Scott Woods was joined by Patrick McGuire, Christine Burkette, Aaron Schill, and Alonso Melendez during NDIA's NetInclusion Philadelphia conference, where the group discussed digital equity, digital inclusion, and more.

American Association for Public Broadband Co-Founders Bob Knight and Kim McKinley joined the Ready or Not? Podcast with Scott Woods and Shannan Williams-Mitchem during the National League of Cities Conference. Over the better part of two hours, they discussed captivating topics like open access, municipal broadband efforts, and Kim's dating life.

Joe Valandra joins Scott and Shannan on Ready or Not? to talk about the importance of tribal sovereignty and the work Tribal Ready is doing to get Indian Country connected to broadband.

Mignon Clyburn joins Scott and Shannan on Ready or Not? to talk her time at the FCC, the revolving door between the telecom industry and government, and making meaningful change for communities that have been historically marginalized.

James Neal joins Ready or Not  to talk access, equity, and libraries.   

Follow James Neal on Twitter: https://twitter.com/james3neal?lang=en

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Follow James Neal on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/james3neal/... 

S2E2

Ready or Not returns with Episode 4, featuring Shannan Williams-Mitchem Director of Community Outreach and Research @ Ready.net 

Broadband.money presenting at the USCM.

Joshua Williams is an executive fellow/digital inclusion lead in the office of Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner. Joshua understands the importance of collecting empirical data for broadband  mapping. He also authored the paper "Developing a Digital Equity Office to Close Digital Divides." 

As digital inclusion lead, Joshua helped Houston establish an Office of Digital Equity. The office helps the city's residents get affordable access to the internet. Joshua started the job in January 2021. Scott talks to him about the experience. 

The Ready or Not? podcast features the people who are toiling behind the scenes to close the digital divide. This week, Ready.net's VP for Community Engagement and Strategic Partnerships Scott D. Woods, Esq. chats with Leslie Ann Durham, the Alternate Federal Co-Chairwoman of the Delta Regional Authority. The DRA is economic development agency that covers eight states and 252 counties and parishes along the Mississippi river. 

States that DRA covers include Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act provides $150 million to the DRA for economic development. Durham says that the commission plans to make broadband a big part of its economic development strategy. The plan is to fill in holes that may be left by state broadband plans, and to provide match funding for federal grants. 

Durham provides on-the-ground insights and anecdotes about how and why local coordination is crucial to successful broadband deployments, why digital literacy initiatives are important, how DRA works to provide match funding for federal grants that states may win, how Starlink has been really helpful during and after natural disasters, what the DRA is doing with mapping, and more. 

For more information and resources, please visit Broadband.money, where you can learn more about broadband grants and digital inclusion. You'll also be able to explore your local connectivity profiles through our broadband maps and portals. Then, join our lively community discussions and connect with others in the broadband grants community at discuss.broadband.money.com.

For more broadband grant resources, check out Broadband.money's Resource Center.

Scott D. Woods and Sarah Lai Stirland produced the episode. Thanks to Christopher Egusa for engineering help. 

Music from: Worldwide Beats and Aries Beats.

Jase Wilson and Mike Faloon are the Co-Founders of Ready.net and Broadband.money.