Celebrating IT Heroes

Maryfran Johnson   Today’s Top Stories   or  Other Computerworld Stories  

Dynamic Data Center and Virtualization Drives Operational Excellence at Emory Healthcare Windows Vista® Migration: What Really Happens? A Customer's Perspective Real-time collaboration and development with IBM Rational Team Concert streamlines any project Beyond consolidation: five reasons why you should start virtualizing The Total Economic Impact of the Altiris Total Management Suite Software Securing and Managing the Endpoints: The Case for Convergence SaaS Solutions for Remote Systems Management Compterworld Technology Briefing: Intelligent Users Use Business Intelligence Computerworld Report- Large Enterprises Pay More for IPAM Sign up to receive Default Resource Alerts

June 3, 2002 (Computerworld) -- This time around, there is a greater poignancy to the theme of our annual Computerworld Honors program: "The Search for New Heroes." The everyday miracles accomplished by IT organizations everywhere - so easy to overlook in this battened-down economy - clearly play a more notable role in the weightier concerns of a changed world.
Tonight in Washington, at a fancy awards ceremony in a beautiful old building, Computerworld will name a handful of winning IT projects and programs, winnowed from 59 international finalists. They cut across a broad swath of industries, from business, manufacturing and medicine to academia, government and science - all of them nominated by the CEOs of leading technology companies. But whether these finalists win and take home a lovely hunk of crystal doesn't matter much, really. What everyone should remember is the innovation, the energy and the creativity behind every one of these IT projects.
Starting on page 26, we've profiled a few of the finalists in this year's Honors program. Just reading the brief descriptions of some of their accomplishments makes your throat choke with emotion and remembrance. Consider, for example, the team of 15 IT managers and engineers from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey who kept traffic flowing - and emergency crews moving - in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. They worked 24/7, slept in their cars and fought back their own grief for 75 colleagues lost in the collapse of the World Trade Center towers. They probably never felt like IT heroes. They saw work that needed doing, and so they got it done.
From the other side of the world, we will honor projects that advance our global understanding. Like the technology-based distance learning made possible to 15 sub-Saharan countries through the African Virtual University. Or the Rhinowatch project, the first full-blown census of the rare white rhinoceros, accomplished through pattern recognition of digital images.
On the medical frontier, we'll admire the work of Operation Lindbergh, which has broken new ground in enabling robot-assisted telesurgery across the Atlantic Ocean. Using advanced communications technologies, the actions of a French surgeon based in New York were transmitted to a Strasbourg operating room, then the video image was bounced back to New York in less than a fifth of a second.
In the field of techno-science, we'll highlight the work of astrophysicist Geoffrey Marcy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the way the customized code and algorithms he and a colleague created eventually led to the discovery of dozens of planets beyond our solar system.
Closer to home, we find our everyday IT heroes behind the technology that

Continued...
1 | 2 | NEXT  

Print this Story

Send Us Feedback

E-mail this Story

Digg this Story

Slashdot this Story

Windows users indifferent to Microsoft patch alarm, says researcher Tech jobs down sharply but not out Apple yanks antivirus advice from its Web site More top stories...

Microsoft slates 8 bug updates for year's final Patch Tuesday De Beers tries to force spoof news Web site offline over fake ad Microsoft confirms Yahoo's Lu to run online services

Review: The new MacBook Air, now with extra SSD goodness Thin as ever, the latest Air offers up to twice the storage and snappy performance. Cool Stuff: Your 2008 Holiday Gift Guide We've got an array of economical, expensive, and just plain weird tech gifts for your friends and family. Massive botnet returns from the dead, starts spamming The spam-spewing 'Srizbi' botnet that was shut down two weeks ago has been resurrected and is again under criminal control, say security researchers. Elgan: Why you can't trust 'friends' on Facebook Facebook is popular and growing -- especially with criminals. Here's why they love it. Windows 7 Get the latest news, reviews and more about Microsoft's newest desktop operating system More Continuing Coverage Windows 7 Voting Technology Google's Chrome browser Economy in turmoil: Latest news and tips iPhone 3G Bill Gates moves on Windows Vista A to Z Mac A to Z 2008 Salary Survey Find wage data for 50 IT job titles. More Special Reports 2008 Premier 100 IT Leaders 2007 Premier 100 IT Leaders 2008 Best Places to Work in IT 2007 Best Places to Work in IT 2008 Salary Survey 2007 Salary Survey 2006 Salary Survey 2008 IT Forecast 2007 IT Forecast 40 Years of Computerworld Top 12 Green-IT Users The FAQs About Going Green IT Schools to Watch iPhone: One Year Later Global Mobile Your Next Data Center Management: Reinventing IT Stop Data Leaks Web 2.0 Security Surviving Disasters Managing Storage Virtualization The Lean Storage Machine Storage on Trial Can Web 2.0 Save BI? Bypass These BI Potholes All Zones Business Continuity Zone The File Data Management Zone Security Management Zone The SAS Zone Business Intelligence and Analytics Zone The Enterprise Search Zone Software as a Service Zone The Security Zone See your link here

Turning information into a Competitive Advantage Turning information into a Competitive Advantage View this webcast now! Go to the webcast  Solving Real World Storage Problems Download this whitepaper now. As your storage needs grow, the cost of managing it need not spiral out of control.Our vision - Universal Distributed Storage - is about: mainstreaming high endstorage functionality solutions built on industrystandard hardware a broad partner ecosystem Our next generation of Server and NAS products - Windows Server 2003 R2 and Windows Storage Server 2003 R2 - will help you further reduce your storage costs. Download this executive briefing  Six Key Issues - Strategies for Virtual Machines and the Data Center Download this white paper today! (Source: Juniper) Virtualization of servers is the strongest trend in today's data center. While virtualization can reduce costs in many ways, it has a variety of implications in disaster control, capacity planning, system management, and security. This white paper focuses on six key issues - and strategies for dealing with them - that will occur when application servers are combined into large virtual machine servers. Download this white paper  White Papers Read up on the latest ideas and technologies from companies that sell hardware, software and services. 8 Things You Need to Handle Today's Network Traffic Next-Gen Load Balancing: 3 Keys to Successful Delivery of Advanced Web Apps Building a Reliable and Dynamic Data Center with PAN Manager by Egenera View more whitepapers

• Windows users indifferent to Microsoft patch alarm, says researcher
• Microsoft slates 8 bug updates for year's final Patch Tuesday
• Tech jobs down sharply but not out
• More top stories 

• Too good to ignore: 6 alternative browsers

• Apple yanks antivirus advice from its Web site

• Microsoft spells out Vista SP2 contents

Read more news 

• Myth: Every system has Internet access

• Christmas Lottery

Read more Shark Bait 

Security Directions: Strategies and Tactics for Protecting Your Enterprise in 2009 Attend the Security Directions virtual event, with sessions available live on December 16, 2008 and available on-demand from December 17 though March 17, 2009. Some topics that will be covered include: Best Practices around Data Leak Prevention (DLP). What exactly is security due diligence and why does it matter? Cloud security and privacy. End-point security - rising gas prices have caused an increase in the number of remote workers, which leads to more security issues. Register now for this event that happens on December 16, 2008, but will also available on-demand from December 17 - March 17, 2009. Register Now!

Five Ways ERP Can Help You Implement Lean Getting in operational shape or becoming lean has been a primary goal of many companies over the last few years. Why is Lean so popular? Because it delivers what is truly needed in today's highly competitive world: shorter lead times, improved quality, reduced cost, increased profit, improved productivity, and enhanced customer service. Download this white paper now!