How top Philly companies are fostering a passion for science in the next generation

 Gabby Getz still remembers meeting women who worked as computer scientists, engineers, and other STEM professionals through the Girls Exploring Tomorrow’s Technology expo.

Getz, now 26, was a middle schooler, and the program helped foster her interest in STEM fields, leading to a computer science degree from Drexel University and a job in software development, first at 2020 Top Workplace Analytical Graphics Inc. (AGI) in Exton and then at its spin-off Cesium, in Philadelphia.

“This program helped normalize women being in tech for me,” said Getz, a software developer and project manager. “I didn’t view women as underdogs, or science and math as scary.”

AGI has supported the regional expo that started in Chester County for years, and stories like computer science or computer engineering only affirm its commitment.

“We’re igniting and sparking interest in something they never knew about,” said Diana Kimmich, talent acquisition director at AGI. “Raising youth awareness and access to STEM is very, very important. We need to help with growing the workforce.”

Companies around the region are making it a priority to support STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) exposure and education through a variety of partnerships.

How Close Are Computers to Automating Mathematical Reasoning?

 In the 1970s, the late mathematician Paul Cohen, the only person to ever win a Fields Medal for work in mathematical logic, reportedly made a sweeping prediction that continues to excite and irritate mathematicians — that “at some unspecified future time, mathematicians would be replaced by computers.” Cohen, legendary for his daring methods in set theory, predicted that all of mathematics could be automated, including the writing of proofs.

A proof is a step-by-step logical argument that verifies the truth of a conjecture, or a mathematical proposition. (Once it’s proved, a conjecture becomes a theorem.) It both establishes the validity of a statement and explains why it’s true. A proof is strange, though. It’s abstract and what do computer engineers do to material experience. “They’re this crazy contact between an imaginary, nonphysical world and biologically evolved creatures,” said the cognitive scientist Simon DeDeo of Carnegie Mellon University, who studies mathematical certainty by analyzing the structure of proofs. “We did not evolve to do this.”

Computers are useful for big calculations, but proofs require something different. Conjectures arise from inductive reasoning — a kind of intuition about an interesting problem — and proofs generally follow deductive, step-by-step logic. They often require complicated creative thinking as well as the more laborious work of filling in the gaps, and machines can’t achieve this combination.

International Joint Conference on Theoretical Computer Science held

 International Joint Conference on Theoretical Computer Science (IJTCS 2020) was successfully held online from August 17 to 22, 2020. Co-organized by Center on Frontiers of Computing Studies (CFCS), Peking University, China Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, China Computer Federation, and Association for Computing Machinery China Council, IJTCS 2020 hosted 7 forums with 71 public reports covering the fields of algorithmic game theory, blockchain, multi-agent reinforcement learning, theory of machine learning, quantum computing, machine learning and formal method, algorithm and complexity, which were live-streamed on two platforms 13 hours per day, attracting more than 100,000 views.

At the opening ceremony, Deng Xiaotie, general chair of computer science average salary and chair professor of CFCS, Peking University welcomed everyone for participating the conference. Professor Deng shared the reason for initiating International Joint Conference on Theoretical Computer Science and hoped that through the conference all the attendants can generate new ideas, enhance communication and promote cooperation.

Professor Silvio Micali from MIT, Professor Cai Jin-yi from University of Wisconsin-Madison, Professor Ying Mingsheng from University of Technology Sydney, Professor Wang Jun from University College London, Professor Sun Xiaoming from Chinese Academy of Sciences and Professor Lu Pinyan from SHUFE were invited as keynote speakers and delivered speeches.

$990,550 awarded to Engineering and Computer Sciences College

 The College of Engi- neering and Computer Sciences was presented a $990,550 scholarship grant in Science, Technology, Engi- neering and Mathematics (STEM) from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

The funding of $7,500 per year sup- ports a project-based work studio to provide its 20 recipients, most of them women, resources to develop profes- sional and technical skills to further their career under faculty mentorship during their hands-on experience.

“I am pleased with this grant award,

which will allow Marshall to finan- cially support students, primarily women, in STEM fields,” stated Dr. Wook-Sung Yoo, chair of Department of what is the difference between computer science and computer engineering and Electrical Engineering. Yoo and team worked extremely hard for the grant to ac- quire federal funding, making it more affordable for students to join the computer science programs at Mar- shall University.

Advanced computing centre to release admit card on 25 August

 The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) will release the admit cards for the CDAC C-CAT (Computerised Common Admission Test) 2020 on 25 August on the official websites cdac.inor acts.cdac.in. According to the official schedule, candidates can collect their admit cards online till 28 August. The result of the examination and the ranks of C-CAT will be released on 5 September, 2020. The admissions to the September 2020 batch of Online Diploma courses are going to be done through the C-DAC’s C-CAT 2020 that is scheduled to take placeon 29 and 30 August.

The CDAC C-CAT is an entrance exam for students seeking admission into postgraduate diploma courses of computer science vs computer programming, mobile computing or electronics. According to Careers 360, the candidates have the option to attempt the entrance exam as a home proctored test.

