Feedback welcome.
tom
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Title: UW.center.net
PI: Tom Anderson
co-PIs: Les Atlas and Larry Dalton
Abstract
#need one -- Anderson>
a. Background and Significance to University <1 page>
#needs to be more quantitative -- Les will provide comparison with
#peer institutions -- e.g., Michigan, Stanford, Berkeley, MIT all have
#strong interactions between EE and CS (more research faculty, more postdocs,
#more courses), and strong materials efforts, but lack ease of working
#across boundaries. Writing needs to be more accessible to non-technical
#types; needs to be more polished.
#Needs to say why is this the right time -- advances in materials
#satellites on campus, vast increase in federal funding,
#widespread commercial and student interest. Les and Tom
Opportunity is merger of computers, wireless and wired communication,
cell phones, PDAs, sensors, consumer electronics into an information
mesh. A new opportunity to shape the future, as the PC's did in
their time, and minicomputers and mainframes did before that.
Will change everything about how we use computing and communication
technology -- computers everywhere from the light switches to smart phones
to virtual land mines of distributed sensors, both wireless and wired,
with advanced user interfaces so computers become easy to use.
Our goal is nothing short of making UW *the* place for students to
come to learn how to build the computer and communications systems
of the future, and nothing short of building the Internet Cascades
-- of making the state of Washington the Silicon Valley of the future.
Defining the future in this area requires a cross-disciplinary
approach to research, merging EE and CS strengths, materials
and EE, satellites and materials, etc. Can't solve problems
within narrow dept boundaries. No less it requires a radical
rethinking of the educational program for graduate and undergraduate
students. Reality is that we are by and large educating our
students for the careers of yesterday, not the careers of tomorrow.
Work in this area requires the "tall thin" approach --
undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty capable
of integrating new materials, software and hardware technology in
novel ways to benefit end users.
We have lots of the pieces in place to make this happen, but with the
current vector we will miss the opportunity by being too small.
-- We have strong faculty working in these areas, but most don't interact
across dept boundaries.
-- We have faculty slots to cope with the fact that undergraduates
see this as their future, but unless UW is a leader in this area,
we won't be able to hire the people we need to move the research
and educational agenda in the right direction.
-- We have some capstone courses, but we need an order of magnitude
more of them, and need the staff support to make them nationally
visible models for other universities.
-- we have physical infrastructure -- new EECS building, high
performance links to rest of the world
-- plenty of federal funding will be available, following PITAC
recommendation to double information technology research funding,
but will need leverage to be able to compete for those $.
-- we have both local and national industry expertise and interest
to draw on, both for research and education (e.g., Ford endowment),
provided we can demonstrate excellence.
Proposal is to invest in making UW the place to do application driven
Internet research and education. Need to grow courses, need to recruit
grad students to lead research and education, need to develop joint
degree programs. In the 40s, Stanford's Terman (Dean of Engineering)
had a vision that the farming community of Palo Alto could become an
technology powerhouse, if Stanford provided a place to incubate
that technology. The result, 50 years later, is the Silicon Valley
of today.
One could think that because the information technology industry is
so large and so fast moving, it would be impossible for a single
university to have much of an impact. But universities have strengths
that industry doesn't, for all its size. Because we can build small
teams with expertise that cross traditional boundaries, and because our
vision is over the horizon, universities have the ability to reach
the future first. But to do so, requires continual reinvention of
the faculty -- to continually move faculty out of their comfort zones
and into the future. Put another way, computing and communications
technology will continue to grow as a portion of the economy -- is this
an opportunity we can afford to miss? Can we be a CofE with
ten top ten departments if we don't take this opportunity?
b. Proposed Program <1.5 pages>
# need 4 sentences from each area. Each needs to make argument for
# combining cross-disciplinary efforts in strategic ways.
-- materials and devices (leader: Dalton)
-- ubiquitous embedded systems (leader: Hannaford)
-- internetworking (leader: Ritcey)
-- advanced user interfaces (leader: Atlas)
-- education (leader: Boriello)
Features joint EE/CSE program, since that's closest to being real,
and something that we can commit too.
-- industrial outreach (leader: Mullen)
For full proposal, we will have letters of support from Microsoft,
Teledesic, Corning, Lockheed-Martin, AT&T, Boeing, United Technologies,
Intel, Hughes Electronics, Acculite, Microvision, RealNetworks, IOptics,
Amazon, Excite, and Qwest. Full proposal will also detail synergy with
and interactions with industry.
c. Operations <3 sentences>
Anderson PI, co-PI's Dalton and Atlas to lead ERC and STC proposals;
steering committee of the PI's and area leaders; 1/2 day planning retreats,
next scheduled for Dec. 1, external review committee of academics and
industry
d. Participants <1/4 page>
materials:
Dalton (Chem), Mullen (MSE), Mark Campbell (Aero), Bill Rogers (ChemE),
Mescher (MechE), Darling (EE), Bohringer (EE), Afromowitz (EE)
ubiquitous embedded systems:
Hannaford (EE), Boriello (CSE), Ebeling (CSE), Diorio (CSE),
not approached yet: Wilson (EE), Sahr (EE)
internetworking:
Anderson (CSE), Karlin (CSE), Ritcey (EE), Azizoglu (EE), Roy (EE),
Liu (EE), Wetherall (CSE), H. Levy (CSE), Suresh Kotha (Business),
Corbato (C&C). Could invite: Sherri Fuller (Medicine), Kutz (ApplMath),
Lazowska (CSE)
advanced user interfaces:
Atlas (EE), Ladner (CSE), Riskin (EE), A. Levy (CSE), Weld (CSE),
Etzioni (CSE). Could invite: Salesin (CSE), Curless (CSE), (Psych)
e. Budget <1-2 sentences>
$500K, spent on research faculty, postdocs, staff to build things,
grad RA's, undergrad RA's, and a bit of release time for the PIs,
some transitional funding to get the new EE/CSE program started
Action Items:
1. I need to finish introduction and write abstract
2. Need to get hannaford and ritcey to volunteer to lead areas
3. Area leaders to send me max 4 sentences on agenda in those areas
4. Les and I to polish on thursday
5. Complete preproposal due *this* friday.