Connie Stewart and the California Center for Rural Policy has been honored by the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) as the recipient of the 2014 Innovations in Networking Award for Gigabit/Broadband Applications.
Over the course of her career, Connie Stewart has represented numerous groups in support of high-speed broadband access in northwestern California. She has organized efforts to expand service to those in low income and rural unserved and underserved communities and has been successful in securing grant funding and working with county officials to build broadband connections. She is also the former Mayor and a former City Councilwoman in Arcata, California and has worked as the Senior Field Representative for California Assemblywoman Patty Berg; as Berg’s representative, she took an active role in addressing major public policy issues, including infrastructure.
Connie is currently the Executive Director of the California Center for Rural Policy at Humboldt State University. The California Center for Rural Policy (CCRP) fosters “Rural Research, for and by Rural Communities” to improve the health and well-being of rural people and environments. Through CCRP, Connie’s current work includes a number of projects related to health services through access to broadband in rural areas.
The CCRP was instrumental in the development of the Redwood Coast Connect project, a consortium of six member organizations representing a diverse range of stakeholders and a representative from each of the regions counties Board of Supervisors. A long-term goal of RCC was making affordable, ubiquitous broadband available to all of the rural communities in the Redwood Coast region. Connie’s leadership at CCRP has been vital to sustaining and advancing the work started by Redwood Coast Connect.
Innovations in Networking Awards are given annually by CENIC to highlight exemplary innovations which leverage ultra high-bandwidth networking, particularly where those innovations have the potential to revolutionize the ways in which instruction and research are conducted or where they further the deployment of broadband in underserved areas.
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