The CyberCity Initiative:
Executive Summary.
Learning About and Preparing to Participate and Compete in the Information Age.
Table of Contents for this page:
Preface
This page contains an Executive Summary for the CyberCity Initiative.
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Executive Summary
The CyberCity Initiative aims to help Grande Prairians to learn about and prepare to participate and compete in the Information Revolution that is sweeping the developed world.
The initiative has three principal thrusts:
- Cooperative deployment of shared high-speed equipment, systems and software providing universal interactive access to data and information,
- Generation of awareness throughout every segment of the community concerning the opportunities and challenges of living and competing in the Information Age, and
- Assurance of affordable, managed, interoperable equipment and network connections which are reliable, expandable and secure.
Through effective deployment of this initiative, the following advantages will be gained for all Grande Prairians.
- Assurance of universal access and ability to contribute to global information exchange.
- Advantages of scale resulting from cooperative sharing of networking facilities and services between schools, libraries, hospitals, governments/agencies/institutions, businesses and individuals.
- Improved work force effectiveness resulting from a concentrated effort by educators to make global information exchange and collaboration fundamental parts of problem-solving discipline starting in the earliest grades, to provide significant enhancement of adult-learning opportunities, and to offer education to all citizens concerning their information technology rights and the new ways of thinking.
- Planned community growth resulting from encouragement of economic development and tourism.
- Improved management and operation of municipal government services:
- for collection of opinion, reaction and direction from the electorate,
- for distribution of information to the electorate, and
- for internal inter-departmental operations and planning, for internal interactive exchange of information between administrative and legislative levels, between and among teams and their members, between staff and management and for exchange of ideas and practices with other governments throughout the world.
As even a casual reading of the Information Technology literature will indicate, the Information Age is sweeping over us like a tidal wave. Tide waits for no man; and this is a revolutionary tide sweeping through economic and social life. It will touch us all, one way or the other. Its speed is much faster than previous revolutions we have read about or experienced. Because the competitive prizes will go to the swift and agile, we need to assist our electorate in every way, and make fundamental changes to the body of policy and regulation that will enable our citizens to best position themselves to exploit the opportunities this revolution will bring. Ultimately, the target of the CyberCity Initiative is to reach every residence, business, institution and office with an effective interactive electronic connection to the world, and to help every Grande Prairian acquire the know-how necessary to exploit it. To the degree that we succeed, it will deliver very significant benefits to Grande Prairie and the region, and substantially achieve our purposes.
The page introducing the CyberCity Initiative contains extensive further descriptive information and associated links.
A preliminary discussion paper outlines the origin, vision and goals of the initiative. A background paper provides extensive excerpts from and links to national information technology policy papers and proposes guiding principles and policy objectives. A mailing list and its archive contain both the detailed discussion and a summary of the significant milestones which have brought us to the present state of affairs. Related agencies/associations and resources are identified with ample links. Links to these and other related pages (including Grande Prairie information technology papers) may be found in the introduction to the CyberCity Initiative cited above. A further reading page with frequently asked questions and a suggested reading order is also available.
Current Project Status Postings contain selected postings which relate to significant milestones and the current status of the project. The archive of the CyberCity Mailing List contains a complete index of articles, the most recent of which may be seen in the current month's articles. Subscribers to the free CyberCity Mailing List keep abreast of all developments with mailings every several days.
The Grande Prairie City Manager's presentation October, 1999 at "Technology in Government Week" [cookies (cookie caution)]. It is billed as the world's largest forum focused on managing information and technology to improve government programs and operations. The presentation is entitled "CyberCity - Grande Prairie Goes Global in the Information Age" [more cookies (cookie caution)]. See also: PowerPoint slides (frames; tables; Java scripts; very heavy graphics; a set of PowerPoint slides from the City Manager's Office - automatically- generated web pages: graphic versions; ~50-525 Kb each; total is about 5 Mb).
Learning - Knowing how we learn and discovering how to learn the right stuff faster. See the article "Learning: The Critical Technology for Today," in the 1 April 1999 digest, and the article "Two Effective Ideas for Continuous Learning" in the 7 Oct 1999 digest. Both articles contain indices of links to related websites with links to resources on E- Learning, Self-directed Learning, Learning Organizations and Knowledge Management.
We welcome your mail and comments concerning this initiative.
