FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Today’s businesses are struggling to pull strategically competitive information from the vast amounts of data they accumulate on a daily basis. Now students in the Sam M. Walton College of Business, University of Arkansas, will be able to develop their expertise in mining business information from large databases through a gift from MineTechT Inc.

The New York, N.Y.-based technology company has donated its genetic programming-based modeling software tool for data analysis to the Walton College. MineTech’s GMAX tool with 50 licenses is valued at $1.25 million. The MineTech software will be used this fall in the master of information systems course on decision support systems and in Walton College’s Information Technology Research Center’s (ITRC) Enterprise Systems business intelligence program for research.  

"We are very grateful for this generous donation of software tools. Our students and faculty will benefit from access to real-world tools," said Bill Hardgrave, executive director of the ITRC and the Edwin and Karlee Bradberry Chair. "This is one of the ways we keep our curriculum aligned with industry needs. We continually want to be on the leading edge of technology, and this tool will be invaluable for our teaching and research."

Kenn Devane, CEO of MineTech, said, "We are delighted to help the ITRC develop and bring data solutions from the boardroom to the classroom. By exposing the students to new technology, they and their future employers will benefit for many years to come."

Greg Dorne, director of Enterprise Systems for the ITRC, assisted in coordinating the gift and will be responsible for implementing it for student and research use. He explained, "The product has specialized uses for direct marketing analysis, forecasting, consumer identification and targeting, and defined business problem solutions."

In 2000, IBM, Wal-Mart and NCR donated hardware, software and services to the Walton College and the College of Engineering. The objective of these multi-million dollar gifts was to set up systems on which students and faculty could learn about large-scale corporate computing through an enterprise computing curriculum in the Walton College’s Information Systems department. These resources are helping the students better understand how data warehousing, e-commerce and other systems work together.

Dorne has coordinated these technology gifts and served as a liaison with each of the companies. He said, "The MineTech gift will be integrated with these previous gifts. The enterprise systems computing options have made a big difference in the lives of our faculty and students. We’ve been able to create a real partnership with these technology giants to our benefit. We want to produce students who are prepared for business and industry. We are also able to conduct significant research that benefits businesses as well."

The ITRC was established in the Walton College in 1999 with a portion of the endowment created by the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation gift of $50 million in 1998. The ITRC provides a forum for multi-disciplinary work on issues related to information technology, facilitates the exchange of information between the academic and business communities, and promotes student interest in the study of information technology.