The environment in which Dakota Future is operating has changed.  The emergence of Greater MSP brings a regional marketing presence to the Twin Cities.  The Dakota CDA has taken on additional economic development functions.  In addition to these positive changes, the economic environment of the past several years has taken a toll on many small non-profits.

At its June 2012 meeting, the Dakota Future Board of Directors has made the difficult decision to move to dissolve Dakota Future.  The board determined that while our goal was important, other organizations like the Dakota Scott Workforce Board and the Dakota CDA and Greater MSP are better positioned to pursue these goals.

Thanks to all of our members and stakeholders for their participation in our efforts; that support has helped us to achieve our success.  Thanks especially to our board members who have donated their time and talents plus the resources of their organizations in pursuit of our mission.

Bill Coleman spoke about the Dakota Future Intelligent Community Initiative

Anita Scott, Dakota County Director of IT spoke about Dakota County C-Net

Tom Garrison spoke about the Eagan Data Center: The Connexion

Butch McConnell and Russ Matthys spoke about Rights-or-Way Management and other Policy decisions to facilitate ease of broadband deployment:

In May 2011, an MOU was approved between Dakota County and seven other large MN counties for a cross county collaboration process to incent sharing IT infrastructure and functionality. This bold, new initiative directs IT Leadership to review options for sharing underutilized assets as well as costs to implement new emerging technologies, provide new services and purchase technology.

It’s a great way to build on natural and beneficial partnerships to increase broadband deployment and adoption for the whole Twin Cities region.

For the past 10 years, Dakota County has successfully connected public entities within Dakota County with fiber optic cable through collaborative efforts between the state, cities, schools, and other public entities within our county (the I-Net).

More than 240 nodes were connected for less than $1,000,000 of county funds, in stark contrast to other counties, who have spent 10’s of millions of dollars to install similar networks. Dakota County achieved these savings, in large part, by leveraging cable franchise agreements and intensive collaborative efforts.

Dakota County has Guiding Principles for Dakota County Broadband Projects that they have shared with other organization.

1. Eden Prairie
   Brainpower index: 19.922
   National ranking: 37
2. Woodbury
   Brainpower index: 18.565
   National ranking: 44
3. Plymouth
   Brainpower index: 17.961
   National ranking: 48
4. Minnetonka
   Brainpower index: 17.420
   National ranking: 51
5. Eagan
   Brainpower index: 15.062
   National ranking: 70
6. Maple Grove
   Brainpower index: 13.816
   National ranking: 81
7. Lakeville
   Brainpower index: 10.714
   National ranking: 111
8. Burnsville
   Brainpower index: 8.064
   National ranking: 147
9. Bloomington
   Brainpower index: 7.974
   National ranking: 153
10. Duluth
    Brainpower index: 5.520
    National ranking: 185

How do they determine brainpower? According to the Business Journals, here is the criteria:

Each place’s score was based on its percentage of adults (25 or older) at each level of a five-rung educational ladder:

• Dropped out before high school graduation
• Stopped at high school diploma
• Stopped at associate degree or attended college but stopped without any degree
• Stopped at bachelor’s degree
• Earned graduate degree and/or professional degree

Attend the live, one-hour webinar to learn about:

• How to be a power connector
• Using LinkedIn to build the company brand
• Building an online community using LinkedIn groups
• Using LinkedIn to find the right connections that can help you grow your business

Who should attend?

• Business Owners
• Marketers and Public Relations Managers
• Customer Service Managers
• Sales and Business Development Managers

This complimentary Webinar takes place on
Tuesday, December 6 at Noon Eastern (11.am. Central)
Space is limited. Register today

Just seven months after embarking on a feasibility study to help establish Eagan as a major telecommunications hub in Minnesota, the City of Eagan is proud to announce the planned development of a new 138,000 square foot carrier neutral data center called The Connexion.

