NORTHBAY – Registration for CRRBC’s (Canada’s Rural and Remote Broadband Conference) Central Canada conference, being held Sept. 7-9 in the Town of Georgina, will close on Friday Aug. 26, conference organizers have announced.
The Central Canada conference is being held in person this year, after two years of being offered virtually.
“I’m looking forward to meeting all the people I’ve spoken to through our virtual conferences over the past two years in person,” said Amedeo Bernardi, conference founder, in an interview with Cartt.ca. Bernardi is also looking forward to “having everyone there to share their stories and really expand their networks to the benefit of rural and remote community projects.”
“I really believe that having subject matter experts and communities share their stories from different parts of Canada with others, really helps communities and service providers realize they’re not alone in these projects, that they can reach out to others, whether in Canada or abroad, to share insight and hopefully improve what they’re working on and help them on their path forward,” he said.
The conference will feature keynotes by Michael Weening, president and chief operating officer of Calix and Tanya O’Callaghan, vice-president, community investment, policy and advocacy, at the Canadian Internet Registration Authority.
The agenda also includes panels on topics such as Indigenous broadband connectivity, supply chains, planning and designing rural networks, and data, as well as presentations on the Grande Cache Alberta Broadband Project and the City of Brooks Alberta Broadband Project.
Furthermore, Gord Reynolds, vice-president, commercial advisory and strategy at Infrastructure Ontario, will be there to talk about the Government of Ontario’s nearly $4 billion commitment to connect everyone in the province to high-speed Internet by the end of 2025.
Lynne Genik, director of the High Throughput and Secure Networks Challenge Program at the National Research Council Canada will also speak at the conference.
Genik’s presentation, Canadian Satellite Communications R&D for Rural and Remote Connectivity, will look at “Canada’s satellite research and development specifically for rural and remote, so there is a roadmap and basically, it’s more than just about Starlink,” Bernardi said.
It is a different angle that many do not think about. “We’re all more used to what is the next step with fixed wireless or what’s the next step with fibre but we’re also all sort of always thinking about Starlink,” Bernardi said, adding it will be interesting to hear Genik speak about what we are doing here in Canada with regards to satellite and what our next decade looks like in terms of research and development.
Registration for CRRBC’s Central Canada conference in Georgina closes Friday, Aug. 26. For more, please click here.
CRRBC is also holding an Eastern Canada conference in Fredericton from Sept. 18-20. Registration for the Eastern conference closes Sept. 9. For more, please click here.
