bvc_june2017

62 63 Comprehensive Community Infrastructure (CCI) grant for the deployment of a high-speed fiber network to the islands of St. Thomas, St. Croix, and St. John, creating a territory-wide, middle-mile network connecting community anchor insti- tutions with reliable high-speed Internet services, and ac- quiring over 3,000 miles of undersea cable to Florida and New York; the Public Computer Centers (PCC) grant program which provides free access to computers, peripherals, and contemporary software in libraries and community centers; and the Sustainable Broadband Adoption (SBA) grant which funds efforts to provide digital literacy and job skills training, increase broadband subscribership, and stimulate job growth within the Virgin Islands. The $80 million in federal grants was complemented with $40 million in bond issues. This past year, Dr. H. Mark McGibbon was appointed viNGN’s VIRGIN ISLANDS NEXT GENERATION NETWORK AT A GLANCE VIRGIN ISLAND NEXT GENERATION NETWORK WHAT: A public corporation that provides high-speed, 100 percent fiber-optic broadband services to the U.S. Virgin Islands WHERE: St. Thomas and St. Croix, U.S. V.I. WEBSITE: www.vingn.com Chief Executive Officer and Presi- dent, taking over from Interim Presi- dent, Peter Shultz, one of the co-inventors of fiber optic technology and a member of viNGN’s Board of Directors, who, himself, had succeeded the organization’s first CEO, Dr. Tonjia Coverdale. McGibbon comes to the U.S. Virgin Islands with decades of small business, corpo- rate, academic, and federal government expe- rience in business, computer science, and infor- mation technology. He strongly believes that the introduction of broadband technology is key to stimulating the economy of the territory. “When we sell broadband bandwidth services to the ISPs, it creates high-tech jobs,” he states. “It’s people going out into the field and laying down the fiber optic cables or the backbone wireless network to go that last mile; it’s people who are monitoring the network to make sure that it’s up and run- ning; it’s people who are looking out for the security of it, making sure there are no Trojan horses, viruses, and the like. You also have people who run the businesses – accountants, bookkeepers, and lawyers. These are small busi- nesses that weren’t around before the VI Next Generation Network came.” In addition,McGibbon says that because the community at large now has more access to the internet, it can further develop a true 21st century economy and culture.“They can shop, they can go to school online, they can do a job search, they GOV. KENNETH MAPP CHAIRMAN DR. PETER SCHULTZ BOARD SECRETARY AND INVENTOR OF FIBER OPTIC CABLE ELIZABETH ARMSTRONG DEPUTY BOARD CHAIRWOMAN GORDON ACKLEY BOARD MEMBER JOHANN CLENDEN BOARD MEMBER Governor Mapp is briefed by viNGN Abed Hussein (left), the senior network engineer.