Catalogue of projects we particularly wish to monitor- details emerging from http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ ad 2 summits to date- january 2013 brookings, february 2013 Feederal Comunications Commission

watch website for digital literacy toolkit connecting all curricula states have tried out due before end march 2013

.telemedicine broadband states led by arkansas & 3 more states .. .CFY's offices have produced children's learning portal powerbylearning.. .Axiom Technologies (Susan Corbett) Maine has got whole local produce sectors such as lobsters and bliueerries to startup on broadband by designing industry specific online interfaces. Somewhat similar is OneCommunity in North East Ohio training involves developing personal action plan to adopting broadband.
North East Georgia model has regenerated communities and businesses whose skillbase had been devalued by not having broadband accessibility... .Chattanooga TN has become one of USA's first gigabit city. Its library takes on broadband digital literacy as its reponsibility. Top floor has been turned into conference space for makers and broadband meetings.. Started in San Francisco, Mission Economic Develoment Agency sees its purpose as regenerating local's entreprenurial skills on broadband in cities where costs might otherwise edge them out. It now has 11 associate hubs across USA

 

Regions with very active commissioners include MA: Geoffrey Why...

..

Hmong Asian community in MI has developed inter-generation broadband adoption movements .

..

https://www.phillykeyspots.org/ shows how philidelphia is aiming to involve everyone in broadband

... ... ..
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discuss best news from yesyouthcan presidency - rsvp chris.macrae@yahoo.co.uk if you have a topline good news search

eg1 http://www.uamshealth.com/Physicians/ClinicalSearch/Details.aspx?sid=1&PhysicianId=268 is leading arkansas entreprenurial revolution of community broadband into massive economical healthcare

NTIA BTOP Project Information:

Below is information outlining each BTOP grant award. Awards will continue to be announced from the First Round application pool on a rolling basis in 2010. All files linked below are in PDF format.

Broadband Infrastructure Projects: California: Expanding Broadband Access Across California - $3.3 million Florida: Ubiquitous Middle Mile - $30.1 million Florida: Expanding Broadband Access Across Florida - $2.1 million Georgia: Columbia County Community Broadband Network - $13.5 million Georgia: Expanding Broadband Access Across Georgia - $1.4 million Georgia: North Georgia Network - $33.5 million Guam: Next Generation Network - $8.0 million Idaho: Central North Idaho Regional Broadband Network Expansion - $2.4 million Illinois: DeKalb Advancement of Technology Authority Broadband- $11.9 million Illinois: Urbana-Champaign Big Broadband - $22.5 million Indiana: Broadband Access and Equity for Indiana Community Anchor Institutions - $14.3 million
Indiana: Indiana Middle Mile Fiber for Schools, Communities, and Anchor Inst... - $25.1 million
Kansas: Expanding Broadband Access Across Kansas - $998,000 Louisiana: Louisiana Broadband Alliance - $80,6 million Maine: Three Ring Binder - $25.4 million Massachusetts: OpenCape Corporation Middle Mile Project - $32 million Michigan: Merit Network, Inc. (PDF 541 Kb) - $33,289,221 Navajo Nation: Navajo Nation Middle/Last Mile Project: Quality Broadband for the N... - $32.2 million New Mexico and Texas: ENMR-Plateau Middle Mile - $11.2 million New York: ION Upstate New York Rural Broadband Initiative - $39.7 million North Carolina: MCNC - $28,225,520 Ohio and Pennsylvania: Northeastern Ohio and Northwestern Pennsylvania Fiber Ring Project - $6.1 million Oregon: Oregon South Central Regional Fiber Consortium Lighting the Fiber M... - $8.3 million
Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Research and Education Network (PennREN) - $99.7 million Pennsylvania: Enhancing Connectivity in Northern Pennsylvania - $28.8 million Puerto Rico: Construction of Broadband Infrastructure for the Central East Regio... - $12.9 million South Dakota: Project Connect South Dakota - $20.6 million Tennessee: East Tennessee Middle Mile Fiber Broadband Project - $9.4 million Tennessee: Expanding Broadband Access Across Tennessee - $1.3 million Texas: Expanding Broadband Access Across Texas - $4.7 million Utah: Utah Anchors: A Community Broadband Project - $13.4 million Virginia: Mid-Atlantic Broadband Cooperative – Southern Virginia - $16.0 million Virginia: Nelson County Virginia Broadband Project -$1.8 million Virginia: Page County Broadband Project - $1.6 million Virginia: Virginia Tech Foundation, Inc. - $5.5 million Washington: Northwest Open Access Network (NoaNet) - $84.3 million West Virginia: Hardy AnchorRing - $3.2 million West Virginia: West Virginia Statewide Broadband Infrastructure Project - $126.3 million Wisconsin: Metropolitan Unified Fiber Network - $5.1 million Wisconsin: Wisconsin’s Education and Library Broadband Infrastructure Buildout - $22.9 million

Public Computer Center Projects: Arizona: Arizona Public Computer Centers - $1.3 million California: (Los Angeles) Los Angeles’ Computer Access Network - $7.5 million California: Transforming Neighborhood Network Centers for Job Creation and Broa... - $1.2 million Louisiana: AccessAmerica Video Remote Interpreting - $1.4 million Louisiana: Louisiana Libraries Connecting People to Their Potential - $8.8 million Massachusetts: Cambridge Housing Authority Community Computer Centers - $699,000 Massachusetts: (Boston) City of Boston Public Computing Centers - $1.9 million Maryland: Coppin Heights-Rosemont Family Computer Center: Creating Jobs and I... - $932,000
Michigan: Michigan State University - $895,482 Minnesota: (Minneapolis/St. Paul) Broadband Access Project - $2.9 million Multiple: Latino Microenterprise Tech Net - $3.7 million Nevada: Access to Computer Technology and Instruction in Online Networking ... - $4.7 million New Mexico: Santa Fe Civic Housing Authority Public Computer Labs - $176,000 New York: New York Computer Centers: Broadbandexpress@yourlibrary - $9.5 million North Carolina: Mitchell County Virtual Learning and Communications Center - $239,000 North Carolina: Fayetteville State University/Fayetteville Metropolitan Housing Aut... - $1.0 million Rhode Island: Beacon 2.0 Library Computer Center - $ 1.2 million South Carolina: SC Reach for Success - $5.9 million Washington: (Spokane) Spokane Broadband Technology Alliance - $1.3 million West Virginia: One-Stop Public Computer Center Modernization - $1.9 million

Sustainable Broadband Adoption: California: California Emerging Technology Fund - $7.3 million California: CFY/LAUSD Family Broadband Engagement Program - $7.7 million Florida: Miami-Dade County Public Schools-Get Connected-Go Global - $3.5 million Illinois: SmartChicago Sustainable Broadband Adoption - $7.1 million Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts–Lowell - $783,094 Minnesota: Minnesota Intelligent Rural Communities - $4.9 million New Mexico: Fast-Forward New Mexico - $1.5 million New York: NYC Connected Learning - $22.2 million Ohio: Connect Your Community - $18.7 million (This project benefits Florida, Kentucky, Michigan, and Mississippi as well) Vermont: e-Vermont: The Vermont Community Broadband Project - $2.5 million Washington: (Spokane) Spokane Broadband Technology Alliance - $980,000 West Virginia: Equipping West Virginia’s Fire and Rescue Squads with Technology an... - $4.5 million

 

here are some  tweets from major debriefings of first imoacts of theseinvestments mad at brrokings jan 2013

Greta Byrum@gretabyrum

                  "these projects are best done from the ground up" and the power of collaboration. BAbraham and SCorbett @ Brookings BTOP discussion




  •                   Susan Corbett of Axiom Technologies: How did we learn to use tech? Someone taught us. So, we continue to promote, to teach.

  •                   Bruce Abraham touches on the importance of digital ed, saying 'they don't know what they don't know' about local businesses

  •                   CFY! ": LStrickling at Brookings talking BTOP effect on rural communities. Would be gr8 to hear urban case studies too. "

  •                   Larry Strickling at Brookings talking BTOP effect on rural communities. Would be great to hear urban case studies too.

