Plugged In at UWTECH

Engineering Students Deliver Improved Rehabilitation Cart

2010-06-30T09:01:00.000-07:00

In October of 2009 Craig Deitering, a senior in the Computer Engineering and Systems (CES) program at the Institute of Technology modified a battery powered car for kids so that it could be “driven” by children with limited motor abilities. The project was a success but after the car was used by the kids at Puyallup’s Good Samaritan hospital, several needed improvements were identified.

It was decided that the engineering students in this last academic year’s Devices and Controls class would implement these improvements as a team project.

The project leader for the class team, student Brian Gosch, described the improvements that the team was planning to make to the battery powered car (called the BOSS cart) to Dr. Steve Shores. Dr Shores agreed with the approach. He also went on to list a number of potential senior projects that the students could work on that would help the children's rehabilitation center at the hospital.

Seniors from the Computer Engineering & Systems program at UW Tacoma visited the Children’s Therapy Unit (CTU) at Puyallup’s Good Samaritan hospital to get a first-hand look at how the staff at the unit creates games and tools to help kids with special needs. Steve Shores, who is a CTU therapist there and head of the Assistive Technology Program, demonstrated many of the devices his group has made or modified to help the children.

In the latter part of May, nine students Jessie Fortier, Aakanksha Gaur, Brandon Nadeau, Brian Gosch, Eun Ju Lee, Frank Le, Kris Knabel, Krisnil Gounder and Teddy Doll finished the enhancements and modifications to a BOSS cart for Multicare's Good Samaritan Children's Therapy Unit.

Working with faculty sponsor Robert Gutmann, PhD the student team made the electric vehicle more flexible and targeted for working with children in need of rehabilitation services and treatment. It was Bob Gutmann, the instructor for the class, who made the initial contact with Steve Shores at a CTU fundraising event. Gutmann’s wife, Linda Gutmann, is on the Board of Directors at the hospital and is very familiar with the achievements and needs of the CTU.

With the success of the modifications and the delivery of the new, improved cart, Dr. Gutmann and Dr. Larry Wear, Associate Director of the Institute of Technology at UWT, hope to expand the involvement of CES students with the CTU and get more students to focus their senior capstone design experience on projects that will benefit the CTU.

Congrats to the UWT GreyHat Huskies

2010-03-23T10:17:00.000-07:00

The University of Washington Tacoma team of students representing the GreyHat Group here on the campus performed admirably at the third Pacific Rim Regional Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition held last weekend. The team, which also helped to prepare others for the event, came in second out of a group of outstanding competitors.

Pictured: The Director for the Center of Excellence in Information Assurance and Cybersecurity, Barbara Endicott-Popovsky, commands attention.

Congratulations and thanks should also be given to Don McLane (who also provided the pictures), Barbara Endicott-Popovsky (CIAC Chair) and faculty member Yan Bai (Assistant Professor who teaches Computer Networks,Network Management,Information Assurance, Computer and Network Security) for their work in preparing the students and participating in the event.

Here is the news from Grey Hat team member Parker Thompson:

Our team this year at PRCCDC worked really hard and came in second place beating every other team except UW seattle engineering! I would to thank all of our team members, those who observed the red team, Dr. Yan Bai, and everyone else who helped use make this a success. Our team members this year included myself on the email server and the router, Jesse Morgan for the first day on the router, Kimberly Harvey on the Website and Database, Teddy Vitro and Hai Nyguyen on client machines and as team mangers, Brain van on the internet machine, Aaron Offerdahl on the backtrack machine, and Robert Kesterson on the domain controller.

This student organization also helped the International Conference on E-Crime that was held late last year in Tacoma a success. Of course, as any hard working Institute of Technology student group would, they are already planning for more activities.

We have many exciting plans for the future of the club such as more collaboration with other teams (particularly the winning uw seattle team and devry), to continue to work to make our lab setup closer to the of the ccdc, and setting up a vpn into our lab setup so students at home and students at other schools can still use the lab network.

Thank you again to everyone,

Parker Thompson

Congratulations again, and good luck with building out an excellent lab space for future competitions.

Following the Job Hunt on Tweetajob

2010-03-05T15:18:00.000-08:00

The managing recruiter for a large (to be unnamed) holding company of a technology icon was a guest speaker in my class on Wednesday. The topic was on effective ways to recruit and retain employees to a growing technology company. Michele has been to the class on several occasions during the last few years and always draws great questions and gives solid, valuable advice.

Because so many of the students come to me for direction on how to go about finding employment after they graduate, not only is the information pertinent to the business plan they are required to develop as part of the course, but it also is great guidance for when the students themselves are searching for employment.

One thing that surprises me on occasion is when a student, often who is getting ready to graduate in a quarter or so, comes into my office and starts with this question: Do I know of any job openings? I am not fond of this introductory question, because it arrives without any background information to go with it. Job openings where? What are you interested in doing? Where have you looked? What companies do you want to work for? What locations are manageable for you? What is your favorite color? (maybe not that).

I also hear on occasion a tone of disappointment that their search has gone of for weeks with no or only a couple of interviews. On digging, I find that they have submitted resumes online to only a handful of companies and that they are still waiting to hear back from them. A successful job hunt generally requires a more deliberate and sustained approach.

