Monday, April 30, 2018

Novell Founder's Foundation Gives $4.7M For Medical Cannabis Research

The Ray and Tye Noorda Foundation, the charitable foundation created by Ray Noorda, the now deceased CEO of Novell, and his wife, have made a $4.7M gift to the University of San Diego School of Medicine, to fund research on using cannabis for possibly treating autism. According to UC San Diego, the gift will go towards research on cannabidiol (CBD), a non-psychoactive compound found in cannabis, to potentially treat severe autism. When they died, Ray and Tye left their wealth to the Ray and Tye Noorda Foundation's Charitable Trust (RTNF). Cannabis is better known for its use as marijuana, although the plant is seeing a resurgence of interest in the medical area due to legalization efforts nationwide both for medical and recreational use. Noorda's efforts to grow Novell from its base in Utah to become the dominant company in the local area networking (LAN) market in the 1980's and 1990's--along with similar efforts at WordPerfect--directly led to the seeding of the industry which has become Utah's Silicon Slopes today.