 

 

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i was at brookings hearing practical debriefings on how gov grants were spent from allocation in 2009 on broadband

in one case (clinton's arkansaw) a doctor has been building rural nurses and e-medic expert network across the state - he mentioned same sorts of apps as yunus eg beaming in at risk pregant mothers to distant ultrasounds

in another case - north georgia: a subregion has linked into community spaces - schools, small business universities and libraries - cases were given of industries that were being reviltalised now they can online tender using same access as big cities- and now that broadband access is avialable caterpillar is building a new plant

in 3rd case the district of columbia local government wanted to link in their digital community programs

have personally chatted and swapped cards with the 3 community-business/practice leaders involved -if anyone recognises ways to link into other regional programs would sure help youth job creation usa http://jobscompetitions.ning.com/forum/topics/broadband-awards

this whole is funded directly from a 4 billion dollar once off grant that has been a signature obama investment of the bail out -and whose impacts are observable- a condition of all grants was that communities are to share lessons

i particularly look forward to dicussing how these linkin to free nursing fracnchise and student competitions in alabama on friday , or with anyone when your diaries fit - with luck I may also get the digital inclusion team of dc council to leverage collaboration between all the universities in the region who have not always wanted to come together round a student competition on one covergent diary- my sense is that the brookings host of the overall dc event darryl west is also sympathetic to understanding how brookings and yunus can help each other - his book is on the next collaboration wave of tech revolution

this all converges well with 2013 as year of Massive Open Online Collaboration as well as Curriculum http://economistmooc.blogspot.com

skype chrismacraedc email chris.macrae@yahoo.co.uk

previously

Dear chris, 

Thank you for registering for "Broadband Technology Opportunities Program."  Broadband Technology Opportunities Program

#techcti

DATE: Wednesday, January 16, 2013 
TIME: 10:00 AM
LOCATION:  The Brookings Institution, Falk Auditorium, 1775 Massachusetts Ave. NW

Best Wishes, 
Brookings Events 

 

Washington, DC – National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) Administrator Lawrence E. Strickling today delivered remarks at the Brookings Institution to underscore the importance of NTIA’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP), which works to expand access to broadband services to communities across the United States. Administrator Strickling highlighted the program’s key achievements over the past three years, including having: deployed or upgraded 78,000 miles of broadband infrastructure; connected 11,200 community anchor institutions—such as schools, libraries and hospitals—to broadband networks; installed more than 38,600 computer workstations in 2,600 public computer centers in 1,500 communities; and generated more than 510,000 new broadband subscribers.

“Our promise to communities across the country that would benefit from BTOP funding – was this: The Obama Administration’s investment in broadband would create jobs, stimulate economic development, spur private-sector investment, and open up new opportunities in employment, entrepreneurship, education and healthcare. Most important, it would improve lives. Three years later, I can confidently say we are delivering on those pledges,” said Administrator Strickling.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 appropriated $4.7 billion for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to establish the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP). As required by ARRA, NTIA designed this grant program to increase broadband access and adoption; provide broadband training and support to schools, libraries, healthcare providers, and other organizations; improve broadband access to public safety agencies; and stimulate demand for broadband. To learn more about the BTOP program, which benefits thousands of communities in all 56 states and territories, visit: http://www.ntia.doc.gov/other-publication/2013/btop-fact-sheet.

The full text of Administrator Strickling’s remarks, as prepared for delivery, below:

Three years ago, I was privileged to accompany Vice President Biden on a trip to north Georgia.  We visited a metal fabrication shop in Dawsonville, Georgia.  Dawsonville is a tiny rural town nestled in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. It is only 60 miles north of bustling Atlanta, but it is a world apart from Atlanta.  Dawsonville is the kind of place that could have been in danger of being left behind in today’s knowledge-based economy. Local jobs were disappearing as traditional industries such as textile mills, auto parts factories and construction trades contracted or disappeared, and civic leaders in the region were worried about what the future might bring, particularly in light of the economic crisis facing the country at the time.

What brought the Vice President to Dawsonville was the opportunity to offer new hope to the region in the form of the first broadband grant under the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.  Earlier in 2009, Congress had appropriated over $7 billion to expand broadband access and adoption in unserved and underserved areas of the country and to important community anchor institutions such as schools, libraries and hospitals.  The National Telecommunications and Information Administration, utilizing just under $4 billion of the dollars, created a new grant program in six months, and by September 2010, had awarded grants to around 230 projects from all over the country, ranging from $100 million projects to develop statewide education networks to much smaller projects of $1 or 2 million to provide public computer centers in remote towns in rural America.

Our promise to communities across the country that would benefit from this funding  was this: The Obama Administration’s investment in broadband would create jobs, stimulate economic development, spur private-sector investment, and open up new opportunities in employment, education and healthcare. Most important, it would improve lives. Three years later, I can confidently say we are delivering on those pledges.

In Dawsonville, NTIA awarded a $33.5 million grant to the North Georgia Network – a coalition of county economic development authorities, a state university and two electric co-ops – to build a 1,100-mile fiber-optic network across twelve counties. The goal of local leaders was to construct the kind of advanced communications infrastructure needed to recruit information-age employers to the region.

Today, the North Georgia Network is complete and delivering high-speed Internet connections to more than 300 businesses, 42 schools, five college campuses, six libraries and dozens of other community anchor institutions. And it is driving economic growth and private-sector investment, as evidenced by Impulse Manufacturing, the metal fabrication company where the Vice President made that first announcement.  Impulse Manufacturing produces customized metal machine components for Fortune 500 companies and must be able to exchange massive data files with customers located across the globe. High-speed Internet access is essential for Impulse to be successful.

Before it got a fiber-optic connection from North Georgia Network, Impulse was forced to make do with slow, spotty DSL service that sometimes could not even hold a connection. Ron Baysden, Impulse’s President, told us that the lack of reliable high-speed Internet became an impediment to doing business. His employees were spending too much time just dealing with network problems. Customers even resorted to delivering data files on thumb drives. Today, Baysden says: “[We just] press a button and it’s here.”

Impulse Manufacturing recently landed a major contract to supply parts for 1.4-million-square-foot manufacturing facility that Caterpillar is building in Athens, Georgia. With this new business, Baysden expects Impulse to double its employee base of 200 over the next three to five years. And he says the new fiber-optic connection is one key reason Impulse will be able to handle the contract.

The benefits from the North Georgia Network extend beyond local businesses to anchor institutions. In White County, Internet speeds delivered to the school district have gone from 45 megabits per second shared across seven schools to a gigabit – allowing teachers to integrate online video and online testing into the curriculum. At the local middle school, every teacher now walks around class with a wireless iPad connected to a desktop computer and to a projector screen through an Apple TV box.

And at North Georgia College and State University, which was upgraded to 1.2 gigabits per second for 6,500 students over the summer, professors are streaming lectures over the Internet, students are accessing course materials online and administrators are offering more online-only classes.

North Georgia’s success story is not unique.  We are hearing from grantees across the country about how our broadband grant program is delivering on its promise to expand broadband access and adoption throughout the nation.  Today is a particularly significant time to share these successes with you as the first projects to be funded are now crossing the finish line. 

But first, some background.  Our investments fall into three categories:

•     First, infrastructure projects, like the one in North Georgia, which are building high-speed networks to connect rural communities and other places not adequately served by existing systems to the Internet backbone. The new networks are also supplying critical high-capacity connections to schools, libraries, hospitals and other vital anchor institutions that need more bandwidth to thrive.

•     Second, public computer centers, which are installing and upgrading computers in schools, libraries, rec centers, housing developments and other public buildings to provide the power of the Internet to those who do not have it at home.

•     Third, sustainable broadband adoption programs, which are teaching digital literacy skills to students and adults and providing online job assistance to low-income Americans and others stuck on the wrong side of the digital divide. These programs are also helping small businesses integrate technology and get online to expand their customer bases.

These investments have the potential to reshape our nation just as did the Rural Electrification Administration did nearly 80 years ago.   REA brought power to farms and rural homesteads that private electric utilities considered too isolated – and too expensive – to serve. And along with electricity came everything from refrigerators to running water to radio. Electricity helped usher rural America into the 20th Century and ensure that everyone – no matter where they lived –  had access to a basic necessity that we take for granted today.

While the electrification of rural America in the 1930s might feel like a world away from today’s efforts to expand high-speed Internet access, there are actually many similarities. Now, as back then, there is a group of Americans being left behind as technology advances without them. Now, as back then, this is happening in large part because many of these people either live in places lacking adequate private-sector investment or don’t have the resources to access what is available. And now, as back then, the government is stepping in to fill the gap because the new technology is no longer just a luxury or a benefit of urban/suburban living. Like electricity nearly a century ago, broadband today is a necessity of modern life.

Americans who don’t have access to the Internet are increasingly cut off from job opportunities, educational resources, healthcare information, social networks, even government services. And communities that don’t have a high-speed telecommunications infrastructure are increasingly at a disadvantage in attracting new businesses and new jobs, driving economic growth and competing in today’s knowledge-based economy.

With our infrastructure projects, we have focused on building middle-mile networks that would bring high-speed services into an entire community or county.  Our goal has been to spur private-sector investment by encouraging local Internet service providers to connect to these networks to deliver affordable service over the “last mile” to homes and businesses.  We have also encouraged our grantees to connect directly to the key anchor institutions in these communities since we found that the speed needs of schools, libraries and other institutions were substantially greater than for the community at large.

One of these projects is SDN Communications, a partnership of 27 independent telecom carriers covering most of South Dakota. SDN used its $21 million grant to add 400 miles to its network along with an additional 100 gigabits of bandwidth along high-capacity routes. The project is connecting nearly 310 new anchor institutions as well as providing faster connections to more than 220 anchor institutions already on the system.

The Arlington School District, a K-12 school with 300 students that serves a farming community located more than an hour from Sioux Falls, is one of those anchors. The school was upgraded from a 3-megabit per second connection delivered over copper phone lines to a 10-megabit per second fiber link over a year ago. This has made it possible for every student in the school to have a laptop – and get online at the same time.

High school English teacher Lisa Parry says that broadband has transformed the way she teaches. Before, hiccups with the school’s Internet connection often led to frozen screens and painfully slow downloads and caused her students’ attention to wander as she tried to utilize online content in the classroom.

