Here are a couple highlights from the impact evaluation of the Rural Infrastructure Challenge Summit. For more details, check out the Toolkit!
Overall, both students and professionals’ biggest takeaway was the complexity of the rural energy resilience problem. Students were especially impressed with the extent and diversity of the stakeholders involved. They saw energy resilience as important and believed that more educational events like these provide value. Some example student quotes include:
- “There are a lot of different facets to these issues with lots of different groups of people involved.”
- “The biggest takeaway from the event is this is something people are not educated on and it is hard to pinpoint how to achieve this. I think if people could get educated on the topic and show them why they should care things could get improved.”
- “Energy resilience is an incredibly diverse topic which involves many groups of people. Furthermore, developing solutions for problems affecting the public is a difficult process because of the sheer number of problems involved. For example, beginning to identify a problem and establishing a cause-and-effect can take a lot of time and involvement.”
Professionals tended to focus on the way this event emphasized intersectionality and provided value via in-person networking and discussions. Some example quotes from professional participants include:
- “The issues discussed are complicated, interrelated, and often the subject of disagreements”
- “Challenge of mass communication – fostering collective empathy”
Overall, we got strong positive feedback on the value of the in-person networking activities and small group discussions. We hope to have more Summit events in the future! Please reach out to Casey Canfield (canfieldci@mst.edu) if you are interested.