The Annual Linden Award recognizes the individual or team with the most innovative in-world project that improves the way people work, learn, and communicate in their daily lives outside of the virtual world.
 

In 2009 co-winners Studio Wikitecture and Virtual Ability shared the $10,000 prize.  In January the award program started with more than 130 entries;  this was narrowed to ten by May 21^st, with the final winner announced June 1, 2010.

For 2010 the prize goes to The Tech Virtual Museum Workshop (the SLurl is noted below).  Launched in 2007, The Tech Virtual Museum Workshop entered SL with plans for developing faster and more effective collaborative exhibits for museums worldwide through the use of an online platform.  In 2009 Tech Virtual expanded their core concept to extend beyond prototype exhibits to virtual prototyping of an entire museum gallery, and to share that with stakeholders such as administrators, curators, exhibit designers, and sponsors.  This project is creating an “open source” collection of science and innovation-based design concepts that can be used by institutions all over the world.  Through The Tech Virtual Museum Workshop, designers and educators from a diverse and international professional community can share input and resources.  The Tech Virtual also began to prototype and test a new and participatory exhibition, called Expolab, to institutions such as Citilab Cornella, the Science Centre Singapore, and the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation at the National Museum of American History, which built Places of Invention.

The Tech Virtual has gone beyond the "virtual museum" concept into one in which the virtual exhibits become a precursor of the real construction.

The top ten finalists also deserve recognition for their contributions and are listed alphabetically:

1) The Library and Archives at NASA CoLab in Second Life Submitted by: Archivist Llewellyn from NASA's CoLab

2) The Nonprofit Commons in Second Life: Submitted by: Glitteractica Cookie from Nonprofit Commons

3) Open University: A Third Place in Second Life: Submitted by: Elsa Dickins from The Open University in Virtual Worlds

4) Play2Train™: Submitted by: Moriz Gupte from Play2Train

5) The Power of Story: Karuna and the Uncle D Story Quest : Submitted by: Jenaia Morane & Marty Snowpaw from the Karuna Project and Lorelei Junot from the Alliance Library System

6) sionChicken and sionCorn: Submitted by: Sion Zaius from Sion Labs

7) Skoolaborate: Engaging all Students for Learning: Submitted by: Westley Streeter from Skoolaborate

8) The Tech Virtual Museum Workshop: Submitted by: Agent Heliosense from Tech Virtual

9) Teaching, Research, Art, Architecture: The University of Western Australia (UWA) Submitted by: Jayjay Zifanwe from the University of Western Australia

10) Virtual Helping Hands: Submitted by:  Saxet Uralia from Virtual Helping Hands

Tech Virtual Museum Workshop

SLurl: http://slurl.com/secondlife/The%20Tech%202/186/203/33