What is Smart Valley?
Smart Valley was first conceived in 1992 when Silicon Valley’s economy was in recession. The defense sector was losing jobs rapidly, and the semiconductor industry was battling fierce competition from Asia. A few business and community leaders believed something called the Internet was going to “change the way we worked, lived, and learned.” A team of business executives led by John Young, recently retired CEO of Hewlett-Packard, created a series of projects with the goal of making Silicon Valley the first in the world to capitalize on the then-emerging information infrastructure.
- The Smart Schools project coordinated 15,000 volunteers to help wire classrooms. Smart Valley arranged the donation of over 1,000 new computers, and helped create teacher training programs.
- CommerceNet demonstrated how to do business on-line. (One of its first employees was Mark Andreeson, the inventor of Mosaic and founder of Netscape).
- Smart Permitting brought 17 cities together to put the building permit process onto the Internet.
- And Smart Voter, now managed by the California League of Women Voters, connected voters to information on local elections.
Smart Valley sunsetted in 1998 when the strong economy was carrying the Internet into every school, business and home.
Silicon Valley is changing again
Today, Silicon Valley’s economy is going through another transformation. The region has lost over 190,000 jobs since 2000, many of them in software, computing and communications. The global economy is forcing local industries to restructure as some service and software jobs move overseas, and new opportunities are emerging that take advantage of the global Internet. Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network assembled the Regional Economic Strategy Leadership Team to develop a new strategy. The team developed four new action initiatives:
- Rebuild California’s Fiscal Foundation
- Speed the Convergence of Biotech, Nanotech and Information Technology
- Understand Silicon Valley’s Role in Global Knowledge Networks
- Restart Smart Valley to Broaden the Use of Technology in Everyday Lives
The new need for Smart Valley
Participants in the Next Silicon Valley program expressed frustration that Silicon Valley is not using the technologies it invented to improve the quality of life for residents. Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is now widely deployed in industry, but we have not seen dramatic changes in how many everyday services are being provided. Healthcare records are still tied up in paper files. Government procedures still require stacks of paper forms. Social service agencies still rely on cast-off computers and outdated software.
Silicon Valley’s communications infrastructure is not keeping up with other parts of the nation and the world. South Korea leads the world in broadband access and San Diego is the best connected of all the major urban centers in the United States. DSL and cable modem services are still not available in parts of San Jose.
A new set of projects
Smart Valley will focus on four critical areas for applications: healthcare, education, community, and government. Smart Valley will also press for more rapid deployment of next generation communications technologies in Silicon Valley.
In healthcare, Smart Valley is partnering with local healthcare providers, insurance companies, employers and others to develop a set of innovative technologies that will facilitate access to medical records, including images and lab test results, by both patients and their doctors. The goal is to provide timely, comprehensive medical information in a secure, reliable, and easily accessible format, thus improving patients’ ability to receive timely, accurate and personalized treatment no matter if they are being treated by their primary care physician or by the staff in a hospital emergency room. Several medical institutions in Silicon Valley have expressed a strong interest in joining a pilot implementation.
In education, Smart Valley is pursuing creating a pervasive wireless environment on the campuses of our community colleges. The idea is to develop a truly mobile information environment. The results of doing this will not only provide significant cost savings, since the cost of wiring a campus is high, but will increase student access to information and research, reduce space limitations of classrooms, increase administrative efficiencies, and enrich student activities. In 2003 the Higher Education Wireless Access Consortium reported that, “while nearly two-thirds of the colleges and universities in the U.S. indicate they are either underway with or have a strategic plan to implement a wireless computing network, only 10% have installed one.” This project will provide Silicon Valley companies with opportunities to demonstrate their latest high-speed wireless technologies.
Smart Valley will also advocate for rapid deployment of next generation communications infrastructure in our business districts and neighborhoods. The Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) has put out a call for one gigabit connectivity throughout California by 2010. According to a study by Gartner Consulting, the benefits would include the addition of 2 million jobs and $367 billion to California’s economy. Silicon Valley should be the first region in California, if not the world, to achieve pervasive, affordable access to one gigabit networks.
Smart Valley’s Role
As with the first Smart Valley, Smart Valley’s role will be as an honest broker. It will,
- Catalyze and facilitate worthwhile projects. Smart Valley will select projects that have high impact, transformative potential, and benefits that are clearly evident and easy to understand by the general community.
- Educate the Community. Smart Valley will provide opportunities for educating the community to use and leverage ICT enabled community infrastructures and services. Smart Valley will conduct open forums to discuss the issues, publishable studies, and documentation on the Smart Valley efforts for replication in other communities.
- Select and solicit partners. Smart Valley will act as a convener of individuals and organizations that both drive and benefit from the work of the Smart Valley projects. Partners will work together to create standards and influence policies as appropriate, and will ensure that the work of Smart Valley is a community-wide effort.
- Secure highly leveraged funding and in-kind resources. As an honest broker, Smart Valley will serve as an intermediary, soliciting and distributing resources as appropriate to fulfill the needs of the projects.
- Ensure long-term project success. Smart Valley will provide appropriate expertise and guidance to ensure the long-term success and sustainability of the projects, providing help with such things as business planning, strategic technology planning, and other assistance as needed.
Smart Valley will make a difference in everyday lives
The goal of Smart Valley is to help Silicon Valley be a thriving, livable community that attracts and supports innovative businesses and skilled knowledge workers. Smart Valley will:
- Contribute to the quality of life for residents by making many services more cost effective and convenient.
- Help reduce the cost of doing business by championing e-government and e-commerce projects.
- Provide software, computing, and communications businesses with a proving ground for their latest technologies.
- Provide project participants with a better understanding of the market through real world deployment.
- Make Silicon Valley more attractive to ICT companies and to skilled knowledge workers.
- Launch a generation of kids who can not imagine living without gigabit connectivity.
Board
Leadership of Smart Valley will be provided by an executive board consisting of business executives and community leaders from Silicon Valley. Individual projects will be led by advisory committees consisting of project participants and leaders from the appropriate sectors of the community. Day to day operations, staff and support will be managed by the Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network.
Click here for the complete list of Board Members.
Funding
Membership fees allow Smart Valley to provide project development, coordination and management services. Direct project costs are covered by project-specific donations, grants, loaned executives, and in-kind equipment and services donations. Smart Valley welcomes both corporate and individual donations.
Getting involved
Smart Valley is a critical step in helping Silicon Valley lead the next wave of the ICT revolution. It will require the involvement and support of the entire Silicon Valley business community and the community at-large.
To support Smart Valley, become a partner, suggest a project, or to get involved in the formation stage of the initiative, contact Seth Fearey at Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network, or 408-938-1511
Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network
84 W. Santa Clara St., Suite 440
San Jose, CA 95113
(408) 271-7213