Posted: Thursday, October 25, 2012

Anthony Beavers, professor of philosophy and director of cognitive science at the University of Evansville, received the 2012 World Technology Award in Ethics Tuesday night at a ceremony at New York City’s Rockefeller Plaza.

The World Technology Awards are presented in association with TIME, Fortune, CNN, Technology Review, and Science/AAAS and go to the "peer-nominated, peer-elected most innovative people in science and technology,” according to the World Technology Network.

Beavers was recognized for his work in moral theory, which attempts to show how and why existing ethical frameworks are insufficiently suited to the information age and why ethicists need to develop other alternatives.

Thirty World Technology Awards are presented each year, 20 to individuals and 10 to corporations. Winners this year included SpaceX, the first private company to get a rocket to the space station and back; Ekso Bionics, which successfully developed technology to allow paraplegics to walk on their own through the use of a robotic exoskeleton; and NASA engineer Adam Steltzner of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena for his role in successfully landing the rover Curiosity on Mars this past August.

Notable past recipients of World Technology Awards are former Vice President Al Gore, Linux operating system developer Linus Torvalds, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and Facebook lead developer and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg.

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