With great weather comes great responsibility – to get outside and walk to cool events!
Here are three not to miss this week:
1) Communicating Science (ComSciCon) Workshop 2014
Thursday, June 12 – Saturday, June 14
Twitter: @ComSciCon
The Communicating Science (ComSciCon) workshop is an opportunity for graduate students in STEM fields from around the country to focus on writing, pedagogy, and visualization skills so they can communicate their work to diverse audiences. The students join with renowned experts from the worlds of journalism, education, theatre, and more for three days of panel sessions, discussion sessions, and writing workshops. Our goal is to empower all young scientists and engineers to serve as ambassadors for their field.
ComSciCon is supported by Harvard University, MIT, and the Microsoft New England Research and Development Center.
2) Microsoft Cognitive Computing
Thursday, June 12, 6:30 – 8:30pm
Twitter: @bostonazure @MSNewEngland
Hi Microsoft Cognitive Computers (MCC),
IBM with Watson and BlueMix has taken the lead in Cognitive Computing (CC). Our goal, as Microsoft experts, is to catch up. This is our first meeting. The room is limited to 40 people and sign-ups will be on a first-quality-come basis. You must pre-register. You must be technical talented.
This is a very, very technical meeting. We are looking for a group to develop an open-source alternative to Watson. Some call this Watson Jr. I prefer to call it Gates.
You must be a programmer to attend. You should have a working knowledge of cognition, NLP, Data Analytics, AI, Decision Support, Adaptive Pages, etc. This task will not be easy. The universal cognitive algorithm is elusive.
CC is coming. It is the next step beyond Big Data. Think of it as “applied Big Data.”
If you believe that applications will become more “cognitive” in the future, come join in our collective efforts to create an open source solution. The goal is to make it better than the Watson BlueMix offering.
I hope to see a great deal of technical CC talent show up!
3) 2014 Boston Pride Parade
Saturday, June 14, 11:00am
Twitter: @bostonpride
Did you know that Microsoft is one of the first companies in the world to have offered employee benefits to same-sex domestic partners and to include sexual orientation in its corporate nondiscrimination policy? Our Gay and Lesbian Employees at Microsoft (GLEAM) team will be representing at the Boston Pride Parade this weekend!
Via our own Joe Shapiro: “We’re really excited that GLEAM is aligning with the spirit of One Microsoft this year, making Pride a global effort. Our hope is to transition “Pride” from being an event to being an ongoing celebration of diversity & inclusion. For Boston, expect fun and swag with the usual suspects. Also expect a Spartan appearance. Is anyone else thinking #spartanselfie? Yes we did.”
GLEAM launch of Honestly Me – starting now, check out http://aka.ms/HonestlyMe to see a photo reach site with stories and bios of Microsoft GLEAM members. They will be creating opportunities for you to pariticipate in this site moving forward. Make sure to keep your eyes pilled for some of the interesting ways the GLEAM team is marketing this around Cambridge!