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WHYY TO BROADCAST THE FRANKLIN INSTITUTE AWARDS

THE FRANKLIN INSTITUTE AWARDS , a one-hour program about the 2003 Benjamin Franklin Medal and Bower Award Laureates ceremony, will be broadcast on TV12 on Sunday, June 29 at 7:00 pm.

The program interweaves scenes from the awards ceremony, held in April 2003 at The Franklin Institute, with feature segments about each of the award recipients and an in depth look at the long and rich history of The Franklin Institute. It will be rebroadcast on Wednesday, July 2 at 10:30 pm.

Laureates are recognized for their distinguished achievements in the fields of aviation, chemistry, civil engineering, computers and cognitive science, earth sciences, electrical engineering, life sciences and physics.

The Bower Award winners are Paul B. MacCready, who created a series of innovations in the field of aviation that expanded the frontiers flight science and technology and Herbert D. Kelleher, the founder and chairman of the board for Southwest Airlines, for his business leadership. Under Kelleher’s direction, Southwest Airlines has realized 29 consecutive years of growth and profitability.

The 2003 Benjamin Franklin Medal laureates include: Jane Goodall for her pioneering studies with chimpanzees; Bishnu Atal for his important work on voice coding, including the concept of speech analysis-by-synthesis coding; and John McCarthy for his multiple contributions to the foundations of artificial intelligence and computer science, including the development of the LISP language.

Widely regarded as the American Nobel Prizes, The Franklin Institute Awards are among the oldest comprehensive science and technology awards programs in the world. Reflecting the spirit of discovery embodied by Benjamin Franklin, the awards have recognized preeminent accomplishment in science and technology on an international level since the Institute was founded in 1824. Previous laureates include: Stephen Hawking, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein and the Wright brothers.

THE FRANKLIN INSTITUTE AWARDS was produced by WHYY-TV. Trudi Brown is executive producer and Kathryn Goree.

Funding for THE FRANKLIN INSTITUTE AWARDS was provided by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Community and Economic Development.