Expanding City Voices Through Technology in Augusta, Georgia

Welcome to our first episode of Bridging the Digital Divide!

Our first guest is Katherine Bonner, the Project Coordinator of Downtown Development Authority in Augusta, Georgia. In this conversation, we learn how Augusta uses technology to connect with its residents and promote collaboration in the community, as well as the city’s notable community development projects, Katherine’s career background, and what makes Augusta so special.

Looking for advice on how to better integrate tech into your community? Listen in! 

If you like what you hear, subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and let us know what you think by leaving a rating and review! Episodes will release every week and feature smart city guests from all over the country. Big thanks to Katherine Bonner for joining us on this episode and sharing Augusta, Georgia’s story!

Read the full transcript below:

Katherine Bonner: So we are big on collaboration in Augusta. We understand, again, we're a big, small town, but because we're a smaller town, we're not going to be an Atlanta or a Boston. So how can we be creative with the organizations and the individuals and the human capital that we have?

Ally Peters: Welcome to Bridging the Digital Divide, a Smart City Podcast from Soofa, where we explore the places where urban landscapes are intertwined with technology to see how connectivity thrives, innovation sparks, and sustainability grows.

Kiel Hauck: Welcome to Bridging the Digital Divide, a Smart City podcast from Soofa. I'm Kiel Hauck. I lead the marketing team here at Soofa and we are so glad to have you join us today on this very first episode of our podcast. This project has been in the works for quite some time now, and we're so thrilled to see it come to fruition. And what better way to start it than with a fantastic guest?

As today, we welcome Katherine Bonner, the Project Coordinator at the Downtown Development Authority of Augusta, Georgia. And we'll get into our conversation with her in just a moment. But I'm joined by Ally Peters, who works with me on the marketing team at Soofa. Ally thanks for being on the podcast.

Ally Peters: Yes, of course. Thanks for having me. Yeah, like Kiel said, we had a really fun conversation with Katherine, and we chatted with Katherine a couple months back just about her general experience working with Soofa. And Kiel and I both agreed that she's a perfect interview guest to have. So this episode also came out really well, too. So excited for everyone to hear it.

Kiel Hauck: Yeah, it made so much sense in kind of that first conversation that we had with Katherine that sparked a lot of the ideas that we had to make this podcast into a reality. Yeah, we'll get to hear Katherine. She has such an interesting background going from working in marketing, moving away from Augusta, coming back, and then working on these projects to develop the overall experience for residents in Augusta, Georgia.

And it's a really fascinating conversation that I think gives a look into how smart city projects come to fruition. All of those beginning pieces and the different people involved that lead to something being implemented and rolled out to a community that is looking to improve and grow. And it's just really fascinating to hear what's happening in Augusta. And so we're excited to share that conversation. Without further ado, we'll get right into it. Here's Katherine Bonner with the Downtown Development Authority of Augusta. Katherine, welcome. Thank you for joining us on the show.

Katherine Bonner: Thank you for having me. So glad to be here.

Kiel Hauck: Yeah. I know when we'd spoken with you in the past, I think both Ally and I were really surprised by what you shared about Augusta. I mean, neither of us are from Georgia, and so I feel like, anytime you talk with somebody and you're talking specifically about a place, you're peeking in through a window to somewhere that you haven't been and kind of learning about what makes that place so special. And for us we're excited today to learn a little bit more about the City of Augusta and some of the projects that are happening and what you're spearheading there.

But one of the things I remember when I was first kind of looking at your LinkedIn profile before we spoke the first time was what an interesting background you'd had. You kind of went from a lot of different marketing roles into this project management role in Augusta. And I'd love to kind of start the conversation by hearing a little bit more about your career trajectory and what led you to the work that you're doing today.

Katherine Bonner: Of course. So I think it can be summarized in the sentence, I am a nerd. I started my professional career working in model United Nations. So I did everything from doing logistics and facilitating conferences to creating research and policy content for different programs to be using, to eventually even traveling and teaching out in Asia and then working with a company out of India, getting to manage a lot of their learning and development programs there. So, definitely an academic background. Was able to kind of mix research, policy and practice together in that early part of my career. And have done marketing, have done development, have done research.

