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Greenwood County, SC

Greenwood, SC – The Greenwood County community now has an action plan to make way for greater technology use across the community and pave the way for a brighter economic future. The Technology Action Plan was unveiled Monday as part of Greenwood’s participation in the Connected Community Engagement Program through the Connect South Carolina initiative. Twenty-two South Carolina communities are currently involved in some stage of the Connected program, but the Greenwood County community is the state’s third to unveil its official Technology Action Plan.

"I am very proud of the engagement team and the Greenwood community for their efforts in completing the assessment process, but there is still much work to be done to bring the best to our community," said Greenwood community champion Catalina Valencia. "This technology action plan will benefit Greenwood County in numerous aspects including the availability of more precise data and better access to broadband for citizens and businesses. I am thrilled to continue with this initiative and look forward to the future impact on the community."

Participating in the Connected program means the Greenwood County community has gone through an extensive assessment of its overall broadband and technology innovation. The Technology Action Plan sets general community-wide broadband connectivity requirements to be worked toward that will support economic development and residential quality of life. Greenwood’s top goal from the new plan is to address Internet access from a competition and availability standpoint. The new plan gives the community step-by-step action items to make sure that goal is met. The plan will also support increasing digital literacy through future broadband expansion and programs that will ensure the community maintains widespread Internet access, adoption, and use.

This technology plan is an important and powerful step to address the needs identified during the assessment process: performing a broadband build-out analysis in unserved areas, documenting and increasing the access to broadband, and becoming a certified Connected community. As a result of the implementation of these components, Greenwood County will be a step closer to achieving full certification which in turn can help in obtaining grants for building the broadband infrastructure and help make a stronger business case for broadband providers to invest in this type of technology in Greenwood County and surrounding areas.

Currently, Greenwood County is working to assign an implementation team to each priority in the plan. If anyone wishes to join a team they may contact Valencia at cvalencia@partnershipalliance.com or (864) 388-1250.

“I have enjoyed working with the Greenwood County community and the engagement team as they have shown tremendous ambition and dedication while working on the Connected program,” said Heather Jones, Connect South Carolina state program manager. “Valencia has been an invaluable resource during this process and I am confident that the Greenwood community will continue to make great strides with the implementation of the Technology Action Plan.”