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Thursday, October 06, 2005
Tech. & Gov't. - Two stories today about technology impacting small towns
BioTown, USA. Remember little Reynolds, Indiana? Population 500. (See this most recent ILB entry, from 9/14/05 and this one from 9/13/05.) "Questions linger over BioTown project" is the headline to this story today, by Abby Lietz, in the Monticello Herald Journal. Some quotes:
It’s a waiting game right now for residents in the recently-christened BioTown, USA as efforts to transition the town’s energy needs to biorenewable fuels formulate behind the scenes. According to Reynolds Town Council President Charlie VanVoorst, the next two months are likely to see the implementation of phase one of the three-phase plan for BioTown as announced last month by Gov. Mitch Daniels and members of the state department of agriculture. * * *Remote Chinese village loses hyperline to future. This amazing story, written by Ching-Ching Ni, in the LA Times today, comes even closer to having mythic qualities. It begins:VanVoorst explained that there is little presently known about how the transition will take place, what it will cost and specific details, but he assured town residents present at Tuesday night’s council meeting that General Motors — who is partnering with the state on the BioTown initiative — is committed to helping Reynolds achieve the goal set before them.
“I believe (GM) are going to make it so Reynolds is able to use this fuel - I really do,” VanVoorst said. “They’re really trying to make this work for us, make it affordable for the people of Reynolds.”
YELLOW SHEEP RIVER, China — This village on the edge of the Gobi desert entered the 21st century much as it had the previous one, with yellow sand blanketing the mountains and poor farmers sharing their mud huts with cows, donkeys and pigs.No homes had running water. No shops sold clothes, just bundles of fabric to be sewn into shirts and pants. Donkey carts plied the dusty main street, rarely troubled by the rumble of a motor.
No one in this forgotten section of northwestern China seemed to realize that the nation's east coast was booming or that dot-coms were changing the world. But then, out of the blue, came an idea — and a multimillionaire — that promised to bring prosperity here.
High-tech entrepreneur Sayling Wen heard about the village and decided that by harnessing the power of computers, he could beam its 30,000 inhabitants into the Information Age economy.
Never mind that the Taiwanese tycoon had never laid eyes on the place. He would turn Yellow Sheep River into China's first "Internet village."
"The plan seemed unthinkable, like jade falling from the sky," said local Communist Party secretary Zhang Xusheng.
Wen donated 100 new computers and arranged for teachers to be trained. He believed that by teaching computer basics to schoolkids, he could quickly develop a labor force to perform simple tasks for Western high-tech firms looking to outsource work.
Next he began building a $50-million, 140-room hotel and convention center in the village, with high-speed Internet connections, state-of-the-art meeting rooms, swimming pool, sauna and even a stable for horse- and camel-back riding.
Wen planned to have villagers staff the hotel, and would invite tech-savvy workers from China's east to train others. High-tech executives could use it as an exotic conference locale, and meet Yellow Sheep River's labor pool. The project would spawn more development.
Just as things were looking up, Wen dropped dead.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on October 6, 2005 02:22 PM
Posted to General News | Indiana Government | Indiana economic development