State Broadband Capacity Building:

With this funding, the State of Rhode Island will create a state broadband office that will assess the barriers to broadband adoption and usage in the state. The office will benchmark the state’s progress over a four-year period; develop a plan to improve broadband availability and usage in the state, utilizing input gathered through a series of community meetings over the course of the project; and create partnerships with the private and public sectors to facilitate greater broadband deployment and adoption.

Technical Assistance:

The Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation (RIEDC), in partnership with Ocean State Libraries and the Rhode Island Office of Library and Information Services, will adopt a standardized digital literacy curriculum and provide relevant training to librarians and other staff across the state.

Application Usage and Development:

This investment will support two application development projects. In the first, RIEDC will support Rhode Island’s public safety community as it begins planning for a citizen-focused online notification system. This system will create a unified and transparent source of information for Rhode Island’s residents. The second project, a collaboration with the Rhode Island-based non-profit organization, Urban Ventures, will support and document the implementation of a “virtual incubator,” which supports the development of micro-entrepreneurs as they seek to incubate their businesses and access potential state resources.

Data Collection, Integration, and Validation:

This project was originally funded for broadband planning activities and two years of data collection. In September of 2010, this project was amended to extend data collection activities for an additional three years and to identify and implement best practices.

Address File Development:

The Office of Information Technology will collect and improve current county data and deploy a crowdsourcing tool to improve address file quality. OIT will conflate that information with data from the Rhode Island Department of Motor Vehicles and the Secretary of State’s Office. This project includes additional support to train emergency service personnel to collect and verify address location information.