Today, Parry has her 24 students all logged in together. They watch online video – such as footage of last year’s Presidential debates to observe speaking techniques – and study online lessons called “WebQuests” to complement the material they are learning in class. Having their own computers, Parry says, allows her students to absorb material at their own pace and become much more immersed in the curriculum. Lisa told us that “[k]ids learn better when education is self-directed and self-paced. They are so much more engaged when they have their own screen.”

Altogether, more than 7,200 communities in all 56 states and territories will benefit from the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program. Here are some hard numbers:

  • Our grantees have already deployed 78,000 new or upgraded miles of broadband networks through the end of last September.  They are building more than 2,300 “points of presence” – or network nodes – in 1,400 communities. Over 80 percent of these communities will receive speeds greater than a gigabit per second.
  • Our grantees are in the process of connecting more than 20,000 community anchor institutions in 5,100 communities.  More than 20 percent of these institutions will receive bandwidth greater than a gigabit per second.

As I mentioned earlier, one of our major goals has been to prime the pump for private-sector investment by supplying critical middle-mile infrastructure that local carriers can use to deliver affordable broadband to more homes and businesses. That is why all networks built with Recovery Act dollars are subject to open-access rules that let all other carriers interconnect with these networks on fair and non-discriminatory terms.

The Three Ring Binder project in Maine – another one of the first BTOP awards announced in December of 2009 – is a good example of how this works. The project, which is supported by the Maine state government, the state university system and a group of small telecom carriers, has used $25.4 million in Recovery Act funds to build a 1,100-mile dark-fiber network across the state of Maine consisting of three interconnected fiber rings. Thirteen local carriers are now leasing that fiber to bring broadband to rural communities that in many cases previously had only dial-up service. Across the country, providers have signed over 500 agreements with our grantees to use BTOP-funded networks to better serve their customers.

One of those providers is Pioneer Broadband, which serves Aroostook County, a poor, rural county of potato fields and blueberry barrens where Interstate 95 literally comes to an end. Pioneer is leasing capacity on the Three Ring Binder to bring DSL and even fiber-to-the-home to a string of remote towns that had no broadband until now.

The Three Ring Binder is also connecting anchor institutions across Maine. The University of Maine system will now be able to bring 10-gigabit connections to all seven university campuses to support big data-driven research and collaboration with other major academic institutions around the nation. The Three Ring Binder is also turning on a 10-gigabit connection to the Jackson Lab, a genetics lab in Bar Harbor, Maine, so that it can exchange huge gene sequencing datasets with a new facility in Farmington, Connecticut.

Maine also provides an outstanding example of our program to increase broadband adoption across the country.  Improving adoption is key to bringing the benefits of broadband to our economy and is an area of great focus at NTIA. Census Bureau survey data reports that only 68 percent of households subscribe to broadband. So even though basic broadband is available to 90 – 95 percent of the population, nearly a third of households – more than 100 million Americans – do not have broadband at home. And approximately one in five households – 20 percent – does not use the Internet anywhere.

This is a troubling statistic in the 21st century economy, when broadband access and digital literacy skills are needed to compete in the workforce. And it is even more troubling when we hear what Americans tell us about why they don’t adopt broadband. Nearly half of non-adopting households cited a lack of interest or need as the primary reason.

We’ve been responding to this situation with the $250 million of sustainable broadband adoption projects and the $200 million of public computer center projects that I mentioned earlier. Our grantees are experimenting with all manner of creative and innovative programs to educate and train folks on how to use broadband and to equip them with low-cost devices and services to allow them to subscribe. We have been assembling the materials created in these programs on our digital literacy portal, which makes these tools available to anyone anywhere.

In Washington County, Maine, Axiom Technologies is using a $1.4 million broadband adoption grant in very creative ways.  Axiom is using part of the award to transform Down East Community Hospital – a 25-bed critical-care hospital in Machias, Maine connected by the Three Ring Binder – into a teaching facility for nursing students.   The grant has paid for video-conferencing equipment that allows nursing students to take necessary classes through a nursing college in Lewiston, Maine, nearly 200 miles away. The grant also paid for a state-of-the-art teaching mannequin used to train the nursing students in Machias that can be controlled by instructors in Lewiston.    

The first group of nurses will complete the program this May. Shelby Leighton, a 41-year-old mother of two who grew up in nearby Machiasport, will be in this first group of graduates. She is grateful for the program since it has allowed her to pursue her dream of becoming a nurse without uprooting her children and husband or moving away from her mother and aging grandmother. Leighton hopes to find a local job after she graduates so that she can – as she put it – care for the community that raised her.

Axiom is using another part of its award to equip 10 local lobstermen and 10 local blueberry farmers with rugged wireless devices, broadband connections and broadband training to help them manage extensive state data collection and reporting requirements. Axiom is developing software to move these tasks out of old-fashioned paper-and-pencil logbooks and into the electronic realm. It is also teaching the farmers and fishermen – some of whom have never turned on a computer before – how to design websites, develop spreadsheets and use programs like Photoshop.

Ellen Johnson, who owns an organic blueberry farm in Robbinston, Maine, took the training. She now has a brand new website to show off her blueberries, jams and pies, along with the website design and Photoshop skills to keep the site updated.

Axiom is offering its digital literacy training program in multiple locations around Washington County, including 18 public libraries. Many of those facilities have new computers thanks to a $1.4 million public computer center award to the Maine State Library to distribute more than 500 desktops and laptops across 107 public libraries statewide and equip 11 with videoconferencing equipment.

Several of these projects touch on two key areas where broadband can have a major impact on our quality of life—education and health care.  I would like to provide you a closer look at the type of benefits our projects are bringing to communities in these important areas.

Broadband is critical to improving our educational system.  It expands access to teachers, classes and instructional resources, particularly for students at small rural schools that otherwise might not have the resources to offer Advanced Placement courses, foreign languages and other specialized subjects. It enables students to take online classes and access cutting-edge research at universities across the country. Plus, broadband makes it easier for students and parents to communicate with teachers and helps engage parents in their children’s schoolwork – sometimes providing the primary link between families and schools.

The State Educational Technology Directors Association projects that schools will need bandwidth of at least 100 megabits per second for every 1,000 students and staff by the 2014-2015 school year. The Association expects that requirement to increase to 1 gigabit per second by 2017-18.  Our program is helping schools make this happen. Our grantees are connecting more than 10,000 K-12 schools across the country to broadband and more than 7,200 will be getting speeds of 100 megabits per second or faster.

The Jordan Valley School, near Salt Lake City, teaches 150 kids with significant physical and cognitive disabilities, ranging from infants to young adults. Many are non-verbal. It is using technology to transform the educational experience for these children. The school has equipped all of its classrooms with iPads plus an Apple TV to connect the devices to a projector at the front of the classroom. On each iPad, the school has loaded software programs that allow students to communicate their thoughts, feelings and needs by navigating icons, screens and keyboards.  Thanks to broadband, Jordan Valley School is able to have as many as 50 iPads and 30 computers online at the same time. Mark Donnelly, the school’s principal, says technology has given his students a voice that they would otherwise not have.

Jordan Valley School is one of 140 schools, libraries, Head Start centers and other anchors across Utah being connected to broadband as a result of a $13.4 million Recovery Act grant to the Utah Education Network, a statewide research and education network managed by the University of Utah. Many of the participating schools, including Jordan Valley, now have up to a gigabit per second in bandwidth.

In inner-city neighborhoods, broadband is opening up new opportunities and broadening horizons. A non-profit called CFY (previously Computers for Youth) is using Recovery Act funding to provide digital literacy training and computers for low-income sixth graders and their families in New York City and Los Angeles. The CFY program focuses on high-poverty schools – offering Saturday workshops to teach students and parents how to use the Internet and find online educational resources that promote learning in subjects such as math and reading. CFY also trains families on its own PowerMyLearning.com platform, which provides free access to activities and games from across the Web that are designed to make learning fun.

Families who complete the training are given a refurbished computer loaded with educational software to take home, along with assistance to sign up for affordable broadband. That helps extend student learning beyond the school day and improves communication between parents and schools.

Maricar Catalan is a sixth grade math and science teacher at Dr. Julian Nava Academy of Arts and Culture, a school in South Central Los Angeles that is participating in the CFY program. Catalan teaches two groups of 32 students each – one group of kids on specialized learning plans and one group in a gifted and talented program.

Catalan uses the PowerMyLearning program to customize material for her students. The online content, she says, allows her to find challenging activities for the kids who are more advanced and provide extra support for those who need to catch up. She tells us, “It’s like having an extra person in the classroom.”

Zoila Perez, whose daughter attends Valor Academy in Arleta, California, is one parent who signed up for broadband after her family took part in the CFY program. Perez explains that she used to think the Internet was a dangerous place. But the CFY training helped her see the value of broadband, particularly for education. Now her daughter can go online at home to get the access she needs to research her homework and complete her school assignments. Perez, herself, has begun using the Internet to pay bills and look up healthcare information. Even her four-year-old son is using an online program to practice his ABCs.

