Professor Phil Weiser will serve as co-chair of Colorado’s first Innovation Council to spur advances in Colorado's technology sector by expanding and growing opportunities for the 3,800 high-tech businesses and 175,000 IT/software employees in this state. The Council is one part of Gov. Bill Ritter’s new comprehensive high-tech initiative to consolidate and reform state government's fractured information technology operations. The Governor issued an "Improving State Information Technology Management" executive order in May.The Innovation Council is bringing together 34 leaders from around Colorado, composed of experts from large, small, urban, and rural technology businesses, as well as leaders in the venture capital, government, academic, and nonprofit sectors. The council will have three primary subcommittees that will:Assist the state as it reforms and improve its use of information technologyDevelop a strategy for spurring broadband deployment throughout the stateSupport state government's economic development efforts for the technology sectorThe council will be co-chaired by venture capitalist Brad Feld, managing director of the Foundry Group; entrepreneur Juan Rodriguez, who founded StorageTek and Exabyte; and Phil Weiser. The Council's executive committee will include Cathy Fogler of Charter Communications; Su Hawk, president of CSIA; and Lee Kennedy, founder of TriCalyx. "Our state must develop a robust and ubiquitous broadband infrastructure to support an array of applications that will transform how the people of Colorado work, learn and play," Weiser said. "Deploying broadband to unserved areas of Colorado is a make-or-break issue for the state. We cannot afford to leave Colorado citizens or businesses behind as other states and countries adopt broadband connections and applications that catapult them ahead in the 21st Century economy."