Engineering alumnus and CoE Advisory Board member Edward Ernesto Iacobucci, BS IE ‘75, passed away June 21, 2013. A man known in the business world for his tenacity, Ed fought a difficult, 16-month battle with pancreatic cancer.

Ed was a renowned technology visionary and serial entrepreneur. Free spirited, profound thinker Ed was bold enough to believe he could change the world. His creativity and innovative spirit made it happen. He is survived by his wife, Nancy Lee (Iacobucci); his three children, Marianna (Eden), William (Iacobucci), and Michelle (Iacobucci); mother, Costantina (Iacobucci); brother, Billy (Iacobucci); and three grandchildren, Sophia, Haven and Estelle. Gifts to memorialize Ed may be directed to the Georgia Tech Foundation, Inc., 760 Spring Street, Suite 400 Atlanta, GA 30308. Donations will establish a scholarship for engineering students with financial need.

Ed was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina to Dr. Guillermo and Costantina Iacobucci. His father, a biochemist, moved his family to the U.S. in 1960 to work for E.R. Squibb & Sons and then Coca-Cola. Roberto Goizueta, then Chairman of Coca-Cola, became a close friend of the family and Ed's godfather. Both men, his father and Goizueta, strongly influenced Iacobucci's business ethos. Ed graduated from Georgia Tech Institute with a B.S. in systems engineering.

A 30-year veteran of the technology industry, Iacobucci began his career at IBM in 1979 where he played a key role in Big Blue's entry into the commercial software and personal computer business. While at IBM Iacobucci held architecture and design leadership responsibilities for IBM DOS and OS/2 and led the joint IBM-Microsoft design team that launched the modern era of multi-tasking personal computer operating systems.

In 1989, Iacobucci left IBM to co-found Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CTXS) and implement his vision of server-based computing. He led the company as chairman and chief technology officer through all of its market and product development phases. Under his leadership, Citrix grew rapidly and was named to both the Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 in record time. In 1997, Iacobucci forged an unprecedented, five-year joint development agreement with Microsoft to include Citrix multi-user capabilities within Microsoft Windows NT Server. He served as Citrix chairman through 2000, when he retired to pursue his vision of Software-as-a-Service – flying aircraft.

In 2002, Iacobucci co-founded and served as president and CEO DayJet Corporation, an on-demand airline service, with the mission of bringing affordable, accessible Per-Seat, On-Demand jet travel to more people and more communities. He and his engineering team built a breakthrough computer system for solving highly-complex optimization problems for the world's first true on-demand air service. His most recent venture was VirtualWorks Group, a company he co-founded in 2009 to tackle data sprawl – an outgrowth of the information age that he helped to create. He founded VirtualWorks in 2011 which helps manage data across many platforms. Iacobucci served as President and CEO until May 20, 2013 when he stepped down for health reasons.

In 1998, he was recognized as the top entrepreneur in the world with the prestigious CNN, USA Today, and Ernst & Young "International Entrepreneur of the Year" award. In 2005, Newsweek included him in its list of "10 Big Thinkers for Big Business", and in 2007 Iacobucci was named to Business 2.0 magazine's list of the "50 Who Matter Now".