Simio Awards $5,940 Grant to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Sewickley, Pa. – Simio, a developer of 3D object-oriented simulation software, has awarded a $5,940 grant to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. U.S. News and World Report's survey of American colleges and universities consistently ranks the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill among the best colleges in the nation and among the top research universities.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is now one of over 140 universities worldwide to join Simio’s academic program, which offers Simio’s 3D modeling software to schools at no charge. Simio Academic Edition is fully capable software with no model size limits and includes discrete and continuous modeling, object library development, and 3D animation.

“The faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is committed to providing the best environment for their students to learn simulation,” said Dr. Dennis Pegden, Founder and CEO of Simio. “We are honored to provide them with the best software available to teach their students."

E. Michael Foster, professor of maternal and child health in UNC’s Gillings School of Global Public Health, received the first educational grant from Simio. He and his students are using the program to model the functioning of social services for children and youth. They are developing a model, for example, to examine the movement of at-risk youth into and through the juvenile justice system, and the potential for mental health services to reduce crime in a community.

“Simio has been invaluable for our work,” said Foster. “Discrete-event simulation is well suited to the complexity of our research.”

Students at the school will be able to model systems using intelligent objects and the software’s direct connection to Google’s 3D Warehouse – two features unique to Simio.

The intelligent objects are built by modelers and then may be reused in multiple modeling projects. These objects can be stored in libraries and easily shared. Simio’s connection to Google’s 3D Warehouse gives access to a free online library of thousands of graphic objects – providing students with the ability to solve real-world problems in visually-rich environments.