Awards

Bicentennial Medal (2020)

Honorary Degree (2017)

L.H.D

Doctor of Humane Letters

Bloomington Commencement

Bloomington, Indiana

Presenter: Michael A. McRobbie

About Fred Luddy

Fred Luddy, a native of New Castle, Indiana, may have dropped out of Indiana University because he spent all of his time programming instead of going to class. But, with acquired knowledge and skills in hand, he headed to Silicon Valley and the Amdahl Corporation, an early competitor to IBM in the high-end mainframe computer market.

Luddy is best known as an information and technology pioneer who founded ServiceNow. Established in 2004, ServiceNow now employs 3,500 people and retains a market value of more than $15 billion. He currently serves as chief product officer after previously serving as both president and chief executive of the company for several years.

During his career, Luddy has created a competitive operating system for IBM's mainframe offering, a set of performance-management improvements for the IBM mainframe environment, a PC videoconferencing and collaboration system, and a UNIX/LINUX-based application development environment.

Indiana University awarded Luddy with an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters in 2017 at its winter commencement ceremony.

Luddy has remained an active part of the Indiana University community, serving on the Dean's advisory council for the School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering. In 2018, Luddy became the namesake for Luddy Hall at IU's School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering. In 2020, Luddy received IU's Bicentennial Medal in recognition of his distinguished contributions to the university.