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New York – Two Sigma, whose mission is to find value in the world’s data by applying engineering and the scientific method, has opened Halite II, the second edition of its annual artificial intelligence (AI) programming challenge. The open source challenge provides global access to the resources and computational platform so that developers at any level can easily experiment with deep and creative algorithms of many forms – Halite II has a branching factor that is billions of times greater than the game Go. The competition starts October 23, 2017, and ends on January 22, 2018.

In Halite, players build bots using any coding language they choose. Players then battle their bots on a two-dimensional virtual board, testing their AI, machine learning and other advanced algorithms. Halite II is designed as a fun, engaging space odyssey – where players’ bots control spaceships that mine planets, with the goal of growing their fleets to defeat their opponents. To win the game, players must submit bots that play and defeat other players’ bots. The creativity of a bot’s strategies as well as the sophistication of its code will determine its success in the game.

Camille Fournier, Head of Platform Engineering at Two Sigma said, “We’re excited to create an experience that will help our employees and programmers everywhere experiment and test advanced techniques – such as algorithms for multi-agent pathfinding, any-angle path planning, optimum clustering and swarm management.”

Two Sigma expects Halite II will build upon the artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques used in the first competition, which ran from October 2016 through January 2017. More than 20 coding languages were used in Halite I, with interest from people in more than 50 countries and 35 universities. Cornell Tech is a launch partner of Halite II, and with the support of Google Cloud, Two Sigma is providing access to GPUs as needed to ensure that machine learning techniques exhibit high performance.

Alfred Spector, Chief Technology Officer at Two Sigma, said, “At Two Sigma, experimentation is at our core. We’ve internally benefited from competitions like these, and based on the public success of Halite last year, we know that students and advanced programmers also benefit from them. For example, we saw players adding entirely new coding libraries and others who developed game-play strategies that were creative and really surprising. We believe that the open source model of Halite can help advance global computer science education – from beginners to programming and machine learning experts.”

To sign up for Halite II and see hackathons and other events that will be taking place throughout the season, visit https://halite.io.

About Two Sigma Investments, LP

Two Sigma is a technology company dedicated to finding value in the world’s data. Since its founding in 2001, Two Sigma has built an innovative platform that combines extraordinary computing power, vast amounts of information, and advanced data science to produce breakthroughs in investment management, insurance and related fields. Today, Two Sigma manages approximately $50 billion in assets, employs more than 1,300 people and has offices in New York, Hong Kong, Houston and London. For more information, please visit http://twosigma.com.

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A $20 million gift from the Milstein family will launch the new Milstein Program in Technology and Humanity, a collaboration between the College of Arts and Sciences and Cornell Tech that will pioneer a new approach to developing 21st century leaders and innovators.

The program bridges two campuses to deliver a unique multidisciplinary curriculum to a cohort of 100 students with the potential to be extraordinary leaders – combining an outstanding liberal arts and sciences education from Cornell University, access to the thinking and network of Cornell Tech from the start of their university careers, and a strong community of peers.

“The new Milstein Program in Technology and Humanity will provide not only a foundation for students to develop the technical, intellectual and organizational skills they need to drive progress in the digital age, but also a context and ethical framework that will equip them to shape society for the better,” said Cornell President Martha E. Pollack. “Thanks to the Milsteins, we are able to create a truly distinctive experience for undergraduates in Arts and Sciences. I believe this program will be a model for our other Ithaca-based colleges and schools seeking creative partnerships with Cornell Tech to meet student and societal needs.”

The Milstein Program reinforces the importance of a broad liberal arts education for leaders in all fields. The vision for the program came from Howard Milstein ’73 and Michael Milstein ’11, both A&S graduates, who collaborated with Gretchen Ritter ’83, the Harold Tanner Dean of Arts and Sciences, and Dan Huttenlocher, the Jack and Rilla Neafsey Dean of Cornell Tech, to develop the idea in a way that would have maximum impact for A&S students, Cornell broadly, New York and the world.

“The American private sector is the most powerful force for progress in the world, and today the tech economy is the most productive part of the private sector,” said Howard Milstein. “It is of the utmost importance to imbue that activity and progress with the core culture and disciplines of the humanities and social sciences.”

“Technology is increasingly vital to all aspects of our society. Our leaders require a broader base of knowledge and context than ever before to succeed in this new reality,” said Michael Milstein. “Our tech leaders need to be able to communicate, understand and maximize the societal benefit of their work while leaders across all industries need the technical foundation to drive progress in every facet of our lives. I’m thrilled that Cornell is taking the lead in addressing this challenge.”

