HackUCI 2021: Award-Winning Hacks from Home

Last year, UCI’s annual hackathon event, HackUCI, was a three-day, in-person event held in January with more than 500 undergraduate and graduate students camped out in UCI’s Student Center. This year’s challenge was finding a way to re-create that experience online. “The transition from organizing an in-person to a virtual event was a huge undertaking for the entire organization,” says computer science major Riley Champion, marketing and co-tech director of HackUCI 2021. “Most of us had experience with hosting HackUCI in person, so we were a bit frazzled at first. However, throughout the summer and fall quarters, we prepared ourselves to create an environment that attempted to simulate an in-person experience!”

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UCI Students Cultivate Culture of Innovation with New VC Fund

Computer science and engineering student Keyan Kazemian is challenging his peers across Southern California to think outside the box. “We’re in a very unique geography that’s filled with talent, yet students here do not feel compelled, for whatever reason, to pursue their own startup ideas,” says the transfer student from Washington, who is now studying at UCI in the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS). “It’s not a problem of capacity,” he stresses. “It’s a problem of exposure and culture.” So he set out to change the culture by investing in local Gen Z innovation.

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Alumni Chapter’s Lunch & Learn Panel Discussion Showcases Black Superstar Leaders in ICS

On Feb. 5, 2021, in honor of Black History Month, the alumni chapter for the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS) hosted an online panel, “Black Superstar Leaders in ICS,” as part of its Lunch & Learn series. Chapter president Pooja Lohia moderated the panel, which featured the following three ICS alumni and two current ICS scholars from the Department of Informatics:

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ICS Researchers Publish Novel Paper on System Design for Virtual Beings

A group of researchers from the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS) recently published a journal article describing the computing systems used in their AI-based artwork displayed at the Venice Biennale International Art Exhibition in Italy in 2019. “This is, to our knowledge, the first time a scientific writing describes a system that applies to virtual beings — the conjunction of chatbots and art — and that involves the use of edge computing tools,” says ICS postdoctoral researcher Neftali Watkinson.

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Professor Sameer Singh Awarded Fairness in AI Grant from NSF and Amazon

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) grow increasingly accurate, they simultaneously grow more complex, threatening to undermine their progress in fields such as healthcare, law and finance because of a lack of transparency and trust. In an effort to contribute to the trustworthiness of AI systems, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and Amazon partnered together in 2019 to start funding projects through the Fairness in Artificial Intelligence program. Since the program first launched, 21 projects have been funded, including “Towards Adaptive and Interactive Post Hoc Explanations,” a collaboration between UCI, Harvard University and the University of Chicago.

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Professor Sharad Mehrotra Named IEEE Fellow

On Dec. 9, 2020, IEEE announced the select group of members it would recognize in 2021 as IEEE Fellows. Less than 0.1% of voting members are selected annually for this member grade elevation, and part of this select group for 2021 was Sharad Mehrotra, a professor of computer science in the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS). He was recognized for “contributions to the fields of data management and multimedia information retrieval.”

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Computer Science and Software Engineering Professional Programs Showcase Student Success

On Dec. 17, 2020, the Master of Computer Science (MCS) and Master of Software Engineering (MSWE) programs held their first-ever virtual Capstone Showcase. The two professional programs, offered by the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS), joined forces this year to highlight the 142 students graduating on Dec. 18, showcasing their innovative projects. Both the graduation and showcase were virtual because of the pandemic, but that didn’t stop the students from presenting live, 15-miniutes pitches and demos over Zoom for the showcase. They then answered questions from the more than 80 guests in attendance, including industry professionals and UCI colleagues.

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