Dinner with daVinci is the brainchild of a Research Scientist at Ford named Michael Rokosz. His idea was to recognize great achievements by individuals and companies that benefit folks with disabilities.

This year, Trilogy is Presenting Sponsor, with Joe as the Chairman of the Leadership Committee.

Over the past several years, business leaders such as Rick Wagoner, CEO of General Motors, Nick Scheele, COO of Ford Motor Company, and Dr. Dieter Zetsche, CEO of Daimler-Chrysler have held the position of Chairman of the Leadership Committee. This year, as Dinner with da Vinci expands beyond Detroit and the automotive industry, Joe Liemandt accepted the honor of serving as Chairman.

Historically, the majority of award winners have been commercial enterprises. However Joe created a program to broaden the applicant pool: recognizing that great innovation is occurring – often unnoticed – in the halls of universities, Joe invited dozens of schools across the globe, encouraging them to submit an entry.

The winning teams were invited to Detriot to attend the event. As a result, the teams who joined the dinner were University of Texas and a team from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur, lead by Prof. Anupam Basu that successfully won an award for a technology that supports Hindi language translation for children with disabilites.