Students in the Milstein Program will select a major among those offered by the College of Arts and Sciences, but will also have access to a specialized curriculum that will develop their proficiency in computer science during the school year in Ithaca, while spending summers together in New York City immersed in the innovation economy, with access to speakers, mentors and summer internship opportunities.

“Soon after Michael Milstein graduated, Cornell won the bid to build a tech campus in New York City. He realized early on how students and faculty could benefit from combining the uncommon breadth and depth that an Arts and Sciences education provides with the promise that the Cornell Tech campus would bring to imagine and innovate for the future,” said Ritter. “Our society needs innovative problem solvers who have the vision and background to think creatively and broadly about ways to address our greatest challenges. It is thrilling to imagine the potential of the Milstein Program and how it will influence the future of higher education in the context of our global economy and digital age.”

The announcement of the Milstein Program comes on the heels of the opening of Cornell Tech’s permanent campus on Roosevelt Island.The program is the first to leverage the new graduate campus as a platform for multidisciplinary innovation for Cornell undergraduates, extending Cornell Tech’s mission to reach future leaders at an even earlier stage.

“The Milstein Program is a terrific example of Cornell Tech reaching beyond its core graduate research and education mission,” said Huttenlocher. “The combination of technological and humanistic education is increasingly important in modern society, and this program will be a magnet for outstanding undergraduates who understand the importance of combining these areas together. We are committed to creating a broad pipeline of tech talent, and that means reaching students at every stage of their education.”

The program and gift are an extension of the Milstein family’s vital contributions to commerce and technology and to the state and city of New York. The Milsteins’ philanthropic footprint touches many of New York’s most important institutions, ensuring that universities, libraries, hospitals, museums and cultural institutions receive the support they need to benefit society. The Milstein family has also demonstrated a deep commitment to growing a vibrant tech economy and ecosystem in New York. Through its Circle Ventures initiative, the Milsteins are supporting many of New York’s most exciting startups, while Michael Milstein, co-founder of Grand Central Tech, has helped create an environment that nurtures innovation.

The first group of students accepted into the Milstein Program will be selected from this year’s pool of applicants to the College of Arts and Sciences and will enter as first-year students in the fall of 2018. The Milsteins’ gift will support a cohort of 100 students – 25 per class – that over time will come to represent a substantial group of elite leaders with a unique bond and network. The program will select promising students from a diverse set of backgrounds and opportunity sets, reflecting the diversity of leadership that is needed to maximize the program’s potential. Applicants interested in being considered for the Milstein Program can contact the Arts and Sciences Admissions Office at as_admissions@cornell.edu. More details on the program are forthcoming at http://as.cornell.edu.

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By Arnaud Sahuguet, Director of The Foundry @Cornell Tech

I joined Cornell Tech just over two years ago. The selling point to convince me to go back to academia was a simple analogy with the early days of aviation. Back then, there was no science of flying. Aviation pioneers rarely knew what they were doing; they hadn’t discovered the “principles” behind flying; and yet they were trying, inventing, innovating, sometimes at the cost of their lives. The point of the analogy was that “being digital” today is not that different from flying back then. And the mission of Cornell Tech is to provide these foundations: “integrating technology, business, law and design in service of economic impact and societal good.”

The Equifax Debacle

This current state of affairs was brought back to the forefront very violently in the last few weeks with the Equifax “affair”, where the digital lives of more than 143 million Americans have been put at risk.

« Equifax, one of the three major consumer credit reporting agencies, said on Thursday that hackers had gained access to company data that potentially compromised sensitive information for 143 million American consumers, including Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers. » — as reported by the New York Times.

This is not the first one: Yahoo! is another example. And this is certainly not the last one.

The saddest part of the story is that (1) Equifax could have prevented this tragedy and (2) Equifax managed to make things even worse by exposing further personal information in their attempt to let people figure out if their identity had been compromised.

According to various reports, the root cause of the breach was a failure to apply a security patch on a piece of software (the Apache Struts web framework ) used to run one of the company’s websites.

When the breach was made public, Equifax launched a dedicated website on a separate domain to let potential victims find out if they are at risk. It was hard for users to figure out if this new domain was legit. The company itself misled users by pointing them to a fake domain launched by a “concerned programmer”. Also, sending the last 5 digits of your SS is not the most reassuring thing to do. This is not that different from what concerned Ashley Madison’s users had to go through.

The congressional hearing revealed even more “horrors”, including the fact that Equifax was storing sensitive information in plain text. For even more details, John Oliver dedicated his most recent “Last Week Tonight” episode to Equifax.

