The Chattanooga Public Library has officially launched its GigLab a project aimed at promoting technological and economic development through the use of the city’s municipal broadband network. The high profile network provides gigabit internet access to local residents, and the public library has emerged as an anchor institution with an edge.
The Chattanooga Public Library was the first public library in the US to offer access to gigabit broadband and has now built that into a full laboratory environment for developing individual projects that use the service. On Friday, developers appeared at a launch event demonstrating what they’ve been able to do at the GigLab. Presenters included those chosen by the Mozilla Gigabit Community Fund, a non-profit effort that provides grant support to developers. Those projects include Adagio, a collaborative, cloud-based music education app; Viditor an online video editor, and devLearn, a mobile coding application for elementary school students.
In addition to being a space for individuals to work on their own projects, the GigLab itself is also supported by the Mozilla fund. The National Science Foundation has also given its support to the lab.
Visitors to the lab will have access to enterprise grade high performance computing and the opportunity to attend training and education courses as well as continued demos from developers. GigLab is already building partnerships with local open government groups including Open Chattanooga to provide access to the lab equipment on a regular basis.
GigLab Co-Founder Sean Brewster has a blog post up over here where you can learn more about what the GigLab has to offer.
