CPB hires Lightpath evangelist to promote diversity, innovation

Joaquín Alvarado, advocate for the National Public Lightpath fiber optic network for public media, will join CPB June 30 as senior v.p. for diversity and innovation. With PBS and NPR, CPB endorsed the Lightpath project for federal stimulus spending in January, and at last month’s IMA Public Media Conference, Alvarado urged involvement in the expansion of fast Internet broadband service. (He describes the Lightpath idea in this video.) Alvarado is founding director of the Institute for Next-Generation Internet at San Francisco State University and a board member of the Bay Area Video Coalition and Latino Public Broadcasting. Earlier in the decade, Alvarado worked on films, as cinematographer and associate producer on Alcatraz Avenue (2000) and writer and director on The Silent Cross (2003), and he has written scholarly articles on ethnic diversity in media.