I am happy and pleased to be able to help where I can when they come to see me. The first thing I tell them to do is to take that large market of jobs that are available (there is a large market, but in down times they are sometimes harder to find) and narrow them down to a specific prospect pool. This is still several hundred companies to draw from. Then I ask them to make a list of the top ten companies from that prospect pool they are most interest in and do some research on them. Then they can apply if they remain interested. They should always have a number of companies they are interested in on that list, even when they have scheduled interviews with others. It should continually be populated as other choices are dropped from the list.

But that is not the point of this post.

They point is that Michele gave a simple suggestion that made a great deal of sense to me. Once you have established the companies with which you think you would like to work for...

Follow them on Twitter.

In fact, if you are looking now, immediately create a List on Twitter and start following you personal list of companies. You may hear of job openings from the tweets, you will gather intelligence on the companies you are interested in and you will get a feel for how they are regarded by their employees and customers.

There is another site that you should look into. Tweetajob.

What is Tweetajob?

Tweetajob is a web based platform that interacts with Twitter, allowing recruiters to efficiently tweet jobs. Because our site allows jobseekers to specify location and career interest, you only receive those job tweets that interest you. Jobseekers can elect to receive job postings via Twitter feed, through the Tweetajob search engine or via mobile devices, according to personal preferences. Recruiters pay to post their jobs to Tweetajob.

There are a number of sites and services out there, from Craigslist to Monster.com.

With the two suggestions above, there is another online tool to add to your arsenal in the hunt for a job.

Technology Company Profiles

2010-02-18T11:43:00.000-08:00

During the course of the year, I will be highlighting technology companies of various sizes and solutions that are located here in Tacoma and the South Puget Sound. So far their are six profiles on the blog.

Hopefully, by the end of the year, there will be 53 companies profiled. When it comes time for you to think about internships or job opportunities, this should provide an ample starting point for you to begin investigating possibilities.

You can view the profiles exclusively by going to the label "Tech Company Profiles" or you can view the list of those companies that were profiled in a linked list that will continue to grow throughout the year.

Startup Weekend Recap and Primer

2010-02-06T11:51:00.000-08:00

When the decision was made to try to hold something like a Startup Weekend it was meant to be a dry run. Recruitment for the weekend was done through blogging alone and a few direct email inquiries of those who had mentioned an interest in the past.

The location was great, given Suite133's experience in hosting the earlier technology based "unconference" called barcampTacoma.

There were two outcomes on the attendance side that concerned me. If we had less than 12 participants I was going to be disappointed, if we had more than 30 I am not sure how I would have handled the logistics.

On Friday night, we had 16 people participate. A few of them made it clear that they were unable to come for the full weekend and just wanted to join in on the first night of discussion. I am glad they came. Given the size of the crowd, everyone was able to introduce themselves and talk a little bit about what they could contribute.

By 7:00pm we were suggesting potential business ideas, with an understanding that there had to be the chance that it could be launched over the next two days. Ten ideas were discussed, which was a good amount. We then voted on the favorites form that ten. Of those five were pretty even in the voting so we held a second vote. One idea which was pretty popular had a second idea, which was more of a feature than a product or a business was folded under another that was a broader solution.

Critical to the final selection was feasibility for completing at least a prototype, so though one idea was popular, another made a great deal more sense.

Here is where we were very lucky. In order to successfully create anything, the talent to do so had to be in the room and ready to work. We had marketing, business planning, design and development experience represented at the Suite. There were four people with ties to the Institute of Technology at UWT, not counting myself. Two alumni of the Computer Science program and two current students.

David Hazel, alumni of the program and veteran of three official Startup Weekends was key to making things work. Not only was he able to give us guidance on how we were doing and what to expect in the next couple of days, but he was well versed in Drupal, a web content management system with enough open source elements that we could create a web site with much of the functionality we were looking for.

Another thing that David prepared us for was the drop off in attendance, which given those who had already mentioned their lack of availability was not a surprise.

On Saturday we spent our time discussion the build out of the idea as a business, how they a Startup Weekend generally handled ideas such as ownership and went to work building the site.

A total of 12 people participated in the second day, with the nice folks from Spryng came by to talk about there entrepreneurial support efforts and to discuss their upcoming conference.

David trained several of the other participants in how to build with Drupal, and on Sunday, six folks worked to get it done.

At the end of the weekend, a working prototype was completed, including some Flash animation in a subsection of the site. Was it launched? No. It needs to complete the remaining implementation of a couple of the features and needs to be given a facelift to better represent the target audience it is aimed at.

The team set up a Wave thread to keep it moving forward, and there is a hope to bring it into the public eye when that is done. It needs to be populated with data and then it is ready to go.

It was a rewarding opportunity to meet and work with great people, to learn about new tools and technology and to gain the experience of what a Startup Weekend is like. Hopefully Clint Nelson and the folks from the official Startup Weekend organization can help us pull off an even bigger event in the late Summer.

Communications of the ACM Cover Story for Former Grad and Faculty Member

2009-07-24T16:52:00.000-07:00

If you are in the computer industry or in computer science education then you are familiar with the "Communications of the ACM". If you are not, it is a highly respected publication read world wide. Aside from the 90,000 members of the ACM who receive each issue, it is read by many more non-members as well.

