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Taiwan
This page outlines Microsoft Research
Asia's university projects and
activities in Taiwan.
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In January 2003,
Microsoft Research Asia (MSRA) entered into
memorandum of understanding for collaborative
research with National Taiwan University (NTU),
National Tsing Hua University (NTHU) and
National Chiao Tung University (NCTU), very
prestigious universities in Taiwan. The
agreements have been faithfully executed; and
all parties are satisfied with the results.
Based on this, scope of collaboration has been
expanded from joint research to curriculum
innovation, talent fostering and other forms of
academic exchange; and great achievements have
been made in each of the fields. With the
successful model, MSRA is establishing mutually
beneficiary relations with more universities in
Taiwan such as National Cheng Kung University
(NCKU), with whom MSRA has started collaboration
in all aspects since 2006.
Research Collaboration
In past four years, MSRA sponsored around 3 to 8
research projects each year in Taiwan. In fiscal
year 2006 (i.e., July 2005 to June 2006), we
supported 8 research projects in the areas of
"Gaming and Graphics," "Trustworthy Computing,"
"Data Streaming" and "Information Retrieval."
MSRA also supported "Embedded Systems" projects
in earlier years. Each supported project has
been linked to an MSRA research group so that
the work can be well collaborated.
There were many well executed projects. A good
example had been the project led by Professor
Hsin-Hsi Chen of NTU funded in late 2005. The
project, entitled "Person Name Disambiguation
and Its Applications," matched very well with
the research interests of Web Search and Data
Mining Group (WSM) of MSRA. Professor Chen sent
two Ph.D. students to MSRA as interns. Through
the students, NTU and MSRA frequently exchanged
ideas and helped each other. Result of this
one-year project was published by Professor Chen
on 2006 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference on
Web Intelligence, entitled "Name Disambiguation
in Person Information Mining." One of the
interns sent by Professor Chen was awarded by
MSRA "Best Intern of the Year." The award
offered the Ph.D. student, Ming-Feng Tsai, a
trip to Bill Gate's home for a BBQ in the summer
of 2006; and the successful story caught great
media attention in Taiwan.
This year, 2007, MSRA sent Invitation for
Proposals (IFP) to some universities. Scopes of
interests include "Internet Services" and
"Mobile Computing in Education." We also
recommended that universities responded to
global Request for Proposals (RFP) prepared by
Microsoft Research colleagues in Redmond. We
look forward to deeper engagements with the best
universities in Taiwan.
Curriculum Innovation
As the biggest software product company,
Microsoft takes the responsibility to help
universities offering good software courses.
Working with Microsoft colleagues in Taiwan,
MSRA helps universities to create innovative
courseware, especially in Operating Systems and
Embedded Systems. With the advantage of hardware
design and manufacturing strength in Taiwan,
professors are especially interested and
creative in designing curriculum of embedded
systems.
In 2005, MSRA sponsored Professor Chi-Sheng Shih
in his embedded system course offered at NTU.
Professor Shih created many practical lab
exercises based on the Windows-CE platform. He
later shared the ideas in 2006 MSRA Regional
Theme Workshop in Beijing with around 70
instructors from all over Asia. Professor Shih
also published a paper for NTU embedded system
curriculum in a satellite workshop of ACM EMSOFT
in October 2006.
In 2006, MSRA joint force with Microsoft Taiwan
launched a contest, "Best Windows-based
Curriculum Award," in Taiwan. Purpose of this
contest was to find and then help universities
and professors offering OS courses based on
Windows. The winner, Ming-Chung University,
created very comprehensive embedded system
curriculum based on Windows-CE. Sponsored in
part by The Ministry of Education, Ming-Chung
University is writing an embedded-systems
textbook in Chinese to be used by universities
in Taiwan.
Starting from 2005, MSRA and Microsoft Taiwan
have jointly funded Chang-Gang University to set
up a .NET Lab. Mission of the lab has been to
design curriculum in embedded systems based on
Windows-CE and software engineering on
Visio-Studio and transfer the courseware to
other technical universities or institutes in
Taiwan and train their instructors. The
"Training the Trainers" program has been
launched in 2006 and still on going.
