A&T and IBM Announce Technology and Research Collaboration

GREENSBORO - North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and IBM today announced an agreement to strengthen the collaboration between the University and IBM in research, academic programs, grants, independently funded programs and recruiting.

Through a Shared University Research (SUR) award from IBM, N.C. A&T is establishing a Linux-based research computing grid built with IBM hardware, software and maintenance. This research grid will utilize leading-edge technology to significantly increase the computing and storage resources available to University research faculty and staff. Increased processing speed and storage capacity will help reduce the duration for some of its research projects, ranging from Agriculture to Life Sciences. A&T also is utilizing IBM software provided through the IBM Scholars Program.

“Under this initiative, A&T researchers and faculty will gain expanded access to advanced IBM computing technologies and research expertise,” said Dr. Earnestine Psalmonds, A&T vice chancellor for research. “This increased collaboration will be extremely beneficial to A&T as one of the leading research institutions in the UNC system and as we strive to be recognized as one of the leading global research institutions.”
IBM and A&T also plan to collaborate on the following projects:

• Assessing the requirements and benefits of moving to a ThinkPad university. A&T has implemented ATIP (Advanced Technology Initiative Program) for the School of Nursing. This pilot has the nursing curriculum textbooks and other reference material loaded on IBM ThinkPads for the students and faculty participating in the pilot. The pilot will be assessed to determine how best to utilize the technology to enhance the learning and teaching experience for students and faculty.
• Activities focusing on the development of students for corporate leadership. Thursday’s forum between top IBM executives and A&T students is an example of actives available through the partnership.
• Defining and implementing technology initiatives in support of the FUTURES vision to strengthen our leadership role in interdisciplinary education.

IBM is one of the largest corporate recruiters and employers of A&T graduates.
IBM’s Shared University Research (SUR) program awards computing equipment (servers, storage systems, personal computing products, etc.) to colleges, universities and institutions of higher education around the world to facilitate research projects in areas of mutual interest, including: Life Sciences, Grid Computing, Autonomic Computing and Deep Computing. The SUR awards also support the advancement of university projects by connecting top researchers in academia with IBM Research personnel, along with representatives from product development and solution provider communities. IBM awards approximately 50 SUR grants per year worldwide.

The IBM Scholars Program provides faculty and researchers at higher education institutions with access to IBM software technologies and related resources to enable teaching, learning and research. Using a Web-enabled download tool, educators can access and choose from a comprehensive menu of IBM software, including selected middleware and developer products such as DB2 Universal Database, WebSphere Application Server, MQSeries, VisualAge for Java, and Lotus Domino--all available for AIX, Windows and Linux platforms. The Scholars Program also offers a limited number of software products available for IBM eServer zSeries, pSeries and iSeries systems. Most of the software is available as a free download.

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