Steve Rao to Lead Smarter Cities and Open Data Discussion on May 28

Councilman Rao To Discuss Support Of Initiatives And Their Goals At Town Hall

MORRISVILLE, N.C. – Steve Rao, (http://steverao.com), an at-large member of the Morrisville Town Council, has announced that he will lead a discussion on the Smarter Cities and Open Data Initiatives on Tuesday, May 28 from 6:30 to 10 p.m. at the Morrisville Town Hall, located at 100 Town Hall Drive.

Rao intends for Morrisville to join a growing list of Wake County cities, most notably Cary and Raleigh, in supporting the White House’s Open Data Initiatives project. Open Data Initiatives work to accelerate and expand efforts to make government information resources more publicly accessible in “computer-readable” form and spurring the use of those data by entrepreneurs as fuel for the creation of new products, services and jobs. Innovative tools including the Weather Channel and GPS systems have all resulted from the government’s release of open data to the public.

Additionally, Rao will discuss reasons for Morrisville to participate in the Smarter Cities initiative, a complementary effort to the Open Data Initiatives project led by IBM. Smarter Cities aims to provide more open data and information to enable municipalities and governments to make better informed decisions in transportation, sustainability, crime and other critical areas.

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“The White House and cities across the United States have been turning to Open Data Initiatives to fuel the growth of innovations and entrepreneurship, while at the same time providing even greater government transparency for citizens and elected officials,” said Rao. “Morrisville, Wake County and North Carolina as a whole can all benefit from these types of programs, and I look forward to a productive discussion of the benefits of our participation in them.”

 

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Steve Rao Facebook Page: http://on.fb.me/14RbDdH

ABOUT STEVE RAO:
A resident of Morrisville, N.C., for 10 years, Councilman Steve Rao works to promote economic development by supporting local entrepreneurs, small businesses and startup companies in the IT industry to create new jobs in the Morrisville area and beyond. As business development manager at Alphanumeric Systems, he manages partnerships while increasing revenue and decreasing costs for companies through IT innovations. While serving his two-year term as an at-large member on the Morrisville Town Council through 2013, Rao serves as a member of the State IT Advisory Board, to which he was appointed by state Sen. Marc Basnight. He is charter member of the TIE Carolinas, a global mentoring organization for entrepreneurs, and a board member of the North Carolina Rural Entrepreneurship through Action Learning, an organization that focuses on entrepreneurial development in rural North Carolina, as he works to spur job creation locally. A founding member of the North Carolina Indian Political Action Committee (NCINPAC), Rao is the past president of the Indian American Forum for Political Education. He earned his Bachelor of Arts in political science from Emory University and his Juris Doctor from the West Virginia University College of Law. For more information on Rao and his platform, visit http://steverao.com/.

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