The Association for Computing Machinery named Harvard's Leslie Valiant the winner of the 2010 ACM A.M. Turing Award for "his fundamental contributions to the development of computational learning theory and to the broader theory of computer science."

"Valiant brought together machine learning and computational complexity, leading to advances in artificial intelligence as well as computing practices such as natural language processing, handwriting recognition, and computer vision. He also launched several subfields of theoretical computer science, and developed models for parallel computing."

The Turing Award is considered to be the computing's “Nobel Prize" and carries a $250,000 prize.

Hold the date! The UMBC Game Developers Club will hold the gifth annual Digital Entertainment Conference from 10am to 5pm on Saturday April 30 in the Engineering and Computer Science building's lecture hall five. The free event will include speakers from from Firaxis, Pure Bang, Dream Rock Studios and other game development companies who will share their knowledge and experience and comment on new trends in the industry. Watch the UMBC GDC site for the agenda and more information.

Baltimore entrepreneur and computer programmer Mike Subelsky wants to help strengthen the IT startup community in Baltimore and has created Startup City to give it jolt. The effort will fund up to ten groups that will receive free space, seed money and mentoring to develop their ideas during the summer of 2011.

The planning document describes what the program will offer the ten groups:

• $15,000 in seed capital
• Weekly master classes with experienced entrepreneurs
• Regular access to mentors
• Introductions to potential customers and follow-on investors
• Free, beautiful office space collocated with the other participating companies
• Legal, accounting, marketing, and technical assistance from Baltimore’s Emerging Technology Center
• Vigorous coverage of their stories in our blog via video and written profiles
• Exposure to investors, journalists, and business leaders at a Demo Day occurring at the end of the 12 weeks

See recent articles in in bmore and the Baltimore Sun.

"Applicants to Startup City, who will be selected based on a YouTube video they submit to the program's website, can be from anywhere in the world — though Baltimoreans are equally encouraged to apply. The final ten, chosen by consensus of all the mentors and investors involved in the program (after Beeman and Subelsky narrow down the initial pool) can be anyone from a single person with an idea to a formed team or company. Startup City is looking mainly for those who will be able to execute a successful project in twelve short weeks."

Once after keynoting an event for a local university, a former English professor emailed me the following message:

“Remember, Walt Whitman promised that the natural environment--whenever threatened--is saved by the poet, not the scientist.”

This statement may not sit well with some, particularly those who have spent the majority of their academic careers studying the detrimental impacts that our civilization is having on the planet. However, messaging and marketing must supplement science as we try to promote change within our institutions. There is too much at stake for it not to.

Before I go on, let me say that I am not a PR professional nor do I have any formal marketing training. However, the good news is that I have been fortunate to work with experts in those fields and they have been kind enough to share some key elements with me. I hope I can do them justice by sharing a few tidbits with you.

Accentuate the Positive
Save the doom and gloom for the pundits on the cable news networks. Fear based messaging usually only appeals to those on the fringe. Remember your trying to build consensus and break down silos and research shows that this is best done by highlighting the opportunities around sustainability. Also, never underestimate the power of a local success story. Even if your efforts to date have been minor (such as changing a few lights bulbs) you can still build a story upon them, especially if a few dollars have been saved.

Make it Personal to Make it Relevant
I always like to start meetings and talks with a personal story. For campus audiences I like to use a story from my undergrad days. For many of us our time in College was a very enjoyable experience and you likely will not need to go too far back into your memory bank to pull out a story that the audience can relate to. For some, College was when they were first introduced to the concept of sustainability. If this was the case for you, tell this story. You may think that your story is irrelevant because campus life has changed so drastically since you were napping in the Quad. Turns out some things never change.

Beyond that I also like to use a prop. On of my favorites is a package of disposable cups designed to look like reusable coffee mugs. The package boast an “EcoSmart label” but upon further inspection it turns out that the cups use only 12% post consumer recycled material. The audience gets a good laugh out of this but more importunity they begin to understand the risks associated with greenwashing, which will become a serious issue as more and more campuses are embracing sustainability.

