Delivered July 14, 2015 This content is archived.
Good afternoon!
It’s a great pleasure to join with all of you for today’s grand opening.
With today’s launch of the free Buffalo Connect Wi-Fi we mark the beginning of a new era of connectivity and opportunity in our city. The University at Buffalo is proud to be a partner in the development of this regional fiber network for our great city.
I want to take a moment to thank Mayor Byron Brown, Robert Wilmers, and all of our partners in this effort, including:
In addition to educating future generations to be the leaders of tomorrow, our university’s mission is to serve and enrich our broader communities. UB is very pleased to play a part in providing what has become a vital service for a 21st century community by contributing our expertise in the design and management of our regional fiber network.
And these successful partnerships among municipalities, universities, and businesses, to build and improve upon public infrastructure are becoming more and more common. Indeed, a similar collaboration in Chicago will install a network of 500 sensors citywide to study many urban factors including air quality, pedestrian flow, and traffic.
And the city of Glasgow, Scotland, is creating an entire ecosystem of data providers. The city is utilizing information from a similar project to provide data from retail and street traffic patterns to finding open parking spaces at public garages.
For our project here in Buffalo I am also proud to note students from UB’s Department of Art and School of Engineering worked on some of the content for this project as well as several designs for a Buffalo Connect logo—including the one you see today. In addition to this, our Art students have worked closely with M&T on re-designing the Buffalo Connect web site which will also re-launch soon. I understand one of those UB students is also an intern here at M&T.
So, you see, there are so many connections within our own community. And so many opportunities to take projects like this one, and make them a learning experience for our students. Our students are learning that they can already make an impact on their community. The contributions of our students, and many other members of our UB community, in the expansion of these Wi-Fi capabilities will better serve the people in Buffalo’s downtown corridor each day. And I am proud that UB is a part of the effort to make this network a reality.
Thank you again to Mayor Brown, Robert Wilmers, and all of our partners in this effort. And I plan to have my phone find and connect to this service as soon as possible!
