Little Rock—RuralTeleCon'07 is headed to Illinois! Springfield, Illinois is the host for the tenth annual Rural Telecommunications Congress (RTC) conference. The event, slated for October 14-17, 2007, brings together hundreds of leaders from communities throughout the country focusing on broadband telecommunications and the uses of broadband connectivity.

The Illinois host organization for the conference is the Illinois Institute of Rural Affairs working with the Office of Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn. “This is an exciting opportunity for the great state of Illinois and the rest of the nation,” says Lieutenant Governor Quinn. “This event brings together national leaders in broadband technology to share ideas, communicate successful strategies and help spread broadband connectivity to every corner of our country.”

The 2007 RTC Conference will highlight success brought about by broadband access and provide a forum to share ideas and strategies for preparing rural areas to fully participate in today’s knowledge-based global economy. The RTC conference is one of the few annual events in the Nation that has been working more than a decade to spread broadband connectivity to rural America.

The theme for the national event is "Broadband: Capturing the Promise". This year’s conference theme is intended to focus attention not only on the deployment of broadband but also the effective utilization of broadband connectivity. Millions of Americans and thousands of businesses are connecting with increased bandwidth, however, the best technology in the world is of little value unless you know how to use it.

“Illinois is a wonderful location for this year’s Rural Telecommunications Congress Conference,” says Mike Kemp, RTC board President. “Illinois is a leader in broadband technologies and there are many success stories to be shared there.”

We look forward to seeing you October 14-17, 2007, at the Hilton Hotel in Springfield, Illinois for Rural Telecon ‘07.

More info available at: http://www.ruraltelecon.org

350 members of the NetSquared community are invited to the Cisco campus to participate in accelerating 20 great projects that utilize the technologies, tools and communities of the social web to create societal impact in a sustainable fashion. We will accelerate these projects by providing cash awards from the newly created Technology Innovation Fund and by connecting them with funders, developers, ntaps, and other people and organizations that can help the projects attain the next level.

The challenge to us all will be to identify and support projects with:

1. the deepest social benefit potential
2. the smartest and most innovative utilization of new web-based tools and
3. the clearest strategies for financial sustainability

In other words, let’s turn the best nonprofit technology ideas into real tools that can help change the world.

NetSquared Conference 2007 (N2Y2): May 29th – 30th, San Jose, CA