eNaugural Ball Shows How Far Region’s Tech Sector
Has Come

By Michael P. Bruno
Washtech.com Staff Writer
Thursday, January 18, 2001

Vice President Al Gore might have played a legislative role in helping the development of the Internet, but it is President-elect George W. Bush who will be the beneficiary of the first-ever presidential inaugural ball with a high-tech theme this Saturday.

The eNaugural.com Ball, which will be held at the National Press Club and is sponsored by a number of high-tech organizations, bills itself as “a celebration of and by the high tech community.” It will compete with the more traditional balls sponsored by various state societies.

The fact that there is an eNaugural.com Ball shows just how far technology has come while President Bill Clinton has been in office. In 1993, e-mail was just beginning to come to office desktops, the Internet was still mainly a tool for computer science academics and “wireless” often meant a cordless phone in one’s home.

Several local high-tech firms are electing to help make the eNaugural.com Ball a virtual reality. The event’s Webcast starts at 9:30 p.m. EST, Jan. 20, from the National Press Club Ballroom Complex in Washington, D.C. The ball itself runs from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m.

The online inaugural celebration will offer three hours of online event coverage with interviews with prominent attendees, highlights of the inauguration, live music and interactivity with eNaugural participants via chat, e-mail and telephone. Expected attendees include House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and Congressman Tom Davis (R-Va.).

Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second human to walk on the moon, will serve as honorary master of ceremonies. Meanwhile, Sharespace Foundation, where Aldrin is chairman, is an eNaugural sponsor. Other firms helping out include HiBall Events, Party DC Events, the Indian CEO Council, MonthlyBuzz.com, cvent.com, JVC, Events of Purpose LLC and Base Technologies.

Washtech.com is also a participating sponsor. MicroStrategy executive Mark Bisnow will anchor the Webcast. The event will be produced and distributed live by video streaming firm TVWorldwide.com Inc. of Chantilly, Va. Plus, a 360-degree video
camera provided by BeHere Corp. of California will offer “a personalized and interactive” view of the entire 360-degree eNaugural
ball scene.

Ball organizers specifically hope those with disabilities find the event easily accessible using “webcapting” streaming video, a process developed in concert with TVWorldwide.com’s Abletv.net channel, the first global Internet television channel for disabled. TVWorldwide.com and AbleTV.net have worked to promote live and archived video streaming with closed captioning and audio description to aid in Web site accessibility for the disabled. Portions of the proceeds from the
event also will go to benefit digital divide charities.

With so many local companies and high-tech personalities either involved or attending, the ball might appear as if it were just another — though more elaborate — Washington-area networking event. But Tanya Hilleary, president of Reston, Va., public relations firm Riverbyte Communications, which is donating its services to the ball, disagrees.

“It’s more of an inaugural ball than a networking event,” Hilleary said. “It really celebrates what the tech industry has done for the country in the past several years, what it will do in the future and what it has done for the Washington community.”

For example, Radford, Va.-based Quad Media will demonstrate a “chad-
less” voting machine that is handicapped accessible, Hilleary said.

Around 1,000 people are expected to attend, Hilleary said.

Reported by Washtech.com, http://www.washtech.com