Here is a snippet of how the publication describes itself:

Communications of the ACM is the leading print and online publication for the computing and information technology fields. Read by computing professionals worldwide, Communications is recognized as the most trusted and knowledgeable source of industry information for today’s computing professional.

So it is quite an accolade that former Institute of Technology Computing and Software Systems graduate student Kristen Shinohara and Institute Faculty member Josh Tenenberg landed the cover spot and are a featured article in the August edition. Kristen is now a Ph.D. Student in the Information School of the University of Washington, Seattle, WA.

Professor Josh Tenenberg has been teaching and conducting research at the Institute of Technology at the University of Washington, Tacoma, for many years. He has recently been interested in Computer Ethics, Social Informatics, Human-Computer Interaction Design, Commons Governance, and Computer Science Education. Just this last year he started an Industry Partners co-teaching program that brought one of Google's Human Interface Design experts into the classroom for a quarter to share the course.

The article comes from the capstone project that Kristen was working on to complete her degree with the support and sponsorship of Josh, who was the faculty Chair. The focus was on a blind person's interaction with technology and is described nicely by the publication as follows:

One of the most effective methods for designing technologies for blind users is to observe how they interact with tools that are part of their daily lives, say Kristen Shinohara and Josh Tenenberg in this month's cover story (see page 58). The findings illustrate how elements of meaning can be as important as usability in the design of technology. In fact, their article inspired this month's cover image – a Braille representation of a quote by Helen Keller: "It is a terrible thing to see and have no vision."

If you would like to read the article, here is a link to it online, as well as a link to the entire publication.

A Blind Person's Interaction with Technology

Communications of the ACM

Congratulations to the both of them.

BarCamp Tacoma, Be There and Change the World

2009-07-08T10:51:00.000-07:00

In August of 2005, Tim O’Reilly, technology publisher extraordinaire invited 250 of his friends to join him for a day of activities that would allow them to get to know each other better and to “hopefully come up with some cool ideas about how to change the world.” The idea was to have people who are doing interesting work share it with others. Interesting in this case meaning the topics of web services, data visualization, opening source programming and data security among other things.

This had been going on for about three years by 2005, and was a pretty exclusive event. Those that were not invited, but were also doing interesting things decided that they could organize a similar opportunity, make it open to anyone interested in explaining why they were interesting and garner enough interest in the event to fill it. It was a success and in answer to the O’Rielly event, named “FooCamp”, it became known as “BarCamp” in a gesture toward its tech geek roots. It is also known as an “unconference” because it shapes itself on the day of the event and speakers present in half hour slots on a first come/first served basis. Chris Messina’s idea was an unqualified success and the occasion for BarCamps has increased in number and venues.

If you were interested and had heard of BarCamp over the last few years, it would likely to have been one somewhere in Seattle or on the East Side.

That was until this August 8th at the Suite 133 offices. Thanks to Scott Kuehn, Michael Maitlen, Jennifer Halveron Kuehn and Robert Peaslee an open invitation to participate and interact is available to the Tacoma set. You DO NOT have to be a tech geek to participate. Perhaps your interest is in marketing or art or economic development. If you are willing to speak, you are welcome to the event.

Open at 9:00am with presentations starting at 10:00am, the event will go until 5:00pm. Coffee is your friend. Perhaps we will all get to know each other better and come up with some cool ideas to change the world, the state, the county, or maybe Tacoma.

For more information check out www.barcamptacoma.org and sign up there.

Commencement!

2009-06-08T09:41:00.001-07:00

This Friday is the University of Washington Tacoma's Commencement Ceremony. The Institute has students graduating with Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Arts, and Master of Science degrees in Computing & Software Systems. The Institute is also graduating its very first class of Computer Engineers (BS in Computer Engineering & Systems)!

Congratulations to all the graduates!

The Institute is hosting a party for graduates and their families and friends immediately following the ceremony. Please join the faculty and staff of the Institute in CP 206C for refreshments.

Commencement Ceremony
tacoma.washington.edu/commencement
June 12, 2009
10:00 am (doors open at 9:00 am)
Tacoma Dome
Speaker: Governor Chris Gregoire

Institute Graduation Party
June 12, 2009
1:00-3:00 pm (following the ceremony)
Cherry Parkes 206C

Computing News: Google's Annual Founders' Letter

2009-05-07T14:52:00.000-07:00

Google's founders take turns writing a letter each year to include with their annual report to the stockholders. This year was Sergey Brin's turn and he writes about the history of the internet and what Google has accomplished in the last few years. Brin addresses Search, YouTube, Books, Geo, Ads, Apps, Chrome, Android, AI, and then concludes with:

Given the tremendous pace of technology, it is impossible to predict far into the future. However, I think the past decade tells us some things to expect in the next. Computers will be 100 times faster still and storage will be 100 times cheaper. Many of the problems that we call artificial intelligence today will become accepted as standard computational capabilities, including image processing, speech recognition, and natural language processing. New and amazing computational capabilities will be born that we cannot even imagine today.

While about half the people in the world are online today via computers and mobile phones, the Internet will reach billions more in the coming decade. I expect that by using simple yet powerful models of computing such as web services, everyone will be more productive. These tools enable individuals, small groups, and small businesses to accomplish tasks that only large corporations could achieve before, whether it is making and releasing a movie, marketing a product, or reporting on a war.

