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.

Google releases fiber website, no winners yet

Google has yet to announce the winner of its Google Fiber contest, but the search giant is showing signs of life.

The company has launched a new website to thank cities that applied to be a part of the company’s Google Fiber experiment which would deliver Internet speeds up to 100 times faster than most consumer Internet plans.

The site highlights some of the over-the-top methods (such as Topeka renaming itself “Google”) utilized by 1,100 cities all over the country that hoped to increase the chances of receiving Google’s experimental gigabit internet infrastructure.

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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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Mobile, frameworks, focus of 2010 Emerging Technologies for the Enterprise

More than 100 folks packed the room for the "Refactoring legacy applications for SOA using Spring Technologies" session led by Oleg Zhurakousky.

On Thursday, about 450 software developers, IT managers and business executives from around the world ventured to Old City for Emerging Technologies for the Enterprise, a locally-organized, two-day conference for high-level enterprise software development discussion.

Patrons packed the Society Hill Sheraton’s outdoor patio, breaking from sessions—comprised of mobile, frameworks, agile development, management, infrastructure and languages tracks—talking and fielding phone calls beneath the stunning pink blossoms of Cherry trees. The hotel offered more space than last year’s conference, held in Conshohocken.

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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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