USAID has announced four new grants to winners of the joint USAID-Humanity United Tech Challenge for Atrocity Prevention. The grants will help recipients partner with an operational NGO or an established human rights group to further develop and pilot their innovations to document atrocities and facilitate communication for those at risk.
The award to UW CSE focuses on the work of Ph.D. student Aditya Vashistha, supervised by professor Gaetano Borriello. The project – Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Junction – is a flexible voice-communication tool that allows users with limited connectivity or literacy to record and listen to posts, while the global community can access them online. Aditya will partner with two local organizations in sub-Saharan Africa to connect low-tech users and members of marginalized communities, such as refugees and asylum seekers.Read more here. Learn about IVR Junction here. Read more →
Several years ago, Belkin International acquired Zensi, a “smart home” energy and water sensing startup from the lab of UW CSE+EE professor Shwetak Patel. Zensi’s technology became the heart of Belkin’s WeMo home automation ecosystem.
Today, Belkin announced the creation of WeMo Labs in Seattle.
“‘With a thriving tech industry and an immense talent pool surrounding UW’s world-renowned Computer Science & Engineering and Electrical Engineering programs, Seattle is ground zero for recruiting the top data scientists, software engineers, and developers in the country,’ said Patel, who also serves as Belkin’s Chief Scientist. ‘WeMo Labs will continue to benefit from a long-standing relationship with the Ubicomp Research Lab and other UW organizations such as the eScience Institute.’
“‘Establishing a larger presence in Seattle and collaborating with the University of Washington is a direct investment in the future of WeMo,’ said Chet Pipkin, founder and CEO of Belkin. ‘We’re looking for this team to help us fast track groundbreaking technologies from the lab to the marketplace, keeping WeMo at the forefront of the Internet of Things.'”
Read more here. GeekWire article here. Seattle Times article here.
And check out a great GeekWire compendium of companies that have recently opened engineering offices in Seattle – here. Read more →
UW CSE startup SNUPI Technologies’ creative cocktail napkin from the 2013 Seattle 10
“Education. Big data. Health. Telecommunications. Clean tech.
“Seattle is producing groundbreaking startups in a host of industries, generating a crop of impressive entrepreneurs who are truly attempting to change the world.
“Getting to tell these startup stories at GeekWire is an honor and a privilege, and that’s one of the reasons why we are so excited to once again partner with the Museum of History & Industry to bring you The Seattle 10.
“This list showcases 10 of the most promising startup companies in the region – highlighting the best and brightest.”
UW CSE startup GraphLab is one of the 10. And last year’s darling, UW CSE startup SNUPI Technologies, is used to illustrate the article.
Read more here. Read more →
Apple is the latest leading-edge tech company to open a Seattle engineering office, joining Google, Facebook, Twitter, Salesforce, Oracle, LinkedIn, Groupon, eBay, and (just last week) Alibaba.
What’s going on?
First, Seattle is the software capital of the world. That’s literally – numerically – true: the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports more “Software Developers” (“Applications” + “Systems”) in Seattle (Seattle-Everett-Bellevue) than in Silicon Valley (San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara).
Second, Seattle the cloud capital of the world. That’s also literally true – just look outside. But, seriously, who are the major players in cloud services? Amazon – Seattle. Microsoft – Seattle. Google – 2,000+ engineers, and lots of their cloud activity, Seattle. There are also some leading “cloud technology” companies here, such as F5 Networks and EMC/Isilon, plus some smaller folks such as Skytap. And there are the “big data” analytics and applications companies: Tableau, INRIX, GraphLab, etc.
Go team! Even more of our alums will be able to remain in-state!
Read about it: GeekWire (which broke the story); Seattle Times; VentureBeat; more GeekWire. Read more →
UW CSE professor Ira Kemelmacher-Shlizerman demonstrates her amazing age progression software on CBS TV’s “Innovation Nation.”
Want to know what you or your child will look like a few decades from now? Check it out!
CBS interview here. Research web page here.
(Quoting UW CSE’s Steve Seitz: “I love when they showed the ‘code’ behind the algorithm. Hand scrawled with lots of integrals :-)”) Read more →
UW CSE professor Tom Anderson delivered the opening keynote this morning at the ACM Symposium on Cloud Computing.
Tom’s topic was “High Performance Data Center Operating Systems and Networks” – specifically, UW CSE’s new Arrakis data center operating system and F10/Subways approach to data center network configuration.
“Recent device hardware trends enable new approaches to the design of data center operating systems and networks, yielding substantial benefits for application performance. In a traditional operating system, the kernel mediates access to device hardware by server applications, to enforce process isolation as well as network and disk security. I will describe a new operating system, Arrakis, that splits the traditional role of the kernel in two. Applications have direct access to virtualized I/O devices, allowing most I/O operations to skip the kernel entirely, while the kernel is re-engineered to provide network and disk protection without kernel mediation in the common case. A consequence of Arrakis will be to intensify load on the data center network, which already suffers from frequent congestion events due to correlated traffic patterns. Another device trend is towards installing multiple network interfaces per server. Through coordinated wiring, routing, and load balancing, I will describe techniques that together dramatically decrease the frequency of congestion events and improve application performance.”
Tom’s slides are here (pdf). Read more →
UW CSE’s Ed Lazowska joins GeekWire‘s Todd Bishop and John Cook for a conversation on GeekWire Radio. Topics include:
- Regular GeekWire content:
- The Microsoft Band (Todd had a review model – way cool!)
- Starbucks home delivery (John thinks they’re transforming into a technology company)
- Interview with Ed (9:00-16:25)
- What’s cool in computer science?
- How much is this reflected in education?
- What about student demand for computer science? What’s driving the dramatic increase?
- What can we do to meet our local student and employer demand?
- Regular GeekWire content:
- App of the Week: PhotoMath
- More with Ed (18.05-24:05)
- What about the planned new building for UW CSE?
- The four components of UW CSE’s value proposition:
- “We are the #1 place in the state that prepares Washington’s kids for Washington’s leadership jobs”
- “Research and entrepreneurship .. Carlos Guestrin … Oren Etzioni … Shwetak Patel … Microsoft Photosynth … Picasa Face Movie …”
- “Interdisciplinary activities that are transforming UW … data science … neural engineering … game science …”
- “Community engagement … advocacy for K-12 STEM … outreach to schools, because that’s our pipeline …”
- Trends in student entrepreneurship: “I think this region is on the cusp of something great”
- Regular GeekWire content:
- GeekWire‘s Trivia Challenge
- Final segment with Ed (27:30-31:36)
- Advice for parents to prepare their kids for 21st century careers? “Keep your kid inquisitive”
- A hat-tip to Code.org: “Programming is the hands-on inquiry-based way we teach computational thinking”
- A final message about computer science: “This is a field that’s great for everybody, and a field that gives you the power to change the world”
GeekWire airs on KIRO Radio in Seattle (97.3 FM) at 7 p.m. Saturdays and 1 p.m. Sundays – but it’s always available by podcast here. Read more →
Ph.D. candidate Jacob Nelson and supervisory committee members Simon Kahan, Ed Lazowska, Luis Ceze, and Mark Oskin
Apparently Jacob didn’t get the memo regarding appropriate attire for a Ph.D. defense on Halloween. Read more →
Let’s hear it for Microsoft Research – UW CSE affiliate professor Desney Tan, UW CSE affiliate professor Dan Morris, UW CSE Ph.D. alum Scott Saponas, and the rest of the team!
Read about Microsoft Band in the New York Times here. Read more →
