Intel Announces Second-Round Grants of $29 Million to 13 Universities in Its Technology for Education 2000 Program

A Total of $90 Million Donated to 25 Schools for High-End Research

SANTA CLARA, Calif. – Oct. 16, 1997 -- Intel Corporation today announced the second round of grants in its three-year Technology for Education 2000 program. The grant program is designed to support university research and curriculum development at key universities through the donation of high-speed multimedia computers, workstations, servers, and networking hardware and software. In addition to the traditional areas of engineering and computer science, the grants will fund projects in a wide range of other fields, including anthropology, astrophysics, medicine, biotechnology, business, public policy, journalism and the arts. The program -- originally projected as an $85 million investment -- awarded first round donations of $61.2 million to 12 universities in August 1997. Grants to 13 universities in this second phase of the program total more than $29 million, bringing the overall total donations to over $90 million.

Microsoft is teaming up with Intel to equip the computers with the latest versions of Microsoft software, development tools and support. Each machine donated by Intel will be configured with Windows NT* 4.0, Office 97 Professional Edition and Visual Studio Enterprise Edition. Microsoft is also providing each school with several subscriptions to Microsoft Developer's Network (MSDN) Universal, an annual membership program which ensures that developers are kept up to date with the latest programming technology and information from Microsoft.

Second Phase Projects
Most of the projects proposed by the universities will benefit several different departments or divisions within the winning schools. A few examples illustrate the diversity of funded programs:

• Stanford will develop a system allowing surgeons to operate on images displayed on a workstation using a haptic device that provides sensory feedback and transfers motions over a network to a robot arm that performs the surgery.
• Princeton will set up a networked cluster to carry out large-scale, grand challenge experiments in astrophysics, computational fluid dynamics and biology.
• The schools of engineering and journalism at Columbia will develop next-generation, content-based, networked multimedia technology for "digital storytelling."
• Yale's Digital Media Center for the Arts – a new facility for cross-disciplinary discovery and creation in art, history of art, architecture, drama and music – will set up new digital "creation stations" and digitize the treasures of the university's extensive art collection.
• Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute will use the new equipment to enhance cutting-edge research and teaching, from engineering a computer model of the human knee for robotic surgery, to designing better human-computer interface, to delivering education around the world.
• The University of California, San Diego will install linked workstations to support high-level consultations among Chinese, Japanese, American, Korean and Russian academics and officials with the goal of reducing mistrust in the North Pacific region.
• The University of North Carolina will create two new laboratories: the Laboratory for Networking and Internet Technologies and the Hardware Systems Teaching Laboratory.
• One of Rice's projects will develop technology-based support of public policy decision making based on "what-if" simulations of global events, integration of language translation technology into real-time communication, videoconferencing and document archiving.
• The University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School will develop a system to analyze stock market data by transaction or "tick," enabling better understanding of the ebb and flow of financial markets.
• Johns Hopkins will research several areas of 3-D medical imagin, including proteinmorphosis – multiresolution calculation and visualization of protein structures allowing manual and visual manipulation of molecular structure.
• Duke will model the electrical activity of the heart and brain, leading to better understanding of cognitive processes and prevention of sudden cardiac death.
• UCLA will develop an environmental assessment system to evaluate the social and economic impacts of environmental change in the greater Los Angeles urban area.

"We're delighted that Intel is helping Harvard expand its multimedia technology infrastructure," said Paul C. Martin, dean of the division of engineering and applied sciences and professor of pure and applied physics at Harvard. "Students of languages and literature, arts and music, law, science, technology, and medicine throughout the university and around the world will benefit from enhanced communication and access to materials that include images and sound."

The criteria for winning a grant in the Technology for Education 2000 program included the academic excellence of the university, the potential beneficial impact of the grant to students and faculty, and the commitment of the institution to support the grant objectives. Winners were chosen by a committee of Intel Fellows (the company's highest technical position), management and senior researchers.

"We are very pleased to be able to support some of the best universities in the country with this grant," said Tim Saponas, Intel's manager of corporate contributions. "Intel's Technology for Education 2000 program allows us to engage the creative energy and technical expertise of the leading research universities and work with them to apply Intel architecture to campus computing needs in a wide range of academic fields."

Next Steps
With this second and final round of grants now decided, Intel and the winning schools begin the real work of implementing the proposed projects. Equipment will begin arriving for installation at winning schools by next month and the will begin the process of producing documentation to evaluate and measure project results.

* Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.

Second-Round University Grants

*Grant totals are based on fair market value (FMV) prices for purchased equipment and materials