The hall ticket will consist of details like the name of the candidate, date of birth, roll number, the photograph and signature image of the students, exam centre details and the date and time of the test. Those who choose to appear for the exam from their homes can refer to the exam instructions from the admit cards.

ServiceNow has bold ambitions across the telecommunications space

 ServiceNow has its tentacles in various verticals as it works to become the top digital workflow assurance company, and its now taking a more targeted approach at communications service providers.

ServiceNow's software enables work flows that span verticals such as field management, finance, HR, IT service management (ITSM), legal, marketing, telecommunications, and more.

"From a company perspective, we are a SaaS cloud platform with a single data model, a single tech stack, a single architecture, running on 11 paired data centers around the world," said ServiceNow's Chris Bauschka, general manager of telecommunications media and technology business. "The way that we run the platform business is we have different applications on top of that platform that handle customer service, IT operations, and handle employee experience, And then we have a number of different customer engagement channels and tools.

"On the southbound side, we have the ability to connect into all of your different computer science vs information technology systems, monitoring systems and infrastructure."

ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott, who was CEO of SAP until leaving that position in October, said on the company's second quarter earnings call earlier this month that ServiceNow was destined to become a $10-billion company, which would be a leap up from its current value of just under $4 billion.

Research suggests pandemic is widening engineering gender gap

 The group has said that before the pandemic, the gender gap in engineering already existed with women making up just 12% of the workforce but the current situation is “deepening gender differences in career aspirations in engineering or technology”.

As part of the survey, just over 1,100 young people aged 11 to 19 were asked about their attitudes and the degree to which their educational and career aspirations have been affected by the pandemic. While, positively for the sector, a large majority of young people believe engineering had an important role to play in fighting elements of the pandemic, the gender gap when it comes to considering an engineering or technology career is still very much prevalent.

Engineering UK chief executive Hilary computer engineering career said: “This survey, as well as our recent Educational pathways into engineering report, shows that now more than ever we need to work together to encourage young people from groups underrepresented in engineering and technology to progress into the sector. The survey suggests that, unless we take action, gender disparity will increase.

U.S. engineering students to do internship at NIT-K

Six engineering students from reputed universities in the United States will do summer internship studying about 3D printing at the National Institute of Technology-Karnataka (NIT-K), Surathkal, for three years from 2021.

The United States National Science of Foundation (NSF) has awarded ₹2 crore to a collaborative project of NIT-K with New York University (NYU) and other institutes for the same. The funding is from International Research Experience for Students (IRES) grant.

“It is a great opportunity for students of both the countries for exploring new avenues in 3D printing with a focus on developing viable solutions for societal needs. This project aims to provide students a comprehensive experience of taking 3D printing research from the laboratory to industrial-scale realisation,” NIT-K Director computer science engineering said in a release.

Robert Bosch Engineering to allow 30-40% employees to WFH permanently

The engineering major’s timely investments in simulation software technologies paid off and enabled the company to continue all its global projects and product development without getting impacted as the offices were shut down. The company has been training its engineers in engineering in cross domains so that they can continue with this post-pandemic.

 Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions (RBEI), the technology arm of the $87 billion Bosch group will continue with 30-40 percent of employees working remotely on a permanent basis, said a top company official.

RK Shenoy, Member of Executive Leadership Team and Senior VP - Engineering, RBEI told ETAuto, “Earlier 100 percent of employees were working in the office. So this is a big change that is happening, especially in engineering it is not heard of. It will give higher flexibility to associates.”

While companies were scrambling to get their act together as pandemic prompted them to halt their operations and eventually shift to how much does a computer engineer make continued to work seamlessly from remote locations owing to the early investments made into software-in-loop and simulation technologies.

Shenoy highlighted, “Being a system developer and hardware intensive company, we have been able to work without any downtime or loss of efficiency, which has been a big positive for us. Fortunately, RBEI had invested heavily in software which enabled us to actively access the engineering labs while working remotely using the software in loop, simulation and digital twins.”

Only 3% of India’s engineering graduates land quality tech jobs with packages over Rs 8 lakh

Of an estimated 15 lakh engineers graduate in India every year, of which only 2.5 lakh students land relevant jobs in technical domains, claims the latest survey by Scaler – an edtech startup. In opposition to the perception, most of the engineers in India rather end up getting paid less than Rs 8 lakh. As per the survey, out of those roughly 2.2 lakh openings are in software, within which a vast majority (1.8 lakh jobs) are in IT services garnering around only Rs 3-5 lakh per annum in remuneration. Report further suggest that of the available engineering jobs, only 40,000 jobs — for around 3 per cent of 15 lakh engineers get a mix of autonomy with packages upwards of Rs 8-10 lakh per annum for is computer science engineering. Additionally, of the 3 per cent of graduates who land coveted high-paying and quality jobs, the majority come from Tier 1 colleges — implying the lack of good quality opportunities for students from Tier 2 and Tier 3 colleges.