“Feed the Future has been piloting cutting-edge software, called the Open Data Kit (ODK), to improve its survey data collection methods, and in the process, has generated a number of lessons learned that are being integrated back into the open-source system for the benefit of future users. ODK provides a set of tools used to author, field, and manage mobile data collection. Using this new system for conducting population-based surveys (PBS) on Android 7″ tablets, the project was able to… Read more →
“How Seattle is falling behind other 21st century cities”
A superb commentary in the Seattle Times:
“Remaining globally competitive will require all of us to work together. We can begin by asking ourselves some challenging questions:
“Why can’t we transform our education system to prepare all kids for the global economy?
“Why can’t our region lead the country in math, science and engineering degrees?
“Why can’t the Puget Sound find new ways to stimulate research and innovation?
“Other regions are answering these questions with smart investments and innovative programs.… Read more →
UW CSE Bay Area Alumni+Friends Event at Pixar!
UW CSE @ Pixar, Thursday July 10 at 6 p.m.
Bay Area alums and friends of UW CSE – please join us! Registration required – register here.
6:00 – mix and mingle
6:45 – program in the Steve Jobs Theater, including a showing of “Party Central,” Pixar’s newest short
7:30 – tours every 15 minutes
Food, drink, and good fellowship with CSE faculty, staff, and fellow Bay Area alums and friends!
Please register and join us!
… Read more →
CSE’s Emina Torlak featured in The Programming Language Enthusiast
The Programming Language Enthusiast, a blog devoted to “developments in programming languages, and why they matter,” profiles incoming UW CSE professor Emina Torlak:
“‘I like to work on practical problems that require both theoretical insights and engineering. When looking for solutions, my guiding principles are elegance of ideas and simplicity of implementation. I am excited about developing new knowledge and tools to automate the mechanics of programming (such as searching for bugs or for code snippets that implement specific behaviors),… Read more →
CSE’s Jeff Heer, startup Trifacta, in Fast Company
“Big data can be a nightmare. Sure, it’s powerful stuff, but as anyone who’s worked with large sets of raw data knows, they can be an epic bitch to wrangle. Cleaning things up into a consistent, usable format winds up burning an extraordinary amount of time – precious hours that could be going into something far more productive. But that may be about to change.
“The issue is known among data scientists and statisticians as data transformation. And by Jeff… Read more →
It’s time for UW CSE’s summer daycamps for K-12 students!
This is the first week of UW CSE’s extensive set of summer daycamps in computing for K-12 students. This summer’s camps include:
Two introductory sessions (including this week’s) using Processing for girls entering grades 7, 8, or 9
Two introductory sessions using Processing for girls entering grades 10, 11, or 12
A co-ed session in Physical Computing for students entering grades 10, 11, 12, or new college freshmen
A co-ed session in Game Programming for students entering grades 7, 8,… Read more →
“Ask the crowd: Robots learn faster, better with online helpers”
UW News reports on work by CSE faculty members Maya Cakmak and Raj Rao and their students.
“University of Washington computer scientists have shown that crowdsourcing can be a quick and effective way to teach a robot how to complete tasks …
“The team designed a study that taps into the online crowdsourcing community to teach a robot a model-building task. To begin, study participants built a simple model – a car, tree, turtle and snake, among others – out… Read more →
KOMO TV and KUOW FM: “Computer teaches itself everything about anything”
KOMO TV reports on LEVAN – “Learn Everything about Anything” – a collaboration between UW CSE professor Ali Farhadi and Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence researcher Santosh Divvala.
LEVAN is a cloud-based computer program that can teach itself everything there is to know about a visual concept, and make the results searchable for anyone to access. LEVAN operates differently than traditional search engines, because it’s designed to learn to understand the concepts behind a specific image.
Give LEVAN a… Read more →
UW CSE Ph.D. alum Roxana Geambasu named 2014 Microsoft Research Faculty Fellow
2011 UW CSE Ph.D. alum Roxana Geambasu, now on the faculty at Columbia University, is one of 14 faculty members worldwide named 2014 Microsoft Research Faculty Fellows.
Roxana’s research concerns computer systems in a broad sense, including distributed systems, the Web, security and privacy, operating systems, and databases. More specifically, her current research focuses on the challenges and opportunities created by today’s emerging technologies, such as the Web, cloud computing, and powerful mobile devices.
Roxana joins a long… Read more →
Transitions at the UW Center for Commercialization
GeekWire reports:
“Linden Rhoads, who helped boost the number of startups coming out of the University of Washington over the past six years, is stepping down as vice provost of commercialization to return to private industry …
“In a related move, the UW announced that electrical engineering professor Vikram Jandhyala will assume the new role of Vice Provost of Innovation …
“Ed Lazowska, the Bill & Melinda Gates Chair in Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington, said… Read more →