FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski's Remarks at eGovernment and Civic Engagement Workshop

Here's the challenge: nearly 40% of all Americans do not have broadband in the home. And if you are earn less than $50,000 a year, or you are a minority or you live in a rural area, chances are better than 60 percent that you are on the wrong side of the digital divide. That is why President Obama and the Congress have taken two important actions to extend broadband's benefits to more Americans. First, they included $7.2 billion for broadband deployment in the Recovery Act. Second, they have charged the FCC with developing a National Broadband plan. We set out a series of goals for this project. We said that the process for developing the National Broadband Plan would be: 1) The most open ever at FCC, 2) The most participatory ever at FCC, 3) The most data driven ever at FCC, and 4) The most innovative ever at FCC, encouraging experimentation to find solutions and make sure the Commission meets this moment. To help advance each of these goals, we made the unprecedented decided to host a series of 22 workshops. This is the first one. Since we will be trying new things, we expect mistakes. This hearing is being streamed live online. It is a real-time experiment in American democracy. Something will surely go wrong. We will recognize our mistakes and learn from them. For our first workshop, I am pleased that we have chosen eGovernment and civic engagement as the topic.