Cornell Tech to the rescue?

Here are a few examples of ongoing efforts by the Cornell Tech community to address these types of issues.

Regarding the first issue, one of Cornell Tech’s spinout companies tackles this exact problem. GitLinks — founded in 2016 — “lists all open source components and track vulnerabilities [and] [f]or each component we monitor security risks, legal risks, and version updates.”

So, in the case of Equifax, GitLinks software would have identified Apache Struts as being used by the company and sent an alarm regarding the discovered vulnerability.

Regarding the second issue, the company was asking users to share their personal information in order to find out if their personal information had been comprised. This is the essence of phishing. Fortunately, there are secure ways to check whether Personally Identifiable Information (PII) is part of a leaked dataset. Some on-going research at Cornell Tech is exploring this issue. With more and more data leaks uncovered every week, having a solid toolset to make it easy, fast and secure for people to check their PII against a given dataset without disclosing their PII is critical.

Finally, regarding the storage of password and sensitive data — which was unveiled during the congressional hearings — some published research by Cornell Tech offers various ways to make the storage of passwords more secure with the Pythia project, led by Professor Ari Juels and Professor Thomas Ristenpart; or handle typos gracefully while preserving security using the TypTop System, co-designed by PhD student Rahul Chatterjee and Professor Thomas Ristenpart. A reference implementation for each project is available on github.

Conclusion

Of course things are not that simple. Flight safety was not achieved right away and this is still an ongoing battle. Our digital lives will always face challenges but this is not an excuse for not trying to build solid foundations, to spend some time researching better solution and educate younger generations about problems and solutions.

Cornell Tech offers a unique combination of academic research and graduate education, mixing students and faculties from diverse backgrounds and bringing real problems to the core of the conversation.

If you are a student (computer science, electrical engineering, operation research), check our Masters and PhD programs. If you are more business oriented, check our MBA Tech. If you are a lawyer, check our LLM.

If you are a company, work with our students by submitting a product challenge and hire our new grads.

If you are a philanthropist, fund some of our initiatives.

“If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people.” — Chinese proverb.

Resources

Update

Last week, Github announced that it will soon provide a way to see vulnerabilities in packages used in a given repository. And a consortium led by Google and IBM announced the launch of the Grafeas open source project to keep track of “authorship and code provenance”. So, GitLinks is getting some competition. On a sadder note, the Equifax website seems to be serving malicious ads to its visitors.

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What is the most efficient way to move humans around cities and the world? Finding answers to this question has motivated Garrett van Ryzin throughout his career. Transportation is a basic human need says the recently appointed Professor of Operations, Technology and Information Management at Cornell Tech and the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business.

Working with global companies, including major airlines and most recently Uber Technologies, van Ryzin has tackled an array of complex issues in transportation from routing to pricing.

“You’re trying to move people through space and time and I find it quite fascinating, just in terms of the physics of how it works,” he explains, “If you can do a good job of it and make it more efficient, that really adds value to the world.”

Co-author of a pioneering scientific book on revenue management, ‘The Theory and Practice of Revenue Management,” van Ryzin is a leading figure in operations research, and has also applied his critical thinking to areas such as distribution, retailing, and manufacturing.

Pricing for Complexity

Since earning his Ph.D. in Operations Research from MIT in 1991, van Ryzin has worked in both industry and academia. Prior to joining Cornell Tech, he was on the faculty of Columbia Business School. One of his principal areas of research has been algorithmic pricing, which combines data-driven technology with economic behavioral modeling.

“Some of my work is on incorporating economic models of purchase behavior, and choice behavior, into algorithmic pricing models,” he explains.

His work on origin-destination network pricing has helped airlines decide what prices to make available on different routes where there are multiple variables, including fare classes and connections, in a network of flights. Traditionally, price points were set on a leg-by-leg basis, but origin-destination networks pricing is far more complex. Given the number of origin and destination cities, “you can literally have hundreds of thousands of these origin-destination combinations in a network,” van Ryzin said.

Dynamic Pricing for Radical Transportation Models

Over his career, van Ryzin has witnessed rapid advances in technology and the birth of new transportation models. One of the most ground-breaking has been Uber Technologies, where van Ryzin is Head of Marketplace Optimization Advanced Development.

Uber runs as a market place, he explains, and the company’s drivers have a lot of flexibility to work when and where they want. This, combined with a volatile demand pattern, calls for a radical form of dynamic pricing to ensure efficiency of service.

Airlines focus on managing demand. They can schedule planes and have control over capacity. Uber, on the other hand, is a two-sided market made up of riders and drivers, who affect both supply and demand.

