Only 124 organizations worldwide were recognized by ESRI from a field of 300,000 sites and 1,000 finalists using its GIS software. Ball State received one of only two awards handed out in the telecommunications division for innovative use of GIS technology for its work on the Digital Middletown project, WiMAX testing and RF mapping.

Ball State was honored for its continued efforts to test the value and impact of long distance, high-bandwidth wireless technology in a community. From that data, maps are created to indicate signal strength for specific areas. The information and data collected from this project is proving valuable to telecom companies when looking for areas to build communication towers to service rural communities.

Bizhan Nasseh, assistant vice president for IT and director of OWRM, and Paul Shanayda, GIS coordinator and president of afterimage GIS, traveled to San Diego June 20 to accept the award at ESRI's annual conference.

"This recognition not only accentuates Ball State's innovative approach toward technology, but also our commitment of making a difference in Indiana communities and beyond," Nasseh said. "This is a tremendous honor, and one of which we are all extremely proud."         

For a complete list of 2007 Special Achievement in GIS winners, visit http://events.esri.com/uc/2007/sag/list.