MATR Newsletter – November 14, 2022
The state with the best education wins!

Come Home Montana

• Bozeman’s Gibson acoustic guitar factory expands, grand opening – Career Opportunities

  The Gibson acoustic guitar factory in Bozeman supplies guitars to artists like Slash, Jimmy Page, Luke Combs, and Sheryl Crow.

• Outside Magazine – The 50 Best Places to Work in 2022 – In Montana: #36. commonFont, #45. TOMIS Holdings, Inc.,

  In a post-pandemic world, workers are demanding remote flexibility, more time off, and generous health benefits. These are the companies meeting that bar and more, while encouraging their employees to live an active lifestyle and allowing them to achieve a healthy work-life balance.

Great Falls Development Authority

• Great Falls Economic Development Top 10 for 11-13-22

  Here is our Top 13 for this week celebrating work and successes to grow and strengthen the Great Falls regional economy — Montana’s Golden Triangle. And, sharing business resources and skill-building opportunities to empower your success.

Montana Business

• UM Native Excellence Programs Receive $250,000 Cognizant Foundation Gift

  The Cognizant Foundation support also will help UM launch the Indigenous First-Year Experience program, new for the 2022-23 academic year. That program will foster a supportive cohort of first-year American Indian students while connecting them with critical resources to ensure a successful start to their college experience.

Next Generation Broadband in Montana

• Smart windows could provide a green alternative to Wi-Fi

  Researchers are developing a smart glass system that uses sunlight, rather than radio waves or light-emitting sources, to send data

• Biden-Harris Administration Announces Timeline for National High-Speed Internet Deployment

  “The next eight weeks are critical for our federal efforts to connect the unconnected,” said Alan Davidson, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information. “The FCC’s upcoming challenge process is one of the best chances to ensure that we have accurate maps guiding us as we allocate major Internet for All awards in 2023. I urge every state and community that believes it can offer improvements to be part of this process so that we can deliver on the promise of affordable, reliable high-speed Internet service for everyone in America.”

Montana Governor Greg Gianforte

• Montana Governor Greg Gianforte previews his state budget proposal

  The governor also said he wanted to double the tax credit cap for contributions to scholarships that can go to private schools, and clarified that the property tax change he wants to make does not take money away from local districts.

Housing

• Missoula considering ‘shocking’ fee increase to register short-term rentals

  In what one resident described as a “shocking increase,” the City of Missoula has proposed raising the fee on short-term rentals in Missoula to generate the revenue it says it needs to bring the industry into compliance with city regulations.

• Wasp-inspired drones can 3D print a building

  Teams of aerial robots mounted with 3D printers could work together to build emergency shelters and greener homes.

Visit Montana

• Backcountry Hunters & Anglers North American Rendezvous 2023 – 3/16-18 – Missoula, Montana

  BHA’s North American Rendezvous is the year’s largest gathering of public lands and waters advocates, and it’s bound to be a heck of a party. Be sure to come celebrate with new and old friends alike all while raising funds to support our wild public lands, waters and wildlife!

Montana Manufacturing Extension Center

• November 2022 Montana Manufacturing News

  SkillBridge: Connecting Veterans with
  New Career Opportunities

Funding and Building your Business

• Here’s How to Build an App Without Knowing How to Code

  No-code and low-code platforms like Bubble could save your business a lot of time and money.

• Building On Thoreau’s Legacy In the Banking Industry

  Walden Mutual – a new digital bank focused on sustainable food – has become the first bank of its kind to receive regulatory approval from the FDIC in 50 years. Its origins are unique. Founded by the former CEO of a pasture-based meat business, it’s a unique interweaving of disparate threads – digital technology, sustainable food, cooperative governance, and a distinct regional focus.

• Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield On Meeting Overload, A ‘Dystopian’ Metaverse And A More Intentional Future Of Work

  The Slack cofounder, part of Forbes’ inaugural list of people shaping the future of work, shares why he moved to Aspen, an unexpected challenge of mergers and why product placement isn’t coming to his messaging app.

• Tim Berners-Lee shares his vision of a collaborative web – Solid

  He’s most excited about how it could improve collaboration between individuals, the businesses they trust and governments — safely and securely.

• Facebook Parent Meta Lays Off 11,000: What CIOs Should Know

  Facebook’s parent company Meta is laying off 13% of its workforce, a week after another social media giant, Twitter, laid off half of its employees. What do these moves say about tech trends going forward and the tech labor market in 2023?

21st Century Education Initiative – “You Should Care…”

• In 1 Classroom, 4 Teachers Manage 135 Kids—and Love It

  “The pandemic taught us two things: One is people want flexibility, and the other is people don’t want to be isolated,” said Carole Basile, dean of ASU’s teachers college, who helped design the teaching model.

• TED Talks – How Global Virtual Communities Can Help Kids Achieve Their Dreams

  How this 21-year-old is rewriting the rules of education

Government News & Events

• Grizzlies once thrived in these wilds. The U.S. may bring them back.

  The effort comes two years after the Trump administration stopped a previous attempt to bring the endangered species back to the Cascades, an about-face that scuttled a half-decade of federal planning.

Government Technology

• How a ‘City Bus Manager’ Video Game Could Become an Advocacy Tool

  A new video game releasing today will challenge players to successfully run a virtual version of their city’s bus network — and the developers behind it hope it can create a new generation of transit advocates, even as they acknowledge that the complex reality of a city transportation network can’t be gamified.

Tell Us Something

• The Art of Tell Us Something • Drink Beer with Us! – November Newsletter

  Join us 2nd Friday over at The Dram Shop Central for the opening of The Art of Tell Us Something, new INBC beer coming and tickets on sale now for the December 15 event!

Transportation

• These electric cargo trailers are designed to replace delivery trucks and slash emissions

  Nüwiel’s trailers can be pulled by a bike or a pedestrian, and can carry upwards of 400 pounds.

• It’s About Time!  Tesla Proposes North American Charging Standard

  Tesla has proposed in a blog post that its charging connectors be made the standard for charging electric cars in North America.

• Building a ’smart’ transportation system will require thinking beyond cars

  “We need to share rides—shared autonomous vehicles, transit, and all the other ways of sharing—but we also need to share more walls,” Dunham-Jones added.

Energy and Climate Change

• Webinar to focus on climate extremes in Montana – 11/16 – 7PM – “We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator.”

  This webinar will look at the extreme weather events that occurred in Montana over the past year or so, and what we can expect in the future, and how people are responding to these changes, with particular reference to Missoula, Helena, Bozeman, and Billings, and on the tribal reservations across the state.

• “We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator.”

  The United Nations Calls on U.S. Planners to Break Land Use, Transportation Status Quo

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