But it's great to be in this project management role now, which really encapsulates so many different pieces of that. So whether it's working on our website or marketing or social media, or if it's writing grants which, proud to say, in the last calendar year, we have received over $4 million of funding for projects for Downtown Augusta, or even just working on different ways to better interface with our community and beyond. So it's a great role, and it also allows me to do a lot of the different pieces of the puzzle that are my career experiences and my own personal and professional goals and things that I get really passionate about.

Ally Peters: Yeah, that seems like such a perfect way to, I mean, a perfect segue into what you're doing now. Yeah, having a marketing background, too, is probably especially helpful for you in this role because you're working with so many different businesses and people and you're marketing the City of Augusta to people too. What drew you into working with local government specifically?

Katherine Bonner: Sure. I have always been passionate about Downtown Augusta. My first job in high school, before I went off to college, was working for a boutique downtown that also had a giving back component. So it was a consignment shop and thrift store, but also funds raised went back to serve women in the community who were looking to gain professional knowledge, needed business wear for interviews, and connections to professional resources. So I got really lucky to get plugged into downtown before I was even out of high school and I moved away.

And it's kind of a similar story. As a lot of people in Augusta, we might have gone away for college, some career, some opportunity to travel or do something different. But there's so much heart in Augusta and there's so much community. So whatever brings you back, it's captivating and you want to give back to it. So, for me, coming back, a large part of it was, what can I do to be purposeful about serving this community? And then when the opportunity presented itself to do that, specifically in downtown Augusta, I already had a piece of my heart there. So it was really awesome to be able to tie that into what my day to day work entails.

Ally Peters: That's so cool to hear. You have such great roots to the city and you've been living there and experiencing it for so long, and I'm sure that definitely helps with your job now, which is just super cool. So what makes Augusta special, in your opinion? What do you think sets the community apart from others?

Katherine Bonner: So we are a big, small town, and it's one of those places where, as a metropolitan area, we are close to 300,000 people, depending on who you ask on what day. Between us and Columbus, we're the second biggest city in Georgia after Atlanta. So in terms of numbers, we have that. But we also have, of course, that golf tournament every April and the one time in November. So that's definitely a draw for outside looking in. But just living here, it's amazing how much we are able to do and do well in what might be considered a smaller town. You've got every professional resource you might need. We have super active chambers and development organizations and community programs. We're right on the Savannah River, so it flows straight between us and North Augusta. You can literally drive across a bridge downtown, and you're in South Carolina. So every opportunity to be on the water, that's something that we have afforded to us.

There's lakes everywhere, so you've got this great opportunity to connect with outdoors. We have Iron Man 70.3 that comes every year. We've got so many different, athletic things that happen, rowing on the river, and we also have Fort Gordon. So what's unique about that is it has been a hub for the NSA for about a decade now, and it is an army base, but it does have every branch of the military represented. And it became, the cyber center as well over the last decade. So for the army, the cyber hub is now in Augusta. And along with that, the cyber center, which is a partnership between academia, at the local government, and the base is centered in downtown Augusta. So we've got this great forward momentum for creative thinkers, but also practical thinkers. You get that great mix of we want to do what we're doing right, but we're also learning and growing and innovating right here. So we've got that.

A, couple weeks ago, President Biden announced that we're now a workforce hub, which we're up against cities. There's five in the US. And you have places like Pittsburgh and Baltimore that are definitely, numbers wise, bigger. But because of Augusta's thriving workforce and the organizations that are helping support and cultivate that, it makes it so exciting just to know that that's not just being recognized, but now we have even more resources to continue to grow Augusta and our metropolitan area.

Kiel Hauck: Yeah, that's a really awesome story, and it kind of speaks to, I think, everything that you just laid out. It's one thing to say, hey, here's what I like about my community. But certainly it's great when all that is backed up by real things like that that are happening right where you are. I'd love if you could tell us a little bit more about the role of the Downtown Development Authority of Augusta. Like, if you had to give the elevator pitch to somebody of like, hey, what do they do? What is that?

Katherine Bonner: Absolutely. We are quasi governmental. We are a public private partnership. We are birthed out of the city of Augusta about 45 years ago. And we work in conjunction and alongside other development organizations in the community. So we have economic development authority for the City of Augusta, and they mainly focus on larger projects, manufacturing. We've had big technology and different mining companies like Denkai and Arubis that have rooted in Augusta in our corporate park over the last few years. Starbucks Soluble. So if you drink any of those via instant coffees, that's through a partnership with the economic Development Authority. But the DDA specifically, we focus on downtown.

