Elected representatives, economic officials, educators and business leaders gathered at Ball State to discuss the importance of bringing advanced technologies to rural communities.
The inaugural Indiana Interconnect Broadband Conference was held Wednesday at the Alumni Center.
The conference was presented by the Indiana Department of Commerce and the Indiana Economic Development Council.
"Indiana Interconnect was developed to help bring information access to rural areas," director of Ball State's Institute of Wireless Innovation Stephan Jones said. "Rural areas make up 80 percent of the state.
"More and more industries require that people have access to the web," Jones said. "We want to make sure those people have equal access. If we don't, we will lose all of those people in the state."
Lt. Governor Joe Kernan opened the conference with his presentation "Building Bridges and Removing Barriers."
The keynote speaker was Lawrence Sargeant, executive vice president for regulatory affairs for the United States Telecommunications Association. He told the audience that high-performance telecommunications capacity is a necessary element for economic development during his presentation "Technology Futures: Broadband Hype or Hope."
Different panels made up of service providers, representatives of various technology platforms such as wireless and cable, and grant writing experts were in place to give advice and answer questions.
"People are calling me from rural counties and begging me to come take a survey to see how many people want this," Jones said. "I have found a huge interest in these communities."
Damian Kunko from the Rural Broadband Coalition said bringing broadband to rural communities is important for entertainment, education, commerce and telemedicine.
"Over half of all U.S. children attend school in rural communities," Kunko said. "Over 10 million people live in rural communities in the U.S."
Kunko said more than 12 percent of all Zip codes have zero access to a high-speed Internet provider.
"This is really the beginning, and collaboration and cooperation is the key," executive director of the Indiana Department of Commerce Tim Manger said. "Broadband is the future for our communities, companies and citizens."
Manger closed the conference by asking everybody to raise their right hands and pledge to switch from dial-up to broadband if they have not already done so.
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