9:00–9:30

Welcome and Introduction—Tony Hey, corporate vice president, Microsoft Research

Tony will welcome the attendees of Faculty Summit 2011 and provide a short overview of our collaboration with the research community. He will highlight some of our successful projects and programs and discuss some promising areas for collaboration that hold a high degree of potential value for both academia and Microsoft.

Chair: Curtis Wong, Microsoft Research

Opening/Welcome Distinguished Critics—Curtis Wong and Mike Kasprow 

Origin—University of Washingon, Seattle, WA, United States
Daniya Ulgen, Vu Chu, Jason Wong, Ben Mabry, and Nicholas Smith 

In recognition of the shortcomings of current file management systems, Origin seeks to improve the way in which data is tagged, making its operation far more organic (or brain-like) than any typical system. By tagging data with contextual markers, it delivers users what they want, when they want it without degrading opportunities to search for other data.

Voglia—Iuav University of Venice, Venice, Italy
Alice Mortaro, Valeria Refratti, and Amanda Rezza 

The Venice brief, "Thicker than Water," asked students to invent, design, and prototype a system that allows real-time, interactive, but non-verbal communication between dispersed family members. The focus was on sharing emotions, intimacy, and background sensation. Voglia is a connected device, designed as a jewelry pendant, allowing close bodily communication between a couple who are physically apart.

In-NEED—The Ontario College of Art and Design University, Toronto, Canada
Nermin Moufti and Fareena Chanda 

In-NEED is a system for managing the community’s response to natural disasters through the use of mobile technologies. In-NEED addresses the humanitarian need of pre-emptive “survivor” systems/networks that engage and mobilize people within the community to act and share existing resources to mitigate the impact of natural disasters in the all-important hours directly preceding the event. By using existing technologies, localized platforms, and developing low-cost community nodes, In-NEED serves as a virtual survival kit.

Walk.It—New York University | Interactive Telecommunications Program, New York City, NY
, United States
Jennifer Ho, Doug Thistlewaite, Jihyun Moon, and Miguel Bermudez 

Walk.It is an online platform that allows anyone to create and share neighborhood maps that mimic the same personality and charm of a hand-drawn map from a friend. Believing that the form of the map breeds comfort and familiarity, along with the connected power of community and curation, Walk.It is designed to foster exploration and investigation.

Porta Vox—Ibero Universidad de México, Mexico City, Mexico 
Fernanda Diez, Mariana Pintado, Julio Palomino, and Ricardo Gómez 

It is well known that in many urban centers crime of any kind—but particularly those of a violent nature—are seldom reported. Porta Vox is a system that creates a community-reporting tool that helps track and reduce incidents of crime in urban areas. The belief is that by making the means of reporting present, simple, and connected, it can reduce the stigma and fear that is associated with reporting. The intended outcome is to reduce crime and the fear of crime, thus making cities eminently more livable.

Apart – Together—Tongji University, Shanghai, China  

Wei Wang, Hong Chen, Choi Yuna, and Ismo Sutela

The Tongji University project team of interdisciplinary students has focused on the growing trend of parents leaving behind their children in second and third tier cities for the large first-tier cities in hopes of finding better economic opportunities. This trend is growing quickly, currently effecting more than 130 million parents and more than 50 million children who are now being raised by their grandparents. This separation between parent and children has a huge emotional impact and introduces some unique challenges of Chinese society today. The Apart – Together team has focused on a solution to improve the emotional bond between children and parents that are currently living in this situation.

15:30–16:30