Empowerment Zones and the NII

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

Greetings!


My name is Tom Kalil, and I'm with the White House National Economic Council.


On Monday (Martin Luther King Day), the President and Vice President will
unveil the application process for the Empowerment Zone/Enterprise Community
initiative.


After information on the initiative is on the Internet, I would like to know
whether this mailing list would be willing to "brainstorm" on what role
the NII could play in promoting the goals of the initiative.  The Vice President
has stated his interest in exploring this issue.  After some period of time, the
list could provide the Administration with an archive of the discussion and
a summary of the points made.


Let me try to anticipate some questions that you might have.


Q 1.  What kinds of NII applications do you have in mind?


I'm not an expert in community development, so the answer is, I don't know.
But ...


Different empowerment zones could exchange information on their goals for
community and economic revitalization.  The gov't could streamline the
applications process using EDI.  Communities could use "civic networks" to
make the process of planning and implementing community revitalization a
more democratic one.  Education and training programs could take advantage
of the Internet or video servers. Local governments could use information
technology to deliver services more efficiently ...


Inspiring examples and pointers to people, information, resources would
also be helpful.  Potential roles for grassroots organizations, gov't at
all levels, private sector, and just plain folks would be helpful.


Q. 2. When will information on the initiative and application be available?


As soon as Jock Gill, our Internet maven in the Office of Media Affairs, gets
the disk!  Jock or I will post the ftp sites as soon as possible, (Although
people may be on vacation tomorrow -- and I'm not sure whether all the
documents are in one place.  :-(


Q. 3.  Are the Internet and the NII the same thing?


Good question.  The NII is not a monolithic thing.  We define it as
a "network of networks", information appliances that hook up to the network,
information services and databases that are accessible over the network,
and the skills/human resources necessary to use the network.


The Internet is an important element of the NII - and, IMHO, will become
more so.  But the Internet does not = the NII.  Clearly, a video server
linked to homes and businesses through a fiber-coax network is part of the
NII, but not part of the Internet (although some bandwidth might be used
to carry TCP/IP  packets).


I think the Internet is important not only because it is growing and
evolving so rapidly (20 million users, 10 terabytes of networked information,
new tools such as Mosaic, the MBONE) -- but because it enables "many to
many" communication and allows everyone to be producers as well as consumers
of information.


Q. 4. How do I know anyone will read and take seriously our proposals?


I will personally commit to providing a summary of any ensuing discussion
to the relevant people in the Administration.


Q. 5.  I'm a libertarian, and I think your whole world-view is fatally
flawed.


I expect that not everyone will be interested in participating, and that
some people will choose to disagree with the Administration on first
principles.  [This was certainly my experience when I went to the Hackers'
Conference.]


Q. 6.  I agree with the general idea, but it ought to be done in a different
way (e.g. some other mailing list).


I defer to the collective wisdom of the group on the means.


Q. 7. If you work at the White House, why do you have an ARPA address?


Despite valiant efforts our own MIS department is still wrestling with
the necessary "plans, policies, and procedures" to provide Internet access.
But they have a great mainframe.  8)


What would you do?


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Thomas Kalil                                      "The NII - just do it!"
tkalil () arpa mil
National Economic Council
The White House
Washington DC 20500
(p) 202-456-2801
(f) 202-456-2223


"Your taxpayer dollars at work."
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