Whew – it’s been a day. I just finished the final segment of the Digital Inclusion Summit – the panel hosted by James Farstad and the Knight Foundation in Maplewood. Panelists for the event were:

• Rick King, Chair, Governor’s Ultra High Speed Broadband Task Force
• Catherine Settanni, Founder, DigitalAccess.org
• Sam Levy, Vice President and CIO, University of St. Thomas
• Susan Nemitz, Director, Ramsey County Library
• Mike Reszler, Director, Digital Media, Minnesota Public Radio|American Public Media
• Craig Taylor, Director of the Office for Business and Community Economic Development, University of Minnesota

They were a brave group who just opened themselves up to the following questions…

Q: National Broadband Plan promotes 90 percent of Americans by 2020 – what do you think of that?

RK: Minnesota is looking for ubiquitous coverage by 2015. We think it might take 2 years or so to get almost there – but the remaining portion will take longer.

Minnesota went for a world class as compared to the rest of the world as well as speed goals to help keep us competitive. Right now we’re at about 24th; the US is at 16th so we have some work to do.

We want to hear what the definition of broadband – not 768k, the current definition. That definition is not sufficient.

Q: The Feds are looking for a best practices clearing house. What best practices do we have to share?

CS: The best initiatives come from the community. CTEP came from nonprofits in the area. They had lots of donated computers – but the computers remained untouched. They needed people to mobilize technology and digital literacy skills.

Oftentimes the work of the nonprofit isn’t documented – but hopefully that will change.

Q: What are the core information needs and how can we continue to meet them?

MR: The support systems to maintain information are not cheap. How do you support organizations that are dedicated to making information available.

We need to focus on need, not technology. We need to imagine our need and let the computers meet those needs. The technology is great – but we still need people to post the parking tickets, death records, whatever online in a way that’s accessible.

Q: Access to broadband is said to have a direct impact on education outcomes. Is that true?

SL: Our connections to the community run deep. Kids are wired differently in some ways. They can’t remember a life without PCs. That makes it hard on the institutions to meet the needs. Computing is ubiquitous.

4G will make a huge difference. By 2012, information on the Internet is expected to be 90 percent video. We need to get high speed bandwidth out there to the people who need it.

Q: The FCC emphasizes the importance of tech access in the libraries? Do people really use technology in the library?

SN: Go into a public library if you haven’t been for a while. People are using the technology. We’ve seen double-digit growth. We provide Internet access; we see a 30 percent increase in hours used each year.

When the library opens, there’s a line to get to the computers. There’s another huge rush once school gets out. Students run into issues because the computers are home are too old, or many they have more siblings than computers, maybe printer is broken. Kids without access at home are at a huge disadvantage.

Seniors are probably the second largest demographic using computers. Often they are short on skills – even to do basic online tasks such as emailing grandkids.

Q: How do you think we can impact social infrastructure with broadband adoption?

CT: The U of M has invested $7 billion. We work with neighborhoods and communities. We found a disparity and a way to help breech the digital divide. We have focused on the need and built a solution to meet that need, using the advantages we have at the University. In low income households we saw that they didn’t have computers and/or Internet access.

Q: Ann Alquist from TC Daily Planet – how will the State address the rural inequity? Why doesn’t the FCC use the term Digital Divide now?

RK: Inclusion sounds warmer; divide sounds tough.

We heard from Public Safety folks and the state is putting in a network for first responders. They have a plan in place. It does relate to parts of what we were doing. We hoped to build upon the public safety network/infrastructure when possible to meet community needs. (Such as wireless towers.)

There are pockets of un-served areas throughout the State, which is why sometimes you see people outside rather than in.

CS: Language matters. Digital Inclusion is about what am I going to do about this problem. We need to be careful about how to talk about this.

Q: How can we get traditional media to use technology?

MR: We went out with the sesquicentennial to rural areas to get folks to tell their stories. First we asked folks to video and upload – but we learned that people weren’t ready to do that so we did it with them.

We’ve launched the Public expert network where people can self-select as experts and we can draw on those folks for more info.

Q: Where the videos close captioned?

MR: Yes

Q: Can we roll the 21st Century Communications & Video Accessibility Act of 2009 into our broadband plan?

CS: If you remove some of the politics sometimes things can happen more quickly. Approaching it from a regulatory perspective might be better.

JF: The FCC will discuss broadband and disabilities issues tomorrow.

Q: Rita Rogers from Office of Technology: The last half mile for people with disabilities is the computer. You have video and audio with no transcripts. The ADA rules are just not being applied. Could the CTEP group work with government agencies and nonprofit organizations to build better web sites for people with disabilities?

CS: We have been working with the Pacer Center, libraries and others.

One issue is that there’s never any money for accessibility. And if it’s not in the budget, it won’t happen.

CT: At the U of M we will be able to build more computer centers; part of what we will do is hiring about 42 people to build curriculum to address needs such as those affecting people with disabilities.

Q: How do you form and sustain effective partnerships?

SL: We need to talk about what we all agree on. I don’t have a problem with incumbents. Rather than talking about issues with incumbents we need to talk about our aspirations. That might draw in more people.

Q: What can we do locally to draw on resources of national libraries in a collaborative environment?

SN: Partnerships. We need to share aspirations. We are all working on digital literacy and curriculum. We need to benchmark and catalog to make sure we don’t recreate the wheel. There are

Libraries are taking cuts. We have computer centers that are open during the day – we need to work together to create depth as well as breadth.

Q: Peter Fleck from PFHyper: I see a lot of proposals from libraries and computer centers. I’ve wondered why we haven’t been better using our libraries and librarians. A big issue is 24-hour access. Why aren’t libraries spearheading efforts for 24-hour access and training?

Kit Hadley from St Paul Library – There is a certain territorial spirit that has led to the problem. We need to think of a plus-plus strategy. Libraries should be pushing for digital literacy and access. We need to take leadership here. There is more and more discussion on this topic throughout the State.

CS: Community computer centers started outside of libraries and other non-government centers. Computer centers wanted to be where the people were – and some folks won’t go into libraries.

Minnesota is a regional economy. Did you hear from the agriculture industry?

RK: The task force was made up of 23 people, including a librarian and several of folks outstate. We held 3 outstate meetings. We heard testimony from many people in rural areas. We heard that the service options they had were not robust. They didn’t have speed they wanted to use various applications. We also heard from folks who felt well served, but maybe wanted more competition. There are some great services in rural areas – but the infrastructure that looks like Swiss cheese – with holes in the service.

Of the 6 percent un-served – that is disproportionately rural.

Q – What is your advice to the next governor?

SN: The governor needs to have a vision – such as with the Task Force recommendations

RK: I hope that’s a task for the current governor – not the next governor. I hope we’ll have a more focused entity in the government to watch broadband issues.

MR: The vision is very important. We are thinking about people accessing info on mobile devices – not wired devices. Imagine your 70 in a rural area and your medical records are all on your handheld. You don’t have to go into town. In the third world they are skipping desktops and moving right to wireless.

Q: What do you want to see happen?

PF: I’d like to see the super-majority clause in the community telecommunications provider referendum change. There’s a bill SF2532 that’s trying to get rid of the super majority.

Mike Reardon – Thanks to Jim and the Knight Foundation. It was great to see the engagement locally and nationally.

CS: Like to see institutional partners do an annual conclave.

AA: The Twin Cities Daily Planet is working on a conference in September or October. The gutting for money for library and public information has been brutal.