High-speed Internet Conference Slated For Late September

Connect Arkansas is hosting the “Connecting Arkansas Internet Conference” September 25-26 at the Marriott Hotel in downtown Little Rock. The goal of the conference is to provide a more complete picture of high-speed Internet in Arkansas.

Marie Bruno, vice-president of Connect Arkansas, a project of Arkansas Capital Corp., says the two-day sessions will explore a myriad of ways broadband is functioning in Arkansas commerce and education.

“The goal of the conference is to show people exactly what high-speed Internet is doing throughout our sector – through agriculture, through education, economic development, what our libraries are doing, what innovative things we’re doing,” Bruno said.

The conference will also look at the challenges of delivering high-speed Internet to all Arkansans and how local, regional, and state leaders from both the public and private sectors are working to address them. Arkansas is currently pushing to expand high-speed Internet in a public-private partnership to provide more broadband to public schools.

Some of the speakers scheduled to attend are:

• Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe
• Grant Tennille, Arkansas Economic Development Commission Director
• Kathy Smith, Senior Program Officer for Arkansas Education Reform Initiative, Walton Family Foundation
• John Horrigan, Independent Communications and Technology Policy Consultant and a Senior Fellow at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies
• Kristin Cuilla, Director, New School Development, New Tech Network in Napa, California
• Diane Smith, Founder and CEO at AmericanRural.org and author, TheNewRural.Com

The event is open to the public, but space is limited and there is a $25 per person registration fee that includes breakfast and lunch. The full conference agenda is available at this link.  You can watch an interview with Bruno from Connect Arkansas below.