Lexington, KY - After being lauded as a model for the United States in President Barack Obama's stimulus plan, the head of the program that has given 95 percent of Kentuckians access to high speed Internet has been asked to advise Malaysian Prime Minister Dato' Sri Mohd Najib bin Tun Abdul Razak.
Brian Mefford is chairman and CEO of Connected Nation, which grew out of ConnectKentucky, a program established in 2002 by the non-profit Center for Information Technology Enterprises to give people across the commonwealth the ability to connect to Web on more than just dial-up. The Malaysian prime minister invited Mefford to take part in the Southeast Asian country's 12th International Advisory Panel Meeting in early November.
Along with the likes of Steve Forbes; IBM's chairman and CEO Samuel J. Palmisano; a Microsoft corporate vice president; John Gage, a Sun Microsystems co-founder; a Nobel Laureate and others, Mefford advised Malaysian leaders in a series of meetings titled "Innovation Economy: Paving The Path To Prosperity."
"Like most states (in the United States), they've done a reasonable job of making infrastructure available in most of the populous areas, so now they have a two-pronged challenge: they've got to improve the number of people using the available infrastructure where it is already built out, and they've got to get the infrastructure built out into rural areas," Mefford said after returning from the conference.
Mefford said about a quarter of Malaysians are using broadband, in contrast to numbers in the United States and Kentucky that average above 60 percent.
"Much has been done to transform Malaysia's economy to a knowledge-based economy, but they are looking to ensure that all people are able to participate," Mefford told Business Lexington in an e-mail from Putrajaya, the Malaysian administrative capital, just south of Kuala Lumpur, during the conference. "The key to that is to ensure that all people have access to broadband and computers, and that they know how to use broadband-enabled technology once it's available. The work of ConnectKentucky and the extension of that success to other states through Connected Nation's inclusion in the federal stimulus is serving as a model for reaching rural areas and other underserved segments in creative ways."
Creative ways, he said, include finding an advantageous niche for a local area in terms of Internet use. In Kentucky, for example, the Web's use in artisan-heavy Berea and Paducah is different than it is in more agriculture-based communities.
"The types of applications and types of uses of the technology are going to be pretty different," Mefford said. "Education and health care tend to provide a commonality among communities, but beyond those, it is important we find those threads of high relevance at the community level, the local level, if we're going to really have a big impact on the number of people using technology."
Though areas like Kuala Lumpur are shining examples of a booming 21st century Asian economy, the nation struggles to connect its outer-reaches to the information infrastructure that has made Southeast Asia a hotbed for commerce.
"There is no connectivity in much of the rural areas, but there are aggressive plans for nationwide wireless broadband over the next two years," Mefford said in his e-mail.
Those plans were illuminated during the conference. "They want to have a nationwide wireless broadband footprint in place by the end of next year, and while I was over there, they announced a partnership with the companies that are going to make it happen. That involves companies like Cisco and Clearwire that are U.S.-based. It's a huge plan to invest in infrastructure over the next several months. On the demand side, they have set a goal to double the number of people online by the end of next year," he said.
Mefford said his trip abroad was about more than just advising. He also looked to bring back ideas that can be used by Connected Nation, which is currently working in more than 20 states, thanks to funds from the Gates Foundation and inclusion in the stimulus act.
"There is strong interest in having Connected Nation establish a global center of excellence for digital inclusion in Malaysia. This will coincide perfectly with Malaysia's aggressive plan to accelerate technology opportunities for all people, regardless of their location or socioeconomic status, which is the core value held by ConnectKentucky and Connected Nation," he said by e-mail.
The fact that this model began in a state with such a rural landscape and no technology Mecca is what attracted the Malaysians to Connected Nation, Mefford said.
"I was told if we had started in California, there would have been a lot less interest in us coming to speak as experts, because if someone stands up and says we connected a state like California or a state that is better known for technology and urban, metropolitan spaces, that's a different kind of value proposition. The challenges they face as a very rural country are similar to what we faced over the last several years."