Region seeks ultra-fast broadband initiative through BbBB
March 22, 2010
The regional development partnerships among chambers of commerce, economic development, business leaders, educators, and communities are seizing an opportunity to propel the area forward to ultra-fast broadband connectivity. Spanning six of the region’s counties with ideal adjacency and assets, the emerging Broadband Beyond Borders (BbBB) initiative seeks a selection by Google to fund and implement a test-pilot gigabit broadband service.
Project leaders are urging local stakeholders to engage the project online through www.broadbandbeyondborders.com and by taking an online survey through Google that is linked on the BbBB site. The deadline for survey participation is Friday, March 26th.
As a stakeholder in regional transformation, the QSRT partners are highly-committed to the success of BbBB initiative as well. Giga-bit fiber to the home is important to expand training resources, employment opportunities (such as Rural Sourcing and telecommuting), and overall connectivity of citizens to associations, governments, and other networks. Gary Box, a Business Retention Coordinator at the SW MO WIB, is assisting the BbBB group with economic development market data needed for the BbBB’s proposal.
The Heartland Giga-Region initiative enjoys an innovative foundation based on a regional transformation framework driven heavily by broadband connectivity. The region’s borderless economic development approach integrates asset-based planning and research, workforce training and employment systems, and sector-based business leadership. Local Workforce Investment Boards (WIBs) teamed up with local economic developers to launch Quad States Regional Transformation (QSRT) in early 2008. QSRT quickly engaged stakeholders through a series of Regional Chamber impact summits. QSRT created strategies for Rural Sourcing, the leveraging of rural assets and competitive factors to reverse the trends of off-shoring by adding technology sector jobs in rural areas. Asset-based research and planning initiatives shared through QSRT helped equip chamber leaders and community benefactors to design and launch the Regional Prosperity Initiative, which netted more than $3 million in resource leveraging to attain economic development outcomes slated in the next three-five years.
