Santa Monica Joins Next Century Cities As Inaugural Partner:

The City of Santa Monica has joined the launch of Next Century Cities, a bipartisan, city-to-city initiative dedicated to ensuring the availability of next-generation broadband Internet for all communities.

The national initiative held their inaugural event in Santa Monica, and featured a prestigious panel of telecommunications trailblazers from around the country.

“Santa Monica is proud to be one of the inaugural municipalities to join Next Century Cities. As the first city in the United States to have a 100 gigabit network, our leadership role makes being a part of this initiative a logical choice.

Through this collaborative network of cities we are able to share accomplishments, as well as learn from each other to stimulate innovation,” said Jory Wolf, Chief Information Officer for the City of Santa Moncia.

Deb Socia, Executive Director of Next Century Cities, said across the country, they were seeing cities hungry to deploy high-speed Internet to transform communities and connect residents to better jobs, better health care, and better education for their children.

“Santa Monica is joining with other leading cities across the country to roll up their sleeves and get the job done,” Socia said. “Next Century Cities is committed to celebrating these successes, demonstrating their value, and helping other cities to realize the full power of truly high-speed, affordable, and accessible broadband.”

Next Century Cities is a new initiative of 31 cities nationwide joining together to recognize the importance of leveraging gigabit-level Internet to attract new businesses and create jobs, improve health care and education, and connect residents to new opportunities.

Together with the City of Santa Monica, Next Century Cities will support communities and their elected leaders, including mayors and other officials, as they seek to ensure that all have access to fast, affordable, and reliable Internet.

Participating cities will work with each other to learn about what works – and what doesn’t – so that every community has access to information that can help them succeed. Cities will also work together to raise awareness of this important issue to all Americans.

The launch of Next Century Cities, held at a dynamic coworking space for Santa Monica’s technology companies, convened mayors and other leaders from cities, including Palo Alto, Chattanooga, Kansas City, and others for a cross-cutting discussion of what’s worked in their cities and how to expand fast and reliable Internet nationwide.

For more information on Next Century Cities, visit www.nextcenturycities.org.

Next Century Cities: Inaugural Partner Cities

–Ammon, ID

–Auburn, IN

–Austin, TX

–Boston, MA

— Centennial, CO

— Champaign, IL

–Chattanooga, TN

— Clarksville, TN

— Jackson, TN

— Kansas City, KS