Contact: Bob Nelson For immediate release
(212) 854-6580 October 20, 1997
rjn2@columbia.edu
Intel Donates $2.5 Million in Computers
To Columbia for Advanced Research
Columbia University will receive a grant of computer equipment worth $2.5
million from Intel Corp., the world's largest semiconductor manufacturer.
The high-end multimedia workstations, servers and networking hardware
and software will be used for research and curriculum development. Intel is to
deliver the machines under its Technology for Education 2000 program over a
three-year period.
The workstations run at speeds of up to 300 megahertz and use the
Windows operating system. They are to be put to work in fields - such as
biomolecular simulation and computational finance - in which UNIX-based and
other computers have heretofore predominated. Intel and Columbia will monitor
the computers' use in research applications.
"The long-term success of our industry and other industries depends on the
quality of U.S. research universities, their computing infrastructure and the
skills of their students," said Tim Saponas, Intel's corporate contributions
manager. "We are pleased to be able to support some of the best universities in the
country with state-of-the-art tools to carry out computationally intensive research
projects."
The Santa Clara, Calif., company has announced donations worth a total of
$90.3 million this year to 25 universities to support university research and
curriculum development in a broad spectrum of computationally demanding
areas. Intel also manufactures personal computer, networking and
communications products.
"This grant of high-end Intel machines, peripheral equipment and
software will allow Columbia University to expand a number of existing activities
and begin significant new research, educational and curricular efforts," said
Raphael Kasper, associate vice provost, who has coordinated Columbia's grant
application.
About half of the University's new equipment will be used to support cross-
school collaboration to develop next-generation multimedia technology for digital
storytelling. Columbia's Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied
Science and the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism will jointly work with
the Columbia New Media Technology Center (CNMTC) to develop new software
that facilitates multimedia content generation, multimedia searches, mobile
distribution and scalable Internet multimedia services.
"The combination of high performance and pervasiveness of the PC
architecture makes this Intel equipment an ideal platform to implement this new
media technology, which will eventually be available to everyone," said Dimitris
Anastassiou, director of the CNMTC and professor of electrical engineering.
Columbia's broadcast journalism department will use the Intel computers
to upgrade to all-digital operations. "Intel's generous grant allows us to complete
the infrastructure upgrade to the journalism school," said Andrew Lih, director
of technology at the school's Center for New Media. "The Center will continue
cross-collaborative research with the engineering school by using Intel equipment
to investigate multimedia searching and storytelling applications."
Some computers will be allocated to the Institute for Learning Technologies
at Teachers College to advance programs that bring digital learning to New York
public schools, and some will be installed at the engineering school's Botwinick
Gateway Laboratory. Other research programs receiving computers include the
Center for Applied Probability, the Graduate School of Business, Lamont-Doherty
Earth Observatory and the Biosphere 2 Center.
This document is available at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/pr/. Working press may receive
science and technology press releases via e-mail by sending a message to rjn2@columbia.edu.
10.20.97 19,196
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