MATR Newsletter – August 1, 2024
The state with the best education wins!

“The health effect of isolation is like smoking 15 cigarettes a day.”

Today’s MATR Newsletter is sponsored by:

Montana’s Flathead Valley Continues Growing Identity as Sports Tourism Hub
A multitude of sporting events draw tourists to the region and create substantial economic impact
Three questions for VACOM Montana’s general manager in Lewistown
Why did the company choose Lewistown instead of someplace like Bozeman, or Las Vegas, or someplace on an interstate highway where there are a bunch of manufacturing companies around?
Falling In Love With Montana All Over Again
I’m a proud North Dakotan and one of the state’s leading cheerleaders, but like Steinbeck, I have a confession to make. Not only do I love Montana more than any other state (and that includes Colorado, California, Utah, and Wyoming), but when people ask me about my love of the West, I invariably say, “If there were only one state, it would have to be Montana.”

Helena, Montana could be passed up by passenger rail route
The Big Sky Passenger Rail Authority, along with the Federal Railroad Administration, is leading the project to restore the North Coast Hiawatha route and has garnered the support of route-affected counties across southern Montana. Lewis and Clark County is not one of them, despite giving $10,000 to the effort in both 2021 and 2022.

The 2024 Tourism Issue
As tourism numbers soften in the Flathead Valley, local officials look for ways to attract a different type of visitor and spread them out further during the year
Looking for tech talent? Broaden your search, experts say
As governments struggle to close the IT skills gap, one state’s cybersecurity program stands out for who it is encouraging to participate.

NorthWestern Energy announces agreement to acquire Puget Sound Energy’s share of Colstrip Plant
The acquisition at no cost will allow us to leverage existing infrastructure that is well established, dependable, reliable and consistently available when our customers need energy the most.

Last week’s CrowdStrike outage was bad. The sun has something worse planned.
Experts say the chaos that ensued from a botched CrowdStrike software update was just a fraction of what could happen as a result of natural disasters or cyberattacks.

‘Frozen’ Montana housing market has lots of challenges, few solutions
A different way of framing the issue may be that the market is close to impossible, according to data collected by the BBER

Breakthrough Licensing Opportunities Inside From Techlink
We’ve also got new technology licensing opportunities from the DOD and VA — including a breakthrough HIV vaccine approach and a machine-learning technique with potential uses across several industries. Keep reading to find innovation opportunities for your company.

Why Great Ideas Get Stuck in Universities
Academic institutions incubate novel ideas and are important innovation partners for companies, but getting products out of universities and onto the market can be challenging. A study by Maria Roche illustrates how researchers might be getting in their own way.

Fully-automatic robot dentist performs world’s first human procedure
Nightmare fuel? Maybe – but in a historic moment for the dental profession, an AI-controlled autonomous robot has performed an entire procedure on a human patient for the first time, about eight times faster than a human dentist could do it.

JEREMY BULLOCK SAFE SCHOOLS SUMMIT IN BUTTE – AUGUST 6-7, 2024 Systemic Approaches to School Safety
The two-day event will unite K-12 school superintendents and principals, counselors and mental health practitioners, teachers and school staff, school resource officers and school-based law enforcement, school safety teams, youth, and affiliated professionals. The focus will be on exploring and implementing comprehensive strategies that foster safer school environments.
Montana University System braces for downturn in number of graduating high school seniors
Montana’s public universities are growing their roster of online courses, accelerated degree paths, and high school dual-credit opportunities.

City Club Missoula – AI Under the Big Sky: Reviewing the Current State of Artificial Intelligence Monday, August 12, 2024
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the latest trend in information technology, driving significant national investment as tech companies race to integrate “intelligent” tools into their products. What does this mean for Missoula?

We Can Save Pedestrians After Dark — If Road Designers ‘See the Light’
Dark roads kill — and it shouldn’t be pedestrian’s responsibility alone to light their own way, a new study argues.
The Quiet Power of Car-Free Neighborhoods
Restricting or banning vehicles in congested city centers pays off with cleaner air and safer streets. We need to talk more about the other big benefit — less noise.
The key to safer roads? Narrow the lanes.
A study late last year found that the approach significantly enhanced safety for all road users. By narrowing lanes, cities can also reallocate that found space to sidewalks and bike lanes.

The Cure for Disposable Plastic Crap Is Here—and It’s Loony
Stretchy seaweed, reverse vending machines, QR-coded take-out boxes: They’re how we can break society’s absurd addiction to single-use plastics.
A Radical Reboot of Nuclear Energy
Brad Plumer, who covers technology and policy efforts to address global warming for The New York Times, explains how one company with a radical idea is now working to bring it back.
This startup works with local plastic collectors to create new income streams for communities – Anything like this in the U.S.?
So far, the company has recovered more than 490,000 kilogrammes of wild plastic and prevented more than one million kilogrammes of carbon dioxide pollution by replacing virgin plastic production with its recycled versions.