Marshall Brown, founder and CEO of the New York-based company Wi-Fi Salon, has been absorbed with the question: “How can we create the future of Wi-Fi as an engine for economic development, and use it for social good?”

The answer, according to Mr. Brown: Light up as many as 26 areas in the city with free wireless hotspots, including large parts of the Upper West and Upper East Side by the end of this year.

Speaking to The New York Sun, Mr. Brown said: “Wi-Fi is short for wireless fidelity. It is the wireless way by which people connect to computer networks and the Internet. In the next three years the industry is poised to go from 5 million Wi-Fi enabled laptops, PDAs, phones and other devices, to over 100 million.”

Mr. Brown decided to start his own company, the Wi-Fi Salon, in 2002 in a bid to revitalize New York and make it the future Wi-Fi capital of the world. The city’s department of parks and recreation awarded him a three-year renewable permit to run 16 Wi-Fi hotspots in nine parks and four boroughs. Portalize, his Wi-Fi software, allows people to blog, discuss, newsletter, calendar, post links,and create local directories of the stores, restaurants, services, schools and governmental resources around that hotspot location.

A graduate of Dartmouth College and the University of Chicago, Mr. Brown taught humanities for five years at Harvard University while writing on media and culture.

From 1996-98 he was a Compaq Education Solutions provider. In 1999 he worked in Business Development for Little Universe, a community portal that focused on schools and local businesses. He lives in New York City with his wife, and young son and daughter.

“Wireless technology, like the Internet, took a lot of people by surprise,” he said yesterday.”I believe that Wi-Fi is as much an instrument for social change as it is a means to increase economic activity and productivity. If the amount of processing power, storage, memory, and bandwidth you can buy for a dollar continues to double every 18 months, the logical result is this – broadband Internet everywhere for everyone. At what point will it start to make sense for neighborhoods or even buildings to become their own telecom cooperatives?”

Though a true visionary – Mr.Brown is offering free services to the city – he is by no means running a charity. He proposes to make money through Peace Talk, the software that will give local residents and businesses the ability to run their phone service over the Internet with significant savings, and through other promotional offers.

Mr. Brown spends his free time pursuing a favorite hobby: creative writing.