Broadband also has the potential to transform healthcare.  Telemedicine expands access to healthcare services, particularly for people living in rural areas with few medical facilities and not enough local doctors. Patients can consult with medical specialists located many miles away using video conferencing technology, and doctors can monitor patients using remote diagnostic equipment. Telemedicine also permits physicians to transmit X-rays, CT scans, medical records and other big files to hospitals across the country with the simple click of a mouse.

Our grantees are using Recovery Act funding to connect more than 3,000 healthcare facilities across the country. Seventy-five percent of these facilities are getting at least 10 megabits per second of bandwidth, which enables high-definition video consultations and real-time image transfers, More than 1,300, over 40 percent, will be connected to more than 100 megabits per second of bandwidth, which can support continuous remote monitoring of patients.

Rhonda Smith, a 43-year-old mother of five in Arkansas, is living proof of the benefits of telemedicine. In December of 2011, Smith suffered a massive stroke while helping prepare for a Christmas party at the nursing home where she worked. She was rushed to Northwest Medical Center in Bentonville.  What happened next could be considered a miracle not only of modern medicine, but also of modern technology. The local hospital did not have the resources to adequately evaluate Smith’s stroke to determine whether it had been caused by a blot clot.  But Rhonda was more than three hours away from the major regional medical center in Little Rock and that was too long to wait.

So the doctors at the hospital in Bentonville consulted with an on-call neurologist affiliated with the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) over broadband. That neurologist was able to talk to and examine Smith over an interactive videoconferencing system and quickly determined that she would benefit from a blood thinning drug. After the drug was administered, Smith was taken to the UAMS hospital in Little Rock by ambulance. By the time she got there, she was able to speak and today, she is just grateful to be alive.

UAMS is using a $102 million Recovery Act award to build a statewide fiber-optic network that is integrating, upgrading and extending two existing networks used for healthcare, education and research. The new network, which will reach all 75 counties in Arkansas, is introducing telemedicine to some of the most remote pockets of a heavily rural state. The system is connecting or upgrading 81 hospitals, 12 healthcare training centers and 113 local health facilities. Our grant is also paying for telemedicine equipment, including digital stethoscopes and ENT probes with “digicams” that allow doctors to examine patients remotely.

Another example is the ANGELS program, which gives women with high-risk pregnancies access to genetics counselors and maternal and fetal medicine specialists who can monitor them and conduct live fetal ultrasounds from hundreds of miles away. The program aims to lower the number of low-birth-rate babies born in Arkansas, which is above the national average. UAMS has used its grant to expand ANGELS to 36 sites around the state, up from 24.

One participating facility is the Mena Regional Health System in Mena, Arkansas, a town of 6,000 located 125 miles from Little Rock. Dr. John Mesko and the other obstetrician in town deliver roughly 450 babies a year and Mesko estimates that at least a quarter of those mothers have at least one telemedicine ultrasound. For these women, the ANGELS program means they don’t have to drive hours to get the care they need.

Lastly, I want to spend a few moments discussing the impact of our broadband program on workforce development and entrepreneurship. Our infrastructure grantees have directly created thousands of jobs in areas such as construction, fiber splicing and network engineering. But our broadband adoption projects and public computer centers are also driving employment in another way. They are reaching people who may never have even turned on a computer – a group that includes a disproportionate number of low-income Americans, senior citizens and members of minority groups – and teaching them how to use a mouse, navigate the Internet and set up an email account. These programs are also instructing people on how to write resumes, find Internet job postings and even apply for jobs over the Web.

These are skills that many of us take for granted. But for those stuck on the wrong side of the digital divide, not having this basic digital literacy can be a barrier to employment. Many job listings are only posted online these days and many employers only accept job applications online. What’s more, today’s job market demands a basic knowledge of computers, software and the Internet.

Sheryl Culbert, a 49-year-old mother of two in Los Angeles, knows this first hand. After being released from prison in 2010, Culbert was determined to turn her life around. That meant finding a job. So she made her way to Chrysalis, an Los Angeles non-profit that helps the city’s homeless and low-income residents find work and get on a path to self-sufficiency.

Chrysalis enrolled Culbert in a BTOP-funded digital literacy program that taught her how to go online and set her up with an email account. For Culbert, who had lacked the confidence to use a computer, it was a major step. Chrysalis also helped her land a job with the Skid Row Housing Trust, an organization that operates housing for the homeless in Los Angeles.

Today, Culbert manages her own building for the Skid Row Housing Trust. Her new job requires her to use a computer practically every day – to update rents in the system database, to email with Los Angeles County housing officials, to make flyers to be distributed to residents. She credits the digital literacy training she received at Chrysalis, for her success.

Chrysalis is one of 19 programs across California that has received a piece of a $14 million Recovery Act investment in the California Emerging Technology Fund, a non-profit organization seeking to close the state's digital divide.  Through all of its programs, CETF has helped over 2600 persons find jobs.

In conclusion, I would like to leave you with three thoughts.  First, that our program has been very successful, due in large part to the dedication and skill of the communities and companies and organizations that have been on the front lines of carrying out these projects.  Second, that while the statistics are impressive, it is just as important to appreciate the impact these projects have had on the lives of so many people.  I have shared only a few of our testimonials here today, but our grantees are delivering these sorts of benefits across the country to their citizens and customers and are transforming their lives.  And third, there is still work to do.

We are working to determine how we can extend the lessons learned from our projects to other communities that did not receive Recovery Act grants.  For example, we will soon release a toolkit highlighting successful strategies to increase broadband adoption in inner city, rural or ethnic communities that can be used by communities anywhere to increase the level of digital literacy and broadband adoption in their areas.  For schools, our program will bring 100 megabits per second service to less than 10 percent of the nation’s K-12 schools.  Another 30 percent, it is estimated, already receive broadband service at the speeds recommended by the school technology directors association.  That leaves around 60 percent of our schools still needing upgrades in order to deliver the quality of education that our students need in the 21st century.

At NTIA, we are committed to working to improve broadband service in all communities and to schools and other anchor institutions.  We look forward to working with all of you on this important challenge.  Thank you.

broadband debriefing meeting 2 http://www.fcc.gov/document/agenda-announced-feb-7-broadband-adopti...

Federal-State Joint Conference on Advanced Services Announces Agenda, Panelists, and Keynote

Speech by Assistant Secretary of Commerce Lawrence E. Strickling for the

2013 Broadband Summit: Broadband Adoption And Usage – What Have We Learned? The  Federal-State  Joint  Conference on  Advanced  Services,  with  the  National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), will hold a Summit on February 7, 2013 to identify and discuss best practices learned from broadband adoption programs and academic studies/surveys,  and  how  implementation  of these  best  practices  can  close  the broadband  adoption  gap among  Americans  – particularly  low-income  households,  racial  and  ethnic  minorities,  seniors,  rural residents, residents of Tribal lands and people with disabilities.  The agenda listing committed and invited panelists for the Summit is below.  In addition, the Summit will include a keynote speech by Assistant Secretary  of  Communications  and  Information  and  Administrator  of  NTIA,  Department  of  Commerce, Lawrence E. Strickling.

Date:

February 7, 2013

Time:

9:00 a.m. to 4 p.m. EST

Location:

FCC Commission Room 445 12th St. SW Washington, D.C. 20554

Webcast:

http://www.fcc.gov/live

Agenda

9:00

Meet and Greet

9:15

Welcoming Remarks: FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and Commissioner Larry Landis (IN)

9:30

Keynote Congresswoman Doris Matsui (CA)

(invited)


9:45

Panel 1: What Have We Learned from Academic Studies on How to Close the Broadband Adoption Gap

Moderator: Garnet Hanly

, Attorney Advisor, TAPD, Wireline Competition Bureau, FCC

Panelists: Dr. Jon Gant,

University of Illinois, School of Library and Information Sciences

Dr. John Horrigan,

Vice President and Director, Media and Technology Institute, Joint Ctr. for Political and Economic Studies

Dr. Karen Mossberger,

University of Illinois at Chicago, Department of Public Administration

Madura Wijewardena

, Director, Research and Policy, National Urban League

Tom Koutsky

, Chief Policy Counsel, Connected Nation 10:45 

Break

11:00            

Panel 2:  Discussion of Best Practices Learned from Implementing Broadband Adoption Programs Within Different Communities

Moderator: Commissioner Geoffrey G. Why (MA)

Panelists: Deb Socia

, Executive Director, Technology Goes Home

Kyle Toto

, Community Manager, Veteran’s Portal, Massachusetts Broadband Institute

Bao Vang

, President/CEO, Hmong American Partnership

Sybil Boutilier

, Senior Analyst for Public Policy and Programs, Dept. of Aging and Adult Services, City and County of San Francisco Rural Utilities Service/Broadband Initiatives Program Awardee (invited) 12:00

Lunch* and Keynote Lawrence E.  Strickling

, Administrator, National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information, U.S. Department of Commerce 1:30            

Panel 3: Discussion of Best Practices Learned from Implementing Broadband Adoption Programs Within Different Communities

Moderator: Laura Breeden

, Program Director for Public Computing and Broadband Adoption, BTOP, NTIA

Panelists:

