Technology

These technology projects display the wide variety of ways that regional organizations can assist local governments, such as using GIS for smart growth planning, and developing electronic forms to extend e-government practices. Each project expands the region’s potential for sustainable economic development.

Bringing cost-effective GIS to small, rural Georgia communities in Central Savannah River Area Regional Development’s (CSRA RDC) region was the motive behind their Regional Geographical Information Systems (GIS) Implementation project. CSRA RDC first contracted 400- scale aerial photography for a four-county area; then the digital parcel creation was contracted using the paper tax maps and new aerial photography. CSRA RDC provided each local government with third-tier, end-user GIS software, allowing them to add infrastructure and other seamless data sets. Regional implementation of this project kept contracting costs down.

North Bay Technology Roundtable, a project of California’s Sonoma County Economic Development Board, has brought together technology-related trade groups, education officials, and technology company leaders to enhance the county’s technology development prospects. Program partners, a diverse array of CEOs, education deans, and technology trade group representatives, worked together to develop a vision statement and implementation roles for program partners. The results, thus far, are the development of a B.S. and M.S. degree in Computer and Engineering Science at Sonoma State University, career fairs, and a workforce gap analysis.

The Middle Georgia Regional Development Center is facilitating smart growth strategies for the fast growing community of Warner Robins with the Warner Robins Growth Strategies Compact Disc (CD). The CD is a planning tool, which contains numerous GIS growth-related data layers useful for GIS analysis, loading external data and producing custom maps. Installation is not required and users can run the program on any laptop. The CD also contains pre-compiled maps, a map preview tool, Adobe Acrobat Reader, plot files and U.S. Geological Survey Digital Orthophoto Quarter Quad aerial photography.

The northern New Mexico GIS Based Web site (www.NMBizSites.com) was developed by the Regional Development Corporation and partners to retain, expand and attract businesses to the region. The Regional Development Corporation developed “BizSites,” a GIS-based Web site, to list and locate commercial property and offer printable tables, photos and maps. This site provides businesses with easy access to commercial property listings, economic, demographic and spatial data, useful for site selection and expansion decision-making. Support comes from the Department of Energy, University of California and Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Understanding that easy access to information is the difference between an efficient government and a slow bureaucracy, the Southeast Local Development Corporation of the Southeast Tennessee Development District created the Applied PDF Local Government Knowledgebases. The Portable Document Format (PDF) system helps local governments archive information for ease of retrieval and use. Many documents that formerly required printing are now electronically downloadable. A standard inexpensive off the shelf program can be used and storage can be accomplished using a CD-ROM.

A partnership between North Carolina’s KerrTar Regional Council of Governments, eight local senior centers and various public and private entities developed the Senior Web project to make computers, Internet and computer training available to a generation that, for the most part, has not yet been introduced to them. First, each senior center’s capacity for establishing a computer lab was evaluated. Then hardware and software sources were secured, followed by eight lab installations with over 60 new and used computers, at no cost to the senior centers.

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