Allen School News

GeekWire‘s “Geek of the Week” this week? UW CSE professor Carlos Guestrin:

“Carlos Guestrin wants to bring big data and machine learning to the masses.

“Guestrin, the CEO and co-founder of GraphLab, is the Amazon Professor of Machine Learning in Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington. He’s a leader in the field of machine learning, who was named one of the 2008 “Brilliant 10″ by Popular Science magazine, received the 2009 IJCAI Computers and Thought Award for his contributions to Artificial Intelligence, and was awarded a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.

“Meet our new ‘Geek of the Week,’ and continue reading for his answers to our questionnaire.”

Previous UW CSE “Geeks of the Week”: Julie Kientz, Melissa Winstanley, Oren Etzioni (also 2012’s “Geek of the Year”), Lauren Bricker, Yaw Anokwa, Wendy Chisholm, and Marty Stepp.

Read more here. Read more →

TechFlash reports the location of Alibaba’s new Seattle office.

“This is the Chinese e-commerce giant’s second U.S. office after a space opened recently in Silicon Valley. Alibaba has been recruiting engineers in Seattle, but the location of the office was not revealed …

“Alibaba is subleasing 8,000 square feet on a short-term basis from Synapse Product Development … Alibaba is looking for a longer term office with as much as 60,000 square feet.”

Seattle … it’s where it’s happening!

Read more here. Read more →

A superb UW CSE Distinguished Lecture by Hadi Partovi of Code.org. Links to streaming and downloadable video of Hadi’s talk here.

Next up: Marti Hearst on Thursday – information here. Read more →

Shyam Gollakota and Joshua Smith

Brier Dudley writes in the Seattle Times:

“Cisco claims the next big thing in technology — the “Internet of Things” — is a $19 trillion opportunity for businesses and governments.

“The Internet of Things refers to billions of sensors, cameras and other data-gathering gadgets and related services emerging to monitor, analyze and manage the world …

“They’ll all need electricity and connectivity so you’d think half of the $19 trillion might end up spent on batteries, and the labor to replace them over and over again.

“Battery makers shouldn’t break out the bubbly just yet, though.

“A team of researchers at the University of Washington have timely new technology that could make the Internet of Things easier to set up and run.

“They figured out how to power and connect devices that run without batteries, plugs or cables. Instead, they’ll pull power out of thin air and piggyback on nearby Wi-Fi signals.

“Computer-science faculty members Joshua Smith and Shyam Gollakota have been wowing the academic community with demos of this technology – and steadily boosting its capabilities – for years.

“Now they’re starting a company to begin producing truly wireless, battery-free sensing devices that could go on sale within a few years.

“Called Jiva Wireless, the company was briefly mentioned during a research showcase last week at the UW’s Computer Science & Engineering department.”

Read more here. Check out the research here and here. Read more →

UW CSE Ph.D. alum Anne Condon, the head of the CS department at the University of British Columbia, talked to TechRepublic about her career in academia and the power of teaching computer programming:

“Anne Condon had to choose her college major while she was in high school. She’d never seen a computer, so she picked computer science. It sounded like a promising field.

“Luckily, she loved it the moment she began programming …

“It felt like a field in which women were very strong, she said. … Condon has devoted her life to developing better undergraduate computer science programs, particularly for young women.”

Anne received the 2014 Technical Leadership ABIE Award from the Anita Borg Institute, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2012, received the 2012 University of Washington College of Engineering Diamond Award for Distinguished Achievement in Academia in 2012, received the 2011 University of Washington Computer Science & Engineering Alumni Achievement Award, and received the A. Nico Habermann Award from the Computing Research Association in 2010. She was elected an ACM Fellow in 2010.

Read more here.

  Read more →

GeekWire writes:

“Demand for computer science education at the University of Washington is reaching record levels, and now the school is taking action to accommodate it.

“The UW today submitted an official request to architects interested in designing a second computer science and engineering building that “will allow a dramatic expansion of our activities in education, research, and interaction with the campus, the region, and the nation,” according to the nationally-recognized CSE department.”

Read more here. And read our post here. Read more →

Today the University of Washington published a “Request for Qualifications for Architectural Services for Computer Science & Engineering II” – a second building for UW CSE that will enable a dramatic expansion of our activities in education, in research, and in interaction with the campus, the region, and the nation.

