Drew Clark: Utah Ignite exists to find new light bulbs for the Internet age

SALT LAKE CITY — It’s easy to plug a refrigerator, television, alarm clock or toothbrush into a wall socket. We forget the lesson that electricity became widely available only after a single application — the light bulb — caught the imagination and desire of the public.

Electricity is history. Today we face the next-generation infrastructure: gigabit networks. Global visionaries here in Utah see the need for these communication networks, even as they struggle to explain the “light bulb” that will make it plain why a super-fast Internet network is as necessary as running water and a universal electric grid.

One of these visionaries is Glenn Ricart, an unassuming man who moved his family here from the East Coast 20 years ago. The late Ray Noorda recruited him as chief technology officer at Novell. A renowned technologist, Ricart set up the first Internet exchange point at the University of Maryland in 1986. Two years ago, he was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame.

Ricart’s recent energies have been devoted to co-founding an ambitious venture known as US Ignite. Its goal is next-generation applications with “transformative public benefit.”

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Source: www.deseretnews.com

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