Industrial Partnerships
The Department offers opportunities to interact on a number of levels with internationally respected scientists in such vital areas as:
artificial intelligence
Industrial partners are invited to participate directly in the technology development process, through on-campus representation, visits, and consulting arrangements. Additional opportunities include access to technical reports, colloquiums, seminars, the Department's Annual Report, and resumes submitted by BA, BS, MEng and PhD candidates expecting to graduate.
Computer Science faculty and researchers continue their collaboration with industrial partners. Intel, Lucent, and Microsoft continued their support this year. Lockheed Martin, Sun, and Xerox funded significant new activities. Lucent Technologies continued its support of S. Keshav's research program. Xerox is funding an electronic document imaging initiative under Dan Huttenlocher's direction. The Lucent and GTE Foundations also continued to support the expanding area of information technology.
This past summer, the Computer Science Department coordinated a major university-wide proposal to Intel Corporation in support of new learning environments to provide: "anything-anytime-anywhere" access to information, qualitatively better information resources, a decoupling of location and function, and support for multiple styles of learning. Intel funded the proposal for $6 million over three years, with approximately $1.2 million of that funding coming directly to CS.
So far, CS has received over 65 Pentium Pro and Pentium II systems through this grant. In addition to the university-wide grant, Intel also provided 30 Pentium II systems and 50 processor upgrades for the department's undergraduate teaching laboratory.
Lockheed Martin established a multi-year program to provide $30,500 annually to support the undergraduate and PhD programs, as well as new faculty research. This year, support was designated for S. Keshav's research program, the BOOM 1998 computer fair, and Engineering Scholars awards for four sophomores. Next year, fellowships will also be awarded to two incoming PhD students.
Microsoft Corporation provided major funding to the Department for research, instruction, and general support. Gifts included $213,000 to support the department's research and instructional transition to Windows NT; extensive donations of Microsoft software, books, and hardware; direct research support for databases and other research; and $6,000 to support the BOOM 1998 computer fair.
Sun Microsystems made a significant hardware grant to the department, providing two Ultra Enterprise 450 quad-processor servers and a 3.8 terabyte tape library. These systems will provide back-end compute and file services for both research and the undergraduate teaching laboratory. Sun also provided a $15,000 MEng fellowship.