Earlier this month, Martel Hall buzzed with excitement as a record number of corporate representatives took a day’s hiatus from busy schedules to spend the day at Rice University’s Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering conference,  “Global Partnerships in Research and Education." Leaders from the companies who have invested in Rice through recruiting efforts and internships -- ViaSat, Xilinx, Texas Instruments, National Instruments, Schlumberger, Freescale, and several more enjoyed talks by faculty visionaries who highlighted research in areas with global reach. By scheduling the day to coincide with the Rice Career Fair optimized travel budgets for most corporate attendees.



According to Roger Colbath, ViaSat, Inc.  “ I thought (the conference) was very well done. The combination of presentations followed by demonstrations by the students was a very effective method”.  ViaSat is a “Gold” member of the ECE Corporate Affiliates membership program and was primary sponsor of the 2007 conference.

Award-winning Rice graduate students impressed hiring managers and key technology decision makers with numerous demos and posters that showcased the knowledge and expertise in advanced network architectures, multi-media communication technology, novel applications in image processing, wireless hardware systems, and new discoveries in sensor networking, nanotechnology. Several undergraduates made their debut with research in ECG ambulatory monitoring system, the Center for Multimedia Communication’s wireless open access research hardware, and a number of NanoJapan and INNOVATE projects. “It was the best one of these meetings I have attended. I particularly liked the poster session and demos after lunch”, said Tim Dehne, Vice President, National Instruments.


 
The day ended with an enlightening perspective from Professor Arogyaswami Paulraj (Stanford University) who spoke about the coming revolution of opportunities for US universities and corporations to forge win-win relationships with India.  A faculty member reacted to the talk with this comment, “India plays a very important role now in IT and world economics.  After this talk, I believe that I know more about the education and cultural background of my Indian students, and can help them to be more successful”.



Looking ahead with optimism, Professor Ashutosh Sabharwal, Affiliates ECE Chair and CMC Director says,  “Our department always had a strong tradition in both theoretical foundations and technology demonstrators. The demo floor discussions jogged everyone’s imagination and there were many cool suggestions from our visitors to establish deeper relationships. This is very exciting and we plan to work together on those ideas in the coming year.”

See the agenda at http://www.ece.rice.edu/corp/annualmtg/mtgarchive/2007_archive