Information, Inspiration, and Ideas for a Sustainable Rural Future
Promoting the Entrepreneurial Community Spirit
The North American Rural Futures Institute
Rural News, Events and Trends in the 21st Century
Welcome
Welcome to NARFI, the North American Rural Futures Institute.
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Montana's U.S. Senators Get |
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Montana's Senator
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• Rural EcoDev Innovation - NARFI's Director Timlynn Babitsky and NARFI's Entrepreneur/Futurist In Residence, Jim Salmons, were among keynote presenters at Wired.org conference. Their presentation, Cross-Sector Partnerships: New Perspectives in Social Entrepreneurism, and a transcript of the associated discussion are now on-line.
• Business Clusters - Increasing now and in the future, local and regional economic developers will better understand and appreciate the positive economic impact of their creative, self-employed citizens. Business cluster guru Stuart Rosenfeld of Regional Technology Strategies understands the power of small and the power of networking. In The Creative Enterprise Cluster: A Montana Business Case Study, Rosenfeld shows how business cluster and creative class dynamics intersect to contribute heat to regional and local economies.
• NARFI News - The NARFI Program Update is now on-line in HTML and PDF formats. This is the most current and comprehensive document to date describing the NARFI mission, strategies, and tactics. NARFI-led projects as well as NARFI collaborations are detailed.
• Regional Economics - The U.S. Census Bureau sees the Network Society and its Network Economy coming. Learn more in Nanocorps in Micropolis: Small Is Good in the Network Economy, our latest article describing the collaborative NARFI and Sohodojo research agenda, and our evolving collaboration with The Richard Florida Creativity Group.
• Emerging Technologies - NARFI sent recent MSU-Northern graduate, Kristie Smith of US Bank on the Montana Secretary of State's Energy fom the Farm Bus Tour to deepen our local community knowledge about wind power and biofuels. As our first mini-grant recipient, Kristie is spotlighted as a NARFI Futures Thinker. We invite you to read Kristie's trip report as she reflects on the whirlwind tour of alternative energy projects and applications in and around Montana.
• Microenterprise Networks - NARFI's's Timlynn and Jim are featured in a front page story in the Havre Daily News! Tim Leeds writes about the new twist on medieval craft guilds, Richard Florida's creative class and rural entrepreneurism in his excellent article announcing the founding of Big Sky Chandlers, a microenterprise network being formed along the northcentral Montana Hi-Line as a 'hub' of the Chandler Guild microenterprise network.
• Rural Entrepreneurism - NARFI forms Rural Entrepreneurism Community of Practice and announces its applied research/mentoring project, Big Sky Chandlers, a Montana microenterprise network of soy wax candlemakers.
• Rural Communities - Iowa's Department of Cultural Affairs reports that small towns are positioned to thrive in the Creative Economy! And they put their program dollars behind a bold vision to support solo and family-based creative entrepreneurs and microbusiness development in rural and distressed urban communities.
• Rural Issues - Montana's U.S. Senator Max Baucus asked the North American Rural Futures Institute and Sohodojo about our thoughts on the problem of rural depopulation. As you might expect, we see this 'problem' in the context of the creative opportunity for local economic and community development within the evolution of the Network Society.
• NARFI News - Timlynn Babitsky and Jim Salmons, founders of Sohodojo, accept North American Rural Futures Institute appointments at Montana State University Northern. Timlynn and Jim join NARFI to launch the institute's education, outreach and applied research programs. These appointments strengthen the NARFI and Sohodojo applied research and education partnership.
• NARFI News - Learn more about NARFI's Federal funding!
NARFI is a clearinghouse of rural news, events, and 21st century trends affecting rural life and our rural futures. We are a community think tank created to build capacities for transformation of thought and action in rural communities across North America.
Why Havre, Montana?
The location of Havre, Montana is ideal for the headquarters of the North American Rural Futures Institute.
Havre is home to the most rurally located four-year university in the lower 48 United States and it is a mere 40 miles from the Canadian border. Havre is one of five micropolitan regions in Montana – big enough to have a broad, regional economic dynamic, yet small enough to maintain its remote, rural character. And Havre is over 100 miles from the next largest (more urban) city of Great Falls. This means that our rural futures regional field laboratory will not be tainted by 'gravitational proximity' to a metropolitan region.
Sponsor Spotlight: Montana State University - Northern
Montana State University Northern (MSU-N) is the most rurally located four-year university in the lower 48 United States. This makes MSU-N an ideal sponsoring host of the North American Rural Futures Institute.
MSU-N maintains instruction at the associate, baccalaureate, and master's levels, and includes an extended campus in Great Falls along with an extensive interactive distance network. Degree programs provide both technology and a liberal education with disciplines in business, nursing, technology, teacher education, sciences, and humanities.
MSU-N serves an area that includes four Indian reservations and functions as a cultural resource and continuing education center for north-central Montana.
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