IBM
Awards $20,000 Eclipse Innovation Grant to AASU
Savannah,
GA—April 16, 2004—Armstrong Atlantic State University was
awarded a $20,000 Eclipse Innovation Grant from the IBM Scholars Program.
The grant was awarded for Mark Burge's proposal, "Developing
Java Card and OpenCard Framework Applications Using Eclipse and the
JCOP Tools Plugin," that focuses on teaching students to develop
smart card-based security applications.
The Eclipse Innovation Grant competition encourages the active use
of the Eclipse open source software for academic curricula and research.
Each year researchers from around the world compete for one of the
55 awards, which include a $20,000 stipend and an invitation to present
their work at IBM's Eclipse Innovation Workshop.
Since joining Armstrong Atlantic, Burge has been instrumental in the
acquisition of two major grants from the National Science Foundation
(NSF). A $400,000, four-year grant, awards full scholarships to students
with high academic standing and a need for financial assistance. These
scholarships are provided to students majoring in computer science.
Burge also served
as principal investigator (Steve Jodis, co-principal investigator)
for a $60,000, two-year grant from the NSF to develop curriculum to
prepare students for handheld and ubiquitous computing careers.
"IBM's
support increases the impact of our NSF award by extending the results
into smart card development." Burge teaches a course on the development
of software for small platforms-cell phones, PDAs, and smartcards,
one of the few such courses in the United States.
In 2003, Burge was named one of the Best and Brightest Young Georgians
in Georgia Trend’s "40 under 40" issue. He earned his
doctorate at Johannes Kepler University in Austria, where he worked
as a research scientist for the Austrian Science Foundation. He has
also worked at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich,
Switzerland, and Ohio State University’s NASA Commercial Space
Center.
