Talking Obama Tech Policy at Supernova Hub

I’m sitting here at Supernova Hub #sn10 at the Wharton School in Philadelphia and the first session is Supernova’s Policy Workshop focused on an Obama Administration Tech Policy Update.

Speakers-

• Beth Noveck- US Deputy CTO for the White House
• Danny Sepulveda- Office of Senetor Kerry
• Tom Power- NTIA

Q: (Kevin Werbach) How much more time do we have to go?

A: (Tom) We are  long way from solving the minimum goal of several megabits per household.

A: (Danny) With state matching funds we have been able to bring some service to some towns that never had it. A lot of the themes being invested in now will see benefits down the road.

Q: (John from the FCC) Many have said if you don’t give us the grants, we’ll get the money anyway, how is this changing things?

A: (Tom) This is goodness because it shows we’ve sparked interest beyond the handout

Q: (Wired) We thought the needle was going to change to the urgency, has this not occured or has the amount that we have spent changed momentum?

A: (Danny) The multi-year plan is to bring multiple wire to your household, and we had to lay out the predicates for it, and we have successfully. But we can’t build the plan out two years after the election, that’s not possible in any administration.

Q: (Bill Green, Philadelphia City Counselman) We can’t regulate in our borders because of a regulatory that was put in place when the world was differant. So I can’t say anything to Dish, Comcast, etc. Are you looking at this?

A: (Tom) The challenge for you is that this is your city and you have to look out for it, and the providers have the focus on rights of way. It’s a real dilema.

A: (Danny) We are trying to bring a new focus to a law that ws written in a different time

Q: (to Beth) What are the privacy options built into the network?

A: (Beth) There are policy instructions in place for reviewing data before it goes up online in data.gov. We don’t do this in real time. Policy about data transparency about educational content put up there was passed this week. But there is so much data that is not personal or private, not an issue of national security, that can go up and should be real time, but there is a long way to go.

- Randy Giusto

@randygiusto

#newdigitalcafe

randygiusto@newdigitalcafe.com

508-254-7975