April 20, 2011
Wally Bowen Presents a special presentation with a focus for the green community on Chapter 12 of the National Broadband Plan entitled “Energy and the Environment.” With community broadband infrastructure, Western North Carolina will have the freedom to innovate at the grassroots level vis-à-vis the “smart grid.” Mr. Bowen, executive director at MAIN believes we are about to enter a new world for grassroots innovation and collaboration around energy, media and the environment. This evening will celebrate his accomplishments and inform our community on how bridging the digital divide will help green economic development and social justice.
http://www.broadband.gov/issues/energy-and-the-environment.html
“Imagine a world where our youth here in WNC are able to create apps tailored to their individual home, neighborhood, community, region…and beyond.”
MARK NEW TIMES: Socializing at 5:30 PM and Programming Starts at 6:00 PM .
MARK DIFFERENT LOCATION:7 Star Factory, 191 Lyman Street, Suite 101 Asheville, NC 28801 (old candle factory/city bakery at Riverview Terrace 191 Lyman Suite 101, Asheville NC 28801 (directions) (Star Factory is the Old Candle Factory – South End of the massive brick River Terrace Building on Lyman right on the east side of South French Broad River, Suite 101 is the last Red Door, near concrete loading ramp next to the antique store. We are between Twelve Bones at the River Arts District and the Amboy Road “T” at Meadow/Lyman. Look for colored stick figure metal statues of a family at roads edge turn into gravel parking lot)
BROADBAND EXPERT TO SPEAK AT ASHEVILLE GREEN DRINKS
Asheville, NC 20 April, 2011
A little-known chapter of the National Broadband Plan entitled “Energy and the Environment” opens the door to a future of unprecedented grassroots innovation around “green energy” and “green jobs.”
But in the year since the NBP’s publication, industry lobbyists in Washington have quietly begun closing that door, with the environmental community none the wiser.
On April 20 at Asheville Green Drinks, Wally Bowen of the Mountain Area Information Network (MAIN) will discuss how the environmental
community can help preserve the freedom of “green” activists and entrepreneurs to innovate and organize at the grassroots.
Typically Green Drinks is at Posana Café’, however this special broadband event will be at the River Arts District’s Star Factory at 191 Lyman Suite 101 The event begins at 5:30 p.m and refreshments will be provided.
“Smart-grid technologies are already being deployed,” said Bowen, “but no one is asking whether or not the smart-grid will only serve the interests of Wall Street or be open for business on Main Street.”
Just returned from an April 9 talk at the National Conference on Media Reform in Boston, Bowen will discuss the critical role that broadband policy plays in empowering, or limiting, grassroots planning and innovation for sustainable communities.
The long-time community activist founded MAIN in 1995, and it remains one of the nation’s longest-surviving nonprofit ISPs. Bowen
also led the local effort to secure public, education, and government access (PEG) channels in the city and county cable franchise negotiations between 1996 and 2000. He then lead a statewide effort to preserve PEG funding when the state legislature removed local government authority over video franchises in 2006.
Bowen is also a long-time advocate for liberating the public airways from decades of corporate control, and he was instrumental in
passage of federal laws to license low-power FM radio to community-based nonprofits. MAIN was awarded an LPFM license in 2002 and launched MAIN-FM 103.5 the next year.
He also led a successful nationwide effort in 2008 to rally rural citizens and organizations to pressure the FCC to open up vacant TV channels – the so-called “white spaces” – for faster broadband services, or “wi-fi on steroids.” MAIN launched its wireless broadband service in 2003 and remains the only nonprofit wireless ISP in the Asheville area.
Typically Asheville Green Drinks is held at Posana Café, however this event will held at 191 Lyman Suite 101, Asheville NC 28801
For more information contact Joseph B. Malki at 828.216.5769
For interviews on the subject contact Wally Bowen at wallyb@main.nc.us
Visit www.AshevilleGreenDrinks.com
