The Cleveland Foundation's fourth discussion Monday is sold-out with nearly 300 people expected to attend the "How to Build a Digital Economy in Cleveland" event at the City Club. Dubbed "Fred Talks," the events focus on Cleveland Foundation founder Frederick Harris Goff's legacy of inviting community members to learn, engage with one another, and champion new ideas in conversations with local and national thought leaders.
CLEVELAND, Ohio - The Cleveland Foundation's fourth round-table discussion today is sold-out with nearly 300 people expected to attend the "How to Build a Digital Economy in Cleveland" event at the City Club.
Dubbed "Fred Talks," the events focus on Cleveland Foundation founder Frederick Harris Goff's legacy of inviting community members to learn, engage with one another, and champion new ideas in conversations with local and national thought leaders.
Each event features a panel discussion followed by a question-and-answer session.
"How to Build a Digital Economy in Cleveland" is expected to explore the challenges and opportunities to develop a strong information and communications technology (IT) ecosystem in Greater Cleveland as an engine for economic and resident growth.
"We're moving towards a knowledge-based economy, even in manufacturing - and we have some tremendous assets here, that we're not leveraging enough," said City Club CEO Dan Moulthrop.
"Chief among them is the OneCommunity Fiber network which rivals every Google fiber network in the country. On top of that we have tremendous talent in software development and other related fields, but we're not yet knitting all of that together in a strong ecosystem ... That's what we're going to be talking about today."
Panelists include:
- Deb Socia, executive director of Next Century Cities
- Lev Gonick, co-founder and chief executive officer of OneCommunity
- Shilpa Kedar, program director for economic development at the Cleveland Foundation.
Previous Fred Talks have focused on public education, artists as educators and connecting senior citizens with opportunities in efforts to leverage their skills with organizations.