So, technically, our boundaries go from the Savannah River all the way to Wrightsboro Road, which is past our medical district. We've got our boundaries going all the way up to Washington Road, which is our major thoroughfare in town. So it's probably something like 40, 50 sq mi. But the actual downtown proper, we call it the Central Business District, or the Broad Street Corridor, since Broad Street is our main street downtown, where most of the commerce is conducted. So that's going to be about ten blocks east to west, and then you've got about five blocks north to south. And that's our consolidated main downtown. But we do serve even beyond that.

Kiel Hauck: Okay, well, I mean, obviously, we came into conversation with you a few months back because Augusta has implemented Soofa signs into the downtown area and you were a part of that project. And I'm wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about just on a larger scale. How do you feel like Augusta is moving into the digital age and beginning to implement technology in ways that better serve the people in the community, either from a communication standpoint or otherwise. What does that look like today?

Katherine Bonner: So we definitely were spurred forward by getting that cyberbase here, the Cyber Center of Excellence. You see someone next door has changed their windows and put up some new curtains, and they've planted some flower bushes. So you might want to go ahead and start doing the same, dress it up a little. So, for us, uh, it was a good acknowledgment, that we were on the right path as a city, that we were chosen for that. But also across the board, we have six or seven different marketing firms downtown that do everything from video production to branding websites, day to day, solutions for companies. So we've got that creative hub here already. And we also have a really great collaboration between our different, agencies, whether it's the local government, which is doing a lot in terms of getting information out to citizens better through digital means, uh, making sure that wayfinding around town is more convenient and more accessible. Updating a lot of the just basic infrastructure as well. Right now, we're going through a very big streetscape, project downtown. So that's a big piece of even while we got the Soofa sign. So we are taking technology and road structures from the 1970s and bringing them up to date. One, it just makes for more efficient roads and more efficient utilities, but also it gives us a lot more opportunity and makes our downtown much more beautified and gives us more opportunity again, to connect with citizens.

So, we have a bridge downtown that's recently been turned into a pedestrian park, and that's got Wi Fi and, of course, a Soofa sign on it. And we've also been able to work with the city of Augusta to look at other ways that we can make some of our common recreation spaces, especially those downtown, be more interactive for citizens. The city had purchased the Soofa benches back in 2017, 2018, and put those on our riverwalk, which is our beautiful thoroughfare that's right in front of the water. And that was a great resource, where, again, you know that you have pedestrian activity, you know, you have people that are looking to get outside and want to explore, but you want to create better ways for them to interface with what's happening, giving them those real time updates. Here's where you're at, here's what's going on, and here's even a charger that you can use as you go along your way. So, I think it's just a comprehensive understanding that for us to be competitive as a city, but also a city that best serves its residents and visitors. That because going outside and exploring is something that's so prevalent, we have to find a way to connect with people who are doing that. Our convention and Visitors Association.

So, Destination Augusta is very active with creating that branding and marketing that exists on signs around town, on our websites; We work closely with them to see how we can even look at how a local can be a visitor in their own hometown. And a lot of that to us, tied up with this Streetscape project coming up that we knew about, said, hey, we have this existing relationship as a city with Soofa, but here's a completely new technology that we haven't brought in. How can this serve us? In a lot of different ways. And as we've talked about before, we've found even more ways that it's been beneficial for us and the community.

Ally Peters: I love the idea of citizens being visitors in their own hometown. And I think implementing technology is such a great way to do that. Because I'm local to Boston, I've lived close to the city most of my life. So I think that I've experienced a lot of things. But as new technology and as new things are coming up, there are ways for me and other people around Boston to, like you said, be visitors in their own city. So it's cool when you said that, it stood out to me. It's just a really cool concept. And, I don't know, it's really a great way to keep people involved and keep people interested in the city that they may have been living in their whole lives.

