In this episode of The Intelligent Community, ICF Co-Founder Lou Zacharilla speaks with Adrianne B. Furniss, Executive Director of The Benton Institute.

“Our goal is to bring open, affordable, high-performance broadband to all people in the U.S. to ensure a thriving democracy,” says Adrianne Furniss. In a rare interview and her first podcast, the Executive Director of the Benton Institute discusses the current state of rural broadband in the United States and her view of how to build capacity within very small communities that have suffered brain drain and the loss of their economic vibrancy. The work being done by Benton and the research this famed institute relies on continue to launch what many call the “rural renaissance.” https://www.benton.org/.

Adrianne Benton Furniss is Executive Director and Board Member of the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, a 40-year-old nonprofit focused on broadband policy, working to make sure everyone can use and benefit from high quality, affordable broadband. They strengthen local, state, and national leadership by providing the timely information, rigorous evidence, practical guidance, and advocacy needed to articulate and implement a broadband for all agenda. They inform and give policymakers, practitioners, researchers, and advocates information they need to advance a broadband for all agenda. They research and build knowledge by providing a body of research and best practices to guide our field’s work. They partner and engage with communities to develop strategies for ubiquitous, high-speed, reliable, and affordable broadband to meet larger community goals. And they advocate and advance a broadband for all agenda at all levels of government through policymaker education, legal and regulatory filings, and coalition participation.