To: The Honorable Sarah Palin
Governor of Alaska
Cc: Emil Notti, Mark Davis, Bill Allen, Julie Kitka,
Nelson Angapak, SR,
From: Frank Odasz, Lone Eagle Consulting
Date: February 5, 2007
RE: Alaska has a major untapped alternative energy
resource that requires
your immediate attention.
At considerable cost during the past decade, Alaska has been aggressively investing in rural broadband access for its remote villages and rural communities while promoting the ideal economic, social, and cultural benefits.
The attached short proposal to “Establish an Alaskan Rural Ecommerce Support Network” presents a recommended first step toward tapping this huge untapped reserve of Alaskan ingenuity by recognizing, celebrating, and sharing broadly existing successes.
Ethically speaking, why has there been no assessment of whether Alaskans have received appropriate training, and are benefiting as promised? Community-wide Internet learning programs have yet to be created.
Fran Ulmer, director of the Institute for Social and
Economic Research, has stated that ISER would need to be formally requested by
Alaskan leadership to research the degree of social, cultural, and economic
benefits related to existing rural broadband in Alaska.
In a recent conversation she stated this would be a great idea.
Building social and cultural capacity through community
Internet learning programs to create healthy villages is an inherent part of
building sustainable economic capacity.
Alaskan Healthy Villages at
http://lone-eagles.com/healthyvillage.htm
Please acknowledge Alaska’s opportunity for Mining Raw Human Potential by creating a world-class educational system capable of generating social, cultural, and economic broadband applications for all citizens to sustain Alaskan Healthy villages.
Sharing best practices and world-class expertise,
Frank Odasz
Attached: Establishing an Alaskan Rural Ecommerce Support Network
Rural Ecommerce Resources for Alaskans
Establishing an Alaskan Rural Ecommerce Support Network
Alaska can benefit from gathering and sharing ecommerce innovations from our own rural grassroots champions as well as from those found elsewhere. Though yet unrecognized, many Alaskans have already demonstrated outstanding innovations and economic successes which the Internet makes potentially available for all Alaskans, if provided the appropriate education.
Alaska’s economic development leaders are invited to consider creation of a Rural Ecommerce Support Network which would begin with a Rural Ecommerce Champions Award Program to celebrate Alaska’s early adapters’ Ecommerce successes. An online Resources Clearinghouse would quickly evolve showcasing short video success stories, self-training online lessons, and a peer-mentoring program to establish a convenient means for Alaskans to share successful strategies and learn new skills.
Despite Ecommerce success stories existing in many communities, most rural Alaskans
have not yet had the opportunity to learn how to tap into their own potential uses for existing broadband. Neighbors with Internet skills who are willing to assist those who need such skills exist in many communities - if we can get help make these connections.
Extensive self-training Alaska-specific resources, including extensive resources created for Native Americans, are already online; for those who are already self-directed learners. We share an obligation to help all Alaskans develop these self-directed learning skills.
Creating Alaskan Healthy Villages
By connecting caring and connectivity with common sense we have an
opportunity to support all Alaskans with the best information and e-learning
opportunities available in a very human, uniquely Alaskan support network.
Alaska needs a Rural Economic Development Information
Technology Specialist
maintaining an I.T. innovations inventory and resources to connect
Alaskans with known solutions.
As evidence for how productive all Alaskans could learn to become leveraging their capabilities via Internet skills, please note extent of the following unique resources generated by one Lone Eagle. To further make the point of how every Alaskan can leverage their abilities using the Internet, please consider funding a minimum of one Lone Eagle to implement this proposed model network to support Alaska’s rural champions and train aspiring Lone Eagles statewide.
A frequent presenter in Alaska, Frank Odasz offers Alaska’s leadership presentations on opportunities for statewide rural ecommerce initiatives, K12 reform for rural and Native schools, youth entrepreneurship initiatives, online workforce training, and action plans for short-term proof-of-concept Village Internet Empowerment Projects. A roster of recent Alaskan leadership presentations follows…
2006 Lone Eagle Alaskan Presentations
on Alaska’s Greatest Energy Reserve
During 2006, over a dozen presentations for Alaskan
leaders and leadership groups have been presented on rural ecommerce training
strategies and community Internet learning programs. The full listings of all
presentations is documented at
http://lone-eagles.com/new.htm
2006 Presentations for Alaskan Leadership
The USDA director
The Denali Commission
The Alaskan House Education committee
The Senate HESS committee
The Alaska Alberta Bilateral Council
Gary Wilkins – Chair Senate Finance Committee
The AFN leadership forum
*co-presented with AMEP/ANAF and village ecommerce champions and
separately
with leaders from GCI and DRS/Tamsco
The Denakkanaaga Elders and Youth conference in Koyukuk
Villagers and leadership in Hooper Bay, Anvik\
National and International presentations on indigenous
Internet empowerment
are listed in the Lone Eagle Update below including Canada, Alaska, the U.S.
and the 1st International Indigenous Information and Communications Technology
conference in Mexico City.
Lone Eagle Update January-October 2006
http://lone-eagles.com/lone-eagle-update100106.htm
Rural Ecommerce Resources for Alaskans
Alaskan Native Training Resources
http://lone-eagles.com/afn-resources.htm Presented at the AFN Leadership
Forum, July 2006. Includes Alaskan Native Ecommerce training resources.
