US Ignite is an Administration initiative seeking to promote US leadership in the development and deployment of next-generation gigabit applications with the potential for significant societal impact. The primary goal of US Ignite is to break a fundamental deadlock: there is insufficient investment in gigabit applications that can take advantage of advanced network infrastructure because such infrastructure is rare and dispersed. And conversely, there is a lack of broad availability of advanced broadband infrastructure for open experimentation and innovation because there are few advanced applications and services to justify it. US Ignite aims to break this deadlock by providing incentives for imagining, prototyping, and developing public sector gigabit applications, and by leveraging and extending this network testbed across US college/university campuses and cities.
This solicitation builds on the experience gained from initial US Ignite activities to further engage the US academic research and non-profit communities along with local cities, municipalities, and regions in exploring the challenges of developing and applying next-generation networking to problems of significant public interest and benefit. In particular, this solicitation has two tracks: the first encourages the development of applications in national priority areas that explore new uses for networks, giving rise to novel networking and application paradigms; and the second expands and enhances the ecosystems in which these applications will evolve and be evaluated.
This solicitation is divided into two award sections:
- Focus Area 1: US Ignite Applications: Toward Smart & Connected Communities - Proposals for innovative application ideas and prototypes that leverage or enhance advanced networking technologies (i.e., gigabit or greater throughput, software-defined networking, advanced wireless), and that address national priority areas. This Focus Area seeks to leverage the presence of broadband networking infrastructure, including residential access networks, where available.
- Each US Ignite application should address one or more national priority areas, including but not limited to Advanced manufacturing; Education and workforce; Energy; Transportation; Health; and Public safety/emergency preparedness
- While the emphasis of Focus Area 1 is on innovative application ideas and prototypes leveraging current advanced networks, proposals must seek to link the implementation of the application idea or prototype to ongoing and/or future exploration and assessment of potential networking research question(s). For example, applications implemented through Focus Area 1 have the potential to expose needed changes to underlying networks that could dramatically expand or improve application performance, in turn informing fundamental research needs that could be addressed through future Focus Area 2 proposals.
- Focus Area 2: Innovating Advanced Networks for Future US Ignite Applications - Proposals for fundamental research that advances networking and computing infrastructure to support emerging applications that address one or more national priority areas. A proposal responsive to this Focus Area must accomplish each of the following:
- ?Identify an emerging application idea or prototype (i.e., a motivating application) that is not well served by existing broadband networking infrastructure. Motivating applications should address one or more areas of national priority, including but not limited to advanced manufacturing, education and workforce, energy, transportation, health, and public safety/emergency preparedness. Ideally, the proposed research will support platform technologies with the potential to benefit a broad range of national priority areas.
- Seek to investigate a fundamental advance in networking technologies, protocols, and/or architectures, and/or computation at the network edge, that promises to enhance existing network capabilities to better support the target application. Alternately, the proposal may seek to investigate a fundamental advance in network measurement or monitoring infrastructure to improve our understanding of networks operating with increasingly demanding gigabit applications.
- Link the motivating application to the exploration and assessment of the identified fundamental research question(s). Demonstrate how the fundamental networking advance serves to better support the target application than is possible on current operating networks, and attempt to quantify the magnitude of potential societal impacts resulting from the improvement.