There is a town in New Zealand called Napier and the local Makerspace called the MakePlace they explain that the reason why they are trying to kickstart the MakePlace is to grow a seed of opportunity in Napier. The area where the little town is in, has got so much potential to be such an invigorating place to live.
What they’d need to make that happen though is not only something that attracts people and makes their lives more awesome, but also something that people can stand behind as a united group to push the area in the same direction.
Something that fits those criteria perfectly is the Gigatown competition. It is a competition whereby Chorus will connect one city in New Zealand to a 1 gigabit broadband connection which will make it the fastest connected town in the Southern Hemisphere. A similar scheme was run in the US and a city called Chattanooga located in Tennessee won the honour.
From Stuff:
..gigabit-fibre had helped reverse a population drift of young talented people away to the nearby cities of Nashville and Atlanta, and create 6700 net new jobs.
“Chattanooga is a beautiful place; people like to visit, but it has been a place where for a long time we have been losing our most talented young people to other communities around the world.
“For the first time in 100 years we have the opposite problem of more talent coming into the city than we know what to do with.”
Does that not sound like a perfect opportunity for little old Napier?
And it is not just the fast broadband connection, but more the opportunity to work together to a common goal. The area of Hawkes Bay is far too fragmented. And where you have this fragmentation, there is no unity. Where there is no unity, there is no progress or development but stagnation.
Let’s all get behind this and once the competition starts of on October 28th let’s make as much noise as possible to make sure that Napier gets noticed and is in the running to become a GigaTown!
Check out the Gigatown Napier Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/gigatown
First in many gatherings is happening October 31st and is held at the co-op space at 50a Ossian Street in Ahuriri. RSVP here: https://www.facebook.com/events/603924353004121/
#gigatownnapier #gigatownnap
So you have a question.. 