UW’s Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science & Engineering (Ed LaCasse photo)
“A few weeks ago, I interviewed Madrona Venture Group’s Matt McIlwain and asked him pointedly to name one missing ingredient that’s holding back Seattle’s technology community. The veteran venture capitalist didn’t hesitate, suggesting that outsiders (and even Seattleites to some degree) don’t fully appreciate what’s being built around them …
“Well, at least some in New York City are paying attention. The New York Times published a fabulous piece today on The University of Washington’s computer science and engineering department, raising the profile of a department that often lurks in the shadows of MIT and Stanford.
“Reporter Nick Wingfield, who is based in Seattle, writes that the computer science department – through the leadership of professors Oren Etzioni, Ed Lazowska, Hank Levy and others – has ‘quietly established itself as the other West Coast nexus of the information economy.’
“That’s pretty high praise, and it comes at a time when the UW CSE department is gaining momentum. It recently hired a number of highly-regarded faculty members, including Carlos Guestrin from Carnegie Mellon University; Ben Taskar from The University of Pennsylvania; and Jeff Heer from Stanford University. Tech leaders, including Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen; Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos and many others, have stepped up to help with financial support.”
Read the rest of the post here.