Mozilla today launched the Mozilla Gigabit Community Fund in partnership with the National Science Foundation (NSF) and US Ignite. As its name implies, the project will support the development of open source applications for gigabit networks.
The $300,000 fund is starting off by establishing Hive Learning Communities in Chattanooga and Kansas City for experimentation and development of public benefit uses for gigabit technologies: each city will see two, 12-week pilot periods with up to 10 projects receiving awards between $5,000 and $30,000. These communities will be similar to the ones Mozilla has started in New York City, Chicago, Toronto, and Pittsburgh for the purpose of helping organizations collaborate around shared goals in digital learning and economic opportunities.
“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,” Mozilla Executive Director Mark Surman said in a statement. “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.”
So how will the Fund decide which applications to support? There are a few requirements: they should be in the local community, be pragmatic, deployable in the near term, have measurable impact, as well as be re-usable and shareable with others.
The official announcements are being made at kick-off events in both cities: Chattanooga got the news today and Kansas City will get its turn on February 13. If you live in either of the two US cities, you can apply here and sign up for the email list here.
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See also – Mozilla’s reliance on Google is increasing: 90% of 2012 revenue came from that one source and Cisco announces plans to open-source its H.264 codec, Mozilla promises to include it in Firefox for WebRTC use
Top Image Credit: Spike Mafford
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