When I was a child, researching anything involved a long trip to the local library and good deal of luck that one of the books there would be about the subject of interest. I could not have imagined that today anyone would be able to research any topic in seconds. The dark clouds currently looming over the world economy are a hardship for us all, but by the time today's children grow up, this recession will be a footnote in history. Yet the technologies that we create between now and then will define their way of life.

You can read the entire letter at the Official Google Blog.

Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition Notes

2009-03-31T12:19:00.001-07:00

As was expected, everyone was challenged and had a good time at the CCDC (Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition) event. Don McLane, who helps to organize and sponsor the event through coordination and support of the Institute students gave me some notes from last weekends experience.

The scenario was well balanced. Student teams did have enough time to harden their systems. The Red Team (attackers) soon figured out the systems and exploited any exposed flaws. Thank Brian Hay at the University of Alaska for a good design there.

There was an interesting dynamic on the floor. Although teams were really competing against each other, they felt like they were all against the Red Team. I noticed one occasion where someone overheard another team member describing a problem; he scooted over and whispered "our team figured that out, here's what to do ...".

Setting up the competition was an adventure. Thursday morning I drove to Microsoft with a truck full of routers and switches. We set up everything in record time. The next day, Brian Hay would fly down from Alaska with all the operating system images and we'd finish up.

Then I got the call: all flights from Alaska were canceled because of volcanic ash. I spent the entire night downloading 60 Gigabytes of data from Alaska.

Friday, even though we were constantly on the phone, there were more details than could be handled in the bandwidth of a phone call. We called a few volunteers. A couple people from Microsoft stopped by to see how it was going; they were immediately recruited to help troubleshoot. The team effort was incredible.

Luckily, the Alaska team did make it down the next day for the competition.

Don also provided some pictures from the event. The rest can be found here.

Happy Ada Lovelace Day! (a day late)

2009-03-25T10:37:00.000-07:00

Ada Lovelace was the first programmer. She wrote programs for Charles Babbage's analytical engine in the 1840s. That's right, way back in 1840! 140 years later, the US Defense Department named a programming language after her (Ada).

March 24th was named Ada Lovelace Day and is an international day for blogging about women in technology. You can find posts from around the world about all kinds of amazing women.

MS-CSS graduate admitted to MIT!

2009-02-26T10:44:00.000-08:00

The Institute of Technology is proud to announce that Chunguang Charlotte Wang, 2006 graduate of our Master’s Program in CSS, has been admitted to MIT’s Master’s of Science in System Design Management. The program focuses on engineering system design and management. Charlotte’s Capstone project “UML2OWL-S: A Tool to Transform Business Requirements to Business Process Ontology” was chaired by Sam Chung, Ph.D.

Charlotte is a wonderful representative of UW Tacoma. She spent an exciting summer working as the interpreter for athletes and United States Olympic Committee at the Beijing Olympics. She was featured in an article in NWweekly.

Congratulations on both of these accomplishments, Charlotte!

Computing News: Computers & Music

2009-01-26T09:07:00.000-08:00

The Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription required) has a great article about computer scientists researching in the field of music at Georgia Tech.

A glove that helps you learn to play piano, a robotic marimba player that can jam with your band, a program to turn your cellphone into a portable music mixer, and an aquarium that musically accompanies the fish.

You are unlikely to encounter any of those devices at a typical music school or even an elite conservatory. But they all exist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, which opened the Center for Music Technology in November. There, composers, computer programmers, and engineers are collaborating on projects to change how performers and audiences use technology to make and experience music — and perhaps to give new music a greater attraction for classically oriented ears.

The center's goal is to foster as significant a shift in music composition and performance as happened when the piano replaced the more limited harpsichord in the 18th century. "An endeavor of this sort in our time demands an interdisciplinary technological approach, cutting across such fields as engineering, computation, material science, design, and music, all the while keeping a sharp focus on aesthetics," the center's Web site says.
...
Others at Georgia Tech are developing technologies that could change the way musicians learn. Kevin Huang, studying for a master's degree in computer science, has created a prototype glove outfitted with standard cellphone buzzers that can be programmed to signal, with vibrations, which fingers to use while playing a piano piece. The device could even be used to help build muscle memory while a player is away from the keyboard. And it has potential as a tool for physical rehabilitation, says his instructor, Ellen Yi-Luen Do, an associate professor of human-centered computing.
...
In addition to working on musical innovations, the center is also meant to inspire the university's engineers and programmers to be more creative in all of their work. "We really want to solve real-world problems," Mr. Weinberg says.

Computing News: Facial Recognition

2008-12-12T15:00:00.000-08:00

Hopefully you got to see the demonstration of Sagem Morpho's facial recogition software at the South Sound Technology Conference. Today's News Tribune has an excellent article about how the Pierce County Sherriff's Department is using the software to pursue unsolved cases.

The forgery and theft case had victims, a witness and decent surveillance images from an ATM. What it didn’t have were any leads on who committed the crime. But instead of being tossed aside, as happens in so many property crime cases, the ATM images were e-mailed to Steve Wilkins at the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department.

Wilkins, the department’s forensic services supervisor, picked the clearest image and used new facial recognition software to compare it to 16 years’ worth of prisoner mug shots taken at the Pierce County Jail.

