Global City Teams Challenge (GCTC) Smart Agriculture and Rural Broadband SuperCluster Workshop

NIST and its partners, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NIST), NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association, Joint Venture Silicon Valley and Purdue Research Foundation hosted the Global City Teams Challenge (GCTC) Smart Agriculture and Rural Broadband SuperCluster workshop from July 21-23, 2021.

Joined by academics and industry leaders, the hybrid event offered the opportunity to learn best practices and challenges related to several projects in agriculture, rural connectivity, Tribal regions and STEM. The workshop also highlighted the preliminary blueprint for rural communities, recently released by the Global City Teams Challenge (GCTC) Smart Agriculture and Rural Broadband SuperCluster. Participants developed next steps, including case studies for 2021/2, and best ways to map the coverage of broadband services – a critical issue for smart agriculture and rural areas.

This hyperlinked agenda includes all presentations from the event (YouTube video links as well as pdf files of presentation visuals). There were sessions targeting topics such as a systems approach to precision agriculture, smart communities, funding, rural broadband, mapping and digital equity, connectivity innovations, and smart regions. Johnny Park, CEO Wabash Heartland Innovation Network (WHIN) and Roberto Gallardo, Director of the Purdue Center for Regional Development (PCRD) presented some highlights of regional activity during a breakfast session.

The GCTC workshop culminated with a series of in-person tours related to connectivity, research and development. One of those stops was the Purdue Agronomy Center for Research and Education . The hyperlinked agenda includes videos of the tour stops – and the last one was the site where the tethered WHIN Aerostat is deployed (see photo).