“At Uber, we don’t control the drivers. They sign up to work for Uber, they’re free to come on and drive whenever they want. They’re free to drive wherever they want. And so, you’re really pricing on both the supply and demand side.”

Drawing on sophisticated data generated instantly via users´ mobile apps, Uber can map where drivers and riders are. Dynamic pricing then encourages drivers to go to the right places and work at the right times, explains van Ryzin.

“You’re updating the prices almost minute-by-minute based on the local supply and demand conditions in different parts of the city.”

By raising prices where cars are scarce, for example, drivers are encouraged to move into those parts of the city, which in turn creates a more reliable and efficient service.

“It incentivizes drivers to rebalance and reallocate themselves to areas where the demand is really needed. And it incentives riders with the flexibility to wait or travel by other modes to choose these alternatives.”

It is van Ryzin´s interest in working in this dynamic space at the intersection of technology and economics that drew him to Cornell Tech.

Breaking the Mold

In his new post at Cornell Tech, van Ryzin will continue his research on tech-enabled innovations in transportation — he is currently interested in autonomous, or driverless, vehicles — and will also teach a course in Operations Management, a course focused on the processes and strategic choice firms make convert their inputs into outputs.

“I really like what Cornell Tech is doing in terms of focusing on the tech sector and on industries that are super innovative, and then producing research that’s oriented around those industries.”

Most operations courses are heavily focused on manufacturing and distribution, he explains. While van Ryzin still intends to teach the classic topics of operations, Cornell Tech gives him an “amazing” opportunity to switch that orientation to companies working in the technology space.

“I think [industry is] the most exciting it’s ever been right now,” he says, “Tech companies are just so willing to break the mold and do things in a radically different way.”

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The tech industry’s drastic lack of gender, ethnic, and racial diversity impacts company culture, the diversity of ideas, and profitability. But companies that are more diverse are more profitable and successful. Companies in the top quarter for racial and ethnic diversity are 35% more likely to have better financial returns than competitors in their industry and companies in the top quarter for gender diversity are 15% more likely to have better financial returns, according to a 2015 McKinsey study. So how can we ensure that there is more diversity in tech? A focus on hiring diverse employees is a good start — but it’s not the only answer.

Rethink Impact Founder and Managing Director Jenny Abramson, Black Girls Code Founder and CEO Kimberly Bryant, and Cornell Tech Jack and Rilla Neafsey Dean and Vice Provost Dan Huttenlocher shared a multifaceted approach to shifting the statistic in a conversation moderated by Bloomberg’s Scarlet Fu at Bloomberg Live’s Sooner Than You Think conference held at Cornell Tech last month.

The role of education in diversifying tech

Cornell Tech focuses on diversity on all levels of the pipeline, Huttenlocher said, noting the campus’ K-12 Initiative to teach tech skills to New York City public school students and the WiTNY (Women in Technology and Entrepreneurship in NY) initiative to support incoming freshman and current women at The City University of New York who are interested in pursuing tech and entrepreneurship. “As you move further and further up the pipeline, you get a lower and lower percentage of participation of diverse people. You can’t attack it at any one level; you need to look at all these levels in parallel,” Huttenlocher said.

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Fostering inclusion in companies

“We have this issue of a leaky pipeline, so to speak,” said Bryant, explaining that despite recruiting diverse talent, companies aren’t retaining diverse team members and they advance to leadership positions far less often than their more homogeneous counterparts.

“All of these issues are impacting this inertia that is not moving the needle,” Bryant explained. Businesses should focus on creating a supportive corporate culture that enables all people to advance.

In addition to teaching technology skills, Black Girls Code teaches young women the diverse skills they’ll need to thrive in their careers and hopefully fix the leaky pipeline. “We are looking at leadership development, collaboration skills, and team building, because we know that [students] will need a diversity of things in their toolkit to really be successful in the industry,” Bryant explained.

How diversity benefits the bottom line

“The more diversity you have, whether it’s ethnic, racial, or gender, the better financial returns you’ll have,” said Abramson.

To illustrate, she explained that companies in the top quartile for racial and ethnic diversity are 30% more likely to perform above the mean in their industry. Similarly companies that go from zero to a 30% female leadership team have a 15% increase in net revenue.

Data shows the results are there, “but not enough people know it at this point,” she said adding that currently only 2.19% of all venture capital funding goes to women.

