NCSA NEWS

Larry Smarr Named Champaign County's Most Valuable Citizen

At its annual meeting on February 11, the Champaign County Chamber of Commerce presented its Most Valuable Citizen Award to NCSA and National Computational Science Alliance Director Larry Smarr.

Past Chamber of Commerce Chair Joe Beard stated that "Smarr's vision helped create NCSA in 1985, putting Champaign County on the map as one of five such centers nationally. Since then, NCSA has been a trailblazer in coupling the leading edge of supercomputing with personal computer software, virtual reality, and telecommunications." Most recently, Smarr was recognized by both President Clinton and Vice President Gore during their visit to the University of Illinois.

Smarr was also the guest speaker at the chamber meeting. He made the following points during his talk:

• The community needs to find a way to expand its information infrastructure so that the entire county and the university all are connected at sufficient bandwidth.
• The community should take electronic commerce seriously, so that as people do more online shopping they will be able to buy from local businesses.
• The community should commit itself to CCNet to an even greater degree by creating a paid full-time position. The person in this position would be responsible for, among other things, collecting and marketing information about technology-related successes in Champaign County.
• The community should begin an evolution of its online presence from individuals accessing documents to a real sense of community online.

The Champaign County Most Valuable Citizen Award recognizes individuals who make an ongoing commitment to the Champaign community and its development.

Larry Smarr's keynote address can be heard in RealAudio at: http://zuul.ncsa.uiuc.edu/arrott2/media/larrycofc.ram  
 
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