Tamara Cox-Burnett

, Community Technology Center Director, College of Menominee Nation

Richard Abisla

, Latino TechNet Project Manager, Mission Economic Development Agency

Corinne Hill

, Director of Chattanooga, TN Public Library University of Arkansas (invited) 2


2:30            

Break

2:45            

Panel 4: Discussion of Industry Best Practices to Increase Broadband Adoption Among the Various Technologies

Moderator: Commissioner Larry Landis (IN)

Panelists: Dave Davidson

, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Ohio, Frontier Communications

Bret Perkins

, Vice President of External and Government Affairs, Comcast Corporation

Elaine Divelbliss,

Director and Senior Counsel, Sprint Nextel Corporation/Virgin Mobile

Dale Merten,

Chief Operating Officer, ToledoTel

 

News from Centre of Distance Health in Arkansas

Telehealth Forum Surpasses Planners’ Hopes

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UAMS Helps Hospital With Broadband Link Between Parents, Premature Babies

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UAMS Helps Hospital With High-Tech Link Between Parents, Premature Babies

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Arkansas e-Link Expands into Northwest Arkansas

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UAMS Leads Telemedicine Pilot Program in Japan

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UAMS Presents Broadband plans at Morrilton Community College

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UAMS Stroke Team Provides ‘Miracle’ for DeWitt Man

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Rahn Throws First Pitch at ‘Strike Out Stroke Night’

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UAMS Wins National Telemedicine Award

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Back in the Pulpit

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Volunteers Learn Early Warning Signs of Stroke

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Saint Mary’s in Russellville Joins Emergency Stroke Care Program

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UAMS Receives $102 Million for Statewide Broadband To Benefit Health Care, Education

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...

Spring 2013 NTIA Administrator Strickling Delivers Remarks at the Brookings Institution on Broadband Technology Opportunities Program

 

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 appropriated $4.7 billion for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to establish the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP). As required by ARRA, NTIA designed this grant program to increase broadband access and adoption; provide broadband training and support to schools, libraries, healthcare providers, and other organizations; improve broadband access to public safety agencies; and stimulate demand for broadband. To learn more about the BTOP program, which benefits thousands of communities in all 56 states and territories, visit: http://www.ntia.doc.gov/other-publication/2013/btop-fact-sheet.

 

extract from speech on telemedicine cases :

Our grantees are using Recovery Act funding to connect more than 3,000 healthcare facilities across the country. Seventy-five percent of these facilities are getting at least 10 megabits per second of bandwidth, which enables high-definition video consultations and real-time image transfers, More than 1,300, over 40 percent, will be connected to more than 100 megabits per second of bandwidth, which can support continuous remote monitoring of patients.

Rhonda Smith, a 43-year-old mother of five in Arkansas, is living proof of the benefits of telemedicine. In December of 2011, Smith suffered a massive stroke while helping prepare for a Christmas party at the nursing home where she worked. She was rushed to Northwest Medical Center in Bentonville. What happened next could be considered a miracle not only of modern medicine, but also of modern technology. The local hospital did not have the resources to adequately evaluate Smith’s stroke to determine whether it had been caused by a blot clot. But Rhonda was more than three hours away from the major regional medical center in Little Rock and that was too long to wait.

So the doctors at the hospital in Bentonville consulted with an on-call neurologist affiliated with the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) over broadband. That neurologist was able to talk to and examine Smith over an interactive videoconferencing system and quickly determined that she would benefit from a blood thinning drug. After the drug was administered, Smith was taken to the UAMS hospital in Little Rock by ambulance. By the time she got there, she was able to speak and today, she is just grateful to be alive.

UAMS is using a $102 million Recovery Act award to build a statewide fiber-optic network that is integrating, upgrading and extending two existing networks used for healthcare, education and research. The new network, which will reach all 75 counties in Arkansas, is introducing telemedicine to some of the most remote pockets of a heavily rural state. The system is connecting or upgrading 81 hospitals, 12 healthcare training centers and 113 local health facilities. Our grant is also paying for telemedicine equipment, including digital stethoscopes and ENT probes with “digicams” that allow doctors to examine patients remotely.

Another example is the ANGELS program, which gives women with high-risk pregnancies access to genetics counselors and maternal and fetal medicine specialists who can monitor them and conduct live fetal ultrasounds from hundreds of miles away. The program aims to lower the number of low-birth-rate babies born in Arkansas, which is above the national average. UAMS has used its grant to expand ANGELS to 36 sites around the state, up from 24.

One participating facility is the Mena Regional Health System in Mena, Arkansas, a town of 6,000 located 125 miles from Little Rock. Dr. John Mesko and the other obstetrician in town deliver roughly 450 babies a year and Mesko estimates that at least a quarter of those mothers have at least one telemedicine ultrasound. For these women, the ANGELS program means they don’t have to drive hours to get the care they need.

 

The full text of Administrator Strickling’s remarks, as prepared for delivery, below:

Three years ago, I was privileged to accompany Vice President Biden on a trip to north Georgia. We visited a metal fabrication shop in Dawsonville, Georgia. Dawsonville is a tiny rural town nestled in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. It is only 60 miles north of bustling Atlanta, but it is a world apart from Atlanta. Dawsonville is the kind of place that could have been in danger of being left behind in today’s knowledge-based economy. Local jobs were disappearing as traditional industries such as textile mills, auto parts factories and construction trades contracted or disappeared, and civic leaders in the region were worried about what the future might bring, particularly in light of the economic crisis facing the country at the time.

What brought the Vice President to Dawsonville was the opportunity to offer new hope to the region in the form of the first broadband grant under the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Earlier in 2009, Congress had appropriated over $7 billion to expand broadband access and adoption in unserved and underserved areas of the country and to important community anchor institutions such as schools, libraries and hospitals. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration, utilizing just under $4 billion of the dollars, created a new grant program in six months, and by September 2010, had awarded grants to around 230 projects from all over the country, ranging from $100 million projects to develop statewide education networks to much smaller projects of $1 or 2 million to provide public computer centers in remote towns in rural America.

Our promise to communities across the country that would benefit from this funding was this: The Obama Administration’s investment in broadband would create jobs, stimulate economic development, spur private-sector investment, and open up new opportunities in employment, education and healthcare. Most important, it would improve lives. Three years later, I can confidently say we are delivering on those pledges.

In Dawsonville, NTIA awarded a $33.5 million grant to the North Georgia Network – a coalition of county economic development authorities, a state university and two electric co-ops – to build a 1,100-mile fiber-optic network across twelve counties. The goal of local leaders was to construct the kind of advanced communications infrastructure needed to recruit information-age employers to the region.

Today, the North Georgia Network is complete and delivering high-speed Internet connections to more than 300 businesses, 42 schools, five college campuses, six libraries and dozens of other community anchor institutions. And it is driving economic growth and private-sector investment, as evidenced by Impulse Manufacturing, the metal fabrication company where the Vice President made that first announcement. Impulse Manufacturing produces customized metal machine components for Fortune 500 companies and must be able to exchange massive data files with customers located across the globe. High-speed Internet access is essential for Impulse to be successful.

Before it got a fiber-optic connection from North Georgia Network, Impulse was forced to make do with slow, spotty DSL service that sometimes could not even hold a connection. Ron Baysden, Impulse’s President, told us that the lack of reliable high-speed Internet became an impediment to doing business. His employees were spending too much time just dealing with network problems. Customers even resorted to delivering data files on thumb drives. Today, Baysden says: “[We just] press a button and it’s here.”

Impulse Manufacturing recently landed a major contract to supply parts for 1.4-million-square-foot manufacturing facility that Caterpillar is building in Athens, Georgia. With this new business, Baysden expects Impulse to double its employee base of 200 over the next three to five years. And he says the new fiber-optic connection is one key reason Impulse will be able to handle the contract.

The benefits from the North Georgia Network extend beyond local businesses to anchor institutions. In White County, Internet speeds delivered to the school district have gone from 45 megabits per second shared across seven schools to a gigabit – allowing teachers to integrate online video and online testing into the curriculum. At the local middle school, every teacher now walks around class with a wireless iPad connected to a desktop computer and to a projector screen through an Apple TV box.

And at North Georgia College and State University, which was upgraded to 1.2 gigabits per second for 6,500 students over the summer, professors are streaming lectures over the Internet, students are accessing course materials online and administrators are offering more online-only classes.

North Georgia’s success story is not unique. We are hearing from grantees across the country about how our broadband grant program is delivering on its promise to expand broadband access and adoption throughout the nation. Today is a particularly significant time to share these successes with you as the first projects to be funded are now crossing the finish line.

But first, some background. Our investments fall into three categories:

• First, infrastructure projects, like the one in North Georgia, which are building high-speed networks to connect rural communities and other places not adequately served by existing systems to the Internet backbone. The new networks are also supplying critical high-capacity connections to schools, libraries, hospitals and other vital anchor institutions that need more bandwidth to thrive.

• Second, public computer centers, which are installing and upgrading computers in schools, libraries, rec centers, housing developments and other public buildings to provide the power of the Internet to those who do not have it at home.

• Third, sustainable broadband adoption programs, which are teaching digital literacy skills to students and adults and providing online job assistance to low-income Americans and others stuck on the wrong side of the digital divide. These programs are also helping small businesses integrate technology and get online to expand their customer bases.