One way to increase funding is to increase the number of diverse venture capitalists, Abramson explained, noting a recent Harvard University study that tracked venture capitalists’ conversations with male and female founders. The conversations about male founders were generally more positive than the ones about female founders. “I think what it tells you is that there are some serious unconscious biases there and it’s why it is so critical to have people of diverse backgrounds at every stage of investing so that these natural inclinations can be dealt with,” Abramson said.

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Over 200 freshmen and sophomore women at CUNY will participate in 2-week program across dozens of companies; Campaign will open doors for more young women in tech sector

NEW YORK—Mayor de Blasio, Cornell Tech, and the City University of New York today launched a new winter internship program as part of the Women in Technology and Entrepreneurship in NY (WiTNY) initiative. The program, called a Winternship, will provide paid internships to up to 200 CUNY female students in their freshman or sophomore year who are studying computer science or related fields.

Today, Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen and dozens of companies gathered at Cornell Tech to craft their Winternship program in conjunction with the launch of a marketing campaign to encourage more companies to sponsor young women exploring degree and career opportunities in technology. The campaign will include digital advertising on social media platforms and on LinkNYC kiosks across the city.

Participating companies include Verizon, OATH, Accenture, Citi, Turner, AppNexus, Grand Central Tech, Bitly, Blackstone, and many others. The Winternships will occur during CUNY’s winter break in January 2018.

“New York City is building the strongest tech sector for women anywhere in the country,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio. “These are real investments that put more women on career paths in technology. We thank Cornell Tech, CUNY and our private sector partners for collaborating to help women build their skills and their resumes.”

“Cornell Tech is proud to partner with CUNY and dozens of companies who are dedicated to launching the next generation of women in tech in New York,” said Judith Spitz, Cornell Tech’s WiTNY Program Director. “Winternships will give CUNY freshmen and sophomores that first ‘foot in the door’ and an early look into what their future in tech could be like as they build their skills, confidence, and network. We believe that with one or more of these experiences ‘under their belt’ and on their resumes, we will replace the obstacle course that these young women face with a glide path to success; giving them the opportunity to share in the benefits the tech industry affords.”

“Women are vastly underrepresented in the technology workforce, and this new Winternship program is part of CUNY’s comprehensive effort to address this problem,” said Associate Vice Chancellor Andrea Shapiro Davis, who is leading the WiTNY program at CUNY. “These internships will not only provide new opportunities for our students, but will more broadly introduce the NY tech ecosystem to the strengths and talents of our diverse student population and show them that CUNY is a place to recruit the next generation of tech talent.”

“New York is the best place to be a woman in tech, and the Winternship program is an example of that,” said Julie Samuels, Executive Director of Tech:NYC. “It’s refreshing and meaningful to see institutions like Cornell Tech and CUNY join with the private sector to support our future women leaders and to work together to realize the goal of a tech industry where women are truly equal.”

Short internships early in their college careers will give these young CUNY women much needed exposure, experience and a set of credentials that make their resumes more competitive when it comes time to apply for 10-week summer internships, and ultimately full-time jobs. Giving young women these mini-internship experiences will help launch the careers of a new generation of women in tech in New York.

“People are New York City’s greatest source of competitive advantage,” said Lynn McMahon, New York Metro Office Managing Director, Accenture. “At a time when employers are facing a skills gap – particularly in the technology field – internships are an effective way for companies to reach previously untapped pools of talent. We believe that the Cornell Tech and the City University of New York winter internship program is critical to ignite greater interest in technology and ultimately build a stronger pipeline in New York City.”

A digital advertising campaign on social media and LinkNYC kiosks will show the diverse group of women who have participated in other WiTNY programs to encourage more young women to pursue careers in tech. Through the campaign, WiTNY will also generate interest from additional companies who want to join the WiTNY network.

The City of New York, along with Cornell Tech and CUNY, are committed to encouraging more women to pursue careers in technology. As part of this mission, Cornell Tech, CUNY, and a growing number of corporations including Verizon, Accenture, IBM, Citi and Xerox have partnered to create WiTNY to facilitate, encourage, and enable a significant increase in the participation of women in both higher education and entrepreneurship in fields related to technology in the New York market. The City of New York has supported these efforts, facilitating industry-academia partnerships through its Tech Talent Pipeline and other initiatives to build a more inclusive tech ecosystem.

Over the past two years, graduates of TTP’s industry-informed college programs have secured jobs across the NYC tech ecosystem at companies like Time, Inc., Viacom, JP Morgan Chase, and Goldman Sachs. Through the Mayor’s TTP Academic Council, 16 presidents and provosts of public and private NYC colleges – including Columbia, NYU, Pace, Pratt Institute, and CUNY – have also made commitments to further pathways to tech careers for an additional 1,300 New Yorkers.

