The 2014 Unidata Equipment Awards Program

Sponsored by the National Science Foundation

NSF provides the Unidata Program Center up to $100k in equipment grant funds each year. In alignment with the Unidata 2014 proposal, the Equipment Awards Program is designed to broaden participation and promote the use of Unidata tools and systems (e.g., THREDDS, NetCDF, IDV, GIS connections) to support education and research on various aspects of climate studies (e.g., diagnostics, change and impacts), by providing grants to be used in the procurement of new computers and equipment including upgrades to existing classroom and laboratory equipment.

This year, special consideration will be given to proposals that include one or more of the following:

• Installation of a prototype AWIPS II standalone EDEX server and CAVE client, coupled with the Unidata LDM, to test data ingest and display both locally, and using the CAVE thin client to connect to remote servers
• Implementation of or pilot projects with remotely-accessible storage systems for geoscience data (“cloud-based storage”)
• Implementation of or pilot projects with remote server-based data analysis or visualization systems (“cloud-based analysis”)

A Request for Proposals was sent out on January 15, 2014 with a March 14 submission deadline. A review panel has been formed and will meet on April 1 at the Unidata Program Center to review the proposals that are received.