Bringing reliable and ubiquitous high-speed Internet to Florida's interior counties and communities is a major economic goal of the 21st Century. 

And that search engine just received a big boost of power through the award of a $24 million grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce to the Florida Rural Broadband Alliance, a coalition of Florida counties and communities - including Immokalee - in the Sunshine States' heartland. 

The Florida Rural Broadband Alliance FRBA) is an arm of the Florida's Heartland Regional Economic Development Initiative (FHREDI) in which the Immokalee Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) participates. Immokalee Internet guru and community volunteer Birgit Pauli-Haack of Pauli Systems, Inc., represents Immokalee on the broadband alliance's board of directors. 

The grant, which is part of the Obama Administration's Recovery Act Investments Stimulus Package, will help pay for the infrastructure needed to bring reliable high-speed Internet for education, health care and public safety services, economic development and a nearly limitless variety of other uses.

In short, the project will open the Florida Heartland communities to the rest of the world and bring the world into Florida's Heartland, including Immokalee which is Florida in the 21st Century. 

Read more about the grant here. 

Read more about FHREDI here. 

Read here about Florida's Freshwater Frontier.