IBM overhauls exhibit at Epcot’s Innoventions

Walt Disney World formally cut the ribbon this morning on its newest addition to Epcot’s Innoventions, an exhibit underwritten by the pavilion’s oldest sponsor.

IBM’s “SmarterPlanet” exhibit includes a stand of kiosks featuring a “match” game that promotes how IBM’s computing technologies are used to solve various problems and a poll in which guests vote on the most pressing issues facing the planet. A second area dubbed “Runtime” allows guests to create avatars of themselves that then run, jump and dance through a video game. Sections of the exhibit have been open for months, though today’s ceremony – with the obligatory appearance by Mickey Mouse – made it official.

Though SmarterPlanet is new to Innoventions, IBM isn’t. The computing company is the only corporate sponsor that has been at Innoventions since it opened in 1994, an especially long run considering sponsorship contracts are typically limited to just three years to keep exhibits from becoming dated.

Another sponsor, however, is out, as KUKA Robotics has pulled the plug on its “Rockin Robots” exhibit.

Disney says KUKA’s sponsorship contract recently expired. And with KUKA’s robotic arms now being featured in a separate Innoventions exhibit – a simulator ride sponsored by defense contractor Raytheon – KUKA no longer needed to underwrite its own area.

For more on the big-money business behind Innoventions, click here for an Orlando Sentinel story from last May. And for a bit more on the Raytheon/KUKA exhibit, click here for a story from October.