New Educational Website Celebrates the Accomplishments of Engineer
To coincide with the 20th Anniversary of the Draper Prize, Draper Laboratory, in conjunction with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), has developed a new website for students and adults to learn about the impact engineers have had on our daily lives, and to celebrate the accomplishments of the 32 engineers who have been awarded “Engineering’s Nobel” since 1989.
The website, www.draperprize.org, will bring visitors through several scenes of “daily life” and highlight the Draper Prize-winning engineering technologies that help a person through his or her ordinary day. These technologies include GPS, the Internet, the Personal Computer, and Satellite Communications. The site also will educate visitors about the history and background of the prize, and provide information about the Prize’s namesake, Dr. Charles Stark Draper.
“Many of today’s greatest engineering innovations are so commonplace that they are taken for granted. The Draper Prize and its accompanying website celebrate the technological advances that have dramatically affected how we live. We hope that recognizing these achievements will inspire the next generation of engineers and scientists to continue to explore and innovate,” said Jim Shields, President and CEO of Draper Lab.
One of the world's preeminent awards for engineering achievement, The Charles Stark Draper Prize was established by the NAE and endowed by Draper Laboratory to recognize innovative engineering achievements that have led to important benefits and significant improvement in the well being and freedom of humanity.
The Prize recognizes achievement in all engineering disciplines, and engineers worldwide are eligible to receive it. The Prize is awarded annually during National Engineers Week in Washington, D.C. The 2009 recipient, Robert H. Dennard, will receive his award on Feb. 17 for the invention of dynamic random access memory.