[Advisors] US Ignite

[Garth Graham]

On 2012-06-13, at 1:45 PM, michael gurstein wrote:
 -----Original Message-----
> Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2012 4:04 PM
> Subject: US Ignite
> The White House has just lifted the embargo on announcement of US =
Ignite.   The official launch is at the White House tomorrow morning at =
9 am.
>=20
> US Ignite is intended to catalyze 60 transformative applications over =
the next five years in public benefit areas such as healthcare, =
education and workforce development, public safety, clean energy, =
transportation, and advanced manufacturing.

Thanks to Mike's alert, I watched all of the launch.  How wonderful to =
encounter a community that's excited about the future of the Internet, =
and one that seems to espouse many of the principles, values and dreams =
that community networkers have always shared.  What a contrast with =
Canada to see what "communities with gigabit initiatives and =
infrastructure" are actually doing with them (and to recall that Toronto =
once owned such infrastructure and sold it!!).  And how positive to spot =
one of our own, former TC board member Mark Surman, at the White House =
and leading the open network charge.

I also asked Mike Hrybyk, head of BCNet the following question:

> On 2012-06-13, at 3:53 PM, Garth Graham wrote:
> Mike, we see this initiative as "community-based" and we believe that =
there's NOTHING comparable in Canada.  Are we correct in that =
assumption?

Here's his reply:
> On 2012-06-13, at 5:03 PM, Michael Hrybyk wrote:

> We never had a GENI equivalent as well. Slow going north of the =
border. Not necessarily govt problem, dearth of people even proposing =
such initiatives in detail. Noone seems too interested, and very short =
on creative technical ideas (use of openflow, software defined =
networking, ...). Sigh.
>=20
> This initiative grew out of the CS research community in conjunction =
with the research networks and communities with gigabit initiatives and =
infrastructure (see gigu). The community is the testbed, but the GENI =
gang is leading the charge.

GG