Urban CLEC Cooperatives

A Competitive Local Exchange Carrier (CLEC), is a telecommunications provider company competing with other, already established carriers.

Urban CLEC Cooperatives

National Minority Technology Council Alliance Our urban communities have a unique opportunity for economic prosperity and job growth.

The current lack of coordination between our urban education systems, cities, housing districts, and the private sector has created an environment for partnership. The National Minority Technology Council Alliance (NMTCA) is proposing an alliance between minority CLECs, government, and community organizations.

Building Trusted Networks

Urban CLEC Coop

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Urban CLEC Cooperative Providing America’s Inner Cities with Broadband Capacity and Economic Prosperity To many providing Internet as a Utility may seem impossible. The challenge with hope is it prevails. Our unique systems approach to problem solving couples the value of the stakeholder analysis process with true requirements development. The intersection of poverty and ignorance cannot be overlooked. The fact remains that without a vision people perish.

Our vision is simple, people at work are better suited to empower family members. Putting people to work is an act of faith. Finding the work requires critical thinking. Implementing programs that generate work requires courage and hope. Sustaining an ecosystem that brings economic development to our urban communities requires a high political and industry acumen. The linchpin to success rests in our education system and its ability to inform and enlighten the populace it serves.

There is no easy answer but that does not mean there is no answer to the creation of the new American Middle Class. We must breakthrough the chains of entitlements and consumerism.

We must begin to inspire a nation of producers. In order to do this we must construct entities that govern people to success by providing viable constructs that honor our member's capabilities, while bridging new economies. We must leverage the current political will to help those who cannot currently help themselves by infusing a model that competes with the current status quo. This can only be done by disclosing how things work in our country in a way that both sustains and encourages community involvement in the core production of what is driving our 21st Century economy. Telecommunications or the technological process that unites us to resources and the ones we love has truly not yet been exploited to the benefit of the individual. This compelling truth will catapult our Urban Coop Initiative into the political limelight, which will enable growth in members from a new individual level. This will generate a pipeline of purpose driven citizens out of poverty and into the light of the American Dream.

Our country is as great as we make it and this initiative will rise to the Glory from which it was born. Our faith in what is not seen will be met with the truth that our individual equality is governed more by our self-esteem than by our situation.

Our ability to inform and govern as a non-stock entity is central to building an individual membership program housed in a coop. Our focus on governance, job creation, and our capacity to connect not only provide telecommunications services but to provide access to public services including workforce readiness and healthcare will leverage our reach and commitment to customer service.

Urban CLEC Cooperative

Sustainable Job Creation Putting People at the Center of Decision Making The Council is endeavoring to join the 1.6 Trillion dollar co-op movement. The Urban CLEC Cooperative puts people at the center of our economic decision making, not solely the drive for making profits. Our business model builds sustainability by connecting communities to jobs by empowering a knowledge transfer and access to industry.

Internationally co-operatives generally outperform their stock-market listed counterparts. Today coops are owned by one billion of the world's people, employs 100 million people across the globe, and which, according to the UN, sustains the standards of living of half of the world's population. Clearly this is not a new model and represents hope for those currently disenfranchised in our urban communities.

National Minority Technology Council Alliance

Urban CLEC Cooperative WHAT IS A CO-OP? A cooperative is an organization that is owned and controlled by the people who use its products, supplies and/or services. Cooperatives can vary in their particular purpose but share in common the fact that they are formed to meet the specific objectives of members and adapt to member’s changing needs. Self reliance and self-help are the hallmark of cooperatives.

The cooperative as a form of business organization began during the Industrial Revolution.

Cooperatives promoted the interests of the less powerful members of society. Workers, consumers, farmers, artisans and others found that they could accomplish more by combining their resources and working together.

Cooperatives can be used to address a multitude of shared needs: • • • • • •

Producers like farmers, artisans or industrialists utilize the cooperative to market or process their goods jointly.

Workers in areas as diverse as bicycle sales, baked goods production and catalog sales use cooperatives to create employment that offers many of the benefits of ownership.

Wages or income that directly corresponds to the economic results of the business.

More control over their work.

Consumers use cooperatives to gain better prices, acquire unique goods and services, or to meet social or cultural community needs.

Private business or public entities gain purchasing power through bulk buying, obtaining products or services that are difficult to obtain individually, or sharing administrative cost of certain projects.

Seven fundamental principles that guide cooperatives: 1. Voluntary and open membership. Cooperatives are voluntary organizations and membership is non-discriminatory by gender, social, racial, political or religious beliefs.

2. Democratic member control. Cooperatives are controlled by members who actively participate in setting policies and making decisions.

3. Economic participation. Members contribute equitably to the capital of their cooperative.

4. Autonomy and independence. Cooperatives are autonomous, self-help organizations controlled by their members.

5. Education, training and information. To foster the development of a cooperative, education and training for members, elected representatives, managers, and employees is provided.

6. Cooperation among cooperatives. To serve their members most effectively and strengthen the cooperative movement, cooperatives work together.

7. Concern for community. While focusing on members' needs, cooperatives work for the sustainable development of their communities through policies accepted by their members.