The 11th annual solar Summit begins tomorrow, and Corbin shaping our Appalachian region, or so to host the event focused on finding ways to bring economic growth and opportunity to Eastern Kentucky.

Saws executive director said the summit has also inspired change in rural areas outside of Kentucky.

It's such a, an interesting, diverse mix of people that come to the summit every year.

It's business executives.

It's it's public sector and policymakers.

It's, students, young people, right?

It's concerned citizens.

It's it's a real mix.

And really, the unifying part is, is people that care about Eastern Kentucky, that want it to become a better version of itself, that want their kids to be able to have opportunities in this place where they're from, that want it to be able to compete for a talent that one of want it to be, a place where opportunity comes that can grow and develop.

So I think at a high level, it's people that just care deeply about the mountains and the issues that that it faces, and they see value and come in and spend in a day, two days, three days, whatever they can to to listen to important conversations, to be able to network, to be able to share and develop relationships.

Right?

I mean, we live in a virtual world today where it's so easy to sit across on a computer screen and talk, which is great, has a lot of benefits.

But I'm just telling you, there's nothing that can substitute, right?

For all being in the room together and thinking ideas and just feeling that energy that that unstructured networking that comes with events like this.

I think the event itself, that to me is the the most probably valuable thing is just getting everybody in that room.

I mean, it may sound simple, but just giving the venue and the opportunity and maybe some of the the initial catalyst, I mean, that's the biggest thing we bring to the masses and to the people that that are there.

You know, when I look at our attendance, our, you know, attendance grows every year.

We always have, you know, around 30 to 40% of first time attendees.

But we see those people come back year after year.

To me, that's proof enough that like, we're setting the stage and we're doing the right things to bring the right the right people together that like people feel like it's something that's worth their time, that's worth the investment to to be there, that, that they get something out of it and they feel like it's it's good for the region.

So we feel like we have really good community buy in, year in, year out for the event.

I think as we see our, our national audience grow and more people come in from across the country that have an interest in areas like eastern Kentucky that represent rural parts of America or parts of America that have also been hit hard as the economy has has shifted and changed, right.

And having dominant industries that faltered and people are searching for, hey, what's the next step?

I think there's a lot of smart people, think tanks, policymakers, industry executives that are saying, hey, like, let's go check out what's going on in eastern Kentucky, because maybe that's something that can be scaled in another place, across the country, as we prepare the workforce, we're continuing to tell our story externally so that more employers and more sectors understand that Eastern Kentucky's probably an overlooked.

This is a great place to find good skilled workforce that not a whole lot of people are swimming.

And so there's an advantage to getting in early so that we can get in and have early access to those types of pipeline.

So all that goes into the, focus areas and the conversations.

But we always try to be forward looking and understanding, like where do we see where are the conversations we need to have today to be prepared, looking forward?