Your future, our focus
POWELL, Wyo. - The Wyoming Rural Development Council invites northwest Wyoming residents to join in a discussion about benefits and access issues related to high speed Internet service at a 10 a.m. meeting in Cody Monday, July 11, in the Park County Library’s Grizzly Hall.
Community members who plan to attend are asked to email Leah Bruscino or call 307-754-5785 with their RSVP by July 6.
The focus of the meeting will be on the benefits of broadband to businesses, schools, government and local economies.
Input from participants will influence a plan to enhance access to broadband (high-speed Internet) across the region for training use and for information exchange between businesses and consumers and between government and residents.
The plan is a LinkWYOMING project, funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to increase access to broadband in Wyoming.
As part of the project, a regional planning team has been evaluating Internet use and potential in Big Horn, Hot Springs, Park and Washakie counties.
The team’s preliminary conclusions find that the potential for e-commerce in the area is not being leveraged and that commerce leaking to Billings and to the Internet could be impacted by better broadband utilization. The team estimates that only about one third of businesses in the Cody community, for example, have a website.
The survival of small businesses and local economies in the Big Horn Basin may ultimately depend on investment in accessing and adopting broadband technology, according to the team’s findings.
The LinkWYOMING Region Six Planning Team has been coordinated by Kathy Crookshanks, training and development program coordinator for the Northwest College Cody Center for Training and Development.
Follow the link for more information about the LinkWYOMING initiative.