IT Achievers Get Recognition, Give Others Ideas

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June 13, 2005 (Computerworld) -- WASHINGTON -- When a group of IT leaders from Acxiom Corp. approached the stage last week to receive a Computerworld Honors award for their grid computing project, among those paying close attention was Clyde Smith, a top IT executive at Turner Broadcasting System Inc.

Smith, whose own efforts to improve the storage and management of digital media at Atlanta-based TBS were also honored at the 2005 awards ceremony here, said he's very interested in grid computing as a potential means of applying more processing power to his newsroom systems.

Taking note of Little Rock, Ark.-based Acxiom's effort to link thousands of two-processor computing nodes into a grid, Smith said with a grin: "We're going to pay a visit."

The Computerworld Honors Program recognizes companies, nonprofit organizations and government agencies from around the world for their visionary use of IT to promote social, economic and educational advancements. Their work is detailed in case studies that are archived online and distributed to some 120 museums and libraries for use by scholars, researchers and the general public.

But the IT projects recognized at the awards ceremony are viewed as models of the future, not icons of the past.

For instance, Aidmatrix, which won the achievement award in the Government and Nonprofit Organizations category, used supply chain technology to create an online system that matches corporate donors with charitable groups in an attempt to improve the delivery of food, clothing and other aid items.

Reducing Waste

The Aidmatrix Relief Exchange system allows participants "to see donations being made available" in real time, said Scott McCallum, a former Wisconsin governor who now heads the Dallas-based global relief network. The main goal is to manage donations and inventories of available goods in order to provide aid more efficiently and prevent donated materials from going to waste.

Connie Boden accepted an award for the Broward County Environmental Protection Department, which developed a paperless inspection process. Image Credit: Asa Mathat

Smith, who is senior vice president for broadcast engineering at TBS, has been a regular attendee of the Honors Program ceremonies and said he routinely finds technology approaches that are worth emulating. "Every year, I pick up two or three great ideas from these extremely brilliant people who have innovative problem-solving skills," he said.

This year's group of honorees included Collin Jardine, manager of computer services at Northern Lights Health Region, which provides medical services to the residents of northern Alberta in Canada. People who see IT as little more than hardware and digits on a screen might have had a hard time maintaining that view after watching Jardine accept an achievement award for Northern Lights.

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IT Achievers Get Recognition, Give Others Ideas 2005 Computerworld Honors Program Winners

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• IT Achievers Get Recognition, Give Others Ideas
• Sidebar: Canadian Health Care Agency Converges Its Coverage
• 2005 Computerworld Honors Program Winners
• Sidebar: IT Is Getting More Important Than Ever, Szygenda Says

• Update: AMD spins off manufacturing to cut costs, raise funds
• Microsoft's (un)secret weapon for winning the BI battle
• IBM launches Bluehouse, a Facebook for business
• More top stories 

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