Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/62203
'You Are Here' – U of Georgia Tests Wireless Locator A doctoral student at the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia in Athens has developed the world's first mobile tracking system based on a local area network (LAN). Iris Junglas has developed an 80,000-square-foot "wireless cloud" that allows students NEWSBYTES ■ ONLINE LEADERSHIP SURVEY The Cranfield School of Management in the U.K. has designed an online survey in order to help determine the skills that managers and leaders of the future will require. The questionnaire, created by Cranfield research fellow Dr. Eddie Blass, is directed to the school's 9,500 alumni, business pro- fessionals, and business educators. Participants will be asked to identify which skills, in their opinions, will be more or less important in ten years. Blass would like to ensure a global response; therefore, Blass encourages business professors and educators around the world to complete the survey, posted at www.cranfieldsom.info/future/. ■ IT MAKES SENSE A new joint program from IMD and MIT Sloan School of Business will begin in November in Boston, Massachusetts. "Making Business Sense of IT" will bring together technical and nontechnical decision makers with faculty from both busi- ness schools to explore ways to increase the business value of IT through improved IT governance, an understanding of IT architecture, and enhanced information manage- ment across an organization. ■ CARLETON GETS $1 MIL Carleton University of Ottawa, Ontario, in Canada, has been award- ed more than $1 million to fund four new research projects. Communications and Information Ontario (CITO) awarded the school $706,000 and industry provided an additional $461,000. The four CITO projects receiving funding involve mobile broadband access ($252,000), metropolitan networks ($99,000), Internet access in remote locations ($490,000), and Internet telephony systems ($326,000). ■ NEW IT DEGREE This fall, American University's Kogod School of Business in Wash - ington, D.C., will launch a new tech- nology management degree. The Master of Science in Information Technology Management (MSITM) is a 30-hour, part-time program for information technology practitioners seeking IT management and leader- ship positions within their organiza- tions. Corporate leaders from top area firms such as Fannie Mae, IBM Consulting, and American Manage - ment Systems assisted in the degree's design. ■ LAPTOPS TO GO In a step toward a completely wireless comput- ing envi- ronment, 200 upper-level business students at the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho, will be issued wireless laptops this fall. UI will be the first public university in Idaho to launch such an initiative. The IBM ThinkPads will be equipped with 14" monitors, DVD/ CD drives, and FireWire for stream- ing video capability, as well as a selection of business-oriented soft- ware. The laptops are meant to pro- mote independent learning among students and encourage greater stu- dent-faculty communication. BizEd JULY/AUGUST 2003 53 much like towers in the cellular world," Junglas explains. "Every tower recognizes what mobile device is currently in its range and feeds this information into a central data- base. From there on, finding some- numerous access points, wireless network with PDAs. "We've set up a to track down an individual by tapping a few keys on their body is just a matter of querying the database with your mobile device." During pilot testing of the track- ing system, Junglas had 117 students locate different individuals and loca- tions. "All participants had to do was specify who they were looking for, and a response would come back over their PDA," says Junglas. "Since the participants already knew the ter- rain, we didn't give them exact direc- tions to the person. We could, how- ever, easily add that function." Tracking people and places isn't