Faces of 5G showcases American entrepreneurs innovating with wireless technologies and how they are pioneering new businesses, transforming their communities, and empowering women, children, and minorities. The project is led by Matt Weinberg, a Boston-born economic development advocate and principal at Max Ventures, an early-stage venture capital fund in New York City. His stints at the New York City Economic Development Corporation and Small Business Administration’s Office of Investment and Innovation gave him the eye to spot entrepreneurs and compelling opportunities for public-private partnerships. I caught up with Matt while he was crisscrossing the country to catalogue these exciting developments. He describes how 5G effectively “widens the pipes” of communications infrastructure, making autonomous vehicles, zero latency mixed reality, instantaneous large-scale data analysis, and ubiquitous IoT connection possible.
Faces of 5G features users talking about what’s to come with 5G in their own words. In Chicago Britney Robins, Founder and CEO of the Gray Matter Experience works with minority students to help them build new businesses with a 12 week entrepreneurship training program. Edwin Rivera from Metaphrasis Language & Cultural Solutions enables near-instantaneous translation for non-English speakers in health and emergency settings. Having reliable, faster networks literally saves lives. Joshua Hale of the Big Shoulders Fund brings connectivity to the inner-city classroom.
In Cincinnati, 5G is poised to be a great equalizer as entrepreneurs will be able to access and leverage the most advanced technology to build their business. Candice Matthew Brakeen of the Hillmann Accelerator which invests in women and minorities to help them start businesses describes how 5G will help them develop solutions with autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence, big data analytics, and blockchain. Another exciting front for 5G is "mixed reality" (a combination of virtual and augmented reality – AR and VR), the combination of human sensing with seamless network sensing. With what Weinberg calls “the overlay of digital assets on to the physical world,” 5G will allow small virtual reality devices to operate wirelessly and ubiquitously. This will transform dozens of industries, especially retail and gaming.
