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Mayor Gavin Newsom Receives FirstMile.US Big Broadband Honor
San Diego , California ( March 23, 2006 ) – Today, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom was honored by FirstMile.US for his Big Broadband vision for the City and County of San Francisco . The tribute took place at the FirstMile.US Spring Conference where Big Broadband thought leaders from throughout the Western Hemisphere gathered at UC San Diego for a glimpse of living in a Big Broadband enabled world and to jump-start strategies to build demand to get Big Broadband Everywhere in the U.S.
The FirstMile.US Big Broadband Honors recognize significant achievements in helping to make Big Broadband Everywhere a reality. The Honors showcase the pioneering ideas of today’s visionaries who best exemplify the creative spirit needed to craft the right environment that ensures that every member of the American public has access to big broadband, the 21st century pathway to a better overall quality of life.
“Mayor Newsom has taken an active role in ensuring that his community is well served by current and future broadband solutions. His vision and leadership is laudable and what we’d like to see in every community in the US ,” said Susan Estrada, President of FirstMile.US. “From the Digital Sister Cities to the Digital Media Initiatives, Mayor Newsom makes his San Francisco TechConnect strategy authentic, practical and inclusive for every resident.”
"For San Francisco , which knows the highs and lows of the first Internet boom better than any other city in the world, this award is testament to our commitment to look forward and not back. San Francisco not only believes in the new economy, we believe all of our citizens should have a place in it," stated Mayor Newsom.
The two-day event included demonstrations of killer applications in entertainment, education and healthcare utilizing Calit2’s first-of-a-kind collaborative environment, including 10 gigabits to the venue, a rare 4k projector, and a 16x30 foot screen.
One of the featured demonstrations was CineGrid, which provides global research, education, science and art communities who work with ultra-high-performance digital media with networked testbeds to enable new kinds distributed media production, remote mentoring, remote-controlled scientific research, networked collaboration and international cultural exchange. Another important Big Broadband application featured was an E-medicine, which is fueling a fundamental change from today’s disease treatments to tomorrow’s predictive, preventive, personalized and participatory medicine.
Big Broadband supporters in the U.S. are disturbed that the nation is still employing twenty-year old technologies. In a global ranking, the United States now comes in 16th place against nations around the world aggressively deploying contemporary broadband technologies. Mo reover, today many nations are deploying “first mile” broadband technologies that are 100 times faster than that currently available to the majority of U.S. communities, homes, and businesses, which threaten our nation's economic well-being. With the right policies and the right incentives the U.S. can be the global leader in big broadband deployment. President Bush has called for universal and affordable broadband for every American by 2007.
About FirstMile.US
The FirstMile.US objective is to build demand for big broadband through grass-roots education activities - creating the "I need that. When can I get it?" broadband attitude across the nation. Visit us at http://www.firstmile.us
About Calit2
The California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, a partnership between UC San Diego and UC Irvine, houses over 1,000 researchers organized around more than 50 projects on the future of telecommunications and information technology and how these technologies will transform a range of applications important to the economy and citizens' quality of life. http://www.calit2.net
Contact: Julie M. Van Fleet
Office: 619.276.0090
Cell: 619.855.2432
Email: Julie@firstmile.us