Spring 1999 Newsletter

Seminars! Industry Speaks at Stanford

Dr. Richard Dasher, Executive Director

As we stood sipping lemonade outside Terman Auditorium, the industry visitor told me, "Two other departments had really interesting seminars scheduled at the same time today, but I just had to come hear this speaker." Certainly, Stanford offers an abundance of "seminars," a term that refers to everything from large, organized classes to one-time-only presentations in small conference rooms. Some seminars are open to the public and even include large receptions; others focus on in-depth discussions of advanced research, and involve only a few students and faculty experts. As a common thread, all seminars bring the voices of industry into the university community and yield important opportunities for university-industry networking.

Various seminars have long provided CIS partner companies with on-campus venues for publicizing their recent activities and interests. For example, my predecessor at CIS, Dr. Richard Reis (now Director of Global Partnerships, Stanford Learning Laboratory), continues to work closely with CIS in offering some speaker slots to CIS partner companies in his EE-201 seminars each Fall and Winter. This year EE-201 showcased speakers from AMD, IDT, Intel, and Philips. Partner companies often take advantage of such opportunities by hosting informal receptions through CIS, at which their executives can get personally acquainted with large numbers of students.

Open seminars that encourage attendance by industry visitors include the EE-402A and EE-402S offerings of the US-Japan Tech-nology Management Center, which is currently delivering a nine-part weekly series about "System-on-Chip," and the EE-380 series of the Computer Systems Laboratory, to name but two high-profile examples. In addition, many organizations, such as the Stanford Computer Industry Project, hold brown bag lunch talks, distinguished lecture series, and other public events that are not connected to the University curriculum. The Campus Calendar lists up to twelve events taking place every day, but even that is not complete. Partner company individuals planning a visit to campus can discover surprising opportunities by sending an email or calling CIS in advance to inquire about possible events of interest.

CIS also arranges special, one-time seminars for partner company researchers to present their results to students and faculty with similar interests. In the last year, these have ranged across the complete spectrum of CIS areas, from new device technologies and process integration to innovative chip architectures. When special seminars cluster around busy times (e.g. exams or a big conference such as the ISSCC) attendance may be sparse. However, participants almost always find the highly focused discussions to be stimulating. Coordinating with CIS well in advance is the key to making such events successful.

The cross-sector dialog at university seminars generates fresh points of view for both sides. The value resonates every time a speaker responds to a student with, "That's a very good question."