By Gabe DiMaio
Amherst, NY – News of a major and historic gift to the University at Buffalo was announced Thursday.
UB's president, Willaim Greiner, announced the major gift to the university's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
He said the "in kind" gift of state-of-the-art software and technology is from a Texas company - Electronic Data Systems, or EDS.
"The value of the gift is $53.5 million dollars. EDS is the world's largest independent technology company," said Greiner. "Their gift to us is the largest gift in UB's history."
According to the dean of the school of engineering, Mark Karwan, this gift will put UB's engineering students and the university on the cutting edge.
"This software will allow engineering students to conceive, design engineer and validate products using the same tools used by today's leading manufactures," said Karwan.
"This software will help us to continue to attract top notch students and faculty and help prepare the workforce of tomorrow."
And according to Jeremy Jacobs, the chair of the UB Council and honorary chair of UB's Generation to Generation Capital Campaign, the $53 million dollar gift is historic for another reason.
"With this gift, the campaign for UB has surpassed its original $250 million dollar goal. To date the totaling raised in the campaign stands at $281.8 million," said Jacobs.
This software and technology from electronic data systems will help train over 700 engineering students a year and will be included in the curriculum for about a dozen courses.