POST FALLS - The new group calling itself Future Frontiers is working to put North Idaho out front in the developing industry focused on unmanned aircraft.

Future Frontiers is made up of North Idaho business leaders, educators from North Idaho College and the University of Idaho and representatives from the city halls in Rathdrum, Post Falls and Hayden. There are others, too, and the group's goal is to stimulate business activity and worker training programs tied to autonomously piloted vehicles (APVs).

Nick Smoot, founder of the smartphone application Here On Biz and the Coeur d'Alene-based group Innovation Collective, is among the leaders of Future Frontiers.

He said the group is positioning itself well to advance in an economic development contest sponsored by Frontier Communications. That's because the group is not just standing around with its hands out asking for money.

"We're doing this with or without (contest money)," Smoot said Wednesday, prior to one of the group's meetings at NIC's Workforce Training Center in Post Falls.

But the money would accelerate what happens in the community, he said.

Earlier this year, it was announced that the cities of Rathdrum, Post Falls and Hayden jointly reached the quarterfinals of the Frontier Communications contest. The cities and their project partners have dubbed themselves Future Frontiers.

The cities won a total of $50,000 in the first round, but could win plenty more in upcoming rounds of the competition.

"Historically, we're an agriculture and farming culture," Smoot said. "Not a lot of people know this, but the autonomous systems movement started primarily with agriculture."

Industries like mining and timber harvest could also benefit from such systems, he said.

North Idaho's climate and its large tracts of undeveloped land are well suited for research and development of unmanned systems, he said.

"If we sit back and don't do anything, we're not going to be the ones taking the market - we're going to be the ones having the market taken from us," Smoot said. "This puts us at the edge of a movement the whole world is waiting on and talking about everyday in mainstream news."

By November, the group must complete a revitalization plan and a budget showing how competition money will be spent.

"We need to gather the vision from the community," said Brett Boyer, one of the group's leaders and the city administrator in Rathdrum. "That's the important piece right now."

Community residents and businesses are being surveyed on their knowledge and views concerning unmanned vehicles.

"It is an exciting area because it's new and it's up and coming, and a lot of people don't really understand how they might be able to use it," Boyer said Wednesday.

The group believes the technology has a lot of potential applications. Along with deployment, the technology's development, production and operation can touch a lot of different businesses in the area - and create jobs in the process.

"There are a lot of ways we think this technology will expand that we haven't seen yet," Boyer said.

Multi-use APV sites in each of the communities are being proposed, along with research and development zones.

A portion of the $50,000 won in the first round is paying a contractor - Alivia Metts of The Metts Group - to handle the survey data and develop the revitalization plan. Metts is a former regional labor economist for the state of Idaho.

"It's been pretty surprising how educated a lot of people are on, not necessarily the term APV because that's a little different, but mainly on unmanned aircraft systems," Metts said.

Survey responses have been 95 percent positive, she said. A combined 200-plus individuals and businesses completed surveys.

The negative feedback will be used to help further educate the community and businesses so the technology can continue to develop.

Another member of the Future Frontiers project group is Ricia Lasso, the regional business specialist for the Idaho Department of Labor.

She has also been involved in a statewide group focusing on unmanned aircraft and autonomous vehicles.

She said companies that use the technology are already forming, developing and hiring.

She's particularly interested in workforce training at local colleges and getting people hired into good-paying jobs.

"This has a tremendous amount of potential," Lasso said.

There are many applications for the technology, and businesses in North Idaho recognize that, she said.

"Idaho, as a state, really is very friendly and accepting of this, because there is so much potential," Lasso said.