These investments have the potential to reshape our nation just as did the Rural Electrification Administration did nearly 80 years ago. REA brought power to farms and rural homesteads that private electric utilities considered too isolated – and too expensive – to serve. And along with electricity came everything from refrigerators to running water to radio. Electricity helped usher rural America into the 20th Century and ensure that everyone – no matter where they lived – had access to a basic necessity that we take for granted today.

While the electrification of rural America in the 1930s might feel like a world away from today’s efforts to expand high-speed Internet access, there are actually many similarities. Now, as back then, there is a group of Americans being left behind as technology advances without them. Now, as back then, this is happening in large part because many of these people either live in places lacking adequate private-sector investment or don’t have the resources to access what is available. And now, as back then, the government is stepping in to fill the gap because the new technology is no longer just a luxury or a benefit of urban/suburban living. Like electricity nearly a century ago, broadband today is a necessity of modern life.

Americans who don’t have access to the Internet are increasingly cut off from job opportunities, educational resources, healthcare information, social networks, even government services. And communities that don’t have a high-speed telecommunications infrastructure are increasingly at a disadvantage in attracting new businesses and new jobs, driving economic growth and competing in today’s knowledge-based economy.

With our infrastructure projects, we have focused on building middle-mile networks that would bring high-speed services into an entire community or county. Our goal has been to spur private-sector investment by encouraging local Internet service providers to connect to these networks to deliver affordable service over the “last mile” to homes and businesses. We have also encouraged our grantees to connect directly to the key anchor institutions in these communities since we found that the speed needs of schools, libraries and other institutions were substantially greater than for the community at large.

One of these projects is SDN Communications, a partnership of 27 independent telecom carriers covering most of South Dakota. SDN used its $21 million grant to add 400 miles to its network along with an additional 100 gigabits of bandwidth along high-capacity routes. The project is connecting nearly 310 new anchor institutions as well as providing faster connections to more than 220 anchor institutions already on the system.

The Arlington School District, a K-12 school with 300 students that serves a farming community located more than an hour from Sioux Falls, is one of those anchors. The school was upgraded from a 3-megabit per second connection delivered over copper phone lines to a 10-megabit per second fiber link over a year ago. This has made it possible for every student in the school to have a laptop – and get online at the same time.

High school English teacher Lisa Parry says that broadband has transformed the way she teaches. Before, hiccups with the school’s Internet connection often led to frozen screens and painfully slow downloads and caused her students’ attention to wander as she tried to utilize online content in the classroom.

Today, Parry has her 24 students all logged in together. They watch online video – such as footage of last year’s Presidential debates to observe speaking techniques – and study online lessons called “WebQuests” to complement the material they are learning in class. Having their own computers, Parry says, allows her students to absorb material at their own pace and become much more immersed in the curriculum. Lisa told us that “[k]ids learn better when education is self-directed and self-paced. They are so much more engaged when they have their own screen.”

Altogether, more than 7,200 communities in all 56 states and territories will benefit from the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program. Here are some hard numbers:

  • Our grantees have already deployed 78,000 new or upgraded miles of broadband networks through the end of last September. They are building more than 2,300 “points of presence” – or network nodes – in 1,400 communities. Over 80 percent of these communities will receive speeds greater than a gigabit per second.
  • Our grantees are in the process of connecting more than 20,000 community anchor institutions in 5,100 communities. More than 20 percent of these institutions will receive bandwidth greater than a gigabit per second.

As I mentioned earlier, one of our major goals has been to prime the pump for private-sector investment by supplying critical middle-mile infrastructure that local carriers can use to deliver affordable broadband to more homes and businesses. That is why all networks built with Recovery Act dollars are subject to open-access rules that let all other carriers interconnect with these networks on fair and non-discriminatory terms.

The Three Ring Binder project in Maine – another one of the first BTOP awards announced in December of 2009 – is a good example of how this works. The project, which is supported by the Maine state government, the state university system and a group of small telecom carriers, has used $25.4 million in Recovery Act funds to build a 1,100-mile dark-fiber network across the state of Maine consisting of three interconnected fiber rings. Thirteen local carriers are now leasing that fiber to bring broadband to rural communities that in many cases previously had only dial-up service. Across the country, providers have signed over 500 agreements with our grantees to use BTOP-funded networks to better serve their customers.

One of those providers is Pioneer Broadband, which serves Aroostook County, a poor, rural county of potato fields and blueberry barrens where Interstate 95 literally comes to an end. Pioneer is leasing capacity on the Three Ring Binder to bring DSL and even fiber-to-the-home to a string of remote towns that had no broadband until now.

The Three Ring Binder is also connecting anchor institutions across Maine. The University of Maine system will now be able to bring 10-gigabit connections to all seven university campuses to support big data-driven research and collaboration with other major academic institutions around the nation. The Three Ring Binder is also turning on a 10-gigabit connection to the Jackson Lab, a genetics lab in Bar Harbor, Maine, so that it can exchange huge gene sequencing datasets with a new facility in Farmington, Connecticut.

Maine also provides an outstanding example of our program to increase broadband adoption across the country. Improving adoption is key to bringing the benefits of broadband to our economy and is an area of great focus at NTIA. Census Bureau survey data reports that only 68 percent of households subscribe to broadband. So even though basic broadband is available to 90 – 95 percent of the population, nearly a third of households – more than 100 million Americans – do not have broadband at home. And approximately one in five households – 20 percent – does not use the Internet anywhere.

This is a troubling statistic in the 21st century economy, when broadband access and digital literacy skills are needed to compete in the workforce. And it is even more troubling when we hear what Americans tell us about why they don’t adopt broadband. Nearly half of non-adopting households cited a lack of interest or need as the primary reason.

We’ve been responding to this situation with the $250 million of sustainable broadband adoption projects and the $200 million of public computer center projects that I mentioned earlier. Our grantees are experimenting with all manner of creative and innovative programs to educate and train folks on how to use broadband and to equip them with low-cost devices and services to allow them to subscribe. We have been assembling the materials created in these programs on our digital literacy portal, which makes these tools available to anyone anywhere.

In Washington County, Maine, Axiom Technologies is using a $1.4 million broadband adoption grant in very creative ways. Axiom is using part of the award to transform Down East Community Hospital – a 25-bed critical-care hospital in Machias, Maine connected by the Three Ring Binder – into a teaching facility for nursing students. The grant has paid for video-conferencing equipment that allows nursing students to take necessary classes through a nursing college in Lewiston, Maine, nearly 200 miles away. The grant also paid for a state-of-the-art teaching mannequin used to train the nursing students in Machias that can be controlled by instructors in Lewiston.

The first group of nurses will complete the program this May. Shelby Leighton, a 41-year-old mother of two who grew up in nearby Machiasport, will be in this first group of graduates. She is grateful for the program since it has allowed her to pursue her dream of becoming a nurse without uprooting her children and husband or moving away from her mother and aging grandmother. Leighton hopes to find a local job after she graduates so that she can – as she put it – care for the community that raised her.

Axiom is using another part of its award to equip 10 local lobstermen and 10 local blueberry farmers with rugged wireless devices, broadband connections and broadband training to help them manage extensive state data collection and reporting requirements. Axiom is developing software to move these tasks out of old-fashioned paper-and-pencil logbooks and into the electronic realm. It is also teaching the farmers and fishermen – some of whom have never turned on a computer before – how to design websites, develop spreadsheets and use programs like Photoshop.

Ellen Johnson, who owns an organic blueberry farm in Robbinston, Maine, took the training. She now has a brand new website to show off her blueberries, jams and pies, along with the website design and Photoshop skills to keep the site updated.

Axiom is offering its digital literacy training program in multiple locations around Washington County, including 18 public libraries. Many of those facilities have new computers thanks to a $1.4 million public computer center award to the Maine State Library to distribute more than 500 desktops and laptops across 107 public libraries statewide and equip 11 with videoconferencing equipment.

Several of these projects touch on two key areas where broadband can have a major impact on our quality of life—education and health care. I would like to provide you a closer look at the type of benefits our projects are bringing to communities in these important areas.

Broadband is critical to improving our educational system. It expands access to teachers, classes and instructional resources, particularly for students at small rural schools that otherwise might not have the resources to offer Advanced Placement courses, foreign languages and other specialized subjects. It enables students to take online classes and access cutting-edge research at universities across the country. Plus, broadband makes it easier for students and parents to communicate with teachers and helps engage parents in their children’s schoolwork – sometimes providing the primary link between families and schools.

The State Educational Technology Directors Association projects that schools will need bandwidth of at least 100 megabits per second for every 1,000 students and staff by the 2014-2015 school year. The Association expects that requirement to increase to 1 gigabit per second by 2017-18. Our program is helping schools make this happen. Our grantees are connecting more than 10,000 K-12 schools across the country to broadband and more than 7,200 will be getting speeds of 100 megabits per second or faster.

The Jordan Valley School, near Salt Lake City, teaches 150 kids with significant physical and cognitive disabilities, ranging from infants to young adults. Many are non-verbal. It is using technology to transform the educational experience for these children. The school has equipped all of its classrooms with iPads plus an Apple TV to connect the devices to a projector at the front of the classroom. On each iPad, the school has loaded software programs that allow students to communicate their thoughts, feelings and needs by navigating icons, screens and keyboards. Thanks to broadband, Jordan Valley School is able to have as many as 50 iPads and 30 computers online at the same time. Mark Donnelly, the school’s principal, says technology has given his students a voice that they would otherwise not have.

