For the first time in years, the Minnesota Legislature included some funding for broadband infrastructure in the bonding bill. Jim and Marnie talk with Ann Treacy, the author of the Blandin Foundation’s “Blandin on broadband” blog to discuss some of the finer points of what some funding from the state could be used for and would do for rural communities.

State broadband funding

On Rural MN Radio this week, Jim and Marnie talk with Amy Jo Lennartson, regional coordinator for the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits at the Southern Minnesota Nonprofit Summit, discussing why it’s so important for nonprofit leaders and staff in Greater Minnesota to get together and share ideas.

Nonprofit summit

Since Minnesota’s start as a state, the landscape has been shaped by research, especially in Greater Minnesota. The first great tides were in agriculture, while today it is renewable energy. The future may be shaped by ag bioscience. Jim and Marnie discuss the latest articles in the Rural Minnesota Journal on this transfer of technology, the role it has played and the role it is still playing in Minnesota.

Technology transfer

This quarter’s issue of the Rural Minnesota Journal will be out next week with more articles looking at various aspects of who owns Minnesota. Jim and Marnie discuss how the first articles take a look at the CapX2020 power line project bringing electricity from the wind fields of western Minnesota and North and South Dakota across Minnesota to the Twin Cities and how various policies are shaping the way rural Minnesotans are affected by the project marching across their landscape.

Rural Minnesota Journal: CapX2020