UC DIGITAL MEDIA INNOVATION PROGRAM ANNOUNCES "DIGIVATIONS" EVENT AND FORMATION OF THINK TANK

Unique Event Unites Leaders In Technology, Business, Industry, Education To Define New Business, Research And Development Ventures

Fueling the continuation of California's distinctive leadership in shaping the future of digital technology worldwide, the University of California Digital Media Innovation Program (DiMI) will assemble some of technology's brightest thinkers at the first DIGIVATIONS, a unique invitation-only gathering of global leaders in the fields of digital technology and media held Sept. 24-26 at Santa Barbara's Bacara Resort & Spa.

This first-of-a-kind event will bring together about 300 key convergence industry players, venture capitalists, creative talent and digital visionaries, along with leading University of California research faculty from all nine UC campuses and three national laboratories, creating a unique community that is expected to continue beyond the initial three-day think tank.

"DIGIVATIONS embodies convergence, the congregation of some of the finest minds in industry and technology with California's legendary educational and research institutions to exchange ideas and collaborate creatively to define and develop new businesses, research and development ventures," said Steve Berman, DiMI's associate director of strategic business alliances and convergence technologies development.

Nearly one-third of the nation's digital technology and media companies are based in California. The Bay Area, alone, accounts for at least 25% of all jobs in such fields. The numbers, statewide, continue to grow rapidly as entrepreneurial R&D-driven firms advance new applications for digital information technologies.

At the same time, California industries -- including Internet, healthcare, communications, eCommerce, manufacturing, and agriculture --increasingly depend upon innovative applications of digital media technologies. The opportunities and needs for research partnerships that advance the frontiers of digital media are both immediate and substantial.

Based at UC Santa Barbara, DiMI seeks to cultivate partnerships, speed the development of new technologies, and generate new business opportunities to fuel California's economy. "DiMI integrates the nine University of California campuses and three National Laboratories to create an unbiased resource, enabling partnerships tofuel core technology development across multiple application areas," said DiMI Program Director JoAnn Kuchera-Morin, an associate dean of computing and technology at UC Santa Barbara.

Also representing the University of California research elite will be dozens of prominent faculty whose work centers around intelligent environments, virtual reality, visualization, distance learning and wireless networks, distributed computing, among others. Never before seen demonstrations will include the networking of a million Internet-connected personal computers worldwide in the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence; a fully automated traffic incident deployment system involving robots and virtual reality; real-time 3-D human gesture tracking to Intelligent Sound and Image Processing Software; GPS and remote sensing for space and agriculture; and new developments in audio -- from projects in acoustics, sound representation, and tools for music composition and performance.

Program highlights and speaker information are available at the DIGIVATIONS Web site, http://media.igert.ucsb.edu/

Press registration is also available on the site. DIGIVATIONS is an extension of the ongoing DiMI Technology Forums that have been hosted to date by QUALCOMM, Microsoft/WebTV, Cisco, among others, as well as the upcoming Technology Forum on October 11, 2000 to be hosted by Warner Bros. Founding sponsors include Red Herring, Softnet Systems, Microsoft WebTV, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Parasoft, Sun Microsystems, TheHollywood Reporter, STMicroelectronics, Sapient, SLO Media.com, and Bender/Helper Impact. MB5 is a program sponsor.

The University of California Digital Media Innovation Program (DiMI) is a matching grants program that partners California companies and UC systemwide researchers in research and education to advance digital media technologies. The DiMI Program also supports research that will accelerate the application of new digital media technologies to California needs. The DiMI Program produces new knowledge, technology innovations, and highly skilled people to sustain California's leadership. It is part of UC President Atkinson's Industry-University Cooperative Research Program, which accelerates UC contributions to California's global digital technology economy. The DiMI Program has over $3.5 million to contribute in grants in the 1999-00 fiscal year, which will be matched at least dollar for dollar

by private sponsors. DiMI was launched in February 1998 with $1.5 million in annual base UC and State funds. It has already funded at least 33 new research partnerships with California firms (two-thirds are small businesses) and UC faculty and students resulting in over $14 million in partnerships.

To contact DiMI directly, call (805) 893-8798, fax (805) 893-5551 or contact the DiMI website.