The Gigabit City Summit: Learn, Share, Collaborate
AGPR is pleased to share this message from our friends at the Gigabit City Summit, the nation’s premier conference on broadband, Smart Cities and community innovation.
As you know, Kansas City will become the center of a global discussion about what it takes to successfully optimize a large-scale fiber buildout and develop community impact at the third annual Gigabit City Summit, August 1-3, 2017.
If you’re on the fence about joining us, please consider what an incredible opportunity the Summit is to learn, share, interact, and collaborate with experts, leaders, and peers in the Smart City movement from across North America. The Gigabit City Summit provides community leaders and innovators a deep dive into where the Smart City movement has been, where it is now, and what is on the horizon. You won’t want to miss it!
Our three-day lineup includes an extraordinary group of speakers and panelists from a variety of perspectives including policy, process, and technology. They will look at vital interest topics, including:
- The Connected Cities (R)evolution
- How Cities Should Ask For Help: Managing the RFP Process
- Drafting a Digital City Playbook
- The Aesthetics of the Smart City
- Emerging Models for Community Collaboration and Reception
- Tech-Driven Outcomes in Healthcare and Education
- The Quest for a New Utopia: From Cybernetics to Smart Cities
- and much more
Here’s a brief sampling of just some of our fantastic presenters:
Anthony Townsend
Literally, author of the book on Smart Cities, former fellow at Institute for the Future, personally involved in the intersection between tech infrastructure and the civic tech movement, Townsend offers a sober take on the potential for technology to help address humanity’s problems and the imperative for taking the consequences of technology change seriously.
John Burchett
Director of Public Policy for Google Fiber; will speak about the partnership Google has in Huntsville, AL, where the city is building an open access fiber ring where Google has agreed to deploy service. This type of partnerships gets at key questions of infrastructure interoperability —whose job is it to deliver service at what level of the network, and how do the public and private sectors partner to improve the experience of residents.
Karen Stephenson
An expert in social network theory who understands that the latent structure of human capital that catalyze change within organizations and cities, Stephenson will deliver results from the KC Connector project and describe similar work in cities like Louisville and Philadelphia. As technology continues to disrupt the fabric of our cities, enabling the individuals who function as translators between the tech and non-tech sectors is increasingly critical. Individuals with entrepreneurial skills–the ability to navigate ambiguity, to have appropriate risk tolerance, to maximize scarce resources–are valuable for communities even when those individuals aren’t expressly involved in starting new businesses.
Jase Wilson
Founder of Neighborly, which is providing a new model for cities to fund infrastructure projects and foster greater civic engagement at the same time. By going after the Byzantine and long-unchanged municipal bond market, his company is looking to modernize access to public finance. Simply, Neighborly believes average citizens should be able to invest in meaningful projects in their communities and get a return on investment and community both. They’ve found some true believers after recently closing a $25M Series A funding round.
Check out our Speakers and complete Agenda with detailed session descriptions here.
Summit delegates will also:
- Network with one another and engage in small group activities with peers from established, emerging, and prospective Gigabit Cities
- Strengthen relationships within your community for intentional and coordinated thinking about the future
- Participate in facilitated delegation workshops
- Take part in community tours, focusing on digital inclusion, the entrepreneurial ecosystem and co-working spaces, and smart city infrastructure in the Kansas City downtown corridor
Who Will Be There?
• Leaders of Current and Future Gigabit Cities
• Economic Development Specialists
• Information Technology Professionals
• Mayors, City Managers, and Elected Officials
• City Department Leaders
• Technology Innovators
• Community Champions
• Entrepreneurs
We find communities sending multi-person, multi-disciplinary delegations get the most benefit from the Summit. To encourage that, we offer significant discounts for groups of five or more and design programming activities to help them achieve maximum impact from their attendance.
Special Feature at This Year’s Summit: Speed Networking Opportunity
Your city delegation has questions, challenges, and ideas–and our vendors’ experts want to work with you to find answers and explore new possibilities. That’s why we’re excited that our partners at Next Century Cities will join us to host City-Vendor Connect on the final day of the Gigabit City Summit, August 3, 2017. This day-long event will directly connect city officials with broadband vendors and consultants in a “speed networking” style format.
To register, please click here.
Special Thanks to Our Sponsors!
Click here to join us and become a part of the discussion, challenges, and the opportunities the Smart City (R)evolution has created!
