Dayton Hudson Faculty Fellows: Brad Hokanson

Brad Hokanson, Associate Professor, Department of Design, Housing, and Apparel
Dayton Hudson Faculty Fellow, 2006-2007

Cities and Wireless Technology

Professor Hokanson's research looks at high-speed wireless Internet access and the ways in which it will change city form and the way we live. His project will develop, plan, and present the second conference on the Wireless State of the Cities to be held in conjunction with the University of Minnesota 's Digital Technology Center. The conference will build on the success of last year's event and will examine the emerging wireless capability in urban areas.

We have begun to understand how the Internet is changing our conception of the world and changing the nature of place. The city will be a place uprooted to any definite spot on the surface of the earth, shaped by connectivity and bandwidth constraints rather than by accessibility and land values. Its places will be constructed virtually by software instead of physically from stones and timbers, and they will be connected by logical images rather than by doors, passageways and streets.

The city of Minneapolis is currently in the process of developing Wi-Fi service throughout the city. Two test/demonstration projects by competing vendors are in place, and they will be evaluated over the coming year. A wireless system proposed for Minneapolis is based on a communication system for emergency services. The capacity is there, however, to make government more accessible to the people; to bridge the digital divide through small, personal level access; and to broaden the reach of community-oriented education from the School Board, community college, and the University.

In October 2005 Hokanson served as co-director, of a conference through the University of Minnesota Digital Technology Center called "Wireless Cities..Community Context". The conference began to examine the social and urban implications of the wireless cloud forming over the city of Minneapolis. The 2006 conference will build upon the success of the previous conference and expand the program offerings. This year the focus will be on experiences gained by municipalities who have already implemented wireless networks. It will also focus on the enhanced educational and learning strategies made possible with wireless technologies and how implementation of their goals can advance student learning.

 





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