Originally known simply as “Peak XV,” Mount Everest, at 29,035 feet, offers views from the highest point on earth. In this blog, our leadership team brings you up-to-date and relevant perspectives on industry happenings, what’s in the media and executive insights. Read on, and enjoy the view from the top.

Sunday, September 9, 2007

The New Tune of Digital Harmony

Usually around this time of year the sound heard all over Florida is either that of storm winds blowing or stadiums filled with football fans. Thankfully our "climate challenged" season has been mostly fair weather thus far and in every part of the state football season is well underway.

If you listen closely what you can hear is a new sound in the sunshine state, no not the legislature convening another session, but rather the sweet sounds of progress in the form of innovation and digital harmony. For me the sound became crystal clear at a recent summit, "Imagining an Innovative Economy" organized and facilitated by the Florida Chamber Foundation and held in Orlando, but that sound really got started with the launch of the Digital Harmony project in Tallahassee a few weeks earlier.

Digital Harmony is an innovation initiative in Tallahassee where every sixth grader at Nims Middle School has received a Dell laptop loaded with school related software for the student's use during the entire year, at school and in their homes. The project was lead by Tallahassee City Commissioner, Andrew Gillum, who enlisted the help of the Tallahassee Technology Alliance and Comcast to make this a reality for the Nims sixth graders. Comcast donated and installed cable modems in each student's home and is providing Internet access at no charge, while leaders from the Tallahassee Technology Alliance helped load and install software on all the laptops. What makes this special is that Nims Middle School, located in Tallahassee' s southern sector, received an F rating last year, but under the new principal, Kay Collins, the schools has vowed to become an A rated school by year-end. The transformation of this school and this section of the community has to begin with innovative and positive life changing projects like Digital Harmony.

While attending the Florida Chamber Foundation's Summit on an Innovative Economy, several of the speakers echoed the need for projects like Digital Harmony. The meeting was a gathering of the who's who of innovation with leaders from IT, life sciences, state government, business and higher education. Florida's former Lt. Governor, Toni Jennings, set the tone and the challenge for Florida to work as a successful enterprise when it comes to collaborative innovation. Jennings said that fostering economic development of jobs is important, but we must make the early investment in human capital - our students and prepare them for jobs.

The advent of corporate digital harmony was evident at the meeting with the CEOs of Torrey Pines Institute, Scripps Florida, Burnham Institute and SRI all sharing the same stage and calling for the need of a strong workforce with skilled and educated talent from the state. What was interesting to note was that several speakers said Florida's brain drain and talent drop off begins in our state's middle schools.

To hear the united voices of our state's top leadership in innovation, education and business imploring the audience to invest in the best education and engagement of our students, not at their college graduation, but rather in middle school, made me begin to hear the tune of Digital Harmony with much more clarity. What really sounds good and would be innovative would be for all sectors of Florida's economy to each play their part, becoming a fine tuned instrument for Florida's future symphony of Digital Harmony - in the classrooms and as a world-class economic enterprise. A united effort for an innovative economy in Florida maybe tuning up right now, but it sounds like a masterpiece in the making.

No comments: