CSE Undergrad News

Last year several CSE students won cash prizes, take a look below for more information.

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Are you working on a technology that has potential for commercialization — possibly from one of your capstone classes? Would you like a chance to win cash prizes?

If so, register now for the 5th Annual Science & Technology Showcase (STS) at https://catalyst.uw.edu/webq/survey/seba/117881. Last year we gave away EIGHT cash prizes ranging from $100 to $1,000. Applications are due by Dec. 19th. Finalists will be notified by Dec. 22nd.

– What: 2011 Science & Technology Showcase

– When: January 13th, 2011 from 4:00 pm to 7:30 pm

– Who: Individuals or teams representing a science- or technology-based innovation with commercial potential. It can be something you’ve worked on out of your garage, in your lab (with your adviser’s approval), or in collaboration with the Center for Commercialization (again, please seek approval from your Technology Manager). The idea can be at any stage from pre-proof of principle to completed product.

– Deliverables: A poster that explains the idea and its market potential and a one-minute “elevator” pitch. Note: SEBA & CIE will cover the cost of printing your poster.

– Why: Win money, gain experience, make contacts, and get feedback on your idea and pitch.

Please direct any questions to Jeff Chamberlain at president@uwseba.org. Good luck!

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Stuart Reges <reges@cs.washington.edu>
Date: Mon, Dec 6, 2010 at 9:52 AM
Subject:  IEEExtreme 4.0

Startup Weekends are 54-hour events designed to provide superior experiential education for technical and non-technical entrepreneurs.  Beginning with Friday night pitches and continuing through brainstorming, business plan development, and basic prototype creation, Startup Weekends culminate in Sunday night demos and presentations.  Participants create working startups during the event and are able to collaborate with like-minded individuals outside of their daily networks. All teams hear talks by industry leaders and receive valuable feedback from local entrepreneurials. The weekend is centered around action, innovation, and education.  Whether you are looking for feedback on a idea, a co-founder, specific skill sets, or a team to help you execute, Startup Weekends are the perfect environment in which to test your idea and take the first steps towards launching your own startup.

Redmond Mobile and Gaming Startup Weekend begins Friday, December 10th at 6 PM, and continues through Sunday, December 12th at 9 PM.  The event will be at Steptoe on the Microsoft Campus in Redmond.  The Thursday before the event Startup Weekend is partnering with Power of Play 2010 Conference.  Other partners include Washington Interactive Network.  We will have great local speakers, such as T.A. McCann and Andy Sack, as well as a entrepreneurial leaders serving on our judging panel for the Sunday night presentations.  Prizes, such as $15,000 of prototyping help for applications developed on the Windows 7 platform, are available to the winning team.  The event is open to entrepreneurs, gamers, developers, designers, startup enthusiasts and more!  Please go to redmond.startupweekend.org to learn more and to register.

At Facebook, there’s two things we love: hacking and competitions. Well, we’ve decided to combine those two things together and are very excited to announce the Facebook Hacker Cup!

The 2011 Facebook Hacker Cup is the first annual worldwide programming contest where hackers, programmers, and computer scientists compete against each other for fame, fortune, glory and a shot at being immortalized on the coveted Hacker Cup trophy.

The contest consists of three online rounds and a world finals round that will be held at Facebook’s headquarters. This is your chance to compete against the world’s best programmers and potentially win the title of world champion and other awesome prizes.

How to sign up
Visit www/facebook.com/hackercup to stay up to date with important announcements, rules, eligibility and timelines.

Registration opens 12/20/2010 and contestants can register here: http://www.facebook.com/hackercup

What prizes can be won?
The top 25 scoring contestants from Online Round 2 will be flown out to Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, California, USA to compete in the World Finals. The World Finals will happen on Friday, November 12, 2010. Travel and accommodation will be covered by Facebook.

