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AWARDS & RECOGNITION

2002 Awards: Special Recognition

Back Row, L to R: Charles Stanback, Charlie Clark, Charlie Pittman, Deborah Watts, Dan McAuley, Joanna Wright Front Row, L to R: Angie Bailey, Jane Patterson, Shaheen Bandukwala.

In 1999 and 2000, four influential groups issued reports pointing to North Carolina's need for advanced information technology. Reports by the U.S. Department of Commerce, the N.C. Board of Science and Technology, the N.C. Rural Economic Development Center, and the Rural Prosperity Task Force carried a common theme: to prosper as people and to strengthen the state's economy, North Carolinians must have access to Internet opportunities. Statistical information supported this conclusion and identified it as a need: North Carolina was found to be in the bottom ten percent of the nation in homes connected to the Internet. The people without access were most often rural and poor.

In August 2000, the N.C. General Assembly established the Rural Internet Access Authority to address the need for Internet access. The authority was charged with meeting a series of goals, not the least of which was making high-speed Internet access available to all North Carolinians by December 2003, at prices comparable in rural areas to those in urban ones. Specific goals of the authority included:

• Ensure the availability of local, dial-up Internet access statewide by August 2001
• Complete an inventory of the state's technology infrastructure and identify pockets of need by November 2001
• Establish two model telecenters by January 2002
• Make high-speed Internet access available statewide by December 2003
• Promote the increased use of computer devices and the Internet throughout the three-year-long initiative

Then Governor Hunt and the N.C. General Assembly worked to create an authority with both public and private interests represented, especially in the areas of membership, administration and financials. The appointed members of the 21-person commission range from an economic developer to a Time Warner Cable vice president, and from a rural county commissioner to the head of an electric cooperative. The authority is housed within and staffed through a nonprofit organization, the N.C. Rural Economic Development Center, which also acts as the authority's fiscal agent. The authority receives its funding through a $30 million allocation by MCNC, formerly the Microelectronics Center of North Carolina and also a nonprofit, and through cash and in-kind donations from more than 52 private corporations. The authority has been carrying out its mission at no cost to state government or to taxpayers. While it reports to both the legislative and fiscal bodies that helped create it, the authority is most accountable to the people of North Carolina.

The overall goal of the authority is to improve the economic prospects and enhance the quality of life of citizens across the state through access to and education about Internet and computer technology. To involve citizens in this process, the authority created a grassroots effort, the e-NC Initiative, which uses a network of more than 2,800 volunteers statewide to help connect North Carolinians to the Internet and a better future.

Contact Information: Jane Smith Patterson, Executive Director, Rural Internet Access Authority, 4021 Carya Drive, Raleigh, North Carolina 27610, (919) 250-4314, Fax: (919) 250-4325, jpatterson@e-nc.org

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