CME Group Awards Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales the 2012 Fred Arditti Innovation Award

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Sep 12, 2012, 02:00 ET

CHICAGO, Sept. 12, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- CME Group's Center for Innovation (CFI) today announced that Jimmy Wales is the 2012 CME Group Fred Arditti Innovation Award recipient. Wales is the founder of Wikipedia and is a recognized leader in technology and free information. The award will be presented at the fifth annual Global Financial Leadership Conference in Naples, Florida on Tuesday, November 13.

"Meaningful information at one's fingertips is a vital tool in research," said Leo Melamed, CME Group Chairman Emeritus and Competitive Markets Advisory Council (CMAC) Vice Chairman. "Mr. Wales' creation of a free online collaborative encyclopedia is of incalculable value in mankind's unending quest for knowledge."

"Watching the development of Web 2.0 since the launch of Wikipedia has been exciting," said Wales. "I am honored that CME Group recognizes this achievement and what it means for global technology."

Chosen annually by the members of CMAC, the CME Group Fred Arditti Innovation Award is named after the exchange's former Chief Economist Fred Arditti, who was instrumental in developing the index upon which CME's Eurodollar futures contract, the world's most actively traded futures contract, was founded. The award honors an individual or group whose innovative ideas, products or services have created significant change to markets, commerce or trade. The award strives to celebrate innovation that through practical application has had a positive impact on the economic well-being of individuals, industry or a nation.

Past recipients of the award are:

Robert C. Merton, School of Management Distinguished Professor of Finance at the MIT Sloan School of Management and Myron S. Scholes, chairman of the Board of Economic Advisors of Stamos Partners (2011);
Dr. David Ferrucci, IBM Senior Manager (2010);
Harry Markowitz, Nobel-prize winning economist (2009);
Michael Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP and Mayor of the City of New York (2008);
Eugene Fama, distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business (2007);
Leo Melamed, founder of financial futures and CME Group Chairman Emeritus (2006); and
William F. Sharpe, Nobel-prize winning economist (2005).

To read more about Wales, and follow coverage of the Fred Arditti award presentation, visit CME Group's online magazine and blog, OpenMarkets, at www.openmarkets.com.

About the Center for Innovation
CME Group, the world's leading and most diverse derivatives exchange, established the CME Group Center for Innovation in 2003, to identify, foster and showcase examples of significant innovation and creative thinking pertaining to markets, commerce and financial services in the public and private sectors. Each of CFI's programs aims to explore and communicate the principals behind innovation and more importantly, showcase their application to a broad and diverse audience.

Oversight of CFI is provided by the CMAC, which includes: CMAC Chairman, John P. Gould; Gary S. Becker, Nobel Prize-Winning Economist, Professor of Economics and Sociology, University of Chicago; David D. Hale, International Economist and Founder, Hale Advisors, LLC; Robert C. Merton, Nobel Prize-Winning Economist, John and Natty McArthur University Professor, Harvard Business School; Michael H. Moskow, Vice Chairman and Senior Fellow for the Global Economy and former President, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs; Robert J. Shiller, Stanley B. Resor, Professor of Economics, Yale University Chief Economist, Macro Securities Research, LLC.

Additionally, the following CME Group senior officials serve as members of CMAC: Leo Melamed, CME Group Chairman Emeritus, CMAC Vice Chairman; Terry Duffy, CME Group Executive Chairman and President; Phupinder Gill, CME Group CEO; Charles Carey, CME Group Vice Chairman; Jack Sandner, Retired Chairman.

For more information on the CME Group Center for Innovation, please visit http://www.cmegroup.com/cfi.

About CME Group
As the world's leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, CME Group (www.cmegroup.com) is where the world comes to manage risk. CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes, including futures and options based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural commodities, metals, weather and real estate. CME Group brings buyers and sellers together through its CME Globex^® electronic trading platform and its trading facilities in New York and Chicago. CME Group also operates CME Clearing, one of the world's leading central counterparty clearing providers, which offers clearing and settlement services across asset classes for exchange-traded contracts and over-the-counter derivatives transactions. These products and services ensure that businesses everywhere can substantially mitigate counterparty credit risk.

CME Group is a trademark of CME Group Inc. The Globe Logo, CME, Globex and Chicago Mercantile Exchange are trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. CBOT and the Chicago Board of Trade are trademarks of the Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, Inc. NYMEX, New York Mercantile Exchange and ClearPort are registered trademarks of New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc. COMEX is a trademark of Commodity Exchange, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Further information about CME Group (NASDAQ: CME) and its products can be found at www.cmegroup.com.

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