NRTC Announces Recipients of ‘WildBlue U’ Scholarships
Back in June, the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative (NRTC) and satellite internet provider WildBlue announced the creation of "WildBlue U" (opens in PDF) — a program and contest to promote the use of WildBlue’s satellite internet services in rural areas where DSL or traditional cable access to high speed internet service is unavailable.
Today the NRTC awarded Bobby Mills a $10,000 scholarship for selling the most WildBlue satellite Internet subscriptions over the summer. From the NRTC press release:
Mills was one of 28 students who participated in "WildBlue U," a program NRTC created and implemented in partnership with local utilities. The program provided paid internships to students to market WildBlue in their communities. As of Sept. 1, 2006, the interns participating in WildBlue U sold nearly 1,500 WildBlue subscriptions over the summer. Mills attends the University of Nevada, Reno where he is majoring in journalism. To help drive WildBlue sales, Plumas Sierra and Mills developed a "Got Bobby?" campaign, which featured information about Bobby and WildBlue on its Web site with an appeal to help Bobby win the contest and earn a $10,000 scholarship. "The style and coordination of the WildBlue U program offered up a competitive atmosphere that provided one with a real sense of job contentment, and an uplifting feeling of success with each closed sale," said Mills. "Commissions and rewards within the program were extremely generous, especially when taking the state of a typical college student’s wages into consideration." In addition to the $10,000 scholarship, NRTC awarded eight $1,000 scholarships.
The NRTC contest isn’t the only contest promoting the intersection of today’s students with satellite technology. Next Friday marks the final deadline for submissions to the SES Americom Arthur C. Clarke Challenge (preliminary applications were due Sepember 1st. The Clarke Challenge is a "new annual award program for the very best creative, problem-solving idea that can propel the continued growth and expansion of commercial communications services and applications from satellites operating in the Clarke Orbit." More information on the Clarke Challenge can be found here; we’ll also bring you updates on the submissions and awards here at Really Rocket Science after the application date closes.