WiTNY’s strategy is to recruit more women by working with CUNY faculty to offer innovative introductory curricula — both undergraduate courses as well as a unique summer program called the Summer Guild for women in between their last year of high school and first year at CUNY — and retain them through scholarship incentives, career immersion via high tech internships, programming and mentorship to develop a robust community of tech women in New York.

To expand access to computer science at CUNY, Cornell Tech and CUNY partnered and developed curriculum that is being implemented at more than a dozen campuses. Building on this success, this past June, Mayor de Blasio announced a new comprehensive commitment to double the number of CUNY tech Bachelor’s recipients who graduate ready to secure and succeed in tech jobs by 2022.

The City will highlight new investments in instruction, advising, and internships as well as industry commitments to meeting this goal at a Partners Summit on October 23rd.

About Cornell Tech

Cornell Tech brings together faculty, business leaders, tech entrepreneurs and students in a catalytic environment to produce visionary results grounded in significant needs that will reinvent the way we live in the digital age. The Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute embodies the academic partnership between the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and Cornell University on the Cornell Tech campus.

From 2012-2017, the campus was temporarily located in Google’s New York City building. In fall 2017, 30 world-class faculty and about 300 graduate students moved to the first phase of Cornell Tech’s permanent campus on Roosevelt Island, continuing to conduct groundbreaking research, collaborate extensively with tech-oriented companies and organizations and pursue their own startups. When fully completed, the campus will include two million square feet of state-of-the-art buildings, over two acres of open space, and will be home to more than 2,000 graduate students and hundreds of faculty and staff.

About CUNY

The City University of New York is the nation’s leading urban public university. Founded in 1847, the University comprises 24 institutions: 11 senior colleges, seven community colleges, the William E. Macaulay Honors College at CUNY, the CUNY Graduate School Center, the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, the CUNY School of Law, the CUNY School of Professional Studies and the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy. The University serves more than 272,000 degree-seeking students. College Now, the University’s academic enrichment program, is offered at CUNY campuses and more than 400 high schools throughout the five boroughs. The University offers online baccalaureate and master’s degrees through the CUNY School of Professional Studies.

 

About the NYC Tech Talent Pipeline

Launched by the Mayor in 2014, the NYC Tech Talent Pipeline is the City’s tech Industry Partnership, designed to support the inclusive growth of the NYC tech sector and prepare New Yorkers for 21st century jobs. Incubated and supported by the NYC Department of Small Business Services, the NYC Tech Talent Pipeline works with 175 companies, 16 local colleges, and additional public and private partners to define employer needs, develop training and education models to meet these needs, and scale solutions throughout the City, delivering quality talent for the City’s businesses and quality jobs for New Yorkers. Learn more information athttp://www.techtalentpipeline.nyc/or emailteam@techtalent.nyc.

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NEW YORK — The Common Visual Data Foundation (CVDF) today announced the COCO 2017 Stuff Segmentation Challenge, designed to push for innovation in semantic segmentation of stuff classes. CVDF, in cooperation with a research team at the University of Edinburgh, collaborated with Mighty AI to annotate 55,000 images across 91 stuff classes for this challenge. The submission deadline is October 8th. For more information and to enter the competition, visit the Stuff Segmentation Challenge page.

“At CVDF, we aim to cultivate innovation and advancements in the computer vision and machine learning communities. Not only do these competitions get new people involved in driving the future of the field, the datasets become important free resources for our research community,” said Serge Belongie, President of the Common Visual Data Foundation and a professor at Cornell Tech.

Stuff classes are background materials that are defined by homogeneous or repetitive patterns of fine-scale properties, but have no specific or distinctive spatial extent or shape — such as grass, a wall, or sky. Stuff covers about 66% of the pixels in COCO (Common Objects in Context), impacting important aspects of an image, including scene type; which thing classes are likely to be present and their location; as well as geometric properties of the scene.

“Stuff classes have received relatively little attention of the research community. Nevertheless, stuff is important for full scene understanding and we hope that this competition spurs innovations towards this goal,” said Holger Caesar, a PhD candidate at the University of Edinburgh whose research led to the creation of the dataset.

Mighty AI and its community of over 300,000 specialized annotators segmented, categorized, labeled, and validated the data within the COCO images.

“Large, publicly available datasets like COCO are a big reason advances in computer vision are happening at lightning speed,” said Daryn Nakhuda, CEO and co-founder of Mighty AI. “We are thrilled to partner with CVDF and contribute high-quality labeled data to further accelerate research and training in this space.”

