WILSON – The City of Wilson plans to create a smart city app with the help of a $10,000 grant from US Ignite, a National Science Foundation-backed nonprofit.

The North Carolina Next Generation Network, which is part of the US Ignite program, submitted the grant on Wilson’s behalf.

“Our application is intended to demonstrate that smart city solutions can reduce the expense of providing essential services to the public,” said Will Aycock, General Manager of Wilson Greenlight, the city’s fiber network.

“As a community-based organization, we look forward to working with our neighboring communities and a local technology company, Triangle UAS, to collaborate on a solution that demonstrates the value of advanced broadband networks for public administrators, first responders and law enforcement across our region.”

Triangle UAS focuses on unmanned aircraft systems, or drones.

US Ignite sponsors a nationwide Smart Gigabit Communities program.

“The City of Wilson has organized a strong team of collaborators within the community and across the Research Triangle region to develop an infrastructure and remote streaming application that takes advantage of its existing gigabit broadband capacity to aid first responders with mission-critical analytics, reduced response times, and search and rescue,” said NCNGN Program Director Dennis Newman. “Wilson is the ideal community in the region to act as a test-bed for this advanced networking solution because of its fully built out, all-fiber optic network, Greenlight Community Broadband.”

The new grant comes just days after Wilson earned a $1.1 million grant from the Golden LEAF Foundation that will be used to help fund the city’s Innovation Hub [pictured with this post].