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Mozilla Ignite Challenge Looking to Utah for Ideas

Glenn Ricart first came to Utah to be Chief Technology Officer for Novell.  Today he holds the same title for US Ignite, a federal initiative designed to promote the development of applications and services for ultra-fast networks.  Ricart is now spreading the word about the Mozilla Ignite Challenge, which has $485,000 available to support winning proposals.

“There’s really two criteria we’re looking for.  One is something that would aid in the public benefit – in healthcare, education, transportation, public safety - one of those public benefit areas.  And the other one, and the really interesting one, is that you wouldn’t be able to do it today on the networks available to most Americans,” Ricart told KUER.

Utah is one of the founding partners in the initiative because it already has some ultra-fast networks, including UTOPIA and Utah Education Network. 

“I think Utah is going to be very important for education apps,” said Ricart, “The reason I say that is that the Utah Education Network would be great for having these new applications ride over.”

According to Ricart, anyone with an idea that’s too big for today’s Internet can apply.  The first round deadline is October 25th.

Andrea Smardon is new at KUER, but she has worked in public broadcasting for more than a decade. Most recently, she worked as a reporter and news announcer for WGBH radio. While in Boston, she produced stories for Morning Edition, Marketplace Money, and The World. Her print work was published in The Boston Globe and Boston.com. Prior to that, she worked at Seattleââ
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