The finalists will be competing for:

1st place: $5,000 USD
2nd place: $2,000 USD
3rd place: $1,000 USD
4th – 25th place: $100 USD

The top 300 scoring contestants in Online Round 2 will get a Hacker Cup t-shirt.

How many rounds are there?

Qualification Round
The competition commences with a 72-hour Qualification Round on January 7, 2011 at 0:00 UTC (5:00 PM PT) to January 10, 2011 at 0:00 UTC (5:00 PM PT). All registered competitors will be presented with three problems. Only competitors who correctly solve at least 1 problem will advance to Online Round 1.

Online Round 1
Online Round 1 consists of 3 sub-rounds each lasting 3-hours in length that are offered at different times from January 14, 2011 at 14:00 UTC (7:00 AM PT) to January 14, 2011 at 0:00 UTC (5:00 PM PT). Competitors who advance to this round can participate in any of the 3 sub-rounds until they qualify for Online Round 2. The top-scoring 1,000 competitors from each of the 3 sub-rounds will advance to Online Round 2.

Online Round 2
Online Round 2 will begin on January 21, 2011 at 14:00 UTC (7:00 AM PT) and will end on January 21, 2011 at 17:00 UTC (10:00 AM PT). The top 3,000 competitors will have three hours to solve the presented problem sets. The top-scoring 300 participants from Online Round 2 will receive an official Hacker Cup t-shirt. The top-scoring 25 competitors from Online Round 2 will be notified via email that they have advanced to the Onsite Final Round.

Onsite Final Round
The top-scoring 25 competitors will be flown out to Palo Alto, California for final round of competition where a champion will emerge and be immortalized on the Hacker Cup trophy, along with some great cash prizes and other awesome goodies.

Thousands will enter, but only one will emerge as world champion. See you in the competition arena!

Dear Students,

We write to share an extraordinary opportunity for travel, discovery, and challenge. The 2011 Bonderman Travel Fellowship application is now available and we encourage you to consider applying.  Graduate and professional students (including those in the Law and Business Schools and other graduate and professional programs), undergraduate students (of junior and senior credit standing) in the University Honors Program, and undergraduate students (of junior and senior credit standing) in UW Tacoma’s Global Honors Program in good standing are eligible for this opportunity.

David Bonderman – the donor – wishes to give students an opportunity to experience learning and growth in new and unexpected ways.  Bonderman Fellows will undertake international travel on their own for eight or more months, to six or more countries in two or more major regions of the world.  Through solo travel the Fellows will focus on exploration and discovery, learning about the world and themselves in it.

Up to seven graduate and seven undergraduate Bonderman Fellowships will be awarded in Spring 2011.  Each Fellowship carries a $20,000 award to be used only for extended solo international travel.  Fellows may not conduct research, pursue an academic project, or participate in a formal program or organization.

To learn more about this extraordinary opportunity, please attend one of the following information sessions.  Due to space limitations you must register for a session at http://catalyst.uw.edu/webq/survey/bbkelly/117386

• Monday, November 29, 2010, 12:30 p.m. in the Electrical Engineering Building, room 45 (EEB 45)
• Wednesday, January 5, 2011 4:30 p.m. in Smith Hall, room 102
• Another January session will be held; date and time to be announced

The application deadline is Monday, January 31, 2010 at 12 noon (PST).

Information about the fellowship can be found at: http://grad.washington.edu/students/fa/bonderman/index.shtml .

If you do not have the chance to attend one of the information sessions and have questions about this award, graduate/professional students may contact either Helene Obradovich (helene@uw.edu) or Marilyn Gray (megray@uw.edu) in The Graduate School Office of Fellowships and Awards, and undergraduate students can contact Brook Kelly (bbkelly@uw.edu) in The University Honors Program.

Sincerely,

The Graduate School and The University Honors Program

The Graduate School: www.grad.washington.edu/students/fa/bonderman/index.shtml

The University Honors Program: depts.washington.edu/uwhonors/scholarships/current/bonderman

UW Environmental Innovation Challenge
$$$ for Prototype! Application Due Dec 12

WE HAVE A CHALLENGE FOR YOU.

