"This is the first phase of blanketing Cleveland with free wireless Internet access -- a project we call OneCleveland," said Lev Gonick, vice president of information technology services and chief information officer at Case Western. "We are working with our industry partners, Cisco Systems and Sprint, to complete the wireless network across University Circle, providing wireless access to everyone who comes to the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History or any of the other cultural and educational resources in the neighborhood."
Faculty, staff, students and visitors can take advantage of voice and streaming video applications, access to e-curriculums and other university services from virtually anywhere on campus or in University Circle.
OneCleveland is committed to creating a seamless, digital infrastructure for the residents, businesses and institutions of Northeast Ohio.
"The network we are designing is a way for Case to reach out to the community and connect the university and greater Cleveland into one cohesive whole," said Gonick. "In order to fulfill our vision of becoming the most powerful learning environment in the world, we need to start at home and become a force for change and improvement in our city and region."
Tim Mueller, chief development officer for Cleveland, praised the new effort and said the city understands how the growing power of wireless provides its citizens with enormous opportunities.
"The vision of OneCleveland, to connect, enable and transform our city through leveraging what is possible when we are all connected is a message that rings true for all of Cleveland," Mueller said. "This is an exciting vision that extends the hand of partnership between Case and the regional community outside of University Circle."
In addition, design students at the Cleveland Institute of Art, in collaboration with students at the Case School of Engineering, are developing global positioning systems (GPS) applications incorporating text, video, audio, and even speech recognition, to allow students and visitors to take self-guided tours around University Circle using their own personal digital assistants (PDA).