Embrace social media
Its unlikely anyone can question the power of social media as a tool for change, the recent events in North Africa and the Middle East have made the case clear. For some, social media can be intimidating, for others it’s a distraction. But the need to understand and effectively use social media is clear. Take for instance this simple fact - today’s college freshmen have been using facebook since their days in middle school. Also remember facebook started on a college campus and was specifically designed for college students. Students can now pass short blurbs of information on from their computers, televisions, phones, and iPads and soon they may be updating their status through their cars. If you believe this Superbowl commercial, one day they may even be able to control their status through jedi-type mind tricks.

One of the most effective and creative ways that I have seen social media used is through the use of Twitter. I was giving a talk to a student government group once and while I was in the midst of my talk I noticed that the entire group seemed to be on their phones. I figured there must be some party that night and everyone was passing directions via text. Turns out, they were using Twitter to comment on my talk. Some were even suggesting recommendations on how the campus could become more sustainable. After the meeting I was able to review what was tweeted through my twitter account because a hashtag had been assigned by the group. I can’t stress how valuable this was. I was able to gather stakeholder input from students who otherwise wouldn’t speak up, I had a unique source of collective notes from the meeting, and I was able to see where my message hit home and where it missed the boat.

A few other things to consider. Keep your messages concise. Cross promotion and visuals are key. Repetition is required. Try not to get too technical and always end each message with a call to action.

Creating an effective message is not easy and this is about the time when people start asking themselves “how am I going to manage all this.” Keep an eye out for my next post where I plan to share effective strategies for managing the sustainability workload.

Brad McAllister, one of this month’s guest bloggers, is a partner and managing director at WAP Sustainability. He holds a B.S in ecology from the University of Georgia and an M.S in environmental science from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Brad is an adjunct professor of Enterprise Sustainability at the Institute for Sustainable Practice at Lipscomb University and a member of the Climate Project.You can read Brad's earlier posts here and here.

CSEE Ph.D. student Karuna Joshi has received a IBM Ph.D. Fellowship award for the 2011-2012 academic year. Ms. Joshi's dissertation involves developing a new framework for automating the configuration, negotiation and procurement of services in a cloud computing environment using semantic web technologies. She is working with co-advisers Professors Yelena Yesha and Tim Finin.

The IBM Ph.D. Fellowship Awards Program is highly competitive and selects exceptional Ph.D. students who have an interest in solving problems important to IBM and their disciplines of study. The award provides a generous stipend and an education allowance covering tuition and other educational expenses and is renewable for up to three years.

Thanks to Wikicommons.

The dangers of speaking out. Protesters fired upon in Yemen by security forces.

Fantastic Fish Fatalities! Dead fish cover the surface of a marina after they became trapped.

When the going gets tough… Mexico continues to battle drug crime as Police chief flees to US for her life.

Thanks to Wikicommons.

It seems we humans are doomed.

Movies and TV would have you believe that robots will destroy us in a reign of destruction.

We’ve already seen this recently in the computer Watson’s victory on Jeopardy against human champions.Computer brains are better than our brains.

Computers and robots are also regarded as the enemy of the blue collar worker. Why have humans build cars when robots do it faster? Right?

Well, Paul Krugman notes that computers threaten more jobs as

any routine task — a category that includes many white-collar, non-manual jobs — is in the firing line.

What makes this news so bad as Krugman notes is that

It’s no longer true that having a college degree guarantees that you’ll get a good job, and it’s becoming less true with each passing decade.

Over at Free Exchange, R.A., questions the gloom and doom noting that

As far as I know, people currently represent 100% of final demand; machines aren’t yet out there purchasing goods for their own consumption. Without people there is no economy

Of course, being a good dismal scientist, the post goes on to note that unemployment is still an issue but it may be the governments, rather than the robots, fault.

So the good news, robots may not be the enemy (until they start to eat us). The bad news, unemployment is still a real issue no matter its cause.