This spring, Penn State will host its first Silicon Happy Valley Conference. The daylong event that kicks off Penn State’s Blue-White Weekend is for computer science and engineering and electrical engineering alumni and students. The goal of this year’s conference is to feature speakers who will discuss current industrial research, facilitate alumni interaction, provide business insight to students and build stronger ties between the two departments and between students and alumni. The Silicon Happy Valley Conference is from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on April 17 in the IST building on campus and will include a student poster session.
Co-chairs Matt Graham (’00 CMPEN), a senior software engineer at Etsy.com, and Eric Foreman, (’99 EE) a senior development engineer at IBM, hope the EE/CSE alumni society-sponsored conference will become an annual event with a technical planning committee to grow the conference each year. According to Graham, who has been working with the CSE alumni society to encourage more alumni engagement, it will be an opportunity for alumni to interact with each other and discuss their current fields and to help Penn State students in ways that alumni helped them, when they were students.
Students are invited to attend to learn from the speakers and to network with Penn State alumni. A student poster session will allow them to display their research and discuss with alumni their areas of interest.
“When we started talking about this conference, I looked back at my time at Penn State and tried to think about what would have helped me make important career decisions,” said co-chair Foreman. “Universities have seminars and conferences that are very research-oriented but they don’t have a strong industrial leaning. I think this will be a nice opportunity not only for our alumni but students as well.”
Amr Elnashai, The Harold and Inge Marcus Dean of Engineering will speak first, followed by four sessions with eight speakers. Douglas Comer (pictured left), distinguished professor of computer science and professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University and a Penn State alumnus, is the conference’s distinguished speaker. He will be discussing industry and the academia experience. Other alumni will speak on topics ranging from advances in hardware technology and commercialization to research and future software development. A question and answer session will follow each 20-minute talk. A panel discussion about the future of software development will wrap up the conference.
Because the conference coincides with Blue-White weekend, a block of rooms at the Hampton Inn has been reserved for Thursday, April 16 with a discounted price for Thursday only. Attendees interested in booking a room need to make their reservations by March 27. There is a two night minimum stay for Friday and Saturday nights because it is a special weekend. For more information on the conference, and to register, please visit http://www.eventbrite.com/e/silicon-happy-valley-alumni-and-student-conference-registration-15601235716..