I just got an email from the Office of Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn in Illinois about the 10th annual Rural Telecommunications Congress Conference, which is happening in Springfield on October 14-17 2007.

Sadly I will be in Ireland so I won’t be going – but I went to the RTC Conference a couple of years ago in DC and thought it was very good. It’s a great chance to meet folks from the telecommunications industry and folks working to build rural networks. You can learn from what has gone well and I think people are pretty upfront about what hasn’t gone well for them too.

Keynote speakers include:

Pat Quinn, Lt. Governor of Illinois
James Andrew, Administrator, Rural Utilities Service
Hilda Legg, past USDA Rural Utilities Service Administrator
Walter B. McCormick, Jr., President & CEO, United States Telecom Association
Rex Nelson, Alternate Federal Co-Chairman, Delta Regional Authority
Matt Wenger – VP Sales, The Americas

Added Aug 2: Thanks to Ryan Croke for sending me an update of 3 added keywnotes:

-Charles Benton, Chairman of the Benton Foundation
-Gene Crick, Director of the TeleCommunity Resource Center
-Sharon Strover, Director of the Telecommunications and Information Policy Institute at the University of Texas