Upcoming event

This year's summit will bring together 75 participating communities, forming an extensive national network of housing providers, municipal agencies .and community stakeholders that are dedicating themselves to digital inclusion.

This year's theme is "Connect to the Future!" a reflection of our goal to help families in public housing connect to the transformative tools of the Digital Age.  These tools will prepare residents for the technology changes that lie ahead and the vast opportunities these changes will bring. 

For the last 40 years, antitrust policy has been guided by the consumer welfare standard, which generally allows companies to pursue mergers and other market strategies absent harm to consumers or anticompetitive conduct. But some activists have advocated for actively pushing back against the formation of large firms, an approach championed in the early 20th century by Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis. Today’s neo-Brandeisians worry about what they see as undue concentrations of economic and political power, and they hope to prop up small businesses.

You may be surprised to learn that newspaper audiences are larger today than ever due to myriad platforms on which news is published – print, websites, online newsletters, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, video and more. What would you do as an editor for a day? What would your coverage and story assignments be? What would you publish in print, online and in social media? What would your front page look like? An engaging interactive event with live video and a press run. 

The digital age can eliminate density and geographic proximity requirements that were so critical during the industrial age.  The digital age will make it possible for a rural community to maintain its “rural” feel and continue to leverage its natural amenities while taking advantage of what only dense urban areas enjoyed last century.

Small town newspapers, challenged by evaporating advertising revenues, mergers and declining circulation, struggle to sustain themselves. What can be done to keep local journalism strong, relevant, necessary and avoid news deserts?

Speakers:  Al Cross, director Institute for Rural Journalism, University of Kentucky

Panel discussion: Mark Guerringue, publisher The Daily Sun, Conway, NH; Keith Gentili, Editor and Publisher, The New Boston Beacon; Paul Miller, executive editor, The Keene Sentinel

President Donald Trump's labeling of certain news as fake and journalists as the enemy of the people has raised doubts about the veracity and accuracy of news reporting. This has created a national narrative. How is journalism perceived in rural America? Are levels of trust higher or lower? What can local journalists and small-town community leaders do to maintain integrity and build trust in local journalism?

The PSAP RTT Education Day will provide information to PSAPs and other emergency communications systems about RTT features and benefits for emergency response personnel and consumers (including consumers with disabilities); best practices for processing RTT requests from service providers; and ways to implement the RTT service feature. Among other things, panels will address regulatory policy, PSAPs’ experiences with RTT testing, and RTT infrastructure issues. There will be a live demonstration of the use of RTT and opportunities for interaction by and with the audience.