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Author: bhall

Queen’s Computing at the Ontario Universities Fair

Dear all,

The Ontario Universities Fair was held in Toronto Friday September 19 – Sunday September 21. Once again this year, Queen’s School of Computing students donated their time and energy to represent their School at the Fair and help us recruit the best and brightest of high school students. I thank them on your behalf for their loyalty and brilliance. We are so proud of them.

I also would like to thank Wendy Powley who, as she does every year, spent the weekend promoting the School at the event and convincing every young woman to whom she spoke that Computing is the discipline to study and that QSC is the place to do it.

Here is how Wendy described our team’s contribution at the Fair:
Continue reading “Queen’s Computing at the Ontario Universities Fair”

2014-2015 Newsletter Available

2014_newsletter_thumbnailThe Queen’s School of Computing 2014-2015 Newsletter is now available on line. This splendid publication has been a collective effort, many thanks to all those who contributed. A special recognition is well deserved by our inspired editorial team: Lynda Moulton, Doug Martin, and Ben Hall. Well done!

Want a Great Scientific Career? Choose Computer Science

Courtesy of Ed Lazowska
Courtesy of Ed Lazowska

During a recent conversation with computer scientist Ed Lazowska of the University of Washington, Seattle, he alertedScience Careers to a very impressive analysis from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) looking into trends for science-related jobs and predictions for job growth between the present and 2020.

More…

Meet the Experts: March 20 at 10:30 a.m. BMH 313

WISC 2013 Roundtable Discussion March 20th
WISC 2013 Round Table Discussion March 20th at 10:30 a.m. BMH 313

On behalf of WISC (the Women in the School of Computing), we would like to invite you to participate in an informal round table discussion with Dr. Helen Nissenbaum, Professor of Media, Culture and Communication, and Computer Science and Director of the Information Law Institute at New York University and Dr. Carol Miernicki Steeg, Vice President, Intellectual Property at PARTEQ Innovations, the technology transfer office of Queen’s University. Topics for discussion include (but are not limited to): privacy and social media, entrepreneurship, patents and intellectual property. More information can be found on the WISC event page.

The event will be held in Beamish Munro Hall (the ILC) Room 313. You will have a chance to sit with both Dr. Nissenbaum and Dr. Miernicki Steeg (30 minutes with each). The round table discussion will run from 10:30 – 11:30 followed by a (complementary) hot lunch served in Goodwin 524. There will be a chance for further discussion over lunch.

Everyone welcome — grads & undergrads!!! Free food — hot catered lunch!!!!

Please RSVP by mailing Wendy Powley — an RSVP is necessary to attend as we need to let the caterers know how many people will attend.

Dr. Nissenbaum will be also be giving the Brockington Lecture at Queen’s on March 18th at 5PM in the Agnes Etherington Art Center Atrium — “What Privacy Protects Online: The Trouble with MOOCs”. All are welcome at this event as well.

If you have any questions, please direct them to Wendy Powley.

Roel Vertegaal in the news

Roel Vertegaal, Director of the Human Media Lab
Roel Vertegaal, Director of the Human Media Lab

The Queen’s School of Computing Human Media Lab, and its Director Roel Vertegaal, captured the show at the Crossmedia exhibition held recently in Toronto. From an article about the event:

One day, 26 leading edge companies and creators, and just seven minutes to make your mark in a packed room of TV, radio, gaming and ad people. That was the setting for this year’s sold out Crossmedia TO conference, which set a frantic pace for the day, mirroring the reality of how fast everything is moving now in the digital realm. […] Setting the tone for the day was Roel Vertegaal, the inventor of the “paper tablet” which made headlines across the globe when unveiled at CES in January. His 10.7-inch PaperTab tablet, created as a joint project with Queen’s University Human Media Lab, Intel Labs and the United Kingdom technology firm Plastic Logic., is designed to feel like a sheet of paper but features an interactive, and flexible, high-resolution touchscreen display.

For more information, see the full article.

Congratulations to Pat Martin

Dr. Pat Martin
Dr. Pat Martin

Dear all,

I am happy to announce that Dr. Pat Martin (Director, Database Systems Laboratory, Queen’s School of Computing) has received funding from CAS Research, IBM Canada Software Lab, in support of his project “Analytics-as-a-Service Orchestration”.

Well done!

Selim

Gates, Zuckerberg Champion Computer Programming in New Nonprofit Video

Via Reuters:

Parents should demand that more schools teach computer programming, according to a new online video campaign from Hadi and Ali Partovi, brothers who formed Code.org, a nonprofit organization created to promote computer science education. The Partovi brothers immigrated to America from Iran in 1984, and Hadi says an early interest in computers and a formal education in writing software has put them in a position to have flourishing careers. The brothers graduated with computer science degrees from Harvard University, and launched companies that were sold to Microsoft and MySpace.

The 10-minute video includes familiar startup scenes, as well as interviews with tech entrepreneurs such as Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, and some unexpected pop celebrities. The brothers also have lined up endorsements from Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and American Federation of Teachers union leader Randi Weingarten. “Computer programming, right now, is the best embodiment of the American Dream,” Hadi says. “The tragedy is the skills it takes are not hard to learn, but only 10 percent of schools offer [computer science] courses, and these are usually the privileged schools.”

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