Jordan Valley School is one of 140 schools, libraries, Head Start centers and other anchors across Utah being connected to broadband as a result of a $13.4 million Recovery Act grant to the Utah Education Network, a statewide research and education network managed by the University of Utah. Many of the participating schools, including Jordan Valley, now have up to a gigabit per second in bandwidth.

In inner-city neighborhoods, broadband is opening up new opportunities and broadening horizons. A non-profit called CFY (previously Computers for Youth) is using Recovery Act funding to provide digital literacy training and computers for low-income sixth graders and their families in New York City and Los Angeles. The CFY program focuses on high-poverty schools – offering Saturday workshops to teach students and parents how to use the Internet and find online educational resources that promote learning in subjects such as math and reading. CFY also trains families on its own PowerMyLearning.com platform, which provides free access to activities and games from across the Web that are designed to make learning fun.

Families who complete the training are given a refurbished computer loaded with educational software to take home, along with assistance to sign up for affordable broadband. That helps extend student learning beyond the school day and improves communication between parents and schools.

Maricar Catalan is a sixth grade math and science teacher at Dr. Julian Nava Academy of Arts and Culture, a school in South Central Los Angeles that is participating in the CFY program. Catalan teaches two groups of 32 students each – one group of kids on specialized learning plans and one group in a gifted and talented program.

Catalan uses the PowerMyLearning program to customize material for her students. The online content, she says, allows her to find challenging activities for the kids who are more advanced and provide extra support for those who need to catch up. She tells us, “It’s like having an extra person in the classroom.”

Zoila Perez, whose daughter attends Valor Academy in Arleta, California, is one parent who signed up for broadband after her family took part in the CFY program. Perez explains that she used to think the Internet was a dangerous place. But the CFY training helped her see the value of broadband, particularly for education. Now her daughter can go online at home to get the access she needs to research her homework and complete her school assignments. Perez, herself, has begun using the Internet to pay bills and look up healthcare information. Even her four-year-old son is using an online program to practice his ABCs.

Broadband also has the potential to transform healthcare. Telemedicine expands access to healthcare services, particularly for people living in rural areas with few medical facilities and not enough local doctors. Patients can consult with medical specialists located many miles away using video conferencing technology, and doctors can monitor patients using remote diagnostic equipment. Telemedicine also permits physicians to transmit X-rays, CT scans, medical records and other big files to hospitals across the country with the simple click of a mouse.

Our grantees are using Recovery Act funding to connect more than 3,000 healthcare facilities across the country. Seventy-five percent of these facilities are getting at least 10 megabits per second of bandwidth, which enables high-definition video consultations and real-time image transfers, More than 1,300, over 40 percent, will be connected to more than 100 megabits per second of bandwidth, which can support continuous remote monitoring of patients.

Rhonda Smith, a 43-year-old mother of five in Arkansas, is living proof of the benefits of telemedicine. In December of 2011, Smith suffered a massive stroke while helping prepare for a Christmas party at the nursing home where she worked. She was rushed to Northwest Medical Center in Bentonville. What happened next could be considered a miracle not only of modern medicine, but also of modern technology. The local hospital did not have the resources to adequately evaluate Smith’s stroke to determine whether it had been caused by a blot clot. But Rhonda was more than three hours away from the major regional medical center in Little Rock and that was too long to wait.

So the doctors at the hospital in Bentonville consulted with an on-call neurologist affiliated with the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) over broadband. That neurologist was able to talk to and examine Smith over an interactive videoconferencing system and quickly determined that she would benefit from a blood thinning drug. After the drug was administered, Smith was taken to the UAMS hospital in Little Rock by ambulance. By the time she got there, she was able to speak and today, she is just grateful to be alive.

UAMS is using a $102 million Recovery Act award to build a statewide fiber-optic network that is integrating, upgrading and extending two existing networks used for healthcare, education and research. The new network, which will reach all 75 counties in Arkansas, is introducing telemedicine to some of the most remote pockets of a heavily rural state. The system is connecting or upgrading 81 hospitals, 12 healthcare training centers and 113 local health facilities. Our grant is also paying for telemedicine equipment, including digital stethoscopes and ENT probes with “digicams” that allow doctors to examine patients remotely.

Another example is the ANGELS program, which gives women with high-risk pregnancies access to genetics counselors and maternal and fetal medicine specialists who can monitor them and conduct live fetal ultrasounds from hundreds of miles away. The program aims to lower the number of low-birth-rate babies born in Arkansas, which is above the national average. UAMS has used its grant to expand ANGELS to 36 sites around the state, up from 24.

One participating facility is the Mena Regional Health System in Mena, Arkansas, a town of 6,000 located 125 miles from Little Rock. Dr. John Mesko and the other obstetrician in town deliver roughly 450 babies a year and Mesko estimates that at least a quarter of those mothers have at least one telemedicine ultrasound. For these women, the ANGELS program means they don’t have to drive hours to get the care they need.

Lastly, I want to spend a few moments discussing the impact of our broadband program on workforce development and entrepreneurship. Our infrastructure grantees have directly created thousands of jobs in areas such as construction, fiber splicing and network engineering. But our broadband adoption projects and public computer centers are also driving employment in another way. They are reaching people who may never have even turned on a computer – a group that includes a disproportionate number of low-income Americans, senior citizens and members of minority groups – and teaching them how to use a mouse, navigate the Internet and set up an email account. These programs are also instructing people on how to write resumes, find Internet job postings and even apply for jobs over the Web.

These are skills that many of us take for granted. But for those stuck on the wrong side of the digital divide, not having this basic digital literacy can be a barrier to employment. Many job listings are only posted online these days and many employers only accept job applications online. What’s more, today’s job market demands a basic knowledge of computers, software and the Internet.

Sheryl Culbert, a 49-year-old mother of two in Los Angeles, knows this first hand. After being released from prison in 2010, Culbert was determined to turn her life around. That meant finding a job. So she made her way to Chrysalis, an Los Angeles non-profit that helps the city’s homeless and low-income residents find work and get on a path to self-sufficiency.

Chrysalis enrolled Culbert in a BTOP-funded digital literacy program that taught her how to go online and set her up with an email account. For Culbert, who had lacked the confidence to use a computer, it was a major step. Chrysalis also helped her land a job with the Skid Row Housing Trust, an organization that operates housing for the homeless in Los Angeles.

Today, Culbert manages her own building for the Skid Row Housing Trust. Her new job requires her to use a computer practically every day – to update rents in the system database, to email with Los Angeles County housing officials, to make flyers to be distributed to residents. She credits the digital literacy training she received at Chrysalis, for her success.

Chrysalis is one of 19 programs across California that has received a piece of a $14 million Recovery Act investment in the California Emerging Technology Fund, a non-profit organization seeking to close the state's digital divide. Through all of its programs, CETF has helped over 2600 persons find jobs.

In conclusion, I would like to leave you with three thoughts. First, that our program has been very successful, due in large part to the dedication and skill of the communities and companies and organizations that have been on the front lines of carrying out these projects. Second, that while the statistics are impressive, it is just as important to appreciate the impact these projects have had on the lives of so many people. I have shared only a few of our testimonials here today, but our grantees are delivering these sorts of benefits across the country to their citizens and customers and are transforming their lives. And third, there is still work to do.

We are working to determine how we can extend the lessons learned from our projects to other communities that did not receive Recovery Act grants. For example, we will soon release a toolkit highlighting successful strategies to increase broadband adoption in inner city, rural or ethnic communities that can be used by communities anywhere to increase the level of digital literacy and broadband adoption in their areas. For schools, our program will bring 100 megabits per second service to less than 10 percent of the nation’s K-12 schools. Another 30 percent, it is estimated, already receive broadband service at the speeds recommended by the school technology directors association. That leaves around 60 percent of our schools still needing upgrades in order to deliver the quality of education that our students need in the 21st century.

At NTIA, we are committed to working to improve broadband service in all communities and to schools and other anchor institutions. We look forward to working with all of you on this important challenge. Thank you.

Archived Lectures

Using Telmedicine to Provide Pediatric Genetic/Follow-Up Newborn Screening Services in Hawaii April 16, 2013
National TRC: Establishing A Remote Telehealth Site with the VA: A “How To” Event March 21, 2013
Connecting the Delta January 22, 2013
If I Knew Then…Lessons Learned from Building a Telehealth Network October 18, 2012
Determining Telehealth’s Value Proposition June 28, 2012
National TRC: Store & Forward Software Webinar June 7, 2012
Tele-Emergency in Mississippi April 19, 2012
Child Psychiatry Telemedicine in Arkansas January 17, 2012
Telemedicine and Nursing Homes: A Good Fit October 18, 2011
School-based Telehealth Projects July 19, 2011
Lessons Learned From A Life In Telehealth July 19, 2011

http://www2.ntia.doc.gov/node/847

Sixteen projects funded through NTIA’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) will be honored tonight for being selected as 2013 Computerworld Honor Laureates. They’ll each receive medallions inscribed with the Computerworld Honors Program’s mission, “A Search for New Heroes,” at the Computerworld Honors Awards Gala in Washington, D.C.  

