Thank you to everyone who joined us for the first general session of RTIME Online! For those who were not able to tune in, here is a recap of everything we learned on our first day.
NTCA Board Chairman Fred Johnson kicked us off by welcoming attendees to RTIME Online with a call to action: “I want to challenge all of you to take advantage of the outstanding content that has been prepared for you.” He also spoke about the Smart Rural CommunitySM (SRC) program and gave an update to the board’s recent activities to ensure the future success of NTCA and Services Management Corporation (SMC).
After U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), led us in the Pledge of Allegiance, NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield then gave her keynote address. “We already knew that broadband service was important but never before has the service you provide been so very critical as it has been for the last twelve months,” she said. “You have all led the charge to getting rural Americans connected when life has been exclusively online.” She talked about the ways NTCA members stepped up to the plate during the COVID-19 pandemic, and she also discussed NTCA’s priorities for the upcoming year.
What makes a community smart? Josh Seidemann, vice president of policy at NTCA, led a panel on the SRC program with Craig Cook, CEO of Hill Country Telephone Cooperative (Ingram, Tex.), and Brent Gillum, President and CEO of LightStream (Buffalo, Ind.). Cook and Gillum talked about how their telcos have partnered with schools, law enforcement, community leaders and other local organizations to expand access to broadband and create opportunities in their communities.
Shawn DuBravac then joined us to offer projections for upcoming consumer technology and trends in the industry. Some trends to watch out for are the increased use of robots and virtual reality, as well as telemedicine, which expanded rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic as consumers are “taking our health care into our own hands.”
We closed the general session on Tuesday with astronaut Scott Kelly, who spent a year living in space. He talked about living life in isolation (a timely topic for us all!) and the lessons he has learned during his career at NASA. He gave us this advice: “If we focus on the things that we can control, and ignore what we can’t, if we test the status quo, and we work as a team… then the sky is definitely not the limit.”
Thank you again to everyone who joined us yesterday. We look forward to seeing you again today!
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