{"id":5843,"date":"2016-03-25T09:00:13","date_gmt":"2016-03-25T16:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/msr_er\/?p=5843"},"modified":"2022-03-25T14:06:03","modified_gmt":"2022-03-25T21:06:03","slug":"mind-meld-microsoft-research-style-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/blog\/mind-meld-microsoft-research-style-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Mind meld, Microsoft Research style"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Attendees
Attendees gather at the 2016 Student Summit on Mobility, Systems, and Networking in Petaluma, CA<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By Vani Mandava<\/a>, Senior Program Manager; Victor Bahl<\/a>, Distinguished Scientist; and Alec Wolman<\/a>, Principal Researcher, all from Microsoft Research<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a two-day summit in February that was as much mind meld as conference, 45 PhD candidates from the top computer science departments in the United States met with a group of Microsoft researchers and engineers for the Student Summit on Mobility, Systems, and Networking (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>. Fourth- and fifth-year grad students were nominated by their advisors to participate in the event, held in Petaluma, CA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The motivation for the summit was simple: Give brilliant students and senior Microsoft researchers an opportunity to spark. The best technologies, which require years of research and development, often start with ideas that were the result of great minds coming together. Not only does research require constant exposure to new thinking, but researchers themselves thrive when they\u2019re surrounded by fresh ideas and perspectives. Bringing together top-notch computer science PhD student researchers who are about to embark on their careers with researchers and engineers who have proven research and technology impact, clearly seemed the right thing to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Big ideas<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the summit, students presented their work to an ideal audience\u2014their academic peers and a small group of Corporate Vice President-nominated engineers and researchers from Microsoft\u2019s worldwide labs. In turn, Microsoft participants had the opportunity to weigh in on some of the important research that\u2019s being done in universities, as well as a chance to meet the people who might one day be their collaborators and colleagues in the field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Student
Student Talks at the 2016 Microsoft Research Student Summit on Mobility, Systems, and Networking. From top left clockwise: Xianjheng Dou, Alex Mariakakis, Peng Huang, Fadel Adib, Vasuki Swamy, Lavanya Jose<\/em>.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Student research, delivered as a combination of short talks and poster presentations, made up a significant portion of the summit. Senior engineering leaders from Microsoft gave talks about the systems problems they\u2019re<\/em> working on, hoping to give students a sense of the industry challenges and opportunities they\u2019re facing. To learn more about their perspective, take a look at the presentations:<\/p>\n\n\n\n