Katherine Bonner: So, yeah, for it's, data is so important. And even before Soofa signs, which we love, that that helps track who's, where and who's actually utilizing the signs. We have a partnership with a firm out of Alabama that gives us trackable data for people that are coming downtown, where they're coming from, where they're going to, their demographics, so that we can even look at downtown and say, what are we missing? What can we change? What are we doing well, at, what can we do better? And part of that data piece very clearly said leading up to and during the pandemic, and it's continuing to resonate. And this matches with what Destination Augusta has seen.

Our largest group of visitors comes from within 30 miles of downtown Augusta. And, I mean, our metropolitan area extends for almost 45. So what we're experiencing in this data and understanding is that we have local tourists. So how can we again continue to shape that experience? We know what August is like, we know what it feels like, we know the tradition of it. But what are the unique value adds or the things that you might not have known about that you haven't done before, that you can take the kids, take your partner, take your friends, and just enjoy right where you're at?

Kiel Hauck: Yeah, one of the things I find so fascinating about what you shared about the variety of different projects is that I would imagine in conversations that you have, it's not like, hey, there's an improvement we want to make or problem we want to solve. And here's this one thing that's the solution. Everything seems to be kind of intertwined in a way that all works together to improve the overall experience that people are having when they're coming downtown.

So I'm interested to kind of understand a little bit about what the process is like for you to pursue those types of projects. Who gets involved? How do you make those big decisions about how you're going to piece together different smart city tools or different processes that you're going to implement to make it all kind of work seamlessly together?

Katherine Bonner: So we are big on collaboration in Augusta. We understand, again, we're a big small town, but because we're a smaller town, we're not going to be in Atlanta or a Boston. So how can we be creative with the organizations and the individuals and the human capital that we have? So we have collaboration meetings between the different economic development organizations, with our Convention and Visitors Bureau, with our Chamber, with our local government, even with officials out at Fort Gordon. We make sure that we are constantly in touch and that we're seeking out ways that we can work together. Or better yet, sometimes it's, hey, this is a great program. This is something that's necessary and vital, maybe for business owners. We're not in a place to manage that program. So, hey, do you think the Chamber would be capable of facilitating this or one other way that we're solving that?

One of the grants we received is for a Micro Enterprise Center in downtown Augusta. So the DDA is partnering with local institutions of academia, and we are building a micro Enterprise Center to provide the education, but also working closely with local banks and credit unions, working with our small Business development center, working with our other small business trainers, and incubators and accelerators to bring everything under one roof. So it's saying, what are we able to contribute and can we do this? And is this the best organization to do it, or is this something where we need to bring everyone together for the pedestrian bridge?

We had a private business say, I'd love to be able to put WiFi on that bridge. So we worked with our Chamber and said, hey, let's all collaborate. We had another um, university and business in town that helped us get the infrastructure set up. And now that's a public resource available to anyone who's on that bridge. So just you see a problem or a need for something different or new or evolving, and you just sit down and say, is this an us thing, is this someone else, or is this something that we can all find a piece of the puzzle to work on together?

Ally Peters: I am thinking back to our first conversation, and one of the first things that you had mentioned was when Augusta was considering getting the Soofa signs, you mentioned that there was some pushback a little bit from the community or from the citizens just because they didn't know what Soofa was or what it was going to do. So I’m curious, if there is pushback, how can you reassure citizens that including more tech is beneficial to them?

Katherine Bonner: So, I think for us, we tried to be as proactive as possible about it. We made it clear here's where you, as a citizen or a business, have a space on this page. We worked with Destination Augusta and made sure that their RSS feed for their events calendar populated directly to the sign. There's a QR code so that everyone can go in and enter their events there. We made sure that we had polls where local bands or businesses could post what they were doing and we could cycle that information in real time. And we tried to create as many interactive components as possible before the signs came and start to educate the public on here's how you can add what you're doing and what you need others to know about to the signs themselves.

And one of the signs that did get the most pushback was the one in front of one of our local businesses. It's a music hall and bar, and it has a lot of history. James Brown used to perform there a lot. So they had this massive metal kiosk that you could take a push pin and put your posters on little paper flyers everywhere. And it had easily 25 years of layers of those posters. And so there's just a history and an institution to that, in a sense. And we actually were able to get that to someone who was interested in preserving it, and they did. But taking something that's old and comfortable and replacing it with something that's new and unknown is always hard. I mean, you never know until you know. So we tried as much as we could to build that excitement and that understanding beforehand.

