Lev Gonick is the Founder, Chair Emeritus of OneCommunity and the CIO of Case Western Reserve University

Come and hear Lev describe OneCommunity which is an award-winning community wire and wireless network infrastructure and application portfolio organization. One Community is based in NorthEast Ohio and connect 22 counties with fiber infrastructure that is owned, operated, and maintained by a non-profit connecting 1,000,000 users in 1500 facilities, including schools, health care organizations, museums, libraries, public broadcasting, and government sectors. Today, One Community supports a national center of excellence in connected community building and is engaged in more than 25 cities around the United States.

Traditionally, the dominant modes of developing the broadband economy follow either government OR industry led approaches to building the broadband economy, OneCommunity offers a now well documented third-way. OneCommunity is a hybrid model that mediates industry and public sector investments through a non-profit-centric model. We focus on delivering connectivity (access) to support community priorities (especially, education, health, and 21st century workforce development). This presentation outlines One Communitie’s experience as being potentially relevant to the Ontario Digital Economy strategy development.