In 2014, the CVDF released the COCO dataset which annotated over 200,000 images with 80 thing classes. This large-scale dataset — and the challenges organized around it — were crucial to enable the breakthroughs in deep learning that are now ubiquitous in autonomous vehicles, care robots, and other computer vision applications. This competition enhances the dataset with 91 stuff classes, resulting in an even richer dataset with new research opportunities.

The COCO Stuff Segmentation Challenge is made possible through sponsorship from Microsoft, Facebook, Mighty AI, and Google Cloud Platform.

For more information, visit http://cocodataset.org.

About The Common Visual Data Foundation

The Common Visual Data Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with a mission to enable open community-driven research in computer vision through the creation of academic datasets and corresponding competitions. The availability of high-quality labeled data is essential for enabling and evaluating state-of-the-art academic research. The competitions sponsored by the foundation, including the COCO Detection, Keypoint, and Stuff challenges help the community monitor its progress and focus research efforts on core computer vision problems. In addition to the datasets and competitions hosted by the foundation, the tools used in their creation are open-sourced to aid data related research across the community.

About Mighty AI

Founded in 2014, Mighty AI delivers training data to companies that build computer vision models for autonomous vehicles. Our platform combines guaranteed accuracy with scale and expertise, thanks to our full stack of annotation software, consulting and managed services, proprietary machine learning, and global community of pre-qualified annotators. Visit www.mty.ai to learn more, and follow us at @mighty_ai.

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Datalogue is a look to the future of data implementation in businesses. Deborah Estrin, an associate dean and professor at Cornell Tech talks about the importance of data alongside the founder of Datalogue who discusses how Cornell Tech enables a platform for product development.

Datalogue: https://www.datalogue.io/

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By Alex Topchishvili, Johnson Cornell Tech MBA, ’18

The sun is setting on summer 2017 and I have just completed the Ithaca-based portion of the Johnson Cornell Tech MBA program. For those who aren’t familiar with the program, the Tech MBA is split into three experiential pillars:

  1. an immersive first semester on Cornell University’s Ithaca campus where MBAs take core business courses with other Johnson MBA students in the One-Year program;
  2. a Product Studio fall semester in NYC at the Cornell Tech campuswhere business students take tech classes and work cross-functional teams of law, business, engineering, and computer science students develop a technology solution to a strategic business need of a real client; and
  3. a Startup Studio spring semester in NYC where cross-functional teams develop new business ideas from concept to launch.

""

Capping off a great semester with a sunset BBQ party in Stewart Park

The summer semester in Ithaca, NY was about building a foundation. While the semester was super fast-paced and we were bombarded with exams and projects, it also provided us with an incredible opportunity to bond with new classmates in a rural and scenic setting outside the chaos of caffeinated NYC.

Here are 5 highlights from a summer well spent:

1. Big Red Pride

Spending a few months in Ithaca fostered a genuine connection to the larger Cornell University community. My classmates and I developed a real sense of pride in both the Samuel Curtis Johnson School of Management and Cornell. We listened to Joe Biden give a powerful speech at the Class of 2017 Commencement in May, hung out with our professors in their local Ithaca homes, explored Cornell’s majestic campus and scenery, and took part in numerous university-wide events, festivals, and parties.

2. An Academic Foundation

Having spent the past five years in the world of startups, I’ve been lucky enough to witness a 360-degree perspective on how to launch, run, and scale a business. That said, my familiarity with the intricacies of finance, accounting, data analytics, and economics prior to this summer was surface level. Taking deep dives into each subject area allowed me to better understand the application of core business concepts and data outside of academia—knowledge that I wish I had earlier. The core courses have brought me closer to seeing both the forest and the trees of a business.

""

Class visit to Professor Barbara Mink’s (Management Presentations) private gallery

3. Leadership and Soft Skills

While I dismissed these classes during undergrad, at Johnson we lived, breathed, and practiced leadership and soft skills. On day 1 we were placed into a “Core Team” of five with whom we were required to work on six cases in six classes. Each team member was required to lead one case. Much like in the real world, we could neither pick our team members nor the cases. Deadlines and requirements were strict and teams competed hard. Through numerous late nights, arguments, feedback mechanisms, and celebratory visits to the bar, I learned a great deal about integrating diverse opinions, managing expectations, and maximizing the potential of each team member.

