SEATTLE, April 16 /PRNewswire/ -- After hosting its sold-out TEDx Seattle event today, the University of Washington's Master of Communication in Digital Media (MCDM) is making its own mark on the merging of technology, entertainment and design by launching a collaborative technology platform known as The Media Space, while also honoring a local data visualization company as the first recipient of the University's "Digital Disrupter" award.

The Media Space is where MCDM students, faculty and partners collaborate on solutions for today's highly digital world. Through this "community laboratory," students learn to incubate new digital media communication strategies and platforms with local organizations. Working on a research project for class may mean aiding a local startup with its initial social strategies, or helping other UW institutions with storytelling solutions for their projects. In addition to the open-source platform http://mediaspace.washington.edu, the Media Space is also an innovatively designed physical location, housed within the University of Washington's Department of Communication.

As part of the Media Space celebration, the MCDM has recognized the Seattle-based Tableau Software, thanks to its groundbreaking, free "Tableau Public" software with the inaugural "Digital Disrupter" award. The award is given to a local entity that pushes communication with innovative technology solutions. As the MCDM looks to identify seismic shifts caused by the digital media revolution, the Digital Disrupter Award signals where this impactful movement is most significantly occurring. Presently, the next phase of this revolution is in measurement through digital tools, and the visual presentation of those metrics.

"As an application that facilitates the use of data visualization in websites and blogs, I see 'Tableau Public' as the YouTube of storytelling through data," said Hanson Hosein, the MCDM's Director. "Societal demand for transparency calls for more disclosure from our major institutions in the form of data. Tableau's platform allows us to digest that information and share it with others. It was obvious to me that we should recognize Tableau for this major development, as we all seek to make sense of communication in the 'Data Age.'"

"We are honored to receive this award and proud to support MCDM's effort in digital communications. One of Tableau's goals is to help people tell stories on the web. We've been working hard to create the disruptive technologies needed for this," said Christian Chabot, CEO of Tableau Software.

Appropriately, the Media Space launch follows the MCDM's hosted and sold-out event, TEDx Seattle "Convening Community Through Social Technologies: From Puget Sound to Cape Town" at the Pacific Science Center.

The day has shaped up to be a major celebration of what makes Puget Sound unique: a fearless entrepreneurship, combined with a culture of empathy and engagement. With these "3 E's" the region connects to the world through the power of story and technology. The reception for launch of the Media Space and the granting of the Digital Disrupter Award to Tableau Software, takes place in the Mars Exhibit Room of the Pacific Science Center at 5 p.m., April 16th, 2010.

For more information please visit: www.TedxSeattle.com

About MCDM:

The MCDM is a professional masters program within the Department of Communication at the University of Washington. This unique graduate degree, taught in a highly collaborative environment, shows students how to engender influence and persuasion within a tumultuous media landscape, provides tools to build intelligent communications strategies, and develops analytical skills to extrapolate the future impact of current technologies. http://mcdm.uw.edu/

About Tableau Software:

Tableau Software is the leading provider of fast analytics and data visualization software. Ranked by Inc. Magazine as one of the 500 fastest growing U.S. companies and one of the 25 fastest-growing software companies, its award-winning business intelligence applications can be downloaded at http://www.tableausoftware.com/trial. They enable anyone to easily create and share interactive data visualizations, dashboards and analytics, and can scale to organizations of any size or reach. For more information, please visit http://www.tableausoftware.com

SOURCE University of Washington