Re A $2 Million Contest Seeks Solutions to Big Internet Challenges

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Joe Touch <touch () strayalpha com>
> Date: August 29, 2017 at 12:53:30 AM EDT
> To: dave () farber net
> Subject: Re: [IP] A $2 Million Contest Seeks Solutions to Big Internet Challenges
>
> Hi, Dave,
>
> Wow. Another contest*
>
> It's not bad enough that the NSF pays for research "one grad student at a time," expecting faculty to subsidize their 
> participation on the backs of the student loans drowning undergrads and their parents (which pays for the "40%" 
> effort tenure-track faculty donate to research, not to mention the instructors those faculty hire to teach classes so 
> they can free up even more time to donate). Now they don't even want to pay for that.  Mozilla doesn't even have 
> money to pay its own people (https://www.cnet.com/news/mozilla-layoff-firefox-device-relevance/).
> Research doesn't happen by contests. It happens when you *pay* for it.
>
> Contests are basically venture capitalism for the cheap, except without even the (remote) possibility of cashing in 
> on stock options. Both those who offer such prizes and those who participate (and thus sell others down the river) 
> should be pilloried, IMO.
> Oh, yeah. I have a contest - one crisp dollar to the NSF program manager who actually writes an RFP that funds the 
> *actual* work it takes to do the research they want to take credit for...
>
> Joe
>
> * See the Ortieg Prize (to fly the Atlantic solo), Kremer Prize (fly the English Channel via human power), the DARPA 
> Grand Challenges (self-driving vehicles), the X-Prize, etc.
>
> > On 8/26/2017 4:22 AM, Dave Farber wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > Begin forwarded message:
> >
> > > From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> > > Date: August 26, 2017 at 7:07:46 AM EDT
> > > To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> > > Subject: [Dewayne-Net] A $2 Million Contest Seeks Solutions to Big Internet Challenges
> > > Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com
> > >
> > > [Note:  This item comes from friend Gary Rimar.  DLH]
> > >
> > > A $2 Million Contest Seeks Solutions to Big Internet Challenges
> > > While the fictional geniuses in HBO’s “Silicon Valley” aim to reinvent the Internet, Mozilla and the NSF hope prize 
> > > money will attract real-world innovations
> > > By TEKLA S. PERRY
> > > Aug 23 2017
> > > <http://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/internet/a-2-million-contest-seeks-solutions-to-big-internet-challenges>
> > >
> > > In the season finale of HBO’s television series “Silicon Valley,” fictional startup company Pied Piper’s attempt to 
> > > create a decentralized Internet appears to have failed spectacularly, thanks to mobile-phone explosions and a 
> > > disastrous attempt to move a server. But then the distraught founders discover that their network is actually 
> > > ticking along just fine. How? It turns out that the network has jumped to smart refrigerators. Now that’s resilient!
> > >
> > > The Internet of Refrigerators is, of course, fiction. But could an Internet that is this resilient—or nearly 
> > > so—become a reality? Mozilla and the U.S. National Science Foundation think it’s possible, and they aim to 
> > > accelerate its creation by offering US $2 million in prize money to the teams that invent it—or at least get close.
> > >
> > > “We’ve picked two of the most challenging situations in which people are disconnected from the Internet,” Mozilla 
> > > program manager Mehan Jayasuriya told me. These are “connecting people in the U.S. who don’t have reliable or 
> > > affordable Internet, and connecting people as quickly as possible after a major disaster, when the traditional 
> > > networks go down.”
> > >
> > > Mozilla and the NSF are addressing that first group—an estimated 34 million people—with the “Smart-Community 
> > > Networks Challenge.” It seeks wireless technology designed to enhance Internet connectivity by building on top of 
> > > existing infrastructure.
> > >
> > > For the second group, there’s the “Off-the-Grid Internet Challenge.” This contest is seeking technology that can be 
> > > quickly deployed after a disaster to allow people to communicate if and when Internet access is gone.
> > >
> > > The teams submit initial designs and then, later, working prototypes. Prizes at the design stage range from $10,000 
> > > to $60,000. At the working prototype stage, the stakes range from $50,000 to $400,000, with a top award given for 
> > > each challenge category.
> > >
> > > “A lot of projects out there address some parts of these problems,” says Jayasuriya. “With $2 million on the table, 
> > > we are hoping this challenge encourages people to fill their technologies out.”
> > >
> > > Were HBO’s Pied Piper an actual company, it would have a decent chance at winning some of that cash. Says 
> > > Jayasuriya: “It’s the kind of thing we are looking for—a big idea, a crazy idea, an idea about how you piggyback on 
> > > things that already exist. Pied Piper’s approach is like that, looking at all the phones out there and thinking 
> > > that these phones have radios, and power, and CPUs, so why wouldn’t you take them and turn them into nodes on a 
> > > network?”
> > >
> > > [snip]
> > >
> > > Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/
> > > Twitter: https://twitter.com/wa8dzp
> >
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