Within 15 minutes he’d found a match.

Detectives followed the new lead and eventually arrested Susan Bennett, who was charged in October with 11 crimes in connection with the ATM thefts. She pleaded guilty Thursday and was sentenced to 91/2 years. Half of that will be served in prison, and half in community custody under Department of Corrections supervision.

The match was the first for the Sheriff’s Department’s six-month pilot project with Sagem Morpho Inc.’s new facial recognition software, MorphoFace.

SST Conference a Success!

2008-11-21T16:17:00.000-08:00

Today's South Sound Technology Conference was a huge success!

Business leaders, technology innovators, students, faculty, and staff all attended the conference today. Attendees heard about the importance of innovation in the economy, learned about cloud computing, and saw a demonstration of facial recognition software, among other topics. Local companies Prepared Response, Serra Media, Avue Technology, NewTech, and Internet Identity all sat on a panel to discuss the local technology industry.

The Business Examiner has a short article about the conference:

While the term "tech sector" was used to grow products during the dot.com boom and bust 10 years ago, the sector has evolved to include more about innovation, said Economic Development Commission of Washington Executive Director Egils Milbergs.

"Innovation is about solving customer problems," he said.

Thank you to all who attended and all who presented!

ACM-ICPC Programming Contest - RESULTS

2008-11-17T11:00:00.000-08:00

Two student teams from the Institute of Technology recently competed in the ACM-ICPC Regional Programming Contest.

There were a total of 85 teams competing in the Northwest region, of which 24 were at the UO site in Eugene; there were 11 problems given in the contest.

Team UWT Purple (Jonathan Hogins, Mark Jung, Kevin Stueve) finished 6 of the 11 problems, finishing 6th at the site and 20th overall. Team UWT Gold (Matthew Fiebig, Steven Hotag, Tim Simon) finished 3 of the 11 problems, finishing 16th at the site and 49th overall.

The team's coach Dr. Dan Zimmerman had this to say:

I think this is an _excellent_ showing - especially considering that it was our first competition [and] that we had so little preparation...[The Purple] team should be available to compete again next year, but I imagine they'll have to fight for it, once word spreads about how much fun these competitions are.

Congratulations to all of the participants!

The Institute of Technology's First Seminar on Thursday

2008-11-12T10:05:00.000-08:00

On Thursday, November 13, 2008 from 12:30pm - 1:20pm in Pinkerton 131, Steve Hanks, Professor of CSS, and consulting CSO, Adready will present:

"Optimization and Online Display Advertising"

Online display advertising has traditionally been managed by agencies and optimized by humans. Smaller, more local businesses have been limited to media like print advertisements and direct mail. Advances in technology are starting to make the online channel available to smaller advertisers who cannot afford to hire an agency to build and manage their ad campaigns, and at the same time changes in consumers' buying and browsing habits is making online advertising much more effective in reaching even local customers.

Adready is a Seattle startup offering self-service technology allowing an advertiser to compose, deploy, and monitor online display ad campaigns. Its low fee structure and minimum budget opens the channel to small advertisers. Of particular technological interest is the optimization component: ideally the advertiser tells the Adready system what business goals s/he wants to accomplish through the campaign, and the system uses the budget optimally, in terms of fine-tuning the creative and the message, and deploying the ads in the best possible places and at the best possible times.

Professor Hanks explains:

Building an optimization system like this reveals plenty of interesting theoretical and engineering problems. And while optimization has a very long and very rich academic literature -- even in related areas like search-engine optimization -- starting with the needs dictated by building a practical system often leads to a very different problem statement and set of issues than one sees in the academic literature. In this talk I will sketch out the area of online display advertising and the optimization problem, point out the pressing technical problems, and talk a little about what we are doing at Adready to solve them.

About AdReady, info and above screen shot from their website:

AdReady is an advertising technology company focused on making online display advertising accessible and effective for advertisers of all sizes. Through AdReady’s data-rich library of proven creative, real-time ad customization tools, and intuitive web-based interface, marketers are learning that AdReady makes it easy to build and run effective online display ad campaigns in minutes.

Center of Excellence in Information Assurance Research

2008-11-07T09:50:00.000-08:00

Dr. Barbara Endicott-Popovsky, Director of the Center for Information Assurance and Cybersecurity at the University of Washington presents a NSA/DHS certificate to the Director of the Institute of Technology, Dr. Orlando Baiocchi.

The University of Washington Center for Information Assurance and Cybersecurity (CIAC) was awarded designation as an NSA/DHS Center of Excellence in Information Assurance Research, having been an NSA/DHS Center of Excellence in Information Assurance Education since 2004. The Center was originally formed under the leadership and guidance of the University of Washington Institute of Technology (Larry Crum and Steve Hanks), the Computer Science and Engineering Dept Seattle campus (Ed Lazowska and David Notkin) and the Information School (Mike Eisenberg).

