funded prize
for the best ultra-high bandwidth idea submitted to Gigabit Philly.
That’s $5,000. We’re all-in.
This money is everything we have saved in our organization’s
piggybank for the last two and a half years. Yes, we know that the city
has been dealing with an awful budget crisis. Yes, we know that most of the
major businesses, NGOs and non-profits have been suffering too. And
yes, we know that many of our startups are running on empty.
But that doesn’t make us helpless. Remember, we are a do-it-yourself city.
Philly Startup Leaders is only the spark. Our money
is intended to jolt the great people of Philadelphia into action. We
are counting on our friends in the grassroots community and the
Philadelphia establishment to pour their money on top of ours, dwarfing
our $5,000 contribution. Together, will make the prize fund so
broad-based and substantial that people will hear about it all over the
world.
We are counting on more than money. We are counting
on the power of the community to generate hundreds if not thousands of
great ideas that demonstrate that this city has the ingenuity and
determination to lead the world into a new gigabit era.
Eight days is a challenge for sure. We’ll need to work at gigabit
speed ourselves to collect both the prize money and the ideas that can
stun and surprise us all.
Just to show that Philly truly is the city of brotherly
love, anyone in the world can win the prize. Even from a
competitive city. Innovation is not about one city versus another. It’s
about making progress together, and so when we judge the submissions,
we will be impartial. We promise.
That said, all ideas must be submitted to Gigabit Philly.
We won’t review submissions anywhere else.
Movements don’t go anywhere without the courage of the first followers. Thanks so much to
Neil Kleinman for commiting $1,000 from the University of the Arts’ Corzo
Center for the Creative Economy, and also to City Councilman Bill
Green and City CTO Allan Frank for each committing $500 of their own
money.
That’s $7,000 already. Now let’s add some zeros to that. We can do
this together, one donation at a time.
To contribute to the prize, make a written commitment in the
comments section below this post, including the dollar amount. Also
be sure to email us your contact information to info@phillystartupleaders.com
so we can reach you (please include your phone number).
Because time is short, we will formalize this commitment process in
the coming days with the help of the broader Philadelphia community. We
will also nail down the selection criteria.
Now for the other critical call to action: Make some noise.
If you care about the future of Philadelphia, or about the future of
broadband technology more broadly, share your enthusiasm with the world.
Use every medium at your disposal and all the creativity you can
muster. On Twitter, use #GigabitPhilly.
We can do this Philadelphia. We will do this.
