Founders, employees and friends of TIBCO Software Inc. in Palo Alto, CA have joined together to launch the TIBCO Founders' Fund, an MIT endowment designed to promote research and teaching in computer networking, distributed information systems and electronic commerce.
The $3.1 million fund will endow a permanent chair in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and its affiliated laboratories. Chair holders will be senior faculty or senior research staff whose accomplishments have been widely recognized. The TIBCO Founders' Fund will also endow two Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program projects.
Many of TIBCO's founders and employees attended MIT as undergraduate or graduate students. Initial donors to the TIBCO Founders' Fund include 15 MIT alumni, employees and friends of TIBCO.
TIBCO Software Inc. is a provider of real-time e-business infrastructure software. Their products enable the real-time distribution of information through patented technology called the Information Bus���, or TIB���.
President Charles Vest visited TIBCO headquarters to receive the endowment from the contributors. "The TIBCO Founders' Fund is a wonderful symbol of what MIT is all about," he said. "It will bear the name of a great company that our graduates helped form and grow, and it will help generate ideas and technology to benefit society and business."
"We attribute much of our success in life and business to the experience we had at MIT and to the contacts we've developed through our continuing MIT association," said Rick Tavan, executive vice president of TIBCO. "MIT has been very good to us, and now it's time to give something back. We view this endowment as benefiting not only MIT, but also TIBCO and the information technology industry as a whole, as it will help ensure future staff of the highest caliber."
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on December 6, 2000.
