Kicking off the Gigabit Age: Participants in first-ever multi-city gigabit hackathon to create new generation of tools, applications and immersive experiences

SAN FRANCISCO, April 9, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Orange Silicon Valley, through its GigaStudio, has partnered with five distinguished organizations to host the first-ever multi-city gigabit hackathon in the US. Joining Orange is US Ignite, KC Digital Drive, Mozilla Gigabit Community Fund, the Chattanooga Public Library's GigLab, BTV Ignite, and Charlotte Hearts Gigabit. 

GigHacks was created to help kick off the gigabit age and expand the gigabit app ecosystem. Participants are encouraged to work on projects that will embrace the significant benefits of gigabit networking, like high-level responsiveness, real-world quality resolution, symmetrical upload and download, and always-on connectivity. These applications will help create jobs, improve lives and allow us to do more; saving time, money, energy, and ultimately helping us find more human ways to connect.

"GigHacks was created to support students, developers, designers, and gigabit-enthusiasts who want to build advanced applications that will define the future of healthcare, gaming, education, entertainment and more," said Georges Nahon, CEO of Orange Silicon Valley. "Orange Silicon Valley is proud to host this one-of-a-kind event and grateful to our partners who have helped make this futuristic experience a reality today."

The 48-hour event, which runs May 1-3, will be held in five cities nationwide, including San Francisco, CA, Kansas City, MO, Chattanooga, TN, Burlington, VT, and Charlotte, NC. While each city will host its own unique event, they'll be linked to one another via video network to support shared app development.

Participants can enter the hackathon by signing up on ChallengePost for their respective city: San Francisco, Kansas City, Chattanooga, Burlington, and Charlotte. Specific details for each city's GigHacks event can be found below.

San Francisco

Orange GigaStudio has paired participants with companies like Giroptic, MusicianLink, Rhinobird.tv, Immersio, Learn Immersive, ooVoo, ImmersiON-VRelia, Revolve Robotics, and Plantronics to leverage gigabit technology with a focus on online music collaboration, 360 video, VR use cases, and video chat. Orange GigaStudio is also recruiting local Bay Area students who have participated in previous gigabit ideation workshops.

Kansas City

Organized with the help of KC Digital Drive and Mozilla, Kansas City's GigHacks will be entrenched in the Google Fiber Space. Teams are forming to leverage Kansas City's plentiful fiber infrastructure to build pilots in virtual and augmented reality for the classroom, IoT, cyber-physical systems for public safety and civic engagement, digital health, and more. GigHacks participants will have the opportunity to work with the Big Bang cloud platform to create real-time applications.

Chattanooga

Mozilla's Hive Chattanooga has partnered with local business accelerator Co.Lab and the Chattanooga Public Library to leverage municipal broadband, GENI, and a group of talented UTC-GIGTANK Fellowship applicants for a weekend of gigabit hacking. Hosted at the library's GigLab, virtual reality, low latency and high bandwidth – not to mention some East Tennessee barbecue - will all be on the menu.

Burlington

Sponsored by US Ignite, Burlington Telecom, Dealer.com, a Dealertrack Technologies Solution, and Code for BTV, Burlington's GigHacks will be held at Dealer.com's award-winning modern industrial facility. Advanced teams are forming to leverage Burlington Telecom's fiber network in the areas of smart grid energy management, cyber-security, edu-gaming, food systems, and secure mobile health.

Charlotte

The event is being held at DC74 Data Centers, and organized with the support of BIG Council, Charlotte Hearts Gigabit, Packard Place, and the Charlotte Entrepreneurial Alliance. Charlotte's GigHacks will include a variety of projects to leverage Gigabit technology, such as cancer genome analysis, unstructured data analysis and visualization, video collaboration, energy innovation, and civic engagement. DC74 is the host location of the upcoming Charlotte Internet Peering Exchange, and is providing the space and Gigabit Internet for the event.

about GigHacks

Launched as a successor to the Gigabit Explorer Challenge, this hackathon seeks to foster development of gigabit applications. Participants may begin work ahead of time on projects that they would like to submit for judging. Each city's program operates independently from one another until the final phase of the competition. Throughout the hackathon, all four cities will be virtually connected to each other using one of several portals, enabling participants to converse and collaborate with others across the country. This technology will be used to facilitate demonstrations of produced work during the final evaluation process. For more information about GigHacks, please visit gighacks.com.

about Orange

Orange is one of the world's leading telecommunications operators with sales of 39 billion euros in 2014 and 156,000 employees worldwide at 31 December 2014, including 99 400 employees in France. Present in 29 countries, the Group has a total customer base of 244 million customers worldwide at 31 December 2014, including 185 million mobile customers and 16 million fixed broadband customers. Orange is also a leading provider of global IT and telecommunication services to multinational companies, under the brand Orange Business Services.

Orange is listed on the NYSE Euronext Paris (symbol ORA) and on the New York Stock Exchange (symbol ORAN).

For more information on the internet and on your mobile: www.orange.com, www.orange-business.com, livetv.orange.com or to follow us on Twitter: @orange, @orangegrouppr, @orangebusiness.

Orange and any other Orange product or service names included in this material are trade marks of Orange Brand Services Limited

about US Ignite

US Ignite is a non-profit, public-private partnership that fosters the creation of next-generation Internet applications that provide transformative public benefit in health care, clean energy, public safety, transportation, education, and advanced manufacturing. It was established in 2012 with initial inspiration from the National Science Foundation and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

about KC Digital Drive

KC Digital Drive is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the quality of life and economic prosperity of people in the Kansas City region through the smart and creative use of next-generation technology networks, human capital and open innovation. Our strategic focus areas include ensuring digital inclusion, expanding economic development, powering next-generation innovation, and establishing Kansas City as a leader in smart-city dialogue and implementation.

about the Mozilla Gigabit Community Fund 

A partnership of Mozilla, the National Science Foundation and US Ignite, the Mozilla Gigabit Community Fund in Chattanooga and Kansas City supports the development of gigabit applications and associated curricula to explore the impact of next-generation networks on learning.

about GigLab

The GigLab is a public gigabit experimentation laboratory housed on the 4th Floor of the Chattanooga Public Library. Supported by the Mozilla Gigabit Community Fund the GigLab provides a separate but inclusive gig-connected space within the Library designed specifically for gigabit-related experimentation and learning.

about BTV IGNITE

The name of the Burlington-US Ignite partnership designed to encourage public, private, and academic institutions to develop next generation Internet applications in Burlington. BTV IGNITE is dedicated to aligning Burlington's powerful gigabit infrastructure as a tool, test bed, and accelerator for economic, educational, and community benefit.

about Charlotte Hearts Gigabit

Charlotte Hearts Gigabit is a grassroots team of entrepreneurs and tech geeks who believe a Gigabit Internet infrastructure will be great for Charlotte. Our mission is to encourage the ISPs to build a residential Gigabit Internet infrastructure in Charlotte, to keep the community updated on progress, and to encourage community collaboration and entrepreneurship.

Media contact

Amanda Wiley

Sparkpr

[email protected]

SOURCE Orange Silicon Valley

Related Links

http://www.orange.com