We are delighted to announce that the Buddhist Digital Resource Center has recently been awarded the 2023 Aming Tu Prize, given by the Dharma Drum Institute of Liberal Arts (DILA), for outstanding creative contribution to digital Buddhist studies. Our Executive Director Dr. Jann Ronis and our Chief Technology Officer Elie Roux will receive the prize next April at the award ceremony in Taipei. 

Executive Director Dr. Jann Ronis said, "BDRC is flattered and humbled to receive the prestigious Aming Tu Prize. We offer our grateful thanks to all involved, including Ven. Huimin Bhikshu, Professor Jenjou "Joey" Hung, and our nominators. Dharma Drum and DILA's innovations and widely used resources have always inspired BDRC, so we are especially thrilled to receive this recognition and honor." 

The prize committee recognized our archival platform, the Buddhist Digital Archives (BUDA), for both its practical benefits to researchers and its technological breakthroughs. BUDA offers a suite of research tools, including a powerful search function that allows for multi-language queries across multiple repositories of Buddhist texts, as well as open image sharing and image annotation using IIIF. Using linked open data, BUDA facilitates data sharing and collaboration with other Buddhist digital projects and has become a nexus in a collaborative network of Buddhist scholarship. 

The award ceremony will be held in the spring in Taiwan, in conjunction with the 30th Anniversary Conference on Taiwanese Buddhist Digital Resources, co-hosted by DILA and National Taiwan University. The Aming Tu Prize is named in honor of Professor Aming Tu (1952-2016), who was one of the founding members of the Buddhist Studies Internet Database, the vice-director of the Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association (CBETA), and the Digital Database of Buddhist Tripitaka Catalogues.

The Aming Tu Prize, which is awarded every three years, recognizes outstanding creative contribution to Digital Buddhist Studies and innovative use of information technology. The contribution must involve innovative use of information technology, and ideally should combine published, peer-reviewed research with the development of research-related tools or resources.

DILA hopes that this prize will not only recognize excellent work already completed, but also encourage new projects and fresh approaches. The 2020 Aming Tu Prize was awarded to Stefan Baums and Andrew Glass for Gandhari.org: A Research Environment for G?ndh?r? Buddhist Texts and Beyond. 

The Buddhist Digital Resource Center is so grateful to the Dharma Drum Institute of Liberal Arts for this great honor!