Save the date: Knight Center of Digital Excellence Chief Technical Officer Mark Ansboury will be in the thick of a Benton Foundation-hosted panel discussion on the characteristics of the “best of the breed” broadband stimulus applications tomorrow, May 7, from noon to 3 p.m.

The discussion will be streamed live at www.benton.org and we’ll be keeping tabs on it as it happens with live updates from Ansboury and answers to incoming questions.

Have an opinion? Want to submit a question? Be sure to comment, tweet, or e-mail us at info@knightcenter.org with your thoughts.

The discussion will touch on:

• San Francisco and Seattle as excellent examples of innovative approaches like fiber-to-the-home piloting in low-income neighborhoods, public ownership, dark fiber construction for private sector leasing and robust, energetic digital inclusion efforts.

• Members of the Rural Fiber Alliance examining approaches that make sense to reach rural America.

• Measuring Success: Panelists will make the case for community-level metrics as a necessary component of the broadband stimulus projects.

Ansboury will be part of a respondents’ panel moderated by Charles Benton. He’ll be joined by The University of Illinois’ Kate Williams and Geoff Daily of App-Rising.com and the Rural Fiber Alliance.

The first panel will be moderated by Columbia Telecommunication Corp. President Joanne Hovis and include discussion from Bill Schrier, Seattle’s chief technology officer; Chris Vein, San Francisco’s chief information officer; ECFiber’s Tim Nulty, Hiawatha Broadband’s Gary Evans and Jaguar Communications’ Donny Smith.

We’re excited to be part of the discussion. Be sure to join us.