ORCA - Outsourcing Readiness Capability Assessment
http://lone-eagles.com/orca.htm A village assessment tool for marketing
village skills to corporations for call center and telework jobs.
The Alaskan Healthy Village Concept
http://lone-eagles.com/healthyvillage.htm
It has become necessary to integrate Community Internet Learning across all
institutional “silos” of Health, K12, higher education, economic development
and cultural institutions.
Lone Eagle Alaskan Native Rural Ecommerce Online Course
http://lone-eagles.com/akecom.htm
A self-directed online course introducing rural ecommerce to Alaskan Natives
Best Lone Eagle Resources
http://lone-eagles.com/future-proofing.htm
The most complete listing of Lone Eagle Resources; listed by category
What is Community Networking; And Why You Should Care
http://www.comtechreview.org/fall-2005/000347.html
See also
http://lone-eagles.com/mainstream.htm
Lone Eagle’s Best Village Grant Templates:
Village Grant Templates for both Native and non-Native rural communities have already been written related to citizen engagement with Internet collaboration and learning. The grants are all listed and offered for use without restriction at the end of a chapter at http://lone-eagles.com/village-sustainability.htm
An Alaskan Village Bootstrap Academy
An Education and Economic Development Partnership
http://lone-eagles.com/northstar.htm as a model community Internet
learning program.
More templates listed at the end of
http://lone-eagles.com/village-sustainability.htm
Sustainable Ecommerce Education Development Strategies (SEEDS)
http://lone-eagles.com/seeds.htm
This grant model involves youth in raising ecommerce awareness among
adult leaders.
Rural Ecommerce and Telework Incubator Centers
http://lone-eagles.com/summary.htm
A scalable model to engage many communities simultaneously.
Rural Broadband Application Video:
"From Cedar to Silicon"
http://www.network.gov.bc.ca/CedarSilicon/CS_prev_Media_Player.htm
A five minute preview of the new one-hour video on the First Nations
communities in British Columbia who understand the vital importance of
Broadband access for cultural sustainability.
Lone Eagle Presentations and Workshops Roster:
http://lone-eagles.com/new.htm
Complete listing of events by date and location.
Lone Eagle Update January-October 2006
http://lone-eagles.com/lone-eagle-update100106.htm A summary of ten
Alaskan trips and six Canadian conferences presenting on Indigenous Broadband
Applications.
Who IS Lone Eagle?
Frank Odasz resume and biographies
http://lone-eagles.com/articles/frank.htm
Big Skies and Lone Eagles
http://lone-eagles.com/history.htm A 33 page published history of
world-class innovations in Montana over the past 21 years.
Realizing Cultural and Community Sustainability
Through Internet Innovations
in Alaskan Native Villages
http://lone-eagles.com/village-sustainability.htm
A detailed review of strategies for community involvement to produce
measurable outcomes written for an Australian Academic conference.
More? Google “Big Sky Telegraph” or “Lone Eagle Consulting” or “Frank Odasz”
Lone Eagle Consulting’s Alaskan
Experience 1997-2006
Starting in 1997 when the first Internet satellite systems were installed for Yukon Koyukuk School District villages, Lone Eagle provided the first workshops for educators, students, and community members of all ages.
For the past seven years, Frank Odasz, President of Lone Eagle Consulting,
with funding from USDA and USDOL has been developing extensive online Rural
Ecommerce training resources along with a community “Web-Raisings” workshop
model for raising ecommerce awareness in rural communities.
Rural Ecommerce Resources
http://lone-eagles.com/future-proofing.htm
Alaskan Natives face unique challenges and opportunities
adopting web expression and cultural entrepreneurship as a means of sustaining
and preserving their cultures.
Alaskan Native Resources:
http://lone-eagles.com/afn-resources.htm
Lone Eagle’s extensive online resources, online courses, village grant templates and action plans are shared online, accessible to all Alaskans. Frank served as consultant Feb-July 2006 for the Alaska Manufacturing Extension Partnership’s Rural Alaskan Village Ecommerce Network (E-RAVEN) and the Alaska Native Arts Foundation.
When presenting for the June 2006 Denakkanaaga Elders and Youth conference in Koyukuk it became very clear that the youth are teaching themselves far more about Internet applications than their teachers, parents, and elders know. To avoid unnecessary generational divides due to the introduction of digital technologies in Alaskan villages, it is important that all ages understand how the Internet can support cultural and community sustainability.
For the National Conference of State Legislators Education Committee Lone Eagle presented the following two presentations Dec. 6th 2006 in San Antonio, at the request of Wes Keller, staff chair for the NCSL education committee and staff to Alaskan Senator Fred Dyson. Alaska Senator Fred Dyson was present.
Educating Native American, Alaskan, and Hawaiian Students
Narrowing the achievement gap for indigenous students requires addressing
basic motivation in a community and cultural context as well as leveraging
students innate interest in the new digital communications mediums. This
presentation will address applying constructivist concepts, where students are
in charge of building their own knowledge, with new models for project-based
learning and international multiclassroom projects. Native Resources handout
is at
http://lone-eagles.com/ncsl.htm
Using Technology to Inform and Support Teachers
This presentation will share lessons learned with online mentoring, and
will address the importance of supporting teachers as innovators - if they are
to produce students who can help the U.S. lead in global competitiveness.
Trends in broadband distance learning related science, math, and technology
education will be addressed.