Friday, March 3, 2017

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• Dinner celebrates International Women's Day at Waterloo
• Amazon delivers on Waterloo program to advance AI
• Attend the first-ever Problem Pitch Competition
• Alumni Council launches 60th anniversary awards
• AHS video series; women's hockey; other notes

Dinner celebrates International Women's Day at Waterloo

Worldwide, women continue to contribute to social, economic, cultural and political achievement. Wednesday, March 8 marks this year’s International Women’s Day, where people across the globe come together to celebrate, reflect, advocate, and take action on women’s issues. The UN’s theme this year focuses on “Women in the Changing World of Work: Planet 50-50 by 2030”.

As the University of Waterloo celebrates its 60^th anniversary, we are hosting the 12^th annual International Women’s Day Dinner at Federation Hall on Friday March 3. In partnership with The Office of the President, University Relations, and the Women Studies program, over 350 staff, faculty and students are gathering to acknowledge the contributions that women at the University of Waterloo have made.

Distinguished guest speaker Naila Keleta-Mae, assistant professor of drama in the Faculty of Arts, and an esteemed female leader, will discuss gender studies and performance.

The event raises awareness about gender equality, and recognizes the University of Waterloo as a leader in striving towards this goal.

Amazon delivers on Waterloo program to advance AI

Engineering students at the University of Waterloo will apply classroom lessons in artificial intelligence (AI) to help develop new uses for a voice-activated virtual assistant system in a program funded by Amazon.

Waterloo is one of just four North American universities initially selected to participate in the Alexa Fund Fellowship, which comes with funding for instruction and supervision of student design projects in the burgeoning field of AI and the Internet of Things (IoT).

“It’s evolving at incredible speed,” said Fakhri Karray, director of the Centre for Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence and a professor of electrical and computer engineering. “These are very exciting times for researchers, product developers and customers.”

Alexa is a cloud-based service that powers devices like Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, Amazon Tap, and more. Alexa uses natural language understanding and speech recognition technology to process voice queries and commands from users, whether that’s playing music, making to-do lists, reporting the weather or controlling smart home devices or appliances.

As part of the year-long program, Amazon will supply Waterloo with Alexa-enabled devices and send an Alexa speech scientist to help mentor researchers and students, more than 600 of whom will have access to the system in three undergraduate courses and a graduate-level course.

A post-doctoral fellow will assist classroom instructors, liaise with Amazon, and supervise at least 10 projects involving Alexa by fourth-year students and another six Capstone Design projects by graduating engineering students.

“Voice computing is no longer science fiction,” said Pearl Sullivan, dean of the Faculty of Engineering. “By understanding the principles behind the interaction between computers and humans, our students can develop new applications and startup ventures.”

Professor Karray, a University Research Chair, said a key objective is for students to develop ways to integrate Alexa with other AI tools they learn about in class so users can operate and interact with machines and devices in a more natural, human-like way.

For example, instead of asking Alexa to heat a room in a house to a particular temperature, the goal in the future would be to simply ask if the room is warm enough and have the smart home understand and respond accordingly.

“We are in the midst of a revolution in the field of operational artificial intelligence and this is one part of it,” said Karray.

The other participating schools, selected in part for the strength of their technology transfer and entrepreneurship programs, are Carnegie Mellon University, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Southern California.

Attend the first-ever Problem Pitch Competition

On Tuesday, March 7, be part of the audience for the first-ever Problem Pitch Competition by watching UWaterloo students pitch important industry problems they have identified to a panel of judges.

The winning team’s 5-minute pitch will demonstrate the best understanding of an important industry problem, as shown by their research of the problem’s history, scope, and impact. The teams will be competing for their share of $5,000 in grant funding to be used to fund R&D for a venture that solves the problem identified.

You’ll even get to have your say, with the audience deciding which team wins the People’s Choice Award! Join the audience to watch the pitches. Free pizza will also be served to attendees.

The Problem Pitch Competition is a collaboration between Velocity and the Problem Lab. 

Alumni Council launches 60th anniversary awards

A message from the Alumni Council

In 2007, the Alumni Council established the University of Waterloo 50^th Anniversary Alumni Awards to honour 50 outstanding alumni. In 2017, the Alumni Council will continue the awards program by honouring outstanding alumni with 10 University of Waterloo 60^th Anniversary Alumni Awards. This year we’ve added the opportunity to nominate up to two alumni in one nomination.

To be eligible to receive a University of Waterloo 60^th Anniversary Alumni Award, nominees (individual or pair) must meet the following two minimum criteria:

1. Hold a degree or honorary degree from the University of Waterloo
2. Have demonstrated citizenship to the University of Waterloo. This includes but is not limited to: volunteering, mentoring, involvement with committees/boards/panels, philanthropic support, advocacy, etc. (worth 2/3 of the evaluation weighting)

Consideration will also be given to the following criteria, worth a total of 1/3 of the weighting when reviewing nominations:

1. Successful career/professional achievement(s)
2. Community service/contribution to society

Award selections will be made by the University of Waterloo Alumni Council.

These prestigious awards, honouring alumni for their commitment to the University, will be presented in December 2017, to commemorate Waterloo’s 60^th anniversary.

We encourage the campus community to nominate exceptional alumni who have had a meaningful impact on the University of Waterloo today!

AHS video series; women's hockey; other notes

A new series of videos is showcasing the impact of research in the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences. Produced as part of the Faculty’s Impact Report, Health in 3D, the seven videos cover topics ranging from technology and health (below) to chronic disease prevention.

Watch video on YouTube

All the videos can be found on the Faculty’s YouTube page or online as part of the report.

"It’s been a historic season for the Warriors women’s hockey program, in their 15^th year of existence, and this past Sunday at the CIF Arena, the black and gold advanced to the second round of the playoffs for the first time ever," says a statement from Athletics. "With their 2-0 win over Western, the Warriors now take on the Guelph Gryphons in the OUA semifinals. Last night, the Warriors fell by a score of 3-1 in game one of the OUA semifinals in Guelph but they return home to the CIF Arena on Saturday on 2:30 p.m. for Game 2 and they need your support."

Puck drop is set for 2:30 p.m. Tickets can be purchased in the athletics office or online.

This weekend also marks your last chance to check out the Yonder exhibition at the University of Waterloo Art Gallery in East Campus Hall.

This expansive exhibition features 16 artist projects installed throughout the gallery and entrance ways to East Campus Hall. Yonder is "a timely exhibition addressing themes of migration, immigration and cultural identity" that was recently reviewed by Canadian Art.

The gallery is open today from 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. and on Saturday, March 4 from 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. The exhibition, which is free and open to the public, closes Saturday.