Mozilla grants boost local 3D modeling, literacy, STEM
May 16, 2016 | Bobby Burch
The Mozilla Gigabit Community Fund awarded three Kansas City organizations a total of nearly $60,000 in grants to build gigabit-enabled tech projects.
Mozilla gifted the funds to PlanIt Impact, Pennez and the KC Social Innovation Center, which will allow the groups to implement 16-week pilot testing from May 16 to Sept. 4. Mozilla also awarded $75,000 to fund six projects in Chattanooga.
“Grantees will utilize the awarded funds to build, pilot and scale gigabit-enabled applications and associated curricula that have immediate, measurable impact on classrooms and informal learning organizations,” Mozilla wrote in a blog post. “Through these projects, Chattanooga and Kansas City will become living laboratories in which to study how these next-generation networks can impact education and workforce development.”
Here are the specific projects in Kansas City:
- Open Data + 3D Models by PlanIT Impact: The company is putting its big data + 3D modeling technology in the hands of students in Kansas City to advance sustainable design.
- Read2Think by Pennez – A live-time digital assessment tool for measuring a child’s reading fluency. The application utilizes artificial intelligence technology to assess speed, vocabulary, understanding, sight word, pronunciation and phonics recognition.
- SensED IoT Student Innovation Challenge by the KC Social Innovation Center. The organization will be creating a project-based STEM program for 7 – 12 graders to provide real-world experiences in the emerging field of the Internet of Things.
To date, the fund has supported the development of 17 pilot projects in Kansas City and Chattanooga. Past projects include improved first-responder equipment, a real-time water quality monitoring system and singing robots.
The Gigabit Community Fund is a collaboration with National Science Foundation and US Ignite, and is investing in projects that utilize gigabit technology to impact learning. The grant program was announced in January.
The application period for the next round of Gigabit Community Fund grants closes on October 18 for pilots that will run from Jan. 2 to April 24.
2016 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
Document: FarmLink raises additional $24.6M for ag tech
Ag tech startups in Kansas City are plowing a promising 2016. Kansas City-based FarmLink recently secured nearly $24.6 million in investment capital for its farming technology, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. The company offers a suite of tech services for farmers, including analytics platform TrueHarvest and machinery sharing platform MachineryLink Sharing. TrueHarvest…
‘PayIt’ up: Kansas City gov tech startup registers $4.5M investment
Like the dozens of people around him, John Thomson’s 2013 wait at the Missouri Department of Motor Vehicles had him aggravated. It was such a pain — watching the queue slowly subside while working on his phone — that the entrepreneur did what innovators do: he built a company to alleviate the chore. Fast forward…
Sporting Innovations reveals name change
Sports tech company Sporting Innovations is kicking off 2016 new branding. The company announced Monday that it’s changed its name to “FanThreeSixty” to better reflect an “ongoing transformation” and to better connect to its software platform of the same name, FanThreeSixty CEO Robb Heineman said. “We feel the timing is ideal for evolving our brand…
Local students win national design contest for Royals World Series trophy
When it comes to baseball, in appears Kansas City is still on a hot streak. Three students from Pembroke Hill School recently beat out dozens of professionals in a national contest to design a World Series trophy for the Kansas City Royals. The 11th-grade students — Samuel Hrabko, Raghav Parikh, and Momin Tahirkheli — entered…