The Kilby International Awards, created to honor unsung heroes and heroines who make significant contributions to Society through Science, Technology, Innovation, Invention, and Education, were selected recently as one of the top 116 Awards in the world by the International Congress of Distinguished Awards.
The Founders, in 1990, named the Awards Program to honor and bring attention to the work of a forgotten inventor, Jack Kilby, (who in the year, 2000, received the Nobel Prize). The Foundation 's international Jury has, since 1990, named 50 Kilby Laureates throughout the world.
In recent years, the founding leadership, in collaboration with teachers and educators in our region, designed and tested a program to share the Kilby Laureates as Role Models for under-served students (grades 5-12) in inner cities, rural and suburban school districts through the use of advanced telecom technologies. The resulting program is:
"The Kilby ScholarChips Videobroadcasts" features Kilby Laureates in live interaction with students. The program has received "rave" reviews from students, parents, teachers, principals, and leaders in talented and gifted education programs.
In 2002 and early 2003, the Kilby Education Network was formed in Texas to help expand the outreach of this resource for humanity and to determine effective methods to distribute the program. This group of teachers and education professionals participated in both the October live Broadcast in Dallas and the April 2, 2003 broadcast which originated from Los Angeles and the University of Southern California, Engineering School.
Recent Collaborations include the Region Ten Federal Education Service Center which assisted in the creation of a brochure to invite teachers and students from metroplex districts to attend the September 2003 Kilby Videobroadcast Series.