Allen School News

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 →

Xconomy writes:

“The second floor of what used to be known only as Condon Hall – and the University of Washington’s ugliest building [editorial note: Sieg Hall is offended by this!] – holds seeds of a re-invented neighborhood where students, researchers, and entrepreneurs learn, work, and live; where tech startups and established companies build businesses with the technology and talent flowing from the university; and where professionals zip to jobs downtown on light rail …

“Chris DeVore is barefoot at his stand-up desk.

“DeVore, who manages to come across in conversation as simultaneously relaxed and intense, is partner at Founders’ Co-op, director of Techstars Seattle, and a key arranger of the unique deal that brought Startup Hall into being …

DeVore said the strengths and needs of the startup community and the university complement each other well. ‘Talent is the most important ingredient for building an innovation company, and the U is the most open platform for pulling in and developing talent in the Northwest,’ he said.”

Read more here. Read more →

The paper “Tactile Graphics with a Voice: Using QR Codes to Access Text in Tactile Graphics” has been named Best Student Paper at ASSETS 2014, the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility. The authors are UW CSE graduate students Catherine Baker and Lauren Milne, UW CSE staff member Jeffrey Scofield, UW HCDE graduate student Cynthia Bennett, and UW CSE faculty member Richard Ladner.

Tactile graphics are a major way for blind people to access figures and diagrams in books and documents. Tactile Graphics with a Voice (TGV) allows text within tactile graphics to be accessible by using a talking QR code reader app on a smartphone. The paper explores different picture taking guidance techniques for blind users: 1) no guidance, 2) verbal guidance, and 3) finger pointing guidance. A study with blind users indicates that there is no clear preference so that all techniques should be available as options in TGV.

This recognition continues UW CSE’s leadership in accessibility technology. UW CSE students and faculty received the Best Paper Award at ASSETS 2013 and ASSETS 2012; UW CSE Ph.D. student (now alum) Anna Cavender won the Best Student Paper Award at ASSETS 2006. Read more →

60 great companies (our maximum physical capacity), from Adobe and Amazon to Zillow and Zulily, are recruiting today at UW CSE’s annual Industry Affiliates autumn recruiting fair.  We’d like to thank the fire marshal for being on vacation … And we’d like to thank these companies for supporting UW CSE and our students!

Next chance: UW CSE’s winter recruiting fair, January 21 (for startups) and 22 (for established companies). Read more →

GeekWire reports on the Madrona Prize and the People’s Choice Award at Wednesday’s UW CSE Industry Affiliates Meeting and Open House:

“Computer science students at the University of Washington shared research projects — science fair-style — during an annual meeting of industry representatives on Wednesday.

“Nearly 100 research projects were on display as part of the Computer Science and Engineering Industry Affiliates Meeting …

“Each year, Madrona Venture Group awards prizes to presentations with commercial viability. ‘CSE has been this unbelievable source of innovation for the whole region,’ said Tim Porter, managing director of Madrona. ‘It’s so important for the overall ecosystem and we want to help support and recognize the great research here, specifically things we think have commercial applicability.'”

Read more here. Read more →

Each year at UW CSE’s Industry Affiliates Meeting, we award the People’s Choice Prize to the student project that our alumni and Industry Affiliates think is the coolest, without regard to what the experts may think!

This year’s winner: BiliCam: Using Mobile Phones to Monitor Newborn Jaundice – Lilian de Greef, Mayank Goel, Min Joon Seo, Eric C. Larson, James W. Stout MD MPH, James A. Taylor MD, Shwetak N. Patel.

Congratulations!

  Read more →

Each year at the UW CSE Industry Affiliates Meeting, the Madrona Prize is awarded to the student projects deemed most likely for entrepreneurial success.  This year’s winners:

Third Place: Total Moving Face Reconstruction – Supasorn Suwajanakorn, Ira Kemelmacher-Shlizerman, Steven M. Seitz.

Second Place: WiBreathe: Estimating Respiration Rate Using Wireless Signals in Natural Settings in the Home – Ruth V. Ravichandran, Elliot N. Saba, Ke-Yu Chen, Mayank Goel, Sidhant Gupta, Shwetak N. Patel.

First Place: Arrakis: The Operating System is the Control Plane – Simon Peter, Jialin Li, Irene Zhang, Dan R.K. Ports, Doug Woos, Arvind Krishnamurthy, Thomas Anderson, Timothy Roscoe.

Congratulations! And thanks to our friends at Madrona Venture Group!

  Read more →