Forget freezing-cold convention centers with high glass walls and unreasonably priced food. Attendees of Radically Rural, a two-day, multi-track conference that kicked off Thursday morning, will go to sessions in Keene, New Hampshire's Old Cheshire County Courthouse, Colonial Theatre and the public library, among other locales.
A partnership between the Keene Sentinel and the Hannah Grimes Center for Entrepreneurship, Radically Rural is designed to connect business owners and innovators from around New England—especially rural residents who may not be able to (or may not want to) make it to Boston. Now in its second year, the conference will play host to some 800 attendees.
"We really felt like there were really great ideas and really, really wonderful things going on in rural communities across the country," said Mary Ann Kristiansen, executive director of the Hannah Grimes Center. "Wouldn't it be cool to just bring them all together, with the hopes that those ideas would grow and spread faster, and people would make connections—both to other people and to new ideas? So we launched Radically Rural last year."
The 2018 version of the conference saw more than 500 attendees, with tracks much the same as on this year's agenda. Sessions this week are divided into six tracks: entrepreneurship, journalism, Main Street, arts and culture, working lands and renewable energy. Renewable energy is the new addition this year; Kristiansen said there was a good deal of crossover between that field and other tracks.
Radically Rural was born out of a much longer-running event series called CONNECT. CONNECT2019 is the fourth annual event. It's now folded into Radically Rural—at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, organizers will unveil art installations staged by Machina Arts, an art-inspired event curator based in Keene. The installations "will bring to life six projects or ideas that will transform the industry of each track," according to the event page.
But a few years ago, CONNECT was still separate. It wasn't until the Keene Sentinel reached out about a partnership that it began to grow—almost exponentially. CONNECT went from 250 people before the partnership to 450 people the first year it partnered, Kristiansen said. And as she watched entrepreneurs from all over New England networking, a realization clicked into place.
"I just remember looking over one year, seeing some new mushroom farmers talking to one of our advanced manufacturers, and I thought, 'from mushrooms to manufacturing'— that's kind of always been our thing," Kristiansen said. "We're a small community, so we can't just specialize in one thing. Everything's so connected. CONNECT events, when we partnered with the Sentinel, continued to be this diversifying of businesses, nonprofits, elected officials, just people."
Radically Rural's entrepreneurship track this year includes sessions like "Growing Stage 2 Businesses" and "Crazy Good: The Experienced Economy." There's also a pitch competition—"PitchFork"—whose structure is designed to be emulated once attendees go home.
Panelists and speakers include local names like Marty Parichand, the co-founder of Outdoor New England; Adam Hamilton, co-founder of Nuttin Ordinary; and Dawn DeAngelis, vice president and chief content officer of NHPBS. There are also a few big-ticket organization representatives: Kelly Lynch of the Sierra Club and Daniel Gatti with the Union of Concerned Scientists, to name a couple.
"It's a coming-together for a broad range of things that contribute to the economy and the vibrancy of rural communities," Kristiansen said.
