Furman honored at Innovision Awards

Furman University was well represented at the 16th Annual InnoVision Awards Celebration that took place Nov. 11 at the TD Convention Center.

Furman received two of the 10 awards presented to organizations, businesses and individuals that were recognized for advancing technology in South Carolina, while a third award went to ActivEd, an educational initiative founded by Furman health sciences professor Dr. Julian Reed.

The InnoVision Awards Program, established by Deloitte in 1999, is presented by the McNair Law Firm.

Furman received InnoVision’s Community Service Award for its collaborative project with the Greenville County Sheriff’s Department and other departments within the university. The team employed the use of drones to study the correlation between streetlight illumination and crime in the New Washington and Poe Mills neighborhoods of Greenville.

The community outreach project is one of many that Furman students and faculty are undertaking to revitalize Poinsett Highway, the corridor that connects the university to downtown Greenville.  More information about the university’s drone project may be found here.

Furman also received the Hall of Fame Award, “an accomplishment that is hard-earned and rarely awarded by the judges,” according to an InnoVision spokesperson. The award recognizes Furman’s continued contributions to excellence in innovation and education. It was the third time Furman had received the award in the 16-year history of the InnoVision program.

ActivEd received the Innovation in Education Award for developing accessible products and programs to foster learning and promote healthy lifestyles through movement and physical activity in schools. Furman health sciences professor Reed is among the nation’s leading researchers exploring the relationship between issues such as obesity, cognition and academic achievement. His current study at Charter Legacy School in Greenville shows that active students are displaying marked improvement in cognitive measures.  For more about Dr. Reed’s work, visit this link.

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