KANNAPOLIS, N.C. (Aug. 12, 2011) – MCNC, the private, not-for-profit operator of the North Carolina Research and Education Network (NCREN), hosted a Statewide Virtual Groundbreaking Ceremony today in four locations throughout the state to highlight the start of construction on Round 2 of the of the Golden LEAF Rural Broadband Initiative (GLRBI).

The GLRBI is funded through grants from U.S. Department of Commerce’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) and significant matching funds from private donations and investments including a $24 million investment from the Golden LEAF Foundation. The GLRBI will greatly expand the reach and capacity of NCREN in northeastern, north central, western and south central North Carolina.

Read Full Article

KINBER Joins Quilt as Associate Member

The Quilt is pleased to welcome KINBER (the Keystone Initiative for Network Based Education and Research) as its newest Associate Member.  Member based organization comprised of major institutions in the Commonwealth. KINBER will serve as the coordinator for the construction and management of a state-wide fiber optic network accessible to a host of educational, research, health care and economic development partners. KINBER’s mission is to serve Pennsylvania through the establishment and sustainment of a high-speed research and education network, PennREN, which will connect Pennsylvania institutions of higher learning with K-12 programs to advance the education, health care, work force development and training programs across the Commonwealth.  KINBER is a member based organization comprised of major institutions in the Commonwealth. KINBER is overseen by a member-based Board of Directors. KINBER is the recipient of a Federal NTIA BTOP grant of $99.7 million to implement PennREN, the first major initiative launched by KINBER. KINBER is a 501(c)3 non-profit Pennsylvania corporation.

The Quilt looks forward to supporting Jeff Reel and the KINBER team in these initial stages of building the PennREN network.

The Chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents (BOR) and The Ohio State University will enter into an agreement regarding the operations and management of the newly formed Ohio Technology Consortium, or OH-TECH.

By merging the Ohio Academic Resources Network, Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC), Ohio Learning Network (OLN) and shifting all IT personnel from OhioLINK into a single consortium, the chancellor can leverage existing strengths for each organization and trim administrative costs, technological and management duplication and inefficiency.