The CIAC is one of only 23 such Centers in the United States and is distinguished from the others by the multidisciplinary research agenda that crosses several departments--law, mathematics, information and computer sciences--and a research partnership with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

South Sound Technology Conference 2008

2008-11-04T15:11:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone,

Join us at the Institute of Technology at 8:30am on November 21st for the Ninth Annual South Sound Technology Conference. Held in the new William Phillips Hall on the University of Washington, Campus, the days topics will range from Google's Cloud Computing to Sagem Morpho's Facial Recognition software with an emphasis throughout the day on fostering innovation and technology to solve problems and create opportunity. The event will conclude at 1:00pm with a panel of local software and technology companies from the South Sound, such as Prepared Response and Newtech, providing updates and discussing new product initiatives. The conference is free but registration is highly recommended. To RSVP your attendance, send your confirmation email to Zaide Chavez (zaidec@u.washington.edu) at the Institute of Technology.

For more information or questions contact Andrew Fry

Computing News: Earthquake Detection

2008-10-29T12:07:00.000-07:00

From The Wired Campus:

Seismologists at the University of California at Riverside and Stanford University are creating an earthquake-detection network on the cheap by using distributed-computing technology to link up laptop computers that have built-in motion sensors. The researchers’ Quake-Catcher Network has already detected several quakes — in Nevada in April and in Los Angeles in late July.

Check out their website to find out how you can join the Quake-Catcher Network with your own laptop or desktop!

ACM Panel: Globalization & Technology

2008-10-21T10:34:00.000-07:00

UW Tacoma's ACM chapter is hosting a panel on Thursday, October 23rd at 2:30pm in Carwein Auditorium.

From the flyer:

Technology is enabling the world to connect in diverse ways! Technologists need to focus on making effective use of global markets and resources. Join us in this discussion of various perspectives and challenges faced by technologists in a global society.

All are welcome!

PANELISTS:

Nitin Ahuja (Entercoms)
Lewis A. McMurran (WTIA-Washington Technology Industry Association)
Samir Manjure (Microsoft Corporation)
George Mobus (University of Washington Tacoma)

The Institute on Facebook!

2008-10-07T17:24:00.000-07:00

Join the Institute of Technology on Facebook! Become a fan and post your own pictures, videos, and comments. Post info about an upcoming student org meeting, pictures from your latest trip to Chalet Bowl, cool stuff you have been learning at your internship, an invitation for getting down to serious business on Rock Band or Halo, or the latest idea you have been pondering.

Alumni of the Institute should join too and let us know what life is like after graduation!

Institute Web site updated!

2008-05-06T10:18:00.001-07:00

Hi all! Please take a look at our updated web site for the Institute of Technology! We have made several additions/changes and basically jazzed up the site! What do you think? We plan to do more but any input would be appreciated.

Joe

Local and Regional Information Assurance and Cybersecurity Events

2008-04-16T10:08:00.000-07:00

Mark your calendars for a couple of upcoming events if you have an interest in computer and information security. The first is coordinated and produced by and the second is being participated in by the Grey Hat Group, a student organization at the University of Washington, Tacoma dedicated to promoting awareness, education, and research into computer security. The event the group is presenting, now in its second year, is the Northwest Security Symposium. Knows as NWSec, the event features student, academic, and professional presentations on topics ranging from cryptography to computer forensics.

The conference is scheduled for May 7th and 8th, 2008 and will provide a broad perspective and in-depth technical sessions based on leading information assurance and cyber security topics. This event invites local businesses, military personnel, and Fortune 500 corporations to interact with each other, increase awareness of critical issues, and view important academic and industry presentations.

Presentations will be given in the Carwein Auditorium of the Keystone building on the UWT Campus and has a great array of speakers from Dickie George to Kirk Bailey. Check it out on their web site.

The Grey Hats are also competing in the upcoming 1st Pacific Rim Regional Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition on April 26 – 27, 2008 in conjunction with the Center for Information Assurance & Cybersecurity, University of Washington. The event will happen on the Microsoft Campus in Redmond and is similar to the great event that the group held with West Point and Fort Lewis last year.

Hello

2008-03-26T16:31:00.000-07:00

Hi all!! My name is Joe Contris and I am the new Program Administrator with the Institute of Technology. My background is in management and behavioral health. I am guitarist that plays around Tacoma in a band called Near the Beat. Check out our Myspace if you would like:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=247186172

It is great to be a memeber of the UW family!

Joe

UPE at UWTECH

2008-02-21T14:16:00.000-08:00

Nearly two dozen students, alumni and faculty at the Institute of Technology were recently inducted into the new UW Tacoma chapter of Upsilon Pi Epsilon (UPE), the international honor society for computing science, engineering and technology.

“Joining UPE is an honor,” said Associate Professor George Mobus, a longtime member of the organization. “Having UPE here at UW Tacoma is a recognition of the quality of our program and of our students.”

UPE’s mission is to recognize academic excellence at both the undergraduate and graduate levels in the computing and information disciplines. A member of the Association of College Honor Societies, UPE is the only international honor society in the computing and information field.

The charter’s first initiates are: Students Amelia Annest, Alan Boulet, Craig Deitering, Alan Fowler, Pat Kuhlman, Randy McCoy, Michael Munsey, Craig Niyama, Kyle Shanafelt, Erik Sherbon, Ruslan Slobodyanik, Michael Spiz and Jonathan Veilleux. Also initiated were alumni Iyad Alaqrabawi, Daniel Blair, Robert Bunge and Kristen Shinohara, Assistant Professor Dan Zimmerman and Institute of Technology Director Orlando Baiocchi.

