We have some exciting news to share on behalf of the Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research (PAWR) program. DARPA has announced that it will transition the Colosseum, a massive RF channel emulator used to run the agency's Spectrum Collaboration Challenge (SC2), to the PAWR program on October 23. The entire Colosseum - with hardware consisting of 128 two-antenna software-defined radios and 64 f…

US Ignite is pleased to announce the finalists for the Spring/Summer 2019 US Ignite/AWS Startup Accelerator pitch competition! These winners will participate in a final competition and Accelerator Showcase on September 19th at Amazon’s offices on New Jersey Avenue, NW in Washington, D.C. To attend the final showcase event, register for a free ticket while space is available! Finalists inc…

The more we talk to communities about how they use data, the more we’re discovering not only interesting use cases, but also new ways cities are visualizing civic data. We’ve collected five examples below. The first three are featured in our newest Forum Smart City Big Data playbook, which will go live in early September. (See library of playbooks here) The last two are culled from city open d…

After kicking off its second public innovation challenge in June with industry and non-profit partners, the Washington D.C. Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO) has now announced that three teams have been selected to advance to the next round of competition. The following teams will have 60 days to work with engineering mentors from Verizon, and subject matter experts from the DC …

US Ignite and the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) are now in the software design phase of building a new economic development tool for smart communities. This is part of our joint Smart City Data Exchange initiative, and our aim is to provide communities with the ability to see development potential in their neighborhoods on a property-by-property basis for the purpose o…

The smallest US Ignite Smart Gigabit Community has done it again. After Red Wing Ignite attracted region-wide support, it adopted the name Minnesota Ignite and created its own Ag Tech Challenge in 2018. Now, a winner of that challenge – Poultry Patrol – is one of 21 teams globally competing for a half-million dollar prize from the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research and the McDonald…

[embed]https://youtu.be/4OL-l_i7Pqc[/embed] Maps are an essential tool for community planning, and used effectively, they can both improve delivery of civic services and contribute to local economic growth. In this video, we highlight two mapping applications created for smart city planners: LocaleIQ, which feeds GIS data into an interactive, visual interface and enables community planners t…

[embed]https://youtu.be/JT1yX0aMklM[/embed] There are many ways to describe a smart city, but it helps to cite practical use cases; examples of how smart city technologies and applications can improve lives. In this video, we highlight two examples in the public safety sector: Triangle UAS, which is working with the city of Wilson, North Carolina to deploy a secure, real-time streaming app f…

The Smart Gigabit Communities (SGC) program has expanded well beyond its original network of cities, bringing in new community members, funding partners, and allies across the public and private sector. Thanks to the National Science Foundation and to our corporate partners for their continued support. Hear what our colleagues and cities say about how the SCG program continues to grow. [embed]h…

Thank you to National Science Foundation and all of our partners for a very successful 2019 Application Summit, and for helping us determine every day how to make our cities and connected communities ever smarter. [embed]https://youtu.be/d-UjBaG-ySI[/embed] Notable Quotes “US Ignite tackles the challenges that our cities and communities are facing, bringing together technology and peopl…

The city of Cary, North Carolina created a test lab on its municipal campus back in 2017 with the goal of testing out smart city technologies before full-scale deployment. The city has trialed smart parking, connected streetlights, and even a new pest control solution. Along the way, Cary CIO Nicole Raimundo says the city has learned a few things. “We learned everybody loves a dashboard, righ…

Congratulations to our Smart Gigabit Communities (SGC) partner, Eugene-Springfield in Lane County, Oregon, and the Technology Association of Oregon (TAO) on launching Speed Up America, a new speed test tool designed to provide real-world data on consumer Internet service. How does the testing tool work? Speed Up America uses open source software and the M-Lab test platform to collect Internet s…

Many people know how their cars rate in miles per gallon of gasoline. But buildings in a city? There’s no equivalent public standard for measuring the energy efficiency of city structures. That’s unfortunate, because at least according to a 2018 report for New York City, buildings are responsible for nearly 70% of greenhouse gas emissions. Clean up building emissions, and you can significan…

Municipal focus on resiliency – the ability to recover from a crisis or other difficult situation – is growing as communities contend with climate change, cyberattacks, aging infrastructure, and more. It’s been five years since San Francisco hired the world’s first Chief Resilience Officer, and since that time, at least 80 cities have followed suit. During DC Infrastructure Week, Chris …

We collect and distill a lot of information from our US Ignite Forum workshops, and we know it can be difficult to digest all at once. In addition to our topic-based playbooks available online, we’re now producing content spotlights to highlight the insights we think are most valuable. From our Smart City Connectivity Forum event in Dallas, here is our spotlight on Creating a Layered Investme…

Nearly doubling its funding from previous rounds, the National Science Foundation is expected to award $43 million to Smart and Connected Community (S&CC) projects in the new NSF Solicitation 19-564. Teams can apply for integrative research grants, or – new this year – one-year planning grants intended to fund the capacity building necessary to prepare project teams for future S&CC gra…