The specialized data center, known as a colocation facility, will be open to all telecommunications and internet service providers, as well as local and regional companies needing offsite data storage or disaster recovery options. The facility will be privately owned and operated and located along Yankee Doodle Road west of Pilot Knob, building upon an already fiber optic rich environment in Eagan. The Connexion will be developed and owned by Five 9s Digital, LLC, a North Carolina firm experienced in the site selection and development of mission critical multi-tenant facilities.

“The City of Eagan, MN is a community that gets it,” says Five 9s CEO, Doug Hollidge. “From government to business, Eagan understands the importance and long term benefits of having a highly connected and redundant data center in their city to serve not just the city’s robust business community, but The Connexion will provide a tremendous asset for the Upper Midwest.”

“Customers tell us there is a current lack of high quality data center options in the marketplace,” Hollidge adds. “In our solution, The Connexion will provide high connectivity, private data suites, route redundancy and environmental efficiencies.”

A task force, called the Eagan Technology Working Group made up of top technical and business talent from some of Eagan’s largest companies along with City and Chamber of Commerce staff have been studying Eagan’s broadband needs and challenges since 2005.

“We’re tremendously excited that the hard work of our Eagan companies and the Technology Working Group has led to this important advancement,” said Eagan Mayor Mike Maguire. Eagan’s role, he emphasizes, was not to own or run such a facility, but rather, to act as a tipping point to help bring the technical analysis and market forces together to make investment happen.

Overall private investment in the project is estimated to be between $75-$100M between the initial development of the facility and the subsequent tenant investment and installation of its mission critical equipment.

The Eagan area stands to attract additional data center end-users due to one of the key benefits of the Upper Midwest location of the Connexion—the extended cool climate which allows data centers to utilize “free cooling.” Minnesota also has a relatively low risk of natural disasters, compared with other areas of the country.

The Mission Critical team of Jones, Lang, LaSalle has been assisting on the project, and its study reveals “Minnesota is an excellent and growing data center marketplace,” says JLL’s Senior Associate of Mission Critical Brokerage, Brett Severson. “The Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul region has a relative dearth of viable data center options currently, and because The Connexion Data Center will be the first multi-tenant, LEED-certified, Tier 3 facility of its kind that is purpose-built to accommodate the latest needs of data center users, we think it will drive market demand” says Severson.

The Connexion will also definitively solve what is perceived as a single-point-of-failure issue facing the region. Many high capacity fiber networks in the area offer some route diversity for fiber optic lines and self-healing networks, and yet often funnel through one facility in the region before transmitting to the rest of the country or world. This issue was first recognized in a 2009 report by the Minnesota Ultra High Speed Broadband Task Force.

XO Communcations is committing to be one of the fiber service providers in The Connexion offering high capacity connectivity via an alternate Southern long haul fiber route which will connect to a transwestern fiber link. This alternate route will offer other fiber providers and data center end users another level of redundant service to provide to their customers in the region.

“XO Communications has worked very closely with the City of Eagan and the Tech Working Group in developing a solution to address the lack of Internet redundancy in the Twin Cities metro area,” said Mark Feil, general manager for Minnesota at XO Communications. “With our nationwide fiber optic network running directly through Eagan, we are able to provide another major route for Internet traffic into and out of the Upper Midwest for businesses’ IP connectivity needs.”

Due to the current demand for such a facility in the region, and the determination of a strongly suitable data center in Eagan, Five 9s Digital has announced plans to proceed with the development of the project with a scheduled completion of 3rd quarter 2012.

The design and development team for The Connexion includes Five 9s Digital, Jones Lang LaSalle, McGough General Contractors, Pope Architecture, MMC mechanical contractors, and Hunt Electric. All parties on the design and development team possess substantial data center experience. Jones Lang LaSalle’s Mission Critical Division serves as the Project Manager and Leasing Associate for the project.

“McGough is extremely proud to be a part of this exciting partnership with Five 9′s Digital, Jones Lang LaSalle and the City of Eagan for the development of the Connexion. In addition to providing the business community with a Tier III reliable and secure new facility, it will also provide up to 50 construction jobs,” said Tim Nagle of McGough, which will be the general contractor for the data center.

