Today is that day! Don't miss the last ENTR workshop of the semester today at noon with Justin Valez-Hagan. This is your chance to talk one-on-one with an Entrepreneur that has experienced all the ins-and-outs of a Tech start-up. Whether you're into cyber-security, the Silicone Valley dream, or a NYC cafe scene, Justin has some advice for you. Don't miss this opportunity!

We'll be located in entreSpace between 12-1:00 pm, Academic Services, room 139. We can't wait to see you!

Event Description:

Numerous webinars, books, and even college courses attempt to teach thebasics of starting a business, but starting a tech company has a uniquesetof challenges.  Given the increasing level of world-wide competition due torelatively low barriers to entry for most companies that compete online, itcan be especially difficult to create a product that is differentiatedenough to attract the attention of investors, or even customers.  Once youcome up with the idea for the next big thing, how are you going to protectit?  Should you partner with an expert (or numerous experts) or go italone?  How do you get your product in the hands of your end user with somuch competition?  Is it possible to attract start-up capital outside ofSilicon Valley or NYC? These are just a few of the topics we will discussduring this workshop, but feel free to bring questions!

About Justin:

Justin Valez-Hagan is the co-founder of a new start-up that is beingdeveloped to improve the pool of diverse candidates for tech jobs.  Inaddition, he is an economic policy researcher and third year PhD studentatUMBC, is the founder of The National Puerto Rican Chamber of Commerce http://www.nprchamber.org/, and is the author of the newly released book*The Common Sense behind Basic Economicshttp://nousonomics.com/hawking-my-book/ .

Avanti Mehta
B.A., Anthropology
Cum Laude
Hometown: Clarksburg Maryland
Plans: M.D., George Washington University School of Medicine

“My sophomore year was incredibly difficult…medical school seemed impossible. I considered lightening my course load [but] my faculty and staff mentors disagreed; they told me that I hadn’t worked so hard for so many years to take the safe route… It was an incredibly difficult semester but I…learned that I thrived under pressure. Now, as a senior on my way to medical school in the fall, I can say with confidence that I look forward to all the challenges that life throws my way because UMBC has taught me to have grit and always persevere.”

Avanti Mehta has a lot to be proud of during her time as a Sondheim Public Affairs Scholar and Honors College member at UMBC: making Dean’s List and President’s List, serving as vice president of the Oxfam Club and vice president of the Phi Mu Fraternity for Women. But she shares that the greatest reward she takes with her as she graduates from UMBC is her grit.

Mehta’s mother earned her Ph.D. at UMBC in molecular biology in 1993, so she grew up hearing stories about UMBC her entire life. When Mehta herself became a Retriever, she enjoyed all of the opportunities UMBC offered, but sometimes found it challenging to balance her diverse interests. Mehta was one of the first Sondheim Scholars on the pre-med track; she enjoyed studying anthropology, biology, and Spanish, she worked on campus and served as a student coordinator for an education-based Latino outreach group through the Shriver Center.

Sometimes Mehta’s confidence in her ability to juggle it all waivered. At one point, Mehta realized that because her mother graduated from UMBC, the Albin O. Kuhn Library would have a copy of her dissertation. In moments of stress, Mehta would work in that library, studying near her mother’s dissertation to draw strength from her mother’s experience completing a Ph.D. while working full-time and starting a family. She shares that her mother’s legacy has inspired her to always strive to become her best self.

Mehta will attend medical school at George Washington University this fall. She also plans to earn a master’s of public health to better support medically underserved populations.

Image: Portrait by Marlayna Demond ‘11 for UMBC.

Arlene Cuanias 
B.S., Psychology
Summa Cum Laude
Hometown: Rockville, Maryland
Plans: M.S.W., University of Maryland School of Social Work

UMBC gave me the confidence to go after what I want. I have been given the tools to be successful both in school and in my personal life. The faculty and staff are amazing and it has been a privilege to have worked with them.

Arlene Cuanias has maintained a highly distinguished undergraduate academic career while also serving as a leader in the UMBC community at the Universities at Shady Grove (USG), fostering a culture of caring. She was the first student member of the USG Culture of Care Network, an organization designed to look out for the well-being of all students, faculty, and staff, and she was instrumental in creating the “I Am Enough” campaign.

Cuanias served as vice president of the Tau Sigma Honors Society, was a member of the UMBC Peer Advisory Team, and earned a USG Academic Achievement Award and Distinguished Achievement Award in Psychology at UMBC. Arlene is also a Montgomery County Business Hall of Fame Scholar. She will pursue a master of social work degree at the University of Maryland, Baltimore beginning in the fall.

Images: Arlene Cuanias launches the USG Culture of Care Network, fall 2015, with the theme “I Am Enough”; photo courtesy Arlene Cuanias. Portrait by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

A Hybrid Task Graph Scheduler API

Tim Blattner, UMBC

10:30am Monday, 25 April 2016, ITE 346

Scalability of applications is a key requirement to gaining performance in hybrid computing. Scheduling code to utilize the parallelism is difficult, particularly when dealing with dependencies, memory management, data motion, and processor occupancy. The Hybrid Task Graph Scheduler (HTGS) API increases programmer productivity to develop hybrid applications by creating a multiple-producer, multiple-consumer workflow system. HTGS improves upon existing task graph solutions with its design of execution pipelines that enables multi-GPU computation through data decomposition and task graph clustering that are bound to physical GPUs. The HTGS API is also capable of managing dependencies between tasks, represents CPU and GPU memories independently, overlaps disk I/O and memory transfers, and utilizes all available compute resources. We demonstrate the HTGS API by comparing a hybrid microscopy image stitching application with and without HTGS. By using HTGS in image stitching, code size is reduced by ~25% and shows favorable performance compared to image stitching without HTGS.