TORONTO, ON and FREDERICTON, NB - October 25, 2011 -The
University of New Brunswick (UNB) and Cisco Canada today announced two
agreements aimed at helping the university become a world leader in technology
innovation.
The agreements were signed at a meeting of the Premier's Advisory Council on
Technology in Toronto by Eddy Campbell, UNB president, and Nitin Kawale,
president of Cisco Canada, in the presence of David Alward, premier of New
Brunswick.
"Effective partnerships are critical to the production of research and to the
support of development activities," said UNB President Eddy Campbell.
"Collaborations, such as this with Cisco, enhance the reputation of UNB programs
and drive the continued success of our students. With this collaboration, we are
reinforcing our commitment to being one of the country's premier institutions
for innovation in technology."
In a major boost to the university's
research and advanced learning capabilities, Cisco is providing a $2 million
endowment to establish a Cisco® Chair in Advanced Learning Technologies, which
will promote, support, and lead innovation at the university through
industry-linked projects. The chair holder will foster a close relationship with
industry and government, as well as support the university's strategic goals and
long-range vision to position the university as one of the world's premier
institutes of higher learning.
The Cisco Chair for Advanced Learning Technologies will lead research and
innovation in the application of technology related to advanced learning,
government cooperation and community outreach. This includes creating
innovative ways to deliver educational and training services to remote
communities involving the use of high-definition video and cloud computing
infrastructure.
The two parties also signed a marketing development agreement that will help
UNB engineering students collaborate to develop energy-efficient processes for
the manufacturing industry. The Green Remote Automation and Monitoring for
Manufacturing (GRAMM) project will develop the physical monitoring, computing
and network infrastructure to remotely monitor manufacturing and production
processes, store and manage information, and develop analytical tools so that
manufacturing processes and entire facilities can be remotely powered up or down
in accordance with production or power demands. Ultimately, companies will be
able to reduce power consumption while improving production rates, process
performance, quality, and employee communication.
Graduate students taking part in the GRAMM project will be able to take
courses and interact with professors using Cisco TelePresence™, irrespective of
where they are geographically located. This essentially creates a virtual
laboratory, or manufacturing centre, for students to remotely observe and
monitor experiments in real time.
Under the terms of the agreement, Cisco will provide UNB with two Cisco
TelePresence 500 System solutions, one on UNB's Fredericton campus and another
at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., as well as an array of IT hardware and
software solutions to help drive the GRAMM project. Cisco's hardware and cash
contribution under the marketing development agreement is approximately
$350,000.
The project will also use the CANARIE Network, which connects
nearly 40,000 researchers at 200 Canadian universities and colleges to share and
analyze data, not only for simple communications across remote sites, but also
for all remote data monitoring, storage and data analysis.
"We are delighted to partner with UNB on these two exciting initiatives
designed to help the university realize its strategic goal of driving innovation
in the classroom and beyond. These projects with UNB are representative of
larger initiatives in the works with the Province of New Brunswick designed to
boost Canada's global profile as a technology innovator," said Cisco Canada
President Nitin Kawale. "Both the Province and Cisco share a dynamic vision for
the significant IT R&D potential in the region and see this investment at
UNB as a key step to help drive these innovation efforts."
Cisco is currently working with Province of New Brunswick to explore
continued investment and new opportunities to utilize advanced technologies to
help meet the Province's economic development goals.
About UNB
Established in 1785, UNB is one of the oldest public universities in North
America. UNB has more than 11,000 students from more than 100 countries. As the
largest research institution in New Brunswick, UNB conducts about 80 per cent of
the province's university research. UNB's two main campuses are located in
Fredericton and Saint John, New Brunswick.
About Cisco
Cisco, (NASDAQ: CSCO), is the worldwide leader in networking that transforms
how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Cisco products and services are
supplied in Canada by Cisco Systems Canada Co., a wholly owned subsidiary of
Cisco Systems, Inc. For ongoing news, please go to http://newsroom.cisco.com and http://newsroom.cisco.com/canada.
Cisco and the Cisco logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco
and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. A listing of Cisco's
trademarks can be found at www.cisco.com/go/trademarks.
Third-party trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.
The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between
Cisco and any other company.