Tier III classification is important, because estimates are that 70% of the U.S. market demand is for Tier III space, and because of the under supply of advanced colocation space, demand is growing. Some analysts put the 2012 colo market in North America at $5 billion.

Contact:
Tom Garrison
Communications Director
City of Eagan
651-675-5008
tgarrison@cityofeagan.com

Doug Hollidge
CEO
Five 9s Digital
Doug@Five9sDigital.com
704-651-2210

TECHNOLOGY SERVICES & CONSULTING AWARD RECIPIENTS

The Established Company recipient was Eagan-based Thomson Reuters. Thomson Reuters Checkpoint has been the industry-leader for online information for tax and accounting professionals for more than a decade. Checkpoint blends cutting-edge technology, expert editorial insight, primary source materials, time-saving productivity tools, online learning, and news updates all in an integrated fashion that adds intelligence to what might otherwise be content and software. On June 13, 2011, the latest evolution of Checkpoint was launched. The features include a redesigned user interface and re-factored underlying code as well as new functionality to enhance users’ experience. The new features and superior web design will continue to widen the gap between Checkpoint and the competition.

INNOVATIVE COLLABORATION OF THE YEAR AWARD RECIPIENT

The Innovative Collaboration of the Year Award was presented to Maverick Software Consulting in Lakeville. Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU), Maverick Software Consulting, Advance IT Minnesota, Thomson Reuters and Digital River have created a first-of-its-kind academia-meets-corporate America partnership, bringing together top computer science students from campuses across Minnesota with corporations seeking local software development and software testing. The innovative collaboration provides corporate partners with top student talent as a successful, proven option for cost-effective software development and testing services and an experienced workforce after graduation. It also provides students real-world experience working in the field with cutting-edge technology and, typically, a job offer prior to graduation. This collaboration creates a motivated, skilled and productive workforce that sustains and expands Minnesota’s technology-based economy.

MOBILE & COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES AWARD RECIPIENT
The Mobile & Communication Technologies Award went to GeaCom, Inc. Duluth-based GeaCom was founded in 2007 by Mat Johnson who, after years of studying communication theory and working with high technology innovators, recognized a need for an improved method for communication theory as well as communicating across language barriers. Johnson’s resulting solution, Phrazer, is a handheld, interactive communication system with a touch screen interface that enables the collection and delivery of critical information. After identifying what language a patient speaks, Phrazer collects his/her information, medical history, symptoms and complaints and then summarizes it into the caregiver’s language that can be accessed on the device or through a facility’s electronic health records (EHR) system.

You can get a full list of winners from the Tekne Awards web site.

This is an international award, and the competition this year is even tougher that in the past…

The 2012 honorees include 4 communities from Europe, 10 from North America, 3 from Latin America, and 4 from Asia. Over half are communities that appear on the list for the first time.

The focus this year is Platforms for Innovation. We have a lot of innovation to celebrate in Dakota Future:

• Dakota County finalists for Tekne Awards
• Biofeul efforts in Rosemount
• Top Digital Ranking from Center for Digital Government
• Health care awards for Fairview Ridges Hospital
• Eagan companies using social media
• Broadband innovation in the libraries (increasing speed, decreasing time and cost)

Efforts like these have helped secure our standing. And we’re continuing the efforts with our Dakota Innovation Network – an efforts to promote innovation in participating businesses.

Here’s a list of other Smart21 Communities

• Arlington County, Virginia, USA
• Austin, Texas, USA
• Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
• Columbus Region, Ohio, USA
• Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil
• Dakota County, Minnesota, USA
• Danville, Virginia, USA
• Durango, Mexico
• Frankfurt, Hesse, Germany
• Heraklion, Crete, Greece
• Ipswich, Queensland, Australia
• New Taipei City, Taiwan
• Oulu, Finland
• Prospect, South Australia, Australia
• Quebec City, Quebec, Canada
• Riverside, California, USA
• Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada
• Stratford, Ontario, Canada
• Taichung City, Taiwan
• Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas, Mexico
• Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada