David Lytel's topic will be "Designing 21st Century Ithaca" in his keynote address for the upcoming Networking Tompkins County conference. Lytel, of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, led the team that created a home page for the White House on the World Wide Web. He is a former member of Ithaca's Common Council, and holds two graduate degrees from Cornell University. Sharing the stage with Lytel will be a stellar array of local figures from education, government, and business, each with a story to tell about the brave new world of data networking.

H. David Lambert, Vice President for Information Technologies at Cornell University, will give his views on "The Future of Community Networking." Lambert is nationally recognized as a visionary in the application of leading-edge network technology, and is currently working with several local groups to explore possibilities for municipal and county networking.

"The Economics of the Internet" will be the subject of a talk by Alan McAdams. McAdams, Associate Professor of Economics at the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University, served as a senior staff economist with the President's Council of Economic Advisors and as chief economic consultant and expert witness for the government in its anti-trust case against IBM. McAdams will argue that as a "public good", the Internet fits the "university model" of resource allocation, rather than allocation based on incremental charges.

Local government will be well represented at the conference, starting with welcoming speeches by Alan Cohen, newly-elected Mayor of Ithaca, and by Barbara Mink, Vice Chair of the Tompkins County Board of Representatives. Appearing for the Ithaca City Cable Commission will be its Vice Chair, Richard Entlich, who will speak on leveraging Internet access in Tompkins County through the cable system. Bill Kaupe, Deputy City Clerk for the City of Ithaca, will give a progress report and future plans for networking the City.

Eric Lerner will talk about the possibilities for partnership among local government, private businesses and not-for-profits in making Tompkins County a leader in community computing. Eric, a former member of the Tompkins County Board of Representatives, represents Cornell's Community & Rural Development Institute (CaRDI) on the Tompkins County Electronic Future Committee.

Use of the Internet by county youth will be another topic addressed by several speakers. Library Media Specialists Barbara Nosanchuk, from Cayuga Heights Elementary School, and Jo-Ann Mancini, from Lansing High School, will discuss how they created a virtual library of Internet resources for their students. High school sophomores Phil Davidson and Jesse Skoch will be on hand to demonstrate their own web pages. Librarian Janet Steiner will speak about the Tompkins County Public Library's Internet for Kids Project. Warren Allmon, Director of the Paleontological Research Institution, will talk about PRI's educational initiatives on the World Wide Web.

Another conference highlight will be a presentation by Marjorie Hodges on the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Hodges recently completed a term as Cornell's Judicial Administrator, where she dealt with a wide variety of computer-abuse cases. She now serves as policy advisor for Cornell's computer center. Her talk will focus on the part of the new law called the "Communications Decency Act", which attempted to eliminate from all computer networks any material not suitable for children. Although several provisions of the new law were immediately suspended by a Federal judge on constitutional grounds, Hodges will review the potential impact of the remaining elements--and of related legislation--on network users and service-providers.

The Internet owes much of its explosive growth to the business community, and Tompkins County is no exception. Speaking on the topic of "Entrepreneurs and the Internet" will be David Ahlers of the Cayuga Venture Fund, Michael Meador of Odyssey Research Associates, and Marjorie Zack of the Cornell Office for Technology Access & Business Assistance (COTABA). Shirley Egan, a past Chair of the Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce, will explain why the Chamber is excited about use of the Internet by local businesses.

The conference will also feature several panels of local business people who are riding the Internet wave. These include businesses using the Internet for marketing their products and delivering their services, as well as businesses who are making their living selling Internet-related networking services.

Jerry Feist, a local psychologist in private practice and Cornell University's original "Uncle Ezra", will speak on how one profession has made the leap to cyberspace in "Psychological Counseling on the Internet."

We will be posting more details here as they become available.