Office of Science and Technology Policy Blog

Mozilla Ignite Challenge Winners Announced

A year ago this month, OSTP and the National Science Foundation (NSF) launched the US Ignite initiative to jumpstart the development of software applications able to take advantage of the Nation’s growing but underutilized network of very-high-speed, gigabyte/second Internet connections. On Tuesday, at the US Ignite Partnership’s Application Summit in Chicago, IL, NSF and Mozilla announced the winners of the $500,000 Mozilla Ignite Challenge, designed to engage a broad range of developers, startups, students, and communities in creating the next-generation of gigabit applications. We asked the top four winners to tell us a little about their projects.

Engage 3D: Immersive 3D Educational Tools

Engage 3D tested its video conferencing application at the Tennessee Aquarium. At left, debugging behind the scenes at the Aquarium. At right, touring the Aquarium to find content for the engage 3D platform. (Photo by Engage 3D)

We showcased an early version of our application at a Chattanooga Downtown Public Library event, where a crowd of more than 1,200 children and teens were mesmerized.  Though we had initially targeted healthcare and business for our technology, the fascination we saw at this event made us realize that 3D video conferencing could become a powerful educational tool.

Our in-browser 3D video conferencing platform brings educational content - live, interactive, and in 3D - into classrooms at no additional cost to schools. Unlike a simple video, our application provides students with an opportunity to interact with content in a way that has not been seen before.

Our organization was born entirely out of the Mozilla Ignite App Challenge. Through three rounds of pitches and development, our team has learned much about the exciting possibilities and challenges of gigabit application development.  We’ve also gained new expertise in Web tools and we’ve had a tremendous time participating in this program and can’t wait to see what the future holds. For more information visit www.engage3D.org or watch a video demonstration.

Two Years Later, Bold New Steps for the Materials Genome Initiative

Two years ago today, President Obama launched the Materials Genome Initiative (MGI), a collaborative endeavor of the public and private sectors designed to double the pace of innovation, manufacture, and deployment of high-tech materials in America.

During its first two years, the MGI has come a long way. What started out as a modest investment of roughly $63 million by four Federal agencies has since expanded into a multi-stakeholder endeavor valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars and involving universities, companies, professional societies, and scientists and engineers from across the country—all working together to push the boundaries of what’s possible in the realm of materials science and innovation. 

Today, universities, companies, Federal agencies, and other materials science stakeholders announced more than twenty new commitments to kick-start an ambitious third year for the MGI, including:

• The Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is committing $25 million over 5 years to form a Center of Excellence on Advanced Materials.
• The University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the Georgia Institute of Technology are creating new Institutes in materials innovation with collective investments totaling roughly $15 million, and will join with the University of Michigan to launch a materials innovation accelerator network
• Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Intermolecular, Inc., are working together to better predict materials behavior with software tools made openly available by LBNL to thousands of users.
• Harvard University and IBM are releasing a freely available and open database describing 2.3 million new materials for potential use in solar cells—the largest open-access effort of its kind; and
• MIT is launching a new massive open online course (MOOC) focusing on innovation and commercialization with new materials, and half-a-dozen other institutions are announcing new educational efforts around the MGI that include curricula development, new graduate degrees, and research opportunities.

The materials community is mobilizing.