Dave Troy got the news today while he was on Baltimore Brew’s labor-history-themed May Day bike ride: Baltimore won the “popular genius grant” for $1,000 from the Philadelphia-based Gigabit City.

The city’s entry, assembled by the same people who spearheaded the Bmore Fiber campaign, makes Baltimore eligible for the bigger-deal prize: the $10,000-plus Gigabit Genius Grant.

On its website, the competition is described thusly: designed “to spark a worldwide conversation about practical applications for ultra-high bandwidth technologies. It was inspired by Google’s Fiber for Communitites project and funded by tech, business and civic leaders in Philadelphia.

Essentially, Baltimore submitted a good-enough idea (remote tele-surgery) to get lots of votes from the city’s supporters. Baltimore’s 600 votes put us over the top and made Baltimore a finalist for the  bigger prize. (and presumably some other idea.)

What is a gigabit? We refer once again to their website.

“Gigabit is a super-fast way that computers can connect to each other. This means that systems and applications that could never have existed before will be able to exist. What systems? That’s what this website is designed to find out.”