The Northeast Minnesota Regional Broadband Summit happened today and I’ll post on each separately. (There will be eight regional meetings leading up to statewide fall conference Oct 12-14.) There was a huge crowd (100+) and lots of good information:

Agenda included (see PPTs):

Welcome from Duluth Mayor Emily Larson & IRRR Commissioner Mark Phillips

Office of Broadband Development Update – an update from Diane Wells (similar to the one given at previous regional conferences)

ICF Framework and Community Projects with Bernadine Joselyn. Fun to hear about a wide range of projects happening in the area:

• SBDC Tech Audits (Innovate)
• Workforce Talent Attraction – Hello Iron Range
• Koochiching County Coworking Space (Connect/Work/Include)
• Hibbing HRA Housing Wifi Project (Connect/Include)
• Local Libraries (Innovate/Include) East Range – STEM Rental

Successful Infrastructure Projects with Whitney Ridlon, at IRRR. Again fun to hear about the projects:

• French Township
• Cherry Township
• Town of Morse
• Boise Forte Tribal Government
• Paul Bunyan Communications
• CTC – Recent and Future Projects
• Aaniin – Connect. Share. Grow. (Fond du Lac)
• City of Duluth Update (CONFIRMED)

And then in small groups we got the opportunity to catch up with two Arrowhead projects out of the following

• IRTB – Casual co-working and welcoming communities (Shawn Herhusky CONFIRMED)
• IEDC – LaunchMN – Innovate 218 (Kirstie McPherson CONFIRMED)
• MN Children’s Press – Mapping Litter and Publishing (Anne Braataas CONFIRMED)
• Northspan – Welcoming Community programming (Amber Lewis CONFIRMED)
• 100 Rural Women – Coop Publishing Model (Teresa Kittridge CONFIRMED)