We sought out members of the community that we knew could be advocates for it, and we made sure that they understood it, any of their questions or qualms were addressed and taken care of. And then when it came time to start creating even more ways for those screens to be functional and to be interactive for those that were passing by or those that were trying to get their information onto it, then we were able to just be really intentional about finding ways to make the signs work for us.

And kind of to that point, the way that Soofa is so interactive, and especially with the Widget model now, where I can go into Soofatalk and I can move things around. I can know that if there's certain times of the year where certain events are happening or if I know that I need to push out events because it's the middle of summer and people are looking at the kiosks and want something to do, I can be in real time able to manage what's going on on the screens and how that's best, serving the community. So that was for us, again, another reason why we were so excited about bringing in the Soofa signs, because it wasn't just a static screen. It's something that you can introduce information on in a way that's strategic, it's purposeful, and that it does again, serve the community.

Kiel Hauck: Yeah, I feel like that's sort of been a recurring theme in this conversation, is serving the community. And that seems to kind of manifest itself in a couple of ways. One, being meeting the community's needs as they arise, hearing the community's concerns, ensuring that each project is handled in such a way that it's educational for the people that are going to be using it, and that it is ultimately solving a problem or a challenge that they have. So when you consider these types of projects, would you say that that's kind of Augusta's main goal is just serving the community, and that means X, Y and Z in each scenario?

Katherine Bonner: Absolutely. Everything that we do is so that we're better embracing Augusta, better exhibiting Augusta, and better serving the people that live here, work here, play here, visit here. And for us too, the big impetus for the signs when we got them and having that timeline be what it was. What were those streetscape projects? We have six main thoroughfares, including Broad Street, that are being dug up, utility lines are being put underground, and utilities that haven't been changed since the 1970s are being replaced. So that's a huge undertaking and it's something that requires so much cohesive communication. And we knew that we needed to be innovative in the ways that we were finding that communication.

So of course websites, PSAs, traditional means like that, we're already implementing. But when we saw what the Soofa Signs were capable of doing, we said, wouldn't these be perfect for advertising the website with the weekly updates, for giving real time information about what's going on, for a location for businesses that were open downtown to be able to advertise and showcase? Hey, we are still here. We are still open. We are still operating. We're still thriving. So how can we again showcase all the great things that are happening and make sure that there's some understanding that we might be pardon our progress kind of situation?

But on the other end of it here's, the renderings of where you're going to have pedestrian seating, you're going to have bike lanes, you're going to have green spaces and a linear park. And while it's going on, downtown is still fully open for business. It's just maybe you have to cross over a street to get to where you're going. So here's traffic maps, here's, parking. Here are all the things you need to know to fully access and utilize downtown right in front of your face on a digital screen.

Kiel Hauck: Yeah, that's fantastic. And it's great to hear just all the thought that goes into making that experience what it is for everyone.I asked this next question. I feel like people should be, uh, drawing inspiration from Augusta right now. But I was going to ask, have there been other communities that have inspired Augusta's progress in this way? Are there other places that you kind of look to and draw ideas or inspiration from?

Katherine Bonner: So, there were a series of towns in Texas that weren't a Dallas, weren't a Houston, but were a good sized metropolis. And as they went through their own streetscape projects, they looked at something more than just a sign that you could stick on the street that was static. They were looking at ways to better engage with the public. And we started with the same kind of town halls and in person meetings and fireside chats and those are still scheduled, ongoing, but just really looking at the usefulness that different areas of New England had. I mean, your core base. We looked through as many case studies as you had and took notes from every single one. Well, this town is doing it like this. And this town is able to customize this particular quarter of the sign. So to say, how can we be strategic in every single component of the screen?

Because we do have the option to have four things concurrently happening. Which things are working best in which places? Atlanta as well. When they implemented some of their signs, and that was specifically for neighborhood messaging, they wanted it to feel as much at home for someone as possible and make it feel like it was their personal resource. We loved that we had some examples of what cities were doing that were working. And then we looked external for some of the streetscape oriented projects to see what have you done besides talking to people and posting on social media once every week or two.