It is a continuing mission for MSRA to explore,
fund and support great curriculum ideas. We are
especially interested in working with
universities in Taiwan, a global hub for IT
industry, to help the education in computer
science.
Talent Fostering
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For the future of computer industry, it is to
our interest that smart students would choose
computer science as their major and receive best
education. Therefore, MSRA working with
universities provide internship, fellowship and
other academic programs to talented students in
computer science.
In spite of the
high cost, MSRA constantly increases the number
of internship offered to students from Taiwan.
Since beginning of fiscal year 2006 (i.e., July
2005), eight Ph.D. students from NTU, NTHU and
NCTU had been to Beijing as MSRA interns; and
two students from NCKU have recently been
admitted to join the internship program in
summer 2007.
Students from Taiwan have been doing very well
in graphics and vision, search and mining,
networking, and some hardware-related projects.
They received hands-on experience in a
world-class industrial research lab, which can
be very helpful in developing their career in
the future. Students from Taiwan have also been
very active in the region-wide competition of
"Microsoft Fellowship" offered by MSRA on a
yearly basis. Taking 2006 Microsoft Fellowship
as an example, there were 38 fellowship winners
strictly selected from all over Asia; among
which, 4 from Taiwan. Those extremely talented
young Ph.D. students were awarded US$ 6,000
scholarship and offered the opportunity for MSRA
internship. We are happy to see former Microsoft
Fellowship winners establishing great career in
academia and industry. For instance, Dr. Shi-Wu
Luo, a 2003 winner, is now among the faculty of
National Chong Cheng University, one of the very
prestigious universities in Taiwan.
Academic Exchange
MSRA helps to create various opportunities for academic exchange, including
exchange between MSRA and universities and exchange among universities in the
Asia Pacific region.
MSRA executives and senior researchers frequently visit universities in Taiwan.
In fiscal year 2006 alone, more than ten visits were made to NTU, NTHU, NCTU,
NCKU and a few others. Round-table meetings with faculty and distinguished
lectures delivered in EE and CS typically involved more than a hundred
professors and a thousand students each year.
Academics in Taiwan participate in MSRA activities with enthusiasm. 20
professors from Taiwan joined the 2005 MSRA Faculty Summit in Hangzhou; 21
participated in the 2006 MSRA Theme Workshop in Beijing; and 19 joined the 2006
MSRA Faculty Summit in Beijing despite that was in the same week as the
"Computing in the 21st Century" Conference (21CCC) in Taipei.
21CCC in Taipei was held in October 2006 by MSRA. Dr. Rick Rashid and Dr. Harry
Shum of Microsoft Research and three Turing Award winners gave keynote speeches
in the conference. More than 1000 professors and students from most
distinguished universities in Taiwan fully packed the largest hall of Taipei
Grand Hotel. Presidents or Vice President of NTU, NTHU, and NCTU gave welcoming
speeches that highlighted the success of academic collaboration between
Microsoft and the universities in past few years. President of National Tsing
Hua University, Professor Wen-Tsuen Chen, gave following remark after the event:
"Computing in the 21st Century Conference held in Taipei was a great success.
Turing Award winners and Microsoft top researchers talked face to face with a
thousand most brilliant college students. Its scale, level and impact were
unprecedented in Taiwan. National Tsing-Hua University is proud to co-host this
event with Microsoft Research Asia."
In addition to MSRA's own activities, we also help universities in the region to
build up relationship with each other. For example, a delegation of professors
from National Taiwan University will soon visit Peking University and Tsinghua
University in Beijing through our arrangement. In coming spring, MSRA will host
an Internet technology and business competition among the students of three
"Jiaoda". Students of National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan will be able to
compete and interact with their counterparts from Jiao Tong Universities in
Shanghai and Xian.
Summary
The relationship between MSRA and universities
in Taiwan has been proven mutually beneficial.
We look forward to its growth in depth and
breadth in following years. |
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Contact Us
Please send us
email,
or write to Microsoft Research Asia, University
Relations, 5th Floor, Beijing Sigma Center,
No.49 Zhichun Road, Haidian District, Beijing
100080, P. R. China. |
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