Thanks to Steve Kraus I had the opportunity to join the Office of Broadband Development on a visit with folks in Waseca to talk about broadband use and need. We stopped to visit the library, the superheroes of the pandemic era, especially in an area without ubiquitous broadband. We visited with the Warden of the federal women’s prison and several stops related to farming or ag business. They are great stories of people making smart use of technology.

9:30am – Board of Commissioners Meeting and OBD Presentation

It was great to meet the Commissioners in the person, after meeting them through Zoom last summer. There were 12 people in attendance. They discussed a number of topics but I focused on broadband. Hannah Buckland from the Office of Broadband Development gave a presentation. Commissioners had questions about communities with excellent broadband, such as Rock County and NW MN.

11:00am – Visit to Waseca-Le Sueur Regional Library

We spoke to librarians about how their Digital Equity plan evolved. Initially, they had one person who did digital training, which wasn’t enough for a library system with nine locations. Also, the classes weren’t well attended. It turned out there was need but patrons needed them on-demand. So, they shifted to helping patrons on a question-by-question basis. Then we thought about a more system way to address the needs.

• They have 9 libraries and only one has more than one person behind the desk.
• 5 libraries are open fewer than 23 hours a week
• Very little tech training for staff
• Most patrons don’t have jobs that require digital skills. So, they don’t have basic skills. They need help. Users share their passwords. People feel shame.
• Many people have phones only for technology so they come in for needs – such as related to telehealth.
• Need more reliable broadband for distance higher ed.
• Most frequent questions are about printing
• They still circulate hotspots. They had 500 hotspots until grant ran out; now they have around 20 and that’s because of vocal demand.

They want to help but we don’t have the capacity. Theydid a survey with patrons are learned that people like to figure things out on their own, then learn through videos.

The dream solution is to have Digital Navigators. They want to promote creativity online and content producers.

A plan from OBD is to have noncompetitive grants for libraries. But the budget and timeline are vague. There will be funding available and this is in line with what it’s for.

Favorite COVID stories:

They held a Folktales and Fairies online event where kids from all over the world attended. And they were able to get authors who would not have been available if it required travel. Even author-to-author connections were unusual and outstanding.

11:40am – Tour of AURI Bioindustrial Innovation Center

• Alan Doering, Senior Scientist for Coproducts

The tour says it all – with great enthusiasm. AURI works with businesses to test and research their technology. A lot of what they work on is creating sustainable solutions, such as replacing plastic with byproducts that are biodegradable. They need broadband to promote and remote what they do but they need serious broadband to transmit and process data remotely.

It is a nice example of how broadband contributes to sustainability.

12:15pm – Lunch at U of M Southern Research Outreach Center (SROC)

• Lunch provided by Lush Cakes
• Jason Stenzel, Director of Operations at SROC
  • Exploring how SROC is helping to bridge the digital divide in all sectors of the Agricultural Economy
• Warden Michael Segal, Federal Correctional Institution Waseca
  • Upskilling and education for incarcerated individuals. Warden Segal will walk through his philosophy of corrections and discuss some unique and creative tools implemented at FCI Waseca.

Fun to learn about U of M Southern Research Outreach Center. One of the things they do is track local weather. Apparently, checking the local tracking of local weather is a popular activity with local farmers and beyond. Folks use broadband to access the information but the SROC uses more to upload and process the multiple factors associated with all aspects of weather measures.

Also interesting to learn about broadband in the federal women’s prison. Warden Segal is clearly dedicated to presenting inmates with opportunities to improve their lives in and out of the prison, including a wide range of educational opportunities. Broadband has bee essential in delivering remote education.

1:30pm – Jeff Huelsnitz (Huey) Farm

• Jeff will discuss precision planting and agriculture and demonstrate some of the equipment used in this critical sector.

The Hueys have a large family farm but are also precision ag equipment dealers. They got interested in precision ag early and have become local experts. They talk about the difference that precision ag came make – for example they track seeds as they are sown, including skipped and double-seed drops, which apparently can cost 20 bushels per acre. They are often able to improve precision rates from 95 percent to almost 100 percent by helping people adopt precision ag. They also talk about the importance of time management in farming and how much can be spent or save regularly.

Inherent in precision ag is the need for broadband. Often a farm with want FTTH, a wifi network and cellular access to cover the needs of the farm business and crop tracking in the field. Hueys admit that their connectivity is fine, but not great. They work with some folks who have broadband that’s less than fine and want to work on precision-ag-adjacent solutions – but really can’t. No need to buy the best equipment if you can’t get online. In that case maybe there’s a way to make the tractor faster or find other fixes. But a farm without broadband is missing opportunities and going back to the first stop of the tour, that means loss of profits but also minimizes sustainability for the land.