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)-funded NTIA programs selected are:

CA

California Emerging Technology Fund;

City and County of San Francisco;

The Youth Policy Institute (YPI) is honored in the Human Services category, which recognizes organizations for the innovative use of IT to effectively develop or deliver public programs that provide food and nutrition, housing, transportation, mental health or other social service to populations in need. YPI has installed 80 public computer centers in the Los Angeles area in less than two years and, in the process, developed best practices that can be adopted by organizations that wish to establish similar services in their own communities.

MA

  City of Boston (Public Computer Center and Sustainable Broadband Adoption) is honored in the Economic Development category, which recognizes organizations for the innovative use or development of IT to create, enable, improve or expand business and job opportunities. The City of Boston provides training for low-income families with children, unemployed individuals lacking digital skills, and seniors living in Boston Housing Authority sites.

OR

Clackamas County, Oregon, is honored in the Economic Development category. Clackamas County is building the Clackamas Broadband Express (CBX) network, 180 miles of broadband fiber infrastructure. This infrastructure allows existing businesses to participate and compete in an increasingly global marketplace.

FL

The School Board of Miami-Dade County, Florida (M-DCPS) is honored in the Philanthropy category, which recognizes organizations that have made significant contributions of one or more goods or services to a needy cause. M-DCPS partners with non- and for-profit organizations to provide computers, Internet service, and multilingual digital literacy training in English, Spanish, and Haitian-Creole for low-income students and their families. M-DCPS provides access to innovative technologies with limited budget dollars and is creating best practices for how to replicate this program in other school districts facing similar challenges.

WA

Northwest Open Access Network (NoaNet) is honored in the Economic Development category. NoaNet is bringing broadband access to 170 rural communities across Washington state by improving the backbone that serves rural communities. This expansion will transform Washington’s high-speed broadband infrastructure and secure the state’s economic future by reducing government costs, educating young people, and creating business opportunities for generations to come. NoaNet is also future proofing the network for the next decade and beyond by laying the fiber groundwork to support speeds of 400 Gbps and greater.

 

NC

MCNC golden leaf rural networks link 1  2

 

OH

OneCommunity 1

Ohio Academic Resources Network (subrecipient); ;

 

 

 Colorado Governor’s Office of Information Technology (SBI grant); Government of DC; Horizon Telcom; Internet2;  Merit Network;   Technology for All; 

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I have not seen in my 71 years of life an opportunity to support youth co-create futures like SDG Metaverse Prize - since my father met von neumann the year I was born my family has kept an eye on entrepreneurial revolution open societal flows. living up to smithian or keynsian values 
Special thanks to zasheem launches of 2 journals with adam smith scholars and around Glasgow's greatest 20th C alumni for good. See alsdo EconomistDiary.com and Greatests of All Time
Following on with Japan ambassador to Bangladesh support from 2010 in mapping last decade of Fazle Abed and the billion womens economic model he gravitated over 50 years http://www.abedmooc.com, Team of Asian media graduates, and friends and I were lucky to follow movements of Guterres (very granular levels of 100 ops leaders inside UN) around digital un2.0 from their start in 2016.
As a statistician, datawise. I can offer a quick start mapping every last mile operation branch of UN that is linking in to maximise tech nd deep data with smartest possible logistics even as sad new fractures of world trade flows are caused most lately by Russia. Whats still needed is more clarity on which multilateral has the most data on broken value chains- fortunately i personally know who at the world bank has since 2006 the most data on food prices across every country. Maybe you know // sources .
 Digital cooperation has been celebrated solutionwise in Geneva where the ITU has actually been the digital twin of ny policy headquarters from the start in 1946 (and actually earlier since 1865 collaborations needed for there to be one telegraph standard instead of many).
By 2018 the first digital cooperation report mainly chaired out of geneva with 30 national tech leaders eg melinda gates representing USA to guterres and he formed tech envoy transformation office round 10 transformation processes -see Overview of the Office’s Ongoing Work | Office of the Secretary-General's Envoy on Technology
The ITU started taking its responsibility to a new level with AIforgood- specifically this went year round zoom not juts annual summit- and a first 50 operational branches of the UN identified at least one ai project each. Meanwhile Guterres hosted expert roundtables around the 10 processes uniting not just un branches and national leaders but corporations , leading ai university centres and NGOs -see https://www.un.org/techenvoy/sites/www.un.org.techenvoy/files/List_of_roundtables_key_constituents.pdf
Three more things came together- it turned out that 20 operational units of the UN had been discussing web1 &2 in annual vents of ITU -in thi=ose days called worldwide information society; the xprize out of moutnain view's singularity university got involved. By december the 10 million dillar avatar prize will  be debriefed- the last 4 xprizes have been on urgen tai solutions eg related to covid. And japan has been uniting about 40 cities' colleges through two investment streams geared to society5.0 and Osaka Data Track Expos - connection places where the UN has a training college and connecting AI regional epicentres fortunately Nordica, Netherlands & selected East Europe's smartest community AI researchers (ie who value DAO) are miles more connected than west EU's bureaucratic offices. (I did help moderate EU Knolwgeboard for 3 years so have followed this rather strange old world happening) You could also check with Romano Prodi as died and he shared most entrepreneurial revolution maps.
Back in 2018 the tufts arctic circle club were miles ahead on virtual reality than other boston students including mit100k prize that i once judged in a minor way.  The over 18 teams are effectively free to help the UN digitalise and connect this with web 3 or metaverse or ai or whatever is the leap forward 2020s that you see tech mobilising
 can a prize help celebrate new Greatest of All Time. This will be one way to unite celebrities of sports and fashions with real tech heroines.
Exponentially we are at a critical time as nature judges us. Due to last week's supreme court rulings, around the world nations are being told taht it is only at the state level they can expect any american partners of climate, energy etc. However there is a chnace e that if we map who cares about water this may even unite some republican states. 
Thanks to the work led by people like Eban he has a listing of which institutions joined their youth in March 2022. Is there a way to see who wants to help youth connect before december's starting line for year 1 of sdgmetaverseprize.org? As far as I can see this prize isnt just us last chance to be be trusted rest of the world on cop26 but it is every community's chance to benchmark digital gov. UN2.0 if succeeds  Meta will not only provide a benchmark for digital multilateral but will in effect unite every best govtech - at community state nation level. So already when it comes to goal 4 education places like singapore and south korea are both leaders of ai for every age group and leading connectors of Guterres Digital UN , and in effect every sustainability goal solution. of course the problem is penisular and  developed island states are not sufficient to help with massive inland solutions on continent scales let alone messy landlocked nations borders. The reality is west (US and EU) depends on Asian solutions  more than many Atlamtic policymakers view. Europe is not yet better situated for peace than the 1920s and this time round the US is not united on being a leader in saving the world. The great thing about the prize is with teams of 2-6 getting on with deep digital solutions youth can advance in joy and productivity even as elder generations have designed 60 years of accelerating media to propagate hate or fear or mental illness.
i welcome any way to follow this up eg whatsapp +1 240 316  8157, zooms, last month while wall street was still investing mainly in naked apes - educators started an NFT aimed at connecting 6000 educators; to be frank this is mainly k-12 leaving the 2 main areas fazle abed's last 20 years focused newly on university and pre-school maximum opportunity to represent women empowerments voice if you should so choose to collaborate
cheers chris macrae

===================please note most of this column is due to be re-edited we hope to issue a list of yunus top 10 stories but when it comes to solutions matching those challeges there's all to play for as web3 is humanity's last chnace to leap ahead

  hottest youth-spring question of our life and times-can online education end youth unemployment for ever ? yes but only if you help map how!

Breaking News to action now!

About Pro-Youth economics at Norman Macrae Foundation online library of norman macrae - The Economist's Unacknowledged Giant -videos 1 2 -fansweb  NMFoundation- youth projects - include yunuschoolusa

 

fullest press reports  Grameen Brand Partnership Architecture

exponential impact advisory: the social business youth networks inspired by muhammad yunus -without which millennium goal actions networks would be way behind are worth far more than any individual parts according to Norman Macrae Foundation  trilliondollaraudit methodology and charter notespace

Beyond the extraordinary investment of the members bank at Grameen, and the approximate third share its members foundation holds in grameenphone, here is our Unofficial League Table of Most Impactful Social Business Investments around yunus - last update 1 dec 2012

! Grameen Solar

2 Grameen Mobile Nursing nets and college

3 Portfolio of investments linkedin by Japan

4 Portfolio of youth-led networking inventions in US educationsystem  tertiar and secondary - transparency note NM Foundation has minor donation/loan interest

5 Investments in Grameen as collaboration brand linked in out of paris- the origin of global social business partnership funds

6 OpenTech investments of Grameen Intel

 

-------- while not controlled by yunus we see wholeplanetfoundation microcredit investment table and conscious capitalsm movements and hugely important to advancing pro-youth economicsmission of friends of youth and yunus

 

email chris.macrae@yahoo.co.ukif you have questions or recommendations of entries that should be in this league table

-please read notes about what pro-youth economists mean by superapps being most

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