Ohio

As hard as some of the incumbents work to convince local elected officials that muni networks are a bad idea, more and more success stories are emerging over time.

Broadband Communities magazine has a great story about Fairlawn, Ohio's Gig fiber network.

As hard as some of the incumbents work to convince local elected officials that muni networks are a bad idea, more and more success stories are emerging over time.

Broadband Communities magazine has a great story about Fairlawn, Ohio's Gig fiber network.

New studies of electronic voting machines in Ohio has led a top official there to call for a ban on the machines. The Ohio Secretary of State noted "critical security failures" on the machines that made it easy to tamper with vote counts.

There are many articles and commentary on the recent announcement by the Governor of Ohio to create a statewide broadband network. But it is not clear what the impact might actually be. If you read the Executive Order closely, what you see is that Ohio, in many ways, is just starting to catch up to other states.

I had the good fortune to hear Mark Ansboury, the COO of One Cleveland, talk about what he and other leaders in Cleveland have been doing to build what is probably the best planned community broadband infrastructure in the country.

Pat Valente, the Deputy Director for the Department of Development of Ohio, spoke at the Ohio CDC Technology conference about the state's strategy for economic development. Here are the key points:

• Focus on the core competencies and strengths of the state.
• Encourage collaboration among state agencies, industry, and university researchers to help create innovative new products and services.
• Ohio intends to compete fully in the global economy, and nothing less is acceptable.
• Translate research into products; Ohio wants to help university researchers translate research results into commercial successes.
• Entrepreneurs are creating the new jobs, and it is the job of economic developers to nurture entrepreneurs.
• Provide capital for early stage ventures.
• Invest in workforce development so that Ohio has workers with the advanced skills needed to find and keep good paying Knowledge Economy jobs.

What is most interesting about Valente's remarks is what went unsaid. There was nothing about industrial recruitment or giving lavish tax breaks to big companies. Ohio is probably still doing some of those things, but the emphasis on entrepreneurs and support for innovation is refreshing. The state is also headed in the right direction by identifying assets and competencies already in the state and trying to leverage those, rather than just imitating what has worked elsewhere or just trying a lot of stuff and hoping something sticks.

As examples of this strategy, Valente mentioned a focus on fuel cells as an alternate power source. The state is funding research to use biomass as a feedstock for fuel cells, leveraging the state's agricultural industry. It is also funding the development of new polymers (plastics) from soybeans rather than fossil fuels, because the state is a big soybean producer.

If Ohio sticks to this plan, it will have an advantage over many other states that don't have the same level of focus. I thought only one thing was missing--a statement of intent to ensure that every business in the state has affordable broadband. If Ohio is serious about competing in the global economy, you can't leave this to chance.

ISUS (Improved Solutions for Urban Strategies) has an innovative alternative high school education program that helps high risk youths get a high school diploma while giving them a heavy dose of on the job construction training and high tech manufacturing skills.

The program provides proficiency-based high school classes that are integrated with work training in the construction industry. But the effort has a real high tech twist, and takes vo-tech to a whole new level by building and selling houses at market prices in distressed neighborhoods.

I am at the Ohio Community Development, Innovation, & Technology Conference in Columbus, Ohio, and I'll be posting highlights from the meeting for the next day or so. The conference is sponsored by the Ohio Community Development Corporation Association.

The City of Cleveland is addressing the issue of digital literacy. The program will offer training and certification to 30,000 low income workers over the next five years. This is an important program; so many areas of the country bemoan the loss of manufacturing jobs and the lack of opportunity for unemployed workers but fail to adjust economic development spending and job training programs to the realities of the global Knowledge Economy.