Overview/About

The intent of the Technical Assistance Grant is to fund broadband related training, education, and online application development. Awards for this competative grant were given in amounts from $5,000 to $30,000. Work must be completed in a year or less.

Aim

The goal of the Technical Assistance grant program is to enable individuals and groups to be fully trained on broadband services and internet applications that are currently available, or due to become available, as broadband infrastructure is installed across the state.

Thirty-three Grant Awards

Recently the West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey’s Broadband Mapping Program awarded $677,625 in grant funds as part of the federally-funded Technical Assistance Grants Program. Thirty-three recipients were chosen based on their project’s plan to create or improve the usage of broadband internet through training, education or e-government applications.

Grants were awarded across all of the state’s eleven planning and development regions as well as in multiple sectors, including but not limited to, agriculture, economic development, education, government services, health care, and public safety.

Purpose

This grant funding has been given to the eleven Regional Planning Councils across the state. The Councils will create Regional Broadband Planning Teams (RBPT) which will collect and analyze primary data, separate but complementary to the data collected by the Broadband Mapping Program, to develop strategic broadband deployment and adoption plans in their regions. These plans will help communities within the eleven separate regions leverage the benefits of high-speed connectivity, including economic and social development initiatives that can and will later take advantage of federal, state and other grant opportunities and funding.

Expected Deliverables

Each Council will create a RBPT which will conduct a broadband needs assessment within the region’s boundaries. The needs assessment will gather data and analyze connectivity by anchor institutions, small businesses, and residences and consider factors that influence decisions to obtain or increase bandwidth capacity.

Based upon the results of the needs assessment, the RBPT will develop a broadband strategic plan for the region. This plan will include measurable goals, objectives and benchmarks to keep broadband planning and implementation efforts on track. The regional broadband plans will later be assimilated into a statewide broadband plan.