The White County eCommunity Leadership Team, comprised of White County business and civic leaders, met June 17 to discuss the status and importance of broadband infrastructure to the development of the community.
Larry Raybon, Connected Tennessee’s eCS project manager in Middle Tennessee, led the meeting to identify certain benchmarks for broadband technology. Connected Tennessee’s goal is to accelerate the availability and use of technology toward creating a better business environment, more effective community and economic development, improve healthcare, enhance education and more efficient government.
“A lot of companies coming into White County and Tennessee, if they’re not already using the Internet in their particular jobs, they expect employees to be familiar with the Internet and how to use it,” said Raybon, about the now global competition for employees, businesses and industries. “We have to be competitive with Arizona and Maine and Utah and South Korea and places like that.”
The benchmarking process, which will provide insight into a local vision for how new services can make a difference in education, business, agriculture, government, community-based organizations, health care and other sectors, will provide the foundation for a report which will be created by Connected Tennessee and approved by the Leadership Team to show where the community stands with its broadband application development.
“We’re trying to look at each of the counties to get sort of a snapshot of where we are today in terms of use and availability of technology, where we want to be in the near two- to five-year period, and, best of all, how to get ideas of how to achieve that,” stated Raybon. “We try to identify whatever the issues are that we need to address – what are the things we need to do to get better use out of technology.”
The process will also allow the Leadership Team to set up actionable goals to move White County forward with broadband community development.
As part of Governor Phil Bredesen’s “Trail to Innovation”, these programs will allow White County and Tennessee to have a meaningful online presence for all communities, to improve citizen services, and promote economic development through e-government, virtual education and online healthcare.
According to the Tennessee Broadband Task Force, broadband expansion is to the 21st century what rural electrification was to the 20th century. High-speed internet access is critically important to Tennessee’s future, especially in jobs, education and healthcare.
---
Autor(en)/Author(s): Greg England
Quelle/Source: The Sparta Expositor, 23.06.2008
