This Friday – October 18 – is “Machine Learning Day 2013,” jointly organized by the University of Washington and Microsoft Research (Emily Fox, Ben Taskar, and Ofer Dekel).
An overview, the program, and registration materials are here.
240 people are already registered! It’s going to be huge! Read more →
A terrific John Markoff article discusses advances in artificial intelligence, robotics, intelligent transportation, and emotional computing:
“‘During the next decade we’re going to see smarts put into everything,’ said Ed Lazowska, a computer scientist at the University of Washington who is a specialist in Big Data. ‘Smart homes, smart cars, smart health, smart robots, smart science, smart crowds and smart computer-human interactions.’
“The enormous amount of data being generated by inexpensive sensors has been a significant factor in altering the center of gravity of the computing world, he said, making it possible to use centralized computers in data centers — referred to as the cloud — to take artificial intelligence technologies like machine-learning and spread computer intelligence far beyond desktop computers.”
Read more here. Read more →
The Seattle Times reports on the changing culture in the UW College of Engineering:
“When Eve Riskin first began teaching electrical engineering at the University of Washington in 1990, her students were so surprised to find a young woman professor teaching in a male-dominated field that many asked her if she had a Ph.D.
“Of course, Riskin did — in electrical engineering, from Stanford.
“Twenty-three years later, female professors are slowly becoming more common in male-dominated engineering and science fields ..
“Four of the five associate deans in the UW College of Engineering are women, including Riskin, who is associate dean of academic affairs, as well as a professor of electrical engineering.
In 2001, fewer than 10 percent of the UW engineering faculty members were women. In 2012, it was just over 20 percent, or 47 tenure- and tenure-track women faculty out of a total of 231. The national average was 14 percent.”
Read more here. Read more →
The Hour of Code is coming! As part of Computer Science Education Week, Hadi Partovi’s Code.org has established an incredibly audacious goal: have every student in America spend one hour learning to program.
At the rollout event today in San Francisco, UW CSE’s Hélène Martin emceed a panel featuring Brad Smith (Executive Vice President and General Counsel at Microsoft), Max Levchin (President and CEO of HVF; co-founder of PayPal), Hadi Partovi (CEO of Code.org), Maggie Johnson (Director of Education and University Relations at Google), and Tom Torlakson (California State Superintendent of Public Instruction).
Learn more, and watch the video of today’s event, here. Get inspired! Get involved! Read more →
More than 120 UW CSE students in two shifts are being coached this afternoon for upcoming technical interviews by 15 alumni and friends from local companies. Our thanks to:
At UW and other colleges and universities, interest in computer science continues to soar. There is lots of data, and there are lots of reasons – which we’ll discuss in a subsequent post. But for now, take a look at annual enrollment in UW CSE’s two introductory courses – “CS1” (numbered CSE 142 at UW), and “CS2” (numbered CSE 143 at UW). (By “annual enrollment” we mean the total enrollment in the most recent four quarters – for example, “au13” is the sum of the enrollments in winter quarter 2013, spring quarter 2013, summer quarter 2013, and autumn quarter 2013.)
Also worth noting: the proportion of women in these courses, while still less than we would like it to be, is trending in the right direction.
Students have figured it out: Computer science – it’s where the future is!
Friday October 11 and Saturday October 12 mark the dedication of the Bezos Center for Innovation at Seattle’s Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI).
Through interactive exhibits, community and educational programs, and first-person insights from leading innovators, the Bezos Center for Innovation explores Seattle’s role as a nexus of big ideas and new directions.
The dedication features a “Power Hour” (how can you not like that?) with CSE’s Shwetak Patel. See an interview conducted in connection with the dedication here. Other interviews of leading Seattle innovators here.
Read more →
More than 200 UW CSE students participated in yesterday’s resumé review workshop – prepping for the recruiting fairs held in conjunction with our Industry Affiliates Meeting in two weeks.
Many thanks to the 15 industry volunteers who reviewed the resumés, undeterred by a fire alarm (triggered by a water main break north of campus):
UW CSE students, staff, and faculty celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science & Engineering.
Ten years ago – on October 9th 2003 – we dedicated the Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science & Engineering.
Designed by LMN Architects, the Allen Center – still widely regarded as the finest computer science facility in the nation – has had a dramatic impact on UW CSE’s competitiveness, allowing us to move forward into the 21st century as one of the nation’s leading computer science and computer engineering programs:
Enrollments have increased, providing greater opportunity for Washington State students and driving the state’s technology industry. The pace has been slower than we would have liked – state support is required to increase enrollment, since tuition falls far short of covering costs. But in the past decade, undergraduate majors have increased from 430 to 650 (+50%); full-time graduate program majors from 142 to 222 (+55%); part-time professional masters program majors from 120 to 160 (+33%); and annual enrollment in our two introductory courses from 2,000 to 3,600 (+80%). Additional growth has recently been funded.More than 200 friends and alumni donated a total in excess of $40 million to make the Allen Center a reality. We are grateful to Paul G. Allen, our lead donor; to Tom Alberg and Jeremy Jaech, the co-chairs of our development committee; to Bill & Melinda Gates and to Microsoft for gifts in excess of $5 million; and, indeed, to each and every donor, because each and every gift was essential. As we said at the time, we didn’t know 40 people who could provide $1 million each, and we didn’t know 40,000 people who could provide $1,000 each!
This extraordinary generosity continued after the completion of the Allen Center. In 2003, our departmental endowment (which supports faculty, graduate students, undergraduate students, and innovation across-the-board) totaled less than $6 million; today it is in excess of $40 million! Most recently, Jeff Bezos and Amazon.com provided two $1 million Amazon Professorships in Machine Learning to assist us in recruiting machine learning stars Emily Fox and Carlos Guestrin.
Today, the Allen Center is overflowing, and we are launching a new project to expand our space. Leadership in computer science is increasingly essential to the University of Washington’s broad-based competitiveness, to the vitality of our region, and to our nation’s ability to address its challenges and seize its opportunities. UW CSE remains committed to excellence and impact. “If it was just hot air, we’d still be in Sieg Hall.”
Further reading:
