CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Raymond Ozzie, former chief software architect for the Microsoft Corp., has been chosen to receive an honorary doctor of engineering degree at the 2 p.m. campuswide Commencement ceremony May 13 at the Assembly Hall.
In the early 1990s, his creation, Lotus Notes, was the first networked groupware application for the personal computer, revolutionizing business computing. In 1994, he was named one of seven “Windows Pioneers” by Microsoft because of the impact he and Lotus Notes had on the development of the Windows operating system.
In 1995, Ozzie, was named “Person of the Year” by PC Magazine. Two years later, the U. of I. College of Engineering honored Ozzie with its alumni award for distinguished service. Ozzie earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science at Illinois in 1979.
In 2000, Ozzie was awarded the IEEE Computer Society’s W. Wallace McDowell Award for his “vision, determination, and programming skill in the development of Lotus Notes, a program that enables groups of people to collaborate over computer networks.”
Ozzie is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and is a fellow in the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
