Your humble editor managed to score an invite to the 32nd Annual GE Edison Awards. This year the event was located at the Museum of Natural History at Central Park, which was an incredible location. GE does a great job on always choosing an exciting venue. Mary Beth Gotti and Shelli Sedlak were the chairpersons and Jerry Duffy gave the welcome. Attending the Edison Awards was a who’s who of the lighting industry with the typical A-list members attending.
Special Citation for Creative Lighting Effects: “Northern Lights” on John F. Kennedy Center
Award of Merit: Arte Museum Ahrenshoop
Award of Merit: Drees & Sommer Headquarters
Award of Merit: Dulles Metro Rail/Siler Line
Award of Merit: Ministry of the Interior of Baden Wurttemberg
Award of Merit: Northrup Auditorium Renovation
Award of Excellence: LWL-Museum of Art and Culter in Muenster
Award of Excellence: ST. Louis Art Museum East Building
Award of Excellence, Award for Environmental Design: Square Inc. Headquarters
It’s worth noting that at a GE Press Conference earlier in the day, Beth Comstock, GE’s Rockstar, talked about the GE brain trust, which, in essence, is a marriage between lighting and their corporate software center in the East Bay (San Francisco Area.) GE announced a development agreement with Qualcomm. Though their joint development, lights in retail stores will be able to detect locations within the tens of centimeters! There was a Qualcomm spokesman at the press conference and both GE and Qualcomm agreed that they cannot contemplate all of the future uses. After the meeting, I asked Maryrose Sylvester, President and CEO, GE Lighting, about Lighting as a Service and she explained that this direction was important because the information that the lights gather create real value to the end users.
It is exciting to see GE move in such a bold direction. At the cocktail hour before the Edison Awards, there was much discussion about GE Lighting and the data direction in which they are moving.
Click here for more information.