SCS25 Schedule of Events

Since 2007, Serkan Piantino (CS'04) has been the site director for the Facebook office in New York city.  From both that vantage point and as a Carnegie Mellon alumnus, he has a unique perspective on the future of computer science.  In this conversation, Serkan and Dean Andrew Moore will explore that vision, for the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon and the world.

Reception immediately following.

This panel discussion will be moderated by Robotics Professor Howie Choset and feature noted alumni James Gosling (SCS’83) and Kevin Dowling (CS’83,’94,’97). James is known as the inventor of Java and is currently the Chief Software Architect at Liquid Robotics, where he’s working on an autonomous, environmentally powered ocean-­‐going platform for gathering and transmitting data about the ocean. Kevin’s career has included technical leadership in robotics and LED lighting; he is now VP of Engineering at 4Moms. They will be joined by Carnegie Mellon faculty members Nathan Michael and Yaser Sheikh.

Peter Lee will lead a discussion on the next decades of computer science, at Carnegie Mellon and beyond. The panelists will include Severin Hacker (CS’09,’14), co-­founder and CTO at DuoLingo, a rapidly-­growing startup providing free language learning via crowd-­sourced text translation; Emma Brunskill, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, who is working on autonomous agents that learn to interact with people, Aarti Singh, A. Nico Habermann Assistant Professor, who is looking at algorithms for large data sets; and Paul Barnett, executive producer at Electronic Arts and former senior creative director and general manager of EA's Mythic Entertainment division. These efforts will bring into focus the nature of computer science for the next 25 years.

Bitcoin is a form of digital money not controlled by any country or organization. Transactions are managed and verified by open source software running on thousands computers worldwide. It is now sold (and sometimes accepted) in stores and even issued by vending machines. But Bitcoin exchanges have been hacked, resulting in millions of dollars in losses. For these reasons, Bitcoin has captured the imagination of futurists but raised concern among governments over its possible use in crime and terrorist financing and loss of control over money supplies. This talk explains in non-technical terms how Bitcoin works and what its risks and benefits are, and what it means to “mine” a Bitcoin. We will discuss the possible future of Bitcoin and its rivals.

In this Distinguished Lecture, Aditya Agarwal--Carnegie Mellon alum, entrepreneur, and engineering leader--will reflect on his journey-in-progress. He'll look at what students at CMU learn, and its relationship to his career trajectory, including his current role at Dropbox. He will also discuss current technology trends, at Dropbox and elsewhere, and from there will take the opportunity to reflect on what the future might hold--for himself, for computer science, and for the world in the next 25 years.

Aditya Agarwal is Vice President of Engineering at Dropbox. He oversees the different engineering teams including new product development, infrastructure, platform and operations. Aditya came to Dropbox via the acquisition of Cove, a company he co-founded that was focused on improving group collaboration and communication.

Prior to Cove, Aditya was the Director of Product Engineering at Facebook where he oversaw the development of core products such as News Feed, Search, Photos, Profile and Applications. Aditya was one of the first engineers at Facebook and played an important role in helping to design and build core parts of the Facebook engineering infrastructure.

Aditya holds Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University.

Watch SCS community members race their MOBOTS (Mobile roBOTs) up the helix!

(No registration required)

Do you sometimes worry that you've forgotten everything since you've graduated? Ever have trouble coding up a simple merge-sort or recalling the proof of Kruskal's algorithm? We at ACM are determined to prove that you have forgotten everything! Come compete with current undergrads as well as fellow alumni on CMU trivia and "basic" S/CS problems. Alumni are free to bring their own abacus or sliderule ;--)

The CMU Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) and its Project Olympus Startup Incubator

(Separate registration required)

The Carnegie Mellon CIE offers many programs, services and events that help members of the entire CMU community and its partners to explore potential business ideas that emerge from the research lab and the classroom. The CIE's startup incubator, Project Olympus, fosters many of these ventures as PROBEs (PRoject-Oriented Business Explorations), providing mentoring, startup advice, space, micro-grants and more. Seminars, workshops, showcases and venture competitions round out the CIE’s offerings. Come learn more about the Carnegie Mellon CIE, explore the 4 floors of startup space, and meet some of our student startups.