In a special ceremony on the University of Michigan campus Sept. 22, Computerworld Smithsonian Awards will recognize 14 U-M projects that use computer technology in innovative ways. U-M President Lee C. Bollinger, Chief Information Officer Jose-Marie Griffiths and Computerworld Smithsonian Awards Director Dan Morrow will speak at the 3 p.m. ceremony in the Koessler Room of the Michigan League. A reception will follow.

As 1999 laureates in the Computerworld Smithsonian Awards program, all 14 projects will join the Smithsonian Institution‘s Permanent Research Collection on Information Technology. Along with 472 other projects from around the world, they were formally inducted during an April ceremony on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. One project, the Virtual Microscope, was among 50 finalists in the awards competition. The U-M projects are the work of faculty, researchers and staff from the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts; the College of Pharmacy; M-Pathways; the Office of Instructional Technology; the School of Art and Design; the School of Education, and the School of Social Work. Project descriptions will be available at the ceremony.

Founded in 1989, the Computerworld Smithsonian Awards program recognizes projects that use advanced technologies to “address real problems, affecting real people, in the real world.” To document and provide access to these examples, the awards program maintains an online archive of oral histories, transcripts, images, artifacts and case studies at http://innovate.si.edu.