Video: FCC Chairman Praises San Leandro's Fiber Optic Loop

This old town had its technology coming-out party Wednesday when Julius Genachowski, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, visited here to praise the high-speed fiber optic loop known as Lit San Leandro.

His visit highlighted the fact that, thanks to local software entrepreneur Patrick Kennedy, San Leandro is developing an Internet "superhighway" to rival those of better known tech meccas like Palo Alto.

In this Patch video, San Leandro Mayor Stephen Cassidy introduces Genachowski, whose visit and speech constitute a high-level endorsement of the city's efforts to shake off its dowdy image and get some 21st Century glitter.

The catalyst for all of this is Kennedy, who has spent the last 34 years building a  located west of the San Leandro BART station.

OSIsoft is the Windows of industrial processes -- a virtually ubiquitous platform that controls the operations of chemical, plastics, petroleum and energy generation plants.

In 2011, OSIsoft took a $100 million investment by the Kleiner Perkins venture capital firm to pump some liquidity into the family-owned company.

Last year the company won a Presidential Export Award for making its plant-processing software a global brand in heavy industries.

Now the fiber optic loop -- which Kennedy is building with a $3 million private investment-- gives San Leandro a chance to compete with local high tech cities such as Mountain View, Palo Alto, Santa Clara and Sunnyvale.

Read more about San Leandro's budding high tech economy in Patch's TechLeandro archives.