MUNCIE, Ind.-The Center for Media Design, cornerstone of the $20 million iCommunication initiative funded by Lilly Endowment Inc., opens today on the Ball State University campus.

Located in the Ball Communication Building, the center will serve as a research, assessment and development hub for digital media applications in education, industry and communities. The center's work should earn Muncie a new distinction as "Digital Middletown," a modern-day recreation of the sociological test bed exhaustively studied in the 1920s and 1930s by Robert and Helen Lynd.

"Being based in the most studied city in America makes our center a perfect location for testing content and products and crafting real-life solutions for challenges society faces in mastering new digital technologies," said David Ferguson, director of the center. "The center draws talented people together to create and adapt emerging media for use in every facet of society."

Ferguson said the iCommunication-funded Center for Media Design would provide a foundation for consumer testing on campus as well as in the community. Other testing options include a "smart house," where consumers will be under observation while testing advanced technology products, and a wireless lab dedicated to researching the next best mobile products and content for market. The core benefits of the center come from the collective intellect and collaboration of faculty, staff, students and corporate research and development partners.

"The work going on here shows great promise in transforming how our faculty uses technology to enhance the education of our students," said Ball State President Blaine A. Brownell. "It's our hope that collaboration between the center and private sector partners throughout the world will create good jobs for our city and state, and will serve as a model for other institutions."

The center's first corporate partners include Network Appliance Inc., a leading provider of enterprise network storage solutions based in Sunnyvale, Calif., and Media Logic, creator of the world's first interactive television technology, which was launched from the company's London, England, base of operations.

The university's new testing center, along with an investment in student labs, wireless and broadband capacity, audio and video equipment, and a "converged" newsroom for print, Web and TV, is funded with $7 million from the Lilly grant.

New consumer connections for industries, including explorations of digital cable, DSL, VPNs, WiFi, and broadband and narrowband Internet, will be integral to most digital media projects.

"Ball State is in a rare position of creating its Center for Media Design from the very beginning and building an ideal technology infrastructure for advanced video and multimedia production," said Tom Mendoza, president of Network Appliance Inc.

"NetApp firmly supports educational leaders like Ball State University by making advanced technology solutions available and affordable for today's educational institutions and is honored to be part of the groundbreaking work of the Center for Media Design."

The center's faculty and staff will:

• Model and demonstrate innovative technology methods and applications
• Establish ongoing testing, evaluation and reporting processes
• Foster innovative curriculum to produce media professionals for leadership roles in digital media content production and management
• Pioneer content projects that use inventive applications and provide innovative "white papers" to guide industry best practices
• Support growing digital media industries and assist in generating new business opportunities for Indiana

"Ball State is taking an innovative, forward-looking, and rigorous approach to market testing," said Glyn Radcliffe-Brine, executive vice president of Media Logic. "We see the contribution of the center, and its staff, as exciting and genuinely useful to users."

With product testing planned after the center opens in Muncie-dubbed Digital Middletown-Radcliffe-Brine said his company can potentially extend interactive TV service to any company or organization that wants to communicate with its consumers "in a whole new way" via TV or PC.

"For Indiana, this is a real first," said Radcliffe-Brine of the center's recreation of Middletown as a test bed for the evolving digital world.

(NOTE TO EDITORS: For more information, contact: Kyle Elyse Niederpruem at 317-509-4952 (cell), or kyle@hirons.com)