So it was a combination of trying to innovate a little bit, looking at some of these places in Florida and Texas, and then looking at the Soofa model and seeing how the signs have been working in existing places and in cities that had some similarity to us. That we were able to kind of piecemeal together the different ways that the signs could be best used for us and then mean, we've evolved what we've done on the signs dozens of times because there's so many options. For how to use them and how to use them effectively. That it's nice to be able to change it up and to create new ways to serve and to innovate. And that Soofa creates those opportunities. For the user to be able to do that.

Ally Peters: Yeah, like Kiel said, it's so interesting to hear how much detail and how much thought goes into every decision a city like Augusta makes. And it seems like you're making choices really intentionally and for a reason. So, yeah, it's just super cool to know real stories of not only how Soofa is helping Augusta, but other tech as well, too. So, to wrap things up here, it seems like Augusta has their stuff together, and they're doing some really awesome stuff. So what advice would you give to other cities looking more closely into their tech and how they can implement more to help their cities? So Where should a city start if they're looking to implement more tech?

Katherine Bonner: They should start with their citizens. They need to go to whoever's living there, working there, spending time there, and say, what do you know? Here's some information that you might not know. Find those gaps, see what resources they're looking for, and start to map out a plan that allows the city to best serve its citizens. And from there, you can look at every innovative and creative solution. And especially with Soofa Signs, you can customize them so much to maximize all of those different things that different people need or different seasons need. Because obviously, needs of an area can evolve over time.

But I would say, look to your data. Where people are, where they're coming from, where they're going, where you want them to go, and then also just have those conversations and say, what can we do to best serve the community? And honestly, the biggest thing is we hear over and over again, the more communication, the more we know and see. I didn't even know this was happening or this was there, or this was an option until I saw it, and it was right in front of my face in a place that I frequent. So just being, again, intentional, but making sure that the human focus is there, how can we serve and how can we adapt to be the best community possible for the people that live in it and come into it?

Kiel Hauck: Awesome. Katherine, this has been fantastic. We're so appreciative of your time today. Thank you for taking the chance to chat with us and share a little bit about just how Augusta is thinking in terms of the forward motion that's happening there. This has all been really great, of course.

Katherine Bonner: Thank you both so much, and I appreciate all that you're doing to continue to provide some of these creative solutions for cities across the US.

Kiel Hauck: All right, thanks again to Katherine Bonner for joining us on the podcast today. Ally I don't know about you, but I thought that conversation was really enlightening into how these smart city projects come to life. From an idea, from a request into something that, after multiple stakeholders come involved, multiple people that are passionate about the project and working collaboratively, bring it to life. We often think about these things of like, oh, there's one person that's leading something here. Katherine really does a great job of explaining how different parties are involved and how they have to work together well in order for these projects to come to life. What were some of your takeaways from that?

Ally Peters: No, I totally agree. And somebody who isn't as familiar with how cities create new systems, and just somebody who's still learning about how cities work. It was really interesting to hear about how much work really does go into making big changes for a city, or even small changes. And I totally agree that it was just cool to see and hear about how connected Augusta is and how much emphasis they put on putting information out to cities and making sure that people are staying connected. So, I don't know. Yeah, I totally agree that she gave some really good insight into how cities are working and how Augusta really emphasizes their people, which I think is awesome.

Kiel Hauck: Which is really what the idea of this entire podcast was about, is shining light on these communities that are going the extra mile thinking ahead and putting together really exciting collaborative projects to improve the life of the people that live in their cities. And all you have to do is spend five minutes talking to Katherine to understand her passion for this. So, again, thanks, Katherine, for being on the show. If you liked what you heard today, we would love to have you follow along with our podcast. You can find us on your favorite podcast platform, Apple Music, Spotify. Wherever you get your podcast content, be sure to subscribe and leave us a review and then come visit us at soofadigital.com. That's going to do it for today's show. Ally thank you, as always, for being a partner in this journey.

Ally Peters: Of course, yeah, happy to be here.

Kiel Hauck: And I'm Kiel Hauck, and we'll catch you next time. Thanks for listening to Bridging the Digital Divide. If you enjoyed today's show, make sure to subscribe to our podcast and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform.

Ally Peters: And then come visit us at soofadigital.com to see how we're pursuing a mission to make every city smart, social, and sustainable.