4. Diversity and Friends

Every business school I applied to raved about their student diversity. This is exceptionally true of Cornell. In my Core Team alone, the five of us hailed from Taiwan, India, Mexico, Mauritius, and New York (yours truly). There are students from around the world in functions ranging from healthcare and consulting to engineering and startups. Coming from NYC, I know a thing or two about diversity, but this was a different level. We intermingled both inside and outside the classroom in a diverse variety of environments. In addition to my Cornell Tech MBA classmates, I had the chance to meet and work with many One-Year MBA and Two-Year MBA students, making my network that much larger.

5. A Common Mindset

I am amazed by the entrepreneurial spirit and passion for technology that my classmates have. Through one-on-one lunches, group projects, hikes, and evenings out, one thing was clear—I am surrounded by leaders, critical thinkers, problem solvers, strong communicators, and builders that can make things happen.

""

What better place to build relationships than the Cayuga wineries

I look forward to building on the relationships I forged in the lakes, gorges, and (of course) wineries of Ithaca at the equally gorgeous Cornell Tech campus on Roosevelt Island. This is the MBA for me, and the future looks brighter than ever.

About the author:
Alex is an entrepreneur and marketer with an obsession for storytelling and digital strategy. Prior to attending Cornell Tech, Alex served as a managing director at WeFund Health, a healthtech investment platform, and director of marketing at PotBotics, a medical cannabis technology company. A graduate of NYU and a proud New York native, Alex specializes in product marketing, crowdfunding, and demand generation. When he is not working or studying, he can be found exploring the world of blockchain and competing in tennis tournaments across New York City.

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Five of New York City’s universities announced today a partnership aimed at supporting and defending journalism and independent news media — one of the most critical elements of our democracy — as they are increasingly under threat. This unique, first-of-its kind program and collaboration will bring together Cornell Tech, Columbia University, City University of New York, New York University, and The New School — in partnership with the NYC Media Lab — to investigate and understand the various threats to journalism and media, and attempt to address these challenges using design, engineering, and computational methods and techniques. The effort will gather graduate students with backgrounds and expertise in journalism, design, and engineering/technology from these institutions in a special course to kick off in Spring 2018.

In addition to the course, a speaker series hosted at news organizations around the city will launch in October around the themes of the partnership, featuring influential figures from media and technology. Inaugural media participants that will host fall programming include The New York Times, CNN, BuzzFeed, and the HuffPost.

“This great city is taking a clear stand for strong and independent journalism,” said Mor Naaman, associate professor at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech and the program’s lead organizer. “Independent media is the foundation of our democracy.”

Justin Hendrix, Executive Director of NYC Media Lab, added: “There is no better place than New York City — with deep expertise in these critical areas, and a strong and independent media — to address the threats faced by journalism today.”

“New York University is proud to partner with our colleagues across New York City toward our shared commitment to a free and independent press; our programs develop technology in service to society, and we are confident that all our students will create work of lasting impact for the media industry that’s so crucial to us all,” said R. Luke DuBois, co-director of NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering’s Integrated Digital Media Program.

“America’s leading technologists are developing information platforms with little regard to the economic operating system on which they are all running. This has rendered them vulnerable to attack and manipulation by those who can hack not simply their algorithms, but their business models. It’s time to change this,” said Douglas Rushkoff, founder of the Laboratory for Digital Humanism, CUNY/Queens College.

Mark Hansen, Professor of Journalism and Director of the Brown Institute for Media Innovation at Columbia University, added: “This initiative goes way beyond fake news, to think holistically about addressing critical aspects for strong independent media. The way forward must combine the talents of technologists, designers and journalists working side by side.”

“We look forward to working with our colleagues at other universities across the city to fortify independent journalism,” said Sarah Bartlett, dean of the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. “This will help amplify the work we’re already doing in this area with our school’s News Integrity Initiative.”

The program, including the course, lecture series, and research and development activities, will address key challenges faced by independent media including: security and cybersecurity threats to news organizations and journalists; credibility and reliability threats including fake news and discrediting campaigns; obstacles and challenges in conducting and funding investigative journalism; and the shifting business models and income sources that threaten both local and national news organizations and coverage.

Vivian Schiller, news media veteran and Executive Editor in Residence at Weber Shandwick, is senior advisor on the initiative. She added: “Our goal is to support independent media and a healthy media industry by deploying some of the brightest minds in the city on crafting solutions to today’s unprecedented challenges.

For more information, visit https://www.techmediademocracy.nyc/.

Contacts:

Cornell Tech: Jovana Rizzo

Queens College/CUNY: Maria Matteo

NYU Tandon: Sayar Lonial & Kathleen Hamilton

CUNY Graduate School of Journalism: Amy Dunkin

Columbia: Chantal De Soto

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