Code.org is a non-profit foundation dedicated to growing computer programming education. They believe computer science and computer programming are liberal arts that are important for everyone to know and that should be part of the core curriculum in education, alongside other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics courses, such as biology, physics, chemistry and algebra. Their goal is that every student in every school has the opportunity to learn how to code.

They have released a video that features celebrities from the worlds of technology and entertainment to encourage students to learn computing skills. An article on Mashable describes the video’s content.

Entrepreneurs like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Square founder Jack Dorsey and Microsoft founder Bill Gates open up about how they got started coding. Zuckerberg says he started coding when he was in sixth grade because he wanted to make “something that was fun for myself and my sisters.” Bill Gates started coding in his teens and wrote a program to play tic-tac-toe.

As the video shows, it’s not just techies who code. Chris Bosh from the Miami Heat says he took programming classes in college and singer Will.I.Am says he’s taking coding classes right now.

“When I was in school, I was in this after school group called the Whiz Kids,” Bosh says in the video. “When people found out, they laughed at me, you know all these things. I’m like, ‘I don’t care, I think it’s cool, I’m learning a lot and some of my friends have jobs.’”

Will.I.Am adds: “Here we are, 2013. We all depend on technology to communicate, to bank, information, and none of us know how to read and write code.”

Reps from Facebook, Dropbox, Valve and other companies tout the perks of working in their offices and what they look for when hiring. “Our policy is literally to hire as many talented engineers as we can find,” Zuckerberg says. “The whole limit in the system is there just aren’t enough people who are trained in these skills today.”

The code.org site links to many resources, including short videos in different lengths (1, and 9 minutes) that can be shown in classes to encourage children to learn how to program.

Help shape the future of warfare through cyber operations. It’s what we do in the Asymmetric Operations Department at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)—a national leader in scientific research and development, located midway between Baltimore and Washington, DC.

The Asymmetric Operations Department supports the U.S. government by applying research capabilities to high-priority problems in cybersecurity, special operations, and homeland protection. Our department has many full-time opportunities available and will be holding a career fair on Wednesday, March 6, 2013, 3:30–8pm

We're seeking individuals with skills and interest in the following areas: Big Data Analytics, Cloud Computing, Communication Systems Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Security, Digital Forensics, Embedded Software Engineering, Identification, Tagging, Tracking, and Location Systems, Information Assurance, Mobile OS and Application Development, Modeling and Simulation, Network Architecture, Network Vulnerabilities and Exploits, Real-Time Software Engineering, Reverse Engineering, Secure Platform Architecture, Sensor Technologies, Situational Awareness and Analysis (Cyber, Global, Bio), Software and System Architecture (Component, Platform, Enterprise), Systems Engineering, Systems Testing and Evaluation, Web Software Development, Wireless Network Engineering and Wireless Security.

Meet our hiring managers at our career fair and find out how your technical experience can help develop the next advances in cyber systems or technologies for special applications.

All positions require a minimum of a bachelor’s degree and the ability to obtain a security clearance. U.S. citizenship is required to obtain a clearance. Preregistration is strongly encouraged. This allows hiring managers to review your resume in advance of the career fair and may result in a preliminary interview on the day of the fair.

The Department of Homeland Security recently established the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Careers and Studies (NICCS) website. It includes information for government, industry, academia, and the general public to learn about cybersecurity awareness, education, careers, and workforce development opportunities. This is an especially useful site for students interested in focusing on cybersecurity as well as anyone who wants to explore possible career and training options involving cybersecurity. The vision of NICCS is to build a national resource to elevate cybersecurity awareness and affect a change in the American public to adopt a culture of cyberspace security and to build a competent cybersecurity workforce.

The week the PBS-distributed Nightly Business Report aired a story on international cyber espionage that featured UMBC's Richard Forno, Associate director of the UMBC Center for Cybersecurity. The piece, Washington Trade-Secret Theft Enforcement Weighs on Shareholders, discussed how cyber attacks are being used by foreign companies with the help of their governments to steal trade secrets from US businesses.

Dr. Forno was also interviewed on Tuesday on the PRI's The World radio news show about the Mandiant report that traces a wave of cyber attacks on American targets to a Chinese military unit in Shanghai. Forno's interview segment starts at minute 7:30, after the introduction.

The UMBC ACM student chapter is pleased to announce that Metron Aviation will be presenting, next Wednesday (2/27, 12.00 pm in ITE 241), as part our Tech Talk Series. Headquartered in Dulles, VA, Metron Aviation (the ATM subsidiary of Airbus) has pioneered the advancement of Air Traffic Flow Management (ATFM), working with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to develop the industry’s first Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) platform for optimizing system-wide traffic flow. Metron Aviation fuses advanced science and mathematics with unparalleled air traffic management expertise to provide ground-breaking optimization and collaborative decision making solutions for the world’s leading Air Navigation Service Providers, Airports, Airlines, Logistics and other Service Providers to the Air Transport Industry.

