Broadband Drives the Future

Mark McElroy of Connected Nation showed a picture of a mule pulling cable into a rural eastern Kentucky community. Before the mule was a community that wanted broadband. Behind it was a public-private effort to get that service to them.

“This is digital inclusion in Kentucky,” McElroy said during the technology workshop Friday morning.

Connected Nation began as a public-private partnership in Kentucky and has expanded into several other states as the need to expand broadband technology across the country grows.

McElroy and Julia Johnson, chairwoman of the Video Access Alliance, discussed efforts across the country to get more people online. McElroy outlined the various benefits—from health care to education to economic growth—of expanding broadband access across the country.

And, McElroy pointed out, many of the jobs in the future haven’t even been developed yet. The United States, he said, needs to make sure its students are competitive with students around the world, and having access to broadband technology can help achieve that goal.

Connected Nation donated computers to many students in the states it serves, but McElroy stressed the key component is having broadband access.

Johnson echoed those remarks, and added that it’s also important to provide content that will draw people to the sites that can help them.

“We spend most of our time focused on the transformative power of broadband and what that is doing for all of our states,” Johnson said of her nonprofit organization, which encourages multiple platforms for delivering information and entertainment.

“We have an extraordinary platform that is still being underutilized,” she said. “We are working together to make sure we get the biggest bang from our technology.”

—Mary Branham Dusenberry