Nashville’s Opportunity to Become a National Leader in Technology
Editor’s Note: The Entrepreneur Center welcomes Marcus Whitney, CTO of Moontoast, Founder of Remarkable Wit and serial entrepreneur (did we mention he’s also an advocate too?) as this blog’s first guest columnist to share the opportunity of the upcoming Enterprise LAMP Summit in Nashville from November 5th through the 7th.
This weekend, the White House announced that they have moved their website, www.whitehouse.gov, to the open source content management system Drupal. In the announcement, White House new media director Macon Phillips said: “We now have a technology platform to get more and more voices on the site … This is state-of-the-art technology and the government is a participant in it.”
What timing.
From November 5th through the 7th, Nashville will host a landmark event in Open Source technology awareness called the Enterprise LAMP Summit. This event will assemble worldwide leaders in the field of Open Source technology to demonstrate why Open Source is indeed ready for Enterprise deployment, and why in some cases it is absolutely the superior choice. Nashville has a lot at stake in the technology sector, specifically as it relates to our core industries.
For example in healthcare, where Aneesh Chopra, CTO of the United States, told attendees at this year’s Web 2.0 Summit that Healthcare needs a better billing system. These are opportunities that should be leveraged for the growth of jobs and revenue in Nashville, but this will only be possible if Nashville becomes truly engaged in the discussions about technology innovation at a much deeper level.
Note: Mr. Chopra is discussing healthcare technology at an event in San Fransisco, not Nashville.
This is why Enterprise LAMP is important to us. But our opportunity doesn’t end there.
The music industry is being completely revolutionized by a whirlwind of technologies that are changing all the rules around how consumers access digital content. With intelligent online radio stations like Pandora and LastFM to streaming sites like iLike and Lala, and most recently the announcement that Google will offer a search interface to more easily find the music on these services, Music Row’s role in the digital music landscape remains uncertain.
That uncertainty, however, does not signal of the end of our authoritative position in the music industry. We are still Music City. We don’t have to play a passive role in the revolution. We can choose to innovate and leverage our expertise to capitalize on this moment, but only if we are deeply engaged in the technologies necessary to execute such innovations. It is up to us whether or not we will be left behind.
The signs could not be more clear. Open Source technology is being leveraged by leading companies and organizations around the world to change the way business is done. The Enterprise LAMP Summit is Nashville’s opportunity to become active participants in this conversation on online business innovation. This is also Nashville’s opportunity to demonstrate that our city’s business community is forward thinking, and that Nashville is a great place for technologists from around the world to come and solve hard but exciting problems, and for tech entrepreneurs to find an environment that will give them the best opportunity to succeed.
Presenting at the Enterprise LAMP Summit will be technology leaders such as Andi Gutmans, the CEO of Zend Technologies and co-creator of the Zend Engine which processes the PHP programming language. Why is that important? Because PHP powers 40% of all applications on the Internet today, including Facebook, WikiPedia and Yahoo!. Andi is just one of 12 phenomenal speakers who will be on site to give Nashville businesses the inside scoop on where Open Source technology is going next.
I’m excited to be part of bringing this opportunity to Nashville, and very encouraged by the support that has been provided by the Nashville Technology Council, the Nashville Chamber of Commerce, the Williamson County Chamber and influential Nashville based businesses like Emma, Vaco, IOStudio and Peak10. I hope that you will take advantage of this opportunity and join us on the 5th and 6th for what will certainly be a turning point for Nashville’s technology sector.
by Marcus Whitney on 10/28/2009 in Community, People, Technology