News, City Government, Santa Monica, Technology

Santa Monica Partners With National Science Foundation To Support Tech Community

Posted Jun. 14, 2012, 3:30 am

Mirror Staff

The City of Santa Monica has teamed with the US Ignite Partnership to capitalize on what is possible through virtualized ultra-fast broadband networks, and “ignite” the development of next-generation Internet applications and services by Santa Monica application developers.

Specifically, Santa Monica is planning to explore next-generation, bandwidth-heavy applications that support municipal operations and city priorities, including telemedicine, virtual learning, regional telepresence, and smart-grid.

To meet its mission, the US Ignite Partnership has entered into agreements that will bring its efforts to 25 cities across the country, including Santa Monica.

The Obama Administration is hosting an event at the White House today, June 14 at 9 a.m. ET to announce new steps in support of President Obama’s vision for expanding and improving access to broadband technology for American homes and businesses. The Partnership and pilot cities are being announced Thursday at the White House. The event is at 9 a.m. ET (6 a.m. PT) and will be live webcast at www.whitehouse.gov/live.

“Santa Monica has been a leader in the development of a public fiber network so that in the future, we will have the infrastructure to support the next-generation applications and cutting-edge technologies,” said Jory Wolf, the City of Santa Monica’s Chief Information Officer.

“We’re proud to bring our skills and experience in this area to this partnership in the hopes that we can advance national and local priorities for more and better broadband services.”

These next-generation applications will take advantage of the advanced infrastructure of the City’s fiber optic network. The network currently supports an array of municipal operations, including traffic signal synchronization, transportation management, real-time parking and security applications and the city’s popular free City Wi-Fi service in over 29 locations across the city.

The partnership is another milestone leveraging the City’s fiber optic network. In 2010, the City of Santa Monica launched Santa Monica City Net to provide local businesses with broadband considered affordable and fast by global standards.

The award-winning 10 Gigabit broadband initiative supports an environment for local businesses to compete in the global economy with cutting edge network solutions.

As a secure, fast, and cost-effective fiber optic network, Santa Monica City Net provides the opportunity to integrate data, voice, and video, and efficiently manage data exchanges with business partners and offers multiple Internet Service Provider options.

The primary goal of the US Ignite Partnership is to catalyze 60 advanced, next-gen applications over the next five years in six areas of national priority: education and workforce development, advanced manufacturing, health IT, transportation, public safety, and clean energy.

Responsibilities of the Partnership include connecting, convening, and supporting startups, local and state government, universities, industry leaders, federal agencies, foundations, and community and carrier initiatives in conceptualizing and building new applications.

The resulting new applications should have a significant impact on the US and local economies, including providing a broad range of job and investment opportunities.