Allen School News

A lovely report on KING5 TV News tonight, reporting on UW CSE’s Stuart Reges, who each quarter bakes chocolate chip cookies as a final exam treat for his class … which had nearly 1,000 students this quarter!

“In the days leading up to this semester’s final exam in Computer Programming 1 at the University of Washington, students spent hours studying over their laptops, while their teacher was slaving over a hot oven.

“‘I just love this,’ said Stuart Reges. ‘I think Toll House should hire me.’

“For the past two days when he hasn’t been teaching his class, Reges has been home baking handmade chocolate chip cookies.

“‘This recipe calls for 25 pounds of flour, 27 pounds of sugar, 7 dozen eggs and 54 sticks of butter,’ he said from his North Seattle kitchen.”

Watch the video here! Read more →

The University of Washington announced today that it has landed the Air Force Center of Excellence on Nature-Inspired Flight Technologies and Ideas (NIFTI), a collaboration among UW’s Department of Biology, the College of Engineering, the Institute for Neuroengineering, and the eScience Institute. The five UW leads include UW CSE and EE professor Matt Reynolds, UW CSE adjunct professor and eScience Institute Senior Data Science Fellow Tom Daniel (who will direct the center), and eScience Institute Data Science Fellow and Mechanical Engineering professor Steve Brunton.

NIFTI aims to solve complex engineering and technical challenges related to unmanned flight using lessons learned from nature. Researchers will examine how animals use their senses to locate objects and navigate in complex environments or under sensory deprivation. Although the center is housed at UW, it will involve researchers from institutions around the nation and the world, including Imperial College London and Oxford University in the United Kingdom and Lund University in Sweden.

The Air Force Office of Scientific Research plans to provide $9 million to the center over the next six years, with additional funding coming from UW’s Office of the Provost, the College of Arts & Sciences, the College of Engineering, and the Departments of Biology and Applied Mathematics.

Read the UW media release and view a video demonstration here.

Read about the center on GeekWire here. Read more →

Let’s hear it for Seattle’s Hadi Partovi and Code.org!

After tens of millions of students learned their first Hour of Code in December, how many have kept learning?

Code.org’s online learning platform Code Studio just passed 5 million students enrolled, together with almost 115,000 teachers around the world!

10,000 new teachers are signing up to teach introductory CS with Code Studio every month. 10,000 new students are enrolling in courses every day!

10% of all elementary and middle school students across the United States are enrolled in an introductory computer science course on Code Studio!

Overall enrollment on the platform is 43% girls. Of course, an intro course is a long way from a university degree, but most girls never even try computer science. These new students now have the opportunity to get inspired and delve deeper.

Learn more here. Read more →

The Seattle Times writes:

“Gaetano Borriello wanted to marry technology with humanity. He believed that computer science wasn’t about creating the next app, but about helping and enriching lives around the world.

“Those beliefs led him to develop the Open Data Kit, an open-source mobile-data collection tool used around the world to address issues in public health, human rights and the environment.

“Professor Borriello, the leader and visionary behind the Open Data Kit and professor in the University of Washington Department of Computer Science & Engineering, died Feb. 1 after a six-year battle with colon cancer. He was 56.

“A month after his death, nearly $350,000 has been raised toward the Gaetano Borriello Endowed Fellowship for Change, which was established by his UW department. The fellowship will support UW students whose work explores how technology can improve the lives of underserved populations.”

Gaetano was remembered at a service for family and close friends on Saturday.

Read more in the Seattle Times here.  Learn about the Gaetano Borriello Endowed Fellowship for Change here. Read more →

Check out this great new infographic from the Washington Technology Industry Association:

1. Higher education now

2. Adult education over the next 2-3 years

3. K-12 over the next 10 years

Download and share the infographic here. Read more →

On the day of their launch, co-founders Kenny Daniel and Diego Oppenheimer of Madrona-backed startup Algorithmia took an hour off from fighting fires to talk with the UW CSE faculty.

Quoting Diego, “Algorithmia gives developers the ability to turn algorithms into scalable web services with a single click. Application developers can then integrate the algorithm into their own applications with under 10 lines of code. Algorithmia hosts the web services, makes them discoverable and enables algorithm developers to get paid for usage.” Incredibly cool, and a great way to increase the impact of academic research.

