i certainly want to thank our department of technology and its new leader mark tuitu for also stepping up to the plate. mark is such a visionary and i think we have years of great things to come out of our department of technology and this is just the first step. and lastly i want to thank my staff and in particular wherever margo is, mar co-kelly. -- margo kelly. margo spent the last two years quarterbacking this project. she spent so many hours of her life dedicate today bringing this to the residents of san francisco and we shall all be incredibly thankful. the benefits of free wi-fi in san francisco are many. not only will it further open up our parks and our city to innovation, to education, and includetionthv i. for all san francisco residents, but it's also as i mentioned before a significant step towards bridging our digital divide in our city. it provides local groups and community residents access to the internet they might not have had before, as well for our rec and park department as phil knows all too well many rec centers still use dial up service. when we think about re

and i now get to introduce one more very important partner, mark tuitu who is head of the department of technology has brought an infusion of energy into the notion of innovation and partnership. so, mark, come on up. (applause) >> good morning. it's very exciting to be part of the reigniting of our sf connectivity effort. when i took the job three months ago, mayor lee challenged me to simplify, accelerate, and bring the private sector experience to, you know, bettering the architecture, infrastructure of the city. and, yes, mayor lee is right, we are behind in some ways, but the beauty is that we are ahead in many ways. and there are plenty of opportunities to leverage our infrastructure throughout the city to bring pre-wi-fi to our citizens. now, of course, when you're new in the -- any city company, one important thing is the budget. so, thank you, supervisor farrell, for saving me time and accelerating the effort because with thanks to the leadership of the past few years and the generosity of google, i think we have -- we can jump start this whole process and deliver results fas

and of all people, both mark tuitu, phil ginsberg and others know it's a constant investment in technology that we have to make. and every company knows this as well as government and we're going to make -- you know, this is part of our infrastructure now. and, so, i've been an infrastructure mayor. i've been part of that infrastructure. it's not just freeways and bridges. it's telecommunication, information, infrastructure that we have to constantly invest in. you asked earlier what the vision was. you know, for me i've always had a very strong vision that every child that is here in san francisco, every school, every educational institution should be at its highest level of skill setting for the 21st century of a city that is an innovation capital of the world. that means we have a lot of work to get done in our schools. we have a lot of work to get done in every corridor, every neighborhood. we still have a serious digital divide in the city and in the bay area, and we're going to get everybody up to speed so that everyone who lives here and wants to be here can also succeed in technolo

i certainly want to thank our department of technology and its new leader mark tuitu for also stepping up to the plate. mark is such a visionary and i think we have years of great things to come out of our department of technology and this is just the first step. and lastly i want to thank my staff and in particular wherever margo is, mar co-kelly. -- margo kelly. margo spent the last two years quarterbacking this project. she spent so many hours of her life dedicate today bringing this to the residents of san francisco and we shall all be incredibly thankful. the benefits of free wi-fi in san francisco are many. not only will it further open up our ks

i certainly want to thank our department of technology and its new leader mark tuitu for also stepping up to the plate. mark is such a visionary and i think we have years of great things to come out of our department of technology and this is just the first step. and lastly i want to thank my staff and in particular wherever margo is, mar co-kelly.

. >> yeah, i mean that's why we hired mark tuitu for [speaker not understood]. my competitive spirit with mayor bloomberg in new york, rahm emanuel in chicago, we're always exchanging information about you got this, you got that. our staffs and our department heads do the same. , and so, we're always saying, they did this. how come we can't do that? and the message gets shared with neighborhood leaders as well ~. so, i get this a lot from neighborhood leaders, how come we don't have wi-fi in all of our parks? how come you always concentrate on golden gate, for example, but not on balboa? these are the kind of things i think we're wanting to make a statement on. i think, for example, our police department a we're working on with technology, another good example. one of these days we're going to have officers be able to dot reports while they're in their vehicles in the streets rather than coming back to their stations and spending 2 or 3 hours trying to do all the reports ~. we're working on that right now. but, you know, i think any city who needs the resources