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Wednesday 18 November 2009

University connects surrounding community to a Gig

Fantastic. Great Britain take note. This is co-operation, vision and collaboration at its very best. We could easily be doing the same here in the UK...

Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio has come up with a plan to be deeply envious of. Realising that the neighbours to the university campus are in a fairly dire plight, not just with internet connectivity, but socially and economically too, they are rolling out an ambitious university research project to connect 25,000 residents to 1000Mbps fibre.

An unprecedented collaboration of university researchers, technologists, public sector institutional partners in the region, and vendors will bring neighbors around the University the same quality Internet connectivity that students, faculty, and staff enjoy on the campus. The University Circle Innovation Zone beta block will be a research project conducted by the University in cooperation with more than 40 institutional partners, technology vendors, and community organizations. Eventually, the University Circle Innovation Zone seeks to connect more than 25,000 residents..


The project is intended to have specific metrics and objectives in order to deliver key evidence about the impact that technology and the solutions it permits have on the surrounding community.

A smart connected community is a portfolio of endeavors to leverage broadband technologies to affect positive change in the lives of neighbors and in the communities where we live, work, and play. The University Circle Innovation Zone gigabit to the home research project is being supported by unprecedented co-investments by the research community, start up ventures in Cleveland and around the region, and major underwriting support by an “A” group of technology vendors, partners, and thought leaders who, along with Case Western Reserve University, believe in the efficacy of testing and analyzing the impact that broadband can have on real challenges and priorities of the community.


These guys have really got it!!! Don't sit around in conferences and meeting rooms talking about the problems and possible solutions. Don't keep everything to yourself - co-operate and collaborate. And most importantly - JFDI.







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3 comments:

Cyberdoyle said...

Wow.Just Wow.
Should we get our cases packed now? think what our kids could achieve if we moved over there...

Cybersavvy UK said...

The best bit is the acknowledgement of the place of the academics and the 'co-operative of partners' in the wider community and the appreciation of the issues that community faces, and how true broadband can impact lives.

That is what is so blatantly missing from so much of the thinking in the UK. We have 'exclusive' huddles of people who don't communicate with the communities, others who don't get what NGA really is, and many more who just don't realise the need for the 'joined up thinking' which this project illustrates.

Marc Canter said...

Stay tuned - this is gonna rock!

Hessler St. is the Haight-Ashbury of Cleveland.