US Ignite at NSF
US Ignite is a national effort originated by the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), led by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in partnership with other federal agencies, to promote U.S. leadership in the development and deployment of next-generation applications on ultra-fast, programmable networks with the potential for significant societal impact. It will leverage NSF investments in the Global Environment for Networking Innovation (GENI) by integrating academic campuses that have GENI technology with research backbone networks and numerous broadband cities across the United States. Through the US Ignite effort, NSF and other federal agencies will bring together science and innovation to explore next-generation internets at scale and create a national innovation ecosystem that will have profound, long-term social and economic impacts.
WHY US IGNITE?
A national innovation ecosystem for the development and deployment of next-generation applications and services will:
- Take advantage of the advanced, high-speed, open source, software-defined, and at-scale testbed established by GENI;
- Expand the GENI network by stitching together the initial 14 campuses with islands of broadband cities across the country to allow pre-commercial, next-generation applications to be demonstrated;
- Bring leading researchers together with application developers, entrepreneurs, and visionaries;
- Engage developers, entrepreneurs, and citizens who are not normally part of the NSF grantee community through ideation contests and application developer challenges;
- Share best practices in infrastructure deployment, service creation and delivery, application development, and R&D;
- Strategically leverage NSF funding with resources from industry, academia, foundations, and the venture capital community in a non-profit, public-private organization to ensure new applications offer high-impact public benefit and/or high potential for commercialization;
- Shape next-generation networks and applications, offering new ways to provide services on gigabit future networks;
- Address areas of national priority; and
- Transform public safety, healthcare, education and workforce development, energy, transportation, and manufacturing.
US Ignite will help maintain U.S. global leadership in innovation and will leverage the combined resources and capabilities of industry, government, and academia.
