Saturday, December 12, 2015

Exploring Regional Broadband for North Louisiana

Exploring Regional Broadband for North Louisiana

Date:    December 19, 2015         

Time:   10am 

Place:   CoHab, 500 Clyde Fant Pkwy #200, Shreveport, LA 71101

The Louisiana Coalition for Broadband Now, CoHab and State Representative Elect Cedric Glover will sponsor a three session event to discuss the benefits of community broadband fiber networks for north Louisiana. Communities across America have sought to attract, partner for, or develop their own fiber networks, and a rapidly growing number of public and private service providers have 
embraced gigabit connectivity as the minimum standard for next-generation 
networks.

Session 1: Focus on the enhanced education and economic potential of 
fiber communities- It’s working - There are many paths to fiber to the home 
deployment for a communities. Michael Harold and Keith Hanson will discuss the 
economic and educational potential of fiber communities and how they will effect 
potential growth in north Louisiana. 

Session 2: The current regulatory environment in Louisiana -led by Tom 
Arceneaux; providing an overview of the legal environment faced by community 
driven broadband fiber initiatives. 

Session 3: Keynote speaker Mayor Joey Durel from Lafayette Louisiana Mayor Durel of Lafayette Louisiana will be speaking on how he made broadband a reality in the heart of Cajun Country resulting in reliable and affordable broadband services to its citizens. 

Chit and Chat: Light refreshments will be provided.

Keynote Speaker Mayor Joey Durel- Elected in 2003, he became only the second Republican mayor of his city and the second person elected as "City-Parish president" of the combined City of Lafayette and Lafayette Parish government. Self described as a “progressive” Republican; Mayor Durel led his city to positive impact by building an ultra-fast broadband network responsible in part to Lafayette’s growing economy. The success of the LUS Fiber system is reason businesses continue to choose Lafayette. Four high-tech companies have recently announced bringing a total of 1100 direct new jobs to their community with total new wages exceeding $65 million per year. Mayor Durel will be sharing how he led Lafayette to create their own fiber system.


Panelists include:

Tom Arceneaux- Practicing law for over 35 years, Mr. Arceneaux  has run the 
gamut of the law practice experience, from United States District Court law clerk 
to associate at a large Houston law firm (Vinson & Elkins) to small partnership 
practice to in-house counsel to solo practice. His practice is primarily commercial 
law, with emphasis on commercial transactions and commercial litigation, but he 
also has a substantial practice in state and local government law. From 1982-
1990, Tom served as a member of the Shreveport City Council, including holding
office as Chairman and Vice Chairman of that body. 

Michael Harold-Systems architect and inventor in five global markets: Enterprise Application Integration (EAI), Last-mile Computing, Cloud Computing, Enterprise Information Archiving (EIA) and the Mobile Internet of Things. Founder of four technology startups. Inventor with patents and patents pending in encryption, compression, last mile computing, cloud computing and mobile computing. Michael is the founder of Little Big which uses smart phones to control and communicate with out-of-home digital signage applications.

Keith Hanson-  Cofounder, CEO and developer of Twin Engine Labs, a software engineering firm that specializes in turning “blue sky” entrepreneurial ideas into profitable products. Specialties include, Mobile Monetization, Ideation, Resource Management, Mobile API, and Scalable Server Architectures. win Engine Labs has also worked with brands large and small, working with Cisco Networks, American Songwriter Magazine, Symantec, and many others. Keith fosters a quickly growing local alliance of technology companies and has been recognized with the Rising Star of the Year award by the Governor of Louisiana. 

Moderator
Cedric Glover: - Two term former Shreveport Mayor and State Representative Elect jumped started the region's cultural economy by building in Ledbetter Heights the $14 million Millennium Studios and Worldwide FX complex, initiating the Central ArtStation, the LA Film Prize, laying out the vision for the Shreveport Common and securing city ownership and control of the previously failed Red River District.  As a staffing industry professional, Cedric understands the benefit of providing opportunity to thousands of our youth in the Mayor's Summer Jobs and Internships initiative. Representative Elect Glover is known for his technology savoir-faire, communicating with citizens over Twitter and other social media, making himself available to the public.

Media on Lafayette, Louisiana’s fiber system 
Bill Moyer – “Bringing High Speed Internet to Cajun Country


**Attendees will be eligible for a free drawing for gift cards for Star Wars- The Force Awakens**

For more information please contact:
Deborah Allen- Louisiana Coalition for Broadband Now-
lacobroadnow@gmail.com

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