Engineers and Recruiters from Metron Aviation will talk about some of the new and interesting projects they are working on, in the domain of aviation and the airline industry. Further they will also touch upon technical skills as well as soft skills students need to acquire (and be prepared) with to do well in interviews. Topics covered will include, but are not limited to, programming languages students should focus on, resume tips, what to say (and what to not!) in an interview.

More about the speaker : David Rojas, an Systems Engineer / Systems Analyst with Metron Aviation will be presenting at the tech talk. David will give an overview of Metron Aviation and specifics on their key product 'Harmony'. Metron Harmony is an advanced, Integrated Air Traffic Flow Management (I -ATFM) solution with capabilities that provide strategic, pre-tactical and tactical efficiency, post operations metrics and performance analysis of air traffic operations for Air Navigation Service Provider s (ANSP) , aircraft operator s and airport authorities. He will touch upon topics like ATM Modeling and Simulation, Air Traffic Flow Management and Departure Flow Management analysis and system development. David holds an BS in Applied Mathematics from Northwestern University. David has over 9 years of experience in Air Traffic Management (ATM) related research, analysis, and product support.

Metron Aviation is especially interested to talk with students in the fields of Computer Science, Aeronautical Engineering, Applied Mathematics, Operations Research, Physics. Bring your resumes! Light refreshments will be served. Please RSVP on our events page on Facebook.

The UMBC ACM student chapter is pleased to announce that Metron Aviation will be presenting, next Wednesday (2/27, 12.00 pm in ITE 241), as part our Tech Talk Series. Headquartered in Dulles, VA, Metron Aviation (the ATM subsidiary of Airbus) has pioneered the advancement of Air Traffic Flow Management (ATFM), working with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to develop the industry’s first Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) platform for optimizing system-wide traffic flow. Metron Aviation fuses advanced science and mathematics with unparalleled air traffic management expertise to provide ground-breaking optimization and collaborative decision making solutions for the world’s leading Air Navigation Service Providers, Airports, Airlines, Logistics and other Service Providers to the Air Transport Industry.

Engineers and Recruiters from Metron Aviation will talk about some of the new and interesting projects they are working on, in the domain of aviation and the airline industry. Further they will also touch upon technical skills as well as soft skills students need to acquire (and be prepared) with to do well in interviews. Topics covered will include, but are not limited to, programming languages students should focus on, resume tips, what to say (and what to not!) in an interview.

More about the speaker : David Rojas, an Systems Engineer / Systems Analyst with Metron Aviation will be presenting at the tech talk. David will give an overview of Metron Aviation and specifics on their key product 'Harmony'. Metron Harmony is an advanced, Integrated Air Traffic Flow Management (I -ATFM) solution with capabilities that provide strategic, pre-tactical and tactical efficiency, post operations metrics and performance analysis of air traffic operations for Air Navigation Service Provider s (ANSP) , aircraft operator s and airport authorities. He will touch upon topics like ATM Modeling and Simulation, Air Traffic Flow Management and Departure Flow Management analysis and system development. David holds an BS in Applied Mathematics from Northwestern University. David has over 9 years of experience in Air Traffic Management (ATM) related research, analysis, and product support.

Metron Aviation is especially interested to talk with students in the fields of Computer Science, Aeronautical Engineering, Applied Mathematics, Operations Research, Physics. Bring your resumes! Light refreshments will be served. Please RSVP on our events page on Facebook.

The Laboratory for Aerosols, Clouds and Optics (LACO) is seeking a motivated junior, senior or master's level computer science student to assist in software development. This is a paid position that will constitute 10 to 20 hours of work per week. Responsibilities of the position will include designing and writing control code for airborne and ground based atmospheric instrumentation. Knowledge of C/C++ is required and experience controlling external hardware is preferable.

LACO is a laboratory in the UMBC physics department composed by faculty, staff, post docs, graduate and undergraduate students, and associated members that participate in activities between UMBC and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Our main interests focus on the optical properties of aerosols as well as their effects on cloud formation, development, and lifetime. We have developed several novel pieces of instrumentation to support these research goals and we are frequent participants in a wide variety of air quality and climate science missions. Examples of some recent flight campaigns we have participated in include

• DISCOVER-AQ
• PODEX
• DC3
• DEVOTE

The data we have collected during a few of these campaigns can be found on our data website, http://laco03.umbc.edu/pineph/ (password: qwop89). We are also looking to expand this database to include other instruments (MySQL and web design skills are also a plus).

Please submit your Curriculum Vitae and/or Resume to Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address. for consideration.

From: Jan Neumann <Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address. >
    Date: Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 4:59 PM
    Subject: 2-3 summer intern positions - Comcast Research Washington, DC
    To: Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address.  
    
