• Promote, develop, and coordinate efforts to secure equitable access to bandwidth and other telecommunications resources and services in rural Southern Oregon.
  
  
• Collaborate with rural organizations to close the "digital divide" (e.g., education, healthcare, business, government, and nonprofits).
  
  
• Secure resources through grants and economic development initiatives to promote self-sufficiency in rural communities.

• 65 community leaders from 4 counties in the distribution list
  
  
• Voluntary participation
  
  
• Usually about a dozen participate in the meetings
  
  
• Frequent eMail interactions with members of the list
  
  
• Good cross-section of the area
  
  
• But... need more business participation
  
  

Want to participate? Just let me know


Rural Initiatives Committee - Meeting Topics

• Telecommunications and Technology
• eGovernment
• Healthcare
• Education
• Projects
• Rural communities - working together
• Fundamentals - terms, etc.
• Legislation

• In general
  - More education is needed on the benefits of broadband access
  - Broadband deployment in rural areas lacking
  - Affordability of broadband access remains an issue
  
  
• Government
  - eMail and Web access in wide use
  - eGovernment is in limited use (Jackson County, Ashland, Medford), mostly for information, no transactions as yet
  - Cost factors cited among reasons in smaller cities
  
  
• Education
  - k-12: many wired and on line! (more later)
  - RCC: offers distance learning, significant commitment to distributed learning
  - SOU: extensive distance learning offerings
  
  
• Healthcare
  - MRIPA, Providence, Asante using Internet or virtual private networks
  - Many opportunities to expand use of Internet for patient education
  
  
• Workforce
  - Many issues to address
  - Skills training, equipment, accessibility, telecommuting opportunities