[StBernard] LITE honors Blanco's vision: Governor congratulates ULLs CajunBot robotic vehicle team

[Westley Annis]

NEWS: LITE honors Blanco's vision: Governor congratulates ULL's CajunBot robotic vehicle team

Periodically, the press office will publish editorials, articles and columns that feature Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco's work in various areas. 

The Advocate: LITE honors Blanco's vision: Governor congratulates ULL's CajunBot robotic vehicle team
Published Friday, November 9, 2007
Click here to read the article online. <http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/politics/11137771.html> 

By KEVIN BLANCHARD

LAFAYETTE - Gov. Kathleen Blanco was praised Thursday for her work in bringing LITE to Louisiana.

LITE is the Louisiana Immersive Technologies Enterprise, the high-tech visualization facility in Lafayette designed to spur research and business innovation.

Blanco was honored Thursday for being instrumental in securing the $27 million in funding to open the facility, which has been open for about a year.

"I am extremely proud to be able to play an important role in showcasing our technology,' Blanco said.

Blanco was also in her hometown Thursday to congratulate the University of Louisiana at Lafayette's Team CajunBot on its return from competing for the third time in a U.S. Department of Defense competition for robotic vehicles.

Generally, the LITE facility uses world-class supercomputing to crunch data into graphic form - then puts those graphics through a series of three-dimensional virtual environments.

What makes LITE unique is that it is open for use by both the research community and private business. It's run by a board consisting of people appointed by ULL and economic development organizations.

Blanco said she always touts the capabilities of LITE on her international visits.

"The strength of our technological capacity is totally shocking (to some out-of-state people)," Blanco said. "They do not believe Louisiana could be so positioned."

LITE Executive Director Carolina Cruz said her staff has gotten calls from companies, from local to global, including Fortune 500 businesses and all types of disciplines.

Thursday morning, a group from the U.S. Air Force was visiting. Thursday afternoon a local hospital was using the facility to demonstrate a new procedure, Cruz said. Today, the facility is to be used by a performing-arts group.

"The wide range of products and the wide range of ideas this facility presents this community is just unbelievable," Cruz said.

She thanked Blanco for understanding the facility's capacity for economic development.

Cruz also thanked Blanco for working to fund the state's high-speed fiber-optic network for research, the Louisiana Optical Network Initiative, or LONI.

Cruz said that next week the LITE team will give a demonstration at a large supercomputing conference in Nevada, using the high-speed data moving ability of LONI.

Conference participants will be able to see LITE's supercomputers in action - back in Lafayette - and LONI will allow those visualizations to be "very, very high quality," a long-distance demonstration that will be unique, Cruz said.

The LITE staff also announced that LITE's main auditorium will be named for Blanco, in recognition of her involvement.

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