The Institute of Technology was launched in 2001 to cultivate a highly educated and knowledgeable workforce to support the state's high-tech sector and spur economic development in the South Sound region. The Institute offers bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Computer Engineering and Systems and Computing and Software Systems. To learn more about the Institute of Technology, visit www.insttech.washington.edu.

Security Workshop Tomorrow

2008-02-01T16:13:00.000-08:00

This Saturday, February 2, at 11:00 in CP105, The Grey Hat Group is putting on a workshop entitled

"Passwords and Bump Keys--How Safe Are You, Really?"

There will be some demos of password auditing/recovery tools (I didn't say
cracking!), as well as a demo of the strength of a physical security device.

All interested people are welcome.

The GreyHat Group at UWT is a student organization at the University of Washington, Tacoma, organized by Computing and Software Systems students, whose mission is to research all aspects of computer security, including network security and information assurance and share that information with the regional community.

Membership is open to any UWT Student who has an interest in computer security regardless of major. Prior knowledge of computers is NOT required for membership. Knowledge is gained through attending meetings and events, talking to other members, and trying things out for yourself.

Cyber Defense Workshop at the UWT

2007-11-14T14:47:00.001-08:00

A Cyber Defense workshop will be held at UWT on Saturday, November 17, from 10:00 to 1:00. Anyone is welcome to attend--students, faculty, staff, friends, relatives, anyone interested in the technical aspects of network security. This workshop will be a Network Mapping Challenge.

The group will start in the Embedded lab, Cherry Parks 206D.

Linux experience helpful, but not required. Participants who already have network mapping software on their laptops, will be able to use their own machine.

For more information contact Don McLane (dmclane@u.washington.edu)

A New Acronym to Learn: STEM

2007-09-10T10:03:00.001-07:00

This is for all you "back to schoolers" in all grades, or those considering a return to academia. In particular a salute to the 20 or so students who will be entering into the first full academic year of the Computer Engineering and Systems program at the Institute of Technology at the University of Washington, Tacoma.

I want to mention a new acronym I ran across on the Bureau of Labor Statistics site today. STEM.

It stands for Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics, and if you are considering pursuit of an occupation or an occupational change, this is an area to explore.

Schools are paying attention to this information. In Minnesota, The Mankato School District took note of the fact that according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 10 of the 15 fastest growing occupations requiring at least a bachelor’s degree are computer, science or technology related. In response the district has created a handful of progressive programs that integrate classroom education with real-world business applications. St. Peter built an entirely new science lab at North Elementary to engage kids earlier in math, science and technology. Le Sueur-Henderson spent a goodly portion of its $18.5 million bond referendum on upgrading middle and high school labs and technological equipment.

Bold moves that will pay off in the future for the students who accept the challenges of the field.

The government BLS site has more about STEM for download as a report here. Here is a snippet from it to spark your interest.

Faster aircraft, bolder video games, better medicines—technology moves forward every day. And tech-savvy workers make those advances happen. Without the work of scientists, technicians, engineers, mathematicians, and other skilled workers, most new products and discoveries would never be developed.
Technical occupations are often defined as those related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Workers in STEM occupations use science and math to solve problems.

This article describes the occupations that most clearly concentrate on STEM. You’ll find information about STEM occupations, earnings, educational requirements, and job prospects. There are also suggestions on how to prepare for a STEM career and where to find more information.

In the early part of this decade, there was a difficult spate of job losses in certain sectors, yet Computer Science and Engineering remains one of the 25 fastest growing industries with strong career opportunities in the Nation.

Wage-and-salary employment is expected to grow 40 percent by the year 2014, compared with only 14 percent growth projected for the entire economy.

Welcome back, students.

MSL and Origami

2007-08-16T11:17:00.000-07:00

For four weeks in August, selected students from around the South Sound participate in a four week summer camp with an important focus. The Math, Science & Leadership (MSL) program at the Institute of Technology is a multi-year program that begins with a summer camp for students who will be entering 7th - 11th grades here in the South Sound.

The goals of the program are to help students recognize and develop their potential to excel in math and science, ease the transition from middle school to high school and high school to college, encourage the pursuit of math and science electives at the high school level and to pursue postsecondary degrees in these fields.

Believe me, we need more scientists and engineers.

I spoke to a class of eighth graders in during the second week and enjoyed myself greatly. They were outgoing, respectful and interested in the discussion. My focus was on origami and its relation to mathematics. In particular I highlighted Robert Lang, a noted physicist and engineer, who has authored or co-authored over 80 technical publications and 40 patents on semiconductor lasers, optics, and integrated optoelectronics.

He has also presented several refereed technical papers on origami-math at mathematical and computer science professional meetings. His profile on CBS 60 minutes was shown during the discussion via the web in a smart classroom, and the feature noted the applications of origami to engineering problems ranging from air-bag design to expandable space telescopes.

And then of course we made cranes.

MSL Kick Off Around the World Lunch

2007-08-06T11:19:00.000-07:00

The general hum in the Institute was interrupted by laughter and the russel of pinatas being hoisted into the air on the second floor. Friday, August 3, 2007 was the kick off celebration lunch for the MSL instructional team as well as the staff. The theme was multicultural in nature with everyone in attendance providing a dish from their respective ethnic background or area they had lived. Some of the food items ranged from Indian, Mexican pastries and salsa, southern red beans and rice to fried chicken.

