STANFORD, CA, November 06, 2002—Aplia Inc., a new-generation educational publisher, today announced its company and product debut along with significant customer deployments and financial backing. The company provides technology-based learning solutions that encourage more effort by students and save time for professors. Led by an executive team experienced in academe and online and traditional textbook publishing, and co-founded by one of the nation's leading economists, Aplia is poised to alter the way technology is used in the classroom.
Stanford Graduate School of Business faculty member Paul M. Romer has been awarded the prestigious Horst Claus Recktenwald Prize in Economics for outstanding achievement and contributions to the field of economics and to the improvement of society as a whole.
The honor, accompanied by a 25,000 Eurodollar (approximately US$23,000) monetary prize, is among the world's highest accolades honoring academic economists, and is conferred once every two years. Romer, who accepted the award at a ceremony in Germany's Nuremberg Castle on Oct. 31, is the fourth recipient of the award, which is financed by a foundation established in 1993 by Hertha Recktenwald, the widow of the internationally known economist for whom the prize is named. The last time the prize was awarded, it was conferred on Joseph E. Stiglitz who, a year later, shared the Nobel Prize for Economics with two others including former Stanford Graduate School of Business dean Michael Spence.
Romer, who is STANCO 25 Professor of Economics at Stanford Business School and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, was selected by a committee of internationally recognized scholars who cited the outstanding academic quality of his work, especially his contributions to the development of "endogenous growth theory," or "new growth theory." This body of work, which grew out of his 1983 doctoral thesis, made two basic points: Economic growth is driven by new ideas and advances in technology. And by creating appropriate economic incentives, the government can increase the trend rate of growth in a way that can make all citizens better off. Prior to his theory, economists assumed economic growth in a physical world was constrained by diminishing returns and scarcity of resources, and the only offsetting force—"serendipitous" discovery—could not be understood using standard economic tools.
In the classroom, Romer is contributing to the understanding of economics. He recently co-founded Aplia, a web-based publisher of teaching materials and interactive lessons for colleges. Its first product, "Principles of Microeconomics," was introduced this fall to roughly 8,000 students in 127 colleges and universities. The company offers web-based tools and content for professors teaching economics courses, including market experiments where students trade with each other in real time and machine-scored homework assignments with graphs that students create and modify.
The first two recipients of the Recktenwald Prize were French economist Edmond C. Malinvaud, and Princeton economist Paul Krugman.
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Susan Prager Marketing Specialist 650-413-6678 sprager@aplia.com |