News Release

(l-r) Alberta Minister of Innovation and Science Victor Doe rksen, UCSD's Andrew Chien, Cal-(IT)² director and OptIPuter PI Larry Smarr , and BigBangwidth CEO Dan Gatti in front of mural of planned Cal-(IT)² hea dquarters building at UCSD.

San Diego, CA, and Edmonton, Alberta, Jan. 27, 2004 -- A delegation of senior government officials and business leaders from Alberta, C anada, today visited the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Jacobs Schoo l of Engineering and the California Institute for Telecommunications and Informa tion Technology [Cal-(IT)²] to talk about campus-led technological innovati on and potential cooperative research ventures.

The delegation was led by the Hon. Victor P. Doerksen, Alberta's Minister of Innovation and Science, and included the Vice Presidents of Researc h from the University of Alberta, University of Calgary, and the University of L ethbridge, as well as delegates from the Alberta Science Research Authority and several other organizations.

Dan Gatti, President and CEO of Edmonton-based BigBangwidth, arr anged for the Alberta delegation to visit BigBangwidth's first U.S. installation at UCSD. “This visit underscores the importance the province of Alberta a s well as its universities and companies place on cutting-edge research and tech nology transfer,” said Gatti. “The delegation observed how Alberta-b ased technology is used  at UCSD, which opened dialogue on potential future projects that could be funded jointly by the U.S. and Canada.”

BigBangwidth originated with research at the University of Alber ta. Last November, the company won approval to deploy its next-generation lightp ath technology as part of a new Grid computing and networking environment -- cal led the OptIPuter -- on the UCSD campus. BigBangwidth's Lightpath Accelerator 482; automatically lifts large data streams off of packet-switched networks to p rovide direct lightpaths to high-performance network and storage devices.

The OptIPuter project is led by Cal-(IT)² director Larry Sm arr, and its chief software architect is Andrew Chien, director of UCSD's Center for Networked Systems. Smarr and Chien are both professors of Computer Science and Engineering in the university's Jacobs School of Engineering, and they both met with the Canadian contingent. “California has a rich history of succes sful innovation and commercialization of technologies -- an experience that we s hare with our Canadian colleagues,” said Chien. “We are excited abou t a number of areas where we could collaborate with leading researchers, compani es, and institutions in Alberta, and this meeting was a great step forward in ta pping the synergies.”

Front seated (l-r): Dan Gatti, CEO, BigBangwidth; Larry Sma rr, Director, Cal-(IT)²; Victor Doerksen, Minister of Innovation and Scienc e; Andrew Chien, Professor, Computer Science and Engineering, UCSD; Standing (l- r): Randy Thompson, Alberta California Venture Channel; Richard Perry, Director, Biotechnology and Pharmaceuticals, Innovation and Science; Dwight Dibben, Execu tive Assistant to the Minister; Wendy Lomas, Executive Assistant; Barry Mehr , D eputy Minister of Innovation and Science; R. Gary Kachanoski; Vice President of Research; University of Alberta; Dennis Salahub, Vice-President Research: Univer sity of Calgary; Mel Wong, Executive Director Research and Technology Commercial ization, Alberta Innovation and Science; Larry Perry, VP Business Development, B igBangwidth, Inc.

About Cal-(IT)² and OptIPuter
The California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology is on e of four institutes created by the State in late 2000 to ensure that California maintain its leadership in cutting-edge technologies. Cal-(IT)²'s mission: to extend the reach of the current information infrastructure throughout the ph ysical world  enabling anywhere/anytime access to the Internet. More than 2 20 professors and senior researchers from UC Irvine and UC San Diego are collabo rating on interdisciplinary projects, including the OptIPuter, a five-year, $13. 5 million project funded by the National Science Foundation.  The southern California- and Chicago-based research teams are prototyping the OptIPuter on ca mpus, metropolitan and state-wide optical fiber networks. www.optiputer.net www.calit2.net

About BigBangwidth, Inc.
BigBangwidth provides up to 10-gigabit lightpaths directly to high-performance w orkstations, servers and other network devices.  The Lightpath Accelerator& #8482; enables file transfer for use within Grid computing, visualization and la rge file transfer.   Established in 2000, BigBangwidth currently opera tes in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. www.bigbangwidth.com

About Center for Networked Systems
The Center for Networked Systems (CNS) at UCSD is an academic-industrial partner ship which supports multi-disciplinary efforts across distributed systems, netwo rking, and network elements.  Its objective is  to address critical ch allenges and develop technologies and frameworks to support future generations o f robust, secure, manageable, and open networked systems. CNS is based in the Ja cobs School of Engineering, and is affiliated with Cal-(IT)².  http://cns.ucsd.edu

Note to Editors:
Hi-res photo of the Alberta delegation visiting Cal-(IT)² available on requ est.