Disney Taps Top Technology Universities for R&D Program

LOS ANGELES, August 12:
Disney has signed up Carnegie Mellon University in the U.S. and the Swiss
Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich to establish collaborative labs to
conduct research and development for several of its business lines.

The initiative will
support Disney’s Parks and Resorts division, Disney Media Networks, ESPN, Walt
Disney Feature Animation, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Disney
Interactive Media Group and Pixar Animation Studios. The labs, established in
Pittsburg and Zurich, will engage in research and development on computer
animation, computational cinematography, autonomous interactive characters,
robotics and user interfaces, among other areas.

Each lab represents a
five-year commitment from Disney to fund a director and seven to eight
principal investigators. Additional staff will include professors, academic
interns, scientific consultants and collaborators. Staff members also will be
encouraged to teach classes.

“Extending our R&D
efforts to these top-notch university partners will take our internal
initiatives to a new level,” said Joe Marks, the VP of research and development
for Walt Disney Imagineering Research & Development, who will lead the
Disney launch of the project and will oversee the labs.

—By Kristin
Brzoznowski