KnowledgePlex Website Launched

APA One of 19 Founding Partners

On October 30, 2001, at a ceremony in Washington, D.C., the Fannie Mae Foundation unveiled KnowledgePlex, a major new website intended to link activists, scholars, and policy-makers in the fields of affordable housing and community development. The American Planning Association is one of 19 national organizations and institutions invited by the Foundation to be a "founding partner" in this venture.

The website features a wide array of articles and research reports. In addition to a wealth of material from the foundation itself and a daily "news feed" of relevant stories from 300 media sources, the site contains material that each partner organization wishes to share with the public, links to partner websites, and a partner profile.

Visitors to KnowledgePlex are also invited to join one or more "communities of interest," where they can engage in chats and share documents with each other. In the future, the foundation intends to hold interactive webcasts on the site, as well as post self-instructional training modules.

The October 30 launch event featured a live webcast. Joining Foundation President and CEO Stacey Davis at the podium were APA Executive Director Paul Farmer, AICP, and representatives from the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the Brookings Institution, and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation. You may still view an archived copy of the 45-minute webcast of the launch. (Please note that the audio transmission is intermittent for approximately the first five minutes of the webcast but then clears up.)