    Are you interested in Large-scale Machine Learning? Information
    Retrieval? Working with truly Big Usage Data? Do you currently do
    research in at least one or more of the following areas – Big Data
    Processing, Recommendation Systems, Social Media, Computer Vision,
    Information Retrieval or NLP? Do you want to conduct industry-leading
    research in audio/video information retrieval and content discovery
    technologies, and help millions of households discover video and music
    content on their TV, PC, Phone, and Mobile devices?
    
    Comcast's Washington DC research lab is looking to fill 2-3 graduate
    student intern positions for this summer (minimum of 12 weeks, May
    through September) . Projects can focus on using Social Networks for
    Recommendations and Click-through Prediction, NLP for Voice-based
    Interfaces, and/or Video Search/Segmentation of premium video.
    
    We are an innovative research group within Comcast's Metadata
    Processing and Search Services unit that does groundbreaking research
    to develop the video and TV search & discovery technologies that
    support Comcast’s approximately 40 Million subscriber units. Comcast
    is the largest provider of TV and Broadband Services in North America,
    the largest provider of TV search and discovery applications in North
    America, & the 6th largest provider of search on the web.
    
    The ideal applicant will be currently enrolled in a university PhD
    program and has 2+ years of research experience in one of the relevant
    areas. Applicants should also have good programming and software
    development skills, and be comfortable working in an
    interdisciplinary, team-oriented, applied research environment.
    
    Internships will be on-site in our Washington, DC office. We feature
    an informal, open atmosphere, and a location in downtown Washington
    convenient to several public transit lines and many of the city's
    museums, monuments, and other attractions.  The salary is competitive
    and commensurate with experience.
    
    To apply, please send a CV or resume, along with a brief statement
    explaining why you are interested in the position, to
    Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address.   While there is no fixed deadline for
    applying, we anticipate filling these positions by the end of April.
    
        ML="m.ka>Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address. >

From: Shengbo Guo <Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address. >
    Date: Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 2:07 PM
    Subject: Research Internship for Machine Learning and its Application in
    Recommender Systems at Samsung Media Solution Center America
    
    Samsung Media Solution Center America (MSCA) in San Jose, USA is
    looking for a motivated research intern in the area of machine
    learning and its application in recommender systems. This intern
    position is located in San Jose, and it is between 3 and 6 months. The
    responsibility of the intern is on (1) analyzing the rich mobile data,
    (2) developing/implementing machine learning algorithms, and (3)
    applying these algorithms to personalize services for users of smart
    phones and smart TVs. More specifically, the intern will be working on
    developing learning algorithms, matrix/tensor factorization, topic
    modeling, and recommender systems. Detailed responsibilities include:
    
      * Develop novel machine learning algorithms for personalizing
        services (e.g., recommendations of music, video, social media) in
        the mobile context (e.g., smart phone users).
      * Implement these algorithms and the state-of-the-art methods
        efficiently.
      * Document the work for scientific publication and patenting.
    
    Requirements:
    
      * PhD-level education in Computer Science, particularly in machine
        learning, recommender systems, or social computing.
      * Strong background in machine learning, particularly in
        probabilistic graphical models, matrix/tensor factorization, topic
        modeling, and recommender systems.
      * Strong implementation skills in C++/Java.
    
    Application and deadline:
    
    Please email your CV to Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address.  and
    Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address.  and mention Research Internship for the
    subject of the email. Applications will be considered until the
    position is filled.
    
    -- 
    Shengbo Guo, PhD.
    Research Scientist, Media Solution Center America
    Samsung Information Systems America
    2665 North 1st Street, 3F Suite 300, San Jose 95134, USA
    Tel: (408)944-5140
    Fax: (408)944-5214
    E-mail: Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address.  
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UMBC CSEE Colloquium

Integration of HBase and Lucene for real-time big data analysis

Yin Huang
CSEE Department, UMBC

1:00 pm Friday, 22 February 22 2013, ITE 227, UMBC

The increasing size of data sets have posed several challenges on real-time big data analysis, Business Intelligence for example, in terms of system scalability and data availability. Business Intelligence focuses on mining the big data, providing multidimensional visualization and thus supporting business decision making, ideally in a real-time fashion. Traditional relational database management systems fail to provide a flexible and stable solution. Several NoSQL database systems have been proposed to tackle these challenges, such as Cassandra and HBase. HBase, however, does not support full-text searching; current implementation of HBase only offers the row-key based indexing. In this talk, we introduce building Lucene index on top of HBase to support multidimensional queries for data mart under MapReduce framework, serving as the corner stone for future data analysis and business report.

Yin Huang obtained his B.S. in Computer Science from Nanchang University in 2009, and studied in Chongqing University for two years for his M.S. He started his Ph.D. program in Computer Science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in 2011. In 2012, he interned in IBM Ottawa lab for four months with the focus of using Multicore-Enhanced Hadoop System for Buisness Intelligence. His current research area is database, data mining, and parallel computing.