IT Achievers Get Recognition, Give Others Ideas

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.