If you’ve got a passion for clean-tech, the smarts to play in the emerging green economy, and the desire to leverage your engineering background to make an impact, the UW Environmental Innovation Challenge can provide just the platform (and the funding!) you’ve been looking for.

HOW IT WORKS

For the UW EIC, interdisciplinary student teams will define a clean-tech problem, design and develop the solution, and work together to produce both a prototype (or proof of concept or computer simulation) and a business summary that outlines the market opportunity.

We have $25,000 available for prototype funding. In the Challenge on March 31, 2011, students will pitch their concepts and demonstrate their product/idea to a group of judges that includes technologists, entrepreneurs, and investors. Teams are judged on their prototypes, business summaries, and potential for impact. The grand prize is $10,000.

HOW DO YOU GET FUNDING?
The College of Engineering has provided $25,000 to help teams develop their prototypes.  The deadline for funding applications is midnight December 12, 2010! You can use this funding for purchasing materials to build your prototype, renting equipment, purchasing safety equipment, and hiring short-term work beyond your team’s capacity. (You cannot pay team members).

We prefer to see requests between $1,500 and $4,500 but will consider both smaller and larger amounts. Funding will be announced by January 4, 2011 and is to be used by March 31, 2011. Any unspent development money must be returned. Who can apply? Any team with at least one engineering student can apply, but the application must be submitted by the engineering student(s).  Please note: teams that receive funding agree to participate in the Challenge March 31.

Prototype funding Application

Key Dates for the UW EIC
Prototype Funding – Application due December 12
February 17 – Intent to Submit due
March 3 – Business Summary due

March 27 – 1 Page Business Summary and 1 PowerPoint Slide due
March 31 – Challenge pitches and presentations, reception and awards ceremony

Questions?
Pam Tufts, UW Environmental Innovation Challenge (EIC)
Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship
ptufts@uw.edu 206.685.3813

For the second year in a row, Zynga is pairing with Hidden Agenda, a non-profit organization that looks to support the building of games for educational purposes, and together we’re asking students to form teams and build a game that educates high school students utilizing the Facebook platform.  Finalist teams will be flown to San Francisco where they’ll present their games to a panel of judges at Zynga’s offices, and there’s $25,000 in prize money on the line ($20,000 for the winning team; $4,000 for second place; and $1,000 for third).  See flyer here:  Zynga – Hidden Agenda Competition2

Full information can be found at www.facebook.com/haproject.  Students must form teams and register to compete by December 15th.

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Stuart Reges <reges@cs.washington.edu>
Date: Mon, Nov 1, 2010 at 9:18 AM
Subject: ACM Programming Contest
To: faculty <faculty@cs.washington.edu>, cs-ugrads <cs-ugrads@cs.washington.edu>, cs-grads <cs-grads@cs.washington.edu>, vgrads <vgrads@cs.washington.edu>, cs-staff <cs-staff@cs.washington.edu>

On Saturday 33 teams competed in our local ACM programming contest.
Marty Stepp helped me to run the contest along with student helpers
Victoria Wagner and Chris Lesinski, Google staffers Amanda Camp, Krista
Davis, Kevin Wallace, and Ethan Apter, and Facebook staffers Ryan
McElroy and Justin Bishop.  Google and Facebook were our official
sponsors and provided food, prizes, and swag.

The top three teams have won the honor of representing us at the
regional contest which will be held November 13th:

#1: Const Char Stars: Jeff Booth, Michael Sloan, Will Johnson
#2: Team Awesome: Derek Cheng, Alex Vaschillo, Huy Dang
#3: jedidiah: John McCord, eric wu, David Truong

You can find more detailed results along with information about the
problems at this url:

http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/reges/acm/results.html

Please join me in wishing our teams good luck in the regional contest.

–Stuart