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Broadband 2035

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Technically Philly and Plan Philly joined forces to report on the status of the city’s broadband adoption and tie it to the city’s issuance of a citywide master plan. The biggest contribution of the project, to date, has been to actively solicit reader recommendations on the conditions of the city’s broadband infrastructure and on city residents’ hopes for the future.

Philadelphia Enterprise Reporting Awards - Broadband 2035 (Plan Philly)

The project used that input to craft a list of wants-and-needs bullet points and provided it to the city’s Planning Commission. Some of that language was directly added to the proposals put forth by city officials in their comprehensive Philadelphia2035 strategic plan, issued in May.

“The partnership between Plan Philly and Technically Philly proved powerful in two regards,” said Brian James Kirk, who co-founded Technically Philly and also now works as Plan Philly’s web editor.

“It created a broader audience (15,000 at Technically Philly and 25,000 at Plan Philly) to publish to. Second, it created the opportunity for each niche community to be enlightened on important issues in related sectors. We saw interest from folks in the planning community who hadn’t originally seen the immediate value of technology’s role in the comprehensive plan. At the same time, our technical readers at Technically Philly were made aware of the Philadelphia 2035 [master plan] and the opportunity to include technology in that future outlook.”

“The partnership between Plan Philly and Technically Philly proved powerful in two regards. It created a broader audience (15,000 at Technically Philly and 25,000 at Plan Philly) to publish to. Second, it created the opportunity for each niche community to be enlightened on important issues in related sectors.”

– Brian James Kirk, co-founder of Technically Philly

Project partners have been invited to be on a committee to help guide a city broadband plan along with the city’s Planning Commission and Division of Technology. “We’re doing our best to use our expertise to guide the process as publishers,” Kirk said.

Philadelphia Enterprise Reporting Awards - Broadband 2035 (Technically Philly)Having released a citywide plan, next up for the city are district plans at the neighborhood level. The first two neighborhood meetings were in September and the project now plans to do some in-depth reporting in those two neighborhoods – The West Park District (Parkside, Overbrook), and the Lower South District (Navy Yard, Packer Park), where broadband adoption rates are particularly low.

Kirk said the collaboration helped each partner. “TP’s freelancer was able to garner leads from conversations with PP’s editor. And PP’s ongoing and regular coverage of the Planning Commission kept TP in the loop about developments around … a section of the comprehensive plan dedicated to information technology and network infrastructure.”

Technically Philly worked directly with a freelance reporter to plan topics. Line editing has been completed by Plan Philly’s managing editor. Publishing is done on both websites with Technically Philly focused on shorter stories and dialogue-driven content. The project used a map created by Temple University of broadband penetration throughout the city.

For the fall, the project is creating an interactive map of broadband adoption aimed at helping city residents locate public computer centers. The map, to launch in December, will overlay Temple’s data, information from 17 city broadband partners, and additional data collected via Technically Philly with a web-based service and complimentary text messaging service. Project leaders are talking with city officials about how to maintain the map and get the word out. “We hope the map can be used to help Philadelphia broad- band stakeholder organizations strategize around future adoption efforts,” Kirk said.

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