Mozilla Joins the Fiber Revolution with $300K Gigabit Community Fund
In Amazing Fantasy #15, an epiphany occurs to Peter Parker after his Uncle Ben is murdered. He learns that "with great power there must also come great responsibility," an altered version of which is later attributed to Ben himself. Regardless of its origin or where you may have first heard the quote, the sentiment applies to all facets of life, not just that of super heroes, and in a way it's being applied by Mozilla in Chattanooga and Kansas City.
The browser maker just launched the Mozilla Gigabit Community Fund, a project in partnership with the National Science Foundation (NS) and US Ignite that will support local innovators in the two above mentioned locales as they build real-life open source applications for gigabit networks.
Let's face it -- the average user doesn't really need gigabit broadband at this point, though there are a lot of things that can be done when Internet speed stops becoming a bottleneck. What Mozilla hopes its fund will do is transform those two cities into "living laboratories" for experimentation and development of public benefit uses for gigabit technologies, the company said.
"Gigabit networks have the potential to change how we live, work, learn and interact on the web, much like the the switch from dial-up to broadband did," says Mark Surman, Executive Director of Mozilla. "The educators, developers, students and other inventive thinkers in these leading gigabit economies have a unique opportunity to help shape the web of the future, in ways that can help us all know more, do more and do better."
A decent amount of cash is being thrown at the initiative. It's a $300,000 fund that will be distributed through each city in two 12-week pilot periods with up to 10 projects receiving awards between $5,000 and $30,000.
The browser maker just launched the Mozilla Gigabit Community Fund, a project in partnership with the National Science Foundation (NS) and US Ignite that will support local innovators in the two above mentioned locales as they build real-life open source applications for gigabit networks.
Let's face it -- the average user doesn't really need gigabit broadband at this point, though there are a lot of things that can be done when Internet speed stops becoming a bottleneck. What Mozilla hopes its fund will do is transform those two cities into "living laboratories" for experimentation and development of public benefit uses for gigabit technologies, the company said.
"Gigabit networks have the potential to change how we live, work, learn and interact on the web, much like the the switch from dial-up to broadband did," says Mark Surman, Executive Director of Mozilla. "The educators, developers, students and other inventive thinkers in these leading gigabit economies have a unique opportunity to help shape the web of the future, in ways that can help us all know more, do more and do better."
A decent amount of cash is being thrown at the initiative. It's a $300,000 fund that will be distributed through each city in two 12-week pilot periods with up to 10 projects receiving awards between $5,000 and $30,000.
