Last modified: Thursday, August 7, 2003
Indiana University and Purdue University win 2003 EDUCAUSE Award for Excellence in Networking
The nation's leading association for information technology in higher education, EDUCAUSE, has chosen Indiana University and Purdue University to receive its 2003 Award for Excellence in Networking for I-Light: Indiana's Optical Fiber Network. This prestigious award recognizes strategic, innovative networking programs or practices that improve the quality of campus network services through new or enhanced network architectures, infrastructure, integration, management and/or operational practices. The EDUCAUSE Network Award committee commended the collaboration between university, city and state entities to create I-Light.
"The state's large research universities have seen a remarkable return on investment from I-Light in initiatives that allow the sharing of complex computation and very large data over the optical fiber network," said Michael A. McRobbie, IU's vice president for information technology, chief information officer and vice president for research. "In addition, I-Light is one of the advantages that the state has been able to leverage to promote Indiana as a destination for life sciences and biotechnology investment. We are pleased that such a leading organization as EDUCAUSE has recognized the significance of I-Light and the collaborative effort that went into its creation."
The state has recently granted funding to extend I-Light into other areas of Indiana. This phase, called I-Light2, promises further economic benefits for Indiana. I-Light2 fits well with Energize Indiana, which was passed by the Indiana General Assembly and calls for the state to focus on four main industries, including life sciences and information technology, to enhance its economy.
"I-Light provides a key building block in the further development of high performance networking infrastructure in the state as well as the developing national cyber infrastructure," said Brian D. Voss, IU associate vice president for telecommunications.
Representatives from IU and Purdue will be honored in November at the EDUCAUSE annual conference in Anaheim, Calif. The conference draws more than 6,000 professionals involved in the management of information resources in higher education.
For more information about EDUCAUSE and the EDUCAUSE Awards, go to https://www.educause.edu.
