Palo Alto, which name derives from old coastal redwood tree is located in Santa Clara County, US, approx. 50 km south of San Francisco, and 20km north of San Jose.
The city is famous not only because of its innovative community and being headquarters to companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Facebook, or Tesla. The city is also famous because of its venture capital firms, Nobel Prize winners, and Stanford University, one of the most prestigious universities in the world. On top of that it has a pretty unique local business ecosystem, which is of my particular interest, as I analyzed dozens of such within my doctoral thesis entrepreneurial activities of local authorities at regional investment markets, and never found one such excellent as this.
What amazes me in Palo Alto the most is its digital excellence related to fiber ring providing ultrafast Internet to the citizens. And also, plenty of electronic services and applications stimulated by the city council through various mobile application challenges, which aim directly at increase of local communities engagement. Current and planned activities of the city council are transparently communicated in the calendar here.
When you are in Palo Alto, you can use mobile applications for connecting with your neighborhood communities, being notified about local news and events, or browse public libraries catalogues.
Electronic services provided by the city enable citizens to track council meetings, agendas, minutes, and videos, analyze local budget data, job openings, or register for volunteer trainings, and certifications.
Not only there are many applications supporting development of stronger and safer neighborhoods. Palo Alto is also a sudden-cardiac-arrest protected city thanks to partnership with non-government organization Racing Hearts, which had installed, and increases awareness of using automated electronic defibrillators (AEDs).
City Council provides great deal of help in terms of knowledge and know-how on starting, and growing a business, elaborating on topics such as: marketing, promotion, selling skills, business and social networking, hiring and managing employees, getting access to business trainings, and doing business with various partners, incl. the government.
Locally business relationships are also fostered by Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce, which numerous events can be found here.
City closely cooperates with Stanford University, where Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC)is located, with over 3000 scientists work on photon science and particle physics research. If you are interested in dark matter mysteries you can either find SLAC’s internships, and fellowships opportunities valuable, or visit one of the public lectures.
One thing I didn’t mention when I was elaborating on Stanford’s University business accelerator, or university sponsored venture capital firm, is Stanford Research Park, which played important role in creation of Silicon Valley and Cantor Arts Center. The latter is located at the university’s campus with magnificent Rodin’s sculpture garden. Visiting is for free, of course.
If you are visiting San Francisco, you will get easily to Palo Alto by Caltrain.
If my arguments didn’t convince you to explore the city a little bit, there is just one more thing, which are gourmet sliders and IPA beer served in the Sliderbar at 324 University Ave.
Dzida!