Portland Mayor Sam Adams (@MayorSamAdams), at his annual State of the City Address this Friday, said the city will make available $500,000 for innovative small business ventures which may be matched by banks.
The city is creating a Portland Small Business Seed Fund in conjunction with the Sustainable Development Fund. Typically these investments would be in the $10-20,000 range.
The $500,000 seed fund will come from the Portland Development Commission, the city’s economic arm. The city will be loaning the money, not making equity investments, and the fund’s success will be measured through the number of jobs created by the companies that receive the funds.
The mayor says that the investment comes out of talks with the folks behind NedSpace, who have been campaigning for more public support for startups for some time.
How about a sustainable, community-based, public-service, solar-powered, Wi-Fi solution?
It could pay for itself in 3 years, stimulate jobs in new media and software development, and deliver emergency broadband communications throughout the city (and state).
The concept is simple: Solar powered kiosks in neighborhood parks provide free WiFi.
This public/private joint venture would provide:
Free neighborhood Wi-Fi.
- Self-sustaining through advertising.
- Runs 24/7 on solar power and batteries.
- Uses Open Source software.
- Provides public safety alerts when The Big One happens.
- Uses Clear WiMAX or Verizon LTE for wireless backhaul.
- Incorporates an unbrella over a picnic table, a mobile router and a microprojector.
- Total cost per unit: $3,500.
- Estimated payback: 3 years.
Each kiosk would be a neighborhood node. A laser-based microprojector coupled to an iPad/iTouch provides a small, ruggedized display. The splash page would feature an interactive news map with localized Nozzl News, traffic and weather. Service could be customized using your cell phone.
Community-based advertising would provide $100/month revenue for each Kiosk ($20/mo times 5). Over 36 months, the $3,600 cost would be re-paid.
Haiti Live provides a free, open-source, real-time mapping model.
What is Ushahidi? from Ushahidi on Vimeo.
Open source Ushahidi could be the Wi-Fi splash page, showing real-time tweets, news feeds, newsmaps and videos. Interactive via cellphone. Real-time. Open source. Community driven. Inexpensive.
It could also SAVE taxpayers $400 MILLION in needless waste and bureaucratic empire-building.
Currently Oregon plans on spending more than $400 million of taxpayer money to build a state-wide, 700 MHz radio network for first responders. It is a very bad idea.
U.S. public safety agencies support LTE technology for a proposed nationwide public safety network on the 700 MHz radio band. Washington, D.C. will test the 700 MHz broadband network licensed to the Public Safety Spectrum Trust (PSST) this summer, if vendors have equipment ready by then.
“To achieve the goal of national interoperability, we need to deploy a single technology everywhere, and public safety has identified Long Term Evolution (LTE) as that technology,” said Bryan Sivak, the District’s chief technology officer.
The state-wide infrastructure will be built anyway — at no cost to taxpayers. Cellular carriers, in conjunction with public service users, will build the 700 MHz network.
The new “D Block” 700 Mhz band will likely be auctioned this year. It will provide LTE service using an innovative joint public/private structure.
The “D Block” can provide the backbone for Kiosks everywhere, with voice and broadband access.
It’s a simple plan:
Borrow $15K, then build four, solar-powered info kiosks around the city.
Kiosks could be designed by artists to reflect their uses. Some would be like newstands and others like picnic tables. Some could be more organic, appearing like plants or animals. All would provide communications in the event of an emergency.
With the expertise of Eleven Wireless, Stephouse Networks, PersonalTelco, Intel, WiMAX Forum, SolarWorld and Open Source developers, taxpayers could save hundreds of millions of dollars, newspapers could thrive, and emergency communications could be delivered when The Big One hits.
Ustream or Livestream, with embedded live chat, is hard to beat for connecting to communities. YouTube videos can also be embedded into Google Maps and Google Earth.
The City of Portland Water Bureau, Office of Emergency Management, and Bureau of Technology Services are seeking proposals for an emergency notification and call-out solution that will meet current and future notification needs for the City of Portland.
