(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Helping remove some barriers to their success, students from renowned research college Rice University (www.rice.edu) who are engaged in entrepreneurial research and development will receive free access to 50 servers made available from IT hosting provider The Planet (www.theplanet.com).
The partnership with Rice is part of the Planet’s Sand Castle project, which is designed to eliminate the technology costs associated with startup businesses to enable job creation in the midst of what is known as a “jobless economy recovery.” The Planet will support qualifying individuals with great ideas and vision by providing them free servers for a full year. The Planet launched Sand Castle in January, offering 500 server that are outdated for The Planet’s purposes, yet still useful for individuals who have a great idea but lack the budget to pay for The Planet’s paid server offerings.
“We created Sand Castle with the single goal of enabling individuals to begin projects that may have not been possible without the free technology we’re providing,” The Planet chairman and chief executive officer Douglas J. Erwin said in a statement. “In turn, we hope they will create new jobs. We have eight data centers and more than 50,000 servers with enough excess capacity to help capable individuals from Rice and from around the country who are engaged in entrepreneurial endeavors.”
Among the first to benefit from the free servers are students in Rice’s Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business, which ranked fifth in the US in graduate entrepreneurship in a 2009 survey by Princeton Review and Entrepreneur magazine.
“Rice MBA alumni have an incredible track record in entrepreneurship,” said William Glick, dean of the Jones School. “An impressive 22 percent of our graduates have started one or more companies — most in Houston — and the total estimated revenues from those companies is about $1.5 billion annually. The Planet’s invaluable donation is not only an investment in the future of Rice’s entrepreneurs, it’s also an investment in Houston’s economy.”
Rice’s information technology vice provost, Kamran Khan, noted, however, that students in disciplines other than business may also take advantage of the free servers from The Planet. “There are cross-disciplinary design projects within many of the schools and institutes at Rice, and they focus on everything from computer gaming to global health technologies,” Khan said. “Education is Rice’s top priority, and the additional server resources from The Planet can help us provide a richer experience for Rice students.”
The Planet is encouraging interested individuals and companies to evaluate the Sand Castle project criteria and apply online.