Pinatas decorated the conference room on the second floor. Around the table, each instructor took their turn sharing their particular area of expertise and discussed the intense training they had just completed.

Their enthusiasm was contagious, the food delicious. Monday August 6, the team would be welcoming the 98 students who had registered for this year's program.

As a way of introduction and information our Math, Science & Leadership (MSL) program is a multi-year program that begins with a summer camp for students who will be entering 7th - 11th grades. This exciting, fun and academically challenging summer program runs from August 6-28, 2007, every weekday from 8:30am - 4:30pm

The goals of the MSL include helping students recognize and develop their potential to excel in math, science and leadership, to ease the transition from middle school to high school and high school to college, to encourage the pursuit of math and science electives at the high school level and to encourage students to pursue post secondary degrees in these fields.

The Institute expect the impacts of the students experience to include providing opportunities for students to tackle subjects in math and science outside of the school curriculum by offering a different style and pace of learning, to provide peer environment that reflects their own diversity and culture, allowing them to build a supportive cohort, to allow students to develop academic skills over time, as well as leadership skills and to allow the student a chance to apply the skills learned, and to have a real-life grounding in how math, science, and technology can be used in jobs and academic careers.

Students who have confidence in their academic and leadership skills are more likely to pursue their interests in higher education and beyond. A more diversified population in fields that are traditionally dominated by white males (i.e., math, science and technology) will lead to greater creativity, productivity and a multiple-perspectives approach to the products, research and information that emerge.

We extend a sincere welcome to our 2007 MSL students and applaud the Adrienne Arnold, Coordinator and her amazing instructional team.

Tacoma dorkbot

2007-07-24T12:07:00.000-07:00

There is one in London, one in New York, one in Melbourne, Lisbon and, among many other cities, Tacoma. It is “dorkbot”. Their catch phrase is “people doing strange things with electricity...” and they are described as

“a monthly meeting of artists (sound/image/movement/whatever), designers, engineers, students, scientists, and other interested parties from the Tacoma area who are involved in the creative use of electricity - electronic art (in the broadest sense of the word).”

They are meeting tonight at Tacoma School of the Arts' Club SOTA, starting at 7:00pm and it is open and free to the public.

Tonights presentations include one on light sensitivity in behaviour based robotics by one of the undergraduates at the Institute of Technology’s Computing and Software Systems program, Andrew Becherer. Andrew says he will be “discussing behavior based robotics and specifically how to use behavior based robotic techniques to add "personality" to electronic objects.”.

Sweet.

He will also be talking about Lego Mindstorms, which will include a focus on “the work of Valentino Braitenberg and his seminal text Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology.”

Let’s summarize…”How to program toys to behave like animals”. Now that has the makings of a Summer Blockbuster.

Laura MacCary, who is a local electronics artist, will be presenting on interactivity between people and circuits. According to the dorkbot announcement she will be showing some of her work followed by an opportunity for the attendees to engage in some hands-on experimentation.

For more information on the Tacoma dorkbot visit http://dorkbot.org/dorkbottac/

Briefing on the Cybersecurity Excercise

2007-07-24T12:04:00.000-07:00

A Military Affairs Committee meeting was held by the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber entitled “An Update from Ft. Lewis”. Along with presentations from Col. Cynthia Murphy, Garrison Commander and Mark San Souci, Regional Liaison for Military Families, DoD-State Liaison Office, (who gave updates on the base and discussed Pay Day Lender laws respectively), I gave an update on the Cybersecurity Exercise that was conducted a little over a month ago.

Sponsored jointly by West Point, Fort Lewis and the University of Washington Tacoma, the day-long event brought in students from multiple locations where they were lead by Lt. Colonel Ron Dodge from USMA West Point through a series of cyber attack/defense exercises.

West Point gave the participants some preliminary materials to practice with so that the students who were invited would be familiar with the scenario. This way each team would have at least one member who was comfortable with the equipment.

The students brought the necessary ID and met to carpool in order to minimize the number of cars driven on to the base. When they arrived, they formed groups and were given a pod of workstations that comprised a small network. The networks had some security problems that each group had to discover and secure. After giving the groups some time to secure three high powered workstations and six monitors, the people from West Point started attacking.

Don McLane, lecturer at the Institute of Technology, was the organizer of the UWT contingent and deserves credit for how well the students did. He teaches TCSS 431 (Network Security) which covers “cryptographic methods including public and private key algorithms. It examines protocols that utilize such methods, such as secure email, digital signatures, authorization, e-voting, and electronic cash. The course includes a lab component for demonstration of security techniques such as firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and virtual private networks.”

He reports “Everyone learned…even me, so we’ll be better prepared next time.” And that “Fort Lewis provided an EXCEPTIONAL environment.”.

Also there was Barbara Endicott-Popovsky, Director, Center for Information Assurance and Cybersecurity (CIAC), University of Washington who said “Don did a great job..His group was given special mention for their success with the exercise. There were between 60-70 people there. Huge group."

Next time the exercise will be part of the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition, so Don intends to have an official team prepared for that. Given this years challenge was more difficult that the year before, the expectation is for the difficulty to be further increased yet again next year.

(cross posted at andrewfry.blogspot.com)