TEANECK, N.J., Oct. 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Cognizant (Nasdaq: CTSH), a leading provider of consulting, technology, and business process outsourcing services, and Carnegie Mellon University today announced the launch of the Center for the Future of Work, an interdisciplinary research center that has been established at Carnegie Mellon's H. John Heinz III College. Funded with an initial seed gift from Cognizant, the research will focus on technological and social systems that will enable next-generation organizations, with a focus on virtualized or distributed work environments.

The Center for the Future of Work will draw on university-wide, interdisciplinary research capabilities to study the interaction between physical and virtual work spaces that will enable major breakthroughs in the design of work processes and environments for network-enabled organizations of the future. The objective is to create a rich understanding of the interactions among present and emerging technologies, incentives that support knowledge creation and sharing in physical and virtual workplaces, and individual and group behaviors to create evidence-based guidelines for best practices and optimum workplace design.

"We are witnessing a great transformation in the way people and organizations work. Broadband, mobility, and social computing technologies have brought rich new experiences to our personal lives, and increasingly to our workplace as well. And the millennial generation has created new expectations for collaboration and personal engagement that will further enrich the work experience. Carnegie Mellon's strong history of cross-disciplinary collaborations brings together world-renowned faculty whose research interests are well aligned with the creation of work environments in the 21st century," said Francisco D'Souza, President and CEO of Cognizant and a member of the Board of Trustees of Carnegie Mellon.

"Cognizant is an ideal corporate partner in this pursuit because of its desire to innovate and lead its industry in providing integrated solutions and next-generation work systems and environments for a highly diverse global client base. Cognizant itself embodies the collaborative and virtual organization of the future. An example is the company's Cognizant 2.0 knowledge-sharing platform, which will be made available to our research teams," said Ramayya Krishnan, Director of the Future of Work Center and Dean of Heinz College.

The Center will leverage the strengths of Carnegie Mellon's iLab, which is home to campus-wide interdisciplinary research on IT-enabled societal scale phenomena. The Center will engage faculty leaders and their graduate students from a diverse array of disciplines including information systems, organization science, machine learning, human computer interaction, operations research, and computer science.

Following a call for proposals, the Center for the Future of Work has selected eight research projects that will receive immediate funding. Faculty and students from  five schools—the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Institute of Technology, the School of Design at the College of Fine Arts, Heinz College, and the Tepper School of Business—will research topics such as collaboration and communication, knowledge management and knowledge transfer in distributed environments, content development through crowd sourcing, and the tools, incentives, technologies, and methodologies needed to meet the challenges and opportunities facing knowledge-based organizations.

In addition, the Center will also select a small set of proposals to fund as faculty probes to try "riskier" ideas or to engage key faculty around the university. The Center will make use of the global and distributed nature of Carnegie Mellon's programs as test beds for future of work ideas.

About Carnegie Mellon University

Carnegie Mellon (www.cmu.edu) is a private, internationally ranked research university with programs in areas ranging from science, technology and business, to public policy, the humanities and the arts. More than 11,000 students in the university's seven schools and colleges benefit from a small student-to-faculty ratio and an education characterized by its focus on creating and implementing solutions for real problems, interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation. A global university, Carnegie Mellon's main campus in the United States is in Pittsburgh, Pa. It has campuses in California's Silicon Valley and Qatar, and programs in Asia, Australia, Europe and Mexico. The university is in the midst of a $1 billion fundraising campaign, titled "Inspire Innovation: The Campaign for Carnegie Mellon University," which aims to build its endowment, support faculty, students and innovative research, and enhance the physical campus with equipment and facility improvements.

About Cognizant

Cognizant (Nasdaq: CTSH) is a leading provider of information technology, consulting, and business process outsourcing services. Cognizant's single-minded passion is to dedicate our global technology and innovation know-how, our industry expertise and worldwide resources to working together with clients to make their businesses stronger. With over 50 global delivery centers and approximately 88,700 employees as of June 30, 2010, we combine a unique global delivery model infused with a distinct culture of customer satisfaction. A member of the NASDAQ-100 Index and S&P 500 Index, Cognizant is a Forbes Global 2000 company and a member of the Fortune 1000 and is ranked among the top information technology companies in BusinessWeek's Hot Growth and Top 50 Performers listings. Visit us online at www.cognizant.com or follow us on www.twitter.com/Cognizant.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release includes statements which may constitute forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, the accuracy of which are necessarily subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions as to future events that may not prove to be accurate. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied include general economic conditions and the factors discussed in our most recent Form 10-K and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Cognizant undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

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