GeekWire here. Xconomy here. InfoWorld here. Company here. Read more →

The UW Daily writes:

“Twenty-three tech leaders recently sent a letter to the Washington State Legislature endorsing the funding of a new computer science and engineering (CSE) building on campus …

“[Jeremy] Jaech is the CEO of SNUPI Technologies, a UW spin-off that makes in-home sensors that detect issues like flooding. He said that newer companies like his need local talent …

“‘Companies like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft have the wherewithal to hire people from all around the world and bring them in,’ Jaech said. ‘But companies like ours, well, we can’t do that. We can’t afford to relocate people from across the country.’

“‘When we invest in our kids, they get educated here, they find great jobs here, and raise their families here,’ [Technology Alliance Executive Director Susannah] Malarkey said. ‘So there is no reason not to be really ramping up the public investment in Computer Science & Engineering.’

“Expanding the opportunities to major in computer science at the UW would prepare students for this new local economy, [UW CSE’s Ed] Lazowska said.

“‘Washington state kids ought to have the opportunity to get an education to be a first-tier participant in this information economy, and that’s what we’re trying to do.'”

Read more in the UW Daily here.

Check out the legislative letter here.

And learn the compelling case in our legislative handout here. Read more →

Ed Lazowska, Aber Whitcomb, Geoff Entress, Andy Liu, and Greg Gottesman

Tonight was the final class session of Greg Gottesman‘s phenomenal course “Entrepreneurship: Company-Building from Formation to Successful Exit.” The course this quarter had a bit more than 60 students: UW CSE undergraduate and graduate students, and Foster School of Business MBA students.

Right on schedule, tonight’s topic was “Exits,” featuring a presentation by UW alum Aber Whitcomb (co-founder of MySpace, currently CTO of Social Gaming Network), followed by a panel discussion moderated by Greg and including Aber and top Seattle angel investors Geoff Entress and Andy Liu.

Many thanks to Greg and to all of the phenomenal presenters he engaged this quarter! Read more →

A famous historical UW CSE photo, lost for over 25 years, has been located in North Carolina. This photo, of CSE graduate student Monkey W. Duncan (ABD ‘89), graced the grad student photo board on the lower level of Sieg Hall (CSE’s home prior to the Allen Center) in the late 1980s. The photo also shows the advanced technology that was available to CSE graduate students at that time.

Unfortunately, Mr. Duncan never completed the program, as the Ph.D. quals in the 80s required students to pass a long written exam, and he was unable to hold a pencil. He did pass the oral theory exam, however, correctly responding to the question about whether P equals NP with a series of barks. After failing the quals he ran into legal troubles, and Prof. Hank Levy had to provide a character witness to a Seattle judge when Mr. Duncan was charged by the Seattle police for “walking without a leash.” He eventually relocated to Chapel Hill, NC, along with his office mate Kevin Jeffay, now Chair of UNC’s Department of Computer Science. Read more →

Washington Monthly‘s “The Other College Guide” is chock full of great advice:

“Other books cater mostly to students from well-to-do families trying to get into the most exclusive, priciest schools. The Other College Guide is for every student …

“Other books … rank schools based on how many students they turn away, or how much money they raise and spend, or how other college presidents rate them. But these metrics … are mostly measures if inputs, not outcomes. So The Other College Guide ignores such criteria and instead ranks colleges based on the best available data about what really matters (or should matter) to you …

“Other books are full of happy talk about how wonderful America’s higher education system is and how every college has something to offer. Baloney! There are a lot of terrible colleges out there …

“Other books only profile the most prestigious colleges or the ‘Best Party Schools.'”

Best-Bang-For-The-Buck in the Western US:  #1, out of 233 schools ranked: The University of Washington. (UW-Bothell is #13. UW-Tacoma is #22. Evergreen is #29. Western is #30. Eastern is #37. Central is #44. WSU is #68.)

50 Schools You Should Know About:  #1 in the West, out of 10 schools listed: The University of Washington. (UW-Bothell is #5. Evergreen is #8. Western is #9.)

Troubled Waters: The Community College Transfer Swamp: “If you intend to earn a four-year degree and you’re starting at a two-year college, the truth is that you’re in for a challenge. Three-fourths of students who start at a community college with the intention of earning a degree or transferring to a four-year institution end up doing neither after six years.”

Best Community Colleges: Washington colleges listed, among 50 nationwide, are Grays Harbor College (#15), Cascadia Community College (#22), Green River Community College (#44), Tacoma Community College (#46), and Highline Community College (#47). Congratulations to these five Washington community and technical colleges for doing well at the things that matter!

Read this book! Get it at Amazon (paperback or Kindle) here. Read more →