Gigabit Genius Grant winners announced

It’s one team from Baltimore and a technologist from the other side of the globe that will be benefiting from a Philadelphia-based fund to spur innovation around gigabit ultra-high speed broadband connectivity.

This morning, Philly Startup Leaders announced the two winners of its Gigabit Genius Grant, a contest put together by several businesses and organizations in the region. The bulk of the funds, $7,500, will go to a teleradiology technology in Maryland and $2,500 to an education innovation initiative in Israel. That money will help specialists collaborate on radiology scans in real-time from around the globe, and it will help enable technology to improve the virtual classroom experience.

The Startup Leaders’ grant came together in April as the City of Philadelphia was preparing an application to become a pilot for Google’s Gigabit ultra-high speed Internet connectivity. Then PSL President and Founder Blake Jennelle pushed the startup organization to donate a charter $5,000 which was followed by additional investments from the community.

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Philly Is “Gigabit City” (with or without Google)

Last week, Google thanked the 1,100 applicants who entered its Google Fiber for Communities contest, an initiative to test high-speed, next generation broadband — known as ‘gigabit’ fiber — that is up to 100 times faster than current average household Internet connections. As we’ve written in this column before, Google plans to wire between 50,000 and a half-million households with gigabit, an experiment which could have broad implications for technological innovation and national broadband policy.

The thank-you was but a tease for Philly’s technology community, which, as part of the City’s application to the Google Fiber for Communities contest, created “Gigabit City,” a repository where folks brainstorm specific projects that may be possible with gigabit technology. Like everyone else, they’ll have to wait until Google announces the winners in the fall, but City of Philadelphia Chief Technology Officer Allan Frank isn’t sitting around. He’s turned the city’s application into an opportunity to engage Philadelphia around next-generation broadband policy.

In the process, he’s been able to push the city’s telecommunication heavies  — Comcast and Verizon — to consider Philadelphia’s future.

Read the full story over at Philly Mag’s Philly post.

Gigabit City working with Communities United for Broadband to elevate the broadband conversation

Whether Google is behind it or not, Blake Jennelle wants you to know that ultra high-speed gigabit broadband is worth investing in.

Though the Philly Startup Leaders founder would like to see those investments made here in Philadelphia, gigabit is bigger than this city alone.

“The end goal for Philly is still to get gigabit, but Google’s only going to install it in a couple communities,” Jennelle said in a telephone interview earlier this month. “The reality is, if gigabit matters and we want it here, we have to make the case to local companies, city government and the community that it’s worth investing in. It’s going to be hard to do that if the effort is in isolation,” he says.

After Google announced in February that it would help launch 1-gigabit data networks in select communities, the City of Philadelphia and leaders in the region’s technology community have been coordinating an effort to attract Google here. More than 1,000 communities are vying for the opportunity.

Though Philly is certainly not alone in contention, a unique approach to advocating for gigabit broadband is emerging here. Jennelle has been working closely with broadband consultant Craig Settles—a former Philly native whom we’ve often sourced on this site—to educate about and inspire other cities to invest in high-speed gigabit fiber.

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Gigabit Philly relaunches as Gigabit City, bigger goal with or without Google

Update on 4/6/10 @ 2:56 p.m. on other collaboration

As expected, the Philadelphia initiative to court Google and its ultra-high speed broadband Web access today relaunched its Web site. But Blake Jennelle says it’s so much more.

Recast as Gigabit City, from its previous incarnation as Gigabit Philly, the Philly Startup Leaders co-founder who worked with other community members and city officials on the project says the Google pitch is just a starting point.

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Google Fiber chased by 1,100 municipalities, Gigabit Philly site to relaunch

This map displays where the responses were concentrated. Each small dot represents a government response, and each large dot represents locations where more than 1,000 residents submitted a nomination. Google plans to share a complete list of government responses soon. Image courtesy of Google

Updated 4/3/10 @ 8:59 p.m.: Planned, possible locations in Philadelphia

The application deadline for Google’s ultra-high speed broadband fiber experiment closed a week ago, but Philadelphia’s horse isn’t done riding yet.

Some 1,100 municipalities and thousands of individuals applied, according to the Washington Post, including a collaboration between Philadelphia city officials and community leaders, dubbed Gigabit Philly. Google says it will announce its “target community or communities” by the end of the year, so the Philadelphia group boosting the city’s application is still cheerleading.

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Community launches support portal for Google gigabit fiber

Philadelphia’s tech community is looking for your support to bring Google to our backyard.

After announcing last week its intent to apply to be a test bed for Google’s ultra-high speed fiber, city officials have collaborated with community developers to launch an external initiative to drum up buzz for its proposal.

Working at Independents Hall over the weekend, the groups helped launch a portal - at gigabitphilly.com - that solicits feedback from local users to help fulfill Google’s Request For Information. The page drives home Philadelphia’s notability as a “city of firsts,” much like it would be for Google’s broadband pilot program.

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Philadelphia to apply for Google’s experimental ultra-high speed broadband

It wasn’t at a press conference or inside the Inquirer editorial boardroom. The city’s announcement to join the rush for Google’s ultra-high speed fiber broadband came during a few minutes of a presentation, backed by dense slides at a technology community event inside a rock venue.

“Let’s light this joint up,” city Chief Technology Officer Allan Frank said, throwing his hands in the air and walking off stage at the fifth Ignite Philly, seemingly surprised by the cheers and laughs the slide earned.

The announcement at Johnny Brenda’s last night, a bar filled with mostly 20 and 30-somethings, came 10 months after Frank first unveiled his $100 million city technology investment vision to Refresh Philly, another young, hip, technology community event staple. Technically Philly urged continued involvement by the community and Frank and, in many ways, that’s continued.

The decision marks something of a marriage between likely the city’s two most prominent officials whom have hands in the region’s technology community: the son of a former mayor and, as City Councilman Bill Green put it last night, “the baddest ass CTO of any city, Allan Frank.”

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