Dakota Future News

Dakota Future’s Executive Director Bill Coleman and Chairwoman LaDonna Boyd were interviewed by Jeff Achen for This Week Live, a web show for Burnsville, Eagan, Apple Valley, Rosemount, Lakeville, & Farmington.

Bill and LaDonna were there to talk about Dakota Future’s projects past, present and future, including the bid for Intelligent Community Status.

Dakota County Technical College recently posted a great review of our project launch on October 9. They called the project “of one of the most ambitious undertakings in the county’s 160-year history”. It helps us recognize what exciting stuff this really is.

We’ve been energized by making the Smart21 list but we’ll need that energy to push ourselves to the next level – the Top Seven. We’ve start a discussion on the Dakota Future LinkedIn Group to discuss what it will take to get us to that Top Seven. If you have some ideas, please join the conversation.

(Press Release) Dakota County is home to many companies that employ Information Technology Professionals. This includes Thomson Reuters, Blue Cross-Blue Shield, Unisys and, Frontier Communications. In addition, just about every company has one or more employees whose main job is to keep the computer network and web site up and running. According to the MN Department of Employment and Economic Development and the MN IT Workforce Collaborative, Minnesota will be short over 1,000 IT workers per year in the coming years.

To make sure that these and other companies can grow to their potential right here in Dakota County, economic development, workforce and higher education partners are working with local companies to promote to the workforce of tomorrow the opportunities that an IT career can provide.

On Saturday, November 14, from 8:30 a.m. – noon, Thomson Reuters, the state’s largest IT employer, will host “GotIT?” the IT career exploration fair at their Eagan campus, 610 Opperman Drive. The event will include exhibits of area companies, presentations about IT careers, and hands-on activities. High school students and their parents, as well as undecided college students are invited to discover the range of activities included in the IT career area. There are a variety of events throughout the day. Students and parents can come at any time between 8:30 – 12, but to get the most out of the day, we encourage you to attend the whole morning. The event is FREE, but please pre-register online http://www.mnitcareers.org/node/453

Dakota-Scott Workforce Investment Board, Dakota County Technical College, Inver Hills Community College, Metropolitan State University, Center for Strategic IT and Security and Dakota Future are the event sponsors. The three colleges have campuses in St. Paul and Dakota County and offer a variety of IT programs that cover all levels: certificate, associate, bachelor and master degrees. The Center for Strategic IT and Security is a MNSCU Center of Excellence that partners with these IT programs and others in MNSCU to enhance recruitment, curriculum alignment, industry involvement and career preparation. Dakota Future, a countywide economic development organization, recently launched its Intelligent Community Initiative that includes a focus on creating, supporting and attracting knowledge workers, including IT workers. According to executive director, Bill Coleman, events like the “Got IT?” are one component of a broader strategy to improve Dakota County as a place for business investment.

More information and online registration for Got IT? http://www.mnitcareers.org/node/453  

Contact: Bill Coleman info@dakotafuture.com or 651-491-2551

Download the flier

In preparation for the next stages of the Intelligent Community Forum process, Dakota Future has worked with Robert Bell on our Dakota Future Community Metrics and Dakota Future Accelerator. Having support from Robert has been a big help and will help set us in the right direction.

Bill Coleman was asked on behalf of Dakota Future to write a guest article for the Intelligent Community Forum blog. It is part of the process and benefit of Dakota Future being named one of the Smart21 communities by the Intelligent Community Forum.

You can check it out his article online.

Great news for a Dakota Future community: The University of Minnesota was recently awarded funds to build a new Siemens 2.3-megawatt turbine and research facility at UMore Park in Rosemount, Minnesota.

The funding comes from an $8 million stimulus grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. The Minnesota Daily reports that “at the facility, researchers will study how to improve the efficiency and durability of wind turbines and improve land-based and offshore wind generation.”

We are delighted to announce the good news – Dakota County has been named one of the Smart21 communities. We recap for any new readers, Earlier this year, Dakota Future set a goal to be named as a Top Seven Intelligent Community in the annual global competition sponsored by the Intelligent Community Forum. To begin the process, we completed a benchmarking exercise that would enable comparison with the top seven finalists of the past four years. By completing the benchmarking, Dakota Future also entered the competition for the 2010 Intelligent Community.

We received the benchmarking results a week ago and were encouraged that our goal would be in reach if we put our mind to it. We established teams to work on each of the five intelligent community elements and set a work schedule to get our house in order in time for a September 2010 application deadline for the 2011 competition.

We are excited to have achieved Top 21 recognition. The Top Seven will be announced in January; the Intelligent Community of the Year will be announced in May. The Top 21 designation is quite a pleasant surprise to our team and will serve as motivation to our newly formed initiative.

The Dakota County Tribune featured Dakota Future’s project launch last week. As many readers know, we launched our efforts to apply for Intelligent Community standing. We were lucky enough to have ICF’s own Robert Bell to talk to us about the project and our progress thus far. (Read full story.)

Last week Robert Bell came to talk to Dakota Future to tell us how we’re doing in terms of getting ready for an application for the Intelligent Community Forum. It was interesting to talk a look at how Dakota County compares to past Intelligent communities. (View the presentation.)

It’s nice to see that Robert Bell enjoyed his trip to Dakota County enough to mention it in his latest blog for the Intelligent Community Forum. Here’s a clip from his post:

Last week in Minnesota, I learned that, however exciting conflict may be on stage or screen, the real excitement is in collaboration.  At least it is in Dakota County.  I was there presenting the results of the Community Accelerator analysis we performed for Dakota Future, the nonprofit organization dedicated to creating a new economy in the county.  The Community Accelerator uses the same methods we use to select the Intelligent Community of the Year.  It compared the county’s performance to an average of the Top Seven Intelligent Communities of the past four years.