IBM awards educators $10,000 innovation grants

IBM is singling out 50 professors from 40 different universities -- hailing from 14 different countries -- for $10,000 Smarter Planet Innovation grants.

The grants are intended to help these educators extend the research and education they are offering around city development, transportation systems and health care. As you might expect, the grants are meant to encourage the use of "Watson-like" technologies in those educational efforts. They strong emphasize the use of sensors, smartphones and advanced business intelligence software for deeper -- and automated -- insights into the world around us.

Here are some examples of the projects being recognized:

• State University of New York (SUNY), Buffalo: Associate Professor Adel Sadek is getting support for  work on congesting pricing and U.S. border control traffic patterns.
• Pace University: The focus is on mobile and smartphone applications for transportation, healthcare and education. Students from New York are working with peer teams in Phnom Penh, Cambodia; Delhi, India; and Dakar, Senegal.
• RMIT University (Australia): Sensors and analytics technologies are at the center of research being done into the impact of interconnected cities on transportation, healthcare and energy. The project includes students on the ground in Australia and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com