Global Roundtables | Kansas City Digital Drive

Kansas City Selected as “Core Smart City” by IEEE Smart Cities Initiative

by Jason Harper | Oct 21, 2015 | Marketing the Region, Global Roundtables, Gigabit Ecosystem Building

KC Digital Drive helps Kansas City join exclusive community of five global cities. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) announced today that it has selected Kansas City as the first U.S. city to become a Core Smart City. IEEE (often referred to...

Highlights from the 2015 Broadband Communities Summit

by Aaron Deacon | Apr 16, 2015 | Global Roundtables

Our work at KC Digital Drive starts with community—first and foremost with our local community in Kansas City, but also with the global community of cities who are working on the same sort of digital transformation projects in their cities, from digital inclusion to...

The 2015 Gigabit City Summit in Videos

by Jason Harper | Mar 11, 2015 | Global Roundtables

If you were there, you saw it. January 12 – 15, 2015: More than 200 innovators and visionaries from 50 communities converged on Kansas City for the inaugural Gigabit City Summit – North America. If you weren’t there, though, you can catch up with a...

Gigabit City Summit: Watch the Pre- and Post-Conference Webinars

by Jason Harper | Feb 11, 2015 | Global Roundtables

The webinars conducted in the weeks before and after the Jan. 2015 Gigabit City Summit – North America have been archived. We hope these will be useful for review by conference attendees and anyone else who’s interested in the visioning work that took...

Gigabit City Summit In the News

by Jason Harper | Jan 22, 2015 | Global Roundtables

Our conference generated some good buzz. We’ve gathered a lot below, but if we missed anything, or if you have a comment to share, email us or tweet us @gigabitcities / #gigabitcitysummit NATIONAL & LOCAL COVERAGE: Harnessing the Potential of the Gigabit...

Gigabit City Summit: Takeaways from the Main Conference Sessions + Links to Decks

by Jason Harper | Jan 22, 2015 | Global Roundtables

Day One: Tuesday, Jan. 13 Mayor Sly James and Mayor Mark Holland: Both agreed upon the necessity of broadband access at improving the quality of life of people in the new economy. To many in the audience, this went without saying, but many families — and many...

Digital inclusion has its many ways of bridging gaps in industry, skill acquisition, and opportunity. But when it comes to digital skills training, there are a lot of beginner level programs in the Kansas City metro area, but less known is the middle skills development opportunities. The purpose of this gathering was to highlight some of the nonprofits in this space helping to close the gap on middle skills and workforce development for digital careers.

Enhancing KC Nonprofit Capacity through AmeriCorps, Internships, and Fellowships

Digital inclusion practitioners often find themselves limited by a lack of staff capacity, but face funding constraints that prevent them from bringing on new employees to keep up with their workload. A number of programs are available in the KC region to help nonprofits expand their capacity or enhance existing capacity, including using AmeriCorps members or interns from local training programs to fill new positions, or utilizing digital inclusion training and fellowship programs to enhance the work of existing staff members.

Reflecting on a Year of Service: Empowering Kansas City Through Digital Equity

American Connection Corps (ACC) is a Lead for America program through AmeriCorps dedicated to advancing economic prosperity in rural and emerging communities nationwide. Members are placed with a local public institution, where they build critical capacity, attract resources, and activate community engagement across many key areas, including bridging the digital divide. Here at KC Digital Drive, our mission aligns perfectly with ACC’s goals, and the ACC members collaborated tirelessly with complementary skills and personalities to make for a successful year of service.