ics alumni lunch!

on saturday, march 8th 2008 we celebrated the 40th anniversary of the University of Hawaii Information and Computer Sciences department. it was a great day for the department because it was the first time we had an alumni/department lunch in 40 years. hopefully, this will be the start to a lot more things from the department. more activities, events, fund raising, high school/intermediate expos, etc. i plan on helping and even leading the department in these new areas. it will be great.

back to the event... the day started with a poster session (an LIS tradition) from all ICS and LIS research. faculty and students were there explaining their research. it was great to see all the different things that were going on. after the poster sessions, we had a lunch. the food was pretty good. after lunch, Dept. Chair Martha Crosby made some introductions. the ICS department is lucky enough to have its founding faculty still around; and actually teaching. some of the first students of the ics department even attended; one traveling from minisota. martha even introduced the industry alumni. referentia was very well repersented. after martha's introductions, president David McClain gave a speech. his speech reminded us about how far we have come. how our work (computer science) has changed the world. from punch cards to high performance computing in 40 years; not bad at all. i can't wait to see what is going to happen in the next 40 years. after the lunch and the speeches, the faculty gave tours and demos of their research in the post building. it was fun to talk about academic research again.

here are some pictures from the event!



there is so much we can do. here is what i'm working on:

march 13 - the dual use group will present the students about our internship programs

march 14 - coe/ics career fair day

i'm starting an ics alumni association. we have a facebook group and i'm starting a google groups for our email distribution.

i want to help the department figure out fundraising options. fundraising is important to help student groups like the ics club and student projects. student projects are student led projects that help give them experience.

back to the event... so, the alumni lunch was totally awesome. it would have been great if more alumni attended. hopefully next year more people will know about it. (i guess thats going to be my job). it was also great to see some of the professors that i haven't seen in a while. its great to be able to thank professors for what they taught you. i can't wait till the next ics event!

if you haven't visited the ics department website in a while; now is the time. take a look at the faculty profiles and pictures. read about the research and keep up with the news and events. go. go. go.