As we prepare for our Gigabit Explorer event  on Nov 1-3, one critical threshold for success is our ability to identify project teams to tackle meaningful, substantive issues for Kansas City using the next generation web. It’s hard to build something impactful in 48 hours, especially when it involves new and unfamiliar technology.

As we did for the Hacking the Gigabit City event in March, KC Digital Drive, US Ignite, and Mozilla are working hard to develop some great ideas and identify teams that can help turn these ideas into reality. Take a look at some of the ideas below and if you think there might be a good fit, go to the Gigabit Explorer site and sign up or email adeacon@kcdigitaldrive.org to discuss further. Or, if you have a brand new idea, bring that up as well. Thanks to Google Fiber for sponsoring this event.

If you’re a developer interested in what it means to develop next generation apps, please join us for 1 Billion Bits, a new event series specifically dedicated to help developers take advantage of the gigabit web. Our next event will be October 17 in coordination with the Google Developers Group. Mark your calendars and look for more details soon.

We will be holding weekly Gigabit Explorer conference calls leading up to the event every Wednesday at 3:00 pm central. These calls are open to any subject matter expert, developer or community stakeholder who is interested in learning more, develop an idea, or learning what might make an existing idea a gigabit idea.

Join the call at 805-360-1000, passcode 543199#

Below are some specific ideas we’ve been discussing, and we’re looking for local partners who want to take some of these ideas forward.

Health Care

  • Develop health data access strategies, such as that proposed in this Knight Foundation grant application
  • Leverage or support our local expertise in gene sequencing using high bandwidth and local cloud resources
  • Create a deidentified database of complex medical images for better research and predictive treatment solutions
  • Use high quality videoconferencing experiences to provide greater access to mental health services
  • Use real-time collaborative virtual environments to encourage active youth and reduce childhood (or adult) obesity

Education

  • Develop an in-class curriculum for CIZZLE, using real-time Curiosity rover data to help students model produce collaborative 3D models to support human life on Mars.
  • Connect learning experiences inside and outside the classroom using OpenPath, and allow students to share their unique educational experiences with other students.
  • Use instantaneous voice recognition software to support Mayor James’ Turn the Page initiative in support of grade level reading.
  • Explore the idea of collective learning experiences, imagining what MOOCs look like in a gigabit environment.

Other Areas

  • Start the development of a video wiki for KC that enables community members to contribute short videos as explanations to understand next-gen app development and draw upon existing content
  • Walk through Kansas City wearing Google Glass and GG recognizes the buildings or surroundings and gives you historical information relevant to the location or use it for similar function at a KC museum (e.g. Steamboat Arabia museum?)
  • Online Gaming – rendering, server farms, level testing, distributed processing, and live streaming – all are huge potential oppportunities
  • Use streaming video to help improve public safety and emergency response

Technology Brainstorm

  • Can we create a Kansas City supercomputer using distributed processing power and if so, what problems can that be used to address?
  • Are there big data sets, analyses and applications that can be better used as we offload processing to the cloud?
  • Beyond literacy help, what other applications are there for seamless, immediate voice recognition technology?
  • Everyone knows video hogs bandwidth…what kinds of multiple, bidirectional streaming applications spark your imagination?

– See more at: http://www.kcdigitaldrive.com/News—Information/KC-Google-Gig/October-2013/Gigabit-Explorer-Team-Opportunites.aspx#sthash.svxqbRii.dpuf

Further Reading

Learning from the Broadband Journey of Spring Hill and Miami County

Broadband Expansion in Spring Hill and Miami County For many years, the town of Spring Hill Kansas struggled to attract internet providers interested in building high-speed broadband networks for its residents. Spring Hill often found itself being overlooked by providers and outside observers, who assumed that all of the towns in Johnson County were already […]

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Comeback KC Celebration Story

The UMKC Technology Venture Studio and KC Digital Drive teams celebrated March 7
Comeback KC Ventures, a program that supported innovations that aim to solve pandemic-
related issues, built in just 18 months. It was a culmination of work and community
collaboration these past 20 months that led to new companies, the growth of others and most
importantly the broad impacts of our Comeback KC Ventures fellows’ efforts to curb the impact
of the pandemic on the Kansas City region and beyond.

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