Expanded
testbeds, research and competitions will spark new applications to improve
healthcare delivery, advanced manufacturing, disaster response and address
other societal needs
The National Science Foundation (NSF)
announced that it will serve as the lead federal agency for a White House
Initiative called US Ignite, which aims to realize the potential of fast, open,
next-generation networks.
US Ignite will expand on investments in
the NSF-funded Global Environment for Networking Innovation (GENI) project
which lays the technical groundwork for this initiative.
"NSF is proud to be the lead agency
in US Ignite," said Subra Suresh, director of the National Science
Foundation. "NSF has a proven legacy in funding the fundamental research
that leads to technological advancements that spur economic development. As a
result, NSF is uniquely positioned to attract our country's best creative
thinkers and researchers to build, test and explore the potential of
next-generation networks."
Using GENI as the thread, US Ignite will
stitch together high-speed broadband resources to create a testbed across
universities and cities throughout the United States at a national scale. GENI
is a fast, programmable "virtual laboratory" that enables university
researchers to experiment on so-called future internets.
"We've laid the groundwork for this
national testbed by enabling foundational research by more than 300 researchers
and 60 universities across the country to develop and prototype GENI,"
said Farnam Jahanian, assistant director of NSF's Directorate for Computer
Information Science and Engineering. "Now, NSF will encourage the next
steps for research on GENI. Experiments at-scale will transform cybersecurity,
network performance, and cloud computing research, and will jumpstart
applications, which have the potential for profound societal and economic
impacts."
NSF is using its funding mechanism,
EArly-concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER) to fund four new projects
just announced:
•Mike Zink and his team at the
University of Massachusetts Amherst are demonstrating the benefits of
connecting radars to ultra-high-speed networks to improve weather
prediction--an application to help mitigate the impacts of natural disasters.
•A team led by Marge Skubic at the
University of Missouri Columbia is exploring the potential for early detection
of health changes with research on unobtrusive monitoring of individuals with
in-home sensors--possibly extending independent living for seniors.
•Lev Gonick and his team at Case Western
Reserve University are developing high-definition, multipoint videoconferencing
and realizing its potential to improve healthcare delivery--enabling, for
instance, seniors to consult clinicians for diagnosis and treatment, without
leaving their homes.
•Another team led by Henry McDonald at
the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga is working on a disaster response
system that provides emergency staff with training and planning, as well as
real-time guidance on effective strategies to protect first responders and the
general public--greatly improving public safety.
"To address the breadth and
diversity of private sector challenges, applications must be multi-disciplinary
in nature," said Thomas M. Peterson, assistant director of NSF's
Directorate for Engineering. "We have funded projects that use GENI to
transform advanced manufacturing."
One advanced manufacturing project, led
by George Adams at Purdue University, for instance, is developing an open
innovation manufacturing network to devise new ways for customers to interact
with suppliers. "This may someday transform the current supply chains into
much more nimble, innovative, yet integrated systems--a recipe for greater
efficiency and productivity--key ingredients to America's economic
future," said Peterson.
To further attest to NSF's commitment to
US Ignite, NSF has today reached out to its research and education communities
in a Dear Colleague Letter, to encourage proposals for the development of novel
applications that take advantage of advanced networks developed through GENI
and have societal impact.
Finally, NSF has also announced an award
to the Mozilla Foundation to host an open innovation challenge, called Mozilla
Ignite. This challenge will invite designers, developers, university
researchers, entrepreneurs and other visionaries across America to brainstorm
and build next-generation applications in areas of national priority that take
advantage of advanced networks. Mozilla Ignite begins with a brainstorming
contest. The next phase of the challenge will focus on the deployment and
experimentation of applications.
The US Ignite launch will take place at
9:00 a.m. on June 14 at the White House and will feature the Assistant to the
President for Science and Technology and Director of the Office of Science and
Technology Policy John Holdren; NSF Director Subra Suresh; and other prominent
officials from government, industry and academia.
The program, which will be streamed
live, may be viewed on the White House website.
A recording of the program may be
accessed via the OSTP website.
-NSF-
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