Six Times Tech Shaped the Future
By: Matt Sowell | Categories: Tech History
This summer, the Institute announced the AI Hub, Tech’s cross-campus center for artificial intelligence. This collaborative approach empowers Georgia Tech to become a global pioneer in the AI domain.
Innovation is nothing new for the Institute. Georgia Tech has a long history of being an early adopter of future trends that have become commonplace. “Tech has always been focused on creating an atmosphere for creativity and experimentation that can serve our community and beyond,” says Alex McGee, Georgia Tech’s university archivist. “If you think about how the school was structured originally with the academic building and the shop building, they gave students and staff a real-world space to work through their ideas from the classroom. Holding that space allows for the innovation we see, and I think that legacy has continued over the years,”
she says.
While instances of Georgia Tech embracing the future are numerous, we narrowed down six times when Yellow Jackets were on the forefront of innovation.
1897 - First Textile Engineering School in the Southern U.S.
Georgia Tech’s pioneering spirit has been a part of the Institute’s DNA since the beginning. Established in 1897, the School of Textile Engineering, originally named the A. French School of Textiles, opened with the help of a generous gift from Pittsburgh manufacturer Aaron French.
Lyman Hall, Georgia Tech’s president at the time, believed that Tech needed a program in textile engineering in response to the booming textile industry in Georgia and South Carolina.
1954 - The First Sorority at an Engineering School
With only five women students on campus in 1954, Ella Lillian Wall Van Leer, wife of Georgia Tech President Blake R. Van Leer, saw a need for community. She was an alumna of Alpha Xi Delta at the University of California, Berkeley. Her interest in expanding access for women at Tech was personal. McGee says that Van Leer’s daughter, Maryly, wanted to study engineering at Tech, but was barred. She went to Vanderbilt instead. “Ella worked with the Women’s Chamber of Commerce in Atlanta to advocate for the Board of Regents to change the rules barring women from studying at Tech,” says McGee. “Once women were allowed to study engineering and architecture, she worked with the Women’s Chamber of Commerce again to create the first scholarship for women students.” Each of the five women enrolled at Tech in 1954 received an invitation to tea in the Van Leer residence, where they would be introduced to several Alpha Xi Delta alumnae. The women were greatly inspired and took steps to form a chapter at the Institute. In 1954, the installation of Alpha Xi Delta’s 65th chapter was announced at Tech, making it the first sorority at an engineering school. The chapter was established with just seven members, including the original five Yellow Jackets who were invited to Van Leer’s home.
1961 - Library Innovation
Dorothy Crosland has a legacy at Georgia Tech. Working in the library for almost 50 years, she climbed the ladder from assistant librarian to director of libraries. “She was a fierce advocate for women, doing some persuasive research and campaigning to the Board of Regents for why Tech should admit women,” says McGee.
Crosland saw the value of enhancing science libraries with equipped information specialists. With the help of Georgia Tech faculty, Crosland organized two conferences on Tech’s campus related to the field, which took place in 1961 and 1962. Due to the success of these gatherings, the School of Information Science was established at Georgia Tech in 1963. Over the following decades, the school evolved and eventually became the College of Computing in 1990.
2009 - The Largest Cleanroom in the Southern U.S.
In 2009, Georgia Tech unveiled The Marcus Nanotechnology Building, which currently serves as the central hub for the Institute of Electronics and Nanotechnology, one of several interdisciplinary research institutes at Tech. The Marcus Nanotechnology Building houses the most extensive cleanroom laboratory in the Southeastern United States. The space is devoted to creating, studying, and assembling biomedical and semiconductor devices. The lab boasts 15,000 square feet of lab space, strategically divided into two areas: semiconductor research and development, and biological applications. The lab features state-of-the-art technology, including an electron beam lithography machine, one of approximately only 100 worldwide.
2015 - The First A.I. Teaching Assistant
Georgia Tech was making headlines about artificial intelligence before it was part of everyday conversation. In 2015, a chatbot named Jill Watson became the teaching assistant for an online course focusing on “Knowledge-Based Artificial Intelligence.” Ahead of her time, the digital assistant helped graduate students navigate the class by answering complex questions, solving problems, and giving advice as a human TA would. “Students in the course did not know that Jill was AI. She was actually so quick to answer questions, they had to include a time delay so that students wouldn’t suspect she was AI,” says McGee. “Some students eventually thought there could be AI in use in the class forums. It was only after the final exam that Jill’s identity was revealed. The need for secrecy was because it was a blind experiment to essentially test the believability of an AI TA like Jill.”
2023 - The Only School With its Own Interplanetary Spacecraft
A small briefcase-sized spacecraft is 3.7 million miles away from earth. It’s operated by a team of 10 students at Georgia Tech who check in daily to monitor the spacecraft and execute scientific studies. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California has given Georgia Tech ownership of the Lunar Flashlight satellite. The spacecraft’s original goal was to circle the moon and search for frozen water on the lunar surface. However, when the Lunar Flashlight failed to achieve lunar orbit, the mission pivoted to using the spacecraft as a tool that will shape future space exploration. Today, the Lunar Flashlight orbits the sun slightly ahead of earth. The team of Yellow Jackets uses the satellite’s lasers, detectors, radios, and imaging devices. They also use the spacecraft’s star-tracking device as a camera to take photos of planets and demonstrate various forms of classical optical navigation.
