Student Committee Report and Update on the 2010

Student Committee Report and Update on the 2010 North American School of Information Theory Aylin Yener, Penn State Presented at the Bo. G meeting, ISIT 10 June 13, 2010, Austin TX

Past Event at CISS 2010 • This year, we introduced a new networking event at CISS 2010. • The event was geared towards graduating students looking for postdoc and industry positions. • Pizza lunch was served. • About 100 students attended.

ISIT 2010 Event 1 • June 14, 2010 (tomorrow), 12: 50 -2: 30, Room 400/402: round table research discussion • Topics: Feedback for Multi-User Channels; Complexity and Energy; Interference Alignment; Capacity Scaling of Ad Hoc Networks; Networking/Delay; Distributed Storage; Polar Codes; Secrecy; Joint Source Channel Coding; Security and Networking; Deterministic Models; Game Dynamics on Networks • Lunch will be provided • T-shirts will be distributed to students

ISIT 2010 Event 2 • June 17, 2010 (Thursday), 12: 50 -2: 30, Room 400/402: Panel discussion “Recipes for a good talk” • Panelists: – – – Massimo Franceschetti Emina Soljanin Emre Telatar Venu Veeravalli Aaron Wagner • Lunch will be provided

Student Members Existing: • Bobak Nazer • Salim El. Rouayeb • Rui Costa New: • Ravi Tandon • Ye Tian If you get the chance, please take the opportunity to thank these young volunteers for their service

Call for volunteers: • The student committee needs more members to help organize events and outreach programs • Event attendance has grown significantly in the past three years. – We need more volunteers for student leadership as our membership grows, and as the current volunteers transition to post-student life. – Please encourage students that you feel are potential leaders and ask them to contact Aylin.

Update on the 2010 North American School of Information Theory Aylin Yener & Gerhard Kramer 7

Logistics • 2010 School to be at USC in Los Angeles, Thu-Sun, Aug 5 -8, 2010 • Applications due: April 30 Confirmation due: June 10 • Web site: http: //www. itsoc. org/school 8

Organizing Committee • General Chairs: Aylin Yener and Gerhard Kramer • Program and Applications: Michelle Effros and Tracey Ho • Local Arrangements: Mike Neely and Alex Dimakis • Web Site: Matthieu Bloch • Treasurer: Sriram Viswanath 9

In 2008 and 2009 • Format: 3 lectures, 4. 5 hours each • Attendance was 140+ students in 2009 • Most students stayed in NW dorms in 2009 10

New in 2010 • New format: Six 2 -hour lectures by 6 speakers • Motivation: - Increase instructor-to-student ratio - Expand number of topics - New format will be easier on the instructors and students • School was registered with IEEE as a “conference” and the ITSOC confirmed sponsorship. 11

Instructors • • • Emmanuel Candes Andrea Goldsmith Alon Orlitsky Rudy Urbanke Sergio Verdu Jack Wolf [Padovani Lecturer] 12

Attendees 2010 • We received 232 student applications! This is a ≈50% increase over 2009, which itself had a 40% increase in attendees as compared to 2008 • We decided to “go for it” and accommodate all applicants • Many international applicants – 22 Canada – 9 Brazil / China / Germany / India / Israel / Italy / Japan / Luxembourg / Saudi Arabia

Attendees 2010 (status 6/11/10) • Number of Applicants: 232 students • Confirmed: 192 – Housing: 137 (≈135 in 2009) – No Housing: 47 – Will Attend: 8 • Cancellations: 26 • Undecided (5)/no response (9): 14 • Others: 6 instructors, 8 organizers, 10 junior faculty • Total: ≈ 220 people

Estimated Budget • USC housing: $27 k – $50/person/night x 4 nights x 135 • • • Food: 4 days, 220 attendees ≈ $30 k Instructor/organizer travel = $6 k Materials = $5 k Incidentals = $2 k Total: $70 k 15

Fundraising • • • Housing fee: $120/student x 135 students ≈$16 k ITSOC: $20 k ARL/ARO: proposal for $15 k (likely: ≥ $10 k ) NSF: proposal for $25 k (hope: ≥ $10 k) Individual school contributions: – – – Rice: $2 k Penn State (NSRC): $1 k UT Austin (WNCG): $1 k Princeton: $0. 5 k Texas A&M, USC: to be determined Caltech, MIT, Notre Dame, Stanford: contacted 16

Summary and Outlook • 2010 School received a record 232 applications. • Things are on track. • Enthusiasm about the School has spread! We have volunteers lined up to organize the 2011, 2012, 2013 schools: – 2011: UT Austin (Sriram Vishwanath) – 2012: Cornell (Aaron Wagner and Salman Avestimehr) – 2013: Banff (Christian Schlegel) 17