Startup Talk: Arkansas Lawmakers Start Digital Divide Initiative
by October 29, 2015 7:08 am 133 views
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ARKANSAS LAWMAKERS START DIGITAL DIVIDE INITIATIVE: Arkansas House Speaker Jeremy Gillam and Senate President Pro-Tempore Jonathan Dismang have asked the Joint Committee on Advanced Communications and Information Technology to find a way to connect the state with “affordable high-speed broadband internet” and have legislation ready by the 2017 regular session.
According to the FCC’s 2015 Broadband Availability in America Report, 59% of Arkansans are now living in an area where there is no access to high-speed broadband internet. The committee held its first meeting on Wednesday to begin the initiative.
“It is time to step up our game,” said Speaker Gillam. “Every home, every business, every school must have appropriate access.”
ST. LOUIS VENTURE CAPITAL FORUM SEEKING APPLICATIONS FROM MIDWEST STARTUPS, EARLY STAGE COMPANIES: InvestMidwest is seeking applications for investor presentations from the best high growth companies in the Midwest for its 17th annual conference in St. Louis in March 2016. In the past, companies showcased at InvestMidwest have raised more than $1 billion in funding and through acquisitions.
The selection committee for the investment capital forum will consider companies seeking a minimum of $1 million in financing, projected to have revenues of $20 million in five years, and are located in the “center corridor” of the U.S. Applicants must come from three industry tracks, including life sciences, IT/general business and food/ag/bioenergy. For more information on the application process, visit www.investmidwestforum.com.
MOBILE PAYMENT USE STILL LUKEWARM AMONG U.S. CONSUMERS: Though mobile-payment awareness in North America has reached a tipping point, fewer than one in five use their mobile phones to make at least one payment a week, according to a new report from Accenture.
Based on a survey of 4,000 smartphone users in the United States and Canada, the report – the 2015 North America Consumer Digital Payments Survey – found that while the number of consumers who know they can use their phones as a payment device jumped nearly 10 percentage points since last year, to 52%, actual mobile-payment usage remained flat, growing only one percent.
The survey identified two groups of early adopters driving mobile-payments usage: high-income consumers and millennials. Consumers with household income of at least $150,000 are the most-avid adopters, with 38% using their phones to make payments at merchant locations at least weekly. Twenty-three percent of Millennials – people between the ages of 18 and 34 – reported using their phones to make mobile payments at a merchant location at least weekly compared to an average of 18 percent for other age groups. To see the full report, click here.