Sapient and MIT win Computerworld 21st Century Achievement Award

Sapient, a leading business consulting and technology services firm, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) were jointly honored as the worldwide winner of the Computerworld 21st Century Achievement Award in Education and Academia during a ceremony held last night at The National Museum Building in Washington, DC. Sapient and MIT were selected by the Computerworld Honors Foundation from a group of five finalists for their work to develop MIT OpenCourseWare (MIT OCW), which was named as the best application of IT in the field of education.

MIT OCW currently offers free and open online access to the educational materials from 701 MIT courses, spanning MITs five schools and all 33 of its academic disciplines. Sapient provided technology strategy, design and implementation services to help MIT realize its vision of delivering its entire library of educational materials and resources in a way that is easy for educators, students and self-learners around the world to navigate and adapt based on their unique needs.

"Recipients of the Computerworld Honors 21st-Century Achievement Awards represent those organizations whose use of information technology has been especially noteworthy for the originality of its conception, the breadth of its vision, and the significance of its benefit to society," said Daniel Morrow, Executive Director of the Computerworld Honors Program.

"We are extremely honored to be recognized with Sapient for our role in promoting education through technology," said Anne H. Margulies, Executive Director of MIT OCW. "Since the launch of our proof-of-concept pilot in Fall 2003, the MIT OCW Web site has received traffic from users in more than 215 countries, city-states and territories, making it a truly global initiative. With 701 courses available - representing just a third of MIT's entire curriculum - users already tell us that OCW is making a difference in their lives, so it is a wonderful honor to be jointly recognized with Sapient by the prestigious Computerworld Honors program."

The Achievement Award winners represent the most visionary applications of information technology. A panel of distinguished judges selected the applications based on originality of conception, breadth of vision, and significance to society. A case study on MIT OCW has already been archived in the 2004 Computerworld Honors Collection, which includes innovative IT applications from 33 states and 26 countries. The entire collection can be accessed at www.cwheroes.org, where it is available to scholars, researchers and the general public worldwide.

The Computerworld Achievement Awards recognize and help raise awareness of the potential technology has to benefit society. We are extremely proud of the work we did with MIT, and the positive impact it is having on educators, students, and self-learners around the world, said Sapient Vice President Mike Detjen.