The University is requesting a state appropriation, and will seek significant private donations for the remaining funding of the project.

Eleven years ago – in October 2003 – UW dedicated the Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science & Engineering, funded through a public/private partnership. Coupled with investments by the state since that time, the Allen Center has enabled remarkable strides by UW CSE.

The state has funded further growth for UW CSE, and additional investments seem likely. However, the Allen Center is filled to capacity. Additional facilities are necessary if additional growth – demanded by students, by industry, and by our economy – is to be accommodated.

Construction of CSE II will enable (assuming continued state funding for enrollment increases):

• Doubling the number of CSE degrees granted annually, from roughly 300 to roughly 600. More in the long term.
• Continued growth in introductory course enrollment; extrapolating recent trends and examining some of our national peers suggests that demand could grow by 50-100% in the next 5 years, easily to more than 6,000 students/year.
• Dramatic expansion in the availability of current and newly-designed upper-division CSE courses for non-majors. These students will then be positioned for far greater success in whatever career they may choose (because every field is becoming an information field!), and additionally will be well qualified for employment at the many hundreds of companies in the region that are challenged in competing with the Amazons, Microsofts, Facebooks, Googles, and hot startups for top computer science majors.
• Continued growth in research activities and funding, and in the technology transfer and startups that are a byproduct of CSE’s research activities. (CSE’s annual research funding increased from $7 million in the year prior to the dedication of the Allen Center, to $20 million as of the 10th anniversary. In recent years, UW CSE startup companies have raised more than $200 million in venture funding; they employ hundreds of people in the region.)

Expansion of UW Computer Science & Engineering an essential investment in the future of our region, and will provide a dramatic increase in the opportunity for kids who grow up here to be first-tier participants in our innovation economy.

Onward!

(Read a case statement here.) Read more →

John Markoff reports in the New York Times:

“For a little over two hours, the balloon ascended at speeds up to 1,600 feet per minute to an altitude of 135,908 feet, more than 25 miles. Mr. Eustace dangled underneath in a specially designed spacesuit with an elaborate life-support system. He returned to earth just 15 minutes after starting his fall.

“‘It was amazing,’ he said. ‘It was beautiful. You could see the darkness of space and you could see the layers of atmosphere …’

“Mr. Eustace cut himself loose from the balloon with the aid of a small explosive device and plummeted toward the earth at a speeds that peaked at more than 800 miles per hour, setting off a small sonic boom heard by observers on the ground.”

(The only thing this has to do with UW CSE is that it’s the reason Markoff missed our Industry Affiliates Meeting. But it’s WAY COOL!)

Read more here. Read more →

UW’s new Vice Provost for Innovation Vikram Jandhyala appears to be in the bullseye …

A wide-ranging article with a great deal of interesting material (if, occasionally, an overly negative tone):

“Now, after years of slow but steady progress, the UW is poised to break out of the old clothing of the research-dominated institution and try on a new outfit as one of the country’s most entrepreneurially focused centers of education …

“Last year, UW was rated the nation’s top university for the number of commercialization agreements and individual technologies under license. It moved to third in the United States in spin-outs, with 17 startups launched in 2013, and won an international award for the best emerging university business incubator …

“With 13,000 students graduating annually from the UW and an annual research budget of $1.15 billion, even a modest shift in the institution’s direction could have a flywheel effect, driving innovation and prosperity on campus and through the surrounding University District and the broader regional economy …

“It’s less about ‘tech transfer’ than about ‘people transfer,’ says [UW CSE’s Ed] Lazowska. ‘The single most important thing that we can do is produce more people,’ he asserts …

“‘Top to bottom, from early learning to graduate education, we have an education system in this state that is geared for the economy of the 1970s,’ says Lazowska. ‘We are a leader in innovation industries, but, as a state, we don’t have a set of policies that supports that’ …

“Says [Techstar’s co-founder and Startup Hall anchor tenant Chris] DeVore, ‘The U District is going to be the most exciting neighborhood in Seattle within the next 10 years.'”

Read more here. Read more →

Here’s an idea …

Send engineers who are recent UW CSE alums to the recruiting event, and feature them on postcards!

Welcome back, Jenny Abrahamson and Catriona Scott! Read more →