Events & Webinars
Register for upcoming Appalachia Digital Accelerator events and watch past recordings on-demand
Upcoming Events
Speaker: Tom Reid
As part of their BEAD plans, all states must include a process to allow local entities (such as local governments, nonprofits, and ISPs) to challenge the locations which the state has deemed eligible (and ineligible) to receive BEAD funding.
Join this webinar with Reid Consulting Group to learn about how the BEAD challenge process works and what strategies communities can use to ensure they’re eligible to apply for the funding they’re entitled to.
Join Connect Humanity, Just Transition Fund, and Rural Innovation Strategies, Inc. for a conversation about the next round of USDA’s Reconnect grant program and how to leverage this funding in light of BEAD to ensure the most rural and historically marginalized communities get connected with high-speed internet.
We expect an announcement about the next round of ReConnect funding in December with applications estimated to open in January/February and be due February/March. This webinar will give you details on how ReConnect has been structured in the past, which projects are usually a good fit for the funding, and the steps you can take now so you’re ready to move quickly when the funding announcement goes live.
Richard Jenkins (USDA) will give an overview of Reconnect and answer questions about the program. Natalie Roper (Just Transition Fund) and Alex Kelley (Rural Innovation Strategies, Inc.) will facilitate the conversation with Richard and share the available resources from their organizations to help you get ready to apply for Reconnect.
Past Events
At the Appalachia Digital Accelerator grantee workshop, 70 community champions came together to share stories and strategies for expanding broadband access across rural Appalachia.
In this webinar, Tom Reid from Reid Consulting Group outlines gives an overview of accessing and using CostQuest’s fabric mapping data. This mapping provides key information on broadband serviceable locations that is critical for broadband planning and identifying coverage gaps. Learn how the fabric can be used to understand your coverage area and identify miscategorized locations.
Speakers:
Aaron Schill, Director of Research and Programs
Paolo Balboa, Senior Program Manager
Asset Mapping for digital inclusion is an approach to planning and community development that is centered on identifying and building upon a community’s existing resources. Deep community engagement is a key part of asset mapping, used to uncover existing strengths, skills, and connections that can be leveraged. As an approach to data collection and documenting the current state of digital equity, asset mapping is inherently solution-oriented.
Watch this video to learn best practices around asset mapping and see several examples of asset mapping in practice. Get an introduction to tools and templates created by NDIA to conduct asset mapping locally.
Speaker: Sean Gonsalves
The webinar focuses on building a basic understanding of broadband technologies and how they have come to be deployed the way they are. This includes descriptions and explanations of different types of broadband networks and the expected quality of connections from each. It focuses on how fiber optic networks work and are built due to the heavy emphasis on such networks from broadband grant programs. The Q&A opens a wide range of questions beyond the topics covered, including insights from other community efforts as needed.
Coming soon on-demand
The Appalachia Digital Accelerator is a project in partnership with the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), which contributed $6.3 million (80% of the total project cost).
